#this got more florid than i like to be

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City Part 3: Kylie Recontextualizes Everything

I have waffled all week about what to write about this chapter. There have been some great essays about HIV and the stigma in Korea by @stuffnonsenseandotherthings here, as well as how antiretrovirals and pre-exposure prophylactics work and when they were available from @wen-kexing-apologist here. This context was all critical to understand everything Young doesn’t talk about in this section of the book. 

I’ve been stuck on so many parts of this section of the book. The way stigma holds people back from care, from maintenance, from life-saving treatment and knowledge, from understanding their condition and preventing them unnecessarily from living a full life, which @doyou000me had me thinking about with their comments about Young’s coping mechanisms of minimization and emotional distance that possibly worked in conjunction with the Korean government healthcare policies and social stigma to keep Young from being informed about his own condition. The way Young holds himself back from happiness, and how it’s so heartbreaking to watch him open up to it slowly in this section and then, as @my-rose-tinted-glasses wrote , he let the shame and self-loathing take control again. The way this relationship feels so real; @lurkingshan wrote so eloquently on how this section describes the details of a relationship as it started to settle. The relationship with Hyung was entirely ephemeral, in the liminal period of time between when Young was visiting his mother in hospital and before everything opened again for the day. There is so much that Young and Hyung never talked about–more than was obvious in chapter 2, because he never told Hyung about Kylie. In contrast, as @bengiyo pointed out, his relationship with Gyu-Ho started with honesty and was rooted in the physical presence of their apartment, which as a beautiful metaphor was grounded and improved slowly over time through the work they put into it but was also too small for them. 

I keep thinking about how Part 3 is bookended by Young disappointing Gyu-Ho with his absence. How he leaves him at the airport both times, thinking he’s doing Gyu-Ho a favour actually–he characterizes Gyu-Ho’s trip to Japan without him as much more fun, and he imagines Gyu-Ho’s future in Singapore will be better. In both cases, Gyu-Ho was only going because of Young, because Young wanted to, and Young planned it. But our narrator cannot get past seeing himself as something that brings Gyu-Ho down, and so he sabotages his own future. I feel for Gyu-Ho, being shepherded onto a plane alone when he was envisioning his future with the man he loved. It must have been devastating to be pushed away. 

This is not related to anything but I just love the detail of Young’s split lip and how he tastes blood when he kisses Gyu-Ho while drunk at the club and not yet knowing his name, and then panics, and we as readers don’t yet know why. Brilliant storytelling. 

I can’t stop thinking about how this reveal recontextualizes everything in parts 1 and 2. How the “incident that earned me a medical discharge” means Kylie was already in Young’s life as he took the engineering student he was seeing with him to get an STD check; as he was screamed at by an ex who prophesied that Young would get sick from being promiscuous and called him a ‘dirty rag that could never be cleaned’, which Young took with stoicism. I loved @bengiyo ‘s observation in his post linked above that Kylie’s presence likely coloured his reaction to Jaehee outing him to her fiance. 

Kylie was present as he watched his coffee be stolen by Hyung, when he thought about introducing Hyung to his mother, while he was wrestling with how Hyung (and, I think the narration makes clear, how he) was ashamed at how Young couldn’t ‘pass’ and was ‘obviously gay’, when he choked Hyung in his mother’s kitchen and it was seeing his tears on Hyung’s face that made Young let go. Kylie was part of him when he drank pesticide and tried to die, while he sat by his mother’s sickbed and had her head in his lap in the park, when he said “disease can turn anyone into a completely different person”, when he said he would “hope that she would die without having known.” 

Mostly, my brain keeps getting stuck on how familiar Young is to me. His choices, his self-loathing, his refusal to take anything seriously because at his core he’s terrified of facing what his reality means. And that fear ironically gets in the way of him understanding that his reality is not as scary as he thinks it is. He functions like he has to be alone, and so much of that comes from his internalized homophobia and his HIV diagnosis. He’s been told he’s dirty, something to be cleaned but irreparable, by so many people in different ways through his life. The man he claims as his greatest love barely even liked him as a person, and didn’t fully know him. I think that’s why he was able to feel more fully with Hyung, because in a way that relationship felt safer..Gyu-Ho, the person who knew all of him, and who wanted to build a life together with that complete and full knowledge of him, must have been terrifying, and I’m not surprised it felt easier to push him away than to fight for their future together. But it breaks my heart. 

There’s something rattling in my head about the T-aras that I don’t really know how to get out onto the page. In this chapter it’s revealed that the T-aras have been around the whole time, but they weren’t mentioned in parts 1 and 2. I think the fact that Young’s life feels more rounded, filled in with other people, and rich, than in parts 1 and 2 speaks to his emotional state in this part, as well as to how his time with Gyu-Ho wasn’t obsession but was more grounded in the mundane and the everyday. The T-aras themselves feel like familiar friends. Like with Hyung and JaeHee (at first), Young is drawn to people who he can remain emotionally distant from and who remain emotionally distant from him. People who will buy the story of “ruptured disc” for why he left military service early. People who joke about being poz and won’t ask questions and who hear the news about his new boyfriend as an ‘in’ to their favourite club. People who don’t take things seriously (or in Hyung’s case take things so seriously that Young can’t take him seriously). I was so glad to find out they existed because up to this point Young felt so isolated most of the time, with his world circling around one obsession in each part. But he had the T-aras the whole time; I’m choosing to read this as he just didn’t hold their importance to him in the same way in parts 1 and 2. As was already clear in the narrative but this makes even more obvious, Young’s isolation is not only self-inflicted but it’s in some ways a lie he tells himself to feel safer. He has friends, he just refuses to acknowledge their presence or importance, or to let them in to be more important, because he is so braced for being rejected for core parts of him that cannot be excised.

[dailytwsttweets]

Nothing prompted this but I wanted to share this cause idk if people still do this but I hate whenever someone calls Florid “abusive” or “bully x victim” because that’s simply not true at all. We need to remember, Floyd is canonically a violent character. In his PE Vignette, he literally threatened to squeeze Ace out of nowhere just for annoying him during one of his mood swings. In his labwear vignette, he’s seen threatening two students who got mad at him for bumping into them. And then there’s the panels from the Octavinelle manga and just that scene from Book 3 alone.

This is not to say he’s mindlessly violent ofc, but it’s not like he’s docile either. But when we look at him and Riddle’s interactions, it’s just simple teasing such as calling him short or stealing his books. This doesn’t really count as canon but the panels in the anthology manga of him calling Riddle “amazing” and I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) in one of the Halloween events, he noticed Riddle wasn’t eating as much and literally made him eat after he said “I’ve had enough calories for today” saying he knows Riddle likes sweets (I read that from the ship wiki so my info might be off so do correct me please). I’d say he’s nicer to Riddle than almost everyone that isn’t Jade or Azul. And I believe it’s implied that there’s some infatuation of some sorts with Riddle’s hair color as he’s mentioned how dull colors are underwater, and I believe it’s also mentioned in his beanfest vignette.

I’m just saying that if Floyd was actually bullying Riddle, it would not stop at book stealing or teasing. This is not to say Riddle is helpless at all either, Riddle can kick ass. He sent Floyd launching through the air on orientation (Beanfest vignette). So calling it bully x victim/abusive is really odd imo.

There’s also the idea that Riddle hates Floyd? He doesn’t seem to hate him at all?? I’d say it’s more like a small annoyance which can be resolved once they get to know each other more. I don’t know if the Stitch Event was canon but I think that was a prime example of them actually getting to know each other (again, ship wiki. I’m not that far into the game sorry T_T).

If I did get anything incorrect please do tell me ^_^! Btw this is not condemning people who don’t ship it, you ship what you ship!

[ryuichirou]

Since you have some headcanons on fem Floyd/Riddle, do you have any other genderswap ship headcanons for say Rook/Vil, Ace/Deuce and Idia/Azul? Sorry if that’s a bit too much

Anon, thank you for this ask! I’m always happy for the opportunity to talk about them, so I was actually excited to write this reply lol Since there are three ships there, it ended up being a bit lengthy, but I hope you enjoy the headcanons.

Just like in the FloRid post, the majority of the headcanons are more or less sexual, because the general dynamic between the characters wouldn’t change much.

Ace/Deuce:

They are pretty much “these two girls who always mess around with each other and it’s obvious that there is some sexual tension between them but they can’t acknowledge it”… yeah, just like the regular Ace and Deuce lol But with more boob grabbing… Well, usually from Ace’s side. Deuce also grabbed Ace’s boob one or two times but only as a revenge, and felt super weird about it. In general, sometimes it feels like they just try to come up with excuses to touch each other.

Which means they are also “these two girls who secretly kiss each other and say it’s some kind of practice”. This was also Ace’s initiative: Deuce only agreed because she didn’t want Ace to think that she chickened out. Or maybe there were other reasons hmmm? But yeah, they “practice” kissing every night, sometimes with Ace telling Deuce to imagine that she’s kissing her future husband or something, but it kind of makes Deuce’s kisses more stiff and awkward, which Ace finds hilarious.

Their kissing sessions would definitely lead to them touching themselves under the same blanket first, and then to them just touching each other. And they’re really a bit dumb and honestly think that their roommates don’t know what they do… but in all fairness, they really try to be secretive about it. Sometimes they even bite each other not to make any sounds.

One night they had a whole room to themselves, and got so excited that wanted to try something other than touching each other sneakily under the blankets. In short, they tried to do the scissoring thing… and didn’t really do it right, couldn’t find the balance, long story short they ended up falling off the bed.

Like I mentioned in another post, both of them wear sports bras, but own other sets too. And there’s been a couple of times when Deuce had to wear a regular bra, and just couldn’t make the little hook thingy in the back work. So yeah Ace helps her to put it on sometimes.

Rook/Vil

Like I already said in another post, Vil (just like the regular Vil) wears whatever she wants, and Rook prefers something functional (albeit stylish), so it’s not unusual to see Vil in a beautiful dress accompanied by Rook in a pantsuit. But if they were to get married, both of them would probably wear suits.

Not necessarily a headcanon, but a thought: with these two being girlies, Vil forcing Rook to take care of her hands and fingernails makes even more sense lol The first time was kind of rough for them. It wasn’t bad at all, but Rook was never allowed to touch Vil with her hands unkempt anymore.

Rook is skilled enough and knows Vil’s body well enough to make her orgasm in less than a minute, but she also likes to take her time and torment Vil a little bit. She likes it when Vil is having a hard time keeping it together and is getting impatient. Vil, however, sometimes just needs Rook to grab her, make her cum and then be free to do whatever she was doing before that. So whenever they sneak out, and instead of hitting all the right buttons at once Rook starts to tease her through her underwear, Vil gives her this very angry yet aroused look that Rook adores.

They are one of the couples who know everything about their own preferences, but also experiment from time to time. The catalogue of positions they like is quite vast, mostly due to both of them being flexible + Rook being very inventive. These are also the reasons why these two have absolutely mastered the art of scissoring lol

Rook is also very skilled with her tongue, because Vil is kiiind of hard to please, so one has to learn and improve to be able to satisfy her. One of Rook’s most absolute favourite indicators that she’s doing a good job is the fact that she can feel her head and neck being squeezed by Vil’s merciless thighs.

Azul/Idia

Azul is a bit of a touch-me-not: she likes being complimented on her looks, but is very uncomfortable with people touching her. Which is why Idia is a perfect partner for her: Idia is a bit intimidated by Azul’s natural sex appeal, so she never touches her and just lies on her back and accepts her fate.

