#this is literally just a rough first draft so bear with

[mediumtires]

i'm rereading copper and wool and did you ever say what christians anniversary gift was for toto 🤔

okay okay SO! this is so funny, a few weeks ago the first person ever (shoutout to FallingStar on ao3) actually guessed right! it's sheep! to me it was so obvious (copper and wool etc) but looking back now, it really wasn't. so christian's anniversary gift is sheep lol.

when i wrote it i was actually planning a tiny little sequel but I abandoned it and now it's collecting dust on my desktop. that being said, i’ll put it here (unbeta-d first draft) for those who might want to read it!

“No. No chance.” “C’mon, be a good sport.” “Nein,” Toto says, trying hard to hide his smirk. “I will not let you blindfold me.”

“What if I were to take you upstairs?” “Are you?” “No.” “Then no,” Toto laughs, a little exasperated, and tries to pull away from Christian’s insisting hands.

“C’mon, darling,” Christian tries again, a wide grin lighting up his features. “You know it’s the standard protocol for surprises.”

“I don’t trust you,” Toto just says and turns away from Christian and the tie in his hands to put the water filter back in the fridge. “Fuck you.” Christian laughs in retaliation and swats the tie at him. “At least close your eyes then.”

Toto sighs heavily and turns back to Christian, propping one hand up on the kitchen counter. “Are you serious?” “Entirely.” Christian knows he’s won when Toto sighs once more in exasperation and rakes a hand through his hair.

“But don’t make me fall,” he instructs. “Or walk me into things. I’m very important.” Christian rolls his eyes. “I know you are. Now, c’mon. Close your eyes. We don’t have all day.” “We don’t?” 

But Toto does close his eyes after all and stretches his hands out to curl them around Christian’s hips. As Christian starts walking, he says, “Y’know, if you would’ve gone for the tie, I might’ve taken you to the bedroom after.”

Toto snorts. “If you want me to tie you up and blindfold you, just ask,” he offers with a devilish little smirk and Christian is glad he’s got his eyes closed. Something to consider. “Maybe later.” He’s aiming for nonchalant, but he knows Toto sees right through him anyway.

When they step out onto the patio, Toto pulls up his shoulders and frowns. “Are we outside?” “Yes.” “Why?” “Can you not just let me do this for five minutes?” Christian asks, exasperated. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Toto does shut up after that, but it’s mainly because he’s concentrating hard on not tripping and falling when trailing after Christian.

It’s been a few days since their return from Miami and this is the first lull in both their schedules, both of them home early, so frankly, Christian saw an opportunity and took it. Not that he thinks it would have made a huge difference to wait another day or two. Toto hasn’t set a foot anywhere but the chicken coop in a good week, so the probability of him finding out about this is hilariously low. It does make Christian question the whole idea somewhat, but it’s too late now anyway. Still, the Carrera on his left wrist weighs a little heavier than usual.

Toto trips once they reach the gravel path leading further into the grounds and digs his hands into the fleshy bit of Christian’s hips to catch himself. He grunts, stumbles, and Christian can’t help but crack a laugh. “Careful there,” he offers. “Gravel.” He pats Toto’s left hand and then keeps his palm there.

“You are supposed to guide me,” Toto complains, and he already sounds like he’s enjoying this much less than only a minute ago. “You are making me fall on purpose.”

“I’m not.” Christian rolls his eyes towards the sky but keeps moving. “Not everything I do is to antagonise you, darling. Now stop whining.”

Toto does not stop whining because of course he doesn’t. He’s very vocal about how stupid this whole thing is all the way past the chickens, the goats and the donkeys, the pen closest to the house, past their two old ponies, Jacky and Jim, which they had adopted on a whim from the farmer up the road.

For a moment, Christian is contemplating whether he should just push Toto into the pond to humble him. A while ago a bunch of ducks moved in and don’t seem to want to leave again. Christian has grown quite fond of them. More often than not he finds them with the chickens now or waddling around the farm.

“Are we—Is that ducks? Is that the ducks?” Toto has picked up on the distinct flapping of their wings, affronted at the unusual intrusion of their privacy. Christian chuckles at the drake side eying them and pulls Toto further down the path towards the folding. It’s the one attached to the barn at the outskirts of their main property, and Christian had chosen it mainly because it was the one Toto would be least likely to walk into unprompted.

“Almost there,” he says and takes one of Toto’s hands in his so navigating the uneven grounds becomes a little easier. “Should have put on wellies,” he ponders, as he eyes the meadow, the grass long and wet. It’s perfect for the sheep but not exactly ideal for Toto’s dress shoes. They’re Italian leather.

“What?” Toto makes a sound as the damp grass hits his ankles and Christian’s smirk widens. “Christian, you should’ve told me! My boots were right there! These are Italian leather!”

He knows. “I know.” He pulls Toto along. Surprisingly, despite his bitching and moaning, he keeps his eyes closed. “Might have to throw them out later. Shame.” He’ll make sure to keep Toto out here long enough for them to be soaked through and ruined. 

Toto makes another sound, displeased, but Christian can see how hard he’s trying to bite down on his exasperated amusement. Toto’s about to throw a comment back at him when a loud “Baaaaa” cuts him off. “What was that?” Toto pulls himself up a little taller. The sheep must’ve spotted them because there’s another string of agreeable bleating. “Christian, what is that?”

They stop at the fence and Toto, still with his eyes closed, sways a little, gripping Christian’s hand to regain his balance. “Christian.”

“Jesus, yes.” Now that he’s looking at the flock of sheep, all huddled together and warily observing Christian and Toto at the fence, he’s not sure if this wasn’t a silly idea.

He’d come up with it when Toto had one night jokingly suggested they should get sheep.

“Sheep?” “Yeah.” “Do you know how much bloody work sheep are, darling? We can barely keep up with the animals we’ve collected so far! We’re lucky we’ve got Johnny to help us out.” Toto had just laughed and kissed his shoulder and let it go, but then, on a trip to Austria last year, Toto had told him how he’d seen a herd of very specific Austrian sheep every time he’d visited his gran in the countryside and how they reminded him of the better times of his childhood. When Christian started thinking about potential anniversary gifts, it was too perfect to just let go. He couldn’t for the life of him remember the breed Toto had mentioned, but the more he’d looked into it, the more he’d realised that while Austrian sheep are very durable and sturdy, they would probably do less well in the mellow British countryside of Oxfordshire, and so he’d decided on British breeds instead. In the end, he’d just gone for one that looked adorable and was easy enough to maintain. With the accumulation of random animals they already had running around the farm, it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. They wouldn’t be using them for wool farming or that, so might as well have them be nice to look at.

The longer he looks at them now, Toto impatient at his side, still holding his hand, the heavier the watch on his wrist feels. Christian isn’t one for huge gestures or anniversary gifts, but somehow things this year felt different. It hasn’t even been a year since Singapore. It still follows them around, the consequences of that day, shadowy and washed out, but he can still feel it, and so can Toto. Christian is just glad they’re still here. They made it to seven years, and beyond, and for whatever bloody reason he thought a flock of seven sheep would be ideal to celebrate an anniversary centred around wool.

“Christian, there’s water in my shoes,” Toto informs him, and Christian turns his head and grins at his city husband, still blind, the corners of his mouth tweaked down.

“That’s a shame,” he says, “You can open your eyes now.”

Toto does so immediately. He blinks, frowns up at the grey sky, rubs at his eyes with the hand that isn’t still holding Christian’s. Christian lets go to lean against the wooden fence instead.

There is a brief pause. Then, “Christian?” “Yes, darling.” “What am I looking at.” Christian turns to Toto with his eyebrows twitching. As if it wasn’t obvious. “Your anniversary gift!” Toto’s eyes go a little wider as he looks back at the flock of sheep, a huddle of white fleece and black eyes. “What?”

“I told you, your gift was waiting at home.”

“You got me… sheep?”

“Well, us, I guess. But yeah.”

“Seven sheep?”

“Well, first of all, Johnny said no less than five.” Christian is getting a little flustered now and so he blusters on in full pretentious confidence of a Formula 1 team principal defending a Max overtake that no one in good conscience should defend. “And so I wanted to get six, but then I thought, well that doesn’t make any sense, does it, when it’s our seven year anniversary and the theme I’m going with is wool. So I got seven. And they’re a family! The two little ones were only born a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to take them from their mothers.” He pulls his shoulders down a little to straighten his back and keeps looking at the sheep to avoid having to look at his husband. “Plus, you were banging on about wanting sheep.”

“You remembered that? That was ages ago.”

“So?”

“Christian.” Toto’s voice is soft in a way it only ever is when he’s about to say something disarming. “Darling. I—” And then he just wraps himself around Christian from behind, chin hooked over his shoulder and nosing Christian’s cheek. “You said they are too much work.”

“Well, you said you wanted them so—” “How do you manage to outdo me every time?” Toto’s voice is awfully quiet. “I really thought I nailed it this year.” Christian breathes a laugh, half of it in relief that he, against better judgement, didn’t mess this up. “You know I love my watch,” he tells Toto, fingers brushing the warmed leather hugging his wrist. “And this isn’t a competition. You got copper, I got wool. Sorted.”

“I can’t believe you got me sheep,” Toto says again. His voice is a little higher than usual, his accent catching on the vowels, making the words come out hitched.

“Well, look,” Christian grabs one of the large hands wrapped around his torso and covers it with his own. “It’s not just—Sure, you said you wanted sheep, but—Look, I know you’re not a farm boy, okay? You’re very much a child from the city and I know you say you love our home, but I want you to feel it, too, I want you to feel at home here and not just come along for the ride and agree to everything I say. Especially after last year, I want this place to be our sanctuary, and if it takes bloody sheep because you said you wanted them, then so be it. There’s your sheep.”

Toto’s smile widens, Christian can feel it pressed to his cheek, and he can feel the pleased little hum too, reverberating down his spine. Toto’s hold around him tightens fractionally. “I feel very at home, darling. You know that, ja? I don’t need sheep for that. Mostly I need you.”

Christian closes his eyes on a deep breath, and sinking further into Toto’s chest he says, “We can put them with the rest of the lot soon. They’ll need another few days or so, until they’re settled in, and then we can move them in with the others.”

“We’ll need a sheep dog now.”

Christian barks a laugh, lets his head thump against Toto’s shoulder in defeat. “Yeah, no, Bernie and Flav won’t do, will they? Lazy little buggers.” “It’s because you feed them at the table.” “Hey, you started that! Flav, with those puppy eyes and you just—Don’t think I don’t know you cut him up steak when I’m not looking!” Toto’s silent laughter comes in short puffs of breath against the skin of Christian’s neck. “No no no no,” he feels the need to clarify even though they both know it’s the truth. “You feed them too, don’t lie.” Christian tries to stifle a smirk. “They are a tad overweight, aren’t they?” “The vet said, last time,” Toto reminds him. “We need to work them harder, or cut out the food.” Christian hums. “It might be time for a third. A puppy will work them alright.” He coughs a laugh, already regretting this, and adds, “Might as well get a cow or two while we’re at it. Not like it matters now.”

“What are we going to call them?” Toto suddenly asks, lifting his chin from Christian’s shoulder to regard the sheep more closely.

“Well, we gotta stick to the theme.” Christian’s mouth lifts into a smirk. “So you better get creative.”

“It’s my turn, isn’t it?” Toto asks. “My sheep, my turn.” “Toto, I swear, if you’re going to name them something stupid—” “You named the donkeys and now I have to call them Max and Daniel!” Christian’s protest dissipates into thin air. “Well, it works, they’re good names.” “Yes, and now it’s my turn.” “Just remember, it’s mostly ewes. One ram, the big one, the rest is ewes, and the two lambs are one of each.” “…ewes?” “Female sheep, darling. So I want no Lewis running around, or George, or whoever you’re already thinking of.” “No,” Toto hums thoughtfully. “Lewis is a goat, not a sheep.”

It's so stupid, it has Christian crack a well-earned laugh.

And bonus (cause I couldn’t work this in):

“You know, they’re like… designer sheep.” “They’re what? Designer sheep?” “Yeah, well, look, we’re not going to use them for breeding, or wool, or meat, are we, so they’re… you know. Nice to look at. Sheep we can keep as pets, more or less. They’re still a durable breed, just. Also nice to look at.”

Toto laughs at him for an hour after that.

Here are said sheep!

“They look a little like donkeys, don’t they?” “You think?” “Ja.” “Well, they’re not, they’re sheep. Kerry Hill.” “Kerry who? Have you named them already?” “What? No, that’s the breed, darling. They’re Kerry Hill sheep. They’re from Wales.” “So basically foreigners, yes? We should give them foreign names. International.” Toto grins at him, then he adds, “We should give them German names you can’t pronounce.”

[fearecia]

Putting this in a pinned post to make it easy to find/share. We all know how Tumblr is about things (and to be fair, I'm terrible and inconsistent as hell with tags).

Link to the "shoulder release" document:

Notes about this guide:

This is a WIP, and still very much in the rough draft phase. Please forgive typos/errors. I literally haven't done a single edit yet.

The document focuses on releasing shoulders as a way to treat neck tension and migraines. Seriously, just trust me. It helps.

Carpal tunnel? Tennis elbow? Golfer's elbow? AC (acromioclavicular) joint injury? Rotator cuff problems? Tight upper back? Sporadic numbness in your arm? Seriously, just try the muscles already listed. You'll likely find at least some relief. Like, if it involves the upper body, release your shoulders.

I've done my best to make this able to be understood by people without massage training. So if it seems like it's covering really "obvious" info, that's intentional. Just skip the section if you already know things.

A lot of massage therapists may balk at me telling you to dig around in your own armpit. We're taught in school to avoid the area. Why? Because there's a crap ton of nerves and blood vessels there. *Which is precisely why releasing this area is so powerful.* There's also a ton of muscle (on yes, basically everybody) here that will protect all those structures. It's honestly really safe so long as you stick to "In pain, refrain!" And read the other rules too.

90% of the time, the culprit is one of the four muscles listed (or any combination of them). If you are someone who exercises a lot/does yoga/is otherwise pretty physically active, you are more likely to fall into the 10% of people who will have their issue somewhere else/it will just be really hard to find. So bear that in mind.

Sadly, this sort of thing will probably never be a "one and done" type of deal. Most of the things we do every day steadily build up to cause problems, and you have to constantly work to undo that entropy. So save these notes for future you.

And just in case you want to know what the hell qualifies me to make this sort of document, here are my "quals."

My first career attempt was nursing. While this did not go well (doctors don't really appreciate autistic students willing to question their authority) I learned a shit ton about the body. I became a student teacher for the anatomy and physiology class because I was so good at it (and that professor used to teach the pre-med students). A&P is now literally one of my special interests.

8 years as a licensed massage therapist focused exclusively on injury therapy. I studied Rolfing techniques, and primarily used trigger point therapy, structural integration, and myofascial release as my tools. Clients liked to joke that going to see me was like seeing the physical therapist (they weren't wrong).

Some of the stuff I share is literally self taught through "following the tension" in clients bodies. Like, I developed some of my protocols. And then practiced and refined them over 100s of bodies. The goal was always the most efficient and least painful way to achieve lasting release.

I eventually destroyed my shoulder doing massage (which was injured long before this career due to an AC joint sprain gotten when I was 20). Bonus, this means I'm *very* practiced at releasing my own shoulders.

I'm now a mechanical engineer, which just means I now have the engineering knowledge to understand to the force transferrence patterns I saw in clients all the time. Kinesiology is the same thing as statics and dynamics.

Hopefully that helps put perspective into things. I'll update this post as new versions of the document come out. I have a ton on my plate right now (who am I joking; I always have a ton on my plate), so please be patient waiting for updates.

