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nanoland · 1 year

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LOVEQUAKE, by TJ Land

the title: LOVEQUAKE

the deets: Science fiction, M/M + F/F, novel-length

the blurb:

No one knows what to make of Sunday. He’s handsome. He’s stylish. He’s got endless amounts of cash that he splashes around like water. But there’s something just a little bit wrong about the way he talks – like he’s never had a conversation before – and the way he walks – like he expects walls to simply get out of his way. Though his hair and beard are immaculately groomed, he never brushes the former or trims the latter. And he talks to the sky. All of which are very solid, sensible reasons for Zip Fletcher, cheerfully rude Welsh sex worker, not to develop a crush on him. Zip is, however, not a sensible man.

the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08P7VC5YL

the extract:

In a small café in Cardiff, a thing that wasn’t a man loomed over his first ever ice-cream sundae and studied it with a critical eye.

A fussy bit of business, overall. Strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla? Three different flavours of the same food, on the same plate? Why? The banana; was that wholly necessary? The humble pecan nuts – the one foodstuff he’d wholeheartedly enjoyed since giving himself a mouth – had all been coated in a sticky brown substance that completely disguised their natural taste. Why, then, were they there?

“Uninspiring,” he concluded, dropping the spoon with a contemptuous flourish.

“Can I have it, then?”

A human had come to stand beside his table and was eyeing his sundae with naked covetousness.

Was he a threat? The thing that wasn’t a man ran an analytical eye over his physique and apparel. He knew humans lacked claws and fangs; he checked for them anyway and found none. Nor was he carrying a weapon, although there might well be one hidden somewhere beneath his cheap black shirt and tattered jeans. No obvious physical disabilities that might impede his effectiveness in combat; nonetheless, he was short and skinny. Overpowering him would be a simple matter.

Most importantly, he was alone. The thing that wasn’t a man had been informed that humans were at their most dangerous when they collaborated.

Relax. Everything’s fine.

“You want my food,” he said, trying, as ever, to keep the gravelly rumble out of his voice. The first time he’d spoken to a human, he’d frightened them – though that, in fairness, might have been attributable to his not yet having got it down to only thirty-two teeth. “Take it, then.”

Dropping into the opposite seat, the newcomer picked up the abandoned spoon. “Thanks! Ooh, is that chocolate fudge? Bloody mad for chocolate fudge, me.”

The thing that wasn’t a man watched, in the manner of a marine biologist who’d just discovered a mildly interesting species of aquatic slug slithering through the murky depths, as he devoured the fudge, the banana, the ice-cream, and every last nut in five quick swallows. Then he lifted the bowl and licked it clean.

Now that the thing’s attention was thoroughly engaged, he took in those details his first assessment had missed. The specimen before him was approaching his fortieth year of life, if the lines on his face and the grey threads running through his messy brown hair were any indication. Black eyes, slightly bloodshot. Yellow teeth. One gold incisor.

“You’re creepy, aren’t you?” the human observed, dragging his tongue over a spoon that had long since given up its bounty. “Eyeballin’ me like that. You a serial killer or summink? Planning to follow me outside and knife me in the parking lot, eh? Stuff me into the back of your big shiny car and dump me in the nearest duckpond?”

He sound positively excited by the prospect.

“I don’t have a car,” the thing imparted, continuing to stare at him unabashed.

“No? Good. Me neither. Horrible things. Bad for the environment, bad for society. Where’re you from, by the way? That accent’s got me foxed.”

“I’m under no obligation to tell you that. You haven’t even introduced yourself.”

He seemed to have great difficulty sitting still for any prolonged period of time, continuously rearranging his arms and legs and scratching himself. As he shifted, the thing noticed a piece of round plastic fixed to his left ear. A weapon? No; as he recalled, most commonplace weapons on this planet were considerably larger. Perhaps it was a medical device.

“I haven’t, have I? Fair enough. I’m Zip from Swansea, then from London, then from Cardiff. Bit of a rover. I like scary movies and shitty books. Not into anything worse than a touch of weed here and there. My CD4 count’s been looking good for the last six months; doc says she’s really proud of me. Got a flat not far from here. What d’you say?”

Bewildered, the thing reviewed what he’d been told about human social interaction. Less than sixty percent sure, he said, “You are… propositioning me?”

“Give the man a prize,” said Zip, sitting back with a grin. “I specialise in artisanal fellatio – condoms are not negotiable, I’m afraid – and I’ve been told my handjobs feel like being groped by bloody Beethoven. Hardly surprising; look at these fingers. Not bad, eh? In another life, I’d have been a pianist. Plus, y’know, I moisturise. Honey and sage revitalising cream, good stuff. Gotta take care of your skin. Anyway, that’s what’s on the table. No anal; not ‘til we know each other a bit better.”

“Interesting. There are a dozen other people in this establishment. Why have you approached me, might I ask?”

“God, you talk weird. I mean… you’re sitting alone. Look like you could use some cheering up. You’ve obviously got cash, what with that fancy suit and that fat tip you tossed at the waitress. And, y’know. The nails.”

“My fingernails?”

“Yeah, they’re gorgeous. Shiny as a dolphin’s clit. I can count on one hand the number of blokes I’ve met around these parts who get regular manicures and don’t fuck men. So? Do I pass the test? Look, I’ll be honest; I don’t usually do it like this. Coming on strong’s not my style. I’m all about decorum, usually. Like to set things up in advance, all nice and organised. Only – well, money’s tight right now, what with the old economy belly-up and twitching its last, and none of my usual clients are picking up. So! I’m abiding by the dictates of a self-help book my baby sister wrote and seizing the initiative; yanking myself up by the bootstraps, and so on.”

“You talk a great deal.”

“Yep. That an issue?”

“No.”

“Then can I get your name at last, darling?”

Still reviewing Zip’s interpretation of his appearance and adding it to his growing library of data points, the thing absently gave him the first name that came to mind. “Sundae.”

“Heh. Right. Your name’s Sundae and you’re eating a sundae. C’mon, make an effort.”

Blast. “No. ‘Sunday’. With a ‘Y’.”

