#I’ve been thinking about midnight mass again

[roguelov]

do you have any more plans for father paul fics? i am dying over here and need some desperate, yet dominant father paul smut

At the moment no my sweet anon but I haven’t forgotten about our father so maybe later on I might have more ideas for him 🥰

[adabird]

Hii !! I just read your preferences and thought they were really cuteee ~★

If you’re taking requests, would you be able to write a part two of the preferences with the characters: aizawa, tamaki, shoto, midoriya, bakugo, and yo shindo? That is if you write for them, of course. Don’t be afraid to pick and choose which characters who you want to and do not want to write ❕ (I’m so sorry if that was a lot of characters… ☹️)

anyways, i’m greatly delighted by your writing style and very excited to watch your blog grow ❕

— 🤍

(P.S: your taste in characters is AMAZING! and you write them so well?! for sure one of the best i’ve ever seen for all of the character from your preferences)

MHA BOYS PT.2

HEADCANNONS + PREFRENCES

All characters AGED UP! readers BEWARE, there are some NSFW and PROGRESSIVE MOMENTS!

(OMG! It took me like ten minutes to find out to respond, I legit didn’t see the “reply”button. Anyways!)

I was also thinking about making a preferences for the teachers? Like, Aizawa, PresMic, Hawks, All might, Mirko, Midnight? I know Hawks and Mirko aren’t teachers, but I really want an excuse to write them.. Anyways, thank you for the recommendation!)

ALSO! sorry for taking so long to respond I didn’t know this is where the requests went!!

X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X>>X

Bakugou Katsuki-

HEIGHT

Katsuki would really be into the”Height Differences”. Whether you’re taller than him or shorter than him. After he has matured and been out in the hero field for the past 6 years,he’s grown physically and mentally. He’s grown to be more mature mentally, by over coming challenges on the field, and off the field. So when your relationship had started, he had grown less rude, and a tad bit more quieter. His build has also changed, he had gotten bigger, taller, and grown more mussel mass on his body. So, again,when he met you he was about 6’0 and lean. If you’re taller then him, he has the hots for how he gets to grab the base of your neck to pull you into a kiss, and don’t get him started when you lean down to take a picture next to him. MMM. And if you’re shorter, then him he loves when HE gets to lean down and kiss you, and don’t even get him started when you stand on your tip-toes, to grab his cheeks to peck him.

Midoriya Izuku-

LIPS

AHHH OKAY. OKAY. Izuku is really into your lips, just like TSU, he’ll sit down and stare at your lips while you go chatting about whatever subject, or school project you’re doing at that time. He really enjoys inviting you over for study sessions, especially for English class. He loves big lips, small lips, cupid lips, round lips, thin lips, ANY. KIND.He loves when the class is doing a book project, so he can sit and watch you with his puppy dog eyes. He also loves whenever you sit next to him, and kiss his neck while he reads the following passage to you. You drive him crazyyyy..

Tamaki Amajiki-

EYES

MMM! Tamaki is my boy for real. Tamaki gets really jittery because of his anxiety. But when it comes to you, his anxiety always seems to loosen,ESPECIALLY when you two are alone. Tamaki is known for standing in corners, and avoiding eye-contact. However, when he met you, your eyes kept him captivated. Any kind of eyes keeps him captivated.. Small, Big, Round, Almond, Siren, Hooded. It’s all about your eye color. He loves the way they show your emotions, and loves how they shine in the sun.. He loves when you force him into eye contact whenever you talk to him. He gets really turned on by how dominant you can be..

Aizawa Shota-

STRETCH MARKS

GOD. Shota really loves your stretch marks. It all started when you wore a one piece to the private pool. At first you were scared, a little nervous even when it came to taking off your tee. However once you talked it out to Shota, you took it off feeling a bit more confident after the pep-talk you had just endured. He couldn’t stop staring at your stretch marks, at first you wanted to put on your tee until Shota started to speak up. He grabbed your thighs running his hands over your marks. He ended up telling you how turned on he was,and he thought that your stretch marks are extremely sexy. After that day,practically every day after that ended up with Shota next to you caressing and kissing all of your stretch marks telling you how hot you are.

Todoroki Shoto-

VOICE

Shoto bro. Shoto… Shoto really enjoys late night calls with you. He really likes calling you to listen to your voice as it soothes him to sleep. And don’t get me started if you feel insecure, because this man will make sure you love your voice and who you are as a person. AND. especially if someone calls you annoying, that person would come running back to you telling you they were only ‘Messing around’ and hit you with the ‘I didn’t mean to make you upset’, I definitely think Shoto is really protective over you, and makes sure you feel loved.

Yo Shindo-

HANDS

Shindo loves. your. hands. He loves your hands whether they’re big or small. He loves how they wrap around in his hands when he invites you to grab your hand. And he loves how they grip his biceps, and wrap around his back whenever he wraps you up in a hug. He really loves as they cup his face whenever the two of you have your make-out sessions. He really does admire you for your personality, he really enjoys how you involve him into your friend groups. And even his friends LOVE you once you finally meet them..

[espinosaurusrexex]

All the Words I Can't Say

College!SteveRogers x Female!Reader AU

summary: Steve can't help it. He is just so enchanted that all he ever draws is you. Too bad he will never actually talk to you, though - that's too scary. But Bucky always says he has to face his fears some day...

a/n: I have a playlist for College!SteveRogers. It was originally for another fic I’ve written, but apparently I can’t not imagine him awkward and love struck in any college universe. So this serves as a general College Stevie AU vibe :) 

word count: 2.6k

warnings: awkward, love-dazed Stevie, fluff?, swearing, and so sorry (but it's giving slight stalker vibes... it really wasn't my intention he's just so obsessed)

･ﾟ✫* 𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 | 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ｡✭･ﾟ･

He dreams in color. They are the words he can’t say, painted on a canvas.

Blue fades in clear water. Like a feeling warming you for a second, a spark. It’s beautiful, Steve thinks. He loves it when his brush does it. He feels like a wizard when the pigment dissolves into the clear again - as if it had never been there before. Hidden in the masses of molecules, disguised only as long as it stays in its entity. Not too much - too much is never good. 

Another drop lands in the water, but now it starts to taint in washed color. Steve still loves it - it’s still magical. But there is something he loves even more. And it’s right there in front of him - not really. But almost. Depicted in oranges and browns, purples and blues, yellows, greens and reds - your eyes stare back at him with adoration. And Steve’s heart skips. Then it clenches and stops. It always does that... when the admonition flashes in his mind. 

It’s not real.

He has to remind himself too often. But he can’t help it. It’s too comforting to live in his fantasies - warm and safe - all he ever needed. Now it hurts with every stroke he dares. It’s not like he hasn’t done it dozens of times before. A notebook filled with sketches hidden beneath the mattress in his bedroom serves as proof of this. It never does anything other than remind him of what will never be a reality, though. You in his arms, you with love painted on your face for him. 

His thumb strokes over the dried paint on the canvas but a part of his finger still smudges it. Damn it, he hasn’t checked his fingers. Now there’s purple on your face, out of place and destroying - but daring all the same. It looks quite beautiful beneath your eyes, makes them shine brighter, makes your smile softer somehow. 

Steve sighs. The purple streak is going to stay for now. He washes his brushes out in the sink, recapping the bottles of paint scattering the studio he’s in. And before long, he flicks the lights off and locks the door. Professor Potts gave him the key for ‘when he needed to let it all out again’. He needs to show her some work soon.

It’s dark out when he reaches the path to his dorm. Stars shine as bright as they can against the unrelenting city lights. It’s hopeless. Just like Steve’s track of time when he paints you, the stars don’t stand a chance. It’s well over midnight when Steve unlocks his room. Bucky would be up. He has been out, drinking with Sam. But even if he would have stayed home, he probably couldn’t sleep... like always. So, Steve doesn’t bother being quiet. 

“Another late-night date with the canvas?” The brunette peers over his phone, though his eyes hold concern for Steve. He has told him hundreds of times before. Go out. Meet people. Don’t dig yourself deeper into this hopeless crush. But Steve never listened. He likes his hopelessness. And, besides, even if he tried to get over you, he knows it wouldn’t be possible. 

His smile finds the ground before he disappears into the bathroom where his sunken eyes stare back at him. He would be dreaming about you tonight - he always does when he paints you. And he looks forward to it, too. 

❁ ❁ ❁

You pass by him once again. It’s weird, because Steve swears he’s smiling, but his mouth won’t listen. He looks like an idiot. If only he could talk to you - Yeah, no. that isn’t an option. Because just thinking about it makes his heart go crazy fast. It’s scary because you’re so beautiful. And he knows he shouldn’t size himself down to leagues and scales, but how can he not when literally all of college is all about it? Bucky says he should grow some balls and ask you out or leave it be. But here’s the thing: he can’t leave it be - and he can most definitely not talk to you. It’s too scary - too foreign.

His brush dips back into lilac. He embraces the smudge now. Hated it for a while - but then it grew on him. Now it needs more shades. His tongue darts out as he tries to precisely draw along the curve of your cheekbone. He gets a little excited and his hand wants to shake, but he can hold it steady, he has practiced it enough.

Now another stroke. And another. Steve finds amusement in the color pouring onto his canvas. The smudge might have been the best mistake he’s ever made. Then again, there are no mistakes in painting. Accidents are meant to happen. They show the painter what their mind wants to see. 

“Is that... me?” Steve’s hands go flying and the brush throws purple all around him.

Oh no. Code red code red code red - that’s a fucking code red!

You just stand there as Steve flinches with the wooden brush hitting the floor, paint sprinkles covering your face - stunned, silent. This is a nightmare. He’s holding his breath. Really, there’s nothing he can do but hope he won’t pass out from the way your eyes bore into his wide and shocked. Though there is a softness in them still. You’re not angry - at least he doesn’t think so. Maybe, if he’s still a little longer, he’ll just disappear. 

That doesn’t happen. Obviously. Because god hates him.

His mouth opens, but there is not a sound formed by his tongue. He should apologize - he needs to apologize. God, but your eyes look too pretty with the purple accentuating your skin. He’s not even mad about it. He could look at it forever, look at you forever. Not that he doesn’t already do exactly that for the majority of his day. But still. 

“Are you okay?” You blink out of your trance and now Steve is panicking even more. “No need to apologize, by the way, I’m fine. Just got caught in a paint grenade.��� Your eyes wander down your body and now Steve can see the fine blotches of lilac seeping into your shirt. It's white - shit. 

“I-” He’s trying, he really is. But something isn’t working up there. He just short circuits - wires smoking and all. It’s a complete mess. No wonder he can’t talk. And then your pretty gaze - he just needs to feel it and he’s melting away and, oh shit did you just see the painting? There are several stages of disaster but on a measure from failing a test to your mom dying, this is a six on the Richter scale. Why can’t he just say something?

He opens his mouth again and a weird noise escapes his tongue. What the fuck was that? By the look on your face, he can tell you’re just as surprised. But then your shoulders sag and you sigh.

“I shouldn’t have startled you like that, that was my fault. But this,” your gesture towards your shirt, “this is yours.” He swallows thickly, you seem to be really mad about that shirt. “You really speared nothing but that canvas.”

Now his body turns to the project propped up behind him. The canvas, right. You stare back at him, and now that you actually stand so close before him, he’s impressed at how lifelike he made your portrait. He’s surrounded by you, staring him down, but somehow your presence calms him. One last look at the purple smidge beneath your painted eyes and the breath returns to his lounges. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says when he spins back to you.

A small smile is placed on your lips and it reminds him of the series of sketches he made while you were laughing with your friends the other day. “Oh, so you can talk.”

“Sometimes,” he mutters to himself but he’s sure you’ve heard it. He turns to look at the painting again as he curses his carelessness. He can’t even stop you when you step forward to have a closer look at the artwork yourself. It’s too late now, anyway.

