#but you can blame oliver

[burnthatbridge]

after comes the thunder

buddie | E | 1.3k | lichtenberg figure spec that picture oliver posted ruined my entire day so i wrote this at 2am when i should have been sleeping, ensuring that it will also have ruined my day tomorrow (very much nsfw) also on ao3

Eddie pushes Buck back on the bed and Buck goes. 

They should probably talk about this, and they will, later, tomorrow, in the light of day, when it’s not so fresh. But, for now, Buck knows that Eddie needs this. 

Buck’s puts an arm down as his body reaches the mattress, tries to limit the sound of his descent. Normally, Eddie would be more careful, with Chris asleep down the hall, but that’s clearly beyond his capabilities right now, so Buck makes up for it where he can. 

They should have been back before Chris’ bedtime, might have missed dinner but should have been back in time for last minute homework and some time to unwind together before bed. As it is, they made it home over the threshold some three hours after their shift was due to end, and Carla left into the full dark of night. 

But at least they made it home. 

Eddie leans down and fastens his mouth back to Buck’s, kissing as hard and as deep as he had in the hall, once he’d closed the door to Chris’ bedroom after checking up on him. Buck kisses back, as best he can with Eddie’s tongue in his mouth, Eddie’s teeth biting at his lips, trying to put every reassurance he can, his full depth of feeling into it. 

The end of the shift wasn’t good, Buck knows that. But a near miss with a collapsing beam in a house fire is far from the worst Buck has been through. 

Eddie rucks his hands up Buck’s sides, pushing at his sweatshirt. Buck leans up and reaches behind himself to help, to save Eddie battling with the fabric. 

That’s probably the point though. Buck’s close shave wouldn’t be warranting this level of desperation from Eddie if it wasn’t the first time Buck has had a close call since. Since. 

Eddie pulls away from the kiss so Buck can strip his shirt off over his head, toss it to the side, lie back, bare chested. 

Since the lightning.

Buck watches Eddie’s eyes fall to the reminder of it. 

The mark is still there, fading now, but not as fast as all the articles Buck read had said it would. It’s been two months and the scar still spreads down his shoulder, still crawls up his neck, still curls over his pectoral, over his heart. 

Eddie looks at it, but he doesn’t touch it. Straightens up and strips out of his own shirt, reaches down to the waistband of his pants. 

He has touched it before. Tentative, at first, before they were even together, when Buck had been staying with him on his first few shaky days out of hospital, and Eddie had found him in the bathroom, shirtless and staring at it, glassy eyed. 

With a smoothness that Buck could never achieve if their positions were reversed, Eddie manoeuvres out of his sweats, his boxers, while kneeling on the bed. Buck reaches up for him, eager to pull him close again, but Eddie takes hold of the fabric at Buck’s hips and leans back to pull his pants off too. 

After their first time, Eddie had traced his fingers over the whole mark, slow, soft, starting at the strike point and feathering out, for each and every branch. 

Once Buck is naked, Eddie leans back in and lays himself out atop Buck, his cock a hard, hot line against Buck’s hip, his weight heavy and grounding. Buck doesn’t need this like Eddie does, wasn’t the one who had to watch his partner disappear behind falling debris, who didn’t know – even if it was for the shortest of moments, only the time it took for Buck to reach for his radio – if he was okay. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it anyway. 

More than once, Eddie has kissed the scar, especially the part that reaches just high enough to escape from Buck’s collar, easy access when they hug. 

Buck moans as Eddie rolls their hips together, and then moans again, this time into Eddie’s mouth as he kisses him once more and worms a hand between them to clutch their cocks together. 

On one particularly memorable occasion during sex, Eddie bit down on the apex of the mark, then sucked dark purple bruises from Buck’s shoulder down to his nipple, obscuring it. 

Eddie jerks them together, the movement of his hand not quite slick, but not quite dry either, what with the precome they’re both leaking. It’s just the right side of rough and Buck pants open-mouthed against Eddie’s lips, coordination for kissing lost. 

And sometimes Eddie just lays a hand against Buck’s chest, over where the Lichtenberg figure is hidden beneath his clothes, in a quiet moment at work, while they’re bumping hips making dinner in the kitchen, during movie nights on the couch, when curled up together in bed.

