#where’s my fae story

[egophiliac]

tsum events really are just the best, huh

[favoritebatfam]

Okay, I can’t be the only one who has a picture in my head of child Bruce being adopted by a fae, and almost stolen.

In my head, Bruce is like 9 or so at the time. I read somewhere that the fae tend to take kids sometimes to raise them or to have them as pets. So I’m imagining this super powerful fae who got attached to a child of like a witch or something, and is raising this kid in this weird in between place between the fae realm and human world.

So the kid probably explores and ends up finding Bruce and befriending him.(Maybe there’s an entrance to that dimension in the cave that becomes the Batcave, and Bruce is exploring.)

So Bruce is unceremoniously adopted by this sort of fae child and it takes a little while for either of their respective adults to notice. The fae notices and is debating whether or not they should take Bruce, but then Alfred notices.

Alfred is British, and the British have so many myths and stories about the fae, so there’s no way Alfred doesn’t become convinced they are about to doom his kid to a life as a slave.(Bonus points if this leads to Alfred having a tiny crisis about being Bruce’s father figure and not wanting to replace his parents)

I’m not 100% sure about the rest of the au, but I can clearly picture in my head the fae kid sitting with Bruce at a table, eating cookies, while Alfred and the Fae being have a ‘conversation’(I’m imagining that thing where character a is oblivious to character b and character c having a full out brawl.) Bruce and the Fae kid eat cookies while their respective guardians duke it out.

Years later, Bruce is asked by the kids about the iron brass knuckles in the cave, covered with something.

[not-poignant]

Hey there!

I just wanted to say I re read UTB and it's inspiring and so so so very good! It's a rollercoaster ride and I get so excited every time I see an update come through in my emails :)

I wanted to ask a question about Gwyn. I had a good scroll and couldn't see that it was asked before but it might already have been asked, so I am sorry if this is a repeat and feel free to ignore it if it is!

What would have happened if Gwyn wasn't born a Peak Alpha? Would Crielle have seen it as some kind of failing that a Peak Alpha lineage hadnt been achieved?

I also had a question about Efnisien and Crielle.

Would there ever be a scenario where Crielle would have raised Efnisien as a "high society Omega" (which I can imagine would have been its own level of hell) if she didn't go down the experimentation path or would he have been disposed of?

Thank you for all your writing!

So, in a way if Gwyn hadn't been born a peak alpha...if he wouldn't have been killed, he would have had an upbringing that echoed all his other abusive upbringings with Crielle.

I've been asked for like 10 years 'what would happen if Crielle loved her son / got the son she always wanted' - and so Underline the Black is the answer to that. We get a villain. So if you want the opposite of that, it's all my other stories about Gwyn, y'know? He gets abused, he gets tortured, he gets dismissed, he gets beat on, he gets tormented, he meets Augus (or Ash, or both of them) etc. etc.

Crielle loving Gwyn is the answer to the original question: What would happen if Crielle ended up loving her son? What if he'd been born the way she wanted him to be born?

The question you're asking is in a weird way, answered in every single fic before that. The fics that led to that question being asked in the first place. :D You can read the original Fae Tales series if you want to know what happens if Gwyn hadn't been born Seelie a peak alpha

Would there ever be a scenario where Crielle would have raised Efnisien as a "high society Omega" (which I can imagine would have been its own level of hell) if she didn't go down the experimentation path or would he have been disposed of?

For me, no. For other people sure!

But for me...not without completely remaking Crielle's character. It's pretty fundamental to her to be kind of an intensely intelligent and malevolent scientist in the background of her caring about high society.

Ultimately Efnisien got to live because she saw a use for him. If she didn't see a use for him, I can't imagine why she'd want to raise him as a high society omega, honestly. That takes effort and money, and she's consolidated enough in her power, finances and legacy that she doesn't feel the need to create a cash cow to sell off to create a connection to another family.

I think he would be disposed of. I honestly think she will still try to dispose of him. Efnisien being wrong about this in Underline the Black is like...the right thing to be worried about. She's not done with him. And the ultimate end-game for her is getting rid of him now that he's lose his use to her.

[lord-squiggletits]

I was rereading Chaos Theory/Police Action just now and it’s so fuck-wild to me that Shockwave installed the Matrix casing into Orion’s chest without his consent while he was fucking unconscious??? But no, that’s not even the fuck-wild part. What’s fuck-wild is that Orion meets this Senator who just saved his life for inexplicably generous reasons, finds out about the NONCONSENSUAL BODY MODIFICATION THIS SENATOR DID TO HIM, and then basically has no problem with it whatsoever?

Like baby, Orion, what are you doing??? You should be at least a little concerned about this?!?!?! I know that this mysterious Senator saved you from death/empurata and you’re probably really grateful for that, but like!!! You are not questioning this even a little bit!!!

