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#And that's what I was pointing out. Here and in another reblog that presumably no one will care to fish out
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rian johnson took all that time, put in all that effort to make glass onion a fantastic period piece to the first four months of pandemic, a prescient narrative that anticipates the stupidity of rich billionaires, and then pulled the rug from under us because the world of benoit blanc just straight up doesn't have the mona lisa anymore
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FYI artists and writers: some info regarding tumblr's new "third-party sharing" (aka selling your content to OpenAI and Midjourney)
You may have already seen the post by @staff regarding third-party sharing and how to opt out. You may have also already seen various news articles discussing the matter.
But here's a little further clarity re some questions I had, and you may too. Caveat: Not all of this is on official tumblr pages, so it's possible things may change.
(1) "I heard they already have access to my data and it doesn't really matter if I opt out"
From the 404 article:
A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”
So please, go click that opt-out button.
(2) Some future user: "I've been away from tumblr for months, and I just heard about all this. I didn't opt out before, so does it make a difference anymore?"
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?” Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.”
It should make a difference! Go click that button.
(3) "I opted out, but my art posts have been reblogged by so many people, and I don't know if they all opted out. What does that mean for my stuff?"
This answer is actually on the support page for the toggle:
This option will prevent your blog's content, even when reblogged, from being shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models.
And some further clarification by the COO and a product manager:
zingring: A couple people from work have reached out to let me know that yes, it applies to reblogs of "don't scrape" content. If you opt out, your content is opted out, even in reblog form. cyle: yep, for reblogs, we're taking it so far as "if anybody in the reblog trail has opted out, all of the content in that reblog will be opted out", when a reblog could be scraped/shared.
So not only your reblogged posts, but anyone who contributed in a reblog (such as posts where someone has been inspired to draw fanart of the OP) will presumably be protected by your opt-out. (A good reason to opt out even if you yourself are not a creator.)
Furthermore, if you the OP were offline and didn't know about the opt-out, if someone contributed to a reblog and they are opted out, then your original work is also protected. (Which makes it very tempting to contribute "scrapeable content" now whenever I reblog from an abandoned/disused blog...)
(4) "What about deleted blogs? They can't opt out!"
I was told by someone (not official) that he read "deleted blogs are all opted-out by default". However, he didn't recall the source, and I can't find it, so I can't guarantee that info. If I get more details - like if/when tumblr puts up that FAQ as reported in the 404 article - I will add it here as soon as I can.
Edit, tumblr has updated their help page for the option to opt-out of third-party sharing! It now states:
The content which will not be shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models, includes: • Posts and reblogs of posts from blogs who have enabled the "Prevent third-party sharing" option. • Posts and reblogs of posts from deleted blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from password-protected blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from explicit blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from suspended/deactivated blogs. • Private posts. • Drafts. • Messages. • Asks and submissions which have not been publicly posted. • Post+ subscriber-only posts. • Explicit posts.
So no need to worry about your old deleted blogs that still have reblogs floating around. *\o/*
But for your existing blogs, please use the opt out option. And a reminder of how to opt out, under the cut:
The opt-out toggle is in Blog Settings, and please note you need to do it for each one of your blogs / sideblogs.
On dashboard, the toggle is at https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/blogname [replace "blogname" as applicable] down by Visibility:
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For mobile, you need the most recent update of the app. (Android version 33.4.1.100, iOs version 33.4.) Then go to your blog tab (the little person icon), and then the gear icon for Settings, then click Visibility.
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Again, if you have a sideblog, go back to the blog tab, switch to it, and go to settings again. Repeat as necessary.
If you do not have access to the newest version of the app for whatever reason, you can also log into tumblr in your mobile browser. Same URL as per desktop above, same location.
Note you do not need to change settings in both desktop and the app, just one is fine.
I hope this helps!
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Dirty Work 14
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Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.
This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.
Characters: Loki
Note: Pretty sure I'm getting another sinus infection.
As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.
Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)
I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖
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You realise a little too late that you have no idea if you should do more than pour the brew into a mug. You recall Frigga mentioned Mr. Laufeyson took his tea black but was it the same for coffee? You never drink it so you wouldn't know better. You hate to presume.
So you find a small tray, setting the mug on it with the dish of sugar and a little porcelain milk urn. You balance is all and climb the staircase tremulously, the task made heavier by the dread nipping at your ears.
You come down the hall and stop before the study door. Your hands are occupied so you gentle tap with your toe. Without an answer, you try again. Still, you're met with only silence.
"Mr. Laufeyson?" You call through, "I have your coffee--"
The door a few feet down opens instead and you turn to face the dour occupant. Mr. Laufeyson beckons you wordlessly with a curt gesture before he disappears behind the door frame. You follow as you let a breath slowly out your nose. Inside, he sits at the writing desk, the laptop open as he tilts his head at it. He has your notes open, shamelessly perusing your reminders.
"Here you are, Mr. Laufeyson," you put the tray on the desk.
"There we are," he accepts tersely and sits back, swiping up the paper from atop the gold and white folder. He eyes the estimate left by the carpenter with your signature at the bottom. "So, what are we to do about that infernal thing?"
You fold your hands and wait for his answer. You realise he does not want one from you. He sniffs and slips the paper over the keyboard, letting it drift slightly over the edge. He sits back and look at you.
"It is the last of your worries, surely," he says flippantly, "firstly, this..." he taps the laptop, "you leave it here. As if you do not care."
You purse your lips. You won't argue. If he wants you to take it home, certainly you can, but you don't have wifi or a need for it beyond these walls.
"What if something should happen? You would want to have access to all your..." he eyes the screen, "clutter."
"Yes, Mr. Laufeyson. Noted."
"Noted?" He scoffs and unfolds his arms, "right."
He moves the paper back to the folder and types swiftly, much quicker than your chicken pecking. He sits back proudly and once more sets his sights on you. You clutch your hands tighter and await further remonstrance. This is his vengeance. You can't help but feel you deserve it.
He reaches for the mug, disregarding the milk and sugar, and blows over it. He watches you as he sips.
"Mm," he considers the double-walled cup, "bit strong..."
"Mr. Laufeyson, I could try again--"
"It'll do," he dismisses, "as I said, other concerns. And as I also said, several times, and how you know I do hate to repeat myself, this..." he points at you, flicking his finger up and down, "attire."
You look down at yourself and shrug. The clothes aren't that bad, only plain. Maybe not to his standard but you don't see how they're so wrong.
"Mr. Laufeyson, I don't know--"
"You don't know much, do you?" He challenges, "well, you better catch up." 
He pauses to take another sip, cheeks straining as his throat tightens. He can barely choke down the coffee, making you feel even worse. Is it that bad?
"Are you not curious why I've returned early?" He sets the mug down as he leans forward.
You're quiet. It's not that you don't care, you just wouldn't dare ask. Not after last night, you wouldn't want to bring up bad feelings.
"I see you had my return marked in your calendar," he continues, "I suppose I spoiled your plans, hm?"
"No, Mr. Laufeyson," you assure him.
"So you are happy for my return?"
Your cheek twitches. It's an odd question. One that has no right answer. A trick.
"If you're happy, Mr. Laufeyson, then I am too."
He seems surprised by your answer as his brows arch and his lips part slightly. He closes his mouth and narrows his eyes as he watches you. He chortles and stands.
"How..." he struggles to find a word, "foolish."
You're struck equally by his response. The threat that underlines it and the rebuke in his tone. You dip your head down.
"Call the carpenter," he orders as he retrieves the bill, "I'll sign off on the repairs."
He struts by you as you stare at the tray and his unfinished coffee. Another to-do: you'll have to figure out that machine. 
🧹
It isn't until you sit down to work that you realise the door is still open. The one adjoining the library to Mr. Laufeyson's study. You can hear the subtle tap of keys as he sets to work. You hunker down to do the same, overly mindful of each little noise.
You'll make your call to Ronan elsewhere so you don't disturb the silence. You go through your list, marking down what can be done today in your phone. You get up and slowly move towards the door.
"Sneaking off? You are so good at creeping around? Like a little cat," Laufeyson intones before you can let yourself out. You look back as he stands in the other doorway, "I have an appointment shortly. You will let them in when they ring and show them up."
"Yes, Mr. Laufeyson," you agree.
"So you won't stray far."
"I won't."
He waves you off lightly and disappears into the study once more. You turn and quietly shuffle into the hallway. You go downstairs and pace as you dial the phone. Your nerves are a swirl. Mr. Laufeyson is suffocatingly observant.
"Ronan Carpentry," the voice comes from the speaker.
"Oh, ach, hi," you nearly choke on your tongue, "hi, um, I'm just following up on an estimate."
He asks for your name, you give your own but add Mr. Laufeyson's as he would be the leaseholder. The air is static as the man is silent on the other end. He hums and finally speaks again.
"So you would like to go forward with the work?" He prompts.
"Yes, sir."
"When would be best to begin?" He's straight to business. You can appreciate that.
"Hmm, well, I could do most days except Wednesday but the owner would be here."
"Would he be handling this or would you?"
You trace a fingernail with your thumb, "me, I guess."
"Thursday works for me," he confirms, "if it suits you, miss."
"Great," you sigh, "yeah, Thursday works."
"Nine good?" His deep voice is smooth like syrup as it drips through the phone.
"Nine," you confirm with a squeak, "thank you, sir."
"Of course. Have a good one."
You eke out a 'you, too' and hang up. You exhale out your nerves. You're even more jittery and you don't know why. Usually getting phone calls out of the way is a relief. 
You do your best to focus, working down the list until the doorbell buzzes. You jump, taking a moment to recall the expected visitor. You rush out the front door and down the steps. You come up to the gate but find a car waiting by the bigger door. You hit the button so it rolls open and lets the brown vehicle through.
The man that gets out has gray hair and pale blue eyes. He looks around curiously as you cross the lot back to the house. He gives you a friendly smile as you approach and offers his hand, "Loki hanging around here?"
You daintily shake his hand, a gesture you're unused to. His grip is firm but not harsh.
"Mr. Laufeyson is upstairs in his study, I can show you in--"
"Mr. Laufeyson?" He repeats, amused, "in his study? I can find my way," he lets you go, "he didn't tell me he had a lady friend."
Your mouth forms a surprised squiggle, "I'm the house manager."
"Ah, house manager," he clucks, "interesting. Well, can't keep him waiting, I'm already late."
He shoots you with a finger gun and rushes past you. You frown as you turn to watch him. He's not what you expected. You don't see Laufeyson as tolerating someone like that, not that he puts up with much.
As you enter the house, you hear the man's voice upstairs. You're not used to signs of life. His gregarious greeting is soon smothered behind a door. You carry on.
At one, you take a short break in the garden to have your peanut butter sandwich. You thought of eating at the counter as you usually do but being inside is starting to feel oppressive. You chew the dry bread and thick spread, staring at the foliage without seeing.
Your eyes are drawn up as you sense movement and you find curtains being drawn back on the second floor. A figure lingers behind the pane before backing away. You're certain it's Mr. Laufeyson. You hope he's not bothered by you being out in the garden.
You finish the crust last, your stomach mulching up the food violently, and you dust off your fingers. You take out your phone and check the list. No time to waste. You had your ten minutes. You can get through a few more hours.
🧹
Tuesday comes and goes in a similar slog. Your hours are whittled away as you find yourself under the omniscient eye of Mr. Laufeyson. Each time you think you're alone, he appears. He looms but doesn't speak, lurking and waiting, for what, you don't know. At the end of the day, you still don't know. You go home, just as you do every night, without a farewell.
Home sees you just the same. Leslie's finishing up as your father sits over a new puzzle. It's been ages since you've seen him so consumed by anything besides his cigarettes. You sit and have dinner at the nurse's insistence and bid her off. 
Your father stays up as you go up to shower and settle into bed. The last six days hang off your shoulders like sandbags and needle in the muscles between your shoulder blades. You lay down and fall asleep almost as soon as your head meets the pillow. You've never been so exhausted in your life.
You wake up, less refreshed than groggy. You make yourself get out of bed, wanting to get stuff done on your singular day off. After you have your tea and get your dad his coffee,  you get to the chores that you couldn't do throughout the week. Mopping and vacuuming, then laundry.
As you work on the second floor, your father sits with his puzzle. He's fidgety as he hunches over the table. You watch him as you sweep the floor around the couch. He catches you as he glances up. He scowls and shakes his head.
You gather the dust and dirt into the pan and dump it out. You check the time. It's nearly lunchtime. You wash your hands and check the cupboard. There's a can of tuna leftover from your last grocery trip. You'll try to do another on your way home from work tomorrow.  You take out your phone and add it to your reminders.
You go back to the living room as your dad holds a handful of pieces and tosses them one at a time onto the wood as he searches for a particular shape.
"Are you hungry at all?" You ask.
"I want a fucking smoke," he growls.
"Well, I'm sorry, I don't have any," you tuck the phone in your pocket and push your hands behind you, clasping them tightly. The weight of it presses against your thigh.
"Don't be a fucking smartass," he throws the pieces left in his hand at you and they scatter on the floor. "Maybe if you got off that phone , eh?"
You kneel down to gather up the pieces. He snarls and hits the table. You pluck up the last few and set them on wood as you stand.
"Where'd you get a phone like that, huh? Expensive? You been buying yourself all this nice shit and I'm sitting here on a stinky fucking couch rotting away," he accuses.
"It's for work," you say, "I'm gonna make tuna sandwiches."
He sits back and huffs, swiping up the remote and jabbing it through the air towards the television. He sets the volume on blast so your eardrums pulse. You step back as he jams his thumb into the buttons.
“Makes me wonder what kinda job affords you a fancy phone like that?”
“Huh?” You grimace.
“Well, you got no schooling, got no skills,” he sniffs, “only got one thing of use.”
He can't mean… that. You're his daughter. Your eyes sear and gleam as you shake your head.
“I… I'm a house manager,” you croak, “dad–”
“Sure,” he guffaws, “what kinda idiot would want you managing their house? They probably haven't seen this dump.”
“Please, I'm trying–”
“You always gotta fucking yammer!” He barks and a hot pain bounces off your arm. 
You grunt and look down as the remote hits the floor. You rub the tender spot as you let out a shocked ‘ow.’
“Go fucking cry about it. I can't hear the TV over your whining.”
You hold back the wall of tears and pick up the remote. You set it by his puzzle and back up. Yo wiggle your nose as you sidle out of the room. hiding your face.
You move tentatively like prey avoiding the vicious eyes of a hunter. Your arm throbs as you feel a welt forming. It's better to hide before you get more.
You forget about the tuna as your hunger evaporates. You can only think of the pain that goes much deeper than flesh. That rent in your heart that can barely contain your despair. It splits wider as the stress of the week threatens to overflow.
You retreat to your room as the salty tears begin to stream, catching along your nose and dripping off your chin. You close the door and hurtle yourself towards the bed to bury your face in the pillow. A hard shape presses into your leg, a corner stabbing you bluntly.
You lift your hip and fish around in your pocket to free your phone, tearing your pocket inside out. As you go to put it on the nightstand, you notice the timer in the corner. Didn't you lock it before you shoved it away?
You sit up and gulp back sobs, shaking as you stare at the ongoing call. Mr. Laufeyson's name is blazed across the screen. You put it to your ear and whisper, “hello?” You swallow and make yourself speak louder, “hello?”
The line clicks and you pull the screen back. The call's ended as the option to return the call pops up. You blacken the screen and turn the phoje face down, dropping it onto the night table.
Did he hear all that?
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mkfluffluv · 2 years
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Keep The Secret?
MAINLY JAKE LOCKLEY X GN READER , SOME MARC SPECTOR AND STEVEN GRANT X GN READER
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prompt : marc and steven had gotten themselves sick. luckily for them, they have a wonderful and loving partner who's willing to take care of them(you). unbeknownst to you, another person is taking care of them in their own way. (yes it's jake.)
i finally finished this and it ended up a lot longer than i had planned but i'm pretty okay with it, so, enjoy!
likes and reblogs appreciated, also leave me requests cause im running out of ideas!!
warnings(?) : fluff. maybe angst? but mostly fluff. my knowledge on DID is very limited but im hoping i didn't mess anything up and if i did, feel free to message me about it!!
word count : 2,705
masterlist
Here you are, preparing all of your boyfriends' pills for them cause they're too tired to get out of bed. Someone had coughed on Steven while on his way to the museum and now they're sick with a sweltering hot fever  and a horrid cough. They were constantly switching with each other because neither of them wanted to deal with the sickness and while yes, being sick without fronting is still being sick, it is still much better than actually having to experience a sick body. Sometimes you wonder why or how you had fallen in love with these two idiots.
"Will you both please just stop arguing and drink your medicine?" You demand from your very sick boyfriends who are currently quarreling with each other. A mirror was placed beside the bed where Steven was laying down on, where he is coughing every few sentences that he says to presumably Marc, as he tells him, pretty much begs him to take over for a few minutes so that he can stop feeling so bad at least a little bit. You can't hear Marc but from the way Steven is getting more and more exasperated by the second, he's probably being very stubborn and refusing to switch.
A bunch of toddlers those two are.
You run a hand through your hair and drag it down your face, letting out a groan in irritation. You’ve been by their side for hours now, making sure they’re getting enough rest and drinking their medicine and honesly, If you didn't love these two dorks, you probably would have left hours ago. But if you'd left, they'd just be arguing all day and not resting and that is the opposite of what you want these two to be doing.
After giving up on trying to get the boys to drink their pills, you approach Steven on the bed, pushing him down by the shoulders, forcibly tucking him in, and shushing him when he tries to say something about you treating him like a baby. "Please, love, just go to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up." You tell him, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. Steven is quiet for a while but then sighs defeatedly and nods, knowing there's no point in arguing with you about it since he's already tired anyway. His head immediately sinks into the pillows as he relaxes and closes his eyes. You sit beside him, humming a soft tune while running your hands through his hair. His breathing slows in mere seconds.
Thank god. You were starting to get really tired of their bickering and if they were to go on any longer, you would seriously start contemplating using that neck pinch trick Marc taught you to get them to pass out already. Sighing in relief, you lift yourself from the bed and walk over to the small stove to start cooking up some soup for them to eat when they wake up.
