#another section of this because I just love the premises so much

[tossawary]

When writing fanfiction, there are a lot of unknowns surrounding Mobei-Jun that I answer based on what I think is compelling, funny, and/or contrasts well against SQH | Airplane Bro. (Sometimes, based on what contrasts interestingly and/or hilariously against Luo Binghe or Shen Qingqiu.) The choices I make for MBJ also depend on what suits that particular story.

An interesting question: "What kind of literature does Mobei-Jun like?" He's Airplane Bro's Ideal Man / Dream Guy! It's fun to think about what Mobei-Jun's relationship might be to fiction.

One choice that I've pulled a few times now is having Mobei-Jun be functionally illiterate, mostly because I think that situation is an interesting / amusing contrast to the guy who technically wrote the world into existence. Airplane Bro was cranking out thousands of words per day to eat, selling out his honest passion for literature, and Mobei-Jun can't / doesn't read.

There are lots of different potential reasons for this! Maybe Mobei-Jun is dyslexic. Maybe he desperately needs reading glasses and doesn't realize it. (Yes, maybe half of his glaring is just squinting.) Maybe his education was really bad because his family tried to murder him too many times. Maybe he just doesn't have any interest in fiction or in reading as a hobby in general, because paper / writing is rare in the Demon Realm for a variety of reasons and he's been busy building more relevant skills.

(Airplane Bro is shocked and offended, yes, but mostly because Mobei-Jun somehow successfully hid being unable to read from him for two or more decades. All of those "you read it" and "you write it" orders suddenly make so much sense.)

Another direction for "Mobei-Jun's relationship to media" that I've been enjoying lately as a premise is that Mobei-Jun is the sort of person who would have genuinely enjoyed "Proud Immortal Demon Way". But, like, in a weird way. Like, maybe Mobei-Jun isn't there for the women or the power fantasy, but he's fascinated by the cage of dissatisfaction, misery, and cruelty that the protagonist is building around himself using empty pleasures and merciless vengeance. Mobei-Jun is there for the tragedy. Everyone else in the comments section would think that he's a weirdo for different reasons, including Airplane Bro, but Mobei-Jun is (by accident) operating on a level where he sees the vision.

Alternate direction on "Mobei-Jun would like PIDW, actually": maybe he would like it because he actually loves trashy drama and stupid catfights. He's there for the comedy. He grew up in an environment where his father stole his uncle's wife and his own uncle tried to kill him multiple times, after all. In PIDW itself, right-hand man Mobei-Jun somehow successfully suffered years upon years of Luo Binghe's harem nonsense, and maybe Mobei-Jun was having the time of his life watching Sha Hualing start shit in the harem, actually!

Maybe in a Modern AU, Airplane Bro would try to sound intelligent and cultured by talking to his rich boss / boyfriend about classy literature, only to find out that Mobei-Jun basically only watches reality television competitions where people are constantly trying to tear each other's hair out for money. If people aren't screaming in each other's faces over a spilled glass of wine, throwing plates at each other over a stolen boyfriend or a ruined wedding, or backstabbing each other via wardrobe sabotage to get ahead, then Mobei-Jun is bored. Fighting matches or extremely dangerous sports are also fine, though, sure. (Airplane Bro doesn't like any of this stuff. He's a fantasy novel guy. He has no idea how to react to this.)

Another funny direction for "Mobei-Jun's relationship to media" is that maybe "Proud Immortal Demon Way" wouldn't actually be weird ENOUGH for Mobei-Jun's tastes. Maybe Mobei-Jun would be like that guy who claims "if I can guess the twist, then it's not suspense - suspense is when I don't know what's going to happen next, period" and reads long-running, amateur, foreign, abstract web-novels that he has to put through an online translator himself. Maybe in a Modern AU with this opinion, Mobei-Jun loyally watches telenovelas and Bollywood soap operas. Airplane Bro comes into the room and says, "Wow, not even any subtitles? You can understand what they're saying?" and Mobei-Jun says sincerely, "No. You have to figure out what's happening without them. This is the intended viewing experience."

[raina-at]

Secret

Bakers, again, and a very direct sequel to this ficlet from last year. It doesn't stand alone quite as well, but keep in mind that in this universe, John was working in an inner-city A+E during the worst of the pandemic, and I think the rest is self-explanatory. (It's also maybe a bit of hubris to explain the premise of this ficlet with a reference to another ficlet, and not the original story, but I'm sort of assuming if you know me it's probably for these two dorks, so here we are ;-))

-------------------

One of the things Sherlock loves most about John is that he’s the least sneaky person Sherlock knows. Every time John tries to keep a secret from Sherlock, he’s so transparent about it he might as well be wearing a neon sign. 

The thing is, the absolute foundation of their relationship is trust. When Sherlock asked John for more, John took a gigantic leap of faith for Sherlock. John trusted Sherlock not to break his heart, and he trusted Sherlock to stay clean.

In return, Sherlock trusts John unconditionally. He can’t imagine John hurting him. It just wouldn’t happen. He trusted John every time he came home late from the hospital, and he trusted him every time he lost his temper and went out for a walk to cool off. He knows, for a stone cold fact, that John would never hurt him, never betray him. The one time Mycroft offered to have John surveilled, Sherlock laughed in his face and told his brother to grow the fuck up. Mycroft was noticeably taken aback by this, and asked how Sherlock could be so sure. 

Sherlock still remembers this day, because he finally realised that in this one area of life, he knows so much more than his formerly all-knowing big brother. He looked long and hard at Mycroft and said, “That’s what trust is.”

Mycroft never mentioned the subject again. 

So. Sherlock trusts John absolutely. That’s why Sherlock never tries to find out what secrets John is keeping, because they mostly turn out to be surprises for Sherlock. And Sherlock might be a certified arsehole—at least if you believe his YouTube comment section—but he’s not going to ruin the joy John takes in surprising him by calling him on the bad sneaking around. 

All that having been said, this time, Sherlock is a tiny bit worried. Mostly because John seems to be. John is being incredibly obvious again, clicking away tabs and hiding things under pillows when Sherlock enters the room, having quiet phone conversations he takes to other rooms, even skiving off work one day, to apparently—judging from the dirt on his shoes and the rain on his jacket— traipsing around the countryside somewhere. Normally all this sneaking around would be accompanied by sly grins and sparkling eyes, but this time, he catches John looking at him worriedly. John’s also having trouble sleeping, and when he’s very tired he rubs his hand over the leg that bothers him every time he’s stressed.

Conclusion: Whatever John is doing, he’s worried about Sherlock’s reaction when he finds out. 

Sherlock debates whether he should say something, but in the end he decides against it. Whatever John is up to, he’s apparently working his way up to telling Sherlock, and Sherlock will just have to be patient.

Not his best discipline, it has to be said. But since he can’t imagine anything he wouldn’t do for John if asked, and he can’t imagine John asking something of him he wouldn’t be willing to give, he says nothing, and waits.

Thankfully, John doesn’t keep him waiting for long.

It’s about a month after the whole sneaky business started. It’s Saturday and sunny outside when John asks, trying and failing to be casual, “Any plans for the day?”

Sherlock looks up from the accounts spreadsheets he was pretending to peruse and gives John a look over the rim of the glasses he reluctantly wears now. “Are you finally ready?” he asks, knowing John will understand.

John rubs a hand over his thigh, a classic nervous tell. “I think so. Yes.”

“Show me,” Sherlock says. “Show me now.”

*-*

The house is beautiful. 

Sherlock stands outside in the generous garden and breathes in the smell of green and rain and the ocean.

The house is a quaint brick cottage, with a generous sitting room and library downstairs, and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. It’s situated a five minutes’ walk from the train station. Trains go to London every half hour, transit takes forty-five minutes to Waterloo. The village is small but thriving. The sea is an easy five-minute walk away.

It’s idyllic. Peaceful.

And it has a tiny, dark, pokey kitchen. The oven is small and barely usable. There’s no room for his equipment, for his ingredients. 

“Hey,” John’s arms come around him from behind. 

Sherlock leans back into him and says nothing. He doesn’t want to disappoint John, but he can’t live here.

“Want to see the barn?” John asks, and there’s a great deal of amusement in his voice.

Before Sherlock can answer, John takes his hand and drags him to the barn. He opens the door and presents the inside to Sherlock with a knowing grin. 

Sherlock gapes as he steps inside. The entire barn has been transformed into a professional kitchen. Ovens, walk-in fridge, gleaming work surfaces. Large windows let in a lot of natural light. Wooden countertops, lovely light fittings. 

“The house belongs to the owner of the local bakery,” John says from behind him, watching with a fond smile as Sherlock runs his fingers over the gleaming surfaces, the shelves, the ovens. “She used the barn as a kitchen, since the bakery is so small. It’s pretty much just a storefront. If you want to, we can look at it later. It’s also for sale.”

Sherlock looks up from inspecting the oven. “Is it now.”

John swallows, looking nervous again. “Mike runs a primary care centre in Brighton. They have an opening. I could commute from London, of course, no problem, but I thought, maybe…” he trails off.

Sherlock looks around the kitchen. A purchase of this size would mean selling 221B as well as the bakery. He bought out Amit’s daughters when he died, so the property is his to do with as he pleases. It’s doable. Easily. It’s also a huge step he’s not in the least considered before.

But then his brain fully catches up to the implications of what John is saying. “You’re quitting,” he whispers. “You’re quitting the hospital.”

John looks down, a bit embarrassed, and shrugs. “Seemed like the thing to do.” He looks up at Sherlock again, who’s staring at him in shock. “You said I could do what I wanted, remember? Well, this is what I want. If you want it too, that is. I know it’s a lot to ask. Not trying to force you into—”

“Shut the fuck up right this second,” Sherlock breathes, then walks over and pulls John into a searing kiss. “Do you know,” Sherlock mutters between increasingly frantic kisses, “what I would do to get you out of that fucking hospital?”

John lets himself be kissed for a few moments, then draws back. “But your bakery—”

“I’m the bakery. I can bake anywhere. You know that the channel makes more money than the bakery does, anyway. I could close up today and be financially better off.”

“But you love it,” John whispers, running his thumb tenderly over Sherlock’s cheekbone. “This isn’t an either or, you know. I’m quitting either way. We can stay in London and I can commute.”

“And run yourself into the ground like you’ve done the last three years?” Sherlock shakes his head.  “I don’t think so.”

“It’s a lot to ask,” John says quietly. 

“Listen to me,” Sherlock says, taking John’s face in his hands to ensure John is looking at him. He needs to make John see that this is the very definition of a no-brainer, and in fact one of the easiest decisions of Sherlock's life. “I love the bakery. And I love London, and 221B, but I love you so much more, it’s not even remotely a fair comparison. You’ve always supported me. I think now it’s my turn.  Will you let me do this for you? Please?”

“Well,” John says softly, giving him a small smile. “If you insist.”

“I do,” Sherlock says, kissing John’s forehead gently. “Also, you found me a house with the most beautiful kitchen in the world, and if you think for one second that you’re getting out of this now, then you’re certifiably insane.”

John laughs and sags into Sherlock, obviously relieved. “I haven’t even gotten around to showing you the beehives,” he murmurs into Sherlock’s shirt.

Sherlock smiles into John’s hair. “When do we move in?”

-------

Tags under the cut as always, please let me know if you want to be tagged or untagged. Also, I hope it's not bothering anyone that I'm doing so many ficlets where you kind of need prior knowledge of some of my work. I'm always trying to make them as stand-alone-y as possible.

@dapetty @calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @jrow @peanitbear @jolieblack @meetinginsamarra @helloliriels @keirgreeneyes @lisbeth-kk @friday411 @givemesherbet-blog-blog @salmonsown @weeesi @thalialunacy @thegildedbee

[toooliix]

hey! alright so i may have done a thing

so for the past,,, idk 3 weeks? ive been going on a deep dive into spelling bee mostly to sedate my own curiosity of needing to know everything about what i'm interested in. as it turns out, there is a LOT of content with this musical, so i'm here to talk about my findings! note: i will be keeping this EXCLUSIVE to the original 2005 off broadway cast. as much as i'm a brown university girlie through and through, the original cast is where the content is. OKAY FIRST: youtube findings

a lot of small videos were made usually with logainne and leaf. you'll be quick to learn that they made the most off stage content. i have a public playlist with these videos, along with interviews, the original boot, and a few other things. the cast album isn't in it because that's audio only and i want visuals damnit. (plus its on spotify and easy to look up so.) the exception is 25apcsbmt12doc because its pretty underground and the purpose is to get word out about niche things.

second: myspace pages a lot of the spellers have myspace pages! this is like. a common thing!! only two were archived (leaf and logainne) and are able to be accessed! i'll talk about the others in a bit. they contain new information and i personally find them very interesting!

leaf logainne

HOWEVER: three are currently able to be accessed through modern myspace without needing an account. the format is off, but it's accessable.

barfee 25apcsb account panch third: other

there's two different things here so i'll separate them :]

3.1: r/v club

r/v club is a short film by rebecca feldman (one of the people that worked on spelling bee) that includes logainne! it can be found on her site with other short films. i believe this is the only one with her in it HOWEVER i have not checked therefore i could be wrong. it's set post-spelling bee, i believe. also jesse is in it but not as leaf.

r/v club

3.2: official site

spelling bee had a site!! and official merch!! its just a cool thing i think. it'll be mentioned again in the last section

spelling bee site

fourth and final: lost media (to my knowledge)

okay, spelling bee has.... QUITE a bit of lost media. again, this will be separated into parts.

4.1: C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E

before spelling bee was a thing, crepuscule (albiet mispronounced) was an improv play made by the farm. (same group who made r/v club) a lot of the characters were similar or the same, and it has a similar premise. however, it wasn't a musical. from what i've heard, there USED to be a boot of it, however i haven't found one of my own. i would love to be corrected.

4.2 myspace pages

remember how i was going to say this was going to come up again? hi thats now. outside of leaf and logainne, other myspace accounts were made! mitch (comfortcounselor), olive (mydictionary) + (oliveostrovsky), chip (chiptolentino), marigold (marigoldconeybear) an olive and barfee joint account (ilovemydictionary), and a leaf and logainne joint account (schwartzylogan). there's also another leaf account with the very confusing name of panchspell the issue with these is that theyre not archived, so you'll need a myspace account with a verified email to view these. in the year of our lord 2024 that's not exactly an easy find, especially since verification emails no longer send. plus, one of olive's accounts is dictionary.com now so,,,, who knows what it looks like there. most also need a connection, which makes things even MORE difficult. i hate how close but out of reach these accounts are.

4.3. spelling bee game

yeah they had a game. it's on the site, and it's eternally stuck at loading characters from my experience. here's the link anyway! game

4.4 the dirty bee

oh jesus its the dirty bee. so for context, in 2006 when the show was running, a few nights were booked for spelling bee that were meant for mature audiences and were 18 plus. it's catered towards people who have already seen the bee and want something new. it was inspired by jay (panch) and putting in words or sentences researsals that were clearly for funnies because he was bored. alas it became a derivative of the musical. all we know is what an article provides (theres more than one but the one linked gives the most info) and that chip quote unquote "finished off" at my unfortunate erection according to jose. there's rumor that chip is canonically bi in it but theres no sources so,,,, can't confirm that one.

article

(the quote is said in the reunion "stars in the house" and is found in the playlist)

conclusion:

there's genuinely so much shit in this musical i find it fascinating. this post WILL be updated with any other finds or information. PLEASE dm me or let me know if i got something wrong or if you have something to add (though do add a source, please and thank you)

ALSO: reblogs are greatly appreciated!! shoutout to the wiki, @/honkmaster69 and the people i spam in dms for helping and tolerating me <33

[squish--squash]

The best Sherlock Holmes adaptation (that people hardly know)

The stories and adventures of Sherlock Holmes is probably one of the most well-known, most referenced, and most recognizable series out there, as well as one with an insane number of adaptations. Hell, Sherlock Holmes even holds the world record of being the literary character with the most screen adaptations.

This has led to many, many people making ranked lists of their favorite adaptations, and I've looked at a lot of them to see if my favorite one appears. It doesn't. Not here, here, here, here, here, here, or here.

On the Wikipedia page for Sherlock Holmes adaptations, it is listed...in the external links section, at the very bottom of the webpage; it's only visible by expanding the "screen adaptations of Sherlock Holmes" panel

On here, under the three names it's regularly tagged as, there are a collective 13.9k followers (the breakdown is 5.2-1.9-6.8). In comparison, the "bbc sherlock" tag has 47k followers, "sherlock" has 644k, and "john watson" has 13k followers. Pretty underrated, if you ask me.

And so, you're probably wondering what this adaptation is, and why I think it's the best. Wonder no further!

The best Sherlock Holmes adaptation (at least, to me) that is criminally underrated is called Yuukoku no Moriarty, or Moriarty the Patriot. (and before you ask, yes, it's a manga! with its own anime!)

Now, because this post is already long enough, and because there is going to be A LOT OF BIG SPOILER WARNINGS, I'll be defending my claim under the read-more. But with that out of the way, let me begin...

Reason #1: Wait, Moriarty??

Moriarty is well-known to be the arch nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. He's the big baddie of the original series. So why in the world is this adaptation named after the villain? Because the plot is focused around Moriarty. As far as I am aware, this could be the ONLY adaptation so far that has done this (please correct me if I'm wrong! I'd love to find more). Furthermore, the "James Moriarty" in question is actually three brothers: Albert, Louis, and William (the "main" Moriarty), and the overarching plot follows their schemes as "the Lord of Crime" to... change 19th century England for the better?

Reason #2: The Premise is INTERESTING as FUCK

Yeah, you heard me! The big baddie in this adaptation is trying to do what they deem as "good"! It's called Moriarty the Patriot because William, Louis, and Albert are trying to make England a better country in their own ways; they view the class system of 19th century England to be, quite frankly, shit, and want to lessen the abuse and dehumanization of the lower class caused by the nobles. And, well, they do this by killing corrupt nobles. Or, well, more accurately, they help people commit crimes to kill the nobles, and stage it to look like an accident or make it extremely difficult to solve. It's actually really fun and cathartic to watch imo, especially in the early episodes of the anime and the early chapters of the manga. I'll come back to the plot later, but for now, I think it's time to get back to the characters.

Reason #3: The Gang's all Here!

The three Jame Moriarty brothers aren't the only characters: you also have the baker street gang (Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and Ms Hudson), the Baker Street Irregulars, Mycroft, Sebastian Moran from the original series, Lestrade, Irene Adler, Herder (another character from the original series), and interestingly enough, Billy the Kid (in the manga). And these characters aren't just one-dimensional name-drops, but characters with so much personality, backstory, and motives. Take, for example, Sebastian Moran: he's a sniper who works for the Lord of Crime, yeah, but it's because he has a long-earned loyalty to William; both of them have a keepsake from the other, and after William's supposed death during this adaptation's version of "The Final Problem", it's the keepsake he gave to William that saves him from a dark path (there's much more to this story in particular, but you'll have to find out more yourself if you're interested). Also, there's Moneypenny in the manga. But why the hell is she here?

