“It’s really quite fascinating—it’s a cant, maybe not a full language, but a linguistic development without the aide of generational or cultural—”
“We’re a culture,” Dirk says, spread out on the bed Jake had rented for the night with no intention to use.
“Oh,” Jake replies. “Right. Noted. Still, though, you share no racial or religious or even occupational similarities. It’s a downright miracle—Honestly, there should be a dictionary—”
“Nanti,” Dirk says. “I don’t want this polari in the lills of some wandering charper, dizzy dish.”
Jake is quick to scribble into the notebook before him. “Nanti is ‘no,’ right? And charper is a policeman…”
“Or a search. Or a searcher. Context, doll.”
“And what’s a ‘dizzy,’ again?”
“Scattered, as in mentally.”
“Mhmm,” Jake notes. He makes more marks on his papers. “And ‘dish’?”
“Uh,” Dirk starts.
Jake looks up from his University-commissioned notebook. He blinks at Dirk’s sudden apprehension, the first the man has showed yet.
“Yes?” Jake asks.
“A dish is a—” Dirk says, finally. He glances away. “Handsome. I guess it means you’re handsome.”
The sound of more determined pencil strokes fill the room. “Dish,” Jake repeats. “Handsome. Then piecing together an approximate translation I’m a—” He looks back up at Dirk. “Oh!” he says. “Oh. You think I’m a handsome scatterbrain.”
“Sorry,” Dirk says. He shrugs. “I keep forgetting I’m letting you in on the secret.”
i know it rightfully declined with the decriminalization of homosexuality but I kind of wish gay people still spoke polari just bc it’s cool and we’d be like those dnd nerds that learn thievescant and speak in code to one another only (somehow more) gay
i'm doing my second ever arg right now and vividly remembered my first, which was halgames
Oh shit. Bringing it back, anon!
I’m coincidentally interviewing/sample-submitting at a few game studios at the moment. I’m hoping that soon even more people can appreciate my dumb puzzles and weird characters.
I didn't know you were doing prompts again! If you're still up for it could you do a dirkjake with the word assassin? If not its no biggie! love your work though, big fan!!
He’s a toned glimmer of a prince swathed in sleek, golden sheets. Coy, in the way he tilts his head, breathes out, opens his mouth just wide enough to catch a glint of his front teeth. His legs shift against his bedspread.
“Hello,” he says, like he’s been expecting you. Something about the acceptance in his posture tells you that might be the case.
“Hi,” you reply, unsure, the grip on your knife flexing in your palm.
“She sent you, then?”
You frown. “Yes.”
“Right,” he says. Sighs. “Right, right. Pity.”
You move towards the bed and he makes no attempt to defend himself. You press a knee the mattress to lift yourself up and above and he stays there—maybe sinks a few centimeters down, into the excessive amount of pillows.
You hold the knife to his neck. He opens his mouth again.
“Does she call herself your mother, too?” your prince, your prey, asks.
You freeze with the blade against his throat.
“…Yes,” you say, because after having his kingdom overtaken by a bloated empire and its condescending queen, he deserves the truth.
The prince nods. The action splits a thin slice in the skin of his neck.
“Pity,” he says again. His eyes glance up at you, deep and green and too alive to be nearly dead. “It’s quite cruel of her, you know. I would have preferred to have not been killed by my own brother.”
You don’t pull the knife away, but your mind drifts to the forest. Crunchy autumn paths and warm companions on an endless, breathless trek. You think of streams, and cold ankles, and bowstrings, and your first kill—a button buck, with too alive eyes.
The Empress asked you for the prince’s heart delivered to her on a quite literal silver platter. You wonder, now, if she call tell the difference between it and the heart of a buck. She surely has little in her chest to reference.
JakeDirk Age Difference AU; 20 something Dirk is old man Jake's kept boy-toy (not canon Bro and Grandpa, but similarities are fine).
(Sorry this isn’t exactly what you asked for but I also got an anon request for vampires, so… Two birds?)
Dirk laughs, loud, because that’s what he does in such situations, the kind that make his sternum clench and his knuckles whiten. He grins, and laughs, and says “Fuck, English, you still look good to me,” his hands pressing against—clutching—the lapels of Jake’s suit jacket. It’s the one adorned with elbow patches worthy of the quirky, eccentric professor Dirk is proud to have watched Jake become. The fabric is scratchy and stiff in his fingers.
Jake presses a wrinkled thumb to his pallid cheek. Slides it down to the corner of Dirk’s thin mouth. He pulls his hand back, the drag of affection leaving an empty tingle on Dirk’s skin.
“I’m dying,” Jake says again. He steps back. Lapels slide from Dirk’s grip.
The immortal’s mouth contorts into something unrecognizable. He slides narrow hips off Jake’s large cherry-finished desk. Pulls down the indie band adorned tee that had ridden up in the sudden—too quickly passed—spark of desperate affection between him and Jake.
Just like the 60s.
And the 70s.
And the—
“We had a good run, Strider,” Jake says. It’s a weak attempt at mutual complacency. Dirk feels bile rise in his throat.
