#cage fic AND a wing fic?? look at me trope

[kalolasfantasyworld]

Chapters 372 & 373 opinions and analysis

Hello everyone! I'm late to the party, but I promised and simply had to give my opinion on these Silvas chapters in addition to live comments which you can find here.

I'm blaming these on my coloring and an art related to this chapter.

Let me start with saying that these chapters were all I ever wanted and more from Black Clover.

If you follow me you realise that I focus on the Silva family a lot. I actually got into this fandom, because I started writing my fic Paper Hearts, which besides being a steamy and dramatic romance is a story of the Silvas redemption and focuses on Nozel, Nebra and Solid.

I wanted to dive deeper into their characters and show them as more than just assholes, give them some depth and this is exactly what Tabata did in these two chapters.

I'm proudly admitting that my headcanons for Nebra and Solid's reasons for hating Noelle were correct 😁

And on to specific opinions 😉 I'll go per character and at the end summarise them as a four

Noelle

Simply seeing Noelle put up an amazing fight against Acier made me so happy.

"I'm not weak anymore."

Noelle had said long ago and she is correct. Our girl grew, literally spread her wings, broken her cage, threw out the keys I'm citing Song Queen of Kings by Alessandra which I associate with Noelle a lot.

She had shown us her growth and here a bit of inspiration from Asta with the not giving up trope.

Later we can see Noelle continue to care for her siblings during the fight.

The apology scene and Noelle's reaction I will go over below Nebra and Solid's.

Solid and Nebra

We see their povs which I love, finally getting to know what's going on in their heads.

Here we see fear

A painful realisation

The truth

Finally giving them the courage to join in, to help Noelle.

I'm proud of them. I'm so proud of them.

I knew they had it in them and I'm so happy I was right. Just seeing these panels made me want to cry happy tears.

More then that they want a FRESH START. To rebuild their family. Took you guys long enough (in PH this happens faster 😂) but you're finally here.

🥹🥹🥹

Solid and Nebra support Noelle with her powerful magic which is hard to control, something they would make bully her for earlier.

I think Tabata is showing us an amazing contrast, as a show of growth.

Nebra

These two panels finally give us her motivation for mistreating Noelle. Jealousy.

Once again I'm patting myself on the shoulder for having this headcanon.

I'm proud of her to finally admitting that, not only to Noelle but to herself.

Solid

Solid once again jealousy, low confidence.

But he admitted it, admitted his weakness.

Nebra and Solid

They apologised, finally.

Beautiful panel, of which I've seen many beautiful colorings and I might make my own version.

We're not in the Noelle tab, but I wanted to speak about her answer here.

She's not saying "oh it's nothing," neither "yes I forgive you for everything," or "I hate you!"

Noelle simply accepts the fact. They apologised.

This shows so much of her maturity, the peace she made with her situation, life and growth. Noelle is somebody to look up to.

Nozel

Once Nozel was healed by our lovely Pablo and the best girl Kahono he managed to get back and join his siblings. One stubborn bird he is.

This panel I want to focus on, because Nozel is finally GUIDING NOELLE. I wondered many times what would have happened if instead of pushing her away, guided by his guilt and emotional shackles he had guided her. During the fight with Megicula Nozel realised that they needed to grow stronger together. Now he is finally showing it.

Nozel learnt trust.

but also so much more by changing from his sophisticated ever changing style to pure defence, fighting hand in hand, which we had never seen him do before.

Also this quote right here is a perfect reference to when Acier asked Nozel to protect his siblings with her magic. Nozel remembers and uses his mother's words against her.

That's why later we're getting that epic panel with him saying "Isn't it right mother?"

I decided to speak a bit about his armor design and the spell itself.

We're keeping in the Silver spells trope that Nozel has, which I love. We also already saw Nozel "strengthen" his body with mercury during the fight with Kivin, so there were some hints and excited people about Nozel possibly getting an armor as well. This is certainly a hot version, even though he looks a bit like the Silver Surfer (check out this amazing and slightly hilarious art).

Nozel's armor hurts him.

I always head canoned that even though he had some immunity to his magic and with his amazing control he would protect himself, it still very much affected him, brought him pain.

I can talk a bit more about Mercury magic and it's symbolism but this might be for another post if you'd be interested. A short version I'd like to say how it's POISON, symbolising the mental poisoning of Nozel which has been happening since Acier's death.

Here it hurts him, but in a way as he says it will allow him to atone, which will help him rebuild. Clearing mental poison with physical poison.

Nozel had amazing character development and I can proudly say that he is my favorite Black Clover character, with his depth, complexity, resting bird face 😂 and all of the quirks which make him great.

Acier

Acier was strong and I'm glad they showed her this way. We got to see her amazing spells and how if she was to be fought one by one they would probably loose. Acier was one of the strongest and now amped with her paladin powers she needed to be great.

The fact that she got the water attribute didn't impress me, maybe it was to show how she's now like all of her children. At least to me it did not hit hard.

I loved how despite being changed, she continued to talk to her children, point things out. Remember this is not real Acier, more like a shadow of her but I'm glad she was still showing these sides, because Solid and Nebra could say their goodbyes as well.

This panel was everything.

Acier should be satisfied, hey that part of her which is still their loving mother is probably very happy that she used the "common enemy" trope to get them together. Jokes aside she is a great mother, who could see her children surpass her and be proud of them.

Her last words were EVERYTHING.

The siblings know they made their mother proud. They can put behind them the insecurities, everything which has been weighing the family down.

Acier's first death destroyed the family as she left the great legacy, to which none of them felt good enough to live up to.

Acier's second "death" brought her children together.

The Silva siblings

I brought these ending panels together to show you how similar they are. Notice how the siblings are standing at specific spots.

They were finally brought together.

"But you've finally become a family, haven't you?"

Yes and this is the takeaway from these chapters.

Each one of them grew, showed what they were made off and made a step to rebuild, to be a family. I'm proud of them.

Tabata-sensei I'm extremely grateful that you gave my most precious characters the ending they deserved, that you came up with their story and their development. It took time, but it was so worth the wait and I'm glad it was not rushed.

To sum up, these two were my favorite Black Clover chapters and I will reread them many times.

And my coloring at the end I hope you enjoy 💕 The new Dawn for the Silva family.

[qoldenskies]

For the fanfic writing asks, 2, 55, and 58? Literally love the way you write it's packed with so much layer and feeling

2. Where do you get your fic ideas?

it really just depends! sometimes its a "wouldnt it be fucked up if-" and sometimes its a mix of tropes/plot concepts i picked up in other fandoms/stories subconsciously because i can BLORBO-IFY EVERYTHING IF I TRY HARD ENOUGH and its fun to put a twist on kind of tropey ideas for my own amusement.

i dont really get my ideas from music specifically (although i know a lot of other people do), but i end up looking for music to listen to that applies to the fics that i write for an extra boost of motivation and it usually helps me expand on ideas (currently 47k words into caged lungs and right now its been goodbye my danish sweetheart. for coming undone it was gilded lily. my fics always got The Song...)

55. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics?  Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

i mean i am currently on my SECOND slow build (this one even more so) angst fic about a curse, so at the moment that is kind of my Thing.... also i LOVE just writing like. guilt. guilt appears in everything that i write, also usually themes of internalized ableism and self sacrifice? the general angst package

also i notice that i think for like almost every fic i write or have planned, i write leo going apeshit to some extent. he's a very fun character to make irrationally angry and protective. nobody appreciated the mental image of him clotheslining draxum in coming undone which is sad because i find it VERY FUNNY...... like he had to jump to do that LMAO

58. Do you have a favorite piece of figurative language you’ve written?

GOD I CANNOT PICK ONE. here's some of my favorites from caged lungs currently because there's a TON of it there. spoiler-ish its mostly canary metaphor stuff

For his whole life he’d felt caged by his purpose, like a trapped bird yearning for the open sky. But for a bird, freedom was more dangerous than staying locked away— it lived longer behind bars, fulfilling its purpose for others instead of itself. It could sing songs of yearning all it wanted, aware that the goal was unreachable. Dangerous. Impossible. (It was better to be locked away, in the end. A caged bird still sang. A dead one didn’t.)

For his family, he had buried himself alive. A dead man rotting beneath the soil, singing songs of sunlight he never wanted to see. Loving had clipped his wings. Golden feathers had strewn across the pristine metal floor. He crushed them beneath his feet as he walked. He refused to look at them. These were the sacrifices he made for love. His lungs burned.

It was four-fourteen. His breathing was gunshot loud in the still air. His heart ticked like clockwork. His lungs burned. The remnants of his work were chopped into tiny pieces on his metal floor. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to clip them. Painful, he assumed. It didn’t feel like anything now.

(The moment he’d fallen out of that closet, the birdcage had been opened wide. He’d been sent into the darkness of the underground instead of the limitless, open sky. Into a dead end. Into his crypt. His voice had been taken from him, lost to the airless shadows. He hadn’t realized until then that he’d been doomed to die from the very beginning.)

 Every echo of feather-light softness felt like it filtered through a haze of shame. All of this was to keep them happy. He was never going to be happy again— he could touch the moon in a puddle, but he could never pull the stars out of the sky.

His forehead met the lip of the sink with a dull thunk. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and cried into the dark, mocked by the uncontaminated atmosphere of the bathroom. He’d built it this way with his own hands, sterile and pristine, it was his fault— sitting on a throne of white lies, soaking in porcelain smiles and hollow appreciation so he wouldn’t have to face the truth.  In the distance he heard the tick of a clock, the threat of an alarm, rotting his flesh away. Donnie was running out of time.

AND A COUPLE FROM MINER'S EULOGY which is the thing after this... so many god damn metaphors in these fics im having a great time!!

Never before had he witnessed his brother be crushed so thoroughly. Leo had soothed the cracks in his resolve and glued the chipped pieces back before, scars and grooves that told stories of labors of love—but he’d never had to cradle the dust in his hands in the way that he had that night, unable to remember the shape that they had once formed. He’d never felt so in over his head. He’d never thought he would be the cause of it.

Leo had turned back, and Donnie was gone. He’d surfaced into the light, alone, and he would never be able to stand in the sunshine without feeling like he’d stolen it. Every breath he took was air he had ripped out of Donnie’s lungs. Soon, Donnie would wake and Leo would have to meet his eyes every single day. He’d never see him again.

Leo wanted to give him the night sky and he’d blown the chance to give him so much as a speck of stardust.

this is all really vague stuff so im cool sharing it but. behold: the curse of being. a character that i like . in a series (also like behold what i meant when i mentioned the orpheus/eurydice parallel. A HAPPY ACCIDENT)

[lottachaos]

MY BLORBOS (MY MAIN THING YEEHAW)

I have made picrews of my Blorbos I would post art but my sketchbook is in a different room and I am lazy

Veryn, the main one, who is also my persona:

Matthew who is Veryn’s boyfwend:

Hes really tan but I can’t always make him seem that way

anyways gonna rant now

veryn is a gremlin who is a lot like me in real life but more my my ideal version of myself. He is high energy and chaotic and loud but he can be serious when he needs to be. He has chronic RBF (Resting Bedroomeyes Face)

Matthew is chill and quiet and worries and lot and does this cute little worries gentle smile that veryn freaking falls for. He seems like he doesn’t do any chaos crap but then he goes and does some wild thing and you realize why veryn fell in love with him. He is covered in scars bc of various stuff he accidentally got involved with.

veryn lives half in the woods and half in an appartement. He has wings. Sometimes he has horns and these dark on his face and shoulders but that only appears when he’s in very stressful situations.

Matthew lives in an appartement with his sister who is named Katie and has a job or goes to college, I haven’t decided which yet

they are both in their young twenties, no more that 24.

Matthew somehow gets some sort of forestry Wiley thing like veryn has but idk how. All I know is that he gets this long whipping tail with a tuft at the end which is the thing in the back of one of the picrews of him.

Matthew is covered in scars bc veryn is in the middle of this big situation where he’s fighting against these magical eldritch entities and Matthew at one point finds him in the woods fighting them and tries to help and then gets beaten up and bitten by magical snakes and almost dies. That is where most of his scars come from (he has a scar that looks like a dinsosaur on his left side just beneath his rib cage. It’s called the dinoscar) but some various other events give him lil other scars

Veryn is much better at defending himself because he has been having to fight for much longer and so does t have as many obvious scars. He does have on long one on his neck because enemies tries to slice it at one point but he lived.

Matthew usually wears a black turtleneck and this tan cardigan looking jacket. Some of the picrews I used didn’t have that option so I had to make due.

Veryn usually wears a bright green shirt about the color of the “Draft saved!” Pop up that happens in tumblr when you take ages to write a post. Then he wears a brown jacket on top and black or brown pants and some brown boots. He basically dresses kinda like a redneck but when you see the clothes on him you cannot see anything but skinny gay forest being.

Oh yeah Veryn’s wings look like the brown variant of a tawny Eagle. Basically. Except a little more brown and a little less white and dots/stripes.

I stayed up till one am last night writing a (rather spicy) fic for them. I will share SOME of it here in a different post. I will also show some art of these two in a different post. Stay tuned, anyone who’s interested!! Eventually I will probably make some sort of book or smth about these two. Yes Ik I use tropes and it’s not super realistic in a lot of ways but I understand that and I don’t really care because I’m just making the story to be however its best to me and cringe culture is dead .

CRINGE IS TEMPORARY BLORBO IS FOREVER!!

Anyways, there you have it. I’ll post more later. I’m so excited I’ve finally put info about them all in one place bc I rlly needed to do that. k bye

[fandom-space-princess]

Every Day's Most Quiet Need

midam week prompt 5: whisper - (v) speak very softly using one's breath without one's vocal cords, especially for the sake of privacy/(n) a soft or confidential tone of voice; a whispered word or phrase

Rating: Teen [2.5k words, a tiny bit h/c, mostly just sort of sweet]

Some things can't be spoken aloud. The only way to get them out is to say them as softly as you can.

read below the cut, or on AO3

When Adam thinks of whispers, he thinks of Michael's wings.

-----

"Michael? Why are you shivering?"

Maybe a silly question. The Cage is cold. An understatement, of course, but trying to hyperbolize about it has never taken the sting out. No matter how Adam tries to wrap it up in description, thinking of it as frozen as the Arctic tundra or the original ice cube or goddamn Minneapolis in February is never enough to distract from bitter reality.

So: the Cage is cold.

Shouldn't matter, though, and usually it doesn't. Michael is an inferno inside his chest, and he runs hot even by angelic standards (at least, according to him; not that Adam has any basis for comparison). Adam barely registers the frigidity of the place, and as far as he knows the cold bothers Michael not at all, either from his vantage in Adam's head or, as he's taken to doing more and more lately, manifesting as a separate presence.

Not that he's really asked. They've been down here for close to two hundred years, and it's only the last fifty or so that the rapport between them has been something resembling friendly.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it." Michael curls himself up smaller near the wall of the Cage, knees clasped to his chest, and slips into what Adam has privately begun to refer to as his Stoic Angel Face. The juxtaposition strikes him as odd: this intense, commanding creature, tucked into the corner like a human child, tight with tension, but wearing an expression that would seem more at home on a commander of armies, or carved into a mountainside.

Adam has been looking at Michael for two centuries, though. He's getting good at spotting the cracks in his masks.

He settles himself down next to Michael, a bare few inches separating them. "Ok. Say I believe you. You're still pretty clearly uncomfortable right now. Can I... is there anything I can do to help?" He rests a hand cautiously on Michael's arm, watching his face closely. Doesn't miss the flicker of Michael's eyes to where they touch, then away again, tight and guilty like he doesn't want Adam to see.

He leans into it, though, and Adam shifts to press into his side, shoulder to shoulder.

This close, he can feel the fine shivers still running through Michael's frame. Can make out the shallowness of his breathing.

"Michael. Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't usually hang around out here when you want to be left alone. So what's up?"

Michael sighs. "As you say, I am merely uncomfortable. I — the last time we fought —" He nods across the Cage, at the far shadowy corner where Lucifer broods in solitude, "— I sustained a few... minor injuries. Injuries I am incapable of healing except by waiting for my grace to recover. In much the same way as your body would heal naturally."

Adam blinks. He doesn't know what he'd expected, but that — that wasn't it. Lucifer and Michael often scrap with each other. When they first arrived, it had been out of genuine fury. But as they have settled into a more permanent resignation to life in this place, Adam has come to suspect that their ongoing fighting is mostly out of habit, and frustration.

At least now they do it in their own forms. Being conscripted into participation on a physical level, especially when Sam had still been present, had not been among Adam's favorite activities.

He casts his gaze over Michael, critically. "You don't look injured anywhere that I can see. Is it — it's an angel thing, isn't it."

"Yes." Michael fidgets against the wall. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

Another bitter sigh. With a face like he regrets ever consenting to participate in this conversation at all, Michael mutters, "My wings hurt."

"Your... oh." He understands, suddenly, why Michael is reluctant to talk about this. While there is no longer any aspect of each other that either of them is uncomfortable with, at least on a physical level (Adam's body has been home to both archangelic grace and human soul for an order of magnitude longer than he had ever occupied it alone), Michael's wings aren't entirely physical, even by his particularly lax definition of the term. They're tied up too closely with his grace, with his power, with his place in Heaven and the burdens that come with it. Adam has seen them, time to time, out of the corner of his eye. Knows that Michael can and does manifest them when he's coping with some severe emotion.

Usually violence. Or fear.

He fidgets again, and shivers, and the emotionless mask he tries to keep in place is betrayed by the tightness around his eyes. Adam realizes that he's never seen Michael look quite so shaky, quite so miserable. How much pain does it take, he wonders, to make the Sword of Heaven look like he wants nothing more than to sink into merciful unconsciousness?

Which is a good point, actually.

"I know you've gotten in fights before, bad ones. I've never seen you like this." He nudges Michael gently with his shoulder. "What's so different now? Is it that we're stuck here, something about the Cage?"

"No, it's... well. To be blunt: I have never injured part of my noncorporeal form this badly while also possessing a corporeal one." His voice has dropped to a low murmur, and Adam tilts his head closer. He's curled in on himself, as though making himself as small as he can. "If I were to leave you, I could tend to the problem much more quickly. Given our circumstances, that would likely be unpleasant for me, and fatal for you." His eyes dart to Adam, then away again.

Oh.

"You'd rather be in pain then risk hurting me?" Adam asks softly.

A scowl is all the acknowledgement he gets for his trouble, before Michael returns to staring fixedly off into the middle distance.

"I care about you too, you know," he says. He rests a hand on the archangel's arm again, in reassurance. Once again, he leans into the contact, a response which seems almost involuntary.

Interesting.

Testing a theory, Adam leans back against the wall of the Cage. Slowly, allowing Michael time to object if desired, he stretches an arm out and settles it lightly over his shoulders. Michael goes utterly still, and Adam wonders if he's made a mistake. He's about to draw back, offer an apology, when some measure of the tension leaves Michael's frame and he relaxes fractionally against Adam.

"You'd tell me if there was anything I could do to help, right? I want to know, if there is."