Buck gasps as Eddie twists his hand around the head of his cock, groans when Eddie bites down on his bottom lip. 

In those moments, Buck knows Eddie is thinking about how he nearly lost him. Is thinking about how lucky, grateful, he is to still have him. Buck knows exactly, excruciatingly, exquisitely, what that’s like. Because it’s identical to how he feels when he touches the scar Eddie has in the spot a near mirror-image to where his own begins. 

Eddie rolls his hips and fucks up into his fist, cock sliding against Buck’s, the head of his catching against the crown of Buck’s. It’s nearly too much, the edge close. 

Buck has touched his fingertips to Eddie’s scar. Has pushed his lips up against it. Laved his tongue over it.

Eddie repeats the motion and Buck can’t do anything but take it, Eddie’s body a wave of searing heat against his, the aftershock a ripple of ecstasy. 

Buck has even had his whole palm, both his hands, everything he has, pressed to Eddie’s actual wound, something Eddie couldn’t ever have done with Buck’s injury. 

Eddie says Buck’s name, a rough, heartbroken gasp hot against Buck’s mouth. It hurts but it also sends Buck spinning, pleasure untold coursing through him. He comes over Eddie’s fingers, onto his own stomach, and Eddie strokes him through it, grip gentling and the glide easier with Buck’s release to slick the way. 

Buck can’t say he has done what Eddie does next. 

Letting go of their cock’s – Buck’s softening, Eddie’s still stiff – Eddie rises up on his knees. He curls his hand around his dick again, and strokes once, twice, three times, before he spills, aiming up Buck’s body so that he paints the mark with ropes of his come. 

Buck chokes out Eddie’s name at the shock of it, at the feeling of the splash of fluid hitting him there, at the devastated, devoted expression on Eddie’s face. 

When he reaches out for him, Eddie moves willingly back down, but lies to the side, chest pressed against Buck’s right side.

Buck kisses Eddie, tries to put into it what he has been trying to this whole time. What he thinks will maybe now finally get through to Eddie: that he’s here, that he’s alive, that he’s sorry, that he loves him so much he can barely breath with it and certainly can’t without it. That they’re together, and Buck can’t promise him forever or even necessarily guarantee a long time, but he can swear he will always fight to keep this. To come home with him. To come home to Chris. 

Eddie kisses him back, still firm, still a little desperate, but without the edge of terror Buck could feel before, and he lifts his hand to Buck’s chest, slides it through the mess, rubs his still-warm come into Buck’s skin, into the mark, stakes his claim over the lightning’s.

everyone: imagine eddie tracing buck’s scar with his fingertips, imagine him kissing it gently 🥰😭 me: imagine him getting his dick out and coming all over it 💦🍆

#i really do apologise for what you are about to read #but you can blame oliver #it’s entirely his fault #buddie #buddie fic #911 fox #911 fic #911 spoilers #myfic #maybe i’ll put this on ao3 tomorrow but for now this will have to do because it is 03:27

[geneticdriftwood]

i’m having thoughts about batman vs green arrow, and how the central characters shape the stories their supporting casts are allowed

like, in batman comics, bruce’s story is about being permanently shaped by a grief he can never move on from (his parent’s deaths, and later jason’s death). the premise of batman, bruce’s unyielding dedication to his mission, requires that bruce always be living in the shadow of his formative trauma, always responding to it. structurally, he can never be allowed to heal (because a happy bruce wayne isn’t batman), which means he can’t really grow. his supporting cast can develop and grow in their own right, but they can’t leave (bc they’re batman characters), so they stay stuck in the same unhealthy dynamics with bruce. this creates a narrative paradigm where positive change rarely sticks, cycles aren’t broken, and the easiest story to tell is a tragedy. bruce isn’t allowed a happy ending, so nobody who loves him gets one either.

now compare this with green arrow, where ollie’s stories are so often about having the humility, courage, and determination to take accountability for your mistakes and change for the better. transformative change is his whole deal! it’s the point of the island! and his relationships with his supporting cast reflect this. ollie messes up, he learns from it, and his relationships with other characters develop and improve accordingly. the point of the story is that ollie changes, making change possible for everyone. and so green arrow books present a paradigm where characters are allowed to grow in ways that stick, where harm can be learned from instead of brushed aside, and where happy endings aren’t guaranteed but do largely feel possible. yk?

