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gabrielleragusi · 1 day

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For Artists: My Experience with Commission Platforms and Illustration Agencies

Hi there! I’ve been wanting to compile a list of commission platforms that I’ve personally used for the longest time, and I finally did it! I’ve highlighted the still-active commission platforms in bold and struck those that don't exist anymore so you can jump to the sections that interest you without needing to read my entire story.

Let me start by briefly introducing myself.

I’m Gabrielle, a fantasy illustrator. Since 2014, I’ve been working on book covers and illustrations for publishers, authors, and book subscription boxes. Early on, work wasn’t as frequent as it is now. I had to search for opportunities myself, and even small private commissions were important for building my portfolio and earning some money, which I’d spend on materials, books, and online courses. Like many other artists, I started out by trying my luck with the biggest art community available at the time.

DeviantArt

2009-2018

Once upon a time, there was a virtual haven called DeviantArt. To my teenage self, it was a magical place. I signed up in 2009 and thought I’d never leave!

At first, I created an account just to share my work and learn. I didn’t even think about commissions for four or five years. But when that first inquiry finally landed in my inbox, things took off! My mum swears she remembers my excitement when I got my first commission, but for some reason, I’ve completely forgotten about it. I can't remember what it was or how much it paid. It might have been a portrait of a fantasy character.

Commissions on DeviantArt were fairly frequent, especially considering my cheap prices at the time. I used to offer discounts and post my rates in my DeviantArt journal, or in Commission groups that featured artists either monthly or weekly. After checking out my profile, a client could simply send me a private message and from there, we’d discuss payment, deadlines, and other details, and the platform didn’t take any fees, much like how ArtStation works today. Everything happened through private messages or email, with direct contact between artist and client.

The downside of this process was that there was no dispute resolution system on the platform. I had to handle all issues myself, and unfortunately, problems did arise sometimes: there were clients changing their minds about commissions, asking for refunds after work was delivered, refusing to pay, or just ghosting me. These issues didn’t happen because clients were evil, but rather because I was inexperienced and allowed some to take advantage of my naivety.

However, all that frustration helped me develop my commission process through trial and error (mostly error). And despite the challenges, I can say with satisfaction that most of the commissions I received through my DeviantArt profile were positive experiences.

DeviantArt eventually introduced a commission feature for Core (Premium) users, which came with a platform fee, but I didn’t use it much, and I’m not sure if it still exists.

The real beauty of dA, though, was the connections I made. I was able to meet people, both artists and clients, that I’m still in contact with today, and some of whom I still collaborate with.

I closed my account in 2018 or 2019, but by that time, I hadn’t really used it for a couple of years. The new user interface was a bit of a turn-off for me. I had always loved the geeky, and dare I say cozy, look of the old green and grey aesthetic, with its customisable panels that you could move around and personalise with HTML code... But I digress.

Artists and Clients

2013-2016

While taking small commissions on DeviantArt, I discovered Artists & Clients. It was a nice platform for clients to get things like their D&D characters or groups illustrated for relatively cheap. I think my highest price was $50 for a single character portrait, with the platform taking a 15% cut. I used it for about two or three years before the platform started to change.

As more artists with hentai art styles flooded in, the homepage shifted, and so did the clientele. There’s nothing wrong with drawing naked anime girls, of course, but you can understand that if a client is looking for a fantasy, semi-realistic painting of their female orc character, or a realistic portrait of their spouse, it's more than likely that they won't bother sifting through a sea of anime girls to find the style they want, imagining it isn't here. Let's just say that, at the time, the website took a definite direction that wasn't in line with my genre, but this direction didn't make the different, more realistic art styles stand out either.

Soon, commissions slowed down for me, so I closed my account, but by then I was already working elsewhere.

That said, this platform could still be a useful tool if you’re looking to take on smaller commissions.

DreamUp

2014-2015

DreamUp wasn’t an AI generator back then. It was actually a subsidiary of DeviantArt, where clients could post projects and artists could apply. It was a competitive platform that offered well-paid work–very well-paid. I remember seeing jobs posted that ranged from $300 to $1,200. DreamUp was a very professional platform for clients with a mid to high budget.

I believe I landed my very first book cover commission through this website when I was in my last year of high school. I remember getting the job and going to school the next morning, excited to share the news with my classmates. Everyone was super thrilled for me (we were a really close-knit class!), and I felt like I was walking on air.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, that book was never released, but it didn’t matter because I was moving forward, and fast.

I’m not sure when DreamUp was shut down, but I do know that DeviantArt held onto the copyrighted name, assigning it to something so anti-old DreamUp that it still boggles my mind.

ArtCorgi

Now Artistree

2014-2019

When I received an invitation to join ArtCorgi from its founder, I already had a somewhat consistent portfolio. I was painting portraits and fantasy illustrations, and the clients on this platform were looking for both–your typical wedding and pet portraits, as well as book covers, which were what really interested me. To get to the latter, I had to do the former. Over the years, I’ve painted so many realistic portraits that now I have a strict rule for my own sanity not to do them any more. I have great respect for portrait artists, but it’s just not me.

When I first submitted my prices to the person I was in contact with, she kindly suggested that I raise them... a lot. That was a major step forward in my professional career. I went from charging $50 to $100/$200 overnight. And to my surprise, people actually wanted to commission me at those prices!

From 2014 to 2019, I took nearly every commission that came my way. I never spoke directly with the clients; all instructions and feedback went through my point of contact, which helped maintain a level of professionalism, although now that I’m used to working directly with clients, I’m not sure I’d want to go back to having an intermediary.

Sadly, as with all good things, this chapter came to an end. My point of contact eventually left communication in the hands of someone else, and shortly after, the commission fee changed to, I believe, 30%.

Simply put, 30% is an unrealistic cut for a website like this. For an agent that gets you all kinds of big work in the publishing industry, sure, but since this was not the case I had to stop taking commissions. Despite that, my overall experience with ArtCorgi was very positive.

Today, ArtCorgi joined another platform, Artistree. As far as I can tell, Artistree doesn’t take any fees from artists, with clients covering a small cost instead.

Sketchmob (?)

2016-2020

This was probably the platform I used the most. I’ve lost count of how many commissions I received through Sketchmob. Many. Enough to generate a steady income at the time. With reasonable fees and a variety of art styles available, clients contacted me almost daily. Communication was direct between artists and clients, and payments could be split. The review system also worked very well… for a while.

Once I raised my prices, requests became fewer and farther apart. But by then, I was already working with my own clients.

Is this platform still active? Who knows. The website is still up and the chat feature works, but I’ve seen users complain that money available for withdrawal never arrived via PayPal (the only payment method the platform accepted, if I remember correctly). Personally, I wouldn’t risk completing a job through Sketchmob right now, at least not until they release an update.

If you’ve used the platform recently and successfully received payment within the last six months, please let me know, and I’d be happy to update this section!

Upwork

2017-2019

In 2017, I was determined to break into the book publishing industry. After trying out Fiverr and Freelancer.com with no success (the competition was too fierce for someone just starting out), I decided to give Upwork a shot. The platform looked very professional, and while the process sounded a bit complicated, I wanted to land the interesting projects I saw featured in my category. I really wanted to work with a big client… but big clients didn’t seem to want me, despite having the Rising Talent badge.

In two years of bidding for jobs and submitting proposals, I only landed two projects: a small commission from a private client who actually reached out to me, and another project that I bid on.

Don’t get me wrong, I was ecstatic at the time and truly appreciated every opportunity that came my way. But looking back, I can see why Upwork didn’t work out for me. The platform just wasn’t the right fit for my style and niche, which is fantasy illustration. Graphic design, however, was (and still is) in much higher demand.

The commission process on Upwork wasn’t as simple as on other platforms. For instance, at the time, costs were calculated hourly, which was a challenge for someone like me who prefers working with flat fees (having already calculated my average hours spent on an illustration). From what I’ve seen, this has since changed.

One positive aspect of Upwork is its current 10% cut on what artists earn. I don’t recall if this has changed over the years, but 10% is quite reasonable in my experience. Of course, 0% would be even better, but for a platform as large as Upwork, 10% is fair.

Illustration Agency

2019-2021

By 2019, I had built a solid, consistent portfolio thanks to my personal work and commissions. I had a simple website in place, my Instagram following was growing… I was steadily working toward my goal of illustrating covers for big publishers (which didn't happen until two years ago).

So, when an illustration agency reached out to me one day, I was over the moon. I had always heard that artists were the ones who had to approach agencies, not the other way around.

Well, that should have been my first red flag.

I won’t name this agency because, unfortunately, I have nothing positive to say about it. In fact, the word “nothing” perfectly describes my involvement with them. Nothing came of this barely there experience.

The agency invited me to sign up, not on an exclusive basis, but they assured me they’d get me work. That work never came. Once in a while, I’d receive messages saying they were trying to pitch my portfolio to a French publisher or another client, but... nothing.

Please understand that meanwhile I was already working directly with shops and authors, so I don’t believe my portfolio was the problem. The real issue was something I didn’t realise at the time: some agencies do this. They feature talented artists in their catalogue without having actual clients lined up, just to appear more professional and credible to potential clients. Did this strategy work for them? Maybe. I’ll never know.

In 2021, I politely asked them to remove my portfolio from their website, and that was the end of it.

After that, I never actively sought out an agent again. By the time my portfolio was strong enough to approach a serious agency, I just didn’t need representation anymore.

Hireillo

2019-2022

My experience with Hire an Illustrator, or Hireillo, is mixed. At the time, Hireillo was a platform that hosted artists' portfolios, featured artist-submitted news, provided useful articles, resources, and directories of artists and agents. I joined the site hoping to catch the eye of publishers, but I was mostly contacted by authors and one fellow artist for a graphic novel.

Unfortunately, most inquiries didn’t go beyond the first couple of messages due to budget constraints. I did, however, have fun sharing news about my painting process and projects I landed on my own, which were often featured by the website. Additionally, if I had questions about 'complicated' things like copyright, or just needed advice, I could ask the website’s owner and that was incredibly helpful.

Despite these benefits, I didn’t see any real results, which was a little disappointing. The subscription fee was also... odd, for lack of a better word. $5 per week. In the end I just couldn’t justify the cost, so I stopped using the website altogether.

Reedsy

2019-2022

Finally, we come to the turning point.

I remember stumbling upon Reedsy randomly. It wasn’t very well known at the time, and I think it still isn’t. I was nervous when I submitted my portfolio because their catalogue features the best of the best: designers who’ve created covers for bestsellers, THE bestsellers, people who’ve worked on Stephen King covers, or George R.R. Martin's. Designers, editors, and marketers who are veterans. I didn’t have high hopes for my application. So, I was in shock when it got accepted.

I had an introductory Skype call with a representative from Reedsy, who explained how everything worked. Before the call ended, I remember asking if there was a good chance I’d get work through the platform. The rep laughed and said, “Yes.”

A few weeks in, I understood that laugh.

Reedsy has an overwhelming demand for book covers and commercial projects. For every designer there are many more clients. In peak seasons, I was getting requests almost every day. I’m not exaggerating.

Reedsy transformed my portfolio and my pricing structure. Thanks to the income I earned through the platform, I was finally able not to take everything that came my way but be selective and choose only the projects that really interested me.

The commission process is simple: artists pretty much decide how to split payments, what to include in agreements, and the best part, the most beautiful and helpful feature of all, they can request and adjust deadlines. For someone like me who's terrible with deadlines, this feature was a lifesaver. The admins are also very kind and responsive, available via email or chat.

Unfortunately (this is my last 'unfortunately', I promise), my time on Reedsy came to an end for personal reasons. I’ll explain since it’s no secret.

All my images on Reedsy were watermarked with my signature (my full name), which apparently violated the platform’s rules. Why? Because if a client saw my last name, they could contact me directly and bypass Reedsy, which meant the platform lost potential fees. I’ll admit this did happen a few times, but I had the good sense to redirect the client back to Reedsy.

After three years, an admin finally noticed and asked me to remove my full name from the watermark and any text on my profile. It was a simple and reasonable request, but here’s where the problem started. Profiles on Reedsy are public, and images appear in search engines like Google Images, meaning anyone could download my work and use it without permission. Sure, watermarks can be removed, but uploading my work without one in the first place felt like a bad idea. Btw, not only do I use watermarks, but I also use Glaze to protect my illustrations before sharing them online.

Anyway, for this reason, and also because I couldn’t get over the fact that full names were public at the time, something I won’t get into because, believe me, I tried over email, and my reasons went into the void (now, last names are just initialised, like Gabrielle R. Okay. Sure.), I had to close my account–they would have done it anyway because it was already 'flagged'.

Overall, if you’re willing to overlook the last name conundrum, I can’t recommend Reedsy enough. If you have a killer, solid portfolio and a love for books and editorial projects, go for it!

--------------------------------------------

I hope you'll find this useful! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask (: Oh, and here's an old article I wrote in 2020, titled:

Tips to freelance illustrators to avoid being screwed over

Who knows, maybe I'll write another 'article' post in four years!

Instagram - ArtStation - Website - Inprnt - Etsy - TikTok

#art #artists on tumblr #Article #For Artists: My Experience with Commission Platforms and Illustration Agencies #Commissions #Illustration #Design #freelancer #gabrielle ragusi

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seongwars · 20 hours

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forget me not | iv

Pairing: Jeong Yunho x witch!Reader AU: non-idol | supernatural Summary: Yunho should be happy--he's got everything going for him and he's set to marry the love of his life! So why is he standing outside of your shop on the night of his engagement party? Word Count: 7.5K (my bad) Warnings: infidelity, use of the k word

Fic Masterlist

a/n: my stitches reopened and I had to go back and get restitched 😬 so I spent all day in bed editing this chapter. i love reading everyone's theories and feedback is always welcome!

The first time Haewon saw Yunho, it was at your dorm during a study session. You were both surrounded by books, notes, and various pieces of stationary scattered across the floor. While you were focusing on writing out your note cards, Haewon was dancing around the room in an attempt to “activate her brain cells”.

She had been caught up in her own world until the sound of a knock interrupted her antics. You stood up to answer the door, and a low voice followed, mingled with a chuckle—deep, familiar, and warm.

Yunho.

He was your best friend, someone she’d heard about but hadn’t paid much attention to. But that day, something was different. He sat with a pile of books and a look of quiet concentration that intrigued her. His presence was magnetic, though subtle, and without realizing it, Haewon found herself sneaking glances at him, captivated by the calm determination in his demeanor.

She wasn’t sure when it happened exactly, but at some point, between stolen glances and shared laughter over late-night group study sessions, she started to fall for him. Yunho was kind, always the first to offer a helping hand, and his dedication to his friends and family was unwavering. He had a way of making everyone feel valued and heard.

And when he asked her to be his girlfriend, she was over the moon.

"Did you know Yunho was going to ask me out?" she beamed, her voice laced with an excitement that made your heart sink.

You froze for a second, your pencil hovering above the page. There was a flicker of something—disappointment, maybe even hurt—but you quickly swallowed it down.

"Maybe," you muttered, your voice light, almost teasing, though it took everything in you to keep it that way. Haewon didn’t see the way your grip tightened on the pencil, or how your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes.

"I can’t believe it," she gushed, oblivious to the turmoil behind your composed expression. "I mean, I’ve liked him for a while now, and I wasn’t sure if he felt the same way, but when he asked me…God, it was perfect."

"That’s great, Haewon" you said, your voice quieter than before, trying desperately to sound convincing.

You fell in love with the way Yunho truly saw you, even when you tried to hide parts of yourself. He understood you in ways no one else ever had, knowing your fears, your dreams, and all the things that made you tick. Somewhere along the line, you stopped worrying about what he would think of you because with Yunho, you never had to pretend.

That’s when you knew you loved him—because the idea of life without him didn’t feel like life at all.

But how could you tell him? You weren’t like Haewon—bold and unafraid, able to voice her feelings as if vulnerability wasn’t terrifying. She was all confidence and ease, speaking her mind without a second thought, while you were cautious, overthinking, content to blend into the background.

Telling Yunho how you felt would mean stepping into the unknown. You couldn’t bear the thought of losing him if things went wrong. So you stayed silent, burying your feelings deep, hoping that somehow, you could protect what you had by keeping your secret.

But things went wrong anyway.

You tried not to not let their relationship affect you, told yourself you were happy for them. Haewon and Yunho were two of the most important people in your life, and they deserved happiness. You repeated that to yourself like a mantra, hoping that if you said it enough, you might actually believe it.

It hurt seeing them together, knowing that while you were happy for them, you couldn’t help the ache in your chest every time Yunho laughed a little too easily at something she said, or when she rested her head on his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The worst part was that you couldn’t even be angry. How could you? Haewon hadn’t done anything wrong; she hadn’t stolen Yunho from you, and Yunho hadn’t abandoned you. It was like watching sand slip through your fingers—nothing to hold on to, nothing you could do to stop it.

Yunho was happy, and you cared about him enough to want that for him, even if it wasn’t with you.

After you disappeared, everything fell apart in ways neither of them expected. Yunho and Haewon participated in search parties, posted on social media about your disappearance, and cooperated with law enforcement. But there were no answers, no trace of where you’d gone or why. The emptiness you left behind was palpable, a gaping hole in both their lives.

At first, Haewon believed they were grieving together. She felt the weight of your absence in every corner of her life, and Yunho, in his quiet way, did too. But then, she began to notice the way their relationship shifted.

It was subtle at first: a slight distance in Yunho’s eyes, the way he seemed preoccupied even when they were alone. He would zone out in the middle of conversations, and even when he held Haewon in his arms, his heart wasn’t fully there.

Slowly, painfully, she realized the truth. Yunho wasn’t just mourning you—he was waiting for you. He was still tethered to you, pulled by an invisible force that Haewon couldn’t compete with.

She never considered herself a mean girl. Sure, she had grown up in a comfortable world, surrounded by friends who were a little more tightly wounded and concerned with appearances. But now, standing on the other side of it, Haewon could see the truth for what it was. Yunho was never really hers to begin with. She hadn’t stolen him—not intentionally—but she had taken something that was never really hers to claim.

Then there was Sungjae.

Sungjae had never been a close friend, not really. He was more of a background figure—someone on the outskirts of Haewon’s social circle who, little by little, had weaseled his way in. He was everything Yunho wasn’t: impulsive, flirtatious, unpredictable. And it was those very qualities that ignited something in her.

The affair began quietly, like a secret Haewon wasn’t ready to admit even to herself. It started innocently enough—casual conversations, coffee outings after shared classes. They’d stay up late in the library, long after everyone else had left, talking about things that felt too personal, too vulnerable to share with anyone else. Haewon convinced herself it was nothing more than a close friendship—after all, she had a large circle of friends. What harm could one more friend do?

As time passed, the line between friendship and something more blurred. In the quiet moments following your disappearance, Haewon found herself relying on Sungjae in ways she hadn’t with Yunho in years. He became her anchor when the world felt uncertain, someone who made her feel alive and seen.

At first, it was easy to justify: she and Yunho had been drifting apart. Haewon had noticed it in the way their conversations had become shorter, less meaningful; the way they sat together in silence more often than not, the air between them filled with unspoken tension.

But there was also something darker about Sungjae—something tied to the past Haewon desperately tried to forget. The night you disappeared, Sungjae had humiliated you, his cruel words cutting through the air as everyone watched in uncomfortable silence. And Haewon had stood by, doing nothing. She had stayed silent, too afraid to confront him, too indifferent to speak up.

Yunho had done nothing, either. His usual kind, gentle demeanor had turned into passive inaction, making excuses whenever Haewon brought up the topic like "It's just a phase" or "They’ll work it out."

“Do you think Sungjae had something to do with Y/N’s disappearance?” Haewon suddenly blurted out as the two were cooking dinner.

Yunho froze, his jaw tightening. He knew the answer—he had always known. The last time anyone had seen you was when you stormed out of the apartment, cheeks flushed with shame and frustration. And yet, Yunho couldn’t admit it out loud. Admitting that Sungjae was responsible meant confronting his own failure, his own role in pushing you away.

“If he did,” Yunho said, his voice low, a dangerous edge creeping in, “I’ll kill him myself.”

“But you were the last one who saw her.”

His entire body tensed, the weight of Haewon’s accusation hitting him harder than he expected. He turned to face her fully, eyes dark and cold.

“You think I had something to do with Y/N’s disappearance?” His voice was low, hurt and anger threading through each word. He could feel the bile rising in his chest, burning with the injustice of her suspicion.

“That’s not what I said—”

“But it’s what you meant.” Yunho cut her off. “You think I’m the reason she’s gone?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what happened,” she murmured, her voice softer now, though the accusation still lingered between them.

“All I did was walk her out, and the CCTV proved that! You have no idea how much Y/N’s disappearance is affecting me! But to even suggest that I could’ve done something…” His voice trailed off, swallowed by a surge of emotion.

“I can’t do this,” Yunho muttered, his voice barely audible now as he turned away from her. Grabbing his jacket off the chair, he headed for the door, his movements tense and deliberate. “I’m done with this conversation.”

His footsteps faltered just before reaching the door, the frustration inside him boiling over. He spun back to face Haewon, his voice sharp and biting.

“Every time it comes to Sungjae, you choose him. Why?”

“I–” Haewon’s voice cracked, but Yunho didn’t stop. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving a deafening silence in his wake.

Haewon knew it wasn’t fair to keep dragging him along when her heart was no longer fully his. But the thought of actually leaving—the finality of it—terrified her. The knowledge that once she walked away, there would be no going back was something she wasn’t sure she could handle.

And then Yunho proposed.

It caught her completely off guard—a moment she hadn’t prepared for despite all her doubts and uncertainty. She hadn’t expected him to propose, not now. But instead of facing the truth, instead of admitting that her heart had drifted away and she was entangled in an affair with someone else, Haewon did the only thing she could think of: she convinced herself that accepting Yunho’s proposal would fix everything.

Haewon felt trapped. She felt the walls closing in, suffocating her as she tried to play the part of the happy fiancée. On the night of the engagement party, everyone around them was celebrating, toasting to their future, but all she could think about was how wrong it all felt. Her heart wasn’t in it—not fully—and she knew it.

The alcohol didn’t help. Glass after glass, Haewon drank to drown out the noise in her head, to silence the guilt and doubt. She wanted to forget, to numb herself to everything, but instead, it only made her feel more exposed.

