#heading toward a happy ending

[mistresslrigtar]

Chapter Twenty-five: Just a kiss (written for Zelinktines24 day 25 prompt)

Read below or HERE

Link kisses Zelda, and it’s not just a kiss to chase away all their hurt and regret, like the one they shared on the rooftop garden. It’s a kiss that promises a new beginning, brighter and better than the one before. Zelda’s palms, pressing against the center of his chest, emit a heat he feels through the layers of his tunic, and the blackness behind his eyelids blooms red. He knows if he opens his eyes, her hands will be glowing bright.

He doesn’t possess magic as she does, he can only relinquish to her the two things of his that have always been hers to take. He pours the essence of his being into the deepening kiss, offering her his heart and soul like a prayer. Letting her know that he’s hers, drinking in that she’s his when her hands slide through his hair.

Her delicate fingers, tugging on the long strands, send pleasant tingles rippling down his neck and spine. His hands slip from her face, to her shoulders, along the velvety soft skin of her arms, to her slender waist, pulling her closer. To be holding her in his arms is a dream he never wants to wake up from. He needs her as surely as he needs air to breathe. Without her he’s nothing but a nameless swordsman aimlessly walking the earth. She’s the sunshine of his days and the moonbeams and starlight of his nights.

They are two sides of the same coin, destined to always be together–never truly parted even if separated by time and space. The taste of the wildberry crepes they had for dessert lingers on Zelda’s tongue and lips, testifying she’s here–human, alive and well. Link’s mind becomes a whirlwind of emotion–a deep-seated sense of love and affection for her that surpasses logical thought takes root. And this time he welcomes it without apprehension, taking the refuge her sweet lips and tender touch offer. She completes him as none other ever has or will.

A soft breeze whispers through the trees and grass, rustling leaves, and carrying the promise of a gentle spring rain. Pressing one hand against the small of her back, his other slips though her silken locks, cupping the back of her head and stirring up the faint scent of her floral soap.

It’s nearly sensory overload, leaving his head spinning and feeling as if he’s floating on air. She’s magic and light and all things beautiful and bright.

A tiny discontented sigh escapes Zelda’s swollen lips when Link forces himself to break away. Her hair is a halo of gossamer strands glowing in the moonlight, and her glittering veridian eyes look back at him with open adoration that steals Link’s breath away. She’s the lovliest thing Link has ever seen, and more precious to him than life itself.

Resting his forehead against hers, their breath mingles enticingly, and Link opens himself, allowing his love for her to finally consume him. He tenderly traces the contours of her ear as he tucks a strand of hair behind the elegantly pointed tip.

“I never stopped loving you,” he whispers, kissing the pulse point on her neck just below her jaw.

Her eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, leaving faint traces of the tears that cling to them. “Nor I, you.” Zelda’s soft breath in his ear reignites the flame of desire within him that’d been smothered for too long.

Link feels like he’s been given sustenance after nearly starving to death, and surely he’ll never have his fill. When she caresses his face, and pulls him closer, he gives in completely, and kisses her again.

Thank you to @lovesickflora for making time beta this!!🫶

Thanks to everyone for commenting, liking, and reblogging. All are most welcome and appreciated. ☺️ Feel free to follow me if you aren’t already.

[suntails]

lead us not

[httpiastri]

happy bday paul <3

[theguardianace]

our happy ending

[ID: a digital painting. The left features a grey hourglass seen in the A Sorrowful Farewell at Curtain Call card sets. The sand is filled with orange star, pink heart, and green shell jewels. The bottom edge has been broken from the inside, spilling out the sand. Footprints lead towards the edge of the drawing, where Wonderlands x Showtime is walking together towards an orange light. They are wearing the outfits seen in the Our Happy Ending trained set. Text in the middle reads "I know the ending will be a happy one", the final lyric of the song "What Sort of Ending Would You Like?" /end ID]

[lexa-griffins]

"I'm not yours anymore" for the fic title

Oh!!!!!!!!

