#i'm going to regret that decision

[nighttimepotato]

Intro for the shaw seven titan show we won't get

[zuzu-draws]

"Well Well... Aren't we gawking with a little too much enthusiasm?"

[the-modern-typewriter]

Peace, Love and...

The ropes were numerous, and painstakingly knotted to form an intricate spiderweb which stretched between two pillars on the left hand side of the room.

Cai hung in the web’s centre.

The golden thread wound around what felt like every inch of his body, pinning his arms and legs spread-eagled, curling firmly around his torso to hold him as secure and as thoroughly stuck as any good spider’s prey. His toes touched the floor only precariously to help hold him steady.

Every tug, every waver, every twitch of movement caused the small silver bells hooked to the web to chime softly.

The trick was to be as still, as quiet, as possible.

Nonetheless.

The bells chimed.

It had been less than five minutes.

Adam lounged on the sofa not far away, a whip dangling insouciantly from one hand, a book in the other. He was the picture of idle, entirely too lovely, cruelty – something that the Greek’s would have carved and marvelled at.

At the chime, his attention cut up, and his hand lashed out with wicked speed and wickeder precision.

Cai bit down hard on his lip, jolting on instinct at the hot sting of pain on his thigh. The bells chimed again.

Adam grinned, feral. His fingertips caressed the whip’s handle in a way that he had many times caressed the curve of Cai’s skin, his cheek, the bow of his lip. His gaze roamed over Cai like he was considering the next place to strike, in retaliation of that sound.  

“That’s not fair,” Cai gasped. “You have to let me adjust. Nobody holds still when they’re hit!”

“I’m sorry,” Adam replied, “at which point did I promise you fairness? Love, most certainly, war – of a sort, perhaps. But fairness?”

He landed another blow, a third, and then seemed to take pity.

“Fairness,” Adam settled back down, “was never especially on the agenda. Stillness is. You’re the one who wanted to work on being mindful, I am merely supporting you in your goals like a dutiful husband.”

“I suggested we try meditation!”

“My voice is music. I am your guide.”

Adam’s voice had turned dry at the words, and Cai just managed to catch himself before he snorted with laughter. Laughter really wouldn’t help his predicament. He watched the way that Adam’s fingers moved over the whip handle again, quite happily awaiting any opportunity, guessing at that laughter. His stare was fixed on Cai, intent, nowhere near as careless as his posture.

The urge to laugh faded out. He just as quickly wanted to shiver, with a pleased sort of anticipation. He knew that stare.

Cai swallowed. He stilled himself once more, and thought that Adam might have a point. Not about his voice being music, exactly, however partial Cai was to the cadences of his husband’s tone, but…  

“I think I have an idea,” Adam said, with a tone of relenting somewhat, or at least of shifting gears. “Hold still now.” He discarded the book and got up from his seat, crossing the room and returning with a blindfold. He placed it over Cai’s eyes, knotting it tight with deft movements. “There. No distractions.” Adam’s lips were hot, and very distracting, by his ear. “Say thank you.”

“Are you actually planning to top me into meditation?”

“Meditation is just subspace for vanilla people. Hush, that’s an order. Bratting does not equal mindfulness, it makes you too busy thinking how you can beat me. You can’t.”

Cai’s mouth snapped shut.  

Adam didn’t take that particular tone with him very often, but when he did…there really was something about that voice.

“Good,” Adam murmured. “Now…” he heard Adam’s footsteps move back to the sofa. “Listen.”

Cai had lost count of the number of times, of ways, that Adam had tied him up. Sometimes, it was because Cai wanted to feel restrained, other times because Adam wanted the feeling of having someone at his mercy. It was always because of the aesthetic, and, today, it was supposedly because of the calm.

Supposedly.

The act of being bound was calming, the act of being whipped was not. But wasn’t that Adam all over? He had a weakness for irony, the juxtaposition of contrasting elements, for the artistry of it all. It was one of the many things that Cai loved about him; he always managed to do the unexpected in some small way, even after all of their years together.

“Focus on the feeling of the rope,” Adam said, as steady as metronome, low and impossible to ignore. “On your breath, on holding still for me. That’s all I expect from you. Art is seen and not heard.”

Cai focused on the feeling of the rope, on his breath, on the effort it took to hold himself still. The muscles in his calves burned. It was, in its way, actually quite meditative.

The ropes today had been picked because they were silken; strong, but soft upon Cai’s skin. They were easy to focus on.

The point of the calming kind of meditation, at least from Cai’s reading, was to focus one’s body on specific sounds, or objects, or sensations, in order to cultivate a peaceful mind and an enhanced state of concentration. That was what he’d told Adam. Apparently, between his eye rolls, Adam had payed attention.

“You are not going anywhere,” Adam said. “You are safe, I’ve got you.”

There was simply the rope, the chimes, the whip. 

And, as always, there was him.

***

“Cai.”

Adam’s fingers were careful brushing his face, undoing the blindfold, letting the light of the world with all of its distractions seep back in.

“Cai.”

Cai opened his eyes, a little dazed, and certainly peaceful. He had lost track of time or at least stopped counting it. It had taken him a while to figure out how to hold still, to let go of the restless needs of the day and life, but once he was tied up there wasn’t really much a guy could do. Just like Adam said. Listening to his voice, his breath, it had been easy.

Adam stood in front of him, and Cai wasn’t entirely sure when he’d moved. His expression was one of a fond sort of amusement. “Are you still with me?” Adam asked. “Or have you found yogic bliss?”

Cai nodded.

“Oh, so yogic bliss?”

“You’re hilarious,” Cai said, without bite. “I’m with you. Always am.”

“Good,” Adam said, still watching him. A softer smile had crossed his lips. “You went very quiet. Very still.”