However, as you were cutting up some carrots, you hear shuffling coming from the bed. Assuming that it's probably just Steven stirring in his sleep, you choose to ignore it and continue to cook.
But the shuffling continues and it isn't until you hear a creak on the floor that you turn your head to the other side of the room where possibly Steven is leaning against the wall trying to walk towards his desk.
Oh for the love of-
"Steven! I told you to rest, if you needed the pills you could've just-" Before you could finish your sentence, however, Steven had swiftly darted across the apartment towards you, as if he was never even sick. Suddenly there is a dagger that he had pulled out of who knows where threateningly close to your throat.
This is not Steven and you have a very good feeling that it isn't Marc either.
"Who are you?" A slight accent that isn't American nor British comes out of the man, his voice low and more gravelly than the others. Slowly, you place the knife back down on the cutting board and both of your hands come up to your chest, hopefully showing this stranger that you are now unarmed and not here to hurt anyone.
"I'm just here to take care of Marc and Steven. I'm their significant other." There is a pregnant pause after you say this like he's contemplating whether your words could be trusted or not. His eyes dart around the room. First, towards the soup on the stove, then the pills on the desk, and finally the small portraits of you and your boyfriends. He finally lets go of you, making you fall to the floor with how weak your knees felt after all that.
"God fucking damn it those idiots." The stranger says, the accent coming out of his mouth (your usually american and british lovers' mouth)  is something that would probably take a while to get used to. It surely took you a while to get used to Marc’s accent. The man drags his hand across his face and takes one deep breath before dropping down to the floor right next to you. "I'm very sorry about that." He leans sideways against the kitchen counter, a charming smile making its way up to his face. You notice that it's different from the way the other boys smile.
There's still a bit of confusion floating around in your head, way too many questions that you just can't seem to form the words to ask him. So instead, you just nod. "I can't really forgive you for threatening my life like that." You can still feel the blade close to your neck, merely only centimeters away from cutting it open and bleeding to death. You rub at the spot to get rid of the phantom feeling and steady your breathing. It's fine. You're not in danger anymore. Plus, you have a feeling this new guy wouldn't hurt you. His posture is no longer tense, now relaxed, and frailer considering the body is still very sick and the dagger was thrown across the room a few seconds ago. Whether it's because he trusts you or if it's because he's too weak to start anything right now, he doesn't look like he would hurt you.
"Care to explain why you suddenly attacked me though?" You dare to ask, to which the man laughs and then coughs violently into his arm. Out of instinct, you reach out to him but stop yourself. He may have the face and the body of your boyfriends but he is still a potentially dangerous and untrusting stranger.
Eventually, the coughing does stop and now he looks as tired as Marc and Steven did before. You can't help the clenching feeling in your chest at the sight of him. As if he can feel your pitying gaze, he turns to you again, his smile now softer. "I'm very protective of them. Thought you were a stranger. Plus my mind was all bleary so I couldn't think straight. Sorry." He apologizes again, this time you can't help but feel bad for him. You don't know why you suddenly trust this man after he'd almost slit your throat open but the care and love were so evident in his tone of voice and it warmed your heart to know that there's someone else close to them to care about those two idiots.
So you return his smile and nod, before getting up to your feet and offering a hand to him. He looks at it incredulously as if he's never seen a hand before. It's adorable but also kinda stupid for him to be this untrusting of an empty hand.
"Come on, get up. You're still sick and in need of rest. Plus I still need to finish that soup." You tell him, waving the hand in front of him for him to take.
He eventually does and you help him up to his feet, letting him lean on you when he nearly falls at the sudden dizziness erupting in his head.
"What's your name by the way?" You ask him as you slowly guide him back towards the bed. He coughs once into his hand and his face turns to look at you, the smirk back on his face before he responds:
"Jake Lockley, a pleasure to meet you."
-
"Can you promise to keep this a secret?" Jake asks you as you were scooping up another spoonful of soup to feed him. He insisted he didn't need to be fed by you but when you saw him shake as he held the bowl, you pretty much forced it out of his hands and started feeding him. You just wouldn't want soup all over his sleeping pants, that's all.
He flinches at the glare that you give him for even asking that. Keeping something as big as this a secret from your boys? No, absolutely not. Why would he even dare suggest that?
You voice these thoughts to him as you place the bowl of soup on the bedside table and he shakes his head. Jake turns his body so that he's facing towards you, staring deep into your eyes. He moves forward and grabs your now empty  hands, holding them tightly in his. The feeling of his calloused palm against yours makes your cheeks flush.
"Please. I swear I'm only doing this to protect them." He practically begs, your hands that are clutched tightly in his are starting to hurt with how tight he's holding them but not enough to be unbearable. You want to refuse. Marc and Steven deserve to know after all. They shouldn't be kept in the dark like this.
But when you open your mouth to tell him no, his head drops into your lap, his face now hidden in the fabric of your clothing, and his hands are still not letting go of their tight grip on yours as he lets out another quiet plea. "I just don't want them to know yet. Please." His voice is slightly muffled but sounds genuine enough for you to let out a defeated sigh. Damn him and his pleading voice.
"Fine." You respond. Jake's head immediately snaps up from its former position, his eyes that are staring into yours shine with adoration. You're taken aback by how that look makes you feel. Oh no. Not doing this again.
You shake the thoughts from your head and then clear your throat. The puppy eyes are simply only effective cause they're the same as your boyfriends'. That's all. There's nothing more to it.
Quickly, you take your hands away from Jake's, placing them back on your lap. "I promise to not tell them." His face beams up with joy and it reminds you a little bit of the way Steven would look whenever you pay attention to one of his ramblings and gosh does that make your heart go weak. You regain your composure though after mentally slapping yourself and focusing on the task at hand. "But you will tell them soon, right?" You ask him. "It just doesn't feel right to be lying about all of this."
"I know." Jake sighs, rubbing at his temples and massaging the area to ease the pain of his aching headache. "I know, it's just that I haven't figured out how to tell them without freaking them out." He rests his head against the headboard and closes his eyes. "I've done some things that they might not agree with."
Oh. You remember Marc and Steven telling you stories about them passing out in life-threatening situations and then waking up with people either dead or passed out around them, with their fists covered in blood. When asked, both of them refuse to admit who was at fault. It seems that they were both telling the truth. None of them did that. It was all just Jake. Somehow, this doesn't make you scared of him. He was only protecting the loves of your life, after all, even if you don’t agree with his way of doing it, you still appreciate it.
"I'm sure they'll understand." You say to him. You don't really want to give in to the voice that's telling you to hold him close. You don't. But right now Jake looks so much like a sad kicked puppy, with his head hung low and his fingers fiddle like he doesn't believe the words that you've said to him and you have this very strong and irresistible urge to pull him in for a long and comforting hug. You don't know if it's because the face you're looking at right now is the same one as your boyfriends' or if it's because of this stupid and conflicting feeling lying in your heart that you're sure to talk to Marc and Steven about soon cause there's no way you're not telling them about this.
Ah fuck it, it doesn't matter.
Giving in to your urges, you pull him into your embrace, holding him close to you and rubbing circles along his back to comfort him. You can feel Jake going tense for a second, definitely not expecting that from you, before he relaxes into your touch as he wraps his own arms around you. The hug might have looked awkward with the way you were both sitting on the bed but it's still pleasant, it feels safe, and it's everything Jake could've ever asked for.
The two of you hug for a while, settling into each other's arms without any conversation needing to be had. You stay like that until he falls asleep, probably exhausted after everything and you gently lay him down on the bed, tucking him in and by reflex, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
-
For the whole time that they were sick, Jake was the only one fronting. When asked about why that is, Jake's response was:
"Ask them when they remember the last time they were sick and were awake for more than half a day and they wouldn't know. That's cause I'm usually the one taking care of the body when we're sick." He had explained one night while downing the necessary pills for his recovery. Jake winced as he felt them go down his throat. "Once we're healthy enough, Marc or Steven are going to wake up and think they'd just slept through the days."
True to his word, when they've finally started to get better, Marc finally wakes up one bright morning, looking around at his surroundings and scratching at his head. You smile at the adorable sight and can’t help but to give him a quick kiss on his lips, morning breath be damned. He asked you what time and day it was as he always does when he wakes up, his eyes widened in shock. He faces the mirror beside the bed and asks Steven if he had been awake at all but by the look on Marc’s face, you can tell that Steven had told him that he wasn’t. Marc turns to you, clearly confused. "How did we even sleep for two whole days?"
When Marc asks this, you start to contemplate just telling him about Jake. You didn't want to lie to them. It wouldn't feel right for you to keep this all a secret from them cause Marc and Steven deserved to know. But it also wouldn’t be fair to Jake if you broke your promise.
Damn it.
It's real stupid of you to have grown so attached to Jake despite only meeting the man once and even knowing that you probably wouldn't be seeing him any time soon. It’s even stupider to lie to your boyfriends about this whole thing just because you wanted to keep a promise. But you had already promised and somehow, you trusted him with this.
So, you just press a kiss to Marc's temple and then hurry off to the kitchen, telling him that you’re getting him some soup. The thought of warm food in his belly is enough to make Marc forget about his question from before.
It’s fine.
Jake will explain it to them soon enough.
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qqueenofhades · 1 month
Note
Last anon here -- I'm sorry for sending that message through. I don't know what is and isn't true anymore.
I deleted what I presume was your first ask (the one accusing me of not condemning the Gaza genocide and calling me a "DNC shill and a liar") because it was rude, uncalled for, and I couldn't see any good to come of engaging with it. However, because you've returned and apologized and sent this followup, I am willing to answer it, because I am aware that we can all do stupid things (especially on the internet) that we regret. So there is that.
Once again: I have strictly limited my posts/reblogs on this topic because it is so inflammatory, there are reams of people willing to attack you on every side, and none of it is actually constructive (this is the blue hellsite where we have two whole jokes about Ea-Nasir and color theory in children's hospitals. We are not doing important social justice work here and expecting this to be the main/only forum in which we post the Correct Opinions is not going to work out for anyone). But I would like, for the record, to point out that I have condemned the situation in Gaza and explicitly called it a genocide and Netanyahu and co. war criminals. Often and repeatedly:
Ask from October 28, 2023:
What’s happening to the Gazans right now is no qualification or equivocation, a genocide. It should rightfully be opposed and called what it is. But unfortunately, I have spent too much time around Western Online Leftists to believe they actually care a whit about stopping genocide as a fundamental principle, and only want to be seen to loudly care about what their Ideology has told them to care about. [...] To put it bluntly, those genocides are being committed by nation-states that Online Leftists like for being “anti-Western,” and therefore their activities are actually fine and should even need to be defended.
Another post from December 2023 explicitly calling out Netanyahu and his cabinet, while also pointing out that Tumblr's response now mostly consisted of antisemitic dogwhistles and rampant political misinformation:
[...] the way Netanyahu is personally a genocidal maniac with a far-right cabinet of war criminals and is bent on continuing the war in order to escape his own criminal prosecutions (and yes, he is HIGHLY affiliated with Trump and Putin) but this somehow still does not remotely justify or excuse the rampant frothingly mindless and generalized anti-Semitism seen everywhere on leftist spaces these days [....]
An ask from January 10th, 2024 (worth probably reading in full) where I once more say that nobody wants this to be happening, but that once again, the criticism in Western leftist forums (particularly Tumblr/Twitter) is not made equally or in good faith :
Nobody of basic good sense and decency wants to see Gaza leveled while the Israeli state continues to apply a number of violently cruel collective punishments even outside the actual daily bombing of civilians. But for the love of god, let’s get rid of the idea that the continued mindless violence doesn’t benefit Hamas (because it does; unsurprisingly, sympathy for their cause has soared in Gaza) as much as it does Israel, or that Hamas is some kind of benevolent peacemaker that is being thwarted by the cruel imperialist US/West.
This post, also from January 2024, explains why the kind of stunt-trick "pro Palestinian" activism that just relies on publicly hassling Jews is a) antisemitic and b) actively harming the people of Gaza, while once again pointing out whose fault this whole mess actually is:
If these people actually wanted to advocate constructively for Palestine in a good-faith way and not just punish random Jews or people who might have once met a Jew (which they don’t), they would take a look at that, go “hmm, this isn’t really getting the right result” and listen to the people who are telling them that by generating this bad publicity, they are doing far more harm to the cause than good. They are going to make the cause look foolish, they will drive away anyone who isn’t already radicalized, they will shut down any possibility of discussion and dialogue, and their efforts will be picked up in the Israeli nationalist right-wing media/Netanyahu and his war criminal advisors to insist to left-wing or anti-zionist Jews that (one of the, you know, big fucking reasons Israel was founded in the first place) they aren’t safe in any other country in the world, and they need to support the Israeli government’s actions, no matter how heinous.
A follow-up from January 31, 2024, discussing (again) the problems with insisting that Biden personally/the American power apparatus is just giving Israel a blank check and therefore Biden Iz Bad And This is All His Fault:
Once again: I strongly disagree with the idea of just giving Israel/Netanyahu a blank check to keep committing atrocities, but I also need to repeatedly point out that Biden isn’t doing that. His initial unconditional support of Israel after October 7 (which at the time was the correct response) has shifted to a much more measured and conditional approach where he has muted the overtly pro-Israel statements and started talking about a two-state solution and the need to protect the lives of civilians and trying to keep a lid on what could become a REALLY bad situation with all kinds of war-hungry powers eager to jump into the Middle East and blow it completely to hell.
I am a historian. This does not mean that I always know The Greatest Things Ever, but it does mean that I default toward long, cautious, and qualified responses where I try to consider multiple perspectives and nuances, rather than just posting pithy soundbites or black-and-white statements. (Yes, I know; I am doomed on social media.) Thus when I do discuss the situation, I tend toward trying to put it in broader context, to push back sharply against the idea that being "pro Palestine" is just being wildly antisemitic on social media and nothing else, and to call out those bad actors who are using this situation to continue to imperil American democracy and deliberately try to get Trump (who openly hankers to be a genocidal fascist dictator for everyone, not just Israel/Palestine) back into office.
I know that this is a situation which provokes (to say the least) strong emotions from everyone. I know that it's infuriating to feel totally helpless and just to have to watch it from afar. I know that we all wish we could stop it and that leads us to create meaning or assign importance to our own actions where there actually is none. But that does not mean that people have total liberty to spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, wild political misinformation, narratives designed whether unwittingly or deliberately to help Trump and other far-right fascists, and otherwise anonymously dogpile on people who haven't Posted The Correct Opinion on Tumblr (once again, Tumblr, where we get our news via Destiel meme). So I hope this has helped you, if this is what you wanted to get out of contacting me today, and hope also that you'll continue to think about what to do and how to act. It's hard, I know, and you have my sympathy. But so it is for us all.
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russellsppttemplates · 6 months
Text
What we have is worth fighting for (Lance Stroll)
Lance's lifestyle seems so different to your own that your mind has no other place to go other than doubt
Note: english is not my first language. Here's some Lance for you. And also a topic that whenever I have way too much time, I sometimes think about and I have yet to reach a proper conclusion. Do I like how this turned out? I'm not sure
Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated 🤍 and I'm taking requests so if you have any ideas or concepts you want to share, feel free to do so as I'll try to get to them the best I can!
my masterlist
Tw: reader has worries and negative thoughts that could be associated with anxiousness
"Do you have time to go to my place for a bit? I know you have an early morning tomorrow.", Lance pointed out despite wanting to enjoy your company for a little longer. Looking at your wristwatch, you debated it, figuring that, realistically, another night where you slept a little bit less was not going to make a difference considering you hadn't slept the recommended amount of hours since you were a teenager, "I have time", you smiled, allowing Lance to open the door on the passengers' side of his car so you could get in.
It was not the first time you had been in his car on your way to his place. From the beggining, you understood that while Lance had a very public job, he preferred to keep the other parts of his life on the private side, hence the fact that you had kept your dates as private as possible, in smaller places in town that you knew of and between your flat and his place. You sat in his big sofa after leaving your shoes at the door, making yourself as comfortable as you could while he went to the laundry room, mentioning something about a blanket he had spilled some tea on.
"The stain is cleaned, so, there you go", Lance announced, arriving with the soft material in his arm and giving it to you, "do you want some tea? I think I found the one we had at your place last week", he offered, accepting your nod, "yes, please", and heading for his kitchen.
Looking around, you couldn't help the curiosity that came over you as you looked at all the picture frames while laying the blanket on top of your legs. Some family holidays, you presumed, with Lance and his sister playing in snow in some pictures, but also some with a beautiful beach in the background. The pictures with a city background made it harder for you to guess where it was, some aspects allowing you to distinguish between probable different continents given the architectural design of the buildings, but still not enough to list all of them. "Don't look to close or you might start loosing interest", Lance startled you as he walked with two steaming mugs, setting them on the coasters on the coffee table in front of you.
Blushing for being caught, you thanked him and held the mug between your hands, taking a sip from it as you expected him to pick up on any subject we'd want to talk about. Lately, every day you had spent some time with Lance, it usually ended up in either of your places, just talking while having some form of snack or drinks. He was definitely not who you expected to click with, much less with how quick it happened. You felt yourself roll your eyes everytime you thought about it, but he was the picture you imagined whenever someone questioned you about the qualities in the partner you were looking for.
"I think it's time for me to go home", you admitted reluctantly, realising that if you didn't, you would suffer the consequences while you were attending lectures, "let me take you then", Lance smiled, patting his thighs and getting up while you folded the blanket. "No, no need, I can just call an Uber, I-", you were interrupted by Lance, "Nonsense, I suggested we come here, and I have the time, I'll do it", he noted, grabbing his car keys once he put his shoes on and leading the way.
.
"Hey, are you having a good day? I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time", Lance asked over the phone, the sound of the blinker allowing you to presume he was driving, "hello! I've had a full day, I'm leaving the library now - thank you, see you tomorrow -, sorry, I was just talking to the desk lady, but yes, it's been work heavy, but I got all of it done", you smiled and sighed, the tiredness overcoming your body as you walked down the stairs.
"That's good, Y/N, that's amazing!", he reinforced, "how would you feel about having something to eat together? I know you probably don't want to go anywhere, so how about I get us some take away and I meet you at your place?", he offered, making you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Given your busy schedule and how tired you got when it all piled up, it was not easy for some of your friends to understand that you preferred to stay in instead of going out.