#is this even anything? idfk #apologies to arrow fans if i’m off base. i’m still pretty early in my ga reading but this is what i’ve gathered so far #this is a pessimistic take on batman but like. my favorite character is dick grayson so can you really blame me? #this is why batman comics accidentally do such a good job depicting the cyclical nature of abuse #bruce isn’t allowed to heal so he keeps hurting his kids in the same ways #and his kids can’t set boundaries that stick bc they have to come back and be his supporting cast again #bam! inescapable toxic family dynamics! #dick’s case is the most tragic to me on a meta-narrative level #because he’s a major character in his own right so he sometimes escapes being bruce’s supporting cast (and thus bruce’s abuse) for a bit #either as nightwing or in titans books #but he was bruce’s sidekick for irl decades and he'll never fully be allowed to break free #dc #bat tag #arrow tag #ollie queen #oliver queen #green arrow #dc meta #mine: dc #not main tagging this with bruce or batman bc that's hitting the hornets nest lets be real. #and anyways this is for ollie fans and my dick grayson tragedy enjoyer mutuals

[noya-noya-noya]

I wasn't a big buddie shipper then when I watched the "she sees me" graveyard scene and me and Eddie had the same flabbergasted expression, like tfym she sees me? The disrespect to the man who's been with you through it all? Who comforts and jokes around you when you need to smile. The one who explains for you, exasperated and fondly sighs at all your antics. Who lets you come to him instead of him pushing you? The disrespect? I was too stunned to speak. Writers, there are 2 options here:

1 - Fallout. Bank on Ryan's great delivery of "how could you be?" as in how could Buck still be the same person after dying and coming back. He made it look like he had a realization that maybe this is not his Buck anymore, everything that they had, that's down the drain and because they never took the step anyway, all they can do is regret it, and then they'll fall out, etc etc. Lemme see Eddie's pining and moving on era.

2 - More drama. Eddie moves on and accepts that Buck is with Natalia now, and when they start getting deeper into their relationship, he'll find that Nat doesn't really see him. I.E. lemme see Buck's pining era. No we don't move on, we die on this hill. Marisol and Eddie won't happen, I'm betting on this.

#911 rewatch #buck and eddie #buddie #ryan guzman #oliver stark #eddie diaz #evan buckley #okay i just want them to be together because i watched all the eps where theyre in a relationship and i feel irked #am i heterophobic or do i just want these men to get together #the chemistry and the build up all points to it can you blame me #ok blame me idk let these beautiful men be together and be each others endgame

[askunclejack]

While I don't personally ship it, I 100% understand the appeal behind the Jack x Ollie ship. Enemies to lovers is a trope I ADORE.

However I think it's really funny if their dynamic goes like this:

Ollie: YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME!

Jack, oblivious (high off his tits on Joy): I don't even know who you are! ^w^

#ooc #ooc: off of camera #i do find the ship interesting tbh! #it's just not my cup of tea i suppose #maybe it'll grow on me eventually uwu #i just like the dynamic where #person a DESPISES person b #and blames them for all their problems #and person b is completely oblivious #it's absolute clown shoes #it can be either really funny and/or really sad #and what is drama without comedy and tragedy? #i didn't sleep last night can you tell #we happy few #uncle jack #jack worthing #ollie starkey #oliver starkey

[skullsandcorals]

Happy Birthday, my beloved @kill-cry-die !!!! 😚💙💞💙💞💙💞

Giving you the warmest and most love-filled hug rn <333

click for better quality if you're on the mobile app. don't repost.

“What was the last line?”

(Percy Jackson, The Battle of the Labyrinth)

