#this one is much more straightforward

[gayofthefae]

You're in love with your best friend. And you initiate touch and intimate conversations all the time but it's kinda just you saying really long, sweet stuff and him going "yeah" and "cool" so you're not sure if he likes you, but you do catch him looking at you sometimes so maybe. Then for the first time in your almost decade long relationship he initiates one of those long, intimate conversations and gives a very sweet full length speech of his own, and his teary eyed telling you how lovable you are, but it's actually all just to get you to definitely not break up with your girlfriend.

You are Mike Wheeler.

The rough thing is this is actually a very comprehensible timeline. Whereas Will is receiving mad mixed signals and convincing himself he isn't, Mike actually receiving pretty consistent and logical signals with only a few contradictory thrown in there that Will doesn't reciprocate his feelings. He is the only initiator and Will is enthusiastic about what he gives but he doesn't give much back. Not that Mike is unhappy with that dynamic, it just doesn't exactly provide much "proof". So when Will wants him to stay with El, while it's a bit confusing given his past jealousy, it would shift Mike's perspective of past events more than being directly contradictory to a confusing extent. I totally get why Mike believes what he does.

You are Will Byers

[marlynnofmany]

Recreational Food

I admired the scenery as we walked. “I’m glad we came during the dry season. Looks like there wouldn’t be much solid ground otherwise.” This wide flat area was pretty clearly the flood plains for the river just over the hillside, with several tiny plateaus where huge trees had escaped getting washed away. Everything else was dirt.

Paint spread her arms beside me, basking in the sun like the little lizardy alien she was. “I’m just glad to be outside! It’s been so long since we had a delivery on an actual planet, not to mention one that smells nice.”

It smelled like dry river mud to me, which was nice enough, but maybe those trees were extra appealing to Heatseeker senses. There was a scent of something kind of like rosemary on the breeze, now that I thought about it.

Paint was still talking. “We’re not even in a hurry today! The drop-off went fine, so we can stroll back to the ship at our own pace. This is lovely. I could stay out here all day.”

The ground rumbled. Splashes and the bleats of distressed animals sounded from the direction of the river. The rumbling got louder.

I asked, “Are you familiar with the concept of ‘jinxing it’?”

Before Paint could answer, a stampede swept over the hill toward us. Paint screamed and bolted. I ran after her, frantically searching for a plateau that was both climbable and close.

“This one!” I yelled over the noise of what had to be hundreds of alien fauna. Vaguely buffalo-shaped things without horns. I’d study them more closely when they weren’t closing in fast. Paint barely heard me, so I towed her over to the plateau and boosted her up. She wasn’t a natural climber, but she made do, scrambling to safety with me close behind. We made it out of trampling range just in time.

I clambered up and lay flat under the spreading tree while Paint hyperventilated beside me, an ocean of brown fur rolling by underneath. The rocky ground shook and the tree showered us with leaves. But the branches didn’t fall and neither did we, and eventually the herd calmed down from whatever had startled them.

The problem was, they calmed down before they finished passing our tiny island. Thundering footsteps slowed to a mooing, moaning amble, with buffalo-things surrounding us for a good distance in all directions.

My phone rang. We both twitched. Luckily the animals were loud enough to miss it. I pulled the phone from my pocket, hands vibrating with adrenaline, and answered a call from the captain.

“Are you safe?” she asked, her voice distant over the phone. “We got a report of local fauna moving unexpectedly.”

I laughed, wide-eyed while Paint tried to get her breathing under control. “Yeah, we barely made it. I’m not sure how we’re going to get back, though. They’re all around us, and I don’t like our chances if we try to just walk through.”

“Yes, don’t get too close.” I heard claws on keys as Captain Sunlight checked the local information bank. “These creatures are known to be hostile. They also treat approaching shuttles like threats, which doesn’t bode well for an air rescue.”

I tried to breathe deeply and get my heart rate back to normal. “Threats that they should attack, or run from?”

“This says they face off with shuttles, and defend whatever territory they’re occupying at the time. Attempts to chase them away have been unsuccessful, as have attempts to lead them away.”

“Yeah, that’s the worst,” I said, glancing up at the thick branches above. “Our vertical access is garbage right now anyway. We’d have a hard time getting into a shuttle.”