"I don't want to presume upon you further than I already have. Given time, I'll be fine."

"So there is something. Come on, halo, out with it. Let me help."

Michael frowns, then shivers again, appears to reach a decision.

"Fine." He uncoils himself from Adam's embrace, and moves to kneel a few feet away. Pointedly meets Adam's gaze, and holds it, as if in challenge.

A crackle like embers from a fire along his skin, raising goosebumps over his arms, and a soft displacement of air. And then —

— he's seen them before, of course, but never dead on like this. Michael's wings are gigantic, and beautiful: the soft grey of storm clouds, fading to a darker slate blue at the tips of the largest feathers. Threads of silver and steel grey etch through them, and they refract the dim light oddly, half-translucent, as though they only partially exist in this plane. Which, now that Adam thinks about it, they probably do.

They're also a mess. From where he sits, Adam can see patches of broken and scorched feathers, clumps of dried blood and sulfur, places where the flesh has started to heal badly. A pang of sympathy, like a lightning bolt through his chest, and he's extending one hand out toward Michael on impulse before he realizes what he's doing.

"You can't reach them, can you? While you're possessing me? That's what you meant."

Michael's eyes track his hand, the aborted gesture hanging in midair. His face and posture have gone closed-off, rigid, like Adam might change his mind at the last moment and strike him instead. "The metaphor is imperfect, but that's essentially accurate. In Heaven, I could tend my own form. Here, my options are... limited."

Adam slides closer, until he sits at his side, facing him. Watching Michael for any sign of distress or hesitation, he extends his hand until the tips of his fingers brush a patch of uninjured feathers over his shoulder. They're softer than they look, and they buzz faintly under his touch, a barely perceptible hum of bioelectric feedback.

Jaw clenched, Michael looks away. Nods once. Presses the wing forward against Adam's hand.

"I'm going to clean the injured parts as much as I can, ok?" Adam says gently, trying to catch Michael's gaze. When that fails, he reaches out to clasp a hand to his shoulder, squeezes once. "Let me know if I should stop."

He grazes his fingertips over one of the burned patches, and Michael hisses, flinching away.

"No," he responds immediately as Adam draws back by reflex. He catches Adam's hand in one of his own, lightning quick, and shakes his head. Deliberately presses the hand back against the scorched feathers. A wince, but his eyes lock on Adam's. "You won't hurt me." His voice falls to nearly a whisper, and his hand drops away. "Please."

This time, when Adam touches him, he is still.

The damage is extensive, and Michael's wings are... well, there's a lot of ground to cover. Adam suspects that he's not getting the whole picture, somehow; that what he sees are only the parts of himself that Michael has chosen (or, perhaps, is able) to bring forward into this plane. That there might, in truth, be more injuries over more of him — and in more dimensions — than Adam's mind is capable of perceiving.

He hums as he works, fingers combing careful through clumps of feathers. Straightening those healthy enough to be salvaged, pulling away bits of dried blood and occasionally tugging free those feathers too bent or broken to be saved. Michael makes a low, pained sound deep in his chest at the first one, and Adam presses his hands back to the space immediately, soothing.

To get his mind off it, Adam speaks. "So, what, you'd do this yourself in Heaven? Or the — I dunno, whatever the metaphysical equivalent of grooming your wings is for angels?"

Michael leans into him, hip pressed to thigh and shoulder against his arm. "Yes. They'd heal more quickly if I was, as you say, able to 'reach' them. But much of my grace is currently constrained within your form. The ways in which I can manifest and manipulate it are comparatively limited."

"But you'd always do that for yourself? Not that a ton of the angels I've met seemed too friendly —" He snorts, thinking of Zachariah. "I wouldn't blame you if you were picky about who you let get that close. But you must have had someone."

For a moment, Michael goes tense against him, and his face clouds. Then it passes, as though it had never been. "No," he says, clearly unwilling to elaborate.

Adam doesn't press the issue. He leans back on his heels, then stands, stretches. "You doing ok? I should do the back." Michael nods up at him, from his place on the floor, and Adam circles behind him. Taps him on the shoulder. "Stop kneeling there and sit down." His voice is light, teasing. "I'm going to need all the height advantage I can get on your ridiculous, massive wings."

It startles a chuckle out of Michael, and Adam grins to himself. Michael settles near his feet, and Adam resumes carding through the wings. He starts at the tips and works inward, down along the leading edge, gradually moving back toward Michael's body.

When he's close enough, Michael relaxes back against his legs. Almost like he doesn't realize he's doing it, Adam thinks. He doesn't mention it, and when he moves away to start on the outer edge of the other wing, the quality of the silence between them is different than before. The pain seems to be fading, and Michael no longer shivers, but some less definite emotion is rooting in its place, something quieter and almost sorrowful.

When Adam kneels behind him to reach the places closest to Michael's body, he can feel the difference. It's in the way the wings press eagerly into his hands, rather than shying away. In the way the angel tilts back into him, posture more relaxed than Adam has seen him — maybe ever.

Adam encourages him, pressing his weight in turn against Michael's back. As levelly and casually as he can, he says, "What about the others? I was under the impression that you guys were, well, close. A family. For whatever that means for you."

"Heaven is not —" Michael tenses, but Adam just leans more firmly against him, fingers moving soothingly over his wings, and after a moment he relents. His words sound fragile, hollow, and his voice is almost too quiet to hear. As though speaking this too loudly would be too much, would mean acknowledging something he was unwilling or unable to acknowledge. "We aren't like humans; we don't interact like you do. We don't — we don't touch each other. Except to fight." He glances furtively across the Cage. In that moment, Adam sees a glimpse of his deeper nature, the weight of an impossible stretch of time on this being as old as the universe. "Once, perhaps. But not for a very long time."

Adam says nothing. Nothing needs to be said.

He sits against the wall of the Cage, spreads his legs out, and tugs at Michael's waist. Michael's wings vanish, and he turns his head to speak, but Adam cuts him off.

"Don't argue with me, ok? Just come over here."

Michael lets himself be pulled along, until he rests between Adam's legs. He leans back against his chest, and fidgets for a few moments. Then Adam curls his arms around his waist, and he settles.

"You deserve to be touched in something other than violence," he murmurs, chin hooked over Michael's shoulder. He runs hands down his arms, until their fingers twine together, pressing close to Michael's body. "Don't give me that 'not like humans' line. Just stay here with me for a few minutes."

He has no power to hold Michael here against his will, he knows. He could vanish, fly off, simply stand up and walk away — he is far stronger than Adam will ever be.

But Adam holds him, the only comfort he has to offer.

And Michael, a silent weight against his chest, doesn't move away.

[norabrice1701]

Dance Card - Ch. 5

A Historical!Zemo x Fem!Reader Fic

Chapter Summary: In which there's water and fire while the world continues to turn.

Link to Ch. 4

Link to Series Master List

Chapter Warnings: dark!Zemo, manipulation (still...?), reader angst after loss of virginity, mid-1800s world references, lush period romance tropes

A/N: All the photos of Herr Brühl’s birthday Berlinale film debut had me grinning like a loon - many major cheers to him (and I so want to eat at Bar Raval, I love good tapas)! Almost had me grinning as wide as when I read all of y'all's kind notes on this story (they have totally made my days several times over) - thank you, danke schön, muchas gracias, merci beaucoup! - Cheers, NoraB

Chapter 5: The Pond

A bright and cheery dawn found you alone in bed. The bed covers were tucked around you, your nightgown smoothed out, and your dressing gown rested on the foot of the bed. With an anxious breath, you skimmed a hand between your legs, wincing at the pull of new, sore muscles, and confused to find no evidence of your shared coupling. It didn’t make sense that he’d taken the time to...wash you, did it?

But he was right that you did feel marginally better. At least, you weren’t crying.

If Mrs. Oeznik noticed anything as she helped you dress for the day, she didn’t comment. She wasn’t normally talkative, and ever since she accused you of toying with the baron’s affections, you hadn’t felt particularly talkative in return. God, what would she say now if she knew the truth of last night?

Numbly, you picked at your breakfast tray and sipped tea. The toast and sausage were easy, but you left the rest. You simply didn’t know what else to do, so you headed for the gardens. Bypassing the neat rows of bright blooms, you moved for the trail that wound through the woodlands and kept walking.

Hours passed and the sun moved overhead as you tried to reconcile your future.

What were you going to do now? How could you possibly face your father with any dignity, let alone Lord Drysdale? But what were your alternatives? The baron hadn’t proposed marriage, nor did he seem likely to. Did he really just expect to sully you and cast you aside?

But that made his words in the banquet hall sting all the more.

You are worth so much more, drágám.

You weren’t given wings to sit clipped in a cage. You were given wings to fly.

You walked along the pond’s edge, still hearing his voice echo in your mind and so clearly seeing his face in the firelight. A longing pang shot through your heart. If only you had been stronger. If only you had pushed him away.

But you hadn’t, you didn’t, and you still didn’t know what you were going to do.

Your feet found the wooden planks of the open-air boathouse and adjoining dock. A light breeze blew in the sunny air, but it wasn’t enough to disturb the smooth water. You paused, looking down at your reflection on the shimmering surface. You barely recognized yourself.

Not knowing where else to go, you folded your legs under you, ignoring the dull ache of recently discovered muscles and sitting on the sun-warmed wood. A bird sang overhead and you glanced up before turning back to the water. It was such a beautiful, peaceful day, and you suddenly wished a thunderstorm would form overhead. A more fitting atmosphere for your sullen mood.

Distantly, it dawned on you that you should probably have a parasol. It wouldn’t do to get sun spots on your skin or ruin your complexion. But did that really matter? No proper man of society would want you for a wife now.

But was that maybe alright?

You sighed, plucking at the front of your dress against the midday heat. The pond water looked rather refreshing and you couldn’t help but wonder. Would it feel like a warm bath? Or something more cooling? Your gaze strayed to your slippers and silk stockings, struck with a sudden curious notion. Could you risk being caught so undressed out in the open? After last night, did it really matter?

Your hands moved before you overthought it. It was easy enough to work the garters over your gown and petticoat, sliding out of your slippers and pulling on the delicate silk. The texture of the wooden planks was rough against your bare feet as you shuffled towards the dock’s edge. With a tentative motion, careful to mind the hem of your gown and petticoat, you dipped your toes in the water.

Your lips curled to an unbidden smile. The chilly water brought instant relief, a welcome contrast to the rest of your sun-warmed skin. Carefully, you lifted your feet from the water, watching the water droplets run along your skin before sinking them back in the water. Small ripples spread across the water as you swung them idly beneath the surface.

Purposeful footfalls sounded on the dock’s wooden planks behind you, and you held your feet still, unable to resist looking over your shoulder. Your heart dropped to your stomach to see Zemo standing there. You didn’t know what to expect seeing him in the daylight, and you hated the immediate surge of soothing comfort his presence brought. You were instantly transported back to that first morning when he sat by your bedside, still so handsome, still such a mystery.

He took another step forward, folding his hands behind his back as gentle fondness lit his face. “You gave Mrs. Oeznik quite a fright when you were not on the loggia for luncheon.”

“I wasn’t hungry.” You wiggled your toes under the water, unsure what else to say. All too well you remembered how you broke down in his arms, feeling his strong embrace as he whispered soothing words while your tears soaked his skin. What else was there possibly to say?

Another bird sang its melody from the surrounding trees and you welcomed the distraction, glancing across the water. You only turned back at the sound of the baron’s movements, watching with mild curiosity as he stooped to undo his shoes and stockings. You thought about protesting his undressing, but stopped short. After last night, what would that really be worth?

What a difference a day makes.

You forced a hard swallow, resigned to...well, whatever your life was now as a fallen woman. That, and his bare footsteps along the wooden planks as he approached you. With effortless ease, he dropped to sit beside you, hitching the hem of his trousers to similarly lower his feet into the water.

The ripples from his movements lapped against your ankles, feeling heat radiate from his dark jacket - and goodness, nothing about this moment should be right. But it brought you back to the same question - where did you go from here? Where could you go?

His gentle sigh sounded on the breeze. “My father and mother had a rowboat on this pond. I remember ducking my tutor and fleeing to the garden - as young boys do - hiding behind trees and spying on them as they floated on the water.” He paused briefly. “My mother didn’t smile much. I don’t think she ever quite recovered from the death of my older sister - whom I was too young to ever meet or remember. But that afternoon in the rowboat, I saw her smile and openly kiss my father for the first time. A rare glimpse of the woman he fell in love with, I suppose.”

Slowly, you turned to face him, taking in his posture with hands braced against the dock’s edge, feet dangling in the water like yours. The sun caught in his chestnut hair illuminating shades of golden wheat that your fingers suddenly itched to trace.

He wet his lips, looking out of the water. “My wife was terrified of the water. I had always dreamed of finding a love similar to my parents, entertaining romantic rowboat adventures under sunlight, perhaps under moonlight. But after we wed, the rowboat found a permanent home in the boathouse. Her fear of the water was so great, she refused to even come near the pond’s edge; so, naturally, she was beyond terrified when we set sail for my diplomatic post in Calcutta on the Indian subcontinent.”

Your eyes widened, unable to believe it. “The Indian subcontinent? You’ve been there?”

He nodded slowly. “I served as ambassador and liaison to the British rule. A reward for military service, as it was. We spent nearly three years there - our son was even born there,” his mouth curled with a wistful smile, “but at my wife’s urging, I declined an additional post and we journeyed home. Storms forced us to shelter on the east coast of Africa for longer than anyone expected. My son was excited - he could see wild giraffes and zebras from the home we stayed in. I never dreamed war would find us there, but it did.”

You forced a sudden swallow, watching his face fall, lost in distant memory.

“Native warriors mounted an attack on the township - another attempt to drive out the British colonists. And the British soldiers, of course, fought back, but they were grossly outnumbered. I implored our host - a young, hot-headed lawyer who wanted nothing to do with the continent - to keep my wife and son safe. I told my wife not to worry.” He swallowed thickly, knuckles white against the dock edge, his shoulders set in a tense line. “When the dust settled and the screaming stopped, it took me two days until I found their bodies...my wife still holding our son in her arms." His mouth pinched to a tight line, his voice rough. "And the lawyer? He went home. Fled for his life and left them defenseless.”

A bird chirped lyrically overhead, a sharp contrast to his harsh words.

He shook his head slowly. “Shortly after, I was incapacitated and detained for a time before I could leave the continent and return here. But in my first letter to Oeznik, I instructed him to burn the rowboat.”

You sat silently, still processing his words. What could you possibly say in return? An apology sounded too trite; condolences sounded insufficient; regrets sounded inappropriate. You didn’t have any possible experience to compare against - you’d never seen your loving parents, you’d never experienced war, you’d never seen death. You weren’t even sure why he had divulged so many things to you.

You flexed your feet in the cool water, suddenly remembering where you were. The intimate informality of the setting alone would be enough to tarnish your reputation should anyone happen to witness the scene you two made sitting here.

What else did you have to lose? You reached a hand out, resting it atop Zemo’s against the dock. Gently, you squeezed his sun-warmed skin, hoping it would convey the words you didn’t know how to say. Your hold loosened on the wood as his hand rotated until your fingertips grazed his palm and he threaded his fingers through yours. His answering squeeze ignited a distant, fluttering heat in your belly, remembering the feel of his hands on and inside you without trying to.

You swallowed against a sudden constricted throat. “Do you regret it? Burning the rowboat?”

His mouth pinched to a tight line as he shook his head before speaking. “No. Life changes. We change with it. Am I the man my father wanted me to be? No. Am I the man I thought I would be? Certainly not. But, no, regret is not the word.”

You nodded slowly, even though he still looked out over the water. The thought brought you back to our own stormy thoughts. Sure, you didn’t know what to do from here, but did you regret what happened last night? If you could go back to yesterday evening and make a different choice, would you? It would sure simplify things - you could go home and accept Lord Drysdale’s proposal. You wouldn’t have to lie or reveal the scandalous truth. But was that truly what you wanted?

You hated that you had no immediate answer.

You wet your lips. “I don’t know what to do now.”

"It would seem you’re off to a good start." He kicked a foot under the water for emphasis, stirring up more ripples. "I haven’t done this since I was a boy.”

The corner of your mouth lifted without your permission, feeling the tight knot of anxiety in your chest unfurl just a little. Or was that because he still held your hand? Unfortunately, you knew what you needed to ask next. “Have you heard word from my father?”

He turned his keen eyes back to you, his face hardening curiously. “I never sent him a letter until yesterday afternoon.”

The world tilted as your eyes flew open in shock. “What do you mean you never sent…? You said you would write to him!”

“Exactly. I wrote to him, and the letter stayed in my desk.”

Your heart beat a wild rhythm as your mind spun through the ramifications. How many days had you been here? Surely, your father had to be a worried wreck since you never came home. Had you missed Lord Drysdale? What was he bound to think?

You shook your head in disbelief, still trying to understand. “So, all this time…? No one knew? And you just….and I…- you had no right!”

His hold on your hand shifted to let his thumb graze the inside of your wrist. "Do you think I missed the precision of the cut on your cheek and the bruises on only your right wrist when you first arrived? Those were not the marks of clumsy thieves, but something else entirely."

You gulped, trying to think of an excuse and ignore the distracting sweep of this thumb. "I...those were an accident, neither of which excuses your behavior."

He arched a dubious brow. "An accident? Is that what you tell yourself, drágám? To manage your fear of him and justify his violence against you?"

"Well, it was. I didn't intend...I never meant - if anything, it's your fault! I didn't do anything wrong!" Words spilled from your lips before you could stop them. "My dance card was empty, and with no formal arrangement, I didn't know how to refuse you…."

Tears welled and you quickly shut your eyes. Wasn't that just the truth of it? You hadn't refused him the night of the ball, and you hadn't refused him in your bed last night. What was so wrong with you that you couldn't turn this man away? That you let yourself fall to ruin in the intriguing amber of his eyes and the surety of his embrace? And why did that thought wrench your heart?

His voice carried soft. "You weren't wrong. Nothing about any of that justifies what he did to you. Your intended should know better."

"'My intended should know better'," you scoffed gently, "what, you mean a man like you?"

"I may be many things, but physically abusive is not one of them." He squeezed your hand with firm affirmation. "No woman is deserving of such treatment, most certainly including you." He spoke your name - just your first name.

Your heart leapt to hear it roll off his tongue.

"You shouldn't live in fear of any man," he continued, "especially not a man like Lord Drysdale." Barely contained rage flashed in his eyes. A shiver raced down your spine to watch everything warm drain from his face replaced with such deadly cold. But he quickly blinked, shaking his head as if to shake away his thoughts. When his gaze returned to yours, you'd never seen such devout conviction as he spoke. "I promise you that man will pay for his crimes."

You didn’t like how that sounded. “No, Helmut. Please.” His name spilled from your lips without a second thought. “Please don’t make such a scene. I can...I can - oh, I don’t know...do something, I suppose.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“Nor should you. It’s not your place.”

His mouth pulled to a gentle smile, his voice dropping to a velvet whisper that threatened to undo you. “You let me inside, drágám. I held you in my arms at your most vulnerable, felt you shake apart, felt your tears wet my skin. That awakens something in a man.”