#gonna ramble after tagging this 😗 #pjo/hoo #percy jackson #annabeth chase #walker scobell #leah sava jeffries #my art 💙 #pjo fanart #percy jackson and the olympians #the lighting is just me going ham on it sorry (not really though) :^) #I know it's not the right lighting for the mood (and caption) but let me have this okay 😩 #those braids took me ages i hope u like them :] #that one braid is lighter because of Annabeth holding the sky‚ yes #drawing two characters hugging is HARD #also Annabeth stitched that olive branch onto her shorts <333 #words cannot describe how much I have been FOAMING AT THE MOUTH to give Leah's Annabeth butterfly clips #I know it's not exactly butterfly clips....but it counts.... shhh it counts. #girlie is CLAWING that shirt but can you blame her tho (no you cannot) #I was listening to “hug all ur friends” by Cavetown while making this :) #“So hug all your friends and let them know you're not letting go (No‚ I won't let go/I'm not letting go)” OUGH.................. #also I know Annabeth blinked back her tears but just. let her cry ok. #I wanted to draw more stuff but school is back and I.....yeah :( #Sorry‚ Aether. I hope you like this though. I love you 💙 #for mars #my beloved my partner in crime and in the wild wild west etc. etc. #sorry if the gray braid looks out of place but also I'm tired and I tried ny best :‚)))) #if the hand looks weird pls know it's the fabric she's gripping through her fingers. her fingers aren't just Like That. #Walker's Percy is just 🧍‍♀️ in this 💀💀 #shut upp he's just very flustered and awkward about it okay 😫 #I truly need to find a way to draw braids like these in a way that doesn't take me ages to render :‚)))

[elisedonut]

trying to decide if in a muggle ghost!au if I would want Percy to be the ghost or whoever i'm shipping him with in that moment

on one hand dead!Percy who died from like a sickness a hell of a long time ago like im talking 50-60 years not like a year ago ok cool fun interesting

especially when its like those situations where ghosts don't "wake up" (so to speak) immediately and so he's just is very confused why everything's so different and his family is gone and that there's some random person in his house, in his room. Ghosts have to work to be able to bee seen though so it takes a few weeks of Percy trying to do stuff to get them to notice him you know normal ghost shenanigans slamming cabinets, leaving notes on like mirrors, turning things on or off that kind of deal. anyway point is it doesn't work for a while because he has to figure out how to be corporeal.

so he ends up learning more about the person in the house with him and realizes that they seem really lonely. Percy never sees anyone else enter the house with them and they don't leave the house too often.

some character specific thoughts I have for potential non ghosty's

Oliver

played a sport professionally idk I've seen both rugby and soccer being like the replacement sport for quidditch regardless of which one i think he like broke a leg or something and cant play anymore so is now in strong depression

breaking a leg was very recent

doesn't react to Percy slamming things around because i think he's just kinda numb and doesn't really notice most of the time

but when Percy is finally able to show himself Oliver accepts fairly well because he thinks he's kinda just finally lost it

needs new special interest stat before he does something drastic

Marcus

Has an online job so legit just does not leave the house

moved as far from his family as he could after his Mother's death

jokes about there being a ghost before Percy figures out a corporeal form which causes Percy hope at first but is quickly dashed when Marcus just uses some random name

but because of him joking about it Marcus is more freaked out then Oliver would be when it becomes clear that there is indeed a ghost

i also really like the idea of someone slowly dying from something chronic that cant be fixed because then the problem of them being unable to be together gets fixed and then the other dies and they get to be reborn together or live out eternity as ghosties

#Percy Weasley #Marcus Flint #Oliver Wood #perciver #flintley #Ghost!Au #i love ghost love stories always really tragic but i think it's fun #you once again get a random tidbit of the little daydreams i have #yes i don't know what i'm doing thank you for asking #the Marcus joking about there being a ghost is because at my workplace that's something we do since despite it being a fairly new building #we hear lots of noises stuff falls over a lot or sometimes we think we hear someone on the floor and then no ones there #most of us don't think there's actually a ghost but we named her Victoria anyway so now anytime something like that happens we can just #blame it on a ghost and move on instead of some of the coworkers being freaked out

[non-un-topo]

Today while we were having a deep discussion on the topic of gender my partner told me I was "definitely just some guy" and then looked me up and down and got real quiet before saying "I mean, come on. You know Nicky would wear that jacket" like HEY--

#i wanted to say fuck youuuu but they know damn well why i bought it #i think i've always been like this a little bit though lol. you can also blame rory and his series 6-7 fashion #my jacket btw is just a standard olive green with a corduroy collar and no lapels.

[starlooove]

If ur blaming bad writers for why you only read WFA and fanfic…boy have I got some news for you!

