#never have i written game

[pepsi-maxwell]

For the fic ask... Christian/Lucha

oooh, interesting! i have not written it, but if i did...

i headcanon luchasaurus/killswitch as a kind of hybrid man-dino, so i think it would be a pretty dark fic! putting under a cut for themes of dehumanisation, conditioning and abusive relationships

i imagine it starts with christian, over time, emphasising and encouraging his more bestial side at the detriment of his humanity. using praise and physical pleasure as a conditioning tool (maybe allowing lucha to fuck him, or be fucked by him, or even just to touch himself) to make him more violent, more animalistic, and more agreeable to christian's wants and desires.

i imagine the increasingly diminished part of his mind that's human trying to push back, to resist in whatever way he can, which is something that christian is all too happy to beat out of him.

i don't know if the story would end happily, with luchasaurus successfully rebelling and freeing himself from christian's yoke, or badly, with killswitch becoming his perfectly trained pet monster, capitulating to his master's every horrific whim

[tomurakii]

I like bloodweave. Okay. But I DON'T like the version of them in fanfic where Astarion is a dick and Gale is like. Whining and pleading for him to be emotionally vulnerable (or just. Nice to him) prior to the relationship being established. Because that is just not accurate. Gale needs the player to express interest in him during his weave-teaching scene before he even considers hitting on them properly. Gale is entirely resigned to his fate and needs someone else to pull him away from it. Gale only starts being sweet and romantic and devoted after you accept his love confession and give him hope for the future. Gale says fuck all and then slinks away to cry privately if you break up with him.

Like he isn't chasing after people lmao. He isn't dropping to his knees and crying about anything much less this dickhead he met a week ago. He is overwhelmingly passive about literally everything personal to him up to and including his own death (provided there are no casualties/there is a good reason) until after the player expresses that they care about him. Astarion is not doing that in any of these fics.

Like Gale is friendly and a dork and doesn't wanna get murdered but he fully has a suicide plan. He thought the artefacts would help him survive but he didn't believe he'd ever truly live again. If Gale confessed and Astarion said/did like one (1) mean thing afterward Gale's romance is closed off forever. He's wandering into the forest to cry. He's killing himself immediately. His fragile ego and self worth can't take it. You have to understand that when we joke about him being pathetic it's not bc he's like. Sopping wet and chasing people down and begging for a scrap of attention. It's because he craves affection but would literally rather die than ask or even hope for it until someone else forces that hope back into his serotonin-deficient tadpole brain.

[leupagus]

The degree to which Davos and Brienne are going to become reluctant BFFs, because their lieges keep coming to them complaining about each other, is UNREAL

or, more from this fic that's slowly eating my life

~

Their journey to the Northern army's camp had revealed a great deal about Lady Stark and her lords and petty chieftains: their patronizing generosity, their gruff suspicion of outsiders, and above all their mind-boggling obstinacy. Ned and Lyanna had been much the same, from what he remembered, and Stannis had seen shades of it in Jon Snow, though couched more gently than he'd expected from a bastard. He'd imagined — insofar as he'd imagined her at all — that Lady Stark would be gentler still, her mother's line warming that chilled Northern blood.

He had been disastrously mistaken. It was a wonder only one Stark had survived, but it was already clear that she had gathered the entire share of Stark mulishness.

"I have conditions, Your Grace," said Lady Stark. "If this alliance is to succeed in retaking Winterfell, I feel it right that you hear them." She placed the parchment in her hand carefully on his table and stepped back, hands folded primly.

She had requested, and been granted, this conference shortly after Stannis's army had made camp alongside the Northern soldiers. Stannis's tent had barely been erected when she came to him with this parchment, her wolf, and a determined expression. He had thought he'd listened to her enough on the journey as she'd prattled away with Shireen, but he was in the mood to be permissive.

Reading through her list of demands, he could feel the headache building along his jaw and up through his skull. "Have you lost your mind?" he said, for the second time in a week to an unreasonable woman.

Melisandre had brushed his question aside, but Lady Stark was not made of such supple stuff; she stiffened and glowered at him. "That is a peculiar way to agree to my terms, Your Grace."

"Your terms are rather more than peculiar, my lady," he said, tossing the parchment back on the table.

In truth, the first one was not so peculiar: it said that should they regain the Keep, he would recognize Sansa Stark as Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the North in her own right. He would not pass her over in favor of some lesser Northern male relative, nor would he obligate her to marry and rule only as companion to her husband. Considering Stannis's own intention to ensure Shireen sat on the Iron Throne after his death, he could hardly begrudge her this.

