#@essayofthoughts

[utilitycaster]

1. Why do you like or dislike this character? - Percy and/or Keyleth?

I like both of them, so:

I like Percy for the surface reasons of intelligence and witty comebacks and the general Taliesin Jaffe Arrogant Guy Is Confidently Wrong About Many Things reasons, but more specifically I like how incredibly aware he is of social structures and doesn't dismiss them as stupid or fake or meaningless just because he is aware how much artifice is involved. I love how much he validates Vex in this, as someone who's been on the other side of that social divide most of her life and who knows she "shouldn't" care but does, deeply. It would be so easy for him to say "look, titles are stupid and fake, I should know, I have one," but instead he says "no, I see what this means to you, because yes it's all an accident of birth and yes it is kind of stupid and fake, but it's also the reason why you lived rough for your teens and early 20s, and you are not silly for wanting this security." I also think he's a great exploration of guilt and of someone who has a lot of complicated feelings from the gods but does value their counsel; we don't get a lot of characters with that sort of nuance. His scene with the Raven Queen remains a standout for me and for all he can be melodramatic and obnoxious at times, he is also like 25, traumatized, and should be at the club. I think the question he answers (why would someone invent the gun) is an interesting one, and I think the way that his story ends up with the obvious inevitable happening and yet he still finds happiness is unexpected and wonderful to see.

I like Keyleth for a lot of reasons people will probably be annoyed about, which is...she is annoying. Annoying women: may we know them, may we be them, and may we raise them. Anyway, I think her terror of doing the wrong thing at the cost of doing anything sets up a fantastic arc for someone who is expected to become a leader. I admire how she knows she's not the most eloquent and is scared of her responsibilities but does not back down from speaking up when she disagrees with the party. I like how she's perhaps the only example of lifespan angst that is actually portrayed as making a lot of sense, especially since she is also extremely young (probably shouldn't be at the club given the bar crawling results. She should be at ZooLights and have like, one cider.) I think in general her fears are incredibly real and make sense for the character and shape her, and that's not something you see portrayed with this amount of depth very often. I stuck with the VM-era portrayal of Percy but I will say I especially love how Keyleth is portrayed in Campaign 3, because Percy hasn't changed a ton in adulthood, merely mellowed out a little, but Keyleth very much has as she's grown in confidence, as she was only at the beginning of that during the Campaign. I think her relationship with Vax is incredibly good for both of them; her sense of belonging to a place and his ability to support. I do like that she gets angry, especially after so much time being insecure, but I feel much has been made of her anger and I don't have a ton to add there, and also while I like that she is angry and expresses it, there are other characters I gravitate to for that specifically. Also I have incredible respect for her having to take on a much bigger magical burden than expected; I have said this before but my longest-running character was in a campaign where the player playing sorcerer switched to ranger, and the cleric left, leaving me as the only full caster and primary healer (though thankfully we got a baller paladin shortly after). The fact that Keyleth had to, and could, be whatever the party needed mechanically was a godsend. I know VM died a lot but they would have died like 20 times more without her and Scanlan and especially without her.

[rightpastnowhere]

POV, LAST and NEXT for the writing ask game?

hiiiiiii i can always count on you in my ask box with writing games <3

in the time its taken me to respond to this after the other inbox prompt, i actually started working on something new lmfao, which is just a silly one shot where i throw my desire to be comforted after a closing shift onto vex so i can have percy comfort her <3

LAST:

He glances at the rough-hewn analog clock hanging on the wall — an old gift he made for Vex, one of his first clocks, that she’d brought when moving in — to see that it’s about 10:25pm. Vex’s shift ended at ten, but he’s not incredibly concerned; she usually gets out late, either finishing her own task or helping someone else, and the commute itself is fifteen minutes by Vex’s… well-loved (nearly falling apart) motorcycle. 

NEXT:

It’s after about half an hour when he’s broken again from his fixated haze of concentration by Trinket — Vex’s very fluffy, very large, and overall very grizzly bear-like dog — heaving up from where he’s been laying against Percy’s legs. 

POV:

(for context, vex hasn't actually shown up in the draft of the work one-shot yet, so i'm gonna skip ahead a bit in my outline)

"Hello, Trinket," Vex murmurs as she walks through the door to her precious dog's wide grin and wagging tail. She kicks off her shoes, letting them clatter randomly in the entryway with every intent to arrange them neatly letter. She lets her bag fall from her barely-mustered grasp to give the boy some scratches behind the ears, tiredly mussing the fur around his jaw like Vax always does.