"That's a nice plan. I'm going home now, so I'll meet you there? I just have to change out of these clothes so I look a little bit more presentable", you chuckled, "I'm sure you look the prettiest", he urged over the phone, "I'm going to call and make the order and then I'll let you know when I'm heading to your place", he finished, bidding goodbye to eachother as you walked home.
Walking inside your small flat, you thanked your past self for having taken care of cleaning it during the weekend, only having to put away some textbooks and some folders so the papers wouldn't be floating around the living room. It didn't take long before Lance texted you saying he already had the food with him and that he was making his way to your place.
You were setting the table when you heard the knock on the door, looking around and checking if anything else was misplaced before opening the door, "hey! Come in", you urged him, seeing Lance carrying two bags of food, "can you bring those to the table, please? I'll just leave my shoes and coat here", he smiled charmingly, doing so while you carried the bags to the table, wondering what he could've possibly bought that was so heavy.
"I'm here!", Lance approached you, kissing your cheek and showing you a small bunch of flowers, "the shop by the restaurant only had these left, they were just about to close and the lady made them look as pretty as possible", be smiled, handing you the nice smelling flowers, "Oh, I wasn't expecting these, thank you!", you smiled, kissing his cheek and he took the opportunity to squeeze you into a hug, "it's alright", he forwarded, "Shall we eat though? I'm quite hungry, and I bet you are too, so I got a little portion of a few things from this italian that is really really good. I went there with my sister when she and her husband visited and they loved it, too!", he said as he took the take out boxes from the paper bags.
Despite there being a lot of different starters and main dishes, they had been perfectly portioned so they would satisfy both of you and not leave any leftovers, "Oh, try this! It's incredible", you mentioned, swirling your fork so you could gather the pasta and forming a shell with your hand so the sauce wouldn't drip and you could give it to Lance, not even thinking about how the gesture would be perceived. Quickly, Lance ate the forkful and groaned, not seeming to have minded it, "it tastes amazing! But is is better than this one?", he quirked, doing the same wirh his fork and feeding you a ravioli, smiling when he noticed your puffed out cheeks blowing air so it wouldn't be as hot.
Like usual, conversation flowed easily and you had a great night, ending up sitting together on your sofa and had slowly inched closer to one another, "today really tired you out, hm? Do you want me to leave?", Lance said, noticing you were nearly falling asleep on his shoulder, "no, don't leave", you quickly replied, "but yes, I had a lot to get through", you noted, feeling his head turn to look at you, "what tasks did you so then? Is it that research project?", he curiously asked. Looking back up at him, you listed all the things you had done, "we got to the next phase already, so that's been good, but also more work. Then some spreadsheets where I almost lost my mind, but some video on YouTube explained it, so that was sorted", you said, "and that was it. I know it sounds like I didn't do much, but it did consume some energy", you blushed, "Why would you say that? You are in front of all these projects and making sure things are running smoothly. That's not an easy job, you should be proud of yourself, like I am", he tempted. It wasn't the first time he had said something like that, and he hoped you were starting to catch up on his intentions. It was hard to deny the attraction he felt for you, but also how you just clicked. Lance hadn't felt like that about someone in a really long time, where he thought that someone could be it in the long run. While he didn't want to come on too strong or feel like he was on a clock, he also wanted to make sure you knew where he stood when it came to you.
"You are?", you questioned, maybe a bit too strong for the average person's liking, but it was not a word you heard everyday, much less a feeling you knew people had for you. "Yes, I'm very proud of you. Of what you're doing and how you're doing it", Lance looked straight into your eyes, "I'm also growing very fond of you. I really like you, Y/N", he gazed between your lips and your eyes.
"I really like you too, Lance", you whispered, afraid to disturb if you spoke to loud you'd ruin the moment, pushing your face closer to his so you could show him that if he wanted to, you were all in as well.
The Canadian driver took this opportunity to cup your cheek, rubbing his thumb on your clean cheek before he pressed his lips to yours, lips moudling perfectly with one another. Smiling within the kiss, you wetr the first to break it off for air, looking up at him, "seems we're on the same page then".
You spent the rest of the night basking in eachothers affection, feeling brave enough to do so now that you both knew how the other felt and enjoying how it made you feel until Lance had to leave, "tomorrow has an early start for me, so I better get going", he groaned, getting up from the sofa and holding his hand out, making you attach your hand to his. Thinking he was just helping you up, you were surprised when he pushed you up with enough strength to face his, chest to chest so he could kiss your forehead, "C'mon, I want to help you tidy the kitchen before I leave", he smiled, guiding you both to the room in question so you could do so.
Lance had already left with a kiss of goodnight and a promise he would text you when he got gome, leaving you to close the apartment and also get ready for bed. Walking out of the kitchen, you noticed that you had left one of the paper bags on the floor, grabbing it so you could fold it for another time when you heard some wrinkling. Inside, the noise belonged to the receipt of the order, and you grabbed it mindlessly and a little curious. The food was great, you recognised, but the price Lance paid for a middle of the week take away was out of whatever you could have imagined. He insisted he wanted to pay for it all, despite you saying that you should at least pay your half, and now you couldn't help but think how normal and fine it had been for him to just swipe his card and pay for it. Probably like the no big deal that it was for him.
.
Lance was away for a race weekend, and despite the busy schedule, he still found time to videocall you, always looking forward to hearing how your day went and what you had been up to, "we just started on the data collection, and it's going really well. It's not some groundbreaking thing right now, but it's going somewhere, I can feel it", you smiled, "and you? The car seemed good today", you asked him, seeing his smile that went immediately to your stomach, butterflies erupting into a dance.
"Yes, it was incredible! It finally feels like we have a car that can takes us to the podium of the championship, you know? It's a pleasure to drive and the track is awesome!", he beamed, "I just wish you were here with me to experience it all, the city's really cool too", he offered, listing a few activities he had done and places he had seen.
There was another thing that got your mind spinning. As much as you didn't like to admit it, those thoughts had been plaguing your mind for a few days now. If there was some scale to assess it, you're Lance's lifestyle and your own would be pretty far from eachothers. He spent the better part of his year travelling around the world, staying in the most luxurious hotels and enjoying the most incredible experiences. On your end, you were lucky if you got enough time to take some time off and away from all the work. If this was to go further, your schedule and your lifestyle wouldn't allow you to be the partner that travels to nearly all the races or the one that is seen strutting around the paddock in the most lavish outfits. Would that be an obstacle in the relationship you were building with Lance? Should you start backing out now?
"Hey, Y/N?", he called, "is everything okay? I think I lost you there for a bit", he smiled, teasing you even though there was also a slight concern, "are you too tired? I probably shouldn't have called so late, right?", he forwarded. Despite not wanting him to feel guilty about it, you took the opportunity since your mind wasn't settling, "don't feel guilty, Lance. I haven't been sleeping well these past few nights and it's catching up on me", you half lied, "but I think I might have an early night today, see if sleep comes around", you smiled genuinely at the screen as you saw his features soften, "alright, sweetheart. Have a good sleep", he softly said, blowing you a kiss while you did the same, dialing off the call and pressing the phone to your chest.
Would this feeling on your chest ever settle down? Would your mind stop racing about thoughts about why you'd never fit in Lance's life? The worry grew even bigger, considering you were probably not going to fall asleep for a while.
.
Sitting at Lance's dining table after spending the entire afternoon with him, you tried your best to mask the thoughts that had been plaguing you and that you hadn't managed to shut off. But apparently, not with enough skill, "there's something worrying you, I can tell that much", he noted, "is it something I can help you with? Also totally okay if you don't want to talk about it, but I don't like seeing you so stressed", he launched his hand so it would land on top of yours, softly caressing the skin.
"Can I be really honest with you about what has been bothering me?", you asked, already knowing this would be an important conversation and no matter where it ended up going, it needed to happen sooner rather than later, "sure, Y/N, absolutely", he assured, growing a little bit more concerned at your tone.
"I don't fit in this, Lance", you began, gesturing your hands around, "your world is so different than mine in so many ways, I could never fit in it", you gulped, "you were just saying earlier this afternoon that maybe it was time for us to take the next step, and I don't know if I can", you stopped to gather your thoughts.
"It's okay if you're not ready, I'll wait. And I didn't want to pressure you, I'm sorry if it felt like that", Lance was quick to say, an expression of guilt somehow in his features.
"No, it's not because I don't have feelings for you, because they're here, they're very much here!", you chuckled nervously, "I just don't think I fit in your life like it was supposed to be, like it's expected", you mumbled the last part, forcing yourself to look at him. It pained you as well, because the look on his face was also painful. He wasn't expecting you to feel like this, so much so that there was little to ask but "did I do something to make you feel like that?", still not sure if it was what he wanted to ask.
"No, it's just that our worlds are different. You paid the equivalent of my university monthly tuition for a dinner that was lovely, but still! That's how different we are, we don't align", you gestured, "I could never be the partner you need. My schedule could never be the same if you wanted me to be at races, because I can't be travelling here and there every weekend. And I'm not someone who attends galas and fancy dinners", you hiccuped, the pressure on your throat building up. Even though you had this perspective, it didn't mean that your feelings were on the same page as it.
"And don't take this the wrong way. I have loved every moment we've spent together, and everything you've done for me. And I'm not blaminh you. Your parents did everything they could for your best, and that's not a bad thing. Don't think I'm pointing fingers because I'm not, it's a privilege you have and it is no one's business, much less my business either. But I don't have it", you let out a shuddered breath.
Lance was at a loss for words, gathering his thoughts before he said something that might come out the wrong way, "and is that something that is a deal breaker?", he asked, "Isn't it? I'm not the person people like you go after. Take a look at everyone on the paddock. All the wives and girlfriends are the opposite of me. Anyone you're supposed to be seen with, to have some sort of a relationship with, they're not me, they're not what you think whenever you imagine someone who relates to you in some way", you gulped again, the tears now clouding you eyes.
"You see, Y/N, it's because of those things that I know we have something good. I don't give a care about what other people think who I should have a relationship with. I never wanted someone according to whatever standard, much less after I met you", he smiled, "you are a breath of fresh air in my life, and I needed that so blady. You showed me that there's so much more to love. You have listened to me, you've been there for the highs and the lows, you've allowed me inside your life and showed me the force of nature that you are", he tempted your hand, lacing his fingers with yours, "yes, all of those scenarios are frequent in my life, and I understand that I'm not around as much as other partners, but it will be my biggest mistake if I let you go without a fight, without showing you that what we have is too good to go", he urged you to look at him, lowering his head so he could catch your eyes and bring your eyelines up a little.
"You know, I texted you during the breaks between free practices and my mother commented that she finally found out why I was so happy, all because I was smiling at the picture you sent me from the library", he smiled, blush covering his cheeks, "and, while we are on this, I'm not going to pretend that I don't have the money, because I have. And I don't pay for things to show it off, I do it because I can and it allows me to show people that I care about them", he explained, "if I ever made you feel uncomfortable because of it, it wasn't intentional. I don't need big plans to feel good with you. I'm happy just sitting next to you on the sofa while we watch some TV or while you read some books", he shrugged, "I'm not even a fan of those big events myself, so I wouldn't want you to be one.
"All I know is that I think we're good together, and I want this to work so bad. I want to be with you if you'll allow me", he squeezed your hand, "or, at least, allow me to show you that what we have is good and that it is worth fighting for", he finished.
You felt somewhat guilty for how you felt about it, even though you also knew you weren't being unreasonable, "I'm sorry, but it was eating me away and, yeah, I didn't know how to go about it", you gestured between your bodies, seeing Lance open his arms so you could sit in his lap, "it's okay, I'm glad we talked about it and everything is clarified. We can always talk about these things, I'm very happy that we did. Even though I'm a little saddened that you think so low of yourself, Y/N", he flicked your hair behind your ear, "you're so amazing, you don't even know it. Your passion about your work, the way you love other people, the way you care about them. All of your concerns that you're not like the others? It's what makes me love you even more, what makes me want this, us, to be it", he smiled, kissing your nose when he saw your smile, moving to kiss your lips multiple times, "now, I've admitted verbally that I love you two times, and I'm yet to know how this goes", he teased.
Smiling again, you craddled Lance's face in your hands, "In case I wasn't clear, I love you too", you giggled, "Good. That's good. I will make it my mission to make sure you know it everyday, but until then, I will enjoy having my girlfriend in my arms", he mumbled, pulling you closer to him, "it's a good thing we are both homebodies then".
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ladykailitha · 1 year
Text
Can Anybody See Me? Part 6
Yes, my darlings, you read that right. I promised I would get back on this one once I was done with In the Midnight Hour and admittedly I did get side tracked for a week doing the Valentine’s fics, once that was out of my head I have written almost 7000 new words for this story. I went from half way through this one to a few hundred words into part 10. So yeah. Expect to see this one updated fairly regularly. I haven’t given up on Star Child I’m just trying to decide which direction the next part should take.
Also on the tagging, I HAVE REACHED MY HARD AND FAST LIMIT OF 50. I love the response this story has gotten. I do. I love you all. I love every reply, like, and reblog. It brings me so much joy, you don’t even know. But tagging is hard for my ADHD brain. I have gone up from 20 to 30 and finally 50 as my system improved but I think if I do any more than that I’ll go insane. So any future tagging requests will be ignored. Sorry.
The best way to keep update on these stories is follow me and set me on notifications. I rarely do a lot of reblogging these days (too busy churning out stories like whoa), so more often then not a post will be a story. I try to post at least once a day (some times twice if I’m trying to rush through the posting a bit like I did to make sure the Valentine fic got out in time without making people wait on Vamp!Eddie), just never at set time.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
*
They all met up by the fountain in the middle of the mall. Eddie was bouncing on the balls of his feet nervously.
“You sure he’s going to come?” Jeff asked.
Eddie tried to peer around the crowd. “That’s what he said.”
And then they spotted him. He was in a nice red sweater with a white polo underneath and fitted jeans. Eddie ran his tongue over his teeth in appreciation.
But then he noticed the gaggle of children following behind him. And what a gaggle it was. It consisted of Red, his new best friend, another girl with a thousand yard stare. The tall black kid must be the Sinclair boy. The remaining three were also very interesting. There was the short curly haired kid with no front teeth. The last two were both dark haired, but the one on the right was darker. Hair and attitude, judging from the rounded shoulders and down cast expression of the other boy.
Steve sighed. “I’m sorry I’m late. Dustin called asking me to take him to the arcade, only when I told him that I was going to the mall, suddenly they all wanted to come.”
“And then I got roped into this because they wouldn’t all fit in Steve’s car,” a voice called from the back.
The person jostled his way to stand next to Steve. Jonathan clasped Steve on the shoulder. “I gave Will money to call me when you’re done so I can pick up him and El. Make sure he doesn’t spend it on the gumball machine.”
Steve nodded. “Thanks, man. I’ll see you later.”
Jonathan nodded and waved goodbye to everyone, but especially the timid one. Which Eddie figured must have been Will.
“Your children, I presume?” Eddie asked, eyeing the thirteen year-olds warily.
“Yup,” Steve said with a put on expression. He pointed to each of them in turn. “That’s Dustin, Mike, Will, Lucas, Max and El.”
Eddie did the same to his friends. “I’m Eddie, these are Jeff, Gareth, and Brian. Or collectively, the band Corroded Coffin.”
“That’s bitchin’,” El said with a smile.
Steve ducked his head as he tried not to laugh.
“Hell yeah, it is,” Jeff said, taking an immediate liking to her.
“All right,” Steve said, turning to the kids. “You are to stay in pairs at the very least. And you know who your partners are. Will and Mike, Max and El, and Dustin and Lucas. Regardless of what you are doing, you will meet up here at 2pm. No later. I have plans with these guys at three and I’m not going to be late because of you guys a second time.”
There were a lot of eye rolls but everyone agreed to meet at the fountain at two.
Once they had left, Steve turned back to see that all four of them were struggling not to laugh.
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Go ahead and laugh. Because fuck knows it’s hilarious.”
So they promptly burst out laughing.
“Oh my god,” Gareth wheezed. “It was like watching ducklings.”
“Yes!” Eddie agreed. “My dude, I hope you are charging their parents for this.”
Steve shrugged. “It’s not like I need the money.”
They all just shook their heads.
Eddie clapped his hands together and rubbed. “Right, Stevie, this is how it is going to go. You’ll have one hour to get the most outrageous gift. Ten dollar maximum.”
“Each person or total?”
“However you want to swing it,” Jeff said. “But forty bucks is a lot.”
Steve nodded. “I guess my one concern is that I don’t know you guys very well and I don’t want to offend anyone.”
“So take Eddie with you,” Gareth said. “And then for the last ten minutes split off to buy something for each other.”
Eddie and Steve looked at each other.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, “that could work. What do you say, Stevie?”
Steve shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”
Every one but Steve set a timer on their watches. Steve’s wasn’t a digital one, so he couldn’t.
“On your marks, get set,” Brian said. “And go!”
Eddie grabbed Steve’s hand and suddenly he was being dragged along.
Steve giggled. “Where to first?”
“We are going to Suncoast,” Eddie said with a grin. “It’s the best place for all your metalhead needs.
“Lead on, MacDuff!” Steve said with a grin.
Eddie finally let go of Steve’s hand as they neared the store.
“I found out in drama that a lot of the sayings and words we use today are because Shakespeare couldn’t find the right word and made them up,” Steve said nervously.
“Wait, really?” Eddie asked, coming to a complete stop. “Like what?”
“Well, ‘Lead on, MacDuff’,” Steve said, “just for starters. It’s from Macbeth. Green eyed-monster. Just loads that I can’t think of off the top of my head.”
Eddie stood there for a moment blinking. “If they had taught that in English, I think would pay more attention.”
Steve laughed. “I know, right?”
They entered the store and everything had a dark red neon glow to it and it was clearly separated between the movie part of the store and the music part of the store. It was almost jarring. The movie part was dark like the inside of a movie theater. The music part was well lit and almost sterile white in its design.
They wandered around the music section. And they stopped by the minuscule instrument section. It had mostly accessories but also a couple of guitars. Mostly acoustic but one or two electric as well.
