Today You, Tomorrow Me.

(BETA FOUND!) ISO language beta for a Deadloch fic! 

EDIT: Dreams really do come true! An amazing beta has gone over the fic and it will be posted in about a week. Thanks to everyone who helped put us in touch -- go team! :-D

I'm looking for a speaker of Australian English to look over a long fic and point out where I've got the dialect wrong. I'd be happy to return the favor for you if you ever want that; I have excellent attention to detail and I speak a very standard/unmarked US English. If you have other feedback to share about my story I'd love that, but I won't expect it.

STORY NOTES:

Fandom: Deadloch

Pairings: Eddie/Dulcie are definitely the main one. Eddie/Cath are shown making out once. There is also one Dulcie/Eddie/Cath sex scene at the end but otherwise no Dulcie/Cath or Eddie/Cath is shown (though both are mentioned).

Length: long! ~83,000 words.

Rating: explicit. The first 1/3 of the story is UST and pining. The sex scenes all come after that, but there are a lot of them.

Canon-compliant. Set after the end of the series proper, starting right after Ray’s death. Includes the canon epilogue scene (in which Eddie and Dulcie visit Holly) and then continues after that.

I didn’t like Cath in canon but I think she could get her shit together and be a better person and a better partner, and I’ve leaned into that very hard, while doing my best to also keep her in character.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

Trigger warning for gender dysphoria. See spoiler warning if that’s you.

One quick memory of intimate partner violence (the time in canon when Ray tried to strangle Eddie).

All sex scenes are enthusiastically consensual but there's a power imbalance around couple privilege. It’s dealt with in-story.  

Expanded trigger warning WITH SPOILER: a character experiences gender dysphoria with triggers around specific sex acts and one specific word. Reference to that character being triggered with past partners, including one brief but pretty painful memory of a sex act that the character wanted at the time but that feels different in hindsight. However, this is a story about trans joy as well; there is a payoff later, and eventually a happy ending for this character.

If you’re interested but on the fence about committing to this, PM me and we can talk about what’s making you hesitate. I will of course credit you when I post my story.

Pushing the definition somewhat but still a griffon imo

-3012

I've done this for years with cooking, just by myself: for example I'd point at the rice as I set it to simmer, and say "You're good to simmer for about fifteen minutes," and then I'd point at the sauce and say "You're just keeping warm on a low heat, but I need to remember to check on you in a little while and make sure you're not drying out." And then I'd turn to the vegetables I needed to chop and say, "Okay, I'm all yours." I'm so much better at keeping track of things this way.

doctors should do this, although perhaps with less yelling.

[Image descriptions: four screenshots of TikTok videos. The first image is of a young person in a bedroom wearing hijab and looking distracted and annoyed. The text reads, when i cant post my egg laying oviposition bunny hybrid omegaverse fic for tdov easter because im fasting for ramadan. im so mad wallahi #easter #fanfiction #ao3 #fanfic #fandom. The second image is of the same young person with wide eyes and another user's comment: Is this a rude question please delete it. But if an omega went in to heat during Ramadan would they be permitted to you know?? Like in a lot of fics the omega get sick if they don't. The third image is of the same young person on a front lawn facing away, looking thoughtful and resigned, with a screenshotted comment from another user: Is slick halal? The fourth image shows another user comment, I want to ask what Ramadan is but if it's important I don't want to know form an omegaverse TikTok... and the same young person in a deck chair looking satisfied, with the caption you ever regret things / because I don't. End image description.]

Something that I love about Deadloch is how certain physical things in the environment of the show do not suit Dulcie. And how, in most cases, these are things that Dulcie has the power to adjust, but she doesn't.

For instance, at the station, in the little filing room where she sits to look at the station camera photos (and where Sven naps under the desk):

The computer mouse is on the right-hand side of the keyboard, even though Dulcie is left-handed. And she just sits there using her right hand, she doesn't move the mouse to the other side. The ergonomics of that whole desk setup are awful, actually -- and especially for someone of her height; when she's sitting there you can see how she has to hunch to look at the computer screen.

Also, her mirror in the station break room:

The lockers are shorter than her by a few inches, and as a result the mirror that she's hung on the inside of her locker door is about 5 or 6 inches below the level of her face. Around the beginning of S1E4 we see her having to bend her knees, stoop and make herself shorter just so she can check her reflection at her own locker. If she wanted to she could hang a mirror on the wall at the level of her face, but she hasn't done so.

And her clothes:

The pants she has on in S1E4 are 2 or 3 inches too short.

And on some of her shirts the body of the shirt is way too wide for her. I suspect that like many tall people who are slenderer than average, she's opted for an extra large size in order to get a shirt with sleeves that are long enough for her arms. She could take the time to find shirts and pants that fit her, or she could at least take in the side seams on her shirts, but she hasn't.

Also, this is a subtle thing but:

She seems weirdly uncomfortable in her shirts. I don't know how Kate Box managed to convey this but it really stands out to me. Something about her body language often seems like she's shrinking away from the fabric, particularly in the dark button-downs that she wears in S1E4 and S1E5.

All of this fits perfectly with Dulcie's personality, because she tends to be a people-pleaser, she hesitates to advocate for herself, she tends to tolerate the discomfort of a situation until she really can't anymore. And not just with Cath -- with other people too (Phil, Ken, Aleyna) she's compulsively polite, she's reluctant to interrupt them or even to walk away from a conversation she really doesn't want to be in. In my mind Dulcie is often a bit checked-out from her body and from how she's feeling. Contrast this with Eddie, who makes themself comfy in any environment: flopping over couches and armchairs, sprawling and slouching and leaning and lying splayed-out on the floor. All of which fits perfectly with Eddie's whole deal -- they're comfortable with conflict, they don't mind pissing people off, they're so in touch with how they're feeling and they don't tend to worry unnecessarily or borrow trouble about things.

Ugh this show is just SO GOOD and I'm still not over it

Sidenote, if anyone hears anything about a timeline for S2's release please for the love of god tell me, I need it like I need air. I'm haunting reddit and instagram but have had no news since shooting moved to Brisbane.

Nick Farhi - Under the same Umbrella, 2024 - Oil, pastel, spray enamel on aluminum

If I had a nickel for each time I've been told to stop "overthinking" this type of hypothetical or categorical question, I'd have...a lot of nickels.

The way most autism literature describes "literal interpretation" is often not at all similar to how I experience it. Teenage me even thought I couldn't be autistic because I've always been able to learn metaphors easily.

In fact, I love wordplay of all kinds. Teenage me was fascinated to learn all the types of figurative language there are in poetry and literature.

But paperwork and questionnaires are hard, because there's so much they don't state clearly. Or they don't leave room for enough nuance.

"List all the jobs you've had, with start and end dates." What if I don't remember the exact day or month? Is the year enough?

"Have you been suffering from blurred vision?" Well, if I take off my glasses the whole world is blurred, but I'm fairly sure that's not what the intake form at the optometrist is asking.

Or the infamous (and infuriatingly stereotypical) "Would you rather go to a library or a party?" What sort of party? Where? Who's there? I work at a library. Am I currently at the library for work or pleasure? Does it have a good collection?

It's not common figures of speech that confound me. It's ambiguity, in situations that aren't supposed to be ambiguous.

how to not be a perfectionist by Molly Brodak

Thinking about the way Eddie stops in their tracks and looks down at their bare toes just for a second there. I love this gorgeous little oddball so much I'm tall and sometimes when someone I love is shorter than me it feels like a present. Like, how lucky, that what I most want to do is scoop you up and squeeze you, and you're the perfect size to be scooped up and squeezed!