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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year

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The Romance of Anonymity

Part 1 / 2

@polyshipweek 2023 Day 1 - Road Trip

What universe is better for road trip vibes than the 90's strip mall AU? As per usual in this universe there's virtually no plot to this, just flirting and Vibes™. Part 2 will be 'Bed Sharing' for day 3 of the prompt list ♥

--//--

Sunlight flickers red and burning orange against Meng Yao’s eyelids, the searing heat of it tempered slightly by the intermittent ruffle of the breeze through his hair. Under the monotone rush of the wind past the cracked-open window and the hum of the asphalt beneath their tires, he can just barely hear his boyfriends talking quietly together in the front seat, a soft, safe countermelody to the road noise that had lulled him to sleep some indeterminate amount of time ago.

“I can’t believe he’s short enough to lay across the seat like that,” Mingjue marvels, snagging Meng Yao’s pleasantly wandering attention away from contemplating a second nap.

“Well darling it’s not like he doesn’t have his legs curled up as well,” Xichen laughs quietly. “He only barely fits on it better than you or I would.”

“Still!” Mingjue protests, on the verge of laughter that Xichen quickly shushes through his own chuckling. “I feel like I always forget how small he is and then he pulls shit like this.”

“I may be asleep but that won’t stop me from kicking your ass, da-ge,” Meng Yao pipes up, smiling blindly up at the roof of the car when his boyfriends laugh without muffling themselves, all of them a little giddy from the hours they’ve already spent in the car over the last day and a half.

“A-Yao, sweetheart, you’re going to get a crick in your neck,” Lan Xichen frets with a soft hand laid on his bent knee. Meng Yao cracks an eye open and turns his head enough to squint through the sunlight on his face at his boyfriend turned around halfway to reach over the top of the front seat of Mingjue’s Cutlass. “Do you want us to pull over and get the pillow out of my suitcase?”

Meng Yao stretches his arms straight up towards the roof before he turns onto his side to face the front seat with a sigh, one eye still stubbornly shut against the early-afternoon sun cutting through the window above his head. Lan Xichen lifts his hand to allow the movement but puts it back the moment he’s settled, palm rasping pleasantly over his jeans as he rubs it back and forth, calf to knee to thigh and then back down.

“Mmm maybe. How long did I sleep?” he asks around a yawn.

“About an hour and a half,” Mingjue tells him, head lifting a bit as if to look at him in the rearview mirror though Meng Yao can’t see the mirror well enough to meet his eyes at this angle. “A-Huan and I were planning to switch at the next rest stop in about ten miles, so we’re pulling over anyway.”

Meng Yao spends another long moment indulging in the sleepy lassitude of the hot sun, the rumbling of the car, the road, and the attention of his boyfriends before he lets it slip away in favor of waking up properly.

He sighs again, mutters a grumpy, “No, I’ll wake up it’s fine,” and props himself up with a hand on the seat beneath him, forcing himself upright with the promise of kissing Xichen for a reward. Xichen smiles and goes up on one leg to lean back over the bench seat and accept his kiss easily, the both of them ignoring Mingjue’s grumbling about the unfairness of being the driver and why doesn’t he get any kisses just because he has to pay attention to the road.

“Ten more miles, da-ge,” Xichen soothes when they break apart. Meng Yao gives himself a little shake to wake himself up properly as Xichen turns to lay his head down on Mingjue’s shoulder, beseeching and teasing as he tuts over Mingjue’s many hardships and how he’s so brave to endure them anyway just to get him riled up.

Smiling at the familiar tune of his boyfriends’ banter, Meng Yao reaches down to the beat up igloo cooler from the gym down in the footwell behind the driver’s seat to rummage around for something decent to snack on. (The problem with dating two health-conscious gym rats is that they think grapes constitute a snack. Which…fine, maybe, but Meng Yao is of the opinion that cheap, filling junk calories of any kind are far superior, and he’d insisted they pack accordingly.)

“A-Yao?” Mingjue calls when they seem to notice his foraging up front.

“Hm?”

“Did we bring beef jerky?”

Oh of course, how could he forget the only other acceptable snack for the non-vegetarian gym rat boyfriend?

“I could never part you from your one true love, da-ge.”

This time he’s in the perfect spot to look up at meet Mingjue’s eyes in the mirror when his boyfriend sighs and raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.

“Sassy. Go back to sleep, you’re still grumpy.”

Meng Yao withdraws the package of teriyaki jerky and pinches it delicately between thumb and forefinger to slowly drape it over the middle of the seat between Mingjue and Xichen, wiggling the package back and forth a bit to make it crinkle.

“No thank you, da-ge. You’re going to eat what you want of this, brush your teeth at the rest stop, and then we’re going to make out in the back seat while Xichen tries not to run somebody off the road from trying to watch us.”

Nie Mingjue’s eyes in the mirror crinkle up as he grins widely enough Meng Yao is sure his dimples are as deep as they can go.

“A-Yao,” Xichen doesn’t quite pout but it’s close, turning to look at him again to better hit him hard with his best pleading eyes. “Can’t we stop somewhere for a while so we can all…relax?”

