#might as well look through the list of artists i follow on tumblr and see if anyone's open

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

i keep telling myself to quit checking up on KM spaces cause there’s literally nothing but bickering and going out of the way to find things to be mad at but I keep ending up coming back 😓 it’s so hard, I still think about them a lot and I generally enjoy doing so! They make me happy to think about, genuinely. it’s been a force of habit for so long but the vibe with no new content (I try and avoid military updates but they waft into my view every so often and I’m glad they seem to be doing ok at least) is just so nasty it’s just like can’t everyone just relax and be happy knowing they’re together??? Obviously I am the problem here and I need to stop but it’s a struggle….do I need to just go completely cold turkey on bangtan? 😂 is that what you did when you took a long break? It’s not like I don’t have hobbies and a job and stuff, but for a long time they’ve occupied a special nice place where I just think of them and generally enjoy reading people’s thoughts about them, but over the past year especially w the solo stuff it’s just gotten kinda rancid

Hello, anon

I understand you completely. If something has become part of your daily routine, on top of other activities and interests, it's normal to get the urge to check up on it. Cold turkey might not help because it increases the chances of going back to it. I'm going through the same thing nowadays. I'm aware that right now, there's barely any point in keeping up with that part of my interests online. KM have enlisted and despite seeing some military updates, I'm not excitedly/anxiously looking forward to it. Like you, I think it's nice to see that they appear fine, but personally I could live without those updates as well. Consequently, I barely discuss it even on my blog, I don't find it necessary.

Most likely, the upcoming show will be the only relevant content that makes me still keep an eye on them right now and that's because the announcement might drop at any time. By not knowing exactly when, it's enough to keep at least a part of the fandom waiting and participating online. Not a bad strategy, but a frustrating one for us.

Likewise, by still checking up tumblr/twitter, I'm also exposing myself to daily fights, endless debates on relationship dynamics and so on. I find it pointless and I'd say a sign of boredom if this wasn't the modus operandi of the fandom anyway.

I made a vague comment recently, but it is terribly annoying having to read left and right troll anons baiting bloggers who then are bringing receipts to demonstrate that KM are close. Really? We're still doing that in 2024? People are talking in circles to demonstrate something that doesn't need more proving. Twitter is worse because they fight like idiots under the guise of defending. The knights in shining armour fighting for the princesses.

As to solo stans, I don't have an issue with the idea of only liking an artist and that's it. If only that would be the full definition. Anyone acting like not only a fanatic, but writing like some miserable 4chan user is someone I really can't stand. It's slowly becoming standard stan behavior and I see this in other fandoms as well, including those of western artists. It's nasty and embarassing.

When I took a break, I unfollowed almost all KM and JM focused accounts. The ones remaining I muted so I had to go to my following list and check each individually if I wanted to see what was up. My point was to not have any of that on my timeline. I think it worked for a while. Now I'm back to how it was before and I don't know how that happened. I should make some changes again.

[storyofmychoices]

I need artist suggestions that can draw a up to the thighs for $20-35 that accepts paypal dont suggest ainna i always miss out due to me being in a dif timezone

Hi Nonny,

You can view my "In Progress/Almost full" list of artist recommendations here. Unfortunately, a lot of artists are on hiatus or not accepting commissions right now.

I don't know if you are looking for 1 character or 2 for that price so that would make a difference, and I'm not sure what style you're looking for. I'd check out the following artists, they might fit your budget (depending on style--- you might need to choose sketch/colored sketch or chibi)

@bayleedraws-sometimesx, @somewillwin, @wisejazz, @rosefuckinggenius, @slayannaart

You may want to check @angkis as well. I've used them before and they were affordable but I don't know what their current rates are.

artsy_elii (on Instagram) was running a sale recently... I'm not sure if they still are, if they are they might fit your budget so you might want to ask.

There are also several artists across tumblr that are doing commissions in exchange for donations to Gaza so you might want to look into those as well. [Commissions for Gaza]

I typically track the "Commissions Open" tag and see when new artists post their commission sheets. Not all are going to be in your price range, but if you keep checking every few days for a while, there usually will be ones that pop up. Thats how I found most of the artists I work with. It takes time and patience, but I've been very happy with all of the artists I've discovered through that method.

I hope this is helpful! Good luck with the art!

[sarah-sandwich]

on ao3 I always see people doing challenges... how do you join challenges?

-someone who wants to try a challenge

Daaahhh okay so I haven't participated in fandom challenges in years. Back in my day we had bangs (themed collab events between writers and artists they were awesome but also led to my 18 month burn out so watch out) but I don't see those anymore :( Might be because I don't write for spn anymore? Not sure what happened there. But I do see some challenges float across my dash sometimes.

There are a lot of bingo ones. Tbh idk where those come from lol They just sort of show up? I think people just make them and some get traction and others don't. You can try searching *keyword* bingo and see what comes up but I can't help you beyond that, sorry.

Challenges pretty much always have a recurring theme and timeline and hopefully a dedicated blog where the mods post prompts, FAQs, and rules. Like the sicktember challenge is a month long hurt/comfort prompt event that takes place in September. They already have their 2023 prompt list up so you can check that out as well as the linked FAQ and how to submit if you're interested in participating in that one (or if you just want to get a feel for how these things typically work).

Each challenge kind of operates in its own way with specific rules on what they allow in story submissions so be sure to give the rules a read before you sign up, but generally you get a list of prompts and have a certain deadline to finish writing and then post it on tumblr using the specified tags, or post on AO3 and add it to the specified challenge collection, or both! Again, whatever challenge you're interested in should have all of that spelled out for you on their blog. If you're iffy on the details you should be able to submit an ask with questions.

If you've seen a challenge you want to participate in on ao3 then you can try searching for it here on tumblr and hopefully find a blog for it, or you can comment on a fic that's part of the challenge and (compliment the fic first) ask how you can get in involved and where to go to find out more information.

If all else fails you can search "writing challenge" on tumblr and wade through the results until you find something that looks interesting, but keep in mind challenges tend to be seasonal so you'll see very different results searching now as opposed to December as opposed to February etc etc.

I have a tendency to follow challenge blogs that look interesting as they pop up on my dash (even though I know I'll likely never participate, I'm just nosy 😅, I wanna know what everyone's up to). Let me take a gander through my following list and see what all I've got...

@flufftober @whumptober @sicktember @shortfictionweeklychallenge @writeblrsummerfest @nanowrimo @ockissweek @webpril @spideypoolbigbang <- a bang!! @marvelartparty <- art only @parknerweek @flashfictionfridayofficial

That's everything from me. Does anyone else have any writing challenge blogs they could share?

Editing to add @marvel-events-central from the replies (look at all the good shit in that there blog 👀)

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Congratulations on your big milestone! I’ve followed your account since I joined tumblr, and it’s wonderful to watch you grow. I would love an artist match!

Anything gothic or macabre piques my interest. I just find the grim and dark atmospheres beautiful in their special way. I’ve been looking for more darker artists to add to my favorites list, so I’d love to hear any recommendations you’ve got!

visit the art gallery

hello lovely Elijah! thank you so much for your kind words and for being here!

I'm very excited for your request, since the gothic and the macabre are probably like at least 75% of my personality 😅 so I have a number of artists I can recommend. you may have already seen it, but in another artist match available here, I talked about some artists whose work is on the darker, unsettling side, so those may interest you as well. but not all of those artists necessarily do the macabre or the gothic more specifically, and of course I want to give you your own personal list of artists 🥰, I just wanted to put those out there if you'd like even more dark art to peruse ☺️

I'm always excited to find folks to talk about dark, macabre, gothic art with, and I'm thrilled to share these artists with you and I hope you find something you like!

without further ado, here's a list of artists I think you might like (with more details and images below the cut!)

Caspar David Friedrich

Pieter Claesz

John Bauer

Theodor Kittelsen

Caspar David Friedrich (The Abbey in the Oakwood and The Hunter in the Forest)

we absolutely must start with my beloved Friedrich! these two paintings are both on my list of favorite artworks of all time. Friedrich was a romantic painter, which in this context doesn't mean "romantic" like we think of the word today, but instead refers to an interest in the "sublime" - a kind of transcendence that could be achieved equally through great beauty and great terror/horror/awe. it was also often highly associated with the power and vastness of nature. we totally see that in many of Friedrich's works. not all of his paintings are explicitly spooky or dark, but he does tend to focus on vast landscapes and skyscapes that tend to overwhelm any human figures in the composition, which leads to a haunting feeling of unease. these two works really exemplify that for me. in the first, we have the ruins of a gothic abbey (gothic architecture is my favorite, so that's part of the reason I adore this piece) and these old wizened trees in this kind of hazy fog over the snow. and in the second, a hunter stands before this dark, imposing forest that consumes the canvas. in the face of these trees, the human seems fragile and powerless. so, while not outwardly macabre, I picked Friedrich for you since his works have that kind of underlying feeling of unease that feels so quintessentially gothic to me.

Pieter Claesz (Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill and Vanitas Still Life)

I absolutely could not make recommendations on macabre art without mentioning a vanitas painter (if you want to know more about this style of art I also have a post here where I ramble on about it for possibly way too long 😅). Claesz also painted regular still lives of just like food and stuff, but it's because of his large number of vanitas paintings that I'm matching him with you ☺️. one thing about him: my mans is not afraid to paint a skull, and we love him for that. I fear I don't have much more profound commentary on this one, because when I see his work my mind goes blank and there are no thoughts except "cool skull." his vanitas paintings just feel very macabre to me, but in a delicate way?? (I have no idea if that makes sense). I just love the scattered collections of items and his liberal deployment of skulls.

John Bauer (The Magic Ride and Princess Tuvstarr Gazing Down into the Dark Waters of the Forest Tarn)

if you're interested in the more supernatural side of the macabre/gothic, you might really like Bauer's illustrations for Among Gnomes and Trolls, a collection of Swedish fairytales/folktales. I was absolutely in awe the first time I saw these illustrations - they just have such a sense of magic and mystery to them. while they certainly are on the more whimsical side, I find that there's also an undeniable darkness in them. the rolling hills and piles of rocks that fade off into darkness, the thin, leafless trees that seem to go on forever in the shadowy background, the ambiguity of time and space - it just gives them this slightly eerie feeling, like you've stepped into another world and you may not be entirely welcome there. for me, these illustrations certainly ride that line between the beautiful and the terrifying, which makes them all the more compelling. I'm not sure if I've done a great job explaining myself here, but I hope you enjoy Bauer's works regardless of my rambling!

Theodor Kittelsen (She Covers the Whole Country and The Pauper from the Pesta series)

not all of Kittelsen's work is necessarily macabre, but his series of prints called Pesta certainly is. Pesta (meaning plague) depicts various personifications of plague moving through the countryside and killing all those in its path. sometimes shown as a flock of carrion birds, sometimes as a horde of rats, and even as a frightening ghoul-like figure, plague stalks the landscape in each of these haunting prints. they actually depict deceased bodies, which might make these the most literally macabre images of the lot. Kittelsen also has some other cool pieces depicting mythological creatures like trolls and water spirits. they have these glowing eyes and they're both creepy and super cool. I just didn't include them here because I had just talked about folklore with Bauer, but I would absolutely recommend you check them out if that's something you find interesting. and these are only two images that I felt were most representative of the Pesta series, you should definitely check out the rest if you liked these!

those are the artists with whom I would match you! 🥰 a little gothic, a little macabre, a little supernatural ☺️

I hope you enjoyed these artists and their works and that you've found some new macabre art to explore!

sending love and just the right amount spookiness,

charlotte 💙

[dbh-bb]

Information on the DBH BB Writer Summary Submissions

Hey writers — We’ve gotten some questions about what you’re expected to submit for your summary (and I know a lot of you are going feral about being able to submit), so we want to provide some reassuring information about what you should provide and how to provide it so that you don’t stress out too much! This message will be pinned in the discord for reference, and this information will be posted on our Tumblr as well.

The most important thing we can tell you is that this information is really for the artists alone. The mods aren’t going to, like, check your final work against what you submitted here and be like HEY YOU CHANGED YOUR TAGS. We don’t have time for that and are tooooooo old anyway. Stories evolve as we write them, and you may end up adding cool stuff your artist suggests if you like collaboration like that. Nothing in this form is set in stone!

PAGE ONE: Your Information

This is the easy part. We ask for your email (required) and then for your tumblr / AO3 / Discord if you have them. This is to make our lives easier, and will only be seen by the mods. We’ll only be sharing your email with the artist(s) you’re matched with, too.

PAGE TWO: Your Fic!

Title: This doesn’t have to be the final title of your fic! If you don’t have one, feel free to be as silly as you need! Anything like “Air Force AU” or even like “Markus Learns He Likes Dogs” will work; it’s just meant to be a working title or a funny phrase. No stress if you don’t have one. Slap your favorite lyric on there or some shit. Idk.

Expected Tags List: Again, meant to help guide artists to stuff they like and away from stuff they want to avoid. Understood to be flexible.

Possible Ratings: Feel free to choose any that might apply if you’re still undecided.

Summary: Once again, not meant to be your final summary! But try to conceptualize your fic idea in, like, three paragraphs or less. At a glimpse, the artist should be able to get a feel for the general idea behind the fic.

Ideas for Arts: Keep in mind your artist has the right to draw whatever they want from your fic, but …some artists are drawn in by images the author thinks would be pretty neat, so if you have ideas, slap ‘em in here.

PAGE THREE: Uploads!

2000-word snippet: No, it doesn’t have to be 2000 words exactly. Find a sample scene around that length that gives artists a feel for the style of your story. You can, of course, go over, but keep in mind artists will be looking at multiple works — they may not want to read like 7000 words while trying to decide on fics.

Outline: Outline is a general term. What you want to show an artist is that you’ve thought through the main plotline of your story. It lets them understand the overall flow of the story to help them make relevant art while you, well, actually write the damn thing. It does not have to be formatted like a ‘formal’ outline, it just needs to capture the pieces of the overall fic in whatever way makes sense to you.

You’ll be asked to upload these as files; we ask for them to be in either .doc/docx (or similar) or .pdf format for space reasons. PLEASE FORMAT THEM AS FOLLOWS using one of the fandom names you give us in part one: - 2000_NAME (ie, 2000_sevdrag.pdf) - outline_NAME (ie outline_martine.doc) Your fic will randomly be assigned a number for anonymity. The mods will rename your file with that number rather than your name to keep everything anonymous, don’t worry.

