#I could write a novel based off this music

[grapejuiceproductions]

So my current bop playing on repeat is the entire Lies of P soundtrack. Its got some of the most epic music I've ever heard and I love it.

[distantdarlings]

RECIPROCATION // e. berkshire

RATING: R / 3.7K WORDS

Enzo Berkshire x Reader Insert (No gender-specific details)

+ SUMMARY - *Requested (based on this)* Enzo Berkshire has a tendency to flirt with you. You reciprocate the flirtation, thinking that he genuinely may like you, but that hope is screwed up when he seems to be flirting with another person.

+ WARNINGS - Language, kissing, nothing else really, not fully proof-read (Fluff, Romance)

+ MUSIC (listened to while writing) -

As Long As You Love Me - Sleeping At Last

(Note: I am very sorry for the sudden delay in all of my writing. To be quite honest, I started a new job and got into a car crash this week and haven't been writing at all. Please accept this request, and I will have pt. 5 of By the Fireplace out ASAP)

---

“Hey, darling, wait up!” 

The voice came from behind you. You pivoted on your heels, stopping right in your tracks on your way to Defense Against Dark Arts, and glanced around. Your eyes circled the hallway until they landed on a waving hand attached to a grinning body. A smile spread over your lips as you recognized the voice's owner. Lorenzo Berkshire. Handsome, funny, old-money rich, with a side of infamy due to his frightening family. 

He stopped before you, panting slightly from the jog up to you. His face was a bit flushed, and his lips were parted with a bit of shine spread over them. He looked absolutely breathtaking. You nearly had to steady yourself as he combed his fingers through his hair. 

“Well, hello, Berkshire. Are you on your way to class as well?” You turned back the way you were initially heading and started off, beckoning for him to follow. He gave a slight nod, never dropping his glorious smile. 

“Yeah, I spotted you on my way out of the courtyard and figured I’d walk with you,” he said, “it’d give me a chance to see my favorite person.” Your stomach flushed. Favorite person? You could have fainted.

“Well, I’m glad you wanted to walk with me,” you smiled, clutching your books tightly against your chest. 

Enzo had always been an enormous flirt—specifically toward you. You’d be lying if you said you minded it; after all, the boy was absolutely gorgeous and practically everything you could ever want out of a romantic partner. He oozed radiance and dripped sex. Damn it. Your eyes watched as he jogged ahead of you to grab the door to the classroom, the muscles along his forearm rippling wonderfully. Merlin’s sake, he looked like he belonged on the cover of a Muggle romance novel. 

You flashed him your best smile and slipped through the door, watching as he followed quickly behind you. 

The two of you had been friends for a very long time—almost since first year, to be exact. Halfway through second year, the two of you had been paired together for a project in Potions class, and not only had you succeeded in working together flawlessly, but you’d also grown really close. He had always been a good friend to you, no matter what you needed. He was, quite honestly, more than you deserved. But, on the darker side of things, as he grew older, he grew quite flirty. At every turn, he was tracing you with his eyes or making a quick quip about your eyes or your clothing. It was more than you could handle on some days. Your platonic feelings toward him had very quickly become romantic feelings. 

You selected your usual seat in the classroom and kicked the chair beside you out so Enzo could take his place next to you. You mentally prepared yourself for a whole period of brushing elbows, skimming shoes, and knowingly glancing at each other. Why wouldn’t he just admit he liked you already? There was apparent tension between the two of you—even other people had caught on. So why couldn’t he just admit it? Granted, you could say the same for yourself.

Once the Professor had settled everybody in and started with the lecture, you saw Enzo begin to rummage through his bag slowly, trying not to disturb anyone. One hand held the fabric pocket open while the other selected his class journal and his ink kit. You’d already had your things set out by now, but you figured he was just a little behind, per usual. Not that it was a bad thing. It was sort of endearing. 

Through glances out of the corner of your eye, you saw him flip his journal open, collect a generous amount of ink on the tip of his quill, and begin to write. The soft scratches of the quill’s tip tickled the edges of your ear, sending a line of chills down your arm. There was only a tiny amount of information written on the board so far, so he should have no trouble keeping up. 

After a few minutes of continuous scratching, Enzo’s elbow gently bumped yours. Discreetly, you looked over at him and scrunched your eyebrows in silent question. He gestured with his head to the small folded paper beside me. How odd, you hadn’t even heard him tear it out. You quietly placed your quill into its ink well and slipped the note between your stomach and the desk to conceal the message from the professor. 

Have I mentioned that you are looking absolutely ravishing today? Your jaw nearly dropped. With wide eyes, you looked over at him. A smug smirk was printed on his face as he sent an addicting wink your way. You tried your hardest not to blush, but, of course, you’d failed. Must he always be this…severe? You flipped the note over to the other side and wrote: I think this letter was meant for someone else. Unless you have something to tell me? You passed it back. He wrote quickly.

Of course not, darling. Just that you are the most beautiful person in this room. In attempted controlled laughter, the two of you shouldered the other. You knew he was joking, but still, you quietly slipped the paper into your bag. Something about those words in his handwriting directed to you had you blushing. You both returned to your note-taking for the class. 

A few moments of comfortable silence passed before you noticed Enzo’s shoulder shaking with silent laughter. You looked over briefly, seeing a note in his hands. You thought it may have been the same one the two of you had been communicating on before you remembered that you had put that one in your bag. A closer glance revealed that Enzo’s handwriting was on the paper, as was someone else’s. You didn’t recognize the penmanship. You leaned a bit closer, careful not to disturb him as he read the note. 

Have you considered who you will invite to the winter formal? A question to Enzo. Then, his response. I’ve thought long and well about it, darling. Your heart clenched. You flicked your eyes around the room, trying to guess who had sent the note, and landed on some girl from Hufflepuff giggling to her friend and occasionally casting glances at a smirking Enzo. Her eyes caught yours, and you quickly dropped the contact, returning to your notes. Was Enzo taking one of them to the formal? Because you’d honestly thought…never mind.

Your fingers subconsciously tightened around your quill; so tight, in fact, that your knuckles bled white and the end of its feather creased.

“Woah,” Enzo laughed, “what did that quill ever do to you?” His voice snapped you out of your internal rage. Tendrils of guilt and jealousy spiraled around your throat. 

“Nothing, just tired,” you lied, releasing your death grip on the quill and returning to your work. You ignored him for the rest of class, completely missing the nervous glances he threw you every so often. 

By the end of the lecture, you’d packed your things as quickly as possible and headed out the door, not bothering to wait for Enzo to catch up. Perhaps it was childish, but you really thought he might have had feelings for you. But it seemed that the natural flirtation may just be part of his personality. 

You blew a sigh through your lips and pushed a hand through your hair. Surely, there was an explanation as to why he seemed to prefer you to other students. He never followed those Hufflepuff girls around like he did you. Or did he? Maybe you just hadn’t seen him doing it. You suppressed the urge to let out a groan. Why couldn’t romance and crushes and love be simple?

You headed toward the Great Hall to stock up on a bit of lunch; there was no way in hell you were eating in there today. With your luck, you’d crash right into Enzo and have him demand why you stormed out of class. Not that he’d demand anything. He was always so gentle with you…no, shut up. You weren’t going to think about him anymore today. You need to forget about it and focus on studying for your test in Potions today. 

You were kind of absolutely terrible at the class and needed all the help you could get. More than once, you’d been tempted to write the answers on your hand and briefly turn them invisible with a simple spell, but you weren’t that low. You weren’t going to cheat. Enzo was good at Potions class. He could help—

“Ugh!” You pushed the boy out of your head as you turned into the Great Hall, conjuring a small cloth napkin. It fell into your hand delicately and displayed itself evenly as you began to pack a few things onto it—a bit of cheese, some grapes, a muffin. You smiled to yourself as your stomach rumbled. You hadn’t realized how hungry you were until just now. All of this worrying about He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Jr. (not the noseless one) had your stomach clawing for some sustenance. 

You scooped all of the food together and tied a small knot into the napkin, slipping it into your cloak pocket. One of the goblets you’d gotten from your birthday last year appeared before you, and you poured some pumpkin juice into it. You wouldn’t take one of their goblets because you knew you’d forget to return it. Wandlessly, you sent it back to your dormitory.

You turned and headed toward the grand doors, eyes toward the ground. You whisked across the stone floors, focusing on one thing only: getting back to your dorm without bumping into any…unmentionables. 

A few familiar voices swirled around you as they passed by. You tucked your head even more, realizing it was a few of Enzo’s friends. You were friendly with them and knew they’d say something and draw attention to you if they recognized you. You prayed they wouldn’t notice. 

And just as you had ducked your head once more and pulled the edges of your cloak over your face, you ran straight into a solid wall of Slytherin boy. You grunted from the impact and braced for the fall on your ass when he caught you quickly and steadied you. You didn’t need to look up to know who it is. You’d know his scent anywhere. 

Swallowing your pride, you glanced up and made quick eye contact with Enzo. His eyebrows were furrowed in concern, and his eyes flickered over your face. You figured he was searching for some answer to your behavior earlier. You sighed and shook your head slightly, dropping the eye contact. The fingers from his left hand tightened around your arm, and his right hand tilted your head to return his gaze to yours. Embarrassed, you jerked your head out of his grasp and pushed past him. 

Your legs moved faster than they had in a long while as you practically ran up to your dorm, trying to restrain the tears pooling in your eyes. That was quite literally the most embarrassing thing to have ever happened to you. Whether it was your imagination or not, you’d thought that the people around the two of you had completely silenced themselves and had been watching you. Your cheeks burned in shame. Curse this stupid crush. 

Once you come upon the entrance to the Slytherin common room, you quickly speak the password and swipe a few falling tears from your cheeks. You prayed that no one was seated in the common room lest you fully die of mortification. Surely, Enzo had just been doing that because of his usual flirtatious behavior. Nothing else explains why he would have touched you like that. So gently and easily as he reconnected your eyes. The way he had looked at you as he held you tightly to keep you from falling. His lips had parted with a small exhale that had danced across your cheeks, cool and smelling of sweet mint. His thumb had brushed the surface of your chin, daring you to place your lips on it. Fuck!

You pushed through your dormitory door and pressed your hands to your face. You collapsed onto your bed, a small sob leaving your body. Fuck, you were so ashamed. Everything about Enzo swirled around your brain just as it did every day. Every detail of his face was sharp and gorgeous as if carved by Merlin himself. The curve of his lips, the tilt of his cheekbones, the way his hands seemed to always lay upon you somehow. Whether it was tilting your chin up to force your eyes back to his or pressing a hand along the small of your back to lead you forward, it didn’t matter what he was doing. All of it made the rate of your breath increase substantially. Every piece of him made up the strokes of your dreams. You were absolutely in l—

Your name cut your thoughts off. Enzo slammed through the dormitory door, eyes frantic and wild, darting around the room. When they fell upon you as you lay curled up, pitiful and sobbing, in your bed, he pushed the door shut and sped over to you. He squatted down beside the bed until his eyes were level with yours. You refused to look at him. His eyes never left you. As always, he never backed down, while you did so easily. He was so much better than you. 

His hand slowly raised above your head that was pressed into the mattress. Your eyes watched him as he moved, and as he reached the edge of your skull, he let it hover there. You glanced up at him in question, and his eyebrows raised. You nodded. His hand gently laid against the side of your head, slowly rolling his thumb from the tip of your eyebrow to your hairline. It was soothing, and his hands were soft and warm. You felt safe beneath his large grip.

“What happened?” he whispered, eyes searching yours. “Was it something I did or said? If it was something that I caused, we can talk about it. I promise I’ll fix—”

“It’s not you, En,” you interrupted, your voice crackling beneath the weight of your pathetic tears. You were mortified. “It’s me, I guess I just…I just thought…” The words refused to leave your mouth. Your eyes closed in frustration.

“You thought what? Tell me,” he whispered, scooting his face closer to yours, his thumb never stopping its calming motion. 

“It’s stupid,” you whined.

“No, it’s not,” he replied, “it’s making you upset. I want to fix it…did someone do something to you?” You shook your head. The culprit of your current emotional status was none other than yourself. 

“I wanted you to ask me to the formal,” you winced in embarrassment, “and I got upset that you’re asking that girl in Defense instead…” His eyes widened for a moment, and he said nothing. My God, this was the worst day of your life. Your eyes welled up with tears at the possibility of verbal rejection. “God, I know I sound like a toddler, whining like this, but I really like you, En.”

“You don’t sound like a toddler,” he said. His face moved even closer to yours. You could feel his breath on your face now and count each individual eyelash. His eyelids were half-closed now, an air of intimacy spinning between the two of you. “I like you too…a lot.”

The pitch of his voice pushed a shiver through you. The feeling of acceptance brushed through you quickly, elating your heartbeat. Enzo liked you back? Fuck, Enzo liked you back. Your eyes refused to leave his, now. Your heart pounded in your ears, echoing against the back of your skull. 

“I…” you breathed, your voice trailing off. Could you even get the words out? Your breath shuddered as his hands slid down the top of your head to pinch your chin again. He held you in place, his fingers so warm against your skin. His thumb brushed slowly over your top lip.

“Can I kiss you?” he breathed. Each exhale from his lips painted the edges of your jawline, teasing longing out of you. Enzo wanted to kiss you. You wanted to kiss him so badly. You slowly nodded your head. 

Then his fingers weren’t so easy as he pulled himself roughly to your face. His lips crashed against yours, clacking your teeth together. You gasped into his mouth as he stood and slipped onto the bed over you, never once separating your lips. Your heart felt as though it was going to explode. You weren’t sure if you could handle this feeling. 

Your fingers tightened in his smooth hair, reveling in the feeling of the delicate strands. He sighed against your lips as the motion tugged at his scalp. Every feeling, every touch, every brush of his lips was almost too much for you to accept. Your chest rose heavily at the feeling, your heart thrashing against your rib cage. You were sure if he kept on, with him caressing every inch of the inside of your mouth, you’d faint. 

You jerked away from him, pushing yourself out from under him and against your headboard. 

“I’m sorry. Was that too far?” he immediately spoke. His hair was tousled, his cheeks were flushed, and his lips were swollen. He looked absolutely ethereal. The air entered and left his chest at a rapid pace. His fingers nervously closed around your blanket. 

