#Loved the written excerpt at the end as well! Its something I would love to read someday ^^

[rallentando1011]

hi! Saw the inbox was open, and wondering if I could slide in with a rise donnie boy x readerone-shot..

So essentially- donnie is STEM smart right? What if- what if reader was the opposite, like lit/history smart? Like, reads a lot, and almost never puts there book down, even when people talk to them (puts it down for donnie and gives him their full attention tho-) knows a lot about almost any point in history and adores archeology. (The only thing they understand when donnie goes science mode is biology.)

And so what if- what if reader, who's oblivious to almost everything and is a huge hopeless romantic bc of ✨️books✨️, decides to try and come up with ideas to ask donnie out in a more STEM way? But like, before they can donnie sees the list and is just like "smh ur math is atrocious/aff" and then fluffy stuff yaknow??

Lol sorry, went on a tangent. Anywhizzle, love ur writing! Don't forget to take a break, stretch and get some food and water if you need to!Have a good morning/evening/night!!! :))

U + Me = Date?

(this took a minute, but it’s such a fun and sweet request that I had a wonderful time with! Tysm, and please make sure that you’re taking care of yourself as well! Enjoy! Request guidelines are located here btw) Word Count: 2371

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything on earth has a niche, a designated function it gets to act out, a role it gets to fill. The Cape May Warbler, Bay-Breasted Warbler, and Yellow-Rumped Warbler have the top middle and bottom of a spruce tree to eat in, respectively. Humanity has its niche of expansion, whether it be out through the globe or up in towering metropolises.

If you had to specify your niche, it would just about have to be reading. Now, of course your life is filled with numerous aspirations, but your multifarious interests can all be classified under your affinity for books.

Any form of literature, thrillers, epics, romance novels, they all did it for you, enveloped the entirety of your attention in an immersive world.

That was without a doubt: they entertained you. 

At least, they made you feel inspired to do things, take action in your personal life, possibly commit to confessing certain feelings to a certain softshell turtle. Actually committing to the bit, though, was a completely different story.

In the extensive library you had under your belt, there were many a meet cute and innovative confession. However, just because it worked out in literature, it didn’t mean that you could actually do it. What if it ended up weird or cringe or downright friendship shattering?

The status quo was comfortable, subsisting off of shared time in your turtle-in-question’s lab, the two of you simultaneously performing your own tasks. You would sit and enrich yourself with a book, Donnie would tinker until he had something that piqued his interest, which happened rather frequently, and your attention would suddenly be on him. It was simple. It worked. Taking action could complicate things.

So, your inspiration remained squandered by doubt, an inkling of hope staying concealed internally.

At least, inspiration wouldn’t make anything occur unprompted, and, luckily, that nudge came swiftly.

Earlier, as you were straight chilling in a cozy bean bag chair in the lair’s living room, you saw Donnie enter the room out of your peripheral vision. However, he only seemed like a purple blur because your attention was on the thick, dense book sitting on your lap. The cover was of a similar slickness and feel to that of a textbook, the size was as well, but this read was solely for entertainment. The content could practically be summed up as history of the entire world, i guess but fleshed out with more anecdotes and primary sources.

You had been soaking in a finely written excerpt entailing early hominid tool use, accompanied by an image of a related artifact, when you felt a presence leaning over your shoulder. You opted to continue your train of thought through the lines until you heard a familiar timbre clear its throat behind you. With a sigh, you placed a finger on your spot and faced one Donatello.

“Something the matter?” You blinked slowly.

“Oh, nothing,” he shrugged, expression seeming intentionally cool, “just checking out the book choice for today.”

You lifted the book from your lap to display the contents to him.

His eyes skimmed over the page before he grinned slightly. “Ah, prehistoric archaeology? I could dig it.”

You pursed your lips, trying to keep your thought from spilling out of your mouth before ultimately giving in to your amusing whims. “Leo ahh humor.”

Donnie gaped. “Gasp, you wound me. I rescind my statement and shall not be partaking in any archaeological reading-slash-discussion with you.”

“I’m just messing around, ‘Tello. I can dabble in some crude wordplay.”

“Crude?”

“Crude. Heck, I’d bargain to say that was more archaic than the sector of human history I’m in right now, and they don’t even have wheels.”

He raised a curious brow, visibly less offended. You could work with that.

“Rather intriguing. Care to join me?” You patted the ample space on the bean bag next to you.

Curiously, he stared at you, then the space you were offering, and back, before slipping beside you.

“Care to enlighten me on this subject?” he parried, and with a grin, you were off, describing the main theme of the page, the early development of primates and humans, as well as outside archaeological examples that you knew of, the whole nine yards.

As you rambled on, you locked eyes with him occasionally, and his eyes were intrigued saucers every time you did. It made something in your brain click.

He played along with your banter. He was sitting right beside you, absorbing your words so vehemently and genuinely and ohmigosh this guy of all people wouldn’t judge you for trying something that could be weird. Heck, he’s a fanatic of oddities, anything mystic or scientific, so if he didn’t like you asking him out, at the very least he’d admire the effort. So, you were inspired to try something, finally take some action.

You were going for it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You set to work on your asking-out endeavor as soon as you arrived home.

At first you tried looking at STEM-related pickup lines.

Sardonically, of course. You wanted something that got your point across without seeming too vulnerable, something you could play off in the scenario you got completely and irrevocably rejected.

“I less than three you… That’s not that bad,” you scrolled through the results of your search, perched at your kitchen table.

You only made it down the list to ‘the square root of all my fantasies is you’ until you actually needed to call it quits on that route. There was a fine line between being intentionally corny and the monstrosity that was that line.

So you took the next completely logical leap: concocting a page full of intricate mathematical and scientific questions, the answers of which spelled out an encrypted message.

It was the sane thing to do. 

4  1  20 5          20 15 13  15  18  18 15 23 ?

D  A  T  E          T   O   M   O   R   R  O  W ?

You scribbled the message on a scrap piece of paper. You entertained the idea of writing a whole sentence, but just these two words covered the gist clearly and concisely. Plus, coming up with questions for only two words was enough to melt your brain.

“Limit as x approaches sixteen of the square root of x… equals… yeah, four. That works,” you mumbled. “One down,” you sucked in a deep breath, “eleven to go. Crud.”

The next few hours blended together aimlessly, riddled with just about every mathematical scenario you could conjure up. Sure, derivatives and Planck’s Constant and the unit circle (the bane of your existence) were all ambitious topics to have on the totally inconspicuous worksheet, but, to quote a phrase, go big or go home. When in Rome also works.

By the time you reached ungodly hours in the night, you had curated a functional way to surprise and ask out your best friend. With your brain oozing out of your ears, you put the paper somewhere safe and collapsed face down on your bed.

You would have mentally prepared yourself to give him the paper tomorrow if not for the calculus-derived headache already splitting your mind.

Instead, you immediately dozed off.

You could deal with the minutiae of tomorrow… tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day when you waltzed into the lair, he was conveniently seated at the desk in his lab.

“Heya D! I come bearing gifts.” You presented him with the paper as coolly as you could, keeping all the panic and nerves internal, and took up the chair beside him.

“A calculus sheet?” He grinned. “You shouldn’t have.”

After a moment of looking at it, however, his eyes dimmed and smile lessened. “...You shouldn’t have.”

You faltered. “Oh, gosh, is it that bad?”

“Which letter corresponds with negative one?”

“What?” you exclaimed. “Oh nononono no, I checked my math like five times, it’s not even possible-”

“The derivative of cosine theta is negative sine theta. Not positive. Simple mistake, really. It was a valiant effort of- whatever you were trying to do.”

You blinked, smacked your lips. Well, that was the end of that. You would just take your leave and move out of the city and change your name and never feel anything again. Easy.

“Just forget I did anything, forget this paper exists- like, what paper even?” You reached for the sheet of paper only for him to use the mechanical extensions on his battle shell to hold it out of your reach.

“No, my interest is piqued,” he smirked. You could almost feel the mischievousness emanating from him. “I will gladly continue, if you do not mind.”

You complied and sat stiffly, anxiously glancing about the lab, until you saw him pick up a utensil and start marking on the paper.

“Are you correcting it with a pen? Are you seriously grading this right now?” you muttered. You weren’t mad, just thoroughly panicked.

He stopped writing momentarily. “What? No, not grading, per say. This is just how I’m deciphering this.”

You knew that tone and you knew that was a lie. 

“I- ugh,” you flopped your head down on his desk and closed your eyes. “Just tell me when you’re done fixing it. I spent a needlessly long amount of time on this just for it to be terrible.”

He didn’t deny that it was terrible, though you excused that to him being busy and hopefully not him agreeing.

Although, with how quickly his pen was scratching marks on the page, the latter seemed more feasible.

You focused on taking deep, steadying breaths, relaxing to the sounds of the busy pen until it suddenly stopped.

Lifting your head from its place, you saw he had completely stilled, staring at the paper with wide eyes and upturned lips.

“What? Did you spot another comically egregious mistake?” you mumbled, halfway intrigued.

He took another few seconds to answer you. “Something like that.” And with that nothingness of an answer, he started writing again, much more fervently.

“Okay then.” You went to put your head down again before he slammed the paper down before you.

“Boom! Here is the revised and finalized version of the worksheet,” he grinned.

You narrowed your eyes at the comments about your inability to include units, corrections on when something was supposed to be negative, but the markings at the bottom of the page were what caught your attention the most.

When you looked at the corner of the page, you saw an odd combination of zeros and ones. 

01101111 01101000 00100000 01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 

“Actually, what is this?” You gestured to the code.

“It’s my response.”

“And you had to put it in binary?”

“You’re the one who wanted to talk in codes.” He sounded frustratingly nonchalant.

“Yeah, but-” you considered asking him to directly tell you, but maybe this was slightly less nerve wracking. Ripping off the bandaid be darned, you took the coward’s way out and pulled out your phone. “Man, I let you get away with way too much stuff. Has this interaction not dragged on painstakingly enough?”

“The greater the hardship, the greater the reward,” he commented with a shrug.

That pleasant surprise of a response made you copy the ones and zeros faster into the binary decoding website you’d searched up.

Just as you had everything in and your finger steadied over the button that would tell you what he was saying, you hesitated, steadied yourself with a deep breath, and hit it.

Nothing could have prepared you for the rush of adrenaline and euphoria that washed over you at seeing his answer.

“Ohmigosh, you’re serious?! Because you cannot be joking like this, Donatello.”

“As the plague.” One of his hands rested on his chest, the other was in the air as if taking an oath.

“Haha, yes!” you cheered, spinning the desk chair you were in. The late night and headache had paid off, and it felt great!

“So, where am I accompanying you tomorrow?” He mused.

Immediately, you paused. You’d only spent time thinking about the part where you ask him out, not the actual going out part.

“Where? Uhh, I hadn’t really gotten to that point of the planning stage.”

“You were too focused on biffing a math paper to actually plan out its intended purpose?”

“Yeah, not my brightest decision, nor my best work. It was a rather dumb decision on my behalf.”

“You are a dum-dum, but just because of how needlessly complex you made this, not because of your mathematical errors.”

“I genuinely don’t know if I should take offense to that or not.”

“Maybe you should be thinking about where we’re going tomorrow? Just a thought.”

You clicked your tongue. “Fine, uhh coffee?”

“A little trite for a first date, no?” Donnie propped his elbow up on the desk and rested his chin on his hand, smiling widely.

“Okay then, coffee and we go to the library?”

“Don’t we normally do that anyway? What about it makes it a ‘da-”

“Donnie, I am running on fumes from making the erroneous atrocity that is that worksheet last night. If you don’t have any suggestions, coffee at the library works. If you have a contribution, go right ahead.” You put your hands up in surrender.

Donnie’s smugness faded slightly and he lightly nudged your elbow. “Coffee at the library sounds great. And for what it’s worth, I appreciate that you tried to do something innovative. It was truly a highly admirable effort.”

“Thanks, D.”

“Of course.  But from now on, let’s leave the math to the professionals.”

There it was again: the sass.

“Oh, that’s a low blow.” You shook your head, still smiling.