PAGE FOUR: Matching Details Here we ask you for some additional information to help us match internally…

Are you a minor / over 18

What level of collaboration do you want with your artist

Some NO JUDGMENT questions about working with an artist who is a minor

A place for you to ask questions or more importantly praise your awesome mod team

Low stress no stress only fun! And yes, the mods will be releasing the full list of fics for writers to see once matching is over (for yall to go fucking feral over). We’ll keep it anonymous too, so if you’re the kind of writer who wants to keep it secret until the very end, you certainly can!

If you have questions, you can ask them here (anon if you wish), or join our discord to ask there, or DM a mod!

[midnightsilver]

A note to new Spn artists on tumblr about tagging,😇

The tagging system is your friend!🤗 How exposure basically works here is that your art posts spread through the web of your mutuals and on out to their mutuals and ever onwards like a growing tree🌳, but the process can be hit or miss. You might not have many mutual yet, or they might not have many mutuals themselves. Or your mutual might not be online when you decide to post your art, and by the time they do get back their dash has gotten busy and your post has dropped so far down that it would take a million years to scroll down to see it. Or maybe your mutuals were online when you posted and did reblog but their mutuals weren’t online and then their dash got busy and…. Etc Etc. There is a way to help with this! ⭐️Tag your art posts⭐️. Tagged posts are searchable and many people follow specific tags. If you tag your art then your posts will continue to show up in that tag list for anyone who missed your initial post or for anyone who isn’t yet your mutual. Give your hard work the chance it deserves!

I find loads of art to reblog by searching through tags but I’d love to find more! If you make Spn art consider tagging it with ‘Spn Art’ or ‘Spn Fanart’ or ‘Supernatural art’ or ‘Supernatural Fanart’ or even ‘Spnfanart’ (if you are still stuck in Twitter mode). These are first tags that most people search for 🔎👀or follow if they are looking for art to do with Supernatural. My favourite to use is ‘Spn Fanart’ - the term ‘supernatural art’ can sometimes be used by other fantasy creators 🐉 but ‘Spn fanart’ is very specific to us.

If you are a creator who is focused on a single character you might tag your art ‘character X art’ and that will entice people who follow ‘character X’ posts but the Generalist Supernaturalist doesn’t have time to search individually for Character A, B, C, D …. Z, every day, so consider adding a general supernatural art tag as well.👍🏻😄

Also please pick a creator tag and stick to it. It can be as simple as ‘my art’ or you can use your name if you want. The pros of using ‘my art’: I see your art post tagged in the Spn fanart tag and I love your style, so I click on your blog to see if you have any more art. The first thing I type in the search bar is ‘my art’ because that’s what loads of people use and Yayyyyy I find loads more of your art and I reblog it and I am very happy! (If you haven’t used a creator tag at all then instead I start scrolling down your dash, realise that it’s been months since the last art post (no shame! Happens to us all 😊) and I find that your endless shit posting is hurting my brain (affectionate 😂 I love this hell hole as much as the next person but just now I’m looking for art not just browsing crack) and I regretfully back out of your blog because I don’t have time for this right now. Cons of using ‘my art’ as a tag: everyone does it, so if someone is searching the whole of tumblr for your art and they type in ‘my art’ then they get every person and their pet come up. To get around this you might use you name as an art tag, but see the issue above about new people finding your blog and not being able to guess what you tag is. So either tell people in your bio what your art tag is or maybe use both a generic ‘my art’ tag AND a personal one. 🤷🏻‍♂️👍🏻😄

Finally! (How fucking long is this post?!! Any of you still here???) Tag warnings, descriptions, characters and ships if any. Many people will search by ship, use the most common/fashionable portmanteau you can think of as a tag. because you want the one that most people might search by - or that ‘your people’ might search for. Also include warnings like MCD, non con, blood, gore, hurt etc without censorship. People can filter out these tags if they don’t like them but only if we have written them clearly. And lastly (as of now Nov 2022) tumblr is still a bit iffy about the whole not-safe-for-your-place-of-capitol-slavery, this is the only caution tag I would advise you not to use. It might still run the risk of a shadow ban - but let’s hope that changes in the future. Instead go for the citrus scale and use lemon for most of your not-for-grandma posts (unless your granny is hella bamf in which case good for grandma😁)

Okay I’m stopping now. Feel free to also chat in your tags if it’s something that you don’t want permanently on the bottom of your post but don’t forget that you are relying only on your mutuals and your tags, so get the searchable ones in there before you chat. 👍🏻😄 and I will look forward to seeing and reblogging all the wonderful Spn Art because you fabulous lot absolutely rule! 🙌🏼🎉

[inherhouseshewaitsdreaming]

Curriculum for the Solo Writer

Some years ago I came across Radiorunner’s Curriculum for the Solo Artist. Ever since then I have wanted to produce the same thing for creative writing. And here it is, or, at least, the beginning of it. This is a project that is going to take some time to complete.

What will make up the curriculum?

I am going to draw on the following sources:

Youtube videos

Podcasts

Books

Courses

Writing prompts and projects

The idea is to bring together available resources into a curriculum that can be followed. For the most part, the content will be free or low cost. There are some expensive options available and some of them are excellent in terms of what they might offer. However, there are lots of people for whom those are out of reach, and so this list will be aimed at them.

What will the content look like?

Each month will contain a topic and prompts. You can use these together, or simply use the prompts for practicing your craft in some way. In addition, once every quarter a month will be dedicated to creating alone. Because practice is the best teacher. You don’t have to follow this, but its there if you want the structure (and for me).

The Solo Writer’s Year

Quarter 2

April - Camp NaNo May - Mermay Prompts + Learning June - Prompts + Learning

Quarter 1

January - Prompts + Learning February - Flash February March - Music Prompts + Learning

Quarter 4

October - Inktober Prompts + Learning November - NaNoWriMo December - Prompts + Learning

Quarter 3

July - Camp NaNo August - Prompts + Learning September - Prompts + Learning

What content will be provided?

I will host a list of possible materials to study and prompts to practice from. I will attempt to provide content for all fiction writers, though some modules might tend towards certain genres. A rough outline will be:

Ideas and Preparation

Being a Writer

Character

Plot

Worldbuilding

Technical

Revision and Editing

Marketing and Publication

While this will be the general order of things, some elements will be interspersed with one another.

How can I get involved?

I’d like to encourage people to respond to posts on this site, Instagram, Tumblr or Discord with their own responses to the content. I will link these options in the course. Post how you are using it. Post things that might help other writers to get the most from it. Post alternative resources. I am a single writer with a single methodology and and preference for certain genres. The more experiences we can bring together, the more useful this resource will be.

Please feel free to promote this resource if you think it is helpful.

How much will this cost me?

That is up to you. My thinking is that you will get some value from the books included, and at least some of these might be worth buying. I will keep a list of these and the cost of them (at the time of writing). If you want to spend money on the courses, you can. I may or may not purchase them and will make clear which ones I have completed myself. I know some people prefer to learn in this way, so if I come across a course I am confident will have value, I will list it. The videos and books are sufficient for me.

I am not going to make money from this. If I ever charge for content, it will be content I have created. If anyone makes money from this, it should be the people whose content I am suggesting.

How often will you update this content?

For quite some time I will be generating new content, rather than updating old content. If I come across something that stands out, I will update the module at the time. Otherwise, when the curriculum is complete, I will go through and do an update on the whole set. Beyond that, we’ll see.

If you have content you think would fit in well, or know of content that may be useful, please post it under a linked post. That is the first place I will look for updates.

You’ve listed my content and I would like it removed.

Just let me know. I’ll remove it.

[jessiarts]

Mobile-Friendly FAQ

Made this so my FAQ can be accessible on mobile. Placing under cut for now to spare my follower's dashes lol

Welcome to my FAQ! Look through here for anything you’d like to know about me, my art or commissions! If you have a question that you can’t find here feel free to send me an ask!

Who are you? I’m Jessi, and this is my blog. It’s possible you may have found me from such popular posts as Infinity War Rewrite Comic, or that little sad creator blorb comic. Or, more likely, you found me completely by accident and you’re wondering how the hell you got here. In that case, hello, I hope you enjoy your stay. There’s plenty of doodles for you to entertain yourself with.

Do you take requests? Yes and no. Sometimes I’ll have posted in my Pinned Masterlist whether I have a specific type of request open or not.  Other than that, I will sometimes take requests for things that I consider are “for everybody.”

What do I mean by this? Well, if you request me to make a comic or other art based off a popular tumblr post, and I can vibe with the idea, chances are I might do it, and then I’ll post it on my account so everyone can on tumblr see and enjoy it.  However, I don’t really take requests for personal projects, like book covers or OC’s. I don’t consider these “for everyone” as they are really only going to be for the person asking for it, and therefore I will only take these by commission.

How do I make a request? I typically have in my Pinned Post whether requests are opened or not, and what kind of requests I’m accepting at any given time. If requests are open, simply shoot me an ask requesting something within those guidelines and I’ll see if I can draw it.

Note: I am not required to draw each and every request, and I reserve the right to simply not draw any request made, for any reason.

If there’s something you really want to see me draw (like a specific ship), or if you wish to request something that falls outside the current request guidelines, you might be better off asking for a commission. Commission Status will always be listed in my Pinned Post right below the Request Status, and you can look there to see if they are open.

Can I request a tutorial? Sure thing, I can always try! Just bear in mind there’s a good chance that it might take me awhile to finish it! Are you on any other sites? Yup. Here’s my linktree!

I’d like to support your work so you can make more! How can I do so? You’d be surprised, but even just reblogging* any of my art that you enjoy is actually a huge help in supporting me as an artist, as well as any other artist whose work you enjoy. Plus it’s free, win for everybody!  Also, I have a Patreon, if you’d like to support my work financially as well as see my WIPs and get early access to upcoming projects! I also have a Ko-Fi, if you simply feel like giving me a tip for my artistic efforts lol You can also see below for my Commission FAQs or purchase prints/shirts of pieces of mine that you enjoy on Etsy or TeePublic!

(*For clarification, I’m ok with reblogging my work, which means hitting the reblog button to share it on your blog/dash with your followers. I am not ok with reposting my work, which is saving my work to your device and uploading it to your own post on your own blog/site. I clarify the difference because it’s become a source of confusion for many, hope this helps!)

Commission FAQ:

Q: Do you take NSFW commissions? A: Not currently my thing, really. Sorry.

Q: How long does the commission take? A: It all depends on how complex your commission is, where you are on the queue, and how quickly you respond to my draft approval requests. Completion time is usually anywhere from a few days to 2 weeks.

Q: Do you do rush delivery? A: I may charge extra for rush delivery, and I reserve the right to do so at my discretion. Especially if I’m being asked to complete a complicated commission in a very short amount of time. Chances are I have other commissions that I am working on that came before yours, and putting one on rush means that I will need to focus more energy on getting that one completed while still continuing the work for the jobs I’ve already started. (No one gets put on the back burner here!) I will always be upfront with how long a commission will take. I know how long it takes to complete the level of detail that I include in my Digital Painting Commissions. For example, I can not and will not promise to complete a photorealistic painting that will require 23 hours (6-8 days) total worth of work in 6 hours (1-2 days). It’s impossible. If I believe I will not be able to meet your rush deadline I will respectfully decline the commission.

Q: Will you paint real people? Can I request a portrait of my grandmother/baby/friend/etc? A: Sure! 

Q: Can you paint a family portrait? A: Yes. Email me references and information (family size, backdrop settings, if pets or objects are involved, etc.) and I will quote you a price.

Q: Will you paint pets? A: I don’t often, but I can. If you would like me to digitally paint your pet send me a reference photo and I can quote you a price.

Q: Will you do any character? Even popular characters from TV Shows?  A: Sure will! 

Q: Do you draw OC’s? A: Of course!

Q: Can I use my commission as my avatar, character portrait, Facebook profile, etc? A: Go right ahead. I only ask that you kindly do not remove my signature or claim the piece as your own creation.

Q: Do you offer printing and/or framing options?  A: I do. However, if you desire a physical, printed version of your commission I will require that we move the transaction over to my Etsy store where I handle transactions that require a physical item to be shipped to the client. We can discuss sizing, mediums (canvas, paper, etc.), framing, prices, etc. on Tumblr, but the final transaction will be made through Etsy where I will make a custom listing for you to purchase your printed and/or framed artwork.

[hua-fei-hua]

ALSO finally living the dream and commissioning an artist to, quote, “finish up the oldest wip on your computer” just bc i wanna support them hehe

[tinygameroom]

Interactive Fiction to Look Out For On Itch.io

itch.io is a trove of interactive fiction games, visual novels, and kinetic novels of all types, and I’ve run into a good handful that I think are worth highlighting (and playing again myself!)

Many of these I haven’t finished yet due to the sheer amount of content or because I went for the ending I wanted straight away, but I’d love to finish them thoroughly and perhaps review some of them in the future. 

A couple notes! First, it’s been a while since I’ve played some of these games, and some of them I haven’t seen all of the paths. I try to give warnings where needed, but my warnings might not be complete as I don’t know absolutely everything in each game. Please check the games’ pages and look after yourself!

Secondly, many of these are available free, and some are for sale at a low minimum price, but I encourage you to supporter the writers, artists, composers and developers in any way you can, whether that’s giving them a follow, donating, or just leaving a nice comment. Supporting indie creators is a huge part of what this blog is about so give back to those who create things you love! Now let’s get into the list!

Visual Novels:

Hikeback is a horror visual novel about hitchhiking, time loops, and murder. It gives a lot of incentive to keep playing and replaying, as the story advances almost every time you start again, with new choices and details being revealed as it all unravels. This game is incredibly engaging and beautifully written, and lives up to the promise of time loops and meta game mechanics. I recommend this for anyone who wants a good spooky, existential story. Be warned of loud noises, jumpscares, glitch effects, blood and violence, abuse, and themes of self harm, suicide, and depression. The itch.io pge has a list of content warnings as well as a full spoilery breakdown of warnings if you need them. You can find Hikeback on itch.io here!

Nothing to Say is a Visual Novel dating sim where you go on a date with Zoe, a girl you really like. The only problem is you’re very, very nervous. In this smart little game, you’ll be limited in how many letters you can use to express yourself, and you’ll have to unlock further dialogue options by getting to know Zoe, being honest with her, and being cute together. You’ll only earn letters from dialogue options once, encouraging you to explore more dialogue each playthrough until you get all the options to fully tell Zoe how you feel. Nothing to Say is playable here on itch.io!

