The 5th chapter of Suez Canal Shores, Greek Gods and Memes is up! Go check it out:
The Ever Given’s Captain sits down in his office and covers his face in his hands. This is a disaster. A complete flaming heap of landfill - sized disaster, that will probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
~ ~ ~
“Brother,” Hermes addressed Apollo in their native tongue. “Look.”
Apollo looked up and glanced at Hermes’ phone, before laughing. “I’ve seen that meme already,” Apollo replied in ancient greek. “You’ll have to do better than that. Look at the one my son, Will Solace sent me.”
Apollo held up his phone and Hermes glanced at it. It consisted of three screenshots illustrating the Ever Given as Ragnarök who would defeat Global Capitalism, as Hela.
Hermes laughed. He had to admit, it was good.
Apollo looked smug, as if to say that his children made better memes. Hermes narrowed his eyes and glared, as if to say aww Styx no before scrolling through his phone, looking for more memes created by his children. The competition was on.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
This is a sequel. Please read the drarry drabble: #eighth year #angst #bed sharing first.
Harry wasn’t sure what to do next. Malfoy’s arm held him firmly against the bed. He couldn’t see how he could extract himself without Malfoy waking up. And if Malfoy woke up and realised the position they were in…well, Harry suspected it wouldn’t end well for him.
He kept as still as he could manage – even keeping his breaths shallow to avoid too much movement of his chest – while he thought of possible escape options. If they weren’t at Hogwarts, he would have just apparated away, far far away, so he wouldn’t be around to witness Malfoy’s reaction. Here, the only choice was to slip out of Malfoy’s grasp slowly. But as soon as he started slinking away, Malfoy only gripped on tighter, holding his body even closer to Harry’s and –
Oh fuck. Fuck. Malfoy had an erection. Harry could feel it against the side of his thigh. Harry tried to pull away again, this time more urgently. He felt as if he were invading Malfoy’s privacy in some way. Malfoy didn’t know all the thoughts Harry had about him. If he did, he would never have let Harry into bed with him in the first place.
Harry still couldn’t escape. Malfoy was strong. When had he gotten so…no, this was not the time, to consider how jacked Malfoy was. Pulled back into Malfoy’s body (and subsequently, his very, very there erection), Harry panicked and moved to his final option, the one he’d been hoping to avoid: waking Malfoy up.
“Malfoy,” he said loudly. “Malfoy, wake up.”
Malfoy’s eyes flickered open lazily. He stared at Harry vacantly for a moment, the hint of a smile on his lips, before recognition dawned in his eyes and he sprung out of bed.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Malfoy asked, or rather accused. He’d taken the bed covers with him and was holding them around himself, leaving Harry in a particularly vulnerable position.
Harry sat up quickly, crossing his legs over the semi hard-on he was sporting. It appeared erections were contagious. Malfoy’s eyes followed the action and Harry couldn’t be sure whether he’d noticed or not.
“Nothing,” Harry answered Malfoy. Which was basically the truth after all – Malfoy had been the one holding Harry down and pushing certain appendages up against him.
Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “That didn’t seem like nothing.”
“You were the one with your arm around me,” Harry bit back. He had known from the moment he’d woken up that Malfoy would try and turn the situation around on him.
Malfoy held the sheet tighter. “I did no such thing.”
“You wouldn’t let me go,” Harry explained, wondering why he bothered. He was certain Malfoy wouldn’t believe him. “That’s why I had to wake you up. You were…holding me down and cuddling me.”
Malfoy’s face changed, indignant accusation replaced with whatever the feeling was that made Malfoy blush like a fire engine. That was interesting.
“Sorry,” Malfoy said after a painful silence. “I – I must have thought you were someone else.”
Harry would have easily believed the excuse if Malfoy’s face were any other colour. Now, he wasn’t so certain. “You said my name,” he pointed out.
