linnetagain

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I haven't had an Indiana Jones Nazi Punch of the Day yet? Time to remedy that. This clip is from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Fun fact: When asked what Indy would do about the "debate" over Nazi-punching, Harrison Ford answered, "He’d push em out of the way to get in the first punch. As well he should."

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Oh. Oooooh. Mmhmmm. Gale in a shirt with only one button done up, mostly for show, sweating in the heat... Mmm. That is a VERY good thought you've had there.

Okay so I knew On My Cue wasn't going to win the snippet poll for WIP Wednesday but. It got SO many more votes than I expected and that made me inordinately happy, so... Have some silliness! This is the opening of chapter 2 of the fake dating/Indiana Jones inspired nonsense.

Gale writes two letters.

The first is penned immediately after he returns from Mystra's missive. There still lies, upon his desk, a small collection of trinkets, scraps and remnants of blueprints that had been retrieved from the rubble of the facility threatening the stability of the known universe. Or something. Honestly Gale should probably ask more questions than he does, but given he's hardly in a position to be refusing, or making moral judgements about what he's doing, he mostly just keeps his mouth shut and hopes that, all in all, he's probably having a more positive impact than a negative one. Unless Ao intervenes, he'll trust Mystra to generally be acting with the idea of balance in mind.

And also the idiots shot at him first. If they hadn't, maybe they could have talked. As it was, there had been a fireball, which Gale thinks is a perfectly reasonable response to being shot at, but then nobody had been willing to be reasonable about anything. So, no negotiations. Charred corpses, while efficient enough to satisfy Mystra, tend to be less forthcoming about their political ideology and research goals.

What he does know is that whatever these idiots have been messing with, it is dangerous. He can tell as much even from the briefest glance he'd got at his plundered goods. He's itching to begin investigating.

Even so, he sweeps them aside for now. Clears a space among the chaos to pull out some parchment and ink, and scribble a quick missive to Astarion. He has returned, his tower is open should he require respite from his siblings, etc etc. Mostly pleasantries, and a quick note of how impressed he had been by Astarion's quick-thinking, followed by the usual platitudes. Nonetheless, he finds himself genuinely wondering after Astarion's wellbeing, and does his best to convey as such. He suspects, given their last meeting, that Astarion assumes his friends care less about him than they do, and Gale is determined not to allow that assumption to persist.

Two weeks later, he wonders if it has arrived.

A month later, still lacking a response, he decides that it likely hadn't, and writes another. Along similar lines, and similarly brief; it only takes him most of an afternoon to pen. This time, he marks it carefully with a little spell. Allowable, he thinks; after all, he is requesting Astarion’s assistance with a matter Mystra has tasked him with, amongst other things. It really is a shame that the first letter went missing, he laments. There have been three other experimental sites he's discovered since, all of varying levels of research, and all of them have been fascinating. Both as a challenge to his limited skills in breaking and entering, and in terms of what they appear to be attempting to do.

Reprensible, of course. Utterly disgusting. But fascinating, nonetheless.

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Linnnnnnnnnn have you heard the new Sam Smith single Love is a Stillness? Veerrryyyy Season coded. For either of them. I heard it for the first time on my way home from work and knew I had to message you about it ASAP.

Ooooh OH OOOOH!! YES!! I hadn't heard it, I'm listening to it now and... ARGH. Yes. Yes yes yes. The quietude, the piano, yes yes yes yes yes. IMPECCABLE vibes.

"For all my mistakes, you're there to share the way" got me in particular.