#girl just say u wanna read fun shit like don’t pretend it’s genuinely that #Like if I said I don’t read fanfic I only read comics bc of bad ooc writing… #c’mon yall #and the bad writing in question is Bruce being mediocre at parenting the JL being competent and not kissing the bats asses and tim actually #having a personality that’s not easily palatable insecurities and ‘flaws’ that the masses can relate to without feeling bad about themselves #cause It’s easy for y’all to say ur overworked or do too much #It’s not easy for y’all to say ur arrogant or petty in a way that’s not ‘girl bossing’ #like can we talk about that too when y’all acknowledge Tim’s flaws it’s always in a ‘haha so real’ kinda way #Like u can never sit down and say this dude is petty and at times narrowmined and it screws him and the ppl around him over at times #It’s always ‘he’s so petty he’s real asf’ but when you talk about how weird it is to hold THAT kind of grudge against a 10 year old #now we’re victim blaming 💀 #I wouldn’t dislike fanon so much it y’all weren’t so weird about tbh #OH and god forbid the JL being competent without Bruce #god forbid they can do their fucking jobs #shocker 😱 the entire JL doesn’t revolve around Batman #most of them are not super duper intrigued by what he and his kids are doing 24/7 #woooooah #started reading GL (FINALLY SORRY) and I’m never gonna forgive what y’all did to hal Jordan 😏 #Im not fixing that emoji 😕 #BUT IM ALSO NEVER GONNA FORGIVE HOW YALL TREAT OLIVER QUEEN

[banana-vatore]

Realistically I KNOW the mid-atlantic accent isn’t technically a real accent but I just know Ichabod would have it okay I feel it in my bones

#i’m still brain rotting over ichabod specter #blame photograph im rereading it rn #he’s so charming😭 #ichabod specter #why am i hyperfixating on a dead npc? #dead #UNRESSURECTABLE #(or however you spell that) #NPC #sometimes an old man can be a babygirl #strangetown #this town sure do be strange #sims 2 #sims 2 premades #strangetown premades #olive’s garden #olive specter #ts2 #the sims

[eddieintheocean]

I am just like a water molecule in the way that I have a juicy ass

#you can all blame my friend oliver for me posting this #i hope youre happy with yourself oliver specifically #/j #idk how to tag this #cursed! #will anyone get the joke? #probably not #oh well

[michaeljoncarter]

What do you think of Oliver and Arthur’s friendship? If they even have one 😭

i love them!!!

there has been CRIMINALLY little exploration of their relationship, so there's not really that much of a set-in-stone canon dynamic to point at, but the few examples we do have are so fun, and there's SO much potential for more

they’re an example of my favorite kind of contrasting characters, where it’s like… they are each other but backwards.

i guess you could consider this a type of foil relationship? but it’s not really about them disagreeing or any sort of thematic or idealistic contrast. it's their timelines that contrast--as in their stories are near-perfect parallels of each other but inverted and made completely different. it's like they’re both walking the same road, but they're going in opposite directions. they kinda start out where the other ended up and end up where the other started out.

the stuff that’s core to ollie’s character is the same stuff that’s core to arthur’s character, but it's all flipped. arthur’s origin is like ollie’s playing out in reverse, and ollie’s is like arthur’s happening backwards.

they’re both motivated by their families’ histories and their “birthrights,” but the relationships they have with them are exact opposites. ollie’s story is about distancing himself from his heritage & inheritance, and arthur’s story is about embracing his.

being torn between two worlds is a pretty big theme for both of them. the inciting event in both their stories is a sort of culture shock. they’re both taken from the reality they’ve known their entire lives & thrown into another, VERY different reality, but, again, from exact opposite directions. ollie loses everything he has, and arthur gains a literal kingdom.

if you boil it all way, way down to just the fundamentalest of fundamentals, green arrow is basically a riches-to-rags story, and aquaman is basically a rags-to-riches story.

(pre52, there was another parallel with this because in the 90s, arthur’s origin was changed so he wasn’t half atlantean but was instead a full atlantean child who grew up basically feral in the open ocean, so he starts out living in the wild and ends up living in a castle, where ollie starts out living like a king and ends up living in the wild on the island)

Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target is probably the best (and kinda... only? that i’m aware of) example of something that really focuses on the two of them, and i really liked it. the whole plot is centered around them getting freaky fridayed into each others’ lives, which is very fun and also SUCH a good way to explore a lot of what i’m talking about

