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fanby-fckry · 1 year ago

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📌 Welcome friends, foes, and passersby to my personal piece of fandom hell.

About My Blog:

18+ only; minors will be blocked

Please, please put your age in your bio!

No further DNI, but I will block bigots, bullies, and blank blogs. Terfs, aphobes, and exclusionists please exit the blog and find a hobby that isn’t bullying queer people on tumblr.

This blog was originally created as a way for me to share my fanfiction and accept requests, but has since expanded to incorrect quotes, memes, and occasionally non-fandom bs.

It runs pretty much entirely on queue and scheduled posts. I don’t have notifs turned on for the app, so I may take a while to respond to messages and asks.

Fandoms:

The Amazing Devil (Band)

Doctor Who

Fullmetal Alchemist

Harry Potter – I do not support JKR

Hazbin Hotel

Helluva Boss

Steven Universe

The Witcher

I tend to cycle through them based on the whims of my ADHD brain, and when each is posted is unknown even to me.

Tags:

#Fanby’s Fuckery – All original posts (minus ramblings)

#Fanby’s Fics – My fanfiction

#Fanby’s Headcanons – My headcanons and occasionally a few scattered plot bunnies

#Fanby Answers – Answered asks

#Fanby Adds – Reblogs where I add something (that I think is) significant

#Fanby’s Ramblings – Rants, ramblings, screaming into the void, and other general mumblings of madness that I don’t want clogging up my main tag

#Not OSHA Compliant – Content with kink and/or sexual and/or suggestive themes; original posts may also be marked with the mature filter

#Undescribed – Posts with images that do not have image descriptions

#Functionally Described – Posts that don’t have dedicated image descriptions, but describe the image in the post

#Not Fandom – Any posts not related to fandoms or fics

Posts and memes about my fics are tagged #Fanby: [fic name]

Common triggers are tagged #[trigger] cw

If you’d like something tagged, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Accessibility:

I’m currently going through old posts for an accessibility update, but once that’s done…

Original posts will all have image descriptions

IDs under two-hundred characters will be in the alt text.

IDs over two-hundred characters will be in plain text.

If an image is meant to be reposted – for example, a meme template – then the ID will be in plain text for easy copy-pasting.

If you find my content inaccessible or have a way to make it more accessible, please please tell me. I’ve been doing research, but there’s a lot to learn – not to mention the conflicting information. Criticism in regards to accessibility is more than welcome.

Refs, Recs, and Resources:

#Fanby’s Ref Folder – Catchall tag for things I want to save to revisit later (working on phasing it out)

#AO3 Tips

#Crisis Tips

#Donate Here

#Fic Recs

#Inspo

#Internet Tips

#Life Tips

#Palestine Resources

Black-and-white thinking in fandom and resources for CBT, DBT, and addressing cognitive distortions.

About Me:

My name is Nico, I’m 25, and I write fanfic. I use they/them and xe/xem pronouns, and have a whole heap of queer labels I fall under. For more info on my labels and term preferences, check out my pronouns.page.

I’m part of an real life love triangle made up of myself, my fiancé, and our boyfriend.

If you wanna read more of my work, I’m on AO3 as fanby, and have some exclusive fics posted there.

Blog’s new, but I’m not. I was on this hellsite back in the ‘go nuts, show nuts’ golden age and when they finally shut this place down, staff will have to call animal control to remove me from the air vents like the rabid little raccoon I am <3

I have a twitter, but there’s literally nothing there that isn’t here. Check it out if you prefer Musk’s bird app, I guess?

Fanfic Masterlists:

Harry Potter – WIP

Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss

The Witcher

Kinktober

AO3 Exclusives – Links to the AO3 collection

Requests:

Requests are currently open for mutuals only. I’m trying to limit requests at the moment, but will make an exception for mutuals if I think I can swing it.

Will Write:

Angst with a happy ending

Hurt/comfort

Fluff

Familial relationships

Found family trope

X reader

OCs

Canon x OC

Any relationship style: platonic, queer platonic, romantic, sexual, D/s dynamics

Most kinks

Explicit kink

Non-explicit sexual content

Might Write:

Hurt/no comfort

Crossovers

OOC

Non-canon disabilities and mental illness *1

Alastor as a Voodoo practitioner*2

Explicit sexual content *3

*1 If I’m going to represent a marginalized group, I’m going to do my best to do so respectfully, even in fanfiction. If I’m not confident in my ability to do that, then I may choose not to.

That being said, I’m down to research and I have lived experience with chronic pain and a few mental illnesses. I am extremely confident in my ability to project my own experiences onto my blorbos, and do so quite frequently.

*2 This is mainly for the same reason I won’t write non-canon disabilities. Voodoo is highly misrepresented and I don’t want to contribute to that. I may write him as a past practitioner depending on the circumstances and as long as his current magic is not Voodoo-based.

My personal headcanon is that he grew up practicing Voodoo and ancestral magic, but burned bridges in the pursuit of power and lost support because being a serial killer is generally frowned upon. I usually write his current magic as non-specific, demonic, or Eldritch in nature.

*3 My ability to write explicit sexual content varies, so I’ll be taking this on a case by case basis.

Won’t Write – This Fandom-Specific Content:

Note: These are due to personal preference, deeply ingrained headcanons, and nunn’yuh (none ya business). I am not judging or condemning any of these ships/headcanons/etc. or people who make fanworks involving them; it’s just a comfort thing.

Hazbin Hotel:

Rosie in an NSFW context

Chalastor

Alastor x Niffty

Angel Dust shipped romantically with women

Vaggie shipped with men

The Witcher:

Yennefer bashing

Ciri (including adult!Ciri) shipped with any Wolf School Witcher

Ciri (including adult!Ciri) shipped with Jaskier/Dandelion

Won’t Write – This General Content:

Note: A good deal of this section falls under Kinktomato or YKINMKATO (Your Kink Is Not My Kink (And That's OK)) and DLDR (Don’t Like, Don’t Read) – just like, with writing instead of reading.

I’m not here to take sides in shipcourse or police other people’s writing; this is, again, about my own comfort level with writing certain topics. That’s it.

Scat/watersports/emeto kink

Adult x minor ships

Underage NSFW/smut/explicit, including any underage kink

Incest, including adoptive/step family

Detailed or romanticized non-con *1

Detailed or romanticized dub-con *1

Detailed or romanticized suicide *2

Detailed or romanticized self harm *2

*1 I can write aftermath of non-con/dub-con or attempted non-con/dub-con, but will not go into detail or portray it as in any way positive. I won’t write the reader or a canon characters as the perpetrator, unless it’s already in canon – AKA: The Valentino Exception. This does not include negotiated CNC, which I would consider writing under specific circumstances.

*2 Any time I write content involving suicide or suicidal ideation, I write with the National Recommendations for Depicting Suicide in mind.

The way suicide is portrayed in fiction can have real world consequences:

“Studies have shown that both news reports and fictional accounts of suicide in movies and television can lead to increases in suicide. In contrast, when depictions are done responsibly, the media can help to encourage help seeking, dispel myths, and reinforce hope – and ultimately save lives.”

(Source: Alliance for Suicide Prevention)

I am a suicide survivor and have lost loved ones to suicide as well, so this is deeply personal to me. If you’re struggling with self harm or suicidal thoughts, please hold on, and don’t be afraid to ask for help:

International Suicide Hotlines

Australia Lifeline: 13 11 14

Canada Talk Suicide: 1.833.456.4566

UK Samaritans: 116 123

USA Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 988

#fanby’s fuckery #fanby’s ref folder #and fuck jkr

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cantdance · 1 year ago

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10 fandoms 10 characters tag game

rules: name 10 of your favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people (i wont do that)

tagged by @lolotr almost a month ago. it took me a while to get to this, half because i kept forgetting and half because i legitimately struggled to come up with ten different fandoms i can claim to be in, but whos going to pass up a chance to rave about their blorbos

Final Fantasy XIV Online (FFXIV) - i love so many of the characters from this game. its not hard, the game is designed to make you love them. they feel like real people, especially in the last two expansions which emphasized their relationships with each other and with the wol (aka the player character). its difficult to choose one favorite but if i have to id say its gotta be alisaie leveilleur. despite not being relevant to the main story until the second expansion, her character is so rich and compelling. shes just a girl who wants to understand why her beloved grandpa left her to save a bunch of strangers, and she also wants to find out who she is and become her own person out of her familys (and especially her brothers) shadow. she also likes violence and explosions and how can you not enjoy that in a girl. unlike a lot of people who like alisaie, i also love alphinaud, and i love the way they interact. alisaie is my preferred twin but only by a slim margin. you can blame the backwards ass way i played this game for the fact that i love alphinaud even in 2.0

Marvel Comics - obviously its loki laufeyson! name a bitch more iconic. canonically genderfluid since 2014. your doomed by the narrative fave. raised by a father and a society that hated them for who they were, forced into the role of a villain to juxtapose their brother who was the only person to ever believe they could be more, at least until he didnt. killed and ate and burned themselves over and over to become something new. literally broke free from the narrative to become their best self but still a morally dubious shithead trickster in any (well written) form. my absolute blorbo of all time, dm me for a reading list

Norse Mythology - loki laufeyson again lolol. name. a bitch. more. iconic. canonically genderfluid since the viking age. born from a forest fire after lightning struck a tree. canonically hot but in a fucked up and dangerous way. odin was like "whos this hot weirdo" and decided they were brothers. your ultimate doomed by the narrative baddie. prophesied to end the universe. the god of fucking around and finding out. there are so few verifiable facts about this bitch, he is a complete enigma even among the rest of norse mythology which is already so fractured and weird. we straight up dont know how, why, or even IF he was actually worshipped. hes the only god to not have a single village dedicated to him. there are, like, two or three runestones depicting him. snorri made him into a jesus figure in the eddas but he serves so much cunt that he is repeatedly misinterpreted as literal satan. your fave could never.

LegendLark/Dames and Dragons - this is another difficult one because the characters are all so great, but im giving it to laika because i have a funny story about it. my first listen through i was in the middle of the gray manacle arc when i started asking myself who my favorite was. i decided it was laika literally the episode before she leaves 🥹

Dungeons and Daddies - i feel like my favorite should be scary, as someone who was once a goth/emo teen girl. however im gonna have to give it to my boi normally lee oak-swallows-garcia, the perky peppy chipper cheery mixed up mascot who doesnt know who he is anymore. imagine knowing your parents are disappointed with you at like, 14. imagine inheriting a generational curse except its a literal eldritch curse that you cant do anything about. imagine connecting with the mind of an incomprehensible eldritch being that is killing your reality out of loneliness and fear and hatred and deciding to show kindness.

The Locked Tomb - probably an obvious pick but its gotta be gideon nav. shes your butch sword lesbian. shes your jock trapped in a science convention. shes your tragic unloved child. shes your doomed by the narrative/came back wrong double threat. shes everything to me.

Paranatural - im not actually current, unfortunately. ever since zack changed formats ive found it difficult to read. i understand why they decided to do it the new way, but my attention span is simply not long enough. eventually i will catch up probably maybe. that said, my favorite is of course max. i just love how sassy and exasperated he is. he literally didnt ask for any of this shit. like he just moved to a new town where he doesnt know anyone and suddenly theres ghosts and he has to join an organization to fight them and his bat has a monster inside of it and he almost gets run over by a train, how fucking exhausted must this kid be all the time

Hunter X Hunter - its the only anime on the list baybee. i thought about including others but none are super current and hxh is the one that i still feel strongly about. my fave from hxh is the one, the only, killua zoldyck. my son. my angel. my precious catboy murder child. a boy who was tortured by his own family and trained to not care about other people and who was so lonely he latched onto the first boy his age that hed ever met. he is so full of love and he would do anything for his best friend, including kill people, but to be fair he would also kill people for literally any other reason

The Wheel of Time - my most recent experience with wot was rereading the eye of the world in preparation for the amazon show, which was a huge letdown for me and a lot of fans of the books. my last experience with it before that was when i was, like, 12. as a kid my favorite character was egwene, and now my favorite is...still egwene. she is a strong, confident young woman who knows what she wants and doesnt shy away from going after it. shes very strong-willed and doesnt bend to the will of others, she is unrepentantly herself. she also reads very heavily as a lesbian despite being in a (rather annoying imo) het romance with the mc. i dont think this was intentional (given the aforementioned het romance) so i wouldnt call it coding but like. shes a young adult who eschews traditional female roles and aspires to be unmarried and spend her time with other women how ELSE am i supposed to read that

Homestuck - very much NOT a current fandom, but it defined a great deal of my life, so i feel like it should be included. my favorite for this one may be the most difficult to predict, or maybe not idk, but its kanaya maryam. i remember the first time i was reading, waiting for my patron troll to pop up, and it was her. at first i paid attention to her just for that, but i fell in love with her pretty fast. i have a thing for female characters who go through arcs of self discovery and learning to value themselves outside of the opinions of others. something about starting out thinking youre a prop for other people and ending as a whole ass person is so *chefs kiss* also shes sassy and wields a chainsaw which is badass. i personally think her arc fell flat and she was underutilized in the end, but shes hardly the only one that got overlooked tbfh

im not tagging anyone mostly because i have no idea who i would tag. if youre reading this and want to do it, please do!

