#AND HIS BLASTED SPACE GOATS

[leighsartworks216]

... Oops

Harvey x gn!Farmer

Had this thought when I remembered I had to take my meds tonight. I just think it would be nice to have someone who takes care of you when you're a bit stupid and forget to take very important meds 👉👈

Also, Baja Blast is the actual name of my blue chicken lmao

Also also, this is written in third person POV instead of my usual second person POV

Warnings: swearing, dizziness, anxiety, possibly OOC Harvey

Word Count: 1,592

Masterlist

AO3

Harvey rubbed at his eyes as he slipped out of bed, glancing absentmindedly at the empty space beside him. The farmer was already up, of course. He worried for them when he realized how early they woke up each day, but it couldn't be helped if they wanted to take care of their farm all in one day.

He adjusted his glasses on his face as he shuffled to the kitchen. A cup of hot coffee sat on the counter waiting for him, as it always was. He smiled to himself. Fresh coffee from beans they grew themselves always tasted better than anything Gus could ever dream of making. It was perfectly bitter and smooth as he gulped it down.

He looked out the window of the cabin that overlooked the field left to the farmer by their grandfather. There weren't any unwanted stumps, logs or boulders anymore. Fences penned in the animals as they meandered about, munching on fresh grass. The crops were already watered. The scarecrows teetered slightly in the breeze, the fabric of their gloves almost appearing to wave back at him. He always enjoyed the one that resembled an animated movie character - the farmer had been so proud of it when they stuck it into the ground.

His eyes scanned the paths and fences, searching for his partner.

Hm, they must be in one of the barns.

He stared out a while longer, hoping to catch a glimpse as they came out. A concerned frown etched its way onto his face, but he tried writing off the anxiety swarming in his gut. They're probably just refilling the feeders or refilling their kegs or... Really, it's nothing to get worried about. They knew what they were doing! As long as they stayed out of those damn mines, he had nothing to worry about.

He sighed, shaking his head to remove the flood of worried thoughts in his head. Downing the last of the coffee and placing the mug in the sink, he went off to the bathroom to get ready for a day in the clinic.

He peeked out the window again after he got out of the shower. A blue chicken - a gift from Shane the farmer had named Baja Blast - clucked cheerily as it walked out of the open gate. The farmer usually kept the gates closed, always worrying about coyotes or foxes coming to eat their precious hens. It was unusual for them to keep it open, even if they were inside the coop.

He bustled about in a slight rush to get dressed and gather his things for work, namely a giant thermos of coffee and a lunch prepared for him waiting in the fridge, before slipping out of the cabin. He set it all down on a rocking chair sitting on the porch, creaking in the wind.

Baja Blast clucked up at him as he scooped her into his arms. “C’mon, you shouldn’t be out here. All your food is in here,” he says to the chicken as he steps through the gate and closes it behind him. With a cursory glance back, it didn’t seem like any other chickens got out. He couldn’t remember how many his partner had anymore. He had no idea how in the world they kept up with chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, cows, and pigs on one farm alone. It made his head spin trying to guess how they kept their head on straight with so much to do.

He set Baja Blast down with a white chicken, Madame Clucks. She went back right to pecking away at the grass.

Harvey set his hands on his hips as he looked around. Even out here, he couldn’t see the farmer. Okay, how he was worried. His hands fidgeted anxiously as he stumbled in his loafers through the soft dirt to the coop door. If they weren’t in here, he’d have to check the other barns. And if they weren’t in the barns, he’d have to call Marnie or Shane, or, Yoba forbid, Marlon at the Adventurer’s Guild, just in case they really had slipped off to the mines without telling him. But what if they weren’t in the mines? He’d have to call- Yoba, who could he call? Everyone? Ask if they’ve seen the farmer around today? It wasn’t even 8am, nobody would be up and about to know if they’d gone through town.

He pushed open the door, a bit harder than he meant to as some chickens lingering inside bawk’d and spooked away, leaving feathers in their wake. He couldn’t even focus on that. His eyes immediately landed on the figure sitting on the chest by the mayonnaise machine. They were hunched over and holding their head.

“Farmer!” Harvey rushed forward, all the old anxiety quickly replaced with a thousand more fears. He knelt down by them and rested a hand on their shoulder, looking at them with wide eyes. From this angle he could see their eyes were closed, face pinched in discomfort. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

They shook their head. “‘M just lightheaded. I bent down to grab the eggs and I got really dizzy.”

He pressed the back of his hand to their forehead, brushing back some hair as he pulled away. “You’re not running a fever.” He let out a hesitant breath of relief. “Do you think you can stand?”

After a moment, they nodded. Harvey stood up and supported them as they stood. They wobbled on their feet, but he wrapped an arm around their waist to steady them.

“Easy now. Let’s get you back inside.”

“What about-”

“Don’t you dare put your farm over your own wellbeing,” he warned. “I can call Shane and see if he’ll take over for the day.”

The farmer sighed, relenting. He knew how much peace they found tending to everything themselves, despite how overwhelming it seemed on the outside. They had a whole process for everything, and they’d explained before just how much of the simpler tasks they’d automated with sprinklers and some of Maru’s machines. Still, he was absolutely not about to let them go right back to work when they can barely stand up without a light breeze threatening to knock them over.

Harvey opened the gate and helped them through, shooing Baja Blast back inside as he shut the gate again. His partner gave an undignified snort at the offended squawk she let out. “At least you feel well enough to laugh.”

“Like I said, Harv, I’m just dizzy.” They leaned heavily into him as he led them along the paths to the cabin. Their feet hung up on uneven stones and the stairs leading to the door more than once.

“Dizziness is a symptom of something else. I just want to make sure it really is nothing serious.”

“I know you do.” They offered him a slight smile, but it quickly soured to a frown as they shut their eyes again with a frown. “Yoba, it feels like the whole world is spinning.”

“We’re almost there.” The line would have been less out of place if this wasn’t their home that they knew as well as they knew the names of all their animals, but they were too out of it to point it out and Harvey was too in his own head to notice it. So they stumbled together through the house to the large two-person bed.

The farmer laid down with a whine, pressing the balls of their hands to their eyes. “How is this worse somehow?” they groaned.

Harvey pressed a comforting hand to their shoulder. “Did you eat breakfast this morning?” They hummed affirmatively with a nod. “When did you get back home last night?”

“Like… 1? 1:40?”

He sighed, scratching his brow with his thumb. That was a conversation for later. “Did you take your meds?”

The silence was deafening. They covered their whole face with their hands with a muffled, “Fuck, I’m stupid.”

“So you didn’t take your iron?”

They shook their head but regretted it immediately after, uncovering their face with a grimace. Their hands plopped pathetically to the bed beside them. “No, I completely forgot. I was trying to run back from the beach after fishing all night - I must have been so tired it just slipped my mind.”

He let out a long sigh. “At least it’s nothing serious. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“‘M sorry, Harvey.”

“It’s…” He frowned at the idea of saying ‘okay’. As a doctor, he really couldn’t brush off not taking prescribed medication, especially with a partner with such a severe case of anemia. He’d protest against them running a farm at all if they weren’t so determined. “We’ll figure out a better system, okay? We can put them in a pill-minder and keep them on your nightstand.”

They nodded. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

That shocked a laugh out of him. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to their forehead, his mustache scratching their skin in a familiar way. “Of course - that is my job after all. Now sit tight, I’ll grab your supplements and call Shane. Anything he needs to know about?”

“Just make sure he pets all of the animals. They deserve daily pats.”

“I’ll make sure he knows,” he chuckled fondly as his footsteps began their retreat from the bedroom to the house beyond.

“I love you!”

His warm laugh rang out again, echoed against the wood Robin nailed together and the photos on the walls. “I love you, too!”

#fanfic #fanfiction #harvey x reader #harvey x farmer #sdv harvey x reader #sdv harvey x farmer #stardew valley x reader #stardew valley x farmer #sdv harvey #stardew valley harvey #stardew valley #fluff

[on-stardust-wings]

Findings from watching the season two opening. Here be spoilers if you haven’t seen it, begone all who seek to avoid those.

Crowley climbs up the rock (and does not look like he enjoys climbing much). Does that mean demons can’t fly? Crowley in particular can’t fly?

There is a moth (butterfly) that starts flying with Crowley and Aziraphale when Crowley lights the match. It’s the first creature that accompanies them. Is it important?

The fuck is this thing. I thought it’s an elephant first? With a trunk? But it’s on fire. Could just be a rock? Whatever it is, the angel with the box (Gabriel?) spawns right behind it. I would say portal to Hell, but angels don’t commonly come out of those. Or do they now? Anyway mysterious fiery thing.

There’s also a bunch of animals in the background of this setting. They seem to be mostly sheep and goats. And there’s huge bones/skeletons. Dinosaurs are fictional in the Good Omens verse, though. (Something about the dinosaurs are a joke thing? Please let it be something about dinosaurs being a joke, I love this bit.)

It’s raining fire and the poor goats and sheep get torched. :( Looking pretty apocalyptic for a season that (maybe) isn’t about the end of the world this time!

There’s the pickled herring from the spoiler/bts pics! And this person looks like Hastur IMO. “Everyday” apparently already died; it’s on a tombstone. What is the person in the back (behind the herring barrel) carrying? A miniature airplane? A rocket launcher? A big camera?

And THEN there’s the lamp with a face and feet guy, walking in front of the person with the headscarf. WTF is with lamp with a face guy. Lamp with a face guy even has a smaller lamp attached to his arm. I do not want to meet lamp with a face on a dark graveyard!

There are some more spooky characters joining the procession as it goes underground. What’s up with red head and a lamp on a stick guy for example?

Lovelovelove Hell with the magma and the giant spider and the office chairs on rocks (some of them upside down). Giant pentagram in the background that seems to be spinning! I loved the basement office hell vibe they used for Hell in S1, but this fiery Hell looks so cool. Creature with bat wings perching on top of a rock! Great vibes, very hellish.

London during the airstrike has a cool blimb, a tank, lots of wreckage, is apparantly a 30 zone, so no speeding, and there’s an ad for Stairway to Heaven. Seems like a play or a movie maybe?

Aziraphale and Crowley with their wings out walk in front of a bus with “wings for victory” written on the side. And then an aircraft throws a bomb on them.

It is raining rabbits in the entryway to the magic show theatre, and there’s person sized and shaped rabbit in the audience. Is it Harry the Rabbit?

Lots of interesting head dresses in the people following after Crowley here, and there’s Beelzebub. They’re being led to meet Aziraphale in his magic uniform, now upgraded with a cape! (He should have worn the cape to Adam’s party, capes are cool.)

Space! Spacespacespace! Look at the planets and stars! Also the tank, it’s still here. And there’s... a rabbit astronaut? With glowing eyes?

Little UFO crossing in front of that moon/planet! Looks a bit like the flying saucer from season 1.

Thy kingdom airways lol! And it’s raining hearts! On Aziraphale and Crowley on the bookshop roof.

“Give me coffee or give me death” is a very metal slogan for a coffee shop. And there’s lots of music themed stuff in the street. There’s a jukebox, a pile of records behind it, that decoration between the street lamps looks like vinyl records cut in half strung up? And the Bentley is there, probably blasting Queen. :D

The skycrapers are elevator shafts. The one in the middle has an angel in it, riding down. Down to Hell? Ding!

It’s the Dirty Donkey! And the movie theatre is called “The Arrival”. It’s screening today! That’s very clever, wonder if the opening will change with the different episode titles? :) Also, there’s the image from the box the angel is carrying again, on the film posters for The Arrival. Can’t tell what it is.

Look at them all walking into the light! They’re going to be enlightened! Or something. But it is a very bright light! Lighthouse! It’s also covered in scrap and  junk nearly to the top. Whatever that may mean. (Guys don't walk into the light, no!)

My friends, I am really looking forward to stop waiting and see what this is all about!

#good omens #good omens season 2 #s2 opening title #in which I definitely watched this too often #should probably go to bed #but there's so much to see! #what's the mystery light they all walk into #p+a

[george228732]

"…Tinker…?" He said on the other side of the door of his bedroom. "Come in!" Vibrato entered his room, with the moonlight gleaming on his room's window.

"Hey! How did ya do today at work?" The bluebird asked "…It could be better, I won't lie to you, composing songs for the glee of communities is harder than you think… Especially when after some time, you can barely see where are you going…" The goat said in a tired tone. "…I guess that magic on your books is not helping." "It is sadly ancient magic, coming from an era where knowledge like that was scarce." "Tch! I am sure that with MY knowledge, I'll be able to make you better visual aids for your little eyes!" ''Hopefully…"

Tinkercian was more than able to see that Vibrato was deeply tired, and for someone like him, who could blame him?

''Tomorrow's the festival, right?'' ''Indeed, the New Day Festival comes tomorrow, with all the people, food, and especially, the music. I'll crash after all of that is over.'' ''Weeeeeell, you don't need to do it alone! I am here, and the other two are surely gonna help too, when they are not dealing with Galacta's kids or Hyness' command back at the Pardus Clan.'' ''I am not sure if you are actually capable of helping me with the music.'' ''What?! You taught me how to play the drums and flute, and I rock with them! Hyness knows how to play the piano, and thanks to you, Gala always ends up blasting the song you composed for him on his guitar when no one is looking! We could manage.'' ''…Thanks for supporting me, Tink.'' ''No problem, music goat!''

Vibrato faintly smiled as he yawned seconds later.

''That's… my call to go to my room, good night.'' ''You sure? You can stay here with me if you prefer! I know you like this room." "…I wouldn't want to bother you.'' ''Ye are not bothering anybody! So if you really wanna, you can rest riiiight beside me.'' ''…Are you sure?'' ''Absolutely!'' ''…''

Vibrato came closer to Tinkercian's bed as he tried to get some space for himself, to not make things too awkward for him. This was the first time in a while that he did something like this, but deep down, they liked this much affection, and more so if it came from Tinker.

