#The choice to archive it is Certainly a Choice...

[jesuis-assez]

" You are not going to regret this. "

NEW GIRL 1.01 • Pilot

[meme-meupthotty]

Hey Ao3 what the hell do you mean I can look up fics in asl

[gloomwitchwrites]

Dog with No Teeth // Chapter Eight

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female Reader

Chapter Specific Warnings (MDNI): post-apocalypse au, swearing, pregnancy discussion, suggestive themes, brief angst

Word Count: 3.3k

The advisor and family planner sit down for a discussion about your future in the safe zone. You and Ghost hit a roadblock.

Chapter Seven // Chapter Nine

ao3 // main masterlist // dog with no teeth masterlist

“Thank you for joining us today.”

Not like I had a choice.

Rays of afternoon sunlight shine through the slots in the open blinds, casting everything in a golden glow. The two individuals sitting across from you smile warmly, not a hint of deception in their gazes. Charles, your transitional advisor, cleans the lenses of his glasses, holding them up for inspection. Beside him is Joann, your family planner, wearing tan slacks and a blue long-sleeved turtleneck. She’s pencil thin—dainty, silver hair combed smooth.

“Glad to be out of the apartment,” you reply, returning the smile.

It’s no lie. A week since you’ve had your meeting with Commander Graves, and you spent it all locked away in your little apartment. Lieutenant Riley brought food, filling the fridge and cupboards, but you refused to speak with him whenever he attempted to make conversation. Thankfully, he never pushed, not until this morning. Ghost insisted, continuously knocking on your bedroom door until you finally yanked it open in irritation.

Joann’s smile widens. “Charles tells me the two of you discussed stationing you at the archive.”

“We did,” you confirm.

“How lovely,” she sighs. “They’ve been understaffed for ages.” She glances at Charles. “The library certainly needs it.” Charles returns his glasses to his face, inclining his head at Joann’s statement but not verbally agreeing.

She tucks her hair behind her ear. “As you know, I’m one of the family planners here.”

“Commander Graves mentioned someone might want to talk to me,” you reply slowly, already wanting to flee.

The conversation with Charles just before this was polite and straightforward. He read over Graves’ notes, asked some follow up questions pertaining to the work you did before the world collapsed and what you did after. He agreed that working in the archive and library was a perfect fit. Simple. Easy. No strings.

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” continues Joann, that smile softening in understanding. “Now I’m not at all sure what he told you, but knowing him, I doubt he provided any assurances.”

Hardly.

You shrug, feigning indifference. “Commander Graves didn’t exactly make for pleasant conversation.”

Charles chuckles and then quickly clears his throat, covering his laugh.

Joann shakes her head. “I can imagine. While I don’t know what he said to you, I don’t want to alarm you or cause you any distress. There is nothing to worry about. It’s simply standard procedure. Everyone who meets the requirements for repopulation must talk with a family planner.”

“Everyone?” you ask with a hint of doubt.

“Everyone,” she says. “Personally, I think it’s easier to start this whole process when you first meet with your transitional advisor. Better than bringing you back multiple times for meetings. Wouldn’t you agree?”

You only give a half-hearted smile.

Joann opens the folder in front of her. “According to your medical results during intake, you’re surprisingly healthy.” She glances up. “Given the fact that you were on the other side of the wall for so long.”

“I take it most people are in worse shape?”

She sighs and clicks her pen. “Some are like you, but most aren’t.” Joann makes a note on the paper. “But with what I can see here, I see no barriers in you starting a family. If that’s something you want to do.”

You haven’t forgotten what Graves said to you—how blunt he was about your fertility, “Commander Graves said that repopulation is one of the pillars of the mandate.”

“It is.”

“Then it’s not optional.”

“Family looks different for everyone,” replies Joann, flipping a page over in the folder. “I’m here to help you figure out what that looks like for you.”

“And what if I don’t want a family?”

That easy smile fades. Her lips become pinched, eyes narrowing slightly as she stares. Charles coughs again, dispelling the tension.

Joann taps the stack of papers in her lap. “I have some informational packets for you. A few things for you to look over. It covers all the different options. The benefits of starting a family. Larger families receive better, roomier housing. That I can tell you is not based on income.”

“Money doesn’t exist here,” interjects Charles. “Not in the traditional sense.”

It’s all an exchange. Allowances. You still don’t entirely understand it.

“Yes, well,” sighs Joann. “At the moment, I would discourage you from engaging in any sexual activity at this time. At least the type that might result in potential conception.” This time she laughs, and it nearly borders on hysterical.

Charles’ round cheeks go bright pink.

“Is—is there no birth control?” you ask, suddenly fearful.

You hoped that they would at least have something. If not, you’d have to reach into your knowledge of mixing different plants to stave off pregnancy.

“Oh, there is,” affirms Joann. “But since you’re new and under probation, it’s not something you currently have access to.”

You nearly scoff. “I’m also not interacting with anyone.”

They have you isolated and in military housing. How would that even happen?

Joann blinks, clearly surprised. “Lieutenant Riley?”

Does she—do they—

Oh. Oh, shit.

You nearly choke. “What—what about Lieutenant Riley?”

“He escorted you here.”

“And?” you prompt, not understanding what she’s insinuating.

That time at the military base comes rushing back, submerging you in memory. As if he’s in the room with you, his scent invades, twisting around you until your heart thuds with anticipation.

She shrugs, her smile soft. “I can see the appeal. Broody. Mysterious.”

“Tall,” adds Charles. “Muscular.”

Joann nods with appreciation. “He also claimed you at processing. And you spend a great deal of time alone with him. One can only assume—”

“There’s nothing happening between us,” you snap, shutting the idea down immediately.

This is ground you will not tread. You and Lieutenant Riley have had your moments, but he is not an option. No one is an option. You plan on going home—of leaving this place and returning to what you know.

Joann and Charles exchange a look. With a slow sweep of her arm, Joann tries to aim for calmness. “I understand that this is a delicate conversation. I have no wish to alarm you. I only want to gauge your interest.”

“I have no interest.”

“In giving birth?”

“In any of it.”

Her expression remains passive, as if your refusal doesn’t fluster. “There are lots of options.

“What if I like women?” you ask.

“That’s not an issue,” answers Joann. “There are plenty of children you can foster or adopt. We can also discuss the possibility of insemination. IVF isn’t possible since some of that knowledge was destroyed. But you and your partner can select a sperm donor together and we’ll…”

“Turkey baster their sperm into me?” you deadpan.

Charles face goes bright red. He coughs—chokes. “Excuse me,” he mumbles, pounding on his chest. Joann places a hand on his shoulder as he grabs a tissue.

“And what if I don’t want to marry at all? Or date?”

“As I said, family looks different for everyone. We can work around your needs.”

This conversation is a circle. Joann has a fucking explanation for everything. Even insisting that you don’t want a partner—that you aren’t interested in any of it—and yet there is a solution given instead of respecting your wishes. Joann might be pleasant in her demeanor, but the messaging is fucking clear.

You lick your lips, agitation buzzing in the tips of your fingers. “Is this something we can discuss at a later time? It’s…a lot. To take in.”

Joann’s features soften into maternal worry. “Of course. This is just a preliminary meeting. I’m here to introduce myself. To meet you. Provide any reading materials to help you understand all your options.” She closes the folder in front of her and sets it aside. “The main responsibility of every citizen is to help fulfill the pillars of the mandate.”

Pillars. Testaments. Sanctions. Laws. They can call it whatever they like but it’s all the same. A trap. A cage. The informational pamphlet that Commander Graves gave you about the mandate and the “pillars” is still on the coffee table. Untouched. Likely with a thin layer of dust over the top. You couldn’t bring yourself to open it at all this week.

A question forms out of resentment. “Even you?”

Joann doesn’t faulter. “Even me. Even Charles. Even Lieutenant Riley. Even Commander Graves. They all must contribute.”

“But they’re military,” you argue. “They have different duties.”

Joann inclines her head. “They have military duties. We do not. But they also have to fulfill their duties as civilians of the world. When the mandate become law during the Peace Accords, it dictated this. Everyone follows them. Including those that oversee the well-being and functionality of each safe zone. Even those elected to office. Even those at the very top. They all contribute.”

Belief and truth are fickle when the narrative is controlled. You don’t entirely believe the words leaving Joann’s mouth. Does everyone contribute? Probably. At least, in some capacity. But certainly not to the extent that she perpetuates. People at the top like to hold on to power. They like to control the means of production, of ordering others around. They might follow what the pillars state, but only to the extent that it benefits them. Humans are only human after all.

Yet this is also information you’ve been seeking, a window into this new world, but also whether or not you’ll have full autonomy of yourself. It appears that you will not. They aren’t going to force you. No one will drag you from your apartment, tie you up, and hand you over for someone to breed. But they are expecting you to reproduce. They are expecting which means they will push just as Commander Graves said they would.

How much control will you really have? And what will become of you when they finally tire of your reluctance.

“The apartment is lonely,” you muse.

“The probationary period always is,” agrees Joann.

You give her a cordial smile “The reading material will be nice.”

She beams. “That’s good to hear. After the probationary period is up, and you move to civilian housing, we can speak on this further.”

You hold that smile, hating every second. “No reason to rush into things.”

“I agree. Making big discissions like this requires a lot of thought and certainty.” Joann stands and holds out a folder to you. “But that’s why I’m here.”

“Not going to scream at me?”

“No.”

“Tell me to leave?”

“No,” you repeat, staring out your apartment window. Below, a military Jeep rumbles by. “I don’t really want to be alone right now.”

Ghost lingers near the kitchen, a stoic entity cloaked in shadow. You sit on the worn sofa, your legs tucked under you, arms resting on the back as you watch two soldiers on the street below playfully push at one another.

A floorboard creaks as Ghost steps toward you. “What did they talk about?” he asks, tone neutral.

You snort as a third soldier runs up and dunks on them, the trio tumbling into a heap on the pavement. “You don’t know?”

“It’s different for everyone,” he replies.

Interesting. Maybe Lieutenant Riley has had similar conversations before. Joann did mention that even he had to contribute to the pillars, and that includes repopulation.

You sigh heavily, not wanting to say it out loud but knowing that you can say something to Ghost. “They want me to have a baby.” You glance over your shoulder and find Ghost next to the coffee table, staring so intensely at you it sends a shiver of anxiety up your spine.

“What?” you prompt, suddenly nervous.

Why the fuck is he looking at you like that?

His question comes out a growl. “Did they assign someone to you?”

Your voice cracks—goes high. “They can assign someone?”

