#(not because writing bad. Writing good in fact but because the blorbos are not having a good time at all

[queer-omens-in-the-archives]

TO ESCAPE AN EMPIRE CHAPTER 5 FULLY DRAFTED REAL NOT CLICKBAIT

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

I remember when I was first getting into DSMP and I was familiar with a decent chunk of canon (mostly through animatics and a few clips) but I still had a lot of gaping holes in my knowledge, and half the fanworks I saw seemed to be trying to convince me that c!Techno is a grumpy stoic angry guy who doesn't care about people.

Genuinely started thinking I was just being obnoxious and one of those people who makes characters way too soft and ooc, for just. Picking up on the fact that c!Techno actually cares about c!Ranboo and others. That was a heck of a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

I have since consumed enough canon to confirm that c!Techno does actually care about others just like I initial thought he did. He cares quite a lot in fact. Because his character flaw isn't that he doesn't care about people, it's that he never tells them how much he does (which is probably exactly why so many fans thought he didn't care at all — it's for the same reason so many characters think he doesn't care). Ofc he has other flaws too but they're not currently relevant I'll probs talk about them some other day.

[no-psi-nan]

Disclaimer: Fanfiction is for fun times and it doesn't have to be "good" to exist and be shared!! Also just like all advice in the world YMMV (your mileage may vary) and the fact is that the best writing advice is whatever gets you writing!

STEP ONE of good characterization:

YOU ARE NOT THE CHARACTER. THE CHARACTER IS NOT YOU. STOP RELATING TO THE CHARACTER.

They do not think the way you think. They will not react the way you react. They don't have your morals, preferences, tastes, fashion sense, etc etc etc.

You are not the guy.

You must appreciate them as a separate person. Only once you have separated them from yourself in your heart can you start on the road to knowing your blorbo....

STEP TWO of good characterization:

When asking any question about the character at all, START FROM CANON.

If the exact answer is not in the canon, pick the CLOSEST scenario / fact / interaction, and work from there.

Example: Blorbo has never seen Glup Shitto held at gunpoint. But Blorbo was really angry when Glup Shitto's diary was stolen, and freaked out during another life or death situation.

Held at gunpoint is like 10x more fucked up than the diary so make Blorbo's like 10x angrier and similarly freaked out.

STEP THREE of good characterization:

For details that are not addressed at all in canon, use THEMES, GENRE, and CHARACTER ARCHETYPE/ROLE to create a believable rendition of the character.

Don't forget to include any quirks that significantly set them apart from similar characters when choosing these things btw.

Your BRILLIANT POWERFUL SCIENTIST may have dark polished hardwood furniture that speaks to sophistication but show her love of travel with tchotchkes from around the world.

Your ANGTSY MANPAIN MAN may choose military combat gear but wear pink socks because his daughter picked them out.

Your MANIC PIXIE DREAM GUY may love jogging with his cute dog in the park but reveals hints of a DARK PAST in his music playlist. And in the gun he keeps in his fanny pack.

Don't forget that other characters likely have their own knowledge and opinions of blorbo that you can draw from. If Glup Shitto is consistently wrong about blorbo and thinks blorbo is probably a good cook, make blorbo a bad cook. If Glup Shitto is blorbo's childhood best friend and used to play doll murder courthouse a lot, it's a good stretch to say that blorbo may have played doll murder courthouse as a child too, and this was something they did together.

STEP FOUR of good characterization:

DO A LITTLE RESEARCH!!

The character almost certainly hasn't taken the exact life path as you. If they are from a different area, look into cultural norms that may differ from yours.

No one is expecting you to be the foremost scholar on Japanese etiquette or British regional slang, but a little can go a long way.

People in places with socialized healthcare should not be worrying about medical bills, blorbos in tropical areas will not experience the seasons as much as you might, other cultures attitudes towards nudity/sex/drugs may be wildly different to yours.

IF you actually have relevant experience then feel free to use it in your fics. But don't forget that you are not the guy! Really think through how their perspective may differ even in the same situation.

STEP FIVE of good characterization:

PUT LOVE INTO IT AND HAVE FUN!!!

If you don't love Glup Shitto, don't write about them! If you're not having fun, hit the bricks!

Fanfiction is for HAVING A GOOD TIME and SHARING WITH OTHER FREAKS!!!!!!

Much love!! 💕

[nohaijiachi]

Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

Before we get into the subject matter of the title let me preface a couple of things:

1- All that will follow is, big surprise, my opinion and my interpretation of this character. Do I think I am The One And Only Who Gets The Blorbo Right and that my ideas are 100% the way the author(s) intended to convey the character? No.

More likely than not the way I see Aziraphale could be intensely different from the way Authorman sees him, or Actorman sees him, and I don't think that my interpretation is necessarily any more correct than anybody's else.

That said, if I also did not think that I am, in fact, correct on a certain level, I wouldn't have bothered forming such a thought out opinion of Aziraphale in the first place, nor would be sitting here, writing this post that I can already tell is going to be entirely too long and might probably ruffle some feathers.

So I'll be writing the rest of this post with the caveat that I while I do think my interpretation correct, I'm also not trying to change anybody's mind nor to discredit anybody's else interpretation of Aziraphale. We can sit here in the sandpit and hold different opinions and still be able to build sandcastles together, it really isn't that deep at the end of the day; I can assure you, I'm not here to fight nor cause fights with this one.

2- With the above point, comes also the fact that I won't bother continuously saying "In my opinion" for the rest of this post. You already know that. So, if something will come across as a bit caustic, do know that it is very much tongue in cheek and I am poking a bit of fun at general fannish habits that I am also very much quote-unquoute 'guilty' of having partaken into, and will partake into again plenty of times in the future, I'm sure.

So, with that: Here's Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

A large part of the people comprising this fandom prefers Crowley. There, I said it.

This fandom's preference blatantly skews toward Crowley. Can we admit that openly? Let's admit that openly.

To be clear, this isn't meant to be an accusation or recrimination or any other -ation you can think of, I am merely stating matter-of-factly a phenomena I've observed in the last four years.

It is also not a wrong nor bad thing in any way, shape or form. I adore Crowley myself. I love them both so much it's unreal.

But I started with that because I think it is very much a symptom of the fact that a lot of people don't get Aziraphale.

I remember back with S1 there had been plenty of times when I found myself reading discussions and opinion exchanges about Aziraphale and Crowley, their dynamics, all the things that went unsaid behind the things that were said, and found myself genuinely surprised by seeing how some people interpreted certain moments wildly different from how I personally saw them.

I look back at that and I think "Oh, sweet summer child". Nothing could have prepared me from the onslaught of takes about Aziraphale that make me go "Good lord, what???" in the wake of S2, and the infamous Last Fifteen.

Now because I don't want to be pointing fingers at specific things and risk upsetting somebody more than I already am by being open in admitting that, guys, yes, some of the takes y'all have been sharing make me go "Yikes(tm)", I'll move on the interesting part and what I would actually love to discuss, aka cracking Aziraphale's head open and see what that actual fuck is going on in there.

Another preface: Because this duo is intrinsically linked and woven together it is downright impossible to only focus on Aziraphale without also mentioning Crowley, so... Let me circle back to our fav demon bae for a sec, here.

I think the reason why it seems that a larger part of the fandom favors Crowley is because I feel like Crowley is a much easier character to grasp. He is very open in his thoughts and feelings, at any given moment us, the audience, have a much easier time watching a scene and sort of ruminating in the back of our heads about Crowley's motivations for saying the things he says and doing the things he does.

That isn't to say Crowley is a less complex character than Aziraphale. They are very much equally complex and multifaceted individuals with their strengths and weaknesses, their issues and the way they each cope with them, how differently they approach their existence and so on and so forth.

But whereas Crowley as a character presents itself with a certain dynamism and a far more outward openness about his complexity, Aziraphale does the exact opposite; we can say Aziraphale is downright hermetic about it.

For us, the audience, he presents a challenge that requires a good deal of thought being put into him to see over the facade he presents at a more superficial level; he requires time and effort to fully dismantle him in our minds to try and see what makes him thick (other than his thighs), and thus I think it is entirely natural that more people latch on the far easier to identify-with, and relate-to, Crowley.

And that is the inevitable consequence of everything that makes Aziraphale... Well, Aziraphale.

So, where to start? Let's try and jot down what Aziraphale truly is at his core.

He is a contradiction.

This man-shaped being is a walking contradiction, constantly existing in a state of being coated in three thousand layers of misdirection and obfuscation and double thinking.

Why is that? Well. He's an angel.

Aziraphale loves being an angel. It is a tenet of his entire existence and something he cherishes. He wants, so very much, to be his ideal of what a good angel is: An entity who is kind and loving and understanding and forgiving.

Of course us, the audience, know that is utter bullshit, because we know angels can be individuals just as complex as the humans Aziraphale loves so much, with all their inherent flaws and capability for cruelty. And, on a certain level, Aziraphale knows that too.

So there we have it, one element of contradiction: Aziraphale wants to think that angels are always Good and Righteous and Never Wrong; Aziraphale knows that angels aren't, in fact, always Good and Righteous and, by god, can they make plenty of mistakes, too.

What else? How about Aziraphale sitting there, being in love with a demon, fully knowing that at the end of the day demons really ain't that different from angels, and also desperately hanging onto the concept of Good vs Bad.

And he sits there, existing with these two contrasting idea equally taking space in his mind, neither side ever capable of taking over the other.

What else do we have? Aziraphale loves God and wants so hard to believe in Her love for humanity and Her ineffable plan, and Aziraphale also time and again does things that very blatantly go against Her will, lies to Her face, and Doubts. He Doubts, a lot, and that requires the capital letter because those Doubts are what spur him in going against everything he's ever told to believe in order to do the right thing.

Aziraphale's very existence is a constant push-and-pull of things he wants to believe and things he knows are real; things he's told to do and things he wants to do. That's how we get "My side" and "there's a bit of good in you" and "you are the bad guys".

And nothing he's lived through has managed to break him out of this unhealthy way of existing quite yet; that's why he acts the way we see him act in the Edinburgh flashback in S2, or at the start of S1 when Crowley has to ease Aziraphale into the idea of trying to stop Armageddon with the usual song and dance of "temptation" and "plausible deniability" and "you'd be thwarting me", even though from the start we can tell there's a little part of Aziraphale who is clearly not at ease with the idea of the end of the world, and once he's been given 'permission' by Crowley nudging him, he is all the way in with the whole saving the world business, not take-backsies.

Both the moments I mentioned here are very important for different reasons, but of the two is very much the Edinburgh flashback that gets a lot more flack by the fandom and is blatantly misunderstood, which I think is the inevitable consequence of that minisode immediately following the glorious, beautiful, heartbreaking piece of art that is the "A companion to owls" minisode.

I've seen a lot of people lamenting that Aziraphale acts obnoxiously in the Edinburgh flashback and, yeah. He does. But I feel like the fact that we are seeing this after watching Aziraphale struggle his way through saving Job's children, even being willing to go to Hell for it, is a though act to follow and probably soured Edinburgh-Aziraphale for a lot of people, made them think that the character had regressed instead of progressing.

But, see, the way he acts is wholly congruous with who Aziraphale is and has always been and keeps being up to the very end of S2. Yes, even after what he does for Job's children.

If you get down to it, Aziraphale had been ready to give up and let the children die, in episode 2. For a brief moment, after Crowley told him he 'longed to destroy the blameless children', Aziraphale was walking away, having tried all he thought he could try to do to stop this senseless act. That was until Crowley tested him by making the crows bleat, cuing Aziraphale to the fact that his impression of Crowley wasn't wrong, and the he could count on him to do the right thing.

To be clear, I don't want to undermine Aziraphale's action by only giving the credit to Crowley but... It is, also, only thanks to Crowley cajoling him and giving him the right excuses, that Aziraphale feels safe in doing what he's always wanted to do all along.

He'd wanted to save Job's children, and thought he couldn't until Crowley threw him that hell of a lifesaver. He wanted to save the world and thought he couldn't until Crowley nudged him on the path of plausible deniability.

He wanted to save Elspeth's eternal soul, blinding himself to the hardships she'd have to endure in her not-eternal life, and was smacked right in the face by the reality of human suffering multiple times.

The way Aziraphale acts in that flashback can't be a regression, because there never was a progression in the first place: He'd always walked the line between Heaven's and God's will and his own, personal morality and sense of justice.

By all means, if we look at Uz-Aziraphale and modern-day-Aziraphale at the start of S1, his reticence about the whole saving the world business should, by all means, appear as a regression as well. You mean to tell me that he'd been ready to become a demon for the sake of three mortal children, and then suddenly a handful of thousands years later when faced with the prospect of the whole world going up in flames he'd just be all like "Heaven will triumph over Hell and it will be all rather lovely"? Like, fuck off, Aziraphale, you lying double-thinker, you (/pos)

Aziraphale constantly exist while being at war with himself. Circumstances have allowed him to rebel the will of Heaven and God more or less safely time and again, but he never quite managed to break free entirely. He'd always ended up being reeled back in, being fed the party lines, being made to feel shame for his independent thinking, until it all becomes too much and he is forced to step back from that freedom he'd been inches away from grasping.

