#I might start posting it soonish

[mawofthemagnetar]

I'll stop banging on about the vast majesty of the cosmos when the cosmos shrinks down to a convenient travel size.

[tomaturtles]

The contrast in vibes between these art fight pieces of mine is sending me

[green-planets]

Hee hee hee hoo hoo hoo I always have so much fun coming up with names! I love including deeper meanings and/or puns

[merevide]

how it feels to post a sad music link and get over 2 likes

[chrysanthemumgames]

Happy New Year!

Hello, all, and welcome to 2025. (Whenever you get here; I live in one of the first timezones to do so, hence the particular timing of this post).

Another one has ticked over, and from my perspective qua little bitty indie game dev, it was a pretty good one. I spent the first half polishing up Asphodel for publication, and the second getting a start on Blood of the Living.

If you're waiting on the next update, I'm going to try for January, but realistically, I'd imagine it'll be closer to mid-February. There's a unique scene for every RO/PO at the end, and those variations take a bit of time to get through. Nevertheless, I'm humming along at the usual pace and expect it to get there soonish.

I'm also working on something else, which might see the light of day at some point this year, but I'm taking it slowly, and only working on it when I'm done with my work on Blood for the day, so it'll certainly be a bit slower down the pike, so to speak. No public details for now, but I'm pretty excited about it.

On a more personal level, this year was quite challenging in a lot of ways, as I'm sure it was for many of you. To everyone, I wish a very lovely 2025, and my sincere hope is that we'll all be back here in another year: a little older, a little wiser, and with a little less weight on our shoulders.

Thank you for being here.

-Jess

P.S. My tumblr inbox is still broken and I've been told there is 'no estimate' for when it will be fixed, so as much as I'd love to hear from folks, maybe let's hold off until things are back to normal. Really inopportune time for this to happen, I must say.

[drdemonprince]

Hi Devon! I read your work published on substack on autism and asexuality (really great stuff!) and then found your Tumblr and came across your own experiences navigating sexuality and kink, and they made me wonder if you have any advice for a fellow asexual on the spectrum who struggles socially but is interested in experimenting with sex/kink for the first time? People usually find sexual partners on dating apps or at the club but that seems so daunting I've been entertaining this fantasy of finding a community of people with a virgin fetish just so I don't have download tinder

Abandon your fantasy that anything fulfilling will occur without a massive amount of work. Running one's own sexual life requires a high caliber of communication, negotiation, and self-promotion skills, as well as a significant amount of time and experience. If this is worth it for you, venture forth! If not, maybe now is not the right time.

I will have a much more in depth guide on cruising written sometime soonish, but in the meantime I do have some tips.

Do not use fucking Tinder. That is an incredibly vanilla, heteronormative site. You might have a negative impression of your chances finding what you want because you've only had a glimpse of the most normie places and your friends' experiences with them. To find the kinky, experimental kind of sex you want, you'll instead have to educate yourself, and go looking for the freaks.

Fetlife is a good place to start. It will be overwhelming to navigate at first, but keep pressing. Fill out your profile with your interests, take a few sexy photos (whatever that means for you), and join local groups. Follow people who post things you find interesting, read lots of posts. Pick up some books on leather and kink history, and study up. Jack Rinella is a favorite of mine, but I am deliberately keeping my recommendation list lean so that you will dig for what you are interested in, yourself.

Look up local groups interested in rubber, leather, kink, etc, find local dungeons, attend local munch events (these are low-pressure social hangouts with no kinky play, but for kinksters to meet eachother), and find out where the gay bars are in your area that have backrooms in them, as well as cruising spots. Check out spaces where people do kinky or sexual stuff together and just watch.

After considerable information gathering and self-searching, put yourself out there and take agency over your own sexual life. Message people you find interesting, and I do mean just interesting. Learn from other bottoms if you're a bottom. Trade stories with other subs if you're a sub. Learn techniques from other Doms if you're a Dom, or some combination of all these things if you're verse or switchy. If someone shares some interests with you and seems compatible, make a specific suggestion for play, like: Want to meet up and practice our rope tying? or Would you like to practice your spanking technique on me? or I don't like having sex, but I'd love to use you as my personal footstool.

