#Fantasy life has introduced the Farmer Life | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hwaightme · 2 years ago

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Avaritia

THIS IS 18+ ONLY MINORS DNI FOR CAPTAIN'S SAKE (nsfw tags under the cut) (masterlist)

⚫ pairing: ceo/sugar daddy!hongjoong x assistant/afab!reader ⚫ genre: smut... just smut really ⚫ summary: everything has a price, but sugar makes this truth so much sweeter. no matter what he says, hongjoong will buy that new purse for you, will flaunt you in front of his business partners, and will make sure you know you are his. ⚫ wordcount: 8.3k ⚫ warnings/tags: MINORS DNI, tried to edit - lost it - bon appetit, language, teasing, on a flight, a lot of money, wealth, first world, brand name dropping harder than San in the logs, hj is a sweetheart, mc is needy but in denial, full avarice mode lmk if anything else, nsfw tags and playlist rec under the cut ⚫ taglist: @doom-fics @layzfeelit @acciocriativity @justhere4kpop @honey-lemon-goose @byuntrash101 @shakalakaboomboo ⚫ network tags: @k-labels @ateezlovenet @kflixnet ⚫ a/n: Sometimes, I am calm. Other times (read 'all the time) I am getting wrecked by everyone in ATEEZ. Here is what Balmain Joong did to me. Any comments, reblogs much loved; we spiraled into madness (hail sucrose pop, glucose father joong lol)

⚫ nsfw tags: daddy/baby girl dynamic, sugar daddy, reader is a 'doll', soft dom!hj (literally cannot stay mad at mc), overstimulation (seriously what is hj doing to mc...), fingering, mile high club, blowjob, deepthroating, dacryphilia, possessiveness, dirty talk, sex on a desk, unprotected sex (wrap that before you tap that) ⚫ playlist recs: Five Star Hotels by RAYE | Sugar Daddy by Qveen Herby | SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY Remix by Amaarae | Greed by Shreea Kaul | Mile High by Salina Killa | Do I Move You? by Nina Simone | Money Power Glory by Lana Del Rey

Why was it that when real business was being discussed, the location of choice was always the most extravagant, exotic, luxurious oasis? Everything about the resort screamed unaffordable. 'Exclusive' written in blood on the pristine white sands, only to be washed away by azure blue waves to colour sea foam you could swear was whipped up in a divine patisserie. A perverse flavour inaccessible to the majority but driving the decisions that ruled the world. It was challenging to not become partial to the taboo indulgence when it was handed to you on a silver platter together with a tailor-made career. Anyone would need to acclimatise to what most considered a distant fantasy, but a few flights on a private jet later did wonders in curing the delirium of the average and introducing an insatiable materialism.

Thus, you were not particularly bothered when your boss requested you book another retreat to a private resort in the middle of the ocean - considering the business's cash flow and offshore 'pocket money', this was not too different from your routine trip to the cafe down the street to get his 'coffee' - more sugar than caffeine but this was a secret that you were to keep to the grave; it was written in small print on your contract. It was easy to book when you just needed to send out a few messages to staff and drop a name to any external service people at the right time. Their reaction, stuttering and need for clarification never failed to be amusing; even the most outrageous demands gained appeal once the won, euro, dollars, whatever they wanted from the global wallet, began to stack up. Green bills, green trees - in a twisted way, these boys who liked to play the role of the all-seeing and all mighty were farmers too. And fruits of their labour were always the sweetest.

Sure, you worked hard and had your own path that you could have followed. Even had a degree to prove that you had at least an ounce of dedication. But what would it give you, in fact, what did it give you before your renaissance? Crumbs. Sheer crumbs, student debt and a chronic migraine. But as it turned out, a couple hundred k did wonders when it came to personal health and wellbeing. And on top of that, the myriad of other benefits that your current lifestyle had, had the ability to crush any argument and accusation hurled in your direction, of which you had many. You had figured out soon enough that diamonds were your real best friend, while those who you had considered your ride or die evaporated as soon as they saw you wearing designer. And that had been when the best you could ask for was old collections, and widely available products. You were not lonely. You had too many hats to wear, and a very demanding man, by the name of Kim Hongjoong, to entertain. And one who currently had his eyebrows furrowed, a couple of unruly strands of hair perking up out of his otherwise slick business ‘do, glasses barely holding onto the tip of his beautifully sculpted nose, and was leafing through the papers he had asked you to prepare for the duration of the flight.

For the CEO of a global company, and the heir to an even larger network, he sure as hell was incredibly young. You did not envy his turmoil and exposure to stress one bit, almost feeling sorry and in part guilty, since percentages of his spendings were technically lost on you. There had even been instances when you found yourself sat in a dark room, laptop screen aglow and on a blank page, with you wondering how one crafted a resignation paper. But once you and Hongjoong could have even a couple of moments alone, when he would ravish you, make and call you his and reveal to you all the things he had planned that could not be reflected on his calendar, that document would be promptly deleted and recycle bin emptied. Your ‘relationship’ had been this way since the one meeting, in his main office, on a bright and early morning.

He had called you up into his office and simply told you that he had another ‘job opportunity’ for you. At that point you had been desperate, with financial problems endlessly piling up, from debt to your family’s hospital fees to bailing your estranged brother out of prison. And to make things unethical – Hongjoong had known this. He had done his research – more specifically, he had asked some colleagues in his company, ones who you would never suspect, to snoop around and find out more about you. And as it turned out, you were the perfect candidate for ‘being treated right’ by him, while bearing the title and carrying out the formal façade of secretary and personal assistant duties. In his practice, as well as his father’s and partners’, this was probably the most stable relationship they would ever get in life, so might as well be picky.

Initially, you had simply become a receiver of gifts. Pretending like this was Hongjoong’s love language, you were touched and did not think much of it. Maybe through these purchases he was moving money in ways it should not be moved, but you could not care less – not your problem, not your area of expertise, you had the outcome, and the outcome was something like a crocodile leather bag or a dress fresh off the runway. Hongjoong had insisted on picking every single item out for you, letting his controlling executive side win over. He had explained that you had to look like ‘the prettiest doll in the world’ for him, and for that he needed to check for quality. After a couple of months, however, such sugary sweet presents had been reserved for special occasions, and for the rest, money was wired directly to a new, account, a platinum card he had opened for you and given you. To just step into the consultation room with his portfolio manager and private banking consultant had felt like you were cheating existence. You had been a lowly assistant to an assistant before. And now, decked out in Dior, were sat beside one of the most influential men in the modern era of this industry, letting him hand you eye-watering sums as if it was a couple of coins for a pack of gum.

Now, well, now you were conflicted. As months had turned into a year and were now approaching the two-year mark if you could remember correctly, your ‘relationship’ had started to feel more and more like a real one. Hongjoong had caught himself divulging details of experiences that he had never spoken about with anyone before. And nowadays, when you had sex, it felt less like a mindless fuck and more like making love, with the man expressing more than he ever could with every hot touch, press of his lips to yours, even his lustful intensity had gained a new colour. You could feel that he was confused, but would not dare let go of you – you knew that he put your name down on some very important documents, after all. As such, it was a rare but unbelievable pleasure to push Hongjoong’s buttons and get him all riled up for you, just so he could expel that pressure and that tension from a busy work day out on you. You were that caring of a personal assistant. And wanted him to keep on talking. Keep on telling you his deepest darkest secrets. You wanted to be a part of him, the hedonistic side, the one that seized the day and knew how to enjoy the earthly realm without counting and fighting.

For the flight to the resort and extended series of meetings with key business partners, you had chosen to wear an outfit that you knew Hongjoong was unravelled by. It was a black and white Prada poplin mini dress that did wonders to accentuate your curves and edges, and was paired with some classic, black leather, So Kate Louboutin heels and gold accessories to match the dainty little buttons on the dress. Really, this was dress number two since the last one had been quite literally torn off you by none other than your boss, but he did not want to ruin the night and as such, had promised to contact the house of fashion itself to get an exact replica of the limited edition garment. And this man kept his promises. But right now, even though you were sat in the private office in his jet, with the bodyguards safely outside, lounging and doing whatever bodyguards did to occupy themselves, he was not paying attention to you at all. Only winding himself up more with those compiled quarterly reports that you were now regretting having finalised them and bringing them at all. What was the worst that you would have gotten had you not done the task? A spanking? Oh, how scary… you have had it rougher on a casual and uneventful day. Now you needed to get creative to get his attention, and being needy would not do. So very slowly, gazing out of the window at the clouds your were drifting past, you crossed your legs, revealing the legendary red bottoms of the heels you were wearing, and reached for the notebook and pen that were just peeking out of your handbag. Unbeknownst to you, you already had his attention with your abrupt change of pattern. Normally you would be on your phone, or typing away on your laptop, even remaining idle would be more characteristic, so Hongjoong’s interest was piqued by the little planner that contained all your thoughts and actions. He slouched back in his seat, and raised he papers a little higher, so that he could steal glances at you more discreetly.

You were paying no mind to what your boss was up to, preoccupied by the cream pages and the visualisation of the figure in front of you, but in your mind. Sometimes, when work was slow, you had taken to doodling random people around the office, as well as sketching out a variety of landscapes that took your fancy. Though the main subject was always Hongjoong. You had gotten quite good at picturing his facial features and depicting them even in a few lines, catching his micro expressions and shift in body language. There were also a couple of drawings you had done with him as a live model, though he was asleep and in the nude, so no one was ever going to know about that – you had stashed them away in a safe hidden behind the drawers of your desk. It only made sense that he was in most of your drawings: after all, he was the man who had bestowed upon you such unimaginable riches and a quality of life so drastically improved, that you had no choice but to worship him. He had made you who you were now. A shining diamond.

And this shining diamond was a little too bright for him to keep on focusing on the profit and loss analysis. After about ten minutes of frustrating silence, he dropped the papers onto the table in front of him and leaned to put his elbows on its edge. You had still not raised your eyes at him – something that you normally did nearly on instinct since you were so in tune with his gestures, which made Hongjoong inhale aggressively. His previously neutral expression had turned into a scowl as he raised an eyebrow and gave you a onceover. His precious doll was up to something.

“What are you doing?” though the question was simple, his voice was dangerously low. But you could not be threatened by a good time. You kept your eyes trained on the page as your hand moved methodically to hatching the shadows of his, as of not too long ago, brilliant blond locks, ones you adored to run your hands through whenever you had the chance. Which was a rare occurrence outside of the ‘bedroom’, but still.

“Just noting some things down, Mister Kim.” Though he had insisted that you call him Hongjoong when you two were alone, it had been a challenging transition to get used to. But at least it gave you ample opportunity for… discouraging him further. He liked for everything to run like a well-oiled machine, with his eyes reading a business strategy in anything and anyone. You had no doubt that that was how he was scrutinising you now. Equal parts assessing the attitude and doting on you.

He was a sweetheart treating his favourite toy. Talking competitive analysis and takeovers in the morning, and clinking glasses with you at an exclusive Michelin star restaurant in the evening. And to think that you were the only one, aside from his family, who got to see more than one side of him was an intriguing notion. Actually, scratch that. Certain things you were sure to be the only one taking care of. Take his nasty habit of overworking, which you had called out even if it was just you feeling bored: all work and no play made Hongjoong a dull boy, and thus, less likely to compensate for your presently aimless sitting around.

“By colouring the entire page? Not good to lie to me, you know that.” Of course. When it came to matters of business, for example, this man had ears everywhere, had infiltrated every other competitor and had become a spider in the corporate world. He would probably find out someone was cheating on their spouse sooner than the spouse themselves. When it came to you, however, he did not have your intricate neural network mapped out just yet. He could only fluff up his feathers and put on airs.