Meng Yao offers Xichen a sweet smile and stands up a little, hunching over to avoid hitting his head on the roof (though his hair still rubs against the microfiber lining) and leaning over the seat to bury his face in the crook of Xichen’s neck. He presses a few kisses to one of the spots that makes him shiver and punctuates them with a little nibble.

“Of course, er-ge, that’s why we’re stopping at a motel tonight,” he purrs. He’s still getting used to so many things: being wanted – by two handsome men – and telling one or both of them ‘no’ (even temporarily) are probably the biggest ones. But he hopes he never gets so used to the effect he has on them that it becomes mundane. Xichen tips his head to the side to give him better access and swallows thickly, turning into putty even from such a light touch.

“The faster you drive when it’s your turn the sooner we can make that happen,” Mingjue adds, always his partner in crime when driving Xichen up the wall is on the table. Meng Yao feels Xichen shiver again and he peeks an eye open to see Mingjue’s taken one hand off the wheel to rub it slowly up and down Xichen’s thigh with clear intent. “Just, you know…If you need an incentive to drive faster than the average 90-year-old.”

Meng Yao snickers into Xichen’s neck, effectively ruining the sexy vibe he’d been going for but he doesn’t mind. He smacks another kiss to the skin under his mouth before he sits back down again and resumes his hunt for his own snacks as Xichen sighs and opens up the bag of jerky to start handing pieces to Mingjue while he drives, the 5-mile sign for the rest area flashing by the window just as Meng Yao sits up with a triumphant cry for having found his bag of goldfish tucked safely in a separate bag where they wouldn’t get crushed.

--//--

As all motel rooms are, theirs is dingy and unimpressive. Meng Yao lugs his suitcase in first with a grunt, sticky in the small of his back and under his arms even just from the short walk from the parking lot up to their room on the second floor. He steps aside to let Mingjue and Xichen through, relieved when Xichen immediately heads for the AC unit under the window to flip up the lid and start fiddling with the dials. Mingjue barely even bothers to kick the door shut behind himself before he yanks his shirt off over his head by the back of the collar and rolls his shoulders with a sigh of relief.

“Mingjue, darling, you have got to get a car with a working air conditioner,” Xichen whines from where he’s draped himself over the humming unit, cold air fluttering the strands of his hair hanging damp with sweat over his forehead.

“Can’t hear you!” Mingjue shouts back from where he’s soaking a rag at the bathroom sink to scrub over the heat-flushed back of his neck. Xichen rolls his eyes at the blatant lie but seems a bit too wilted to bother arguing. Meng Yao drops a kiss to his sweaty hair in consolation before he makes what is, objectively, the best decision out of the three of them and goes to monopolize the shower.

“There is absolutely not room for two in this shower, da-ge,” Meng Yao hums a few minutes later when the man pulls the curtain back about halfway, enough to lean against the wall so they can chat without the floor getting soaked.

“Could be, you don’t know.”

“Considering what happens when we shower together, yes I do know.”

Mingjue smirks at him and gives him a long, appraising look down the length of his body while Meng Yao turns to grab the complimentary bottle of shower gel that contains enough soap for roughly half a grown man’s body.

“Fine, suit yourself. We’re thinking about ordering pizza from that spot we passed on the way in, A-Huan’s too hot to pretend like he doesn’t want to be spoiled with junk food. I’m assuming you have no complaints?”

“Not a one. Don’t let him order mushrooms though, he doesn’t have to pretend to like them for our sakes.”

“Sure. You want soda?”

Meng Yao shrugs and preens under the way Mingjue’s watching him attempt to stretch the shower gel as far as it can go to clean the sweat-salt off every inch of his skin, looking very much like he’d absolutely be the one doing it for him if Meng Yao would let him.

“Coke’s fine, or there’s always water from the sink.”

Mingjue nods, pushes off from the wall with a sigh, and finally looks up to meet his eyes again, clearly unembarrassed by his own brazen behavior.

“ ‘Kay. Hurry up, that looks really fucking nice and I think A-Huan’s actually going to fuse with that air conditioner if I let him lay there too much longer.”

“Him you can send in to share,” Meng Yao turns his face out of the spray to say, earning himself a heartfelt, “Oh fuck you,” that makes his laughter bounce off the walls of the tiny closet of a bathroom when Nie Mingjue turns to head back out into the rest of the room.

Xichen, when he arrives just as Meng Yao is finishing his rinse, plasters himself to his back and crowds him under the weak spray with eager kisses along his neck and shoulder that make Meng Yao laugh, quieter this time, as he reaches back to pat clumsily at Lan Xichen’s thigh.

“Hi, Huan-ge,” he hums. Xichen nuzzles into his hair and wraps strong arms around his chest to hold him close as he turns them around with shuffling steps to sigh as the cool water hits his back. Meng Yao chuckles again and leans his head to the side to pillow his cheek on Xichen’s bicep, eyes drifting shut to better appreciate the contrast of smooth, warm skin and the cool slide of water between and over them both tangled up together.