Paint was looking a little more calm, though worried. “Maybe they’ll wander away on their own?”

I relayed the question in case Captain Sunlight hadn’t heard it. She said, “Maybe. Let me contact the local authorities for more information. Stay safe; I’ll call you back.”

I said goodbye and put the phone away, then just lay there listening to my heartbeat and the various grunts from below. Paint sniffed audibly, no doubt appreciating the spicy tree smell. I tried to enjoy the view. The buffalo-things had heavy paws instead of hooves, and their faces were misshapen to my Earth eyes, more mooselike than anything. The thick brown fur was normal enough, though.

I was trying to think of what breed of dog it reminded me of when a cloud covered the sun.

A dark cloud. The kind that might be full of rain.

“Oh no,” I said.

“That can’t be rain,” Paint said, scrambling up. “It’s not the rainy season!”

I got to my feet, clutching a branch. “It could be rain. A flash flood might solve one of our problems, but…”

“Oh, that would be so much worse!” Paint hugged her arms close. The air hadn’t gotten that much cooler yet, but rain could be bad for a cold-blooded Heatseeker. And that was even without considering whether we’d have to swim for it.

I looked around frantically. “There’s got to be something we can do. Maybe throw a rock and scare them into stampeding away again?”

We scoured the rocky plateau, but nothing came off bigger than a fingernail, and the only things up there aside from the tree were some sparse bits of grass/moss and stray dirt. Even the tree didn’t have any small branches that looked easily snapped off; they were all thick limbs. I could probably climb out over the herd if I really needed a stick, but that did not look worth it.

I checked my pockets. “Wait, I have food. Maybe that’ll help.” We’d left right before lunch, and I’d grabbed a few portable things in case the delivery took too long. I thought hard about what kind of food these creatures might like, and how they might react to it, as I knelt and emptied my pockets onto the ground.

It was all Earth stuff from the import sector of the last space station we’d stopped at. A packet of turkey jerky. Freeze-dried strawberries. A tube of peanut butter that had thankfully not ruptured in the scramble up here. Pop Rocks.

I picked up that last one, thinking fast.

Paint was reading the label on the peanut butter. “Oh, this is the one some of your people are allergic to. I suppose it’s too much to hope these creatures are as well?”

“I have a better idea,” I said, eyeing the lowest branch. It was sturdy. There were creatures below. And they were all wet from the river. I turned to Paint. “Throwing something might startle them enough to stampede if we hit one just right, but I’ll bet that’s not as startling as the sound of sudden hissing from the back of their neck.”

“Which of your foods does that??” Paint asked.

I held up the brightly colored package. “Recreational food. They’re basically sugar crystals with tiny pockets of compressed air inside. They pop and hiss when they dissolve.”

Paint shook her head. “I’m not even going to ask why.”

“Great.” I shoved the package into a thigh pocket that I’d be able to reach easily, then hooked an arm over the branch and climbed up.

“Be careful!”

“I will,” I said as the clouds darkened further. Lying on the branch like a particularly awkward jungle cat, I scooted over the edge of the plateau. None of the creatures seemed to notice, busy as they were in nosing the dusty ground for sprouted grass, or whatever passed for it here. Good. I wanted their heads down.

When I was over a big one, I stopped and got out the pack, oh so carefully. Dropping it now could well be the kind of mistake I’d regret for a long time. I ripped open the package with care, knees clamped around the branch, as thunder rumbled closer than I’d like.

Then I gauged the angle carefully, and poured a stream of Pop Rocks directly onto the buffalo-thing’s neck.

I heard it crackle and pop as the sugar dissolved in the wet fur. Suddenly everything was panicked bellows and the thunder of feet. I clung to the branch, hoping desperately that it wasn’t about to snap off under my weight. All I could see below me was waves of brown fur.

It felt like the stampede went on for longer this time. Maybe because I didn’t have any climbing to distract me; all I could do was hold onto the branch like the most desperate of baby monkeys, and hope it held.

It held.

Finally the rumbling footsteps receded over the hill, leaving churned-up dirt below and a very grateful Paint behind me.

“You did it! It worked! Now let’s go; I think I see rain!”

She was right. I shimmied back onto solid ground to pick up the rest of my snacks, shoving them into pockets alongside the crumpled Pop Rocks package, then I helped Paint scramble down from the plateau.

