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macfrog · 3 months

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sweet child o' mine | pt. iii

now taking name suggestions for my joel's duck doodle. must rhyme with a curse word. most creative wins.

pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader

summary: as your pregnancy progresses, you and joel are getting closer. dangerously closer.

warnings: reader is literally pregnant so typical pregnancy symptoms & descriptions of stuff like extreme nausea and gagging (reader throws up off-page, no graphic description past sore throat/esophagus afterward), body changing, nerves around birth/becoming mom, another sonogram (gender reveal...?), baby kicks felt, labor pains shhh, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), joel is dating someone who isn't reader, our girl hates nye (she's valid), tommy uses colors to represent gender (he is Wrong), joel is for sure emotionally cheating at this point and reader knows it, joel kisses someone who is not his partner again, f masturbation, memories of the hot dirty sex they had whew, a SPRINKLING of breeding kink, praise kink, size kink, another parent dies (i love parents i promise ????), jealous!reader, protective!joel, alcohol consumption, cursing, a LOT of angst, lots of fluff, lil bit of smut, and duckie has the best comedic timing of any character in this entire series. :) DISCLAIMER: this series covers some issues which i know may be sensitive and possibly triggering to some. warnings will always be as thorough as possible, but if there’s ever anything you feel i’ve missed, please let me know. feel free to drop by my inbox anytime.

word count: 11.4k (sorry. lots to cover lots to do.)

pt. i / series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🩵

December.

The days are funneled by a quick pinch of dark, the breeze heavy in its sail. Houses lined with twinkling lights and windows pierced by pointed trees. Crooning from every radio station, teary-eyed movies on TV, and spiced apple everything.

You hate every fucking minute of it.

“Wait a second,” Tommy sits forward, leaning in, “you never do nothin’ for New Years?”

You shrug, lifting your eyebrows. “Nope. Just don’t like it much. That a crime?”

He considers it as he hands his empty tumbler up to Joel, his head lolling some. He’s on his…fourth drink of the night, right? Though, if you take into account his earlier argument – I’m eatin’ as I go. It don’t count. – it’s probably more like two. But it’s whiskey, so –

Never mind.

“Yeah,” Tommy finally decides, “kinda. The hell’s wrong with you, girl?”

“Tommy.”

Joel’s voice is a warning, edged by the sharp clink of three glasses pinched in his fingers.

His brother laughs amiably in response, though, nodding to your mock-offended expression. “At least you’re spendin’ it right this year. Last one before lil’ Dickie comes along, huh?”

Maria slaps his shoulder, rolling her eyes. “It’s Duckie,” she hisses, glancing over to you.

“Shoot,” he says, chuckling. “I knew that. My mistake.” And then, hand out towards you in an apology which makes your shoulders jerk with laughter, “I did know that, I swear.”

Tommy and Maria flew in a few days ago; the younger Miller adamant that he’d spend one last New Years with his big brother before he became a father. The night they arrived, they showed up on your doorstep – a hamper filled with diapers and muslins and baby socks hanging from Maria’s arm. They’ve asked to hang out with you every day since.

They’re good fun. Tommy likes you, at least, enough to tease you as much as you figure a brother might. He’s definitely the louder of the two – sometimes you swear you notice Joel cringing at him, something caught between a laugh and a frown on his face. And Maria’s sweet; she’s asked probably six times every hour since she first saw you if you’re feeling okay, if you’re tired, if you’re hungry.

Joel text you yesterday morning. Tommy and Maria wondering if you feel like coming over for NYE. No pressure, he added, I lie pretty good.

A smile snuck its way across your lips before you had the chance to tame it. Sure, you typed, I’ll bring the newspaper.

What Joel’s told them, about the wedding and the baby and everything since, you’ve no idea. You guys almost talked about it when he told you they were flying down after Christmas, but before you got the chance to ask him, Vanessa pulled up out front.

Not exactly a conversation you felt like having with the dude’s girlfriend hooked around his right arm.

She smiles at you, now, as you shuffle to the edge of the armchair you’re curled up in. Joel’s armchair – the plaid blanket cradling you, the leather soft and crinkled beneath. Your eyes quickly drop from hers when his hand reaches for your mug, your fingers crossing as you pass it up. “Let me come help,” you say, pushing from the chair.

He holds up a palm, shaking his head once. “Stay. I got it.”

“Thanks,” you murmur, settling back. Vanessa resumes smiling. You wish she’d fucking quit it. You wish you’d fucking quit focusing on her.

Joel knocks the mug gently against your shoulder with a small, almost sympathetic smile, and heads for the kitchen – leaving you sat between Tommy and Maria on one couch, and Vanessa on the other. You tuck your heels under your thighs, picking at a hangnail as you wait for the conversation to thaw.

Maria makes some comment about Austin in the winter: how different it is to Jackson, and the three of you nod and hum in agreement before the chatter fizzles to nothing again. You glance over to the clock, watching the hands chase one another to twelve.

This isn’t what you imagined a get-together with Joel’s family would feel like. Tight, tense. So tense that you can feel the weight on your chest, closing your lungs. Talking about the weather and the holiday traffic, talking about nothing to avoid talking about everything.

Tommy’s chin lifts, after a second too long of silence. “Hey, Joel!” he barks. “You ain’t shown me this nursery yet!”

Joel leans around the doorframe, half-distracted. “Barely even started it, little brother. Crib only got delivered yesterday.”

“Sheesh,” Maria’s eyes widen, “you sure are prepared.”

Vanessa laughs when Joel rolls his eyes and vanishes again. “You got no idea,” she says, “I have never seen him so…pedantic, right?” She looks to you, still smiling. So sweet, you worry your lips are pursing at the sight of it. Your neck tensing. Your eyes watering.

“Yeah,” you reply, nodding shyly and swallowing back the saccharine. “I think he’s more nervous than he’s letting on.”

Joel’s voice calls from the kitchen again: your name. When you answer, he says, “Why don’t you take Tommy up, show ‘im what we got so far?” and then, leaning back around the door, “She picked the color ‘n whatnot.”

“Ah,” Tommy says, palms pushing down on his knees, “so you’re the brains, then?”

You mirror him, accepting Joel’s request. As though you had any choice in the first place. Standing beside the younger Miller, you mutter, “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

He holds a hand out to usher you ahead, following you upstairs. Past the tousle-haired boy in grayscale, past the German shepherd, past the Christmas Day portrait. Wandering like you know the house inside out, like you might’ve picked the exact coordinates of each nail the picture frames hang on yourself.

Like the photographs pinned to the walls aren’t still as alien to you as they’d been that day you first set foot in here, the dress Joel would come to tear from your body slung over your arm.

You twist the gold handle and unveil a homely little room, painted by you and Joel just last week. The soft blue drying into his knuckles, random splatters on your palms and your jeans. The giggles drawn from your chest; the thief either the chemicals from the paint, or the man rolling it over the walls – and you’ve a pretty good idea of which.

Tommy sniffs roughly, nodding. Taps the toe of his boot against one of the two bulky boxes leant against the wall, a crib printed on one and a rocking chair on the other. His tipsy head bob bob bobbing. “Alright. ‘s nice, ain’t it?”

You settle against the window, the glass cold at your back. “Real nice, yeah. Be even better once it’s done.”

“What’s yours look like?”

“Mine?”

“Nursery at your place. Your one pink, ‘case it’s a girl?”

You snort. “Mine is a little greener. More…I guess it’s duck egg. Had some leftover paint.”

He clicks his fingers and points to you. “See what you did there. Duck egg. Duckie.”

“Hm. Wish I were that poetic. I just like the color.”

Tommy stuffs his hands in his pockets, wanders around the bare room. The faint lingering of whiskey putting up its best fight against the clean bite of fresh paint, the sweet scent shaking from him when he nods some more at the blank walls and naked windows. He clicks his teeth and asks, “How you holdin’ up, anyways?”

“How am I holding up?”

“Yep. With, uh…” he nods to the door, eyes wide, “…Vanessa,” he whispers. Louder than he must think – probably echoed, if anything, by the palm he curves around his mouth.

You cross your arms protectively, shoulders bunching. “She’s fine,” you say, voice deliberately low. You both ignore the crack in it when you add, “I like her. She’s – she’s taken this all like a champ.”

Tommy leans on the window ledge, a rugged hand you reckon you’d know was a Miller’s just by looking at it. Same rough-cut quality as Joel’s, like they’re torn from the same sheet of sandpaper. He props the other on his hip. “But, boy – it’s gotta be complicated, right?”

“I guess. But she’s real sweet about it. And Joel’s been great, too.” You sniff, the memory of your kiss flashing behind your eyes. The steady drum of Duck’s heartbeat, the gleam in Joel’s eye when he looked down at you. The guilt seeping from your skin like beads of sweat, prickling along your spine and fizzling against the cold windowpane.

Tommy blinks at you, liquor-glazed eyes scanning. His shoulders jerk, a loud huh propelling from his throat. When your head cocks in confusion, startled from your daydream, he spills. “He ‘n I had a mighty long talk when he told me.”

You feel yourself leaning in, magnetized to him – body hunched as though you’re gossiping in the corner of a house party. Inhaling secrets with the tinge of alcohol on Tommy’s breath. “Oh, yeah?”

Tommy hums. “Just wanted to make sure he’d thought it all through. Not you – I always knew he’d take care a’ you and Duck. But…involving Vanessa,” he lowers his voice again, glancing over to the warm light spilling in from the hallway, “I just wanted him to be sure.”

Your blood begins to warm, heat flooding through your body as you step closer, murmuring, “What’d he say?”

He flicks his head, seeming to toss his initial response to the wind. “You know Joel. He is his own man.”

Your face screws, head jerking back. “What’s that mean? He is his own man?”

A voice from the doorway interrupts. A shadow swimming in the golden light. “Who is?”

Tommy steps away from you, loosening his arms as his big brother drifts into the shadowy room. Dusting the conversation under the rug. The smell of whiskey backs off. “Speak of the devil. Nice paint job, Joel. Missed a couple spots, but – I’ll let you off.”

“Uhuh.” Joel’s eyes thin, his body slanted against the wall. Arms crossed, bottle of beer hanging from his fingers.

Tommy swaggers forward when Joel holds the bottle out, taking it with a wary glance at the tall figure. A dog meandering back to his owner, tail between his legs and ears flat. It takes his gritty voice to jolt you back to the room, splintering your gaze from Joel’s toned arms and huge chest. “Looks real good, you two. ‘s one lucky kid.”

Joel’s jaw lifts, his eyes landing on you. Dogs are terrible liars. “He talkin’ your ear off?”

You smile; recognizing the softer Joel you’ve grown used to over the last three months replacing the stern, cold version you once knew so well. “Only a little.”

“Tommy,” he says then, “Maria needs you for somethin’.”

The denim-donned Miller nods knowingly and heads out of the room, thud of his boots receding downstairs.

“Maria okay?” you ask, making space for Joel as he settles beside you.

He shrugs. “Only said that to get him outta your hair.”

You frown. “You sent me up here with him in the first place.”

“So I could come up ‘n check on you. Know this must be a lot – the two of them, tonight.”

“I’m fine. Promise. I’m a big girl.”

You both sigh, turning to look out at the dark street. Your arms cross, sitting somewhere above the tiny slope of your bump – a new development you’re still getting used to. Your stomach feels tighter, a little more solid than usual when you touch it. A little more…real. There’s someone in there, right? Like, actually there. They’re changing the way you look, the way you feel.

“This is it, right?” you say, staring at the white lanterns illuminating Alice Brown’s rose bushes. “This is the year.”

“The year,” Joel agrees.

“Mhm. Become a mom. Become a dad.”

He purses his lips. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve had bigger years, kid.”

“Let’s hear it, old man. Let’s hear about your biggest year. God knows you’ve had plenty to choose from.”

He sucks a deep breath in, eyes tracing the silhouette of the houses across the street as he thinks. “Senior year, nineteen ninety-three. Asked Stacy Moore as my date to the prom ‘n she said yes. I was so nervous that I forgot my bow tie. Was a pretty good year.”

You hum, agreeing, and then, “I see your ninety-three, and I raise you: two thousand and one. There was this bike I wanted for-fucking-ever; it had, like, little beads on the spokes – would make this ratatatat sound whenever it moved. Tassels hanging from the handlebars, all iridescent. I begged my mom the entire year for it, and on Christmas morning I woke up, and…” You lift your hands, air puffing from between your lips. “Santa Claus delivered that year, dude.”

“Well,” Joel clicks his teeth, shell hardening only a little, “thanks for making me feel old as hell.”

“You’re welcome.” You beam back at him, breaking into a laugh when he does.

The two of you stand a little distance apart, denying yourselves the innocent brushing of shoulder against shoulder, the nudging of elbows and swaying of hips. Admiring the empty sky and emptier street, bathing between the cold moonlight of outside and the warm lamplight in.

And from somewhere deep in your belly, somewhere tucked behind your ribs, beneath your slow-growing womb: an urge to ask about her. To bring her up. To tend to the curiosity that Tommy poked a clumsy, drunken finger straight into, tearing it apart at the seams.

Like pressing on a new bruise, satiating the hungry need to know where you were hurt, how you were hurt, when you were hurt. A bent fingertip, pushing heavily into a sensitive splatter of dark purple; the burst blood vessels hissing in response, whispering, You don’t know, and you don’t want to know.

But you defy them. You do want to know. Want to satisfy the disturbed thrill you felt, leaning into Joel’s brother. Hands turning over one another, wet bottom lip trembling as he rounded the corner on some sort of…what was it, a secret? Some sort of truth, a long-buried revelation about the other woman. She’s a witch, have you spotted her crooked nose? She’s plotting something, I swear. She’s up to no good.

Your eyes lift again, focusing back on the dull color of the outside world. The bland canvas of reality. She’s not a witch, nor some genius mastermind. She’s a boring, relatively normal woman. Kind, thoughtful. Naïve and a little too eager to please; too willing to forgive a situation which warrants no such kindness or empathy.

She’s just…fine. Lukewarm. And you’ve no idea why that pisses you off so much.

Which, incidentally, makes the bruise sting all the more.

“Maria, Maria,” Tommy’s voice claws its way upstairs, “turn it on, turn it – Joel? Joel! It’s midnight, Joel, you two better come on down, now! Have we missed it –? Have we –?”

The sound of cheering slowly bubbles to life behind his drawl as the TV volume picks up, the tittering of Maria and Vanessa chiming in.

“…five, four, three, two, one…Happy New Year!”

Joel’s looking over his shoulder, waiting for footsteps or voices or a girlfriend who never shows. And he ignores his brother, for he is his own man, and turns to you instead. Bracing himself on the ledge, he blinks down with a plain grin on his lips. “Happy New Year, Mom,” he whispers.

You return his smile, taking his hand when he reaches out to you. “Happy New Year, Dad,” you reply, squeezing his palm.

He pulls you in for a hug, kissing your cheek briskly as you hook your arms over his shoulders. His beard scratches your cheek, grazes the curve of your shoulder, and you don’t mind. Your small, swollen belly presses against his; the tiny curve safe in the midst of your embrace.

Outside, the sky crackles to life with the distant spatter of fireworks, color shattering across the black canvas – red, blue, green and gold, dissolving as quickly as they explode into the now-January night. A burst of purple light washes between the two of you, and you turn your head on Joel’s shoulder to watch as the sparks rain over your neighbors’ roofs.

“I should get goin’,” you whisper, feeling his heartbeat a little too strongly against your own. Becoming suddenly aware of the weight of your frames locked together.

“Glad you came,” he says as he leans away. “I know this ain’t…I know we’re all tryin’, but you’re tryin’ the most, and I appreciate it. I hope you know that.”

“I know it,” you tell him, rolling your eyes. “Now, go. Go kiss your girlfriend.”

He chuckles, making for the door. “You want me to walk you home?”

Your eyes close serenely, the image of him doused in flickers of gold burning behind your eyelids. “I’ll survive the walk across the hedgerow, Miller.”

Joel nods once and leaves, plodding downstairs to be greeted by his open-armed girlfriend, a peck between them, arms crossed behind his neck. The lyrics of Auld Lang Syne slurred against his lips.

And you think – You know what? If it’ll rip you apart from her, if it’ll keep her bright red lips and her shining curtain of hair away from you, if it’ll stop her sucking in your air and your smell and your attention for thirty fucking seconds –

Then, yeah. Walk me home. Stay for a drink. Sleep in the goddamn guestroom.