[theboywithburninghands]

The End. I’ll post a big mushy thank you post later since I’m posting this at work, but this is the end of the story. Hope it’s good! @fernstarsblog @noble-crimson

TW: Vomit, drugs, childbirth

Epilogue: Sweet Child O’ Mine

Upon first moving to Ediacara after collecting their dowry, Pomni and Jax moved into a small house near the town of Jezioro Niedźwiedź, or the much simpler to pronounce Bear Lake. As soon as the couple had unpacked completely, Pomni set to work learning Ediacaran. Jax was admittedly skeptical about her ability to learn such a complex language so quickly, and had in fact been a bit wary of moving to Ediacara at all due to the language barrier. Pomni studied the language for eight hours every day, and could speak and write it at a conversational level in about three weeks. By their fourth month, she was completely literate, shocking just about every prospective employer she met with her heavily accented yet completely accurate Ediacaran.

Pomni began her search for an occupation as soon as she spoke enough Ediacaran. It was rough going at first. Pomni may have been quite knowledgeable about law and been articulate, but she had little experience to actually put on paper. No diplomas or references, only cases she had helped her father with. She was offered at least four jobs as a secretary, but turned them down. Such a position would only make her depressed, being at the beck and call of a man…

But she hunted tirelessly, and eventually caught her first break as a stenographer for Bear Lake’s courthouse, specifically the misdemeanor accountability court. This was where soaks who had made a nuisance in public after a fifth too many of Ediacaran red wine ended up, or children who had pilfered sweets from a chemist’s shop, or frustrated citizens who wished to dispute moving violations and truancy notices.

Pomni remained quiet and kept a stern countenance, and, despite being fairly new to Ediacaran, made precious few mistakes. Magistrates and even the judges complimented her impeccable memory, being able to repeat back transcripts that she hadn’t gotten the chance to write down yet. Her penmanship was clean and she was unfailingly polite, even to the rare belligerent defendant.

Then came the day of a high profile felony case. A Dr. Kaczmarek had been arrested on charges of selling cadavers from the local hospital to a shady medical supply company. The usual stenographer for the felony court was abruptly hospitalized after an errant kick from a horse, developing a tremor in his hand that prevented him from writing as quickly. Pomni was asked to transcribe in his place. Although the judge was skeptical of her abilities, Pomni performed remarkably well, her affect cool despite the rapid-fire speech of the magistrates or mumbled testimonies of the witnesses. The court staff, impressed by her performance, brought Mrs. Krolik on for more high profile cases, and she soon became the court’s mainstay stenographer.

In her free time, Pomni had begun work on a novel. She initially thought of penning an autobiography, but she needed to be an established author first. No one would have any interest in the life story of a stenographer, even if her life was rather interesting. So, she began a novel. It was a character study of five children of a single mother and their lives from childhood to adulthood. She was still drafting the story, having to omit a good amount of unnecessary detail from just the first chapter alone. Luckily Jax was there to read through her drafts and offer constructive criticism while on the road to recovery.

As soon as they settled into their new home, Pomni put her husband back on the process of tapering him off of opium. They only had a single bottle of laudanum left and no easy way to get ahold of it anymore, so it would be the final dosage before completely excising the drug from his life.

His symptoms resumed after reducing his dosage from a single drop of opium to a half a drop. However, they were significantly less severe. He was weak and bedridden and struggled with body aches and cold sweats, but he had thankfully ceased vomiting and was at last able to get some sleep, although he woke frequently. Pomni cared for him, bringing him vegetables from the local market, not even attempting to cook them. It would have been dreadfully inconvenient to burn their new home down after just purchasing it.

Soon, he wasn’t on laudanum at all. After two weeks without poppy, he was up and walking about. His regular countenance returned come the third week. On that Friday, Pomni went to the edge of a bridge.

“Are you ready?” Pomni asked, holding his hand.

“I am,” Jax replied. He took the half full tincture bottle out of his jacket pocket. Jax looked for a long while at the small bottle that had ruled his life for the past five years. He lobbed the bottle over the railing. It plummeted thirty feet into the rocky gulch below, bursting with a splash on a boulder.

“Goodbye, cruel mistress. You’ll bewitch this soul no longer.” Jax said, giving a short wave to the gulch.

“Did you plan that little farewell or did it come to you just now?” Pomni asked with a smirk.

“Which would be more impressive to you?” Jax replied with a smirk of his own.

Jax took on a job as well to keep the pair from exhausting their savings. He quickly found one as an accountant for a trading company that had previously worked with Krolik International. Being the son of the founder, it looked quite good on a resumé, although he was careful to omit anything about recent goings on with the company.

Jax and Pomni saw Drexl Krolik for the final time a few days before their departure to Ediacara. They returned to the Krolik Estate to collect some of Jax’s belongings, and encountered two constables from Blackshell Bay speaking with Drexl in his foyer. Jax said nothing to his father, who said nothing in return. Pomni met her father-in-law’s eyes only once. Though his gaze was incensed, his eyes were drained of the fierceness they once held. Pomni and Jax had his belongings on the carriage within an hour, thanks to assistance from Zuzanna, who had put in her two weeks' notice and was planning to start a job at The Rooker Estate.

As for Jax’s brothers, he wrote to all three regularly. Altonicus and Kali, although they did not receive the funds necessary to open their pharmacy due to Drexl’s behavior, remained as stable as ever. Alton continued his work at the hospital, and Kali started a book club, which had around a half dozen regulars, including Mirella Shutnyk.

Osvaldo was elated to be living on Primum Peccatum, free to pursue his music career. His performance at the wedding put him on the map, and he began performing original compositions at other weddings, and he had been accepted into the prestigious New Hirnantian Choral Ensemble. He flubbed his first audition due to stage fright, but conquered his anxieties for his second audition. To help with the mortgage payments, he had accepted two tenants. Dawson, the son of Lawrence, Drexl’s former business partner, happily moved in with Osvaldo. The two of them became inseparable partners, often seen around town together, and the keen-eyed had spotted Osvaldo occasionally stealing a quick kiss from his larger companion. Assuredly in a platonic way.

The other tenant was Boone, who was allowed to stay with them on the conditions that he refrain from any churlish behavior and get an occupation that would help him pay for the house. It was slow going at first, Boone applying to many jobs in several different trades. Although he was politely declined positions at the fire brigade and The Gray Church, he found that he was a rather gifted editor. He got a job at a small ad agency, finding minuscule details to fix in ad copy or business documents. His ever-drifting focus was curbed somewhat by caffeine tablets prescribed to him by his eldest brother. He struggled, of course, and often found himself reprimanded at work, but remained steadily employed and was thus allowed to stay with his brother.

Pomni wrote to Mr. Kinger, Sister Ragatha, and Zooble regularly. When he remembered to respond, Mr. Kinger was thrilled to hear from his surrogate daughter, and Pomni gifted him several books on Ediacaran insects to add to his collection. Kinger said that Zuzanna was an excellent housekeeper, tidying up the dust and cobwebs while keeping his reams upon reams of notes and sketches untouched and in their place. Sister Ragatha was pleased to learn that Pomni had secured a job, chasing her dream to be a working lady just as the Gray Sister knew she could. She sent Pomni a string of beads to pray The 13 Steps should she ever feel the need to. Although Pomni remained agnostic, she kept the string in her handbag at all times. Zooble kept Pomni up to date with the goings-on at the Shutnyk Estate, and was always free to offer their candid yet insightful advice.

Although it took some time, two years to be exact, Pomni eventually decided to write to her parents. They offered their congratulations on her job acquisition, Vladimir remarking that he could have used her sharp eyes while working on some new cases, and, inevitably, told their daughter that they missed her terribly. Pomni missed them a bit as well, but was so busy with her career that she had precious little time off to come visit them. She assured them she would one of these days, but a major event occurred four years on that stopped her tireless work in its tracks.

Pomni awoke early one morning and was sick into the toilet, and remained at home to hopefully recover from her sudden stomach illness. When her symptoms returned the following morning, she sent a telegram to Altonicus inquiring what course of action to follow. Altonicus replied, politely as ever, if she and Jax had consummated their union recently.

Pomni was midway into asking what that information had to do with anything before she stood up straighter.

“Ohhhhhh blazes…” she whispered.

Four months on and Pomni’s belly had grown significantly. Jax was over the moon with excitement, and Pomni, while initially very hesitant, relaxed when she learned that she would be granted paid maternity leave in the third trimester. Her anxieties continued to smolder, however, when she remembered how many times her mother miscarried. She took the utmost precautions, moving as little as possible, eating very bland food and taking no medication apart from the prenatal vitamins the town’s doctor prescribed. By the seventh month, she was at home on leave, her belly firm and round and the tiny life inside it doing just fine, according to the hospital.

Leave was quite simple, as Pomni had a number of books to catch up on that she previously could not read due to not speaking Ediacaran, as well as her novel to chip away at. Jax had busied himself making preparations for the infant, clearing part of the house to serve as a nursery and reading countless childcare books. Pomni, as usual, did not require much attention, but did occasionally burst into tears or snap uncharacteristically at her husband, and she would sometimes burn with a physical desire she had never known before. It mortified her how unstable the developing life inside her made her act, and she would have been ashamed at acting so erratically had Jax not been his pleasant yet dry self.

Pomni told him one winter evening to please remove a pair of black leather gloves, as the scent was bothering her. Jax smiled.

“Why of course, my dear. In fact, I’ll see to it that I personally scour each and every surface these malodorous gloves have touched!”

Pomni silenced him by playfully lobbing a book in his direction.

Nine months in, Pomni’s water broke on the way to the restroom one morning, and she was rushed to the hospital. Labor proved to be an ordeal, as Pomni’s slight stature made the delivery process especially excruciating. Pomni said things to the doctors and nurses she hoped to never repeat to a single living soul, and it was the first and only time she repeated The 13 Steps, mostly because she wanted something else to focus on other than her entire lower body being torn asunder.

What felt like an eternity of suffering later, and there was at last a tiny voice crying out into the world. Pomni saw her child and the pain was instantly forgotten. Her child. Her baby. She was here.

Jax was the first to hold her after the doctor snipped off her umbilical cord. She was perfectly tiny, little more than a bundle of blankets and damp, blue-violet fur. Jax looked at her with a fondness Pomni had only seen on her wedding day. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he looked from his minutes-old daughter to Pomni, damp with sweat and rested atop five pillows.

“She’s beautiful, darling…” he said, gently handing her over to Pomni. Pomni feebly took her daughter into her arms, motherly instinct taking over as she rocked the infant to soothe her cries.

“Hello, Esther…” Pomni managed to say before drifting into slumber, equal parts relieved and exhausted.

—

“That’s it Esther, come to daddy!”

In the foothills of the Waga Mountains in Ediacara, on a grassy knoll, a red and white checkered blanket was spread out for a family of three. The father, a periwinkle-furred rabbit beastman, the mother, a petite human woman with shoulder length raven black hair, and their one-year-old daughter. The child’s fur was a deep, umbral blue, with twinkling green eyes like peridots. She had a small tuft of violet-black hair between her long ears, her cheeks, arms and legs still cushioned by baby fat. She wriggled about on the blanket until she was sitting up, clad in a small gray dress and puffy white bloomers.

“You can do it, dear! Up-up!” Jax said, patting his knees.

Esther rocked forward onto her hands and knees. She shakily rose onto her feet, pinwheeling her arms with a squeal and dropping into a crawling position again.

“There’s no need to rush her, darling. We should be cheering that she can stand for a little while.” Pomni said, smiling.

“Oh, I know.” Jax replied. “I was just so thrilled to see her come waddling towards me this morning. It was like she had forgotten that she was supposed to crawl. She dropped right to her hands and knees when I gasped.”

Esther babbled.

“Oh, I’m sorry Esther, I know you were just as shocked as I was.” Jax said to his daughter.

Pomni smiled, holding her squirming daughter in her lap as Jax reached into the basket. He took out a few tins of vegetables, a jar of puréed ham and potatoes, and a salmon filet.

Esther fussed, continuing to try and wriggle free from her mother’s arms.

“Now you be patient, young lady. Your papa went to a lot of trouble to make all this.” Pomni chided.

“Baba,” Esther said. That was her way of saying “papa,” as P’s were a bit difficult for her. It was also her first word, her second being “night night” and her third being “mama.” It came as no surprise to either parent, since Jax was by far the one who spent the most time with Esther. He quit his job to raise her at home full time, allowing Pomni to focus on her career while also saving them the trouble of paying for a nanny.

“So, just about everyone is on the way, eh?” Jax said. “I’m amazed they could even afford roundabout passes to Ediacara…”

“Kinger paid for them. I insisted he not, but he had already sent off the crowns by the time the letter got to him. I know Kinger has a considerable fortune, but he will run out of money eventually should he spend so frivolously…”

“Babaaa!” Esther cried.

“Yes, dear, on the way…” Jax stirred a teaspoon in the jar of puréed food and withdrew it, placing it into Esther’s mouth. “You’re fretting too much again, darling. Your family will get to see your daughter! And just how much she’s grown.”

“Baba,” Esther said. Jax gave her another spoonful of food.

“I do love it here, certainly… But if someone wishes to come visit us, it shouldn’t cost them an arm and a leg. Although, that’s true of most things…”

There was a flash of color on the endless, verdant expanse the family sat on. A mote of red on a quilt of green.

“I suppose that’s true, but he should really visit while he has- Pomni?”

Pomni looked at the blot of color. There was a glint, and she gasped.

“Pomni, dear, what is it?” Jax asked.

“Hold Esther a moment,” she said, standing up and running towards the red figure in the distance.

“Mamaaaa!” Esther cried sternly.

Pomni hurried down the knoll, just about running out of her shoes. Sure enough, coming into focus was a shapeman in a red tailcoat, clutching a black walking stick with a golf leaf tip. He had an enlarged pair of dentures where his face should be.

“You-” Pomni gasped. “You, how did you get here?”

The Gentleman in Red tilted his head. “I’m sorry?”

“I… I asked you, sir. How did you get here? What are you doing here?”

“Why I’m here to see you, Mrs. Shutnyk. I believe your friend Kinger Rooker issued everyone an invitation.” He held up a boat ticket.

“You… you came with them..? No, they’re not supposed to be here for a week! Sir, please…”

Pomni swallowed.

“I’ve been left pondering for years. The night at the church, when you defended me against Boone and Mr. Krolik… Why did you do it? Why?Could you… could you at least tell me your name?”

The Gentleman in Red put both hands on his cane and tilted his head to the other side.

“You look happy, Pomni.”

Pomni blinked. “I… I am happy? I’m-”

He nodded. “Then I shall move on. Enjoy the rest of your life, Mrs. Krolik.”

He kicked his cane, twirling it in his hand and walking away.

Pomni watched him leave. She wanted to run after him. But she understood. She laughed incredulously.

“Pomni, is everything alright?” Jax said, having had to walk to avoid not jostling Esther.

“Mama,” Esther scolded.

Pomni turned and looked her husband in the eye. She smiled.

“…Why, yes. Yes it is. Shall we eat?”

Fin

[littlemisssquiggles]

…Sooooo…about that RWBY V9 EPILOGUE ANIMATIC…..

Not lying to tell you, I honestly forgot about RTX this year because I’ve been focused on other things these days. However, thanks to the almighty power of Twitter and the RWBY FNDM community, this squiggle meister was able to check out the V9 Epilogue Animatic that dropped at this year’s panel.

While I’m disappointed there was no announcement for RWBY V10 being greenlit, at least fans were given something to munch on with the featured animatic.

And y’know what folks?

If this animatic was an original draft for the ending of V9 then I am…

… SO FREAKING GLAD that this animatic never made it into the final cut for V9!

Because, for me, not only do I find the final ending of V9 perfect as it is with where it left the story off but also, some revisions need to be done for this epilogue ya’ll.

Don’t get me wrong. I thought this animatic was pretty good. I liked that it confirmed everyone’s shared theory that the others thought RWBYJ had died during the Fall of Atlas. At least that was confirmed to be canon.