“It is only ink, Mister Kim. And surely the ink to paper ratio is not more than the balance sheet on page twenty seven.” You purposefully moved away from his interrogation, subliminally reprimanding him from stopping his concentration. The ghost of a smirk was gracing your lips, hidden by hair that had fallen to perfectly frame your delicate facial features. Hongjoong still had not corrected you on using his ‘work title’.

“I should ask you to start drawing the spreadsheets out by hand then.”

“Maybe next time, as a special treat. In the meantime, we have what we have and must settle for it.” A lot more standoffish than usual, you were brushing your boss off as you continued the sketch. He could not exactly reprimand you, however. You were right in the fact that his suggestion was nothing more than white noise.

“Settle for less, Y/N?” the question rang loudly in your ears and translated itself to a reminder to know your place fairly quickly. You could imagine Hongjoong’s raised eyebrow and playful grin. In addition to him hinting at your arrangements, he switched to calling out your first name. Promising.

There was a customary mention of money and class even when it was not the main topic of conversation. Really, it was what had brought you two together, or rather the stark difference between what you and him had, respectively. Hongjoong enjoyed having financial control over you and ended up dangling it above your head in the form of his not so subtle first-world conduct. You preferred to imagine that it was him wrapping you up in the softest, silkiest Chanel ribbon, like the one you had seen in adverts and on the packaging that, alone, could have probably provided you with enough food to last a week in your life before.

It was not that Hongjoong did not try to ‘stay humble’. Based on your observations, out of all his financial peers, company clients and members of the executive board, he was probably the least likely to boast about the figures that his numerous bank accounts contained. It was possible that when the strings of digits began to look more like a phone number, one grew more tranquil. Money spoke louder than words. But you knew how to make Hongjoong get vocal. Or so you thought.

“More is never enough.”

“Having more takes a lot of work and being on your best behaviour, Y/N.” he may not know all of your thoughts and reasoning but knew that you got extra charming when you became needy. Trying so hard to get his attention that you would invest all your efforts into it. It was only fair after how much he had invested in you.

The Tiffany & Co necklace on your neck that he traced with his gaze was nothing more than a collar, a leash tethering you to him. An Elsa Peretti piece, a golden snake which had cost Hongjoong just under thirty million Korean won, was perhaps the best way to symbolise the chokehold you were beginning to have on him. You were there in business, there in pleasure, and he was contemplating preventing you from taking holidays unless they somehow involved him. It would be easy – just block all of your cards and you would come crawling. He was greedy for your reactions. The way your lip would curl when he would put somebody back in their place during a conference or a meeting. How you enjoyed it when he praised you for completing the challenging, soul-draining tasks that never ceased to pile up – he had never failed to continue scrutinising you through the glass walls of his office as you excitedly returned to your desk, a soft smile always on your face. How you were completely at his mercy when he wanted to give you an extra special present. He loved how the jewellery he had gifted you or sponsored for you to buy rocked back and forth as he took his time to take you apart. Piece by piece. His priceless game.

Hongjoong smoothed his lapels and adjusted his cotton jacket that he had bought in the colour warm khaki, tightening the knot of the wrap belt. Smugly, he took note of how your pretty, made up lips parted. What were you imagining he was doing now? He was not going to care, at least not right away. He demonstratively picked up the reports again, flipping through the bounded pages on autopilot as, what he could only decipher to be a disappointed gasp, reached his ears. It was a relief that the paper hid his growing smirk. Mister Kim was work-mode Hongjoong, after all. What did you expect?

Ignored and rejected, so be it. You knew this interaction well enough to be able to count, down to the minute, when Hongjoong would crack, or you would crack and still come sauntering over. He liked to be needed – the main reason why he had agreed to become the heir to the corporation in the first place, more than you liked to be needy. But sometimes, you were a little too impatient for your own liking – probably a side effect of having been transferred to a silver spoon lifestyle after experiencing hardship after hardship. As such, the dynamic between you and Hongjoong was a constant battle. You could almost taste his pride as he inspected the figures you had compiled for him, a lazy hand moving to adjust the collar of his white turtleneck. Through fluttering eyelashes, you feasted on the dangerously handsome man, determining that he really did look astonishingly captivating in Balmain.

It was frustrating, this ongoing game that you two played and would not quit despite the effect that it very obviously had on all parties involved, but much like with the drugs that made the occasional special appearance in the closed VIP-only events, it was too addictive. Even now, you knew that you should not pay attention to Hongjoong, but your eyes were not obeying you in the slightest. Over the time you had come to intimately know this man, if there was one thing you knew for certain, it was that he had an aura. An enigmatic charm, a magnetism that was so subtle to anyone who you now had the ability and first world clarity of deeming 'average' was unlikely to detect. However, before you knew it, upon locking eyes with Hongjoong, listening to his dulcet tone that would turn to orchestrate the music in your mind, you began to fall hard and fast into the abyss that was his power and control, trapped and even if you wanted out, forgetting the words. Once you fell in, the only words that mattered were the ones that he deemed to be so, and they were so heavily contextual and dependent on his mood that, usually, you did not dare oppose it.

It was fascinating to you how time seemed to pass differently when there was a price associated with it. Be it Hongjoong's net worth or what he was wiring into your accounts, it did not matter. What mattered was the bills that bound you together like the lace of your lingerie, one which was growing tighter around your body by the second as you kept on openly devouring Hongjoong with each shameless gaze, the thoughts cropping up because of the ghost of a smirk that he was wearing only fanning the flame. He was illegal. In all senses. No man should have the right to have such an influence over you as he did, and yet here you were. Working the role of his personal toy, so dedicated that you were on the verge of begging for him to play with you. You needed him. As much as you hated to admit it, since you still did want to retain at least a tiny portion of independence, this man had given you more than what you could ever wish for. Riches, connections, diamonds, sex. And you could not get enough, happily driven to madness by the immense pleasure of being a capricious diva with infantile demands for all the world's sweetness. Or, as your brother had put it, perhaps out of a sick gratitude to you for helping him getting at least a part of his life back on track, before you blocked him for good, you were getting off on being a pampered, prissy sugar baby. Though you saw no issue with simply doing what you were good at, and you still completed your regular duties as a personal assistant. It was just that your 'personal' was a little different from the commonly accepted corporate average. And the business that you carried out in the after hours was not just classified – when you had been faced with the decision of whether to agree to enter such a relationship with Hongjoong or not, you had naively placed your life at stake. That was the level at which you had to operate. But the thrill that it gave you, more than justified it.

Your internal clock was ticking away like a time bomb as you grew more and more frustrated, while Hongjoong, in a manner not too far from that of a cat’s, gave a soft yawn and made himself more comfortable in his chair, spreading his legs further apart under his desk and leaning back to continue his reading. Deciding that he had enough of having to repeatedly push his glasses up, he decisively took them off, and slowly folded them together, holding one of the temple tips very lightly with his lips. In a graceful motion, Hongjoong set them down to his right, beside a couple of pens. You recalled speaking with the designer over the phone, ordering for them to be customised and getting shipped over from the US in record time, and while you were not exactly sure as to why they were so important, the key stakeholders in the company had raved about them on multiple occasions, much to your boss’s delight.

You could feel that he was well aware of your present sensations, and purposefully was not acting on them, just to see you squirm. This was only making you more fixated on getting his attention, which you tried to do by letting out another soft sigh, quickly realising that if you were to get anything out of him, you had to be more rash, and act on instinct. In other words, act out of line. Taking the moment he dived back into the report as an opportunity, you rose from the couch, and slipped out of your high heels while keeping your eyes trained on your boss. A barely noticeable twitch of the eyebrow and you were struggling to fight off a smirk, feeling every bit seductive even though it was most probably a vision of your own design. But a little confidence did not hurt.

This time, you did not make a sound as you slowly moved towards Hongjoong’s desk in a straight line, using your strength to keep your adrenaline-ruined breathing as level as physically possible, and your steps measured out as the plane rumbled beneath you. Head and body in the clouds. All because of the heavenly ruin who was paying no mind to how you rested the tips of your fingers on the edge of the desk, before lowering yourself onto your knees and dropping into a languid crawl. As you inched past his lacquered black boots, and soon found yourself right between his legs, you could see Hongjoong stiffen, but resist the urge of responding to your bold movements. This only played to your advantage, as you let your hands rest on his denim-clad thighs before snaking up to tug on his coat’s belt, loosening it until the material gave way and exposed the waistline of his jeans.

Even as you, with practiced, methodical motions, undid his jeans, he did not spare you as much as a pat on the top of your head, like he usually did when you were being his ‘good girl’. The only sign he gave of his awareness of you was the obviously hardening member that your hands purposefully grazed as you attempted to pull the denim a little further down to give you better access. When the jeans, or rather, their wearer, did not budge to allow you to take them off, you growled in annoyance and gave up trying to be gentle, instead wanting nothing more but attention, not from Mister Kim, not from your boss, but from Hongjoong. From Joongie. From your one and only daddy.

Said man was resisting every urge to yank you from under the desk and to punish you for being such a vixen, but it was clear to him that his disregard of your efforts might just be more painful – a realisation that did little to subdue his arousal. It made him acutely aware of your nimble hand finding the cut in his Armani briefs, and pulling out his erection, giving it a few pumps at the base with your fingers. The sudden caress had made him buck his hips forward, encouraging you to continue admiring his length and running your fingers up and down, not a single bit escaping your touch. He gripped the papers in his hands until they began to get crumpled at the edges, and eventually dropped them to lean back and get a view of the scene unfolding at his feet. All just to catch you as you licked your lips, revealing a thick coating of spit, moved towards his dick, and while keeping it steady with one hand, ran your wet tongue from the base to the very tip, parting with a lewd twirl over the head. Hongjoong bit back a hiss as he locked eyes with yours, half-lidded – you knew all his sensitivities, his pressure points and guilty pleasures, and that was infinitely dangerous for a man like him to share, it only made you more attractive. You had memorised him as if he was your assignment. Your most important test and duty. Never leaving your mind and driving you to insanity as you drifted from wave to wave of uncontrollable desire for him, and him alone. You were his. And you looked so pretty, a queen all made up and dressed in gorgeous rare pieces, kneeling before him and taking in his member between your soft lips. Deeper. Deeper, until he could feel your hot inner cheeks, the back of your tongue and how a rumble emanated from you as you hummed in satisfaction, the vibration forcing Hongjoong to tilt his head back and sigh.

You were greedy for Hongjoong, moving yourself at a slow pace to take in as much of him as you could, hands finding themselves clinging onto the legs of his jeans for support, and to allow you to try your best and continue devour him without his guidance. As you moved away for a couple of seconds to catch your breath, a salacious pop announcing the temporary loss of contact, you noticed a string of what you could only guess to be your saliva, mixed with his pre-cum hanging between his member and your progressively more swollen lips. Once again, you took the throbbing member in your hand and were about to resume its worship, when a strong grip of your hair, nails momentarily sinking into your scalp, alerted you and made your gaze shoot upwards. The sight made you cower, though the thrilling trepidation fuelled your yearning for the glowering man.

There was a demonic quality in how he stared down at you, every bit of the expression demeaning you and demanding your ruin. You knew you had overstepped by disobeying him and taking intimate matters into your own hands, but who could blame you when he was so breath-taking when wearing his favourite brand? When you lowered your eyes he tugged on your locks, sneering.

“Baby girl could not even wait until we landed, huh?” his dulcet tone dropped into a rough drawl as he could feel your breaths washing over the tip of his sensitive dick that was begging for you to finish what you had started.

