#apparently Twisty is a thing now?

[kazer-time]

Jujhar and Stalock are some pretty nice dudes, apparently!

Source: Blackhawks TikTok

[deathblacksmoke]

two way vision

pairing: noah sebastian x nick ruffilo x fem reader

cw: polyamorous relationship, dom!nick, brief name calling, belt spanking, threesome, unprotected p in v sex, oral sex (m receiving), boyfriends calling each other dude hehe, mid-sex bickering, ABSOLUTELY FILTHY but don’t worry i think it’s still very sweet 🩵

word count: 3.2K

taglist: @concretenoah / @ladyveronikawrites / @circle-with-me / @darksigns-exe / @xxrainstorm /@agravemisstake / @monotoniscreaming

let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future fics!

author’s note: ruffilo wore a belt and i immediately got all twisty about it? and this happened. enjoy 🤍

**************************************************************

You hadn’t meant to misbehave tonight.

You had put on your pretty dress and gotten all done up with the intention of getting comfortably tipsy and remaining on your best behavior, but things don’t always work out as planned.

Apparently it’s a very important night, with very important people. Apparently the future of the band could ride on this very event. This could mean big things for them. Apparently.

While Nick and Noah are schmoozing, paying you no mind whatsoever, the boredom gets to you. You hate this party. You’re the only girlfriend here and the alcohol sucks—no liquor, just champagne. You’ll regret the morning after blinding champagne headache tomorrow.

You were well aware that they wouldn’t be able to pay much attention to you, but you couldn’t have predicted just how bored you’d be and how out of place you’d feel. You love spending time with them, you love supporting them, but you almost wish you’d stayed at home tonight.

You just wish they’d pay attention to you for a moment. You wish you’d stayed by Nick’s side instead of heading for the bar, but shaking hands and smiling politely at men in suits didn’t sound like fun to you. It still doesn’t.

Being next to them, no matter how boring the conversations may be, seems a lot better than this—sitting at the table alone, sipping on shitty champagne and sulking.

You know that Noah would be more receptive to the games you feel like playing. You know you’re not allowed. It was discussed extensively—in public, you’re Nick’s fiancée and Noah’s friend, for now. Playing with Noah would pose a lot of questions that none of you are quite ready to answer.

That doesn’t mean you have to like it, especially tonight when they’re all dressed up, looking like that. You’ve been aching since the moment Nick stepped out of the bedroom, doing up his belt, asking if the two of you were about ready to go. It’s not often you get to see them like this. Having to keep your legs crossed, squeezing together to chase away that familiar buzz, feels a little silly. You just want to have a little fun.

You’ve been here for so long and want them to take you home.

Walking up behind Nick, notching your finger in his belt and pulling him back towards you, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck, you know it’s not your best idea.

You recognize the guy he and Noah are talking to as someone in another band, not an exec—you don’t know who he is but you don’t really care.

“You want to introduce me to your friend, Nicky?” you ask, and he looks back at you with a sour expression. He doesn’t want you to be doing this, not here. Not tonight, not now. It’s just so fun to push his buttons. You slide your hand around to his front, resting over his belly and rubbing. “I’m bored.”

He narrows his eyes at you but he turns back around and introduces you—you don’t listen for a name. You shake his hand and place a kiss behind Nick’s ear. You catch Noah from the corner of your eye, softly amused with an overcurrent of concern. He knows where this lands you.

“Go sit back down,” Nick bites as he turns to face you. He kisses you but it’s short. You’re in trouble. Your intent hadn’t necessarily been to embarrass him, but tease him, a little fun to take the edge off just how much you don’t want to be here. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

His tone is dark in a way you don’t get often. The ache is unbearable. You go to sit back down and hope you don’t regret what you’ve done, waiting for Nick and Noah to come and join you.

**************************************************************

You don’t speak on the ride home. With Nick’s hand gripping you, you can feel exactly where the marks will be on your inner thigh, where his fingers press in painfully. He’s angry. Noah holds your hand, rubbing a thumb along the back, a comfort.

You’re ushered inside with a hand on the small of your back when the car pulls up out front. Possessive.

The door slams shut behind you, making you flinch. Not fear, necessarily—uncertainty. It’s been a while since you’ve done this and you’re not sure exactly what to expect. He hangs his jacket on the rack, not used to wearing it, muscle memory of the hook by the door.

“Go to the bedroom. Both of you,” Nick orders, voice stern but gentle at once. You share a glance with Noah but do what he says. “I’ll be right in.”

You close the door behind you, leave your clothes on and wait for Nick’s instructions, though you think you know what they’ll be.

Noah kisses you with a gentle hand on your face, thumb grazing your cheek. It’s gentle and you need it, though you’re buzzing with the anticipation of what you know is to come.

“You think maybe you shouldn’t have done that, love?” Noah asks when he pulls away, breath on your lips. He’s smirking but his voice is laced with a bit of concern.

You smile, settling him. You almost want to laugh, because he must have forgotten.

“I wanted to do it,” you assure him, placing a kiss on his cheek. “I appreciate your concern, sweet boy, but I wanted this. You think I don’t know exactly what I’m doing?”

You freeze when the bedroom door opens, slamming back shut. Noah backs away from you quickly like he’s been burned, like being near you will get him in trouble, too. He’s definitely forgotten.

Nick comes up behind you, wrapping his arms tight around your middle. It’s almost like normal, if not for his teeth grazing your neck, then biting down in a way that hurts you, feels primal and angry.

“You were very bad tonight, baby. You know that, right?” Nick asks. You nod, his hand sliding its way around your throat, grip tight enough to make you short of breath but loose enough that you don’t fear it. You never do—not with Nicholas. Even angry, he’s always careful, always has an edge of softness in his every move. “I know you didn’t mean to embarrass me, but they know now. They know my girl is a desperate little slut.”

You moan, cut off when he clamps his hand down over your mouth. The ache gets deeper—you’re dripping for him.

“Noah, go get on the bed, baby,” Nick says, and Noah scrambles to do it, eager. He props himself up against the pillows how Nick normally likes him at the start and it makes you chuckle, seeing him so ready to do whatever he’s asked to do. Nick’s hand trails back down to your throat, just resting there, not squeezing. With his mouth at your ear, he shushes you. “You,” he whispers in your ear, making you shiver. “I want you to undress and get on all fours on the bed for me. Okay?”

You nod, moving to undress and do what’s asked of you, but he catches you by the hand and pulls you to him again, your back pressed to his chest.

“Uh uh, sweetheart,” he whispers, a hand trailing delicately down your side. “I need you to be good and use your words. I need a yes or no from you. Do you want to do this?”

“Yes, Nicky,” you say, moving to turn around in his arms and hoping he’ll let you. He allows it and you feel a wave of relief, especially when you see the expression painted on his face, patient and gentle for a moment. “I want this. Please.”

“Good girl,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek. You feel yourself relax completely, reminded that you’re safe here with them. He gives you a slap on your ass when you turn around and you gasp, hearing him laugh behind you. “Dress off. Hands and knees, please.”

You unzip your dress and let it fall to your feet, watch as Noah’s eyes glaze over with want. You unclasp your bra and hear Nick’s breath hitch as it falls to the floor. Dipping your fingers into the band of your lace panties, he tsks behind you. “Those stay on,” he orders—your cheeks heat. You leave them and crawl onto the bed. “Thank you, baby.”

“Keep your eyes on Noah,” Nick says, coming up behind you, hand on the small of your back. You shift your eyes up to Noah, looking back at you with a soft expression, small smile. You smile back. You can hear as Nick unbuckles his belt, but don’t hear the familiar sound of his zipper being pulled down. You hear it sliding from the loops, and feel as the belt, folded over, grazes your ass. You shiver. “How many do you think you deserve, baby?”

“I—I don’t know,” you say. You don’t know just how bad you were tonight. You know you shouldn’t have done what you did, but you were so bored. Lonely. “Maybe ten, Nicky? Is that good?”

“I think ten is just fine, sweetheart,” Nick says, running his hand up your back, leaning over to press a kiss to your shoulder blade. “Do you remember my rules?”

“Um—yeah. ‘Red’ if I need to stop, or if I make a really pained noise, you’ll check. And I count the hits,” you say. Nick places a slap to your ass, gentle. You’ve forgotten something. “And I keep my eyes on Noah.”

“Yes, good girl,” Nick says. “You take care of her, baby,” he tells Noah, who nods up at him, then focuses back on you, reaching out. “Hold her hand, okay? Tell me if anything seems off,” the belt grazes your ass again. “Are you ready?”

You nod before hearing him sigh behind you. Your words. You forgot again. You’re so nervous, or excited, or a little bit of both. “Yes, I’m ready, Nicky.”

The first blow stings, surprises you—you yelp and squeeze Noah’s hand. “One,” you gasp. Another. “Fuck. Two,” Noah grazes his thumb against the back of your hand, brings it up to his mouth, whispers good, baby. Another. You’re getting used to it. Feeling nicer. “Three,” The fourth hits a little low, below the meat of your ass, high on the back of your thigh. You hiss and Nick pulls back, soothing with his hand. “Four.”

“Hold on. Are you okay?” Nick asks.

“Mmhmm, just—” you start, thinking of what to say. “That one was a little low. It felt bad, kind of. Can you try to stay higher?”

“Of course, baby. I’m sorry,” he says. You relax. You know he didn’t mean it—he always tries his best to be careful. “Thank you for using your words. Are you good to continue?”

“Yes, please,” you say, reaching for Noah’s hand again, who offers it readily. The fifth feels nicer, your responding groan breaking off into a sigh. “Five,” The next two come in quick succession, one on each cheek. You feel yourself dripping for him, Noah’s eyes glazed over as he watches you. “Eight,” you gasp, thinking you should misbehave more often. It was all thanks to that fucking belt. “Nine,” you whine. The last one stings worse than the others and you’re glad you didn’t pick a higher number. “Ten.”

“Good girl,” Nick says, leaning down to pepper kisses along your back, soothing a hand over your ass. Noah leans down to kiss you on the mouth and you smile into it. “You did such a good job for us.”

“I want—” you start, gasping into Noah’s mouth when Nick’s fingers graze your folds over your panties, pressing in slightly. “I want you. Both. Please.”

“I know, you want to be full, huh?” Nick asks and you nod. “How do you want us?”

“I want Noah in my mouth,” you say, and Noah gasps, grazing a hand over your face. “You inside me, Nicky. Please.”

It’s been a while since you’ve had them like this, full from both ends, complete center of attention. You wiggle your ass back and Nick groans when you make contact with his front, cock hard and insistent, pressing against his zipper.

“Remember, two taps on Noah’s leg if you need to stop,” Nick says, unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. You hear them fall to the floor. You’re not sure when Noah got undressed, but when you look, he’s naked and waiting for you. Your mouth waters. “Do you care about these?” Nick asks, fingers grazing the fabric of your panties.