“No!” you practically screamed. “It wasn’t too far…I thought my chest was going to burst.” You chuckled breathlessly, pressing a shaking hand against your heart. You had dreamed of that feeling for months, and getting to experience it so suddenly had you reeling. Enzo was flawless, and every aspect of his perfect being was pushing your shattered self back together. He was more than just a crush.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit embarrassed,” you laughed. 

“Me too,” he smiled sheepishly, “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time; I suppose I was a bit too eager.” Fuck, he was perfect. 

“You’ve wanted to kiss me for a long time?” He looked at you as if you were slow. As if his following words were the only possible response that could have come out of his mouth. 

“Of course I have,” he laughed, “have I not been terribly obvious? I thought it was easy to see that I’ve been utterly in love with you for the last year.” Your lips fell apart in shock. 

“You…love me?”

“Yes,” he breathed. His eyes flickered down to your lips once again. Everything in your body urged you to touch him again, to feel his lips on yours, but you wanted more information.

“But, why?” you laughed. 

“Why? Oh, you have no idea. I am in love with you. You are the most perfect person I have ever met—” his hands removed themselves from the blankets to press to either side of your face—“your personality, your humor, your mind, everything about you makes my heart swell. When you look at me, when you walk next to me, when your arms would brush me in class…those small gestures have always been enough to sustain a deep desire to be loved by you.”

“En—”

“If you do not reciprocate those feelings, that is okay. I’m not going to force you to feel anything toward me. The feeling of that kiss was enough, and if you asked me never to speak to you again…it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I will do it, knowing that I told you my true feelings. The feeling of your lips on mine has renewed me forever.”

“Fuck,” you sobbed. The two of you laughed as tears welled in your eyes. The impact of Enzo’s words had hit you like a train, burrowing deep into the vessels of your heart. You never knew someone could be capable of loving in a way such as that, let alone the recipient of that love being you. And to think that he wasn’t even sure if you loved him back. To think he said all of that, not knowing if he’d ever feel the same thing in return. It was enough for the tears to begin sliding down your cheeks.

“Please don’t cry,” he whispered. His thumbs gently brushed the liquid away from your cheeks. A small smile was plastered on his face, and his eyes were easy and comforting.

“En,” you sobbed, your voice shaking, “of course I love you back. That’s why I was so upset earlier. I’ve loved you for so long. All I think of is you…I have to push you from my thoughts to get anything done.” The two of you laughed quietly.

“I’m that distracting?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow teasingly. You rolled your eyes and nodded, the smile refusing to leave your lips. Your cheeks ached beneath the pull of the grin, but nothing was going to pull it away from you. You were much too happy for that.

He pulled your body against him, cradling your head lovingly against his chest as your arms wrapped around his waist. He smelled sweet and familiar, his heartbeat pushing slightly against your cheek. The feeling of him pressed against you was more than you ever could have hoped for. His strong arms held you tightly in place, warding off anything that could ever get to you. Within Enzo’s hold, you felt like you could survive anything as if his body was energizing you. The love surging through your veins slipped against his, eternally binding them together. You were Enzo’s, and he was yours; that was all you’d ever hoped for. The universe had been particularly kind today. You smiled, your eyes slipping closed. 

“I love you,” he whispered, his lips pressed into your hair. You took a moment to relish in the feeling of having someone say that to you, of having him say that to you. It felt so perfect.

“I love you too, En.”

[pinkpastels113]

romance is not dead (if you keep it just yours)

also on ao3

a/n:

for @mcrololo and @shikariix <33 did i listen to paris by taylor swift and enchanted on repeat the entire time while writing this?? maybe... also thanks for the idea/encouragement to write this based on this tumblr post @pyresrpgear!! hope you like this as well :))

People often forget that you can find romance in the most mundane of things, that love exists in the most simplest of gestures.

Chloe was getting some water at the fountain in the common area of Beca’s music label when one of these moments happened.

“Shoot your shot!”

Chloe turns at the sound of the man’s voice behind her. It belonged to one of Beca’s coworkers and she can just make out him slipping behind the wall of the opening to the common area with a subtle wink before her attention lands on Beca, her wife, walking towards her, her own water bottle in tow.

Chloe grins, as she always does when in the same vicinity as the love of her life. “Fancy meeting you here!”

Beca chuckles, nervously, and lifts a hand to rub it at the nape of her neck as if working up the courage to pop the following question:

“You’re really cute. Wanna go out with me?”

Her dark blue eyes are downcast, just like that time eight years ago when they were both in their twenties in university, high on the serotonin and adrenaline of yet another win with their Bellas, after a group hug, when Beca had also asked her out with the same expression, her bottom lip snagged between her teeth and a hopeful lift to her eyebrows. 

Chloe’s heart leaps in her chest in the exact same way back then, too, now, like she had been waiting forever for that feeling, that confirmation, that Beca liked her back in that all consuming, I-might-be-sick overwhelming way that Chloe had felt towards her best friend ever since she’d joined their silly little acapella group. 

(Even though Chloe considers herself a romantic– she had been reading romance novels ever since middle school, after all– she feels like Beca might just secretly be a bigger one.)

She sets aside her water cup, reaches forward and repeats the gesture with Beca’s, in favor of taking both of Beca’s hands in hers. Beca’s fingers were cold, so she threads them together and squeezes to breathe some warmth into them. 

“Yes. Of course I would love to go out with you.”

Beca’s face lit up, like a dang near Christmas tree, and her lips quirk into a huge relieved smile just like they did when Chloe had first said yes all those years ago as well. (Pft, as if Chloe could say no.) She returns Chloe’s squeeze. 

“Cool beans.”

And it may be cheesy, and corny, and just a tad bit dumb especially since both of their matching wedding rings are digging into their skins, but it still made Chloe’s day. She already knew that nothing would wipe that dopey grin off her face for the next twenty four hours, and she’s completely satisfied with that fact.

When they got home later that day, after dinner and they’re cuddling on the couch with the heater on and a movie playing in the background, Chloe talks about it, mentioning the shoot your shot comment.

“Was he new or something? What was that about?”

Beca snorts, burying her face into the crook of Chloe’s neck where her breath ghosts over Chloe’s collarbones, “Nah. I told him that I was about to ask out the hottie at the fountain and he’s simply encouraging me. He knows that we’re married, Chlo. Just cheering me on like the dork that he is.”

“Like the dork that you are, you mean,” Chloe corrects, pressing a soft kiss to the center of Beca’s forehead. She finds the whole thing incredibly cute, even though it was small and mundane.

Who says romance is dead just because you’re married? It survives even past death, unlike those classic vows for marriage.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Inkjump Linkdump

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

It's the start of a long weekend and I've found myself with a backlog of links, so it's time for another linkdump – the eighteenth in the (occasional) series. Here's the previous installments:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Kicking off this week's backlog is a piece of epic lawyer-snark, which is something I always love, but what makes this snark total catnip for me is that it's snark about copyfraud: false copyright claims made to censor online speech. Yes please and a second portion, thank you very much!

This starts with the Cola Corporation, a radical LA-based design store that makes lefty t-shirts, stickers and the like. Cola made a t-shirt that remixed the LA Lakers logo to read "Fuck the LAPD." In response, the LAPD's private foundation sent a nonsense copyright takedown letter. Cola's lawyer, Mike Dunford, sent them a chef's-kiss-perfect reply, just two words long: "LOL, no":

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/19/apparel-company-gives-perfect-response-to-lapds-nonsense-ip-threat-letter-over-fuck-the-lapd-shirt/

But that's not the lawyer snark I'm writing about today. Dunford also sent a letter to IMG Worldwide, whose lawyers sent the initial threat, demanding an explanation for this outrageous threat, which was – as the physicists say – "not even wrong":

https://www.loweringthebar.net/2024/05/lol-no-explained.html

Every part of the legal threat is dissected here, with lavish, caustic footnotes, mercilessly picking apart the legal defects, including legally actionable copyfraud under DMCA 512(f), which provides for penalties for wrongful copyright threats. To my delight, Dunford cited Lenz here, which is the infamous "Dancing Baby" case that EFF successfully litigated on behalf of Stephanie Lenz, whose video of her adorable (then-)toddler dancing to a few seconds of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" was censored by Universal Music Group:

https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal

Dunford's towering rage is leavened with incredulous demands for explanations: how on Earth could a lawyer knowingly send such a defective, illegal threat? Why shouldn't Dunford seek recovery of his costs from IMG and its client, the LA Police Foundation, for such lawless bullying? It is a sparkling – incandescent, even! – piece of lawyerly writing. If only all legal correspondence was this entertaining! Every 1L should study this.

Meanwhile, Cola has sold out of everything, thanks to that viral "LOL, no." initial response letter. They're taking orders for their next resupply, shipping on June 1. Gotta love that Streisand Effect!

https://www.thecolacorporation.com/

I'm generally skeptical of political activism that takes the form of buying things or refusing to do so. "Voting with your wallet" is a pretty difficult trick to pull off. After all, the people with the thickest wallets get the most votes, and generally, the monopoly party wins. But as the Cola Company's example shows, there's times when shopping can be a political act.

But that's because it's a collective act. Lots of us went and bought stuff from Cola, to send a message to the LAPD about legal bullying. That kind of collective action is hard to pull off, especially when it comes to purchase-decisions. Often, this kind of thing descends into a kind of parody of political action, where you substitute shopping for ideology. This is where Matt Bors's Mr Gotcha comes in: "ooh, you want to make things better, but you bought a product from a tainted company, I guess you're not really sincere, gotcha!"

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

There's a great example of this in Zephyr Teachout's brilliant 2020 book Break 'Em Up: if you miss the pro-union demonstration at the Amazon warehouse because you spent two hours driving around looking for an indie stationer to buy the cardboard to make your protest sign rather than buying it from Amazon, Amazon wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

So yeah, I'm pretty skeptical of consumerism as a framework for political activism. It's very hard to pull off an effective boycott, especially of a monopolist. But if you can pull it off, well…

Canada is one of the most monopoly-friendly countries in the world. Hell, the Competition Act doesn't even have an "abuse of dominance" standard! That's like a criminal code that doesn't have a section prohibiting "murder." (The Trudeau government has promised to fix this.)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-an-overhauled-competition-act-will-light-a-fire-in-the-stolid-world-of/

There's stiff competition for Most Guillotineable Canadian Billionaire. There's the entire Irving family, who basically own the province of New Bruinswick:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/dynasties-2-the-irvings/

There's Ted Rogers, the trumpy billionaire telecoms monopolist, whose serial acquire-and-loot approach to media has devastated Canadian TV and publishing:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/canadaland-725-the-rogers-family-compact/

But then there's Galen Fucking Weston, the nepobaby who inherited the family grocery business (including Loblaw), bought out all his competitors (including Shopper's Drug Mart), and then engaged in a criminal price-fixing conspiracy to rig the price of bread, the most Les-Miz-ass crime imaginable:

https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2023/06/what-should-happened-galen-weston-price-fixing/

Weston has made himself the face of the family business, appearing in TV ads in a cardigan to deliver dead-eyed avuncular paeans to his sprawling empire, even as he colludes with competitors to rig the price of his workers' wages:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/a-supermarket-billionaire-steps-into-trouble-over-pandemic-wages

For Canadians, Weston is the face of greedflation, the man whose nickle-and-diming knows no shame. This is the man who decided that the discount on nearly-spoiled produce would be slashed from 50% to 30%, who racked up record profits even as his prices skyrocketed.

It's impossible to overstate how loathed Galen Weston is at this moment. There's a very good episode of the excellent new podcast Lately, hosted by Canadian competition expert Vass Bednar and Katrina Onstad that gives you a sense of the national outrage:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/lately/article-boycotting-the-loblawpoly/

All of this has led to a national boycott of Loblaw, kicked off by members of the r/loblawsisoutofcontrol, and it's working. Writing for Jacobin, Jeremy Appel gives us a snapshot of a nation in revolt:

https://jacobin.com/2024/05/loblaw-grocery-price-gouge-boycott/

Appel points out the boycott's problems – there's lots of places, particularly in the north, where Loblaw's is the only game in town, or where the sole competitor is the equally odious Walmart. But he also talks about the beneficial effect the boycott is having for independent grocers and co-ops who deal more fairly with their suppliers and their customers.

He also platforms the boycott's call for a national system of price controls on certain staples. This is something that neoliberal economists despise, and it's always fun to watch them lose their minds when the subject is raised. Meanwhile, economists like Isabella M Weber continue to publish careful research explaining how and why price controls can work, and represent our best weapon against "seller's inflation":

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/343/

Antimonopoly sentiment is having a minute, obviously, and the news comes at you fast. This week, the DoJ filed a lawsuit to break up Ticketmaster/Live Nation, one of the country's most notorious monopolists, who have aroused the ire of every kind of fan, but especially the Swifties (don't fuck with Swifties). In announcing the suit, DoJ Antitrust Division boss Jonathan Kanter coined the term "Ticketmaster tax" to describe the junk fees that Ticketmaster uses to pick all our pockets.

In response, Ticketmaster has mobilized its own Loblaw-like shill army, who insist that all the anti-monopoly activism is misguided populism, and "anti-business." In his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller tears these claims apart, and provides one of the clearest explanations of how Ticketmaster rips us all off that I've ever seen, leaning heavily on Ticketmaster's own statements to their investors and the business-press:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-to-break-up-ticketmaster

Ticketmaster has a complicated "flywheel" that it uses to corner the market on live events, mixing low-margin businesses that are deliberately kept unprofitable (to prevent competitors from gaining a foothold) in order to capture the high-margin businesses that are its real prize. All this complexity can make your eyes glaze over, and that's to Ticketmaster's benefit, keeping normies from looking too closely at how this bizarre self-licking ice-cream cone really works.

But for industry insiders, those workings are all too clear. When Rebecca Giblin and I were working on our book Chokepoint Capitalism, we talked to insiders from every corner of the entertainment-industrial complex, and there was always at least one expert who'd go on record about the scams inside everything from news monopolies to streaming video to publishing and the record industry:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

The sole exception was Ticketmaster/Live Nation. When we talked to club owners, promoters and other victims of TM's scam, they universally refused to go on the record. They were palpably terrified of retaliation from Ticketmaster's enforcers. They acted like mafia informants seeking witness protection. Not without reason, mind you: back when the TM monopoly was just getting started, Pearl Jam – then one of the most powerful acts in American music – took a stand against them. Ticketmaster destroyed them. That was when TM was a mere hatchling, with a bare fraction of the terrifying power it wields today.