He trails after her happily as she drifts towards the couch, which she collapses onto face-first as soon as she's within range. The last of the tension from the past nine hours finally relents, and she feels all of her muscles finally relax.

"Well, Trinket, it seems like your mother has fallen victim to the couch once again." Percy's voice is muffled by the throw pillow her face has sunken into, but not enough to mask the fond, faux-dramatic tone that she adores so much. She lifts a heavy hand to flip him off upside down, and he laughs openly in a way that he really only does at home (or when he's drunk).

Two hands pick up her legs where she'd left them hanging off of the edge of the couch, and gently move them to rest fully atop the cushions. There's a dip in the middle seat as Percy joins her, and then he softly takes the hand and folds her middle finger back down before pressing a light kiss to her knuckles.

"I won't bother asking how work was," he says dryly, and Vex laughs into the pillow.

(i just spat that out into the tumblr text editor because it's late and i'm not going for perfection lol. i hope you enjoy vex participating in my nightly routine, except i don't have a percy, i just have two cats that i scoop up against their will to give them hugs <3)

no excuses writing meme

[samdaharu]

Music Poll Tag Game

I was tagged by @essayofthoughts (here) for this tag game ^_^

Rules: Put your music library on shuffle, then list the first five songs that come up in a poll to let people vote for which one they like the most.

I used my spotify for this one, as it's more varied (my phone music player is drowning in YES somebody help me). As with Essay before me, i'll provide links to the songs on youtube :)

Close to the Edge - Yes (get comfy, it's a long one)

Epitaph - King Crimson

Grace Kelly - Mika

Seasons (waiting on you) - Future Islands

PONPONPON - Kyary Pamyu Pamyu

Not the widest spread, but still good :) Though I can't believe spotify would publicly drag me like that on the last one Q_Q

I tag @skiesovertokyo, whom I know has truly excellent taste.

[esotheria-sims]

Making a dedicated post for this WCIF so it doesn't get lost!

@essayofthoughts wondered where I got the pretty roof from my recent community lot photoset:

The answer? It's by Red Sonja at The PlumbBob Keep!

[omgkatsudonplease]

And another favourite poetry line, "What the hammer? what the chain,/In what furnace was thy brain?"

Hong Kong, Summer 1973

“The last of the paperwork has been finalised,” announced Aunt Xiaomeng from the doorway of the classroom where Siyuan and Qiuhe had been revising their Arithmancy sums with their tutor. “We will be moving to London in a week’s time, and you two will begin studying at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the autumn. Thanks to the recommendations from Mr Carrow here,” she nodded at their tutor, “Siyuan will be placed in third year, and Qiuhe in first.”

Siyuan’s eyes narrowed. “Why’s didi in first year? We know the same amount of magic; he should be in the same year as me.”

“Didi is eleven, and Hogwarts is quite strict about age,” replied Aunt Xiaomeng shortly, exchanging a look with Mr Carrow that Siyuan couldn’t quite interpret. “Do you think I have not already asked about advancing him up a year or two? The two of you are well above your Hogwarts peers in magical skill; I fully expect that reputation to be maintained.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” added Mr Carrow brightly, patting the back of Siyuan’s hand. “What might be more of a concern is, well, the social climate at Hogwarts. There is a rather sizable population of, what was the term for Muggle—non-magical-born?”

“Chenrensheng,” said Qiuhe immediately. 

Siyuan grimaced. It was thanks to the Chenrensheng that Liuying Valley had burnt, taking with it his home, his family’s school, all their texts and heirlooms. The Liu clan had barely escaped with their lives, pursued across the country to Hong Kong with only the clothes on their back and their cauldron of family magic. 

“Yes, Chenrensheng.” Mr Carrow nodded vehemently. “The vast majority of them are… well, around the same time as your… all of that… they managed to set up an entire system to be accepted into Wizarding society. New Bloods, if I’m not mistaken—the whole thing got started when I was very young, and my great-uncle Lord Carrow still harrumphs about it sometimes.”

“But are they safe?” pressed Aunt Xiaomeng. “Will they harm us? That is the important part.”

“New Bloods are fine, I think.” Mr Carrow shrugged. “Been a while since I talked to one, anyway. It’s the Mudbloods you’ve got to watch out for. The ones who reject our ways.”