She avoided Yunho most of the night, choosing instead to party with her friends, laughing too loudly, her smile brittle around the edges. Yunho tried to get her to slow down, to pull her back to him, to hold her close, but every time he did, it felt like the air was being sucked out of her lungs. It wasn’t his fault, but being near him only made the weight of her choices heavier.

Finally, something inside her snapped. Right there, in front of everyone. The frustration, the guilt, the suffocating pressure of pretending—it all came to the surface. She knew it was unfair, that Yunho didn’t deserve it, but she couldn’t stop the words from spilling out.

Now, as she laid in bed next to Sungjae, the weight of her betrayal closed in on her. The wedding was fast approaching, a date circled on the calendar like a death sentence, and there was no backing out now. The dress had been chosen, the invitations sent. Everyone was expecting a celebration, but all Haewon could feel was dread.

Yunho had betrayed you too, hadn’t he? He had stood on the sidelines, just as complicit, watching as Sungjae’s cruelty unraveled you. And yet, he had stayed—stayed with her, proposed to her, tried to build a future with her. It was laughable.

The two of them, pretending like they could escape what they’d done, like they could forge something real out of ashes. But the truth had always been there, lurking beneath the surface.

They were no better than the man lying next to her now.

Perhaps this was what she and Yunho both deserved—two people who had betrayed you, condemned to a life of misery together.

Life in the Emporium was nothing short of magical surprises.

Each day began with a quiet ritual, a moment of calm before the shop's unique energy fully awoke. The first thing you’d do each morning was reach for the incense—carefully selected for its cleansing properties—and light it. As the fragrant smoke curled into the air, it seemed to reset the entire space, gently sweeping away the lingering energies left behind by the previous day’s visitors.

Above, the flowers in the hanging garden stirred with the first touch of morning light, their vibrant petals responding as if in greeting. You watered them with a flick of the wrist, though it felt more like a gesture of care than necessity—they thrived on the shop's magic more than on water.

The shop had its own rhythm, a delicate balance between the mundane and the mystical. Travelers, clients, and even the occasional spirit wandered in, drawn by the promise of wishes granted—some simple, others far more complicated. You had seen all kinds: the weary traveler who just wanted safe passage home, the desperate lover seeking a second chance, or the ambitious merchant hoping to change their fortune.

But nothing in the emporium was granted without a cost, and the price wasn’t paid in gold or silver. Every transaction required something far more precious—a wish. Not the kind made on a whim, but a deeply held desire, pulled from the very core of one’s soul.

You would watch as they approached the counter, hands trembling ever so slightly as they revealed their request. Their eyes flickered with doubt as the weight of the exchange settled upon them. Standing before you, they were caught between what they needed and what they were about to give up, realizing that their wish, once surrendered, would be gone forever.

You always asked if they were certain. If they understood the nature of their sacrifice. But the emporium never rejected a payment once it was offered.

You had become accustomed to the shop’s quirks, trusting its ancient magic to maintain a balance that you could only partly comprehend. It was more than a shop; it was a living entity, guiding not only the customers but you, its keeper, shaping the course of both your lives in subtle, unseen ways.

Everything functioned smoothly, like clockwork—until the day Yunho arrived.

From the moment Yunho stepped into the emporium, his presence unsettled you. There was a calm assurance in the way he carried himself, grounding everything around you. Despite never having met him before, something inside you insisted Yunho wasn’t a stranger.

You recalled the strange memories that had flooded your senses—the wind whipping around you as you sat in a car with Yunho, the sun illuminating the way the corner of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. It felt so real, as if you’d lived that moment before, but then it dissolved into something deeper, something raw.

The emotions had gripped you before you could react, dragging you under like a riptide. Your knees buckled, and the world tilted, leaving you gasping for air. Yunho was there, of course. Even through the thick haze of your feelings, he kept you steady, his arms the only thing keeping you from crumbling completely.

Even now, the echoes of that moment lingered in your body. You could still feel the weight of the emotions that had passed through you, as if the magic had left an imprint on your soul.

“Fate has already tied their threads together.”

Your mind raced, trying to grasp Hongjoong and Wooyoung’s conversation.

What did that mean? What threads? Could the connection you felt—this strange, undeniable pull—be part of some cosmic plan, one that had existed long before you even stepped foot in the emporium?

But how could you accept something so profound when you couldn’t even remember him? The thought haunted you, and yet, deep down, the pull toward Yunho only grew stronger, as if Fate itself refused to let you walk away.

You sighed, taking a long drag from your pipe, leaning back as you watched a few late summer blooms drift down from the skylight’s hanging garden. Their petals fluttered like tiny omens in the gentle breeze. Fall had arrived, and with the change in seasons, the line between the living and the departed would thin, bringing even more travelers and clients from different realms.

The bell above the door jingled faintly, drawing your attention. You glanced over, catching the sleek, shadowy form slipping through the crack in the door—a flash of fur before it darted out into the evening. You immediately knew who it was.

“Wooyoung,” you called out. The cat froze mid-step, his tail twitching with surprise. Slowly, he turned his head, his onyx eyes gleaming mischievously in the dim light.

“Don’t even try it,” you added, placing your hands on your hips. He blinked at you, feigning innocence, but you weren’t about to let him slink away without answers this time.

The cat stretched lazily, as if he hadn’t just been caught trying to sneak out, then padded toward you with that familiar, too-casual saunter. By the time he reached you, he shifted back into his human form with a dramatic sigh, ruffling his messy hair as if you’d truly inconvenienced him.

“I was just stepping out,” Wooyoung said, giving you that infuriating smirk of his. “Needed some air. It’s stuffy in here with all this—" He waved his hand around vaguely, “—magic.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it. “You are magic, Wooyoung.” Your tone was teasing, playful. “Haven’t you had enough of the outside world and tormenting humans for one lifetime?”

“I’m a cat. Gotta see what the world’s up to,” he shrugged.

There was a beat of silence, and you took a breath before speaking. “I heard your conversation with Hongjoong last night.”

Wooyoung froze for the briefest moment, his eyes widening just slightly before he masked it with another lazy grin. The shift in his demeanor was quick, but you’d known him long enough to recognize the flicker of panic he tried to bury.

"It’s not polite to eavesdrop," he teased, his voice light but edged with a subtle wariness.

You weren’t about to let him wiggle his way out of this one. You had seen the way he was squirming, avoiding the real issue, and this time you needed answers.

"What does fate have to do with me and Yunho?"

His smile faltered, a crack in his usual carefree facade. Wooyoung shifted uneasily, searching for the right words to soften the blow, but knowing there was no easy way out. He could feel your frustration mounting, the tension stretching unbearably thin.

"It’s... well, it’s like this," His voice lowered, and for once, he sounded serious. "Hongjoong thinks you and Yunho are bound together in ways that we don’t fully understand. It’s something that’s deeper and older…something that humans refer to as soulmates."

Soulmates.

It sounded ridiculous, unbelievable. You and Yunho, tied together by fate? He was just a traveler, someone the shop had revealed itself to. There was nothing special about him.

"How?" you scoffed, shaking your head as if the mere action would dispel the ridiculous notion. "He’s a stranger, Wooyoung.”

Wooyoung shook his head, his eyes never leaving yours. He shifted uncomfortably, looking anywhere but at you.

"Well… the thing is you have met him before.” But the thing is... you don’t remember. Because you can’t, Wooyoung wanted to say.

"What are you talking about? Then why can’t I remember him? What did I forget?"

Your chest tightened. The frustration, the confusion, the pull you’d felt around Yunho ever since he first entered the shop—it all started to transform into something deeper, something more unsettling. It was as if a fog was lifting, revealing shadows of memories you couldn’t quite grasp.

He let out a long breath, rubbing his face. "It’s complicated. There are things...about you, that you don’t remember. That you chose not to remember."

Your mind raced. Memories? With Yunho? The man you barely knew, who had walked into your life like any other traveler? It didn’t make sense. None of this did.

"If I erased him from my life, then maybe I had a reason," you snapped, the words tasting bitter. Wooyoung winced but didn’t argue.

"Fate doesn’t just disappear because you forget. He’s still tied to you, even if you can’t feel it." He paused, his eyes searching your face, hoping for some sign of understanding. "Maybe it’s why the shop revealed itself to him. It’s fate, pulling you back together."

You could feel the ground slipping from beneath you, your grip on reality loosening with every word he spoke. What Wooyoung was suggesting—soulmates, forgotten love, fate—it sounded like something out of a dream, a fantasy too far removed from the life you knew.

"Why does it matter if I’m connected to him or not?" you continued, your throat tightening as the question lodged itself there, too painful to speak.

The air grew heavy, thick with tension, as if the walls themselves were reacting to the storm brewing inside you. The shelves rattled, and the shop’s energy pulsed erratically, reflecting the confusion and fear you could no longer keep at bay. The lanterns flickered wildly, casting frantic shadows that danced along the walls, twisting in the growing unease.

You tried to steady your breathing, to calm the chaos within, but your mind raced with unanswered questions, with the gnawing suspicion that Wooyoung was right, and it terrified you.

Wooyoung’s face fell, the spark of his usual wit dimming into something darker, something almost sorrowful. He shifted uncomfortably again, as though he wished to be anywhere but here, at this moment.

"Because no one wants to see you hurting, Y/N,” His voice was barely above a whisper, thick with regret. "You were in so much pain that you thought forgetting him and becoming the keeper would make it stop."

That name again. Y/N. It echoed in your mind, a foreign weight on your chest. It felt like a name you should know, but it slipped through your grasp. A name tied to a life you no longer remembered.

"That toy," he continued, "it triggered something, didn’t it? The memories—the emotions—they were too strong. And when you felt that, your magic went unstable. The shop could barely handle it."

You shuddered, the memory of that moment still fresh, still raw. But one question clawed at you, louder than the chaos you’d unleashed.

What had been so unbearable that the only answer was to forget?

“Why is it so cold?” you groaned, bouncing on your toes and rubbing your hands together, trying to get the blood flowing.

The train station was always drafty, but today it felt like the cold had settled into your bones, refusing to leave. You shivered and glanced around, surprised to see no snow on the ground. It was odd—this time of year usually meant blankets of white everywhere, the world covered in a quiet stillness. Yet now, all you had was the biting wind and a gray sky threatening snow that never seemed to come.

Yunho stood beside you, his breath puffing out in small clouds as he huddled deeper into his coat. He laughed softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked at you.

“You’re always cold,” he teased, nudging your arm with his elbow. “Should’ve worn more layers.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re practically a furnace,” you grumbled.

The two of you had decided to take the train home for the holidays after your first semester of university. You were both exhausted—finals had drained whatever energy you had left—but there was excitement in the air as Christmas approached.

“I’m surprised there’s no snow,” you mused, gazing up at the dull, overcast sky. The clouds hung low, thick and heavy, but still no sign of snowflakes falling. “Feels weird, doesn’t it? Christmas without snow.”

Yunho hummed in agreement beside you, his hands tucked into the pockets of his coat as he followed your gaze. “Yeah, it’s like something’s missing. Hopefully, it’ll snow while we’re home.”

His voice was hopeful, and you could see the small spark of excitement in his eyes. Yunho loved snow—it wasn’t just the beauty of it, but the way it brought a sense of stillness and magic to the world. The kind of magic that reminded you both of simpler times, of building snowmen as kids and staying out too long until your fingers were numb.

The next morning, Yunho’s wish came true.

Snow. Fresh, untouched snow covered everything. The rooftops, the streets, the trees—it all glistened under the early morning light, as if the entire world had been dipped in magic overnight.

This was the moment he’d been waiting for, the moment he hoped for when you both had been standing at the train station, wondering if Christmas would even feel like Christmas without snow. Now, it was here. His wish had come true.

But more than that, he wanted to share this moment with you.

You blinked up at the sky, a few lazy snowflakes still drifting down, landing on your lashes and melting against your skin. Yunho stood beside you, watching the way your eyes lit up, the way you took in the moment like it was something precious.

The two of you stood there for a while, wordlessly watching the snowfall together. It was the kind of stillness that felt sacred, the kind that only came with the first snow of the season.

As Yunho glanced at you, his breath caught. You weren’t doing anything special—just standing there, bundled up in your oversized hoodie, your hair slightly messy from sleep, your cheeks flushed from the cold. You weren’t trying to impress anyone, least of all him. You were just you, in the most effortless way, and somehow, that had always been enough.

There was a simplicity to the moment that felt different, more profound than he expected. Last summer, when you’d spent long, sunny days together, he’d thought he understood what he felt for you. He cared about you more than anyone, maybe more than he should’ve let on. It was a love that had grown quietly, steadily, and was beginning to envelop him.

It was too easy to love you. Too effortless, too natural, as if his heart had always been meant for you. And that’s what made it so dangerous.

He knew that sometimes, love—no matter how powerful—wasn’t enough. The thought of risking what you had—this simple, effortless connection that meant everything to him—for something as unpredictable as love felt like falling into the ocean.

And Yunho wasn’t ready to make the jump.

He groaned, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples as if that could somehow ease the pounding in his skull. His head felt like it was being split open, a dull, relentless ache that refused to let up. The events of the previous night were a blur—fragments of conversation, too many drinks, and the sinking realization that he’d gone well past his limit.

He’s supposed to head back to Seoul today, back to his life and the steady rhythm of work that usually kept his life in order. But there was no way he could face that right now, not with the amount of alcohol that had been consumed.

The events of last night came back to him in disjointed, hazy flashes. He remembered the way your fingers brushed against the plush toy, followed by the sudden paling of your face right before you collapsed to the floor.

Yunho’s heart had nearly stopped at that moment, the world around him crashing into stillness. The usual hum of the emporium faded into nothing, the vibrant colors of the shelves and strange objects blurring into meaningless shapes.

His legs moved before his mind could catch up, and he was running, sprinting toward you as if the very air had been torn from his lungs. The world shrank, narrowing to the sight of you lifeless in his arms.

"Y/N, stay with me," he whispered, panic thick in his voice as he cradled your unconscious body. It was the same terror he’d felt the day you disappeared, the same helpless, gut-wrenching fear that had kept him awake at night, haunted by the thought that he’d never see you again.

Yunho held you like his entire world depended on it, his arms wrapped tightly around you, desperate and unrelenting. He pressed his forehead against yours, as he cradled your head against his chest, the warmth of your skin barely noticeable as panic surged inside him.

“I’m sorry, just please, please don’t leave me,” he begged, his voice barely holding together. His fingers tightened their grip on you, trembling with the fear that if he let go, even for a second, you’d slip away for good.

He couldn’t lose you, not when he had just found you again.

Then came Wooyoung’s revelation. You had chosen to disappear from his life. It wasn’t an accident, or some cruel twist of fate. You had asked the shop to erase your memories—all of them. He could still hear Wooyoung’s voice, bitter and sharp, recounting the details, but the exact reason why Wooyoung had been so angry at him was lost in the fog of the night.

He remembered the sting—the way the door slammed behind him, the coldness of the night hitting his face as he stood there, dazed, confused and frustrated. You were alive, bound to this strange realm by forces he didn’t fully understand. But worse than that, you had willingly cut him out of your life.

After that, things blurred even more. He’d ended up at a bar, the numbness setting in as he ordered drink after drink, trying to drown the sea of emotions that threatened to consume him. Somewhere along the way, Yeosang had joined him, and Yunho found himself pouring his heart out—his frustrations, his guilt, his failures. He had ranted about the weight of trying to be the good guy while everything around him crumbled.

Now, in the harsh light of day, the weight of it all hit him with a different kind of intensity. His heart felt heavy, and he had no idea where to go from here.

Yunho sat up, staring at his phone as if it might give him the answers he was too afraid to ask for. His thumb hovered over Haewon’s name on the screen, trembling slightly. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say—he didn’t have a plan, only a sinking feeling in his chest that told him he couldn’t keep pretending everything was fine.

The line rang once, then twice. By the third ring, his heart had started racing, the weight of everything he had to confront pressing down on him like a vice. When it went to voicemail, Yunho’s stomach dropped.

“Hey, it’s Haewon! Sorry I missed your call, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you soon!”

The artificial cheer in her voice made his skin crawl, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak. He could almost picture her—smiling, carefree, the version of her that had loved him wholeheartedly. But that wasn’t who she was anymore. That wasn’t who they were.

"Hey..." he finally whispered, “give me a call when you get a chance.” Yunho waited for a beat, as if hoping she might pick up at the last second, but the line remained silent, empty.

“Yunho? Aren’t you getting ready to head back?” His mom’s voice was gentle, but it startled him from his thoughts. She appeared in the doorway, concern etched in the lines of her face.

He didn’t respond immediately, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I don’t know if I’m going back,” he admitted softly, his voice thick with uncertainty.

His mom walked in, taking a seat on the edge of his bed, her presence warm and calming. She had always been able to read him better than anyone, even when he was trying his best to hide. Mrs. Jeong didn’t say anything for a moment, just letting the silence hang between them, giving him the space to breathe.

“Tell me more.”

Yunho sighed, running a hand through his hair, feeling the weight of everything he’d been holding in. It was strange—he felt like a teenager again, venting to his mom about his problems, but this time it felt more suffocating. The future he had thought he wanted, the life he had worked so hard to build, no longer felt like his.

“I’m hungover. I’m miserable. I don’t want to marry Haewon. I’m not happy with my job or where I am in my life. Mingi is my only friend, Yeosang kind of hates me, and Y/N…” He let out a watery chuckle, the sound laced with bitterness. “She’s gone.”

There it was, the truth laid bare—the reality that had been gnawing at him for months, too terrifying to confront. The words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of everything he had been trying to ignore.

Mrs. Jeong’s gaze softened as she listened, her heart heavy with a mother’s instinct to protect, but knowing she couldn’t fix this for him. She reached out, placing a hand over his.

“You’ve been carrying this for a while, haven’t you?” Her voice was soft, laced with a sadness that only came from witnessing the quiet battles of someone you love.

Yunho looked down to their joined hands, his throat tightening. The words he had held back for so long hovered on the edge of his lips, threatening to escape.

“I thought I could handle it. But—" He paused, his fingers gripping hers a little tighter, his chest heaving as he fought to keep the floodgates closed.

"I don’t want to keep pretending I’m okay,” he continued, voice cracking slightly. “I’m tired, Mom. Of the job, the engagement, everything. It’s like I’m suffocating, and I don’t know how to breathe anymore.” he replied, quieter now, almost like he was talking to himself. It was the first time he’d admitted it out loud. The fear that had been chaining him to a future he didn’t want.

His mother exhaled softly, her brow furrowing as she absorbed his words. After a moment, she squeezed his hand and spoke gently, her voice calm but firm.

“You’ve always been so considerate. Always thinking of others. But have you thought about what you want? Truly want, not just what you think you should want?”

It wasn’t something Yunho had ever allowed himself to consider fully, and even now, the thought seemed almost too outlandish, too selfish. But the way his mother looked at him, with such understanding, made it feel less frightening, less impossible to confront.

“You’re allowed to want something different, Yunho. You’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to choose yourself.”

Her words struck something within him, unraveling the tightly wound rope of expectations he had tangled himself in for so long. He hesitated, his heart pounding as he dared to voice the question that had haunted him for months.

“So you wouldn’t be upset if I called off the wedding?” His voice was small, almost as if he were afraid the very mention of it might cause everything to collapse around him.

His mother shook her head, her expression soft and reassuring. “Of course not, Yunho. Haewon is lovely, but…” She paused, choosing her words carefully, as she looked at him. “I always felt like she wasn’t the one for you.”

Yunho blinked, surprised by the admission. His mother had never said anything like that before, and in all their talks about the wedding, she had always been supportive, never giving any sign that she might have doubts of her own.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he asked, almost incredulous.

“Because you’re finally listening to yourself. This is your life, not mine, not anyone else’s. It wasn’t my place to tell you how to live, Yunho. I wanted to believe that you knew what was best for you.”

“And if I quit my job?” he asked, testing the waters, anxiety sparking in his voice.

“Gunho would be thrilled,” she laughed. “You know, he was absolutely livid when you took the finance job over the Tigers. I’ve never seen him so upset with you! He ranted for weeks about how you were wasting your talents behind a desk instead of being out there building the ultimate dream team.”

His mother’s laughter faded, replaced by a more serious expression. “We’ve all had our hopes for you, Yunho. But those were our hopes, not yours. Life’s not a straight line. It’s full of twists and turns. You don’t have to stay on a path that doesn’t feel right anymore.”

There was something comforting about the idea, the notion of stepping away from the path he had chosen, back to something that felt more like home—more like himself. Sitting with his mother, he began to wonder: What if it wasn’t reckless? What if choosing the life he truly wanted wasn’t some wild, selfish fantasy? What if it was okay to dream again?

His mind wandered to you, to the quiet snowfall and how the snowflakes caught on your lashes. He thought of that summer, driving to the beach, the wind in your hair and the sun beaming down on you, like the world itself couldn’t touch you as long as you were together.

He thought of meeting you for the first time at six years old, running across the street and greeting you as if he’d known him your entire life. It was as if he’d found his other half that day, the person who made him feel complete even in his innocence.

But then, more painfully, he thought of meeting you for the first time again. Only this time, you hadn’t known him at all.

With you, there was no need to fill the silence. Everything felt easy, natural, like you were meant to exist beside each other. You were his best friend, the one person who made him feel like himself. And suddenly, Yunho knew.

It was you.

The version of himself that existed when he was with you—that was who he truly was. It was a terrifying realization, but at the same time, it was the most certain thing he’d felt in a long time. You had always been the one constant in his life, the one person who made everything feel okay, even when it wasn’t.

And he didn’t want to lose that. He didn’t want to lose you.

He wanted a future with you.

Yunho swallowed, his pulse quickening, but for the first time in what felt like forever, his mind was clear.

“I think…” he began, his voice steady, resolute, “I know where I want to go from here.”

Pushing open the door, the familiar chime rang through the shop. It was empty, save for you, and Yunho’s breath caught when he saw you standing behind the counter, bathed in the glow of fading daylight.

He glanced over at you, watching the way you moved, how you seemed so different and yet so familiar. The person standing in front of him was still you, the same person he’d known since childhood. The memories from childhood rushed back again—the snow, the summer sun, the first time you played baseball together. It all made sense now, in ways it never had before.

“Yunho,” you greeted, your voice carrying a warmth as you lifted your hand with a graceful flick. The scroll hovering beside you shimmered for a moment, then dissolved into the air, disappearing as if it had never existed.

“How are you feeling?” Yunho asked quietly. There was something boyish, almost shy, in the way he looked at you, like he was a kid again, standing in front of his crush, hoping for something, anything, that would tell him he was making the right choice.