#tag game

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notepadsandtealeaves · 3 years ago

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Tim Drake x GN!Reader in: Maybe (Love, Once Lost)

Reader Requests || Immy’s 200 Follower Event 🎊 🎉 🎊

MINORS/AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT || 18+ ONLY ||

|| ao3 version | event tag | batboys tag | m.lists | main blog ||

↠ Prompt: “Shit, I didn’t mean to say that.”

It hurts, watching something you love so much die, especially when you feel like you have everything needed to save it–

Everything, but the want.

In reaching the end of things you and Tim find that the only way to move forwards is to go back to the start…

↠ Requested By: Anonymous ↠ Reader Gender: Neutral ↠ Content Type: A SFW gut punch. Technically H/C, tho maybe not in the form you expect. It’s kinda like a Sour Patch Kid made up of angst and love lol. ((but my blog’s 18+ so if minors what to consume my sfw stuff while still respecting my wishes of staying out of this space they can head over to my ao3)) ↠ CWs: Potential breakups (ending is kinda open so that you can choose your own fate lol). Also Tim-typical self-destructive tendencies, and tbh Reader’s not faring much better. This relationship has not been healthy/happy for a long while now and it shows. See the tags before the story for a more comprehensive list. ↠ Beta? Nah, we don’t know her. Are you sure she works here?? ((tho I should probably employ her services sooner or later for the sake of my readers lmao)) ↠ Total WC: 3.6k~

Sorry for the wait, nonnie. I had a hard time coming up with a solid storyline at first because while I really like to read H/C, when it comes to writing it I blank apparently?? Idk, maybe it’s just because I haven’t written for any of the Bats in a cool minute, but whatever.

Anyways!

Did I go in too hard with the ‘H’ part of H/C? Yeah, probably, but the prompt did say, and I quote, ��the more hurt, the better. I want to CRY” lmao. I know that this may not be exactly what you were looking for, my dear requester, but I hope that you can enjoy it regardless…

↠ A itty-bitty playlist for added hurt a general vibe || x | x | x ||

Tags: Reader’s gender is ambiguous | Reader uses they/them pronouns | Good relationship gone toxic | Unreliable narrator (Reader’s hands aren’t completely clean in all of this, y’all) | ((this is what happens when two people with savior complexes try to protect one another instead of functioning as a team)) | ((Tim’s trying to protect Reader from the darker parts of himself/his lifestyle)) | ((and Reader’s trying to protect him from his own self-destructive tendencies)) | Tim doesn’t know how to process/cope | Reader’s been holding shit down by themselves for too long | Reader cries | Tim cries | OP cries | We all cry | Potential breakup | Open ended

There’s nothing particularly notable about the day your life falls apart at its already threadbare seams.

It’s a Tuesday, arguably the most mundane of all days. You’ve accepted your fate of contending with another week of drudgery and have mostly eased into it with that sullen concession that comes with age. The weather’s just as mild as a thing, being exactly what you would expect of a day that’s caught somewhere between the changing of the seasons. No one is overly rude to you—well, by Gotham standards, that is—and you’re able to go through the motions of your scheduled events without any problems.

Maybe the lack of conflict outside of your home should’ve been the first indicator that something was bound to go terribly wrong within it.

In contrast to the day, there’s so much to say about the man that owns your heart.

Timothy Jackson Drake isn’t exactly what you’d call a conventional human, let alone a traditional partner. Still, he is a brilliant, kind, loving and above all else dedicated man. Despite how much he has to do in a day, he always gives everyone and everything his all, seemingly uncaring about any potential detriments to himself. That this sees you piecing together what little you can when the weight of his responsibilities inevitably leaves him shattered and scattered in the wind is… not ideal for either of you.

It’s a self-appointed task that you’ve been seeing to since your teenage years, when he had decided that just watching from the sidelines while his hero self-destructed was no longer an option.

Tim’s always been too smart for his own good, and back at the start of things far too eager. Skipping town to track down a vigilante all in hopes of saving another vigilante from himself was the exact type of foolishness that you’d come to expect from him even then. What was worse is that aside from the obvious madness of it all, his plan was actually well thought out and annoying solid. In the end he had put his distinct combination of dazzling wit, animal instincts, and near-reckless obstinacy up against that of the Big Bat’s and actually won—saving both him and Nightwing from whatever bit of madness Two-Face had been given to at the time.

Once he was allowed to, he had thrown himself into the role of Robin full tilt, with things only intensifying after the incident that left him all but orphaned. To his credit he never allowed the anger to consume him like so many others would have, though you would argue that his chosen alternative is just as destructive. He pours all of himself into every case that he works, taking his victories in stride, but locking away his failures in the deepest reaches of his soul to rot and fester. The resulting poison is a thing that you’ve been steadily drawing out of his system in the time since, and if you’re completely honest you’re getting tired.

Tired of the late nights spent patching him up while he works on yet another case file. Tired of watching as he willingly allows this life to eat away at him, bit by bit. Tired of the way your concerns are always either met with dismissal or anger—his constant reminders of how you were all too aware of what the deal was well before you decided to shift your relationship over from friends to lovers grating against already flayed nerves.

In loving him you’ve had to shoulder a burden that you never asked for, and while there is little you won’t give to keep him by your side forever, what happens when there’s nothing left for the altar? You’ve been chipping away at yourself for over a decade now and it shows. Your façade has long since started to crack from sorrow’s repeated dashing against its walls, the veneer of your smile rubbed thin from years of stretching it well beyond your happiness.

Maybe this is why when he literally limps into your shared home nearly a full hour before the clock strikes midnight—body bruised and conscious battered—you cannot bring yourself to do more than stare blankly at his hunched form.

Under normal circumstances you’d be overjoyed to have him home so early, but these are not normal circumstance because there is no such thing, not when you love a Bat. Their masks have a way of twisting everything on its head, making fists of open hands, adversaries out of lovers, charlatans out of honest men. When you view so much of your world through a domino existence becomes a masquerade that doesn’t end even when the disguises are cast away at the bell’s toll.

As usual Tim doesn’t ask for help and you don’t offer, with both of you opting instead to fall into the routine that has been your go-to for far too long now. He keeps his lips pursed tightly as he undresses, the only voluntary outward showing of pain that he’ll allow himself, and though his civilian clothes aren’t nearly so complicated, they seem to be giving him far more trouble than his hero costume ever has. Of course you know that this is due to whatever injuries he’s hiding underneath it all, but the more cynical part of your brain wonders if it’s because he’s been spending more time in a cape than he has in a flannel and jeans these days.

Though your heart aches at the sight of him all banged up it’s an old and distant hurt, like the feeling of digging your thumb into a several day old bruise. You push away the pain in the same way that he pushes away your helping hands—neither of you want nor need the added strain that the burden of care would bring.

Your touch is impersonal once it’s finally allowed. You assess the rush job (clearly done by his own hands as none of the others would ever be so sloppy) before treating and rebind his wounds with a clinical precision. Your words are just as clipped as your movements, with you only deigning to speak when the situation demands it.

You don’t ask about how he came to be in such a sorry state, or whatever it is that he’s working on, or even just how his day outside of the suit and mask went because you know there’s no point. He never tells you anything anymore. Unsurprising as you’re barely sharing a space these days, let alone conversation.

It’s a far cry from the usual banter and jokes that the pair of you used to keep up—the words and laughter all traded in between kisses as you lay wrapped up in each other’s arms—but that was before things devolved into whatever… this is.

If Tim notices the change, and you’re sure that he does, he clearly doesn’t think that it’s worth speaking on. Instead he nods his thanks at your assistance before mumbling something about needing to look into a few things before bed—“But there’s no reason for you to wait up.”

“Yeah. Guess not.”

It’s a cold exchange that damn near leaves you shivering as you part ways yet again.

No matter how many layers you pile on or how deeply you burrow under the blankets the frost that has crusted itself over your heart continues to linger, chilling you from the inside out. Even without the feeling of his icy indifference settling itself into your bones, your body has never been up to the task of warming such a large bed all on its own, and yet it has been forced to try more often than not these past few months.

With the sheets tucked in snug around you, you curl into yourself as tightly as you can bear—head facing away from the space your partner will occupy shortly if he’s feeling kind towards himself. You know he hasn’t been sleeping well, not that he ever does, mind, but even by his standards things have been bad. You try to figure out when the last time you actually fell asleep with anything other than your thoughts to keep you company was only to give up once you realize it’s been over two weeks.

Maybe this is my breaking point, you think, throat tight and eyes stinging. Maybe there’s no coming back from this…

The waxing moon’s glow turns your tears into lines of pale silver where they stream silently over your face. You let them pool and flow as they may because wiping them away would take more energy than what you have to give. This is what loving Timothy Jackson Drake has reduced you to—a husk that cannot care for its self in even this small way because it has given its all to a man that’s too hollow himself to match those efforts.

Though your cheeks are still damp, your breathing has mostly evened out by the time Tim finally slides into bed. He’s silent aside from the occasional grunt that his restless shifting elects. The mattress is soft enough (as well it should be, given how much money he spent to have it custom made to fit his rather… particular needs), but his recent patrols have been especially unkind. The pale expanse of his skin is mottled with the odd laceration as well as nearly a dozen bruises in various stages of healing, with the newest (and largest) one vaguely resembling a boot’s grooved sole where it sits across the breadth of his chest. Clearly there’s a story there, but aside from assuring you that nothing was broken he hadn’t spoken on it further. Typical.

You’re not sure if he finds a position that agrees with him or if he writes off comfort as an illusion and gives up on it altogether, but either way after a few long moments he finally settles down. The quiet that follows is damn near suffocating in its oppression, but neither of you dare to breech it for fear of what will undoubtedly be said. For all that your relationship now lacks there’s something between the pair of you that wasn’t there before, and it has been steadily gaining its strength over these past few months from where it’s made its home just behind your teeth.

It’s the selfsame thing that won’t let you meet each other’s eyes across the dinner table anymore, the one that turns I love you’s into rote platitudes at best. It has taken away the warmth from smiles that were once shared so liberally, dulled the passion behind your touch, sapped light and life both from your eyes. It’s an ugly thing to behold, all bleeding edges and sharp angles meant to sever the last of the strings that bind you to one another–

And tonight, it seems, it will have its due.

Maybe this is why Tim slides over into your space to hold you close—because he can feel it too.

The rending, the end.

You know that you certainly can, and have been for much longer than you’re willing to admit to yourself even now. It hurts, watching something you love so much die, especially when you feel like you have everything needed to save it–

Everything, but the want.

And yet as you lay wrapped up in the arms of the man that you were once so sure would be your Ever After, you almost convince yourself that there might just be a reason to hope—but then you start to remember.

You remember how long it’s been since last you were together like this. You remember the echoing chasm that he helped to carve so deep into you that not even the full breadth of your combined anger and sorrow could fill it; the days spent barely tolerating the other’s presence and the lonely nights that left your lashes caked in salt; the words that, when actually acknowledged, felt as if they would’ve been better left unsaid.

The memories continue to stack up-up-up, one on top of the other, until the wall of your offense is so high that you cannot see a way over or around it. The only recourse that you have left is to turn your back on it all, retrace your steps, and hope that you’ll actually find some semblance of the person you once were waiting for you at the end of the path.

And so, with fingers laced tight and water in your voice, you resign yourself to fate’s draw as you utter the only words left to say–

“I… I think that it’s over, Tim.”

Though spoken at a whisper the sentence resounds through the room with all the force of a gunshot.

Tim’s grip on you tightens then, a shuddery breath pushing its way past his lips to tickle along your scalp. The feeling of warm, fat drops follows soon after, and though their source should be obvious it still takes you a long second to realize that he’s crying.

Even with all of the heartache he’s caused you, and the tears that you yourself are once again shedding, knowing that you’ve hurt him so badly breaks you. A pain that you’ve never experienced before lances through you, forcing you to speak before your mind can fully catch up to your mouth.

“Sh-shit, I… I didn’t m-mean to say that,” you stutter out between gulping sobs.

Gentle fingers massage your nape as he shushes you with a surprisingly steady voice. “Yes you did, and that’s okay.”

The absolute calm and conviction that laces the statement snaps your heart cleanly in two, and your mind’s quick to follow. On the one hand you want to snatch every word spoken tonight from the air and shove them back down your throats into the confines of your chests, but at the same time you feel something akin to relief for finally giving voice to a truth that you’ve both been denying for far too long now. You’re not sure which part of this dichotomy leaves you quaking in his arms, but Tim’s quick to soothe you either way, and you hate it.

This is all you’ve ever wanted from him—just him and his time, his touch, his care. You never wanted to monopolize any of it, but dammit, you should’ve had a right to it all the same. And you did, once upon a time before life turned your gazes to jade. He’s been so distant for so long, but now he decides to lower his walls and let you back in? Here, at the end of things? It feels like an especially cruel joke.

You want to make demands of him, to insist that he explain himself, to ask how he could stand idly by and watch as your love worked its way through its death throes, but your attempts to speak yield little more than ragged, hiccuping groans that originate somewhere deep in your gut. You give up on trying nearly as soon as you start and instead allow yourself to mourn the death of a future that will never be while Tim continues to hold you tight.