You reach forward but halt just in time. Unlike Steve, you didn’t smear the paint on your fingers all over the piece. “It’s very good.” 

Of course, it is. He puts everything in his paintings. All the things he can’t say. And, as he just noticed, that’s a whole lot.

“Thank you.” It’s small but it slips past his lips with ease. He never likes to accept compliments, but it’s different when you give them. He seeks your approval, especially now that you have caught him shamelessly reaping a piece of your privacy with his obsession.

Your eyes sway to him and then back to your portrait, and Steve is enchanted by the way your skin looks when the light hits it just right. He makes a mental note to draw you like this when he gets home - that is if you haven’t forbidden him to do so anymore. But who is he kidding? He’ll do it anyway, it’s an addiction.

His feet take him closer to you, and soon he’s gazing over your shoulder from a foot away, watching you watch the painting that’s looking right back at him. He’s trapped in the gaze he created and it’s taunting him: This is a mess. Then why doesn’t it feel messy?

Steve is so close to you, he can smell your shampoo, the faint remnant of the perfume you put on this morning, probably. It’s intoxicating, it draws him in and he can’t take his eyes off of you. His fingers are itching to touch you. He can imagine his hand moving your collar away to trail kisses from your shoulder to your collarbone - stop it, Steve. His face is heating up and his hands clench beside his body. 

“How long have you been working on this?” You spin around now suddenly, those lively eyes stare back at him, more intense - more real than he’s used to. And Steve can’t handle it, but his body isn’t looking away either. 

“Not that long,” he whispers as his focus lands on a moderate splatter of lilac beneath your eye. It’s not a lie, he’s memorized your features. Steve doesn’t even register your answer, he’s fixated on that little purple drop of color on your skin. It has a hold on him, he can’t do anything. 

“Why are you staring like that? Do I have something on my face?” It’s a silly joke, but Steve can’t tell you that you do. It would risk you swiping it away. And he can’t have that. Not when he wants to do it himself. He can’t do that, though, the purple spot is mocking him. And then, suddenly, like a bystander, he watches his hand move towards your face. He can’t stop it, it’s like an accident - he just needs to look, but he can’t do anything about it either. 

When his thumb finally makes contact with your skin, the world around him freezes again. There you are, so close before him, he’s touching your face, and it’s nothing like he thought it would be. He’s calm - so calm. Why is that? What is wrong with him?

Steve can hear your breath hitch when his fingers settle beneath your ear, his thumb resting next to the droplet of paint. He can finally feel his heart beating again, it’s getting faster now. He moves to wipe the lilac from your face, but he’s betrayed once again. The paint leaves a smudge beneath your eye and Steve is having flashbacks from the night before. 

Now you look just like his painting - his vision mixed with the perfect reality presented before him and he’s not sure, he can handle it. The world seems to spin when you take his hand from your face and look at the color on his finger. Then your eyes flick back up and his gaze locks with yours. Is this really happening? It feels so surreal.

The moment takes over Steve’s brain. It’s like he’s in one of those movies Sam likes to watch. There should be some piano queued in a second and then the main characters lean in to finally kiss in the rain. This won’t happen here, this is reality. But somehow, Steve isn’t so sure about it as soon as he thinks it.

Your eyes are still staring into his, wide, and it’s as if you’re not quite sure what’s happening either. If you feel anything like him at the moment, you must be captivated by the atmosphere that has been built around you. Steve is sure it can’t just be his big fat crush on you. It’s something new, something that just happened - the moment you took his hand in yours. 

Oh wow, you are leaning in. Panic surges up his spine. He can’t do it, not like this. This isn’t supposed to happen. You’re the princess and he’s the rat living in the peasant’s walls. But suddenly you're lips connect with his and it’s so simple, so effortless. He’s questioning everything at this point. Maybe you’re a witch and he’s a black cat. You are a little wicked, after all. And the way this feels - you and him - it’s like you belong together.

The hand that is still holding his guides him to your waist where it’s placed with promise. Steve can feel the paint transferring to the white cotton beneath his fingers but he’s too busy trying not to faint. He has done this before. He knows how to kiss, but he feels like a toddler with training wheels now that he gets to actually taste you. When your hand snakes around the back of his head, however, he regains consciousness. Your fingers press into his skin and he finally moves his lips in unison with yours. He can taste the minty aftertaste of gum on your tongue when he dares to explore it and he’s sinking into you like melted chocolate. Your breath tickles his cheek and when he pulls you a little closer to him, a surprised huff escapes your kiss. 

Then your hand slips from his neck and pushes gently against his chest. He pulls back, dazed eyes staring back at you. He’s yearning for more, whatever this was, and he’s chasing to stay in the universe you catapulted him into for a second longer. 

Your gaze travels over to the portrait again, then back to him and your thumb grazes over his sweater. “You owe me a new shirt.”

“Anything you want.” It’s a husky whisper in which his eyes stay fixated on the movement of your lips. He would say yes to about anything right now. His brain is mush. 

“It’s a date, then.” It looks like you want to nod, but you’re still staring at him with those tranced eyes - Steve can’t get enough of it.

He swallows thickly. “Okay.”

And then you just smile and leave him standing there, longing for a second more of your presence. But you have turned the corner faster than he can register and that’s when reality is setting back into his brain. It’s like he is snapped out of a vivid daydream, but he can still taste the mint on his tongue and he still has the purple smear on his finger. This was real, this actually happened. 

His eyes get caught on the painting once more. Intensely staring back at him with mockery: You’re an idiot. He knows that.

“Shut up,” he whispers to the drying paint on the canvas as he moves to pick up his brush again. But now that he has had the real thing, his drawings don’t do you justice anymore. 

I know it's a little weird, but I like it. I hope you do, too. You are welcome to share your thoughts - reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated. 💙

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[myveryownfanfiction]

18+ MINORS AND THOSE WITHOUT AGE IN BIO DNI

tags: @illiana-mystery, @cassieuncaged, @iobsessoverfictionalmen

warnings: swearing

there were little fake Christmas trees everywhere in camp. Father mulchaey was stringing up popcorn strands anywhere he could. Radar was playing Christmas music over the speakers. Trapper had already gotten his Christmas care package from home. Frank was whining about the midnight mass already and the only person left listening was Margret. Hawkeye had invited me to the swamp to help decorate and go through the care package his father had sent over but I was starting to think of ways to get out of it.

“(Y/N), Hawkeye is looking for you.” Radar said as I paused outside post op. I nodded. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah radar.” I smiled at him. “Just been a long day.” I ran a hand down my face and nodded at him. I made my way to the swamp, hands buried in my pockets. I knocked on the door and Hawkeye opened the door, smiling happily at me.

“hi.” He said softly. He missed me before letting me in. “Package is on trappers bed.” I nodded before taking a seat and rubbing my eyes. Hawkeye went to grab the care package before staring at me. “Everything alright?”

“you’re the second person to ask me that today.” I mumbled as I laid back. Hawkeye took a seat next to me, box forgotten on the floor at our feet. “I’m alright. Just exhausted. And feeling like this year couldn’t be any less christmasy.” I felt Hawkeye rub my leg.

“I know what you mean. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to not seeing snow.” Hawkeye whispered. “And all the decorations don’t do anything to help.” I nodded and Hawkeye laid down next to me, head pressed against mine. “What can I do to make you feel better?” I shrugged and turned to look at him. Hawkeye wrapped his arm around my stomach and pulled me closer as I ran my fingers through his hair.

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “Just wait for this to pass and make sure I don’t get worse.” I offered. Hawkeye nodded and kissed me.

“I can do that.” He said before pulling me up. “In the meantime let’s see what dad sent.” I nodded and helped him open the package. I was surprised to find items in the package for me as well and my mood lifted slightly. Once the box was discarded, I sat with the small snowglobe in my hands. “I guess he knew we were missing the snow.” Hawkeye commented as he went about making himself a drink.

“I guess he did.” I said with a sad smile. “Hey hawk?” I looked up at him. Hawkeye looked at me expectantly. “You ever wonder what would happen if we don’t make it through the war? Not like we don’t return home but like we don’t…” I sighed and looked back at the snow globe. “Last. I guess.”

“no.” Hawkeye shook his head, sitting next to me again. “Because I know we’re going to make it. Once we get back may be a different story. I’ve heard relationships built on shared trauma don’t always end well but there’s nothing stopping us from giving it a go.” I smiled at him and cupped his cheek.

“Sidney tell you that?” I asked. Hawkeye turned his head to kiss my palm.

“nah. Flagg.” I laughed and pulled him in for a kiss. “We’ll be alright. Just you wait and see.” I nodded and curled up against Hawkeye as he laid down. He gently pried the snow globe from my hands and put it on the table next to his bed. “Well make it to see the snow. I promise you.”

[rottenteethkids]

Edited: SPOILERS FOR MIDNIGHT MASS (2nd or 3rd episode, can’t remember)

Thinking about Leeza’s confrontation with Joe in Midnight Mass.

It is, alone, a very powerful scene, but watching it again under the lens of a recently physically disabled young adult; It feels so cathartic. To stand before the person who crippled you and yell, “You stole from me things I didn’t even have yet. You reached through time [, Joe Collie]!” Is so, so fucking real.

I wish I could stand before the universe and scold it over my troubles, how active employment is impossible to achieve between my chronic fatigue and aged joints, how I didn’t even get a chance to save my earnings or engage experience I could flaunt because classic opportunities were ripped from me so young, how I’ve burdened friends who want to spend their prime years in lively activity I simply cannot ascertain, how the expenses hang over my parents heads since I have no finances to ease them. My teenage years are cemented by my health. My good times are made shallow with the trailing questions of how they would be better if I was an average young man. The expectation of a normal relationship has been ripped from my grasp before one could’ve even been made. I wish I could stand before the universe and scream, “You stole from me things I didn’t even have yet!” Though I can not say I’d extend apologies, for I am never going to be healed, and the universe is not fallible as man is. The universe will never have my forgiveness.

Applauds to Mike Flanagan & Annarah Cymone.

[flanaganfilm]

Hi Mike! I created an account just to ask you questions. I’m a huge fan, and I’m a dollar baby filmmaker, I got to adapt King’s story Cain Rose Up. So many questions I’d love to ask you about the adaptation process because from what I’ve learned it’s a tough one. But I’ll just ask this.

Have you seen any dollar baby films? And what do you think of the dollar baby program itself?

I have another question… I noticed after Gerald’s Game your work started to have a different look to it. Cinematography wise. Your work previously was always in 2.35:1 with black bars on top and bottom. Haunting of Hill House all the way to The Midnight Club has been full frame. Was this something Michael Fimognari did or was this your input?

Best of luck with your movie! I'm very familiar with the Dollar Baby program, it's a great thing, and I hope you have a great time. As far as aspect ratio, this isn't quite correct. Michael and I make that decision together project to project for any number of reasons. Oculus, Before I Wake and Hush were 2:35:1 to take advantage of the theatrical experience, but Ouija: Origin of Evil was shot anamorphic and then cropped to 1:85. This was a decision unique to that movie because we wanted to emulate the horror films of our youth. We wanted anamorphic optical quality, but a more contained aspect ratio. We had experienced a lot of horror movies on VHS when we grew up, and a lot of those were shot scope and then crammed onto VHS through a hideous process called "Pan & Scan". It created this strange dissonance where we'd see anamorphic optics in a frame that filled our television sets, so we did a variation on that. Ouija: OOE is probably the only project I'd ever consider handling that way, and it was really fun to do.