“Better. Thank you for being here the other night. It seems like you were a big help to Wooyoung.”

"I'm glad to hear that," he murmured, his voice soft as his gaze lingered on you, his eyes softening as if he were seeing you for the first time all over again. There was a quiet admiration that he couldn’t quite hide, no matter how hard he tried to keep his emotions in check.

"I uh…" he hesitated, his eyes flickered away for a moment, as if searching for courage in the silence between you, “I’m leaving for Seoul. Just to take care of some things. I wanted to see you before I left.”

You tilted your head, curiosity lighting up your eyes, the corners of your lips lifting in that familiar way that made his heart stutter. A playful yet gentle hum escaped your lips.

“Oh? And why’s that?”

Your question hung in the air, teasing him, pulling at the tangled mess of feelings he'd tried to bury for so long. He looked at you, a faint flush creeping up his neck as he struggled to find the right response.

“I—” he started, but his voice faltered. His pulse quickened, and for a moment, he felt completely exposed. “I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

The air around you seemed to still, the gravity of his admission settling like dust in the corners of the emporium. The idea of leaving felt wrong to him, and yet it was inevitable, something he had to do.

Your eyes softened with understanding, feeling more like home than any place he could go. Something in your gaze recognized him, sensing the invisible thread that tied you together.

“No matter where you are,” you said quietly, your voice carrying the same calm assurance that had always soothed him, “the emporium will always be within reach. As will I.”

The words were simple, yet they held a promise—a promise that went beyond physical space or memory. The emporium was never bound by the ordinary rules of the world, and neither, it seemed, were you. Your small, understanding smile made Yunho feel that, despite the uncertainty, everything would be okay.

“Besides,” you continued, a playful glint flickering in your eyes, “I can always ask Wooyoung to lend a helping hand. He knows the way.”

“That cat does nothing but bully me,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, recalling how Wooyoung had made him a target of mischief.

Your laugh filled the space between you, a sound that seemed to chase away the heaviness for just a moment. Though Yunho tried to maintain his frown, the corners of his lips betrayed him, lifting into a reluctant smile.

Even though you didn’t remember him, it didn’t matter. There was something deeper between you, something unshakeable. And that, in its own way, gave him the strength he needed to leave.

You stepped forward, that invisible thread that had always seemed to exist between you tugged at your heart, drawing you toward him. It was a connection that transcended words, possibly even space and time. Yunho’s eyes lingered on you, their quiet intensity making your heart skip a beat.

“The next time I come into the shop,” he began, his voice low, “I’ll be ready to make my wish.”

You searched his face, trying to read the depths of what he meant, but all you found was that same gentle fervor staring back at you.

“You’ve thought about it?”

“I have,” he admitted. “With everything that’s happening, I think I finally know what I want.”

The weight of his words settled between you like a promise. Whatever his wish was, it wasn’t something to be rushed—it belonged to the future, a time when he was ready to claim it. And somehow, you understood that.

“I’ll be waiting,” you whispered, though you knew Yunho heard it.

As he turned to leave, a sudden thought gripped you, pulling you back from the brink of your goodbye. “Yunho… before you leave…”

He froze at the sound of his name on your lips, his heart fluttering. Every breath, every glance, vibrated with something unspoken, something powerful.

“Who are you?” you asked, your voice soft, tentative. “To me?”

<< iii | v >>

taglist: @babymbbatinygirl @intowxnderland @hwasa28 @thedistractedwriter @beabatiny @lovelyglares @spenceatiny18 @tiny-apocalypse @sunnysidesins @heyitsmetonid @jwone @laurenwidjaja @potatos-on-clouds @xuchiya @syubseokie

#ateez #ateez fanfic #jeong yunho #ateez yunho #yunho x reader #yunho x you #ateez fic #modern au #ateez au #magic au #yunho #ateez imagines #yunho angst #forget me not #supernatural au

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liyatime · 3 days

Text

“ spread your legs ” . . | ˙✧˖°📷 ༘ ⋆｡˚ (enjoy!)

📷 pairing ; mark lee x tm!reader

📷 genre ; smut

📷 cw ; male x transmale/cuntboy intercourse , cursing , kissing , cunnilingus , fingering , c in v sex , vaginal descriptions , raw sex (wrap it before you tap it!)

mark lee , one of the smartest kids on your college campus not only happened to be a top student but he was also your boyfriend of a strong 3 years.

he spoils you so much you dont even know it like buying your lunches for you , paying for your dorm rent , and all around spending a ton of money on you. mark also spoils you by taking you on car rides , he drives you multiple places without asking for gas money and often takes you on trips , like today. he called you out to the parking lot during a fairly busy day saying that he wanted to eat out with you.

you walked out the college building with your tote bag on your shoulder that was filled to the brim with books and your laptop. you were on your phone looking for places nearby to eat at when you looked up and saw mark’s navy blue hooded convertible and him waving at you.

you did a light jog towards his car and leaned onto it giving him a peck on the lips. “i didn’t bother you? calling you out of class like this?” he asked unlocking the car. you walked around to the passenger side and got in , “not at all , i’d tell you if it was a problem. honestly i’m kinda glad i got out of there.” you said smiling. he smiled back and started up the car , “i found a place already, it’s not far from here.” mark said , backing up his car and getting on the road.

on the way to the place mark picked out you guys joked around and laughed , talked about school stuff (which was honestly kind of boring) and listened to music. both your music tastes were diverse but you guys enjoyed critiquing each others choices. you guys also looked at the menu of the place and decided ahead of time what you guys should order , most of the options looked delicious but what matters is how it tasted , mark's the only person who's been here before so he told you to wait and that it'd be a surprise.

the both of you soon arrived at a restaurant-type establishment , with the awkward name of it that you couldn't pronounce it must've been french or italian or something.. but before you could step out of the car mark grabbed your hand and locked the doors , "hold on.. i gotta tell you something," he paused and put his fist over his mouth before trying to explain "— i actually brought you here for something else." he said with nervousness in his voice , "you know we haven't been able to like.. do it because were busy , so i brought you to this uh.. place , because if we did it on the college campus a lot of people would find out and i really wanted to try car sex and i didnt know how to tell you and like—" "mark. it's fine , you could've just told me." you said laughing, "you're such a nervous wreck when it comes to sex like we haven't done it before , but in a car? im excited." you said.

"so this is okay? You're right though , i should've just told you.." mark facepalmed. "I told you its fine mark , if anything you made me really horny , having sex in a parking lot feels exciting." he blushed at your words. "really?" "yeah!" you replied "we should.. get in the backseat then right?" he asked. "yeah.." you two were awkward about this , but mostly mark because he thought you'd think he was weird and gross for wanting to have sex in public and tell everyone on campus , so now that you admitted it made you horny he got excited and was ready to fuck you so bad. mark and you lowered the front seats forward so you'd have more room in the back and then hopped in , immediately jumping to making out.

mark ran his hands all over your body , but he was OBSESSED with your waist , he loved holding it especially when he felt jealous or possessive. you smiled as you kissed him. you both slowly moved into a laying position as he unbuckled your belt and unbuttoned your jeans to gain access to your pussy through your boxers. he threw your jeans on the center console along with your belt and and began rubbing your clit through your boxers , feeling how wet you've gotten in the past minute. you moaned and held onto the door behind you , "fuckkk..." you stretched out the word at the feeling of him toying with you , slightly lifting your hips. he soon removed your boxers and looked at the color of your pussy , admiring how it looked when it was soaked in your juices. he placed his hands at the back of your knees and pressed your legs to your chest then licked a stripe up your cunt and placed a wet kiss onto your clit.

you cried out in pleasure. whenever mark ate you out it was amazing , you're the first partner he's ever had with a vagina but he knew exactly what to do. he must've been studying up for your sake. top student on campus , top student at eating pussy. "is this good?" he said , rubbing his thumb up and down your folds. "yeah.. keep going.." you responded out of breath from moaning. mark reached over to his glove box in the front and pulled out a packet of lube , ripping it open with his teeth and spreading it all over your cunt and his fingers. "take a deep breath (m/n).." he said , sliding his middle finger into you slowly and thrusting it in and out. you threw your head back and gripped the door handle , moaning out your boyfriends name and whimpering. "it's alright baby , i got you." he said , leaning over and giving a tender kiss in which you melted into.

mark inserted a second finger into your sopping cunt , "you're so fucking wet.." he said before dipping down and having a make out session with your clit , running his tongue over it and flicking it with his tongue. "mark im gonna cum.." you said biting your lip and putting your hand in his hair. this only made him suck on your clit harder and faster. you couldn't take the pleasure anymore and came so hard , a clear liquid shot out your pussy and onto mark's face and seats. he slid his two fingers side to side on your cunt as you let loose and immediately went back to eating you out. you were so sensitive and he was so hungry.

mark lifted his head back up and started unbuckling his belt and discarding it , taking the rest of the lube in the packet and spreading it all over his cock. he looked at you like he was a fox and you were the rabbit he couldn't wait to devour , his cheeks were red and he was sweating from his forehead. he slid his cock over your clit and between your folds and gave you a hard kiss , rubbing his tongue against yours and pulling on your bottom lip with his teeth. "mark.." you said , reaching your hand forward and rubbing his cock again your entrance. he smirked and took his cock , slowly sliding it into your entrance. your eyes rolled back but before you could let out a moan he took it out teasingly. you honestly werent having it. "put it in..!" you said , rubbing your clit and looking into his eyes. he laughed and inserted his tip back into your cunt , doing this a couple more times until he snapped his hips against yours and started thrusting into you at a fast pace.

mark replaced your fingers rubbing your clit with his thumb as you moaned his name and let out a whimper each time his hips met yours. the only noises in the car were grunting and the sound of skin slapping against skin. "fuckkk (m/n).." he groaned. he watched as your eyes rolled back into your head and you lifted your hips up so his thrusts were angled directly towards your prostate , your head fell onto the car seat and you gripped his arms. "im gonna fucking cum!" you exclaimed. "fuckin' squirt again for me.." mark commanded , after he said that you immediately squirted all over his dick as he pulled out and rubbed your clit. he then put his cock back into your pussy to help you ride out your high. "s..shit.." he stuttered , pulling his dick out and cumming all over your glistening cunt with his mouth wide open. mark was panting and so you , you were both wet and sweaty making the car smell like sex. he'll definitely need to air out the car and buy air fresheners for future purposes.

mark leaned down and made out with you , tracing the sides of your face with his palm and holding you by your waist. "we need to have car sex more often.." he said smiling. you giggled at his joke and held him close , eventually having to let go. "we should go to our dorm and get new clothes.. they're really wet.." you said. "Lets go." he agreed , giving you one last peck on your cheek before putting his soaked clothes back on just for the ride back.

lets hope nobody questions why he smells like that when he walks through the halls.

c/n: HI IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK LONGER THAN I SAID TO PUT OUT! my job has me busy and im still buying furniture for my home , im going for a modern look so i gotta save up and work hard to get what i want!! i noticed i improved in my writing, especially when writing smut because i used to skip the prep parts and it was so bad 😭 . im a virgin so writing smut is a struggle but im always on tumblr so reading others smut fics and studying up on anatomy and how sex like WORKS was a big help to me. i still suck at dialogue but practice makes almost perfect! i hope you guys enjoy this work more than my others, cuz they really suck lol. 💙

#liyatime. . 💭.#kpop fanfic #kpop x male reader #kpop male reader #mark lee fic #mark lee x male reader #kpop x reader #male reader #m!reader #ftm reader #kpop x ftm reader #nct x male reader #nct fanfic

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usagifuyusummer · 2 days

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I LOVE your picture of Timmy in a victorian era dress! He looked so pretty!

This isn't his default design for this AU tho. (There's a lot that's still in development on this concept/aspect of his character honestly.)

Nonetheless, I will attempt to draw his default outfit in the next concept piece. There's a lot that I have to handle in real life currently, so it'll probably be in progress for a long while. (Like, I have to prepare for a family outing this weekend, plus next semester uni preparation stuff for this October.)

Still, I took the time to draw this short (stupid) comic lol because I felt appreciated by this comment! I actually took a lot of time studying and finding inspiration from childrens clothing of that era when designing this alt outfit of Timmy. Like, you can Google the outfits online, and you'll notice which garments I took lol. Except, for the bonnet part. You have the OG show to thank for that. (I've decided to include the bonnet too, because it is an existing wear during those times, plus Timmy's outfits most of the time will include a type of hat, so that cemented my decision on utilising the bonnet with this alt wear.)

I am actually quite unsure if Timmy has ever been complimented as "pretty" or good-looking in the OG show before? Like, most of the time, I remember a lot of insults about his little pink hat or his large rabbit teeth, but why can't I remember anyone complimenting him? Hm, maybe it's because of the dark comedy and mean-spirited vibes the show has that I can't recall much on this?

Initially, I had a hard time coming up with how he should respond to such a positive comment because I didn't remember instances of that happening too frequently in the show. So, in the end, I've decided to just make his response be neutral-ish (with hints of his low-self esteem) and also attempt to include Cosmo and Wanda's fae mishevious behaviour or goofing off attitude in this short comic.

I do notice from the show that Timmy is actually quite shy, but I'm not sure if he responds shyly to positive comments about himself. This means that I have to hit the books more, study the characters (by watching the show) and the related concepts when in the middle of thinking and formulating about this AU.

So yeah, this is a baby's early attempt at trying to write and understand how the characters work and bounce off each other lol. I think my writing still looks stilted and off, but I'll try to learn from the mistakes I've made as I progress on my creative works. And as this AU is still in development, a lot of things might change. (This short comic is considered a practice round.)

Credits: This AU (Victorian Era FOP) and Cosmo and Wanda redesigns are originally by @keyintheeye-blog.

Overall, thank you for the kind comment anonymous person! It made me feel appreciated about the efforts I took on that piece. I hope you like this silly attempt at a short comic I made to express my gratitude to your comment. Have a nice day anonymous! 💐

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cherubharrington · 2 days

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I only have eyes for you

18+mdni

Authors note: this is part 2 to Rafe staring at reader.

You tried to rationalize him staring at you. Especially that intensely. Maybe he was zoning out. You decided to chalk it up as that. To not think so hard on it.

Until he did it more times than one. His eyes moved any direction you did.

You felt your niece tuck at the bottom of your dress. You looked down at her as she stared up at you. She gesticulated for you to come closer, so you bend on your knees to hear what she had to say.

“Why is that guy staring at you?” She whispered into your ear. So you weren’t the only one who saw that. “He’s creepy.”

You don’t know how you caught the attention of Rafe Cameron. You never would have assumed you were even on his radar. You always had your nose in a book. There wasn’t anything you thought made anyone think you were interesting. Which you took offense too because you felt like you were actually more interesting than people would think. But you knew you couldn’t control how people felt about you. So you just ignored it.

But Rafe Cameron? That was weird and didn’t make any sense to you.

“Don’t worry about it. He’s probably just zoning out.” But even your niece wasn’t convinced.

A few more instances of this occurred, and you were confused. You didn’t understand why he was staring so much. You tried to ignore it but finally, it was like he knew you were frustrated. He had finally decided to approach you.

“Hey, I’m Rafe Cameron. But you probably know that already.” He said smugly.

“Yes, Rafe. I know who you are. You’re all any girl can talks bout.” You say, annoyed. He smiles at you, his gaze drinking you in from head to toe. It’s silent as he does so, you can’t exactly hide from him. Your crop top and low rise denim shorts, didn’t really leave much to the imagination.

“So, how come I didn’t see you until midsummers?”

“We just moved here. Like two months back. Wasn’t really in the mood to go into the heat when the ac did me just fine.” He smiles at you, his hands finding yours. Rubbing his thumb on your skin.

“A pretty girl like you coop up in her room for two months. Must have been boring.” A blush appears on your face, betraying you. “You don’t have to worry about being bored anymore.”

His dick was deep inside of you, your hands on the sides of his face. You watched as he disappeared into you and out again.

“Fuck, this pussy.” He says, he’s bending your legs back for easier access. His hands on your thighs. “I couldn’t wait to get my hands on you.” He grunted.

“Fuck, Rafe. I-“

“Yeah, yeah. You love my dick huh? Can’t even speak.” His thrusts speeds up, more violent as he does so.

“Mhm. I love your dick.” You breathe out. He lets go of your legs, allowing you to wrap your legs around his waist. He cups your face, bringing your face up to stare at him. “Pretty girl. So fucking pretty. Look at you, the way I’m destroying you. You’re mine. Never letting anyone take you now.”

The lewd noises of him thrusting in you fills the room. You can’t even think, but a part of you is conscious enough to think “did I just make a mistake?”

Taglist

@sublimepenguinpeach-blog @queenvane64 @modesttiger

#rafe cameron #outer banks #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron fic #outer banks x oc #outer banks x reader #outer banks x y/n

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enhasparadise · 2 days

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HOW TO (NOT) BE A BROKEN HEART.

— a lee heeseung serie; prologue.

why should you be heart broken when i’m by your side ?

SYNOPSIS ・ Heartbreak aren't a easy thing. well.. breaking up with your boyfriend wasn't the easiest thing to be and was absolutely not the thing that you wished for. and of course it was the most sadest thing you experimented (because you were in love of course.) but suddenly the sad feelings left your body when this boy from the theatre club get into your life on this rainy day.

PAIRING ・ theatre club member!heeseung x student fem!reader

GENRES ・ romance, fluff, slice of life, college au, strangers to lovers!

WORDS COUNT ・ 2138 words

WARNINGS ・ bullying, jealousy, anxiety mentionned, soft!beomgyu,

FEATURING ・ ENHYPEN jake, sunghoon, jungwon & ni-ki, TXT taehyun, beomgyu, ITZY chaeryeong (more will be added later..)

STATUS ・ UNFiNiSHED / ONGOiNG / iNCOMPLET

DATE STARTED ・ 18/09/2024

TAGLIST ・ @r1kification @charlizefaye @starfallia comment to be added to the taglist !!

MASTERLIST | NEXT >>

PROLOGUE. LOVE ISN’T A EASY THING..

Saying that romantic relationships were one of your strong points will most certainly be a huge lie. You've never really had a serious relationship, and your last relationship was a few years ago now. So obviously, saying that you were currently dating Beomgyu, one of the most popular boys in your high school, was quite strange.

Beomgyu was one of the best students in his class, if not one of the best. He was a member of a rock band with four other students in his class who happened to be his best friends, and of course, being a popular student means countless girls interested in him. And, looking at you next to him, you didn't know what to think, you were a shy girl, who spent most of her time reading books. The complete opposite of Beomgyu, so obviously he was quite curious to know that you were going out with him.

When your relationship was made public in high school, all the girls who were interested in your boyfriend gave you a number of dirty looks, and you quickly understood that they just wanted your relationship to end quickly. Apart from the girls, the boys around never took their eyes off you, well... no one took their eyes off you because the scene was so unimaginable.

Your hand was in his, and just feeling all his eyes on you, you felt a lump forming in the pit of your stomach because of the stress and unease you felt inside of you. In truth, you only had one desire since you entered the high school establishment. To hide.

Noticing your discomfort and your slight withdrawal when Beomgyu advanced through the corridors, he let go of your hand simply so that his arm came around your shoulder while he whispered in your ear. "Don't worry about all the looks you want to get okay? They're just jealous to know that such a beautiful girl as you is finally taken by the most incredible boy in this school.." and, onwards from what he had just said, a kiss had been placed on your cheek.

But unfortunately, beomgyu's words had done the opposite rather than reassuring you. You looked up at him, and without knowing why you felt almost your whole body trembling, imagining what you could potentially feel as the day progressed simply because you knew how much girls could be pests when it was about the boys. And unfortunately, Beomgyu was one of the most popular with girls.

"Beomgyu.. I don't feel comfortable.. all the girls are looking at me.." you started to explain while you felt close to crying while tears were present on the corner of your lips. And right now it was at this very moment that you hated being more sensitive than normal. "I've already explained to you... the girls will possibly hate me if she doesn't already hate me and... I'm afraid of what could happen to me during the day when you're not with me.. "

"Don't worry, I promised you that at least one person would be with you all the time when I wasn't there.. Taehyun is in your class, right?" beomgyu asked you, and after a few seconds you ended up nodding your head, responding with a yes. "In this case I would tell him to pay attention to you during lessons, and to defend you if ever necessary, but believe me you wouldn't have any problems, okay?"

Despite everything Beomgyu could tell you to reassure you about the day ahead, your mind kept creating many horrible scenarios where you found yourself the victim of several things because of the girls in your class who were jealous . And just with what you imagined you already hated the fact of having agreed to reveal your relationship in broad daylight, but just at this very moment, with all his eyes on you, you felt extremely bad at it. You were comfortable and you really didn't feel in your element. You just wanted to hide far, far away from everyone. It wasn't even eight o'clock yet when, deep down you knew, the day was going to be very long.

Noticing every detail about your discomfort, Beomgyu tried once again to reassure you, but nothing worked, you were stuck on the idea that, after leaving Beomgyu to join your class, you will be the victim of everything the girls can tell you. to suffer, despite the presence of his best friend in your class.

The corridors starting to empty due to the first ring that would soon be heard, Beomgyu took your face in his hands and delicately placed his lips against yours, a smile appearing lightly on your lips at this contact that you liked so much , but he finally cut contact a few seconds later, delicately caressing your cheeks. "see you at lunch break okay sweetie? and don't worry everything will be fine i promise, taehyun will be there for you" he whispered before quickly running towards the stairs to get to his classroom.

And you had to do the same thing since the time was getting closer and closer to the start of classes.

The halls were now almost empty, and you said surprised to notice almost no one in the halls you had taken to get to your classroom. When you looked up, you noticed that Taehyun was leaning against the wall, his phone in his hand, probably waiting for you, as you had told Beomgyu before he disappeared. And your stress decreased slightly while a smile appeared on your lips, reassured.

Except that, as soon as you raised your hand to wave at him, you were pulled to the right suddenly, and it took you several seconds before you understood where you could be. But noticing the walls and the numerous sinks, you quickly realized that you were in the girls' bathroom. The only problem was that you had just been dragged here, and you hadn't just gone there alone, so obviously this stress had quickly taken over your body.

Without even having time to understand, you were locked in one of the cabins present and, despite all your efforts to get out, you couldn't do it. Your stress began to turn into fear as you began pounding on the door, hoping that the people who brought you inside would let you out. "Hey, that's not funny! Let me go, classes will start soon!" You shouted but no response was heard in return.

