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yekoc · 4 months

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please god a directors cut about the scene from sweet as honeysuckle where Daniel finds out Max is in fact VERY much not a v*rgin and in fact did get [redacted] two whole times because it’s SO good I haven’t been able to get that scene out of my head because it’s such a great like spot in the fic - between them kissing and having sex you know it’s like it’s own perfect section!!

thank you for asking about that scene! it was the critical scene of the whole fic in terms of plot/themes and definitely the hardest one to write, but i'll try to talk about what i was aiming for with it.

On the way into the house Daniel reaches up and plucks an orange from the tree. He peels it, digging his teeth through the bitter pit to get it started, as he follows Max down the hall towards the bedroom Max has been using. He’s nervous in a way he hasn’t been before sex in a long time.

But in the bedroom, Max’s suitcase a sprawling mess that he shoves off half the bed, Daniel’s stomach eases. It’s Max, he thinks [a lot of the fic is about how well daniel knows max and how comforting that is for him in this moment of huge uncertainty in his career/life--and also, here, how that is supposed to be what carries him through this big new thing (sex w his former teammate or, depending on how you want to read it, sex with a man)], and the thought makes him have to reach for Max right then, as Max swears and tries to kick his dirty clothes into a corner.

“The housekeeper was supposed to—” Max says, and Daniel puts a piece of orange into his mouth before Max can get started.

Max’s eyebrows go up in surprise but he sucks the segment into his mouth anyway, his cheeks hollowing a little bit. Daniel waits for him to bite, and then kisses him right as Max’s mouth floods with sweet juice.

“What are you doing,” Max says, when he’s swallowed, but he’s laughing.

“Seducing you,” Daniel says. “Get with the program.”

He grabs for Max’s sides, working his fingers in until Max shouts in laughter and tumbles into the bed. Then, crouched over him, his breath slowing, Daniel feeds him the rest of the orange piece by piece. He kisses all the new parts of Max in between—his collarbone, and then the pale reveal of his chest and soft belly, Max’s laughter rising up around them the whole time. [the whole first half of the fic was meant to be a typical getting-together fic, very sweet and romantic, and this is sort of the epitome of that feeling--which is about to get totally interrupted]

Daniel kisses his stomach and closes his eyes for a moment. He’s waiting, he realizes, for the freak out to come. [this is me kind of faking out the reader; daniel worries about a freakout and doesn't have one, so we think that moment is over, when in fact it's actually just about to come] But when he searches his body all he feels is that same feeling of something fitting; something right. He kisses Max’s hip. It’s not like it was a surprise, really, any of it. Wanting Max. Being wanted by him. [again, daniel finding SO much comfort in familiarity here, which is why learning this huge new thing about max is extra destabilizing--it's not just about the sex act of a gangbang it's about how he was somehow wrong about max; another thing he used to be good at and now feels like maybe he never was at all] Max’s other hip is warm under his lips, and then he moves back up to Max’s strange, handsome face.

“Daniel,” Max says. His eyes are wide. Daniel pushes his thumb into the freckle on Max’s upper lip.

“Wanted to do that for a while,” he says, and bends his mouth to it. Their lips fit back together. Max’s mouth is hot under his. His arms come up to wrap around Daniel, hitching himself up to kiss him harder.

He’s making the same noise again, the one from the beach, high and needy even through the kisses. Daniel touches the curl of Max’s ear, kisses the corner of his mouth.

“Can I fuck you,” he asks into the stubble there.

Max has two little zits on his jaw. Daniel knew him when he was covered in them, his voice cracking halfway through his sentences, his body just skin wrapped around talent. [me banging pots and pans: HE THINKS HE KNOWS EVEYRTHING ABOUT MAX!!!; also i love the phrase 'skin wrapped around talent' and i really think it describes 17 year old max]

He pulls back and looks at Max. He’s flushed, biting at the lip Daniel was just sucking into his own mouth.

“Max?” he asks, when Max pauses for a beat longer than he expected. “Have you—have you done that before?” [i was looking for a way to get max to feel like he had to tell daniel about the gangbang. i didn't think he would feel morally obligated to, because i don't think that's how max works--and if he did, or if he was worried about stis or something, he would have told daniel before they got this far. so max was NOT planning on telling him. (max: of course it is none of his business what i did before i knew he wanted to be with me.) and i needed an in-character way to get the information out there in a sex-scene-interrupting confession--that's what brought me to this virginity kink moment, because it would be very in character for max to CORRECT daniel about something. it also let me do sort of a play on the usual maxiel experience level tropes that i love so much :)]

The thought that maybe Max hasn’t is unexpectedly consuming. Daniel’s never thought about it much before, with other people, but other people don’t look at him the way Max does. Like a single dirty joke is a comedic revelation. Like Daniel is something entirely original. If having sex with Max was like that, it would be— [here i was diving down the virginity kink path as another sort of bait and switch for both daniel and the reader--setting up an expectation for the kind of fic this would be so that i could interrupt it]

Max’s forehead is creased with something like worry. “What?” he says, and opens his mouth, but Daniel beats him to it.

“It would be hot,” he says, touching Max, smoothing down the place where he’s wrinkled up in confusion. “It’s okay, if you haven’t.”

“I’ve had sex,” Max says. He makes the worried face again, and then he lets go of Daniel where he’s wrapped around him and squirms away, until he’s sitting up against the headboard of the bed.

“I didn’t know you would think—” he says, and pauses, which is un-Max-like. [the very first moment of max not being the exact person daniel expects him to be...] “I should tell you something.”

“Uh,” Daniel says. “Okay.”

He braces himself. With Max it’s either going to be something fucking insane or so normal that the weird part is Max making a big deal out of it.

“I had sex with all of the mechanics, after the season,” Max says. “And also last year.” [i loved thinking about how max would syntactically confess to a gangbang and i think the little added detail on the end--he just wants to explain fully--is very him]

“Haha, Max, what,” Daniel says, his voice weird in his ears. It’s a bizarre joke. It makes Daniel think about—the image of it. [this scene was complicated because daniel needed to freak out but ALSO, despite himself, find it hot, so i'm trying to set that up here.] Max is still talking.

“Of course I have had sex other times too,” like he’s still answering Daniel’s original question. “But if you think—if you wanted it to be that I never have before, that’s not—”

He’s red-faced but he’s looking right at Daniel. It feels eerily like being back in a debrief with him after a bad race; Max daring anyone to tell him that he did the wrong thing, stubborn in the face of all the evidence otherwise. Except that this isn’t—Daniel can’t understand. [this is really a fic about knowing someone--even in this moment of max surprising daniel completely, he's doing it in a way that calls back these moments of deep history between them.] He tries one more time to bring them back to the easy reality of a few minutes ago; Max bantering with him before the sex that they were always supposed to have, the thing that’s been waiting for them for years now. [the romantic first-time fic this was supposed to be, etc]

“You don’t have to convince me you’re that experienced, baby,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “I’d be okay with a normal number of people, a gangbang is a little over the top.” [daniel finding safety in making everything a joke!]

It’s the wrong thing to say. Max’s face goes flat. He pushes himself further away from Daniel, off the bed, and then he’s crossing his arms.

“This was a bad idea, I think,” he says. He looks at Daniel and bites his lip, and then he shakes his head, briefly, like an answer to a question Daniel didn’t hear.

When he shuts the door behind him it’s too loud in the quiet room.

“Fuck,” Daniel says, to the ceiling, and then again louder, remembering the hesitancy in Max’s voice, the look on his face. I should tell you something.

Daniel’s used to laughing his way through the awkwardness of Max’s confessions. The time his father stabbed a mechanic in the hand with a fork. What Helmut said to him in a meeting when he was fifteen [a reader asked me what helmut said and i have no idea, haha. something very gross and offensive!]. It’s because when you react, when you make it a big deal, Max shuts down.

But those things weren’t—they were bad, obviously. [this is a key moment of daniel coming around to it--he recognizes that it's not the fact of a gangbang that's upsetting him. so what is? (the answer isn't in this scene but it's that he didn't know max the way he thought! he got something wrong he thought he would succeed at--he failed at something--knowing max--he used to be good at, etc)] Sore spots in Max’s life that he wanted Daniel to think were funny or easy or fine. And this is—if it really happened, Daniel thinks, and pictures it again, suddenly, nebulous but white-hot across the center of his brain, Max in the middle of a group of mechanics, their hands on him, his face slack and overwhelmed—he blinks away from the image [again, it's key to the fic that he DOES find this very hot]. If it happened. If it happened, then Daniel tried to make it into a joke and Max didn’t—that wasn’t what he wanted.

It wasn’t a joke, to him, Daniel thinks [this is where this scene needed to go in order to move out of the transitional hinge moment of the fic--daniel realizing that he's hurt max somehow, and he needs to go find him to fix it, is what literally moves the characters to the next scene and moves daniel emotionally towards wanting to hear about it and understand], and then he gets up from the bed.