They stay there like that for long, quiet minutes, just standing together under the water, swaying ever so slightly as Xichen hums something that they’d had on in the car earlier under his breath. Meng Yao relaxes his (yes, sore) neck a little further until his cheek is fully smushed against Xichen’s arm, lazy and utterly unconcerned with how he looks. He’s just held and comfortable in the too-dim bathroom of a Motel 6 in some tiny town where no one but his boyfriends knows him.

They’ll be gone in the morning, a few strange faces in a rotating cast of them through this place, a battered blue car on the road going somewhere no one around them will care about. Meng Yao feels the weight of years fall off his shoulders in the anonymity of it, secure in the knowledge that he won’t be lost, he’s still known by the most important people in his life and they’re right here with him, but outside of his partners no one else cares.

It’s more freeing than he would’ve ever expected.

They get out of the shower when Xichen decides to unstick himself from Meng Yao’s back with a few parting kisses tender enough to make Meng Yao’s eyes sting. Xichen pats him dry, smiling, with the scratchy motel towels that smell of strong industrial bleach. Meng Yao returns the favor with another identical towel, ruffling up Xichen’s long hair for good measure to stop it dripping on his shoulders and making his boyfriend wrinkle his nose at him when he emerges from the towel, rumpled and soft around the edges.

“Hi,” Meng Yao says again and earns a kiss to the tip of his nose for it. The careful brush of knuckles against his cheek.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Not fair not fair not fair. Meng Yao tries not to melt at the tenderness in Xichen’s voice and realizes immediately that that will be impossible while stuck in this tiny bathroom looking up at him and his stupid kind eyes. He needs Mingjue.

He returns the kiss to his nose with a smacking one to Xichen’s bare chest and then he’s wrapping his towel around his waist to head out into the room again in search of something sharper to force him back into the shape of his body.

Mingjue’s sitting on the edge of the bed nearer the door still in just his jeans, hunched over enough to rest his elbow on his knee to better hold the room’s phone to his ear. Meng Yao climbs up onto the bed behind him and knee-walks his way across the slippery (stained? Ew) bedspread to drape himself over his back the way Xichen had done to him in the shower, arms over Nie Mingjue’s shoulders and his cheek resting against the back of his head.

“I told you Xichen left food in the fridge for you to have for dinner,” Mingjue snaps in the way he only talks to Nie Huaisang – beleaguered and affectionate in equal parts. Meng Yao has been reliably informed that that’s simply the curse of having a little brother. He privately thinks his own brother wouldn’t feel like that if they were on speaking terms. (Or...’acknowledging each other’s existences’ terms.)

Nie Mingjue covers his eyes with his free hand at whatever Nie Huaisang says in reply. Meng Yao ghosts his fingertips up and down the familiar contours of Nie Mingjue’s chest as he focuses more on the vibration of his boyfriend’s voice thrumming through him where they’re pressed together chest-to-back while Xichen putters around them, getting dressed and turning down the covers on the other bed for the evening.

“Okay, fine, whatever, but if you spend all of your allowance eating at every restaurant in town I’m not giving you more. It’s your choice, money for the arcade for the week or dinners with your boyfriend.”

Meng Yao smiles a little as Nie Huaisang whines on the other end of the line, too garbled up for him to hear from here, and brings one hand up to card lazily through Mingjue’s hair, brushing it back from his too-warm forehead.

“Alright, A-Sang, whatever! Did you go help Zonghui with the gym today like I asked?”

Meng Yao ducks down a bit to start pressing featherlight kisses along the shell of Mingjue’s ear, smiling when his boyfriend leans his head further to the side to allow it as well as hold the phone receiver between his shoulder and his head to grab Meng Yao’s hands in both of his to squeeze his fingers, raise them to his mouth to nip at his fingertips in between his own little kisses in return.

Meng Yao sharpens his kisses into little bites the longer Mingjue spends hemming and hawing to his brother on the phone, until finally he’s gnawing on his boyfriend’s earlobe (much to Xichen’s entertainment where he’s pretending to meditate on the other bed) and Mingjue gives up with a huff of irritation, sitting up straight again abruptly and catching the receiver before it can fall away from his ear.

“A-Sang I have to go, we need to order dinner and get to sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow night, okay?”

Meng Yao smirks in triumph as Mingjue practically slams the phone down to turn and tackle him to the bed, teeth bared as he lunges in to return the favor with hard bites up and down the expanse of Meng Yao’s entire neck.

“No fair!” he gasps around breathless laughter, “I only went for your ear!!”

“I’ll order dinner,” Xichen offers, reaching for the phone and the laminated page of listings for restaurants that deliver in the area off the nightstand. Meng Yao doesn’t even have time to chide him for this betrayal in not rescuing him before Mingjue is kissing him hard and dirty, fitting all the too-soft parts of him that Xichen drags out into the light with barely an effort back under the surface where they belong.

For now.

Xichen orders dinner and Meng Yao makes Mingjue leave him be long enough to get dressed in lounge pants at least before the pizza arrives. They all pile into the bed they won’t be sleeping in to eat, sitting cross-legged with knees knocking and toes brushing ankles, dinner piled up between and around them on the bedspread that has absolutely seen worse than some stray pizza grease. Meng Yao lets the feeling of it settle into his bones, and he decides that before this road trip is over he’s going to tell them both that he loves them. Out here, where it’s just them and the road and a string of motels they’ll never see again, he feels like this is the way he can say it first.