Your breath caught and your stomach lurched. Was this going to be his proposal? Were you ready for that? Would that be the answer?

You struggled to find words as your cheeks flushed, not sure you wanted to give him the chance and not trusting yourself to answer. “That...I don’t -,” you cut off on a nervous breath before trying again, “no one’s ever…”

“Do you regret it?”

You couldn’t answer, feeling your heart thump in your chest. You knew you should say yes - you should regret giving yourself to him. You should regret ruining your prospects and your virtue. There was nothing to gain and only everything to lose, but you still couldn’t bring yourself to say a word. You bit your lip, feeling the weight of his gaze, unable to deny its pull.

The look on your face gave everything away.

You had burned your own rowboat and didn’t regret it.

He nodded ever so imperceptibly, raising your conjoined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand as the birds continued to chirp their merry songs.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The library fire burned full and bright. The dark, polished wood gleamed in the golden light as shadows danced over countless book spines. Your footsteps muffled against the thick floor rug as you took in the grand room. It wasn’t a cold night, but the warmth of the fire still felt pleasing after a delicious dinner.

The baron’s footsteps sounded behind you as he joined you on the plush rug with his snifter of brandy. Dinner had been unusually quiet, but strangely comfortable. You hadn’t been able to shake his words, nor the confession that your father hadn't been notified of your whereabouts until yesterday, but somehow, the longer you sat with that knowledge, the more it didn’t truly upset you.

Especially after your silent confession to Zemo's most damning question.

Searching for a distraction, you stepped up to the ornate globe that spanned the length of your arm. Your father had a similar globe in his library but you had never been at liberty to see it so close up, and your governess had only given you the most basics on the seven continents and where Sokovia was located.

Your fingertips danced over the shape you knew to be Europe, drifting over to your home country. “How did you travel to the Indian subcontinent?” You turned to look over your shoulder, effortlessly finding his gaze.

Hypnotic firelight glinted in his perceptive brown eyes and contoured his face in the most attractive way. Of course, he wore his typical formal black suit, and you couldn't deny his obvious appeal. He took a drink from his snifter, stepping towards you. “By ship, mostly.”

“Did you travel to England first? You mentioned the east coast of Africa….”

He stopped beside you, raising his left hand to rest over yours on the globe. Gently, he guided your fingers over the smooth surface as he spoke softly. “First, overland to the coast, then by ship across the Mediterranean.” Under the warmth of his touch, your fingers moved down the Sokovian coast across the expanse of blue, continuing on over eastern Africa. “Then, another brief jaunt overland before setting sail on the Red Sea, and finally arriving at the Indian Ocean.” He pushed your fingers east, landing on the triangular-shaped peninsula. “From there, straight east and around the point until you reach the Port of Calcutta.”

You released the breath you didn’t realize you held. “How long was the journey?”

“Nearly five months, but would have been longer if the weather did not stay favorable.”

You shook your head with a widening smile, awed at the grand scale of it. “It sounds so... unbelievable. You’re the first person I’ve met who has been there.”

He hummed softly. “That’s not so surprising. The journey is fraught with danger, and life in a new place does not bring the comforts of home at a time when you would want them most. It is not a decision to be made lightly.”

You instantly wanted to ask why he had taken the post. Had he discussed it with his wife? Had she agreed, or did she go against her will? But you bit your lip before any words escaped. How utterly impertinent to pry into the private life he shared with his wife. Heat continued to seep from his hand that still rested atop yours against the globe’s cool surface as you spoke. “Earlier...earlier, you spoke of giraffes and zebras in Africa. What animals did you see in India?”

His eyes lit with distant memory. “Elephants that stood bigger than most small cottages here, with their long trunks for noses. And tigers, one of the fiercest jungle cats – lounging like barn cats in tall grasses and even lush, opulent gardens. I think you would have liked the palatial gardens of the subcontinent.”

You didn’t know which thought to seize on first. “I would love to hear more about the gardens…but what’s an elephant?”

“I’ll show you.” His hand fell from yours as he stepped away from the globe with a sip from his snifter. “When I learned of my post, I procured every book I could find and started studying.” He abandoned his brandy, stepping over to one of the large shelves against the far wall. His fingers grazed the spines in search of just the right title before he pulled a leatherbound volume free. “I was pleased to see the sketches in here are quite true to life, if not to scale, of course. I simply couldn’t comprehend an animal standing taller than a cottage until I saw it.”

You walked over as he set the book against a large table laden with books stands, magnification glasses, and gilded candelabras. As the book opened under his hand, your gaze instantly caught on several images that passed as he flipped pages.

You couldn’t stop yourself from reaching forward, grazing a page to make him pause. “Surely, that can’t be real…” Almost hesitantly, you let your fingers skim over the drawing of…well, it looked like a snake. But the hood around its head and the long fangs gave you a shuddering pause.

“Cobra snakes are very real. With enough venom in their bites to kill a man if left untreated.” He shook his head in disbelief. “And yet native tribesmen would capture these snakes. Snake charmers, as they were called – they would play a pungi instrument, hypnotizing the snake.”

You looked at him in mild horror. “Men willingly captured such a dangerous animal for entertainment?” You blinked as he nodded. “Goodness, I should hope to never see such a frightening spectacle.”

He chuckled softly as your hand fell away and he resumed flipping through the pages. “Ah, here we are. An elephant.”

You stared at the strange animal with wide, flat ears and a long trunked nose in fascination. How could the world be full of such natural wonder?

He spoke softly. “It’s amazing how they use their trunks – for eating, for drinking. For spraying themselves with water to bathe, or when the day gets too warm.”

“How did you see so much? Surely these animals don’t live in the towns.”

“No, they don’t. Several of my assignments required me to travel around the subcontinent – plenty of time to observe the natural wildlife.”

You smiled down at the image, reaching out to turn the page, intrigued to see more. This page bore an image of a large, wild cat with dark spots. “Is this a…tiger?”

“No, tigers have stripes. This is a leopard.”

“A leopard.” Obvious wonder colored your voice.

“Another fierce cat of the subcontinent, but I didn’t see too many.” A smile edged his face. “They’re far more elusive, and more dangerous at night since that’s when they hunt – and they’re fast devils. Though, my favorite was watching the big cats – especially tigers – swim. I had never seen such a thing.”

“A cat in water?” You tried to picture the sketched cat in the pond with its head above water, paddling with such massive paws. The image pulled a soft laugh from you. “That does sound like quite the sight.” Your fingers traced along the sketch, taking in the fine, precise lines, admiring the artistry with envy. “The artist who drew this is very talented.”

He fixed you with a shrewd eye. “Do you have an interest in drawing?’

A blush formed high in your cheeks. “Oh, no – I mean, I’ve always enjoyed art, but I…I’ve never tried my hand at it.”

“Would you like to?”

Your heart froze with eager anticipation. No one had ever openly indulged your curiosity – no one except him. You couldn’t hide your smile as you nodded slowly. “Yes…I think I would like to.”

He nodded his head in response, his own smile filling out before he stepped around the large table, opening a wide drawer set in the fine wood. A leatherbound notebook made an appearance, along with a slim wooden pencil. He gathered both before walking back as all you could do was stare, unable to believe it.

He proffered both, his eyes alight with encouraging reassurance. “To many happy hours of drawing.”

Your throat choked up, touched at the gesture as you took the soft leather notebook in your hands. You still couldn’t believe it…you’d never been able to express something that you actually wanted to do before, let alone be encouraged. Your heart felt near to bursting as you ran your fingers over the cover.

His voice was soft in your ear. “I meant when I said that you were given wings to fly.”

Your eyes flickered up to meet his, finding him so close. His cologne swam in the air, his eyes held you so tenderly. No one had ever seen so much in you, and your heart just swelled. You moved before you could think. Leaning in, you pressed your lips to his cheek, his furred jawline tickling your skin.

Heat flushed your cheeks as you pulled back, fighting to suppress a giddy smile. God, what a feeling to take such a liberty. You exhaled a thready laugh. “I…I just-just wanted to thank you.”

He hummed in light amusement. “Then, I shall endeavor to earn your thanks more often.”

His words lit you from the inside, desire and affection suffusing you. Was this...god, was this what it felt like to fall in love?

He nodded to the notebook in your hands. “Please don’t let me delay you, if you’re eager to start. We can pull a chair to the table.”

You bit your lip in indecision. Yes, you wanted to try your hand at drawing – you’d love to see if you could recreate something of the leopard – but you also weren’t ready to part from his company quite yet. You looked back to him with a hesitant smile. “If it’s alright…could we continue to look through your book instead?”

He agreed with an easy smile, and your questions only continued as you gripped your notebook tight. You lost all sense of time as the fire continued to burn, as his snifter continued to empty, and as he continued to spin wondrous, gripping tales of animals that seemed impossible and mesmerizing folklore.

It was easy to retire with the book to the plush sofa as he narrated aloud. You tucked against his side, listening to his soothing voice, finding your eyelids grow heavy. It was impossible to remember if you had ever felt more peaceful and carefree, especially as the tangible proof of the notebook in your lap reminded you this wasn’t a dream. Lulled by his words with your mind drunk on his stories of wonder, your head settled against his shoulder.

Gentle motion jarred you awake and you realized you were in his arms. With his right arm under the crook of your knees and his left around your shoulders, you held your prized notebook close and nuzzled into the soft jacket of his suit, chasing the scent of his cologne as he carried you upstairs. When your stocking-clad legs contacted with the cold bed covers, you opened your eyes, half-awake, to see him so close, wanting only to chase his warmth.

He paused, meeting your gaze with a small, soft smile. Caressing your cheek, he leaned down. “Sweet dreams, drágám.” His lips pressed gentle and sure against your forehead.

Your breath caught, wanting only to tilt your head back and chase his kiss. Would he taste like the brandy from his snifter? You held your breath, toes curling in your slippers as even he seemed to wrestle with indecision, his breath warm against your skin as the moment stretched. But all too soon, he pulled away, rising and closing the door gently behind him.

A trembling sigh punched from you, suddenly so unbearably alone. With startling clarity, you realized that you wanted him to stay. What would it be like to fall asleep in his arms without the tears? Could he come back and just share the same bed to sleep? Would that be so wrong?

Your heart leapt when the door opened again, but it was just a housemaid to help you undress.

As you lay in the dying candlelight, on the verge of sleep as your mind replayed the moments in the library – the bed felt far too empty.

~*~*~*~*~*~

What You Didn't See:

The butler's footsteps echoed off the wood floor before he spoke.“A carriage is on approach, sir.”

Zemo’s mouth curled behind the newsprint, but he made no move to rise from the library’s plush armchair.

Oeznik shuffled further into the room. “A carriage moving with all due haste.”

“Hmm, I can only imagine.” He glanced up at his butler. “As we discussed, yes?”

“Of course, sir.” Oeznik tipped his head in agreement before turning towards the entry hall. The path was a familiar one around the winter garden that would put him easily in range when the pounding on the door began. Of course, he didn’t need to worry about the young master. There were plenty of ways for him to observe the conversation without being seen.

Oeznik schooled his face as heavy, rushed knocks echoed on the solid front doors. It wouldn’t do to be overeager. With a groan of thick wood, the butler opened the door to reveal your father – red-faced and incensed, brandishing a crumpled letter in his left hand.

He didn’t give Oeznik a chance to speak. “What is the meaning of this!?” He shook the wrinkled paper. “I demand to speak to your master at once!”

Oeznik offered a small half-bow. “I’m afraid the baron is currently out for the day on estate business.”

“Oh, is he?” Your father seethed. “Conveniently out for the day on estate business. Very well.” He drew a deep breath in a parody of collecting his thoughts. “Then, I demand to see my daughter.”

The butler’s face contorted in confusion. “My apologies, sir, but I do not know what you mean. The baron has lived as a bachelor ever since the passing of his wife.”

“I’ll have none of your games! Your impudent baron wrote the most uncouth letter, saying that she was here.” Again, he shook the paper for emphasis. “If she isn’t here, then why the deliberate taunt?”

Oeznik blinked, unfazed by the man’s blustering. “I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning, sir, but I do take offense at your slander of the young master.”

Your father’s eyes blazed, his nostrils flared. “Slander? Slander! After what he wrote?!” His gaze darted over Oeznik’s shoulder, searching out the house’s darker interior. He shouted your name once, twice, thrice – each call more desperate than the last – before Oeznik managed to crowd him back, pulling the door behind him.

“Please remember yourself, sir.” Oeznik summoned his best disappointed, scolding tone. “I have already informed you the baron is not at home. I shall inform him of your visit today, and should you wish to return tomorrow, I don’t believe he has plans to travel tomorrow.”

“Oh, you can make him that promise – I will return tomorrow, and I will not stand for such outrageous treatment. I’ll bring witnesses, I’ll bring the constabulary to search this house if I must!”

Oeznik merely offered a polite smile, tipping his head in acknowledgement. “I shall pass along the message, sir.”

Your father took a few steps back, clearly displeased but unable to come up with anything else to say. He scowled, glancing up at the house’s façade and the spread of windows set in the stone walls. He called out your name again. “If you can hear me, I will not rest until you’re back home. We can still fix this – it’s not too late! No matter what this devil has done to you!”

Oeznik frowned in displeasure, stepping forward with a guiding gesture. “Sir, please – I implore you to not make any more of a scene and disturb the household.”

Your father held up a hand in mock surrender, taking another step back towards his carriage. “Tomorrow, butler. Tomorrow, we shall see which one of us will pay for our sins.”

Oeznik simply nodded, watching your father disappear back into the dark confines of his carriage. The coachman sped off down the dirt path with the same haste that heralded the carriage’s arrival. Only as the carriage disappeared around the far grove of trees did Oeznik allow himself a smirk.

Tomorrow should prove most interesting, indeed.

He turned on his heels and returned to the entry hall, closing and locking the doors behind him.

Gentle applause echoed off the stone as Baron Zemo melted out of the shadows. “Well done, old friend.”

Oeznik tipped his head. “As you say, sir. Though, one must admire that man’s determination.”

“As a father, I sympathize with wanting my child to return home. But also as a father and as a man, to see the trepidation in her eyes at the prospect, that I cannot allow.”

Oeznik nodded again. “I have no doubt you overheard the entire conversation, sir, but is there anything I can clarify?”

His nose wrinkled in dismissal as he shook his head. “No, thank you. I can only hope he holds true to his word tomorrow. I shall be ready to face him.”

“Do you…do you really think her father will bring him, though? He only mentioned the constabulary.”

Zemo’s mouth quirked. “Once news reaches him, I doubt there will be little to stop Lord Drysdale. In fact, if I know the man as well as I think I do, we should have this affair settled before her father and the constabulary arrive.”

Again, Oeznik offered a nod of his head as his brow furrowed in gentle concern. “I know that you know your business, sir, but I implore you again to be careful. Mrs. Oeznik and I do not wish to see you come to harm.”

“Fortunately, harm is temporary; death is permanent.” He flashed a dark, wry grin. “Useful to remember.”

Link to Ch. 6

Tag List: @sapphiredreamer26 @justfangirlthingies @callmedrkhan @somethingthatsaysbubbles @apparrio @mypoisonedvine @river-soul @rootcrop @nymariel @lilith-blackrose @obissimp @hannahbal-the-fannibal @tonarinotogepi @charistory @glimmering-darling-dolly @captainofmischief

[sitp-recs]

I saw ur post about not being ashamed of your kinks, and it inspired me a bit. I really like reading fics with chubby!Draco. Whether it’s sexual (like, with some feeding and teasing) or not, it’s a trope I super love. I know you’re not doing recs right now (and you definitely deserve the break) so I won’t ask for any. However, I’d love to hear if any of ur followers or anything like that are into this kink like I am, so I can try and feel more confident about it. Much love, & I hope you're well!

Hi friend! What a lovely ask - I’m so happy that you took my post about self-indulgence as an inspiration to read what makes you happy! Here are a few recs for you (including some chubby!Harry in case anyone’s interested), hopefully we’ll get more recs in the comments :)

Chubby Draco

Just Be by @bafflinghaze (2019, Teen and Up, 1.4k)

Being a pureblood, being a queer man, being Draco Malfoy, image was everything to him. Except, these days, Draco can’t meet those standards. He can’t do what people are telling him to do: be it to lose the weight, or love his body. But perhaps...he could just be.

In it For The Long Run by @goldentruth813 (2015, Explicit, 5k)

While Harry is away on an Auror mission Draco comes to the sudden realization that he looks quite different now than he did as a teenager. How will his body issues affect his own self worth and his relationship with Harry?

Save My Wonders by @unmistakablyoatmeal (2014, Explicit, 21k)

Immediately chocolate assaulted Draco's senses. Warm melted chocolate mixed with his mother's roses and... something else. Something new. Freshly scrubbed skin and maybe a faint sheen of sweat. It was so familiar... And it only intensified when Potter came up behind him.

the strength to stay series by @violetclarity (2018, Explicit, 34k)

Draco and Harry are the best Senior Aurors in the DMLE, which is why they’re working the case about Wings – a dangerous new potion that sends users into a dreamscape from which they may never return. When Harry is kidnapped by the group behind Wings, Draco takes it upon himself to go after him, and is forced to confront the reality of Harry’s feelings for him, which he’s been ignoring for years.

Falling series by JulietsEmoPhase (2016, Explicit, 40k)

A trilogy spanning some of Eighth Year and beyond, featuring Chubby!Draco and Caring!Harry. Hurt/Comfort with a serious emphasis on the comfort.

Chubby Draco Drabbles collection by @ladderofyears (2020, WIP)

Chubby Harry

Soft Spot by JulietsEmoPhase (2015, Explicit, 1.8k)

Draco loves every single bit of Harry, even the bits he doesn’t like himself.

The Things We Did And Didn't Do by GingerTodgers (2017, Teen and Up, 2k)

Harry is due back from visiting Hermione and Ron in Australia, three months after finally spending the night with Draco. It's time to DTR.

Snakefood by Vaysh (2010, Explicit, 9.6k)

Draco and Harry have a secret relationship in fifth year. Harry's a bit heavier when he comes back to Hogwarts after the Christmas holidays.

Lemon Tarts by @secretsalex (2017, Explicit, 11.6k)

Harry's jeans are getting tight. Draco loves it.

Kept in Cages by @sweet-s0rr0w, art by @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm (2022, E, 77k)

Deep in the heart of the Ministry lies the Beast Division: a hidden room where ancient beasts roam, and winged creatures soar, and grumpy giant ferrets eat all your biscuits unless you keep them well hidden. Draco Malfoy would know – he’s been working there for five years now, after all.

[libradusk]

Touch Starved | Kix

Word Count: 3,683

Pairing: Clone Medic Kix x Reader

Summary: The pain of losing those you love burns harsher than any shot of liquor ever could.

You’re determined to not let Kix face his demons alone.