“Do the… Mudbloods,” Aunt Xiaomeng phrased the word like it was as muddy as it sounded, “go to Hogwarts as well?”

“There’s nowhere else for them to go.” Mr Carrow shook his head. “I’d rather they not, but with the headmaster being pro-Muggle—Chenrensheng—there’s really no helping it. If you really are concerned about your heirs’ safety, I’d have recommended Durmstrang—”

“No, too cold,” said Aunt Xiaomeng immediately. “Hogwarts will have to do; we already bought the house in London. Siyuan and Qiuhe will just have to be careful not to associate with anyone who is lesser than a New Blood, then.”

Siyuan inclined his head. “I won’t even speak to them,” he declared. “What is there even to talk about with a Chenrensheng anyway?”

“Do not act discourteously with your classmates, Siyuan,” scolded Aunt Xiaomeng, causing Siyuan’s cheeks to heat. “You are the heir to our clan; you will not throw away our face for anyone, not even a Chenrensheng. Is that clear?”

Siyuan said nothing, chagrined as he already was.

“Focus on your schoolwork, Siyuan,” continued Aunt Xiaomeng, “and take care of your didi. That is all I ask of you.”

Had Siyuan known he would be sharing a train compartment with Muggleborn Jacques Bonnefoy by the end of the summer, he would have given extra pause to the move altogether. But since he didn’t know what the future held, he simply nodded again, once, sharply.

“Of course, Auntie,” he said. “This one understands his duty perfectly.”

(drop a title in my ask and get a bit of the fic i’d write for that title!)

[all-about-that-rec]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Captain America (Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton, Scott Lang, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Thaddeus Ross, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, T'Challa (Marvel) Additional Tags: Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers Series: Part 74 of MCU Maximoff Oneshots Summary:

Wanda is pushed into a waiting cell. The door is shut. The glass is sealed. Wanda is locked up in a cage, ready to be made to dance or left to be forgotten.

Wanda curls in the corner.

She knows how this goes.

[nilesdaughter]

18, 23 and 35 for the ask game?

Thank you for the ask, love!

18. First, second, or third person? I've experimented with all three styles. Baby author Tia (so, circa late-2000s/early-2010s) loved writing in first-person because it was "easier" to get into the characters' heads and understand their motivations. When I was more active in the 'Supernatural' fandom, I wrote a lot of second-person reader inserts because I followed two or three prompt blogs at the time. Nowadays, I "default" to third-person because it's easy to use while also being versatile for storytelling.

23. Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard? I have enough of a theater background (and a brief foray into script writing) that I find dialogue very easy to write. Conversation in written format is such a fun way (for me) to be able to explore the characters' voices. However, I tend to struggle with description. I only recently realized that it may be due to the fact that, even though I often visualize things and enjoy the process of doing so, I apparently struggle with putting them into words, because I always feel like I'm not being accurate enough or doing those visualizations justice.

35. Thoughts on writing challenges/contests. I have a fondness for them, probably more so than others, because using challenges and contests was really the only way I was able to create content between 2013 and 2017. By having a prompt or a theme to play to, it allows me to not have to think of an idea solely from scratch (which I've struggled with for a while, because I just don't have the same kind of drive for writing like I used to) and gives me some semblance of a jumping point. With the challenges presented by doing writing sprints or taking prompts with @dadrunkwriting, it also forces me to not get caught up in my own head while I'm writing, so I get more down on the page than without them. I also have some additional positive bias towards challenges/contests when it comes to you and the other Discord folks because the 2023 Perc'ahlia Week prompts are what brought me into the server and allowed me to meet everyone. It's still slow-going, but the work I've done with your (collective) encouragement and prompt lists has been the first time I've seriously created any content since 2018 and enjoyed writing again.

Yet another writing ask

[mikkeneko]

PSA for Google Docs writers

[Edit] Also for Firefox, as per @essayofthoughts in the notes: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/delete-g-docs-type-to-insert/

If you (like me) use Google Doc to write fanfic, you may (like me) have been annoyed by the new "feature" they added in the past few weeks, "Smart Chips," where by default every time you open a new line it auto-inserts a "@" symbol and then prompts to add additional people into the doc for review or whatever other useless thing I immediately closed out of.