Back and forth, back and forth, never stopping.

And all of this, all of what he is, makes it so hard for us, the audience, to truly see him. To truly grasp him. To truly watch any given scene with him and figure out what he might be thinking or feeling.

To understand Aziraphale is to understand what he is not saying when he says something, which is a good deal harder to do than it is to understand and relate to a character like Crowley, who very much revel in saying exactly whatever the heck he thinks whenever he damn well pleases.

All those layers of obfuscation and misdirection and double thinking that Aziraphale coats himself in are as much an armor that makes it harder for the audience to understand him as they are his very own downfall because, good lord, if you exist like that, if you exist forced to keep things hidden from yourself, well... It's inevitable that at some point you are going to stumble into pitfalls of your own making.

And I love him for it.

So, there? I hope I managed to explain something with this post, and that it wasn't just the rambling of someone who spends way too much time thinking about her blorbos. To be clear, I don't think people who haven't spent as much time as me trying to dissect and better understand Aziraphale's character are like, dumber than me or anything. It's just that this pair of angelic-demonic blorbos take too much real estate in my mind, lol.

Feel free to let me know your opinion and if you think I am wildly off mark and my Take Is Bad. I might answer, I might not, it all depends on time and my mood ◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜

[glitter-stained]

I know some people argue that robin!Jason and Dick were never close post-crisis pre n52 because they only interacted a couple of times in canon and I understand that due to Dick living away when they first met they wouldn't be as close as the relationship Dick has with some of his other siblings, but I would also wish we would take in account that for all three of Jason's years, we have like 30 issues of Jason's run. That's exceedingly small. We have batman #416, we have that one moment in teen titans (i forgot the issue) of jason working with the team, and i think the ski trip we found out later about was included in the same canon*. (also, i do feel like even if you didn't know/like eachother before going on a ski trip together by the end of the ski trip this will have changed, and the picture definitely felt like they were getting along even though Jason's face in the picture was comically weird.) I'm not sure if there were other interactions shown or mentioned, but hey, 2-3/30ish isn't a bad score at all! If we're going 3/30, that's a whole tenth of Jason's robin era.

(And I'm talking about their relationship from Dick's pov since it's the one in question here but it's clear to me in Jason's run, even post-crisis, that Dick is often on his mind and important in his life (with a certain inferiority complex the little siblings of very cool people know well) with stuff like I think Batman #410 or Jason is Legends.)

And even more importantly, 30ish is extremely short for three damn years. That's ten issues per year! Do we assume that Jason was sitting on a shelf for the whole time he's not working with batman in the comics? Do we assume batman was sitting on a shelf twiddling his thumbs all that time during those three years he appears, either? It's perfectly logical to make the assumption that Bruce and Jason were still going out as goddamn Batman and Robin even when it's not shown on screen and having a relationship and interacting together even when it's not seen. In fact it's the most reasonable and logical assumption even. It's obvious Jason and Bruce's interactions extend past what was shown on screen so why wouldn't Dick and Jason? We know from Dick's relationship to his death that Dick cared about Jason. We know how much his death impacted him. Regardless of the (now retconned) terrible mess that was their relationship after Jason came back, they had a relationship, and it was good, and how deep it went is up to interpretation but it doesn't cheapen or lessen any of Dick's relationship with his other siblings to acknowledge that (like, seriously, even though some of them might view it as such in the story, dick's love isn't a prize that can only go to the one blorbo to win the competition. Personally I don't see Robin Jason being his favourite, and that's fine. Probably since, as I only have one sibling to be weird about, this is one aspect of Dick and Jason's relationship that I don't project onto them.)

There's a difference between saying "those are the only canon interactions between Dick and Robin!Jason that we know of" and saying "those are the only interactions that happened between Jason and Dick when Jason was Robin", especially if the next sentence is going to be something like "read a comic". I want to insist that I'm not saying that they have to have been super close. All I'm saying is I don't see, with the knowledge I personally have of canon and the retcons I choose to disregard (because of terrible writing), why considering that they were close wouldn't be canon compliant.

Leeway, nuance and up to interpretation stuff are fun and should matter for evaluating the level of canon compliance of your own headcanons, and I think it's especially important when trying to police other people's interpretation of canon: are you certain their interpretation is fanon and you're correcting it with the right canon, or is it a case of two headcanons clashing in the blank space between comic pages?

I just found it strange to never see it taken in account in the sometimes pretty emphatic takes I saw on the debate around their relationship, so those are my two cents on the matter. All this to say, [theatre joke in coming], when it comes to Dick and Jaybin, we could all stand to be more chill.

* btw i'm excluding dixon's nightwing year one from this conversation because I hate how it manages to shit on every one of the characters i've seen him write in it so violently and also fuck dixon, my jason comes from post-crisis not that crappy weirdo retcon.

[olderthannetfic]

sorry it didn't entirely occur to me that race play wasn't inherently racist. Guess I literally should've just googled that to see, flew over my head. Wasn't intending to be bait or whatever, I was genuinely confused what goes too far in fiction or not, since you could write practically anything including immoral stuff. It was hard to wrap my head around and entirely forgot POC could write stuff that would be considered racist if a white person did it. My bad I understand the reasoning now. Again sorry was genuinely just curious cuz I'm not a "professional" in what's right or not (I usually follow the majority to determine what's right, I'm a sheep, my biggest fear is to be offensive in any way so I try to listen to people who know their stuff and follow), terms and complicated words (at least complicated to me) tend to go over my head. Perhaps I should've used a tonetag to show I was being genuine in my response and meant to be curious and not to harm. I apologize sorry for making you mad have a nice day/night afternoon :) I really appreciate the work you put in this blog, it's very informational for me

--

Oh god. You're in earnest? Well, in that case, you were doing a pitch-perfect imitation of the people you've been reading, and those people are annoying.

--

It's fiction. Who cares what's in it?

The thing that makes it matter is how the fiction is disseminated and the whole context around it. For example, media aimed at young children is held to higher standards because four-year-olds often aren't that competent at telling fiction from reality or understanding that depiction isn't endorsement.

Mainstream US TV shows have millions of viewers. If they reinforce mainstream unconscious prejudices, that tends to encourage the audience to continue unchecked in those beliefs.

Weird niche porn or fanfic on AO3 have tiny audiences, often deal with things that are already contentious, and are labeled as non-mainstream in the first place by their very nature.

"But what if people write immoral fiction?" is itself an unethical position. It is the domain of the religious right, radfems, and other assholes who believe in thought crimes.

Yes, sheep do follow these people. This is an unethical behavior, but it is common.

The tyranny of the majority is not a good thing. The fact that a large number of people on social media say that such-and-such makes them feel gross is not an excuse for them to tell a smaller group with "gross" tastes what they're allowed to do in their own circles. Lots of people are horny over weird shit. This is fine.

The fear of ever offending anyone is a prison that will cause you to make bad choices.

Genuine harm is bad, but lots of people are offended at the drop of a hat. Yes, this goes for nonwhite people too, and it definitely goes for idiots white knighting in fandom spaces and going "You can't write X about characters of color! You can't write Y! Everything is problematic!"

As has been discussed on here many times, a lot of fans, including nonwhite fans, find that kind of behavior stifling to the point where they can't write about those characters at all. The response is often a huffy "Well, they shouldn't feel like that." But they do feel like that. It's not on purpose. Most people feel like that, to be honest. Living in a fishbowl has a chilling effect on art just like being afraid of offending paralyzes you yourself.

Offensiveness is highly dependent on context. Not only will it vary with your cultural background, but a great writer can handle material and make it feel nuanced, while a crummy writer will fall flat on their face with the same material.

If we are too precious about "Nobody should ever offend anyone", we're calling for all fans to publicly disclose their demographic and for all fans to be extremely skilled. Pity the poor, dumb teenager who just wants to write about their black blorbos because they are black themselves... and a shitty writer... who likes sex pollen.

If you look again, you will notice that a lot of fandom drama around offensiveness boils down to "You have a rape kink and that's not okay".

The bottom line, anon, is that fandom has a bullying problem. The internet has a bullying problem. People who are too scared to have their own stance on what's offensive or what's correct behavior are easily weaponized in bullying campaigns. This is the problem with being a sheep. You'll reblog shit saying "Well, I'm not sure, but this sounds important..." and then it turns out to be a smear campaign. Or maybe you personally won't do that, but you will stay silent when you should speak out.

Doing the right thing often involves offending people.

Look, anon, I've been canceled before for supposedly being "fandom's worst racist", and yet there are a bunch of fans of color in my comments section because they're tired of prissy jackasses who won't ever expose themselves by having an opinion, think it's more important to never be wrong than to have a conversation and risk changing their minds, who think only one very specific, very American, and very era/platform/fandom-specific standard is okay, and who hate on kinky fanfic day in and day out.

--

To interact with other humans is to risk offending someone. Yes, I think it's on all of us to at least recognize extremely blatant racist stereotypes, but that doesn't mean agreeing with every single moron who walks up and goes "I had a yucky feeling, and now that's your problem."

A lot of this pearl clutching makes one think of that line from Cold Comfort Farm:

"I saw something nasty in the woodshed!"

The matriarch of the family took to her bed years ago, claiming to have been prostrated by the sight of some unnamed horror (in context, probably people fucking). For years, she has used this supposed ~harm~ to bully and control the rest of the family.

Fandom is also full of this behavior lately. "Other people's fiction made me shake and cry!!!" is not actual harm. It is, at best, people who are genuinely upset but who need to take it up with a mental health professional. Very often, however, it is shitty, manipulative, abusive behavior that is entirely intentional. Do not fall for it.

Some people are just children and need to be told "No."

[tagedeszorns]

Are we going to be as bad as Star Wars fandom?

Congratulations - so-called fans have managed to almost ostracise a good-humoured, energetic, fact-loving and creative person from the fandom! (not me, I'm at most two of those things) What's wrong with people who find it necessary to come to other people's comments sections to bitch about how their favourite faction sucks? How many times must you have been poured out of the bath by your mother as a baby (and apparently falling directly onto your too-soft fontanel) to think that's acceptable behaviour? What do these people with the mirror-smooth cerebral cortex expect the result to be? That the person they shat in the living room will suddenly like their faction? That they will give up and close down their blog? And then what? Have they won? I'm so angry! Warhammer offers room for so much creativity! For so much interaction! And then there are these dregs and turds who have nothing better to do than take out their dissatisfaction with their messed up lives on others.

I am not talking about a good discussion here! I will intellectually (and maybe even literally) fistfight Fabius-haters in a parking lot of their choice (well, after I've beaten my Blight, that is), but there's like a Marianne-trench-deep gulf between "heated discussion, using facts and quotes" and "vomiting up shittalk to a person having fun". Shocking news: everyone has factions in the Warhammer universe that they don't care about or even actively dislike! Do you turn that into other people's problem? Well, maybe in fanart. Or fanfics. But then you don't shove it down the throats of the fans of that faction. And unless you're the most chaos-god-abandoned lurcher in the world, you keep these emotions to yourself and your peers and never-never-get on that factions fans' nerves with your gratuitous opinion!

And no "block that cunt" is not the solution. Toxic people spread their horrible attitude if not dealt with properly and it is NOT the task of the person they harass to teach them manners. It's our duty as fandom to show those fuckwits that their behaviour is not tolerable. Because what if they harass a mentally vulnerable person who has no energy to do anything and will get the full brunt of such an attack right to their face?

Very simple rules of behaviour in fandom:

Show everyone your Blorbo. Always. Everywhere!

Sing the praises of your faction. At every opportunity.

Let others do the same with their favourites and be happy that there are so many flavours, even if you don't like them.

Don't get on other fans' nerves uninvited in their safe space!

A blog is public and private at the same time. Kant's imperativ

Please add your own, because what do I know, I'm just a fanartist here for lighthearted fun and heated discussions.

Slaaanesh on a tricycle! Why do I even have to write this?

[daddywright]

daddywright fall fic writing challenge

Because the Organization that Shall Not Be Named has embraced AI (among other sins), I decided I wanted to create a little challenge of my own that isn't just for November and contains prompts that I'd actually want to do as a fic writer. I did this for myself, but if anyone wants to try out any of these prompts, you're welcome to! Because I'm lazy, I'll be trying to commit to this all fall, and give myself a goal of 30,000 words. We'll see how that goes!

Some of these are 18+ prompt ideas, because I like to write explicit material. Take or leave them as you like.

As a way to get myself excited, I'm going to commit and post something by 12AM tonight (!) that falls along one of these guidelines. Stay tuned!

Write from a character's POV you've never attempted before.

Write for a ship you've never written.

Resurrect a character from the grave.

KILL a character DEAD.

Back to the Future: time travel shenanigans!

Share and develop a WIP that's at least 2+ years old

Fic inspired by a song you love.

Write a fic in future tense.

"He asked for no pickles" - Character A defending Character B (any level of seriousness)

Publish something from a fandom you've never released anything for.

Ask an artist if you could write a fic based one of their pieces you love!