That being said, sometimes Idia is allowed to rest her head on Azul’s lap. “No no, I’m good” Idia says at first, because this position is way too romantic and awkward, but then Azul forces her down and Idia just drowns in just how comfy Azul’s thighs are and how sweetly her perfume smells… if only Azul stopped squeezing her shoulder so hard to keep her down…

Sometimes they have sex a couple of times per day, sometimes they don’t have sex for a long period of time, and it’s because of Azul. She is a mermaid and doesn’t get human periods, but she must have some sort of cycle going on, because in general it’s like she doesn’t think about sex at all. Sometimes Idia looks at her and thinks “I wonder if Azul-shi knows how sexual this pose/gesture is”, and chances are, she doesn’t, because she’s too busy thinking about the lounge. But the next day Azul suddenly gets into the mood, tosses Idia, mounts her, kisses her, almost purring like a cat.

Azul (wo)manhandles Idia a lot in general. She tosses her, moves her around, throws Idia’s legs on her shoulders and stuff. Idia finds it both way too intense (not a bad thing lol) and a bit funny, because Azul tries so hard to look like a lady, but her actions are almost like of a hentai manga mob. Azul doesn’t fully understand what Idia means, but slaps her butt for that. It sounds offensive.

Azul is scarily good at cunnilingus for someone who doesn’t have much experience with sex. Or maybe it’s only good for Idia because she likes it when it’s strong and intense?? In any way, it doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, Idia isn’t sure if she is going to die faster because she’s overwhelmed or because she’s embarrassed.

[revasserium]

Hi! It's me, I'm the problem Jazz again 🤣

Ikemen Prince ask for either Leon or Silvio with prompt number 88 please 🙏 ♥️

send me a number and a character :)

priceless (88. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.)

silvio; 1,374 words, fluff and... fluff LOL this is only tangentially inspired by the prompt u__u whoops

01.

when you break his heart the first time, he doesn’t really know it’s real. he presses the lips of a dozen priceless wine bottles to his mouth and imagines every one to be yours — he drinks until the world is spinning, the way it spun when he asked you to dance for the very first time.

he gets drunk on the sound of your remembered laughter.

he makes a mess of the sheets, of his silk-lined robes, of all the richest furs in the corners of his closet — he falls asleep wishing that this were all but a dream.

he wakes up and has to deal with the realization that it is not all just a dream and that for the first time in his life, this isn’t something he can buy his way out of because what is the price of heartbreak? the tag on the pieces of a shattered wish — he screams into every single pillow he owns and falls asleep at noon.

02.

the second time you break his heart, he catches your arm before you can leave.

“what d’you want?” he asks, desperate and imploring, with a shudder in his voice that he’s never truly heard there before but —

you shake your head.

“i — i don’t want anything from you.”

he feels his fingers slip from around your wrist as you purse your lips and stumble back half a step. but that’s all he needs. he’s needlessly reminded of a story he’s heard a long, long time ago — about a genie and a girl who accidentally summons him. about the genie who asked the girl what she wished for and she told him she didn’t. the genie stayed with that girl for years and years and years, and in the beginning, whenever she asked him to do anything, he’d ask if that was her wish but she’d shake her head no. she’d tell him that he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to.

and yet somehow, he always found that he wanted to.

silvio wonders what he really wants, and the answer comes — clear and quiet as a winter stream —

he wants… you.

03.

the third time, he thinks he can get used to this.

04.

the fourth time, he’s ready for it —

“no,” you say, shaking your head, frowning at something he’s demanded of you.

“alright then,” he says, shrugging.

you blink, watching him as he turns away. watching him as he takes three steps away from you before you reach for him, tugging him back by the sleeve.

“what — that’s it? you’re… not gonna force me?”

he chuckles, “what’s the point if you’re just gonna snark at me? and anyway — i’ve got proper maids for this kind of stuff.”

“fine then,” you say, petulant, your voice sharp in a way that makes his lips twitch.

he grins, cocking his head as he watches the color wash up into your cheeks.

“fine,” he parrots back, his own voice painfully sweet and just as smug. he revels in the way your eyes flash, the way your fingers curl into fists at your side as he turns away.

so it really does take two to tango.

05.

“y’know, a million girls would kill to be in your place right now.”

“then why aren’t they?”

“hm? why aren’t they what?”

“why aren’t they here, in my place?”

silvio licks his lips, tasting salt and heat and the midnight air.

“cause… i didn’t really take to any of ‘em.”

you sigh, rolling your eyes.

“and you just so happened to take… to me. why?”

silvio shrugs, “you’re beautiful.”

“bullshit — there are plenty of girls out there prettier than me.”

“prettier, yeah. but more beautiful? no.”

your breath catches in your chest — hook, line, and sinker. you feel the tug in the base of your belly, your mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

“w-what? that… that doesn’t make any sense.”

silvio only laughs, casting his eyes back out at the florid lushness of his palace gardens, teaming with the world’s rarest flowers — the night blooming cereus, the elusive ghost orchids, the fire lilies, and his prized juliet rose bushes. he leans over the thick railing to tug one from it’s bed of thorns, pressing it to his nose and taking a deep breath.

“it took my best gardener 12 years to cultivate one o’ these,” he says, twirling the peach-colored flower between his fingers.

“wow,” you say, eyeing the small, unassuming bloom, “that’s… a long time.”

“yeah, sure. but the gardener was rewarded pretty damn well for his work.”

at this, you heave another sigh, leaning up against the stone banisters.

“and i’m sure that’s the only reason he worked as hard as he did, right?”

silvio traces a finger along the edge of a velvet petal, admiring the fractal-like formation of the flower’s center.

“yeah… i’m sure it is.”

06.

the sixth time you reject him, he almost laughs out loud. it really is fun pushing all your buttons after all.

07.

the seventh time, he curls his lips around the shape of your name and dares to ask why.

you tell him, “because… it’d be nice of you to ask instead of demand for a change.”

he shivers at the gentleness of your tone, at the feather-soft of your confession, the pink that kisses your cheeks like the rosy-fingered dawn.

“but… if i ask, there’s a chance you’re gonna say no.”

you laugh and roll your eyes, “i say no anyways.”

“so why bother askin’ when i know what your answer’s gonna be?”

“because… sometimes, if you give someone the choice to stay or to go — they’ll surprise you.”

08.

“can… can y’just… stay? please?”

“...okay.”

09.

“when’d you learn how to say please?”

you twist to face him in the silver light of an encroaching dawn.

silvio groans as he buries his face in the silken pillows, his hair a hallo of lingering moonlight.

“dunno — shuttup… it’s too damn early.”

you allow yourself a smile and snuggle in before drifting back off to sleep.

10.

“kiss me.”

silvio smirks, cocking his head, “no.”

you narrow your eyes, frowning even as he chuckles, his fingers tight around your waist as the pair of you spin in ever and ever faster circles to music only the two of you can hear.

“why not?”

“cause…” he bites back, laving his tongue luxuriously across the expanse of his bottom lip before tugging it between his teeth, “y’didn’t ask nicely.”

you fight down the urge to push him away but his grip on you is tight and true, strong and steady and… so very nearly sweet.

“fuck off.”

he grins a foxhole grin and you feel yourself sinking into it’s depths, deeper and deeper as he spins you beneath his arm and dips you low, low, low.

“nope — pretty sure y’didn’t ask there either. and… that ain’t proper language for a lady, now is it?”

you roll your eyes as he pulls you back up and the dance begins again.

“fine,” you bite out, sparing him a half-hearted glare, “can i please have a kiss?” you ground out the words, even as the heat crests up your chest and bubbles over into your cheeks, burning all the way to the tips of your ears.

“hm… now that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

he leans in and you let your eyes flutter shut.

when he breaks the kiss, he is smiling.

“kiss me again,” he says.

you smirk, “what happened to asking nicely?”

“hn. don’t feel like it — too much trou—”

but you cut him off with another kiss, and briefly, silvio considers the merits of tugging away if only to tease you about the impropriety of interrupting a prince’s speech before he’s finished. and then the next moment, he decides that, really, he prefers just kissing you instead.

[leliosinking]

Hot take I guess but the fandom was way too hard on this book (and still is tbh) and for what? Because it isn’t interested in fan service? If anything Anne’s writing was at its best when she ignored what fans wanted, and I think it’s time for a reevaluation of my boy Vittorio the Vampire.

I just think this was such a promising start to New Tales (more than Pandora, even) and I sort of hate all of you for boycotting it or telling new readers to skip it. (as far as i’m concerned TVA, Merrick, B&G, BF and BC are all unofficially New Tales anyway.. TVL-MtD are the only proper vampire chronicles, everything else falls into different categories, but I digress).

With regard to Vittorio, however, we were given a true blue Ricean vampire hunter novel (the only one mind you) with an actual, functioning plot and some of the best action she’s written since TVL… and you all shunned it. And I get it, we don’t read these books for conventional, commercial plot contrivances, but for the florid language and richly crafted characters; but this is the rare Anne Rice novel that’s just.. fun for the sake of fun?

And no, I’m not blind to its problems. It absolutely needed another draft or two (as do a lot of the later VC entires) and no, Vittorio is not her strongest protagonist by leagues. But what we got was still filled to the brim with good ideas?

The Court of the Ruby Grail cult, especially, is one my favorite of Anne’s inventions. Like their dynamic with the local human villages feeding them their castoffs was legitimately disturbing and IMO better executed than most of the times she retreaded the Children of Darkness post-TVL.

And while Vittorio the character might be kind of boring, Florian and Ursula carry this novel and deserved to enter the larger narrative tapestry on their strengths alone but “waaah Lestat and co. aren’t here” so “it’s bad” or whatever.. I really can’t stand some of y’all.

Anyway, this is long enough and I really didn’t set out to write an essay in defense of what is ultimately a mid-tier entry into this series. But. I still feel that much in the way that MtD and Blackwood Farm have been recently reassessed as good novels that happen to be bad VC entires I think it’s time for some of you to similarly reevaluate Vittorio the Vampire, because this is a good vampire novel, it just isn’t a good vampire chronicle (well I think it is and yet and yet and yet). But it’s still part of the series and it does fit into the larger picture despite what some will have you believe.

If this is your first time, I personally like to read VTV between Body Thief and Memnoch. I think it is better thematically situated there than between TVA and Merrick as initially published. The archangels that enter later in the story build nicely upon David’s vision of God and Satan in TTOTBT and make for a strong intermission full of angels and demons that assist in setting up the Dantean finale of MtD. (I have more suggested reading orders btw, some other time perhaps).

I dunno.. if you like this book please let me know lol like I could use the solidarity because I feel like I’m the only one (I have it ranked #6 out of 15). But yeah, I think Vittorio is probably the most underrated and most unfairly slandered entry in Anne’s entire catalogue if I’m being completely honest.

[electricbloodflow]

r/DID toxicity

A post of mine on r/DID got removed for "spreading misinformation." The misinformation? Someone asked what polyfragmentation was and I summarized the information on traumaanddissociation.net, meanwhile someone kept yelling at me that I was wrong because you can only be PF if you have their specific presentation with like ten different obscure things they have that are only seen in programming (which our system coincidentally had but I know many PF systems that don't,) which goes against the clinical literature wherein PF systems have been documented from cases without programming or OA and their structure is a bit different AND EQUALLY VALID, plus not everyone with an RAMCOA background splits and responds the same way even if they are PF.