The harder you cry, the more fully he wraps himself around you. A leg slots itself between your own while the other goes over your hip to pull you in closer to him; all the while one arm slides just beneath your shoulder blades to further secure your middle against his while its opposite’s hand cradles your head against his chest. From here you can just make out his heartbeat over you combined shuddering breaths and you find yourself latching on to the sound. Even amidst all of the turmoil and strife its beat is as steady as ever—a touchpoint, a buoy for your fatigued mind to tether itself to before the tempest of your emotions drag you under completely.

Eventually you’re lulled into a state adjacent to calm, though your body tenses up almost immediately when Tim starts to speak. He can feel it, of course, but aside from a brief spot of hesitation he forages on regardless.

“____, baby, I… I wish there was something I could say or do to make things right, but I know that’s not how this works.” He swallows thickly then, the hand that had been around your back coming up to tilt your face to level. The room’s limited light turns his irises’ hue into something ghastly—like diamonds stained a rare and icy blue—and though it makes it just that much harder to meet his gaze he doesn’t allow you to look away. As he regards you, you get the distinct feeling that he’s trying to commit this moment, and you, to memory.

Just as you start to wilt under the intensity of his stare liberation is granted in the form of an extended blink. The fingers that have yet to release your chin slide upwards to cradle your cheek, their calluses dragging against the skin there in a familiar rasp that leaves you on the brink of tears once more. Tim’s eyes glass up as well in an effect that highlights the silver striations that flair out from his pupils like a starburst; he’s quick to blink against the tears, willing them away with a deep, steeling breath before continuing on.

“I hope that you know that even with us staring down the end of, well, us, that I still love you. I’ll always love you—so, so much—and if there’s a chance that we can make it through to the other side of all this then I’ll damn well fight for it, but… I’m willing to let it all go”—he huffs out a sound that’s caught somewhere between a sob and a sigh—“to let you go, if that’s what you want.”

You breathe out his name then, though what is to follow you cannot say. Your brain is swirling with dozens upon dozens of retorts, but before you can even begin to decide on one he cuts you off with a sharp shake of his head.

“No, I… I need to say this, ____. I’ve been too quiet for too long, and that’s half—no, nearly the whole of the problem. Please, just… I know I’ve already been plenty selfish, but just let me say this, please.”

Your acquiescence comes in the form of a nod that leaves Tim mumbling out his thanks from where he presses his lips against your forehead.

“I know that I haven’t really been showing it lately,” he starts once he reluctantly pulls away, “but I hate seeing you hurt and I certainly don’t like being the reason for it. I don’t even– I can’t even tell you why I’ve been acting this way. It just feels like everything’s been piling on top of me lately, and I didn’t know how to get out from under it so I just kinda shutdown, hard. And I didn’t want to burden you with it because you already do so much for me, and I just kept thinking what type of partner– hell, what type of man would I be if I forced even more of my shit onto you?”

The sound that rumbles up out of his chest at that is far too bitter a thing to be considered a true laugh. “But in trying to keep you from becoming, fuckin’, I don’t know—collateral damage, I guess?—I fucked things up even worse than if I would’ve just let you in.

“God. The only real surprise here is that you’ve put up with this for as long as you have. That just goes to show how much you love me—not that I didn’t already know, but… Fuck, babe. I wish I could say that I don’t know how we got here, but that’d be a goddamn lie. But the thing that I honestly have no idea about is how the hell we get back, or if we even should.”

“…Tim, I–”

He cuts you off with another kiss, this one to your still parted lips. There’s no expectations behind the ministration, but the tenderness there wraps itself around your heart and squeezes all the same.

Eyes pinched shut, he braces his forehead against yours as he caresses your cheek again. “No-no, shhh. I know I said I’ll follow your lead on this, and I will, but… No matter what it is that you choose, can you just– Give me tonight, baby, please.”

What had felt like a looming inevitability at the start of things is less certain now that some of the biggest of your issues have been stretched out and deconstructed. Still, your footing is just as unsure as ever. Nothing makes sense anymore and you’re too tired—mentally, emotionally, and physically—to try and unpack it all. What’s worse is that Tim doesn’t make things easier on you, if inadvertently so.

The adoration that tints his gaze is at once familiar and not. It’s been far too long since he last looked at you like this, since he’s actually seen you in any real capacity. The sight nudges at the embers of love that have long since ashed over within you, the desperation that pulses out of him in time with his heart’s beating stoking the glowing coals into something tempting enough to draw you in. And like a moth that cannot resist the light despite having already felt its burn, you willingly abandon sense and surrender yourself to the corona.

And as you lay there, holding and being held by the only man your heart has ever known, you can’t help but to wonder if maybe this is just as much of a beginning as it is an ending.

|| BTS, Author’s Note Type Deal

Tim’s p. disillusioned in this one, to the point of having gone almost completely emotionally numb.

Given his penchant for compartmentalization it’s not a stretch to think that he’d shut his s/o down and out in such a manner, imo. It’s partly for what he thinks is there sake (it’s that savior complex I mentioned before—the whole damn family has it), and partly because he’s personally having problems with coping. What’s more, he won’t even actively realize that he’s doing it at first.

If his s/o’s aware of his vigilante work it’ll be even worse as he feels like they should already know the deal and be ready to cope accordingly. He’ll also feel some type of way because ‘umm, I’m trying to protect you here and it feels like you’re not acknowledging the sacrifices I’m making for your sake.’ Ofc that’s not the case, they just want to help bear the burden as a partner would/should, but he’s so tangled up inside at that point that everything looks and feels like an attack.

None of it is right or fair or logical, but it’s not exactly like he’s in a good headspace at this point so he cannot be expected to act as such.

Still, he does love them so once it become apparent to him that things have gone downhill he’ll try to fix them—the only problem with that being the fact that he won’t become fully aware of the gravity of the situation until things are right at or past the point of no return.

But this is looking at things from Tim’s side. At the other end is (in this particular case) an s/o that was taking on things that they really shouldn’t have—at least not in the way that they were. They were propping both Tim and their relationship up to an unhealthy degree; this was due in part to their own savior complex, and partly out of being blinded by love. You’ll be surprised what love can potentially make you write off and wave away despite your knowing that it won’t end well; it doesn’t help that once you make one concession that it gets so much easier to do it again and again.

Had they both sat down and talked things out sooner they wouldn’t have crashed into their breaking point. It would not have been an easy conversation to have given how stubborn Tim can be about these things, but one that would have had to happen nonetheless if the relationship was to have any true longevity, yanno?

But I’ve rambled on enough, let me stop lol…

© notepadsandtealeaves, 2021 || Please do not repost, translate, or otherwise alter or distribute my works without my express permission. And for the love of god keep it away from Youtube and TikTok lol…

#((Immy's 200 Follower Event))#((Immy does fan fiction: the Batboys))#lol that hurted #tim drake x reader #tim drake x gn!reader #tim drake x gender neutral reader #Tim Drake x Y/n #tim drake x you #tim drake imagine

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skylights422 · 5 years ago

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@ace-and-aro-wlw-positivity created a Q&A for aspec authors/writers, and as an aspec author, I am excited to participate and answer as many of their questions as I can. Under a cut since it became really outrageously long.

1. What was your inspiration for your character(s)? Are they modeled on yourself, a person that you know, or a character that’s already been established?

Typically I’d say my characters are a mix of general inspiration from other stories/characters and then bits and pieces taken from myself. I try not to make any of them like a clone of myself or another character, try to mix it up, possibly with mixed success but that is the goal.

2. How much, if any, has your character(s) changed since they were first created? What caused this change?

Oh wow, okay I have characters I still use from grade school and middle school, and those characters have changed/grown a lot. Most notoriously (to me) though are my two fellas Euphranor and Kadri. I created them while daydreaming in middle school while watching those science videos in class about how I could make a more parody-like version of said videos, Kadri being the energetic and comically sadistic teacher and Euphranor being the constantly irritated and foul-tempered student. The core of their designs and personalities haven’t totally changed (Euph is still a hot-head and Kadri still likes to troll him), but they’ve become far more nuanced as characters as their story become more involved and serious. They’ve also become softer characters, with Euph having a Heart of Gold and Kadri being a bit morally grey but generally compassionate and friendly. I think the cause of this change and others comes from a mix of things, for one I simply got older and what I wanted out my characters changed a bit. But also I think it’s because I spent so much time with those characters in my head that I couldn’t help but develop them more fully, which in turn made me want to give them a good story. Also, everyone is definitely more queer now then how they started, largely because I became more aware and comfortable with my own queer identity and spent more time in queer spaces (though with Euph I actually just realized he had to be gay because I every het relationship I envisioned for him fell totally flat and yet imagining him as having crushes on guys just seemed to work better/make more sense, and that was an earlier decision).

4. Do you intend on publishing your story one day? Why, or why not?

I definitely do! I have many, many stories I want to publish, as books or comics or tv shows or films. I’ve always wanted to publish some of writing since it’s one of my main passions and have always taken inspiration from the stories I consumed. I just love writing and would want to be able to do it as my main career, the key will just be figuring out how to focus on one project long enough to finish it. xD

5. Surprise fact! Give a random fact about your character(s), whether it’s their favorite color, food, or even song!

Euphranor loves to sing! He hums to calm himself down and even full on sings to vent his feelings sometimes. Kadri loves literature and video games, and blackberry pie is his favorite food.

6. Admit it, you have a folder on your computer of the various types of picrews you’ve created for your character(s). Would you mind posting a few (or five)?

*VIBRATES* MY TIME HAS COME. I absolutely have way too many picrews of my fellas so I won’t post them all, just two each for the core four of my main novel project. First, Euphranor:

(yes he is a Hufflepuff)

Kadri:

(also since I dragged the Hogwarts houses into this Kadri is Ravenclaw)

Ena:

(I put her in Gryffindor)

And finally, Fiera:

(Right now I have her in Slytherin. She could also be in Ravenclaw though)

7. Time to get serious for a bit. There’s been heavy debate on having non-human characters identify as ace, aro, non-binary, etc., but never actual humans. As someone who’s aspec, how would you explain to someone who’s allo why this can be and is seen as hurtful?

I mean, as a sci-fi fan I definitely love if the non-human characters are queer coded, but it’s definitely important to include human representation as well, and I think there are a few simple reasons for that. One is that queer people are, in fact, humans, and therefore our stories deserve to be told as they are in reality as well as how they could be in fiction. The other is only writing us as inhuman implies you consider our identities as fictitious or too strange for a human to have, and queer people already have to deal with other forms of erasure and invalidation in real life. (Also, not everyone is a fan of sci-fi/fantasy, and they should still be able to read stories where they can see themselves)

8. It’s a sad reality that many stories in mainstream media don’t have characters that are aspec, not to mention without resorting to harmful stereotypes. Besides there being nothing wrong with IDing as aspec, why did you choose to have your character ID as such? What would you tell other authors who’re interested in writing characters that are aspec, but are afraid of offending the community?

I have a huge list of aspec characters, which definitely started happening more once I was aware of my own asexuality (and later, aromanticism), since I realized that I could make my own aro and ace characters and then just went wild with it lol. It’s also easier for me to write since I can actually draw from personal experience somewhat for it. Beyond representation having aro and ace characters also allows you to explore more facets of human emotions/the human experience, so that’s always fun.

As for how I would advise allies looking to write a-spec characters, my main advice would be to remember that we are an incredibly diverse group of people, and so while no one a-spec character will resonate with every a-spec reader, an a-spec character written in good faith will definitely speak to some of us. Write them as an character first, and when it comes to things like how their attraction does or doesn’t work and what they want out of relationships, figure out what works best for them. Really, if you’re concerned your character would be offensive in some way you can always make a post asking about it, many of us are happy to offer constructive advice and appreciate that someone is wanting to put in the effort to write about our experiences. Reading or listening to anecdotes from an array of a-spec people is also a good way of getting ideas of how to portray us, and there are various resources for that (the tags, AUREA collects anecdotes from arospec individuals, and probably more than I can think of offhand)

9. If you’re comfortable with sharing, what is your characters’ identity? Do they use any microlabels? Does theirs reflect your own?

Unsurprisingly I have many characters who are aroace (Fiera is one of them), and Ena is bisexual and gray-aromantic. Kadri was originally supposed to just be bi/pan but has become increasingly aspec, will they end up gray-aro as well as grey-ace? Will they end up as a pan oriented aroace? I don’t know yet, but they sure are a pan a-spec. My most recent project has exclusively aro-spec protagonists, Valentine is aroace, Cedar is demiromantic, Raelene is cupioromantic, and then Clematis and Hadyn are presently just Aro and might stay that way. My aroace characters are often styled after my own aroace experiences, while other a-spec characters aren’t as much.

11. Why do you think that not just representation is important, but GOOD representation? Can you offer any examples?

Well, I think there are a few ways to make ‘good rep’. There is the ‘this character helps bring awareness/educate about the community’ and then there’s ‘this character just resonates with certain a-spec people a lot’, and the main reason I think it’s important is because rep should be for the people they’re representing. So if rep hurts the community or totally fails to be relatable to anyone who’s actually a-spec, then it missed the whole point and is doing just as much to leave the community feeling left in the dust as no rep. Of course things do get complicated when the community is divided on whether the rep is good or not, which I imagine will be a common occurrence, and many examples of rep probably fall into the grey area between Good and Bad, but generally people should aim to tell stories that will help more than hinder the people you are telling your story about. (Although I also think that the long term end goal is to get to the point where there is enough representation that it doesn’t matter if some of it is ‘bad’ or not, since I feel like that is the true state of normalization, but that is sadly not yet the case)

12. What’s the genre of your most recent story? Do you always write in this genre? If so, what other works do you have? If not, why did you pick it?