Lightening quick, Ghost snatches up the folders. He opens the first one, flipping through the pages erratically, dropping it onto the table and moving to the next. Like the first, he tears through it, the middle of his brow a deep v. That folder lands on the coffee table, the contents spreading everywhere.

“Who did they assign to you?”

His voice is still a growl. Still…territorial.

“No one?”

He steps toward you. “You don’t know?”

You swing your arm wide. “They didn’t say!” you exclaim. “It was just an introduction. No one said outright that they assigned someone to me. She only handed me that.” You gesture toward the folders and their scattered contents.

Ghost’s shoulders heave, clear agitation in the way he carries himself. “The family planner didn’t say anything else?”

You roll your eyes. “Why does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” he snarls.

“You know what,” you mutter. “Now that you mention it.” Turning away from the window, you give Lieutenant Riley your full attention. “She specifically said I shouldn’t engage in any…activity.”

Ghost’s gaze narrows. “What sort of activity?”

You shrug. Give a little wave of your hand. “You know.”

“I don’t.”

Shit.

You inhale deeply. “She told me not to have sex. To not do anything that might result in a potential conception. And then she very directly mentioned you.”

Lieutenant Riley’s shoulders soften. That irritation melts away, a sultry swagger entering his body. “Did she?” he purrs.

“Absolutely not,” you say, holding up a hand in a “stop” gesture.

Ghost takes a step forward. Another. “She only said the kind that could result in,” his gaze scans your body slowly, “conception.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” you murmur as your clit pulses with need.

It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair how your body reacts to him. It’s only loneliness. Isolation. You’re craving human companionship. That’s all.

Ghost comes to a stop in front of you. Bending forward, he places one hand on the sofa beside your arm, balancing himself as he traps you against the couch.

“Like what?” he croons.

“I can tell you to leave,” you reply.

“Thought you didn’t want to be alone, love?”

“I don’t,” you snap. Lieutenant Riley leans in further like he’s going to kiss you through the balaclava. “But I don’t want…that.” You wave your hand in front of his face to ward him off. “So, if you could control yourself, Lieutenant. That would be great.”

He pushes off from the sofa. “You want to sit in silence?”

You suck your bottom lip into your mouth, glancing away. “No,” you admit. “I—I have questions.”

Ghost nods, easing himself down on the sofa beside you. “And you want answers.”

“Is that okay?” you ask.

Lieutenant Riley settles, resting his head on the back of the sofa. He turns his head toward you, eyelids soft. “What will you give me in return?”

You scoff. “This again? I can’t believe you. I thought we were past this.”

He shrugs, nonchalant. “Information is valuable.”

You run your tongue over your teeth. It’s not like you exactly hate this back-and-forth. “Fine,” you lament. “What do you want?”

“What are you willing to give?”

“A slap in the face,” you retort, regretting playing into this.

Lieutenant Riley chuckles. “Think that might do the opposite of what you’re expecting it will.”

“You know what,” you blurt, shifting onto your knees. “Fuck it. Fine.”

Ghost cocks his head in curiosity as you lean forward, pushing up from where you’ve been seated. Maybe he expects you to walk away, to storm off into the bedroom, and slam the door. It’s what you’ve done all week.

But that curiosity morphs into surprise when you drop into his lap, straddling him.

“You want me?” you breathe, fisting the top of his balaclava. You give it a yank. “You can have me.”

Grasping the side of Lieutenant Riley’s neck, you dive in. There is no hesitation from him. He accepts you, hungrily, hips grinding upward into you, pressing his erection against your sex. The bulge in his pants bumps against your clit through the fabric, eliciting a little gasp from you. That pulsing heat from earlier intensifies—becomes scorching.

Ghost is the only one you can release all this pent-up energy on. He eagerly takes it all, even the anger, even your fists and teeth and claws. It’s cathartic. Freeing. And while you’ve hated what has happened to you, and what he’s done to put you into this situation, Ghost has never judged you for any of it.

Not once.

Fingers moving upward, they thread through the wisps of hair at the base of Ghost’s skull. You cling on, seeking more—wanting to consume more. Lieutenant Riley’s hands stroke up and down your thighs, sliding back to squeeze your ass.

It’s like before, that morning on the military base. The connection is a sizzling pan full of oil that’s close to smoking. Ghost groans against your lips, his arms encircling, drawing you close to him. You surrender, seeking that bit of comfort, rocking your hips with the intent of grinding down on that growing hardness.

Ghost pulls back suddenly, grasping the front of your throat when you try to continue kissing him.

“You said you can’t fuck.”

“I—I don’t want to.”

His thumb presses against your pulse point. “You nearly did. Once.”

No. No. You’ve fucked up. Again, you’ve fucked up.

“I want out of your lap,” you whisper.

“Thought you had questions?”

“I do.”

Ghost’s gaze drops to your lips, admiring the puffy swell. “How about I have a taste between your thighs.”

“Lieutenant,” you gasp as his lips brush against your cheekbone.

“And in between licks, I’ll answer your questions.”

“Let me go,” you say, still sounding breathy.

Ghost tuts. “Pity. I’d really enjoy a taste.”

Your fingers drop away from his neck, moving toward the front of his black fatigues. “Why were you so upset when you asked me if they had assigned someone to me?”

The subject change is abrupt but on purpose. You need to reevaluate. To shift your focus away from the throbbing need between your thighs.

“I was offended they didn’t make me an offer.”

“You—” you stammer, blinking rapidly. “So, I really am just an object to you? A thing to possess?”

Ghost shakes his head. “No.”

With a growl, you shove at him, slamming your fists into his chest. Ghost holds tight, allowing you no space. “You’re staying right here.”

“Bastard,” you sneer. You go for a slap this time but without the space to bring your hand back, it’s a feeble attempt. “Let me go.”

“If I touched you between your legs, what would I find?”

“A desert,” you retort, wiggling in his lap with the hope his grip might slip.

“Doubt that,” croons Ghost.

“You’re fucking infuriating.”

Lieutenant Riley places a ghost of a kiss against your cheek before retreating. “You want me. Don’t deny it.”

You stare him down, pushing all your sorrow and venom into your voice. “I won’t deny that I’m lonely,” you admit, because it’s true. Solitude clings to you. “And you’re…someone.”

Someone. A person. Meaningless.

That sultry intensity in Lieutenant Riley’s gaze vanishes. Like a tap turned off, it’s an instant shift. In its place is an unreadable neutrality that paralyzes you. All this time, you’ve wanted your words to cut—to draw blood.

He lifts you off his lap and dumps you onto the sofa without ceremony.

“Lieutenant,” you breathe, pushing up onto your hands and knees. Ghost is already walking away, heading for the door. At his rank, he does not stir. “Ghost,” you try, and he freezes.

The balaclava dangles from his fist. “I’m no longer in the mood.”

You flinch as the door slams shut.

[raymurata]

Just scroll (or go ahead and block my #dav critical tag) if you don't wanna read me whining abt Bellara's Archive choice again, but I'm not done with the salt.

What bugs me isn't that the choice to destroy the archive exists, it's that the game frames it, through its UI (which is the closest thing we have to a nonbiased narrator in this medium), as equally weighted against the opposite choice.

If they had worded it like this:

"Free the archive (the knowledge will be lost)" x "Keep the archive (the knowledge will be kept)"

With no extra commentary, then that would be better. If you got to be openly racist against the Dalish or openly in favor of the Dalish, period. Just like in previous games.

Bellara says "(the archive would help us) get back what made us who we were," and "With it, we could be that again."

Which is funny because... People don't study history to return to the past. It's fine if Bellara is idealistic and saying whatever unrealistic, grandiose dreams she and Cyrian had, but the Dalish would never (could never) become like the ancient elves again. For starters there is a Veil now. So what it would in fact do is help them understand where they come from, what they've been through, and trace the changes in their culture.

Of course our modern historians and scientists have tried to reclaim lost technology, too. They've figured out how the Romans made their extra sturdy concrete, and scientists in Brazil have long been trying to replicate the extra fertile Terra Preta from indigenous peoples that lived in the Amazon basin, and several South American historians would love to know how exactly the Inca used the quipu as a writing system aside from counting tool, etc... And that's super cool!!! And maybe (but that's a big maybe) the Archive could give the Dalish a technological edge to carve a corner of the world for themselves without the constant struggle with Tevinter trying to enslave them or Andrastians trying to subjugate them.

But I personally don't think anyone's reading Aztec accounts of human sacrifices to replicate the same practices in modern cults, or that there is an army out there utilizing Roman decimation as a method of discipline. We're using different horrific methods of control now, lol.

But let's say a modern general does decide that the best way to punish a battalion for one man's insurgence is to force every group of ten soldiers to violently murder the 10th man.... Do you really think that the fault would lie with the historian who unearthed that information and put it on Wikipedia? Or the insane general that decided to do this? Would modern morality and laws allow for that punishment to be executed? Do you think that the existence of that article online is inherently dangerous and controversial, and that it should be taken down? Do you think this general would have been a good and non-violent general if he hadn't ever read about Decimation? Or is it clear to you that violence and ingenuity are both inherent to mortals as a whole and can't be so easily blamed on the spread of knowledge?

Because it's not clear to DAV. The game (not Bellara, not Varric) words it very unambiguously as a dichotomy: The only safe way to deal with this Archive is to destroy it. Keeping it is inherently dangerous because the knowledge could fall in "the wrong hands."

What Bellara says is "Cyrian is gone because of what that thing knew," and "what about the bad side, the other things we did?" and "We stole the dwarves' dreams."

Again, she gets to say whatever she wants because she's a character and she's an anxious, idealistic mess. Love her for it. I like that she feels guilt here too because she has been established (through her way of dealing with Cyrian's first death) as someone who takes the blame for mistakes she didn't even commit (She certainly isn't responsible for Solas' actions). She's someone who drives herself sick cooking up the most horrific scenarios in her mind, and she's so compassionate she can't stand the thought of being the one perpetrating violence against innocents. Her misplaced guilt and dread are the emotions that lead her to consider destroying the Archive.

But no matter how guilty a young german may feel about the holocaust, destroying knowledge about gas chambers is not what will prevent other genocides from happening around the world. Individual guilt is barely productive.

Furthermore, Corinne Bursche says that DAV gives you a choice between "destroying" or "sharing" elven knowledge, which is not how the game worded it. But the point still stands even if the Veil Jumpers, for some condescending plot reason, completely lost control of this knowledge, or were so flippant as to put everything on Thedas' wikipedia without curing it at all.

Let's accept, too, that the Archive contains knowledge of how to build something equivalent to nuclear weapons, which one could argue is in fact truly dangerous, but... Well. Do you think it's fair that the countries that have nuclear arsenals are some of the most vocal about the dangers of other countries ever developing their own?

