#now I think about it it doesn’t seem that likely tbh but I’ve already written the post

[concoulor]

wait wait wait in DC does logan send roman to get the money because he knows roman is the best charmer or because he wants him out of the way of the cruises hearing because of his weird sex thing

[saulocept]

clumsy ‘cause i’m falling in love

pairing: alejandro vargas/reader

rating: t

summary: You hate his guts. He hates yours. It’s how it’s always been between you, and it’s how it’ll always be. There’s no way this could end happily, but maybe you could be wrong about some things. Once.

notes: very very very self indulgent if u couldn’t tell already lol. semi au bc it’s actually just wish fulfillment tbh. i’ve been toying with this idea for a while now, and this may or may not be a part of a semi series. anyway that’s all. enjoy ur holidays everybody! 

If you weren’t sure the universe hated you before, then you definitely are certain of it now. Because there’s just no way this is happening to you now, not for the third year in a row. “No way,” you mumble, glaring at the piece of paper in your hand, as though whatever’s written on it would just magically disappear. It doesn’t. For a second, it seems brighter somehow, the writing crystal-clear, as though it’s mocking you in response.

You crumple it in your hand, shove it in your pocket, ready to forget about the whole thing, but then a voice from beside you startles you out of your thoughts, stops you from moving.

“Hey, wait.” It’s Soap. He’s a good friend, the only one you can actually get along with. Your only ally in this wretched place, you think, though you’re sure you’re just exaggerating. You pause, then turn to face him. “Who’d you get?”

“No one important,” you reply quickly, but whatever he sees in your eyes must’ve fueled his curiosity because the next thing you know, he’s snatching up the paper in your hand, uncrumpling it and then reading it out loud, like he wants everyone to know.

“No way,” he says, and for a second, he almost sounds like he doesn’t believe it. Bless his heart, really, because that’s exactly what you’ve been thinking. “Alejandro, huh? You got him three years in a row?” Here, he sounds more than a little impressed, and you narrow your eyes at him, half-suspicious, half-glaring. He looks up to meet your eyes, the corners of his lips twitching into a smile. Now he’s definitely mocking you, too. You settle for a glare instead, but he doesn’t seem afraid, or fazed at all. He lets out a low whistle, then reaches out to pat you on the shoulder. “Now this is definitely fate, huh?”

“No way,” you reply with a shake your head, because you just refuse to believe it is, and that they don’t have any hand in it. There’s no way you just keep getting the same person three years in a row. Especially for fucking Secret Santa. This has to be a joke, or some kind of a dream. Something. Anything other than reality. “This has to be rigged. You’re all fucking me.”

“Definitely not.” He laughs, then shakes his head. Gently, he hands the paper back to you, and you quickly snatch it out of his grasp, rolling it into a ball and then shoving it back into your pocket, as though it’s something you could just bury and forget. It’s not.

“Come on,” he says, when he sees the look on your face. His tone is soft, placating. You feel your tension ease a bit, because you really shouldn’t take it out on him. He’s not the one at fault here, but still. “You were there, too. We all picked at the same time; you saw that.”

He’s right, obviously, but there’s no way you could just accept it. There’s no way this is just fate, after all; they must have a hand in it, too. Him, especially. Knowing him, there’s no way he’s just letting go of another opportunity to fuck with you. You look up, narrow your eyes at Soap, feeling more suspicious than ever. “Who did you get?”

Here, he blanks out, shoves his hands in his pockets. He gives you a nervous laugh, like he knows more than he’s letting on, which is far too suspicious for you not to notice. “It’s not a Secret Santa now if I tell, is it?”

You step toward him, and he raises his arms in surrender. You stop, then cross your arms over your chest, opting to glare at him instead. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” you ask. He nods his head mutely; he still seems nervous, a little wary of you, so you press on, eager for some answers. “Who did you get?”

He shakes his head. “Nobody.”

“I swear, Soap, if you’re all fucking me, I—”

“We’re not,” he says. “And why are you blaming me? I didn’t make this.”

“Whatever.” You huff out a sigh, then shake your head in exasperation. “I’m sorry, alright? Let’s just get out of here.”

He gives you a weak smile. “Now that’s what I like to hear.”

-

“Here,” you say, shoving the wrapped parcel in his direction. There’s a split second where he looks surprised, though he’s quick to cover it up, staring at you instead with a raised brow. You frown. “Happy holidays, asshole.”

He eyes the package in your hand, suspicious, careful, like he doesn’t trust whatever’s in it. Or you, for that matter – which, strangely enough, stings a bit, though you’d never say it out loud. It’s not like you’ll give him a bomb, or anything explosive, anyway. You’ve been doing this for three years now; the least he could do is know you better.

“Unfortunately,” you reply, rolling your eyes. You shove the parcel in his direction, but he’s still not budging. He’s still eyeing it suspiciously, as though it’ll suddenly explode any minute now. It won’t. “I’m your Secret Santa this year.”

“Again,” he echoes flatly. For a second, he sounds like he doesn’t believe it, too.

“Not by choice,” you agree, nodding your head. “And not by design either, just in case you’re wondering.”

He hums under his breath, stares at you for a long time, studying your face like he’s searching for clues, some kind of answer. You aren’t sure what kind he’s looking for, but it’s strange nonetheless. Something about his gaze makes you feel different. Weird. Has he ever looked at you like this before? You can’t remember, and you’d rather not think about it. You clear your throat, then shove the package in his direction. “Come on, asshole. Ie h’ve got places to be.”

He gives you a toothy smile, stares at you with narrowed eyes. He’s still not budging. It’s always been like this between you, anyway, and you don’t think anything would ever change, even if the intensity his stare from earlier has left you feeling a little strange. (It’s just a dream, you think. A trick of the light, and you’re sure of it. Almost.) “Like what?”

“Like being as far away from you as possible.”

He raises an eyebrow at you, but then nods. There’s a glimmer in his eyes now that wasn’t there before, and you’re certain it means nothing but trouble. He’s always been nothing but trouble, and you’d know that from first-hand experience. You narrow your eyes at him, suspicious, but before you can even open your mouth and ask, he’s already speaking over you, cutting you off. “Even when it breaks tradition?”

You narrow your eyes at him. “What fucking tradition?”

He points upward, his smile widening just a fraction. He seems amused. “See for yourself.”

You do as he says, and it’s there that you catch sight of it: a fake mistletoe dangling above your heads, pinned to the doorway, high enough that you can’t reach it. Annoyance brews in the pit of your stomach, because there’s no way this is fucking happening. You narrow your eyes, glare at him. “Fuck you. You planned this.”

He shrugs – a complete non-answer, you know, but you’re almost already certain of what it means.

“I hate you.”

“I know.” He gives you another smile, though this time, it’s smug, knowing. Like he’s mocking you. You’ve never felt the urge to punch anyone else as much as you do now, and you’d have done it if you know you aren’t going to lose. You settle on glaring at him instead, trying to put as much intimidation behind it, but he only grins at you, unfazed. “What do you want to do about it?”

It takes you a second to realize what he means. You lower your head, clear your throat. Embarrassment courses through you; you feel your cheeks grow warm, and at this point, you could only hope he’s far enough not to see it. By the time you’ve regained enough composure to finally look up at him, he’s still staring at you, watching you with a smug smile on his lips. There’s a twinkle in his eyes, as though he knows something you don’t. You narrow your eyes at him, frowning. He definitely knows, you’re sure of it, and now he’s gloating about it, too.

“Whatever,” you say, trying to affect a flat tone. You turn your head, look around you, nodding in satisfaction once you realize it’s empty and there’s only the two of you. Good, that means no one’s going to be around to watch this whole fucking disaster. You clear your throat, look up at him. He’s still sporting that smug smile – the one you want so badly to smack off his face, and you’re certain that one of these days, you’re really going to do it. “Let’s get this over with.”

You step forward, walk over to him. He doesn’t push you away or move back. Instead, he stares at you, still smiling, quiet as he waits. You’d punch his pretty face if you could, and then you have to stop and shake your head because there’s no way you’d just thought of that.

Whatever. The sooner you can get this done with, the better. Maybe you’ll have enough time to grab a drink or two and sit in silence wondering what made you play along in the first place. Maybe you’ve hit your head on the way, too. You’ll have to get that checked one of these days.

“Well?” he asks with a raised brow when he sees you aren’t moving. He taps a finger against his cheek, still smiling, still waiting. Fucking asshole. With a glare, you move toward him, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. Quick, chaste, and not at all sweet, but then he turns his head at the last second, captures your lips in a proper kiss.

It surprises you at first, and there’s a split second where you’re paralyzed, uncertain to react. Whatever thoughts you might have had before are quick to disappear into the ether. The world around you falls away, fades into nothing – and all that’s left is you. And then him: the feel of his lips, the warmth of his body. The hunger in his kiss. As though this has been a long time coming. And maybe it is, but you’re not trying to think about it.

You make a strangled noise in your throat. It’s easy to melt into him when there’s nothing to hold you back. You kiss him back, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and pulling him toward you, closer than you’ll ever have him. In response, he pins you against the wall, and the force of it would hurt, really, if you aren’t so distracted by his kiss.

He smiles against your lips like he’s pleased. You’ve half the heart to curse him out, mostly just out of instinct, mostly because you’re used to it, but then he runs his tongue along your bottom lip, coaxing, and god, you’ve never been this fucking weak before. Everything’s instinctive, automatic; you move without thinking, fueled only by heat and so much wanting, parting your lips open for him, accepting. He smiles again.

He slips his tongue in your mouth, runs it along every inch, and you cup the back of his neck, pull him closer, as though you’ll never get enough of this – him. He makes a low noise in his throat, and the sound of it only sends a shiver down your spine. Your heart pounds. Your head spins. Your stomach’s twisting into knots, and you feel almost weightless, light, as though you’re going to disappear any minute.

By the time you pull away, you’re gasping, trying to catch your breath. You’re still reeling from the shock, the knowledge of it all, because there’s no way that just happened, and there’s no absolutely no fucking way you actually liked it, and you’re still trying to process everything when he clears his throat and speaks, breaking you out of your reverie.

“So,” he says. There’s a knowing smile on his lips, and the glimmer in his eyes makes you want to punch him. Or kiss him again. You don’t know which one you actually want to do at this point, and it frustrates you a little . “Still hate me?”

“Yes,” you reply, because it’s the only thing you can think to say.

He laughs, stares at you for a second. He doesn’t seem convinced. You open your mouth to say something – call him out, anything, but then he steps closer, enough that there’s practically no distance left between you. Slowly, he reaches out, twirls a lock of your hair around his finger. Your breath stops, catches in your throat. You can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t do anything but stare at him, waiting. He catches your eye, grins at you: toothy, mischievous, and very, very troublesome. “What if I try to change your mind?”

[writingwife-83]

Ok listen, this is gonna be a bit of a rant/thinking out loud. I’m gonna put it below a cut, but basically this is gonna be about having my fics restricted on AO3. I’m feeling pretty frustrated and conflicted and I’m going back and forth quite a lot.

For the background, I’ve had all my fics on AO3 restricted for about the past 9 months now. And when I say that, I mean that you can’t access them unless you have an AO3 account. The reason I chose to do this is because I started to get nervous about A.I. scraping online. I absolutely don’t agree with AI writing and art, and I didn’t want those programs to have access to my writing. Restricting your fics on AO3 isn’t a guarantee, but it seemed that was at least a reduced risk of bots accessing writing. So anyway, having restricted my fics in that way, it’s been… a bit of a trial lol. Any AO3 writer who has done this with their fics will say the same I’m sure, but it’s pretty lousy seeing your views, comments, and kudos plummet. Yes of course we partly write for ourselves, but we wouldn’t be posting online at all unless we wanted people to see and enjoy it! If I didn’t care about the feedback and stuff, I’d just keep my writing to myself. So obviously restricting people’s access to my writing has really sucked.

So here’s the thing, I really can’t decide what to do going forward. My feelings about A.I. have not changed at all. I still don’t support it. But I’m not sure whether restricting access to our fics is truly making the difference between AI accessing them or not. What I mean is, I’ve heard from some sources that the AI writing programs have long ago been developed by scraping for writing content on the internet, and that it’s not really something that they’re still actively doing. So basically, long before A.I. was a hot topic, any available writing on the internet was already accessed. If that’s the case, then there’s really not much being accomplished by having our fics locked up now. A.I. writing already exists and is being used, and it’s already been programmed based on available written works.

As far as the risk for people copying and publishing our works on other shady sites, that risk has always been there, and restricting the access to our fics doesn’t change that. Anyone with an AO3 account can hit copy/paste and that’s all it takes. I hate that risk, but tbh the only way to eliminate that is to stop posting online and remove all the existing fics. That’s not something I’m willing to do.

It does annoy me that so many people don’t have an AO3 account, because if everyone did, this wouldn’t even be a decision to make. I still feel like there’s no logical reason to use AO3 without an account. It’s better as a reader for so many reasons, which I don’t feel like taking the time to get into right now. So part of me feels like, I shouldn’t have to unrestricted my fics, everyone else should just make accounts! But I also know that’s never gonna happen. A handful of lovely and supportive people made accounts when myself and others locked their fics, but on a larger scale, not much changed. Again, the stats speak for themselves.

Like I said, this is kind of a rant and I’m just sharing the different thoughts in my head about this. I can easily make an argument for both sides, either to continue to restrict my fics or open them up to the public again. *sigh* idk, maybe I’m not the only one feeling this way. feel free to share your thoughts if you have any on this topic!

[zinnynia]

give ur opinions on every half life cast member go into details i want to see how ur brain functions

My opinion on the Half Life cast? I don’t have any/many opinions about most of them, so I���ll just not talk about those characters.

I’ll be going from least - most thoughts and opinions, starting with Lamarr.

Though, not really about Lamarr, but headcrabs in general. Out of every alien and enemy in Half Life, Headcrabs and Headcrab Zombies are the scariest to me. Idk man, they’re terrifying, and the concept itself is depressing.