My most recent story (with Valentine) is fantasy, inspired by shoujo style anime series like Cardcaptor Sakura, while Euph’s story is more dystopian urban fantasy? His exact genre has shifted around a lot and will probably continue to do so. In general, most of my works are fantasy in some way or another. A few are more sci-fi or horror based, but definitely the majority are fantasy whether that be magical girl type stories, urban fantasy, superheroes, or dark fantasy.

14. What’s a brief biography of your character? Is their history, personality, and/or looks similar to your own?

I’m going to go with Fiera here. The short version of her backstory is that she and her older brother were born to neglectful parents, and while their grandmother was attentive emotionally she also lived far away. Her brother discovered magic, long thought forgotten, but killed himself shortly after, leaving Fiera alone and confused. She then made a point to dedicate herself to studying the theory and history of magic in the hope that she may someday understand why her brother would take his own life so suddenly like that. She has a down to earth personality and is very observant, and has a great deal of ambition and focus for tasks. She naturally has a more lighthearted and curious personality, but has become more somber since the death of her brother. While she always struggled with sustaining personal relationships, it’s only recently she started using her power of observation to be more manipulative and always keep a cool, pleasant demeanor. She has a love for fashion and sewing, as well as an interest in chemistry.

She isn’t really based on me at all backstory or appearance wise, and only slightly takes after me personality wise. Our main similarity is that we both can be quietly observant and don’t tend to get outwardly angry very often, and that we are both aroace. But I am nowhere near as focused as her, am terrible at lies/manipulation, and have different interests. I’m also way more prone to energetic rants and blunt statements than she is.

15. What are the themes of your story? Is it a lighthearted adventure, or are we talking deep, ocean-sized levels of angst? Why, or why not, did you choose them?

The tone of Euph’s story is kind of all over the place due to how often I’ve tweaked it, but there are certainly oceans of angst for all the protagonists. There’s just also decided remnants of the wacky humor from when the story was predominantly a comedy, and a lot more scenes of the characters just relaxing or goofing off than might be typical in a high tension drama adventure. My story with Valentine is generally much more lighthearted, though there will be some deeper moments for character development (and also because I want it to have a slightly gothic vibe, just Because)

16. How long have you been writing? Has your style changed from when you first began to now? What are some tips you’d give to those who’re interested in writing a story of their own, be it professionally or as a hobby?

I’ve been writing in some capacity just about as long as I can remember, and so my style has definitely taken various shifts depending on how old I was and what I was taking as my main inspiration at the time. Sometimes I went for more sarcastic and whimsical narration regardless of the events happening of the story, sometimes I went for a more quick modern-ish style, sometimes I would focus more or less on descriptions or dialogue. I don’t really know where I’m at right now though.

What I would advise to anyone wanting to sit down and write is to be patient and kind with yourself. Nine times out of ten what sounds epic in your head will come out at first as clunky and all over the place. But that is pretty much the whole purpose of first drafts; the clunky first draft crawls so the second draft may walk so the third draft may walk a little faster so the final draft may run. The other thing I would advise is to absolutely experiment, and see what works best for you. There is every kind of writing advice out there imaginable, much of it contradictory, so really you just have to mess around with styles and perspective and dialogue and see what happens, which stuff you liked and which stuff you didn’t.

17. What’s your process for writing? Do you plan your story out first, write whatever you want then edit later, or both? How might this help others?

My writing process is pretty much a mishmash of writing whatever comes to me, then planning, then writing, then using a bunch of character building exercises to have fun but make no progress in the plot, then neglect the project for months, then write some more or maybe plan. I don’t know how much this would help others, though I have found when I set goals with deadlines and some external pressure (nanowrimo, reward system implanted by friends, etc) I am far more productive, so perhaps that is something others could try if they struggle with staying on track?

18. Your book’s become quite popular, easily reaching the New York Times Bookseller list, and now, you’ve been picked to lead a writing workshop. It goes swimmingly, and afterward, someone comes and tells you that your book not only inspired them to write a story of their own, but also helped them discover and accept their identity. What’s your reaction?

Mostly I would just be flabbergasted, but also extremely pleased and honored to have been able to provide any kind of help or assistance to my readers.And I would feel very happy for the person, since that sort of inspiration is great to come by.

19. Are there any published stories out there that feature aspec characters that you also read? Do you have any suggestions?

Unfortunately not that I can think of! I am peripherally aware of some ace characters, but they aren’t in stories I personally consume. I hope to find more though!

20. Just for fun, write down a paragraph of your most recent writing. It can be an action-packed scene, some witty dialogue, or a colorful description that you really enjoyed. (Be sure to properly tag any possible triggers!)

Well, my most recent finished work would be the clunky first draft of my novel. So, here’s a silly conversation that entertained me to write:

Once they had bought the food, they went back to the park to eat.

“You know, Fiera, I have come to a realization.” Kadri said.

“Oh? What’s that?” Fiera asked.

“Store snacks are not as filling as restaurant food, nor as refined, but they are decidedly addictive.” he said, munching on Twizzlers.

“Yep. That’s what makes them store snacks. Plus, I couldn’t get any really nice stuff. I’m not made of money.” Fiera explained.

“Which brings me to my next question, how exactly are you financing our meals? You don’t seem to work a job of any kind.” Kadri said. Fiera was almost surprised that he knew about jobs, but decided not to ask about it.

“You’re right, I don’t. But my parents leave me about sixty bucks a week so that they can do what they want without me starving to death in their absence. After yesterday and just now, I’m down to like eight bucks, and the next payment comes in three days, so after this stash goes it's dollar store snacks only.” Fiera explained.

“I see. Fascinating. And these drinks you bought us, why are they vitamin drinks?” Kadri said,looking over a vitamin water curiously.

“Because we definitely aren’t going to get any vitamins from chips and candy.” Fiera said simply.

“There is logic to that, I suppose.” he said. There was silence for a few moments.

“Um… Kadri?” Fiera said after a while.

“Yes, Fiera?” Kadri said.

“You know you can’t eat a whole bag of Twizzlers in one go, right?” Fiera said.

“I don’t see why not. If it is not going to give me the nutrients I need, it may as well provide me with the maximum level of pleasure it is capable of.” Kadri said.

“Yeah, but you’ll get sick. And we have limited supplies.” Fiera countered. Kadri looked at the bag of Twizzlers in alarm.

“These are poisonous in large doses!?” he exclaimed.

“What? No, not poisonous, they just make you sick because they’re candy. All candy does that if you keep eating it.” Fiera said.

“Commoners lead dangerous lives, it would seem. I shall never forget this betrayal.” He said to the bag of Twizzlers, putting it down and taking the vitamin water instead.

#Arospec Awareness Week #aromantic #writing #non-fandom #asaw2020

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rewrite-the-night-court · 7 years ago

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What I’d change about TOG

So, I saw another blog dedicated to fixing the problematic/uninteresting things about the ACOTAR series. Personally, I have been mentally doing the whole “if I had to remake this, I’d probably do it more like that” thing for years, and I’ve now decided to start a blog dedicated to it, but mostly to the series (and by extension, author) that initially made me start thinking about what I’d change: Throne of Glass.

Now, this is a LONG post dedicated to what I’d change about the first book in the TOG series. I mean no harm to SJM (which is why this is in the main tag, though I can remove it if it’s inappropriate to put this post there), this is just my take on how I think the books could have turned out differently.

If you disagree, feel free to do so; if you’re even so interested as to have a (civil) discussion with me, I’d love to talk to you! My inbox is always open!

It might be an incoherent mess, it might have more than a few plot holes, but I hope you enjoy the read anyways.

I’ll start with my feelings on the book in general. I actually took me a while to finish reading the entire thing. I bought the book because I really like the concept of a badass assassin struggling for her freedom by competing in deadly challenges, especially with some political/court intrigue and magic thrown into the mix. It seemed right up my alley. I did, however, put it down about 3/4ths in, because I did not feel like the book delivered what it promised, but rather that it trivialized the Tests and focused completely on the (very standard) love triangle.

My second “problem” with the book was Celaena herself. There were things I liked about her: For example, it was amazing to see a YA-protagonist not even admit, but even liking that she was good-looking and being confident in herself and her skills (YA sorely lacks female protagonists like that). Other things bothered me, in a way that eventually overshadowed the aspects of her character that I liked. I just kept thinking: “The world’s most feared assassin at 17?” It seems a little unlikely, not matter if she trained since she was 8 or not.

Those aspects of her character ties up to my problem with her as a character: She’s too powerful. I understand the appeal of a female power fantasy, especially for young girls. It’s badly needed in a sea of media in which women are portrayed as weak, or assets to male protagonists, without being given much, if any character development themselves. However, putting the world’s most feared assassin in a competition for her freedom... against other assassins? The stakes are close to zero. Not once was I worried about her victory, or safety, for that matter.

I saw someone rant about this on reddit, once, and they suggested one simple change. I’ll run along with their idea, as I feel it would change the books in a way that could be very engaging.

What if Lillian Gordaina the jewel thief was the 17 year old protagonist, and not just Celaena’s alias?

I imagine the book would start with Lillian having been caught stealing some jewelry, probably from a very rich merchant who have strong ties to perhaps the most powerful merchant’s guild in the land. Her father begs for the merchant not to do anything, reasoning that Lillian is still a child and meant no harm, but for some reason, the merchant is furious. In fact, he is so furious that he doesn’t want to settle for regular punishment, he’ll make sure she faces something even worse than just a fine.

When word arrive that Lillian is to partake in a contest and compete not only for her freedom, but for a position as the king’s champion, her family is shocked. What in the world would Lillian have to do there? She stole some jewelry, for Gods’ sake! As rumors start to circulate about the land’s most feared thieves, most skilled assassins, and most brutal warriors are to take part, Lillian’s parents attempt to spirit her away. She is caught, however, and is taken to the castle anyways.

Also in this version there isn’t an actual castle of glass. While it’s very Aesthetic™, it wouldn’t suit the story as of right now. From an actual architectural standpoint, it also makes very little sense.

When she gets there, it quickly becomes clear that she’s mostly there as a filler contestant. There’s about ten or so people there who seem actual candidates, from what Lillian can gather without there having been an official introduction round, but the ten are in turn actually terrible criminals with no qualms about murder. The king, partly because of his cruel streak, partly because he’s not actually that dumb, knows it’ll be more intimidating to say you chose your champion after having the most brutal criminals in the land slaughter each other for the honor of serving their king. Lillian bands together with a couple of other candidates who’re more on the weak side. The three of them know that they’ll probably die, but decide to try and help each other survive either way.

Still, Lillian is a noble woman, who, up until now, has been leading a pretty sheltered life. The fact that she might die terrifies her, and she has a breakdown about it in her room. Her servants and the guard posted outside of her room (she only has one, as she isn’t a very big threat to anyone) feel bad for her. Enter Chaol, who in this story starts out as just a regular guard. He offers to tutor her, if he is given permission to do so. Lillian accepts, knowing she has no chance against her opponents but hoping the lessons will soothe her a little bit.

Chaol, who isn’t even given permission to see the king, ends up meeting Dorian face to face by coincidence. Dorian gives him permission to train Lillian during the evenings (for whatever reason, I haven’t figured out all of the character motivations yet).

The following morning, there is a court gathering. Some of the competitors (mostly women) are invited. At the gathering, Lillian ends up standing out; she is rather pretty and she knows how to enhance her beauty by dressing well, gaining a lot of attention for it. She speaks to Kaltain and Nehemia, surprising them both by knowing the Eyllwe tongue. The three of them chat a little in Eyllwe, before Lillian knows who Nehemia really is. Kaltain, who is used to the ways of court, warns Lillian about standing out once she reveals that she is a competitor. Lillian, now suddenly aware of all the eyes glued to her, makes a hasty (but discreet) exit.

She does not know her way around the castle, and ends up stumbling into a secret passage. Terrified of where they might take her, she tries her best to find a way out again, but she is lost and doesn’t know where she is going. Instead, she stumbles into a room she has never seen before, where she finds a woman whose feet are shackled to the floor.

Lillian learns that this woman is Celaena Sardothien, after some conversation. Celaena seems to be less interested in Lillian and the competition that she is in her garden; in her room, she has a small collection of pots from which various plants are growing. The two come to a sort of understanding, and before Lillian leaves (she’s afraid of being caught in there), Celaena says that she’ll offer Lillian advice and help in exchange for favors and asks Lillian to consider.

The next day is mostly dedicated to training. Insert some Witty Banter™ and flirting here. Lillian and Chaol do get along very well. It’s clear (at least to the reader) that they’re both interested in each other. Lillian, without mentioning Celaena, asks Chaol if he thinks it’s right of her to do things that might be bad in order to survive this ordeal. When he says that yes, he thinks she deserves to survive, she decides to go along with Celaena’s request.