Because that's what it feels like, to me, when the game calls elven knowledge dangerous without ever allowing you to question -- what about Tevinter rituals and magic? Tevinter's millennium of slavery, still in practice at present day? Should we destroy all their libraries too to keep the world safe from dangerous magics? Why do we only get to tell the Dalish, the nomad nations severely subjugated in present Thedas (If you ever played the previous games and have the context, at least, since this game that happens in Tevinter somehow manages to completely gloss over racism against elves as if it never existed) to destroy a one-of-a-kind, ancient trove of knowledge? And have it be framed as good and safe? As "moving forward"?

If you choose to free the archive, Rook says "The elves deserve the chance to chart their own course" to which Bellara answers "Right. Define ourselves by who we are, not who we were," but once again that writing just makes me question Bioware -- Do they not understand the point of history at all? Do they think indigenous peoples are monoliths stuck in the past if they choose to study the history they lost to colonialism? What purpose do they think that keeping that history and culture extinct serves? Who do they think it benefits?

If you step outside of what the game is telling you as fact and think for yourself, with the context of the other DA games in mind, do you still agree that it's inherently dangerous to keep the Archive? Do you still think these are equally morally weighted choices?

Or would you agree that DAV has to subtly convince you, out of character, that keeping this knowledge is inherently dangerous to make this dichotomy make sense?

Again. This wouldn't bug me if they just owned up to the fact your protagonist can, once again, genocide elves/their culture, just like in previous games. And scapegoat present elves too for the sins of their thousand-years-old tyrants, now suddenly returned (it would make so much sense for characters in the narrative to scapegoat the elves, and for us as heroes to fight against that. But no, they don't even go there except through Bellara's guilt.). It's just bizarre to have an elven historian guiltily agreeing with destroying the Archive and then telling us "The Evanuris broke us and kept us broken" without anyone, either Rook or her, ever mentioning a thousand years of Tevinter slavery and several centuries of Andrastian persecution and subjugation.

No. The Evanuris are the be-all and end-all of evil and everything bad that ever happened in Thedas, ever, can be traced back to them.

[erisenyo]

So excited to finally be sharing my @zukkabigbang2024 fic, betaed by the amazing @kartoonkrazy and with wonderful art from @lizardlicks (link incoming)!

Featuring culture sharing, culture confusion, gossip, a very sassy Kanna, a very over-it-already Katara, meeting the parents when you and the parent are both world leaders and also you have issues with parents, and Sokka's daddy issues.

[“Right,” Hakoda manages. “An honor.” “Once we will endeavor to meet with equal honor in return,” the Fire Lord says so quickly he starts almost before Hakoda gets out the last syllable. “Sure.” Hakoda has to forcibly unclench his teeth to grind out, “We’re happy to welcome the delegation.” As if they had any choice in it. Fuck, but it would have been a lot easier to say no if the Fire Lord weren’t dating his son.] Or, Zuko is nervous about making a good impression on his first visit South as Fire Lord, which certainly has nothing to do with meeting Sokka’s father. Sokka is excited to see his boyfriend after months apart, and is absolutely totally fine with not being involved in the week’s political negotiations. Totally. Hakoda already has a headache just thinking about how exactly he’s supposed to interact with a fellow world leader who is also a teenager, and also dating his son, and wait--Sokka’s old enough for dating now? When did that happen?

To all the people who on my other longfics kept going 'wow, I cannot wait for the conversation with Hakoda about this one!' to which I kept going '…about that.' -- this one's for you :)

[dearmash1975project]

It is March 18th, 1975: the Vietnam War is a month away from officially ending, Towering Inferno is top of the Box Office Charts, and like every Tuesday night you tune into CBS to watch your favorite evening TV shows. Only tonight is the season finale of the 3rd season of M*A*S*H, and it is an episode that will drastically change the course of the series; an episode that will touch its viewers so deeply that it will stay with them for decades after. Or, as my mom puts it, one that “impacted a generation.” Needless to say, heavy spoilers ahead for the episode and the show.

Season 3, episode 24, “Abyssinia Henry” aired at 8:30pm on Tuesday March 18th, 1975. The episode followed the M*A*S*H crew bidding a fond farewell to lovable Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, who had finally received his long-awaited discharge. Over the course of 3 critically acclaimed seasons, M*A*S*H carved a place for itself in the weekly rituals of millions of Americans. Many of these viewers were children, who watched such shows as M*A*S*H, Happy Days, and All in the Family, alongside their parents and older siblings. The characters they saw weekly on the TV became not only a part of their routine, but members of the family. Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles– most children see such relatives a few times a year at holidays and family gatherings; but Hawkeye, Trapper, Margaret, Radar, Klinger, Frank, Father Mulcahy, and of course Colonel Blake–they were in your home, laughing along with you and your loved ones, weekly.

But again, tonight’s episode is different.

A tearfully fond farewell to Henry at the chopper pad is followed by the episode’s final scene. It is set in the operating room where, as always, the laugh track is silenced. Even writing this, I can feel my heart sink into my stomach as I picture Radar O’Reilly pushing through the doors of the O.R.

The camera holds on Radar as he delivers the news that Henry Blake’s plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. And like millions of other Americans, the final words of the episode ring in my ears: “There were no survivors.”

Radar exhales to the silent room, the camera pans around to the shocked faces of the other characters; the sound of sniffles and their shining eyes the only expressions of grief visible over their masked faces. During the post-fade tag a montage of Henry plays; not that many people remember this part– I certainly didn’t until I forced myself to rewatch the episode on a full rewatch of the series. And like those shocked viewers in 1975, the sweet montage of our beloved Colonel does little to soothe the brutality of the preceding scene.

I was aware that letters were sent into CBS addressed to the M*A*S*H producers after the airing. In his 1998 interview for the Television Academy, creator Larry Gelbart discussed the reception of the episode and the letters that followed. He also mentioned his reasoning behind the choice, and why it was done. Actor McLean Stevenson (Henry Blake) wanted to move on to other things, and Gelbart, along with producer Gene Reynolds, felt that the death of a beloved character would be a poignant reminder that the show takes place during a war; and in war, people who are loved die.

In his interview, Gelbart explained that he and Reynolds responded, by hand, to the letters with this reasoning. He also said that to some he mentioned the recent news story of a plane of Vietnamese refugee children that crashed after leaving Saigon [the first flight of Operation Babylift, as it was known, crashed in early April, not that week in March. But memory is elusive, and the point still stands]. Gelbart and Reynolds invoked this association to have people consider the mechanisms that made them care so deeply for a fictional character, but not for real victims of war.

I remember sitting in the quiet archives center reading room in the basement of the National Museum of American History, opening up the manila folder and beginning to read through the letters. I set up my appointment to see the M*A*S*H Collection over a month earlier, as the collection is housed off site and had to be delivered to the archives center. The archives team was more than gracious to me, and I would not be doing this project without their help.

Now early July, I began to flip through the letters, hand-written on various stationary, until the unmistakable sight of a child’s handwriting came into view. I think Brian’s letter was the 4th or 5th in the first folder (folder 22), and reading it stopped me in my tracks. I know I’m not the only one who would react that way after reading “I am really sad” and “age 11” in such short succession. It had never occurred to me that these letters, of course, would also have been written by children.

I was 17 when I watched the episode, and even going into it with Henry’s fate pre-known to me (the follies of the digital age where spoilers are readily available, as well, I suppose, as the nearly half a century of cultural consciousness on the topic) it was still devastating to the point of heavy tears. How then, must a child of 11 have felt? Not only in watching a beloved (if fictional) friend die so suddenly, but then having to wait until the next season (which would not air until September, perish the thought!) These were questions I found myself asking, and though the idea of tracking down these children (now adults) would not occur to me until a few letters later, I figured this letter’s author would be a perfect narrative start for this project...

Credits: Screenshots from The New York Times Timesmachine, 03/18/1975, page 1 & 75. Script photo by @mashhistorian, whose article is very good: https://themashhistorian.com/2025/03/03/script-spotlight-42/ Larry Gelbart’s interview with the Television Academy: https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/larry-gelbart?clip=21088#about NPR Article: “Remembering the Doomed First Flight of Operation Babylift.” https://www.npr.org/2015/04/26/402208267/remembering-the-doomed-first-flight-of-operation-babylift Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives (SOVA): “M*A*S*H Television Show Collection, 1950-1984, undated, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.” https://sova.si.edu/record/nmah.ac.0117?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=NMAH.AC.0117&i=0#summary

[elliehase-blog]

We're simply meant to be

I just had to write something about them. ❤️💜 This time it's longer than usual, and not proofread (sorry) but if you enjoy this little piece, you can read the rest on AO3.

~*~

In the afternoon, Roman is still quite relaxed. He polishes the blade of his sword, humming verses of Sally’s song. Hey, why not? He is only 51% sure that this is a kind of date tonight. It’s not as if Virgil was in any way clear with his all-but-nothing sentence.

»You're right, Roman. We can live like Jack and Sally if we want to.«

There. The word 'date' has not been used in any form.

Virgil had laughed at this point, to Roman’s utter bewilderment. A delightful little laugh that took up all of his attention and everything else outside had ceased to exist. And of course Roman had not known how to help himself other than to take the whole thing to the next level.

»And sit together, now and forever,« he had said, and had taken Virgil’s hands carefully in his. In this moment, Roman had only felt his heart pounding against his ribs in a whirling drum solo.

After that, Virgil had turned away in embarrassment and mumbled something that sounded like, »See you later.«

So maybe it is a date after all.

Perhaps.

(It’s certainly not.)

For seconds Roman bites his fingernails helplessly. He had seen so many cheesy romance movies in his life that he liked to consider himself an expert in the field. There was nothing to surprise him, as he knew all the signs and all the rules. And if you can no longer rely on cheesy romantic movies, then what?

But somehow all these rules never apply to Virgil.

How did they get here in the first place? Aren't they supposed to argue and fight like in the good old days? Sometimes, Roman likes to picture the deep, passionate rivalry he and Virgil have for each other. He imagines them having endless discussions about Disney characters, staring at each other in a fiery way. And when no one is around, Roman sighs deeply and longingly at this point and buries his heated face in velvety soft red silk pillows.

In the evening, Roman takes a look at his imaginary wardrobe and starts hyperventilating. He’s never had a no-date before. With nobody.

He has no idea what to wear and if he has any piece of clothing that says, 'When you look at me, I can’t breathe, and whenever you’re around me, I talk a lot more nonsense than usual, but if this is a date, I’d be totally fine with it.'