This... this title right here works SO well for the type of fic i crave despite being angsty enough where i probably couldn't either write it or read it without getting mad.

Lexa and Clarke, college sweethearts. Long engagement. Lexa works long hours at the office since Clarle recently realized medicine wasn't her passion and decided to take a job that pays less but lets her have the chance to take a few random classes to see what she wants.

It comes crumbling down from there. They have put the wedding at the back burner for now as they try to remain afloat. Clarke, who spent her college years so focused on her studies now has the freedom to enjoy the little pieces of college life she missed on and she does. While Lexa works and worries, Clarke goes out to drink with kids nearly a decade younger than her. She goes out more and more often. She starts leaving her engagement ring at home.

Lexa tries to be understanding and supportive. That's all she ever is. In every aspect of their life. She gets it when Clarke is done after Lexa made her cum and doesn't feel like giving back. She gets it when she is tired from work and classes and neglects the housework allocated to her. She gets it when she prefers to spend more time on her phone than with her.

Lexa gets it... but she is reaching the end of her rope. They are grown adults. With jobs and rent to pay and a wedding to plan and a life to build together. But Clarke seems suddenly so desinterested in all of that. Drinking, going out and spend her days glued to her phone seem to be much more important to her and one day, when she comes home and Clarke is /still/ passed out in bed after coming home at 5 am, she finds her phone, just standing there.

Lexa wasn't suspicious of anything. She just wants to understand what these 21 yo state college kids could possibly have to say to her fiancee that make her forget Lexa exists.

Flirting. Heavy flirting.

Nothing indicates it has gone beyond that, but not only does Clarke flirt harder than she ever did with Lexa, there is never any mention of Lexa's existence at all.

She packs a bag and leaves. And it takes Clarke until the next day to even think to call her, asking where she is. No concern, no worry. Just a demand of knowing her whereabouts.

Did Lexa imagine the love between them? Did she make up every sweet gesture Clarke delivered to her up until she quit her job and regressed back to a drunk college girl?

The breakup is direct and somehow seems to take Clarke by surprise. But Lexa doesn't budge. And a month later, the apartment they shared is nearly empty from years spent together.

Or sucks it takes Lexa leaving for Clarke too realize what she lost. It takes Clarke a year to get back on her feet after realizing Lexa is not coming back. She fucked up, she realizes that now. She cuts contact and finishes her classes. She manages a stable, slightly better paying job. And then she moves, away from memories of a life she herself destroyed.

She regrets it only nearly 3 years later. A small girl, no older than 2. Bright eyes and a sweet smile, trying to reach a cereal box on the shelf. Clarke helps her with a smile and the little girl thanks her. And right then, she hears her voice again. Still tired but happy, so unlike the way her voice sounded during their last talk, when Clarke still begged her she would change and Lexa told her it was too late before driving away.

A grocery car filled with kid's snacks and veggies. Diapers and a few kids' books. She seems lighter. The darkness under her eyes is not as pronounced. Her cheeks are fuller and so is she. The last time they cuddle Clarke still remembers how she could feel her hip bone. She said nothing, too hangover to even think of words that didn't sound like she was telling her to gain weight.

She ignores the bump. The wedding ring. The hickey on her neck.

Lexa calls out the little girl's name again. The girl turns to her and smiles, telling her mom about the nice lady who helped her get her cereal.

Clarke stands awkwardly as Lexa's eyes move towards her and a swirl of emotions pass by her face.

Clarke wants to say something. Apologize once more. Beg her to come back to her. How miserable as her life been without Lexa's smile in the morning?

Instead, she remains silent once more. And Lexa nods, as if to thank her for it.

"Have you said thank you to the nice lady?"

The little girl turns, "Thank you!"

Her voice seems trapped in her throat but Clarke manages to speak up as kindly as she can manage, "You're welcome."

"C'mon, mama is waiting for us." Lexa speaks softly to her daughter and Clarke does nothing more than look at them leave, seeming so final this time around, as Lexa spares her one last glance before disappearing behind the shelves.