For Want of a Nail: change one little thing from canon, and see what happens.

Write a crossover - if not a whole fic, then an interaction between characters from two different pieces of media

This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Two of Us: write a scene between enemies.

Self-Care: write a character getting comfort you could use in your life

Career AU: write a character with an entirely different career than their canon job

Babysitter Required: write a scene with a character that's been de-aged (through ageswap or magical means!)

Kryptonite: a character of choice encounters the one thing they can't tolerate

Live Cringe, Die Free: write an original character self-insert and have them interact in a scene with your blorbos

Knife to a Gunfight: write a scene where a character loses a fight

Passport: have your character travel somewhere you've been before

Because You Should: write a scene where the overlooked female character of a popular piece of media is the main focus

The Godfather: have a minor character play mom or dad to a child character for a day (reluctantly if necessary)

5+1 things: a classic

(18+) Laios Touden-core: Write an explicit scene with monstrous elements.

(18+) That Could've Gone Better: Write a scene that features some elements of bad sex. (Not sex written poorly, but sex that is in fact not good. They can talk about it, even.)

(18+) Write a scene featuring a kink that you've not written yet.

Werewolves of London: Your character has been struck by a curse. What is their terrible affliction?

AO3 Trope Bingo: write for a popular ao3 trend that's been around awhile (i.e., Sentinel/Guide, Hanahaki, Soulmate Writing)

To Shreds, You Say?: write a scene where a character absolutely ruins somebody else (ruin can mean whatever you want it to)

Halloween Special: write something spooky!

[runawaymun]

It's something that I want to do a full write-up on after I finish more more quests (most especially Baizhu's) but I just want to put it out there that I am constantly amazed, as a chronic-illness haver myself, how many characters in Genshin Impact have chronic illnesses, how visible they are, and how well represented they are.

Like, it's extremely difficult to find even one character in a piece of fiction that has a chronic illness (let alone one where it isn't played for laughs, OR otherwise it completely destroys their life and they're fucking miserable, OR it's magically cured).

But Genshin? Dude you trip over a character with a chronic illness every five seconds, it feels like, and I fucking love that. Off the top of my head there's:

Anna (Mondstat), who visibly suffers from her illness and we know her brother struggles to pay for her medicine. But the traveler, through a series of quests, helps them get ahold of an affordable medication to manage (MANAGE, not cure) the illness and to return her quality of life to her.

Little Hongdou (Liyue) - who has an unspecified chronic illness. And she just does. But she's out and about and seems very happy.

Collei (Sumeru, playable) - and sure her illness is fixed by the end of the Sumeru quest, but I don't even care because of how well it's represented. She has hopes, ambitions, dreams. She participates in her work as a forest ranger even though we get visible confirmation that her illness is progressing. The people around her care and are compassionate, and do their best to make sure she takes care of herself, but she is also allowed to just...go out? and do things?? This shouldn't be such a tall order but chronic illness-havers with friends and family members who understand that, hey there are good days and there are bad days -- that's rare in fiction (and IRL for that matter).

Dunyarzad (Sumeru) - her chronic illness is a major plot-driver in an entire fucking archon quest. She has a huge amount of influence on the people around her, and her chronic illness is actually part of the whole reason we even are able to help Nahida in the first place. Her chronic illness is what makes her instrumental to the plot, but it also isn't the only thing about her, and I love that.

Dulphy (Fontaine) - an actress from Furina's story quest. What really struck me about Dulphy is how the people around her interact with her. I was half in tears by the end of the quest -- not even for Furina reasons (yes, that too), but because I was so touched by the fact that a game gave us a character who was unable to follow through with something she said she was going to do (finish her closing performance as the lead actress in a musical), and that was okay. Like, yeah, the people around her were upset -- but they were upset because she hadn't taken great care of herself and had pushed herself past her spoon limit! Nobody (including the narrative itself) treated it as a great failure when she had to call it quits on her performance. Rather, that was treated as a good thing, and they went so far as to explicitly state that her performance up to that point mattered, and that it was a meaningful contribution, even though she couldn't finish. And that just fucking got me, man. Also - again, this is a character where it is explicitly stated "this is a chronic illness. It has good days and bad days and it can only be managed, not cured. And if she pushes herself too hard then she'll need several days to recover." And that's just...part of who she is.

And, of course, Baizhu. (Liyue, playable) My beloved, my blorbo. His chronic illness(es) is an extremely visible part of his character - referenced in his voicelines, his idles, his interactions in quests, the imaginarium theater, and even your teapot house, and his emojis. Hell, he even coughs if you sprint too much with him. Nevertheless, he's arguably one of the strongest healer units in the game from a meta perspective, and from a story perspective he is immensely successful, insanely compassionate, and while he isn't necessarily super kind to himself about it, the people around him are. His chronic illness is part of him, but he is still allowed to inhabit a story where he's the most renowned and beloved doctor in his entire country & just...is an awesome, active person in general, and that means so much to me.

Just. God. I legitimately can't think of another piece of fiction where I have seen myself represented over and over and over again everywhere I look, let alone so kindly. It's genuinely so moving to have so many characters be so visibly chronically ill, and for that to just be part of their character. A neutral thing about them. And to have it be okay when they can't finish things -- even though they said they would, okay when they need to rest, okay when they have to take a break or extra care with themselves. And not just one but so many. I'm sure I'm forgetting some to boot.

(Honorable mention: Qiqi. Like sure she's a zombie but hear me out: visible chronic joint and memory issues, which is something I also deal with and it's just so refreshing to see a character who deals with them, too -- and who has so many people around her who are so kind about it).

[fancyfade]

Why don’t you like the current Batman and Robin run?

Mainly because Williamson doesn't tell an interesting story and flattens and boring-ifies Damian's character, as well as softening Bruce's character a ton to portray him as a WFA-y dad while keeping Talia as a bad teacher Damian had to be removed from.

Previous posts I've made on it:

Damian's experience in the league of shadows has been made more generic and palatable to the reader (link). Instead of being told he's the best (b/c he's extremely competent and doing what he's been trained to do) people tell him he sucks and put him down. Damian wasn't being put down in the league of shadows.

I see a claim that Damian is just more mature and level-headed now, and that's hwy he doesn't have any of his previous fun dialogue where he's allowed to be emotionally-brusque or diss people. but .... it does not go wit williamson's actual writing. Williamson writes Damian as insecure and emotional (link1, link2). Notably Damian at 14 or 15 is treated as more helpless when dealing with people being assholes to him than he was 10 (p much every adult superhero not having patience for him or talking down to him), and way more emotionally affected by kids at his school being jerks and helpless before them than he was at 13 in super sons.

"OK but surely Williamson is at least writing Damian better than Adam Glass?" Damian's nominally a hero, but Williamson justifies a lot of the previous writing as in character for him and something he needs to be redeemed from (similarly, williamson adds yet more bad stuff for talia and ra's to do in his robin series while allegedly trying to rehabilitate their images). like we see scenes referencing damian's private prison thing and bruce saying he's going to give damian a discussion about prison ethics, in robin we see damian thrilled to kill people when he finds out there's no consequences.

Like I understand liking comics that aren't particularly good, there are many comics I've read and enjoyed even tho the righting wasn't top tier. I've read lots of comics that weren't good but just had blorbo in them. But i'm like.... what is there here to like besides cute moments where bruce tries to act like a dad (that gloss over the way Bruce's actions lead to the current status quo and his previous failures -- but we never gloss over talia's failures -- and the fact that bruce is the one who sent damian in alone where he had to witness alfred's death)?

[dufferpuffer]

It's really unfortunate that people look at Lycanthropy in Harry Potter and go "It's super yucky the author said she based it on HIV"... ...and then that's the extent they consider it as disability representation: A failure. An insult. The HIV shoe doesn't fit, so it's bad and should be ignored.

A comment from the Author outside of the books has so thoroughly coloured what is seen inside of the books in the dumbest way. When has a fantasy illness EVER worn the shoe of a real disability and had it fit...? Just because authors can be dumb idiot fucks doesn't mean the depth of experience they write doesn't have any merit, consciously or subconsciously - for better or for worse.

It's our job to be smart enough to pick the bones from the blorbo's we are fed - and to be delusional enough to treat them as if they are analogous to real experience, to chew out as much as we can from his narrative. That's the point of fiction. B^)

+ Remus has an invisible disability. (That alone is rare to see) + For multiple days a month he gets visibly unwell - Pale, peaky, weary... he feels off-colour. It heralds his worst symptoms. + Every month he experiences excruciating pain, the humiliation of losing control of his body, the terror of losing grip on his thoughts. Sometimes he self harms in this state. + For multiple days after - he is fatigued. All day laying down. Can't even sit at the table for Christmas lunch or do things he enjoys. + He struggles to keep weight on because of it. Any weight be puts on through the month is lost, leaving him thin and ragged again. ~~~ + The only treatment for his symptoms doesn't help much - and is deeply unpleasant (and a bit degrading) to take. + It's also expensive and difficult to get - he has to see very particular practitioners and jump through hoops to even have a chance for it, in a society that is hostile to his disability. + Even when treated - his condition prevents him from working to a schedule. He needs special facilities and support just to manage. + His poor health may lead him to run late on his work tasks, even when treated and supported adequately. + His disability makes him unemployable. He will not be hired BECAUSE of stigma against his specific condition. + His illness is contagious, which complicates how he lives his life and how he see's himself - as well as how others treat him. + There is rampant misinformation on his condition, probably equal or more than accurate education. Everyone has wrong assumptions and will cling to them tooth and nail.

Like this is is GOOD!!! These symptoms and situations aren't representative of any one disability but I bet most disabled people have at least SOMETHING they will strongly resonate with.

That's not even getting into the fact his mental health is bad BECAUSE of having to live with a disability without support - in rich ways that are allowed to be messy and complicated, that aren't trying to pander to able-bodied people so they don't feel uncomfortable... that don't smooth over the horrors of being unwell and knowing you will never get better and nobody will understand you.

Disability in media most of the time is just "This person lost an arm and the memories make him sad :^( don't worry though his robot arm is better than a normal one :^)" and "I use a wheelchair, and sometimes it can be hard - but all my friends don't mind :^) It rarely ever gets in the way, and when it does, everyone comes together to help me! btw I play a sport" And that's it. Oh sorry I forgot "Blind person but they have super senses"

Those tropes can be done well. But to get anything outside of them is so, SO fucking rare... so it is weird that when Remus has existed for over two decades as a disabled character with depth and nuance... He isn't discussed as he is a poor representation of a single diagnosis.

[thesharktanksdriver]

Dicentra D. Boa

Content warning going in: implied rape, human trafficking, slavery, implied sexual assault, implied Sa of children, and massacres. It’s not talked in length or in detail but it is alluded to due to the Boa sisters backstory and Dicentra’s conception. I wanted to be sure to give a warning just in case because of the nature of these topics. If any of these themes are triggering please skip past the section labeled “Josephine” and go to “childhood” instead

Also sorry if she’s cringe or Mary sue but she’s my little blorbo and I love her. Writing her is also my excuse to write (and rewrite) about Boa Hancock because I think she’s underrated and I think her character could’ve been handled better by oda (this is in regards to her liking Luffy which is really weird since she’s a grown adult who fell in love with a 17 year old after being victimized through a decent portion of her life by adults)

General information

Name: Dicentra D. Boa.

Following after the flower naming convention of the Amazon lily, Dicentra is the scientific name of the bleeding heart flower. Her name was chosen by Hancock since dicentra’s birth mother didn’t know what to choose

The D. Is gained to her by her birth mother Josephine D. Etheus. Though Dicentra is apart of “the will of D” she has no idea about it due to the fact Boa swore to Josephine that no traces from her would connect back to Dicentra.

Age: 13

Dicentra was born a few hours before the mass breakout of Mary geoise when Hancock was 16.

Race: half-lunarian

Dicentra’s motherJosephine was a full lunarian captured in the massacre of her people. Despite Saturns extermination efforts a few celestial dragons wanted a lunarian as apart of their collection and were able to accomplish this secretly

Being only half lunarain attributes to her white hair and darker toned skin. But along with this it also acts as a reason as to why her wings are so small and why she doesn’t have an eternal spark.

She can’t create fire because of this, but she could control already lit flames if she needed to. But she has not found this out yet

(Fun fact is that whenever in a room with some type of fire, she subconsciously pulls that flame slightly towards herself. Kinda like how sunflowers face the sun, flames direct themselves towards her)

Personality: curious, sometimes oblivious, good hearted, optimistic, overly eager and a bit chaotic

As a young sheltered girl Dicentra is naturally curious of the world and just about anything she can get her hands on. She enjoys soaking in all of the knowledge of the great world beyond the Amazon lily, whilst also secretly yearning to see it for herself.

Another side effect of her sheltered upbringing is the fact she’s very oblivious to things. Whether that be wandering into a bad situation due to curiosity of something that caught her eye or just being unaware of concepts like men not being hideous monsters that’ll kill her (Hancock taught her this lol). Despite her being oblivious to these environmental concerns she’s actually very observant of others emotions when needed.