Walk me home.

You slip out of the front door when the two couples are in the kitchen, missing Joel’s calling your name – or perhaps just ignoring it altogether.

“Spread the love at St. David’s this Valentine’s Day…”

Joel slows alongside a wall of cerise hearts, each one fluttering like wings whenever the hospital doors slide open and the breeze sneaks inside. Slips scrawled with names and messages: Love you M! and J + A, crude drawings of stick figures holding hands. Your lips curl into a smirk, watching him flick through each one as you palm your round stomach.

You just saw Duck for the second time. The last time, Freya was kind enough to mention, before they’re tearing you in two. Sorry, she mouthed when your expression dropped, and went back to twisting the probe over your stomach. Silently.

You’re getting better at it, you think. Playing Mom. Like some little game of make-believe, which is only real for as long as you’re looking it square in the eye – attending doctor’s appointments, updating the neighbors on your newest list of symptoms en route to your mailbox.

A little surer on your feet, now that you’ve found a balance to it: taking it as seriously as it warrants, a dry little pill stuck on the cliff of your throat, and making it easier to swallow with humor like water, a huge gulp anytime the fear claws its way up your spine.

And no more panic, since at least before Christmas. Only a little flustered this afternoon when Freya asked if you wanted to know the sex.

It felt too big a thing to hear, too real. You’re only just getting used to the backache and the bleeding gums. (And why didn’t you know that your gums would bleed? Isn’t that something they should fucking warn you about? Congrats, you’re pregnant: prepare for blood seeping from your jaw.)

No. No, thanks. Your head shot around to Joel. No, right?

He shrugged. Makes no difference to me.

Are you sure?

I’m sure, kid. Promise.

‘cause we can find out. I mean – if you want to.

He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, tapping you amiably on the shoulder. I don’t. You’re good.

You don’t?

No, I – He sighed, a hand dragging through his hair. If you want to, I want to. If you don’t, I don’t. Alright?

Freya bit back a laugh, the closed fist over her lips doing little to hide it. You guys should write a book on co-parenting.

But then she left the room again, closed the door on that same old little bubble – the three of you perched on the bed, you and Joel blinking up at the grains of your child onscreen – and you cried. Again. More.

Everything clearer, everything even more human than before: the globe of their skull, the tiny slope of their nose. All glowing in the dark waves of your womb, twinkling like the most beautiful constellation you could ever come across. Their ankles were crossed, feet forming a tiny heart shape in the top corner of the sonogram. Your hand lifted to point it out to Joel, and before the words found voice, you choked and broke down again.

He held you, lips to your hair, body solid as a rock as you melted into him in waves of salty tears. Smiled that honey-glazed smile and said he was so proud of you, said, look what your body’s doin’, darlin’, look what you’re growin’ – which only made you weep more.

And you pretended not to wait for it – for the moment when you might tilt your head up and your lips might line with his, and he might close the achy space between you again, might shush your cries by stealing the air from your lungs and the beat from your heart.

But he didn’t.

Which is fine.

Right?

“Somethin’ on your mind, kid?” he asks now, eyes still glued to the sea of hearts.

Your stare snaps from him instantly, unaware it was even held there. You tug on the hem of your sweater and pull the sleeves over your hands, mumbling, “Fine, I’m – I’m just…Come on, man. I’m hungry. I didn’t eat lunch today.”

“’n whose fault is that?”

You glower at him. “How considerate,” you seethe, “Vanessa’s a fucking lucky woman, you know that?”

He ignores you, a dumb smile on his face. The usual. “Let’s leave one for ‘em.”

A hot temper begins to boil below the surface of your skin, squeezing between your teeth in a fist-swinging breath. Also the usual these days, apparently. “For who?”

“Duckie. Somethin’ to mark the second scan. Last time we see them, before –”

Your hand flies up, eyes closing with a wince. Shut the fuck up. “Enough. I know.”

Joel hms, still smiling to himself. His beard has grown out a little: thicker, darker, gray sewn through like little whip stitches lining his jaw. He fishes a heart shape from the tub along with a pen, which he twirls annoyingly around his fingers as he thinks.

You sink back against the clinical white wall, an offensively bright color, holding your cheeks up in something of a smile when a nurse wanders past, nodding to both of you. Your face drops back to a scowl as soon as she’s over Joel’s shoulder, and your eyes meet his again – his brows raised, expectant.

“What?” you ask, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

He holds the slip up. “What we gonna write?”

And whatever charm the moment may have held, withers instantly. You throw your arms up petulantly. “You wanted to do it! Pick something. See you soon, or something, I don’t fucking know.”

“I don’t fucking know,” Joel muses, creases by his eyes when he smirks. “Poignant.”

“That’s what you should write,” you step closer, shoving your shoulder into his as you study the trembling hearts on the board, “if you can spell poignant, write that.”

“Hilarious,” he mutters, bending to scribble onto the shape, shielding his work from your view when you hang around his shoulder to pry. Cupping over the message until he’s straightening up, tossing the pen back to the desk, stealing a pin from the tub.

“Let me read,” you protest, tugging on his flannel sleeve.

“I will,” he says, shaking you off. “Patience, darlin’.”

Joel turns to the wall and pins the heart higher than the rest, in a spot clear of its own on the corkboard – thick arms stretching higher higher higher and pulling your gaze with them. As he steps back, he takes you gently by the waist and positions you in front of his body, your shoulders brushing against his chest. Your ribs hold your heart back from hammering into his.

You push up onto your tiptoes and squint at the note, which quivers when the hospital doors pull open again. “Mom and…Mom and Dad f…You fucking…”

Joel dodges your batting arm, snickering with you as he turns to make for the exit. “You don’t like it?” he tosses over his shoulder.

The heart stares down at you, black ink carved into the paper, watching as you turn and hurry after him, giggling. “Mom and Dad fuckin love you? So much for my potty mouth. And the –” another wheezing laugh you’d otherwise be ashamed to let him hear, “– the drawing? It looks – it looks more like a giraffe than a duck. Or, like, you know those long-necked dinosaurs?”

Joel’s head tips back, his own laughter caught up by the breeze when you wander outside, slipping your wrist around the crook of his elbow. Something infectious about it, something which stirs your own laughter until you’re walking arm in arm to the truck with a man who, six months ago, you’d barely look at twice over the fence.

The blind rage bubbling from your empty stomach seems to dissipate, dwindled to nothing in the face of that same man – his swollen cheeks and crows-feet eyes. And you say, “You’re disgustingly sentimental, you know that? Like, sickening.”

And Joel smirks, the way he always fucking does, and says, “You love it. Can’t lie to me.”

“I love it,” you concede, nudging into him as he opens the door for you.

The drive home is quiet, but not uncomfortable. There’s another thing you’re getting good at: being around Joel without need for snide remarks, without feeling your tongue curl under the weight of some snappy quip, loaded and aimed. Being around him and talking about Duck, asking how Tommy and Maria are. Forcing your teeth and tongue to carve out words which ask how Vanessa is, what she’s up to, when he’s seeing her next.

None of this is ideal, that’s for sure. Joel’s girlfriend aside, you’ve spent the last five months cohabiting your body with a stranger who lives most peacefully in the eye of a raging tornado of hormones – flitting between fits of giggles and pulsating joy in your veins, to waves of tears and an anger so hot beneath your skin that you wonder if your emotions might dry up completely by the time this is all through.

It's tough. It’s scary. And some nights you lie in bed, alone, wet eyes fixed on nothing, waiting for someone to burst into the room and announce that it’s all a prank. Just a silly joke. You and Joel can go back to tossing newspapers and casting glowers.

But for now, sat in the passenger seat of his truck – the seatbelt warped around the curve of your belly, the Eagles lilting softly from the radio – it feels like you’re making a home out of that tornado, too. Feeling the swirling walls of wind toss your hair like the breeze through the truck window; the chilled caress of the evening around your outstretched arm, soaring down the highway.

Yeah, you think. I can make something outta this.

“You know what I’m craving?”

Joel’s watching the light, waiting for green. “What’s that?”

“A fucking bagel. Cream cheese, pastrami,” you groan.

He snorts, cringing when he adds, “Pickles?”

A moan tears from the base of your throat, head lolling against your seat. “I could orgasm just thinking about it.”

The light turns, and Joel swings right. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he mutters, turning the wheel with one palm. “I got bagels back at the house, if you want one.”

You stare at him, jaw loose, saliva pooling behind your bottom lip. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He smiles, shaking his head. “Let me make you one, ‘fore you go home. Big day, ‘n all.”

And you hate it – hate the way your cheeks fill with a genuine happiness, something swollen and achy, impossible to ignore when it lifts your eyes and hurts your teeth. Appreciation, or admiration, perhaps, that you figure you’ll only ever have for him. You don’t know what the fuck to call it.

So you sum it up into three words. “That’d be nice,” you whisper, and Joel places his hand over your knee, shaking it lightly as he drives on.

It stays there, until he’s pulling into his driveway.

He pushes the front door open and steps back, an arm extended to let you by first. An after you, ma’am, between his lips. And you turn to make some mocking joke, the beginnings of some comment about how gentlemanly he is, when you’re socked square on the nose by a heavy-fisted, bitter scent.

“Oh, fuck,” you gasp, stumbling backwards across the threshold and onto the porch again. Your throat constricting around nothing, your tongue twisting, your stomach lurching.

Joel catches you just in time to stop you from falling on your ass. “The hell’s the m–? Oh.”

“Hi!” Vanessa calls from the kitchen, leaning around the doorframe to wave you both in. “Almost ready! Take a seat.”

“V–? Hey, sweetheart?” Joel calls back, one hand around your wrist and the other between your shoulders. “What – what’s cookin’?”

She pauses, glancing back at the stove. Pulls the dish towel between her hands taut. “I…I made pasta.”

“Yeah, what kind, sweet?”

“…Bolognese.”

He can’t cover his own sigh quick enough. Thick with something which feels like anger. “Shit,” he turns back to you, “I am so sorry.”

You pull in a deep, unsteady breath, your lungs struggling to separate night air from tomato juice. A weight rolling at the bottom of your stomach, your entire body beginning to tremble with it. “I feel like I’m gonna – Joel, I’m gonna –”

“Breathe,” he whispers, voice urgent, palm slipping to cup your jaw. “Just breathe for me.”

But your throat’s tightening, swallowing hard around gags which come stronger and quicker the more you try to fight them down. “I can still fucking smell it –”

Her shadow blocks the stretch of light from the house. A nervous little thing, a timid creature’s shadow stretched wide across the porch floor. “Is…everything okay?”

“It’s – it’s fine,” Joel sighs again, torn between comforting you and letting Vanessa down gently, “it’s just – tomato is one of her…her aversions.” He’s unable to pull his eyes from you, privately asking, “Are you okay?” when Vanessa turns back to the kitchen.

“I didn’t – I didn’t know,” she mumbles, thumbnail between her teeth. “I am so sorry.”

Suddenly, your will not to throw up is overpowered by your will to tell her, “It’s fine,” sucking in a deep, sickly breath before adding, “I’m just gonna – I should go.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Joel says, his teeth guarding the words from his girlfriend.

“I’m gonna clean up in here,” Vanessa points over her shoulder, and you think she must’ve heard him, “get outta your hair. I’m so sorry, again. I would’ve never…”

Joel lets go of you as you stagger backwards, the cold air tearing down your throat to meet the burning acid tickling up your esophagus. “Please don’t apologize,” you lift a weak hand, “how could you have known? I’ll –” another sharp gasp, “– I’ll see you guys around.”

He must say your name, must try once more to pull you back to his side, but the blood’s rushing through your ears, and your heart’s pounding at the back of your tongue, and your stomach’s notching its way up your spine. You make it to your kitchen sink just in time.

He keeps you waiting all of one hour before he’s calling you. Your arm reaches over to your nightstand, fumbling in the dark for your heavy phone, the screen cold against your cheek.

“Mhm?”

“Are you okay?”

Your lungs pull a deep, slow breath. The acid painted across your throat tickles as the air passes by it, an uncomfortable, scratchy feeling.“Mhm.”

“That a lie?”

“Only a little. Is Vanessa okay?”

He takes a second to answer. Lets go of whatever he was going to say with a sigh, replacing it with, “She just left.”

“Is she mad at us?”

Another second. “Just me. Not you.”

You massage the slope below your breasts, the ache in your esophagus throbbing when you move. “Why just you?”

Ruffling, like he’s settling back into his couch. Sinking into the cushion, his body as heavy as yours feels on your mattress. “I should’ve told her you didn’t like tomatoes. ‘cause now I’m a goddamn mind reader. I mean, why the hell wouldn’t my girlfriend be in my house cookin’ a damn pasta dish while I’m out, y’know? Jesus Christ.”

“Joel,” you turn slowly onto your back, bravely waiting for the waves of nausea still lapping around your stomach to turn with you, “it was a nice thing, what she did. She didn’t mean to…She probably thought she was helping.”

“Naw, I know,” he replies, the sharp bite of his words softening again, shrinking under yours. “I don’t care about her and her helping, though, darlin’, I care about y –” He barely catches it in time. “I care about you carrying my child, and I care about making sure you don’t spend your nights fuckin’…throwing up tomato sauce.”

You gulp, neck convulsing. The backwash of bile swallowed back. Your chest floods with a heat of quick panic. “Can we…maybe…not use the word? I just –”

“Sorry, baby. Sorry. This is just – it’s a lot easier if she would just…”

Your eyes close over, a salty sting sweeping behind them. If she would just lay off. Back off. Fuck off. “…but she won’t, Joel. She loves you. ‘n you…”

The words drift off, taken by the tide, swept off into silence. And neither of you bother with trying to retrieve them – you just watch, stood safe on the shoreline, as they fold under the waves of something too big for either of you to acknowledge. Too dark, too dangerous.

So, you say, “I get it,” instead; say, “I get why you’re mad. Just – let’s forget about it, okay? Sorry for…ruining dinner.”

Joel scoffs, that old, pissed-off Joel scoff. You can see his deadened expression on the back of your eyelids. You may as well have just thrown his newspaper to the end of the earth. “You know damn well that you didn’t ruin anything. How you feelin’?”

“Tired. Throat kinda hurts.”

“Still feel like that pastrami bagel?”

“Not really. Sorry. Appetite’s gone.”

“How about a water?”

“I got some here. Thanks.”

“Okay,” Joel sniffs, “how about: you take the hint and let me come over there to see you?”

You giggle, hand over your eyes to mask your expression from the dark. “I hate you. Yeah, come over. Door’s unlocked.”

Date night – six month anniversary or whatever. Call me if you need anything.

And I mean anything. OK?

Your thumbs hover over the two gray messages, an awkward jig as your brain scrambles to offer words back. Where are you guys going? Too interested. Too weird. OK, what if I’m bored? Delete delete delete. Trying too hard. Sure, have a good n–

The ellipsis pops up and you freeze. A stupidly polite swish delivers Joel’s third text.

Boredom counts as anything, by the way.

And the fucker steals another smile from you. You notice it when you look up, clocking yourself in the mirror. Accompanied by a warmth which drips down your spine, swirls around your tummy; a fluttering you’re not sure is Duckie or something else.

Have a good night, Dad, you type back, tossing the phone to the end of your bed when you hit send. Swiping for a pillow, holding it firm to your face. Pressing so deep into the plush that even the linen won’t be able to see your grin.

Joel told you about this six-month anniversary last week. He wasn’t too thrilled about it then, either. Dinner to celebrate six months? A year, fair enough. But six months?

You swallowed your pride, swallowed the same throttling ecstasy which seeped through your pores on New Year’s Eve, on that February evening she cooked– never mind; a desperate desire to tear apart the very notion of Vanessa and her cutesy little date nights and candlelit dinners. I think it’s a fun idea, you said. Y’all should do it.

And Joel listened. Because he always fucking listens to you, these days. Listens when you tell him that you like the watermelon Sour Patch Kids best, and picks them up anytime he’s at the store. Listens to you when you tell him he should move the crib away from the window, in case the streetlights shine on Duck while they sleep.

Listens when you ramble about how sore your feet are, how heavy your belly feels, how there’s a clammy heat lingering under your skin at all times, bubbling and bubbling and never rising to anything more than steam collecting on the underside of your flesh.

Listens when you tell him to go spend time with his girlfriend. And neither of you pay attention to the jealous shadow behind your words, the hesitant quiver behind his.