I'm done. I'm not putting up with this "your system has to be exactly like mine or you're faking" mentality. Half the threads on that sub complain about people who have a different presentation than them and how that's faking.

Things that people on r/DID think mean someone is faking:

Having any fictive alters (uhm, Dr. Kluft has some published research that disagrees with you - fictive and factive alters are well documented!)

Blogging about intimate system details or alter lists. Because apparently having system pride and wanting to allow all of your alters to self-express is faking???

Anyone who overshares instead of being secretive about their disorder is faking, as if oversharing AND undersharing aren't both common trauma responses. People with florid presentations of DID are "role playing." Again, DID is secretive in many people, but in some it is not as well hidden, and in even more people - they feel safe at a certain point and start allowing themselves to openly represent themselves in some spaces - which is a part of their healing process. This is faking according to r/DID apparently.

Don't question fusion - anyone who sees their alters as more than just parts of a whole but as their own person or having their own soul is faking. You are not allowed to form your own opinions on your disorder and discuss them and how others see things. You have to have the exact same opinion as the majority of posters on the sub. Personally, I know the common clinical psychology line on it is that we are fragmented parts of one whole, but I question that because of the finding that alters have different default mode networks and can persist after memories have been shared. It's unclear by what neural mechanism they operate on in the first place. It's unclear what a "personality" is even in singlets. Maybe it is the default mode network, and people with DID according to studies do have more than one. I also have been in treatment for almost 10 years and have never had fusions outside of less than distinct parts and fragments integrating so fuck fusion, we (my system) work better as functional multiples anyway. Also my alters don't really make one whole and continuous person if you added them together, they have mutually exclusive or just different preferences and views that have nothing to do with trauma. It doesn't make sense for us to fuse because we see things in such different but valid and insightful ways, and we coexist wonderfully and sharpen our perspective by sharing things one alter might notice but another didn't. Systems that see themselves as parts of one whole are valid. Systems that want to fuse are valid. Systems that question this are just as valid as well.

Users insulting people who step in and speak up for systems who are invalidated by such posts, even if research is provided showing the thing people are fake claiming is a documented phenomenon. And honestly, you don't need research to back up your existence - it is nice to have, and I'm so glad there is research validating things like fictive-heavy systems because people are so nasty to them when all they're doing is trying to express who they are, but clinical research has not yet investigated so many things about DID and never will fully document what it means to be multiple because research is more focused on symptoms and treatment and not on documenting individual perspectives.

It feels like everyone there has an axe to grind and very few people are there to help others and commiserate.

[callmearcturus]

DVD Commentary KTOWL Chapter Six, The Sex Scene

Pursuant to discussion of Ace People Writing Sex Scenes, I thought I'd do a DVD Commentary for one of my own sex scenes. This is the sex scene in so we don't kill the ones we love, chapter six, "The Black Keys 'Turn Blue' (2014) Side A"

Yes, that is the chapter title.

This is fairly dense scene with a lot of deliberate choices. If I pointed out every single one, we'd be here all day, but I'll point out a lot of things and talk about the things I think about when I write something like this.

[Let me set the scene a bit for people who might not have read so we don't kill the ones we love. This is a full setting AU detached from the canon material. Our principle characters here are Karkat (an alien immigrant who is basically an indentured servant stuck working for a hotel for assassins) and Dave (a human who is, unbeknownst to Karkat, stuck working for the same hotel for the rest of his natural life and cannot hope to escape his contract). 

I am going to explain stuff that might feel very obvious, but this is a learning exercise.]

Wisely keeping his mouth shut and accepting the mercy offered, Karkat followed Dave up into the loft.

There was, as he expected, a bed. It was however dismantled. The mattress was on the floor, shoved flush to the corner. The support structure was against the wall, and Dave had repurposed the wooden slats to hold his music albums. They were spaced and arranged in a way that was pleasing to the eyes, very deliberate.

Below them was the turntable, spinning a blue and pink vinyl.

[This is my favorite expedient trick to use when describing a space is to give the reader just enough context to build a space in their mind but, unless there is something truly important and relevant about placement, not handing the reader blueprints. 

I recently got into a snag with Punct about Benji's apartment in our AU because they had envisioned something completely different than I had for the space, and it did become plot-relevant. But outside special cases like that, I think less is more. Do just enough description, so that when you stop to do florid, expanded description, the audience notices. And isn't mentally tired by the time you get there.]

Karkat reached out and turned the volume dial down about a third, until the sound wasn't liable to give him a fucking migraine.

"Square," Dave accused, and dropped himself unceremoniously onto his bed.

"Better than prematurely fucking deaf."

Dave cupped a hand around his ear. "Sorry, what?" Dave asked loudly, then snickered. "So I was thinkin'."

[This patter is very naturalistic, the way that— when we talk to people online, we can often maintain multiple threads of conversation. If I send you a paragraph block about what I had for lunch, asking you where you got those shoes, and asking how your day went, that's very difficult to navigate verbally. Something is going to get pinned or dropped in favor of something else.

So I frequently and pointedly have my characters swerve like this, where Dave consciously takes the reins of the convo to prevent lingering on the joke. There is an agenda here, and he wants to keep things moving. 

It is also one of the MANY times in this scene and other sex scenes were its reinforced that Dave is the guy getting fucked but he is completely in control. I think "topping from the bottom" is reductive, so I just like to talk about who is controlling the encounter the most.]

Feeling overdressed, Karkat started taking off his shoes.

"I was thinking this time, you can probably introduce your prehensile dick to my—" He tipped his head to the side with a hum. "You know, I kind of dig 'nook.' Not the worse terminology available by far."

[I've written a lot of trans characters but Dave is my favorite. I don't personally think I am equipped to write a story about The Trans Experience, but I think about gender and about bodies and identity a lot, and I poured a lot of that into specifically Dave and Jake in this story. 

Dave does not dig the terms "cunt" and "pussy" nor any of the more clinical terms nor the more euphemistic options. Like many people, there just doesn't seem to be a good neutral option to his tastes. So meeting an alien with their own term, a term that by the nature of being alien completely lacks humanocentric baggage, finally gives him an out: "nook." He even uses "nook" in his personal narration, it's such a relief to have it.

I just did an Entire Work search, and the only occurrence of "pussy" is Jake using "Pussyfooting" which feels right.

Worth noting: I think Rose would use "cunt" under the right circumstances. Different characters have different levels of comfort with terms, and you shouldn't assume that Dave's take is the author's take, if that makes sense.

But that's a discussion about Close Third Person Perspective for later.]

"Along with 'magic button?'" Karkat asked.

"Eh, I guess 'clit' doesn't sound as stupid as the other one. But I was just trying to help you along, give you some indicative nomenclature, I know trolls are huge on that, and no joke I think it's a cool thing. It's like y'all are constantly havin' a brainfart and forgetting the words for things. Like, damn, what's that thing in my chest, it's a— a chest throbber, right?'

"Pump biscuit," Karkat said.

"Whatever. The fuck was I saying, I had a point." He watched Karkat take off his jacket and fold it, draping it over the edge of the loft. "Tentacle on nook action, let's do that."

"Oh." Karkat liked that idea. A lot. "I thought you didn't want to do that."

[Boom, immediate characterization point. Karkat is turned on by the idea of putting his bulge in Dave's nook, but he immediately sidelines the idea to check on Dave's comfort level. He has already done this before with Dave and thus has pieces of information about what Dave likes and where he's comfortable.

Karkat prioritizes physical comfort in sex and he will communicate shit, even if it taps the breaks on his own progress to getting an orgasm.

ON TOP OF THAT: This is a 252,409 word long epic and I'd estimate at least 200,000 of those words are about how people in this story don't tell the truth. Sometimes because they are lying, sometimes because the truth is painful, sometimes because they're too busy being charming to be upfront, sometimes because their truth is different than someone else's truth.

Act One is a lot about Karkat figuring out that everyone's perspective on the world is Very Different, so he overcommunicates. This is that.]

"That was the first time, now I've gotten a taste of that thang, and I wanna feel it all the way up in me."

Karkat pulled his shirt off over his head. "I feel like I'm missing some… really stupid human-centric cultural context here."

Dave smirked at him. "You kind of are? But… I sorta dig that too. I don't have to explain shit to you or— it's good, it's a bonus in your column, okay?" He sat up, arms hanging over his knees as he watched Karkat undress with absolute focus.

[See, here Dave literally confirms that Karkat is lacking information. Reinforcement of the themes, even in the patter leading up to sex.

Dave is Karkat's closest ally in the Umbra and even he will not give Karkat the full picture.]

Karkat got down to his briefs before realizing he'd just been on autopilot, stripping efficiently. Dave seemed to have no problem with this, taking in the sight and swaying to his music. Reaching over, he picked up another bottle of cider beer and took a big swallow, waggling his eyebrows at Karkat over the bottle.

Leaning down, Karkat stole it and lifted it to his our lips. He was fucking parched, and it was crisp across his tongue.

[Phy! Si! Cal! Ity! Karkat is from a background that makes him point A to point B in his movement, and sometimes he just falls into locomotive routines.

Dave's locomotive routine is to be constantly attuned to his surroundings and reacting to them. When he's working around the Umbra, his entire presentation changes to match the environment. When he's in his loft, he reverberates with the music.

Karkat's recurring motif in the story is being out of synch with the world. Dave is almost agonizingly in-synch with the world.

Also Karkat steals the sip of beer. It's an acceptance of the invitation Dave is giving him.]

"Rude as hell," Dave said, but allowed it nonetheless. "Come on, what happened to my show?"

Glaring at him did nothing, as Dave was immune. Still, Karkat dispensed with the last of his clothes.

The way Dave smiled and ducked his head was worth it. "I'd stick a dollar bill in your belt, but whoops."

[Oh, so, I love the fact that Karkat is canonically Fucking Hot in this story. This fic is written in Extremely Close Perspective Third Person, meaning it's a re-skin of First Person with "he" instead of "I". Karkat only notices things he would, only uses phrases and terms he would. If you read KTOWL, you will notice that his POV sounds different from Dirk's and from Rose's and from Dave's and from Jake's. 

The law of this specific perspective is that the audience should learn things that the character does not. Now there is a lot of Very Serious Examples of that in KTOWL, when you the reader should glean something even if Karkat does not.

But a cute jokey one is the Karkat Is Hot thing. Karkat does not know he's hot except that he has to navigate humans hitting on him all the time.

What I like about this is that you learn Karkat is hot from other people. Here, let's look at the next bit, it's related.]

"I don't get out of bed for a dollar anymore," Karkat groused, and lowered himself down to the mattress, knees landing and bouncing a bit. On a guess, Karkat curled a hand around Dave's bare ankle and dragged him closer, claws going for the snap of his cutoffs.

A flush of pink spread over him in three seconds flat. "Oh, shit, Karkat gettin' hands-on. Someone's learned a thing or two." He settled his arms behind his head. "If you're volunteering, have at."

[So I am very very very Weird about character description in fic. I wildly prefer to have a POV character noticing someone else than to have a POV character describe themselves to the audience.

So Karkat is very specific about the physical attributes he notices about himself. These do not overlap with what other people notice about him. As each person meets Karkat and remarks on him, the audience gets more information about Karkat's actual body, since Karkat doesn't… think about his body as much.

In comparison, Dirk and Dave both think about their own bodies more, but for very different reasons. 

Anyway, this moment shows us that Karkat has some fucking muscles and can easily move people.]