''…There.'' ''See? It isn't that bad! Now, you should rest, tomorrow is a long day, and me and the others will support you in what you need!'' ''…Thank you, Tink…''

Vibrato closed his eyes and quickly fell into a slumber - tomorrow was going to be a busy day for sure. By pure instinct though, his head quickly ended up right above Tinkercian's chest just to find a cozy place to set his head on.

''…Love ya, music goat.'' Tinkercian said as he kissed Vibrato's forehead, and quickly enough, he succumbed into a deep sleep too.

#tinkercian #vibrato #lore drop #they are very good friends #just that #no questions asked/j #galacta knight #hyness

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

Space Goat List Design, Episode 2

I did Deathwatch last time, so now let's see who else was at the very bottom winrate wise this edition... and really there's just AdMech. You can't really count vanilla Space Marines due to the high number of new players who get it as their first army- especially when it is an army with so many datasheets that it is really easy to just builld something really bad at random if you don't know what you are doing.

Today's Topic: Adeptus Mechanicus

I wanted to write this post a while ago, but I thought waiting for the points update would make more sense. So let's get right into it: for our detachment I use the Explorator Maniple. Its rule lets you pick one marker at the start of your turn to be your "Acquisition Marker". If you shoot something on (OR FROM!) that marker, you reroll wound rolls of 1. Sounds not very special now, but there's some rules that key into it. Let's see what we got:

As we can see the enhancements all care a lot about that special marker, but for this list I initially plan to use only Genetor one, as a 4+ Invulnerable Save is just too spicy to pass up. Stratagems don't care much about the marker, but they DO offer some transporter-startegies, which we will keep in mind when building our list. Just ignore the consolidation move stratagem, that will never matter except once in a 100 games. Same goes for the 2CP one. It might be relevant in some games where saving up cp for it makes sense, but it's never central to the game plan.

So, how do we utilize the mission rule in combination with the AdMech army rule? Easy. Indirect fire. So our first order is 3x Scorpius Disintegrator, who will run around with Bellasarius Cawl who can give them a re-roll 1s to hit aura.

That times three sure looks spicy combined with its ability to get +1 to the hit roll when targeting infantry. Note that if you combine this with the defensive Doctrina this stacks with "heavy". So you can blast at stuff in the enemy zone easily. Even better when they have stuff on their own marker. Hitting on 3s, rerolling 1s, is already good, but rerolling 1s to wound as well is dang spicy. Of course if you dont need as many hits but require beating better saves, just give everything assault and +1 AP, which essentially is "Ignores Cover" for our purposes. The flexibility here is quite nice, allowing for both "tanks lined up in your zone" and "deathball rolling over the field killing everything it can get a clear shot at" modes of play.

All supposed "optimized" armies who only have an absolute minium of backfield holders and corner-campers will crumble under that barrage, as they now suddenly need to get their more expensive stuff on "homefield duty". Several elite-heavy armies will suffer from this a lot.

For the homefield we'll just take one unit of Rangers. Easy. Can't say no to sticky objective. As AdMech's options for CP-generations are pretty garbage, we add Inquisitor Coteaz for his ability:

You don't generate any points on your own, but this will certainly level the playing field.

I mentioned the Genetor enhancement before, and we will obviously try to slap that on the most durable thing we could find. So the next unit to roll out are 6 Kataphron destroyers followed by a Manipulus Tech Priest carrying the enhancement. They are fairly slow, but assuming you can get them to reach an objective in T2, if you make it the special one (either by regular rule or using the stratagem), they are going to be hard to remove, ESPECIALLY when you send an Onager Dunecrawler with them who we make sure has the SMOKE keyword for the Incense Exhaust Stratagem.

Note that the Dunecrawler can just chill behind a wall for this to work. If the enemy shoots it first the plan does not work, but if you keep it hidden 6'' away just out of sight, that Kataphron blob also gets Stealth and Cover, making them even harder to remove by shooting - and melee is not exactly an option on a unit that hits overwatch on a 5+, lethal hits on a 6, and brings 6d6 flamers to the table.

The rest of the list is fairly straightforward: if your indirect fire barrage deletes all chaff and screening units from the enemy zone, we will need some deep strikes. These allow us to be flexible enough to pick any marker the enemy thinks he can sit on, declare it to be the "special one", and show up there to kick them off. Looking at our Stratagems it would also be nice if it was a transport with the smoke keyword. Dunestriders can't deep strike, but luckily we got something even better: presenting the Archaeopter Transvector, sporting a respectable horde-clearing profile and a hillarious ability:

These are essentillay drop-pods. But better because they can actually do stuff. So of course I took 3 of them, and filled them up with a squad of Skitarii Vanguard and a Skitari Marshall each.

You should always consider shocking one of these in T1 to easily grab a secondary objective (especially if there's a gap in the enemy zone, in hover mode they lose the aircraft keyword and count for secondaries like Engage on all Fronts or Behind Enemy lines, but their true value comes in later turns, when the enemy has no more fodder to screen with, and you can clown all over their zone, putting constant pressure on their homefield - and if he tries to charge them? Just jump back in with Reactive Safeguard!

At first this list might look weird. Where's the chaff for screening? Where's the action monkeys? And yes, this list will never score Investigate Signals for anything worthwhile, but... neither will your opponent if you focus out his chaff units with the indirect fire. AdMech as an army might be weak, but they got no issue on dragging you down to their level.

The full list:

Bellasarius Cawl

Skitarii Marshal

Skitarii Marshal

Skitarii Marshal

Tech-Priest Manipulus (+Genetor Enhancement)

Skitarii Rangers

Skitarii Vanguard

Skitarii Vanguard

Skitarii Vanguard

Archaeopter Transvector

Archaeopter Transvector

Archaeopter Transvector

Kataphron Destroyers (6 models)

Onager Dunecrawler (with Smoke Keyword)

Skorpius Disintegrator

Skorpius Disintegrator

Skorpius Disintegrator

Inquisitor Coteaz

And that wraps up to the smooth 2,000 points worth of units at least when going by the points as they are now.

The constant pressure on their homefield should be enough to shift the primary game in your favor - either the Skitarii and the Skorpius will murder whatever he puts on there, or he puts an expensive vehicle there, and that thing will not be able to help in the midfield - and most likely not hold the point either long-term, you then win by OC.

Things to keep in mind for this list: Rapid Ingress is your friend, ESPECIALLY when you go second. Drop that Transvector behind a wall in their zone that you previously cleared of all screening chaff, and then just deliver the 21 OC inside right onto their marker.

The most curious part about this list: your gameplan in theory is easily thwarted by a horde-army. But most of your guns are horde-clear. 18 shots on every copter, 2d6 blast on every tank. If you play this correctly, in the later game your enemy will only have a few line vehicles left, and nothing to actually score in the game with.

#warhammer 40k #wh40k #adeptus mechanicus #admech #space goat list design #since feedback was nice on the first one I thought hey why not do a second one?

[ilexdiapason]

"what is the pearl the bard au, ilex?" im SO glad you asked: a primer

first of all, hello jon, apologies for the deception, but i thought it was necessary to get the traffic people in through their scrunkle, so i didn't call the au by its proper name. this is eswap, the empires swap au, featuring pearlthebard. but i'm gonna tell it from her pov so it's all good

the following is a brief summary of what i refer to as "season one" of pearlthebard, and can be read in its entirety by going to @pearlthebard and reading through the linked directory, but if you don't have time for three months of tumblr rp then here's the gist of it!

Once upon a time, cruel gods named Watchers brought in just over a dozen people to play participants in a sick little game of death and betrayal. Pearl was not there. She was there when they did it for a second time, but she didn't win, so she can't remember it. The third time she prefers to forget, for the most part: it's a big awful blur of self harm and mania and dying and killing and losing everything she ever loved without ever really knowing why.

At the end of Double Life, she stands on a hill and watches the man who would not be her soulmate light himself ablaze, and when he blows up it takes her with him.

At this point, we step out of the narrative briefly, because Pearl the Bard doesn't actually begin with Pearl, not really - it begins with my friend Al going "hey i should make an au where the empires smp season 2 characters are role swapped", and hitting number thirteen Oli TheOrionSound, and going "ah shit well i guess i'll swap him with santa perla that works". Thus, Saint Oli, and Pearl the Bard. However, notably, Pearl cannot map neatly on to Oli's backstory of being isekai'd in from the end of Afterlife SMP, because she wasn't there.

At the end of Double Life, Pearl is blown up, but she does win. And a winner, by the usual metrics, earns a prize.

Saint Oli catches her when the blast flings her soul from her lifeless body, looks this incredibly wet cat up and down, and decides to give her a second chance.

She lands in the Empires SMP.

If you've seen Oli's episodes, which you probably should there were only four of them for the entirety of ESMP S2, you'll know roughly how the story goes from here, but the faces are a little different. She steals a goat horn from Princess Katherine of Dawn, she is jailed by Deputy Sausage of the Goblands, and while she awaits her judgement by the Sheriff Smallishbeans, she hears an awfully familiar voice from the floor of the cave asking what she did to get put in there.

Mayor Smajor of Animalia is a normal man. He runs his empire with a fairly loose grip, but he's proactive about developing a safe space for all animal folk to live among the pretty amethysts and not have to conform to the standards of human society. He, though, he's not an animal, no way, behind this dark mask he's completely human and not a cat. He has a life here, has lived in the Empires for years and founded a community with his own paws hands that he's very proud of.

The weird girl in the cage, the woman who brought two HUGE dogs to his lands and then somehow decided it was his fault for hissing at them that they didn't get on, and the new bard his neighbour Sausage has been gossiping to him about all seem to be disconnected, until they very suddenly aren't.

Pearl is a mystery to Scott. Despite him never having seen her before in his life, she seems convinced that he's either a regret or a danger, and she even goes so far as to stab him to death rather than tell him what the hell is her problem with him. He gets a little bit obsessed, if he's honest - finds her house to show up at it, insists that Sausage keep him updated on her, even starts to lose sleep. And when he does sleep he has strange dreams, dreams of being far taller, being tailless, being ten times better with a weapon than the Mayor of Animalia would ever need to be.

Pearl, steadfast in the conviction that the best thing she can do is get far the hell away from this weird, tiny Not-Smajor and never speak to or of him again if possible, runs to the distant shores of Sanctuary. And then squats in the Eversea. And then borrows Joey's spare room in the Evermoore. And every time, some coincidence sends Scott dangerously close to her escape path, forces them to make small talk, gives them both another nightmare of another time that Scott can't remember and Pearl wishes she could forget.

And then eventually they do catch up with one another in the streets of Chromia, and Scott refuses to back down until Pearl admits to him the truth of whether she really belongs in this world and what her connection is to his dreams and why he feels so weirdly, encompassingly guilty when he looks at her, and... well, i won't spoil that, that was a good one, i liked that one, you should go read it.

But yeah! Pearl the Bard! It's good! Soulmate drama forever :D

#eswap #empires swap au #pearlescentmoon #scott smajor #and then later we do lesbianism it's great

[icyhotheartwritings]

OKAY SO

At the very start of the season, Docm77 built a world-eater to blast a 500 x 500 block hole right down to bedrock to use as space for his farms and base, called the Perimeter. The Perimeter is right next to where Grian, MumboJumbo, and GoodTimesWithScar settled their own bases. This is all setup for one of the wildest prank wars in Hermitcraft history.

It all started because Grian didn’t want to finish the back of his base. He didn’t want to finish it so bad that GeminiTay, ImpulseSV, and Scar held an intervention to get him to finish it, that he PROMPTLY managed to distract Scar from and they both raced off next door to see Doc’s latest game-defying contraption - a redstone tunnel bore in the wall of the Perimeter. That they managed to blow up. They did their best to rebuild it, but these two are builders and not redstoners and therefore had No Idea how to do that, so they just left a little apology present and got the fuck out of dodge.

Unfortunately for them Doc doesn’t do apology presents too well! So he fired back by setting a trap for Grian that blew up Mumbo’s front door (I still don’t know whether or not that was intentional or a slight misfire), and managed to hang DOZENS of wither skulls (you know, the ones the wither shoots out of its heads?? the exploding ones?? yeah those) in midair over the main square of Scar’s theme park.

So now that there’s three wronged parties (two perpetrators and an innocent bystander), they got together to form The Buttercups to band together and fight the goat. Grian egged the Perimeter with hundreds of chickens, they built a cute little hippie camp on the edge of the Perimeter, Doc made flying butterflies to blow up Grian and Mumbo’s bases, both parties made giant robots to fight each other, Doc enlisted Rendog to help spy on the Buttercups by building a secret room under their camp and stuffing sniffers in there, the Buttercups graffitied the Perimeter with a goddamn Live Laugh Love sign, Doc tore it down and replaced it with a trapped Grind Optimize Automate Thrive (G. O. A. T., if you notice) sign that ended up blowing up their camp and all the sniffers underneath, at some point Doc also covered the Buttercup’s bases with hundreds of duped dragon eggs but I can’t remember when that happened in the timeline, and then like half of the involved parties went on vacation.

Grian came back first and he had the brilliant (“bRiLlIaNt”) idea to just. Cover the entire Perimeter. All 250,000 blocks of it. But not in one flat plane of dirt, no no NO. This man is a BUILDER. And Scar is a builder too. These motherfuckers TERRAFORMED it. Planted trees and everything. But since it was a race against the clock to beat Doc getting back on the server, they hijacked the weekly Hermitcraft meeting to be all “hey anyone wanna help us cover the Perimeter?” AND THEY GOT LIKE SEVEN PEOPLE TO HELP. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH THAT LITERALLY NOBODY EXCEPT MUMBO, GRIAN, SCAR, REN, AND DOC WERE EVER INVOLVED IN THIS WAR AND YET THE SPIRIT OF HERMITCRAFT IS JUST THAT NOBODY CAN RESIST A POINTLESS ENDEAVOR TO FUCK WITH THEIR FRIENDS. I SAY POINTLESS BECAUSE DOC CLEANED IT UP QUICKLY AND EASILY.