TM is a great example of the problem with boycotts. If a club or an act refuses to work with TM/LN, they're destroyed. If a fan refuses to buy tickets from TM or see a Live Nation show, they basically can't go to any shows. The TM monopoly isn't a problem of bad individual choices – it's a systemic problem that needs a systemic response.

That's what makes antitrust responses so timely. Federal enforcers have wide-ranging powers, and can seek remedies that consumerism can never attain – there's no way a boycott could result in a breakup of Ticketmaster/Live Nation, but a DoJ lawsuit can absolutely get there.

Every federal agency has wide-ranging antimonopoly powers at its disposal. These are laid out very well in Tim Wu's 2020 White House Executive Order on competition, which identifies 72 ways the agencies can act against monopoly without having to wait for Congress:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

But of course, the majority of antimonopoly power is vested in the FTC, the agency created to police corporate power. Section 5 of the FTC Act grants the agency the power to act to prevent "unfair and deceptive methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

This clause has lain largely dormant since the Reagan era, but FTC chair Lina Khan has revived it, using it to create muscular privacy rights for Americans, and to ban noncompete agreements that bind American workers to dead-end jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

The FTC's power to ban activity because it's "unfair and deceptive" is exciting, because it promises American internet users a way to solve their problems beyond copyright law. Copyright law is basically the only law that survived the digital transition, even as privacy, labor and consumer protection rights went into hibernation. The last time Congress gave us a federal consumer privacy law was 1988, and it's a law that bans video store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you rented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

That's left internet users desperately trying to contort copyright to solve every problem they have – like someone trying to build a house using nothing but chainsaw. For example, I once found someone impersonating me on a dating site, luring strangers into private spaces. Alarmed, I contacted the dating site, who told me that their only fix for this was for me to file a copyright claim against the impersonator to make them remove the profile photo. Now, that photo was Creative Commons licensed, so any takedown notice would have been a "LOL, no." grade act of copyfraud:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/the-internets-original-sin/

The unsuitability of copyright for solving complex labor and privacy problems hasn't stopped people who experience these problems from trying to use copyright to solve them. They've got nothing else, after all.

That's why everyone who's worried about the absolutely legitimate and urgent concerns over AI and labor and privacy has latched onto copyright as the best tool for resolving these questions, despite copyright's total unsuitability for this purpose, and the strong likelihood that this will make these problems worse:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Enter FTC Chair Lina Khan, who has just announced that her agency will be reviewing AI model training as an "unfair and deceptive method of competition":

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4682461-ftc-chair-ai-models-could-violate-antitrust-laws/

If the agency can establish this fact, they will have sweeping powers to craft rules prohibiting the destructive and unfair uses of AI, without endangering beneficial activities like scraping, mathematical analysis, and the creation of automated systems that help with everything from adding archival metadata to exonerating wrongly convicted people rotting in prison:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

I love this so much. Khan's announcement accomplishes the seemingly impossible: affirming that there are real problems and insisting that we employ tactics that can actually fix those problems, rather than just doing something because inaction is so frustrating.

That's something we could use a lot more of, especially in platform regulation. The other big tech news about Big Tech last week was the progress of a bill that would repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act at the end of 2025, without any plans to replace it with something else.

Section 230 is the most maligned, least understood internet law, and that's saying something:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

Its critics wrongly accuse the law – which makes internet users liable for bad speech acts, not the platforms that carry that speech – of being a gift to Big Tech. That's totally wrong. Without Section 230, platforms could be named to lawsuits arising from their users' actions. We know how that would play out.

Back in 2018, Congress took a big chunk out of 230 when they passed SESTA/FOSTA, a law that makes platforms liable for any sex trafficking that is facilitated by their platforms. Now, this may sound like a narrowly targeted, beneficial law that aims at a deplorable, unconscionable crime. But here's how it played out: the platforms decided that it was too much trouble to distinguish sex trafficking from any sex-work, including consensual sex work and adjacent activities. The result? Consensual sex-work became infinitely more dangerous and precarious, while trafficking was largely unaffected:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-385.pdf

Eliminating 230 would be incredibly reckless under any circumstances, but after the SESTA/FOSTA experience, it's unforgivable. The Big Tech platforms will greet this development by indiscriminately wiping out any kind of controversial speech from marginalized groups (think #MeToo or Black Lives Matter). Meanwhile, the rich and powerful will get a new tool – far more powerful than copyfraud – to make inconvenient speech disappear. The war-criminals, rapists, murderers and rip-off artists who currently make do with bogus copyright claims to "manage their reputations" will be able to use pretextual legal threats to make their critics just disappear:

https://www.qurium.org/forensics/dark-ops-undercovered-episode-i-eliminalia/

In a post-230 world, Cola Corporation's lawyers wouldn't get a chance to reply to the LAPD's bullying lawyers – those lawyers would send their letter to Cola's hosting provider, who would weigh the possibility of being named in a lawsuit against the small-dollar monthly payment they get from Cola, and poof, no more Cola. The legal bullies could do the same for Cola's email provider, their payment processor, their anti-DoS provider.

This week on EFF's Deeplinks blog, I published a piece making the connection between abolishing Section 230 and reinforcing Big Tech monopolies:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/wanna-make-big-tech-monopolies-even-worse-kill-section-230

The Big Tech platforms really do suck, and the solution to their systemic, persistent moderation failures won't come from making them liable for users' speech. The platforms have correctly assessed that they alone have the legal and moderation staff to do the kinds of mass-deletions of controversial speech that could survive a post-230 world. That's why tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg love the idea of getting rid of 230:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/facebooks-pitch-congress-section-230-me-not-thee

But for small tech providers – individuals, co-ops, nonprofits and startups that host fediverse servers, standalone group chats and BBSes – a post-230 world is a mass-extinction event. Ever had a friend demand that you take sides in an interpersonal dispute ("if you invite her to the party, I'm not coming!").

Imagine if your refusal to take sides in a dispute among your friends – and their friends, and their friends – could result in you being named to a suit that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle:

https://www.engine.is/news/primer/section230costs

It's one thing to hope for a more humane internet run by people who want to make hospitable forums for online communities to form. It's another to ask them to take on an uninsurable risk that could result in the loss of their home, their retirement account, and their life's savings.

A post-230 world is one in which Big Tech must delete first and ask questions later. Yes, Big Tech platforms have many sins to answer for, but making them jointly liable for their users' speech will flush out treasure-hunters seeking a quick settlement and a quick buck.

Again, this isn't speculative – it's inevitable. Consider FTX: yes, the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange was a festering hive of fraud – but there's no way that fraud added up to the 23.6 quintillion dollars in claims that have been laid against it:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/US-v-SBF-Alameda-Research-Victim-Impact-Statement-3-20-2024.pdf

Without 230, Big Tech will shut down anything controversial – and small tech will disappear. It's the worst of all possible worlds, a gift to tech monopolists and the bullies and crooks who have turned our online communities into shooting galleries.

One of the reasons I love working for EFF is our ability to propose technologically informed, sound policy solutions to the very real problems that tech creates, such as our work on interoperability as a way to make it easier for users to escape Big Tech:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Every year, EFF recognizes the best, bravest and brightest contributors to a better internet and a better technological future, with our annual EFF Awards. Nominations just opened for this year's awards – if you know someone who fits the bill, here's the form:

https://www.eff.org/nominations-open-2024-eff-awards

It's nearly time for me to sign off on this weekend's linkdump. For one thing, I have to vacate my backyard hammock, because we've got contractors who need to access the side of the house to install our brand new heat-pump (one of two things I'm purchasing with my last lump-sum book advance – the other is corrective cataract surgery that will give me lifelong, perfect vision).

I've been lusting after a heat-pump for years, and they just keep getting better – though you might not know it, thanks to the fossil-fuel industry disinfo campaign that insists that these unbelievably cool gadgets don't work. This week in Wired, Matt Simon offers a comprehensive debunking of this nonsense, and on the way, explains the nearly magical technology that allows a heat pump to heat a midwestern home in the dead of winter:

https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-freezing-subzero/

As heat pumps become more common, their applications will continue to proliferate. On Bloomberg, Feargus O'Sullivan describes one such application: the Japanese yokushitsu kansouki – a sealed bathroom with its own heat-pump that can perfectly dry all your clothes while you're out at work:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-22/laundry-lessons-from-japanese-bathroom-technology

This is amazing stuff – it uses less energy than a clothes-dryer, leaves your clothes wrinkle-free, prevents the rapid deterioration caused by high heat and mechanical agitation, and prevents the microfiber pollution that lowers our air-quality.

This is the most solarpunk thing I've read all week, and it makes me insanely jealous of Japanese people. The second-most solarpunk thing I've read this week came from The New Republic, where Aaron Regunberg and Donald Braman discuss the possibility of using civil asset forfeiture laws – lately expanded to farcical levels by the Supreme Court in Culley – to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the energy transition:

https://newrepublic.com/article/181721/fossil-fuels-civil-forefeiture-pipeline-climate

They point out that the fossil fuel industry has committed a string of undisputed crimes, including fraud, and that the Supremes' new standard for asset forfeiture could comfortably accommodate state AGs and other enforcers who seek billions from Big Oil on this basis. Of course, Big Oil has more resources to fight civil asset forfeiture than the median disputant in these cases ("a low- or moderate-income person of color [with] a suspected connection to drugs"). But it's an exciting idea!

All right, the heat-pump guys really need me to vacate the hammock, so here's one last quickie for you: Barath Raghavan and Bruce Schneier's new paper, "Seeing Like a Data Structure":

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/seeing-data-structure

This is a masterful riff on James C Scott's classic Seeing Like a State, and it describes how digitalization forces us into computable categories, and counts the real costs of doing so. It's a gnarly and thoughtful piece, and it's been on my mind continuously since Schneier sent it to me yesterday. Something suitably chewy for you to masticate over the long weekend!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/25/anthology/#lol-no

[morallysuperiorlips]

How I Come Up With Compelling and Fun Characters!

Back at you again with another TedTalk.

Coming up with well-rounded characters is my favorite part of the writing process. I like to come up with convoluted plots, so ofc convoluted characters have to follow. While I am someone who is VERY guilty of injecting my own traits/experiences into my characters (because I like to live vicariously through them or use them to cope don't @ me), I try to do that once I've established them as their own people. Because then they just end up being other versions of me, and we don't want that trust me

The adage I like to live by is "when the character feels real to you, they'll feel real to the reader," so I try to go out of my way to know as much as I can about them before I start to put them down on paper.

I know full names, birthdays (down to the hour), exact heights, blood types, favorite colors, foods, etc. and I try to know most of the surface-level things. I'll try to delve a little deeper but I do like to let my characters breathe when I'm writing them because sometimes they do things that make me stare into the camera like I'm on the Office and I want to give them the room to do so because that's like 60% of the process (in my humblest of opinions as a self-taught/ professional hybrid)

When I first started writing my novel, I could tell you off the top of my head that my protagonist, Odette Harmonie Cinq-Mars, was born in the little fictional town of Pendulum Province, France on December 14th, 1997 at 8:16pm, her blood type is AB+, she's 5'0, she's left-handed, and her favorite color is royal purple. I could also tell you she has anger issues, is hyper-observant, is a classically trained singer and dancer, and is kind of cold as a person. That last trait ended up writing most of itself out as she developed, but it's how she started, and I never got much deeper than that until I wrote her.

But, rewinding a little bit, I like to come up with ideas for my characters from tropes and stereotypes. My truest formula for coming up with characters is:

Trope/Archetype

- Some tropey traits

+ Traits you might not normally see in that trope/archetype

+ As many details as possible

+ Putting them in random situations that come to mind and watching them figure it out (even if it might be unrelated to the plot)

+ A little bit of yourself (always optional)

For example:

My "tropiest" character's name is Noel Masse; he was heavily based on the archetype of the peacocky gay theater kid who kinda has a hoe streak. Before you come for my neck, hear me out.

What are traits of this trope I could erase (or heavily modify) for him? From my experience theater kids get kinda cliquey--not all, but some--Noel has his friends, but he's the type who wants to be friends with everyone. He doesn't like to judge unless people give him a reason to. Theater kids might have their heads in the clouds all the time, and Noel airs on the side of keeping himself grounded when he needs to.

What are some odd traits I could add to him? What can I expand on? Noel has severe indecision--he's a theater kid who doesn't know if he wants to be theater kid. He has dedicated his life to being a musical theater star, but he has a calling in mystery solving, coding, and all things tech. This indecision often cripples him, and even seeps into his love life, which leads to some promiscuity~

What are the little details I know about Noel? Noel Coretyn Masse is a natural born witch, born in a little (fictional) city in France called Athamera on September 9th, 1997 at 12:11am. He is 6'0, 175 pounds, blood type O-, ENFP-T, right-handed, his favorite color is royal blue, and he has a gifted vocal octave range (3.8), and is very good at most forms of dance.

What scenarios have I put him in that helped him build? This was actually how I decided he was good with technology and all things coding, hacking, computers, etc. I figured out he was good at this stuff when I needed a character to hack something later on in the story and I threw him into the mix just to see what would happen and it stuck IMMEDIATELY. So, this category can also help build category 2 for sure.

Bits of me? His dedication to the arts and his desire for a large friend group hope I didn't just roast myself lol

DISCLAIMER: I want to make a note for anyone who thinks that this is overkill: yes, it probably is. But, I also want to note that I have been told time and time again that my characterization in my stories is my strongest point. So, clearly I'm doing SOMETHING right here.

I also want to note that this is NOT the "correct" way of coming up with characters. In fact, I don't think there is a "correct" way (as is with most things artistic and creative). This is just MY way of doing things. If you have a way that you come up with characters that works for you, I'd love to hear about it!

[goodday-goodmorn]

Rahhhh it’s Christmas and i’m back! Today’s feature (feature? Should i start calling them that? Sounds kinda cool-) is the amazing @charliemwrites, specifically a little drabble (unedited as always), based off of their Keeper/Kept AU. Not thier most recent stuff- (I think it’s Neighbor Johnny or the Woof Woof series-) You know what? Just- Here. Everything they write is gold <3

Anyhow, i present: Domesticity and Devotion

“Oh to be a wild bird…”

You sigh, chin in your palm as you leisurely stare out at the window.

“Or a stray cat.” You muse, watching as one of the kitties of the neighborhood walks along outside.

“Those fuckers have it good. No shitty job. No rent to pay. Just free pets and wandering the world… and if someone’s being a dick they can hiss and bite all they want.”