“A low blow would be mentioning how you confused the natural logarithm for a standard logarithm. You see, when you have e to the power of…”

The corrections and banter flourished on from there, the both of you giggling and getting mockingly, lightheartedly angry with each other.

Despite your interests in different subjects, the two of you understood each other. It was wonderful to have a partner that you could be niche with wherever and whenever.

It was almost worth all the math and science it took to get there.

(I actually made inconspicuous math worksheet that reader made for Donnie, and it is linked HERE!)

[theygotbitchesinmedia]

okay so here is her review: https://arkadymartine.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/the-traitor-baru-cormorant-a-reviewresponse/

admittedly its from 2015- i haven't poked around to see how she may have changed how she feels about it, and i know she did blurb seth's recent scifi novel (Exordia), so there's no bad blood there or anything. it's also a positive review, in general- she ends with this sentence: "I highly, highly recommend this book; I have not thought so much about something I read in a long time."

i am also coming into this as someone who has read all of seth dickinson's work for the game destiny, where he was near-singlehandedly responsible for a good oh… 80% of the interesting women (& overall interesting concepts lol!) in the game, and his writing of one of those characters in particular as a complex and flawed character got him bullied viciously off of all social media. if you've tried to find his social media presence and havent found anything, that's why. so i mayhaps have a little more emotion in the game.

THAT SAID. here are some specific parts from her review i find really fucking annoying! and color the way i feel about Memory & Desolation, despite them being so incredibly targeted at me as a classics person AND someone who fucking loves the specific sub-genre of scifi her novels are.

"[Traitor] asks a question which I find compelling as a student of an empire and as a queer woman. That question is: what do we gain by complicity? What do we – we barbaroi, we women, we queer people, we imperialized – what do we get when we say yes? When we say yes I will hide my true nature? When we say yes I will subsume myself into the beautiful machine? When we say can we speak English? Or the literature I love just happens to be written by straight white men – and mean it, too, mean it with the kind of depthless love that a person can have for a text that speaks to them, which holds up a mirror to them?"

i dont think the use of the greek word for barbarian does anything here (she also keeps coming back to the greek term orthos in her review, which also pisses me off lol), i dont think empire is a "beautiful machine," and i don't think the invocation of identity politics is useful. like. i know she's a byzantine scholar but if your first association with empire is purely a finite Historical Empire instead of, like, modern US imperialism, or British colonialism, you are going into this discussion with a certain set of values and opinions! a set of values and opinions that let you call an empire a "beautiful machine" in all earnestness. this claim probably seems unsubstantiated and nitpicky now just from this excerpt but ill come back to it with more i promise. on the idpol front, she also says immediately after this that she does believe that straight people can and should write queer people, but that they should listen to queer people when they point out those errors. she then continues:

"But then, critique: there are two points on which I think Dickinson’s portrayal of a queer protagonist has faltered, and I think both of these errors arise from the fact that he isn’t part of – as far as I know at the time of writing this review – a queer community. Firstly, I disbelieve Baru’s awareness of her own desires… …For the first portion of the book, her queerness felt more like a character trait assigned to her for reason of plot than a naturally built part of her as a person… Secondly, I wonder where queer people in Falcrest are…"

theres more to these excerpts, but. i personally didnt find the depiction of baru's desire to be unrealistic, and also this was a review of Traitor, specifically, so where on earth would baru have heard about queer people in falcrest? and more importantly, why should we care so much about queer people in the imperial core? moreover i think the way seth does it with svir is very very well done, and illustrates the hypocrisy of empire in a way that does NOT seem like what martine is asking for here!!!

"Why am I invested? I myself am a student of empire. I’m a Byzantinist. My academic work is about empire and its seductions; it is the animating principle of my professional life. And: I am myself someone who loves order over disorder. Who looks for systems in all things. Who is comforted by structures; who is concerned deeply with propriety. But here’s my real criticism of this book: I don’t buy the seduction of the Masquerade. And I think if this book fails, it’s there: in that its empire is too easily read as undesirable. As profane, unethical, fundamentally wrong. It is really overtly evil." … "The Masquerade isn’t civilized. It’s civilization, but I don’t recognize it as civilized, and this is a problem with a constructed empire. An empire relies on itself as the definition of civilization – I would footnote here Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch as a SFnal example of an empire which is built on this principle, and which, for this reader at least, achieves the facsimile. (But then my ancestors were not enslaved, we were exterminated; not annexed, but exiled. Perhaps I like the Radch better than the Masquerade because I can find a place for myself in it, and cannot imagine a place within the Masquerade someone like me would ever be safe –)"

and THIS. THIS RIGHT HERE IS MY BIGGEST PROBLEM. critiquing the masquerade as not "seductive" enough, calling it too evil to have people join it- how does someone miss the point THIS badly??? like. are you FUCKING serious??? how do you read a book about the immense violence of colonialism and your problem is that it is boohoo too violent for people to join willingly. google literally fucking anything the US has done ever!!! and the invocation of the concept of "civilized" as an objective quality, despite the recognition that the empire constructs what counts as "civilization" is so fucking unserious/simplistic/juvenile! why do you need to imagine yourself a place in the empire? in the imperial core specifically!

and i think this particular approach bleeds into her books. i read them at Least 2 years ago, so this is mostly vibes-based, and i will avoid spoilers.

there is such a focus on the allure of the imperial core, on the "beautiful machine" of the empire as she calls it. there is violence done, but it is abstracted away from the wealth of the imperial core. there are no economics there. the empire sees her independent station as a backwater, and there is some cultural tensions there, but there is no realistic violence and exploitation! it is not clear at all what maintains the empire, besides some abstract idea of trade. i also don't know what her Point is with the naming & language conventions, which are very clearly inspired in part by ancient Mayan- e.g. the empire and core planet are called Teixcalaan. and idk this may be reductive of me but i think if you are going to pull features from civilizations that have been colonized and use them to inspire fictional colonizing forces, you ARE saying something there! idk! and like, the ancient Mayan

and on the ~representation~ front, i also don't think she does a better job than seth tbqh!!! i felt like the characters getting together came out of nowhere and felt anticlimactic- there is also not the tension i think there should be with the main character being an ambassador-ish and the love interest being… idr. junior intelligence officer iirc? idk! and for all her critique of baru's desire for women not feeling "real" or present enough, i do not remember the main character in Memory having any real focus on it!

i enjoyed Memory just fine, but i don't think it says anything interesting or novel or even critical about empire, and i found her review of Traitor extremely shallow and useless, if very revealing about her own outlook on empire lol!!!

this has been at best Minorly proofread and edited but im not like, writing an academic essay on the matter and so i apologize for any inconsistencies.

oh man thanks for this this is really interesting. i went and read the whole thing and i agree a ton with your critique. i'm going to stick my thoughts below the cut because i went on for a bit here, in typical fashion.

i personally didnt find the depiction of baru's desire to be unrealistic, and also this was a review of Traitor, specifically, so where on earth would baru have heard about queer people in falcrest? and more importantly, why should we care so much about queer people in the imperial core?

NO BUT EXACTLY... for starters this is explicitly a novel about colonized people taking place in a colony where none of the major characters are from the empire. where, when, and how would we take the time to explore what queerness looks like for them and more importantly, like you've asked, why the hell should that be a priority for the narrative in this case.

in terms of 'i found this to be an unrealistic depiction of queer desire' 9/10 times i feel like what that means is 'i found this to be an unrelatable depiction' which is an entirely different critique. i know i'm working with two additional books worth of context that martine isn't working with here. but even taking into account just the characterization we have for baru in traitor i think this is suuuuch an unfair complaint. i'm gonna pull the entire quote she says about baru's sexuality here because i have additional specific gripes with it.

Firstly, I disbelieve Baru’s awareness of her own desires. In the first portion of the book, I do not ever feel the weight of Baru’s own awareness of her sexuality; there is an absence of carnality, a kind of intellectual version of lesbian desire which is, to me, inconsistent with the sort of desire I expect. Not until the introduction of Baru’s eventual lover Tain Hu do I get a sense of Baru as a woman who loves women. Further, considering how very much the Empire of Masks and Increastic philosophy criminalizes the sin of queer desire, I wish Baru had struggled more with the nature of her desire. For the first portion of the book, her queerness felt more like a character trait assigned to her for reason of plot than a naturally built part of her as a person. This markedly improved in the second half, where Baru notices women in a way she does not notice men.

For starters, it is insanely hypocritical to me to complain that her desire both isn't carnal enough and she processes it too intellectually, but that she isn't struggling enough with it. Baru intellectually processes things! That's her entire character from the getgo! She also has a difficult time conceptualizing other people as fully realized beings with their own agency. These character traits paired together don't make for a particularly passionate and carnal relationship to her sexuality. She is also, at her absolute oldest in this book, 21! (Or 22? I can't remember. I know she spends 3 years in aurdwynn) and has spent her entire youth being groomed to be a scholar. Of course detached intellectualism is her primary way of navigating all things. Why wouldn't it be?

Baru primary motivation is to save taranoke, she wants to save the taranoki way of life, and part of that way of life includes an acceptance of nonhetero nonmonogamous relationships. Sure, a different character arc may have involved baru actually internalizing and then having to break free of the trappings of race, gender, and sexuality that the empire tries to impose upon its citizens. but that's not baru and acting like this is a writing flaw rather than a character choice is insane to me.

There's absolutely no reason for Baru to lie awake at night pontificating about how wrong and dirty of her it is to want to have sex with women because we are never lead to believe even for a minute that Baru puts any emotional weight in incrasticism. She doesn't conceptualize it as sinful she conceptualizes it as illegal!

And "Not until the introduction of Baru’s eventual lover Tain Hu do I get a sense of Baru as a woman who loves women. " is killing me in particular because like. Yeah. Tain Hu is baru's first love. thats the point. But beyond that this is just not being able to see anything other than what she's looking for because i think the chapters covering baru's childhood make it pretty clear that her feelings for aminata and cousin lao (im not double checking the name but im pretty sure it was this) are deep and strong. the fact that they're not as explicitly and straightforwardly romantic and sexual as her relationship with tain hu doesn't change that, and in fact, points to baru's struggle with/development of her sexuality that she claims was somehow missing in this book.

like i just simply can't see anything here but someone who is seeing an emotional landscape they can't relate to and assuming that means it's flawed writing. skill issue frankly.

She's also fucking insane for acting like the masquerade is too cartoonishly evil to be appealing. once again im going to post her full quote here because i think its important to see

its empire is too easily read as undesirable. As profane, unethical, fundamentally wrong. It is really overtly evil. It punishes sexual “deviants” with mutilation and death. It murders children callously. It inflicts plague and withholds vaccines. It lobotomizes its own emperors for the sake of convincing its populace that the emperor is just. Most of all, the Masquerade is a eugenicist empire: it is explicitly founded on not purity of bloodline but on purification of bloodline, on making people useful to it. It makes people: it breeds them carefully, it indoctrinates them through schools, it uses drugs and operant conditioning to transform their minds and make them into automata tools. It commits every atrocity that a modern Western reader recognizes as abhorrent. This is a problem. It is a problem because we are asked, as readers, to believe that there are reasons besides blackmail that a person would willingly become an agent of the Masquerade. We are asked to imagine that the Masquerade is a beautiful machine.

for starters. "It commits every atrocity that a modern Western reader recognizes as abhorrent." MODERN WESTERN EMPIRES DID, AND OCCASIONALLY STILL DO, MOST OF THESE THINGS!!! THIS IS US! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!! I FEEL INSANE!!!!