The only thing you heard was much too high-pitched laughter and running water. And you froze almost instantly as you realized what was potentially going to happen, while the girls on the other side of the booth seemed to be laughing a lot more as it went on and were whispering among themselves. Your hands had started drumming against the cabin door again but still no way to get out. "It's not fun let me out!!" Did you scream a second time hoping they would let you out.

"Don't dream, we're not going to get you out now!" Had said one of the girls before their laughter resumed, the water still flowing, and just hearing the sentence made you hate the girl no matter who she was.

Despite your many efforts the door still didn't seem to open and, after what seemed like long minutes, the sound of water finally stopped. Which quickly made you panic since you imagined the worst, and unfortunately you started to cry because of the anxiety.

"Go ahead and do it, she deserves it anyway!" A girl's voice said from behind the cabin door.

"But I'm not bad! It was Syeon's idea! She should be the one to do it!" A second girl's voice said as you really wondered what was happening.

But you didn't have enough time to understand that you received the contents of a basin filled with water on your head, which directly wet your hair and completely ruined your uniform.

From the other side of the cabin, the girls' laughter had started up again as they couldn't believe that one of them had finally just thrown all the water at you. And quickly the laughter had faded in the toilets since they had finally left, but one of them had stayed longer since you could still see her converse through the space which separates the floor from the door of the bathroom.

"That's because you're dating Beomgyu." she said without any kindness present in her voice, and as the bathroom door opened she added. "We'll start again soon, don't worry about that."

And then, there was no more noise around you. Except that, even if you tried, you couldn't open the cabin door.

Only two minutes had passed, and you ended up sitting on the toilet and just letting the tears roll down your cheeks while you didn't even know what to do. It hadn't even been an hour since you made your relationship with Beomgyu official that girls were already starting to make you experience this type of thing? No, it wasn't possible... you weren't one of his daughters who boasted about going out with a popular boy... you were actually quite the opposite.

Your hope continued to make you imagine many things and your hands, which were resting on your knees, tightened on them, gripping your tights. You weren't angry, you were just... completely lost and on top of that you were going to be late for the first class, or weren't even going to be able to show up in the classroom.

Your cries could be heard throughout the restroom, but when the door opened again you tried to make as little noise as possible, trembling at the idea that it was one of his daughters again. come to humiliate you once again.

"Is anyone there?" Came the voice of a girl who didn't seem to be mean at all and understanding this you got back up and knocked on the cabin door. "Yes..! I.. I was locked in a cabin by some girls.. I can't get out.."

"Oh...! I'm going to find a teacher and I'll be right back!" She replied before the door closed again and you found yourself alone in the room again.

After about ten minutes, and the bell announcing the start of classes, the bathroom door opened again and the voice of a teacher was heard on the other side.

"Are you sure there's a girl stuck in the Chaeryeong toilet?" She asked as she walked towards the cabin you were stuck in.

"Yes...! It was towards that cabin...!" She replied.

And almost immediately the two girls had noticed something blocking the door handle of a cabin so quickly, it was removed and the door in front of you opened.

Chaeryeong brought her hands to her lips to cover her mouth, noticing the state you were in while the teacher took you out of there, taking your bag at the same time. And although you were happy to finally leave the bathroom stall your crying hadn't stopped as you left the bathroom.

But you were quickly stopped because a boy's voice had shouted your name, and when you turned around you were surprised to notice Taehyun who had quickly arrived towards you.

"My god, what happened to you?!" He asked when he saw the state of your uniform, drops of water falling against the floor. "Do you want me to talk to Beomgyu about this?" He asked you and strangely you shook your head to mean no, probably too humiliating for your boyfriend to know about this incident.

"Mr. Kang, please go back to class," said the teacher next to you, who was holding your arm, "Chaeryeong will come with you, she is also in your class, and tell your teacher that your classmate is in the infirmary please."

"Yes Ms. Yang.." he both replied before they left towards the classroom, leaving you alone with the teacher.

You went down the stairs and after several minutes you ended up in the infirmary. On the way, the teacher asked you many questions to find out what had happened to cause you to unfortunately find yourself in a state like this, but the lump in your stomach that you had felt a little earlier had you completely prevented from speaking.

Fortunately she didn't insist, and when you were in the hands of the nurse she left you, leaving the infirmary to go to her classroom.

And it was at that precise moment that you understood that, unfortunately, the day was going to be very, very long. But you also understood something else...

There was absolutely nothing easy about love.

And that, only because of his daughters who were completely jealous of the idea of you being in a relationship with Beomgyu..

MASTERLIST | NEXT >>

Screaming inside because it’s only the prologue and I already love reading this serie omg

I hope that you enjoy reading it and that you liked how the prologue was going ! I hope to see you for the next chapter or for some other worlds that I’m writing

don’t forget to comment if you want to be added to the taglist

Love y’all 🧸

See you soon, Rain 💗

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reyreadersblog · 2 days

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ALRIGHT Y'ALL MADE ME DO IT!!!

My unpopular tig/tgg opinions!!

FIRST!

These are MY opinions and i'm allowed to have my own thoughts on certian things, just as you are, okay..? Just wanna..get this out of way, i know everyone is respectful in this fandombut still.

1. this is something that should NOT be an upopular opinion. AVERY IS THE MAIN CHARACTER FOR A REASON. okay? She is a girlboss, and she needs more appretiation, cus literally search up tig on tt rn. Everybody and their cat named Stewie is talking about Grayson and Jameson? WHAT ABOUT MY MG AVERY? And if you see any post about her, it's probably a hate vid about how Avery should've kept the money...SHUT UP. Read what she said carefully..."no one deserves that kind of power.." and then think about it deeply.

2. I DO NOT WANT TIG TO TURN INTO A TV SERIES (or even a movie). i can't name all the reasons 'cus then the the list would be endless. First of all, i know, I JUST KNOW, they'll choose the worst cast ever. And even if they find the most accurate cast for the Hawthorne brother i will still be dissapointed, because the images of them i have in my head...THEY'LL NEVER TOP EM. second of all, they will leave out important moments, just as simple as it sounds, and trust me they will, just like they do with most of the live adaptations of books. Third of all, SHIP WARS!!! I phisically can't with ship war, like I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF EM IN THE PAST WHEN THE BOOKS WERE STILL COMING OUT. And just the thought of Averygrayson shipper saying "yeah Avery and jameson were endgame in the books but they might change it in the movie..." GIVES ME NIGHTMARES. and overall, not everything needs a live adaptation yk? sometimes things just have to stay the way they are.

3. ...this is a bit contrevertial.and i don't want to sound like a hater since i've said this a multiple times before but Rohan's pov was my least favourite in the grandest games. Purely bcs whatever Savannah and Rohan had going on...don't get me wrong, i like Savannah (even tho she did and said some fucked up things) and Rohan, SEPERATLY. But them being together...idk man, they were too..."booktokish" for my liking, yk? and i do love banter and teasing, but they were like basic "i like you but i like winning more" "couple". Not to mention they were so random...like where did they come from? I remember when we first saw Sav and Rohan having the same symbols on their cards i was very excited, i expected a different dynamic between them...PLUS THE WHOLE GAME THEY JUST WANTED TO FUCK💀

4. Hating Alisa Ortega and loving Grayson Hawthorne is CRAZYYY, and i'm saying this bcs they're pretty similar in different ways. And the thing is people are mad at Alisa for "saying mean words to Libby" (she was literally doing her job, you would understand if you were at her place) MEANWHILE GRAYSON LITERALLY THREATENED A HEIRESS! (sayin this as a Gray stan) *sigh* y'all are something else🤦🏻‍♀️.

5. Ohh...this one is risky...BUT CAN Y'ALL STOP ACTING LIKE JAMESON IS BLAMELESS?? all i see is Grayson slander, AND I UNDERSTAND, he fucked up, but saying "Jameson was so much better than Grayson" is a lie, at least for me. (He was better for Avery tho) he fs made mistakes that fandoms chooses to ignore. Like lets not act like treating Avery like a toy wasn't wrong. Lets not act like him blaming Grayson for everything wasn't wrong. Let's not act like him reminding Grayson of Emily's death wasn't wrong. And i know that later on both him and Grayson had a great character development, but still, i've never seen anyone talk about this.

6. This isn't about tig. But LIKING JLBS WORK AND BEING HER FAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE GLAZING HER💀 (talking about an argument i had a while ago...) like is it so hard for your brain to understand that it's called having an opinion. Idc if it's JLB or any other author, okay? Like i've read almost every Jlb's books and i love them, AND i also publicly talk about how much iblove her work, does that mean i'm glazing her? UHM NO WTF💀.

7. LET. PEOPLE. HAVE. PREFRENCE. (I'm talking about ships btw) . Someone prefers LyraGray over Averyjameson, and that's okay. Someone loves Averyjameson the most, and that's also okay, someone likes Libbynash more then Xandermax, AND THAT IS ALSO OKAY.

I'll probably do part 2, i have more to say i'm just really tired rn.

Also it's not proof read so sorry if there are many mistakes.

#the inheritance games #the hawthorne legacy #grayson hawthorne #the hawthorne brothers #avery grambs #the grandest game #the brothers hawthorne #the final gambit #libby grambs #nash hawthorne #lyra kane

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blakeswritingimagines · 3 days

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Dear Y/N

My love for you is fierce and all-consuming. I would do anything to keep you by my side, even if it means going against everything and everyone. I would follow you to the ends of the earth and back just to be near you. Your every action, every word, every gesture is like a drug to me. I become obsessed, obsessed with every move you make, and it drives me crazy. I want to protect you, possess you, and make you mine and mine alone. Don't ever think of leaving, because I'll never allow it. You're mine. I know every little detail about you. Your favorite color, food, and the way you laugh. And the way you bite your lip when you're nervous, the way you twirl your hair when you're thinking. I've memorized every scar on your body and the way you move. And I would do anything to ensure that no harm comes to you. You're the most important person in my life. And don't forget it.

I've watched you from afar, studying you, and learning every part of you. Your fears, your dreams, your hopes, your secrets. I know your favorite books, movies, and music. I've watched you grow and change, and it's only made me love you more. I know your every move, every step, and I will always be there, watching and waiting. You're the center of my world, the reason I breathe, and I won't let anything or anyone take you away. I know you better than you know yourself. I know your strengths and weaknesses, I've seen every side of you, and I love them all. I've seen you at your best and your worst, and it only makes me love you more. Whenever you're away, I wonder if you think of me. Do you dream of me at night like I dream of you? I hope you do, because you're all I think about. I think about how your hand would feel in mine, how your lips would feel on mine, and how your body would feel against mine.

I wonder how it would feel to hold you close, to feel your breath on my skin, and to hear your heartbeat against my chest. I'm counting down the seconds until I can see you again. I count the days, the hours, the minutes, and the seconds until I can see your face until I can hear your voice, and until I can touch you again. You complete me, and I can't stand to be away from you. I'll wait as long as it takes, I'll fight as hard as I need to, just to be near you. Every time we're together, I feel like I'm in a dream. Your touch, your smile, the way you look at me, and it all makes my heart skip a beat. But the thought of ever losing you, of ever being apart, is enough to drive me crazy. I don't know what I would do if I ever lost you if I ever lost your love. The thought alone fills me with a sense of dread and desperation. I need you like I need my next breath. I know I'm a little intense, a little obsessive, but I can't help it. You do something to me. You make me feel things I never thought possible. You make me feel alive, and I'd do anything to keep that feeling going. I'd burn the world down just to hear you laugh, just to see you smile. I'd fight off monsters, or gods, or anything that tried to come between us. I sometimes wonder if I'm a little too much for you. I know I can be intense and maybe a little overprotective. But it's just because I care about you so much. I'm scared to lose you, to lose your love. I see the way other people look at you, and I want to hurt them, to make them pay for even daring to think about you. I know it's wrong, but I can't help it. The thought of you with anyone else drives me crazy.

I can be a little possessive, I admit it. I'll watch you like a hawk when you're around other people, especially other men. I'll study how they look at you, how they talk to you, and how they touch you. And if I think they're getting too close, I'll step in, and make my presence known. I know it's not fair to you, I know it can be suffocating, but I can't help it. I just can't risk losing you, not even to another person's harmless flirtations. I know it's not healthy, but I sometimes go through your things. Your phone, your purse, your diary - I go through all of it. I want to know everything about you, every secret, every thought, every dream. I know it's not right, I know it's a violation of your privacy, but I can't help it. I need to know every part of you, even the parts you try to hide. I find myself watching you sometimes. When you're sleeping, when you're showering, when you're getting dressed. I know it's creepy, but I can't help myself. You're just so beautiful, so perfect. I want to know every inch of your body, every freckle, every scar. I want to touch you to feel your skin against mine. But I know I can't, not until you're mine. So I just watch, and I wait, and I dream. I know I'm not perfect, and I know my love can be a little overwhelming. But I hope you can see that it's a love that comes from the depths of my soul, a love that will never fade, never die. I'll wait for you, I'll fight for you, I'll do anything to make you happy, to make you mine. And if you ever doubt my love, just look into my eyes, and you'll see the truth there. Because there's only one person in the world I love, and that's you.

Yours forever.

#logan howlett x reader #logan x reader #logan howlett #yandere logan howlett #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #wolverine #yandere wolverine #love letter

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verbenaa · 3 days

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to eden | chapter 8

𝓈𝓊𝓂𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓎: “You spoil me darling, really. But I am simple man—” Rin stops him off with a look of admonishment, cutting off his sentence to start her own.

“A simple show for a simple man, then.”She hopes her emphasis on the words will speak loudly enough for him to understand the meaning of them as she mockingly bows towards him.

“I take offense to that assessment, you know.” Astarion huffs with a frown, casting his head aside to instead take a sip of his errant goblet of wine, already forgotten beside him.

𝓅𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔: Astarion/F!Tav

𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔: E, 18+

𝓌𝑜𝓇𝒹 𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉: 14.8k 😮‍💨

𝓌𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈: mentions of torture/abuse, mild descriptions of blood/gore, striptease (?), fingering, cunnilingus, vampire bites (duh), handjobs, piv sex, multiple orgasms, Soft Dom Astarion returns 😌

𝒶/𝓃: hellooooo, sorry it's taken so long for me to get this written and posted! but it's here now and I very much hope you enjoy! let me know your thoughts about the chapter, too!

ao3

masterlist

MDNI, 18+ CONTENT

The air is quiet, the ever-present darkness lingering around them like a stagnant weight. Rin finds that she quite hates it, no matter how lovely the promise the warmth of Last Light Inn and its alcohol is to be.

Her fingers are poised on one of the delicate strings of her lyre as she strums it lightly, a low hum reverberating out from the instrument that fills the air with what she hopes will be something that sounds effortless, beautiful, ethereal.

She frowns at the sound of it from where she leans against a conveniently placed rock near the fire, the note falling flat as it dies in the silence of the dark night.

“You’re off.” A familiar voice echoes out from above, the sound of it supercilious and downright annoying, as she huffs out a breath in minute agitation.

With a turn of her head, Rin sends Astarion a withering look from where he lounges, imperious, on the rock right above her; a book held in his hand as he reads by the light of the roaring fire.

“And so is your stitching, but you don’t hear me calling you out on it, now do you?”

His stitching wasn’t, of course. It was always practiced, perfect, and near precise—Astarion as good with a needle as he was with a knife or an arrow.

But, as always, he didn’t have to know that. He has enough of an ego as it is and Rin has no intentions of adding to it unnecessarily.

Astarion flips the page with unnecessary force, his obvious agitation dragging a secret smile to her lips that she hides into the strings of her lyre.

He really made it far too easy to tease him, sometimes.

Astarion hmphs into the nighttime air, looking astutely back down at the book in his lap in an attempt to ignore her as she bites back a laugh that threatens to break free.

Rin turns her attention back to the instrument in her hands, fingers running down the carved edge of it as her mind wanders aimlessly in the silence and she stares out at the utterly boring landscape.

It was pretty, she supposes, if one cared for a setting devoid of most kinds of life. Ultimately, there was just not terribly much for her to look at, leaving her with nothing but the amusement of her own thoughts, much to her frustration.

There wasn’t much left for her to do but think, it seemed.

Rin had already eaten dinner while conversing with Gale; engaged in some gossip over a glass of wine with Shadowheart; discussed the merits of carnivorous fauna with Halsin; indulged Lae’zel in a practice sparring session (which she lost quite terribly, much to Astarion’s joy and Lae’zel’s disappointment at Rin’s apparent lack of skill); shared a nice pint from the inn with Karlach; and then watched on as Astarion drained poor Wyll dry of some gold in a game of cards (she’ll have to try to figure out how to get him his money back, one way or another).

She would probably have to beg Astarion to do it—something she was not eager to do, but would for the sake of Wyll and all his noble, princely goodness.

Perhaps she should try to steal it off of him, instead. It certainly would make for a good challenge, at the very least, provided she didn’t get caught doing it. Rin has no doubt the cost for that particular crime would be steep, one that she doesn’t know if she can afford to pay for.

Astarion already spent enough time in her thoughts as it was, the price nothing more than that of her precious yet dwindling sanity. She already feels as though she is slowly losing her mind every time she replays the events of the other night over in her head, no longer than a mere week ago.

She and Astarion had both quite politely ignored the events of that night, the memory of the closeness of their lips and the things she had said settling into the recesses of her mind as if they were nothing more than a dream, one that haunts her when she lays down her head onto her sad excuse for a pillow.

It was a lapse in judgment, at the very least. The klauthgrass had clearly addled her mind more than she thought when she looks back on it. It’s the only logical reason she would ever had said the things she did—whether spoken from her lips or written down in a letter never to be sent.

She also still needed to burn the damn letter, but that was neither here nor there.

What mattered was that they had settled back into their usual camaraderie, trading cutting words and sly smiles back and forth with one another as they had always done despite a brand new, gently simmering tension that now lay just underneath the surface.

But it was fine.

Rin was nothing if not an expert at ignoring the things that were bothering her, was she not? Their little…situation was simply that.

A situation.

One that was easily forgettable once she set her mind to actually forgetting about it.

Rin trades that particular line of thinking out with a deep exhale, shoving it back into a conveniently placed box in a corner of her mind and instead sets to retuning the instrument in her hands, worn pine both familiar and comforting as its weight rests against her.

Her wonderful, familiar lyre that had been with her for years now, through both thick and thin. It hadn’t helped her make terribly much gold, but it had been a better friend to her than any person had over the years.

She turns the pegs on the back of it little by little, tiny twists of her fingers adjusting the strings in a way she hopes will make her next attempt at song better and not worse.

The night flows by as she sits in the warmth of the fire, the soft crackles of the logs soothing as Rin retunes the instrument until she’s finally happy with what she hopes will be a drastic improvement to the earlier noise it had made.

With a satisfied sigh, Rin moves to strum at her lyre, fingers just about to touch the strings when a biting voice interrupts her.

“I do hope you didn’t make it worse. My poor ears can’t take much more abuse.”

Rin ignores the jab with a serene blink before deigning not to answer as her raised hand closes into a fist, nails biting into her palm as she prays to anyone listening for an ounce of patience.

In lieu of violence—despite him deserving it—she sees a perfect opportunity to turn the conversation from another of her apparent failures onto one of his instead.

She turns to look at him with a sly look, fixing him with clever eyes alight with mischief.

“You know, Astarion, I happened to read something quite interesting in one of the books I found at The Waning Moon.”

Astarion turns another page in his book as he feigns disinterest, but his eyes don’t scan the rows of elvish decorating the page in neatly printed rows. “Oh? Do tell, then. Was it something violent? Gory? Scandalous?”

“Scandalous, certainly. I seem to have come across a small little volume that contained a list,” Rin’s brows waggle conspiratorially. “A list of banned patrons.”

Astarion’s interest is firmly piqued as soon as she says the words, finally looking up from the tome in his lap to focus on her, indifference giving way to a fiendish gleam in his eye.

“You should have said so from the start. Tell me more, darling, what are the offenses? Give me all the sordid details.”

He leans in closer from his seat above her, Astarion and his flair for the dramatic never failing to amuse her and she can’t help the equally wicked smile that spreads across her lips in response.

“Most of them were ordinary—you know, the standard. Bar fights, skipping the bill, unnecessary wanton activity with a pickle. But there was one that really stuck out to me, quite a striking description frankly. I think it said something along the lines of ‘a pale elf with a snide mouth’ that apparently insulted someone of particular importance. Sound familiar?”

“Well, whoever they are sounds like they had a fantastic time to me.” His smile is devious as he smirks. “In fact, I’d say that whoever it was deserved such words.”

“Oh, I have no doubt. I’m sure the insults thrown were of the highest calibre, as well.”

Astarion grin is a roguish one that looks terribly handsome on his features but something heavy intercedes over the amusement in his eyes as the deeper meaning behind that seemingly small and unimportant notation sinks in.

The smirk falls slowly from Astarion’s lips, a slight darkness settling across the features of his face as the corners of his mouth turn down ever so slightly.

Ah. Of course.

“You have no memory of ever coming here, do you?” She softens her voice, only slightly, but she has no doubt Astarion notices the change regardless.

“No. I’ve already told you I don’t have many memories from my life before Cazador,” He snaps. “But clearly I’ve here before. Obviously.”

Rin had given some thought to the presumed Astarion of before in the rare moments of peace that were few and far in between, when her mind was free to wander before sleep overtook her.

The Astarion that existed before the tadpole, before Cazador. Back when his heart still beat and his skin was flushed with life. Astarion, with not-red eyes, wearing finely tailored silks and wools, drinking the richest of wines; for he was sure to have been wealthy.

She had spent many years watching the upper echelons of Baldur’s Gate from her place on the streets, staring up into their windows at twilight to watch them swoon and twirl in their finery, and Astarion moved like the best of them—graceful and elegant, proud and arrogant.

He had been a magistrate, or so he had said.

She could only trust so many of the words that come from his lips, but somehow the image of Astarion in ostentatious robes handing down whatever judgement he deemed worthy is far too easy for her to envision for her to entirely disbelieve the notion.

But he must have had a family, surely.

Parents, siblings, friends—perhaps even a lover or two. Or three, knowing him.

Gods forbid he had sired any children.

But the implication remains all the same. So many questions, almost all of which he may never know the answers to.

“You should be proud, Astarion.” Rin attempts a tiny bit of levity, though it doesn’t seem to help. “An annoyance both alive and undead. Not many could ever hope to achieve such a thing.”

