#Burning Bright

[goryhorroor]

horror sub-genres: animal

[theladyofshalott1989]

As a little treat to myself for the first anniversary of my Sebastian Sallow x m!mc series (Like Moths to a Flame [ Wattpad link ] [ AO3 link ]), I commissioned the absolutely spectacular @rhewart for a scene of Sebastian and Damien from chapter 34 ("Happiness, Its Gates Guarded by Dragons") of the sequel, Burning Bright, and boy, did she deliver (and then some)! My jaw is still on the floor. Happy one year, Sebastian and Damien <333 It's been such a joy writing you two.

[tylidae]

I AM A FIELD ON FIRE.

no lyric alt versions! :-D

[riza-hawks-eye]

𝗝𝗶𝗻𝘅'𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿 𝗚𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗕𝗶𝗼 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐮𝐱

[call-sign-shark]

"How could a woman like her be into men like him? Crazy, disturbing, unpredictable, and vaguely creepy men? The more he encountered her -- or, to be more precise, the more he fucked her, he got to understand why. It was because Taissa, despite the luxurious and glimmering appearance, was worse than him."

Merry Sharksmas, @darklydeliciousdesires :). I know you're going through a lot lately so I hope it will make you smile. Just know that I'm following your wonderful and spicy story Burning Bright, but I haven't had the time to comment on it yet.

[forestsofthenight98]

everybody wants to rule the world

Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down

When they do, I'll be right behind you

Hope you like it :3

[burningfeathersx]

@kingdomofbellows

He was fINALLY feeling well enough to be up and about. Not up and about and making a scene, but enough to make a trip out of the apartment. Rook only cleared that with the usual Devang supervision in tow. He was...getting used to that. And she did have decent driving skills.

[txt] you at home or office?

[erisenyo]

I think I'm finished with the first art piece for "These things written"

^approximately how I feel right now!!!

This is AMAZING. The lighting, the expression on his face, the direct stare--I don't have the words, stunning job!!

Is there a dedicated post too? I will HAPPILY reblog that as well!!

[xxthefairywitchxx]

TFW you get kidnapped by a mob member when you're just trying to work your crappy retail job...Is this better or worse?

Alice don't you know candy is for kidnapping kids? That's a whole adult woman!...Why'd you kidnap this lady anyhow?

[not-that-evans]

Well, it looks like AI has generated some images of me too. I would be concerned, but I'm too pleased by how accurately they've depicted me. As a belated Valentine's Day gift to Bash, I even asked AI to generate some images of the two of us. They're glorious:

[mangacat201]

No Tease Tidbit Tuesday for me this week

(... cause I'm posting the whole damn chapter, lol. FINALLY)

Ok, so with this chapter 5, the main body of the fic is finished, just the social media epilogue to go (that I hope to put out as soon as I figure out whether I can make the coding work).

Thanks so much to @wilfriede, @sillyunicorn for the musical collaboration, to @michi-hawkeye for the gorgeous insprirational art, and bearing with me for such a long time as I blew past all the deadlines foreign and domestic.

And the amazing folks @911reversebang (who probably keel over backwards to learn there was still an unfinished piece floating around this place, lol, SORRY)

Taglist under the cut

@thewolvesof1998, @monsterrae1, @911onabc, @rewritetheending, @giddyupbuck, @cal-daisies-and-briars, @honestlyeddie, @loserdiaz, @the-marathon-continues-nip, @comfortbuddie,

@sam-t-a, @stormkitty97, @foxweddinq, @ligiapereira

[thaliajoy-blog]

Princess Nymeria of the Rhoynar, conqueror & ruler of Dorne.

"That is Nymeria's star, burning bright, and that milky band behind her, those are ten thousand ships. She burned as bright as any man, and so shall I."

👆 reference : Queen Zaphira in the movie La Dernière Reine (16th century Alger).

[theladyofshalott1989]

Crying happy tears that "Burning Bright," the second long fic in my “Like Moths to a Flame” series, hit 6,000 reads on Wattpad and 4,000 hits on AO3 today. "Burning Bright" is my baby, my magnum opus, if you will. Don't get me wrong, I adore “Like Moths to a Flame” because it brought me back into writing, but when I re-read it, I realize that it needs some work. (I do plan on rewriting parts, especially the beginning. In fact, that's the plan after "You Cannot Put a Fire Out" is fully posted. But I digress...)

Writing a rare pairing with an OC, and a series at that, has been a different experience for me, especially coming from the Star Wars fandom at its peak (and writing Anakin/Padme, which was arguably the most popular pairing at the time 😅). Putting that all aside though, writing this fic brought me so much joy. I will never forget the whirlwind of a journey that it was. And it will forever hold a special place in my heart.

"Burning Bright" is first and foremost a fantasy-romance, but it's also a mystery and a great ~spooky~ read for October! There’s even a scene straight out of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” 🧟‍♂️

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite passages from the fic after the cut (minor spoilers):

You're mine, he found himself thinking, directed at the specter of Damien in his mind's eye. Sebastian no longer second-guessed these possessive thoughts; they had become a natural part of his inner monologue.

