#(not really writing but its adjacent)

[anannua]

words hard

I really liked this story so I illustrated a bit of it, check it out

https://archiveofourown.org/works/36736339 [ hard to follow - espresso_bun ]

[mythals-whore]

Bellara Lutare | Serials

A short Bellara drabble for our darling girl <3

Summary: Bellara allows Rook to read her work. Unfortunately, the her inspiration is a little more than obvious…

Belinda had admittedly been increasingly distracted by the professor as of late. Something about his hands, she thought, as she watched him draw one of his elegant, adorned fingers across the board—undoubtedly highlighting something important. But Belinda was busy studying the delicate curve of his waist when her name cut through the haze.

"Miss Lanariel?" he prompted a second time, and her eyes flicked up to his face.

The room was silent except for the thundering of her heart in her own ears.

He'd just asked her a question, and she wanted desperately to give the answer, if only to hear the praise that usually accompanied the right one. Instead, her mouth fell helplessly open, accompanied by no words at all.

She gaped soundlessly for a moment before his expression melted into disappointment that she felt somewhere low in her stomach. Belinda is usually a star student, top of every class—except this one.

"Miss Lanariel," he tutted, "Daydreaming again?"

Snickers erupted around the room, and Belinda felt her face flame brightly.

"I—" she squeaked, unable to find her voice under that unusually stern gaze. Her cheeks burned impossibly hotter.

The professor's eyebrows flicked up at that, lips pressing together in disapproval, "I see." he studied her a moment longer—she would ahve sworn his eyes dropped to her chest, undoubtedly just as bright pink as her face—before he said, "See me after class."

Belinda swallowed, hands starting to tremble. She isn't the kind of student to be seen after class—especially not for any kind of discipline. When class ends, the other students meandered out of the room in the usual flurry of papers being gathered, books being tucked into bags and the sound of wood scraping over flagstones. Belinda remained in her seat longer than the rest, heart beating so fast in her chest she was certain she'd pass out before she made it to his desk.

But a shaking hand tucked her things into her bag before she shouldered it, reaching for some sort of resolve and finding none. It only became harder, ever step toward his desk. He'd taken up his spectacles, studying some paper or another, quill twisting between his elegant fingers. Belinda found herself incapable of looking at anything else on her approach.

Professor Emmett Voltaire was always dangerously dapper—but that day there was something special about the chain dangling about his waist, an unusually unruly tendril falling over his forehead from his usually well-kept gray hair.

******

Bellara gnaws nervously at her lower lip, peering at her own notebook over Rook's shoulder. It's a good thing to do, as she understands, getting someone else to read her work—but why does it feel like her heart is about to come out her mouth? The whole point of writing this would be to try and publish it..maybe. It it was good enough. Which Bellara isn't sure it is. It still needs a lot of work—which she told Rook. Not that Rook has given her much choice. She'd walked in while Bellara was puzzling out something else about the piece and insisted on reading.

Rook had quickly become enveloped with the writing—which is somehow both exciting and nerve-wracking. Exciting because that almost certainly meant she was enjoying it—which was good! And nerve-wracking because Rook has been silent as long as she's sat there, brow furrowed with interest. Until finally—

"Bellara!" Rook exclaims, slamming a hand on the page and looking up at her with wide eyes. "Is this—"

Bellara snatches the notebook right out of the other woman's hand, "Nevermind—"

"About Emmrich?"

"No!" Bellara protests, pressing the notebook protectively to her chest. Rook's eyebrow only arches in disbelief. Bellara immediately collapses onto her cot, using the notebook to hide her own flaming cheeks.

It isn't based on Emmrich, not really.

It's just that…the professor happens to fit perfectly into the serial stereotype.

"I may have…taken inspiration?" Bellara admits, looking up to find Rook looking at her with the kind of delight that usually denotes a great deal of trouble. "It was just an idea!"

She's tried her hand at writing several different stories now, but this one had come the easiest. The moment she thinks that, her cheeks flame brighter at the thought of what Rook would say if Bellara offered that thought aloud.

"It's good, Bell." Rook says, and this time her smile is warm—though her eyes still sparkle with mischief, "Really."

"Yeah…yes! Thank you." Bellara is blushing furiously now. She bites nervously at the inside of her lip, but Rook just waits patiently, perhaps sensing the other question Bellara had brought her here to ask. She's already read it, Bellara tells herself. "Do you think he would mind that I…"

Rook grins, "I'd think he'd be flattered. This has the potential to Rival Swords and Shields in terms of…steaminess."