Reason #4: His name is James. James Bond (and he's trans!)

NAME ONE OTHER FUCKING SHERLOCK HOLMES ADAPTATION THAT HAS JAMES BOND, I'LL WAIT. YOU CANNOT. But yes, James fucking Bond is in Moriarty the Patriot, and is one of the best characters for many reasons. One of them? We actually meet him as a woman. And who is that woman, you might ask?

Irene Adler.

(note: the version I read calls him James Bond, but from what I've heard, his name is actually spelled "James Bonde" to avoid copywrite issues. However, for this post, I'll use "Bond") It's...incredible. The entire arc introducing Irene Adler and her arc into becoming James Bond is one of my favorite arcs in Moriarty the Patriot. It takes the original "A Scandal in Bohemia" and sprints with it. Like, the entire Bohemian-king-wanting-that-photograph with Sherlock and Watson is just a ploy, so Irene can be under the protection of public-hero Sherlock by tricking him into thinking he blew up her house with his smoke-bomb trick. Because she stole ENGLISH GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS SO CLASSIFIED, THE GOVERNMENT WANTS HER DEAD. It's just the way the series builds off the original works by Doyle in a way that not only stays true to the original, but is also its own thing. Because yeah, we don't see Irene Adler again after her "scandal" is solved; and that's because she fakes her death as Irene, and starts working under the Moriarty brothers as James Bond, now a man. Additionally, Moriarty the Patriot handles Bond being trans in an amazing way. Him being trans is no joke! The Moriarty group accept him as a man the moment he tells them (except for Sebastian Moran, who's confused about it at first before he warms up to it; in all actuality, it's his confusion and reluctance that's joked about, not Bond's manhood, which is a refreshing thing to see as a queer person myself). Even when reuniting with Sherlock, John Watson, and Ms Hudson, the three are respectful and understanding. Oh my god wait a minute I just realized I haven't even mentioned Sherlock yet-

Reason #5: Benedict Cumberbatch WHO

Sherlock Holmes in this adaptation is the best Sherlock, hands down. Why? Because he's fun, goddammit! So many Sherlock adaptations see the genius personality of Sherlock Holmes and see nothing else. They make him cold, uncaring, calculative. A lot of Sherlocks would shoot a man dead for a lead on a case. But not this Sherlock. Is this the face of a man who's cold and uncaring?

HELL FUCKING NO! And he's literally presented with the opportunity to shoot a man for a lead on a case, and he turns it down! Because he's good! Yeah, he's prideful. Yeah, he can be a prick. He treats Scotland Yard like a joke. But he's also silly. He's kind to the people he cares about. He wants to help people. He's hilarious with Ms Hudson and Mycroft, and his interactions with William Moriarty is one of the best things to read about in this adaptation, because their cat-and-mouse game matters so, so much in this story.

Reason #6: Cat and mouse; puppet and puppeteer; friend and...friend?

Sherlock has a very interesting role in Moriarty the Patriot as a whole. Sure, he's the detective. But he's so much more. When he's introduced (in episode 6 of the anime, mind you!) to the story, the overarching plan of William and his brothers shift to include him: William wants him to be the hero of the play they're setting for the country, because in the end, William plans to be defeated as a common enemy of the people. And so, the game begins. The Lord of Crime starts setting up crimes for Sherlock to solve, so he gains publicity. So he's recognized as the hero. He's the only man smart enough to solve the trail of breadcrumbs Moriarty leaves, after all. Sherlock starts as just a puppet in the plan of things. Led along on strings from crime-to-crime, slowly piecing things together. And Sherlock hates it. But...Sherlock and William meet outside of being a simple detective and criminal. They meet on a ship, and for the first time, William finds his mind not drafting up plans or thinking as the Lord of Crime the first time they speak to each other. And for the first time, Sherlock finds someone with a mind equal to his own. They meet again, on a train, and solve a murder together (one William was NOT behind). And behind this game of cat-and-mouse, behind the puppet and puppeteer, something blooms. When Sherlock learns that yes, the William James Moriarty he's grown to known is indeed the Lord of Crime, he's not mad. He's...glad.

(note: Sherlock calls William Moriarty "Liam", beginning with their meet on the train; he's the only character in the series who does this. Not even the other Moriarty brothers call their brother "Liam")

He's glad it was William; it couldn't have been anyone else, in his opinion. It wouldn't have been worth it otherwise. It all comes to head in this series' version of "The Final Problem", where Sherlock finally confronts Moriarty, once and for all. It's where William plans to be defeated by his nemesis, the hero. Because he's the self-proclaimed villain. "Catch me if you can, Mr Holmes", is what he challenged to Sherlock on the train, after he joked about William being the Lord of Crime. And Sherlock catches him, in the end. But not as a detective. He catches him, as a companion, after William jumps to his death into the river Thames to set his defeat to Sherlock in stone.

Reason #7: What Comes After

The anime ends after "The Final Problem", but the manga continues. And this is where I really, really think this adaptation shines its brightest, with the aftermath of everything the series has been building to. The main reason Moriarty chooses his death is because of the bad things he's done his entire life. He never enjoyed killing people, but felt he had to, and felt his death was the proper "punishment" for it. But through Sherlock, he finds that that isn't the answer. It's obvious that Sherlock would live through the fall into the Thames. But what about William? In most adaptations, he dies. In the original, he died. But in this? They both live. They both survive. Some big ideas floating around before "The Final Problem" involved revenge. An eye for an eye, if you will. Judgement, and delivering it. But afterwards? It's atonement. It's forgiveness, and the lack of it. It's growth, and redemption. They're saved and taken to America to recover and start new lives. William Moriarty finds ways to atone for his actions without choosing death. Sherlock does too, for his own crimes. They decide, together, to begin anew, find new purposes.

and it's beautiful. When they return to England, three years after their disappearances, their growth is obvious and amazing to see; the other members of the Moriarty gang have also chosen their own paths of redemption, and seeing it all come together is something I'll always enjoy rereading over and over. And the redemption and reunion with England is just the end of part 1 of the story. There's more to be made with this series.

Reason #8: Made With Love

It's so, so obvious that Moriarty the Patriot was made with love for the original series. The way details of the original stories are kept and built off of to work flawlessly as it's own story is something I will be continously impressed by. There was so much thought, heart, and soul put into this adaptation, and you can tell it by reading and watching it. There are so, so much more I could go into—like the music in the anime, deeper dives into the arcs of the main cast, how well the relationships between characters are formed and established—but I think it'd be better for you to just find out all of these things by yourself.

So please, if you've gotten this far, give Moriarty the Patriot a try. Let it prove to you how good it is. Let it show you that it really is the best Sherlock Holmes adaptation out there.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

Oh hello again everyone! Apologies to the three people who are probably interested in this syllabus journey for falling off the face of the earth for the last few months. Had a lot of life changes and travel going on and have not been falling desperately behind in all of the things I have been watching. Now that I am back home for more than two days at a time, I figured I should get back into the swing of things with @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus.. With this post I am officially wrapping up Unit 4: Heartbreak Alley and will get to reap my reward with Lesbians and Gems for Units 5 and 6. As a reminder the films in Unit 4 are: Bent (1997), Strange Fruit (2004), Boys Don’t Cry (1999), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Parting Glances (1986), Philadelphia (1993), The Living End (1992), Holding the Man (2015), Jeffery (1995), and Boys on the Side (1995)

Today I will be talking about:

Boys on the Side (1995) dir. Herbert Ross

[Run Time: 1:55, I watched it through Plex, Language: English]

Summary: Robin shares a ride in her car with Jane from New York to Los Angeles. They stop at Jane's friend Holly's place in Pittsburgh and take her with them west, making a long stop in Tucson. The three very different women become close friends.

Cast:  - Whoopi Goldberg as Jane - Mary-Louise Parker as Robin - Drew Barrymore as Holly

___

OKAY. Shout out to me for getting through the final film in Heartbreak Alley without crying! 

A trend I have noticed throughout the sad films in this section is that the vast majority of them hold the sadness until the end, which is super fair, but also something I would consider to be rather kind. Maybe it’s just me, but seeing Mysterious Skin so early on in this syllabus really altered my perception of what a difficult movie looked and felt like. The movie that compromised me the most in this unit was far and away Strange Fruit, which sits in the Mysterious Skin camp of being great and also something I will struggle to ever watch again. By comparison, a lot of the Heartbreak Alley films were fine. 

I liked how much Boys on the Side was about the bonds between women and the importance of found family. I love a movie where the premise is: girls do crime and then hit the road together. I like how expertly this film was able to pull back the layers on Robin, until you hit the reveal of her HIV diagnosis. When we first meet her, she’s just a kind of put together, somewhat annoying and anal white woman that wants to hit the road for god knows what reason, and you (and Jane) roll your eyes a little at how often she is sanitizing things. 

And then she vomits, and you can kind of just dismiss it as the allergies she says it is. 

And then Jane leaves the car to go see Holly and Robin uses that moment alone to take some medication, and things start to unravel. She goes to bed really early, she looks haggard the longer they are endurance testing their driving on the road. Something is definitely wrong with her, and BOOM, she’s collapsed and is hospitalized, and you find out she’s HIV positive. 

I liked how distinct all three of the main characters felt, and I liked their friendship with one another. The full blown, silent conversations that can pass between them. I like the little moments in a slice of life, the birthday parties, the dancing, Jane making Robin shout “Cunt” because she feels uncomfortable referring to her vagina. I liked that having HIV was just a detail in her life, and that the movie itself didn’t feel like An AIDS Movie. 

Even though Robin is surrounded by red the whole time, something which I usually associate with AIDS itself because of blood and red ribbons. Robin’s car is red, the lighting in her first hospital room is read, the list of plumbers and landlords she leaves on the fridge at her old apartment in New York is red, they settle in Tuscon, they live in a house made of red clay. But she is never the one that is painted in it. She never wears red, she is not the one painted by it. Jane is the one that bleeds in this film, Jane is the one washed in the red lights of the hospital. But the bigger instances of red: the car, the house contains an entire life inside it. A friendship. Happiness, sadness, anger, joy. You barely even notice that it’s there. 

When Robin’s initial case of pneumonia was resolved, the doctor wasn’t worried about it, and even though Robin did pass by the end of the film, the movie itself wasn’t about her dying of AIDS. It was about the friendship between Jane, Robin, and Holly. At least that’s how it felt for me. 

Definitely my favorite part of this film was that Robin was allowed to be absolutely pissed and to kick Jane out of the house when Jane revealed her status to the man Robin liked. Jane was just trying to be helpful, and the man himself was very chill and totally fine with her status. But Jane didn’t have a right to disclose that information. 

I want to know more about the writers of this film, because I liked that the person in the movie who had AIDS was not the former drug user, or the queer person, but the heterosexual, cisgender, white real estate agent. That it seems to have been a little bit of time since she got her diagnosis, and she’s got a handle on how she is dealing with her grief. She doesn’t pity herself, once Jane and Holly know about it, she’s very casual with her references to the blood tests she needs, etc. 

Even if AIDS is a death sentence still in a movie like this one, I still think the film itself is kind about how they portray it. Robin can still be there for the people she cares about. She can get a very violent situation under control, she can fly across the country and testify to try to help Holly, she brings Jane happiness, music, fun. She doesn’t want a funeral, she wants a big party in the house they shared. She makes it long enough to tell Jane she was loved, to go home and meet Holly’s baby. 

We don’t have to watch her die, and even though the last scene of the film itself is an empty house, the understanding that Robin is dead, we don’t have to see her mother, who already lost her husband and her son, mourn her, we don’t have to watch her die. And we are immediately handed the end credit title cards that are just a compilation of the happy moments between Jane, Holly, and Robin. They don’t make you sit in the emotions there for very long. You get the sad scene of Robin seeing the visage of her dead brother, telling Jane what she wants to happen after she’s passed. And then it is immediately followed with a birth, with happiness and humor. You get the happiness of the baby shower when Holly gets out of prison and then the sadness of a shared song and an empty house, and Jane painting her nails in the car as she continues on her journey. And then you get Robin’s face, smiling away, laughter, chaos, joy at all these little moments in the film. 

A good movie to end this section on, both as a wind down piece and as an appetizer for Unit 5: Lesbians. 

Favorite Moment

I think my favorite moment of the film was when Jane and Robin meet Abe for the first time. Mostly because it is absolutely fucking hilarious to watch the paragraphs of silent, judgemental conversation they are having with each other while simultaneously trying to process that Holly who accidentally murdered a guy is dating a cop. It was truly such an expert portrayal of the psychic connections you forge between close friends. 

Favorite Quote 

“Everyone go potty, we don’t want to have to stop,”

I know what you are thinking. “Wen, why the fuck is that your favorite quote of the film?” It’s because of the context. Picture this, you have entered an apartment that is not your own after seeing through the window that the person who responded to your newspaper ad looking for a road trip buddy is in a fight with a random guy. The apartment you enter is a mess and your road trip buddy and her friend are bleeding at the hands of an abusive, drug dealing, asshole. You have managed to get the situation under control once already through sheer force of reasonable suggestion, only to have it ruined when this woman you do not know hits the abusive fucker over the head with a baseball bat. 

THEN because you don’t want to murder him, but you also don’t want him to catch up to you, you and these two women you barely know, tie this man to a chair with rope and duct tape. You have thought through the timing of how long it will take him to break through the binds and have thought about the noise and found a music disc that will last long enough to give you one hell of a head start. You are standing next to this guy who just beat up two people you barely know, who you have hog tied, and who is bleeding from his temple, and in the flattest, most mother telling her child to do a simple task way, you suggest that everyone uses the potty before they essentially enter a getaway car and escape from the scene of this assault. It was just so fucking funny to me. 

Score 

8/10 

I enjoyed the movie, but I think I wanted a little bit more attention and depth on Jane and less on Holly. I think there were a few too many threads going on, and that some of the set up was unnecessary. But I had a good time. 

And that’s it! I have finished Unit 4, I have so many more films to watch, but I inch ever closer to getting to rewatch Big Eden so onward I charge!

[possamble]

⭐️!!

OKAY SO a lot of people really love the last section in a little creature chapter 4:

She’s spent her entire life making herself smaller, quieter, less consequential, just to ensure no one else would hurt because of her. But she won’t do it to anyone else. She won’t do it to her little dragon, this small creature forced to be at her mercy through no fault of its own. It has done nothing but lend her strength, make her honest and brave where she has been a coward all her life — it’s only fair that she shares her voice, shares her life with it.  But Marcille, it cries. Marcille. If I'm quiet, you could have Marcille.  She could. But she won't. Because, if this is all it takes to render her unlovable — some feathers, fangs, and a resolution to be more outspoken — then so be it. If it’s a choice between letting her dragon have its fair share of their life or getting to be with Marcille, then so be it. Let there be no going back, may the dragon tear her apart if she should ever succumb to the temptation of familiarity — life changes, and she will change with it.  We’re in this together now, she tells the dragon, curling around herself. And I’ll always choose you, I promise. 

And I'm super happy bc it was honestly the emotional centrepiece of the entire chapter/the thing I was building up towards!!

While I did fully intend it to be a moment of triumph for Falin's character, I mentioned her inability to care for herself in the absence of an externalized inner child-like entity because I wanted the explore the idea of... I guess, things that are good for you in one moment not always being a sustainable coping method in the long run?

Which isn't to say that you shouldn't engage in these methods to begin with! For Falin, being able to semi-externalize another creature to take care of is a good thing at that moment, because it gives her the bravery to choose her own wellbeing. She needs that, because she's not ready to choose herself in earnest just yet--but no one is able to go from self-erasure to self-confidence without any awkward inbetweens.

But I did want to set up the foundation for exploring that, if she isn't able to further evolve from this mindset, she won't be able to grow. The little dragon inside her is, unfortunately, a bit of a schroedinger's inner child situation--it's real and it isn't. Yes, there may be impulses that feel fully foreign that Falin can identify as coming from the dragon--but for the most part, it's just a part of her the way that any other aspect of her personality is. It being a separate entity inside her is entirely dependent on how she wants to think about it.

Ultimately, she needs to be able to choose herself for the sake of choosing herself and nothing else, or this newfound confidence will crumble. She needs to be able to take care of herself even if it doesn't benefit anyone other than herself--she can't keep using a helpless creature as a crutch forever.

I can't say too much more because it's all stuff that I'm planning in future chapters, but the dragon will be popping in and out somewhat inconsistently to reflect Falin's flimsy conceptualization of it as her companion.

On a slightly unrelated note, I was a little self-conscious about this section because it's far from the first time I've done something along those lines--it's essentially a rehash of a character moment I had in a Code Vein fic from a few years ago:

(the premise being that superhuman vampires are created by implanting special parasites into corpses, and the main character is a neurotic little girltwink who never gives herself enough credit for anything)

And for the first time since she was revived, Mia feels… kind of bad for her parasite. It’s so easy to think that all the consequences of being a revenant are simply a part of her as a singular identity— she needs blood to survive, she has superhuman strength and durability, and so on and so forth. But in reality, it’s… it’s all thanks to the living thing wrapped around her heart right now. Inside her chest is another creature that’s just doing its best to stay alive; in a way, they’re in this together, her and her little heart bug.  Poor thing. She’s put it through a lot. 

[...]

She scoffs quietly at the theatricality of it all. It’s a new day, and she’s greeting it all by herself in her room but she doesn’t feel quite so alone anymore— she never has been, in the end, even when all else failed.  Good morning, she thinks to the creature keeping her heart together. I’ll take better care of you today, I promise. 

(Please excuse the clumsy writing it was years ago and also I do hope to go back and finish this one someday I swear)

But then I thought about it and realized that... this pseudo-externalized inner child thing is something I've done in nearly every major chaptered fic I've written. In my Tales of Berseria postcanon, I have this entire theme about the main character's insecurity about still grieving her incredibly abusive adoptive father, then have it culminate in a segment where she's flirting with her love interest by facetiously gossiping about her own alter ego:

“Might I suggest you not take it too seriously?” Magilou sighs, letting her shoulders fall slack. “It’s a light enough subject without the weight of the context— and this sweetheart of yours does like to spin her stories, no?” she laughs, shaking her head. "Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was taken in by a great wizard who raised her as his own. To this day, she still loves him very much,” she admits, and it’s only her own facetious tone that keeps her from stumbling. “And there has never been a reason why this would ever indicate a lack of self-respect." In some unspoken way, Aneirin is a lie that she tells for herself: to indulge the fond memories without having to explain herself to anyone. To let those sad parts of her exist, that little girl who loved her father so very much— Because, in the end, how could she not? He was a shitty parent and worse caretaker besides; but in a world full of people who called her an abomination— fellow exorcist or no— he was her only bastion.  And maybe that child who still loves her father doesn't deserve to be reviled for the very fact. 