You hum, reaching for your drink and sipping on it leisurely.

“I don’t think I could survive in the wild though.”

You say after a moment, realizing how you’re cuddled up in your blanket and sipping on your wendy’s lemonade, the TV playing some random comfort show and your laptop open as you halfheartedly play Papa's freezeria.

“Can barley survive in domesticity.” You mumble, glancing towards the envelope on the kitchen counter that you got this morning about a rent increase.

You sigh.

“Maybe in my next life i’ll be lucky enough to be reborn as some rich white ladies cat. Those fuckers are livin’ better than me that’s for sure.”

————

This is not what you meant.

When you wistfully wished to never have to step foot into the capitalist hellscape that was life again- that was not an open invitation for you to be whisked away against your will.

Apparently though, the 6 foot giant of a military man named Simion Riley, heard it as one.

Because now here you were, pampered and cared for like a bloody sugar baby or pure breed persian cat. Kept at some random location and fed and groomed and meticulously attended too.

All against your will, mind you.

However it’s hard to complain because well- you’re living life good. This realization, of just how good you have it- hits you when you feel yourself getting genuinely angry at the shitty romance novel you were reading.

The Male lead was treating the MC like shit- and the MC was letting him get away with it!

You feel your face physically grimace. To calm yourself down (because you are getting genuinely heated when she lets him shove her to the damn floor over asking him for a drink-), you set your i-pad down.

(It had been a gift; something sort of like a kindle, where you could only read books and listen to music. You weren’t sure what Simon did to it exactly- but it wasn’t just published books you had access too, comics, original works, poetry, you could get all sorts of reading stuff on here.)

“This mother fucker-“

You mumble to yourself in disbelief, shaking your head before huffing and picking the device back up. You’re close to cheering as you read the MC’s internal dialogue about wanting to bite his ass- (Truely an MC after your own heart- they were one of the main reasons you were still reading this shitshow-)

And yet, what does the main character do?

They get the drink for themselves and then let him snatch it from their hand and down it.

Nope. You’re fucking done. You’re fumin’ now, irrationally angry on the MC’s behalf because they’ve been putting up with this guy for fifteen chapters now.

The audacity of men- oh my god. You can’t believe this guy.

“Who does he think he is?!”

You grumble and then just for your own purposes you yell—

“Simon!”

Predictably he is at your side in a moment, dropping everything for you.

You have your arms crossed, as you say, “Go get me a drink.”

He tilts his head slightly, eyes crinkled just a tad at your strange mood but doesn’t deny the order. Simply asks,

“Cold or hot?”

“Cold.”

And with that he’s gone, returning with a fresh glass of ice cold lemonade, complete with a little lemon slice on the rim of the glass. You sip it, set it aside and cross your leg, tapping your forehead.

“Give me a kiss.”

He doesn’t hesitate for a moment, gently kissing your forehead.

“Kneel.”

His eyes are crinkled now with a bit of amusement, but he drops to his knees easy. Gently holding onto your soft thighs. (Always so gentle with you.)

“Course, pretty.”

He mumbles low, head tilted up to you in a question, “Need me to take care of you?”

You hum, absentmindedly messing with his hair and ignoring the way the question sends a slow pool of warmth into your tummy.

“No.”

It’s decisive. You’re practically preening with satisfaction at his actions.

“You can go now.” You say and like that, he gets up. Not a complaint on his lips even when you notice he’s got a raging boner.

“Wait!”

You call and he pauses, looking at you with a questioning hum.

“Kiss me again.”

And he does so, this time a soft gentle kiss on your lips. When he pulls away he mumbles an ever softer-

“Dinner will be ready in 10.”

You nod and pick up your tablet with satisfaction curling low in your gut. (For the duration of your reading all you can think about is how Simion would never.)

————

“And another thing-!”

Simion is absentmindedly (as absentmindedly as Simion of all people can get anyway-) rubbing circles into your back as you rant. You’re sat in his lap, coaxed into sitting there after he asked about your day.

So obviously you started to babble about the book you were reading, which turned into a whole rant session about how stupid the Male lead was.

“That stupid idiot- that moron- you wanna know what he does simion?”

He knows it’s a rhetorical question. You’re gonna tell him anyway. Still he hums to show he’s still listening.

“This bastard shoves them into the ground. To the ground! Can you believe the it?”

He shakes his head lightly with a tsk.

“Exactly. God and then when they get the drink he has the audacity to snatch it from their hand and down it in one gulp before they can even say anything.”

You shake your head, so far into your little rant you don’t realize how much you’ve made yourself comfortable. Sitting in his lap fully, ranting to him like he’s an old friend. Your tongue is loose with comfort right now. And that must be what possessed you to say—

“Me personally? I could never. If you ever pulled that shit— God i don’t even know what i’d do but it would not be pretty

You close your eyes with a nod to yourself at your own words. Not aware of the way Simon’s eyes seem to soften. Not until he gently kisses the top of your head.

“Never.”

He says it so quietly you almost miss it. (Feverintly. Reverently. Like the very idea is absurd.)

“If i ever do something like that you run and break into my gun cabinet and bloody shoot me.”

And god his voice- he’s 100 percent fucking serious. Suddenly you feel warm and small in his lap, utterly tiny compared to the sheer size of his devotion for you.

It’s all you can do to mumble out a weak.

“Good.”

And the rest of the night is spent with you reading the rest of the book together. When the MC finally is able to get rid of the Male Lead, it is a joyous occasion that ends up with her absolutely clocking the guy in the face with a champagne glass. Which then leads into a curious conversation with you and ghost about how much damage that would actually do.

It’s a good day.

[slvtforfiction]

Head canons and Twitter :)

☆ Jake Webber X Musical Artist!Reader

☆ I may or may not be listening to Melanie Martinez on repeat soooooo,Reader is based off of Melanie :)

☆ Fluff fluff and more fluff :)

☆ Part 2

☆ Twitter story and headcanons :)

☆ Sorry for it being so short! :( I couldn’t add more than 10 images,no more twitter for you guys :(

☆ Masterlist

☆ Hey guys! Before anything else I would ask you to request anything you want because I’ve lost a lot of motivation and it would really help! :D (Please look at pinned post to see if requests are open.)

☆ Creds to @cafekitsune for dividers :)

Headcanons:

☆ The most supportive and golden retriever boyfriend in the worlddddd.

☆ Definitely the first person to stream you music and the first person to hear it.

☆ Definitely vibes to your music,you’ve come home from your and smiled,hearing your music through out the house.

☆ Comes with you on some tours because he wants to be supportive and see you in action.

☆ Definitely makes an appearance on stage once or twice

☆ Even if your music isn’t his type of usual music he will listen to it endlessly

☆ Constantly asks you if your planning on making anymore music

☆ Is always the first to hear your music and will constantly brag about it

☆ Actively brags about you to everyone and anyone that will listen,his friends are honestly fed up with how much they hear about you but Jake could write a novel about you

☆ Blocks and reports anyone that’s mean to you or about you,if his friends do it he leaves immediately and doesn’t speak to them at all.

☆ Would defend your name to the ends of the earth,wouldn’t even let a spider hurt your feelings

☆ Protective bae

☆ If you’re ever stressed he immediately takes you into his arms. Once at a show you broke down crying during light shower and although he wasn’t supposed to he ran onto stage to comfort you,the edits came into your inbox for days.

☆ You’re always in his videos,and you make a point to be always available for him. There’s always edits of you and him together.

☆ A lot of hate was directed towards you considering you had a larger fan base than him and you had to put multiple stories out about how this was not okay

☆ Jake has made songs about you and you listen to all of his songs whether it’s your music taste or not,he’s supportive and you are too <3

☆ Multiple ‘Jake and Y/n being cute for **’ videos on YouTube.

☆ Jake constantly posts you in any way he can,like photos of you before a concert or photos of you performing or getting ready etc.

☆ Definitely hypes you up whilst you’re in costume/doing your makeup before a show because to him you look beautiful either way

☆ “Look at my girl,looking so pretty.”

☆ Definitely calls you nicknames/pet names like; Pretty girl,My girl,Doll,Love,Princess,Sweetheart.

☆ Multiple instagram stories of you two driving/flying to your next tour destination

Twitter story:

[fayewoodss]

small rant about drusic if You want to hear

Tbh dream and music is interesting bc "Mask" was his most honest and rawest work on music for me but also had a lot of the mistakes someone who just starts with music makes. Also "Road trip" is very like this too.

Something You can see on his singing. You can tell he practised more and has a better range than before but still has that thing starters have that his voice sounds a bit idk how to Say it...robotic? Like not robotic but sometimes it keeps the same tone for all the song not making the powerful or more emotionally moments feel in their full streght. I think the point when he achieves more this on his new music is on "Until I end up Death" bc that slower and almost pained "until i end up death...im gonna be just fine" its full of emotion that part is trying to give, it gets to You heaieng him song like that.

His new songs with few exceptions like "Until I end up Death" are less raw emotion but are better in the composition deparment. I think rn if dream keeps making music, he'll be able to do something really interesting bc he has the emotions and things he wants to tell and now is learning the "rules" and how to mess with them to make more composed music and songs. And has many people to help him with it rn that are in the industry. I think dream rn is on the stage of learning the basics to alter on make his works Even better

I think the word you mean is "monotonous," and I agree! I think a lot of that is due to not singing/never having sung before, so his range of notes is very limited.

I think my biggest gripe with Dream's music is it's reliance on pop clichés without knowing how to use with intention. The production is very trendy, but in a way that feels stale and canned, as if grabbed off the stock music shelf without thought. That's not a "bad" thing at all, but just shows his amateur breech into the music field. Lyrically, I think he's almost there, with some songs more developed and composed than others, but I personally don't think he's a poet. He is a writer and a great storyteller, but he doesn't quite get the conventions of poetry and what makes poetry music and vice verse. But this reason is also why I think "Mask," with all it's flaws, serves as his most successful piece: it has the earnest vulnerability that makes it poetry which makes it music. It takes risks and deviates from what is expected of pop music, whereas the DrEP in general just feels like radio background music.

When I say all this, I want to be very clear that none of this is negative. It's simply just review and critique. Dream's music still shows promise for growth. There is incredible potential there, and the reason I wholeheartedly believe that is because we know he's a writer and we've seen his writing and storytelling abilities prove to be substantial. On top of that, he has been dabbling in producing and scoring with his recent videos and there has been a lot of positive reception there. He has a high capacity for learning new skills and improving on them, so if he ever continues music professionally (which I think he's still signed to Republic but I could be wrong), I can only see it getting better.

If I were to speak completely honestly, though, I think he should've moved his career toward writing before attempting music. I think Dream releasing YA fiction or even collaborating with an artist to make a graphic novel would've been more widely accepted and successful than music. He has a ton of material already he can choose from, and even though most of it is Minecraft based, he could take those stories and ideas and make something new and original from it. Unfortunately, I think music is just easier for content creators and tends to get pushed by management teams as the only way to move forward in that career field.

[eleanor-bradstreet]

Thoughts on Bridgerton season 3

No one asked, but putting it out there. (Written after viewing part 1.)

The Good

Polin - it’s their season after all. There is plenty of them and a lot of scenes pulled right from the book. I don’t think Colin/Newts is all that charismatic or great at acting tbh, but Pen/Nic is carrying the season. Seeing through her eyes, there is a compelling story of self-acceptance, struggle and romance. I was whooping whenever she got steamy with her man.

Debling - wonderfully acted and such an interesting addition to the ton, I love this character. He is so kind and honest, he deserves the world.

Francesca & John - Hannah Dodd is doing a wonderful job. We get to see the one and only shy Bridgerton, which is novel. Her odd chemistry with John is magical and I am already fucked up about them. I’m more invested in them than Polin 😅

Eloise - we are seeing more facets of Eloise which is wonderful. That she is willing to look deeper at peoples’ true character - including Cressida and Pen, though the reconciliation with Pen isn’t finalized yet. Cressida also makes Eloise check herself, her assumptions and privileges which is crucial for her development. She’s growing this season.

The Cowpers - redemption arc for Cressida incoming! We are learning that her bitchiness stems from a competitive nature, which she feels she must have to secure a good match thanks to pressures from her awful parents. This is interesting in its own right but please please please have Sophie also being mistreated in their household. That would be the bow on top.

Marcus Anderson - hello handsome! He is wonderfully acted and immediately has a warm spark with Violet. The mystery is built as to why Lady D is so aggravated by him. What has he done in the past that makes her wary of him?

The music - great instrumental covers of on-point pop songs and revisiting a few tried and true Bridgerton original themes.

The Bad

Kanthony - But only for part 1. I'm guessing they had to work around JB's busy shooting schedule, but it sucks they found a lame way to essentially write them out of episodes 2-4. I'm happy to see from the trailer there will be more of them in part 2.

Benedict - for fucks sake, he does nothing. Season 2 might as well not have happened. Not only is he not sad nor frustrated with Anthony about art school, he has no introspection or personal development in part 1. He’s just shoved in the background again, making sassy little comments and fucking a random lady. Where is this ‘crucial role’ the showrunner mentioned? What ‘comes to a head’ for him as Luke keeps alluding to? All of his material must happen in part 2 because there is nothing in part 1.

The fucking Featheringtons - I know the entail is a plot line set up by season 2, but getting into microscopic detail about the sex lives of the elder two Featherington sisters is not the comic relief the show thinks it is. It actually makes me nauseous. The whole ‘race to produce an heir’ could have been a single line explanation from Portia and screen time with the Featherington couples could have been spent on more Benedict.

The sex - part 2 better be mind blowing because Nicola’s claim that Polin has ‘won the steamy battle’ is unfounded based on the first four episodes. Okay we’ve got Anthony and Benedict each with a scene between the sheets kissing ladies but not a single Bridgerbum to be seen. The claims of ‘threesomes’ and ‘lesbian sex’ are extremely generous. It’s 5 seconds of Colin kissing sex workers and them peformatively kissing each other. I know we have the mirror scene coming in part 2 which threatens to blow the roof off anything Saphne and Kanthony did but thus far, I am unimpressed. It feels more buttoned up than ever.

Now, I have also watched part 2 in its entirety. Without spoiling any details, see below the cut for a general note.

Part 2 contains some MAJOR twists that I feel are going to fracture the fandom. Brace yourselves.

