shut up, and let me see your jazz hands

The Pirate and the Potioneer: a Rival "What If?" Novella!

What if Ambrose was a potioneer on Eli’s pirate ship?

When pirates kidnap Navy potioneer Ambrose Beake and press him into service, he strikes a deal with them: he’ll serve the scallawags until he saves enough money to open a potion shop on land. Sweet, steady, pirate-less land.

Unfortunately for Ambrose, shops cost gold: half a decade’s worth of gold, at a time when pirates barely last a year in their dangerous profession. So, when Captain Eli Valenz- oddly caring, unfortunately handsome- proposes they hunt for buried treasure, they set sail to secure Ambrose’s future together.

But far more than storms and rum shortages lie in the pirates’ way. To reach the island of treasure, they must battle krakens, evil commodores… and their own feelings for each other.

Based on the characters in A Rival Most Vial, this novella is a fun, self-indulgent, swashbuckling “what if” adventure from Ambrose’s point of view, with guest appearances from Rosemond Street and a few faces from books 2 and 3 of the Side Quest Row series.

The Mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, has had his criminal charges dropped in relation to organising the 2025 Budapest Pride march. Hungarian authorities charged him over organising the event, after a direct order from Viktor Orbán’s government banned public gatherings involving the LGBTQ+ community, stating that those who violated the order would face criminal prosecution. While at the Pride march, Karácsony made a speech in which he said, “Neither freedom nor love can be banned in Budapest.”

a few ways this could happen, but chiefly of which i imagined: injury scenario, quite possibly the concussion from cliff. shane drugged up and loopy when ilya visits him in the hospital waxing poetic abt how ilya is so nice and shane loves how he always has mangos for him because no one ELSE lets him have mangos (big pouty shane face here). and ilya is like. why does no one let you have mangos shane. and loopy filterless shane is just like oh yeah because im allergic! not BAD allergic but my mouth gets tingly and kind of burny for a while and sometimes i get hives. but its worth itttttt. and ilya TRAUMATIZED is like no it is NOT WORTH IT. i have been poisoning you??? for Months????? he is SO betrayed. this could also happen later, not during the concussion, but during some other injury incident during the post-cottage pre-tlg gap, where ilya is caring for a loopy shane for whatever reason and the secret gets out-- which draws out the length of time ilya has been spoiling shane with mangoes AND thus increases the level of betrayal/guilt on ilya's part.

option three is that it comes out during Dinner With Mama And Papa Hollander during their time at the cottage... not that first meal maybe but the dinner the next day. like, as a fun anecdote yuna and david bring up shane's allergy to mangos and how it was DETRIMENTAL as a kid because he loved them so much it took them so long to realize he was allergic, and even after he'd always find ways to run off to get his mango fix, haha ... wait ilya whats wrong why arent you laughing. meanwhile shane (whose attempts to shut his parents up with increasingly wide eyed Looks all failed) is thousand-yard-staring like a dog who got into the pantry and ilya is just LOOKING AT HIM. like. shane. shane is there something you would like to tell me. were you ever GOING to tell me. or were you just going to let me KEEP POISONING YOU for the REST OF OUR LIVES . look at me shane LOOK INTO MY EYES. and he's just having a whole crisis realizing he was made an unwilling agent in shane's mango-eating agenda... (though there is A bonus point in the form of: ilya's EXTREME distress over accidentally poisoning his situationship-boyfriend-soulmate endear him very much to yuna and david. shane's going "its a really mild allergy ilya its fine!" and ilya, going through the five stages of grief preemptively, is half-yelling back at him "WELL IT MAY NOT STAY MILD IF YOU KEEP FUCKING EATING THEM. YOU KNOW HOW ALLERGIES WORK SHANE YOU HAVE MANY OTHERS WHY DO YOU DO THIS" and yuna and david are like oh .... he Loves Him... our baby's in good hands ❤️)

anyways i hope u enjoy this humble contribution to the shallergies posting 🙇

oh my GOD

it's an attempted playful callback to the vodka being his reward in vegas, and shane is a little more honest by this point and is just *makes a face before he can stop it* make it something i actually want.

and ilya still trying to be playful is just "oh? and what do you want, hollander?" and HE'S kind of playing at going for a round 2, but shane is blissed out and is honest anyway so just *wistful sigh*

"mango"

and ilya obviously is fucking delighted because this is so Classic Hollander. he's going for sex and hollander?? is thinking of mangoes?? okay, you bizarre person. ilya must have you carnally once more.

and the next time they meet up, ilya has remembered this and is being playful when he offers up a mango (100% just playing it like a bit), but shane is genuinely visibly delighted before he can stop himself. he doesn't buy them for himself because obvi he knows they're bad for him