(okay tbh i AM super proud of having finished this massive postcanon thing so if you like the ToB girls at all, pls give the series a look)

So that's 2 for 2 on self-sacrificing blonde girltwinks learning to take care of themselves more by embracing an alternate self--it's kind of funny that I'm doing it again, but with the girltwink's love interest instead. Not to mention that it's not supposed to be a one-and-done character breakthrough that remains positive, so we'll see how this one goes!!

[hyperfixated-gvf]

Make a Rich Woman Beg

Pairing: Sam Kiszka x Reader

Warnings: Language, smut, hate sex, degradation, name-calling, slow burnish, power play/dynamics, boss/employee themes even if reader isn't technically Sam's boss, teasing, denial, tit-fucking, oral sex, fingering, some dom/sub themes if you wanted to read it that way

Words: 12.2k

Rating: Explicit

Summary: As the heiress of an exclusive country club, perhaps you were spoiled, and maybe you had a superiority complex, but so what? Everyone has their flaws. But your most recent flaw? The fact that some playboy pool boy refusing to worship the ground you walk on shouldn't bother you as much as it does and, unfortunately for him, you aren't one to accept anything other than exactly what you want.

18+ / MINORS DNI

(A.N.: Looking at the greta van fleet smut tag, Sam girls -- how does it feel to have three fics published in the past two days after being neglected for so long? There's too much twins, not enough rhythm section in my opinion, so I'm working on filling that gap when I can.)

~~~

“Do you think he does it on purpose?” Tara asked, dark sunglasses not giving away where she was looking, but her words pointedly specific.

Although, glasses or none, it didn’t take a genius to know who she was talking about. Amongst the long-legged, model-esque women lounging in sun chairs around the pool, there was another long-legged, model-esque person flaunting their youth and beauty. But that person was a he and he was not a rich loafer.

Oh no. He was the pool boy.

And everything he did certainly had a purpose, down to the way he brushed what you were sure were strategic wisps of hairs left out of his bun from his face. The way he wiped away the sweat from his throat by baring it unnecessarily long to show off his slender lines and sharp jaw. The way he leaned against the doorframe to the pool house as he observed all the beautiful women and loaded men like some 90’s flick love interest. The way he let his eyes droop and linger when some unfortunate soul caught them and gave that smug little smirk that you knew drove all the women here wild.

You snorted, flipping through your phone as a slight breeze caught your skin and pebbled it with goosebumps. There was enough of you on display that anything other than the sun gave you a chill, but you didn’t care. You’d grown up with most of the girls at the country club, the tennis moms all knew your parents’ names, and the gentlemen knew to keep their thoughts to themselves  – the club was exclusive enough, but if there was anyone outside the reach of outward judgment or pious scorn of the others, it would be you, heir to everything in its entirety because your parents owned the place.

You were in your element here – untouchable until you wanted to be touched, and then you had your pick of the litter, the latter something this man seemed to experience on the daily, as well. 

But that was no concern of yours. You were more dedicated to getting to your spa appointments on time than you were keeping up with who was fucking the pool boy that particular night. 

You didn’t look up from the article you were reading. “Of course he knows what he’s doing; he’s a little peacock,” you sighed, unaware that the reason she’d asked was because the man himself was coming around to your spot with a fresh pile of towels to deposit at the pickup station nearby. 

And even if you had noticed Tara’s emphasized cough, or her muttered, “Y/N,” you weren’t sure if you’d care enough to halt the blissfully casual in the way you talked about Sam. You knew his name, not because you’d ever had a full conversation with him, but because enough of the other women at the club could be overheard telling others about their nights moaning it that you knew it well enough by now. It was just one of the reasons you felt justified for the impression you had of him. 

Anyways, you weren’t exactly known for holding your tongue around these premises, so even if you’d known that Sam was within earshot, your acute observation wouldn’t have been any less true, and therefore, any less worthy to be said aloud. “He’s an attention-loving whore like every other pool boy has been in the history of this establishment. I don’t know where Rico finds them, honestly.”

“Y/N,” Tara hissed again, louder this time and followed by an embarrassed giggle, before pointing subtly to where Sam was fixing the last towel on the stack with a small shake to his head and a crook to his lips that was less than warm.

His brows picked up when he turned your way and saw you looking back to see what Tara had been pointing at, but you didn’t flinch at his wordless challenge to blush and splutter out an apology in an attempt to not look like the heartless, rich bitch stereotype that came free with a membership at this club.

Call you haughty, but you didn’t see yourself as those things. Sure, you knew what you wanted, and you knew what you had – humility just wasn’t one of those things, and you saw no wrong in knowing where you stood in a space. But pride? Pride surely was one of the things you knew you had, which was why the only answer Sam got to his cocky little power trip was a returned silent challenge: what are you gonna do about it?

His expression didn’t change, but there was an intentional hold of brazenness in his attitude as he swaggered up behind your chairs. “Good afternoon, ladies. I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation about little ol’ me. I didn’t catch it all, unfortunately,” he tsk-ed, patronizingly. His next words were directed at you, darkened slightly in an attempt to intimidate you. “Care to repeat it?”

Ah. A wordless challenge to a blatant one. “Let’s see,” you murmured back, unfazed by his imposition but not wanting to disrupt any of the other pool-goers with your tense little exchange. Not only were you unfazed, but you felt yourself become strangely excited at the potential confrontation. It was your fatal flaw – you could never just step away from a fight coming your way; you liked being right, and the sweet taste of victory was just as addictive on your tongue as money in the back of some people’s pockets was, as the filthy, secret orgies that the rich and famous partook in because they could. It made you feel powerful. “I believe I called you a peacock, and then an attention-loving whore just like all the other shirtless pool boys that come and go.”

Sam puckered out his bottom lip and simpered at you. “Oh, well isn’t that just cruel,” he bemoaned. Turning to Tara, his long middle finger just barely grazed her bare shoulder, and he leaned in, voice lowering to wring every last drop of pity from her in any way he could. “Is she mean to all the staff? Or is it just me?”

Tara huffed out a laugh, gaze trapped in the siren song of Sam’s. “Um…no, I think just you. But she’s not being mean on purpose, that’s just–”

“How you know she has a little crush?” Sam finished for her, regardless of what she was actually going to say. 

Tara looked a little put out, because it was obvious Sam was only toying with her as a means to whatever end he had in mind. It made you scoff scorchingly, turning back to your phone to signal that the time Sam had to waste from your day of wasting time had expired. “Don’t waste what little brainpower you have left in that skull – if I had a crush, you’d know it. Now, don’t you have a chair to wipe down?” you asked dismissively. “Maybe a mistress to tend to?”

Tara kept out of the conversation this time, not wanting to be brushed off again; this was clearly between you and Sam, and your indifference had quickly shifted to dislike once he put up a fight that had an edge, that wasn’t just the silly product of flirty banter.

“Nothing pressing,” Sam responded, deliberately refusing your expulsion. “I’ll leave, but I have to know something, first. I might be a peacock, sure.” His admittance held no shame; in fact, he seemed proud, almost, of his status. “My cocking around certainly hasn’t been a problem for most women; frankly, I don’t care what you think about my rotating door. But surely,” he murmured, leaning in closer under the guise of getting up, “there’s something that sets me apart from all the other attention-loving whores around here.”

Your throat burned with a reply, scathing and with salt to back up the wound you so sorely wanted to make, but Sam had taken a coward’s retreat, leaving you no time to reply with dignity as he ambled away. His face was smoothed back into that serene arrogance as he made his way back around the pool, winking at a few loungers as if he owned the place instead of worked for it. 

“Little fucker,” you sighed, reigning your spite back in. “Only small-dicked assholes leave an argument as unfinished as their women.” The pout was clear in your tone - you didn't like it when people ignored you when you didn't want them to.

Tara snorted, but shook her head. “He’s too hot for his own good, and you’re too stubborn. It would never work.”

Never work? What, an argument? You shot an arched brow towards your friend. “It doesn’t matter how hot he is, I’d dominate him in a debate.”

You were bluffing – it was obvious that the man had some wit to him, as much as the admission made your lips pucker in distaste. But you were still fairly certain that you’d come out on top if you ever had a verbal spar that he couldn’t run away from. 

Obviously, that wasn’t the answer Tara had been looking for, because she sighed as she laid back into the sun, soaking up the warmth. “Not in a debate, Y/N. Romantically. Carnally,” she teased, a small smile on her face as she knew you’d look over in offense at the prospect that you’d ever give the pool boy, who’d been around the block a few times, a pass to your bed. 

“Oh god,” you scoffed, “you can have him. Please. Just keep him far away from me.”

…

Seeing as the pool made you unreasonably grumpy for the next couple of days, you spent your time doing other things. Yoga, pottery, cooking lessons, the dog run – they were all just as satisfying as laying by the pool was. Plus, it meant you didn’t have to see Sam, who you’d been content to forget about until Tara showed up at your room one day for lunch looking disheveled. 

You didn’t pry, per se, but you made it clearly known that you wanted to know why she was in such a state, and eventually she’d come clean about having spent the night with the very man you claimed not to care about in a negative nor a positive way – he wasn’t worth it, after all.

But as she’d laid on your bed, recounting how many times he’d made her come, how he’d cleaned her up and taken a shower with her afterwards, how he’d invited her to spend the night with him instead of kicking her out of his quarters – a knot grew in the pit of your stomach, something ugly at the center of it.

Far from wanting to make her experience about you, you didn’t say anything at the time, only humming and interjecting with appropriate phrases every now and then. But you couldn’t help but think back to how he’d used Tara at the pool to get to you, and wonder if this was the same. Wondered if he knew she’d come and tell you everything in hopes you’d hear.

Now that, perhaps, was a more fitting behavior of the self-centeredness most expected from women of your status and inherited wealth. The narcissism. After all, Sam was a known player in a game you weren’t keen on participating in and, at the end of the day, the small tiff you’d had by the pool was the longest conversation you’d ever had with him. 

Perhaps he’d forgotten about you by the time he locked the pool gates that night, and perhaps his tryst with Tara so soon after was coincidence, or because her name was the next on his list. But you supposed being around it all your life tuned you into the intentional behavior of others  – your own mother was the one who’d told you, at the ripe age of 12, that sharks were still invisible to other sharks in the water, and that you always needed to keep your head swiveling. 

“All I can say is that…” she glanced over, knowing that you were gritting your teeth and bearing it for her benefit, but still finishing her thought anyways, “He definitely doesn’t leave his women unfinished.”

Your lips quirked up at Tara’s statement, and even though you had living evidence that he didn’t, still found every cell in your body unable to admit that perhaps Sam wasn’t as incapable as you wanted him to be. Not as much a bimbo, not as much a careless pretty-boy as he seemed.

You weren’t used to not getting what you wanted, but that was the problem with people, wasn’t it? Factors out of your control and reach.

“Well…” You chewed on your words for a moment, not wanting to spit them out without proper filtering. “I’m glad you got what you wanted, even if your partner was a bit…inferior.” Tara raised her brows, shocked at your blatant classism, but you just smiled. “Intellectually, of course.”

Him being the pool boy had nothing to do with your spite. Not really.

Well...if in part, only because you were used to being waiting on, hand and foot, and Sam’s disregard for the people who paid his bills spoke of an arrogance you couldn’t stand. But god, did you sound like a bitch, no matter which way you put it.

…

As fate would have it (and a bottle of wine, as well), you found yourself out walking later that night, down towards the pool in an unconscious search to finish your argument from days before. If you were bold and brash sober, with a little alcohol in you, it was only exacerbated.

Your path wasn’t a beeline to the pool; it was unconscious, after all, but after meandering the grounds for a while, you’d found yourself staring at the locked gate, so deep into a mental debate with a made-up Sam who was a stuttering mess of a douchebag that you didn’t hear the rustle of someone coming down the path until you were faced with the real Sam, who seared you with an unimpressed stare as you each waited for the other to speak. 

Finally, Sam broke the silence. “Is there something I can help you with or should I leave you to fantasize about me outside my place of work? How often do you do this?” he asked condescendingly, taking a key from his pocket and walking right past you.

While he words technically rang true, you certainly weren't fantasizing about him in any normal regard, at all. “The only thing I fantasize about when it comes to you is watching as security escorts you off the property.”

Sam whistled, appraising you again with that god-awful, lazy look. “That’s a bit of a leap from the last time we spoke. All because I peacock around the pool that I work at?” 

No. No, actually – it was because he was disrupting your flow, and you didn’t know why you were letting him. By all means, you should care much less than you really did about Sam’s presence. His very existence. But something about him wriggled under your skin and locked onto a part of your brain that only bled disdain and a poorly-managed superiority complex. 

“Peacock all you want, pool boy,” you said, shaking yourself out of your daze. “It makes no difference to me. I’m here because…I left something. My watch.”

You didn’t wear a watch. They were too clunky, no matter how expensive they were, and if you did have one, the pool would be the last place you would wear it. Why would you want a wrist-strap tan line?

Sam apparently didn’t pick up on it, though, because he sighed and motioned you in. The deck was dark save a couple of lamps that served as security, and Sam took another key and unlocked the office door. “Any other night, you’d have been waiting until the sun came up again,” he warned, shuffling a few things around on the desk until he pocketed a slip of plastic. “You’re lucky I left my meal card here. Lost and found is in the bottom drawer.”

You eyed him, and he nodded to the door by his shins, making no move to open it. He did, however, stare at you as you leaned down to get your hand on the handle, tugging before you felt the resistance of a lock. You huffed, righting yourself and glaring at the man. “It’s locked.”

He nodded. “I know. I was the one who locked it.”

“Then why did you tell me to open it if you knew it was locked?” Everything he did seemed to have the sole intention to get you to act as he wanted you to, and you hated being played. This whole situation was stupid, and you would consider asking your parents to send you somewhere else for a few weeks to right yourself where Sam had lopped off your ability to be level-headed if that wouldn’t imply that Sam had run you off of your own pitch.

Sam crossed his arms and took a step forward, but you didn’t let him push you around this time, so you were stuck staring him down as he got closer. “Because I know you didn’t leave your made-up watch here.” Shit. He had noticed. “Why were you really here, Y/N? It’s just you and me here,” he cooed, eyes alight with mischief. “Tell me. Why do you hate me so much? What is it about me that makes you squirm?”

God, you wished you could tell him, but you didn’t know the answer. Perhaps if you looked deep enough, you could find it, but that wasn’t on your bucket list. The way he seemed so cock-sure of himself and what he mistook as a raging playground crush really ground your gears, and you pushed him away a bit with a finger on his bony chest. “Please,” you murmured, keeping your eyes firmly locked on his, “I have more important things to do than the trampy pool boy. Don’t flatter yourself.” The denial of the accusation was weak, at best. For all that you’d told Tara that you’d best Sam, you seemed to have lost your words now that you were alone.

Sam searched your face for any tell of a lie, and when he found none, he pulled back, smooth façade back into place. “I don’t think you know why you're here.” 

Bullseye, and you hated it.

“Oh, I do," you disagreed, contrary to you own inner confusion. "It's because I know you think that I’m a rich, spoiled, Daddy's girl,” you said, keeping his attention and prompting him to shrug in agreement. “I know you think we’re all just wastes of space in society. I see the way you use and discard the women here, and I'm here because I don’t want to be one of them.”

Sam’s face twisted into something unpleasant. “Then don’t be. I don’t force anyone to sleep with me, god–”

You cut him off with a hand. “I know,” you said, quieter. “I just hate that part of me is still interested.”

The confession discredited everything you'd just said, and you stopped in your tracks, horrified and entirely surprised that those words had come from your lips.

Once he knew he wasn’t being accused of anything nonconsensual, Sam relaxed again, rolling his tongue in his mouth as if your semi-admittance of wanting him was a 5-star meal, and he leaned against the sliver of wall between the doorframe and the desk. “I won’t tell,” he smirked, whispering conspiratorially.

“No.” You shut down the prospect immediately. You didn’t know where your little confession had come from, or why you were telling Sam, who happened to be the object of your ‘should I, shant I.’ Deeply in denial, you wish the little sprout of truth would just bury itself in the ground again, but it had already been seen. “I’m not one of your games.”

Sam let a small, smug smirk crawl up the corners of his mouth. “The women here like games. Tennis, BINGO, mini golf, poker – you name it. And they like it when I play with them, too.” He fixed you with a steady gaze, challenging you to argue what he was about to say next. “And you are exactly like all the other women here.

Your chest tightened, and you got a sick sense of arousal from the casual way he spoke about the women you regularly dined with, the ones you knew by name. What was wrong with you? Just a few days ago, you’d wanted nothing but to get Sam alone so that you could give him a piece of your mind, and now you were letting him stand on his self-appointed pedestal and look down on you like he had since he acknowledged you existence.

You wondered if he knew who you were, but you figured that would reveal itself in time, when you eventually did slip it into conversation. If he fixed up that problem of an attitude, all would be righted. If he didn't, then you didn't know what you'd do. That would be a brand-new scenario for you.

“Did you sleep with Tara to make a point?" you asked instead, not intending to drop that bomb yet. "Was her piece in your game intentional or just another coincidental pawn?”

With a quirk of his brows, Sam scoffed. “Everything’s always about you, isn’t it?”

You shook your head, running your tongue across your teeth. “Not everything," you denied. Just most things. Around here, at least, they could be. "But I think you’re selfish, and petty, and egotistic enough to make an exception when it comes to women who don’t fall at your feet just to get a taste of something different from their usual menu.”

Sam toed the door open further from where it had crept in with a draft. “What was it that you said,” he asked, mulling it over facetiously. “Oh, right. Don’t flatter yourself. Your friend came to my door. She knocked last night because she’d asked someone for my room number, and then she told me that she wanted me to fuck her, so I did,” he told you simply. “It had nothing to do with you. You were never a thought in the room.”

Again, hearing about his conquest of yet another woman at the club, your stomach clenched, and a deeply repressed part of your brain wanted to play into the hot pool boy, rich employer trope, even if you weren’t technically his employer. Not yet, at least. Soon, though, you intended to become more active in shadowing your parents. Perhaps you could start by fixing this staffing issue.

“That’s not how she told it.”

“Of course that’s not how she told it,” he scoffed, lips curling. “Why would she tell you about how she begged for it? About how she showered me with compliments and pulled my hair and about how wet she was when I fingered the fuck out of her or about how she told me how well my cock filled her up–”

“Shut up,” you snapped, face reddening. “Stop trying to make this about something it’s not. If you want to recount everything that happened, invest in a diary.”