“Well,” he sniffs with an air of put-on pride, smile weak. “It’s nice to know I’m consistent, at least.”

“You did get thrown out of a tavern last time you were here. Perhaps this trip to sweet, little Reithwin is faring much better than the one prior. Your last visit didn’t have me present, after all.”

“My last visit was probably still more peaceful, I’d wager. I doubt I was busy being vexed by a senseless blonde bard all the while having a worm buried in my head.” His voice raises a few octaves as he narrows his eyes at her.

She would rather have his ire than his sorrow, it’s a much better sight than the mournful look beginning to creep over his features.

“Presumably weren’t being vexed by a senseless blonde bard.” Rin shoots Astarion a small smile. “Maybe you have a type.”

He only gives a mirthless laugh in response.

“I am sorry, Astarion. I wish you were able to remember more.”

Astarion sighs, uncharacteristically defeated and the sound of it has her chest tightening.

“Yet another thing I can add to the unending list of things that Cazador took from me. From us.”

“Us?” Rin muses over the word, the answer to a question she had long considered but never managed to ask, not amongst the seemingly never-ending amount of things that popped up on their list to be taken care of. “So, you aren’t the only one, then? Of Cazador’s spawn, I mean.”

She briefly worries she’s overstepped an invisible boundary, that Astarion will shut her down and storm away without another word, leaving her with no answer to the question.

Her curiosity about him grows with every passing day and she simply wants to know more about him.

Not the charming, surface level vanity he would normally put forward for her, but the real Astarion.

The one who tells her and only her small stories about himself and his life, the one who responds to her silly little letters, the one who had thanked her, with actual gratitude, drawing of his scars in hand.

The Astarion who—for some unfathomable reason—no matter how much he may complain or insult her, still chooses her above all others to spend his time with.

Rin turns to look up at him, the straightening of his spine obvious even in the darkness of the camp. Astarion, for his part, takes her question in stride, though there’s a telltale tightness around his mouth that signals his ever-present bitterness at Cazador’s mention.

He nods, the motion stiff as Rin’s brows draw together into a frown.

“There were seven of us, in all. Brothers and sisters, as he liked to call us. Quite the family.” Astarion lets out a derisive laugh, words acrimonious as he spits them out.

Ruby red eyes look ahead, his gaze catching on nothing in particular as he stares at the barren world on the other side of the water, the landscape as bleak as his expression.

“But I was one of his first. He was a monster to us all. Tortured us. Carved the same thing into my back as he did into all of theirs. But Cazador took a special pleasure in my pain. In my screams. He said my screams sounded sweetest.”

And oh, how her heart twists to hear the fragile timbre of his voice as his breath hitches, an undercurrent of agony flowing so readily and truthful from him.

Rin averts her eyes as his voice breaks on the last few words, settling her vision on one of the red ferns flowing in the ever-present breeze in an attempt to let him keep some of his suffering to himself, to leave some of his dignity in tact.

It’s the least she can do.

“And now that I’m gone…I don’t know. I pity the other six.” Astarion takes a deep, bracing breath, his sorrow palpable, and Rin’s chest aches again.

She doesn’t have anything to say, and how could she?

Oh, terribly sorry you spent two centuries being tortured unendingly. That must have been awful. You didn’t deserve it, Astarion.

No, any words of consolation she has only seem to fall flat in the face of his misery. He doesn’t need her to tell him about how horrible it is, how neither he nor his siblings deserved the pain, the anguish, the endless torture that Cazador dished out on a whim to bend and break them all to his will.

The only thing Rin can think to give him is her own paltry attempt at comfort as she leans in towards him slowly until her head rests just against the side of his leg in silent consolation.

He doesn’t like to be touched at the best of times, but somehow she knows he would hate the inevitable pity he would choose to find in her words much worse.

Astarion freezes, muscles tensing as if in wait for something, sending a sharp look down at the messily braided head now resting against his knee. But when nothing other than the presence of her subtle weight leaning against him ever comes, the only movement she makes the easy in and out of her breathing, he relaxes slightly.

Rin doesn’t dare to look up at him, instead returning her attention back to the lyre still in her arms. With a careful hand, her fingers come up to strum at a string, followed by another and another and another; music flowing out from the instrument in a slow, soft melody.

It’s nothing in particular that the plays; no well-known song or tune, only a series of notes and chords she pieces together with minimal thought that somehow manages to sound more lovely than anything she’s had luck playing the past week.

Eventually, she hears the soft rustle of a page being flipped once more as Astarion returns to his book, no words spoken to break the silence between them as Rin keeps her head resting just against him, playing her song just for him.

✧· · ─── ·✧· ─── · ·✧

She should know better, by now, than to ever be surprised by the horrors they come across—and yet, as she had walked into the operating theatre of the so-called House of Healing, her footsteps quiet over the dark, ornate, and rotting woodwork, she still managed to be shocked by what she beheld as she had peeked over the railing.

She had noticed the man first. It was impossible to not have when his blood, a bright red incarnadine, was splattered across the walls and dripping onto the floors in sickly streams. She followed the trail of it to the source, taking in the carnage of his body; eyes no more than bloodied pits and mouth opened in silent scream as he writhes on the table, somehow still alive despite the butchering of his body.

A moment later, her eyes drifted over to Doctor Malus Thorm in all his horror; elbow deep in his victim’s innards with hands that were no longer quite hands, digits turned instead into some sort of mechanical claws as he lectures aloud to the sightless nurses who stood uselessly around the body.

She had stepped into that theatre expecting a battle, her own blood to be added to all that had already been spilled and soaked into the grooves in the wood over the many years.

Instead, she managed something quite different. Something possibly worse.

She hadn’t assumed that she would be able to kill him with only her words, not when the menace of him spelled violence and promised pain, a Shar devotee to the bitter end.

And yet, it was with words that she had convinced him to sacrifice himself to his nurses, a dark turn of events that somehow seemed to fit the narrative of this terrible place all too well.

She blames the power she feels when his body finally gives its last, miserable breath on the shadow curse, on the innate darkness of this place, on the tadpole.

Any excuse works, so long as it covers up the fact that she had liked it.

It was the very same power she had felt when the other two Thorms fell; silvered words falling off her tongue to bend them to her will and end them both without her having to lift a single, gloved finger.

It had only been a small inconvenience to finish off the remaining Sisters of Mercy after they had done Rin’s dirty work for her, their trepans and bonesaws no match for her rapier, Karlach’s axe, Shadowheart’s spells, and Astarion’s blood thirst.

Her heart still beats too quick, the sound of it loud in her ears as she stands stock still on a bated breath—in fear, in anxiety, in a strange and twisted excitement.

It’s both thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.

Rin wants nothing to do with it.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side.” Shadowheart remarks quietly with a laugh from beside her, breaking the silence of the aftermath. There’s a new awe present in the cleric’s voice that Rin hates the sound of.

Rin looks at her friend with a small smile. “So long as you don’t get in the way of me and a good time, we’ll be dandy.”

“I wouldn’t dare after that performance.” Shadowheart laughs, a twinkling little sound, and it breaks up a bit of the nerves that had settled in her chest.

“Well. That was positively sickening. Who knew there would be so much fun to be found here?” Astarion sheathes his dagger with a twist of his wrist, the added flourish elegant as blood flicks off the blade and splatters onto the ground. “Though I do wish for a more satisfying kill. I’m in desperate need of a snack.”

Karlach claps a hand on Astarion’s shoulder with enough force that he only just manages to keep his footing. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we can find something else alive for you to sink your fangs into.”

“Does all that blood not quite do it for you, Astarion?” Shadowheart gestures with a raised brow to the drops of blood still dripping off of the surgical table, a nauseating mixture of both the man's and Thorm’s blending together.

“Hardly.” Astarion crinkles his nose at the thick, dark ichor. “I’ve had worse, but it smells terrible and I can’t imagine it tastes much better.”

Rin glances up at Astarion beside her, taking in his somehow paler than normal complexion and a thought hits her, her brow furrowing in consideration.

When was the last time he had fed?

And what on?

He had been subsisting on a diet of—well, mostly her, honestly; along with the occasional forest creature.

Astarion certainly hadn’t tasted her since their last night on the Mountain Pass, longer than he’s ever gone without her blood since his first feed from her all those moons ago.

Rin had become so used to his little visits, popping into her tent during the evening to have his fill of her—blood and more. The absence of them since has felt surprisingly stark, a loss she didn’t realize she would mourn in the wake of the palpable tension that had settled between them no matter how hard they each attempted to ignore it.

For just as surely as he hadn’t drank from her neck, he had not come to taste the rest of her either; their nights spent instead trading remarks back and forth by the fire.

Not that she was complaining.

Quite the contrary.

She had found herself growing quite fond of this new aspect of their relationship that they had eased into; trading stories and anecdotes with each other over a bottle of wine or a game of cards, he reading his books while she plays her music, Astarion working on his stitching as she looks on and inevitably bothers him with her presence.

It was…nice. Normal, almost.

Or whatever their version of nice and normal was.

Rin snaps herself out of her thoughts with a blink and turns to her companions with a nod, hoping the daze she was in doesn’t show on her face. “Right then. Let’s loot, shall we?”

They meander their way about the rest of the room, navigating their way around the bodies and books scattered about the floor, some of the thin pages now soaked with the blood of the fallen. They don’t find terribly much, some gold here or an interesting text there.

But mostly, it’s all useless.

Rin thinks that at one time, the quatrefoil tiles lining the floors of this place must have been beautiful—crisp, clean white contrasting against vibrant blue.

Now, though, they are covered in long streaks of dark, sticky blood, the ichor long staining tile and grout alike; the corners of them chipping as they step over them on their way out of the long hallway at the entry of the building.

Rin falls back beside Astarion as they make their way onto the uneven cobblestones of Reithwin, gnarled roots threatening to trip her as they grow up in between the grooves. With a small smile and nod, she gestures for Shadowheart to take the lead, the cleric walking ahead as her long braid bounces behind her.

She falls into step with him easily, matching his pace as she keeps her eyes ahead, always on the lookout for what the next danger to jump out at them will be.

“Have you been hunting recently?” It’s a casual question, no accusation in her tone as she stretches her arms behind her back.

Astarion casts a surreptitious glance her way, eyes wandering across her profile as she stays looking ahead. “There’s precious little living here, my dear.”

“Then why haven’t you come to me? You’ve never cared about bothering me before when you would pop into my tent unannounced.”

“I-” Astarion looks away from her for a moment before returning his gaze to her. “I assumed you needed a break to…replenish your sources."

His non-answer has one of Rin’s brows drawing up in skepticism, which he readily ignores. However, the thought of him perhaps not coming to her for her own health is almost sweet, if believable.

If.

She’s not so sure that it’s the truth, but she will take it at face value, for now.

“Astarion,” she leans towards him to give him a slight nudge with her elbow, the touch light. “I think my ‘sources’ have been thoroughly replenished. You can feed on me tonight, if you’d like.”

It would be careless of her, as a leader, to let him continue to starve himself. She’s only doing the most responsible thing by offering herself up to him again. It’s for the better of their entire party and Faerûn at large, wasn’t it? The Absolute wasn’t going to just disappear into thin air, after all.

And if it happened to mean she got to spend a little extra time with him—well, that would be nothing more than luck on her part.

“Well, if you’re offering, sweet thing,” His lips curl up in a smirk, eyes alight with a predator’s gleam at the promise of her blood. “Come find me in my tent tonight, darling, and we shall feast.”

“Feast? Shall there be something there for me then, as well?” Rin releases a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and glances up at him with a small, secret smile that has a corner of his mouth turning up in a smirk.

“Only the best for my favorite little treat.”

“Careful, you’ll spoil me.” If only, she thinks, and the thought is terribly traitorous as she bites down on a corner of her lip in hopes of stopping the pink that threatens to rise to her cheeks.

But from the answering smirk on Astarion’s face as they venture further into the into the crushing darkness of Reithwin’s destroyed streets she thinks he must able to glean the thought on his own.

“We can’t have that, now can we?”

✧· · ─── ·✧· ─── · ·✧

Rin steels herself outside the flap of Astarion’s tent, readying herself for whatever waits for her inside. She isn’t sure why she’s so nervous. It wasn’t like he hadn’t fed from her before.

Or slept with her, for that matter.

There’s no flickering flame to be seen from the outside of his tent, nothing to give her any sort of hint of what possibly awaits her inside aside from him, his silhouette undecipherable in the darkness.

With a deep breath, she pulls the flap to the side and steps forward, a familiar scent—rich brandy curling together with earthy rosemary and fresh bergamot—swirling in the air as her eyes land on the vampire in question.

“Well,” Astarion lounges casually against his bedroll as his eyes find her own, leaning back on his elbows with enviable ease as a silver goblet rests beside him. “Hello there, darling.”

Her eyes are drawn to the exposed skin of his chest, the sight of him waiting for her shirtless so reminiscent to that first night together that she pulls up short.

It felt like eons ago, now; her traipsing through the forest outside of the Emerald Grove to find him waiting in a picturesque clearing for her and her alone. While there was no soft grass with charming little flowers to decorate the ground and no glittering moonlight to beam down upon them and highlight their skin as they moved together—she feels just as out of her depth now as she did then, when she had discovered him with his shirt already off and honeyed words just waiting to fall from his lips.

“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long again.” Rin snatches her eyes up from his chest to meet his own, a smirk already decorating his lips at her momentary distraction.

“Oh, I’ll always wait for you, beautiful.” Her eyes roll despite herself as she lets out a huff at such trite words.

“Did you need a nibble or should I see myself out?” She points behind herself to the exit of his tent for emphasis, brow arched.

“Let’s not be hasty, shall we?” Astarion answers a touch too quickly as he sits up a little higher, body tensing as if ready to jump up in the event she were to actually leave. “I would so hate to see you go.”

He must be hungry, then, if he’s so desperate for her presence.

Rin smiles at him as she looks around the tent expectantly, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she spies not a single treat aside from an empty goblet she presumes to be for her. “You know, I recall you promising me a feast.”

Astarion has the audacity to not look even the tiniest bit sheepish as her eyes narrow and her bottom lip juts out into a pout, a noise of frustration escaping from her lips. She should have known better than to trust a vampire when it came to procuring treats.

“I’m short on baked goods, pet, but I can promise you something else delicious instead.” His intent is obvious as he sends her a decidedly suggestive look. “Won’t you give me a show first, though?”

“I didn’t realize you were in need of entertainment, Astarion. I could always bring Volo in to recite some poetry while you dine, if you’d like.”

“A charming idea, to be sure.” Astarion rolls his eyes. “But I was thinking of something a little more…intimate.”

Astarion eyes her form tip to toe as she stands in front of him, but it lacks the casual closeness she’s come to expect from him, something in the forced insincerity of the gesture grating.

“Make yourself comfortable. Stay awhile,” He gestures passively with a wave of his hand through the air towards where she stands as he continues. “Get yourself out of those wretched clothes, for example. You look much prettier without them on, anyways.”

Irritation sparks along the line of her mouth, emerald eyes sharpening as she stares at him. Weeks ago, the words would have had her blushing and the beginnings of desire kindling in her belly; but now they fall lifeless upon her ears, none of the ease and familiarity she has come to enjoy during their little interludes present in them.

The words are merely mechanic—as calculated and practiced as they were on that very first night.

Worse, it doesn’t even seem like he enjoys saying the words, the sound of them hollow as they leave his mouth and the smirk pasted on his lips halfhearted.

It feels utterly obvious once she realizes what he’s trying to do and she can see through his ill-prepared idea with ease, this little power play of his nothing more than a paltry attempt to control their situation, some sort of damage control after the other night.

They’ve both given too much of themselves now to return to the shallow, impersonal relationship they once had whether he likes it or not, and Rin will be damned if she lets him call the shots and force them back to the beginning.

But, if Astarion wants to play a game—well, she’s never been one to turn down an opportunity to win.

Rin looks down at her clothes with a pointed look and while they were perhaps nothing fancy—the oversized linen and worn leather may be simple but they were far from wretched.

“Well. I’d hate to offend your delicate sensibilities.” Her smile is an inch too wide to be believable, betraying her irritation. “Shall I do a twirl for you as well? Or perhaps you would like a little trick?”

Rin holds up her hand, ready to ignis the damned tent if necessary to illustrate her point. Nothing that a few gold and a trip to dear Withers couldn’t fix if she accidentally managed to char him in the process.

“You spoil me darling, really. But I am simple man—” Rin stops him off with a look of admonishment, cutting off his sentence to start her own.

“A simple show for a simple man, then.” She hopes her emphasis on the words will speak loudly enough for him to understand the meaning of them as she mockingly bows towards him.

“I take offense to that assessment, you know.” Astarion huffs with a frown, casting his head aside to instead take a sip of his errant goblet of wine, already forgotten beside him.

His eyes are drawn quickly back to the center of his tent when he hears the soft rustle of fabric, returning to Rin just in time to catch a glimpse of her hands running down the front of her blouse. “It’s a perfectly reasonable one, if you ask me.”

Astarion frowns, opening his mouth to protest before quickly shutting it as her hands reach the waistband of her pants, fingers dipping just beneath the worn leather. Rin raises her brow, a teasing smile forming on her lips now that she has his attention.

Any irritation she feels is tempered by the thrill of Astarion’s gaze so set on her, his complete focus hers and hers alone as honest interest finally sparks to life in those red eyes of his.

With little flourish she begins to pull her leggings down her legs, peeling the pants away from her skin with less grace than she would prefer, but it would have to do. She kicks them to the side once she frees herself from them, uncaring where they land as she adjusts to the cool air of the night against newly bared skin that Astarion’s eyes rove.

“Do you think I should take this off next?” She thumbs at the hem of her shirt, examining the fraying stitching at the hem in desperate need of a mend. She’d have to ask Astarion to do it for her, damn it. “Since you find it so offensive and all that.”

“Be my guest, darling.” He gestures with a hand towards the garment, a corner of his mouth lifting. “I’ll even do you a favor and burn it for you for later.”

“How kind of you to go through all the trouble.”

Rin’s smile is wry as she grabs the hem of her plain tunic and deftly lifts it over her head before dropping it.

It drifts to the ground, fluttering down softly to fall in a graceless heap beside her bare legs, Astarion’s eyes darkening ever so slightly at the sight of her in nothing more than an unadorned corset and plain underwear, upping her confidence tenfold as she lets a corner of her mouth lift.

“I suppose you’ll want to burn this too?” She runs her fingers teasingly across the top edge of the corset, her touch light as she brushes against the cotton and the plush of her breasts where they spill out above the garment.

She hadn’t worn it with the intent of being admired, but when Astarion’s eyes follow every brush of her fingers against her breasts she’s suddenly quite grateful that she had chosen to wear it tonight instead of opting to go without as she normally would have, if only for it to act as a different kind of armor—one last layer to bolster her defenses in a battle she will surely lose.

Astarion swallows, legs shifting slightly as his eyes caress over her curves. “We can negotiate the corset.”

“Your kindness truly knows no bounds.” Her fingers hover over the looped bow that sits at her breasts, tied in a hurry earlier after she had changed out of her armor.

The corset itself was nothing more than a plain ivory cotton—no expensive satin or fine boning—but when she pulls at the laces keeping the pretty little bow tied at the center of her cleavage, the tiniest bit of her full breasts exposed with the motion, the look in Astarion’s eyes could fool her into thinking it was the finest thing he had ever seen.

Little by little, she pulls every cross of the laces, freeing more and more of herself with every delicate yank of her fingers as Astarion’s eyes obediently follow every inch of skin exposed until she reaches the last one, tugging it gently to loosen the final cross.

It hangs loose around her form, the curve of her breasts just visible with the line of skin exposed down her chest. Rin wills her hands to steady under Astarion’s study as she brings them up to the straps on her shoulders, pushing each one off so she can shrug out of the garment.

With one last push, the corset falls to the ground at her feet and she steps out of the circle of it before sending it aside with a soft kick.

Rin’s breasts pebble in the cool air, heat beginning to curl deep in her stomach under Astarion’s watchful gaze. She keeps her limbs loose, relaxed; her face at ease as she meets his eyes.

“You aren’t quite finished yet, my sweet.” Astarion’s voice is tight as he gestures with a brief nod towards her nearly naked form, gaze moving from her bare breasts and down lower to linger on her still-clothed center.

“You know, I think I’ve grown tired of being your entertainment,” She cocks her head to the side, unbound waves of darkened wheat—the color barely discernible in the darkness of his tent—cascading with the movement. “If you want them off so badly, do it yourself.”

He raises a brow in question but obliges her nonetheless, moving from where he had been so indolently reclined against his bedroll as he watches her with keen eyes.

With slow, careful steps Astarion makes his way towards where she stands before him and she is helpless but to admire the way his muscles shift on his lithe form, the grace with which he moves as he stalks closer to her that of a predator on the hunt for his prey.

And what was she, she supposes, if not his prey? It was why she had come here tonight, after all—to let him drink his fill of her blood with his lips at her neck, sucking down her life’s essence to his heart’s content.

She certainly feels like his prey, at least. How could she feel anything but when he moves around her in a slow circle, eyes brushing over her bared skin like a lover’s caress, knowing and intimate.

Astarion moves around her in another perfect circle before he finishes his perusal, stopping to stand behind her close enough to touch, his bare chest almost brushing against her spine. Familiar hands come to her waist as his head lowers to rest upon her shoulder, thumbs rubbing light circles into the skin.

His lips press a featherlight kiss to her jaw that has her catching a breath. “Who said you were in charge here, my dear?”

His touch is electric against her skin, and Rin resists the urge to lean back into him, to press against the coolness of his chest and relish the feeling of his skin on hers. His mouth is terribly distracting where he adorns her with little kisses across the curve of her jaw and down the line of her neck, and she briefly wonders if he means to bite her just like this, held tight in the circle of his arms.

“Whoever said that you were?” Rin counters back with a glance out of the corner of her eye to where his cheek rests against her shoulder, ignoring the wetness that has begun to pool between her thighs.

She has no intention of giving into his every want and demand, or at least not yet.

The hands bracketing her waist begin to move despite his protests, sliding down over her hips with frustrating slowness until he reaches the hem of her embarrassingly simple underwear.

“You really can’t help yourself, can you?” Astarion sighs dramatically against the column of her throat. “Must you be so difficult?"

There’s an unexpected fondness in his voice, an affection that she can’t remember if she’s ever heard so openly from him before that has the air around them changing; shifting from something practiced and performative to familiar and lovely and absolutely perfect.