Lately, Virgil had just been too nice and peaceful around him. He means, nice… within the scope of his limited possibilities. Roman can’t say that this is terribly unpleasant, it’s just very… irritating. He has to do something. Or rather, he has to delegate this problem very quickly so that someone else does it for him.

Roman was great at delegating. This talent was practically innate. That's why he calls Logan.

»We have a… situation,« Roman explains dramatically. »I don't know what to wear!«

Logan throws a 'What do you want from me?' look at him. He raises his eyebrows wordlessly and completely unimpressed and makes absolutely no attempt to move even a millimetre from the spot.

»C’mon, Teach, I need your advice here!«

Usually, Logan would not have been his first choice in terms of clothing and taste, but he also has that unclouded and focused sight that Roman needed right now.

»Pleeeaaase!«

Logan sighs and Roman strongly assumes that this is supposed to mean agreement. Probably, Roman had convinced him with his astute argumentation and natural authority. That, or Logan, for once just doesn’t think a discussion is worth the trouble.

»What's the occasion?« he asks without further ado, pushing his glasses up in an unconscious gesture.

»Something… important,« Roman says vaguely.

[hollybrookee]

Wrote a silly little story about geopolitical conflicts using minecraft mechanics <3 Can confirm it’s better than the minecraft movie xoxo.

“Being taken under a weathered skeleton’s wing and moving into one of the last mob cities free from the Brine family’s chokehold on society was supposed to be a clean slate for Steve. It was supposed to be his only chance to lead a normal life (sort of). And it was, for a while. Between the human village just above them reporting suspicious mob behavior, Enderian soldiers acting out of turn, whispers of the Nether’s involvement, and Oceanic tribes wreaking havoc on the surface, It seemed his past was starting to run faster than he was. And It certainly didn’t help that the son of the End’s most decorated general got framed in an espionage scheme to undermine Overworld political barriers. Now the guy was digging into Steve’s past to open up old wounds and Steve had no choice but to help him do just that.”

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

D.W. McLachlan responds to the recent discourse around COVID safety at meetings by comparing risk probabilities. Ultimately, it’s unclear what advantage we gain by refusing to protect each other from COVID, which poses an existential threat to any organizing effort.

A recent tweet by @timerube of New York City DSA (Democratic Socialists of America, a big-tent socialist organization in the United States, the largest of its kind) has prompted outrage and division among the so-called left along lines of COVID mitigation.

This letter is not about litigating who is and isn’t a proper socialist based on their use of personal protective equipment. I don’t care what you call yourself or other people. This is a letter about how you need to account for reality in your organizing or you won’t be effective in reality. If you want to normalize COVID, you need to account for the effects of that decision and mitigate the risks it poses.

Let’s describe the landscape of risks that is likely to be familiar to many readers. Imagine that you work at a grocery store and want to secure anti-fatigue mats at workstations. Eventually, you will likely need to meet with your coworkers to decide the steps you’ll take to pressure management to meet your demands. Most of these co-workers will need transportation to make it to the meeting. Transportation involves risk. If you held 10,000 of these meetings over time in the United States, there’s a good chance that there would be a fatality due to a car accident on the way to one or two of those meetings (based on average US traffic fatality rates of 13.8 per 100 000 people). As anyone who has had to work long hours on hard, cold floors can attest, you’re much more likely to face consequences from the working conditions in this example than you are from traffic accidents. So, is it worth the risk? We can make the choice even clearer by encouraging remote meeting and transportation by even safer means like bus or train. 10,000 meetings is about 10 years of weekly meetings. At the end of this simple calculation, it makes sense to meet since meeting is likely the only path to victory and won’t expose participants to very much risk. This is not an endorsement of the rates of traffic accidents. The fact that we need to bear this risk in order to organize is itself a loss, but we did fight for decades to mitigate this risk so it doesn’t immediately threaten our movements on its own.

Of course, the biggest risk of meeting with your coworkers (in person with no mitigations) during the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic is not dying in a traffic accident, not by a long shot. COVID will impact your organizing ability if you don’t mitigate the risk. Using the same example, let’s imagine that you get 300 of your grocery store coworkers (you work in a chain of grocery stores) together for a meeting in person with no COVID mitigations. This meeting takes place in an NYC church on November 11, 2024. According to our best modeling, 1 in 113 people in NYC were likely infectious on November 11th. So you almost certainly have at least two contagious co-workers in the meeting. They will likely infect 10–25 people at your meeting (Omicron has an R0 of 10-25, so each person infects 10 to 25 other people over the course of their infection. This information is discussed in the post-script). At Dynamic Zero, we’re using an average Long COVID per infection rate of 20% and the reasoning is discussed at length in the Summer 2024 Seasonal Update. Imagining that the chain of infection ends there, with a 20% rate of Long COVID resulting from these infections, your meeting will permanently harm 2–5 of your activists. The disability resulting from that harm may not be total (for example, losing one’s sense of smell can be devastating but it’s unlikely to prevent labor action), but the effect is cumulative. This will happen every meeting. This is beyond the impact of the acute phase of the disease itself, which lasts 10-14 days on average. The equivalent to the disability risk in our original example would mean a rate of being disabled by a vehicle accident of 8,333 per 100,000, which is 603 times higher than what our society bears as “acceptable risk” for traffic fatalities.

This will not be your only meeting, of course, and the risk doesn’t stop after the first meeting. The fight for any improvement in working conditions usually takes months or years, as any experienced activist will tell you. 5 out of 300 is 1.6%. How many meetings can you host like this before your entire body of 300 coworkers has been maimed by COVID infections? Approximately 62 meetings. As an activist for climate justice prior to 2020, I personally attended 4–6 meetings a week. Each meeting also means that 8.3% of your labor pool for actions will be sick for up to two weeks. At best, they will make mistakes and need more rest. It’s likely that they will need material support and community care, which is a wonderful product of our activism but it takes more effort away from actions that work toward our demands. If we don’t want to mitigate the effects of this risk, we need to account for it and describe a plan to win even with such high rates of attrition. I personally don’t believe it’s possible to attrite a significant portion of your organizers each meeting and win, that seems like a dead end.

This is all beyond considering the frankly ghoulish opposite side of the equation. We grudgingly risk traffic accidents so we can organize for a better world. What do we get for risking COVID infections? We refuse to wear masks so we can feel normal? We refuse to clean the air so we don’t have to think about how the authorities are lying to us? Or about how each of us is vulnerable to Long COVID? Is it the snacks? I can’t really imagine what’s on the other side of the equation for the COVID denialists that makes it worth it to refuse to mitigate the risk so fervently.

Several people discussing the original tweet have called people asking for mitigations of this risk (which means filtering the air, getting vaccinated regularly, and wearing respirators indoors) “COVID Dead-enders”. This is a very obvious projection. The (extremely optimistic, since it assumes no other community spread and only one meeting per week) alternative to mitigation is to maim a group of 300 activists every year or two just with meetings. How many groups of 300 activists have you got?

My argument is that our bourgeois civil leadership has decided that it’s normal to make every public space invisibly hazardous by systematically promoting COVID reinfection and removing the tools people need to inform and protect themselves from the threat. This is a form of social control since it makes resistance without COVID mitigation hazardous. Your meeting itself is a source of harm and attrition if you don’t mask and clean the air. Who’s working for the feds here?

D.W. McLachlan

Post-script: On R0, Rt, Variants, Immunity, and Bullshit Regarding the ability to model and predict how many people will be infected in a given meeting, it’s important to note that the quality of this data is not very good and the situation is certainly worse than it appears because of the Biden administration’s widespread suppression of testing and data collection. However, if we accept official figures, the 2–3 people with COVID at your 300-person meeting certainly have a subvariant of Omicron. Data on Long COVID rates are impacted by the same suppression as testing and reporting, but the math is easy to adapt.

R0 and Rt are statistical figures that represent how contagious a particular disease is. R0 is also called the "basic reproduction number." Rt is the "effective reproduction number," which accounts for immunity in the population from vaccination and prior infection. An R0 of 2 means that each person first infected with a disease will spread it to two others.

I use the R0 of Omicron in the article for several reasons:

First, it’s unclear how the situation has changed due to the suppression of testing and reporting noted above. Wastewater data is notoriously inappropriate for comparing between different waves of COVID infection because of the nature of “normalization target, qPCR chemistry, and watershed scale”. We don’t have a collection method and context that can produce a reliable updated R0 or Rt number for a given variant that accurately determines an individual’s risk and how that has changed since Omicron.

Second, just because public health officials have abandoned the precautionary principle doesn’t mean we should too. Our leaders all over the imperial core have abandoned many aspects of prosocial thinking and policy to protect profits. I am not motivated to discipline myself by the malice of my enemies. The traffic accident analogy is still apt. I don’t know how likely it is to save someone when I prioritize distributing bus tickets at a meeting. I just know that if I didn’t, and someone was hurt, I would forever question whether I could have prevented their suffering with a simple bus ticket. The respirator is analogous to the bus ticket for handling the risk of infecting your comrades with COVID.

Third, it doesn’t actually matter. I don’t need to know the exact number against which I weigh your life before I act to protect you. We need each other and I don’t want you to get hurt.

[staybabblingbaby]

Soulmate Garden AU (Prologue) a2 d4

[Caution: These are not full fics, or even full parts of fics for some, these are part of my writing progress archive!]

Concept: Growing up, you knew Soulmates weren't all that they cracked up to be. So when, on your 18th birthday, your skin is painted with a garden of flower buds, you resolve to hide it from everyone. Who had ever heard of someone with 8 soulmates, anyway?

Or; Reader has 8 soulmates and no issue avoiding all of them. It's up to SKZ to show her that while every soulbond might not be made of fairy tales, theirs certainly could be.

Word Count: 1,308

Notes: I don't like this. It's not. Bad. It's decent writing. I just don't like doing world building this way. But I'm flying by the seat of my pants and everybody need to know the base information before we're all lost as hell. Also! Prologue + Ch 1 are the longest single piece of writing I've ever done. SG lives in my brain rent free. These are also the most polished pieces on the archive, because I have a tendency to reread smthn to get back into writing it after I put it down, and these are long so they got put down a BUNCH. So. Enjoy?

Dividers by @saradika

Warnings: Fighting Parents, She/Her Reader

Leave me comments or questions or anything! Love hearing from folks <3

Masterlist <3 | Next Part

On your 18th birthday, you wake with a garden wrapped around your torso.

You analyze the unbroken ring of vivid greenery in the mirror, tracing the lengths of stems and branches with your eyes. They wind lovingly around your curves, looping all the way up your ribcage and sloping back down around your sides. It takes some maneuvering, a handheld mirror, and your phone’s camera to get a good look at your back, but your soulmark continues in the same manner all the way around.