“No, Nicky,” you say, just before his hand presses over the band against the small of your back, his other dipping beneath the gusset and yanking, fabric tearing. The shock of the cold in the room on your lips makes you shiver.

“Look at you,” Nick marvels, fingers dipping inside. “Look at this pretty pussy, baby, all wet and dripping for us.”

Noah presses his cock to the seam of your lips, swipes a thumb along your cheek. You stick your tongue out to taste him, bask in the weight of it as he lays it on your tongue. You close your mouth around the tip, swirl your tongue and sink further. You never tire of his little gasps when he’s in your mouth or in your cunt.

You feel Nick at your entrance, sliding inside easily, bottoming out and forcing you further on Noah’s cock. “Oh, fuck,” you hear him gasp and your eyes flutter closed. You’ll let them do the work for you—that’s your favorite part. “Fuck, you always feel so good.”

You force down a choke as you’re forced further onto Noah’s cock, swallowing around him. You grasp Noah’s leg for purchase and his gasp is dizzying.

“How’s she feel, baby?” Noah asks, and Nick groans from the back of his throat. God, you love listening to them while they’re using you. “Her mouth is—” he breaks off into a gasp as you swallow around him, the slightest graze of your teeth, just how he likes it. “Fuck.”

“You know, dude,” Nick says, fucking you harder. You feel split open and can’t control the gag this time, as you’re forced down further on Noah’s cock, who pulls back a bit to give you a reprieve. You squeeze his leg gratefully but move yourself back down further, needing it—the gag, the choke, the overwhelming fullness of it all. “You know she feels fucking perfect. You wish you were back here, huh?”

“No, dude, her mouth,” Noah counters, a hand running over your cheek, into your hair, tugging and making you gag. Noah’s groan is fucking pornographic, Nick’s even more so. “You know how her throat tightens around you when you pull on her hair?” Noah asks him. You feel overwhelmingly full when they both lean forward. You hear the wet, sloppy sounds of their kissing and you bask in them. Noah tightens his hand in your hair while Nick’s hands move from your hips up to your sides, gripping tight. They chuckle into each other’s mouths when you choke again. “Did her pussy do it, too, Nicky?”

Nick moves his hands from your sides. If Noah’s whine is anything to go off, Nick’s hands have tangled in his hair just how he likes it. You wish so badly you could watch them—you love them like this.

“Are you smoking again?” Nick asks Noah, and you’re surprised it took him so long tonight to notice the smell, the taste of them. “You taste like shitty cigarettes. Stale. Menthol ones.”

“It’s her, man,” Noah says, and you pinch his leg to hear his yelp, payback for being a snitch. “She bummed a few during the party, snuck out front. She was gone for ages,” he continues, unfortunately not deterred, determined to throw you under the bus so he can remain Nick’s perfect boy. “I taste like her, Nicky. You would have noticed if you’d been paying any attention to her. I’m not allowed,” he snarks. You laugh—apparently Noah likes the vibration of it, muffling a moan into Nick’s skin. “Don’t you know never to leave a pretty girl like this alone?”

“I’m gathering that. Fucking smartass,” Nick says, fucking you slower, thrusting deeper and harder. A hand comes back down to grip your hips, thumb grazing over your skin. “Kiss me again, Noah,” Nick orders and he doesn’t hesitate—you quickly readjust as he moves forward again, meeting Nick’s mouth. “Honey, you’re shaking. You’re about to cum, huh?”

Noah doesn’t answer, not that you can hear, just thrusts faster and deeper into your mouth. You power through it, swallow around the gag, blink away the tears and let your eyes slip closed. “I’m gonna cum,” Noah gasps into Nick’s mouth. You double your efforts, sliding your head down as far as you can, swallowing around him. He groans, gathering your hair in a fist and stilling. “Oh, fuck.”

Noah’s barely pulled out before Nick is, too, flipping you over onto your back and slipping back in. You swallow, Noah’s cum sliding down your throat. He’s leaning over you again, licking into your mouth, tasting himself on your tongue. It’s filthy and makes you ache, tighten around Nick.

Nick slaps a tit, kneading it and pinching the pebbled nipple between his index finger and thumb. You let out a desperate moan as he grabs the other, fucking you deeper. “Touch yourself, sweetheart,” Nick tells you, right hand moving from your chest to your throat, tightening just slightly. “Keep your eyes on me.”

You reach between your bodies, middle finger sliding over your clit. You had already been so close and the first touch of your finger sets your body alight. Nick’s eyes are so focused on you—you’re short of breath and so fucking close.

“Nicky,” you gasp, reaching out for him with a free hand. He leans down to kiss you, the most gentle thing you’ve felt all night. Throwing your head back, you feel your orgasm reaching its peak. Your eyes meet Nick’s again. “Cum on my cock, sweet girl. Cum for me,” he says as it washes over you.

Nick is pulling out, then, jerking his cock once, twice, three times before his cum is covering your tummy. You always love the way it feels.

They bracket your body. Noah gathers some of Nick’s cum on his fingers, sucking them into his mouth. Nick’s eyes unfocus before he leans over you, licking into Noah’s mouth.

They focus back on you, Nick speaking up. “I’m sorry you felt neglected tonight, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have done that to you,” Nick starts, thumb grazing over your cheek. “If it happens again, you can just tell me, all right? You don’t need to act out.”

“I’m sorry I embarrassed you, Nicky,” you respond, but he smiles and shakes his head, letting you know that you didn’t.

“Can I run you a bath?” he asks, and a bath does sound so nice right now, the warm water on your stinging and aching body.

“Can Noah come?” you ask, and Noah smiles into the skin of your neck, snorting. You’re glad you’d decided to go for the bigger tub.

“Of course he can,” Nick responds. “Noah always comes.”

[lucky-clover-gazette]

prince's gambit highlights & annotations

chapter 14

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

No Laurent. All signs of recent occupancy had been a handspan away from his own body, suggesting a night spent in close but not transgressive proximity: some kind of self-preservation had apparently prevented Damen from rolling inward during the night; from throwing his arm over Laurent’s torso and drawing them together to make the small tent seem larger than it was. As a result, Damen was in possession of all his limbs, and even had his clothing restored to him. Thank you, Laurent.

The embroidery came later, in the retelling, as the story was told again and again by the men, taking on its own character as it passed over camp. The Prince had ridden out, with only one soldier. Deep in the mountains, he had chased down the rats responsible for these killings. Had ripped them out of their hiding holes and fought them, thirty to one, at least. Had brought them back thrashed, lashed and subdued. That was their Prince for you, a twisty, vicious fiend who you should never, ever cross, unless you wanted your gullet handed to you on a platter. Why, he once rode a horse to death just to beat Torveld of Patras to the mark.

like how this ironic misunderstanding of the events is similar to how damen viewed laurent in book 1 and some of book 2. except now he gets the irony

He looked at Laurent’s tent of silks, the pennants unfurled in the breeze, their starbursts undulating. The distant voices of the men swelled briefly, then dropped away. It would not be like this. It would be a systematic campaign moving southwards towards Ios, building on the support he had from the kyroi factions. He would not be stealing out of camp at night to spin mad plans, to dress in unfamiliar clothes and forge alliances with rogue clans, or to fight alongside pony-riding warriors, capturing bandits improbably in the mountains. It would not be like this again.

:(

‘Keep the prisoners alive, keep the women on side, keep my men from the women,’ said Laurent, as though reciting from a checklist. ‘Come over here and talk geography.’ He came as he was bid, and took a seat opposite Laurent, across the map.

they’re so cute i can’t stand them. “come over here and talk geography” SHUT UP

Laurent did not tend to show any of the usual outward signs of fatigue. The control that he asserted and maintained over the troop was an extension of the control with which he ruled himself. A few tells existed. The words, perhaps.

“the words, perhaps” is such a funny line here. because like yeah no shit, but also how is damen supposed to know when laurent’s words actually reflect his true feelings?

Instinctively, Damen brought his hand up to squeeze Laurent’s shoulder gently—and then stopped. Laurent went very still, as Damen became aware of what he had just done, and that his grip was still on Laurent’s shoulder. He felt the locked muscles like hard wood beneath his hand. ‘Stiff?’ said Damen, casually. ‘A little,’ said Laurent, after a moment in which Damen’s heart knocked twice against the inside of his chest.

one thing i really appreciate about capri is the way that laurent is written, as a character with trauma/baggage who experiences intimacy in a way you wouldn’t expect from the love interest in a romance novel. he doesn’t make anything easy, for himself or for damen. his physical and mental reactions to things are very telling and consistent, and i appreciate pacat’s commitment to honoring that aspect of the character. that way it’s so much more rewarding when we finally see laurent let go of control and experience love that doesn’t hurt him.

i won’t do an official count for “laurent intimacy issues,” since it’s not nearly as clear-cut as “laurent leans,” but if there’s something that strikes this chord with me, i do want to make note of it. just… stuff that i personally appreciate, especially from a love interest in a romance novel, whose whole narrative job—one would expect—is to love the protagonist and have hot sex. but sensitive and traumatized people deserve love and intimacy, too, at their own pace and on their own terms. and laurent has a lot more going on than what damen perceives, or what the romance genre dictates. it’s nice to point out little moments where his issues affect his physical and emotional reactions, because it’s nice to know that those moments 1) exist and 2) don’t make him any less of a romantic lead.

He applied a gentle pressure with his thumbs. He said, ‘You brought me ice, last night.’ ‘This,’ said Laurent, ‘is a little more—’ It was a word of sharp points: ‘—intimate,’ he said, ‘than ice.’ ‘Too intimate?’ Damen said. Slowly, he was kneading Laurent’s shoulders. He did not usually think of himself as someone with suicidal impulses. Laurent did not relax at all, just stood unmoving. And then, at the apsis of his thumbs, a muscle shifted beneath pressure, unlocking a sequence all the way down Laurent’s back. Laurent said, unwillingly, ‘I . . . There.’ ‘Here?’ ‘Yes.’

a lot going on here! made even more complicated by damen’s pov!

damen takes physical intimacy much less seriously than laurent. prior to book 1, he has always enjoyed willing and enthusiastic partners (some of whom were conditioned into that enthusiasm, but we’ll deal with that later), and to him, sex is not a means of abuse or power. prior to book 1, intimacy was never used to disempower damen. laurent, obviously, is very different. pretty much all he knows of intimacy is abuse and disempowerment.

so, being aware of laurent’s trauma and also being fairly perceptive of the signs pointing towards it, i can see here that laurent is fighting a massive battle with himself. because, like, he does want this. but he doesn’t want to want this, because this is something he doesn’t have control over. the fact that he doesn’t throw damen off, and even explicitly asks him to massage a certain spot, is a demonstration of vulnerability that damen doesn't really understand.

which isn't bad or wrong of him, at all! if he did understand more about laurent’s trauma and responses, he’d almost certainly be less confident with initiating intimacy, which is something laurent needs from a partner. it's a lot harder when they're both completely terrified (which damen is, in a different way, but lesser so.) damen is afraid that laurent will bite his head off because he’s a bitch, not because he’s traumatized. and i think that’s a good place for them to be, at this stage of their relationship.

also, the “suicidal impulses” quip is great.