D0g + Eli and Russell are all three very cute characters. I always love seeing them interact with Alyx, and their relationship with her is very sweet. D0g was made by Eli, and Alyx kinda just continued to add more to him, making him the D0g we all know and love. I haven’t completed my Half Life: Alyx run yet, but so far, Russell and Eli seem like really nice parental figures for her. Russell is funny, and has genuinely made me smile and enjoy his company in stressful situations, and Eli just seems like an overall great father. I think I have daddy issues.

I don’t really like Adrian. It’s not that I hate him, or like him at all. I mean, the art of him is kinda cute tbh, and maybe the angst and shit, but he doesn’t really hit the spot like Alyx, Gordon and Barney. I mean, his concept is kind of cool, I guess, but I really wish we could see more of him. Maybe in Half Life 3 (if it comes out), the G-Man could possibly use Adrian against Gordon, as sort of a way to “distract” the gang and make Adrian join the Combine ranks. ..I could be cooking some fanfic ideas for y’all, so PLEASEEE cook up some Combine Adrian AU fr fr. Make him hot too (I might have a thing for the Combine Ngl).

Alyx is girliepop. She ate, slayed, and left no crumbs. What I really like about her is that she doesn’t really idolize Gordon, like what most of the Resistance does. She treats Gordon like a normal human being, and has shown from time to time that she genuinely cares about him. I think she’s well written, but what I don’t really like is that she’s the “love interest” of Half Life. I don’t really think there needs to be romance, because the story is already pretty good. I also find Freemance kind of… iffy. Gordon kind of knew her when she was a baby, and I can’t imagine popping out 20 years later and some kid I knew started crushing heavily on me, or their dad starts shipping us together. But that’s controversial, and if you ship it, you do you. Not my business, and it’s all fictional. Plus, they’re both consenting adults, just the idea is kinda weird.

The G-Man’s concept really intrigues me, and I feel like a lot could be built off of him in Half Life 3 (if it ever comes out). I’ve written a Half Life OC kind of based around it, actually! Basically, the G-Man manipulates and uses resistance members to distract the gang, taking and stealing them, along with Alyx. This causes the gang to feel stressed and discouraged, hopeless even. Barney is nowhere to be found (he’s safe and untouched), so it’s just Gordon and Eli. I feel like a lot could be done with this, and builds more on the G-Man’s manipulative and antagonistic character. It would also be cool if the Combine joins forces with the gang, and defeat the G-Man, then agree on a truce, leaving Earth or co-exist together. I also just feel like I’m intrigued by the G-Man so much, mostly because I’ve written my story’s main antagonist similarity to the G-Man coincidentally.. and that’ll be a story for another post.

Last, but not least… Gordon and Barney omggg!!! Barney and Gordon are both my most favorite characters of Half Life, Barney especially. About a year ago, when I laid eyes on Barney, something inside of me literally just…. Clicked. I was like “I like this man. He’s my favorite character now.”

^^^ Pieces of artwork I made when I first got into Half Life))

I didn’t really understand it, until I really started to look into the fandom, realizing him and Gordon were best friends, and how he practically missed Gordon for 20 years, holding onto crowbars and thinking about the beer he owed Gordon. This REALLY hit me, as I’m in an oddly similar situation.

^^^ The him))

My childhood best friend and I were pretty close, despite knowing each other for only 2 years. We got split up, but met again, but never got the chance to reconnect and actually chat. But throughout the years, I always bought lockets, and sometimes items with sunflowers. Lockets, because he and I were BIG Undertale fans back then (also FNaF and Pokemon), and our parting gifts were paper heart lockets. Sunflowers, because of flower symbolism (wishful thinking, happiness, etc etc) and the idea of “Summer.” We always did everything together, like paper crafts. Another funny thing is that, after finding him again recently, our dynamic is somewhat similar to Freehoun in a way. Me being the more chatty one, while he’s a little more silent. My problem is that I'd rather hear him talk, because he’s really everything I’d want to talk about (no homo 4 him pls I swear). It’s also funnier that he’s a science guy and works out, and is taller than me. It’s giving……. Gordon to Barney.

It’s also funny that a lot of the fanfics I’ve read and liked remind me a lot of us. One fanfic had Gordon and Barney have a conversation, talking about how they can’t “resume” where things left off. That reminds me about a thing he told me one night, about how we weren’t the same people we were in 2nd and 3rd grade, but truthfully I didn’t love him (platonically) for who we were, but for who he is. On the topic of fanfics, I’ve written my fair share (2), and they’re all vents about him in the form of Freehoun! Though, they aren’t technically romantic, they could be interpreted as romantic.

^^^ Old artwork I made based off of my fanfic "Never Again."))

And speaking about Freehoun, I’m actually not much of a “Freehouner.” Sure, it’s cute, but I think they’re just really cute friends. The things they’d do in Black Mesa, and the beer. The way Barney looks at Gordon, and how upset his face was when he had to part ways in Episode 1. Anyways, it took me 7 years to finally have him back (technically 2 + 5, but we didn’t get time to really chat, so I add the 2 years), and I told him “I’d wait another 7 years if it means I’d get to talk to you again” and I also did kinda write him a 2 page (platonic) Valentines Letter that he DID kinda print out cus it was a google doc. Letters are kind of our thing, because I always gave him letters back then when I had a way to send them (via people/connections).

Plus, Gordon is kinda fine...... And Barney's really cute. Like??? PLEASEEEE who decided to make two good looking best friends like tf? And can we PLEASE TALK about how sad Barney looked at the end of Episode 1???? Shit still has be crying.

[just-your-average-cryptid]

Task Insurance

So a thing I’ve noticed being around a lot of neurodivergent people and spaces is that a lot of nt people don’t seem to understand why executive dysfunction and lack of motivation makes it so hard to Do Stuff. This is kinda how my brain processes it, so maybe it’ll help other people get it?

Say you have a Task. Doesn’t matter what right now, but it’s there and needs to be done, and it has three basic upfront costs.

Time - 15 minutes, an hour, a week; however long it takes to do The Task

Energy - for however much effort The Task needs

Motivation - to actually start The Task and keep doing it

You can’t skip out on any of these - you have to “pay” all three in full to do The Task. No motivation, you can’t start; no energy, you can’t finish or work at all.

Those costs aren’t equally difficult to pay, however: time can be set aside and planned, energy can usually be mustered or at least scrounged up, but motivation can’t be forced.

For neurotypicals, that motivation cost is covered by NT Insurance in most cases, so the only thing they need to pay “out of pocket” are the time and energy costs. Neurodivergent people don’t have NT Insurance, though, so they have to “pay” all three on their own.

For example. Let’s say the Task is Clean The Bathroom. You’re neurotypical, so your motivation cost is covered already, and you’ve made the time to Clean The Bathroom. You have at least enough energy to do two subtasks (Clean Toilet and Clean Shower) and possibly a third. This’ll be easy!

Now let’s say you’re neurodivergent. You still have the time and energy above, but you’re out of spoons or something similar and just can’t cover the last cost. Welp. No clean bathroom for you, unless it’s so bad that Panic Insurance is paying in full for all three costs.

See, that’s what happens without NT Insurance. If you can’t pay the cost yourself, and that’s often the case, something else has to do it for you. That thing is usually panic. Or deadlines. Or “deadly black mold.” (Most of these are just panic with extra features, tbh.)

Executive dysfunction is like having your motivation funds tapped out, even if your time and energy funds are bursting. You can’t start a Task even if you wanted do, you can’t afford it.

You CAN, however, do a Thing. A Thing is not a Task, it’s not “work.” A Thing might be scrolling through social media, playing a game, going for a walk, anything with low motivation costs that’s enjoyable and/or easy. It’s that sweet quick-return dopamine vs the later return a Task might provide. For some nd people, a Task might not provide any dopamine upon completion, so there’s no reward to work towards. And without that reward, a lot of nd people lose any reason to do said Task.

For NTs, “the satisfaction of a job well done” is so fundamental to their experience that the idea of it not existing for everyone is baffling. They don’t even realize motivation is a cost, because it’s so often covered for them. And so when nd people talk about motivation and executive function issues, they think it’s about being lazy or not trying hard enough.

It’s not.

Lazy is “I could do it now, but I don’t feel like it.” Executive dysfunction is “I could literally do it right now if my brain would just cooperate for once, but instead I’m stuck in stasis mode trying to convince my legs to work.”

So for anyone that needs it: you’re not lazy, and you’re not broken. You just don’t have Task Insurance when everyone expects you to because they do.

(This is not at all an expert pov and kind of written off the cuff, so please correct me if/where I’m wrong 😅)

[randomkidstarfic]

hey, same anon from before. btw this is a very genuine question and i mean no ill will from it

but why do you release chapters so slow when you have so many written? like i just saw a note abt how you were debating wether to post weekly or bi-weekly and i was like “do they mean twice a week or once every two weeks"

bc tbh it doesn’t rly make sense to me to have all these chapters already written and then only posting once every two weeks

bc to me it just kinda seems like you’re like, dragging it out for some reason. but i’m curious to know if there is some kind of logic to it

like, if you were to post once every two weeks that could easily take another year, assuming you are writing more. and the fic is like, almost two years old

once again, this is a genuine question that i’ve honestly been confused about a lot over the years and i’m not at all trying to be rude but i can see how it can come across that way

Hello again Anon,

I don't think 'drag out' is quite the right phrase, but doing the weekly updates does extend the posting life of the story. I like updating weekly. It gives me times to keep writing the story at a consistent pace so I can guarantee updates. BoM isn't finished right now so I'm not going to post every single chapter, and it's not going to be finished in 34 days so I'm not going to post a chapter everyday. With weekly updates I don't have the pressure of writing it, I can continue at my own leisurely pace.

I also personally always liked weekly or bi-weekly or any sort of predictable or consistent update schedule as a reader. It gives people something to look forward to and sit down and read every week the same way a show on TV only releases once a week even though the entire season is done.

Also, on a somewhat more selfish level, I really love getting comments on my fics, and in my experience when I post whole multi-chapter fics at once I get almost none, which becomes really discouraging.

Those are my personal reasons, and I'm sure a lot of authors who write ahead of updates have a lot of the same.

Hope that all makes sense! Let me know if you have any more questions.

[hollyhomburg]

LI!‼️‼️ OMG

This chapter has made me gobsmacked!!!!

Like it was so well written!! And idk,, but the way your write the shower part just makes it so easy to imagine. Like the whole thing is so easy to picture and understand.

AND POOR MC FINDING THAT IN HER /EAR/ !! I would've thrown up just like tae tbh. I also thought she was partially deaf in that ear when she was saying she couldn't hear properly-

The whole part from mc in the closet calling moonbyul wasn't that shocking to me? tbh I was kind of expecting it? Because when she shushed Namjoon in the bathroom I know she didnt do it because he believed what he was saying. Maybe it's because I have a slightly similar mindset to the mc when it comes to things like this (taking responsibility when things go wrong) but I just knew she was gonna try and do something.

And just because I'm a dumb bunny😓 I did NOT see hobi's secret coming AT ALL so I am more shocked now than ever before. Idk why but hobi's secret out of everyones is the most shocking to me for some reason. Maybe it's coz I was like already shocked and like thinking about everything else in the chapter? But it really has shocked me beyond anything else.

BUT NOW i'm just questioning moonbyul!! Like?? I thought she was an alpha?? or am I just stupid and remember wrong?? Or did hobi not realise? Or did she hide it from him?? Like I'm so confused!! Even when describing the scents ,, didn't the mc describe them once?? and didn't she describe them like really putrid or something?? or was it just because she was in a situation she didn't want to be in? OR AM I REMEMBERING WRONG AGAIN?! if i am i apologise 😓

but this whole chapter really was an EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER!! It literally had me going 'what the heck??' and 'hold on- wait?!' like over and over and over!! You did so well Li!! Good job and thanks for writing such an amazing chapter!! Can't wait for the next one!!

Stay safe and healthy 🫶

(also I asked to be an anon before but forgot which one so can I please be ☁️ anon?)

Ahhhh thank you for sending such a cute ask <3 I’ve been so distracted the last few days I haven’t even gotten to all of these!!

I think one of the reasons why it’s easy for people to picture bily is because I also see it super cinematically- and most of the writing process for me is just continually asking “what could I add to make this feel more real? What am I pictureing that I’m not saying?” there was this tictok trend talking about the minds eye and how some people see nothing when they imagine and other people see everything…I’m pretty sure I’m one of the very few 4k, smell, touch, sound, level imaginers out there lol

Yes! You’re right in assuming that this is the m/c trying to take responsibility for the situation! Because it was her reliance on Moonbyul in the past that made the pack get into this situation in the first place! It’s character growth and I’m very proud of her 🥰

You’re not a dumb bunny! I was trying to toe the line between it being a complete surprise and having people figure it out! The fact that it seems to be a dead even split of people who didn’t know and did means I’m learning! And that I did it alright!

As for your questions- I did a little breakdown post of a it a while back but! Basically Moonbyul didn’t have to hide anything from Hobi at the time- because she wasn’t taking the drugs to turn her scent into an alpha’s scent. The scene you’re thinking of with the m/c- she describes their scents that way because Moonbyul is on the edge of needing another dose and her omegan scent it starting to peak through. It’s all chemically because of the drugs which is why the m/c doesn’t like it.

I’m so happy you enjoyed it!! I’m already about 3.5k into the next chapter- I know it will need tons of editing but I feel like this is the first chapter that’s come easy to me in a good long while <3

[gingerylangylang1979]

Black Women & BWWM Ships

I’m a Black woman, I sometimes like interracial ships, sometimes I don’t. But I will say that race isn’t the deciding factor in me shipping the BWWM ships that I have shipped in my life. The BWWM ships I have obsessed over are Richonne, Spock and Uhura for a minute (but I got bored with that franchise super quick), and Carmy x Sydney. There is a Black woman, Tamar, on The Chosen (the only other show I currently watch) and I want to ship her with somebody because she’s fierce and it would be interesting but nobody stands out for her yet. The only core male characters close to her are Jewish (the Apostles) so I would ship her with a white man by default but honestly it wouldn’t matter to me if it’s one of them or a fellow African who joins later. 