Perhaps even worse on your back, you think, as you eye one tree that rises all the way up your spine, stopping just below the nape of your neck. The branches spread out in long, willowy tendrils along your shoulders, pale and droopy frond-like buds dripping down the expanse of your back.

You count eight types of flower bud in your explorations, noting that they’re the only things really in focus on your mark, despite the image being connected through all sorts of greenery. The implications of that make your jaw clench, and you turn around to hastily pull on a long t-shirt with shaking hands.

You study yourself in the mirror again after, lifting the bottom of your shirt to various degrees at different spots. You eventually make your choice and nod to yourself. You continue your morning routine as usual with the addition of a rapid heartbeat and unsteady breathing.

When you emerge from your room, mostly ready for the day, you’re met with the expectant gazes of your family.

Feeling sort of nauseous and like you’d rather refuse entirely, you shyly lift the part of your shirt you’d rehearsed earlier. You reveal a part of your mark on your right side. Just a small section of green, almost bush-like, from your hip to just above your waist. It trials off underneath your shirt, but not in a way where you’d think there was anything but more bushy green.

Your family celebrates for you. Your mom hugs you tightly, your father crows about how his baby girl deserved all that and more, and your sister shakes your shoulder with excited glee. They’re so proud of you for having such a large and vivid soulmark, your parents happily bragging about the small but colorful ouroboros on each of their thumbs and how they just knew their kids would be just like them.

You exchange a look with your sister when your parents somehow start an argument in the middle of their cheers for you. About something they had been enthusiastically agreeing upon moments prior, no less.

You push your sister out to your car with promises of breakfast fast food, the inevitable daily screaming match already beginning as she steps out the door. You follow her once you've left a note by your mom’s purse and take your usual food money allowance from her wallet. She wouldn’t notice until well after she’d stormed out of the house again, you knew.

Your soulmark celebrations are halted there, since you decline to show anyone at school your fresh mark. After all, while your family had just seen a bush with little droopy purple and fuzzy white flower buds, what you’d shown them was two very separate flowers on a backdrop of green.

The thing was, it wasn’t like you hated your soulmark. That’s not why you hid it, why it caused you so much anxiety. You adored your soulmark, in fact. As the years go by, there are many nights you spend feeling cradled by the comfort of being so ensconced in love that evidence of it literally always surrounded you.

Nights when tear tracks stained your face, and you could almost feel the tree branches on your back warm as if holding you.

Nights where everything seems pointless, interrupted by tall stems seeming to tickle just beneath your breast, a sound like twinkling laughter ringing in your ears.

Nights when the yelling in your house reaches a crescendo and you spiral into panic, wondering if tonight was the night someone went too far, brought out of the oceanic tides of fear only by counting little white buds across your tummy.

So yes. You love your mark. It’s just that you had no intention of ever sharing it with the world, and even less intention of seeking out the eight individuals behind those precious symbols of love.

See, you knew a thing or two about soulmates. You spent quite a while researching them when you were younger, trying to find a reason why soulmates like your parents could fight so viciously.

Turns out, while ‘love’ was the common interpretation of soulmates, all they really were was ‘destined’.

You can see this truth in action in your parents nearly every day. Always yelling, always fighting, always resentful. And yet, neither of them ever thinks to leave. It’s almost like they’re connected by the world’s strongest rubber band, constantly springing back together no matter how hard they pull apart from each other.

But even rubber bands can snap, and you don’t really want to be around when this one does.

Your parents had married, you know from your mom’s drunken ramblings one evening when you were twelve, because their families had expected them to. Their friends had expected them to. Even their coworkers had expected them to. After all, they were soulmates, and with such vivid marks at that! Surely they’d fall deeply in love, have a million babies, and live happily ever after.

You wish the reality had been that kind.

In your opinion, your parent’s ‘destined’ relationship with each other was one of enemies. Enemies with benefits maybe, but definitely not people who should live under one roof and raise children together.

But the public theory is that the bigger and brighter the mark, the bigger and deeper the love. And so your parents got married, and you were born. Lovely, really.

A research rabbit hole when you were fifteen had informed you that not only was this public theory not fact, but that it was entirely unprovable. Given that every normal relationship was different, it was only a given that every soulmate relationship would be different too. The most science could prove was that more vivid marks tended towards more intense feelings.

So yeah, no matter how much you loved your marks, you weren’t going to trust the relationship it promised you. You considered yourself the type to learn by example.

Besides your unwillingness to seek out your soulmates, your situation was also just plain weird. It wasn’t like clusters of soulmates were unheard of, rare as they may be. It was just that they were usually threesomes or foursomes, the largest on record being a whopping six person soul-cluster from South Africa. And you may be bad at math, but you’re fairly sure that having eight marks meant you were part of a nine person cluster.

You didn’t really want to be the latest study on the limits of soulmate bonds. So, you turned to what you knew, and started hiding.

Your closet filled with long camisoles of every color and pattern imaginable, and your sock drawer was quickly loaded with waterproof privacy wraps and rolls upon rolls of concealment tape matched to your skin tone. No one questions you, simply figuring you private with your marks.

It gets to the point where you wear your flimsy shields around the house, too. The only time you really get to see your marks is late at night when you’re drifting off to sleep, and early in the mornings when you’re getting dressed.

You live your life like this, flinching when your parents fight, barely acknowledging your soul marks, and pretending that everything is just fine to your little sister.

And then, freshly graduated and twenty-two, you move clear across the country. 

Perma Tag List: @mbioooo0000

[three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat]

You blink. At some point you had picked up the hat, gripping the brim tightly between your hands. The weight is familiar in your hands; you rub the edge between two fingers, and it's just as soft as you remember.

Well. You don’t know how you started shuffling on the good ol’ mortal coil again, but you certainly don’t plan on advertising that fact to dear Stardust, so that means the hat is yours now!

(Maybe you should burn it. Y’know, symbolically! That would probably be fun!

But… someone made this for you. Someone looked at the snotty little kid you probably were, and made this for you to last your whole life. You couldn’t…)

You settle the hat on your head gently; it sinks down through the rays of light and lands, surprisingly, on soft hair.

Loop finds themself alive again, with a choice to make.

(Full fic below the cut)

You don't know how you are alive.

You had disappeared– blown away on the wind, specks of light, probably really pretty if it wasn't, y'know, you, and then you had blinked and you were lying under the Favor Tree, Dormont's party in the distance the only indicator that you weren't at the start of a loop.

You had booked it into the forest as soon as you realized what was going on. Wouldn't want Stardust and their family to find you, after all!

(The mysterious traveler Siffrin, the helpful guide Loop, the Universe's favorite (ha!) court jester, brought back to life again. It would be indecent to try and take something that wasn't yours, after you already failed once.)

Your foot hits something soft. You look down; Stardust's hat lies crumpled on the forest floor.

Oh, that's right! It had fallen off during his adorable little confession scene, blown away off the roof of the house! It's just your blinding luck to be the one to find it, isn't it!

Poor little Stardust, out there with a cold head; you're sure the Fighter is already coming up with ideas for a new one, and the Researcher wondering where exactly it could've landed, and maybe the Housemaiden is fretting over whether he's too cold–

You blink. At some point you had picked up the hat, gripping the brim tightly between your hands. The weight is familiar in your hands; you rub the edge between two fingers, and it's just as soft as you remember.

Well. You don’t know how you started shuffling on the good ol’ mortal coil again, but you certainly don’t plan on advertising that fact to dear Stardust, so that means the hat is yours now!

(Maybe you should burn it. Y’know, symbolically! That would probably be fun!

But… someone made this for you. Someone looked at the snotty little kid you probably were, and made this for you to last your whole life. You couldn’t…)

You settle the hat on your head gently; it sinks down through the rays of light and lands, surprisingly, on soft hair.

You stop, hands still on the hat. You… hadn't known you had hair. You had thought maybe the rays of light were your hair. But if you have hair, maybe…

You shutter the thought and pull your hands away. No need to dwell on that, haha! You must have just imagined it, you silly star you!

You got Siffrin’s hat! You think to yourself mockingly as you start walking again. If nothing else, you’ll always be the one to have it instead of them!

---

Eventually, after… a while of walking, you find a town. It's tiny, even smaller than Dormont, and you don't think it's one you've been to before. It's certainly a bit hard to remember anything from before the loops, though~!

There’s a market set up in the center of town, stalls selling food and clothes and all sorts of nice little things you don't have enough money to buy.

You wonder if this town had been frozen, and for how long. You wonder if they know the King is dead– well, they probably know something is up, what with Stardust's little light show having been seen for miles (and by the Universe, your head still hurts if you think about it).

"Hello?" A woman asks, walking up to you hesitantly. "Are you looking for something?"

You realize, abruptly, that everyone is staring at you. You also realize that, along with having a star for a head, you are technically naked.

"Just wandering through the area!" You say brightly.

She nods. "Well, alright… Do you mind if I ask your name?"

Huh! Well, you didn't expect that! You run your tongue along your teeth absently, wondering what name to give her. Siffrin is, haha, obviously not an option. Loop is–

wait. What had you just done? You had teeth? A tongue? A mouth?

"Actually." You say, most of the brightness dropping from your voice. "I am looking for something. Is there a bathroom I can use?"

...

You think maybe Stardust was right about something; bathrooms are great for breakdowns! This one even has a nice little mirror on the counter for you to stare at yourself in! They only had a door!

Oh. You can probably use it for other things, too, like seeing if you were imagining things other than big spikes of light on your head.

You take the hat off and hold the mirror up to your face, squinting. Underneath the light, if you look hard enough… yup! That’s definitely eyes and a mouth and all those other little important things that make up a face!

WELL! A fat lot of good that does, finally becoming human again when your precious little understudy has already left the stage with YOUR FAMILY–

The mirror cracks under your thumb. Whoopsie, you can't control your own strength and now it looks like now you have to apologize to that nice lady~!

You take a closer look at your face. You look… well, like yourself! Maybe that isn’t surprising! There’s more of those weird little star freckles that adorn the rest of your body. Your left eye is dull and lightless, which makes sense considering you still can’t see a BLINDING THING OUT OF IT–

Haha. Blinding! It’s funny because you’re half blind! Aren’t you a funny little fellow!

You put your hat back on and lean back against the sink, studying how it sits. It looks a little silly, honestly, because the spikes of light just sort of… disappear into it. You take your hat off and they spring back up. It would be kind of fun to watch, if, y’know, looking at light in a mirror didn’t hurt your eye.

There’s a tentative knock on the door. You jump a little and drop your hat back on your head.

“Bright one?” The nice woman says. “Are you alright in there?”

Oooh, you do NOT like that title! Not one bit! You’ve gotta come up with a name fast now! Hurry, hurry, hurry!