He felt Laurent subtly give himself up to his hands; yet as with a man closing his eyes on the edge of a cliff, it was an act of continuous tension, not surrender.

yeah

‘Like this?’ ‘Yes.’

“he likes that. do it harder.”

Laurent’s head had dropped forward a little. Damen had no idea what he was doing. He was distantly aware that he had had his hands on Laurent’s body once before, and couldn’t believe it, because it felt so impossible now; yet that moment felt connected to this one, even if only in contrast, his current caution against the unguarded way he had let his hands slide down over Laurent’s wet skin.

damen, meanwhile, has recently developed his own intimacy issues/trauma in book 1. these two are a mess

‘Is it so hard to relax?’ said Damen, quietly.

YEAH. IT IS.

‘You only have to walk outside to see what you’ve accomplished. Those men are yours.’ He didn’t pay attention to the signs, the slight stiffening. ‘Whatever happens tomorrow, you’ve done more than anyone could—’ ‘That’s enough,’ said Laurent, pushing himself away unexpectedly.

damen he’s not stressed bc of the war stuff, he’s stressed bc another human being is showing him physical affection and he actually wants it to be happening

When Laurent turned to face him, his eyes were dark. His lips were parted uncertainly. He had lifted his hand to his own shoulder, as though chasing a ghost touch there. He did not look exactly relaxed, but the movement did look a little easier. As if realising that, Laurent said, almost awkwardly, ‘Thank you.’ And then, in wry acknowledgement: ‘Getting tied up leaves an impression. I didn’t realise being captured was so uncomfortable.’

ohhhhh my god. oh my god. so fucking real, every line is so fucking real. the relief of no longer being touched, being back in control. the fuckin, phantom touch on the shoulder—an assessment of the massage, yes, but also… whose ghost is it? damen isn’t asking that question, but i am, and it’s sad. and then the awkward thanks, and the immediate snarky comment to follow up. it’s just so real.

‘I promise I’ll never tie you to the back of a horse,’ said Laurent. There was a pause in which Laurent’s mordant gaze was on him. ‘That’s right, I’m still captured,’ said Damen.

says the protagonist of the “captive prince” series

‘Your eyes say, “For now,”’ Laurent said. ‘Your eyes have always said, “For now.”’

ohhh this line is juicy. because like, yeah, there’s the melancholy yearning context of the last 10 or so chapters, but before? when they were enemies, when laurent was actively hurting and trying to disempower damen? even then, he never showed laurent submission. and laurent clearly noticed. they make me so crazyyyy

‘If you were a pet, I would have gifted you enough by now to buy out your contract, many times over.’

this is more a flaw in my understanding of the pet system, but is he saying that he’s done damen enough favors that if the favors were monetary he could afford to pay off his contract? that’s my best understanding of the line at this point.

‘I’d still be here,’ said Damen, ‘with you. I told you that I would see this border dispute through to its finish. Do you think I’d go back on my word?’ ‘No,’ said Laurent, almost as if he was realising it for the first time.

they drive me insane. the whole “suffering alone” theme—laurent is realizing that he hasn’t been suffering alone, lately, because damen is intentionally staying by his side. laurent may be great at strategic thinking, but he is so used to being manipulated and abused that he doesn’t even consider that someone could be genuinely devoted to him, as a person.

But I know you don’t like it. I remember how much it maddened you in the palace, to be bound and powerless. I felt yesterday how badly you wanted to hit someone.

another interesting re-contextualization of book 1! although it’s not quite an apology, bc i’m sure laurent was aware of the maddening and was probably like “good. this guy killed my brother”

Damen found he’d moved without realising it, his fingers lifting to touch the bruised edge of Laurent’s jaw. He said, ‘The man who did this to you.’ The words just came out. The warmth of skin under his fingers in that moment took all his attention, before he became aware that Laurent had jerked back and was staring at him, blue eyes huge with pupil. Damen was suddenly aware of how out of control he was—he felt—and called violently on his faculties to try to put a stop to—this. ‘I’m sorry. I . . . know better than that.’

“i know better than that” is an INSANE thing for him to say here, by the way. they’re both so compelled by each other and afraid of each other. the amount of work pacat has put into their arc/characterization so far means that scenes like these can have something going on between every single line. honestly i think there’s more going on here off the page, than there is on it

‘No. Wait. I . . . wait.’ Damen stopped, and turned. Laurent’s gaze was edged with indecipherable emotion, and his jaw was set at a new angle. The silence stretched out for such a long time that the words, when they came, were a shock. ‘What Govart said about my brother and I . . . it wasn’t true.’ ‘I never thought it was,’ said Damen, uneasily. ‘I mean that whatever . . . whatever taint exists in my family, Auguste was free of it.’ ‘Taint?’

fascinated by the possible reasons for laurent to say this, in this moment. he uses it on the page to then say that damen is a good and honorable person like auguste, so that’s the easy answer. but if he was just experiencing some ptsd flashbacks, i wonder if this is also something of a grounding statement for himself. because we know who he’s referring to, when he’s talking about bad people on his family tree. it’s almost like he’s trying to figure out how to frame this situation, more for himself than damen—laurent feels protected and cared for in this moment, and the last time he allowed himself to feel that way after auguste’s death, his uncle had taken advantage. so of course he’s picturing his uncle. but this statement, a reminder to himself that damen is more like auguste than the regent, and auguste would have never done anything with laurent in the way the regent had… augh. laurent your brain.

‘I wanted to tell you that, because you,’ said Laurent, as though he was forcing the words out, ‘You remind me of him. He was the best man I have ever known. You deserve to know that, as you deserve at least a fair . . . In Arles, I treated you with malice and cruelty. I will not insult you by attempting to atone for deeds with words, but I would not treat you that way again. I was angry. Angry, that isn’t the word.’ It was bitten off; a jagged silence followed.

this is a laurent apology! no “sorry” necessary. and he’s the closest to telling damen the truth as he’s ever been, but still he stops himself. i wonder if it’s partially out of shame, for how he treated damen. a refusal to make an excuse, because he understands the cruelty of his actions regardless. and of course he has cognitive dissonance to maintain and tactical reasons for keeping the lie going. but still, this is honest.

Then, with a return to his more usual tone, ‘And you don’t need to take watch,’ said Laurent. ‘You sleep prudently.’

of course he can’t just say, like, “sleep well” or “good night.” prudently means carefully, or in good judgment… so like, he’d wake up if something dangerous happened? laurent trusts that? i can’t tell if the statement is an observation or a command. it’s either, “[i want you to] sleep mindfully” or “you sleep mindfully [so you don’t need to stay awake on watch].” hmmm

Damen searched his face, but found nothing in it that he could read, which, he supposed, as he lifted his hands to the laces of his own jacket, was typical.

buddy there is so much subtext going on here it’s okay just get some rest

[ticklishbeans4]

2D Beings Deserve Tickles To!

I've been wanting to write something with Prismo for awhile given all the art that's been floating around! And how could I not add Finn and Jake in there?

Jake and Finn were laying on the floor of Prismo’s cube, chilling out as they watched some other dimension stuff with the comic being. This had become a pretty common occurrence with the three, Prismo seemed to enjoy the company, and the two brothers were more than happy to provide it. Plus, it was super cool to see other versions of themselves.

“Oh this ones pretty cool!” Prismo gushed, “This one was made when someone wished that they could just live as a child forever. So I made a kid world! Aren’t they cute?”

“Awwww! Look at little Finn!” Jake cooed, “I forgot how cute you were!”

“Are you kidding? Look at puppy you!” Fin laughed, “You’re so tiny!”

“Not as cute as you!” Jake laughed, jumping on Finn and starting a wrestling match between the brothers.

Prismo watched fondly, this happened a lot when they came over, but it never stopped being amusing to see. It kinda made him wish he had a sibling, someone he could hangout with and talk to. A built in best friend, like Finn and Jake.

He was brought out of his thoughts by a sudden shriek, followed by a burst of laughter from Finn. Looking over, his eyes widened and he quickly looked away, if he could blush, he was sure he’d be red as Golb. Jake was tickling Finn.

Now Prismo was no stranger to the concept of tickling. Watching hundreds of universes with hundreds of people, he’d seen plenty of tickling. It always had a… weird effect on him. It made his guts feel twisty and fluttery, he couldn’t always look at it, but sometimes he couldn’t look away, sometimes he’d even replay those moments over and over. He didn’t really get why he felt like this, the only other time he felt like this was around Jake but… it was different. He knew that without a shadow of a doubt.

“HELP!” Finn cried, reaching a hand out to Prismo before he shot it back down when Jake scribbled into his underarm.

Prismo just tried to focus on the screen, not able to look directly at the scene. He wished he knew why he felt this way about such an innocent practice. He’d watched parents tickling their kids, siblings getting into tickle fights, heck! He’d seen babies in the baby dimension tickle each other! So it was just an innocent, fun, silly thing! Sure he knew it could be used in… other ways, but those didn’t make him feel all fluttery and twisty.

“Prismo, you good?” Jake asked, apparently having given Finn mercy.

“Oh! Uh, yeah! Yeah I’m good! Totally good! So good actually! Ha! Why do you ask?” he said nervously, moving from wall to wall with his jittery energy.

Finna sat up, rubbing his belly, “Dude, are you sure? You’re acting all weird.”

“Nope! I’m dandy as candy!” he laughed, “Hey! Let me show you the dimension where everyone is a stuffed animal!”

“Prismo…” Jake said, his voice sending shivers up Prismos back. “Are you ticklish?”

“Am I…” he thought for a second, was he ticklish? “I… huh, I don’t know. No one’s ever tried.”

“What?” the pair cried, immediately jumping to their feet.

“You’ve never been tickled?” Jake cried, “Dude it’s like, the best! How have you never been tickled!?”

Prismo shrugged, “Well, who’s gonna do that to the wish master? No one really does that kind of thing around here, ya know?”

The two looked aghast, which was a little funny. Till their faces changed with a single shared look, devious smiles spread across their faces.

Jake casually cracked his fingers, “Well… I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

Finn smirked, “I think it’ll be fun to be the first ones to try.”

Prismo felt that twisty fluttery feeling in full force. He didn’t know if he should run, or just let it happen. He did want it to happen, but also every part of him was saying to run. “I- uh- w-well!”