Unlike her mother’s cold and dominating facade Dicentra is very openly warm to those around her. She often times is found conversing with others around her, joyfully asking about things and recounting new stuff she discovered.

Along with this she can be very eager about whatever catches her eye. Leading her to blindly and stubbornly pursue it even at her own detriment (much to her mother’s and Nightshade concern). This has lead to her acting without foresight and acting on the first thing that entered her mind which can have varied results…like biting someone’s hand

Interests and hobbies: journaling, exploration, drawing, dance and song

Once more due to her interest in the world beyond the Amazon lily Dicentra has taken to journaling all she’s learned. When her mother brings her gifts from far off places she enjoys documenting everything she can about it. Of all subjects she loves writing about the most she enjoys exotic Fish, birds and gemstones the most.

Due to her journaling she ends up exploring places quite a bit. From the city of her home to the jungles and mountains she’ll explore. Some of it from blind interest and from plain eager stubbornness

Something gained from her journaling is her hobby of drawing. Though years of practice she’s gotten decent at drawing, though it’s less out of passion and moreso just for proper documentation.

Her real hobbies are that of song and dance. As a princess Dicentra had taken up many hobbies but the two that stuck with her are dancing and song. She enjoys dancing since it’s an active activity and picking up new instruments to learn and play.

She’s particularly fond of the Erhu (I’m taking in some Chinese inspiration due to the Chinese influence of the Amazon lily)

Habits and quirks: Manners, stiff posture, back issues, lack of shoes, playing with her hands, love of berries/fruits and tendency to put others before her

Dicentra as princess (though that title is moreso just a title since the Amazon lily leadership is based on strength rather than bloodline) she was educated to have proper manners. While she’s a tough and tumble kind of girl she still implores these manners in most social situations until she finds something interesting and throws manners to the wind.

Due to these manners she can sometimes also have a stiff posture in mix with her back pains. Hiding her wings is a hassle for her so binding them along with keeping a certain posture as to be sure their hidden is important. When around those she trusts she lets up a bit and is more relaxed but that’s if they know of her wings. If not she keeps up the posture to be sure they won’t be found

As stated above she gets quite a lot of back pain and jolts of discomfort due to her hiding her wings. It’s an unfortunate thing she has to deal with, something all the boa sisters feels guilty about but know it’s for Dicentra’s best interest in the end.

Despite being taught manners Dicentra can’t stand wearing closed toe shoes. She doesn’t mind sandals but she loves being barefoot much to her mother’s ire. Dicentra loves the feeling of grass and sand beneath her feet.

A nervous quirk she has is that she plays with her hands quite a bit.

Also is a giant sweet tooth for things but especially loves Berries, Fruits and her favourite food of peach buns with a custard filling. It’s definitely due to the D trait.

Another tendency she has is for her to value others above herself. As princess though it’s more of a title she believes that her mom and the Amazon lily comes first. She’ll put down or put away her own feelings and ambitions if it means she can’t help others. It’s the reason as to why she stayed in the Amazon instead of exploring like she wanted, why she asks questions about the outside world and sees glimpses of it through stories and objects instead of pursing it herself.

Relationships: Hancock, Marigold, Sandersonia, Nightshade, Rayleigh and Shakuyaku, Gloriosa, Salome and Ouroboros

Hancock: Dicentra has a very strong relationship with her mom and looks up to her as her hero (for various reasons). She loves her mom deeply for both her kindness and dedication to protecting the Amazon lily. She knows deep down her mom is a lot more tender than she lets on but puts up a front to protect everyone else (and herself). Even though dicentra wishes to explore the world she follows her mom’s rules of staying in the Amazon Lily knowing there has to be some reason as to why her mom is so insistent on it. Along with this she follows her mom’s rules of hiding her back and binding her wings even if it’s uncomfortable (something Boa wishes she didn’t have to make Dicentra do but does it out of necessity). Her favourite activity with her mom is having her mom brush her hair

Marigold: Dicentra loves her aunt Marigold but is sometimes a little bit intimidated by her. Granted she knows her aunt would never do anything bad but Marigold is sometimes too stoic for Dicentra to read which makes her nervous she’s doing something wrong. Unbeknownst to her Marigold very much loves her but gets worried of messing up and internally panics because she overestimated herself. Dicentra’s favourite memory with Marigold is when she taught her how to make flower crowns

Sandersonia: Dicentra loves hanging out with her Aunt Sandersonia. Unlike with Marigold Sandersonia is more in tune with her emotions so Dicentra is able to read her better and therefore know if she’s bothering her. If Sandersonia isn’t busy with something she’ll often tag along with Dicentra’s exploring of the Amazon lily and play games together. Dicentra’s favorite thing to do with Sandersonia is petting her aunts zoan tail

Nightshade (another oc): Nightshade is Dicentra’s sworn guard and protector assigned by Hancock herself. Dicentra sees Nighshade as her closest companion and as a big sister to her. Though Nightshade sometimes gets frustrated at Dicentra throwing caution to the wind and running off she knows that Nightshade doesn’t typically get legitimately mad unless something really bad happened. Nightshade beside the Boa sisters is the only one who knows of Dicentra’s wings and origins, something the bodyguard takes in the upmost seriousness. Dicentra knows Nightshade isn’t her original name but hasn’t pushed about the subject. Her favourite thing to do with Nightshade is playing hide and seek.

Rayleigh and Shakuyaku: dicentra knows very little about these two but does hold them in high regard hearing they helped her mom and aunts. The most funny thing about this though is that she has no idea Rayleigh is a male (boa taught her men were ugly evil creatures lol) . She’s never met them but she hopes to one day do so.

Gloriosa: dicentra sometimes sneaks out to see the former empress of the Amazon despite being a “traitor” to learn more about the outside world. Though she doesn’t like how her mom and Gloriosa don’t get along well Dicentra holds respect for Gloriosa.

Salome and Ouroboros: Dicentra adores Salome and all the snakes of the Amazon. Her fight or flight instinct of bite first ask questions later was somewhat developed due to watching Salome when she was younger. Dicentra has a snake of the same species as Salome named Ouroboros, aptly named for its penchant for…eating its tail all the time. No one has any idea why boros does this but Dicentra loves her beloved snake even if all it does is act as a necklace for her half the time. Half the time people don’t notice they’re alive if not for their occasional blinking. She loves petting the scales of Salome and Ouroboros, absolutely loves the texture

(Meme break before getting to serious stuff. Nightshade is also included here)

Backstory

Prologue: Josephine

Dicentra’s birth mother Josephine was a lunarian born on the red line and raised with her people. She lived atop the red line in peace for many years, she was particularly gifted in being a graceful flyer amongst others her age but lacked control of her flames. Despite the peace at a young age she could tell something was coming somehow, she had a sixth sense for that thing (observation Haki). Eventually when her people were massacred to build Mary Geoise atop her ancestral home she was taken by a celestial dragon who wanted one of her kind as “apart of his collection” even though that wasn’t technically allowed. This all happened when she was 15.

For Years Josephine was kept in a cell, wings broken and unable to conjure flames even if she tried due to being underfed and weak. She’d spent so long being toyed with and abused with no relief but an empty cell to return to when she was finished being “useful”. Eventually though she got cellmate in the form of the young Boa sisters. For the first time in years Josephine felt something as she stared at the young girls, mirror showing her how much of a shell of her former self she was. She used to be young and free, used to be afraid and now she had felt nothing in years. And staring into the fearful tear stained eyes of these girls she swore to herself they wouldn’t end up like her. Broken and empty.

In that cell in the span of months turned to years Josephine would do her best to protect the sisters. Though she could not always protect them she was able to lessen their suffering. She cared for them, began to see them as her own just as they began to see her as a mother in this hell. Through her wings were broken she’d use them as blankets for them in the damp cold of the cell. Josephine would share the little food she had with them. She’d also tell them stories of her people who once proudly flew the skies, sang in hushed tones the songs passed on from generation to generation. Hell had at least become bareable

Eventually much to her own fear and horror Josephine became pregnant. It at some point was bound to happen but all the same it horrified her for the fact she knew her child would be killed. A bastard to celestial dragon was purged for the fact of “tainting” their holy blood, and that was just for normal cases. She was a lunarian, the people they purged and were still actively being hunting down from how that devil gloated about “owning such a rare species”. She had to hid this and hope for the best, and that’s what she did with the help of the Boa sisters.

Somehow hiding her pregnancy was a task in of itself but it had been somehow done, but with that came the actual delivery. Weak and Malnourished as she already was without proper medical care in a dark cell wasn’t a good mix. She’s left at deaths doorstep clinging barely to life after the deed was said and done. The only upside to it all was she felt that sixth sense again, things were changing and her daughters would be free. Before letting herself rest she makes the girls promise to never tell her daughter of her heritage, to protect her and love her as she loved them. Tearfully the girls agree, Hancock vowing she’d raise Dicentra as her own. With how Josephine falls asleep the girls believe her to be dead, and in a way she is…but not fully yet

The mass escape of slaves happens and her daughters flee, through this all Josephine laid on deaths door in her cell. She was ok with dying, had for so long dreamt of such a thing, but anger had let her from not dying quite yet. Half dead and powered only by the knowledge she’d die Josephine gets up. Broken wings crack and move, the pain so blinding it became numb. She had to protect her daughters, had to erase all trace of them here lest a trail is somehow left. And despite never knowing to master her flames she ignites because she herself is the kindling. The already aflame Mary geoise is lit with newer more intense fire that burned to the fire. Josephine burns with mother’s rage and a single wish. Cleanse her homeland with flame just as it was meant to be oh so long ago.

Josephine kills her tormentor and bastard of a man who’s father to her daughter, watches the flames bath him in agony as she holds his face in burning hands. Scarlet eyes glaring down at him as everything burned, her once small flickering flame behind her neck so intense and big it hurt to look at and consumed the background. Flesh melts and blood sizzles in her palms. Josephine dies kneeling on the red earth of her home, staring up to the smouldering sky with broken wings and an outstretched hand to the heavens she so loved. Her scream echoes out among flickering flames and chaos, echoes and reverberates into the sky before turning to nothingness. She burns so intensely that nothing of herself and twenty feet surrounding her body is left besides ash, soot and a trail of bloody feathers littering the ground just outside the crater as her scream of agony faded.

Chapter 1: Childhood from the eyes of a mother

Dicentra grows up on a lie just as everyone else of the Amazon lily does. From the time she could walk and speak she’s told of how her mother and aunts slayed a fierce-some gorgon that had killed her birth mother which led to her being adopted. That gorgon cursed her mom, aunts and herself with a curse bared on their backs. For her mom and her aunts it’s an odd symbol and for Dicentra it’s her wings. But all the same Dicentra knows that her mom is her hero (and though that story is a lie it’s still true she’s her hero) and the young princess stared at her mother in awe and such innocence. It’s something that eats Hancock up inside, that she’s lying to her daughter about everything. Of her wings, her lineage and birth mother and yet she made that vow and she won’t go back in it.

All this leads to though is Hancock being fiercely protective of her daughter, not just for the fact of her blood but because she wants better for Dicentra. She wants her daughter to live happy not plagued by the burden and shame that she and her sisters suffers daily. The memories, the pain, the loss of it all. She wants Dicentra to live the life Hancock wished she had, of never being ripped away from a safe and loving home to be hurt over and over again. It’s why she keeps a close eye on her, especially in the early years where everything is still fresh in her mind of the escape. Perhaps she’s a tad overbearing at times but knowing her daughter is happy and safe within the walls of her nation is all that matters. But as time progresses she does become more lenient towards letting Dicentra do things on her own with the only condition being a bodyguard accompanying her.

At 6 Dicentra has Nightshade assigned as her personal bodyguard and protector. Before then it was randomly assigned guards or Salome who took over watching over the already curious and slightly mischievous young girl. Much to Hancock’s displeasure her daughter takes to running off into the jungles of the Amazon but at the same time she can’t help but be happy her daughter takes her freedom in such strive and not forgranted. Dicentra talks of all range of things she came across once she comes home, from rocks she found to bird feathers pressed in pages. Nightshade with now wild tangled hair standing beside Dicentra posed and proper even with a few leaves and sticks lodged in once straight black hair.

By 7 Hancock decides to have Dicentra be taught proper manners and help her find some hobbies that aren’t just running off into the brush. It’s there that Dicentra finds her talent in Dance and playing instruments, she specifically likes playing the Erhu traditionally played in the Amazon lily. It’s a hobby especially Hancock enjoys because it quickly becomes a source of calm when old memories plague her mind. Perhaps a lifetime ago she would’ve picked up the instrument as well, but now she resides herself to listening to old tunes that would play before that fateful day on a ship leaving home. Whilst she listens she holds her daughter, time seems to slip away and for once all is well for those minutes playing song.