Stardust is your copy– well, you suppose now you’re the copy, so maybe you should reverse their name. Nirffis? Is that anything?

…That’s horrible, is what it is! It’s nothing! Do better!

Something flickers through your mind. There’s… a story? Something about twins and a sheep and a constellation? You can’t remember anything about the story, or even what a constellation is, but you and Stardust are certainly twins, aren’t you?

(Close enough, anyway.

And you like sheep well enough, too.)

“I’m fine.” You say cheerfully after a moment, clasping your hands together in front of yourself and smiling. “And call me Gemini.”

(You remember she can’t see you after a moment and feel stupid. Your hat is crooked and you’re still holding the mirror, too.)

[swordfright]

Heyo! Here's my fic for @fairytalesfromthesmp feat. some of Kenjo's sketches for the project. @kenjo-arts and @rutadales did some incredible art for this fic, please go check it out!

TITLE: through the zeros and ones SUMMARY: When Dream slays a dragon, it's nothing personal. He's just trying to provide for his adventuring party: get enough food to last through the winter and neutralize a hostile enemy in the process. It should be simple, right? He certainly doesn't expect the dragon to use its dying breath to curse him. Now he's a dragon too, thanks to eating cursed dragon flesh - and the only way to reverse the spell is to do a favor for the Ender Dragon, a mythical beast who rules a dimension beyond the bounds of reality. The journey to the End is long and arduous, but Dream has no choice. Along the way, he meets a warrior, a crow, a jailer, a ghost, and a prince. WORD COUNT: 16k, complete

[mazeeelabyrinth]

[ "Symphony of Love & Desire" ]

Malleus x GN!Reader

Summary: It was Malleus' birthday and a party was being held at the Diasomnia dormitory. The formalities and main event of the party was done. You, Malleus' classmate and close friend, was pushed by your peers to sing a song requested by the band for further tonight's entertainment. You agreed to sing the song after a brief musing.

Tags: 18+, one shot smut, eventual smut, birthday fic (sort of), lots of kissing because I love it, porn with feelings, power play, dom/sub, slight degradation, hickeys, rough sex, pwp, creampie, multiple orgasm, brief oral sex (receiving)

A/N: I certainly have a type and Malleus is one of the addition. Yes, I'm now diving with my non-existent cock first at the LEGAL twst boys—especially Malleus. Also yes, I'm posting about another character's birthday instead of my side chick: Idia Shroud.

Word Count: 10.3K

[ Masterlist ] | [ Archive of Our Own ]

Malleus Draconia, the birthday celebrant, was seated at a table in the center of the dorm’s lounge. He looked even more stunning and regal in his white dress suit—a common outfit worn by birthday celebrants at the Night Raven College—that exquisitely hugged his tall figure and mesomorphic physique. He enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smells of the festivities.

The party was nearly over, most of the important affairs having been done, most of the guests gone already and those left were enjoying the last dregs of conversation and food. The main banquet hall had been cleaned up after the main course had been served. It was a splendid feast, with roasted meats, baked sides, and an array of soups and salads. After that, there was a delightful dessert course, featuring a variety of chocolate, baked, and creamy delicacies.

You stepped through the ornate double doors of the large lounge where the party was currently being held. The band at the front of the room had begun to play a slow, melodic song. The lights dimmed for a moment, before coming up bright again as a spotlight shined on you. Everyone's eyes were on you now, and the room waited with breathless anticipation.

You took to the stage before the crowd. You were dressed accordingly and you looked composed as you clutched the microphone stand. With a deep breath, you allowed your eyes to adjust to the sudden change in lighting before moving forward. You had been pushed into a role of prominence that you were far from comfortable with, but you let yourself loose for the night.

Malleus had remained the majority of the evening in his seat, content with observing the room and taking note of any little tidbit that may interest him. The band had continued their soft, slow melody, setting the perfect atmosphere for your announcement.

As the first cheers of support came from around the room, Malleus also began to applaud in support. He was just as entertained by this yearly ritual as any other, even if you did not always seem to be in the best spirits.

"Sing it loud!" He was heard to say, and the room followed his example.

Inwardly cursing yourself for falling victim to peer pressure, you took your place on the stage that had been set up. Your dread was not evident in your confident stance and easy demeanor. Your voice cut through the chatter when you lifted the microphone and called for silence.

"My gentlefolk. You know who I am, and what I am here to do, of course. As tradition dictates, this evening is to be entertaining and memorable, as I have the honor of providing this night's entertainment."

You scan the coagulation of students and some teachers then spot your gaze upon your peers that pushed you on the stage at the side—cheering you on. You shake your head as a faint smile appears on your lips.

You took a deep breath when the band started to play the intro of the song that they have requested for you to sing. Some students of the crowd clapped when they recognized the instrumental intro of the song. Surely, you wonder about their song choice. Nevertheless, you know the song by heart and it seemed there was no room for negotiation for this one.

As you kept singing, you found yourself enjoying the act; and Malleus kept watching, paying extra close attention to you now. Every lyric sung and every note hit with precision and beauty. The first lines of verses were sung with the full support of the room, which sent Malleus' spirits soaring.

Even with Malleus still in his seat, he leaned in closer, his eyes glued on you as you sang. A light sweat broke out on his forehead despite how well climate controlled the room was, and he took a few quick breaths to compose himself, though this did little to help his attraction towards you.

You looked at the crowd again with a smile on your face, your eyes moving over each and every person there. Your voice was sweet and smooth, your delivery was almost perfect and… sensuous as Malleus would interpret it. For all your unassuming manner, your presence was strong and striking as you stood and moved in front of that audience.

Malleus' eyes had remained on you from the very start, and he felt as if he had been hypnotized in place by your voice. He felt like a teen boy again, his face still a slight tint of rosy, his attention focused on you. He took deep breaths, but his heart began to beat a bit faster. His eyes followed every movement of your lips, every expression that crossed your face.

As you began to sing the climax of the song, Malleus could not help but become completely enamored with the way your body and movement expressed the emotions of the song. Each motion, each word said it all; that this was no longer a performance, but something more personal.

Malleus was breathing quite heavily, and a fine sheen of glisten covered his face now, feeling his heart beat faster and harder than he had felt in years. He stared at you, eyes glued to every breath, every blink, every motion. In a moment of weakness, he even licked his lips before he realized what he was doing. Every word that came from your lips felt like a dagger to his heart, though they were quite beautiful.

You took a deep breath as the song reached its final chorus, your wandering eyes watched the crowd and your eyes met with Malleus'; and you both shared a knowing expression. Your eyes remained locked with each other, and you could feel Malleus' eyes on you as well. Not an ounce of your feelings were left to interpretation.

Malleus' breath was caught in his throat and he watched you with an almost trance-like state. As you finished the song, your eyes still remained locked, and the room seemed to disappear as Malleus remained focused entirely on you. The final chorus brought him closer and closer to the ledge of madness, as a wave of heat and excitement covered him. He licked his lips again, it is as if this entire song was written by you and with him as the subject.

Malleus felt his fingers curling as he resisted the urge to grab you by the collar or brush his fingers through your hair. The song had him in a sort of ecstasy, having played on his emotions in a way he never expected possible. The emotions played in a symphony of his senses, and it was all he could do to remain seated.

You remained staring at Malleus with the same warm, slightly mischievous smile on your face that you wore since the beginning of your singing. As you had been in the center of the crowd, you now felt Malleus' eyes on you as you shared a moment of silence.

"Thank you gentlemen, I hope you were entertained by my performance for our dear Malleus' birthday."

You held Malleus' gaze for a few seconds longer than was comfortable, and then you turned away and greeted a cheering audience with a bow, your smile never breaking. You walked off the stage to a raucous applause, your face still slightly flushed with effort and excitement.

Malleus could feel his heartbeat out of his chest, his emotions a mix of excitement and nervous anticipation. He could not even hide his blush, nor turn his eyes away from your figure as you walked off stage with grace.

He remained seated for just a moment, taking deep breaths and hoping that you could not see just how excited he was at the song performance. Malleus could have sworn that you had planned for this show, and if you did, it was the most clever, well executed act of seduction Malleus had ever seen.

He took a moment to compose himself, but the images of you and the chorus kept playing in his mind. He was surprised to see how many members of the audience had their phones out and were recording the moment. Malleus took a deep breath once again and recollected himself as best he could, wanting to catch up with you before you left.

Malleus waited a few minutes, knowing that you had been performing on stage and probably needed to catch your breath and collect yourself. When he started making his way through the crowd, he spotted you off to the side in an empty hallway.

He made his way towards you, his heart beating so loudly he thought that it would give away his approach. When he finally reached the corner, he rounded the wall and saw you standing by yourself with your arms behind your back, eyes glued on the dark gothic paintings plastered on the walls.

Malleus took a deep breath and walked over, clearing his throat slightly as he approached. He hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether to tell you how he truly felt. He took a deep breath and spoke.

"I have never... I have never heard someone sing like you do," his words were quiet, his tone soft and reserved. He could feel himself beginning to blush again.

"That... that song, you really sang it. You performed it perfectly, and I can't thank you enough. I have never been so... so mesmerized, so completely captivated by a song like that. Your voice…”

You turned at the sound of Malleus' voice and smiled at him, taking a moment to look the man up and down. The look that passed between the two of you was a telling one, and it was quite obvious that you both knew what was going on.

"Well, thank you for your words of appreciation, Malleus," you began to walk over to Malleus, hands still behind your back.

"I only did what I think would entertain me and the audience as well."

Your expression was that of interest, a sly and playful smile spreading out across your face as you began to take in the well-crafted suit and the handsome face of your friend. You also caught the light blush that was creeping towards Malleus' cheeks, and the way his breathing hitched ever so slightly. The man's expression was one of subtle excitement and eager anticipation.

Malleus met your gaze as he approached, his face flushing brighter with each moment. You might have been the most attractive person Malleus had ever met, as he would now admit despite the two of you being quite closer than he is to most people; and it was quite obvious that he was just as captivated by your figure as he had been by your impromptu performance.

As you drew closer, Malleus took a deep breath and stood up straight, trying to maintain some composure despite the overwhelming emotions washing over him. He placed his hands together and looked away from you for a moment before looking back again.

"I... I wanted to say.”

Malleus let out a nervous chuckle—which is a far cry from his normal disposition—feeling your presence like a warm glow around him as your eyes remained locked. You had a way of making him feel nervous and excited in all the right ways.

"I... It was... that song hit a chord with me that... I don't think I've felt that way in ages. And the way you sang it... I have had that song on a loop in my head for days, but the way you sang..."