Anyway. They threw the Perimeter under a rug and all their videos dropped one after the other like right before Doc came back, and the man lost his shit swearing bloody bloody vengeance on everyone involved on Twitter. Hermitcraft is a family-friendly server, right, and in his latest video he opened it saying it was REALLY hard to not swear like a sailor. This whole thing is wild and you really gotta watch at least the Hermitcraft Recap to get it all, cuz I know I forgot some things

SORRY THIS IS LATE august chewed me up and spit me out but HOLY SHIT THAT IS INCREDIBLE. Oh my god. I have to get into Hermitcraft Immediately

#icy rambles #do… do you have any recommendations for where to Start…

[darklcy]

𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫.

☆.｡.:* stranger things masterlist ☆.｡.:*

→ eddie munson x f! reader | Stranger Things

→ [ prompt given by @xstreetsx​ ]

 you make a deal with a demon (eddie) and you wish for one thing; to be in love, and to love in return. when you wake up the next morning, a man named eddie is laying beside you. 

→ 1.4k words | succubus! eddie, mentions of slight violence, blood, and bad language. 

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

A signature was all it took, really. 

His hand, ivory and brisk, coated in coal markings and sharpened nails, encased yours in the agreement, sealing it tight and secure. And that was that.. A childish, immature dream harbored since the day prince charming danced across your television screen, striking your heart with desire for the one. 

Envy for the princess swaying with the man who captured her heart with a simple glance, for the longing he felt when all she left behind was a petite, glass slipper on the staircase. Years upon years of endless searching for your destined soulmate to swoop you off your feet and marry you on spot, now resulting in the handshake with the black goat. 

He promised you the finish line, the answer to all your wants and needs, and in return, a piece of parchment to seal the deal. A bit old fashioned and dramatic, a feathered quill to sign your name along with a pot of ink. But enough was enough. The cracks embedded into your pulse threatened to break from piles of loneliness and unreciprocated affection, and if he could save you, to hell with it.

His deep, deep chuckle hollowed itself throughout the shadows of your bedroom. Snatching the paper from your tender fingers, his nails stealthily rolled it up to tuck the contract back into his shadows, no way to back track out of it now. 

“..May your dreams come true, and may my blood run smoother.…”

He was gone before you could blink.

The mattress felt much colder on your skin that night. A vacant space to your right feeling louder than usual, a disappointing reminder that no one was there. No signs of embrace to provide you any stability to combat the brutal chills running up and down your spine. 

Absolutely no one. Alone. I’m always alone.

The doubt that followed you into your dreams greeted you in the sunlight’s rays blasting through your window, eyelids peeling open in a groan. Another day, you suppose. Stretching out your arm for your phone, any ounce of drowsiness swept away in a single breath when the tips of your fingers grazed against a presence. Someone, resting in deep slumber, right beside you. 

…?

You’d leap out of bed if you could. The muscles of your chest tightened with the rapid tempo of your startled heart, knees pulling themselves up as you watched…him, sleep peacefully. His torso was bare, his spine facing the ceiling with his arms crossed under his cheek, and if you peeked a little further, you’d spot the faint black bats decorating his right forearm. 

His head had been turned towards you, eyelashes fluttering and elegantly long, sporadic, frizzy hair coating his forehead and shoulders. From your side of the bed, he appeared…beautiful. The shade of his skin a pale pigment, with almost a pinkish undertone due to the hue of his fingers. Lips plump and barely parted, the softest of breaths wafting in and out.

The way he dreamt so comfortably pulled you towards him, the urge to pass a hand through his tresses as if this was a regular morning, not your first meeting. If anything, you should feel panicked, paranoid, even. How’d he get here, and why did he jump under the covers with you? Why did you feel calm instead of frightened? 

Perhaps…He was fulfilling his end of the deal.

A breathy whine emitted in the man’s throat, making you retract your hand to rest atop your kneecap. You watched as he arose from his position, flipping over to his back while rubbing away the residue from his eyes. And then, they opened. He didn’t look at you at first, instead keeping his sights on the blades of your ceiling fan, as if transfixed in a daze. 

You stopped breathing when his irises finally locked onto yours, a mutual, silent acknowledgment of the other person shared in the eye contact. He had wrapped you up into his metaphorical prison just from the glimpse of an eye, much like Cinderella and her prince charming. Just like how your child self had dreamed. His rose tinted lips cracked a smile, pearly whites barely poking through.

“Mornin.’”

His voice came out in a gruff drawl, yet coated in confidence. It threatened your heart to run even faster. 

“I’m sure this is a shocker, right?”

He chuckled at the way your brows pulled together, not quite catching what he meant. 

Unbeknownst to you, this had been his plan all along. You were a beauty to the eye, relishing with desperation, just what he’d been looking for. A hopeless girl to play with until he grew bored, how could he resist a naive thing like you? Of course, the signature you performed the night before meant you’d read through the terms and conditions before solidifying the deal. But no matter, this was something he’d articulated carefully, and he was going to pull it off right under your nose.

“Name’s Eddie. And you are..?”

You mutter your name in a quiet whisper. You didn’t question or demand an answer. This is what you signed up for, isn’t it? Eddie could holler and laugh at the stupidity. Going just as planned.

He’d play along for now. 

Following introductions, the two of you tiptoed out of bed to make breakfast, and get to know each other, or whatever you said. Eddie perched himself at the table across from you, elbows resting on the wood and knuckles occasionally tapping in a rhythm. You were extremely nervous, foot bouncing underneath and eyes avoiding his. He smiled as he took the initiative.

“So…What do you do?”

Your wide irises met his. “Oh. I…I work as a hostess. At a restaurant not too far from here, maybe fifteen minutes away.”

He pretended to hum in thought. Typical, for a woman like you. 

“But I think I might put in my two weeks, actually..”

Oh? “How come?” 

He notices you deflate and sigh. “I don’t know. It’s not really that good of a job, they mistreat me a lot.”

Again, typical. Eddie feigns a frown of displeasure, commenting how you don’t deserve that in the workplace. Somehow, his miniscule tries of comfort relit the light in your eyes, just by a little, and Eddie finds that very…curious.

Living with Eddie wasn’t all bad, to be frank. He helped with simple chores, cooking, cleaning, laundry, even took part in mundane hobbies, such as popping in on a Netflix show or a cheap movie online. It didn’t mean anything at first, but overtime…His presence became a source of stability. A person to come home to, a person to share the bed with at night. An anchor in your life.

It was supposed to be for fun. That’s what the plan was: carry out the deal, steal your love and innocence, then devour your soul and put an end to your weak, human life. It was strictly business, is what he reminded himself. 

…But perhaps, business can allow for sweet nothings whispered into your ear before you drift to sleep that he may or may not have meant, or for affection that pumped life back into his stone heart that hadn’t moved in decades. And when you stumbled through the door one day in tears over insults your pathetic excuse of a boss hollered at you, Eddie realized he felt…anger.

You wept and wept into his shirt, arms tight around his middle while his protected your frame, a clawed hand covering the back of your head. He could feel you tremble against him, the profanities repeating themselves over and over inside your brain like a broken record. Eddie snarled and glared at the wall in front of him. 

He could kill him. By God, he could rip the fucker’s heart out and swallow it whole if it was for your sake.

��..I can’t…I can’t work there anymore, Eds. I-I..”

“Shh. Easy, doll. I got you.”

Stepping away the slightest bit, you parted your glossy, drenched eyelashes to meet his soft gaze. His warm, dark brown eyes, the ones that made you fall since the day you awoke next to him. You felt his chilled palm cup your cheek, his thumb running over your tears.

Even upset beyond belief, Eddie perceived you as beautiful. The most beautiful maiden whose heart he felt at peace with capturing. Both hands pulling your lips closer to his, he planted a sweet, everlasting kiss to your soul and being. Your much smaller hands wrapped themselves around his wrists, pressing your mouth to his more and more. Only when you separated did he go back for more. The realization came clear to him then. 

He’d have you, forever and ever.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things x reader #x reader #stranger things netflix #stranger things 4 x reader #succubus eddie x reader #eddie x reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x reader fluff #eddie munson x reader comfort #eddie munson comfort #comfort #eddie munson x you #stranger things angst #stranger things comfort

[soramel]

In Love and War (myg)

BECAUSE THIS YOONGI

Fanfiction

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This work does not reflect the true character of the real-life persons mentioned. Also, I do not own the picture above (though this picture owns me. Like, who isn't?!?!)

Yoongixreader; idol!au; romance

Part 1/3

At the time when most people are asleep, save for some who is swamped by table summaries which are to be presented later at the same day-

Labor was not your dream, but here you are, crunching nine zeroes for the capitalists. Who would have thought that real life could be this lucrative? Who would have thought creativity thrives in datasets and equations?

Almost everything could be translated into numbers.

1 for yes 0 for no

The scent of brewing coffee proliferated the space, it mixed with the fishy smell of cup noodles at three a.m. The AC was on full blast but you could feel your body sweat in self-generated body heat.

When was the last time  you took a bath?

Wetting your hair feels like washing away all the equations and tasks listed in your head. The coolness and refreshing feel of shower is not ideal right now that the presentation deadline is just around the corner. Specifically, later, in the morning.

If it wasn't just your late realization on some additional factors that could be significant on your projection, you wouldn't be this hairy oily mess. You blame your stupid brain for gearing up to be smart enough at the last minute.

If it were someone else, they could have just go through as planned, but not you. You hate doing things half-assed.

If there's something to milk out of the cow, you'll squeeze the tits high and dry.

In this case, that cow is Min Yoongi. Producer /  Songwriter / Rapper / Singer / Model / Influencer / The GOAT - not only of the Company you work for, but also of the industry he works in.

On that thought, cow isn't a fitting comparison.

"Hey, you're still here?"

Your ears perked up at the sudden noise that cut through your silent working space.

You found Min Yoongi, a.k.a the Greatest of All Time, by the door. His forehead scrunched as he sniffed the foul smell of your office.

"Do you live here?" he asked further.

You stood up from your swivel chair and subtly squirmed at the peeling off of your skin that has been in contact with the leather for hours.

"For the past three days, yes. Don't you dare report me to HR. They might ask me for my rent," you replied as you stretched out your spine and limbs.

Without an invite from your end, he welcomed himself to your temporary home. Yoongi shut the door without taking off his gaze full of disgust and judgment. He eyed you head to toe and back. Mismatched slippers on your feet, to your hideous elephant pants, faded brown oversized tee which matched your nest of a hair because to him you utterly looked like crap.

"Go home. You must. Look at you," he  reprimanded as he waved a hand to your direction.

"I'm almost done. Just one last check, making sure everything's good for the deck later. I'm gonna blow your mind," you replied, a smug grin plastered on your face.

He let out a chuckle, "You're blowing my mind already," he retaliated.

"I mean look at you, I, myself, couldn't stand this sight."

You clenched your teeth for the uncalled backhanded compliment.

Taking in a deep breath, you closed your eyes and reminded yourself that you're talking to the man who provides food on your table, a roof over your head, and satiates your strange addiction to the smell of new glossy colored books of anything under the sun.

Hardbound and thick ones.

Just like his attitude.

You faked a smile, and bowed down, "Mr. Min, thank you for your uncalled concern. I'll be heading home in a while."

Yoongi shifted his stance and cooly offered, "You can hitch a ride. I'm about to head home too."

He's quite a workaholic himself, but your dedication's still unmatched.

You waved your hands in front of you, shaking your head, "No, I'm alright, Mr. Min. My stench would only irritate you. You should be able to relax as you wind down. Both of us had a busy day, but I'm sure yours was more hectic seeing that you're still here at-"

The digital desk clock switched to display 4:00 a.m.

"-four in the morning."

Yoongi didn't back down right away. He weighed his options first before taking a step back.

From a concerned boss, his judging face came back before taking a step away.

"Okay, if you say so," he conceded before turning around.

He twisted the door open and stepped out of your office as he uttered a silent goodbye.

"Mm, yes, take care boss!" you politely greeted back.

Working with Min Yoongi has been easier as years go by. At first, he was in doubt of your capabilities. In all fairness, who would believe that data analysts could be of help in entertainment industry? He creates and put it out there and wait for people's reaction. If it works, then good, if it doesn't then he could try again on the next album release.

While you acknowledge that life is indeed full of trials and errors, perusing all the information at hand does not hurt. It works as a hedge in times of failure, and works as a catapult in times of success.

Soar high, fall with a plush on your ass.

That's the company's trade secret. They're willing to spend millions on data to gain billions.

They spend their money smartly on you. Though your six-digit monthly salary is not that obvious with your choice of clothing, people would gape at the fixtures and books in your penthouse.

That painting that occupied most of your foyer wall? You spent a million on that. It's a good investment though. The resell value is high.

The books that lined up your hallway crossed out the need for paint or decorations.

The sofa, oh, fine Italian leather that's expensive as your car.

You fell asleep on that couch and blacked out. You always do.

Apparently, three alarms were not enough to wake up a sleeping log like you.

That's why you almost slipped in the marbled bathroom to freshen up decently in five minutes. Showered in perfume, and slipped in to your formal suit.

Tying your hair into a bun is the easiest option.

Still, you made it 10 minutes before the meeting.

You barely slept, but the excitement to share the outcome of your research gave you an adrenaline rush.

You looked alive despite the bags under your eyes.

An alive dehydrated panda.

If there's such a thing.

But no panda will be as small as you, given that zookeepers do watch their weight. All pandas you've seen are all fluffy, while you look...

dehydrated

freeze-dried

Anyway, you could care less. You're friends with your fitness coach who you haven't seen in three months, and your dermatologist who you haven't seen in six months. They could play fairy grandmother once you're free.

That means getting the board and the management to give your brilliant project a Go.

Watching Yoongi stroll in the conference room made you nervous a bit. You'll be talking about his career progression after all. You smiled at him as you take in his effortlessly chic outfit. You chose the right artist to work for. Only Yoongi could pull off an all black suit and steel framed eyeglasses and still look like a superstar instead of a businessman.

You're barely a people-person, but converting human behavior into numbers made it easier for you to fulfill your line of work. As important people filed in, you eyed your team on the side of the room as you gesture for them to give the deck materials.