Remember that you get to set the terms for the engagement, and the other person does as well. If they reject you, that means consent has successfully happened, everybody gets a pat on the back, good job. The same goes for you. If all you want is to drag a human puppy around on a leash, don't settle for someone who keeps pressuring you for sex. Just end the interaction. There are a whole lot of freaks out there with a whole array of interests, and most people who are kinky eventually learn to be gracious and work with what a prospective partner is into, but we also all have our dealbreakers. That's fine. You don't want to play football with someone who insists on tackle when all you want is touch. It's the same thing. This is just silly pretend games. So find someone who wants to play a game you want to play.

And yeah, you can expect it to take about two years to really find your footing in this world and really know what you want and how to articulate it successfully, at least. That doesn't mean you won't have enjoyable (or at least interesting, informative) experiences along the way. But it is a lot of work. I find it is better to lead off with realistic expectations because many people rush out hoping that someone will just magically appear who will fulfill all their desires, and that's not how the world works. Every person that you speak to in a kinky context is a full human being with their own anxieties, sexual traumas, shame, areas where they lack experience, and desires that might strike them as impossible to realize.

In kink, you have to learn to navigate really complicated interactions with each one of them as its own independent thing. A lot of us make the mistake early on of thinking everyone else out there is a more seasoned, confident, sexually voracious being than we are, and that all we have to do is find the right person to give us a good time. But with our actions and negotiations WE make it a good time, us and our partner of the moment, together.

If you don't put the work in, you get nothing out. But the more you reveal of yourself and stay present in the interaction and honor it as the specific, unique thing that it is, the more benefits you reap -- not just sex or kinky play, but friendships, community ties, self-knowledge, and social skills.

Have fun out there! I hope you learn a lot.

[mellxncollie]

hi just wanted to make sure everyone knows that i've been a bit inactive the past couple days and i will continue to be kind of inactive for the next few days.

this is in no way related to the recent news. it's actually four other things! 1) i just moved apartments last weekend and i'm still settling in, 2) i am sick with a cold or something, 3) i have been obsessively writing a fic and neglecting my multi chapter piece as well as photoshop, and 4) i'm about to start doing gifs of episode 8, which requires a few days of prep where i give the episode a close watch and identify all the gifsets i want to make and transcribe the lines for them

so i'm not disappearing and there might still be a new set or two in the next couple days, just know that i'll be back posting gifs with more regularlity soonish :)

[ur-boyfiend]

panic attacks and cuddles

corvid? posting?? unheard of. anyways self-indulgent comfort fic bc i can. prolly gonna do a chronic illness / disability one soonish, if anyone has something they'd like to see more content for feel free to send an ask and i'll write it if i'm comfortable !! if you have any specifics you wanna see feel free to add those as well, it really does help me ^^;

cw/tw; panic attack (no shit but y'know), spiraling, depression, negative self-talk, depressive episode

seasonal depression is nothing new, in fact it's something you're far more used to than you'd like to be. while some loved winter, for you it was the time of year where any regular depression was compounded by the gloom of late dawns and early sunsets and the inability to enjoy going outside.

the difference this time is that you have a boyfriend, and you wish that you could be happy, wish that you could be grateful, but wrapped tightly in a blanket as you watch the grey sky outside the window across your room, you can feel the creeping sensation of a panic attack starting to crawl across your skin. in some part of your brain you can hear your phone buzzing, but the buzzing melds into the feelings of panic, and you curl further into yourself.

the sun is setting, almost set, blanketing your room in darkness. you know that turning on your lights would help, would make this whole thing less suffocating, but it's so much easier to just resign yourself. getting up to turn on the light takes effort, but simply spiraling further takes nothing at all.