“This is pitiful,” Steve said staring at the selection.
“Beggars can’t be choosers, dude,” Eddie said. “There is an actual record shop with a full on instrument section. But that is not the point of this.”
Steve stopped by the drumsticks. “Gareth is the drummer right?”
Eddie nodded.
“I’ve been to a couple of concerts and I saw that the drummer had a bucket of sticks...”
“Are you asking if you should get Gareth more drumsticks?” Eddie asked. Steve nodded. “Go for it.”
“What’s his favorite color?” Steve asked.
Eddie frowned, but Steve pointed to the drumsticks on display and the had all sorts of different colors and patterns.
“The black ones with the flames on them, for sure.”
Steve grinned and picked them up. They got a couple more things here, but it was time to move on.
They hit up the stationary store, the weird little shop that sold incense and little Egyptian figurines, and Hammond’s Toys.
As they were passing Shapiro’s on their way to Hammond’s Toys, Steve found his gift for Eddie. It took every bit of will power not to just rush back and grab it, afraid it would be gone by the time he got back.
Eddie came up to him. “All right, Stevie. This is where we have to part ways. We only have ten minutes left and we need to get each other something, too.”
Steve smiled and nodded. He doubled back to Shapiro’s and quickly bought it. He raced to the fountain to be there first. He sat down on the edge of the fountain, his packages tucked under his legs so people wouldn’t steal them.
It wasn’t long before the others started showing up. Brian showed up first.
“How the hell did you beat me, man?” he asked as he sat down next to Steve. “I’m always the first to arrive.”
Steve blushed. “I got lucky.” He was practically vibrating with anticipation.
Brian eyed him suspiciously. “And you got a present for everyone?”
Steve pressed his lips together and nodded.
Gareth was the next to show up. “Now that’s just embarrassing. Being beaten by Brian is one thing, he’s a shopping guru. But Steve Harrington, too? However will I get over the shame?”
Jeff laughed from behind him, having just shown up himself. “You’ll live.”
Eddie was the last to arrive showing up exactly at the hour.
“Ooh,” Jeff teased. “By the skin of your teeth. Is Steve-o here really that hard to buy for?”
Eddie grabbed his knees, panting for breath. “No,” he huffed. “Just on the other side of the fucking mall.”
“So,” Gareth said turning to Steve. “Now for the next phase of our little get together. We meet up at my house at three and exchange gifts and play a one-shot.”
Steve wrinkled his nose. “Is that like a D&D thing?”
“Yup!” Brian said gleefully rubbing his hands together. “It a story meant for a single day instead of multiple days like a campaign.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said. “We roll up quick character that are meant to die and just go to town no real rules. Just fun.”
Steve nodded. “Sure I could do that.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got twenty minutes before the kids show up.”
The other three backed away slowly.
“Yeah,” Jeff said, “we aren’t going to wait for that mob.”
“Oh, hell no,” Brian agreed. “I’m sure they’re great kids and all but I have three younger siblings, if I wanted chaos, I’d hang out with them.”
“Middle schoolers, man,” Gareth said, “are the plague of the earth. See you at three.”
Steve laughed. “Agreed on all accounts. I see you at Gareth’s. I’ll get the address from Eddie.”
The three boys walked off, shoving and pushing each other, laughing as they made their way to the exit.
“So what about you?” Steve asked. “You going to run before the hoard gets here?”
Eddie laughed. “I should. Leave you to the wolves.” He grinned. “But nah. I want to properly meet the kids that Steve the pied piper of Hawkins has taken under his wing.”
Steve blushed. “I wouldn’t call myself that. They barely listen to me.”
Eddie’s face softened. “I’m sure that’s not true. I bet the little sponges are just soaking up everything you tell them.”
Steve huffed out a laugh. “That would explain the language problem.”
Eddie tilted his head to side. “What language problem?”
“They swear like sailors.”
Eddie blinked a couple of time before he burst out laughing. “Having trouble not swearing around kids, Stevie?”
“You would be swearing too if you had to deal with them all the time,” he said with a shake of his head.
“So why do you do it?” Eddie asked.
Steve huffed out a sigh and kicked the side of the fountain with the heel of his foot. “Most of them don’t have great home lives. Except the Sinclairs, of course. Especially when it comes to caring adult men. I know what that’s like, so I try to be that for them.”
“Huh.”
Eddie didn’t have much time to comment on that because the first of the terrors had arrived.
The two dark-haired boys that seemed joined at the hip.
“Hey, Mike,” Steve greeted, “hey, Will. Did you already call Jonathan to come get you?”
Will nodded.
“Good,” Steve said. “Eddie here DMs for his friends.”
Both heads turned to him in shock.
“There is no way,” Mike said. “Steve would never be friends with someone who likes D&D.”
“Hey!” Steve protested. “I’m friends with you assholes!”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Fine. Steve wouldn’t be friends with people his own age that play D&D.”
“Mike...” Will protested, speaking up for the first time. “What’s your favorite class?”
“Bard. It’s kinda self-insert type of thing,” Eddie said. “I play guitar, so I get the class. Um...second favorite would druid. I have a twelfth level druid named Kilmar Goatfiend in a campaign my club is doing right now.”
“You have a D&D club?” Dustin asked coming up from behind Will and Mike. “No way!”
“Yep!” Eddie said with pop of his lips. “The Hellfire club. Lenny Fitzpatrick is president this year. Next year, it’ll probably be Janice Montgomery.”
“You have a girl in your club?” Lucas asked, think of his sister Erika.
“Girls don’t play D&D,” Mike growled.
Steve hit him on the back of the head. “Oi! Your sister played. She’s the one that taught you. Show her some respect.”
Eddie’s eyes went wide. “Nancy Wheeler plays D&D.”
“Did,” Will clarified. “She’s the one that gave me my wizard robes to DM in.”
“You dress up?” Eddie asked. “That’s so cool.”
Will blushed.
Just then girls arrived both of them eating ice cream cones.
Dustin spotted them and gasped. “You got ice cream cones?” He turned to Steve. “Why didn’t we get ice cream cones?”
Steve stood up and put his hands on his hips. “Because they saved their money and bought themselves ice cream cones?”
Max stuck out her tongue at him and El giggled.
“You better finish those up before you get into my car,” Steve said wagging his finger at them.
“Hey, I could take Max home,” Eddie said with a shrug. “I’m heading that way anyway.”
Steve looked at Max. “It’s up to you. You can go home with him or I could drop you off at Hopper’s and you and El can continue to hang out.”
Max thought about it for a minute. “I’ll think I’ll go home with Eddie and hang out with El tomorrow.” She turned to El. “Is that okay?”
El nodded. “I wanted to spend time with Will and Mike today.”
Mike blushed.
“What about you two?” Steve asked. “Where am I dropping you two off?”
Dustin and Lucas just shared a glance and shrugged.
“Well then you two can sort it out in the car,” Steve said and then turned to Eddie. “So what’s Gareth’s address?”
Eddie pulled out a pocket notebook and pen and scribbled out the address. “There you go, see you later, man.”
Steve took the piece of paper with a smile. “Do you always carry a notebook and pen with you wherever you go?”
Eddie grinned. “Sure, sometimes the muse will strike while I’m out and about so I need something to jot down lyrics or chord progressions as needed.”
“That’s sooo cool,” Mike said, a little star struck.
Will and Lucas looked over at each other and rolled their eyes. Eddie fought back a grin.
They split off, with Will, Mike and El, staying at the fountain to wait for Jonathan.
Part 7  Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14  Part 15  Part 16  Part 17 Part 18  Part 19 Part 20  Part 21
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t3a-tan · 9 months
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Size-swap au for Oliver and James because unintentional fearplay is beautiful. Let’s be honest the only one learning anything here is James. Comments and reblogs are what keep me writing, so any help with motivation is appreciated ^^
@entomolog-t you asked me to tag you so here--
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Oliver wasn't sure how it happened exactly. Everything had been normal up until this point: he had harvested some of his tea leaves in the morning, made another jar of jam at noon, made some cornbread over a fire at night. And when he fell asleep in his cozy cotton stuffed bed he woke up—
Well… Not in his burrow, to say the least.
In fact, he woke up sleeping on the dewy grass— which was remarkably odd considering grass was not something he really could lie on top without laying it flat. Not to mention the grass was tiny; small enough to grab fistfuls of it at a time.
The situation became clearer once he looked up more, and despite the fact that the trees were still larger than him, they weren't complete behemoths as usual. Oliver could even see the entrance to his burrow— which was unharmed thankfully.
He was human-sized. But how?
Oliver prided himself on being extremely knowledgeable about the human way of life in comparison to most borrowers who preferred to stay sheltered, but after becoming closer with James he found that there were plenty of unwritten rules of human life too.
James… I should go see him like this. Maybe he knows something? If not, he could always help me find a solution…
Oliver had no interest in remaining human sized— it was just unnatural and too different from what he was used to. He didn't mind it, but it was more like a day's enjoyment kind of thing rather than life long.
On pure instinct he whistled loudly, before spotting a bird swooping down and landing at his feet. She was unbothered, and Oliver tilted his head, crouching down and lightly scratching at the buzzard's head, as she chirped contentedly in response.
"Apologies for calling you, Gail. I don't think you'll be able to carry me like this.." He remarked softly, enamored by just how small the graceful bird had now become. She squawked out in response, something Oliver liked to think was agreement despite knowing logically that the bird could neither understand him nor respond back to him.
Standing back up, he watched as she flew off again before starting his trek to find James's house, trying his best to recall the route.
Along the way he was enamored seeing how humans were interacting from the same level– but he knew better than to approach strangers like this as that was socially unacceptable. Once he had met up with James then it would be more productive to have that kind of conversation and experience with him rather than making random humans uncomfortable.
It took about twenty minutes to arrive, but knocking received no response. Oliver recalled the time James had mentioned keeping a spare key hidden behind a false brick after forgetting his keys at work for the seventh or eighth time, and so once he figured out which brick in the outer wall was fake he found the keys and unlocked the door, taking a few moments to relish in the new experience.
He made sure to lock the door behind him too before realizing that James wouldn't have a clue who just entered and would probably presume an intruder had just broken in.
"James? It's Oliver. I don't know what happened, I need to talk to you though…. Are you in?" Oliver began to explore the house, trying not to be too intrusive or snoop around too much, but he couldn't help but make mental comparisons between everything at the moment. Humans saw the world in such an odd way…he felt huge. Too big for his liking, but he knew that to a human this would be completely normal instead.
Oliver saw that James must be home, considering all of his shoes were still sitting in the shoe rack, and his wallet and keys were sitting on the shelf near the front door. Humans didn't generally leave without those essentials… So then why wasn't James responding? Was he potentially injured??
At that thought Oliver hurried up the stairs, this time not taking any time to make observations on his surroundings and instead searching specifically for an unconscious human… and he found nothing.
Peculiar. The windows are locked and shut, so where has he gone…? Did someone take him? There's no signs of a struggle, so that can't be it. Oliver was growing admittedly worried about the circumstances here. That was when he saw a shadow in the corner of his eye.
It disappeared quickly, but Oliver's attention had already focused onto it— expecting to see a house spider or something of the sort which he was very interested in inspecting close up now that they were very much harmless… but what he found instead was utterly perplexing.
"James..?"
Oliver dropped down to a crouch, eyebrows raised in surprise and eyes locked onto the shadow on the floor…. Because right there was not a shadow at all: instead he saw his friend, who looked about as pale as a ghost, back pressed into the corner of the room and staring up at Oliver with heaving breaths.
Oliver wasn't sure how it happened exactly, or what he did to inspire such terror in James's eyes, but he quickly set about fixing it.
"James? It's alright, James, just breathe... I'll do it with you, okay? In for four….hold for four….out for four…." He kept his tone low and soft, trying to coax the older man out of his fear-stricken state. Oliver stayed completely still, breathing in time with his instructions until James began following along, gasping slightly as he tried to regain control of his breathing, but soon enough he was taking deep breaths and leaving his fight or flight state.
Oliver waited, staring down at him with a concerned but curious gaze, waiting for James to say something or to explain what had him so frightened in the first place… but instead all he got was silence. Oliver's expression faltered, eyebrows furrowing slightly, leaning down a little closer now only radiating concern over his friend's plight.
"Keep breathing, it's okay… Are you struggling to find words at the moment? Do you need water?" He asked, keeping his voice gentle to avoid causing any other outbursts. He relaxed a bit when James managed to nod, and so Oliver pushed himself up to a stand, still looking down at the now borrower-sized human. "I'll go fetch some— woah… hm."
Oliver went completely still again as he saw the way James had flinched and shielded himself just as Oliver stood up. It took the human-sized borrower a few moments to put it together, but once he did he quickly lowered himself to the ground again.
"James... Do you think I'm going to hurt you..?" He asked, not offended in the slightest but saddened by the idea. Oliver couldn't imagine hurting an innocent person ever… and by the way James was reacting, it was probably more than just 'hurt' he was afraid of.
Instead of receiving a response though James just stayed curled up and trembling, so small and vulnerable. From Oliver's perspective, he was smaller than an ant would usually be from borrower size, which was surreal in and of itself. But he wasn't an oddity to be marveled at…he was a person in need of reassurance.
"I'm sorry if I frightened you. I should have considered my actions with a bit more grace… But there's no need for you to be afraid. I'm your friend, I wouldn't dream of laying a finger on you without your permission, especially not with the intent to harm." He assured softly, keeping his hands to himself as promised.
James held his head in his hands for a few more moments, anxiously dragging his fingers through his hair as he often did when he was stressed about something. Oliver had picked up on it when he would stay at James's house for a prolonged time and end up walking in on phone calls with his ex wife. But it was never this bad…James had always maintained some control of his emotional state. Oliver wasn't used to seeing him this way.
He tilted his head, leaning down a bit more whilst keeping his hands on his knees, non-threateningly.
"I'm not upset at you for your reaction at all. You have experienced quite a dramatic shift, so it's only natural that stress comes along with that. I understand that you are reacting on instinct, not logic, so there is no need to feel anxious that I may feel hurt by your fear." Oliver clarified, rambling as he often did when he wasn't fully certain of the most succinct way to put it; he would rather over-explain than miscommunicate.
James took a few moments before he nodded slowly, though he kept his gaze averted for now. Still, it was progress, so Oliver couldn't help but perk up slightly.
"I imagine it would be quite shocking to go from human height to borrower height, isn't it..?" He lowered his voice to a whisper, trying to coax a verbal answer from the man in order to test the waters. He waited patiently, observing his body language.
"Y-yeah….you can— you can say that again, mate..." James finally managed to stammer out a response, his gaze hesitantly shifting in order to focus on Oliver. Oliver offered a reassuring smile in turn.
James's eyes narrowed slightly, and although he was still quite shaken up he pointed an accusatory finger up at Oliver, causing the enlarged borrower's eyebrows to raise in withdrawn surprise.
"H-how in the hell do you keep it together..? Especially when we first met… I.. I…" He trailed off, expression wracked with guilt of his past callous treatment of Oliver. "...how..?"
Oliver hummed, unsure of how exactly to respond at first. It was a question even he himself didn't really know the answer to. He had always been quite emotionless, even more so when he was younger…and he simply didn't feel fear. Not in the same way— Oliver was extremely logical and curious, so he found that when he saw new things he would always be more fascinated than terrified.
The first time he saw a human he had been only 8 years old, collecting water from the creek, when he saw a gigantic hulking beast approach the water on the other side. He had at first moved to take shelter as he was taught to when facing predators, but stopped when he noticed that the so-called beast was a woman. A woman 30 or so times his size dressed in odd clothing, but a woman nonetheless.
Oliver watched after the woman. Despite being so close and in the open he was unafraid and oh so intrigued— he had never seen someone outside of his family before…not until now. He hadn't realized others were so big, thinking perhaps that she was simply very old and had never stopped growing like his parents had. He wondered if she had just moved nearby…he wondered how big her family's burrow would have to be.
"I'm not sure how. I don't understand the level of fear everyone else experiences because I don't… but I imagine I lack a majority of instincts. Most borrowers I know would likely pass out in the presence of a human… Especially when being handled by one." Oliver responded after some thought before swiftly adding, "and I'm not going to be handling you in such a rough manner, if that's something you're worried about."
"Oliver, I don't— I don't think you'd do that at all…" James was quick to interject, finally looking up and meeting Oliver's green eyes with his own brown ones, but Oliver could see that there was some doubt there. Nothing personal, clearly, but it was still there. He couldn't help his frown.
"I've not been scary a single day in my life, I don't think. It's odd. It's…uncomfortable." Oliver sighed. "Whatever has happened to us, I hope it reverses back soon. As intrigued as I am about viewing things from a human perspective, I would rather not scare you in the process."
He glanced around, and for the first time James saw Oliver genuinely unsure of what to do. Vulnerable, ironically enough, considering he was currently almost 500 times the size of what James was used to seeing him as. James tried his best to take a deep breath and calm his heart again, though he was still weak in the knees from the instinctive fear that came with it.
"We're friends, Oliver. I know you won't do anything to me… I just…my head keeps telling me to run— t-to get away as fast as possible…but my heart knows you are safe… okay? So don't feel bad, mate…" He addressed Oliver directly this time rather than just thinking his paranoid thoughts aloud. Oliver blinked, then stared for a few moments, eyes narrowing in confusion and distaste…his judging face. What had James managed to do wrong now?
"...your heart doesn't know anything, it's an organ responsible for pumping blood around the body…" The borrower murmured, genuinely confused by that description. James couldn't help but facepalm. That was what Oliver was taking away from what he had said? Oh well, it was embarrassing the first time, he's not going to repeat himself again…
"You are a bloody pain in my ass, you know that?" James grumbled in return, as Oliver blinked and now only looked apologetic, leaning in closer.
"Oh, I'm sorry… I didn't think I had touched you before, but I'm sorry if I hurt you." He apologized, concern in his gaze. James was tempted to square him in the nose— but he also knew that Oliver wasn't ridiculing him whatsoever, and simply didn't understand a lot of the idioms that humans used all the time.
"That's it. You've officially killed me." James sighed in exasperation, dragging a hand down his face. Despite his fed-up expression though, he saw it as endearing because Oliver was so genuine and so…him, 100% all the time. The smile appeared on his face and he couldn't help it. The absurdity of this situation was starting to make him crack.