“Uh-huh. Fine, fine. How about it, Mister Sunday? Wanna come back to my place for a while?”

“No.”

Zip’s grin popped like a balloon. “Oh. Bugger. Thought I was getting somewhere. Okay, no hard feelings. Buy me a coffee?”

the cover:

#books #bookblr #indie publishing #writeblr #scifi novels #gay romance #queer books #selfpublished #science fiction

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semper-legens · 1 year

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162. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

Owned: Yes Page count: 235 My summary: A man returns to his childhood home for reasons he can’t understand, and ends up remembering more than he thought was possible. A girl who might be older than the world. A grandmother who was there when the moon was made. A dead man in his father’s car. A woman tearing his family apart at the seams. And a dark force, lurking at the edge of reality, ready to destroy all. My rating: 3.5/5 My commentary:

Readers of this blog might be aware of my longstanding Thing with Neil Gaiman. I generally tend not to get on with his adult prose fiction - I like The Sandman, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, one comic series and two works for children, but I wasn’t fussed about his adult prose that I have read. This is a book for kids. Therefore, by my own logic, I should at least like it. And I did, but not without reservations. It’s not going to occupy the same place in my heart that The Graveyard Book does, but I still had a good time reading it.

The narrator of this book is an unnamed man who was once an unnamed boy - the framing device is that he’s returned to this place where he grew up for reasons he doesn’t quite understand, and is remembering the events of the narrative. The point of view is definitely that of a child, however. The boy himself is very much an everyman, and subtextually a standin for Neil Gaiman’s younger self. This book is actually (loosely) based on Gaiman’s childhood experiences. With that in mind...I mean, the fact that the Hempstocks, these cool, interesting women, all seem to love and include the boy in everything despite him just being Some Kid felt a bit self-inserty, but not really in a bad way or anything. Every protagonist is the most important person in their universe, really. That said, I didn’t feel that the boy had much of an arc in the book? Still, he was an engaging narrator, and I liked how Gaiman included some of the more awkward parts of being a kid in his narrative.

So the boy comes across a kid called Lettie Hempstock, and is introduced to her family, her mother Ginny and her grandmother Old Mrs Hempstock. They’re some kind of ambiguous magical people - Lettie is far older than her years, as are her mother and grandmother. They banish and bind malicious magical creatures like it’s no big deal. I liked them a lot, but something kept me from being completely invested in them. I think because they didn’t have a lot of character outside of being Mysterious Magic Ladies? Or outside of their place in the maiden/mother/crone dynamic. Which is one, incidentally, that Gaiman seems to like in his work.

The magic is cool, though, obviously inspired by English folklore and folk stories, with a bit of extra stuff in for flavour. I like how weird the descriptions of the being calling herself Ursula are, and that the ‘fleas’ and ‘hunger birds’ are never really explained, they just...are. I like magic stuff that doesn’t have an explanation! Plus, I can’t fault the imagery. I love the idea of an ocean in a duckpond that is also all of reality at once. That’s such a neat concept.

Next up, a man fishes a mermaid from the ocean, and the curse that follows her.

#The Ocean at the End of the Lane #Neil Gaiman #book blog #bookblr #book blogging #3.5

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distractionpie · 6 years

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List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox of the last 10 people who reblogged something from you. 💙 Spread the positivity!

1. waking up in the sunlight

2. Finding nice things in my pockets that I forgot I put there.

3. The moments that I can see my students actually getting what I’m trying to teach.

4. fluffy pjs

5. hearing from home

#my stuff #positivity #amelias-duckpond

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illfoandillfie · 3 years

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If you still want ideas, what about going on a picnic with rog, and like it's all pretty soft and you're giving each other all the hugs and kisses. But then at one point it turns into a heavier make out session and maybe you end up giving each other head 👀 but you gotta watch out that no one walks by and sees because it's not a busy spot but it's still in public ya know.

this was fun and cute! thanks for the request darl!

warnings for smut - oral (m and f receiving)

Blurb Advent: Day 14

The first days of spring had set in, the weather warming up after a freezing cold winter. You glanced at the sky, twitching aside the bedroom curtain, and decided that it looked like it would be a warm enough day to get away with a very spring-y skirt, brightly coloured with a floral pattern all over it. You worried briefly that you were jinxing things, the weather forecast on the news had predicted showers after all and maybe your skirt would just encourage them to roll in, but it was a risk you were willing to take. Roger was just as keen to shake off the winter, though he still opted for jeans. Instead he suggested you take advantage of the sunshine and have a picnic in the park. He dug out the old picnic set you kept – plastic plates and cutlery and cups, all tucked away in a stereotypical wicker basket – as well as a rug to sit on. And together you spent the morning putting together a few different sorts of sandwiches, cut into small triangles, and cutting up some fresh fruit, locking them all away in Tupperware boxes to keep the safe. Roger threw in a bottle of wine and the last few slices of a cake you’d baked a few days prior. It was all loaded into the basket, the rug sitting on top, and then into the car along with a large umbrella you could share if the weather did turn and a bottle of sunscreen in case it didn’t.

When you reached the park you grabbed all your stuff from the backseat and then Roger grabbed your hand. He had an idea of where to set up, leading you through the popular front section with it’s children’s playground towards a back corner and a little pocket of trees. There were a few people dotted around the park – a couple of families with their kids on the swing sets, a man and his dog playing a game of fetch, a couple of women throwing bread into the duckpond, laughing. But the further you got, the less people there were. A woman jogged past the tree line, Walkman clipped to the top of her shorts, but otherwise you seemed to have the spot to yourself. You supposed the risky weather was keeping people indoors still or maybe you were just there a bit too early for the crowds.

“Perfect,” Roger said, laying down the rug and taking a spot in the middle of it.