You weren't jealous. That wasn't it, if that was the angle he was playing.

But Sam wouldn’t stop, and with each act he let out of his mouth, he took a step towards you. “Why would she tell that to someone as judgemental, snobby, and condescending as you–”

But hell no. Absolutely not. In no world would Sam the pool boy get away with calling anyone condescending with the medals he held for pretentious behavior displayed towards others. “Fuck you, calling the kettle black,” you spat, temper flaring.

But Sam met you halfway, pointing an accusing finger in your direction, “It takes one to know one, so don’t even try to go there.” 

He was insufferable. Everything about him made you want to rip your hair out and swan dive into the shallow end of the pool, but you simultaneously wanted to fuck him, and it was tearing you in two and giving you indigestion.

“How anyone can stand you is a mystery to me,” you huffed, patting your pockets to make sure you had everything, even though you’d never put anything down in the first place, and fully intended on stalking out, away from Sam, who was still lingering unnecessarily close.

He scoffed. “You’re the one who came here without knowing why. Freud, anyone?” 

“Don’t throw Freud in my face.” You needed to leave. Needed to gain a little clarity, to ruminate on these new discoveries about yourself. Or, at least address it without the scent of sunscreen and saltwater in your nose and an unbuttoned shirt staring you in the face. “I think we’re done here.”

“I’m not sure why we were here in the first place.”

He watched with guarded eyes as your gaze flitted towards the open door, and then they dipped further down your face when you hesitated, body turned towards him but every line still aggressive and confrontational. “Then you won’t mind locking up after you leave after me.”

“Fine. That’s my job.”

“Fine. Good. I’m glad you know your place.” 

“The only place I have is inside every little friend you have here that isn’t as much of a stuck up bitch as you are.” 

Nearly sharing breath at this point, your chest heaved slightly as you tried to take in more air, convinced that he would kiss you right then and fuck you like he had the others without you having to admit that you wanted him to at all. But your tongue was still sharp, even if your senses had been dulled until Sam was the laser focus of them all. “That’s none of my business; I hope you have fun being the neighborhood bicycle.”

“I will,” he said with a patronizing smile, even if it didn’t match the way he leaned in even closer. “I always do.” With a tensed jaw and a grind of his teeth, Sam squeezed his eyes shut and let out a rough breath that fanned across your face. You shifted on your feet, and your thigh grazed the front of his shorts.

He was hard, but you didn’t say anything about it. You couldn’t say anything at all, at the moment, too close to something to want to ruin it. Everything about his body communicated that the tension between the two of you would be resolved.

The next step between the two of you was teetering on the edge of realization, but Sam met your eyes, pupils blown out and lids hooded, but shook his head. “No.”

His denial of the unspoken twisted your gut and, too proud to give him what he wanted, you shrugged as if it was no skin off your nose and breezed out of the office without another word. 

You knew getting the last word was not always the way to win an argument, so you let his petty rejection stretch out behind you and dissipate into the darkening sky, beautiful in the sunset. Not that you noticed. Needing something – anything, to get your mind off of Sam and the embarrassing presence of wetness being your legs, you stopped a little further down the path, right near where it split to go towards the stables, and tipped your head back to the sky, letting out a big sigh filled by, “Fuck.”

You couldn’t deny it anymore – you wanted him. You wanted him, and you knew what he wanted. He wanted you to beg. To breakdown and ask. But you very rarely had to ask for what you wanted around here, and you weren’t going to start now for an asshat like Sam.

That’s what you told yourself as you met your parents for a late dinner. 

That’s what you told yourself as you wound down with a personal masseuse. 

That’s what you told yourself as your fingers crept down your body as you soaked in your bathtub, and it’s what you told yourself even after you accidentally splashed an armful of water onto the tile with how hard you came thinking about him. And after you grew frustrated when your orgasm didn’t satisfy the throb in your center. 

But it certainly wasn’t what you told yourself when you found your way to the front desk and begrudgingly asked for Sam’s room number, not an eyebrow raised your way because of your status. Had it been any other woman, more care would be taken in who that information was dealt out to, but not for you.

However, even when you had the information, you found yourself hesitating outside his door, stuck in a loop of want and pride. It took all of one very small thump as you rested your forehead on the wood to decide that one night was not worth your dignity. In fact, you’d been about to turn and leave when the door opened on its own and Sam stood in the frame, shirtless, hands braced on either post, and fixed you with a smug expression that ticked his features up.

Before he could get a word out, you spit, “I was just leaving.”

“After standing outside my door for the past 5 minutes?” Dammit – just what didn’t this man know? “You seem to end up in my space more than what one can call coincidentally.” When you didn’t leave, nor did you speak. Because he was right. Perhaps Freud did have a place in the conversation. Sam crooked a brow. “Well…if you’re gonna stand there and just…not leave, come in, I guess.”

There was no internal debate this time and, silently, you stepped into his room. You realized after seeing his pajama pants and a towel laid out on his bed that he must have been about to shower, and that was further cemented when he shucked his pants off, leaving only his boxers, and then grabbed everything from his bed, casting an amused glance in your direction. “I’m not stopping for you,” he said flippantly before heading to the bathroom and leaving the door open.

Perhaps you shouldn’t have been surprised at his bold behavior anymore, but you still instinctively looked away when his pants came off. You weren’t sure if either of you really knew what you were doing or what was happening but, the door seemed like an invitation and though you didn’t plan on taking another shower today, it beckoned you towards the bathroom.

The small room was quickly filling with steam and, through the mirror, you caught Sam’s bare ass as he climbed into the shower cubicle, the glass around it steamed just so that you could only make out the blurry outline of the naked man. 

You were a voyeur here, not having asked to watch, but having been invited, and you took the opportunity to receive anything that Sam gave up without you having to say one word to him. If you opened up your lips, you weren’t sure if what came out would properly keep your reputation, and you’d be damned before the pool boy gained one inch in this war you were waging.

But oh, you were sorely tempted to when his reflection in the mirror lifted a hand and intentionally wiped away a spot near his hips, so that there was a clear view to how he reached between his legs and sucked in a breath, hand wrapped around his cock as the other planted itself on the wall. 

Without consciously telling your body to, you moved further into the room, around to a small bit of space that separated the toilet and the sink, where you dug your nails in and watched as Sam’s elbow moved back and forth, deep breaths filled with steam barely audible over the sound of running water. 

The head of his cock peeked out from his fist every time he squeezed down at the base, and he grunted when he brushed his thumb over the tip on the way up, feet shifting as his hips bucked into the sensation. “Jesus,” he grunted, head hanging lower than his braced arm, looking directly where he was touching himself. Or, perhaps he was stealing side-eyed glances at you which, after hearing him groan high in his throat with a murmured, “Oh, god…shit,” escaping from his lips, was likely the more probable answer. Although with his own narcissistic habits, perhaps he liked the view. Auto-eroticism or something.

Regardless, your own hand had snuck down again, and you were helpless in your search for the same pleasure Sam was giving himself, dragging the pads of your fingers through the slick mess down there, clit singing with pleasure as you circled it until you felt like your knees were going to give out.

Just a few minutes later, Sam gasped and moved his hand faster, fist flying across his dick as he tilted his head back. “Holy shit – holy fuck, ah– ahh,” he moaned, a hard ‘guh’ sound finishing out his syllables as he sucked in air. He tugged at his cock sporadically, and you could only imagine the spurts of come he stroked out of himself hitting the wet tile and washing down the drain immediately, all evidence washed away. 

The high whimper that escaped your throat as you came as well, clutching the edge of the sink and rubbing furiously at the little bundle of nerves under your fingers while you wished you had something to clench around as your walls contracted, seemed loud in the silence that followed Sam’s orgasm, and he groaned a bit as he listened.

Without washing his hair or soaping his body, Sam shut the water off and squeezed the excess out of his hair quickly, sliding the door open and locking eyes with you as he closed in. You were backed against the unforgiving line of the counter, your hand still tucked into the waistband of your pants as you came down, but as Sam closed the space between you at a lightning pace, you jerked it out.

That one small movement brought the skin of your knuckles scraping against his cock due to how close he was, and he gritted out a strangled sound at the overstimulation, the product of his own action. “You drive me absolutely insane,” he huffed into your face. He didn’t specify if it was in a good way or in a bad one.

“Ditto,” you breathed. The fingertips that had just been tucked in the warmth of your cunt grazed his stomach until he grabbed your wrist and lifted those digits to his mouth, staring you down as he flattened his tongue, dragged it up, and then encased the entirety of your middle and ring fingers in his mouth, suctioning and letting his tongue dance around each knuckle.

When he popped them out of his mouth, he said, “Say it.” He knew you were aware of what he wanted, so there was no need to waste words on asking you specifically to lower yourself down to where he wanted you and beg him to fuck you.

You shook your head.

“You have to ask for anything you get from me,” he said in response, shaking his head. “You get everything for free, but not from me.”

Since he had no qualms in taking what he wanted, though, he flexed his hips and ground his quickly-recovering dick across the fabric of the sweats you’d thrown on for the walk over. Perhaps it felt better than he’d anticipated, or maybe he really was just some hyper-sexual young adult, but as he continued his slow thrusts against you, he readjusted and seemed to lose himself in the feeling, eyes fluttering when you pushed your thigh forward for him to grind against harder.

This was fine. You didn’t mind having the control.

“Come on, Sam,” you murmured, pressing your palm into the small of his back to scoot him closer. “You know I won’t ask you. But you can hump my leg like a bitch in heat however long you want.”

He let out a shuddery breath and his dick jumped at your words, but he pulled away quickly regardless, still unwilling to take your shit. “Just because it seems like you want that too – no thanks.” And then he turned, newly hard and seeking touch, and grabbed his pajamas from where they were laid on the closed toilet seat. 

You took a deep, frustrated breath in, but followed him out into the main room again, crossing your arms and pouting when you saw he’d already gotten the material up his body - even if it tented out - and was settling into the mattress on top of the blankets. You were sick and tired of waiting for him to give you what you wanted, so you didn’t stop following him at the edge of the bed, and instead climbed on and then up his body.

Now, technically, you were on your knees but, since Sam was on his back, you counted the positions as canceled out when it came to power dynamics, and that was something you were very aware of here, in Sam’s space.

In this position, it would have been easy to make a connection where you both wanted it, but Sam didn’t let your hips lower enough to create any friction for you or for him. “Stubborn,” he muttered.

“Bull-headed,” you replied, and then slithered out of his grasp. He let you, and propped himself up on an arm to watch as came face-to-face with his covered erection. Knowing that he wouldn’t let you touch him directly, you pushed your luck and instead raked your nails down his stomach and across his happy trail, veering off afterwards to sink them into the meat of his thighs.

His abdomen tensed and flexed as you looked up at him from under your lashes, but still, he didn’t give in to your silent question and said, “Use your words. Ask me so that I can hear you say, ‘Sam, please let me suck your cock’ and you can give me all the head you want.” 

“That’s a little backwards,” you remarked, fingers still crawling across his legs. “I’ve got dildos I can suck on if I wanted something in my mouth. You don’t have anything I don’t already own.”

Sam’s eyes darkened as he gazed down at you, flicking a strand of hair away from your forehead. “You’d just love to own me, wouldn’t you? Then you wouldn’t have to ask to use your toys, hmm?”

His words sent a lightning bolt of arousal through you, and your hips chased friction without your say-so, but the mattress was too flat to give you any relief. “One of these days I’ll own this place, then what?” you asked breathlessly. Obviously, you didn’t mean a single word of what you said – you weren’t into illegal business or gross misconduct between an employer and employee, but he’d opened a Pandora’s Box you weren’t even aware you housed in your body.

“I’ll find another hoity-toity club to fuck my way through. Got a job here, it was easy enough.”

At the mention of his activities, you squeezed his hips, hard. You hoped you’d leave bruises, but Sam didn’t react other than a flex of his ass, just out of reach. “Oh please,” you mocked, darting down to steal a lap of your tongue against his skin, “everyone knows you and the golf caddy get high on the greens every night. What is he, your best friend? He’s been around longer than you, I know that. He got you this job, didn’t he?”

Sam blinked down at you, taken aback for a moment. Ha. Finally, a leg to play up. “Shut up,” he spit, very little heat behind the words. You wouldn’t expect anything else – you don’t know if you’d go through with this if the two of you didn’t still fight just for the sake of the adrenaline and excitement that came with it. “You don’t know shit about me.”

“Uh oh,” you clucked, resting your chin on his belly button, just so that your throat would be pressed against his cock. You felt every twitch and jump, as well as his initial bump up into you, and hoped that he felt the vibration of every word that came from your mouth. “It seems like someone doesn’t like it when his women aren’t as vapid as they let on.” 

What could you say – you took an interest in psychology when your parents began forming you into their perfect successor, and Daddy had immediately hired a private tutor for you some years ago so that you could study it alongside business. And Sam was an open textbook – he was just like you: intelligent, privileged, perfectly satisfied with being handed things on a silver platter but never able to turn away from a challenge. You might as well have been reading words straight off of the page. 

“Just because you looked at my file doesn’t mean you aren’t the same dumb bitch you were before.”

His words stung, but in the best way. In a way that stoked the fire of your temper. Angry sex was superior, and you could feel all your emotions growing hotter, more volatile, until they were simmering just below boiling point. “Maybe I shoulda fucked him instead. Daddy always did say he liked the curly-haired caddy. Can’t see why he’d waste his time on someone like you.”

“Danny wouldn’t glance in your direction, Y/N. He’s too good for you. I wouldn’t let him.” 

It was the first time your name had painted his lips, and you smiled at the use. So he did know who you were all this time. “And you aren’t?”

Sam cocked his head. “Why do you think I haven’t touched that soaked pussy that I know you’re dying to get your fingers on again? Tell me,” he asked, eyes burrowing into you, “was that the first time you’ve played with yourself thinking about me?” You didn’t hesitate giving a small, coy shake of your head. “Have you fucked yourself with that dildo you say you own wishing it were mine?”

This time you shrugged. “Maybe. I’m about to go get it, though, since you’re the worst guy I’ve ever been in bed with. Hell, maybe I’ll just knock on one of your neighbors’ doors, see if they think they’re too good for me or not.” To really hammer your point home, you stretched back into a downward dog pose, letting your face gently drag across his cock, and then lifted onto your knees, not touching him at all. “I’ll let them fuck me. I’ll beg them to. I’ll gag on their cock, and I’ll let them put their tongue anywhere they want to. I’ll take off my shirt,” you said breathily, grabbing one breast in your hand and moaning when you gently pinched your nipple through your shirt, “and maybe, if they beg me extra pretty, I’ll get down on my knees and put their dick between my tits. Fuck, Sam – you can imagine how hot that’ll be, right? How much your neighbors will like that?”

Sam looked up at you as he reached down to palm himself through his pants, trying not to look as affected as you knew he was. “You haven’t seen anything yet,” he promised, but he didn’t make any effort to move. You knew he wouldn’t be able to end the night without some sort of closure., though. “And if you leave right now, you never will.”

A promise and a threat, all wrapped up in one package that was still being withheld from you.

“Well, I’d make sure you heard, so at least you’d have that,” you simpered, shooting and exaggerated frown his way and swallowing harshly. “All alone in your room, listening to some other staff member get a tit-job because you were too dumb to know what I wanted. That’s a sad reality.” 

Sam’s breath quickened and he took his hand away from his cock in a show of great restraint, instead sitting up so that his head was level with your chest. His big brown eyes looked up at you sweetly, if analytically, and you were suspicious of his change in attitude. “You’re really not gonna ask on your own?” 

Without a word, you shook your head. No. You weren’t. 

He seemed to mull things over in his head before taking in a deep, defeated breath. “Then I guess…I surrender,” he sighed, pressing a kiss to your clavicle. “I can’t take it anymore, Y/N, you win just…touch me, and let me touch you. I’m too hard to fight you right now.”

His words were muffled in your skin, and you placed your hand on the back of his head, the damp strands tangling between your fingers. You didn’t trust him, but the relief was too great to push him away.

He sucked his way up your throat, pressing a kiss to your fluttering pulse before coming to rest nose-to-nose. “I don’t think you’ve given up at all,” you said, running a finger underneath his waistband. “I’m onto you.”

“That’s right,” Sam nodded, nudging your face with his. “I want you on me. Just for tonight, just so that we can both get what we want, and then we can go back to hating each other.” He closed the gap, and finally, after waiting for longer than you were used to, kissed you.

You noticed his redirection and deflection straight away, but the taste of his tongue was a more pressing matter at hand, so you let him pull you in closer, taking kiss after desperate kiss, and paw you with his big hands. It was all pouring in, everything you wanted, and insofar, you hadn’t had to ask for it, so you let him continue.

Your shirt came off, and Sam groaned when saw your bare breasts, unhindered by a bra. Immediately, he got to worshiping them, holding them up to his mouth so that he could ravenously suck on them, letting your nipples pass through his lips before gathering them in his mouth again, one after the other, until he pressed your tits together and buried his face in them. “Will you still let me fuck them, Y/N? Please?” he begged, dragging his tongue up your chest. “God, you made me so hard talking about it. I didn’t want to come, but I was so close and you weren’t even touching me.”

He sounded so desperate. So genuine, that you figured you’d still have the power over his pleasure and gave in, saying, “Yeah. You can fuck my tits, Sam, since you asked so nicely.”

Because the floor was uncomfortable, you just lowered yourself, letting your chin catch on his skin as you descended, and he groaned at the visual, immediately backing off when you gathered his wrists in your hands and pushed them away as he tried to take his pants off himself. Instead, you insisted on being the one to hook your fingers into the plaid and tug until it pooled at his feet, and then surprised him by dipping down and taking his tip in your mouth, holding it on your tongue as you suckled lightly.

“Oh fuck!” he cried out, hand flying to the back of your head. “Shit, Y/N, you can’t do that to me. I have a reputation to maintain.”

You let him slip out of your mouth and smiled sweetly. “You didn’t seem to care about my reputation when you asked me to beg for what I wanted.”

Sam licked his lips and swallowed. “And I’m regretting that now,” he assured you.

Humming in satisfaction, you gave him one more lick, then retrieved the lube from where Sam directed you, clicking the cap open before letting Sam watch as you drizzled it between your breasts, his Adam’s apple bobbing and eyes never blinking. “Come here, Sam,” you instructed, manhandling him by his thighs forward. The mattress gave under his feet, and you felt the flex of his legs to keep himself upright. “Now, say please.”