Jake chuckled as he stalked closer to the 2D being, “Don’t worry Prismo, we’ll be nice!” “For the most part.” Finn giggled, a distinctly evil sound to Prismo.

“N-now guys! Let's just chill! I-I mean, we can just sit back and watch some other dimensions and eat cheese crackers!” he rambled, waving his hands around animatedly.

Well it seemed the pair weren’t swayed by his incredible argument, as they pounced, scribbling at where his belly was on the floor. And Prismo was absolutely not prepared for the feeling. It was like… Glob he didn’t even know! He’d never felt anything like this! It was light, but scratchy, but it made him feel all tingly and light and weird!

Poor Prismo didn’t stand a chance against the feeling, especially since he’d never experienced it before. Immediately he burst into giggles, and shot himself over to the other wall. There was a pause, a moment where they all just looked at each other…

“Get ‘im!” Jake cried, and the two launched themselves at Prismo again. Prismo wasn’t fast enough to get away as they scribbled at him again. Finn targeted his belly, but Jake decided to try other spots. He stretched his limbs to scratch at his underarms and his neck.

Primso shrieked, a weird sound coming from him in his opinion, and fell into cackling laughter. He didn’t run this time, just flapped his hands and wiggled around in the room. Random things began appearing in the room as well, a feather duster, a pig, flowers, little glowy swirls, stars, and moons appearing on the walls. “Jake! Dude! His powers are goin bananers!” Finn laughed, picking up the feather duster and brushing it against Prismo’s side, making him screech and jerk away.

“NOHOHOHOHO! AHAHAHAHAAHAH! STAHAHAHAHAP!” he shrieked, not at all wanting it to stop. This was more fun than any wish granting, any dimension watching, it was even more fun than pickle making!

“Aw, you’re fine!” Jake teased, “You’re barely trying to get away! I bet you like it!”

“NOOOOHOHOOHO!” he lied, laughing wildly as the pair seemed to attack from all angles. They left practically no spot untickled, it was maddening, but also some of the most fun he’d had in his life! After what felt like an eternity, but also somehow didn’t last nearly long enough, Prismo had had enough. He zoomed just outside of the room, giggling as he caught his breath. “Prismo!” Jake called, “Where’d you go? Are you ok? We didn’t go too far did we?”

“No!” he called back, “I just… I needed a breather!” “We won’t tickle you again!” Finn shouted out, “You can come back!”

“...You won’t make fun of me right?” he asked, “Like, you promise?”

“We promise dude.” Finn answered.

“And we don’t break promises.” Jake added.

Prismo took a deep breath and came back in, looking flustered. “So… I guess that… happened.” “Yeah man! It was awesome!” Jake grinned, patting Prismo’s shoulder. “You took it like a champ! I doubt Finn could last that long with two tickle monsters!”

“I totally could!” the teen protested.

Jake smiled wickedly, “Oh yeah? Prismo, wanna help me out?”

Prismo grinned, moving closer to the kid, “I’m not usually one for revenge plots, but…”

Finn seemed to realize how bad he donked up. “Uh- h-hey now! Let’s talk about this!”

But there was no time to talk, as Jake jumped on his brother and pinned him down. Prismo only paused for a moment, he’d never actually tried to tickle someone, he’d only watched it. But… it couldn’t be that hard! He got his hands onto Finn’s knees, a spot he’d seen Jake tickle him, and began wiggling his fingers. Finn let out a hilariously high pitched scream before he fell into a fit of laughter. “NAAHAHAHAHA! PRISMOHOHOHO!” “What? I’m not doing anything!” he laughed, moving his wiggly fingers to the softer underside of his knees, making Finn scream again.

“Dang son! You’re a natural!” Jake praised, sending butterflies fluttering in Prismo’s belly.

“Awww, gee, thanks Jake.” he smiled sheepishly.

Jake grinned, before he joined in the wrecking, squeezing at Finn’s ribs, sending the boy kicking and shrieking.

“STAHAHHAHAAHAP FLIHIHIHIHRTING!” Finn cackled, which made Prismo splutter, before digging punishingly into the backs of his knees, getting a scream from the teen.

“We’re not flirting! Shut up!” There was no flirting! Jake was just a good friend! Nothing more! Besides, he had Lady…

Jake blew a raspberry on Finn’s belly, getting a loud squeal in return. “I’ll teach you not to make Prismo uncomfortable!”

Prismo laughed, “My hero!”

Jake flexed his arms, stretching them to look like muscles, which made Prismo snort as he giggled at him. Sadly this also distracted the pair from Finn, who promptly tackled Jake and scribbled into his belly. The poor dog immediately burst into bright laughter, his leg adorably kicking at the same time.

“NAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! NO FAIR!” he cried, snorting as Finn attacked. Finn just grinned evilly and replied, “Too bad!”

Prismo hesitated for a second, but when Finn nodded for him to join, he decided to just go for it! He got his hands behind Jakes ears and began scribbling, making Jake bark in shock before falling into loud laughter.

“PRISMOHOHOHOHO! YOU TRAHAHAHAITOR!” the dog shrieked, kicking his leg and laughing loudly.

Prismo laughed at his friend, “All’s fair in love and war!”

“Especially tickle wars!” Finn agreed.

“YOU WAHAHANT A WAHAHAR!?” Jake cried, before stretching himself away from the pair and quickly attacking their bellies. “I’ll show you a war!”

Prismo shrieked with Finn as his friend tickled them to pieces. He wasn’t complaining though, this was fun! Probably the most fun he’d had in… forever! He never wanted it to end! He was definitely adding some tickle scenes in Fionna and Cake! And well… he’d probably ask Finn and Jake to come by a lot more often.

[tgmsunmontue]

Team Player 7/7

Hangster. Jake's cousin plays for the Sydney Roosters and gifts him with merchandise regularly. Bradley has an unexpected realization.

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX

PART SEVEN - EPILOGUE

                Things between them are never boring, and he doesn’t quite know how they’ve managed to simply have open and honest communication from the get-go, but they do. Probably because he had to get over his whole initial embarrassment at realizing that seeing Jake wearing Roosters merchandise really did it for him. Continues to do it for him. All Jake needs to do is send him a photo of him wearing something and Bradley has an automatic response, which has fortunately mellowed from immediate hard-ons to something lower but still intense, an itching need to get his hands on Jake and confirm that yes, Jake is indeed his.

                Bradley has been told he’s intense, as a boyfriend, a bit of a love bomber. Some of his previous partners haven’t been able to handle it, told him he was just a little bit too much. He’d tried to curb it with Jake; it had worked up until a point and then he’d just forgotten one time, let himself just go all out one day and he’d twisted himself up inside when he realized, terrified that Jake would finally understand how over the top Bradley is, how he wants to be there all the time, that he was needy. Except Jake had basked in the attention, a little shy and that gorgeous blush Bradley has come to love making Jake’s skin warm, but Jake had just soaked it all up. Can’t seem to get enough and over the following weeks he’d allowed himself to relax, the little twisty part in his gut unfurling and relaxing and Jake’s smile washing all his anxiety away.

                Their six-month anniversary had come and gone and he’d held his breath, that milestone was usually the tipping point for so many of his previous relationships. Except his relationship with Jake seems stronger, foundation set firmly in shared life experiences and values and also really good sex. Their friends all saw it coming apparently, but he thinks only Phoenix saw the actual potential for them, apparently knowing them both well enough. Now when Jake wears something Roosters branded, Bradley knows he wants to be taken home and fucked. Hard. Which is just as well because it fits with exactly what he wants to do when he sees it.

                It’s become a code between them, not a game, because there’s no start or end, no winner or loser. Sometimes Jake will simply send a mirror selfie, dressed in his uniform, with a simple Treasure hunt time caption and Bradley knows he wants soft and sweet, while he peels off the layers, kisses every piece of skin as it’s uncovered until he finds whatever it is that Jake has found to surprise him with this time. There’s been socks, singlets, boxer briefs, a G-string one memorable time, a little key-chain charm looped with his dog tags, a watch… Then Jake had started with the skin-transfer tattoos placed on all sorts of different places, and it’s not every time, just when Jake seems to want Bradley’s full undivided attention and Bradley is more than happy to give him that.

 …           …            …

                Their squadron is usually together, however they are occasionally split into smaller groups and deployed separately in order to assist with upskilling and training of other aviators. He hates it. Well, that’s a lie. He hates it when he’s not with Bradley and he knows they’re maybe a little codependent but he’s also pretty sure they’re ridiculously and blissfully happy. Nauseatingly so, if Javy’s words are true. He doesn’t give a fuck. He’s back in the same state as Bradley for the first time in six weeks, which isn’t that long, he knows that logically, but it’s the longest they’ve been apart since they got together and phone calls have not been enough.

                They’d already planned for Jake to head straight over once he was finished up dropping his things. He has a key to Bradley’s place, given to him on their one-year anniversary, and he lets himself in, kicking of his shoes. The main lights are off but the few little side lamps are lit and they lead to the bedroom and he’ll give Bradley shit for not being subtle later. Right now he wants to see his boyfriend, and if he’s already in the bedroom then it’ll save him time trying to get him there. He pushes the door and his breath catches in his throat, Bradley is lying in the center of the bed, completely naked, the lighting golden and dim and he’s absolutely fucking gorgeous.

                “You’re home…”

                “Yeah. Fuck you look good…”

                “So do you. Come on. Want you to fuck me…”

                “God I missed you,” Jake mutters, stripping off his clothes with single-minded focus, eyes not leaving Bradley, lying naked in bed, hand stroking his cock and his eyes aren’t leaving Jake as he strips and he feels himself getting harder under the attention. He knee walks up the bed, lowers his head to capture Bradley’s lips in a kiss and he feels every single muscle in his body relax a little as Bradley’s hands run over him and he feels a sense of homecoming.

                “When did you get this?” Bradley asks, tugging at his dog tags and Jake glances down at the little silver heart charm that has the Roosters team logo under resin, three little diamantes in the corner. No-one will ever see it except for Bradley, but he flushes anyway.

                “Oh. Uh. While I was away,” he says, deciding not to mention that he kissed it every morning and night.

                “God I love you Jake…”

                Jake kisses him again, has said the words plenty, but they just come easier to Bradley sometimes. He runs his hand down Bradley’s body to his cock, runs a finger behind his balls and there’s slick and firm resistance, the base of a plug and he pulls back to look Bradley in the face.

                “You couldn’t wait for me?”

                “Nope,” Bradley says, lips making a popping sound and his eyes are dancing with mischief and Jake can’t help but grin. “Didn’t want to wait. Was kind of the whole point… Come on. Lie back. I want to do all the work.”