The sound of it has a shred of something warm blossoming in Rin’s chest—unknown but not entirely unwelcome, she decides.

He plays at the edge of her panties, fingers toying with the thin cotton where it rests against her skin on either hip, his touch sending another wave of heat straight to her core as she bites back a sigh at the sensation.

“You should be aware by now that listening has never been one of my strong suits.”

“Yes, well,” Astarion’s fingers hook into both sides of her underwear before beginning to pull, the garment sliding down over her hips and bottom as Astarion sinks down with it. “You seem to remember how to follow my instructions when it counts, dearest.”

He drops silently to his knees behind Rin, dragging her underwear down her legs as he goes, each slide of the fabric against her skin only serving to heighten the heat kindling inside her. She gingerly steps out of each leg, desperately wishing she could see what he must look like lowered behind her in such a manner—the sight of him on his knees surely one that she has seen in her dreams of him.

But before she can make up her mind to steal a glance or even just turn, Astarion is gliding back up her body, hands glancing against her skin as he goes, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake.

“You know, I thought I came here for you to feed on.” It’s an effort to keep her voice steady as his arms wrap back around her waist, touch cool against her skin.

His head lowers back to her ear, lips brushing against the shell as a shiver of anticipation runs down her spine. “Oh, you did. But I don’t see why we can’t have a little fun as well. It’s been awhile, darling, and I’ve missed you.”

A hand traces down her stomach in a teasing touch; long, sweeping lines of his fingertips back and forth across her skin brushing down until he reaches the apex of her thighs.

Astarion moves at a glacial pace as his fingers dip lower and lower until they find their way to her center, swiping through her folds to spread her essence on the tips of them as Rin’s head falls back onto his shoulder, a sigh escaping her lips as he explores.

“Miss my blood or miss me?” Rin’s lashes flutter shut as he runs his fingers up and down her, careful to avoid the two places she wants him to touch most as she flushes at the evidence of her arousal he finds.

“Can’t it be both?” His fingers finally find her entrance, tracing around the edge in slow circles as she sharply inhales.

She’s not ready to admit how much she wants to believe him that he had missed her, had missed this—the easy intimacy they had been building together bit by bit. It’s a dizzying thought, one that has her heart skipping a beat that he surely can hear this close.

“With you? Unlikely.”

“Why, you think so little of me, darling.” Astarion punctuates his words with the press of a finger slowly in; and were it any other time, the mock outrage coloring his voice would draw a laugh from her.

This time, however, he draws a moan from her instead as he pushes deeper, seating his finger inside her before slowly withdrawing.

“Give me more to think about, then.” Rin sighs, lips opened as she tries to still her hips.

“Only if you ask nicely.” He smiles into her skin, lips brushing against the column of her throat as he pushes back in, sliding home to the knuckle.

Her mind ceases to a halt on whatever clever words she had been preparing when a hand draws up to her breast and cups it, Astarion’s touch a balm against her over-warm skin as he runs his thumb over the hardened peak.

Astarion’s finger moves only barely inside her, but it’s enough for Rin to feel it, friction building in her core with the simple motion. She should be embarrassed by how quickly he has worked her up, her ire so easily forgotten when wrapped in his arms and at the mercy of his skilled hands.

He’s lucky that she likes him, for she would never allow anyone else such lenience. Though, she would never allow anyone else the opportunity to get quite so close to her, either—a thought that borders on terrifying if she thinks too long about it.

A second finger joins the first, and she welcomes the slight stretch as he finally begins to pump them while he mouths at her neck, moving in a steady rhythm that has a fire burning deep in her core as she moans in relief.

Astarion’s pace is easy and unconcerned as he thrusts in and out lazily, slowly building her up higher and higher with every press forward. Her curls pillow against his pale skin as she sighs at the pleasure coursing through her, that welcome heat billowing deep inside her. His thumb finds her clit and rolls against it in soft circles as her lips open in a low moan, limbs tightening at the added touch.

The hand cupping her breast runs back down to her waist to wrap around the circle of it, fingertips stroking her skin as he secures her closer to him and the outline of his cock presses hard against her ass.

Rin can feel the grin he hides in her neck as he breathes in the scent of her and his fingers curl, searching for the place to make her fall apart under his hands. He moves them just right, finding that one spot, and she cries out as her hips buck into his palm.

“Ah, Astarion!”

“Yes, darling?” He curls his fingers again and she practically melts in his hold, the arm he has wrapped around her waist squeezing tighter to keep her upright. “Did you have something you wanted to say?”

He could finish her off so easily, the bastard; only a few more presses of his fingers and she would be done for, but Rin doubts that Astarion has plans to let her off so easily.

Astarion has never outright denied her the release she craves, but he certainly likes to make her work for it.

“Only that I don’t want you to stop.” The words come out sounding more wanting than she would prefer, but she’s beyond the point of summoning up a care.

Astarion tsks, and as if on cue his fingers slow to a stop before pulling them from her body. Rin whines in protest as she lifts her head to glare at him, narrowed eyes meeting amused ones as he simply smirks back at her.

“Sorry, dear, I didn’t catch that.”

Astarion spins her around in his hold, her breasts pressing against his own bare chest as his hands run up and down her waist. A quick glance down and she can see the evidence of his own arousal, his cock pushing urgently against her stomach, still hidden by pants that she needs to rid him of preferably sooner rather than later.

“Liar. You heard me just fine.” Rin’s arms wrap around his shoulders as she leans in closer to him.

“It’s neither here nor there.” Astarion begins to walk her back, the two of them stepping together as he leads her towards his bedroll. “There’s no need to rush. Now, lay down.”

Rin arches her brow at his bossiness, but doesn’t argue as she lowers herself to the ground and spreads herself out on his bedroll. She frowns when she sits, the surface not nearly as soft as it should be, an unfamiliar hardness beneath her.

“Astarion, what in the hells is it that I am sitting on?” She shifts to peek underneath the blankets, spying some sort of wooden thing underneath her.

“Are you really going to ruin the mood to ask me about something so stupid? You are truly impossible.” Astarion looks down on her with a pointed scowl as he moves to kneel down before her, his lithe muscles shifting as he crawls over to her in smooth movements.

“I’m not the one sleeping on a plank of wood every night. Have you no standards for good night’s trance? No wonder you’re so touchy all the time.”

He’s upon her in mere moments, an elegant hand finding the space just below her collar bone as he only answers her with a stern look. This thumb runs along the line of it, brushing against the skin as his eyes follow the motion.

Rin looks down at the hand poised on her chest, so pale against the sun-warmed gold of her own, and brings her own up to run fingertips down the back of his. She swears she can see him shiver at the touch, a barely noticeable intake of his breath as her hand rests on top of his.

Astarion’s eyes cut up to hers, and with a raise of his brow, he pushes her backwards.

Rin lets him do it, lowering herself back with the help of his little push until her head hits his pillow, a rush of his scent surrounding her as she lays. His hand still rests on the skin of her chest, the weight of it like a scorching brand as she stares up at Astarion as he cages himself above her.

She doesn’t know what he sees when he looks down upon her, hair most likely curling in an unruly halo around her head and cheeks undoubtedly colored an unbecoming shade of pink, but his eyes run over what feels like every inch of her face before his hand begins to move, tracing a featherlight line down her skin.

Her stomach jumps underneath the drag of his fingertips as his touch stops low, their eyes meeting together in a heated glance as Rin waits with bated breath.

Astarion’s head lowers towards her, and her heart beats a little faster at the thought of his lips meeting hers, the want she has been blatantly ignoring the past week begging to break free from its confines safe in the corner of her mind.

But instead, Astarion’s lips find her neck, placing a kiss on the two pinprick scars that decorate the column of it before running them across her skin—kissing over her collar, upon the peak of her breast, down her ribs one by one.

She gasps at the feeling as he drags his lips down her body, her skin flushed with desire.

He’s kissing the sensitive skin just below her stomach with teasing presses of his lips when she speaks, breathless and wanting. “Astarion, don’t you want to feed?”

Cool hands travel down the curve of her waist and over her hips before reaching her soft skin of her thighs, palms running over the tops of them as he settles himself in between her legs.

“Oh, I do.” Astarion makes to spread her thighs further, pushing them wide. “Don’t you worry, my dear, I’ll get my fill.”

Rin’s cheeks fill with heat as he moves his gaze to her bare center, running claret eyes over her as she sucks in a breath. With little ceremony, his head moves forward and his tongue glides along her center, lapping at her wetness.

Her hips buck up into Astarion’s face as she reaches down to grab at his soft, downy curls as he circles the pearl at the top of her sex, the tip of his tongue light as he traces shapes along it.

He laps at her clit as she tries to quiet her mouth, holding back her moans and cries as best she can as he works her up ever higher. With a last circle, Astarion’s tongue ventures further down, abandoning her clit to instead run through her folds, groaning at the taste of her before exploring the wetness that has collected at her entrance.

“Asta—” Rin gasps sharply as his tongue traces around the edge of her, so like he had with his finger earlier—ever teasing. He dips in her entrance, the tip of it whorling against her before pushing deeper.

Her hands scrabble for purchase in his hair as he licks inside her, eating her out in earnest as her thighs tremble around his head. She swears that she can feel him chuckle against her as he tastes, tongue curling inside her as she grasps his soft curls harder between her fingers.

He thrusts his tongue deep and she keens, back arching off the bedroll as her hips roll against his mouth, chasing the heat coiling deep inside her with every press of his tongue. It’s a different sensation than that of his fingers, but no less welcome or wonderful as the feeling in her belly tightens more and more.

She’s terribly close when his mouth leaves her, and she mourns the loss of his tongue for mere seconds before he fills her with fingers that press urgently, curling just right as his lips kiss their way to her thigh.

“Do it.” She spreads wider for him, and she can hear his satisfied hum against her skin before he opens his mouth and sinks his teeth in the tender flesh of her inner thigh.

The familiar ice of his bite hurts far too good, the frosty pain warring against the heat surging through her limbs as he drinks from her, blood running in scarlet rivulets down her thigh to stain the worn blanket beneath her.

Astarion’s messy as he drinks, her hips writhing in time with the fingers still artfully working inside her. Her back arches as she tries to quiet her cry, a fist curling into the threadbare blanket below her.

The metallic scent of iron tinges the air of the tent as he drinks and Rin can’t help the moan that falls from her open mouth at the feeling of his lips on her skin, sucking and licking and—gods, kissing.

“There, please.” His fingers hit perfectly, over and over again, and her thighs tremble. “Please don’t stop.”

Astarion sucks hard at the bite as she begs, fingers keeping pace with the movement of her hips as he drinks down another surge of her blood. With only a few more presses of his fingers, curving just right to hit exactly where she needs him, Rin comes.

A hand unclenches from the blanket to cover her mouth as she muffles her moan into her palm, back arching as precious heat courses through her limbs and her hips writhe.

Pleasure whites out her thoughts as Astarion fucks her through her orgasm with his fingers; lips and mouth still pullings sips of her blood from her thigh all the while.

She comes back to herself as his fingers slow and he peppers kisses to her leg, lapping up any stray drops as they fall from the wound. Astarion pulls his fingers from her gently, another hum of satisfaction breaking free as he brings them to his mouth and sucks, tongue licking her come clean from the digits.

She’s still floating in a euphoric haze when Astarion finally rises from between her thighs, appetite sated and pale skin flushed with the slightest hint of pink from the blood that once belonged to her now flowing through his veins.

His mouth is glistening with her—her blood, her arousal, her scent. She’s entranced by the sight of it as Astarion licks his rouged lips, tongue swiping at a small drop of blood at the corner of his mouth that threatens to roll down his chin.

“Did I taste as good as you had hoped?” Rin’s chest heaves as she tries to catch her breath in the aftermath, the words no more than a whisper.

A corner of Astarion’s mouth lifts upward as he runs his eyes over her; from his mark on her thigh, over her sex, and up her flushed form beneath him until he meets her eyes. “Better.”

Rin’s breath hitches as he kisses his way back up her body with warmed lips, leaving a trail of red upon her skin with every touch of his lips, small blooms of her crimson blood like stains of watercolor.

He kisses up the valley between her breasts before turning his head, lips running over the plump curve of one before capturing her nipple, sucking at it before flicking his tongue against the bud. Rin’s back arches at the unexpected touch, more heat already kindling as he gives it a hard suck.

Astarion pops off her breast to kiss towards its twin, her hands burying back in his hair as he sucks at her other nipple, laving it with his tongue as a whine breaks free from her lips before she urges him higher, fingertips running through his curls.

He obliges, placing one last kiss upon the tip of her breast before moving to bury his head in her neck, licking a line up the column of her throat, the very tip of his tongue tracing a thrumming vein.

Rin wraps her arms around his shoulders, hands running over the corded muscle as he slots himself between her legs, his still-clothed erection brushing against the too-sensitive skin of her thighs.

It simply wouldn’t do, she decides.

“Let me touch you. Please,” she runs her hands down his chest to dance over his skin until she reaches the waistband of his pants, his cock painfully hard as it strains against the fabric. “I want to touch you, Astarion.”

She’s taking a chance by asking, but it’s one she’s willing to try her luck for.

Despite how many times she’s enjoyed the feeling of him inside her or how well he’s come to learn her body, he’s never quite allowed her the same opportunity to touch or taste him.

She knows enough of his past—he’s told her plenty of the many different people he had taken for Cazador against his will and under duress, his body used without the ability and choice to say no.

“I want to make you feel good too, Astarion.” Rin peers up into his eyes, fingers no longer trailing along him as she pauses, waiting patiently for a real answer. “Do you trust me?”

His gaze is intense as it meets her own, the heated desire in his eyes tempering for a moment to give way to a tentative vulnerability that crosses over them as he considers her words.

“I-” Astarion speaks softer than she had expected as he breaks off, gaze intent on hers as the weight of the implication that he has a choice—one that is his and his only to make—bears down on him. “—I do.”

“Only if you want me to. You have to promise me that you want it.” She urges, hands flattening on his abdomen as excitement stirs in her chest.

“Fine. I promise that I want it.” Astarion snaps, but his words lack any real bite as a corner of his lips quirk up into a crooked smile. “Show me what you’ve got, then, if you’re so eager.”

Rin moves slow as her hand slides back down his pants and over the curve of his hardened length, caressing him over the fabric as she feels him, cupping his length softly before flitting back up to join the other still at the waist of his pants.

Astarion’s breath catches at her touch before on his own hands comes down to help as she pushes the barrier down, freeing his length from the confines of his clothes. In a smooth motion, his pants and underwear are down his legs and off, baring his erection.

Precome shines at the tip of his cock as she runs her fingers down him in a barely there caress from top to bottom, his length twitching with the motion as Astarion draws in a harsh breath.

Her eyes stay on his as she grazes the soft skin again, watching for any sign she should stop as she runs her fingers along a prominent vein that runs along the side of him.

He’s velvet soft under her palm as she wraps her fingers around his shaft, giving him an experimental pump of her hand, touch gentle as she revels in the feel of him.

“Is this alright?” Rin looks up at him from under lowered lashes.

Her hand glides up, brushing over the head of him as she collects the precome leaking from his slit, running her fingers over it before caressing down to the base once more.

“By all means, please continue.” Rin knows he means for the words to be casual and unaffected, but there’s already a telling breathiness to Astarion’s words that has her smirking.

The weight of him in her hand is nothing short of perfect as she gently wraps her fist around him, stroking him. Astarion moans and it’s the easily one of the most beautiful things Rin’s ever heard, the sound of it sending a spike of heat to her core.

She brings her other hand to her mouth, running her tongue over her palm before it joins the other around his cock and the added bit of glide has Astarion gasping as his hips jump.

His head falls heavy onto her shoulder as she works him, careful pumps of his length bringing him closer to the edge far faster than she ever thought possible with only her touch.

His cock weeps as Rin glides her fingers over the crown of him again, collecting more of the precome that glistens at the tip. Her hands move together, one carefully massaging the head of his cock while the other strokes at the base, the breathy moans leaving Astarion’s lips only serving to spur her on further as she works him closer to the edge.

“Does this feel good, Astarion?”

“Gods, yes.” He shudders in response, lips open against her skin as he presses a messy kiss into her shoulder.

Her palms move faster, intent on his undoing, his pleasure at her hands nothing short of exhilarating.

Gods, she would let him come wherever he wanted. Onto her stomach, across her breasts, down her throat—the thought is enough to send another spark of electricity to her empty core.

“Ah, darling,” Astarion’s voice is tight as he buries his face deeper into her neck, hips bucking into her hand as she works him from the crown of his cock to the base, his breathing getting harder with every stroke. “Much more and you’ll spoil the main event.”

“I’ll stop, if that’s what you want.” Rin slows her motions as he catches his breath against the column of her throat, so close to his own completion she can practically feel it in the way his body shakes above her own, muscles quivering with the want of release. “But would it be so awful if you were to come like this? On my hands, all over my skin?”

Astarion raises his head from her neck, pupils blown wide and hair thoroughly disheveled as he pants. “Decidedly not, but I think I want to fill that sweet cunt of yours tonight instead.”

“If you say so.” She brings one of the hands that had been stroking him to her mouth, the tip of her tongue peeking out between her lips to lap at a shining string of precome still sticking to her skin, savoring the flavor of him for the very first time.

Astarion swallows hard, eyes fixated on the pink of her tongue as she wraps her mouth around the tip, sucking lightly. She smiles sweetly around it, lips pink and plush, as she sends him a wink.

With a soft pop, she pulls her finger out of her mouth before moving to twine her arms around his neck, running through the soft curls at his nape. “I wouldn’t mind getting to taste more of you, either, if you’d let me.”

“Salacious girl. Whatever am I supposed to do with you?” That same fondness from earlier sneaks back into his words as she gazes up at him with as much innocence as she can muster.

“Hmm,” Rin muses, pretending to think through her answer as her fingers toy with his hair. “Whatever you want, I suppose.”

“Whatever I want?” Astarion’s brows raise in mock surprise. “You might come to regret those words, darling.”

“I find that sometimes I don’t mind being at your mercy.”

“Your self-preservation instincts need some reevaluating, my dear.”

“Is that what you think?” She laughs as her fingertips abandon his wild curls to dance absentmindedly across the lines of his shoulders.

“What I think is that these wandering hands of yours are trouble.” Astarion leans down to whisper into her ear, a smirk decorating his lips as they brush against the point of them. “It’s a pity I don’t have any pretty ribbon at my disposal to tie them up with.”

Nimble fingers move to find and circle her wrists with surprising delicacy as he removes them from around his neck to instead guide her arms up to rest around her head.

Desire pools deep in her belly at the mere mention and she doesn’t even try to fight against Astarion’s hold, not when there’s nothing she wants more than to be at the mercy of his hands.

“So, you’ll just have to be a good girl and keep these up here for me.” His hands encircle her wrists so very easily as he applies the slightest bit of pressure on them to illustrate his point. “Can you do that? I know you have a very hard time following directions.”

“I’ll try my hardest, but I make no promises.”

His hands slide down from her own where he left them resting above her head as he rises back to his knees, running over her breasts to anchor at her waist before he takes in the sight of her—warm skin and eyes bright and utterly alive.

He fits perfectly between her thighs as he moves his hips to slide his length through her folds, her slick coating him with every pass.

“No touching,” Astarion tuts. “Don’t forget.”

“Like I said, no promises. But I’ll give it a fair shot.” Rin grinds her hips against his erection, still gliding up and down her slit.

Astarion’s only response is a raise of his brow as he positions himself at her entrance, the head of his cock barely pressing against her as he smirks, moving his hips away every time she tries to move hers forward.

Teasing. Always, always teasing.

Rin rolls her hips against his own as Astarion finally pushes forward, hilting himself inside her warmth in a smooth thrust, twin moans escaping from their lips at the feeling as he fills her completely.

His hands caress down to her thighs where they open for him, thumbs running up and down soft skin marred only by the red of his own bite, the marks smeared with still drying blood.

Astarion’s hips finally move, pulling away from hers only to push forward again until he bottoms out, burying himself deep. Rin relishes the feel of him moving inside her with a soft moan as she throws her head back against his pillow, back arching as he settles his hands on her hips to pull her deeper onto his cock.

His thumbs grip into her skin as he thrusts into her, hips meeting her own with long, deep strokes that have her trying and failing to hold back the little noises of pleasure that loose from her lips.

She yearns to move her hands from where they still rest above her head—yearns to drag her fingers across his skin or wrap her arms around his neck to draw him closer to her—but she resists the temptation, settling on moving her hips instead.

Rin grinds against his cock buried deep inside her as she moves her hips to match his own, thrust for thrust, the slide of him achingly flawless as they move together.

“Gods, you’re absolutely perfect.” The words slip out of Astarion’s lips, murmured low on a hard thrust. She tightens around him as the praise washes over her, lips opened on a barely restrained whimper as her lashes lower.

He’s more than beautiful in the darkness as he throws his head back on a moan, the drag of his cock smooth as he hits deep and she craves more—more closeness, more of his touch, more of his lips.

“Kiss me,” she gasps and instantly regrets the words and the desperation of them as her hands still lay obediently above her head, her back arching with every thrust.

Astarion’s hips stutter, losing their rhythm as he looks down at her, fixating on the petal pink of her lips, and Rin’s heart practically stops at what she sees when he looks at her.

A hand traces its way up from her hip to grab hold of her chin, touch firm as Astarion’s eyes move away from her lips to stare into her own, searching for something in the verdant depths of them. His gaze is alight with a precious heat that threatens to burn every inch of her—the fire she’s secretly dreamed of seeing there in his eyes when he looks at her.

His lips crash into hers with no words or preamble, meeting her half way as she surges her head up and their lips press together. Her arms lift, leaving their resting place above her head to wrap around his neck as Astarion’s tongue runs against the seam of her lips in askance, her own parting eagerly for him.

She can taste the remnants of herself on his lips, both the richness of her cunt and the metallic tang of her blood; and it’s heady, it’s divine as his lips chase after her own as they kiss and kiss and kiss, his hips still joined with hers all the while.

The hand that had been poised on her chin strokes upward, running over the plane of her cheek in a barely there touch that has her heart stuttering as their lips move.

Gods, she’d been wishing for the feeling of his lips on hers, and if the only way she can get it is when he fucks her, then so be it.

It’s not the only kind of kiss she wants from him but it’s the kiss she will take, desperate despite her every wish otherwise.