"No!" Bellara insists, frantically waving her hands to dispel the compliment—though it is one. Varric Tethras may not have thought it was his best work, but to Bellara…well she'd enjoyed it immensely. To have her work compared in any way…it was good.

Her work.

It was actually good.

She's just basking in the glow of it when Rook gives a slightly nervous chuckle, "Though I might think of changing the professor's name to something other than 'Emmett Voltaire'."

"It's a place holder—"

"—And Belinda Lenariel—"

"Alright!" Bellara laughs sheepishly, "You're right—thank you, Rook."

"Any time Bellara," she promises with a sunshiney-smile that Bellara actually believes. Then, Rook's smile turns mischievous, "Have you written anything about me?"

"What?!" Bellara demands, eyes going wide. "No!"

Rook's grin only widens, "Can I see it?"

"No!" Bellara backs farther away, fingers curling protectively over her notebook. And when Rook's grin only widens, she realizes her mistake. "Not that I—" Bellara grimaces, and under the prudent and enthusiastic gaze, finally relents. "It's not finished—"

"But can I read it?" Rook asks again, and Bellara's fingers tap anxiously at the spine of the leatherbound book. Rook's eyes go wide, pleading. "Please, Bellara? I'm sure I'll love it!"

Bellara eyes Rook warily, looking for any sudden movements. When she shows none—just sitting uo on her knees, fingers curling eagerly around the back of the chair—Bellara turns, flipping the notebook open to a marked page near the back.

Her eyes scan the page—Rosalie’s eyes roll back, a breathy moan escaping her lips as Damon’s tongue lavs over her throat, fingers skimming higher on the inside of her thigh. Already Rosalie is pulled taut like a bow string and soon Damon was going to know just how tight—Bellara snaps the book closed, turning back toward Rook in one fluid movement, "No."

Unfortunately her obvious embarrassment only seems to tempt Rook further, "Maker, Bell, now I have to know—!"

"No!" Bellara insists, "Not until it's—um—finished?”

Rook runs discerning eyes over Bellara's face before nodding decidedly, "When it's finished." She agrees, "Then I can read it?"

Bellara realizes only then the trap she's fallen into. She swueezes her eyes shut a moment before agreeing.

She quickly decides to never finish that particular story.

[inkyprince]

i have two au’s /stories that sit in my head rent free but my stupid shoulder is preventing me from drawing them gaah

ig i could work on writing them down, but my brain has so many thoughts swirling idk where to start dhdhjee

[peasdotorg]

Ok, can confirm that love and Deepspace just isn't for me

[darkscaleswriter]

thinking about lego monkie kid again and i have... So Many unposted AUs where macaque and mk have some sort of connection to each other pre-canon, bc their relationship is fascinating and i love them. but also, a big part of macaque's character to me is that he's so mean. he's so mean!! he's a scrungly feral cat who will look you in the eye as he bites the hand that's feeding him with 0 regrets.

so, to make a pre-canon connection with mk work in my head, macaque needs to have a REALLY good reason to care about this kid. sometimes, that's a genetic relation (bc it never fails to amuse me that mk looks more like macaque than swk, especially when they're in bird form lmao). sometimes, it's a "i helped you one (1) time out of self-serving reasons and now you keep showing up at my house and refusing to leave me alone (and i won't admit it but you're growing on me like a fungus)" type of dynamic. sometimes, it's even "you're a critical part of my stage tech crew and opening night is tomorrow, if swk makes you skip work for 'training' then i am taking that Personally."

regardless of why macaque cares, he's almost always mad about it lmao. classic villain turned antihero character. he has been conned into becoming invested in this kid and it sucks!!

then, after the monkie kid thing happens, macaque is alternately tying himself into knots about it and resisting (or not resisting) the urge to break into swk's house to fight him, bc how dare that stupid monkey king put a claim on mk. macaque has dibs! he was there first!!!

usually in my AUs, macaque ends up training mk out of spite, bc swk sure wasn't doing it in the early days of mk's stint as the monkie kid. this has Consequences when swk finds out and mk always gets caught in the middle, poor kid. how the story goes from there depends a lot on the AU. regardless, macaque and mk have the snarkiest mentor-mentee relationship ever and it's hilarious.