You began pulling out the food, handing Roger a plate for him to load as many sandwiches on as he wanted. Roger opened the wine, the cork making a dull popping sound, and you settled back to bask in the sunshine and enjoy your lunch. Roger shuffled in close to you, leaning back on a palm placed just behind you, eating and gesturing with his other hand. At one point he got so excited by something he said that the slice of orange he’d been about to eat flew from his hand and you both fell into giggles as it got lost somewhere on the grass. Between bursts of conversation and bites of food you exchanged kisses and soft touches. You let your hand rest on Roger’s leg when you weren’t using it to eat and Roger seemed to press himself closer to you every time he shifted to grab another piece of fruit or to top up your glasses. You liked it though. It was nice just to lean back against his shoulder and listen to him talk, feeling his lips press against your shoulder or temple ever so often. And whenever it happened you’d turn your head, tilt it up and invite him to kiss you properly. It was a peaceful way to spend the day, stretched out in the warm sunlight in your little patch of park.

After you’d both eaten enough you closed up the containers to keep the ants at bay. Roger lay back with his hand over his eyes and you lay down too, perpendicular to him with your head on his stomach. You watched the clouds in the sky, white and fluffy, no sign of the promised rain, slowly meandering over you. A little longer and you might have dozed off, content and warm, except that Roger’s voice broke through the rustling of the trees.

“What cha thinkin’?” “Nothin,” “Same,” “That’s normal though innit,” Roger poked you and you laughed, shifting around to lay beside him as well. You were still giggling as you kissed the tip of his nose in apology.

“Should just leave you here,” he softly teased before kissing you, his lips lightly pressed to yours for a moment. You returned the kiss when he drew back, only for longer, letting it deepen before you pulled away. Roger pushed himself up on his forearm, leaning over you, his eyes moving over your face. You wrapped your arms around his neck and brought his face down to yours once more. As you both settled into it his leg fell between yours. You tangled yourselves up in each other, arms and legs as entwined as your lips and tongues. Your breathing became heavier as his thigh pressed against your cunt and you subconsciously began to grind against it. When he realised what you were doing, Roger moved his head to the side, kissing along your throat.

“Maybe we should go home?” you asked, a little breathless and very hopeful.

“Nah, we don’t need to go all that way,”

“But people might see,”

Roger broke away from you, “There’s enough tree cover that they won’t. Besides, we’ve been sitting here for ages and seen maybe two people pass by.”

“That’s still two more than I’d like.”

“Alright, how’s this? We make a barrier with the umbrella,”

You considered his proposal. The umbrella was quite large when open, it’d probably shield all the important bits from anyone who did pass. “Alright, deal.”

With a final quick kiss, Roger pushed himself up and grabbed the umbrella, opening it and positioning it so that it hid as much of you as it could. He used the wicker basket and a few of the Tupperware boxes to anchor the handle to keep it from moving if the wind picked up. “All good now?”

Maybe it was that the wine had gone to your head or maybe the sun’s warmth just made you feel a little daring but it seemed to be a good solution, “Yeah, that works.” You held out your arms, expecting Roger to continue the make out session you’d been so enjoying. Instead, with a playful smile, he positioned himself between your legs and dropped a kiss to your knee.

“You seemed to be wanting something before,” he said before leaving another gentle kiss a little higher, “This okay?”

You just pulled the material of your skirt a little higher, “just get on with it before someone else walks past,”

He laughed and left a final kiss against your thigh before sliding off your underwear.

It was hard to keep quiet once Roger had started. For one thing, the man knew what he was doing. He had an uncanny ability to make you squirm with a simple touch or just his breath blown over the right spot. On top of that you were used to your sexual escapades happening indoors, in a house large enough that the neighbours would never hear. So, when Roger pressed against your clit with the flat of his tongue, you had to clamp your own hand over your mouth. He nipped at your thigh as a warning before letting his fingers trail through your slit. You whimpered into your palm as he once again licked over your clit, working his finger into you.

“Thought you didn’t want anyone to know, love,” he said softly, pushing his finger deeper.

“I don’t,”

“Then you gotta be quieter,” He suddenly curled his finger against your front wall and you let out a cry at the unexpected bolt of pleasure.

“You did that on purpose,” you whined as quietly as you could manage.

Roger just chuckled and dipped his head again, holding your still with one hand as the other pressed against the spot. You moaned as he sucked on your clit in time with the finger rubbing against your wall, the hand over your mouth still not enough.

“Love. Be quiet or I’ll have to find you a gag.”

“I’m trying, you’re making it hard,”

“You’re making me hard.”

“Fuck off and keep going.”

“Alright but if we get caught before you go down on me then I’m gonna be really mad,”

“So stop talking and finish me off.”

“You’re so cute when you wanna cum,”

“Rog,” you whined his name though that was only partly out of frustration and partly because of how he licked along your slit again. It didn’t take him much longer after that, his finger stroking your insides as he sucked on your clit determined to push you over the edge. You bit down on your fingers to muffle yourself as the orgasm ripped through you, though you weren’t sure it helped much.

Roger worked you through it, until you were whining for him to stop. He pulled his finger free of you and stuck it in his mouth, humming around it.

“Your turn,” you said before kissing him hard, tasting yourself, and then moving to unfasten his jeans. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was hard so you knew it wouldn’t take too long. You stroked over his length with your hand as you got comfortable between his legs. His breath caught as you licked along his shaft, flicking his tip with your tongue. “Alright love, no teasing,”

You laughed, letting your warm breath wash over his cock as you kept pumping it in your hand, before lowering your mouth to his tip. He hummed as you sucked on his engorged head, slowly sinking lower, your hand still wrapped around where your lips hadn’t reached. It was when you shifted your other hand to cup his balls that he let out his first noise. A choked moan.

You pulled off him suddenly, “And you were telling me to be quiet,”

“Y/N!”

“What?”

“C’mon, you know what. Just please suck me off,”

Trying not to look too pleased you took him between your lips again, bobbing your head lower before rising up to run your tongue around his tip. Roger was just as bad at being quiet as you were, groaning and gasping as you pushed him towards his release. He also liked giving instructions, requesting you squeeze his balls or asking you to repeat movements of your tongue. More than once you had to shush him, making him whine each time, but eventually you let him finish, holding yourself down on his cock as it twitched and released his load into your mouth. You washed it down with a bolt of wine and then lay back against Roger who was still breathing heavily.