I think the book makes it more than explicitly clear why the empire is appealing??? it has all of the capital???? its building schools and sewage systems and importing food and goods and teaching reading and writing??? baru's own internal narrative often shows her own strife at the fact that the empire has made genuinely incredible scientific advancements that offer significant improvements in quality of life to many, many people. martine actually acknowledges this in the next paragraph of her review, and then brushes it away as not being good enough. why? what about that doesn't convince you?

she is seeming to hugely ignore the fact that in the case of aurdwynn specifically, the bureaucracy of the empire is coming in to unseat feudal aristocracy! what the masquerade offers may not be particularly tempting to most of that ruling class, but its economic opportunities are more then believably appealing to the common people. i think this is made pretty clear when baru's ploy to use the fiat bank to make loans to the aurdwynni people and basically lessen the massive tax burdens from the duchies wins her huge favor with the public.

and frankly even for the ruling class the potential economic benefits are massive too if you're willing to participate in the empire properly. yes the empire doesn't have Moral appeal. it doesn't fucking have to. it owns pretty much every economy outside of the oriati mbo. the fact that that's not enough for her is as you've pointed out really really showing her biases and blind spots. 'no reason besides blackmail' MONEY!!!! MONEY! IT'S MONEY! THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT ACCOUNTING! HOW DID YOU MISS THAT!!!

and the invocation of the concept of "civilized" as an objective quality, despite the recognition that the empire constructs what counts as "civilization" is so fucking unserious/simplistic/juvenile! why do you need to imagine yourself a place in the empire? in the imperial core specifically!

And this is really it for me too, yeah. It's gross. It's absolutely gross. "An empire isn't believably appealing unless I, personally, find it appealing" there are people alive who are eugenicists, who love community policing, who believe in race science. the masquerade is an empire for them. the thing about empires is that they are only actually empowering for an incredibly small subset of people, and the fact that You, Specifically, Arkady Martine can't imagine being one of those people in this instance doesn't make it not believable. This is a shatteringly individualist way of engaging with a work.

As for your points about the way she handles empire in her own book obviously i can't have anything to say there because i haven't read it yet, but i do absolutely agree with you on this bit:

and idk this may be reductive of me but i think if you are going to pull features from civilizations that have been colonized and use them to inspire fictional colonizing forces, you ARE saying something there! idk! and like, the ancient Mayan

1000% i don't think this is reductive of you. whether or not you're consciously saying anything is one question but it's a choice that absolutely doesn't exist in a vacuum. out of curiosity i googled her to see if she was of mayan descent or anything and maybe she chose that due to some personal ties to the subject matter but she doesn't seem to be. which of course i don't think means she can't or shouldn't draw any inspiration from there but i do think all of these sorts of choices are meaningful

i don't really have much to say here to round off a conclusion but. wow. deeply deeply telling review that does not particularly make me want to read anything she has written beyond this.

[heaven-in-a-wild-flower]

Chapter 1: Pitches Have Never Paid Ransoms

I've just started a new fanfic about Simon/Baz. I felt like Baz wasn't angry enough about the kidnapping and all the other traumatic things that happened to him so I've written this.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63707872/chapters/163322071

The deer were bounding like blown leaves Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brushfire; I thought of the smaller lives that were caught. Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror Of the deer was beautiful

-Excerpt from Fire on the Hills, Robinson Jeffers

Pitches have never paid ransoms. That’s what Fiona said when she rescued me. When I had just been held in a coffin with a broken leg. With no food or water. For 6 weeks. For a moment I imagine how different it would have been if my family had just paid the ransom, perhaps my leg would have healed right, the dark would not terrify me so and that unending void of hunger within me would never have opened. All that time when I was in the coffin, all I could feel was cold but now there’s a fire, perhaps the Pitch fire in my heart reappearing. Apologies mother, how it must enrage you to know that staying in the place where my kind belongs rekindled the Pitch fire in me. But I cannot determine its purpose, why now after I’ve been rescued, when it would’ve served me better when I was rotting in that cold dark place. It has no answers for me, it just burns slowly and quietly. My body was exhausted, drained of the little life I had left but that fire continued to burn even as I slept.

It's been two weeks of bed rest. Two weeks where I’ve been on the receiving end of healing spells all day, food (and blood) served to me on a platter. Two weeks where my father fails even to meet my eye. The first time he entered the room, the day I’d been brought there, he met my eye for a single instant. His placid expression dropped for a moment and perhaps shame lowered his gaze once more, lingering on the sling around my left leg. I felt the fire in my heart burst ever higher when he entered the room. He and Fiona are rarely in agreement about anything, they fight all the time. If he had truly wanted to pay the ransom, why couldn’t he have fought harder? What was the point of the numerous healing spells they’d cast at me the day I’d been bitten if he was just going to let me rot in a coffin? How could he not have fought for his son, the only heir of the Pitches? How could Mother, a strong, powerful, glorious mage have married such a weakling, such a coward? Mother might not have let me live, she might have torched me where I stood but she would never have let me be kidnapped, never have done nothing at all for 6 weeks. My knuckles clenched every time he entered the room, a small ache lost among the rest of it and the fire kept growing and growing.

The room is large and dark, with deep brown wood-panelled walls and rectangle windows reaching the ceiling. The velvet maroon curtains are kept open all day and night, after the first night when I woke up screaming for light. The sun is harsh on my skin but the dark is harsher.

Mordelia and the twins came to visit me once as well, once I was well enough that they wouldn’t be too concerned. Mordelia understands enough to know that something is wrong, that I’m not supposed to be at home at this time of year, but the twins are blissfully ignorant. They seem pleased that I’m here, clambering over the soft down bed and my lap demanding I tell them stories. They cling to the intricately carved wooden bedposts when Daphne tells them that I’m hurt and so they can’t sit on my lap. I can smell the blood beneath their skin and I can feel how alive they are, they are as different to me as unicorns are, there is something holy in the simple workings of their bodies. I had that too without even knowing and then I lost it and now that I know its value, I can never get it back. Mordelia watches from a distance, a too-mature frown on her face. I try to keep my face from showing pain, unwilling to worry her further.

I see my father hovering in the room, clearly lost. Is he here to ensure that I’m safe or that the children are safe from me? I hate that I feel jealous of his other children, free from the burdens of being a Pitch, winners of the dubious prize that is my father’s love. I try to smile at them but I can’t help but wonder if he would have fought to rescue them if they’d been kidnapped instead. Pitches have never paid ransoms certainly wouldn’t apply to them, Grimms that they are. It irks me that there’s anything of the Grimms I could covet, middling farmers that they are.

They all keep trying to convince me to stay here longer, to rest and in Fiona’s case perhaps to begin preparations for the war and leave Watford entirely. But it is all I can do not to scream in their faces, that I wouldn’t even need any of this rest if they had just paid the ransom, if they had saved me far far earlier. I wonder how long it even took my Father to notice that I was missing, and in the darkest moments, I wonder if he was secretly relieved that the universe took care of this aberration, this monstrosity, without his even having to lift a hand (typical, it would kill him to take a strong stance on anything). If Fiona truly wants me to be a strong soldier for this war, she could have paid the ransom, Crowley knows she inherited enough from my mother. Then I wouldn’t be crippled and weak and hungry, always hungry. But I cannot scream, I cannot even glare or snarl or frown, the Pitch upbringing in me is rooted deep (considering the ever-placid expression on Father’s face, perhaps I learnt it from him).

So, I push myself out of the soft bed, muscles rebelling against being used after so long. I calmly pack my bags, feet brushing the soft carpet, ignoring my father’s stern, “Basilton,” and Fiona’s frustrated Normal swearing. I walk down the long driveway, to the front seat of Fiona’s car, ignoring each twinge in my left leg and the answering burst of the fire inside.

“I’ll steal it if I have to!” I shout so my voice carries down to the house. I will not let anyone take away my last year in the Tower, my last year on the pitch, last year living with Simon, last year at Watford where Mother’s tomb is. Least of all, my cowardly father, who did not lift his little finger to save me nor my crazy aunt, who chose the principles of a family whose black sheep she is over paying the ransom.

Fiona grudgingly stomps to the car in her Doc Martens and enters with a tart, “Front seat’s for people who haven’t been kidnapped by fucking numpties.” I close my eyes and tilt my head back against the leather of the car seat. The fire is all I see, twice the size it was when I’d first felt it.

***

It's unnecessarily dramatic to use an Open Sesame to open the doors of the dining hall. But after 8 weeks of absence, I need to show everyone that I have returned, re-establish my claim over Watford. Mother was the greatest headmistress and I am her prince, Watford is my kingdom, my inheritance. I will not let be the first Pitch not to have completed 8 years in Watford with flying colours in all my exams. This is one area where I will not be a disappointment to Mother.

Simon stands up immediately, spilling tea and scones to the dismay of Penelope Bunce. His plain blue eyes are wide and his mouth gawps open. At this moment when he’s not yet remembered to be suspicious of me, he’s just surprised. It is a balm to see his face, the face that got me through those 6 dark weeks. The fire ebbs.

I walk slowly to my usual table, with the state of my left leg, that is the only way I can maintain any shred of dignity I have left. But I can’t say that I mind that it gives everyone more than enough time to look at me. I can feel Simon's gaze bore into me, a continuous laser beam. It is the first time after the coffin that I feel real and substantial. At home, where my Father couldn’t meet my eyes and Fiona could only treat me as a weapon she wanted to wield in the war, I felt myself disappear. It is as if I only exist under the beam of Simon’s gaze. I wonder if he missed me when I was kidnapped (why would he miss his enemy). Perhaps he was glad that I was gone and this surprise is only because he is disappointed to see that I have returned. I would be disappointed too but after everything that’s happened, all I have left is the fire burning, purring in my heart and I’ll be damned if I don’t spite whoever got me kidnapped.

Niall and Dev allow surprise to show on their faces for but an instant. They merely move the teapot away from my spot and continue to talk as if I’ve been away on holiday. As relieved as I am that they don’t ask about where I’ve been, I can’t help but wonder what my family must have told them. Do they truly not know anything? If they don’t, how could they not ask? If they do, how could they not ask? They chat about the football team and how they fared terribly without me but all the while, I’m only half listening. I blink and the darkness of my eyelids is the darkness of the coffin and I never left and I was never rescued and I blink and there’s Bunce, spelling Simon’s mess away for him and I blink and I can see the fire growing as if every word and every thought is oxygen supplied to it and I blink and there’s Agatha staring at me always expecting something from me and I blink and why is Simon still so thin and I blink and there’s my plate full of food. My hunger is vast and unending but however much I eat I feel as if I’ll never be full. If a dead creature like me requires such sustenance and feels such hunger, I cannot imagine what it takes to sustain Simon, so full of life that he is. Perhaps I understand his constant hunger now. You can teach yourself to starve, you can even survive it, but after that, you can’t ever teach yourself to feel full.

I walk into the Greek classroom and Snow stands up again.

“Enough, Snow, I’m not the Queen.” If only the extent of his attention to me was proportional to the extent of his affection for me.

The Minotaur questions my absence and says some tosh about catching up. I don’t need any catching up. I know more Greek than most of the class does English. But I’ll still have to submit all the assignments I missed. The thought adds a pinprick to the headache that has been growing since I woke up. If I find whoever got me kidnapped, they’ll be ashes before they can say incinerate. The fire in my heart hums approvingly.

I sit through the class despite it being about conjugating Greek verbs I’ve known since I was a child. I tell myself that that’s the reason I’m not making notes and not because the scratch of pen on paper feels like nails are being dragged down a chalkboard in my head. I can feel Snow’s eyes on the back of my head, I can smell his magic in the air. A boy who smells of smoke and a boy who’ll go up like flash paper at the smallest hint of fire, what a pair we make. I inhale deeply, I am nothing if not self-destructive. I turn my head slightly and smirk, knowing it’ll only anger him more.

***

I enter the room to the sight and the smell that is Simon Snow freshly showered, freshly bloodied. He must’ve cut himself while shaving as he does often, numpty that he is. At my best, my self-control around him is weak. Now, it feels as if I’m in a desert and he’s a mirage of an oasis. I can’t look away, knowing he would quench my every thirst. The thought of blood-drinking reminds me of the blood I drank through straws in the coffin and it quickly sours my mood.

I ignore him and begin to unpack my school bag. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be here. The uncomfortable single bed with scratchy school-issued sheets that I change every time. The large window that lets in a drafty wind that slips under my blanket when I sleep. The small wooden desk that is a quarter the size of my desk at Hampshire. This place feels more like home than any room in Hampshire.

“Baz.” Simon is at his most articulate when he has to say just a single word.

“Baz.” He repeats as if by simply saying my name over and over again he can get my attention (He doesn’t even need to say a word, he always has my attention).