Text-Interactive:

The Three-Body Problem is a queer romance interactive fiction about celestial witches living in a dark, magical wood when they encounter a young stranger. It features a nonbinary character, a potential polyamorous relationship, and healthy dom/sub dynamics. I found this story sweet and charming, with likable characters and pretty, easy to follow story writing. The Three-Body Problem deals with themes of abuse in a compassionate manner, and is in large part about healing and finding people with whom you are safe. I recommend it for anyone wanting a nice queer romance read with fantasy elements. Watch out for themes of abuse and sexual themes. You can purchase The Three-Body Problem on itch.io here for $5 or play a free mobile version from Wattpad!

Raik is a deeply Scottish fantasy melded with reality. You play as a young woman dealing with anxiety and stress trying to make it through her day, while a fantasy world unravels around her. This story has layers, and all of it is beautiful. The portrayal of anxiety is poignant and real, and the writing is gorgeous. I don’t want to say anything else to spoil it, but this game is fantastic. I recommend for anyone who likes to daydream. Please be warned of themes of anxiety, stress, and panic attacks as well as some fantasy violence. You can buy Raik here on itch.io for 3 GDP (or more! Please support the author!)

Space Frog! (I saw a lunar eclipse) is a story of a frog in space. He’s a frog and he’s in space! This is a cute, short interactive fiction with low stakes, no worries, just cute adventures of a frog in space. You can direct frog as he travels and learn more about him. It has adorable illustrations and clickable text that reveals extra flavor information. I recommend to anybody looking for a smile. You can play Space Frog here on itch.io and also download a zine of the game for $2 or more!

Floor is a text-interactive game about lying on the floor. You can lie on the floor, and you can get off the floor. What you do next is up to you! This is a short game with no real stakes, just real life boredom and activities. It may evoke feelings of loneliness or disappointment, but you can also just have some hummus. Floor can be played here on itch.io!

Apple Spice Pancakes is another short game about making pancakes with your sweetie! It’s entirely wholesome and adorable. The game text is all dialogue - the dialogue you read is from your partner, and your choices are your real-time responses to them. You can help them design your perfect breakfast while being disgustingly cute. Apple Spice Pancakes is available here on itch.io!

A Witch’s Word is a romantic text game where you have made a deal with a witch, offering her your firstborn. The only problem is you don’t have a child. Or a partner. The witch is here to help. Explore three potential relationships as your witch continues to introduce you to new sweethearts, trying to find someone who you are willing to love and who is willing to give up your child. And if you don’t want any of these people the witch offers you... maybe play the game anyway. See what can happen. A Witch’s Word is available here on itch.io!

Other:

Novena is an interactive poem! It’s a pixel art game that you navigate around, interacting with parts of the environment to read through the poem, which is about the ocean, and wishes, and expectations. And compassion. It has absolutely stunning visuals and music, and the poem makes me cry each time. Be warned of some really heavy feelings, but it will do its best to comfort you. The poem takes about five minutes to read and is here on itch.io waiting for you.

I hope a few of these games are of interest to you and that I’ve inspired you to support these great indie developers! If you wanna support me and see more articles and reviews on indie games, or encourage me as I learn to make my own, you can follow me here and on itch.io and support me with donations on ko-fi! Please reblog if you like this article, since tumblr will make it very hard to find with all these links. Have a great day and play some good games!

[askagamedev]

Have you got any advice on finding a mentor? What kind of mentor should I be looking for? How can I ask them to be my mentor? How can I meet potential mentors in the post covid society?

The best advice I have is to be honest, be open, and put yourself out there. Rejection can be scary, but what is most likely to happen is that the potential mentor says "no" and your situation is unchanged. It is highly unlikely that anyone will retaliate for being asked for mentorship. If such a thing does happen, please let me know directly so that I can help amplify that signal - that sort of thing should not be tolerated.

When you approach a potential mentor, follow Inigo Montoya’s example. You generally want to approach someone with four major steps:

Greeting - Hello.

Introduction - My name is Inigo Montoya.

Relevant link - You killed my father.

Manage Expectations - Prepare to die.

So, for example, I would feel comfortable reaching out to someone with 

“Hi there. I’m AAGD, a game design student. I am looking for an experienced game designer to answer some questions about game design as a career. Could I ask you some of those questions, please?”

If the person I ask is unwilling or unable to help, I would continue looking elsewhere. I might ask a follow up question if they lack the bandwidth, such as “Could you refer me to someone who could answer my questions?” As long as you’re polite, respectful, and to-the-point, you will likely get a polite and reasonable response.

As for the kind of mentor you should be looking for, it depends on what you want to do. Game designers can teach you a lot about game design. Programmers can teach you a lot about coding. Artists will teach you about art. Producers can teach you about managing schedules and tasks. Find someone with experience doing the thing you want to know about and ask them about it. If you aren’t sure what to ask, you can start with “I’m so new I don’t even know what to ask. What do you wish you knew when you were starting out?” and move on from there.

Remember - mentorship is not about validation, it’s about learning. You don’t want to argue with a mentor, get defensive, or take any criticism personally. Instead, you should carefully consider their because they have experience you lack and often see things that you don’t. It’s ok to move on if a potential mentor doesn’t have the kind of approach or people skills you feel comfortable with - not every teaching method works for everybody and what works for a veteran like me won’t necessarily work for you. However, I suggest you take what you can learn because all experience is valuable, even if it’s only to learn what not to do. 

As for where to meet mentors, I suggest looking into game dev communities on social media. I have answered plenty of questions myself, either through the blog, on twitter, or via my [Nuanced Gaming Discord] server - there are a variety of industry professionals who hang out there and can answer any questions you might have. Alternatively, [Joe Hobbs], an experienced game artist, curates a [spreadsheet of game developers] across a variety of development disciplines who have all volunteered to give advice to students and juniors. You can try reaching out to anyone on that list as well. That should be enough to get you started in your search for a mentor. If you can’t find someone from those resources, try reaching out to me directly and I will do what I can to track someone down. I wish you good luck.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

The FANTa Project is being rebooted. [What is the FANTa project?]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

[interact-if]

Welcome to Mod Appreciation Month!

This event is a lowkey one, designed for us to take some time to catch up on asks, rec lists, and other blog pages that happen mostly in the background such as the masterlists, database, and post tagging.

This blog is a lot of work! And we're happy to help out with promoting authors and exposing readers to new and interesting stories based on their interests!

That being said, we need a break!

This is why we are closing the inbox for July.

Please refrain from sending asks for rec lists through submissions. We’re leaving that line open specifically for new authors to submit their projects.

We are going to utilize this time to try and clear out our inbox--we have over 100 messages, most of them asking for rec lists, which take a few weeks at a time to properly curate, tag, and put in the queue.

We will also be working behind the scenes on other projects we hope to show off soon!

We're thrilled y'all are eager to read more, and we'll be back in August for sure. For now, if you need to get in contact with us, feel free to reply to posts, DM one of the mods, or get in contact with us over on our discord.

[Discord] [FAQ] [Ko-fi] [Reddit]

Below the cut are our rules, guidelines, and FAQ for recommending or suggesting games as well as general practice and etiquette.

We'll be back in August! <3

Now, to get into some of the details. (This applies regardless of the event to every ask sent, even if the inbox is currently closed.)

RULES WHEN SENDING ASKS

If you can and it is relevant, please tag your asks with content warnings in the beginning. Such as (cw violence) or (cw death), this is an extra precaution to keep both our mods and our readers safe and well-advised. This will also make tagging easier!

Please keep your asks as brief as you can! Any asks that are more than two asks long may get eaten by the Tumblr machine and/or may not be answered due to length.

If your ask hasn't been answered, it may be because it already has been! Be sure to search the tags and FAQ before sending in an ask.

Please don't spam! We won't respond to inappropriate asks or asks that have already been answered.

Recommendation lists

If you are submitting an ask for a rec list please be aware that these lists take a lot of time and effort to make! In average, it might take us up to two weeks to fully finish and queue a rec list, sometimes even longer. We’re happy to put them together but we ask for patience and understanding.

With that in mind, here are some guidelines:

Please look through the #interact-if asks and #if: rec list tags before sending and ask.

Constantly looking out and keeping track of IF projects takes a good chunk of our time among our other responsibilities as mods. For this reason, we came up with a tagging system that makes it easy for our audience to look through the blog. Unfortunately, it gets overlooked most of the time.

And for this reason, we get repetitive asks, which we ignore and delete.

The tagging system is there for your and our convenience. If you’re not sure whether you’re asking for a rec list of the same theme/genre that has already been posted, please consider looking through the aforementioned tags before sending an ask.

As much as we love entertaining the rec list asks, it does tend to be bothersome having to constantly reblog and link new asks to the posted rec lists, as well as reminding people to use the tagging system.

Please make your ask neither too broad nor specific.

This isn’t to sound finicky we promise! If an ask is looking for fantasy IFs without specifics we cannot properly curate a list of what you’re looking for. Is it modern fantasy? Medieval? Non-Eurocentric? Do you want fae fantasy? Supernatural? Fantasy is one of the most popular genres and asks like this example we cannot properly answer.

This is why we ask for rec list requests to be not too broad.

As for narrow–too narrow an ask will likely return a very short or non-existent list! At the end of the day there are only so many IFs and very specific niches may not be filled. We will try our best to answer, but likely your list will result in games adjacent to your request that we think best kind of sort of fit your request. We’re doing our best with the IFs that are out there.

Please be patient!

We often spend several days working on a single list. If your ask hasn’t been answered yet it may still be in the works or in our queue! If it’s been a long while and it still has not been answered, it may have been ignored for a variety of reasons including: Too broad an ask, too similar to previous rec lists, contains NSFW or offensive materials, etc. Please refrain from sending multiple check up asks

On the topic of NSFW asks/content…

We have received some inquiries regarding NSFW (like smutty scenes) recommendations in IF recently, and believe it best to clarify the stance Interact IF has on the matter.

We will be refraining from answering questions about explicit sexual content in IF. We as a team do not feel we have the expertise to help with this, nor have we been on the lookout for explicitly sexual IFs.

As well, it is not entirely suitable for the blog, as Interact IF is for all ages and there may be minors following it.

We would like this blog to remain as SFW as we can manage, with games properly tagged for their age groups and limiting asks and rec lists to non-sexually-explicit content.

With that in mind, feel free to get in contact with us anytime and we’ll do our best to find what you’re looking for!

Game Recommendations

Before sending in a game, please keep these aspects in mind:

DO

The game must be interactive fiction–the reader plays a character (either customizable or pre-determined) and makes choices that influence the game in some way.

The game can be text-based or a visual novel.

The game does NOT violate copyright (i.e. A published for-profit IF that is using the Star Wars universe. If it is not-for-profit (it’s free to play) then this is fine)

DON’T

If you play a character and can physically move them (walk, run, jump, attack), we consider this a video game and isn’t currently a niche we are supporting.

Recommend a game produced by a company–we are here to support individual authors or games written collaboratively by a group of authors/artists/etc.

Don’t recommend games that glorify violence, sexual violence, racism, sexism, and so on. Or which has (an) author(s) who also have a history of having engaged In aspects like these.

If your rec is good to go, here’s what you have to do! If you are able please provide a link to the post to reblog - this makes it a lot easier on us!If the game is 18+What language/program the game is in (Twine, Choicescript, Ren'py, etc.)If the game has a currently playable demo. If you would like your game reblogged/recc'ed, let us know with the same info/more if you like!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Can you recommend games that are finished or complete?

We have a tag for that! Check out #status: complete, though you can also check out COG, Hosted Games, and search for complete games on Itch.io.

I can’t find a game and can’t remember the title, help!

If you’re struggling to find a beloved game and can’t remember the title–go to our Reddit and see if it’s there at the Lost & Found! If not, you can ask our community on the Reddit to help find it, or join our discord and ask there!

I noticed you failed to include x game on a list, so I will inform the author about it.

Please, don’t. The mods here are nothing but human, so we do our best to include as many games as we can remember, and frequently ask other people for help. However, this doesn’t mean we will include every single game in existence. We will forget, things will slip, so the least we ask of you is to leave a reply or send an ask and we will add it in. We promise we always keep a close eye on those.

The extra step of informing the author about this is unnecessary. The only thing you’re causing is either making the author feel left out or having them reach out to us to be added, which is essentially the same thing we ask of you to do. There’s no need to get a third party involved within something that can be easily tackled, so please respect us instead of putting our blog in a bad light.

The only suggestions we ignore and might erase are the ones we realize don’t fit the theme of the ask, or ones that don’t fit the guidelines specified in the question right below this.

What we do not promote.

Trans-exclusive radical feminism

Gratuitous sexual violence (This includes pedophilia, domestic abuse, r*pe, etc.)

Racism, including cultural appropriation, stereotyping, whitewashing, brown face, etc.

Any and all versions of sexism

Religious phobic rhetoric (Islamophobia, belittling indigenous religions, etc.)

And so on.

We also do not promote authors who have aligned themselves with these rhetorics, whether or not they are exhibited in the author's playable content.

[kmomof4]

Oh, Shit!

It’s here, y’all!!!! Only took a week!!! I am very excited to share this fic with all of you, even if I’m wanting to run and hide at the same time! This fic was spawned by a tweet that @stahlop shared on the CSMM discord last Tuesday. 

In college, a friend set me up on a blind date. I wasn't in a great mood because I had received a traffic ticket a few hours before. My day got worse when my blind date turned out to be the cop who gave me the ticket.

After a bit of discussion with the ladies on discord, I started writing. I do believe this is the filthiest thing I’ve ever written and I hope you all enjoy!

HUGE internet hugs and ALL the love and thanks to @hollyethecurious @karlyfr13s and @justanother-unluckysoul for their beta services. I am a very boring and repetitive writer on my own and without their INVALUABLE input, this would have been about as entertaining as plowing your way through waist deep snow in a blizzard.

Ao3 link

Rating: E

Words: Just shy of 4900

Tags: Blind Date, Smut

Tag list: Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed.

@hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @snowbellewells @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @jennjenn615 @kingofmyheart1426-blog @profdanglaisstuff @branlovestowrite @thisonesatellite @ultraluckycatnd @flslp87 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @let-it-raines @shireness-says @kymbersmith-90 @darkcolinodonorgasm @bethacaciakay @searchingwardrobes @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @aprilqueen84 @qualitycoffeethings @superchocovian @artistic-writer @donteattheappleshook @doodlelolly0910 @seriouslyhooked @tiganasummertree @lfh1226-linda @xsajx @klynn-stormz @jrob64 @wefoundloveunderthelight @zaharadessert @elizabeethan @xhookswenchx @gingerpolyglot @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 @sailtoafarawayland @justanother-unluckysoul @veryverynotgoodwrites @jonesfandomfanatic @deckerstarblanche @the-darkdragonfly @batana54

Adding a couple of other folks from discord who were excited about this one. Let me know if you’d like to be added to the regular list.