They never talked about kids. It had been nearly a year by the time they broke up since they talked about the wedding. She wonders if this would have been them now if Clarke hadn't decided having fun was more important than the life she was building. If during those three years she had called and explained herself and asked them to start again.

She didnt tho. And no matter how many what ifs, the last thing Lexa told her before she finally left her life three years ago echoes in her mind.

"Im not yours anymore, Clarke."

[antianakin]

Hello, do you have an AO3 account? Because I saw a thing on here about you writing an arranged Marriage AU for Obitine and I am interested. (Even though I don't think Obitine should be a thing. Maybe a fleeting crush when they were young brought one by being on the run together. But not much more.)

I mean, I DO have an AO3 account, but it's pretty exclusively for READING fics as opposed to WRITING fics. I don't really... write fics, I guess. I've done the AU posts here, but you'll notice that none of those are really... in prose. There's no dialogue, it's primarily just a recounting of events. And that's about as far as my creative writing skills really go.

The Obitine Arranged Marriage AU is something I wrote up on Tumblr, and you can find it here. I ALSO dislike Obitine and don't think it should be a thing and that's actually exactly why I wrote the AU, to explore what a relationship between them might have actually looked like and just how miserable and disastrous it would've been for both of them. What fleeting feelings had been there from their teenage hormones would NOT have lasted very long when up against some of the outside pressures they'd have faced.

The major thing I wanted to do in that AU was sort-of make something that went AGAINST a lot of the more popular tropes I see with Obi-Wan. So not only does it explicitly look at how BAD this relationship with Satine would be because of how badly matched their personalities are, it ALSO explicitly has Obi-Wan not at all happy in Mandalorian culture. He's not accepted within it and it's SO vastly different from Jedi culture that he can't be truly comfortable within it. He assimilates as much as he is required to as Satine's spouse, but he doesn't LIKE it much and tries to hold onto as much of his Jedi culture as he can, regardless of how uncomfortable it might make Satine or the other Mandalorians feel.

I tried to make the AU not like... a demonization of Satine, but she doesn't come off well in it, either. I'm not a huge fan of her character and I'm especially not a fan of her relationship with Obi-Wan. I am personally of the opinion that the way that relationship is written sort-of ruins Obi-Wan as a character in many ways, and that feeling absolutely comes across in this AU. Satine is... prioritizing other things in the AU above Obi-Wan, and while that can be an admirable trait on its own, it becomes very clear that it has an adverse effect on her personal relationship with someone she asked to make a major sacrifice for her. And as that relationship continues to dissolve and sour, she gets defensive because she's a teenager under immense amounts of political pressure and something has to give and she decides to let it be her relationship with Obi-Wan.

This is kind-of an exploration of exactly why this kind of relationship DOES NOT WORK unless both parties are particularly willing to enter into this dynamic. Satine CANNOT prioritize Obi-Wan over her people and her duty, but she married him, and Obi-Wan had certain expectations about how that would look that are completely unmet, which lea ds to resentment and frustration on both sides. Obi-Wan is also just someone who isn't going to be happy sitting on the sidelines doing nothing, so this dynamic works extremely badly for him in a way it may not for someone else.

Satine does ultimately come around and start to realize just how much damage she's done and tries to make amends, but in many ways it's too late. Obi-Wan is TRYING and Satine is TRYING, but they just. Can't. Connect. They can't understand each other now that they're not within the relatively simpler situation of being on the run for their lives, and that inability to see from each other's perspectives rips them apart.

All that to say that if you do not like Obitine, the Obitine Arranged Marriage AU is probably for you lol.