Malfoy’s eyes widened. He leant against the post of Harry’s bed with an attempt at casualness that was anything but. “Yes, well…” He paused, taking a sudden interest in Harry’s bed-hangings and then the floorboards of their shared room, before returning his eyes to Harry. “I have a thing for my pottery teacher.”
“You have a thing for your pottery teacher,” Harry repeated blankly, trying to process the absurd excuse. “When have you ever taken a pottery class?”
Malfoy sniffed and twirled Harry’s bed-hangings in one hand, (the other still holding Harry’s bed covers tightly to his chest). “I’ll have you know that I tried out several muggle activities during the Summer holidays, Potter. There’s no need to act so surprised.”
Harry couldn’t imagine Malfoy taking any muggle classes, let alone getting his hands dirty making pottery. But whether Malfoy was lying or not, it didn’t matter. Because: “You didn’t say Potter.”
Malfoy narrowed his eyes. “You just said–“
“You said Harry,” Harry finished.
Malfoy visibly gulped. “My pottery teacher’s name is Harry?” he said weakly.
Harry couldn’t help the embarrassingly wide smile that claimed his face. “Let me get this straight. You have a thing for Harry the potterer.”
“I thought you were supposed to be all noble and good, Potter, but if you’re going to tease me about this, then you’re clearly not as good as you–“
“Is that why you like me?” Harry interrupted, grinning up at Malfoy. “You think I’m noble?”
Malfoy looked past Harry to the far window. “I don’t like you. I like–“
“Harry the potterer?”
Malfoy fixed Harry with a warning glare that would have been much more convincing had his cheeks not still been painted red. “Yes.”
Harry stared back, unblinking. He wanted to catch every tell in Malfoy’s face, wanted to find anything that would confirm what he could hardly hope to believe: Malfoy liked Harry as much as Harry liked Malfoy.
Malfoy’s face didn’t give Harry the sign he was looking for at first, although the red had spread to the tips of his ears. The real giveaway came when Malfoy simply gave up. “Fine. It’s you. I like you,” he confessed, slumping under Harry’s gaze. “Now that you’ve humiliated me, can we please ignore each other for the rest of our existence?”
“But I– “
“No, Potter, don’t even try to make this better. Unless you’re going to willingly let me obliviate you, there’s nothing you can–“
“I like you too.”
That shut Malfoy up. He gaped at Harry for a moment before he seemed to realise what he was doing and snapped his jaw shut. “You…like…me,” he choked out.
“Obviously,” Harry supplied. If confessing his feelings wasn’t enough, the semi hard-on in his pants that Malfoy surely must have noticed by now was another dead giveaway.
“What do you mean, obviously?” Malfoy asked, straightening up. “It’s not obvious at all, Potter. If–“
“Harry,” Harry corrected. Malfoy ignored him.
“–that’s how you conduct yourself, no wonder all of your fan club still think they’ve got a chance. You have to be clear with your signals. You can’t just–“
Harry stood up, slipping himself into the very small gap between Malfoy and the bed. Once he straightened up, Malfoy’s face was centimetres from his, close enough he could feel Malfoy’s warm breath as he stumbled over his words.
“–just–just–just–“ he was saying on repeat, his eyes fixed on Harry’s lips.
“Is this clear?” Harry asked. He closed his eyes, tilted his head forward and–
Harry’s eyes jerked open as he felt a cold pressure hit him square in the mouth. He could taste mint and cucumber and – was that orange? It wasn’t an unpleasant taste but it was strong and unexpected and (this was the worse bit) it hadn’t come from Malfoy’s lips. In fact, Malfoy had taken half a step back and wore the same expression Harry imagined was on his own face. The sensation finally made sense: a breath freshening charm.
“Sorry,” Malfoy said. “You were going to kiss me and I realised we hadn’t brushed our teeth yet– wait, you were going to kiss me, weren’t you?” Malfoy dropped his gaze to the floor. “Oh fuck. It’s just you were so close–“
“Malfoy.”
“–the way you were looking at me–
“Malfoy.”