However; if there is one part I would love to be revised for this epilogue, it would have to be the final moment after Raven (surprise, surprise but not really cause people theorized that shit since V8) brings RWBYJ to Vacuo and we get to see Nora, Ren and Oscar react to seeing their friends return from the literal dead and…Oscar is just standing there with the Oz-cane…smiling?

But it’s not a smile of deeper emotion. It’s not even his usual soft smile that he always gives Rubes.

Yes, yes, yes I know what ya’ll might be thinking---Squiggles, dear, please, it’s only a rough animatic. It’s not that deep sis---I KNOW…but STILL, bear with me on this one folks.

This is the closest thing to a RWBY V10 crumb that us fans will have to cling onto until the show gets greenlit…whenever. IF EVER.

This animatic is the closest thing to a potential V10 teaser that we have right now. It’s all we have right so if there are FNDM fam members picking it apart and overanalyzing it, can you really blame em?

IT’S ALL WE HAVE for V10.

So pardon me if the Pinehead Rosegarden shipper in me is a lil bummed out by this one shot of a rough, possible first draft animatic of an episode that could easily be the first episode of a possible next season of RWBY.

If I had to imagine a final version of this scene, I could easily see Oscar looking at Ruby softly. But even still…that’s…not the reaction I was expecting for their inevitable reunion.

If  you had told me that that’s not Oscar and is actually Oz in control, I would have a better chance at believing you with that because I am in disbelief that Ruby would return from everyone believing that she and the others had died during the fall of Atlas and…Oscar sees Ruby alive and well for the first time in who knows how long….maybe weeks or a month at best and his reaction is just a normal smile?

Not even a tearful smile or a shocked look like Nora. Just a casual smile before we cut back to Ruby’s final smile, like she was on the verge of tears before it fades to black.

Really? That’s it?  

NAAAAAAAAAH! Nah! Send that shit back to the boards for a second draft.

 #NOTMYRGREUNION

Again, I am fully aware that this is only an animatic and a bigger, more focused emotional reunion could easily happened after this scene in another “episode” if you look at this animatic as being like the end of the first or second episode of a potential RWBY V10.

But still, I can’t help but feel bummed by this a bit. At least the RG shipper in me is a little bummed.

If anything, I’m better off looking at this animatic as a precursor to a better more emotional and PROPER reunion between Ruby and Oscar.

That part I can dream about.

In the mean time, pardon my mini rant cause it’s been a while since I’ve talked about RWBY and I wanted to share my brief thoughts on the animatic for anyone who was curious about my thoughts on it.

~LMS (2023)

[thalmor-apologist]

started making a new cpm today because i can not be contained (this week my brains like “yo i’m feeling creative now you better ride this wave or i’m literally never gonna have a single thought ever again” and i’m like okay)

i’m a big fan of vanilla mountain goats i really like how they translated the general head shape of a mountain goat into minecraft by taking a vertical rectangle and tilting it back a little and so i was like damn that’s smart i’m gonna steal that

initial head design + sketches just trying to make sense of what i’m making. originally i intended on making like. a black wildebeest sort of thing but then the rectangular snout + mouth corners was kinda giving cat/bear and i was like oh… hmm… ur a dog i think

cursed quadruped posture and first rough draft thing or whatever you’d call it. my intent was to make him a savanna animal and i received feedback that he was giving temperate/cold in general so i scrapped these textures

here’s about as far as i got tonight. bird colors (pratincole) you know how it is… but i am genuinely very happy with how it’s coming along so far

no idea what he is yet i’ll figure that out after 😈😈😈 ok goodnight it’s like 1 am oops

[quincyhorst]

Some Concering Things About (Manga) Samuel Mayo: The Post

Some add-on to the previous Samuel post. This draft was originally meant to combine his profile analysis too, yet that ended up being dispersed in previous posts. So this will be focusing only on manga!Samuel and few stuff I originally wanted to say on his backstory.

Overall... Samuel in the overall Yabuten manga is weird. He just randomly goes to bully some keeper children just because of their nationality (🤨), shoots twice to flex on them, and gets humilliated in BOTH occassions. And worst part is that we just don't see him again...

But while I was reading his chapter, there's some particular things that stood out with me.

First off the initial context; Samuel comes to Endou during his quest of catching 100 shoots. When he appears, he seems to inspire fear on the crowd, to the point one of the passerbies straight up introduces him the following way:

アイツは激しいプレイでたくさんのケガ人を出しているあぶないFWだ！ He is a dangerous forward who has injured many people through his intense play!

DeePL translates this phrase quite differently, but I do believe that Google Translate's the more accurate one, mainly because the word "ケガ人" means wounded person. Either way, I feel like you know what's going on: Samuel has injured many, many people on the field, enough for even some random to know about it. Worrying.

(He also very rude towards footballs >:( )

Also, said previous passerby also tries to warn Endou when he accepts to catch Samuel's shoot.

あいつのシュートは危険だ！ That guy's shot is dangerous!

For a non-player to be THAT worried of Samuel and his aggresive play, it makes one wonder 1- How did RM pass to Liocott on this specific scenario, BUT ALSO 2- Why Samuel does keep his position on a national selection. Seriously (Unless he got a red card and this is his way of coping. LMAO)

One last line that honestly concerns me a lot comes from Samuel himself after he uses his hissatsu Dragon Ground/Land Dragon/whatever.

荒ぶる牛をも倒すこのシュート。 "This shot can knock down even a raging cow."

...I genuinely don't want to know HOW he came to that conclusion. I really don't want to.

I'm aware this is Inazuma, the franchise where 13 year old bear killers exist, plus some instances where animals are fought on by other characters. And to add, we're ALSO at the Tenya Yabuno manga, where things are more hashtag hardcore. So it wouldn't be too surprising (Although horrifying) that in that Ina11's Spain there might have happened the situation of literal soccer bullfighting.

I mean, in the same manga Endou brings a bull to train... Who knows, maybe Red Matador did the same too, but it went south (?

Either way, I think that's all what we gotta say about Samu for now. If his manga profile truly shows the personality he's meant to have, then that's... Something to say the least. Specially when removing the backstory I did for him. I actually don't know to say if I like him or not.

But hey... Remember that every medium of Ina11 tends to play by its own rules at times, so... You don't have to worry much if you want to go a different route than what's shown here.

Personally, in my setting Samuel is a bit too rough when attacking, yes, but not enough to cause actual injuries. </3

...Okay, bye for now. Here's a random happy Samuel for ya >:D

Bonus.

We in Spain are called 'red matadors'.

...

[ryan-nugenthopkins]

speak to me about these wips of yours. i've never heard of any of them before and i am simply so very curious

I love you so much Julian mwah

I will not talk about the funny gamer men on here but uh catboy fic (ie My Teammate Turned into a Cat?!) started as "what if Draisaitl turned into a cat sometimes" and has quickly turned into "hey what would the PR and hockey ops response be to a player literally turning into a cat" and also "hey what's the horror of people changing in ways that are unknowable to you" so it's going well! The horrors of bureaucracy, mostly.

Nonetheless here's a TikTok/IG Reel I thought one of the content producers would make as a sick joke a few weeks into the curse manifesting:

The players are walking back to the locker room, still in gear, presumably after a practice. A text caption reading, “If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?” is displayed on the screen as the video rapidly cuts to the players responding, either off the ice or in the locker room.

McLeod grins, looks at the person holding up the phone camera.

“Uh, definitely a dog.”

Nugent-Hopkins looks mildly taken aback but is smiling.

“I’m not sure, actually. Maybe a wolf?”

Someone calls out something unintelligible from off camera. The camera spins and zooms in to catch Hyman laughing.

“I’m not a horse, you —”

Hyman looks thoughtful and affable, as if giving the question serious thought.

“I think I’d be a dog. A Golden Retriever, maybe? They’re pretty smart and loyal.”

Kulak looks mildly amused.

“Some type of dog.”

Holloway laughs loudly.

“I think being a dog would be great.”

Desharnais shrugs, before turning to someone off camera.

“A bear? A bear’s cool, right?”

The response is muffled, but Desharnais laughs anyway and faces the camera again.

“Stu says moose. I’ll go with that.”

Skinner smiles politely at the camera.

“I think I’d like to be a cat. They seem pretty smart and quick.”

McDavid lets out a little media chuckle and runs a hand through his hair.

“Uh… I don’t know. Probably a dog. … What breed? I’m not sure. Maybe I’d just look like Lenny, or something.”

Draisaitl stares at the camera, stone-faced. After a couple of seconds he grits out —

“A cat. I guess.”

--

Bouch/Clouder Academia AU is basically omg they were roommates doing graduate degrees. It's part of a much broader alternate universe where basically any NHL player that is funny to me is now an academic. I have read so many papers on topics that are not relevant to my own field of study.

Bouch is studying sports medicine as an MSc. He's looking at resiliency and recovery in professional sports and aims to be a physiotherapist after he graduates. He was set to go pro but had a spree of injuries and rough accidents on the ice before and during his stint in the OHL and his drafting prospects plummeted.

Clouder's a PoliSci/Media Studies MA studying how nationalistic narratives are built through sports coverage. He's the only one of three sons that is not playing pro hockey and he has no problems because of it at all :) He's still figuring out what he wants to do with his life.

The fic is mostly following them in their first year at their local university and how they navigate each other and the hockey-related problems they're both dealing with. It went shippy/slowburn "mostly" by accident, but whatever. They'll figure it out eventually. Here's a random snippet:

The holidays seem to have started a pattern. Not enough to be a constant, but enough to know it’s always there, a safety net in the back of his mind. Some days, Ryan will hang up from a family call the day after an impressive game from Michael and there’s a case study that needs to be proofread, immediately; some days, Evan’s gritting his teeth going down the stairwell and it’s easy to duck under his arm, take some pressure off his knee. A scar for a story, one regret for another.

Back and forth, like a passing drill.

It’s not weird, or gay, or whatever bullshit Jungian term Stu is now using for their friendship just because he got caught asking D.R. about painkiller interactions once. It’s open — there’s a comfort there, a familiarity that settles somewhere near Ryan’s sternum and makes it easier to breathe. That’s normal, probably, for a friendship. Quiet reciprocity, which might be the crux of the problem, a fear that he can’t properly describe.

He appreciates those moments where Evan feels comfortable enough to share, to trust in him. Some are easier, a memory of unlucky circumstance with a speedy return. Others — the larger ones, usually, or complications that took him off the ice for months at a time — make it seem like he’d rather pull out his own fingernail than tell. But he does so anyway, stilted and hesitant, and something cold slides down Ryan’s spine every time.

It takes a few more weeks for him to name that feeling guilt, but it’s the closest he’s probably going to get.

[kikipops117]

Book reports, anyone?

(I've gotta give some loopooong context first so skip this block of text if you wanna get to the action of my words or if you dont want your opinion of me to sour cuz im gonna be brutally honest and not mince words about what drove me to this point :.)

Because of my crusade to spend less time on the internet, I read more books in 2024 than I have cumulatively in years. And it altered my brain chemistry. In a good way. Maybe "healed" is a better word for it.

I know I am not alone in the camp of people who got out of high school and suddenly became starved for the drive to read. Devouring books as if I needed them to breathe was a hallmark of my childhood, and it was scary how easily I just fell into quitting and didn't even notice it. As a kid, I would finish a book and felt as if I'd lost a limb until I found another story to jump into. But I stepped out of my childhood bliss and into grown-up care, and it's like one day I woke up and didn't need to breathe anymore. I became an adult without holding on to what used to be a load-bearing facet of my life. Sure, I'd occasionally re-read the classics (LOTR and Hunger Games mostly), but I didn't pick up anything new, and I didn't want to. All the while, my screen time crept higher and higher.

The only thing that opened my eyes to what was, by all evidence, a phone addiction, was the sudden realization that I could no longer be content inside my head. I needed overstimulatuon to feel at ease. I needed tiktok on in the background while I ate, worked, exercised. I started writing again, and when I instinctually reached for my phone and told myself no, I got irritable and fussy like a smoker being cut off from their nicotine. I would watch movies on my phone and during slow moments I would literally swipe up on habit, trying to get a hit of dopamine from something shocking and fast, only to realize what I'd done and feel all kinds of shame and embarrassment. Something needed to change.

In 2023 I decided to try to read more. It went okay, I was able to finish 2 or 3 books, but I didn't cut off my internet addiction. I was living alone in a house with no wifi. My only connection to the internet, my friends, news, was social media. My screen time got worse and worse as I packed my reading ajd writing so tightly between my scrolling sessions that I had little time for anything else, and my brain was asphyxiating.

In 2024, Akane and I moved into a house together, and because she needs internet to function, we got wifi. A first for me in almost 4 years. Up until that point, all of my writing had to be done on my smartphone. I had a little Bluetooth keyboard I'd hook up to it, and I literally wrote two rough drafts for novels purely on my phone. So to be able to write from the comfort of my laptop with my phone on silent across the room felt liberating. As if I'd written the prior two novels under the oppressive thumb of an abusive overseer who so graciously allowed me just enough free time to think for myself so long as I paid my dues by scrolling for hours on end once I was put of steam. I was so codependent on short-form content and staring at my phone. My cell was like my only lifeline to my faraway friends (during the pandemic I was forced to move somewhere remote and at least 300 miles in any direction from any friends). It was also my only key to my greatest passion, which is writing. I couldn't just turn away from it! That would be like asking a fish never to breathe water again, but leaving him in the tank to tread with his gills above water.

Encouraged by my newfound freedom from my phone, I decided this year to do something drastic. I had a tiktok page (not the one you will find under my name now, btw,) that was like my video journal to all the hoopla that goes on in my life. I had a few thousand followers and a few million likes and views. It was doing really well and it was on the up. I decided to delete it. (I'm ashamed to admit that it was only this past month that I found the courage to remove Instagram from my phone as well once I found myself sneaking back into reels in order to get to short-form content. I'd kept Instagram because I told myself that I needed to keep up with the lives of my friends. Then I realized that I already spoke every day to my closest circle via text and I was kidding myself if i thought I needed insta to stay close to them.)

With the section of my brain usually devoted to processing endless tiktoks suddenly freed up, I found myself pondering a new writing project. This was unlike anything I'd worked on before, and it was the first concept I'd had in years that sparked such intense excitement and passion. I began writing and found the process easier than ever. But as I went, I became acutely aware that I had ZERO comp-titles for this project that I wished to someday query. (For those who don't know, a comp title is a preexisting book or work that is comparable to your project. When you are looking for an agent or publisher for your book they want you to give them a list of comp titles so they know what your target audience is going to be and how best to market it.)

I didn't have any comp titles because I hadn't read anything in years. And years. How could I dream so much about entering the space of authors when I'd neglected that world for so long? That would be like Ariel wishing to walk on land all of her life but never exploring ship wreckage or breaking the surface to talk to Skuttle.

Additionally, I found myself writing in a way that felt repetitive. Why did everything sound the same? Why was I leaning on a handful of descriptors and metaphors? Because I couldn't remember how books were supposed to feel. I believe it was Stephen King who said that the best advice he can give to authors is to read? Well, I knew then that I needed to read.

But I felt intimidated.

I'm not into "spicy" reading, and the only exposure I'd had to the literary space for the past several years was what I occasionally brushed up against online on Booktok. It was hard not to feel like the entire culture around reading had turned into fairy porn while I was away, lol. Which is not bad! But that's not what I want to write about or read. So I was uncertain where I should start. I can't exactly remember what I did, but I an pretty sure I Google something stupid like "best fiction novels of the past 5 years" and decided to start there. I got my hands on Project Hail Mary, Tress of the Emerald Sea, and This Woven Kingdom.

People often use an analogy to express how easy it should be to pick up where you started on a hobby. "It's like riding a bike! You just don't forget!" Well, I've never related to that stupid analogy because it took me forever to learn how to ride a bike, me being an anxious amd clumsy kid, and after I finally figured it out when I was eight, two weeks later I shattered five bones in my foot while tripping over a dog and had to spend the summer in a hard foot cast. By the time I was finally free, I'd completely forgotten how to ride a bike and had to start the whole scary and traumatizing process all over again.