For a while everything was quiet and peaceful again.

Suddenly Roger spoke up, “I love spring,” he turned to grin at you before leaving you with another kiss, “Now lets go home and be as loud as we want.”

#my writing #my blurbs #smut blurb #blurb advent 2020 #roger taylor smut #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor imagine #Anonymous

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izayoichan · 4 years

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"Sure, you can always try, I think we never win anything here normally.”

Rylan walks over to deliver their skates, and then walks back to River, noticing that his brother and Vy are trying to win some teddies.

“Not sure they have plastic rings though.. they might have some snow gloves though, and other Christmassy things”

River laughs and wraps his arm around Rylan's waist pulling him close and kissing him gently, walking towards the games.

“Okay. I have to win you some Christmassy stuff then!!” “Oh god. It's that ring toss thing on bottles, these never work out well when I try I am sure they are rigged.”

He winks at River, as he looks at the sea of bottles.

“But well if you want to try?”

He hands River the rings he paid for looking at the prices, the top one being a snow globe that showed the marketplace in all it's shiny Christmas glory, River noticing where he is looking, smiling, throwing the first ring with ease landing it around the neck of the first bottle.

“Woot. One.” “How the?

He looks at River as if not quite believing what he just saw.

“I have never hit those... that's it, I want to try as well!”

He pays the man and gets some ring for himself, watching River carefully to see what he does. River chuckles, prepares again, holding the ring in place and throwing it, again getting the ring on the bottle, then grins at Rylan.

“Your turn princess.”

Rylan looks surprised as the second ring also lands on a bottle, really not seeing how he can manage, shaking his head slightly as he tries himself, the ring bouncing ones, but then landing on a bottle.

“Hmh... well, that is even more surprising.. I never hit these, not even with a bounce.” “Well done princess!

River laughs and throws his last ring, getting the bottle once more one again grinning at Rylan.

“Your turn.”

Rylan shakes his head and tosses one ring, which does what they always do and bounce off and lands in between the bottles.

“See? This always happens when I try this, they bounce and just go ploof!”

River laughs and pulls Rylan close, kissing him gently.

“I guess I won and how that a secret I'll keep so I can win you presents and act all tough. So what do you want me to get you?”

Rylan looks at him questioningly and raises an eyebrow, then looks at the many things, before pointing at the snowglobe he looked earlier.

“That one?” “I had a feeling it was that.”

He laughs and points at the snow globe. He takes it once the vendor hands him the globe and shakes it a little, giving it to Rylan.

“Here you go snow wonderland princess. So you like snow globes?” “ Hmh, not particularly, but this one looked nice and Christmassy so a good memory from the day.”

He points at the icerink inside it, chuckling a little.

“Even a memento of the horrible thing.”

River chuckles and holds Rylan close kissing him again.

“It was fun though. And it's okay, you don't need to be perfect. You already are amazing the way you are.” “You are the amazing one here, making me skate, saving me from a fall, and winning on an unwinnable game.

He smiles.

“Well, either we try some others or just walk around, this is a pretty small market, but I kinda like it, and the food is really nice too... what would my prince want to do?” “Let's go try more games! I want to win you more trinkets!” “Well okay then, let's see how good you are at throwing balls at cans.

He pulls River with him to where Vy and Hayden were a little earlier, handing him four balls and pointing at the cans. River chuckles, debating rather or not he should tell Rylan Spellcasters and witches have special aiming classes but decides to take the balls he was just handed and knock down an entire tower of cans in one strike. But he actually does want to impress Rylan and win him trinkets, so instead, he just grins at Rylan

“Pick a Teddy, Rylan.” “ How the....”

He looks surprised at River, having won both things so easily but points at a bear holding a golden heart.

“I guess that one?”

Then he looks around... noticing the most dreaded off all the games there as it is almost pure luck and nothing else.

“Okay this one is worse than anything.. you need to fish the right duck.. if you do this just as easily I am sure you have some magic on your side.”

River gives Rylan the teddy with a smile and looks at the new game, frowns a little, pressing his lips to a thin line. Fishing, not his strong suit but he could try.

“Anything, in particular, you want me to get you?”

Rylan looks at the prices, tilting his head slightly

“Oh...hmh... how about that?”

He points at what seems to be a picture frame.

“That way I can send with you a picture when you leave, so you can remember me while your.. well you know?”

He steals a quick kiss, pushing the thought off him being away into the back of his mind again. River looking at him a little surprised, now adamant about winning that photo frame. He starts playing the game, missing the first duck.

“Not the right one... hmm.”

He tries again, this time missing completely.

“Okay, the third's the last. How about one more kiss for good luck?” “ Oh, we found the one thing the frog prince was not magical at?”

He chuckles, pulling River close to him and kissing him like he asked.

“I know you can do it, you are my prince after all!” “Oh! I am getting that frame

He tries again and fails, one more the duck pulled from the pond had no mark under it indicating a price.

“Watcher damnit! Okay gives me three more! I am getting it!”

He steals another kiss from Rylan waiting for the vendor to give him three more tries.

“I shall get your frame princess!” “I have faith in you, you can win over the odds and win that frame!”

River tries again, and at the second attempt finally scores the right duck.

“Woot! I did it! I got the duck!”

he fists into the air, smiling at Rylan when the vendor gives them the frame then rather theatrically he hands Rylan his frame.

“Your frame, my princess.”

Rylan takes the frame, trying his very best to not chuckle, and keep up with River's theatrical ways.

“You have braved the ringtoss, you have won over the great can knight and finally you have beaten the dreaded duckpond. Is there anything my prince can't do?”

He puts an arm around River's neck and kisses him as he notices his dad's looking at them with a smile, as he also notices the fact that his dad has his favorite popcorn in his hands. River smiling a little sheepishly at them, knowing he has been kissing Rylan quite a lot this evening.

“Oh, and I have the perfect price”

He walks over to his dad, and takes the popcorn bucket winking at him, before walking back to River, chuckling a little, holding out the snack filled bucket at him.