“–I didn’t mean to–“
“Draco!”
Malfoy–Draco finally stopped and looked up.
“I was going to kiss you,” Harry said. “I am going to kiss you.”
“Oh.” Draco’s lips twitched into a smile. “Hurry up, then.”
Harry rolled his eyes as he leant back in for take two. This time, Draco laid another charm on him, but it wasn’t so much magic as it was his mouth. There was no warming into things or slow beginnings, it was all hunger and greed from the second their lips met. Harry was certainly grateful for the breath freshening charm since Draco seemed quite intent on exploring the full extent of Harry’s mouth. His impossibly long tongue had Harry already contemplating its other potential uses.
Harry’s hands found their way – completely of their own accord – to Draco’s hips, holding onto the bare flesh tightly for support. His legs were firmly backed up against the bed, and with his upper body pushed back with the force of Draco’s kiss – not that he was complaining – Harry could feel himself starting to fall. He dug his fingers further into Draco’s hips but the only good it did was bring Draco down with him.
Falling back onto a bed sideways mid-kiss was not as glamorous as movies had made it look. The sharp edge of the mattress dug into Harry’s back and Draco’s body hit him in the chest hard enough to wind him momentarily. Even worse, their lips had dislodged during the fall which Harry was not too happy about. He shuffled himself up the bed, righting the angle and bringing Draco with him. Harry kept shuffling until Draco’s body seemed to slip in place on top of him, his legs around Harry’s and – yes, there it was – his erection pressing against Harry’s own.
Draco’s mouth was back on Harry’s immediately, helped in part by Harry lifting his neck as far as it would allow, unable to wait for Draco to close the full distance. The kiss was just as hungry as their first, only this time, every time Draco pushed deeper into Harry’s mouth with his tongue, Harry could feel the pressure in the rest of his body as well, including a certain appendage that was no longer semi-hard.
Harry spared a brief thought for the breakfast they would certainly be missing this morning in the Great Hall before gliding his fingers down to the waistband of Draco’s pyjama pants. He let them sit there, brushing across Draco’s hipbones gently, waiting for permission to go further.
Draco broke the kiss and pulled his head back slightly to look at Harry. “I– I’m not– I mean–“ Draco’s earlier blush returned. “This is my, er, first time.”
“Oh, yeah, me too,” Harry admitted. He’d never gotten very far with Ginny; the impending war had basically cockblocked him.
“You too?” Draco questioned, his eyes darting back and forth between Harry’s. “Then why are you acting so…so cool about it?”
Harry shrugged. “I guess I just assumed we’d figure it out?”
Draco sat up which Harry could see logically was an indication to take a break from their…heavy petting…but it didn’t help physically that Draco was still straddling him and the new position put just that extra pressure on Harry’s cock.
“Right, I should have realised,” Draco said seriously, clearly not affected by the position in the same way Harry was. “Classic Harry Potter, barging recklessly into sex as he does all his endeavours.”
It took all Harry’s strength not to move, not to buck up into Draco and– “Is that bad?” he asked, shaking the impulse from his head.
Draco frowned. “Of course it’s– look, we can’t just have sex. We have to talk about it first.”
Harry wanted to point out that perhaps talking about it would be easier if Draco wasn’t straddling him but he wasn’t so sure Draco would take it the right way. He tried adjusting his position with an inconspicuous shuffle but that only made the situation worse. He concentrated on keeping his face composed instead. “Alright. What do you want to talk about?”
“What it means.”
“Um.” Harry wasn’t quite sure what Draco wanted to hear. “I like you and I want to have sex with you?” he suggested.
Draco snorted. “Eloquent, Potter.”
“Harry,” Harry corrected again. “What do you want me to say?”
“Are we…dating now, then?” Draco asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Harry said automatically, but as soon as he did, he felt exposed so he coughed and added as nonchalantly as possible (so not very): “if you want.”
“Yes,” Draco said, taking a particular interest in the pillow behind Harry’s head, “I do.”