@purplehawkcaptain @holdingoutforapiratehero 

Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

Emma Swan lifted the glass of white wine to her lips as she looked out the window of the restaurant to the streets of Boston below. She wasn’t in the best mood to be going on a blind date, but she’d promised her best friend, Mary Margaret, that she’d still come even after the day she’d had.

She’d lost a big skip with a hefty payday because she’d been stopped for speeding in the middle of chasing him down. So the last thing she wanted to do tonight was make idle small talk with some random guy who was friends with M’s fiance, David, who had also made the reservation. She took another sip of her wine and turned toward the front of the restaurant as the maitre d approached. The man behind him cut quite a figure in the black suit he wore. He was tall and raven haired with dark scruff lining his jaw, and it took Emma a moment to recognize him.

Oh, shit…

~*~*~

Killian Jones walked into the swanky hotel restaurant and approached the maitre d.

“Reservation for two under the name Nolan,” he informed the man.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Your table is ready. Right this way, please.”

Killian followed behind the man as he led him toward the back of the room, where a blonde goddess sat alone holding a glass of white wine while looking out the window. She turned toward them and Killian stopped in his tracks.

Oh, shit…

~*~*~

3 hours earlier

Emma looked in her rearview mirror when she heard the siren. Flashing blue lights filled her vision.

Oh, shit!

She pulled over and watched as her mark sped away, slamming her hand on her steering wheel in annoyance. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she tried to plaster a winning smile on her face. Dressed the way she was in her best honey trap dress, it was always possible that she’d be able to talk her way out of a ticket.

She looked in the rearview again and caught her breath as the sexiest cop she’d ever laid eyes on got out of the cruiser and made his way toward her bug. He was sex on legs. Tall and lean with artfully mussed black hair and scruff lining his jaw, she snapped her mouth closed and swallowed heavily.

“Do you know why I stopped you, ma’am?”

Emma batted her eyelashes at him innocently.

“No, I don’t, officer.”

He raised an eyebrow at her and the corner of his very full, very soft looking lips raised with it. She nearly needed to fan herself.

“You were going nearly 20 miles an hour above the speed limit back there.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, feigning surprise. “I had no idea! I’m so sorry, officer. I will be sure to never do it again.”

“Mmhmm.” His lips pressed into a thin line. “May I see your license and registration, please?”

“Oh, of course,” she agreed, lifting the hem of her dress up her thigh to where she kept her identification and a few bills in a thigh holster when she was working. She took her time getting her license out, hopefully giving him an eyeful. The man’s stunning blue eyes were darkened with lust when she turned back to him and handed him her information.

“Thank you, Miss… Swan,” he said, looking at her license. “I’ll be right back.”

She watched him walk away, appreciating the view as he approached his own vehicle, before her own desire turned into anger.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” she hollered, slamming her hand on the steering wheel with each curse. She looked in her rearview again and saw him looking right at her. His intense stare told her that he had seen her outburst and that she hadn’t fooled him a bit with her little innocent act. She blew out a frustrated breath and waited for him to return, struggling to bring her libido under control.

Several minutes later, he returned. As he handed back her documents, Emma screwed up her courage.

“Listen,” she began, “I really am sorry for speeding so much back there, and for the little act earlier.”

His eyebrow raised again. “Really,” he deadpanned.

Indignation flooded her cheeks with heat as she took a deep breath before continuing.

“Yes, really. See, I was chasing a skip…”

“Your reasons don’t really concern me, Miss Swan,” he said, handing her the citation.

She huffed in annoyance as she took the ticket from him. Their fingers brushed briefly and Emma could feel the shock all the way down to her toes.

“Is this really necessary?” She wasn’t above begging.

“I’m afraid it is.”

With his heated gaze on her, she looked at the citation and gasped in shock. “$350,” she shrieked, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Watch your language, miss. I could add another hundred for disrespecting a police officer.”

Emma’s eyes got wide and she had to swallow her retort. She tossed the offensive piece of paper to the passenger seat and turned a sickly sweet fake smile on the man.

“Am I free to go now, sir?” she grit out with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

“Yes, ma’am.” He raised his eyebrow at her again and smirked while running his tongue over his bottom lip. If she wasn’t so pissed, she’d be really turned on by his actions. “I hope you have a good rest of your day.”

She wanted to tell him to piss off, but she also didn’t want to antagonize him. So she just rolled her eyes and turned the car on. When she pulled into traffic, she looked into the rearview mirror one last time and saw that he still stood on the side of the road looking at her car with a roguish smirk on his face, like he wouldn’t be opposed to pulling her over again... and maybe frisking her. And if she wasn’t so angry, she had to admit, she wouldn’t mind it either.

~*~*~

Oh, shit…

Killian couldn’t move. Couldn’t bring himself to put one foot in front of the other. The woman he was meeting, at his best friend David’s behest, was the angel he had ticketed earlier this evening.

Just looking at her again, a smirk spread across his face and he could feel his slacks tightening. He couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t very pleased about this turn of events, but he imagined that she wasn’t terribly happy to see him.

~*~*~

Oh, shit…

It was him. The cop that ticketed her a few hours ago. A flush blossomed across her face and spread down her chest- whether from arousal or indignation, she wasn’t sure. She took a deep breath, her chest rising. His eyes followed the action and darkened with desire before he subtly adjusted himself. Her own smirk ticked up the corner of her lips to match his. This was gonna be fun...

~*~*~

Killian resumed walking toward the table, inserting a slight swagger in his gait. When he reached the table, he held his hand out for her and raised it to his lips when she placed her own hand in his.

“A pleasure to see you again, Miss Swan,” he murmured, brushing his lips across her knuckles.

Raising her eyebrow at him, she snarked, “So now you’re gonna be a gentleman?”

“I’m always a gentleman, Swan,” he said, releasing her hand and sitting down across from her.

“Coulda fooled me,” she replied, rolling her eyes at him. He couldn’t help the genuine grin spreading across his face at her action. “I don’t think a gentleman would have given me a $350 ticket when I was just trying to do my job.” She raised her eyebrow at him again.

“Your job?” he asked. “And what might that be?”

“Well, I tried to tell you and you cut me off.” She could feel her anger at him rising again. “Not exactly gentlemanly behavior, you know.”

He felt his cheeks flame in embarrassment but nodded in acknowledgement of her assertion and motioned for her to continue.

“What? No ‘I’m sorry, Swan, you’re right’? No begging me for forgiveness?”

He smirked at her again. “I don’t beg.”

She pursed her lips and he was about to have a serious problem in his pants if she didn’t let up soon.

“Mmhmmm, we’ll see about that,” she murmured. Her eyes had darkened to a deep jade and she ran her tongue along her bottom lip. Yep, definite problem… He adjusted himself again, trying in vain to get comfortable.

“What do you do for a living, Emma? May I call you Emma?”

She rolled her eyes again. Every time she did that, her sex appeal increased ten fold and so did the tension below his belt.

“Might as well,” she exasperated, “since this is supposed to be a date. I’m a bail bonds person,” she continued, “and I was chasing my latest skip. He left his mother on the hook for his bond and she’s about to lose her house if I don’t bring him in.”

“I see,” he frowned. “I can’t do anything about the ticket itself. It’s already in the system. But perhaps we can team up and get him back behind bars without you endangering yourself and others.” He raised his eyebrow at her and was pleased to see her eyes darken further with a come hither look within.

“I don’t think I’d be opposed to that,” she flirted back, her bedroom eyes making it nearly impossible for him to think straight. If he didn’t have her tonight, he was going to lose his ever lovin’ mind.

The flirting between them continued back and forth over the course of the evening as they discussed their proposed partnership to bring in her skip, exchanged light and teasing touches, and swapped stories about David and Mary Margaret.

Killian was nearly driven mad with desire, much like he had been earlier when he ticketed her, between her sultry looks and the way her lips wrapped around her fork as she ate. She stared at him over the candle-lit table as she drew the fork out of her mouth in such an erotic way that he wished she was taking him into her mouth instead. He could just imagine her pink lips wrapped around him, sucking him down, which was not helping him bring his libido under control, at all.

~*~*~

Emma watched him from under her lashes as she ate, doing her best to keep her own breathing under control as she watched him squirm. She knew exactly what she was doing to him; the only problem was, watching him was turning her on too. The way he was looking at her now, he looked like he’d rather be dining on her, rather than the excellent steak on his plate.

His eyes bored into hers, his blue irises nearly swallowed by black, his jaw slack. She chewed and swallowed, never breaking the heated stare between them.

He swallowed heavily. “You wanna get outta here?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, wiping her lips and standing as he pulled out his wallet and tossed a couple hundred dollar bills on the table. He grabbed her hand and all but pulled her out of the restaurant into the lobby and towards the reservation desk.

“Do you mind? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wait long enough to get back to one of our places.”

She shook her head, seeing the logic in the plan. Her heart rate was already galloping a mile a minute, but when he drew her into his side and his arm snaked around her while his fingers drew nonsense along her waistline, it increased even more.

Once they were on their way up to the room, he captured her lips and caged her in at the back of the elevator, his hands running along her sides and setting her on fire. She pulled him closer and wrapped her arms around him, burying her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. Their tongues battled for dominance as he pulled her leg up over his hip and ground his hardness exactly where she needed him.

~*~*~

Killian swallowed her wanton moan as the ding of the elevator signaled their arrival on their floor. He reluctantly pulled away and touched his forehead to hers as she tried to compose herself before the doors opened. His desire for her threatened to drown him and he didn’t know how he was gonna make it to their room before ravishing her completely.

The doors opened and he grabbed her hand again as they exited the elevator. Moments later, they arrived at their door. Plastering herself to his back, her arms wrapping around his front, she writhed against him as he waited for the lock on the door to disengage. She cupped him through his pants just as he opened the door.

He covered her hand with his own, prompting her to giggle, as they fumbled into the room. There was no time to look around at the fancy amenities the hotel offered, not when he had a bloody goddess in his arms. He spun around in her embrace and caged her against the closed door.

“You’re gonna pay for that,” he growled, prompting another giggle from her.

“Promise?”

“Yes, indeed, Swan,” he murmured before his lips latched onto her neck and sucked hard on her pulse point.

~*~*~

Emma’s head fell back against the door, granting him more access as white hot pleasure spiraled through her and centered in her throbbing core. She reached down and cupped him again, his length and thickness filling her small hand, before undoing his belt and pants.

She pushed his boxer briefs down his hips freeing his cock, then wrapped her hand around him and started stroking him up and down, up and down, up and down. His lips released her and he lowered his forehead to her own, a broken groan erupting from his throat as she continued her ministrations. Having him like putty in her hands was a heady feeling and she couldn’t bite back the smirk at the wicked thought that suddenly entered her mind.

She pushed away from the door, never halting the movement of her hand, forcing him to step backward into the room toward the king sized bed. She caught his sapphire gaze just as his lips crashed to hers again. They continued to shuffle toward the bed as his lips tried to devour hers, his pants falling all the way to his ankles. It was a wonder he didn’t get tangled up in them, pulling them both to the floor. They came to an abrupt halt when his legs hit the edge of the bed and tumbled onto it. He never released her as they fell and she laughed out loud when she landed on his chest.

She looked down at him and was struck by the wonder and awe she saw in his eyes. A sentiment that should make her want to run as far and as fast as possible. She didn’t know where these feelings were coming from but she knew she didn’t want to run from them either. Looking in his eyes, she saw a tender care within them that made her feel safer than she ever had, with any man. She was always very careful to keep her heart behind heavily fortified walls, but being here now, with him, she could feel those walls crashing down, leaving her totally exposed. The awed surprise and devotion she saw in his own cerulean depths told her with absolute certainty that he would catch her when she fell.

She lowered herself to him, much more slowly this time, and gently touched his lips with her own. His hands buried themselves in her hair as their tongues caressed one another, moans and soft gasps coming from them both. Her own hands started working down the buttons on his white dress shirt and stroking the soft chest hair that was exposed as she went. Finding the zipper at the back of the dress, he lowered it as his fingers stroked the exposed skin, kindling an inferno within her.

Once the zipper was down, she raised up again as he pulled the straps of her gown down her arms exposing her breasts to his sight. His eyes darkened impossibly further as he lifted his head and latched onto a pink nipple, teeth nipping and tongue laving as he held her tightly to him. A contented sigh left her as he released her and turned his attention to its twin. The inferno was dying down, replaced with glowing white hot embers, whose warmth filled her all the way through her extremities.

“You taste absolutely divine, my Swan,” he murmured, still showering her breasts with attention. She keened in pleasure before opening her eyes and pushing his jacket and shirt off, exposing his entire chest to her exploring fingers. They danced along his ribs and she couldn’t help her delighted grin when she found a spot just below them that caused him to jump, halting his worship.

“Ahh,” she breathed, “a bit ticklish are we?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer before she grasped his length again and began pumping him in earnest. His eyes rolled in his head as she stroked him from root to tip, swiping her thumb across the head that leaked precum at each pass. Releasing him for a moment, she shimmied out of her gown, leaving it to pool on the floor around her feet before she climbed fully on the bed with him.

Their eyes met, his blue completely swallowed by black, before she began leaving open mouth kisses down his torso, never breaking the spell woven between them in their transfixed gazes. She placed a kiss with a swirl of her tongue on his hip bone, his length rubbing against her cheek. Turning, she placed a kiss to the tip before taking him into her mouth. Their gazes remained locked as she took him as deep as she could before coming back up to start all over again.

“You look so good with my cock in your mouth, love,” he moaned, “Just like I imagined. Just like that, Swan. Yes. So good.”

She went to work on him in earnest, her wicked thought from earlier flicking back through her mind. She bobbed her head up and down his shaft, her tongue swirling about the head before she took him in again. When he bumped the back of her throat, she cupped his balls in her hand and swallowed around him before releasing him with a pop. The groan coming out of him was positively wrecked and she couldn’t help the smug smirk spreading across her face as she looked back up at him.

“You are a wicked vixen, Swan,” he choked out. It took him a moment to match her smirk with one of his own.

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” she cheeked, before swallowing him down again.

~*~*~

He fell back down on the bed and grabbed the bedspread with both fists, determined to let her have her way with him and not just hold on to her head for dear life as he took his pleasure in her mouth.