#max/daniel #mv33 #dr3 #director's commentary #sweet as honeysuckle

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animate-mush · 3 months

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"And she always loved ghost stories."

this is fine i m f i ne

Okay so like the thing about Jonathan is that he really ought to be dead.

I was building out the cast as Deadlands (wild west ttrpg) characters and like, the only way to adequately built out Jonathan was literally dead. The man could not more obviously be Harrowed.

When we were first talking about monster!Jonathan really early on (before any of it had really happened) and saying what if all of them were turning into Something, my thought was well obviously Jonathan is a ghost. This man is made to be a ghost.

When I was learning about the Lenore story quoted in the beginning (for the dead ride fast) it was such This Could Be You vibes. He works so well as some kind of Revenant.

Because like. His whole thing is that he's got Unfinished Business. He's supposed to get married! And of course he starts this whole thing with Dracula - how can he ever rest (in any sense of the word) until he finishes it? If he's not getting out of the castle alive then by God he's getting out dead. One way or another.

Jonathan Harker is a perfect Romantic Hero, and the thing about those guys is - they're dead. And I'm not saying that Dracula would be a better novel if Jonathan were dead in it, but I am saying you could tell a different story, a Romantic (rather than Gothic or techno-thriller) story, where everything is the same except it's revealed in the end that Jonathan died in the castle. And that story would slap. Like, they kill Dracula, Mina is healed, yadda yadda yadda, and then at the foot of the cliff they find his body. And it's clearly been dead for months but it's still holding the diary... only all the entries past June 30th are blank. But, and here's the important bit, he's wearing his wedding ring.

And like, I wouldn't trade baby Quincey and the hard-won happy ending for worlds, but if not for the fact that Jonathan is very demonstrably alive at the end of the novel I would be convinced he'd been dead for most of it. And it the book had been written 70 years earlier...?

(Around mid September I toyed with the idea of designing a Mansions of Madness scenario where you're Investigating the mysterious death of Mr Peter Hawkins and naturally the Harkers are there being Deeply Unsettling and overall Extremely Suspicious and I was like "hm, so do I make Mina a vampire or do I make Jonathan a ghost... or both?" The twist would be that neither of them had killed him of course, they were just independently Eldritch in some way and again, Benevolent Dead is the obvious obvious choice for Jonathan. At first he's all weird and creepy and suspicious and then it's just like "oh no never mind he's just Literally Dead it's all good.")

Anyone here a fan of Semisonic? I rediscovered "If I run" a couple of days ago, and you know what they say, any song is a blorbo song if you are sufficiently committed, but part of the refrain goes:

Keep thinking of the day I die and I lose my heavy load / but I wouldn't want to leave you behind

And this is very much how I see Jonathan. I was struck by his line (June 29th I think) "God help me and those to whom I am dear." He's not praying for the people he loves - he's praying for the people who love him. Because it's not about him. This is a man wholly secure in his relationship. He knows he is loved, and he knows that because he is loved, his loss will be a harm to others. (This is why I wrote the line "she would never see him again" instead of the other way around). And we see this again with his Promise - "she shall not go into that dark and terrible land alone." It's easy to (mis)read this as him not being able to bear the thought of losing her - but it's the other way around. It's not about him - it's about anything that might give her some scrap or shred of comfort, whatever the cost. It's about her not being alone.

And so if he had the option of abandoning his body to its torments, dooming his soul to wander the earth, but by so doing giving her some closure - of course he would. What is his own rest compared to that? Any scrap or shred of comfort, even the cold comfort of a dead man. Think of how many times he bids her goodbye in those first four chapters. He's important to her, and that is what's important to him.

There's a post that comes around periodically about the American Civil War and how it brought death on a never before seen scale, especially impersonal death, far away, an implication with no confirmation or closure - and the effect this had on literature and folklore. And it ended with a beautiful summation that I am going to end on as well:

The first ghost stories were about going home

#dracula daily #jonathan harker #he's so ghost coded #revenant jonathan #director's commentary #yeah this line seems to have resonated with people #like I'm glad he didn't die but I am very confident that even if he had that wouldn't have stopped him #he's got things to do our boy

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baby-droll · 2 months

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greener on the other side - director's commentary - part 1/2

so let's get into the second story. the story that is the sequel to the story i was not supposed to write. the story for kuzco /jk. this story is one that i wrote with the intention of it not being as long as it ended up being, and then i was about to post it, and i was talking to @elnotwoods and @mirrorofprinces, which is why they both get thanked in the author's notes, and i somehow generated an extra four thousand words.

below the cut, enjoy commentary on the first half of the story!

“stop trying to distract me, i have to say this before i for— oh, fuck.” he comes so hard he whites out and flails, he hears a glass fall over the side of the counter and a soft whoops from kinn; he can clean that up later; he lets kinn rest his head on his hip; petting over his hair as he gets himself off; he’s offered to do it, he honestly wants to, because he remembers flashes, and those are some mouthwatering flashes; reminders of something he wishes he could remember as well as kinn does—but he always says no, that it’s about making sure porsche doesn’t spiral into that stupid anxious horny place, that it isn’t about him; which feels like an excuse, but porsche doesn’t have any proof to the contrary, so for now, he’s dropping it.

so about the fact that this is the second time that i've started a story this way, and i can't stop doing it, it's just so much fun. but i wanted to reiterate up top that both of them are in denial. porsche still thinks they are just doing this for fun/to help him feel better, and kinn is still lying to himself that he can do this without constantly forgetting where the line is/that they aren't actually dating. he's bad at remembering that.

also, and i was inconsistent about this, so whoops, porsche doesn't remember anything from them hooking up, and he didn't see as much as he felt the morning after, so he didn't get the uhhh full picture if you know what i mean, all he has is the flashes. which is worse than nothing, because he has enough for his dreams to be really realistic, but not enough to actually work with or that he's seen.

“we have to call the people, kinn.” he goes easily when kinn helps him up, hands around his waist, because he’s wobbly and giggly from his orgasm, and the rush of endorphins, they sway for a second, faces close, and for some reason, the only thing porsche can think of is how freakishly long his eyelashes are, and has he always had that mole on his nose, and wow, he has so many freckles—

oh porsche, oh beloved porsche. he gets one up close look at kinn and suddenly he's losing his mind. porsche you're in love with him, just ask him out.

“i’ll call them right now, baby, it’s fine. go pick a movie and let iggy inside. he’s been scratching at the door for a while.” if they were mated, or even just dating, porsche thinks, this is the moment where kinn would kiss him, soft and chaste and they’d wander off; the soft lighting of this house is starting to melt his brain. he shakes his head and steps out of kinn’s grasp on his hips, feeling weirdly cold.

kinnifer. barefoot kinntessa. kinn possible. kinnto the unknown. my beloved. writing this scene was a moment where i was like, i don't know if i've crossed a line into unbelievably unintelligent but also it's the only thing to do, because it's a pattern. he's regularly sort of had these moments where he's forgotten, during/after sex, that they aren't in a relationship or mated, and i wanted to bring that back because i think it gives such a glimpse into his side of this struggle, because he's suffering just as much as porsche, if not more in terms of figuring out his feelings.

his hormones are fucking him up, more than a little, he thinks, as kinn wanders off, pulling his phone out of his pocket, and then he replays that last bit, and almost runs into the door.

oh, porsche.

and he’s sure, now that he thinks about it, that this has happened before and he just wasn’t paying attention; he knows it happened when kinn went down on him in the tent, he knows it probably happened when they hooked up, and he’s mad he can’t remember what it sounded like, for kinn to fuck him as good as he clearly did, in his ear calling him baby; just thinking about it makes him uncomfortably warm, and he needs to clear his head before kinn comes back from his phone call and catches him having dirty thoughts in the living room. iggy barges into the room from the kitchen, leaving the door swinging behind him.

he's finally putting things together! he's finally remembering that kinn did in fact call him 'baby' in the tent, and that it's happened before, but that problem/mystery being solved creates a new one; he realizes that he likes it, and he wants to hear it again, and that combining that with all of the other things that he wants makes all of this so much more complicated.

also i just like pet names. i love a good pet name. i love having characters who are verbally affectionate just because i think it's such a wonderful way to show someone love, and i love nicknames. one of these days, i'm gonna bring back all the other nicknames i've written beyond the baby/alpha/etc thing. for example, having porsche call kinn his full name, anakinn, is another favorite, or having him call kinn 'ki'; i've had kinn call porsche 'po', 'baby', etc. but catch me out here bringing back the 'baby boy' because i can and i want to.

they shouldn’t be doing this on the couch; pete sleeps on this couch when he visits, and he wouldn’t appreciate it, but porsche couldn’t help himself, kinn just looks so soft, and he’s been growing his hair out, like he had it in college; long and brushing his shoulders and so thick; his glasses are at the edge of his nose; sweat beading on his temples; every roll of porsche’s hips earns him a groan; their foreheads touch, eyes locked onto each other’s; his hands gripping tight at porsche’s hips and squeezing; he grins, almost feral, choking out familiar words; i love you, baby.