Unwatched.

Unmonitored.

Just a man who loves his chosen People.

One of many.

#the untamed fanfic #PolyshipWeek23 #The Romance of Anonymity #3zun #90's strip mall AU #Meng Yao #Lan Xichen #Nie Mingjue #fluff #Tales from Jianghu Shopping Center #<- universe #NMJ's car (for those who are curious) is a 1994 oldsmobile cutlass which is the car my sister and I learned to drive in as teenagers #It was a GREAT car it drove like a fuckin tank and it had a bench seat in the front that was tilted at the back #so it felt like driving while sitting on a couch #in the notes of the fic on AO3 I've got a link to an article about one that was being sold last year that's got some good pictures #so you can appreciate the beautiful 90's yacht of a station wagon that it is

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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 4 months

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02/21/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Cast & Crew Sightings; Rhys Darby; Samba BTS; Vico Ortiz; Ruibo Qian; HowToHelp; Petition Embed; Queerties Last Day; IRL Outreach Assets; New Watch Parties; Visual Rep of SaveOFMD Effort; Fan Spotlight; Collages; OurFlagMeansBooze; Articles; Morale; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika;

Wow everyone, crazy day again. Day 2 of BTS Darbygeddon. I'm actually going to set a google calendar reminder for tomorrow between 1-2 in case Samba decides to drop another doozy on us. Hope you all had a good day. Here's the highlights-- there's more I would have liked to add but I need to get permission first, so I'll hopefully have them up tomorrow. As always, please let me know if I missed anything <3

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

= Rhys Darby =

Back again with another Cameo is Rhys for our lovely crewmate @Kellykat53 over on twitter! Thank you so much for sharing this with us Kelly, it's a lovely little inspirational video, definitely gives us plenty of Vitamin RD (as @scorpiostarseed would say). Check out the Cameo

= Saint Samba Schutte =

I've seen several people mention that Samba is a Saint (sorry not sure who started it to attribute it) so going forward, that will be his name. SO MANY BTS pictures and videos. My goodness. Has it even been a day since the last Merstede dump? It has, but damn, here we are with the BOYFRIEND video, and the nipple scratching, and oh look it's Buttons from the Cryptid Factor! As always, if you have access to instagram, please check out these posts on Samba and Rhys' posts/stories.

Videos on Tumblr:

Boyfriends - ty @blakbonnet!

Merstede - ty @kiwistede!

English Jacket - ty @kiwistede!

Cursed Jacket - ty @kiwistede!

Steard Nips - ty @kiwistede!

Rhysently Granted Reunion - ty @kiwistede!

= Vico Ortiz =

Vico voiced the new novel "The Diablo's Curse "by New York Times Best Seller Gabe Cole Novoa! I know some of you are huge Vico fans so wanted to mention it, you can purchase the audio book here. Src: Vico's IG

= Ruibo Qian =

Are you in New York? Our Pirate Queen will be at the #TonyKiserTheater NEXT MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26 at 6:30PM for a one night only reading of On The Evolutionary Function of Shame, by D.A. Mindell - For more details visit here.

== How to Help ==

Hey all! We're adding some things to the daily task lists (and taking some off). Here they are!

= Petition Embed Code =

Looking to easily embed the petition link in your AO3 fic, or maybe your email? @sonnetforbonnet was kind enough to provide us with some embeds you can use! Please visit the repo for the codes!

= Last day for Queerties! =

Please remember to vote! Today's the last day!

Best TV Comedy

Best TV Performance

= IRL Outreach Assets =

== New Watch Parties Coming Up! ==

The Pirates! Watch Party! This is a family friendly movie so bring the kids! Or the adults-- or anyone you know, really, as long as it's not against their will! Sunday March 3rd, 3 PM EST, 12 PM PST, 8 PM GMT!

Watch Party Hashtags:

#OurPirateCaptain

#SaveOFMD

#AdoptOurCrew

== Visual Representation of Fandom Efforts to SOFMD ==

Remember our friends that had the in person Matelotage Processional? Well they're back with a funny video illustrating the fandom efforts of Save OFMD!

Fangirlfoto's Instagram Don't have instagram? See the video on the repo here.

＝＝ Fan Spotlight ＝＝

Thank you once again to @wndrngnomad on twitter for all their awesome collages dedicated to the Cast and Crew! Day 21: Calypso's Birthday! Perfectly timed considering the lovely Boyfriend themed BTS we got today! Catch-Up: Day 2: Madeleine Sami!

= Our Flag Means Booze! =

Our absolutely brilliant crew-mate @quiet-compassion over on tumblr has been designing OFMD Themed Drinks since the show was dropped by Max! These not only have super fun and creative names you'll all recognise, but an amazing array of flavours too! If you're 21+ (in the US) or the appropriate age for drinking in your country, feel free to try them out! As always, please drink responsibly! Are you celebrating with Moonglow Manifesting? Why not try the "Moon Glow" cocktail for the end of the event! Want to see ALL their concoctions? Head on over to the repo, they're all there!