Considering the other two stipulations, however, he felt very much inclined to begrudge her everything.

"Supposing your younger brothers turn up?" he asked, thrusting his chin at the parchment. "Or Jon Snow is legitimized?"

This question didn't faze her, he suspected because it was a question of logistics and protocol rather than a personal remark. "If Jon is made legitimate, I don't believe he would want Winterfell—"

"Duty is not a question of wanting, Lady Stark," he reminded her. "And the Lord Commander is—"

"The Lord Commander, as you say, is the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch," she retorted. "His life has already been pledged to the Wall. If he didn't abandon that cause in aid of my brother Robb, he won't abandon it now."

Stannis observed her. There was bitterness there, certainly, though less than he would have thought. Lady Stark clearly understood the ties that bound men to their duty, even if she did not like them.

"However," she continued, "Should any of my brothers wish to make a claim to Winterfell in my place, I won't stand against them." She paused for a moment, and added, "I have no wish to die at their hands out of misplaced pride."

Stannis clenched his jaw but let that go for the moment — it would be addressed soon enough. "You call me 'Your Grace,'" he said, tapping at the parchment, "Yet your second stipulation says that you will not bend the knee to me, even if I regain Winterfell for you."

"No, it says that I will not bend the knee to any claimant to the throne until they hold the majority of the kingdoms," she shot back. "The Lannisters hold the Crownlands, the Westerlands and the Reach at present. The Riverlands are still in chaos, the Vale has withdrawn from all alliances to sulk in their mountains, and both Dorne and the Iron Islands have declared for themselves, more or less. You can, at best, claim that the Stormlands still support you, though I've seen no evidence for it — they didn't march under your banner at first, did they?"

That was the second time she had brought up Renly, however obliquely. If she were trying to drive him mad, she couldn't go about it any better. "When I hold the North, my lady, I will have more land—"

"Setting aside the notion that it will be you alone who holds the North, you'll have more land and fewer men than any other region. If you wish to win against the Lannisters, you'll need more than mountains and glaciers fighting your battles. And if I wish to be Warden of the North, I can't keep the respect of my lords by swearing fealty to a man who has yet to earn it."

"I could have you burned for such talk," he said, getting to his feet and pouring himself some water, hoping it would ease the throbbing in his head.

"You don't burn nobles, you behead them," she replied cooly. "I should know. I was there when the Lannisters took my own father's head for supporting your claim to the Iron Throne. I have no intention of sharing his fate." She took a deep breath, and only then did he note that her hands had been clenched together, her right covering the balled-up fist of her left. "I won't take arms against you now or in the future, on that I give my word."

"And if I do have you beheaded?" he asked, putting the tin cup down before he crumpled it in his hand.

It seemed to amuse her. "Then my words will mean even less than they do now."

"They mean nothing, because you will not give them!" He pinched his nose and attempted to regain his composure. Surprisingly difficult, with this — child.

She regarded him for a moment. "You call me Lady Stark, Your Grace," she said, "but tell me, have you heard anyone else call me that?"

Stannis, thrown by the question, was forced to consider it. In truth, he had heard only Lady Sansa, though said with more reverence by her men and lords than he could ever recall being addressed himself. "You are Lady Stark."

"Not without Winterfell," she said, shaking her head. "It's more than just the home of the Starks, it is our…place in the world. We belong nowhere else. Just as there must always be a Stark at Winterfell, so too do we need Winterfell to truly be Starks." She gave him a pointed look. "Just as Your Grace needs the Iron Throne, and the fealty of all the Seven Kingdoms, to truly be king."

She was wrong, of course, but Stannis felt the same lurch in his belly whenever his footing slipped during a bout. "Perhaps your reticence has something to do with this last stipulation," he said instead, going back to the table and jabbing his finger at the third line. "Falsely accusing a king is treason."

"Is Lady Brienne falsely accusing you, Your Grace?" she asked, smooth as ice. Her hands were still clenched, he noted.

"I was nowhere near Renly's camp when he died," Stannis said, with perfect truth, even as he felt himself balanced on a knife's edge.

He had been nowhere near. He had woken up just before dawn with the lead weight of certainty in his belly, knowing what had happened — what the Red Woman had said must happen — and lying there, staring up at the tent's canvas, he had wept. Wept for the brothers he had loved and who had never loved him back. He would never know if Renly had had a hand in Robert's death; just as he would never know if he himself had had a hand in Renly's. Had he ordered Melisandre to kill him? Had he believed her when she said she could make such a thing come to pass? Davos had begged to tell him of what had happened in the cave that night, what monstrous thing the Red Woman had done to bring Renly's death about. Stannis had refused to hear it. Perhaps there was a sort of rough justice in facing his accuser now, the only one living who knew the truth.