Wind had picked up, blowing rain towards us in a visible wall from the west. But something silver glinted in the sky to the north, which grew swiftly into the welcome sight of a local rescue shuttle.

We ran for it. It landed on the riverbed, door open and arms waving from inside, and we dove in just before the rain hit.

“Safe!” Paint exclaimed as the door shut and a Frillian in a uniform guided her into a chair. “That was too many close calls for one day!”

I followed the directions to take my own seat as the shuttle lifted off. A different Frillian handed me a blanket, though I didn’t need it. Nice and warm, though. I asked Paint, “Ready to go back to the indoors for a while?”

She settled a heat shawl around her shoulders and sighed with relief. “I suppose so. Much less chance of getting trampled or frozen there.”

The official next to me asked, “What caused the herd to move away? We were told they had surrounded the area.”

I grinned and dug out the crumpled package. “Recreational food!” There were still a few Pop Rocks caught in one corner, so I dumped them into my mouth to demonstrate. The expressions on the rescuers’ faces were great as the candy hissed and popped on my tongue. “I poured thith down on a big one,” I explained around it.

Paint added, “It worked great! Scared them right away.”

The officials exchanged a look, then asked to see the package. I happily handed it over and explained where I’d gotten it. Paint said our courier ship would be happy to arrange a delivery of some if they wanted.

By the time we reached our ship, the local officials were ready to talk to the captain about ordering some recreational Earth food, to use for an entirely different purpose than it was made for. But that would hardly be the first time.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[baejax-the-great]

The tragedy of Achilles isn't that he got mad and was punished for it through the death of his friend.

The tragedy of Achilles is that it took him ten years and a very stupid argument to realize that dying in a pointless war against people who never wronged him was a complete waste of his life and that he valued living over glory, but at that point it was too late to disentangle himself from the cycle of violence that would claim his best friend/lover and inevitably himself.

[sysig]

Growing closer than expected (Patreon)

[tswwwit]

do bill and dipper ever talk about their problems or have serious conversations? We don’t see much of them in the fics— talking about the past, trauma, or insecurities, etc

Getting to that point took them quite a while, but yeah!

Dipper will occasionally talk over or bitch about his life with Bill. Opening up about his feelings. His thoughts. Get a little vulnerable, even, around his husband. It takes a bit before he can do it and get Bill to take it seriously, but that's not a fuckup Bill makes twice.

Mind you, he's still Bill about the listening. Which means about 80% of his 'advice' to Dipper is 'you should totally kill that guy', and 15% is basic commiseration couched in teasing terms. The last 5% is such shockingly insightful advice that Dipper has to do a doubletake to make sure he's still talking to the same guy. One of the perks of knowing the human mind as well as Bil does.

Bill sharing his problems, though? Whoof.

There's a guy who could spend all day whining because the last party wasn't fun enough. Bitch about other people! His day! But getting Bill to admit he has deeper feelings is a billion times worse than pulling teeth. With a crowbar.

If Dipper wants insight into Bill's deeper psyche, he's got to augur the subtle signs of it. Puzzle it out, in fact. He's gotten pretty good at guessing what's going on behind that front - but holy hell does his husband not make it easy.

[ghostlyheart]

Maybe this is a second chance for both of us. That's a nice way to think of it.

Sam Arondekar and Hetty Woodstone in CBS Ghosts (2021-)

My @cbsghostsdaily Spooky Gift Exchange gift for @piggiecat! I hope you like it :)

[spghtrbry]

so i’ve been. THINKING lately.

you can find many similarities in both stories but there are also huge differences…

in cain and abel’s story cain murders his younger brother because of his jealousy and because god preferred abel over him, which is obviously similar to how chuck’s pride made him envious of jimmy because he’s more likeable and made their mom laugh etcetera etcetera..but i’d say abel was a pure guy, he didn’t do anything bad, he was like. basically the purest human being at that time (well it’s not really difficult to be the best person when there’s like 4 people in the whole world and two of them literally got kicked out of heaven but anyway). and cain murdered him. which is clearly not the case with jimmy and chuck because obviously in the legal point of view chuck is a better person than jimmy …

and we’ve got esau and jacob, which is i think a really underrated story. i mean i love cain and abel but i think people often forget about those two. esau, (technically) an older brother, always gets tricked by jacob. jacob buys his birthright and steals his father’s blessing that was meant for esau. and esau rages at him because. i mean. that’s not a nice thing to do. but in the end jacob becomes one of the Main Characters in the genesis… personally i think this story is more… idk, specific? there’s just something about the younger brother constantly tricking the older to get what he wants, even though the reasons not always are completely selfish. BUT! in the end esau and jacob made peace which is (spoiler alert😨) not the case with chuck and jimmy ………..and also jacob didn’t really have a redemption arc and esau just. idk. moved on with his life. got a family and all that. so he basically became a normie. but yeah ANYWAYS!