She licked and laved and he thought he might die from the exquisite torture of holding himself back as he bumped the back of her throat again and his balls drew up ready to explode down her throat. She released him with a pop again and this time his groan was more of pain than pleasure. He blew out an exasperated breath and caught her eye again. The green orbs danced with mischief and his own narrowed in speculation.

“Just what are you up to, Swan?” he asked, in between heaving breaths.

“You’ll see,” she replied before sucking him down again.

This time he didn’t hold back. He grabbed her hair and began pumping into her mouth, nearly desperate in his need. He could feel his balls drawing up again and was about to release her of his own accord, when she pulled completely off of him once again, wringing a wretched moan from the depths of his soul out of him.

“What do you want, Swan,” he groaned in agony. “I’ll give you anything if you’ll stop teasing me.”

He looked at her gorgeous face, her cheeks flushed, her pupils dilated, her lips parted, red, and swollen. She was just as aroused, but wasn’t to the edge of desperation like he was. His eyes widened as he suddenly guessed her purpose.

She grinned like the cat that caught the canary. “I’ll let you come,” she began, taking him in hand again and stroking up and down, “if you’ll pay my ticket.”

“Gods, woman,” he croaked, “Yes, anything. Just please, let me come,” he begged.

She lowered her head, taking him down one more time and he sighed in relief as he felt her mouth envelope him. That relief was short-lived however as she slowly stroked and swallowed him down. He thrust himself into her mouth and in seemingly no time at all, the tide of ecstasy overwhelmed him as he exploded down her throat. Thick jets of his seed burst from him so furiously after all her teasing that he struggled to remain conscious.

She swallowed every drop before releasing him and licking her lips. The erotic picture she painted roused him enough to grab her by the shoulders and surge upward, crushing his lips to hers. His tongue stroked the seam of her lips, tasting himself before she opened to him, her tongue matching his stroke for stroke. They finally broke away and he touched his forehead to her own, panting for breath.

“You are a minx, Emma Swan,” he confessed.

She smiled, a more genuine one this time before she pecked him on the lips. When she pulled back, he grabbed her.

“Uh, uh, uh, Swan,” he cajoled, drawing her close and kissing her gently. “A gentleman never leaves a lady wanting.”

“And you did say that you’re always a gentleman,” she agreed. He lowered her down to the mattress and looked his fill as his hands traced her curves from her jaw, over her shoulders, down her side and brushing the side of her breast, over her hip and down her long legs.

“You are exquisite, Emma.” His gaze captured her own again and as much as it had been teasing just a few minutes ago, now they were filled with a longing desire that matched his own.

He captured her lips again as his hands continued his exploration. Finally touching her scorching center, he dipped one finger into her depths, drawing it through her drenched folds then raising it to his mouth where he sucked it clean.

“You taste delicious as well,” he purred. Killian moved down her torso, leaving tender kisses and light teasing touches in his wake until she was nearly vibrating in anticipation. Looking back up at the gorgeous woman on the bed with him, a genuine smile broke over his face as he maneuvered himself between her spread legs and inhaled deeply. “And your scent,” he hummed in appreciation before diving in like a man starved. He licked a long stripe through her sodden folds and followed it up with his fingers as she writhed above him. Deciding to torture her a bit as she had him, turnabout is fair play after all, he pulled back and placed a hard and dirty kiss to her throbbing clit. A groan of complaint flew from her lips as his fingers withdrew.

“What the hell, Jones? This is not being a gentleman.” She lifted her head and scowled at him, apparently most displeased with his reciprocation.

“Getting a bit of revenge does not negate my gentlemanly qualities,” he cheeked at her irritation. “Don’t worry, Swan,” he assured her, “As I said before, a gentleman never leaves a lady wanting.” Waggling his eyebrows at her, he placed an arm across her torso, holding her still. He turned and gently bit down on the inside of her thigh before soothing it with his tongue. A tortured moan from Emma, her fists gripping the bedspread, prompted a kiss to her other thigh before he turned his attention to her core again. Lapping at her folds, her juices bathing his tongue, he plunged two fingers into her depths, curling them just right before he wrapped his lips around her clit and sent her flying over the edge. Her cries were music to his ears as her hips bucked against his face. Bringing her down gently, he rested his head on her hip, watching her face as the aftershocks flowed through her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as beautiful as you when you come, Swan,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her hip bone.

She looked down at him, slightly dazed. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Jones,” she declared. “You did promise to pay my ticket.”

“I did, indeed, Swan,” he conceded. “And as a man of my word,” he put his right hand upon his naked chest, “I will do so.” He surged toward her, capturing her lips and rolling them until she rested on top of him. “Once I’m done with you,” he whispered, pressing kisses along her jaw.

She moaned as he rolled them again, working his way down her jaw to her collarbone and chest before his lips wrapped around her nipple, teasing it to a hard peak before turning his attention to the other.

“So responsive to me,” he murmured against her skin. He felt her grab his hair and tug relentlessly until he released her with a pop and let her draw himself up until he was staring down into veridian orbs that he could easily drown in.

“I need you inside me, please,” she begged, drawing him down into a bruising kiss.

“As you wish,” he cooed against her swollen lips. He looked down at her again as he lined himself up at her entrance. “Do we need anything?”

She shook her head. “I’m clean, I’ve got it covered, and I trust you,” she assured him, arching her back until he barely slipped inside her. His heart soared at her words as he thrust home, sheathing himself within her depths in one stroke.

Killian lowered his forehead to hers, glorying in the words she’d just spoken and in her tight warmth surrounding him. His lips gently stroked her own as he began to move within her. Moving languidly, deliberately, stoking the fire between them, he slowly made love to her. Moans and gasps of pleasure spurred him on, grinding against her every time their hips met. He could stay buried within her, holding her close to his heart, all night, every night. For the rest of his life.

Emma’s legs wrapped around his hips urging him deeper as her walls fluttered around his length. He increased his pace, pushing her higher and higher until their cries of mutual pleasure joined together in an age-old chorus of completion.

Killian shuddered above her as his release pumped into her depths. His hips stilled and he had to steel himself for what he might find when he opened his eyes. David had warned him that his date tended toward being closed off, holding people at arm's length, but that if he gave her a chance, he really thought Killian could find happiness and eventually love with her. And after the evening he had spent with her, he was ready to hand her his heart on a silver platter. She was brilliant, feisty, gorgeous, could hold her own in any situation, brave, strong, his match in every way. But he was so afraid that when he looked into her eyes, he’d see nothing but a citadel hiding, protecting her heart, after getting exactly what she wanted out of him. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

Eyes as green as the verdant forests he’d vacationed in as a lad stared back at him full of hope and trust, tinged with fear. Wanting nothing more than to erase that fear, he cupped her face in his hands and softly pressed his lips to hers, trying desperately to convey his own hope, trust, devotion, and yes, even love for her into his kiss.

When they broke for air he wanted to tell her everything. Everything in his heart. But before he could, she placed her finger on his lips and shushed him.

“Not tonight,” she said, removing her finger and kissing him again softly. She turned in his arms and snuggled back into his embrace. He held her tighter, burying his nose in her golden mane before he let sleep overtake him.

~*~*~

Killian struggled to open his eyes as the old fashioned, jarring ring of a landline telephone sounded from the floor next to his side of the bed. Emma still slept soundly in his arms and he groaned as he turned over and scooted over to the edge, his hand fumbling around on the floor until it closed over a cell phone. He fell back, eyes shut and answered.

“Hello?”

“Killian?” Mary Margaret asked, barely containing her squeal. “What are you doing answering Emma’s phone?”

Killian’s eyes flew open.

Oh, shit!

[nomunamuinmybrain]

Take care of you (M)

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

Rating: M

Genre: Slice of Life/ Fluff/ Smut

Word Count: 1.5K

At last, a collaboration with my best friend@alwaysdarkestbeforethedawn94, the person responsible for my kpop obsession. She is my rock and without her this tumblr page wouldn't even exist. Every time we meet we go on a ride by the coast line and come up with possible scenarios of what we assume might be happening or has happened in the lives of BTS. Since we are in quarantine we will be sharing with all of you.

Disclaimer: if you are under the age of 18 please know that this is heavy sexual content.

Summary: When Yoongi comes back home late from a schedule, you make sure he gets the treatment of a lifetime.

Being with Yoongi is with no doubt one of the best experiences in your whole existence and by all means you are convinced it will last a lifetime. At the beginning of your relationship, the man had been a spellbinding enigma waiting for someone to finally decipher him. Undoubtedly, who were you to say ‘no’ to such a challenge?

Invariably, a true workaholic; married to his job while the rest of his body is entangled with music; you simply couldn’t have one without the other. Sometimes it makes you wonder how he is so competently skillful at his own craft. He has been carrying a great deal of nicknames to his name; musical genius, a prodigy, King Midas of the musical pentagram to name a few. You couldn’t say you disagreed, everything the public has said about him is completely and utterly true; he genuinely turns to gold everything he touches. Once he sets his mind on a project there is literally nothing that can stop him. He immerses himself into it and delivers in a way that exceeds every imagination. Of course, he would try to argue with you about that if he were here this very moment, but you knew different.

That’s why you found yourself at his place this late at night. He had told you approximately two months ago that they were planning something big for their future live performances. You knew very well by now that comeback week was the busiest most exhausting period for any artist but given Yoongi's status the situation was amplified times a hundred. Needless to say, that instantly meant a mountain load of work waiting to be done not only for him, but also for the rest of the group. Consequently, for you, this time of the year implied way less time with him and more time on the phone talking at ungodly hours of the day. It’s for that reason he gave you his apartment’s keys last weekend. He hadn’t given you a definite explanation for his action other that “It is about time”. However, you knew better than that. Yoongi is always so attentive to your needs, and even if he hadn’t said it out loud, there was no need to; you could read him like the back of your hand. He is an incredibly considerate, understanding and patient individual. He always goes out of his way to silently make others feel special, and that is one of the things you love about him.

You tried your best to make his arrival back from the showcase as serene as possible. He is giving you so much already that you wanted to give him back just as much. Once he opened the door you understood that he is spent, you can tell from the soft way his eyes slowly shut, ready to surrender in a deep slumber. After setting the table and getting something to eat he takes a quick shower to rid himself off the reminiscence of the day. After that, he moves to the cabinet near the wall, opens the door, pours himself a glass of whiskey and heads to the couch in the living room. It doesn’t take a lot of time to notice that he is already under the influence of dark liquor. You gently approach him sitting right beside him on his dark smooth couch and lean in to his chest. He smells clean and soft, he wore clothes straight out of the dryer right after his shower. You snuggle closer to him, this white t-shirt making him look so hot, you swear it's almost see-through, and you let your hand wander on his torso, tracing the lined muscles that lay underneath. You stare at his gentle features, eyes closed and you feel like you are in a trance. You think to yourself “Damn, he is so easy on the eyes”. The only thing getting you out of this state of bewitchment is his voice. He softly grunts, a smirk stretching his face, "You have no idea how much my whole body aches...." he signs."What can I do to help my baby?" you ask full of anticipation, mentally preparing a list of things you would like to do to him. "Whatever it is that you have in mind, I am all yours to play with" he replies, gaze filled with implication. And that was the push you needed to devour your man. At once you straddle his thighs, hands flying to the back of his neck to grasp on his healthy vibrant hair and bring him

closer for a painfully lustful kiss, you are insatiable tonight. You’ve missed him so much. "I needed your lips on mine, I missed you so much baby" you unapologetically confess. His large hands massage your thighs and then travel to your backside pushing you even closer, making you one. It was times like this when you felt like you had no clue where he ended and you began. "I can tell", he says with a low grunt. Deep throaty moans rumble from his chest the faster you rub yourself on him while leaving aching marks all over his arched neck and toned chest. "Yes, yes....Mark me, baby. I'm all yours. U-ugh... All yours" he lets out, words almost like a whisper. Off goes his shirt, same fate follows for the shorts and just as he's about to flip you over beneath him you immediately put your hands on his chest to stop him. "Tonight is all about you, so just lay back and relax. Let me do my job" you tease with a wink. Thinking back to all the close and personal moments you’ve both shared, inconspicuously, you absolutely treasured instances like this, watching him being so eager to find the sweet solace of relief. The shuddered exhale that escapes him leaves you satisfied. You palm his throbbing cock over his pitch black boxers, his head instinctively dropping to the back of the couch once again as a clear sign of surrender. “My sweet, sweet boy, I wanna ruin you tonight” you shamelessly admit. He already knows that this is a reward more for you rather than him. ‘Cause even though you love the way he takes over you every time you get intimate, you want him to let go and trust you. You take off the last piece of clothing standing between you and your reward, Yoongi's well endowed member. You lick across his length, earning that familiar hiss you so crave to hear. You tease him for a while, languidly sucking only the tip, saliva dripping from your plump lips making it easier for your hand to pump his thick length with accurate precision. His slender hips involuntarily twitch to thrust deeper into your sensual mouth. "Baby, please...please..." he begs as one hand lazily brushes your hair from your forehead. He is putty in your hands, all yours to devour. Your little living room filled with lewd wet sounds as you mercilessly suck him off, as if it was the very last time but still you couldn't get enough; you could never get enough of him. Yoongi is like your own personal addiction.

As he's approaching his climax, hair sticking to his face, you place your left hand around his right thigh and caress. "My sweet baby, a mess, all because of me" you drunkenly declare. Hand still in your hair, the harder his grasp, the faster you go. You feel his grip in your hair becoming stronger and stronger while you hear his whines getting louder and louder. That’s how you know he is on the verge of letting go. You look up at him and take his entire glory in. "I swear he is alluring, so tempting and he tastes so good" you ponder. You continue your mistreatment and in no time he blows his load in you, releasing a loud scream to echo around the house. You keep him in your mouth observing as he slowly descents from his high. Gradually, he opens his eyes and looks back at you; face blown out yet blissful. He covers your hand with his own and with a satisfied smirk, you climb back on his lap for cuddles. You brush the damp strands away from his face to see him better, never breaking eye contact. "Was that okay?" you mischievously ask, breaking the silence. "More than okay" he joyfully exclaims. You stayed there wrapped together under the blanket until sleep called for you to head to bed. Once under the covers, he pulls your back to his warm chest and buries his face in your sensitive neck giving it a chaste peck, "I love you" he softly declares with a low whisper. You wrap your hands around his tighter, "I love you more" you profess playfully. From then on, you let your heavy eyes close taking in his pleasing scent; cherishing even the slightest thing about him you both end up falling into a deep slumber.