It’s like Senator Shockwave and Orion’s relationship began basically like this:

[kedreeva]

my partner, for reasons I cannot fathom, resided largely on twitter on purpose. he didn't enjoy it most of the time; it stressed him out, the doomscrolling and all. but it was where he was, before he deleted upon certain recent events, and he was very stubborn about staying there.

and here's the thing, even though he isn't on twitter anymore, i can tell. I can tell he came from twitter, because I will sometimes turn my screen - phone or computer - to show him a tumblr post with more than one part to it. you know, a post with a response.

and without fail, every single time

his eyes flick down to read the bottom post first

[memento-mariii]

Speaking of the fae, what gets me about those "dark fae romances" that seem to be so "in" right now is that they don't do anything interesting with the fae lore. Like. Why even call your MC a fae if he never speaks in riddles and can just straight up lie all the time. Why call him a fae and make him impervious to cold iron.

Look. I know that "fae lore" is actually just a disjointed and often self-contradicting collection of completely individual folk tales and mythologies and that no such thing as the Definitive Fae Lore™️ exists, but c'mon. At that point he's just a guy with pointy ears. He's a tolkien elf with an attitude problem. You're allowed to write a yandere legolas fic if you want to write a yandere legolas fic.

[edgier-than-a-diamond]

Sorry fairy/fae-fuckers but I don't find them particularly hot. Things that seem close to being human like you but are actually near incomprehensible and follow an arbitrary set of rules that they WILL use to fuck you over is just how other people are for someone who plausibly has autism.

[silverislander]

prof said congrats for writing up a proposal so early i am going to get a good grade in. well this is literally going to be graded. but yk the meme

[harrowscore]

someone writing a negative review of the folk of the air books on goodreads: it's just so mediocre and underwhelming

me: yeah i get that

same person writing a negative review of the folk of the air books on goodreads: it's awful because it romanticizes ToXiC and aBuSiVe relat--

me: N O not like that!!

[quietwingsinthesky]

please give more usher thoughts as you progress through the show ive been hyperfixated on the horrors since i watched with my bf

my friend, i really don’t want to disappoint, but i am very much not enjoying this show alsjdkfksi. i’m gonna finish it in hopes that it gets better, but so far, i’m really not seeing why this show is about the fall of the house of usher.

the masque of the red death section obviously had a little more ties to the original poe story, both in the imagery and the themes, even if i think it’s a little bit weird to have the adaptation story about the rich people avoiding the plague and partying it up not even mention Covid once. Not that that’s required, it’s just a bit of an odd choice. A subversion of expectation, maybe, to burn them all with acid instead? I was vibing with it up until that point, and the scene itself is nicely horrifying, but I don’t know.

I’m on episode 3 now (Murders in the Rue Morgue 😬 dear god, please let this not carry the racist undertones of the original story forward, please let them address and/or change that or something.) and so far my thoughts are: this is like succession if succession was boring and sometimes flashed a ghost on the screen to make you jump.

(oh one last thought. the framing device, roderick narrating everything. I’ll admit I was soured on this beforehand because I’m fond of the fall of the house of usher’s narrator and his quest to save roderick that ultimately fails as he is drawn into the web of paranoia and ruin, so having the relationship between roderick and auguste be instead antagonistic threw me off, but that’s besides the point. That bit still works fine enough for the story that’s being told here.

What I don’t like is how we’ll be pulled back to the framing device out of nowhere sometimes, completely deflating the tension of the story to stop and have roderick give a monologue and then go back to the story. It’s not adding anything, really, nothing that couldn’t be inferred from what we see on the screen or could have been worked into the story instead without being so jarring. It also just ends up reminding you that, oh right, this is supposed to be something roderick is telling someone else, but obviously what we see is full of details he couldn’t possibly know about. which, without being yanked back to remind us he’s the one telling it, would be easier to suspend disbelief about.

I do like the ghosts standing just behind Auguste, though. that’s a nice touch. i wish even less attention was called to them. i really wish there would be less fucking jumpscares overall in this show.)

[egophiliac]

HAVE YOU SEEN MALLEUS DORM UNIFORM CARD????

I didn't get him. :( ...so I looked up his dorm story and it is incredible, oh my god. if you haven't noticed by now, Malleus doing the absolute stupidest shit with the best intentions is my favorite, and this is pandering directly to that part of me. I can't pick a favorite part.

(wait, actually, yes I can)

[azurescaled-archived]

"One of these days, I'll go back t'Scotland fer a bit. If only t'let m'old man have a piece of m'mind. Or jus' take a vacation, if th'other werewolves there got a fuckin' problem with me, so be it. Got better shite t'do than let someone stop me from doin' wha' I want."

