#okaynextcrisis

[dunhamsolivia]

Bill, if you don't get us off this ship, you may lose both of us at the same time. Why don't you give us a chance.

[lolcat76]

PAUSE AND CONSIDER: Bill and Laura, plane crash, only survivors, deserted island??

I honestly never thought I’d get to this, but here you go :)

“I have three degrees in English literature,” Laura Roslin says, though her companion doesn’t appear to be listening. “I’ve taught literature of the middle ages, the restoration, noir and crime fiction. I’ve taught fairy tales and children’s books. I’ve taught 32 sections of creative writing over the course of my career, and not once – not ONCE – did I ever read a believable ‘deserted island survivor’ story. Not ONCE,” she reiterates through clenched teeth.

“And yet,” her companion sighs, “here we are.” They stare out at the calm blue waters of the Atlantic, where the hiss of bubbles is all that remains of the Cessna 152 she’d hired to celebrate her 50th birthday.Well, not entirely all. She’s still got the pilot, though what good he is without a plane is beyond her. “How far from civilization are we, exactly?” she asks.

The pilot – she thinks his name is Bill, and in any other situation she’d be mortified that she can’t remember – shrugs. “About 50 miles, I’d guess. Range on these birds isn’t that far.”

50 miles? Judging from the blue stretching in every direction, it feels like days away from her little coastal cabin in Bar Harbor. “So help should be here soon. That’s good.”

He cocks an eyebrow, studying her with those oddly blue eyes of his. The eyes of a haint, her grandmother would say, if her grandmother were alive and foolish enough to go up in an airplane with a complete stranger just so she could say she did something she’d always been afraid of. “Help would be here soon,” he agrees, “if we’d filed a flight plan.”

Oh. That. Laura Roslin curses herself up one side of this rocky beach and down the other. No flights, he’d said. Quarantine and all that. But she had a bucket list, and she’d quite frankly given up on giving even the smallest damn about breaking this government’s rules. Maybe the current secretary of education wouldn’t have paid an extra $5,000 to take a joyride in a global pandemic, but the former secretary of education said a hearty fuck it and forked over the cash.

“So what you’re saying is, we’re stuck here.”

“Yep.”

She sighs. “Indefinitely.”

“Yep.”

Happy birthday to me. She kicks off her shoes and drops to the sand, pulling at the zipper of the backpack she’d managed to save from the sinking plane.

“You got any food in there?” He settles in next to her and pulls off his own boots, tucking his socks in them before digging his toes in the sand. It’s such an incongruous thing for what can only be described as the crustiest of crusty New Englanders she’s ever seen, playing in the sand, that she’s almost amused.

Almost, until she remembers that Barefoot McGee over there crashed their plane and ruined her birthday.

“Nope.” His shoulder brushes against hers as he peers into her bag, offering a grunt of approval as she hands him a couple of paperbacks. “Hold these.” Back into the bag she goes, until her fingers brush against a small Ziploc baggie. “Aha!”

“Never would have guessed you for a drug smuggler,” he says, but he’s certainly not shying away as she shakes out a few buds.

“Don’t worry, it’s medicinal.” He doesn’t ask medicinal for what, and she’s happy not to explain. He holds the small pipe as she packs it, obviously no stranger to the process, and digs a lighter out of his jacket pocket. She takes the first hit and passes him the pipe. Angry as she is, she’s not about to be rude.

“Food would have been more useful,” he says through a stream of smoke.

It would have. But Laura Roslin is tired of useful. She’s been nothing but useful her entire life, and it’s gotten her stuck on a deserted island with a stranger, two mystery novels, and enough weed to make it a hell of a pity party.

Maybe it’s the weed – the good stuff, her former assistant had promised her, and she had no doubt that Tory knew her drugs – or maybe it’s the sunset casting a rosy glow over the sand, or maybe it’s just that leaning into Bill is the closest she’s come to a man since her goddamned snake of a lover fired her AND broke up with her, but she finds she’s not all that concerned about food. Or shelter. Or anything else, for that matter. She hums along with the waves and lets herself float on her high. “There are worse ways to go,” she says.

He brushes her bangs off her forehead, giving her wig a gentle nudge back into position. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess there are.”

[yetanotherramblingfangirl]

fave book you've read recently?

Like I have only one answer to this. Pfft.

Graphic novel: On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden. (Absolutely gorgeous art and a story of someone seeking a lost love? Sign me right on up. 10/10 will not regret.)