He walks over to me, getting in my space. Nobody ever taught him boundaries or manners (and Nicks and Slicks am I grateful for it). The rich cinnamon smell of his blood is nearly as overpowering as the sight of his flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes.

“Where were you?” he demands, stubborn chin tilted up (he has to, 3 inches taller that I am).

“Why is that any of your business, Snow?” I reply, continuing to take books out of my school bag as if I am unbothered by his presence, by his question. As I could ever be unbothered by him.

“Where were you, Baz? And what happened to your leg?” He thinks he can just ask and I’ll give it to him (I’d give him everything if he truly wanted it). He always notices me, my every weakness (except for the fact that he’s my greatest weakness).

“I truly appreciate the thoroughness of this interrogation, Snow. If only you could put half this effort into learning Greek,” my voice cool.

“Baz-” he says, frustration muddying his voice but that is when I notice the absence of the buzz in my fangs. He’s taken off his cross. He truly didn’t think I’d be coming back, how inconvenient for him. My fist clenches around my Greek notebook.

“Where’s your cross?” I interrupt.

“Wha-” he says, backing up a step, confusion pooling in his eyes. His eyes widen as he understands and he quickly roots through his bedside drawer. He pulls it out and walks right up to me and puts it on, not once breaking eye contact. I imagine replacing the victory in his eyes with fear, flashing my fangs and sinking them into that mole-decorated sweet neck of his. It’s insulting that he thinks the cross would be anything but a small inconvenience to me. I think about how every mage in this tower would shiver at my strength, at my speed, at the precision of my superior senses. The thought kindles the fire and I feel it wrap warmly around my heart.

We glare at each other until he steps away and goes to study at his desk. I sit on my bed, ignoring the itch in my fangs and the pangs of my thirst, until I can no longer resist.

The Catacombs are as dark as they’ve always been but despite my night vision, I can’t help but feel as if they’ve gotten darker. I light the torches with a Light of my eyes. But it doesn’t make me feel better, I jump at every shadow and shiver at every sound. The only greater indignity than being a vampire is being a vampire who’s afraid of the dark. I wish I knew who got me kidnapped. I would make them afraid of far worse things than the dark.

I snap the necks of 4 rats and drain them dry. It’s the usual number I have and so I stop at that but I don’t quite feel full. I hate that I can’t even trust my own body. I drag myself up the steps of the tower, my left leg aching something fierce. I’d cast a healing spell if I weren’t sure it’d be the last spell I’d ever cast. I open the door quietly, I don’t have it in me for another altercation with Simon. I lay on my bed watching his face, relaxed in sleep. He saved me before Fiona ever could. He’s a saviour even when he’s not trying. I wish he’d tried, I wish he’d really saved me. If he had wanted to, it wouldn’t have taken him 6 weeks. For once, it feels as if the fire is burning somewhere far away as if it knows that it cannot compete with warmth like Simon Snow.

I wake up when Simon bangs around the room, making sure he reaches his precious breakfast scones on time. He’s more punctual to meals than he is to any of his classes. I wince at the sun piercing my eyes. It’s not fatal to me but I still don’t prefer to encounter it first thing in the morning. I get up and Snow startles. I raise a sardonic brow at him. He flushes and rushes into the ensuite. I massage my left leg and groan. It feels as if a tractor has run over it. I close my eyes and the fire is larger than ever, it stretches up and up and up, a wall of flame.

Snow leaves the bathroom and I go inside to take a shower. My muscles sigh at the feeling of the hot water on my skin. Crowley, what I wouldn’t give for a massage. I take my time gently lathering my skin with body wash and styling my hair with gel, sneering at the school-issued soap that Snow uses (What I wouldn’t give to be that overused bar of soap, able to touch every inch of his skin every day).

When I exit the bathroom, steam billowing out behind me, Snow is still there, sitting on his bed and anxiously tugging his curls. His foot bounces up and down, his lip being chewed mercilessly (if only I could volunteer my lip instead). He sees me and stands up quickly. I wonder what is so important that he was willing to delay his appointment with shoving his mouth with scones.

“Baz, I- I need to talk to you,” he stutters.

“To my great misfortune, you already seem to be doing it,” I sneer (I would lick the words from his mouth, he’d never have to speak to me).

“No- I- it’s-” nobody blusters like Snow. It’s as if he tries to convey every thought in his beautiful head at once.

“Thank you for that enlightening conversation, truly a pleasure. Good day, Snow,” I say turning away and storming out of the room. His standing before me blushing and trying to talk to me makes me wish it were a whole other conversation he was trying to have and unfortunately, there’s enough blood in me that I can blush.

The whole day I can feel Snow staring at me. It’s gone from being flattering to becoming a nuisance. I can’t wince at the ache in my leg or massage the ache in my head for even an instant. I feel like a butterfly pinned to a board, being scrutinised at my worst. His words from the morning are also constantly at the forefront of my mind. What did he want to talk to me about? We never talk, unless you count throwing insults at each other. After his amateur interrogation, I’m concerned he might have actually found out about the kidnapping. But how would he have, I haven’t told a soul. And he’s really not the brightest mage around (yet still he found out about my vampirism).

I feel a permanent frown begin to etch onto my face. His staring frustrates me so much, that I begin actively trying to anger him. I smile at Agatha multiple times in the day, the way his smoky smell amplifies is quite gratifying (I can imagine that he’s jealous of her instead of me). I answer every question in class and smirk at him right after, clearly signifying that I know he doesn’t know the answer. I poke at his weak spellcasting and weak enunciation and weak Greek grammar. Unsurprisingly, he corners me outside class. My back hits the smooth stone wall and he cages me in with one arm to the wall (oh, if only this was under different circumstances).

I breathe shallowly, the smell of his blood from so close by is far too intoxicating.

“Baz,” he growls, eyes alight.

“Unfortunately, even being the Chosen One doesn’t gift you with telepathy, Snow,” my voice is as even as my heartbeat is uneven.

“Shut up! Just-”

“Just what?”

“Just ugh!” he slams his fist against the wall near my head and storms off. Such anger and not even a punch? Bunce must be keeping him in line. I can’t help but be frustrated, I’d take a punch to feel his skin touch mine. I’d take a thousand.

I sigh and brush away the dust from the back of my uniform as I drag myself to the next class. I’ll never understand Simon Snow.

***

The weeks pass with my health improving at an agonisingly slow pace and Snow’s staring increasing at a torturous speed. I want to slam him against every vertical surface and a few horizontal ones. I want to bite his lip and drink him dry. I want to scream in his face until he tells me what that confusing new look in his eyes is. I want to pull his luscious golden curls till I get a handful in my palm, that I’ll hide beneath my pillow every night, the closest I can get to having his head upon my pillow.

In other news, I’ve been constantly receiving texts from Fiona demanding that I enact her crazy anti-Mage plans. Each is getting more insane than the last. In her last message, she asked me to put itching powder on the door of the Mage’s office and then place a bottle on his table labelled ‘itching powder antidote’ and fill that with even stronger itching powder (even she’s not crazy enough to think that’ll work, she’s just getting bored and restless).

Every time she texts me, I see her pulling me out of the coffin, bringing light to me at last but I hear her saying Pitches have never paid ransoms and the fire brushes a warm finger along the back of my neck.

To appease her trouble-making heart and to get myself some well-earned peace, I’ve decided to break into the Mage’s office and steal something. Although, is it really called breaking in if not breaking is required? This is and will always be Mother’s office and it will open for me.

I take a deep breath when I enter. It looks exactly the same as it did when it was occupied by Mother. But it smells different, it feels different. I can’t smell her cedar perfume and I don’t feel welcome in this lonely place. There’s dust on nearly every surface, does the Mage not ask the housekeeping to clean in here? That paranoid cult leader must assume that they’ll steal something. I brush the dust away from a few books, my touch reverent. Mother would have been appalled at the state of these (she would have been appalled at the state of me). I pull out a tome with thick red binding, Magickal Flame Casting: The Flame is Yours to Control. I recall Mother reading this book, her reading glasses perched on the edge of her nose, one hand scuffing my chin gently. I don’t know if it was this book in particular or if I just want it to be, just so I can tell myself that the few memories I have of her are as clear as ever.

I’m just pulling it out of the shelf when the door opens suddenly casting bright light into the room. Of course, it’s Snow, the light gilding his curls and illuminating that gigantic sword he carries around. I feel possessive of this place, and his narrowing his eyes at me suspiciously rubs me the wrong way. I feel my posture stiffen and I stare down my long nose imperiously at him.

“What are you doing here? You’re not allowed in the Mage’s office!” he accuses, pointing his sword at me. I stare at its sharp edge, soon we’ll be well acquainted. But not today.

“I was looking for one of my Mother’s books. It was her office first,” I sneer, my voice getting chillier.

Snow spots the book on the floor and hurries towards it, nearly slashing me with his sword in the process. If I died of an accidental sword slash in Mother’s office, I’d come back and haunt Snow forever because I couldn’t show my face to Mother after that (I don’t think I’ll be going where Mother is).

The book is open to a page, a chapter titled ‘Forest Fires: How to Cause Them and How to Stop Them’ but what’s most interesting is a photo lying on it. It looks a little old, edges browning and that’s all I see of it before Snow snatches it up. He stares at it silently for a moment, a small frown pulling his brows down. He hands it to me slowly and I see his face flush with embarrassment.

The photo is of me. I’m just a baby. I’m wearing soft brown dungarees and I’m lying in the crib that must’ve been in the creche. I’m gleefully clutching Mother’s hand, her rough fire-holder hands. I remember once that I got scared at the sight of flames above her hands (I don’t know if I was scared for her or of the flames). She held my chin in her rough hand and she told me, “It’s okay, little puff. Fire can be scary and painful but you and I, we’re Pitches. The fire we make is ours, made from the flame in our hearts. It will always protect us.” (I wish her fire had protected her). I blink away the tears in my eyes and slip the photo into my pocket, careful to make sure that it doesn’t fold. I only knew Mother when I was human. The vampire that I am has never met her and thank Crowley, she has never met him. I can’t help but feel jealous of that human child, with his mother, feeling safe and happy. She died protecting him, would she be happy with who she actually saved? I stare at the book, still open on the floor.

Snow’s eyes are round with pity and he tries to apologise, “Baz I- I’m sorry I didn’t know-”

“Snow.” He stops and looks up into my eyes. I remember for a moment that he lost his mum too and my voice softens infinitesimally. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

He seems surprised for a moment, before looking around hesitatingly.

I turn around and walk out of the room. He chases after me and puts a hand on my sleeve, “Baz.”

“Come on, Snow.”

Next Chapter (Chapter 2)

Let me know if anyone wants to be added to the tag list.

[rosainta]

Team Fortress 2: 12 Flash Fiction Excerpts

('ms pauling' by makani on DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/makani/art/ms-pauling-208768568)

(Author's Notes (A/N) at the end. For now, enjoy these slices of TF2 writing cake, baked with the batter of my mind!) * * *

1 "The Runner's a Fool."

[Written 10-3-2024]

Scout’s heart was bursting as he ran through the underbrush.

He didn’t look back; he couldn’t. Not after what he saw. If he had known sooner, he might not have spent so much energy trying to woo her...

Maybe he wouldn’t have made such a fool of himself.

2 "Player of The Heart."

[Written 10-3-2024]

“Fine, one more time”, he grumbled.

Pauling gleamed as she turned to the tape player. Changing the song to something more romantic, she hummed along and placed herself into his arms. They began to sway with the music.

Sniper felt his heart racing, but his thoughts raced quicker.

He wondered: would the one he really loved be into this too?

3 "Long Overdue."

[Written 10-3-2024]

Spy knew what he had to do.

He sat down next to the crying boy, gently putting a hand on his back. “Screw off!” the younger yelled, pushing him away.

Seeing him like this broke him; it did every time. But he took a deep breath and said what he should have all those years ago:

“I am sorry, Scout.”

4 "What Happens if You Feed the Machine? (Or In This Case, Water It?)"

[Written 10-3-2024]

“Yer no fun, lad!”

“Come on now, you know how I’ve been goin’ dry...”

“What’s one bottle a’ scrumpy goin’ to do to you?”

“Well, let’s see here. How many eyeballs o’ yours do my teleporters teleport per use?”