[every-sanji]

[themyscirah]

Ok game time which 3 series would you just DIE to get a run on ? I'm talking full creative control, can be as a writer or an artist + plotter if that suits your vibe best

My 3 are

Suicide Squad

Wonder Woman

Green Lantern Corps/Green Lanterns

(in that order)

[weallpartyatybcpatricksfuneral]

it's no coincidence that in soul punk the song order goes from a song that discusses selling yourself out to the music industry to a song about alcoholism as a metaphor for burning out and music making to a hidden track about how fame dehumanizes you and makes your very existence cryptic to a song about how greed consumes everyone and how capitalism fucks everyone over.

[waywardsalt]

there is undeniable opportunity to make bellum x linebeck fucked up but i dont have it in me. im a sucker for it just being fine with a side of like. light nautical crimes against nature but i cant make it toxic or w/e after a certain point. theyre chilling

[lazer-screwdriver]

Liz thinks Strax is the absolute best and is chill w Jenny & Madam Vastra BUT.

Instead of the grin or commiserating scoff she expected, the other woman frowned at her curiously, tilting her head slightly.

“Your insistence on a rigid gender dichotomy concerns me, given your supposed citizenship to a more advanced civilization.” She said, as casually and lightly as one would comment on the weather. Madam Vastra blinked at her and got a raised eyebrow in return.

She turned back to watch her strange rude friend cut his way through the crowd away from them, a small wry smiling tugging its way through her blank expression. “He would be just as awful as a woman, I promise you.”

[organised-disaster]

Burrergh I'm making horrible progress I haven't even started chapter thr-

Oh

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads

Adrift In Starlight

space opera adventure romance

a courtesan is hired to seduce the soon-to-be-wife of a famous actor

a historian who’s focused on her career & has no idea her marriage has been arranged by her rich parents

after a museum tour they and two co-workers accidentally resurrect an ancient alien artifact and end up on the run from the law, traveling from planet to planet

pan nonbinary transfemme MC, touch-averse ace MC

[cityscidewalks]

The Return

An original fiction

CW: none but it's in First Person POV

I'd been gone now for nearly as long as I lived in that house and it seemed the promises to paint the once white exterior walls were empty. I'd like to say that nothing about this place has changed but the void in my chest was about as fulfilling as those promises.

I followed the little blond girl through the driveway, the crunch of the gravel louder than her fading laughter. She never stopped to look at me. She disappeared into the yard.

My heart raced when I pressed the proximity doorbell, the house never had an internal chime. Nothing happened. I shouldn't have been surprised; the doorbell worked only when it wanted to. The screen groaned without oiled hinges when opened and I knocked on the scantily painted white wood door. I remembered it being four inches and solid, I hoped he could hear me.

"You're here!" He said, a short man with a beard covering most of his face. I hadn't met him before now, "Please, come in." I hesitated. The blue trimmed threshold stopped me, uninviting despite having known me. I took a deep breath and stepped in.

I'm not sure what I expected, a welcoming committee perhaps, though I knew it was only the man who lived here and apparently, his daughter, "Thank you for letting me do this." I said to him and instinctively took off my shoes, placing them on the shoe rack. Ours was in the same spot. It's a good place for a shoe rack.

"You really think this place is haunted?" He stepped around me and led me the short few steps to the left, into the kitchen. The ceramic grout was no longer chipped and breaking, the pearlescent tile cracked and repaired many times over, as though the house had healed itself instead of waiting for anthropomorphic intervention. The walls that were once a warm tan, now lifeless and white.

"We experienced a bit of paranormal activity here. Haunted might be a bit of a stretch; but that's what I'm here to find out. Have you experienced anything?" I didn't meet his eyes, instead scanning the room for any sense of familiarity. I found none.

"Eh, it's an old house, it settles." I remember my mother saying the same thing before things were thrown at her.

"My friend once witnessed probably the most damning evidence and she still doesn't believe it's haunted." I shrugged. "I'd like to talk to your daughter, if that's okay. A lot of kids can see and experience what adults can't." He looked at me funny just then, almost offended.

"I don't have a daughter." I felt my stomach drop, both at the offense and revelation.

"I'm sorry, I saw a girl run into the yard and I thought...I didn't mean to assume." I scratched my neck and moved past him into the dining room. It was separated from the kitchen by a bar style counter, the floorplan for this level of the house was open before it became a trend. Even as a child I often wondered what it was like before the expansion.

The dining room and even the front sun room were nearly empty, only chairs at the bar and a small bookshelf and chair near the window in tthe sun room, not even an area rug filled the empty laminate floor.