                Jake isn’t going to argue with that, lets Bradley shift out of the way and push him back so Jake’s now lying naked in the middle of the bed feels the breath punch out of him as Bradley’s hand encircles his cock and starts stroking, his eyes dark as he watches Jake’s face and his mouth drops open so he can suck in a deep breath, watches as Bradley smirks at him as he reaches behind himself and pulls out the plug. Then his cock is getting lubed up and Bradley is straddling him, wiggling his hips and eyebrows playfully and Jake lets out a little laugh which morphs into a groan as Bradley shifts and he knows to hold still while Bradley slides down. Then his cock is getting enclosed in the hot tight heat of Bradley and his entire body twitches at the sensation and he continues to hold still, waiting for Bradley to start moving, that it’s okay for Jake to start moving as well.

                “Missed you…” Bradley murmurs into the crook of his neck, before licking and sucking and Jake groans, plants his feet and rolls his hips a little, tiny amount, just needing something, anything, rather than the all-encompassing pressure. He can feel Bradley’s pleased hum against his neck so he does it again, keeps the slow undulating grind while they kiss, hands touching everywhere, reminding each other of the familiar landscape of each other’s bodies. He can tell when Bradley gets comfortable, his body beginning to rock against his, making the slide and drag longer and it feels so fucking good. His boyfriend is a genius. When he’s fully comfortable he sits upright, thighs working to lower and raise himself onto Jake and he’s a vision Jake can’t take his eyes off.

                Their rhythm is smooth, practiced despite the weeks apart, their months together making them slot back together effortlessly and Jake runs his hands over Bradley’s thighs, loves the feels of hard muscles under warm skin, the shift as he moves and he digs his fingers in and smirks when Bradley groans, his hand moving to grasp Bradley’s cock in his hand. Then Bradley’s shifting again, reaching for his hand before he can touch and his wrists are above his head.

                “Mine. Mine. Mine,” Bradley chants, voice low as he rocks his body above Jake, fingers still wrapped around Jake’s wrists, holding him in place and his entire body shivers, he loves hearing that and he plants his feet and snaps his hips, hard and fast, not a pace he can keep up indefinitely but he’s pretty confident he won’t need to.

                “Yours. Yours. Yours,” he says into the side of Bradley’s head, teeth nipping at Bradley’s earlobe and he feels Bradley come, hears him moan, feels him sucking at his neck and he’s probably going to have little marks all over, not to mention the fucking stubble burn. He’s really fucking missed it and he thrusts faster, chasing his orgasm now.

                “Come on Jake, come for me…”

                “Asshole…” Jake mutters into his neck, the word coming out on a half-laugh. It’s not a Pavlovian response, but Bradley likes to think it is; and he is coming damn it, but it’s not because Bradley told him to. It feels too good for him to care too much, and Bradley is muttering sweet endearments against his skin, their movements shifting into the slower softer afterglow and Bradley is kissing him again, all over, lips placing soft little butterfly touches everywhere and he hums happily, feels warmth trail as Bradley drags his fingers down his arms.

                “Welcome home,” Bradley says and Jake smiles, eyes drifting closed as he relaxes, so glad to be back, letting Bradley run his hands all over and check for any changes. He feels his cock slip out, then there’s a warm cloth on his stomach and then his cock again and Bradley is kissing him and his day of travel is catching up and he’s starting to think Bradley had it bang to rights saying he’d do all the work. Jake feels floaty and tired. Then he feels Bradley snuggle up behind him, pulling the blankets to cover them and he falls asleep with a smile on his face.

…            …            …

                He looks at the top and bites his lip, because he has no idea whether Bradley’s going to like it or not. He’s pretty sure they’ve fucked while Jake’s worn nearly every piece of Roosters merchandise at some point or another over the last twenty or so months. He’s also pretty sure he’s supporting a sports team for all the wrong reasons, still having never seen a game, but he does not care at all. He’s had to have it customized, and Bradley’s never made any comment about wanting to see his actual name on Jake, but even now, if Jake wants to drive him wild, all he has to do is wear a piece of Roosters merchandise and without fail Bradley is in his space, pushing him against the nearest surface to make out with him. He thought it would be a novelty, that it would wear off after a few weeks or months, that Bradley would get bored of him. Instead they’re coming up on their second-year anniversary and Bradley still looks at him like Jake is the center of his universe, regardless of what he’s wearing. Or not wearing.

                They’ve moved in together. Jake has bought a ring and he knows there’s a ring waiting for him, because he found it accidentally when looking for a hiding place for the ring he bought. Bradley is it for him and knowing he’s it for Bradley gives him a deep sense of contentedness and rightness. He knows Bradley will say yes, and he’s determined to be the first to propose. He pulls on the new jersey, the front looks normal, a standard top with just  the logo and Roosters team name; but the back, across the shoulders is now the name BRADSHAW and he doesn’t want to send that through as a message. Wants to see Bradley’s face.

                Usually he wouldn’t wear something like this for their little treasure hunt thing, is usually in his uniform. Actually now that he thinks about it he can still make it a bit of a treasure hunt and he goes to find the ring Bradley hid, his finger running over the Rooster’s inscription on the inside and he bites his lip as he slips it on, hopes that Bradley won’t mind; places the ring he bought Bradley in the pocket of his jeans. Then he goes into the bathroom and takes a photo, sends it through with the standard Treasure hunt time caption and then freaks out a little, because there’s no going back now. He’s about to propose and he hasn’t put any thought into it other than the traditional bended-knee.

                Bradley’s visiting Maverick, is meant to be heading back around about now and he stares at himself in the mirror, tells himself that it won’t matter how he proposes, just like it doesn’t matter how Bradley will say yes, that as long as they’re engaged at the end of the day that’s all he cares about.

                “Jesus fucking Christ…”

                He looks up from his own reflection and there, standing behind him but staring at his back, his name across Jake’s shoulders, is Bradley. Jake catches his eye in the reflection and he licks his lips. Bradley’s cheeks and necks are blotchy red and Jake realizes Bradley likes it a lot, seeing Jake wearing Bradshaw across his body. He pulls the sleeve down over his left hand, doesn’t want to literally show his hand quite yet, his stomach fluttering with nerves despite being sure of the answer.

                “Hi.”

                “Jake…”

                “You’re back earlier than I thought you’d be,” Jake says, throat going dry as Bradley presses himself against Jake’s back, lips going to his neck and he turns his head for a kiss, although he notes Bradley is watching them together in the mirror. Pervert.

                “You spoil me, god you’re hot like this…” Bradley mutters, and he’s already got one had grasping one of Jake’s ass cheeks and he can’t help but press back into him.

                “Glad you think so, oh god, fuck,” Jake mutters, Bradley’s other hand now rubbing him through his jeans, lips on his neck and jaw, other hand on his ass. He can’t believe he’s doing this in the bathroom of all places, but he reaches into the pocket of his jeans, determined to get this done before Bradley undresses him and fucks him wearing nothing but the damned jersey. The flash of metal catches Bradley’s attention and he immediately pulls back a little, eyes going wide as he realizes what it is Jake is holding in his hand.

                “Will you marry me?” Jake asks. Bradley’s smile is blinding, then he’s turning Jake to face him properly, cupping his face in his hands and he’s being kissed so thoroughly it consumes him and he has to pull back and catch his breath. “So that’s a yes?”

                “Yes it’s a yes. I got you a ring too, just didn’t want to rush you…”

                “Yeah, about that…” Jake says, pulling the sleeve back to reveal his left ring finger and he didn’t think Bradley’s smile could get wider but it does.

                “Finally where it belongs,” Bradley says, and he lifts Jake’s hand to his mouth and he kisses the ring, maintains eye contact the whole time and Jake doesn’t need to look in the mirror to know his cheeks are flaming red. “Love you Jake.”

                “Love you too.”

THE END

[pigeonfactory]

𝓓𝓮𝓪𝓭 𝓸𝓯 𝓝𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽

Blah. I really need to post on here. So let’s start with an old short thing I did a while back. Kind of bleh.

—

Cold.

Why am I so.. cold?

I wake up alone, laying in sheets of snow so cold it blisters my skin. I wear no jacket, no jeans. Simply a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that reads “The Beatles”. Converse sneakers run in dirt, snow and blood. Where am I?

Everything I see is dark, dark, and darker still. Thick snow runs alongside a river. Chunks of ice swim in deep blue as fog dances over top. I almost think I can see light beyond it. A bright white light. The other direction is less friendly. Towering trees which look like they might reach out and grab me, shading the forest in a pitch black hue. Twisty and statuesque, I would hate to be a lumberjack. The shadows are uninviting. I hear the whispers of things no living person should be able to. And yet… I feel the urge to wander into it grow. Something is pulling me in, is it the trees?

So, I walk. No, not into the trees, not yet. Just along the river. I have no clue what I’m doing all the way out here, and I have no idea who I am. What I do know is that I am inappropriately dressed for the cold, and I like The Beatles. I’m not sure how far that’s going to get me. But as I continue to walk, I realize something. Something strange. I’m no longer cold. Every step I take makes me feel warmer. Despite the location and state of dress. After a few more steps it is unbearably warm. But I don’t have any extra clothing to abandon. So I keep walking.

I cannot tell how long I’ve been walking for now. Maybe it’s hours, or maybe it’s days. Weeks? My brain becomes hazy, and I stumble as I walk. I reach into my brain, desperately grappling on to any and all memories I can resurface. I can remember a few things. I remember… my 17th birthday, my favorite jacket I had ruined at a party, a bracelet I always wore. Except for now, apparently, whenever now is. I grip the wrist that holds the memory of the jewelry, the left one, and continue to walk.

Now, I end up somewhere I don’t recognize. It feels familiar but I can’t recognize it amidst the snow. I feel angry. What is it I can’t recognize? It’s a house. A small bungalow with Christmas decorations in the front yard. It’s along a row of other houses, but this is the one I am drawn to. Warm light seeps out of the windows and into the night sky, And much like a moth, I approach.

Up the pretty stone pathway, past the lopsided snowman and up onto the rickety wood porch. I look inside. I see a family. A young boy in a red sweater, making gingerbread cookies with a kind blonde woman. A slightly older girl with her hair in braids, decorating a christmas tree with a man in a.. business suit? Cheerful laughter rings through my ears despite the walls, and I realize I recognize this family.

The little boy turns and looks out the window I stand in, and I wave, trying not to startle him. But my body is glass, and he sees right through me. He turns to the woman, and tugs on her dress.

“Mommy, I heard something outside.”

“It’s probably just the wind, buddy,” She coos lovingly, patting his head. “Nothing to be worried about.”

“But.. What about Amy? When is she coming back?”

“Don’t worry about her, sport,” The dad chimes in. “You know your sister can take care of herself. I’ll bet you she’s on her way back here right now.”