your phone is buzzing again, another thing you know you should pay attention to, but you just can't drag yourself out of your own head long enough to do anything about it. it feels like the world is collapsing onto you, and for a moment you wish it would.

you lift your head slightly, the world is in black and white, and it feels like all your senses are muffled by cotton wool. you drop your forehead back onto your knees, the energy it takes to keep it raised somehow more than you have in you.

you're not sure how long it's been, after the sun has set there's nothing left to indicate the time. you're trying to find the strength to get out of bed, to do anything, even just to look up.

from your blanket cocoon, you can see something light beyond your eyelids. for a second you think you're seeing things, maybe you pressed on your eyes by accident, but you don't actually feel any pressure on your eyes.

not sure what's happening, you lift your head slightly, almost immediately being met with the sight of your boyfriend standing near the door to your room. he's not looking at you, he's looking at your room, and you realize that he hasn't actually seen it before. you're suddenly very aware of the piles of stuffed toys scattered around, the posters on the walls, the makeup and jewelry strewn across the top of your dresser, the mess on your desk, the clothes piled in the corner. it feels as if every flaw in your personality is somehow scrawled across the room in glaring red letters.

and yet, when he notices you looking at him, changbin turns and smiles at you. in that moment, you feel like you might cry. as you feel yourself choking up, his eyes soften with concern. placing the bag he's holding on the floor, he carefully sits down next to you on your bed.

"hey, what's wrong?" you feel him pull you into his side, "talk to me bubs."

instead of talking, you feel tears start running down your face, changbin wiping them away as fast as they fall. he leaves feather-light kisses across your nose and cheeks.

you say it without thinking, "i love you," and once you've said it once it's like a floodgate has opened, you're repeating it so quickly that it becomes an incoherent babble, changbin peppering kisses across your face the whole time.

it takes time for you to calm down, more than you'd like, not keen on being seen in this state. but changbin sits and rubs your back as you try to pull yourself back into some kind of human form, a silent support.

it's only when you've stopped crying, are a more solid person than you'd been, he says it back.

"i love you too, now let's eat, yeah?"

you hum slightly, leaning further into his side, "nap with me?"

changbin sighs and flops onto his side, pulling you down with him, pulling up the blankets to cover you both. you quickly snuggle into him, grateful for the extra warmth.

"get some rest," you feel him place a kiss on your forehead, "i love you."

"i love you too," you mumble, already half-asleep.

[adustyknight]

i’ve been thinking up way to many arcane and dragon prince AUs in light of both shows ending and i want to write them but have no time :(

so anyway for now i’m posting my general ideas here bc maybe that will speak them into existence or at least give me motivation lol

current ideas:

- viktor raised with vi & jinx

- dragon prince percy jackson au

- viktor is raised by singed/ works for silco

- viktor raises vi & powder

i’ll update on here if i get around to any of them lol

i have started storyline notes for the viktor raised with vi and jinx au so hopefully i actually start writing that one soonish ? idk we’ll see

i’ve seen some viktor working for/being raise by silco fics already so i may not do that one (yet) plus im more interested in the other ones rn but i might do it at some point

and if anyone’s interested in my plans for these i’d be happy to make ramble posts about any of them

[ello-sims]

2025 Simming Goals x

No one tagged me but I thought it might keep me more 'on point' if I posted this someplace!

Actually play the damn game... - Repeatedly stated, repeatedly failed 😂 but! I have a uberhood set up which I was hoping to get going this year. I’m still trying to sort my build/buy folders (so, so close…) but I might start posting makeovers this month at least.

I think I might have mentioned in a post briefly in a post during the summer but I’ve been working on making directories for my downloads. I want to finish that soonish but god it’s tedious work... lol

More object defaults - I’m not planning to default everything (because I don’t hate myself that much 😳 lol) mostly things that feel anachronistic for modern game and some of @goatskickin and @lolitarecolors beautiful retextures

Learn a new skill - when I started this simblr in 2020, I was like I’d try a new thing every month. That very much has NOT happened 😅 but I would like to try some new things out this year definitely. I’m just not sure what. If you have any suggestions of not too scary next projects, I’m all ears!