Relieved and happy, incredibly happy, Harry brought his hands back to Draco’s hips. “Okay, we’re dating. Now can we–“
“Wait,” Draco said. Harry dropped his hands. “We also need to work out how we’re going to do this.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know,” Draco said with wide eyes. “Who is going to…and who is going to…” Draco trailed off, his face flaming up once again.
“Oh.” Harry’s did the same as he caught on. ““Well, did you want to…” Harry faltered as he came across the same words Draco couldn’t quite vocalise. "I mean, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” Draco said, shrugging. “You?”
“I don’t know either,” Harry admitted. “Why don’t we forget it for now and just do what feels good?” he suggested.
“How–“
“Does this feel good?” Harry asked, starting a gentle hand at Draco’s neck and slowly trailing his fingers down Draco’s chest.
Draco swallowed. “Yes.”
Harry’s hand took a slight detour, gliding over Draco’s right nipple. “And this?”
“Yes,” Draco said, closing his eyes.
Harry let his hand drop further, pausing to play with the fine hairs beneath Draco’s navel. “And–“
“Just shut up and keep going, Potter.”
“Harry.”
“Harry,” Draco agreed as Harry slipped his hand beneath the waistband of Draco’s pants.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Dylan says, and Connor feels the words hit him, low in his stomach, and his face definitely gets redder. Dylan’s hands travel down his back and land on his hips, and it’s a light touch, but it’s so, so warm.
Connor gasps a little bit when Dylan squeezes him lightly, and Dylan looks at him, and his eyes are dark and focused. He looks like he wants.
help:
“Set up the wards on the rink to keep you guys safe.”
“We appreciate it,” Mo says. “Think you can help us make the playoffs?”
Mitch laughs. “Nah, if I could, I would’ve done it long ago.”
List five things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of the last ten people who reblogged something from you. Spread the positivity🦆🍂
The beach in springtime, sitting in my room on a rainy day, the feeling when I finish a new show/movie and immediately have to draw it, frozen coffee, and the start of fall.
and I used it to ramble a lot about literary stuff, so, er. click to read more. :’D
Rules: list 10 books that have touched your life in some way. they can be anything, even a short comic book, and there is no right or wrong answer. just 10 books that have stayed with you. tag 10 people including the person who tagged you.
Starting with:
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
“They’re trying to kill me,“ Yossarian told him calmly.
“No one’s trying to kill you,” Clevinger cried.
“Then why are they shooting at me?“ Yossarian asked.
“They’re shooting at everyone,” Clevinger answered. “They’re trying to kill everyone.”
“And what difference does that make?”
If asked, this is my forever girl of books. Not in the must write a dozen fics or join a book club, argue intentions or if you don’t like this I hate you!!! way, more like a story so warm and grand that’ll be in my brain til the day I die. It’s a ~problematic fave~ by most standards, since it’s very ‘40s-esque, but the grumpy, responsibility-skirting, snarky Yossarian is timeless. I reread it something like three times during high school alone?? I just spent thirty minutes getting lost in quotes?!? The quirk, sharp writing that refuses to pull its punches, the unapologetic characters and logically nonsensical scenarios and, sure, yeah, the commentary on human nature/ wartime, all of that is absolutely incredible.
But what it really taught me was how to make a story live: overarching tragedy written with day-to-day comedy.
(Nately will also make you cry, and if you don’t, you’re a bloody liar.)
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
As someone raised on biblical tales and an appreciation for the absurd, Good Omens was a satirical godsend. More than that, its writing is just – so clever, and the ending hit me something bad. It’s about the apocalypse! It’s about a kid being a kid and an angel & demon trying to follow the Plan! It’s about a whole lot of failure and very typical mistakes made by everyone, including the world. It’s basically a book on tongue-in-cheek humor, and… I’m sure most people have heard of it, but I hope more people read it, too!!