Anyways, I’ve also hated or been indifferent to BWWM ships. A few that come to mind are Tara and Sam from True Blood (just awkward), Olivia and pretty much anyone on Scandal (I liked that show for the high drama but after a while thought her and all the boos sucked and dropped that show), and basically any BWWM pairing that seems forced (so many shows try to throw this in to be edgy or whatever and it seems token and lame). 

My point is I’m not swayed just because a relationship is interracial. I just like what I like. A couple who has chemistry, interesting parallels, partnership, a common bond, obstacles they have to overcome (any good written romance does not come easy), an interesting world they inhabit together, and they look cute together (I can be a little superficial, why not) are going to suck me in regardless of racial dynamics. 

Why am I writing this and who cares? I remember back in my days of the Richonne fandom there being a popular sentiment coming from some haters that only “desperate Black women” shipped Richonne. That isn’t even true because they are actually quite popular with all races, people are just gonna hone in on the “desperate Black women”. I remember the canon reaction videos, it was a widely diverse audience that was like “finally”. But I guess I’m waiting for that shoe to drop with The Bear fandom. There has already been some questionable posting about the pair but nothing as outright toxic and bad faith as I saw with Richonne... yet. Like, people literally calling Michonne manly. We’ve already got the sibling lameness and the they are strictly mentor/mentee claims so I don’t think the rest is far behind. 

People swore Rick and Michonne were like siblings, they made a great team but not that kind of team, it would be weird if they kiss, a romance would be forced, Michonne is gonna get the Negan bat to the head, she was Carl’s babysitter, they are too much alike, etc. Rick was also shipped with any white woman on the show or people hoped The One would show up for him all while ignoring the obvious setup that was years in the making. Now, I’m not saying any BWWM pairing can’t have legit criticism and people legit just aren’t for it (of any race because plenty of Black people are not about the swirl)... but BWWM inspire a unique disdain historically. 

A lot of people can’t imagine romance with these characters because they are sheltered TBH. I think the confusion that exists with Richonne and Carmy x Sydney in particular is because they get a Kerry Washington type being an ingenue who attracts the white lead but someone less glam in the way most of society sees glam throws them if a white man wants them. A white woman can be less than glam and they will get it. But with a Black woman it doesn’t register or make them comfortable. It doesn’t compute. It could be conscious or unconscious. I get it, I see it, I’m not sheltered. I’ve seen couples IRL that look like Richonne and Carmy x Sydney. It exists, it’s real, and it makes great fiction. Black women will support it in a story if it makes sense. 

Now, granted I do think some fetishize interracial relationships and that has its issues but I also think Black women are going to love... Black women being loved, by anybody regardless of gender, orientation, or race. We just want romance and a compelling story. If there happens to be a Black person that could be paired with a Black woman but if it just doesn’t make sense, it just doesn’t. Or maybe it could be an ok couple but it wouldn’t be as epic as the BWWM pairing being developed. We pick up on what is being given to us. 

I think if people don’t see blatant lust or intense flirting between a pair right away they assume we are imagining things. Many don’t often see the tiny sparks and hints or room for romance to grow and develop deeply for Black women characters. We are complex, too. We sometimes have to stumble, and be awkward, and push away, and be conflicted. I think any subtlety with a budding romance gets easily lost with Black women characters. When it’s a white man opposite us it can be hard for many to see it for what it is if it doesn’t read as obvious to them. But we see what we see and it just may be a fine white man and a beautiful Black woman navigating a nuanced something, something until it becomes SOMETHING. 

[senashenta]

Horror High: Chapter Eight

Title: Horror High

Pairing: Destiel

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Sex, Violence

Summary: John Winchester plants his eldest son at Caspar High in Jacksonville because weird things have been happening there: people disappearing. People reappearing only dead and drained of all their bodily fluids. Cocoons. It’s up to Dean to figure out what’s stalking Caspar’s halls and deal with it accordingly; but then he meets the New Kid—newer than him, even, the New-New Kid—Castiel Novak, and all his plans get severely derailed. Now Dean has to juggle the supernatural case—a really hungry jorogumo—and also the fact that he’s very quickly falling in love, something that is absolutely forbidden by his dad.

Meanwhile Castiel, shoved into the third new school in a year because his adoptive father—Chuck Shurley’s—job has them moving around a lot, struggles to fit in at Caspar High, not only because he’s the New Kid but because he’s the weird New Kid. Dean seems like a saving grace, a harbor in a storm, someone who doesn’t judge him—that is until Cas finds out about Dean’s night job. Cas’s life just got a whole lot stranger—but that doesn’t stop him from falling for Dean, regardless.

Notes: Thank you to the few people who have commented so far, I appreciate your feedback. And while I would love more, I thrive on interaction with the readers, I think I’ve decided to just write the sequel to Horror High (Storm Season) even if no one else reads it, just because I’m enjoying writing in this verse. I already have FIVE one-shots written that take place after Horror High and leading up to Storm Season (which were mostly written for the sake of smut, tbh, though one or two do have a bit of a plot) to post once I’m done posting Horror High as well, so… I’ve been busy. Haha. Can also be read HERE ON AO3. <3

HORROR HIGH TUMBLR MASTER POST HERE.

HORROR HIGH Chapter Eight By Senashenta

Dean gave it a whole twelve hours before he went to Cas’s house to check up on him, and the entire time he was waiting he was antsy, pacing the motel room or sitting with one leg bouncing restlessly while he scribbled in his notebook; notes about the Hunt, notes about the flamethrowers and how to improve them, notes about Sam, notes about Cas. Just generally driving Sam crazy. Specifically not calling their dad to tell him he’d finished the job they were in town for.

When Sam finally had enough of Dean climbing the walls, he slammed his laptop shut with a frustrated noise and ordered; “just go already!”

Dean didn’t need to be told twice. He grabbed his spare jacket from the back of the chair he had been sitting on and headed for the door.

It was a forty-five minute walk from the motel to Cas’s house, give or take, but Dean made it in significantly less than that. He arrived on Cas’s doorstep slightly disheveled and a bit out of breath and had to take a minute to collect himself and fix his clothes before knocking on the front door.

When Chuck answered after a brief wait, Dean put on his best smile and greeted, “hi, Chuck!”

Chuck just sighed and stepped aside. “Castiel is in his room resting. He’s not feeling very well today, I think he has the flu. But he’ll be happy to see you, the same as always. Just go on up, Dean. But try not to wake him up if he’s asleep, alright?”

“Yes, sir. Thanks.” Dean scooted past Chuck, paused just long enough to take his shoes off in the entryway, then made his way through the house and up the stairs to Cas’s room. He rapped lightly on the door, but when there was no answer, he went in anyway, closing the door quietly behind himself.

Cas was nothing but a lump under the covers on the bed. He didn’t move when Dean came in, though Dean had been stealthy about it. Now he just shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of the desk chair before crossing over to the bed, where he carefully pulled back the blankets and eased in under them with the other boy.

Cas mumbled something in his sleep, and when Dean tucked up beside him, he nuzzled closer with a murmur, ending up with his face buried in Dean’s chest and one of Dean’s arms carefully wrapped around him. Dean pressed a kiss into his hair. “I’m so glad you’re not dead. I’d’ve had to kill you if you were.”

There was a brief silence, and then Cas’s voice spoke up, muffled by Dean’s shirt, “feels like I’m dying, though. Pass me the painkillers.”

A quiet chuckle and Dean stretched to reach for the nightstand, rummaging in the drawer before coming up with the bottle of aspirin. “Sorry we didn’t have anything stronger for you.”

Cas gave a minute shrug and struggled to sit up for a moment before giving up and half-collapsing back into Dean’s chest. Dean made a soft worried noise and gently adjusted so they were both half-propped-up by the pillows. “You had the antibiotics, that’s good enough. I’m managing with just aspirin.” Cas took the bottle of painkillers and tipped three out into his palm, then swallowed them quickly. Dean set the bottle on the nightstand once he was done with it. “It hasn’t even been a day yet, Dean, what are you doing here?”

Dean just wrapped him up in his arms and leaned his chin in Cas’s hair. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Had to come check on you. Make sure you were still alive. Cas, I…”

“I know, Dean…”

“No, you don’t know.” The older boy made a frustrated noise and resisted the urge to tighten his hold on Cas, knowing it would hurt him. “How could you be so stupid? You’re smarter than that. You’re not a Hunter, you’re just a civilian, you could have been killed! You got hurt. Badly, and that just…” Dean swallowed slightly and buried his face in Cas’s hair, “shit, Cas, I thought you might die and my whole world was just collapsing around me, I… I don’t know what I would have done if…”

“But I didn’t.” Cas pointed out softly.

“But you could have.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Cas, you can’t do that again… you can’t be that stupid again, okay? Not ever. Not for any reason. Promise me.”

Cas swallowed a little and then pushed himself up with a wince to look Dean in the eye. He gave him what he hoped was a reassuring, though slightly pained, smile. “I promise, Dean.” Then he shifted just a bit and asked, “help me change my bandages? I don’t think I can do it on my own.”

Dean blew out a breath and finally offered a smile of his own, “yeah, I can do that.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Lets’ get you up.”

With Dean’s help, Cas managed to climb out of bed and make his way to the bathroom, more than aware that he was looking rough, just dressed in boxers and his borrowed t-shirt, his hair a mess, bags under his eyes and moving tentatively, trying not to limp.

Dean didn’t comment, only helped him through to sit on the closed toilet seat in the bathroom, then dug under the sink for the bandages when Cas directed him to them. That was apparently where he kept his first-aid kit. Dean made a mental note to bring more bandages over from their stash at the motel next time he came.

While Dean was rummaging, Cas struggled to pull his shirt off but eventually had to give up with a frustrated sound. Dean gave him a little smile, set the first-aid supplies on the counter, and moved over to help. “Arms up. Careful. Slowly.” Carefully tugging the t-shirt up and off, he joked, “any other time this would be totally hot.”

“Dean,” Cas protested, one hand coming up to rest against his bandages, “I would but I think it might kill me right now.”

Dean snorted a laugh. He crouched down in front of Cas and leaned in for a brief kiss—but of course nothing more. Then he just began gently pulling at the tape around Cas’s bandages, easing it off and pulling the bandages away to reveal the wounds beneath. His smile faded out at the sight. He let his fingers trail along the edge of one of the gashes lightly. “They look better. Not great, but better than last night. How do they feel?”

“Painful.” Cas answered truthfully, watching Dean inspect his injuries with remarkably sharp blue eyes, considering how much he was hurting. “And I’m filthy. I know you and Sam cleaned me up the best you could, but I need a shower.”

“Can you stand on your own long enough to have one?”

It was a valid question. Cas considered before asking, “you could come with me?”

“Cas,” Dean’s hands dropped down to rest against Cas’s thighs, squeezing there restlessly, and he shook his head, “come on, you know what you’re asking, don’t you? That’s a lot even for me. I’m strong but I’m not that strong.”

“I know. Don’t worry about it. I’ll make you help me have a shower in a couple days, when I’m a little sturdier.” Then a pause, followed by a little smile, “thank you for always looking out for me, Dean.” The other boy always had his best interests at heart, it seemed. “I’m sorry I let you down… with the jorogumo thing.”

“You didn’t let me down. You came through for me when I needed a hand. You just scared the shit out of me in the process.” Dean leaned up, dragging him into another kiss, slow and deep. When they broke apart a breathless moment later, he grinned at Cas and grabbed for the bottle of alcohol. “This is gonna sting. A lot.”

Despite the warning and even though he braced himself for it, Cas still found himself cursing under his breath the entire time Dean cleaned out his wounds and re-bandaged them. His father would have been disappointed. At least Dean was efficient at it and got the job done quickly, tossing the old, bloody bandages into the trash when he was finished and then tucking the rest of the first-aid supplies back where they had come from.

Once he had washed the blood off his hands, Dean helped Cas back into his shirt and then out of the bathroom and back over to the bed, where Cas painfully crawled under the covers and motioned for Dean to do the same. Dean went willingly, climbing into the bed and tucking Cas into his side again, one hand resting lightly over his bandaged ribs.

“I haven’t called Dad yet,” Dean admitted after a long silence. His eyes were on the ceiling, absently counting the stars there while he felt Cas just breathing along with him. Cas had his own eyes closed and his head resting on Dean’s shoulder. “I was supposed to call as soon as the Hunt was done. He’s gonna be pissed. But…” The hand on Cas’s side rubbed, just the gentlest of touches. “I don’t want to leave you like this.”

“I don’t want you to leave at all.” Cas admitted softly, eyes still closed.

“I know. I don’t…” Trailing off, Dean made a soft, frustrated sound and thumped his head against the pillows. It wasn’t like he wanted to leave, either, but he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. “Cas,” he said finally, “I don’t want to leave, but you know how it is for me. You know.”

“Yes. I know.” Cas agreed, one hand sliding to rest against Dean’s chest, just to feel his heartbeat, so he wouldn’t ever forget it. “When will you call your Dad?”

“In two or three days, I think.” Dean replied quietly, “once I know you’re alright.”

“I’m alright now.” Cas pointed out, a little smile on his face, “with you. I’m always alright when I’m with you.”

“You’re better off without me. You got hurt because of me.”

“I thought I got hurt because I was being stupid?”

“That, too.” Dean agreed.

Cas hummed. “What if I just came with you?”

A chuckle, the laughter rumbling in Dean’s chest, under Cas’s palm. “My Dad would freak out. Your Dad would freak out. Basically, all the Dads would freak out.” Then a pause and he admitted, “not that you wouldn’t be a welcome distraction on the road. Although we would be sharing a room with Sam and Dad and they probably wouldn’t appreciate our… closeness. Sam already mocks me for it, and he hasn’t seen the worst of it by far.”

“We would have to have our own room.” Cas agreed, tapping one finger against Dean’s shirt, “or sex couldn’t happen and that would be… unfortunate.”

Dean grinned at him. “You’re terrible.”

Cas lifted his head to return the grin with a smile of his own. “You were thinking the same thing.”