Gerald's Game is back to 2:35 again because we preferred the look when we considered Jessie's blocking in the movie (sitting up with her arms fully outstretched). It helped her fill the frame while feeling the claustrophobia of the movie. Hill House was not full frame - in fact, it was 2:00:1 and still had subtle letterboxing. We wanted to go scope but Netflix had an internal policy that wouldn't allow original programming to have an aspect ratio wider than 2:00:1, because they were scared of subscribers watching it on their devices and kicking back on any black bars (this was a very stupid decision on the behalf of Netflix, and they've since backtracked on this). That locked us in to 2:00:1 for Hill House, Bly and Midnight Mass, but that was all about Netflix's policies. I would have shot Midnight Mass scope if they'd allowed us to. With Doctor Sleep, we opted to shoot 1:85 because that's what The Shining was, and strange as it sounds, we wanted them to work together as a double feature. Midnight Club actually employs a lot of different aspect ratios. By this time, Netflix had done away with their dumb aspect ratio rule, and we were free. So we opted to shoot 1:85 for the "A Story" of Midnight Club, so the world felt more ordinary and real, and so younger viewers would have their devices' screens filled. But for the "B stories" that the club members tell each other, we use a ton of different ratios. 2:35, 2:00, even 4:3. For The Fall of the House of Usher, we went back to 2:35. It has a very gothic theatrical feeling throughout. So there you have it - every project is different and we have a thoughtful conversation about what the right aspect ratio will be. There's really no overarching rule at all, now that Netflix's policy has changed. FWIW, Hill House wanted very much to be 2:35. They were wrong to jam us on that.

[duskandstarlight]

The Girl (Part Three)

Summary: Nesta and Cassian start meeting at the coffee shop, but on a Friday night at Rita's, Nesta is someone else. After all, old habits die hard.

Notes: Hi! I loveddddd writing this chapter and I hope you guys enjoy it too. I know you've all been keen for more Nesta and Cassian interaction and you absolutely get it in this one… The pain is still there, though, sorry not sorry (but also it's me, what do you really expect?) Let me know what you guys think! I really hope you enjoy it :)

Part Three: Cassian

Cassian doesn’t forget his phone charger next time. 

He materialises in front of her early one afternoon, all broad shoulders and windswept hair, half of which brushes his shoulders, the other half tangled into a top knot. He waves a hand in front of her face in a way that’s only mildly irritating.

Nesta yanks off her headphones, stifling a frown as the noise of the coffee shop slams back into her. “What?” 

It comes across with a little too much bite and Nesta wishes she could turn back time, force the hands of the clock back a few seconds and try again. But like always, Cassian just sends her that characteristic crooked smile.“What are you drinking?”

Nesta frowns down at her empty cup, the grains of tea leaf at the bottom. “Earl grey and oat.”

Cassian simply nods. Nesta tracks him as he head to the counter. Watches him pay with his phone.

When he comes back over, he simply pushes her tea and a mass of sugar packets across the table. She nods, headphones still on, and he doesn’t bother her. Merely settles down opposite, takes out his own laptop, his own headphones, and starts tapping away.

Together, they work in silence. And when the hours have passed and Nesta closes her laptop screen with a sigh that she wishes hadn’t been so audible, Cassian follows her lead.

This time it’s not raining. The sky has darkened to an indigo clotted with sooty clouds that Nesta thinks is kind of beautiful, kind of moody. It’s the sort of sky she’d write about. The sort of sky that, if she was alone, she’d snap a photo of so she can describe it in vivid detail in the next appropriate book scene. 

But she’s with Cassian, so she doesn’t do any of that. 

“Do you want me to walk you back?”

She does, desperately. Not for his company, but for the safety he brings.

“If you like.”

“I haven’t seen you here in a while.”

Nesta shrugs her laptop bag higher up onto her shoulder and then loops it over her head so it crosses over her chest. The scabs on her back from her midnight tryst have long since healed. “I don’t come here every day.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Cassian hunches over at the cold. Even so, he still seems larger than life when he glances sideways at her. “You write at home?”

Nesta shrugs noncommittally, not wanting to explain that she doesn’t truly write anymore, and Cassian clearly has enough sense not to pursue the conversation.

“I finished Epiphany last week.”

Because Nesta doesn’t know what to say, what to do when anyone confesses they’ve read one of her books - not least Cassian - she just dips her chin. Stares straight ahead at the lamplight pooling on the street.

“It’s my favourite.”

Now, Nesta does turn her head. Examines him, head cocked. Epiphany is notoriously known as her ‘second book’. The book that’s not as good as the first, not as sharp. “Why?”

Again, it comes across too blunt, but Cassian just lifts a shoulder as if he’s searching for the words.“I don’t know. Elodie’s tussle with identity resonated with me, I guess. I’ve spent so much of my life just existing without knowing who I am and I only realised it a few years ago.”

Nesta’s staring at him now, unabashed, unflinching. She can’t stop, even as Cassian keeps his gaze locked on his feet as they track their way across the pavement. “I can’t remember the exact quote. But Purdi says something like…” Cassian searches for a minute, a frown pinching at his brow, but he plunders on anyway, ‘Isn’t it weird that we’re born strangers to our own mind—“

“— People get to know us, understand us, before we even know who we are. Before we even think about it.”

Cassian looks up as she finishes the quote. And as their eyes lock, it strikes Nesta that here - this moment - is the most connected Nesta has felt to someone in a very long time, her late night rendezvous included. 

“Right,” Cassian says, the knot in his throat bobbing. And Nesta knows that he’s giving away a piece of himself, something secret that he won’t get back again, a self-revelation that’s been undisclosed until now. “I don’t think it was until I got into my thirties that I realised I had no idea who I truly was, deep down, without any walls. I was just this… alien to myself.And I think you put it so poignantly. It felt like something just clicked inside of me and I was like oh shit, that’s me.”

There’s so much Nesta wants to say - so much she can’t say anything at all for a while. Until finally, “Do you know yourself now?”

“Does anyone?”

Nesta lets out a huff of a breath that says it’s a fair question. Then, “That thought came to me on a walk.”

Now, Cassian glances at her. In the fading light, his eyes are so dark yet so open. Bottomless and vast. “Oh yeh?”

Nesta nods, swallowing down the instinct to stop talking, to push down the imminent confession that wants to pour out of her. But Cassian has been so open with her and for once Nesta doesn’t want to keep things locked up, not in this moment, not during this rare moment of shared understanding. Not when Nesta feels seen for the first time in a long time. 

“I’d run away to the mountains one week,” she confesses. “It rained the entire time. It was completely miserable but I didn’t care. It matched my mood - felt good even. One day I dragged myself out of the house and went for a hike. I went ambitious, too ambitious really, but I refused to admit defeat and made it up Ramiel limping and covered in blisters.”

When Nesta looks up from the pavement, Cassian is wholly focussed on her, his eyebrows raised in appreciation. “That’s quite the feat.”

Nesta snort is a dismissal. “I’m stubborn.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Cassian comments and it’s with such deadpan that a laugh escapes Nesta without her trying to quash it down. 

Cassian grin is brief and brilliant, before it falls back into something serious. “Why’d you run away, Nesta?”

“Why do you think?”

“Right.”

For a few beats, they walk in silence. But it’s not scary. It’s not tense or something that would mean to speak would be to break it. It just is; existing, quiet. So, Nesta carries on in her own time. “At the top of this mountain, I was looking out at this view and it just… it stretched out for miles and miles. And I realised how small I was, how insignificant. That I was just here in this world for a minute amount of time and I had no idea who I was - but this view made sense to me. It was so crystal clear. So profound.”

“What did you do next?”

“I had this certainty that I’d never had before and I’ve never had since. I just knew what the road ahead needed to be and I made it happen. I went back to the cabin, began the first draft of Epiphany. And then I travelled home, packed all my belongings and moved my life back to Velaris two years ago. I’m a writer, I’m not tied anywhere.”

It’s not entirely true. Nesta had been tied to Tomas. To a house, but Nesta doesn’t want to mention any of that. 

“Back to your roots?”

“Back to the only roots I have - my sisters.”

Cassian’s head tilts slightly and Nesta knows what’s he’s going to say next, what he’s trying to puzzle out. “I’ve only known you for a year.”

They’ve reached Nesta’s apartment building. Nesta presses her fob against the gate pad. “It turns out finding myself wasn’t as easy as realising I had no idea who I was.”

“A couple of steps through the darkness is better than staying put.”

Nesta turns, stares at Cassian. He’s quoted directly from her book again. But all she says is, “Thanks for walking me home.”

“Nesta,” Cassian calls when the gate closes with a clang. “You’ll be at Feyre’s on Saturday?”

Again, the iron bars separate them and Nesta feels safe enough to forego the iciness, the hard-to-get brutal attitude. Instead, she’s just honest. “I don’t know.”

Again, that lopsided smile, as if Cassian knows what she’s just granted him. “I’ll bring my book for you to sign then.”

***

Together, they fall into a haphazard method of meeting one another at the coffee shop. It’s never planned. Nesta doesn’t even have Cassian’s number. But sometimes, on the days she makes herself pretend she is still a writer, when her agent is on her back again for the first draft of a manuscript she absolutely has not written, Cassian slides into the seat opposite her. Removes the bag she’s definitely not placed on the seat to save it for him just in case and places a pot of tea on the table alongside his espresso.

Together, they stare at their own screens. Tap away. Frown. Sigh. Sometimes, Cassian has meetings about complexities Nesta had no idea existed when it comes to running a gym, but it doesn’t bother her. She finds the deep timbre of his voice compliments the scores she listens to. And whilst they rarely converse, they do get up intermittently to replenish each other’s drinks. 

At the end - which is only when Nesta closes her laptop with an internal sigh heavy enough to make her stomach lurch with dread - Cassian walks her home and leaves her at the gate, watching her through the bars as she makes her way safely to her apartment. 

When they are at the coffee shop, they quietly exist like the silence from the other night. It’s unassuming and unrestrictive. Freeing.

But when they’re at Rita’s, they’re something else.

Nesta’s something else.

After all, old habits die hard. 

When it’s Friday night and Nesta heads to the bar, she slips into a different version of herself. Someone who is starting to feel askew but so familiar and habitual after months of practice that she can’t seem to shrug them off. Nesta polishes off a bottle of wine before she gets there and doesn’t stop. Sometimes, things are so hazy the next morning, there are punctured holes in Nesta’s memory. The night before becomes flashes of bright lights and dancing bodies before they fade into writhing shadows only to do it all over again. There’s booming music that makes the floor shake, the smell of tequila that makes her stomach roil. Heavy hands on her shaking hips. A hungry mouth but no face. Panting, hot and sticky on her neck and face. Rolling hips.

Nesta always chooses a man out of the crowd and leaves with him out of principle.

After all, she doesn’t sleep with the same man twice. 

Most of the time, she doesn’t remember the face of whoever she goes home with. Too often, she has no idea what she’s done until she wakes in the morning in her own bed - always in her own bed - sore and tender. Often covered in bruises the shape of fingerprints.

Rarely on those nights does she speak to Cassian beyond the necessary hello. She makes a point of not looking his way. Because at Rita’s, when Nesta is this different version of herself, she can’t deny that being around him is dangerous. At Rita’s, everything has the capability of becoming electrically charged, back to the roots of their first meeting, the ghost of their encounter. Nesta never has to search for the memory of that night. Too acutely, Nesta remembers the scratch of Cassian’s stubble against her face and neck, the coaxing demand of his mouth, his calloused palm running up the column of her throat before it twists to slide up the back of her neck and into her hair. She remembers how he tastes and the exact scent of him.

So, Nesta ignores him as best she can. 

It’s the easiest thing to do. She doesn’t know how to consolidate the version of the Cassian she slept with on that Friday night to the softer version of him in the coffee shop. She knows he’s both, but she doesn’t want to unite the two. Can’t trust her gut, because when she finally let someone in before, he tore her down, brick by brick until she was nothing but rubble.

So, the drinking becomes worse. The men she sleeps with become worse. The quality of her decisions suffer in the face of temptation and Nesta knows it’s a downward spiral but also doesn’t know how to stop.

Until, finally, one night it goes too far. 

