similarly to the way no one knew ollie and wicks were dating or like anything about them, they made the brave and wise choice to completely ignore any personal information about the rest of the team. they dont know which one is ransom and which one is holster. if you held a gun to their heads they couldn't tell you what shitty is majoring in, probably Being Annoying Studies or like econ or something. they smoke weed with lardo sometimes but thats bc shes mysterious and keeps her secrets. theyre staying out of the drama theyre playing hockey and they're Not Involved In All Of That. when they find out jack and bitty are dating theyre like oh my god bitty is gay???? that makes those gay jokes make so much more sense. they thought he was just homophobic.
hi hi hey hey the final book in an indie series i love is coming out in a MONTH (!!!) and so as a result i am obligated to yell about it in the hopes that i can persuade a few other people to join me in the realm of Jane Austen Books But What If They Had Dragons
like i cannot stress enough. there are little pet dragons (DRACA technically) that live with their humans. there are also BIGASS FUCKOFF HUGE DRAGONS THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO ONLY BE LEGENDS UNTIL OOPSIE DAISY ELIZABETH BENNET RAISED ONE FROM ITS HIBERNATION
you want the characters of p&p meeting the characters of emma? you want them to have dragons? you want autistic lesbian mary bennet to accidentally obtain a dedicated group of young women following her around and copying everything she does down to her clothing choices and (lack of) hairstyling decisions? you want napoleon to get BITCH SLAPPED BY MRS BENNET--okay i'm making that up that doesn't happen. afaik. anything could happen in the last book
but seriously i think it's a beautifully written series that has a broader scope and higher stakes than jane austen's original novels, but still manages to stick very closely to the social commentary and romance and memorable characters that make austen's work so beloved
and i think that if you like jane austen, and dragons, you (yes you!!!!!!) should READ THESE BOOKS
it's the jane austen fantasy series by m verant, the first book is miss bennet's dragon, and the last book in the trilogy is!!! i say again!!!! COMING OUT IN A MONTH!!!!!!! so if you read the first two books right now you barely even have to wait for the last one!!!!!! unlike me
seriously i love love love these books and since they're indie they get almost 0 publicity, hence why i'm yelling on tumblr. if this post gets even one person to read these books i'll be utterly DELIGHTED
and on the seventh day....the lord GOT SCHWASTEDDDD
join your party rabbis adam birkholtz and justin oluransi in saying shanah tova partying like its still 5779!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! join us to make this new year fucking sweeeeet
Growing up, Nursey had always assumed he’d be excited when he finally had his Gooseday.
Young Nursey had, of course, failed to take into account how God damn massive, not to mention murderous, fucking geese are.
When Nursey finally wakes up one morning to find his goose standing beside his bed, he actually feels something more akin to panic than excitement.
Nursey blinks.
Nursey’s goose squawks and goes straight for his face.
It takes Nursey nearly half an hour to fend off his goose long enough to get dressed, at which point his goose squawks again, and starts ramming itself against his door.
Nursey figures he’s probably meant to open the door, to allow his goose to lead him to his soulmate, but honestly, he’s not sold on letting this vicious monster loose on campus.
Nursey’s goose puts a six-inch gash into his door (goodbye security deposit), and Nursey gives in.
His goose takes off at a quick waddle, and Nursey, having no other reasonable course of action at this point, follows after.
Their walk across campus is a gauntlet of knowing looks from other students, and savage goose-on-goose violence whenever their path crosses that of another student experiencing their Gooseday. Nursey has to physically restrain his goose at one point when it looks like it might actually kill a goose belonging to a terrified-looking young woman with bleeding scratches all down one side of her face.
By the time the goose gets to the steps of the Haus, Nursey feels, and probably looks, like he’s gone ten rounds with a mother grizzly bear after drop kicking its cub.
The goose gives a repeat performance of its destruction of Nursey’s dorm room door until Nursey lets it into the Haus, at which point it makes a beeline to the biohazard couch and hops up onto it to settle comfortably next to Dex, who’s sitting on the couch, casual as you please, and somehow not getting mauled by a goose.
“Nursey,” Dex says, nodding in greeting, “This your goose?”
Nursey gives himself a quick once-over; there’s a hole in his shirt, with a sluggishly bleeding scratch underneath, grass stains on both of his knees and his ass, feathers in his hair, and a rapidly developing black eye. It’s obviously his fucking goose.
“Yes,” Nursey says, instead of any of that. Because the implications of his goose just sitting on the goddamn couch are hitting him now.
“Huh,” Dex says, reaching out to absently scratch at the goose’s head.