That's kinda how I felt this past year. In a fit of binging, I tore through Project Hail Mary and Tress, and went on to Yumi and The Nightmare Painter and it was so stinking hard! Even though I was obsessed with the story, I still had to put it down for long periods of time and it took me a while to finish it. It wasn't until this past summer when my sister came to visit and suggested I read, of all books, Twilight, that something finally clicked into place.

Okay. I know what you're thinking. Please don't judge. Hear me out.

I've never read Twilight. My sister was obsessed with them when we were girls but I was into other things. But the movies were a regular occurrence in my house and I went with my sister and mom to see all of the movies in theaters (except for Breaking Dawn part 1. I didn't see that one, so when I went with them to see part 2 I was MAD confused the whole time lol)

When my sister came to visit this summer, she wanted to do a Twilight movie marathon and I was all in. The movies remind me of simpler times, and we had a ball watching and laughing as adults with fully developed frontal lobes and a soft spot for nostalgia.

When she left, she told me I needed to read the books so we could better commiserate and I finally folded. I hopped on Thriftbooks (not a sponsor but I ADORE thriftbooks and would love for them to hmu someday lol) and I was able to get all 4 books for like, $20 with one of the sales they put on.

I read the first book and wow. I will withhold my opinion on it for now (you'll understand why later). I didn't want to jump right into the second book, I needed a pallet cleanser. But I was really loving the nostalgic feeling I got from Twilight. It kept me reading so avidly because the story was not intimidating and there was a sense of comfort and familiarity mixed with the newness. So I decided to pursue that line of thinking and read something that would give me the same feeling.

ENTER THE HALO BOOKS.

If you've found my trashy side blog, then you know by now how obsessed I am with the halo video games (CE, 2, 3, ODST, Reach, and Red vs Blue specifically). My sister read a few of the books when we were kids but I never did. I have dyslexia, and it was REALLY bad for me when I was little. It took me until 5th grade to start reading for fun, and I decided as a kid that I didn't want to deal with all of the science stuff in the Halo books when I could be reading about drsgons and wizards and junk.

So I'd never read the books despite my adoration of the games, and the series felt like it would be the perfect mix of nostalgia and intrigue to get me into it.

I was not anticipating the sorrows™️

I read the Fall of Reach and was devastated, of course. But I was obsessed and had to keep going. So I read The Flood next. Also heart wrenching. I needed a break from all the sadness and read New Moon (twilight 2) and once again, mixed with so much nostalgia and frustration with the characters lol.

This brings us up to the present day.

In search of something that wouldn't be so heavy as the Halo books and so infuriating as the Twilight books, I decided to read Interview with the Vampire this past week, with zero context about the content or tone of the book. I chose it simply because I love vampires and the book I'm writing is about a vampire and when researching the best works of fiction about vampires, Anne Rice's works are in the top list of contenders.

I cracked open my Thriftbooks copy of IWTV on Wednesday, and I finished it late last night. I couldn't put it down. I. Am. Obsessed. The prose. The story. The way that it made me uncomfortable at times, the way it totally should, and made me just swoon with how stinking pretty the writing is. I love the introspection, the exploration of morals and purpose. I am going to digress here because the purpose of this blog post is not to review IWTV but suffice it to say, I loved.

I finished reading late last night and felt the feverish need to share my feelings with SOMEONE. obviously I'm a little late in the game for this book though. It came out in the 70s. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to put my thoughts on what I'm reading somewhere. I am an avid journaler, but I give her a play by play as I'm reading. The eloquence of IWTV felt almost like I was reading a book for a literature or philosophy class, it was so gorgeous and explored such themes. So naturally, my train of thought arrived at the conclusion that I needed to write a book report.

That is why I wrote this long blog post. Because I am here to tell you that I am going to start writing little baby book reports on what I read! Because I want to!

So, if you're interested to know what I'm reading these days and how i feel about it, then you're gonna be fed because I'm cooking. I have found more lasting dopamine and joy in reading books this past year than I ever did scrolling or posting on tiktok. I've felt a stronger connection with my sister, mom, and friends as we talk and gush about what I've been reading. I finish a reading session, and I feel like my mind is invigorated, not numb. I'm inspired to imagine and think and create, as opposed to the bitter addiction that scrolling trapped me in that kepy me hungry to consume. Never ending. I can chronical my entertainment with narrative start and finishe, which satisfies and inspired in a way that hours and hours online can never replicate.

If you're looking for a sign to do as I've done, then please consider this it. And consider me an ally along the way, because it was hard. But so so rewarding.

That's all! :) thanks for reading

[idolapollo]

Dedicated DEV LOG #1

hey!! it's apollo/nyarl!! this'll be a first in a series of posts that are basically indie game development logs filled with a shit ton of rambling

i'll maybe try and post these monthly or bi-monthly, but it's mostly for me to motivate myself to make progress to have something to show off and to archive the process of making a game!

this month's dev log is dedicated to—well—"Dedicated To..."

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

(i may keep saying this for future projects and games so bear with me) "Dedicated To..." (abbreviated as DT from now on) originally was an idea i had in middle school!

it was really edgy tho and i'd honestly kms if it ever got leaked to the public but it was essentially an angst piece for when i was discovering my own sexuality as a gay cis man

staying somewhat true to its gay angst origins, this game is a story based psychological horror rpg maker game! maybe you can add it's a story based gay psychological horror rpg maker game lmao

it won't be a long game, and it'll have 4 routes determined by one early game choice and 5 endings!! the 5th one is considered a secret dont tell anyone

i did change the protagonist's name and design bc it was literally just a self insert for me lmao even had clothes i often wore fucking lame

BUT ANYWAYS!!!!! you'll play as tybalt, a college student majoring in english literature or something as he struggles to create a fairy tale as his capstone (don't think about it too much)

here's a preview of his full art and draft of his portrait as thanks for listening to me ramble so far i will continue to ramble!! (i have yet to turn it into pixel art and plan different expressions)

i really wanted to make a gay character with these kinda cat eyes whatever you call em lol

and the man he'll be pinning for is reyn!! i didnt give him a major bc it doesnt matter in the grand scheme of things!!! he's probably a finance major!!!!

also idk why i named him reyn, it was something i kept from the original middle school stories

ig it was because i was watching chugga's lets play of xenoblade lmao

i've taken some time with working with rpg maker mz before since i had the chance to use it in a game dev class (after splurging most of my financial aid on plugins lmao), but unless i can figure out javascript on my own and break the engine, i'll be focusing on using rpg maker vx ace since it has more plugins!

for now, i'm still focusing on the story and full body character art before diving into programming and learning how to make pixel art _(:3」∠)_

btw i forgot to mention that part. yeah i'm an absolute newbie when it comes to pixel art so i have to learn that too cries

even though i'm making it in rpg maker vx ace, i'm aiming to recreate the feel of rpg maker 2000/2003 because i was SUUUUUUPER inspired by end roll, okegom's games, and specifically for this game charon's works!! so now i gotta bust out the pixels

there will be 4 routes with 5 endings! there was another route + ending but i scrapped it because i only had an idea of the ending (more on that in the future) and nothing else lol

so far i've drafted 3 of the 4 routes! even though there is no canon ending, the 4th one is the one that has the 5th ending and can branch off into other works (once again more on that in the future lmao)

i'm starting to write the dialogue for the 1st route and it's going okay!! tbh i wish i worked on it more over summer break while my college classes aren't gonna kill my ass and classes start next week (´；ω；`)

but i spent a majority of summer break testing out medication for my adhd, and i still am!! it was a really rough process and i'm glad i didn't go through mania-like symptoms while classes were going on _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_

i'm better now tho and i say i'm at a semi good spot!! now time to treat my horrid anxiety lol

i'll end it here for now before it gets too long!! sorry and thanks to listening to me ramble! i'll leave you with a snippet of the intro!

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

[toomanytookas]

Knocking it out of the park yet again!

Getting to see Tinker spend some time with Cee was so sweet! I love all of the meta elements of them talking about her writing (both in this chapter and others). And the significance of her trusting Tinker with the draft!! I definitely would have cried, too. There’s something so vulnerable about showing someone unfinished/unpublished work regardless of whether it’s to ask them for their general opinion or for more direct advice. I remember being SO nervous and worried the first time I handed someone—who I literally was a beta for, so it’s not like I hadn’t seen their own rough drafts—something to look at. It says so much about how Cee’s relationship with Tinker has blossomed (and all that before we even hear she wants her to live with them). 🥹

There is something so infinitely charming in the way Ezra speaks and you harness it so well.

Two of my favourite lines:

Impress upon me your last hesitancies and let me find a way to entice you.

I still cannot throw a killswitch on my care of you.

For some reason they both remind me of Matthew Macfadyen Darcy's second proposal vibes in the best way???

Also this was hilarious: Man is stubborn and smug as a tardigrade.

Trev doesn't even deserve to occupy the same level of being as a water bear. I'm glad Ezra found a very lovely solution to that dude's assholery. "No more ends to evenings with your new family…just a good-night and a walk down the hall." brb cryingggggg

A Girl Walks Into A Bookshop: Chapter 6: A Damn Fine Fit

Fandom: Prospect (film)

Pairing:  Ezra x f!reader

Rating: T for now. Soooooooft.

Warnings: Excessive worry.

A/N: Not much happens this time around, kids. It’s a bridge chapter getting us from one beat to the next, and just solidifies this family’s fondness for each other.

Summary: Ezra’s off to find Trev and put an end to his ability to hurt you.

TAGLIST: you can always request to be on the taglist for this or any of my work. If you’d like to be on taglists for upcoming fic, please sign up here –> TAGLIST

MASTERLIST - BOOKSHOP MASTERLIST

<–Chapter 5: Been Waiting For You ________________

You stand blinking up at the sign in the door of The Queen’s Lair, Closed Today on Family Business. Family business? Is that what he’s calling it? This isn’t good. Not good at all. Your heart falls straight through your diaphragm, losing itself into your stomach, brining itself in the acid there. You could knock? Was there a back door or stairway you didn’t notice? Shit. Breathe. If he’s not here, there’s not much you can say or do. If you had the time, you’d camp out on the doorstep and wait until you know he’s home. But there’s a hopper going out today and you have some items to deliver, and recent events have you on a tight schedule. So you reluctantly turn away and head down the street, market bag bouncing at your hip.

But you’re not going to be easy all day. You waited too long. You should have held him there last night, really made him understand. It was done and dusted and you could be finished with all of this if he’d just let it go. Why did you let him read that notice on your door???

“This is unfathomable,” He gravelled, his eyes dark, his tone darker. The paper laid between you on your workbench, crumpled from Ezra’s rough handling. “What does he think to gain from this dubious practice?”

You shrugged, slightly numb, a little surprised that you weren’t surprised, and maybe touched that Ezra was taking it worse than you. “Welcome to Trev. He will always want to have the last word. Just…let him have it and maybe he’ll finally feel he’s won and leave me alone.”

Leaning over your workbench, Ezra locked his gaze into you, his pointed jaw set, assessing, making decisions. “Hmm.” His fingers drummed on the surface of the bench, restless, his brow cast dark shadows over his eyes, making him look serious–dangerous even. This was more than just Ezra surprised. This was Ezra angry. You knew it wasn’t for you, but you made a note of never wanting to be on the receiving end of that look.  “You feel safe here tonight?”

Keep reading

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Chapter 316: BBQ is capable of critiquing BNHA and… Oh boy.

Let's start this off properly, Horikoshi's typical quality of writing has been diminishing in recent chapters, but this week it was so different that it didn't even feel like Horikoshi was the one who wrote it.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Horikoshi for the issues I'm about to bring up. The man is criminally overworked, usually doesn't even get the final say in what makes it in the final drafts, and even in his other rough patches he's still produced decent chapters that hold up amongst the grand scheme of things. This feels like something else is going on behind the scenes, and while I have my suspicions on who/what might be the culprit behind it, I choose not to share it at this time because if I name names some people might go off on a crusade, and that's not what I want.

I just want to be clear that I'm not blindly firing off shots in the dark, but despite my frustrations I want to wait to see if this gets resolved down the line, and while I do I can complain about the specific reasons this chapter left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Buckle up, buttercups, because we got a lot of points to cover.

Where's the Gun?

Not a literal gun, but I mean Chekhov's Gun. It has always been a staple of Horikoshi's writing and the reason so many of his long-standing plot lines have paid off so well.

Chekhov's Gun is a writing principal that if you see a gun on the table in the first act of a play, it will be used in the murder that happens in act 2. Basically, the author should include details that are relevant to the story and not betray the audience by leading them in one direction and at the last minute pull the rug out from underneath them to go in another direction.

Horikoshi has done this to phenomenal success in the past. Just as one example, he dropped hints about Nomu being human experiments early in the series but held off explicitly stating it for a while. He hinted at the loss of Shirakumo in the main narrative and that he was important to Aizawa and Mic as well as approved it for Vigilantes so when it was revealed that Kurogiri was Shirakumo's body, not only did it narratively make sense but it also pulled in Eraserhead and Present Mic's emotional stakes into the battle with the Doctor, and then when Ujiko reveals he was after Aizawa's quirk the whole time it made the payoff for Mic punching him in the face all that much better and brings the weight of his crimes and the impact they have on the victims full circle.

That's 3 different guns paying off in the long run: the Nomu, Shirakumo, and both Mic and Eraserheads' personal arcs past the loss of their childhood friend and that they could finally finish processing their grief and avenge him in full righteous fury instead of chalking it all up to cruel chance.

He has left details, some particularly innocuously, in plot lines like the Touya Todoroki reveal, Hawks' backstory, Shigaraki's blood connection to Nana Shimura, even with Mr. Compress's backstory, and more. When re-read, these details become more obvious and usually leaves us with a greater sense of satisfaction in the plot knowing that twists and turns were not only planned, but built up to and hinted at for us to find so the payoff is that much better and it feels purposeful instead of just shock factor.

None of that happened this chapter.

Lady Nagant has zero business being in this plotline. She was never hinted about before this arc, and her existence does nothing to tell us about the plot moving forward or the world that they're trying to change. Nothing her existence provides actually has any bearing on the universe or tells us anything we don't already know. But that's not how she was presented.

In the beginning we're given a glimpse of her helping Overhaul escape from Tartarus. The focus on her was odd enough to begin with as a new character, and the fact that she didn't look like she fit the profile of someone who belonged in Tartarus was like a flashing neon sign saying, "Pay attention! This new character is important!!!" She then shows up later with Overhaul in hand to attack Deku out of the blue. We get her talking about how she thought Overhaul might be useful and her disillusions with Hero Society. We catch her mannerisms with eery similarity to Hawks only to find out immediately after she was a senior colleague in the HPSC. Never once to my knowledge has Hawks referred to any of his senior colleagues as a "senpai" - not even his fellow heroes - and when he catches her in midair, he uses the words, "Don't die on me, senpai!" as if she's near and dear to his heart.

The entire character arc is set up for her to have known about Hawks and grapple with her desire to help people and her fear of re-creating what she hated, and this also set up Hawks to be the successor who succeeded where she failed and helped bring her to a place where she could be a hero without guilt again. What actually happened?

They're strangers.

They have never actually met before, and while he seems to know a lot about her, she doesn't even seem to have any idea of who he was - at least as far as being another hero under the thumb of the HPSC. So ALLLL that setup, all that gesturing, and all of the potential themes that would be right at home in an arc like this goes completely out the window.

Her story doesn't tell us anything new. The HPSC bad. We knew that. They're not above throwing innocents under the bus to achieve that goal. We knew that. They preyed upon young hopefuls with powerful quirks with the intent to maintain the status quo. We knew that even if the fact that Hawks isn't the only one now makes more questions than answers. We know that these young heroes can never say no under threat of steep, life-shattering consequences. We knew that already.