He replies almost instantly, the ping like a gunshot at the beginning of a race. Pillow slammed into the mattress, body lunging forward.

You too, Mom. Don’t have too much fun without me.

You lock the phone and slide it back under your covers, smiling dumbly.

There’s still a small part of you waiting for the big reveal: none of this is really happening. A dream, maybe, something you’ll wake from with a tiny throbbing headache, a dry mouth and a new reason to avoid your neighbor at all costs.

But it seems that, each time that thought crosses your mind, you’re quicker and quicker to quash it. Realizing each time that what lies ahead – Joel, your baby, this future version of yourself that you’re yet to meet, still just a little out of reach – fills you with more excitement and wonder, than it does fear.

Mom.

It’s not something you ever imagined for yourself. Not someone you ever thought you’d be. And yet, each time you say it out loud, each time you look in the mirror and picture a baby in the crook of your arm, a toddler perched on your hip, a kid stood by your side, tugging on the hem of your shirt – she feels a little closer. A little clearer. She just has to look over her shoulder, notice you waiting. I’m right here, she says. Come find me.

Mom. Mom and Dad.

You imagine Joel right now, sat in some ritzy restaurant with jazz music and stained-glass lamps on every table, ordering Vanessa some glorified lentil soup and slapping his card over the bill before the waiter has a chance to reveal the damage to him. Your lips twist at the thought – her jewels and her long hair and her sweet little smile laced with a smug possession.

And then you slap your own wrists, hissing to yourself to shut the fuck up.

“She’s nice,” you argue out loud, thin air holding no debate. “She’s kind, and I like her. She’s good for him.”

And then the air replies. Good for him, it swirls, but you could do it better.

Your arm lifts, lingering for a beat before batting the thought away.

Three weeks. Three fucking weeks, between pushing yourself out of his embrace in bed, and pulling yourself back into it – armed with a pregnancy test and a chest full of fear. Three weeks of dodging him, of your cheeks bubbling with embarrassment and regret anytime you thought of it; of hoping to God that Alice or Diane or Steve and Kris across the street wouldn’t clairvoyantly know what had transpired that night and corner you on your own front lawn.

A one-night stand. That’s all it was. Two lonely bodies, excitement enough to convince you both that it was a good idea; a fitted suit and a backless dress crumpled together on the floor. Liquid courage lacing it all together.

Three weeks, then, of reminding yourself how it felt: how amazing you were together. Your hand between your legs and Joel’s name between your teeth.

Fuck. If only he knew. Goodforhimgoodforhim she’s so good for him but I’m better.

You did it better. You know you did. The sun was cresting the horizon by the time the two of you stopped. You hauled yourselves down to breakfast and sat at least three people apart, made forced conversation with Maria about the DJ stumbling off with one of her cousins, while the ghostly ache of Joel’s body churned somewhere deep inside you.

It travels through your veins the way that everything does right now: urgent and unforgiving. A need to be dealt with, immediately. Coursing through your body, an arrowhead pointing somewhere you know it shouldn’t. But your hands lift anyway – following it, loosening the waist of your sweatpants and skimming beneath your underwear.

Your body lights at the first touch. The first dip of your middle finger against the plush over your clit. Knees bend, thighs part. You push your underwear down your hips, settling your bottoms loose on your legs. You’re already wet. You’re already there.

Good fucking girl. She’s good but I’m better, right? Take it, baby. Does she take it like I take it? Take it. Can she take you like I did?

Quicker and quicker and quicker, your fingers heavy on your clit. The other hand sifting between your folds, dipping to collect a glimmer of wet. Yeah. Just like that. Do you fuck her like you fucked me? You feel what you do to me? Fuck no, you don’t. You’ve never fucked anyone like you fucked me.

Head back, eyes fluttering closed, lips parting to breathe answers to a man who isn’t here. To a man who, as he dips sourdough into an overpriced soup, sure as hell isn’t thinking about that time he fucked you so good he got you fucking pregnant.

Well. Maybe he is. You are, right?

Voice without body, drawl etched in your memory. Think she can take it all? You hum in amusement, waiting for him to answer his own question. Yeah, she can.

Attagirl. Your legs spread further, knee lifting as you insert two slick-coated fingers. His hands are on your thighs, following the dip of your hips, holding your waist as you guide him back inside. Attagirl. That’s my – Fuck, Joel, you’re so b– That’s my fuckin’ girl. Take it. Touch it. His thumb on your clit – his, not yours. You like that? Yeah, that’s nice, ain’t it?

The flesh of your breasts filling his palms, squeezing and nipping and rolling between. The warmth leaking between your legs: his and yours and fuck, he’s so deep and he’s filling you again and he’s groaning as more dribbles from where he splits your body around his own, holding you still until he’s done. Until he’s empty.

“Joel,” you whine, a third finger pushing in.

Between your hips. Headboard hammering against the wall. The sun hanging loose at the bottom of the sky. Gonna make me come again, baby. Do it. Do something irreversible. Change me forever. Fuck me fuck me fill me and then pull out, push back in with the wet squelch of your come mixing with mine and changing me forever. Making me brand new. Making me yours.

Another moan. Louder. Sharper.

Yours yours yours. All mine? All yours. We’re good at this. I know we are. Who fucks you like this? No one – No one – just you – just me. It’s so big, fuck, but I can take it. Been thinkin’ about this all fuckin’ day, baby. All I do is think about you. All I fucking do – You gonna come for me? – is think about you.

Know you need it. Let ‘em hear you, downstairs.

Fuck, I’m thinking about you. Come home. I need you to come home, need you to –

Fuck me, Joel, I’m –

Good girl.

– fuck me.

Atta fuckin’ girl.

She’s good but I do it so much better.

We’re good at this. ‘s do it again.

She’s not as good as me.

Again? Again.

She’s not as good. She’s no fucking good.

Your walls clamp around your fist, entire body shuddering to a stop. Breath held by something shaped like the hook of his accent, two fingers either side of your throat. The same smirk on his lips that convinced you in the first place. Fuck, baby, fuck me.

“Joel,” you cry out, the sound ripping between your vocal cords, punching against the ceiling and reverberating in your ears. Your body convulses on the mattress, back arching and slackening again. “Fuck, I’m – oh, my –”

Just feel it, baby. Feel me. You got it.

Let go.

Your lungs lurch open again, breath flooding in like waves spilling over the gunwale and rushing down to pool at your feet. A lulling rock to your movements, chest rising and falling like the steady tide. Soothing, coming down. Foam and salt carrying the flotsam away, the jagged glass of his name disappearing to sea again.

And then he’s gone.

And you’re just alone in your bedroom.

Last you checked your phone, now face-down on the carpet at your hip, it was eight p.m. Streetlights on, the sky painted by the pale dregs of daytime.

Now, you lie in near-darkness, blinking up at the ceiling. Hand sifting through a bag of glow-in-the-dark stars, comparing the different sizes, considering where to stick them, and then tossing them back in frustration.

Your front door clicks open, a pause between the sound and his voice.

“Anyone home?” Joel calls, and you lift your wrist as though he can see it from the bottom of the fucking stairs.

“Up here,” you eventually announce, knuckles rubbing your tired eyes until Catherine wheels spatter across your eyelids.

His shadow splits the light from the hallway, the long rectangle crossing over your swollen belly. “The hell are you doin’?” he asks, wandering in.

You lift the bag. “Decorating. The hell are you doin’?”

He pulls your nursing pillow from its temporary home in the crib and tosses it down on the carpet, bending to lift your shoulders and slot it underneath. “Scooch,” he says, groaning as he lays back beside you. He smells like whiskey and cologne. All woody, pine and spice.

“You got a bad back,” you warn him. “You shouldn’t be all the way down here.”

“You’re seven months pregnant,” Joel clicks his teeth, “neither should you.”

“What if you get stuck ‘n can’t get back up?”

Offense pulls his brows together. “What if you do?”

You smile in response, feeling the heat of his shoulder against yours. Sucking the scent of him through your nose. The pair of you exchanging smirks and batting eyelashes, wrapped in the cool darkness of the room. It’s juvenile and intimate.

You’re trying not to think too much about it.

“I can’t fucking figure this out. I put two of the big stars over there,” you point to the far corner of the room, streetlight splintered by the shades on the ceiling, “but it looks stupid having two so close. So, then I thought,” moving your arm to the right, “a cluster of smaller ones, right over the crib. But I couldn’t move the damn thing to climb up, so…I’ve been down here ever since.”

Joel lifts his hand, stopping your train of thought. “Please do not climb on anything, bein’ that you are…with child.” And then, when your eyes roll to meet his, he grins, adding, “Nesting got you good, huh?”

“You should see my kitchen cupboards. Never been tidier.” Your expression dissolves, voice quietens – your most desperate plea since that morning you shook hands on his doorstep. Your broken wardrobes and his lonely wedding invite. “Will you help me?” you ask.

He thinks it over less than once, dragging his gaze from the twirling star in your fingers. A quick shake of his head, like it’s obvious. “’course I will. ‘s what I’m here for.” And then he yawns, lowering a hand absentmindedly to settle on the curve of your stomach; a gentle pat in greeting to Duck.

“How was dinner?”

“Good,” Joel lies.

“Vanessa okay?”

“Good,” again.

“Sorry.”

Joel’s eyes roll, fingers pausing. “Why do you always gotta be sorry for som’?”

You shrug when you realize it’s not a rhetorical question. He’s genuinely asking. “I don’t know. Just tryna be polite. I know you’d probably rather be at home right now, not…deciding where some plastic fuckin’ stars should go.”

“For my kid’s bedroom? For you?” He huffs something shaped like disapproval. “Do me a favor – stop with the sorrys, alright?”

“I’m not even done with the last fucking favor I said I’d do you.” Your eyes flit down to your bump.

He stares blankly. You know there’s a laugh gathering like hot air on a windowpane behind his eyes, threatening to shatter the glass.

“Fine,” you concede, “dickhead.”

“Better.”

You sigh, looking back down at the phosphorescent shape in your hands. Turning it over and over and over, matching the rhythm of his fingers tensing and then untensing on your belly. His fingers, matching the rhythm of your chest rising and falling with breath. The room quiet. The night’s eyes averted, even just for this moment.

“If it’s anything,” Joel says, “I think the stars look alright.”

Another stolen smile. Another defiant show of teeth. You place your hand on top of his: a thankful gesture, an invitation. Something in between.

Joel blinks back at you, his eyes flitting from yours to your lips. The dim light in the room swallowing the two of you whole, secluded in the upstairs of your home. And you think, Kiss me, kiss me kiss me kiss me, and you will the words over your tongue in a ragged breath – hoping that Joel might breathe them in and feel their sharp edges as they absorb into his bloodstream, each cell flipping like the star in your hand and whispering the same two words to him: Kiss her kiss her kiss her.

But right then –

There’s a burst of movement. Under your fingertips. A fluttering, like bubbles popping right below the surface of your skin.

Your eyes snap down at the same time Joel’s do; your fingers separating and hovering over your tummy.

“Did you – did you feel –?”

“Yeah. Did you?”

“Uhuh. Was that –?”

“I don’t know. Was it?”

He takes your hand, pressing it back against your stomach with his on top. Your knuckles safe in the canopy of his palm. Both staring into space as you hold your breath.

“They’re not…they’re not doin’ it, now…”

“Maybe it was just –”

“Wait! Did you feel that?”

A second burst on your womb, a tiny beat on the other side of your bump. A wide grin breaks across your cheeks, a disbelieving laugh escaping.

Joel laughs, too. “Is that – is that the first time they’ve ever –?”

“Yeah,” you sniff, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes, “that’s the first I’ve ever felt ‘em, anyways.”

“Wait,” Joel says, lifting his hand and holding a finger up. Just yours on your belly. “They doin’ it?”

Your head shakes.

When he lowers his hand, Duckie kicks again. The two of you lean in to one another, exchanging laughter. You lift your own hand, watching his expression as he waits patiently.

But then his head shakes, too. “Nothing. They’re only doin’ it when it’s both of us.”

“What the fuck?” you laugh, replacing your hand and waiting for the baby drum. “How can they even tell? What the f–?”

You shift your hands around the globe of your bump, pausing every so often to feel for Duck’s movements. A tiny fist punching, or a heel kicking, or an elbow shoving right above your navel in a way that’s bordering on painful, but numbed by the sheer thrill of it.

And for a while, it’s all you do: play tag with your unborn baby, giggling when they respond to your tapping fingers and cooing voices.

Joel sits up, leaning on his elbow to talk to his kid; runs two fingers across your shirt like a pair of legs scaling a cotton covered hill. And he laughs, and you laugh at his laugh, as if he’s a kid himself again – tearing apart gifts on his birthday, gasping and throwing his head back with glee at whatever he uncovers.

“It feel weird?” he asks, glancing up at you.

“So fucking weird,” you tell him.

“Does it hurt?”

“More…ticklish, if anything. Might get kinda annoying, if they start doing it when I’m tryna sleep, or somethin’…”

Joel lowers his jaw to your stomach, whispering, “You know what to do, Duckie. Make your daddy proud.”

You slap his shoulder, muttering, “Asshole.”

“Alright,” he says, splintered by a laugh. He pushes himself to his feet, swiping the bag of stars from your side. “Let’s get these up so you two can get some sleep.”

You groan as he pulls you upright, one last pat on your stomach, looking at you a second too long and a touch too meaningful. Too warm, too inviting.

It’s the calm before the storm, though you’re still stood motionless. Still trying to work out whether the tornado is moving away, or headed directly for you.

At five in the morning, Vanessa’s sister calls her.

“Heart attack,” Joel tells you a few hours later, the rustle of paper crinkling in your ear. The truck hums in the background. He speaks through a mouthful of sandwich. “Her dad always had a condition, but they thought they were managin’ it with medication,” another crinkle, and then, voice even more obscured, “but he got rushed to hospital durin’ the night, and…”

“Poor Vanessa,” you reply, nail drawing shapes on the curve of your bump in attempt to lull Duck into a more relaxed state than the sharp kicks they’re throwing at your ribs. Now big and strong enough to do considerable damage, your voice falters each time they swing. “Is she – son of a bitch – is she okay?”

“Shaken up,” he says, turn signal ticking over his voice. “She’ll be alright. She’s pragmatic like that. Problem is – they’re in Houston. Her whole family. So I guess that’s where the funeral’s gonna be.”

You swing your legs off the couch, heaving your awkward, nine-months-pregnant body to your feet – the irritating scratch of hunger suddenly gnawing at your stomach. “Yeah?” you say, waddling through to the kitchen. “So?”

“So,” Joel takes another bite of sandwich, “she has to – I mean, we have to…go. To Houston.”

“We?” You slot the phone between your cheek and shoulder as you fish out a couple slices of bread.

“Me ‘n Vanessa.”

“Uhuh,” you carve a knife around a jar of peanut butter, “you gotta be there for her.”

Joel sounds a little defensive. “I know. And I am. I’m goin’ to be. ‘s just – I gotta be there for you, too. For – for Duck.”

Your stomach swirls, a fire catching which lights your chest in a trickle of flame.

“You are. You will be. Houston’s only, like, three hours away.”

He sighs.

The turn signal fills the silence between you, between Joel and an appropriate answer. Clicking like the sound of a tennis match, his head spinning between his grief-stricken girlfriend, and the third-trimester mother of his child.

“I’m here,” he says, and you hear the squeal of brakes out front. “Give me a sec.”

The door pushes open as you sink back into the couch, balancing the plate on the planet beneath your breasts. Joel crumples his sandwich paper in his fist and lowers his hand over the back of the couch, scrunching his fingers over your belly as he passes.

“Thought you hated that stuff,” he calls over his shoulder, disappearing into your kitchen.

“I had a craving,” you say, ripping the first bite from your sandwich. “You made me hungry.”

He returns a minute later with a glass of water which he sets down on the coffee table in front of you. He lifts your legs, letting them fall gently in his lap when he collapses into the opposite end of the couch, heels of his palms pressing against his eyes.

You tap his thigh with the ball of your foot and he turns to you, placing a hand over your ankles. A sticky paste of peanut butter and bread between your molars, you ask, “What’shup?”

Joel holds back a smirk at your chipmunk cheeks. “Just – just worried that you…you know, while I’m gone, is all.”

You scoff, gulping. “Come on. I am not gonna go into labor in the, what – two days? How long would you even be gone?”

He seems to wince at the thought, fingers sifting through his hair – a gray sweep sat casually over his left eyebrow; flicks following the curve of his ear towards the hinge of his jaw. “Less than that, if I can help it.”