“Guilty.” Dean agreed. He angled for a kiss and Cas was happy to oblige. “Mm. I’m pretty much always thinking about being in bed with you.” Then he amended, “but this kind of being in bed with you is nice, too. I’m going to miss it.”

“Me too.” Cas returned his head to Dean’s shoulder, nuzzling into the side of his neck with a hum, pressing a gentle kiss against where his pulse was pounding. “I’m also going to miss spending lunch hour with you at school. It’ll be weird when you’re gone.”

“Start eating lunch with Charlie and your other friends,” Dean suggested.

“Mm, but they aren’t you. It won’t be the sam—” The younger boy interrupted himself with a yawn and settled even more into Dean’s side, almost boneless. The aspirin was finally kicking in, and he was comfortable, warm, and exhausted. “Dean, I think I need to sleep some more. Will you stay while I have a nap?”

Dean was already pulling the covers up around them a bit more. He dropped a kiss against Cas’s hair again. “Get some rest, Cas. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

-- --

They fell into a rhythm, Dean visiting every day ‘after school’, even though he had stopped going to school as soon as the whole jorogumo thing was over and done with. But Cas’s father didn’t need to know that—it would be hard to explain—so Dean just dropped by in the afternoons after school was out for the day anyway so Chuck wouldn’t know the difference.

Cas was always glad to see him, though for the first couple of days he had been rather tired and sleepy, just his body’s reaction to his injuries, trying to kickstart the healing process. The antibiotics helped, he was sure, as did Dean helping to change his bandages every day, since he couldn’t exactly ask his father to do it.

But through it all, he continued to feel… gross. Dirty. He still has dried blood and dirt flecked across his skin from the initial wounds, though Dean and Sam had done their best at the time to clean him up. Also, he hadn’t showered in days, leaving him feeling greasy. His hair was disgusting. Honestly, he didn’t know how Dean could stand cuddling up with him when he came to visit, but he did so faithfully, each and every day. Still.

“Help me with a shower today?”

They were in the bathroom and Dean was in the process of carefully peeling his bandages off when Cas spoke up—and the older boy paused. Green eyes flicked up at him, then back down to his wounds, and after a moment he asked, “are you sure? You could wait another couple days.”

“Dean, I’m disgusting.” Cas stated flatly, then; “and it can’t be good for my cuts. I’m supposed to be keeping them clean, right?”

“You’re not disgusting, you’re just—” Dean broke off when Cas stared at him hard and cleared his throat before finishing with, “okay, you’re mildly disgusting. But your cuts actually look okay.” He returned his attention to removing the bandages, tossing them in the trash and then finally allowing; “alright, I’ll help you shower. But no funny business.”

Cas’s lips quirked in an amused smile. “Are you saying that to me or yourself?”

“Both.” Dean confirmed with a little half-grin. He stood up and helped Cas to his feet as well, then began the process of stripping them both down, Cas helping where he could, though it was still hard for him to bend or twist too much. Those movements pulled at his injuries.

When Dean stripped his t-shirt off and tossed it to the side, Cas was surprised to see two short slashes, already well into healing, marking the right side of his chest. Dean was already reaching for Cas’s shorts, but Cas caught his hands, frowning slightly before reaching up to touch along the cuts. Dean didn’t even twitch. “You didn’t tell me you got hurt, too.”

Dean glanced down at his own chest and sighed. “It was nothing, just a little flesh wound. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Cas’s brows drew together in concern, but when Dean leaned in and pulled him into a kiss, he allowed it. “Dean…” But then he trailed off, just stepping closer to the older boy, almost pressing against him, making Dean grumble softly. “Sorry.” Cas apologized, not really meaning it. He wanted to be close to Dean—needed it, even. Craved it. “Thank you for this.”

“Just… I’m afraid of hurting you.” Dean admitted after a brief hesitation. “You’re still injured.”

“I am.” Cas agreed, and reached for Dean’s pants, starting to undo them with deft fingers. “But I desperately need to get cleaned up, Dean, and I don’t think I can do it alone.” Smiling, he glanced up at Dean even as he pushed the older boy’s jeans down over his hips, “luckily you’re around to help me.”

“Yeah. Luckily.” Dean swallowed audibly but got himself out of his jeans the rest of the way and then reached to tug Cas’s boxers down. “This is a bad idea and we both know it.”

A quiet hum as he stepped out of his shorts. Cas shrugged with one shoulder. “Probably.” Then he let his hands come to rest against Dean’s abdomen, just still there for a few breaths before he began tugging at the older teen’s boxers, pulling them down as far as he could without bending over or crouching down. “Take these off, please. You can’t wear them in the shower.”

Dean made a quiet agreeing noise and shucked out of his boxers, all the while pretending that he wasn’t already half-hard. Cas just watched him with obvious amusement in his eyes. “There, happy now?” Dean muttered finally, turning to start the shower up.

“Yes.” Cas agreed, stifling the urge to laugh. “But I’m always happy when I’m with you, Dean.”

“Always? Really?”

“Mm. Really.”

“I… yeah. Me too, Cas.” And then; “come on, the water’s ready.”

The two of them climbed into the shower together and Cas heaved a long, heavy sigh at the feeling of the water cascading over him, humming happily as he reached for the shampoo and began scrubbing at his hair with only a little discomfort from the pull of the wounds on his side—and completely oblivious to the fact that Dean was watching him, probably too closely. He gave a content little groan while he was rinsing the suds away—at which point Dean echoed the sound and forced his gaze to the floor, watching the soap, tinted with blood and dirt, wash down the drain instead.

“Cas, c’mon, you’re killing me, here.”

“Sorry, Dean.” He wasn’t really. He was the opposite of sorry. But he had also reached the extent of what he could reasonably do on his own, so Cas picked up a cloth and the soap and pressed them into Dean’s hands. “Here, I need you to do this part.”

“This is not going to kill me any less.” Dean informed him dryly.

“Sorry.” Cas repeated with an amused smile, then; “you knew what you were signing up for.”

A little grumble but Dean didn’t protest because he knew it was true. Instead, he focused on lathering the soap into the cloth—which, frankly, didn’t seem soft enough for Cas’s injured skin, as far as he was concerned—and then stepping closer to the younger boy. “Lift your arms up a bit.” He muttered, and when Cas complied, he began gently washing the grime from him, working carefully over the gashes to get rid of the last of the dried blood, and then moving on to the rest of the dirt that was still smeared across his chest from the Hunt. Underneath the surface dirt were the bruises, though, mottled and in various stages of healing. Dean frowned to himself at the sight. “How do the bruises feel?”

Cas shifted and dropped his arms back to his sides, turning so Dean could clean up his back; “they’re sore, but they’re not terrible.”

“They’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.” Dean agreed, tentatively cleaning up the gouges that scored all around to the back of his ribs. “You got lucky.” When he was finished with Cas’s back, Dean nudged him to turn around again—and then hesitated before sliding the cloth down and over Cas’s abdomen, washing gently.

Cas shifted a little again at the attention, shuffling from one foot to the other and back again. He was very quickly getting hard from Dean’s hands on him. Finally, he swallowed and managed weakly, “I’m sorry, Dean. I know we were joking around, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this…”

“Don’t apologize,” Dean’s voice came out rough and his hand slowed to a stop. He leaned in to press a kiss to Cas’s forehead. “I’m in the same boat.”

“I’d noticed.”

They were both fully, undeniably hard now, cocks straining against their stomachs, and after a short hesitation, Dean dropped the soap and washcloth and planted one hand on Cas’s chest to gently push him back against the wall. Then he ducked his head to kiss along Cas’s jaw and down to the crook of his neck—before sinking down to his knees.

“Dean,” Cas protested, one hand already grabbing at Dean’s hair, “you really don’t hav—ah!”

Despite his not-really-complaint, Dean was already tentatively licking over the head of his cock and Cas thought his knees might give out already. This was something new between them—definitely unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. Dean’s mouth was hot, wet velvet, sliding down the length of his cock and it was perfect.

Cas’s head fell back against the wall, and he pulled at Dean’s hair absently. “God, Dean…!”

Dean actually pulled off of him with an obscenely wet noise and coughed out, “enough with the hair pulling, Cas.”

Cas barked a breathless laugh—“Sorry.”—and loosened his grip on Dean’s hair, smoothing his fingers through the wet strands gently. “Didn’t mean to.”

Dean muttered a garbled “s’okay” and then went right back to what he had been doing, sucking up and down Cas’s cock like it was candy, and considering it was, Cas assumed, his first time giving a blowjob to someone, Cas thought he was doing a freaking fantastic job. Then again, it wasn’t like he had anything to compare it to, either. Still. Cas was left leaning heavily back against the tiles, biting his lip hard to muffle his moans and one hand down, buried in Dean’s hair, fingers carding through the wet strands—carefully this time, reverently.

After another minute of gasping for air and trying desperately to keep his hips still, Cas cracked his eyes open and looked down and—God. Dean was on his knees, one arm up and braced against the tile wall beside Cas, the opposite hand resting against Cas’s thigh, gripping there tightly, possibly to keep himself from jerking off along with everything else he was doing. His cock was hard, though, straining red against his belly and making Cas swallow thickly.

Unable to do much else, the younger boy whined softly, watching Dean suck up and down his cock for a long moment—and then Dean’s eyes, which had previously been closed, opened—and he looked up, meeting Cas’s gaze.

Cas moaned, head falling back again, and his hips bucked as he came abruptly.

Dean didn’t pull away, instead swallowing every drop before easing back, licking his lips absently. Cas’s head lolled to the side, and he looked down again with a little smile, then watched Dean carefully climb to his feet. Dean wrapped an arm around him when he pressed close and leaned in for a kiss.

His boyfriend tasted of salt and musk and something else vaguely alkaline but undeniable. Cas kissed back, slow and languid, and slid one hand around between them, down to palm against Dean’s still-obvious erection. Dean uttered a soft groan and ducked his head to nose into the crook of Cas’s neck.

“I told you this was a bad idea…” He muttered.

“Mm.” Cas agreed, even as he started to stroke, jerking Dean off quick and easy. “But I’m not complaining…”

Dean braced his free hand against the wall beside Cas and muffled another groan into the other teen’s skin. Cas just continued stroking, ducking his head to press little kisses along Dean’s shoulder with a smile.

When Dean came a short time later, painting his cum across Cas’s hand and abdomen, he pressed his forehead tightly into the crook of Cas’s neck and took several panting breaths, steadying himself. By that time Cas’s own breathing had evened out and he just rubbed one hand up and down Dean’s back for a long moment. Then Dean eased back from him to stand up properly and offered him an actual, sheepish grin.

Cas brought his hand up to lick at his fingers for a second, then rinsed the rest of Dean’s cum off under the shower spray. After that he pushed away from the wall and offered a smile of his own. “What was that all about?”

Dean just shrugged and glanced aside. “I figured that—uh, you know—wouldn’t pull your injuries.”

The older boy was being adorably bashful. Cas reached out to pull him closer and leaned in to kiss him gently. “Thank you.”

“Don’t gotta thank me for a blowjob.” Dean muttered against his lips, embarrassed.

“But it was good.” Cas protested, “don’t you say ‘thank you’ when people give you nice things?”

“Like blowjobs, though?” Dean sounded incredulous.

“Definitely like blowjobs.” Cas confirmed with a nod.

“I don’t like the number of times we’re saying the word ‘blowjob’.” Dean informed him flatly, then, “the hot water’s starting to run out, we should get out of the shower. I’ll help you dry off and get your cuts bandaged up again.”

Dean reached around Cas to turn the water off (just in time, it was starting to edge into nippy territory) and the two of them climbed out of the shower, water puddling on the floor as they dried off—Cas dropped a towel down to mop it up when they were done. Then Cas was returned to his place sitting on the closed toilet seat so that Dean could bandage him up again. At least this time he was clean—and it felt a lot better that way.

Once his bandages were done, Cas insisted on tossing his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper and digging out a new t-shirt and pair of boxers from his dresser, so wandered through to the bedroom to do exactly that while Dean finished pulling on his own clothing. By the time Dean made it through to the bedroom after him, Cas was dressed again, sort of, and already crawling back into bed.

He motioned for Dean to join him. “Come on.”

There was a bit of shuffling around while Dean crossed over to the bed and climbed in beside Cas, pulling the covers over the both of them and settling with the younger boy comfortably tucked against his side, one of Cas’s arms flung over Dean’s chest and one of Dean’s hands resting lightly, carefully against Cas’s injured ribs, gentleness reserved for very few people in his life.

Cas basked in the care that Dean showed him, always did, from sitting with him at lunch at school to sharing the details of his life to kisses and touches and bandaging him up now that he was wounded. Dean sometimes struggled to show his affection, but he was good at it in his own way and getting better day-by-day. Cas appreciated it all.

Right now, he especially appreciated Dean’s warmth and the rhythm of this breathing, the steady beat of his heart.

“You know, you didn’t have to do that. The… word you think we were saying too much.” Cas spoke up after a long few moments of silence. Dean didn’t reply right away, just trailed his hand up to thread his fingers through Cas’s hair gently. Cas hummed and leaned into the touch. “Not that I don’t appreciate it. Because I do. But it was your first time… doing that. Right? So, I’m just saying. It wasn’t necessary.”

“But you liked it, right?” Dean rumbled after a pause.

“Mm. I really did.” Cas agreed. “I mean. I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“Then I don’t regret it even a single bit.”

Cas tightened his arm around Dean in a little hug and turned his head to drop a kiss against his chest. “You’re the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”

Dean chuckled. “I’m the only boyfriend you’ve ever had.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“I really don’t think it is.” The older boy sounded amused, laughter tinging his words, “the point is you’ve got nothing to compare it to. You can’t say I’m the best when there are no others in the running.”

Cas frowned up at him slightly. “Do I need to list off all the amazing things about you?”

“Please do.” Dean grinned back.