At 9 Dicentra begins to do more things around the Amazon lily. Knowing the jungles area and documenting the plants she finds ends up being useful to apothecaries and doctors on the island. Along with this she starts to also help in delivering things and having a hand in public events. It’s here that she begins to realize what being a princess means even if it’s more a title than anything. To the Amazon lily her mom is cold and respected, the citizens of the island fear and love her and Hancock knows this. They don’t see her compassion behind closed doors but Dicentra does. If her mom is the cold and cool leader that in secret cared, then Dicentra would be a sliver in that door for others to see that kindness. She tells the truth, that her mom asked her to try and find ways to help the other kuja women. As princess the women of the island love her and she notices she means something to everyone there. For the women of the island Dicentra is their kind princess in contrast to their lovely but cruel empress, to Hancock Dicentra is what little hope is left in the world.

At 10 the young princess starts asking Hancock more about the outside world and it leaves the empress silently terrified. They aren’t bad questions, moreso just innocent ones of if places she’d been to were like home. But to Hancock they signify the end. She knew from the moment her bright eyed daughter began to run before learning to walk, began looking out to the sea on the horizon and climbed to the tops of the snake statues overlooking the entire tribe she’d one day be curious enough to leave. That this island would become too small to satisfy her need to see and experience the world. A selfish part of her wished that the luxuries she spoiled her with and the nights in which she’d hug her close whilst promising she’d always be safe here would disway her, but Hancock always knew because of the spark in her eyes that she’d one day leave. It terrifies her and yet she knows one day she’ll have to because she can’t take away Dicentra’s freedom just as hers had been taken. But for now she was safe, leaving was in the future but now she was safe in her arms.

By 11 Dicentra waits by the docks as Hancock sets off to yet another warlord meeting that would go nowhere. Hancock when her daughter was younger would leave her with Sandersonia as she and Marigold would set off into the ocean. But Hancock decides that this time her daughter was old enough to last a few days on her own (despite how terror still grips her heart). Nightshade swears she’ll look after the young girl and none of the Boa’s doubt that. Not when the ex-assassin turned bodyguard has the same look Hancock does when the young girl does something as simple as gifting a flower. It’s a look of wanting to protect something so desperately because it was one of the last pieces of kindness in their world. None of the Boa sisters trust easily, especially not Hancock, and especially if it came to her daughter. But Hancock trusted Nightshade, and that was a feat in of itself. And so Hancock sets off on her ship, trusting her beloved daughter to her bodyguard and ex-empress of the Amazon. Though it’s only for a few days Dicentra helps keep things afloat alongside Gloriosa.

Chapter 2: where the story begins

By 13 Dicentra knows the Amazon lily like the back of her hand. She knows every trail, bend of the river and cove there’s to find in the lush landscape populated by snaking vines and flowers. Pollen coats the air in sweet smells as the distinct smell of rain coming sets in for the young princess and her shadow. But the Rowling black clouds did little to dismay the young girl, if anything it only made her more excited as she quickened her pace and hopped over twisting roots. Having a storm in the calm belt was a rare occurrence, the lack of wind and still waters kept for a stagnant environment but once in awhile a storm would drift from the grand line and breeze briefly through the still water and die off. It made for decent rainfall and any occasional change in weather from the hot climate was always something welcome to the young girl. Nightshade would agree in that retrospect, from the few moments she talked of times past was she talked of a place described as an eternal flowering spring, not cold but not yet summer (though apparently a northern area had snow). So Dicentra raced to the many hidden beaches and coves of the Amazon lily.

its towering cliffs her beloved home had many secret coves beside the main waterway into the heart of the city. Many laid forgotten to time, old boats used generations ago laying still in soft sand that crunched beneath her feet. Typically there was no tide at these hidden beaches and coves, just stagnant water lifting at a certain level against the sand. No white foam decorating its edges like lace if not for the storm stirring the waves. She can’t help but giggle at the sensation, even if her stockings got wet in the ordeal. A few feet away nightshade stood as the wind blew past, still and silent yet eased by now dropping of rain on warm skin.

The rain is cool and refreshing, trailing down and leaving hair damp.

But calm only lasts a moment.

Typically when a storm blew through the calm belt it was mild at worst and calm rain at its least. It was almost always that way with nothing to keep feeding its trajectory as it fizzled out and died.

But sometimes depending on how large the storm was prior it could survive long enough to be just as powerful as it was in the grand line.

One second Dicentra is standing at the waters edge basking in the cool rain, the other second she’s dragged in by once cerulean blue waves that became crashing cold darkness. The void encompasses the entirety of her as she’s choked from air and the cold grasping at her bones. Instinct sets in immediately but the shock of near icey waves and pulling current tossing her like a rag doll make it impossible to do so. Helplessly she floats in near darkness as storm clouds blocked out sun and made the waters a chilling void. The image of complete utter darkness as she reaches blindly engraved itself in her mind. Never once has she felt such a fear of the dark. When she was younger she hadn’t feared it, rather was intrigued to explore it instead. But now it grips and drags her down down, down into is abyss.

But then a hand appears from the dark, Nightshade.

Twitchy and icey fingers grasp the stronger hand that then pulls.

She lands on the old rickety boat with a thud and immediately sea water streams out in pained coughs. Wind blows wildly tussling hair as waves crash against the edges of the boat. She can barely see over wet hair clinging to her face but she feels Nightshade hold her for dear life and above the yelling waves her protector screams to hold onto her with all she can.

Dicentra does as says and feels a colossal pain hit her before a once friendly darkness consumes her vision.

Chapter 3: turning point

Waking up is typically a calming routine for Dicentra. If mom wasn’t on a warlord meeting she’d brush sit down with her and her mom would brush her hair. It was a daily tradition, on in which her mother would hum quietly and gently comb through her hair. Sometimes she’d check to see if the pink dye of her hair was loosing its pigment, if so she’d ask if she wanted to leave it natural or dye it once more. Dicentra always opted to dye it again. Crushed up flowers mixed with imported hair products then used to stain once lily White hair again. That was their tradition together alongside at night having mom look at her wings and care for them. Apologizing as she helped her wings molt or placing a soothing cream on the sore hurting appendages. So waking up one morning with sunlight streaming on her face on linen instead of the familiar feeling of silk is odd. Not bad but it doesn’t make sense for a few moments as her sleep plagued brain thought through what had happened.

She remembered a storm, darkness gripping her, coughing up slat water that burned her lungs and then clutching Nightshade for dear life.

Nightshade!

Despite her body feeling like wet bricks Dicentra finds herself dragging herself from the small bed she was laid on. Blindly she reaches out expecting to find her closest companion besides her family. Instead though she meets something else instead.

Nightshade was a lithe person. beautifully strong despite her lack of visible muscles. She used to ask her shadow of a bodyguard how she was able to be so strong without being as muscular as aunty Marigold. The quiet woman would simply hum, saying something about she isn’t strong but has good instincts and reflexes. Point being in all of this the arm she grabbed wasn’t that of Nightshade, it was muscular

“Oh yoi? You’re awake finally.” The voice is weirdly deep and as her eyes adjust Dicentra is faced with someone crouching down to her level. Blue eyes stare at her from behind glasses….this was a weird looking woman.

This is where things would come into motion

I’ll leave it at this for now. But rest assured she has more story

[astronomical-bagel]

yo mutual i love ur tags fr because like u took the words right of my mouth i was so baffled how ppl would side with one more than the other because the autism pvp felt so real to me that i related to Both of them rlly a lot like. So much so it has cemented itself as rlly one of my fave scenes ever because it was a Step up for growth like that fight made them both better people . and it makes me mad ppl belittle toshiros experiences and like ignore his autism for the sake of pitting two bad bitches against each other Good Lord. The Nuance. There is Nuance. and ppl who ignore it just feels so personal to me as an autistic asian person who's been told that there's no way they're not "normal" like ive not been masking and not even like That well either.

Toshiro to me is like a similar vibe of Autism to Mob aka Shigeo Kageyama MP100 where he represses so much of his true feelings and opinions and emotions that he will just blow up one day (validly!!!) !!! like. let him be autistic in peace. not everything has to be a moral failure and not everything has to revolve around Laios just because hes the main character of Dunmeshi. Like they were both so relatable it hurts me...

not me spelling empathized as emphasized lmao

but yeah anyways I really interpret the shuro and laios conflict as just two autistic people who just don’t mesh naturally? At the very least, it’s a complication between two people with very different cultures.

Both laios and toshiro are people who don’t exactly fit in. On shuro’s side, the source of his ‘otherness’ is a little redirected (is that the word?) because his status and nationality already set him apart on the island, but even back home he was reserved and didn’t socialize well. He struggles to connect with others and has a hard time being sincere!!! the argument between him and laios isn’t an evil neurotypical vs blorbo autistic, it’s conflict-avoidant autistic vs social cue blind autistic!

There isn’t really a right or wrong side here, Shuro tried communicating in the way he knew how, but he and laios just simply don’t understand each other’s languages. Their fight is a reset for the both of them; now they each know a vital fact about each other! Laios knows that Shuro has a hard time verbalizing discomfort, and shuro now knows that Laios needs to be told things to understand them. Now they can both find a middle ground and properly compromise between their two opposites.

and it’s important to note that if laios did know he was making shuro uncomfortable, he would stop as best as he knew how, all the way. This guy takes boundaries seriously, as long as there are clear lines to what those boundaries are. And he’s attentive to other’s needs! (See: him and chilchucks friendship. They understand each other very well, I could write a whole meta on it)

Now that he and shuro are seeing eye to eye, their friendship can now progress in a healthier fashion! This fight isn’t the end of the world. (Honestly having a fist fight is like third base to me but we won’t speak of that) Toshiro isn’t evil, he’s just a really cool foil to Laios, and their disagreement serves to establish important parts of their characters and to progress both their character arcs 👍

[mrfancyfoot]

Healthy Reminder to Not Feed the Trolls.

I think especially younger fandom members and creators need to hear this because it's not advice that I see nearly as often anymore and part of that may be because my gen (Millennials) heard it a lot and often take it as Just Something You Know (though I think we also sometimes need the reminder). But we're older now and there are those younger than us that may not have the experience we do, especially if we just assume they know better (and younger and younger people are online now). It's part of Online Safety 101. I've linked to a couple resources near the bottom.

A troll is someone who shows up in a space and is purely there to upset someone and cause drama/chaos. All they're seeking is attention and the enjoyment they get from upsetting you. They do not care about facts, your feelings, or anything else you throw at them. They will argue in bad faith. They will commit the cardinal sin of Being Wrong on the Internet. They will accuse you of committing the cardinal sin of Being Wrong on the Internet. They will make fun of your favorite character, your art, your writing, you, your friends, your dog, any and everything. They will tell you that how you enjoy or interpret your favorite thing(s) is Wrong or Bad. They love to cause drama in and between groups. Peaceful coexistence is often what they want to disrupt.

Some spaces will unfortunately draw more trolls than others.

In this PSA, I'm not quite referring to the "trolling" term that is also used interchangeably to mean "joking" or "fooling around" with the intent to get a raise out of someone but not necessarily to upset them. Though that can easily lead to this.

Resist the Urge to Feed Them. ("Feed them" being "give them attention.")

Don't give them attention by responding to them or giving them any kind of space on your blog/page/whatever. That's what they want. That's what they live off of. They want the hate because it means they've gotten under your skin and in your head and that makes them happy. They may have an agenda, they may have no specific agenda.

This can be so hard because it's natural to feel the need to defend yourself, someone else, and/or the things you enjoy. It can feel good to correct or engage someone who comes at you swinging. But they often don't stop. They will keep leeching your time and energy, especially if you allow them to.

You lose nothing by not engaging them. They bring nothing of value.

Engaging them can bring drama and hurt in your spaces and this may not only affect you. This can tear apart fandom spaces, cause rifts in groups, and pit people against each other. And then you're all unhappy and you have these negative associations of interacting with something that previously brought you joy. It causes people to stop creating, to stop engaging with others in the fandom, and to even leave fandoms.

And that is the goal of many trolls.

If you feel the need to address something they've said publicly, do not link their post/message/blog/name/etc. You want to give them as little of the attention as possible - you're addressing the accusation/concern/subject/whatever specifically, not them. Don't even relate it back to them if you can prevent it.

Some very non-exhaustive examples of what can be trolling behaviors:

They leave nastygrams in your inbox/Ask box.

They leave negative comments or reblogs on your post.

They leave unsolicited "critique."

They'll tell you that how you interpret X is wrong.

"Your blorbo would never do that!"

"X should never be shipped with Y!"

Antis (the people or groups that don't agree with certain content and try to get others to stop making/sharing it [being anti-X doesn't make you a troll, but going into the space for X and telling those people that they're wrong for liking X is trolling/harassment])

Someone comes into your fandom niche and tells you all that You're Wrong

They may behave inappropriately or send inappropriate things

They don't always use provocative language - they may be very polite (all the easier to make you seem like the unreasonable one if they do get a rise out of you). Still trolling.

They'll do or say things to try to get support from others in order to turn it on you/someone or pit "sides" against each other

They may lie and/or try to spread rumors

"You/they made this with A.I!" is a common accusation towards artists/writers I'm seeing now that has absolutely been picked up by trolls and is unfortunately spreading (please always make sure that you are informed and don't jump on the hate wagon just because you see others doing so - do your own research and demand credible sources/proof [learn what "proof" is per context]). I've seen this kind of accusation disrupt artists' livelihoods just based on someone's say-so that others piled on with no credible claims.

