and the universe said 'you are not alone'

He doesn't get much useful advice and soon the guys are arguing about how long you can pursue someone before it starts getting pathetic. Holmberg is at one end of the spectrum at two weeks ("We're rich professional athletes, man, we shouldn't have to try that hard.") and Wyatt Hayes is on the other at three months ("Maybe she likes you but just doesn't want the WAG lifestyle. You need to prove to her that you see her as a person with her own goals separate from yours.")

Then someone notices that Ilya, despite his wealth of experience, hasn't chimed in yet and asks, "What do you think, Cap?"

"Two years."

The entire room goes still.

"What?"

"Two years," Ilya repeats, completely unashamed. "Is not pathetic to go for what you want. Not if you think they're worth it."

In sync, every person in the room turns to look at Shane, who's pretending to fiddle with the laces on his skates, looking pink-faced and vaguely pleased.

Finally, Holmberg turns to the rookie. "Okay, I guess two years is fine if it's Shane Hollander. Is your girl Shane Hollander?"

The poor rookie has no response to that. His girl is, indeed, not literally Shane Hollander.

"Man, gay people move different," LaPointe mutters.

2) Her work is all really awesome! And she’s got a ton of short stories available for free online. Some of my favorites:

“Bluebeard’s Wife” -- what would happen if a woman Bluebeard married just didn’t look in the room?

“The Dryad’s Shoe” -- an aroace Cinderella who has zero interest in the ball or the prince but does love gardening

“Jackalope Wives” -- takes the skinshifting conceit of selkies and applies it to jackalopes (folkloric horned rabbits) in the American Southwest. Also stars the absolutely iconic Grandma Harken, whose left to clean up the mess when her grandson tries to catch himself a jackalope wife. This one won a bunch of awards and there’s an audio version read by LeVar Burton.

“Sun Moon Dust” -- a young farmer inherits a sword bound to the souls of three warriors, all ready to teach him to be a hero... but he has no desire to be anything but a farmer. A very sweet M/M story!

“The Seventh Bride” which I love

you tricksy woman!!!

Anyway Harris finds Ilya in the gym doing pull-ups or something and Shane is in the background on a treadmill. Harris goes to Ilya "So your most popular question is, Can Ilya Rozanov fight?"

Ilya drops down to the floor and crosses his arms (slightly swollen and sweaty from the pull ups) and mostly fake scowls at the camera, "I see this question all the time because people are very tempted by my very hot husband." He wags a finger at the camera, "But he is mine you cannot take him. I can fight very well." He smirks at the camera now.

Then Shane pops up behind him, having stopped his run, "I can also fight." And Harris is like, "oh no one asked you that Shane."

And Shane shrugs, "No I know, but if they're asking Ilya because they're going to fight him to like, steal me or whatever, they should know I would also fight to stay."

And he also smirks at the camera and Ilya looks at him with such a gooey lovestruck look that it immediately becomes a meme.

Grace is living on a planet of toddler sized rocks with twice his strength. If at ANY point he forgets to look where he’s going he is Going Trip Over An Ambassador. Unstoppable force vs. immovable object except Grace is very much stoppable.

Eridians either get used to talking to his shins, craning on their tippy toes to get a good look at his face, or begin forcing him to sit criss-cross applesauce for literally any important meeting. Picture him joining the Erid equivalent of a UN press conference and having to curl up his awkward water body and hug his knees for the whole thing.

He can conceivably be picked up by an alien the size of a hard helmet against his will. He’s surrounded by space roombas with perfect memories and attention spans shorter than his San Francisco classroom who can’t believe he’s incapable of solving complex math in three seconds. He has step stools around his house for them to climb so he can feel like he’s “looking them in the eye” even though Eridians think that’s stupid since they lack both eyes and directional perception.

I was taking a photo of myself in the elevator mirror and

Tell me

One hour and fourty five minutes

OF FOOTAGE

Stuff like this always makes me remember how sensationalized the ​“hide your kids, hide your wife” video was, also known as the “bedroom intruder meme” 🗿.

Nigerian Pride 🏳️‍🌈🇳🇬