so yet again, i am humbled; i still have mixed feelings about mile with long hair, but then i imagined the magic that could happen if someone just threw some deep conditioner at him and i was like, wait i like the sound of this probably a bit too much. i also have the sneaking suspicion that he has curly/wavy hair, and the magic that could happen if he discovered the curly girl method or something i don't know, i'm just throwing it out there.

not the point. the point is that i wanted a dream that wasn't like, wild and sexy, i wanted something that was intimate and felt good, and like they were so close and married because that would be so much worse to wake up from.

it’ll never get old; feeling kinn this deep inside of him, telling him that, making him feel adored; he moans again, loud, in kinn’s ear when kinn picks him up by the hips, tipping him forward and thrusting up into him, faster and faster; when he comes, it’s almost by surprise; the only word on his lips; a stuttered, reverent, alpha.

so i started this thing, here i keep making the word 'alpha' less of the stand in for 'daddy' that i've sometimes used it as, and that i think is more popular fandom-wise, and i've started using it as more of a title/honorific/etc where it's like, oh it means something that i've called you this, and i'm not doing it lightly, even though similar to other honorifics, people might play around with it during sex or between friends.

but boy does it make it fun and angsty when you have two people who refuse to just talk about their feelings.

he wants to curl up and die; it takes everything out of him not to start crying, and even then it doesn’t work for long, breath getting caught in his chest; it’s not even the shame; or at least it’s not just the shame; the worst part, he thinks, is the crushing feeling of loneliness; here he is, surrounded by all of these things that should be signs that he’s loved, that should be given to him by his mate; all of the floral wreaths that have been dropped off, all of the food sent over, all of the things that say he does have that; he puts a hand to his neck, feeling at the smooth skin; the lack of a mating bite scar is the only thing that really brings him back to earth, and reminding him that he doesn’t.

oh, poor baby porsche. i keep saying it, but damn did i put him through absolute hell. he was struggling the entire story and i did not let up on him at all because why would i, for one, but also because i think this is the moment that he really gets what he's missing, and who he's missing it from because he has everything else. writing thought to be unrequited love between family friends and best friends let me add in all of these moments of intimacy between their intertwined families; they've grown up together and that means not having any real separation, which just pushes that much more on those emotional bruises.

also, the wreathes, food, flowers, all of it: this is background world building where i decided they'd evolved from having packs and a structure where the alpha/omega/beta thing was super emphasized, into a less strict society, but we still see the remnants of it, with the way that people judge them for not being mated, how their families are tangled up into something that is basically still a pack, how protective and possessive kinn is, because in the past, he would have had porsche as his mate because of the way their families were, and they did not love the reminder of those older, more traditional times.

but it's just how it happened/evolution. not in the sense that they were pure/true mates or even soulmates, but that there was a deeper connection that would have manifested very negatively for porsche, and his family didn't want him to not have his own identity or be trapped or grow into someone who didn't have those same feelings, and not be able to easily get out of it without heavy emotional backlash.

the families come by with the traditional wreathes and all of the food and blessings, just as a way to show support, but it's also a reminder that they'd normally be doing this for a newly mated pair that got pregnant, and they are doing this for two people who don't have that connection, and it makes it weird because it means there are traditions they can't or won't do, and kinn and porsche notice that.

“it’s the hormones. it’s the fact that i don’t have any control over my thoughts or my dreams or my body, it’s the feeling like i’m losing my mind, and it’s only going to get more intense. i mean we’re barely into this, and i already don’t know—i’m sure about the baby. i’m sure about you, because i’m always sure about you. i just don’t know where i fit into all of this.” and he means it; and that’s probably why he feels so lonely and tacked on to the end of this, if he knew what this was, it would be easier, but he doesn’t, and both of them are too scared to say it out loud.

again, he knows, he knows that he loves kinn, he knows that kinn loves him, he does not know how to say it out loud when kinn won't say it either, so he really doesn't know, because he doesn't have the words for it, and that make him feel so so lonely. this is also the voice of his friends and family speaking up; he's sure about kinn because the dynamic has changed; he realized that kinn getting a job and settling down and building a house with his own money and being a land owning, good alpha had made their family step off his case, even if pete didn't get the memo; but porsche, being a flaky artist, regardless of his online success, hadn't translated the same way. because he still parties and travels and lives in an apartment in a trendy district and dyes his hair and has tattoos, and they don't trust his version of adulthood, and they don't trust him to introduce a child into his version of adulthood.

and that is terrifying and lonely. that people don't trust him so much that he doesn't trust himself, even though he was so sure. but even the smallest thing that makes him feel like he isn't in control is making him question everything.

“you’re not giving yourself enough credit. and a lot of that is on me, because i don’t think i’ve told you how proud i am of you, for making the choice that you wanted to make, and for letting me take care of you, even though i know i drive you crazy with the smoothies and the books. how you fit into all of this, is—it’s with me. however this shakes out, i’ll be here, right beside you. now lift up so i can—” he doesn’t finish the sentence, which porsche appreciates, shuffling out of the way so he can strip the top layer of blankets and deposit them outside of the tent, alongside the shorts.

kinn, my beloved. you are so emotionally all over the place. he literally got through this super romantic emotional rant and then he hit a point where his brain realized what he was saying and he was like, oh oh my, oh this is too far and i've said too much, and then he decides to just take the awkward out of it by...cleaning porsche's crotch up which is covered in slick and come. great job, kinn, you really did it. he says all of that and then he runs away just to come back to a situation he created that is now more awkward. except that it's not awkward as much as it's tense, and him really struggling to deal with how much he wants to do this for the rest of his life, getting to take care of porsche.

when he’s back, kinn puts his hand on porsche’s ankle again, gentle, still, leaning pulling him down, closer, and spreading his legs; porsche just waits, staring, breath held tight; he feels dizzy, with this moment, after what kinn just said, in this dim yellow lighting; when kinn looks at him again, it feels like the entire world is hanging on a knife’s edge; he leans forward, careful, and porsche just waits, watching as his eyes dip down, once, just to look, almost like he’s admiring; the soft and growing curve of porsche’s stomach; the sprinkling of curly hair across his inner thighs; where he’s still shiny and sticky and wet; porsche clenches down, feeling weirdly empty and hollow; he can feel his pulse throbbing in his cunt, heavy and heated, and it makes him want to close his legs because he’s sure kinn can see with now much he’s clenching, but he doesn’t say anything, he just sits and stares.

ahhhhhhhhh this moment right here destroyed me when i was writing it, and i still don't know why, but it's my favorite scene in the entire fic. this, right here, is the moment that took me by surprise with how much i loved writing it, just porsche realizing what he's so much under kinn's gaze, and it's an adoring one, that kinn looks at him and it's heated and he wants him and more than that, he wants him no matter the form, and he wants kinn back and he can't hide how his body reacts to that at all, and kinn just stares at him.

“let me—let me take care of you, please.” porsche doesn’t know what he means by that, until he sees him pick up a cloth, so he spreads his legs and waits, tucking one foot under his ankle, twisting onto his side; it’s more effective than it is comfortable, so he has to support his belly with his arm.

finally getting to write the belly was a real moment for me because i had a fun time trying to remember it was there and what he could and couldn't do. like here, he can still kind of be on his back, but not comfortably, so he's half on his side. yes, i had to test this pose on my couch and he's right, it's not comfortable, but if someone was giving you a sponge bath, it would work.

kinn leans in, and he has to hold his breath with the way it feels; how intimate it is, when kinn breathes over him, inhaling his scent; he picks up the cloth, and runs it over porsche’s inner thighs.

intimate it's so intimate it's just so *bites knuckle*

it’s not cold, somehow, like he dipped it in hot water and it retained just enough heat; he runs it over porsche’s thighs, over every nook and cranny, and then; it makes his spine tingle, and he tries not to lean into the touch, but he does; when kinn wipes the cloth over his cunt, where he’s still sensitive and wet, he has to bite down on his knuckle so he doesn’t moan out loud.

he did indeed try to keep the cloth as warm as possible and porche, bestie, just let go and lean into it. but again, i manage to write something that i think is hotter than any of the actual sex scenes. i did this before, when i wrote the scene where kinn helps him out of his pants in the love is blind au, and it's something i manage to do a lot, where it's like, the hottest thing happening is the before or outside of the sex, because it's the intimacy that gets to me the most! always! /end asexual rant

he doesn’t know how this is supposed to be helping because he can feel himself getting wet again, when kinn rubs the cloth over where he’s swollen, over his clit, almost lingering, rubbing with the cloth over his thumb; porsche grinds up into the touch, helplessly; kinn does it again, and he whines.

(wrote this from behind my fingers)

he searches around in the blankets, near his thigh, for kinn’s hand, tangling their fingers together, just for some sort of tether, an anchor so that he doesn’t just float away, lost in the sensation, not just because it feels good; but because he feels so cared for; kinn swipes the cloth over him again and again, and all he can do is grind up into the touch.