“You’re incorrigible.” He dropped his head back on Dean’s chest, making the other teen mutter an ‘oof’, and was quiet for a long moment before shifting his arm around Dean absently and murmuring; “you said I make you feel cared for, but it’s the same with me. You obviously care for me, Dean, and that’s… it’s a novelty for me. You’ve protected me right from the moment we met. You’re… strong, and smart, and funny, and humble about it all—most of the time, anyway. You take care of me, in every sense of the term…” Trailing off a bit, he brought his hand up to toy with the front of Dean’s shirt absently, “you’re an amazing big brother to Sam, even if he’s at an age where he doesn’t appreciate it. You’re an amazing Hunter. You’re an incredible person. An incredible friend. An absolutely extraordinary boyfriend.” His fingers paused, then, and he smiled, glancing up at Dean once more, “also you’re tremendously good-looking. That’s always a plus.”

Dean was quiet, just looking down at him, but Cas could see the gears working in his head. He returned his own head to Dean’s chest again, closing his eyes to listen to his heartbeat with a little, content smile on his face.

“Since I got hurt,” He continued after a brief pause, “which was not in any way your fault, by the way, you’ve spent all your free time over here, or as much as possible, anyway, just checking on me and taking care of me. You change my bandages every day, though soon I should be able to do it myself. You even helped me have a shower today, and I cannot understate how grateful I am for that. I feel so much better now. And when we were in the shower and I got—excited—you helped with that, too. All you do is help me and take care of me. You’re always there for me. I can’t even tell you how much all of it means to me, Dean...”

When Cas trailed off, just going back to toying with the front of Dean’s shirt absently, there was another long silence. Not uncomfortable—they were long past uncomfortable silences between the two of them—but contemplative on Dean’s part. Cas was just waiting for his boyfriend to finish computing everything he had said so he could respond.

“Cas,” When Dean spoke up finally, his voice came out soft; “I think you see things in me that no one else does. And… I’m not saying you’re wrong or that those things aren’t there, I just…” Shifting absently, he sighed, “I think you look deeper than other people bother to. You see parts of me that I don’t lay bare for just anyone. But there’s something about you, and it’s been there right from the start, that makes me want to open up to you and not keep any part of me a secret. Does that make sense?”

“Mmhm,” Cas agreed quietly, “I feel the same way.”

“I told you about Hunting, and my Dad and Sammy… and my Mom. About my nightmares.” Dean continued, “I’ve never told anyone that stuff before. The stuff about my family and Hunting is… it’s secret. It’s sacred. That’s the one big rule, never telling anyone about all that, but with you it just… came out. And I don’t regret telling you even for a second.” Then a pause and he added with a little chuckle, “though I might when my Dad finds out.”

“When?”

“He has a way of figuring out these things. It’s just a matter of time.” Dean muttered, then brightened a little again to add, “but I think dealing with Dad’s wrath… you’re worth it, when it eventually happens. No regrets with you, not ever.”

“Not even the blatant homophobia at school?”

A soft laugh, “nah, those jokers don’t scare me.”

“You punched one of them in the face.” Cas pointed out. “Three times.”

“Yeah, well, he deserved it.” Dean grumbled. The hand that had been in Cas’s hair paused briefly before his fingers continue stroking gently, generally making a mess of the still-damp strands. “I really don’t miss that school. I mean at all.”

“I still have to go there until the end of the year.” Cas sighed. “At least it’s just a few more months.”

“I’m sorry I won’t be around to deal with the assholes for you, Cas.”

“Mm-mm.” A soft negative noise, “I understand. I know your case is over, you’ve got to move on. Just don’t forget to text and video chat, right?”

“I’m going to miss the hell out of you.”

“Me too.” Cas shifted, making a little uncomfortable noise, and patted his hand against Dean’s chest, “Dean, pass me the aspirin.”

Dean dug the bottle of pills out of the bedside table and passed them to Cas, who swallowed a couple and then handed them back to be put away again. He really did wish they’d had something stronger to give the other boy—codene, maybe, that was easy to come by—but they hadn’t, so he was making do with over-the-counter stuff. Cas didn’t complain, though, even though it was obvious that he was in pain.

Dean’s hand slid back down to rest gently over Cas’s bandaged ribs again, even as he glanced at the clock. Nearly seven. He really needed to go, even if Chuck hadn’t come in to kick him out of the house yet. He did need to keep an eye on Sam while they were still at the motel by themselves, even if Sam was mostly capable of taking care of himself. But…

Dean didn’t want to go. He never did, when he was with Cas, whether it was eating lunch with him under the bleachers or cuddling up in bed with him the way he was now. He craved Cas’s company, his companionship, the physical and emotional closeness between them. Hell, he would move right in here if he could. But that wasn’t an option for so many reasons, so he just kept leaving and then coming back as soon as he possibly could.

Soon even that would be a thing of the past.

“I’m not even looking at you and I can see you frowning.” Cas spoke up, head back on Dean’s chest and eyes closed once more, waiting for the painkillers to kick in. “You have to leave soon, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I—it’s almost seven.” Dean confirmed. “I’m surprised your Dad hasn’t come in to kick me out yet, honestly.”

“He must be busy writing.” Cas began shifting, sliding away from Dean’s side a little and then leaning up to give him a quick kiss. “You should go, though. Sam will be wondering what’s taking you so long, and I should get some rest. I’m exhausted. You wore me out.”

Dean actually laughed at that—and pulled him into another kiss, this one deeper, longer. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” He promised when they parted a moment later.

Cas just smiled, the expression overly fond. “Of course you will.”

[hismercytomyjustice]

So I started writing this yesterday and then I got SO MANY FEELS and it was SO LATE but… 

Def got a little too into my own head earlier with the finale  approaching for my BG3 fic. So I reread the draft I have of the final three chapters. And I just…I’m so happy with them??? (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ) I don’t even feel like they need any major overhaul editing or anything either.

I have NEVER felt confident about writing endings, but I’m feeling alarmingly confident about this one??? Like, even my OCD doesn’t seem to have anything disparaging to say??? ( ˶°ㅁ°) !!??

I mean, I truly hope other folks feel the same way when they get to the end. But right now I’m just so fucking happy that I do?

Wildly long self-indulgent post about my BG3 fic and the writing process for it below, if that’s something you’re into.

Writing this fic has been such an unexpected rollercoaster of emotions for me. It’s taught me so much about how my OCD manifests and impacts my writing, in addition to building my writing confidence back up in general.

It’s the longest thing I’ve ever written (just about twice as long as the longest before that?!) and I feel like I’ve grown SO MUCH as a writer while working on it for the past six months. I went from thinking I would never write description well to finally feeling like I get it??? I mean I’m sure I still have loads more room for improvement, but I’ve always felt like description has been my biggest weakness as a writer and I finally don’t feel that way anymore??!!

Same with writing endings too!!! I def feel like I have a lot more progress to make on that front, but like…oh my god I actually wrote one I’m super proud of??!!

Not only that, but this fic taught me I actually can jump around while writing??? I’ve always written super linearly before and tbh I still do, but when I got stuck on chapter 12/13 for almost two months, I skipped to the very end because I had an idea spark for that part and because of that I’ve been able to lay more of the groundwork for what I hope is a satisfying wrap up.

God, I was so fucking mortified to bring up my struggles with fanfic writing to my therapist. In retrospect I realize that’s because my OCD spirals around it were getting out of fucking control…

Just a super fun refrain of:

“This isn’t a big deal, you’re doing it for fun. It’s ridiculous how upset you are over a literal hobby no one is forcing you to do. It’s just a fanfic. No one cares about it. It’s not even real writing. No one will even read it or like it anyway. You’re wasting your time. See? You can’t finish anything. You’re stuck at the 60k mark because you lack discipline and commitment. You can’t do this, so you’ll never get anything original published. How many things have you started now that you’ve never finished? You haven’t finished writing anything in almost a decade. You’re wasting your therapist’s time talking about something so absurd. She’s going to laugh in your face.”

And fucking on and on and on.

But like…none of that was true??? FUCKING SHOCKING THAT MY OCD WOULD LIE TO ME, AMIRITE?! When has it EVER done that?!

I just wound up sitting there telling my therapist I was stuck and I had lost the passion for the fic like I always did and I’d wasted three months and 60k words on a story that was never going anywhere because I wasn’t good enough to write it.

And she asked me “What would help you get unstuck?”

And I thought about it and was like: “Maybe if I start posting it, folks will read it or bare minimum I’ll get enough kudos and hits to make my brain go brr enough to finish it?” All I wanted at that point was to regain the drive to finish writing the story I’d put so much heart and time and effort into already.

I mean OF COURSE I hoped folks would read it and like it and leave kudos and omg maybe even leave a comment??!! And since BG3 was and is such a big/popular fandom I was also hoping maybe I could surpass the level of achievement I hit with my multichapter Cardcaptors fic a few years back, if nothing else.

And like, as of last night, this is where I was sitting with both:

And YES. I know that stats are NOT what I should focus on at the end of the day. But GOD IF I DON’T CRAVE THE EXTERNAL VALIDATION!!! Don’t we all…

And like, honest to god, this fic doesn’t have to surpass my CCS fic! One of the absolute (hehe) best things to come from this whole experience has been getting to interact with other cultured Bloodweave sommeliers (haha). I seriously cannot get over just how nice and encouraging and fucking amazing everyone has been with their comments!!! And that multiple people have taken the time to comment on each chapter as they come out??!! Like, I am living the fucking dream!!!  (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

I get so fucking excited every week to share my newest chapter because I desperately want to know how my pressganged Bloodweave book club will react. Like, my HEART IS SO FULL OMG!!!! They are gonna make me cry frfr!!! 

I have personally been such a terrible commenter in the past on fics I’ve enjoyed (i.e. I didn’t fucking comment), but I am trying to become a reformed member of AO3 society because the support I’ve gotten (especially when the doubts start to creep in) has been incredible!!! 100/10, would definitely recommend!!!

And like, some other great stuff has happened that helped me so much along the way too! I read The Accountant’s Guide to Taking Down an Evil Vampire Lord (and maybe bagging Astarion while you are at it) by Cinnamontails. While I was reading it, writing description FINALLY FUCKING CLICKED for me! I was just like “Omfggg?! This is what people are talking about when they say description should do more than one thing!!!” Up to that point I pretty much believed that was like a sort of writing koan or something. Something everyone says, but that isn’t actually meant to be understood because it’s unknowable? Or something like that.

Lemme tell ya, I fucking love learning about writing. I’ve gone to countless writing panels at cons. I listened to podcasts on writing for YEARS (Writing Excuses, I Should be Writing, Ditch Diggers, etc). I’ve read so many books on writing. Watched YouTube videos, took a class, etc, etc! But for some reason the “description should do more than one thing” adage just did not compute. Until I read that fic!

Up to that point, description had always felt like something I threw in as padding around all of my dialogue and character navel gazing. And I fucking STRUGGLED with it as a result. It always felt SO FUCKING BORING to me. I hated it, especially because it never came easily. But now I FINALLY understand and I LOVE writing it!!!!

I went looking for some more tips on writing description and picked up Description: A Busy Writer’s Guide by Marcy Kennedy, which broke things down even further for me!

I felt personally attacked by this part in particular:

“Irrelevant description is what gives description a bad name.

You might think that’s obvious, but so often in my editing work, I’ve seen authors describe things in detail that have no bearing on the story at all. Usually they do it because they’ve been told at one time that they weren’t including enough description and no one told them what kind of description they needed to start including or how to properly include it.”

I am not exaggerating when I say, until very recently, to write description I would find photos of locations, buildings, character inspo, etc and try to focus on what someone more visually inclined would want described because I don’t have a super robust mental image generator. I’ve never had the “I see a movie in my head” while reading gift. Super jelly of folks who do tho! I get more like…flashes maybe? And I didn’t even realize that until I actually made myself pay attention to what was going on in my head while reading fairly recently. I sincerely thought I had aphantasia and people were exaggerating when they said they could picture things in their heads.

Like, when they’d tell you to look at something then close your eyes and envision what you remembered in school (was that just me?). And I’d be like “Okay so we’re just closing our eyes and trying to remember the individual things right? No one actually sees anything.” COLOR ME SURPRISED to find out that WAS NOT the case!

I don’t think I have aphantasia anymore, but like, on the scale from 0 (aphantasia) to 10 (see a movie in my head), I’d say I’m maybe a 3? I can’t envision a whole room or even like…a moving image? Moving images in my head are almost more like extremely short flip books. And the more I try to focus on them, the more out of focus they become. I also really struggle to envision things I’ve never seen before. Like, as a literal picture in my head I mean. It’s easier for me to imagine like…a picture I took of my dog than my actual dog? And like, if I try to do something like envision my bedroom or something, I just kind of pick a point and go from there like “Okay this is what my bed looks like, now it’s gone. This is what my dresser looks like, now it’s gone. This is what my end table looks like, now it’s gone.” It doesn’t form a bigger picture in my head. It’s more like a mental checklist where I think about the different attributes of something (like the color of my sheets, or how many pillows I have) rather than actually see something like the whole bed? Idk. That’s the best way I can think of to explain it.

Ngl, that might very well be part of why writing description like was so difficult and SO FUCKING BORING to me. I didn’t really see things in my head and I’m not a very visual person in general, so I don’t focus a ton on those details anyway as a reader or when I’m physically somewhere. So l felt like all my description was so hamfisted and awkward as a result, and I had absolutely no concept of how much was enough or too much.

But then she goes on in the book to say:

“All description filters through the viewpoint character and is colored by who they are as a person.” And I was just like…ohhhhhhh!!!! That’s exactly what that fanfic did!!!

And then:

“What they notice will also be largely influenced by their circumstances. A character heading into a job interview will be hyper aware of their own appearance, whereas a character who’s crawling around in a cave looking for hidden treasure won’t. A character who is running for their life will notice different things about their surroundings than will a character who isn’t in immediate danger.

If it’s not something they would notice, then we either have to leave it out or come up with a believable, realistic reason for them to notice it.”

Like. OF FUCKING COURSE?! THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE?! HOW DID I NEVER GRASP THIS BEFORE?!

Marcy Kennedy goes on to give other tips like “a good description is specific” and “a good description allows less to be more.” And about how it’s more important to focus on specific, unique details than to try and describe everything about the scene/character (like I would do before). Like, focusing on stuff readers will actually remember and that paints a clearer picture.