"Lady Brienne has served me faithfully," said Lady Stark, "and my mother before me, at great cost to herself. I believe her testimony, Your Grace."

"Her testimony that I murdered my own brother."

Lady Stark regarded him steadily. "I will not insult either of you by declaring one more honorable than the other. But when I regain Winterfell, my duty as Warden of the North will be to adjudicate all such matters, and this falls under my purview. Even if you were crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms in the Red Keep itself, the North holds all persons, regardless of title, under its laws while they reside here."

"Renly didn't die in the North," was all he could manage to say.

"He died, Your Grace." Lady Stark looked almost pitying. "And for that, I'm sorry. I know what it is to lose your brothers. But on this point I will not waver."

"Is there any point on which you have?" he asked, curious.

She continued serenely. "Lady Brienne will be permitted to make her accusation publicly; how you respond to it is your affair, but if you prevail, you must give me your word now that she will not be held guilty of treason, nor will she be killed by any member of your party by any means." She put enough emphasis on the last two words to make her meaning plain.

"And if she prevails?" Stannis asked. "Your stipulations do not mention the outcome of the trial, only that it will take place." He smiled grimly. "Your father always said that he who passes the sentence should swing the sword, my lady. Will you behead me yourself?"

"I doubt either of us would find that a pleasant exercise, Your Grace," she said, her lip curling slightly. She didn't blanch, however; young as she was, she had seen worse. Had possibly done worse, if the rumors about the Purple Wedding were true. He'd not asked. "If you are found guilty, then you will ride south. If you win the support of the other kingdoms, the North will bend the knee to you. But you'll never come north of the Neck again. Does that satisfy?"

Stannis glanced down at the parchment again. There it all was, in black and white: the price he must pay for the North. The blasted girl had even provided a space for him to sign at the bottom.

"Not remotely," he said, but reached for his pen.

[mattodore]

found out while putting together matthias's oc page that his name has the exact same etymology and meaning as theo's name...

i’m sure this is information matthias is very normal about…

[saraanzu]

it’s interesting how in the alternate sara minisode ending, her thought process isn’t really “if I loved joe more, I could’ve saved him”, the massacre ending she imagined with him is more focused on her guilt for killing everyone else rather than her guilt for not saving him. it’s “if I loved joe more, we would both end up with blood on our hands, that’s why I shouldn’t get too close to people.”

there’s no english translation of joe’s light novel sadly, but I remember reading a summary of it a while back, and joe actually has similar feelings about how escaping with sara would’ve been a bad choice. as he dies, he has a dream about what would happen: ryoko and all his friends would call him a murderer, he would become a cop so he could save people and make up for the people he killed, but the guilt would stay with him for the rest of his life. he hears sara crying, and his last thoughts are that he would do anything to make her stop.

both of them ultimately decide that the guilt of killing everyone else would not have been worth escaping together. they don’t want to be murderers, and they especially don’t want to make each other murderers.

[ninyard]

Hey! Do you have specifics for your prompts? Do you want just one person or is a couple ok? If just one person could you do something with Seth? Maybe a what if he didn't die and got his shit together?

And if a couple Kevin and Seth getting along?

(I'm in my loving Seth era...)

Thank you for sharing your writing, you are awesome!

THANK YOU okay so here’s what I offer you: Seth survives and nobody believes him when he says he didn’t do it (but Kevin can’t live with himself if he doesn’t tell him he knows who did) TW: drugs, suicide mention, overdose

-

It was Halloween, and Seth was not stupid enough to think that the bar would be quiet. Wall to wall bodies in costumes, a fire hazard waiting to happen, he wasn’t even sure they would get in, but when the bouncer noticed him and Allison at the back of the line, he waved them up and let them go ahead. He was a decent guy like that. A larger man with a buzz cut, tattoos creeping up his neck, donning a pair of devil horns on his head for the night that was in it. He smiled at Seth when he entered the building.

It was his third drink in when he started to feel wrong. He chalked it up to too many sweaty people in one room, each ones body heat raising the temperature a few degrees. Only a minute after he noticed something felt wrong, did he really start to know that something was really wrong.

Allison had asked him if he was okay. He didn’t remember answering. One minute they were there, stood by a table they’d managed to squeeze their way over to, and the next he was sat on the cold and dusty sidewalk out the front, not enough cool air in the world enough to ease the growing nausea that grew from the pit in his stomach. “I feel like I’m coming up off a real fuckin’ bad pill.” At least, that’s what he thought he said, what he meant to say. He could barely hear his own voice, his neck not strong enough to hold up his head.