(one big criticism i’ve seen of this, which i definitely agree with, is that arthur’s... never really had much of a relationship with his mother? like i get what they were going for here, but yeah, the whole thing works a lot better if you read it as him using her as a standin for his love of atlantis & his atlantean heritage as a whole rather than just her but anyway)

there's just so much potential with these two!!

they’ve been through basically the same thing, but they went through it in opposite directions and had completely opposite experiences. they could both perfectly understand where the other is coming from, but in just as many ways, couldn’t at all. they have absolutely everything and absolutely nothing in common in equal measure. they’re like mirrors of each other, but inverted mirrors where everything is upside down and backwards

SO much potential for a really complex and interesting dynamic... not to mention the comedic potential. i mean, really, the things you could do with the fact that arthur is the head of a monarchy and ollie is... ollie alone!!

(from Green Arrow (2001) #3)

how many more times can i say the word "potential"? idk!! i just love them and REALLY wish someone would take the time to expand on their dynamic!! it could be so good!!!

#ask #anonymous #arthur curry #oliver queen #i have weirdly strong feelings about them actually #like they were literally introduced together!! they should have SOME sort of significant relationship just off that alone!! #aquaman characters get so screwed over in terms of relationships with nonatlantean characters #if you look at the relationships other jlers have among each other vs the relationships arthur has with the other jlers its sooo annoying #and the same thing happens with garth in the titans #like i GET why but ugh!! if you can make up a reason why hal is on earth for long enough to form deep relationships with other people #then you can make up a reason why arthur/garth/mera/etc are above water for long enough to do the same thing!! let them in!! #if this is messier than earlier im blaming it on the fact that im sick #earlier????? *messier than USUAL #you see what i mean.. my brain is mush rn

[iconicbuck]

Umm who is the guy in the middle? He looks 👀🥰

My overthinking head says, he was Buck's reliever when the latter got injured and he'll be partnered with Eddie and both might get close. Even closer.

After Buck's return to the 118, he'll feel kind of out-of-the-loop or out-of-place and seeing his reliever getting close with the 118 especially with Eddie -who I think they had have some drinks after shift, he'll feel kind of off.

Whoever the hell is that guy is, please make him get close to Eddie. So that... That'll be the trigger for Buck's whatever the fuck his realization.

But my rational head says, Eddie is NOT that kind of guy. I mean, getting close with a new guy he barely know? That's not him. But then again my stupid head says, he might force himself to get close to the new guy after seeing Buck lifeless. It's a coward escape. Just like when Eddie was shot, instead of Buck dealing what it all means to him, he used the opportunity to escape the reality and face Taylor Kelly - who came back for him and wanted him in that moment.

#don't take my theories and speculations seriously #i maybe just protecting my fragile heart #because every new guy or woman in the 118 makes me nervous af #can you all blame me #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #oliver stark #hen wilson #chimney han #911 fox #911onfox

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

Do you really have to pretend to be normal though /silly I like gore and stuff but I agree with only being in an art sense. Ollie is good at murder apparently. -🌟

┐(￣ヘ￣)┌ sometimes i gotta

yeah though! horror can be a really cool artform for exploring certain topics and examining them in an allegorical sense... but obv like don't kill people irl duh??? hello???

and ya oliver is... evil sometimes

#ask #i made that image a while ago ahkjdhskjg but it is SO FUNNY TO ME #ever since i got the new official oliver pngs ive been going insane its like playing w/ a messed up dress up doll HSKJDGH #HAVE YA SEEN HIS SONGS i mean. 1) i know the songs arent necessarily indicative of character but its funny #2) its mostly steampianist to blame i think LMAO but its ok i love steampianist 😩✌️💖 they use gumi so well too #NAH BUT a friend and i (you know who you are >;)) have come up w/ certain things... oliver straight up needs to go to jail in some of these #HELP he's a menace to society... but he's ur friend <3 #again thats one of the best things abt voca and also the funniest; how u can make ur own interpretations basically. #THE STARK CONTRAST FOR OLIVER HCS HKSDJGH. usually its either sweet pure innocent baby who knows nothing or straight up serial killer #ITS SO FUNNY #ollie the star anon

[sammygender]

things no one tells you abt growing up number one: you start to get inexplicably mad at your dad all the time