Already her memory is patchy. Already, the night is like the flashing lights in the club. One moment it’s dark, the next it’s twisting bodies in blue and yellow and green. One moment she’s sitting on a jean-clad lap, a claiming sweaty palm on her inner thigh. Even in her drunk state, she recognises the gleam in the man’s blue eyes that would have anyone running the other way. Yet she leads him out the club anyway, ignoring the warning signs, too drunk to act on that niggling thought on the fuzzy edges of her mind. 

But Cassian isn’t. 

Nesta is so far gone that she can barely remember her own name, but the sound of his voice is enough. It has her turning and then he’s there. For the most part, he’s a blur in front of her yet there are fragments of time when he’s so sharp he’s all she can see.

“Nesta.”

Cassian doesn’t touch her but his voice in her ear is startling enough that it shocks through the alcohol in her veins, that fuzzy buzz. 

The room spins, straightens. And there he is, leaning down. Cassian’s hand slips into hers so slowly, so cautiously, that Nesta doesn’t want to yank away from him. Instead, she lets herself become tethered and looks up at him to find his hazel eyes simmering.

“Let me take you home.”

It takes too long for her brain to register his words. She wants to yank her hand out of his, but she’s suddenly too unsteady on her feet. If she lets go of him, she’ll fall.

Instead, she digs her fingers deep into his jacket. Leans her head into the coolness of the dark leather. “I’m leaving.”

“You’re too drunk.”

Nesta steps back from him, wanting that distance from his accusation. But she stumbles and then Cassian’s catching her, his hands closing tightly around her as if he’s scared she might slip away.

“This isn’t part of the deal.”

It comes out slurred, pushed together, some letters out of line. 

Cassian’s brow furrows. “Deal?”

“We’re not in the coffee shop. Leave me alone.”

She remembers staggering away. Remembers leaving with the guy she’s chosen for the night, whose just observing them darkly as he stubs out a cigarette with his boot. 

It’s only when she’s in the alleyway pressed too hard against the wall that Nesta realises what she’s doing. That she doesn’t want this. 

She tries to push the man away, but he just grunts, thinking that she’s egging him on. He smells grimy, like old sweat and grease and all Nesta can think about is that he has two fingers inside of her and his nails must be crusted with dirt. 

It’s then that she starts to panic. One moment she was sure she wanted it and now she doesn’t so fiercely that terror sets in. It fills her so quickly, so fast, that she doesn’t realise she’s screaming until she’s screaming. Her lungs ragged, her voice hoarse at the same time that her chest feels like she can’t breathe. Like she can’t get enough oxygen into her lungs, as if they can’t expand properly. As if they’re not working. 

Nesta doesn’t know what happens next. She thinks she pushes the man away from her with a strength she didn’t know she possessed, because she ends up falling hard. A sharp pain steals the breath from her, cutting through the alcohol and the panic, robbing her vision.

When she finally opens her eyes, the man is gone and Cassian is in front of her in a waft of leather and musk.

“Nesta,” he says. But Nesta’s vision is swimming again and whilst his mouth is moving to indicate that he’s speaking, her name comes out muffled, as if Nesta’s head is submerged under water. He’s gripping her shoulders hard, his fingers biting into her skin, his expression full of thunderous concern. And that should ground her, his worry should, but Nesta can’t think of anything but the pain and her desperation to breathe. 

It’s only when Cassian’s hands move to cup her face and his thumb strokes at her cheek does Nesta realises that her vision isn’t blurry because she’s intoxicated, but because she’s crying. 

“My ankle,” she manages to slur through her heaving chest. She tries to indicate where it hurts with her hands, but that only makes her realise that her panties are what caused her to fall. They’re still around her ankles from where they’d been yanked down from underneath her skin-tight dress, before she all wanted it to stop.

And that makes the breathing even harder. The reality of her circumstances even more humiliating. The understanding that she is a mess, an utter wreck, askew on the floor of a dirty alleyway, garbage on the stained concrete around her, questionable puddles and cigarette butts stuck to her soiled heels. 

“It’s ok,” Cassian tells her, his voice suddenly stark and clear, but the frown on his face says otherwise. He’s still cupping her face and Nesta wants to lean into his touch because she’s so tired and he’s being so kind even though she can tell he’s furious beyond measure. “Deep breaths, Nesta. It’s going to be ok.”

“I want to go home.”

“We need someone to look at your ankle, sweetheart.”

That is absolutely not what Nesta wants. She pushes away from him with a strength that catches him off guard. But when she tries to stand, when she tries to put weight on her ankle, the sound that draws out of her comes from somewhere deep, halfway between a gasp and a cry.

The way Cassian grabs for her as she falls is not gentle. His fingers clasp her so hard she feels her skin bruise. But she’s reeling from the pain and then it’s all too much - the excessive alcohol, the agony, the panic.

With her panties still around her ankles, Nesta throws up all over Cassian’s shoes.

After that, her memory comes back in snatches. She remembers Cassian bribing a cab and him carrying her in. She remembers the only thing she keeps repeating is that she needs her laptop which she’d checked into Rita’s cloakroom when she’d arrived and Cassian trying to calm her down. She remembers the sound of a key in a lock. She remembers how cold the bathroom tiles are as she retches into an unfamiliar toilet.

She remembers large hands holding her hair back. 

She remembers lying down in a bed, the pillows soft beneath her head, the duvet crisp. 

She remembers Cassian talking to her, but she’s too drunk to comprehend what he’s saying. 

When she wakes, it’s because light has sliced through the gap in the curtains and her mouth and throat is so dry it’s as if someone has stuffed them with cotton wall.

Head pounding and ankle throbbing, Nesta cracks an eye open to the blurry outline of the bedroom Cassian put her in the night before. It takes a while for her eyesight to correct itself but when it does, what she see’s is not what she’s expecting. 

In truth, Nesta expects a bachelor’s pad. Not that she has any evidence of the sort besides the assumption of the “night-version” of Cassian she has in her head - still single in his mid-thirties and taking women home from Rita’s rather than a serial dater. 

When Nesta had come home with Cassian that fateful night, Nesta had been too preoccupied to glance around. She’d remembered his apartment in Illyria, the borough of Velaris that sits on the northern outskirts closest to the mountains, because it had cost her an arm and a leg to get back to her place. But beyond that, Nesta had only remembered the burn of the fabric couch against her bare knees as she’d straddled his waist, the scrape of his teeth against her neck and his hands sliding from her exposed waist to cup her ass. 

Now, what she see’s has her propping herself up onto an elbow. There’s exposed brickwork and old wooden beams that run in lines across the ceiling. There are rustic wooden shelves stacked with what appear to be mainly business books and old diaries. Leafy tall plants that stand in rattan pots and others that sit on the bookshelves, their leaves trailing down in different shades of purple. 

And to her right, a deep oak desk that runs across the entire length of the floor-to-ceiling arched window. The sun is still slicing through the slight partition in the oatmeal curtains and Nesta finds herself sitting up properly now, even though the mere movement of her ankle against the sheets has her stomach turning, the nausea rising as the pain hits her, deep and wrong. 

But Nesta’s fuelled by curiosity and nothing is going to stop her. That gap in the curtains is calling to her, the dust motes dancing in the stream of light that spans from the window to the bed now an irresistible path. Nesta doesn’t know how she makes it to the desk, but when she draws the string curtains back swaying precariously on one foot, her breath is snatched in an entirely different way.

Forest green. Rolling pine forests immersed in a mist that makes them even more breathtaking. And above those, the Illyrian mountains, their snowy peaks barely visible through the wispy low-lying clouds. 

It’s one of those rare moments, the stillness the view brings. The all-encompassing clarity. The window is cracked open and Nesta smells the air, fresh and clean. She feels and with it she can push the embarrassment of last night even farther back, burying it deep, that humiliation she can’t bring herself to face for fear of the self loathing that will kick in. 

Here, she thinks, focussing on the here and now rather than the wreck she was yesterday - the wreck she still is now. The mountains. The forest. This is it, finally.

She sits down at the desk. Her laptop bag is lying atop it and she takes it out, fires it up. And with the view before her, stretching out for miles and miles - magnificent in its splendour, its natural beauty - Nesta begins to write. 

***

Nesta doesn’t notice the knock on the door an hour later, but she hears the door handle, the creak of the hinges. 

A tray is held between the same hands that held back her hair last night, strapped up her throbbing ankle. Nesta spies a cup of tea with notes of bergamot and oat milk, toast and what she presumes is a bag of ice wrapped in a charcoal tea towel.

Her chest hurts at the sight of it, as if her ribs are creaking under some sort of invisible, mounting pressure. The horror of last night threatens to consume her, but Nesta battles it back, struggles with all her might.

Instead, she focusses on how Cassian stops in his tracks in surprise. One swift evaluation of his expression tells Nesta that he expected to find her gone, the bed made and empty. No trace of her left. Certainly, he hadn’t expected to find her sitting at the arched window, headphones jammed firmly over her ears, her fingers hovering over the keyboard of the laptop he’d saved the night before.

He’d prepared a tray, anyway.

“Morning.” His eyes fly to her laptop and then respectfully flit away just as quickly, settling back onto her face. Suddenly, with their eyes connected, Nesta wants to die of a shame so visceral she wishes she could turn invisible. But Cassian doesn’t mention last night, doesn’t berate her for the excessive drinking and her bad life decisions. The relief hits her so swiftly, so fast, that she’s almost bowled over by it. “How’s the ankle?”

Nesta cuts off the score she’s been listening to and lowers her headphones. “Swollen.”

She thinks it might be worse than that and she’s certain Cassian thinks the same. There’s worry etched between his eyebrows as he tries to catch a glimpse of her ankle hidden beneath the deep desk. 

Eventually, he just nods to the tray in his hands. “I brought you some ice. You should really be elevating it.”

Nesta knows by the tone in which he speaks that he’s not quite sure how she’s managed to get herself to the desk, that she should under no circumstances be walking on it. But Nesta doesn’t know how to explain how the inspiration has hit her, that hum in her blood urging her fingers to write. That she needed to sit at this desk, look at this view, shut out the world and write the words that have dogged her for the past eight months. 

Nesta’s not felt like this since Epiphany. And although she’s experiencing a hangover from hell, it’s fuelling her, somehow. The pounding in her head an insistent, driving beat, the nausea compelling her. And the shame trying to push its way to the forefront drives her to keep typing, because if she keeps going she might just out-write it. Might never have to face what she’s done.

Cassian sets the tray down on the desk beside her with a soft thunk and Nesta wonders how he can be so gentle when he’s so large. “Ok to take a break?”

Nesta wants to tell him that; No, it’s not ok. I can finally write, it’s back, the inspiration is finally here and I can’t let it go. I have to sit here and chase it and hope I never run out of steam if I ever want to be paid again. But then the night before is flashing in front of Nesta’s eyes, and suddenly, Nesta’s reliving it all: the mortification of her panties twisted around her ankles, the humiliation of her throwing up over his shoes, the relief of Cassian’s rough hands as they cupped her face, his thumbs catching the tears as they slipped down her cheeks. 

“We probably shouldn’t move you,” Cassian remarks through her silence. “You’re fine to sit here? Or I can carry you into the living room—”

“No.” Nesta’s voice is sharp, cutting him off mid-sentence. It’s so rude, so awfully abrupt and Nesta wishes she could take it back, both the panic in her voice and her desperate interruption. She takes a deep, steadying breath. “The desk is fine.”

“Alright.”

Cassian brings over a footstool that accompanies an armchair by the bookshelves and pushes it beneath the desk. Together they help to manoeuvre Nesta’s ankle up onto it and Nesta does her best not to make a sound, panting through her nose, grinding her teeth so hard that tears burn her eyelids. 

“Ok?” Cassian asks, as he carefully rolls up the leg of the black sweatpants she woke up in this morning. Nesta’s not wearing her vomit-covered panties, only these sweatpants that are so large they barely hold up at the waist and a large t-shirt that comes down to her knees.

“Mmhm,” Nesta hums, breathing desperately through her nose and trying not to think about the fact that he must have dressed her.