“The ultimate popcorn, Caramel popcorn!” “Aaah! The delicacy of true heroes!” “It is indeed the delicacy only for the bravest of heroes!”

He laughs and takes one, smiling at Rylan.

“I love you, my playful princess. And now you have your frame to put a photo of us. Maybe we should take some to choose from?”

He chuckles and poses for the phone. River taking as many pictures as he can. Some silly ones and sometimes they manage to keep a more straight face while most of them end up being off the two kissing. The music Hayden was playing making them smile. Rylan was pretty sure it was becoming a family song soon.

“Now you have a lot pictures to remember me by”

River smiles, pressing his forehead to Rylan's

“Can't help falling in love... with... you. Take my hand, Take my whole life too, For I can't help Falling in love with you.” “I thought you said you couldn't sing” “I can't but I will for you.”

He smiles and sings along on the few lines he knows, completely off tune, but for once he doesn't care how he sounds.

“Like a river flows, surely to the sea, Darling so it goes, some things are meant to be"

He kisses River wrapping his arms around his neck once more wanting to stop the time. River smiling, hearing him sing and kissing him back just staying like this, holding Rylan close, taking in all he means to him, the love, the security, a reason to be. Rylan leaning his head against River's chest, just standing there with his arms around him almost losing track of the time, only alerted to the fact that they have been here quite a while when the lights turn on around them.

“I don't know about you, but if we leave here, and there has been none of their famous hot chocolate, it would be a bit of a sad day.”

He winks at him.

“And besides, I know as the lights went on, that there is soon food at home, and then, we get to sing badly some more!” “Let's go get you hot chocolate, my treat”

He winks at Rylan, walking him over to the food booth where they are selling the hot chocolate, gets himself and Rylan a cup, a smile on his face as he hands Rylan his, quickly kissing him when he takes it.

“Thank you.”

He holds the cup with both hands, as one would do if one was freezing.

“You know, I always find it cute that they stand like this in movies, not sure why, but it's just cute.

He looks up at River, Lobo coming to sit by their side, finally done checking the entire place for fun things.

“Well, it's warm like this, but unpractical, though it keeps your hands occupied so I can...”

He holds his cup with one hand, with the other tips Rylan's head up and kisses him.

“...Do this. Hello beautiful.”

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prepare4trouble · 5 years

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So I wrote more of that fic where Gabriel blinds Aziraphale

Crowley didn’t like the cane.

It wasn’t the cane itself that he had a problem with. It was, after all, just a cane. A run-of-the-mill white cane of the kind that would be used by any blind person in most of the world. It hadn’t done anything wrong. Its only crime was the fact that Aziraphale needed it.

Because Aziraphale was an angel, after all. That meant that there should be something else that he could do; some other method that he could employ. He could do miracles, after all. And Heaven had effectively washed its hands of him when it had deposited him back in his bookshop, blind and alone. To Crowley’s mind, that meant that the angel was free to perform as many frivolous miracles as he wanted and Gabriel couldn’t say a single thing about it.

But it didn’t matter, because no matter how long and hard he thought about it, and he had dedicated literally weeks to the subject, he couldn’t think of a single thing that would work better than a slender stick that the angel could use to make sure he wasn’t going to walk into things as he navigated the city.

He shouldn’t have to resort to human methods. It wasn’t fair.

Of course, nothing about the situation was fair, and Crowley hated it. But what he hated most of all was how okay Aziraphale pretended to be about the whole thing. Because he wasn’t okay. He was better than he had been, but he wasn’t okay. At least not all of the time.

“Crowley, is something wrong?” Aziraphale asked him.

Crowley swallowed. He turned to look at the Angel, who was sitting next to him on the park bench. He had turned his head in the demon’s direction, and cocked it just slightly to one side as though he was listening very carefully. He was wearing sunglasses, which wouldn’t be remarkable on anybody else — it was, after all, a sunny day in a park in the centre of London — but on the angel it just looked wrong.

“No,” he said. “What could possibly be wrong?”

Aziraphale didn’t reply. Instead, he turned away, pointing his face in the direction of the sun, and smiled.

Crowley gritted his teeth. He pulled a lump of bread free from the stale loaf he and brought with him, and lobbed it aggressively at the ducks on the pond. He missed his target, and the lump of bread landed on the surface of the water, sending little ripples out in all directions. It was picked up by a passing swan, which looked at him knowingly, as though telling him it had seen what he had tried to do, and then floated gracefully away.

The cane was leaning against the bench. Aziraphale’s right hand touched it just slightly, not holding it, but the outside of his fingers making contact with it so that he didn’t lose track of where it was.

Crowley knew that he was focussing his hate on the wrong thing. That really, he should be focussing all of it on Gabriel, but the Archangel was out of reach, up in Heaven, doing whatever it was that Archangels did when they weren’t torturing fellow angels and inviting demons armed with Hellfire upstairs to…

To do whatever they had done.

Aziraphale had never said much about what had happened when he had been taken by Heaven; he had been reluctant to talk about it. All Crowley had managed to piece together was that Hellfire had been involved, and that meant that demons had been involved, because Hellfire wasn’t easy to come by in Heaven.

He also knew that it wasn’t Aziraphale’s human body that had been injured up there, because he would be able to heal that, and no matter how many miracles Crowley had thrown at the problem, it hadn’t gotten any better.

Which meant that it never would get any better. This was one of those forever problems. The kind you had no choice but to learn how to live with.

The demons in Hell had known exactly what was happening in Heaven too, Crowley was sure of that. There had been several cryptic comments thrown his way in between the punches and kicks. Comments that had only made sense when he had been returned to Earth, bloodied and bruised, and had seen what had been done to his best friend.

Which meant it had been premeditated. Planned and agreed by both Heaven and Hell

One thing Crowley knew for certain was that if he ever so much as caught a whiff of the Archangel Gabriel anywhere inside of the M25, he was going to make him sorry. He was going to make him regret what he had done to Aziraphale, regret daring to return to Earth, and regret ever having existed in the first place.

He wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to do that, but he had a feeling that it was going to involve physical violence.

“Crowley, they’re hungry!” Aziraphale admonished him. Crowley realised that since he had tossed the lump of bread, they appeared to have attracted the attention of every bird in the park. Without him noticing, they found themselves surrounded by ducks, swans, moorhens, and pigeons, all of them quacking, cooing, and tweeting their frustration at an angel and a demon on a park bench, holding a loaf of bread and selfishly not sharing with them.

Aziraphale shook his head and reached for the paper bag that Crowley was holding on his knee. He missed, and his fingers brushed against Crowley’s own. “Oops,” he said with a small smile.

Crowley moved the bag, turning it so that the opening was right in front of Aziraphale’s hand, in just the right place for him to reach inside. The angel frowned when he moved his hand and found the bag not to be where he had expected it, but reached inside and tore off a large lump of the stale bread anyway. He began to break it into smaller chunks and throw them to the waiting birds.

He had come a long way since they had been returned to Earth. Not physically; neither one of them had left London since the night he had been deposited into the bookshop in the middle of the night and left to fret there by himself for hours until Hell had finally released Crowley too.

But to think of him then, compared to now, the difference was remarkable.

“Any ducklings yet?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley scoured the sea of avian life before them, but couldn't see a single baby among them. He shook his head. “Still too early, probably.”

“Maybe in a couple of weeks.”

His own injuries were mostly healed now. It still hurt when he changed into his snake form, and he wondered whether perhaps it always would, but he had never done that with any regularity anyway. He much preferred the shape he was in now. His human body had healed with no trace of the injuries that had been inflicted upon him in Hell. One of the perks of being best friends with an angel, he supposed. An angel that had been willing to put his own terror aside to help a friend, if only he would be so kind as to describe exactly what parts of him had been injured and what was needed in order to put it right.

More than willing in fact. Aziraphale had insisted upon it the moment he had realised that Crowley had been hurt. He supposed it had been easier to fix something that he could fix, than to think about something that he had already known that he could not.

Because Aziraphale had been insistent from the very beginning that there was no point in Crowley trying to heal him. Crowley had tried anyway, of course. Repeatedly and to the point of exhaustion, but in the end the angel had been right.

As he usually was.

Crowley considered himself lucky. If Hell had been willing to provide Heaven with hellfire, they would have been completely within their rights to request holy water in exchange. You could do a lot of damage with holy water, as he had proven with Ligur, in his own apartment. That the demons had chosen to gloat, and to punch, kick and scratch instead of burn was some kind of a miracle in and of itself.

It would have been entirely possible, he was sure, for them to use holy water on him in the same way that Heaven had used hellfire.

The cowards probably hadn’t wanted the stuff in Hell though, understandably. And that was something for which Crowley was very grateful, because he knew for a fact that if their positions were reversed — or worse, duplicated — he wouldn’t be doing nearly such a good job of pretending to be okay as the angel.

“You know I’d swap places with you, don’t you?” he said. “In a heartbeat, if it was possible. I wouldn’t even hesitate.”

Aziraphale turned to face him, and Crowley saw his own reflection in the angel’s sunglasses. “Don’t be silly, Crowley,” he said. He gave him a small smile, but with the glasses covering his expressive eyes, Crowley couldn’t gauge whether it was genuine or not.

“I wasn’t!” Crowley insisted. “I’m a demon; I don’t do ‘silly’.” Although he supposed the promise must have sounded empty; it was easy to say something like that knowing that it was impossible to actually follow through.

Anyway, even if it were possible, it would have to be on the proviso that Aziraphale learned to drive, because there was no way in Heaven that he would be willing to use the Tube to get around. It reminded him far too much of Hell down there, and he was sure it would be much worse in the dark.

He supposed most things were.

He tore off another lump of bread and threw it overarm into the duckpond. It hit a mallard on his back before bouncing off into the water. The creature turned to look at him with a glare of disapproval. Or maybe he was imagining it because he missed seeing that kind of thing from Aziraphale, who was happily throwing crumbs to the birds surrounding him with no idea that Crowley was aiming for the head.

He thought about telling him, but it wouldn't be the same at all.

Aziraphale frowned again. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Uh… nothing,” Crowley lied.

Aziraphale nodded in a way that said ‘I don’t believe you but I’m not sure enough to call you on it’, and went back to throwing crumbs to the pigeons.

Crowley went back to plotting the revenge he was going to take on Gabriel.

When he had first been returned to Earth, inexplicably burrowing up into his first floor flat despite not having seen his downstairs neighbours en route, the first thing he had done was rush downstairs and make his way to Aziraphale.

Although, ‘rush’ might be exaggerating a bit. What he had actually done was limped, crawled a little, winced and cursed his way into the lift, fallen out into the street, and taken at least five minutes to coax his protesting body into the driver’s seat of the Bentley. He had gotten blood on the upholstery, and Freddie Mercury had sung “These Are The Days Of Our Lives’ in such a way that Crowley had been certain that those days really were all gone now.

When he had found Aziraphale, sitting on a chair looking completely unharmed, he had been almost annoyed. Annoyance had quickly turned to relief, that his best friend was alive, unscathed, and still an angel, and then to horror when he had realised why he hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on.

He had been sitting so very still on the chair, facing forward, eyes open wide but looking at nothing. He had worn a tight expression on his face, as though he was terrified, and trying so very hard to be okay, but he didn’t know how. And he had been so relieved when he had realised that Crowley was there.

But there had been nothing that Crowley could do to make it better.

A fresh burst of anger and hate blossomed in his chest as tears prickled at the corners of this eyes. He blinked them away and took a slow, deep breath. He couldn’t do this here. Not in front of Aziraphale.

Aziraphale’s hand touched his again, deliberately this time, his fingers intertwining with Crowley’s, carefully at first, as though he didn’t know whether Crowley would allow it, and then with more confidence when he didn’t pull away. They sat, hand in hand, an angel and a demon. One watching the ducks fighting over scraps of bread on the ground, the other listening to them, feeling the sunlight on his face and the heat of another hand in his.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Aziraphale told him in a voice so quiet that it was almost a whisper. “I’m okay.”