It is okay to have differences.

People are allowed to be Wrong on the Internet, but that doesn't mean that they're owed a response or that you can't delete their comments. You can delete comments on your page just because you feel like it (though "I don't like it." or "This makes me feel uncomfortable." are perfectly fine, non-exhaustive reasons).

If you don't engage them, they will often simply go away. You're not fun if you don't give them attention. You're not going to change their behavior (please don't waste your time trying). Some may try harder to get you to notice or reply to them, but they generally won't stick around for long. They'll move on.

Curate your blog/social/fandom space. (You'll be so much happier and healthier for it.)

Do not engage them.

Block them.

Report them.

Delete their DMs, comments, etc.

Use the moderation tools that you have.

You are under no obligation to accept every 'friend' request, or allow everyone to 'follow' you or engage with you on social media or let into your Discord server or into your little fandom or Tumblr friend group, etc etc. If someone is causing drama, kick them out! Don't feel the need to keep giving them chances to behave, either. Don't be afraid to put your foot down and be firm.

If they pop their head back up (maybe even under a new name), block them again, report them again, delete their messages again. Do not engage. Move on. Dealing with trolls is often like playing whack-a-mole. Send them to the void with the spambots.

You will be happier not engaging them.

Honestly, the above works in similar scenarios, too (not just random strangers)!

Uncle Joe keeps ranting on your page and upsetting you and/or your friends? Delete his comments. Block/unfriend him. Don't feel obligated to keep troublesome family members involved on your social media. Or even in your life.

If the above is someone that you can't simply block (there are valid reasons), sites like Facebook allow you to make lists that you can use to control who sees which of your posts.

You may have to remind your friends, followers, or others in the fandom to not feed the trolls.

You are the moderator of your own spaces. If this is a public space or a private group space that you don't control, politely inform a moderator or someone who has the authority to deal with the troll (sometimes all you can do is hit a report button and/or block them).

Learn the moderation and safety tools that you do have for the platform/app you're using:

How to unfollow/unfriend someone

How to report and block someone

How to turn off read receipts for things like chats and emails

How to turn off online status

How to contact site staff

How to turn off reblogs/comments/etc

How to turn off anonymous/guest messages or comments

How to delete comments

How to moderate comments, etc, on your works (ex: AO3 has an option for all story comments to be approved before they're posted on your work)

How to privatize your profile

How to back up and delete your content

How to filter content

Thoroughly read through all settings (I recommend doing this periodically as settings frequently get updated or change)

Learn where and who you can turn to for help

Read the platform's FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), Rules, and Terms of Service (TOS)

Etc

And again, They will Argue in Bad Faith.

They may accuse you of not being fair, of not allowing them to participate, of leaving them out, of ignoring them, of not "liking" them, of being "mean" to them, of your silence "agreeing" with them or meaning they're "right." They may accuse you of being a bad person or condoning bad things IRL. They may accuse you of any number of wild things. They may say they're just "being the devil's advocate" or of defending their own fandom interests. They may call you names and insult you. They may say that they have private information about you that they'll leak/share or that they'll do X if you don't do Y - this is almost certainly a bluff, but this is part of why it's important to protect your private information and be careful about what you post online. They may say that something you've done is illegal and that they're going to report you to the police (again, very likely bluffing just to scare you). They may even say that they'll harm themselves. There's a lot of crossover between spammer/scammer and troll tactics (often they are one and the same).

That's what they do.

Don't take their words personally.

They just want to guilt you into allowing them to stay and continue causing drama.

It is okay to give people chances.

But you do not need to keep giving them chances.

In your spaces, you don't even need to give them a chance or an explanation.

I have become very liberal with how I deal with trolls. I block on sight in many cases. I don't give them ground to even start if it can be helped. But part of that is just due to experience - you gain the ability to recognise them pretty fast (a lot of it is simply pattern recognition), the difficult part is usually in how you choose to deal with them.

If someone is being particularly problematic, keep a paper trail (like screen shotting their messages with time stamps), but otherwise block+report is usually still the thing to do. If they are threatening harm to you, someone else, or themselves, report them (if you're a minor, tell a trusted adult). If you don't know what to do or you're scared, reach out to someone you trust for support. Trolling is a form of online bullying that can escalate to other forms of harrassment - a majority of the time, simply not engaging them helps prevent this, otherwise know that tools and resources are available for help. Just because it's "online" doesn't mean it isn't real or impactful or can't have "real life" consequences - there are agencies (like the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center) that you can file a report with or contact for help.

Have fun, be safe!

[the-french-belphegor]

This is what happens when you chat on Discord about your favourite blorbo getting freaky and the conversation turns from “oh, Scanlan” (derogatory) to “oh, Scanlan” (compassionate):

Not to say he DOESN'T like bondage or the harder fetishes, dude is a bonafide freak, but he definitely doesn't communicate his limits (and) he's totally the kind of guy to only state his hard limits in a jokey manner

So I went in half an hour from “...I almost kinda want to read a fic where bad shit almost happens to him because of that” to “...goddammit now I kinda want to write that story”... to writing it. And today’s Whumptober prompt was just perfect for it. (silencing a bard? yeah.)

Word of warning: the OC in this is all the red flags stuffed into one good-looking asshole. And I do mean all the red flags.

(to be edited later with the link to AO3!)

—

Sticks and Stones

(Whumptober #27, voiceless/muzzled)

In the past year or so, Scanlan has found that the problem with small town inns and taverns when you travel with six other people is that there’s often not enough chairs or space at one table for everyone. That’s a new one for him. He’s no stranger to trekking in company, but when he was in Dr. Dranzel’s troupe they usually played while clients were having lunch or dinner, then ate at odd hours, with plenty of room to sit together. But tonight the whole town is filled for the Renewal Festival, which means that the S.H.I.T.s are scattered across the inn’s common room. There are so many customers Scanlan can’t even squeeze in a spot next to Pike. Balls.

Still, at least he can chat with (and chat up) a very pretty dwarf lady and an equally handsome human guy over a regular-sized tankard of ale, so the evening is nowhere near the write-off he thought it would be.

Also, he’s fairly sure the guy is coming onto him. Pretty heavily, even.

Nice.

It’s been a while since Scanlan’s latest sexcapade, and the inn looks so jam-packed the S.H.I.T.s will probably have to look elsewhere for nightly accommodations – another inn at best, under a bridge or in a tree at worst, with hopefully clean stables in the middle. Scanlan was banking on warming the dwarf’s bed tonight if he played his cards right, but he’s not going to complain if he gets the human instead. If his feet were on the ground and not dangling off the kind of chair that allows the smaller races to sit at stupidly high tables, the guy would practically be playing footsie with him. Aww.

Although… Judging by the sharp smiles and the looming into his space to talk with the pretext that it’s really loud in the tavern, Scanlan’s potential bedmate might be into something a little less innocent.

“Know any sea shanties?” the guy asks, since they’ve been talking festival music.

Scanlan smiles widely.

“I know all the sea shanties. Do you have one you’d like to be serenaded with?”

“Sure – how about ‘Down in Diver’s Grave’?”

“Ooh, exotic. Many a sailor brave now sleeps in Diver’s Grave… This one’s a bit of a downer, though. Do you know ‘Captain Miller’s Knots’?”

“Both versions,” the guy replies immediately. “I used to be a sailor. I know a lot of sea shanties.” He pauses, and grins in a way that makes Scanlan’s spine tingle with anticipation. “I know even more about knots.”

Okay. That’s it. Scanlan’s having this guy for dessert.

“Well,” he says, turning on precisely the kind of charm he knows this sort of situation calls for, “knots are a fascinating subject. Care to share your extensive knowledge sometime?”

“How about tonight?” The guy slides his fingers closer and wraps his whole hand around Scanlan’s entire wrist in a manner that in other circumstances could be described as ‘possessive’.

Some tall folks never get over the fact that their hands can look so big on a bona fide adult. It’s kinda cute, really.

“Sounds great,” Scanlan says with a hint of purr in his voice. He has to strain it a little to make himself heard above the din inside and outside, just enough so no one else can hear, but that’s a piece of cake for someone who has made his voice his main tool for living for half a century. “Are you staying here, then?”

Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes, I don’t want to spend the whole night next to horse shit—

“Upstairs, the last room before the window. The bed’s a four-poster,” the guy adds right in Scanlan’s ear, raising the hairs on Scanlan’s arms in a smooth wave. Body hair wouldn’t be the only thing to stand at attention right now if Scanlan wasn’t such an old hand at this. “Come up in an hour? Festivities should be in full swing then, nobody will pay attention to a little noise.”

“Or a lot,” says Scanlan, grinning. “Okay, then. See you in an hour.”

The guy smiles back and extricates himself from between his tablemates. Scanlan finishes his dessert, then ambles off to the first of his friends he can find amidst the crowd.

It’s easy enough to spot Grog – he sits at least a foot taller and larger than anyone else except a hulking female half-orc in the corner. Oh and hey, Vex is sitting right next to him, stealing glances from time to time at her brother who (lucky bastard) is sharing another table with Pike and a bunch of other people.

Scanlan clears his throat; both Grog and Vex look behind them, then down.

“Evening, dear comrades,” he says, laying on the smarm thick, because that’s never not fun. “I have good news and bad news.”

“What’s the bad news?” Vex instantly asks, always suspicious.

“You won’t have the pleasure of my company tonight.”

Vex snorts. “‘Bad news’, huh. I wouldn’t quite put it that way. Why is that?”

Scanlan lets a glint of leer into his grin, just enough to annoy her. “That’s the good news. I found someone to share a bedroom with.” And then he adds an exaggerated eyebrow waggle, just in case Grog didn’t get it.

But while Grog may show a definite lack of smarts in some areas, there are other things he can always be counted on to understand.

“Nice,” he says, holding his hand for a high-five Scanlan cheerfully returns. Vex rolls her eyes.

“Which bedroom is that?”

“Why, Vex’ahlia, does that mean you’d like to join us for the night? That could be arranged.”

“Hardly,” she snaps back. “But if we want to be in Aynor tomorrow we have to leave at sunrise, and I’m not going through every single room to find yours if you sleep in.”

“Fine, the guy said ‘the last room before the window, upstairs’. But for all I know I’ll get lucky and not sleep at all. Beds are hard to come by these days, I don’t intend to waste mine by merely sleeping in it.”

This time, instead of getting snarky, Vex snorts.

“Fine, enjoy your debauchery. We’ll let you know when we find somewhere to spend the night.”

“Hey, Scanlan?” asks Grog with the crease between his eyebrows that means he’s thinking hard. “Think this town has a house of, you know –” he lowers his voice, presumably in deference to Vex, or at least their more innocent tablemates, “– lady favours? ‘Cause the last time we went was in Three Streams, and that was…” The crease deepens. “…A while ago.”

“I don’t think so, buddy,” Scanlan says, and pats his enormous arm. “But tell you what – Aynor’s a bigger town, I’m sure they have at least one. First brothel we find, we hit it together, I promise.”

Vex doesn’t even look at them. She only mutters into her tankard, “On your own money, darling, not the party funds.”

“Naturally,” says Scanlan smoothly, before turning on his heel and waving goodbye. “Well, good luck for tonight! I’m sure you’ll find something comfortable.”

“You’re such a dick,” Vex shoots back with no real venom in her voice. Then, a couple of seconds later, “Be careful, though.”

“Yeah, yeah. Toodles!”

Scanlan trots off to the bar, humming scraps of a melody he’s been trying to put together on the road today. I’m getting laid tonight, he thinks happily, and parts of the sentence weave themselves into a tune as though of their own accord.

After an hour nursing a tankard, he shoulders his pack and walks upstairs with a spring in his step.

But then he finds himself in front of the last door before the window and belatedly realises he completely forgot to ask the guy’s name.

Not that it matters much, really.

“Hey there, sailor boy,” he says as he knocks on the door, “I’m here for my less—”

The door opens, and Scanlan finds himself nose to navel with the guy from earlier. (Literally. The only thing he appears to be wearing is a pair of pants.) Behind him, a couple of ropes dangle from a – yep – four-poster bed, stripped of its curtains and large enough for one human or human-sized person.

Scanlan whistles.

“Damn, you’ve been busy.”

“It’s not every day I meet someone with an affinity for knots,” the guy says with a smile, gesturing him in. “Hey, what do I call you? I didn’t get your name.”

“Larry,” says Scanlan effortlessly. “What’s yours?”

It’s always easy to pluck a name from a random song. It helps that ‘The Cliffs of Caelkirk’ (Cheery Larry from Ula’ree, he was bold and he was merry) has been going round in Scanlan’s head non-stop for a few days. Every now and then he likes to make up names and be another guy, whether to lawyer Keyleth out of hoosegow or have fun with strangers he’ll never see again.

The guy closes the door and gives a mock bow.

“You can call me Gideon,” he says, and something tells Scanlan he’s not the only one making up aliases on the fly. Eh, who cares.

Scanlan rummages through his pack, running his mouth all the while out of habit.