“Look at me, open your eyes.” Allison held his head in her hands. “Oh, your- what the fuck?” Seth wasn’t sure what she’d seen in his eyes, but her phone was in her hands, and then by her head, and then he woke up in the hospital two days later. For some reason he was surprised that Allison was still by his side, her hand wrapped so tightly around his, as if letting go would mean she would never hold it again. She didn’t look like she’d slept, or taken a break from crying, either, hair unkempt and out of her face, makeup non-existent. She was wearing his sweats with a hospital blanket across her lap, and she cried and kissed around the medical equipment when she finally got the courage to touch him. She was so gentle, like he would break; It felt like he would, more fragile than he’d been in a very, very long time.

Allison told him that he’d overdosed. His heart sank at that, disappointed in himself before he remembered that he hadn’t taken anything. Then he noticed the nurse sitting in the corner, who smiled his way. The psychiatric team came up not long after they were informed that he was awake. He was confused, but given his history, he wasn’t that surprised. He was surprised, however, when they told him what the concoction was that he’d overdosed on.

The blood test showed a toxic level of his anti-depressants, alongside traces of both heroin and painkillers that had been an opiate he favoured when he was actively using back in the day. He should’ve died. It was a miracle that somebody in the queue had naloxone in their bag, and they’d saved his life by administering it. He would never find out who they were, or why they’d helped him, but the consequences of surviving were much more painful that the death he would’ve never remembered anyway.

He wanted to die when Allison looked at him with tears in her eyes and whispered, “how could you do this to me?”, or when the psychiatry team asked him for the tenth time in an hour if he had plans of ending his life. He wanted to die when the nurses who had him on 24/7 suicide watch had to accompany him to the toilet, and when Dr. Dobson accompanied David to the hospital the day he was allowed to leave. They’d proposed an involuntary stay in a psych ward, but Betsy had managed to convince them to let him go.

Nobody wanted to hear it; somehow he’d overdosed on his own medication, and even when he counted out the pills and tried to prove that he hadn’t done it, nobody seemed to believe him. They only sent him this look of pity, as if a failed attempt was worse than a successful one, as if he was simply trying to cover for the fact it hadn’t worked. Allison tried her best to support him, but it was hard for her. She’d watched him seizing outside the bar, foaming at the mouth and choking on his own vomit. She’d sat in the ambulance as the paramedics resuscitated him the whole way to the hospital. Betsy told him she hadn’t left his side since he was admitted; and it was really difficult for her to watch him lying there with tubes and wires blocking her view. She’d broke down two days after they returned to campus, and begged him to just be honest, that there was no way he’d been coincidentally spiked with his own medication, one that had seizures at the top of the list of warnings. Even just doubling the dose of his meds had the potential to be fatal, and he knew that. He hadn’t been depressed for a long time. His meds worked, so much better than any of the others that he’d tried, and he wouldn’t have risked being taken off them by doing something so stupid for no reason at all. It felt as though he was being gaslit into believing he had in fact taken too many pills before leaving, but none of it made sense. He took his pills in the mornings. He had been clean from hard drugs for months. Even on the off-chance that he had taken a handful of the little circular pills, how did the heroin get there, the opiates he hadn’t touched in years?

He’d been curled up in a ball in the corner of the couch, alone in the dorm when a knock came at the door. It was no more than two weeks after the incident, and he’d just returned from a session with Betsy. He didn’t respond to the knock, but kept his eye on the door as it creaked open. The last person he expected to see peeking around it was Kevin, but there he was. He shut the door behind him and sat on the opposite side of the couch. If he tried to sit any further away, he would’ve fallen off.

“I’m not interested, man.” Seth glared at him. “Fuck your game, and fuck you if you’ve really just come in here to ask me to come back to practice.”

Kevin sighed and looked away. “That’s not why I’m here.” His hands were clasped together on his lap, thumb running over the opposite hands knuckles. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Seth snorted and threw his head back. “Yeah, right, asshole. You don’t give a shit.”

“Did you do it?” Kevin had paused for a second before blurting out the question. His eyes searched Seth’s for the truth, with his shoulders practically touching his ears and hands locked together as he stopped himself from fidgeting.

He laughed again, shifting positions so he was better facing him. His voice turned serious, and he pointed towards the door. “Leave my room.”

“I’ll believe whatever you say, I just have to know.”

“Oh, you have to, do you?” He said. He was angry, and after a draining session with Betsy, he couldn’t handle another person insinuating he was lying. “You don’t deserve a fucking thing. None of you do. Stop looking at me like that. Tell them all to stop fucking looking at me like that.”