Those papers were still quite hot as they just got printed this morning by your associate. They panicked when they learned you tweaked at the last minute but assured them you got them covered.

That's the downside of working with you. You deliver exemplary works, but you're a bad boss.

You haven't asked for a team really.

But Mr. Bang, the CEO, was quite keen on it. It didn't help much since you still worked until 4 am just a while ago.

As the meeting started, you gradually become excited as you go through the presentation. At the peak of it all, after presenting them the demographics of the fan base, the casual audience, and the target public, you excitingly showed them the graph version of your artist's discography vs. album sales.

Yoongi shifted uncomfortably on his seat as he eyed the steep incline on the screen.

"However, let's take a look here." You prompted before your associate proceeded on the next slide. A zoom in on his last three albums.

You shifted your stance as you pointed out, "We do have a steep curve, but the past three are on the flatter side. Ceteris paribus-"

Mr. Bang cleared his throat and you knew what that meant,

"If we continue in our direction, without changing anything, and not considering other unexpected factors, we will not be able to maximize and use to our advantage the untapped audience."

"We have 25 million users but the engagement is at 30%. This peaks at 60% when the artist releases content--"

"People do have their own lives," Yoongi interrupted but you did not let him disturb your practiced speech.

"This is worse than four years ago when we garnered more promising engagement--"

"People do grow up and have jobs," he interrupted again which by now turned some heads away from your deck and directed to him.

"With all due respect Mr. Min," you diverted to his direction, facing away from the powerpoint.

You took a deep breath, before starting, "I'm here to maximize your potential,"

He scoffed, "Are you my voice coach?"

That left you silent.

Yoongi's mouth formed a silent "Oh,"

"Maybe you're my runway coach? Art director? Publicist?"

"No?" he added further in a mocking tone.

You pursed your lips in a straight line, looking around the table to get somebody's defense. Your gaze finally settled on Mr. Bang.

He's not meeting anyone's stare, but browsed through the next pages of the material.

"My point here is," Yoongi declared, "I'm an artist first, Ms. Y/n, I create. Spontaneously. I do respect your numbers, but don't you think focusing on these takes away my authenticity as a person? You do forget that people vie for my honesty."

More like tolerating his attitude, you want to mutter under your breath but stopped yourself from doing so by gripping your fists by your sides.

"Let her finish. I find these projects interesting. Magazine interviews..."

Yoongi scoffed, "I've done that already,"

"But they're all limited to your music," you retorted.

With a flair of both of his hands, Yoongi reasoned out "Because I'm a musician, what else should I talk about?"

Mr. Bang then went back to reading out loud from the short bickering of the two of you, "Socials and fundraising parties, talk shows guesting, tell me about them, Y/n."

Yoongi answered before letting you, "I'm a performer, not some sort of personality."

"You are a personality, whether you like it or not. You're mysterious and people like that, but to keep them intrigued we have to let them peek at your personal life. People wants someone they can resonate with, or at least someone who inspires them in the middle of the mundane. As much as they do love your music, we will gain more if you let them have a peek," you defended.

"I'm in this industry for ten years. They've seen it all, Y/n."

"Not quite," you retaliated.

"They haven't seen you as an adult. They see you as a performer, yes. As I said, people love following personalities they can reach, even though vicariously, even if just on surface level brain stimulations. We give them understanding, comfort, healing, that's what the company is all about." "Look, you can continue your own creative process, but you just need to put yourself more out there. Press loves stories. Intriguing, good, bad ones. For a celebrity, you sure do love to keep to yourself."

"It's called privacy."

"While being a public figure?"

"There are boundaries."

"And we're looking for expansion of those boundaries. We can compromise. We have to. There are other celebrities who are willing to do more. We can't just keep on dropping big bombs once in a while. Small consistent contents will ball up like a snowball and will have a greater impact on your stability in the industry."

"I know you already made a name. We just have to squeeze it dry."

Yoongi visibly flinched at your metaphor. Regardless, you continued,

"You're an artist. Great artists take risks. At this point, we're doing a well-calculated risk, and there is no measure to how this will turn out but the projection looks good. Show them the chart, Lesley," you told your team.

"The only thing we can do is take it. There's no perfect science, but we have to try it out and see where it will lead us."

"It shows desperation, Y/n."

"It shows strategic business plan while giving you an avenue to challenge your creative process and authenticity. We will lift the contract off with Wrath, let their paparazzis swarm, we will save millions and divert 20% of that funds to your security," you rifled on.

"What's there to hide Yoongi? You're a clean person as far as we know,"

As far as you know

He clenched his fists, teeth gritting, at your proposal.

You could have told him you don't want to see him anymore.

What would happen to his Wednesday dinners with you?

The occasional getaways if you were kind enough to not work on long weekends. He must be the busy one in the relationship given that he's the biggest star in the Company. Turns out the kingmaker's the real star of the show, working behind the scenes, on the sidelines, crunching and nerding out on lines and graphs.

He has come this far while protecting his privacy. Yoongi always get away with the excuse that it's part of his image. Being mysterious. When in fact, he only enjoys the animosity when there are no cameras when he's with you. It's not that he's ashamed of the relationship he has, it was because you made it clear with him, that all this will end if everything blows up in the press.

Mr. Bang cleared his throat as he rested his chin on his folded fingers. He carefully threw you a look before the scrutinizing gaze landed on his most prized talent. It was a fraction of a second when he realized he got his two best people batting heads in front of the board and officers.

"Y/n is right," the vice chair voiced out. "I second," said someone from the board.

The rest of the men and women on the long conference table nodded in agreement. Some of them hopefully looking at Yoongi.

"Besides, whether it's a good  or bad image, publicity is publicity. We need to give something new for the country to talk about. They're interested in you, but they do respect your personal space most of the time," said one of the talent heads.

Mr. Bang spoke up, "How can we make sure Wrath will not release any of their wildcards against Yoongi?" he voiced out, looking at the Legal counsel.

"It's in the contract. Any materials on the artist enclosed within the contract period must be held with strict confidentiality. We are imposing grave penalty once they violate it if ever we decide to terminate the protection deal."

Mr. Bang nodded, "I'm absolutely sure that our artist is clean and does not have any criminal records. His school records are clean. We have filed them," he assured everyone on the table.

Someone chuckled and raised, "More than that, he's the most sought after bachelor. For sure everone's dying to know who he's dating."

You unknowingly took a step back as you listen to them exchanging opinions.

On the other hand, Yoongi is visibly not pleased with any part of the meeting.

"That's a private matter of our artist," Mr. Bang defended.

The person shrugged and quoted, "As Y/n said, he's a public figure. His life is meant to be under the public eye. It's not offensive at all if you ask me--"

"No one's asking for your opinion," Yoongi jabbed, the table fell silent.

"I don't agree with this. You will move at my own pace. If you can't ride with me, I can easily switch management." He declared with finality before walking out of the board room with his manager following suit and apologizing on his behalf.

A loud sigh escaped Mr. Bang's lips.

He took over the meeting and told everyone, "Y/n's idea is promising. We just need another meeting to discuss it while I'll talk to Yoongi for the mean time."

Everyone nodded in satisfaction before they started filing out of the room.

You stayed behind together with your team. Mr. Bang turned his chair to face you. "Please leave me with Y/n," he ordered your team.

The boardroom's door clicked shut before Mr. Bang started, "Thank you, Y/n. It was a wonderful presentation, though I wished I get to hear the end of it. I will review the deck and I'll get back to you. I do have a gist of what you're proposing, but..." he trailed off before tilting his head to one side as he tried to put together the words, "I see you haven't talked to Yoongi about it."

"Mr. Bang, I didn't because everything was not finalized until the last minute. Actually, same projects were retained but I thought diverting the angle on the important numbers and emphasizing these would bring light to the why of things. I only wish the best for his career. If you actually look at slide 25, you'll see the age distribution of the population, we're gathering young ones still despite his tenor in the show business. I looked deeper into the age bracket A and found that, based on consumer and entertainment index, lifestyle was the most common interest with other age groups. It is the strongest suit and tapping into this interest-"

"He wants to retire, Y/n," Mr. Bang uttered silently.

The news shocked you. Retirement was not in his vocabulary. He's been saying how he would perform on stage until he's all wrinkly and wonky. That's how much he loves his job as an artist and as a performer. Though you have noticed how he picked up on some collaborations involving his hands on its productions, performing his own work is still incomparable.

"The crowd just gives me so much energy. Most time I don't even know where I am, what timezone I'm in, but each stage feels surreal, new, it never gets old. I think I'll do this until I can't anymore," you remember him saying one time.

So it then became your purpose to help him achieve that dream. Now that he doesn't want it, out of the blue, perplexes you.

Your heart dropped to the pit of your stomach. You can't put a name on your emotions as of the moment. It was a mix of anger and betrayal, irritation and all negative things. He never told you, not that he's obligated to, but with the relationship you had with him, you thought he'll trust you enough to tell those things.

On second thought, it is a private matter. You have no say on what he wants, if retirement was his plan then okay.

But not without you talking him out of it.

----- It was freezingly cold in the studio and music was blasting together with the random beeps of camera shutter.

You were waiting for Yoongi to finish his schedule before he ends his day. It was in the middle of the week, the time when his photoshoots are usually scheduled. You mostly meet him too after for dinner, having formed a relationship with him. It was a good timing to bring up what happened and what you learned in that meeting the other day. You could have texted him, but that would be unprofessional of you. Besides, it's a work matter.

Crossing your arms by your chest, you observed him from afar. His long and messy hair surely suits him. His cheekbones were highlighted, giving a chiseling effect on the hollow of his jaw and cheeks. Yoongi pocketed a hand, his thumb out, before swaying his body lazily to change his body angle. You unknowingly smiled. In a proud way. He always do things in an elaborate manner while appearing effortless.

He caught your gaze, so you gave him an acknowledging nod. What he did next was unexpected. He paused the shoot, by raising his hand, before jogging to you. It left you flustered and suddenly anxious from all the attention you're getting. Everyone's gaze were on you, or rather on Yoongi. Eyes would always follow his every move.

You shifted, starting to feel uncomfortable being part of everyone's field of vision just because the Star is in front of you, sharing the same space as yours.

"You done with work?" he casually said, unaffected by the curious stares he's receiving.

You shook your head no before finding your voice, "Please finish your shoot, don't mind me, I can wait."

His brows furrowed in confusion before his gaze became softer, "Okay, you can wait in my dressing room," he said to you and it was your turn to be confused. You met his gaze, but he averted his, making you thought he got shy for a bit.

"I can't concentrate with you watching my shoot. I'm not used to it," he muttered, the confession was meant to be heard only by you.

"Oh,"

"Okay," you nodded before turning your back on him and headed straight out of the studio.

As you walked through the hallway, you reprimanded yourself for not being able to think of that alternative. You rarely met him in his personal space, so it didn't really occur to you.

You didn't wait too long, you saw him walking towards the door of his room twenty minutes after. Pushing yourself off the wall, you greeted him with a curt bow. He looked surprised finding you outside.

"Why are you here? I told you to wait inside," he told you before ushering you in.

"Ah, that would be inappropriate. It's okay," you assured him.

He shrugged off of his coat outfit, leaving him in his black shirt. You watched him as he brushed his long hair back and was about to undo his pants before he remembered you were in the room. You quickly turned around, heading to the door. "I'm sorry! I... why are you changing in front of me? I'll wait outside, I--" you rambled as you hurry off, opening the door.

"Y/n! Wait!" he tried to stop you but it was too late.

Shock registered in everyone's faces, from Yoongi's manager, his assistant, makeup artist, stylist, and everyone else on his team. They glanced at Yoongi who was in the middle of undoing his pants and at you whose face were flushed red.

They quickly scurried away while one of them shut the door close as they shouted their apologies.

#yoongi fluff #yoongi x reader #yoongi fanfic #yoongi imagine #bts fanfic #bts angst

[angstyaches]

If you’re still taking prompts, would you write something with Donnacha looking after Henry? Maybe since Henry doesn’t want to go out and hasn’t been shopping, he eats something that’s gone off and it makes him really sick

CW: depression, anxiety around social cues, idk how to tag this but Henry is repeatedly triggered by things he knows are unreasonable but is triggered nonetheless, food mention, food poisoning, chronic pain mentioned, spicy times (hinted at; happening in another room), stomach ache, nausea, emeto, platonic cuddling, platonic kissing, platonic caretaking, brief mention of break-up (Donnacha and Autumn).

Word Count: 4,500 (yeah)

___ 

Henry slowly moved the fork towards his mouth, barely able to convince his lips to come apart long enough to place a scrap of spaghetti Bolognese inside. Then, it was just a case of convincing his jaws to work so that he could chew. It wasn’t much, but it was honest work, he reckoned.

He’d cooked this three days ago, when he’d been hit by a sudden wave of inspiration regarding taking care of his own basic needs. (Bolognese was one of the only things he knew how to make.) He’d also had an exceptionally long shower and shaved his neck that night. Stubble had already found its way back to him, and he hadn’t felt the urge to cook anything else.

He made a face as he chewed. Had his cooking always been this bland, or were his tastebuds checking out as punishment for the lack of variety he’d been offering them? Or maybe he’d blasted them to hell with the microwaved leftovers without realising it? It wasn’t unheard of for Henry to accidentally damage himself and not realise it until hours later.

Still, the food itself couldn’t be too bad, since he hadn’t automatically retched after taking the first bite. His body just liked to complain.

He glimpsed over a couple of pages of The Catcher in the Rye while he ate. The book was one of the oldest things he still owned, gifted to (stolen for?) him by his secondary school English teacher when the school had downsized their library. It still had a list of names glued to the title page, all of them students who had graduated long before he’d even started at the school.

He looked up as he heard the front door click, eyeing the space in the hall that was visible from the living room table.

A low, tittering giggle made his ears tingle. It didn’t match up with the sounds of anybody who usually came through here.

“Don’t worry!” Lucy. “I would’ve tripped, too, but I’m weirdly well-coordinated. I’m like a mountain goat.”