Oliver's brows pinched together, with one subtly raised.
"Well now I know that's just spurious." He kept still, only slightly cocking his head as his observative gaze bored down upon James. The officer wouldn't even bother asking what the hell 'spurious' meant. "Does your joking mean you're more comfortable now? Because I suggest a lift off of the floor may help things look a bit less daunting from your perspective."
James hesitated, glancing towards Oliver's hands and shrinking back against the wall. The idea of fingers larger than his entire body reaching for him like the mouth of some beast was terrifying…but then he looked at Oliver's face, reminding himself of who those hands were attached to.
Since they had met, Oliver had been patient and gentle. He had taught James just as much as James had taught him back— and they were friends. Officially.
Just as he would never hurt Oliver even when it would have been so easy to do so, he knew Oliver was the same. If anything, the safest place for him to be at all at this size was probably in Oliver's hands. So despite his instincts screaming no, James nodded yes.
Oliver's expression softened again, moving slowly as he reached his hand forward, lowering it onto the floor in front of James so he could climb on by himself. He was quiet, allowing James to think, and giving him time to back out again if he wanted to— a yes could be withdrawn at any time, after all.
Eventually though, James stepped away from the wall and slowly climbed into Oliver's open palm. He marveled at the feeling. Oliver had very rough and worn skin— he worked with his hands quite often obviously, but they weren't uncomfortable by any means either. Not to mention that they were warm…
James looked down at his own minuscule hand as he brushed it over the creases of Oliver's palm, mouth agape. It was like he was standing on top of an alien— the floor beneath him pulsating with the calm beating of the now-giant borrower's heart. He couldn't imagine this being normal for anyone… He wondered how Oliver was able to be so casual around him.
Oliver was slow and careful with his movements as he stood up, keeping his hand stable and moving at such a pace that it wouldn't disturb James too much. Once he had stood up he turned and began to very gently make his way down the stairs, before entering the kitchen. He hummed, recalling how exactly James made his coffee and getting out the doll mug that the officer had bought a while back to make drinking easier for Oliver.
He lowered his hand again, but kept it still as he got to work on making the coffee, allowing James to stay on his hand since it was clear that the human was intrigued by it. Oliver had to admit that he was quite interested in how it felt to hold someone so tiny too, though he never moved his fingers to close in on James. He wouldn't do anything more without explicit permission, regardless of his curiosity.
Eventually the coffee was done, and Oliver very carefully managed to tip just a few drops into the tiny mug.
"Drink your coffee. I'll make some crumpets for us to eat…" He spoke, prompting James to finally give Oliver his hand back as he stepped off. Oliver smiled again, seeing that his friend was a bit embarrassed by his fascination— he didn't mind in the slightest. The enjoyment of discovery should be encouraged, not mocked.
Oliver got out two crumpets and placed them in the toaster before getting the butter from the fridge and setting it out to allow it to soften. He then got out a plate, now just waiting for the crumpets to toast.
With that sorted he looked down at James again, inspecting him lightly as the man dipped at his coffee, in a much more relaxed state than he had been before. Oliver was relieved. He hadn't meant to cause any emotional distress in the first place, and he was thankful that James was no longer suffering from such paralyzing fear in his presence. Friends should not have to fear friends.
"Did I make it how you usually do? I've not made coffee before, I'm afraid." Oliver asked, his tone still soft and non-threatening even though James had already calmed down. The shrunken human hummed in acknowledgement of his question, taking another sip before answering.
"It's actually alright, believe it or not. I'm surprised you managed it, if it's your first time. Good on you." The man responded, managing a smile up in Oliver's direction. He had a very different way of smiling than Oliver: whereas the borrower's smile was gentle and calm, his was much more light and playful. Their distinct personalities on display.
Oliver slowly leaned down, resting his elbow on the countertop and then his cheek in his hand as he gazed down at the human. He inspected the man for a few moments, before looking elsewhere.
"I'd like to go to a library. Perhaps I can find some new books to record." Voice contemplative, he hummed to himself as if considering the idea.
Oliver wanted to go to a library, but he couldn't exactly leave James here to fend for himself as the human didn't have the necessary skills or tools to get around by himself. He could bring James along, but it may be overwhelming for the man to be in an area with other comparatively giant people…not to mention he'd have to remain hidden the entire time, and Oliver had learned that James got bored quite easily.
James's nose wrinkled in distaste at the idea.
"Didn't you say you grew up in a library? Why do you need to record so many books, anyway? Is that your idea of fun..?" He wasn't necessarily judging, but he never understood why Oliver was so determined and able to focus on such tedious things like copying down books, or making maps. It was admirable, definitely, but also extremely boring-sounding.
"I may have grown up in a library, but I didn't have the necessary supplies to write down what I read, nor did I have many opportunities to read as it was usually quite dark when the opportunity did arise." Oliver began, not taking any offense and instead over-explaining his answers, not recognizing that James meant it all as more rhetorical.
"Borrowers do not have books, and many borrowers are not able to read either. If there were more books accessible to our kind, that could change…and there would be much more information available as a whole about our world, since very few borrowers can go out and explore it for themselves. Currently my library is in development, but I hope that when my colony is established it will be in full use by borrowers living in it." Oliver continued.
"And yes. It is enjoyable to me. I get to learn, and I know that what I record will become valuable to others of my kind later on." He finished, before raising an eyebrow at James. "You humans may see that as odd, but there was a time in your history where things were very much the same for your kind. Now you're more focused on getting an education and getting a good job— borrowers haven't even reached the education stage yet."
James could tell thanks to many experiences of Oliver lecturing him about the differences between their kinds that the borrower wasn't putting him down for not understanding. He'd be a good teacher, James couldn't help but think… The way Oliver had mastered explaining things without making the other person feel stupid or put on the spot was impressive, to say the least.
"What's stopping you then?" James asked, taking another sip of his coffee. Oliver watched him silently for a few moments before releasing a sigh that rustled through the shrunken human's hair.
"I don't want to risk overwhelming you in such an environment. And I don't want to leave you on your own in this state either. You do not have any of the skills necessary for survival as a borrower, and I'd rather not risk your safety to satiate my own curiosity." He explained, trying his best to let James down gently. He didn't mean to call the human effectively useless at this height…but he kind of was. It didn't change how Oliver saw James, but it changed the way Oliver considered the human's new needs.
Before, James didn't need Oliver's help at all other than emotionally, but now he was practically dependent on physical aid. Oliver didn't mind in the slightest, but he had come to learn that James was quite a prideful person— not to a fault, but enough that he was understandably frustrated by his lack of autonomy. Oliver would try his best to keep his actions in consideration of that: he felt fine regardless, but James would probably appreciate having control as much as possible right now.
The crumpets were finally done so Oliver began to spread them.
"What? It can't be that hard, mate. I see you do it all the time." James remarked with a frown. He probably didn't think much of Oliver's feats because to borrowers they weren't feats at all, but at a human scale borrowers were definitely performing incredible feats of strength, agility, and coordination on a regular basis. It was understandable that James couldn't see it like that because the scale was so different. In this case, experiencing the difficulty himself would be the only way he'd understand what Oliver meant.
Oliver hummed, finishing spreading the crumpets before setting the butter knife down and pointing over the edge of the counter 
"Try climbing down the counter. Borrowers are capable of climbing up and down this height without tools by the age of about 11." He instructed, not directly communicating that James could choose to or not because he believed it was for the best that James should make the attempt. Still though, if James chose not to, Oliver wouldn't force or pressure him into it at all.
James walked over to the edge, not thinking much of the idea until he realized just how massive of a drop it was. He couldn't believe that Oliver did this so often… he made it look so easy. But James wanted to try anyway, if only to prove himself as capable— he didn't want to be a burden to Oliver by proxy of being this height.
"Just watch me." He snarked, before turning and dangling himself off of the edge, trying his best to keep his trembling contained as the effort it took even to do just that was causing his muscles to ache. Oliver raised an eyebrow, keeping an eye on James for any signs of him losing his grip or slipping so he would be able to catch him in time. It was inevitable. If the man was already shaking at the top, he wouldn't make it down before his muscles were completely worn out.
"Don't injure yourself by pushing too much." Oliver reminded gently, not realizing that those words only had the opposite effect. James was more determined than ever to make it all the way down no matter what, and so he began the climb.
Embarrassingly, he only made it a few inches before losing his grip and falling— promptly getting caught into Oliver's hand and lifted back up to the top of the counter. Oliver wasn't smug about this fact at all. He didn't like seeing his friend's hurt pride, but he didn't want him to overestimate his abilities and injure himself as a result.
James groaned, holding his arm and gritting his teeth in pain from the ache in his sore muscles. He definitely pushed too hard… which was even more upsetting knowing that he hadn't even made it a quarter of the way down. Oliver's expression became concerned, bringing his hand up closer to his face and inspecting the human closely to make sure he hadn't seriously injured himself.
"Are you alright..? Do you want some ice? Perhaps I could run you a bath..?" Oliver spoke, not fretting so much as simply offering assistance. James shook his head, slightly flustered at how poorly his attempt had gone.
"Jesus, Oliver… I can't believe you do that all the time. You said 11 year olds can do that??" James brushed past Oliver's concern for the moment. Oliver always fell for trying to answer every question and further explain certain topics.
"Well, although there are currently no scientific studies I'm aware of on the matter, it is not a stretch to conclude that we have slightly different biology. Borrowers have greater stamina than humans, a lower metabolic rate, and I presume that our muscles are more focused on climbing and carrying. Of course though, this could be a byproduct of our environment rather than a significant biological difference… either way, to borrowers, this is very normal, but to humans at our scale it's practically impossible." He rambled.
James listened with interest, but was more so relieved that Oliver was no longer fretting over him. Oliver moved the plate of crumpets to be in between him and James before starting to eat the breakfast. He made sure to chew and swallow, incredibly intrigued by how different the textures of the food felt at this size, before talking again.
"Anyway, as I stated before, you don't have the necessary skills for survival as a borrower, so I would rather not leave you vulnerable. I don't think you're incapable of taking care of yourself…but the world is very large. Even trained borrowers get caught up in it. As you know…"
James knew that Oliver was referring to his own family, and he winced as he remembered the amount of loss that his friend had endured. He forgot, sometimes, because Oliver rarely ever mentioned his family or dwelled on his emotions… but it was a stark reminder. As much as James didn't like having to depend on others, he recognized that Oliver only wanted to prevent him from having a similar fate.
"Okay, I get it. It's fine, we'll…figure something out." He relented, deciding to forgo some of his autonomy for the sake of alleviating Oliver's concerns. He knew that the man wouldn't take advantage of that.
In all of the time that James had known him, which to be fair it wasn't that long, Oliver was always respectful, polite, compassionate, and receptive. He may take things too literally at times, and he may ramble on and on about things that James couldn't even begin to understand— but he was a good friend. James trusted him a lot…even more so now: when it became clear that Oliver didn't just tolerate him and wasn't only polite because of the height difference.
This situation was freaky as all hell, but it confirmed that Oliver was a genuinely good and trustworthy man. James was thankful to be friends with someone like that…
Suddenly, James's phone could be heard ringing upstairs.
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o-uncle-newt · 8 months
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I'm not going to reblog Neil Gaiman's thing about how S2's episodes "don't have any fat on them" but I DO have some (spoilery) reactions to that below the cut-
OK so I already did another post here where I gave my impressions of the writing- but Gaiman mentioning this actually reminded me of something that I didn't put in there at all but kind of wish I had.
Because honestly, I don't think that the episodes not having any fat on them is a good thing.
Here's the thing- Good Omens, the book and the first season of the TV show, is a bunch of set pieces that loosely come together into a plot. The TV show less so, maybe- there's more of an effort to create a narrative- but fundamentally it's a bunch of ridiculous stuff all strung together to create the Apocalypse. (Like, there's a reason why book fans were so upset when the Four Other Horsemen of the Apocalypse didn't show up in the show- they did literally nothing for the plot but they were absolutely hilarious.)
So far, in the first 2 episodes of S2, I have to agree with Gaiman that there's no fat on them. And I think that's one of the things that kind of threw me. EVERYTHING that has happened thus far has felt like it's something that's probably going to lead to something else, like it's connective tissue for the upcoming story that will presumably make more sense later- and while there's plenty of entertainment and humor and sweetness, it's all to the point. You have to be paying attention, you have to take everything seriously (even if it's something that by rights feels inherently unserious) because it could matter later.
In S1, you didn't have to think too carefully about why a telemarketer is being eaten by maggots or even why there's still a witchfinder in the 21st century (for the show) because fundamentally it doesn't REALLY matter. Something will all come together at the end and in the meantime you can just enjoy it in the spirit in which it's given, which is of course an insane one. Each scene is just fun on its own. (I think this is in some ways truer in the book than the show- there were a lot of these scenes that I don't think worked on the show- but that was more about the execution than the concept.)
The fat in S1 was the good part, really. The plot wasn't all that important- it was all the moments along the way.
The closest thing to fat (to continue to use the metaphor) in S2, so far, is the minisode. It's the only thing where it doesn't necessarily feel like you'll be tested on it later. And it's also easily the best part of those episodes! You can just watch it and take all the ridiculousness for granted because it doesn't really matter. It's there to draw out the characters, it's there to give the world more color, and it's there to entertain.
Not that S2 isn't also there to entertain- it very much is, but it doesn't really have time to. It can be silly and random in the way that the book and S1 are, but instead of those being random throwaway moments (like Newt blacking out all of Dorking in the book- which signifies that his tech-unsavviness may be relevant to the plot later but is really mostly just there to entertain because it's so out-there), they are intrinsically tied into whatever the plot will turn out to be. That's really clear, even though we don't actually know yet exactly what the plot is going to be! The leanness of the plot is immediately evident.
I think, so far, that the main negative consequence is that it makes it so much harder to suspend disbelief. When you have a ridiculous moment in a throwaway scene, that's worldbuilding- it shows that this is the kind of world where ridiculous things happen, and then when a particular ridiculous moment ends up being important to the plot, that's fine because it's part of a whole constellation of ridiculous things in this ridiculous world- they've already deconstructed our sense of disbelief. When all you're getting is plot, when something a bit crazy happens you're like "oh, hang on, that doesn't make sense, that's a bit farfetched."
I think that that's one of the things that, so far, is giving "fanfic vibes" to the first two episodes. Maggie and Nina get locked into the cafe? In their first episode?! When we know that they're going to get together?!?! That's ridiculous. In the book and to a lesser degree S1, where like five other ridiculous things would have already happened that aren't heavily signaled to be important to the plot (Gabriel doesn't count because we know he's important to the plot too), this would just be one more ridiculous thing. In S2, it feels like something we need to suspend disbelief for because we haven't really had it suspended for us yet.
Everything I write about Good Omens here is going to come down to John Finnemore in the end because I can't help myself lol, but honestly, my first thought was "well he's really into plotting, so maybe this is part of that." But- he's also done nine and a bit seasons of a sketch show. While he was writing this he was also writing a season of JFSP (the sublime S9) where there was very minimal plot but everything was propelled by character building sketches, very much in the spirit of Good Omens. He knows exactly the power of random ridiculous moments to build the world and explain its ludicrousness. When him being a writer was announced, I saw so many people say "he's definitely got a bonkers enough brain to do this" except that it turns out that, while true, his bonkers sketch-writing brain doesn't really have a lot to do here.
That, plus the fact that I'd be really surprised from everything that I've heard over the last 2ish years if Gaiman wasn't the first and final voice behind everything written for this season, leads me to the conclusion that the issue might just be that S2 may be, as a group effort, over-plotted for its length. There's little room to breathe and live in the world. There are barely any humans, and as such there's not much time to remember that the story is set in a world where humans matter, which, as I pointed out in my previous post, is something that was really important in Good Omens the book and S1. It just doesn't have any fat.
Now- I should be clear- as I said with the other post, it is way too early to tell if GO2 is good or not, because all of the stuff in E1-2 was clearly building up to other things that haven't happened yet. I actually think S2 probably will be good. The above may not be "issues" per se. But I do think that talking about the original Good Omens like the "fat" is the problem kind of misses the point of why so many people liked it- and leaves GO2 with a pretty big burden to overcome in order to convince viewers that it is a continuation of the same world and same story they loved in S1.
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nat-stimmy · 7 months
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so ive been seeing more and more uncredited / poorly credited stimboards in the stim tag and it's been bugging me, so i decided to put together a post about some things i think newer stim blogs should know!
CREDITING:
- DO NOT USE PINTEREST AS A SOURCE. DO NOT EVER USE PINTEREST AS A SOURCE. Pinterest is full of reposted gifs that other people have made (including my own!) that have been posted there without their permission. it's just not a good way to credit people, because you are using stolen gifs. Find your gifs on Tumblr. - DO NOT USE UNCREDITED STIMBOARDS AS A SOURCE. if you cannot find the gif ANYWHERE ELSE then either use a reverse image search engine like tineye to find the source or use another gif. sometimes posts just disappear and blogs delete and gifs get lost. it's sad but it happens and the next best thing is to figure out what video it was from and gif it yourself. - DO NOT POST YOUR STIMBOARD BEFORE YOU HAVE CREDITED THE GIFMAKERS. No, you can't say "dm for credit!" or "Lost the sources, sorry, but its too pretty not to post!". Credit your sources. Blogs like mine put effort into making sharable stim gifs for you and we would appreciate a "thank you" in the form of a link back to the post you found the gif from. Otherwise you're just stealing it. - DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT MADE FOR THE MIDDLE IMAGE, EVEN IF YOU CREDIT. While gifmakers' content is made to be shared and used in this way, general art is not. the artist will not appreciate their art being stolen. if you have express permission from the artist, then it's fine. but do not presume that Just Crediting Is Enough.
DNI BANNERS:
BE AWARE OF YOUR FONT + COLOR CHOICES AND TEXT SPACING. Certain fonts are harder for people to read and certain color combinations can cause eye strain and headaches, and with smaller banners with long DNI lists sometimes words get cut off or moved and make people read it wrong. Just a bad time all around. Don't have much advice for this, just don't use bright colors on bright colors, or pastels on pastels and use a plain text font instead of a fancy Aesthetic one.