[shopwitchvamp]

Ok one more post about natural fiber clothes 'cause I just get so many (sometimes quite nice, sometimes not very nice) requests for such things lately:

So I may release some test items through Witch Vamp at some point soonish whenever I have anything good enough to at least put into a sample sale, but I want to start warning everyone now that ultimately natural fiber clothing might end up under a totally separate "sister brand" and not stay a part of Witch Vamp itself.

I think the price point, audience, average customer, and selling points will be different enough (even if there's plenty of crossover at first) that I strongly suspect natural fiber clothing items would do better with their own branding. Recently this hunch of mine was backed up by a business mentor I've just started meeting with, who immediately said "you might want to think about starting another brand for that" when I mentioned that figuring out natural fiber options for clothing is one of the big goals I want to tackle next.

It would still just be me & my bf running both shops, so that means we need to be sure we can handle Witch Vamp with time, money, energy, and braincells to spare before moving forward with a second brand. Just another factor to keep in mind, but I hope you'll all look forward to my new brand venture if & when it does happen!!

[tamrielf]

I noticed you haven't been as active on social media as you were even a few months ago.. is there any reason? I hope ur okay🖤

aw thank you for checking up on me🥺 honestly i've been struggling on and off with my mental health and trying to find medication that works. i've had it switched a couple times recently and even had a super bad reaction to one that landed me in a mental hospital. (well it was a combination of medication and other stuff.)

i think ive finally found one that works but as most psyche meds do, they've been making me act different. i've grown a bit tired of the kind of content i've been making for a long time now. my interests haven't changed at all. i still have the same interests, i'm just bored of the way i've been presenting them and myself if that makes sense😂

idk if bored is the right word. the "aesthetic"/overall vibe of my social media usually reflects the way i feel. and right now when i log on i see all the things i like but its presented in a way that doesn't feel like myself. its still me but i think in the last couple months i've grown a lot now that i've actually taken steps to learn about my newly diagnosed autism and started getting legitimate help for my bipolar disorder.

what it really comes down to is i just need to organize my brain and my pages on here a lot. i plan on revamping my tumblr and all my other social media to fit how i'm currently feeling. but i just haven't felt like doing it because the smallest tasks like that have reaaally been draining me mentally. it fucking sucks. but its been a lot better since i've had a bit of time to adjust to all the changes i've made for myself.

so i'm thinking i'll probably do a big "update" to all my social media either within the next few days or soonish lol sorry its taken me so long to answer ur anon. like i said, i've been mentally exhausted for a long time now and i just didnt know what the problem was until i was able to start thinking more clearly. having bipolar disorder is so difficult. because its both mania and depression. and it makes it extremely difficult to organize my thoughts when i'm struggling. idk if "regular" ppl deal with that but its always been an issue for me.

my content will most likely still be the same. i just might start adding some new stuff here and there and incorporate a lot of the new styles and aesthetics i've been into as of late. and perhaps diversify my content a bit too, because i have a lot of interests and fascinations with many things that i don't even post about online! 🥰

i hope i was able to give u an answer in the least confusing way possible. i'm terrible at explaining things. especially about myself😂 hence why most of the questions i answer always end up being paragraphs 😭

[steppingstonesuniverseguide]

Deleted Scene from One Step At a Time Ch 36: The Curator

I'm going to be posting a One Step At a Time entry soonish and I'm deleting a bunch of things because it got very *silly* and kind of interfered with the whole *vibe* of the chapter. That being said, I do love the silly, so enjoy an exclusive Ch 36.0 from One Step At a Time.

(Also Techno does say a thing that's might come off as way too rude, but, like, Wilbur doesn't mind. He watched his dad mourn him for years. He knows he's wanted and both he and Techno are 100% aware of this.)