Dread gnawed at him as an all-too-familiar sensation began clawing its way up his spine, and a persistent droning began in his head. He wasn't sure if it was a memory or whether it was actually happening in real-time, but the whispers... the whispers... unintelligible at first, then, amidst the chaotic symphony, a word broke through: "Seeker..." Sebastian's heart plummeted. He heard Damien, as if he were far away, call out, "Sebastian?" as his vision tunneled. He heard the textbook drop to the floor with a loud thump. He barely processed Damien's hands on his shoulders as he felt himself drifting away, away, away...

Damien broke their embrace and repositioned himself, his hands gripping the top of Sebastian's shoulders and his face mere inches from Sebastian's. His eyes peered into Sebastian's very soul. "I won't let anyone or anything steal you away from me. You're mine." Sebastian was startled to hear his own possessive thoughts echoed back at him. Damien was his. And now he was Damien's.

“Where am I?” he addressed the voice, straightening himself up in a desperate attempt to display a confidence he didn’t feel. “Where do you think you are?” Oh wonderful, Sebastian thought disdainfully, he was going to have to pry the answers out. “Well, if I had a map and a compass, I might have a clue. But alas, I seem to be trapped in your little guessing game,” he shot back. The Stranger surprised Sebastian with a low chuckle. “I should have expected that,” he replied. Sebastian stepped back slightly, quite the feat in water. He was lucky he didn’t fall on his arse. “Do I know you?” he asked. The disembodied voice didn’t grace him with a response. Sebastian sighed and tried his earlier inquiry again. “Where am I?” The Stranger didn’t reply right away, but when he did, his tone was infuriatingly mysterious. “I call it the Waters of Lethe.”

And then, the ground split open, forming a cavernous maw to his right. Decaying bodies rose from the dirt, skeletons mostly, some still wearing discernible items of clothing, frayed at the edges and worn to the quick. The bodies… the skeletons… disentangled themselves from gnarled tree roots and crawling insects as they burst from the ground. Sebastian gagged as a corpse directly in front of him ripped off a string of decaying skin from its arm. He counted ten, twenty, surely not thirty, forms rising from their graves. Sebastian somehow managed to hold back a terrified yelp. This was more than he bargained for. Sebastian looked past the hill. More skeletons were emerging, more than he could possibly count. This was bad. Very, very bad.

Finally, like with the first book, I also curated a Spotify playlist, which has some fun October-y listens on it as well. <3 Happy reading and listening! :)

[euesworld]

"You are like the sun, you consume my days in your beautiful rays.. and I can do nothing but see your lovely light. Beautiful some would say, but I say that you are a goddess.. what light beams from your smile could warm the heart like a billion stars burning bright."

You are everything amazing - eUë

[yeeiguess]

Thinking about them (Burning Bright Zukka)

[starcrossedjedis]

SARA did I just see you have a MK oc??! TELL ME EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY -🍂

ALVITA you totally saw that right 😁

Mortal Kombat was my absolute comfort film of 2021 and I have watched it an unhinged amount of time 😅

So naturally an OC was spawned 🥰

Meet Detective Katherine Chen, currently undercover as a small scale drug dealer, because these jobs have a tendency of opening doors within the LAPD - and she has her eyes firmly set on the homicide division.

But even the most meticulus preparation doesn’t account for bad luck and so she's made by another dealer she'd taken in way back in her patrol days.

Kate makes a narrow escape and even manages to take out one of the drug ring’s most nefarius enforcers. But not before he puts a knife into her, leaving her to bleed out in a dark back alley somewhere in Central City.

When Kate comes to, she finds herself in an ancient Shaolin temple at the end of the world with a strange dragon branding on her torso and a mysterious man with glowing eyes telling her she killed one of Earthrealm’s champions and now has to compete in an ancient tournament called Mortal Kombat.

She has only a few months left to get battle ready with the help of two other champions and to unlock her Arcana - the ancient power awoken by the dragon mark.

She arrives a few months before the others, training with Liu Kang and Kung Lao - who make no secret of the fact that she probably killed the other champion by dumb luck and that while her martial arts training might have been enough to stun the guys at the academy, it's nowhere near where it needs to be with nothing less than the fate of all mankind at stake.

The weeks fly by and while her fighting improves greatly, Katherine still hasn't unlocked her Arcana. Much to Raiden's dismay, who likes to remind her that the clock is ticking for Earthrealm. And who suspects that his two best students might be finding it hard to train her with the appropriate urgency.

And when the others arrive and it turns out that it's not just Katherine who isn't ready for the tournament it soon turns out that a certain monk especially might be pulling his punches...

So, that's the (I'd say) first act on Katherine 🤗

Her Arcana is the ability to turn the kinetic energy of an attack into a shield (looking like a sort of glowing/fiery force field or throw it back at her opponent like an energy ball/sphere). She unlocks it during the fight in the temple, when she steps between Liu Kang and what would have been a deadly attack and turns it into a shield covering the both of them long enough for Raiden to get them out alive.

Liu Kang is in love with her and has no idea what to do with that, Kung Lao calls her mèimei (little sister) - losing him wrecks her almost as much as it does Liu Kang - and she hates Kano so fucking much she wishes her Arcana was to make people drop dead with a glare. Also, I am pretty sure that she'll gonna get along great with Johnny Cage (I love Karl Urban, sue me) and again, Liu Kang has no idea what to do with that 😁

I am always down to clown if you wanna know more and since it looks like my creative rut is still going nowhere, I am thankful for anything that keeps me working on any of my OCs in any sort of capacity 🤗