“Er, one.”

“Well, expect that to be one less the next time ‘round, pardner.”

He chuckled, and in an instant, he gulped it all down.

5 "Soldier's Solace."

[Written 11-3-2024]

Soldier stared at the grand moon from the roof of the base.

After the day’s fighting and bread teleporting, the other mercenaries were off to bed. But Soldier remained, smiling contentedly from under his helmet without another care in the world.

Somehow, he knew that right then and for as long as he dreamed, everything would be alright.

6 "Буквы говорят о любви."

[Written 12-3-2024]

If Heavy learned one thing in all his years of studying Russian literature, it was that writing wasn’t something you did; it was something you became.

So, picking up the ink pen, he let his hand go and embodied with all he had what meant most to him.

“It is time I tell you, Doktor.”

7 "Like The Warmth of a Fireplace."

[Written 13-3-2024]

Pyro looked at Engineer as a child does a Mall Santa, clapping. “Huddah, huddah!”

“Okay, one more, just for you.”

The technician took a deep breath and began to strum on the old guitar, his low voice singing a song of pink skies. Pyro swayed to the beat in bliss.

And, with every hum, the two grew closer.

8 "A Smile Means A Million Words, That Is Until You Speak."

[Written 14-3-2024]

Scout liked sketching.

While words weren’t his forte, art allowed him to express what he felt but could never say. He licked his lips, furrowed his eyebrows, and furiously scratched at the page with a pencil. Every detail, every form-- they had to be perfect.

When he was done, he proudly smiled at his creation.

And it smiled back.

BONUS!

As he admired his creation, he didn’t notice Sniper approaching him.

“And just what are you scribblin' off today, mate?”

Scout snapped around, flustered. He wasn't expecting company, and especially not from him.

“A-ah, hey, Snipes!", he blurted out. "It's nothing, really. Just another drawing of Spy screwin’ those... stupid French bread swords, whatever ya' call 'em.”

As he stammered an excuse, his face slowly turning red, he didn’t realize that his creation's rough, sketched face-- a picture of the marksman himself!-- was peaking through the corner of the sketchbook in the crook of his arm. Sniper paused for a moment as he stared at the work in awe, its own happily gazing back at him. Then, snapping out of his trance, he wordlessly turned back to smile at the younger man.

“You’ve got some talent, kid," he said, softly. "Please, don’t waste it.”

Then, quick as he came, he ambled away.

Scout was left standing, bewildered, and admittedly a bit confused, and he slowly turned back to look back at his drawing.

He traced the rough face of the man, looking wistfully with a tinge of giddiness in his eyes.

“If only you knew...", he whispered to himself without thinking. "Maybe then I could draw you like one of my French girls.”

Then, upon realizing the stupidity of his own remark (and of its disgusting, Spy-related... Frenchness), he immediately gagged.

“Ew, crap, no!”

Somewhere in the distance, Spy instinctively rolled his eyes.

9 "I Feel Olive!"

[Written 15-3-2024]

Medic pinched his nose, a low groan rumbling from him.

"What is wrong, Doktor? You seem stressed", Heavy asked, concernedly lifting his nose from his book.

Medic turned to him, tired eyes smiling weakly. "Ah, it iz nothing. Just... ze dull, useless legal documents. You know, as per usual."

"Well, if it makes Medic feel any better, Heavy ran out of olive for sandvich, so eating it was practically useless! I could not even digest it without big frown", he said, frowning in turn.

He grumbled, continuing, "What Heavy means to say is... you are not alone in your troubles."

Medic paused for a bit, before laughing and grinning back at the giant. He was grateful for this goofy big old man.

"Oh, you alvays know what to say, Heavy. Come on, let us escape this prison of an office and find you that olive. I am getting quite hungry and ze papers can wait, after all!"

10 "Off-Target."

[Written 29-3-2024]

Scout's mind just. couldn't. think.

His head was jumbled, a puzzle with the pieces too lost in the messy maze of his brain ever to solve. He wished he could crack open his skull like he did the BLUs on the field; maybe that would knock some sense into him.

He really needed to focus. Sniper always did.

So, why couldn't he?

11 "Our Paths Shall Cross Again."

[Written 4-4-2024]

It pained him to see her like this.

So, for the first time in his life, he put his pride aside and took one last glance at the sleeping lady before leaving the room.

Scout wished he could stay all night and marvel at her familiar, sheer beauty, even as she slept so frail. But he knew what she needed most was not him, but help.

Who knew what she went through those 2 years?

He resigned himself to the couch, closing his eyes. His affections for Miss Pauling would have to wait, as they always did, but he was fine with that.

She was safe, and that’s what mattered most to him.

12 "Guess Who's Up For Surgery?"

[Written 6-4-2024]

Medic was practically laughing with joy! Or, in his peculiar case, cackling maniacally.

Ah, it was of no matter— the doctor was filled to the brim with inspiration! So many projects to start and bodies to stitch; oh, what a wonderful feeling!

Heavy smiled as he watched the doctor go about his merry way.

Sure, when he was in this mood, that likely meant imminent danger for all those around him (they’d be his newest experiment, no doubt), but seeing him happy always made Heavy’s heart feel a little lighter.

So, as the doctor bounced up to him with his newest rambling, he didn’t protest!

* * *

Author's Notes: Over the past weeks, I've been working on being more spontaneous in my writing—no planning, just writing with the flow! And what better way to do that than to write flash fiction about my favourite fandom? (Plus, I have been practically absent here (post-wise) for, what, months? So why not use this as an excuse to share them with you? Ehehe... Okay, let's forget I said anything; moving on!) Flash fiction, with its creative liberties and curt nature, is an excellent medium (not forgetting to mention the fact it's a disgracefully UNDERRATED form of media!) that inspires me to write because it sort of... brutally invalidates any excuse of author's block I have... since it is literally spilling the words from your conscience into text WITHOUT the worry of length (ah! My greatest enemies...). Plus, it is... sort of, maybe, kinda addicting because it's just so freakishly simple, and the more you do it, the more productive you'll be and feel! Isn't that wonderful? (It could even be a drug! Er, well, a good one... wait, is there even a thing as a good drug? Ah- nevermind.) Anyway, if you're struggling with author's block, I'd heavily recommend trying it. Of course, it may not work for everyone (and I am not here to legally endorse this like a paid sponsor!) but it's still worth a shot if you haven't yet already. And hey, if it doesn't, you can feel free to blame me for the waste of time! Don't worry, I won't mind. Before we go on, I have to take this moment now to thank the one sweet old woman (whom I've unfortunately forgotten the name of) who first taught me about it a few years back during a summer writing course. She taught me much about what I know and love today, so I owe this and much of my writing happiness and technique to her! Thank you, lady. May you continue to write on!! Anyhow, to give you more context, these are all excerpts taken from a private account (but not a secret one! It's out there... somewhere...) of mine, edited for quality purposes and also because a few of the original excerpts bugged me due to their... well, innate cringiness. Hopefully, there's less of it now, but I wouldn't count on my eradicating it as it seems that cringe is just a part of my habitual writing style (I am sorry to disappoint, unnamed woman from the course... I have failed you). I hope that at least is is bearable enough for you to read. However, if not, I offer you my greatest condolences. If you'd like some bleach for your eyes, I have that too. You can also tell by the number of Speeding Bullet and Red Oktoberfest excerpts that I was... in quite the shipping mood for some of them. So, if that doesn't bug you, feel free to indulge yourselves in these characters as I obsessively have over the course of writing these!! It would be my pleasure to offer that liberty to you (and perhaps, shamelessly to myself as well, ahaha..), so please, go ahead. Anyway, that's all of the random blurbs I have to ramble on about today. Thank you for reading- or skimming, at the very least- and please have a marvellous day, pally~!

~ Rosain Quivan

[evangel108]

fission

6th page of The Wandering Wayfinder, fission (excerpt):

There lies an old pedestal In the deep recess of my mind Where I once held up an idol Of a folly I've left behind Today I come across its ruins While walking down the memory lane And contend with former demons That rose from the remains I rebuke the haunting spectre With words once left unsaid Else, its shadow will ever linger As chains of past regrets

This is likely the longest poem I've ever written, and one of the more personal pieces.

The title of the poetry, "fission", relates to the concept of nuclear fission, in which an atom undergoes radioactive decay and splits into two smaller particles. This split unleashes a tremendous amount of energy, often resulting in an explosion and leaving behind toxic nuclear waste.

The poetry itself deals with the break down of a relationship, whether platonic, romantic, or even professional. In my case, the poem is drawn from a past roleplay forum (RPF) experience, which I've mentioned in some of my earlier posts.

So, as far as my story goes, I used to be a part of this online RPF group, which I really loved. It was small, but lively, and it was the first (and, at that time, the only) community I could truly felt a part of. The RP world itself offered a fine balance of structure and creative freedom and the ability to be a part of the worldbuilding--developing spells, potions, abilities, classes, and even races--that other players could use, as well as accomplishment world-changing feats offered a sense of worth that real life don't seem to be giving.

I'm not always on the same page with the group, but I thought we could just leave out those disagreements from the group discussions, and things would be okay. However, since our way of thinking does influence the way we want to develop the stories and the characters, over time the disagreement create more and more wedge.

Being part of that world started to become more of an anxiety-inducing chore rather than the fun escape it used to be, although I was reluctant to leave because: (1) I didn't want to lose the writing outlet, and the community around it, (2) I didn't want to leave a "bad" legacy of being the drop-out who ragequit because they couldn't handle the pressure of not getting the plot/character development we want.

But since the environment only got worse (it honestly started feeling like I was in a cult), I finally called it quits and left the group. Came into contact with several former members of the group who already left earlier, and most of them agreed that their experience with that RP group was like being in a relationship with a toxic person, and that leaving was the best thing to do.

Now, despite everything, I don't regret the experience. I did get a lot of writing practice while in that group, and it wasn't as though I was always in the right whenever I clashed with the others. We all had our own visions on how we want to develop the characters and the world, and that don't always align with how the other players want to develop theirs, so we end up stepping on each other's toes.

Being freed from my obligations to the RP group had allowed me to pursue more important, and fulfilling, projects, and while I may be an obsessive freak for letting something like an RP push me over to the deep edge, but this does sort of demonstrate the idea I discussed in my previous post, where good and bad can mix, and how the resulting emotional roller-coaster, despite having a lot of down, turns out to be quite a worthwhile ride.

[mako-neexu]

I do feel like Obe and Dante's way of showing affection is different from each other bc of their roles as servant. Oberon's love is quiet and you have to read through the lines to understand that (which isn't all that hard to do for Guda) because of his nature as a servant. Someone who pretends, it's not that he has to act like he doesn't like them that's just his nature but he does love Guda a shit ton he is just unable to outwardly admit that loudly.

Meanwhile avengers are loud in their love. Their love burns and is the equivalent to tough love as we've seen w oc2 and date's event and interludes. He loves guda and it's for that reason he burns them in a sense, remind them that they're alive that they can still move. Unlike him. He'll burn worlds for them if he must, he'd do anything to help them achieve their goals even if it's murdering someone or ending worlds WHICH guda has never and will never want, which is why he burns the bridge that connects the two because the only way for them is forward. He'd burn himself for them too, an avenger's love is all encompassing and it will turn everything into ash.

And idk man I'm just emo ig I really wanted to see obe Dante interactions but wtvr... Huhuhuhuuu.....