[lunanoc]

Tibetan Sea Flower (藏海花) Drama Review or Why I Think It’s a Laundry List of Crimes Actually

Because somebody had to do it

So the Tibetan Sea Flower (or 藏海花, or Adventure Behind The Bronze Door) drama, meant to be adapting the Tibetan Sea Flower novel, first sequel following the main eight volumes of Daomu Biji, has been out for a while now, and I finally got around to actually finishing it. And I have Many Things to say about it

That I can tell, a lot of people in the English-speaking part of the fandom have praised it for various reasons, and while I’m glad there are people who enjoyed it, I’m not one of those people, so for the sake of variety of opinion I thought I’d share my thoughts about it. I could honestly write an essay because that’s how many crimes this drama committed in my opinion, but no one wants to read All That so this is going to be an attempt at a highlight reel

TLDR; Tibetan Sea Flower is firmly at the bottom of my list of DMBJ adaptations with Lost Tomb 2.5. It’s only slightly above that because unlike Lost Tomb 2.5, Tibetan Sea Flower has a few redeeming qualities at least

First off, some things I did enjoy, or if not enjoy, that I can appreciate in a “there was a vision” sense

My favorite part of this drama was the first 4 or 5 episodes, and the choice to start with the tail end of volume 8 of the main story was a smart decision in that it gave a lot more emotional impact leading into ZHH proper. The start of the drama is fast-paced without feeling rushed, and while my opinion on the ZHH drama isn’t entirely based off of doing a one-to-one comparison with the book (mostly because adaptations inevitably change things to adapt to a new medium so they can’t and shouldn’t be one-to-one copies), the fact it followed the book to a T was a touch I appreciated. The cinematography, directing, and music for the most part are also a strong point this drama has going for it. I can also appreciate that the PingXie married vibes were off the charts to the point where every single time someone said “you’re the patriarch’s chosen one/friend” they might as well have been calling Wu Xie ‘Zhang furen’ it would have been the same thing. The addition of Ten Years Later (and the Fishing King extra which isn’t really an extra anymore since it’s been published as part of Ten Years Later) is also a decision I can appreciate in theory, and from a storytelling perspective makes for a fulfilling and thematically relevant ending. Chen Minghao as Pangzi also almost single-handedly carried the entire drama, iconic, thank you for your service king

Now that that’s out of the way, I can get into the meat and entire point of this post, that is some of the multiple crimes the ZHH drama committed because trust there are Many

I think the fact it started out so strong to me is what makes the rest of it worse. I’m not even sure if I can actually coherently explain the extent of the psychic damage this drama gave me by the time I finished it. There are sometimes significant differences between the drama and the book, which is something I expected because it’s an adaptation, and departures from the source material aren’t necessarily a bad thing. So it’s not that it’s different from the book that’s fundamentally a problem for me. What is a problem, however, is when an adaptation decides to make choices that fundamentally compromise the integrity of both the characters and the overarching plot. I don’t tend to expect anything from DMBJ adaptations, mostly because in general their quality varies, and they’re the main source of the misconception that DMBJ canon is a mess of inconsistencies and lack of cohesion when the original source material is by opposition generally both consistent and cohesive. The ZHH drama is one of those drama adaptations that decided to take the equivalent of a sledgehammer to everything from characterization and lore to any hope of cohesion between it and either the other drama adaptations or the books

The Zhang family lore takes the biggest hit. The casual obliteration of it is probably my biggest beef with this drama, and I can already hear people saying “but it’s not obliterated if it’s thematically adjacent, it doesn’t have to copy the book!. Now listen. It can be thematically relevant and not need to copy the book without creating completely unnecessary plot contradictions with the rest of the story, and as far as the Zhang family lore reworks are concerned, some of them aren’t even thematically appropriate, and sometimes are done in a way that’s?? Honestly baffling to me. Zhang Nian’s entire arc and existence is one of those, because he manages to make himself and the entire subplot that stems from him completely irrelevant by episode 20 where the drama just goes “...so anyway!”

There’s also the choice of having the tianshou (or the heavenly gift) be some sort of bug poison/disease that’s implied to be the only thing holding the Zhang family back from being “free” and living a normal life, and so from the moment Xiaoge decides to take on the mantle of Zhang Qiling for his own personal reasons (which is another issue I have), he alone bears the weight of the heavenly gift, and the rest of the family either disperses into living perfectly normal lives, or is at a bit of a loss as to what to do, which while this last bit is true to some extent for the overseas branch in the books, it stems from circumstances forcing them rather than a goal they wanted to achieve. I’m going to be very generous in blaming this change on censorship, but this alone, surface level as it is, is already contradicting the Zhang family’s most important thematic relevance in the story beyond the lore itself: the fact that they’re meant to be a family led astray by their own hubris and isolationist elitism, eventually switching gears from re: Queen’s Banquet an ancient people likely cursed by primordial entities beyond human understanding into becoming Other and seeking a cure for that, to a widespread and powerful clan pulling the strings of an entire empire for centuries upon centuries seeking a way to achieve true immortality

In the books, the Zhang family’s downfall is their own hubris that blinds them to their own failings to the point that eventually they lead themselves to being wiped out entirely by the Wang family, at least as far as the main branch is concerned. In the ZHH drama, their downfall isn’t even a downfall so much as it’s like they decided to retire and are having post-retirement depression. Zhang Nian is a pawn for the Wang clan, and in that sense he’s “relevant”, but his story is long-winded at best and undermines the impact and importance of the Wang family itself that ends up becoming a barely relevant footnote much like Sand Sea itself

The only thing I’m willing to believe is that Xiaoge either suffers from a more powerful version of the tianshou or is the only Zhang family member at present that suffers from it, mostly because we have no other living members of the main family alive to know if the tianshou ever became a burden Zhang Qiling alone carried for the rest of the clan. I’d be here forever if I started getting into how the ZHH drama somehow managed to lowkey retcon the Zhang family lore that was hinted at at the end of Queen’s Banquet, but it’s impressive how it managed to do even that. By the time it reached this point in episode 31 I was honestly just head in hands

Characterization issues in this drama also exist, and the three characters who suffer from it the most are probably Zhang Haike, and to a certain extent both Xiaoge and Wu Xie. Zhang Haike’s character is changed to the extent he might as well be a different character altogether so I won’t bother going into detail or I’ll be here for a while (TLDR; more or less erasing the fact he wears Wu Xie’s face permanently erases the somewhat antagonistic and overall complicated relationship he has with Wu Xie), but Xiaoge and Wu Xie have smaller changes that create contradictions down the line

Despite the drama mostly (but not entirely) disproving that Xiaoge specifically chose Wu Xie to carry on the task of tending to the tibetan sea flowers, it doesn’t discard the possibility entirely, which creates a number of problems, namely the fact that Xiaoge’s entire reasoning for going behind the bronze door in Wu Xie’s place and pushing him away the whole way up Changbai Mountain was to try and push Wu Xie out of tomb robbing and conspiracies altogether. Xiaoge sets up contingencies to help Wu Xie if he reaches specific points of no return, but going behind the bronze door is essentially Xiaoge doing the exact opposite of choosing Wu Xie to do a task, he’s aggressively unchoosing him. He also doesn’t ever relegate his duties as Zhang Qiling to other people

The same goes for the reasoning behind Xiaoge becoming Zhang Qiling being a deliberate move to help him find out who his parents are. This I can’t entirely discredit simply because the Three Days of Silence extra (the story of Xiaoge meeting Baima) gives no specific timeline or indication of his reason for going to the Jila temple besides that he was looking for a woman but he didn’t know who she was, and ZHH the book itself never talks about the circumstances behind Xiaoge becoming Zhang Qiling. The early main books place emphasis on Xiaoge’s driving force being discovering his identity and by extension his place in the world, so it’s not impossible to consider that might have been the case when he was a child as well. This is mostly vibes and not so objective, but the vibes are different, and to me Xiaoge becoming Zhang Qiling carries something more akin to a lamb offered as a sacrifice that accepts the role it’s been given, coupled with stepping up to a duty the Zhang family had essentially abandoned by that point, as opposed to doing it for strictly personal reasons. The same goes for the entire reasoning behind the tianshou wanting to kill Zhang Haike’s wife and taking control of Xiaoge to do so, because there’s irony in making Xiaoge, historically the least traditionalist Zhang alive outside of his actual duties as Zhang Qiling, Zhang family traditionalist number one via tianshou as if tianshou ever cared about the Zhang family’s isolationist politics or other earthly forms of power or symbols

Wu Xie is more complicated in that part of the problem for me is that I don’t particularly like Zhang Luyi as Wu Xie. Or in general as an actor. I’m aware this is a personal preference, but a lot of the more emotional moments were lost on me because to me he simply wasn’t conveying whatever emotion was meant to be conveyed convincingly. The biggest issue I have with Wu Xie’s portrayal outside of that is the subtle erasure of his character development. Reducing the Wang family’s relevance and impact cheapens their importance in the overarching story, which in turn cheapens the Sand Sea plan and its extreme difficulty, and the heavy personal cost of it for Wu Xie, which takes shape in the changes to the origin of his self-harm scars. Again, changing things from the book is fine, but when it alters what I consider to be a fundamental element in a character, it becomes a problem

The ZHH drama makes a point of showing that the first two scars that Wu Xie gives himself stem from what’s basically survivor’s guilt. He failed to protect the Zhang family, like he failed to prevent a situation that forced the Yinshaluo (I’m not sure that’s the name of the tribe considering all the place names in this drama are fake) warrior to sacrifice himself to stop the storm. Wu Xie punishes himself because he feels he failed, because he felt like he could have and should have done better. There are elements of that in the reasoning behind his scars in the Sand Sea book where their origin is explained, but the fundamental difference is that ZHH drama Wu Xie’s actions and reasoning come from a place where survivor’s guilt aside, he’s not objectively to blame for situations beyond his control, and in that sense, he’s “morally good”. Sand Sea book Wu Xie’s actions and reasoning come from the perspective of a man who deliberately orchestrated events in which he manipulated various people into becoming his pawns on a very high risk chessboard. Each scar represents a bad choice of move of the pawn that resulted in the death of his chosen sacrifice, so the element of failure is there, but the difference lies in the fact that contrary to the ZHH drama where he fails to save people, in the book, the people behind the scars are his victims that he willingly led to their deaths. He punishes himself because it’s his way of tolerating the intolerable from himself. Wu Xie’s amorality for the greater good in Sand Sea is such an important facet of his character, and by shifting the origin of those scars, it takes away from that element that the ZHH drama doesn’t hint at at all, or barely

There’s so many more things I could get into about this drama, like how paralleling Wu Xie and Xiaoge as being similar feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of their characters because them being different is the entire point. It’s doubly ironic when NPSS said recently that the entire point is that they’re entirely different people who only after the ten years have passed meet in the middle where their trajectories truly parallel each other: one of a man who went from a god to a man, and one of a man who went from man to god. I could talk about how Mama Bear Pangzi is a carry-over from the Reboot drama that doesn’t accurately reflect either what Pangzi is like in the books or how his dynamic with Wu Xie functions in them. I could talk about how despite there being good intentions in adding those scenes, shoving in as many impactful moments from the main story and Ten Years Later + Fishing King as they possibly could ended up feeling like boxes were being ticked off a list and it took away from their impact to the point some of those moments felt off or bland. It didn’t help that whether it was a directing issue or a filming issue (not an acting issue because Zhang Kangle was overall a good interpretation of Xiaoge), Xiaoge had practically no actual chemistry with either Wu Xie or Pangzi. I could talk about this drama’s pacing issues where it yo-yoed between going fast then excruciatingly slow. I could talk about the irony of an adaptation managing to both take a sledgehammer to the source material in a way that’s honestly criminal, yet ironically also being one the least newcomer friendly DMBJ adaptations

It’s safe to say I won’t be watching the ZHH drama again. This post exists mostly for the purpose of expounding on why I didn’t like this drama despite its strong start instead of just saying “it was bad”

[buttercupjosh]

Seasons of Love

(Gif credit to @youmustlovehim)

Word count: 2,772

Genres: strangers to lovers to exes, a little bittersweet

Warnings: none

A/N: I’ve had pieces of details of this fic in mind for a while and I started to slowly write it out over the past few months. This title comes from Seasons of Love from the musical RENT, although there’s nothing in the story connects to specific details from that. The story is not based off of anything specific, just a plot that had been simmering in me for some time. It’s not set at a specific moment in time (It’s taking place in a fictional future but you could also say that it’s set this season. However, the season is still ongoing at the moment and anything can happen or change). It’s written with a female reader in mind because I’m a female of color but the reader doesn’t specifically have to be a POC or a woman and there’s little dialogue. As always, I’m open to any and all feedback, comments or questions; just put them in my inbox or dm me. Thank you so much in advance for reading, I appreciate it😌

(P.S. I have other stories (linked here) that I have written for other players as well if you want to check it out)

““How do you measure a year in the life? How about love?” -Seasons of Love from the RENT musical soundtrack

Prologue

“Excuse me, is this a good book to read?” a deep accented voice asks you.

“Dune? For sure, it’s an epic story,” you reply.

“Do you think I could finish it in 4 days?” the voice asks.

“4 days? Unless you’re an Olympian at reading and processing complex storylines, I’d say it might take you close to 4 weeks or even 4 months to read it all,” you respond.

“Oh,” the voice says in defeat, “what do you recommend then?”

You list off some sci-fi recs for the towering cute man and he takes your suggestions into mind before deciding to get a copy of We, a novel written by his fellow countryman Yevgeny Zamyatin.

“I’ve never read that one,” you chimed.

“Should we start a book club then so you can read it?” the voice asks with a chuckle.

“Um, how can I start a book club with someone whose name I don’t even know?”

Slightly embarrassed, the voice introduces himself as Andrei and you introduce yourself to him as you shake hands. His hand in yours felt so comforting for someone you just met under an hour ago. Andrei was impressed that you knew so much about books. One of his New Year’s resolutions was to read more so that’s how he ended up at Barnes and Noble talking to you. You were at the store, just looking around for something new to read, and stumbled into the sci-fi section before checking out with your new copy of Happy Place by Emily Henry.

“So are we starting this book club then, Andrei?” you slyly ask.

Andrei wanted to have someone as a reading buddy to discuss reading with him (the other guys on the team weren’t as into reading as him) and it didn’t hurt that he had someone who knew a lot about literature right in front of him so he agreed to it.

“As long as you read “We” with me, please?” Andrei charmingly requested.