You thought that he might say no for a second, but he just rolled his shoulders and put his bottom lip out. “Please?” he inquired. He couldn’t contain the rock forward into friction as soon as you laid his dick against your sternum, gently cupping your breasts and pushing them together around it and giving him a nod to signal that he was okay to start moving.

Since you were too far away to hold onto at any point on your body other than your head, as he began thrusting into the pillowy weight of your tits, he made do, even bending at the knees to get a better angle and a more anchored hold.

“Feel good, Sammy?” you asked quietly. You weren’t getting any stimulation from this, but watching the expressions of pleasure washing across Sam’s face as he tried to keep the wanton noises in was enough for now. Power. You were getting your pleasure from power.

He nodded, trying to wet his dry lips as his hips moved on their own accord, the unstable footing he had on the mattress throwing off any rhythm he established. Still, his face screwed up as he pitched up, breath uneven. “Yeah, I– it’s so good, Y/N,” he whined, a whole different person than the one who refused to give into you just a little bit ago. He let out a breathy chuckle. “They’re obviously not just for show. And I’ve watched you show them off, every fucking day you’re laid out in that little swimsuit of yours.”

It gave you an inordinate amount of pleasure to know that he’d noticed you and that he wasn’t as impervious to your presence as he’d been leading you to believe. As a reward for his little slip of honesty, you ducked and stuck out your tongue, the tip of his cock hitting the slick muscle each time it peeked out from in-between the tops of your breasts. And Sam faltered, staying buried in the warm cocoon of skin as he shifted forward and tried to get more of your tongue on his dick. 

It was obvious he was getting close with the small shake of his legs, trying to hold Sam’s tall figure up on shaky ground while he was chasing pleasure, so you let go of your tits, freeing his cock, and Sam protested. “Wait, just– just a little more, please,” he asked, gently guiding you onto your back before stripping off the rest of your clothes and taking your hands to resume the position laying down. “Like this,” he said before he straddled your chest and guided his dick back to the warm, slick channel it made, eyes closing and mouth falling open as he rode you. “Good god, save me,” he pled, back where he wanted to be. “Just like this.”

From here, you had a better view of the faces he made, and the ripple of subtle muscle under tanned skin as he moved his body. He lifted his hands to grasp the top of the headboard, using it to steady himself as he put more force into the punch of his hips, at the mercy your control over how tightly you pressed your breasts together. You could give him a nice, tight grip, or you could tease him, relaxing your hands and watching as he chased a barely-there friction. God, you felt drunk off of it. 

The drag of his balls against the top of your stomach along with the sensation of each ridge on his cock against your skin made you squirm, and you were ready to move on, having sufficiently allowed Sam to fulfill his little fantasy that you’d put in his head. 

Even though he made a weak objection when you let your breasts go slack and fall away with gravity, he didn’t fight you when you pushed his hips away so that you were eye-to-eye once more. However, he also didn’t let you get a word in before he resumed his writhe, his cock brushing against your pubic hair until he readjusted so that he was in-between your thighs, and increased the pressure of his grind until he was able to nestle himself against your soft, warm, wet core, your lips cradling him as he collected dewey slick with each thrust. 

Now that he was catching your clit with each shift, you craved him more than ever. He was so close, and if he pulled back just a bit, and angled himself just so, he could slip inside your body and show you what the fuss was about.

But first, you needed to get him in a condom. In fact, you probably shouldn’t have let him near you without one, knowing how many women he’d fucked over the course of his employment. “Condom, Sam. Who knows if I’m the first girl you’ve fucked even today, little slut.”

Sam let out a displeased whine, but he held you tighter, and you knew he was still getting off on the animosity. He pulled away, though, knowing you were right, and went right back to what he’d been doing once any excess lube had been wiped away and the latex had been rolled on. Lips at your neck, he licked and sucked a mark into you, grunting as he worked up to your lips again. “Let me taste you,” he pleaded. “I know you’ve been so worked up today. I’ll make you come, princess, I promise.”

You fisted his hair and he gasped out a curse, lashes fluttering. “Show me what that tongue of yours can do besides nettle the hell out of people, then.”

Sam groaned at your acquiescence and immediately trekked down your body, pausing to suck each tit into his mouth as if in thanks for providing a soft place to land for a while, and then continued down, physically wrapping your thighs around his ears so that there was no space left for him to breath.

“Sam,” you chuckled, genuinely amused. “We’re not gonna fuck if you suffocate yourself.”

As if it was the most irritating thing in the world, Sam groaned and reluctantly let you spread your legs wider so that he could reach his final destination. “Mmmm,” he hummed, flicking his tongue out to catch the crease where your thigh met your pelvis. With a deep breath in through his nose, he kissed your lips softly, bringing his gaze to look up at you. “You smell delicious. Let’s see how wet you really are.”

Watching as he spread you apart and never breaking eye contact until he dipped below the line of your stomach, the tip of his tongue running from your entrance to your clit and then down again, tracing a map of each nerve that lit you up and made your legs twitch. “Oh god,” you gasped, relishing in the feeling. You could tell he was just warming up.

Once he was more familiar with what made you tick, he gave you everything, fitting his top lip against the very top of your cleft and letting it rest there as he settled in for the long run, tongue laving hot pressure against your clit, softer than your fingers, more human than a vibrator.

He flicked and soothed, drew and stayed still for you to grind against his tongue, and at times he brought his teeth and lips up, chin grazing the wet skin below as he rapidly used his whole to complete a lick, suck, teeth, lip combo, each round allowing explicit noises to escape, from his own grunts and gasps to the suction and wet connection between your cunt and his mouth. And when he added his fingers, pressing one in but immediately following it with another, your stomach clenched and your back had arched up a bit, a curse and a multitude of other noises leaving the barrier of your lips to let Sam know that what he was doing was working. “That’s it, Sam,” you nodded as he curved his calloused fingers up. “Good. Right there. Shit, yes,” you sighed, sinking into the pleasure. 

With his mouth dutifully attached to your clit, he was in no state to speak, and when he disconnected from you, he followed it up with a series of kisses and undulations that let you feel a spectrum of pleasure only your toys gave you.

Seeing as you’d already come two times prior, you didn’t know how tired your body would be after your next, so you gave him a short tug on his locks and watched as his hips twitched in time with it. “Alright, enough.”

Sam looked up, mouth wet as he ran his tongue around the perimeter of it. “Already?” he grinned.

You rolled your eyes but gave him a small smile, pulling him up and allowing him to replace his mouth with his cock, sighing in relief when he resumed the position he’d been in before his meal, all of him pressed against all of you with a small rock to stave off the edge of desperation.

“Come on, you said I hadn’t seen anything yet. Where’s the bravado? Where’s the bedroom master that I’ve been hearing about?” you taunted in his ear, your words offset by the way you swiveled your hips and attempted to get him where you needed him to be. “Or was that it?”

He didn’t answer you, only reached down and grasped his cock, positioning himself at your entrance so that all he had to do was push.

But he didn’t.

The lips against your throat shifted into a grin that you couldn’t see, but could feel, and you groaned instantly, knowing that you’d been lulled into a false sense of security. You knew he'd been up to something. “Oh, you conniving little–”

Sam took your lip between his teeth and bit down. No blood was drawn, but the force was enough to make it swell and indent the shape of his front two teeth. It was effective in making the insult shrivel up and die, and Sam used his hand to run his tip up and down your pussy, never giving you anything more. “We’re playing chess, darling,” he murmured in your ear. “You said it yourself – you didn’t trust me. Were my pawns that convincing?”

Yes, they were. His desperation, his compliance, his constant feed into your power complex. But you’d played chess before – it wasn’t your favorite game, but you could hold your own. Your mother was a chess champion, though, and she’d always told you the same thing–

Never take your eyes off the Queen.

Sam paused altogether, not inside of you, but pushing so that you could feel the resistance. “We’re gonna stay here for as long as it takes for you to make a decision,” he whispered in your ear, gloating, but calm at the same time. He was back in the driver's seat of his own actions, and he was trying to reach over to commandeer the wheel of yours, as well. “Say stop, and I’ll get off. You can leave.”

“Don’t tell me there’s only one other option,” you said, your bad feeling that there was unfortunately just one way to proceed only complemented by Sam’s dark chuckle. 

“You’re really not that dumb. All the time, at least,” he scorned. “The only option to get what you want is to ask for it. And, since you wanted to lord yourself over me so badly earlier, let me return the favor: you’ll have to ask for it, and don’t forget to say please.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, already dreading what was coming. But there was no way you were going to tell him to stop – not with his dick poised so intimately against you. “Sam,” you said, and he gazed down at you, raised eyebrows as if he was interested and curious about what you had to say. “Sam. I want you to fuck me.” He said nothing, only looked at you expectantly. “Please,” you tacked on, teeth clenched and nose wrinkling at the word.

“But I already did, Y/N,” he tsk-ed. “I finger fucked you, I fucked you with my tongue – you really are just a spoiled heiress, aren’t you? You have so much, you’ll have to be more specific.”

You pinched him, and for your efforts, he reared back and gripped each wrist in his fingers, away from his body and against the bed. You had no other option now than to finally give in. To lose the ground you’d so staunchly defended up until now. “Fucker,” you hissed. “God, I hate you so much. I want you to fuck me, Sam. What else do you want?” you asked, temper tantrum rising up in this rare occasion that you had to do something you didn’t want to. “I want your cock, okay? I wanna feel you for days, and I want you to be so fucking deep inside me that you think about how well you fucked the owners’ daughter everytime you even so much as look in the direction of another woman for the next week.”

Sam seemed to be savoring the satisfaction of your words, but he still looked at you with a cheeky grin. “And?”

“Fuck you,” you said venomously. “Please.”

“Good answer,” he grinned, letting go of your wrists and gathering your knees in the crook of his elbows. 

After that, he let go of his restraint and stopped playing a role, sucking in breath and letting it out on a grunt as he slid home, low mutterings seeping from his lips as he knee-walked forward and bent you back until the backs of your thighs were skin-to-skin with the front of his. Only then did he pull his hips back and jackhammer them back in, giving you time to adjust before he reached in further with his fingers and pressed them into your inner thighs. 

With his proximity, there was a small slap when his hips met yours, but the soundtrack of the evening otherwise was made up of slick, wet noises and the posts of his bed knocking against the wall every so often.

And the steady back and forth stream of curses and unintelligible noises from you both. Not to forget those.

He kept pummeling into you, watching you bare your teeth, feral with the ecstasy of resolution after such a long build-up. You were glad you hated him. Glad he hated you. It all made this so much better, and Sam seemed hell-bent on keeping the curses to his name (and now his dick) spewing from your mouth.

“That’s it, princess, tell me how much you hate me. How much you hate the fact that I’m the best lay at this godforsaken club.”

“No,” you gasped. “You still aren’t shit, pool boy.”

He let go of one of your legs, roughly turning you on your side and straddling one leg, slotting himself between like a tetris puzzle piece. “God, I love it when you talk dirty to me,” he huffed. “Bitch.”

“Bastard.”

He groaned, your cunt tightening around him and making him stutter. “You’re lucky you're the daughter of people who actually did something with their money,” he seethed, not actually angry but his hips colliding with yours as if he was. “I’d love to see you somewhere where no one gave a fuck about who you were. See how you do in the real world.”

Again, Sam flipped you over, his thrust of re-entry pushing your face into the pillows. “Complaining as a grown-ass man who cleans a pool for a living and gets paid generously for it is– oh fuck, oh god–” you gasped, orgasm building as Sam’s fingers sloppily rubbed fast, tight circles around your clit, “-bad taste,” you finished.

Sam hitched your hips up more, trying to get even closer to you than what was physically possible, already buried balls-deep inside you. “For once in your life, maybe you’re right,” he grunted, pressing his palm into your back and arching it until you moaned, the tip of his cock catching your g-spot. He held you down in that position and gripped a handful of your hair as you’d done to him. “I do love my job.” He punctuated his words with a harsh stroke that bumped somewhere deep inside you that you hadn’t even touched doing your own exploration.

“Sleeping through the clientele wasn’t in your job description. Being a whore just seems to be your favorite hobby.” With each slowing thrust, Sam kept his depth but was losing his speed and his coordination. He had to be close, but he stopped once more to turn you around and push back onto the mattress. “Jesus christ, do you rotate every girl you fuck like a gas station hot dog?” you asked, dropping the act for a second as a smile threatened to break out. Sam’s eyes widened, once again visible since you were on your back after changing positions for the third time within a few minutes.

“...Sorry.”

You shook your head, a bit of mirth still lingering in your tone. “S’fine. Just keep going this time, I was close.”

Sam nodded, restarting with something a little slower, a little less intense than the rest of your coupling had been. It was just as good, though, and you closed your eyes as your high began building again. Since his hands were busy holding himself up as he undulated and kept the roll of his hips going, Sam paused and took your hand, bringing your fingers to his lips for the second time that night. He wet them in his mouth and guided them to where he was still buried in the sweet heat of your body. “Touch yourself for me, princess,” he rasped, voice low and rough.

Lost in his own arousal, his edges dulled, and you watched the unfettered desire take over him as he watched you do as he asked without a fight, for once. 

He really was entirely too good-looking for his own good. All of the features you spent days building up a disdain for, for reasons that didn’t reveal themselves until you stuck in his web lost the veil of contempt that sullied them, were on display and for the first time, you admired Sam without feeling the need to punish yourself afterwards for thinking such thoughts. 

The steady push, pull, fill, drag of Sam’s thrusts into you finally pushed you over the edge with the help of your experienced fingers, and you threw your head back in ecstasy, gasping out Sam’s name as small noises crawled their way out of your chest and left it heaving.

Sam followed you off the edge, enticed by the flutter of your walls around him and the sound of his name on your lips. He echoed you with a low, drawn-out groan, pausing when he was as deep inside of you as he could be. “That’s it,” he breathed, lowering himself to his elbow as his other hand smoothed up and down your side, one of the first gentle interactions between the two of you.

You couldn't keep the jab in, this time - not with how much you found yourself liking the new, softer atmosphere. “You’re not falling in love with me, are you, Sam?” you jested softly as he kept his hands roaming your skin. But you kept your voice low, and your leg wrapped around his hip, keeping him lodged in your warmth so you didn't have much ground of defense if he turned your argument against you. “After all that effort acting like you wanted to eat the rich…”

“Shh,” he hushed, pressing a kiss to the hollow of your throat. “Like I said, we can go back to acting like we hate each other tomorrow but, for now, we can pretend to like each other. Also,” he said, finally withdrawing and discarding the condom before wrapping his arms around you from the back, “I definitely did eat the rich.”

You let out a half-hum, half-chuckle, and laced your fingers over the backs of his, snuggling closer to him and enjoying the butterfly kisses he was slowly placing across the nape of your neck, nose barely brushing your earlobe. “I suppose you did.”

With both of you basking in the after-effects of your orgasms, it was a while before you got up to pee and clean up the mess between your legs – or, let Sam do it in the shower.

Part of you thought back to how Tara described him doing the same for her, so you didn’t allow yourself to think much of it. But you still spent the night wrapped in his arms, and when you woke up, his soft snores muffled by your skin, you counted yourself lucky that you found it rather difficult to fall in love with people. There were many women at the resort that couldn’t say the same, and you wondered just how long the trail of broken hearts that Sam left in his wake was.

Finally, you were too restless to remain in bed, and you managed to wriggle out of Sam’s grasp to collect your things, throwing your outfit on from the previous night and thanking the universe for being an early riser. The sun hadn’t yet risen, and you could make the walk back to your room in peace without running into anyone who might want to stop and talk.

“It’s not time to wake up,” Sam mumbled sleepily, rubbing his eyes and yawning from the bed. “You don’t have to sneak out,” he said with a frown when he registered that you were making to leave.

“I know,” you assured him. With a small half-smile, you said, “I do own the place, after all.”

Sam got up when it was clear you weren’t going to come back to his bed and walked you to the door, leaning on the frame in that annoyingly attractive way of his when you stepped into the hall. “So...come by the office and maybe I can give you the ‘pool boy special’ sometime,” he said, and you softly flicked him on his bare chest.

“And watch you offer the same ‘pool boy special’ to every other woman there? Yeah, no thanks,” you refused, under no pretense that Sam would stop being Sam just because he slept with you. “But I do appreciate the reminder as to why I don’t like you.”

Sam hummed, tilting your head up by your chin to languidly press a kiss to your lips. “And why is that, again?”

It was a nice distraction, sure, but the pride you held to be able to say that you could see through the water, no matter how murky it was, kept you focused on the conversation. “Whore,” you scoffed, both in insult and in explanation, and Sam smiled down at you, almost affectionately. 

“You’ll take every opportunity to call me a whore, won’t you?”

You were about to confirm Sam's suspicions when the door across from you opened and a very tired looking man stepped out, looking surprised to see you. Dark, curly hair, a pressed polo, lightweight, quality trousers, and a belt that matched his shoes – the golf caddy. “Oh! Uh…good morning, Miss–”

“She doesn’t need the ego boost of an honorific, Daniel, please.” Sam smirked at you as you narrowed your eyes.

You ignored Sam’s words, instead sauntering over to a wide-eyed Daniel, smoothing a finger over a flip in his collar. “I appreciate the respect, Daniel. Sam needs to learn a little more of it. You’re the head golf caddy, aren’t you?” Daniel stuttered out an affirmation, and you smiled warmly at him, feeling Sam’s eyes on you from behind. “That’s impressive. So young, and my father talks very highly of you. It’s quite difficult to earn his approval, but you’ve managed to do it. Perhaps I’ll stop by for a private lesson one of these days; you’ll have a spot for me in your schedule, won’t you?”

It was a shameless power play, and a gross misuse of your status, but that familiar wave of satisfaction when Daniel didn’t even check before he said you could come anytime and he’d be available sent your brain whirring with pleasure. A different kind than you got from your spars with Sam or the physical kind you experienced the night before, but you liked the feeling, so you had no plans on denying yourself of it.

Turning smugly back to Sam, just so that he could see that you still held the power he wanted to fuck out of you, you shot him the bird. “Well, invigorating conversation, Sam, but I still think you’re a lazy asshole and a shameless, attention-seeking–”

“Whore,” he finished for you. “I know.”

As you walked away, you heard the muted slap of an impacted hand, and Danny hissed, barely audible, “Goddammit– are you kidding me, Sam? The one person I told you that you didn’t want to piss off and–”

“Chill out, Daniel – that was flirting, not fighting.”