(also wrote this from behind my fingers)

when he’s done, or at least satisfied that porsche is cleaner than he was, he hums, and puts it on the pile with the rest of the dirty linens and clothing, the entire tent, now, smells like ripe peaches and softly of juniper, it’s making his nose itch and his mouth water; his stomach twitches when kinn leans forward and presses a kiss to his hip, and another to his curved belly; his eyes glow softly in the darkness of the tent, a deep comforting red.

so i promise i didn't forget that i made this a universe where kinn's eyes can glow, the thing is that it only happens during really emotional, intense moments, and i ended up having him either fuck porsche from behind or generally not have them face each other (the mating scene, when porsche gives birth, his eyes are closed and they don't make eye contact) so it never came up naturally again even though i kept trying to find places.

when i inevitably write omegaverse again, there will be justice for the eye glowing.

“i’ll be here, i promise. every step of the way.”

AHH the romance <333 and then he is 🥹

(kinn wakes up, and he rolls over onto his back, and he sits there for a second, struck mainly with the urge to laugh, because this is getting ridiculous, he thinks, mouth filled with the taste of peaches; his nose burns with juniper and peaches and petrichor and brown sugar; and he wants nothing more than to not move from here, but he has to go to work. he tries to get up and move, but porsche clings, snuggling his arm with a whine; he pulls away again, disturbing iggy, who glares at him and then stands up, shaking himself out and stretching with a huff. kinn should let him outside, but first; he tries to resettle porsche against the pillows, when he’s stopped dead in his tracks; it’s porsche, barely awake, blinking at him through bleary eyes, wrapped up in the blanket, like a burrito, clinging to his hand, scenting him in a way he’d never do if he was actually alert, rubbing his neck against kinn’s wrist, pressing kisses to his forearm.

i wobbled back and forth on including this specifically from kinn's perspective, and then i realized that it had to happen, because it's the only way so much that happens after this makes sense. and part of that is the reader knowing what porsche doesn't, less the fact that kinn loves him, and more the fact that kinn feels so deeply for him that it is driving him absolutely nuts.

and porsche, half dreaming, manages to press all of his buttons at once. and it's torture, because it's confirmation that porsche is feeling a lot of the same ways as him, and wants a lot of the same things as him, but it's also clear to kinn that he can't know how he feels completely, because he's dreaming, so how much of this is just his brain, or deep down subconscious, and less of how he feels on the surface?

"alpha, come back to bed.” and his eyes are closed again, like he can barely keep them open, and it’s kinn, suddenly warm all over and alone in this, while iggy stares at him impatiently; his spine feels like it’s about to melt right out of his back; his face is so hot it stings; he doesn’t know what compels him to do it, but he leans over, rubbing his wrist over porsche’s hair and his neck; it’s stupid, it’s so stupid, but it’s not stupider than what he does next, giving into the fantasy of the moment.

yeah, kinn definitely felt very alone in that moment. and that sucks for him, and his face is hot because he wants to cry, legitimately, because he is so overwhelmed. and then he cracks, and he has to just let himself have this lie.

“wish i could, baby, but i have to go to work.” and he checks his clown bags to stupid clown island with this next move; kissing porsche’s forehead and then leaning back; he’s caught, though when porsche blinks at him, sleepy, again with a soft smile; and this part, he’ll think about all day, in the shower, frozen over his steering wheel, barely seeing any of the spreadsheets at work, with half a forkful of salad in his mouth, at the gym during the rest of his break, and all through the drive home.

i know i was evil for doing this to him, but in my defense, i also made myself upset, so there.

almost inaudible, mumbled, probably a hallucination, if he lies to himself, but he knows what he heard, said so easily it felt practiced; like they’d done this exchange a million times; a mumble along the lines of, okay, have a good day, and then;

love you.)

i sent this one section to a couple of people, and by a couple of people, i mean @elnotwoods and @mirrorofprinces, because i knew that their reaction would absolutely be worth it. and by worth it, i meant be very amusing as they yelled at me akekekeke but in my defense, in my defense, i think it absolutely works and there was nothing else that could happen here. the first 'love you', and it's..half asleep because porsche thinks he's dreaming, and kinn doesn't realize that porsche is awake, he's just thinking it's fake or in his head, or half between sleeping and waking, and it's like.

one day this will happen so much that he gets used to it, almost. but they are so far from that, and that is the most painful part. ahhh i love romance.

“what do you mean finally got there? how was i supposed to notice it? when i’m pretty sure it’s always been there? i mean do you notice fucking, i don’t know, do you have epiphanies every time you breathe or gravity works? how am i supposed to notice fucking background noise?” he says, more than a touch hysterical and drawing the attention of a few tables around them; he bats away vegas’s hand when he tries to comfort porsche by awkwardly petting him.

ooohhh so this is the running theme of this entire thing. how do you notice something so repressed and taken away from you is one thing. but how do you notice a love to natural it's just there. it's always been there. it's always been part of him. he'd notice it missing before he noticed it present. that's a love that is so natural that even if it wasn't romantic, he'd still have felt like he'd been hit by a train the second he noticed it.

also i had to include vegas attempting to make him feel better, because as comes up when he can finally smell the peaches on kinn when their scents combine; he smells like rotten peaches when he's upset, and it's not a good smell. and yes, it's a metaphor, it's a metaphor for how much people only like him when he's happy or drunk or a good time, and less when he's a person who has other sides; it's a metaphor for how he's been treated as the baby of their friend group, cornered and not allowed to be complex, and this is their instinctive reaction that he's learning to push away; trying to comfort him and downplay it. METAPHOR!

“i mean—i mean that all of the spray bottling and the lecturing and the, all of it, it didn’t. it didn’t make it any easier to figure out my own feelings. and then suddenly we were alone together and living together and it just—my feelings didn’t change, nothing changed, and that’s the problem. nothing has changed, except for the baby, and i just—it was easier the second we didn’t have anything in the way.” and he means it, and it might take him time to be less mad about it, less mad at pete, less mad at his parents, less mad at anybody who just couldn’t let them figure it out themselves.

another running theme! someone mentioned that the commentary made them more mad at pete, and i think i'm about to make it worse. because again, him wanting to get the approval of the parents that he didn't get at his own house is one thing, but him continuing that into something super dehumanizing because he took kinn's begging for someone to help him a little too far? sometimes we are bad friends in the name of trying to be helpful. it happens.

he's definitely being paula from crazy ex-girlfriend a bit here, in terms of the 'after everything i've done for you' which again, has that response of 'that i didn't ask for'. and porsche is right, he's reall right, they would have gotten there themselves, but nobody woul dlet them, and he deserves to be mad.

there are a variety of reasons that you see pete disappear from this story, and i'm not getting into that here, at least the major one, but the other part of it is just that as they reckoned with how they got to where they are, it changed who they felt close to/safe with. tae and time hadn't participated in it, especially because here i've made it so they met a lot later in life, so they were like, eh they are adults. and tae is of course, the one who didn't agree with pete about leaving them alone that night, and he's the one who either accidentally or on purpose sent them home together, so it was like, yeah, we're gonna grativate towards the person/people who didn't do that to us.

“why not? when i was fourteen, you sat me down and told me that if he so much as looked at me, to get an adult. when i was sixteen, you said that if i came home pregnant, you’d ship me to go live with dad’s sisters. when i went to college, you were the only parent who encouraged me to go across the country, if it meant i wasn’t near him. my entire life, i’ve been spray bottled and yelled at and preached at and brochured and booked and monitored like a cat in heat, and you’re asking me why i haven’t said anything? you trained it out of me! you made me obedient, and you’re mad that it worked!” he shouldn’t be yelling at his mother, but he feels like he’s earned it, more than a little; even if some of that yelling should be done to many other people besides her; frankenstein’s monster wasn’t built in a day.

i haven't been clear about the age difference because i kept waffling about it, but i finally settled on it being about two years, meaning that kinn was a junior in college when porsche was a freshman, etc. so when he was fourteen, kinn was sixteen, when he was sixteen, kinn was eighteen, and when he was eighteen, aka the senior year incident, kinn was twenty, and back in town for summer, and they didn't talk for six months because there was a party, and porsche was dancing with another alpha, and kinn basically got super drunk and possessive and was like 'hey don't touch things that don't belong to you' because he really sucked, okay but he grew out of it, and porsche was like....'one, you just called me a thing', 'two, belong to...like who do i belong to that you're the one who gets to act this way' and then things got real weird and they had quasi-angry almost hate-sex that got stopped at the last second by pete and vegas who unscrewed the hinges on a bathroom door at a house they didn't live in and got all of them kicked out.

the point being, is that outside of a few incidents where people really did need to keep them apart, they grew into people who didn't need that.

on top of that, porsche's cry for help here is one that i've felt myself, especially with my own mother, in terms of being like, you want me to have friends and go out and have a life, when you spent years telling me that i'd go to hell if i so much as blinked at someone who was a different gender than me.

and a lot of parents do this, the sudden switch up when they realize that they want things that they've raised their kids to stay away from; they want someone fun, they want someone who has a family and kids, but they've made it so fun is bad, and having sex gets you sent to megahell.