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Sorry if this was mentioned before but it popped back into my head during my reread of the chapter. Did Gale have that house built specifically for him or was it bought and heavily modified to fit his needs? Cause the scene with the shower where Gale is like “i now realize what the previous owners used this for” made me think “wait there were previous owners? i thought he said in an earlier chapter when astarion first moved in that he had engineers and architects plan specific things like the driveway and garage” but i might be misremembering or mixing it up with another fic

Hey lovely, no worries at all! Always lovely to see you in my inbox! He bought the house and had parts of it heavily modified, yeah. The library used to be a living room, he had soundproofing built into the studio, had very specific requirements for what he wanted in the kitchen, etc. But yeah, his priorities were the rooms he was using most, of which the spare bathroom was not one, lol. Hence why he's now like 'oh... Oh' xD

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Hi, I was just curious if you have an idea of how many chapters The Season will be? I just caught up on the latest chapter and I’m so excited for the next bit ❤️

Aaaah, thank you so much!! I'm so sorry, I have absolutely no idea. Every time I do an outline for the remaining plot I'm like 'okay this should take me this long' and then within two days it's changed, haha. My current guess is maybe around 40? I remember joking that it was never gonna hit 400k and here we are, so. I don't know, maybe we'll finish up around 500k? They've still got a bit of a way to go!

I'm so glad you're enjoying it, thank you for letting me know!

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Hi! Thank you for another wonderful update of The Season!!! It was amazing in many ways! The part where Gale and Astarion embrace after talking things out has reminded me one poem in russian, specifically the last verse that translates like:

"Don't ever part with your beloveds,

Don't ever part with your beloveds,

Don't ever part with your beloveds,

Grow into them with all your blood.

And say good-bye like it's forever,

And say good-bye like it's forever,

And say good-bye like it's forever,

Should you for just one moment part."

The author, Alexandr Kochetkov, wrote it to his wife after he by some stroke of luck avoided boarding on a train that would crash, with lots of casualties. I apologize for this total out of the blue piece of obscure trivia, but, this specific verse felt so fitting in its meaning given the whole scary close call with Mystra, so when they hugged, those lines just rang out in my mind.

Oh I adore this! Please don't apologise, I'm a giant nerd and adore random trivia. You're also not the first person to link this particular poem to Season, and I think it's just perfect. There's something about living in the shadow of your own mortality - having survived accidents or facing unexplained or temperamental chronic illness or any kind of near-death experience/reminder of mortality - that brings your priorities really into focus. I've had, I believe, an unusually high number of near-misses (most not fun, but I did once think I was going to be caught in an avalanche while in one of the most isolated valleys in the world which was suitably dramatic), and there often came a point of clarity after the 'holy shit I nearly lost it all' moment where I found myself wondering what 'it all' even was. Not in a sad way, just in a like... You don't think about your job, or whether you've done your laundry, you know. You think about whether or not you've said everything you wanted to, to the people who matter. You wonder if you're proud of your life, of who you've been.

(gonna put the rest of my musings under a cut for spoilers/mental health mention)

I think both Gale and Astarion have had a few of their own scares over the years, Gale with his health and Astarion with Cazador, but that moment with Mystra was the first after they'd allowed themselves to admit their feelings. Astarion was still in denial when Gale collapsed previously I think, though that hospital stint absolutely fractured some of his defences. Whereas with Mystra's threat it fully hit him emotionally what he'd lose if he lost Gale. It's also a wildly different situation to be suddenly threatened with losing someone you care deeply about than, for example, being depressed and wondering if you'd be better off dead, where Astarion has definitely been before. I think of Astarion's story as someone who has survived almost out of spite. Because he wants to prove that he can be more than what he's been made, and he's very aware that Cazador is actively impeding him as much as possible and trying to make his life a waking misery. But that moment with Mystra is the first time he truly realises that his life as it is now has become something he's actually terrified of losing. It's an interesting character moment, I think, to go from living for a potential better future to living for the moment you're in.

Apologies, it may be a mix of the number of close calls I've had personally and my mental health issues, but I'm sort of fascinated with what it's like to live alongside the question of your own mortality so much more closely than a lot of people have to in the modern world, and the psychological impact that has on your decision making. Which is especially ironic as I have unmedicated ADHD and struggle with executive dysfunction lol.

But yeah, there's a moment I think earlier on when Astarion is like 'Gale, why the fuck won't you sleep like you need to', and Gale sort of begins to explain how afraid he is of wasting his life. I think that very much comes from the close calls he's had over the years. He's excruciatingly aware of how short and fragile life is.