“Joel.”

He turns to you, saying your name just as deflated in response.

“You have to go.”

He rolls his eyes, thumb and middle finger massaging his temples. Crosses his arms and huffs like a teenager. “Well, I ain’t happy about it.”

You snort, unable to hold it in as you take another bite. “I ‘on’t think Vanesha’sh too happy about it, either, to be honesh wih ya.”

Joel’s jaw slackens, a choked laugh bursting from the back of his throat. He lifts a cushion and swings it in your direction. “Heartless. That’s heartless, you know that? Jesus, baby.”

He leaves on Saturday morning.

You stand on your porch, watching him shove a suitcase into the backseat of his truck, squinting in the sunlight as he stalks across your front yard. Joining you in the shade, he leans into you, shoving you lightly.

“Quit it.” Your hand locking with his, steadying yourself. Something in the back of your mind begging him not to let go.

And as if he can hear the thought: “I can stay. You know I can stay, right?”

“I don’t want you to stay,” you tell him, sweeping the hair from his forehead. “We will be fine. We’ll stay up late, eat junk food and watch TV; I’ll do audio description for Duck…”

He scoffs, glancing across the street.

“…and then you’ll be back home, back to buggin’ the hell out of us. It’ll be Monday before you know it.”

Joel’s jaw tightens. “And what if…?”

“You really think that’s gonna happen? You think your kid’s that much of an asshole?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah,” he shrugs, tongue in his cheek, “they’re half you.”

“Alright,” you click your teeth, turning away from the simper on his lips, “why don’t you just fuck off to Houston now, asshole?”

“I’ll fuck off, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Uhuh. Here’s hoping you don’t break down, or get a flat, or get struck by lightning, or anything.”

“You’re so funny,” he whispers, leaning closer.

“Hm. Now go.”

His jaw turns, beard grazing your skin. And then his lips; soft and warm, damp when he kisses your cheek. A moment too long. And he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t lean back the way you both know he should. No, he lingers – his lips by your ear, eyes flitting up to the street to make sure nobody sees.

“Joel –”

“I know.”

“We shouldn’t –”

“I know.”

But your arm is hooking around his neck, asking him to do it anyway, and his lips are lowering to yours, submitting to your request, and what’s supposed to be a goodbye kiss lasts at least a few seconds too long for it to mean anything less than a don’t go kiss.

You pull away when you feel the wet dab of his tongue against yours, realizing with an ice-cold shock where you are, and who he is, and what’s happening. Realizing how fucking stupid it’d be for both of you, how catastrophic and terrible the outcome.

A one-night stand.

A one-night –

He leans his forehead against yours, nose nuzzling your cheek. “I’ll call you when we get there.”

Your arm loosens, letting him go.

Just – letting him go.

Saturday Night Live ends just after midnight.

You arch your back into the couch, your swollen belly pushing forward. It’s an effort to get to your feet, what with the steady ache in your back all day, the weight on your front, and the fucking human being smushed into every vital organ inside you.

A deep breath feels like it inflates your lungs only halfway, Duck using the bottom half as a fucking ass cushion, and scaling the stairs takes another ten minutes – by the end of which, you’re slumped against the handrail, pausing before making off for your room.

You sink into the mattress, creasing the cool, smooth sheets. Duck stirs inside you, stretches out and throws a right hook against your bladder. You curse under your breath, hoisting yourself back to your feet.

“We gotta sleep, baby,” you hum, swaying back and forth with a hand under your belly. “Shh, ‘s okay. Take your fuckin’ fist outta my bladder, you little asshole.”

Whichever traits of yours and Joel’s have blended into the human cocktail growing in your uterus, you know one thing for certain: this kid has your stubbornness. The weight remains on your bladder, regardless of how much swaying, or pacing, or rubbing, or threatening you do.

You growl, wandering through the upper floor of your house in attempt to shift Duckie, or distract yourself, or, at the very least, tire the two of you out enough to fall asleep.

From the nursery door handle hangs a little wooden star, a tauntingly sleepy smile painted on it. You push the door open with two hesitant fingers, stepping into the still bedroom, the weak wash of streetlight meeting moonlight on the greenish walls.

You suck in a deep breath, floorboards squealing as you take your first step. Over the crib hangs a plastic mobile, soft plush shapes twirling slowly. The matching changing table slotted alongside it, a rocking chair over by the window.

You pad across a fluffy rug and lower yourself into the chair, tilting back and forth on your toes as you glance around one of the two rooms you and Joel have spent the most time in since that October morning bonded you forever. A baby duck ornament perched on a shelf above the dresser, its orange legs dangling. A multi-photo frame Joel’s mom bought you, both scans in the first two slots and the third empty, lying in wait.

Your breathing fragments, struggles, eyes slipping over to the baby clothes hanging in the closet. “You know, little Duckie,” you whisper, rubbing your bump and thinking back to Tommy’s words six months ago, “you are a pretty lucky kid.”

The hooded towel robe on the back of the door, the perfect size for a newborn. The framed prints sat atop the chest of drawers, waiting to be nailed to the wall: a rainbow, a frog, a starry sky.

“You got two houses. Two bedrooms, all to yourself. You got two parents who already love you more ‘n the whole world. And,” you gulp, “you got Vanessa. And she loves you, too.”

You glance down, watching the tiny pulse of movement when the baby stretches in your womb. Your hands scoop them up, as if holding them closer than they already are. As if already cradling them, forcing yourself to feel less alone.

Duck seems to quieten, to still; seems to consider what you’re avoiding. Reads between the lines, hears the words you’re not speaking.

Two of everything, you think, and I barely even had one.

The most evidence you have of being loved by anyone in your life is the house you live in. Four brick walls and three decades’ worth of belongings, more inheritance than memories. But they roll around like marbles – they echo against the walls when they hit them. There’s nothing binding them, no thread of love, or family, or anything real enough to hold it all together.

You’re the only living organ inside a skeleton’s cage. A lonely little heartbeat, making noise for no one to hear.

And that’s the way it has been, at least since you were eight. The absence of warmth and safety isn’t anything new to you – it left the second your parents did. The last scrunch of your mom’s nails on your head, the last kiss of her lips to your plump little cheeks. The passing over to your grandma, like you were cargo, like you were a box to be checked.

Maybe you found some distant flicker of heat in the way Joel looked at you, the day you told him you were pregnant. Maybe you saw the same glimmer of a flame that you used to see in your mom’s eye. The rosy smell of her perfume, the feel of her finger inside five of yours. Maybe, for the first time since you were a kid, you felt safe.

We’re gonna work it out, he said. I’m here. We’re in this together, alright? I am not running out on you.

Together. And yet, now, sat in your child’s nursery – a room built from scratch by Joel’s two hands and strung together by every beat of your heart – you’ve never felt more alone. The same two hands that are wrapped around Vanessa right now, consoling her, wiping her tears away, massaging her shoulders and sweeping her hair from her eyes.

And the same heartbeat which quickens now, fueled by an angry desire, an impulse scratching deep into your flesh to march all the damn way to Houston and tear the pair of them apart. Like he’s yours; like the way he touches you and looks at you and talks to you means anything more than his child growing inside you.

Like it’s you he’s touching and looking at and talking to, and not Duck. Like his attention won’t cease to shine on you, the second this little baby leaves your body.

And then, washing over the scorching hot sand of anger: a foam-lined wave of guilt. Of shame, for wishing for the breakdown of something that clearly makes the two of them happy. That makes Joel…happy.

He doesn’t owe you anything – he was never yours to begin with. Just one drunken night, a mistake until you noticed the two pale lines on the pregnancy test. And by that point, he was already hers again. You had missed him without even knowing it.

You sigh, pushing up from the rocking chair and reaching for a tissue from the changing table. Turning back, giving the room one last teary glance before closing the door, you sniff.

“You’re just…the luckiest little kid who’s ever gonna live.”

At one twenty a.m., cicadas chirping and trees rustling, the low breeze carrying the sounds through your half-open window – your back begins to ache. A blunt, gnawing pain. Feels like your period, and in your doze, you stuff a pillow between your legs and pray you don’t stain the sheets with a show of blood.

The realization comes over you as if that stifling breeze flips to freezing. You slowly come around, eyes peeling open as you think it over twice, then three times, then four. Duck shifts somewhere deep inside you, somewhere you’ve never felt them shift before.

“…No. Not right now, Duck. You gotta give me, like, twenty-four hours. Just – wait until your dad gets ho–”

A blinding pain interrupts you, the moonlit-blue room fading out of focus for half a second before you’re wide awake, clutching the bottom of your spine where you’re sure the kid just tore a fucking hole straight through your uterus.

“You’re a fucking dick,” you whimper, fingers clenching in tight fists around the bedsheets. “You’re a fucking – dick.”

One twenty-three. You go into labor.

#i think duckie is my favorite character i've ever written. that fetus has more personality than vanessa icl #joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #the last of us #tlou #macfrog #neighbor!joel #neighbor!joel miller #babydaddy!joel #tw pregnancy

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lilliankoo · 10 months

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“Titanic” series masterlist.

cast: jeon jungkook, y/n, kim mingyu, yoon jeonghan, sana, kim jennie and more.

pairing: artist! jungkook x rich y/n

synopsis: the year is 1912, the ship of dreams titanic is set to sail, among thousands of people abord, a twenty year old young woman falls in love with a young man she is supposed to stay away from. the fate plays its own game and the pair keeps tangling in each other’s life. when the pair decides to start a new life together, the fate rolls the dice once again, and the star crossed lovers are faced with an ill-fated conclusion.

first & second chapter is out! 2/7

inspiration: the movie titanic: not the entire plot but some aspects of it; the aesthetic, mild story line, symbolism etc.

genre: strangers to lovers, smut, star crossed lovers but with a twist!, happy ending.

rating: 18+

word count: seven chapter series, tbd.

warnings: tbd. more will be added as the series progress but overall: smutt (it is going to be intense) , age gap (jk is 24 and yn is 20) death (not main characters), descriptions of nud3 paintings, descriptions of violence (mild), ocean/water (?), rich/poor themes, classism, mild racism etc.

series playlist: the night we met- lord huron, i wanna be yours- arctic monkeys, brooklyn baby- lana del rey, apocalypse- cigarettes after sex, always forever- cults, until i found you- stephen sanchez, video games- lana del rey, fine line- harry styles.

author’s note: omgg finally im going to post this instead of debating and thinking abt “what ifs”. i have so manny ideas and stories i wanna share i hope u will like it! im going to start these series sooon so yes lets get it.

disclaimer: in no way, shape or form i intend to copy or plagiarize, this is just for fun, i do not own the pics, this does not describe jungkook hes just a “cast/actor” and so does everyone else in the fic.

chapter I: ship of dreams

chapter II: brooklyn baby

chapter III: like one of your french girls

chapter IV: letters i never sent

chapter V: diamonds, wax candles & stars

chapter VI: you jump, i jump

chapter VII: heart of the ocean

let me know if you would like to be tagged!

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scrybe-scott · 10 months

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Hello world!

My name is Cam (he/him), and I’m brand new to the whole tumblr thing!

I figure the best way to join an online community is with an introduction, so here we are! Please don’t hesitate to reach out or interact! I’d love to make some new friends!!!

Okay, so who are you?

I’m glad you asked! My pen name, which I’m going to use for this blog, is Cam Scott

I’m 24, recently jumping back into writing after a whole slew of life stuff, and am looking to start grad school here in the next year or two!

Some of my interests include: comics, movies, folklore and folk music, philosophy, pro wrestling (the greatest form of theatre), and video games!

What do you write?

All kinds of stuff! Fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, westerns, even a comic or graphic novel from time to time. If only I could draw…

The only things you won’t catch me really writing are romances. Nothing against em, per se, but that’s not really my niche. A subplot? Sure! But not really my vibe for a complete work.

I also don’t really do fanfic, but again, no hate if you do! I think it’s cool to read people play around in those spaces; I just have to get all these voice- er, stories… out of my head.

Do you have any WIPs?

Too many! But I’ll try to list some of the main ones! (And keep it short)

The Silver Circle: The first in a fantasy series, it follows a group of adventurers making their way through a war-torn continent to help a cast-out prince reclaim his throne.

The Clockwork Lounge: A neon noir/cyberpunk-esque sci-fi story in which a man is hired to solve a murder in a casino run entirely by automatons.

Untitled Mystery (as in I came up with this yesterday lol): a man bounces back and forth between three bodies in three different time periods: the sailing age, the jazz age, and the far future in order to solve three murders that are somehow all connected.

If any of this sounds like anything you like, please don’t hesitate to follow! I’m also down for any tag games, asks, DMs, etc! I’d love to make new friends and really get involved with the community.

#writblr #writeblr #writing #writers of tumblr #writeblr intro #writblr intro #new to the community

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bthump · 2 months

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hello! i hope im not bothering you with this ask or anything, but i really love your blog and the thoughts you write, so i wanted to ask if you any other titles you would reccomend that are similar to berserk (not necessarily in terms of setting, but mostly the Vibe) and deal with similar themes (i watched and read devilman!). i would accept anything tbh, be it a book or movie or a series. thanks in advance, hope you have a good week! :)

Thank you very much, and yeah I'd be happy to rec a few other things I like that have some similarities! Some of these similarities are pretty thin lol, but tbf Berserk is pretty unique, at least in terms of media I'm into, and I've seen some good homoerotic movies recently.

Anime/Manga:

Claymore is compared to Berserk fairly regularly, and it's not just for the big swords. There's no griffguts equivalent, but it's got medieval fantasy monster hunting vibes, similar themes wrt human nature (though more shounen, power of love-esque lol), great action scenes and cool monster designs, and a lot of great female characters with interesting relationships, which isn't similar to Berserk but it's a bonus by itself.

I've also seen Vinland Saga compared to Berserk, and again there's no griffguts equivalent, but there's a very Griffith-esque character who has an AU where Griffith became king the old fashioned way vibe, and a central theme is revenge.

An anon a while ago made the point to me that Light from Death Note is similar to Griffith in a few ways, such as wanting to create a kind of ideal world, and being very charismatic and having culty followers who view him as a god.

Books:

tbh I have a bad memory for books I've read, but here are a couple I read specifically because of Berserk similarities:

I read As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann because I was told it had griffguts vibes, and it did. Medieval lone wolf is recruited by idealistic blond mercenary who wants to create a utopia, falls in love with him, and gets fucked over. It's very dark, darker in some ways than Berserk, but it was a good read imo. More in depth post on it with warnings here.

Captive Prince by CS Pacat is known for the author having based one of the characters partially on Griffith, and you can tell lol. It's a fun read if you don't mind or are into the tropey sex slave setting, with an engaging gay romance that has surface similarities to griffguts, though the vibe of the relationship was fairly different to me. But like, the political scheming felt like a Golden Age AU to me. It's been a while since I've read it but for warnings there's rape, csa, incest, and sex slavery not portrayed positively but like, used as erotic scene setting if that's a dealbreaker.

TV Shows:

Hannibal! It's got intense homoeroticism, it's got betrayal, it's got an operatic level of intensity, it's fun to dissect analytically, violence revenge and trauma are significant themes, one character tries to escape his life ruining feelings for the other by killing him, and it's just a great time.

Yellowjackets also has strong themes of violence and how it's a temptation, and though I wouldn't compare any of the relationships to griffguts exactly, there's an intense tragic homoerotic friendship that haunts one of the characters decades later.

Xena has a campy overpowered anti hero dressed in black leather wrestling with their inner darkness and in love with a blonde, also a flirty exes kind of relationship with a god (though that's hetero lol). Not really similar tonally and no griffguts equivalent, but it's got some similar themes wrt violence, revenge, human connection saving your soul from darkness, etc, and it's a gr8, fun show.

Black Sails has a kind of love vs revenge thing going on, as well as an attempt to overturn the social order and create a utopian kingdom. In some ways it's similar in tone as well, often pretty dark and violent, but with some very funny moments, and set in a fictionalized historical setting. No griffguts equivalent, but all these shows are extremely gay.

Movies:

Ladyhawke gets a lot of comparisons to Berserk, and may have been one of Miura's inspirations since he cited Rutger Hauer movies. Starcrossed wolf and hawk themed lovers, medieval setting, significant eclipse, it's got the vibes.

Hellraiser is one of Miura's stated inspirations iirc, and I mean yeah lol. It's the godhand as sadomasochists. Idk that there's that much in common in terms of theme, but the aesthetic is there.