And he really was, sometimes. But at other times it was clear that he wasn’t, not at all, and neither was Crowley.

With his free hand, he tossed the last of the bread, throwing it to — rather than at — the ducks this time, then turned to Aziraphale. “Ready to go?”

“Not yet,” the angel told him. He squeezed his hand a little tighter, like a quick hug, before he let go. “You go ahead, if you’re ready. I’m going to stay here a little longer.”

Crowley hesitated. He knew that Aziraphale was more than capable of making the 20 minute or so walk back to Soho on his own. He had gotten to the park by himself, after all. Besides, Crowley had watched him do it more than a few times, tailing him the other side of the street, keeping out of sight even though he knew the angel could not see him, simply because watching him from in plain view had felt worse.

He also knew that if he did get into any difficulty, he was more than capable of getting himself out of it again, and he didn’t need a demon in shining armour to come to his rescue. It still made Crowley nervous to think of him making the walk alone. It was something that he was going to have to get used to, he supposed. Forever was a very long time, and he couldn’t possibly be there every minute of every day in case Aziraphale needed help crossing the street.

But he wasn’t ready to go home yet; that wasn’t why he had been asking.

He reached into the bag of bread and pulled out another half a loaf that hadn’t been there before. he broke it in half and placed that larger piece into the angel’s hand. “Nah,” he said. “We’ve still got all this. Anyway, I was going to see if I could tempt you to lunch.”

Aziraphale’s fingers closed around the bread, and he smiled. He broke off a small piece and tossed it to the birds. Their numbers had thinned out when they had realised the food was all gone, but a single morsel of dry bread hitting the ground was enough to bring them flocking back.

“Lunch would be lovely,” Aziraphale told him. “The Ritz?”

“Where else?” Crowley asked, and threw a lump of bread to the duck that he had hit earlier, by way of an apology.

#good omens #good omens fanfic #aziraphale #crowley #blind aziraphale #gabriel is an asshole #seriously #crowley's gonna kill him if he ever seed him again

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alienducky · 8 months

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Questions for people with FE3H oc's, in no particular order:

1) What's their fave tea, and do they have a fave snack to go with it?

2) Do their table manners live up to Lorenz's standards?

3) Who would they have a sleepover with, and what would they do during it?

4) Who would they most like and most hate to study with and why?

5) What's their fave and least fave chore?

6) Would they get along with Byleth or Shez better?

7) Did they grow up in the CoS faith, and do they follow it now?

8) If at the monastery at the time, would they take part in the fishing tournament, and how well would they do?

9) Do they have any sentimental keepsakes they carry with them?

10) As a child what did they want to be when they grew up, if different to the path they ended up on?

11) What combat class do they secretly wish they could be?

12) What animal would they keep as a pet? (Ignoring allergies, I'm asking what they'd like not what they could have) - mounts don't really count for this

13) If they're a mounted unit what would they name their mount?

14) Do they prefer form or function?

15) If they could visit a country outside of Fodlan, where would they go?

16) Who could they win an arm wrestle against? A game of darts? A game of chess?

17) What sort of things do they find funny?

18) Are they an early bird or night owl?

19) Sweet or savoury?

20) What are they afraid of? Including phobias

21) Are they more likely to get laugh or frown lines?

22) How did they decide on their personal/post skip outfit, and was the price or the aesthetic a bigger factor in their decision?

23) What skill or ability are they proud of that they don't get to show off often?

24) What is their fondest most treasured memory?

25) In a modern FE3H au, what would they be instead?

(there's another 10 questions here if you want)

#duckpond stuff #fe3h #fe3h oc #fire emblem three houses

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ruinsrebuilt · 7 years

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tagged by @gondorgirl01 <333

Marvel or DC? Marvel!!

Favorite of the silver trio (Neville, Luna, Ginny)? is this harry potter stuff?

Favorite of the fantastic quartet? errr??

OTP? baberoe, gene/sid, peter/collins

NOTP? guarnere/liebgott (I used to like them but putting more thought into it I have decided they are firmly in the ‘No’ category) also I am a bit ehhh on snafroe but no hate to those who like it! just not my cup of tea.

BROTP? Bill & Babe

Hinny or Linny? who?

Patil or Weasley twins? I feel like the weasley twins but also who knows?? I don’t watch/read HP

Dursleys or Malfoys? *sighs*

Favorite HP book? sorry

Favorite HP movie? does not apply

Favorite musical? The Fiddler on the Roof

Tea or Coffee? COFFEEEEEEE

Favorite Movie? The Book Thief or Dunkirk its a tie

Favorite band/artist? Ben Howard, Oh Wonder, Frank Sinatra

Favorite book series? Anne of Green Gables

Favorite stand alone book? The Book Thief by Markus Zusak or With The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge

Favorite YouTuber? I don’t watch a lot of youtubers these days but I love Paint

Celebrity Crush? Jack Lowden smh who gave him the right

Fictional death you’re not over? George (dunkirk)

Favorite TV show? Band of Brothers (also The Pacific)

Book you loved as a child? Narnia & Because of Winn-Dixie

Cats or dogs? DOGGOS

tagging: @aces-low @gendryw4ters @ralphspina @jenbarber @charles-grant @martty-mccfly @amelias-duckpond @verastella @lenariggis @alyseofwonderland @gemfyre

#about me #tag game

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old-type-40 · 7 years

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I was tagged by @amelias-duckpond in a “get to know me” post. This is good for me as I’m terrible at talking about myself. Thank you.

Marvel or DC? I have no real preference. Though I will give kudos to DC as having the best portrayal of a villain with Mark Hamill voicing the Joker.

Favorite of the silver trio (Neville, Luna, Ginny)? Luna

Favorite of the fantastic quartet? I’m not certain who this is. But Googling a bit and the previous question makes me think this is referring to Harry, Ginny, Hermione, and Ron. If that’s the case, I would have to go with Hermione as I’m very much a bookish person who always got good grades.