“We are we going?” Tommy asked for the 5th time in as many minutes. This trip was always too long even without a Tommy in the car.

"We already told you,” Wilbur said, sounding grumpy. (Probably because he’d been demoted to backseat. Usually, they’d make Phil sit in the back during civilian outings in revenge for all of the years they had to allow him to drive, but Tubbo was also sitting in the back seat and putting Phil back there seemed like a poor decision.) “We’re going to the library.”

“We are not going to the library,” Tommy said. “All three of you brought your costumes and you brought us masks.” He reached forward to poke Phil. “Phil where are we going.”

"We’re going to the library, mate,” Phil said with more patience than the child deserved today. “It’s just a special library.”

“Is it a crime library?”

“It’s a…” Phil said.

“Yes. It’s a crime library,” Wilbur cut in.

“Technically, it does house books considered illegal in current society,” Phil said.

“Like Animal Farm and The Lorax,” Techno contributed.

“What is a Lorax?” Tommy asked.

“We’ll check it out for you,” Techno said.

“Will you read it to me?”

“I promise you can read The Lorax yourself well enough at this point, but I will read Animal Farm to you if you’d like.”

“Anti-government bedtime story with Techno hour is starting up again.”

“Eventually we’ll get to The Communist Manifesto and What is Property?”

“God please, I don’t want to hear any more about 1800s relationship drama between Marx and Proudhon. This is all your fault.” Techno didn’t see it since he was driving but considering that Tommy make a squeaking sound and having sat in the backseat with Wilbur himself plenty times, he assumed Tommy had just been elbowed in the ribs.

He then heard various slapping sounds.

“Boys, please stop fighting,” Phil said.

“He started it,” Wilbur claimed which was not exactly true, but also Tommy had been being annoying for the entire car trip.

“I didn’t start shit. I just asked a normal fucking question about where we were going.”

“You-”

“Tubbo is sitting in the front on the way back,” Techno said just to Phil. “There is no other option at this point. We have to have an adult sit between them.”

“I’m older than you!” Wilbur declared, too close to Techno’s ear. Luckily, they were at a stoplight and Techno could reach back blindly to shove his head back into the backseat where it belonged.

“Phil,” Techno said. “explain to me again why you made him.”

“Tech-”

“Oh, that’s right,” Techno said, glancing into the backseat. “You were an accident.”

“Unlike you,” Wilbur said, “who he consciously decided to adopt as his itty bitty baby child.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you!”

“Boys do I need to turn this car around?”

“How?” Techno and Wilbur said as one.

“This is why we don’t go on road trips anymore,” Phil sighed.

“Yes,” Techno said.

“Exactly,” Wilbur agreed.

“Also, he almost drove us off the Grand Canyon.”

“That too.”

Phil just rolled his eyes and turned to look out of the window.

“Okay, but are we almost there yet,” Tommy asked.

Wilbur groaned. “You’re such a child.”

“I’ve never been on a car ride this long,” Tommy complained. Which… now that Techno thought about it was a good point. They probably should have thought of that before putting him in the car.

“Tubbo’s fine.”

“Tubbo’s been asleep for an hour.”

“We’re almost there,” Techno said. “10 minutes.” Well, it was about 10 minutes to the entrance of the library, but he thought Tommy would probably be entranced by that.

[yeyinde]

with the new season of the bear coming out sunday is there any insight into the richie fic you had planned 😶? If you scrapped it I completely understand I was just thinking about it recently and started wondering, hope you’re doing well!!

i can't believe it's coming out so soon!! 😭 i'm not mentally/emotionally/spiritually prepared for it, tbh! or Richie. godddddd the ending of season 2 kept me up for two nights stressing. this show is stress osmosis, istg. but i'm still working on it! it's 23k and counting lmao. but i might split it into three parts to make it easier to read. part one should be up soonish if i do. probs next week since all i really have to do is edit it and refine the smut.

i added a wee snippet below of their official meeting 🖤

He's wearing a blue polyester tracksuit, one that you didn't think they sold anymore post nine-ninety five, and is covered in paint, dust. 