~~~

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Feel free to talk to me in the comments or my ask inbox!

[amaiguri]

The WIP Questionaire

Thanks so so much from @verba-writing for the tag! I had such a fun time reading your answers too and I'm very excited for paranormal romance 😍

I feel like I wanna flag that a lot of my answers are very anime/gaming-sphere oriented and I hope I'm not totally alienating my mutuals by revealing just HOW MUCH I'm not a book person lololol But this is with what we're working:

The Questions are:

1. What was the first part of your wip that you created?

The very first thing I made was the high premise: It was synthesized from the Overly Sarcastic Productions question "What if all the Kings Under the Mountain came back...?" and then I added the context "...in a Nuclear Crisis to discuss piece?" And in my head, it was this HBO-style modern fantasy Game of Thrones meets West Wing type deal. But then... I didn't want to write the modern piece. (The modern piece should be written by people in countries from all over Europe about what it means to be a hero in various cultures.)

So I set it in 1800s fantasy world instead!

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

The first arc would be Dance in the Game by Zaq

The second arc would be Lacrimosa by Kalafina

The Gods' Arc would be Paper Boquet by Mili

3. Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

Is it to cliché to be like "my current self-insert protagonist is my favorite character I've ever made"? Her and my antagonist are just THE BEST and I love them.

4. What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

Mmm, I think Untitled Yssaia Game's story would appeal to queer Game of Thrones fans who could FEEL the straightness in GoT, especially if they also like anime. I would hope I could get general anime fans as well as Arcane and Genshin Impact fans, but I feel like those are too mainstream and Yssaia is not. Realistically, I think I'm gonna get the Wadanohara people and the Ib people and, if I get really lucky, the To the Moon people.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Marketing lol -- explaining what it is to people in a way that they realize they want it.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Fuafua 🥺🥺🥺

Look at her! She is a six-legged, six-eyed slug cat called a Maret. Marets fill the same role as ocelots in Yssaia, except they're more semi-aquatic like otters and their skin has a stressball-like texture.

7. How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

They walk or ride Rumateurs (which are alpaca-like beings with ossicones) or take ships or airships or trains. I don't like writing about travel that much though so it is a background element.

8. What part of your wip are you working on rn?

I am pre-editing the first arc for my alpha readers and the third arc has another 50k to 100k words to draft. We're at like 250k words total right now and it is so unwieldy 😭😭😭

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

Oh, I have a convenient graphic for this. Hang on...

10. What are your hopes for your wip?

I was just diatribing about this earlier but the DREAM is to turn it into an RPGmaker adventure game and have it go viral and make a million bucks off it. I'd love to be the next Undertale but it'll never happen because I am not positioned to be the next Undertale, you know?

So yeah, that's what's what! Thanks again for the ask! This was so fun! I'm gonna pass this to @maiemorrae, @moonfeatherblue, @zebee-nyx, @winterandwords, @modernwritercraft, @words-after-midnight, @spideronthesun, @theprissythumbelina, @thepanplate, @thetruearchmagos, @maskedemerald, @moondust-bard, @pluttskutt and @emelkae 😍😍😍 I actually internalized Verba's WIP so well from this tag and I wanna make sure I'm updated on what all you cool people are working on! Open tag to any of my other moots too! 🥳

IMPORTANTTTTT⚠️

I will edit this to have a blank easily copy-and-pasteable question section when I get back to my computer. If I forget, @ me!

[creampuffqueen]

I saw that post you reblogged about being open to followers asking about your fanfics, so I'm going to take you up on that. I wanted to ask if you have a favorite among the works you did for the Yangvik Week, but maybe that would be too unfair. So my question is: can you tell us what you, the author, like about each of those works specifically, or if you have a favorite line from them? (Bonus: was there a challenging part?) It's always so interesting to hear a writer be meta about their process! Thank you 🩵

Ahhh thank you so much for asking!!! You’re right, choosing a favorite would be very difficult and would probably end in like. A 3 or 4 way tie lol. But i would absolutely love to share my thoughts on my fics and some of the behind-the-scenes things about writing them!!

Gonna go ahead and put this under a cut because i have zero doubt it will get very long haha. Read on for even more yangvik ramblings :) 

Cover Story: 

The part about this fic that was the most fun to write and the part that was the most difficult to write happened to be the same thing - figuring out their secret mission. I truly have to give my props to f.c yee here; writing spy missions is not as easy at it seems! I had to figure out a realistic way to get Yangchen and Kavik alone in a room together, AND in a situation where their only way out was to kiss, without it feeling too contrived. Which meant I was having to think of backups for my backups. A lot of “okay, here’s a way they could get out - how can I make that way impossible?” I truly am quite proud of how it all turned out in the end!

Another favorite part was undoubtedly writing Kavik being absolutely head over heels the entire time. It was the first time I’d written from his perspective, and his head is quite fun to be in. His pining definitely created a few of my favorite lines from this one, such as “In this room full of beautiful things, she’s still the most captivating.” Or “The glow from the fire makes her gray eyes look like molten pools of silver. For a moment, Kavik nearly forgets where he is.”

Also, this entire interaction: ““I think we’re a bit past caring about how I feel about a plan; tell me what it is.”

“You need to kiss me.”

“What?!””

I made myself absolutely cackle with delight when I wrote it. It was so fun.

And then I’ve already shared in another post how I ended up entirely rewriting the entire kiss scene. It just wasn’t hitting in the way I wanted, and I’m much, much happier with how it turned out when I wrote it the second time.

I’ve also particularly enjoyed seeing peoples’ interpretations of this one! Some people think that Yangchen is totally oblivious to how hard Kavik is crushing, while others think she totally knows but is pretending not to. I won’t give an answer as to which is correct, because I think it adds a lot more to be ambiguous enough that it could go either way!

i can’t read your mind (though i’m trying all the time):

Little warning here because this fic is nsfw, so if you’re not comfortable with that topic of discussion feel free to hop ahead to the next section!

I think of all the fics i wrote for yangvik week, this one was the most challenging. I came up with the premise for this fic (yangvik bathtub sex) well before yangvik week, but planning out my fics for the event gave me the motivation to actually Write It. But even after decided I wanted to write it, I spent a lot of time waffling around with it, not totally sure how I wanted to take it. Add in at the time I was really struggling with my self confidence as a writer, and that led to me just being generally unhappy with the whole thing. 

What ended up happening was that I put it on the back burner for a bit, wrote some of my other fics for the event, and then came back to it. Having finished some other fics gave me the little boost I needed to push past the corner I’d stuck myself in (what felt like at the time endless dialogue) and finally write the whole thing. 

Random side tangent: i did not write my yangvik week fics in order lol. It ended up being Day 1-4-2-3-5-6

Anyway. Favorite bits? Quite a few haha

“Yangchen’s eyes don’t leave his, stormy gray meeting ocean blue. Kavik would drown in them if she’d let him.” <- I posted this one as a snippet but I still just love it so much. They’re so utterly whipped for each other it’s crazy.

““Kavik, I’m tired,” Yangchen breathes.

His lips still. “Do you want me to stop?”

A pause. Then, slowly, she drags their joined hands upwards until one of his palms is cupping her breast, showing him where she wants to be touched.

“No. Don’t stop.””

^ I had been planning out this specific bit pretty much since I got the idea for this fic. So I’d been hanging onto this for a few months. Finally getting to write it down was so incredibly satisfying. I HAVE to write my scenes in chronological order. Sometimes if I have ideas for single lines or specific words I want to use I’ll write them down just so I remember, but if it’s an entire exchange like this I force myself to wait for it.

I originally intended to write this fic going at an even slower pace, which looking back now is kinda crazy haha. It’s already got quite a slow buildup. But when I was writing I came to the conclusion that things needed to heat up at least a little bit, hence all the heavy making out that happens. 

“Seated above him, Yangchen has to look downwards in order to connect their gazes. A queen sitting on her throne.” <- I was very proud of this line and the imagery it evokes, and I was very glad to hear that others felt the same! I had several people point out just how much they liked this part, and it’s always very gratifying as a writer to hear that a scene created the feelings you were going for.

The premise of this fic is basically Yangchen going “I want that man on his knees and whimpering” and Kavik going “yes ma’am”

Another random fun fact: it’s a blink and you’ll miss it kinda mention, but the thing that brings them both over the edge during this is making eye contact with each other ;) 

And last but not least, I find it very funny that this fic is the most popular of my yangvik week fics, at least according to the stats on ao3. It has by far the most comments, kudos, and hits. By a long shot. 

Oh my god, you guys are so horny!!! (says the horny bitch who wrote the fic)

Anywayyyyyyy

i’m glad i get forever to see where you went:

So, although this fic was certainly the one with the darkest topic, I think I enjoyed writing it the most. It was an extremely cathartic write, and while I was writing it the words just seemed to flow nonstop. The whole fic came so easily to me, and with very little prior planning. Part of it might be that it was a very different writing style than what I usually use, with it being a more broad overview of an ongoing situation rather than one specific point in time. I really enjoy fics written in that style, and I was very excited to finally create one of my own!

Now for some random notes about the content of the fic itself. I don’t think I mentioned this in the end notes of the fic itself, but there is a reason that Yangchen and Kavik are living near the Eastern temple rather than the Western. In some random, older A:TLA media, it was said that Yangchen retired to the Eastern Air Temple, and she spent her last few years living in a hermitage near the temple. I suppose that narratively it makes more sense for her to live in the west, but I decided to go with it to sort of keep it ‘canon compliant’. I wonder if that will ever get retconned now that we have more content about Yangchen.

But I digress. A part I really enjoyed about this fic was being able to intersperse all the heavy moments with little tidbits that show just how much these two love each other. Even aside from the big, grand, devotion that they show, I also liked showing that they still flirt, they still banter, they still cuddle and watch the sunset together. Just casual moments of a long-time love. 

“Life continues on, though. The endless wheel of time won’t stop turning, even for the most powerful being in the world.” <- Very proud of this line. It just came to me right in the moment and it felt so perfect. 

“Perhaps a part of him is just hoping they’ll adjust. She’s still Yangchen, whip-smart and compassionate and always ready with a quick remark. She’s still every bit the woman he fell in love with, just a bit more forgetful these days. They’ll get through it, surely.” <- Again, very proud of this part. It accomplished several things I wanted to convey: showing the passage of time, as this isn’t something that just happens overnight. It’s a slow, progressive thing. Also adding in some more slightly positive views of Yangchen, as I’d just put her through a whole lot in the previous scenes and felt I needed to add a reminder that despite it all, she’s still Yangchen. And lastly, also adding in Kavik’s sense of desperation that things get better. Or, at least, that things don’t get any worse.

“He loves her, though. The world is always changing, and nothing is ever constant. The deepest truth that he knows in his life is this: He loves Yangchen with everything he has, for everything she is.

He loves her. He squeezes her hand while she sleeps, finally at peace for a change, and hopes that it’s enough.”

^ Yet another part I love. I just really loved my writing in this whole fic. I don’t really have much to add but I just had to put it here because I love it so so much.

Now, for the final scene. I was considering having this not be the last scene. I was going to make it worse. I had a few ideas, all incredibly angsty. Something like Yangchen getting hurt (working ideas were her leaving the fire on and forgetting about it or getting into a situation where she needed to bend a certain element but forgetting she could bend it) or her actually forgetting Kavik’s name for little bit. But in the end it didn’t feel right for the direction I wanted to take this. I wasn’t writing angst for angst’s sake. I didn’t want to end the fic on such a bitter note, on a feeling that all was lost for good. There needed to be some hope still left. Which is why I ended up going the direction I did with it. 

I was veryyyyyy proud of myself for the total genius moment I had in the final scene. Namely, Yangchen starting to return to herself when Kavik hands her the glider. It’s very subtle because in these kind of situations, it’s not like the person comes back to the present all at once. It’s very gradual. But, if you read closely, Yangchen begins to calm down when she gets the glider. Both because it’s something familiar and personal, and because it’s meant to mirror the scene in Legacy where Kavik originally hands her back her glider. Now, in order for this to happen, I had to backtrack very far to get this moment. Like; okay, Kavik hands Yangchen the staff and it helps. Why does he bring the staff with him? Oh, what if he’s using it as a cane! But wait, I never wrote him as needing a cane in previous scenes. Ah, he gets out of bed too fast and pinches a nerve in his back! (sorry Kavik).

And last but not least, the final scene, where Yangchen finally admits out loud how scared she is and she and Kavik both cry, probably has to be my favorite scene of this entire fic. Possibly one of my favorite scenes that I’ve ever written. It was so incredibly cathartic to write. I’m being completely truthful when I say I teared up while writing it. Yes, it was incredibly devastating, but very beautiful in its own way. It was just the culmination and release of all the heartbreak earlier in the fic, and gave way to the wonderful moment of Kavik promising to always be there for her, whether she remembers him or not, which is everything she needs to hear in that moment. I just really love it.

Breakfast and a Braid:

This one was pretty short and sweet so there isn’t a whole lot to say about it writing wise haha. I think the biggest challenge was getting them to the point where Kavik could talk about what he was doing while braiding her hair without the situation feeling too forced or awkward. I think I ended up doing okay, though!

Also while writing this and looking through the fic I realized that I mentioned the gong of Jonduri… the gong is in Taku. *facepalm* I’m gonna have to go fix that at some point. Whoops. 

When Yangchen says that she doesn’t remember breakfast being delivered, it’s meant to imply that she was sleeptalking again, the way she did to Boma at the beginning of Legacy. And I’m not sure why but I enjoy the way I wrote her waking up at the start of the fic. I think it’s just some funny imagery, of her startling awake and throwing her papers everywhere.

Another thing about the writing process of this one is that the part that goes “Tangles removed, Kavik draws his hands smoothly through her thick tresses. Yangchen nearly arches into his hand, like a cat-goose getting its back scratched. If she could purr she’d probably be doing it.” actually had a duplicate paragraph written a few paragraphs before it. I’m very glad I read through this one again, because that would have been awkward lol. I ended up liking the second use of it more, so I rewrote the paragraph earlier in the fic so I could keep it in this spot. Still not totally sure how I basically managed to copy an entire paragraph without realizing it!

“Still, she can’t resist reaching behind her to grab at his collar, dragging Kavik towards her for a proper kiss. He puts up no resistance, grinning softly as Yangchen presses their lips together.” <- and of course, writing kisses is one of my favorite things, so it’s no surprise that it’s one of my favorite lines in this fic :) 

Something Nice:

Not entirely sure why, but of the 6 fics that i posted for yangvik week, this is probably my least favorite 😭😭. Again, no idea why. Like i can’t even pinpoint what i don’t like about it, but whenever i compare it to the others i wrote i just feel. Kinda ‘eh’ about it.

I am however still patting myself on the back for the bit about the wool on the kuspuk being from Nujian’s older sister. I very clearly remember having this complete enigma while planning it out and being like ‘YES ITS PERFECT IM A GENIUS!!!’. So that’s definitely a positive.

Other positives include writing some team Yangchen shenanigans. I really love Yangchen’s team avatar in the books, and so whenever i can i try and include them in my writing, even if it’s just a little mention. But being able to include full on conversations in this fic was very fun.

Although I don’t feel completely satisfied with how this fic turned out (again, for reasons I’m honestly not quite sure of) I do still have a favorite line. That being “Even after she calms, a small part of her wants to stay there forever, held in the little bubble of Kavik’s embrace, safe from the needs of the world.”. I just loved showing how safe Yangchen feels when she’s with Kavik, and how she can just be herself around him. 

The other part i really enjoyed writing with this one was the PINING. Oh the pining. It’s always so delicious. And then the moment at the end where Jujinta interrupts them hehe. I’m definitely a sucker for the ‘moment interrupted’ trope… which i’m now realizing might be a bit obvious considering my other works… oh… oh dear…

darlin’, oh, you see i’ve never felt this way before:

Almost all of my writing is very ‘flying by the seat of my pants’ style as I very rarely go into anything with a concrete plan, but this one was EXTRA off the top of my head. I had a vague idea and a vibe to go off of when I started writing, and I’m pretty pleased with the results!

A few highlights of writing this include: contriving ways to get Kavik shirtless, letting the air nomads be the thirsty mouthpiece of the fandom, and pretending I’m back in middle school and turning absolutely everything into a ‘that’s what she said’ joke

I included this fun fact in the notes on the ao3 version but if you only read it on tumblr you might have missed it! When Kavik is playing the string game with the kids and he makes a shape called ‘the polecat-wolverine’ it is for multiple reasons. 1. ‘The wolverine’ is an actual shape that can be made during the real life string game that Inuit and other Indigenous groups play, and 2. The name ‘Kavik’ means wolverine! He was showing the kiddos how to make his name :) 

I also loved getting to include some more air nomad culture in my writing. The ‘holy day’ they are celebrating is completely made up, but loosely inspired by the Thai Buddhist festival of Songkran. As well, the nature of many of the conversations in this fic led me to basically do a deep dive into how i think the 4 nations view sex, desire, sexuality, etc. Which then led me to retroactively go in to throw in some demisexual Yangchen vibes, which is my personal headcanon of her sexuality.

I think the biggest challenges in writing this fic were, first of all, having little more than a vibe as my concept, and then also figuring out how to spin the ‘jealousy’ prompt into a way that I liked. I very much wanted to stay away from the usual interpretation of jealousy, as I simply don’t think it fits Yangchen and Kavik’s relationship with each other. So I did my best to show that Yangchen isn’t jealous of the other nuns because they’re ‘trying to steal her man’ or that she’s jealous and thinks Kavik will like another girl more than her or anything like that. She’s jealous because she already has to share so much of herself with the world, and doesn’t want to share what she has with Kavik as well. She isn’t at all threatened by other women appreciating his good looks, but she gets very bothered when the conversation starts veering towards more personal things about him. Hence why she stops the teenagers’ conversation when one of them mentions his ‘dreamy eyes’ when the other two had previously been saying far more suggestive things.   

Yet another challenging part of this write was when I decided I wanted to go down the love confession route. I wanted to make it clear that it WAS a love declaration, but without an ‘I love you’. Again, I feel very strongly that Yangchen and Kavik never fully define their relationship. It just… is. So it was a fun challenge to try and write something akin to a confession/declaration without going the typical route. I did consider having them say the Big L Word, but I couldn’t manage to fit it in where I mentioned it was the first time they said it, but at the same time didn’t make it this super huge deal. Of course they already know they love each other; they don’t need to be waxing poetic about it to make it clear, though. I’m pretty happy with what I managed instead!

There are so many standout lines in this one that i adore, but I think most of them come from the final part. I love a good ‘sleepy pillow talk in the morning after’ kind of vibe (in fact, I’ve been considering adding a part 2 to ‘the push' set the morning after) so it was lovely to get to include one here.

I’m very especially proud of the imagery right here: “Yangchen wakes up in shades, consciousness seeping into her bones with each exhale of breath. The pre-dawn light creeps through her window, casting the room in a soft, dreamlike haze.”

And again with this one: “He stretches, long and languid, yawning so widely that Yangchen can hear his jaw pop. His fingers tangle with those already on his cheek, bringing her hand to his mouth so he can begin to kiss his way up her arm, tracing the pattern of her tattoos.” (non-lip kisses my ABSOLUTE BELOVED).

“Rather than fall further into her trap, Kavik shuts her up by tackling her into the bed, making her shriek with laughter when his hands dig into her sides to tickle her mercilessly.” <- I really loved how I portrayed Yangchen in this whole part. She deserves to just let loose and be silly!!!!

“Avatar Yangchen belongs to the world before anything else. Yangchen will always be the Avatar; even in death her spirit will remain to continue the cycle. She holds the world’s biggest blessing and its heaviest burden. It will always have a claim over her.

But right here, her world is just this: the blue of Kavik’s eyes, the safety of his arms, and the love that she can feel pouring out of his very being.”

^ Made myself almost cry with the duality of it all. He’s literally her safe space. I’m never gonna feel normal about them.

This ended up getting… so long lol. If you stayed til the end, thank you very much! I hope you enjoyed getting some insight into my writing thoughts and parts I enjoyed about creating my fics! And again, thank you so much for the ask!!!

[thevioletcaptain]

WRITING MEME: *steeples fingers* talk to me about a WIP you've got goin' on

This is such an impossible open-ended question for my indecisive brain because I have far too many works in progress and just choosing which one to talk about is hard 😭 But let's give this a try.

Gonna take the roulette approach (opening my WIP folder, closing my eyes, scrolling up and down several times, and then clicking without looking) to save myself from The Initial Struggle.