The Sfeer Theory by Chira and Muun
Webcomic about racial tensions with a fantasy flare!! And one of the best blends of visual cues and personality-packed writing, never mind the excellence of all characters involved. Chira’s art is gorgeousss and Muun’s world is incredibly engaging. It’s on-going, and I swear it’s only gotten better. The characters are larger than life no matter how brief their appearances; it’s overall definitely a work I aspire to be able to meet.
Captive Prince Trilogy by C.S. Pacat
Speaking of inspiring.
There’s a book’s worth to be said about this, but I’ll narrow my points to two. One: the romance. I hate romance. Correction, as this book taught me, I hate contrived and heavy-handed romance that has a relationship start and end at love. Captive Prince takes the typical build and kicks it into a ditch. The two main characters start out hating each other, the author doesn’t flinch away from them hating each other, and then circumstance forces them to fit together to fill in each other’s weaknesses with their strengths, and there’s a reliance and respect that goes so much farther than typically depicted love. They remain their own people while becoming a loyal unit. It’s masterful.
Point two: suspense. I have taken!! so many! pointers!! from Pacat’s writing!!! I can’t think of any scene that was boring to read: even when a character is sitting around a locked room, what’s written entertains. Trivial side humor entertains. The tension between character v character and character v plot is exquisite, and most important, she feeds in background details without droning. All of it relies on a certain level of suspense in what’s to come next, why they did what they did, etc etc, uughh, basically just if you’re someone who enjoys unique characters be unapologetically themselves, please read this series.
(It also, imo, handles an abuse survivor’s relationship with trust, abandonment, betrayal and their own body so, so, so well.)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The movie is beautiful, but misses a lot of what the book had to say, imo. Okay so, I read this in English class, discussed it a lot in class, and what gets me most is just how many different aspects/lessons/etc you can take away from reading this book, and they’re all correct. It’s about a boy stuck on a boat with a tiger, except not really; the boy deals with the meaning of existence, except it’s more than that. It’s, at its heart, about people, and the impact every interaction can have on life. The ending might rock your boat (teehee), or it might be the little parts that funnel toward it that you’ll remember.
On a personal note, it was the first time I’d found media about an atheist being a normal, decent person, and that was pretty important for my fearful teenaged self. It was probably the first book that made me think what representation can mean, which sounds silly now but, like most people, I didn’t precisely fit the mainstream model, and hadn’t previously looked outside of my small town for non-anime/manga-related venues.
(which are great venues but, for a small town American, they don’t exactly deal with close to the heart issues.)
Trigun Maximum by Yasuhiro Nightow
…. THAT SAID.
I gotta include this because Trigun was my life for so, so long. Nightow’s got a way of writing horribly sympathetic stories into an action-packed adventure series, and, furthermore, lets action speak for the character. Vash twisted my heartstrings so badly!! Ugh!! Nightow also really utilizes the world– the environment counts, and shapes the people in it, and I think that’s an aspect of writing that gets put on the back-burner the most as everyone rushes to write about the human condition or heart or w/e. Despite having high-tech sci-fi aspects, Trigun’s very rooted in the physical.
And, of course, the action itself is beautifully drawn (especially by the later volumes), so. That helps.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
lmfao this book was banned at my school because of its gay scene (not because it was a rape scene), so of course little me had to read it. I got more than I bargained for (not in least because I hadn’t known the gay scene was a rape scene, whoops). Yeah, yeah, it’s an award-winner, but it deserves it, imo. The main character’s father is someone to this day I idolize, and the “the only crime is theft” conversation is still one I think about. Also, the whole last quarter of the book? Excellent. Please read it if you’re in the mood for a more modern realistic fiction.
The Canis Series by Ishie Hachi, alias ZAKK
Dear Mr. Rain starts the series. I picked it up on a whim during an internship in Tokyo, thinking the art looked good. As a note, I’m not much for BL or yaoi media: I despise the seme/uke dynamic, and characterization is frequently sacrificed in pursuit of gay panic and/or sexy times. The chase is as important as the capture, damn it!! And the afterwards even moreso!!!