DO NOT ADD YOUR DNI BANNER TO POSTS THAT ARE NOT YOURS. I can't believe I have to say this but if a post does not originate from your blog, you do not get to add your banner to a post by reblogging it to your blog. That is incredibly rude. What if the person you're reblogging from has different boundaries than you? Be considerate.
BE SPECIFIC. "weirdos / freaks dni" is not good because nobody knows what you're talking about, and also yknow. the word "freak" is ableist and maybe not the best choice of words here. You might as well just not use a banner at all at that point. There's a similar issue to "Basic DNI criteria" because there is no basic DNI criteria. it's different for everyone. List your boundaries plainly and accessibly. That's about all I can think of for now, but this post may be updated or added onto! Please spread this around!
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scribbling-dragon · 5 months
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are we allies or enemies? (this will be the death of me)
summary:
Only when it persists does he finally close all of his eyes again, opening only the normal pair to stare down at his wrist mournfully. Invisible now, but visible just moments ago, was a green string, thin and wavering on occasion but resolutely leading somewhere. That somewhere presumably being Joel. The sensation makes sense now, if his soul has, once again, been tied to another. This one somehow being more reckless than the last. [alternatively, what if the "double life" of session three was a little more…literal]
(ao3 link)
(6,382 words)
been going a little insane over joel and grian since last week's episodes, so here you go! fun little reminder to reblog if you enjoyed it (and leave me any thoughts in the tags! i love reading 'em!)
Sparks burst to life before him, flaring green and burning themselves into his retinas, leaving afterimages he’ll be blinking away for the next few minutes. The book presents itself amidst these sparks, swirling together out of nothing.
The book he reaches for, and catches in his hands, is however very real. Unlike the sparks, which don't even carry any sensation with them. They may as well not land on his skin, for how little he feels of them. The sparks alight on the ends of his fingers as he closes them around the leather-bound book, but there is nothing beyond the visual of green sparks that tells him this.
The sparks fade from vivid green to nothingness as he flips the book open. Its cover ripples beneath his touch, enchantments sending a smooth wave of cold over his skin. It’s colder than usual, seeming to permeate every fibre of his being.
For every injury Joel Smallishbeans receives, you must receive the same. You can let him in on this secret but no one else... If either of you die in the next twenty-four hours, you fail.
As Grian reads the exact details of his task, as he allows the information to settle within his brain, he feels something else settle alongside it.
It is unfamiliar, and yet not. Something that he remembers, but different, in a way he cannot find words for. There is no description for the familiarity with which he accepts the sensation, nor are there any words for the unfamiliarity of it.
To share whatever damage Joel takes with himself…
He straightens his arms out in front of him, scrutinising the backs of his hands. There is nothing there except the few feathers he has dotting the backs of his hands. The tawny brown feathers rustle in an unseen breeze, before he’s flipping his hands over and scrutinising his palms instead.
There is no sign of damage, no sign of anything amiss, and yet the strange sensation persists.
He frowns for a moment, hands still held out in front of him, book awkwardly held in one hand.
He sighs, dropping his arms back down and turning to shove his task book into the small book holster they’d all been given. He doesn’t want to think about the small details on the bag, nor the way it fits each of the participants perfectly. He’s seen others customising their own, painting over the leather with team designs to denote belonging to one faction or another.
His own remains in the same state it was when he got it. The only decorations are a single eye, wide open, and embossed on the side he keeps turned inwards, resting against his side, and a cactus charm. He doesn’t question the choice of accessories; to do so would only open up a whole other can of worms. And he’s already got a rather complex can of worms opened in front of him, namely Joel.
He glances around himself as another idea comes to roost in his mind. He checks around himself carefully. His vantage point upon the spiralling staircases of his base means he can see for miles around, watching carefully to make sure no others are approaching to interrupt what he’s about to do.
With that confirmed, he turns back to himself and opens his eyes to See.
It’s obvious, almost immediately, what is wrong. The sensation that sends something crawling beneath his skin, a restless itch that cannot be scratched no matter what he does. He still stares at it a moment longer, as though his Sight would ever be able to deceive him. As though It is capable of such a thing.
Only when it persists does he finally close all of his eyes again, opening only the normal pair to stare down at his wrist mournfully.
Invisible now, but visible just moments ago, was a green string, thin and wavering on occasion but resolutely leading somewhere. That somewhere presumably being Joel. The sensation makes sense now, if his soul has, once again, been tied to another. This one somehow being more reckless than the last.
He groans, allowing himself this singular moment of despair. Joel has been more reckless this go-around more than anyone else. His injuries are numerous, and refusing to heal, and yet he continues on. It’s as though he’s incapable of learning not to leap from high places or fight a skeleton without a shield. At least he’s not got the arrows still sticking out of him.
He casts a baleful look towards the sky above him. “I'm sure you're finding this really quite hilarious,” he mutters to himself. He feels Their eyes turn onto him, watching with something that almost resembles amusement. As much amusement as an amorphous collective of spectators set on consuming your agony can feel, he supposes. “Is this a joke? Or are you trying to get me to keep Joel alive a little longer?”
He almost takes his book out of the holster its currently sitting in to wave it at the sky in protest. But doing so will only make him look like a madman, and he’s rather certain he can hear people moving around the bottom of the hill he resides on. No need to scare anyone else away – he’s alone enough as it is already.
Their eyes continue to rest on him, silence filling the unmeasurable distance between him and Them. They could be right in front of his face, for all Grian would know of it. Only if he opened all his eyes again would that happen, and he’s already starting to get a headache from using that a minute ago.
“Whatever,” he dismisses them. “I'm sure you're just looking to cause me the most pain possible; congrats! He’s already halfway to yellow, and he doesn’t have a wary bone in his body! You’ve set me up for failure here!”
Their silence almost seems to suggest laughter, which is when Grian gives up. He throws his hands in the air and storms back down his winding staircase.
He can only hope that no-one saw him yelling at the sky.
=== === ===
He approaches slowly, cautious of the voices he can hear carrying on the wind. Entering this particular area always makes him feel as though he’s been twisted around and put back together wrong. The sideways house and the upside-down house confuse some part of his brain; as does the somehow-sideways pond. Mumbo hadn’t given him and answer on just how he managed to make such a thing.
Stood beneath a cherry tree, talking to his teammates (are they teammates? They all live close to each other, but he’s not sure they’ve ever confirmed forming a team), is his target.
“Joel!” he calls, waving a hand when the man in question turns to see who’s calling out for him. “C’mere, I need to talk to you!”
“I- one second, Grian. We’re having a bonding moment right now.” Joel turns back to his conversation, one about favourite movies for some reason.
Grian tries not to let himself feel too frustrated at him. “Yeah, well, I might need you to un-bond for a second.” It would be so much easier to just snap the tether between him and Joel, to take a pair of metaphorical scissors to the metaphorical, non-corporeal thread linking him to Joel. For something that doesn’t actually exist, it rests pretty heavy around his wrist.
Joel ignores him. He huffs in frustration, scuffing his foot into the grass. He’s well aware that he’s not the most patient person, but what he has to say is far more important than some bonding moment over movies!
He could go right now. He doesn’t even need to tell Joel about this. He could just leave, and Joel would be none the wiser.
…And then there’d be no opportunity to protect Joel. No way to watch over him and make sure Joel doesn’t come to harm, so he doesn’t come to harm. He scowls a little deeper at the grass in front of him, digging his heel in a little deeper. The soil is soft, and gives way easily beneath his foot, as though it’s only just been shifted to this spot and not yet trampled properly into place.
“Joel,” he calls out again, during a lull in the conversation. He puts a little more urgency into his voice this time, slightly pleading with the man to simply listen and come with him. Joel looks over his shoulder at him, must see something in his face, his eyes – whatever – to convince him to finally listen.
“Okay, one sec. I need to see what Grian needs.”
He sighs, rolling his eyes as finally Joel comes over to speak with him, abandoning the rest of his group to continue talking about movies.
“I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay?”
“Not here,” Grian turns around, spotting Joel’s helter-skelter almost immediately. “Let’s got to your base; we can discuss things a little more privately there.”
“Uh-huh,” Joel nods, sounding almost like he disagrees. Still, when Grian turns to check over his shoulder, Joel is following behind him.
=== === ===
“Look, just. This might seem like it’s against the rules, but here.” He’s halfway through undoing the latches on his book holster, the leather straps slipping free of their buckles easily. He reaches in and retrieves his task for the week. His hands clutch it a little tighter, eyes almost straying towards where he knows the Secret Keeper’s statue sits as it watches.
He releases it after only a small internal debate, depositing it into Joel’s hands.
“Uh, you feeling alright fella?” Joel’s fingers don't tighten around the book, don't do anything to keep a hold of something that is, realistically, actually quite precious. And important. “You're aware you just handed me your secret task book, yeah?”
“No, Joel. I've actually gone blind from exposure to the sun and I meant to hand you the other, totally normal, book that I keep in my specially designed book holster.” He pauses for a moment, letting the sarcasm sink it, lets the annoyed expression begin to cross Joel’s face before he continues. “Yes, Joel. I just handed you my task. Just read it; everything will make sense once you do.”
“Alright…” Joel continues to eye him, even as he flips the book open. He turns past the battered pages of already complete tasks, instructions crossed out in blotchy ink. He holds the book in one hand, spine cradled in his palm and thumb pressed over the eye engraved into the book’s back cover. A mirror image to the one embossed on his book holster. It almost seems to burn a brand into his leg, where it rests. “Your loss, I guess. For every injury,” he begins to read.
“Not out loud!” Grian hisses, surging forward to cover Joel’s mouth with his hands. He doesn’t quite make contact, stopping just before he can actually cover Joel’s mouth – he doesn’t feel like being licked today. Joel pauses as well, the hissed shouting enough to shut him up for a second. “Not out loud,” Grian repeats, a little calmer. “Read it silently; use your head words.”
Joel hums, before looking back down at the task again.
Grian can see the exact moment everything slots together in his head, because he gains an odd glimmer in his eyes, a gleeful laugh falling from his open mouth. “Oh my gosh, is this real?”
“Why wouldn’t it be- yes it’s real!”
Joel cackles again, snapping the book shut and tossing it back to Grian. Grian fumbles, reaching out to grab it before it can spill open on the ground between them. It would be just his luck for someone to come along at just that moment and be let in on the secret. The task may not be one he’s looking forward to, but he’d rather not fail that early!
He looks back up. “Woah, hey, what are you doing? Joel? What are you doing-!”
He lurches forward, forgetting the book and reaching for Joel instead. Who continues to laugh as he steps backwards off the small ledge he’s left behind. Grian shudders to a halt, the shock of impact crawling up his legs. He winces, peering over the edge with an angry scowl as he hears Joel hiss in pain.
“You idiot!” His wings flare out at he yells down at Joel, casting a shadow over where the other man stands. “Why’d you do that!”
“For fun,” Joel shrugs. He takes a step and winces. Phantom pain flares up along Grian’s own leg, a tingling sensation that quickly dissipates. “Maybe shouldn’t’ve.”
“You think?” He might be overreacting slightly, but that wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t tell Joel this. None of this would have happened if he just contented himself with watching from a distance. Sue him for wanting to spend a little time around some of his friends though! He sat and built a staircase leading to nowhere because no-one stuck around with him for long enough last week!
“Hm, maybe.” Joel begins clambering back up to where Grian stands. Hopefully, not to jump off again. “This is probably why I don't last very long in these things.”
Really? Grian doesn’t say, though he tries to communicate it as best as he can with his face alone. You think?
“Okay, whatever.” Joel sighs, “I’ll do my best not to get hurt today, alright? Spare you the pain, or whatever.” He then makes a shooing motion with both hands, looking confused when Grian sticks around instead.
“You want me to just leave?”
“Uh, yeah. Things’ll be a bit hard with you hanging around, y’know. I want to get my own task done; my very secret, very important, task.”
“You're aware of who you're talking to, right?” He tips his head to the side, spreading his hands out to the sides, as though gesturing to himself. The guy that kept Scar from killing himself almost immediately, goes unsaid, though he’s sure the sentiment gets across to Joel. “You can’t just get rid of me that easily.”
“You're gonna make things very difficult. You're gonna make my life quite difficult if you're hanging around with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he crosses his arms and puts his foot down. Metaphorically. His feet are already on the ground. “You need to be kept safe.”
=== === ===
He turns his back for one moment. One moment. And Joel is gone. Disappeared into thin air.
He absently waves goodbye to Gem as she leaves. And then it’s just Grian and the looming figure of the Secret Keeper. He almost turns back around to face It, maybe swear at it a little bit for putting him in this situation (seemingly over and over again- Scar, Scar again, now Joel). He doesn’t, if only because this is a public area frequently visited by others, and he doesn’t want to be found cussing the statue out for his task.
Fine. Fine, whatever. He can work with this.
If Joel wants to slip away when Grian’s not looking, then he can Look for him in return. Is it cheating? Probably. Does he actually care? Not at all. The Secret Keeper looms behind him, a threatening and ominous figure on the dark horizon. He ignores it easily, considering the cussing-the-statue-out idea again before dismissing it just as easily.
When he opens his eyes – hundreds upon hundreds of them, wings flickering with the lights of thousands of eyes opening at once, not something you want to be seeing if you're just a regular old person – he finds Joel almost immediately. Halfway across the server and looking for Scar of all people.
He snaps the eyes shut again just as quickly, settling back into his body uneasily. He checks around himself carefully for any of his friends – passing out from the weight of a thousand eyes resting upon you is not, apparently, a very fun way to do so. And it’s an incident he’d rather not repeat.
His eyes take a moment to refocus on the ground in front of him, unused to only viewing the world from a singular pair and making him dizzy as they struggle to readjust.
He shakes his head, which only makes the dizziness worse for several long seconds, before it clears up completely. After that, it’s a relatively short trip to Trader Scar’s, where he comes across Joel as he’s walking away from the shack.
“Where have you been!” is what he chooses to announce his presence with, watching as Joel’s head swivels around to face him. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, and I find you here?”
“Grian…” Joel looks faintly guilty. “Funny seeing you here.”
“Uh-huh,” he crosses his arms. “You not got anything else to say to me?”
“Like what?”
“Sorry would be a good place to start,” he sniffs in a short breath through his nose. He would look away from Joel, but he’s also pretty sure Joel would take that as another opportunity to slip away (-which…hurts a little, he can admit that much. Sure, Joel has his task to do, but to slip away from one of his friends when they're really just hanging out for the next day. Hurts a little-) and instead keeps his eyes firmly fixed on him. “Though I will also take you begging for my forgiveness.”
“Yeah,” Joel snorts. “Why don't I just give you all my diamonds while I'm at it?” Joel brightens visibly a moment later. “Scar! Just the guy I was looking for!”
Joel brushes past him, shoulders barely touching as he ditches him in favour of someone else. Grian frowns, turning to look after him, and maybe he’s being a little bit too sensitive about this. Maybe he’s just been spending a little too much of his time alone with his twisting, nonsensical staircase for this to be upsetting him as much as it is.
He’s distracted a moment later when Joel starts talking to Scar. The gentle thrumming of another heart beside his own, only picking up on occasion when he runs or encounters a creeper. Mumbo’s stood on the edges of the conversation, the same as him.
Now, it’s going a mile a minute, thumping so hard that Grian’s convinced he can feel the heart – Joel’s heart – in his throat, pressing at the back of his mouth and making him feel sick. He clamps his mouth shut with the realisation, anything he was going to say cut off.
“Why is everyone so concerned about the camel, and where is the camel is the real question!” Scar responds, gesturing widely. He looks vaguely distressed about the whereabouts of his camel.
“I dunno where the camel is but I just want you to play it safe.” Joel looks completely relaxed, and Grian maybe would have believed it if it didn’t feel like his heart was about to beat out his chest and leap up his throat. It’s not even his heart – it’s Joel’s! He’s really beginning to feel like he got the short end of the stick here. Should have just collected a new task from the Secret Keeper and been done with all this. “I feel like you should stay off the camel today Mumbo- I mean Scar.”
“Why is Mumbo and Joel both telling me to be careful with my camel?” Scar looks over at him, like he has the answers. He shrugs, the only response he can manage while still feeling as though he’s going to vomit. How Joel’s carrying out a normal conversation, with his heart thumping like this, is beyond him.
“I dunno. Weird isn’t it.”
“It is weird,” Scar agrees. He’s squinting at Joel now, suspicion written across his face.
“Like seeing two black cats.” Joel’s heart slows a little, something akin to disappointment washing over his face, there and gone again.
“…Depends how many cats you own.”
Grian pauses, then starts laughing. Mumbo laughs along too, perhaps not sure on why their little group has just started laughing at the little comment he made. Maybe because it cut through the invisible tension that had begun to form in the air between Joel and Scar, Scar obviously attempting to figure out why Joel was acting so odd. Grian had a small idea, but not enough to confidently say he knew what Joel’s task is.
=== === ===
Grian has to jog to catch up with Joel, who was definitely not trying to slip away from him again.
“Joel!” He calls out.
“Grian,” Joel slows and turns to face him. “Funny to see you here.”
“You weren’t trying to slip away from me again, were you?” he teases. Both of them know full well that Joel was trying to slip away from him, escape and do whatever task that he’s apparently unable to do with Grian present. A task that also, apparently, makes Joel’s heartrate skyrocket – enough to make Grian feel the effects of it. “’Cause I just want you to know that’s impossible.”
“Really? ‘Cause that sounds like a challenge.”
“It is most certainly not-”
“Agh!” Joel leaps backwards, almost crashing into Grian and sending both of them to the ground. “Turn around, turn around! There’s a skeleton there.”
That’s it? Joel continues backpedalling, away from the skeleton that has apparently spooked him badly enough to do a complete one-eighty. He turns around to tell Joel just this, completely ignoring (forgetting) the skeleton stood just a few feet away from him.
He makes a pained sound as the skeleton shoots him in the shoulder, raising his shield just a moment too late. He almost reaches up to yank the arrow right back out, pausing, and raising his shield instead. He ignores the way the arrow shifts in his shoulder, buried in the junction between skin and feather.