[rebloged-content]

Recommended Sanders Sides creators

Marry Christmas, everyone! And a wonderful December day to all of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, too. Let’s be honest right off the bat, though: I’m only using the date as an excuse to do this list anyways.

So. Throughout the time I’ve spent as a part of this wonderful corner of the sanders sides fandom over here on tumblr, I’ve often found a new creator and wished I’d found them sooner. It kind of makes me wonder who else I might miss. If you do to, here are a few creators I’d love for you to check out. You’ll probably recognize some of the names, if not all, but maybe you’ll find a new favorite creator here?

And to the creators in question, I really love your content. If you’ve made it onto this list, you’ve definitely cause one or two sleepless nights of reading for me, because who needs sleep if I can have this, right? XD Whatever you’ll find written next to your name is the impression you’ve left on me and… Well, just know that you’ve made some days of my life at least a little happier, all of you. And I hope to repay the favor by telling you how much I appreciate you releasing your content into this world… Well, repay the favor at least a little, I suppose.

Let’s begin, then, shall we?

@5am-the-foxing-hour Because this? This is who you go to if you want to read good Janus-content. You are in a mood to read sympathetic Janus? Wanna see the danger noodle just casually interact with other sides? Go to their short stories. I mean, “the cult”? Prime example of how to tell a story with impact in just a few words. 8 paragraphs, but boy did I read that one on repeat. Or “water spray bottle”, this one is fun, short and will make you laugh. An energy drink for the fander heart, so to say.

Then there’s their mafia-au, “there’s more in me than precious metals”. Six are out so far, and I adore every single word of every single part of this. Protective Remus, sassy Janus, angst, comedy relief, destruction, Roman-Remus-sibling-rivalry, braincell Logan, survival instinct Virgil, working together over a common enemy… This fic has it all, believe me. Take your time and read it, because you will read the entire thing in one go once you start. At least I did, and I didn’t even notice.

And their advent writings? Those had me squealing and jumping around in a way I will deny if anyone ever sees it. I don’t even know what else to say, they are fucking fantastic and that’s that.

So, yeah. Go check them out, before I start fangirling about them even more. You know my personal favorites now, so just go there. You won’t regret it.

Next up is @coconut-cluster. Ah, yes, Lexi. Lexi, whose uni-AU started as self indulgent and has become the loceit story on tumblr. We all know her, or at least most of us do, and we all love her too. And while I also drop everything I do at any point of time I possibly can once I realize the uni-au has any form of new addition, there are a lot of other fics created by her that you should check out as well.

Did you, for example, ever want a sappy prinxiety one-shot with the sappiness only being implied, a mutual understanding of “we’re-not-saying-we-care-but-we-both-know-we-do” born from joking reassurances and a not-a-date-nope-only-a-break? While that may seem to be a tall order, that is exactly what “before the sun goes down” is. Plus there’s ice cream. Or maybe you’re more of a logince fan? Do you want a fic where Roman isn’t the prince but serves His Highness? Do you like sincere talks while you’re procrastinating showing your face to the subjects you don’t really want to rule over? In that case, you really should read “Viva la Vida”. Careful, though, this one is so sweet you’ll probably get a toothache… There also is an analogical fic that I’ve enjoyed very much: “Cracks in the Ceiling”. I love it, because it’s just calm. Fears creeping up on you, thrown away by a trusted friend with a few words, just by being there and playing into the metaphors you head created this time around. It’s calm, and there’s not really a climax or anything, but it doesn’t need one. Because it’s just a glance into everyday life. It’s beautiful in its own right, really.

What I’m saying is, Lexi has a lot more wonderful stories to tell than the uni-au. It’s the most popular one, sure, and it’s one of her best works. But you really should check out her other fics as well. Lexi herself once said that she writs fics she’d like to read. I would figure it’s because of this, but her stories are mostly things you don’t really find anywhere else. Dynamics, stories, world building, all of those are aspects you may find somewhere else. But Lexi is just one of those people who see what they miss in a fandom and create it themselves, and among these creators Lexi is my favorite. She just has that certain skill that makes that approach to writing result in the most enjoyable reading experiences. Lexi’s fics are special, because they’re different, because they are authentic and you can feel that when you’re reading her work.

@djpurple3 is another talented individual I want to talk about. I have to confess, DJ is, as far as original content goes, almost exclusively locked in my brain with the fiction “I just keep loosing my beat”. 23 Chapters so far, one better than the last. It’s a bitter-sweet story following Remus and his children, after the bitch of a mother has been brought behind bars. Abusive piece of shit. Yeah, I don’t like her much. But the story is so full of love and support, everyone trying their best, everyone seeing how much the others deserve the world and wishing they could give it to them… Roman and Remus have a sibling-dynamic I would die for here, too. Patton is just the most adorable friend to Deceit - here Damion - Virgil is a precious bean, Logan is cute and the teacher we all wish he’d had ourselves and… god, I could keep gushing about this fic forever. I’ll stop now, though, before I’ll start spoiler things. Wouldn’t want to do that, especially since I really, really, really want more people to give this a go. It’s not underrated, I just think everyone who doesn’t is missing out by a lot, so… Go over there and read DJ’s fic right fucking now, if you haven’t already read it at least once. Thank you.

@delimeful​, our wonderful lime-friend with a cute cat making a terrifying face in his header. First of all, there is the WIBAR universe, short for “Watch it burn and rust”. 5 chapters in act one, 4 intermissions (one of those with three chapters), one chapter of act two, as well as three extras and an au of this au called “the end of being alone”, and I’ve lost count of how many nights I spent reading those instead of sleeping like I should. (Or interacting with family. Or being productive. Or… It’s really a good story, okay?!) WIBAR is a deathworlder au. So a space au in which humans are regarded as dangerous deathworlders who can survive on a deathworld like earth. In other words, Virgil is the only human, and boy does that scare everyone around him. And the best part? You can feel the development, the shift in mentality regarding Virgil, feel the moment approach in which he isn’t a threat but a companion instead.

And, apart from the fic that inspired me enough to start writing “TINND!R?” over on my writing blog, there are a lot more amazing fics to read on lime’s blog. He wrote “How easy you are to need”, for example. It’s soft, it pulls at just the right heartstrings, it’s achingly hopeful and, god, the ending still has me in tears, even after the fifth - ? sixth? something among those lines - reread. This one’s a werewolf au, actually. Virgil is the werewolf, Logan, Patton and Roman are the humans.

Do you want yourself some of that pre-AA dynamic? I’d recommend “to taste your beating heart”. In this, Virgil gets separated from the rest of his group of vampire hunters and gets turned into a vampire himself, loosing his memories. And he’s “Anx” now, not “Virgil”, goddamnit! He isn’t their friend anymore, why don’t they understand that? Well, probably because they can still see Virgil’s old habits shining through. There’s a lot of tension, a lot of angst and a whole lot of frustration involved in this.

He also wrote some amazing one-shots. They’re mostly so well written that I’m almost sad not to be waiting on a continuation. There’s “the littlest mermaid”, in which Virgil goes to investigate a noise, finding a scared, tiny mermaid in need of help. In “community gardens” we have Remus being Remus, gaining the interest and friendship of the forest’s giant Logan. “Magical mutualism” tells the tale of a witch and a demon making a pact beneficial to both parties and opening the doors neither could have gone beyond alone. The way we’re all confused about our ships not actually having set sail yet comes to a hight in Virgil in regards to his friends in “amateur matchmakers”. And this is the point at witch I stop talking before I actually recommend every single one of lime’s fics instead of just my favorites as I had planed because I started to gush too much… XD

Let’s move on to @muppenthings​. Mupp is an amazing artist and she created a giant mermaid au. There’s this one orca who’s just… We love her, but I actually don’t think she’s the brightest. I really, really love her, though. Virgil himself is being a little protective over his human friends and casually so. I love this comic series for the art style, but I also love the way it makes me crack a laugh at least once per work. Or appeal to my mother-instincts, if it’s about baby Virgil. Too cute for his own good, I tell ya! And the facial expressions! The detail, the jokes, everything about this is wonderful. You should at least take a look.

@whenisitenoughtrees​. Cat got me with “This cup of yours tastes holy (This lie is dead)”. “A slow voice on a wave of phase” was next, later “Infinity and beyond”, “we are not alone in the dark with out demons” and “changing of the guard”. And then, suddenly, the night was over. I’ve read almost all of the fics in one go, and I’ve been semi-frequently visiting her master post ever since. When “There’s an endless road to rediscover” came out just a little while back, that lead to me re-reading through almost the entire list. I don’t regret it, my plans for that weekend would like to disagree.

These six fics I mentioned here are, by no means, the only ones I enjoyed. Those are just the ones I’ve found myself opening up again and again in sleepless nights. Those are the ones that pop up in my head and have me smiling to myself in the middle of god-knows-whatever-I’ve-been-doing-at-the-time.

Angst, fluff, hurt-comfort, you’ll find everything in that list. And something I’ve grown to like about Cat’s fics even more than anything else is the quick change between feeling perplexed, a startled laugh at certain wordings (you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it) and apprehension. These fics will have you at the edge of you seat, swooping you away on an emotional roller coaster. And, god, the way Cat writes from Remus’ perspective? The introductions of her stories and the way she redirects to the main topic after going into detail on something? I saved a few paragraphs as screenshots on my phone because I love them and I want to read them again when I’m down. I just… Cat’s great.

Next up is @eliemo. Because Elias Virgil is the royalty of Virgil angst. From the touch-starved Virgil we’ve all had a head cannon of at one point in “Heart of Ice”, over ace Virgil panicking over telling his boyfriends that he his ace and didn’t think to tell them before in “Love our way” to so, so much more.

Mostly EV follows the story arc of an underlying feeling of dread at the beginning, which slowly grows into panic, exploding in a storm of angst and concludes in everyone, or at least whoever is around, coming to the rescue and helping to calm down, with the end being the hope for getting better in the future. They always manage to convey the confusion, fear or just the general thought process so well that you can’t help but get absorbed in the story. They know exactly what to say and what to leave between the lines to get the maximum effect. And, your heart will definitely be shattered after their angst. Still, the way the sides comfort each other and support each other so well every time is just… I love their stories, a lot.

I want to make two more suggestions if you want to check out this creator. A Janus angst fic, which can only be described as “ouch” you’ll find under the name “snake bite”. It hurts in the best way possible, because Janus gets the comfort he deserves.

The other suggestion gets a lot darker. It’s about Virgil having been abused by the “others” before he got accepted into the light side. The others are shocked to find out what has gone on behind their backs and they help Virgil in every way they can to recover. Of cause it’s a rocky path, though. This would be “Learned Behavior”. The series/au has twelve stories so far, one of which has two parts. You’ll find the master post for this pinned to the top on their blog.

If you like angst, you should also give @maybedefinitely404​ a look. Ly has a soulmate-au going, in which they use the concept of “you hear the music your soulmate listens to”. "Music in my head” is a prinxiety fic, but the two of them have yet to meet. Four chapters and two mini-fics in. The reason I mentioned angst is because in this - spoiler alert for the first few chapters here - , Virgil gets put through conversion therapy. Luckily Janus and Logan are better foster parents than the ones who did that to him.

They also have a master list for all their soulmate stories, featuring different ships. Apparently they participated in soulmate month, if I understood that correctly. And to be honest, that was how I even found their account. I absolutely adore their anxceit fic, which takes place in a human au. It’s starting off pretty sad, but the bonding moments are absolutely wonderful. It’s a lovely story, and the ending is one of the best ones I’ve yet to read. Their logince fic took my breath away, too. A flower shop/tattoo artist au, and Logan is the tattoo artist. Stunning writing, wonderful world building, just the right amount of backstory to have everything make sense without overwhelming/drowning the reader in unnecessary details. Their moxceit fiction… Well, this one had me in tears within the first few paragraphs. It’s terrible and you feel for Janus, whose perspective this is written from. The ending, though… Gods! The ending was so indescribably cute. To be honest, all of the soulmate stories are great, these three are just my personal favorites.

Concerning their one shots, you’ll probably have to figure it out on your own concerning this. I haven’t been able to read all of them yet, as sad as that makes me. Definitely palling on doing it in the future, though. I did read two of them, though. “Pippity poppity” really was amusing, and I am so looking forward to the second part of “The Boy who sings next door”. The way they write the dynamics between the sides? I live for that.

Another creator I would like to recommend is @maybe-im-tired.They don’t have a master post, as far as I could see, but they only post their content anyways, so… “Can’t take my eyes off of you” is my favorite out of their fics so far. I mean, the way they managed to fit the sheer chaos that is intrulogical into this one short fic is amazing. And you could take about two thirds of what Remus said and put it up on your wall as out-of-contexts-quotes. Don’t worry, he says them out of context anyways, and they will definitely make you laugh. 

The series of short stories for the human au that starts with “Glowing stars” is another au by them that you will almost certainly like. We have Logan and Virgil as kids (about 7 I think), Remus and Patton as single parents, Roman as the most adoring uncle, Emile as babysitter and Remy as his amazing partner. Remus is a great father, wonderfully chaotic as well. And a teacher! Imagine that, Remus as your teacher... He’s great with kids though, as long as they aren’t entitled villains come to make his precious Virgil feel bad, that is.

They also wrote a bunch of “random one shots”. They are all amazing, but my favorite has to be this one. It’s a logince one, once again human au. Patton may or may not tell his big brother’s crush about the feelings he wasn’t prepared to share yet. You know, as small kids do. It’s soft, it will make you smile as much as Logan does, and I love Remus in it. I generally like how they write Remus, okay? I know how much I’ve said it, but I’m not even exaggerating. They always write him differently, and all versions they write him as are so, so lovable and just… I wanna hug the life out of all Remus versions they wrote, okay? Take a look, you’ll know why.

Anyways. Let’s continue with @figurative-siren-song. This is the last account I’ve followed and I’m still sad about it having taken me this long to find them. Little salty, to be honest. (I’ll stick to they/them because they said just not to use she/her, and, well… consistency, you know? Don’t have much, so I have to get what I can XD). When I finally did find them, I went through their entire master list (at least all of the ships with characters I actually know. I’m kinda bad with the shorts characters, so I usually just… avoid them? Idk. Personal preference, I guess), and, well… I would honestly recommend every single fic on that list. They call themself “Repair Fluff King™️” and they deserve that title. But when they warn you that a fic will be angsty, it will be angsty.

I found them through the anxceit fic “A Deal”. Well, through an animatic by their friend on youtube that had linked the fic, but details. I’ve been reading this fic up and down again and again. It’s just so good! And when they talk in the second part and Janus explains why he proposed that deal. Or in the continuation, which i can’t talk about because I will probably spoiler things! So wholesome!