== Articles ==

17 Facts and Easter Eggs about OurFlagMeansDeath That will Get you On Board - 17 Fakten und Easter Eggs zu „Our Flag Means Death“, die dich ins Boot holen - ty @AddieH on twitter

Max: The 34 Absolute Best TV Shows to Watch

==Morale ==

Hey crew. I've been hearing some scuttlebutt around the deck that people are starting to worry again about whether or not s3 is going to happen. The love notes section is already pretty long so I'm not gonna go too crazy up here too -- instead I'm going to just point out that David Jenkins, while not active and posting things for us right now, is sneakily poking around in Samba and Rhys' BTS comments. He's still there, he's still watching, and I think he can tell we're all feeling the high from Samba's releases. Don't give up hope, these things take time. They're gonna get there. I'm gonna add the trends to this section today because I think it's important to see what we did today:

== Love Notes ==

Hey Lovelies. I know I've said it before, but it bares repeating since I know a lot of you are struggling right now.

Just a gentle reminder that if your brain is telling you that there's something wrong with you, or that you've done something wrong or embarrassing -- it's lying to you.

There's been so much dopamine from all the excitement lately with the BTS, that it has to come down at some point, and when it does, your brain will sometimes over-compensate and you start feeling maybe worse than you did before.

This is totally normal, it really is. Our brains are glorious complex pathways of unmeasurable brilliance, and yet a simple hormone change can make that same brain tell us that we're not enough, or we're not worthy.

I am here to remind you, you are so very much enough.

No matter what is happening in your life-- in your job, in your personal relationships, in your family, in your school, anywhere--

YOU ARE ENOUGH, EXACTLY HOW YOU ARE.

If you feel like you've failed, or you've let someone down, just know you are STILL enough. We all fail, it's how we learn.

We pick ourselves back up and we try again, and if we fail again--

We're STILL enough, and we are still worthy of love and comfort.

Eventually you will succeed. You will get there, and all the while while you work on it, YOU. ARE. ENOUGH.

I know it's so hard to see when you're feeling small, but I see you all every day, and I am awe-struck at your constant ability to band together and not only find love and support, but give it so freely and lovingly.

A simple @ to someone, alerting them to something they'd like

A love note in dms or on a tumblr post

A gif or picture or video brought to tumblr from some other platform so others can see them.

Writing a fic or drawing a picture.

A reblog with tags, goofy or not

Anon Asks showing people you support how they feel about a given topic

Liking a post.

These are all love notes. No matter how public or private, they're all there and they all add up eventually to form this wonderful community and you've been kicking ass at love.

I know we all look like we're having a good time, but a lot of us are struggling silently, and yet we're finding ways to reach out to one another and spread love to help us all get through. Love isn't always positivity, it can be commiseration, or frustration on behalf of someone. You all are finding the best ways to help your crew, and I'm so very proud of you.

You all are capable, creative, gifted, beautious piles of stardust smooshed together into one wonderfully unique package, and you are so very loved.

You are enough,

You are loved,

and THINGS WILL GET BETTER Lovelies.

Get some rest <3 You got this.

= Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika =

What can I say, I literally can't not include this Rhys gif today. It's physically impossible, please forgive me. Good fucking lord, I'm going to Costa Rica now. Also, sorry I tried to get a matching Taika gif, but I have run out of brain cells. Hopefully this one will suffice.

Rhys - Courtesy of @bizarrelittlemew

Taika - Courtesy of @studiomoon

#ofmd daily recap #ofmd daily recaps #daily ofmd recap #daily ofmd recaps #taika waititi #rhys darby #ofmd #our flag means death #vico ortiz #ruibo qian #save ofmd #saveofmd #save our flag means death #ofmd bts #samba schutte #saint samba schutte

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regenderate-fic · 1 year

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When I Run Away (You're Who I Run To): Chapter 11

main post read on ao3

Word Count (Chapter): 2,567

NOTES: pretty much all the reddit usernames in this chapter are from esther fab_wolf_in_the_gloom some of them are doctor who related but at least one of them is straight-up one of his usernames 2. if anyone is interested i made a collection for fics featuring disability/disabled characters, anyone is welcome to add their fic in there. i'm going to add stuff to the collection's bookmarks too. it's called time and relative disability in space and i've added this fic to it too so if you click the read on ao3 link you can find it there (right now it's. mostly my fics. for i guess obvious reasons. but i would really really love to see more).

Finally, after two days of almost non-stop interaction with Rose and Penny and Donna, Yaz was alone. Or, not quite alone— Monday night was when she had her aerial silk class, a hobby she’d picked up a few years back after she’d said something about wanting to build her strength again and Rose’s friend Shireen had suggested she try aerial. She had gone more or less on a whim, but she’d enjoyed it way more than expected, and now it was a grounding point of her week. She knew everyone else in the class, at least in passing, and she liked how the classes pushed her body, forced her to become comfortable with herself.