There doesn't appear to be a way to turn off this "feature" in GDocs however someone has put out an extension that nixes it:

[zephyrbug]

First half of a completed commission of Kudianeira Xystos for @essayofthoughts I did a little while ago!🔮🐞📜

[blackveine]

My CritRole/TLoVM Fic Rec List Pt. 7

A list of my favorite fics I highly recommend, sorted by rating and pairing! Specifics (i.e. whichever character(s) the POV follows) will be listed in parentheses after the creator!

Part 1 (Gen, Rated G) / Part 2 (Gen, Rated T) / Part 3 (Gen, Rated M & NR) / Part 4 (Percildan, G) / Part 5 (Percildan, T) / Part 6 (Percildan, M & NR)

Finally, let me know if any of the links aren't working, and:

---------------Remember to mind the ratings and tags!---------------

Percahlia

G

Who Dies - troubleinmind (Percy-centric)

A Curious Beginning - joyfulsongbird / @joyfulsongbird

I Love You Will Still Sound The Same - romeoandjulietyouwish / @romeoandjulietyouwish

8th Level Enchantment - romeoandjulietyouwish

Terms and Conditions of Endearment - CBlue / @corancoranthemagicalman

Maybe he’s born with it - umwelt

echoes on her skin - EssayOfThoughts / @essayofthoughts

Flip A Gold For It - ThatOneAceCryptid

spelled out on skin - EssayOfThoughts

T

Of Needles and Near-Misses - vex_populi

The Things That Bind Us - scatteringmyashes / @scatteringmyashes (Vox Machina-centric)

The Words - Clever_Girl

Time and Hearts Will Wear Us Thin - TheWholeDamnTime

oh, you caught me come to life (the moment that your eyes met mine) - exhaustedwerewolf / @exhaustedwerewolf

Their Last Words Are Always With Us - sockablock / @sockablock (Vox Machina-centric)

The Ghosts Of Whitestone - clericofthebalance

the self is not so weightless - quantumoddity

Marked - CaptainTi

The Haunting of Whitestone Castle - ThatHCWriter / @thathcwriter / @ghostofwhitestone

What Mother Sees - ThatHCWriter

A Story Through Time - ThatHCWriter

M

And burn for us right through the fall - deweydecibelsystem / @deweydecibelsystem

Resting in Dignity - ThatHCWriter

Tethering - dragonpyre

Not Rated

gratuitous violence: unnecessary, satisfying, heartbreaking, and so like everything else you love. - fauchevalent

[percahliaweek]

Perc'ahlia Week 2024 Wrap-Up

Uhh, hi everyone! Mod Nova here!! I know that Perc'ahlia Week actually ended a couple days ago, and although I'm sure this slight tardiness is expected of me by now, I do apologize. But!! We did it everyone!! We did the whole dang week!!! It's been an absolute delight seeing everyone's contributions to the week this year, and it warms all of the mod team's hearts to see people either coming back from last year, or contributing newly this year!! The flood of amazing content has been a treat, especially with TLOVM Season 3 quite literally hours around the corner.

So, first off, thank you so much to everyone who participated!! Whether you contributed, or liked and reblogged the posts, or just hung out with us in the server, you all helped to make this event as fantastic as it was!! Each way of celebrating is special and cherished by everyone here - we wouldn't have a week at all without you!!

And, of course, a shout out to the mods!! Ample credit where it's due to @blorbologist and @burr-ell , who were the ones with the original idea and run this ship like no one else could. And of course, we wouldn't be able to do as much as we did without @crithaus and @essayofthoughts (and me I guess) helping with the AO3 collection and the blog, as well as making sure I made my moodboards on time. You've all been a fantastic team to work with once again!!

Finally, this in NO MEANS that you've officially "missed out" on the event !! If you have any submissions that you didn't manage to finish in time (for ANY of the days), or you just saw this and feel like creating something, PLEASE DO SO!! The mod team will continue to check the tags, our @ mentions, and the AO3 collection for any works!! (We also are accepting submissions for last year, if anyone is digging through their dusty WIPs, as I might be doing.)