So what does Lady Nagant even bring to the table?! The entire "you're just a puppet doing what you've been told" angle is a little tired and out of place in this point and time with actual anarchy in the streets (not to mention hypocritical considering she was a blind puppet following orders and offers zero actual solutions that supposedly fall in line with her heroic nature), and it could have been left to any number of other villain characters who could have executed on the theme better - you know, like Shigaraki who's justification this entire time has been, "hero society doesn't make people safe, it just makes them feel safe" from the moment of his inception.

So from that angle she's unnecessary.

Her presence messes with the continuity of the series as well. If Hawks is supposed to explicitly replace her, that would mean that he wasn't just a fluke find on the commission's part and grabbed to mold into their own special superweapon; and that also would mean that her killing of the former president was before he was discovered which should put her at least in her forties. If this isn't the case, and he was meant to simply replace her in a "special agent" case, that still begs the question of how many more gifted children the commission preyed upon and are still out there.

And maybe the worst kicker for me is that something stinks. The way the art in this chapter is presented, if you completely blanked out the speech bubbles, is the same setup I had before - Hawks reaches out to his former mentor and pulls her from the brink of despair with a moving message about why he never gave up hope in being a hero who could actually make a difference.

Again, this is not what we got. He claims he knows her, and it's implied to have been a deep, personal character witness; but at best he only knows about her from secondhand sources. Even his reasoning as to how he never lost hope doesn't vibe with his character.

We have gotten so many cool one-liners for Hawks, but there has always been a consistent tone and imagery with them.

"Those who can fly, should."

"I don't belong in a cage."

"I'm free of my shackles."

"Can I be a shining light, just like him?"

What we got was, "I'm an optimist to a fault" which was the wording the official release went with and was by far the best iteration I have seen, but even this falls short of being truly in character for him and answering her question properly.

@mikeana made an edit of the titular panels for us Hawks stans this week with dialogue we and a few other friends felt was more fitting not only with the imagery of the chapter itself but internally consistent with the specific expressions Hawks uses in his heartfelt, personal dialogue. I just tweaked it a little bit more to fit what I was going for in our original conversation.

Which brings me to another concern.

2. What's the point?

There was no use for Nagant in the series as she's been presented so far. But more than that, Hawks has no business in this fight to begin with. He literally did nothing to earn this emotional moment, and this should have been Deku's moment.

We were teased in an interview with Horikoshi that Hawks was going to get a special moment as an important end-game character as a "shining light" of hope for others to follow as well as promises for Ochako to have another moment in the spotlight to make a difference.

If this was Hawks' shining light moment, it wasn't necessary, and it does nothing to move the plot forward or develop characters in any true or believable way. It just happened because plot. This should have been Deku's victory through and through, and even he is the reason BOTH Hawks and Nagant made it out alive instead of painting the street below them.

Deku's victory was stolen from him, too. It sours the other promises made to us about other characters moving forward, as well, if this really was Hawks' "Shining Light" moment.

By the way, did you forget about Overhaul? Me too!!! What was the point of getting our hopes up about reintroducing this beloved character with the implications this was a major arc setup to have him scream about pops and then get detained with no clues about what's going to happen to him besides, "Say you're sorry to Eri, and you get to see pops"?!

All this posturing and clumsy narrative flailing only actually succeeded in getting Deku in front of AFO again for plot when we already know Mr. Potato Head could summon, show himself to, or find Deku at any time he wanted. But instead we get this time skip with a bunch of heroes completely mended walking into a big, spooky mansion for AFO to evil monologue at Deku for… *counts*

FOUR PAGES!!!

Only to then give him the "I want YOU!" point over a pre-recorded message and the final nail in the coffin to me that something is off.

3. Ex-pu-LOOOO-SHUN!

It's become almost a game among friends to count how many explosions have happened since the end of the war arc - and specifically fake-out explosions. In the end of 311 we get All Might's car attacked via explosion and Deku cornered by Nagant only for All Might to be fine in the next chapter. In 315 Lady Nagant herself explodes in a blaze of glory to once again not be dead.

Gee! I wOnDeR if aLl the heroes were AcTuAlLy cornered and KiLlEd in that explosion in the mansion!

None of us do. They're fine. We're going to see it first thing next week. The shock has worn off, and it's repetitive and annoying at this point. There is no cliffhanger despite how the framing might try to tell you otherwise.

It's BAD WRITING.

The writing has been moving far too quickly and clumsily with no explanation in sight, and even character interactions are being cut short to the point of them being meaningless and empty.

This doesn't even feel like Horikoshi's bad writing. It feels like someone else is trying to call the shots and rushing him through these final bits of the series, and he's run out of things he's previously set up for months and months to reappear so someone is trying to get Dabi-reveal levels of attention with arcs and storylines that don't have the build-up to result in a satisfactory payoff.

4. At least it can get better... I hope.

Maybe those who share my suspicions or know what particular suspicions I have are with me in believing that this is a temporary disappointment and we haven't seen the last of the writing that's captivated me for years. I don't blame Horikoshi for these glaring faults that all came to a head in this chapter.

It CAN get better later, and I think it WILL- we just probably are going to have to wait for it. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the Hawks panels we got, maybe edit the last few chapters to be more in line with something more like the BNHA I know in a "fix it fic" fashion so I don't groan in anticipation of how long it might take us to get there.

See you all next week, hopefully on a much brighter note.

[calif0rnia-lovers]

Dating Bishop Losa Would Include...

A/N: what’s wild is thinking I posted this only to realize it was sitting in my drafts. Showing my all time favorite love some love 😍

Rating: 💙

Check out the others I’ve done so far?: Dating Angel Reyes + Dating Ezekiel Reyes

✦ Bishop is entirely too old -- both physically and mentally --for playing games.

✧ So, if you’re looking for some quick, undefined and slightly messy, drama filled hookups please spare him the headache, and consult with a younger member of the MC

✦ The man’s got a lot of shit on his plate -- so stable, supportive relationships are his favorite cup of tea

✧ Doesn’t believe in beating around the bush, so expect an A class Old School Gentleman, wine and dine — treat you like a queen — from the beginning

✦ When you first get together, it takes Bish a minute to actually get with the program

✧ It’s been a while since he’s had an Old Lady — one who can actually handle sharing him with the MC — so cut him some slack.

✦ He’s not used to sending someone updates about his plans and whereabouts

✧ Hank might of nudged Bishop a few times — “you might wanna let the Old Lady know....”

✦ He’s also not used to someone waiting for him to come home.

✧ Seriously — cut the man some slack — he feels like shit when he finds you half-awake at 2 am that first time

✦ He’s apologetic AF if he misses a date, or has to cancel on you 

✧ You not riding him about it because you know he’s already stretched thin enough

✦ But once he gets with the program, Bishop keeps you in the loop

✧ Not with just his movements, but with the status of the MC as well

✦ Obispo BLEEDS LOYALTY AND TRUST — so as his Old Lady you’re expected to help him bear the weigh

✧ He’s not the type to unload each and every detail — in fact, he’s pretty bad at trying to carry the weight by himself

✦ There are just some aspects of the club he doesn’t think you should be involved in,  so he filters out some things when relaying it to you

✧ It’s not that he thinks you can’t handle it, he just doesn’t want you to worry — because man do you worry. And when you worry, Bishop worries so....

✦ Some nights it weighs on him. Those nights he’s different. His kisses are needy, hands rough

✧ He’ll ask for your opinion. It takes a while for you to feel comfortable enough to offer it, but he quickly learns sometimes you’ll give it without his asking

✦ Regardless, he respects your opinion even if it doesn’t always align with his

✧ Arguments are truly unavoidable — he carries around a lot of pressure and stress -- but Bish is really good at letting you vent 

✦ Sometimes he can’t catch himself, and he yells in the heat of the moment — the quickest to apologize

✧ Let a single tear fall, he’s next to you in a heartbeat

✦ Once your relationship becomes serious the most important question is -- Are you dating? OR Are you married?

✧ YOU’RE BASICALLY MARRIED

✦ You’re literally the only person who can knock him down a couple of notches

✧ And the only one bold enough to try it 

✦ Remember how Bishop doesn’t have time to play games? 

✧ When he introduces you to the MC it’s basically an unspoken promotion ceremony -- get ready to become the live-in mother to his children MC

✦ Bishop knows you do it for him, but also because the boys love you, and you love them.

✧ Tries his best to show how much he appreciates you taking on the responsibility. There are moments when he catches you, a deep kiss following. 

✦ “What’s that for?” You smile. 

✧ His lips soft against your forehead. “I love you.”

✦ Bish worries about the MC way more than he lets on -- WAY FREAKING MORE

✧ He’s pretty sure each day they knock a year off his life -- so he smokes way too much

✦ You tease him about it all the time -- “You smoke too much.”

✧ “Would you rather me strangle one of them?”

✦ Seeing you with the MC, and how easily they gravitate to you and how you help them relax, he’s hooked but let him see you around kids --

✧ All of a sudden, the idea of having kids doesn’t seem impossible

✦ Bishop listens to input from others, but sometimes he’s all about that tough love 

✧ The boys play you two like true freaking parents  

✦ They know when Bish is one of his tough love trips, all they have to do is mention something, and you’ll get Bishop to loosen up

✧ Angel is usually the one sent to butter you up —primarily because he’s the one getting that tough love --  Bishop falls victim to this 99% of the time 

✦ Loves to relax against you after a long day -- head against your chest with your fingers in his hair

✧ He always protests -- because it’s not necessary -- but he’ll  hand his phone over to you so that he can relax.  Even if it is for just an hour.

✦ He might or might not have one of the boys stay behind when he goes on a long club run. You learn to deal with the random check ins during his absence. 

✧ If you’re pregnant, and he’s gone for more than a couple of days, expect one of the guys to stay in the guest room. 

✦ He will literally not budge on this one

✧ You’re literally a goddess on earth -- Bishop worships the ground you walk on 

✦ Protective AF -- bleeds into him being overprotective at times. Primarily because he worries you might get affected by blowback from a club decision

✧ He knows you’re more than capable of handling yourself, but he still worries 

✦ License to carry -- Bish teaches you how to shoot. It gives him peace of mind so you indulge him  

✧ King of whispered compliments as he stops to steal a passing kiss

✦ He thinks it funny when guys try and flirt with you -- primarily because they don’t realize you’ll probably eat them alive. 

✧ As long as you’re smiling he’s cool, but let someone get handsy or not shut down their advances and Bishop’s stepping in

✦ Would literally kill someone with his bare hands if they hurt you 

✧ Don’t think that “harmless” flirting will be forgotten. Bishop’s got patience for days. You can’t tease him into cracking first so his payback is torture

✦ Bish is a natural born flirt -- homeboy is dripping in that natural born charisma that can diffuse most situations -- and the flirting does not stop once you start dating

✧ Pretty sure your permanent seat is his lap. He’ll drag you onto his lap, arm around your waist no matter what he’s doing

✦ This man is made of kisses for days. Whether it be a quick kiss to your cheek, forehead, or fingers. Or a stolen moment away from the club, kisses improve his mood 100000% 

✧ Typically seen with his arm draped around your shoulder, lips pressed against your temple or cheek

✦ When he feels guilty, for being too busy, he’s extra romantic. He’ll make dinner, pop up unannounced at your job when he’s got time to spare 

✧ "What do you want, Obispo?”

✦ “Just making sure you don’t run off on me,” he chuckles.

✧ You know those stories you read about where someone’s husband gave his wife flowers religiously every single week -- that’s some Obispo Losa type of shit

✦ May be a gentleman, but definitely rough in the bedroom -- 

✧ And in Templo -- you’ve lost count the number of times he’s taken you over that table or had you down on your knees

✦ Quickies. He’s a busy man, if he’s got time he’s not going to object to you pulling him away

✧ If you’re going to “accidentally” send a needy text while he’s working or you woke up thinking you’re gonna be sassy -- please know he’ll call you on your shit

✦ He has no problem having the room cleared & one of the guys relaying that “....he wants to see you.”

✧ His patience will outlast yours any day -- so get mouthy and try and cause a scene if you want --

✦ Most def leaves a kiss against the back of your hand every time he leaves you

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[gallusrostromegalus]

So apparently I have a love of late-90's to early 10's Shonen Jump Series, because the terrible management practices there create stories that are roughed up and poked through with structural holes that my brain enjoys the shape of, like how coral likes to colonize old sunken battleships because the texture of the iron is right for it. Except instead of covering it over, Imagine if the coral entirely re-structured the battleship into a solar-powered mobile reef and also brought back Liopleurodon, because that's what I do to the shambles of a plot and That One Character The Author Did Dirty.

I'm doing it to Yu-Gi-Oh (On God, I'm still writing TPOFATGIF. I wrote 10K of it last week! I'm just not at a good update point and life keeps happening).

There's 50k of Naruto fic lurking in my drafts folder that I occasionally take out and jiggle for fun but it never wants to coagulate into something beyond a handful of emotionally wrought scenes.

In a few years, I will probably be doing it to BNHA, because it's got the same kind of editorial shrapnel holes in it, and I thought of a Very Funny OC.

...But right now, I'm doing it to Bleach.

To be clear, I love Bleach. It was the first series i wrote fanfic for, back in 2009. You're not going to see that fic directly, because I'm butchering it for spare parts to use in AEIWAM, but if you get 00's vibes from it, that's where they're coming from.

Anyway, I got back into Bleach because I underwent surgery back in January and the anesthesia did something weird but so far net positive to my brain, and I recovered a bunch of memories that I had previously lost to dengue fever resurfaced. Perhaps I should have more organs removed.

Anyway, I also was preparing to move, and re-discovered my copy of beloved children's book Seven Blind Mice, by Ed Young. Here's a PDF of the whole book for you to enjoy.

Which got me thinking about my favorite character ever to get done dirty by an author, Kaname Tousen.

Which induced a post-anesthesia manic writing spree and now there's a 100K word outline that is a full-scale rewrite that significantly restructures the plot after the structure of Seven Blind Mice so there aren't flashbacks, things are more coherently foreshadowed, and The Great Forces Of The Universe are also Bad Puns.

The title is An Elephant Is Warm And Mushy, or AEIWAM for the tags.

Highlights of the fic/draft so far below the cut:

If TPOFATGIF is about pairs and duos and parallels and opposities and other things about the number 2, AEIWAM is about Triads, balances and cycles and other things relating to the number 3. The cycle of Samsara- Life, Death and Rebirth. The Living World, The Spirit World, and The Demon World. Creation, Preservation and Destruction. Freedom, Peace and Justice. Hot smutty threesomes, you get the idea.

Also this fic is gonna be rated E, no way around it. That's Load-Bearing, Thematically Relevant Smut.

I mean Bleach itself has Triads baked right in- Shingami, Hollows and Quincies. If anything, I'm just expanding on the theme.

Changed some backstories, mostly in the form of adding a few spare rooms on, for extra dimensions and flavor. -Tousen was a Librarian before he was a Shinigami. -Unohana was besties with Yamamoto's Ex-Wife. -Kenpachi was raised by Eagles. -Gin is, very literally, A Dick.

Featuring Fun New OCs Including but not limited to: -Yamamoto's Ex-Wife, who now runs the Best Little Whorehouse in the Rukongai (it's unionized!) -Kakyo is technically a canon character but she got fridged so hard she doesn't have a surname. I've fixed that. -A Hollow that is The Looney Toons Roadrunner. Just describing him and his backstory has made at least two people cry :) -Speaking of Unfridged Women Who still technically die: Uryuu's Mom is an active and plot-important character who kicks Isshin in the nuts for being a terrible father. -A Gary Larson Expy -Minazuki's twin, who is both better and worse. Sorta depends on how Afraid you are of dying vs being transformed into something unrecognizable.

Ichigo and friends are still there, though they're not the primary focus of the story.

wait

that's a lie

Orihime is the Main Character, really.