Karkat hadn't realized he was such a contrarian until he met Dave Strider, who said everything like it was a dare. It was impossible not to push back, to respond, even if Karkat knew it was exactly what Dave wanted. Glaring at Dave's flushed, smirking face, he unzipped the shorts and pulled them down, catching the boxers underneath with his claws to haul them off as well. It was worth it for Dave's little gasp.

Karkat was no longer sure his subvocal noises were being drowned out by the music. He could feel a bone-deep satisfaction humming through his bones. Giving into the greedy thing in his thorax, Karkat pushed his hands up under Dave's shirt, claws dragging lightly, palms firm against the soft give of human skin.

[Lets get into sexy stuff. 

I'm very specific about what characters like about sex. I am very ace, so the idea that people Just Like Sex is sort of odd to me. I guess it'd be like someone who enjoys running marathons. Sounds fake, what's the part of that you like?

For Karkat, he hones in species differences between himself and humans. He has a lot of trauma regarding being hunted by his own people and how his destiny was to be culled as a mutant who needed to die. So one of the many manifestations of that trauma is a curiosity and interest in human bodies.

He really really likes that Dave is soft. He hones in on the soft parts of Dave's body, since alternians don't have as many.

When you write a sex scene, I think it'd very powerful to have the POV focus on the points that the character would. This is how, as an ace person, you can lockpick the backdoor to understanding attraction. When you are deep in another person's POV, then you can make their attraction more tangible to you by knowing these anchor points.]

The hitch in Dave's breath only made Karkat want more, now. When he pulled, Dave lifted his arms, bending his head to help Karkat peel the shirt off him, leaving him in nothing but the bold stamp of his armband. The warm flush in Dave's skin deepened and spread down his chest. Karkat touched him there, cupping the softer flesh and squeezing.

"Um!" Dave said in a higher voice than Karkat had ever heard from him.

"What?" Karkat asked, his own voice lowering, his worried tone starting to fragment and hum with the chirring in his thorax. There was no way it wasn't obvious now.

[Even though we're not in Dave's POV, I also heighten the parts of Karkat I know he likes: the sonic.

This is also a tacit reminder to the audience that Karkat super isn't a human. I never want them to forget it, so I will keep his alien oddities present on a regular basis.]

"Nothing!" His ears were red, and he puffed out a breath. "Initiative, I like it. Great job." When Karkat remained still, concerned, he rolled his eyes. "I swear to god I'm fine, you just— surprised me."

"I can slow down—"

Dave dug his knees into Karkat's sides.

[Dave is in control of the scene.]

Fine. Easing in closer, Karkat rubbed his thumbs over the nipples and squeezed more firmly, kneading with his fingers, careful to keep the points of his claws from pressing too hard against soft skin.

["the nipples" makes me laugh every time.]

Dave's mouth opened into a little 'o', his body slumping against the bed, his throat working as he swallowed thickly. "'Kay. God, those are— are pretty sharp, huh?"

"I won't hurt you," Karkat told him.

A sound equidistant between a laugh and a moan answered him. "Good with your hands, Karkat?"

"I mean, you try growing up on a planet where it's real fucking useful to have knives on your hands." He dragged his clawtips down Dave's ribcage, stroking his sides.

"I like 'em." Dave pressed his head back, back arching a bit as he sighed, lazily enjoying being touched.

Karkat crawled further up onto the bed, trying to bite back his smile as Dave eagerly sat up with him. He hesitated, unsure what to do next.

[How do you show a person is aroused? How do you portray desire?

A lot of thinking, mostly. 

I think my sex scenes tend to buck some sequencing tropes (kissing then clothes off then prep then sex then clean up) and its because I think about blocking constantly.

I'm unsure if that's a well known term. I learned it in drama class in high school, when the teacher/director talked about how it's not enough to remember your lines and say them. You have to use body language just as much, and the 'script' of that language is "blocking." It's the direction people physically follow in a scene, where they are going to move and when, what marks they have to hit, etc.

When I have a scene outlined and ready, I think ENDLESSLY about the blocking. I think about it when I'm driving, when I'm on breaks at work, when I'm making dinner. Figuring out how the characters are going to show their intentions with their bodies takes much more time than writing dialogue. At some point in the craft of writing, dialogue became the easiest part. I can do that in minutes.

The rest of the direction is the bulk of the work.

This is why I watch Mission Impossible and scream "UGH, PHYSICALITY" because this is… how I learn. This is how I work that writing muscle, I just…. find someone in a film or whatever who moves in away that catches my attention, who is saying something with their body language, and I study that shit. And I put it here.]

Dave pressed his hand flat against Karkat's thorax, his teeth against his lower lip as the subvocals immediately strengthened, modulating into a drowsy wave of noise. "God, that's so fucking cool. Don't let this go to your head, but that's pretty sexy."

[Dave is in control of the scene.]

He looked up at Karkat through his lashes, smile playful.

Karkat really want to kiss him again.

Instead, Karkat pulled one of Dave's legs to the side, stroking the hairs there. "Dude, not against the grain," Dave laughed, and redirected Karkat's hand to stroke in the right direction.

"Humans are so fucking complicated and touchy," Karkat said.

"And yet you came here for your treat," Dave reminded him. His knees pressed against Karkat's side. "Oh, shit, this song rocks, hang on—"

The guitar got noticeably crunchier, the drum thudding dull and steady. It grabbed Dave's attention, away from Karkat, and heat flared in Karkat's body.

Grabbing Dave's wrists, Karkat pushed, falling with him until he had Dave held flat to the mattress, his grip around warm skin and the cool material of the armband.

Fever got me guilty, just go ahead and kill me, Karkat heard vividly as he braced over Dave, looking at his mouth.

Dave stared up at him for a second, then lifted his head, pressing his lips firmly to Karkat's, and Karkat just fell in. He kissed Dave's mouth open, tongue exploring those strange flat teeth, tasting boozy fruit. Dave's moan vibrated through Karkat's body as he squirmed under Karkat, hips rolling, working to line their bodies up.

[So right before this scene started, Karkat unthinkingly kissed Dave and got chided lightly for it.

Here, he thinks about doing it again, then another 160 words pass before it happens. I told you directly Karkat wants to kiss Dave and then I showed you how it happens.

There's that advice, "Show don't tell" and I think it's… situational. I am of the opinion that you need a balance of both. This is about tempo and expediency. When you just Tell the audience something, it can be impactful like a punch. 

Also, when you stop to Show, the audience will notice more. If you are only doing Show Show Show and never just Telling, I personally find that kind of narrative a little exhausting and I think it lacks snap. 

So, I tell you Karkat wants to kiss Dave, and then I try to paint the moment with details about the taste and the music and the vibration in hopes you'll pay more attention to those.

I want this moment to be their Big First. So it has details that they'll remember. All the way in Act Three, Karkat puts on The Black Keys' Turn Blue, and Dave literally identifies the opening song as "their song."]

Karkat's bone sheath had been taking its sweet fucking time getting with the program until then. It parted immediately, and his bulge felt up Dave's thighs, rubbing over his nook.

Laying there and making out for a while sounded like a great idea. Karkat carded a hand into Dave's soft hair, holding his head still as he mapped out his mouth and swallowed every little groan. In perfect counterpoint, Dave grabbed Karkat, blunt nails dragging through his hair to find the bed of one of his horns. Stroking the base of it brought a thick, curling pleasure surging up Karkat body.

[Another instance of them honing in on the anchor points of their attraction. Karkat's attraction to softness and being allowed to be gentle, Dave's attraction to Karkat's anatomy and (as a beloved friend once told me) the joy of being aliens to each other.]

Eventually, Dave broke the kiss, lips wet, parted as he breathed. He kissed Karkat's jaw, his cheek, his eyelashes dark against his skin, eyes closed.

He looked so good, it almost burned to stare down at him. It made Karkat's breath catch.

Dave seemed oblivious to Karkat having a fucking moment and knocked his legs into Karkat's sides. "Come on, party hardy, is that guest of honor ready?"

[Dave is in charge of the scene and is currently not at a point where he'll let it get too tender. He is in control.]

Karkat headbutt him gently. "Don't talk about my bulge like that."

"Why not, he's my new best friend," Dave said, snickering. Blinking his eyes open dreamily, he looked down, between their bodies, and wiggled his hips again. "It's like, what's the fuckin' word, autonomous?"

"Mostly." It was currently autonomously grinding loops through the coarse hair, painting translucent red streaks over Dave's skin.

"Well, can you ask Mr. Red Joy Toy to take this bit slow? It's been a while since— actually, fuck, better idea. Flip." Planting a hand on Karkat's shoulder, Dave shoved. Tipping over, Karkat let out an offended noise that Dave completely ignored as he swung himself over, straddling Karkat's hips.

[Dave is in control— you get it. There are constant signifiers.

Also you might note I didn't give a blow by blow on Karkat's bulge coming out. I have compared my sex scenes to other people's and one of my constant notes of concern is, frankly, my overuse of blocking.

I often worry that I am explaining too much, spending too much time making sure the audience is aware of the exact positions of everyone at all times. Which can become exhausting and can kill the tempo/flow. So over the last five years or so, I've made a conscious effort to just drop unnecessary beats and trust the audience to follow along.]

Staring up at him was a little like staring into the sun. "Oh."

"Yeah, I dunno if I got the gams for a full rodeo," Dave said, his hand reaching down to grip Karkat's bulge, "but let's, uh, get it going before we turn tables."

"Whatever you want," Karkat said, because really? Honestly? Yes. He had zero complaints about the situation.

Dave laughed, tucking his hair behind his ear in a way that made Karkat's chest ache. "I don't do this part often, so just…"

[I love this moment of Dave doing a shy motion despite he is, as stated, in control. The royal flush is in his hand, but something about Karkat still makes him a little bashful, just for a moment. 

Also this is a purposeful juxtaposition: it's a cute bashful moment while Dave is straddling his hot alien coworker and working his alien dick. That kind of contrast adds texture and, in my opinion, a verisimilitude to the situation.

Because I've said this 100394823 times but while it is always okay to have a sex scene just for the fun or a sex scene, that's great, I tend to write sex scenes for a purpose. I want my sex scenes to convey something that can't be easily conveyed in another context.

This one here exists (among other reasons) to make it clear that Karkat isn't just a coworker to Dave, that he is getting something unique from Karkat, and it's something he's been lacking in his life for a long time. Which will make it harder for him to pretend this is purely fun and devoid of emotions.]

Putting his hands on Dave's hips, Karkat squeezed in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

Dave's smile was so fucking bashful, completely at odds with the way his hand worked Karkat's bulge, long wet strokes that had it curling around his wrist. Karkat groaned, hips lifting despite Dave's weight.

"Oh, huh," Dave said as he was jostled. "Looks like you got the gams. Impressive core muscle strength. Maybe test that out next time, but for now." Using both hands, he coaxed the narrow tip of Karkat's bulge up until it dragged along the slick folds of his nook. He stared down into his lap, focused, keeping a firm grip so Karkat wouldn't accidentally move too fast.

[Dave is in control and is already thinking about another round of sex with Karkat.

Also, I dunno how subtle this is, but Dave is in control in a way that speaks to the fact that the Umbra has him employed as a sex worker basically (its Complicated) and thus he has a lot of experience and instead of just lying back and letting Karkat have fun, he physically directs the action to ensure it goes correctly. He knows how much penetration he can take and at what speed, so he controls that too.]