Warnings: LOTS OF HURT/COMFORT because I live for this trope, use of alcohol as a coping mechanism somewhat, mention of injury and death that results from war, mention of a medical setting.

a/n: This chapter is dedicated especially to @morganas-pendragons​ who is so talented and so kind and helped inspire this chapter - I really hope you enjoy this chapter Kayla!

Also the two other characters briefly featured in this are my two medic oc’s, you can find a visual reference for Eir here with a little more info, if you’re curious.

Thanks for all the love on this series so far! I appreciate each and every one of you.

Tagging: @thatonesakudere​, @kaminobiwan​ and @simping-for-fives​ (Send me a message if you wanna be tagged in any of my future fics!)

When he wasn’t in the mess for supper with the rest of the 501st’s boys, you knew exactly where he was hiding.

That preconceived knowledge turned over itself in your stomach. The feeling was biting, twisting your newly closed stitches tighter until they threatened to knot your rib-cage into black and blue rods of anxiety.

You were woozy, still somewhat unsteady on your feet despite it having been a full 24 hours since you had awoken from the surgeon’s table, bathed in a halo of fluorescent light and with little more than a medical droid for company. But still, despite the stinging in your side and the heaviness of your muscles, you persevered onward, back towards the medbay, back to him - whether he wanted the company or not, you needed to do what you could to ensure he was ok.

For your own sanity, as well as his at this point.

Your stomach protests against your heart’s demand the moment you are hit with the first wave of disinfectant-heavy air, forcing your arm to shoot out and brace your heaving body against the medbay’s entrance. Almost instantly, your knees buckle in response to the flare of pain that shoots over your entire right side. Bile begins to stretch and rise from the hollowness of your stomach, equal parts a reaction to not only the smell and memory of your injury, but also to the agony currently rippling across your hunched form. The force of it makes your heart feel as though it is swelling and threatening to drag itself out of your throat with each breath you take, it takes a good few seconds to recollect yourself and refocus your vision as it stutters. 

There's a quiet sense of mourning draped across the wing. Considering what whispered condolences and murmurings had floated past the lips of the surviving soldiers released the same time as you, you’re not surprised. Through the pain poisoning your thoughts, you theorise that the bulk of the medical staff on duty are no doubt stretched between filing out piles of casualty reports and treating what unfortunate souls were not as lucky as you were. Yet despite all this, it's mere moments before you raise your head to find yourself flanked by a small crowd of medical droids. They hobble around you on weighted, gray tinted limbs with a speed that seemed uncanny to the robotic creatures, a concerned droning manifesting through the air as their vocal modulators begin to speak in unison.

Get away from me, I don’t have time for this! 

The words lock themselves behind your gritted teeth as you inwardly curse your body for collapsing in on itself before your mission was complete. Thinking only in frustration, you fight past the tremor threatening your wrist to shove at the closest droid’s metallic face-plate, silently urging your senses to adapt to the sterile atmosphere so you could continue to force your tired legs towards their goal.

Yet instead of the chill of durasteel or the sharp prickle of a sedative agent penetrating your flesh, all you feel beneath your fingers is….nothing. You flex them around the air as you force your breathing to return to normal once more, the frantic panic slowly uncaging the rest of your senses until you can reach focus. There's a heavy, latex warmth clamped around your outstretched wrist and a symmetrical weight steadying the hunch of your shoulder. You follow the path they offer until your eyes meet with the concerned gaze serving as the final stitch that keeps you frozen in place - pinning you with a tired glare that makes you feel remorseful and relieved all at once.

“...Eir.”

The clone medic continues to stare down at you long after you regard him and shift your weight backwards. The purple tattoos rimming his eyes bleed almost seamlessly into the dark circles bruising the hollow of their sockets. His hair doesn't look like it's been washed properly in days and he's still donning a set of surgical scrubs atop his uniform. He looks every bit as broken as you feel, yet he's still on duty with no sign of rest in sight. Your heart falls at the thought of how many others have been injured as badly as you in the last attack to warrant him being assigned additional duties within the 501st.

A sigh stretches over Eir’s chest as his dark eyes inspect the state of you.

“You should be resting. I had hoped you would have had the sense to stay away from the medbay for a while longer at least. I’ve got my hands full here as it is without you working yourself to the point of reinstatement straight after being discharged.”

Despite the exasperation sinking across his tone, he releases his hold on your wrist, the hand supporting your shoulder slinking back to join it in shooing away the medical droids as soon as he deems you steady enough to stand to full height again. He clicks his tongue as you absentmindedly ghost a hand over your injured side despite the pain having mostly subsided in its throbbing now. There's another beat where you can't quite bring yourself to look him in the eyes, feeling oddly sheepish at the scene you had just made, and continuing to wither under his knowing gaze. He takes mercy on you then, recognising the determination blazing behind your downtrodden expression and greeting it with a knowing smile so tiny, you don’t even have a chance to notice it before it floats away once he returns his gaze to the rows of medical beds stretching like coffin markers down the hall.

“Come on then if you’re going to find him, I can’t have you pulling at your stitches in the doorway. You know you’ll have to face Faera’s wrath if you ruin her handiwork.”

His voice holds a familiar warmth now as he folds his hands behind him and waits for you to follow his march. A sigh of relief leaves you before you can stop it, the force of it irritates your bruised lungs, but you confine the feeling to the back of your mind and concentrate on pushing your legs to a brisk walk behind the tall clone.

“...You know, he almost fought Faera when she was called in to stitch you up.” The words wring out a fresh admission of guilt from you, if Eir notices the heaviness of your silence, he doesn’t comment on it. You can’t blame him, his mind must be engulfed in a war-zone of its own right now.

“I’ve never seen him-” the surgical room doors seem to spin past each other as you and Eir pass them, each identical to the last. You wonder if the way they seem to blur together into a grey-white smudge makes Eir feel dizzy too, as you wait for him to pick up his sentence where he left it hanging under the pale lights. “-I’ve never seen him so terrified to leave a surgery before…”

Eir comes to a graceful halt at the end of a particularly dark stretch of the medbay corridor. A sigh born from concern hisses across the scar marring his lip and creases his brow. He wrings his gloved hands behind his back as his gaze rests on the final door looming in front of you both.

“...Make sure he’s ok will you? For me too.” Another sigh. Long, dark lashes flutter in contemplation as his fingers continue to twist around the apprehension, the guilt, as it spills away from him in the safety of the dark. “We’ve lost a lot of brothers these past few days… I’ve taken him off duty, but he won’t let me-”

The mess of feelings choke him now and he ducks his body away from you, snapping at the bunched corner of his gloves to steel his mind and breathing. Your voice finally finds itself once more as your fingers move to the door’s switch.

“I promise, Eir. Look after yourself too, okay?”

You stand in the doorway just long enough to see the back of his head tip forwards in a nod before you leave him to confront the very man you had set out to locate.

The moment the blast door closes behind you, all the air slips from your throat once more. The echo of hospital equipment set up across the wards finally numbs, and you’re left with little more than the harsh lighting crawling across the room to distract yourself from the sight in front of you. Your heart keeps on rising until you can taste it: nervous and bloody and wretched.

Kix sits with his back to you atop the surgical table in his blacks - no scrubs, no armour and armed only with a bottle of brandy hanging from his deft surgeon’s fingers. The room itself is heavily sanitised and free from gore and death, not unlike the one you had woken up in that same morning, yet it still manages to conjure a feeling that's downright insidious as the atmosphere crawls over your skin.

The entire base stinks of death today, the sickly pallor of Kix’s skin under the lights appears to indicate that he's danced beside its path far too many times now.

The clack of your boots against the floor is soon smothered by the neon as you edge yourself closer to where he sits, motionless in place. Had the arch of his shoulders not been gently rising with each breath he took, you would have been convinced that death had claimed him too.

“Smuggling in alcohol to the medbay, Kix? I would have expected better from a medic.”

You try to keep your tone light as it always is when you greet each other, but the words tumble out sour and tired, scratching your throat and flooding the gashes they leave with guilt the moment that they’re free. They trip forward and tie themselves around your feet, begging you to turn back around and leave. You ignore them, stepping closer into the room. You find yourself tracing the wedding of tattoos and patterns shaved into the back of his skull to calm yourself in the silence. The bottle remains suspended at his side, an all too familiar barrier for you both.

The seconds feel heavier than ever before he finally shrugs them away, throwing you a backwards half-glance over his shoulder, wordlessly beckoning you closer despite the hesitation that clenches across the muscles in his arms. Your attempt at lightheartedness is all a facade and you both know it. The fact that your hands have begun their crawl up the sides of his biceps to massage the knotted stress out of his shoulder blades is revealing enough of your true intentions.

You don’t waste energy with empty inquiries into if he's ok - none of the GAR medical staff are, after all, statistics and corpses cannot lie.

He leans back into your touch appreciatively, taking the utmost care to keep the brunt of his weight off of you. Kix’s gaze is locked on the swirling golden contents of the bottle in his fist now, the expression branded across them reminds you of the one Eir’s face had mirrored minutes prior. Another lump curdles in your throat as you spread your palms a little wider across his back and lean into the warmth of his body from behind him. The table bites into your thighs.

“I wish I could tell you it matters if I drink on the job or not. I’ve lost every one of the boys I’ve touched in the last ten surgeries.”

The world pauses at his words.

He takes another heavy swig of the bottle, hissing at the sting of the liquid against his tongue. The smell of it between you turns in your stomach, but you press your face into the slope of his neck all the same, urging him to continue with a gentle press of your lips.

“... and then when they brought you in from the field, all bloody and unconscious - a little part of me started screaming to run away.” Kix pulls forward, gently separating you both so he can twist to finally look at you from the edge of his table-top perch. His eyes are painted with remorse, but beneath it they’re as warm as they always are when it comes to you. “I was so scared of killing you too.”

His eyes glass over the moment his fingers can’t fight their shiver long enough to hold the bottle anymore. The emotion in them shatters the same time it hits the table with a resounding thunk. 

You rush to gather him up in your arms before the first tears begin to fall, pulling his head to your chest in the hope that your heartbeat could soothe him where your words could not. His fingers are bitten and washed raw, but no amount of scrubbing could ever cleanse his memories of what he had seen, what he was yet to see. They’re blistered around the cuticles, and you press each knuckle against your mouth to try and kiss away the guilt and the pain they carry, anything to ease his burden even a little. You’re not naive, you know nothing short of a miracle would make things better as they currently stood, but you would sooner drop dead than let him be dragged down alone by the weight of it all.

“You did everything you could, you all did.” You whisper the words against the heat of his skin, moving away the bottle so you could coax him closer and away from the table. “You didn’t kill any of them, none of this is your fault. I know it, Eir knows it and so does every single one of the boys in this whole damn army”

He’s carved from solid muscle, yet he’s so beaten down that the defeat aches across his posture and sinks its teeth into his bones as he struggles to find his feet. He breathes in deeply, head lolling heavily in the crook of your neck to ground himself from breaking down and sobbing into you. Each breath is steady, counted, but his heart flutters erratically next to yours as his fingers twitch over where they know your injury lies, too terrified to touch near it in case they somehow unhook each of the stitches and spill your blood across the white room. You dance your own down his spine in drawn-out, fluid movements. Your mind is aflame with the knowledge that though his body may gradually begin to unfurl, as long as he remains planted in this place his mind will be primed to snap again and again, until there is little left for you to reach.

He’s torturing himself by remaining here long after his shift has ended, you note. The realisation punctures something deep and threatens to drag forward fresh tears of your own. You pull back then despite the reluctance of both your limbs and the man tangled between them, gently patting his shoulder once before lacing your fingers against his clammy palm.

“Come on.” It's not a request as much as it's an instruction, one that leaves no room for argument despite the dull pain that throbs across your tone.

Eir is nowhere to be seen when you finally succeed in leading Kix by the hand out of the surgical room, you don't know whether to be relieved or concerned at the fact. The air across the ward still tastes of sickness and fear, it clips you as you push past it and out towards where your quarters are located.

Your room is small and most certainly not designed to house two people, but it's a better place to grieve than on a cold slab of operating table. Perhaps you think, that you’re also a little selfish enough to want him next to you tonight. Just so that you can ensure he isn't falling to pieces in that cold, aseptic cage of a surgical room if nothing else.

Your hands are endlessly gentle as you bundle him into the narrow bed before placing them on the mattress to carefully ease yourself in next to him. He senses your discomfort immediately, shuffling over to help you climb beneath the sheets in a position that takes the pressure off your wound. The care with which he handles you defrosts a little of the sadness freezing your blood, grateful that even when he was hurting so deeply himself, his adoration for you still continued to dapple like sunlight through every action he undertook. You draw him back into your chest again then, engulfing him in the warmth and safety that you extend to him with your entire being. Kix’s eyes shut themselves tightly, lashes fluttering against your pulse as he listens in for the thrum of your heart against your rib-cage. A tiny part of you hopes that it will be enough to lull him into some much needed slumber, but the cynicism dominates and quashes the thought as soon as it bubbles to the surface - its all wistful thinking once again, neither of you will sleep much at all tonight, that much had been foretold the moment you were discharged from the medbay that same morning.

The smell of brandy is weaker on his breath now as he trails his fingers over your torso, having finally found the strength to touch you now that he had been liberated from his self imprisonment. A shudder kisses down your spine at the sensation. It's as though he’s mapping out every little bit of your body, like you will be taken away from him if he doesn’t.

The same bitter cynicism screams in your ear once more, reminding you that in this war there’s no real guarantee you won’t be pulled apart either way.

You force it down alongside a fresh curtain of tears.

His digits halt once they loop towards the medical dressing plastered to your side, it's as if the newfound obstacle has clashed with his memories of your body enough to shock him to an abrupt stop. Slowly, cautiously, his touch withdraws away from the fabric as if it's dangerous.

“It’s proof that I’m alive.” He doesn’t respond outright, but you can feel his shoulders begin to shake underneath your caress, even though his face remains hidden under your chin. “You saved me, Kix, I’m here because of you.”

“My heart hasn’t stopped pounding from the moment they wheeled you in. It only got worse when they called me away to begin another procedure, all I could think about was what I would do if you didn’t wake up - like all the others before you.”

You curl around him tighter, hooking your legs around his own and cupping under his shoulder blades to draw him in even closer, grounding you both as he spills his heart until it bleeds into the sheets beneath you. Tears stream his face, less reluctant now. They veer down in fat streams and look drunk with how they cling to his cheeks and chin.

“...These boys need you, Kix. You would need to carry on, as we all do-”

“I wouldn't want to.”

You let him say it, let it drip like poison from his lips in the hope that it's at least cathartic to the guilt radiating from within him. You snuff out any words that threaten to follow with a kiss to his forehead, prolonged and firm enough to soothe the lump in your throat as much as it is for him. He cranes his head upwards to capture the second kiss with his own mouth. There's nothing gentle about how his lips mesh with your own this time, his kiss is searing with its passion and it steals away what little breath you have left. A hand threads itself behind your nape to pull you impossibly closer in the tiny bed, the other digging into your hip bone as though you would dissolve into starlight if he failed to hold you in place.

His cheeks feel damp as they scrape against your face, dying the kiss salty with tears. They overpower the bite of the brandy on his tongue in the same way they must do to the alcohol burning in his veins. The sheets twist and threaten to slip from the bed frame as you press to turn him onto his back despite the twinge in your side. His eyes snap back open, wide and alert in protest at your overexertion. You shut down the medic side of him with a single finger to his parted lips, a smile blossoming across your face for the first time that day. The thin sheets pool around your hips, binding both sets of the legs beneath it together. He relents with his unvoiced complaint, frown still reluctant, but eyes swimming with golden waves of emotion as he stares up at you. 

“I love you.”

He’s said it before, a few times now - but back then the words were always seeped in alcohol and playful bravado. This is different, it's raw and choked with affection that runs deeper than any liquor could ever reach. It decorates across his face in such detail that it puts his tattoos to shame, and it drags forth another wave of tears that have been collecting behind your lashes. They drip into your smile as it splits wider.

“I love you too, Kix. More than you’ll ever know.”

You surge forward to kiss across his face and neck, relying on the peppered heat of your lips and passion to communicate what mere words never could - to reassure every part of him that you were real, alive, and hopelessly in love with him, that come morning, he wasn’t going to wake up to your body laying there cold and accusatory with his failure to save you.

For the first time, Kix allows himself to be treated for his own wounds, as you stitch up his anxieties with each brush of your lips against his.

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection 2020 Day 20: Mutual Pining

An Old Feeling | @deservetobesaved

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1741 Main Tags/Warnings: post season 12, jealous!dean, love confession Summary: Castiel thinks Dean will never love him back so he decides to try and move on. Cue jealous!Dean and confessions galore.

To Catch a Spark | zaphodsgirl (AO3)

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2364 Main Tags/Warnings: Misunderstandings, Fluff Summary: Cas has been acting pretty clumsy lately and Dean is a little worried.

Falling Awake | @specsofwings

Rating: General Word Count: 2530 Main Tags/Warnings: Love confessions, Cas and Dean being idiots, The Cosmic Entity Summary: After Michael is killed by Team Free Will 2.0, Dean ends up in the Empty, Michael's grace pulling a sliver of his consciousness there. The Cosmic Entity calls him out on not realising Castiel is in love with him. Dean needs to decide what to do with that information as he wakes up home.

Personal Space | @notfunnydean

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 2859 Main Tags/Warnings: NSFW, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot. Masturbation, Masturbation Interruptus, Voyeur Castiel Summary: It’s been four weeks since the last time Dean actually had time for himself and he just wants to crawl into his bed and finally jack off. Sadly he says a certain name and Castiel shows up and not to interrupt.

That Game We Played | @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 3139 Main Tags/Warnings: Valentine's Day, Castiel/Dean Winchester in the Men of Letters Bunker, Broken Thermostat, Castiel is Not Oblivious, Naked Cuddling Summary: “You know what?” Dean mutters, mostly to himself. He really is trying to be less of a jerk - but he can’t seem to help it. It’s Valentine’s day, and it’s hot. So he decides to stop talking, and takes off his jacket, a deep blue leather utility, and shucks it away on a counter. Cas seems to find this interesting, his eyes following Dean around the room; so then Dean does the first thing that comes to mind. He walks over to Cas, and holds his hand out. Cas stares at it, like he’s trying to figure out the purpose of its existence. Dean helps him, because he’s awesome like that. “Your coat.” Because why the fuck not?

Get out of my head | @notfunnydean

Rating: General Word Count: 3216 Main Tags/Warnings: Cursed, Mind Reading, dean and cas get cursed, mind reading Summary: When a witch puts some sort of spell on Dean and Castiel, they start to hear each other’s thoughts. Dean tries very hard to keep a secret, but Castiel has to insist.

May I ask for this dance | @notfunnydean

Rating: General Word Count: 3225 Main Tags/Warnings: Dean needs Cas' help on a case, Masquerade Ball, dancing on his feet Summary: When Dean asks Castiel to accompany him at an undercover investigation at a masquerade ball, to find the witch who killed a lot of people, Castiel wants it to be a date. Only problem, he can’t dance, so he asks Sam for help.