These words fill me with dread. I scream. Or rather, I try to. I bang on the window, I cry. But they can’t hear me and there’s no way for me to warn them…

That Amy is never coming back.

[ppjeterka]

CONSIDER… bunny boy Ukko-Pekka??

ANON UR BRAIN. he reminds me of those huge flemish giant rabbits i always see people manhandling and holding like stuffed animals :'')

BIG GOALIE->BIG BUNNY

LOOK HOW CUTE!!!!

He'd have these beautiful long silky ears that he has to meticulously brush every day because they always get mussed around by his helmet :( it can get kind of tiring/annoying but its okay bc his teammates are always down to help comb them (and sneak in a few pets in the process obvi).

okay and now because i'm a real angst luvr (tm) i'm imagining ukko-pekka being really insecure about how big he is, particularly because the sabres have another bunny on the roster who's a "normal" bunny size (i'm thinking 5'9" jacob bryson) and is like the platonic ideal of what people expect bunny boys to be like (small, docile, sweet, affectionate, small), and like, ukko-pekka is all of those things too, except not small, and he's really in his head about it so he gets mopey and stops initiating physical affection with the team because he thinks they're just indulging him out of pity.

What exacerbates this misunderstanding is that he's one of those bunnies who, when he binkies (which i found out recently is the term for when bunnies are so happy they just start jumping and twisting and zooming around because they can't sit still with how happy they are), he kinda runs away? (i did a little too much research for this maybe. BUT theres this bunny i found called jabba the rabbit who i believe is also a flemish giant, and apparently she likes to get chased when she binkies? like her owner pets her and she does the jumpy twisty thing and runs away, except she's not telling her owner she doesn't like it, she just likes to be chased and pet and chased again and pet again, etc. etc. its actually really cute! if her owner leaves she chases her back down to start the process again(video here). ANYWAY. I'm imagining that Ukko-Pekka's binkies are like this)

And the team doesn't know what him running away means (especially bc Brys' binkies are mostly contained to one place), so they always leave him alone after he runs away and waits to be chased the first time :( which he kind of just takes as confirmation that they see him as too much trouble and that thought immediately kills the happiness and desire to be pet he was feeling anyway so he doesn't return to the person who was just petting him, he just quietly goes back to what he was doing pre-binky except now he's sad and embarrassed and oh there his ears go drooping :((

eventually, of course, everything gets figured out and the team finds out how he's been feeling about all of this and he gets smothered in love and pats and reassurances that him being big is absolutely not a problem in any way (just more bunny to love!!) and he finally gets the courage to be like hey uh when i run away after you pet me can you. uh. follow? me? And everyone's like ??? we thought that was you telling us to stop? And now he's blushing because this is so so embarrassing to talk about so he pulls his ears down and hides his face in them as he explains that he likes it when he gets chased down and smothered in more pets because in those moments his body needs an outlet to express his contentment but he also doesn't want to stop getting pet :((

And after he explains himself everyone awws and hugs him and promises that they'll never leave him alone again and he grumbles but inside he's absolutely glowing :'')))

[lizardkingeliot]

hi! hello! so I don’t usually engage with folks I’ve just found 24 hours before, bc my brain screams LET THEM ACCLIMATIZE, but I congratulate you, because your blog apparently screams louder than my brain. just want to say that I would read an entire book series written in the style of your lestat pov posts. I mean—the phraseology. the sass. and thank you for that gifset you reposted yesterday, almost killed me dead. my knowledge of this show is 100% from tumblr, but seeing the amount of fun you’re having with it may be the shove I needed to once again fall down the cliff of writing gif about niche twisty fucked up supernaturals from shows I don’t watch. anyway. very looking forward to whatever unhinged turns of phrase you hit us with next.

Well this is certainly the loveliest ask I've received in a while so thank you! 😭 Not to toot my own horn too much but I have spent a longggg time ~honing my writing style and I think I'm pretty okay at it! If you want to read some of my silly lil kissing stories you can find them on my ao3 here. I only have two iwtv fics posted at the moment but I'm currently pecking away at the Lestat pov fic that inspired that post and hopefully I'll have it finished very soon. 🥰

Anyway enough about me YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS SHOW IF YOU'RE ABLE TO!!! It is truly a masterpiece. I'm not sure just how much you've been exposed to via tumblr but it is absolutely the single best thing on TV right now.

[emcandon]

Eyyyy I got asked to write an essay about big robots and digressed into mulling over monstrous metaphors

There’s Bones in that Bot By Emma Mieko Candon When people met me at 25, the wrongness of my body was immediately apparent. It was the thinness, the frailty, the new scars and fragile veins. Another clue: the walker and its cat-mauled tennis balls. So too the oxygen tank—the fancy kind you keep in a bag that spurts air up the tube into your nose only when you inhale. Tst-tst-tst. Even when I graduated to a cane and a steady gait, I made no effort to hide the red tangle of knotty scars at my throat, though I did my best to contain the chronic cough. (A mistake, BTW. Cover your mouth, but don’t hold it in. Great way to put even more stress on the flesh apparatus.) I had by then long since been convinced by Donna Haraway’s thesis of cyborg humanity—that we as entities exceeded our flesh the second we developed tool use, and that it got even worse when we introduced the context of gifts and possessions. But as the years go on, the extended thing-ness of my body only grows more apparent. I am artificial and constructed; I am alive because I have been built.  I thought this was what brought me to a fascination with robots and AI—the extension of humanity through embodied machines! But no, my friends said. We remember the whole Gundam thing. The Machine is a Monster Right, the whole Gundam thing. About that.

This might sound weird coming from someone who’s just put out a book about beautiful giant robots, but I’ve never really been interested in robots—at least when they aren’t moving. When a giant robot is just standing there/floating in space/being a Gunpla model, a monument to itself, my eyes pass over its silhouette as they would any other large structure. Perhaps I’m impressed by its artistry, or intrigued by the underlying design, but it isn’t really an object of curiosity.

But when that titan lifts its hand? When its leg rises and its foot crashes down—when it turns its arm to reveal the medium of great violence? 

Then I am afraid. Then I am fascinated.

I am drawn to large machinery in the way I am to monsters. When I describe something on the magnitude of a spaceship, I know it can be warmth and a home, but it is also, to me, an existential threat of size and speed and impact. My body is all too familiar with its own fragility. I cannot perceive this immensity without thinking of my fundamental physical relationship to it.

I don’t know that I was thinking any of this, even on an intuitive level, when Gundam Wing first stomped into my life—when it was Toonami’s heady alternative to Dragon Ball Z that I was instantly in love with for the pretty boys and twisty political intrigue. Now, though, I am well versed in the brittle nature of my body, and I have been taking new hikes through Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, then more recently (it just finished! go watch it!) Gundam: the Witch from Mercury. Both series are immediately and intimately Gundam at its best: 

1. an interrogation of exploited bodies in the context of vast systems and machines

2. the absurd and precious possibility of human connection.

Ah, right, and 3., the eternal backbone of Gundam as a narrative: War…bad???

The Monster is People

War bad. Seems silly. Pithy. Of course war bad. No one right with their mind, body, or soul wants war. 

Do they? Enh. Reality seems to beg to differ. War is happening, right now, all over, in all its ugliness and horror. The great machines of nation, capital, hunger, and hatred grind our smallness through cruelty after cruelty. And for all these great things are the dire mechanisms, it is small human hands that pull the triggers and incise flesh. It is a devouring cycle, it is corrosively sick, we are so pitifully trapped.

I struggle to write this with any kind of resonance or meaning. War bad. Simple, two words, three letters each, and yet abysmally less than the entirety they gesture toward. How many more words would I need? How many more letters and syllables and theories and treatises and grotesqueries must I lay down to properly express war?

Because you have to say something. The nothing is worse. Deadly. 

But how? How do you encapsulate the monstrous enormity? How do you even begin?

I don’t know, I don’t know. But I see how some have tried.

The People is the Machine

Giant robots are shockingly silly. They’re physically impossible. They’re often being painted bright LEGO colours or being constructed out of mechanized lions. As often as they’re the centre of gritty stories of human suffering (with a touch of transcendent human connection), they’re goofy warriors for goodness, light, and the power of friendship, taking part in schlocky melodrama. When asked by a stranger what I write about, I say “Oh, giant robots” in the most self-effacing tone. SILLY!

Here’s the thing: this genre has a legacy, at least in Japan. There, mecha stories arrive in the aftermath of World War II, during which Japan both suffered and was the perpetrator of unconscionable violence. And in that aftermath, the Japanese government was (and still is) often eager to honour only its own dead—and to sweep under the rug all the horrors it committed. 

How do you live with that? How do you breathe? What do you say?

I don’t think it’s always—or even usually—conscious. Maybe you just find yourself drawn to the idea of samurai and ronin, men of violence bound by rigid hierarchies and honour codes. And maybe you particularly like to write stories where their moral centres are flayed open by the commands of their superiors. “Kill that man,” says the lord. “This doesn’t seem right,” says the samurai—as he kills the man, and then has to somehow goddamn live with it.

Maybe this is what you need to express the overwhelming pressure of complicity and silence.

Or maybe you find yourself thinking in terms of the sheerly absurd. Monsters of incredible magnitude. Robots of like immensity. Maybe you use them to evoke atrocities lived and visited upon your world and body. Maybe it seems only right that they should also dance, that they should be cartoonish caricatures of human experience. Because maybe this metaphor of ludicrous size and self is just the best way to articulate a raw immensity that you cannot otherwise grasp. 

Maybe that’s why the robot needs to be larger than the world should ever let it be.

They’re Metaphors, Harold

Small wonder that, when I started writing a book driven by the dissolution of my body, I reached for the magnitude of mechs. It wasn’t intentional. It just happened. Here was an idea perfectly fashioned for a story of total self-destruction and survival. I wasn’t looking to express how I had been let to live because of my artificial hips, or because of the machines that pumped air and blood out of and back into my body. I was trying to capture a giant. 

No. That’s not right. I was trying to say that I had been captured by that giant.

No. That’s not right either. I was trying to say that the giant had pulverized me, and that in so doing, it had made me part of it, and that now I live with the tremors of its weight in my every step.

I got so fucking big.

[angrybatgaming]

More fish pics! Sea Monkey says hiiiii.

Some shots of the Twisty Bridges biome I built my base in. The only things you have to worry about are figuring out how to build your base, and the Brute Sharks. But those are more annoying than scary.

Speaking of which...

I love the Lily Pads biome, but it's quite a distance to reach, and the Squidsharks pose a problem with their EMP blasts. So no base building here. Some cool Glow Whales and Lily Paddlers living there, though. (DO NOT PET THE LILY PADDLERS.)