Bit by bit, Dave loosened his grip, and Karkat sank into Dave's nook, taking gulps of air and digging his fingers into Dave's hips to keep from bulge from thrashing. God, he felt— so lush and wet, similar to working into another troll's nook, but different, more delicate, and without another bulge to tangle with. That was the best part, that nothing stopped Karkat from filling Dave up, his bulge twisting and exploring.

[Sexy advice hopefully but: I tend to focus in on the level of familiarity characters have when they fuck. Here, Karkat is fucking Dave for the second time but first time in his nook, so the narrative focuses on the differences, on what sets Dave apart from anyone else Karkat's fucked.

Later in the story, when it's established that these two fuck very very regularly, the focus shifts to what they've learned about each other. It's an aspect I think is sexy.]

Dave's expression went distant, eyes unfocused, face flushed. He bit his lip as his head lolled to the side, a soft, "Fuck," leaving his mouth as he rose up on his knees, then settled slowly back down. "Okay, okay, yeah…"

Karkat stroked his hips, his back, waiting. "Take your time."

"Don't tell me what to do," Dave said automatically, even as he slowly rocked his hips in a circle, letting Karkat's bulge go carefully. As it buried itself in him, he dug his slick hand into his hair, gripping, holding on. "Oh my god."

Because he was an idiot and his bulge had the reins of his brain, Karkat said, "You look so good."

[I'm not sure if I'm good at writing dirty talk? Like, I have no idea. But I really like writing sex talk.

Well, it's another thing that varies, I think. Sometimes it's fun to have two fucking chatty people who cannot stop talking fuck. It's also fun to have the moment when that all falls away because keeping up the patter is too difficult. And then again, sometimes a silent, intense, wordless fuck is the right choice.

It all depends on who is involved and also what the goal of the scene is. This scene is Dave and Karkat continuing to navigate their dynamic, so they can't shut up. The form fits the function in the story.]

Dave hitched a moan as Karkat stretched as far into him as he could. "I— jesus, Karkat, I—" He patted Karkat's hands on his hips. "Come on, it's time for you to do some work, let's go, babe."

[Dave. Control. Etc.]

Karkat rolled them back over, got his knees braced under him, and fucked into Dave.

Nothing about the situation felt real, and that was strangely what made Karkat feel helpless against it. The bass line that stroked down Karkat's spine as he moved and the way Dave looked at Karkat, hazey and pleasure-soaked, were so completely unbelievable… it didn't matter. There was no reason to hold back.

So he fell into it, tried to get his bulge as far into Dave as he could, kissing him just because he could, and fucked Dave in time with the music just for the way it made Dave start laughing.

Dave managed to sing a loose "Ba da dahm" before he completely lost it, laughing and moaning against Karkat's mouth.

[This is the part of the sex I always have the hardest time with. All the blocking and arranging bodies and banter and themes, that's EASY. But when someone needs to finally get off and come, it's like two to seven paragraphs that are agony to me, lmao.

For this one, I have a lodestone of the music. KTOWL is more than a bit about music, and how music is Dave's primary form of communication, so it makes its way into this moment, and that's the lifeline I need to wrap up the sex.

But if there is anything I think I need to work on in sex scenes, its orgasms themself. How do I make them a better conveyance of character? It's a point to work on.

(Ah, quick note, I phrased that as a question but I am not seeking advice on that. I don't tend to take unsolicited advice on my writing for several reasons. Thanks.)]

If coming here was a mistake, Karkat was so fucking glad he'd made it.

His bulge looped around itself in Dave, and Dave threw his head back with a shout, his legs bending.

Karkat pressed them both flat to the bed and felt how Dave shook with each stroke of his hips. He was so focused on Dave that his orgasm fucking shocked him, just there suddenly, making him thrust furiously into Dave as he just unspooled and flooded him with a heavy pulse of slurry. "Oh, shit," Karkat swore, eyes slamming shut as he tried— but nope, no, he was done for.

[I really like non-synchronized orgasms actually. Not to be gauche but sometimes you're coasting along and are turned on and think you've got a handle on it, and then the orgasm just happens! Whoops!]

"Oh, what, Karkat, hey," Dave whined as Karkat slowed. "Don't you fuckin' dare, I'm so goddamn close." He shoved a hand down between them to rub himself, groaning.

Karkat helped, folding their hands together, still pulsing drowsily in Dave's nook as they jerked him off. He felt Dave come, and thrust weakly into the clench of him, groaning.

His head rest against Dave's shoulder. He nuzzled in. It was so soft. Were all humans this soft? How was someone like Dave so soft under his clothes? It felt like privileged information he'd stumbled into bulge-first.

A hand cupped the back of Karkat's neck. That felt really nice, and he opened his mouth to exhale, layers of vibration coloring the tone into a modulation of subvocal hums.

"Fuckin' agreed," Dave sighed, deep and satisfied. "We are… real good at this. If there were awards for accomplishments in th' tantric arts, competitors would try to take out our kneecaps, we'd be such obvious front runners."

Karkat hummed an agreement to that nonsense.

Fingers gently toyed with Karkat's hair for a moment. It was so soothing. Karkat could sleep. Maybe his bulge would stay tucked up and warm in Dave for longer if he just dozed off.

"Hey, roll over." Dave nudged him.

"No," Karkat said, trying to nuzzle in more.

"Yes," Dave answered, and poked Karkat's sides, right along the grub scars.

With enormous effort and a deep groan of complaint, Karkat lifted himself up and flopped onto his back instead. It wasn't nearly as comfortable, and his bulge tucked up into his sheath again.

[Do I even need to say it?

I mean, it's important. If you read KTOWL, you know why Dave And Control is extremely important.]

Dave sat up, moving wearily. He dragged a hand through his hair. "Holy shit, I'm a mess," he laughed, and moved, legs slipping off the bed. He was shaky as he stood, holding out a hand in case he fell, but still managed to get up and pulled the sheet off the bed. "This is totally ruined." He balled up the sheet and used it to wiped himself off before… just throwing over the side of the loft, letting it fall. "Deal with that fuckin' later," he muttered, and stumbled a few feet away.

[A small note: we have all done the orgasm-then-clean-up thing. Sometimes, the scene has overstayed its welcome so you wanna just breeze over that stuff.

But sometimes, like here, it's an opportunity for a Character Moment, learning about how Dave interacts with his own space and possessions. And it's cute and funny.

I think that covers everything about This Specific Scene. I hope this is at all interesting. I think about this shit a lot.]

[captainclervals]

saw your post about reading 100 books this year, i dont mean to be presumptuous but if youre looking for suggestions at all, id recommend demian by herman hesse (and hesse's works as a whole) !!! its such a beautiful piece of gothic/classic literature that i dont think gets as much attention as it deserves :^)

aahhh late response omg i just got around to reading this one a couple weeks ago and I really enjoyed it!! definitely one that lingers after reading it, made me look up psychological concepts i haven't thought about since college lmao 😭 genuinely love books that feel like impending doom all the way thru and make you put them down intermittently to process it. kind of obsessed with the stream of consciousness style combined with very heavy(handed) symbolism and florid imagery that presents the characters more as Concepts and Feelings and Pictures than other people cuz it lends such an absorbing dream-likw sensation that i don't think would work so well elsewhere and I can appreciate a book forcing you to get absorbed enough to feel like youre waking up when you take your eyes off the page. like where am i. oh right

i plan to read more of Hesse's books, i had never actually heard of any of his titles before so thank you for the recommendation! :3

[pzfr]

RP SENTENCE STARTERS INSPIRED BY "Astro City" (1995) MEGAPOST

Edit pronouns/names/locations/etc. and combine or separate as needed when sending.

#1

"In my dreams, I fly. I soar unfettered, and serene, laughing at gravity and at care. The clouds embrace me as a friend and the wind lazily tousles my hair. I lose myself in the sun and the sky."

"The emergency alert transmitter. As always."

"Some sort of weather disaster. Probably another typhoon."

"Manila's a nice flight, under other circumstances. But not today."

"There's no time. There's never any time."

"Of course, there's shock damage to dealt with, and venting the volcano that caused the wave..."

"'Deadlines' as always. Four manuscripts late out of editorial as always. And guess who gets to make up the time?"

"Well, if things are that dire, might as well get to it. 'Time nor tide tarrieth no man.'"

"You know, for someone who enjoys his job so much, you figure just once he'd get here a little early."

"Not bad-- a little florid, but it captures the subject well."

"I swear, I used to think he was standoffish-- but I'm starting to believe he really is the busiest guy on Earth!"

"Cuttin' it a bit fine, eh, [NAME]? We were gettin' ready t'start without ya!"

"Button it. They've never missed a meeting, which is more than I can say for you!"

"Now, now. No need to fuss-- we're all here."

"Boost power-flow by 13%."

"So what's the verdict? Will I ever play violin again?"

"Perfect-- We're reading 85% human with a 15% alien overlay."

"Ha!-- Enough of circuitry and wiring, we have a call to arms!"

"Yeah, yeah, big deal! Like we don't already know you're fast..."

"You'd better be in there! Lunch hour ended TEN minutes ago!"

"I know, and I'm sorry. But the solitude helps me work faster."

"I can't save everybody-- people die even while I'm saving lives *here*-- but I still do what I can. Can't I?"

#2

"Please, it's only [TITLE/FULL NAME/ETC.] when you're in trouble. Call me [(NICK)NAME]."

"I had Sally make us lunch reservations at the press club. I'll introduce you to some of the guys you'll be working with."

"Good. We've got a few minutes before it's time to head down, then. Relax, loosen your tie maybe-- you look like you're choking."

"Sorry, this article you've got framed here. I can understand the others, but why this one?"

"You're observant. I like that."

"That's a story I usually tell over lunch, but I think the club waiters are getting tired of it."

"Press! Press! I need that phone!"

"Your first week, and you already want the front page?"

"I know, I know. But all I've gotten are obits and one flower show. And I could taste this one--"

"Hotshot reporter! Ace newshound! Your pulitzer."

"I'd sneak you up, but I've got an early audition tomorrow."

"Radio jingle, or a soap opera this time?"

"They've got no money of course-- they're putting on the show in a coffeehouse--"

"By the power of the dark heart-- of blood and bone crushed to powder..."

"By the power of the killing fish... the great fish that never rests, whose hunger is never sated..."

"I open the channels to your hunger... I open the channels to your power!..."

"I don't know if what you're trying would even work, but I'd just as soon not find out!"

"I THANK YOU. YOUR WORLD IS WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE. YOU AND YOUR MINNOWS HAVE SERVED ME WELL... AND YOU SHALL NOT GO UNREWARDED!"

"TAKE MY POWER UNTO YOU. TAKE MY HUNGER AS YOUR OWN--"

"Your army's not going anywhere except the stockade, chum!"

"Quit clowning around and get the job done! We don't have time for your foolishness!"

"You're most uncool! This scene is so square, it's cubed!"

"These oversized sardines need to be put back into the can!"

"THE HUMANS ARE MORE RESOURCEFUL THAN THEY FIRST APPEARED. BUT THEY SHALL NOT PREVAIL."

"We are in a half-world between realities-- and we must prevent it from becoming a beachhead!"

"No offense, but a neophyte reporter bringing a wild story like this... extra-dimensional attack, mystic half-worlds, old legends... would you believe it, in my shoes?"

"Rewrite it, [NAME]. Rewrite it and stick to the facts you can back up."