“I couldn’t.” you purred, batting your eyelashes.

“And so, you resort to being naughty? Do you think that is the right thing to do, especially when I say that I am working, hm?” he was hooking the answers out of you, one of his eyebrows twitching in surprise as you did not respond immediately. He tightened his hold and made your head fall further back so that you were completely face to face, his member pressing against your cheek.

“It isn’t, daddy, but I couldn’t help myself. You just looked so pretty that I could not resist.”

“And I think you are being incredibly selfish, Y/N. Spinning these tales just so you can satisfy yourself.”

“No daddy, I want to make you feel good!” you insisted, a whine escaping you as you could feel your core beginning to grow warmer with the progressing conversation. Pressing your thighs tightly together, you relished at the friction, and bit your lower lip.

“Is that so?” he mused out loud, waiting for your to attempt to utter even a single word more.

“Yes Da-mmfph!” taking the chance, he pushed you right in, his member hitting the back of your throat, the impact making tears spring up. As you struggled against him, he held you in place and watched as you tried to adjust to him. Just as unexpectedly, he yanked you back, leaving your lips to kiss his tip, only to drag you down once more and thrust his hips once, twice against you until he could see the wetness in your eyes building until it was about to spill over.

“You said you wanted to make daddy feel good, yes?” he asked, lust clouding his brain as you mumbled utter nonsense, mouth pacified by the hard erection, “then do exactly as I say, baby girl.”

This was exactly what you missed. Hongjoong coaxing every unholy state out of you, sin setting you ablaze as you began to fail in registering the nuances of this demeanour, tears that were on the verge of rolling down your cheeks blurring your vision. This was how you pinched yourself for grounding, to assure that the lifestyle you had, the gifts which you had been bestowed with were all real and all yours. You did not search for forgiveness when the forbidden fruit was so damn sweet. So, you let yourself be used like an expensive escort by him, comforted by the thought that even though he could definitely afford having anyone else, he had selected you. And let you stick by him for almost two years. A true sweetheart who knew how to treat his girl right. You moaned into the pressure as the low grunts you elicited from Hongjoong let to the climbing of heat in your core. With the abuse of your throat becoming a rhythmic orchestration, you grew brave enough to improvise, and hollowed out your cheeks.

"Ah... fuck, baby girl..." the airy proclamation escaped him as your teeth just barely grazed his member, and he could feel his high building at an accelerated pace. He resisted your bobbing to catch a few seconds' break by pressing you to his hips, barely giving you a chance to breathe. But he knew you would take it. You always did.

Hongjoong's ragged breathing was sending you into overdrive, and you shut your eyes to allow yourself to focus on the lewd music. Barely audible over the jet engines, the loss of control was his primary expression of gratitude. The illusion that he was not, in certain senses, under your heel rapidly evaporated when the adrenaline shot him through the heart, and his frontal lobe shut down to give up the reins to carnal pleasure. Once the barriers disappeared, his one desire and need were clear. You. The one thing in his life that he would never be able to truly own, and as you unwounded him, he comprehended with an unprecedented lucidity. That was why, as you sensed his hold on you loosen and his orgasm inching closer than ever, and were about to give him the sweet release, Hongjoong snapped back to consciousness and nearly ripped you away from himself, your head barely missing the drawers under the desk.

With flushed cheeks and an adorable, innocent pout, you looked up at him, dribble accumulated at the corners of your mouth. He fell for this face every time. Your glistening eyes studying him as you appeared disappointed that you could not get daddy to cum, afraid that you made him mad. That you did something wrong. Oh, how far from the truth this was. Even though you had acted selfishly, and approached him on your own accord, nothing about you could be anything less than right. Right just for him. It was as if the heavens themselves had moulded you to fit him like a glove. Body and soul. And he will be a fool if he did not indulge in that every opportunity he had.

Taking both your hands in his, Hongjoong helped you up from under his desk, careful to not damage your dress - not that he cared for the price, but it was not particularly enjoyable contemplating the conversation you might have to have with dry cleaning. Or with the designers. Again. It was troublesome striking deals with strangers to keep their mouths shut. He rolled back on his chair, taking in your trembling form. Holding your legs together you were fighting your ache for stimulation, knowing full well that your panties were already ruined with your slick and were only serving as a fabric made for rubbing your sensitive clit. Every breath, every sigh from Hongjoong as he took off his jacket and carefully hanged it on the back of his chair, then fully undid his jeans and pushed down his underwear, was a reason for you to start begging. Couldn't he see how anxious for touch his little toy was? Evidently not, for Hongjoong took his sweet time with removing your dress, every button like a special prize that he wanted to cherish, while you were growing hazy as he peppered kiss after kiss with every new inch of exposed skin, crouching down to let the sensation build lower, feeding the knot in your stomach. His pecks stopped just about when he reached your navel and with a lazy smile on his face, he stood up to gaze into your soul with an unbelievable intensity. Hands running up your body, Hongjoong slid the magnificent article off you, hastily draping it over one of the chair's arm rests and not once glancing away from his favourite sight, a sultry oasis, within reach, and so beautifully hungry for him. He stopped your arms from resting on his sweater, muttering that you would mar it with your lusty filth, and rushed to take it off and throw it behind him. Then, there was no barrier for him anymore, and in one motion, his pelvis was against yours, member resting against your black lace-clad heat, and hands kneading your ass, moving closer and closer until they began to toy with the g-string the action turning to torture as he purposefully made the material dig into your pussy, enjoying how you threw your head back and bit back a groan.

"Please daddy, I need you..." you whispered as he increased the friction and proceeded to move his dick in and out between your full, closed thighs, teasing your erect nub until you writhed to seek even more proximity. This, however, earned you a sharp smack on your ass, the lack of anticipation making it sting. Hongjoong did not give you time to recover as he let the pins and needles work their magic and elevate your reception of his steady thrusts. You tried to grab onto him, the table, anything, but as soon as your fingers touched Hongjoong's chest, another hit echoed in your ears, eliciting a frustrated moan.

"You want to... make... daddy really happy and cum... right?" He panted, his nails digging into your flesh so violently that you could not help but wonder if Hongjoong was going to draw blood, but that brief musing only elevated your pleasure. “Then, you are going to be my pretty little fuck doll… understood?” there was only one right answer to the question, and you were not about to get on Hongjoong’s bad side by being a brat. You were too fazed to put up a fight, and merely mumbled a soundless:

“Yes… daddy…”

Hongjoong leaned closer to you, until his forehead was almost touching yours, and moved to wipe some of the lipstick and remnants of his precum from your lips with his thumb, while his other hand hooked the waistband of your panties, slowly pulling them down to reveal your wet core. You wriggled to let them fall and kicked them away with an impatient foot, earning a chuckle.

“So eager, baby girl… I almost want to forgive you for not listening to me. I just said you are to be a doll,” he peered into your eyes, his breath hot on your mouth as he ran his fingers between your folds, covering them in your slick. It was adorable how you tried your best to keep up appearances even now, even when you had signed yourself away to be what effectively was his servant. You trembled as the cool metal of the ring on his index finger hit your clit, and exhaled shallowly as he played with you, “and dolls don’t move, do they? Can you do that?”

As he asked, his fingers curled into your pussy, while a thumb traced rhythmic circles over the nub, the sensation electric, building your high. The lasciviousness flashing in your pupils as your eyes rolled back was a cry to Hongjoong’s darkness. Hands suspended in mid-air, you did not dare act out nor attempt to navigate the intimate act, submitting to your boss, your daddy. Letting him take care of you. As he sped up, watching your face contort as you battled the approaching climax, Hongjoong found you endearing, the corners of his mouth twitching as a soft, radiant smile surfaced. He could never stay cruel with you for too long. He was giving you more than you could ask for, and yet, he still wanted to give you more. Everything would not be enough.

“Oh, my baby girl, are you close?” he inquired, cooing as your breathing quickened in response to his accelerated pumps into your wetness, wild from the addictive sound it produced. “Fine, you can hold onto me, Y/N, daddy will take care of you,” you did not need to be told twice, falling into him as your orgasm was imminent, “doing so well for me, baby girl…” he whispered into your ear, kissing the lobe and pulling you into an embrace as he felt your high wash over you, your sex pulsing around him and muscles contracting uncontrollably. Brushing your hair back, petting it a couple of times before settling on having a hand rest between your shoulder blades, he praised you. But did not stop. Greed went both ways.

Your prior filters completely broken, you moaned and whined as you kept on unravelling, Hongjoong’s fingers abusing your overstimulated cunt. With his toned body, and your ass pressed against the edge of the desk serving as your only support, you draped your arms over his shoulders and wrapped yourself around his neck, rationality leaving with every tremor. As you could feel another scalding fire building in your abdomen, just before the release Hongjoong removed his hand and instead took to gliding his dick against your pussy lips. With the sensation being too much, you yelped and sank into an orgasm, sweet nectar dripping onto, and coating his cock.

“Such a good girl for me, well done… Come on my dick baby girl.”

You were not sure when, due to the fog that enveloped your fucked out mind, but Hongjoong had made you lie on your back on his wooden desk, surrounded by the financial reports he could not be bothered to clear. He wanted you now, and that meant no pauses. Without as much as a warning, the blonde gave you one final teasing flick with his tip before bottoming out, the fullness making you gasp. Your walls were still clenching around him from your climax, which made Hongjoong growl as he grabbed your hips and pulled you closer to him, spreading your legs further apart.

“So perfect for me, Y/N… only mine…”

He mercilessly pounded into you, chasing his own high while you were seeing stars. When you were like this, under him, hair cascading onto and off the mahogany, knuckles turning white as your grasped onto the desk as he thrusted, you were the closest thing to heaven that he could believe in. In a world that was drenched in materialistic attraction, sabotage in the name of another stack, and human lives turning into corporate statistics to improve key performance indicators, this was an ethereal madness that unlocked a primal bliss, untainted by present crises. The sweetest distraction, you took him so well that he liked to pretend that you had been made just for this. Just to become his possession. His gorgeous doll.

With you, Hongjoong had begun to see purpose in his riches, being able to play dress up with you, making the office a private cat walk as you strutted in the latest collections and custom made pieces. Gucci, Versace, Prada… it did not matter to him so long as you were wearing it with the intentions of impressing him, seducing him, and only him. He was fully aware that, technically, you could be dating someone else alongside your so-called partnership with Hongjoong. As a sugar baby you could even have another ‘sponsor’ out there somewhere. Another person to make you cum, to provide you with a sensual paradise. But the notion sent him into an inexplicable rage as soon as he entertained it, and as such, he preferred to isolate visions of you from the rest of the world. In turn, this manifested itself into his real life attempts to do the same. Longer hours spent after work, an unspoken rule that the assistant should not leave until the boss does. Michelin star restaurants and exclusive rooftop bars to lure you into being in his company. And of course, sex. Or making love. However, one wished to call it when the lines began to get blurry. But Hongjoong could not care less. You made him comfortable. You were his, you had to be, otherwise what did the two years mean?

Skin against skin, breath joining breath, sight clouding, going dark. Hongjoong rolled his hips, and lowered himself to a stance where he was hovering directly above you, his piercing gaze not once leaving you. Getting drunk off every moan and gasp that he was the cause of, he relished in the feeling of your pussy taking him so well, the orgasm that he had not allowed you to ride out still making your walls clench repeatedly around his dick, pleading for his intimate, salacious demise. His thrusts got deeper as he slowed the pace, progressively losing his senses to the speeding high.

“Mm… baby girl you are… fucking priceless…” he uttered, words broken apart by each time he bottomed out in you, his balls pressing against your wetness as you could only let out a series of mewls in response, thoughts unintelligible as the repeated hits to your g-spot brought you closer and closer to total destruction.