Yk what? The Lost Boys. Homoerotic, campy fun, brooding teen is recruited into a gang and has sexual tension with the leader... that should count.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture starts with Spock trying to purge all his emotions after we can only assume breaking up with Kirk, and failing, and it's a parallel to a godlike being learning to love.

Okay hear me out on this one... Sweet Smell of Success is like if there was no Guts and instead the homoeroticism was between Griffith and the King, and it was set in the New York world of 50s gossip columnists, and look, I recently watched and adored this movie and I want to rec it. And hey, it's about doing fucked up shit to feed your ambition and being pretty and charming while you do it.

The Favourite is about a servant seducing and manipulating her way to power in a royal court, kind of an f!Griffith AU without a Guts if you look at it a certain way. But also it's another movie I love and want to rec based on at least one similarity lol.

Uh, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence is about a dude wanting to fuck a hot charismatic and guilt-ridden blond guy but being too repressed to go for it? Great movie in general. Also Midnight Cowboy is about trauma induced gay repression while we're at it.

And finally, Paul Verhoeven's sci fi trifecta of Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers have virtually nothing in common with Berserk in terms of theme, character, relationships, etc. But the tone feels exactly like the Black Swordsman arc to me lol, to the point where I've always said that the only live action Hollywood adaption of Berserk I'd accept is the one Verhoeven directed in the 90s in an alternate universe. Miura was directly inspired by one of his 80s movies that I've never seen, Flesh and Blood, and yeah, I feel like you can kind of feel the inspiration.

I have other rec lists, as well as things people have recced to me often on the basis of similarities to Berserk/griffguts that I haven't checked out yet, in this tag, so I'd highly recommend browsing through it for more media suggestions. And if anyone wants to jump in with more recs for things that remind you of Berserk in some way, please do!

#ask #b #anonymous #not berserk #theme: opinion #if you only watch one black and white movie in your life and you're a fan of fucked up homoeroticism sweet smell of success #is a winning choice

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real-life-senshi · 10 months

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youtube

We have another Keiko Interview related to Sailor Moon, posted on June 30, 2023 JST!!! There's both a video of the interview and a partially transcribed interview article.

This time it's on Oricon News. Here's my attempt to translate the article.

Kitagawa Keiko, Encouragement to Her Rookie Era Self, Meeting Her Friends... Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is "Life Itself"

Actress Kitagawa Keiko (age 36) is voicing the key character Sailor Cosmos in movie Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos (Part 2) (released on June 30th), which is the final chapter to the new movie series of the popular anime Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Kitagawa stated that to her Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is "life itself". In this interview, she looked back on her time as a rookie and talked about her strong feelings for this series, which she has a fateful connection to that can be described as a "miracle romance".

***OP Note: the direct quotes are quite long in this, so I highlight the quotes in Mars's colour to make it easier to read. 🔥

■ When working on her debut in the live-action, she was met with a series of setbacks. A word of advice she offered to her rookie self: "It's okay."

She met [Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon] when she was in kindergarten. She read the original work by Takeuchi Naoko that was serialized in the "Nakayoshi" (translation: Good Friends) magazine, and reminisced on her reaction that "the images are cute, the colours are beautiful, the costume and accessories, all of them are sparkling and shiny, I want to be like that! Those were the thoughts I had. [Sailor Moon] was like a slightly older and mature, cute older sister to me. When [Usagi] transforms, she's strong. She is so cool when she gathers her strength to face her enemy. My first encounter with [Sailor Moon] was so striking, it was like being struck by a bolt of lightning."

Later while in high school, she was scouted by an agency, and her first audition was for the live-action Tokusatsu drama Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (TBS) in 2003. "I felt like I was destined for it. That I joined the entertainment industry at the right time when the live-action was in the works. My favourite had always been Rei-chan, so I actually declared I wanted to play Rei-chan in the audition, but I didn't think I would actually be accepted for the role."

She received the role of Sailor Mars/Hino Rei, a role she had longed for. "At the time of the audition, I felt I love Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon more than anyone else, and I love Rei-chan, so I approached the audition with confidence. But when I arrived at the audition site, I realized there were so many other cute girls who also love Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, who are good at singing and dancing and full of many other talents. I immediately lost all my confidence, so I couldn't believe it when I was accepted for the role. I jumped into the production in a state of lacking confidence after realizing there are so many more talented girls out there." Despite what seemed like a smooth sailing start, she experienced many setbacks because it was her debut work.

"With no prior-career experience at all, and this being my first acting job, I cried every day. I didn't know what to do. Starting from a blank slate with nothing, every day was tough even though I was holding my dream in my hand. But because this is my favourite series, I gave my best, trying my hardest with a mindset of responsibility and obligation to this series to deliver good performance. I tried to boost my confidence by thinking 'I'm the only one who could play Rei-chan'. I could only imagine how many people were looking forward to the live-action version of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, so I worked hard with that in mind."

If she could say something to her old self now... "Back then, I was agitated and impatient with myself every day, thinking I can't keep staying like this, it was really tough. I felt I was holding the others back because of the experience gap I had among the Sailor Senshi team. But there was also no use in not believing in myself. That's why, I want to say 'Calm down, it's okay'"' to myself", she said with a warm and gentle gaze.

■ Taking on the challenge of voice acting with the "Sailor Senshi" team's support. Would she upload a group photo after viewing the final product? "I want to take a picture with everyone"

The live-action filming lasted 14 months. "We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together, and became comrades-in-arms from overcoming hardships from the filming process. Knowing the fact that each of us is doing our best in our respective lives gives me courage." "The 5 Sailor Senshi" consists of Kitagawa, Sawai Miyuu, Izumi Rika, Amaza Mew, and Komatsu Ayaka, who co-starred in the series at that time, are still good friends and in frequent communication with each other. This time when she received the offer, as someone who played Sailor Mars/Hino Rei in the live-action series, she was shocked to be asked to voice Sailor Cosmos and wondered "Is it alright for me to take this on?"

"I voice the ultimate form of Sailor Moon from the distant future. In my mind, Sailor Moon was always either Mitsuishi Kotono-san or Sawai Miyuu-san from the live-action. That's why I was at a loss on what to do about [the offer]. However, everyone said 'you should definitely do it'. They were really excited by the prospect of having a member from our live-action Senshi team be involved with Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon again, especially on the year of 20th anniversary of the live-action airdate, and they were happy for me to be asked to do it. That was really the deciding factor for me [to accept the job]" These were the support she received.

On a side note, these "Senshi" members still get together on a regular basis, and their group photos are always a hot topic on social networking sites. "I think we're getting tired of the photos by now. lol 'What do we want to do? Photo? Since we made the effort to come together, we should take a photo, shouldn't we?' is how it always ends up being. lol I think everyone would probably go see the new movie even if I'm not in it, that they'd want to see it. I want to go see it with them. I want to take a photo with them in front of the theatre signboard", she said, explaining their unchanging friendship.

■ "If you play the role as you feel it, it will definitely produce good results," she expresses gratitude for Mitsuishi Kotono's advice

In this new film, a new enemy "Shadow Galatica" appears, and with her friends targetted one after another, Sailor Moon and her team are once again thrown into battle. In playing the role of Cosmos, she said "[Cosmos] has overcome and transcended after many happenings, she is neither mere human nor Senshi but instead shines like a goddess, and she has a gentleness and warmth that seem to embrace everything, but also a core of strength from overcoming pain and hardships. It's very difficult to try to express everything in voicing her. A holy maiden who embraces and supports the Senshi team, is the image I wanted to portray and thought of", she said.

Working on the dubbing "was nothing but difficulty. I was not used to working as a voice actor, and I had only voiced boys before, so this was my first time playing a woman. It was difficult to explore the pitch and volume of the voice. Like wondering how should I tone my voice and how loud should I raise my voice, etc... During the testing phase, I fine-tuned my voice with the direct, but even with that I wasn't used to the process of fine-tuning itself. I usually do most of my acting involving my whole body, so it was very difficult to be limited to voice only. I was also nervous to stand in front of the microphone," she shared about her struggles.

Meanwhile, "I received a voicing guide video for reference, and it was Mitsuishi-san voicing Cosmos in it. I had goosebumps when I listen to it. After that I contacted Mitsuishi-san, she said, 'this is only a guide, and if Keiko-chan plays the role as you feel it, you'll definitely produce something good, so have fun in the process.' To be made welcomed by Mitsuishi-san, who has been the lead of "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon for so long, gave me courage." she shared about the encouragement she received from Mitsuishi Kotono who has starred as the lead role of Sailor Moon/Tsukino Usagi for many years.

Speaking of Mitsuishi, she played the role of Kitagawa's mother in Rikokatsu, the drama series in which she starred in the April 2021 season. "I was happy to be able to co-star with Mitsuishi-san on Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, not only because I felt bonded with the series, but also because I feel a bond with Mitsuishi-san. The fact that every time I work on a production of personal significance, that I happen to also work with Mitsuishi-san, it's coming to an extent where I wonder if a bond was established between us in a past life. I never thought that two years after Rikotatsu we would be working together again. That time Mitsuishi-san jumped into a field she said she was not used to at a film site. This time it's me jumping into Mistuishi-san's field... I'm happy that this kind of exchange keeps happening," she said joyfully.

It was the starting point of her life as an actress, what led her to the irreplaceable bonds she formed, and now she is once again involved in voicing an important character in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. "To me Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is my life itself. The series has been with me and been my favourite since I was in kindergarten. I admired the characters and aspire to be as awesome as the girls, made my debut and play one of them. I am still connected to the friends I made through working on the series and they have supported me throughout my life. It has become such a big part of me, that's why I have the feeling that the series is as important to me as life itself. "

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shioribara-eons · 10 months

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Ahem, why I think, Killugon is canon. An essay I wrote :3 ⚠️ ANIME SPOILERS ⚠️

Here I am going to explain why I think shipping Killugon is good, and why it is not a bad or toxic ship, as well as reasons it is going to be canon. This can also be for my own reasons, because if i seem to not like this ship in the future, i have a reason to tell why i did. Also or all those (omg yr gross don't ship that go oners) I DO use other websites from which I resourced this info on, but I made sure to list the places they came from. I also use other anime to compare, just based off my own personal viewing experiences. I HAVE WATCHED ALL 148 EP OF HXH, BUT HAVE NOT READ THE MANGA (just keep in note).

I WANT TO MENTION THIS COMES FROM A X MY HERO BAKUDEKU SHIPPER, WHICH I AM VERY ASHAMED OF. I quite dislike the Fandom and show now, for reasons I am not quite sure of myself, but as I moved to newer and newer, (and less toxic fandoms) I was able to view the Fandom from an outsiders viewpoint. I won't say that I was not apart of that Fandom once, because then I would be lying to myself.

Alright, now Killugon time.

So I'm saying this to combat all anti killugon shippers, who beleave the ship is toxic. I have a strong true belief that as long as you ship a non toxic, and happy relationship ship, that has meaning or shows reason for the ship to exist in the film, or if they are underage and not SEXULIZED, and if they are minors and not being shipped with people much older then them, oh and dont forget sibcest is completely violated, other wise then it is an okay ship. It is even better if there are even more obvious hints to the creator wanting the ship to be canon. Many people may combat me and explain how Killugon isn't canon, and therefore you may not ship it. I do know why people may feel that way, and I am completely excepting of it, particularly because I believe it as well. Even in this case it is not. I will not deny this ship is yet to be canon, but I will not hide the facts that show how deep and likely this ship to become canon, (even just particularly) because of the facts I have resourced on this. Case in point, the sole fact I ship it, even when it is not canon, is because it is particularly supported by the creators. I believe if the creators agree in some shape or form of this ship being shipped, and don't hate or dislike the ship, it is okay to ship it. Even so, if they ship it, (which is heavily shown in the non Canon movies of hxh as well as hunterpedia) it is still canon in a viewpoint. Think of it like this, if a anime show has it's main show or manga, but does not romantically ship two characters together, but does so in a ripoff or side series, they are still canon. If they are shipped by the creator, or heavily done so, even if it is not in the main series it is canon to the creator, and going to be canon and the ship has been sailed. I say this because if the creator wanted it to be canon, and shows that, it shows that the idea of them being together is valid. In this point, Togashi shows some hints and things in different shapes and forms to show they may be canon. Many people think they are just friends, but I also think the fact it is a gay ship takes into strong account. Think like this, if gon or killua was a girl, and one of them was a boy, I feel a lot more people would ship them, because to some people it just doesn't feel right. Some people may be homophobic, or the other half is the result of our society and biases. If that wasn't like that, I feel the other half of this Fandom would feel otherwise. Speaking of which, I would like to mention that most of this group (NOT INCLUDING TOXIC AND OVER AGED SHIPS LIKE HISOGON AND PALMGON) (hisoka's pedophilic behavior and overagedness with while palm and gon's date, it still violated the overaged rule, as well as being dropped in a comedic manner and shown as just a occurrence to add comedy and was nowhere near a serious canon.) This Fandom mostly includes people who ship Gon and Killua, or don't at all. There are people who ship Gon and Retz, which of course is a completely valid ship as long as they are not sexulized, and I would not bother them. Otherwise it's half and half. Mostly because people are against age, even so that the editor of hxh did not want it to be canon mostly because of age. Don't worry, I have ways again of combating that. Again, as long as they are not sexulized, meaning cuddles and subtle, non sexual kissing, and wholesome acts, are okay on my end. Anything above that, I am completely against. If it is labeled sexulized, I will stay strong to my will and avoid and defend against this act. It is not okay, even if they are fictional. I know that I do have to mention they are fictional characters, but for me it's not the case. Dispite them being fantasy, the sole idea is not okay.

I also compare a ship to real world to find if it is valid, either based on my own life or others. For me, I had a crush in 5th grade, when I was 12. Heck, I know people who had crushes at age 9, so it is fine. Even then, even if it is playful and wholesome, it's still considered a ship, even if it isn't a serious relationship, and are just shown getting closer in a subtle romantic fashion. Having crushes, blushing, having thoughts, and wanting to be closer to someone are all aspects that show a subtle romance, that is not serious, but a crush. Some can say love, but it is mostly not physically or mentally possible to "fall into love" at an age like 6, but teen love is a real thing. Look it up. At age 14, it is mentally and physically possible to fall in love. At age 14, I had a gf, and by the end of the anime, (starting at the anime they were 12) they were 14. Saying the manga is still currently going, one more year and they will be 15. The thing is with this though, is I still feel uncomfortable sexually shipping two characters that are minors, even if they are aged up in a au unless it is canon in the show or manga. I still steer away from that, I just still feel uncomfortable with the idea.

Anime from other shows can help too. Anya and Damian from spy x family are canon, whilst Anya being around a whopping 4 years old at the beginning of the anime, and Damian being 6 as well. This is shocking, for a canon ship, but is nevertheless real. Taking from that, a popular Fandom that is canon that I enjoy, Jibaku Shonen Hanako Kun, also shows 13 - 15 year old couple, a boy named Hanako and a girl Yashiro, mentioned and shown kissing and dating, and even mention being each other's boyfriend and girlfriend, then mentioned falling in love, so it's there, and we cannot ignore that fact that other animes have done the same, but for some reason people feel wrong with this Fandom. I will mention my favorite genre is romance, which might impact me, even when I have to watch shonens on my never ending to watch list, then end up shipping characters. I will say that combats that though, how teased to be canon this is. I actually tried my hardest not to ship them at the beginning, and kept in mind that they were just friends. Out of context, scenes that I saw just couldn't bring me to believe they were platonic. Even with context, it just makes it 10x more beleavable. I tried, but failed, and ended shipping them.