#have literally never really experienced this before this year i just accepted him as Like That #i would’ve always classed myself as a mommy issues kinda guy even though i don’t really think i have Parental Issues so much as i just have #Issues. but at some point you realise the reason you have more negative memories about your mother is because your mother was actually THERE #not even in a blaming him way. he just had to work a lot and late hours when i was a kid #but still at some point you see the way he whines about doing things your mom does 24/7 and how entitled and easily enraged he is #and it annoys me because holy shit i’m like that. did i get that from you? the way i can be so snappy and aggressive and entitled? #Augh. it boils down to the fact that my (mildly transphobic/gender crit) parents know i am transgender #and my mom - while still not really supporting it whatsoever - has been Nice about it (though ive made it very very easy for her to be) and #calls me a gender neutral shortened version of my dead name (though still misgenders me cause. sure ok. ugh) #my dad doesn’t even make an effort 90% of the time and it just makes me so fucking angry #you can be transphobic that’s fine my mom is but it doesn’t hurt you one fucking bit to change the way you address me a tiny bit #ur literally the ONLY person in my life still using my deadname #oliver talks

[thestuffedalligator]

The goblin looked at the orc. The orc looked at the goblin. They both looked down at the crumpled shape of the Overlord, His Unholy Majesty, in his obsidian armor.

His final spasms had been mesmerizingly acrobatic. The fall down the steps leading up to his iron throne had pretzelled his body quite impressively, both arms folded behind his back and one leg bent at a jaunty angle.

The goblin looked at the orc. The orc looked at the goblin.

"Shit," said the goblin.

"Shit," said the orc.

"We're likely to get blamed for this," the goblin said. She walked over to the head of the glittering mangled heap and started pulling the helmet off.

"It's not our fault," the orc said. "It's hard to help someone choking when they wear two-hundred pounds of spiked armor at all times."

"Yeah, well," the goblin grunted. The helmet came free, and the bald head of the Overlord bounced on the stone with a hollow, coconut noise. "You know how it is in this bloody country - thieves get their heads cut off so they can't think about thieving, and all that." She fished in the Overlord's mouth with a finger and pulled out the obstructing olive on the end of her claw.

She popped it into her mouth and chewed. "What do you reckon they do for a regicide?" she said.

"We should run," the orc said. She had started bouncing her leg. "I hear that there's some places in the Alliance where they just kill you and let you stay dead. That's got to be nicer than what'll happen if we stay here."

The goblin started to nod - and then her gaze fell on the helmet.

It looked like a pineapple designed by a deranged blacksmith. It was all thorns and spikes and hard edges, as though the maker had been very determined to not let pigeons roost on it. The only bits that weren't solid iron were eyeholes. Nobody had ever seen the Overlord's face.

She held up the helmet and squinted from it to the orc. One of the thorns had been bent badly in the fall.

Nobody had ever seen the Overlord's face...

"Right," she muttered. "Right. Could work - or."

The orc had a sudden vision of the immediate future. "No," she said.

"I mean you're about his height-"

"No."

"It would just be for a-"

"Absolutely not."

"Just hear me out," the goblin said. "Outside of this room are two-thousand men and orcs and goblins who are absolutely gonzo about this man, and there's a whole country of them outside of the castle, and at any moment someone's going to walk in that door and see one dead tit in black armor and two unbelievably dead idiots next to him.

"Or." She tossed the helmet up like a basketball to the orc, who fumbled and tried to find somewhere to hold it that wasn't a knife's edge. "We chuck him out the window now, walk out the door in the armor, and ditch the armor as soon as nobody sees us."

The orc had started bouncing her leg again. "They'll know something's up the second I walk out of the room."

"No worries," said the goblin. "Leave that to me."

---

It had been a very strange year for the Empire.

Change had rolled across the land as slow and inevitable as a glacier. Roads and bridges carved the gray, blasted wildlands, and a number of social reforms had made the country a place where you could be miserable, yes, but miserable in comfort and safety, and that was an improvement.

Barely anyone got boiled alive in molten metal, and even if the disgusted sun never rose to light the Empire, at least you had a roof over your head to protect yourself from the acid rain.

"Your empire flourishes, Your Unholy Majesty," the magician said over her wine glass. She looked down from the tower's balcony over the gleaming stone battlements. Some work had been done to line the castle and surrounding city with sizzling, crackling alchemical lights at night. The whole thing glowed like something dangerously radioactive.