She also delves into the specifics of writing for the five senses (another thing I always heard suggested, but never felt I executed well). And on how people naturally notice things from bigger/more obvious to smaller/more specific. She also talks about the psychology behind the things people naturally notice and why and how it’s impacted by who they are as a person (ex. the career they have, their gender, etc).

She gets even more specific with stuff like:

“Description for the purpose of grounding should be quick and needs to happen within the first few paragraphs of a new scene.

If time is the only thing that’s changed, we’ll need to use even less description than if our characters also changed location.

As a general guideline, describe a place in the most depth the first time that setting shows up on the page. Later on, unless something important has changed, a brief re-orienting passage is enough.”

I have DESPERATELY been searching for something this specific. Like just PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME HOW MANY SENTENCES/PARAGRAPHS TO USE AND HOW FREQUENTLY TO USE DESCRIPTION. And ON GOD that’s exactly what this book does! ദ്ദി ꒦ິ꒳꒦ິ )✧

I still need to finish reading it but omfg I about lost my mind when I found the holy grail I’d been searching for.

And like, I’m sure my description still needs work and I’m using a sledgehammer instead of a regular hammer sometimes. But I’m learning and growing! And I’m sure it’ll become easier with practice! Hell, half the time I’ll write something and not realize until, oh I don’t know I’ve pretty much finished my fucking 100k word fanfic, that I fucking never really physically described my Tav?! I shouldn’t have said that… Now everyone will notice if they hadn’t already.. FUCK.

BUT! My absolute FAVORITE thing to write is character and being told “write description through the lens of your character” got me so fucking hype. I’m not sitting there anymore like “What’s in this room, what would a reader who sees what they read in their head (definitely not me) find most interesting?” and am instead like “What would Character A notice in this room? How are they feeling right now? What does X remind them of? What are they thinking about? What do they like and dislike, how does that impact what they pay attention to?” And I FUCKING LOVE IT!!!!

And I AM SURE this is not groundbreaking information for 99.9% of folks but IT WAS FOR ME!!!!! It has easily doubled my word count for everything I’ve written since then and I’m not stuck massively overthinking it all now! And I actually enjoy it! It doesn’t feel like a miserable slog anymore!

And this is THE MOST OBVIOUS in how my BG3 fic chapters literally DOUBLED OR TRIPLED in length after I got my hands on this book in the middle of writing the fic lol. Almost every shorter chapter in the first 75% of the fic was written prior to me reading this book. And the longer ones? Those were added after! 

Like, chapter two originally didn’t include the Owlbear scene. It just ended after Astarion walked out of the fortress. Meanwhile, chapter five and six DID NOT EXIST. I kinda panicked when I realized the story felt too Astarion heavy when it was supposed to be about both of them. I also felt like the pacing for the story in general was off (too fast). So I went back and added those. Leon and Victoria WERE NOT IN THE STORY until I went back to add chapter five.

Since I was doing alternating POV, if I added another chapter for Gale I needed to add another for Astarion. So I decided to make Astarion’s about them needing to find Gale an artefact in the Underdark. I started researching artefacts there that would satisfy the orb, but wanted to dig deeper and lay a little more groundwork for Astarion starting to care more about Gale and learning to be more kind/compassionate overall.

My headcanon for Astarion is that he’s always been a little selfish, or at least he thinks he is. I expanded on that later on in the fic by implying his parents weren’t the best of people. I felt like Cazador would smell blood in the water as far as folks with prior abuse of some kind were concerned, like a lot of abusers do. So Astarion spent his life up until he moved to Baldur’s Gate trying to be his own person despite the box his parents wanted to fit him in. That was my reason for why he left the Dalelands so young (by elf standards). He was still a grown ass man, but hadn’t reached maturity as far as his parents were concerned.

And like, why did he go as far away as Baldur’s Gate? Because it is like THE OPPOSITE SIDE of Faerun. And there’s no real info on his family anywhere, so I felt like maybe he wasn’t super close with them if he moved so far away. My idea was he felt he couldn’t escape their expectations without putting some real distance between them. And then, in the process, he winds up with Cazador, someone even more determined to mold him into what they want him to be rather than what he wants to be.

I feel like so much of Astarion’s arc in game is about finally being able to become his own person. And I thought it would pair really well with the tragedy of him being turned by Cazador if that happened just when he started take back control of his own life.

My headcanon is a lot of Astarion’s selfishness stems from no one ever being there for him or looking out for him, so he can only rely on himself and fuck everyone else as a result. Except he’s not nearly as callous as he pretends and deep down he genuinely wants to care about others. He just doesn’t know how to do it and feels like it can only come at the expense of his own autonomy/safety/happiness.

SO. What artefact would Astarion have that he could choose to give to Gale? Initially I thought maybe something small like the Ring of Color Spray. That didn’t feel significant enough though. Like, yes it would be something of his that he was choosing to part with, but it wasn’t a big enough of a statement to me. So then I tried to find a cool/powerful weapon or something else that he would be less inclined to part with. Whee, more time researching artefacts! But that didn’t feel right either, so  I decided it should be something with more personal significance because that’s the biggest kind of sacrifice he could make at this point.

So! What would Astarion have that would be powerful enough to satisfy the orb? And why??? Cazador doesn’t exactly seem like the type to give his spawn anything, not even the basics (i.e. Astarion’s 200 years of starvation). Especially not something like a powerful/helpful artefact. And I was like “well, I mentioned they traded favors before back in chapter four, so maybe Leon enchanted something for him?”

BUT WHY?! I really liked the bits and pieces we see of Leon in game. I feel like he’s the quickest to believe Astarion when he says Cazador plans to sacrifice them in the ritual. And he also has a human daughter! Which, yeah, that whole reveal in game gave me major brain worms. Because WHAT. There was a human child just running around Szarr Palace? WHY? What was her life like? What did the other spawn think of her? And I was also so sad we never really saw much in game about her and her father. Even though Leon loses Victoria to Dalyria. I was really surprised there was no follow up to that for him, but lord knows Larian already had 8 billion other things going on, so I get why it wasn’t something they delved further into.

But what would Leon ask for in return for such a big favor? Ooh, what if Victoria’s ill? Cazador doesn’t exactly seem like the type to be like “Oh, sorry, please take all the PTO you need and here’s some money for a healer!” I’d imagine resources suited to caring for a sick human child would be limited in Szarr Palace. And Dalyria has been looking at Victoria like she’s a literal snack for a while now (which is why she kills her in game), so what’s a vampire papa to do???

So then I had to figure out why the self-purported selfish Astarion would agree to help them. At great personal cost, no less. He never mentions Victoria in game and I don’t think there’s anything in game either that indicates he’s ever done her wrong. Leon certainly didn’t seem concerned about him in that regard, so I decided maybe he’s ambivalent toward Victoria. 

So why would he care?!

And then the Drizzt brain worms came back in full force. Because of that fucking phenomenal scene in the DND campaign with Neil fanboying, haha. So maybe Victoria has an interest in Drizzt too? Or maybe in his wife? Like, why wouldn’t a scared little girl who’s stuck in a nest of vampires look up to a strong female role model who is capable of fighting back and saving the day? And I figured Astarion hand’t exactly broadcasted his interest in Drizzt, so maybe this gives him an opportunity to actually connect with someone for once? I feel another major part of Astarion’s character is he is SO FUCKING LONELY. He doesn’t know how to establish actual relationships with people because he never has. And why would he, seeing as any new person he met would just wind up as Cazador’s dinner (as far as he knew anyway). I feel like he’s had to hardcore compartmentalize that part of him for the sake of his sanity.

But now here’s this sick little girl who he can actually help. And she understands what it’s like to dream a hero will swoop in and save the day. And she happens to be interested in stories about the same Drow Ranger  who he’s found his own escape from The Horrors™ in?

Idk if he still would have agreed to help Leon in the fic if he’d had much more time to think about it. So instead he has a moment of weakness where he desperately wants to do something good for once (the only other time having been his sparing his “darling boy”). Something that’s never been done for him, but that he could do for Victoria. He could pretend to be her hero for a little while and get something useful out of it in the process. Win-win!

And like, this doesn’t make them bffs or anything. It’s more like a pivotal moment that just started to lay the foundation for his “redemption” in my fic instead. Then I just kept thinking more and more about what his life was like after with Victoria, who’s already come to trust him a little since he doesn’t treat her poorly or look like he wants to eat her. Especially since I figure that’s probably a pretty novel experience for her given her circumstances.

But he and Gale are in the Underdark! Which has magical artefacts! So why couldn’t they just spend a few thousand words locating an artefact so he doesn’t have to give this ring up? Sure, I could make it imperative Gale needs an artefact like yesterday, but that didn’t feel like enough. Thus Tav’s sister was born, lol! And my Tav became much more of a character in the fic because I did WAAAAY too much research on the Drow for chapter five and was completely fascinated by them.

My Tav was never supposed to feature as much as they did in my fic. They’re literally my Tav from in game, though I didn’t really have an in-game backstory for them. They were just supposed to show up in my fic to help with some scenes/dialogue in lieu of me having to write more interactions with the companions I didn’t feel super confident writing because I didn’t feel like I knew them/their unique voices well enough. To my own detriment, I am obsessed with being as IC as possible when I write fic. Just my personal preference in my writing!

This was my basic ass outline from back in April when I realized I needed to add extra chapters. The checkboxes are chapters drafts I’d finished by that point:

I was about 42k words in when I made it. And the outline changed a little too! I combined my planned chapters for 15 and 16 into one and wrote something else for 16.

And then I got to the bane of my existence, Chapter 13… (≖_≖ ). That was around the 60k mark.

Originally I planned for Astarion to be kidnapped by the spawn and get tortured (a little) and then be rescued by Gale & Co. But it just didn’t feel right. So then I thought “Gale should get kidnapped too, that’ll be more interesting!” And THEN I had Cazador show up. But he was being too…nice? Maybe not nice, but like…too chill/accommodating? Because I didn’t want the fic to get EVEN LONGER by setting Astarion’s progress with his trauma back to the stone ages with prolonged exposure to his abuser.

Originally I had Cazador show up, throw Astarion around a little and then Leon was like “Mister Cazador, sir, he has a tadpole, can we all go somewhere you aren’t so I can take a look at it?” And Cazador was just like “HMPF. OKAY, I GUESS. BUT DON’T FORGET I’M ~EVIL~, even though I’m acting pretty blasé right now!” Cut to Gale, Astarion, and Leon chitchatting in the Favored Spawn room.

And it just…was not fucking working. I felt it didn’t make sense for Cazador. It wasn’t boogeyman enough. Like…no way would he just let them traipse off, even with the tadpole as the reason. Something else needed to happen. Something that would give him an actual reason to have to put Astarion on the back burner. Something BIG!

But fucking WHAT???

My OCD chimed in with: “So happy you asked! Remember that other insecurity you have about being fucking terrible at writing villains? Surprise! It’s true! You’ve hit the biggest part of this fic and now it’s all pointless because you don’t know how to make Cazador be believably mean! Aren’t you glad you wasted three months and 60k words on it? You never finish anything anyway, so why should this be any different?” 

Which is why I brought all of this up to my therapist in the first place. Because I was so fucking disappointed in and frustrated with myself and had all but given up on this fic. I didn’t know what to do next or how to fix what I broke and my motivation to keep writing it was long gone. But if I stopped writing it now, I was 1000% convinced I’d never finish it and I fucking hated that. I was so excited about this story for so long and it felt like it was all over because I “sucked as a writer, lacked commitment, etc.”

It took a while. Like two fucking months, to get out of my own head enough to finally write something I was happy with for chapter 13. I firmly believe I finally got to that point because of how much support and kindness I received from the folks reading my fanfic (who hadn’t found out I was a fraud yet - actual quote from my OCD). I cannot thank all of them enough for helping bolster my self-esteem and helping me get my motivation back! And also because my therapist helped me kill off my own boogeyman of sorts (my OCD around writing)!

Originally I wasn’t going to post this fic until the first draft was completely done. Didn’t matter that I was at 60k words. It wasn’t done, so it wasn’t going up because I hate when people orphan fics. Absolutely no shade to folks who do tho! Life happens! Motivation wanes! But I did A LOT of my own orphaning back in the day on ff.net and I still feel guilty about it to this day. But I pushed past my fear with the encouragement of my therapist and FUCK it paid off!!!

Once I got over the hurdle of writing 12/13, it was pretty much smooth sailing from there. And, omfg, people ACTUALLY LIKED both chapters?! ON GOD?! I felt like they were pretty solid by the time I finally posted them, but it was still hard not to worry I had falsely convinced myself they were good. What if Cazador was TOO mean now? Or what if he still wasn’t mean enough? What if this was too hard of a left turn with the story? What if what if what if…

I seriously cannot thank the folks who’ve commented on both enough for helping allay those fears of mine. It means so fucking much to me that there are so many people out there who were just SO FUCKING KIND to me when they didn’t have to be!  ( ˃̣̣̥︿˂̣̣̥ ) A HUGE thank you to folks who’ve reached out to me or interacted with my posts about my fic on tumblr too, especially asymmetricjest whose ear I know I have talked off at this point in the internet-sense! Knowing there were folks who liked my fic enough to go out of their way to seek me out on tumblr for my Tuesday sneak peeks and to even like my and comment on my posts about writing the fic was a MASSIVE boost to my self confidence! It also made me feel like maybe I had a story worth telling after all! 

I also gotta thank my bff Gourmet for letting me talk her ear off too and for reading the first three chapters before I even posted them. I was SO FUCKING NERVOUS about posting a multi-chapter fic for a brand new fandom (to me). I was especially worried about my characterization of Gale and if it looked like I knew enough about BG3 to be qualified to write a story about it lol. Not that that’s even a thing, but it felt like it to me. Like someone was gonna bust down the door and be like “well, actually” until I gave up on writing and became a hermit in the woods.