The goose squawks gently and presses its head into Dex’s hand, like some sort of fucked up cat, “Happy Gooseday?”
Nursey gapes at Dex for almost a full minute before finally thinking ‘fuck it’, and flopping down on the couch beside Dex (carefully on the opposite side from his fucking goose).
“Yeah,” Nursey says, leaning his head onto Dex’s shoulder and sighing when Dex kind of shrugs and lifts an arm to wrap around him, as though this is normal, “Happy Fucking Gooseday.”
tell pharoah to LET MY PEOPLE PARTYYYYYYYY‼️‼️ 🎊🎊 time 🕙 to part 🌊 the red PUSSY amiright*** 🤪🤪 remember to leave a keg 💦💦 out for elijah 😩 anyone who finds the afikomen 🫓gets to do a kegstand 🍻🥴🥴
***(enthusiastic verbal consent is key please see not-so-sober monitors shitty knight and john johnson and they will unleash all 10 plagues onto any violators)
The Haus kitchen on one late fall day. Muffins in the oven. Bitty has the Lemonade album on, because classics never go out of style.
Dex peeks around the corner into the kitchen. ”Bitty …” he stage-whispers. “Can we talk?”
For a long time now, the kitchen has served as many things: sometimes courtroom, sometimes therapy space, sometimes bar. Bitty wears a multitude of hats in this room. “Of course,” he says lightly, sensing that some tea is about to be spilled but keeping his voice and smile light.
Dex sits backward on one of the chairs near the table. “It’s about Nurse.”
This is not the biggest surprise in the world. “Oh?”
“You know he gets on my nerves.”
“Oh, no,” says Bitty, “what did you two get into it about now?”
Dex grumbles. “Nothing,” he says. “It’s not that.” And before Bitty can inquire what it is, Dex gets up from the chair and pokes his head out in the hallway, looking in both directions as though trying to check if anyone’s in earshot. Satisfied, he returns to the chair, sits on it properly this time, and leans toward Bitty furtively.
“Bitty,” he mumbles, “I think I might kind of like him.”
Oh, this is much better than Bitty was expecting. “Well, that’s good!” he says. “That’s progress. You two should try to be friends.”
“No, no.” Dex’s cheeks are a faint pink. “I don’t mean as a friend.” He lowers his voice again as though he didn’t just check to see if they were alone. “I mean I might like him like him.”
Bitty has learned that at Samwell, any expectations one might have of others’ sexual orientations should be chucked out a window upon arrival. He didn’t see this one coming, but maybe neither did Dex. “Oh, okay! That’s good too, I guess. So … was there something you wanted to ask me about it?”
“I don’t know.” Dex’s hand, resting on the table, tightens. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to say it out loud to somebody. I don’t know.”
He looks like he’s going to say I don’t know a dozen times, so Bitty decides to direct the conversation. “Well, how did you figure this out?”
The hand on the table clenches into a fist. “It’s so frustrating! I just happened to pass by one day and he was just sitting there, under a tree, reading. It was sunset and something about the light—I don’t know! All of a sudden he looked hot. Why is this happening to me? What crime did I commit in a past life?”
Bitty hasn’t told the team about him and Jack yet. He feels a swell of pity for Dex, who is not responding to this liking-someone thing the way Bitty really feels he should. “Now, now,” he chides, “Liking someone should feel good! Try not to stress. Try to … enjoy it? If you can.”
The timer for the muffins goes off then, and Bitty turns to the oven to check on their progress. Behind him, he can practically hear the gears of Dex’s mind turning, grinding over and over trying to process the idea. At last Dex grumbles, “Sounds fake.” A moment of silence, and then— “But I’ll try. Just, Bitty?”
“Mm-hm?”
“Whatever you do, don’t tell him.”
----
Two days later, Bitty enters the kitchen to discover Nursey there, running his fingers through his hair so obsessively it’s getting unkempt and frizzy. He does not look at all like his usual “chill” self. “Something bothering you, Nursey?” Bitty asks as he pulls some ingredients from the cupboard.
“No,” answers Nursey immediately. Followed by “Yeah. Kind of.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No,” he says again. “Maybe. Yes.”
Bitty pours out a measure of flour into a glass bowl. “Well, go ahead!”
“It’s about Poindexter.”
A sense of deja vu stills Bitty for a minute. He opens the sugar canister. “What about him? Did something happen?”
“No. Um…”
Bitty can’t help but smile. “I’m starting to have trouble believing you when you say no.”