He stops when he sees you, brows knotting together confusion. Irritation, maybe. A tension falls, settles on your shoulders. 

You smile wide to try and break it, but it just makes him scoff.

"We're closed," he snaps, jabbing his finger toward the flipped sign dangling in the window. "Or can't you read, Princess?" 

The waspish tone makes your knuckles itch. You match ire with anger, and shrug. "I can read, but the door was unlocked, so—"

"So? You just let yourself in? Breaking and entering is real cute—"

"Thank you."

His jaw clenches. The divot between his brow drawing tighter together with his palpable irritation. You want to feed into it. To bask in his annoyance. To etch under his skin until you sit there, festering like a sickness. It's madness, maybe, but fuck. Fuck. You've been looking for something to sink your inches into since you stepped off the train in Chicago. 

He doesn't lash out, though. There's an ironclad control over his fury that sets your teeth on edge, that makes your finger itch with the urge to pull at the seams, at the ties that bind it together. 

It's childish, but you've always liked it best when people fought back. 

"What are you doing here anyway? We're not open," he snaps, and then he adds: "and we're not hiring, either." 

"Is that right?" You poke. "Pete sent me. Where is Natalie?" 

"Busy," he huffs, arms crossing over his chest. "Whaddya want?"

"Someone in charge."

The vein in his temple throbs. "I am in charge."

"Are you, though?"

"Been runnin' this place since before you could eat solid foods, Princess—"

He makes you want to bloody your knuckles on his teeth. 

We all have a breaking point—

Nat interrupts before you can find yours again. 

[atsadi-shenanigans]

Feeding Alligators 56 - This Bitch

Because I am incapable of cross-posting during the middle of the week, here's Wednesday's chapter! Ch. 57 coming out tomorrow: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.

You meet the Absolute.

On AO3.

As Wyll says, the rain ends just about as fast as it started. Y’all head out again, up the hill, when y’all run into another troupe of goblins with a short, purple dude tied up to a spinning windmill. Little dude hollers all the way up, and all the way down.

You’re still drained, so when you catch Karlach clucking her tongue at the little dude’s predicament, you nudge her into talking to the goblins. She basically threatens to crush their skulls between her hands—she leans in all close and heat pours off her and huh, that does something for you.

The goblins leave the little dude—Wullbren—who’s looking for his friend. He lets y’all have his pack in thanks for the rescue. Still no jewelry (you been avoiding looking at Astarion since the shed; it’s horrifying how easy it is to fall back into a friendly pattern with him).

It’s quiet up to the last bridge. Some kinda building rises in a crag through the hill beyond. The brush is burnt and charred, little pockets of embers still gather at the bases of blackened trees. Shitty, shoddy ramparts have been thrown up in that crag gap, and goblins move atop them. They ain’t alone.”

“Are those wargs?” you say. Fuckers look like some kinda hyena-bear mix (what would a half Man-Wolf, half ogre even look like).

Gale shoots you a look. “How do you know what a warg is?”

Same way you know about elves, magic, goblins, and fucking ogres.

“We got stories,” you say. “Made up stories, for us. But here…”

The last part said with a gesture to the ramparts.

Gale’s fingers twitch again. Since he can’t whip out an inkpot and a scroll right here, he inhales, clasps his hands, and says, “I rather strongly request another information session when we have the chance.”

Man wants stories.

“If we ain’t all dead, sure,” you say.

This whole thing might be over by tonight. Or soonish, if Mr. Healer ain’t dead. And after that…

After that, you’re stuck here.

The thought twists your stomach. You look at the group again. All of them with their own lives. Two of them want nothing to do with you (you try not to acknowledge the white fluff outta the corner of your eye). Shadowheart seems nice enough eventually, but she still has her own secret shit going on. Karlach is fresh outta the hells, so your best bet is still likely Wyll or Gale. And you can be of more use to Gale, you think. Wyll seems friendly and heroic, and you doubt he’d leave your ass in a ditch. But Gale is hungry for knowledge (you recognize that look) and you can leverage that.