[servafes 2.0 spoilers, OC ch2 spoilers]

i think its not necessarily a matter of loud and quiet. its more of how they convey it due to their nature as servants as avengers that are extra classes nearly impossible to summon , as pretenders with a lying curse.

both convey their love neither quietly nor loudly, but they convey it in ways for guda. just for guda. using their own methods that would fit them the most.

oberon's care is showing guda an "out" like you see on valentines day, his summer lines etc. but he supports them too. he gives guda advice like in Servafes 2.0 where they barged into their room to talk to them despite the dangers of morgan oblitering his spiritual core, they also talk to each other on an equal standing like you see with oberon approaching them during at the inn and at gloucester in lb6. being someone with fairy eyes along with a lying curse, he tends to be roundabout with his words to portray what he means because no matter what he says, the world will twist it so he has skirt around it like in valentines day, you could interpret what he said with "call me wiht a sigh when you run out of dependable allies and options" as perhaps something mocking and malicious when, knowing oberon's nature now past lb6, he truly is caring almost to the point of selflessness. because we see his care for castoria as well as the insects in the autumn forest, that would apply to guda to, where he has the right words to soothe their soul, casually tear that mask guda has been holding onto for so long and become just "Fujimaru Ritsuka" and not "Humanity's Last Master".

dantes, of course, as the greatest of all avengers, his natures stems that from his revenge story by dumas, dantes who is also real in the typemoon universe has dumas write his story as revenge for his enemies on making everyone forget about him. and the story became so popular around the world that his spirit origin is twisted into that of an Avenger, that sole excerpt of The Count of Monte Cristo without that happy ending written into his saint graph. still, "edmond dantes" is still there, beneath gankutsuou. he's a man who tasted happiness and love, who was thrown into the bowels of depths and despair, gone through hell itself and crawled his way back to the surface no matter how painful it got. an Avenger that is intimate with pain, with suffering the most, know love and compassion the most.

both dantes and oberon understand guda's journey and what they've been through. its just that their approach is different. being an Avenger, a class of bloody teeth and howls, of course he would wield his flames that would aid his accomplice. he's seen their determination. he's seen them bleed, get beaten up before rising back again to finish a battle once and for all. he's seen guda love. he's seen guda love mash, da vinci, dr. roman, their friends these Servants who are people made up of fragments/fragments made up of people. they chose not retribution and continued to love despite the pain of it all.

dantes saw guda as a bright, radiant star because of that. him saying you are "fire" would just feel like completely undermining everything guda is. (and a fire for an Avenger, is a different meaning altogether). so he likens you to a star. a soul so bright that could even conquer dark flames that threaten to consume you whole but you would ultimately win out in the end... because thats who you are. a person who doesnt give up, will never give up no matter how your heart is beaten and battered. dantes supports you in a way where he has your back and will fight for you in this path downwards to hell. for oberon though, he's the abyssal insect. the one that ended fairy britain and as all things will inevitably end, like i said, he offered guda to go down the abyss with them should their heart finally give up once and for all. he'll be there by their deathbed to see it through. (i wanna add more about oberon with the shining star and titania but i can add stuff next time if i make a post like this.

that said, ive been thinking of dantes and oberon interactions too. but i do imagine either dantes would test oberon first before coming with him and abby to guda's trash heap or maybe exchange some words about guda, and probably gets convinced by oberon www

[steviebbboi]

Okay so very dumb question regarding your celebration event prompt list but what makes a breeding kink non-pregnancy version? 😅😂 Is one about being into pregnant bodies and the other about just enjoying the grand finale of intercourse or is the division something else? Every time I have written the kink it's been about "let's get you pregnant" and I'm not sure which side of the fence that falls. Thanks in advance. ✨

Haha nooo, not a stupid question at all! I think breeding kink, weirdly, can be a spectrum! So, I think it can be about Character A being into pregnant bodies/imagery of one, but I do think other end of spectrum also looks like enjoying the finish line lol. Technical stand point:

I’d say that a breeding kink (non-pregnancy version) could look like character A using dialogue alluding to character B getting pregnant, even though Character B is actually on preventative meds that may stop them from actually getting pregnant— more like the excitement or thrill that it could be a possibility. I think it also is tied into when character A would finish inside of Character B (creampie lol). And character A would likely act/say things that allude to pregnancy. The fic though wouldn't end with Character B actually being pregnant/getting pregnant, etc. More like a posessive!BB trope?

@stargazingfangirl18 has a great Steve fic that depicts breeding kink really well from that first start of the spectrum that I described earlier/Steve fantasizing about a pregnant body.

I’d probably also plug my Good For It fic that has Ari in it. It's a longer fic so I'll just paste an excerpt of a smut scene that I wrote that I feel describes breeding kink in the latter spectrum, where its not explicitly said and is just written in a very very subtle way. There are certain pieces of dialogue that I think contribute to the subtlety of it. I'll put the scene under the cut!

You felt like you could barely breathe as his thrusts became faster and harder. He was sinking in so deep and you were gasping for air at all of the sensations your body was experiencing. Besides your mutual groans and moans, the sounds of your union could be heard as you only became wetter at the stimulation. 

“I’m so full, so full…so big, Ari.” You mumbled out, your eyes crossed in ecstasy. Ari let out a condescending laugh, “Aww, look at you. Can’t even speak, can you? Just continue taking my cock, honey, you’re so good at it.” 

Ari leaned up and thrust out of you, despite your desperate whining, only to turn you on your stomach. You feel him kneel outside of your thighs that were clenched together, and only had time to hold onto the pillow in front of you as he thrust back in. You gasped out a high pitched moan and small, repeated sounds of pleasure came out of your mouth as you felt his long shaft pit up against your g-spot with every thrust. 

“There she is, yesss. You’re so fucking tight when I take you like this, baby. Your pussy is gripping me like a vice, goddamn.” Ari groaned louder as your warmth enveloped him. Tension started brewing again deep inside your belly as he thrust faster into you. 

Leaning down, his chest was damp and his hair grazed your smooth skin as it met your back. He lifted you slightly to wrap his right hand around your neck and squeezed. He whispered harshly in your ear, “Don’t ever forget that you’re mine. This pussy is mine, your body. I’ll always protect you, you hear me, love?”

Gripping onto the pillow in front of you fiercely, you couldn’t contain your moans that were now resonating in the room. His possessiveness, his fingers gripping your throat so protectively, and the passion in his words made you feel so hot, you felt that coil in your belly about to snap. The sensation pulling at that area inside of you that felt so full and relieving when released. “Ari, yes, I’m yours! You’re gonna make me cum again!” 

“Yeah, I am, love. Soak my cock, make a mess with my pussy.” He released the grip on your throat to lean back up and take your hips in his hands for full control. His thrusts were consistently hard and deep. It twisted that coil inside of you so delightfully that you finally snapped and cried out your orgasm. 

Ari’s thrusts became sloppier as your juices squirted around his cock. He bellowed out a deep and low groan from his strained throat and followed you as you rode out your orgasm against him. You moan at the feeling of his dick throbbing inside of you and feeling him cum so deep in your pussy made you feel like you were being claimed. His dick was still buried deep inside as you gyrated against him. At the overstimulation, Ari thrust out of you with a sharp hiss and a mixture of your cum with his started to spurt out of you. 

“Fuck, so pretty, baby. Here, let me help you.” He breathed out heavily while his hand left your hip to use his finger to push your combined cum back into your quivering pussy. You moaned out at the sensation of his thick finger thrusting his warm spend further into you and mewled in content. 

Hoping this answers your question and makes sense! No worries if not, I could PM you! And apologies for this being so long - I think I got caugt up lol, sorry!

[artenon]

oh gosh your new reblog reminded me I never went back to the WIP-titles meme because Life™️ but I would love to hear about your MCU ones, homecoming starker and kittydevil?

i understand about Life, i hope you have some chill weeks ahead of you 🙏

thank you for asking about my wips!! these are both old wips that have been on the backburner because i've been seized by uhhh bandom brainrot, BUT i really want to go back and finish them sometime. i've actually written a good chunk of both of them, i just need to kick myself in the butt to finish them!

full answer beneath the cut because i included some excerpts!

homecoming starker - a post-homecoming missing scene fic where tony finds peter when he's sitting on top of the Cyclone roller coaster after the Vulture fight. peter is super beat up and doesn't want to go home right away so tony buys him mcdonald's and takes him to a condo he owns in the area. peter thinks he's in for another lecture (since the last time they talked was after the ferry incident); meanwhile, tony is freaking out because he took away peter's spidey suit and peter almost DIED (peter is also freaking out because he almost died, and he has never gotten hurt this bad before as spider-man). the fic is meant to instigate the transition from tony being the Distant Figure that he is in homecoming to a more active mentor/presence in peter's life (like he is in all the fanfics), so of course they end up talking stuff out. because i love fix-its and making characters talk things out, lol

also though i call it starker, the fic is really preslash/could definitely be tagged & not / but of course in my heart they WILL fall in love one day hahaha

wtf i looked at my draft to get an excerpt and THIS FIC IS ALMOST DONE, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME (it's only like 3k but i am chronically bad at finishing fics no matter the length)

Tears well up. He fights them back, not wanting to cry in front of Mr. Stark. But he still can’t get his voice to sound quite normal as he whispers, “I’m sorry.” “You’re sorry,” Mr. Stark echoes. And then, incredulously, “You’re sorry? What the hell do you have to be sorry for?” Peter swallows. “I caused trouble for you.” “Kid.” Mr. Stark pinches the bridge of his nose. “That is the last thing I’m worried about right now.” “Then… what are you worried about?” Mr. Stark stares at him, eyes wide. “I’m worried about you,” he snaps, and suddenly the anger that’s been radiating from him the whole night takes on a whole different shade. “Oh,” Peter says, for lack of anything better. “God, kid.” Mr. Stark shakes his head. “I’m the one who has to apologize here.” Peter waits, but Mr. Stark doesn’t say anything else. Mr. Stark must see something expectant in his look, because he says, “What?” “Well…” Peter hesitates. “You haven’t said ‘sorry’ yet. Not that I think you need to! But if you want to apologize, um. ‘Sorry’ is a pretty good place to start.”

kittydevil - a silly little fic where matt murdock gets transformed into a kitty cat and peter finds him and takes him back to his apartment. this is in a vague future AU where peter is in college at Columbia so spidey swings by hell's kitchen every once in a while after becoming friends with daredevil. matt's only a kitty for a couple days, but that is still enough time for peter to become worried sick about him when foggy calls and says he's missing. and then of course matt turns back into himself... naked... in peter's bed. WE KNOW HOW THIS TROPE GOES!

Slowly, Matt untenses. He even takes a few steps closer to Peter and clambers into his lap, to which Peter makes a pleased noise. “Yeah,” he says. “We’re okay.” He rubs Matt’s head, then runs his hands along his sides. “No way you’re a stray, are you? Sweet thing like you. You seem clean, and well-fed, but these scars… Rough kittenhood, maybe?” Matt pretends his heart doesn’t do a funny little twinge when Peter calls him sweet thing. As Peter keeps petting him, Matt feels himself truly calm down for the first time since he was turned into a cat. Something rumbles in his chest—a purr. “Aww,” Peter says, like his heart is melting. Matt feels like he’s melting too, until he’s a boneless puddle in Peter’s lap. Cozy. “Good boy,” Peter says softly. Matt closes his eyes. His purr doesn’t falter.

[soracities]

Hello, I wanted to thank you for sharing so many interesting quotes and excerpts from Sarah Bakewell's book on the Existentialists. I'm really enjoying what I've read so far on your blog and I'm thinking of buying it (I really liked the book she wrote about Montaigne and his fascinating friendship with La Boétie). What do you think of this reading so far? What can I expect? Does this constitute a good introduction to the works of the philosophers cited? I know this book has been reviewed on Goodreads and elsewhere, but I really want to get your perspective!

Oh I would absolutely recommend it, anon, I think it's an excellent introduction! It's compelling and engaging to read (also quite funny), but also so well laid out; she spans about hundred years worth of thought, crossing through different, mostly, European writers with fairly different biographies but it flows together so seamlessly--really, it's just a wonderfully-written book in general. Even with the various figures populating its chapters, I didn't feel lost or overwhelmed by the lists of books, essays, lectures, names etc., simply because I was having fun..

I also think (and it's what I appreciated most) it does a really good and attentive job of placing existentialism and the philosophers she looks at both within the very specific cultural and historical moments they (and their ideas) arose in, but also in relation to the philosophical heritage that started it all and the legacy that comes after--she breaks down their ideas but also places those ideas in conversation with each other, either by looking at the many relationships and interactions these writers had with one another and / or their work, where they converge or diverge, their relationships with their respective societies, their experiences as a result of these societies, and all the different ways their various strands of thought reverberate and find new expression elsewhere. It's not just an analysis of each individual writer, but also of all the different points at which their thought and the world around them meet--in the end, It really does highlight and clarify the very human drama underpinning a lot of existentialism and which does, in a way, define it, and I loved that.