“We’ve not friends, Seth, and I don’t give a shit about your history. But I know you didn’t do this.” Kevin considered his words. “Because I think that… If you didn’t do this to yourself, man, I think I know who did.”

Seth froze and sat up, far more alert than he’d been in days. “How dare you, you pretentious piece of shit? How fuckin’ dare you? Are you going to give a status report back to your little toddler squad, is that what this is? Finally your fucking…” He mimicked dangling something in front of his face. “Ammo? Something you have over me?”

“I get it.” Kevin didn’t look back to him. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me.”

“I haven’t trusted your crippled ass since the day we met.” Seth leaned forward. “But humour me, then. Who somehow knows exactly what meds my crazy ass is on, and tried to murder me in a packed bar, busiest night of the week? Because your explanation is bound to be better than mine.”

“I owe it to you to let you know.” Kevin lowered his voice. “But I can’t explain it. I just have to tell you that I think it was Riko.”

“Fuck off, now, or I’ll start screaming.” Seth was frustrated, feeling like the butt of a joke, feeling like Kevin was just trying to stab another dart into a board that was already full. “This is not a fucking joke. Al has to give me my pills because nobody trusts me with them right now. The shrink calls me twice a day. Everyone is so fuckin’ disappointed in me, man, I could’ve died, and you’re telling me your little bestie over there did it? You’re a coward, Kevin. You’re a fucking liar and a fucking coward.”

Kevin held up his scarred hand as if that was explanatation enough. “Neil humiliated him on live TV. He wouldn’t think twice about killing someone to get back at him. You’re an easy target.”

In all the chaos that had ensued, he’d forgotten about what Neil had said on Kathy’s show. None of it made sense to him, why he would be an easy target out of all of them, why, if Riko was capable of such a thing, he would go after him and not Neil himself. As if reading his mind, Kevin continued. “Neil’s too public now. He couldn’t have done it to him.”

“Who else believes this shit?”

Kevin held back on whatever he really knew, and settled for, “Anyone who understands it, agrees with me.”

“Explain it to me like I’m a helpless little kid.” Seth said, straight faced and seething. “Tell me how it could have possibly been him.”

“Did they check you for track marks?” Seth shook his head, but in all honesty, he wasn’t sure. They’d seen the evidence of his pills in his system, and his charts said he was a past user. They didn’t have to, really. Everything they needed to know was right there in his blood work. “If you have a prescription out there, it’s not that hard to find out your meds. You wouldn’t even feel a needle through your clothes with so many people around you. Mix it with your drugs of choice and nobody is going to believe that you didn’t do it yourself.”

“You’re joking.” Seth repeated again, disbelief at how serious Kevin was, at how his face sunk as he spoke, how his eyes trailed off somewhere into the distance while he explained. “And you really believe that?” Kevin nodded. It was infuriating to Seth to finally hear something so outlandish still that actually made a little bit of sense. He knew himself he hadn’t done it, so why was it so hard to believe it had actually been someone else? It hadn’t happened by the grace of God. Somehow the drugs had gotten into his system, and by the amount they’d found, they hadn’t been there long before he’d lost consciousness. So he’d been spiked in the bar. It also made an annoying amount of sense that he’d been poked by a needle and not had something sprinkled into his drink, because Allison had been across from him the whole time they were there. She was smart with her drinks in that way, and she was always aware of wandering hands near their beverages. She would’ve noticed. “So he fuckin’ failed, then. What happens next? He’s gonna just, what, try again?”

“I don’t know.” He said. “I just had to let you know. You’ve been going crazy in here trying to understand it.”

“If I mention your theory to anyone other than your little gang, they’ll fuckin’ have me committed. They’re just waiting for an excuse.” Seth rested his head on his knees, his feet up on the couch. “Nobody is going to actually believe this other than you, you know that, right?”

“I’m sorry.” Kevin’s voice was small. “And for what it’s worth, I know what Riko is like, and you’re just a meaningless pawn in his game. I don’t see you that way. I don’t hate you like you think I do.”

“Don’t push it.” Seth grimaced. “You only tolerate me because your lineup can’t handle the loss of another body.”

