#amongst the other things with the D6 i gotta do still

[avinrydarchive]

For the fanfic end of year asks—3, 14, and 24?

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

Oh wow, oh boy I didn't actually write a lot this year... I wrote this sometime in the last month for the next chapter of Love Like You, so here's a bit of a sneak preview:

Terrified as he is, Essek still has to hide a smirk. Clever, goading the man into a monolog. For all his legitimately-gained arcane respect and substantial age in human terms, Trent Ikithon is young and lacking in key principles of maturity valued in Elven culture. Focused solely on Caleb and entrenched in the frustration of his goals, Ikithon still pays no mind to Essek or the others, and Essek takes full advantage.

Trying to ignore the growing heat at his back, Essek breathes an incantation and makes the somatic gesture for Detect Magic under his mantle. He’s braced for a blinding glow from Ikithon’s person, but it doesn’t come. Only the archmage’s boots glow a faint enchantment-teal and at his throat shines a single oilslick-grey point of...dunamancy? Yes, it has to be dunamancy, but something is horribly off.

The familiar golden spirals of possibility have been broken, fractured and remade into a rigid and somehow chaotic crystalline structure. It all pulses with a greasy shine that turns Essek’s stomach. His revolution turns to actual nausea as the tainted dunamanitc item flashes and he immediately flounders to counter as Caleb spits,

“I think I can accommodate you tod—”

The net of Essek’s counterspell slips off the awkward planes of Ikithon’s bastardized dunamancy and Essek, time specialist that he is, has the unique experience of watching light after light bloom around Ikithon’s form with his own breath locked in his lungs.

“—day”

Now Essek has to squint against the conflagration surrounding the archmage and suddenly he knows he has one chance to act before the chaos of all nine Hells breaks loose. Releasing the time-stopped air from his lungs, Essek pulls in a shaky breath, glances at Caleb, then calls up,

“It has been some time,”—pristine, unbroken possibility swirls and compresses at his will—“It seems our dealings and allegiances have shifted.”

He brings both hands out of his mantle and lets the impossibly dense bead of matter fly. It rockets up to Ikithon—pulses once, twice, thrice, five times, seven—and blooms into a sucking black void.

Ikithon does not move. His robes hang unruffled around his body, his whole form rigidly apart from the well of pressure Essek has summoned and he doesn’t even look in Essek’s direction. It leaves Essek too shocked to even curse, and that’s when all the nine Hells break loose.

14. a fic you didn't expect to write

Tbh Love Like You I didn't expect. The ShadoWidoMauk ship snuck up on me after the CR campaign 2 finale. Also I don't usually commit to longfic, it gives me anxiety. But I'm having fun in an anxious way so whoot.

24. favorite fic you read this year

OOF. There are so many... I tore through a large chunk of CR fic this year mostly, so lemme see--my gods there's so much fucking Shadowgast it's not even funny.

I think I actually have a tie between:

we never do go over(we always gotta go through) by @catalists

because listen, expending your own lifeforce to do crazy magic and save your friends is literally the best trope on the planet and holy fuck does Chrome write it well here. Matthew Mercer blessed us with the Convergent Future ability and Chrome elevated it to its best self. I only hope I can do as much in Love Like You.

and

amongst the things left unforgiven by nonwal

blumenshadowdrei snuck up on me as a ship after the c2 finale as well and the sneak attack damage of an obnoxious number of d6 was dealt by this fic. I just-- It's so good. One of those where I go back and read it because it has this vibe that's warm and fuzzy even though all of the main characters are Most Definitely Not warm and fuzzy(except when they are)