WHY I THINK IT IS GOOD AND HEALTHY TO SHIP THEM + CANON REASONS WHY THEY ARE CANON

In point, according to the anime and everything that happened, I actually believe that love is something that they need. Killua never really experienced love other from Alluka, and never even touched romantic. While Gon has dated several times, it was not out of feeling, and he did it to entertain or give to people that visited his island. And his date was Palm was forced as well, not put of romantic interest. So neither of them have really felt that before, but at least Gon had family that cared for him when he grew up (aunt mito) but killua just had alluka and was tortured and hated on a daily life. Killua definitely had a big impact with his sister/brother and believes it's okay to love and stay by the side of Alluka. The most probable purpose why Killua is more distant with Gon then Alluka, is because of the main aspect of thier friendship in the first place. Throughout the series, we learn that Killua isn't just a emotionless assassin, but was also taught to abandon anyone who seems to take a liking to him, and to never have friends, love, and eventually he would betray and kill them. That was how he was raised. Dispite this, Killua still had his curiosity get ahold of him, and he started to explore places he wasn't supposed to. Even starting from the first time Gon and Killua met. Keep in mind this is the first friend Killua OR Gon had, and this is a very big deal to them. Saying that killua had previously ran away from home, he had obtained a new profound confidence to try things he was restricted from exploring before. He made friends, and started getting closer and closer to Gon, to practically being by his side 24/7. He started to laugh, and feel, and do things he had never done before, and that is deep. To Killua, mentioned canon, that to him, Gon is light itself, Killua had always seen Gon better then him. Like the sun, that is so bright, he must avert his eyes. This statement is definitely not platonic, a normal platonic relationship wouldn't say something like that. To compare somebody to light is taking it a bit far. Some fans speculate this was the moment, when Killua fell in love. Fun fact: Killua would always walk behind Gon, because he didn't think he was good enough to walk by his side. Also included the "was glad he had met Gon" aspect, as well as him clearly blushing whenever Gon complimented him or told him he was happy they were together. Canon, whilst they were stargazing on Whale Island, Gon had randomly told Killua how happy he was to be with Killua, and how he wanted to travel with him around the world, then he wanted to stay by Killua forever, often a romantic statement. But Killua's priceless blushing and emberrament from that statement made this even better. In fact, Togashi himself was asked on a scene with Killua blushing repeatedly at Gon, and answered:

"The two hamsters are suspiciously close. They often kiss (or look like it) each other, although they are both male...."

YES THIS IS ACTUALLY FROM TOGASHI NOT FAKE I DIRECTLY COPIED IT NO EDIT. (Cute how he calls them hamsters lol) This shows he does in fact ship them. Not included Mariya Ise (Killua's va) saying Killua is in love with Gon + she studied Killua's character and said that in phantom rouge his feelings towards Gon is overflowing. As well as the artist of hxh, Niyua making romantic sketches of the two. Togashi also mentioned that he wanted it to be a gay anime, but rethought. He loves trans and gay mangas and books, and once wrote a gay manga. Hunterpedia is a whole other thing. Id like to say it was an excuse for them to put the two together in a romantic relationship that was out of the show and hope people wouldn't notice. But I mean, if you are going to put the two literally kissing and saying that it was fate they would be together, having several shipped scenes, and making jokes that are quite suspicious, somebody is going to say something. Nonshippers casualy always combat hunterpedia with, its not canon, but I just think they just personality don't like the ship if that is all they can come up with to combat hunterpedia. My saying is, : "It may be cringe, but it is the feeding ground for Killugon lovers" if you want to know more about Hunterpedia, look it up, there is plenty for everyone and it is stupid how obvious it is in Hunterpedia. Also, the 2011 director actually referred to the two as husbands, and that Killua is the wife and Gon is the husband (funny right? We love that.) There is also a merchandise ironically called Gon x Killua. Also, if you read the lyrics to both 1999 and 2011, you will unsurprisingly find them to be romantic. The shinju lover's suiside pact is a whole other story. Killua mentions to meloreon that he will commit lovers suiside (uses the word shinju) and Togashi does use the term for regular suicide but only uses lovers suiside for gon and killua. Lover's suiside takes two people. They must admit their love for each other and agree to die together. If the love is not mutual between and death not agreed to by both people it’s not a lovers’ suicide. It’s just death. A lovers’ suicide would never under any circumstances be agreed to between friends. This is strictly reserved for those having strong romantic love for one another and are determined to stay together even after death. No japanese author would confuse these words / terms and there is no explanation for otherwise. ( some info takes from starlight Amino) "

"Palm is shown emerging from her cocoon in her new ant form. Unknown to Killua who is charging up with electricity, he is telling Merelon (lizard guy) to go find Knuckle and see if they [Merelon and the others] need to retreat. Merelon asks what they [Gon and Killua] will do. Killua tells Merelon that he plans to go find Gon next, that in the state Gon is in he won’t budge from Pitou and retreat won’t be option and that “worst case scenario, it will be a lovers’ suicide.” Killua immediately tells Meleoron that he’s kidding, but Merelon does not believe him. This translation of the conversation between Meleoron and Killua comes from the original Japanese version of the Manga. The conversation in English versions of the manga and the anime is different. In some English translations Killua says 'double suicide' or the phrase 'go down in flames together' is substituted. However the Japanese term is very specific. This term was not a slip of Togashi as he uses the regular term for suicide previously in the story, and here in this conversation Killua uses this specific term referring to himself and Gon." https://aminoapps.com/c/hunter-x-hunter/page/blog/lovers-suicide-everything-you-wanted-to-know/o3dL_X8mCduqjdoJ7j8o4beJrkNexBjmpMl (THANKS TO STARLIGHT I WOULD NOT HAVE TIME TO EXPLAIN ALL THIS)

NEXT KILLUA'S BIRTHDAY TANABATA I

" Killua’s birthday is one that has a little more to sink your teeth into than the others. Because unlike hinamatsuri or Children’s Day, July 7th is a festival holiday with a myth attached to it. A tale of star-crossed lovers, almost literally, and one that is reflected in so many aspects of Killua’s life."

READ MORE HERE IF YOU ARE INTERESTED

"https://olivemeister.tumblr.com/post/144588334745/killua-july-7th-and-the-significance-of-his - FULL HERE

MORE so, Gon and Killua has been compared to some couple in old love stories lmfao. Thanks to you, you make me sure that Gon and Killua are meant to be lovers. From your meta, Gon and Killua's stories are inspired by several old love stories lmfao:

• Hikoboshi (Gon) & Orihime (Killua) (Tanabata, their story is like, 90% similar too Tanabata, since their stories are inspired from Tanabata)

• Orpheus (Gon) & Eurydice (Killua) (the whole Zoldyck family arc, except that Gon can bring Killua back alive, and Orpheus is kinda dumb for me, based on the story)

• (a bit of) Romeo (Gon) & Juliet (Killua) (since the Zoldyck family theme is inspired by R&J theme, and from what I've known, Juliet's family is kinda oppressive right? CMIIW)

Idk if it's right or not. And the funny thing is, Killua is always inspired by women, it makes me think that Killua is actually the heroine of Hunter x Hunter but with male body lmao.

SO YOU CAN READ MORE OR LOOK IT UP, BUT IT IS VERY SIGNIFICANT TO THESE FACTS STATED. https://telehxhtrash.tumblr.com/post/635033639292452864/so-gon-and-killua-has-been-compared-to-some

Hisoka also had mentioned, in anime as well completely canon, as the two as a straight couple, when they were talking about Alluka ' power. Basically, in some cases ( I still don't fully understand all of allukas power rules yet there are like a million) but I know that if you don't follow the rules then you and your most loved one will die. But in this case he referred killua to gon as "his most beloved" to die as a straight up couple. Not even mentioning killua's jealousy moments, like when he stalked gon and Palm on their "date" and even admitted to feeling like a stalker. He also got jealous of Gon having another friend, Retz in the movie, and proceeded to shove her to the ground in anger. Also, that one train ride that literally STARTED THE WHOLE MOVIE of hxh, with Killua straight up staring at sleeping Gon, from night to day, so probably for multiple hours, then when Gon awakened, he asked if Killua was staring at him, and Killua responded by clearly blushing and protested very loudly he was not, then Gon, whilst blushing as well, answered by teasing him, saying it was "very suspicious" of killua. Not mentioning all the other times Killua randomly staring at gon with strangely soft eyes and a smile, almost like it means something. But all seriousness, the way he was drawn to look at Gon, was certainly going far. Look it up and see for yourself. He had also once asked Gon if he had been on a date, while Gon said he had, and this bothered Killua a lot, then Killua mentions he had not been on a date. But then, he internally dialogs that he was about to give in, and thinks about Bisky telling him that if he doesn't do somthing about running away from friends and danger he would have to leave Gon's side. ( I previously mentioned this about the way he was raised, as well as I should mention he had a needle stuck in his brain by his older brother, Illumi.) And he was afraid he would betray Gon, like I mentioned before, a main aspect of their relationship. In the movie, Killua had also tried to commit suiside by standing in front of a train, solely because he had believed he had betrayed Gon by running away, but he was saved by Gon, who told him that Killua could betray him a thousand times, but he would still trust him., Talk about a strong "friendship".

There is also the intirerty of that one wholesome moment once when Killua was taking care of unconscious Gon, Killua gave Gon his shirt to keep him warm, but it's not just that, they always seem to be carrying each other. There is also the idea that seems to pop up a lot that Hunter x Hunter, is basically just the two hunters being shipped. Their nen types are also compatible, just right next to each other on the nen wheel. Their astrological signs are compatible as well, Gon being taurus and Killua being Cancer. Their blood types are also compatible, Gon being B and Killua being AB. (Hehehe sole mates) There is also the love umbrella, “Ai Ai Gasa,” “Love-love Umbrella.” You write your name on one side and your love’s name on the other. It’s what you draw when you have a crush on someone, or if you’re dating someone. The symbolism is basically two sweethearts sharing an umbrella, which is considered romantic in Japan.

There are Killua and Gon’s names written under the umbrella in the hunterpedia, in the back. There is also the time where they were facing against Nobunana, where Killua was going to sacrifice himself so Gon could escape, (they were trapped and he Nobunana was guarding the door) and Gon responded by angerly telling Killua that he shouldn't joke around about dying, then proceed to tell Killua that he should die instead, and then they argued about who would sacrifice themselves for the other for a solid amount of time.

When Gon had thanked Killua near the Greed Island arc( I think) Killua responded by internally saying

"You've got it backwards. Gon, I should thank you. I'm the one who's glad, I met you."

Sounds kinda gay to me.

Also when they were playing a very violent version of volleyball with Ging's friend, Killua's hands were beat up from Gon using his Jajanken to lanch the ball, (killua had to hold it) and so another guy( idk his name he doesn't show up again anyways) says that he can take over for killua, but then Gon INSISTS that ONLY killua can be the one who holds the ball :) Also, Gon told Killua, after killua realized he didn't know what to do with his life, Gon told him

"Killua, you'll stay with me! I love being together with you!"

Or in other cases (it's said differently in the things I watched)

"Killua will stay with me. Being together with Killua is fine by me."

Both sound adorable.

Even if that wasn't enough, Killua responds with clearly blushing and looking up at the sky, and internally says "I'll stay with Gon for now."

So the sole facts that come from these are here, and we cannot deny it. But many have different viewpoints and are all over the place. I feel that even if it did become canon, people would still disaprove. Compared to a lot of animes with ships, I would say this is one most likely to come true even just subtlety.

I want to say the MAIN REASON I SHIP THIS SHIP is not necessarily for my own individual enjoyment, but for the relationship in general. If they were a toxic relationship outside all the Fandom aus, then it wouldn't be right. But I feel I do have reason to ship them, because I like the idea of exsploring the aspect of Killua feeling love and friendship for the first time, which he has never felt before, and the idea of him learning about these feelings, would bring Killua's personal character development to next level. As for Gon, I think having sombody always there to help him, especially because he starts to learn about this dark world of hate and death (when Kite died) and for him to have some other form of comfort that would aid him and his development as well. This idea of relationship of healing really warms my heart, and makes it feel a bit different from other ships based solely on personal enjoyment, because it shows a much darker, but more meaning to the ship. It makes the ship what it is, and I believe that is what holds Killugon together. It's the aspect, or idea, or want to explore this beautiful friendship. The one thing I do want to avoid personally, is getting my hopes too high for this ship. But based on the YouTube videos I've seen, and things I resourced, if you look into it it just gets hard and harder to deny. Every single thing I've seen has debates usually ending in yes, they are canon and Killua has a crush on Gon (or it could be a one sided crush just Killua) or something called.... a platonic crush? What? Okay but for real, the hints shown strongly debat but also combat itself at the same time. There are no clear signs which Killua is attracted to one gender or other, so we would never know unless Togashi confirms somthing.

FINAL THOUGHT

Yes, they are about I would say 90 maybe 80% likely to be canon, ONLY BECAUSE it's a Shonen , not a romance and was not heavily focused on that, BUT many shonens like that have sailed ships so could possibly change dramatically, also people might hate the show if it was canon, as well as it not validly canon in the show, BUT Togashi as well as other actors (voice actors and animators) 99.99% SHIP them, which raises it's chances to be sailed. SO YES, Killua does have a crush on Gon, shown in many was that cannot be denied wrong, but it's all in the way people view it. But I think it is wayyyyy too close to be called platonic. At times, it does feel like a romantic anime based on Killuas reactions toward Gon. The only thing holding this ship back is whether Togashi wants to go back to his old days and continue his writing for gay animes. And this hints shown are just too strong, like they want us to ship it, which could possibly be their intention. I don't think they would add in the things the way they did if they didn't want Killugon shippers. Also remember, the manga isn't over yet.

All in all, yes, this ship is nearly to be sailed, even just subtlety, and it is an very healthy ship, canon fact wise.

#killua x gon #hunter x hunter #killugon #hunterxhunter #gonkillu #hxh #gon x killua

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xtruss · 20 days

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Forget 'Walking The Plank.' Pirate Portrayals—From Blackbeard to Captain Kidd—Are More Fantasy Than Fact.

How we think famous swashbucklers walked, talked, and dressed didn't come from the history books, so where did these pirate myths come from?

— By Jamie L. H. Goodall

An illustration from 19th-century artist Howard Pyle depicts a man being forced to walk the plank. Although there is no record of this type of punishment, it remains popular in pirate mythology. Photograph By Image Courtesy of Bridgeman Images

Say “pirate,” and people envision grizzled men with eye patches, parrots, and treasure maps. They picture buccaneers forcing their victims to walk the plank, and crying “Shiver me timbers” as they fly the Jolly Roger flag. It turns out, many of these stereotypes are not true. Pirates have been around for nearly as long as people have sailed the world’s waters, and, in fact, still exist. It’s just how they’ve been depicted that’s often misleading. So where did these misinterpretations come from?

A replica pirate ship cruising the Caribbean Sea near the Dominican Republic. Photograph By Thomas Grau, Alamy Stock Photo

Pirate Fashion

Pirates are commonly portrayed wearing colourful attire. He may sport as a loose-fitting shirt with a bandana around his head, a scarf around his waist, ripped pants, wearing tattered boots, like Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. Or he may appear a bit foppish, much like Stede Bonnet, the "gentleman pirate" in the 2022 series Our Flag Means Death.

Common pop culture depictions of pirate garb, as shown here in this early 20th century artwork, are often based on fanciful descriptions of their attire and language. Photograph By Image Courtesy of Bridgeman Images

Unfortunately, these looks are just not true. Much of this ostentation came from American artist Howard Pyle, who took his inspiration from Spanish bandits of the late 19th century. Sailors in the 18th century, pirates included, wore things such as loose pants cut off at the knee and thigh-length blouses.

Prosthetic limbs are another common pirate trait. It’s true some pirates had a wooden leg or hook hand, though it probably wasn’t the norm. More often than not, amputations at sea were likely a death sentence. While ships carried medicine chests, and medical care was often meted out by someone on the crew, infection and blood loss could lead to death. Even if a pirate survived an amputation, his ability to fight would be limited. But losing a limb didn’t mean one could not continue on the ship; the person might serve the crew, for instance, as a cook.

Many pirate clichés stem from the 1950 film 'Treasure Island,' featuring Robert Newton as the fictional pirate Long John Silver. Photograph By United Archives GMBH, Alamy Stock Photo

Pirate Talk

Common pirate phrases—such as Arrrrr me mateys!” and “Shiver me timbers!”—are common in pirate movies and pop culture. But they’re not legitimate things a pirate would actually have said. Robert Louis Stevenson imagined some of them for his 1883 novel Treasure Island, published more than 150 years after the “golden age” of piracy.

The trope of talking like a pirate is mostly a product of 20th-century Hollywood. In particular, British actor Robert Newton, who played both Blackbeard and Long John Silver. His portrayal of the fictional captain in the 1950s rendition of Treasure Island used an exaggeration of his own West Country accent and would define the sound of a pirate's accent. His portrayal also popularised many of the sayings associated with pirates today. In reality, pirates most probably spoke in a manner similar to all sailors of the time.