Today, though, she could barely focus. She went through the motions of the class, but she could feel she wasn’t pushing herself like she usually did— too much of her mind was occupied by the sudden, freight-train-like realization that she had feelings for Rose Tyler. It felt sudden, out of nowhere—

Except… there had been some warning. Like the dream Yaz had had a week or so ago. Or even just the fact that she’d been willing to share a flat and a business with Rose, when normally she got annoyed after a few hours with any one person.

She couldn’t bear it. Rose had been right about her liking girls this whole time, and of all the possible ways in which Rose could have been right, this had to be the absolute worst. If she’d figured it out any other way, she could’ve talked to Rose about it, and she would’ve gotten a bit of needling for it, but it would’ve been okay. But if Rose was the girl she liked— she sighed. She couldn’t even tell Dan. She didn’t think she could bear the way she’d feel if she had to face the knowing look in his eye as she told him.

The second she got home and through the shower, she pulled out her computer. Surely there were other people on the planet who’d gone through something similar. Right? But when she opened the search engine, she realized she had no idea what to type. She was not going to be the kind of person who put am i gay? into Google and started taking quizzes. (Anyway, Rose had already gotten her to take a bunch of those quizzes, mostly for fun. Yaz’s results had been inconclusive, but she’d also been way too self-conscious to be anything like definitive in her answers.) But anything else she could type felt like too much of a confession, even just to a search engine. She almost yelled in frustration, but of course Rose would hear if she did that, and then she’d want to know what was wrong, and the whole problem was that Yaz couldn’t tell her.

Finally, she typed in, in love with friend? Up popped article after article claiming to know what it felt like to fall in love with your best friend, what to do if you fell in love with your best friend, how to tell if your best friend was in love with you. Yaz clicked a few, but they weren’t telling her much— most of them were clearly just written to get clicks, and the advice was overwhelmingly geared towards straight women. But Yaz kept scrolling, clicking through various pages, until finally she wound up on a Reddit page, reading story after story of people’s relationship issues. It did, actually, make her feel a bit better: at least she hadn’t found her partner on Tinder, or had anyone post compromising pictures of her on social media.

She was about to close the page, and then she hesitated. She couldn’t talk about this with Rose, and she definitely couldn’t talk about it with anyone who knew Rose, which eliminated Penny and Bill, and she couldn’t talk about it with Dan, either. But maybe an anonymous post, to an anonymous forum, would help.

She started typing.

I (30F) might be in love with my roommate (29F). What am I supposed to do? - u/throwRAjustgoodfriends

Okay I'm going to try and keep it vague because I REALLY don't want this to get out. Basically, for the last few years I've been living with this girl Lily (fake name). We met at work eight years ago, and we recently opened a business together. I consider her my best friend, and she considers me hers. For context, Lily is openly bi, and she’s dated a few people (men and women) since we’ve been friends.

Recently, things have gotten kind of weird. I've always identified as a heterosexual woman (Lily’s been trying to convince me I’m into women for years, for what it’s worth, but I honestly thought she was projecting), but I haven't been dating much in these last few years. I thought it was because it's so hard to find decent men, but last week I found out that a bunch of our friends thought we were together, and this morning Lily and I were staying over at our friend’s place and I watched her wake up and suddenly it was like she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. And ever since then I haven't been able to stop thinking about her, and I think I'm starting to act really weird around her, and she knows me well enough that she’s going to notice any change in behavior. What do I do? I’m terrified of ruining this friendship— she's been my rock for the last eight years. Like, pretty much my entire adult life. I never had a friend like this before her. Help?

Before she could talk herself out of it, Yaz hit post. She closed the laptop and climbed into her bed, trying to pretend she wasn’t thinking about what it would feel like to have Rose here with her.

By the next morning, she had almost forgotten about the post. It was only when she reached for her hairbrush on her desk and caught a glimpse of her laptop that she remembered. Instantly, she was hit with a wave of complete mortification. But she forced herself to open the computer and load the post anyway. She already had a few comments.

Comments (sort by: New):

u/silurianagelovesong: Ok so how does she act around you? Like is she touchy with you, is she friendlier to you than anyone else, does she smile more around you, etc?

Yaz had to think about it.

u/throwRAjustgoodfriends [OP]: I don’t know. I mean, of course she’s friendlier to me when we’ve been best friends for years. Same for the smiling. She’s touchy, but she’s just kind of like that. Like she’ll sit in the same chair as me or whatever. But she’s always been that way, it’s not really a big deal anymore.

It wasn’t long before two replies popped up.

u/silurianagelovesong: …always been that way with you, or always been that way in general?

u/throwRAjustgoodfriends [OP]: I haven’t really been keeping track. I don’t think there’s anyone she’s as close to as she is to me, though.

u/silurianagelovesong: 🤦‍♀️

u/cleverboy123 [4 awards]: hey OP are you sure you and this girl aren’t already dating

u/throwRAjustgoodfriends [OP]: YES.

The next comment was even more concerning.

u/oswinftw: Hey jsyk depending on where you live you might be common law married. Like if you live together and your finances are mingled and people see you as a couple.

u/lesbianarachne: That’s not how common law marriage works. You have to actually know you’re married for it to be valid. And most places have gotten rid of it.