 Also, their losleepxeity fic “We’re worth it”. So soft! The nicknames, the plot, the everything. It’s softer than clouds look, and we all know that means something.

But, really. Everyone will find something for them by this creator. So many ships, all incredibly well written, and soft and fluffy without getting boring in the slightest. It’s as energizing as coffee, actually. And, let’s be honest, this whole fandom drowns itself in angst most of the time. Take a break from that, repair your broken hearts with goof fluffy content that you’ll want to read over and over again. Go check this creator out. You will love them. 

Last but not least… @myfriendsasthesides​ A blog by a creator who just takes the wonderfully chaotic dynamics of a friend group and using that to give us content of incorrect sides quotes. Maybe it doesn’t fit with me going on and on about fics here. I don’t care. Follow them and turn on those notifications, please, because seeing even one post of theirs on your dashboard will make your day. It’s funny, it’s absurd, it’s chaotic, it’s making you jealous of them for having friends like that. Believe me, you will want to see those posts. It’s just… the random shots of serotonin and dopamine out generation needs really fucking desperately 100% of the time. 

That’s it with the list! Eleven creators I absolutely adore, and I’m sorry I was babbling so much all the way through, but… Well, actually I’m not sorry. And actually, half of the reason I even made this post is to tell them how much I love them and fangirl about them a bit. So… Yeah. Well.I love you guys and hope you’ll have a wonderful day! And to everyone else reading this: I hope this helped you ind some new creators you can enjoy. And a good day to you too, of cause.

Sincerely, Joy 🖤

(@joylessnightsky/@sanders-sides-fic)

[rallamajoop]

The Witcher: The Games vs the Books part 2 – Characters and Accents

So, I've already talked at length about the relationship between the Witcher books and games, but how well they captured individual characters is its whole own subject – and you’d better believe I have enough thoughts on it for a whole extra post.

Andrej Sapkowski's skill for creating vivid and engaging characters really is so much of what brings the books to life, and no matter how much work an adaptation might put into worldbuilding and plot, it's the characters you've really got to nail to get the long-time fans on board. Especially when you’ve done what the games have, framing themselves as a direct continuation of Sapkowski's story. Nothing invites comparison to your source material like basically forcing fans to read the original novels to understand even half the backstory alluded to in-game. 

So how did they do? I can only offer my opinion – characterisation is necessarily going to be a lot more subjective than just telling you what plot points the games contradicted outright – but like any fan, I have opinions in plenty.

Of the main cast, I feel Yennefer is the character they've captured the best. They've done just as well with some supporting players – I have no real complaints about Dijkstra or Phillipa, for example, who are favourites of mine in both games and books. For the main players though, Geralt and Regis seem to be the ones who's differences I'm most inclined to forgive, whereas I don't feel like they've done Ciri justice at all. Book!Geralt is much less of a smartarse, for one thing, whereas Book!Ciri is much more of one. But if we're talking about the differences, I’m afraid we really need to start with Dandelion.

Dandelion

For all the genuinely good work the games do with characters, old and new, I don't think I can overstate what a disservice the they've done Dandelion, who I could not stand in TW3, but is now one of my favourite book!verse characters. Alas, Dandelion is a prime example of something the Witcher games really don't do well: camp. Being the archtypical bard, Dandelion is about as flamboyant as any enthusiastically-heterosexual man can be: you should be able to spot this guy by body language alone, he should be flouncing around and he should talk like a spoiled noble auditioning for Shakespeare. Book!Dandelion is over-the-top and ridiculous and just so much fun, and I loved him well before I'd even really gotten into the rest of the books around him.

Here's just a bit of dialogue from one of his first appearances, to give you a sense of how he and Geralt play off each other.

The  bard  seized ��the  fingerboard  of  his  lute  and  plucked  the strings vigorously. ‘How would you prefer it, in verse or in normal speech?’ ‘Normal speech.’ ‘As you please,’ Dandelion said, not putting his lute down. ‘Listen then, noble  gentlemen,  to  what occurred  a  week  ago  near  the  free  town  of Barefield. ‘Twas thus, that at the crack of dawn, when the rising sun had barely tinged pink the shrouds of mist hanging pendent above the meadows—’ ‘It was supposed to be normal speech,’ Geralt reminded him. ‘Isn’t it? Very well, very well. I understand. Concise, without metaphors. A dragon alighted on the pastures outside Barefield.’

Though TW3's Dandelion certainly looks the part, you have to go hunting through art from the Gwent cards to find much that comes close to really capturing his personality (see left pic below – though even there, a Dandelion who'd voluntarily break his treasured lute is a very hard sell). Though a lot of fanart does better (right-below – credit goes to Tatiana Ortaliz).

But as poorly as the games capture his flamboyance, they're not that much better when it comes to taking him seriously. TW3 left me thinking he was all talk and no substance; the books make abundantly clear that he really is renowned enough to be welcome in courts across the continent. Though he often overestimates what he can talk himself out of, he isn’t stupid either: he's lectured at Oxenfurt, spied for Dijkstra, and then there are the moments where the frivolous playboy mask slips and you realise he's sometimes much better at understanding people and relationships than Geralt will ever be (which is honestly kind of funny considering how many of Dandelion’s relationships end with plates being thrown at him from an upper story). He's not at all above mocking Geralt when he deserves it either (and especially his personal and relationship issues) – Geralt will happily mock him right back.

We never do learn how they became friends (I'm pretty sure the incident listed in the wiki is just the date of their first expedition together, not their first meeting), but Geralt just doesn't form lasting friendships or romances with anyone he can't have an intelligent conversation with. And Dandelion is a damn good friend to Geralt – one who, despite being a helpless, squishy little bard, will keep Geralt's secrets under torture, or will follow him into Nilfgaard in the middle of a war simply because you don't let a friend make a trip like that alone. (Seriously, I don’t ship it nearly as much as some, but hot damn there is some material in here if you do.) In short, it's basically inconceivable that he'd leave an amnesic Geralt wandering around Vizima alone, as he does in the first Witcher game – which is the kind of thing I can mostly forgive as a gameplay conceit, only it doesn’t really get better from there.

He’s also supposed to be blond, something I don’t think is technically specified until fairly late in the novels, but 100% what I’d been picturing since his first description as a man in a colourful bonnet with cornflower-blue eyes (let’s face it: Dandelion’s hair isn’t the only thing about him that screams ‘blond’). It’s a shame no-one from the games to the show to the novels’ cover artists seem to have noticed – but at least there are some fanartists out there who were paying attention (credit for these goes to Asphaloth, Ghostcupdraws, Hvit-ravn (tumblr deleted), 94355 and itsmespicaa).

As for the games? Well, I cannot speak to how Dandelion came across in the original Polish, but I think it speaks worlds about the priorities of the English version that they didn’t even bother to cast someone with a halfway-decent singing voice as their master bard. There are isolated moments of dialogue that come close to sounding like book!Dandelion– mostly in Witcher 2, which comes closer to capturing the spirit of the books than either 1 or 3, or his attempts to convince his captor he's a disguised noble when you rescue him TW3 – but his voice actor is just painfully ill-suited to the role.

Geralt

Geralt fares much better than Dandelion, though he’s still a little hard to square with the Geralt of the books. Book!Geralt spends a lot more time sulking, just to begin with: he sulks because his job is complicated and gets him no respect, and because the world is unjust and unfair – and, most of all, he sulks because Yennefer has dumped him again. He also gets mocked for sulking, and usually deserves it. Book!Geralt is generally a lot more taciturn and a less prone to making smart comments just to have something to say – arguably because in book!Geralt's world, making smart comments often ends at the gallows, or at least with some corrupt official making your life much harder. Book!Geralt's world kind of sucks, and he's just got to put up with it.

As much as he often plays into the expectations of being an uneducated monster hunter, he's also got a more of an intellectual streak than you’d guess. He may prefer to stay out of politics (because damnit, his job is to save people from monsters, not people who are monsters), but he attended school at Nenneke's temple and has even taken classes at Oxenfurt academy, and there's a lot of thoughtful nuance to his opinions – his speech to Ciri about why he can't in good conscience take a stronger stance against the Scoiata'el contains a wealth of historical perspective, just for one example. Even his smart comments tend to be, well, somewhat smarter in the books.

Book!Geralt’s explicitly a lot younger than Yennefer – around 50 is the usual estimate, falling far short of the 100-ish the games suggest (the scandal of having a man fall for – gasp! – an older woman clearly didn’t bother Sapkowski one bit). You don’t see nearly as much "I'm getting too old for this" from book!Geralt, who's really not that old by witcher standards, and is apparently still hunting monsters long into his future. I'm also a little annoyed by the way they play off his hatred of portals like he's a grumpy old man who doesn't like mobile phones, when his distrust originally came from having seen the gruesome deaths that result when portals go wrong. This is not to say Book!Geralt lacks other ordinary human flaws, however – twice in the last two books of the main saga, he gets severely sidetracked after his ego gets the better of him (in the adulation he receives after being knighted, then after arriving in Toussaint), and it's quite some time before he properly gets back on track for that whole rescuing-Ciri thing again. He’s also pretty hopeless when it comes to romance and relationships – breaking things off gracefully is really not in his skillset.

So why does game!Geralt not bother me more? Well, he's the main player character of a game franchise, and one who has to carry the experience largely solo. Some adjustments for genre are pretty much inevitable in that position. He's certainly fared better than Meve, for example, who's been softened far more from her book characterisation for her PC role in Thronebreaker. Then there's the whole amnesia thing – it's easy to believe that sort of experience would change a man – and if he doesn't sulk so much as he used to, maybe he's grown up a bit. Geralt's also in many ways the straight-man of Sapkowski's Witcher universe – there largely as the reliable centre for other, louder personalities to play off. But I expect the real bottom line here is that I do still like game!Geralt enough to forgive him a lot of what he lacks.

The books never do describe Geralt as being very attractive – something book-based fanart often tries to reflect. The point has been made before that the rather-alien-looking Geralt of the first game (left pic above) is probably a lot closer to his book-description. However, the main distinguishing factor you’ll see in book-based fanart is probably the ubiquitous headband, which genuinely is what book!Geralt wears to make his hair behave (the example on the right above comes from Diana Novich).

All that said, if Sapkowski really wants me to believe that nearly so many women are eager to jump into bed with him, I’m going to have to shallowly assume our witnesses are unreliable on this front, and Geralt is at least as attractive as Witcher 3′s take on him. Nothing else makes sense. *g*

Regis

Regis varies mostly in that book!Regis is a lot more smug, sometimes verging on obnoxious – and a lot keener to make fun of Geralt (who generally deserves it). But then, Regis is old and wise and superpowered enough to dance rings around most everyone else – can you blame him? By Blood and Wine, Regis' overconfidence has been recently smacked down hard after his near-death-experience at the hands of Vilgefortz, and that kind of thing could knock some chips off anyone's shoulder. Throw in the fact that with Dettlaff, we have a situation not even Regis could make light of, and the changes to game!Regis make a certain amount of sense.

I do feel it's a bit of a shame that the vocal direction didn't work just a little bit harder to capture some of Regis' smugger side, or emphasise that his long-winded philosophising on human behaviour is supposed to sound a bit pretentious. This is actually something I suspect they were going for a few times in the script, but which didn't come through in the dialogue quite the way it was meant to. Still, again, I'm sure I'm biased by the fact that I like game!Regis far too much to find much fault in what they've done with him. They've done a lovely job capturing his friendship with Geralt too.

Looks-wise, there's a tendency in book-based art to portray Regis with long hair (even some pre-Blood-and-Wine Gwent art did so – see the two pics on the left above, from Gwent and early B&W concepts. The right-most pic is cover art from the books). I couldn't rightly tell you where long-haired-Regis comes from, though – perhaps it's described more explicitly in the original Polish, or perhaps it comes up in passing in some passage I've forgotten, though it may just as well just be a fannish meme.

The books do describe him as looking rather like a tax collector, slim, middle-aged, with an aquiline nose, prone to wearing black, and his hair as 'greying' or 'grey streaked', so presumably somewhat younger-looking than the game would have it. The hammer-horror-esque sideburns are likewise a game-verse addition, though I do like the look they went with – it's distinct from Geralt in a way that making him another long-grey-haired man wouldn't have been, and that's probably the point.

Being the hopeless Regis fan I am, I have quite the folder full of different fanart takes on book!Regis, so have a selection – art here is by gellihana-art, justanor, greysmartwolf, Nastyaskaya, NatalyLanier, beidak, natalliel, ellaine and afternoon63. For what it’s worth, I feel beidak’s (bottom pic, second from the left) comes the closest to what I’d have pictured personally, based on how he’s first described.

Ciri

I find it much harder to rationalise the changes to game!Ciri, who I didn't exactly dislike, but found stuck too close to the role of generic-macguffin-girl-who-just-wants-to-be-normal to be very interesting. Having read the books, not only do I much prefer book!Ciri, I'm not sure I can emphasize enough how much the game did NOT prepare me for utter gauntlet of whump and misery that girl survives in the last four titles. Book!Ciri is a character who works for me mostly because of the same flaws the game mostly strips her free of – TW3 makes some token noise about how you can't tell her what to do, but she’s an utter little royal brat when we first meet book!Ciri, and it’s so much of what brings her to life. She throws herself into her witcher training with the enthusiasm of a kid going completely native, but still revels in getting to be girly for a change when Triss first arrives at Kaer Morhen. She hates Yennefer at first, but soon bonds with her just as strongly as she ever did with Geralt, picking up some of Yennfer’s haughty mannerisms along the way. And then she gets thrown through a portal and lost in the distant wilderness, and the whole world comes down on her head.

The build up to the first time Ciri actually has to kill someone is intense... and things only get worse from there. Steadily. For another couple of novels at a stretch. Seriously, a major caveat that pretty much has to go into any rec for these books (and I will absolutely rec these books) is that Ciri's story gets heavy. So heavy one finds oneself using phrases like, "that time that one guy died of his wounds on top of her while semi-consensually feeling her up was honestly one of the less traumatic incidents in the period."

By the end of the novels, Ciri has nearly died of thirst, been beaten, tied up, dragged around the country as a prisoner, run with bandits and killed innocent people for the fun of it, done fantasy-cocaine and got a tattoo, fought off more than one attempted rape, been drugged, lain for multiple nights next to an impotent elf who completely fails to impregnate her, watched the bodies of her friends and girlfriend being mutilated in front of her, and did I mention where she got that scar? She has survived hell, and it is absolutely a testament to her own strength that she somehow comes through it and puts herself back together at the end. When Geralt finally arrives to rescue her, what matters most isn't that her ordeal is over, but that she finally knows she hasn’t been abandoned by everyone who’d ever loved her after all.