Anyway if you're interested, I can recommend 'I am, I am, I am', Maggie O'Farrel's autobiography in near-death experiences.

And tell your friends and loved ones how much they matter to you 💕

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Okay so I knew On My Cue wasn't going to win the snippet poll for WIP Wednesday but. It got SO many more votes than I expected and that made me inordinately happy, so... Have some silliness! This is the opening of chapter 2 of the fake dating/Indiana Jones inspired nonsense.

Gale writes two letters.

The first is penned immediately after he returns from Mystra's missive. There still lies, upon his desk, a small collection of trinkets, scraps and remnants of blueprints that had been retrieved from the rubble of the facility threatening the stability of the known universe. Or something. Honestly Gale should probably ask more questions than he does, but given he's hardly in a position to be refusing, or making moral judgements about what he's doing, he mostly just keeps his mouth shut and hopes that, all in all, he's probably having a more positive impact than a negative one. Unless Ao intervenes, he'll trust Mystra to generally be acting with the idea of balance in mind.

And also the idiots shot at him first. If they hadn't, maybe they could have talked. As it was, there had been a fireball, which Gale thinks is a perfectly reasonable response to being shot at, but then nobody had been willing to be reasonable about anything. So, no negotiations. Charred corpses, while efficient enough to satisfy Mystra, tend to be less forthcoming about their political ideology and research goals.

What he does know is that whatever these idiots have been messing with, it is dangerous. He can tell as much even from the briefest glance he'd got at his plundered goods. He's itching to begin investigating.

Even so, he sweeps them aside for now. Clears a space among the chaos to pull out some parchment and ink, and scribble a quick missive to Astarion. He has returned, his tower is open should he require respite from his siblings, etc etc. Mostly pleasantries, and a quick note of how impressed he had been by Astarion's quick-thinking, followed by the usual platitudes. Nonetheless, he finds himself genuinely wondering after Astarion's wellbeing, and does his best to convey as such. He suspects, given their last meeting, that Astarion assumes his friends care less about him than they do, and Gale is determined not to allow that assumption to persist.

Two weeks later, he wonders if it has arrived.

A month later, still lacking a response, he decides that it likely hadn't, and writes another. Along similar lines, and similarly brief; it only takes him most of an afternoon to pen. This time, he marks it carefully with a little spell. Allowable, he thinks; after all, he is requesting Astarion’s assistance with a matter Mystra has tasked him with, amongst other things. It really is a shame that the first letter went missing, he laments. There have been three other experimental sites he's discovered since, all of varying levels of research, and all of them have been fascinating. Both as a challenge to his limited skills in breaking and entering, and in terms of what they appear to be attempting to do.

Reprensible, of course. Utterly disgusting. But fascinating, nonetheless.

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Holy shit?? Holy SHIT??? oh my god there's so much DETAIL I am

The SYMBOLISM

The colours and the way they're constructed and the

I know nothing about art theory but I know I am clawing at the bars of my cage because these are making me feeling a WAY and that way is THE GOOD PAIN

Please excuse me while I zoom in on every tiny detail for the next three hours instead of sleeping

I am regrettably still far behind the most recent updates of @linnetagain's incredible fanfic. But these have been sitting unfinished WAY too long so I had to tidy them up despite that.

both use the same colour pallete, in my mind they're sort of sister canvases :) the first is set somewhere in the time between Gale's hospitalisation and his recovery. I'm sure once I've actually read PAST this point I'll have more in-chapter content to cover but for now. pretty fantasy :)

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Spoopy shenanigans it is! Thank you @gewhanaa for tagging me, hopefully you enjoy this little snippet for WIP Wednesday. Proof that I am, still, doggedly, picking my way through the conclusion of Good Men and Monsters.

Minor spoilers below the cut! See if you can guess what Father Dekarios might be doing... or why 😉

What is a ghost, but an echo? A memory? A piece of the past that has so firmly embedded itself that the spirit lingers. 