Joel makes another startled sound, and Grian – remembering to raise his shield this time – turns to watch him fending off a singular zombie. For someone that so confidently killed several of his friends last time, he sure is struggling with a singular zombie.
“Grian!” Joel calls, voice cracking. “Aren't you supposed to be protecting me right now!”
“Bit busy here!” An arrow embeds itself into his shield with a thunk, the skeleton rattling ominously as it takes a few more shambling steps towards him. He reaches out from behind the shield to swipe at the skeleton, sword aiming for its bony neck at the exact moment that Joel drops his shield and gets swiped by the zombie.
Grian stumbles at the flare of pain up his forearm, taking another arrow to the shoulder as penance for his momentary distraction.
Grian can already feel the blood welling up from the wound, causing his jumper to stick to his arm as it continues to bleed. The injury will not begin to clot or heal or scab over, it will just stop bleeding, eventually, in order to prevent them bleeding out.
He grits his teeth through the pain and swipes at the skeleton, hitting the mark this time. He ignores the way it jostles the arrows stuck in him, the flare of pain spreading like wildfire before fading back to a dull throb moments later.
He hears Joel’s small noise of victory as he manages to defeat the zombie, the last groans of the undead fading away as it collapses into a pile of ash. Joel kicks a foot through that pile of ash, further dispersing it.
“C’mon,” Joel begins walking again, forcing Grian to abandon his task of trying to pull one of the arrows out of himself safely. “You gotta be quiet if you're sticking with me, yeah? When I hide, you hide. When I'm quiet, you're quiet.”
“Whatever you say.” He can only hope this means that Joel’s going to stop slipping away from him. It’s hard enough to keep him alive as it is!
=== === ===
His shirt is completely ruined. The blood stains the white fabric really quite obviously, making it completely unsalvageable. He could put it through the washing machine a thousand times and it still wouldn’t come out clean.
Which is why he has no qualms with using it to clean the quickly drying blood off his arm. He presses his back a little deeper into the dirt him and Joel are currently hiding behind. He keeps his breathing as quiet as possible to let Joel do…whatever it is that Joel is doing. He’s listening in on someone’s conversation behind them, making small notes to himself in his task book.
At least he’s keeping the book directed carefully away from where Grian crouches. As much as it’s against the rules, he wouldn’t be able to resist peeking if he was able.
He continues to clean the blood off his arm calmly. This jumper’s probably ruined as well. He might be able to wash it and continue wearing it like normal – it is red after all, but the blood has dried darker than the fabric, leaving it as a rather obvious stain at the moment.
The arrow in his left shoulder is next. He grips is gently around the base, poking at the entry point of the thing. It doesn’t seem like the arrowhead shattered within his shoulder, but you can never be sure. Skeleton’s arrows are notoriously prone to falling apart at the slightest impact; and the amount of force it takes to bury and arrow into flesh is a little more than the slightest impact.
He grips the arrow firmly, between finger and thumb, and yanks. He grits his teeth to muffle any small noises of pain he might make, curling in on himself slightly. A little more blood leaks out now that the arrow has been removed, sitting in his bloody palm instead.
The arrowhead looks to be intact, which only makes him grateful that he doesn’t have to dig around in his shoulder for any small pieces of flint that may have chipped off. Just the thought is enough to make him feel ill, and the memory of the last time he did have to do it makes bile rise in his mouth.
“What are you doing,” Joel hisses at him when he starts trying to reach for the other arrow. This one is a little more awkward to reach, embedded in his back rather than his front, forcing him to try and reach over his shoulder to yank this one out.
“What does it look like I'm doing,” he hisses back. The pain’s making him a little grouchy, wings moving behind him. His nerves are all kinds of weird right now, leaving him with twitchy feathers and in an irritable mood.
“Looks like you're trying to be an idiot,” Joel returns. “Did you really have to do this right now? Right here?”
“Oh, so sorry,” Grian whispers. “I’ll just sit here for the next thirty minutes with these damn arrows sticking out of me!”
“I didn’t turn you into a pin-cushion,” Joel mutters. He looks back at Grian a moment later, no longer peeking over the top of their little hiding spot to watch the small group nearby. “Just, turn around. You're gonna snap it off like that, and then you’ll be in even worse spot than before.
Grian grumbles to himself but shuffles around, ignoring the cramping of his legs from being crouched in one position for so long. He feels Joel’s hands on his back and wing, pulling the wing and stretching it out slightly to see where the arrow’s stuck in him.
The feeling of another’s hands on his wings will never not be strange to him, but he grits his teeth and bears it as Joel prods at the arrow. Perhaps not very gently, but then he also doesn’t yank it out of him with much gentleness either.
“Oops, sorry,” Joel says, patting him awkwardly on the back. He sounds at least a little sorry for just yanking it out like that. “Thought it’d be better to just, get it out, you know? It’d only irritate and worsen everything if I just sat and wiggled it around.”
“Thanks,” Grian manages. The sound of his own flesh parting around the arrow is not something he wants to hear any time soon. The gristly sound of it enough to make the bile rise in his mouth again. He breathes through it as best as he can, watching as Joel returns to listening in on other people’s conversations.
They’ll go butt into someone’s conversation in a few moments, Joel attempting a task that Grian still doesn’t understand.
=== === ===
The warmth of the flames against his skin is comfortable. Maybe he should have thought this through a little more, considered everything a moment longer, before setting the base on fire in a fit of frustration. Nothing about it looked quiet right, and he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it.
“And his base is on fire,” the other source of his current frustration said, announcing his arrival. “Why’s the base on fire?”
“Oh no,” Grian glances back at his on-fire, currently collapsing mess of a base. “I didn’t even realise. Definitely didn’t…set it on fire myself. That’d be a stupid thing to do,” he tucks the flint and steel he used back into his inventory. “Seems like I only have one choice now! Gonna have to move in with you now!”
“Yeah, look.” Joel inhales sharply, pressing his hands together before looking back at Grian, “I'm considering begging for a new task, at the moment. This one’s turning out to be impossible, even without you following me around.”
“Good to know I'm not the problem,” Grian responds, voice dry.
“Yeah, yeah. I thought I’d come tell you, because, you know. It’s gonna affect you if everything goes wrong and stuff. Which it probably will!”
“Wait- what? You're being serious? Just- why would you wanna ask for another task? You’ve not got much life left in you, you get any more taken away and you're gonna be surviving on basically nothing!”
“Wow, already predicting my failure?”
“The tasks are near-impossible, Joel! There’s a very high chance that you're just gonna fail!”
“Yeah, and I'm gonna fail this one anyway,” Joel crosses his arms.
“At least there’s no consequence to it- look,” he sighs. “Just give it a few more tries, yeah? If it still doesn’t work out, go get a new task.”
“Ugh, you care way too much about this,” Joel grumbles.
“My life is also on the line here!” He might fail if Joel dies, sure, but he might also die with it. There’s no saying how far this bond goes between them.
=== === ===
“Grian!”
“Agh- Joel!” Grian startles at Joel shouting in his ear, nearly dropping his axe as he spins around. “You're lucky I didn’t cave your head in just then!”
“Yeah, thanks for that. Can I have your heart?”
“I- what?” Grian blinks at him. “You reappear out of nowhere, after ditching me again, and ask for my heart? While your wife’s watching?”
Joel waves him off. “We can go somewhere a little more private, if you want. Lizzie doesn’t care. I’ll even gift you a heart back, yeah?”
“Uh, sure.” He pulls out his comm, glancing up to find Joel doing the same, both of them tapping the command into their screens simultaneously. Grian feels the moment Joel’s gift bursts through to him, a slight reduction of his general tiredness, making him feel a little lighter than before. It’s a welcome relief after the not-even-a-full-day that he’s had.
“So I got another task,” Joel says seconds later, ruining any kind of relief Grian might have had.
“What?” Grian resists the urge to grab Joel by his shoulders and shake him. Maybe he’ll manage to shake the idiocy out of him. “What do you mean? Why would you do that?”
“’Cause I felt like it,” Joel shrugs. “Could you get everyone to gather at the Secret Keeper? I got something I wanna show them.”
“Oh, wow,” he hopes his expression conveys how unimpressed (and annoyed) he is with Joel right now. “I wonder why that might be. Gathering the whole server together for a bit of fun?”
“Something like that, yeah. Alright,” Joel turns around, “see you in a bit! Make sure you get everyone!”
Grian drops his head into his hands and groans.
This day can’t get any worse. Ack, no, he shouldn’t think like that, because now it will get worse.
=== === ===
“And, everyone’s almost here,” Grian feels a little breathless, running to every corner of the server to collect every single person. He wishes for his wings to recover a little quicker – the clipped feathers would usually regenerate themselves within a few days, leaving him able to fly over the server. But with the state of things right now, they’ve remained clipped and grounded him. “Don't see why you couldn’t have done it yourself.” He pokes Joel in the chest, half-joking and half-irritated for having to run to every single corner.
Joel pushes his hand away, laughing a little at Grian’s misery. “Consider it payment for the attempts that you messed up.”
“I didn’t mess any of your attempts up, you-”
“Oh, wow, would you look at that, Grian! Everyone else seems to be arriving, ahaha! Goodbye!” Grian turns to glance over his shoulder where Joel points, only to turn back and be graced with the sight of Joel already twenty blocks high.
“Joel!” he yells, already knowing that there was nothing to be done here. “Oh gods.” He watches Joel precariously build himself up another ten blocks before he buries his face in his hands. “I can’t watch.”
“Oh my gosh,” the rattle of bones pulling up beside him heralds Lizzie’s arrival. “Oh no, what is he doing?”
“I don't even wanna look,” he complains. He can hear the tumbling of pebbles from the pillar Joel’s created for him, peeking through the gaps in his fingers despite his earlier words. Joel seems to just be going up and up, climbing higher without end. He feels sick just watching it.
People begin to arrive in small groups, more and more gathering as Joel only gets higher and higher. People ask him what’s happening – they’ve been together all session, so people think he knows what goes through Joel’s mind. He doesn’t think even Joel knows what goes through Joel’s mind.
He lowers his hands from his face to watch as Joel stops, teetering on the very edge of his tower. He looks down, watching as Martyn continues to scramble up the wonky tower, on the verge of falling of it himself in pursuit of guessing Joel’s task before he can make the leap of faith.
Grian covers his eyes again, unable to bear watching it. He can feel Joel’s heart in his ears, beating a fast tempo alongside his own – it’s a panicked sort, like the thundering of a drum or the frenzied pumping of a rabbit’s heart moments before its own death.
Please let him succeed, he begs, almost begs. Please, don't let him fail, he amends.
He can feel the moment Joel steps off the edge, can feel the sudden weightlessness – the feeling of panic that carries over the bond. He can feel the loss of air in his lungs, as the rapidly reducing height steals it from his chest.
He sits down a little heavily, on the raised dirt mound just behind him. He leans against it, really, unable to watch as someone tied to him plummets towards the ground.
It’s in the last few moments that Grian realises he’s not going to make it. When the panic flashing across the bond turns into sheer terror. It renders him gasping for breath as quietly as he can behind his hands as everyone else yells – a mixture between shock and encouragement. It’s been only a few moments, barely enough time to process what’s begun to happen in front of them.
The pressure of it travels so sharply up his legs that he’s certain they’ll break, jarring and so, so different to that first jump Joel had done, right when Grian revealed the situation to him, to test how far it went.
He drags in a ragged breath as the shouts of excitement turn to ones of horror, as everyone processes it. He only draws his hands away from his face when he’s certain he’s not going to be sick, phantom pains still ricocheting through his limbs. Through his entire being.
Maybe it’s better to fail.
Joel’s voice breaks out over the crowd, respawning in front of the Secret Keeper rather than his base. As though It wants to parade him around, to allow everyone to gape and gawp at his failure moments after it has happened.
His legs feel as though they won’t hold his weight, meaning when he manages to stand he’s more than a little surprised. Joel’s at the centre of attention, everyone watching him – eagerly – hand in his failure, to receive the punishment the Secret Keeper bestows upon him for reaching higher than he can achieve.
Grian accepts his own failure graciously. It is far better to fail and gain nothing, than die alongside Joel and still gain nothing. As selfish as that makes him feel. He still feels a little out of it, even as he smiles and grins and jokes as he hands in his task, accepts the failure and the light-hearted mockery of his friends.
He feels a little bit not himself. The injuries passed over to him by Joel remain, as though their souls had not properly separated after his death. He knows they did. He hasn’t checked properly, not yet, not with so many onlookers, but the thumping of a heart that he’d barely noticed before is missing.
“Ugh, that was lame.” Joel says, after the majority of the crowds have dispersed, rolling his neck as he speaks, working out whatever respawn joint stiffness was sticking with him. He looks over at Grian as he speaks. “Uh, Grian? You alright there?”
Grian smiles in response, hopes it doesn’t waver with the phantom pains still rattling his bones a f coursing through his veins. “Just fine,” he says. “Almost perfect!”
He is. The bond broke before he could die alongside Joel. He’s fine.
He’ll be fine.
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serenefig · 1 year
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So I did a second part to the Wes is Question post (part 1 link), and I'm going to try to continue. I'm up for concrit if you have it, still new to writing for these fandoms.
Conspiracy of Silence
Part 1 | Part 2
Batman did not take the bait — Question’s reputation worked against him. That was fine. He’d managed this far by himself. He’d only ever had himself here. So Question slowly connected all the dots that built the Anti-Ecto Acts. The wall and string slowly building; always battling his paranoia, always trying to stay one step ahead of Cadmus and the GIW. Until finally the bait he had laid down oh so carefully caught someone. Someone Question did not know.
The Justice League Dark had convened in the Watchtower for the biannual “don’t fuck with the supernatural” safety presentation. Notepads were scattered, and conversations tapered out as the lights dimmed and Constantine stood ready to present — Question absently catalogued his scowl was deeper than normal, most likely due to being “voluntold” to present. Question silently sighed as he settled in for another boring safety presentation. It wasn’t anything he didn’t already know.
“Alright, I pulled presenter this round. I don’t want to be here anymore than you do, so let’s get this over with.” Constantine said. “This year is different. The JLD responded to a summoning incident three weeks ago. A group of presumed cultists were attempting to summon a high leven being from the Infinite Realms.” he stopped to glare at the gathered heroes. “Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to contact beings from the Infinite Realms. Treat them with traditional folklore fae rules. Actually no, you’ll still mess it up. Don’t even breathe in their direction.”
Someone cleared their throat and Constantine huffed.
“They scattered before anything could be done, leaving the summoning in the middle. And this brings us to my first point.” The slide turned and Question felt the blood drain from his face. There on the massive screen was evidence of the GIW.
It wasn’t outright obvious, but to Question, who knew what to look for? It was plain as day. He saw remnants of dismantled and broken ecto-weapons — likely left in their hurry to leave — scattered about on tables. On a wall he saw simplified Spector Deflectors, but to others would look like fancy belt buckles. And perhaps the most damning, a pair of high-tech looking manacles with a barely legible Cadmus logo mostly scratched out. He came to the only conclusion available; the GIW, and by extension Cadmus, were summoning ghosts directly to experiment on.
Question did not hear the rest of the presentation, he couldn’t. His hand flew across the notebook, jotting down as much information as he could glean from the photo. His mind was torn in two. To brave Amity and warn Phantom once more? Or turn his long gathered and unfinished evidence over to his co-heroes? Wes and Question warred at each other, adding to his already high paranoia. How much longer would it take for Phantom to be caught? What if a Parker was found?
His thoughts ground to a halt. Was it possible that Cadmus did find his liminality during his capture? Did they follow him?
Question barely recognised when the presentation came to an end; his body moving on auto-pilot towards his room. Still no decision was made.
He stopped in his tracks at this open door. Someone was in his room Someone was in his things. Question burst in, a taser at the ready, yet no one was there. He turned towards his hidden wall board, in hopes it was not found. And to his horror, his own face was plastered in the middle.
There was a mole in the Justice League. And Wes would find out who.
============
I do have a vague plan, but updates will be at the mercy of my ADHD because I have 7 other WIPs. This will go on AO3 and FFN next Tuesday as well (I'll reblog with a link.)
Tags because you expressed interest in the tags of the first
@profounddestinyrebel @stealingyourbones
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Helping Hand 4
Warnings: non/dubcon, mentions of divorce, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.
Characters: Jonathan Pine, 40s reader
My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.
As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.
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Silence. Excruciating and embarrassing. Here you are, a middle-aged woman, accepting a ride after being as good as stranded at your minimum wage job. How very respectable.
Streetlights flood in through the window and you let your mind flicker with the flashes of yellow. The tension is enough to make you want to throw yourself out of the car. You wring the strap of your bag and tap your thumb on your phone case.
“So, how was your day? Rather long,” he breaks the lull.
“It was… a day,” you answer, certain to keep your eyes out the window.
“Ah, yes,” he shifts his grip on the wheel, “forgive me for presuming overly much of myself, but have I upset you?”
You clear your throat as you mull your response. You should be honest. How long had you held your tongue and suffered? Why do that again? And for another man.
“Why didn’t you tell me who you are?”
“Hmm, yes, I suppose I was duplicitous but I thought maybe you might make the connection. When you didn’t…” he lets the end dangle, “I sort of enjoyed you not knowing. It always changes things.”
“Well, it would. It should. You’re my boss.”
You look down at your lap. This was easier when you were young, when you were ignorant of how little you didn’t know. Now, you’re all too aware of everything you’ve missed out on. Of all the glaring blind spots you have to fill in.
“Maybe,” he allows, “but we get on. Yes, I’m your boss, but it doesn’t have to be strained. You do your job well, neither of us need to worry about that.”
Easy for you to say, you bite down on the retort. You instead untangle your hand from your purse and rub your neck. You’re tired, you don’t have the energy for this. After a long shift, your call with Andy, and missing your bus, you just want to roll into bed and forget it all.
“I hate to pry but you didn’t have anyone to pick you up? A husband perhaps?”
You snort without thinking. You try to disguise it with a cough but it’s obvious. You drop your hand into your lap.
“Divorced. Starting over, if you can’t tell,” you blink at the road ahead. Your own isn’t as well-lit or certain.
“That’s tough. I can’t say I’ve been there,” he says.
“Still married?” You counter.