I have a list of essays and novels I want to read now thanks to this book which is always one of my criteria for something being a "Great" read, so I genuinely hope you get to enjoy it as much as I did, anon (and please don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts, too, if you want to of course). I hadn't read anything else by her but I am adding her book on Montaigne to my list because I have read his essay on friendship and to this day it's one of the most touching meditations on the topic I've come across, so thank you for that 💗

[vultures-and-scavengers]

I've got to know what 11 Bloomingtide. Annette Vs. Terror of Being Known is about!

:D ooh thank you for the ask!! and its a follow-on to one of my favorite chapters that i've written, so, A) very excited that you asked about this one and i might gush so sorry in advance and B) a quick run-down of the prior chapter because "annette vs terror of being known" is more like a part 2.

so-- prior chapter. she's just come back from the mire, and there's a dinner party that josie throws-- the dinner party isn't important, but afterwards, like. annette is Not Doing Great with the role of Herald, and she drowned and nearly died in the Mire, which is how i explain away the Inquisitor not able to swim in game-- she's petrified of open water after.

and she gets wasted. shes out there on the pier drinking, clinging to the thought of how well the dinner went and how it was a success and how lovely the stars look-- anything to avoid looking at the water under her feet, frozen though it may be.

and then her LEAST FAVORITE person has the TEMERITY to interrupt her and come find her. (her love interest, unbeknownst to her) cullen fucking rutherford shows up, and she's drunk, and shes terrified of the water and fine, she doesn't like him, but its an acceptable distraction. and she ends up giving away a lot more than she plans.

and so THIS chapter is her trying to cope with that fallout. she's played the orlesian politician for so long that she's genuinely terrified of anyone knowing anything that could be used against her. and not only did she reveal her new fears, she revealed them to the person she scorns the most, and the person who scorns HER the most.

she doesn't know why she did that. she's angry at herself. shes hungover. and shes genuinely terrified of what he might do with that information.

again, she's orlesian.

and cullen, who has viewed her as like cold and distant minus the moments she loses her shit and reveals she does have a temper (which he seems uniquely talented at provoking) is trying to fit all the pieces he saw the night before into like. his own perception of her.

i wouldnt say its the turnaround for him and his opinion of her, but it plants the seeds for that inevitable flip. if that makes sense.

and this is my favorite excerpt from this WIP chapter:

Commander Cullen cleared his throat, and Annette startled, her coffee sloshing within its mug. “Sorry,” he apologized, grimacing in contrition, “I thought… I thought you might want this.” She took the vial he offered, belatedly recognizing it as a pain relieving potion. Annette debated taking it, not wanting to admit she needed it and not wanting to be in his debt, but her head did hurt, quite a bit. “It’s not poisoned,” he added, seeing her hesitation. “That would be Sister Leliana’s style,” Annette replied, rolling the vial in her hand before mentally sighing and uncorking it, hiding her revulsion at the taste. Commander Cullen acknowledged that point with a shrug. He’d disapproved, loudly and at length, with some of Leliana’s suggestions, and Annette knew assassination wasn’t something he was comfortable with. She blamed the aftereffects of the alcohol obscuring her usual sense of discretion for what she asked next. “Why? Why bring this for me?” Commander Cullen only looked baffled. “Because I thought you might need it?” There had to be more to it than that. “I was trying to be kind,” he huffed when she didn’t answer. “Is that so unreasonable?” Naive, maybe. “No one is kind without motive, Commander,” Annette said slowly. The way Commander Cullen looked at her then was as if some puzzle piece had fallen in place and he didn’t quite care for the picture he was seeing. He looked pitying, and Annette tried to keep her expression calm even as she internally bristled. “No Orlesian, maybe,” he said dryly. “Lucky for you, I’m Ferelden.”

cullen is just. earnest? genuine? he's not at all a liar and he is what he is and annette has spent so long playing the game and staying in orlais that she's just thrown off balance by it.

now this is still definitely in first draft status, so i'll edit it some and continue to play around with the chapter, but its fun to have annette try to cope with like. she let her masks down and she was Seen by the person she would least want her to see her. but he's also not using that in any way she expects him too-- and she doesn't know how to cope with that, either.

[jadejedi]

Old Queer Love Letters

So, I just reread Red, White, and Royal Blue this week and was reminded of my slight obsession with historical gay love letters. I think there is something so heart-wrenchingly beautiful and devastating about these letters written between these people who so deeply love each other, even in times when they would be persecuted for that love. This is a collection of excerpts from some of my favorites, with sources included. Many of the letters written by men are from Rictor Norton’s “Dear Boy” essays, a collection of essays on love letters between men throughout history, which I highly recommend perusing if you also like to read old gay love letters (links below). All emphasis is my own. 

1779- Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens

“Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by actions rather than words, to convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that ‘till I bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent on the caprice of others. You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent. But as you have done it and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality, which you have so artfully instilled into me.”

816- Yuan Zhen to Bo Juyi

“Other people too have friends that they love; 

But ours was a love such as few friends have known.

You were all my sustenance; it mattered more

To see you daily than to get my morning food.”

1927- Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf

“I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is really just a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any more by giving myself away like this- But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defenses. And I don’t really resent it.”

1958- Allen Ginsberg to Peter Orlovsky

“‘When I think on thee dear friend/ all loses are restored & sorrows end,’ came over & over in my mind- it’s the end of a Shakespeare Sonnet- he must have been happy in love too. I had never realized that before… 

Write me soon baby, I’ll write you a big long poem I feel as if you were a god that I pray to-

Love, Allen”

1933- Eleanor Roosevelt to Lorena Hickok

“I cannot go to bed tonight without a word to you. I felt a little as though a part of me was leaving tonight. You have grown so much a part of my life that it is empty without you.”

And from a different letter that same year, 

“I miss you greatly dear. The nicest time of day is when I write to you. You have a stormier time than I do but I miss you as much, I think. I couldn’t bear to think of you crying yourself to sleep. Oh! how I wanted to put my arms around you in reality instead of in spirit. I went & kissed your photograph instead & the tears were in my eyes. Please keep most of your heart in Washington as long as I’m here for most of mine is with you!”

1941- Gordon Bowsher to Gilbert Bradley

“For years I had it drummed into me that no love could last for life…

I want you darling seriously to delve into your own mind, and to look for once in to the future. 

Imagine the time when the war is over and we are living together… would it not be better to live on from now on the memory of our life together when it was at its most golden pitch.”

1917- Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon

“And you have fixed my Life- however short. You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun round you a satellite for a month, but I shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze.”

Sources below the cut:

Hamilton to Laurens, from the National Archives and Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries

Yuan Zhen to Bo Juyi, from Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries

Sackville-West to Woolf, from The Marginalian

Ginsberg to Orlovsky, from Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries and The Pink News

Roosevelt to Hickok, from Autostraddle.com

Bowsher to Bradley, from the BBC

Owen to Sassoon, from Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries

[serickswrites]

Hey!

You reblogged that post asking for people to ask about your writing process and I'm trying to get to know people better, so tell me about your writing process! Your ocs! Your favorite little bit you wrote recently!

Hello, friend! (I'm answering this out of order because it made me smile!)

Thank you for the questions!!!! So exciting!!

My writing process is a little higgly piggly at times in that sometimes I just have a fully formed vision completely in my head and will not stop writing it until its completed. Other times I get bits and pieces. I draw a lot of inspiration from music. Sometimes I'll see/read something and wonder how I would write it and that makes something happen. Other times prompts save my life. I love, love, love prompts/requests/asks because some of my best inspiration comes from those. I will say with most things I write I know the ending and the beginning and have to work backwards. So for those of you who are like why the mcd, it hit out of nowhere, for me it started with the death and I worked backwards. Which really sucks sometimes because I will grow to love and adore characters that I have brutally murdered lol. I hurt my own feelings just as much as others lol.

As for my ocs, well I have quite a few floating around in my head. In 'Make Me Your Villain', Liam is my precious cinnamon roll, but I love Nova and her drive. Henry or Jude are the most fun to write though. In 'Lonely Place of Longing', I originally wasn't going to have anything written from Dylan's perspective when I envisioned the story (still from the end first), but as I wrote the penultimate chapter, I had more and more of his voice in my head so I had to try it. Then I realized I needed to write more of his voice because he had a lot to say. He's definitely one of my more tragic characters I've written and posted on here--though things do look up for him with Halle and that is just so lovely to write--(not my most tragic as the main character in my giant WIP probably wins on that one, but he's a pretty close second). Giant WIP was a frenzied writing project (I did for Nano in 2021? I think?) that I was feeling a little burnt out by (wrote 60k works in 30 days and plotted the remaining chapters that needed to be written) but still wanted to keep writing every day and write ideas that didn't fit into the narrative, so I started this blog! I would say Mal is my favorite character to write in that (she's one of my two narrators), but honestly I adore writing my two villains, Leo and Oliver, are so deliciously evil, I love writing them more.

Here's a little excerpt from giant WIP that I wrote last week that I'm actually really proud of (not because the writing is great) because I connected the dots on something that I was stumped on how I could connect them (this is why pantsing and working backwards are hard, folks).

She heard a shuffled scrape. Slowly she turned her head and saw grim reaper carrying Danielle away. Grim reaper? Not a grim reaper, Mal. Get your shit together. Pay attention. Who was that? Who was here with us. Who took her away? That wasn’t Leo. Leo didn’t move her away. There was someone there. He was there sometimes. When we were alone with Danielle. We were never alone. Who was that? The grim reaper—man—had dark brown hair, a hood hid his eyes, his features, but he was lean, so painfully lean. Of course we thought he was a grim reaper this man is so skinny. Not as tall as he looks, his leanness is deceiving.

Her eyes were barely tracking his movements. The haze was dragging her back under. No, no, no. Shitshitshitshit. Stay awake. Come on! Focus. Who was that? Was there anything else? Come on, Mal. Come on. She could hear Leo’s voice calling from somewhere else in the apartment. A name. What was his name. COME ON. WHAT WAS HIS NAME.

Thank you so much for the questions! And for anyone reading this, please always ask. If you aren't sure if I want to answer, you can always ask it and I can always just not answer it. If you're shy, you can PM or Anon ask, that's all good! I love interacting with people and talking about writing :D

Tags: @mousepaw @jumpywhumpywriter @knightinbatteredarmor @hufflepuffwritingstuff2 @anightmarishwhump

@steh-lar-uh-nuhs @celestialsoyeon @st0rmm @ay5ksal @pedro-pedro-pedro-pedro-pe

[4lph4kidz]

7, 17, 27 and 28 for the writing asks? :3

thank you for asking!

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

i like the excitement of ideating and making connections between those ideas, seeing the project start to take shape. i like the later stages where i'm polishing what i've got, making sure that the language conveys what i want it to and that the whole thing flows well. enjoying the middle part... is more difficult.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Mmmmh. So, Bound in Ink and Iron was initially supposed to be a pretty light affair where i played with fairy tale tropes, but i ended up going into more typical dark fantasy territory because i love that genre so much and i wanted to embrace that. i made a lot of notes and planning about the setting because i wanted to feel like i understood the world, as it was really important for me to accurately capture the outlook of an analytic and self-assured character like dirk. i have way too much to share everything here, but i have extensive notes on the magic system of that world bc i can draw on canon's power system and themes pretty easily. Excerpt of those notes here:

Magic is a force in the world that many people can tap into, but powerful magic is something a select few are born with or are able to wield in a meaningful capacity - Homestuck is a chosen one story in a sense and its world is not fair. Power is something that comes to you with a price. Everyone taps into or channels magic in a different way - the idea of classpects, mechanics and role and character tied together, people can have different affinities in a figurative sense. Characters may prefer certain techniques or materials - magic as an almost artistic medium, but more than that, an expression of self. It is very difficult to try and learn magic 'someone else's way', though its possible to imitate. As POV character Dirk is someone with a relatively scientific, technical approach to magic - he prefers to inscribe patterns, craft objects and follow rituals - and while he has an intuitive ability to sense magic presence, he struggles to wrap his head around or understand forms that are created with methods and approaches unlike his own.