so yeah. i’d really love to hear ur thoughts and opinions on this one because i am a little bit insane about all this stuff as you probably noticed

(also if i messed something up or if im wrong anywhere please lmk lol it’s been a while since ive read the old testament…….)

[ohno-the-sun]

Blah more back burner stuff cause I haven’t had time to draw this week

Had an idea for a Luca type au where like they are mermaids but can look human on land and blah blah blah

Self indulgence abound

Lol supposed to go along with these

Merm designs

Baby sun

the fic (don't read the tags if you don't want spoilers)

[fumifooms]

I didn’t know the dunmesh fanwiki situation was so dire.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

set out to create a serious, canonesque drawing with which to say "feel free to go in my lackadaisy tag and help me mystery speculate" but only got going when i made it bowling and the rarepair agenda

[freckliedan]

On the topic of secrets, your person that you tell everything to is entitled to YOUR secrets, not anyone else’s. If I tell my best friend something in confidence, I know she won’t tell her husband. He gets to know everything about her, not everything about me.

Dan and Phil definitely understand that distinction and don’t share other’s secrets with each other.

THANK you you get it!!!! i've been losing my fucking mind at the attitude on my dash like... pretty much everyone is out here proving dan's point. by interpreting what he said to mean the exact opposite of what he told us. are people incapable of taking dnp at their word????

[stupot]

trying to stop talking myself out of small, reasonable and/or necessary purchases (such as an $8 Uber to work tomorrow rather than spending 45 minutes between buses in the rain at 6 AM) despite now working 6 days a week and probably (hopefully) being able to afford it....... It's hard guys. I like when the number in my bank account stays the same

[vultures-and-scavengers]

i know cullen's temper is usually the one highlighted in this scene but lowkey annette looks like she's plotting to poison jim's coffee. like finally something is happening with the mess of feelings between them, with his "i didnt think this was possible" line after she's been practically throwing herself at him and then this scout has the TEMERITY to interrupt.

[july-19th-club]

the way guilt and punishment work on the internet is actually worse than the catholic church bc if i took my mistakes to the confession booth and said a full act of contrition the priest would be like 'here are some prayers to say as your penance your sins are absolved go in peace' but if you apologize to somebody on the internet over something you've said or posted that upset them there's like always a 50% chance that they'll say 'oh well unfortunately your remorse was not expressed with a suitable level of humility so it doesn't count *you* don't decide if you're sorry *I* decide if you're sorry, fuck you forever'

[borgialucrezia]

juan borgia's sickly era is so scrumptious to watch!! he's tormented, he cries and sweats a lot, he's being betrayed and gaslit, he's terrified and paranoid all the time, he's losing himself under the weight of the role he was given, he's getting clingier and his voice is becoming softer, he suffers from years of pain and loneliness. i love my deeply insecure misunderstood pathetic babygirl <3

[robinyourcreator]

mentors! teachers! librarians! old ladies you see at the grocery or the knitting shop once in a while! middle aged men who are regulars at the same hardware store! the teenagers who come to the local game shops board game events and THEIR little siblings!

do you believe you dont share common humanity with any of these people?????

or do you have bizarre ideas gatekeeping the "sanctity" of friendship limiting it to only people you could have gone to high school with???

"what do a 19 and a 28 year old even have in common"

WE ARE ON THIS BIG BEAUTIFUL BLUE EARTH AT THE SAME TIME, ENJOYING THE GLORIOUS EXPERIMENT THAT IS HUMANITY, GOOD SIR!!!!!

this isnt even about dating-- like fuck no you couldnt PAY me to date someone in their early twenties NOW!!! but this is how we're being about FRIENDSHIP??????