#or thereabouts

"No critiques, darling? I know you could do this better," he said, settling the little ship down with a thump that made them both wince. The Loran groundcrew with their orange guidance cones, visible through the starshield, also collectively winced, or perhaps were merely shaken by the rough landing.

"Oh no," Alithea said acerbically. "You're doing great."

Dareth stood, unbuckling his harness, and took a bow. "Just trying to impress my lovely wife," he cooed, and reached over to unbuckle her harness as well.

For a moment, defiance warred with dignity in Alithea's breast. Dignity won and she stood regally - only to find herself arrested with one slender warm hand wrapped around her upper arm. She stopped, looking up at him - in surprise, in an automatic response, she could not say - and stood for a single instant, transfixed by his eyes. Blue as Arctic ice and warm as the Equator where they rested on her. The fingertips of his other hand just skimmed her cheek. "Stars, you're lovely," he murmured.

Habit, again, to lean into this caress, to let it be a soothing balm on her wounded heart, to savor his nearness and the quiet of the gently humming spaceship.

Then reality came crashing in again like a meteor. The humming spaceship was stolen, she was a prisoner of war, and her husband was a sworn enemy of her people and all that she fought for. Alithea's spine straightened with a snap that should have been audible, all the force of her betrayal and her rage (not grief, no time, no room for grief) weighing in her gaze as she glared at him. "Spare me your empty words."

my love must be a kind of blind love, i can't see anyone but you

shut up mulder, I'm playing baseball

She's not good with people she cares about.

meme cats #5 - bubble

but your ghost I will gladly bear

You look like you got attacked by some PCP crazed strippers.

you can take the first shower

the lady of the forest

oh internet kitty, we're really in it now

my favorite art I made in 2024 (all of my art)

I made the move to trying out traditional art from digital halfway through the year and I love it. it's really challenging in different ways and can be a lot more tedious (acrylic paint fast drying time is my nemesis and washing brushes constantly 😞) but overall I find it very rewarding

i'm sure after moving around twice a month for fifteen years and having to read the same books over and over again gave them a few rivalries, lol! -lizzy :)

omg happy wincest wednesday thursday!!!! thank you, this is such an awesome prompt.

ok i think they've both probably read a lot of classic lit and stuff from the literary canon because it's the kind of thing you can find anywhere, right? it's always available in some form or another, at school or in libraries or even just as movie adaptions.

based on vibes i really want to say dean's favorite book would be on the road, both for the metatextual nod to mister eric kripke and because i think dean would relate to it (well, obviously)—and the main character is dean too :) it's cute :) i also think he'd be really into westerns; the one i've read the most of is the titus bass series by terry c. johnston so while it's not quite what i imagine dean's tastes to be (too historically accurate, too little heroism) i'll go with that one. rough, gun-slinging action and lawless heroes are right up dean's alley. the trashier, the better.

on the other end of the spectrum, i see sam being quite into gothic literature. it's relatable to his feelings of exclusion and otherness, and like any child trapped inside a horrific queer narrative i think he would relate heavily to the monsters haunting the protagonists. i can see him really liking frankenstein especially, and i also definitely think he'd have a thing for kafka. it's horrible of me, but i also think he'd be drawn to rosemary's baby, imagining (subconsciously or not) his own mother as rosemary.

importantly, i think they'd both be most drawn to narratives they see themselves in, and i think they'd be rather disinterested in stories they can't directly relate back to their lives. as a result, they probably have a LOT of overlap in the books they enjoy, but the differences are marked and striking to an almost concerning degree. nevertheless i do think they've read through a great deal of the literary canon even if they don't personally love it, simply because it's what they can get their hands on. i can definitely see dean enjoying long, heroic epics like the iliad or beowulf, while sam has certainly read dante's divine comedy cover to cover (and of course, then they switch and read the other's pick, now hundreds of miles away from the library they stole the books from).

i really want them to have some kind of ongoing discourse about east of eden in particular, just because of HOW many similarities there are between cal/dean and aron/sam. i'm trying to figure out how to articulate the nature of that discourse (dean thinks it's just like them fr fr and sam insists it's not? the other way around, perhaps—though i can't see that as clearly. perhaps a simple debate as to whether it applies to them, or which generation they see themselves in most) but i really need to see something like that.

i think sam would definitely have petty beef with supernatural stories when they get the monster lore wrong. "we already KNOW what they do, how can you be THIS wrong about it???? open a book, dumbass," and the like. dean just thinks it's awesome no matter what (as long as the monsters are the bad guys) and they definitely bicker about it incessantly. on the flip side, dean would probably turn up his nose at gothic lit quite a bunch when the monsters are portrayed sympathetically (hello again frankenstein) and would, with his best Big Brother Voice, talk down to sam about the shit propaganda he's reading. sam in turn calls him an idiot in his best Little Brother Voice and doubles down on whatever he's reading. (naturally, the conflict here is that sam sees himself as the monster and therefore sympathizes with it, whereas dean sees "sympathetic monster" and shuts down entirely via john's unquestionable training. i can't imagine dean as a kid being able to comprehend the idea of sam viewing himself as wrong or bad in any way, so the thought of sam relating to the monster simply doesn't compute.)