“Daddy… please, I’m-”

“Going to cum?” he finished your sentence as your try at speaking was interrupted by a wave of pleasure, mixing with the tension from before and making the tears spring up once again. You were a wreck, impaled by Hongjoong’s member as he returned to standing up in front of the desk, thrusts rapid, sharp and finally making a droplet roll down from the corner of your eye. You yelped:

“Hongjoong… ah this is…”

“Is it too much baby girl?” he asked, without any intention to stop as he could sense himself faltering at keeping up the act for any longer. His own climax was within reach, and he was not one to deny himself any pleasures.

“No, daddy, feels…. So ah… yes…” you mumbled, at least you thought you did, but could not confirm for certain.

“Pretty girl crying for me… so cute.” Praises spilled out of him as he groaned into the tightness, and, unsteady, removed himself from your cunt, letting out a low moan as rivulets of cum shoot out from his cock and onto your stomach.

The viscous white fluid decorating you was more than what he could ever hope for. The final marking that you were his to use, you were there to serve him, and he would never get enough. A light shake in his thighs forced him to seek balance in having a hand on either side of you, while his pulsing dick rubbed against your inner thigh.

“So pretty, Y/N. Just for me.” He stated, more to himself, and lowered himself further to give you a soft peck on the lips, which quickly deepened as you responded with an elated sigh. In these moments, you wondered if it was money that you were doing this for.

As he moved away, and with practiced motions began to clean you up with some tissues which you had in your bag, you regained full ability of inhale… count… exhale, and in the clarity, drifted to a post-coital contemplation. Hongjoong knew how to make you do what he wanted you to do. But did he know you? Could he confidently paint the portrait of your desires beyond financial and sexual gain? A man made of sugar, with an alluring physique and a kindness which he showed only to you, but should he be your only one? This thought had been plaguing you ever since last month. An unexpected, shattering appearance of a business card, that was now hidden behind a card you rarely used in your wallet, with gold embossed lettering and an otherwise minimalist design. Tasteful, exclusive, expensive. When you checked the names of those attending the meet on the island, the object had grown considerably heavier, weighing onto your consciousness. Discreetly given to you amidst a kiss of the hand and the reception of a smouldering gaze, it served a similar purpose to a number at an auction. The person whose name the card bore had announced himself as a bidder for your attention and services, a bidder astronomically higher than Kim Hongjoong, at that. It was tempting. Very tempting. And you knew that the conversation would occur at some point during your stay, seeing as even in the business setting, the man would undoubtedly be sat across from you, and would stare you down, right to the avarice festering in your heart wrapped up in designer. But you were caught in a dilemma.

Your eyes travelled back to the graceful form tending to you, forgetting about himself, at least until his baby girl was well cared for. A sweet angel, his face finally rid of tenseness and agitation as his entire focus was on your body, on you. The one who, unknowingly to himself, had shown you unprecedented vulnerability and, endearingly, trusted you much more than he ever should have. A man who walked on people and money, yet wanted a woman who could play with his heart.

It was not that simple anymore, was it? After so many doses, could you give this up? Give up and betray Hongjoong in search for a stronger hit?

What was it that you were truly greedy for?

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letrune · 10 months ago

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Instead of isekai-ing people, I will try Pratchetting it!

Instead of your everyday average mum or tumblr teen going to a fantasy world, why not have a fantasy world where these guys are just naturally occuring thanks to the strange circumstances of Narrativum.

The adventuring party picks up an adventurer who is an average mustached man, complaining about the adventuring life and wanting to retire as a farmer, but needs one business deal before he can. For some reason, eventually he produces what seems like a pipe, spectacles and a sweater, and treat adventuring like an office job, complete with a sitcom archnemesis, and when asked why is he having all these, he just shrugs as that is what he has.

The local mayor is your typical soccer mum who complains to the vassal of the area, but it always leads to betterment in their society. When people talk about her, everyone calls her Gwendolyn, and got no idea why, because that name isn't even fitting in their society (say, they are dwarves with names like Rockbreaker and Hammercling).

A teenager going on adventures have these inspiration molecules hitting their mind when need to say something spiffy and cool, and when asked to do on purpose, it rarely works. Almost all of these lines are reference lines even they don't understand.

E.g. "I came to chew bubblegum and kick butt. And I am all out of bubblegum."

"What's a bubblegum?"

"....I got no idea."

I wish to thank Terry Pratchett introducing Narrativum, it enriched my life.

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ilovewritingfics · 1 year ago

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Shoutout for @moongurl95 for sharing the wonderful HL October list for me to enjoy. :)

In honor of Hogwarts Legacy October month!

(In-game look and artwork version drawn by me!)

DAY 1: INTRODUCE YOURSELF AND YOUR MC

But first, get to know her creator:

I first started playing HL since May. I was a 2nd year college student when me and my older sister decided to buy the game on Steam. I'm a girl who loves Harry Potter world for its unique fantasy with a mix of real-life. So buying the game is a dream come true to achieve all my wishes to explore Hogwarts and be the witch of my dreams!

And that's all for facts about me, its time to introduced to you my HL MC: Anais Ainsley!

Story:

Born on Scotland, Anais is a half-blood daughter of two farmers, her mom is Carmila Ainsley, the half-blood while her father is Harold Ainsley, the pure-blood of the family. She is a neighborly child who gracefully respects her adults and polite to her peers. She loves books and her countryside life. She found out that she's a squib much to her dismay of unable to experience magic like her parents and her childhood friend, Owen, but they didn't love her any less. From their unconditional love and support, Anais decided to have a future as a farmer like them.

Unfortunately her life, since her birthday, turn into a series of multiple tragedies when she lost her father to a drunk pure-blood supremacist, Owen to the Unforgivable curses and left her in pain, and her mom becoming the shell of her former self. Home is never the same until she receives hope in a letter on her 15th birthday.

And how could Anais say no to her second chance to start a new life?

About her:

Her boggart is Failing her duties and everyone suffering as a result

Finding out her magic in 5th year, she now dreams to be a Healer.

She is the most beautiful student of Hogwarts due to her natural Victorian standards, much to the jealousy of her rich and pure-blood schoolmates

She has one mole under each eye.

Anais has a classic length hair

Sorted to Hufflepuff and roommates with Poppy and Adelaide

Best friends with Natty and Poppy

Her wand is Spiral, Willow wood, Phoenix feather, 12 inch, Unyielding and uses the brown and gold botanical wand handle

Her Amortentia is warm meadow, floral perfume, and afternoon tea

She is a sweet tooth and flexitarian (although the term is not coined till 1992), due to her parents being farmers and meat is expensive for their budget.

The only candy she eats is Elephant on the bicycle

Her favorite subjects are Potions Class, Care of Magical Creatures class, Herbology Class, DATDA, Flying Class

Her least favorite subject is Divination

She hates the Unforgivable curses due to what happened with Owen

Her hobbies are playing her lyre, singing, embroidering, cooking, baking, Summoner’s Court, sketching, reading books, pressing wildflowers, foraging, swimming, flying, kite flying, riding her beast companions

A literal badger: kind and innocent at first until her love ones are threatened

She is an ambidextrous

Learns Braille for Ominis

Loves to watch Quidditch thanks to Sebastian

Anais is easy to give gifts to as long as its pretty and thoughtful like beautiful rocks or homemade sweets.

She abhors being called stupid, and gets angry to cover her fear of being incapable

Anais never discriminated against all magical beings

Anais loves to sneak into the kitchen and steal some sweets and bread, much to the house-elves’ amusement

Anais works part-time in the Three Broomsticks to help her mother

Anais has a soothing and soft voice

Her barn owl is named Soren

Her favorite Hogsmeade shops are Steeply and Sons, Honeydukes, and Zonkos

Hogwarts Castle is alive and loyal to Anais

Always seen carrying a different book

She loves long warm baths and braided hairstyles

Professor Fig teaches Anais how to apparate and bits of magical theory in their free time.

So that's all I could share about my MC, the rest I just have to expand in my story which I still debate if I should share it to everyone.

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy mc #hogwarts legacy oc #hogwarts legacy october #hogtober

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thenightisland · 7 months ago

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tagged by the lovely @mellowthorn for a rote Q&A thingy under the cut bc it's long

Favourite RotE Book: assassin's quest and fool's fate are constantly vying for the number one slot and the answer changes day by day

Why: on aq days it's bc that's the book that took this series from "wow i really like this" to "oh i'm going to be obsessed with these for the rest of my life huh." it has, i think, the best ending. it has my favorite chapter (ch 20 jhaampe my beloved). parts of it hit very close to home. on ff days it's bc well ff is insane. no book has ever gotten the reaction out of me that that one did. i do not cry at books; it made me cry seven times. it has such excellent payoff for stuff that was set up in the earliest books (rh queen of playing the long game). most heartwrenchingly beautiful moments on earth just chapter after chapter of them.

Top Three Favourite Characters: i think i am one of the few people whose favorite character genuinely is fitz lol. beloved obv number two. after that the answer also changes every day but i'm very partial to web and kettricken.

Top Three Least Favourite Characters: this may be biased due to me being neck deep in ship of destiny at the moment, but 98% of the men in lst need to be set on fire

Favourite Ship (of the floating kind): paragon

Top Three Favourite Ships (of the people kind): (keeping our venn diagram overlap answers) Fitzloved, Burrich/Chivalry, Patience/Lacey

Would you rather be Witted or Skilled: skilled. it seems so handy with the healing and prolonging your life. and i get traumatized enough by animal death as it is without introducing the wit to that equation.

If you were Witted, what animal would you bond with?: some kind of bird

Would you rather live in the Outislands, the Mountain Kingdom, the Six Duchies, Bingtown, the Rain Wilds, Kelsingra, Jamaillia, the Pirate Isles, or Fool’s Homeland?: practicality says bingtown bc i like being relatively warm and by the ocean and not get fantasy radiation poisoning from where i live but...but kelsingra is so fucking neat

How were you introduced to the books? a friend of mine on here always posted about them and our tastes overlapped so much that despite the fact that at the time i said i didn't like fantasy and wouldn't read it, i figured if this friend of mine liked these books there must be a reason. i read the left hand of darkness bc she posted about it too and when i mentioned reading it to her she was like "lol yeah it's hard for me to separate it from fool's fate" so i thought "maybe it's time to read those books then"

Share a quote you love: somewhat abridged for length's sake, from RA, and was one of those bits i count as early warning sign of my impending obsession lol:

“ ‘Not all men are destined for greatness,’ I reminded him

‘Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?’

‘This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.’

‘No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart’s beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?…You create possibilities….I have seen the end of the world, Fitz. Seen it woven as plainly as I’ve seen my birth. Oh, not in your lifetime, nor even mine. But shall we be happy, to say that we live in the dusk rather than the full night? Shall we rejoice that we shall only suffer, while your offspring will be the ones to know the torments of the damned? Shall this be why we do not act?’ ”

also and underrated one from FA:

“Oh, the things we discover and the things we learn, much too late. Worse are the secrets that are not secrets, the sorrows we live with but do not admit to one another.”

i have also thought about "every nuance of his grace as familiar to me as the drawing of breath" literally every day but that's a given if there's a sappy line you can be sure i am thinking about it nonstop without a moment's peace

#questions #mellowthorn

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cassandra-has-moonlit-eyes · 2 years ago

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I think the time has come to write a little bit about my Regency AU. Big note: I grew up watching all the Jane Austen Movies one hundred times because my mum loves them so I steal a lot of ideas from them.

I developed this AU when I was quite new in the fandom and I have never written about it so here we go.