“Well, Gideon, always a pleasure to meet a fellow student of the erotic arts.” One of these days he might start saving enough money for a bag of holding just for his little toys. Or try, anyway. Money is for spending, after all. “Ah-hah!” he crows, pulling out his favourite flogger with a flourish. “Now look at this little beau—”

He turns, and he sees Gideon twirling what looks like a cat o’ nine tails in his fingers. A short whip dangles from his belt.

“I was hoping we could go with my tools,” Gideon says, sounding almost unsure.

Scanlan blinks.

“Sure. In that case, dibs on the cat. Whips can get pretty hardcore. Super fun, though,” he adds as an afterthought.

That’s experience speaking. The first time he went for the whip was many years ago, in a very special house of pleasure in Port Damali, and he still has fond memories of the very skilled tabaxi girl who introduced him to the fun meaning of ‘dungeon’.

“Oh wait,” he asks as he kicks off his shoes and scrambles out of his clothes, “what’s your safeword?”

“My safeword?” Gideon stops playing with the cat and stares at Scanlan. “Oh, uh… ‘Swordfish’, I guess? What’s yours?”

“I like to say it’s ‘Mommy’,” says Scanlan into his shirt as he takes it off – then, fully naked, grinning, half bragging and half joking, “Not that I’ve ever needed it so far.”

The once-over Gideon gives him is extremely flattering. He’s still staring even as Scanlan hops onto the bed and slips his hands into the ropes, which are silky and tied in knots Scanlan has never seen.

Yay for maritime knowledge.

“Well, you never know, do you?” Gideon finally says, checking the knots and tying up a loose gag into Scanlan’s mouth, just for show. “I’m sure there are things you don’t like.”

“Oh, probably,” Scanlan articulates around the cloth. “I’ll tell you if I ever find one. As far as I know, as long as you don’t turn my back into carpaccio we’re golden.”

“Right,” says Gideon with a little laugh. Then he lets the cat’s tails fly.

It’s everything Scanlan hoped for. His skin is buzzing all over between the release each stroke brings. He hadn’t realised, before the guy started talking about knots, how much he had missed this – the thud, the sting, being held, being secured… Sometimes it’s nice to be able to turn off his brain and hand his body to another person. This is exactly why he goes for bondage.

He lets himself be in the moment for a while, enjoying the sensations: the flow of blood everywhere (not just into his boner, which is going nicely, strong but not painful yet), the sweet bite across his back, the pressure around his wrists…

…Maybe a little too much pressure here, actually. Might be time to loosen the knots.

Just as Scanlan opens his mouth to ask, a bright flash of pain – actual pain – steals his breath away for a second.

When it comes back, he does his best to turn and glare mildly over his shoulder at Gideon, who – yup – has discarded the cat and is holding the whip.

“Hey!”

“What?”

You could’ve warned me!”

“I thought you’d like the surprise,” says Gideon, twirling the handle around his wrist like someone who knows how to use it. “You’re right, whips are super fun.”

“Yeah, but…”

Scanlan is pretty certain there’s a flaw in this logic, or at least something closer to hinky than kinky here, but he can’t for the life of him put his finger on what. So he decides it can wait, at least for now. It’s not like he can’t get himself out of those ropes if he wants to – or, failing that, give Gideon one hell of a migraine if he tries anything funny, even with his hands tied.

“Just… Careful where you aim that whip,” he says finally. “Don’t want to break the furniture.”

“Don’t worry,” says Gideon, “I’m not an amateur.”

The whip cracks. Fire blazes for a second across Scanlan’s back again.

It’s harder to get into the groove of things after that. He’s still hard – pleasure still outstrips pain, and it would take a lot worse to make Scanlan Shorthalt tap out of a little impact play – but something keeps niggling at his brain, something… something small, but important.

Another stroke makes his hand clench around the ropes, and –

(oh, yeah, that’s one thing)

– should those knots feel tighter and tighter around his wrists?

“Gideon?” he asks, as offhandedly as he can. “I think there’s something wrong with these knots.”

“What?”

The strokes stop, which Scanlan perhaps shouldn’t be so relieved about, and Gideon pads closer. Now that Scanlan no longer has to twist his neck to see him he can have a good look at the guy, who from the tent in his pants is having a great time.

Gideon inspects the ropes and shakes his head.

“You’re fine,” he says, and walks away again. “Don’t do that, I thought they were coming undone.”

“Well, they’re not. That’s the problem.”

“What would be the point of slipknots, then? I thought you wanted to be tied up!”

“Wait,” says Scanlan slowly, “those are slipknots?”

“Yeah. I told you, I know a lot about knots.”

Scanlan is in a quandary. Quite an unfamiliar one, at that.

On one hand, he really wants to finish. There was a second where it almost happened – the point of no return was right there, within reach – before the lash bit at a tender spot on his back, just a little too close to his neck, and Scanlan tripped and fell back on the wrong side of his orgasm. It almost feels like edging, but not quite, and it’s starting to get old. Gideon had better make him come so hard his eyes cross after all this.

On the other, he might not be a sailor, but he’s fairly sure that using slipknots is not a good idea in this sort of game. He isn’t new at this position – if someone asks nicely enough he might agree to be the one tying up the knots, but it’s far from his favourite way to fool around with ropes or shackles – and nobody ever used slipknots on him that he can recall.

You don’t slip easily out of slipknots. It’s in the name and everything.

“Okay,” Scanlan says after a minute. To his credit, Gideon seemed to be waiting for his go-ahead to continue. “But. You’d better make this good.”

“Oh, I will,” says Gideon.

And before Scanlan can identify whatever it is in the guy’s voice that makes his ears twitch, there’s a crack, immediately followed by a burst of pain so white-hot it almost feels like being struck by lightning. Improbably enough, each of the next two or three manages to be worse, somehow.

When Scanlan unclenches his jaw he realises that the trickling warmth seeping down his spine and into the crack of his ass is blood, and that just –

Yeah, that’s not –

That does it.

For the first time in his life, Scanlan Shorthalt is finding sexy fun times to be A Little Too Much. It’s a bummer, letting himself acknowledge it, but the more he rolls the idea around in his head that things should stop, not just pause or slow down, the more he likes the concept. An ironclad requisite in getting pleasure from pain is that pain should not overstay its welcome. While Scanlan may have flirted with his limit on occasion, right now, he has to admit that enough is enough.

He’s down to barely half-mast now. Godsdammit.

He sighs, rolls his eyes, and mutters “Mommy” around the loose gag.

The word is immediately followed by another blow, and he yelps.

“Ow! What’s wrong with you? I said ‘Mommy’!”

“Oh yeah,” says Gideon behind him, breathing harder than he was the last time they stopped, “that was hot. Do it again.”

This time the breath rushing out of Scanlan’s lungs has nothing to do with the lash.

“What?”

“Say it again like that, that was really cute. Come on, be a good boy for Mommy.”

Scanlan’s brain lurches to a stop.

Never, in his almost sixty-nine years of existence, has anything killed his boner so quickly and so thoroughly. He would probably find it hilarious in other circumstances.

Hell of a way to find out I don’t have a mommy kink, he thinks, fighting to keep his breathing under control.

When he trusts himself to speak at the right pitch and the right volume, he looks over his shoulder again and says, “Look, man, this isn’t working out. Maybe you should just st—”

Some songs of the spicier variety have described lash strokes as flaming tongues. Scanlan, who happens to be a fucking pro at the oral arts (both the spoken word and the more hands-on kind), knows that’s not completely artistic licence bullshit – when done well, a taste of the whip can make him shudder and writhe like he does when there’s licking all over involved.

This last stroke, though, is nothing like that. The pleasure from Scanlan’s favourite mix of anticipation and sensation has fled with the last of Gideon’s words, leaving nothing at all to cushion the pain. The shout it startles from him ends in blood as he bites right through his lower lip despite the gag.

“Okay, asshole,” he says between clenched teeth, “you do know your knots. Here’s what you don’t seem to know, though – ‘safeword’ means you fucking stop, you unfuckable son of a rat bastard –”

It’s not rare for him to be laughing when he hurls magic along with insults, the equivalent of throwing small stones with a sling and hoping your opponent will slip on them and fall on their ass. Big ugly monsters or grim bandits armed to the teeth aren’t so scary if you can laugh at them. But this time Scanlan really leans into the ‘vicious’ side of things. He means to hit, to hurt, to wound, to lace his words with poison. How dare this guy spoil one of his favourite pastimes for him. If he wasn’t tied up and could use the bigger spells of his (admittedly, still pretty shallow) pool…

The spell, like a high note, starts low in Scanlan’s stomach and warms his chest on the way up –

And then nothing happens. Either he’s too shaken and he missed, or Gideon shrugged it off, Scanlan isn’t sure, and he doesn’t know which is more humiliating.

If he cranes his neck he’s just able to catch Gideon out of the corner of his eye, the whip switched to his left hand, right hand moving around swiftly through the air –

(Oh shit, he’s a spellcaster too?!)

– as a cold, sticky energy ensnares his throat and squeezes for a second.

Scanlan gasps out loud. Not even a whisper of sound leaves his mouth.

He spares one second or two to think fast and assess the danger, a habit he picked up from adventuring: Gideon is only holding his whip, and he doesn’t have any jewellery Scanlan can see, so that rules out most of the types of casters Scanlan knows. The gesture reminded him of Vex a little, the way her fingers flex when she conjures a hail of thorns, even though the feel of this guy’s magic is nothing like the prickly warmth that comes out of her hands.

So. Ranger, then. And, from the strength of the spell gripping Scanlan’s throat, at least on par with most of the S.H.I.T.s.

“None of that,” says Gideon, panting, one hand tight around his crotch and the other just as tight around the handle of the whip. “I just want to finish, it’s not that big an ask! You’re going to let Mommy punish you, like a good boy, and if you’re very good I might let you sleep the night here. Okay?”

After the blank shock and the red-hot burn of pain and anger, a cold trickle of panic starts creeping its way up Scanlan’s neck.

In what kind of fucked-up world would that be okay, he attempts to yell, but the words stay trapped inside his lungs and for a second it feels like so does his breath.

He. Fucking. Hates. This. Spell.

It’s bad enough that he can’t cast. Neither can he speak, sing, sigh, or shout. Scanlan is a bard; Scanlan is song, Scanlan is sound. He can modulate the music of the universe into magic and, with it, reweave the fabric of reality. Without that power, he’s useless, he’s insignificant – just another speck in a big old world, smaller and weaker than most, and that is Not Him. Not on a good day.

The next stroke makes him grind his teeth together. The one after that makes him cry out. By the third he’s screaming his throat raw – not that anyone can hear him. Unfortunately, it does nothing to cover Gideon’s little moans of pleasure, which are making Scanlan’s skin crawl in a way he didn’t know was possible for him.

So he retreats to the one shelter he’s never lost: music. He clings to the little scraps of melody from earlier, tries to piece them together into an actual song – what if this bit went here, and this sounds better lower, and more sting in there, make it sound sharper, and also this needs to go up…

(Not that he’s not going to do anything with that tune. He doesn’t intend to spare a single thought over it later – in fact, he’s planning to throw it away and forget it the second this is over.)

It can’t be more than a couple of minutes: the silencing spell wears out at some point, another one replacing it immediately. Scanlan barely registers. He’s too busy teetering on the brink of unconsciousness.

Kinked to death by a psycho with a whip. Yeah, that tracks. A death like that makes one hell of a punchline. The others will be laughing for days when they find his corpse…

The door bangs open. The sound startles Scanlan into half opening his eyes again. His eyelids are glued with tears. Huh.

Gideon barks, “What the hell?! Can’t you see we’re busy here?”

He strides forward to close the door, fully hard, whip in hand. But none of that matters, unless Scanlan is having straight up hallucinations, because there –

Slouching a little to fit under the lintel of the door, covering his eyes with a massive hand, voice apologetic as he says “Hey bud, Pike told me to tell you that… oh, shit, sorry,” like he’s not being the single most welcome cockblocker in the entire history of cockblocking –

– is Grog.

⁂

Pike said someone had to let Scanlan know about the barn they found for the night. So Grog, remembering where Scanlan said he planned to spend the night, volunteered to go tell him. Sure, Scanlan basically said that he and whoever he’d be sharing the room with would be doing the nasty all night long, but Grog has his doubts about that. They’ve been walking all day; they all need sleep to recuperate, especially the folks who heavily rely on magic, like Scanlan or Keyleth. It’s late, so there’s a good chance Scanlan’s already tucked in bed, maybe even asleep. But he needs to know where the rest of their friends are, and Grog takes his mission seriously.

When he opens the door, he covers his eyes mostly for the sake of whoever is in there who isn’t Scanlan. Some people get weird about being naked, especially in company. Grog gets it; if it was him having fun with a girl and someone he doesn’t know barged in, he wouldn’t like it. Scanlan gets a pass because he’s Grog’s lady favour buddy, and sometimes if there’s too many full rooms or the brothel is too small they’ll just share a room and not bother each other. They’ve seen one another naked way too many times (even if you’re a maths wizard, which Grog definitely could be if he deigned to) for it to be weird anyway.