But, again, Cassian doesn’t bring it up. Instead, he jerks his head towards his laptop screen as he continues to examine her foot. “Productive morning?”

For a moment, Nesta just stares at the man before her and is struck with how kind he is, how well he seems to know her despite the fact that they barely know one another at all. In the stark light that floods in from the window, Nesta sees Cassian plainly for the first time. The two versions of him melded together - not the version of him at Rita’s or the version of him at the coffee shop, but both of them, just Cassian  - and realises that she was right: together they make him so attractive it’s dangerous.

Yet, she keeps staring at him, even when he presses his calloused fingertips to the swollen skin and she hisses. She clocks the scar that cuts through his right eyebrow. Follows the dark curl of a tattoo that finishes just behind his ear. Watches the way his wild ebony hair glints in the morning sunlight.

He smells of sleep, musk and ground coffee. 

When Cassian glances up at her, Nesta realises that she hasn’t replied. That amidst his hazel eyes, there are shards of gold. “The view is good here,” is all she finds she’s able to say, but recognition flares in Cassian’s eyes as he sits back on his heels.

“It makes sense to you.”

“It does,” Nesta agrees. 

“It’s why I bought the place,” Cassian confesses after a moment. Gently, he presses ice to her foot, holding her firm as she jerks and hisses on instinct. “I like being by the mountains.”

They’re still skirting over last night but it hangs in the air above them like a raincloud. All of those unspoken words, the anger she’d seen clear in his expression when he’d found her in the alleyway, the man with his fingers inside of her, his breath sticky on her neck.

Nesta presumes the man ran off when she’d started to scream. 

And all of that suspends above them. Nesta knows its only a matter of time before the cloud spills open and everything rains down on them. 

But to Nesta’s surprise, Cassian abruptly stands.  

“You can keep writing, if you like,” he tells her. “I’ve got a call to make."

***

Cassian is gone for over an hour and in that time Nesta writes better than she’s written in eight months. It’s not all fully formed. In fact, it’s a bit all over the place. Snippets upon snippets of inspiration driven by the emotions and seeds of thought roiling about in her chest. Here, with the pine trees, the snow-capped mountains and the different blues of the silhouettes of the mountains behind them, Nesta can finally unwind. 

Her hangover is still raging with a vengeance, the nausea a roiling sea inside of her stomach, the back of her throat, but she uses it as a driver rather than an excuse. If last night happened, it has to mean something.

But then she knocks her foot.

It happens within seconds. Nesta only has time to grab for the waste paper basket before she’s emptying her stomach. In the back of her mind, she hears the door open and Cassian come back in, but she’s retching and for once she doesn’t hate throwing up because all she can focus on is the pain that is so sharp it steals her breath.

When she’s done, she spits into the bin. Drags one hand through the hair that became an unfortunate victim of her sick and pushes it back. 

“Perfect timing.”

Nesta gives Cassian a half-hearted hiss and tries to breathe, tries to gather herself again but the pain radiating from her swollen ankle too much. She bends over again, empties her stomach into the bin.

There’s a brief pause as Nesta coughs and gags. Then, “Hold on, sweetheart,” and Cassian is carrying her into the bathroom, his grip firm yet gentle.

Nesta manages to hold on until he’s deposited her in front of the toilet. Then she’s throwing up again until she can’t throw up anymore.

“Tea and toast didn’t settle the stomach then.”

Nesta is too busy gasping to snap at him - or to care. Cautious of her ankle, she twists herself around until she can slump against the bathroom wall, her leg stretched out in front of her. She’s covered in sweat, Cassian’s t-shirt damp and sticking to her chest and there’s vomit burning the back of her throat and nose. But whilst her skin feels like it’s on fire, her ankle feels like lava. She swipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. “I knocked my foot.”

Cassian flushes the toilet, closes the lid, sits on top of it.

And Nesta knows from the intentioned way in which he moves that he’s about to bring up last night. Panic should be a wild, living thing in Nesta’s chest but she’s too poorly to feel it. Instead, she tilts her head back onto the cool tiles and announces hoarsely to the ceiling, “I have a proposition.”

Her words have Cassian taking stock. For a few seconds, all he does is study her. Nesta knows, because his eyes are burning into her, marking her like a tattoo needle inking her skin.

In the periphery of her vision, Nesta see’s Cassian lean forward until his elbows are resting on his knees.

Nesta rolls her head until she’s looking directly at him, right into those hazel eyes. “It’s not sex.”

“Disappointing,” Cassian drawls. A light glints in his eyes but quickly dies and Nesta knows that he’s still concerned. Knows that he’s just acting the part with her, unsure of his next move in the game they’re always playing.

“I want to pay for your spare bedroom.”

This time, Cassian can’t hide how thoroughly taken aback he is. But he doesn’t straighten although Nesta can tell that he wants to. “You want to pay for my spare bedroom?”

Nesta claws her hands through her knotted hair and tries to concentrate on taking deep breaths. “That’s what I said. I want it.”

Cassian continues to watch her as he tries to read her, tries to understand. His words are slow as if he can’t quite comprehend them. Knows they can’t be right. “You want to live here?”

A soft snort. “Absolutely not. I want to write here. With that view, specifically.”

Nesta lowers the hand she’s waved in the direction of the bedroom. Even that movement is too exhausting for her. She feels spent. Bled dry.

Cassian stares at her a fraction too long in the subsequent silence.

“And I’ve made him speechless.” Nesta rolls her eyes. “Am I computing?”

Rolling his eyes to mirror her, Cassian snickers. “Very good, sweetheart.”

Nesta looks back at the ceiling. The nausea is rising again and she focusses on breathing for a moment. Says finally, “You don’t have a roommate. I need somewhere to write my book. It’s a good fit.”

“The coffee shop not working out for you?”

Nesta cuts her gaze back to his, serious now. “Would I be asking you if it was?”

For a few heartbeats, two ticks of a clock, they stare at one another. Then, Cassian says, “How about this. You don’t have to pay for the room at all, but on two conditions.”

Nesta cocks her head at him, pushing down the fresh wave of nausea that rolls through her. “Out with it.”

“We go to the hospital and have someone look at your ankle.”

It’s the last thing that Nesta wants to do, but she can no longer deny that it’s just a small sprain. Even with it stretched out in front of her, without her moving an inch, the pain is unparalleled.

“Fine. What’s the second?”

That muscle flecks in Cassian’s jaw again. Then, even though he’s looking directly at her, something shifts in his eyes, hardens, and Nesta almost wants to shrink away at the scrutiny of it. If Nesta wants to, she could read that expression, could admit what it means.

“Stop taking men home who I want to punch in the face.”

Her insides immediately scald with a mixture of shame and fury. But then Nesta thinks of the man’s damp breath on her neck, of his sour-smelling body pinning her to the wall. Nesta thinks of the bedroom she woke up in this morning. Of the laptop full of words that aren’t off kilter but right.

It takes her a moment to collect herself. To be able to scoff and go bold. To pretend his request hasn’t touched her at all. “Isn’t that everyone?”

Cassian’s concrete expression doesn’t so much as crack. “When you drink you make bad choices. Or do you drink to make bad choices? Whatever it is had you in quite the predicament yesterday.”

They’re going there, then. There’s no outrunning it now. And Nesta wants to open her mouth, to vocalise how if he hadn’t been there she’s not sure what would have happened to her. That she thinks he might have saved her from something she couldn’t go back from. But she can’t get the words out.

Cassian reaches towards her as if he’s going to touch her, but he stops himself at the last minute. He’s no doubt thinking of the times she’s recoiled from him and he’s no way of knowing that Nesta wouldn’t have leant away from him this time. That she would have welcomed his hands on her face again. 

“Did he hurt you, Nesta?”

His voice is quiet, soft but there’s no denying the intensity he’s trapping beneath it.

“No,” Nesta replies honestly, but she can’t look at him when she says it so she fixes her eyes on the wall opposite. On the sharp corner of a photo frame that’s hung on the wall — a lethal, arrowed point — so fiercely that it hurts. She thinks of the way her throat had closed up in that alleyway, how she couldn’t breathe. How the panic that Nesta tries so desperately to run from every day had consumed her once again but when she’d been drinking this time. That had never happened before. Normally, when Nesta was out at Rita’s she purposefully drank so she felt nothing at all, so she could finally breathe without fear.

“I just…” she continues when Cassian keeps watching her, searching for the words to try and explain whilst not really explaining at all, “didn’t want it anymore.”

Her words fall into silence. Cassian’s jaw clenches, the muscles straining and Nesta can’t bear to see that look on him, so she adds, “I couldn’t breathe.”

There’s a rustle of fabric as Cassian sits back. “Ah.” 

“It doesn’t usually happen at Rita’s.”

Time passes as Cassian studies her. And Nesta can almost hear him putting the pieces of her life together, the shameful way in which she tries to control the uncontrollable. “That’s why you drink so much.”

“No.” She snaps the lie and grows furious when Cassian merely raises an eyebrow at her. He doesn’t believe her and she hates that he can see through her, can dissect her so easily when no-one else has managed before.

He leans forward again, his elbows resting back on his knees. And Nesta has the uncanny feeling that the balance has shifted in his favour, that’s he’s calling the shots. “Do we have a deal, Nesta?”

No, Nesta thinks bitterly, out of instinct. Fury is still heating her insides at the audacity that Cassian not only thinks he can control this situation but understand her motivations. But… Nesta can’t afford to say no. If Nesta fails to hand in her first draft, she doesn’t get paid. She might lose her publisher. She’ll have to move out of her apartment and get a job that she hates.

And… there’s something at the back of Nesta’s head, a voice that tells her that this could be the out she’s after. The hand reaching out, guiding her back to something better.

But she doesn’t want to think about that now, not really, when she’s covered in vomit and her ankle is bleating agony. 

So, Nesta stretches out her clammy hand between them despite the anger hot and roiling in her stomach. Watches Cassian’s eyes widen ever so slightly, the only hint of his surprise.

Callouses scratch at her palms, but Cassian’s grip is strong, his skin warm. 

And with that one clasp of their hands, the deal is struck.

Tags (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @arinbelle @superspiritfestival @sayosdreams @perseusannabeth @mylittlebigplanet @biggestwingspan-az @bellsqueen @ekaterinakostrova @bookstantrash @prophecyerised @rainbowcheetah512 @lovelynesta @melphss @laylaameer01 @a-trifling-matter @fanboy7794 @thalia-2-rose @champanheandluxxury @swankii-art-teacher @lavendergoomsltd @princessofmerchants-reads @jeakat @imwritingthesewords @nestable @inejbrekkxr @silvernesta @amelie775 @helen-the-weirdo @pizzaneverdisappoints @wishfulimaginings @trash-for-nessian @my-fan-side @sophilightwood @valkyriesupremacy @vidalinav @onceupona-chaos @inardour @thesunremembersyourface @teagoddess99 @nessiantrashh​ @miamorganvel18 @kawaiteacup @nestaa-stan

[augustghosts]

How do I summarise this one? I don’t even have a title for this one lol. Um, I was rewatching midnight mass and I almost wrote a priest tommy au…. Perhaps I already did write it, but perhaps that's for another day. I’ll just test the waters with this one for now. This actually gets kinda fluffly lol. Hope you like <3

@chaithetics thank you for the kind words u left on my post earlier, grateful for u! mwah 🫶

Word count: 2.8k

Warnings: 18+, f!reader, reader is an adult of course, established relationship. talk of god and church and stuff. Slight corruption kink is you squint. Oral f and m receiving, unprotected PinV. Lots of pet names. Not proofread as always.

“Is this not a sin?” Tommy jokes as he parts from her, his lips plump and kiss swollen. She looks the same as she looks down at him, her warm palms on either side of his face - her thighs straddling his lap as his couch creaks beneath them.

“What do you know about sin, Tommy?” She asks, her voice low and sultry. He laughs and tries to kiss her again, but she grabs his hair and pulls his head back.