Genre

Romance, Fantasy

Worldbuilding

Historical accuracy is not the point of this AU, the regency era serves more as inspiration.

It’s set in the fictional country which I haven’t fought of a name yet, in the fictional village Breitentrepp and the capital city Luardock. Breitentrepp is a village in the countryside while Luardock is a large city by the sea, mostly inspired by London, Vienna and Hamburg.

Even though my AU is inspired by an historical setting it’s 100% fantasy, first indicator is that the people in it are cat people. The society also function differently than in regency era England. All in all society is more open. Same sex couples are treated the same way as heterosexual couples and being polyamorous is a widely accepted form of partnership, even with the option to marry more than one person.

What’s not different from regency era though is the wide obsession with class and belonging to a certain class of people. It’s important to marry somebody who has a good standing in society, a lot of money or is coming from the right family. So while everbody acts very open and accepting and like true love is the most important to them, a lot of marriages and partnerships are descided not by love but by status, especially in the aristocratic and bourgeois milieu.

Also there is magic. Some people possess magic, there are light and dark magic, as well as elementar magic, such as fire, nature, water and weather magic. People who belong to the higher classes keep their magic hidden, especially fire magic is seen as evil by most people.

There is also a war going on in the west of the country against a mysterious ice giant but I haven’t fully developed this plot line yet.

The first arc: Breitentrepp

The three main characters of the story are three siblings of the Bell-family: Rumpleteazer (22), Pouncival (21) and Electra (20). The story starts in the village of Breitentrepp where they and their family is introduced. Their parents are Jennyanydots (biological mother of Rumpleteazer and Electra) and Jellylorum (biological mother of Pouncival). Jenny comes from a line of nobility but her family has been declinging in society since a few generations and their life is now closer to a life of farmers than nobility. Jellylorum is a doctor and she is the doctor for her own and the surrounding villages.

(Also living in the Village are Asparagus Jr. and Gus. They are the tailors and own the cloth shop. Asparagus Jr. is Pouncivals biological father.)

The Bell-family lives in a farmhouse on lands that are owned by Jennys family. The starting point of the story is spring. It’s quite a warm day and Rumpleteazer and Pouncival are out and about in the surrounding forrest where they meet city cat Mistoffelees, who got lost. He reveals to them that he studies Botanics at the university in Luardock. He was looking for some plants for his doctor thesis but got lost. They help him find his way back into the village and invite him to dinner.

Over spring and summer a friendship forms between him and the family. At the end of summer he has to return to the city. On the dinner table where he tells them about his soon depature Jannyanydots also reveals that Rumpleteazer and Pouncival will visit the city too during the winter time to take part in the ball season (yeah, here it’s during winter like in Vienna) to find suiting partners for both of them. (Electra already lives in the city because she is studying medcine like her mother Jellylorum). Mistoffelees promises to introduce them to everybody and to find a fitting partner for each of them. It’s the first time he reveals himself as part of the Luardock high society.

Rumpleteazer is not happy. She is not really interested in marrying somebody just because of money and status and would prefer to stay with her mothers on the countryside just marrying some farmer some day but Jenny wants “a better life” for them and convinces Rumpleteazer to go to the city. Pouncival doesn’t have to be convinced because he already developed a crush on Mistoffelees and is very eager to see him again. Though it kind of did hurt him that Mistoffelees wants to find a partner for him and does not consider himself as an option.

So at the end of autumn he and his sister move to their uncle Skimbleshanks, who lives in Luardock to take part in the ball season.

#cats the musical #au #personal au #I will write something about the second arc later #rumpleteazer #pouncival #electra #mistoffelees #jellylorum #jennyanydots #I really wanted to produce some content and that was the first thing I could think of

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slowpoke272 · 1 year ago

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“mrs. frisby and the rats of NIMH” by robert c. o’brien

finished: july 11, 2023

this is a childhood throwback for me, though i had only ever seen the movie previously. although it’s a short children’s novel, due to its subject matter it definitely does not feel watered down or sugarcoated. as a kid, i loved seeing the animals interact with one another and the perspective you get from seeing a field mouse provide for her family. the don bluth film was one of my core movies in rotation, i remember loving the music and jeremy the crow especially.

as an adult reading the novel for the first time, i appreciate how closely the movie follows the story, although the main difference in the story i do strongly prefer the book; i don’t think this story needs a fantasy element and i think around that part in the movie is where it would kind of lose my interest. up until that point, the story seems pretty realistic, but i guess there existed a need for some kind of theatrics. i don’t hate the movie’s ending, but i definitely appreciate the original work much more. i also deeply appreciate the topics handled in this short novel, which include some of humanity’s blindspots and shortcomings. i also like that the original novel doesn’t have jenner in it actively ever, and he’s “off screen” for the action but still a pivotal role. again, i know it’s hollywood or whatever, but the jenner vs. justin and nicodemus sabotaging feels like projecting human behavior. these rats were given a gift of intelligence, but we’re supposed to believe that jenner’s main focus in life post-NIMH is revenge? humans absolutely, but i think the point of the novel is to show that different animals and species move differently. the only thing i kind of preferred the movie over was jeremy having a bigger, more comedic role, but for the purpose of remaining realistic and believable, i understand why jeremy has his part in the beginning and then that’s just sort of it with him.

i don’t think a novel like this could be published today catered to a young audience, but i think it introduced some of humanity’s pitfalls without being too grim. this is just how the animals have come to deal with humans and vice versa. the novel isn’t saying we need to do anything specific about it or feel a certain way, it just is our natural world. i think the blatant realness presented in this book allows for the reader to gain empathy for pretty much every character in the novel. we aren’t made to hate the farmer, for instance, but we are to understand from the rodents’ perspective, they’re just trying to survive and predict the farmer’s next steps.

it’s a cute story that isn’t corny or afraid to introduce darker themes like death to children without being gratuitously graphic or obscene. i enjoyed the different perspective and think this is entirely the point of storytelling, to present others’ perspectives fully fleshed out. it has always made me think twice about considering all rodents vermin.

fun random fact about the 1982 don bluth film: the person who voiced timothy brisby (albeit a small role for this story) later came out as transgender and has successfully transitioned. way to go, ina fried!

rating: 7/10 really enjoyed but wouldn't necessarily recommend

#mrs. frisby and the rats of nimh #robert c o'brien

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sufferingwithbooks · 5 months ago

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May Reading (DNFs)

The Spook's Apprentice by Joseph Delaney

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

The Spook's Apprentice is a book I was interested in as a child but never got around to reading. When I found the audiobooks on Libbi, I was happy to finally give the series a try.

Unfortunately, it comes across as a very typical paint-by-numbers fantasy for teenage boys.

A male youth who is your typical seemingly ordinary but not ordinary (a typical farmer's son) learns he has a special gift that only the 7th son of a 7th son can inherit. The gift to see what others cannot (things that go bump in the night). He is sent off to the "Spook" who will trade him in his skills.

The "Spook" is your typical gruff mentor who doesn't know how to interact well with children. No personality beyond that. Oh, and he's sexist. Delightful.

Once casual sexism is introduced ("Trust no female, they are all evil"), the lad (whose name I have forgotten) meets a young female who trades a favour for a favour. Unsurprisingly, it turns out this girl is using him to unleash a witch. And he's stupid enough to do it despite his training.

At that point I gave up on the series. If the females introduced are either; 1) the mother, 2) something to desire, or 3) a villain then I've lost interest.

You can predict how this book would end. I know it's meant for a younger audience than myself but I wouldn't have liked it even as a child.

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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is another audiobook I found on Libbi. It had good reviews within the fantasy community and I was excited to learn why.

And I was very disappointed.

In 1700s France (though honestly it could have been set anywhere) Addie is put into a forced marriage. She doesn't want to marry so runs into the woods to plead to the gods. Now, there's a massive rule to never pray to the gods "who answers in the dark". Or something like that.

But she's desperate to get out so responds to "Lucy" - a shadow god who appears as her dream guy. You can easily guess who Lucy actually is.

She makes an agreement that will get her out of the marriage. Basically she can live the life she wants, completely free, but no one will ever remember her. She's basically immortal.

An interesting concept.

And from that moment on it's several pages about how she slips into people's houses to sleep, lies to shopkeepers, and does what she can to survive. But it's so repetitive. Again and again. It's so damn dull.

But she has casual relations with people who really like her despite not remembering her. They see her and are instantly smitten for no bloody reason! Even Lucy seems obsessed with her. Why?! Cause she decided she didn't want an arranged marriage? Oh, how unique!

Then she finally meets someone who remembers her. And he's also really bland. It's a romance that has no chemistry cause the characters HAVE NO PERSONALITY. Bland meets bland. Even British cooking has more to it.

I gave up at this point. I was only 45% through and so incredibly bored.

I can take a good guess and say this boy she meets also had a dealing with Lucy and that's why he can remember her.

#books #book reading #book review #May Reading 2024

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blueteller · 1 year ago

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This is a pretty neat idea! Let's have a shot at this, why not?

(I guess this doesn't count as a whole fic, but an extension of a headcanon? But whatever!)

***

It started as a normal day off for Kim Rok Soo. He went to the library, checked out the whole fantasy series called "The Birth of a Hero", spent the afternoon reading up to the fifth volume, and fell asleep.

When he woke up, he was hatching from an egg. Yes, you heard that right.

For some reason, he reincarnated into a Dragon. In the world of the very book series he was reading. An infant Crimson Dragon.

When he opens his eyes in this new life, he is alone.

Which is perfectly fine by him. Dragons are solitary beings, anyway. And he isn't a normal baby Dragon anyway; he still possesses the mind of a 36-year-old human adult, with all his Records intact.

Near the nest he hatched in, he finds a diary. Apparently his mother hid him from some crazy humans trying to hunt Dragons. In the diary, she promises to return after she deals with them. Kim Rok Soo has a sinking feeling she is never coming back.

Unfortunately, he is right.

But Kim Rok Soo decides that this new life isn't all that bad. He's a Dragon now, basically one of the strongest beings in existence. There are no expectations on him to intervene with the plot of the story: Choi Han never met any Dragons aside from that crazy Black one raised by Venion Stan.

...Speaking of which.

Kim Rok Soo quickly figures out how magic works, and polymorphs into a human resembling his old self, except now his hair is red, and his face much prettier. Then he heads to the nearest human settlement - turns out his nest was located in a forest in the Breck Kingdom - and finds out the current date.

...He is two years before the start of the plot. One year before Choi Han finds Harris Village.

Kim Rok Soo decides - for totally logical, selfish, absolutely-not-altruistic reasons - that he should probably do something about it. "It" being Choi Han lost in the Forest of Darkness, and the two-year-old Black Dragon being tortured by Venion Stan.

It's the easiest thing to find Choi Han and convince him that them meeting is a simple coincidence. He as a young Dragon, you see, he doesn't owe anyone explanation why he does things; and anyway, making his lair in the Forest of Darkness seems perfect. Being one of the Forbidden Regions, it will certainly make the perfect place to stay hidden when the war it breaks out around the Western Continent.

In a moment of distraction, he introduces himself as Bob. Kim Rok Soo dearly regrets this thoughtless choice later on, but he's too lazy to change it. He will forever be known as Bob the Crimson Dragon.

Choi Han is, naturally, extremely grateful to his Dragon savior. It takes no effort at all to convince him to help rescue another Dragon from slavery. Bob the Dragon wants to keep low profile, after all.

So Choi Han and Bob rescue the two-year-old Dragon, and Bob names him Raon Miru. ...Only then Bob realizes his error, as these two seem absolutely attached to him now. What will happen to the plot of the Birth of a Hero now???