Gourmet also made the mistake of telling me sometimes she writes on her phone, which I have taken to heart and then some… I do like 95% of my writing on google docs on my phone now. I went from writing next to nothing to having already written 198,088 words this year. Yes, I’ve been tracking it. Yes, I love spreadsheets. No, I haven’t posted everything I’ve written yet.

That was another thing I struggled with in regard to my OCD. Not just with writing, but with life in general. It’s been so hard for me to accept everything does not have to be perfect before I can do something.

I constantly talk myself out of shit because it’s not perfect. Like:

I should start working out! What’s the research on the perfect amount of exercise? What types? How often? For how long? Etc. And then I come up with a detailed day-by-day routine of working out an hour every day that is not even remotely feasible for me, so I never do it! And I won’t let myself just do 10 random minutes of exercise either because that’s not what the experts said you should do, so that means I can’t do anything! 

Down to shit like, “I can’t work out because my office is a nightmare. There’s too much stuff everywhere.” And “I can’t just go for a short walk by myself. That’s cruel to my dogs who I already don’t walk enough. But if I walk them too, I need to walk them enough, which is at least 20 minutes each. Because a dog should have 30 minutes of exercise a day.” So now my 10 minute impromptu walk has turned into an hour long dog walk because I can’t walk both of them at once (they’re big dogs and I’ve gotten hurt trying to do that before). Which then becomes too intimidating/overwhelming, so I just don’t do it at all! Yay, avoidance!

This is exactly how I’d talk myself out of writing. Just “a real writer would do xyz and since I can’t/don’t, I’m not a real writer. If I don’t write everyday, I’ll never get anywhere. I need at least an hour to write and if I don’t have that, what’s the point? Maybe I’ll just make myself write for 5 minutes a day instead! But that doesn’t feel like enough progress, so that’s not being a real writer.” Just analysis paralysis combined with a hardcore all or nothing mindset. I would spend way too much time focused on my word count each day and beating myself up about it being too low instead of just being happy I was writing, which is something I enjoy doing (ISN’T IT?!).

I used to be a bank teller about a decade ago. It was boring as fuck during the week because there were too many branches around (there was another of our same bank literally one building away from us) so we didn’t get a ton of customers. That resulted in a lot of downtime that I had to fill with something that wouldn’t get me in trouble (i.e. reading or playing on my phone). We also didn’t have internet on our computers as tellers. So I started taking little pocket notebooks with me and writing in between customers. Which was apparently fine! My coworkers would ask me what I was doing and I’d tell them journaling or something like that because I was embarrassed I was writing original romance stuff.

I wound up writing 3 different 50k original works during that time. I’d write in between customers then go home and type up what I wrote every day. And it fucking worked! It gave me something fun to do instead of stare at a wall all day, it kept me from being too perfectionistic about it, and it lowered the demand on my executive function! Win-win-win!

But then I got a different office job where there wasn’t downtime in between tasks (or at least not that you could enjoy without getting in trouble) so that fell by the wayside. I probably could’ve been writing on my work laptop or something instead, but I had undiagnosed ADHD at the time and spent so much time procrastinating while trapped in the office because it didn’t take me that long to do my work. I also didn’t realize a lot of ADHDers procrastinate because then they get a spike of adrenaline as a deadline looms, so. Yeah. Classic ADHD in retrospect.

But writing on my phone is a whole different ballgame! It doesn’t feel like “real” writing. I can do it whenever! Waiting in a doctor’s office? Write! Woke up in the middle of the night? Write! Laying down on the couch with no motivation to move? Write! 

It lowers the barrier for my executive function because I always have my phone on me! No longer am I like “do I have enough time to go to trouble of opening my laptop, opening my google doc, trying to remember where I was, etc” and getting too worked up over having “dedicated” writing time because otherwise I’m not a real writer. There aren’t all these mental hurdles I have to leap over anymore. It’s just “I want to write” > “picks up phone”.

Do I feel fucking deranged writing almost 200k words so far on my phone? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY I DO! Could I write way faster on my laptop? 10000%! But it works! So I try not to think about it too much, lol. I have started editing more on my laptop though because editing on my phone takes for fucking ever. Editing in general takes me for fucking ever.

But yeah, this was wildly fucking long but I just had a lot of stuff I wanted to mentally process about this whole process because it’s been a really fucking big deal for me. And writing stuff out helps me process it.

If you’ve actually read all of this, you are a saint and I hope some of it resonated with you, especially if you’re a writer too. And, even if you aren’t, I hope it was at least interesting/entertaining!

God, I am so pre-upset about finishing this fic, lol. I don’t want it to end. It’s given me so much structure to my weeks and so much to look forward to. It’s gonna fuck with me once it’s over and I have to find other stuff to occupy my time and I don’t get my Wednesday dopamine hit. I mean, I’m hoping I’ll be writing something else by then (I do have an HH fic that’s 30k+ words already that I need to finish). But I fucking hate change and it’s gonna be a big change for me after I’ll have spent around 7 months on this whole thing.

But seriously, I cannot thank the phenomenal folks who’ve supported me along the way by reading, kudosing, bookmarking, subscribing, commenting, etc enough! This fic would not have gotten written without your support! And thank fuck for my therapist too because I had literally no idea my OCD was so obsessed with my writing until I was in the midst of this fic.

But yeah, it's been super cathartic to journal about my process with this fic and how I've learned and grown from writing it. And my OCD is definitely not completely gone when it comes to my writing, but it's more manageable at present and I'm def gonna take that as a win!

[tariah23]

Yeah! The biggest threat to goiji is gojo himself. Not just because of his status and hang ups about being the strongest but because his powers make him so above it all he can't begin to comprehend where ijichi is coming from and he's so mean to him for it 😭😭 he starts out nicer in opposites attract because from the onset he already wants to interact and hang out with ijichi on purpose. otherwise in pretty much any other scenario he's just not considering him. It could even be backhanded if gojo extended literally any thought to him at all 😭😭😭

Exactly!!! I’ve talked sm about their whole THING for months and MONTH now with friends/ mutuals privately 😭…….. for Gojo, he’s just TOO stuck in his ways; absolutely stubborn. He’s also been sheltered to hell and has been raised to believe that he isn’t really a person ever since he was a child and so, it was probably always hard for him to actually BELIEVE that he could ever connect with anyone on a human level because he doesn’t see himself as one. He’s too far above them and feels that it’s useless to actually connect and build bridges with other people because they already don’t SEE, nor do they understand him, at least from his perspective.

It’s like he most likely unconsciously prejudges everyone around him, even his friends and students, because he’s already set himself up to never be truly part of their world on a personal level that’ll leave him vulnerable. He just exists in it and he won’t ever go any further than a silly joke, teasing them like hell to the point of bullying (Ijichi……), and hugs (because Gojo really does love to throw himself onto other people. Physical contact is fun for him and he’s already an extremely affectionate individual as is so it comes naturally for him. He also seems to do this on purpose because he’s tall as hell, annoying af, and ugly!!! He is aware of the fact that he gets on everyones nerves but when he does this, it really does show that he enjoys the company of those who he cares about even if his way of thinking might come off as backwards skkssksks.)

As for Ijichi, yeahssshs. In “Opposites Attract,” Gojo is the one who makes the first step but tbh, the story/characters themselves seem to be very much in character imo!!! I can see all of what’s happened in the story, especially between them, legit go down in canon IF JJK were a different story and that the themes revolving around Gojo’s trauma were more zeroed in on and I’m so serious.

The writer handles his feeling of loneliness and isolation so well and you can literally see how hard he tries to push back on Ijichi from getting closer to him in the story until it had gotten to a point where the both of them just became legit friends who were 100% comfortable around each other. They had built up a comfortable routine… they had their disagreements and confrontations and Gojo never apologizes for the awful things he said to Ijichi in the story but you can always tell that he’s at least sorry and that he will do better with dealing with Ijichi next time. I love seeing just how used to Gojo’s personality Ijichi becomes over the course of the story lol. That’s what close proximity and overexposure does to a mf!!! The development from Ijichi feeling awkward and uncomfortable around Gojo to Gojo swinging him around at the airport bro…… (that chapter was so fun whajajajl. Ijichi was going THROUGH it while Gojo, his new FRIEND who used to be bully his ass back in HS, was gone away on a mission and he missed him sm lol. Then I think that was the same chapter where he went out drinking with fellow auxiliary managers and how he had to defend Gojo from being badmouthed by one of them 😭… and Gojo heard about it and teased Ijichi by calling him his hero or so 😭… falling to me knees…….. )

It’s so well written and the way that the writer had dragged their relationship along for so long… It’s literally insane that they haven’t kissed or even so much as held hands yet lmfao. They’re probably still not even dating even after 100K words lmfaoooo. I’m behind on the last 5 chapters so idk if anything has happened YET but uhhh. Gojo FEELS like Gojo in the fic for sure!!! Same with Ijichi! I love how character driven the narrative has been! Gojo does have the tendency to surprise others, especially Ijichi, when he wants to. Like, he’s kind of shitty towards him and he doesn’t usually realize that he’s being dismissive and mean at all but he’s aware of the fact that Ijichi is a sensitive person who’s always nervous and wanting to do his best and please others as well and so he takes advantage of that people pleaser side of poor Ijichi lmfao.

I think the story handles their dynamic incredibly well and the progression from Ijichi being annoyed with Gojo being around to falling head over heels for him makes sm sense 😭!!! Gojo has the capacity to treat other people with respect and he’s not the monster he thinks he is. People actually DO care about him, not just because he’s strong 😭! I just love how Normal Ijichi is… and it has been brought up multiple times throughout the story as well. Of COURSE he’d feel insecure around someone like Gojo but Gojo, even in canon, doesn’t really give “shallow,” at all to me at least. He’s kind of ableist though and again, super dismissive of those who he views as weak, but it’s because of the way that he’d been raised and conditioned to view himself as a something not human. His views don’t steam from a place of malice at all. Also, because it’s his job to “protect,” the weak. That’s always been part of his whole mindset. Gojo is also a weirdo lakakakakl. Given a little time and patience, Even outside of all of the bullshit that comes with dealing with him because of his personality, I think that It’ll definitely come down to Gojo allowing himself to be vulnerable with others in order for something to shake. My guy is literally a thorny rose 😭!!! I hate him for that!!!

[lenievi]

because SNW is allowing me this reading and because it’s something I’ve always headcanoned (way before SNW and Kirk/La’an), I’m just gonna ramble and muse a bit

spoilers for snw2 episode 9

(if you wanna read more Kirk/La’an thoughts related to the episode, here. I’m probably going to muse about this a lot in the upcoming days, and make more coherent posts)

Kirk isn’t in love with Carol. He likes her, but he isn’t in love with her. His and Carol’s relationship was always casual; if the Farragut was close to Starbase 1, they were on, if they were away for a longer period of time, they were off. 

And now Carol is pregnant, which was unplanned, and caught both of them off guard. But Kirk’s loyal and serious, so he wants to be there for her and their child. Even though it complicates a lot of things. He might even think it will complicate his career, unless he wants to become his father and take his child through the galaxy, never having time for him.

TOS tells us that Kirk and Carol weren’t together by 2261. TWOK tells us that David met James Kirk and that Carol asked Kirk to stay away and never told David who his father was.

So there are two options. Carol tells Kirk to stay away quite soon after David is born, and he does, but years later, they reunite, but also they don’t get romantically back: “Were we together? Were we going to be?” and Kirk doesn’t really try to befriend David

OR they simply break up, but Kirk is allowed contact until a certain age. And after that Carol tells him to stay away. “You had your world and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine, not chasing through the universe with his father.” That could literally be after the 5ym, even. Or shortly before, but David remembers “that overgrown Boy Scout Carol used to hang around with”, so after seems more plausible. (but again, they don’t get back together) (which is something I did mention in this post some time ago)

[most of the stuff above is just my original HC tweaked a bit to fit new info from SNW]

Before SNW seriously introduced a potential of Kirk/La’an, I expected SNW to give us Kirk/Carol story. But last week, I was thinking and realized that SNW isn’t a Kirk story - he isn’t a main character (I know people tend to see it that way, but he’s not). We won’t see Kirk centric episodes (or at least we shouldn’t for a pretty long while imho or at all tbh) - his every appearance should be tied to the main cast. That doesn’t mean - as we’ve already seen - that we won’t get his backstory, but it might mean that a lot of Kirk’s life will just happen off screen.

(I’m not saying we won’t see Carol. They cleverly put her on Starbase 1 where the Enterprise returns to often. There’ll probably be an episode where the Enterprise will need to do something with the scientists at Starbase 1. Spock will probably meet Carol there as well, so they can also tick off another “canon” point. But it won’t be a Kirk story.)

I do tend to see Kirk/La’an from Kirk’s POV a lot because that’s just what I do (and because in the long run, it’s heartbreaking), but the story is written from La’an’s POV. She already lost Kirk once, she lost him twice. From the storytelling POV, the story should eventually lead toward something more positive when it comes to Kirk and La’an as a relationship. Not having them eventually get together (even if they part after or La’an dies) would just feel hollow and ??? Especially since Kirk confirmed that he had feelings for La’an, but he can’t act on them because he has a gf and a baby on the way. (and as viewers, we know that Kirk/Carol just won’t last even though the characters don’t know that)

(But also like, Kirk, pls, you have a gf and you’ve still kind of led La’an on.)

From Kirk’s POV, I can see the “it was a lost potential that never happened”. If Kirk was the main character (and not La’an), I’d probably even expect that. Kirk made his choice and La’an moved on. But not from La’an’s POV tbh Not giving La’an her chance at being vulnerable and happy with Kirk would be too bleak. But I’m also known for liking the “wrong couples” lol 

Using her experience with Kirk to find that elsewhere would of course work in RL, but as a story, it’d be disappointing.