you can't have your cake and eat it too. so porsche deserved this meltdown, and this goes out to all the other weirdly obedient kids who had to deal with the random parental switch up.

he takes a deep breath, his hands are shaking and his face is so hot it stings and he can’t breathe, he can’t fucking breathe and he tries putting his hands on his belly to ground himself, but it’s not working; he’s just so fucking mad, that they wasted all of this time, that nobody would let them just figure it out; that it took all of this and then some to even have this conversation, and his entire body goes cold with anxiety and fury and worst of all; a heavy, all consuming grief at the time that's been taken from them.

oh this panic attack hurt me, mainly because i hate hurting porsche. i hate hate hate hurting porsche, but it was necessary because i needed it to be clear that he'd been through hell at the hands of these people, but he still loved them, but he had to grieve so much time they could have had together, just them, without a kid on the way and all of this other stress and fear; they could have had years and years to figure this out and grow into it, and they had that taken away from them.

not because they didn't know, but because other people decided for them, that it was dangerous that they loved each other.

and at times, those people were right. when kinn was saying shit like 'don't touch things that don't belong to you'? hell yes his parents were right to tear them apart. when they were rumpling and scenting and refusing to leave their rooms and spending heats together? yes, they needed to be spray bottled before it became an episode of sixteen and pregnant. but they still deserved the space to figure it out around the time they were well into college and had jobs and had lives and had ways to support themselves and knew to a certain degree who they were, especially when porsche was on his second degree and kinn had managed to build a house and establish a life.

they deserved to figure it out themselves.

“porsche, porsche, love, calm down. deep breathing, love, i know, i’m sorry, i’m sorry.” he doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he hears a muffled sob which turns into a wail, carved out of his chest and painful; this is the worst part of this, is how little it takes to tip him over the edge; but this, yet again, might not even be the hormones, this, like with pete, like with all of this; might just be something that is a long time coming; it only makes him cry harder when he realizes his mom is crying too.

but she's still his mama, and there's nobody who can cut through the bullshit like someone who at their core is a good parent who just fucked up in this one big way. she's human, and hearing her child not just cry, but wail in actual anguish and pain at something she did?

that broke her. that broke her, and it made her figure it out really quickly that it wasn't worth it. whatever they thought they were doing, she'd known for a while that it wasn't worth it.

but hearing her child cry out like that? she meant that apology, not just for this conversation/argument, but for all of it. for all of those moments, and she apologizes and she keeps apologizing because knowing that she made her child experience that grief? nothing could be worth that. she'd take all of the mistakes and the potential for bad if it gave him his agency back and took away that grief.

“we were wrong. we were scared, and we didn’t know, and we were wrong. we shouldn’t have kept you from each other, not when it was clear that you were—that there might have been something there, that we had no right to pull apart. but we were scared. scared that it was wrong, scared that you’d end up with your heart broken and a child to show for it, with no education, no life lived of your own. i know you think we all let pete and vegas do what they wanted, but that wasn’t ever the case, that hasn’t ever been the case. it wasn’t—they grew into that. but when you were a baby, and kinn was barely up to my knee, he would growl at people who got too close to you, after your father had you. it looked like obsession, and we were worried, and for a while, we were right to be worried, and then like many good worries, we took it too far. but you love him, and i don’t think that boy has gone a day without loving you too. you didn’t listen to me about the piercings, or the hair or the tattoos, or the art degrees or any of it, so don’t listen to me now. whatever voice of mine is in your head, talking you out of it, just. set the house on fire, throw the party, dye your hair blue, you’ve done it before, do it again. don’t listen to me.”

i made myself cry writing this. i did. and the reason for that was because it isn't something you get, when you have parents like this, that they explain why they did what they did and they apologize and they hand that agency back to you. she takes responsibility, she explains herself, she explains without it being a defensive explanation, she clarifies where she can hear his insecurities making things worse than they were. she does a lot here that i've learned to do in therapy, to talk to my own version of the negative voices, but it's different when you do it out loud, to the person you've hurt. it's transformative, and i think this is a moment that porsche takes into his own parenting, knowing when and how to apologize to your kid and to tell them to trust their judgement.

that final line; you've done it before, do it again, don't listen to me, is an admission of 'i can be wrong, i have been wrong, and you still figured yourself out and turned into someone to be proud of'. it's an admission of 'you created yourself, i didn't. keep creating.' and it's partially inspired by a few things, both, sort of obviously, everything everywhere, all at once, but also my relationship with my own mother and hard conversations that we've had, and all of these moments of going, wow, on both side, we forget occasionally, what we should be taking responsibility for, negatively and positively, and it needs to happen more often that we reflect. i can only say that about my own relationship. but as i've gotten older, it's helped me figure myself out, and it was a pattern of thinking that made me realize i didn't want kids.

so this, for me, was a really powerful thing to write because i was like, spend a paragraph talking half to your own mom, half to your inner child, half to the person you want to be when you grow up, half to the person you were three years ago, what would you say and how much would you mean it.

and to think, i almost didn't write this entire story. wild!

tomorrow, i'll be back with part two of this commentary, so again, feel free to send me any questions, comments, etc. thank you for reading, and thank you for humoring me with this whole thing, because i have so much fun doing them!

want to read this story? click here!

#bd not fic tag #director's commentary #directory commentary #kinn x porsche #bd series tag

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rockymaidenvixen · 2 months

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Would Steve still want revenge on Jim for getting him suspended and try to take over his role of Romeo? Since you did previously say Jim is still gonna audition for the play maybe, and Steve would still want to get under his skin as petty revenge.

So with the play all five kids are involved in it, but Jim only as a stagehand. Showings of the play run past sundown so Jim can't act in it, but he does want to participate with the others. Jim joins on as a stagehand, helping with the sets and costumes and, with a little pressure from the others, becoming the understudy for Romeo, confident that he'll never end up on stage (but when is the path of fate ever that straight).

Steve resents Jim big time for getting him suspended and kicked off the basketball team, and when he sees that Jim is working on the play he definitely takes the opportunity to get the part of Romeo and rub it in his understudy's face.

But Steve is on thin ice and he knows it. Coach Lawrence made it clear in explicit detail that if he so much as nudges Eli in the direction of a locker he'll be in detention for a week, and Ms. Janeth doesn't hesitate to remind him when he tries out. Steve can be in the play, but the slightest hint of threats or intimidation directed towards Jim or anyone else and Steve will be out.

But while Steve might blame Jim for his suspension, deep down Steve knows that it's really his own fault. Deep down Steve knows that he was the one who took it too far and that he only has himself to blame, but he desperately doesn't want to admit this to himself. Not only that, Steve is terrified that he was capable of hurting someone so badly without even trying it.

Because Steve doesn't want to deal with all these painful, complicated emotions he shoves them down and forces his resentment onto Jim. It's only when takes a good look at himself and finally accepts just how wrong he was to attack Jim the way he did that Steve starts changing for the better.

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters #sunshine au #between daylight and darkness #rmvspeaks #director's commentary #steve palchuk

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onadarklingplain · 1 month

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I would kill for a hairpin turns director’s cut or Alex POV in his amnesiac fugue when he thinks he’s woken up to a universe where he’s dating George 👀👀👀

i love alex in this fic so much, so thank you for asking about him! i did the scene in the car below the cut

Before they’ve even pulled out of the car park, though, Alex immediately starts asking him about the season. Whatever they had given him for the pain seemed to have kicked in because he’s gotten looser, easy to laugh or complain. And for the first time since Alex crashed, George starts to feel better too, like everything might be okay.

In this scene, up until the kiss, I wanted Alex to be trying very hard to Keep It Together. He’s feeling vulnerable (which he hates), he’s worried about his season, and he doesn’t understand where things are with George. He was very happy to see “boyfriend” George in the hospital (because they’re in LOVE), but he’s also worried that he may have shown his hand more than he should have and is therefore Acting Normal.

And anyways, as we know, the best way to deal with your emotional vulnerability is to just pretend it doesn’t exist! If you just bury it, it won’t come back, and nothing will go wrong <3

When he tells Alex about his season so far, George has to stop himself from looking over constantly at the crazy, competitive glint in his eye. They’d put his arm in a sling, and he was supposed to keep it as still as possible until they scheduled the surgery, but he keeps forgetting and making little half-gestures with his hands. This is Alex “the first thing I did when I woke up from the coma was ask about the race results” Albon. Unfortunately, none of these men are sane.

Then, Alex says, “So what happened here, then? How did we get together?”

Ultimately Alex was always going to ask, once they’d run through the ice breaker conversation topics, but he’s trying to play it as cool as he can. Like, no he’s not freaking out! No one should worry about him. He is feeling So Normal.

George should have expected that, but he doesn’t have an answer prepared. He’s not a psychopath. He wasn’t ever going to actually lie to Alex. He was going to say, as soon as he could, funny story, mate.

George rationalising the whole situation in his head, even though he could have said that sooo many times already. But he likes being Alex’s centre of attention and likes the fact that Alex believes it’s real, like George is someone he would actually date.