You aren't a monster | @notfunnydean

Rating: General Word Count: 3782 Main Tags/Warnings: misunderstandings Summary: When Bobby and Sam start to believe Castiel is actually on the bad side, Dean tries to defend his angel. He wouldn’t let them kill his best friend but unfortunately Castiel hears the wrong snippet of the conversation and ends up hurting Dean badly.

And I swear | @notfunnydean

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 4413 Main Tags/Warnings: two idiots in love, Jealous!Cas, Arthur is not in the fic but mentioned a lot, Abusive Relationships, hurt!Dean, Break Up Summary: Dean knows that Arthur is treating him badly, but he had worse in his life and besides, it’s not like the person he really loves wants him back.

your eyes will lead me straight back home | @elizaeverafter

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 4602 Main Tags/Warnings: no archive warnings apply, fake/pretend relationship, mutual pining, fluff, light angst, romantic comedy, friends to lovers, au modern setting, jealousy, castiel POV Summary: When Dean hatches a plan to go to Charlie's wedding with Castiel to avoid being bothered about remaining single, Castiel knows this isn't going to go well. But he hasn't been able to refuse Dean so far, so why would this act of being in a relationship be any different? And if Castiel feels like exploding and blurting out his feelings the whole time, well, that's his problem.

The War Within You | @verobatto-angelxhunter

Rating: Mature Word Count: 9770 Main Tags/Warnings: Destiel, season 6 canon divergent, first kiss, mutual pining, slow burn, love confession, eventual Human!Cas, angst with a happy ending. Summary: Sam Is back from the cage but something is wrong with him, and Dean knows it. He must call Castiel for help... But not just for that... There's something forbidden burning inside him that makes his mind go crazy. He needs to be near the angel.

The Meaning of Everything | @verobatto-angelxhunter

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 17000 Main Tags/Warnings: Destiel, canonverse, post s14 canon divergent, mutual pining, first kiss, love confession, explicit sexual content, canon typical violence, angst with a happy ending, vessel sharing, winged Cas Summary: Chuck is the bad guy, and he broke with his snap Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. The chaos is all over the Earth. But Billie has a plan, they need to work together to raise Jack as the New God. Dean and Cas will try to solve their issues, but something unexpected will happen that will separate them again.

The Alpha Next Door (WIP) | @Destielshipper4Cas

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 16767 Main Tags/Warnings: Strangers to Lovers, First Time, Omega Castiel, Alpha Dean, Past Abuse Summary: When Cas is placed in WitSec, he gets a fake secondary gender designation to go along with his new name, ‘Jimmy.’ All he has to do until the boss of the omega trafficking ring he escaped is behind bars is keep a low profile, always apply his alpha scent, and not fall in love with an alpha. Well—two out of three ain’t too bad… Dean has never had a crush on an alpha before. Along comes his new neighbor, Jimmy, an alpha who is alphasexual. There’s just something about him, and to his utter confusion, he finds himself falling for an alpha for the first time in his life.

Guardian Angel | @notfunnydean

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 19486 Main Tags/Warnings: Homeless Dean Winchester, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Virgin!Dean, Abusive John Winchester, Canon-Typical Violence Summary: Everybody in the world has his own guardian angel, to keep them safe and protect them. Only "bad people" are without a guardian angel. Maybe that's why Dean is alone.

Little Blue Dragon | @saltnhalo

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 23820 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Magic, Blacksmith Dean Winchester, Mage Sam Winchester, Creature Castiel, Dragon Castiel, Pining, Soulmates, Minor Violence, Frottage Summary: Dean Winchester may have a reputation for being a skilled craftsman and blacksmith, but his life is just like anyone else’s. He’s over-worked and under-slept, and it’s all because of the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that tells him he’s… forgetting something. Still, he can’t let his weird dreams or errant thoughts get in the way of his work and his love for his craft. The strange feeling goes ignored. That is, until he meets a man with jewel-blue eyes and an aura of intrigue. Castiel slots into his life in a way that Dean had never thought possible, and Dean grows accustomed to the mysterious man’s visits and brilliant smiles and tales of far-away places. He’d never known he was missing a piece of himself until he met Castiel, and he thinks that Cas might feel the same way. Until Castiel disappears from Dean’s life completely.

Dislocation | @pray4jensen

Rating: Mature Word Count: 24514 Main Tags/Warnings: Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending Summary: After the sun is restored and the Woman of Letters banishes Castiel, he falls and becomes human, lost and alone in a place far from home. Four hundred and fifty-one days later, Sam finds him. He tells Castiel that Dean is alive. So they go. They go and they arrive at the bunker and Sam’s acting strange and there’s something that he’s not telling Castiel, something about Dean. And then Castiel finally reunites with Dean. And there is something about Dean. Something about Dean that has Dean pulling Castiel into tight embraces, something about Dean that has Dean running his thumb across Castiel’s cheek with a tender look in his eyes, and something about Dean that has Dean shaking when Castiel says certain things to him, things that are normal, things that should not affect him this way. There is something about Dean that no one is telling him.

Sending A Raven | @saltnhalo

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 38677 Main Tags/Warnings: Vikings, Magic, Temporary Character Death, Established Relationship, Leader Dean Winchester, Explicit Sexual Content, Violence, Dean/Cas Pinefest 2019, Viking Dean Winchester, Viking Castiel, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), BAMF Dean Winchester, Mutual Pining, Angst Summary: When Dean, the Viking jarl of Týrvik, leaves on a raid to combat the enemy warriors attacking their ships, his husband Castiel is left to protect and lead the village. The ships return barely a week later, with damaged timbers and a devastated, leader-less crew, and suddenly Castiel finds himself not only in a position of leadership for which he is ill-equipped, but terrified for the safety of his captured husband. With the possibility of a spy somewhere in the village’s midst, Castiel leaves his people under Sam’s care and departs on the journey north to where they think Dean is being held, in a desperate attempt to rescue him before it’s too late.

Twenty Years | @ioasccel

Rating: Mature Word Count: 39501 Main Tags/Warnings: Angst, pining, religious themes, Summary: A profound bond between a Priest and the one he loves the most that spans decades. Father Novak’s love of God is tested by one Dean Winchester. A story of a priest driven by love and tortured by desire. All about forbidden love, heart break, and an eventually a happily ever after.

It's A Long Life to Always Be Longing | @pomegranatedaffodil

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 40685 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Divergence, Spells and Enchantments, Road Trips, Angst with a Happy Ending Summary: Dean’s life has always been dictated by duty rather than by need. So when Amara offers to give him the thing he needs most, he doesn’t know what to expect, but it certainly isn’t this: a chance to rest, some time away from his life and his burdens. Now he’s trapped in an enchanted sleep, unable to bring himself back to the waking world. It’s up to Sam and Castiel to gather the components of a spell that will bring Dean back to them. Through road trips, honest conversations, and a lot of patience, they’ll make sure Dean comes home. And when he does, maybe he and Castiel will finally have a chance to act on long-buried feelings brought to the surface by their enforced separation. Canon-divergent from the end of 11.23.

The Handyman's Special | @carrieosity

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 51456 Main Tags/Warnings: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mutual Pining, Humor and Fluff, Human AU, Low-angst, Top!Castiel/Bottom!Dean Summary: Dr. Dean Winchester, professor of Mechanical Engineering, was full of confidence in his own abilities when he decided to purchase a fixer-upper house to rehab and remodel on his own. Now, standing in the middle of his new house and praying the floors won’t cave in, he’s realizing that determination and academic brilliance might only take him so far this time. The bigger problem: his overconfidence in the face of other people’s doubts (ahem, Sam) means that asking for help now will mean swallowing a whole lot of pride…and he’d rather not. Hiring a secret contractor to do the work without telling anyone seems like the perfect solution. Accidentally hiring an amazingly hot secret contractor wasn’t part of the plan. And when Sam overhears a conversation and starts connecting dots, a snap decision and another lie on top the first leads to a ridiculous balancing act of fake stories, pretend relationships, and one hell of a renovation tale.

Escaping Neverland | @emblue-sparks

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 84004 Main Tags/Warnings: Major Warning: Underage(only first 30k, no underage sex), Mental health issues, Identity issues, failed family placements, Mention of past traumas Tags: Adventure Romance AU with canon elements Storybook I-1995 Storybook II- 2015 Heavily inspired by Peter Pan,Completely Destiel despite first pairing, read to learn how, NO MCD(Sam Dean Cas)Canon character deaths, TAGS FOR 1995: Practices & rituals of Sumerian/Greek/Judeo Christian faiths, Dean/Jimmy slow burn, heart failure, kidney/pancreatic failure, dialysis, Found Family, John's the dad his kids deserve, LGBTQ positive parents, First kiss disaster, First DateHoliday, our island/our rules, sad boys, memorial rituals, Heart Transplant, Mourning Rituals TAGS FOR 2015: Everyone supports therapy, Incorrect demon summoning, Latin, Scottish Gaelic, Enochian, Professor/Rookie Hunter!Sam, Nurse!Dean, Orchard Owner/Beekeeper!Cas,Tattooed Dean, burger date, Frottage, Shower Deansturbation,Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Cum kink, Biting kink, Switch boys, Heavy surgical scarring, Dean knows ASL, Strange Dreams, Collective nightmares, Canon adjacent realms: Hoya Baciu Forest Romania, Caria Turkey, Chaos, Mythical Greek creatures, Temporarily fanged Benny, Some villainous ferrymen, Some badass ferrymen, Overly confident dick in a boat, Destiel Ever After, Happy Ending GUARANTEED, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2019 Summary: Lawrence 1995- Sixteen year old Dean Winchester finds himself in St. Luke's Children's Hospital after an electrocution severely damages his heart. On unit Neverland he meets Jimmy, a smartass with multiple organ failure and an expiration date. They discover an immediate spark which becomes an enduring flame. But Dean struggles accepting Jimmy's fate as well as his own, if a heart cannot be found in time. As his efforts to evade the ultimate marauder are weakening, he begins drawing strength from the misfit teens of Neverland East, learning the power of found family. Lebanon 2015- Dean finally joins Sam, Jo, and Charlie in the bunker. But unexpectedly meeting Castiel, who shares an unsettling likeness to Jimmy and an equally traumatic childhood, threatens to destroy two decades of hard work moving beyond the devastating events which occurred at St. Luke's. They'd be perfect for each other, if both weren’t so damn broken. As their involvement deepens, rookie hunter Sam works a case of rising juvenile deaths, revealing a shocking connection to the surviving Neverlanders. One that's been calling them all along to perilous adventure.

After All These Years | @peanutbutterjelly-pie

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 99909 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe, Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Single Parent Dean, Reunion, Slow Burn Summary: In which Dean finds himself at a wedding as Jo's fake boyfriend against his will, groaning and complaining the whole time, but still trying to appear all handsome and perfect and utterly in love since he's an awesome friend like that (and since Jo would make his life a living hell otherwise). And just when he begins to think that it won't be so bad to eat tons of free food and let his daughter Emma enjoy the festivity his gaze suddenly meets the two bluest eyes in existence and the world stops to move for a moment. Because of course the groom's brother turns out to be his old high school crush Castiel – the only person Dean was never able to forget – and things start to become really complicated all of a sudden.

[twopoppies]

hey i love you fic recs and was wondering if youve got anything on desperate harry? it doesnt have to be bottom harry, more needy or submissive harry like anything with overstimulation, orgasm denial, harry gagging for it because when isnt he (and bonus points for tears). ive become absolutely feral for this trope and ive read my way through the entire bottom harry tag already so im up for anything u can give me :))

Oh, anon. I love this trope, too. Hopefully I have some you haven’t read yet. 

Allegro/Adagio by coffinofachimera (E, 9K) everything I’ve read from this author has been so beautifully written, and this is no exception. Yes, it’s filthy, but they give such depth to the characters’ reasons for the way they “play”. And this is one of the rare fics that really take us through the build up to the scene, straight through to aftercare. I really loved this one.

Hike Up Your Skirt (And Show Your World To Me) by Anonymous (E, 18K) make sure you read the tags on this one because it’s not your conventional fic and Louis is definitely super manipulative. But if you like the idea of secretary Harry in lingerie, CEO Louis, copious amounts of dirty talk, some power imbalance, and exhibitionism… this could be for you.

gathered on wings by Brooklyn_Babylon / @twopoppies (E, 33K) This one is mine, so here’s the summary:

What Harry Styles wanted was to be taken seriously as an artist.What he needed was a new sugar daddy to pave the way.Louis Tomlinson is an artist who isn’t what Harry is looking for.Somehow he still manages to turn Harry’s world upside down.

Whoever, However by Brooklyn_Babylon / @twopoppies (E, 9K) this one is mine. again. Here’s the summary:

Louis could feel his heart rate pick up as he positioned the camera and Harry slowly stood up. They both knew what came next –– it had been clearly outlined in the advert Harry answered. The studio Louis worked for was filming a new series of camboy videos. Louis’ job was to make it look like amateur porn –– sweaty, sensual, dirty –– but well lit and edited. He was an artist, thank you very much.

––

Or: Louis has a much better day at work than he’d expected.

But When We Kiss by @indiaalphawhiskey (E, 8K) At last this author has graced us with another fic and it’s a filthy, fantastic Sugar Baby Harry fic. Hallelujah! But seriously, their writing is so good, the dynamics are so hot, and Harry is just the perfect kind of desperate in this one. Go read it! 

redder than the devil by mercutionotromeo (E, 5K) This has a little of everything you’ve asked for and this author always delivers some super hot smut. 

like poison coursing through me by orphan_account (E, 4K) Kink exploration, dirty talk, Louis pushing Harry, and Harry loving it. 

Only Write By The Moon by glasscushion (E, 5K) This is basically pure smut, but this author has such a beautiful way with words…even smut sounds poetic. 

I’d do Niall by alongthewatchtower (E, 8K) I know this fic isn’t for everyone and I also know it’s pure filth. But I love everything about it. Dirty talk, Harry in panties, desperate Harry, Niall trying it and not knocking it, Dom Louis vibes…all the good stuff. LOL! This author also has a handful of others that I’m a big fan of.

Lay So Still by yougotmetieddown (E, 3K) Basically just Harry desperate to be used and Louis giving him what he wants. Whew. Stupid hot.

Sonic Sounds by glasscushion (E, 6K) So, so smutty and such a sexy exploration of kink discovery.

honey is it time to spin by alongthewatchtower (NR, 4K) I mean…pure filth. Strangers to lovers, age difference, messy subby Harry. Filth. 

that boy’s got my heart in a silver cage by orphan_account (E, 4K) Flustered, overwhelmed subby Harry just starting to figure out that what he wants most is to please Louis.

skip a beat and move with my body by crybaby (E, 6K) I don’t even know how to sum this up. It’s a whole lot of Harry being used, talked about like he’s not there, doing his best to please, and having a threesome with Louis and Zayn. It’s a lot. 

turn you on, make you radiate by ballsdeepinjesus (E, 15K) This can fic takes place over the course of a decade, so their sex life is always hot, although not always desperate. But I love this author always. 

You’ll Breathe Me In (You Won’t Release) by LoadedGunn (E, 95K) Also known as The Driving Instructor fic. This has some of the best pacing I’ve read in a fic, some really well written BDSM smut, and characters I just really enjoy. I know it’s not for everyone. Read the tags.

Promise Not To Stop When I Say When by becka, mediaville (E, 49K) Ok, so let me start by saying that you should read the tags. This fic has some pairings that may not be your thing at all. HOWEVER, it’s end game larry and if you can handle the other stuff, it’s pretty damn hot. 

love to make him moan by say_thanks (E, 8K) I love this one. There’s so much passion and such good smut. It’s a PWP but so much more than that. You can really feel the love they have for each other. 

When The Wolves Come Out by @rosemarianthyme (E, 2K) I think what I love most about this little fic is the idea of ABO role play. I’m always up for kink discovery fic (further explored in the prequel) and I love reading a different take on ABO.

It’s My Pleasure To Introduce You by LoadedGunn (E, 8K) I mean…Harry and Louis meet at a sex shop. Harry’s desperate from the get go. I love this fic. And the love the very kinky sequel as well.  

Take Our Bodies Higher by louislittlehiccups (E, 21K) Louis finally find someone who shares his kinks. It happens to be phone sex operator Harry. So much dirty talk. So much desperation. So, so good. 

Good Enough to Eat by objectlesson (E, 7K) All of this author’s fics have some version of overwhelmed and desperate Harry. This one is probably my favorite though. 

we’ve people to see (let’s put them on hold) by orphan_account (E, 7K) I mean, meet a hot boy in the metro, take him home and he’s your sexual soulmate? Sure…happens to us all. But goddamn it this one is hot af, even if it’s completely unbelievable. LOL! 

do you know me by heart by HappyPrincess / @pattern-pals (E, 7K) Harry is definitely desperate, but man is it angsty. These are complex characters with complex emotions and behaviors. There’s a second part being written, but the author says not to expect any fluff! The writing here is visceral and raw and real. Such a good read. 

leave you drowning until you reach for my hand by orphan_account (E, 17K) This fic made me so uncomfortable in the best of ways and the psychological exploration in it is so well done. But it’s also really, really sexy. 

No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin by Teumessian (E, 14K) Louis and Harry want a threesome. With Zayn. And it’s really fucking hot, in part because Harry is so desperate for it. 

use somebody by istajmaal (E, 5K) There’s so much I love about this fic from the way Louis treats Harry vs the way he treats Nick, to the way we get to see Harry and Louis’ relationship (both sexual and otherwise) through Nick’s eyes. 

ain’t had none like you in a while (E, 12K) Also known as the time travel daddy fic and man, it covers a lot of ground. Two for one desperate Harrys! It’s not easy writing a fic that is mostly smut and involves more than two people but still keeps it interesting and actually makes you feel for the characters. But this one definitely does, as far as I’m concerned (yes, I like some feelings with my porn). 

[awed-frog]

When you say romance should be 18 and over do you mean the brand of romance we know today (aka toxic) or romance as a whole? If we wrote healthy romance aimed at younger crowds or presented unhealthy behaviour as unhealthy behaviour in regular romance (for older crowds) would that be a good solution?

Well - I see three questions here, all of them incredibly complex and beyond interesting: should art be political and is censorship ever a good idea and also is the romance genre okay? The answer to all of them, in my opinion, is ‘no but’.

1) Should art be political?

The stupid thing is, art is inherently political, whether you want it to or not, but art that’s deliberately political tends to be awful, and that’s a universal truth both for left-wing stuff and for right-wing stuff. When you willingly create political stuff, what you’re crafting is propaganda, and proganda is generally sad and bad. I guess there is propaganda that’s also good art - Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs comes to mind - but the problem is, not all of us are Victor Hugo. 