"This is a strange world, son. And there are lots of weird things in it. That makes us, as a newspaper, vulnerable. Other papers may go out there with sensational, screaming headlines that turn out to be a mistake. We print what we can prove. Sometimes spectacular, sometimes it isn't. Our readers count on us for the truth."

#3

"Please. A drink for everyone in this establishment, my dear."

"Worth a cool mil-- and he says anyone coulda done it--"

"Hey, hey! I heard somebody went down last night-- on your lookout."

"That ain't fair. He was waitin' for us. Gagged me, then in came the cops. I barely managed to slip away."

"Go ahead! Scoff! Don't believe me."

"Oh look-- it's a ruffian of some sort!"

"I'll have the chauffeur rough them up and toss them into the river. Such impertinence."

"Uh, it's nothin' guys. I got an offer to work on my aunt's house in California. I'm thinkin' about it, like a vacation y'know?"

"[NAME] squealed! He's tryin' to bring me in!--"

"Eyes~, oh eyes~! Some people see too much, Eyes!"

"No, please stop! Don't wind that crank, please!"

"Oh, but it's such a nice song, don't you think? Why don't you sing it with me..."

"The monkey thought it was all in fun~!--"

"A hundred-thousand to the man who kills him! And two-hundred in merchandise credit!"

"Sounds like a good deal, but read the fine print: It's awfully hard to collect when you're in prison!"

"Nobody leaves the party early! Don't worry-- I'll get around to you as quickly as I can!"

"How many times have your mother and I told you? If you and your little friends can't play nice, your toys are going to be taken away from you!"

#4

"I swear. I don't know how you do it. I couldn't live up here: gives me the willies just driving through."

"--She broke out of jail. Rebuilt her commode and prison cot into a jackhammer."

"It looks like it's just a pin, but if I turn the design in the frame like-- well, I won't do it now, but it'll set off alarms at headquarters."

"Some. They're not as bad as you think, though. I grew up there. I guess I'm just used to it."

"'Not as bad as you think,' listen to her!"

"One of the gals in my apartment just took a new job in San Franscisco, we're looking for a new roomie."

"She becomes one of them! She works down there, now she lives down there--"

"Mistletoe, child, will protect you from the prince of darkness. For he cannot stand its purity. Also good if need speak to ghosts, but that for later."

"And when the dust settles, if any of you are still standing-- DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU!"

"Into the stairwell! It's reinforced and we've got to get to ground level!"

"Don't even bat an eyelash kiddo. I may be old enough to be your grampaw, but I got the drop on ya!"

#5

"Can't-- caught in some kind of magnetic field!"

"It's screwing up my servos!"

"We'll take him apart from the knees up!"

"No need to applaud, kiddies and kiddettes!

"Just sit back and watch while a professional demonstrates the fine art of monster-taming!"

"You're not exactly cooperating there, tall-dark-and-bloodthirsty!"

"You wouldn't wanna make me look bad, would you?"

"What did we do so wrong to deserve him?!"

"Just get 'im out of here-- before I rip his leg off and beat the monster's head in with it!"

"Cripesakes, man! This is a battlezone! Get outta here!"

"Izzat the new 720? Man, I read about those! Sweet machine, can I--"

"It is NOT your precious machine! And what it is is none of your concern! Now be off with you!"

"Cold is better than walls. I am content."

"Another rejection-- you think the boy would learn!"

"Why can't he get a normal, respectable job like any other--"

"Transmission connection established. Awaiting signal."

"Heads up in there, you lucky unfortunate, you-- And better have your autograph book ready! 'Cause you're sure to want a memento of this daring rescue to show to your grandchildren someday!"

"You know, the service in here is terrible. Whaddya say pops? Let's BLOW this popsicle stand!"

"Ah, to think that all the other superheroes will pale by comparison!"

"No autographs please, ladies! I still have work to do! I-- MY RECORD COLLECTION!"

"Hmph! Be like that! See if I don't get a lawyer for unauthorized use of the name..."

"So the woman says 'you idiot-- this is a duck, not a pig!' and the bartender says-- 'I was talking to the DUCK!'... fine, don't laugh! See if I care."

"Here you go: A trio of sleeping not-so-beauties!"

"Aw, pshaw! Gotta leave *something* for the boys in blue to do!"

"Do you mind?! We're on stakeout here!"

"C'mon! I know a little after-hours place around the corner. Could be your lucky night!"

"And you, such a sensitive guy, too. The mind positively boggles!"

"So, what about you, short stuff? Ready to graduate into the big leagues?"

"I'm only lending a helping hand, dear lady! Pretend I'm not even here!"

"Yes, it was a long and complex investigation to get the goods on this vicious criminal ring. But I want you to know there's no way I could have done it without the assistance of these girls here--"

#6

"I just... didn't know whether you'd be showing up as yourself, or as..."

"I wouldn't want to make you reveal your secret identity-- you don't need to change."

"Now we're not going to take no for an answer, big guy. You keep overworking yourself like this, you're going to crack."

"Take an evening off for once. The rest of us can keep the world safe tonight."

"Oh please, guys! That thing's fast, sure... but let's be realistic here!"

"This is priceless, isn't it? The world's most prominent superheroes, and neither of us has been out on a date in so long... we've forgotten how it works."

"I... I don't know. I didn't really think to make reservations anywhere. It's not like we can go to dinner like this, right?"

"So they are. But you know what? It's our night off. Let's go ahead and cause a fuss!"

"Where now?... we could go to Paris, or Tokyo... if you prefer."

"Where would it be different?"

"My idea of a swell evening, I'll tell you-- freezin' my buns off so some other guy can get some!"

"Um, really? No offense... but it's not the sort of thing I'd imagined for you."

"I can take off whenever I need to, as long as the work gets done."

"Well yes, but surely you could get whatever connections you want from the government or any station--"

"I suppose I could, now. But I wouldn't have been able to when I started out... And, well. I've been kind of busy..."

"That was it. That was the end of my mission. I don't know what it changed-- but that it was a crucial event."

"And I can't help but think, if one disaster could send the world into ruin... well, having seen where we could end up, I feel like I should try to keep things as safe as I can.

"But I couldn't find my family. They didn't exist-- they'd never been born."

"The dwelling unit where I grew up was gone, too. In its place was an automated taco stand."

"But the world I came from is gone. It simply never was."

"It's okay. We knew going into it that this would happen if I was successful, and we all agreed that--"

"We're a couple of workaholics, it seems. Addicted to our beepers."

"Hey, I'll turn mine off if you turn yours off."

"Because I've got a message to send, to women. Not just that they can be heroic, but that they matter. They count."

"Look, I do what I do by choice, and so do you."

"You prioritize by time, who's nearest. And I prioritize by what message I send."

"Tell me about it. I've been called everything from a pagan cult-leader to an anti-american lesbian terrorist."

"I just try to focus on the mission, on getting through to the next job that needs doing."

"I think if I stepped back and looked at it from outside I'd just crack from the enormity of it all."

"But everybody needs to step back. To get some perspective."

"You must have family, friends to turn to from before--"

"Wow! You're almost as cut off as I am..."

"Oh COME ON! I don't have the luxury you do, keeping a secret identity you don't even use! I mean, where is this normal life you say you always want? You're always on the go, you barely even had enough time for tonight!--"

"But don't you see how unrealistic that is?"

"Everything we do is unrealistic. We're fighting for dreams, and we can't give up, not even when... maybe especially when it's impossible."

"Maybe you're fine. Maybe you're still the woman you were, just more powerful and effective."

"But it seems to me that well... if you don't deal with the world through anything but the costume and the mission, hasn't it become kind of a shelter in itself?"

"Just because you saw your whole world destroyed doesn't mean I have to go crawling back to that broken, pathetic, SCARED little thing I once was!"

"You're really annoying, you know that? It's like... you're a god pretending to be normal."

"I'm a woman trying to live up to the role of a god. Letting go of that, even for a little while... well. It's hard to believe I'll ever capture it again."

"Don't worry about it: You've given me a lot to think about. Just as long as it hasn't been entirely one-sided..."

"No-- no. You said some things I haven't considered, but maybe I should..."

[sh4tt3rg1rl]

TAOCC IS AMAZING, and boy has it changed since I first showed up

Aka: Elsie gets really sentimental for once

I’m gonna be honest, this is not the community I expected to end up in on this site. I joined Tumblr about October 29th and expected to end up as maaaaaybe a minor artist. At best. At the time TADC was just “that glitch thing that was blowing up that I thought was pretty good” and I was much more into murder drones anyways.

…Holy crabs, looking back on that…I had no idea what I was gonna end up getting into lol

I randomly followed the @/ragatha1 ask blog at one point, kind of confused as to what an ask blog was but hey, why not? That’s how I found Soup’s gangle blog and boy did things go off the rails. I was…so confused, I showed up smack dab in the middle of the Tiger insanity with no idea who any of these characters or people were. At that point iirc, “TAOCC” wasn’t even the name for the whole thing yet. I made Easton and was like “okay I’ll just have this goofy guy who likes sandwiches, no angst here, maybe he’ll make some friends, I really hope everyone likes him!”

BOY WAS I IN FOR A SURPRISE

I joined my first ever magma at that point as well! And I vividly remember being really confused but just doodling my sona in the corner and then people were like

“Uhhhh who the frick is Elsewhere I like your art :D”

and I was like

“Um

you what”

and thus I joined magma…a lot. Lol. That’s how I got to know soup and you (Xeya) and a few others. I felt so…weirdly new. Like impostor syndrome was in full force. That feeling hasn’t…really ever gone away, tbh.

And since then I’ve figured myself out mostly with only a few embarrassments to my name. I’m really grateful for the people I’ve made friends with, especially Fei, Star, Soup, and Xeya, as well as Kumo and Candy mods. You guys have been lovely to me, and I don’t know how I ever came to deserve that. It’s been rough at times, and I had to/still have to figure out boundaries and how to be assertive basically from scratch. This website still hurts me sometimes, and I accept that I’m a bit odd in some respects. But overall, people have respected that here much more than they do in my actual life. People have respected me here more than they tend to in real life. Before this I could share my writing and art with one person. One. I would go stir-crazy because I would make art and writing and never get to show anyone, which meant I just…spent like an entire year not doing anything. It sucked. And now I will just,..make art and characters for the funsies, and not get scolded for it. I can write incredibly florid descriptions and scenes about stuff like a freaking TOWN’S DESCRIPTION, and people will like it and tell me I’m good at this. I honestly might consider becoming a writer now when I become an adult. I learned that I can be shamelessly self indulgent when writing and people will enjoy it lol. Thank you guys for dealing with that btw lol. I will just MAKE CHARACTERS FOR PEOPLE FOR THE FUNSIES, a willingness I thought I’d all but lost. Like, I saw a 3d printer in my chem class two days ago and went “hmmm yunno what I could give a character in TAOCC a 3d printer for a head and that’d be so cool! Yunno, maybe Xeya would like it if I made that for her.” AND HERE WE ARE I’M CURRENTLY MAKING YOU A CHARACTER WITH A 3D PRINTER FOR A HEAD.