OKAY. The WIP I landed on is an as-yet-wholly-unpublished DeanCas fic titled One More Chain Does the Maker Make. Whoo!

Here's an assortment of bullet-point notes about it!

The premise: 15.06-adjacent alternate canon fic! Jack kills Chuck before they even know he's been resurrected, and his influence on the world--and on Dean in particular--lifts away. Dean leaves, fearing that Cas won't feel comfortable coming back to the bunker to see Jack if he's still there, and also because he feels the need to be on his own for a while as he figures out who he is without Chuck pulling his strings. He goes no-contact, and ends up working on Jesse & Cesar's ranch, where he eventually realizes that he's gay, and that Chuck's manipulations ran even deeper than he'd thought.

Yeah, that's right -- it's a gay!Dean fic, which I've wanted to write for a while. It's been a really compelling concept to explore, considering everything else I've written has been bi!Dean, and once I started thinking about it from the Chuck-manipulation angle I knew I had to write it.

The title is a lyric from The Maker Makes by Rufus Wainwright, which I didn't realize was written specifically for Brokeback Mountain until right now when I went to find a youtube link.

It's a rare fic for me in that Dean legitimately doesn't already know that he's in love with Cas. He's felt it for a long time, but Chuck has been fucking with him so intensely that it's very much been an allegory of the cave situation. He's been looking at the shadows of his love, but now that the chains are gone, he can look at it directly.

Dean stays on Jesse & Cesar's ranch for several months overall, and when he eventually reaches out to Cas it sets off a long period of writing emails to one another, then texting, then calling. The epistolary section of the fic is HEAVY on the pining and it's been a lot of fun to write.

This fic also features a favorite trope of mine: namely that Dean looks at Cas in his ill-fitting suit and dumpy trenchcoat and sees an absolute brick house stud, while the person he's just been gushing about him to looks and sees Just Some Guy.

Dean! Befriends! A horse!

There's also a subplot with a radio show, but I'll save further details on that for when I eventually post it.

I hope this was at least somewhat interesting! Thanks for the ask <3

If anyone wants to know more about this fic, or another WIP, or something I've posted on Ao3, feel free to send an ask :)

[torturedblue]

All my thoughts and theories of this adorable clip:

Guys the soundtrack in the background sounds so good and epic, and I’m so loving the use of hip hop and rap in every trailer. You forget how effective black music is for action movies too considering how little it’s used comparatively. And it’s another thing about this movie that gives off Spider-verse vibes 👏🏽

Oml guys MM Leo is just like 2012 he’s such a dork and he gets all pouty all the time and the way Raph trolls him about it is just like the 2012 duo 🥹

I’m sorry the way Leo smiles so much while reciting that horrible speech??? 😂 like it doesn’t matter what Splinter tells them it is gold that he will gobble up even if it is objectively prejudice

Speaking of which, “I know that’s objectively prejudice but it’s what Dad taught us” line is so relatable to most kids today like yikes what a motto of the 21st century

But it really makes me wonder what Splinter’s backstory is going to be in this iteration considering no other version has hated or had a gripe with the human race as far as I’ve seen. I assumed he was going to be formerly human too, although this clip makes it seem that might not be the case, but if he still is I think that makes his speech to the kids much more interesting and honestly hilarious because if any of us were in his position would we tell them much differently? I mean come on that “they lust to murder that which is different from them” is so spot on. And honestly we already teach kids everything else he said too when it comes to strangers 😂 humans are bad, don’t say hi, humans are everything wrong with this planet, do not interact or you will die 👍🏽

“We wouldn’t have K-Pop without humans!” Wtf he’s so pure ugh

“I’d love to have a champagne brunch with Tom Brady” OMG GUYS HE’S JUST SO PROPER AND DORKY AGH

“Drake! That guy is the GOAT of all time.” I’m sorry did I hear that right 😂 sweet simple Raph ya gotta know what the terms mean if you’re gonna use modern slang

“Guy Fieri seems like a fun hang” ooooh continuing with the Mikey is the cook character trope maybe?

I really think this whole bit here is an interesting way of setting up the mutants vs human premise of the movie with the turtles in the middle of it all. Especially the way Leo recites that anti-human speech so whole-heartedly but also still acknowledges that they all disagree with Splinter about how cool humans are. Especially since they likely keep their own beliefs about it from their Dad, which again, so relatable to kids of old-fashioned parents today

“oOh i’M tHe lEaDeR. You sound like you have bronchitis!” They way they mock and roast him is just too much and too accurate 😂 also I just love their overlapping conversational moments

Other thoughts:

Also I gotta say in these released clips Leo is pouting or anxious half of the time while his bros are always having fun and I just gotta see how much that’s amplified in the entirety of the movie… Like it makes it seems like he must feel some kind of rift between him and his brothers sometimes and I want to see if that’s true

These kids are truly on their own… They at least start off keeping their fondness of humans from Splinter, they still can’t interact with humans either way, they find a group of mutants like them and seem to hit it off at first but then it just turns a whole fiasco where they have to defend humans from them, and at some later point we know when they do interact with/are exposed to humans it does not go well. I’m so excited to see how they tackle that post-climactic depressive section of the movie where the boys are really feeling the weight of all of it. Like, not too many clips have been released and there’s already so much isolation on their end. I’m glad April will at least be one positive outlet for them

[gothark]

Books I've read in August 2024:

And what I thought about them:

The Water Outlaws - I genuinely feel bad for how bored I was reading this book. I was so excited by the premise but it felt like literally nothing was happening. It took me days to get through this and it really shouldn't have on page count alone.

3.25 Stars

Siege and Storm - This was just so mid, there is only one character I liked in this and even him I didn't really like at the end anymore lol mostly I was busy being annoyed by our main characters and their stupid, stupid choices.

3.25 Stars

Ruin and Rising - I was so glad to be done with the series xD I only read it so I could have the context for reading Six of Crows with a friend. I don't regret it but I certainly could have spent my time reading better books lol

3 Stars

Golden Son - my beloved. I genuinely cannot explain what the Red Rising Series makes me feel but I'm just here for the ride and enjoying literally every second. So down bad for this series.

5 Stars

StreamLine - I read this as an ARC and man I really enjoyed this. That SAO nostalgia but actually good even now and some really good representation. I have a longer review here:

4.5 Stars

The Titan's Curse - Obligatory Rick Riordan book of the month because he hasn't disappointed me yet (and I don't think he will in the future lol) Just had a really good time with this one

5 Stars

A Gathering of Shadows - it was fiiiiine. I wished so much more from the tournament arc just to be really disappointed xD but this series is growing on my like a mind controlling fungus and I think I'm slowly loosing the battle (help) still just

3.5 Stars

The Last Sun - Oh I really liked this one, really good urban fantasy (with men kissing, my favorite) but it just missed that one tiny thing I can never describe that makes a book 5 stars for me. I loved this book but it just didn't give me that spark. Hopefully further down the series!

4.75 Stars

Scythe - another one I really wanted to like and just didn't. The world building was so interesting (if very fragile in my opinion) but the characters were just.... flat. I didn't feel for any of them and that was kinda the important part lol they just felt a little two dimensional to me.

3.25 Stars

Punk 57 - oh I really disliked this one. I hate bullies, i hate bully romances and that was basically all this was. Add some cringe pop culture and song lyric sections, topped with some really uncomfortable smut and you have basically everything I dislike lol

1 Star

Trial of the Sun Queen - The world building of this book is as solid as the foam in the bathtub of an overenthuisiastic toddler. It doesn't do anything new, or particularly well, it was very predictable and I was just really uncomforatble most of the time while reading this.

2.5 Stars

The Resurrectionist - Another ARC this month and dear lord, this was everything I wanted. I loved the premise, the plot, the characters and I will buy this book so hard when it comes out. Say anything bad about this and you can come catch these hands.

5 Stars

The Fox and the Dryad - I did like this book... mostly. The relationship was cute but would have been cuter if it had less... you know... lying. It's another one of those were characters just need to open their mouths and talk to each other. Also the mentions of designer brands were genuinely driving me insane. I wanted to cry each time they are mentioned (which is too often)

4.5 Stars

[thatforgottenbasilisk]

FIC MASTERPOST!!

Hi, I'm Basil, I write fanfics sometimes. Some of them are fun and funky AUs, so feel free to send asks about them! I'll elaborate on anything, even if it's a oneshot from forever ago. There's bound to be something from it rattling around in my brain that wasn't fully discussed in the fic!

Here's my AO3

My writing tag on tumblr (I can't guarantee you'll find everything you're looking for on here, and I absolutely can't guarantee you won't find posts that are just. Links to AO3. So honestly it's best to go to AO3)

How to Request/Commission a Fic from me

Be Warned: I do write crossover fics. They have their own dedicated section on here :) Additionally, some stuff that's currently on my AO3 will not be linked here- anything before 2021 is a no go. You're free to read it, though! It's just for fandoms that I'm unlikely to write for again, so I'm not going to bait people like that by putting it on the list. Also, I was an infant when I wrote those fics.

Other than that, the list is below the cut!

CHALLENGE FICS, MISCELLANEOUS WORKS, AND ONESHOTS

Okay, right off the bat, there's no way I can individually link and describe all of my oneshots. There's too many. Here's what I can do:

Link all of my fics that came from tumblr asks

Link all of my BTHB fics (I do have a second card that I'll bring back eventually for prompts from tumblr)

Link all of my Afohiko (All for One x Gran Torino) fics, which is mostly oneshots

Link my Whumptober 2023 fics, which are all oneshots. No, not all of them have been posted yet, but IT'S GONNA HAPPEN

Link my Febuwhump 2024 fics, which are MOSTLY oneshots. No, not all of these have been posted yet, either, but they WILL

Link my Tim Stoker is Entity Catnip series, which are all fics where Tim gets picked up by different Entities. Mostly oneshots

There are more oneshots that are not in any of these series-es! This is because I'm insane! They'll be found in their respective fandom categories.

MY HERO ACADEMIA

MHA is my most written-for fandom. If you're exclusively in one of the other fandoms on this list, I apologize for the scroll in advance. This section is in alphabetical order, by the way.

Incomplete Fics

the gremlin zone - Your garden-variety group chat themed crack fic. It's centered around the Todoroki siblings, and also I'm halfway convinced that it's sentient. The plot goes without my consent. Don't ask what's going to happen in its future because I know just as much as you do

how to live with yourself - Fuyumi killed a guy when she was 13. That's it, that's the premise, except for the fact that it's slowly revealed that there may be more to this AU than just that. Some people have their secrets, and it's only a matter of time before they all come out one way or another.

in love i've always been a mercenary - Shimura Nana harbors a fugitive who's trying to go legit, except for the fact that the fugitive is All for One's ex-husband and there are some details that just don't add up quite right.

One Loop at a Time - Your garden-variety time loop themed crack fic. This one has slow updates; I have this awful habit of writing one chapter of a thing and taking forever to continue it, and this fic is a victim of that AND its chapters are long as hell. If you're willing to deal with that, it's a time loop where each member of 1-A (and possibly more!) is slowly brought into the loop, and they slowly go from "normal 1-A" to "crack 1-A" as the loop keeps. On. Going.

Sins of the Father - Midoriya Izuku is the son of All for One. This means that he's All for One's most prized possession, in addition to his own personal attack dog. There's no hope of escape, and even if there were, would he even deserve to take that opportunity?

some heroes wear masks (some of those masks are stolen) - Midoriya Izuku is quirkless, jobless, and completely down on his luck. Mom's bills are only getting higher, while Dad's contributions and her paychecks are only getting smaller. There's an offer for anyone available, a huge payout for whoever takes it, except that it comes with the territory of being a villain. Izuku needs that payout, but he can clear his conscience while he's at it.

We all fall apart - Touya and Fuyumi were both trained by Endeavor to be heroes. Both of them are dead. Natsuo desperately wants to protect Shouto, Shouto just wants him to live a life for himself, and neither of them are okay. The Todoroki family is a wreck, and to top it all off, there's no way in hell that Dabi is anything human.

Incomplete Series

Everyone's a Hero (1-A Fics) - Okay, this one's full of fics that are disconnected from each other. They're all different AUs. The one thing they have in common is that each and every one of them focuses on a member of Class 1-A, even the ones that don't get much characterization or screentime. They all get a fic. As of right now, it only contains one fic, but more will be added soon!

The Phantom of Shinomori Prefecture - Fuyumi is the Baby Driver of this AU. She's also in contact with Dabi. Endeavor has a ton of fancy cars that he doesn't drive, Rei's a Russian immigrant, and Touya and Fuyumi both drive like maniacs.

the todofam-plus-izuku's adventures in vigilantism - Izuku decides to be a vigilante. Natsuo is an established vigilante. There will be more of them.

Complete Fics

All the eggshells are on the ground - Oneshot. Villain Gran Torino and Hero Shimura Nana. They're... kind of a thing? She can fix him

And so the gods were pulled down from the Heavens / And so the gods were pulled up from the Earth - Oneshot. Something about old gods?? I don't remember tbh I wrote this a long time ago. Funky narration tho

Blackjack - Oneshot. Touya knows how to count cards. He still remembers it years later, when he goes by Dabi instead.

The Inconstant Nature of Hatred (it's a spark, it's a flame, it's a dying ember but it's not gone yet) - Oneshot. Dabi character study, also from a long time ago. He thinks on his situation, just before he gets the call to join the League.

Sharpened Teeth (Won't Be Broken) - Oneshot. Toga Himiko meets a responsible healthcare provider who follows child protection protocols!! Amazing!!

THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

TMA is my second-most written for fandom, and before you ask, no I have not listened to Protocol yet. You will know when I do, trust me. Again, this section is in alphabetical order.

Incomplete Fics

fireworks (and their ashes) - Tim is a Desolation Avatar, and post-Unknowing, he Becomes and then he abandons the Archives/Institute. Jon wakes up from his coma and everything kind of goes to shit? It gets better. Mostly.

Jonathan Sims Is Dead In The End - So you know how "The Archivist goes back to their S1 body and does time travel fix-it from there" is a whole genre of TMA fics at this point? Yeah. This is that. Except the Archivist isn't Jon, and the original timeline is nothing like our original timeline. Also, the ending isn't all that happy, in case the title didn't clue you in already.

the unofficial adventures of the unofficial archive group chat - Your garden-variety group chat themed crack fic. Archival assistants start a group chat, uncover a conspiracy, and act terminally stupid, not necessarily in this order. This is another fic that I'm half-convinced is somewhat sentient. I don't have any input on this plot

Watchers - Tim Stoker is an unwilling agent of Beholding. This is set before the Unknowing, so a big learning curve is happening for both himself and Jon. Also, I'm still taking bets on what the endgame ship is going to be, because I know myself well enough to know there will be a ship but I have no idea who's going to be involved in it.

Complete Fics

Elias Bouchard: Post-Mortem - Twoshot. Jonah Magnus decides to possess some loser Elias Bouchard, except "some loser" Elias apparently had some secrets that even Jonah isn't in on.

Goodbye, from a Human Monster to an Inhuman Beast - Oneshot. Annabelle Cane waits for the apocalypse.

TMA/MHA CROSSOVERS

Yes, this specific fandom crossover has its own section. I'm terminally insane.

Incomplete Fics

Closed Doors - Todoroki Rei is a Lukas on her father's side. This has had a marked effect on the Todoroki family. Additionally, some other suspicious things are afoot, and Japan is becoming more dangerous by the day. Nobody is safe from the games being played by those in the shadows.

The Series (!!)

These Statements Certainly Have Their Quirks (Main Series) - The Series. When I refer to "my crossover verse," this is what I'm talking about. Jonathan Sims thinks that something's going down in Japan, so he takes Statements from prominent individuals who may be involved.

TMA/BNHA crossover brainrot <3 - The exact same as the above, but this series also contains bonus content and AUs directly branching off of the above AU. Hence, it's marked as incomplete, so that I can keep writing bonus Statements and things even though the main series is complete :)

Complete Fics

Red Spatter - Oneshot. Statement of Todoroki Touya, regarding his younger sister. Blood/violence warning

Replacement (The Grape Needs to Go) - Oneshot. Mineta is replaced by Shinsou. I mean this very literally.

Shadow's Call - Oneshot. Statement of Uraraka Ochako, regarding recent power outages at her high school.

MISCELLANEOUS OTHER CROSSOVERS

Still terminally insane. There will be more in this section! I have a MHA/Tokyo Ghoul crossover in the works! It's going to be actually started when I don't have so many WIPs but there will be more!!

Complete Fics

hell isn't hot (not when the cold is so much worse) - Oneshot. Goncharov/TMA crossover, written in- you guessed it- November of 2022. Fun fact this is my only fic that has a podfic as of right now

I've got you / Under my skin - Oneshot. Unwind Dystology/TMA crossover, written mostly because I could. Hayden Upchurch is an Avatar of the Web, and if you know who that guy is, you understand a very particular kind of mental illness that this series inflicted upon me when I was a child.

Complete Series

Buzzfeed Unsolved/Markiplier Cinematic Universe (MCU) - Series. Buzzfeed Unsolved investigates Markiplier Manor from WKM. Just barely scrapes past the "nothing from before 2021" rule by virtue of procrastinating the last chapter until 2022. It's cute and silly and very 2019. The idea of doing more fake Unsolved episodes for fandom things is still kind of silly to me :) A little tempting :) (i am not implying anything directly but if you come to my askbox then maybe)

[doubledyke]

hey, i’ve read some of your writing and i really like it. do you have any tips?

aw dude that's really sweet. i'm really self conscious about everything i write so i appreciate hearing that. i'm still learning myself, so my advice is probably gonna be kind of obvious yet nebulous (much like my writing). oh and im not great at following my own advice, but we can ignore that.

first and foremost i'd say try to have fun. get weird with it. don't stress too much about it. it's supposed to be an enjoyable pastime, so write what YOU like, how you like. the "rules" of grammar and composition are helpful, but you're allowed to be a lot more lax with creative writing. i know i am 👀

in my humble opinion, you can never have too many details, even- or especially- oddly specific ones. personal experiences are a great way to inject some minutiae, and i enjoy the insight they provide into the author's perspective, background, thought process, etc.. there are infinite other tools at your disposal too. like the number of times i've found myself browsing ancient, niche forums just to confirm one insignificant bit of information is ridiculous.

don't be afraid to take your story as seriously or unseriously as you want. sometimes i'll be snapped out of focus with the thought of "am i really writing this rn" 😂 but i just try to remind myself that i'm (usually) having fun, i'm not hurting anyone and someone might even enjoy the final product.

for eene, try to listen to the voice acting as much as you watch the animation. and don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone when writing a character. i'm neither comfortable, nor very good at writing for ed, but i nutted up and gave it a shot recently and yeah it's nuclear level cringe but i suppose it can't get any worse, right? RIGHT???.... i love learning new words, so when i'm writing for edd (and in general) you know i keep that thesaurus tab open. with eddy, there's always room for more irreverence. i'm also one of those people that cannot help but drop almost every g when i write eddy. and it's just as important to get their idiolects down, which can be tricky. BUT that's mostly if your goal is to stay close to the source material, which is definitely not necessary. i'm just not a very creative person 😂

if you're in a rut, skip to another section, or hell even another chapter. the fic i'm working on rn was hatched from a simple premise several months ago, so i started at the end and have been building on that. an unconventional starting point can be really helpful when you're struggling to start at all. because i'm me, it's turned into a nightmare beast that i can't seem to contain, but i still have a general idea of where we're going and we'll get there eventually lmfao. to that point, outlines, bullet points, notes, etc. are all very useful.

take breaks, let her sit for a while. i'll write a whole bunch, leave, come back to review and be like girl what the hell is this. fresh eyes make a big difference! however, don't be like me and get too caught up in the weeds. i make compulsive little tweaks of my shit up to the point and even after i hit post. more often than not, it's more stress than it's worth. i just can't help it 🥴

and then of course, read other people's stuff. i'm not much of a fiction reader but i make exceptions for the sake of my hyper-fixation. it truly does help to see different perspectives and styles of writing. everyone has a unique voice that really comes through in creative writing, which i love. i've gleaned a lot from reading other people's work as well. i frequently come across new and creative ideas for changing up sentence structure, dialogue tags and narration by reading stuff from fellow fans.

aaaaaand yeah idk what else really. like i said, i'm not the best at writing but i think as long as you're getting your ideas across in the way that you want to, you're golden. anyone who makes shitty remarks about someone else's writing can sit and spin honestly.