That said, since whatever we create is political (because man is a social animal) and will have some kind of moral message, yes - ideally we want more art with an ethically ‘good’ moral message than we want garbage, because art (and here I include everything: books, movies and so on) is perhaps the most effective and impactful mind-shaper ever. That’s why Disney is doing its very best to be a monopoly, after all. But: I don’t have a good solution for how to ensure art is nice. I think art is nice when artists are nice, and artists are nice when they grow up in good, healthy societies. So the more a society rots from the inside out, the more likely it is you’ll find art that’s also rotten. I mean, while romance as a genre was always a bit dodgy (see below), what that article was talking about - the rise of the possessive, violent boyfriend and domestic abuse as the great love story - is sort of a recent phenomenon, and goes hand in hand with the deterioration of women’s rights in (Western) society. 

(As an aside, I’m not sure I agree (young) women are necessarily misogynistic for reading crap like Fiftfy Shades: I think (young) women are exhausted. Fifty Shades is, more than anything, an ode to undeserved capitalism - the only kind that seems open as an option today. After all, we know trickle-down capitalism doesn’t work and most of us will toil and toil for very little; Christian Grey is the antidote to that, the guy who shows up, basically kidnaps you, and smothers you in a life of riches for which the only thing you must do in return is give up. Having someone else decide on your job, your car, your possessions and clothes, where you’ll live, what you’ll eat and when, whether you’ll take birth control (lol: obviously not), when you’ll see your friends and family plus when and how you’ll orgasm - what women tried to escape for generations is suddenly the dream for many of us - not because of any new political ideology, but because we’re beyond tired. Women, like men, are now crushed in a neverending cycle of bs, underpaid jobs, and are apparently fed up enough in taking responsibility for anything that not only romance and ‘superhuman’ characters are booming, but a very specific kind of subset of that: essentially, slave fics. 

Just give up your agency, and you’ll be taken care of and cherished - forever.

I understand a kink is not the same as your actual political opinion, but still - I’m not enthusiastic about this trend, and I’m even less enthusiastic when it gobbles up young women who haven’t had time to experience real life relationships.)

No, I think that in the end, the answer is - if you reverse the rotting of society, automatically - statistically - you’ll get healthier artists and a healthier audience. So, really, the fight is always the same: better paid jobs, better (and free) schools, more opportunities for continued education of any kind, more democracy and transparency, more green spaces and better living conditions.

2) Is censorship ever a good idea?

Sadly, no. You’d think the logical conclusion of what I just said would be, ‘In the meantime, let’s ban the most dangerous stuff’ or something, and while part of me is tempted to support that, censorship has a way of ending very badly no matter how good and noble your intentions are.

(Self-censorship should be more of a thing, though: not everything that goes through our minds deserves to be seen and shared.)

What sucks at the moment is that on the one hand, capitalism is operating its own censorship; and on the other, its desperate search for new markets has led to a disastrous disintegration of actual human interactions.

So, problem one is that we only publish and market what makes a lot of money, and while that’s normal, to an extent, the result today is that everything is ‘almost the same’ as the previous thing (think sequels, prequels, remakes, obnoxious book covers for books that are basically all the same). So if ‘asshole boyfriend who beats you up’ suddenly makes money, it becomes very hard to escape the trope, because what will be offered to you everywhere is exactly that. This was less of a thing back when our main sources of entertainment were shared (movie theaters, the one family TV, school libraries and so on); now, it’s an epidemic, and as we see with Youtube algorithms, a dangerous one, because this obsession with watching and rewatching ‘almost the same’ inevitably leads to more and more extreme stuff.

Meanwhile, problem two is that the more tailor-made our entertainment is, the less we connect to real people. I know I sound about 90 here, but when all family members are glued to a different screen - mom watching the 50th remake of Eat, Pray, Love, dad down the rabbithole of lizard conspiracy theories, big brother now exploring some milk&peanut butter weirdness on Youporn and younger sister 30 fics deep into Stucky high school AUs - what do they have in common? What do they talk about? What can they even learn from each other? Until recently, and for aeons, fiction was shared, and its primary goal was to form a connection between group members. Now, that’s gone. We destroyed it, without even realizing what we were doing, in the space of twenty years. And yeah - I know you can create new communities, but a) these communities are virtual (which means, for the most part: not real) and b) they tend to connect like with like, which is comforting, perhaps, but not very useful. The whole point here is that we need to learn how to feel empathy and trust for those who’re different, and build a community with them - instead, what the internet is doing is isolating us inside our little bubbles, so much so that any minor disagreement is now seen as good reason to break off contact.

Censorship, however, doesn’t solve any of this. For starters, we need more regulation on how big corporations can get, what social media companies can and can’t do and who can access what kind of material. And it’d be great if we could all unplug a little, but uh - fat chance of that.

3) Is the romance genre okay?

Again, just my opinion, but personally, I mistrust it. There are no romance books for men? Instead, books for men feature a Main Character doing stuff and improving himself while accidentally meeting a Sexy Lamp he can go home to at the end of the story. And, well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but isn’t this a healthier way to look at life? While good relationships are very meaningful (or even the most meaningful) part of any human life, if your goal is to get them, they won’t grow right. You shouldn’t be hyperfocused on finding love; I think it’s much better to be like Main Character: you work on your drawing skills, try a new sport, read poetry, defeat evil Russians, thus developing inner happiness and self-confidence, thus leading you towards towards a partner who’ll fall in love with who you are - not a partner who was looking for some empty shell to fill with their own expectations and preferences.

And I know - romance books and movies are full of exciting non-romantic events and stuff - but still, the fact they’re classified and intended as romance does imply that finding a romantic partner is the ultimate goal. Which, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s healthy, and is a particularly inappropriate message for young women. After all, why is it okay that young men are encouraged to go on ghost hunts, study dinosaurs and save the world while young women are taught to wait around for a broken (possibly violent, but it’s not his fault) bad boy only they can fix? It’s messed up, is what it is, and I may be extreme here, but even the tamest, sweetest romance revolves around the same message: that you’re not complete on your own, and that you should focus on relationships as a way to become a better, happier human being. 

Now, as much as I love this quote -

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.” — Oscar Wilde

- obviously there’s no direct cause-and-effect here - you don’t read one book and become a mindless Stepford wife - so I’m not saying, ‘no one should read romance ever’. It’s just - as I said in that other post, we should all enjoy diverse stuff. Read your romance novels, but also read the classics, read some philosophy, a random poem, a badly-written thriller - read Stephen King, read how the OED was written, or a Wikipedia article on the French resistance - anything and everything. Because of capitalism, because of this push towards personalized entertainment, we’re being forced and pigeonholing ourselves in smaller and smaller cages, and the worst thing is - we’re comfortable inside them, because this is the awful truth: cages are comfortable, and that’s why we need to get out before we forget what cages are for.

[As a final point: you say ‘if we wrote’, does it mean you’re an aspiring writer? If so, you shouldn’t worry about any of this. You write what you want, you write the stories you want to read. Just remember to get out of your cage as well - experience, discover, grow, read, dare - and then put all that into your books. I’m sure they’ll be great, whatever your favourite genre.]

[callunavulgari]

Year-In-Fic | 2019

How many fics did you write this year? What was your total wordcount?

This year I wrote 41 fics (technically 40 as the last was published today, but I wrote it in December so I’m counting it), for a total of 96,689 words. For even more interesting numbers, of that 96k, a little over 70k of them were written in the month of October alone, so I’m pretty proud of that.

Fic Roundup!

children of dust and ash | Bartimaeus |  Bartimaeus/Kitty(/Nathaniel) | 1,801 words |  Kitty summons Bartimaeus on a chilly fall day in her thirty-eighth year.

sweet music playing in the dark | DBH | 1,102 words | “I noticed some time ago that you seem to have an appreciation for jazz.”

Radio Ga Ga | Stranger Things | Harringrove | 1,143 words | There’s always another party in Hawkins, Indiana. It would be almost boring if it weren’t for Steve Harrington.

Sunlight | Marvel | Loki/Thor | 765 words | They aren’t quite out of the solar system when Loki appears at the arm of Thor’s chair, hair shorn short and a furious snarl on his face.

like the bough of a willow tree | Detroit Become Human | Hank/Connor | 1,214 words | There’s a human lost in his woods.

knocking on heaven’s door | Stranger Things | Harringrove | 1,748 words | “Just, get in the fucking car. I’ll drive you home.” Billy looked at him, very seriously, and said, “What if I don’t want to go home?”

no more dreaming like a ghost | KH | Axel/Roxas | 813 words | He is in the kitchen, the stove top still warm under his thighs, and everything smells of cherries. The pie is cooling on the windowsill, the sun slanting in warm and buttery, and it is like a dream. A memory. A wish.

Cheers | DBH | Hankcon | 6,368 words | “Are you coming in or not?”Connor blinks, jerks his eyes up and away from those hands and-The bartender has blue eyes. They match the spinning LED at his temple perfectly.

bury a friend (try to wake up) | Stranger Things | Harringrove | 1,587 words | Steve digs up Billy’s body on a Tuesday.

won’t be too soon ‘til I say… goodnight moon | KH | Riku/Sora | 4,549 words |  The house was built in the fall of 1882.

you’ll never know what hit you | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 5,379 words | “C’mon, ghost,” Shane urges. “Make all my dreams come true. Fuck me up, fam.”

make this chaos count | EOS 10 | Ryan/Akmazian | 724 words | “You really should stop looking for me,” Akmazian tells him, fingers creeping across Ryan’s ribcage, mapping the architecture of his ribs.

eat you up whole | The Witcher | Geralt/Regis | 2,527 words | “How many mouthfuls do you think I could take from you before it had some effect?” Regis whispers, lips against his throat. Geralt can feel the pinprick of fangs. “Four? Six? Ten? More, even?”

forget the horror here | DBH | Hankcon | 4,390 words | “Hello,” the android says, it’s chest heaving, the gleam of its heart brighter, bluer than before.

summoning demons (and other bad first date ideas) | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 3,868 words | “If I let you out of that circle,” Ryan says, slowly. “Are you going to eat me?”

Itch | The Magnus Archives | Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims | 1,440 words | The boneturner takes from him two ribs - one for him and one for Jon.

the salt water sting | Dishonored | Corvo/Outsider | 2,163 words |  The ship wrecks several hundred miles off of the coast of Karnaca.

a skeleton of something more | SGA | Rodney/John | 3,072 words | “John?” he murmurs, still coasting on the pain. His head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, if cotton were also made of glass.

in the woods somewhere | Teen Wolf | Derek/Stiles | 4,570 words | Stiles buys a house in Virginia.

Wake Up | The Magnus Archives | Martin/Jon | 550 words | “If you wake up,” Martin tells him, experimentally. “I won’t go through with it. You can tell me what a stupid idea it was, and we can laugh about it, and everything will be normal.”

Pas de Deux | KH | Axel/Roxas | 506 words | Roxas doesn’t remember what the sky looks like anymore.

try to wake up | Stranger Things | Harringrove | 1,226 words | They do not, in fact, bone down and praise Satan.

too late to come on home | LoZ | Gen | 1,391 words | “You look familiar,” the boy says in his strange, haunting voice. “Are you lost?”

patron saint of the lost causes | Harry Potter | Draco/Harry | 4,203 words | “Can’t you just, y’know,” he waves a hand and makes an obscene gesture, his cheeks flaring red. “Shag it out?”

wouldn’t you like to see something strange? | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 1,571 words | “I’d say you make my heart pound, but well…” Stiles nods meaningfully to his chest, where if you look hard enough between the slots of his ribs, you can see the lump of muscle that once was his heart, pointedly not beating. “You know.”

the night is softly, sweetly calling | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 2,938 words | Here’s the thing that Stiles never tells the Hales: his mother was strange too.

Haunt | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 1,486 words |  Ryan couldn’t remember a time when the world didn’t believe in ghosts.

bite my tongue, bide my time | PJO | Nico/Percy(/Annabeth) | 1,376 words | “What’s wrong with you?” Nico asks, cowering when Percy places a gentle kiss on his collarbone.

Bird Song | Raven Cycle | Ronan/Adam, Gen | 1,445 words | On a dreary Sunday in early January, Ronan dreams himself a pair of wings.

kiss me hard until you’re done | Star Wars | Reylo | 3,082 words | He looks up at her from under heavy lids, dark hair sweeping forward to frame his face. “May I have this dance?”

beauty in the dissonance | Marvel | Tony/Loki | 1,411 words |  When Tony dies, it isn’t for forever.

like real people do | Stranger Things | Harringrove | 2,808 words |  “I’ve got the sight, man,” he says with a small shrug. “And look, I feel for you. You’re dead and I’m not, and that sucks, but unless you’re planning on doing something about it, I’d really appreciate it if you could stop feeling me up and let me get back to sleep.”

i’d rather drown in your ocean | Naruto | Itachi/Shisui | 1,630 words |  The Uchihas are an odd sort. Everyone says so.

catch your breath | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien/Sam | 2,588 words | Mark had never assumed in a million years that he would ever see Damien again. He hadn’t factored in zombies.

Nightmare | The Magnus Archives | Martin/Jonathan | 1,424 words | “All right,” he says, taking Jon’s still outstretched hand. “Let’s give the dream what it wants.”

dreaming of the crash | Gravity Falls | Mabel & Dipper | 484 words | When the end of the world comes, they’re under the bed.

don’t we love it now? | Kingdom Hearts | Sora/Riku/Kairi | 1,784 words |  When Kairi is eleven years old, she gets lost in the woods.

all this, and love too, will ruin us | Star Wars | Reylo | 1,102 words |  Rey is awake to watch the sunrise

open the walls, play with your dolls | Coraline | Coraline/Wybie | 2,886 words | Halloween at the Pink Palace is a lot like any other time of year.

in every golden trace | Queen’s Thief | Costis/Eugenides/Irene | 4,645 words |  For as long as Costis can remember, he’s had two names scored across the skin atop his ribs, one on either side of his rib cage, nearly perfect mirrors to one another.

a different kind of danger in the daylight | Shades of Magic | Lila/Kell/Holland | 6,930 words | Sleeping with Holland was never part of the plan. 

Best story I wrote this year: Probably the night is softly, sweetly calling. I wrote this for the 18th of October, and it’s the much awaited third part of a Teen Wolf/Addams Family fusion that I wrote back in 2014. A lot of people have asked me to continue this series over the years, but I never did because I felt my writing style had changed too much and then I fell out of the Teen Wolf fandom completely. But I’d written another Teen Wolf fic a few days before (more on this later) and I was just... very nostalgic all of a sudden. My style of writing had changed, but to offset the change of tone, I wrote the story from Stiles’s POV instead of Derek’s and it made all the difference. I was pretty pleased with the result, and hope that it made everyone happy.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest. patron saint of the lost causes. There were a couple fics that I think I did a really good job writing this year, the one listed above and below included, but I think that this one was my favorite. Writing Drarry was a surreal experience, because even when I was in the Harry Potter fandom I didn’t really write for it (well, I didn’t publish what I’d written for it) and I was surprised by how easily it came to me. I tried to channel a lot of the feeling of men who had mothers when I was writing this one, because it seemed very right. 

Okay, NOW your most popular story. All right, so technically my stats are all messed up this year because when I posted the third part of the Addams/Teen Wolf fusion, I also posted a chapter to Que Sera, Sera since so many people were subscribed to that story. So. From a purely stats standpoint, Que Sera, Sera was the most popular because it has a total of 25,790 hits, 2973 kudos, and 115 comments. BUT, I did not actually write anything new for that one so-

in the woods somewhere was the first fic I’d written for Teen Wolf since I wrote  take me to church in August of 2017. It has over 900 kudos and some 5000+ hits. When I decided to do Dark Month this year, I knew that I wanted to revisit some of my old fandoms, so Teen Wolf was always going to be a given. I wrote take me to church as a cathartic goodbye to the show, the fandom, and of course, Stiles and Derek. It was my soft epilogue for the boys.

in the woods somewhere has a very similar feel to it. It’s post-canon, obviously, and features Stiles buying a house in Virginia and Derek slowly working his way back into his life. It is also very much in the ‘soft epilogue’ genre, leaning heavily into the magical Stiles Stilinski trope while maintaining the FBI agent direction canon was leading us in. Also it has a lot of comfort things for me - judicious descriptions of food, a packed witchy cabin in the woods, and warm shower kisses. Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Possibly either won't be too soon 'til I say... goodnight moon or all this, and love too, will ruin us. The first of these two fics is almost 5k of spooky season Riku/Sora that was strongly inspired by Uzumaki-sama’s old fic Goodnight Moon. It was the second day of October and my prompts for the day were moon cycles, nightmare, cage, lookalike, mirrors, and glowing eyes, which was just asking for fic exploring doppelgangers and old haunted houses. I loved writing it, and maybe I should have expected it since Kingdom Hearts is such a quiet fandom nowadays, but it honestly stung that it didn’t get more attention.

The second of those fics was a Reylo fic (yes, yes, I know, it’s an awful ship, etc. etc.) that was very much written to be slow and melancholy and kind of surreal. Sometimes my smallest fics are my favorite, and I really liked this one. But alas, some things were not meant to be.

Most fun story to write: I had a whole lot of fun writing summoning demons (and other bad first date ideas). A lot of the fics I wrote this year, particularly during October, were really fun and easy to write. I missed writing every day. This one in particular though was about 4k of Ryan accidentally summoning Shane (the demon) while Shane was standing right next to him in his human suit. It let me play with a lot of body horror tropes that I don’t explore usually, and Buzzfeed Unsolved is a very fun, fresh fandom to dig around in. This is the second of the three (I think it was three, at least) fics that I wrote for the fandom during October and I had so much fun with it.

Story that could have been better? I don’t know about better, but Sunlight and Bird Song were both supposed to be significantly longer. I wrote Sunlight shortly after watching Endgame, and it was always going to be me working my way through my issues with that movie (Loki not really coming back, weird wonky time travel, Thor leaving his people after his whole arc was him learning how to be a good king) but I got distracted and had to go somewhere that day and just never got back to it.

Bird Song is actually a fic I’ve been meaning to write for years. Ages ago (and we are truly talking ages ago, like September 2015 ages ago), @kaikamahine gave me a prompt for E, 17, and hymnal, which basically balanced out to Ronan, churches, and wings. So day 20 of October was going to be Raven Cycle (with such prompts as stacked deck, darkness, wings, and fight fire with fire, it was begging for it) and I was finally going to write Ronan wingfic. It was going to be great. There was going to be Calla and Ronan interaction and found family themes and there was going to be a church, because obviously, but then I wasn’t doing so well and ran out of time, SO. Definitely could have been better.

Story I wrote to fix things: beauty in the dissonance, the 24th fic of October, was a Tony/Loki flavored story where both Tony and Loki are, in fact, alive. Sunlight was written as a direct response to Endgame, even if it was never finished properly. make this chaos count was the 4th day of October, and written because I’m still not fucking over Ryan and Akmazian. And then knocking on heaven’s door was written just after viewing s3 of Stranger Things. It was uh, less of a fix it fic and more a wallow in your grief fic, but it still applies.

Oh, and a different kind of danger in the daylight was technically fix it fic? I’m generally okay with how Shades of Magic ended, despite my favorite character dying because it came off as a good death. However, the recipient of my Yuletide gift wanted no character death and I wanted to write something post-canon, so presto, fix it fic.

