ok but actually it is entirely bonkers to watch the real world bend ever so slightly as a result of, in part, a silly little twtfic I wrote like four years (??) ago

I can't take *all* the blame for this one, but I'll accept some 😅

absolutely WILD

Y'ALLL

please :)

fuck it gonna rewatch the show tonight why not

feeling in general a bit nostalgic for the fandom times of 2022 <3

basically what happened was I bought an autograph ticket, got up there, and totally chickened out giving him a bit of writing I'd printed off for him

I felt silly so I bought *another* autograph ticket and we had a nice chat and he held my hand and was just all around ridiculously kind

twitter screenshot from 2022: I'd posted a thread about giving a piece of my writing to Con O'Neill at a convention, and he somehow found it and responded. His response was "I read it....I loved it x"

was thinking this morning about when I went to ECCC and met Con and gave him a piece of my writing and then wrote a silly little tweet about it that he somehow found and replied to even though I didn't tag him in anything anywhere near it and I was worried I'd lost the screenshot BUT LOOK 😭

hi bestie how are you 😁♥️

i n n o c e n t

hmmm what hmmmmmmm

HI I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

OH HEY HI ♥️♥️♥️

Part II

bsky.app/profile/rive...

Part I

bsky.app/profile/rive...

Acushnet anchored by evening, a small inlet with just enough shelter to keep her from sinking while they slept, pans of hot coals stuffed under the sheets.

Roach's hands were gentle and Izzy let oblivion take him.

It was a sullen crew that made their way belowdecks that morning, cheered only just by porridge too hot to eat. Izzy could barely raise the spoon to his mouth, exhaustion replacing the marrow of his bones, but he could feel Roach's eyes on him, anxious and flittering, and he choked down half a bowl.

The worst had passed by midnight, waves no longer crashing over the deck, but still the wind howled until he was numb with it, sick with it, every bit of his skin a blister of ice.

By the time the sun cracked into view at last, cold and unfeeling as his hands, he was sure he'd never be warm again.

It was a horrible gale, the sort poets dream of, tittering away to themselves, quills aflame, of those poor wretches suffering nobly so that they may light their stately homes and perfume their porcelain wives.

Izzy gritted his teeth, palms flayed open, brows white, nose red and cracked.

The wind whipped and howled, cutting and biting with frosty teeth, dumping buckets of freezing rain into gaping oilskins, tossing the little ship about like a toy caught at the wrong end of a mill pond.

The whalemen huddled and gasped, fingers unfeeling and pink clinging to lines too slick to keep

"Here." Roach had appeared in that way of his, silent and unnerving, pressing a hot cup of coffee into his hands before he'd even noticed.

"Thanks, love."

"I do not like the look of that."

"No."

Izzy swallowed contemplatively, resignation settling into his bones.

"It'll be a long night."

The captain might have minded but he kept it to himself, warm as his own bed remained, nevermind a little wife on shore four years since with a toddler he'd never met hiding in her skirts.

There were more pressing matters in a whale boat as it cracked along at twenty kilometers.

It hadn't mattered. Discipline was not the same on a whaler as it was in the navy, nor even on a petty little ship like the Revenge had been. With a crew of seventeen, there were no secrets and the bedfellows were no strangers to each other, some shared and others passionately possessed.

Here in all sense of the word, the wiry little cook from the time he'd last forgotten who he was, all curls and tobacco and sunkissed madness, passing him quiet cups of coffee and filling in the dark corners of his bunk with long limbs and gentle hands. They kissed silently and loved with no fanfare

The journey to the whaling grounds had been arduous, all frost and hail and bitter wind. He'd sworn he'd never go back to this life, but there had been precious little work for a retired pirate with one leg, and it seemed for once that fate was smiling upon him.

Roach was here, too.

Izzy eyed the skyline, brow furrowed in concentration, tongue clipped between his teeth. It was a calm night, by the standard of the last six months, but there was something off about the way the horizon blinked at him in the distance.

He wasn't sure he could take another storm.

yeah it really was ❤️❤️

I remember thinking at first that yeah, this is fun, but it seems like it might be a lot of easy jokes and I dunno how long it'll keep me

and then they did the flashbacks to Stede's childhood

and then Stede got teary at the bow and said "my family's at sea now"

and I went "oh fuck"

so many hugs friend 🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