She goes back again that night, as quietly and carefully as she can. Celaena reveals that the King intends for her to compete to be his champion. She also reveals that she, too, is only there as canon fodder. The story is much more interesting if the king’s champion defeated the strongest assassin in the land, after all. She goes on to tell Lillian that physically, there is no way either of them are strongest. Celaena worries that the final test will be a fight to the death between her and whoever the king will pick, a match she’ll have no chance of winning after a year in Endovier. She isn’t worried about Lillian’s fate: Doing dirty work like this is about competence, first and foremost, with “dirty” being the keyword. They’re criminals, the bad guys, the scum of society; the king doesn't need or want them to play by the rules. Celaena believes this can help Lillian survive.

The next day, the first test takes place. It’s a race to capture the flag, strapped to the top of a large tower. Lillian freaks out, as there’s no way she can climb that tower. With her squad of underdogs, she recalls Celaena’s words about not playing fair, and realizes that the winner of the contest is the one that delivers the flag to the judge first. Through some quick scheming, the three manage to get the flag after Celaena brought it down, and one of them (not Lillian, though, she chooses not to pick up the flag when she has her shot) ends up being the one to win.

Chaol trains with her again that evening. One of his superiors find them, and while Chaol isn’t not allowed to train her, he gets in hot water as he is dragged away by the other guard. Lillian heads up to her room, only to be woken in the middle of the night by screaming and angry yelling, before there’s desperate pounding on her door. She knows she’s safer if she stays in her room, Celaena’s voice echoing in her head, so she doesn’t open it, feeling like a coward. Eventually, she falls asleep, still shaking beneath the covers.

The next day, it is revealed that one of the actual good competitors killed the friend of Lillian who won the first test, as well as a few guards before Chaol managed to grapple him from the back. The chaos that erupted was partially because the guards realized they had no idea where the king was. It truly dawns on Lillian that her life is in danger. Finding a quiet corner to break down, Kaltain and Nehemia finds and comforts her. Lillian confesses that she blames herself for the murder of her friend, since she helped her win. Nehemia tells her that it’s nothing she could have done about it, and that she herself has had similar feelings. As the youngest royal child of her country, she wielded little political power, and was unable to do anything when Adarlan invaded. She feels guilt for being useless.

She heads up to Celaena that evening, partially to seek validation for not trying to help (Lillian doesn’t outright admit it to herself, but she knows). It’s never discussed as she sees Celaena’s bruised face. The king visited her last night, angry at her for losing the flag to Lillian’s friend. She seems more upset that he ruined all of her flowers, especially taking care to rip the rarest of them apart with his own hands. A strange and very rare plant, rarely found outside what Celaena calls “her homeland.” Lillian can’t decide whether Celaena genuinely cares more about that flower than herself, or if she is redirecting her attention to something else so as to not think about the king, but either way Lillian decides not to pressure Celaena into talking. Celaena eventually asks Lillian if she could secure her a meeting with Nehemia, having heard that they were spotted together at court.

The next test comes a few days later. Lillian tries fading into the background along with her remaining ally. It’s a simple archery test. Lillian can’t figure out how she would play dirty in such a scenario, and ends up coming in dead last. Chaos finds her afterwards, asks her if she is alright, and informs her that he can’t train her anymore; because of him catching the murderer, his superior was impressed and gave him the reins for the investigations. This might be his chance to climb the ladder.

Nehemia has, with the help of Kaltain, gotten much better at speaking the language of Adarlan. Kaltain and Lillian, for some reason, manage to get Celaena an audience with her. Nehemia seems shaken when she comes out, and when asked by Kaltain what has her so shaken, Nehemia tells them that Celaena is planning on becoming “the next king’s champion,” to which Kaltain corrects her gently (“The king’s next champion, my dear”). Nehemia doesn't react to it at all, in contrast to her usual fondness for learning, but simply leaves, still pale and stiff. Lillian sneaks in, demanding to know what Celaena said that upset Nehemia so. Celaena doesn't answer, instead suggesting that since Chaol now is rising in rank, Lillian would do well to get “friendlier” with him. Lillian storms off.

The third test takes place, and Lillian somehow wins. Fearing for her life, she seeks out Chaol, again thinking of Celaena’s words. It disgusts her that while yes, she likes Chaol, she did seek him out for the sole purpose of gaining both his affection and protection. He managed to find out how the competitor escaped from his chambers (or something), and got promoted.

I’m getting a bit lazy now, but things happen and Celaena requests an audience with Dorian this time. Lillian goes through Chaos to get to Dorian. Dorian, unlike Nehemia, doesn’t seem as shaken after his audience with Celaena. After a little digging, Lillian finds out that Dorian was the one who proposed the idea of Celaena being a competitor in the first place, as well as the one who agreed to get her a little garden (it was the only thing she requested). He hasn’t gone back to see her since, apparently being a little intimidated by her.

The king has grown mad/angry with more and more of the contestants. Lillian, who actually won a test, barely mangled to escape from his ire. After a fourth test, in which Lillian purposefully fails and Celaena wins a second time, Chaol realizes that Lillian has been using him and ends their friendship. It is afterwards discovered that a second competitor escaped during the fourth test, resulting in something close to a “lockdown” in the castle.

When the king is found dead in his chamber, panic erupts. Chaol, once again, finds and captures the escaped competitor–alive, this time. Lillian asks for permission to see them, and it turns out to be her friend (whom she drifted apart from during the competition, as she became more focused on herself and not dying). They swear that they didn’t kill the king, and Lillian knows they didn’t. Celaena’s lessons about playing dirty rings through her head and it’s no doubt about who killed the king. Lillian deduces that it might have been some kind of poison that led the king to his death, thinking of Celaena’s garden and how the king destroyed it himself in order to make her suffer. Fearing her wrath, however, Lillian doesn’t say anything, instead wishing to confront Celaena afterwards.

Upon confronting Celaena the next day, she is unwilling to say anything about anything. Lillian figures some things out on her own, e.g. that Celaena always planned to escape, killing the guards with the poison she could get from the plants and whatever else she could get her hands on. For some reason, Celaena changed course, seeing an opportunity to get some actual power and using Lillian as a pawn in a much larger scheme (Lillian probs already had her suspicions about this, though she did as Celaena asked, considering it in the long run seemed to be a mutually beneficial relationship). As Lillian is there, Dorian shows up with Chaol and another guard. Chaol is furious as he sees Celaena and Lillian together, but Dorian tells him to stand back and that he while seeing her there right now was a surprise, it was as good as time as any to reveal that he knew that Celaena was going to have his father murdered, and that 1. he looked the other way, therefore indirectly helping, or 2. the poison never worked and Dorian did it himself (depending on whichever would make Dorian not completely unlikable, it’s meant to have been a moral dilemma for him).

More things happen, Dorian is crowned and gets engaged, Nehemia stays as a representative for her country and an ally of Celaena, yada yada yada. There’s drama here towards the end, especially between Dorian soon-to-be-king and Celaena I-got-you-to-where-you-are-now-you-owe-me. Again, this would be a bit more nuanced than if I wasn't just roughly outlining the concept.

Finally, Dorian declares that the competitors are pardoned. Lillian prepares to go back to her family as Celaena calls on her again. They don’t meet in Celaena’s chambers, but somewhere else, where a certain white-haired merchant is waiting alongside Celaena. He reveals his true name to be Rowan and that he was working with Celaena all along (he didn’t actually give a shit about that ring). Through some Quality Banter™ and intriguing and mysterious wording, Celaena reveals that Lillian is, in fact, the lost princess Aelin Galathynius and that if she wants to live, she has to go with Rowan right away. Lillian, for some reason, answers yes almost immediately, wondering to herself whether she said yes for survival’s sake or something else. (Dun dun dun do I sense a sequel in the distance?)

And that’s it. I hope you enjoyed my word-vomit of an outline folks.

#throne of glass #sjm #sarah j maas #tog #anti tog #anti sjm #sjm critical #I spent p long on this please give it attention

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bastardtravel · 6 years ago

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August 11, 2018. Manchester, New Hampshire.

After seven hours on the road, pausing only to explore an Old Ones cult site, storm a terrible castle, and eat distressingly dry corned beef at a Greek diner that still advertised one of their menu items as “Michael Jackson’s favorite grinder”, we were in dire need of respite.

Establishing a forward operating base was our first priority. For my part, I can sleep anywhere. My bonfire days in the Frozen North frequently necessitated pitching a $10 K-Mart tent over gravel, then drinking bottom-shelf whiskey until you didn’t realize you were sleeping in a puddle of rainwater and broken glass. That’s not a knack you lose. It’s like riding a bike. The Girl was always more discerning, and became doubly so after our experience in Phoenix with the inept criminal front halfway house hotel. We agreed that she can veto any of the lodgings I book. Sometimes, late at night, I’ll hold a flashlight under my chin and tell her spoOoOoky stories about hostels in Ireland.

She insisted on the airport Super 8. I was hoping to stay in a quaint deep woods motel called “Unsmiling Jed’s Sleepaway”, attached to sister business “Unsmiling Jed’s Discount Plastic Surgery Silo and Chili Kitchen”.

If I can’t protect it, I don’t deserve to have it. That goes double for life.

A friendly foreign woman checked us in at the Super 8, then proceeded into utter bafflement when I asked for a first aid kid. I chewed myself up pretty good climbing Bancroft’s Castle, and I’d spent the last half hour bleeding into an oily dog blanket to avoid ruining my upholstery. I’m pretty sure that’s how plagues start.

There were no band-aids here, or antiseptics, or possibly medicine as a concept. There was a three gallon tub of hand sanitizer. I thanked her for the offer but gently declined.

We went up to the third floor. The hallways were lined with people sitting on the carpet outside their rooms, shouting and smoking cigarettes. The room itself was clean and the air conditioning worked. All my boxes were checked. The bathroom reeked of weed, which some would interpret as a bonus. I scrubbed my wounds raw in the sink, tucked away the precious cargo of wine and peaches, and set out to investigate downtown Manchester.

Streetlight technology has not yet made its way to Manchester, so we spent twenty minutes missing exits in ocean-floor darkness. It looked worryingly like Wilkes-Barre, which is not where one would choose to vacation, were one sane.

Downtown erupted from nowhere like graphic pop-in on a video game running at its lowest resolution. One second you’re in leatherface country, with nothing breaking the abyssal darkness but the occasional half-broken Jiffy Lube sign. The next, you’re on vibrant neon market strip, replete with hipsters and the homeless.

We knew we had hit downtown proper when we passed by the “craft grilled cheese bistro”.

only programmers will understand!!!! like and reblog if u get it

Since I am an adult man, grilled cheese cannot be dinner. Both “gastropubs” we tried, despite their bitchin Greek mythology names, offered generic terrible burgers and a draft list that consisted of Coors Light.

“I’m so hungry,” the Girl told me. “I’m gonna die.”

“We all will,” I assured her. “Soon.”

Yelp claimed there was a brewery five blocks away. We walked off the only lit street, into absolute, encompassing blackness. It would’ve been spooky if I didn’t always kind of hope some Putty Patrol mook would lunge at me from the dark while I’m far away from home, having told no one where I’m going and left no paper trail.

There were no incidents. No one was murdered in self-defense. No one knows what we did last summer. The Stark Brewing Company was in the basement of a grim looking office complex, and it was vacant save for two other wanderers.

We sat at the bar and ordered a flight and an imperial stout. I was pushing for finding an actual restaurant, but the Girl ordered “Penne with vodka sauce”, which was not the right color, flavor, or texture to be anything but penne bolognese. The Girl didn’t seem to mind. I ate a pulled pork sandwich.

The beers were warm, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter what the beers were, so long as they were beers. And not Coors Light. The brewery themed all of their beers off of dogs, for some reason, which I believe to be the ideal business model. According to the bartenders, the brewery had been open for 25 years, but hadn’t yet received their big boom. I was outraged. The beers were excellent, and would probably be even better if they weren’t room temperature, and the taps were not only named for specific dogs, but also provided pictures.

To say nothing of the bathroom, which was covered in sharpie beer lore.

The bartender and waitresses swore a lot more than you would normally expect in this context. The Girl maintains they were swearing at us. I disagreed.

“They were swearing <i>with</i> us,” I mansplained.

“We weren’t swearing,” she countered.

“But if we HAD been.”

As I’ve grown larger and more sinuous, I’ve tried to cut back on how often I cuss at strangers. Cultural relativism is the understanding that not everyone grew up among the coalcrackers, and good-natured oaths like “how the hell are you” or using the fuck-word as a conversational placeholder, while subjectively soothing, can set off fight-or-flight in the small, soft, and bourgeoisie.

I try to maintain direct proportionality between my barbarism and my well-heeledness. Neither the wait staff nor the other two customers shared my bond, and the middle-aged guy on my right proceeded to tell me how his hometown of Denver, Colorado is the greatest fuckin’ city in America, next to maybe Southern California. Which is not a city.

We talked about our homes and travels for a while, then I got my pulled pork sandwich and they left. The sandwich was slightly warmer than the beer, which beat the alternative.

An armada of children came into the bar.