...but...if he didn't buy it...it would be rude...to NOT eat it... :) oh no :) guess he has to eat this mango :)

BUT it continues being a joke that shane only gets his mango after sex, WHICH MEANS! ILYA HAS NEVER BEEN AROUND FOR THE AFTER OF SHANE EXPERIENCING A REACTION TO THIS GAME. HE DOESN'T KNOW.

and shane like. logically knows he should probably say something, but atp it would feel awkward being like, "soooo by the way, i'm allergic to this so you should probably like. stop." and he also doesn't want to risk being rude/making ilya stop wanting to be playful with him or seeing him because he made it weird. and he's SO disciplined all the time. ALL THE TIME. he is SO disciplined.

buuuuut if he's already indulging in this with rozanov...really...what's being a little itchy for a day or so with a rare mango treat. it's not like they meet up THAT often. and this is for SURE the last time so it doesn't matter. it's for SURE the last time. NO more. for SURE no more. last fuck last mango.

...for SURE.

.........after the NEXT one-

and by the time they get to the cottage, like. shane knows he's going to have to tell him. but there's priorities above and beyond The Sex Mangoes between them, and ilya had to cross an international border so it's not like he brought any with him, and shane obviously doesn't have any in the cottage. so like. that can be a Later conversation.

...except for the fact where they're talking to yuna and david about them as a couple and ilya says something offhand to a question about their relationship to the effect of, "just mango by mango" meaning it to be like. playful and sweet and nudge nudge at them having a cutesy couple thing.

but shane who can FEEL both of his parents look to him sharply is just

no no get back here let's play mango metaphors

because the mango is a source of pleasure, but it's complicated by the impact it has on shane afterwards, but this isn't an impact that ilya sees or shane shares (something that goes both ways for them tbh) (god forbid they talk about their feelings). and shane tells himself over and over that he should stop. and he will stop. but he can do it just one more time because what's one more.

and maybe it turns out that shane can eat it if it's peeled and rinsed or if it's cooked, but this isn't something they discover until they've actually talked to each other, and ilya decides to make it a mission to find a way for shane to enjoy something he loves so much. because all it took was them going, "maybe it doesn't have to be the way it has been." shane's self-denial was based on the wholesale judgement of "this thing is bad for me" without any real examination of the issue beyond that.

"The funniest possible outcome of the AI mandate era is about to be HR departments discovering that 'sincerely held religious belief' under Title VII has a much lower bar than they assumed, and Pope Leo handed every Catholic employee a written excuse," wrote Corey Quinn, a software-startup founder in San Francisco, on X.

Employers could wind up in court if they outright dismiss workers who request a faith-based exemption from using AI, said Ashley Herd, a former McKinsey counsel and head of North American HR who now advises managers and employers on workplace issues.

"Opposed to using AI for her software-engineering job, Erin Maus secured something of a miracle from her employer: a religious exemption.

Maus, a Unitarian Universalist, said she proposed the special treatment in April, citing environmental and ethical objections to AI that don't align with her religious beliefs. She also said she consulted an employment lawyer and her local chapter's minister to help make her case.

-Ed Zitron, "AI Doesn't Have ROI."

i have a very special scenario in my head of shane who is used to feeling like this and finding a quiet place to assess what tf is happening to him rn so he can decide if cold water on his face or hospital.

(not even considering the fact that hiding away while potentially having a life-threatening allergic response is an AWFUL move).

and i am especially endeared by the idea of it going from him going off and doing this by himself to ilya clocking him leaving the room in a way that says Not Okay and following him and the two of them in just a quiet little pocket of space together, with shane having already handed over his auvi-q (the version of an epipen that fits in a suit pocket) just in case.

OH MAN in vegas, ilya canonically was freaking out ahead of time in anticipation of seeing shane again, so i posit that he was denying that he was freaking the fuck out and was trying to lie to himself and say it was just low blood sugar, so he grabbed something from craft services backstage.

and it's fucking. peanut butter crackers.

THIRD OPTION: EXTREMELY UNFORTUNATE TIME TO PURSUE FINGER SUCKING AFTER ILYA WAS PICKING AT THINGS DURING THE WAIT FOR SHANE TO SHOW UP AT THE PENTHOUSE BUT ALSO DRINKING VODKA SO SHANE DOESN'T SMELL IT ON HIS BREATH

OH MY GOD I DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT HE WAS THE ONE WHO FOUND HIS MOM

AND THE FACT THAT THIS IS PROBABLY SO EXTREMELY ON HIS MIND GIVEN HOW CLOSE HE IS TO GOING BACK FOR THE SUMMER AND THE MEMORIES THAT WOULD HAVE ALREADY DREDGED UP