Grog hears a guy’s voice, but he doesn’t hear Scanlan’s. Curiosity makes him take his hand off his eyes.

What he sees makes him raise his eyebrows.

There’s a half-naked human guy with a raging stiffy and a whip, looking pissed off at the interruption. There’s Scanlan on the bed, naked, gagged, slumping as low as the ropes tying his wrists to the bed’s columns will allow him. So far, nothing out of the ordinary; Scanlan is into pretty weird stuff. Perhaps Grog should go back to the barn with the satisfaction of a job well done and leave them to it.

But then Grog looks – really looks – at his little buddy. And what he sees makes him stop and think for a second.

Scanlan looks way too white, for one thing. His nose and his eyes are running, blood is drying in a slow trickle from his lower lip, and his mouth is moving soundlessly. Plus, and this is one hell of a red flag to Grog, despite the setup he isn’t hard at all. More like the opposite.

That doesn’t look good weird. That… looks bad weird.

“Hey,” says the guy, taking a step towards Grog with a placating gesture, “this isn’t what it looks like. He agreed to this. We’re just having fun, okay?”

Sometimes Grog will get bad vibes from something before his brain twigs on why it’s dangerous, like some spells or traps. He’s learned to rely on this and it has saved his life once or twice. And this dude is setting off all kinds of alarm bells in his head.

Still, he’s never tried getting beat up for fun, so it’s still possible that he is misreading the situation. Just to make sure, before he leaves, he asks a very important question.

“Scanlan? Are you havin’ fun?”

Scanlan slowly shakes his head ‘no’.

A familiar red haze shimmers before Grog’s eyes. The rage is instantaneous, irresistible; it starts low in the pit of his stomach and explodes into his limbs, volcano-like, pumping up fire from his legs to the palm of his hands.

Grog roars, strikes. His fist smashes into the guy’s face, knocking him back ten feet and through the closed window behind him – and then, unless he learns to fly on the way, crashing down one storey to the ground below in a shower of wood shards and broken glass.

Grog makes to follow him through the broken window to finish pounding his head into a paste, but a sound stops him in his tracks.

Scanlan is laughing, a thin squeaky laugh that pulls Grog right out of his rage.

“Fuck,” he repeats on a loop, “oh fuck… oh, man, that… wow. What a… oh, shitting fuck…”

By the time Grog has found a dagger to cut him loose, he’s shaking so badly Grog has to be extra careful not to nick the skin of his arms. The last thing Scanlan needs is another cut; the sight of his back, bloodied and covered in crisscrossing weals going from deep red to violently purple, almost sent Grog straight into another rage. His laughter is gone, too, if it really was laughter in the first place, replaced by hiccuping wheezes that are starting to worry Grog.

“Scanlan?” he asks, a little uncertain. He knows asking Are you okay would be stupid, so he settles for pointing out, “You sound weird.”

There’s no response – only pathetic little noises like there’s not enough air, or too much, and Scanlan is choking on it. This is so far out of Grog’s wheelhouse that he’s starting to get a little spooked. He’s never seen someone freak out like that – or maybe he has, but never a friend, and never a friend like Scanlan – and he has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing.

So he goes with his gut. He shuffles on his knees to the edge of the bed, where Scanlan is all hunched up on himself, and says as gentle as he can, “Breathe, okay? You’re gonna pass out if you keep doin’ that. Come on.”

Scanlan doesn’t really breathe, but he doesn’t pass out either. He just plunks his forehead right on Grog’s chest and grips the fur under Grog’s spaulder like he’s gonna fall from really high if he lets go.

(Grog knows, from the odd comment he pays attention to, that his manly musk can be a lot to handle for people that aren’t him. It’s weird that Scanlan doesn’t make a single joke about that, and he’s not sure he likes it.)

While he knows patting someone’s shoulder or back for comfort is a thing, it’s completely out of the question right now. He just gingerly lays his hand on top of Scanlan’s head and lets it rest there. Not too heavily; his palm alone is almost larger than Scanlan’s entire skull. Not for the first time, he marvels at just how tiny gnomes are. And how easy it is to forget how breakable they can be.

After a few seconds, the choking gasps slow down into wet, heaving breaths, although they still rattle on the way in. Eventually Scanlan taps an uneven rhythm against Grog’s side and hums a little into his chest; the worst of the mess on his back closes up, leaving streaks of blood, red welts, and a whole lot of bruising.

Scanlan lets go of Grog and sits back up. Grog pretends not to notice him rubbing his hands across his face. When they fall his eyes are still damp, red and puffy.

“Good t—timing, big guy,” he says, voice raw and not too steady. “Like… really, really good.” He takes a deep breath that still shudders a bit then trips at the end as his eyes go wide. “Shit, Grog, is that…?”

Grog looks down where he’s staring, goes “…I guess,” and plucks the tooth out of the skin between his knuckles. And then the other one, an inch to the left. This one’s splintered.

He knows he hit the other dude hard. In hindsight, he should have hit him so much harder.

From the look in Scanlan’s eyes, he’s having a similar train of thought. “Where is he?”

“Whip guy?”

“Yeah, whip guy. I’m gonna Thunderwave his fucking guts inside out.”

This is said calmly, coldly, like stating a fact. Grog, who knows rage, can feel it tremble just beneath the surface. Like that time they fought goblins and Scanlan just annihilated a bunch of them with a blast of magic and a grin that was definitely not a smile.

If there’s something Grog respects, it’s the need to utterly destroy the thing or the person that fucked you up. He gets to his feet and goes to lean out the wrecked window.

On the street below, by the light of festive bonfires and lanterns, he can see debris, blood, and some tracks, but no prone body.

So he goes back to the bed and says, “Sorry, buddy. Looks like he got away.”

Scanlan blinks, sags a little. The cold fury fades from his eyes.

“Okay. Well… I guess I should heal myself a bit more, then.”

This time he sounds closer to normal as he does his magic, even if his voice is still a little fried. When he’s done and the usual pink-purple glow disappears, the bruises are still there, but at least the bigger welts are gone and the skin is no longer broken. That’s not gonna leave big scars, but Grog knows not everybody loves displaying badass scars as much as he does.

“Looks good,” he says with a thumbs up. “Might wanna ask Pike to heal it a bit more, though.”

Scanlan grabs him by the strap of his spaulder and yanks hard enough that Grog lets himself get pulled down.

“Grog,” he says in a surprisingly earnest tone, “brothel rules.”

“What?”

“You know, ‘what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom’. Nothing happened here. Well, nothing bad. All right?”

Grog thinks about what he walked in on, about his second best little buddy covered in blood, shaking and struggling to breathe, and tries to reconcile it with ‘nothing bad happened’.

“What do you mean, ‘nothing bad happened’? That looked pretty fucking bad to me!”

Scanlan throws out his arms. “I’m alive, aren’t I? Thanks for that, by the way. Like I said, that was really good timing. But,” he adds, clambering down from the bed and picking up his clothes from the floor, “it’s in the past now. Besides, the others don’t need to know I couldn’t handle a bit of kink. Vex would never let me live it down. Shit, where did I leave my… oh, there we go.”

Grog has a feeling he’s right and wrong; Vex might laugh, sure, but also, if she knew what the guy actually did to Scanlan and they crossed paths with him again, he would die a horrible death. Still, Grog understands the need to leave bad shit in the past and not think about it, so he doesn’t insist.

Scanlan has a quick wash – much quicker than usual – with the contents of a pitcher on the washstand, then puts his clothes back on. Then he turns to Grog, grins, and asks, “How do I look?”

He looks pale still, and he limps a little when he walks. But also he looks clean-faced, put together, pretty much his normal flamboyant self.

“Like you?” replies Grog, which appears to be the simplest answer.

Scanlan shrugs, winces. “Eh, good enough.”

One look around the room convinces them not to stick around and pick up the asshole’s tab. Grog solves the problem by picking up Scanlan and his pack and dropping through what remains of the window. After that, finding the others basically amounts to a leisurely stroll down the dark streets, through the thinning crowd of partiers going home.

A silent shadow falls just as Grog tries to open the door of the barn as discreetly as possible. There’s the flash of a dagger, then of a grin, followed by a snicker.

“Look what the cat dragged in. Thought we might have to search for you all around town tomorrow morning.”

In deference to the late hour, and very charitably (he thinks), Grog does not punch Vax in the smirk for startling him and making no damn sense.

“What cat?” he asks. Scanlan pats the side of his thigh.

“Figure of speech, buddy. Hey Vax, tell me we don’t have to share this place with a bunch of horses again.”

“First of all it’s cows, not horses. And unless five is ‘a bunch’, then nope. Also there’s a hayloft with lots of clean hay, so no complaining, please. If you wanted something more comfortable you should’ve Burt Reynoldsed us into an actual inn.”

“Yeah, well,” says Scanlan, throwing out his chest and jutting out his chin as he walks past Vax and into the barn, gait still a little uneven, “Burt Reynolds had a hot date.”

Vax raises an eyebrow at him and whistles.

“Damn, Shorty. You look like you got lucky.”

“You know what? I really did.”

Grog has no idea whether Scanlan’s wink is for him or Vax. Part of him is wondering how this last sentence feels so much like the truth when it’s actually a lie – unless it’s the other way around. Is this how Scanlan bullshits people so successfully? By telling them truths disguised as lies disguised as truths?

The barn is on the small side, with a hayloft to match. Still, there’s plenty of room for bunking in the soft hay, well above the snoring cows. Pike, Percy, Vex, and Keyleth are already asleep, tucked in blankets to avoid getting poked by random straws. That’s not a worry for Grog, who just finds a good spot and lies down.

A few pained hisses and frustrated noises later, he feels Scanlan climb on top of him and curl up on his chest, right against his arm. He doesn’t do this as often as Pike, but his warm weight – as slight as it is – feels almost as familiar.

“Scanlan?” mutters Grog when Scanlan finally stops squirming. “You okay?”

“Sure, buddy. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”

Whether or not it’ll be true is moot. Grog has seen him convince people of truly ridiculous things. It’s always very entertaining. But, also, sometimes, a little scary.

“Hey, Scanlan,” Grog murmurs, because the question has been digging in his brain on and off and questions like that have a way of just… coming out, sometimes, “d’you really like getting beat up?”

“To a point, yeah.”

“Why?”

There’s a pause. All Grog can see of Scanlan is his shoulders, the long brown hair that tickles a little, and the tip of his nose.

“I dunno,” Scanlan mumbles after a while. “’s hot. I guess it’s… really not for everyone. Just… Sometimes it feels good to give someone else the reins, y’know?”

Grog really doesn’t. But Scanlan doesn’t elaborate, so neither does he.

He just asks very quietly, “If I wanted to try, sometime. Like, if. Would you… spot? Kinda? In case it gets weird?”

He still can’t see Scanlan’s face, but this time he feels him smile into his chest just as a tiny hand taps his left pec.

“’Course I would, bud.”

Maybe this shouldn’t feel as reassuring as it does, if only because Grog has no intention of ever getting hit for fun without being able to hit back.

But it really does.

⁂

Aynor is a small town, but it does have a brothel. Since curiosity has been low-key gnawing at Grog’s brain for the entire day, he offhandedly asks Scanlan if he wants to come with him. And then, with Scanlan’s help because words can be tricky, he tells a hot dragonborn lady almost as tall as he is that he would like to try some bondage, please.

He barely feels the first blow.

The second one triggers a rage.

Turns out few pieces of furniture are sturdy enough to withstand the might of a properly pissed off goliath barbarian. That bed gets fucking destroyed. At least Scanlan manages to calm him down before the security bouncer guy tries to attack him. Leaving the ladies to deal with a corpse soaking up blood and gore into the carpet would not have been very polite.

Grog escapes with a life ban on his head from Aynor’s one house of lady favours that Scanlan said applies to him as well because he’s a good bro like that.

“Like I said, it’s not for everyone,” says Scanlan as they run the fuck out of the brothel, followed by the madam’s imprecations.

Eh, it’s fine.

It’s not like words can hit worse than a weapon, anyway, right?

—

(…Right? Wrong :D But he’ll change his mind out one day…)

[olderthannetfic]

The way people talk about first person narrative is so dumb, because it's not, like, a separate thing you can hate. It's not a ship or something that a fic is about, and it's not even a medium, like poetry or readerfic. It's just where you put the camera. Imagine saying you hate movies that do slow pans across landscapes and you'll nope out the moment an establishing shot shows a mountain instead of a crowd of people or something like that. That's what these people sound like.

Authors choose first or third person, the pov character, present or past tense, vocabulary and tone, complexity of sentence structure, pacing, and other meta things like that based on the way they serve the story that's being told.

Hating a medium or a kind of story makes sense, it just tells me you have specific taste. Hating the fact that an author put the camera inside of Blorbo's head instead of on top of Blorbo's head just tells me they know nothing about how to write.

And acting like everything in first person is badly written is a skill issue. If all the first person fic in your fandom is bad, go read something other than fic.

--

Or, hell, just find better fic writers. Good first person isn't unusual in fandom. It's not the majority of fic, but that's just Sturgeon's Law.