Again, a massive thank you to everyone who participated in any way, shape, or form!! Hopefully we'll see you all again next year!!! Oh, and is it Thursday yet? ;)

[rightpastnowhere]

alstroemeria, chapter 5

uh, hey guys!! it's been... two years since i posted chapter 4!! i am so sorry for neglecting this fic. i haven't been posting much in a while but oh my god. i wrote this chapter as part of a writing sprint and forgot that i actually finished it?? lmao?? i'm in the middle of finals but i wanted a boost of serotonin. it's not heavily edited beyond a generous beta read from @blorbologist but it's content!! this prompt was suggested by @essayofthoughts :D

title: for a gift

rating: general but with vex-typical strong language

word count: 1.8k

genre: fluff, gift giving, pre-relationship, whatever the precursor to pining is

(no spoilers for TLOVM fans, but it's set in campaign canon and characterizations)

•  •  •

Vex twists and dances through the packed marketplace while reading the list in her hand, muttering words to herself as she tries to make out everyone’s handwriting. Vax’s is easy and familiar, and Keyleth’s is fairly standard if a bit curlier around the edges, but that’s about where simplicity ends. Pike’s handwriting would be perfectly legible if it weren’t so neatly tucked away into a corner, small as her gnomish hand. Scanlan, for some ungodly reason, insists on writing in full-flourishes where flourishes aren’t even necessary; and Percy writes exactly as nobly as his posh accent would suggest.

(Vex has experience with handwriting courses, of course, and has penmanship to match any elven diplomat, but only in elvish. She’d focused so hard on outpacing the full-bloods who thought she never could that she’d neglected her common penmanship. Not that any of it’s been useful, anyhow.)

And, well. Grog can’t write. Most of the list items she assumes are his are tacked on to the end of most everyone else’s lists.

read the rest on ao3

[burr-ell]

Genuine question bc i always psyche myself out of writing due to this exact fear, how do we differentiate and avoid Shallow Angst when we pursue writing character studies? Situational angst seems straight forward where it's like oh no character got Hurt and now needs to be Comforted (the "plot" seems out to get this dude hurt and everyone centers on said dude with little other exploration), but say we did want to look at canon grief, using Vex as the example; what is the good way and what is the bad way to explore it? When do we go too far into excluding the rest of the story?

So I had conversations with @blorbologist and @essayofthoughts about this very thing, and what it basically boils down to is this: are you looking at these emotions realistically, taking into consideration the massive spectrum of how these characters interact with them and attempting to push past your own limited perspective of how feelings work, or are you just using them as a vessel to convey how you feel about something or what you think should happen?

Because there are plenty of very good fanworks that involve angst! Angst is, in simple terms, the examination of anxiety, dread, and sadness, and that absolutely has a place in the creation of art. Well-written angst attempts to find the character's voice in it all—it considers how they've dealt with emotions like that in canon, it asks what real-life expressions of grief or sorrow make sense for that character to convey based on their personality and past history, and as all good fanworks (and original works) do, it comes from a desire to understand someone who is not like you.

Take the example of Vex:

How would Vex deal with the loss of Vax? Based on what we know about her, I think it's safe to say that yes, she would be leaning a lot on Percy and Trinket, burying herself in her work some days to avoid the worst of it, but there are also days she'd be avoiding Percy, and maybe even Trinket, to go off on her own. I think she'd hold resentment toward the Raven Queen, even as I think she'd also want to keep the shrine standing in Vax's memory and actively push herself to forgive her. It would be complicated even further by her pregnancy, and all of the hormonal imbalances and physical complications that would entail. It would be complicated even further by the fact that she and Syldor canonically attempt to reconcile specifically in the wake of Vax's death; while I doubt they'd see much of each other in the first year or two, I think they would both be making incredibly awkward and loaded overtures that would be emotionally complicated and draining.

There are times she would lash out and times she would be hollow, and there's a lot she probably wouldn't be able to talk about because she just can't, because grief isn't something you can often put into words. There's a lot she'd also laugh and joke and smile about, because coping with loss means letting the wound scab over. There are times she'd be able to connect to Percy and Keyleth over the loss and times she couldn't, because the loss of a loving-but-complicated family and the loss of a lover don't feel quite the same as the loss of a twin who was all you had for over a decade.

There are a lot of ways to convey all that! There's no "right" answer; this is up for interpretation. But I do think "Vex will never braid her hair again cause Vax used to do that!" is definitely a wrong one.