She typed her answer quickly, and got a response almost as fast.

u/throwRAjustgoodfriends [OP]: Huh? We’re in the UK and I’ve never heard of this.

u/profsong: That’s because it’s not a thing in the UK. You’re fine.

u/mrpond: I thought it was in Scotland?

u/profsong: Nope. They abolished it in 2006.

u/mrpond: Huh. Good to know.

It was the third comment, though, that nearly gave her a heart attack.

u/pennyintheair [31 awards]: not vague enough i’m showing rose

u/throwRAjustgoodfriends [OP]: WAIT NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT

I’M COMING OVER RIGHT NOW

FUCK

u/silurianagelovesong: LMAOOOOOOOO

Yaz barely had the presence of mind to put shoes on before running out the door and across the street, thanking a God she barely believed in that Rose hadn’t woken up yet. She burst into the bakery, still in her pajamas, startling the few early-morning customers.

Ace was at the counter. She looked up. “Hey, Yaz! Coffee?”

“Er— not right now,” Yaz said. “Where’s Penny?”

“Donna said not to tell people where Penny is,” Ace said, her face the picture of innocence.

“Ace, you— I came up with that rule!” Yaz shouted.

Ace shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. All I know is she’s not in today.”

“Right.” Yaz walked right back out the door and into the stairwell to Penny’s flat. She marched up the stairs and banged on the door. “Penny, I know you’re in there!”

The door opened a minute later, Penny’s wide-eyed face poking through the gap. “C’mon, Yaz, you’re really going to make me walk all the way to the door? In my time of vulnerability?”

Yaz rolled her eyes. “Don’t play dumb with me, Penny.”

Penny pulled the door further open. “Fine. In my defense, it’s really boring, resting all the time.”

“You need your rest,” Yaz said. “And you don’t need to be antagonizing me on Reddit.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t need to be making a Reddit post about how in love you are with your best friend,” Penny pointed out. “To a sub with literally millions of users. I mean, honestly. Did you really think no one you knew would see it?”

“Oh, God.” Yaz swallowed. “What if Rose finds it?”

“C’mon.” Penny pulled Yaz into the room. “Was joking about you making me walk all the way to the door, but I do actually need to sit down now.”

Yaz followed Penny over to the kitchen table. “I should delete the post,” she said as she sat down. “Was stupid of me to even make it. I just didn’t know who else to talk to— I mean— everyone else knows Rose, and I couldn’t face Dan, and—”

“It’s all right,” Penny said cheerily. “Saves you the trouble of having to talk to your friends directly, doesn’t it?”

Yaz buried her head in her hands. “That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“Yeah.” Penny grew more serious. “I know.” She reached a hand across the table to rest on Yaz’s arm. “It’s going to be okay, though.”

“Is it?” Yaz groaned. “Penny, I can’t lose this friendship.”

“You won’t lose it,” Penny asserted. “C’mon, Yaz. You know how much you mean to Rose.”

“Do I, though?” Yaz shook her head. “I mean, I know she— I know I matter to her. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be weird if I’m in love with her.” To her dismay, she felt tears rolling down her face.

“Would it still be weird if she liked you back?” Penny asked.

Yaz shook her head again. “She doesn’t, though. I mean— there’s no way. She’s always talking about asking out other people.” Of course, the only person Rose had talked about asking out lately was Penny, and Yaz wasn’t exactly going to share that. “Penny, I don’t— I don’t know what to do here.”

“Well, do you want to tell her?” Penny asked, very practically.

“No,” Yaz said immediately, the word coming out with force. “I mean— I don’t think so. Everything is finally so— so perfect, with the shop and our flat and everything. I don’t want it to change.”

“But—” Penny paused, frowning in concentration. “But what the change is for the better?”

“There’s no guarantee it will be,” Yaz said.

Penny raised her eyebrows. “And we’re talking about the girl who regularly makes the active choice to sit directly on top of you, yes?”

“That’s just how she is.” Yaz waved a hand. “It’s always been like that with us.”

Penny’s eyebrows shot up even higher. “Yaz. Has it been like that with anyone else?”

“What do you mean?” Yaz asked.

“Like—” Penny waved a hand. “Look, I’m not the greatest with this sort of thing, all right? But if you say you and Rose are always like that, it bears asking if Rose acts like that with anyone else.”

“She used to be like that with Mickey,” Yaz said. “Ages ago. Back when we’d just met.”

“Mickey?” Penny asked.

Yaz sighed. “Her ex.”

Penny raised her eyebrows.

“She doesn’t—” Yaz faltered. She’d been about to say Rose didn’t have any other close friends, but that wasn’t true. She was still close with Shireen from her secondary school, and she had a few other work friends she went out with sometimes, even though they hadn’t worked together in years. Rose had always had an easier time than Yaz, socially speaking. Yaz thought back. Was Rose as physical with Shireen? She wasn’t sure. Rose had no problem slinging her arm around another girl’s shoulders, but usually if she was with someone else and Yaz, Yaz was the girl whose shoulders her arm was around. So there wasn’t much opportunity for comparison. And that made sense, didn’t it? Everyone knew they were a pair.