Longest completed fic this year: a different kind of danger in the daylight, followed by Cheers. Both are hovering between 6 and 7k, which isn’t technically long, but since about 90% of my fic this year was written over the course of a day each... I’ll take it.

Fandom you enjoyed writing for most this year: I had a lot of fun with Buzzfeed Unsolved and The Magnus Archives, but I also had fun dipping briefly back into Harry Potter and Teen Wolf.

Favorite character you wrote this year: I had way, way too much fun writing Geralt and Regis in eat you up whole. I have literally no idea if it translated into good fic, but it was fun and just shy of porny and I just really like Geralt. I also had a lot of fun writing Lila in the Shades of Magic fic.

Most memorable comment(s) this year: I got two comments from @kaikamahine about a week ago that honestly made my day. @faorism reread one of my older Stranger Things fics and left a comment, which made me reread it, which was just very good. Every single comment I got on the new Teen Wolf fics with some variation of ‘missed you’ or ‘so glad you’re back’ made me fucking melt. The two different comments where the reader wasn’t even familiar with the material, just read and enjoyed because I wrote it. The comment on one of my Stranger Things fics that just reads, “What the FUCK this SLAPPED.” The comment directly above that one that is from one of my favorite writers in the fandom. The several comments on the single PJO fic I wrote this year which were different variations of “oh my gosh it’s you” and “it’s been so long.”

And of course everyone losing their collective shit over some of the grosser October fics. Namely Itch.

Fics you wanted to write but didn’t: For the most part, the fics I wanted to write but didn’t are the same as last year- Sabriel AU, Enjolras/Grantaire fic, found family Dishonored fic, bodyswappying Reylo, Sterek Bioshock and Carmilla AUs which I am likely to post as is sometime next year. 

I still want to finish the Castlevania OT3 fic, the giant canon-divergent Bright Sessions AU where years after the series ends, Mark ends up running into Damien again in a small town in the middle of nowhere only to realize that he has a daughter, a farm, a life, and is just so drawn to it that he keeps coming back. I have the Wolf 359 post-canon fic where everyone has feelings and found family is a general theme and maybe Eiffel smooches an AI. I also have the smuttier Wolf 359 fic that’s been lurking in the back of my head for months where Eiffel and Kepler er, basically eiffel tower Jacobi.

Oh, and I have the Reylo fic where Rey (and Ben, through the bond) sit through General Organa’s funeral and keep coming back to each other afterwards. And that Final Fantasy 15 fic where Dino and Noctis do the nasty. And the Hera & Jacobi fic from October. And uh, the post episode 9 fic that’s been lurking about in my brain.

Oddest story: Probably i’d rather drown in your ocean? It was pretty spot on aesthetically for me, but it was weird to write Itachi and Shisui again, especially in a strange modern day vampire context? Also Itch and Nightmare were both Magnus Archive fics that were super gross (Itch) and just plain spooky and bizarre (Nightmare) but they were so fun to write. Hardest story to do: Cheers gave me some trouble initially but got a lot easier as I went on. I hit writer’s block pretty bad with the Shades of Magic fic too, but that seems to be what happens when I come up on deadlines. Easiest story to write? Most of October’s fics were a blast to write and super easy besides. Basically all of the Kingdom Hearts, Stranger Things, and Teen Wolf fic. And the Buzzfeed Unsolved.

Most mining of your own history in one story: Probably either  open the walls, play with your dolls or no more dreaming like a ghost. Not in any way that really matters, but there are a couple familiar details.

Themes, or absence thereof: Mostly either spooky scary things or fix it fics. Sometimes both.

Where did you publish/archive your stories? Ao3, as per usual. Story I haven’t yet written, but intend to: The only thing that I currently have planned is the post episode 9 fic and a couple things that I’ve had planned for a while that may or may not come out.

Sexiest moment (excerpt): “How many mouthfuls do you think I could take from you before it had some effect?” Regis whispers, lips against his throat. Geralt can feel the pinprick of fangs. “Four? Six? Ten? More, even?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Geralt murmurs, and Regis laughs.

“I would,” he agrees.

“So, why don’t you find out instead of boring me with all the details?”

Regis pulls away from his throat, far enough that Geralt can meet his eyes again. He swallows at what he finds there. Amusement, yes, but also hunger, brighter than the moonlight reflecting in his eyes.

“A taste, first, I think,” Regis says in a low, cool voice, and then closes the space between them.

Geralt had forgotten the blood on his lip, but he remembers it when Regis catches him in an open-mouthed kiss. It’s wet and bruising, and Geralt is responding before he remembers he shouldn’t, fighting back the only way he knows how with the rest of him indisposed. He claws at him, bites at him, and the vampire laughs when Geralt catches his plump lower lip between his teeth and bites down. Regis gives his mouth one last darting swipe of the tongue before he is pulling away.

There’s a flare of color high on Regis’s cheeks and his ears are distinctly more pointed than they were five minutes ago, the sclera of his eyes gone red.

“Can’t say I’ve ever been bitten by a human before,” Regis tells him, leaning close like he’s divulging a secret. “It’s a rather exhilarating experience.”

“I’m all for a repeat experience,” Geralt quips, eyes narrowed. “Lean in just a little and we can see if I can manage to tear off your lips before you rip out my throat.”

.

“Please,” she whispers, and feels herself quiver like a taut bowstring when he touches her mouth gently, with the very tips of his fingers.

He smiles and leads her away, through the demons and goblins and fae that she came here to kill.

They make it as far as the parking lot before he is hitching her up the side of a gleaming Mercedes, hooking her legs around his shoulders, and hiking her skirts up over her thighs so he can duck his head beneath them. His fingers linger for a moment on the silver of the knives strapped securely to her thigh, and then he is reaching in, guiding her underwear to the side and getting his mouth on her, right where she wants it.

She must make some kind of noise, because he chuckles, tongue circling her clit in a slow, languid way that makes her think that he is savoring her, that he likes the taste of her on his tongue.And he must, because she knows what he is. Knows that just as he’s savoring the taste of her, he is eating her, feeding off of her want like the things that she hunts in the dark feed off of blood and marrow and souls. She knows, but it isn’t enough to stop her from tilting her head back, gasping for him, the distant wink of streetlights and stars so far away.

He makes her come with his mouth on her, with his fingers inside her, and even as she’s shaking around him, she knows that it isn’t enough. She wants more, wants to feel the heavy press of him inside around, wants to kiss his lips and taste herself on his tongue.

“Please,” she says, her thighs shaking, and he laughs, pulling away and easing her down, until her legs are looped around his waist instead of her shoulders. He reaches between them, and she knows what’s happening beneath her skirts, knows that he’s getting his cock out of his pants and pressing it against her, can feel it as he sinks slowly into her, the tight fit of it so sweet, so perfect that it makes her ache.

“You’re lovely,” he whispers, kissing her shoulders and fucking into her slow, a teasing stretch that makes her mouth water, makes her twitch.

.

“Is this what you wanted?” Hank jeers, one finger circling the rim of Connor’s hole. There’s a flush of angry blue across his cheeks. His hair is coming loose from its usually immaculate tail, curling against his forehead. His eyes are blue. His LED is not. “To lay back and take it? From a fucking machine?”

Connor whines, back arching as Hank dips the tip of his thumb inside, just enough to hold him open.

“That is it, isn’t it?” Hanks says softly. There’s a touch of triumph to his gaze as he fucks Connor open on his thumb. Something mean, too. Disdain, slowly unfurling in the curve of his lips. He shakes his head. “All this time, coming to this bar. Talking to me like you thought I was some kind of human, and you just wanted something like me to hold you up and take you apart.”

“No,” Connor gasps, but can’t help the twist of his hips when Hank adds another finger.

“No?” Hank says with a laugh. “Look at you.”

Connor’s cock jerks against his belly as Hank drags his pants the rest of the way down his thighs. They make it as far as his knees before they tangle, stuck on his shoes. His cheeks feel hot, and he- god, he wants to protest. Wants to say that Hank’s got it all wrong, that this is more. That he’s more.

But then Hank is flipping him over, until the arm of the couch is digging firmly into his belly, his ass high in the air. Hank pulls his fingers out, then leans over and spits, the cool slippery slide of the saliva trailing down the curve of his ass.

“All right, Connor,” he says. “This what you want? I’ll give it to you.”

No, Connor should say. It isn’t like that.

Instead, he says, “Please.”

Crackiest moment (excerpt):

“Did you just sneak into my house?” Stiles breathes, absurdly charmed.

Derek’s in his human disguise, everything dangerous about him hidden away from view, lurking just under the surface. He gives Stiles a look, and says, “Don’t be weird about it.”

He shuts the door behind him.

“I’ve got a nice monster knocking on my door just before the witching hour,” Stiles tells him playfully, making room for Derek to take a seat next to him. “How am I not supposed to be weird about that?”

Derek does something akin to rolling his eyes, the flames doing a little shimmy around the circumference of his eye sockets. He leans back against Stiles’s headboard, seemingly unconcerned that their sides are pressed together. Derek’s skin is very warm, human warm, and Stiles is all bones. He sucks up the warmth greedily.

“I’d say you make my heart pound, but well…” Stiles nods meaningfully to his chest, where if you look hard enough between the slots of his ribs, you can see the lump of muscle that once was his heart, pointedly not beating. “You know.”

.

“What’s the local legend about this thing?” Shane asks, hopping up onto the throne easily and spreading out, eyes on the night sky. He looks good. He always looks good, but Ryan likes him best like this, out here with the moonlight shining down on them and the camera catching all his best angles.

As Ryan watches, he blinks, and turns to look at Ryan, puzzled. “Ryan?”

Ryan clears his throat. “The locals say that if you make a wish while sitting on her throne, the witch will grant it.”

Shane gives him a wicked smile and hums a few bars of Genie in a Bottle. Ryan chokes out a laugh, crossing the space between them until he’s leaning up against the side of the throne himself.

Shane closes his eyes. “I wish, I wish with all my might, please dear god, let there be ghosts here this night.”

Ryan holds his breath.

“C’mon, ghost,” Shane urges. “Make all my dreams come true. Fuck me up, fam.”

All around them, the world is still.

Shane cracks an eye open and squints at him. “Did it work?”

.

“Jon?” someone asks, and Jon blinks.

Martin is standing before him. He’s wearing something out of another time, a costume of silken breeches with a well-cut waistcoat of a rich, opalescent blue. There’s a puffy cravat hugging his neck, and polished buckled shoes on his feet. Jon almost expects him to be wearing a wig, but his hair is the one thing that’s been left untouched, hanging loose around his chin.

“Martin?” Jon asks.

Martin seems to take him in, his eyes running slowly down Jon’s body, lingering at his wrists, his waist, his thighs. It’s a bold sort of move, one that Martin would never be half so blatant about if he were awake.

“You, er. Look nice,” Martin says, and Jon glances down at himself.

He’s sure that moments ago he’d been wearing the same thing he’d worn to the office, shabby coat, mostly clean shirt, a pair of nondescript trousers that didn’t have any stains. But now, he finds himself in a dress. The gown is long and brilliantly red, the skirts heavy around his thighs. There are embroidered patterns reminiscent of roses along the bodice and down the front of his petticoat.

“Well, shit,” he mutters, still staring. Experimentally, he moves his hips, and finds that the skirts swish obligingly with the movement.

“Yes, well,” Martin murmurs, cheeks flushing horribly. “You always did look rather good in red.”

“In red-” Jon repeats in horror. “Martin, I’m in a gown.”

Favorite dialogue (excerpt):

“Are you ever going to stop looking for me?” Akmazian asks him one night.

Ryan is tired. Akmazian is a shadowed figure in the dark that he tries not to look at too closely, because if he does, Akmazian will be gone.

“Maybe,” Ryan tells him, and turns over onto his side. Away from the shadow, the ghost.

The bed dips under the weight of a person who isn’t really there, and Ryan can feel Akmazian’s breath on the back of his neck, warm and damp.

“Don’t touch me,” Ryan says, and means, I don't want this to end yet.

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it, darlin',” Akmazian murmurs back, then drags his lips over the back of his neck anyway, just to be contrary. Ryan swallows, his throat dry, tongue thick in his mouth. He clenches his fingers in the sheets, eyes squeezed so tightly shut that his vision stains red behind his eyelids.

“Please,” Ryan says.

“You really should stop looking for me,” Akmazian tells him, fingers creeping across Ryan’s ribcage, mapping the architecture of his ribs.

“I know.”

“You’re never going to find me.”

Ryan laughs. “Never say never.”

There is silence behind him and then, “Ryan. Please. You’re hurting yourself.”

Ryan trembles a little when a hand lands on his hip, just this side of too solid.

“Don’t care.”

“You’re hurting the stars.”

Ryan is silent for a moment. Then, “I just miss you.”

A sigh.

“I know,” Akmazian murmurs, and leans over to place a kiss on Ryan’s forehead. “I miss you too.”

Ryan opens his eyes, turns to look, and like always, Akmazian is gone.

.

“Look,” Potter says, audibly slurring. “I’ve had an idea.”

Draco crosses his arms. “And what, pray tell, is this idea of yours, Potter?”

Potter leans forward, using a hand to prop himself up, until he’s well into Draco’s personal space. He smells like beer and whiskey, and his cheeks and jaw are more beard than stubble.

“Break your curse with me,” he breathes, a hand settling atop Draco’s blanket-clad knee.

Draco swallows. “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

“No, look,” Potter says, leaning in even closer, eyes a bit wild. “We can just… you know.”

“No, Potter,” Draco tells him. “I don’t know.”

But he does. He really does.

“You know,” Potter says again. “Shag it out.”

“I think that you’re confusing things again,” Draco says tiredly. He sets the book on the nightstand next to him. “Remember the terms of the curse? Love, Potter. Not sex.”

Potter’s nose wrinkles. “But sex is part of love. Usually, anyway. It’ll work, I know it.”

“It won’t,” Draco insists, slapping Potter’s hand away when it begins to wander up his thigh. “Do you really think that I didn’t shag my wife before she left me? Because I did. We tried for years. Years, Potter. Trust me, if the curse were going to break because of a fuck, it would have happened well before now.”

Potter blinks at him, his eyes wide. There’s a ruddy flush on his cheeks, and Draco’s not sure if he likes it.

“We could at least try,” Potter says, almost gently. He doesn’t touch Draco again, but he looks like he wants to, hand trembling where it lays on the bedspread.

It feels like there’s glass in Draco’s throat. He is so, so tempted. Here is what he wanted - or at least part of it - Potter in his bed begging to fuck him, and he’s going to have to send him away.

“I think you should leave,” he tells him, and Potter’s mouth shuts with a click.

Favorite lines (excerpt):

“Relax,” he croons, stroking her fingers before he pulls away. “Your secret is safe with me. Most of this crowd knows that I’m not on speaking terms with that side of my family. They won’t suspect you because of me.”

Her face is flushed, either from rage or humiliation. Possibly both.

“So you-”

“Yes,” he says, fingers dropping to caress the fabric of her gown, swirling a thumb around the sweeping petals of an embroidered rose. His gaze is sly, a bit predatory when he glances back up at her. “I know what you have under this pretty skirt of yours.”

Rey’s breath catches, and she feels something- a slow trickle of heat seeping in to pool around her navel. She shifts, thighs sliding together, and hopes that he can’t smell her.

“Just as I know exactly what you’re doing right now,” she tells him in a hard whisper, jerking away from his grip on her elbow.

His eyes widen, affecting a look of innocence - a ‘who me?’ - that isn’t quite as effective when his lips are also curling up into a slow, pleased smirk.

“And what exactly am I doing?” he asks, his eyes laughing at her.

She glares at him. That seems to be enough of a reply, because he chuckles before taking possession of her arm again and pulling her smoothly towards the dance floor. Once they’ve reached the edge of it, he stops, dropping her elbow in favor of dipping into a low, courtly bow.

He looks up at her from under heavy lids, his hair sweeping forward to frame his face. “May I have this dance?”

The dance floor is crowded, full to the brim of masked people sweeping by in jewel-bright dresses and dark suits. She knows not to - knows that this place is a lot like fae courts of old. You don’t eat the food, you don’t drink the wine, and you definitely don’t dance.

But she’s already drank the wine, so she might as well dance.

.

The ship wrecks several hundred miles off of the coast of Karnaca. The storm that ends them is a rare sort, fiercer than most, a huge bank of dark clouds that seems to come from the void itself, blooming on the horizon like a warning. The lightning cracks the world asunder, thunder deafening, but it's the wind and waves that will always be a ship’s downfall.

Corvo watched the wave approach, saw its frothing white caps and the way it had stretched, higher and higher, until it loomed over the ship.

They never had a chance, and by the time the wave came crashing down, Corvo was already holding his breath.

Much of what he remembers after are mere snippets: the gulping suck of the water around him, broken pieces of the ship spinning by along with those of the crew who were unlucky enough to be caught by the ship’s pull, sucked down into the void, devoured by the whale god himself. He remembers his first gasp of air once he’d surfaced, the tang of brine and salt heavy on his tongue as wave after wave battered his body.

He doesn’t think that most of the crew survived the first few minutes much less the whole night, and he is certainly alone when the sun blossoms on the horizon hours later, clinging to a piece of ship the size of his torso and kicking relentlessly towards the dawn.

Corvo grew up on the coast, his hair stiff with salt from the ocean breeze. He grew up in and out of the water, hauling cargo or gutting fish on the docks. He’s familiar with the ocean - how the pull of the tides work, which days its best to avoid the dock, how to escape the sea’s wrath when a riptide or an undercurrent tries its damndest to drown you.

So he knows that his chances of making it to land are slim. But Corvo has always been stubborn, his legs have always been strong, and his story is far from finished.

.

Stiles buys a house in Virginia. It’s a modest thing close to Quantico, but not too close, tucked away into the heart of the wooded Appalachians. The bones of the house is all stonework and sturdy dark wood, a rickety wraparound porch bracketing the house on all sides. The first thing that he’d bought for it were two overpriced rocking chairs he’d gotten from the nearest Cracker Barrel.

Over the course of a year, he fills the house with things. A soft, dark gray sofa. Several solid end tables. A pair of emerald lamps he gets from an antique shop. A moss-green throw that is warm as a hug when it’s wrapped around his shoulders in the dead of winter. His living room is a bit too mountain man chic, but he likes the way that it looks when he’s coming home from a long day at the academy, warm and inviting.

He gets his bed set from a woodworker a couple dozen miles down the road, a man with a gruff bristled gray face and a warm smile, who trades Stiles the custom set for some warding and a couple bottles of what he calls, ‘miracle elixir.’ The set is sturdy mahogany, a pair of wolves carved across the top of the curving headboard, runes filling the gaps between them. The chest of drawers and dresser are just as solid, and Stiles has to hire movers to help him get everything back to the house.

The bulky rednecks decked out in worn flannel that help him with it carefully avoid looking at the runes of the headboard, their eyes skittering away from the carvings like frightened rabbits. They exchange apprehensive looks when they see the herbs drying over the sink in his kitchen, but to their credit, stay quiet and hightail it out of the place when he pays them. Here in the Appalachian backwoods, no one talks about magic, but everyone knows it exists.