[benevolenterrancy]

Man, some fanfiction feels like you're writing with a broad brush, splashing paint all over the canvas, not too worried about what gets where as long as it's bright and fun and vibrant and pulls you in

And then there some fanfiction that feels like fucking surgery. Why is my heartrate picking up as I very carefully transfer one paragraph to another part of the page, going so delicately because I'm worried I'll break the thread of my thoughts and the entire web of plot is going to crash down to my feet

[todayisafridaynight]

tw // suicide

on twitter some ppl were talking about THAT jo scene from iw again and someone commented fucking "you know he was thinking about using that gun on himself" and im not sane anymore !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! added something something his faith in ichi kept him hopeful enough in the moment but then when he went to jail oh. ohhh !!!!!!!!!!!

nooo cause if That Jo Scene is the flashback scene with hoshino's death that really had to be SUUUCH a low point if not top five lowest points for him i wanted to throw up watching that <- replays it in my brain constantly

[acathea]

this is ea, my little sunset tiefling, druid, mielikki's favorite princess

i'd risk it all for her

[dahldahlbills]

nano day 7

total word count: 1085

made it through the first week!!

[orionsangel86]

I’ve been obsessed with this article about The Sandman writer Vanessa Benton since it first started doing the rounds yesterday. Not just because it implies a potential desire among the writers to develop the relationship between Dream and Hob Gadling towards possible romance, but also for how this article is the first solid confirmation I have seen of how fandom has started truly infiltrating the industry and changing it for the better.

I have never seen an article with a writer for a huge mainstream show so proudly and openly confess their fandom involvement before. A writer who developed their skills on AO3, a writer who is proudly queer and wants to bring their experience to the screen, a writer who I have to wonder maybe went through all the same utter shite that the rest of us went through in the dark years of 2005-2020...

*cough* November 5th*cough*

Does anyone else remember the feelings around here back then? That we were very much in a bubble, and that regardless of what fandom you were in the entertainment industries at large saw us as this sort of dirty secret they didn’t wanna think about? Writers rooms were largely cishetwhite men. When they wrote homoerotic subtext into their scripts it was for laughs, and to hopefully entice the gays into watching with a wink wink nudge nudge but god forbid they actually follow through oh no, these characters can’t ACTUALLY be GAY! *shudder*

Where the only time we did get to see queer relationships on screen they ended tragically, and those writing rooms would shrug and say “well we gave you what you wanted? What did you expect? This is a DARK story and EVERYONE dies!” Whilst clearly not thinking about the fact that in a story where 90% of your characters are straight, killing off one half of the only queer pairing isn’t quite the flex you think it is.

I remember seeing posts on here from fans joking that if we ever wanted to see the kind of stories we loved that celebrated us and reflected our lived experiences we would have to infiltrate those writers rooms. We would have to write our own stories and make sure they became the popular stories, that we would just have to keep writing and hopefully one day find ourselves sitting in those writers rooms, so we could turn to those cishetwhite bosses and start making suggestions.

This year feels like a turning point. I said it before when Our Flag Means Death aired and with a blast of beautiful metaphoric canon fire blew the concept of queerbaiting to utter smithereens. I cheered, I shed tears, I could have kissed every single writer in David Jenkins writers room on the mouth. In that moment upon seeing Ed and Stede share that kiss I was in love.

David Jenkins confirmed that his writers room was diverse. That it included women, poc, and queer people, including non binary writers who would ensure Jim’s story was handled with love and care. It felt like the first time fandom was properly being heard, not only that, but that maybe fandom actually had a seat at the table.

In all my prior fandom experience, I had never seen anything like how the creatives behind OFMD embraced and respected fandom. The closest we came before it was with Good Omens and I remember the reaction among mainstream media when Michael Sheen responded to some twat on Twitter who bemoaned his praising of fanfiction and fanart. The general reaction appeared to be shock and confusion: “was fanfiction okay now?” - I remember the awkward interview with Graham Norton where he tried to make jokes about GO fans and Michael wasn’t having any of it. He refused to take the bait. God, that man really is an angel...