“Tell me.” She whispers.

“Fuck, darlin’ I don’t know. I’ve not been to church in years.” He sighs, her fingers in his hair makes his hands tighten on her hips, pulling her tightly against him. Making her hips rock slightly against his, he’s already hard as fuck, his erection straining painfully in his jeans. He can feel how wet she is through the fabric, they’d been teasing each other on this couch for a good half hour.

“I know. I’m there every Sunday, sometimes more.” She leans closer, her lips right beside his ear. “Thanks to you, I know all about sin.”

“Are you saying I corrupted you, baby?” He groans as her lips press to his neck, her hand is still in nis hair - his neck delightfully exposed to her.

“Maybe.” She smiles against his skin. “As long as you confess your sins, you will be forgiven.”

“Do you?” He asks, his voice is strained. Her mouth is now sucking on his sensitive skin clouding his mind. “Do you walk into your fathers church, get on your knees and pray? Do you tell god what we do and beg for his forgiveness?”

Tommy doesn’t really know what the fuck he’s talking about. He can feel his resolve slipping and he is desperately trying to keep his cool. The effect she has on him is like no other. It's Sunday today, it’s mid afternoon and the warm sun is streaming through the windows of Tommy’s living room. She’s dressed in her tight little church outfit, that tight little skirt that's now been pushed up to her hips. Her white blouse, the top few buttons have been ripped open exposing her bra, her cleavage is right in his face but her grip on him is still holding him back from it.

“Not exactly,” She giggles, “I can tell you haven’t been to church.”

“Baby, the only reason I would step foot in there would be to stare at you in these little outfits.” He says, his eyes travel to her chest and she lets go of his hair. His lips immediately latch on to her neck, returning the favour.

“Don’t leave any marks, Tommy.” She moans as his hands pull her hips forward again, her clothed pussy dragging against his denim covered cock. He was getting real sick of these layers between them.

“I know,” He says. “I know the drill, honey.”

As if she had read his mind, she quickly undoes the remaining buttons on her blouse and throws it somewhere beside them.

“I think I would feel guilty if I went to church.” He says as her hands begin to push his own shirt up, encouraging him to take it off, he does before continuing. “I would feel guilty about you, about how much I’ve taught you. About how much I want you. About how much I shouldn't want you.”

His beautiful brown eyes search her face, taking in every little feature that he loves. He knows this is a risk, he knows it’s potentially a lost cause. He knows you can’t be seen with him and sometimes it breaks his fucking heart. “But I do want you, I’ve wanted you for so long.”

Her mind has always had trouble comprehending that he wanted her. Her face flushes at his words. Tommy was the first man to ever make her feel like this. Tommy was all she had ever wanted. She knows their future, she just tries not to think about it.

“Me too. I need you, Tommy. I’ve always needed you.” Her hands trail from his neck to his shoulders, slowly moving them to rest on his chest. Now his shirt is gone she can feel his heart beating under her palm, its beating fast and the thought that she does this to him is incomprehensible. She leans in to kiss him again, his large hands are still exploring her waist and back, his fingers now playing with her bra - slightly struggling to undo the clasp.

“Come here, I wanna make you feel good, baby.” She shivers from his words and a soft moan leaves her lips when they meet his again. He cups her jaw in his large hand bringing her mouth down against his. For her, nothing is better than this. Whenever she’s with him - everything feels right. His fingers dig into her hips hard enough to leave bruises and she loves it. No one has ever touched her the way Tommy does. Their kiss quickly becomes a mess of tongues and teeth and Tommy sucks her bottom lip into his mouth. She whines and rolls her hips down against his.

“My room?” Tommy asks, “I wanna fuck you in my bed this time.”

He’s sick of the couch. When she giggles and nods he stands up with her still in his arms. Her legs wrap tightly around his waist, her arms clutching his neck. Once in his room, he lays her down on the bed. She sits up on her elbows as she watches him click the door shut.

“Can i suck you off again? Please?” She asks as sweetly as she can. She swears she sees his eyes dilate.

“Fuck, baby.” He mumbles as his hands fly to his belt. “You know I can never say no to you.”

As if he would ever turn down a blowjob. She crawls to the edge of the bed, kneeling in front of where he’s standing, she helps him to pop the button open on his pants and shove them down his legs along with his boxers. Tommy’s cock is ridiculously impressive. She moans in anticipation of him stretching her open again, but for now all she wants is to taste him. She’d never given a blowjob before meeting Tommy, and she remembers the look in his eyes when she had asked him to teach her. She’d sucked him off a few times now, and she loved the praise he always gave her. She spits into her hand, wrapping her hand around him and sliding her hand over his length a few times. When she looks up at him his eyes are closed and he’s biting his bottom lip, it's a beautiful sight. A bead of precum forms on his slit and she licks it off.

“Shit, that's it sweetheart.” Tommy swears quietly. After a few more kitten licks to his tip, she knows he likes to be teased a little. She takes his head into her mouth, swirling her tongue around his sensitive tip. She bobs her head a few times, taking him further and further each time. It’s his turn now to work his fingers into her hair, using his grip to help guide her head.

Tommy’s moans are so hot that she’s pretty sure she could cum from just listening to him, and from the taste of him. She squeezes her thighs together - some relief as she keeps up a steady pace. She decides to do something she had never done before and tries to take him to the back of her throat. She works slowly and Tommy’s mouth falls open. A heavenly moan leaving his mouth as she gags around him. Tears prick at her eyes as she pulls off of him to catch her breath, smirking up at him before taking him into her mouth again.

“Oh my god, baby.” He moans. “Fuck, you’re gonna kill me.”

He pulls her head back using his makeshift ponytail that he's wrapped around his fist. Her eyes are wide and innocent as she looks up at him and he almost busts on the spot.

“As much as i would love to come down your throat, baby. I wanna fuck you. Get back there.” He says pointing to the pillows at the top of the bed. She smiles up at him and shuffles back to lay on the pillows. He climbs up to join her, connecting their lips again as he hovers above her. His strong arms holding himself up on either side of her head. He undoes the button on her jeans, and she lifts up her hips to help him slide them off. He tosses them to the floor and begins to press kisses to her leg, starting at her ankle. She’s trembling under his touch as he continues up her leg until he’s kissing the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh. When he gives a bite to the meat of her leg she squeals his name. All she wants is to kiss him again, she tries to pull his head up to hers but he resists, his nose nudges the edge of her panties and he looks up at her with his gorgeous eyes. A classic Tommy smirk gracing his lips.

“Can I taste you, baby girl?” He asks and she nods enthusiastically. Her voice feels like it's gone so all she can do is squirm and buck her hips. He hooks his fingers into the elastic of her panties and they’re soon joining the pile of clothes on his floor.

“Such a pretty pussy.” He mumbles, while he spreads her legs a little wider to give him a better view. She helplessly whimpers as he stares at her sex, feeling vulnerable in the best way under his gaze. He slides a finger through her folds and she’s already so fucking wet that she can hear it as he collects her arousal with his hand. “Fuck, always so wet. All for me, baby?”

“You know it’s for you.” She sighs, “Always for you.”

His finger finds her clit and her hands fly to his shoulders, her hips chasing his hand and arching off of the bed.

“Fuck baby, don’t hold back, okay? I wanna hear you.” He groans. His head dips down and he runs his tongue flat along her pussy. He does it again, his nose catching her clit on the way up, making her fingers squeeze his shoulders. His tongue goes from flicking over her bundle of nerves to teasing her hole and she moans his name, earning a groan from him which vibrates against her pussy. He slips a thick finger inside of her, gauging her reaction before adding another.

“God I can’t wait to fuck you baby.” He whispers as his fingers slip inside of her easily, her warm walls gripping his digits. It doesn’t take him long to bring her to the edge, her fingers are now sliding over his scalp.

“Please, Tommy. I want you inside of me.”

“I wanna feel you come around my fingers first, baby.” He says, “I know you're close. Come for me honey, and I’ll fuck you so good. I promise.”

“Shit. I’m coming! Oh my god!” She moans loudly. Tommy can feel her walls spasming against his fingers, he quickly replaces them with his tongue so he can lick her through her orgasm. She continues moaning his name like a prayer as she comes down from her high.

“God?” He laughs as he crawls back up to her face, his mouth covered in her slick.

“What?” She asks, a little delirious.

“You said ‘oh my god’,” He reminds her and tuts playfully. “What would daddy think?”

“I don’t care.” She sighs, the only thing on her mind is how close his cock is to slipping inside of her.

“Woah!” He laughs at her words, “That’s naughty, baby.”

She rolls her eyes and pulls him down to kiss her, tasting herself on his lips. She whines against his lips, shit - she enjoyed that. And he senses it.

“What? You like that?” He asks, his hand coming up to her chest to grasp her breast. His thumb slides over her nipple as he speaks. “You like it? You want me to call you a naughty girl?”

She brings her hands up to cover her face, her cheeks heating up in embarrassment. Tommy decides to leave it, for now. But he will definitely be revisiting that later. He presses a kiss to her cheek instead, smiling against her warm skin.

“It’s alright, baby. I’ve got ya’.” He whispers in her ear as he rocks his hips up against hers, his painfully hard cock rubbing up against her soaked folds.

“I need you, Tommy.” She moans, “I wanna feel you.”

He groans at her words, he’s not sure when she got so good at talking like that. But it starts a fire inside of him and he feels his cock twitch. He reaches down and grabs his length, coating himself in her slickness as he rubs in between her folds. She lets out small breathy whines as the head of Tommy’s cock presses against her entrance. He swallows the sounds with his mouth kissing her and bracing himself on one forearm as he pushes into her heat. Her hands grasp his biceps, her nails digging into his soft skin.

“Shit, honey.” He mumbles against her mouth, letting her delicious, warm pussy pull him in. “You’re so fucking tight.”

Tommy presses his forehead against hers as he stills, giving her a moment to adjust. Tommy always gave her everything, he was always so sweet.

“Shit, Tommy.” Her moan has him twitching inside of her, he’s finding it hard to keep his cool with the grip of her warm cunt and he softly grinds into her.

“Oh, please. Please fuck me, Tommy.” She whines, looking up at him with such an innocent expression that he suddenly feels like he isn't going to last very long. He begins to move, hard but gentle thrusts, hitting the perfect spot that he knows so well and she moans into his shoulder. Feeling every drag of his cock against her walls. She’d never been with anyone like this before, but this was Tommy and everything you’ve ever wanted. She was prepared to do anything for him.

He drops his head down into her neck and groans, his noises make her clench around him. She wraps her legs around his waist, clinging to him - trying to get as close to him as she can. She wants every inch of her skin pressed up against his. She wants to be like this forever, if possible.

“You always feel so perfect, baby.” He moans. “So heavenly.”

She giggles at his choice of words. When his cock hits just the right spot, she gasps his name and her arms tighten around his neck. Tommy is watching her, as always - he keeps hitting the same spot when he sees her reaction.

“Yeah?” He coos, wanting to hear her voice.

“Feels so good, Tommy.” She whines, “Always so good.”

“My sweet, perfect girl.” He sighs, leaning down to press a kiss to her jaw. “You want me to fill you up, baby?”

“Please! Fuck, I’m close.” She whispers. Tommy’s fingers dip down to play with her swollen clit.

“Come for me, baby. Let me have it.” Tommy says as he starts to rub her clit faster. Her orgasm crashes over her, her pussy clenching around him sends him over the edge with her. Her cunt milking him as he groans her name. When both of their highs come to an end, he drops down next to her. Burying his face in her hair and nuzzling his nose against her ear as they both catch their breath.

“Tommy?” She whispers.

“Yeah?” His eyes are closed as he answers her.

“You are not a sin, by the way.”

He perks up, leaning on one elbow to look at her. A sad smile on his face.

“Never.” She adds, reciprocating his smile.