Also, you guys have no idea how grateful I am that you go along with my giant overarching plotlines. Like, my first test of the idea was Dusk’s domain and Sun’s trip to see Northeast, and then I was confident enough that people would care that I made the entire Lull/dungeon thing. The dungeon has been my magnum opus of writing, I put more work into that than almost anything else I’ve ever written. And people actually…respected that. I’m terrible at writing fight scenes, and yet I carried a fight scene for multiple hours with like…20 characters! I DIDN’T THINK I COULD HAVE TWO CHARACTERS FIGHT AND MAKE IT WORK AT ALL! OH MY LANDS I HAVE ACTUAL SELF CONFIDENCE NOW!! AAAAAAAAA-

anyways, that aside lol

it’s been wonderful, really. I feel like the pros far outweigh the cons for me, and the cons for me can be mitigated anyways entirely on my side of things lol. I came to this site looking for a community of people who would appreciate me, stupid flaws, autism, anxiety, writing and all. And I think I got that. And I want to find more, I want to keep going beyond this little bubble, but I want to always come back to this little circle of people. I don’t care how many rps or writing messes I end up in, TAOCC is always going to have a special place in my heart, flaws and all. It’s helped me get through some serious mess in my life, and being excited to come home to whatever insanity these lil guys are up to today makes me happy like almost nothing else.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Thank you for letting this odd moth in, I hope I’ve earned it.

HELL YEAH YOUVE EARNED IT!!!

You've been literally one of the kindest people I've met on the site. One of the most talented too! I've never seen someone write like you and. Honestly. Genuinely. I look up to you in quite a few aspects.

You're funny, kind, caring, skilled, and a great person overall. and im SO FUCKING GLAD YOURE MY FRIEND EEEEE HUGS SPINS YOUUUU

... (kicks feet) and I heard something about a 3d printer head oc youre making for me.... (teary eyed) (/pos) (me when people do things for me. i love yall. sm. love you elsie sm sM SM SM SM SM!!!)

[spaced0lphin]

I Read My Own Fanfiction 20 Years Later and I Wanna Give Kid Me a Hug

I was reminded the other day of my very first fanfiction that I put online. I couldn't remember what I even called it, but could remember just enough to try scouring the Internet. To equal parts shock and horror, I actually found the thing. So, I read it. And, I cried - I cried a lot, actually. At fourteen years old, I wrote 55,000+ words about Dilandau Albatou from Escaflowne and some self-insert OC. Three years later, in 2006, I rewrote the whole thing from the ground up, clocking in at 73,600+ that time before I stopped updating it. I just got done reading the whole mess, and let me tell you, it is cringe and awful, and I wish time machines existed. Not so I could stop myself from writing this. But, so I could make fourteen and seventeen-year-old me a cup of tea, sit down, and go through this story with them. So much of it is such a keening cry about wanting to know what it felt like to be loved. I don't remember writing this story now - it was twenty years ago - but I do remember how I felt at the time and where it came from. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I was going through hell at that time in my young life. I was actively being abused and had no frame of reference to understand it as what was going on. I just felt like no one wanted to hear me, and so the only way to be loved was to write it happening to me. I want to go back in time so I can show enthusiastic interest in what teenage me was trying to express with this. I want to share with her the things I like about this, and I want to make her feel seen, safe, and reassured. I want to let her talk with me about her ideas for this story until she falls asleep. I want to show her healthier ways to recognise and understand love so she'll be better prepared for the things she'll encounter later. And... bless her heart, but I want to tell her she doesn't need to over-explain everything in excruciating detail - something I know she did because she felt she had to prove she was smart and worth listening to. She tried so hard to use florid language to catch the attention of those around her she needed love from the most. It never worked. I can tell you that I wrote about wanting an all-encompassing, powerful romantic love - and sure, that's part of what I wanted - I was a teenage girl, after all. But mostly, what I wanted was simply to be engaged with. I wanted to feel like my feelings and my dreams were important to someone. It is frankly astonishing to me that the story I wrote back then had any fans at all - but it did! Thirteen whole, entire people actually read that thing and commented enthusiastically on it. That's thirteen people more than zero. Whoever you are out there: Twenty years later, thank you. Your words of support on a screen meant the world to me. It was all I really had, back then. If you read Codename: Fox and/or the incredibly boldly named The Revision of Escaflowne on FF.net in the early oughts, thank you. You were my therapists and you didn't even know it. Oh, but uh, don't go and read them if you haven't already. They're truly abysmal. Bless my little heart but, just, abysmal. Comment on your favourite fic, today!

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

you know, I think that all the murder business in aknh-morpork would once again plummet if vetinari let downey and his people do their job again. he initially made the assassins' guild and thieves' guild legal for crime prevention and let them deal with people who performed unlicensed inhumation/theft. and then he got a new favourite toy in vimes and was like "actually no guys, let him do it, it's funny" "people are dying, dog-botherer."

Right??

Downey and Boggis are all about crime prevention. Cops aren't, by their very nature. They're reactive.

If the Assassins and Thieves' approach to prevention is colourful and florid—especially if you like the colour red—it is hardly their fault that this is what works best.

--

Vetinari: To be fair, Downey, under your methodology people still die.

Downey: Correct, but it's a lot less of them and it's all far more efficient. Plus, I make more money.

Vetinari: I'm not sure I can put "Lord Downey makes more money" into my cost-benefit-analysis chart on how to better approach crime prevention and reduction.

Downey: Look, if you do it my way, the city saves money! There's less murder, since everyone knows who will come for them in the dark of night if they're a little too knife happy. Or the bright of the day, I like shaking it up. With less murder the city spends less on the police budget, less on food and board for prisoners, and the hang-man might need a second job. It's a win-win, really.

Vetinari: I think some people might contest that point.

Downey: Just. Think about it, babe.

--

Downey argues that fine, fine, if they can't get regular-degular murderers, can they at least get serial killers. He had so much fun hunting down that guy the last time! It was a highlight in his recent life!

Vetinari says he'll think about it. He wants to know what Downey constitutes as a serial killer. Downey is like, 'anyone who has killed, in a sequential manner, more than two people. If it's a mass killing, I'll leave that to the Watch. Unless it happens more than once. Then it drops into serial killer bucket.'

Vetinari points out that this is a very low bar. The scope is wider than the ocean. The Assassins' Guild could lump so many people into that category. Really, if it's so broad, Vetinari isn't sure the definition is entirely useful. Downey beams at him.

[drawingducktalesducks]

Apologies if I've asked this before, I don't know how to check ask history, but what do you think of the theory that Lena isn't just a shadow? Theory goes that she's actually Poe's daughter, and actually Magica's niece, she just got messed up in a magic experiment and lost chunks of her memory. I'd love to see a comic of the three girls figuring that out, and/or finding Poe, and or shenanigans involving any of this XD

i have a fever lets see if i an be coherent about this :D

So I kinda really like that Magica and Poe are among the Loving Families Can Be Evil Actually rep crowd.

They WERE loving siblings. They had fun together! They looked out for each other and cared about each other! They even did the whole hold hands to help channel magic thing, like Lena does with HER friends and family!

Poe even jumped in front of the magic blast for his sister-Losing Poe has Magica on her knees begging her brother to come back, for someone to help save him, she'll give anything if only-!

Magica goes BEGH at friendship, but she and Poe were friends. They were family the way the McDucks are all family.

... result of this is, for me, it's like.... if Lena had EVER been part of that... if she'd been Poe's daughter, by blood or magic or adoption..

if she'd EVER been part of Magica's family...

I have a hard time imagining Magica doing what she did to Lena.

Or rather, it'd kinda take the fun out of her and Poe's brand of Evil Love if she did?

that scribble i did once of Webby wishing Lena had always had a loving family and meeting happily evil Lena De Spell is where my brain goes when it comes to Magica ever thinking Lena as her actual niece. Can you imagine Magica being so proud of her niece's gruesomely florid poetry about destroying a neighboring village? Her glee teaching Lena how to use Poe's amulet to curse people?

but if we're trying to fit into actual canon instead of an alternate reality...

It's not impossible.

Maybe, oh, Poe made a shadow kid for himself one day, out of boredom, or grabbed a village orphan after helping to orphan them.

He tried his best but his idea of fun was terrifying and the kid/shadow (Lena) kept trying to run away bc yeah, being adopted by the De Spells was better than getting turned into a frog, but not by a whole lot tbh

and Magica put up with it to humor her brother, even if she found 'it' annoying

But then once Poe was gone, the kid was just a nasty reminder that he WAS gone, so while she couldn't bring herself to, like, bump if off bc what if Poe comes back someday what if-

so just she punted it into the shadow realm for safe keeping or whatever.

Then later she needed something to have a body so her shadow could ride around on it until the next eclipse and hey, turns out the scrap of Poe's shadow/magic/whatever that Lena got from him isn't as bound to the dime as the rest of Magica is! Perfect!

she punts Lena back out of the shadow realm and hitchhikes on her 'niece' for the next fifteen years, getting more and more bitter that this little wretch is still here when Poe is not

cue banishing and rejecting Lena during the shadow wars. wee!

Poe would be turning over in his grave if she'd ever had the chance to make one for him

That's a thing I could imagine, I guess.

Harder for me to imagine Lena caring one way or the other.

Canon her doesn't seem to have had any happy family memories before getting rolled up with the McDucks/Sabrewings. Missing memories is a really hard to pull off without a lot of set up and care, otherwise it just comes out of nowhere and feels... weird.

My brain is better at branching off of canon than completely rewriting it anyway, so for me, if Lena was Poe's daughter at some point, she didn't enjoy it

And if she DID lose memories or something, her distrust and dislike of Magica still wouldn't make her super eager to meet Magica's brother either, technical dad status or no. More of an Oh Great Now There's Two Of Them situation

She might help Magica look for him someday, out of shared sisterly understanding, maybe. Since she has Violet now. And is SUPER protective of her own sister.

Losing a sibling/fear of losing them could be a shared thing for her and Magica. Or a way for her to understand Poe.

like, sure he was EVIL, but he saved his sister, and that's something she could understand and appreciate

Or maybe if Webby had the idea that getting Magica's brother back would make Magica slightly less inclined towards raining vengeance and destruction on the world in general and the Mc Ducks in particular.

Lena might not buy that idea, but it wouldn't be out of character for her to groan and go along with it, if Webby's the one asking.

Honestly though... I feel like Ducktales used up it's one good "bring back a supposedly dead love one" card on Della, and that was a very good spending of it. I can't quite get my brain to imagine Poe returning.

Well. Maybe tragically. As normal, non-talking raven. With great hair.

hypothetically though...

Poe: Lena... I AM your father!

Lena: pass

Webby: What should we do now we found your dad???

Lena: Put Him Back

Violet: Wait, Lena. You cannot shrug off your family so lightly...

Lena: ...

Lena: ...Our fathers would like him to sign this adoption form, first.

Lena: OR we could just turn him back into a raven. you know. save on paperwork

Magica: Oh my villainous heart- she really IS a De Spell!