When it comes to fic, i like AUs because i like worldbuilding and trying to imitate and play with different genres and i like having room for original spins on stuff. i do like minutiae, even if much of it never makes it into the story or is disregarded as the plot demands. i'm a major perfectionist and if i'm too precious about it it can be counterproductive in the long run, you know? if it was an original work i would be more thorough, i think, but this is fanfiction and i want to get to the finish line more than i need to make my most perfect magnum opus.

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

jake is stressful because i feel like it's very easy to mischaracterise him in fanwork, but i worry about writing jane the most. i have feelings about her handling in canon and post canon, and would find a different outcome vastly preferable, but i also don't want to reject canon or erase her complexities from her completely!

i also generally stress about characters that are secondary or tertiary in my fics because i feel like i've not given them the same consideration i would the characters at the center of the work? sometimes the main focus necessitates putting the incidental characters in a less than optimal position in the work, and i don't really like feeling like i'm not doing them justice.

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why?

i have a lot of fun with jake, despite aforementioned concerns! i like the character a lot and i'm told it shows. he is delightful, to me.

[angelcloves]

thank u for the tag in this lil writing game @enchantedchocolatebars

1. What motivates you to write?

if i dont write ill just flat out go crazy it needs to get out of my brain

2. A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud of; if not, share a line from someone else's work that you love (just make sure to give credit

ive written so much and cant be bothered to pick a favorite line so heres an excerpt from burning bridges

“Camilla Myles, may I see you in the throne room?” The air was cold, but it dropped a few degrees chillier as the Emperor receded into his lofty throne room once more and soft chatter broke out amongst the scouts. They each spoke of Camilla, but none to Camilla. She stood paralyzed in the line for what felt like hours. She’d been a scout for two years without even a single warning on her record. She couldn’t imagine what she’d done to warrant being called straight to the throne room, but she didn’t want to keep the Emperor waiting. It never ended well for the Golden Guard when he made Belos wait.

3. Which OC makes you smile when you think/talk about them and what are they like?

all of them but lately ive had annie on the brainacle. shes cold and quiet but god she loves her friends more than anything even if shes just got the one and they end up with a major wedge driven between them for most of the story

4. Which process of writing do you enjoy the most?

planning! its the part i get to go absolutely bonkers during. im a huge fan of broad strokes so shaping things before i start real development hell is a super fun activity

5. Which part of writing do you think you're best at? (Stroke your own ego, it's okay)

ive always seen myself as a dialogue person from my time writing for stage but i think my foreshadowing has been getting better lately

6. What is something in the writeblr community that is most enjoyable?

im going to treat writeblr here as my mutual circle but god i love that we bounce ideas off of each other so often

7. A writing tool/device that helps you with writing (i.e. text-to-speech, a program, etc...)

comic sans

8. A piece of world-building that you like in your own story (it could be the magic system, a particular place, a law, etc...)

all of the hopper stuff honestly. it was funny how well it translated to the collector even before we knew what they were really made of

9. What piece of advice would you give to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?

try a different approach. sometimes it helps to make a major departure from your norm. pick up poetry or work under a set of constraints youve never given yourself before. it helps to come into something fresh yknow

10. Tag some people whose work you love/ have been your biggest supporters

the GANG

@blackyote

@emsprovisions

@sapphic--kiwi

@secretly-of-course

and also everyone else who i forgot because i know thats not all of you please dont take it personally im just scatterbrained this is for all of you

[joziokowalski]

4 and 10 for the books ask game

hehee thank you for asking!! i ended up typing up a lot of words, but then why shouldn't i type up a lot of words about my favourite books. many thanks for giving me an excuse to do so!

4. What are your top 3 comfort reads?

1 e m forster: a life by p n furbank i'm very fond of biographies in general and this one is my absolute favourite. it's as informative as one could wish, and personally i found it extremely engrossing - i feel like it's easy to assume that forster couldn't have had a very exciting life, but this narration, to me, was a real page-turner. very endearing, frequently quite hilarious, i love the fact that it's written in a tone similar to that of forster's own novels, i e often ironic but also brimming with warmth and sympathy for its subjects, even though they aren't idealized in the slightest. it's got lots of excerpts from diaries, letters, etc. so one gets to look into a lot of forster's (as well as lots of other people's) thoughts that he didn't write down for publication, and personally i have found those extremely valuable at many points in my life. the book itself is quite hefty so i wrote out many passages of it into a notebook when i was leaving for university to make sure i would have them with me if i need to come back to them. generally, i'd say one of the comforts of a good biography is that it makes one feel that ultimately every life can be narrated in a way that makes one see the value of it, so maybe those of us who tend to find things rather pointless and meaningless can take a break from that, and this particular biography delivers this 100%

2 the orchid trilogy by jocelyn brooke the thing about this book is that it feels like it was written specfically for my own personal enjoyment. it's like a perfect amalgamation of all the things i tend to love in a book. fictionalized autobiography - check. a dense web of references to artists i'm familiar with and fond of - check. a tone of melancholy and nostalgia married perfectly to irony - check. a deeply obsessive nerd of a narrator who can and will tell you everything about his subjects of interest - check. a preoccupation with the themes of failure, disappointment, adolescence, mediocrity and inferiority, a fascination with the morbid and the sinister coupled with childish naivety, (homo)eroticism always camouflaged in one way or another but in such a manner that only makes it stand out more, a gorgeous gorgeous personal mythology and a sense of getting to borrow someone's very extraordinary personal lens and look at the world with new eyes. and it's funny - at least i have found myself laughing out loud many a time while reading it. there is something especially touching to me in the fact that i only discovered it by sheer accident and even though it's so intertwined with so many of the things i adore i can't think how i could've come upon it if not for a myriad of circumstances coming together. it's a gem i could very well have missed, which i think is quite fitting considering that so much of this book is about the narrator's search for elusive objects that have the power to afford him transcendent extasies but can only be encountered by chance

3 ferdydurke by witold gombrowicz this might be an odd choice of a comfort book, seeing that it's the opposite of peaceful or warm or any other associations the word carries, but that's what it is to me, mainly because i find it endlessly ValidatingTM. firstly, a huge chunk of it is basically merciless absurdist satire levelled at some of the things i also despise with a passion (cough cough school episodes). generally it exposes many things one is normally supposed to accept as if they were ok for the fever dream that they are. and secondly, we reasonable psychologically aware people talk so much about the dangers of depending on other people's perceptions of ourselves, being preoccupied with how we appear to others, giving others the power to define us, we all know very well that those are the things that pave the road to misery and we're trying very hard to liberate ourselves from that, which is very healthy and reasonable of us. but mr gombrowicz frankly chooses violence and embraces neurosis, and posits all those things as unavoidable ("Man Is Profoundly Dependent On The Reflection Of Himself In Another Man's Soul Be It Even The Soul Of An Idiot". yeah panie witoldzie i sure am). so what you get in ferdydurke is a disgustingly relatable deep dive into the horrors of being a person among other people & Being Perceived. his characters have no selves outside of their interactions with others, they are either shaped by other people's treatment of them or artificially shape themselves to resist the influence of others, and they will spend every waking moment fighting tooth and nail to gain control over how others perceive them. and it's a romp! it's one of the funniest books i've ever read. gombrowicz & his narrator is a delightful self-absorbed contrarian who doesn't leave a table unflipped or an apple cart unupset. and, paradoxically, reading about the neuroses that plague one's life can feel extremely comforting when they're presented so unapologetically and with such incisive wit

10. What is your favorite genre book to recommend to someone who doesn’t usually like that genre?

hmm. the problem is, i don't think i read much of what could be labelled as genre books, so i'm actually the one who should be taking recommendations here! the only GenreTM genre i'm really into is nautical fiction, and i won't be very original here - i'll just say that the aubrey-maturin novels by patrick o'brian are gorgeously well-written and so rich in their subject matter, style and manner, that anyone, i believe, could find something in them to enjoy. there's the immersive historical setting, beautiful language, lots of humor (both of the subtle and cringe awkward in-your-face variety), delightfully vivid characters and so much more. if the imagined addressee of my recommendation happens to dislike quick-paced plot-driven adventure stories or lengthy descriptions of sea battles, they will be relieved to find that there aren't that many action sequences in these novels and plot development is very often not the priority. and though the amount of naval jargon may seem intimidating at first, one quickly sees that understanding it at all times actually isn't that much of a requirement, and the novels are written in a way that a reader who doesn't have any knowledge of it will have key terms explained to them when necessary, and at other times will have characters to relate to who don't understand a damn thing of all the sailor talk either. (another author i love who technically fits the genre is herman melville and i sure do believe that moby dick and billy budd are gorgeous wonderful amazing books that are very much worth reading, but tbh i would generally hesitate to recommend them unless to a kind of person i believe would really enjoy them - for better or for worse, they are not everyone's cup of tea, and many of the features that might attract or put someone off don't have much to do with the nautical aspect of these stories imo)

[opalwatchbooks]

Jor Jorwell

Hey it's summer so I can start reading and watching TV again, which means more activity for my side accounts.

I just finished reading "1984" by George Orwell (Jorjor Well hehehe) and my thoughts on it are surprisingly lukewarm. I felt as though it was very on-the-nose in terms of its message. "Propaganda bad, tyranny bad, oppressive government bad." Yes Mr. Well, I am well (no pun intended) aware of that. Maybe it was a more profound message when the book was originally written? idk

I thought the dynamic between Winston and Julia was interesting. Winston was hoping to take down the Party, whereas Julia was only looking for small acts of rebellion (she's like the modern "I don't really get into politics). It's wild to think that someone could be so aware that their government is completely and utterly corrupt, but remain entirely neutral (if not displeased) towards the idea of taking down that oppressive force. Me personally, I could never get along with Julia, but perhaps that's just a flaw on my part. Her neutrality itself is a form of rebellion in the context of the novel, so maybe that's why I don't feel like strangling her the same way I do towards dudes who "don't get into politics" - everything Julia does is inherently political, including her not giving a gaf. I still wanted to yell at her for falling asleep every time my boy Winston was yapping about politics though.

I hated reading through the never-ending excerpts from Goldstein's book, but someone brought up an interesting point: Orwell may have included those to lull the reader into a sense of safety before dropping bombshells. The boring political text, coupled with the fact that Winston is reading in a hideout where he feels hidden away from the eyes of Big Brother, emphasize the complete and utter shock of the climax (e.g. the party catching him). It almost didn't work on me because I half-considered skipping the long stretches of yappage, but WE PULL THROUGH!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉The ending of the book was also completely unexpected. Even when Winston was in the Ministry of Love, I hoped and prayed against all odds that somehow a bomb would go off and Winston would enact some revolution, or AT LEAST he would get his final wish of dying while hating the Party. What do I get? Winston dying (up for debate if it was literal or figurative, I think literal) whilst loving Big Brother and feeling completely disinterested in Julia. My heart sank, knowing the entire time that there was no escaping that ending, and yet I refused to believe it down to the last page.

Overall, I think the best party of 1984 was the memes it spurred. Every time I was reading, Eva (my beautiful perfect gf) pointed to the book and said, "This is literally 1984." I hate her /j. My in-laws ask me to load dishes into the dishwasher? "This is literally 1984." My boss asks me to do a simple task while I'm clocked in? "This is literally 1984." I have to wake up in the morning? LITERALLY 1984!!!

Anyways I'm reading Animal Farm by Mr. Well now. It's shorter, so I'm grateful for that. I'm on page 38/152 and I appreciate how this one gets to the point. I already feel as though there's no point continuing because 1984 was predictable along the entire way, so I get the sense that I already know what's going to happen. The pigs are going to take over, it will be just as oppressive as Mr. Jones' reign was, the message is there is no good form of government or tyranny will always emerge if left unchecked for the briefest moment, yada yada something along those lines. But guess what? WE PULL THROUGH WE NEVER DNR 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 (except for the last book in the "Good Girl's Guide to Murder" trilogy, I wish I had DNR'd the first book so I never would've had to read anymore of that flaming shitstorm).

Anyways I'll post again when I finish Animal Farm.