“Thank you, baby.” He says, his hand coming up to cradle her cheek. He doesn’t really know what else to say. But he knows that she means it.

“We’ll be okay.” He whispers, cuddling back up to her again. She answers him with a small hum. Her mind reeling with everything she wants to tell him - maybe next time.

[vestaclinicpod]

Audio Drama Sunday - 23rd July ✨

This week has been such an amazing week of listening! I’ve found three new shows that I absolutely adore and I can’t wait to tell you all about them ✨

Spoilers ahead!

🌲@hellofromthehallowoods (126) FIRST OF ALL 🚗🚗🚗 BEEP BEEP GET IN LOSER, WE’RE GOING TO GET MOTH 🚗🚗🚗 So glad to hear from you again, Ray!! This line: “the devil’s a better man than I am” had my eyebrows disappearing into my hairline and that’s all I’m going to say at this time. It’s always a risk listening in public, because the scene on the beach made me want to cry a little. I hope in my heart that they’re all going to make it out of there but I have no idea how right now! 

📻 @monstrousagonies (106) the first letter this week made me laugh so much! I was fully expecting the ‘moocher’ to be a brownie or someone like that, so it was a fun surprise to hear of a demonic midnight snacker! I may have to use that excuse when my baked goods don’t turn out so baked or good . . .  

🎞  Tiny Terrors (021) What a welcome VA jumpscare from Mx Wellman!! I loved the story (I, too, would feed the mega-toad to make it happy) but the surrounding footage was really creepy... I sure hope the gang goes to investigate the Riverside Institute. What’s the worst that could happen?? 👀

🌍 OOH the most recent episode of @lastechoespod was genuinely empowering! The political pressure the Archivist is under seems to have ramped up this ep, and reading @skyfullofpods’s thoughts on it last week makes me want to listen to it all again with fresh ears! 

🧛‍♂️ @re-dracula What a great week! Alasdair Stuart nails it as the Captain of the Demeter. His voice in the first ep is the calm surface of the sea, hiding the teeming mass of life and death below. The Renfield arc honestly unsettles me so much, but I, too, would love a kitten if there’s one going spare … 

🧬 Regina Prime (ep 4) The revelations!! I loved the sound design of the getting ready montage in this ep but I loved the lore drop even more! 300 clones?! And cloning is something that’s happening commercially? Damn. The last line actually made me grin, Epsilon is quick-witted and brave (or stupid!) and I like her a lot. Every episode I get more enthralled by this show and everyone needs to be listening! 

 💫 Wolf 359 (20-22) Hot damn. The tension aboard the Hephaestus is something else… the paranoia is written so well, you’re listening with your most suspicious face trying to unpick it and getting nowhere. I love how I have no idea where this is going but I know the ride is going to be BUMPY. 

🎩 I started @ethicstownpod this week and it deserves ALL the hype. The show uses a well-loved audio drama trope to bring us a very interesting new story. The writing and voice acting are spot on from the get-go, and the sound design choices feel fresh despite the radio format. Most podcasts make me feel, but this one makes me think as well! I really love it!! I’ve been following the development of the show on Tumblr for a while and I remember the creator being so excited about January’s VA and yeah, I totally get it. Amazing. Hard to believe the role wasn’t written for him. 

SPOILERS: I love how the main ethical issues are presented while January currently seems oblivious to the ethical quandary of keeping important information from someone and who has the right to make that decision . . . ALSO Artemis and Grace are very close in age . . . imagine if they became friends . . . and then Artemis found out . . . . HOO BOY. 

🥾@doyoucopypod The first two episodes are very promising! In the first ep, the pod-within-a-pod recording leads to some fun & cheesy dialogue which contrasts well with the jaded but wary interludes from [REDACTED]. I love a spooky woodland mystery and I’m really hoping for a Blair Witch style descent into terrifying found-footage chaos! The second episode really tugged on the old heart strings. I need a Does The Dog Die for this show bc I’ve had Wilson for 8 minutes but if anything happened to him I’d make that Dead Zone REALLY much more dead-er. 

🏴‍☠️ @levianpod This show has dropped its anchor right into my heart!!! DAMN. I’ve listened twice this week. I can’t recall the last time I was so immediately ALL-IN for an audio drama. I mean, firstly, that cover art is GORGEOUS. I genuinely think this show has it all, there’s LORE, there’s spiciness, there are sea captains who are also sea monsters (a GIFT for the wlw, thank you 🙏), there’s a teenage romance gone WRONG. Then there’s the voice acting!! Incredible performances right out of the gate. It’s safe to say that I am OBSESSED. Why are you still here? Go fucking listen to Levian. 

🎧 In the most recent ep of The First Episode Of, W Keith Tims talks to Packhowl - a creator I greatly admire. I love these interviews! It’s so fascinating to hear how other creators came to audio drama and it’s shed some of the brilliant The Madness of Chartrulean in new light for me. I miss grumpy space Jesus. 

That's it from me! PLEASE go listen to Ethics Town, Do You Copy and Levian!!

[la-principessa-nuova]

on Monday when i was trying to avoid using tumblr but couldn’t get the things done i meant to, i was going through some old accounts and updating my name/email/etc

and i came across instagram

and like, i was never super active on there. i posted my art for a few spurts and one year i was posting a bunch of photos i took one week in the summer over an extended period of time

but really i’ve never actively used it

which means it’s also the only account where i never did a mass unfollowing of people from high school and college, so i still follow a bunch of people from back then and vice versa, and some of my closest friends from then are on there.

so anyway i went to go see about downloading my data and deleting my account, and i realized (i don’t know how consciously at first) that it was sort of like the one way i could like actually come out to my high school friends.

so i decided instead of deleting it, to private it and update my name, and then i archived all the posts that had my face pre-transition or my deadname in them.

My deadname only appeared in the text content of one post where I quoted my mom saying “<Deadname>, can you <help with something>?” which was easy to fix by just starting the quote at “can”

and I hid one comment bc a friend called me “bud”. I remember feeling uncomfortable about being called that at the time and wanting to respond but feeling awkward because of that word. Now it makes perfect sense haha.

But then I was like… how do I get attention to this so my old friends see it?

So I posted to my story (is that how you say that? i’d never used that feature before haha) with a picture of me in girlmode eating cheese in the middle of the night, looking as if I’d been caught in the act, with the text “midnight cheese” and some effects.

And some people saw it, but no indication whether they knew or cared it was me.

So I did it again yesterday, this time being a little more on the nose with a selfie of me winking and the caption “Nice to meet you… or is it?” with a clip of Man, I Feel Like A Woman playing with lyrics on screen, the part that says “I wanna be free, yeah, to feel the way I feel. Man, I feel like a woman.”

I felt awkward about it bc like I wanted it to make people think “wait who is this? why am i following her?” and put it together, but also like that if someone has no idea what a trans person is they’d just scroll past, but also like I like having fun so it had to be fun, but then it kept seeming really like the way people make fun of trans women like a *wink wink nudge nudge* kind of vibe.

But it was temporary so I figured it’s fine like that.

Before going to bed, a couple people had seen it, but no response, so I wanted to do a proper post as well that could sit out for longer and capture the people who never look at the stories. I was hesitant since it sticks around more for people to really scrutinize, but I did. I posted a selfie I took in the car on Friday with the text “hello again” at the top diagonally.

Then today, I checked and both the story and post had been liked by just one person, one of my closest friends in the latter half of high school, basically my sidekick. And I’m just like… do I think he realized it’s me? idk.

But yeah, like I don’t like that I got sucked into all of that bc fuck Meta, but it’s almost like since I couldn’t come out in high school, here’s my chance to do that in whatever little way I can.

Plus it’s the biggest most “public” coming out I’ve done in a sense, and yet I don’t care what they think in the grand scheme of things.

I think maybe that’s it too, is that there’s a weight to the concept of “everyone I went to school with”, and just openly being out to people from my school without going person to person I think really makes it feel like I’ve transitioned everywhere but work, rather than before like I had come out to my family and a few other specific people.

[comfymoth]

do you have a top 3 interests right now? :] why would those be your favorites?

hmmmm, this is tough…. i feel like i’ve been just floating between interests for a while, but, i guess beastars should probably be up there, oh, midnight mass For Sure, aaaand. hm. not a show or anything but i guess pierce the veil would count, i’ve been having fun with their discography still!

i’ve been on-again off-again with beastars since like, high school, but i just think it’s a really fun world to think about! also i love a good theme of love and consumption :] i’m still a hannibal fan through n through. midnight mass just scratches an itch in my brain that i might need a longer ramble to explain, but like, it’s catholic vampires, c’mon, and ptv satisfies my need to sit down and fucking investigate song lyrics like i’ve been doing for all my spanish music ToT also it is loud enough to drown out other people on my bus commute. so. extra functional bonus there

[theheartpyre]

Happy #AudioDramaSunday everyone! I’m finally back home and had time to listen to shows again, and I sure listened to a bunch of them (6 to be exact). So, strap in for the ride!

First up Small Victories (@wgc-productions) came back for its second season and oh boy did it nosedive straight into chaos and drama. This show is so well written but it also stresses me out much more than all the horror shows I listen to lmao Can’t wait for the powder keg to explode in the upcoming episodes

Then we have another return, The Silt Verses (@thesiltverses) is back for its third season, and what a start! Genuinely one of my all time favourite shows and Carpenter is definitely one of my favourite characters from across all media. I’m so happy to have her back. Amazing performances from everyone around!

I also finally finished Two Flat Earthers Kidnap A Freemason (@goodpointepodcasts) and I just wanted to mention that that was a great finale! This was genuinely such a hilarious show and I hope there will be more of it.

Next up is the new episode from Shadows at the Door, written by Jamie Flanagan who’s worked on the Midnight Mass and The Haunting Of Bly Manor tv shows (isn't that just so neat?)! Great episode, less scary horror, more a reflection of human nature as we age. Really makes you think. Also loved the discussion after the episode (it gets depressing about the state of being a creative in our day and age 🫠)

We’re almost at the end of my list, but there are two more interesting shows I wanna talk about. First up, I’ve caught up with After The Gloaming, which is an anthology of gothic horror stories, and I’ve been really enjoying it, especially Night of the Rider and Arsenic & Old Men. Looking forward to hearing the rest of the season. There can never be enough horror anthologies!

And finally, I listened to the first episode of Levian (@levianpod), which I adored! Queer epic fantasy about the seas with family conflict! So up my alley! I know the rest of the show won’t release until next year, but I am eagerly awaiting it. They are currently crowdfunding to make the rest of season 1 a reality, so if you like epic fantasy and pirates definitely check it out (it only runs for a few more days!)

And that was it, folks! I haven’t decided yet what I’ll listen to next week, so if anyone has any recs, I’m all ears!

[subzeroparade]

Creeping into your inbox with the great joy that we have such similar taste in horror! I was wondering what your favourite horror movies/shows/books are? I'm always on the lookout for more stuff :D

Oh! Well. *◡*

Some off the top of my head (shoving this under a cut for the long, rambling opinions in which I hope you find something useful). 

Movies: My current, contemporary favourite is definitely The Witch. It’s peak everything - period-piece, atmosphere, folklore/religious horror - everything I love. Absolute masterwork of minimalist horror.

As for what’s stuck with me, The Mist - took it like a fist to the face and still think about it all the time. There’ve been some other decent religious/folky horror stuff I’ve like over the past few years - Let the Right One In (book and movie both) The Omen (excellent buildup) and more recently Antlers (doubles as a monster movie), because I am obsessed with Wendigo lore. I know they’re kinda spoopy now but when I was a tween I was also a big sucker for The Village and Signs, ha. Again, mostly for the atmospheric buildup of dread, and The Village for its evocation of folksy, Puritanical horror. 

I’m a sucker for some monster movies as well, even semi-trashy ones like Cloverfield. I love the big monster-reveal moment. Prometheus, for the same reason. More interestingly, The Host (which is Korean) but adjacent to that are some of the classic Japanese horrors like Ring and the Grudge, especially The Grudge - both versions - which changed me forever. 

