felt like sharing a little bit of my carcar "accidentally aquiring a baby" fic :)
...
Oscar fixes his attention back to the wicker basket. The baby’s now wriggling loose from her silk swaddling. She waves her tiny hands in the air, swatting at the pale pink bow tied on the handle above her like it’s a mobile. Oscar feels like he needs to squint, looking at it. It's too much, like looking at the sun.
He lets out a long breath, pacing through his kitchen. “Okay. Babies need things to live. And right now, I have a wicker basket and a bunch of silk.” He stops, peering into the basket like the thing in there is going to help him. “Are you even wearing a diaper?”
The baby wriggles completely free from her blanket and answers the question, proudly showing off a small cloth diaper. Oscar dreads the thought of changing it.
Before he can dive too deeply into that train of thought, his phone buzzes on the counter.
Carlos
exhausting day
[photo]
Great. Carlos wants to chat. He’s sent a beautiful photo of the sunset in Mallorca, bathing the beach outside his bedroom window in iridescent oranges and pinks.
Carlos had invited Oscar to join him at his family’s beach house, but Oscar declined. He said he had team-related shit here in Monaco, but that wasn’t really true. Now, saddled at home with a surprise baby, he realizes maybe he should have taken the offer.
Oscar
yeah mate looks awful
crying a river for you
Oscar barely hits send on his second message before Carlos responds again.
Carlos
What are you up to right now?
Oscar glances at the basket, little baby feet sticking out over the top. He tries to be cool.
Oscar
nothing
just hanging out
boring night, really
He prays that that can be the end of things, but of course Carlos texts back immediately.
Carlos
I am back in my room now.
I am thinking of you.
… Are you thinking of me?
“Ah shit,” Oscar groans.
Carlos starts it the same way every single time. He can picture his shit-eating-but-still-sultry smile right now. He’s probably lying on his bed in his too-cold room at his family’s beach house. Oscar can see him so perfectly, lying over the pillows with an arm slung behind his head.
His phone buzzes again.
Carlos
[photo]
And. Yeah. It’s exactly what Oscar thought it was going to be, and unfortunately, the last thing he needs to think about right now. The baby blinks at him from her perch on his kitchen counter. Oscar imagines her silently judging him.
And Oscar already responded not two minutes ago, so it’s not like he can just leave this conversation on read and pretend to be asleep.
Oscar
sorry
can’t rn
but nice as always!
As soon as he hits send, Oscar wants to throw his phone out the window. Nice as always? With the exclamation point? He doesn’t even need to worry about this baby ruining his thing with Carlos, he’s doing a good enough job of things just by being himself.
this selca was posted on 220118 with the caption & comment:
Jwe-Hope was like “Who takes a picture that quickly”
JH: Truly someone who’s good-looking even when he takes it without caring too much..🔥🙌
(trans cr: Faith @bts_trans)
bonus from that day: bts were together that day and several members posted videos of fish bread on their ig stories, singing to the tune of super tuna & more: see videos (+ translations) here
In regards to that harleycrockerbert post, there’s something about how homestucks first real flash is there to describe the weirdly desolate, isolating feeling of the suburbs, with the audio of wind whipping down the street with chimes. I feel like that was meant to be a bigger theme somehow but got dropped
YES, EXACTLY! Like, that flash is the literal title card for Homestuck! It's notable that, whenever we see June/Jane's neighborhood, there's almost no one around. Just row upon row of near-identical houses, and besides from one possible neighbor, there is absolutely no "community" that exists there. All the kids, to one degree or another, grow up in a place of physical isolation. Dave being stuck on the top floor of a huge apartment complex, Rose being sequestered out in the middle of the woods, Jade on her island, but June's isolation is that particular American Suburban Desolation that's captured perfectly: a neighborhood, ostensibly for people to live in, but completely devoid of life.
Even small details allude to this particular interpretation: why the hell does Dad Egbert have to constantly take his car to get more baking supplies? It doesn't take him that long to get back, but it's clear that a car is necessary for getting around in the suburban sprawl. The sort of archetypal nature of the tire swing, attached to a single, scrappy tree in the front yard. The continuing use of "can hardly be considered to be a proper [] at all!" applied to what would be considered normal for a Proper American Suburban Family. I could go on!
And this is a much bigger discussion, but isn't it interesting that the game "Sburb" mainly functions through building up an endless, tumorous growth of the same housing, over and over again? One might even say that the goal of the game is to create a Sburban Sprawl so overwhelming that it makes a whole new universe, which certainly has... implications for the world beyond. I'd need to do a thorough reading of like, the Epilogues to see if that's actually conveyed/dealt with, but these continuing motifs of the suburbs never really leave homestuck even as it becomes more fantastical. I do kind of wish there was more textual stuff in the comic that dealt with that, but I think Egbert (and a lot of the kids) in Homestuck proper lack the necessary context and introspection at the time to grapple with the world that came before.