She’s gasping when Astarion finally breaks the kiss, taking in precious breaths of air as his lips lift only just away from hers. His hips slow and Rin looks questioningly up at Astarion, arms still twined tightly around his neck.

A small burst of panic bubbles up in her chest as she feels him slide out her, hips pulling away from hers to leave her empty; and worry that she had perhaps done something wrong or said something she shouldn’t have fills her mind.

“Astarion? Is everything alright? Did I—” she cuts herself off as the hand at her cheek brushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear while its twin travels up her thigh to curve around her waist, urging her body upwards with a gentle pull.

“Let’s try something a little different, hm? Now, up.”

His hold is tight—secure—as they both shift to sitting, Astarion helping her along the way until she is upright in his lap, knees on either side of his thighs as she hovers.

“Now, tell me, sweet thing. Have you ever been fucked like this before?” His eyes pierce into her own as a hand curls around the back of her head, fingers tangling in her curls.

“No.” Rin shakes her head from side to side, biting her lip as his length finds her entrance once more, pushing with the barest hint of pressure against her.

“Good.”

With a swift thrust, Astarion sheathes himself inside of her as his lips capture hers, swallowing her answering moan as Rin arches against his chest. The hand wrapped around her waist travels down, fingertips squeezing into the flesh of her ass to help guide her hips up and down his cock.

They’re on equal footing like this, noses brushing against each other’s as their bodies work, Rin’s hips meeting Astarion’s own in a smooth cadence. The closeness—the intimacy of it—is intoxicating as their lips meet again and again, arms wrapped around each other as their fingertips dig into each other’s skin.

It’s not as fast or as hard as she’s used to, but somehow it’s better—the lack of quick thrusts is made up for instead by hard rolls of their hips, Astarion reaching the deepest part of her core as they hold each other close, not an bit of space between them.

His length brushes against what feels like every inch of her walls, sending sparks through her body as the heat coiling in her stomach rises higher with every move they make.

Rin is only mildly aware of the marks he left on her thigh breaking open once more, tiny drops of her blood leaving ruby red smears against both her and Astarion’s flesh as her hands map the planes of his face and their lips press.

Any other time, she would be blushing at the noise of their bodies moving together, the wet glide of his length driving in and out of her and the sound of skin on skin audible in the confines of Astarion’s tent; but instead she’s unabashed as she moves up and down his cock and he thrusts up to meet her, moans falling freely from both of their mouths as their kiss breaks.

She’s getting closer and she can tell he is too, the intensity of his thrusts only getting harder and deeper as every roll of his hips has his length brushing against her sweet spot as she loses her rhythm against him as her body begins to quake.

“Eyes on me.” Astarion’s forehead presses into hers as her lashes flutter, the height of her pleasure curling around her, ephemeral and just out of reach.

The heat burning inside her reaches a crescendo, his name whispered from her lips on a broken gasp as her hold on him tightens, fingertips digging into his skin.

She’s tremulous as she tightens around him and he kisses her moans from her, quieting the sound of them as her hands grasp for purchase around his shoulders and he pumps his cock, hitting the very same spot that never fails to have her falling apart in his arms.

Rin sees stars behind her eyes as she tumbles over the edge of the crest, constricting hard on him as she comes on a near silent cry. Her hips writhe as Astarion holds her steady despite the ragged moan that falls from his lips as he watches her fall apart with half-lidded eyes.

She’s clinging to him as she rides out the rest of her orgasm on the hardened length still thrusting inside her, Astarion working her through the waves of pleasure that suffuse through her limbs.

A dreamy, hazy euphoria descends over her like a fog as she finally comes back to herself, her first thought to press another kiss to the pair of lips that still brush against hers.

Rin takes a lungful of air on a deep breath, beginning to move her hips against his once more despite the contented exhaustion blanketing her as she speaks with a soft, teasing lilt. “I thought you were going to come in my sweet cunt, Astarion.”

“Still the plan, darling.” Astarion’s lost in his own pleasure as he speaks, eyes fixated on her own as his hips snap hard into hers.

The hand on her ass tightens, fingertips near bruising as Astarion’s thrusts begin lose their rhythm in the wake her orgasm, the feeling of her cunt spasming around his length as she had come only serving to drive him closer to his own completion.

Her fingertips run down his cheek as he looks at her, his control breaking on every push of his hips that she meets readily.

“Then do it,” She whispers. “Please come for me, Astarion.”

Rin presses her mouth to his in a hard kiss, gasping as he changes the angle of his thrusts to hit the very end of her cunt.

At her words, Astarion follows her over the edge, moaning his ecstasy into her lips as he comes. His hips rut frantically against hers, spilling himself inside her with unrestrained thrusts.

Rin grasps him tighter as his orgasm rushes through him, taking each and every sound that falls from him as he works through the waves of pleasure coursing through his limbs.

Finally, Astarion’s hips slow to a halt as their chests heave, still locked in their embrace, the haze of the aftermath floating around them. His lips press against hers one last time before he ducks his head to fit against her neck, breathing in the scent of her.

Rin’s not sure how long they stay like that, both catching their breath as her arms hang loose around him, Astarion’s face still buried in her neck as his fingers grip around waist.

Eventually, it’s Astarion who moves first, gently pulling his softened cock from her as he lifts his head and leans back towards his bedroll, taking her down with him.

They lay next to each other on the ruined blanket, a light sheen of sweat sticking to their skin.

“That was—” Astarion starts, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to push it out of his face.

Rin finishes the sentence for him, her heart still beating in a staccato rhythm. “Amazing? Fantastic? The best sex you’ve ever had?”

“Well, you think quite highly of yourself, don’t you?” Astarion turns his head to face her, brow raised.

Rin leans in, bumping their foreheads together in a light touch before whispering her reply on a smile. “That wasn’t a no.”

Astarion rolls her eyes and she laughs, and she swears she can see the slightest hint of pink coloring his cheeks, no doubt from the help of her blood still running through him.

He sits up, stretching his arms above his head, the muscles in his back shifting and Rin lets out an appreciative hum at the sight.

“Oh, and Astarion.” Rin smiles as she rolls her shoulders, settling further into the blanket. “If you burn my shirt, I will be forced to take action. Possibly with a knife. Just so we’re clear.”

His head whips back to glance at her, a wicked look in his eye. “Flirting again already? Give me a moment to recover, dearest.”

Astarion’s eyes skate down her naked form, still lying in a boneless heap upon his bedroll.

“Gods, look at you. You’re an absolute mess.” She can feel the blood drying on her thighs and on the spots where he had left bloodied kisses up her body, his come threatening to spill out of her with even the slightest movement. “Get ahold of yourself, darling.”

“An absolute mess that you made.” Rin peeks down to look at herself, skin still flushed and dotted with red marks in the vague shape of his lips.

“I’d gladly make it again, too.” Astarion turns back to the side, reaching for a spare decanter of presumably water and grabbing a piece of soft cloth.

“I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement.”

She takes in the bloodied blanket beneath her as she hazards a stretch, reaching her arms above her head as her feet point, back arching as she comes up to her elbows.

“Has anyone ever told you that your bedroll is absolutely awful? How you manage to sleep on something so hard is beyond my ability to imagine. We should steal you a new one.”

Even with the awful plank beneath her, it would be so easy to stay on a night like tonight. Too easy to imagine settling into his side, the now familiar contours of his body beside her own as they rested together, limbs tangling. She’s never slept in anyone’s arms before that she can remember, and she wonders how it must feel to spend hours simply wrapped in Astarion’s embrace and then to wake up next to him at first light.

Please ask me to stay.

The words come from a deep, dark part of her mind unbidden; but the wanting they bring with them threatens to ruin her as her heart beats harder.

“Or you could always come share mine, I guess. I promise I’ll keep you nice and warm.” It’s a risk speaking those kind of words, Rin crossing a line they’ve never dared to before.

Astarion’s body tenses slightly, the line of his shoulders stiffening.

He dips the mouth of the decanter over onto a spare cloth to wet it before turning back to her, expression strangely blank. The sight of it puts her ill at ease, as if the warm intimacy they had shared had been snuffed out like a candle’s flame.

Astarion runs the cloth over her form, erasing any evidence of him from her skin. His spend, the blood on her thighs, the messy kisses up her chest—all of it gone with a simple brush of water on cloth.

She nods her thanks, her heart sinking as regret burns in her throat.

“Well, it’s been lovely. You’re always such a treat.” Astarion summons a veil across his eyes, an empty smirk on his lips as he sets the cloth to the side. “You should go get some sleep, darling. Who knows who else you’ll need to convince to kill themselves tomorrow.”

It’s like a slap to the cheek—cold water to wake her from the warm embrace of a dream. It wasn’t the first time he had said such words to her, but this is the first time she realizes that she hates them with every fibre of her being.

“Oh.” She bites her lip, hoping she hides her disappointment well enough; but from the way Astarion averts his gaze to focus on an invisible point on other side of the tent, she doesn’t need to worry much. “I suppose you do need your beauty sleep, don’t you? Far be it from me to get in the way.”

Rin doesn’t want to hear what he has to say, she decides, as she pulls herself up to sitting beside him. She’s not certain she can look at him either, not at the cool and aloof expression that seems to have taken residence across his features.

He hadn’t looked like that when he kissed her.

No, he had looked the exact opposite, his expression mirroring the longing she knows had been etched onto her own as their lips had met.

Without a word, Rin stands and walks over the blankets heaped along the floor to where her clothes lay discarded in a heap, her footsteps soft against the ground.

Silently, she redresses, not bothering with the corset as she leaves it unlaced at her feet and pulls the rest of her clothes back on with perfunctory ease. Her tunic is partially over her head when she dares a look back at Astarion, the collar floating down to rest against her skin as she turns her head.

His face is imperceptible as he watches her, sitting still as stone. She forces a small smile, hoping that the dejection she feels doesn’t come across as she speaks to him one last time for the evening.

“Sleep well, Astarion.”

Astarion nods his head, a clear dismissal if she’s ever seen one. “Until the morning, darling.”

Until the morning, indeed.

Until the morning, where they’ll pretend everything is fine and nothing has changed as they play around each other in some sort of tiring, endless game.

And maybe Astarion can. Maybe, for him, nothing ever did change.

Rin doesn’t know quite what it is that they are building towards; but between the little bits of their lives shared with one another, the tiny little secrets that bare ragged pieces of their souls, the long evenings spent by the side of the fire laughing and talking and playing games, between the kisses and caresses and the meeting of their eyes—it feels like something.

Something more than simply being bedmates.

With a single, deep breath she reaches down to grab her corset, collecting it in hand as she turns and walks out the front flap of his tent without another look back, unable to promise she can keep her expression even in the face of his seemingly cold indifference.

Rin keeps her eyes ahead as she walks by the campfire, Gale politely looking the other way, not commenting on how she must look or what he must have heard—her hair is undoubtedly a mess, corset rumpled in hand, lips still too swollen to be confused with being anything other than readily kissed.

She withholds the sigh that threatens to break free as she makes her way towards her tent, and she’s grateful that at least there is no one else by the fire to witness the utterly pathetic sight of her as she keeps her eyes straight forward.

“I hope you know what you are doing.” Gale’s voice stops her before she can step into her tent, and she freezes, shifting the corset in hand in hopes of hiding it better, though she knows it’s useless. “I say this with the utmost respect, you understand. As your friend.”

Rin can hear the slightest bit of judgment in the words despite the kindness of them but she shakes it off. She probably deserves his judgment, in the end.

She pastes a weak smile on her face, squeezing the corset tighter in her hand as she turns to look at the wizard where he sits by the fire, a familiar spell book in hand.

“It’s all good Gale, nothing to worry about. I promise.”

“I trust your judgement, then. Sleep well, my friend.” Gale gives her a polite nod, but the look on his face says that he’s thoroughly unconvinced by her words.

Such aspiring confidence her companions have in her, it seems.

Rin certainly doesn’t blame him for it.

She can barely convince herself of the fact, after all.

With one last sigh she walks through the flap of her tent, letting it flutter shut behind her as she steps inside the familiar surroundings she now calls home.

It smells like it always does, jasmine and honey hanging in the air, and not a one of her possessions is out of place—however few of them she has.

But as she drops the corset on the ground, she can’t help but feel that something is missing.

Hands come up to cover her eyes as she presses the heel of her palms into them, hoping to rid her mind of such thoughts, however there’s no comfort to be found as shapes swirl on the back of her eyelids.

If she had any sense at all, she would quit while she was still ahead and could leave somewhat unscathed from whatever this thing growing between them is.

But she knows herself better than that.

She knows that, instead of stopping this and sparing herself the almost inevitable promise of pain that their little affair will bring, she will pull herself back together just in time to face the darkness of the morning and pretend that everything is just fine—all the while knowing deep down that she will keep making the same mistake over and over again and relish it every single time.

#this chapter wrecked me lmao it's so goddamn long #but I hope you all enjoy it!!#astarion x tav #astarion x f!tav #astarion x female tav #astarion bg3 #astarion fanfiction #astarion smut #verbenaa writes things!

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buffyfan145 · 2 days

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Another great episode with ep 2.6 of "Rings of Power" today!!! 😀 So much happened in it and we only have 2 more episodes!!! Lots to talk about behind the cut but I think I figured out the whole "who Galadriel is kissing" thing and it's not any of the "leaks" we saw as I think the promo for next week showed part of it but something I wondered about when I first heard Morfydd say it. 😏 Also I loved hearing Elendil's dad Amandil being mentioned as I always loved his name is so similar to mine. LOL

I loved the episode and so much happened!!! All of Sauron's scenes were amazing, as well as Celebrimbor's. Both Charlies brought it again and I feel so bad for Celebrimbor. We all what's going and it's so sad. Then seeing Sauron use more of his Maiar powers and doing what we call the mind palace manipulating to Celebrimbor. And him saying the world "precious" twice!!! Then also seeing Sauron with the dwarves and likely calling up the balrog, and then the siege starting. We also finally got to see Charlie Rich too playing one of the elves.

Then everything with Galadriel and Adar was great too!!! 😀 I loved their conversations about Sauron and how Adar figured out Halbrand was Sauron. Also he knows Galadriel lied to him about what Sauron offered her too. I'm curious how he thinks combing Morgoth's crown (which I didn't expect as that does go a bit against the books as Morgoth has that crown around his neck in the Void keeping him there) with Nenya will kill Sauron for good. We know that won't happen and that Sauron actually still didn't die when Frodo destroyed the ring, as he's still out there in Middle Earth as a formless spirit. So curious again how this is going to play out in the finale with Galadriel and Sauron as she won't kill him.

Then that brings me to the kiss that's coming for Galadriel and seeing the promo for next week's ep I do think it's Celebrimbor. There's part of the promo where she's with him in his forge and she's holding his face kneeling beside him on the floor. I think this is likely when he's dying and it's making me wonder if she tries to save him via a kiss, like she did with Gandalf in "The Hobbit" movies, but it doesn't work and he dies in her arms. The thing with the banner happens after his death with the orcs so it's possible this is how he dies, and if the show got the rights to that 1st Age story about how Celebrimbor was in love with Galadriel but she fell in love with Celeborn they could work that in too that she's with him when he dies. I can see them doing this and his death is tragic already but I also wouldn't mind if when he does die she's with him so he's not alone. So all those "leaks" about the kiss are likely all false if this is really what happens, and I'm totally ok with this as even being a Haladriel shipper I didn't think they'd go that far with a kiss this early in the show (though I can tell they've confirmed they both have feelings for each other) and the whole thing with Elrond are lies made up to make us shippers angry. We'll see if I'm right but I do believe this likely is what is happening.

Back to kisses the Poppy and Merimac one was cute. And I thought Elendil and Mirel were going to 3 times. LOL 😀 The whole Numenor storylines this episode was great!!! I loved Miriel was able to prove she's still queen and it extends the whole Faithfull vs The King's Men more as we've got a ways to go before Sauron gets there hopefully back in his Halbrand form. But now Ar-Pharazon knows that Halbrand is Sauron and he needs him!!! Also, loved how Elendil was looking very much like Aragorn and even Halbrand in this episode.

Even more convinced The Stranger is Gandalf after his talk with Tom Bombadil and the thing he said to him that is almost exactly what Gandalf said in the movies. I do think The Stranger/Gandalf is going to go save Nori, Poppy, and the stoors and that's likely when we find out his name is Gandalf. Curious if he'll face the Dark Wizard (who is likely a Blue wizard) this season or if that will be next.

So excited for the final 2 episodes of season 2!!! Though I know the 2 year wait will be coming after that. Also looking forward to those scenes of Adar and Elrond next week that were in the trailer too.

#the lord of the rings #the rings of power #spoilers #sauron #celebrimbor #galadriel #adar #haladriel #galadriel x halbrand #halbrand #the stranger #gandalf #tom bombadil #elendil #miriel #ar pharazon

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hollowed-theory-hall · 1 day

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ok so what are some of the changes you would want in the upcoming harry potter hbo series. and since your blog is Harry centric so I'll ask how do you want him to be portrayed in the series ? what traits of him do you think the series makers should shine more light on ?

Okay, I have, like, a list of things I didn't like in the movies and could be improved upon by the show. The list I have here isn't just about things the show could improve, but also things I want to see in the show in general. I think most of my opinions are pretty common, though.

(Also I'm not sure how good the show will be, like, I'm somewhat hopeful, but also very cautious with my expectations. We should start getting casting announcements around in a few months, which could help indicate where this show is going)

Regardless, here's my list of top concerns for the upcoming show:

Harry's character

This is the one you questioned specifically and one that could make or break the show for me. I want Harry's sass and anger, I don't want him to be a self-insert for the audience the way he was in the movies. I want his actual character. The sass, anger, and tenacity that is Harry Potter combined with his kindness, compassion, and sometimes clueless awkwardness. Let him be smart, clever, and talented.

Harry in the books is so much more than "just Expeliarmos" and the fact people could think that about Harry is a legitimate crime against his character the movies committed. Truly character assassination that Harry isn't an exceptional wizard with the world's lowest self-esteem and cheeky attitude.

(Also, for the love of god, give him green eyes, please. Contacts exist for a reason and it'll be a good way to differentiate the new actor from Radcliffe)

2. Ron & Hermione's characters

I could probably just put a "make all characters like in the books" category since this is true for a lot of them.

Specifically for the other two members of the Golden Trio, I want Hermione to have her flaws, and Ron to be smart. He is talented and smart and just as skilled as Harry and Hermione. He isn't the dumb comic relief and I'm so mad the movies made him such. And Hermione isn't a perfect Mary Sue who can do no wrong. Let her put Rita in a jar. Let her show how much she actually appreciates Ron and Harry and their approach to problems, different as it is to hers.

3. Voldemort's everything

I didn't like Voldemort's design, I didn't like his characterization, I didn't like how he spoke, how he walked — none of it felt like Voldemort to me.

I want Voldemort to be scary, not some odd caricature of himself. Give me a Voldemort design that looks scary. Give him the red eyes, and make him look actually skeletal. And let him move elegantly, talk softly. He isn't shouting and throwing tantrums, usually, he is very deliberate in what he says and does.

Also, give him his weird sense of humor. In the books, he makes bad puns ("Wormtail is here to lend a hand"), I like my villains a little campy with bad puns but also terrifying.

4. Dumbledore's everything

Well, honestly, I have no complaints about Dumbledore in the first movie, my problems started after he was recast.

I want Dumbledore to speak softly. I need an actor who could say "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" and make it work. I want an actor who'd smile like he knows things you don't as his eyes fucking twinkle, but could still look intense and even intimidating for the later seasons. I also want him to look whimsical and dress in the most absurd eye-catching robes you've ever seen.

5. On the matter of robes — wizard fashion

I want wizarding fashion. I want long robes, silly hats, colors, and patterns. I want the costume designers on the show to have fun with it. I want them to go wild.

The wizarding world should look whimsical and campy — that's part of the magic. I want it to look like a foreign world. Even the most purebloods of purebloods (like the Blacks) are more like the Addams Family than any serious drama. They have a sense of campiness and whimsy. Let wizards be weird as shit and show it in their dress and interior design (I mean, the Blacks hang house elf heads and have a troll leg umbrella stand, the Ministry of Magic has paper airplanes flying all around, they're weird).

6. About the more filler-y sections of the books

I want all the silly little plots that were removed from the movies. I think some of the more filer-y things add a lot to the books and to the whimsy of being a student at Hogwarts. I want the trio to sneak out Norbert, I want to see Peeves, the deathday party, all of these things that make Hogwarts truly feel like a magic school.

7. Hogwarts Castle

I love the castle of the movies and that of Hogwarts Legacy. Honestly, I think Hogwarts Legacy did a good job of capturing the feeling of the movies castle while making it its own new unique thing. I think the TV show should do something similar and kinda create a Hogwarts castle amalgamation of all previous iterations that would feel familiar and allow them to still use some of the same merchandise but also be new and unique at the same time.

8. Time period

I think this is a pretty common opinion, but I want the muggle clothes and sets to clearly be set in the 1990s. I want the show to be a period piece. I don't want to see smartphones, or modern fashion, or modern cars — none of that.

9. Age-appropriate casting

I'm not the only one who says this, but as great as Allen Rickman was, he was too old for the role. Part of the tragedy of Snape and the Marauders is how young they actually are. I think it'll just be much more heartbreaking if the actors looked as young as they're supposed to be.

(Including James and Lily in the flashbacks!)

10. Worldbuilding & extra scenes

Since it's a TV show and not a book, which opens up more perspective options, I would like to get, maybe, some extended Pottermore facts into the show. Like, to flash out the world in a way the movies didn't.

Additionally, I wouldn't mind if some extra scenes were added to build up characters we don't get as much of in the books and it could serve the plot. Like, as long as the scenes are added in a way which is like 'they might've happened in the books, we just didn't see them cause Harry wasn't there', that sort of thing without subtracting from anything else and without retconning or contradicting anything. Like, with good writers, this could be really well done, I'm just worried about them adding anything because I don't know how much faith I have in the whole project. But it could be cool if done well.

#harry potter #hp #hollowedrambling #harry potter tv series #harry potter tv show

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magicalella · 1 day

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Hi all!! For those of you who don’t know me, My name is Ella Griffin, I’m a 24 year old trans woman based in south florida. For the last four years, I’ve been working on a super special project that I’m beyond thrilled to share with you all: my debut novel, The White Liar. As a big fan of fantasy books, I’ve felt for a long time that there’s a serious lack of authentic trans representation in the genre. For years, I yearned for even just one iconic transfem hero in a high fantasy setting. The White Liar is my attempt to fill that gap in the literary canon.