Henry raised an eyebrow, for no one’s benefit in particular. Lucy was so loud when she was tipsy. And such a liar, too. He’d seen her trip over empty air more times than he could count.

She popped into view, tipping her pink-haired head forward and looking into the living room out of habit. All of the flatmates usually did this, sussing out who was already home and occupying the common space.

She had a ‘friend’ with her. The giggler. She was a good half-foot taller than Lucy, helped by a pair of patent black platform sandals.

“Hi, Henry.” Lucy stood with her shoulders pulled back further than normal, with her hands held behind her back. It always amused Henry, just how differently she acted while she was in the middle of seducing someone. Like him, she was a bit of a social shapeshifter. “This is Cassidy.”

“Hi, Cassidy.” Henry was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was a) wearing a tattered wool sweater on top of yet another wool sweater and b) holding a steaming spoonful of spaghetti Bolognese halfway up to his mouth. “Nice shoes.”

“Thanks,” Cassidy grinned. “They tripped me up on the stairs.”

Henry had guessed as much. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” Cassidy took hold of Lucy’s arm. “Ooh, what are you reading there?”

Henry lifted his book to show her the cover.

“Salinger, nice,” Cassidy smiled. Henry didn’t have a good enough grasp on her personality to know if she was being sarcastic or genuine, but what he did know was that she’d just pronounced the ‘g’ in ‘Salinger’ as though it should made a ‘guh’ sound.

He opened his mouth to correct her. “Actually, it’s –”

“We’re going to my room now,” Lucy interrupted. She sounded like a six-year-old bragging about their action figure collection.

Henry nodded sardonically. “Happy for you, hon.”

This was… partly true. He was about five percent happy for his bestie, while ninety percent of his emotional capacity was leaning towards envy and self-hatred. Henry hadn’t brought anyone home in so long that, out of sheer pity, Lucy had stopped outwardly teasing him about it.

The remaining five percent? It was burning with dissatisfaction at not being able to correct Cassidy’s pronunciation of ‘Salinger’.

The two girls continued down the hall, and Henry finally finished bringing his fork to his mouth. His chewing grew a bit more aggressive, and he scooped up some more Bolognese before he’d even swallowed.

His last attempted hook-up had spooked him a little bit, but that had been months ago. Maybe it was time to get back on the apps. Maybe he’d do it tonight. Maybe he’d stay up late, make himself look pretty, take a few new selfies to post –

No. Henry scowled, taking another flavourless bite. No procrastinating. He had a few pretty big commissions on his plate right now, and one of them in particular needed at least a few hours of his attention tonight. And it was already nearing 11pm, as the cat-shaped pendulum clock on the wall informed him.

Shit. Where is the name of all that was holy had the evening gone?

With his stomach relatively full, and his deadline anxiety spiking, Henry started to get up from the table. He grabbed his plate with one hand and his cane with the other, and brought his leftovers (left-leftovers?) to the kitchen.

___

As he settled into his desk chair, Henry pulled on some noise-cancelling headphones to drown out the sounds of t.A.T.u. that were drifting through the wall he shared with Lucy’s room. He didn’t object to Lucy’s music choices in the slightest, but he preferred to block everything out with white noise when he had work to do.

“It’s Salinger,” he grumbled under his breath, knowing Cassidy wouldn’t hear him, but needing to say it in order to move on to the next tasks at hand.

Less than two minutes after he’d pulled up his most pressing project, Henry could feel a steady stream of vibrations beginning just below his ribcage. He briefly pressed a hand against his side, feeling a ripple under his fingers. He didn’t think much of the mild discomfort. Besides a banana and a cup of tea, the leftover Bolognese had been the only thing he’d eaten all day.

He’d have to order groceries soon. He hated how much he dreaded it; he knew he was privileged to live in an age where he didn’t have to drag himself out to the supermarket, but somehow, the mental toll of shopping online was almost as hefty as the physical toll of leaving the apartment.

Maybe he should open a new internet tab and get it over with right now, while he had a vague sort of motivation to do it –

No. Henry gritted his teeth. That was just the urge to procrastinate again. And it was far too late in the day for that.

A streak of light sat across his computer screen, drifting in from the hallway. He always left the door ajar unless he was sleeping. The light hitting the screen swelled now, indicating that someone was opening the door further.

Henry almost screamed at the sudden interruption. Sure, not everybody in the world knew he had just sat down to get some work done, but… they should have!

“What?” he snapped, a little harsher than intended. He spun his chair to face the door as it opened the rest of the way, pulling off his headphones.

Donnacha’s hair was sticking up in the back and sides as he stood there, in light grey tracksuit pants and a Rick and Morty hoodie. He grimaced at Henry’s tone.

“Do you have any spare headphones?”

Henry frowned, his brain still struggling to switch gears. “Uh… yes? My old ones. Why?”

“Well, I left my ear buds at the gym, and… Lucy’s got her ‘getting lucky’ playlist on.” Donnacha grimaced widely and pointed in the general direction of Lucy’s room. “And I’d rather not be hearing it, to be honest.”

“Oh. Well, they’re not noise-cancelling –”

“That’s absolutely grand. I would go and hang out in the living room instead, but it’s freezing out there.” Donnacha pointedly rubbed at his arms, despite looking like a big, comfy marshmallow in his hoodie. “I’d rather be in bed.”

“Mmm.” Henry unplugged his extra set of headphones and extended them towards Donnacha.  

“You’re a lifesaver, Hen.”

“Don’t get the cord tangled,” Henry said, eyeing the way Donnacha immediately began to twirl said cord around his fingers.

“Who, me?” Donnacha grinned pointedly. His eyes flicked towards Henry’s computer screen. “What are you working on?”

“Just… work.” Henry had no desire to elaborate further. One of the most unfair things about social interaction, he’d always thought, was that there was no such thing as a neutral, concise answer. Concise answers were always misinterpreted, either as annoyed, disinterested, or simply rude.

“It’s kinda late to still be working.”

“I suppose it is.”

“’Kay,” Donnacha mumbled. He held the headphones up a little higher, as though waving goodbye with them. “’Night, then. Thanks.”

“Night.”

Henry turned back to his computer, pulled his headphones back on, and slipped back into his work.

___

The stomach ache crept up on him while he was in a fog of concentration, brows in a semi-permanent frown and eyes straining to keep digital lines and text from blurring. It only occurred to him that he should take a short break when a soft belch rumbled up from the pit of his belly and he tasted the tomato and basil from his dinner – much more clearly now than he had when he was actually eating it.

With his headphones blocking all outside noise, he wondered just how loud the belch had just been. Perhaps Lucy and Cassidy had just had their good time interrupted by an eruption from the depths of Henry’s stomach, and he was none the wiser.

He only worried about that for a nanosecond, though.

“Oh – Jesus, really?” Henry whispered to himself as he sat back in his desk chair.

He cradled his belly lightly with one hand. The pain seemed to slam into him all at once. As someone whose body tended to let him down at the most inopportune moments, Henry wasn’t all that surprised or concerned about the appearance of a stomach ache – but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel severely inconvenienced.

Henry snatched his glasses from his face and rubbed at his forehead, too. He wasn’t sure how massaging his head would help his stomach, but it comforted him a little bit. He glanced up in time to see the streak of light spreading across his computer screen again.

He groaned and ripped off his headphones. “Yeah, what?”

“Uh, thanks for the headphones, but they aren’t enough,” Donnacha declared. “I’m enacting Plan B. Retreating to the living room. Do you want to come watch something, seeing as you’re up, too?”

“Donnacha, I’m working, hon.”

“It’s almost one in the morning!” Donnacha chuckled. He tossed the borrowed headphones onto the bed; Henry couldn’t help but glare at the way the cord was wrapped around the top of the headset, and dread the thought of prising it off. “Come on. We can cuddle for warmth.”

“You want to cuddle me for warmth?” While they were roughly of the same height and general build, Donnacha had considerably more padding for combatting the elements than Henry did.

“Offer’s there,” Donnacha shrugged, shivering openly. “I’ll be out here, turning to ice, if you decide to take me up on it.”

Henry sighed. Why not? Lucy was getting some action; a little bit of human contact – even platonic – might ease the sting of jealousy a bit.

Besides, his stomach was bothering him enough that he knew getting back into any kind of flow would be almost impossible. And getting to sleep with Rita Ora lyrics rumbling through the wall didn’t seem very likely, either.

“Fine,” he mumbled, slipping his glasses back on and reaching for his cane. “But not Top Gun.”

“No?” Donnacha exclaimed unceremoniously. “What about Top Gun: Maverick?”

Henry groaned as the effort of standing up not only made his hip protest, but also sent a vice-grip pain through his abdomen.

Donnacha took the noise as one of protest, though. “Hey, I sat through three of your gibbly films –”

“Ghibli,” Henry murmured. What was up with the people in this household refusing to uphold the sanctity of guhs and juhs? How would Donnacha have liked it if Henry had started calling him precious Tom Hanks movie ‘Top Jun’?

“– So, now, you can whisht up and watch something I like.”

“Okay.” Henry didn’t have the capacity to argue, or to make his Top Jun remark. He was barely even sure he had enough energy to get to the living room without needing to stop and curl up in a ball on the floor. His stomach felt like it’d twisted itself up like Donnacha twisted up headphone cords.

He wasn’t getting up any slower than he usually did when his hip flared up, which meant that Donnacha didn’t notice anything was off. Henry was confused at the mild feeling of disappointment this brought on.

“I’m going to make us some tea,” Donnacha decided, turning to make his way towards the kitchen.

___

Henry declined the tea when Donnacha offered to make him some, unsure of how well it would settle in his stomach at this point. The effort of walking from his desk to the living room sofa had shoved the taste of his dinner back up into his mouth again.

He also decided to forgo any further protest regarding Donnacha’s choice of movie; the boy had made a fair (albeit poorly pronounced) point about allowing Henry to choose the movie three times in a row. Plus, maybe Top Gun would finally help Henry understand the appeal that Donnacha saw in piloting.

Three minutes in, Henry knew he’d made the right decision. (Not regarding the movie; it was already as pompous and self-indulgent as he’d predicted it would be.)

But he’d almost... forgotten how nice it was to cuddle, and he wanted to kick himself for not availing of Donnacha’s company more often during the winter months.

Playing rugby and working out meant that his muscles were taut, but his penchant for comfort foods and snacks kept him somewhat soft. His body was in a perfect state of balance. Just like his ability to juggle his career and his hobbies. His city life and his country soul. His athletic side and his intellectual side.

His willingness to watch Studio Ghibli (subbed, not dubbed, as it should be), and his insistence on making Henry sit through Top Gun.

Henry paid as much attention as he could, but it was hard not to let his mind wander in opposite-extreme directions; he was either distracted by the spate of unfinished work that was still waiting for him in his room, or by the fabric-softener scent of Donnacha’s hoodie.

Donnacha was sitting somewhat crookedly with his back against the arm of the couch, with Henry slotted into the space between the cushions and Donnacha’s torso. One arm was locked all the way around Henry’s shoulders, hand resting near Henry’s elbow. Henry had tentatively rested his hand on Donnacha’s stomach at first, but as he curled in closer, he’d reached across and held him by the waist.

With his free arm, Donnacha sipped on his tea, and Henry was almost convinced his stomach was giving off more and more warmth as he drank, even though he knew that was physically impossible.

He had rubbed Donnacha’s stomach once, when it’d been hurting. Looking back, it was definitely one of those times where Henry’s straightforwardness had, perhaps, made the situation more awkward than it needed to be, but Donnacha had seemed to be okay with it.

Would he do the same for Henry now, if he asked?

His closest – scratch that, only – friend growing up had been Lucy, and while they were always there for one another, she had never exactly been the touchy-feely type. They hugged on occasion, but never spontaneously or for an extended amount of time. And as a kid, Henry had had too many experiences of getting something ‘wrong’ – like taking something they weren’t using right out of someone’s hand, or trying to kiss his friends the way his aunts would kiss him on his cheek, or telling someone he loved them… Doing these things meant that he was rude, weird, creepy.

Since last year, it felt like they had started rewriting all of those ‘rules’, just between the two of them.

Henry swallowed and looked up at Donnacha’s clean-shaven jawline. A familiar, yet unpredictable, pang of guilt rippled through his belly. Since he’d been part of the reason for Donnacha ending his previous relationship, Henry couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility towards him. He wondered if that was all this was. Duty. Compensation. Here I am, a consolation prize.

“You okay?” Donnacha asked, noticing his gaze as he took a slurp of his tea.

Henry held his breath and considered telling Donnacha about feeling sick to his stomach. His mouth made a decision before his brain could.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Donnacha smiled, “Good!” and turned his attention back to the movie.

Henry shifted a couple of times during the next hour, adjusting the pressure on his stomach. There was less of a pain there now, which was a small relief until he forced himself to watch the TV screen. The rotating planes and whizzing backgrounds became a little much for Henry’s eyes to cope with.

Henry turned his head as far into Donnacha’s chest as he could without knocking his glasses from his face. Maybe – maybe he could just fall asleep? He found himself wondering if Donnacha would try to carry him back to bed if that happened. The image of his own lanky form being scooped into a bridal carry should have made him snort in derision, but it actually made a lump rise in his throat.

A lump, or... something a little more acidic.

Henry’s eyes shot open. His head felt like it was being swallowed up by the stinging, mouth-watering certainty that things were not okay. A knot of pressure sank to the bottom of his stomach and then took a sharp, upward turn – like water trying to flow down a drain and finding itself being forced back to the surface.

“Donnacha.”

“Yep?”

“I’m going to be sick?”

Henry must have sounded extremely surprised and confused himself, because Donnacha didn’t seem to understand what he’d said at first.

“Something… something I ate is not – hmrph.” Henry shot forward and gagged, almost puking straight onto his pyjama bottoms.

“Shite, where’s the bin?” Donnacha stood up and idly glanced around, clicking his tongue in annoyance. Through teeth that suddenly ground together in annoyance, he muttered, “Payton’s always taking it into their room –”

Henry whimpered as his belly cramped, sending a surge of gurgling, bubbling heat towards his throat. The sound seemed to fill in for the urgency missing in his tone, since it was then that Donnacha truly sprang into action.