“—You can’t just,” he spits, sudden and harsh. “You have options, don’t you? A timeline? These damn hospitals around here are too expensive to not give you at least the surface grandeur of a fuckin’ chance—”
“Seven months,” Jake says.
Dirk looks up from his swirling, confused thoughts. The kind that haunt a 20-something; the ones that stay no matter how long one has been a 20-something. Dirk wishes he could escape them. He wishes, for the first time, he could grow old. The decrepit hobble of an old man would be bearable if Jake was there, if Jake was by his side—
“Seven months,” Jake repeats. “I’m thinking of taking a trip. You know. One last go-around for old time’s sake.”
Dirk shakes his head, again and again, harder and more violent. “There’s got to be something—”
“Strider,” Jake says, “Dirk, dear, honey,” he adds, “the only thing you could possibly do for me is come along.”
I sent a couple requests/whatever a few days ago but I think tumblr might’ve eaten them? It’s been doing that. But Dirkjake and reverse demonstuck?
(Heya! I always have a couple dozen requests in my inbox at any given time that I choose on random/whatever I’m in the mood to write. I’m a very sporadic person lol.)
“Little dove,” he calls you. Because petnames apparently line the path to hell. “Baby,” he adds. “Angel.”
He runs his fingers through the fluffy down where your wings sprout from your back. You flap them a bit, the large things shooing him away from you.
“Back again so soon?” he asks. His eyes are a vibrant, electric green. The kind found in toxic sludge and sour candy. Your teeth clench.
“I had business on the surface,” you tell him.
“So I’m a professional arrangement, am I? I didn’t think your boss would go for such things, Strider.”
“I had business,” you repeat, eyes darting away from his gaze. “The kind that doesn’t concern you.”
The shift is subtle, but you feel it. He changes gears—tactics—and you witness the slide and clunk of them. His shoulders drop. His smile grows wide, grateful, and deceptively innocent.
“You came to visit me,” he says. “You came for me, you sweet thing.”
“You slunk over here first,” you spit. “I could sense you casing me from a block away.”
“You found me,” he whispers. Leans in close, tilts his head, like he might bare his neck for the fangs you don’t have. He hasn’t dropped his bright smile. Your body shudders enough to ruffle your wingtips. You pray that it’s in disgust.
In the morning, when you wake up in a musty hotel room, several feathers lesser and striped by sunlight through cheap blinds, you feel incredibly alone. They say that’s what he feeds on—Isolation. Loneliness. Abandonment. Desperation.
i drew this for @windiewitch after they came into my dms fucking me up about how cute dirk would be with glasses so im just gonna share it with y’all since #glassesdirk is now a trending hashtag on my tumblr page
The writing in Voltron can be a bit childish for obvious reasons but I do think it was a very bold move for a kid’s show to not come out of the gate with their protagonist. I remember watching the first episode of season 1 and thinking to myself: who is the main character here? Lance? Shiro? Allura? I truly pegged Keith as the brooding second in command who would have a prevalent story arc but wouldn’t in of himself be the hero of the story. And I genuinely admire the Voltron writing team’s patience with Keith. They placed a lot of faith in their (very good) secondary characters to hold things together while Keith struggled for season after season to find his place in the team, then as a temporary leader, then as he bailed on Voltron completely to discover himself and his history—the creative restraint to keep him in the stage wings as a late, late reveal, to me, as a writer, is quite impressive. And it makes this last season all the more impactful to see Keith come into his own as the true and total protagonist. One who had to get centered and work through his past and present before he could even inch a toe into the forefront of the groupshot and go, “I am the hero of this story.”
not that im like. trying to Start A Fight or anything, but why do you think kieth is The Protagonist? the show has an ensemble main cast, it isnt The Just Kieth Show even though things have kind of focused on him in s6. i guess i just? dont understand where the idea of kieth being The Protagonist came from. sorry if this seems rude.
No, no, you’re fine! I guess I’m going off Keith being the protagonist of the original show more than anything—it’s definitely an ensemble cast! I do think Keith has been given a heftier spotlight in terms of character development/backstory/identity discovery/position in the team, though.
I’m curious to see if he’ll take on a more traditional protagonist role next season. :0
the biggest queer mormon power play ever played was when the lead singer of Neon Trees made the band famous and had several hit songs and then in rolling stone was like “oh btw i’m gay and Sleeping With a Friend is about having sex with a male friend” and then looked at his other band mates like “what are you gonna do about it” and the other band members had to be like (cough) yeah. we, uh, we know it goes against our doctrine but we support him. and he was like “that’s what I thought”
the biggest queer mormon power play ever played was when the lead singer of Neon Trees made the band famous and had several hit songs and then in rolling stone was like “oh btw i’m gay and Sleeping With a Friend is about having sex with a male friend” and then looked at his other band mates like “what are you gonna do about it” and the other band members had to be like (cough) yeah. we, uh, we know it goes against our doctrine but we support him. and he was like “that’s what I thought”
The moral of the story is that if you want to come out to your homophobic friends all you gotta do is become the face and frontman of the band that is their sole source of income and sleep w whoever you want