He took a breath and tried to calm himself, "You're... magnificent.”

You smiled, eyes remaining locked with Malleus'. You took a small step closer, leaning in and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, a playful glint in your eyes.

"Magnificent am I? My performance must have really hit a chord then, to make you say something so... intimate about it. I am pleased I was able to please you so, Malleus."

You leaned in just a bit closer as you looked up at Malleus' unequivocally attractive features, a slight smile graced your lips.

"And I suppose I should also thank you for being such a fantastic classmate and a friend." You gave Malleus a light wink, the two of you smiling back and forth before Malleus looked away, his face still a bit flushed.

Your eyes twinkled, your smile growing and your gaze still lingering for a moment before you tilted your head upwards and pressed your lips against Malleus' own in a slow and gentle kiss.

Malleus was absolutely caught off guard by the sudden kiss, caught completely in the whirlwind of your lips. It was the most romantic thing anyone had done for him. Malleus felt lightheaded, feeling his body tremble as his body grew more flushed.

The moment was surreal, and so many emotions crashed and flooded through you at once. You could feel your feet leave the floor as your lips pressed against his own, his arms wrapped around you as you both relished in the moment. Malleus felt as if time stood still, and for a moment everything else in the world just faded away. His mind was filled with a mix of elation and confusion as his heart raced at the sheer excitement of the moment.

It was so tender and gentle, but every inch of it said "I have wanted this for a while".

Malleus had to bite his bottom lip to prevent a moan from escaping him. His heart pounded furiously in his chest, and he felt completely and wholly weak. He wanted to kiss you for a long time, and he never knew how your first kiss together would feel so wonderful.

You held Malleus gently as the kiss lingered for just a moment, though to you it felt like hours. You felt yourself begin to puff, not from the act of kissing but from the pure emotion coursing through you. Malleus was more than a friend to you, more than an intimidating figure to fear, he was someone who you could not help but admire and adore.

You could feel Malleus' body tense, yet there was a warmth and ease that could bring him comfort and make him melt in your grasp. You could feel Malleus' heart pounding against his chest, and he wrapped his other arm around your waist as the kiss lingered for another moment.

Sooner, you felt Malleus' hands grip your neck and shoulder, your chest heaving with your breathing and your heart racing. You could feel the way that Malleus felt you, wanted you... it was as if you were in a dream.

You pulled away from the kiss, your hand cradling Malleus' jaw, your thumb slowly stroking over his lips. You stayed close to Malleus, still looking up at him, your eyes peering deeply into the fae's soul.

"Did you enjoy your birthday present, Malleus?”

Malleus stood there, staring into your eyes as his mind and heart were still racing. For a moment, the only sound that Malleus could hear was his heart beating, pounding so hard it felt like his chest might explode.

"I... I don't think I could have ever imagined such a... perfect gift. I... I just..."

Malleus looked down at the ground as he tried to collect himself. Then, he finally got the nerve to look down directly at you. He still felt utterly weak in your presence, and you had only seemed to grow more stunning since the kiss. It was as if you were a perfect figure, every movement a dance, every look an enticement.

"Yes, I enjoyed it more than I have ever thought possible." Malleus gave you a brief, but passionate kiss. His heart was racing and his breath was short as he stepped back. He wanted to taste your lips again and he knew that he was in too deep now.

You let the kiss linger for a moment, gently leaning your head toward Malleus. When Malleus pulled away, you smiled and nodded, your expression one of understanding and appreciation. You could see the passion in Malleus' eyes, and you knew just how smitten the man was.

Just then, your eyes sparkled with a deep sense of playfulness and mischief, your hand that was still resting on Malleus' jaw went to Malleus' collar. With a light chuckle, you leaned your head upwards once more and pressed your lips to Malleus'; and your other hand pulled the back of Malleus' head, as your lips chafing onto his.

After what felt like hours of lips pressing in the most tender graze, you begrudgingly pulled away for breath.

"I love you, Malleus. I've been wanting to tell you that for a while now," you said with sincerity as your emotions poured out in the open for Malleus.

It was a long time coming and you were given the perfect opportunity to confess the love you felt for the few years you had known together.

Malleus was speechless, his heart racing to a point where he thought it might explode. The kiss was tender, sweet, and his desire to kiss you one more time was intoxicating. Malleus felt his heart ache from the separation, his very soul wanting to join with you, and he knew that if he did not make a move quickly he would regret it.

Malleus wrapped both hands around the back of your head and pulled you back to himself. He leaned in with no hesitation and pressed his lips to yours once more.

The kiss became more deep, slow, and completely immersive. Malleus' emotions had taken full control over him as he kissed you with a passion and love he had never felt before. Malleus pressed against you, his arms sliding under your shirt and his hands rubbing your back and shoulders; and you could hear the faint rustling of your clothes. He took the initiative of this kiss, wanting to take everything he could from you and give him everything back in turn. He wanted to give you every ounce of his body, to show you just how much he cared.

When you felt Malleus take control of the kiss, your eyes flickered open in surprise. You had never experienced anyone quite so assertive and bold, and it made you feel almost like a younger teen that had their first crush touch their hand for the first time all over again—your legs growing weak and your body quaking. You had to hold on tight to Malleus to keep yourself grounded, your mind swimming so much that you couldn't put words to your feelings.

Malleus held onto you as tight as he possibly could, his hot breath wafting on your face as his heart pounded like thunder. He was completely and unequivocally in love, and there was nothing that he wanted more than to feel your lips upon his forever. The entire world could fall to disarray, and Malleus would still keep his hold strong over the person he had fallen for.

When it finally ended, you were breathless, the passion of the kiss and the heat that it brought with it being almost more than you could bear. As your eyes slowly opened you felt Malleus' hands rub your back, his arms sliding underneath your shirt as he pressed his hand against your chest, his body pressed against yours as tight as he could.

You knew Malleus' intentions and your heart felt like it would jump out of your chest and bid you goodbye.

Your throat imperceptibly bobbed and spoke in a hushed tone, "Take me where nobody can see and disturb us."

Malleus pulled you close to him as he felt your legs giving way underneath him. Every inch of your body pressed against Malleus', and the feeling of your warm body pressed against his own felt better than any drug.

He didn't hesitate the moment you asked to be taken somewhere private, his arms wrapped around you as he lifted you off the floor. His lips pressed against your ear and he whispered seductively.

"Hold on tight."

Malleus was already in the process of pulling you to a secluded corner of an empty hallway, far away from the event and away from the crowded lounge. The corners were dark and empty as he carried you close around the corner, his hands occupied with your body. Malleus' expression was of excitement and passion, and his voice was deep and heavy as he spoke.

"You have no idea how much I have wanted you.” Malleus' heart was racing, his body practically buzzing with excitement. The moment had finally come, and he was going to cherish it to its fullest extent.

Your hands were wrapped around his neck, and Malleus felt your head pressed into the crook of his neck as he held you to his chest. You made your way to his room, where nobody was nearby, the door was locked, and the mood was intimate and exciting.

Malleus leaned against the wall, pressing you against it. Malleus' free arm and hand slid down your back and down your hip, his fingers brushing against the fabric and tracing the figure beneath. His other hand stayed wrapped around the back of your head, holding you against the wall as he slowly kissed you more and more. The kiss was aggressive and Malleus was finally taking what he wanted. Malleus' mouth was a warm, deep, and tender caress as it played over your mouth and chin and cheek.

Malleus finally broke your lips apart. Your eyes locked upon one another as your hearts raced and your breath was heavy, and then Malleus' fingers wandered over your shirt and he began to slowly unbutton it. He moved slowly, his hands touching your body in all the right places as he whispered seductively.

"Take a deep breath my dear, for things are about to become... quite intense.”

You had the greatest difficulty in taking a deep breath when Malleus' fingers started to unbutton your shirt. You watched the man's lithe fingers work their way over the fabric of your shirt, and your body felt like it had been set ablaze.

"Mm... Malleus..." your voice trembled just a little as you spoke.

You had never felt someone take such control over the situation, it was unlike anything you had ever experienced before. Your voice was breathy, and you could feel your mind trapped in a haze as the excitement only grew and grew.

Your breath went in and out in short bursts of air and your very soul practically boiling under Malleus' attention. The man before you was the epitome of power and status, your ideal of success, and you were utterly intoxicated under his touch.

"Whatever you want, Malleus, take it. I'll be yours."

This had been your dream for the longest time, and now it was going to be made a reality.

Malleus smiled as he continued to slowly unbutton your shirt. His hands felt the warm skin beneath, feeling the muscles contract and loosen as his breath caressed your neck. As the buttons of your shirt were fully undone, Malleus slid the shirt off of your body and leaned down to lightly brush his lips against your collarbone.

Malleus slipped his arms around your waist, his warm breath hitting your skin as he whispered seductively, "There is something I would very much like to do to you, my dear.”

Malleus' lips pressed back against your collarbone, his warm breath gently caressing your skin. His hands ran over your back and sides, his fingers rubbing and caressing the figure of your body while his lips began to work their way down your chest. His warm breath continued to hit your skin with each exhalation, and his hands kept moving over your body.

Malleus' lips kept on softly brushing against your skin, his hands gripping your hip as he leaned down to your ear. Your breath was ragged, and Malleus' voice had the distinct sound of dominance about it. His voice was deep and rich, and the words were slow and deliberate.

"I would very much like... to kiss... all of the parts of your body... inch by inch." Malleus slowly slid your pants down, his lips still caressing your neck as he spoke in a whisper.

Malleus paused, his lips still against your neck. The man was flushed with adrenaline, his muscles tense as his body practically vibrated with the heat that grew within.

"May I?" Malleus' breathing was short, and his body quivered with the anticipation of what he wanted to do next. His grip on you tightened as his lips slipped away and he looked directly into your eyes. Malleus looked like a hunter, and he was about to take his prize.

You couldn't contain yourself and the response was already bubbling to the surface. You were practically a bundle of raw nerves and anticipation, and the voice you heard was like that of honey on your ears.

"Please... yes... do it. Please, I want every inch of your lips on my body," you sounded desperate, your breathing ragged and your voice shaking with the intensity of the moment. It wasn't just a thought or a desire for you, it was a need, a hunger that could only be sated in this moment by Malleus.

Malleus gently kissed your neck, his lips and the breath from his words caressing your skin and you felt like your skin was burning in every kiss. Your pants were down to your ankles in another moment, and your eyes were focused on Malleus, locked onto the fae's eyes.

The atmosphere was filled with a charged tension, and Malleus could feel your eyes exploring him as well. His fingers brushed across your body as he leaned over you, his lips pressed once again on your neck. His kisses were driving you insane. You wanted the man to take you, to explore every inch of you, and to make you his entirely.