Soooo ZAKK not only delivered on incredible, unique art and beauuuutiful panel pacing, but also in smashing tropes for characters and plot. Everything about the series is authentic, the interactions are genuine, there’s no healing cock or Grand Speech That Fixes All, and it also features the only “uuuUHMN I’M UNCOMFORTABLE LET’S NOT GO ALL THE WAY RN” moment I’ve ever seen in a manga that not only has the partner immediately back off, but treats it respectfully without being heavy-handed or vaguely insulting (which is hard to find in most media).
Breath by Donna Jo Napoli
you want a book that sets out with a creepy atmosphere and maintains that creepy atmosphere all the way to the end? read Breath. I read this years ago and to this day, I remember being tense through every chapter, even though nothing gory/necessarily horrific happens. it’s about a boy in a nebulous medieval germanic village, surviving with cystic fibrosis when no one except his grandma knows or cares about medical diagnosis, and then surviving through his village going crazy (and the pied piper that comes to “help”). it’s such an edge-of-your-seat read, and it avoids relying on typical medieval suspense: there’s no witch burning, no torture scenes, no rape. it’s just good old fashioned “the scariest thing is your own brain.”
Thursday’s Child by Sonya Hartnett
hohoho and if you want to read another borderline creepy book about a very, very well crafted, weird family, Thursday’s Child is beautiful. it’s about daily life in the Great Depression, but it focuses mostly through a kid’s eyes as her brother becomes more animal than human and her parents struggle to keep it together. the atmosphere maintained through the book, the overall pacing, is just… breath-taking. Honestly I’d put in a plug for Harnett’s Surrender, too, which is written in the same off-beat fashion (and the scene with Anwell’s brother in the [spoiler] remains The Creepiest Reveal I’ve ever, ever read. The protag thought he was hecked up by it? I was hecked up by it).
Her writing style is a little rough and errs on the too mysterious side, though, and can be choppy. Still good!
Boot Camp by Todd Strasser
this book ripped the rug from under my feet. I’m not usually one for ~based on a real story or place~, but the systematic dismantling of the protagonist’s emotional and mental well-being was perfectly, terrifyingly beautiful, and the fact that rehab schools like these exist added very real horror to it all. Definitely a story where I became absolutely invested in seeing the characters succeed. I almost didn’t read it because it does involve a teacher/high school student relationship and that is a Hard No for me, but the relationship isn’t the focus at all and never explicit besides (and makes the main character less sympathetic in the beginning, which he needed to be, imo, to appreciate what happens to him later).
…
…… and okay, honorary mention, bc I need to put my thoughts on this in words to convince more people to try it : The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic.
the characters are so, so unique, and absolute individuals. every one of them is a little whack and they all contribute to the team dynamic in a different way. most importantly and what impressed me most about this series, if one character does not like or trust another character, if one character has violent tendencies, if one character is a narcissist, those aspects are never, ever compromised without good reason. but the characters have more than their flaws, too: they believably act their age, and have their own coping mechanisms for each of their problems.
and that’s!! the other thing!! when it comes to angst (and most personality traits), the best is done without direct acknowledgement (ex: ”because of ____, I’m like ____” “oh, okay, I am overwhelmed with pity for you”), and Sakavic keeps with that. actions & reactions speak for themselves.
annnddd finally: the protag’s development start to finish, from paranoid wreck to Kind Of Okay, is masterfully done. the pacing, the give-and-take of his trust, is quite realistic and compelling.
the plot itself can get ridiculous and test the reader’s suspension of disbelief (it has a distinct anime/japanese light novel flare to its storytelling), but that’s a small price for everything else.
yeah!!
right! tagging people. uuhh, who hasn’t been… @alicexoffered @crazyladykay @ambiguous-eyepatch @zocura @hulklinging @robotcorsair !! and anyone else!