Instead, his stupid panic brain comes swinging back in full force. He hears himself splutter, “Alex, I think you should be remembering this stuff on your own. The doctor—“

A ridiculous thing to say when George has spent the last fifteen minutes giving Alex a play-by-play breakdown of what went wrong with Charles’ pit stop in the last race.

Charles’ pit stop in Monaco really did go wrong in 2017, poor boy. The curse is real. Sometimes the truth is even better than fiction.

Alex seems to think so too, because he just says, “Oh, come on, George. You aren’t embarrassed, are you? Wait, you didn’t make some kind of horrible grand gesture?“

George clenches his jaw. He’s resolutely not looking at Alex now, staring straight ahead at the road. He doesn’t know what to do. Alex is still talking.

“It’s just like, first of all I thought you were straight. So I just feel like I must have forgotten an eventful few months. Or is it a like, straight except for me thing? Because if so, I’m very flattered George.”

This is maybe my favourite part. Again, it’s Alex trying very hard to play it cool and unaffected, but he isn’t getting what he needs from George, so he’s going to keep pushing it. He wants desperately to understand what’s changed in the last few months and where things stand with them (just fucking? in a real relationship? confessed to feelings?) because he can't reconcile what he thinks they have now to where he thinks George was at before.

George is starting to feel a bit trapped, like Alex has pinned him down. This isn’t how things were supposed to go. He doesn’t have an answer to the question. He just knows— it isn’t something he thought that much about but… maybe? Maybe he had thought about Alex that way once or twice. It was an easy mistake to make. Alex was his best friend, and when Alex smiled at George, it always made him feel like his chest was going to like, explode.

George realising that he’s already waited too long, whoops.. And why did he wait too long? Could it be because he’s in love with Alex? No, surely not. They have a normal friend relationship! And if he wants to kiss Alex, that’s like whatever.But seeing Alex hurt really shook George, to where he maybe starts thinking about this stuff in a way he hadn’t before. Like, wow I just had a very not normal reaction to seeing my friend fall off a bike. Wonder why….

He doesn’t think he can have this conversation while he’s driving after all. They’re almost back at Alex’s flat— there won’t be enough time. He can explain properly if he can just put Alex off for a few more minutes.

He doesn’t answer the question. He just says, “You should always be flattered.”

Alex laughs and then cuts himself off with a wince. “Ow, fuck. Note to self, don’t laugh. Jesus.”

It’ll be obvious that they aren’t dating when they get to Alex’s flat, George thinks. Alex will notice that there aren’t any photos of George anywhere, or he’ll eventually pick up his phone and see that all their texts are about normal things and that they never talk about like, who’s buying the condoms. It’ll be easy to bring it up.

Of course, when they get there, it isn’t obvious at all. Because they’re in LOVE! But it was a nice thought, George.

That’s the end of the scene in the car, but related to the above commentary, I’ll just add that when they get to the flat, it was important for me that Alex makes his move on George right after George notices that he isn’t okay after all. Alex tries to cover his vulnerability by acting super confident and distracting George with his sexual wiles. Because obvs the best thing to do when you’re feeling out of control is to go in hot and grab someone’s dick (hashtag relatable).

#amnesia fic #director's commentary #i've never done a director's cut before but this was very fun!#asks

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handwrittenhello · 2 months

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There's a weird pattern with vriska votes surging whenever she's behind. I know there's really nothing you can do about people abusing the system this way, however they're doing it, but I would like it noted that we see it.

i definitely noticed this yesterday. which is why the tags on her poll today are fucked up, actually: i had the post ready for izzy's clear win made before i went to bed, but by the time i woke up vriska had gained thousands more notes somehow. the same thing happened today where zuko was clearly winning, and yet now it's 60/40 for her.

i'm not making accusations or anything lol but i do know for a fact that the tumblrwoman poll was rigged by cheaters who sent bots to spam vote. please, nobody cheat on these polls, it takes away the fun for everyone else. this is supposed to be a silly lighthearted honest competition! your meow meow is still valid even if they don't win.

but maybe vriska voters just gather at night, idk!

#that said if HDB doesn't win i WILL blow up the building <3 /j #tumblr's plmm contest #director's commentary #anon #can't believe i have to say this but yeah don't cheat pls

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fairysluna · 8 days

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quiero la del cregan directors commentary fr

Okay, idk how to actually do this so I'm just gonna write some stuff that came into my mind while writing both parts lmao (lo hago x ti🤍)

I guess you can read this as headcanons of what happens afterwards(? bc these are just my ideas about the characters and stuff. these are about 'keep you warm' and 'dragon's warmth'.

has a bit of smut (just a bit) so…

Of course at first reader doesn't feel love towards Cregan. I mean, she definitely thought it was a handsome and fine man, but nothing else. She only sees him as something she needs to gain something that will benefit her family, which is the North's support. She has her charm and beauty, and she knows how to use it. I think it is briefly mentioned in pt 2 (if not, then read this as if it was) that she uses the same methods with Aegon, because she manipulates men through sex.

However, in the second part we see that she eventually falls for Cregan. He's a gentleman, he's a sweetheart, and he treats her like a goddess. He worships her body, because she managed to steal his heart the minute he seduced him in the empty hall (pt 1). He treats her like a queen, and not only in bed, and she just loves the attention.

He loves to touch her, to fondle her body until she squirms. He loves burying his face between her legs, but overall he LOVES to bend her over any surface and breed her at any time until she's filled and dripping, and with her legs so shaky (bc the bastard also loves to overstimulate her) that he has to carry her back to bed excusing that 'she was indisposed and feeling unwell'. He would do his Lord business, and at night he would return to his chambers only to see her ready for him to fuck again; desperate for him.

Of course eventually they ended up having a bunch of children (i mean- duh), some of them claimed dragons but others claimed their own direwolves that became their protectors. With dragons guarding the North, there was no threat of rebellions or wars that threatened Cregan's claim as Warden of the North.

#liv's replies #ask games #director's commentary #mutuals<3

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youhideastar · 2 months

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In Concord, I would love to get DVD commentary on the scene where Lan Qiren kicks Wei Ying out of the lectures when it swaps to musical cultivation time. Would also be fascinated to hear your take on what Lan Qiren is thinking/how he's justifying himself mentally, etc.

Yay, I’m so happy to talk about this scene! Thank you for asking!

Commentary is below the cut, fic is here, and finally, anon who sent in the Wen Qing shovel-talk ask, I have not forgotten about you - I am just saving yours for WIP Wednesday! Also, there are spoilers for the end of the fic in the commentary, so please read the fic first.

Wei Wuxian drops something on Lan Wangji’s desk, with an air of great triumph.

“Guess what that is?”

Lan Wangji picks up the bundle of papers and examines it. It is yet another hurried, sloppy version of the Gusu Lan Sect principles.

“It’s my ticket into the lectures, Lan Zhan!”

“The last copy,” Lan Wangji realizes.

Wei Wuxian bounces on his toes, grinning. “It is! I’ve kept my nose clean for the last few days, and I was furiously copying at night, and now I’m done.”

There is a part of Lan Wangji that wants to say Wei Wuxian has done well, but he dismisses it. There is no accomplishment in atoning for misdeeds.

Aaaaand another missed opportunity. Like, LWJ’s not wrong, but—don’t be such a hardass! WWX is proud of how hard he worked! Be proud of him, too!

Thus, after the midday meal, Wei Wuxian follows Lan Wangji into the lecture hall. The disciple at the door assigns him a seat—Lan Wangji has the same seat he has had since he was a child—and Wei Wuxian goes readily enough, although he pouts at Lan Wangji as he goes.

They’re married, they should sit together—but LWJ doesn’t see it that way. He wants everything in his life to stay the same, right down to where he sits in the lecture hall. Meanwhile, you’ve got WWX over here visibly pouting at being separated from LWJ – he keeps trying to connect, trying to show affection, and getting shut down in all these little largely unintentional ways. Like the papermen:

If Lan Wangji had expected that Wei Wuxian’s long-thwarted desire to attend one of Lan Qiren’s lectures would translate into proper attentive behavior therein, he would have been very much mistaken. During the first half of the lecture, devoted to Lan Sect history, Wei Wuxian plagues Lan Wangji with a parade of papermen. No matter how many Lan Wangji crumples in his fist, there is always another a moment later, climbing up his back, tugging on his hair, trying to crawl up his sleeve.

Lan Qiren definitely notices this going down. He goes into this lecture already intending to kick WWX out, but this behavior just validates his decision.

Lan Wangji attempts to keep Wei Wuxian’s antics from disturbing the other attendees, but he is unsure of his success. And he himself learns absolutely nothing.

Admittedly, the information would not be new to him regardless, as he is well acquainted with the details of his sect’s illustrious history. But it is the principle of the thing.

After half the shichen has passed, Lan Qiren announces a change in topic, from history to musical cultivation. Out of the corner of his eye, Lan Wangji sees Wei Wuxian sit straighter, hands poised to take notes.

Then Lan Qiren looks out across the assembled disciples and says, curtly, “Wei Wuxian is dismissed.”