An artist imagines the often-willing markets pirates found throughout the Atlantic world for their stolen loot. Transatlantic trade was critical for the success of European colonies. Photograph By Gregory Manchess

Treasure, Buried or Otherwise

Captain Kidd may have buried his treasure, but that was a rare exception for most pirates. Typically, they spent their ill-gotten gains on women and alcohol at pirate-friendly ports as quickly as they could. Burying treasure would be dangerous due to shifting sands and tides, so one might easily lose their treasure. And there was a distinct lack of trust, not knowing if others might deceptively go back to dig up the treasure on their own.

Also, much of the loot pirates collected was not in the form of silver or gold. Such treasure would have been difficult to come by. The more common "booty" would have been whatever goods or commodities they could get their hands on, including timber, furs, silks, cotton, spices, and medical supplies. They also loaded up on items to perform necessary repairs on their ships, including cable, rigging, and sails.

Top Left: A gold bar and coins recovered from the Spanish galleon 'Las Maravillas' that wrecked in 1656 near the Bahamas. Photograph By Jeff Rotman, Nature Picture Library, Alamy Stock Photo Top Right: Prized Spanish coins, or pieces of eight, recovered from the wreck of the 'Whydah Gally'. Photograph By Zuma Press Inc., Alamy Stock Photo Bottom: Wooden treasure chests were typically studded with metal to reinforce them. Photograph By Andyroland, IStock, Getty Images

Pirate Codes

There is evidence that many pirate crews adopted a code of honour or articles of agreement, mostly to keep order on board the ship. These codes dealt with everything from how to divvy up loot, to what happened to pirates if they became injured in the line of duty, to how bad behaviour would be dealt with, to how prisoners would be treated. Some pirate articles have survived to this day, including the code of Englishman George Lowther and his crew, which, for example, compensated a person who lost a limb during a skirmish.

The 1724 articles of Captain John Phillips of the 'Revenge' discuss matters such as theft on board the ship and compensation for limbs lost during battle. Photograph By British Library Board. All Rights Reserved, Bridgeman Images

If a pirate violated the code, it is unlikely they were made to "walk the plank." Little to no historical evidence exists to support that practice, which was largely pulled from fiction, including Treasure Island. If victims were punished in some way, it was typically via keelhauling. Keelhauling was arguably a more hideous fate that involved an individual being tied to a rope and dragged under the ship. Victims of keelhauling either died by bleeding out from injuries inflicted by barnacles on the hull of the ship or by drowning. Other forms of punishment ranged from being thrown overboard to being lashed to being marooned on a desert isle.

Pirate Ships 🛳️ 🚢

Most pirates did not sail Spanish galleons, or even the frigates such as Captain Jack Sparrow’s Black Pearl. They favoured small, more manoeuvrable vessels, which allowed easy escape from larger warships that chased them. During the 16th and 17th centuries, sloops were the most common choice for pirates. They were quick and had a shallow draft, making easier escape into shallow waters. Schooners were another favourite of pirates. Similar to sloops, schooners were fast, simple to manoeuvre, and could easily hide in estuaries because of their shallow draft.

Top: A replica of the 17th-century Spanish galleon 'Neptune'. Photograph By Volodymyr Dvornyk, Shutterstock Middle: A crew raises the anchor from what is believed to be the remains of the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship, 'Queen Anne’s Revenge.' It was discovered in Beaufort Inlet, in Carteret County, North Carolina. Photograph By AP Photo, Robert Willett, The News & Observer

Bottom Left: The National Museum of the Royal Navy in Hampshire, England, displays a Jolly Roger that once belonged to Admiral Richard Curry, who seized it from pirates off the North African coast in 1790. Photograph By Andrew Matthews, Getty Images Bottom Right: Coves, such as this one near Bridgetown, Barbados, would have made perfect hideouts for pirates. Photograph By Fabio Mauri, Eyeem, Getty Images

And, despite popular myth, most pirates did not fly the famous Jolly Roger—a skull and crossbones symbol on a black flag. Some flew a black flag, which meant the pirate was willing to give quarter, while a red flag meant blood and certain death. Blackbeard’s flag showed a skeleton holding a spear pointing at a bleeding heart. Pirate crews also often held the flags of several different nations so they could raise a particular flag to signal being “friendly” to a passing ship, only to raise their pirate flag once they were in close enough range to attack said vessel.

Pirate Fights

One thing that most of the pop culture depictions of pirates got somewhat right is that they liked versatile weapons. Cutlasses, short swords with a slightly curved blade, could be used to effectively fight in the confined areas of a ship and could also be used to butcher meat.

Top: Bar shot were common tools for pirates, who used them at close range to destroy the rigging and sails of enemy ships. Due to the weights on either end of the bars, they would spin uncontrollably after being fired from a cannon. Bottom: This musket’s barrel and stock were cut down, likely so a pirate could more easily use it in close combat. Photographs By Kenneth Garrett

Pirates also enjoyed using a gun known as a blunderbuss. It had a distinct flared muzzle that sprayed small lead balls at intended victims. Cannons were also common onboard pirate ships. They could be loaded with chain shot (two cannonballs chained together), grapeshot (small cannonballs), or basic cannonballs. Their targets often didn’t stand a chance.

While books, movies, and popular culture may have taken liberty with descriptions of pirates through the ages, these pillagers have terrorised the seas for more than 2,000 years in one form or another, plundering victims and striking fear into their hearts. The most recent pirates work off the coasts of Somalia and Malaysia, looking far different from the “golden age” of piracy depictions. But one thing remains true: They are just as intimidating.

The 18th-century painting 'Anne Bonny, Female Pirate' by Fortunino Matania depicts Anne Bonny and an accomplice taking two sailors prisoner. Photograph By Image Courtesy of Historia, Shutterstock

#Culture | History #Pirate Portrayals #Blackbeard | Captain Kidd #Fantasy | Fact #Pirate Mythology #Pirate Ship 🛳️ 🚢#Pirate Garb #Fanciful | Descriptions #Attire Language #Treasure Island #Transatlantic Trade #European Colonies #Bahamas 🇧🇸

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ltwilliammowett · 4 months

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#master and commander #work done now i can relax #at least a bit #age of sail movies and series #i missed the lads

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popawritter12 · 13 days

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It's that anon who sent the yandere pyke ask can the reader be male and was a person who was friends with pyke and tried to rescue him but couldn't.

Author's note: Anon 🤝 me.

Likes Yandere

✨ Pyke✨

I really wished to do Yandere things with this man, I really hope you liked it because I LOVED how I do it.

At the same time, you will see that the beginning is somewhat poetic because I plan to present half of the story to a group of writers and readers who are not Yanderes fans, I hope you don't mind <3.

(Also, I choosed this one bcs have all the information of the relationship of the Yandere and the reader, just bcs i want you to know Anon!)

Yandere! Pyke x Male! reader

Yandere character: Pyke

From the videogame/serie/anime/movie: League of Legends.

Case: Mention of kidnapping, murder.

Part: 1 of 1.

I still hear his calm breathing next to me, I still feel his eyes watching me make mistakes and how ready he was to have a sneer on his face, ready to mock me. I still remember the stories he told during countless sleepless nights.

That's how he was; relaxed, not very talkative and quite calm with his emotions, and that was the reason why we connected with each other.

He always showed a different side to me, sometimes bordering on having another personality. It was nice to know that he could have a friend so graceful that he could reveal each and every facet of himself to me.

His words were as soft as a loom in our lonely moments, and he always fluttered my loose locks because of my short stature. His hands, rough and damaged, dry and brutish, always tried to touch me gently, although more than once, in the most escapist moments, he was brutish, and only in times of his annoyance did he refuse to even offer me a hug.

The gentle jokes, the sensitive moments, the angry screams or even indistinctly cold times, we were always together, like one brother to another, with an affection that always terrified my heart.

However, now all those moments became just mine, all the seconds of overwhelming loneliness were purely mine, not to mention the stormy nights where I felt like my mind was submerged in a bathtub, full and on the verge of overflowing with salty water.

Never, in my three centuries of life, do I remember feeling this way about someone; not for my ex-partner, much less for my marked childhood friends, and maybe and just maybe now I realize why he was so clingy to you.

With pain I return to that ship today, where the damaged and barely usable boxes due to the years of age are now an indistinct characteristic of the dirty, disgusting and putrid wooden ship. With every step, my nightmares crawl beneath me, taking my heels and seeking to drag me into my madness, seeking to take me once again to that night where everything had to go wrong.

If he told me months ago what could have happened that day, perhaps he would not have believed him, or perhaps not, but that was already a story from another line, one of which, most likely, I will never be a part.

The smell of fish invades my senses again, as if the world was attracting me back to earth, the day where I had to set sail again.

The creaking wood, the doors creaking plaintively in protest of a change of materials, and the hesitant whispers of the other workers of this horrendous crew brought me back to my early days, where he, always him, would greet me with a basic greeting, nodding his head and leading a walk towards his work area, where, out of mere habit, there was always a side reserved solely and exclusively for me.

While the waves crashed against the wood, the anchor rose, and another day was announced again, beginning again my routine, and perhaps my mental hell, where the cry of my being so precious, blaspheming that I would never let go, and that we would both get out alive if we did things right.

I still get chills remembering that night, and I barely managed to notice the inevitable passing of the day, and the constant calls for attention I received from the fat idiot who called himself captain.

I clicked my tongue at his complaints, humming a vague response that, in the end, I never followed through with. During the course of the day, I can notice the words of comfort from my companions, as they regretted knowing that someone like him had left in such a violent way and his body without being able to receive such a well-deserved rest as the burial would be.

It was still a vivid memory of the scream that that bastard gave me to let him go, threats to cut off my arm if I didn't let go and let him die, and, consciously, he bent my arm to weaken my grip and thus let him go.

I still feel that beating of my heart accelerate when my soul complains loudly, blaming my body for its weakness. And, perhaps, it was true, and if he traveled to the past one more time, I would save him without hesitation. But there would never be a third chance.

It was midnight when I calmly breathed the attenuating air in the midst of the favored wind that hit my skin, and I daydreamed that his footsteps could be heard again behind me, that he cradled his arms against the railing and rested his head lightly on his shoulder, as if I wanted to support it against mine.

I turned a deaf ear to the shouting of voices of all that persons, knowing that the profit shared was always a topic of debate, and I thought for a moment about going, but my mind simply downplayed its importance, since money was the last thing I wanted to be able to have right now.

But, even with all the laziness in the world, I just sighed, before backing away from the ship's railing, looking to get back under cover.

The smell of fresh meat was routinely annoying, and the lights off seemed a new trend due to its lack, however, I turned on the flashlight, seeking to bring calm back to the place.

But all I noticed was a painful moan, a gasp laced with blood and saliva in someone's throat. Lowering the lamp slightly, the fresh blood did not come from a fish.

With one last moan of pain, in the background the corpse was heard landing, causing a crude dull sound in the air.

Just by seeing that terrifying event with the lack of light, I knew that attack, but I couldn't help but feel weak before the amount of darkness. In the throat and in the chest, or with the heart pierced; All the corpses looked like a grotesque scene, and the putrid smell of blood took the main focus, while the sound seemed muffled at this point in the story.

And I heard that voice, that voice that had been bothering me so much for a long time.

—I'm sorry…

Soft as a gust of wind, but clinging to a lack of oxygen, the large corpse falls to the ground, the thud re-entering my senses, returning my mind to what seemed to be, my direct path to my own massacre.

Lifting the lamp a little higher, the tall shadow makes its appearance, finally showing that creature. That creature was that man, and almost immediately, my source of illumination escaped from my hands, falling to the ground immediately.

—Pyke? —I asked, my voice waterier than usual.

He took a step towards me, and the now almost non-existent lighting of the lamp illuminates the red bandana with white details in the center, and his eyes narrowed when he saw me. His look was different from the last time I saw him, and I could inevitably feel how that knot in my heart slowly moved to my throat, prohibiting me from being able to speak.

But he didn't mention anything, he just walked away quickly, but I couldn't hear his footsteps.

He couldn't even say goodbye to me with a hug, which caused me to know, realistically, that he had only hallucinated, and that in reality, it was just a murderer, a mercenary who needed to kill the entire crew. And in the distance I heard his hurried footsteps, which finally made me realize my own reality.

Upon hearing a man's scream, I noticed that his accelerated footsteps were approaching, so I could only get away from there.

Maybe that illusion was a lie, or maybe he really came back, but that story already belonged to an ending that not even I could wait for.

My feet were right on the edge of the boat, and with tears in my eyes, I just knew that he had hallucinated. He wasn't coming back, and now his existence would become a blurry memory in my crazy mind.

The shot crossed a path close to my head, so I had no choice but to tilt my body to fall into the void, to the place that had taken my best friend, and now, he claimed my soul as his property. .

My body suddenly collided with the water, and I was clinging to the unmovable boat for a few seconds, and only when the shots stopped, I had the will to swim out, even with the cold in my body, I knew that there was no other way out.

In my mind was the vivid image of him, of the mask on a face that I thought belonged to him, but that, deep down, I knew was just a hallucination.

I painfully continued against the waves of the sea, and the soft wind was now a chilling reminder that only a cold awaited me outside the water.

And unexpectedly, I could feel something roughly grab my foot, dragging my body under the water. Abruptly my mouth swallowed a few drops of the salty liquid, and my body was finally dragged beneath the dawn of the moon.

The sea was that monster that absorbed the souls of sailors, it was a fearful creature that, when you least expect it, drags your body to that end. And that end was me, I was that monster who had found that agony in this tedious and spiteful night.

But it wasn't, and an inhumanly large arm dragged me back to the surface, throwing my body onto the ship.

—Why the hell did you do that? —He asked, most in an angry way.

I touched the water, trying not to lose what little oxygen I had. My breath returned a few seconds later, and my hands landed against the old wood, now damp from the droplets escaping my body.

He was next to me, I can see that a long paper was in his hands, crossing out something that he preferred not to know what it was.

Upon returning to the ground, I raised my body, managing to notice how tall this guy was.

When I found myself I said right with this man, there was only one question in my mind.

—Who are you?

His brow furrowed, just as the weapon in his hands was once again placed in one of his palms. A heavy sigh leaves him.

—Is that the first thing that occurs to you to say? Really?

I gasped sharply, tears returning to my eyes. His voice was the same, it was soft, but it was stricter now. And happiness returned to my soul as if I had returned to a few days ago.

—Pyke... —Almost immediately, I jumped into his arms,—.., it's really you.

He remained stoic, and in my mind, I thought it was because of everything he had been through.

—You're different... but you're still you —I sobbed like a child, and sought refuge in that hug.

His hand wet with his blood refuses to caress my loose locks, so he limits himself to patting my back, with a white T-shirt already covered in stains from previous jobs.

—Ah, holy cow... I thought I lost you —I sighed, my tears wouldn't stop coming—, I'm so happy right now... I just..

I barely managed to separate myself from him, I just wiped away my tears. Although I tried to speak, the memory of the dead people finally brings me back to the events that happened recently.

—Pyke —I called him —, with did you kill them...?

He didn't look confused, and on the contrary, he just responded as if it were as natural as breathing.

—They are on the list.

—What list? —You asked, confused.

Then, I remember the list he was holding a while ago, which I assumed he had saved. With all of my thoughts aligned, and I could only backed away.

—What's going on? —He asked.

—Do you…

But he didn't let me finish because I crashed into a big box full of fish, and he only had to get close to me to corner me.

—Don't say stupid things—He stabbed his weapon against the fish box.

It was as if he wanted to generate something in me, but I couldn't figure out what exactly.

—You will never be on the list.

The closeness between the two was terrifyingly dark for me, but I didn't say anything, I didn't want to keep him away from me, out of the desire to never lose him, but never again.

—But... And the others? —I asked, eager for an answer.

—They? —He responded, confused, —, why are you interested now?

His hand was clinging to the weapon, while with the other he gently played with my loose locks, since that hand had no more blood stains.

—Without them I won't be able to work —I explain, trying to sound kind—besides, I don't understand what the whole problem is going to be like when I get back into murky waters, you know? There is the captain's family who is going to want the ship, some who want to buy it or who will claim me when they see how most of them are murdered and...

—You don't need them —He clarified, his tone now sounding rougher —, you don't need them anymore.

—Come on Pyke, you have to understand that I have to keep paying for things, I have to keep working, or eating, or drinking, or other things... don't you think they can accept me saying that a creature attacked us if the ship is not damaged... ?

I had to stop talking, because he just covered my mouth with the palm of his hand; It was customary for him to do things as uncomfortable as this.