She becomes God!

Anyway, Tatsuki, Mizurio and Keigo were wildly underused in canon and they get to do stuff too.

And by "Stuff" I mean things like "Malicious Application of OSHA safety regulations", "Malicious installation of Wi-Fi" and "Straight-Up Lying To God"

I love writing little gremlin Bastards

Also, I like writing teenagers with High INT and terrible WIS scores, so the first thing they do upon hearing Rukia was arrested is research famous prison breaks and hostage rescues.

So the Soul Society arc goes HILARIOUS

Also, Uryuu gets to be a Horse Girl.

But the Main Big Change to this AU is: What if, instead of... whatever Kubo was going for in the original version, Tousen was working with Aizen against his will?

Because "Disabled, socially wronged guy with an impressive commitment to the bit" is a weird and kinda cringe villain but a GREAT protagonist.

Also lets me write Aizen as a really awful, slimy fuck and it's so fun.

Also Also, lets me really get into the GUTS of what's wrong with the soul society (and the greater universe) and there's some JUICY bits of canon lurking in there that are so much fun to fuck around with.

Also Also Also I love my blorbo and I want him to have a happy ending.

You know

AFTER The Miseries (TM)

Some Scenes, out of context: "So now God's Ass is blocking the exit from Hell. This is, as you can imagine, Less Than Ideal." Explained Gin, poking buttons and flipping switches in a very confident manner for someone who did not technically know what he was doing. With a mechanical grinding, something that looked unpleasantly like a very large taffy puller started moving. Aizen stared at it, hoping against all evidence it was not for what he imagined. "-So here's where you come in!" Gin explained, entirely too cheerfully. -- Orihime inhaled, and her chest rose like the ascendant Continental plate on a fault line. "ULQUIORRA JACOB FERNANDEZ CIFER GET YOUR PASTY LITTLE ASS DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT OR SO HELP ME-!" She did not need to finish the threat as the hollow had frozen mid-flight the second she started shouting and fell to the floor in front of them like a lead zeppelin. "Thank you." She said, pulling him up by his tail and throwing him over her shoulder like a traumatized sack of potatoes and turned to his opponent. "Ichigo?" She asked, more gently. "Are you still in there?" The hollowfied Boy stood in menacing silence. Renji's grip tightened on zabimaru, and Rukia gripped Grimmjow's ankle with both hands, prepared to use him as a club. "…holyshitthatwasreallyfuckinhotorihime." he wheezed, melting a bit. "LOL yeah you're fine." Renji laughed, slapping him on the shoulder with relief. "Your middle name is Jacob-Fernandez?" Grimmjow laughed from where he was still being dragged along the floor. "This is news to me too." Said Ulquiorra, having gone limp like a ferret or batch of overcooked spaghetti in shock. "Shut it or I'm bike-locking you two together." Orihime threatened. "Ichigo! Romance later, you're on point. Renji! Grab that bag of electronics. Rukia! Where's your brother? this place is rigged to explode in half an hour." "Promise?" Asked Ichigo, only to get dope-slapped by both Rukia and Renji. "…Do humans store everything in their boobs?" asked Vivi, watching in growing horror an awe as Orihime retrieved a strange technological device, a coil of wire and an eight-inch multitool from her cleavage. "Humans that got forced to wear a stupid uncomfortable dress that's probably fetishwear that DOESN'T HAVE ANY FUCKING POCKETS do." Growled Orihime. -- Oetsu stared at Kenpachi and remembered the lament of a friend of his who bred the finest hunting dogs, who once had a wolf break into the kennels. The horror had been twofold, she had explained. First, that there was now an incredibly powerful and dangerous beast loose in her home, then later, after the trials and injuries of getting such a creature out again- The terrible knowledge that she would never be able to create something more Magnificently Robust, More Brutally Cunning, More Sublimely Beautiful, More Perfect than the random mutations of Biology and unguided forces of natural selection already had, and the inescapable notion that her Life's Work was little more than a child's doodles of Nature's Masterwork. Oetsu looked upon Kenpachi, and understood her sorrow. "Hey, what's wrong with your boss?" Kenpachi muttered to the closest Asuichi. "Oh, he's probably just having an artistic crisis." She shrugged.

Anyway, pls send me some asks about any of the above

I should probably explain AEIEAM if I want more people to talk about it with, huh.

[oftenderweapons]

Sooo, about the ask thing. First off all congratulations I love you and your writing 💜 you seem like such a nice, intelligent and funny person. But was thinking what if namjoon comes home drunk and guilty about something he did and vixen comforts him. Love u💋

Title: Drunk (&) In Love

Pairing: Namjoon x reader (nicknamed Vixen)

Wordcount: 2.6k

Genre: crack, fluff, (also, vaguely allusive)

Rating: 18+ cause THESE TWO ARE A MESS FOR EACH OTHER

Synopsis: apparently Namjoon's stag party went a bit too wild. Mostly since he was drinking guilt away. What could that possibly be about?

Trigger warnings: swearing, consumption of alcohol, horny!drunk Joon, he clumsily tries to seduce his fianceé in front of yoonjintae (second-hand embarrassment), stressing over vows, mentions of kinky letters, they discuss future and the fear of marrying young and pretty much out of the blue and they be mentioning the idea of having kids. Also, watch Vixen being the caregiver.

Author's note: Thanking the sweetheart @ironicarmy !!! I love exchanging WIPs and Beta reading! It was so fun and I AM LOVING YOUR WIP SO HARD IM GONNA EXPLODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can't wait for it to be out so I can fangirl in public LOLOLOL; also thanking @dopesportsoperatorzonk for this request! (I got your feminism ask, I promise I'm almost done, I wanted to have a quite thorough view before replying and I'm still thinking about some stuff, but it'll be readdy super soon!!!)

Here's my masterlist, btw, and enjoy 💜✨

You weren't supposed to wait up for him, but it was like your sixth sense was telling you to do precisely that. And your premonition turned especially accurate once you were met with the sorry sight of Namjoon hanging off Taehyung's and Seokjin's body, grinning as he saw you appear at the door, head to toe smitten, only to turn to his friends with a sneer as he realised you were wearing his favourite silk robe. The deep crimson colour seemed to spark the colour of your hair on fire, and make the lineaments of your face sharper, older, with a kind of allure he still couldn't understand. “Little fox,” he said, going grabby hands while his arms were still around his friends' shoulders.

You tried to keep your expression stern as you looked at the two men literally holding him up. “What is this? Didn't I tell you to bring him home whole and safe?”

Taehyung lowered his gaze to the floor.

“Is this your idea of safe, Seokjin? I expected better.”

“You know him. He did this to himself.” Yoongi spoke neutrally from behind the three.

“Yoongi. Him being a fucking grizzly doesn't mean he can hold his liquor. Bring him in,” you said, freeing the entryway for the triplet coming in, Yoongi in tow.

“We should have brought him to the dorms,” he muttered.

“Dorms?!? Aneeyo…” Namjoon babbled, shaking his head, falling with his ass on the sofa. “No babylove in dorms,” he said with a hiccup. “Hello, little one,” he purred, grabbing your hips and trying to pull you towards him.

You blushed and slapped at his wrists. “I'll deal with you later—”

“Feisty brat,” he spoke sultrily, making Yoongi shake his head while Seokjin and Taehyung snickered before being chastised by your scolding stare.

“How come he's drunk off his ass and the three of you are perfectly okay?”

“He's the one getting married,” Taehyung replied, matter of factly. “And yes, he was the one who swallowed a bottle of hard liquor without even flinching.”

You glance at Namjoon with a scornful expression.

He did some very drunk, very clumsy attempt at a wink that made you inhale as you desperately looked for a crumb of patient left.

“You'd better go home, before I smack you all on the head,” you said, shooing them off.

“You'd have to reach it first,” Taehyung muttered, making Seokjin giggle, Yoongi rubbing his face at the verbal violence that was about to come.

“Kim Taehyung. I may not be tall enough for your royal head, but your girlfriend is my best friend. I won't say much more because I'm sure your friends aren't interested in your ass getting bruised.”

Yoongi smiled smugly at that one.

“Hell yeah…” Namjoon chuckled from the sofa, one hand reaching for the back of your thigh.

“No. Not now.”

“Later then?” He asked with puppy eyes before they turned into a very tipsy version of his intense dragon glance. “You’re so sexy when you’re mean,” he rumbled, a hand reaching for your thigh underneath the robe.

“Kim Namjoon, if you don’t stop I will unwife you in this instant.” Still, the other three men in the room were a mess of embarrassed coughing and teasing snorts. “You can all go home right now,” you said with a curt tone.

“You’re not gonna be able to take him to bed by yourself.” Yoongi cocked an eyebrow as he spoke calmly.

“Mh, Vixen, take me to bed, please,” Namjoon murmured as he tried to seduce you, just as you looked at him and replied, “No need to take him to bed. He’s sleeping on the sofa tonight.”

“See? I told you she found out! She has a sixth sense for this stuff! She can sense it! She can smell fear! I told you!!!” Namjoon babbled, grabbing your wrist. “Little fox...” he cooed, making a fool of himself.

“Go home. All of you. Now.”

Taehyung was the first to leave without even saying goodbye. He knew he would pay for it. Seokjin was the next, saying bye to Namjoon very briefly before bowing to you — just slightly. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, goodnight,” he apologised, making his way out.

“Yoongi?”

He rubbed his neck. “I’m sorry. Really. I— I didn’t do my job.”

You shook your head. “This is a mess I’ll have to deal with.”

“You know you’ll kind of have to deal with him for the rest of your life, right?” Yoongi looked at Namjoon, head in his hands, fingers tugging at it nervously.

You followed his gaze, meeting Namjoon in the poorest of states. “I know. He’s my business now. Go.”

Yoongi left without much resistance after that, the door of your apartment finally shutting for good.

“I’m sorry,” Namjoon said, staring up at you as you stood before him. “I fucked up, I’m sorry.”

You placed your hands on his cheeks. “What happened, Joonie bear?”

He shook his head, lip going wobbly. “I’m so sorry!” he babbled again, eyes glossy with unshed tears.

“Oh, no, baby…” you managed to whisper before he dove for your lap, burying his face there. “What happened, love?”

He shook his head.

“Nothing’s gonna change the fact that I love you, big bear.” You caressed his hair as his voice confessed, half-muffled against your tummy.

“I sneaked a look at the dress.” You could hear his words coming out from a pout.

“Joonie—”

“Please don’t unwife me!” He cried out, his voice way too high pitched. “I don’t want to sleep alone ever.” He hugged your legs and held you closer. “I want to sleep next to you until I die.” He got even more emotional as he went on. “I want you to always pet my hair and tell me you’re proud of me and cook for me and be my sweetheart and my babylove and my little fox forever, even when we’re old and I get bald.”

You smiled and invited him to let go of your legs before sitting down, your legs slightly parted laying across the sofa. “Come here, big bear,” you said, patting your stomach. He did as he was told, laying his head below your chest and stretching his long body all over the seat. He struggled a little, his sense of balance temporarily worse than usual. “Soon I’ll be lawfully your bride. Forever. We’re almost there, honey. Just a week.”

He nodded.

“And then I’ll be your little fox until I’m nothing but ashes. And then some,” you reassured him, petting his lovely head, digging your fingers into the knots in his upper back.

“Writing the vows was so difficult.”

“I know baby,” you kept rubbing at his trapezoi until he released a relieved grunt. “I know that must have been really stressful for you.”

“I had to rewrite them sixteen times. Sixteen!” His hand absentmindedly reached your thigh and started rubbing small circles there. “Everytime, they were too long, or too cliché, or something I just couldn’t read in public because you know our letters.”

“I know our letters,” you confirmed, thinking about his messy handwriting on cheap paper, and entire sheets of words that he sent you everytime something important happened, everytime he had to travel for his job, everytime he just needed to make love to you on a deeper level. And then, thinking of your replies, always heartfelt, emotional, with fine calligraphy on expensive ivory sheets often marred with rough spots where a tear fell — most of the time because of joy and gratitude and obliterating, overwhelming love. “Will you read to me the other sixteen versions too, once we’re alone?”

He nodded. “I’ll read them all. I’ll write new ones every day. Small, simple, absolutely mundane. Stuff like, ‘I’ll do the dishes tonight’, or ‘Let’s go out for dinner’, or ‘I wanna grow old with you’ or ‘I don’t wanna watch that porn tonight, let’s just stare into each other’s eyes while naked and have the best tantric sex ever performed’.”

You chuckled and placed your hand atop of his. “I like the last one.”

“But I couldn’t say it in front of your parents, therefore I couldn’t write it in our vows.” He scoffed and shook his head before planting it between your breasts, nosing at the lapels of the robe until he could kiss your naked skin.

“I might have written something along those lines in one of my drafts.” Having this conversation with Namjoon while he was halfway drunk off his ass was extremely entertaining; however, you felt sad at the possibility of him not remembering this moment.

“What else did you write in that draft?” He closed his eyes, waiting for your soft voice to calm him down.

You smiled and slightly teared up at the thought, his chin propped on your chest, one of his thumbs reaching out to dry up a tear. “I wrote that I hope I get to make you smile every day and see that insanely cute and sexy dimple of yours every morning after you wake up. And I want to be the only one listening to your deep bedroom voice waking me up. And I want to listen to you as you talk to our children. I wanna hear all the stories, and watch your smile shine on their faces.”

Namjoon hid his face against your chest, feeling tears roll down his cheeks.

“I want them to have your eyes. I want to see your complete wonder as they learn about the world, as you teach them about the world in that grand and beautiful way you see it.” You sniffled and he cupped your face, kissing your lips so slowly, the heavy tang of liquor barely tainting the moment.

“I want to walk by your side, until we’re too tired to walk and watch time pass by, without worries, without haste. I don’t care where we’re walking because you were the place I was destined to be.”

Namjoon couldn’t explain tenderness or love or devotion or faith as deep as the ones he felt for you. He probably wasn’t skilled or trained enough.

“I know we’re young. I know this is more of a bet than an actual marriage. I’ve seen people who have been together for years part ways so easily and I don’t even know why you said yes to me. Sometimes I doubt I’m deserving and I see in how many ways I’m lacking and I ask myself, 'why the hell did she say yes to me?' ” He snickered sarcastically. “I wouldn’t have said yes to myself.”

You shook your head and kissed his brow.

“But I’ve been with other people and you have too and… I don’t know, sometimes I feel like this will take a lot of effort but then I hear you laugh, I hear you calling my name and I know, I can feel that that’s what it is supposed to sound like.”

You smiled at him, fixing your position so he could lay on you without worrying about smashing your body.

“I’m so confused and so grateful for this. It’s like… Suddenly winning the lottery. One minute you’re just a person and next you realise you’re going to be a husband. And you don’t know what’s going to happen to you, how your life is going to change, but with you I’m not scared.” He chuckled. “Well, I am. But you make me braver than my fears. And I know I could lose you any day. I could fuck up, or we could just drift apart or something. But any moment spent with you is bigger. It’s better and brighter.”

By now you were a teary mess, face drenched in tears, his arms around your torso as he held onto you. “My soul has found a home in you and I will cherish it. I’ll take care of that home. I’ll make sure nothing damages it. I’ll help you work on it if you want to change it. I will make more room when our family gets bigger. I will fix it when I can. I’ll stay by your side when I’m not skilled enough to heal you. To fix you.” He sniffled, voice hollow and weak as he spoke through a lump in his throat. “And I’ll leave if you ever ask me to.”

You shook your head and hugged him, letting him sob in your arms. “I hope I never lose you.”

“Don’t be a silly bear,” you comforted him, lulling him, holding him close to your heart. “I’ll be your bride. Your spouse. Your wife.” You kissed his head. “And your home. Your relief. Your dirty, secret affair. Your devoted companion too. Your goddess and your toy. I’ll be your friend. And the mother of your children, when we want to.”