“Maybe.” Kevin admitted, and Seth laughed, because he didn’t even try to hide that it was the truth. He didn’t say much else before nodding at Seth and leaving the room, and suddenly Seth felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulder and quickly replaced by another, heavier tonne of bricks. He hated Neil, he hated Kevin, he hated Riko. If it was the truth, if it really was him who’d orchestrated this whole thing, he’d fucked with his life in ways he didn’t even understand. He had people he cared about in his life, people he wanted to live for, but Riko was happy to ruin it all, all for the sake of petty revenge. For a week he’d been in some sort of state between withdrawals and a heavy craving to fall back into a hole he’d assumed he’d crawled out of for good. Nobody trusted him, and everyone looked at him differently, no matter how much they tried to hide it. He looked at himself differently, a brush with death an untimely reminder that his life was finite. He’d avoided death too many times, and his chances had to have finally been depleted. Riko didn’t know what he’d done to Seth’s bare minimum instinct of survival by fucking up and letting him live.

He had looked Kevin in the eye, as the only one who seemed to understand him when he felt like screaming from the rooftops it wasn’t fucking me! Kevin who he’d despised since the first time he opened his mouth, Kevin who was too good for them all, full of himself, in love with himself; he’d felt so alone since waking up in that hospital, and God, did it feel terrible that Kevin Day was the one person who seemed to understand.

[chamerionwrites]

Laying aside the question of folks with full-blown genderfeels just for a moment, a thing I’ve always found lowkey interesting is how much more common it seems to be for cishet dudes to choose to play women in RPGs than it is for women to choose to play dudes.

(The flip explanation is ofc that if you’re a straight man who is going to be staring at a character for many hours it might as well be a hot lady, but ime the pattern holds true in tabletop as well as CRPGs, so.)

[fearandhatred]

thank u so much to my beloveds @crowleys-bentley-and-plants and @seven-stars-in-his-palm for tagging me, kissing u both for this omg <3 i'm doing two of each because i can

For as many as you want of your published works, pick your favourite line/paragraph and post it up here. Let yourself feel proud of your creations.

transitional heart taxidermy [5986 words, wip]

They fit so perfectly together, the both of them, always. Not side by side like pieces of a puzzle, no, but like molten lava over sand; one over the other, one mellowing the other, changing its chemistry into something different, stronger, useful. The kiss tastes of Aziraphale, of copper and saliva and something holy. It's a taste he'll come to get used to, bloodied and bruised, a taste he chases after as the angel pulls back.

and one from an unpublished chapter:

It's been a day, two, maybe three. His hands are stained with blood and phantom glass, reeking of alcohol and rot palpable enough to taste. Aziraphale doesn't come for him, and he feels relief but also a pain so deep it's paralysing. It's a revelation in itself.

blood in my eyes [1953 words]

This is the first time in years he has stepped foot back into this place. It's a spontaneous decision, driven by a mellow melancholy and a soft wistful night. Muriel isn't in, so the bookshop is dark, and the streetlights cast an eerie, lonely glow on the ancient hardbacks. The rearing statue that once held his glasses every other day is coated in a thin layer of dust; he leaves them on.

Crowley wipes away a tear from Aziraphale's cheek with his thumb. It leaves a bright red streak. After, hours pass by before Aziraphale washes the blood from his face, imprinted in the vague shape of Crowley's hand. In those hours, when he sits in the quiet of a bookshop once again burned to ash, the blood stays there as a reminder, maybe, or as punishment.

sub-consequence [11567 words, wip] — six of crows

He wants to say everything he could possibly say to persuade Kaz to change his mind, because if he says everything in the world, strings together every word in every possible combination, there has to be at least one thing that would convince him to stay.

Sometimes Inej thinks Kaz cares about himself less than he cares about getting what he wants. It feels sometimes as if he's completely detached from himself, his own person becoming just another means to an end. People would scream at her that this isn't selflessness. It's ruthlessness, or psychopathy, or numbness. That's how the name Dirtyhands came about, after all. The willingness to do anything no matter the cost. To get his hands dirty with blood, be it others' or his own. But what is selflessness, really? A lack of selfishness, or a loss of self?

to sleep, perchance to dream [662 words] — the sandman

God, Calliope. His heart, face of cloud fields and white lily springs, a hope so blinding in contrast to his shadowed being that he had known from the start the hands of The Fates would pull them apart to opposite poles.

His lifetime of constraint allowed him to face the knowledge that any selfish will to see her in the wake of remembering all he had forsaken, all that had been ripped from him, would seal the vestibules to acceptance and he would beg with no dignity to stay by her side. And his heart burned, scorched unpleasantly at her parting words, just as the skin she touched and had once touched long after she was twice gone.

tagging those whose words i'd love to see (no pressure!!): @actual-changeling @sentientsky @irispurpurea @springofviolets @demonsandpieohmy

[channnel]

Can someone please tell me why Hypnos in the Game Hades is getting shipped to Ares? I'm not complaining, just curious.