"Nope. No daughter. Not sure who the girl you saw was. Neighbors have a bunch of kids maybe it was one of them." He shrugged, seemingly unshaken. "I suppose I'll let you to it then. Do you just lock yourself in?"

I simply nodded. "I'll call you in the morning once I'm finished. Again, I appreciate you letting me do this."

He left, I set up my equipment. When I connected the camera on the upstairs living room mantle--home to a few family pictures for him and a backdrop in many family pictures of mine, the familiar sound of shuffling feet came from below me in the kitchen, and I found myself grateful I had already placed a recorder there.

"Is there anyone here with me now?" I called. I don't know why I expected an answer. "Do you remember me?" I made my way to the banister, peering down to the kitchen as if whatever remained would manifest and say hello I've always been here. But there was no response, and the shuffling ceased. I held my breath as I always did to see more, hear more, but there was nothing. I frowned and continued setting up cameras and recorders throughout the house.

As night fell, the hair on my arms stood, the all too familiar tightness in my chest reminded me that I wasn't alone. I have never felt the same feeling anywhere else since leaving all those years ago.

I began my investigation in the master bedroom. What used to be my parents’ room, though darkened by blackout curtains while I was a child was inviting and warm back then. It was now cold and dare I say it, lonely. "Are you here, now?" I called, recorder held out in front of me, camera placed on the dresser and waited for a response. "Are you the man that died here? Or are you his son?" Our theory was always that the main spirit was the son who returned here after he passed. This was his home too. Is this where my spirit will go? I wondered. I moved to the office, more questions asked, answered only by wordless creaks and cracks.

In the kitchen there was laughter. A familiar and unsinister cackle that sent my heart into my throat. I rushed through the small hallway and into the dining room, expecting to find my mother, smiling to greet me and tell me she didn't want me to come back alone. But my mother wasn't here, and she wasn't dead. The room was dark, the moon bathing the center in a shallow beam, and I stood searching for ghosts, protected by the dark corners and years between their last breath and now.

The last place on my list was the downstairs bedrooms. Kids often experience the things adults cannot, and I experienced the most here.

The rooms were still grey and tan, the colors we painted before we left to make the home more palatable for potential buyers. They were nearly empty now. A single bed and nightstand in each room. The air down here had always been musty but now, it was stale, begging for the space to be loved.

I sat on the carpeted floor in what was once my bedroom, running my hands over the familiar threads and listened for the stirring we often heard upstairs, an almost nightly routine. The wall warmed from the contact against my back and the silence was nearly deafening. The sun would be rising soon, it was time to pack my equipment. Today, I will pour over my results and search for an ounce of familiarity.

I looked out of the small above-ground window from under the curtain as I had many mornings of my childhood. The sun peered over the horizon and dimmed the room. A shadow peeked around my door, then fled. Gasping, I scrambled to my feet and chased it up the stairs, loosing it in the dark. I called out one last time, questioning the apparition and its history, the only response, of course, was silence.

Without another word, I began packing my equipment with no interruptions. As I opened the wood door to leave, the doorbell chimed, I jumped out of my skin. No one stood on the other side of the screen door in front of me.

"Goodbye." I caught my composure, and shut the door.

[ea-nasir-infinite-copper-glitch]

i was thinking about brainstorming some new characters but then i realize that the dynamic i wanted was basicly Akila/Althia/Shadlan wich is an insane take and would only work if everyone involved was significantly watered down but like,,,,,, its a good dynamic,,,,,

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Me in the brainstorming document saying, "That could be so fun!" But the thing that could be so fun is "The one that came back is actually fine and learning to love their second chance at life, but the one that brought them back has become paranoid and reclusive in her attempt to bring them back, so this new happy version is not the person she thought she was bringing back and anyway she's changed so much that the person she thought she wanted to bring back wouldn't have fit into her life the same way anymore."

[paigemathews]

Whenever I actually sit down and start posting the next gen series, one of the things that I really wanna do is kind of... incorporate reader's choices into it? Not in big ways bc my plan is to write like a full season before I start posting episodes and that can affect it, but like. smaller beats.

One example is that I have an episode idea where there's a big emotional thing for three different characters and our resident empath has a discussion with each of them, but it's reader choice which scene we see. Another one is an episode where it's reader's choice for who gets hit with some kind of emotional puncture and just spews emotions everywhere. It'd be mostly character and relationship scenes for arcs that are already happening, but readers would have the chance to see their favorite or the one that they're most curious about up close on "screen." Not for every episode, but like. maybe once or twice a season or something. Idk, thought it might be interesting.