Alternate History novel: The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow. (Alternate historical timeline in which magic is 100% real but dudes ruin absolutely everything and women take matters into their own hands? I'm here for it.)

Ask me 'what's your favorite...'

[nervouspearl]

social distance tag                                                        

i was tagged by @okaynextcrisis - thank you! :)

are you staying home from work/school?

I’m working from home

if you’re staying home, who is with you?

I live alone but I still see my parents who live in the same apartment building

who would be your ideal quarantine mate?

tbh a cat or a dog would be nice. I’m not sure I’d want to be with another human in my tiny apartment 24/7

are you a homebody?

yes and no. I love to travel but when I’m not traveling I don’t go out much

an event you were looking forward to that got canceled?

I had a trip planned that’s not happening (though hopefully will later when this is all over)

what movies have you watched recently?

I managed to see Misbehaviour in London just before it all went down. At home I mainly watch tv series (I did see the Miss Fisher movie though)

what shows are you watching?

I’m currently watching Belgravia and rewatching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

what music are you listening to?

whatever youtube throws at me at this point

what are you reading?

Honour by Caroline Goode

what are you doing for self-care?

probably not enough lol. I try to go out for a walk while keeping my distance at least a few times a week. Still having to work sort of helps in keeping to a somewhat normal sleeping schedule, which is good

tagging: anyone who wants to do this

[ktlsyrtis]

2, 5, 6?

2. How many houseplants in your room, and what kinds are they?I have never in my whole life been able to keep a plant alive, plus I have cats that like to knock things over. So, none

5.5 tv shows that cheer you up

Great British Bake-Off

Parks & Rec/Brooklyn 99

Golden Girls

The West Wing

Star Trek (really of any variety)

6. How you get relaxed when you’re struggling to sleepThat’s when I dig into my ao3 bookmarks and re-read an old fave fic. If it’s really bad, I sometimes use the sleep tracks on the Headspace app

[stay at home asks]

[romanaisalive]

7, 10, 12?

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

We don’t really do downtimes with the groups I’m in (the only one that does is the one where I’m the DM...), but I like the ones that give the character a more solid background.

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

Favorite? Dragons. You can never go wrong with dragons.

And I hate striges so much that once I saw that the prewritten adventure I was DMing had them I just skipped the encounter.

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

Oh boy. We have, like... lots of inside jokes with my groups (we always play together, so it was bound to happen). One of my favorite recent ones is the “dragons have cats” one, which came from a PC trying to prove to the tabaxi PC that catnip is extinct because the dragons left the area. Yea. It was certainly a session.

[janetfraiser]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, I hope Janet Fraiser materializes holding a kitten with Hicsqueak fic between its paws

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BIRTHDAY WISHES I HAVE EVER RECEIVED I LOVE YOU

[akathecentimetre]

Ventrobi + chefs au?

It suits both of them, the punishing pace of it. Upearly, plotting and planning over exquisitely-prepared breakfasts (him),prepping for service with two helpings of unique daily cocktails (her). Thestaff hate them for the height of their expectations, and think that they hateeach other; in both respects, they soon come to appreciate the mistake of theirassumptions. In the kitchen he flaunts genius and she flaunts strength, and thesense that she has a domain, that thisis her queendom and that she shall exist in it unchallenged, gives Asajj such arush that she knows she’ll never be able to give it up.

Still, it says something that her favorite part of all isthis, the dead hour in between the end of service and the end of cleanup, andsleep, when she and Obi-Wan commandeer a table stripped of its linens and justtalk each other to the point where they’ll be able to climb down from theirhigh and sleep.

“Don’t step into my way on the range,” she rememberssaying once, during this particular session, when she’s done picking at theremnants of he has the cheek to call a pâté; Blumenthal has nothing onhis irreverence for the form, all of his classical training be damned. “You’llget yourself stepped on. Or burned. And then I’ll laugh.”

“I’m sure you will,” he says; he is half-asleep already,though only she would be able to tell, knowing as she does the degrees oftautness in his shoulders, the width of the smile he’s willing to put on hisface for her (and usually only for her). “And in return, I would contrive someaccident for you, my dear, consisting of a wet floor and a misplaced knife. Andthen I would feel sorry for you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she purrs, and leans forwardto pull him over the table and remind him just how much better food tastes onsomeone else.