Lena, charging her magic: Two birds with one spell. I bet that'd work

[serpentarii]

M O R D L U S T ; progress update

it's been like a year, so i should probably do another one of these 🫠 progress is slow but....certainly happening. i've been excited to write for this project for the first time in months and some of her rough edges are starting to smooth out which is very 😈 to me. ik i kinda abandoned my #priswritesmordlust tag but dw, she'll probably be back in a few weeks.

don't fucking hate me but i restarted the draft...it's not what it sounds like pls believe me. i got up to a little over 54k but since i write out of order so many things were inconsistent or driving me nuts because i knew how to make them better, but wasn't letting myself backtrack so i finally gave in.

don't worry tho !! i'm 24k into my current draft and it's already far better than the original in a lot of ways

i also added in 3 more chaps to flesh out certain subplots, side characters, etc

brief renaming guide: reiken ☛ helemar & reiki ☛ helemere

past me was right, act 2 was rlly fun to write for voir, since that's when salem shows up for realsies <33

voir is also the definition of mordlust, she only has a fight instinct

i might actually be able to cut this thing down to the 90k range once i really get into aleksander's pov, since it's way less florid than voir's

expect more worldbuilding posts !

things are getting v hectic for me since im currently enrolled in summer classes and the fall semester is beginning soon SO if things seem wonked thats why

so yah, ty all for sticking with me for the past. three years 💀💀 but here are some snacks for the road:

S N I P P E T S 

❝"No," he said, rising. His hands retreated into his coat pockets. "But I do believe in mercy."❞ 

— CHAPTER THIRTY, Mordlust 

❝He would have blamed it on their name alone, but there was kinship to be found among the devout of the Many-Faced God. He placed a hand over the satchel at his side, soon to be filled with the gold-stamped heads of kings and queens. His mouth went dry with the taste of ghaltmarks.❞ 

— CHAPTER TWELVE, Mordlust 

❝Had he known what would become of him, he would have laid himself broken at your feet and cried, "Look at me! Look at what they did to me!"❞ 

— CHAPTER FOURTEEN, Mordlust 

❝He couldn't believe it. A part of Voir still refused to. If she did indeed kill the Helemar, there would no longer be a place for her in Falkenreik. She'd betray the very earth where she stood.❞ 

— CHAPTER SEVEN, Mordlust 

T A G L I S T

{ send an ask to be +/- }

@seasteading | @veneritia | @sourrcandy | @arkicts | @redrcbin | @behel1ts | @darkgazer | @inky-duchess | @kaatiba | @writeblrfantasy | @wildswrites | @morganwriteblr | @frvnwrites | @bayoucurse | @caradhraas | @birdskullz | @nallthatjazz | @ladywithalamp | @cannivalisms | @muddshadow | @sylhorn | @mortallynuttyqueen | @halcionic

[holygroundgone]

Starting my Case Files Compendium liveblog here, starting with chapters 1-6

I'm definitely enjoying myself already, I love how immediately He Yu is revealed to be a completely sociopathic manipulative little nepo brat- it's reminiscent of the way meatbun introduced mo ran immediately establishing him as a contemptible and cruel idiot (which he isn't) so it has me wondering how meatbun will develop him from here.

I like how both male leads are absolutely immediately immensely less objectively likeable than mo ran and chu wanning (I'll be comparing bab to 2ha repeatedly btw), between being homophobe4homophobe, He Yu's demented and careless prank to Xie Qingcheng's genuinely frightening and violent raging at Xie Xue and his (horrible) date... I Love Them.

(YUWU CRIT AHEAD) I definitely like them a lot more off the bat than I did Mo Xi and Gu Mang, though I did end up really warming to Gu Mang when he WASN'T lobotomized. Mo Xi is kind of just nothing to me unfortunately, even less character and intrigue than Lan Wangji (who despite people's complaints I find very enjoyable- his silent daddyisms once he's grown up and found his man again, the way he's kind and generous and chilled out from the complete narc he used to be, the way he's overwhelmed and distressed by his own violent lust, the way he acts when he's drunk, he's a fun character) and nothing in the story really changed that for me. I understood why he was so upset with Gu Mang but the way Mo Xi treated Gu Mang when he couldn't remember anything was not charming. He lightly fits into the meatbun mold of younger gong that needs to be taken care of by his older shou but he has none of the charisma or cuteness or charming naughtiness of Mo Ran and He Yu. He provides no textural quality to the constant misery and stifling sweet potato pain of yuwu, and the most unforgivable sin? He's just not mentally ill enough. Neither is Gu Mang- they just don't have the compelling push and pull of complicated mental states that mr&cwn have nor what hy&xqc are very much evidently showing to have. The most mentally ill character I can think of in yuwu is murong lian but i find him completely contemptible for where he allowed gu mang to stay after he got wolf spirit lobotomized. Honestly the way gu mang, my favorite character among the cast gets treated is one of the biggest reasons yuwu falls flat for me. I don't want him to suffer i want him to be a fun and happy daddy and maybe he gets that by the end but wow did he get treated horribly by the two people he ends up happily living around. (YUWU CRIT END)

Back to bab, He Yu and Xie Qingcheng are both saying and doing a lot of things that make me feel like I'll get to laugh at them in the end, in particular Xie Qingcheng's inner monologue about not believing in or understanding love, that it's a disease. You're going to catch that disease eventually my brother. You're in a danmei. You're a homophobe? My dear friend, you are in a danmei. If the sirens aren't blazing for you they soon will be.

One of my biggest points of enjoyment so far with all the danmei I've read so far (mxtx, yuwu, 2ha) is the way that they're love puzzles. How will these two characters end up together with everything resolved? In what ways will they find what they need and love in each other? In bab meatbun presents quite a twisted puzzle so far it almost feels like a challenge: how are this demonic homophobic nepo baby who hates doctors and this cold paternalistic homophobic doctor going to end up together?

Well, I can already see the roots of He Yu's derangement towards xqc beginning especially most prominently in the insane words of "he basically belongs to you, so if you don't help him be successful he might take you as his wife) his mom said to him which I have to imagine warped his mind with simultaneous feelings of ownership and terror towards him- as well as the derangedly florid descriptions of xqc's cold and devastating beauty.

Anyways, Xie Qingcheng is absolutely a daddy, a fussy and mean daddy. Compared to his contemporary meatbun shou (and i do feel that gong and shou distinctions are more meaningful to the actual characters and their temperaments in meatbun's works) Chu Wanning who is a fussy and only really incidentally mean failmommy, Xie Qingcheng is by far more of a daddy (repeatedly being referred to as paternalistic)- he also seems more socially competent and outspoken about his morals but similarly just as incompetent in understanding his own feelings. He's a cute fussy princess of a daddy.

Whereas Chu Wanning's mommyisms have a counterpart in Mo Ran's (esp Mo-Zongshi) daddyisms, I can't help but suspect He Yu is just going to be Xie Qingcheng's bratty baby boy and I'm excitedly rubbing my hands together for that dynamic. I already like the intimacy of "he's seen me at my worst and already knows i suck so i'll lose my manipulative outer front in front of him and end up showing him my more authentic self". I kind of want to see He Yu calling him daddy while rearranging his guts

I don't think at this point that Xqc harbors the same feelings towards He Yu that Chu Wanning did towards Mo Ran, but I also suspect his thoughts about him are more benign than He Yu thinks. I really love the "don't bother me i'm homophobic" "OH YEAH? IF YOU'RE HOMOPHOBIC THAN I'M WAYYY MORE HOMOPHOBIC THAN YOU THAT IT BASICALLY MAKES YOU LOOK GAY" nevermind the paragraphs he yu spends thinking about xie qingcheng's urethral cold beauty and the paleness of his skin and the way his brows are so dark and his lips thin and perfect and like red blossoms frosted over-

I'm also betting against the house that Xie Xue is genuinely just a kind dummy and not a demented mastermind like the last two effeminate false romantic leads.

I'm writing this while eating fried rice because the description of Xie Qingcheng's cooking made me drool. An entire page of fried rice decadence. I like that between him and He Yu, he's the one who can cook well- He Yu, Mo Ran is going to laugh at you for having nothing to charm your ethereal and bitchy old man with

[drdemonprince]

I read bdsm classic The Story of O here are my thoughts

I can't tell if the writing is bad and overly florid, or if the translation is poor, or if french is just like that and the translator was merely doing their most faithful possible job, but the book read like the kind of overly detailed little vignettes this girl that i knew in high school would write. she'd describe these opulent rooms and articles of clothing in immense detail and then nothing would happen in the story at all.

After I got used to the ornamental prose and went along for the ride without fussing too much about not always being able to picture the furniture and bespoke outfits she put so much effort into describing, I started enjoying myself. it's a quick read, but lush with detail and low on backstory, so taking it in is a bit like riding down a lazy river in an inner tube and watching the foiliage pass you by. which is not so bad an experience.

One linguistic quirk of the writing I did like was always describing men as plunging into O's "belly". There's no vagina, cunt, etc in this book, the author only talks about her getting her belly opened up or the little knot of pleasure at the dividing point of her belly, and that's actually very sexy to me for some reason and kind of a nice, visceral alternative to other anatomical terms

I really struggled to picture the labia piercing and series of interlocking rings/chains that O receives later in the book. The signet ring she first wears on her fingers is hard to picture too, and unfortunately the "ring of O" style that has become popularized in bdsm fashion today is not quite what the author described, so it's very hard to google. as an aesthetic choice the change has probably been for the best.

I expected the book to be a lot more degrading and filled with anguish than it actually was. I'd always heard that the book was all about O's deep love for Rene, and how that love got twisted and used against her, and how she ultimately chooses to die rather than to be left behind by her master or whatever, but that really is not the case. Firstly because the death chapter (which comes seemingly out of nowhere) is removed from most versions of the book, and second because at every turn we have it described to us just how much O loves being fucked and debased, and how even being passed on by her lover to a new owner gives her an immense thrill.

The book is also a lot queerer than I would have imagined, and while I've heard lots of people complain about how heteronormative it is, I found it perfectly easy to enjoy and imagine myself inhabiting. O herself is queer and the way the book describes the differences between how she relates to men sexually compared to how she relates to women is something that I imagine a lot of s-leaning, versatile bisexual women could probably relate to, but feel like they're usually not permitted to acknowledge. I liked that O had some androgyny to her and that she got off on giving other women pleasure just for it's own sake.

Even more than O, my god did I love Jacqueline. She's a spacy, haughty, attractive, selfish, icy hot little fashion bitch with the comfortable entitlement of a house cat and I just lit up with excitement and recognition every time her cruel self absorbed little ass was on the page. Sexually ascended Betty Draper. we love it.

The book's priorities are so funny, clearly because like my old high school buddy's manuscripts, it was written in one big burst of imagination with very little editing or forethought. the author devotes more space to discussing how clothing needs to be retailored than she does belaboring the actual details of the sex.

The actual fucking is almost perfunctorily described: the details are all about how legs were positioned and which holes were used and by whom and no orgasms are really named, except for when O is jerking her female friends off to climax when they're cuddling in bed together. In some ways I prefer how dispassionate the book is about the sex, it makes O's ownership even more dehumanizing and it really does kind of nail the floaty, far away headspace you can sometimes get in after being used by a ton of people.

I wish I could more fully understand just how inventive this book was for its time. To what extent did straight people know about lifestyle kink dynamics? Rectal dilators had existed since the 1800s and humans had been making dildos for millennia before that, but did this book introduce a lot of people to the notion of plugging a woman's asshole open so that it would be available to be fucked at any time of day? Did this book invent labia weights (pete campbell voice "I arrived at it independently!")? Any of the other fetish gear described? I'm curious!

I wish I could picture the interlocking leather cuffs and collar O is outfitted with at the book's start. they sound like a fantastically flexible device which probably why the author's description of them makes no sense. it's very hard to picture something built in the 1950s that could do everything the authors says these pieces of hardware do. I need a like, Museum of Surgical Science but for early 20th century bdsm gear. im confused

On the whole I liked it a lot more than I expected even though it was also less sexy that i thought it would be. i cant explain why since the plot is nonexistence and it ends so abruptly as to feel like the whole story is pointless. but hey. i love a lazy river ride