Oh.

Everyone knew they were a pair.

Yaz looked at Penny. “Okay. Maybe you have a point.”

Penny rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Yaz, you’re denser than one of Ace’s bagels.”

“Ace makes bagels?” Yaz asked.

“Not very well. We're working on it.”

“All right, fine,” Yaz said. “You’ve proved your point.” She groaned. “Still don’t know what to do about it.”

“You could always talk to her,” Penny suggested. “Honestly, Yaz, I can’t imagine it’ll go badly.”

“It’s too much of a risk.” Yaz sat back in her chair. “I don’t know. Maybe— maybe once I’ve had some time to process.” She looked at Penny. “You’re not actually going to show her the post, are you?”

“Nah. I was just joking.” Penny shrugged. “Like I said. Resting’s boring. Perfect opportunity to mess with one of my mates falls in my lap? You can’t blame me for taking it.”

“I think I can, actually.” But Yaz was smiling. She checked her watch. “Right. I’d better get back.”

“What, Rose wondering where you’ve been?” Penny teased.

Yaz glared at her. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Because we’re business partners.”

“Right.” Penny dragged out the word. “Just business, then?”

“Screw you.” Yaz stood up. “I really do have to go. I’ll come back after work, if you like. Rose too, probably. Make your life less boring.”

“Sure,” Penny said.

“But you can’t say a word of this to Rose,” Yaz added. “God, I hope she doesn’t see the post.”

“My lips are sealed.” Penny mimed a zipper across her mouth. “Can’t promise the same of Reddit, of course.”

“Ugh.” Yaz shook her head. “Whatever. I’ll see you later.”

“Later.”

Yaz went down the stairs, turning towards the bakery. She might as well grab coffee, if only so that when Rose asked where she’d gone she had an answer. Besides, it would be good for her to have a moment to collect herself before going back across the street.

With a deep breath, she pushed open the door, only to see Rose’s silhouette at the counter.

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lenasai · 2 years

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Hi there do you have any fanfictions preferably from ao3 about blaseball that someone who doesn't know anything about it could read and enjoy? :> don't got the time to get into it proper atm but wanna boost yalls content

sure thing! i had to do a bit of digging because a lot of the blaseball works i read assume some level of prior knowledge (stuff the average blaseball fan might be familiar with, but might be a little hard to understand if you're just dipping your toe in.) it also doesn't help that i didn't make an ao3 account until i...you know, actually wrote something to publish there back in october - that is to say, a lot of blaseball fics i have read are not in my history at all and i can't find them easily at the moment

generally speaking, given the temporary nature of the short circuits test seasons (each one lasted two weeks and introduced brand new players every time, with far less complicated game mechanics than the expansion era), many fics in the blaseball: short circuits tag are character studies and stories that focus on events that are a little easier to understand without a lot of blaseball knowledge

i also enlisted the help of some friends who write blaseball stuff and asked them to link some stuff they would suggest to people who weren't as familiar with the mechanics of the game! i have read all of these and i recommend them.

ghosts in your blood (by Woosh_Official) is one of those short circuits stories, about two new york millennials players named sophia. the characters are described in detail in the beginning notes so you know who's who.

brand new city (by Moondragon8) is about another short circuits mills player - quite a few of my friends are mills fans, so it makes sense lmao

i don’t know what to do (about this dream and you) [by jordankennedy] is a cute little fic about some players from the main timeline. no actual blaseball takes place here, just a guy with a gay crush talking to his teammate about said gay crush

the author above also wrote plainly speaking, sonic and the black knight isn’t as bad as everyone says, which...ow, oof, owie, my heart. okay there's a liiiiiiiittle bit of exposition at the beginning that if you really need it, can be explained by this wiki article, but it's mostly just the characters hanging out and getting ice cream. gets way sadder when you learn one of the characters did not make it out of season 14 (that's not a spoiler for the fic, that's something that actually happened to the character after the events of the fic.)

is this why it's called "getting fired" (by quantumducky) is an exploration of what happens to players who die...except this time, the person who died isn't a player, but commissioner parker macmillan iii, who actually died in canon. he was incinerated in a trial that took place on the blaseball discord. this probably sounds wild to someone who isn't involved with blaseball, but i assure you this was a real thing that happened (and it also has its own wiki article if you're interested!)

finally, cyndakip wrote a lovely series about polkadot patterson - while i have not read all of the fics, i can say there are some that wouldn't be too hard to understand without knowing who the player is or what happened to them during their blaseball career

i might as well add something i've written here as well. i write a lot of short poetry, but out of all the longer things i've written, the merry exit (un?)memorial dimension traveling club is probably the one that does not require as much explanation. merry exit was a short circuits seattle garages player who was chosen to charge the microphone and then disappeared as a result. this is about them meeting a version of themself that appears in an example tutorial game, which has a very different outcome from what actually happened. (also worth mentioning: a "basher film" is a blaseball-themed horror film. i mention this because one of the characters really likes basher films.)

anyway thanks for your patience while i consulted the blesties for help, have fun reading! 💜

(also if you find you have any questions, feel free to ask! i love explaining blaseball to people)

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