And why do they have some of the most wholesome fanfics I've read??

[hysteriafossil]

FNAF RUIN SPOILERS!!! . . . . in honor of it being disability pride month, and ruin releasing, have a wolf and her service human :) (Image ID in ALT)

[pepsi-maxwell]

have you ever written soulmates? i *think* you haven't, I'm mainly curious how you'd write it jfkamnf

funnily enough, i did write a few snippets! :D it was cmjf, where the first words your soulmate says to you after you come of age are written on your skin (and all the angst that implies)

max's mark reveals itself

punk's mark, and their first meeting

max, after the discovery

if i were to continue, i think it would very much parallel with how their story played out up to punk winning the title and max getting beaten by wardlow. i think punk wouldn't be aware of the significance of what he said; he would have thought he'd said something else beforehand, surely they'd spoken, surely he'd spoken at that first handshake meeting... or maybe, given max insulting and running from him constantly, he'd believe that the bond went one way only, and try to put it out of his mind.

i imagine max dropping the nuke and saying something that clues punk in, which is why he chases max, only to have him slip through his fingers. he spends the entire summer as champion thinking about it, wondering what he could have done differently, what he should have said

maybe max comes back the same, at all out. they continue their feud in the autumn, and after max beats him for the title, punk tries to apologise in private. i don't know if it would end with max being able to accept that, and over time maybe they'd be able to live happily ever after. maybe they're destined to be hated rivals forever instead, maybe there are some things that can't be forgiven!

thank you for reminding me of this, i'd completely forgotten these snippets and now i feel insane all over again <3

[nostradamus0]

wip wednesday (almost friday)

thanks for the tag @crime-wives! i recently started writing again for the first time basically this year so your timing is perfect :)

here's a snippet from the only thing i've been working on, a meddison fic set vaguely s6/7-ish in which meredith wants to divorce derek:

They’re not friends. They can’t be. They only talk on the phone—not even once a week. It’s been years since Addison’s been to Seattle, and Meredith has never been to L.A. They rarely talk about their days. They do not ever talk about Derek. They’re not friends. But their lives were once deeply, irreversibly entangled, and while Addison thinks they never truly knew each other back then, she’s sure there is no one she knows better now than she knows Meredith Grey. It feels wrong to call whatever this is a friendship, but it’s something, and whatever that something is, it’s years in the making, complicated and unnameable, and Addison doesn’t care to name it. So they are not friends, but they’ve both been married to the same man, and though they never talk about him, there must be some deranged kind of kinship that comes from being the only two people in the world who’ve known the loneliness that fills the empty side of the bed when he no longer comes home at night. This is the only way Addison can rationalize her almost-something with Meredith Grey. It’s the only way she can rationalize that first phone call, or any of the ones that follow. It’s the only way she can rationalize the hours they’ve spent talking in the dead of quiet nights, hidden away from the world like it’s some clandestine thing. They’re not friends, not exactly, but Addison remembers what happens when you fall out of love with Derek Shepherd. This is why she gets on a plane in the middle of the night, takes a leave of absence from work, and books a hotel room in Seattle. (And if she’s fallen a little in love with Meredith, somewhere along the telephone wires between Seattle and L.A., well. It hardly matters now.)

no-pressure tags! @sssammich @benwvatt @mulderscully @naaer @pan-de-queer @luthordamnvers

[qualiacumque]

broke: zelda should have stayed a dragon in totk

woke: zelda shouldn't have been made a dragon in the first place

[triviareads]

today's HR take I'm choosing to be scandalized over is the idea that Lisa Kleypas did Westcliff dirty.

[autumn816]

For the fic mashup, holiday/travel AU and teacherAU and either loscar or lolex :3c

This wasn’t the original idea. I had another idea wher both Logan and Alex are teachers but then I changed it. I can still tell you the og idea. Just message me to remind me.

—

This is set during winter break so think of it as a Christmas rom-com. The setting is in the mountains with the whole winter aesthetic. Snow and cabins and hot chocolate and Christmas vibes in general.

—

Logan is panicking. Internally.

He has too many kids with him to panic externally. He can’t believe he lost one of his students.

“Okay, everybody in.” Logan holds the door open for his students to enter the centre.

His students gather around in a circle at the entrance, complying because they understand how bad the situation is. Logan is very grateful for that.

“Stay here. Do not move. I’m just gonna go there”—Logan points at the Help desk—“and ask them about Olivia.”

A collective nods.

Logan walks to the desk, his students still in his view.

“Hello, sir? How can I help you?”

“Hi, one of my stu—”

“Mr. Sargeant!”