…maybe he needs a housekeeper? You could do that.

Later. This is all later. Flailing around about it now ain’t gonna help a damned thing.

For now, y’all gotta get past the guard post of goblins.

“Hey Karlach, you wanna go scare our way in again?”

She grins all mean and smacks her fist into her palm. “Aces.”

***

She does, in fact, scare y’all in. Leaves one of the goblins wearing a smear of warg shit all over his face—he started it, so you don’t feel that bad. The trail is muddy, everything smells like acrid piss, and then a fucking voice shoots down outta the sky to thunderclap inside your skull.

It knocks you to your knees. Overwhelming pressure shoves you down. Squeezes your skull. You try to push up (Lae’zel got you to three push ups before she gave up on you), but a new wave comes crashing down and tries to shove your face into the dirt.

Someone curses behind you. The crew is down, too. What—

A voice. Loud. Consuming. A woman? She’s saying something, but you’re seeing flashes of something, of people?

The Absolute, you realize. You know it, like you know your own name or you know you got ten toes. This is the Absolute calling to you, pulling you, forcing you.

She bursts open your head like stepping on a grape. Bursts the others, and you can feel them, too. Stranger thoughts, alien ones.

Mostly panic. This is it. It’s got you. A ghaik enslavement. A foreign goddess. No, no gods not again not again you got away from him—

Your mother standing over you, you all half-naked and crouched on the cement floor with everybody watching, everybody knowing and you grovel outright, the shame clogging your throat, blinding your eyes—

The rage snaps like a trigger. Like an eruption. Hot fury blasts up, shattering fear and panic in a raw, churning plume blowing up the surrounding mental landscape.

No.

No.

Fuck that bitch and fuck them all, you’ll kill them, every last one of them and they ain’t gonna get you, not ever again, you will burn the farmstead to fucking ashes and then burn those ashes to fucking powder—

“Stop!”

A red light blasts through the crushing torment. Cuts through your rage—a flash in the periphery, startled, wary—and the new voice barrels into the Absolute. The pressure clears, the voice whispering before it cuts off completely.

You’re on the ground again. Arms shaking, knees knocking. You take some unsteady breaths and sit up as something flies outta Shadowheart’s bag to plop into your hand.

The fuck?

“Uh,” you say.

But when you turn, you’re getting weird looks. Lae’zel wears pure suspicion, laser-focused on Shadowheart. Who seems torn about something, though she keeps glancing to the spiky ball now in your hands. But the others…

Gale swallows. Blinks something down. “I believe we’ve just met this new goddess, then.”

Fucking bitch pig. Fucking asshole bitch pig.

“And we were saved by a relic of my people,” Lae’zel says, staring daggers at the back of Shadowheart’s skull.

The cleric stiffens.

But Gale cuts between them, as he’s low-key been doing the whole time. “Whatever it is, it just saved us from a psychic bombardment. We must be getting close to this Absolute, and its power will only grow stronger as we do. I have a grave suspicion that without that artifact, we’d be helpless as babes. Best put aside our difference before we sprout full ceremorphosis tentacles, yes?”

Both women stand there a moment. Only once something moves at Shadowheart’s side do you notice she’d grabbed the handle of her mace.

“Agreed,” she says. Gives a mean girl head tilt to Lae’zel. “Or are the gith so proud and blinded as to throw themselves unarmed at their enemy?”

If Lae’zel glared at you like that, your skin’d peel right off. She hisses (good god, your primate brain don’t like that at all) and nods. Once.

“Good. Now,” Gale says. “There’s a goblin camp and perhaps our salvation just ahead. Shall we?”

You let them all settle and set off again. You try to give the spiky ball back to Shadowheart, but she catches Lae’zel watching her like a dingo on a human baby, and shakes her head.

“It came to you,” she says. “You keep it.”