“Right – here. Aim onto the blanket for now,” he instructed, grabbing the couch throw and tossing it towards Henry’s lap. He chuckled nervously. “That can go in the washing machine more easily than the carpet.”

Henry nodded, though he had no intention of letting himself vomit onto something that was communal property. Other people used this blanket. He was fairly sure Lucy had paid for it, along with the other random assortment of IKEA pieces in the living room.

Donnacha ran off to the kitchen and immediately started clattering around under the sink. By the time he emerged – mere seconds later – Henry’s chin was streaked with drool from fighting the urge to puke on the throw.

“Here you –”

Henry was already gagging while still in the process of taking the bucket into his hands. He belched forcefully, eyes watering as his pathetic dinner splattered all along the inside of the bucket. There were still lumps of meat, strands of spaghetti, none of it digested beyond Henry’s disinterested chewing.

He tried to draw a ragged breath in between retches, and almost choked for having the audacity. This bucket was used on the rare occasion that someone decided to mop the kitchen and bathroom floors, and it reeked like a pile of old, musty towels.

Henry heaved again.

He was certain his eyes rolled back in his head and that he moaned at one point, as his body curled further and further forward on the edge of the sofa. Like a toothpaste tube being squeezed within an inch of its existence.

And then it stopped, as suddenly as it had started. The relief was so intense that it was almost its own form of pleasure. Henry grimaced at the tickle of laughter that crept up through his chest and throat. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been that violently ill before, and he was so, so glad that it seemed to be over.

For now.

“Hen,” Donnacha said in disbelief, as though he had been waiting for Henry to stop puking before scolding him about it. He handed Henry a tissue that he’d apparently been holding in anticipation. “Your poor belly. What’d you eat?”

Henry dabbed his chin clean, hand trembling horribly. His stomach muscles burned as though he’d just attempted a hundred push-ups. “Just some leftovers.”

“Left over from when? The Last Supper?”

Henry groaned in a feeble attempt to show his dislike for the joke.

“Anyway.” Donnacha rubbed a hand over the bumps in Henry’s spine with one hand, and took hold of the bucket with the other. “We can talk about your bad life choices another time. Try to catch your breath, yeah?”

“Um,” said a voice that wasn’t Lucy’s or Payton’s. “Hi?”

Henry glanced up to see Cassidy standing in the hallway and peering in. She was wearing a plaid shirt of Lucy’s which was not long enough for someone of Cassidy’s height to wear as a nightie.

Shit. Lucy.

Guilt sank its teeth into Henry’s nerve endings. He’d been so distracted, and feeling so god-damn sorry for himself, that he’d almost forgotten Lucy was only a few doors down, likely hearing him purge his guts.

He knew what Cassidy was going to say before she even tried.

“Um,” she mumbled again, tugging the shirt down at the front as though she’d suddenly become conscious of its length. “Lucy is very distressed, and she sent me to ask you if someone is… vomiting?”

From the way she scrunched up her nose and eyed the mop bucket, it seemed as though Cassidy already had her answer.

“Food poisoning!” Donnacha sounded like he was shouting out an answer on Family Fortune. “Tell her it’s – it’s food poisoning. Not contagious in the slightest. That’ll make her feel… well, a smidge better about it.”

Cassidy nodded slowly, as though she understood but… didn’t fully understand.

“Donnacha, by the way. My pronouns are he/him.”

“Hi. Cassidy. She/her.” Cassidy shook herself. “Anyway. Bye, guys.”

“Bye, Cassidy,” Henry and Donnacha both droned, Henry mumbling it miserably through a mouthful of watery spit, Donnacha furrowing his brow and returning to rubbing Henry’s back.

“Are ya alright?”

Henry shrugged. He slowly began to sit back. The thought of letting himself sink into the sofa cushions was pure bliss. How food poisoning managed to affect every inch of the human body – not just the digestive tract, as predicted – he would never know.  

“Your poor belly,” Donnacha said again, though his tone wasn’t as interrogative this time. He clicked his tongue sympathetically, and slid a little closer.

He then seemed to realise that Top Gun was still playing on the screen, and he reached for his phone to turn it off.

“Sorry,” he laughed softly.

 Henry’s heart skipped a beat when a warm hand slid across his stomach, rubbing back and forth over his bubbling insides. The gesture was so sudden and so casual that Henry barely registered the shift in Donnacha’s actions. It was as natural as a hug, seemingly.

“’Glad you got some of it up,” Donnacha said. “'Least it’s a little bit emptier in there now.”

Henry nodded weakly, entranced by the warmth that Donnacha’s hand seemed to be injecting directly into his organs as he massaged his stomach. He found himself desperately wondering what was going through Donnacha’s head right now, but unable to find the words to find out.

“So…” Donnacha cleared his throat. “Please don’t tell me you ate that dodgy-looking pasta that was sitting in the fridge earlier? Because I swear to the Lord and back, Henry – if you thought that was okay to eat, you are taking the piss, and you need to go back to the optician’s and demand a refund on those new lenses.”

“I was just being lazy,” Henry murmured. “That’s all. Won’t…” He winced, feeling Donnacha’s hand automatically shift across his stomach in response to a sharp cramp. “Won’t happen again. Believe me.”

Donnacha made a noise in his throat – a hum of concern, perhaps, with a healthy dose of scepticism thrown in. He seemed to hesitate for a second before moving his face closer to Henry’s head and pressing a loud kiss into a clump of his hair.

“Hey, listen,” he whispered, stilling his hand on Henry’s belly.

Henry did, holding his breath.

Donnacha raised his free hand to point. “Since they’re not… playing music anymore,” he said, “I guess it means you and me can get some sleep now.”

While Henry had to admit that sleeping off the stomach cramps in his own bed sounded like heaven, ruining his best friend’s night and causing her to have a mild-to-severe panic response seemed like an unfair cost.

“You’re an awful human,” he muttered.

“What?” Donnacha exclaimed. “They’ve had their fun. Hours of it. It’s bed time now.”

Henry reluctantly nodded. His arm automatically lifted as Donnacha shifted his weight and made to put his arm around Henry’s back and help him up. It was a rare feeling, for him to relinquish control of his limbs, even for just a few seconds until he was on his feet and his cane was within reaching distance.

“I’ll give the bucket a rinse-out in the bath,” Donnacha said as soon as Henry was upright and established.

“Hopefully I won’t need it again.” It was a hollow hope, given the rumbling feeling that pressed against the base of Henry’s ribcage. He took a few measured steps in the direction of his bedroom, conscious of the fact that his posture was more curved than usual.

“If you do, I’ll bring Lucy your noise-cancelling headphones.”

A shudder rippled up Henry’s spine at the thought of Donnacha getting his twisty, wrap-happy hands on his good headphones.

“I know you’re joking,” he huffed, “but please don’t touch those. Ever.”

#emeto #sickfic #food poisoning #food poisoning fic #OC sickfic #OC emeto #stomach ache fic #emetophilia #platonic caretaking #hurt comfort #hurt and comfort #angst #Lucyverse #Lucyverse Henry

[lionsongfr]

~The Very Hungry Aether~

At the sound of crashing pans and yells, MellowMelon raised one set of his frills upwards at the sound before slowly turning his head. A Mirror, his lovely mate BonFire, was wrestling with some odd squabbling insect critter. Shifting his frills back to their relaxed state he turned back to his sauce on the stove.

She’s got this, he thought with amusement.  

He stirred the pan as his mate finally secured the creature and shoved it near his face.

“You see this? This. This. THIS DEVIL INSECT.”

“Do you want me to fricassee it or roast it, my dear?”

“If only. I want you to feed the blasted creature. Supposedly she is a dragon of some sort.”

Mellow turned an eye towards the still squirming creature. Six limbs, fluffy fur, and chitinous wings. She was about as big as he was, but he was one of the smallest of dragon kind and there were plenty of bugs much bigger than him in this world.

“Are you sure?”

A deep dramatic sigh emanated from Bon, “Yes, we got the Pelican Post a few days back announcing these dragons crash landed from space and are called Aethers. Supposedly Arcane born, but this one has Light’s grace upon it. But that is not the issue!”

He waited a bit, letting the tension build before speaking, “What issue may that be, my-“

 “SHE EATS PAPER. SHE ARRIVED DURING THE MISTRAL JAMBOREE. PAPER LIKE MESSENGER SCROLLS. SHE ATE HALF OUR STOCK.”

He held his frills straight, trying his best to not laugh at his mate’s dramatics.

“Well, that’s definitely a problem. Leave the insect with me and I’ll fatten it up so much that dragons will wonder why a Bumble is at the festival.”

“Thank you so much, my flutter heart.” 

Bon gently stopped the squirming Aether from chewing upon her headdress and plopped her into an open crate. With a stern claw she pointed at the Aether,

“STAY.”

The Aether looked upward, her nose crinkled in a smile, 

“Chirrrrp!”

 Food for a Paper Hungry Aether

First Spring Rolls- a rice paper wrapper filled with thin slices of Cucumber, Green Shoots, Minty Jadevine, Water Lettuce, and green Wild Onion. Served with a hot Wild Mustard sauce.

Fruit Scrolls-a pale brown fruit leather made from Yellow Bananas or Sour Green Apples. Can be served long in scroll form or cut into rectangles and wrapped around a wedge of Micro Goat cheese for a sweet and savory bite. Edible Ant Ink can also be applied to the fruit leather to make cool tongue tattoos!

Bookworm Bar- a sweet crumbly pastry made of Woodland Acorn flour. It is rolled around a paste of Tricolor Caterpillar, Fig, and Cinnamon with a thin layer of Luminous Almonds in the middle. It is then baked before being sliced into rectangular portions.

Nymph en Papillote (in paper)- Nymph’s are delicate and easy to overcook, steaming them in parchment paper pouch allows for a tender and juicy bite…with added crunch of paper for the Aether. Typical additions to the pouch are sea salt, Potash Peach, dried Golden Pepper, and Potato Onions.

Moth Mille Feuille (million sheets)- a crunchy layered dish of five layers of flattened puff pastry, Fairy Ear mushroom filling, toasted Crunchy Moth legs, and Fragile Moth Wing pastry cream. Dusted with dried Giant Dust Mite to recreate that dusty book flavor!

#Long post #Flight rising #fr headcanon #lore #food #Aether #clan lore #clan of the Lionfish #FR: MellowMelon #FR: BonFire #FR: DawnChirp

[armchairsoapbox]

I’ve been thinking about why I like Rogue One so much even though frankly Empire is supposed to be the GOAT. And I think it comes down to this —

Everyone dies.

Yes, there’s more to it.

Empire is about the heroes of the Rebellion. Leia is still a princess, Han is now a Rebel general, Luke is a literal space wizard and golden boy who spends part of his time training to better use his mystic powers from a hidden sensei. And even though Bad Things happen, it’s such a hopeful story! The Empire found them on Hoth but the ion cannon works and they can evacuate and escape. Han is tortured, but look, he’s literally put on ice instead of killed outright; we know there’ll be a rescue attempt. Luke loses his hand and deals with intense trauma, but look, he’s alive and recovering at the end of the movie on the medical ship. They lived, they’re hopeful, they’ll be back.

Rogue One is about the little people. You don’t know anything about them until the movie, and you’ll never hear anything about them after. They were mostly bit players in life to begin with. An imperial shuttle pilot? A Rebel operative, of the sort to get a “many Bothans died” acknowledgement from the main characters at best? One of the nameless scientists who worked on the Death Star? Who’s going to remember them? No one. They are very small and the Empire is very big, so big that striking back seems impossible, and they spend so much time running, and running is damn near hopeless because the Empire is everywhere, and when they fight back it’s to go on a desperate one-way mission that they barely dare to hope will work but what choice do they have left but that or lie down and die? They can’t run forever, and they’ve lost so much, and please, let it all have meant something

And then they do die, in small and desperate ways, each overrun, gunned down, not even allowed to surrender the way the Rebels on Endor initially were before the Ewoks showed up. There’s no escape for them. Andor and Erso don’t get to fly out on a shuttle the way Luke escaped from the second Death Star with Anakin’s body. In the face of the coming blast wave, they do the only thing they can do: they hug, desperately, clinging to whatever animal comfort they can still have despite the terror, and wait.

They lost everything. But they succeeded. Not even in something big like actually destroying the Death Star - no, that will take Luke, one of the Main Characters, to actually accomplish, and when he does he’ll become a hero even the Emperor will have heard of. These small people are not Luke, not Leia, not Han. Not even Chewie or Lando. Hell, they’re not even Porkins, because their story isn’t big enough to be told in the “actual” movies…

But Luke couldn’t have destroyed the Death Star without them.

No medals for Rogue One. No victory ceremonies. Only desperation, and grief, and loss, and love, and an anonymous grave in the vaporised ruins of Scarif Base. They were small and forgotten, background bit players in the Skywalker saga, literally just a footnote to A New Hope. But this was their story, the story of little people whose loss and pain and rage were no less meaningful than anything Luke and Leia and Han went through, and who had nothing left but each other — and barely that, too, at the end, when it came.

#Star Wars #Rogue One #Empire Strikes Back #jyn erso #Cassian Andor #would Threepio and Artoo be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern #what if Uncle Lars was Uncle Willy Loman #can you imagine if your only role in life #was to die so your adopted nephew could have a tragic backstory #have some care for the small side characters #it’s not Their Story but their story is no less real to them

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Déjà Vu

The first Crosby, Stills & Nash album was good. It showcased the tight harmonies and floaty melodies that the three superstars could produce when put together. But the addition of Neil Young to the group was the catalyst that elevated their second album to new heights. The tight harmonies remain, and many songs have the same lighthearted floatiness, but the album is now tempered by Young's melancholy. Hits like Teach Your Children and Our House still carries that corny optimism and that's good, it gives the album variety. But it's the edgier tracks, Almost Cut My Hair, Woodstock, and Country Girl that make the album stand apart from it's contemporaries.

Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

Compared to other Wu Tang solo albums Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is the most dedicated to the kayfabe of inner city gangsta attitudes. The album has a loose concept based around the idea of pulling off one more heist before retiring and this lends it cohesiveness. Ghostface Killah is notably featured on nearly every track and I'm not gonna complain. Any two members of Wu Tang Clan have incredible chemistry but Rakwon and Ghost are completely in sync on this album. RZA must be shouted out as usual bringing in his punchiest, most aggressive beats mixed with his signature piano and a touch of string to suggest film music. It should also be noted that Criminology is the best Wu Tang song period. Ghost and Raekwon are showing off their GOAT status with the lyricism, flow, and speed and RZA has given them his best beat ever.

TLC - CrazySexyCool

With one of their members in rehab and tensions running high within the group it's hard to imagine that TLC would pull off one of the best albums of the 90s. But with CrazySexyCool they managed to reinvent themselves as a serious and sensual R&B group with strong hip hop overtones. They also earned a cast of promising guests including production by Sean Combs and Phife Dawg and features by Andre 3000 and Busta Rhymes. Unfortunately due to being in rehab Left-Eye only has a couple of verses on the album, but they are all winners. It's an album that it funky with deep bass grooves but drums that are very danceable. And the beats have to be deep and powerful to match T-Boz and Chili's rich full voices. It cannot be overstated how incredible TLCs vocals are. It's the perfect album for blasting from your car stereo in 94.

Oasis - Definitely Maybe

I don't think I'd go so far as to say Oasis is a good band, but this is at least their best record. Imagine is The Stone Roses second album had been far less disappointing than the one we got but still a little disappointing. That's Definitely Maybe. Oasis' greatest flaw will always be in their production. No band puts out flatter less interesting mixes than Oasis. I'm actually impressed at how they get worse with each album. Definitely Maybe suffers from a lot of the same problems, mainly that it's over compressed and everything is sitting in the exact same place in the mix causing every instrument to vie for your attention with equal weight at all times. It makes it hard to know what you are hearing sometimes. I hate it. But at least this album is aiming for a shoegazey kind of sound so it sometimes works. It's a kind of enjoyable album. I wouldn't ask someone to turn it off.

Elliott Smith - Either/Or

Listen imma have to be real, I cannot review this album. Not really. It's too personal. like do I recommend Either/Or? Yes. Top ten album for me personally. See the things Elliott Smith says and the way he says them resonate with me in a way that I'm not really always comfortable with. He, like myself, struggled with ADHD and chronic depression so the vibe I get of disconnect, dispassion is too relatable. Sometimes depression takes the form of detachment from things that are supposed to be enjoyable and Either/Or plays in that emotional space a lot. This album sees me. There is emotional sincerity and fragility here that cuts me to the core and hurts me. But like, I've stewed on these songs for a long time. I've gone back to them repeatedly and torn them apart to get as much out of them as possible. I have no idea what you might get out of them on a first listen. I guess in all the emotional uncertainty it's worth noting that the album ends on a positive note. Say Yes, where the singer does not expect his love to be reciprocated but it is. Where his depression tells him that he is unlovable but he wakes up to a world where he is loved anyway.

#500 album gauntlet #crosby stills nash and young #raekwon #TLC #oasis #elliott smith

[bye-bye-miss-american-pie]

Things I liked and disliked about Thor: Love and Thunder

Full spoilers below!!!

Also mandatory disclaimer that this is just my opinion and it’s as valid as anyone else’s! :)

Starting off with the positivity!! Things I liked:

The choreography and aesthetics of the film just blew my mind. Everything was pretty!!! The B&W battle scene where the only colour came from the illumination from the weapons? The battle against Zeus scene with the gold dust? The final battle with Guns N’ Roses blasting in the background???? Beautiful.

AXL Heimdallson and the kids. Say what you want about child actors but I thought their involvement was cute.

New Asgard basically being this quirky Norwegian village that is now a tourist destination.

Everything Valkyrie does. Especially when they LET HER BE GAY!!!

Jane’s character development and story. I got spoiled so I went in knowing she’d die, but the second part of the movie really hammered in her struggle and made me like her so much more. They also kinda redeemed the Thor and Jane romance for me since I never cared for it, but now it’s bittersweet.

The Guardians appearing. I just love my funny space gang.

Love Thordottir. Enough said.

Those fucking goats.

The fact that Mjölnir chose Jane because Thor told it to protect her. He unintentionally gave Jane the power of Thor with his love. And she used it to protect Thor in the end by sacrificing herself.

Now for the not-so-positive stuff AKA things I disliked:

The first half of the movie was just rushed and messy. It tries to be “stylistic” but the quippy and comedic moments just felt awkward as they try to cram in 1) Thor’s trauma and grief, 2) Jane’s cancer plot (and apparently their love story matters now! After Ragnarok so casually dismissing it), and 3) the God Butcher arc. It gets way better in the second part of the movie as things run more smoothly.

The Guardians, again. I think Taika just doesn’t know how to direct those characters, as the acting of that Guardians scene was so stiff and bad. All of them are just caricatures of themselves. It’s like the only guide Taika had with the Guardians was “they’re funny” and ran with it. And Groot’s CGI??? Wtf was that??? But honestly this just shows that James Gunn is the best choice for directing the GotG movies 🤷🏻‍♀️

They kind of randomly nerfed Valkyrie near the end of the movie. Why didn’t she participate in the final battle? It’s a nitpick but I wish she got to shine too.

Thor’s new armour didn’t do it for me.

The stakes of the movie never felt that high despite there being a literal GOD KILLER roaming around. Maybe I was just not that invested in the MCU anymore but Ragnarok had felt more gripping and urgent.

That’s it!! Overall I’d rank it above Doctor Strange MoM and most of the Phase Four films, but I’m still waiting for Guardians Vol 3 to completely blow it out of the water.

#no one asked for this #yet I shall deliver #a lot of it are nitpicks actually and my thoughts on a movie usually change after it marinates a while in my head #negativity cw #thor love and thunder spoilers #thor love and thunder #thor love and thunder review #fandom: marvel #ramblings

[oh-phineas]

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Phineas Flynn | Oneshot

For the October task, Do You Like Scary Movies?

Featuring: Candace Warnings: None

Phineas Flynn didn’t believe in Santa Claus. He didn’t believe in the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, either.

But he did believe in the Great Pumpkin.

When Phineas was five, he’d woken up in the middle of the night to see his mom slipping a coin under his pillow after he’d lost a tooth. And from that point on, he set about empirically proving, once and for all, the veracity or falseness of every mythical holiday entity. The next year, he saw his parents putting the presents under the tree, and hiding eggs around the lawn.

This year, his dad packed up and left with no warning. This year, his mom was hard to reach, and Love Händel was always blasting from her room. This year, Candace was extra irritable, and Phineas only had one thing left on his list.

Candace insisted that Phineas must have made up the Great Pumpkin himself, because nobody else on the planet had even heard of it. But Phineas didn’t care what Candace thought. He didn’t care what anyone thought, because everyone laughed when Phineas tried to explain the Great Pumpkin. And Phineas didn’t care if people laughed at him. 

It just felt important. Like this was his last chance at... something.

“What’s the Great Pumpkin?” the red-haired girl looked at Phineas curiously, and Phineas didn’t see anything mean or teasing in her expression like with everybody else. 

Phineas didn’t need anyone to believe him, or even to come with him to the pumpkin patch on the night of Halloween. But it would be kind of nice if someone did.

“The Great Pumpkin comes on Halloween night to the pumpkin patch, bringing gifts for everyone who believes in him. But only those who believe in him,” Phineas said seriously, turning his attention back to the letter he was drafting for the Pumpkin. 

“Give me a break,” Candace groaned, rolling her eyes, as she walked past the scene that was playing out on the playground of Danville Elementary. “You’re gonna miss trick-or-treating for some stupid pumpkin that doesn’t exist?”

 Phineas ignored her. 

The red-haired girl seemed unfazed. Maybe she really believed Phineas, or maybe she just liked him, or maybe she’d jump at the chance to get a present, even if it wasn’t guaranteed. 

“So you’ll be there tonight?” she asked. “Instead of tricks-or-treating?”

“Yeah,” Phineas said, signing his name with a flourish. He looked at the girl. “Will you?”

She nodded, and sure enough, as the moon rose over the pumpkin patch at Hundred Acre Farms, there were two small figures among the pumpkins, watching, shivering, waiting. Phineas’s gaze was firmly fixed on the sky. The girl kept glancing over her shoulder at the exit. She was growing impatient.

“Any minute now...” he murmured, and he wasn’t actually sure about that, but he wanted to be. This was either the beginning of something or the end of everything. And for a while, Phineas had been content to live in that in-between space, but he was a whole year older now, and he felt he deserved answers. 

Because what if the adults all lied? What if there was no Santa Claus and no Easter Bunny and no Tooth Fairy, and no Great Pumpkin, either? What if holidays came and went and the mythical, magical people who were supposed to turn up weren’t mythical or magical at all, they didn’t turn up because they didn’t really exist, at least not the way you wanted them to?

What if there was no Great Pumpkin? Just a bunch of crappy little weenie pumpkins that got eaten by goats, eventually?

Before Phineas could ponder this any longer, though, there was a stirring in the distance. Phineas sat up straighter. “This is it! It’s him!”

It was too dark to see, but Phineas was certain. This had to be the Great Pumpkin, didn’t it? 

He leaned forward, and the girl leaned forward, too, and then she groaned loudly. 

“It’s a freaking dog, Phineas! It’s a beagle!” she complained, standing up and dusting herself off. “I’m going home! It’s too cold for this. I want to go trick-or-treating. And my dad’s probably wondering where I am anyway.”

Phineas’s dad wasn’t. His mom probably wasn’t, either. So he stayed in the pumpkin patch, his chin stuck out over his knees, looking up at the moon with his hope waning by the moment. The Great Pumpkin hadn’t come yet, but... well, if it did, Phineas didn’t want to miss it.

When Phineas woke up the next morning, sprawled across the pumpkin patch, alone and shivering and covered in dew, there was a pillowcase full of candy next to him. A gift from the Great Pumpkin! So he had missed him after all!

He snatched the pillowcase up and ran all the way home, burst through the door, and ran up the stairs two-at-a-time. “Candace! He came! The Great Pumpkin came! I told you so!”

Candace didn’t look up from the magazine she was reading, but she did smile to herself. So Phineas hadn’t noticed, after all, that the pattern on the pillowcase matched the exact sheets she was perched on right now.

Yes, the Great Pumpkin came indeed. 

#swyntask #i just think charlie brown is rlly cute idk lol #self para #candace #the redhead girl could be the little redhead girl from charlie brown canon or it could be laurette lol #this isn't like canon but its not not canon idk #also we're pretending this takes place in a universe where this could logistically happen and children could just stay up all night in #a pumpkin patch unsupervised #ITS CHARLIE BROWN OK

[ravenwooduk]

Week 5 Ravenwood Long-Pigs vs Innsmouth Deep Ones

Out for the count

Fired up after the injustice of the missing match winnings and inspired by the skills learned with guest coach Thunden, the Long-Pigs were delighted to be facing the top of the table Deep Ones on home turf.

Speculation about the tactics of the humans were answered at the opening kick-off, the visitors won the toss and elected to kick the ball, and the Long-Pigs setup for a battle with a seven man from on the line of scrimmage. Rache collected the high kick and the game was underway. The humans launched into their chaos opponents from all sides, blasting the visitors back with the halfings and catcher core getting as stuck in to the fray as the blitzers. Johan 'Showtime' Blitzen knocked out a mutant beastman in the opening action of what was to be his most productive game as a Long-Pig. Itching to join in was ball carrier Rache, who advanced to midfield behind the carnage.

Shocked by the ferocity of the human assault and on the back foot, the larger Innsmouthers regrouped and engaged the humans where they could, knocking Dolph Xandersson onto his back. Beastman giantkiller Carter, lined up softly-spoken lineman Stefan Gundersen but they both dropped to the ground.

Looking to go again, the humans regained their feet and attacked the Chosen players, targeting the biggest and strongest. Hard-hitting Rufus Zwerg-Jaegar sparked out the Troll in a move that epitomised the game. Blitzen, rather than continue with the brawl, looped round the opposition secondary to find space in scoring range. With the visitors in a commanding position over the centre circle, Rache crossed the line of scrimmage with support on three sides. Mutant beastman El Pedrino dropped back to cover the scoring threat, the Chosen warriors engaged and the mutant herd trotted in to pressure the ball with Pickman's Model blitzing onto Rache who dipped his shoulder to take the hit but was smashed back, knocking the ball free.

Zwerg-Jaegar, knocked out big Chosen Blocker, Rowley, freeing his teammates to crowd the ball,  forcing the mutant herd towards the side-line, a fortunate bounce saw the ball pop into the arms of Dolph Xandersson. Two more Long-Pigs rushed into scoring range and Blitzen fought his way free, knocking out his marker. With extreme effort, the Chaos players sprinted to reposition themselves to retake the ball but only managed to push Xandersson out from the scrum. A few well coordinated blocks carved a path up-field where the ball was handed off to Blitzen who loped up-field to score.

Of the unconscious players, only the troll recovered enough to take the field although the troll's condition was questionable. With a three player advantage, Gustave Rache was heard screaming at his team mates to "turn the screw" until he was silenced by captain von Bismarck who responded, "We get it, 'Ratchet' focus on your game!" dubbing him with a playing moniker.  The visitors lined up with a power house up front and the backfield arcing in a protective pocket but unused to being outnumbered, they were caught napping as four of the faster human side attacked their half as the ball was kicked long. This pressure put key beastmen in contact although Gaspedal stumbled while trying to dodge through the line to attack the ball from mid-field.

The Deep Ones moved their available players to protect the ball and the Chosen blockers on the front line asserted their dominance with some brutal blocking. Fearing a follow up from the Long -Pigs blitzers, the chaos goats tried to manoeuvre into a safer cage but a clash with Amadeus Beck ended the turn, leaving the ball carrier exposed in the middle of the visitors backfield. Three human catchers combined to smash the ball from his cloven hands and, throwing caution to the wind, 'Ratchet' Rache, sprinted in to collect the ball and passed it into coverage to Blitzen who spun away from his marker and doubled the lead.