...Well, no crying over the spilled milk, Bob decides. If Choi Han doesn't decide to go on the journey by himself, he might as well guide him there. The help of a super powerful being as a Dragon - two actually, since Raon joins in as well - might help the plot go a lot faster and smoother.

Surely, nothing will go wrong with this plan!

...Two years later, Bob the Dragon is utterly confused.

There are people inside his Forest of Darkness Villa. All the time. As if his house was the hottest tourist spot around the continent.

Somehow - and Bob swears, he has no idea how - on top of the Protagonist and the Black Dragon child, he got saddled with an Ancient Golden Dragon, a ghost White Dragon, a Beige Farmer Dragon, a Pink Tween Dragon, 2 Cat Beast children, a whole village of Wolves, several Whales, an Elf healer, secret-Dark-Elf prince, a wish-to-be-ex-princess mage, an ex priestess, and many others.

Bob the Crimson Dragon looks at the chaotic zoo that is his house, filled with people looking at him with uncomprehensive admiration, and despairs.

It wasn't supposed to be like this...!

-The End.

Can someone please write a fanfic with overpowered dragon Cale? OG!Cale Henituse doesn't exist because KRS got reincarnated as him but for some reason he is also a dragon. With Rok Soo just having the time of his life until he has to step up because a bunch of people just started appearing inside of his house? With like Eruhaben who is just confused about this very abnormal teenage dragon?

Thank you very much. This is a dragon!Cale AU which is very much free to use, someone please write more dragon Cale. Please.

#tcf #trash of the count’s family #lcf #lout of count's family #writing #tcf fanfic #replies #humor #tcf humor #dragon!cale #well i tried #let me know if you like it or not #let's be honest cale would always end up like this one way or another #there is no place in the universe where he wouldn't eventually become The Hero

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ancrowpocene · 1 year ago

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the web

(this was a little creative essay I wrote for the farmer whose farm I was living and working on. It was a biodynamic vegetable farm located on the Lofoten Islands, within the Arctic Circle. It was a tough, crushing spring, and we spent a lot of time inside, slowly renovating an old cow barn and having long-winded conversations. He was a Lord of the Rings fan- I was, and continue to be, a lost mid-20-something).

I can’t remember it exactly, but I think we were vaguely questioning our perceptions of reality when “sub-creation” came up in conversation. It was introduced as a concept from J.R.R. Tolkien and in the context of plant consciousness-- two realms that, to me, seem somewhat impenetrable for different reasons. Partially because of ignorance, but also partially because I think there is a limit to how far you can explore (1) the Tolkien universe or (2) the intelligence of other life forms before they get too trippy-- as in, you start projecting so much of yourself onto them that they become more like a broken mirror for your own stories.

but anyway...

Tolkien himself defines sub-creation as forming a cohesive fantasy through building worlds and creating myths. In the literary context of his “legendarium,” this refers to the idea that all of the creative endeavors of the Ainur, Elves, Dwarves, and Men in the world of Arda stem from Eru Ilúvatar, or “the One.” This is because Eru possesses the “Flame Imperishable”, granting him the ability to create existence from nothingness (shoutout to tolkiengateway.net....). So, Tolkien distinguishes between a sort of primary creation, the act of turning nothing into something, and subsequent creation, everything that happens afterward.

There is an obvious parallel here to the role of an author: a fictive writer is, indeed, the creator of an entire universe, and all the characters and actions taking place within that universe are derivatives of the author’s efforts.

But the author creates because they are created themselves. And indeed this aligns with Tolkien’s theology, as he was a devout Catholic and therefore believed that he was created by God. Thus, in his efforts as a writer, Tolkien embraced sub-creation as a form of worship, a way for creatures to express the divine image in them by becoming creators themselves. (David C. Downing. Sub-creation or Smuggled Theology)

So, is sub-creation only conceptually interesting for a religious fantasy writer? I think there are two main questions to be answered here, and I will try to loosely address them in this text. The first is: can the idea of sub-creation transcend theology? And the second is: can it offer a way to find meaning in the human experience?

....

And so we begin with Humanity’s Biggest and Baddest Question: “Who or what is our Eru?” or, in other words,

“How did we get here?”

The question that has started wars, divided people, been the greatest source of angst and/or bliss, the unanswerable question, the question that is somewhat miraculous even in its ability to be thought...

Is it indeed an old white man with a long beard and flowing robes, sitting upon a throne of sky and stars? or perhaps a cosmic turtle, carrying the world on its back? or maybe all life and matter are just the consequence of an extremely small and dense point exploding 13 billion years ago?

Is this question just an answerable case of infinite regress (the idea that everything that exists is contained within something else)

(Before I continue I feel like I need to make a disclaimer that I am quite ignorant when it comes to both philosophy and world religions. I make some big generalizations in the following musings, and I tried to combine what I already know with a little bit of research, but I will just try to humbly acknowledge here that I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But it’s kind of fun to be in that position. )

I was not raised religiously and I don’t align myself with any one faith or text or dogma (even you, science). But I do intuitively believe that material life is like a great drama, with many characters all playing their parts of mother, father, child, friend, enemy, sinner, saint, etc. I also believe in a “capital-C” Creator in some sense, or an original force of creation that is imbued in every atom vibrating in this universe. I feel that everything is alive, and communicating, and we humans are little mirrors of the greater Being (verb not noun), shining back small reflections of unfathomable greatness, pain, destruction, bliss, unity, difference, ecstasy...... something like a bigass disco ball. maybe the universe is just endlessly fractaling disco balls, and the supposed duality between “Creator” and “created” is irrelevant and there is no sub-creation, no succession at all; indeed, only creation. Maybe.

I could segue this entire essay into a discussion on non-duality as a philosophy and try to argue whether the idea of sub-creation aligns with or opposes it, but I won’t.

So I just take some and leave some from Tolkien’s concept.

As I understand it, Tolkien sees the primary creator (whether that be Eru or his Catholic God) as pure perfection, the vessel of all goodness, abundance, and vitality, and, as was already mentioned, the only one with the ability to make conjure existence out of nothing. Any subsequent creation, like man for example, will therefore never be able to replicate this complete perfection, but will instead “reflect a splintered fragment of the true light” (his words). And so, only by building worlds and creating myths can humans aspire to reveal/identify this light embedded in their own existence.

I think atheists and non-atheists alike can agree on this at least: that all sentient and non-sentient beings are a product of some sort of immaculate conception, whether that be the Big Bang, or the decree of Allah/God/Brahma/etc, or the hatching of a great egg.

But the agreement ends when it comes to whether or not this has an impact on human nature and the nature of all living things.

In Hinduism and Buddhism, for instance, human nature is seen as related to divine nature, and the main task for human beings is the overcome the perception of individuality and become part of All That Is. Taoism further emphasizes the importance of cultivating “chi,” or our life force, through living in harmony with nature in order to enter the kingdom of heaven and gain eternal life. In Semitic religions like Judaism and Islam, the Self is thought of as distinct from and dependent on the divine; therefore it is important to live in gratitude and obedience toward God. Any disobedience, or sin, is not necessarily rooted in human nature, but must be corrected. In early Christianity, humans are seen an embodied image of God, but one that requires the “continuous creative activity of God,” without which they would return to earth, or dust. ("Human Nature, Religious and Philosophical Aspects ." Encyclopedia of Science and Religion.) However, around the 4th century CE the Christian Doctrine of original sin emerged, which holds that humans are born corrupted by sin as a result of the fall of Adam, and that “wickedness is a property of the human heart” (“What is the Biblical Evidence for Original Sin?” desiringGod.org). Despite this, some denominations of Christians, like many Quakers, believe in the doctrine of “inward light,” which holds that God is in everyone and that humans are inherently good.

Very briefly I will just add that various philosophical and scientific trends throughout history have then added to/erased/replaced these understandings of the human condition. And along with them, there has also been evolving understanding of the nature of the non-human world, sentient or otherwise. Some beliefs hold that humans are irrevocably superior to all else because they contain a soul, which others may extend the concept of a soul to some or all of the non-human world. A 2011 study investigated whether different cultural and religious groups were more likely to ascribe personhood to non-human entities such as fire, angels, robots, bears, dogs, fetuses, and deceased humans. It found that while American Indians were likely to think of fire, bears, and fetuses as persons, Atheists were likely to say that robots and dogs were persons, but fetuses and angels were not (Adam Cohen. 2011. Religion, Culture, and the Personification of Non-human Entities.)

This is all just to say that there are many different answers to the question of how we got here, and what implications it has for our existence. And I think answering the how begins to illuminate the answer to the why? why are we here, why do we have a consciousness that allows us to contemplate mysteries such as these? why do we have a world that looks the way it does, with all of its suffering and beauty, diversity and connectedness?

I want to spend some time with the ideas of world-building and myth-creating as ways to understand our collective reality, but simplify them even more to structure and story (partially just for the alliteration). I think you can look at just about anything through the lens of structure/story, and they are inextricably linked; a real chicken-or-egg situation...

*it’s the figures and tales we have projected onto the configurations of stars in the night sky: the bull, the water bearer, the great bear, and so on

*it’s the prison walls that hide away what a particular society cannot tolerate, whether that is acts of cruelty, taboos, people of a certain race....

*it's the Ganges river, full of bodies that are not even entirely cremated because there are too many other bodies piled up on the shore, waiting for their rite of passage

*it’s the bathroom stall, scribbled over with tags, political slogans, and love notes

*it’s the bed where, under the covers, the first “I love you” is tentatively whispered

It's the bathhouse, grandma’s kitchen, the office elevator, the playground, the parliament chamber, the country borderline, it’s a deserted island, it’s Hong Kong, it’s the cup you always use, it's the photo you can’t look at anymore, the small mementos you carry around with you from place to place.......

It’s peace, war, reconciliation, fear, inspiration, justice, play, nostalgia.......

When I think about structure more, I see it, in its most reductionist form, composed of bonds and spaces///matter and void. Take soil as an example. In Regenesis, George Monbiot explains a recent “Theory of Soil” proposed by scientists in 2020, which is essentially that soil is composed of “structures within structures within structures” (23). tiny particles are stuck together with carbon-based polymers, or cements, that microbes excrete; as creatures of all sizes (earthworms, fungi, bacteria, mites, etc.) colonize and move through/establish themselves in the soil, they create holes of different sizes, into which water and chemicals released by plants and animals can flow. This complexity is multiplied by time, as more and different species wriggle their little bodies around, and the result ends up being, in Monbiot’s words, an “endlessly ramifying catacomb” (24). The most interesting part, to me, about Monbiot's musings on soil, is when he mentions fractal scaling, and says that the structure of soil is consistent at any scale of magnification.

Fractal scaling and this image of a complex, growing catacomb makes me immediately think of bread dough and models of the universe. In the words of Seamus Blackley: “rising dough is actually a pretty good analogy for the expansion of the universe; every little bit of flour in the dough is getting farther away simultaneously from every other bit of flour all at the same time. This is what the universe seems to do. Weird huh?” (Twitter)

There is also a popular analogy in cosmology that compares the way that galaxies move in our expanding universe to the way that raisins move in a rising loaf of raisin bread.

when I think about stories, the first things that come to mind are obviously religions, folklore, myths.....etc. In some ways, these are like structures because they are also bonds and spaces, in the sense that stories are merely people/places/ideas plucked out of the infinite imagination and woven together like tapestries. Different cultures have different conceptions of what a story is, and the acceptable amount of deviation from logic or temporal/spatial linearity can vary. But what is consistent is that stories change and evolve.

Take the environmental movement in the US, for example.