—Stop worrying about those things.

And then he let go of my mouth, while I could feel some heat on my face.

—Even after death you're still the same —I joked, gently taking his hand —, don't take it so personally.

I can feel the nervousness eating away at my mind, trying to stay calm, I just gasp, and he didn't react.

A couple of seconds passed until he just moved his hand, wiping away the remnants of tears on my cheeks.

—Well, I guess we can go back now —I tried to get out of his corner, however, something stopped me—, what's wrong?

—No.

A serious but irritated whisper is heard from his mouth.

—No what..? —I ask, confused.

—You're not leaving. —He grabs my shoulder, pushing me against the large wooden box.

—Pyke, why are you acting so strange...?

—You won't leave again, I won't let the same thing happen to you that happened to me —He assured, imperturbably —, I won't allow any of that.

—But, they're already dead—I try to answer, but the grip on my shoulder becomes painful, rough, starting to hurt me. —. Pyke, you're hurting me.

—No, I won't let anything bad happen to you.

And before I could find a space in his words to respond, he abruptly approached me, almost smashing his lips against mine in a abrupt, brutal and excessively painful way for me.

I whined, I tried to struggle, I even tried to escape from his grasp, but he always found a way to grab me. Before I could do anything, he had already left irreversible marks on my skin, and his teeth so profusely marked on my neck and shoulders were only a mere memory of the night in which, my best friend, and whom I considered my platonic love, came back to life, seeking that affection and ensuring that, inevitably, the ship of which I was part of its crew never to be seen again by any human being

#yandere #poppa thoughs #obsessive love #poppa things #yandere x you #yandere male #yandere league of legends #league of legends #pyke #yandere pyke #pyke league of Legends #pyke lol #lol #x reader #x male reader #tw Yandere #Yandere blog

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mystery-star · 6 months

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Whumptober 2023 - Day 15 | "I'm fine"

Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World (2003)

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mastcrmarksman · 1 month

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a very brief verse bio for all the verses.

01 // 616, main verse, canon divergent

this one has a post go find it. main verse/blog canon and how i write clint.

02 // Square Enix's Avengers Game

Pretty goes exactly as the game; and game verse Clint will also probably work for the Spidey Games, Guardians game, and Midnight Suns.

03 // Star Trek

this is set mainly in the AOS timeline, but i do know voyager and prodigy-ish. Throughout the timeline of the 3 movies; Clint is a pilot of the Enterprise on the beta or gamma shift. After Beyond, he is a security officer and eventually chief of security. ( this has a post)

04 // Wastelands

Old Man Hawkeye, Old Man Logan, Wastelanders. Verse setting that revolves around the various aus of Marvel's Waatelands.

05 // Old Man

Basically, older Clint maybe minus the wastelands or Old Man Clint from Wastelands yeetede into 616 like Old Man Logan does.

06 // Mass Effect

Clint is a human Spectre for the Citadel/Council. His ship is small crewed ship, intended for stealth, which he has named The Broken Arrow (he very much needs a new ship, hence the broken)

07 // Last of Us (or zombine in general)

Clint's a runner for the Fireflies, and then eventually he's a hunter/patrol man for a settlement. Strictly uses a bow.

08 // Dragon Age

He's an ex-templar; he got out of a criminal sentence by signing up to be a templar. He hated being a templar. Sucks how the Chantry makes all their templars lyrium addicted, isn't it. ha. ha.

09 // Pirate

Pretty straight forward. He's a pirate. My context for pirates is Black Sails, so this was a lot more serious toned.

10 // Cowboy

He's a cowboy. Duh. I'll figure this out later.

11 // Medical Drama (influenced by so many medical dramas i watch)

Clint is an ER Doctor. Yup. This man went to medical school. He likes the varied pace of ER. He's just trying to live his life man. Works way too much. Lives on coffee.

12 // Spy or Assassin

Figure this one out. What the fuck is he doing? Whose side? He works in Internal Affairs :) :) :) [that's a lie/cover made for him by Shield]

13 // Firefighter w/ 911 series influence (both)

Self explanatory. Really

14 // Baldur's Gate

Dex Fighter/Rogue multiclass (yup) // he's a Harper, possibly gonna be a tadpoled companion; he just works in fantasy settings. You know, bad/sad childhood, ran away to the circus, criminal who got into a lot of trouble (circus fault) and then he finds something/somewhere to redeem himself and use his skills for good; The Harpers.... and then if BG3, probably tadpoled and act 2, the harpers you meet are like oh shit that's where you went clint

#[ ABOUT ] Verse bios tag #everything will get full bios later.#once again mental illness kicking my ass. i will try to write more another day.

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the-yuri-librarian · 3 months

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Hi..... if you don't mind, can I ask, your top 10 (or top 7) favorite GL media (can be books/ manga/manhwa/baihe/ anime/movies/tv series)? And why you love them? Thanks if you want to answer....

I don't mind at all! In fact, putting together a top ten has been on my to do list for a while but I haven't done it yet because it seems real daunting. But, I'll try my best here. Spoiler alert, my #1 spot is a tie. I love both titles and I can't pick between them:

1a. Pulse (manhwa):

Premise: Mel is an expert surgeon at an esteemed hospital, and she is happy with where she is in her life. Her work is fulfilling, she has tons of sex, and everything seems to be generally going her way. But, she has no real emotional connections. Mel believes that love is a foolish game, so instead of dating with any real seriousness, she chooses to bounce from hook up to hook up. But, that all changes when Mel meets Lynn. Lynn has a fatal heart condition and desperately needs a transplant. But, she wants Mel to be the one to perform the surgery. As Lynn entangles herself in Mel's life, the stone of Mel's heart begins to crack....

Why I love it: the story in Pulse is incredible. Mel's character arc is perfectly developed, and her backstory is very interesting when you finally get there (she's also very hot lol). Lynn is equally well developed, fighting for her life while also contemplating it's value. The ups and downs of their relationship is gripping, and the ending left me in tears. I do think there is a pretty major flaw in the story near the end, but I won't get into it here as I plan on doing a review after I reread it in February. CW: sexual assault. It is a bit of an age gap but not a huge one. Also this is very spicy

1b. Love Thy Neighbor (manhwa):

Premise: Doyeon seems to be perfect. She has a large group of friends, a perfect GPA, and is sailing through med school with ease. But, she has one problem: her neighbor keeps her up at night. Whether it is debt collectors pounding on the door at all hours of the day, or the neighbor crying into the night while the TV plays, Doyeon can't get any sleep. Eventually, the debt collectors get physically aggressive, and Doyeon has no choice but to pull her neighbor into her apartment to save her. The neighbor, a woman named Jin Joo, ends up staying at Doyeon's apartment for her own safety. This is all fine and well, but why is Doyeon starting to have sex dreams about her?

Why I love it: so, three things here right up front: 1. there is also an age gap in this story (which I think is a coincidence), 2. It is very spicy and 3. it is incredibly toxic (to the point that consent between the two characters becomes murky) and not for the faint of heart. With all that out of the way: I love this story. Doyeon is so incredibly interesting as a character (and might be a genuine sociopath); all she wants to do is be loved unconditionally and she never gets it and that internal tension is incredible. The plot is also very dramatic, and it makes it HARD to put it down (also I've read through season 1 like 3 times in 4 months). I literally count the days between chapter releases. I didn't think I would enjoy a psychological drama so much but this one really knocks it out of the park. This drama has the effect of, murky consent aside, making the sex scenes electric. They are so well written, carrying significant narrative weight while also being genuinely very hot. There is this constant battle for control between our romantic leads that leaks into their sex, and it's just chef's kiss. I cannot stress enough how much I love this story. Season 2 just started releasing a couple weeks ago so now is an excellent time to jump on board. (PSA: if anyone my mutuals or followers starts reading this PLEASE send your live reactions to my DMs I will love you forever I wanna talk to someone about this story so bad)

3. Qualia the Purple (manga)

Premise: [Redacted]

Why I love it: so this is by far the weirdest love story I have ever read, and it is terribly sad. How far would you go to save the person you love most? The lengths Yukari wuld go to save her love are endless, and her desperation is what makes this tale worth reading. I really don't want to say too much here because this story is best experienced knowing as little about is as possible before you start reading it (also why I didn't include a premise). As a heads up: this story is deeply philosophical and may make you cry. Be sure to read the afterword

4. Nevermore (webtoon)

Premise: Lenore and Annabel Lee both wake up on a distant shore with no memories of who they are. Chased by bizarre spirits, they flea until they stumble upon Nevermore Academy. Here, they are told that they are dead, and that they are here to compete for a second chance at life. Also, they can turn into ghosts with superpowers. As they being to move through the trials, it becomes increasingly clear that their previous lives were deeply tied together. But the question remains: what are they to each other?

Why I love it: the real allure to this story is the mystery. Who is Lenore? Who is Annabel Lee? What is the truth behind Nevermore Academy? The list of questions is never-ending. Also, Lenore is an incredibly charming protagonist, whose quick wit and determination makes it impossible to not cheer for her. The is also inspired heavily by Edgar Allen Poe's work and the gothic literary tradition (and aesthetic). In fact, Lenore's name, as well as Nevemore Academy's name, comes from the poem "The Raven," and Annabel Lee is named after the famous poem of the same name. Coincidentally, both this story and the poem "Annabel Lee" take place "in a kingdom by the sea." As a literature nerd, this is a HUGE plus for me. Especially recommend this story for those who like to try and figure out what's going on before the characters do (so, if you were in the red string brigade while The Magnus Archives was airing this is a must read)

5. Her Tales of Shim Chong (manhwa)

Premise: This manhwa is a historical, girls' love retelling of classic Korean novel The Tale of Shim Chong. It tells the story of Shim Chong, a beggar who is desperately trying to make ends meet to feed her and her blind father, and the soon-to-be second Madame Jang, who has been sold into marrying the Chancellor to give her family a better position. After a chance encounter, they build a friendship -- and eventually more -- that transcends class boundaries. But not everyone is happy with the Chancellor's new wife, and Chong's presence is far from welcome in the royal palace. When the Chancellor falls into a mysterious coma after the wedding night, his children make plans to oust Madam Jang, and it may be up to Shim Chong to save not only their relationship, but their lives.

Why I love it: I think the premise of this story is so so romantic; it drives me crazy. Madame Jang is essentially trapped by the narrative, and Shim Chong is the only one who is able and willing to break her out. The premise creates the perfect setting to critique not only the historical politics of Korea, but also the treatment of women within Korean culture (disclaimer: I am far from an expert here but I think the theme is very prevalent). It is also probably the only yuri I've read so far that would qualify as magical realism, which ties in to the folktale setting with ease. There is not a lot of physical affection in this story, but when it's there, it's so sweet I can't help but swoon. If you like historical fiction, I would recommend starting here out of everything on this list (or start with the next entry).

6. Goodbye, My Rose Garden (manga)

Premise: Hanako is a Japanese woman who has come to England in search of her favorite author. In the meantime, she looks for work as a maid and is eventually hired by a noblewoman named Alice. But, Alice has an unbelievable request for Hanako: she wants Hanako to kill her. Hanako immediately begins trying to find out why Alice wants to throw away her life, and as she does she finds a hidden side of the noblewoman kept deep under wraps...

Why I love it: this story is so romantic, and tense, and dramatic that it has become critically acclaimed - and for good reason. The depiction of historical views on homosexuality are really well done and is juxtaposed well next to Hanako's sapphic awakening. I really think that this yuri is a must read, not just because of the romance, but because of the historical perspectives portrayed within. I wish I could say more but it's been a while since I've read it, and I plan on rereading it and posting a review sometime within the first half of this year

7. Mage & Demon Queen (webtoon)

Premise: In a world where demons and humans are at constant war, Malori has survived childhood and become a powerful mage..... because she is totally in love with the Demon Queen, Velverosa. In fact, Malori would do anything to spend time with her, and she means anything. Day after day Malori climbs the Demon Queen's tower to try and win her heart, and day after day she is defeated. Will the Demon Queen ever love her? Or, will Velverosa be slain before their relationship has time to blossom?

Why I love it: ONE OF THE ROMANTIC LEADS IN THIS STORY IS A TRANS WOMAN (it's Vel lol). But also: this is by far the funniest yuri I have ever read. Whether is is on the cheesy side or the genuinely hilarious side, the humor in this story is baked all the way through, giving it an adorable charm. Additionally, Vel's slow decent into love is so fucking adorable that I often find myself going back to reread her confession; it's just so sweet. If you like a wholesome, light hearted story, or are a big fan of RPGs or isekais (it's not one but it's close enough), then you MUST give this a read. I'm afraid Webtoons.com is putting it behind a paywall soon (against it's creator's wishes), but you may be able to find it else where possibly.

8. Sunstone (American comic)

Premise: in this erotic romcom, Lisa is a writer and, more importantly, a submissive. Ally is a well-experienced programmer and considers herself a dominatrix. They have one thing in common: they have never done BDSM in real life. One day, they meet in a virtual chat room and become fast friends. This friendship evolves as they begin exchanging DMs, and eventually they decide to meet up. They hit it off just as well in person as they do online, and their one time sexual encounter becomes much more, changing their lives forever.

Why I love it: this comic features probably the most realistic depiction of a BDSM relationship - and BDSM sex - that I have ever seen. The characters are complicated, and messy, and so human that you can't helped but be sucked into their lives. It also features one of the most romantic confessions I have ever experience in yuri. Just top notch writing from top to bottom, while also treating the subject matter with dignity and care. The writer has a lot of experience with BDSM in real life, and it really shows with the way the series treats consent, safe words, and after care. If you've never read this story, you need to change that asap. You're really missing out.

9. Whisper me a love song (manga)

Premise: On her first day of high school, Himari watches a band play at the opening ceremony, where she immediately "falls in love" with the lead singer. The next day, she runs into that singer, Yori, and tells her so. Yori's response is unexpected: she says, "I love you, too." Quickly, and awkwardly, Himari realizes that her platonic feelings are being met with Yori's romantic feelings. As their friendship develops, she begins to wonder: what does it mean to love someone?

Why I love it: I really love music, especially rock and punk music, so a romance story based around a musician is automatically going to appeal to me and this one is no exception. Himari's struggle with her sexuality feels so real, and Yori's determination to win Himari's heart naturally compels her internal conflict forward until she has to decide. This manga is so so so cute, especially considering Himari's puppy dog like energy, and this story is almost guaranteed to make you swoon. It is ongoing and getting an anime this year, so please read it and support the official release!

10. Bloom into You (manga)

Premise: Bloom into You tells the story of high school freshman Yuu, as she discovers herself and tries to gain an understanding of "love," which all of her friends seem enamored with. She has never had someone who felt special to her in that way, though she desperately wants to. This all changes when she meets sophomore Nanami, who has also never fallen in love. As they get to know each other, Nanami begins to fall in love with Yuu, though Yuu does not understand why. At the same time, Yuu thinks her chest may be starting to flutter, a feeling that she has longed for but still does not understand...

Why I love it: so there was no way that this wasn't making the list, right? It is the standard for high school yuri, and for good reason. Yuu and Nanami are perfect for each other, and Yuu's slow decent into love is incredible to watch. If you have never read yuri and you want to know where to start, the answer is right here. It is, in fact, required reading. If I were to teach a semester long university class on yuri (a fantasy situation I think about alot), this would be the first story I would assign. The romantic tension is mesmerizing, the supporting cast is top tier, and the ending is immensely satisfying. There is also ace/aro representation, arguably in the main character and canonically in the supporting cast. I am currently doing a live blog/analysis of Bloom into You if you want to follow along with me, though I am very behind on it (I swear I'm gonna continue it, and I'm sorry to my followers :( the new year has not been kind to me lol).

I have done reviews and analysis of some of these series, and have borrowed summaries from those posts. I am linking those down below in case you haven't read them. However, if you read the Qualia the Purple review before reading the manga I will find you:

Her Tales of Shim Chong Review

Qualia the Purple Review

Bloom into You Ch. 1 Analysis

Bloom into You Ch. 2 Analysis

Edit: I just realized that you asked for girls lov books too, so I guess that is going to have to be a separate post....

#long post #asks #yuri #girls love #yuri posting #manga #manhwa #webtoons #recommendations #seriously sorry its so long #I feel like I'm always saying that #anyway #please send me more asks!#request reviews #ask me my thoughts about what i've read #tell me to read obscure yuris no one has ever heard of!#my inbox is always open :)

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