The Ciri of the books is fierce and wild and arrogant, but she's learned her morals from the best, and she holds onto them until she can't, then picks them back up again when she can, and above all she survives. For all that her story turns arguably too much of the last two books into a slog of misery, oh boy does it pay off at the end. And that's probably about as much as I can say about her Big Moment in the last book without spoiling too much, so suffice to say that by the end of the saga, Geralt has pretty much become a supporting character in Ciri's story, not the other way around. (Seriously, you’d be surprised how few chapters of the last two books he’s actually in.)

Finding art which captures the aspects of Ciri’s character and history which are missing from the game has turned out to be pretty hard, though the fanart above from her bandit phase takes a decent crack at it (credit to Loles Romero and NastyaSkaya). I do rather like that one shot of her on horseback beside her girlfriend too, which comes from Denis Gordeev’s illustrations for the novels (below).

How much of this does TW3 get across with her portrayal in the game? Well, she's still pretty headstrong, I guess. And they let you give a 'sorry, I like girls' answer in one bit of dialogue, so they remembered her girlfriend existed. That's nice. But game!Ciri still has a kind of wide-eyed innocence that book!Ciri lost years ago, while book!Ciri is a little force of nature in ways the games hardly even hint at, and that's a really shameful loss.

You'd think, with a character so young, it ought to be easier to imagine she's simply grown up since we saw her last, but so much of what's changed about Ciri feels like a step back rather than forwards. I can shrug off Geralt and Regis' differences and still enjoy their game-verse-selves, but Ciri leaves me genuinely disappointed.

I’d say the official art that comes closest to capturing book!Ciri is that one portrait of her as a very grumpy young child (right above). Some of the early concept art (left above) feels a little more like it has her attitude, though she’s rather too yellow-blonde – not to mention too pretty. I think it also bears pointing out that Ciri isn’t really supposed to be the kind of beauty she is in the game – even before she gets what’s meant to be a seriously ugly and disfiguring scar. (Fanart below by justanor and bobolip)

But of course, the male gamer fanbase can’t be expected to give a fuck about a girl they wouldn’t want to fuck, so game!Ciri must be generically gorgeous. Le sigh.

Triss

I suppose I should at least touch on Triss, too, though she's a very odd case. She's so out of character in the first Witcher game that I am wryly amused that the biggest thing they arguably do get right is that taking advantage of Geralt the moment he showed up with amnesia is... pretty well in-character for her (look, I gotta be honest here, I'm not much of a fan of Triss in any of her incarnations).

The second game does a much better job with her – she actually feels like book!Triss, she has some good dialogue, we're finally dealing with some of her conflicted loyalties to the Lodge and to Geralt – though by the third, her characterisation has been so softened into “the nice one” that none of that potentially meaty conflict is ever resolved, or even really mentioned. Perhaps there's more buried in the Triss-romance path, which I've never bothered with, but the writers seem to have just given up on dealing with anything that might make her look less than wholly sympathetic. Heck, we hardly even get a clear statement about why she and Geralt broke up between Witchers 2 and 3.

Even speaking as such a not-a-fan of Triss, I promise there is more they could've done with the character the books give us. There's her ongoing trauma in from the Battle of Sodden, where she was injured so badly she was memorialised as one the dead: the 14th of the hill. There's her furious impatience with the neutrality of both the witchers and the Lodge: Triss has fought and died for a cause, and is ready to do so again. The second game sort of gets into this, but by and large, the games really aren't up to tackling the moral complexity of having such a theoretically-sympathetic character as Triss, who was still broadly willing to go along with the Lodge's plans to pair Ciri off and get her pregnant as soon as possible – her own wishes be damned. No, instead, Triss has conveniently left the Lodge before the rest of them go spiraling into abject villainy in the second game, clearing all that messy grey stuff out of the conflict.

Of course, the really big unresolved plot point still hanging over book!Triss is how badly she needs to terms with the fact Geralt's just Not That Into Her, and never has been – but since the games want Triss to be a serious romantic option, that's definitely not getting the resolution it could've used.

Book!Triss also pointedly avoids any outfit with a plunging neckline because her chest is covered with the ugly scars she received in the Battle of Sodden, something the games did not have the guts to reproduce. In a more confusing note, the books do consistently describe her hair as 'chestnut', which we'd usually think of as meaning 'brown' – though it turns out the games actually may not have been wrong to make her a redhead, since in Poland 'chestnut hair' apparently mean dark red hair (google some pictures of actual chestnuts, and you'll see why). Still, the firy-red-haired Triss of TW3 who wears nothing but plunging necklines remains a bit of a stretch, however you slice it. Once again, TW2 gets her best (and I must say, gave her the nicest outfit) – though even here she's conspicuously unscarred in all her sex scenes.

(Leftmost pic above is official Witcher 2 art, whereas Triss-with-scars fanart comes to us – once again – from nastyaskaya)

Shani

Shani sort of falls into a similar category as Triss as someone who isn't terribly well-served by any of her appearances, given that both exist in the first game largely to compete for Geralt's attentions. But I can't honestly say I find Shani’s portrayal in the Hearts of Stone expansion to be much better – the degree to which either version exists solely to fall all over Geralt is a bit painful, especially given that their relationship in the books is limited to a single, undramatic hook-up. Book!Shani really only appears in a couple of chapters: we meet her as a medical student friend of Dandelion's, who's been surreptitiously selling pilfered university supplies to fund her degree, then later see her again in the final book, where she proves herself as a battlefield medic during the climactic Battle of Brenna. She's pragmatic to a fault, and I really can't see her as the type who needs Geralt to point out to her that her patient is dead, for example, or who'd subject a guy with Geralt's problems to such an extended feelings-dump as you'll get out of her during the wedding.

Shani is a reasonably logical book-character to bring back, if only because she’s one of those who explicitly survives the ending, but for my money, "serious contender for Geralt's affections" is just not a role she works in.

Anna Henrietta

The duchess of Toussaint, Anna Henrietta, is another case who differs more from her book counterpart than you might think. In the books, the duchess is by far the least competent of the (pleasantly many and) various female leaders and rulers we meet – she comes across as rather young and naive, and every bit as absurd as everyone else in the ridiculous fairy-tale duchy she rules. She is, for example, most displeased to learn that Nilfgaard's war against the north is ongoing (something her courtiers have carefully avoided mentioning in her presence), because she'd long since sent the Emperor a stern note demanding he brought it to an end. She promptly has one of her ministers sent to the tower for misinforming her, and demands the others prepare an even sterner note for the emperor, which will surely do the job.

After Dandelion (inevitably) cheats on her, she has him repeatedly sent to the gallows, only to change her mind and send him a reprieve at the very last minute each time. Picture yourself a much younger and prettier version of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, and you've about got her general vibe.

Blood and Wine sort of waves at this part of her character when she first speaks about Dandelion, and again in suggesting there's a widespread feeling she lacks compassion, and once more as she proves utterly immovable on the subject of her sister. But the generally sensible and insightful woman you deal with for most of the main story is a far cry from her book-verse characterisation. That’s a bit of a shame, because I feel like there's a lot more they could have done to blend the two versions of her. Still, it’s hard to argue the duchess we get suits the story being told around her.

Other characters

Much as I love Yennefer, Dijkstra and Phillipa, I don't really have much more to say about them because I feel the games have done such a good job. The Yennefer of the books gets to show a lot more depth and complexity simply because she has more scenes and more space in which to do so, but when ‘there isn’t more of her’ is your biggest complaint, the game is officially doing pretty well. I could certainly gripe her about how “dresses in black and white” seems to have been taken as “dresses in black with maybe a trace of white trim”, or how Yennefer and Triss seem to be the only sorceresses in the world capable of wearing pants, when Phillipa (just for one) is in sensible men’s clothing the very first time we meet her, but that’s getting into serious nitpicking territory.

(Not that Yen can’t look amazing in outfits with more white – art by Emily Caroll, theclashofqueens, BarbaraRosiak, and cosplay by greatqueenlina)

Vesimir, Lambert and Eskel, Geralt's fellow witchers from the School of the Wolf, fall into a similar category for me – though we spend far less time with them in the books, everything we see of them in the games feels like a fairly logical extension of their book-roles. Vesimir is somewhat over-played as the old fogey, and his death is painfully cliched, but the impact on the characters and Kaer Morhen still hits home – and the games do some especially great work expanding Lambert into a much more complex character. To my mind, the only shame is that more of the book-original characters didn't get the same treatment.

Who have I missed? There's Avallac'h, of course, but I think I've got him pretty well covered by that last post. Zoltan, perhaps inevitably, has had his personality largely flattened into 'generic dwarf', with nothing better to do than hang around Geralt and Dandelion. You wouldn't know Book!Zoltan was apparently incapable of turning away women and children in need, for example – even human women and children with the chronic inability to say thankyou for his help. Or that he eventually admits to Geralt that the luggage he and his friends are carrying comes from a decidedly unsavoury source for such a supposedly charitable, upstanding guy. Yes, even Zoltan gets to be a morally complicated character in the books – who knew?

Speaking of dwarves, pleased as I am that Yarpen Zigren gets remembered in TW2, he's an odd one to talk about, since even in the books, he appears to have had a substantial personality transplant between his two main appearances. Yarpen’s a largely comedic figure in The Bounds of Reason short story, where he cheerfully admits to having considered letting his men knock down a particularly pompous aristocrat and piss all over him to teach him a lesson, but he’s evolved into a studious voice of reason against the scoiata'el by Blood of Elves. TW2 doesn't do a particularly good job of capturing either version, which I suspect probably bothered me more than most people – I liked the later book-incarnation of Yarpen immensely (and not even just because he's one of few ever to really call Triss out on just how much she needs to stop misreading Geralt's friendship as anything more than it is). His chapter in Blood of Elves packs a hell of a punch.

On the subject of accents

I do have to wonder if I'd have warmed up to characters like Triss, Shani and Dandelion (or even Letho) more if they'd only had halfway decent voice actors. It's not just that none are exactly leading the talent at the acting part of the job, it's that their American accents stick out in TW3 like a sore thumb.

Geralt mostly gets away his own US accent by dint of being the very first character we meet, so we've gotten used to the way he talks long before we notice how he stands out – hell, maybe that's just how they talk down in Rivia (hilariously, book!Geralt eventually reveals he's not even from Rivia, but simply picked the place and taught himself the accent so he could feel a bit less like the abandoned foundling he is, which only gives us yet more excuse for why his accent might sound a bit weird). More importantly, Geralt is meant to stand out, to be the outsider wherever he goes, so having him sound like no-one else fits the character.

But neither Triss or Dandelion are "of Rivia", and by the time they show up we've had dozens of hours in a game where literally everyone else sounds British, or Scottish, or Irish, or vaguely-eastern-European in the case of the Nilfgaardians. So why do these weirdos sound like no-one else on the continent?

The short answer seems to be that every character with an American accent in TW3 is someone who had an American accent in at least one of the previous games, which were way looser with their casting and had enough incidental American accents around that they didn't stand out. Clearly, by TW3, consistency with prior games has been prioritised over consistency with literally anything else we’re hearing.

Gaetan is an exception to the rule as the only new character (at least that I caught) with an American accent – presumably because between Geralt, Eskel, Lambert, Berengar, and Letho (and cohorts), some sort of 'witchers have American accents' rule has been pretty well established (another random American-accented witcher shows up in Thronebreaker, just to underline the point). We're going to mostly ignore Jad Karadin here, since his British accent is presumably a recent affectation to go with his new identity, and so makes sense.

This still doesn't really work though, since Letho’s school is all the way down in Nilfgaard (land of the Eastern European accents), while the oldest witcher from Kaer Morhen (Vesimir) is the one guy with a British accent. He sounds nothing like any of his students, despite the fact he's logically the guy they ought to have learned their accents from. So the logic falls in a heap however you slice it, and I'm thrown right out of the game.

With TW3 as your intro to the series, it feels almost as if characters like Triss and Dandelion have been assigned American accents because they're just too important to be saddled with the same pedestrian British accents as everyone else, which did nothing to endear them to me. The only one I eventually warmed up to was Lambert, and then only because he's just such a bitter asshole that he eventually goes full circle and comes out the other side (somewhere around when you've heard his miserable backstory, then gotten drunk together and told him how much you love him, man). Gaetan similarly snuck in under the same clause – American accents clearly work better for me in this series when attached to characters you're supposed to find pretty insufferable on first impressions.

Some final notes

To conclude, it seems only fair to throw in a quick nod to some of the more memorable book-characters who don't appear in the games. Neither Mother Nenneke (Geralt's sort-of-surrogate mother) or Vissena (Geralt's biological mother) ever appear either, alas – Vissena doesn't even merit so much as a Gwent card, which seems quite the wasted opportunity.

Milva, Cahir and Angouleme – the three remaining companions of Geralt’s who died alongside Regis but who were not so easily resurrected – naturally don’t appear. But nor are even really mentioned in all the games, which seems rather less than they deserve after giving their lives to Geralt's cause.

Cahir and Angouleme do at least have pretty badass Gwent cards to their names, though I am properly offended that Milva (who has the dubious honour of being my very favourite book character who doesn't ever appear in the games) is stuck with a card of her freaking death scene – which not only gets the scene wrong (believe me, there was no grimacing and gripping the arrow buried shallowly in her chest for poor Milva), but doesn't even bother to get her hair the right colour, for fuck’s sake. Basically, Milva was a stone cold badass and absolutely deserves better. #justice4milva

One can only guess how I'd have felt about some of these characters had I read the books before playing the games – I am obviously biased towards forgiving changes to characters whom I liked in their game incarnations, regardless of how they compare. Still, I think it does speak wonders that there still all these characters who suddenly made sense only after I'd met them in the books.

Even if only for Dandelion and Ciri, I can only dream of seeing a bit more of the book-original characterisations make it into the collective fannish consciousness. There's nothing wrong with getting into the canon purely based on the show or the games, but having read Sapkowski's novels, it's no longer any mystery how they spawned this massive franchise. That the saga wasn’t even fully available in English until well after Witcher 3 was released – a solid couple of decades late, and long after it had already been translated into Russian, French, German, Spanish and more – is a real shame. For once, it’s us in the anglophone world who’ve been missing out: these books deserve so much more than to be thought of as a footnote to the games or the show.