It is an amalgam of stories driven by religion, racism, ethics, profit, science and so on, and serves as an illuminating example of the inseparability of knowledge and power. (Like Foucault says, society’s dominant narratives are always embedded in power relations, and how consequently, those with the upper hand will have more say in what ideas and stories, or discourses, become mainstream.)

One specific story that we can explore further is the construction of wilderness and the “pristine myth” in North America. Influenced by biblical doctrine, early Europeans equated wilderness with the unknown and saw it as something to be feared; but by the time the first colonists invaded the Americas, wilderness had been ideologically transformed into something representing bountiful resources and requiring human stewardship. Colonizers dehumanized the indigenous peoples of North America and trivialized their relationship with the land, as they believed that “forests were wild because Indians and beasts lived there, and Indians were wild because they lived in the forests” (Hopson, 2011). This provided justification both for interfering with the physical landscape and driving indigenous people out of their territories.

However, in the middle of the 19th century, on the edge of the civil war and in a period of cultural insecurity, Americans began to revere wilderness as a symbol of moral purity and stability. There had also been years of rampant destruction of nature through logging and hunting, and people were beginning to see the negative effects of this. This laid the foundation for the transcendental cultural movement that later inspired John Muir who, along with Teddy Roosevelt, sequestered millions of acres of land to create the first national parks, Yellowstone and Yosemite. Doing so, though, required the forcible removal and exclusion of the land’s native inhabitants. These were people who had cultural and spiritual ties with the land and who, contrary to the narrative of the “Noble Savage Myth,” had been altering the landscapes for hundreds of years through slash-and-burn cultivation, hunting, etc. The persisting myth of wilderness in North America, codified in the 1964 Wilderness Act, has consequently excluded indigenous people from land in order to preserve it for the recreation of others (i.e. white middle-class people, whom the parks were created for in the first place), and has become the ideological foundation of American conservation efforts both domestic and abroad.

Therefore, it is crucial to question and interrogate our own stances, the narratives we buy into and perpetuate on a daily basis, and consider what new stories can be told in order to create a more equitable, just world.

Now, maybe a lot of what I have written so far is a bit disjointed and hard to follow. Maybe you’re asking “where is this all going?” (I have asked myself the same question several times throughout the writing process, that’s for sure).

But to me, all this talk about religion and human nature and structure and story comes back to the fact that I think, as humans, we are all trying to find a glimmer of purpose in this life. Regardless of whether you think there is no objective reality and we all live in a simulation of some sort, or that we are splinters of a very tangible divinity, or the product of a funny little physics experiment, we were all granted the ability to ponder each of these possibilities and align ourselves with one that fits our view of the world. This is a gift and a curse, and up to us what we do with it.

And if we really look around us, at all the other species we share this planet with, at the clouds and stars above us, and the leaves falling down around us, we see that movement, change, growth and decay are the universal truths. Even mountains, seemingly immutable giants, are dancing -- they just dance on a different time scale than us. To the mountain, we are like small ephemeral insects, zooming around at a sped-up pace, growing, fucking, reproducing, and dying.

And here, on the farm, we are trying to create a little microcosm of life. We try to observe and interact with nature as our great Teacher, and practices like permaculture and biodynamics can offer a methodology for doing so. Where possible, we use the gifts of the land-- from seaweed to sand to green material and wild edibles. We try to understand the structures all around us (soil, plant morphology, water systems, microclimates, etc.), and try to chip away at some of the most harmful stories in agriculture (yield and profit > quality of produce and health of land, etc.) and build up new, beautiful ones. While farming fundamentally requires us to manipulate land for our benefit (growing food and other crops), it also gives us an opportunity to maximize its potential for providing habitats to other species, collecting rainwater, storing carbon, and overall becoming more diverse. And diversity offers resilience, especially as we face unprecedented times ahead.

Leaving a piece of land better than I found it is enough to let me lie easy on my deathbed.

We are immersed in the ebbing tide of Life and Death and Life and Death and Life again. Transformation. Alchemy. The story of resurrection. If God or Creator is imbued in every living and non-living being, if even just as a splintered fragment of light, then connecting with as many of these as possible gives us ample opportunities to see this light and get to know God/Creator/Source/etc. better. There is magic in each and every one of them, in the niches they occupy, and in the greater systems they are a part of. And then we realize that it’s all one massive beautiful web, and us humans are just one shining dewdrop upon it.

References

“The Subcreation Theory of J.R.R. Tolkien” https://gwern.net/doc/fiction/science-fiction/2015-mirante-thesubcreationtheoryofjrrtolkien.html

“Regenesis” by George Monbiot, 2022.

“Human Nature, Religious and Philosophical Aspects” https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/human-nature-religious-and-philosophical-aspects

“What is the Biblical Evidence for Original Sin?” https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-biblical-evidence-for-original-sin

María Del Rincón Yohn (2021) J.R.R. Tolkien’s sub-creation theory: literary creativity as participation in the divine creation, Church, Communication and Culture, 6:1, 17-33, DOI: 10.1080/23753234.2021.1886860

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reviewsthatburn · 1 year ago

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MASTIFF follows Baka, Tunstall, Farmer Cape, and Lady Sabine in their hunt for a kidnapped prince. They quickly discover that his kidnappers used the slave trade to fund and disguise their movements and make the plan possible, in addition to trafficking the prince himself just as any other child slave in Tortall.

It shows Beka’s partnership with Tunstall, something set up at the end of Terrier. There’s a new storyline related to the kidnapped child they’re tracking. This answers the reason why Tortall has slavery in Beka’s time but not by the time Alanna is born in the Song of the Lioness quartet. Several things are introduced and resolved, including but not limited to the kidnapping and the conspiracy at the center of it.

Full Review at Link.

#BookReviews #Audiobook #Fantasy #Recommended #beka cooper #tortall #tamora pierce

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writingbyricochet · 2 years ago

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AUTHOR (RE)INTRODUCTION: @WRITINGBYRICOCHET

Having been on Writeblr for ten months and with a recent uptick of followers, I thought it was due for a refresh of my intro! Fingers crossed this one will be a bit more informative about what kind of a writer I am than my first one!

— THE AUTHOR; ♡ —

Megan, Meg, or Lucky (she/her)

20s, Taiwanese American, Eastern Time Zone

Interacts from @luckyricochet

Ask/tag game friendly

In love with history, art, and romance itself

— WRITING; ♡ —

Primarily romance, historical fiction (or historically-inspired), fantasy, fanfiction

Aspirational: Dark academia, gothic

Favorite tropes: friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, sunshine/grump pairings, mutual pining

I love prose that is moody, atmospheric, and deeply emotive in its examination of the human condition almost to the point of romanticism. Besides the universal aims of a solid plot and characters, these are the qualities I want my own work to reflect the most.

— WORKS IN PROGRESS; ♡ —

Between Heaven and Earth

low fantasy/adventure; intro post, tag, wip page

Raised as a princess and heir apparent to the Velitovan throne, Laeisa Durecane's world is suddenly turned upside down when a diplomatic mission turns deadly and her father the King and his entire delegation are killed, leaving Laesia the sole survivor. Having to now abandon peace talks that would have formalized independence for her country, Laesia is forced into exile and takes refuge in the home of a young farmer. The distant rural district she now finds herself in is a far cry from the life of privilege she once enjoyed, but she at least has plenty of time to plot exactly how she will reclaim her throne and finally liberate Velitova.

Tomorrow is a Place

low fantasy/romance; intro post, tag

Do you believe in love at first sight? It’s fine if you don’t—that’s not how it happens in this story, at least not entirely. Even though Merity first takes a shine to the boy next door in childhood, it might have stayed an unspoken crush forever if not for a fateful decision that leaves Fendley wracked by his conscious and Merity his sole confidant. 𝔄𝔪𝔬𝔯 𝔳𝔦𝔫𝔠𝔦𝔱 𝔬𝔪𝔫𝔦𝔞. (Companion work to Between Heaven and Earth)

Poco a Poco

contemporary romance; intro post, tag

Welcome to Fujiwara Academy of Music, the most prestigious music conservatory in Japan. Balancing academics, work, and an attempt to win a lucrative scholarship is hard enough, but when Rika and Masahiro end up as duet partners, Rika has one more challenge to deal with: Breaking through to the academy’s best musician. It’s just as well that she keep trying, though. After all, chamber music is considered intimate for a reason.

Where Paradise Died and Lived

historical romance/the pacific au fanfic, intro post, tag

The attack on Pearl Harbor takes place far from most Americans’ homes, but for Sophie Holland, it’s right in her backyard. The idyllic tropical isle she knows is now a war zone, where death, suspicion, and martial law are a fact of daily life. With all of America mobilized for the war effort, Sophie joins the Women’s Air Raid Defense to do her part. The job is a welcome diversion that mostly keeps her from her own self-destructive habits, but it’s 1943 now, and her demons only become harder to ignore when the heroes of Guadalcanal—including one new 1st Lieutenant—arrive in Honolulu for rest and recovery.

Other WIPs that I have not formally introduced but am working on in some capacity are here and here. Please send me an ask if you would like to be added to any tag lists!

— CODA; ♡ —

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading! I would love to make new friends and connect with writers who have similar interests, so if any of the above is your cup of tea, please interact and I'll check out your blog! Farewell for now~

#writeblr #wip intro #writeblr community #writers on tumblr #writers of tumblr #wtwcommunity #amwriting #creative writing #writeblr intro #writing

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superworldunkown · 2 years ago

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The Queen’s Champions - Pt 1

AN: Yo, I am very very excited to be putting some type on the screen for this story I have been mulling over most of the day. I’m going to try my best to make this into a series. I really want to see what this could turn into. Writing for Katsuki is mostly my jam, but stretching my MHA muscles with some shoto and Izuku.

Summary: The soon to be crowned queen of Taiyo, the descendent of the golden child is ready to take the throne. With your champions at your side, there is no challenge or kingdom you cannot conqueror. Reader x Adult Bakugou x Adult Shoto x Adult Midoriya. Rated: PG-13 with a lil’ spice...as we move through chapters. As I write this, insert your Y/N fantasy but I will be leaning into my vision of a black reader with hair and skin color description.

LINK TO PART 2

Chapter 1: The Champions of Taiyo

Royal paper was terrible hard to rip. Seriously; what was this stuff made of!! Perhaps you were just tired, exhausted, overwhelmed; you were all of those things. But none of it gave any logic behind this indestructible paper!

With a huff and swipe of your arm you shoved the parchment off your desk and settled to rest your head against the wood. You knew when the announcement was made that the mantle would be passed down to you that your life was going to become incredibly difficult. You prepared relentlessly for every smile you’d have to give, war you’d have to lead, throne you’d have to rule. But there was absolutely no indestructible royal parchment with any lesson on how to deal with this.

This, being your predicament of champions.

You sat as the rightful heir to the throne of Taiyo. one of the strongest countries in the land. As the history books claimed it, long ago when the world was first introduced to quirks, your ancestor bore the world’s first meta ability, the glowing child. That same quirk has manifested and grown within your family, and after several years of strife and war, the rightful heir was now set to reclaim the throne and restore balance amongst all kingdoms. And here you were, said savior, scared of a few boys.

Because of your high status and prestige of heir apparent, many other kingdoms sent their best champions to serve at your side. Many were political gestures, most didn’t even want to be there, and some even had ulterior motives up there sleeves. But, there were three that stood out. Three that you would seek out their advice and confidence. Three that were so different, yet so much of what you wanted by your side.