Finally hatched some Sea Monkeys! :3 My brother and I named the first 2 babies Jellybean and Gummi Bear. And they now have a growing family because I apparently had a lot more room in the fishtank than I thought...

Ran outta room. Stay tuned for a reblog!

[inherstars]

Marcisms

This list requires some explanation. I'm officially adding a tag to my Tumblr.

So, as long as I've known him, my husband has said completely random shit out of absolutely nowhere. Sometimes he'll just be changing the lyrics to a song, sometimes he'll forget a word or phrase, and will replace with a seemingly random series of other words, sometimes there's absolutely no context whatsoever, and we'll be driving somewhere and he'll say something completely unhinged. They became so off the wall that I had to start writing them down.

Example: Back when we ate meat, we were walking up to a restaurant when the smell of cooking meat hit him and caused his brain to short circuit. He said, "Do you think they've got steak milk face."

While out shopping I bought a pair of gloves, and when we left the shop he asked me if I still had my "finger socks." I'm like, "...do you mean gloves? Those are called gloves."

He has also called socks with those little non-slip nubbins on the soles "Grippy slow pull-ons."

While getting up to feed the cats: "Who wants hot dogs??" (We don't feed the cats hot dogs)

To be absolutely clear: he has never had a stroke or anything similar. But it has gotten to the point where sometimes I absently tune out his background chatter because some of it is complete nonsense, and he's like, "Didn't you hear me earlier?" and I'm like, "Do you not hear some of the things that come out of you?"

So anyway, now I keep a note on my phone where I collect the random shit he says. I will try to provide context where possible, but sometimes there's literally no context at all, it just came out of nowhere:

"Do you have anything else that gets ripped into my doodles?" (No context available)

"Is that one of the flippity ones with the slips?" (He was asking me for something, God only knows what.)

"Clown vomits while a homeless person fingers his asshole." (Who knows?? I think he was exemplifying some of the random headlines we'd been hearing lately.)

"Ooh. My hip bone's connected to my leg bone a little bit." (He had a pain in his leg, apparently)

"They call him Falafel, cause that’s his name. He’s America’s favorite horse." (ABSOLUTELY ZERO CONTEXT. Came out of fucking nowhere. This may be my favorite one.)

"Have I talked to you about my lord and savior The Stankerbeans? (No idea.)

"Ninety-nine nine, Hawky Magoos" (There's a local radio station that's called 99.9 The Hawk, but beyond that I've got nothing)

"Oh God. They’re gonna Tick-Tock their fucking cotton candy." (Saw some teenagers at a festival or something)

"Everyone has a second ear" (He was singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and this replaced 'Glory to the newborn king' for some reason.)

"Wherever you go, if you have to poo, I will be right there laughing at you." (Sung to the tune of Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx.)

"Twisty McButtbaby" (Random name he assigned to someone)

“Momma Baloney says, ‘Ride behind me, fuckers.” (I think we saw a couple on a motorcycle?)

"Mrs. Grandma’s Cookies" (I got nothing.)

“Here she is... Miss Undead Tee-Taws.” (He saw somebody with a very unusual look, I guess.)

"Sliced circles with pasta on them sauce" (He was trying to remember the word 'polenta'. This is my second favorite behind Falfel, America's favorite horse.)

"Where’s the love tower? The little... juice-tron." (He was looking for something around the house, I literally could not tell you what. We don't own a juicer.)

"Premature E-boop-ulation" (No idea.)

“I haven’t seen the new Comcast building. It’s got that extra noodle. What? It has a little diblet on top!” (Also driving into Philly).

(*burps*) It’s like one of those jigamaroles! (Out of nowhere)

"Lady Stinkeola von Pooperton" (No idea, but could have been referring to one of the cats.)

"Sagamuffins McRainbows" (Again, random name assigned to someone)

"Where else can you put a giant poop in your mouth and fill up your lungs with cancerous toxins?" (I think he was referring to a cigar bar.)

"Todd Punchcock" (Again: random name he gave to someone)

“Closed every glip-glorp.” (Said randomly as we passed an nearby arcade / pizza place called 'Planet Trog')

"Diphalopopalus" = Dilophosaurus

"Flat schmaps" / "Bread strips" = crescent dough

(Randomly, after farting) "It's a whole thing my butt does."

I will continue to add to this list over time.

[whoslaurapalmer]

lulu watches doctor who; a good man goes to war/let’s kill hitler

well those episodes.........happened

-moffat ONCE AGAIN pulling the bait and switch with amy sounding like she's talking about the doctor but really talking about rory -although okay i'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt for a hot moment here and wonder, does that wind up saying anything, about the person rory is, about the person rory might be becoming, if rory is becoming anything? is rory........like all companions, to some extent, becoming like the doctor, or a being that is, better than the doctor, in a way -the emphasis on taking the name the last centurion again, too, on the doctor making him take up the name as like, a mantle -also, rory being a nurse (also, moffat, do you???? do you even remember rory is a nurse?) -jury is still out on this one for now cats

-well there is also the fact that the ‘good man’ in the title is assumed to be the doctor, when it’s not. the doctor says as much, that he has too many rules to be a good man. the good man is rory, really, right?

-the doctor blowing up the cybermen to make a point!! wahoo ~ -you know what. by the way. it's not that i hate the cybermen but that i........personally find the cybermen the most disconcerting of who villains. they make me the most uncomfortable

- "do not interact with headless monks without divine permission" is, i must admit, just a really fucking hilarious line -of course they were headless!!! did not expect the little like. twisty tie trash bag necks but that was an added horror bonus

-yes it's very clear the thin fat gay married anglican marines will not end well. very clear. this is moffat. i'm exhausted -you don’t even give them names. and then. turn one of them into a headless monk who is never heard from again. wow what a great job.

-oh this is where jenny and vastra and strax come in -wait so strax is just dead now?????? just like that????? damn -he comes back, though. i mean, i guess that’s, before he dies........but he comes back, i guess

-heyyyyy dorium with a head!! i didn't know dorium's head was once attached. -.........where else would it have been, though, now that i think about it. -apparently! i just assumed dorium was always a head

- "those aren't stories, they're true." about people telling stories about the doctor -okay you know what. i think i might actually let moffat go on this one. i do actually like the emphasis on the doctor not only having a history -- not only being able to call in debts across the universe (and dorium saying to pity those he'd call on) -- but that history being acknowledged as dangerous, the doctor being dangerous and knowing themselves to be a sizeable, powerful threat, especially after the things ten did, especially seeing that in eleven -what i don't like is moffat's occasional leaning into 'don't you know who i am' sort of territory bc he did that with ten too and i'm. eh about it. i don't care much for the braggadocious take, i think sometimes it leans as moffat making the doctor proud of or confident in that kind of record because it happens so often, when the doctor is anything but, but i will let it go because i think the overall vibe of it is good, in eleven being the doctor that like. embraces the threat the doctor brings. purposely, inadvertently. not super taking pride in it unless the doctor can use it for themselves, for what the doctor wants -because again eleven's priority over everything else is always always always amy

-the....."big milk thing" line -just like. fucking unnecessary. it's not. at all. i'm like. ugggg -the GOING OUT OF YOUR WAY to sexualize amy from the perception of an infant. you think all babies only look at their mothers in terms of food. like it’s just a low joke. why go for it -especially bc. realistically how much time has baby!melody spent with amy to even have that association with her -but either way!!!!!!!!! amy is more than that!!!!!!!!!!!!

-the doctor -having a cot -the cot. the doctor's cot. -yep that's a thing on the tardis that's a thing the doctor has carried around this whole entire time that was the doctor's that's from gallifrey -:') -THE 'THAT'S THE DOCTOR'S COT!' OF IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO I EVEN NEED TO KEEP GOING

-me, earlier: so was amy yoinked like.......in the three month gap between impossible astronaut/day of the moon eleven: she must've been taken just before america me: WHEN????? WHEN DID THAT HAVE THE TIME TO HAPPEN. MY GOD BUT WHEN -if we had just seen............something. anything. the hint of a something. to make that possible. plausible. to make me go 'yeah okay i'll dig it instead of just moffat throwing things around.’

-"why would a time lord be a weapon?" "well, they've seen you." "me?" -just, the absolute, abject misery in "me?" -the doctor is aware of it until the doctor is confronted with it and then they're like :( why would you say that :( -it’s different, when someone says what you think of yourself deep down out loud, what you try not to think

-oh i will say i liked the.....implication that time lords Happened from being around the time vortex. i don't know i thought that was fine

-amy knowing that it wasn't necessarily the doctor's fault that melody was yoinked but also being. so upset with him anyway. somebody to be upset at. knowing he doesn't deserve it and then not having anywhere to put it. still being angry -but it also being his fault, definitely. a little. by virtue of being such a threat that this chain of events came to happen. that eleven and the doctor's actions did finally truly once and for all affect amy in a way that's not going to be changed when eleven has done every single thing and every single terrible thing for amy -i love when amy gets to be angry when amy gets to be terrible and selfish (in like. a way that matters more than usual. more than just her regular snappy personality)

-"they're always brave." oh that's gonna hurt when face the raven comes up. mmmmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMM M M M M

-ohhhh i love eleven being angry at river. i also love eleven being angry. i love love love eleven's anger, when it's not eleven's controlled anger, when it's the doctor of eleven (ish? thereabouts?) long long lifetimes falling apart -"but you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean?" yes indeed though -although yes i am aware that too is building up to the day of the doctor in a way.....................regretfully...................

-tadaaaaaaa. the river reveal. -wahoo. (a much less enthusiastic wahoo than earlier) -i mean, it's just........like............................... -i don't like it. i don't think it's needed. i think it just makes things more convoluted instead of like. tying things together -not that doctor who is ever the pinnacle of truly tying things together in a neat lil bow but i feel like it's just. making it more twisty than it needed to be -the, like. having a child raised to kill the doctor. not bad! okay! it's fine! but i'm just like. soooooooo not enthused about river being melody. i'm not. and i never will be. i think it's just another instance of moffat going 'look how clever i can be' without actually doing anything meaningful. it's just. very fucking whatever to me

-so i was like. vaguely vibing with a good man goes to war, it was fine, but like. idk my brain tuned out SO HARD during let's kill hitler -we all know hitler didn't need to be there. we all know it was awkward and uncomfortable as hell and very unnecessary and the plot doesn't even revolve around actually trying to kill hitler at all they could've been in ANY time period and it would've played out exactly the same. -sigh.