[not-poignant]

Alright, so this is something I realized based on the brushes of worldbuilding you placed in the background of your *Underline the Rainbow* series, specifically, attitudes about omegas based on James's family from *Underline the Black* and Christian's attitude toward Nate from *Underline the Blue.* Even more specifically, the belief about how omegas have "healing powers" they bestow upon whomever they bond with. James's family believed in this strongly enough that, years later, they still work to destroy James's chosen partner because they felt an omega bond would magically heal terminal cancer. They even got journalists on their side, suggesting this idea is common enough in this world to warrant a news story. Thus, it wouldn't be a stretch for those that believe in these magical omega healing powers to "prescribe" an omega as a means of treating PTSD. Of course, you'd want one that isn't suffering from any mental or physical issues themselves, so you choose an omega who had a positive upbringing, like Nate. Christian or his family vetted Nate, picked him, and now are working to make Nate the perfect omega to soothe and heal Christian and his PTSD, someone who will never cause any negative feelings toward the alpha so he can focus on getting better Which is why Nate will always fail. He wasn't chosen as a partner, lover, or even a caregiver. He was chosen to exist as a perfect shadow of Christian, intuitively giving everything to his alpha while not taking any thought from Christian to care for, not even making a face when eating a food he hates or having a fabric he enjoys in his own heat nest that Christian doesn't like. Nate's not seen as a person; he's meant to be a tool with no soul, no desires, no concerns that contradict what Christian wants, and he will never be perfect enough to succeed there because it's an impossible standard. Heck, I'm half convinced the things Nate wants from Christian that the alpha mocks him for during heats are things like cuddling, not the sex itself. So yeah, I'm excited for more of both stories, especially *Blue.* Thanks again for writing such wonderful stories.

Anon, this is really clever and I half wish it was that deep, because you've put a lot of creative thought into this and I have not gone in that direction at all.

Firstly, I really wish fringe conspiracy theories didn't get picked up by the news, but we've learned thanks to the pandemic that this will actually happen a lot if the news is interesting or controversial enough (i.e. news headlines about vaccine injury being pushed by anti-vaxxers as 'proof' that they're right / were right all along). A theory doesn't have to be common for it to hit the news, the folks who believe in it just have to be loud enough. Gary's situation was newsworthy in particular because James was quite a well-known musician in the state, and there are less than 30 peak alphas in Western Australia and very few of them are in relationships, when they enter a relationship, it tends to enter the gossip columns anyway.

As for Christian, it'd be nice if this was something Christian's family was pushing - or not nice exactly, but it'd be nice if there was a broader overarching reason that isn't simply: Christian is abusive.

That's it.

Christian is abusive. He's an abuser. He doesn't believe Nate can heal him or soothe him or support his PTSD. He doesn't subscribe to fringe conspiracy theories. He's just one of the many millions of people out there who believes he has a right to control the lives of others, and to punish them when they aren't exactly the right 'shape' that he wants based on whatever whims he's experiencing in the moment. Abusers get PTSD too.

There is a very simple reason why Nate will always fail in that sense: Christian is an abuser, and he enjoys having power over others. Unfortunately for Nate, Christian's flavour of abuse is emotional/psychological, and Nate has no defences against it, because he never came into the relationship as an equal in the first place.

Christian never wanted perfection. He's gotten it by his own definition many times, and he's the one constantly moving the goalposts on Nate, to make sure he's always doubting and questioning and second-guessing himself. Christian could get everything he wanted in its exact perfect format and when Nate attempted to do the same thing the next day, he'd find a way and a reason to put it all down. It doesn't need to be logical, Christian enjoys subjugating those less powerful than he is, and he believes he has a right to do that.

He could if he wanted to use a conspiracy theory to support it but he - like most folks - disdains those sorts of theories. I think he'd scoff at the idea that omegas could be genuinely healing to anyone, tbh, both because the theory isn't really true, but also because of his general contempt towards omegas.

I'm sorry anon, you've put a lot more creative thought into how this could all sync up than I have! I tend to see all the relationships as quite separate (i.e. the kind of stories that could be read each as standalones), and sort of conceptualised them all very separately.

But also, I think this is influenced by the fact that Nate and Christian are actually a couple from another story of mine, Falling Falling Stars, where there was no conspiracy theories, but there certainly was an abuser, and an abuse victim who became very cynical and closed off after being with Christian, even once he'd fallen in love with Janusz. I saw no reason to introduce something completely new when the shape and structure of the abuse can remain essentially the same!

[princguard-a]

Nightmares

accepting @korinthiakos sent: “You’re dreaming”

Lark exhaled a breath and glanced around the deep, dark wood and frowned.

❝ A nightmare. ❞ she corrected and crossed her arms over her chest.

❝ Had it been a dream...Morpheus would be here instead of you and we would be doing something much more fun than walking through a scary forest. ❞

She felt strange, like a burning sensation within her, boiling dread in her chest.

❝ Something's wrong...❞ she went on.

❝ I cannot dream or have a nightmare, is this an actual dream, Corinthian? How is it you are here but Dream ( @endl0ss) is not? ❞

[six-of-ravens]

sometimes I worry I write too many stories about the fae, and then I remember that's Holly Black's whole thing and I think I'm ok.

[gloom-and-doom-in-my-room]

Not me accidentally autismcoding another oc