“Oh, shit,” the woman tending bar said. They were visibly teenagers, and on the wrong side of it. They had that gangly awkwardness you get around fourteen or fifteen, and if they were trying to play it off, they were woefully bad at it. There were also nearly twenty of them. It looked like a field trip.

People in their twenties don’t travel in packs of more than six. It’s hard to transport a throng, unless you have a party bus, and why do you have a party bus when you’re twenty-eight? You’re twenty-eight and party buses have always been sad. Get a job. Also, it’s hard to get that many adults to agree on something.

It can be done. You can say, “Hey, adults, you want to do some drugs?” And in a sufficiently sized crowd, you’ll manage to pull twenty or so who will follow you to your house or whatever. This is called an “afterparty”. It doesn’t go to bars at 9pm.

Have you felt out the social zeitgeist recently? Look at a random handful of current memes and it’ll be pretty clear that most adults consider socialization to be a required burden, like paying emotional taxes. “Going out” is the price of living in a civilized society. You’re not going to scare up twenty people, then put them in a party bus, then take them to an abandoned bar half a mile outside of where the actual nightlife is.

“Hey, we’re just about to close,” the bartender said.

A reedy blonde in a top that seemed to consist mostly of straps screeched, “But your WEBSITE said you were open til ONE!”

Screeched.

The bar fell silent. Well, more silent. The Girl and I traded looks, her horror for my delight.

“Uhhhhhh,” the bartender said, but with excellent elocution, as though that were the word she had deliberately chosen. “Okay.”

They sat the itinerant mall food court in an enormous corner table, whereupon they requested shots.

The waitress who had sworn at/with us the least came back to the bar and said, “You guys said you were from Pennsylvania, right?”

We nodded.

“Can I see one of your licenses quick?”

She compared mine against the obviously fake ID one of the tweens had given her. After a moment she said, “Yeah, you can see, the font is different. And the picture looks like it’s photoshopped.”

“Yeah, no one’s license picture ever looks this good,” the Girl said, studying the fake ID.

“Except mine,” I added. They ignored me. I didn’t take it personally.

The waitresses disappeared into the back. Five minutes later, the only dude working at the place was gendered into being the bad cop. He sulked over to the teens.

“You guys gotta leave,” he said. “We know your ID’s fake. We’re not trying to get fined. You gotta go.”

For maximum accuracy, imagine this said in Toby’s voice from the Office. Shamefaced, the flash mob of children dispersed.

We paid for our room temperature beers and left the poor, foul-mouthed brewery to close at 9:30 on a Friday. The Girl and I accidentally stalked the battalion of teens through the street, but only because we were all moving back toward the only lights in the city, not unlike moths. They turned a corner and vanished, presumably to find an arcade or laser tag or some sort of large carousel.

The Girl and I followed the sounds of some obnoxious bros announcing, “It’s like a fahkin sketchy ally, dewd”.

It was, in fact, the least sketchy alley I’d ever been in. Cat Alley was the best lit venue in all of New Hampshire. It was clean and well-maintained, and it was covered less in graffiti and more in an outdoor art gallery dedicated to cats.

There were more, but they didn’t all warrant a picture.

Portland Pie Co loomed from the endless darkness like a beacon in the night, hearkening back to those days lost in Maine during the Great Lobster Drought of 2017. We split a bourbon barrel ale which did me in. It was bedtime.

On the way back, toward the end of the main drag, a man made of pure light rode by blasting EZ-Listenin from his Tron bicycle, also made of pure light.

I can’t prove he wasn’t Jesus.

Heartened, we returned to the hotel, where no one was smoking or yelling in the hallway anymore. Excellent.

Next stop, Portsmouth.

Love,

The Bastard

Into the Abyss August 11, 2018. Manchester, New Hampshire. After seven hours on the road, pausing only to explore an Old Ones cult site, storm a terrible castle, and eat distressingly dry corned beef at a Greek diner that still advertised one of their menu items as "Michael Jackson's favorite grinder", we were in dire need of respite.

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snd-arts · 3 years ago

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Welcome to Our Art Blog

This is a side blog dedicated to sharing art we make.

You are both welcome and encouraged to reblog our art!

Extra info that might interest you is under the readmore.

I have no interest in debating anything contained in my art or write ups.

There likely will be themes you find uncomfortable or distasteful. There will likely be interpretations in my self-analysis that you don’t like. That is not my problem, and I will not engage with you about it. Try to make it my problem, and I’m just going to block you.

That said, I’ll do my very best to tag everything I can reasonably think of, and am open to being offered trigger tags to try and incorporate into my repertoire (The ask box is set up specifically for this). I know that art can be more triggering than words for a lot of people, and want to respect that.

All our analyses we’ll be tagging #snd-analyzing our art, and will be in a separate post from the art itself, so you can block that if you aren’t interested in seeing our ramblings.

Why I don’t do image descriptions/IDs:

It’s a simple answer: I don’t have the mental energy to do them consistently, or even at all often. Tagging already takes a lot of effort on my part.

I’m also not great at describing abstract images.

I wish I had that skill and that energy, because I know how valuable image IDs are. If anyone wants to do image descriptions, I’ll reblog the ones I see!

Main blogs are @safety-net-did and @ghostgetsablog

The two blogs generally house different subsets of alters, and thus have different opinions. Be kind, or get blocked.

#intro #pinned post #etsy shop #etsy store #small artist #smallbusiness

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princeyadon · 7 years ago

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im like 80% unhappy w my entire plot outline for ask-andante but ive sunk so much of myself into it that i cant stop now---

ill never reboot a blog. i wouldn't just up and delete 3 years worth of posts and myself learning because im now unhappy the more i learn abt storytelling

id have to start over again anyways and build up everything again, and tbh, i dont even have that kind of time.

im hoping the blog i do after will be better paced, better planned out, and have more substance in the content

and ill be the damn first to gripe on my blog and its content

mini spoilers, most of which will be brought up in canon sometime this week or the next anyways

As much as I wouldn’t rewrite my entire story, nor would I reboot the blog, I’d fucking loooove to retcon specific posts. I’ve gone back and actually edited a few but I still don’t appreciate the way they portrayed characters.

ask-andante’s biggest short-coming is where i decided to start the story (an unfortunate result of planning on just having a comedy blog that id abandon in a week). it’s much later in his life and all the learning and excitement and character development andante’s gone through is already over. i understand this to be a major reason for why the side characters tend to be much more interesting than him, as they’re growing and learning, and are willing to learn. andante’s personality type is kind of hard to play as a main character.

i also know celtia’s sudden turn to be honest is still really.. sudden. it kind of comes from no where when you read it. i really really want to address this w him before i close his arc, so it can at least be explained. i think i might be able to find an opening for it in an ask soon.

andante would especially do better if he had someone to play off of, someone he likes to interact with... but unfortunately w the way ive set everything up, if he did have someone like that on the blog (as in a character of mine and not someone else’s), things would go much differently and i dont feel like rewriting everything.

i could potentially find a way to insert a character like this, but id have to write them out and develop them, along w backstories, motivation, goals, future, and even just a reason to be friends w Andante. Celtia’s reasonings make more sense. He wasn’t aware of what Andante was like, and w him using Aroma Therapy, never got to see that his dangerous side was serious because he would diffuse situations before they could escalate. Save for the DJ post, and attacking him. He did mention he was going to leave if it happened again, I suppose. But that’s who Celtia is, he’s starved for attention and approval, the whole reason he disguised his looks was because he wanted to be perfect and attractive, he wanted that approval from people. He figured Andante was just some edge lord who would come around, and he was so desperate to have that.

A lot of Celtia’s older posts are too edgy and I’d love to rewrite those so he was less like Andante abt the whole thing---to put it one way. It was understandable he was having panic attacks, and was extremely defensive abt his Perfect Presentation being destroyed after he had won friendships and approval from askers. But I just really don’t like the way he comes off in them. I wish he looked more frightened, rather than angry. I also wish I hadn’t supported the fuckin ship so much, i went back and deleted a lot of the boyfriendy tags, but admittedly there was a bit of pressure from the community. Nothing direct, i cant pin this blame on any one person and i never will as it was my fault, but i noticed how many more notes the andanstilbe posts got and how many people liked the ship that i kept forcing it, hoping to receive that approval myself

Back again to a character for Andante to play off of--w his next few major arcs, it’s even harder to get a character in that balances out Andante while also positively interacting w him. Andante’s goals aren’t good goals, and he’ll go through any length of sacrificing others for them, and getting a level headed, down to earth, or positive/upbeat character not to try and stop Andante would be difficult without coming up w some strange reason why they don’t. If anyone tried to stop Andante, he’d kill them as they’d be “betraying” him... you can see why writing Andante’s interactions can be fuckin difficult, because of the way he is from recent events (which will have a portion of an arc dedicated to those events), he is much too quick to cut ties and literally kill people because he’s afraid of betrayal/heartbreak.

Overall, I worry for the content of the blog to be just another boring gore fest or whatever, with no real character development or world development tied into it. Actually, it’s literally just one arc that I’m worried for because of this, but I don’t want this arc to ruin a lot of the “story” I have set up.

I also don’t like how everyone is all talk, and there’s nothing actually going on. I get that it’s because Celtia’s arc is going on rn, and his is just getting into his past before he’s gone... which, it can’be helped too much that it’s all talk since it’s going back into the past and all... but that’s what this whole blog has been.

i guess i could pull a 2yr anni, and instead of just regular flash backs and all talk, we actually go back to those eras and have them as semi interactable. I really need to take into consideration the format i am using to tell this story, the fact it’s an ask blog and interactive and not a comic or whatever. But characters would all need to be like voices or doubts, or generic characters from the time period--depending on where these events take place.

I could always have that happen and then only specific times in the past are interactable, and every now and then it breaks away into something streamlined... As much as I’d like to not create a barrier between plot and asks anymore than I have in the past, I can’t have everything weirdly interactable you know?? If it’s a past event that’s already happened? But it’d be better than the character staring at the floor talking like it’s ask-a-therapist over here

i wish i could rant more abt my own fuckin blog but id be getting too into major spoilers over it.

at this point, im just happy if the blog serves as a fun read rather than anything serious, and is good entertainment value. it’s my first story ive even tried to go through with, and i should respect that a bit more and accept it for what it is, and when i try again i will have put these ideas to better use.

#its just one of those things #where you realize #wow ive spent almost 3 years on what ive done #lets assume it takes me abt 6 years to finally finish an entire story #how many more would i have in me??#would i be willing to continue this format or story telling at all when im like 30??#if be abt 25 if it ended in 3 years #i know if i have those worries i should accept my losses and do something abt the blogs plot #or scrap it and move on with better ideas and better ways of going about things #but i really cant dude this blog is my life lmfao #id need an entire couple days to revamp the plot to fix major issues i have #and thatd make the plot longer which is my biggest issue w doing that #i just dont really have the time to finish like 3 extra arcs because i did something wrong andneed to fix it in post #ANYWAYS #i have more grievances BUUTT #its just a fucking ask blog dude #text #long post #andante related #semi comp #rip mobile users lmao

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scurvgirl · 7 years ago

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What’s Normal Anyways?

More Wall AU!

Melarue belongs to @justanartsysideblog

They end up closing on the “modest” chateau quickly, and Melarue is quick to bring in contractors to get the work done in the house. The kitchen needs updating and a powder-bathroom needs to be added to the first floor as well as other general fixes around the house. The initial quote involved a six-week timeline that Melarue was not happy about. There were discussions that Kass was not a part of but the time has been halved and they will be moving in in three weeks. In the meantime, they live in the swanky apartment in the heart of Old Val Chevin.

There was a very polite argument on who should have the actual bedroom. Melarue won the argument and now Kass begrudgingly wakes up feeling ridiculously pampered in a gorgeous room bathed by warm morning sunlight. It’s not right, it’s their apartment, their money, they should be waking up in the gorgeous room bathed in warm sunlight, not lounging in the office that doesn’t even have a window.

They dedicate the rest of the house hunting day to procuring furniture and things to live by until they can move into the house. Among the things Melarue purchases are a TV, a large couch that she’s pretty sure they only purchased because she mentioned how nice it cushioned her back, and two thousand dollars’ worth of knives because “one should never skimp on proper cutlery.” By the end of the shopping trip, Kass felt sick – sticker sickness, she’s decided to call it, because it’s just…so much. Halfway through, they just started concealing price tags from her and always sent her on errands while they paid so she wouldn’t see how much they were spending.

It’s just another slap in the face of how ridiculously wealthy they are and how there is no way she is ever going to repay them. She locks herself in the bathroom that night and cries as quietly as she can, entirely too overwhelmed. It’s not that she isn’t grateful, or that she wants to leave them, just…she wants to know what it’s like to be completely free, to not be tied down by someone holding a chain or by guilt through a checkbook. And she knows that it isn’t going to fix itself immediately, that she needs to work and incur as few costs as possible, pay rent, her share of the utilities, buy her own food…but right now she feels like she can cry about it a bit. Also, she’s pregnant, she gets some leeway there she thinks.

To their credit, they don’t confront her about the crying and let her go to sleep without fuss. When she wakes up, she finds they’ve set the TV up. They smile at her and show her how to work the thing and together they find a movie they both like. They curl up on the large couch together and end up watching movies for the rest of the day, eating sandwiches for lunch and ordering cheap pizza for dinner. And by the end, she feels calmer, less shocked and more comfortable. They are wealthy, but not lofty, and they hold no ideas of keeping her captive or indebted.