OTP? Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes from the Mary Russell novels. They have the greatest respect for each other on both an intellectual and emotional level. They give each other personal space. They literally trust each other with their lives. And neither of them seeks to change or limit the other.

NOTP? Padme and Anakin. He confessed to her that he murdered an entire village including the children. That’s probably the biggest red flag I’ve ever seen in fiction. Yet, she still married him. *facepalm*

BROTP? Shawn and Gus from Psych.

Hinny or Linny? I have absolutely no idea who (or what) this is.

Patil or Weasley twins? Weasley twins

Dursleys or Malfoys? Both are reprehensible families. But at least the Dursleys never joined a group bent on murder and control of the world.

Favorite HP book? The Order of the Phoenix

Favorite HP movie? Sorcerer’s Stone as it was probably the most faithful to the book

Favorite musical? Psych the Musical - Santa Barbara Skies, I Heard It Both Ways, Jamaican Inspector Man - great stuff

Tea or Coffee? Coffee

Favorite Movie? Different movies resonate with me on different emotional levels so I don’t really have one favorite movie.

Favorite band/artist? Like with movies, different moods mean different bands. But I’d say my top 3 are Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and the Beatles.

Favorite book series? For me the most consistently entertaining series of books are the Rumpole of the Bailey stories. I do not care for the fairly recent BBC Radio adaptations. The first 3 books of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are very enjoyable as well.

Favorite stand alone book? The Lathe of Heaven. (I saw a post recently in Tumblr from someone who claimed the book was anti-utilitarianism. No, it’s about Taoism. The antagonist’s plans to reshape the world kept failing because he had no understanding of the fundamental nature of things in the universe.)

Favorite YouTuber? Simone Giertz

Celebrity Crush? I’ve never been one to idolize celebrities. But I was very pleased to finally see Derren Brown perform on stage several months ago when he came to the US. He signed autographs and took pictures afterwards. And he is a very nice, down-to-earth person.

Fictional death you’re not over? Laura Roslin. She and Bill Adama had beaten terrible odds and made it to Earth. But they had so little time together after finding peace.

Favorite TV show? I would say The Americans is the most well crafted TV show I’ve ever seen in my life with outstanding writing, acting, and directing. No show has come close to making me as anxious as I feel about the fate of the characters. But it is a mentally and emotionally demanding show. For pure entertainment whose episodes I can watch and re-watch, it would have to be Star Trek: Deep Space 9. DS9 did wonderful character development which extended to even the minor characters on the series.

Book you loved as a child? It’s a toss up between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and A Wrinkle in Time.

Cats or dogs? Cats stay true to their nature and never become neurotically warped in a desire to please others.

Rather than tagging specific people, I encourage my followers to fill this out if they would like. But please let me know that you’ve done so.

#get to know me

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alienducky · 3 months

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Fire Emblem Three Houses Crochet Wyvern - attempt 1

I finally finished it! It's taken me since the end of March 2022 (on and off, I got sidetracked making Alligator Loki for a while) but my prototype wyvern is done

Wyvern is 123.5 inches / 10foot 3.5 inches / 313.69cm wingtip to wingtip, and 56 inches / 4 foot 6 inches / 142.24cm nose to tail tip, and roughly 6 lbs / 2.72 kg ish. So a chunky baby He was made out of aran weight yarn using a 5mm hook and for the most part is Tunisian knit stitch. His toes were done in Tunisian simple stitch, and I think I did his teeth in normal rounds?

And now I do a cut to save everyone's feeds from all the pictures I'm going to share ^_^

(For reference, here are two photos of the wyvern from in game)

First, a few more angles on wyvern, and then I'll point out things I want to change for the next one

He's a handsome lad, and very recognisable for what he's meant to be!

But he also could be improved. A lot

Example 1, I lined up wyverns nose and tail tip against the in game 3d model to see how close he was to being accurate. And, er. yeah.

To give myself credit, when I first started this back in March 2022, I was working out lengths and widths and general sizing from screenshots taken from examining units in Three Houses, where I traced the outline onto a sheet of paper to measure things and perspective makes things AWKWARD, ok? (As is having brain farts and not remembering that the ruler had metric on the other side of it, but shush, let's not mention that bit)

So the biggest thing to fix will be the scaling, if I can. I can definitely make the tail longer, the head shorter and thinner, the chest between the wings thinner, the wing sockets bulkier, and thanking all the stars, the wings get to be smaller too. By a LOT

The other major thing I want to do different/better is how the ridges along his back from nose to tail tip work.

While they do work on wyvern, they don't look as great as I think they potentially can? So I'm going to be doing double layers of crochet, sort of, to help give the sticky up bit of the overlapping ridges more definition, and hopefully make them look like the slightly thicker scaling they're meant to be. It'll also help to smooth them out, so they won't have the weird dips where I've joined one to the next

I'm going to do the wings differently too, because what I did with these ones was quite frankly awful? I cut each wing segment into individual pieces to then hem and flip inside out to over sew the visible edges, and then hemmed up the sides that went inside the struts to then sew the crocheted parts to the fabric. So the fabric was the cheese to the crochet bread in this awful, awful sandwich situation. I am also never, ever buying anything that is even vaguely silky or satiny or slippery ever again for anything

For the next one I'll keep the two pieces of wing fabric as one big piece, since the top and bottom of the wing membranes are actually slightly different colours if you look closely, but I'm going to cheat and use some of that iron on hemming tape stuff to fill the inside of the fabric after I've done all the outer hemming and over sewing so it'll kind of look like all the veins and stuff that the membranes have? So the fabric hopefully won't slip around so much, so will be easier to sew, and keeping it as one big piece means there's less change of me messing up the positioning of the struts on the panels because the wings on this one aren't equal despite my best efforts

Next is Claude's white wyvern, but it'll be made with DK yarn and either a 3.5 or 4mm hook, so it will (hopefully) come out significantly smaller than this one. And that one is going to get plastic boning/skeleton in it, so it'll be poseable!!!

#duckpond stuff #duckpond crochet #crochet wyvern #tunisian crochet #fe3h #fe3h wyvern

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