-ahhhh here is the crop circle -"you never answer your phone" at all times i am BEGGING for the phone to be martha's little flip phone. martha i miss you martha i hope you're okay

-yes you can very much see the river in mels. -also, mels. - ~i do not like mels~ -i KNOW it's because mels is melody is river etc that she grows up obsessed with the doctor but it's also like.........it takes away from baby!amy and her relationship with the doctor, the friendship amy wanted, how amy grows up, what the doctor meant to amy as a child -and that made me sad. -another companion shoved aside in favor of ~river and the doctor and THEIR shenanigans~ yes i'm being mean but i stand by it -oh, and baby!rory. you sweet summer child

-"i need to weigh myself!" does she? really????? really -just..........the exhaustion of moffat writing women. is bearing down on me in these two

-OH IT'S MORE SHERLOCK-ESQUE SCANS OF ITEMS IN A ROOM TIME, IS IT???????? -no, that i will never let go

-I WILL SAY i do not mind at all this og form of river before she is really river just delightfully doing whatever she wants and killing eleven. like, i did enjoy that.

-"time can be rewritten" makes yet another appearance -"remember kennedy?" YOU COULD'VE MADE THIS ABOUT KENNEDY!!!!!!! -or would that too have been awkward. ugggg idk

-ahhhh the fabled "give me someone i like" scene appears -no eleven you don't like you :') eleven especially :') eleven works so hard to like himself though, i think. i think there were shades of that, of eleven......trying to work harder at it. does not work though :’) -that the first person the tardis picks after eleven is rose my babygirl my beloved rose rose rose :') -i do wish eleven had said something more than just. being guilty. in seeing rose and martha and donna

-you know, it could've worked as like.................instead of bringing back the time lords and giving the doctor a new regeneration cycle like that -when river 'uses her regenerations' to save eleven, they could've like, counted. towards the doctor's. you know?? she'd only used, what, two?? three, max?? -idk i think it was a possible option???????? -i don't know how much i really like it either but i am always looking for 'well if you DIDN'T just bring back gallifrey what ELSE could you have done to solve the regeneration limit problem'

-so all that happened! alright. okay.

-one regret in not going back to my eleven watch earlier is that night terrors looks horrifying and goddamn i could've watched that in october

[dietraumerei]

Weekly Update

Hello, I slept in but I also went on a wee little hike which apparently means I’m now ready for bed at, uh, 5pm. Love weekends!!! (But also I ran SEVERAL errands yesterday and have done a lot on various projects I’ve been working on, and it’s just been absolutely lovely all ‘round. I spent this time last year being so horrifically burned out, it’s still a pleasure to want to Do Things. I think tonight I will either work on sewing a pinafore dress, or oh, I should start knitting a baby sweater, actually, that might win out.)

Also also, walks delightfully loosen up my lower back and hips, so I am excited for pain-free sleep tonight, blissssss

Writing

I thought about this on my walk today, and I’m so much happier and feel under so much less pressure to write, I’m going to retire this section permanently. Well -- maybe I’ll bring it back someday? But not for months yet, I suspect, if ever. It’s simply so much better for my mental health to feel free to write, or not, as I like.

(I’m going to keep doing these updates because they’re kind of a nice record of tiny slice of life that don’t make it into my actual journal, plus tracking what I read. They’ll still be tagged ‘weekly update’ if you want to mute that tag.

Reading

Loads! I am taking a break from long, heavy, nonfiction to read lots of lovely shorter things. This week I finished:

Anne: An Adaptation of Anne of Green Gables (Sort Of) by Kathleen Gros. THIS WAS SO F’IN CUTE. My love of middle-grade books in preference to YA continues unabated, I ADORED this. It’s sweet and queer and lovely and everything’s been updated perfectly. Also the romantic denoument is very My Brand, and I was delighted.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. I got on a bit of a Christie run, and I hadn’t read a Poirot book before. I am delighted, this book is delightful, and very twisty and a nice, quick read.

The Pine Barrens by John McPhee. I’d only read some of McPhee’s shorter stories in The New Yorker, and this was exquisite. For various reasons, despite growing up basically next to the Pine Barrens, I’ve not really been there and this was just...amazing. What an extraordinary place, and McPhee is so, so good, I loved this book, cannot recommend it enough.

[jiskblr]

It does look like a shofar though, at least based on a quick google

Only in the sense that it's made out of a horn. Which, you know, most instruments of that type historically would be. That's why we call them 'horns'.

Shofars are twistier than this, though a single curve is, I believe, entirely permissible if that's what you can get. They're supposed to be ram's horns, which are twisty unless they are quite short, at least on the common species; this is not that short. It's not made to be held the same way I see actual shofars being held in photos and drawings, this looks like it would be held more like a clarinet (though obviously the mouthpiece is more brass/horn-style). It looks like it has decoration or finger-pieces along the upper part and not around the mouth; this is the opposite of what I see on shofars which are decorated. (It would also be somewhat difficult on a real-horn horn, but one of the few non-Jewish-stereotype traits goblins are established to have is to be excellent crafters, so I don't think that counts against it.)

Ah, Wikipedia has a summary of the criteria for picking a shofar:

The Elef Hamagen (586:5) delineates the order of preference: 1) curved ram; 2) curved other sheep; 3) curved other animal; 4) straight—ram or otherwise; 5) non-kosher animal; 6) cow

Of which only the sixth is forbidden. If you can find anything curved from a kosher 'donor', you should do so. So a short one would look like

And a longer one would preferably look like

I believe something with the shape of the former thing but much longer would be a perfectly cromulent shofar and qualify as 'curved', but I can't find any examples; they all either are clearly short from context or lack anything to clearly scale them by but appear short from the size of the mouthpiece.

Compare to other horn instruments made of horn:

Or made of wood (I believe):

I think we can pretty confidently say that the image above doesn't look more like shofars than it looks like these.

Now, despite appearances (and a long history of accidentally learning things, via books or from people, that would make me substantially better at passing), I am not, in fact, Jewish, and have never attended Rosh Hashanah services or any other time a shofar was blown. (Weddings? Probably some other times?) So I could be missing something. But I think I have enough evidence here to say no, BS, this does not, actually, look like a shofar more than any randomly-selected 17th-century non-metal horn would. (Apparently making horns from brass was already overwhelmingly popular by the 1600s; the main remaining horn made from an animal was an elephant-tusk oliphaunt, which was a royal status symbol. TIL.)

[autumnslance]

All the Azeyma questions for C'oretta and all the Thaliak questions for Aeryn

Azeyma - C'oretta

In general. how curious is your character? 

C'oretta is fairly curious; she tends to jump from topic to topic of study due to things catching her attention and then she Needs To Know More. Also just getting into things in general; it's how she found Violet on that adventuring mission with the Stone Torches. Most of the time it works out. When it doesn't...well, so far she's managed.

Do they mind their own business or are they nosy when it comes to other’s affairs?

It's a poor adventurer who minds her own business, in C'oretta's mind. Part of the job is getting involved in other peoples' issues and troubles!

Granted, there are some situations she knows to not poke her nose into; she's an Ul'dahn girl, after all, and there are some things in that city you just don't get involved in. Recognizing when's a good time to turn a blind eye or not is a handy skill to have even far afield.

Describe a situation where curiosity got them in trouble.

"So we were doing some work in Gridania and had to wait in the Stillglade Fane but I got bored and started wandeirng around and did you know it's a lot bigger in there than it looks there's all sorts of twisty side passages and chambers and people working and studying and it's kinda neat and then I got lost but found this really neat room with theorems and stuff on a chalkboard not like arcanima of course but conjury but still I left some notes and was trying to figure it out but then E-Sumi Yan came in...in his bathrobe not his normal ones cuz somehow I'd stumbled into his private chambers and was messing with his personal work and wow can that old man yell and it's real easy to forget he's stuck in a fourteen year old body cuz he's scary honestly and anyroad don't open random doors in the Fane cuz they don't really use locks cuz most people apparently just know which door belongs to which padjal."

Thaliak - Aeryn

When it comes to formal education, does your character have any goals?

Aeryn's goal with her formal education as a girl was to learn magic. She grasped alchemy easily, and all sorts of martial weapon training...but magic simply did not work. Not until after the Calamity, and her arrival in Eorzea with its aether-heavy atmosphere.

Something had shifted with that Seventh Rejoining, and made magic possible for her finally. Knowing what she knows now, she tries not to think too hard on that.

So she continues to learn from the various guilds around Eorzea, and also sits in a few classes at the Studium when she can spare a moment, for the sheer joy of it.

Does your character enjoy reading? If so, what kind of books?

Aeryn loves to read just about anything and everything. Magic theories, Archon theses, history books and historical documents; anything academic, scholarly, particularly pertaining to aetherology, she's all over it.

For fiction she enjoys romantic stories; anything from serious Austen-like period dramas to ridiculously cheesy romances.

Reading was one of the ways Aeryn and Thancred became friends; they found they liked to read fiction as much as the academic tomes and research work. Their literary discussions and debates gained some infamy among the Scions. One of the pair's favorite activities is to snuggle up together on a couch or in bed and read together; sometimes different books, often the same one, taking turns reading out loud.

How important is education to your character?

Extremely. She argued her reasonings for various courses and studies with her parents as a girl, continues her own education as an adult, and now also sponsors various students and coursework paths among the guilds, and also is offering her various connections to her stepsiblings' children for whatever educational paths they choose for themselves.

Tataru helps manage the various scholarships, endowments, gifts, and sponsorships Aeryn's set up, herself and with others, cuz gods know that level of bureaucracy isn't the champion's forte, but it is the Scion receptionist's.

[fff777]

found out that minghao is a regular on 青春環游記 now...the thing is i watched season 1 of the show and didn't enjoy it so i never continued. and i know that things must have changed a lot since season 1. eh. we'll see if i'm in the mood. another thing about chinese variety shows is that they are very long. 2 hours per episodes. i dug up my original review of the first season and it was not favourable at all, from the editing to the games, so that's why i'm reluctant to pick up this show at all. maybe i'll only check out the minghao seasons if i run out of other things.

i also found out that minghao had fractured his collarbone recently and if he hadn't, he would have been one of the captains for street dance of china, which would have been very fitting for him considering his background. probably still wouldn't have watched it though. like other cvariety shows, this show has excessive editing with really long episodes. the only reason i'd watched season 4 was because not only did it have yixing, but it also had han geng and henry, which was a rare combo. even season 3 wasn't enough to get me interested and it already had yixing and jackson.

this started as me looking at minghao's cvariety shows and ended with me complaining about cvariety shows ^^;; cvariety shows, why won't you let me love you.

the only cvariety show i still watch nowadays is back to field because the point is for the show to be slow and drawn out. but apparently they've pared down the hosts to just he jiong and huang bo. which doesn't work for me because it was the 'family' dynamic that had me interested. that and yixing of course.

i watched the mystery shows for a while too, especially who's the murderer. but again, the episodes were too long, and they started writing mysteries to last two episodes so each mystery was 4 hours long and they got so twisty and turny that we would lose site of the plot at hand.

so you see why i'm reluctant to start any cvariety show now v.v