They are everywhere. Around most of the village, they are only slight stirrings. A brush of air, a cold breath all that marks where once a mother walked every day to and from the market to feed her children. Her footprints imbued with her spirit, still, so many years after she was laid to rest. Perhaps she prayed as she walked. For good produce. For healthy children. For a bargain. Either way, her footprints are a deeper memory than most.

The village is otherwise empty. It remains much as it was. Or has little reason to miss what came before, perhaps. Having been accustomed to the busy thoroughfares of Oxford and London, it is rather a surprise to find it so quiet. In a way, it is almost peaceful. 

The walk up to the manor is long. Time passes differently, in this liminal space where the world is softened. Like a layer of glass laid beneath reality, it is not reached so easily by the turning of the days or the seasons. Instead it takes time and refracts it in upon itself. Shortening and lengthening in equal measure, distorting it beyond recognition.

So Gale travels slowly, taking care to keep the edges of himself close. It has been a long time since he walked this way. If he were to go much faster, he would risk losing his tether. 

The manor, in comparison to the village, has a very clear ghost of what it used to be. When Gale reaches the crest of the hill, he finds himself caught, gazing up at it, for a moment too long. The castle remembers itself as it first was built; a wooden structure upon a mound, moated, the lingering memories of soldiers bearing crude arms and strange helms opening their shapeless mouths in empty faces in silent cries of battle. Gale edges through them, keeping careful track of where the ground truly is, and where it simply remembers being. Trying not to step through any of the figures of the fallen. They'd never know, of course. But still, it feels impolite.

Between the castle's wooden walls there are memories of stone, too. The turrets that replaced the motte and bailey, which once stood as siblings to the one that still remains. Over the modern façade there is another, a grand Georgian facing of sandstone pillars and wide glass windows, and atop that the Tudor red-brick that the towers were torn down to make space for. They are laid almost within one another, existing separately and simultaneously, like a photograph exposed halfway through development. The stone keep of the castle exists in both its moment of bright, sharp creation, and the mangled dilapidation it was later abandoned to.  

No more battles, it seems, at least, though as Gale ascends the grand staircase with appropriate care, stepping over the silvery-white lilypads of the moat below, there are shadows flickering around him. The sound of laughter; a snatch of a piece of music. Someone's name being called. And under all that, which might seem normal, there is a scream. A crackling of flame. Someone crying, for help, or for mercy. 

Gale steels himself against the ghosts of the place, and slips through the front door. Locked, of course. But nothing can hold him now. He's no more real than they are.

The ballroom is busier again. The air moves around him; flickering shadows brush his skin, his hair, fluttering at his cloak and leaving him shivering as if ruffled by a winter breeze. Whirling skirts of dancers. The rising voice of a bard in full flow. Glasses clinking, drinking horns raised in victory, cups clinked together in companionship. A small group of half-remembered shepherds huddle from the storm with their flock in the ruins of the old keep, their faceless figures much clearer than their flock, but far less than than those of a figure that Gale sees, at first, only from behind.

Then he turns. His face is clearer than nearly every figure around him, his features distinct. His eyes flash with humour, almost as if this memory is fresh. And yet it can't be. The fashion is one that Gale has only ever seen in paintings; portraits of his ancestors from generations before. Despite the cut of his waistcoat and breeches, however, he is unmistakeable.

Astarion.

His hair is longer, tied at the base of his skull with a ribbon. He bows, low and polite, to... nothing. Nobody. Astarion's echo moves through a party that no longer exists. Turning his hand, laughing behind his palm. Clearly talking to someone. A good friend, perhaps, if the way his head is bent is any indication.

Gale had not intended to follow. He is here for a reason. And yet.

Astarion turns. Not to dance. His elbow is held up, as if he had once walked arm in arm with another. They promenade, sedately, down the side of the ballroom. Through the shepherds. Through crumbling walls of a keep that has been gone for centuries. And out, through the door that Astarion had taken him, not even two full months ago.

And Gale follows.

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That latest chapter had me in awe and in tears and in stitches.