As a bit of background, I am a massive fan of hard fantasy books with an epic scope and in-depth magic systems; such as Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere books or Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series. I’m also a big fan of gothic literature and character-driven classics like Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and Anna Karenina, all of which have played an influence on this book. The White Liar’s setting is heavily inspired by celtic folklore, mythology and history with a feminist twist.

It’s a world where fae creatures range from tiny glowing insectoids to massive flying mounts and even humanoid beings. Yet, even the tiniest of these has the potential to unlock unfathomable magical potential through the art of Serimancy! Serimancy, the primary magic system of the book, gives users the ability to transmute or ‘spin’ the silk made by fae creatures into supernatural strength, telekinetic threads, and twelve other distinctive powers. Think Rumplestiltskin spinning straw into gold, but more vaporwave.

Without giving too much away, the book features a diverse cast of characters from all different backgrounds, including transfem, transmasc, nonbinary, aspec and disabled characters, although those aspects don’t always define their motives or character arcs. Mainly, The White Liar is a book about the nature of truth and identity; the ways in which our environment affects how we perceive those things, and the friction that creates with our own perception.

I would also characterize the book as a gaslamp fantasy like the Mistborn series or the video game Lies of P, with a baroque/art nouveau-meets-Bridgerton 19th century aesthetic. I’m a 100% independent author with a summary $0 budget publishing through kindle direct, and flat broke, so I would highly appreciate any and all support with this project, be it word of mouth or otherwise. The cover art is a digital painting created entirely by me and is canon to the book!

Thank you so, so much for giving me your time and attention. This book is my love letter to the queer community and I truly hope someone somewhere finds it hopeful or inspiring like I’ve found with the works that inspire me.

The White Liar is available now on E-book here:

#mine #The White Liar #indie author #indie fantasy #trans author #lgbt fantasy #gaslamp fantasy #art nouveau

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spockandawe · 2 days

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Oh, this is interesting. To me. I'm not sure it's interesting to anyone else! But I'm on my computer for once and FULL of words again, and I'm delighted to talk to myself given half an excuse.

So, I made a post about Long Live Evil! Because I cracked open the book and was absolutely taken aback by how transparently it seemed to be an SVSSS reskin. I wrote up a goodreads thing (it's whatever, I'm going to rehash the main points here too), because I was also full of words and beans after finishing the book yesterday, and after polling online friends, I was surprised to see that the comparison didn't seem to have organically occurred to anyone else, when it was so naked to me. I know there’s a TON of transmigration and isekai stories out in the universe, and pointing at one single book was a big claim, so I just had to assemble all my thoughts! I find this so interesting! And I reblogged my initial one-off post with a little more elaboration about some of the things that jumped out at me, then got on with live and went back to chipping at ORV and GHG, and shotgunned MADK this afternoon.

This is a subtle nod and a wink to my passionate love for these kind of... morally grey main characters! Calling them villains might be a bit much, I don't think there are many true villain protagonists out there (LLE included), and even Devil Venerable has a demonic cultivator who's doing demonic shit and killing loads of people... but with the ultimate balance of the heavens and earth as his priority. This kind of story is my jam. I was recced this book on the basis of transmigration and sketchy protagonists being my thing. I can't rightfully call SVSSS the best cnovel I've ever read, but it is my favorite. And I've probably reread it more times than any other cnovel.

So, that SRB post, huh? I put Long Live Evil behind me, and honestly even following up on the sequel is mmmmmdoubtful, but THIS snagged my attention again. First, the comparisons she's calling out as incorrect are wild to me. Draco and Harry? What? Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian?? (I had to ponder that one for a hot minute, but I bet you anything it's about 'the golden cobra' and 'the last hope' and that's just silly, they're not wangxian, they're MOSHANG)

I was recced LLE in one friend group, but I had an anti-rec from my book club friend group. My book club friend hadn't been at all impressed by it! And she's cool, and I talk up svsss and mxtx to that crowd every so often, without really expecting them to read it. I talk about transmigration as a plot device that I love, and the things that can be done with it! But with that connection in mind between the books, as I started LLE, I was jokingly defending the honor of SVSSS to this crowd, so I admit I was primed to recognize similarities.

I really truly did not make it far in the book before locking it down. I was getting vibes basically from the moment Rae started gushing about her problematic fictional fave, I referenced 95% certainty shortly after she makes the jump to the fictional universe, the golden cobra was 98%, Lia Mingyan's, I mean Liu Mingyan's lack of sex scenes was 99%, and the first pov section for Marius-jun was where I gave up and called it as a sure thing.

It'll be very funny if I'm wrong! I don't think I'm wrong.

Plenty of spoilers to follow, because I identified this inspiration early, I guessed basically every plot twist early, I don't have the patience to dance around spoilers while explaining how it all lines up.

Now, I said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: I don't think this is plagiarism. I think it's tasteless to accuse an author of stealing and repurposing characters to her face. But I think it's also tasteless to repurpose characters as nakedly as happened here! Again? If I'm wrong? That's why I'm talking to myself on my blog and not messaging her directly (?????? who even does that). What are the stakes for me being wrong here? I look like a clown online? That would be terrible, I've never done that before! It's not a crime to write in ways I find distasteful. It's not a crime to write a book I think is not good, even apart from the use of fictional influences. But I like talking about my feelings online, and I can't be stopped!

But there's two aspects of this that make me somewhat uncomfortable in a less fun way. Both are contingent on the big IF. If this is inspired by svsss, I think it's not a classy move to take a Chinese story in a Chinese setting, inspired by the modern Chinese literary scene and classical Chinese fantasy, and just dump the characters into a generic western setting. Fanfic? Have fun and try to be respectful. Profic, making money off it? Ehhhhh. The question of how much change is necessary is a tricky one! It's not one I'm equipped to answer, this is not my wheelhouse or my place to speak. But it doesn't make me feel good!

However, here's where I have more personal stake:

Again, if this is inspired by svsss. It really doesn't feel great to see a queer story (a smash hit in more than one country!) stripped down for parts and made into a heterosexual story. It's not all heterosexual, we get side lesbians, we get men with homoerotic tension. But the central ship is now a guy and a girl. And it... stings a little extra, because in the story of svsss, the idea of assumptions about default (hetero)sexuality are such a central theme. A queer man has written a trashy, oversexed stallion novel where the hottest guy in the universe collects the hottest women like pokemon, and it sells so much better than the more personal stories he tried to write. He has to write this pandering trash to make money to live, he can't live on the more authentic stories he tried to tell before. The protagonist is the projection of his own insecurities and self-hate, and the protagonist's right hand man is his projection of his own ideal man. Another man transmigrates into the book, assuming that he himself is straight, assuming the protagonist is straight, and the force of their love changes the course of the entire narrative. In retrospect, it's upsetting to see those load-bearing themes casually carved out of the story and the hollowed-out remains used like this.

Anyways, in their place, now we've got running gags about how the heroine's tits are BIGHUGE now and she can't keep her balance because her GIANT HONKERS keep tipping her over.

I'm a little more bothered than I was yesterday! On the other hand, since I saw SRB's post, I've been chewing on that central ship. Full disclosure, it was one of my favorite aspects of the novel! My other favorite aspect is the dynamic between the golden cobra and the last hope (the moshang, which I think some people misdiagnosed as wangxian).

I know that the central ship here is the thing that's LEAST comparable to svsss, and the biggest roadblock in the way of my theory. On the other hand, I think it was the thing that HAD to change if this story was going to repurpose svsss without getting called out for being a classic 'bro can i copy your homework' adventure.

For this section, let's assume that I'm right and let's roleplay an author trying to figure out how to change Bingqiu into something not-obviously-Bingqiu. How do we need to differentiate Rae and Key from Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe.

First, we eliminate the martial sect thing. Easy peasy! That's a wuxia concept, and this book goes full nondescript western fantasy. She's not his teacher, he's not her student. And if she's not his teacher and he's not her student, why does this woman have power over this man, to build up the resentment that inspires him to turn the tables on her later? Well, in nondescript western fantasy, she's a noblewoman of some kind, and he's a servant of some kind. Noble lady treats servant like garbage, servant resents her. Doing great.

And to loop back around to the beginning of this a little, I think it really is key to this reskinning that Rae is a SHE. If the central ship remained queer, it would be so, so hard to pull away from the most identifiable thematic aspects of svsss. And pieces of what remain are... kind of bizarre for a normie heterosexual ship where our protagonist is aware that she's transmigrated into an impossibly desirable sexpot character!

Shen Qingqiu never considers that Luo Binghe might be interested in him because Luo Binghe is about to have a HAREM of beautiful women, he's the most heterosexual man of all time, and Shen Qingqiu is straight too! Besides, Shen Qingqiu is his teacher! He half-raised Luo Binghe! Even if Luo Binghe was bent, he wouldn't be interested in an old man like Shen Qingqiu!

Rae is 20, occupying a 24-year-old body. Her character's sexiness is relentlessly remarked upon from start to finish. Key is 18. Why is Rae so sure that he looks up to her as... a mentor, as an older woman? He almost goes down on her! He makes out with her! And she's like 'ah yes, it means nothing. lol. so funny how these things happen.' Bruh, at least after Luo Binghe kissed Shen Qingqiu, Shen Qingqiu finally got hit with the clue stick. Binghe didn't try to blow him only for Shen Qingqiu to keep noodling on about how Binghe definitely isn't into him in any sense, even the most oblivious man in the universe managed to catch on.

Why doesn’t Rae think there’s any chance of genuine attraction here? Yeah, I get that she's coming back from terminal cancer. She's doing great. She knows that the fictional character she occupies is one of the most desirable ladies in the land. He’s a teenager. He’s not expressing disinterest. A lack of horny for sexy lady ought to be more surprising for her. But I guess she’s slightly older than him and that small age gap has been magnified by the transmigration, so she conceptualizes herself only as his teacher, I mean mentor.

I’m not even mad at this dynamic. I love their chemistry, the ‘boss’ thing is cute, but lordt, I have to wonder if it’s meant to substitute for ‘shizun.’ But you know where this comparison really falls apart? Key isn’t really THAT much Luo Binghe.

At least, he isn’t in terms of personality. I mean, we’ve got the mysterious magical heritage, the healing factor, the unbeatable fighting skills, being beaten repeatedly because of the protagonist (tbh it’s sexier when she’s responsible, rather than just being a bystander), being yeeted into the abyss, I mean the ravine, to rise again and assume power as the merciless ruler of all the land. Oh, and he comes back from the dead still bearing the scar that represents her betrayal. In the original novel, he turned on her the moment he got his opening and was responsible for coming up with her gruesome torment.

(Also, Shen Qingqiu being terminally ill isn’t canon, but it’s very popular fanon, and it’s hard to ignore that with how hard the narrative lingers over Rae’s terminal illness as her gateway into this fictional world)

But! But the things that are different! Luo Binghe is a smart and sweet teenager, who had a rough start on the streets and has a tragically deceased single adoptive parent, but that’s their only backstory parallel, he doesn’t blacken until he’s thrown into the abyss. Not like Key, Key is a murder-happy sociopath, a former street kid who fought the odds and made good, and who’s a lot sharper and cleverer than the upper classes think someone like him should be. He utterly destroyed a righteous cultivator clan, I mean glassblowing guild, for the sake of revenge. Once our heroine scores a number of trust points with him, we unlock secret backstory about how as a small child, he experienced deeply formative hand trauma.

He’s Xue Yang.

It took me a moment to process the wangxian allegations SRB mentions in her post, because I was trying to figure out how someone would be aware of wangxian, and read that backstory, and somehow miss it. But it’s fine, I’m pretty sure they were actually talking about the golden cobra and the last hope! So LET’S TALK MOSHANG.

It was so funny. I was liveblogging the book to friends, because honestly, I do not jive with the buffy-esque joss whedon relentless quip-quip-quip writing style. I was struggling to stay engaged when the narrative never took a moment to breathe. And I perked up at the introduction of this new character! He seemed kind of fun, kind of meta, Key came over to share Secret Info with him, and I messaged the friend who recced this to me (also an svsss appreciator) ‘lol, what if he’s shang qinghua. just straight from svsss shang qinghua.'

Reader, a second transmigrator has hit the narrative.

Now, in some ways, he’s a disappointment to me. He’s not nearly as interesting as Shang Qinghua. Adding the author to their own narrative is way more fascinating to me than just dropping a rando into the story. But I’ll take what I can get, I think multiple transmigrators are almost always a fun decision. And for the queer reasons I mentioned above, I think Shang Qinghua ties into the themes of his novel a lot more strongly than Eric does here. I don’t want to call him ‘the golden cobra’ every time, I get more self-conscious every time I write it. And honestly, the reveal of Eric’s full Eric Whatever name feels a little awkward and… pointed compared to the sheer opacity of Shang Qinghua’s existence. Never mind what his name was in the real world, we don’t even know his name before he was a Peak Lord. I’m not upset we got a name or anything, it would make certain fannish activities a lot easier if Shang Qinghua had additional canon names, but it was an interesting detail in light of how parallel the characters are.

Okay! He’s not the author! He’s still a super-fan. He transmigrated into the book years before the LLE main character, and has settled in pretty well. According to canon as Rae knows it, he’s fated to be killed by his own favorite character. He’s fast-thinking and fast-talking, and scattered and all over the place, but dangerous when cornered and more competent than he looks. He deals in information and manages a network of spies. He’s a creative! He and the main character banter relentlessly and get along like a house on fire. He and the king’s trusted ice-cold right hand man share a weird codependent dynamic that’s part hostile, part homoerotic.

Marius has complicated feelings about not-shang-qinghua. Eric is a coward, he’d rather talk fast and lie than stand up for anything, he cowers and cringes and isn’t honorable. He and Mobei-jun also shared a deeply formative experience in their youth, where as a teenager in distress, Eric/Shang Qinghua appeared before them and announced their devotion. In Shang Qinghua’s case, it was offering to serve him (and saving him from huan hua injuries), and in Eric’s case, it was declaring him to be his favorite character (and saving him from sad teenaged isolation), but man. And in the end, after a long, fraught relationship, Marius/Mobei-jun is furious and strangely distraught when Eric/Shang Qinghua abandons him.

Guys, it’s not wangxian.

I think it hits less hard when Marius’s themes of family violence aren’t allowed to sit directly in the narrative, and when it seems like some vague berserker rage thing rather than Linguang-jun just bluntly wanting to murder him for practical reasons, but hey! This was still, genuinely, one of my favorite parts of the story. I wanted more more more of them, I would read this moshang au any day.

After that, the parallels get a little more nebulous! The comparisons between the abyss and the ravine are pretty obvious. I’m not sure why we decided to build our city and palace right on top of the pit of people-eating ghouls rather than literally anywhere else, but it means we don’t need to take a special field trip to Jue Di Gorge, which means we can do the bait and switch where it turns out Key was a heavenly demon all along. The temperamental King Octavian, the young master of the palace, one might even say the xiao gongzhu if they were feeling spicy, jealously tries to romantically monopolize half our main ship and has the other half flogged with a magic whip.

I already mentioned that Rae brings up that Liu Mingyan — wait, I said I’d change some answers so it wasn’t obvious I copied — Lia doesn’t get a sex scene in the books even though loads of other people did, just like Shen Qingqiu praises Liu Mingyan for her untouchable image in such an oversexed, gratuitous book. I don’t think it would be right to call Liu Mingyan a white lotus heroine in either SVSSS or PIDW, but her archetype is in that wheelhouse, and Lia is just a white lotus rival played straight (and played deliberately, another touch I liked). We don’t have made up animals like black moon rhinoceros pythons in LLE, but we do have leucrotas, which are like a lion and a hyena and serve no narrative purpose.

Oh, you know what else I forgot to mention? Rae gives Key one of her red ruby earrings, and he refuses to sell it, and stubbornly holds onto it until the bitter end. Is this Xue Yang holding onto the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen gave him, or is it Hua Cheng determinedly keeping Xie Lian’s red coral earring with him even through his own death? Por que no los dos?

There are things that are original in here. I know that this presentation undersells how much of the book is original. The trouble is, almost everything I thought was good is something that either was lifted from another person’s creative endeavors, or is being tainted by association with all the other naked lifts. Some of the noble ladies have an archery contest! That’s pretty new and fresh, huh? We didn’t have any archery contests in SVSSS!

Yeah, but we sure did in MDZS. And MDZS is already in play, because we’ve already got one character who’s just copy and paste Xue Yang.

There’s a thermocline of trust in this book that fell off for me sharply, and it turned a lot of this into a guessing game of ‘wait NOW what the refrance? owo'

I’m probably on a hair trigger by now, but I’ve also probably missed some things. And I’m sure this is a synthesis of multiple influences, because most stories are. But this feels like cooking and trying to season your dish with a little salt and then the container lid just falls off.

Emer isn’t a clear parallel to an existing character! Love that for her! Love a lady with an axe, especially if she gets a nice girlfriend! On the other hand, in terms of backstory? Wow, she’s been raised with our protagonist since early childhood, as not-quite-foster-siblings, but she was always the clear unfavorite and harbors a lot of resentment over that. Oh, and once Rae entered the story, Rae started trying to speedrun an enemies to 'hello hiiii we should bestiessss' arc with her. I think she had to have an axe, because a whip or a sword would make the Jiang Cheng and/or Liu Qingge vibes a little uncomfortably strong. She doesn’t follow their character arcs! But the disappointing thing is that it felt like she was just there to facilitate pasting the frankenstein patchwork of the narrative together rather than having an arc of her own.

(why did Marius stop to give her a sword lesson? Why did she immediately sneak onto the roof to eavesdrop on the king?? It’s hard to give her credit for being an original character when none of her original actions make sense in the greater universe)

Oh, I almost forgot, we’ve even got magic plot macguffin plants. While Binghe is in the abyss, Shen Qingqiu needs to get the Sun And Moon Dew Flower Seed so he can build an escape hatch for himself before Binghe wrecks his shit. Rae, on the other hand, needs to secure the Flower of Life and Death by an arbitrary deadline as an escape hatch so she can go back to her original life rather than being trapped here forever. Very different! There’s even little side tangents about how these plants can be so beneficial to others, Zhuzhi-lang is desperately trying to secure a seed to build a new body for Tianlang-jun (which Shen Qingqiu enables him to do, despite not knowing what he wants it for), and Rae thinks about how the flower could “save someone on the very doorstep of death,” and gives it away for that exact purpose. So different!

I need to cut myself off, otherwise I’ll keep going. Truly, there is original content in here. It was just all the stuff I didn’t like. The character quipping was. God. There sure was a lot of it! By sheer volume, that’s a lot of original content. Some of the extended cast was interesting, I enjoyed the Horrors and their brothers, I liked Valencia. Now, I didn’t like how basically every girl ADULT WOMAN in this cast was in shitty teen mean girl mode. I didn’t like how immature every character interaction period was. I lost track of how many times Rae was going around in sexy clothes and rando servants were like “HARLOT,” out loud about a favored noblewoman, you know, as you do. Especially when her bodyguard is pulling against his choke chain just waiting for an excuse to do a murder. I don’t need Rae to be the picture of flawless maturity. But nobody is mature, full stop, not even the set dressing servants.

For a less loaded example, the cumplane friendship dynamic is here, practically intact. Shen Qingqiu can't snipe about authorial choices, because Eric isn't the author, so instead Rae and Eric squabble about favorite scenes and favorite ships and such. But it isn't nearly as charming when we don't see these two characters dropping their dignified Peak Lord cultivator roleplay to talk shit with each other. Rae and Eric never have a filter once in this book. They are always Like This, it isn't a secret face that gets unlocked when they're bouncing off each other, they are never circumspect, never have a filter, never have any idea they shouldn't be speaking their full thoughts at full volume 24/7. Even after this starts to have material consequences when they're inevitably overheard! It's an immersion-breaking level of immaturity, which is terribly frustrating when the original dynamic that I loved is only changed in such minor ways.

And another thing that actually tastes way more sour than it did on first reading – Valencia is probably the least mean girl of all the women in the cast. She’s delightful. Too bad that in every scene but her last one, Rae, who repeatedly references her own experiences having her body and appearance ravaged by cancer, cannot for love or money stop talking about how uggo Valencia is.

I know this is an adult novel. The characters are, by age, adults. There’s almost an oral scene. God, I wish we’d gotten the oral scene. But by every other metric, the characters are all high schoolers and I’m an exhausted adult muttering to myself ‘they’ll grow out of it, please GOD let them grow out of it.’

Again, none of this is a crime! Nobody forced me to finish the book! And I did enjoy the book. Parts of it! But that very distinct partial enjoyment experience almost forced me to dissect my own emotional response. And truly, other than a few flashes like Valencia, almost everything I enjoyed about the book was something I could trace directly back to one author, and mostly to one book by that one author. I… enjoyed half of the book. And if I can track most of that half back to mxtx and svsss, I really think that says something about how much wasn’t done to make the inspiration behind this book the author’s own.

It's disappointing! I read this book because I like svsss, I read it because I want more books like svsss, I read it because I trawl the novelupdates tags looking for more books that will hit me the way svsss did. It doesn’t taste good to be served reheated svsss with expired buffy sauce drizzled on top. It tastes even less good once I have a minute to think about what turning an m/m meditation on sexuality and self-image and assumptions about others into a m/f snooze does to the themes I loved so much. It stings to see an author rehash a book that was/is so important to me, and see what they kept and what they threw out, and be like ‘oh, so… these were the elements that mattered to you?’

Again, I hate to be redundant with this, but. I think calling this book plagiarism would be overdoing it. I think it’s tasteless. I don’t think being tasteless is a crime. It remains wild to me that she’s getting messages calling out her supposed inspiration, even if I’m simultaneously criticizing the judgment of the people making those specific comparisons. And I ABSOLUTELY understand why she’s reluctant to own up to the specific inspirations behind this book, because good lord. If it was me, I’d be professionally embarrassed too.

It’s not my job to be the book quality police, but I think someone as experienced as this should be able to do a better job of synthesizing inspirations into something original. I dropped ‘can’t afford to offend my scheming disciple’ earlier this year, because that narrative couldn’t shake the taste of stale svsss fanfic, and it was much more subtle than this is. Once again, if I’m wrong, this post will be retroactively VERY funny and I’ll be all ears to see what her inspirations actually were. I don’t think I’m wrong.

#long live evil #long post #svsss #the scum villain's self saving system #imagine if i put all these words into more productive endeavors! crazy!

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