Although sci-fi wasn’t your thing at the moment, you couldn’t quite say no to the man with big brown doe eyes so you grabbed a copy off the shelf. Before going over the parameters of the newly formed book club, Andrei kindly paid for both of your books and you decided to discuss the rules in the cafe located inside of the store.

You and Andrei sat in a semi-secluded booth towards the back of the cafe and began sharing some of your backstories with each other over drinks and muffins. Andrei was again impressed by your educational background of holding an MFA in Creative Writing from NC State and your job as an adjunct English professor at Wake Tech Community College; it definitely explained your love of reading but your dream was to move to New York and become an author one day. You were working on a manuscript for a cute romance novel but still had a lot of things to do before it was ready to be presented to a publisher. The professor job was just a placeholder until you finished up your manuscript and saved up enough money to get a literary agent; you loved writing as much as you loved reading but getting your foot in the door in the writing industry was rough. You listened to Andrei as he told his story about his life and how he ended up in America through his hockey career. You and Andrei were both curious about each other and asked so many questions to each other for such a long time that you didn’t even notice that the store was going to close. Neither of you wanted your time together to end but you both had lives to get to outside of the store. You both laughed when you realized that you and Andrei spent so much time getting to know each other that not once throughout your conversation did you discuss the rules of the book club. Before leaving, you and Andrei exchanged numbers. You both agreed to read the first 50 pages and scheduled to meet up at a different cafe to discuss what you read so far in two weeks.

————————————————————

Winter

Within a year, the book club didn’t last long but it did lead to you and Andrei being in constant contact with each other. Due to both of your schedules, neither of you really had the time to sit down and have deep intellectual discussions about what you read; you both did end up finishing reading We but you finished it at different paces. Being the book lover you are, you completed the book first but Andrei finished reading the book while on the road and he wanted to discuss the ending with you so bad that he surprisingly FaceTime called you. That one FaceTime call with Andrei turned into a long series of texts, phone calls, and more FaceTime calls and eventually spending time together offline. You and Andrei considered each other to be just friends but that friendship eventually turned into you falling for each other.

Andrei was a hot commodity around Raleigh and in Russia with his DMs bursting at the seams but he only had eyes for you. He had never fallen in love with someone the way that he did for you; being with you was different than what he was used to but it worked in the best way. You knew the risks and chaos of being with a busy, famous athlete but Andrei was worth all of it. You blended and adjusted well into the hockey romantic partner lifestyle and Andrei even taught you how to ice skate. Despite the busyness of your lives, you and Andrei still showed up for and made time for each other, even if it was something as small as meeting up at your place for a post-afternoon game milkshake from The Shiny Diner or as big as taking Andrei as your date to your work holiday party. Whenever you had the time, you and Andrei created fun, everlasting memories together. A somewhat sweet memory that Andrei would always remember was when on one cold evening, you wanted to surprise your Russian boyfriend by attempting to make him borscht, a traditional Eastern European soup that was his favorite comfort food. The soup did not come well at all so you and Andrei ended up ordering Panera Bread to warm your bones. Although the soup you made tasted unpleasant, Andrei appreciated the fact that you took the time and effort to learn something from his culture and did that from your heart. The poetic thing about your relationship was that you patiently understood each other, despite the language and culture barrier; your relationship just worked like two puzzle pieces clicking together into place.

————————————————————

Spring

As the flowers bloomed around Raleigh, the school year for you ended on a good note and unsurprisingly, the Canes made playoffs. Deep into your manuscript writing, Andrei surprised you with a trip to New York after the Canes were eliminated from playoffs. You and Andrei were already spending the entire off-season together so this trip wasn’t a necessity but it was a nice thing to do.

Your time in New York was amazing and full of love, fun, and plenty of delicious food. While you were in the City, you took the opportunity to meet with some potential literary agents and publishers; although your manuscript was about 90 percent done, it didn’t hurt to check those things out. Andrei was supportive of you and your dreams but he selfishly wished that those dreams didn’t include moving to New York and that you would stay in Raleigh and have a life with him there. He had already known his future was tightly connected to the City of Oaks but you had a desire to create a future somewhere else. You knew these dreams of yours could possibly involve leaving the love of your life; neither of you tried not to dwell too hard on the stress and pressure that those dreams added to your relationship. You also knew the publishing industry was cutthroat and competitive and that there was no guarantee that your book would be picked up by a top publisher but those realities didn’t stop you from at least trying to take the steps towards that dream.

Outside of this pressure, you and Andrei still made the best of your time in NYC. You also loved musical theater so of course, you had to catch a Broadway show. Andrei, being the amazing boyfriend that he is, actually secured tickets for the two of you to see Hamilton at the Richard Rogers Theater. You had watched the live stage production on Disney+ and knew the entire soundtrack; Andrei went into the show blindly, only remembering bits and pieces from the songs that you played around him. Seeing Hamilton live on Broadway was a great experience that you both enjoyed. You and Andrei got to see New York City in a different light; you got to explore more of the city that you longed to call home and Andrei got to see more of the city as a true tourist. This entire trip was something that you both would forever cherish.

————————————————————

Summer

Not long after you left New York, you went to Russia for the first time to meet and spend time with his family and friends and to see the place that made Andrei into the man that you love. You learned more about Russian culture, Andrei’s childhood, and even was a guest at his cousin’s wedding. Andrei’s friends and family approved of you as a person and they liked you with him; they could all tell how truly in love you were with each other. You also spent some time together in Turkey and around Europe for some much-needed relaxation; you got to see the beautiful blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea in Greece, eat authentic handmade pasta in Italy, and kiss your lover in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Traveling around with Andrei made you feel like you were the protagonist of a great summer read. Speaking of reading, Andrei still maintained his goal of reading more books, reading just about anything and everything, and even started to recommend things for you to read. Before you would fall asleep at night, you would share with each other a fact or synopsis of something that you read that day.

While Andrei was occupied with his off-season training during the day, you applied for publishing jobs, presented your finally completed manuscript to several literary agents, and ended up securing one. It was relieving to officially have a literary agent to represent you but the next biggest hurdle was the painstaking editing process and waiting for your work to be picked up by the right publisher.

————————————————————

Fall

After the bliss of the off-season ended, it was time for the hustle and bustle of your teaching job and hockey season to return. About 2 weeks before preseason started, you and Andrei moved in together. It was exciting to get to live with your lover and spend even more time (whenever you could) with him. It was also nice that you got to add your style to the place and make it your own; having a home also meant that you could host your friends, Andrei’s teammates, and sometimes family for holidays and events and create more cherished memories together. Being a hopeless romantic who loved romance novels, you had always wondered who would be the man to sweep you off your feet but you sort of already knew that man was Andrei.

A fun memory that you made together was the Sunday before the season opener, you and Andrei took a trip to a local corn maze with a pumpkin patch to take cute couple photos together and to also check it out. These photos would be added into some of the new picture frames and a scrapbook of memories in your shared home. The photographer did an excellent job, capturing the love that flowed between you in still moments. For the rest of your time, you wandered around the corn maze, hand-in-hand, with your lovely boyfriend. The infamous oak trees in Raleigh began to shed their leaves and the year began inching closer and closer towards the end.

————————————————————

Winter part 2

One snowy morning, you got an email from McGraw Hill, offering you a job as an educational copy editor in their NYC office. You couldn’t believe it, you were on the path of working at a publisher and hopefully, one day getting your book published; all that you had been working so hard for was starting to pay off in tremendous ways. The only issue that was concerning you was breaking the news to Andrei. You knew he would be happy for you but you also knew what the next steps were. You tried to hold in your tears but after practice, Andrei came home to you crying. He immediately dropped his stuff and concerningly asked you what was wrong. You explained to Andrei that you were crying joyfully over the news you received. Words couldn’t describe how proud Andrei was for you so he picked you up and spun you around in happiness.

“I’m so proud of you, my love,” Andrei repeated as he peppered kisses around your face.

He was truly proud of you but the ecstasy of the good news came with the most painful come down. Andrei didn’t want you to move to New York but he had already known for a while that you wanted to leave. He did try to convince you to stay and he hoped for months that you would change your mind but you didn’t so he helped you pack some of your things. Andrei couldn’t help you move up there so he entrusted Nykki, Martin Necas’ girlfriend, to help you settle into your new home and life, more than 500 miles away from the address you once shared.

You and Andrei did try dating long distance but your relationship unfortunately didn’t last very long. Between the responsibilities of your new job, revising over your manuscript, trying to get your book published somewhere, and Andrei’s hectic hockey schedule, you began to drift apart from each other and the physical distance between you didn’t help either. You enjoyed living in New York and you did miss each other from time to time but Andrei knew it would be unfair to ask you to give up on your dreams to come back to Raleigh and be with him. Despite not dating anymore, you and Andrei talked occasionally but not as frequently as it was when you first met and still remained friends. It was okay that the relationship had run its course because it taught you both a lot about love. Andrei came into your life for a season and those seasons you shared together were full of so much undeniable light and love. The love that you shared was different from the romance novels you read but your relationship wrote its own beautiful story.

————————————————————

Epilogue

Before catching his flight to Miami for the NHL All-Star break, Andrei went into the bookstore at Raleigh-Durham International Airport to look for a book to read on his flight. In the book section, he spotted Seasons of Love, written by you with a New York Times Bestseller sticker on the cover. Over the years, Andrei had heard some things about your novel in passing but he purposely avoided reading the book because the breakup was a bit painful for him. After you achieved getting your book published, you wanted to send Andrei a signed copy but decided against it because you weren’t sure if he would actually read the story and didn’t want to come across as pretentious either. He debated back and forth about getting the book before finally asking a store employee about their opinion about it.

“I read that one. It’s a fictional story but I heard it’s loosely based on a true story about the author’s relationship with some cool guy. It’s a super good read if you like romance," said the store employee.

Hearing what the store employee said about your book made Andrei’s heart warm a little and he purchased it as his read for his trip. After returning back to Raleigh, conveniently, there was a book signing by a familiar author at a local Barnes and Noble that Andrei decided to attend. Although Andrei didn’t get his happy ending with you in real life, you sure gave him one with the words that you wrote on the page.

[azrielsoulmate]

Forever and Always

hi babes! this, as you can see, is not a fic based on any of the (!!) absolutely amazing requests you have sent me, which i will be working on tomorrow. it is tho something i started writing about a month ago and finished tonight. do let me know your opinion on this piece, i’m always open to feedback! apologies if i made any mistakes in this fic, english isn’t my first language

also don’t get fooled by the title this isn’t based off the taylor swift song, although there is a couple references to her music :)

summary: Your mate, Azriel, finds you walking back from work in a storm after overworking, yet again.

genre: fluff

warnings: none, reader overworks herself (unsure if this counts?)

word count: 1573

enjoy!! :)

The streets of Velaris were covered in rain and, as you stared through the window at the way the water seemed to put a glow off the pavement, all you wanted to do was to finally be over with the paperwork and get to bed. You’ve been a part of the inner circle for over five hundred years now, as you joined it at the same time as Mor - after the incident in Autumn. Your job always has been dealing with paperwork, because you all in all weren’t the one to fight, or go to missions, really.

After a while you decided it was time to get home, and looking at the clock you realized it was nearly midnight. Turns out walking home in a literal storm, while being excruciatingly exhausted, is not a nice experience, to say the least. But through the mist and your state of being-half-asleep you managed to make out a winged figure landing just in front of you. After hearing him say your name, you all but collapsed into his arms. He chuckled.

“Tired, my love?” You looked up at him, humming, and a frown appeared on his face. “You shouldn’t overwork yourself like that” he sounded worried and a smile was threatening to show on your face “What, are you worried about me, shadowsinger?” Azriel was still frowning so you continued “Whatever are you doing here anyway?”

Before you could even blink he picked you up and as you screamed in surprise he said “Taking you home” his voice was deep and low, yet somehow loud enough to tear through the sound of wind surrounding the two of you.

You got to the House of Wind, where you’d been living recently, and you readied yourself for Azriel to put you down, but when he didn’t you looked up just to see him completely unphased, as if unaware of your stare. His hold on you was firm, yet still gentle, as if afraid that you would disappear from his arms if he didn’t hold you close enough.

He placed you down on the bed and as you opened your mouth to say something, you heard his warm voice “I will run you a bath” he said as he headed for the bathroom “Oh, no you don’t have to it’s-” “I want to. You’re awfully exhausted, sweetheart, and you look as though you’re about to pass out. I wish to take care of you, if you’ll let me” You stared at him with wide eyes, and all you saw in his was care and love. He walked up to you, kissed your forehead and entered the bathroom. You felt your heart warm up, blood rushing to your cheeks and you realized how lucky you are to have this. How grateful and content you are with the life you got to live. You thought about the spymaster in the room next to you, and unconsciously, you smiled. Because you’ve waited your entire life for him, for your mate, and for that romance novel kind of love.

Soon enough however, your trail of thought was interrupted “May I expect you to come here tonight, love?” Azriel said in a teasing tone, and you looked up to see him leaning against the doorway, yet you didn’t meet his playful stare, instead deciding to settle your eyes on the smile on his lips “Whatever could be going through that mind of yours?” you met his gaze smirking as you replied “You hope it’s you, do you not?” “It’s the only thing I dare to dream about” You shook your head, hiding the blush that threatened to slip onto your cheeks, and entered the bathroom.

The sight awaiting you there made your heart warm. Azriel had run you a bath, he even used all your favorite scented oils. You turned to send a tired smile his way, and started undressing yourself. He however crossed the room in three strides and helped you unbuttoning your shirt

“So fond of the idea of taking my clothes off?” you teased but he, without stopping the swift movements of his hands said “Always am, love” you rolled your eyes, but as he was done and offered a hand to help you into the bath, you took it, your eyes never leaving his. Twin flames, souls, and four hazel eyes. You got comfortable, basking in the hot water and Azriel’s contrasting cool shadows delicately caressing the skin on your neck and cheeks. The window was very slightly opened, the cold midnight air flowing in and the presence of Az made you oh so calm. You felt the corners of your mouth rise into a smile as he gently poured some water on your hair and started washing, massaging your scalp. You couldn’t help but humm at the sensation, and felt Azriel sending you love and adoration down the bond you two shared. The shadowsinger noticed you slowly closing your eyes, dozing off. He could not help but smile, could not stop the blood from rushing onto his cheeks at how safe you felt around him. At the fact that you trust him so much, feel so comfortable and, well, safe with him. Him, who for years felt so unworthy of your love, of you. For he was the shadowsinger, the feared spymaster who’s past, present and future he thought to be forever stained with blood and scars - his own and that of his enemies. Yet, in came you with your dazzling smile, charming personality, and you never, not for one second, seemed to put any mistrust in him. As if you saw him, sensed some sort of invisible string between the two of you and just refused to let go. Even when he tried to pretend not to reciprocate your love - for your own safety, you saw right through him and his antics. You got him figured out, and even though he never saw you coming, he will never be the same, this love so brave and wild, you so brave and strong. He admired your features, the round of your cheeks, how you looked so gentle and light, completely peaceful falling asleep in a bathtub. He kept this oath to himself, to you, that he would never dare lose that. Never would end this age of golden, good and simply just right love. He, whatever might be happening, would never let this end, would never give a reason for your trust in him to break. And he swore to keep this oath just as close to his heart as he kept you.