Well, I might change my thoughts after I see the finale and what they do with Pike/Batel and Spock/Chapel lol I don’t believe Kirk is in the finale but maybe I’m wrong.

in any case, if Kirk doesn’t appear in the finale, I’m totally using this when I figure out what kind of Kirk/La’an fic I’d like to write. I just want to give both of them happiness. Even if it’s temporary. 

anyway SNW still giving me everything I want. when will it end? when will they disappoint me? lol (probably with McCoy LMAO)

[syfynjvall]

i definitely enjoyed twc book 3, but i 100% get where people who were somewhat disappointed are coming from as well. i think the biggest issue that covers what most people complain about is the pacing of it. and tbh considering mishka's said from the start that this was going to be a relatively minor book plot-wise compared to the next big turning point in book 4, i do think it could have been a lot cleaner if it was like 150-200K words shorter. i get wanting to keep the pace/word count of previous books, but i think trying to do it with an objectively more minor plot meant some parts got stretched out and others squeezed to make it fit. the ending in particular suffers for it - the build up to it already felt stretched out at times and the ending being as abrupt as it was made it seem even worse in hindsight.

but to be clear, i definitely enjoyed it on the whole and don't regret the wait or buying it. questionable pacing aside it's not *poorly* written by any stretch, unit bravo is the same wonderful mess we know and love, new and old members of the supporting cast are a delight, and the romances are lovely (and occasionally angsty) as always. is it a bit of a step down compared to the last two? honestly, yes. is it still better than most works in this genre? also yes, so i can live with it. on a scale of 1-10, book 1 is a 9.5, book 2 is a 9, and as of now i'd put book 3 and a 7.5.

this was really well put and based off what i’ve got done so far i agree with you definitely. i think a lot of things were kinda just rushed together and made for kind of a jilted plot does that make sense? like idk too meshed together kinda like it doesn’t come off real flowy. but i digress!

what i am enjoying are the friendships!! m’s especially is so fun. admitting the detective is their friend is so!!!! love that for me. and at heart i am an angst lover so i do crave the suffering (sorry to the ros.. it’s all in love i swear) and i will say f’s route was a big serotonin boost ❤️‍🩹.

but yeah i definitely agree w all of this!!! i think ur spot on

[thedeafprophet]

what's this i hear about an imagined timeline for light fingers?? 👀

uh

this ended up being quite long lol. This is basically a summary of light fingers + my commentary, and a few places where i've made minor plot changes. had a lot of fun typing it up.

warnings for a) spoilers and b) this is about light fingers

under cut because of the length

My version of the story begins in 1898, when Alex, my light fingers PC descends to the neath alongside two of my other fl characters. (anyone who knows me, knows who Alex is lol), sometime in February. Imagine the general plot takes abouuuuut a year and a bit give or take. Alex doesn’t begin the Light fingers plot until after being in the neath for a month or two as well (shadowy myn)

Also gonna be upfront: Don’t like the beginning of Light Fingers lmao. Some parts of it are just unnecessary and never come up again esp in regards to the music hall singer. (The earlier stuff comes across to me like they had a few scenes written and then just mashed stuff together to connect them tbh). I ignore a fair bit of that stuff in my ponderings, since the plot didnt explore it and I don’t feel a need to.

( I think from a writing perspective it could have been neat to actually have the player meet up with the music hall singer sooner and cross notes instead of the long search. Have a text option of how much the player actually knew her on the surface, affecting a bit of the flavour text later on depending on the choice.  Talk more about Whats Going On, exchange info, and perhaps learn about her searching for Clara earlier? Before the lead up to her going missing at the violent scene and leading to the part with the bethlem? Though that part was also written weirdly like, what was going on with the manager, this seems like remnants before he was more established as a character- ok no no back on topic XD  Food for thought tho). Anyway, I think that part of the story probably takes a few weeks, maybe a month or so. The following time of tracking down Edward and all that nonsense in the lead up to the orphanage would be another two weeks. 

The actual process inside the orphanage and the searching would probably only be a few days…. But there’s the whole ‘buried alive section’, which makes it longer.  I’ve talked about my rewrite idea for that before. And then BOOM lighting the orphanage on fire. Still one of my favourite scenes. 

And then the situation of Clara being at the players house. I have a very vague idea for reworking Clarabelle’s parts of the story to actually have her be a character rather then a set piece. I think the Acquaintance and conversations system we have in newer plots now would have been a Great idea there. 

Letting her actually talk and do things would have been a major improvement without changing the plot. I think here would be a good first spot for a conversation- i don’t think the plot using the tea leaves as an excuse to not have a conversation is good. She would obviously be worried about her sister and clearly in a state of distress regardless. In my version Alex spends time talking to her and doing his best to help support before the bit of heading off to the university to the find the doctor.

The process of finding Dr Vaughan, zailing back and forth, bringing Clara, getting the items, etc. would be at least another few weeks if not months. And there’s the whole confrontation with Ed (Alex got some nasty bruises from that let me tell ya) and the ceiling part. Thankfully for me the story was already written when i got there, so i think in story the crew would only be there for a few weeks. This is another spot i think would be good to talk with Clara…. At least to establish more that she actually knows whats going on. 

And then the establishment of the basecamp. This is where that conversation idea really forms. Once the team is settled and one gear for preparations, in my timeline there’s a lot more general Talking between everyone. By now i think the timeline would be into later summer 

After that uhhhh well. The conversation with Fires is probably my favorite scene. What can I say but, Villains:™:. I’ve illustrated how that scene went on Alex’s part lmaooooo. 

Oh another thing i have with a headcanon is that edward goes immediately to the fingerkings after fires tells him to go away. This is because we get the uh. Gift. of the skin immediately following that conversation and i believe that since if you side with the fingerkings you tear off and get your own skin from that, its a similar situation with Ed here. 

Following that, the Hybrid is born in the fall (baby. My beloved child. I am so very fond of it.) Alex loved his kid immediately. I could say very much about the complexity of the situation for Alex, and the whole concept of breaking the cycle of abuse…..

I have less to say about the later plot stuff but also because I am getting tired lol. I think the time with the hybrids birth and raising it takes place over many months and takes the majority of time of the plot time tbh. All through the winter at the least. Introduce the baby to hanukkah. 

It’s into the spring when the whole Big Final Confrontation happens. And the wedding too I suppose. And of course, Catboy hours. There is no reason why siding with the cats *shouldn’t* give you cat ears. I mean, Edward gets snake eyes, it’s only fair. So Alex is a catboy in parabola. For fun. 

Now. You may wonder “Prophet, why would you choose to marry Poor Edward” and the answer is ‘because it was hilarious that it was an option’. And also I find yandere arcs in stories to be fun. We all know I have particular tastes lmao. 

In terms of in character justification ehhhhh its a little loose. Part of it the sway of the dream, but I suppose Alex found it the least violent end. (Wasn’t like he intended on getting married to anyone else lmao). And whilst i’m quite light on the topic in jest a lot I um.

Okay part of the thing I think isn’t talked about with Edward is that its entirely nonconsensual on his part, right? Like yea okay, he does the pursuing and stuff but its not like he’s actually attracted to the pc, its all because of a drug. And we SAW just how much that stuff fucks with people’s heads back at the orphanage, people literally would bash their heads in over being separated from the object of their affection. Like. Idk it just seems more serious to me then just ‘rejecting the advances’ of someone. This is mutually nonconsensual in a way. 

These are in no way his actual feelings. And like yea the dudes terrible and ‘deserves’ whatever is dealt to him or whatever, i’m not trying to woobify or anything, i dont care that much but.  Idk regardless the nonconsensual aspects make it quite weird.

This is a thing that bothers me with the moon milk stuff a lot. For obvious reasons. I often feel like I’m the only person reading it this way sometimes… i saw someone describe the Evil Light Fingers ending as ‘not that bad’ and ‘there’s worse things in the game’ and im just like ????? okay thats subjective whatever but uh???? anyway. yeah ive talked about my discomfort with the moon milk stuff before

Anyway suffice to say I have complex thoughts on the matter which is a whole other post in and of itself. 

So yeah anyway, end of spring, 1899 (the first one)  when the hybrid is freed to the ceiling and everyone says there farewells. I love that ending scene so much ngl,,,, I love the baby so much I’ve said so before but i will say it AGAIN. 

I still believe the team hangs out even after the plot. Alex goes to see Clara’s opera performances when he can, visits Heph in parabola when he’s doing silverer stuff (Alex becomes a silverer after LFs in response of all the weird dream stuff and wanting to have more control, and checks in on  Dr Vaughan at the uni from time to time (I chose for her to stay in London, I don’t care much for the starved men as a concept tbh) .

Annnnnyway yeah thats the whole timeline of lightfingers + my thoughts on it. If you actually read this whole thing thank you for paying attention to me I appreciate it <3

[g-kat423]

about the fic rewrite, it depends on how much you want to change, IMO. Is it just rewritting to paraphrase stuff, adding a couple more lines and other minor fixes? Edit the previous chapters and make a new one as an author announcement, so the readers still subscribed can check out the changes. But if you intend to change more meaningful things in the fic like the plot direction or characterizations, I think making a new version is the way to go. Most writers I've seen doing this tend to delete the old one, but its fine to leave it as well. Nowadays in the lady d fandom new fics tend to not get as many kudos and comments as they did last year, unfortunately, but theres definitely still an audience there!

Hey, thanks for your response! I was thinking about making some major changes regarding my first completed fic so an entirely new fic would probably be suitable. I made all of my works private awhile back because I felt really self conscious regarding my writing ability and the fact I couldn’t see myself writing anytime in the near future with how sick I’ve been, but things are kind of improving(for now). When I think of my first fic, I’d describe it as a porn with minimal plot. It was mostly meant to be smut, but I feel it has potential to be something a bit more fleshed out. A lot of the descriptions and dialogue is clunky too. Back then it was like I was trying to get chapters out as quickly as possible even if they were short, barely moving the story forward. There’s also issues with tenses changing idk why I seem to struggle with that. Overall it was something I was proud of at the time because I had never written nor published more than a oneshot before, but being a couple years removed from it now I’m less than impressed.

I also am aware the fandom has been slowly dying out which makes me sad, but fandoms tend to do that if it isn’t a supermassive ongoing thing. Even for myself I lost interest while I’ve been struggling. In a way I feel like it would be good for me to write and get myself out there again even if it meant less attention, just to feel like I’ve accomplished something and then it’s out there if people take interest in that. It’s not like I was ever a big name fic writer to begin with. Im surprised any of my fics got attention.

I’d also like to resume my 2nd fic that’s been on pause for over a year now. I’ll be surprised if that gets the attention that it did if and when I update, but it’ll be nice to see it through to the end at some point. Tbh I’m kind of over the whole x reader thing and the au fic I was doing feels so far removed from the source material that I love and prefer.

I think what I’ll do is rewrite my first fic and retitle it(I hate the title, it doesn’t suit the story like at all lol) and note that it’s a rewrite, and maybe republish the original with a note that there’s a rewrite. I think I’ll maybe even remove the x reader aspect and go with an oc which I know will definitely get less attention, but 🤷����‍♀️ It’ll be a good way for me to get back into writing again especially since the bones are already there.

Edit: and should I rewrite the fic in its entirety I’ll publish the entire thing at once to not clog up the Alcina Dimitrescu tag or seem like I’m trying to stay on top with an old fic. It’s more for my own peace of mind anyway.

[jentlemahae]

do you have any advice for self discipline? idk if you struggle with procrastination as well sometimes but you seem to be on top of your studies (i think in some of your tags you once mentioned that you finished all your assignments very early) i have very important exams coming up (if i fail them i'll have to repeat a whole year of school) and even though i know how important it is for me to study i just can't bring myself to even start.. i'm just paralyzed with fear bc i've already wasted so much time and it's impossible to catch up/revise everything now bc i'm running out of time. i think the sheer amount of material i have to study scares me off even more but the longer i wait the worse it gets obviously. i just hate that even though i am very aware of all this i just can't stop self sabotaging i hate myself so much 😭 another problem is that i'm such a perfectionist so if i know i can't do it perfectly i don't even bother but at this point i just need to pass bc i definitely don't want to repeat a year.. sorry this got so long and i know ultimately i just need to sit my ass down and study bc i'm the only one to blame (i had plenty of time to study these past weeks but i just rotted in my room 🙃) but you always are so sweet and insightful so i thought maybe you could give me some helpful advice? hope you have a nice day 💌

hiii! 🫶🏻 so i’ll preface this by saying that i’ve just always been used to having to do well in my studies so atp idek if it’s self discipline or more just a habit ? 🥲 but i also struggle with the same things sometimes bcs there are times where i put off studying certain things bcs im scared of failing TT so these are thing that imo help me!!

i always recommend ppl to repeat the stuff that u have to study/memorize out loud to someone bcs i think that helps u retain information, but i think that doing so by setting certain days to do so also helps in giving some organization! for instance i always repeat whatever im studying out loud to my mom (via zoom lol) and we do so by deciding to see each other on a certain day and on that day i have to repeat out loud to her a certain amount of chapters while she looks at my notes to check that im making sense. and we usually meet 2-3 times for that before my exam so first time i have to say half of the content, second time the other half, and third time i go through everything. does this make sense? and u can do it with whoever u want (parent, grandparent, friend, etc)! (tho tbh studying with a friend has never worked for me :p)

advice 2 sounds a bit odd and ik it doesn’t work for most but to me it works 🫠 when im in similar situations where i have So Much to study, first i read through all my notes* and then i take out a piece of paper and i write by hand** everything i remember. this way i see the main topics in the material and i go back to my notes and add some more important details to what ive written. this works especially well with courses where u just wanna pass and u don’t really care about the grade bcs this way u have a decent grasp on the main body of the course content! (**important to do this by hand bcs handwriting makes u retain info easier + *i always write summaries of the course content and the course progresses bcs then i know i’ll have my work cut out for me for the exam)

when u sit down to sit, put stuff that distracts u far away from where u are !! i kinda get distracted by listening to music lmao so when i study i make sure to put my headphones away from desk (lol), and then i hide my phone from my eyesight so then i can work for like an hour straight with no distractions 🤷🏻‍♀️

this is what comes to mind at the moment! anw best of luck for the exam !!! i know exams can be daunting when u are a perfectionist (😵‍💫) so i am rooting for u !!!!! 🥰💖🫂 as we say in italian, in bocca al lupo :)