This is such a dick move. But LQR is having major regrets about signing on to this marriage alliance scheme in the first place, and he may not be able to go back in time and stop WWX from marrying into the sect (Do not accept disciples without careful screenings), but he can at least try to obey the principle to Avoid imparting knowledge to the wrong individuals. He comes into this lecture intending to make this move from the beginning (that’s why he doesn’t pin it on WWX’s misbehavior – this is premeditated).

Are those principles ringing a bell, by the way? That’s because Lan Zibin quotes them in the Lan Ran confrontation, where he says, “I warned your uncle against it. Do not accept disciples without careful screenings. Avoid imparting knowledge to the wrong individuals. This is what comes of letting political expedience overcome the wisdom of our ancestors.”

That scene comes quite a bit after this one, but it sheds a belated light on what’s going on with Lan Qiren here: to wit, he is getting constant shit from the other elders about WWX, for a decision that was probably Lan Xichen’s—not his—to begin with. It’s making him defensive.

Also, he’s just plain pissed-off at WWX for constantly breaking rules and being rude as fuck. WWX is so wronged in this fic that it’s easy to forget that he does some pretty obnoxious stuff at the beginning, especially by Lan standards. WWX made the “mistake” of telling LQR that learning from him is something he really cares about; now LQR is going to take it away.

Lan disciples have too much self-restraint to gasp in surprise. But the mood of the room is one of astonishment. And no one looks more astonished than Wei Wuxian.

Note that everybody else knows this is a dick move. This is real bad behavior by LQR. But no one here has the rank to challenge LQR, even for blatant assholery, except LWJ. And he’s so not ready to do that yet.

Standing to address Lan Qiren, he asks, “Why am I dismissed, Lan-xiansheng?”

“Have you trained in musical cultivation?”

This is an excuse. It’s not a very good one. LQR is not particularly skilled at coming up with BS. Unlike WWX.

“No,” Wei Wuxian admits.

“Hmph.”

Lan Qiren flicks his gaze away, as if to say that no more need be said of the matter.

As far as LQR is concerned, that’s it, he’s done. He’s so used to being obeyed that he’s not expecting WWX to challenge him. When WWX does, and won’t let it go, LQR is totally unprepared, and he starts grasping at straws. His BS gets less and less plausible as WWX pushes and pushes and LQR gets more and more pissed-off and out of his depth.

“But I can learn!” protests Wei Wuxian. “Isn’t that—”

“Do you play the qin?” Lan Qiren demands.

Interrupting is forbidden, Lan Wangji thinks automatically.

“No—”

“The xiao?”

“No.”

“Hmph.” Lan Qiren deliberately turns away.

LQR is again expecting that that will be the end of it. He assumes WWX doesn’t play an instrument at all and takes that as further evidence that WWX is uncultured - just a sword-swinging troublemaker who lacks the self-discipline to learn other skills.

Lan Wangji’s hands are clenched in his lap – not out of anger, but confusion. He does not understand what is happening – he has seen students dismissed from lecture for misbehavior, and indeed, he expected that was the nature of the dismissal here. But he has never seen a student dismissed for lack of prerequisite training. Surely, even those with little grounding in a technique can benefit from instruction and demonstration?

LWJ spot-on here. Like everyone in the room, including WWX, he knows this is BS.

Wei Wuxian, meanwhile, is not giving up. He announces, “I can play the dizi!”

But Lan Qiren merely scowls. “The question,” he says, “is whether Wei Wuxian plays a gentleman’s instrument.”

LQR does not mean to mean this in a class way. He is truly not thinking of WWX as a commoner in this moment. But dismissing the dizi as a folk instrument rather than a classical instrument (think banjo rather than cello) is inherently class-coded. Again, LQR assumed WWX didn’t play an instrument at all (itself a classist assumption) and is now desperately grasping at straws to save face. And that is a real good way to end up saying shit that’s way more offensive than you intended.

(Side note: I did a lot of research (by my standards—I didn’t, like, interview any scholars or visit any museums) on the cultural status of the dizi versus the xiao and the qin for this scene. The sources did not all agree with each other, and this is all undermined by the fact that The Untamed is not set in any specific dynasty, but it does appear that there was a period when the xiao and the qin were firmly entrenched as classical instruments that would be played at the imperial court, and the dizi was not (and the status of the qin as the quintessential “gentleman’s instrument” appears to have been consistent throughout). So let’s just imagine this is set in that early period when the dizi was still growing in popularity.)

Wei Wuxian’s mouth closes. As Lan Wangji watches, the set of his face changes. For a moment, it is stone – for a moment, he truly looks like a Lan.

“A gentleman’s instrument,” he repeats, smooth and even. “That’s funny, I could swear I read a principle or two about not looking down on people because of their birth—”

“Birth has nothing to do with it,” Lan Qiren retorts.

He really means this. But he can’t unsay what he said.

Wei Wuxian smiles. In a dangerously pleasant tone, he replies, “That’s what I’m saying.”

“Not just any instrument is capable of mastering the Gusu Lan techniques.”

I hope this comes off to the reader as very obvious BS. The Untamed is not, like, real big on consistent worldbuilding re: magic systems, but there’s just no reason other instruments couldn’t play Gusu Lan spiritual songs. Yeah, you probably need a multi-stringed instrument to do Chord Assassination, but whatever you can do on a xiao, there’s no reason you can’t do it on other wind instruments! (And, like, as readers we know that’s true because we see WWX play Gusu Lan spiritual music on his dizi later in the show.) Pour one out for LQR who thought he was going to have a ten-second conversation to get his revenge on his obnoxious nephew-in-law and instead is now showing his ass in front of practically his whole sect but can’t back down without losing face.

“And a dizi—”

“The dizi is a brash and unrefined instrument inherently unsuited for cultivation,” Lan Qiren snaps, brutal and final. “Wei Wuxian is dismissed.”

Per the sources I was looking at, what Lan Qu says later in the fic does appear to be true: a dizi is a lot louder than a qin, so they would rarely have been played together, whereas a xiao is quieter and makes for a better companion to the qin. Appropriately for Gusu Lan Sect, they specialize in relatively quiet instruments. So that’s what Lan Qiren is talking about when he calls the dizi “brash and unrefined,” in addition to dismissing it as a folk instrument.

There is a silent moment when no one moves. Lan Wangji is not certain that anyone breathes.

I’m sure a lot of the disciples are thinking, Why is Lan Qiren being such a dick? But you know a lot of them are thinking, What did Wei Wuxian do to make Lan Qiren act like such a dick?

Then Wei Wuxian bows – deeply, with perfect form. Lan Wangji cannot shake the feeling that there is something mocking about it. “Lan-xiansheng,” he says. He turns on his heel and walks out.

It is not exactly breaking new ground for me to observe that WWX uses formality as a weapon.

Lan Wangji follows. He could not say why. He just knows that he could not stay.

Oh, Lan Wangji, darling boy, you do have some good instincts! When you listen to them, you do so much better!

He continues to follow Wei Wuxian, not knowing where he is going, as they wend their way through the intersecting paths of Cloud Recesses.

As he walks, he replays his uncle’s words in his head, attempting to make sense of them. No one has ever said, in Lan Wangji’s hearing, that some instruments are unsuited for cultivation. Gusu Lan trains all its disciples in guqin, and those who are interested train in xiao, as it is a traditional complement to the qin, but no one has ever said that there is something wrong with other instruments.

Thus far, Wei Wuxian has been uncharacteristically silent. As they turn away from the main cluster of buildings, though, he remarks, “I didn’t realize how desperate Gusu Lan was for this alliance with Yunmeng Jiang.” Before Lan Wangji can challenge the insult, Wei Wuxian continues, tightly: “They must have been desperate, to sacrifice their precious highborn Jade in marriage to the son of a servant.” Then he laughs – bitter, no amusement in it. “No wonder you don’t want—”

I don’t think WWX really thinks that LWJ’s (apparent) lack of sexual interest in him is because of the class difference between them. But in moments like this, all your ugliest insecurities sit right on your shoulder and their whispering gets so loud.

This is also one of those moments that goes right over LWJ’s head, but that I hope makes readers go “ouch.”

They have arrived at the training yard.

Wei Wuxian turns, with a slash of a smile, and bows. “A bout, Lan-er-gongzi? Unless you think it’s beneath you.” He jerks Suibian out of its sheath without waiting for an answer.

Lan Wangji does not hesitate to return the bow, or to draw Bichen. His chest feels too tight—crammed full of anger at Wei Wuxian’s words, confusion at his uncle’s actions, and a creeping, undefined sense of wrongness—and the music of blade against blade is the surest way he knows to draw that tightness out.

They’re the same in this. This is how they process.

Wei Wuxian comes at him like a wildfire burning through a valley. Shocked, at first Lan Wangji can only defend, as he tries to adjust to the alteration in Wei Wuxian’s style. Yunmeng Jiang swordsmanship is water: ebbing and flowing, fluid and swirling, seeking any opening and choosing the path of least resistance. Wei Wuxian is still using Jiang forms, but he has turned them to the work of fire. His movements flicker; his attacks ignite; the flash of the blade, not the flow of its edge, signals his advance. He snarls on the downswing. Smirks when Lan Wangji must scramble to recover after falling for a false opening.