Stiles has people over every once in a while - flies his dad and Scott in from California, has Lydia drive down from Boston, or Kira from North Carolina - but mostly, he’s alone. It’s a strange thing to get used to, the silence of the nights out here, where the night sky is bright and clear enough to see the stars above him, not a hint of light pollution to be seen, and the trees rustling in a quiet wind is almost louder than the hoots and hollers of the local wildlife.

He’d thought it would be lonely, and to be fair, sometimes it is.

Some nights he comes home and collapses back onto his sofa, and would do anything to be right down the road from Scott and Melissa and his dad again. He has days where he craves Melissa’s pozole or his dad’s meatloaf so badly that he can taste the heat of it on his tongue.

But mostly, the quiet is nice.

He cooks himself soups that simmer in the slow cooker while he’s at the academy and roasts that he makes on the weekends. He experiments with food the way he never used to back in Beacon Hills, where he had his dad’s heart to worry about if he made anything, and fast food which was easier to grab when he didn’t. He takes a world tour through his kitchen - homemade pierogi, hearty paella, steaming pirozhki, spicy-smelling curries, and hand rolled sushi. The first time that he makes his own bread in the ancient oven that came with the house, the smell of it coming fresh out of the oven is so good that he nearly cries.

It’s three winters into living there before he hears a scratching at his door in the middle of the night, and when he goes to investigate, finds a large black wolf on his doorstep.

It’s favoring one of its paws, dark fur matted on one side of its head where he can dimly make out a sluggishly bleeding gash. It blinks at him, eyes glowing a bright, familiar blue, and Stiles spends a minute watching it before he smiles and steps aside.

Fic goals: Hey Heather, it was only 800 words, but you did technically write something original. Now, let’s do something original that’s a little longer. And while we’re at it, let’s do something novel length. 

[a-very-fond-farewell]

Bagginshield North & South au 1/4

Ok folks, I thought about how to make a North & South au (based on the BBC miniseries, not the actual book) without looking at any fic on the matter, because I didn’t want to be influenced by their (certainly brilliant) adaptations. So bear with me for the time being.

This is just a list of things that I would like to see in a N&S!au fic... but I have no energy to write that myself.

ATTN!1: I have changed many things, and it came out pretty angsty, with lots of pining and secrets that must be kept at all costs. 

ATTN!2: I would have loved to explore the trans!Bilbo trope (either transwoman!Bilbo or transman!Bilbo), but I feel like I’m not the right person to give this idea the justice it deserves. I’m sure someone else could feel empowered in exploring that particular trope on their own, so it would be better for me not to rob them of such an opportunity.

ATTN!3: I’m just a nonbinary bean with terrible grammar and a knack for angst, also English is not my first language. I WILL ADD TO THIS.

Enjoy!

First Part:

In the mining town of Erebor, up north where the weather is crisp and the fog is as blinding as ever, the main source of income comes from the mithril veins hidden deep into the Lonely Mountain. Still fairly unknown to the masses as a viable alternative to steel for industrial products, mithril is considered to be nothing but a lower metal of very little use a part from being modeled as framing works for jewelry coming from the west.

Bilbo Baggins has followed his parents in this particular corner of the world after certain indiscretions had spread in the southern town of Bag End. At his cousin Prim’s wedding in London the previous summer, in fact, Bilbo had found himself rejecting the unwanted advances of a certain gentleman right before being discovered by his mother as the two men were parting ways from a very heated discussion in a secluded room.

In order to not let others know about such circumstances, Belladonna had shared her intention with her sister Mirabella to uproot in the north, at least until the rumors had dissipated. Bungo, as loving and trusting as ever, had simply accepted her decision and disposed for them all to move to Erebor. In doing so, he had consequently left his position as a parish in Bag End, not wavering in his faith, but merely willing to give his family what they needed to be happy.

Bilbo himself is no longer a lad: close to reach his thirties, many have speculated around the truth about his sudden return to his father’s home leaving his studies at Oxford out of the blue. Up until now, Bungo had protected his son by simply stating to the citizens of Bag End how needed Bilbo was, and Belladonna had made sure no mouths could run and shame her son in the meantime. But those days are over now, and their new town might not be as easily outsmarted this time around.

Heavy with sorrow for making his family move, Bilbo has resigned to keeping his life on check from now on, willing to sacrifice his happiness in order to keep his parents safe and healthy. Not being able to walk without a cane after his last days at Oxford, Bilbo finds himself constantly torn between revealing what had happened there and run away from all those eyes watching his every move. Luckily, in Erebor no one expects much of him, and any possible question regarding his lack of employment while he could no more benefit from being the only son of a parish is met with a simple gesture towards his bad leg. People seem complacent enough to overlook his poor excuse of a lie as long as they can speculate over his father’s decision to move up north.

Filled with guilt at the inability to defend his father against the rumors, Bilbo is reassured over and over again by his mother that they had made the right decision. The price for her understanding, however, seems to be an even greater burden for Bilbo: never speak of his true nature ever again, not even to his parents. Not even to himself.

Gandalf Gray, an old friend of Bungo’s, close enough to the family to understand the implications of their sudden uprooting, has decided to take Bilbo under his wing and show him around while his father has a chance to meet the pupils Mr. Gray has gathered for him to talk to. Having traveled all other the world, Mr. Gray is not new to the hardships Bilbo has encountered and his honesty and desire to help comforts Bilbo while he navigates the wastelands of melancholy that moving so far away has ensued.

While visiting one of the many mines belonging to the Durinson household, Bilbo finds himself shocked at the sight of its master beating one of his miners out of the mountain in a fit of rage. Little does he know what perils hide into the tunnels eroding the Lonely Mountain one inch at a time, or what are the dangers that fire and gas can bring to those working in the dark, with only the aid of candles and caged birds to save them from death.

Still, Bilbo tries to reason with said master, not knowing Thorin to be their landlord and one of his father’s pupils on top of that. Only thanks to Mr. Gray Bilbo is spared from Thorin’s anger by introducing him as a dear friend of his, but this doesn’t protect Bilbo from receiving yet another shock as the man simply turns and strides away after the worker he had just beaten up.

Meeting the man in his own home later that very same week, Bilbo is confronted with the absolute necessity from his part to embody a perfect son and the perfect guest, no matter how much he despises sharing a room with their landlord. But given the circumstances, he tries not to think about him too much while Bungo teaches Thorin all about philosophy and literature: he listens to their lessons half expecting to be invited to share his thoughts on his father’s many interpretations of the ancient sources... but eventually feeling much more at ease staying quiet by his armchair while the other two talk.

Judging from Thorin’s curiosity and will to learn, Bilbo convinces himself to have misjudged the man based on what he had seen at the mines, and later on investigates the matter further with his father and with Mr. Gray over a cup of tea. Apparently, after the sudden death of both of his parents when he was just a child, Thorin, his brother Frerin and their older sister Dis had been entrusted to the care of their grandfather, Thror: a man driven mad by his lust for gold to the point he had closed the mines twenty years before just to barricade himself inside the mountain in search of a vein of gold that never existed. Thorin’s little brother Frerin, small enough to wiggle his way in between the wooden bars Thror had used to close the openings, had looked for his grandfather anywhere before the main tunnel had collapsed on both of them one cold night of December.

Horrified by such a discovery, Bilbo has already spent many a day trying to find the courage to apologize to Thorin by the time he meets Bain, Sigrid and Tilda. The boy and his younger sister approaches him one day at the park, reminiscing of the way he had confronted Thorin at the entrance of the mine, where Bain works as well, while their older sister seems a little wary of Bilbo and apologizes to him for disturbing him so suddenly. On the other hand, Bilbo is overjoyed to have been met with such enthusiasm after weeks of isolation from actual social interaction and offers the siblings to walk them home... just as their father Bard comes into the picture, assuring Bilbo his services are not needed.

Intrigued by that little family, Bilbo tries to know more about them by lurking around the wooden houses destined to the miners skirting the suburban area at the bottom of the mountain, determined to pay them a visit with a basket of food to thank the kids for their kindness to him. Here, Bilbo gets to know the families of many of the miners, all relatively close to each other be it for family ties or friendship alone, that -surprisingly enough- seem more than happy to teach him a thing or two on how to survive the likes of Erebor and its masters.

From them comes the realization of how exactly Thror had compromised the economy of the city when he had closed the mines twenty years before. Many of the workers had found themselves jobless that year and, after the main tunnel had been deemed too dangerous to cross, new masters had come to the city and made their way with new holes into the mountain with no regards for safety.  So many holes, indeed, that some workers avoided entering the Lonely Mountain for fear it could fall onto itself at any moment. 

In all this, Thorin had been only sixteen and had to provide for his family now that his only guardian had perished in the depths of the main tunnel along with his little brother. Dis had been twenty then, and married a man coming from one of the richest families in town, who had provided for her and for their two sons up until his death, fifteen years before. Thorin, who had been fired to leave his studies in order to gain back his family’s honor by working for other masters, at twenty-one had made enough of a name for himself to be able to care for his older sister and nephews once more, as the customs required.

Dis, on the other hand, after losing her parents, grandfather, brother and husband, had accepted to go back home to her younger brother feeling like a caged animal, but not ungrateful enough to disregard the importance of the mines that brought them stability and wealth. Thorin, on the other hand, getting sterner by the year and low in spirits because of his newfound role as the head of their household, had become extremely protective of his family... just as much as Dis herself, the both of them manifesting some of the traits their own grandfather had shown by the time his obsession had piqued. 

Even Bard and his kids had been willing to share some information with him by the time Bilbo discovers exactly how far the Durinson’s had prevented the growth of the town by limiting the number of caves under their watch. Bard himself seems set on hating the siblings for life, convinced the mountain could offer work to everybody without restrictions if only the Durinson’s were to let more people inside. He insists that gold lies under that mountain and that not even the Durinson’s should claim that vein for themselves while other masters have promised a job for everyone in town were the Durinson household to perish.

Struck by all those new revelations, one day Bilbo finds himself too overwhelmed to properly welcome Dis Durinson and her sons inside their home while his mother gets dressed upstairs. The woman strikes an imposing figure, just like her brother, dressed in all black with sober, yet quite beautiful blue earrings bringing out the coldness of her light-blue eyes. The oldest of her sons, affectionately called Kili by her, is roughly eighteen or nineteen years old and seems agreeable enough, asking Bilbo what wonders he has seen in London and what the south has to offer: curiosity getting the best of him contrary to his mother’s best judgment. Fili, instead, looks more lost than anything, not young enough to depend on his mother approval, but still not quite old enough to rebel against her composure and regal attitude. 

Then, just as his mother welcomes them in her house, Bilbo notices how Belladonna has lost weight and how skirmish she looks. Being so distracted himself by his quest for knowledge in regards of Erebor and its history, Bilbo has completely overlooked him mother’s conditions and guilt overcomes him once more. Knowing that people were still talking about them because of the insinuations about his father’s decision to leave the Church, Bilbo is faced with shame and anxiety just by thinking how hard it must be for his parents to endure all of that pressure from the telltale coming from the upper society in town.

As he looks at Thorin’s sister and her impenetrable mask, he wonders how she must have felt when she had been married off to a rich man in order to save the family from disgrace. Because that is what the Baggins’ and the Durinson’s have been foreclosed to address, even if I’m different ways: disgrace. Profound and nasty disgrace. 

Bilbo finds himself jealous of their luck in regaining control over their fate by hard work alone, but doesn’t voice his feelings as the woman and her sons leave. Nor does he want to speak of the matter with Thorin... until he does, while listening to his and Bungo’s usual lesson one day: feeling left out of the conversation, fed up with the way his family walks on eggshells around him, and impossibly frustrated with himself for not being able to seize Thorin’s character in his head, Bilbo accuses the man of being too full of himself to even care about the struggling miners, ready to strike in order to be allowed to look for gold in the mountain.

Immediately regretting what he has just said, already missing the opportunity to listen to Thorin’s deep voice asking intelligent questions, knowing how the man has been desperate to educate himself now that he had the opportunity to do so...Bilbo can only watch as Thorin greets him coldly and leave their house. Possibly to never return.

[caddy-whump-us]

I got tagged by @the-wandering-whumper!

Name: Cat

How old were you when you first realized you liked guys getting hurt?: I'm not completely sure, but I can definitely remember really liking any kids' cartoon that had the characters getting captured or kidnapped for an episode or two--and I still have an inclination towards captivity whump. I know that by the time I was a teenager and getting into animanga, I got into Gundam Wing and X/1999 and I really did like seeing Quatre and Kamui getting thrown around (those two especially).

What was that very first scene you remember gave you those glorious butterfly feelings?: Probably the scene in Disney's Robin Hood where Robin Hood's disguise at the archery tournament is literally sliced off him and Prince John just says "Seize him" and the next thing you know he's pounced on by guards and he's all wrapped up in chains and ropes and looking helpless.

Or else it was a scene in a Wonderworks cartoon where a werewolf has captured a young human character in a forest, rendered them unconscious, and then the character wakes up tied sitting in wooden chair with tall sides (so the character's hands are tied above their head to each side) and they wake up pulling on the ropes and saying, "Please let me go!" but the werewolf is very precisely telling them that he is going to bite them at midnight so they'll turn into a werewolf too--I literally recreated this scene secretly in my room with my toys I liked it so much.

Bonus for the text-based choose-your-own-adventure RPG computer game I played in 5th grade where one of the paths ended with "you" being captured, tied up, and dumped off the back of a truck in the woods (and I always pictured a boy character for this).

And there's an episode of the original TMNT where April is held captive by Shredder for, like, the whole episode and it was my secret fave, but that centers around a female characters, so does that count?

When and how was it that you realized “Hey, I’m not so messed up in the head!” and that there’s a definition and community for this sort of thing?: I guess I never really thought I was all that "messed up" for liking this (after all, they put these scenes in kids' movies), but it seemed like it was just something that one wasn't supposed to talk about. It was a bit like liking scary movies: some people like it, but it's creepy to most people, so it's not polite to talk about it. (I was always afraid of getting in trouble if someone found some of my writings and drawings, but some of it was more vent art than whump stuff.)

I played out some whumpy scenes in my LJ and DW RP days without knowing the terminology for it at the time ("hurt/comfort" was a more common term then) and wrote whumpy stories with OCs for years and years. But it's only been in the last few months that I've realized there's a separate, identifiable community just for these kinds of scenes, even though I've been either imagining or writing them for ages. And y'all are the nicest bunch of sadists I've ever met, it's really true.

What’s your favorite whump trope?: The Helpless Look. You know the one. It's the face-down/eyes-up, soft mouth look when a whumpee is good and stuck and hurting or about to hurt. It's so good. (Weirdly young Hugh Grant makes this face a lot--albeit in non-whump scenes?)

Along with that or following after it is the Submissive Look Down, which is like, so yummy, with the whumpee both feeling helpless and afraid and accepting of the circumstances. Bonus points for a little heavy breathing here.

Helplessness seems to be a recurring theme for me and whump. It may be why I really like whumpees in bandages too--especially kind of trying to get on with things despite hurting. Patched-up and bandaged is a great look for whumpees.

But I'm also a fan of Tied Up and Tied to a Chair and Tied Down to a Bed. Chained to the Wall with a Collar is good, and so are cages, but I'm really more fond of just Tied Up.

I do like a good beatdown, sure, but I really seem to like a lot of "non-traditional" whump, like non-con body mods (ear piercing or tattoos or traumatic haircuts). Surprise, whumpee: you're now part of a human experimentation project, so hold still while we ink on your identification numbers with a needle. Or, oh, hey, the whumper just carved a magic sigil into the whumpee body, making the whumpee into an unwilling magical familiar and storage space for the whumper's spare magical energy.

What’s a whump trope that you hate?: Mindless or aimless physical beatings. It just gets boring to me? I really need some connection between the characters or something to make the situation more interesting. I'm also not a huge fan of whump by inanimate object--like a car accident, say--unless there's some good focus on the aftermath.

What’s your favorite whumped character?: I'm honestly not into all that many fandoms and I've found I really dig OC whump, strange as that sounds. But if I have to choose, I'll look to my past: Kamui Shiro from X/1999 is so pretty when he bleeds or when he's wearing all kinds of bandages.

Quatre from Gundam Wing takes a stab to the gut with a broken fencing foil late in the series and I loved that (and the dozens of doujinshi where Trowa comes to his rescue after) along with the Zero Wing mind-control stuff (again, rescue).

Now for the last several years, I've been hung up on Cain Hargreaves from Godchild/Cain Saga. He's got a painful childhood (which is another issue), but he takes a few hits now that he's grown. He's quite pretty when he's helpless. Now, his faithful servant Riff gets fully whumped on several occasions, which leads to some wonderful emotional whump for Cain, so that's a win-win.

And Setsuna Monou from Angel Sanctuary is great for blood and bandages and drama--he’s a bit spunkier than some, but he gets whumped quite a bit too, and he’s pretty, so it’s nice.

I really think Kamui and Quatre are the base elements for my favorite OC whumpee Julian.

What’s that whumped scene(s) that you’ve watched over and over again. (We know you do it and we understand): I actually don’t have an answer for this? I’m really not into a lot of fandoms (especially not television or movie fandoms), so I’m going to have to skip this one.

Bullet or stab wounds?: Stab wounds, for sure. They're somehow...slower? More intimate? Don't get me wrong: a good bullet wound is fine too (and I wrote a very long big bang fic about the Clint Eastwood character The Man With No Name that involves both bullet wounds and a no-holds-barred beatdown--it's on my ao3 if you want to see it, wink wink). But I love knives--for stabbing characters, slicing characters, holding to their throat, &c. Mmmm good stuff.

Fevers or Hypothermia?: Fevers! Hypothermia doesn't really do it for me, but I bet there's some good whumpy hypothermia that would. But, of the two, fevers: whumpees confined to bed, with caretakers (grumpy ones, kind ones, unwilling ones, resigned ones), labored and shuddering breathing, chills and sweats, delirium, bad dreams, glittery feverish eyes--I love it.

Emotional or physical?: Psychological, actually. That is, what the whumper is doing might or might not be all that painful physically, but the psychological toll might be higher than the physical. I think it’s somewhere between emotional whump and physical whump--or it unites the two.

If I have to choose between the two, though? Physical, but I really need some emotional involvement in it. It's not just about the physical, it's also the emotional (whether I know what the emotional whump is because I know the story or I'm picking up/projecting the story).

Injured and asks for help or tries to cover it up?: Both of these are so good! I think it depends on the character and what's going to make for more delicious whump, really. Because I've got some OCs who are delicious when they're hurt and asking for help and others who are amazing when they try to tough it out.

My fondness for helplessness really does mean I like both.

Lastly, does anyone know about this addiction of yours?: Not...that I know of? Now, someone might and they just haven't told me that they know. I was always down for a whumpy scene in my LJ/DW RP days, but that wasn't so unusual there--it was all for the sake of character angst (as we called it then). I've not confessed to my addition to anyone, though. So there you have it.

Pass this on!