“Wasn’t that the point?”

“I didn’t expect it to be that effective - I was planning to torment you mercilessly. It would have been very cathartic.”

Cai simply gave a peaceful sort of hum and Adam laughed, quietly, shaking his head. He’d abandoned the whip, and his seeming initial plans, on the sofa. He reached up to check the ropes around Cai’s hands, going through the practiced motions of making sure Cai still had all the right circulation in his fingers.

“Are you ready to come down?” he asked.

Cai shook his head.

Adam laughed again.

“I suppose I could keep you up there like an exhibition piece.” He stroked his fingers down along Cai’s chest. “You’re rather calming to look at like this. Can’t get into any trouble.”

“I am the height of zen, I never get myself in trouble.”

“Uh-huh. I’m taking you down now. Come here.”

Soon enough, Cai’s feet were firmly planted on the floor once more, and Adam’s arm was wrapped firmly around his torso to hold him secure. The rest of the ropes fell away. Cai led him over to the sofa and they sprawled there for a while.

“So,” Cai said eventually. “If I suggest that we try couple’s yoga…?”

Adam’s fingers wound in his hair, tugging his head back to contort his spine, and kissed Cai’s cheek.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something much more fun.”

It was, to neither of their surprise, much more entertaining.

[theladyofrosewater]

Sneak peak/ practice of something I'm working on

[amethystina]

I hate writing sometimes

And not necessarily the writing itself, but that moment when I can tell that a chapter is going to be less-than-ideal but there's nothing I can do about it because of pacing and plot reasons.

I'm trying to write chapter 41 of Who Holds the Devil and while I know exactly what's going to happen in it, I can already tell that the pacing is going to be off because it's just a lot of smaller scenes, in rapid succession, with quite a lot of time passing in one go. And that goes against the overall pacing of this fic nowadays, where a chapter is usually one or two days at most, with long and detailed scenes that slow down the pace a lot.

This chapter is going to stick out like a sore thumb.

And that annoys me, but I also can't change it since I refuse to add unnecessary stuff just to pad the runtime (this fic is long enough as it is). Nor do I want to remove anything, since some of it has been several chapters in the making (Go Eun will never forgive me if I forget her birthday) or needs to be in there for future plot purposes. So just... UGH.

I hate it.

I hate that I can tell that this chapter is going to feel rushed and disjointed compared to the rest, but that's just something I have to accept. The perfectionist within me is FUMING.

Writing sucks sometimes :C

[lienwyn]

Do you ever look at the characters you created as a teenager and realize you've basically opened a window for people to look straight into your soul?

This is that.

Nikita Bloodjoy, in all his unsavoury glory.

[fictionadventurer]

I thought that it was stupid that Brandon Sanderson had the narrator of Tress of the Emerald Sea call all the unnamed sailors "Dougs" when he could have just called them, you know, sailors. But then I started using the term. Turns out having a word for "yes, we know that realistically all these individuals have unique identities and personalities, but they're not the focus of this story so we're going to treat them as faceless background characters" is surprisingly useful.

[will-ruadh]

I should've fucking stayed in Prague

[suitetarts]

immediately after the black mass, there's an interesting parallel at the end of astarion's dialogue

ascended:

spawn:

[memento-morri-writes]

It's been well over a week now (maybe two??) but I'm still plugging away (ever-so-slowly) at this vignette about Zara and Rook. Zara's POV is a lot of fun to write, now that I have a better sense of her character. Writing this has really solidified in my mind the kind of person she is and how she acted when she was Rook's captain and mentor. She's very calm and collected in comparison to Rook, even when under a lot of stress.

Anyways, have a little snippet that I'm proud of from today, featuring the origins of the coin trick!

Pacing back and forth across her cabin floor, she rolled the coin back and forth over her knuckles again and again. The motion was easy, almost mindless, more muscle memory than real intent. The coin trick had been her favorite way to soothe her nerves for years now. She’d picked it up out of idle curiosity after watching a street performer dining in a tavern in Bon Largo, who had chatted with her for over an hour as she fretted about something mundane, never once dropping the coin from their fingers. The same performer had later tried to steal her coin purse and ended up with nothing but a new scar for their trouble, but Zara had learned two important things from the encounter: Not to trust a warm smile and a pretty face, and that keeping her hands moving kept her mind from dwelling too much on worrisome things.

one-time tagging @space-writes because they commented on my tags about Rook learning the coin trick from Zara in one of my other snippets from this piece.

[garlic-ice-cream]

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[claudiajcregg]

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[obliviongamer]

TW: Blood, a gun, horrible perspective and artist not liking this drawing.

This is shit, I wanted to draw my Oc fighting V1 because I thought it will be cool to draw this goofy robot.

This is my first time drawing V1 and guess what-

While drawing the sketch I zoomed in a lot on V1 arms because for one moment I forgot I was doing the sketch and it ended looking bad.

My first thought was: meh, I'll fix it when I start rendering.

You think I fixed it?

No, it ended looking worse 💀

I suck at drawing perspective, but I want to learn how to make more dynamic poses.

No matter how many tutorials I watch I still don't understand how to draw perspective and I been struggling with this for YEARS.

If you have some tips feel free to say it, trust me when I say I'm desperate for help.

[kozachenko]

Decided to start reading Cheating Detective Satori today, I'm just gonna it out of the way so I don't have to worry about reading it later on down the line. I will come back with a review of the manga similar to what I did with Lotus Eaters when I eventually finish it.

[nyxypoo]

what do you do when the person you've been avoiding makes direct eye contact with while they're walking with one of your friends?

[lunarlicorice]

good news: i have my first actual psychology appointment to get a dysphoria diagnosis next week :3

bad news: they want a concrete answer as to if i'm going to do hrt or not next week