The Monday after they arrive and settle on a house, Melarue’s job begins. They are bustling through the house, gathering their things, and eying her as they move from room to room. Kass sips her tea, curled up on the couch, trying not to chuckle.

“The first day is always the scariest, imekari. You’ll do fine,” she chides playfully. She sees them rolls their eyes as they pull out a pad and begin to write on it.

“I have a class from 10:30 to 11:30 then a class from 1:00 to 2:45, then I have office hours and meetings until six. Feel free to order any food you want, if you need me, you have my number, and my office is in Ameridan Hall, third floor, room 316.”

“I’ll be fine, Melarue,” she says, trying to ease some of the tension in them. She doubts they are nervous about their work which means they are nervous about her. For what? She is used to being left at home to her own devices. They went grocery shopping the other day, there is food and with the phones they just bought, she can order anything so…everything will be fine.

She has things to do, like job research and potentially looking into learning Orlesian. Still, Melarue pauses at the door.

“Have a good day, I know how to reach you if I need you. Go, mold the young minds of tomorrow!” She encourages them. Their lips twitch upwards.

“Alright. Do call if you need.” They turn and leave, taking a significant presence with them.

The apartment feels very, very large suddenly. The ceilings are impossibly high, the fireplace is too fine, and when she sneaks a peak at the street below from a window, she’s reminded very much of how she’s in Val Chevin. Adjustment is going to take an annoying amount of time.

Kass retreats from the window to the computer resting on the dining table and begins her search. She runs into the problem of not knowing Orlesian much more than she was expecting. Also, qualifications…she basically doesn’t have any. When she initially moved south with Qal, she worked at a sandwich shop. Then she got pregnant and Qal got a promotion at the same time, so…he wanted her to stop working.

Former Tamassrans don’t work in sandwich shops.

But now she needs work, but she doesn’t know the language, she doesn’t have a bank account, she doesn’t have really anything. Is she even here legally? She doesn’t know.

Panic tries to well up in her, but she squashes it quickly. Not the time, not the place. Instead, she pokes around until she finds the Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, and Vashoth Cultural Community Center of Val Chevin. It’s a mouthful, but everything on the website has Common and Qunlat translations available and they advertise aid in job finding, language courses, and even counseling.

Her day is decided then. Kass showers and dresses, then heads out with the directions to the community center written on a page from the notepad. Google told her that walking would only take twenty minutes, so she goes on foot, heading towards the university campus. The center is located across the street from the main library. It’s a beautiful area, with old roads and trimmed trees that are beginning to change in color with the season. There are students milling about, some are splayed out in the grassy areas with books surrounding them.

The center itself is slightly underwhelming. It’s a small white building with a modest sign out front declaring its name. She heads inside, a bell clinks announcing her presence and a cheery looking person pops up behind the welcome desk.

“Hello!” They say in accented Qunlat, “welcome to the together center!” They’re clearly vashoth, Kass thinks, with their accent and using the wrong word for ‘community’. That is a common mistake though, qunlat has roughly twenty different words surrounding the concept of community.

“Hi,” Kass replies and their eyes widen a bit.

“My name is Kassaran,” she says in Common. Qunlat, or at least the Qunlat she knows, doesn’t have phrases for names.

“A pleasure to meet you, Kassaran. I am Kalit, are you new to Val Chevin?”

Kass nods and her hand lands on her stomach, “I am. I um…it’s a bit of a complicated story…I was really just hoping to get some help with a few things?”

“Of course! What are you looking for?” Kalit shuffles over and sits expectantly at a computer.

“I need a job, but I don’t know Orlesian, and I don’t even know…” she purses her lips and wonders what she can and should not say. Her pause is long enough that Kalit stands up and comes around from the desk. They’re very short for a qunari, and they have exceptionally round features, she wonders if one of their parents is a dwarf.

They gently take her hands and smile up at her.

“You’re Tal-Vashoth, right?”

Kass nods.

“We don’t get many who have actually left the Qun, mostly we get vashoth students trying to find a place in a university that largely still doesn’t get it. But we can help, Shokrakar is in her office, who is really the best when it comes to counseling people on this.” Kalit releases one of Kass’s hands but holds the other as they lead her down the hall to a room with the door propped open.

“Dr. Valo?” Kalit says, pushing the door open.

“Yes, Kalit?”

“There is someone who could use your counseling services. This is Kassaran, she’s Tal-Vashoth.” Kalit guides Kass into the room. It’s a nice room, painted a soft blue decorated with black and white photos of various happy qunari people. Behind the large white desk sits an impressively tall qunari woman. Kass guesses her to be from Seheron, rather than Par Vollen with her black hair and dark eyes, the low-riding horns.

She looks up from her computer and smiles immediately Kass before rising.

“Hello, Kassaran. I’m Doctor Shokrakar Valo, please call me Shokrakar.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kass replies, shaking her hand. The doctor gestures for Kass to take a seat, thanks Kalit who leaves, shutting the door behind them.

“So, Kassaran, what can I help you with today?”

Kass swallows and fidgets with the hem of her shirt, “I really just need a job but I’m finding that to be unrealistic?”

Shokrakar nods, “Yes, unfortunately in Orlais, ninety-five percent of jobs require you speak Orlesian. But there are a few that don’t require it. I have a checklist of things I like to give people when looking for work – things like a bank account, payment plans for any debts, financial planning, those sorts of things that I have found many Tal-Vashoth specifically have a harder time with.”

“Yes, I…don’t really understand any of it. You know, under the Qun, everything is taken care of – you have your role, your monthly stipend dependent on your role that is attached to your citizen ID number, and that’s it.”

“Right, but it isn’t as different here as you think it is.”

For the next thirty minutes, Shokrakar explains as much as she can about the financial system in Orlais in how it will relate to Kass, even with the baby. There are apparently things like tax breaks for having children, and even programs for single parents to help support them – all dependent if she is here legally of course. Kass still doesn’t know, and she explains as best she can that this all happened in a way that she still doesn’t fully understand. The thirty minutes after that, Kass finds herself telling Shokrakar about how she left the Qun with Qal, to start a life happy and free from the toxicity plaguing their souls in the Qun.

“It wasn’t even a week ago that I was with my husband, locked in our apartment, and now I’m here and it’s great, but it’s just…”

“Overwhelming. You went from the Qun to Qal, that must have been…”

“Difficult, yes.” Kass rubs her stomach where the baby presses against.

“But I’m here now, and my…” what exactly is Melarue to her? Her friend? Rescuer? Roommate? None of the words seem right. Friend and roommate feel small for what Melarue is, and rescuer makes them seem like a superhero. Which…maybe they are, they have the aloofness of one, and the potential required tragic backstory – why else would they have their passenger? But friend…friend is closest.

“My friend, Melarue, they are very kind and are helping me.”

“So, you have a place to stay? Food? What about doctor appointments?”

Kass nods to the first two but pauses on the last. Doctor appointments, right. She shifts around and Shokrakar clicks around on her computer.

“I have doctor recommendations for you – when was your last appointment?”

Kass bites her lip. About that.

“Um. Qal said that women have been having babies since the beginning of time without doctors so…after we got the confirmation, he just said to keep indoors and eat well and I would be fine.”

Shokrakar blinks then nods very slowly, “…Alright. Well. That dathrasi can’t hurt you or your baby anymore. This is the information of a very trusted OB/GYN in the community. I will tell her to expect your call, she works at a clinic on the other side of campus that offers affordable care.” Kass takes the note, reading the name of the doctor carefully. Her brow furrows and while it seems like such an odd thing to be able to pick out….

“Forgive me, and you don’t have to answer, but…were you trained as a priestess?” She asks softly. Priestesses always had very specific looking handwriting, it was supposed to mirror that of Koslun’s.

Shokrakar pauses for a moment then smiles the sort of smile that Kass knows too well.

“Yes. But I loved science and the Qun and the priesthood…you know. I left to pursue science. I got a doctorate in sociology and now here I am, guiding people like a priestess would.” Her face is sad for a moment before she shakes it off.

“I think that’s good. The rest of us…we still need guidance, and while you aren’t serving the Qun, you’re still serving, you’re being true to yourself, and no matter what the Qun says – that’s good. You make the community strong.” It is a favored saying in qunlat to describe one who is valued and good. While it’s a remnant of the qun, she can see it light Shokrakar’s face up.

“Thank you, tama,” she replies. Kass’s face flushes, not in embarrassment but in acknowledgement of what she was. She knows that certain habits die hard, and some ways of being never change.

The rest of their talk goes well, she gets some information on how to enroll in Orlesian classes and some places that will hire her. Shokrakar tells her about a support group she has for specifically Tal-Vashoth persons. There is a qunari women’s support group as well, though it isn’t specifically Tal-Vashoth.

After their talk, Shokrakar decides to take her out for lunch. Because she has a class after lunch, they head to a café attached to the library where Kass orders a large spinach salad.

By the end of lunch, Kass feels like she’s made a friend and promises to keep in touch. Shokrakar suggests that perhaps Kass and Melarue come over for dinner some time. Shokrakar’s wife, Aada, would be more than happy to have them.

“It’s been great meeting you, Kassaran, feel free to call or text or email me any time – Tal-Vashoth have to stick together right?” Shokrakar jokes and Kass nods.

“Definitely. Thank you for everything!” Kass replies. They part ways, Shokrakar heading to her class and Kass heading back to the apartment. It is a beautiful day, the sky is filled with soft white puffy clouds, barely concealing any of the sun’s light. There is a gentle breeze rolling through the streets, ruffling Kass’s hair.

Today’s already been a good day, and it still has hours left! Speaking with Shokrakar has made her nostalgic for the better parts of the qun. Like the food. Kass believes that everyone is preferential to the food native where they grew up, there’s emotions and flavors there that other cuisines don’t have. And while the qun didn’t work out for her adult life, it wasn’t bad for her childhood. Like most children under the Qun, she enjoyed the feeling of having many children her age to play with, all under the care of the same Tamassrans.

When Kass arrives back at the apartment, she sets to work to creating a dish that takes hours upon hours to make. Not all the ingredients can be found at Orlesian grocery stores, she found, but she makes do with what was available.

She turns on some music and dances along as she cooks, feeling light and bright and happy. The apartment is filled with music and the smell of spices by the time Melarue arrives home. She hears them stop and pauses her singing before leaning over the kitchen island to wave at them.

“Welcome home! I hope you don’t mind, I went to the Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, and Vashoth Cultural Community Center today and it made me miss traditional foods so much. I hope you like spice!” She declares happily, dancing back to the large pot on the stove. She stirs the pot then tosses in the chicken that had been previously pan-frying. She covers the pot, checks on the rice, then sets to heating up some bread to go along with it all.

She turns to see Melarue’s wandered into the kitchen, sniffing the air with a smile.

“That smells delicious,” they say and she beams in return.

“Good! I hope you like it, if you don’t that’s fine though! Qunari foods tend to be polarizing for non-qunari,” she babbles, reaching up into the cabinets, pulling out several dishes for them to use.

“Normally there are several other spices, but I understand that Par Vollen doesn’t quite like letting them go. If you leave the qun you shouldn’t have any of its comforts – as if the qun owns the plants on the island as well,” she continues, bitterness lacing her tone. She blinks then shakes her head.

“It still has fifteen more minutes, if you would like to get changed into something more comfortable.”

“I can help, if you need. I was not expecting you to cook dinner,” they tell her, rolling up their sleeves, revealing long elegant hands.

“Um,” she hums, trying to think of things for them to do. She ends up handing over the warming of the bread which is busy work at this point. She apologizes though, it’s just that this last part is really nothing – the chicken just needs to simmer in the pot with the sauce for a bit. They seem understanding enough about it though, which is reassuring.

They do end up changing before dinner and by the time they’re back, she’s making their plate. They take a bite and hum in happiness.

“This is delicious, Kassaran, thank you.”

A small flicker of pride and happiness flares up in her chest, as well as some surprise. Qal had always expected dinner when he came home. But Melarue seems surprised and to be genuinely enjoying what she’s made.

Worry and tension eases from her shoulders as she digs into her own food.

“What did you do at the Community Center?” They ask.

“I talked with a Dr. Valo? She’s a sociology professor at the university. I wanted to see if they could help me find a job. Um, I…don’t think it is going to be simple? A lot of jobs require proficiency in Orlesian, which I am going to learn. Dr. Valo said she could get me enrolled in language classes at the university, so…hopefully I’ll be able to get a job and start maybe paying you back for everything you’ve done and that’s a lot and I am so thankful for everything really and I want to pay you back but it’s probably going to take some time and I am really rambling, I’m sorry!”

Melarue blinks then wipes at their mouth a napkin, “Kassaran, you don’t need to feel indebted to me. If you acquire a job and find means to leave and that is what you want, I will not stop you. I will not hold any debt over you. But thank you, you are very kind to want to pay me back.”

“I want to pay rent,” she blurts.

They pause then nod, “That is fine, as long as it is proportional to your income and does not impair you.” That is more than fair and she bows her head in thanks.