An uninvolved third party. Cause that’s what you wanna be right now.

You pull out your pack to shove the thing in there—the fuck is it? A toy? A music box? A puzzle to summon skin-flaying BDSM demons?

Wyll sidles up as you’re cinching the pack shut again. He’s got something soft in his face when he looks at you.

It immediately lifts your hackles.

“Was that your mother?” he says.

Your mind blanks. Everything goes flat and still, because this? This ain’t happening.

(Your brains were connected.)

Those memories are your own, private shit show and you don’t share.

(They saw.)

You ain’t never told Sasha all of it.

(They saw.)

You ain’t never told any therapist all of it.

(NO.)

“Who was what?” you say.

Karlach stares, too. Her eyebrows crunch together.

“That vision. Or memory,” Wyll says. “I…I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”

Oh, you seen this before. Especially in them early days, when you’d be telling some story and kinda laughing about it, but then you’d look over and catch that face, right there. The veiled horror. The goddamn sympathy. The look of somebody who found a mangy, broken stray on the side of the road, only this dog’s too mean and it keeps trying to bite.

The fuck they’re gonna look at you like that.

You keep your expression loose, your own brow slightly wrinkled—totally in puzzlement and not at all in panic and terror.

“What vision?” you say. “I saw them three people that voice was all attached to? Them fucking…disciples or whatever?”

How much did they see? You felt Lae’zel’s queasy dread, the utter failure that swallowed her when that seemed the end.

Wyll pauses. He’s gonna say something. You know it. But then he just folds whatever it was back underneath a rueful smile. “It must have been part of the attack, then. Think nothing of it.”

And you almost believe him. The way he relaxes. The softness of his eyes. It’s all Wyll, dashing and kind.

But you didn’t get out by believing, and part of you whispers: he knows, they all do, fuck, fuck.

You can’t show that, though. You’re gonna brazen it out come hell or high water.

“Druid rescue, huh?” you say.

And that gets Karlach going again, too. They shuffle off after the others, and you sling your pack up over your shoulders.

You know he’s still standing there. Hasn’t moved or said nothing. But you can feel him watching, so you summon your best bored face (which you been told by a lot of people it looks extra bitchy) and turn.

You don’t say nothing, either. Just watch him watching you. Raise one eyebrow.

Astarion looks…strange. Maybe that’s just his version of thoughtful. It ain’t Bitch or Gripe or Flirt. You ain’t even sure he knows he’s doing it. There’s something different in it, different than all the other times he’s ever looked at you.

He still don’t say a goddamn word. Finally, you lift your arm in an “after you” gesture, and his face buttons back up. He sets off after the others.

And that is entirely too much being perceived for you. Makes your damn skin crawl.

Previous - Index - Next Chapter

[lordfarquuuad]

Every time your fanfic crosses my mind I check tumblr to see if you’ve been active lately and giving little updates about the progress in the tags of posts (sorry if that sounds creepy). I’ve been reading since the start back in 2020 which is WILD because it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. it’s honestly the longest commitment I’ve maintained by my own volition at this point.

Anyway I hope your holidays were enjoyable and you’ve been getting some much needed rest

Thank you for the ask! I will say it's my bad about the lack of communication, I have been using Tumblr less and less as I get older but trust I am still working on the coming chapter! It's over the halfway mark which is grand, but it's is a surprisingly fiddly chapter. So I will say chapter 40 will be out soonish, I'm at the point where I'm pretty confident the next few parts I have to write will be the easiest. Honestly this fic is probably one of the biggest commitments I've made too, it's like 3 or 4yrs old?? I was 22 when I started it and now I'm 25 and it could go to kindergarten.

Regarding the updates I'm just speaking outl loud here and I might take a proper survey in the notes of the coming fic. But considering I don't use Tumblr that much I might consider joining Twitter purely for posting updates/memes/ art and related stuff to this fic. I'll see what the people say and decide from there. But thanks for committing with me to the story. It's given me gray hairs.