Logan twists around and sees Olivia making her way towards him. He must have let out the biggest sigh of relief known to mankind.

“Look who I found,” Olivia says excitedly.

Logan trails his eyes over Olivia to check she was hurt first. “Olivia, you scared me. I couldn’t find you. Are you okay?”

“Yes but look at who I found.”

“I would say I found you more than you found me.”

Logan startles as a somewhat soft voice reaches his ears. Next to Olivia stands Williams Driver, Alexander Albon. His jaw drops.

“It’s Alex Albon from F1. Your third favourite driver.”

“Third?”

“Olivia.” Logan can feel the blood rush to his face. “I’m so sorry, she didn’t mean that.”

“It’s true. George is second and—“

“George?” Alex’s mouth shapes to an O. “You like George more than me?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Another voice joins. A much stronger British accent. “Don’t be jealous, Albono.”

Turns out Alex isn’t the only F1 driver here. George Russell and apparently Lewis Hamilton are here with him as well.

“Holy shit! It’s Alex, George and Lewis.”

Logan hadn’t noticed when his students had walked up to him.

“Joseph, don’t swear,” Logan chastises.

“Sorry, Mr. Sargeant.”

“Can we take a picture?” Rayaan asks.

“Of course,” Alex smiles.

Logan is aware that there were quite a few F1 fans in his class. He watches as they surround the three drivers, looking at him expectantly. And who is Logan to say no? He pulls out his phone and clicks some pictures.

“So,” Alex starts, “if I’m your third favourite and George is your second, who is the first?”

“It’s Oscar,” Olivia pipes in.

“Oscar?” Alex exclaims as if that’s the most rubbish thing he has heard. “Why?”

“They’re best friends,” Ayesha says.

“Wait, you are Oscar’s Logan?” George asks.

Logan might as well colour himself in red. “I wo-wouldn’t say Oscar’s Logan. But yeah, he is one of my best friends. We used to kart together.”

“Woah, woah, woah, why do I not know about Oscar’s Logan?” Alex questions.

“Can we stop calling me Oscar’s Logan?”

“He talks about him a lot.”

“He never talked about him to me.”

“Might be because Logan is exactly your type, man.” Lewis chimes, grinning. “He is probably saving him from you.”

Logan wants to drown and die.

“Lewis!”

Alex glances at Logan, his cheeks a shade darker.

“Mr. Sargeant likes burgers,” Rayaan says. “You should take him out for burgers.”

“Or coffee. He likes coffee, too.”

“Woah.” Logan ignores the laughter from George and Lewis. “What are we doing?”

“Telling Alex all the things you like so he can take you out. You haven’t been on a date in so long. We heard you, Oscar and Fred last time,” Amara says. As far as Logan remembers, she isn’t even a F1 fan.

Logan is gonna kill Oscar and Fred. He is gonna kill Oscar and Fred with his bare hands. He will. He told them to stop talking about his dating life. He knows how nosy his students get. As much as he appreciated their surprise visit, he did not appreciate them talking about his dating life in his class while the kids were doing independent work.

“It’s rather sad, Mr. Sargeant.”

Logan’s jaw drops. “Okay, it’s time to go back to the cabin.”

His students protest, a loud chatter filling the room.

Logan tries to settle them. “Guys.”

Nobody listens.

Logan raises one of his hands in the air, all five fingers standing tall. “5.” And curls his thumb in. After a few seconds, he goes, “4” and curls his forefinger. By the time he reaches 1, all the students are quiet and looking at him. “We need to get back. We’re supposed to meet the other classes. C’mon, grab your things and get in two lines.”

He takes the moment of distraction to talk to Alex. “Thank you for finding her.”

Alex smiles. “It’s fine, mate. Don’t lose her again. Or do.”

Logan looks at him in horror. “Don’t say that.”

“Yeah but how else will I see you again?”

“You realise I’m on a school trip, right?”

“Which is why I didn’t ask for your number. I know it’s unprofessional.” Alex quotes unquotes unprofessional. “I’ll just ask Oscar when I get back.”

Logan’s mouth twitches in amusement. “He is not gonna give it to you.”

“I’ll get George to get the number.”

“I’m not doing your dirty work for you,” George says.

“Yes, you are. It’s the least you can do for me having to put up with you and then me having to put up with you and Lewis.”

—

Mash-up trope

[breadedsinner]

“Inquisition is just a bunch of co workers,”. The disrespect. You got Blackwall doing most of the heavy lifting literally and metaphorically, bringing all this dad energy, and you call him a co-worker? You go to the study and call him Daddy.