“I-I also need to go see the doctor.”

Their attention snaps to a point at that, “Is something wrong? We can go now.”

“No, no, everything is fine right now, I just…haven’t been able to go since getting the pregnancy confirmed…” The concern in their face does not wane, if anything they look even more concerned. After a moment, they release a long breath.

“Did Dr. Valo give you any recommendations?” Their voice is even but there is a sharpness to it and Kass wonders if their passenger is responsible for it. But there aren’t any cloying shadows or anything and their nails a normal length, so…maybe not?

“She did. A Dr. Merev – she works at the clinic on the south end of campus?”

“Alright. Do you know if you’ll need payment for it?”

“Probably, Shokrakar, uh Dr. Valo, said that she is affordable but probably still needs money, I’m sorry.”

Melarue waves her off, “It is no trouble, you and the baby need care, I’m more than happy to help.”

“Do…do you want to go with me then? Since it’ll be your payment information. I-I wouldn’t feel comfortable just using it myself,” she says, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“I can go depending on the time.”

“What time would work for you?”

“I have nothing on Friday after three.”

“I will shoot for something after three on Friday, then.” Kass smiles and they both return to their food. After a few minutes, the silence draws on for what feels like a damning amount of time.

“How was your first day?” She asks.

Melarue shrugs, “It was good. I’m excited to be teaching again, even if some of the professors are…well let’s just say not all of them are aware of their history as they should be.”

“Oh dear.”

“It’s nothing dire, more annoying than anything. I’m afraid I frightened some of my human students off already,” they chuckle in a way that say that they are not in fact afraid about anything, or annoyed, but delighted at their current state of affairs.

“Well it sounds you are where you’re supposed to be. Those kids are lucky to have you,” as am I, she thinks.

“What classes did you have today?”

“Introduction to Elven History and a seminar course – The Dales: An Elven Perspective. The introduction course is the one where I am sure some of the human students are less than pleased, but then if they want their human-centric and friendly history they can take that oaf Dr. Renaudin’s class.”

Kass chuckles, they are so passionate about it!

“They would be fools to miss out on your class. But then, oafs do tend to attract fellow fools.” She tears her bread and begins to sop up the sauce, spooning some chicken along with it.

“What makes him oafish?”

They finish chewing and sigh, “Where do I start?”

As it turns out, there are many things that make Marcel Renaudin an oaf – an ignorant, racist oaf at that. Kass is by no means an expert on history, particularly elven history, but she knows that marginalized populations often get their history…reworked to fit in with the oppressors’ history. It happens in the Qun, even, mostly erasing the legitimacy of rebellions lead by Tal-Vashoth and Saare – mages.

This Marcel Renaudin is the sort of historian to endorse such…revisionist history as far as Kass can tell. Sure, Melarue is biased but Melarue is also sharp and Kass suspects they have lived through a lot of the history they’re talking about. So…she’s going to take their word over his.

Their conversation lasts past dinner, and they help her clean up. They’re rather insistent about it since she cooked. She “needs to get off her feet”. It is…a very different change of pace. She’s used to cleaning up. Qal would sit in the living room, winding down from the day, watching TV, and then she’d slip into the bedroom to read.

But Qal isn’t here and Melarue is kind. Kass sits down on the couch and clicks on the TV. There is…a ridiculous number of channels. How does she even choose? She settles eventually on the Home and Gardening channel. There is a show featuring a couple searching for a home in Denerim, Ferelden.

After Melarue finishes with the dishes, they take a seat next to her with a stack of papers.

“You already have things to grade?” She asks incredulously.

“No, I took a survey in the classes on some of the common misconceptions about elven history. I’m going through them, taking notes to see what I need to focus on.”

“That’s clever,” she says. They smile and they fall into a companionable silence as Kass watches her show and Melarue works through their papers. Every so often she looks over at them, sometimes their face is relaxed and simply reading, nodding along and making marks on a little notepad, others their brows are drawn and their lips are pursed. Sometimes they look to be incredulous, pen hovering indecisively over the notepad.

Their eyes flick up to hers behind their glasses, and she blushes. She quickly turns back to her show – the couple picks the second house, which seems silly to Kass since it was so out of budget.

The night continues quietly like that until Kass decides to head to bed. Melarue smiles at her and tells her to sleep well. For the first time in forever, Kass sleeps diagonally on a bed and it is glorious. She wakes up with a smile, stretching her body out over the bed. It is her domain! Her little kingdom of sheets and blankets and pillows – and she is the queen of all things soft and happy…for all of five minutes before her bladder screams in protest.

She relieves herself, showers, then heads into the kitchen for breakfast and her morning tea. Melarue’s nose wrinkles at her tea and she cocks her head.

“Do you not like tea?”

“No, it is odorous leaf water.”

She laughs at that, “It can be stinky, this is true. This blend is supposed to help the baby though, so, down it goes.”

“Well, of course if it’s for the baby,” they reply, reaching for their travel mug of not-tea.

“Did you eat breakfast? I’m going to scramble up some eggs if you’d like some,” she offers.

“Not this morning, I have early class, but I will be home earlier.”

“Alright, I was thinking maybe pasta for dinner?”

“Sounds delicious.” They grab their bag and wave bye to her as they leave, much easier today than yesterday she notes. Good, she doesn’t want them to worry.

The rest of the week follows in a similar pattern – she wakes up in time to tell Melarue to have a good day, she has breakfast, then leaves to go explore the city. She finds she really likes the university campus and a small square that’s a five-minute walk from campus. She enjoys getting all the fresh air and she spends a fair amount of time of walking through the university’s gardens. The house has such potential for a truly lovely garden, she needs ideas of what grows well down here.

She brings up the gardening ideas with Melarue who seems very eager to begin their garden. Wonderful! It’ll be a good weekend activity, and if she stays with them, the baby will have a gorgeous garden to grow up in and hopefully tend to themselves.

Kass makes dinner each night and Melarue cleans up. She begins to explore more of the channels and finds some programs she likes. It is amazing to her that there is a section dedicated to being ‘on demand’, full of shows and movies that she can just say ‘I want to watch this’ and boom – she can.

She discovers the amazing terrible-ness of Lifetime movies and honestly? She’s hooked.

The only day that ends up being a bit odd is Friday when she heads to the clinic with Melarue for her 3:30 appointment.

She wasn’t nervous before about it, partially because she hasn’t felt bad because of the pregnancy. She had some morning sickness at the beginning, but everything she read said that was normal. But now she keeps fidgeting with her sleeves, her purse, nibbling on her lip. The baby moves, seeming to know that their mama is nervous.

They take a seat in the waiting room and Melarue sets to filling out financial information.

She’s called back at 3:45. She stands up but Melarue does not, she looks at them quizzically.

“Do…would you rather not come back?” She asks. She knows that it is a bit…out of the ordinary to ask a friend to come back with her, but, well…she could use the support. But only if they don’t mind!

“I can come back if you’d like,” they offer carefully and she bites her lip before nodding wordlessly. Asking for help is difficult, particularly after everything else. But Melarue doesn’t hesitate – they grab their things and step up next to her. They follow a nurse back into a room where various measurements are taken. Blood pressure, height, weight, oral medical history (that is difficult to give since she has to translate everything from qunlat and medical terminology is always weird with that).

She changes into the typical paper gown for gynecological visits.

“Why are these offices always cold for these visits? Like they know we’re going to be pretty much naked, why is it cold?” She bemoans, pulling the robe closer to her body in a vain attempt to feel warmer.

“Like they expect me to expose myself not just their prying eyes but also to the cold air? They are asking too much,” yes she is whining, and no she doesn’t care. She’s cold, she’s pregnant, and she’s freaked out. She can whine.

“It is oddly chilly in here,” Melarue murmurs, looking up. They cock their head and their eyes flutter shut. After a moment, Kass hears something shift in the ceiling. Melarue opens their eyes and warmer air begins to flow out from a vent in the ceiling.

“OH!” She turns to them, “you’re too sweet! Thank you…and thank you for coming back, I know it’s weird but…we’re not exactly normal.”

“I do not mind, Kassaran. I’m…glad you feel comfortable having me here.”

There is a nervousness to them that has been present all week. As concerned as she has been about them letting her stay, she’s beginning to think they’ve been equally concerned on her leaving or somehow rejecting them over their condition. And her insistence on getting independent can’t be helping that.

“I really appreciate it, everything. You’re a wonderful friend.”

The doctor of course decides to come in before they can reply.

“Hello! I’m Dr. Merev.” The doctor billows in, quickly shaking Melarue and Kassaran’s hand. She looks down at Kass’s belly and glances at Melarue.

“Is the baby –

“Not theirs! Um, I mean…I have, had, a husband and he’s qunari so the baby is on a total qunari baby track. Ten months.”

“I’m a friend,” Melarue clarifies and the doctor nods, going along with it while she pulls on some gloves.

“That’s fine, I was just checking because elven-qunari children usually have different gestation than a qunari-qunari baby. Normally shorter with more heartburn for some reason, but that’s not the case. So, how far along are you?”

“Twenty-one weeks and…six days,” Kass answers. Dr. Merev goes through several more questions and it doesn’t take long before Kass has to explain that no, she hasn’t had doctor appointments because of Qal. Like Shokrakar and Melarue, Dr. Merev pauses for a moment and Kass shifts around awkwardly.

“Alright, you’re here now and we’re going to make sure you and the baby are healthy.” Dr. Merev goes through what feels like pages of questions, everything from diet to lifestyle to how easily Kass conceived, if she’s noticed anything unusual, as well as any pre-existing conditions she’s aware of.

Then comes the joy of having cold goo being squirted onto her abdomen.

“Since you haven’t had any doctor appointments, I’m guessing you haven’t heard your baby’s heartbeat.” Kass shakes her head. She knows that it’s normal to have heard the heartbeat months before now but then again, ‘normal’ doesn’t include Qal, she guesses. Dr. Merev moves the wand thing over Kass’s abdomen and then –

Wub wub wub wub wub wub.

“Oh,” she breathes. She’s not sure if the reaction is the same since she’s felt her little baby moving and kicking around already, so this isn’t the first real confirmation of life in her but it is…something else. That’s her baby’s heartbeat, a strong, happy heartbeat. She stares at the screen, watching her little one’s head and body and oh! There’s a little hand!

“Good news, everything looks good – ten fingers, ten toes, the skull looks good for proper future horn development. Your child is not going to be hornless,” Dr. Merev says, which Kass was expecting. Hornless children are rare for qunari, hence the stance that hornless children are ‘special’. She likes the horns anyways.

“A very normal looking baby, congratulations. Now, for some news you may not like – because of the lack of prenatal care, and because of the high stress environment you have been in, it has greatly increased the risk of this pregnancy. Your blood pressure is high, which is a risk factor for preeclampsia. Qunari pregnancies outside of the Qun are already higher risk pregnancies that human, elven, and dwarven pregnancies. So, you need to be in low stress environments. Not bed rest, but no strenuous work, low sodium diet, make sure you take your prenatal vitamins.”

Kass nods, she will make sure to take the vitamins, but the low stress environment…

“We just moved here and I don’t have a job, I wanted to get one, help pay rent, utilities, can I still do that?”

“I would strongly advise against it. If you need it to live, then do what you need to do.”

She leans back against the examination table and takes a deep breath. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

You can’t work while pregnant! Qal had yelled at her, demanding she turn in her notice at the sandwich shop. In some sick way, he was right – but because of what he has done. She knows that. It’s not…he’s…. Just dammit. Dammit it all.

She can just see her debt to Melarue, whether they recognize it or not, rising and rising. She’s not a small woman, she eats, and she’s growing a person, so she’s probably eating more than normal. She incurs a cost of utilities, shit they even bought a house because of her and she can’t even work to help them.

“Kassaran, there is no issue with this. Your and the baby’s health come first, I am happy to share my home with you,” Melarue tells her softly. She covers her face and works on breathing so she doesn’t cry.

“I know, and I am so, so thankful. I just…I’m this lump. I don’t want to be this burden that just weighs you down when you want to do things.” She sniffles and tries to hold the deluge back. It’s just not fair to them to have her laying around the apartment or the house doing nothing. Sure, she can cook and clean for them but she hardly sees that as enough.

“No, no, you are not a burden, Kass. The farthest thing from it. Even when we had that wall between us, you made every day better. I am more than happy to help you.” She feels their hand gently rest on her left horn, slowly running their hand back in a reassuring gesture. She leans into their touch for a moment before moving her hands from her face.

“…Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

They haven’t given her any reason to doubt them. From just taking her all the way here to buying the house to…every day, spending time with her.

She exhales a long breath and turns to the doctor.

“Alright, but I am going to take Orlesian classes, I might as well with all this down time for the next five months.”

“That is an excellent plan,” Dr. Merev says and proceeds to clean Kass up and revert the room back to normalcy. Kass is given a prescription for her prenatal vitamins and sets up her next appointments before leaving with a cute little sonogram of her baby.

She can’t work but…she’ll make it work. She’ll cook, clean, keep the house, and it’s just because it seems fair. If Melarue is going to be working and bringing home the bacon, so to speak, then she can keep a nice home for them.

#my writing #kassaran #melarue #caserole #domestic slow burn here we gooooo #wall au #shokrakar

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