As Azriel finished washing you, he took you into his arms, holding you close to his chest, and gently placed you on your shared bed. You stirred lightly, yawning “What’s going on?” he glanced down at you from his place next to your wardrobe where he was picking up something for you to wear, a slight smirk daring to slip onto his face “You fell asleep in the tub” he stated. “Oh.” you said flustered, because fuck, you really must’ve been more exhausted than you had thought “Sorry, Az” you frowned.

“Sweetheart,” he was now standing directly in front of you, and placed a tshirt, of his, on the bed next to you “you seriously need to stop overworking yourself like so. You know, not only is that not healthy for you, but also you are wasting time I could be spending with my amazing mate” he slightly teased, but there was a seriousness in his eyes and voice that you didn’t miss “Working. Doing important court work, darling, is not wasting anyone’s time, certainly not yours” you countered, which followed by a long yawn made this whole argument of yours seem less serious. You dropped your gaze to your lap, frowning, but Azriel put his warm hand under your chin, willing you to look up at him “I’m sure you’d hate me barging into your office and carrying you out of there the next time you work too long?” he said in his teasing mannear, but you genuinely wondered if he was actually capable of doing such a thing. You groaned loudly, throwing the shirt Azriel prepared for you over your head, and got under the soft covers. Az stood in front of you with a fond expression adoring his features, but after a moment he too got into bed. You turned the night light off as your mate made his way to you on the bed, placed his arms on your waist and cradled you close to his chest. You couldn’t stop the contented sigh leaving your lips at how well your bodies melted into each other. As if tailor made to fit together. He kissed the back of your head humming and tightened the grip on your middle as he extended his huge wings to drape over you, making you even warmer.

“Az?” you asked quietly

“Yes, love?”

“Thank you for taking care of me tonight” you said, sending him feelings of warmth and adoration. “It’s all a pleasure” his voice was gruff and laced with sleep “And you know I’ll gladly do it until the end of time, sweetheart” and you knew he would.

“I love you” you whispered, settling in, finally falling asleep. But you swore that through the mist of dreams already surrounding you, you made out his quiet response of “I love you too, forever and always.”

[pumpkin-spike18]

✨Weekly Progress #52✨ +Happy New Year 2025 ✨

So I survived another year...!

Some extra self-promotion here, but I'm running a raffle on bsky as thanks for 500+ followers!

The winner will receive a half body full illustration of whatever character they choose! To enter, follow me on bsky and repost the the raffle announcement!

Now... onto the weekly stuff! c:

Weekly Progress 2024 #52

Sketched Winter Jam full BG

Finished celebration art

Posted devlogs

Finished Winter Jam BG

Put together Winter Jam test animation

SWAK music writeup + discussion

Went through VA roster

Updated SWAK Jam schedule

Sent in Winter Jam files

Participated in Meet and Greet

Drafted End of Year Writeup

Drafted VA lines

Provided expressions list

Provided CG info writeup

Made base marketing schedule

Looking back at 2024 ⏳

It's been a year of ups and downs. Of trying new things, of failing, and getting back up again.

The Results of 2024 Goals

Finish SYVNH ✔

Finish BWOBK ❌

24 Illustrations ✔

Write a happy story ❌

Getting Bingo ❌

My biggest accomplishment this year is definitely completing Stuck in a Yandere Visual Novel...HELP!!

This was finished in May, but somehow it feels like a lifetime ago... The full story is 84k+ words, which is definitely the longest (finished) story I've written.

In this coming year, I hope I can get some merch completed for the game, and maybe redo some of the art since I think I've improved since I started development back in 2022.

I did "finish" 24 illustrations for 2024, but I might've cheated a bit based on my original intentions. In 2023, I said "24 illustrations not used in Visual Novels." This year, I didn't add the latter requirement, but I had intended to follow it.

However, come December, I was short 4 illustrations. Coincidentally, I completed 3 CGs for Spooktober and 1 animation for Winter Jam. Since I didn't have that criteria, I decided to add it into the count.

(The animation was too big and had to be uploaded as two files, thus pushing the last image to another row.)

...And now what I didn't succeed in :(

I accomplished 6 items, but they were not bingo. I only have myself to blame for making one of the requirements "10 VN BGs" 😂 Honestly some of these goals were so difficult, I'm surprised I managed to succeed in any of them.

I am quite sad that I couldn't finish much fanart for my favorite vtubers. I thought it'd be easy, but I often ended up spending time on commissions and projects.

I was pleasantly surprised that I completed more than 25 commissions as I counted them up! I really thought I didn't make it...;; Sadly, although I completed so many commissions... it still wasn't a salary I could live off of. If I didn't had savings, I would've been in big trouble 💦 This was definitely the biggest "down" I felt this year. The physical evidence that I could not make digital artist my career.

The team is still together for BWOBK! But we've all been busy with our own separate projects and various private matters. We still intend to work on it for 2025, though!

And, it'll definitely be one of my big goals for 2025.

...I don't even remember the happy story goal 😂 (I won't count my fanfics- they're also not that happy either, just slated for a happy ending.)

I wrote for two VNs this year. Sorry to say neither are happy.

Visual Novel Releases

Thank goodness I did not beat last year's record (9 projects) 😂 I would cry with pain...

This year, I submitted 3 "solo" projects.

*Disclaimers:

Most of the remaining work to release the full SYVNH game was mainly just me, but a number of people worked together to make it a reality.

A Sky of Falling Birds is still a demo.

But if I put all these in separate categories, it'd both look like I did very little + stretch the post even further 😅

I also participated in 2 jam projects as an artist!

I also participated in 3 other projects as an artist, but those games are currently not released. So... can it be said that I participated in 5 team projects this year...?

Does that mean I total to 8 projects this year...? Jesus, I didn't beat last year but I sure came close again 😭

A Year of Fan Projects

I participated in a lot of Ace Attorney fan events this year! You can see all of them in my art tag!

Last year, Arimia convinced me to join the DGM 20th Project Zine and although I cried at my own mistakes, I got through to the end! Paneling is hard... Drawing so much detail is even harder... There were definitely many tears during that zine.

See the post here!

Alongside that, I was working on two NaruMitsu Big Bang projects as an artist. I worked with some really great writers who wrote some amazing stories for our love of this pairing!

You can read more about both stories here and here!

Aaaand then after that, I fell in love with The Great Ace Attorney and spent a whole week speedily finishing as many chibi illustrations as I could for Ryuubowl Week, which celebrated the pair AsoRyuu.

You can find all the artwork I made for the week in this tag!

And then I also.. Wait, that's it?? Huh, I thought I did something for Golden Kamuy, too...

Well, I tried to, but ultimately I was so tired from everything else, I didn't get very far beyond one image per challenge/event. Ah, well... There's always next year.

Then... that's it for 2024. It's hard to summarize a whole year of my feelings in a single post (and keep it positive). It's easy to just show all my successes, but there were also many failures. Many attempts in projects that I won't talk about anymore and ideas that couldn't make it through the initial planning phase. There's much more than what I've shown here. But despite it all, I want to keep creating. I want to tell my stories and I want to see people enjoy them!

So I'm going to keep trying. It may not be the way I imagined it to be, I may have to try new methods, but I want to make it happen. And if you read everything and still want to stick around for this journey, thank you, and Happy New Year 2025~

[zabberzim]

Fic ideas for the LanDot nation

The many LanDot ideas I have but never got to write (it’s midterms now ;-;)

I’ll classify this into spoilers and non spoilers for the manga so anyone can read this :3

No Spoilers fanwork ideas

Dot gets told that his love life will flourish by a prophet and he is HYPED

Based off the official fan book info where he spends his pocket money on monthly prophet magazines.

Astrology guy x Astronomy guy

Shenanigans ensue

Dot has a nightmare where he is surrounded by Anna dolls

The dolls tell him to confess/make sense of his feelings like the Christmas ghost of the past, the future and the present

Could be a reoccurring nightmare or just a one time thing, both give Dot a sense of “???huh???” But being a little bit of a believer, he really thinks about it and what it could mean.

Feelings realisation with the help of a little girl he’s never personally met

Lance makes merch for Anna and made one of Dot to get back at him

It was funny until it wasn’t, Lance feels like he has to make it look perfect and struggles on how none of the pictures he had does Dot justice. Some of them are goofy in a dorky way, some others are just him being angry, and there are just some that he can’t bring himself to make merch of…

A little bit of feelings realisation, as a treat

And or he can try to get a good photo

Established relationship, Dot and Lance try to keep it low, but their matching earrings/accessories gave it away…

and it’s prequel

Established relationship, the origin of the matching accessories

I HC Lance to show affection through gifts or materialistic means more than Dot (see. His merch collection)

Early in the relationship, a pair of matching accessories catch Lance’s attention. He buys it for himself and Dot to wear together.

Dot was initially a bit bashful but gives in.

Their friends begin to notice this and starts to wonder what’s going on between the two.

There’s a little cut out of Dot in the lower right corner of Lance’s pendant now

RPG AU (based off of light novel/choose your own adventure books 2&3) Dot has his tummy exposed, Lance dotes him on it

On the cover of the 2nd LN/CYOA book, Dot, presumably with the class barbarian, doesn’t have his clothes cover him properly. Being the older brother that he is, Lance dotes on him.

An exposed tummy leaves one with a higher chance of being sick , Lance offers Dot his cape.

Dot is flattered by this but ends up getting sick anyway

Established/Developing relationship: meeting the family

Either Dot brings Lance to meet his family to get semi-interrogated by Malta (Dot’s grandma and mother watch from the sidelines, his grandma is also surprisingly capable of being intimidating)

Or Lance gets Dot to meet Anna, Dot gets seriously interrogated by a 12 year old over tea.

The gang gets an invite to Macaron’s Orchestra when Dot gets to perform as the violinist, Lance is surprised and slightly moved by the music

Dot is good at the violin, of course he should perform.

Lance wasn’t there at the scene where he was playing, so I want him to be the only one slightly surprised at this reveal and very surprised that Dot can actually play well.

Fantasy AU: knights and dragons( Dot is the knight and Lance is the Dragon)

In this fantasy AU, princesses being locked in towers is still something that happens, albeit somewhat rare.

Due to her age and politics of her kingdom, Princess Anna was sent to escape with her brother when their kingdom was under attack. Lance can transform into a dragon because of some potion he took in order to better protect Anna. He keeps her in the tower most of the time for safety, but Anna still gets lonely, so she makes paper airplanes and flies them out to try to find people occasionally (Despite her brother’s disapproval, she does it while he isn’t looking)

Aspiring young knight of a nearby kingdom, who wishes nothing more to find a princess of his own stumbles upon one of these planes (after many attempts to save tower princesses and proposing to girls, royalty or not)

When reaching the tower while Lance was away, it was clear Anna isn’t the princess he’s looking for, but he still plays with her before her brother comes back. (Big scare)

Semi-domestic fluff: Since Anna isn’t the right princess, maybe her brother is ?

Demon AU: Demon Dot and Human Lance

Dot, a demon, accidentally gets summoned when Lance, a human, wanted to summon a guardian Angel for his sister.

With no real return button, Dot’s just stuck there I guess. Lance makes Dot act as Anna’s guardian Angel despite knowing the fact that he’s a demon

(Angels, demons, similar spell; this Demon that he summoned is the best he can get atm, and he technically still has to fulfil his wish of keeping his sister safe. Plus, he’s got some little bits of feathers on his wings, it’s like a discounted Angel at worst)

Other people can see Dot, not his wings, tail or horns though

More details here hehe

(WINGS WINGS WINGS

Hi, I was a Destiel fan , can you tell?)

Excessive use of the Ira Kruez makes Dot ill, team mom Lance is here to help

Sick fic! Using Ira Kruez in the rain causes Dot to have a magical burnout. Lance takes care of him in a sick fic way

Alternatively:

Dot falls from the fucking sky because of a broom mishap, Lance takes care of him with bad pick up lines and more

Mash gets challenged by Lloyd Cavill’s goons and Dot takes up the challenge for his friend. The competition was rigged and a broom mishap happened half way through, leaving Dot badly injured.

Lance is the only one who can take care of him periodically because 1. He’s good with class so he can skip skip sometimes 2. He’s the most capable at take care of people amongst their group of friends.

The bad pick up line part came from “laughter is the best medicine”, it’s advice the others gave to Lance when Dot is still in a magic coma, amongst many other dumb suggestions.

“Did it hurt?”

“Huh??”

“When you fell out of the sky and got a concussion “

A little more display of affection, Dot eating it up.

They are both dumb

Modern AU: Doctor Lance and less successful/ failing musician Dot; And they were roommates

Years after graduation, the gang goes their separate ways. Mash becomes an unconventional cream puff baker, Finn becomes a public servant, Lemon works in her family’s bookshop suspiciously close to Mash’s bakery. Lance works at a high paying job as a successful doctor, and no one really knows what Dot is up to…

A chance meeting after work leads Lance to find out (fuck around, find out)

Lance bumps into Dot at a convenience store. It wasn’t a route he passed by much, so it was a surprise to see the spiky red haired boy there, handing in… something and looking dejected.

Upon meeting Lance’s eyes, Dot hopped over with faux-familiarity and an air of awkwardness when he offered to grab dinner, dragging him by the elbow to leave.

Over some fried rice with a few cups of beer, Dot vents his troubles in finding work after his ambitions to start a band failed; he got kicked out from his last apartment for late rent and his sister is starting to nag him to move out of hers. Lance just pats Dot’s back as he wails shitfaced. In the end, Lance brings Dot home so he can rest.