“Never done,” he turns the wheel slowly, “almost. Once. She didn’t show up at the wedding.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” you don’t know what’s worse. The price of a divorce or a wedding without a bride.
“Don’t be. It’s a story to tell. A bullet dodged, I think. I suppose I could be on your end, starting over.”
“You’re right. I definitely have it worse.”
Your phone lights up and you squint at it before blacking the screen. Andy’s all caps message can wait. Along with the rest.
“Urgh, just here,” you point to the brown building before the corner. “Sorry, that’s me.”
He taps the break and steers up along the curb. He hums, “this is… a very interesting neighbourhood.”
“Trust me, I know,” you peek out the window and adjust your purse on your shoulder, “I’ll just get my keys now and run right up. It’s not that late.”
“I’ll stay until I see you make it inside,” he shifts into park, “just to be sure.”
“You really don’t have to–”
“I want to.”
“Alright, thanks. Have a good night, Jonathan.”
“You too,” he grins, “you’ve earned a good night’s sleep.
You smile, sheepish and stiff. You pull the handle and let yourself out of the car. Your hip pangs as you stand but you don’t show the pain. You gently close the door behind you.
You cross the pavement, your keys clutched tight as each step is quicker than the last. You can’t help it. You have a bad feeling. You’ve heard the shouting at night and a few times, the banging in the hall kept you awake.
You shove your key in the hole, cranking it with all your strength as the lock sticks. You sense a shadow behind you and hope it’s just another resident. You jar the door open only to hear a growl.
“About time,” Andy sneers, “I’ve been sitting out here for an hour.”
You face him in surprise. You keep a hand on the door.
“Why?” You ask sharply.
“You hung up on me. You haven’t answered me all day. God, you are just the same childish girl I married.”
“Right, Andrew, exactly, and we are not married anymore. I’m tired, I’m going to bed. I’ll call you when I have time.”
“You have time now,” he insists.
“I don’t,” you rebuff curtly. “How did you even find out where I live?”
He shrugs, “it was on the paperwork.”
You cringe. Of course, lawyers stick together. You can’t trust any of them.
“Not tonight,” you say, “sorry, Andrew.”
You turn and he grabs your arm. You try to free yourself but he’s just as stubborn as he’s always been. You jar your shoulder but only pull it at a bad angle. You cry out and Andy grunts, suddenly releasing you.
You turn and flatten yourself to the front door as you watch the skirmish. You recognise Jonathan as the light above you shines over the conjoined bodies. He has his arm around Andy’s neck, your ex-husband clawing at his sleeve.
Jonathan turns and flings Andy away from him, spinning to place himself between you and your uninvited guest.
“Go. Now. Or I’ll call the police,” Jonathan warns.
“Who the hell are you?” Andy sneers.
“Who are you?” Jonathan counters, his hand open and closing, ready to throw a punch.
“I’m her ex-husband. We’re talking.”
“Ah, ex,” Jonathan chuckles, “so that mean there’s no more talking.”
“Mind your business–”
“My business? I heard her tell you to go. So my business is making certain that’s exactly what you do.”
Andy scoffs and puts his hands on his hips. He juts his jaw out and looks at the man in front of him, then leans over to glare at you. He shakes his head in disbelief.
“You moved on fast,” he accuses.
You swallow. You won’t argue with him. “Good night, Andrew.”
“Yes, good night, Andrew,” Jonathan opens his hand and gestures towards the sidewalk.
Andy curls his lips and throws up his arms. He grumbles and turns on his heel, stomping off as you stand in another mortified silence. You swear, this man has been sent to see you at every low.
“Uh, thanks,” you utter, “and I’m sorry–”
“None of that is needed,” he turns to you, “are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m an adult. I’m fine.”
“Yes, you are a strong woman. I’m sure you didn’t need me here but I am happy I was,” he tidies his silk tie, “and now I shall leave you to your peace. It seems you don't get much of it.”
He nods his head and pivots on his sole. You deflate as you watch him go. It might just be worth it to quit to save what’s left of your pride.
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i4sgwr · 1 year
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NOT SO FAST NOW
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ꕤ characters: Eren, Armin, Connie
ꕤ summary: Speed limits are just suggestions, right? (aka: the boys get pulled over for speeding)
ꕤ warnings: gn!reader bc nothing implies anything else, police officer!reader, modern/street racer au, bullet point format + tiny blurbs, idk the specifics of getting pulled over so bear with me
. . . requested by anon! i hope this isn't like, bad (?). i didn't want it to be super long, and it's probably a little ooc but i suppose that's my specialty
REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED!
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EREN JAEGER
you knew exactly what was happening as soon as you saw his car zoom by, followed by another. you had been hanging out in your car waiting for him, actually. it’s been said that this area got a lot of racers and of course, you’d be put in charge of catching them.
you flip your lights on and make the trip in the direction of the car you were after, surprisingly catching it just as the race presumably ended.
you see everyone scrambling to leave the area as you approach, but you got to the main culprit just in the nick of time.
“There a problem, officer?”
The brunette in the driver seat gives you a knowing smirk, one you’ve seen one too many times and didn’t have the patience to deal with. Still, you go through the necessary motions.
“Do you know how fast you were going?”
He rolls his eyes with a chuckle, “I do. It was intentional.”
You huff, irritated. What a smartass.
“I’m inclined to give you a ticket, sir,” you state, flatly.
“Awe don’t be like that,” he teases, “We were just having some fun. Can’t you let me off the hook just this once?”
You knew you shouldn’t, and quite frankly you weren’t supposed to. But he said this was the first time he ever got caught — to be fair, you didn’t really believe him, but it was late and you were getting nowhere with him anyway. So you let him off with a warning, to which he responded,
“Make sure you’re the one to pull me over next time.”
As much as you didn't want to be the one to do the job next time, you couldn't seem to get the scenario out of your head. Perhaps he left you with something to think about — unintentionally charming you without even trying.
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ARMIN ARLERT
Armin only recently got into racing, after enough convincing from the other guys. he actually enjoyed it though, and genuinely looked forward to his first proper race
it was thrilling — speeding down the empty street with the anticipation of reaching the end first. it was thrilling up until you showed up though.
Armin was immediately taken aback, slightly disappointed in himself as well, knowing this was a more than likely outcome.
“I’m sorry,” the blonde blurts out, before you’re given the chance to speak, "I guess I got a little carried away."
"A little?" you scoff, though you chuckle lightheartedly after, "You shouldn't be racing out here, y'know."
"I know," he sighs.
He had a kind look in his eyes, as if he had no ill intent. You knew he didn't, still, that didn't justify his actions. You should've given him a ticket, yet you were feeling kind tonight.
"How about I let you off with a warning?" you suggest, leaning down to be eye level with him, "I just can't promise you'll get away with it next time, if I'm not the one to catch you."
His eyes widen a bit, like he wasn't expecting you to spare him. He's quick to turn his shock into gratitude.
"O-okay, thank you," he says with a nod.
"Pass the message on to your friends too, alright? Have a good night."
You give him a polite smile, one he returns before you part ways. Armin was admittedly shaken up after his interaction with you — not like you could blame him, he was convinced he'd be leaving with a ticket. And yet he didn't. He was grateful, honestly. God forbid he gets in trouble again, he wouldn't mind too much if it were you to catch him.
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CONNIE SPRINGER
Connie knew all too well that he'd probably get pulled over but he didn't really care. he enjoyed racing, it was fun. it wouldn't be an ideal way to end the night to leave with a ticket though, so he still hoped he could get away with it.
he ends up winning the race, shockingly. his adrenaline was through the roof, but his excitement quickly became anxiety when he saw the lights of your car coming.
Connie remains in his car, waiting for you to scold him just like he had anticipated.
You say all you need to, asking him about his speed even though you knew he was aware of it. He simply gives you a run down of the situation, explaining the reason he was driving so fast even though you already knew why. But then, he started to blabber on about why you shouldn't give him a ticket.
"Sir, what kind of person do you take me for?" you cock an eyebrow, amused.
"You seem nice enough," he starts, "You're pretty cute too. You really gonna stress over a speeding ticket when you could be doing something better?"
"This is my job," you state flatly, "You're lucky I'm even making conversation with you."
"I wouldn't mind rescheduling this conversation," he smirks, as if he were implying something.
You roll your eyes, already getting ready to write his ticket. He quickly apologizes, hoping to get out of this despite the situation not looking good. Instead of a ticket, though, you hand him a note with your number on it.
"Don't let me catch you again. You owe me for letting you get off easy."
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taglist! [ @bleubrri @discordkittenjoestar @erwnsmith @bunnyyamor @ofallthingswhythis @arlertwitch @thatonerandomsimpinthecorner @prblmtic ]
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subversivegrrl · 1 year
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Most ridiculous moments in TWD history
As the show comes to a close I'm trying to find some way of dealing with it. Stages of grief, I guess, even though this damn show has broken my heart more times than I like to count/admit. A lot of the last ten years for me has been tied up in The Walking Dead.
So here's my coping method/list of "the most ridiculous, out-of-character, inexplicable moments from the TWD writers' room" throughout the history of the show. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Feel free to reblog with your "favorites".
In no particular order:
Rick forgets he had a damn grenade in his pocket when he got to the quarry camp? And Carol filches it and puts it in her giant Mom Purse, to be produced at the opportune moment? (NB I love this moment when Carol Saves the Day 1.0 but seriously, how do you lose track of an explosive device/fail to mention finding it to the filch-ee?)
Andrea repeatedly stops trying to escape from the cuffs and talks to Milton, to the point where the dying man has to remind her to hurry up.
Daryl uses a walker's body as a shield against automatic rifle fire -- and succeeds.
Rick apparently forgets they have a livestock vet RIGHT THERE when the pig is sick. "What's wrong with Violet?" "Gee I don't know." HOW ABOUT YOU ASK HERSHEL???
Beth tries to use first the IV needle she has pulled out of her arm and later a tiny pair of fingernail scissors as weapons
Daryl--who has presumably been driving shitty old manual transmission trucks since before he was of legal age--forgets how to drive a stick shift and Denise has to explain the problem to him
Beth's wholly nonexistent reaction to her first taste of moonshine. Like she just took a drink of water. (LBR that's not a script issue, that's an acting issue, and a directing issue bcs someone should have given her a damn note and done another take, ffs.) And lest we forget:
Daryl and Beth burning down their shelter in the middle of the night. Yeah, that's some prime survival thinking right there.
Glenn hides under a dumpster and the horde of walkers around him never discover and eat him
Hershel tells Daryl that Carol is "okay" (WTF? how's he gonna claim she's okay when anything could have happened to her) and to talk to Rick about her, and Daryl doesn't immediately track Rick's ass down to get an answer. Followed by:
Rick tells Carl he needs to talk to Daryl and when Carl says, "now?" Rick's all "oh I guess not, it can wait, Daryl doesn't need to know about how I exiled the light of his life. Let's go pick some peas."
Carol's horrific and sadistic story/threat to Sam about what will happen to him if he tells anyone about catching her stealing guns from the armory (which led directly to him having a freakout in the middle of the horde and thereby to his death, which somehow gets overlooked in talking about the things Carol is carrying.)
Rick asking Carol why she cares about Jessie being in danger from her husband. (Also, Carol's reaction to that not being "are you fucking kidding me?")
The Governor's 2-episode redemption arc, at the end of which NOPE he's a baddie after all. Yawn. What a waste of airtime.
Negan's entire redemption arc.
Carl getting shot in the head and surviving. (That one may be from the comics. Either way it's not the slightest bit believable, even if they had had access to sophisticated medical intervention.)
Carl and Enid basically trapping themselves in a hollow tree to hide from walkers. No escape route if they get found. No room to maneuver to defend themselves. Very cute, but neither of them is that stupid.
Wait here's another one. Rick gives his moving grandfather speech in the barn and concludes it with "we are the walking dead"; Daryl says "hey, we ain't them" and Rick responds, "we're not them." What. The. Everloving. FUCK. is that supposed to mean. In the space of five seconds, he changed his mind?*. (*only one entry in a long string of cryptic bullshit dialogue moments over the years)
And finally, the fact that they had a beautiful, organically-formed potential romantic pairing with serious on-screen chemistry that they have teased every season since (at least) S4, milked the popularity of in promotional materials, featured in at least one episode in nearly every one of the past eight seasons, and yet... (I realize this is not entirely on the writers. The network execs have even more to answer for.)
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(image credit sadly unknown. If you know the source please let me know! I've had it saved for years but I don't know who created it.)
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tolkien-feels · 1 year
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Did Tolkien specifically state that elves were heterosexual or is it just some people?
(Like, I'm in no way trying to be rude, I just wanted confirmation since one of my friends ships Russingon, and the other said that elves were heterosexual)
Oh that's a minefield. I'll try to answer this as unbiasedly as I can, but keep in mind I am both 1) queer myself and 2) not interested in shipping as much as I am interested in other aspects of fandom. If either of these things makes me lean towards one side or the other, I will leave to your discretion as you read this.
I'll try to be as succinct as possible but we'll see if this doesn't end up long.
Also this is such a minefield, like I've said, that I will disable reblogs because I really don't want to deal with discourse at best and actual queerphobia at worst.
The first thing is that traditionally, shipping has never relied on whether an author would approve of it or not. So "You can't ship this because the author says you can't" is not an opinion that would have been given much weight for much of fandom history. "Could this theoretically be canon?" is an incredibly recent development, especially when it comes to queer relationships. So your friend could and should ship whatever they want!
In terms of authorial intent, better read people than I could point you in the direction of a small library of literary scholarship debating how Tolkien portrays gender and sexuality. It's a complicated, nuanced topic.
As for what he's actually said... That's difficult to answer. I don't believe there's a sentence out there that says "Elves are exclusively heterosexual." Does that mean that they aren't? Well, not quite.
Maybe Tolkien didn't think anyone would assume anything but that they were heterosexual, and didn't particularly think he had to clarify that point. Or, alternatively, he did not think they were in fact exclusively heterosexual but was not comfortable with exploring that due to a myriad of factors, so he chose not to address it at all. There's no real way of knowing this, especially not without dedicating a lot of time to studying it, which I have not.
In terms of "Has he ever portrayed a queer relationship?" Eh. Also difficult to tell. There is a lot of ambiguity in how Tolkien portrays a lot of relationships, including heterosexual ones. I could make a case why a lot of his canonical, heterosexual couples are purely platonic, and a case why a lot of his commonly-read-as-friendship, same-gender relationships are romantic.
Also, just because Tolkien did not portray something "on screen", it does not mean it doesn't exist in his world. The Hobbit has no female characters, but presumably, there should be women in the world. So that's also not the way to go about it.
There are a few texts where Tolkien discusses how elves view marriage and sex, but 1) their role in canon is debatable; 2) they contradict each other and also other canonical or semi-canonical sources; 3) they tend to be framed in terms of customs (=what was socially expected among elves) rather than unbiased worldbuilding (=what Tolkien knew to be true.)
This distinction would not usually matter, except many people have proved Tolkien often enjoyed playing with the gap between reality and tradition. The most important texts about elves and love also tend to have a frame narrative of having been compiled or translated, so that's also another layer.
This isn't an intellectual exercise. This is actually important. In general, when Tolkien lays down a custom, you can immediately think of something in direct contradiction to it, and he often draws attention to these contradictions in the text itself. So it's actually very important, when reading these texts, to remember they are fallible by design.
This may all seem like I'm trying to rule lawyer. I promise you that is not what I'm doing.
Here's what I'm doing: I'm showing that to get to an answer, you have to dig so deep that I find it extremely unlikely that this is an important, unchangeable aspect of canon.
Tolkien did change canon over the course of his life - making dwarves more heroic, for example, and working on fleshing out female characters. If he lived forever, and came to think actually he wanted to have openly queer elves, he wouldn't have to break canon nearly as much as he had to in order to revise other things that he did revise.
Honestly? Sexuality in Tolkien's worldbuilding is almost a non-issue. The etymology of the name Maedhros probably bothered Tolkien much more than his love life. You need to break canon much harder to have bearded Aragorn than to have queer elves. If we're sticking to strict, strict, strict canon, we are going to run into contradictions all over the place (ask someone about how nonsensical Tolkien's math is), and I tend to take cues from the text to see what is important to pay attention to.
This is of course subjective, but like, I find Russingon much more canon-compliant (although I don't ship them) than if you were to tell me Fingolfin, who was married in Aman, married someone else in Beleriand. That is enough of a taboo among elves that it comes up, explicitly and implicitly, at several key points.
Now, I still wouldn't care, because I don't need Tolkien's permission to do what I want, but I would say that breaks canon much more definitely than the mere idea of queer elves.
(If anything, Maedhros and Fingon might run into a different taboo - they're too close kin to be in a relationship. But that's a rule Tolkien can't seem to make up his mind on. Which kind of proves my point.)
Having said all this... I would tentatively say Tolkien did not mean for any elves to be queer. But that understanding is informed more by my understanding of him as a person than by my understanding of canon, because again, this simply isn't something that comes up in a clear way. Or if it does and I'm just forgetting something, it's obscure enough that I don't think it really matters as much as issues people routinely ignore in the fandom at large (eg linguistics, or elements drawn from medieval literature.)
So while I do think people are justified in assuming no, there aren't queer relationships in Tolkien, I also think that's got to be the weirdest hill to die on unless you are bringing your biases to the text.
EDIT: Adding @pearlescentpearl‘s reply because it belongs here
Weighing in with a supporting thought! IIRC the clearest thing Tolkien ever said about elven marriage is that it’s *for the sake of children*, which is incredibly congruent with many of the histories Tolkien liked to study. Whether you were straight or queer, having children was incredibly important for a number of reasons and having children within some kind of formal acknowledgement of a union was useful for a. the pooling of resources, and b. the allotment of resources to descendants (inheritance). so for elves, if the purpose of marriage is ultimately for children, and the making of children involves both parents pouring in the strength of their spirits to nurture the baby, a marriage didn’t have to mean ‘I am romantically and sexually attracted to this person’, although undoubtedly common. it could also mean ‘this is the person I’ve chosen to procreate with and no other reason’, which still leaves plenty of room for one or both to have queer relationships outside the formal union they make children with, which is also congruent with a lot of historic practices
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