God, if he wanted to… But first, he needed to enjoy having you all to himself for a couple more years. Just to make sure you hadn’t been both bold and immature and absolutely stupid about getting married almost two years after meeting for the first time.

“So I’m not getting unwifed for sneaking a peek at the dress?”

You shook your head. “It looks completely different once worn.”

“Really?” His expression exploded with euphoria.

You smiled. “Really.”

His drunken grin was back. “So I’m gonna sleep on the bed right?”

You acted as if you were even thinking about it. “You’re really drunk.”

“I’m soberer now.”

“And you embarrassed me in front of your friends,” you reminded him with a cocked eyebrow.

“Not my fault my wifey’s so hot,” he said with a slightly more accomplished wink.

“Not your wifey yet,” you reminded him.

He tutted. “Just a matter of days.” He kissed your sweet spot, on the side of your neck. “It’s only a technicality.”

You looked at him suspiciously. “A technicality, you say?”

He nodded and held you tighter.

“This technicality could still leave you at the altar, waiting,” you teased.

“Come on, I want to sleep next to you.” He kissed your cheek. “On our bed.” He kissed you again. “Where we’ll be making so many babies.”

“Stop right there, mister.” You placed a finger against his plush lips before you shook your head no. “No babies for a few years. I want you all mine, hubby.”

He chuckled and pressed his forehead against your chest bone. “Okay, fine, but I just meant hypothetically. You know, for practice.”

“Yeah, I think I could use some practice. I want to be perfect at it.”

He smiled and kissed your nose. If only she knew how perfect she is, he thought, haphazardly sitting up and waiting for you to help him on his feet, the whole discourse sobering him up enough that he managed to sit on the bench in the bathroom as you washed his face and brushed his teeth, as you undressed him and helped him in the shower, undressing and joining him, his body too tired and unstable to initiate anything fancy.

And then you towelled him up, rubbing body lotion on his always-too-dry legs before helping him in his boxers.

And through the process, he understood how it was that you loved him so much anytime he got you ready for bed. He should let you do this more often. Especially when he wasn’t exhausted or drunk, so he could properly enjoy being cuddled and fondled and babied.

What he didn’t expect was for it to feel so comfortable when you slid up against his back on the bed, spooning his ridiculously large body with your smaller one. “Sleep tight, big bear,” you said before kissing his nape. “Eight more sleeps and we’ll be married.”

He smiled. “Goodnight, little fox.” And with that, he caught your hand in his and fell asleep.

[sundiscus]

wangxian dragon age au: ficlet

[part of a larger au i’ve mapped out + started drafting, but want to post as snippets for now! i’ve taken many liberties with the worldbuilding, and as such i think most can be inferred with context if you’re unfamiliar with dragon age.

part one now here

this snippet: the meet-ugly, ~1.7k]

✨✨✨

When Lan Wangji wakes up, he isn’t alone.

He doesn’t realize it right away. The first thing he notices is that, this time, there are no shackles. He shifts his hands the slightest bit, enough to confirm they are indeed free. The movement pulls at the little cuts on his fingers and forearms from where the shackles shattered apart, already scabbing over—so he has been unconscious long enough for the magebane to burn out of his system, which he confirms, finding his meridians free and clear. He’s lying on his back, something that feels slightly too soft to be a stone floor under him and something that feels slightly too rough to be a blanket draped over him. An odd green light pulses against his eyelids and the only sound is a muted, continuous hiss, like a distant waterfall. Wherever he is, it isn’t the cell from earlier.

It doesn’t matter. He won’t be here long.

He takes one more slow breath, listening closely. There. To his left, a few paces away, he hears a tiny, cut-off inhale. Now he knows where to aim. His eyes fly open as he launches himself upright, summoning his sword into his raised hand, and—

It’s like expecting the ocean and finding only a puddle. His sword flickers into existence for the barest moment, its glow illuminating a circle of stone walls, a pallet beneath him, and then Lan Wangji’s lungs stutter, pressure squeezing his temples, as if all air has been sucked out of the room. Bichen dissipates and Lan Wangji is left gasping, one hand still raised uselessly in the air.

From the shadows, someone says: “Ah, that’s not going to work.”

Lan Wangji is already looking to the side. He sees only a figure at first, because when his sword disappeared so had the strange, omnipresent green glow. The glow returns now, slowly illuminating a young man curled against the opposite wall, his hair a dark, tangled wave over his shoulders, wrists chained together with thick iron manacles. For a moment his eyes, staring right back at Lan Wangji, are the brightest thing in the room.

“What do you mean?” Lan Wangji demands, finding his voice. “Is there a suppression array?” It must be powerful to choke off his magic so finitely. If he can see it, though, he can figure out how to undo it.

The man wrinkles his nose. “Not exactly. But—ah, ah,” he says as Lan Wangji starts to stand, “don’t move too fast, the blowback from that is going to be pretty harsh.”

Lan Wangji understands almost instantly as a wave of vertigo hits him. His knees buckle before he’s halfway to his feet and he collapses back on the pallet, bracing his weight on his elbow to keep from falling entirely. When his ears stop ringing he can hear his own ragged breathing.

Enough, he thinks, and forces himself to even his breaths. To shift focus. Clearly whatever precautions Wen Chao and his soldiers have taken to secure this room go beyond magebane and a simple suppression array. He won’t be able to escape by sheer force like last time, but this will still be no more than a brief detour on his journey. He will make sure of it.

Yesterday—was it yesterday, now? The chamber has no windows, just the eerie green glow emanating from the walls—Lan Wangji had been traveling with a retinue of junior enchanters to retrieve research texts from the Circle in Hedong, where scholars claimed to have promising studies related to fade rifts. They were nearly there when a raven alighted on Lan Wangji’s shoulder, bearing the message: Siege on Gusu Circle. Reconvene to the north. He’d sent the junior enchanters ahead and turned back before the raven even took flight.

(The note had not mentioned his brother, so his brother must be alive. Rumors were already spreading outward from Gusu as he rode, saying Wen Xu had an archdemon, Wen Xu burned the Gusu library to the ground. They did not say Wen Xu killed Zewu-jun, Wen Xu killed a mage with a glowing hand. So his brother must have escaped. Knowing this did not stop Lan Wangji’s heart from racing as he spurred his horse faster, past refugee settlements and Templar camps, toward the distant gash in the sky.)

And then: a poisoned arrow biting into his arm, his horse crumpling on a hardpacked road outside Lingchuan. The Wen soldiers, ready for him. (Not ready enough, when at least six of their bodies fell before Lan Wangji did.) One day in the first cell, his failed escape attempt.

And now: magicless, trapped in a strange room with a strange, sharp-eyed prisoner watching him struggle to sit upright, the slow crawl of time a physical weight on Lan Wangji’s shoulders.

“Honestly, just ride it out,” the prisoner is saying. He has his chained hands up and open, like he’s trying to calm a spooked animal. “You’ll feel better in about an hour. Maybe less, if you’ve had a good meal recently.”

Lan Wangji’s head spins sickeningly. He ignores it, pushing himself up until he can prop himself against the wall, putting himself eye-level with the prisoner, at least.

“Or sit up anyway, I suppose,” the prisoner says. His voice has a ragged edge, as if it’s scraping its way out of his throat. “Sorry, I’d offer you some water, but I drank it all before I knew I’d have company. What are you doing here, anyway?”

If First Enchanter Lan wants his nephew back, he’ll have to lend us a few books, Wen Chao had mocked from outside the first cell. And if he wants you back with all your limbs attached, he’ll have to throw in trading deeds with the eastern lyrium mines for good measure. Do you think he can deliver that before you die here?

Wen Chao wanted demonic texts, Lan Wangji had guessed, the ones hidden deep within the library. No doubt for some dangerous, power-hungry scheme, and no doubt connected to the rifts. From there, it wasn’t hard to piece together that the attack on the Circle was meant to discover which texts were critical enough to be rescued and transported away, and likely steal them in transit. There are protocols for such events, Lan Wangji knows, and his presence here means the raid was unsuccessful, and he will be used as leverage for a second attempt.

If Wen Chao meant to scare Lan Wangji with his demands, he had only succeeded in doing the opposite. Because if all they want from Lan Wangji’s family are books and deeds, it means they don’t know about his brother yet.

Lan Wangji doesn’t share any of this. “Political prisoner,” is all he says.

“Ahh.” The man nods. “I figured, what with the…” He gestures at his own forehead, chains clinking as he does. “You’re obviously a Lan. Someone will pay well to have you back home.”

“They should not have to pay at all,” Lan Wangji bites out. Something about the prisoner’s casual attitude grates at him. The world outside is quite literally falling apart at the seams, and Lan Wangji doesn’t have time to be used as bait in Wen Chao’s small-minded games.

The prisoner shrugs. “Yeah, but there’s not much choice at the moment, is there? For now you’re stuck here with me. I’m—my name is Wei Ying, by the way. What should I call you, while we wait?”

“Do the Wen soldiers enter this cell often?” Lan Wangji says instead of answering. “Is there a chance of overpowering them?”

A grimace. “Often enough. And no, I’ve tried. They’re stupid, but they’re prepared.”

Lan Wangji casts another glance over the man—Wei Ying—and carefully keeps any skepticism out of his expression. Then he looks around properly for the first time. Wei Ying is right—there’s no visible array on the floor, no glyphs on the circular stone walls. The green glow fades as it climbs the wall, leaving the ceiling cloaked in shadow and dizzying to look at, like an endless tunnel. Disturbingly, there isn’t a visible door, either. There isn’t much of anything but the one straw pallet, a lidded pot against the wall, an empty bowl next to Wei Ying, bone-dry, and Wei Ying himself.

“A Lan,” Wei Ying says when Lan Wangji is silent for long enough, pitched low, almost like he’s talking to himself. “I’m surprised Wen Chao would be so bold. He has to know that won’t go over well in the long run, I wonder if his father has any idea? No, he would’ve sent Wen Xu. Maybe Wen Chao thinks that by the time someone comes for you, he’ll have—” Wei Ying cuts himself off. Blinks. “You are real, aren’t you?”

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you’re not…” Wei Ying waves a hand at the room around them. “But, ah, why would I dream up a whole Knight-Enchanter? A Lan at that? You felt real enough, when I dragged you onto the pallet, but it’s still hard to tell.” Lan Wangji must have some reaction to that—to knowing this stranger’s hands have been on him, when he was unconscious—because Wei Ying adds, defensive: “What was I supposed to do? They left you on the floor.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t have an answer to that.

Wei Ying tips his head back against the wall. “Well. Your Circle, they have your phylactery, right? They’ll find you. Pay the ransom, or lay siege to Wen Chao’s little fortress here. That would be nice.” He casts his gaze over Lan Wangji again. “Looks like our captors were gentle enough in the meanwhile.”

There’s dried blood tugging at the hair of Lan Wangji’s temple, and he still has the nauseating sense that if he moves too fast he might collapse again. Gentle isn’t how Lan Wangji would describe his treatment so far. But it is also far below the threshold of what he can withstand, so it doesn’t seem like a point worth arguing. “And you?” he hears himself say.

“Uh.” Wei Ying shifts and holds up his shackled hands. “Less gentle, I suppose.”

“I meant—who will be paying your ransom.”

Wei Ying drops his hands into his lap. “Oh. No one.”

“Then,” Lan Wangji says, “why are you here?”

For the first time, Wei Ying flashes a smile. A hooked dagger in the dim light.

“I have something they want.”

[becausethathappens]

Will you please write a super angsty fic where Link is freaking out because he thinks the wedding vows he has written aren't good enough and Rhett helps him go over them and make corrections and says they're perfect but also, just says the vows he would say for Link if it was them like it should've been because he's heartbroken and Link can tell but their hands are tied and they don't know what to do so they soldier on without saying a word, but wordlessly communicating lifelong love and misery and everything, maybe comfort as well?

i'm really really sad and i can't shake it off and i really want some good angst and hurt/comfort and i really love you, maura, you're awesome

I don't do unhappy endings, anon. I'm confident you don't either. In fiction or otherwise. So, pardon this if it’s not what you expected.

Please enjoy? This was done a little hastily to share it with you (and I should be writing other things per usual) but I've had a rough week and I want to hopefully make someone smile. (I have way angstier stuff in the drafts and I will be sure to get those out eventually, too.) You’ll feel better soon.  🤞  Thank you! 💞

-———————-

now or forever

4k - Rhett writes Link vows.

If you were my boy, Blue

I’d bathe you in honeys (sp?)

I’d sing write you a love song

I’d shoot you a star**

If you were my boy, Blue

There ain’t nothing in this life I wouldn’t give

From my heart, to my toes, to my fingers, my nose (**)

Whatever it takes just to watch you live 

continue to ‘ ’ grow with you like a vine ‘round a rose 

If you were my boy, Bue

I wouldn’t want you all for myself

There’s no star bright enough to match your lightin’

In sickness, blue, so certainly while we have health

Hand in hand, no longer fightin’

What’s destiny (**)

You and & me

If you were my boy, Blue

I'd marry you

&

Thank God for Rhett. Giving him, delivering him, blessing him with Rhett.

Link is in the middle of a spiral (what he’ll later recognize as a panic attack) when Rhett arrives, the eve of his wedding. Bailing him out of this with pen, paper, and a smile.

Link has always been good at improv.

Though Rhett tended to find the words to start. These were his own vows and Link has been putting time to sit and start them off for weeks. Now that he has to, he’s dumbfounded, despite being deeply in love.

Amidst all the planning and chaos, writing his vows was such a given that Link left it as priority sixty-seven on a list of many more.

Unfortunately, even as busy as they’ve been, that list was shredded with the “who gifted what” tracking sheet (both literally, accidentally, and figuratively) back around the bridal shower and it’s been anarchy ever since.

So he thanks God for Rhett, who’s here, to stop another needless disaster from happening.

That same generous God, however, watches him plagued with thoughts of utter devotion at Rhett’s willingness to drop everything on a weeknight and rush over to help Link find his words.

His lyrics, really, is what Link has in mind. Since they used to write songs together and this felt much the same. He’s been floundering all night and now that Rhett’s here, he knows he’ll at least get what he needs done. Even if it’s not all he wants, right now.

That same God seeks judgment on his every decision or flinch against His will, for any reason, to spite him.

For this reason.

He wants to smush Rhett’s face and kiss him. Deeply. He doesn’t.

Even if there were sometime in the past that he could get away with a platonic smooch, now he can’t. He simply could not prevent that from escalating.

So, he merely tightens his grip on the wrinkled scrap paper in his hand and scrunches his eyes.

“Why can’t it be you up there…” Link bemoans, loudly, in his frustration.

Rhett’s eyes widen, in horror, and Link slams his other hand at his mouth, rolling his eyes. “Not like - I mean - why can’t you go say my lines for me. You’re so much better at this kinda thing.”

“Let me read what you’ve got,” Rhett says.

After some review, Rhett sighs, not unkindly and sits down next to Link. “Let’s just talk through what you’re trying to say because, yeah, this reads like liturgy.”

“Ain’t is supposed to? It’s in a chapel!”

“What do you like about her?” Rhett asks, ignoring his nitpicking. “Christy?” Rhett stares at him, waiting, too upset for Link to chastise but clearly wanting to.

“She’s patient,” Link says, reminded by the similar. Rhett folds over the book to an open page and clicks the pen in his hand, writing that down. “A-And she’s kind. Like considerate, ‘specially with babies and little animals. Sh-She does this thing where she immediately drops to their eye-level to make sure they don’t feel unheard or seen. Probably ‘cause she’s always been so tall…”

Rhett’s still writing.

“Then when I’m sick, she forces me to rest. You know I hate that,” Link says, voice rising a little, at the memory. “But you know I need that. You won’t be the last to make me stop and smell the roses or take a break, once in a while.”