The touchdown celebrations failed to rouse any of the chaos players from the concussion box, so the teams lined up again, with only minor adjustments to the formations. This time the Deep Ones pushed forward, gathering the ball and levelling two-thirds of the front line while advancing in a wide screen to protect the ball and push players into the opposing half.

In an action more disturbing that the stench of The Hound and perhaps related to his earlier concussion, the troll vomited all over himself. With the troll at his feet, von Bismarck combined with Pip Chancer to carve a seam across the centre spot as the humans enveloped the visiting team with Gaspedal sprinting to pressurise the ball carrier. Trying to reassert some dominance on the field, Asleep at the Wheel butted Xandersson into the apothecaries tent but having built up some protection, the ball carrier failed to escape from Gaspedal's clutches, leaving the ball in the open. After a brutal smash block from Zwerg-Jaeger, Rache ran in to collect the ball and pitched it laterally to Gaspedal, who ran unopposed to extend the lead to 3:0.

Still outnumbered, but this time 8:10 players, the teams squared up to go again, with precious little time remaining in the half. The kick went short and wide and despite some concussive blocking, the Deep Ones failed to advance far enough to threaten the end zone, with Blitzen shrugging off another beastman's charge. The Long-Pigs, recovered the ball and passed it out of harms way to Beck. Some pushing and shoving on the line of scrimmage closed out the half.

Invigorated by both the Bloodweiser and the prospect of causing an upset, all available Long-Pigs were available while the visitors were still groggy and still two players down. The ball was kicked high and deep, expertly caught and run back, behind a screen of beastmen. The home team responded aggressively, attacking the screen with Gaspedal marking the ball carrier, pods of human players swept left and right with a lightweight safety crew hanging back from the contact.

It took three players to deal with the threat of Gaspedal who kept his feet but was forced away form the ball carrier and with players closing in from both sides, the beastman advanced to the centre spot where there was some protection. The troll coulf have contributed to this cage, but having been knocked down by von Bismarck, he remained on the floor, oblivious to the game around him.

Calling in all open players to assist, the Long-Pigs overwhelmed the cage knocking down two chosen blockers and the ball carrier, sending the ball scattering into the open field. Innsmouth retaliated with some crunching blocks, one of which seriously injured Tomas Hawken but when Pickman's Model recovered the loose ball and tried to dart back in amongst him team mates he fell, stunning himself on the Astrogranite. Without hesitation, the Long-Pigs moved in on the ball, with captain Kurgan von Bismarck gifting the ball to Johan 'Showtime' Blitzen who sprinted for the endzone, completing his hat-trick and putting the score to 4:0.

At this stage, the tumultuous celebrations from players and fans disrupted the Cabalvision camera crews. Blitzen, already the top scorer in team history, had set a league record 3 TDs in one game and the 4TD haul was also the highest of any league team this season.

The game was not over, the visiting Chaos Chosen, had their sights set on a bonus point, even if a win or a draw was out of the question and knowing that the humans would most likely converge on the ball, a third casualty looked like a good possibility.

In a record setting mood, the Long-Pigs, maintained their aggressive 3-2-5 tight formation, hoping to get another shot at the ball and a turnover. The Deep Ones finally found their metal and started knocking the home team, not just off their feet, but off the pitch. The armour that had held up so well for the first twelve turns started to fail, and losing the numerical advantage, the humans failed to isolate the ball carrier and the Chaos cage ground steadily up the pitch.

Every player on the field on both sides (with the possible exception of the troll who hardly contributed to the game since turn five) put their body on the line in a series of increasingly desperate attempts to move or stop the ball, but the strength and grit of the Chosen won through, with Pickman's Model trotting over the whitewash to earn a well deserved and hard fought TD, too late for Ravenwood to reply. A late hit from Chosen Blocker Gloucester, secured the casualty and consolation bonus point for Innsmouth ending a game where records and armour were broken 4:1.

Vindicated by both the teams performance and the impressive winnings from the gate, coach Ravenwood took the press conference flanked by hat-trick hero Johan Blitzen, Kurgan von Bismarck and new signing Brando 'The Mutilator.'

"We are now looking to secure a position in the play-offs, we are aiming for bonus point wins in our last two games but the Labyrinthians will need to slip up if we are going to take the top spot. This was always a building year, but we are peaking at a good time and we have lots of options for how to play. We will have a couple of lads missing in the next game, but we have the squad to still field a competitive team. Taking down the top team in the league in such style is a massive boost, but we cant let that go to our heads. The addition of Brando will give us some useful muscle against the Skaven who we can almost match for speed but we have never faced the Nobility so that could be interesting."

#long-pigs #mml #blood bowl 3 #Youtube

[gloryextinct]

okay so now to tie all the crowley posting together (on crowley's care and interests, on crowley being "good"). the final fight of the series happens not just because aziraphale and crowley disagree with each other (which they do, that's why they keep having the same argument over and over again), but also because aziraphale has misunderstood something extremely fundamental to crowley as a person. we as the audience know that crowley would never want to be an angel again, but aziraphale doesn't. aziraphale, like the fans, has fallen into the trap of looking completely past the demonic persona that crowley projects, and only seeing the good inside him. and yes, crowley does play up the whole demon bit out of fear and to keep himself safe, especially during s1. but only looking at the good parts of crowley is a problem because it's not entirely a façade for him. crowley is mess of contradictions, he's good but he's not benevolent, he's manipulative and cunning but also caring and passionate, he's kind but his kindness is often selfish. and s2 crowley is really struggling with all that, he hasn't yet been able to reconcile all the different parts of himself to figure out the kind of person he wants to be without a hellish influence over him. that's why he's still in contact with hell, he doesn't know what to do with himself without it. 

he told aziraphale that the angel he was before isn't him anymore, and he wasn't just saying that to throw aziraphale off the fact that he was lying about killing the goats and the children. falling changed crowley, it traumatized him and he'll never be able to regain that innocence, love and joy that he once had. it's forced him to do things he never would've before and to learn new things about himself. and he does actually like some of the ways he's changed. crowley is angry and resentful and hurt about being cast out of heaven unfairly, but he doesn't regret falling and he also doesn't hate the person that falling made him into. he hates hell, and he hates his lack of freedom because of hell, but he doesn't hate being a demon. he not out here secretly wanting to be good, but being unable to (except surreptitiously) because of his allegiance to hell. crowley denies it when people call him nice or good for a lot of reasons; it's opposite to the carefully crafted image of himself that he presents to people, for awhile doing good could put him in a lot of danger, and also crowley recognizes the expectations that come with being perceived as good and doesn't want to be beholden to them. he just wants to be able to choose to be good for himself and for his own reasons, just as much as he wants to be able to choose to be bad for himself and his own reasons.

aziraphale doesn't understand that about crowley though. he doesn't understand that the reason crowley's car is black, and that he always drives it so fast, and blasts loud music is because crowley likes it like that. it's not an act, he just likes being like that. and i think the bentley is the perfect object to show that tension because it's really easy to make an argument that crowley dresses the way he does and furnished his apartment the way he did to maintain a certain image of himself. but crowley just unreservedly loves the bentley. the car's not the way it is because he's trying to seem cool and demonic, it's like that because he loves it that way.

sidebar, but i also think it's an interesting comparison to see how aziraphale and crowley both act alone in each other's spaces. crowley's behaviour is pretty unobtrusive. he doesn't like when he doesn't have anything to do so he's just in there rearranging the books with jim. we don't know exactly why, whether he's alphabetizing them to make them easier to find, or if he's moving books from piles on the floor to shelves, or sorting through new acquisitions, or if he's fixing the mess that jim's been making. the point is that he's not fundamentally changing anything about the shop, just moving it around a little bit. it feels more similar to his regular role in their relationship where most of the time crowley's not actually making aziraphale do something he doesn't want to, he's just providing him with excuses to do what he wanted to do already but felt he shouldn't. crowley is much more familiar with aziraphale's boundaries than aziraphale is of his because honestly crowley kind of lets him do whatever he wants. i don't think aziraphale changing the bentley is supposed to mean that aziraphale actually wants to change crowley, but i do think it's meant to show just how much aziraphale doesn't fully understand crowley either from genuine ignorance or because he's convinced himself otherwise for his own sense of self. crowley usually lets aziraphale get away with a lot, and i think aziraphale has absolutely no idea of what crowley's boundaries actually are. i'm sure he knew that crowley would be unhappy about him changing the car but from his perspective this would resolve in one of two ways: crowley wouldn't be happy about it, but ultimately he'd let aziraphale do it anyway because he's let him get away with changing the car before when he put the bike rack on, or crowley would grumble about it because he felt he had to but he would secretly really like it. both of those are key parts of their established dynamic. i think that if aziraphale had known that crowley would be actually be upset about the changes enough to demonically intervene, he probably wouldn't have done it. and just like with the offer to return to heaven, we as the audience know that this is something crowley will hate and object too, because crowley loves his car with its mind of its own and penchant for turning all music into queen eventually. but somehow aziraphale had missed that

in s2, crowley doesn't act all that different from how he did in s1. yes, he's much more comfortable and open in his affection and devotion to aziraphale, because after millenia he finally can be. one could even argue that he's a little less mean to other people than he was before. but otherwise, he's not all that different. so it's probably a good time to talk about crowley's façade then, the demonic pretense that he maintains. crowley is, in the show and the book, absolutely driven by his anxiety and fear. but he can't actually let himself be seen as afraid in hell, so he's had to develop ways of functioning through his fear, without letting on to how he's actually feeling. in the show, he'll get angry instead, being far more prone to cruelty than usual. in all canons, crowley really has a fake it til you make it mentality, and he's so careful about the way he presents himself to the world. 

in the show especially both crowley and aziraphale have a complicated relationship with the truth, chronic liars that they are. aziraphale biggest problem is that he lies to himself constantly whenever something is difficult or challenging to his worldview. he often says things that he should know are lies, that deep down he has doubts about but that he forces himself to believe anyway. meanwhile crowley's problem is that he's had to lie about himself for so long that he's no longer entirely sure which of those lies are actually true. this is even further complicated by the fact that crowley likes putting on an act up until a certain point. as michael and david talked about in an interview, crowley's ideal date is having aziraphale drag him out to things so he can complain the whole time but he'll actually really be enjoying himself. how much of his demon act is truly him and how much is faked? this is a question that aziraphale is constantly having to ask when he's interacting with crowley, and it's an impossible question to answer because crowley isn't entirely sure himself. in s1, aziraphale was much more cautious about the way he handled their relationship, and because of that, he can come off as very cruel to him. 

in some ways, i think that pre-armageddon!aziraphale has a better understanding of the balancing act that is crowley than he does afterwards. he still acknowledges that crowley is a demon while also knowing about his goodness. after armageddon though... aziraphale has had to come up with some complex justifications for why everything turned out the way it did while still not being willing to let go of some of his core beliefs. what he's landed on is that, "god is good and right, but heaven is broken because it was being run by bad angels who were going against the divine plan because they're not infallible beings," and then by extension "crowley is actually good because he stopped the world from ending, and all of the demon act is him pretending. because he's good and because heaven is not infallible, it was actually a mistake for him to have fallen from heaven." being able to openly acknowledge the problems with heaven even superficially is a step forward for aziraphale, but he has to take a step back from understanding crowley to do it. crowley falling was unfair and unjustified, but it wasn't a mistake. he fell for a reason, and that reason troubles him deeply and has directly led to him becoming the way he is in the present. 

i don't really blame aziraphale for missing a lot of these important truths about crowley because crowley has never made it easy for him or anyone else. originally it was a tactic to protect himself, but after armageddon crowley's finally allowed to take off the mask and he doesn't really know how anymore. or maybe it's less of a mask and more of his face at this point. and that's the problem, isn't it? he just doesn't know. even when crowley still reported to hell, he never went in on the violence or the torture. he's disgusted by bigotry and brutality, and he always has been. he wasn't even all that good at faking interest or pleasure over it. in s2, it seems like he's also stopped doing all his usual demonic mischief, and yet he's still deeply unhappy and adrift. all aziraphale knows though is that it seems like crowley's not bothering to spread malice or tempt people anymore now that he doesn't work for hell, so maybe he never wanted to in the first place? and since crowley doesn't talk to him about how he's feeling, doesn't seem to want to talk to anyone about it, why would aziraphale have any reason to assume otherwise?

crowley spends the first 2 episodes of s2 being extremely upset for the entire time and for mostly good reasons. that begins to change though, in ep 3. crowley's suddenly got a job again, and he does so much better mentally when he's not just sitting idle. and that job isn't to tidy the bookshop, which he's mostly doing to ease his anxiety, or to babysit jim, which he's honestly deeply resentful about. the job is to come up with and execute some kind of plan to manipulate a person into falling in love. needing to plan and manipulate is already checking two big boxes for crowley, and he's clearly having a great time. and it continues like that through the rest of the series. the moments where crowley seems to be enjoying himself the most happen when he's doing more typical demonic activity. he loves lying! and scamming! and manipulating! he loves being a nuisance! he's meddlesome, cantakerous and he loves mocking. when he tricks muriel into breaking him into heaven, he should be scared out of his mind but instead he's hamming it up and clearly having a great time. he has a ton of fun watching aziraphale bribe and coerce a bunch of people into coming to his party. he loves this shit! despite how stressed he is, crowley manages to find these little moments of joy by being a mischievous little scamp. 

crowley is a creative and imaginative person, and he's always been the type to fight better with his mind than his fists. for such a long time, crowley has been channeling his creativity into his demonic work and it is something that does genuinely bring him happiness. in the process of realizing that crowley is actually capable of doing good, aziraphale has forgotten, ignored or even failed to recognize the ways in which crowley is not good, despite it being equally important to who crowley is. this fundamental misunderstanding of crowley, and both of their inabilities to stop lying about everything all the time contributed to their disagreement at the end of the season

#gomens blogging