Gale: Hey dude we shaboinkin' don't worry

Halsin: 👍

HAHAHA okay thank you for making me snort-laugh

NGL I think Halsin was already sitting in the other room with his headphones playing ocean noises very loudly lol. The boys definitely forgot there are cameras in the hallway. Poor dude.

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*tiny happy screech*

She's so CUUUUTE!! Also the size comparison between kiddo and Tara and Bear is ON POINT lol.

Sometimes family is your lovely disaster of a biodad trying his damndest and his eclectic collection of much-beloved strays. The cuddle piles are mandatory.

I love the pyjama designs too!! One of these days they're actually gonna remember to get the boy his own set lol

high-pitched kettle whistle

The Season has a new chapter and I was inspired! I'm not used to drawing children, but I wanted to try drawing Hestia.

Astarion didn't end up being in the picture (those are his legs under the blanket in the background, and Hestia is sleeping against his side) but I tried out a couple of pyjamas designs for him. I forgot about his scars, though. So, I should have gone with a long-sleeved shirt.

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I left you an ask/compliment dump/paragraphs of love once before and I feel compelled to yet again:

Genuinely thank you for being such a wonderful author. All of your work is positively stellar, I can’t get enough! Your latest “On My Cue” already has me hooked on just the one chapter! How you do it I have no clue.

Also (despite that I’m sure this gets tiring to read about and you’d like to talk about other things) thank you for writing The Season & not giving up on it. I know what it’s like to have a project sort of blow up beyond expectations, get worn down, lose connection because of past relationships tied to it, etc. If it’s difficult for me I can’t imagine how it is for you. But regardless, this story has touched so many people and has made so many people’s lives *that much* better by simply being there in the first place! Like many others who tell you, it’s been such a source of comfort and inspiration during my very dark times. A beast of a story but a beloved one indeed! 💖

Just… thanks. Not even just in terms of being in the fandom itself, just for creating in general. If I had more of a way to thank you I absolutely would! You’re a gift, we won’t forget it.

(Also something a bit more silly and lighthearted: have you ever heard of the song “Might Tell You Tonight” by Scissor Sisters? It became one of my top 20 listened to songs of 2024 simply because it reminded me of Season Boys in their Hopeless Pining Arc TM :) )

Please never apologise!! I will never, ever get tired of hearing that my strange little AU has made something of a positive impact. I nearly gave up writing entirely before I started writing fic, and despite a couple of fumbles and stumbles, this fandom and this space has helped me rediscover a joy in writing that I never thought I'd get back. It's an honour to be able to share even some of that joy. I'm glad you're enjoying On My Cue too hehe, I'm having fun writing something silly!

Also YES THE SCISSOR SISTERS!!! YES!!

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as a survivor of child abuse/neglect i just wanted to thank you for writing hessie. this most recent chapter really hit home and i appreciate feeling seen in this way more than i can express to you.

Thank you lovely, I'm sorry you had to go through that. Nobody ever deserves to be treated that way, especially as a child. I'm sending you all of the love and support I can manage through the internet

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Is your Astarion albino in The Season?

I didn't deliberately write him with albinism, no, but if you want to read it that way then please feel free! I think there's likely some amazing fic out there where Astarion has albinism though, likely done by people far more informed that me, it would be worth checking the tag! Or maybe if anyone has any recs then drop them in the comments?

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The constant urge to talk about your fics everywhere I go 😔✊️ literally all of my friends are so tired of me

Fgshsgahahgss pls imagine me placing the smallest and most thankful of kisses upon your forehead you are a sweetheart and I appreciate you so much

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Just read the first chapter of "On My Cue" and I'm so excited how the AU will come to play and I really love the "people force us to have relationships" set up

Haha, thank you, I'm so glad you're enjoying it!! Apparently I can't even write silly nonsense fics without some kind of angst lol, but I'm having so much fun writing it and I'm so glad you're enjoying reading it!! Fake dating is such a fun trope and I haven't played in the canon world in a while hehe.

You've also reminded me I don't think I put anything on Tumblr about it so... Link!

https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/160354675?show_comments=true&view_full_work=false#main