[owlf45]

hi, i really hope you don't mind me asking this, but i love candor and i absolutely love seeing author behind-the-scenes stuff, so i was wondering if we could maybe hear more about how the original premise of candor changed to what it is today? it seems like it was originally very different. it'd also be so cool seeing how you outlined candor (if you did?), because seeing how other ppl do it is so so interesting, esp when you're a writer yourself

if you don't want to though, it's no trouble. i hope you have a wonderful day!

i finished typing the og idea up and it goddamn forever so the tl;dr is, it was the same simulation idea but with more contrived rules, ending with izuku outsmarting a bastard vestige afo. the long version is underneath the read more section. it should be a heading, its also underneath all the outline bullshit.. which, speaking of:

okay. so. how did i outline candor.

truthfully, i had a rough outline that i just. had in the original document and that i deleted + added to as i continued writing. which is partially why it spiralled out of control, because i just kept adding more stuff. my outline was very vibe based. at the top of my outline i had a rough direction of how i wanted to go through the holders, like so:

Sixth → Second → Sixth → Fifth → Seventh → Fourth → First → loop between death a few times → Third → Nine

and then i had important scene outlined underneath that describe how it jumped from one holder to another (for example, fourth and first had interconnected themes of isolation, so i could easily jump from fourth's loneliness to first's vault scenes). the beginning, the thread of which ofa users i was moving through, and the ending was the most outlined and concrete things i had planned. everything else was just. vibes. me vibing. me going insane. what motifs i wanted to express and what lessons i wanted the holders to teach izuku, basically.

obviously i changed a lot because my outline was very superfluous. much of what i outlined in the beginning changed, although the ending remained a constant goal in my mind, so i wasn't all that concerned.

here's a (snippet) of an active outline i still had 110 pages into the project:

OUTLINE BULLSHIT

Sixth → Second → Sixth → Fifth → Seventh → Fourth → First → loop between death a few times → Third → Nine 

“Boss said it himself”-- “his quirk doesn’t react well to people who pry where they don’t belong” 

Izuku experiences all the holders’ deaths

SECONDS DEATH PLS PLS PLS 

Cycling through all the quirks 

Smile motif 

Idealism 

Bullet bounces, bounces, bounces

Sixth meets up with them, asks if he’s okay

They see the event where workplace discrimination is outlawed based on mutant quirks

Someone hugs Izuku and is so happy that they cry 

Screaming and hollering for pure happiness 

Cheering and singing 

Katsuki as a kid (very cute, very small) 

Monoma asking if the projection is necessary

All the suits in the wash

Underground heroes were their own thing, had their own hero gestures not even the Commission could crack. Not always legal, blurred the lines, played the bigger picture so they could get shit done 

Commission hated them bc they knew everything. If they tried to not pass a bill protecting heroes, the undergrounders knew immediately. Had a underground hero family-sys, anyone too competitive/recluse/sellout would be excluded from information networks and could fail/die (created a culture of very loyal, buddy system, etc of heroes) 

Ofa not helping as much bc theres a villain fight 

Your quirk will blow off your own limbs if you tried to use it right now 

When’s the first time you used it??

The entrance exam 

“I  predict in a few holders… it’ll kill them within just 3 or 4 years. Having the quirk, I mean”

Youve had your quirk for two weeks and all of your classmates have had them for 10 years

You need to catch up

Everyone is stronger than you right now

You have maybe two years before All For One comes for you 

He doesn’t know you have OFA now but he will soon 

He’s like a child using his quirk for the first time

Broke all the bones in your body… you wont ever have function of your hands the same way

“Performance is abysmal..”

Monoma: “Lucky, you have a strength quirk! I’m sure you’ve always been loved and supported! Could you imagine having a quirk society actually hates…?” 

Shinsou: “You don’t know what it’s like to be hated for something you don’t have any control over” 

Sixth saying “Hopefully in a next life I’ll get another strength quirk instead” 

“We need stronger quirks. Quirks that can overpower All For One” 

Scene where Izuku stumbles into a park, it’s calm, and a younger Katsuki is staring at him 

“A hero?” Katsuki is barely 5 when he looks at Izuku. “Don’t make me laugh. You’re just a quirkless Deku.” 

Garaki: “It’s because of the double joint, you see. It’s a common marker for those who are quirkless.” 

Mom: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Quirkless statistics say that less likely to be hired, more likely to commit suicide, etc.” 

“I don’t think it’s discriminatory, I think it just makes sense. I mean, if you have a choice between identical candidates and one’s quirkless and one whos made of slime that smells like shit, I’m going to choose the guy who makes the office a little more interesting! It’s not that deep!” 

“We’ve become a eugenecist society where we want to hide or villainize quirks that aren’t ‘good’, and we want the quirkless to disappear entirely” 

Slime Villain slowly chokes him out, makes him lose his consciousness slowly 

Mom’s “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” 

His advisor’s glazed eyes skim across the page. When he reaches the bottom, the man looks up at Izuku. “You understand why this isn’t rational, Midoriya,” the man says. “Heroism is a very dangerous field. It’s impossible if you’re quirkless.” “I—” Izuku stutters out. His advisor pushes his glasses higher up his face and crumples the piece of paper in his hand. Izuku watches as his words and dreams get smashed and curled. The advisor throws it into the trash by his desk. Izuku stares at the pink crumpled ball. The man reaches across his desk to pull out a fresh slip of paper and a simple black pen. He slides both in front of where Izuku sits. “We still have a few minutes,” the man says tiredly. “Write something more realistic down. Like, I don’t know… a librarian? You like reading, don’t you?” 

“Be realistic” 

“A hero? You can’t just be a hero because you like them. Just because you know every fact about them, isn’t going to make you suddenly strong enough” 

“Strong? Deku? Don’t make me laugh”

Izuku applying to UA scene, classroom laughing/Katsuki bullying scene 

“Hey, I’ve got a good idea… why don’t you just take a swan dive off a roof” 

“Can you become a hero…? No, I don’t think so” - All Might 

Youll just get murdered by the time you master your quirk

Everyone’s ahead

“This is your starting line!”

Jeez, he’s like a toddler with his quirk

You have to catch up

“Poor little useless Deku, crying again like a baby”

Youll die in two years

You’re not ready

Screaming

He has all that power and none of the skill. He doesn’t even have his own quirk. He’s wasting every opportunity he has 

He’s the Ninth one and he’s the least prepared out of all of us

He’s the last one and when he screws up, this entire legacy is gone! All our efforts go to waste! 

“You’re lucky. You’ve never had to understand what it’s like to have a quirk that turns everyone against you” 

You’ll never be enough

The heat on his shoulders grows to be unbearable 

The voices stop as Izuku stands behind his desk, which has his hero name carved into the wood 

Trying to remember who Deku is to him

“You’re Nine,” the man says. “You’re safe. You’re grounded. These are not your memories. We can leave at any time.” 

Izuku just stares frozen at it for several minutes

When he sits beneath the desk, he has to stop himself from crying 

He reminds himself what his other classmates have been through like Iida losing his brother to remember that its just words 

He finally croaks out: 

“I’m trying. I’m trying. Isn’t that enough?” 

Rubs his face, stands up, hollowly goes back through memories 

Goes thru all the memories back and forth, sticks thru All Might telling him he can be a hero to gain some courage

Gets back to the scene where All Might said he couldnt when it finally clicks 

“Oh, duh” 

“Oh, duh” 

“Oh,” Izuku says. “Duh.” Take a swan dive off a roof. 

The reason why he started as Sixth’s memory. If he got it from the start he could’ve avoided it all 

When he realizes it, the other holders all arrive and try to stall. Izuku reveals that he knows what he has to do, but he says that they’re not going to like it 

Gives them all whiteboards 

Wakes up in a safehouse with a kettle and sticky note explaining what’s going on 

As you can see, there's a lot going on here. A lot changed, a lot was scrapped. You have some developed scenes and some one-off. The important part was getting a string that connected these in a way that felt natural, eventually culminating into Izuku's breaking point.

this is a very, very small chunk of what the outline was altogether at all stages of the project. but its a good representation of what i put together for each user. this is a very izuku-heavy section. the odds and ends were parts i wanted to go back and add at a later time when i thought of them. manyyyy of the scenes i wrote for earlier chapters were written when i was much further into the fic. i just kept thinking of new things to add.

OG CANDOR IDEA

okay. so basically the og idea was the same: mental simulation, involved the school, blah blah, except Izuku actually remembered he was in a simulation. In the og idea, it was All For One that took control of the simulation and dragged Izuku into the mental vault, basically trapping him away from where the other holders could reach him. The simulation worked the same as in the final version, so that Izuku had to 'complete' a certain objective. AFO took advantage of this by defining the objectives himself, and Izuku accepted those objectives as truth, forcing the simulation to basically.. warp around that contract?

The objectives were this: there were nine cups izuku could drink from, the eighth one was full of medicine, and drinking from the ninth cup would let him escape the simulation at any time. while he drank from each of the other eight cups, the ninth cup would fill proportionally (it was a much taller glass than the other ones), and if it overflowed, the whole simulation would restart. finally, one vestige had to die.

Izuku couldn't see the 'shadowed figure' who was explaining the simulation's rules to him, so izuku didn't know it was All For One. (The fic started with him waking up, sitting a table with nine cups and a shadowed figure across from him.) The first seven cups held the memories of the seven dead OFA holders. as izuku drank from the cups, he would see their memories. however, the 'liquid' in each of the cups was basically a mental poison. so izuku was poisoning himself more and more in different ways, but he couldn't stop drinking from the cups unless he wanted one of the vestiges to die.

in between drinks, izuku basically unraveled the mystery of his 'guest' (which he eventually figured out was afo), and the people he was saving (the ofa vestiges), and where he was located (the mental vault in ofa). it would constantly reference izuku's (the ninth) cup, which was filling up higher and higher, and it also eventually referenced how the ofa holders in the simulation were trying to break open the vault door.

eventually, izuku clears the first seven cups, and he's about to try and stave off the 'poison' that's killing him w/ toshinori's (medicine/eighth) cup. However, at this point AFO relishes in pointing out the 'final decision' he's forced to make:

if izuku drinks from the eighth cup to cure the poison, he'll cause the ninth cup to overflow at this point, restarting the whole simulation.

if izuku drinks the ninth cup, the condition 'a vestige must die' wouldn't be fulfilled, so the simulation would reset.

if izuku did nothing, the poison would kill him

So basically, izuku was going to be stuck in a constant loop of resetting until he gave up and let himself die

but! alas! izuku outsmarts afo because it never said how or which vestige had to die. so izuku goes off the fucking rails bc at this point, the ninth cup has all seven different poisons from the first seven cups, so he throws it on afo and bam! fight scene! and then he kills afo's vestige within ofa, escapes the vault just as the other ofa holders burst into the vault, and then he wakes up in a cold sweat in the gym at UA to all of his classmates being like "what the fuk!"

anyway. aha. there you go. if you were wondering why it took so damn long to answer this... this is why. hope this sated ur curiosity!

[melanielocke]

Book recommendations: retellings part 1

I love a good retelling. So much so that I had to split the retelling section in two, possibly three parts or there'd be too many books to fit into a picture properly. I love getting creative with old and familiar stories, while other books retell stories I wasn't that familiar with at all.

I'm starting with Six Crimson Cranes and the Dragon's Promise

The first book is an East Asian inspired retelling of the swan princess, I'm not sure if the second book is a retelling of anything. If you don't know the swan princess, the basic premise is that the evil stepmother sorceress turns the princess' brothers into swans and she has to find a way to undo the curse.

The series follows Shiori, the princess and youngest child of the emperor. In Kiata, magic is locked away and forbidden, but Shiori was born with magic and had to keep is hidden away. At the day of her betrothal ceremony, she loses control and catches the attention of her stepmother Raikama, who uses her own dark magic to turn her brothers into cranes and curses Shiori so that when she speaks one of her brothers will die. Voiceless and alone, she has to find her brothers and undo the curse.

These books really feel and read like a fairytale, and while I am not super familiar with the swan princess I like how elements of the fairytale are woven into the book. Pun intended, because weaving a net is a big part in both the book and the original fairytale. My favorite part is Raikama, the stepmother, and villain of the first book. She's a very complex character and I loved learning more about her and why she cursed Shiori and her brothers.

The editions I have of this book are absolutely gorgeous, and I believe they're the UK edition hardcovers. I'm not sure if people in North America will be able to find these editions, and the US edition has a different cover.

Next up is the Girl who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

This is a retelling of a Korean fairytale that I'm not familiar with, and the story itself reads like a fairtale very similar to Six Crimson Cranes. I'd say if you like this one, you'll like Six Crimson Cranes and vice versa.

Mina comes from a land plagued by deadly storms and the people believe the sea god, who was once their protector, has turned against them. Every year they choose a girl who is thrown into the sea in the hope that she turns out to be the sea god's true bride and will appease him. This year, Mina's brother's girlfriend is chosen to be the sacrifice and her brother goes after her to save her, which could result in his death. So Mina jumps into the sea instead, sacrificing herself. She finds herself in the spirit world, the world of gods, a place where a mortal like her can't survive long. There, she finds out the sea god is sleeping, and the storms won't end until he wakes. But not everyone wants the sea god to wake up, and they will do anything to stop Mina.

I think one of the best aspects of this book is the slowly developed dislike to romance with Mina's love interest, who is not the obvious choice here, and I love the mystery behind what happened to the sea god and the eventual explanation.

Like with Six Crimson Cranes, the edition shown on the picture is a UK edition with a different cover from the US one.

So this is Ever After counts as a retelling of King Arthur, but it is really more of a rom com in a medieval fantasy setting.

The story takes place after the main quest where Alek pulls a magic sword from a stone (which did not come pre sharpened) with which he beheaded the evil sorcerer king (rather clumsily).

To make sure another evil ruler doesn't take over while they go rescue the princess, Alek temporarily assumes the crown at his mage best friend Matt's advice. Only it turns out the princess is already dead and Alek is stuck as king now.

Worse, there is no way to undo his coronation and if he doesn't get married before his next birthday he'll fade away. Alek doesn't want to marry just anyone, and since he has a little time left, he decides to test potential romantic connections to all this quest companions with Matt's help using common romance tropes he finds in the dead princess' diary. But it turns out love might have been right in front of him all along.

This book is hilarious and pokes fun at lots of common rom com tropes as well as fantasy tropes. The land is called "the land of Ere in the realm of Chickpea". Alek and Matt are both so clueless about each other's feelings, it is funny but at times also frustrating, and they try the most ridiculous things to see if they can pair him up with one of their other companions. If you dislike miscommunication or main characters being dumbasses, you probably won't like this book. There's a fun secondary cast, and their companions all fit pretty much into classic dnd classes such as the rogue, the bard etc

Also by this author: In Deeper Waters, a little mermaid retelling that I'll cover in retelling part 2

Last but certainly not least is Malice by Heather Walter

Now, for most of the books I rewrite the summary in my own words with what I think are the most important things to mention, but the official synopsis of the first book is so brilliant and I could never outdo that, so the next part is copy pasted from Goodreads.

Once upon a time, there was a wicked fairy who, in an act of vengeance, cursed a line of princesses to die. A curse that could only be broken by true love’s kiss.

You’ve heard this before, haven’t you? The handsome prince. The happily-ever-after.

Utter nonsense.

Let me tell you, no one in Briar actually cares about what happens to its princesses. Not the way they care about their jewels and elaborate parties and charm-granting elixirs. I thought I didn’t care, either.

Until I met her.

Princess Aurora. The last heir to Briar’s throne. Kind. Gracious. The future queen her realm needs. One who isn’t bothered that I am Alyce, the Dark Grace, abhorred and feared for the mysterious dark magic that runs in my veins. Humiliated and shamed by the same nobles who pay me to bottle hexes and then brand me a monster. Aurora says I should be proud of my gifts. That she . . . cares for me. Even though it was a power like mine that was responsible for her curse.

But with less than a year until that curse will kill her, any future I might see with Aurora is swiftly disintegrating—and she can’t stand to kiss yet another insipid prince. I want to help her. If my power began her curse, perhaps it’s what can lift it. Perhaps, together, we could forge a new world.

Nonsense again.

Because we all know how this story ends, don’t we? Aurora is the beautiful princess. And I—

I am the villain. 

This in an adult fantasy duology, and retelling of Sleeping Beauty told from the perspective of a character based on Maleficent. Alyce is not the one who cast the curse on Aurora, but she does have similar powers to the original vila who placed the curse. The way the curse works is all women descended from the original queen of Briar are cursed and will die without their true love's kiss. Cursed women also only have daughters. To make sure this doesn't spread to too many descendants, only the Queen is allowed to have children and other female relatives are not. Some survive the curse by kissing the right person on time, some die. Aurora's mother survived, but true love's kiss doesn't guarantee a good partner or relationship. Aurora's two older sisters both died, and Aurora doesn't have long left. Because of this, she's forced to kiss random men pretty much every day.

The fairies from the original fairytale are graces here, women blessed with minor magical powers to enhance beauty, intelligence, creativity and such, but they are bound by strict laws telling them they have to use their power for the people, they cannot move to a different country, etc. Alyce is the dark grace, her powers don't really work the same but she makes elixers to, but to harm people, at the request of rich people. I found it really interesting how the culture built around graces lead to people being extremely vain and superficial. Alyce was an easy to root for villain, and I love her dynamic with Aurora, especially how it develops in book 2, which I won't say too much about yet because spoilers.

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