Series: Midnight Mass (just a Bloodborne modern AU honestly) has some interesting ideas on life after death, and Hamish Linklater’s performance is to die for. I’ve watched it twice and loved it both times. Archive 81 for the spooky ancient-god/slow burn dread. Huge fan of The Terror series which I think you know (I love Jared Harris, the best modern-day Cassandra if you take Chernobyl into account, and nice to see Tobias Menzies playing someone way less pathetic than Edmure in Game of Thrones lol). The book is a little more dry but still good, and I just started the series’ second season (Infamy) and love it already.

 Also worth mentioning a French series called Zone blanche (translated as Black Spot of Netflix), a little under the radar, which was great. Very much the subtle “the forest is a dark place beyond human understanding” vibe. I’m actively still going through Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities but enjoying the variety of episodes so far: "The Outsider" (which frankly I just read as a queer/lesbian awakening story) and "Pickman’s Model" in particular (cannot avoid Lovecraft lmao, I’m so sorry). 

I don’t know if I can add the absolute incontrovertible masterwork that is Dark here, though it has some very, very itty bitty inconsequential minor horror elements. But I will watch it again and again until I die. 

In addition, some looser, genre-defying or multi-genre “horror” works like Get Out, Attack the Block, and the Southern Reach Trilogy (book only, the movie just couldn’t capture the peak high concept eldritch horror).  I would add the recent film The Wonder to that which has very subtle religious horror elements but is not supernatural whatsoever. I adored it. 

For books, any goddamn thing by Joyce Carol Oates but especially "Poe Posthumous; or, the Light-House" as I’ve made abundantly clear already; also I’m currently going through this excellent treasure trove of short horror stories collected in this post here (there is a second list somewhere too, if I recall, and they are even sorted by sub-category!) 

At the top of my must-watch list is Lamb right now, and eventually The Ritual and Midsommar, as well as The Lighthouse for obvious reasons. Any other recs are always welcome! I took two classes in CEGEP on Gothic lit and horror films and learned, fundamentally, that the horror genre is an incredibly useful and dynamic way to chart humanity’s anxieties over the past two centuries or so. (Dr Kris Woofter if you are still out there, you absolute hero, those were the greatest classes of my then-short academic life and I carry them with me always; or tucked neatly under my floorboards, where they writhe and groan ominously.) 

[man--eater]

What's your most popular work, and what work(s) are you most proud of? Are they different? (not off an ask meme, but it's been buzzing around my head for a few days)

Sunset, thank you for this ask, I have been mulling it over since yesterday. It really made me think!

Not counting orphaned fics, my most popular work (by kudos) is an Astarion/Tav smut oneshot (the trap i set for you seems to have caught my leg instead) that I like but am not crazy about or invested in. I wrote it on a whim and didn’t put much thought into it, and Camellia is not even the Tav I ship with Astarion now (Yarrow my beloved <3).

The works I am most proud of—honestly, this is close to a tie between No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross, my Midnight Mass sad vampire priest/OC fic, and from his lips not words alone pleased her, my Hazbin Hotel Alastor/OC fic. But No Shade has the edge because I am just still so happy I could take an absolutely absurd premise (Tig catches John Pruitt in a wildlife trap, holds him captive and collared in a dog kennel, and unintentionally helps him process his trauma by flogging him and fucking him until he cries) and somehow end up with a story that I was very emotionally invested in—Tig and John actually felt like people, and sometimes I was just following them around rather than planning their script. Tig is my favorite OC, though Daphne is a close second. She’s just so hostile and sadistic and brutal in this ice-cold way and goes out of her way to smother any soft or gentle parts of herself. And John, of course, is a wet sack of mice who is just so needy and grief-stricken and desperate for the smallest scraps of reassurance and gentle touch. They are so good together, and they are growing as people together. This line from a comment I got still makes me smile: “I had no idea how you were going to get Pruitt from a bear trap to being pegged, yet you somehow managed to bring them to this point organically.” I do need to go back to that story—I need them both to get the catharsis they’ve earned.

For from his lips, I am proud of Daphne’s character growth through the story, and of how she and Alastor developed their strange but intense relationship. It’s also the first story I’ve written where both characters are ace, which is different for me because pretty much every other fic I’ve written is chock full of f!dom smut. It’s been nice to write a budding relationship where non-sexual physical intimacy is front and center, and while there is some sexual tension and eventual sex as they explore it in their own way, it’s certainly not the most important thing. I’ve enjoyed their dynamic, and as I write the last 2 chapters of it, I do feel a little proud.

Honorable mention goes to howling for answers no wolf could know, a Dragon Age Solas/Lavellan smut oneshot which like. 7 people have read, but I am actually really proud of the prose in it? Re-reading it, I find myself thinking “oh that was a pretty line” and I don’t really say that very often about my own work.

A second honorable mention is the first time ever I saw your face, the Astarion/Tav fic that I actually wanted to write but then fell into the Hazbin Hell pit. Yarrow (my Tav) is just so fucking bizarre, and I think I did decently well with Astarion’s POV and inner monologue. Maybe I will come back to it someday if I pick up BG3 again. I’m so sorry this turned into an essay, but thanks again for the ask and for being a great friend (and making me review my work and think about what I am proud of while I’ve been in such a self-critical rut 🥺🥺🥺 <3 <3 <3)

[daquanshell]

“Once a Marine”

I’ve been meaning to publish more content about my day job but for the most part I keep getting distracted by my own military aspirations. There are so many things I miss about the Marines that it’s sometimes hard to focus, although it’s important that I take some time to talk about what I actually do for work since it’s not only relevant to my career as a whole, it’s pretty much a requirement if I ever want to improve my income without completely sacrificing my quality of life.

I work in the Higher Education Department of a Company called “CMD Outsourcing and Investments”. It’s a small company with an office in Hunt Valley, although I virtually never go into the office nowadays. I’ve been working there for about 9 months, the pay is alright (better than the Marines), and for the most part the work is fairly straightforward, although largely mind numbing at times.

My New Home

I’ve been looking for a new school ever since my old school closed down, and wanting to continue my education was one the driving reasons I joined the Military. If I was smart, I would have skipped the Marines and went straight into the Navy, avoiding the annoyance of “Marine Corps Recruiting”, the endless waivers, the general stupidity, and the constant interviews for security clearance. At the same time, if given the opportunity, I would join the Marines again, especially now that I now the secret:

“Feel free to ask questions, but don’t say anything other than what the other person wants to hear”

This means that the next time I go to a recruiter, pretty much all I’m gonna do is “act like nothing is wrong”, and say “I’d like to get into service as soon as possible”. I’m sure the same strategy would work for the Navy, although I’ll probably be a little more careful when choosing a job.

The Most Important Thing

I’ve learned that the most important thing when choosing both a branch and MOS is the uniforms.

Despite all the individuals in the above photograph clearly wearing MARPAT, none of them are actually Marines. Apparently, there are jobs in the Navy that allow you to wear the Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform, namely the following:

Navy Corpsman

Navy Medical Personnel

Navy Religious Personnel

and Navy Officers

In addition to the above jobs, I’m also very much interested in the Mass Communication Specialist (MC) Rate that the Navy Offers. I’ve also heard the Navy is having a bit of a harder time recruiting, which typically means it’s easier to get in the front door. The easier PT would also be a lifesaver in the long run. There are more women in the Navy (not that I’m joining to date) and the higher age limit means not only would I personally have an easier time getting in, it would be easier to recruit my friends. While my opportunity in the Marines ages like milk, my opportunity in the Navy ages like wine.

Also, while I think the Marine Corps definitely has the better Enlisted Uniforms (I’ll write about them more later) The Navy has a Spectacular Set of Uniforms for its Officers and SNCOs.

Realistically, I could start school in the Spring, go to boot camp in the Summer, and go back to school once I’ve made it too the fleet.

Alternatively, I could keep working where I’m working now, get my drivers and insurance licenses, and transition to school part time, insurance part time, and the military part time. If I reenlist in the Marines, this is likely the best option.

Of course, that means waiting even longer to re-enlist, the idea of which I am not a fan of. At the same time, I feel it would be worth it to take the extra time to really work on my case a little better, changing the narrative to this:

10 Reasons why I Joined the Marines

The Call -> The Few, The Proud

The Challenge -> it’s not too late

Water Survival

Self Defense

Service Rifle

Continuing Education

Intelligence

Home Defense

Religious Obligation

Service -> I have so much more to give (Leadership)

I was hoping to get this blog post done before midnight, but I did work a full day today, and after work I needed a little bit more time to myself before finding the inspiration. That being said, I think the right thing to do at the moment is wait, since after writing all the above bullet points, I think they would make a great essay, and one that I absolutely need to write as soon as possible. Maybe not tomorrow, but hopefully over the weekend.

Lastly, I’ll close this by using a word I spent a literally a hour looking for, a word that perfectly resonates with my literary style and an idiom that I think perfectly captures the way I feel about the Marine Corps.

The word is Anapodota, plural for an anapodoton.

It is a figure of speech that is an incomplete sentence, a standalone clause that implies (a main clause), but this is not actually provided.

As an intentional rhetorical device, it is generally used for set phrases, where the full form is understood, and would thus be tedious to spell out.

Some famous examples are:

When in Rome (Do as the Romans)

A Frog in a Well (Cannot Conceive of the Ocean)

Birds of a Feather (Flock Together)

Back when I worked in Consulting, we would use these during team building exercises, where the leader would say the stated part, and the congregation would say the implied part.

The leader would say “Why be Average?”

The congregation says “When I am a Savage?”

In this case, rather than a leader and congregation, it is a recruiter speaking to a prior service member.

The recruiter says:

“Once a Marine”

and the prior service member says:

“Always a Marine”

[hoochy-coo]

People are starting to hate on Taylor Swift again probably because of over exposure and because of her blocking Billie and Charli. I’ve also seen people calling her music mediocre again. What would you say makes Taylor Swift an objectively good artist and do you think that those reasons are fair ( I very much understand that people don’t like what she did to Charli and Billie).

Unfortunately, I think it was just a matter of time before we revisit this phase where it’s cool to “hate” on Taylor again after a lengthy period of people championing her for doing as little as breathing. What she’s doing with the charts (especially in the context of going out of her way to block people from reaching #1) is obviously not nice and pretty shameless imo, like which variants of TTPD are we in now? However, if you’ve been a fan of Taylor pre-folkmore then I don’t think this would be surprising??? She obviously cares about numbers, she enjoys being the top dog and she is the ultimate capitalist. Maybe that doesn’t make her a fair person but she’s always been willing to do whatever it takes to be number one and I think that’s largely how she’s maintained her superstar status. There is admittedly a decline in the quality of music she’s putting out. It surprises me that TTPD is receiving so much criticism that I think Midnights should have? Like TTPD is bloated for sure, but Midnights was boring, mediocre and very one note compared to this album?? There are career highlights on TTPD whereas it’s crickets on Midnights lol

What makes Taylor an objectively good artist to me is her ability to put very universal feelings into words and she’s a really good story teller when she gets it right. She’s not really a vocalist or much of a performer to me, but she knows how to package her product so it would appeal to the masses and that’s not something every artist knows how to do. If you’re like me and you believe that artistry and branding are intertwined then she’s a master at that. There’s an entire lore behind her persona that plays so much into the music. Like can you imagine anyone else doing BDILH? Don’t think so.

Also I was thinking about this when I was listening to ‘us’ (as in the Gracie Abram’s song with the Taylor feature) and it occurred to me that Taylor has a really strong identity as an artist. She’s hopped on a lot of trends throughout the years but somehow she still makes it sound like a Taylor song. You all know I hate So Highschool and it’s so clearly trying to be a Y2k throwback alt rock bop, but when you hear it you still know right away that it’s her song lol