Naturally, Lance paid for that meal.

In this AU, the gang are all adults, so I HC Anna to be in junior/high school.

Anna obviously would live with Lance. Idk if i should make Anna’s illness a thing in this AU.

The Crown family is middle high class, fairly influential,

Despite Lance’s success, they cut ties with him (homophobia? )

Anyways that my idea

TBC

Spoilers to manga)

Lance has difficulty balancing work as a new DV, Dot offers to help out as his assistant DV

Between Anna, school work and DV work, life has been hard to handle as of late. Shortly after a chat with Orter Madl, unlikely help appears in the form of Dot Barrett!

Dot’s reason for volunteering as his assistant :

It’d look good on his CV

He can spend more time at the Bureau of Magic, maybe the three of them can get lunch tgt more often

It’s a good opportunity to poke fun at Lance

Established relationship: PTSD or nightmares of the final battle

The scene was so all too familiar to him: Lance rushing forward to block the projectiles before he could even react; his warm body slumping down on his as the smell of iron, the liquidy feeling of warm blood seeps through the cape into his palms, now stained red. What if Lance died that day? Why is he always putting himself in danger?

Memories of the final battle twist into nightmares in Dot’s mind

Dot finds a pin with his face on it among the many other Anna pins

Short and sweet, possible sequel to Lance making Dot merch fic idea.

Remember the sea of Anna pins that acted as chain mail for Lance? Imagine Lance changing it every once in a while.

As roommates, Dot might notice something special when Lance leaves his cloak on his bed one day

Lance and Dot buy back to school products for Anna

As a newly enrolled student of Easton Academy, it’s necessary to buy new things to get ready for this brand new school life.

After no one else being willing to go, Lance drags Dot along with him with the promise of treating him to something nice

It turns into a shopping date

Future AU :they get married

They get married and boom Ira kreuz

TBC

*funny thing is that I’ve written the start to some of these already, I’ve just never gotten around to finishing them…

[theladyofdeath]

Lady Death's Lover {I}

Lady Death's Lover Masterlist & Summary

19th Century Period AU Nesta x Cassian Secret Affair / Enemies to Lovers / Forbidden Romance Fanfiction / Characters from Sarah J Maas / ACOTAR Based on a prompt sent in by anonymous

A/N: Please be sure to read the trigger warnings before reading the chapter or any chapter from this story! I hope you all enjoy reading these chapters as much as I've enjoyed writing them. Writing this fic has been a coping mechanism of sorts. Please like, drop a comment, or reblog if you wish. x

TW: marital abuse, sexual content, language, depression

This story is for readers 18+. Mature readers only. Content should not be read by anyone under 18.

My Dearest Sister,

I must apologize for Feyre’s absence in this letter. She is angry with you after your previous words and says that Isaac Hale is more of a man than you will ever realize. Now, I know nothing of their relationship so I cannot chime in, but even with her in a bitter state, I wanted to reply to your kind and loving words.

I’m so pleased that your life with Tomas is so grand. It’s like a fairytale, one we read of when we were young. You’re like Cinderella, saved by a prince that could give you the world. I can only hope that I, myself, find such a happy ending one day.

You were right in your speculations. Greysen and I are no more. He’s promised to another, in fact. They shall be married this season and although I understand - she is a beautiful lady of society, you see - I have still cried myself to sleep each night for a month. There is no need for you to come protect my honor. He has made his choice and it is one that I must live with. By the Mother’s grace, I shall move on. 

Do you think that there is a time when I can come visit you? A ball sounds so exciting. What are they like? I imagine lovely treats and drinks and magnificent dresses. Oh, and lovely music where couples dance until wee hours of the morning. I’ve been practicing my dances, although I have very few opportunities to use such knowledge around here. I hope to attend events this season to show my newfound skills. My favorite is the waltz. How romantic! 

Tell Tomas we say hello. Feyre, although angry, sends her love. So does father. We miss you, dear sister. I hope to hear from you soon.

Your sister,

Elain 

Nesta 

“Undress.”

I notice my husband comes into my room but he waits ten minutes before saying a word. Of course, the first word he says is demeaning, but I do not have the right to refuse him. Even so, I pretend to read my book for another moment, although there is no use in reading. The air is too thick when he is present to read. Even my escape becomes nonexistent. 

“Nesta.”

My name on his lips feels wrong. There is no awe in it, no love. There is only a hint of annoyance. Reluctantly, I place a ribbon between the pages of my novel and close it shut. 

“Apologies, my lord,” I say. I hardly recognize my own voice. “It is hard to put down a story so captivating.” 

“Ah,” he says, chuckling, and the sound sends a shiver down my spine. “I should have known, my headstrong wife. Come. Undress.” 

I am only in my nightdress, and it hardly hides a thing, but I don’t say as much. What’s one more layer gone? 

When I stand, I feel I am no longer in my body. I feel like an outsider, watching myself from a distance with an empty space where my heart should be. I hardly notice his eyes on me as I slip my shift off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor. I stand before him, bare and unfeeling, glad he is only looking and has yet to touch. 

I know the peace will not last long. 

He approaches me. 

As he begins stripping off his shirt and trousers, I lay back down in the center of my bed and wait. I find a spot on my ceiling, a spot next to the golden trim where it seems a spark flew too high out of the fireplace. I focus on the spot, then my breathing, and as my husband crawls on top of me, I force my body to relax.

As he pushes into me, that spot becomes my anchor. 

I did not want to marry Tomas. The truth of the matter is that I would have married anyone, and I probably would have hated every man pushed in my direction just as much as I hate Tomas. I have yet to meet a man worthy of anything other than disdain that has a title to his name and although me marrying a man with a title, with money, was necessary, I know that I would’ve been happier marrying a man that had absolutely nothing. 

I’ll never know.

We were wealthy once, when my mother was alive, but after her death everything seemed to fall apart. My father made a series of poor business decisions and it left us with nothing. It wasn’t until Lord Tomas Mandray visited our village for a weekend last Autumn that our luck changed. We were in the right place at the right time and he took notice of me. My father negotiated our marriage and that was that.

I had no say in the matter. Yet, I would stand by every time, would let it happen all over again if given the chance. My sisters are cared for, thanks to my husband’s generosity. As is my father, but I could care less about his happiness, if I may be so blunt. He has never given a damn about me. Why should I feel any differently? 

Above me, Tomas grunts. It’s a horrible noise, recurring, until his body grows tense, releasing inside of me. I keep still. The stiller I am, the quicker this ends. 

He collapses on top of me and catches his breath. I lay there, flat on the mattress until he rolls off of me and rises from the bed, redressing. I do not move until he’s gathered all of his garments and walks toward the door, his exit.

“I’m going to the club,” he says, and that’s it. The door shuts behind him and I’m being enveloped in the silence. For a moment, I cannot move. I continue to stare at the spot on the ceiling, its grand display becoming a comfort to me. I let Tomas’ release drip out of me, unsure if I want to become with child or not. A child would be a blessing, an heir, my duty, but it would also be Tomas’s, and there is a part of me, a selfish part of me, that does not want to progress his bloodline. Perhaps a man as brutal, as demeaning, as execrable as him should not reproduce. I know that children are not their parents, but I also know Tomas. 

The air suddenly becomes brisk against my bare skin but I can’t bring myself to move. When I move, I’ll have to get up, I’ll have to clean myself, I’ll have to redress and pretend as if everything is fine. 

Nothing is fine. Fine is irrelevant. 

The spot on the ceiling begins to blur and I cannot tell if I am crying or my eyes have simply given up. Either way, I feel nothing. I’m not certain how long I lay there, how many minutes or hours pass, but the sky outside remains dark as time goes by, dismissing my emptiness into nothingness. I pray to the gods, the Mother, the Cauldron, anyone who is willing to listen to give me an ounce of strength. 

I’ve no clue what time it is by the time I finally convince my feet to move, finally convince myself to rise and cleanse the remnants of my husband’s seed from my body. When I lay down again, I close my eyes and pretend to fall asleep until it finally claims me.

~.~.~

Cassian

The numbers are not where they should be. 

I’ve gone over this month’s pages twice now and I feel a sense of panic rising up inside of me so I pour a drink, then another, until the numbers no longer scare the shit out of me. I’ve only started feeling the joyous buzz when the door to my study bursts open and my two closest friends, my brothers, stride through the door, unwelcomed and not caring. 

“Get up!” Rhysand says, grinning in that way that I equally love and hate. The grin that says something terrifying is about to take place. “We’re going out.”

“I don’t want to go out.”

“You work too much,” Azriel mutters, plopping down on a settee against a far wall. “And that’s coming from me.” 

“I’m trying to build an empire to pass onto my children,” I defend.

Rhysand barks a laugh. “What children? First you need a wife and you won’t find that sitting on your ass alone every night.”

“It’s late,” I say, but it’s more of a groan as I let my face fall into my hands. 

“It’s not even midnight,” Rhysand mutters, shaking his head. “What happened to you? You used to be the fun one.”

“Yes, well, I’m nearly thirty. The fun had to end eventually.”

Azriel whistles. “Someone’s feeling morbid.”

“Hardly made a profit this month.” My words are muffled by my hands. “I think I’m going to have to raise the rents. Again. It’s been a shitty spring in the fields. Hardly anything’s been produced.” 

Rhysand sighs, sitting next to Azriel and tossing an arm around his shoulder. “You’ve some money set aside, yeah? Look to invest. My investments bring in far more money than anything else.” 

My hands fall from my face and land on top of the papers that are scattered across my desk. I nearly knock over a candle. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Sounds like a lot of work that I’m not prepared for.” 

“Yeah, work that’ll pay off. Quickly.” Rhysand jostles Azriel’s shoulder.

Azriel sighs. “Are we getting a drink? I need a drink.”

“You two go,” I say, attempting to straighten the scattered papers. “I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner.” 

“Know who you should meet with?” Rhysand asks, paying absolutely no attention to the words coming out of the rest of us. “Tomas Mandray. I hear he’s gotten a hold of a few profitable mines up north. Always looking for investors. Easy money.” 

Just the name of that asshole makes me feel sick. “That guy’s a prick.”

“Yeah, a successful prick,” Rhysand says, and Azriel snorts. “You meet with him once a year and get a good payout every month. Surely that’s worth it.” 

“Leave him alone,” Azriel says, eyeing the half-full bottle of brandy on my desk lovingly. “If he wishes to dismiss solid business opportunities, let him.” 

“So you agree with Rhys?” I ask, picking up my empty glass only to realize there’s nothing in it.

Azriel’s lips thin. “I don’t care what you do, as long as it involves me getting a drink at some point.”

I lift a brow. “Something the matter? Seem agitated.”

“Az is always agitated.” Rhysand claps Azriel on the shoulder yet again, to his dismay. “I’ll set up a meeting. Go if you want, don’t if you want to keep crunching numbers until you fall asleep on your desk. Come. Az needs to be drunk.”

Azriel didn’t deny it. I suddenly feel a sense of selfishness, worried I’ve missed what’s been going on in both of their lives. Clearly something’s wrong with Azriel, something I should know about but don’t. I’ve been too engrossed in this shit. Abruptly, I stand up from my desk and try to smooth out my rumpled shirt. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Rhysand frowns and Azriel lifts a brow. The former asks, “With you looking like that?” 

I sit back down. “You’re right. I should stay here.”

With a curse, Azriel stands and hurries out the door, leaving Rhysand and I alone. 

“What’s wrong with him?” I ask, quietly.

Rhysand shrugs. “Won’t say, but I know it’s bad. He needs us. He needs entertainment.” 

I sigh, fully aware I’m losing this battle. I realize that his carefree attitude tonight has been for Azriel’s benefit alone. I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.

“I know Mandray is the last person you want to spend your time with, but he’s honorable. In business, anyway. It’ll be worth it. I mean it. I’ll call for a meeting.”

I stare at my brother for a long time, knowing he’s the only person in this city more stubborn than myself. “Fine, but if this comes back to bite me in the ass, you’re paying for it.”

His grin tells me that he doesn’t give a damn. “It won’t. I’ve been doing business with him for years.” 

Azriel comes back into the room at full speed, tossing a jacket and hat on my desk. “It’ll cover your wrinkled shirt. Come now.”

This time, when he rushes out of the room, Rhysand and I are following him. I’m not certain where we’ll find ourselves, in an opium den or brothel or a common gentleman’s club, but I must admit that as we walk out of my townhouse, into the cool night air, I feel a little bit lighter. 

If there is one thing I can count on, it is the company of the two men before me. We’ve known each other since we were children and they are the closest thing I’ve ever had to a family.

My father was a man of nobility but my mother worked in a brothel. Being his only son, my father recognized me as his heir but never named my mother. I used to think it was a curse but after my father’s death I saw it for the blessing it was. I don’t know if I’ll ever marry, but if I do…and if I have children of my own…they will be well cared for.

Financially. Morally. All of it. 

When that day comes, if it comes, I’ll consider myself a lucky man. But, for now, I follow Rhysand and Azriel from one side of town to the other to be the fun, young bastard I once was. 

I’ll need it, especially if I’m getting into business with Lord Tomas Mandray. 

[thelaurenshippen]

I don’t really know anything about podcast production so I’m curious: how did Surviving Hawkins come about? I know it’s based on the Rebel Robin book (which I read a couple years back because I loved the pod so much), but I was wondering where the idea began. Did Netflix approach you looking for someone to write a companion podcast for the book, did you and A.R. Capetta collaborate, or was it something else entirely? Either way, it was such a special show and was on my mind today :)

eeee I love when people enjoy this show because it was one of my favorite projects!!

you nailed it on your first guess! Netflix had the book coming out and reached out to me about making a companion podcast. they didn't have a strict directive on what exactly the podcast would be - they sent me the manuscript (which I read in about three days, in between rewatching Season 3) and then I gave them 4 or 5 short pitches on 'side quest' stories that could be made into an audio drama. the idea was for me to tell a story that could stand on its own as an audio drama, but that would tie into the novel without adding some huge element to the novel. which was a super fun needle to thread!

and they chose the one about Robin and Mr. Hauser! I was also fairly close to my sophomore English teacher, who would let me hang in her classroom at lunch and who was the faculty advisor for the music appreciation club I founded that year. so that pitch was one of my favorites. the book that A.R. had written was so good and such an amazing jumping off point! I was really following the lead of the book, but I did get to add a bit to ST canon by making Robin and Barb middle school friends :)

thanks so much for listening to it!