I digress, so bringing my point back to this article. Reading this:

Blew. My. Mind. Unlike with Good Omens, Unlike with OFMD, the Dreamling ship in The Sandman is NOT “canon”, and isn’t even implied in the comics from what I can tell. Both Dream and Hob Gadling appear to be firmly on the heterosexual end of the scale among a cast otherwise filled with queer characters. Benton is 100% correct here. Any other writers room, even one from only 5 years ago, wouldn’t have even considered it, let alone admitted to it in an article.

This is the power of fandom finally getting a seat at the table. This is people with lived experiences through those dark days of queerbait show after queerbait show, bury your gays trope after bury your gays trope straight to SuperHell. This is why I am suddenly so optimistic for future entertainment media. Perhaps the popularity of streaming also has something to do with it, the move away from network TV and reliance on generally conservative advertisers has helped push forward diverse shows and stories in a way that certain US networks would never allow.

Of course, it helps that we had allies to begin with, like Neil Gaiman, who has been writing diversity into his works since the 80s. I sometimes wonder if Neil’s time spent lurking the weird and wacky Tumblr hallways has had any influence on him when developing his works for television. He seems to have a better insight into fandom and what appeals to fandom than any other famous creator I know of. Please stop harassing him to make blanket confirmations about unfinished works purtaining to the canon nature of certain ships in his shows though. He’s not going to give you the answers you seek. You either wait and see or you make your own interpretation. What ever happened to “death of the author” anyway? You don’t need his validation. Enjoy the journey, enjoy the layers of subtext and keep reblogging gifsets of Dream’s bedroom eyes in 1789 like the rest of us. Oh, and squeal over this article of course. 

Reading articles like this, reading about the experiences of writers like Vanessa, I just feel like we are finally getting to a place where we are no longer viewed as the crazy fans reading into things and seeing things that aren’t there, because it turns out that WE are now the ones telling the stories. I guess I’m just super happy that for once those who I consider my people are getting the chance to shape the tales that fandom has been desperate for for so long. That some of us have moved on from AO3, and are instead telling the stories that inspire the stories on AO3. That is an inspirational tale if I’ve ever heard one.

[tompettyscontroversiallyyounggf]

so i got a weighted blanket and my dreams ever since have been extremely vivid, which is apparently a confirmed phenomenon with them. mostly they're just very surreal, sometimes scary but usually harmless or funny.

but last night. last night i had a fully plotted romcom play out where i was kylie jenner's personal assistant? and i was helping her manage the rollout of her relationship w/ timothee chalamet, who she was sincerely really into. but! turns out timothee is gay and married to a secret husband! who also had a really nice brother who looked exactly like justin theroux circa charlie's angels but was not actually justin theroux, who ends up becoming my snarky yet kind sidekick in trying to disentangle the kylie/timothee/gay nameless husband (i feel bad my brain never came up with a name for him) mess with a minimum of public fallout, in a way that allowed everyone to learn to love themselves and~ live their truth ~

there were a lot of scenic malibu estates, little dogs and secret hotel trysts (not involving me, though i did get a fun little scene trying to sneak around behind a hotel cleaning cart w/ Not Justin Theroux.) genuinely a good time, almost made up for the occasional deep rem nightmare involving sleep paralysis demons.

[flovverworks]

(post about chloe & owen i dont have time to write)

[jooniez]

okay the video they uploaded of jins performance with coldplay at the concert was what finally broke me I could not stop sobbing it was crazy 😭✨🌟💖✨🌟💖✨🌟💖

[haleigh-sloth]

Do you think we'll see La Brava and Gentle Criminal again?

Yeah I do.

I think at the very end we will see every character whose had some impact on the story show up and play one last role in contributing to the endgame.

So yeah I think we will, but like, just to show that they’re there. At least that’s what I’m predicting. I really do think it’ll be a smooth “everyone participates in the victory” type of ending to the final battle. That’s just the vibe I get from how things are going (bringing things from early on in the story back around).

I said it before when this spread dropped but I really do think everyone in this picture will make an appearance AND be fine at the end:

[thedeadthree]

‘twas the 2 and a half hours before polina velichkova’s birthday! 😌💀🦉♟🔪🗡🤎