Katsuki Bakugou – The champion from Klayd. A powerhouse of a man with a boom in his voice. A barbarian is what many around the palace called him, but to you he was oozing confidence and pride. Klayd was a kingdom that produced the strongest warriors, and was the only kingdom in existence to be able to wield the dragonborn. And, did you not mention that along with his booming personality and powerful quirk came an equally powerful dragon that turned the center court of the palace into his humble abode. You didn’t mind, he was such a lovely creature. And, deep within his heavily guarded heart, Katsuki was too.

And then there was Izuku Midoriya – the champion from Otheon. Neighboring country to Klayd, Izuku beamed with hope and optimism. He wasn’t the strongest of all the champions who made your acquaintance, he was the sweetest and kindest. He knew every staff member by name, helped wherever he could; while you were the descendant of the glowing child, Izuku was the fucking sun. And when there were moments where he had to fight, he could move mountains. But instead he was more often than not moving haybales for the farmers outside the palace walls.

Finally, Shoto Todoroki – the champion, and prince of the I-Islands. Second to Taiyo, the I-Islands were one of the most powerful monarchies in the lands, ruled by a royal family of both ice and flames. Shoto was the prized prince of the I-Islands, born of both fire and ice abilities. And while he can be cold, in the moments you two were alone and in conversation, he was warm and he was tender. You knew of the rumors of his family and his father, but Shoto stood in contrast to everything the king of the Islands was known for. It gave you hope that you could be the queen that your people needed you to be, on your own terms.

But, your coronation was quickly approaching, the champions would soon be departing to their own respective homes and kingdoms. And here you were, the spoiled soon-to-be queen, wanting all 3 of your prized champions to stay.

Could you even ask them to do that?

Would they even want to stay? No, it wouldn’t be fair. It was better if they left. All of them. Rulers of Taiyo’s past usually had one champion from a neighboring kingdom stay as guard to the ruler, personal secretary, head of the kingdom’s army, even the partner of the ruler themselves. But it was always one. Not 3!

Were you already sewing the seeds of being a tyrannical ruler? Why was this so hard!

“Your majesty…”

You didn’t’ even notice the 3 of them walk in to your study, and now there they were, standing in front of you while you lifted your head from your desk, a damn piece of royal parchment stuck to your forehead.

“Huh-wait! Go away! I’m…I’m busy!”

“Busy making a mess, apparently.” Katsuki scoffed while crossing his strong arms over his chest.

Well, he wasn’t wrong. You sure did get yourself into a mess of a situation with these three.

“Yesterday, you ordered us away.” Shoto began.

All three of them staring at you, their eyes laced with a mixture of concern and determination. Katsuki’s mostly annoyance, but hidden beneath the red orbs was a flicker of concern that only you and the two other champions could see.

But, none the less, their pooling eyes locked on you only made you more nervous, “I said I was busy. I’m trying to –“

“Figure out which champion you’ll ask to stay.” Shoto finished for you. Damnit, for a quiet man he was so observant. You knew better than to hide anything from him, or any of the three of them.

Your shoulders slumped, an exhale escaping your lips. Izuku spoke next, “We know you’re stressed about your upcoming coronation your grace. I can imagine this added layer complicates things.” Ugh, he was so fucking sweet. You didn’t deserve him, or any of them. Perhaps they all should leave and Katsuki can leave his dragon and you can just burn everything to the ground.

“Oi! You listening to us?!”

Shit. “Uh, what? Say it again.”

The sound of Katsuki’s groan felt like it could shake the room. He was so dramatic. If it wasn’t your life and lovelyhood on the line, you would find his behavior to be comical.

“We’re choosing for you.” Izuku spoke again, this time you could hear clearly his bold and brazened declaration. “We’re staying.”

We…What do you mean we?

You didn’t realize you spoke that thought aloud. Suddenly, Shoto and Izuku knelt down on one knee in front of you, “I pledge my life, my loyalty, my quirk, and my service to you, my queen, and to your kingdom..” They both said in unison. Izuku looked up towards you, before gasping a Katsuki still standing,

“Kacchan, you’re supposed to kneel with us!”

“Warriors of Klayd don’t kneel, you damn nerd!” His eyes now turned to you, “And yeah, I ain’t leavin’ either. So you’re stuck with all of us, Sunshine.”

You were very lucky to have the table to brace yourself as you leaned backwards, stunned at their admiration and their admittance to you. As much as it felt that the weight was lifted off your shoulders, your mind began racing through protocol and tradition.

“You can’t do that.” You said sternly.

“Sure we can.”

“We just did.”

“Why the hell not?!”

“You… you cant just sign your life away to me like that. Do you know what you just gave oath to? You would be foregoing your own kingdoms. Shoto you’re a prince of the I-Islands for All Might’s sake!”

He shrugged, “I guess I’m not anymore.”

“You cant shrug off your lineage!” You objected. “Look, I appreciate all of you but you have a whole life to live, don’t tie yourself to me because you want to make me happy.”

“But your majesty-“

“Izuku you just gave your oath to me the least you can do is call me Y/N.”

“Okay Y/N,” He answered, testing your name on his lips, “ But this does make us happy. You’ve been spending time with each of us the past few months and you genuinely make us happy. We don’t want to leave. And, you don’t have to choose.”

“It’s beyond ‘happy’ for me, Izuku. For all of you.” You didn’t know how to articulate it. How do you tell them all in the same room you had feelings for them beyond the emotion of ‘happy’?

Shoto to the rescue with a deadpanned, “We know you have romantic feelings for all of us.”

Did your quirk activate, or did you just feel like you were slowly burning up from the inside out? How were they all that observant? Where you THAT indiscrete about it? Gosh, what else did they know about you that you didn’t want them to know?

“How?” Was all you could ask.

“You have a terrible way of hiding things. Which you need to work on before some kingdom comes in and walks all over you.” Katsuki responded only to be met with a swift and shocked glare from Izuku.

“The three of us trained and fought alongside eachother for years during the war. When we all reciprocated feelings for you, we talked it out ourselves and came up with this plan together.” Shoto responded in a much calmer tone.

By ‘talked it out’ you assumed they had a some type of battle, Katsuki blew up something, and then out of sheer exhaustion they came to a compromise.

You couldn’t believe the ease of all their tones. It wasn’t that simple! They had to know that. You immediately ran through scenario after scenario their way.

They would have to stay in Taiyo, permanently. They seemed fine with that. Shoto pointing out that he hates his family and country and being a resident of Taiyo was a nice change. Bakugou and Izuku said they would visit family when they wanted but didn’t mind calling your kingdom home.

What about marriage? They couldn’t all be king, could they? Katsuki scoffed and scolded you for being so ‘presumptuous that he wanted to marry you’. Izuku and Shoto responded that this arrangement was new to all of them and they would figure out what worked best for everyone. One day at a time.

They would have to give up their titles. Again, Shoto really didn’t give a shit about being a prince. And Katsuki and Izuku proclaimed they could be the new champions of Taiyo.

There seemed to be one final piece. “Are you all…okay to share? There’s only one of me. And three of you. And, you’d be forfeiting your autonomy to be with other people if you choose to be with me.”

Izuku flashed a glance at Katsuki before turning his attention towards you, “You are our queen now, you’re sharing yourself with us. Not the other way around.”

You felt your eyes watering from the silent emotion that was filling your study. Could this actually work out. Well, you were the soon to be queen. You could make it work out. At that moment, you decided,

Fuck it. For them, you’ll find a way.

“I accept your loyalty, life and quirk and servitude to the kingdom of Taiyo.” You approached Shoto, pressing your lips against his own. “Shoto, I’m nominating you as my advisor. I need your intelligence I want you at every council meeting and at my side.”

“I’ll be there.” He answered, tiny flames tickling his left side.

You stepped towards Izuku next, your fingers wove into his own, a delicate kiss placed upon his lips. “Izuku, will you be my liaison to the kingdom? I need your kindness and I want you in charge with me taking care of my kingdom. “

“Right, I’ll do my best!”

Katsuki was last. You could see his ears already briming with a shade of crimson. Yet, when you placed your lips against his own, you didn’t find the same warmth and eagerness as the others. None the less, you continued, “Katsuki. I always want you to my left on the battlefield and in this life. I need your strength and I need you as my head of Taiyo’s army.”

“Heh, damn right you do.” That was the Klayd and Katsuki way of, “I’m in.”

Now, it was time for your declaration, “I promise you all as your queen I don’t take your loyalty lightly. I as a member of my kingdom and my personal guard I will protect you, care for you, and love you with my light and my heart.” You let out a deep sigh, “Okay…I think we’re on to something here. Oh this is a lot.” You hiked yourself up to sit on your desk, staring down at the mess of the papers on the floor and the potential mess that was this love square/triange/dangerous passionate shape that was your new relationship.

“We’ll let you be.” Shoto smiled softly at you. As the three of them turned to walk out, you voice echoed against the bookshelves that lined the wall.

“Katsuki…can you stay moment?”

The warrior eyed you before turning to face your direction, the tuff of his fur lined red cape swaying with the turn of his heels. Waiting until you could no longer hear Izuku and Shoto’s footsteps, your swung your legs forward, to brace your feet as you hopped off from your desk,

“How are you really feeling about this? I know the kingdom of Klayd doesn’t mimic the same boundaries of our arrangement.” Meaning, they didn’t share, period. Negotiation wasn’t their expertise and if they wanted something, there was no stopping them. So why did he just agree to compromise on a agreement of this scale?

“What, you an expert on Klayd now? You’ve been stalking me er’ something?”

“I’m serious,” You pressed, “I want to know you’re okay with this. And I’m not forcing you into something you don’t want to do.”

Now you knew something was up. He was doing the thing. The thing you had noticed when his eyes magically tuck under his blond locks, concealing his emotions that as much as he tries to hide, he so easily wears on his face. You let the silence fill the space, giving him the freedom to choose his words and the time in which to share them.

“Well since you know so much about my former kingdom you should know we’re not the most pleasant of people to be around,” He began. His words mixed with a sense of carefulness and carefreeness. You leaned in, waiting for him to continue. “I know I’m not the...strongest when it comes to that shit. That’s not who I am.”

“I wouldn’t want you that way.” You answered.

He lifted his head slightly, his blond hair revealing those gorgeous eyes. And in those red eyes was the root of his distance. “Katsuki” You hushed, “What I love in Shoto and Izuku doesn’t negate what I love in you. I now have gained the strongest champion in all the kingdoms at my side. And regardless of what you deem as faults, you are my champion. There is never a battle you cannot win, and that is what I admire most about you. You are perfect the way you are-“

“I want to kiss you.” He blurted out. “Fuck, Do I need to ask you that? What’s the damn protocol with dating a queen n’ shit-“

You closed the distance between the two of you so quickly Katsuki had to take a step backwards to catch you in his arms. This kiss was much more warming than the one prior. His lips melted into yours. His breath swirling against your own as he broke the kiss to gain the leverage he needed to slide his tongue into your mouth. As a soon to be queen, you did ‘stalk’ the other kingdoms and you knew of Klayd being fiery and passionate folk. You were absolutely delighted that in the ways of romance, the same rules applied. However, you were Taiyo, and you too had your own customs of devotion. Breaking from his lips you smiled, your blushed lips tingling against the cool air. You hands roamed underneath Katsuki’s cape to his bare chest, cascading down the muscles of his back and abdomen. His eyes widened as he felt your breath trace along his stomach, “Ah, I should be doing that to you-“ He panted, wondering what the hell you were getting him into.

Your eyes licked the top of your lids as you glanced up at your champion, “My love,

warriors of Klayd don’t kneel.”

AN: Shall we do part 2?

#bakugou katsuki #bakugou fanfiction #midoriya izuku #todoroki shouto #my hero academia #mha fantasy au #todobakudeku #bakugou x black reader

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