“N… uh.” Nursey frizzes up his hair again. “Yeah. So. We’re in the showers after practice this morning, right? And I’m not, like, looking at him. I just kind of glance over and you know, it’s Dex, right? He looks like Dex. Not super ripped, but his shoulders are just.. Anyway, I’m still not looking, but he’s got his eyes closed and he’s smiling a little like he’s got some kind of a secret and…”
Nursey trails off. Bitty waits a beat, then asks tentatively, “...and you want to write a poem about him now?”
“No! Stop making me say no when I don’t mean it.” Nursey leans forward and bangs his frizzy head on the table. “Anyway. He just looked hot. Like, even his dumb ears looked hot.”
He looks at Bitty as if pleading for the next words to come from him. Bitty, meanwhile, is trying very hard to keep from laughing. “So, in other words…” he begins.
“NO!” It’s the loudest no yet. “I’m gonna say it myself.”
Getting up from his seat, Nursey juts out his chin and looks pointedly at a spot just behind Bitty on the kitchen all. “Anyway. I thought. Thought maybe I like him. There, I said it. Got it off my chest. Chill. Thanks, Bits. Whatever you do, don’t tell him about this. Chill. Bye.”
And before Bitty can say another word, Nursey is gone like the proverbial wind.
----
Dex corners him outside the locker room and hisses. “Bitty. Did you see his takeaway at the end of the first period there? What am I supposed to do? He keeps on being hot.”
It takes a moment to realize Dex is talking about Nursey. “Well…”
“Agh. So frustrating!” Dex punches a wall. “Don’t tell him anything, OK?” And he’s stalking down the hall and gone.
----
Nursey sidles up to him in the dining hall. “Yo, Bits, did you see Dex during that charity skate? How he was with that little girl? Man, I’m telling you, he was so stupid cute. The way he smiled at her… anyway. Don’t tell him I said anything.”
----
Dex, the day after a kegster. “Bitty, I can’t seem to get rid of this stupid crush. The taddies got so drunk last night and Nursey like deposits them on the couch and then takes each one of them home last night on his back. Like fucking Superman.”
Bitty consults his severely lacking comic book knowledge. “Does Superman take home drunk college students?”
“Like SUPERMAN,” Dex repeats. “How am I supposed to stop liking him? He can’t do anything normally. Shit, it’s like, hard to breathe around him sometimes. I’m gonna give myself an asthma attack.”
“Maybe,” Bitty ventures, “you should..”
“Anyway. Thanks for listening. Don’t tell him.”
----
Nursey, pulling Bitty aside after team breakfast. “Bitty, I am so fucked! I am so motherfucking fucked!”
“Dex?”
“You’re goddamn right, Dex! After the game yesterday he told me my forecheck was ‘pretty fantastic.’ He used those words! My heart was beating like a million miles an hour! But also I had just been on the ice for over a minute. Still! How do I stop liking him more every time I see him?”
Bitty tries not to sigh. “Maybe you should think about…”
“Okay. Okay.” Nursey pushes out three breaths like he’s a woman in labor. “It’s good. I’m good. Just needed to say that. Thanks, Bitty. Don’t tell him.”
----
When Dex enters the Haus kitchen next, he sees Nursey sitting there and points at him like he’s picking a suspect out of a lineup. “What’s he doing here?”
Bitty slaps a wooden spoon against his open palm. “Listen, you two,” he declares. “I am not going to say a thing. I’m going to leave this kitchen and the two of you are going to have a conversation and say what’s on your minds. Got it?” He smiles. “Okay, good luck!”
And he marches out of the kitchen and toward the front door. As he goes, he overhears:
“Bitty, how can you do this to me?”
“Bitty, you traitor—”
“Wait. Wait, what have you been saying to him?”
“Me? What have you been telling him?”
“Uh.”
“Um.”
“Shit.”
-------
About fifteen minutes later, Bitty doubles back toward the Haus and sneaks up to the kitchen window. He takes a peek past the turquoise curtains, smiles, nods in satisfaction, and continues on his way.
gotta say, as someone whose main exposure to hockey has been this fandom, it's wild that there are apparently booktok books where hockey players fuck women
au in which wicky is traded to the falcs and naturally ollie moves to providence with him. do bitty opens them back into the area with open arms obviously, but to be honest, he is a little confused about why ollie is here as well. like he knows they're best friends, but it seems a little excessive to move across the country just for your best friend. so after 4 months of this confusion, bitty eventually plucks up the courage to ask and ollie just stops dead in his tracks. "what do you mean why did i move with him? i'm his husband?"
bitty: "his what?"
ollie: "jesus christ you were literally at our elopement after the frozen four"