“Her hair, write, her hair - the way it looks in the sunshine. Like warm caramel with flecks of gold. She’s a vision, an angel. Especially when she’s wearing all white, like,” Link says, pausing to point to Rhett’s undershirt and pale grey sweats. “Makes blondes look ethereal-like, always has.”

“Oh, and her voice. Sometimes, the way her accent catches, well, you know she don’t like to sing like us, never has, but when she says certain things, asks a question the right way - it’s music. The way it harmonizes with my answer, reminds me of singing, reminds me of us.”

Rhett keeps writing, quiet, and focused.

After a short time, Link can’t stop and wants to crane over to see what he’s come up with. Rhett hands it over after crossing a final “t” somewhere on the page.

“Those’re good, Link, but I think you need to keep closer to what I wrote, leave out the stuff about me.”

“Stuff about you?” Link asks, having spoken in a stream-of-conscious style, Link forgets most of what he even said

Rhett looks away, shakes his head.

Distracted by the desire to read the rest, Link abandons the lingering questions he has about Rhett’s suggestion and response.

“These are great, man, thanks,” Links says, pushing a soft hand into Rhett’s side.

His eyes scan to the bottom where Rhett’s added a few lines about the journey, the marriage, all the ceremonial aspects of the day for him to close with, but then something more.

Something about him.

Rhett catches him catch it and looks further away. “I know Christy pretty well, too, y’know. Y’all are just alike, in that way. She might need some back-up vows, to have and hold.”

Link reads them.

“You know, just in case.”

Link looks up and tries to laugh.

He doesn’t laugh.

He goes back to reading them.

Rhett shifts uncomfortably, touches the back of his neck, and shuts his eyes.

“Rhett, these ’re…”

“I know, bo, you can forget ‘em,” Rhett excuses, still not meeting Link’s gaze. “You want me to… I can rewrite the others on a different - I can turn the page and write ‘em there so you can just…”

“Hey, hey,” Link interrupts him, mad at Rhett putting down his best friend, and eager to explain his actual thoughts. “Rhett, these are perfect. These are… I’m sad I can’t say anything as nice in return to you.”

Rhett finally looks up to acknowledge that and their gaze heats and lingers.

“Not that I…” Link stutters to clarify. “Y-You’d have to be a - if that’s something that was gonna - you know - if that was gonna work…”

His mind does it’s usual jump to a visual for the worst case scenario depicting the implication he stumbled across. Him out eight grand on the wedding. Not to mention a wife, a family, a future, a faith -

a friend -

Link gulps, pushing that back away, pushing them both forward, in his estimation.

It’s too much to bear to think about for another second. When he glances at Rhett, he can’t get a read on his face what he thinks about it, and that’s scary enough for him to want to abandon the concept altogether.

“Christy’s gonna love them.”

It’s enough, saying his fiancée's name, to ground him again. Enough to make it okay for him to grab Rhett’s palm and squeeze it in thanks, between them.

Rhett’s made his choice to give up on film school.

Link’s made his choice to give up on whatever schoolboy obsession he has with monopolizing all of Rhett’s days and nights. 

He’ll stick to the days or every other weekend, however they can still fit time together, is fine by him. This ceremony, tomorrow, feels as much about his graduation from friend to husband, and all that that entails.

They’re adults.

They both know there’s a lot of sacrifices to be made and this feels like the first time he’s really acknowledging how hard they’re going to be to make. He hopes they’ll still see each other.

He hopes their kids will get along.

He has a lot of hopes.

All of them involve Rhett.

There’s a lot he should write down for when Rhett finds his own bride to wed.

Link notices, suddenly, that Rhett is crying. The same part of him that's nearly broken the headwind of these conflicting emotions turns back to comfort him.

“Hey, don’t cry,” Link soothes, realizing he’s also still holding Rhett’s hand.

“‘M sorry,” Rhett intones, the words bubble up and out of him simultaneously, sounding like water draining in a filled sink. “And the night before your wedding, good Heavens.”

“Hey, I’ve been crying all week,” Link says, waving a hand at the stress that planning a wedding has kept put on him. “Nothing I haven’t seen in the mirror.”

Rhett laughs, rubbing a thumb over his own thigh in a way that brushes upwards against the place Link’s clasping his hand. Link nearly pulls his hand back, thinking Rhett’s trying to get him to sense his want for space, but when he meets his eye it’s clear he’d like nothing less.

“I think I’m just -” Rhett starts to say, trailing off. The light from the lamp on the far coffee table is the only thing on in the room. Link drops his gaze a few inches to try and see more of Rhett’s downturned eyes as he hems and haws. He squeezes their hands together, again, this time clasping it more firmly, still pressing Rhett’s large palm down from above. “I think I’m just a li’l jealous, is all.”

It’s the quietest admission he’s heard from Rhett since he told him he failed their chemistry mid-term in eleventh grade.

Link is also so lost at the innocence of the admission that he can only think of follow-up questions. “Of me?”

Rhett looks at him for a long, long minute and finally, when Link’s gaze remains confused for the whole length of the pause, he shakes his head, no.

Then he waits. 

He waits for Link to realize what he means.

But he’s still waiting when Link, oblivious, moves onward trying to comfort Rhett, instead of understanding him fully.

The tension in the room is palpable as Link talks, but only to Rhett, it seems. Only Rhett pictures air bags being deployed in a car safety video as metal hits cinder block. Only Rhett moves his hand, though it’s all it takes to dislodge them from each other completely.

“I know you’re gonna make an amazing husband some day.” Link is saying.

Rhett’s hand aches where cool air now surrounds it.

“I know your wife is gonna get to hear you say such wonderful things about her.”

Rhett wipes his hand of the misunderstanding on the cotton of his pants.

“I know she’s gonna say the same kind of things about you, when it’s your turn up there.”

Rhett mourns the idea that this would ever be requited.

“I know she’s gonna love you, just as much as I do, so she’ll have plenty to say.”

Rhett looks away, wiping the last of his tears from his eyes. 

 “I’ll make sure she has plenty of ideas where to start.”

Rhett pats Link’s leg, in camaraderie, and nods.

And that’s it. They shoot the shit, they make a plan to meet up at a donut place for the groomsmen’s breakfast to thank them for their help, before the ceremony, and they’ll talk things through if Link’s feeling jittery still. Then Rhett’s gone.

It’s not until the next day at eleven on the dot (everyone has an agenda to follow and every moment is accounted for) that Link understands Rhett’s pain.

His mother straightens his tie and flattens the edges of his suit. “You’ll wanna know I heard Christy looks like an angel in her dress, from the girls upstairs.”

“Those actual angels you been talkin’ to, Sue?” Rhett jokes, where he’s twisting his cummerbund around every so often, bored.

“Very funny, honey,” Sue ribs back. “From the cousins, Beth and Hailee Sue. Remember they’re friends with the hairstylist you got to do the curls for Christy’s hair, today? She was over last night getting Christy ready for bed with how to wash and dry it a special kind of way. They were there, too.”

Link starts to tune her out, since there’s a lot on his mind, but then she says more.

“She says the hairstylist was talking about how jealous she was of Christy, all night, getting to marry you,” Sue relays.

“Oh, mama, please,” Link dismisses. The compliments he’s been getting have felt faker than the toupee on his uncle Bruce. That girl has never even met him. “I’m the only person here people should be jealous of, who would be jealous of Christy,” he says, trailing off, muttering his reasoning as he did. “Marrying a trainwreck like me.”

Link looks up in the mirror where some of his friends continue to mingle in various states of undress. Rhett is already dressed, however, and staring straight at Link like he’s been caught with a hand in a cookie jar.

Link’s about to ask what’s wrong when he remembers his words. Then looks again over the planes of Rhett’s face.

Last night’s words slam back into his mind and Link’s mouth drops open.

The church organ belts out an opening flurry of notes before Canon in D begins playing loudly through the sound system built into the rafters above them. Link looks up to see one of the church staff at the door instructing them to join the bridal party to line-up.

Link’s mom dashes off to where she’s paired with her nephew, Link’s favorite cousin, to be escorted down the aisle.

Rhett sees Link’s face rushing through a wash of emotions from a distance, he nods to the staffer in silent understanding that he’ll handle it, and then they’re alone.

He walks up to Link and takes his hand. He squeezes it.

“Hey, you gotta go. We gotta go. It’s showtime,” Rhett insists.

Link looks around like a bomb went off, since in some ways it did, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Rhett seems to pick up on that. He squeezes Link’s hand again.

“I’ll get over it, Link, it’s okay,” Rhett whispers, on the verge of desperation.

That confirmation is enough to fully shatter Link.

Only for a moment. 

The music continues and Rhett keeps his hand hold.

They are adults. They are in love. They have to marry. 

None of these things can be helped.

“I’m gonna be so jealous of Her, too,” Link whispers back. He squeezes Rhett’s hand one last time, as they part.

They leave.

They walk straight.

They part again.

Until later.

They move houses and cities and states.

They move mountains, inside and out.

They move together.

Much later.

They join again.

They run crooked.

They return.

To one another.

Link has spent years worrying a ring that means too much to too few people.

In the beginning, when he cries himself to sleep at what he thinks has been the mistake of a lifetime, it’s His talisman. It reminds him of the expectations upon this life he’s made.

As the years pass, however, the adherence to the bogeymen of their childhood’s rules wears thin. It starts to strictly represent love and patience.

Sacrifice.

It begins to feel like a burden. A representation of what’s been lost, not what’s been found.

He contemplates taking it off, but believes that to be a betrayal of all that it stands for to the people he stands for. 

Then, one day, (surely mid-spin) he hears Rhett tell a story about wanting to change his ring.

He watches the silver twirl as Rhett explains.

He believes he was rushed into a certain type of marriage and a certain type of life by a certain type of person.

It’s a life that he’s grown to love but the ring represents a union forced by custom and not one that’s grown through devotion. 

His ring reminds him of that too often to be good for him.

Link twists his again at the admission.

So, Rhett’s thinking about replacing the ring.

Link returns home that night in a stupor. He’s sure he said one too many things to Rhett to emphasize how wild it felt to hear him talk about changing rings.

Any memories of that day, their wedding, bring up a rush of emotions that he’s never been good at sorting through.

Today’s admission makes him feel the same spur to make use of idle, betrothed hands he feels when he cleans the fridge.

He wants to clean the slate.

He finds an old DVD copy of their wedding ceremony that he paid to have converted from miniDV some years ago. Now he struggles to find a place to watch that DVD. How quickly time has flown by.

Eventually, he ends up in his son’s room - no one’s home for the remainder of the night but he and Christy - now, he’s sitting on a bean bag, squinting at the game console’s controller trying to get the joysticks to move to “play” on screen.

The ceremony bursts to life and, like it was yesterday, Link’s nerves fizzle awake.

About halfway through the video, Christy finds him like that and sits down next to him in a thwump absorbed mostly by the stuffing of the chair.

They watch themselves smile happily at each other and Christy takes his hand.

“Should I be happy or scared to find you alone watching this on a Saturday night?” she asks, wryly, squeezing his palm.

Link doesn’t know what to say. He’s caught up in Rhett’s bygone script being spoken on screen. Words about Christy and about Link that were not their own, declared loudly in front of the congregation.

“I don’t know,” Link admits, shrugging. He doesn’t. He squeezes her hand back.

“You wanna tell me what’s eating you?”

Link hesitates, but relents. He wants that clean slate, after all. “Rhett’s getting his wedding ring replaced.”

“Replaced?” Christy asks, balking.

“Replaced, yeah,” Link responds, sure he didn’t misspeak.

“With what?” she asks.

“Oh, some new one. Fancy thing, very cool, made of trees or something. Honestly he wears the other one, the slick black one more than his wedding band half the time. He says it feels like the old one? It’s the kind of ring you get in a bauble at a vending machine crank. So, he wants a new one.”

“Jeesh,” Christy says, making a face at the screen. The camera catches Rhett stealing glances at the couple, then at the crowd, beaming at all with unbridled pride.

“Wouldn’t you be mad if I did that?” Link inquires, still baffled at the idea.

“Well, no, but don’t you love your ring? Heirloom and all that,” she says.

Link cringes. “Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I do.”

“So?”

“So, I still kind of want to and I’m not sure what that means.”

They watch the screen together.

“Do you wanna stay married?” she asks, in a small voice.

“Yes,” he breathes out.

There’s a long pause.

“To me?” she asks, her voice even smaller.

“Yes,” he breathes in.

She squeezes his hand, her confidence built back up. She begs him to join her.

“And him?” Christy whispers.

They both look the screen, the lens centered on the two of them, but their gaze is mutually torn to where Rhett stands wiping a tear from his eye at Christy reciting the last of the vows that he wrote her. Wrote him. Wrote them both.

She squeezes his hand again.

“Yes,” he breathes out.

She leans her head on his shoulder.

“You should probably get another ring, then,” she jests. “We shouldn’t have to share everything.”

The slate is clean.

There’s a lot he wants to say to Rhett about it, but just as before, he’s relied on Rhett to give him the right words to say. So, instead of words, he starts wearing Rhett’s ring.

Then, a new one, when he realizes he can match him separate from the other, all told. Have something of Rhett’s, all to himself.

In his unspoken push towards something more, their hands now match along with their steps, as they walk forward.

On the last week in July, they get ice cream at the fifth place that month to mistake them for husbands, but the first one he hears Link crow an affirmative in response.

Rhett waits for him while he triple-tips the cashier (for the guess) and pays for their cones.

“Bad joke,” Rhett says, softly, but firm.

“Who’s kidding?” Link parries back, a smirk dancing it’s way across his lips.

Rhett watches him with a wistful look of disbelief.

“Link, we’re married,” Rhett warns him.

Link shrugs. “I know. I’m just waiting for you to figure that out and minding my ice cream here, all right?”

He’s got a mouthful of vanilla bean and extra cookie crumble, the next second, so his vow ends there.

Later, at home, Rhett startles Jessie awake when he fully realizes Link’s words.

He shakes her awake. He shakes them both awake.

“I’m in love with Link,” he says, like it’s a confession.

She kisses him because so is she. So are most people.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

Rhett repeats himself.

So does she.

They stare at each other under the cover of silk and moonlight.

“We’re married,” Rhett whispers, touching his hand to hers. Their rings clink, new and shiny.

“Yeah, and so are we,” she whispers back.

They fall asleep smiling.

The next day, Rhett sneaks up behind Link while he’s working and causes him to spill his cup of coffee. He gets the stink eye for only a minute because it’s the same length of time he can stand Link’s grumpy mug before he has to swoop down and kiss him on the lips.

“You figured it out,” Link says, grinning.

“I did,” Rhett chirps as he kisses Link more.

They take a car to their house. It’s filled with their love and the history of it; before, during, and after.

“What’s this?” Link asks, dazed in their post-sex glow, naked and alive.

He spots an old chord book of theirs from last time they wrote music.

“Oh,” Rhett says, bashful. “I came looking for you here this morning, hoping you slept over again, but, uh,” Rhett stalls, looks away and tries to take the songbook from Link’s hand. Link pulls it far enough he can’t reach. “You were already at the job.”

“And?” Link asks, using his spry, sinewy body as an advantage to slink away from the bed out of Rhett’s grip. He still has the book in hand.

“Those are your vows,” Rhett explains.

Link looks down and squints, confused. These aren’t the vows that Christy read at their wedding. He’s seen that video only a few months back and is sure of it.

“Our vows,” Rhett whispers, explaining further, at Link’s puzzled look.

“It’s a love song,” Link notes, marveling at the gesture. What it means to a young version of himself that once felt like they had surely cut out and mourned the possibility of this - all of this - ever happening. To have that thought coexist with the image of a nude, hulking tree trunk of a husband laid before him smiling up adoringly felt panoptic.

“So are you.”

Link begins to cry.

“Play it for me.”

Rhett wipes his cheek.

“Get my guitar.”

They sing twice more that night, always in harmony (not always in lyric), then spend the rest of their lives together doing much the same.