The suit of armor waved a languid, glittering gauntlet over to the goblin, who bowed.

"His Abominable Gloriousness Thanks You," the goblin recited. "The Prosperity Of His Empire Can Only Be Achieved Through The Prosperity Of His People."

"If I may be so bold, I am quite pleased that you had chosen to take my counsel under consideration," said the magician. "We have accomplished many things together."

Another wave. Another bow. "The Overlord, May His Presence Swallow The Sun And Stars, Thanks You As Well."

"It was quite gratifying to see you change your mind, after so many centuries of denial." The wine was swirled. "Tell me, what was it that finally gave you cause to listen to me?"

There was the slightest hesitation. The goblin's eyes flicked to the armor, then to the magician. She puffed out her chest. "Do you question the wisdom of His Austere Lugubriousness?" she asked.

The magician looked at the goblin. She looked at the armor. She tipped her head back and drank the wine too quickly.

She looked back at the armor. "I know you're the orc, you moron," she said.

The room went deathly still. An alchemical light fizzled.

The orc pulled off the helmet, sending long, untied hair down tangling, and said: "How could you possibly-"

"Because you're both idiots!" the magician said. The goblin jumped. The orc jumped with a noise like a dropped stove. "What kind of a plan was this?! If it wasn't for me, you would have been turned into fertilizer months ago."

She closed her eyes. She took a long, dramatic breath. She set the wine glass down on the balcony rail.

"How did the Overlord die?" she asked when she seemed like she had gotten a hold over herself.

"Choked on an olive," said the goblin.

"Threw his body out the window," said the orc.

"You don't have to mention the window," said the goblin.

"Right," said the orc. "Sorry."

The magician looked out over the city, hand curled thoughtfully under her nose. "Who knows about this?"

"Just us. And, uh. You. Apparently."

"And why did you accept my counsel?"

The orc blinked. "Sorry?"

"Why did you accept my counsel?" the magician repeated.

"Well," the orc said. "Well - you seemed like you had good ideas-"

"Great ideas!" the goblin said with an edge of desperation. "Don't know why the old bastard didn't listen to you!"

"Right - right," said the orc. "And when we figured we were stuck doing this - well, it just made sense, really."

The magician seemed to absorb this. She nodded. "All right," she said, striding between the two and grabbing the crystal decanter.

"Um," said the orc. "Sorry. What happens now?"

"What happens is that you two will continue to serve as Overlord," said the magician. "You will continue to take my counsel. We will continue to reform this bloody country, and gods willing, we will turn it into the crown jewel of the world by next Midwinter."

The orc looked at the goblin. The goblin looked at the orc.

"Really?" the goblin asked.

"Oh yes," said the magician. "I've worked hard to be counsel to the Overlord, and I have no reason to stop now. And besides-"

She looked the orc up and down with a deliberate slowness, poring over every microscopic detail, eyes tracing over every jagged line, and grinned like a panther.

"You look much better in the armor than he ever did," she said. Dark robes swirled like a becleavaged thundercloud, and she strode out through the high iron doors, decanter in hand.

The goblin looked at the orc. The orc looked at the goblin.

"Shit," said the goblin.

"Shit," said the orc.

#short story #fantasy writing #narrativia #10k

[tamarrud]

How’s hating everyone going for you?

You lot are so eager to paint Palestinians as people filled with hate, but you will never succeed when the whole world can see that all Palestinians do this for is for the sake of love; love for their land, love for their homes, love for their children, love for their culture - love for life.

You lot are adamant to paint Palestinians as people filled with hate because you need a way to deflect and shift the blame, knowing the hate that Israel had based itself on, from its inception to this day.

Because nothing says hate more than the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians during the Nakba and the displacement of 1.8 million in the past 60 days alone. Nothing says hate more than the massacre of 15,000 Palestinians during the Nakba and the massacre of almost 20,000 in the past 60 days alone. Nothing says hate more than uprooting over 800,000 olive trees to steal more land between 1948 and now. Nothing says hate more than the unimaginable violence inflicted every day in between.

Nothing says hate more than Israel's brutal colonial project. Nothing says hate more than the actions of Israel's fanbase who jump through insane hoops to dehumanise Palestinians and demonise their struggle for freedom. You're just projecting.

#answered: palestine #palestine #gaza #israel