It is unsettling, but exhilarating. Sparring with Wei Wuxian is always exhilarating. Only Lan Xichen can truly push Lan Wangji—can best Lan Wangji—the way Wei Wuxian can. And even he cannot match Wei Wuxian’s boundless unpredictability.

Do we ever see Lan Qiren wield a sword? Maybe at the second siege of the Burial Mounds? But maybe not. All the more reason for him to feel possessive of his knowledge of musical cultivation—that’s his thing—and perhaps to feel a bit insecure about WWX, who can keep up with LWJ and LXC in a way that LQR can’t.

Lan Wangji seeks to rise to the occasion. It requires every bit of skill that he possesses. And, as always happens when his body and his conscious mind are so completely engaged, his subconscious begins to pick apart the knots of the day.

Something similar must be happening for Wei Wuxian. As the bout continues, the raw anger gradually fades from his face, and his steps begin to melt back into the fluid dance of pure Jiang artistry. In time, he even resumes his habit of complimenting Lan Wangji’s moves, when merited: “Ah, you’re too quick for me, Lan Zhan!” when Lan Wangji glides out of the way; “Ooh, almost had me,” in appreciation of a good feint.

He's so cute.

In the end, Wei Wuxian steps back and bows before a winner can be determined – ending their sparring match the way most of their bouts eventually end.

When their swords are sheathed, Wei Wuxian meets Lan Wangji’s eyes for a moment, then bows deeply in apology.

“I’m sorry, Lan Zhan,” he says quietly. “I shouldn’t have said that stuff, before. It was unfair, and mean. And whatever your uncle said, or meant… it’s not your fault. I know that.”

A life in Lotus Pier has conditioned WWX well to forgive people who don’t defend him.

Lan Wangji places his hands beneath Wei Wuxian’s arms and lifts him from his bow. “No need,” he says. He is no longer angry. The bout has burned it out of him. And he finds he cannot blame Wei Wuxian for reacting poorly to his uncle’s conduct when Lan Wangji himself is still not sure what to make of it. He has never seen his uncle react that way before.

He does not think that Wei Wuxian is correct—that Lan Qiren looks down on those not born to the gentry. He has always treated the sect’s servants with respect, and takes pains to ensure that their children are educated and receive good dowries. He has never hesitated to accept foundlings into the sect, and he was conspicuously silent when other elders were subtly urging Lan Wangji toward Jin Zixun despite Wei Wuxian’s superior reputation and character.

Lan Qiren, like his nephews, really cares about the principles and really tries to follow them. I think he takes really seriously the principles about not treating people differently based on their birth, and tries hard to live according to them. He’s not one of the hypocrites.

But hopefully by now we’re all very familiar with the concept of unconscious bias. And the words that came out of LQR’s mouth in haste and in anger reveal that those biases are still at work inside him.

But he knows… that he does not want Wei Wuxian to be correct, and he knows that that fact may be coloring his view of the situation. Given the words his uncle had used, he cannot say that Wei Wuxian’s interpretation was unreasonable.

One of my favorite things about writing LWJ—and one of the positive effects, I think, of the Lan sect rules—is that he’s been conditioned to be suspicious of his own desires. Taken to an extreme, that’s not healthy… but it’s a really helpful habit of thought to have in moderation.

It is troubling.

As they set off toward the Jingshi, Lan Wangji realizes he is equally troubled by Wei Wuxian’s words. They no longer make him angry. But he cannot let them lie unchallenged. They are not true.

To decide to speak is one matter; to decide what to say is another. They are almost at the door of the Jingshi by the time Lan Wangji says, “There were other candidates.”

This is one of the few moments in the first half of this fic where I’m really proud of LWJ. He doesn’t have to say any of this. It would be easier not to. But he knows that WWX’s misconception about the marriage is hurting him, and he feels compelled to stop it. He’s not exactly going to stick the landing, unfortunately… but the impulse is a really good one.

Wei Wuxian pauses just inside the gate. “Other—” It does not take him long to catch up. “You mean, to—to marry,” he says. His face is guarded.

Lan Wangji nods. “I chose Wei Wuxian.”

“Y—wait. You chose?”

“Mn.”

This is huge for WWX. He’s been assuming LWJ had as little choice in this matter as he did.

The summer sun is still high in the sky. Wei Wuxian studies Lan Wangji, arms crossed. Suibian is tucked in the corner of his elbow.

“Why?” he asks, blunt. “Why choose me? You didn’t know anything about me.”

Lan Wangji frowns. That is not true. “I knew of your skill.”

I’m also proud of Lan Wangji for knowing better than to say, “I knew you weren’t Jin Zixun.” 😂

“Oh.” Wei Wuxian’s cheeks flush pink.

“I knew you would be—” How had Lan Xichen put it? “—an asset to Gusu Lan Sect.”

Oh, honey. LWJ means well. He means so well. And WWX does take this as a huge compliment. He’s really touched. But what LWJ has just done is reinforce for WWX that, in the words of @canary3d-obsessed’s irreplaceable Restless Rewatch posts, “his worth lies in what he can do for more important people.” Just like YZY, JFM, and even Jiang Cheng have raised him to believe.

And this moment will only make it more crushing when WWX is no longer allowed to be an asset to the sect. Because WWX now believes that that’s the whole reason LWJ picked him. If he was ever going to have a chance at being what LWJ wants, that was the way to do it. To be useful. He’s already been raised to believe that his worth lies solely in his usefulness. Now he has every reason to believe that his usefulness is, in fact, the whole reason LWJ married him… and the only thing LWJ ever wanted from him.

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says again. The blush on his cheeks has deepened – perhaps it is the heat.

It’s not the heat. Dumbass. Like I said, despite the fucked-up-ness of this moment, WWX is genuinely touched and flattered.

Then, to Lan Wangji’s surprise, he bows; not a formal bow, with arms extended, but a soft, spontaneous gesture of gratitude. “Th-thank you, Lan Zhan.” He meets Lan Wangji’s gaze, for once solemn and steady. “Wei Ying will make his best effort.”

Yeah. This all makes it so much worse when he’s not allowed to contribute. Sooooo much worse. When he makes the decision to destroy the Yin Iron at the cost of his own life, a part of him really believes LWJ will approve. After all, that’s what he was brought here for – to contribute to the sect.

Lan Wangji nods, and continues toward the Jingshi. Wei Wuxian follows.

As they cross the threshold, Wei Wuxian says tentatively, “Lan Zhan?”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji sets Bichen by the door, and comes to a seat at his desk, pulling Wangji out of his sleeve. If he cannot have the benefit of a lesson on musical cultivation, he can at least have the benefit of practice.

Wei Wuxian inches up to the corner of the table and peers down at the instrument. “Do you think you could… teach this humble Wei to play the qin?”

It speaks well of Wei Wuxian that he wishes to learn, but there is little point. As Lan Wangji tests the tuning of Wangji’s strings, he says, “It is too late for Wei Wuxian to learn to play the qin at a sufficiently high level to use the instrument for musical cultivation. Lan disciples begin to learn at the age of five years, or before.”

So cluelessly cruel. A little tact would have gone a long way here. I forgive LWJ for not believing WWX could learn the qin – he hasn’t seen enough of WWX’s genius yet. But he doesn’t have to just cut him off at the knees like this. It’s not on purpose – LWJ just… is bad at this.

He sets his fingers on the strings and deliberates over a warm-up exercise—or perhaps he will begin directly with Restoration, which he has not used in almost a year, and which he fears he is in danger of losing.

Absorbed in his music, Lan Wangji distantly notes Wei Wuxian letting out another quiet “Oh.”

As Lan Wangji begins the first line of Restoration, withholding spiritual power for now, Wei Wuxian turns and slowly walks away. He pauses by the door.

“I—I’ll meet you at the training yard at shen shi for the juniors’ lesson,” he says, and slips out without a backward glance.

It is not until that night—as he is lying in bed, waiting for sleep—that Lan Wangji realizes that he had not thought to ask why Wei Wuxian had agreed to the marriage.

If, indeed, he had any choice in the matter at all.

Hmm, yeah, maybe you should try a little more little-e empathy with your husband, LWJ! Just a thought!!!

In my head, WWX had absolutely no choice about this marriage. YZY was only too happy to get rid of him, especially by sending him into a situation that she expects will make him miserable (and that she then engineers to make even more miserable). And we know she has no qualms about arranging marriages. JFM’s professed principles about not forcing children to marry apply only to his "real” children (see Restless Rewatch again), but it never came to a question of “forcing” – in canon, WWX was willing to let YZY chop his arm off for Yunmeng Jiang without complaint; in the fic, he agrees to the marriage with a smile on his face as soon as JFM says it’s for the good of the sect.

#director's commentary #dvd commentary #my writing #the untamed

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