Vex and Vax were codependent, but I think people tend to overstate the degree, and tend to ignore their canonical relationship development and Vex's characterization. I think it's important to note that Vex actually handles being separated from Vax during the Trial of the Take arc much better than Vax handles it; she makes fast friends with Zahra and generally seems to be enjoying herself and having a good time. Vex closes herself off a lot, but I think an underrated part of her speech at Percy's resurrection is how it recontextualizes the titling in Syngorn—he made her a part of something precious to him, and by the end of the campaign her stated goal is "make Whitestone the tits". Vex didn't just like, wind up as a city figurehead by marriage and shrug and decide to make the best of it; she was offered a chance and made it her bitch. The Raven Queen took part of Vex away when she took Vax, not all of her.

Yes, the loss is incredibly tragic and the end of Campaign 1 is bittersweet, but there are ways to portray Vex dealing with it that don't involve the general tenor of "ALRIGHT EVERYONE, DAILY REMINDER TO BE SAD ABOUT VAX". Like, I don't think Vex's first thought when she saw Laudna's body was "she looks just like Vax :( time for my daily Two Minutes Sad". (My issue with that isn't even whether the thought might occur to her—it absolutely could! But after thirty years, I doubt it would have been anywhere near the same level as "this innocent young woman was horribly killed for looking like me and I have to help her however I can; also if Delilah comes back I can should must and will tear her a new asshole". Like, the Vax thing might have come up long in the aftermath of her and Percy's inevitable late-night alcohol-induced therapy railing, but probably not before.)

A lot of the shallow angst you see in fandom generally has the same voice—not necessarily because it's written by the same people (although you do see many of the same people purveying it), but because the trending popular angst has to trend and be popular somehow, and it does so by channeling thoughts and emotional expressions that are broadly approved and accepted by the community, whatever that community happens to be. The characters in these fanworks behave the way that they do regardless of whether or not it makes sense in the narrative because shallow angst isn't about the narrative—it's about making your audience sad in the specific, narrow way that you are sad. It's about projecting yourself and your own emotions and how you would deal with them onto a character instead of trying to really understand someone who's different from you.

In our discussion, Blorb described fanworks in a way that really resonated with me—they're conversations with canon. Good, effective conversations are real attempts to communicate with people, trying to understand where they're coming from and connecting with who they are. Shallow conversations are one or multiple parties only thinking of the other person as a reflection of themselves, getting out their own thoughts and feelings with little interest in trying to figure out who other people actually are. And it's not that I think people who make these kinds of works are ontologically bad; it's that I think they're stifling their own creativity and growth. Everyone deserves better than to be limited to themselves.

[esotheria-sims]

Pomegranates can represent the underworld, death, rebirth and especially fertility I believe? also, WCIF that outfit Annika is wearing in the post? /post/746841566839193600/ It's so lovely!

[post in question]

Yes, all very true! I'm holding off on revealing which of these meanings is relevant for Annika just yet... but where she got her dress from is no secret at all! 😄

TS3 Scarf Dress with Long Skirt by Davina Ojeda at PBK

[omgkatsudonplease]

Hmm, for that title game, have a line from one of my favourite poems, "The Moving Finger writes; (and, having writ, /Moves on:)"

From the diary of Qiu, Heiress of the Discerning and Most Ancient House of Zhang:

Cedric—

I wake and the Bond is silent. I wake, and my bed is cold; your hair no longer leaves itself on my pillow. When I wash myself, I wash away the last traces of your touch. 

The breakfast is cold; the chatter of my parents are as ignorable as birdsong. Every morning it is the same: congee and egg, soymilk and cut fruit. I taste none of it. Sweetness has fled my life, vanished with your last breath. 

I dress in ivory mourning robes and weave white flowers in my hair. Ma says my misfortunes will give way to happiness again, in time. The flowers will fade, she says, and with them the bitterness of parting from you.

The Bond is silent, but I live.

(drop a title in my ask and get a bit of the fic i'd write for that title!)

[raayide]

last line game!

thank u @stolenglow for the tag :)

hitting @verassi and @essayofthoughts i want to see what you're whipping up!!

Oh, Astarion well fucking knows that. Hard to call anything from Cazador benevolent. He doesn't give it away that easily, but a roll of his shoulders presses fabric tight against raised welts, slight pockets of pain each time they're touched. The memories of a needle and a very, very long night.  "A gift," Astarion settles on. He smiles, and knows it doesn't reach his eyes. "Not one I much wanted, but one I got. I never knew it was in infernal."

this is from later on in the story, but the next chapter should be up today!