"Please, don't just say it, Malleus, do it," the words were soft and breathless, a plea from you to your friend, now lover.

This was real, you could feel it with the touch and the words of the man looming before you. Your skin continued to burn, and your legs were weak from the excitement and the passion. Your eyes flickered open and the words in your mind left your lips.

"Take what you wish, my love. I am yours." Your expression changed to one of quiet desperation, as if the very words came from your soul itself.

"Love." Malleus spoke the word as if it were honey in his mouth. Malleus leaned over you, his eyes and lips locked on yours, and he was enjoying watching your reactions. He breathed it, whispered it, and let the word linger as his lips moved down your neck, his teeth slightly biting down, and his tongue softly tasting your skin. His hands moving to your hips and holding you.

There was no more time for games, and now it was time for passion.

Slowly, Malleus took off his suit jacket and threw it onto a nearby chair. The two of you were inside his dorm room, and there was something romantic about getting close to the person he wanted so badly and finally having you all alone. Malleus' own breath was coming in short and heavy puffs as his eyes feasted on your mess of a quivering naked body.

Your eyes widened and blushed as Malleus took off his jacket and threw it onto the chair. Your breath came in short puffs, and your heart raced in your chest. Your every nerve and muscle aches for Malleus to do to you what you both had been waiting for. You saw the fae prince in a different light, and it was more intense and intoxicating than you could ever have imagined.

You felt like you were dreaming, your eyes staring up at Malleus as he went topless. His body was hot, his flesh was warm, and his skin was tingling with desire. Malleus' touch was both tender and rough, as if he was being gentle whilst preparing to pounce on you, and you let out a soft moan as the man’s hands touched you.

Every inch of your flesh tingled as Malleus touched you and his breath drifted across your skin like a fine mist. You wanted nothing more than to lose yourself in the moment, to forget that you were inside Malleus’ dorm room and give your heart over the man that was making your soul sing.

Malleus moved slowly, his eyes locked on yours as his lips found their target. He kissed you slowly, intimately, in a way that showed that your moment together was not one based on lust or obsession but on a desire for something much deeper and more meaningful.

Malleus pulled you close, and his arms came around you. Malleus' tongue darted around your jaw to your ear, and your own breath was coming in short and heavy gasps as you felt the fire between them grow once more.

Malleus' fingers slowly traced the outline of your body as he kissed you more. His lips danced across your abdomen and further down your hips. Your pants were down to your ankles, and Malleus was feeling your leg shake.

He kissed your thigh as he spoke. "I cannot wait any longer.”

You found yourself unable to speak, your body reacting to the man before you and your desires overwhelming your words. You wanted to scream out in pleasure and passion. Your body was burning hot from Malleus' touch, and your own hands were slowly stroking the man's back.

"Then... take me," you whispered, your words soft and breathy. "I'm yours... in every way."

The word seemed to come from your soul itself, and you let your arms fall limp. You felt like you couldn't hold yourself up any longer. The touch in Malleus' hands and tongue both drove you crazy as you felt your control over yourself fading fast.

Malleus slowly kissed his way up once again to your stomach, and your eyes were shut tight as you felt the heat increase; and your own hands were trembling as you felt everything about your senses heightened.

There was no time for games, and no time for play. The two of you wanted each other and it was time to finally be together. Malleus slowly lifted your legs, and your fingers were biting into the mortars of the wall behind you.

"You are mine and I am yours." Malleus' voice was a husky whisper, and his voice was filled with a passion and excitement he had never been able to express or feel before.

Malleus brushed one hand over your crotch as you stood weakly on your feet, making your back pressed and rubbed against the concrete wall. Your body was twitching. It sounded and looked like your breath was escaping in short and shallow puffs like an untended fire, your eyes fluttering and closing just to open wide and stare into Malleus' own.

You felt it building up inside, this deep craving and desire that you felt only grew the longer it remained unfulfilled. Your skin felt like it was ablaze, you could feel it burning under Malleus' tongue and lips.

"More... please," your voice was soft, and his breathing was loud.

"Malleus..." you whispered once again, your voice laced with lust and a desire for more. You were almost speechless, and your head was rolling back against the wall and you mustered all of your strength to stay standing on your feet.

Malleus stood slowly, his hand sliding over your ass and down your leg as he smiled. He took the moment to enjoy the situation and the person he had his attention on. Malleus' hand slowly rubbed and teased along the inside of your thighs, and both of you were heavily breathing.

Malleus watched you and your reactions carefully, noting every small change, every twitch and movement, every look and sound you made. It was a heady feeling, knowing he was having this much effect on you, but it was also exciting. The way he felt for you was exciting, and making a person as wonderful and put together as you responded to him so readily was a source of pride.

His own hands gripped your hips tightly, as if he was going to lift you up and take you right there while you both are pressed against the wall. There was something about you that drew him like a moth to a flame, something about you that made him feel like the chase was worth it. Malleus took his time and savored every touch, every moment, every word.

Malleus brought his lips back up to your face and your eyes met once more. Malleus could feel the heat of the passion coursing through your flesh, and he could practically feel the need and want, the craving for more. He wanted to take you right here, right now, for the moment was perfect and he felt it. He wanted you, and he wanted you so desperately.

"Do you want more?" Malleus' voice was gentle and filled with love.

"Yes, please... don't stop..." Your voice was little more than a grunt, but it had the effect you desired.

Your fingers dug into the wall behind, as if trying to stay standing and Malleus' hands clutching your waist to support you. You were practically shivering and your legs were parted by Malleus' thigh. You could barely think straight, let alone speak coherently.

"You want me." Malleus' voice was a husky whisper as he spoke the words. Malleus could feel your need for him, and he felt the hunger you had for him inside his very skin. The kiss was growing deeper, and suddenly, you could feel the man's hand sliding down your spine slowly, his fingers tracing over your skin, exploring and seeking for even more pleasure.

Malleus watched you fall apart in front of him and he had never felt more excited. You were his prey, and you were now a captive to Malleus. Malleus was so excited, he could hardly keep himself from biting your flesh, but he knew better. Your flesh was delicate and he loved you, and it would take great force of will not to tear you to pieces while the hunger for you built inside him.

"I want you." Malleus' voice was filled with desire to consume you whole.

And so, he did. He lifted you up and gently placed you on his bed as if you were a precious cargo; then he swiftly removed the dangling undergarments from your ankles.

He pushed you back so that you were lying on the mattress, and he let his lips explore your body once again. He kissed your chest over and over, his lips trailing down along the line of your abdomen then back up your chest—licking and nibbling the puckered nipples. He kissed your neck with long slow kisses, and then his lips moved up to your right ear and slowly moved down to your left jaw, kissing every inch of skin along the way.

"Malleus... please... " you whispered softly, your eyes fluttering in a daze.

Malleus took one look at your body and he felt his passion and his hunger build and he was finally hungry enough to take you and not even be subtle about it.

Malleus' own pants were quickly undone and set to the side of the bed. There was the sound of passion in the room, the sound of breathing and the rustling of clothes being shed. Your body was a marvel to Malleus and he took his time in admiring it.

"What a sight to behold." Malleus' voice was a whisper as he looked over your body, and then Malleus' lips and tongue made their way back to your ear. "Such a prize, to have in my hands.”

You were a mass of quivering hips, aching muscles, twitching fingers, and shallow breaths. You were trembling, shaking, and so much more as you let Malleus have his way with you.

You were a whirlwind of excitement and you were so far in over your head, you couldn't believe you hadn't both drowned. Your breath was shallow, your eyes flutter and unfocused as you let every sensation wash over you. Malleus' body and voice and words were a spell that you had just fallen under and you were utterly powerless to break it.

"Malleus... I need you..." you whispered, letting out a small gasp.

"Please..." You begged once more and spread your thighs a bit wider, your feet planted on the soft sheets of Malleus’ bed.

"Shhhhhh..." Malleus' voice was a husky whisper as he finally gave in to his own hunger.

He kissed your belly, licking and swirling his tongue along your flesh as he spread your legs even more, his tongue moving deeper down your body and his touch finally finding the place he was desperate to find.

You could feel your body shaking and you couldn't stop it. Your breath hitched and your body was tingling from head to toe as Malleus laps the flesh between your legs. And yet, Malleus felt no pity or concern for you. All he felt was excitement and hunger.

"Oh, Malleus..." your voice broke as Malleus gave in to his own passion.

Your hands gripped the sheets tightly as if to keep from being pulled deeper into the experience. Malleus' tongue and lips worked over your genitalia with abandon, pushing you further and further over the edge until you could do nothing but let go and let Malleus have what he wanted.

As the pleasure perpetually cascaded along your flesh, your hands mustered the dregs of your strength and grabbed Malleus' hair and pulled him back to your face. You wanted nothing more than to feel Malleus inside you like you had never wanted anything your entire life.

"I need you, I want you inside me." You grunted from the pain and pleasure as your flesh grew more aroused and screamed for more intense stimulation.

Malleus made a husky, excited sound as your hands grabbed his hair and pulled him back up. His lips were wet and sloppy from the kisses and licks he just gave you and he was quite visibly shivering now. The moment was pure heaven, and he was desperate to claim what was rightfully his and to make this moment last.

He climbed on top of you whilst spreading your legs. He held your shoulders and your arms, pushing his body down, and making sure that the two of you were close together. You had nowhere to go, no way to escape.

"You want me to take you?" Malleus almost growled the words, his voice a deep husk, and his fangs glistened against the dim lights of his room.

Malleus leaned in closer to your face as he lifted your right leg off the mattress. There was an unspoken question in his eyes, and you could see the hunger in his gaze for him.

"Tell me... " Malleus whispered the words, his voice full of desire and hunger.

You were trembling all over but you didn't feel cold at all. You felt hot like your skin was set ablaze by Malleus’ touch.

"I'm more than ready." Your voice was a breathless sigh as you looked up at Malleus.

Your genitalia was leaking with your slick from all the stimulation. You were a mess. Your hair was a mess and you were a mess of feelings too. You were ready to give yourself to Malleus, and there was no fear in that choice. It was the right thing, the only thing, that you needed right now.

"Yes," you whispered with your voice quivering in his excitement. "Oh my… god..." You let out a heavy sigh before you spoke again, "Please... please!“

Malleus was grinning as you whispered the words, as if it was the hottest, most seductive thing he had ever heard. He was a proud man, and to hear his prize say these things about him made his day.

Malleus let your legs move closer together, and his right thigh moved in between your own, slowly spreading you open wider before him. He saw the hunger in your eyes, and he saw the need in your face. He saw you open to him as you lay on his bed and begged for what you wanted.

"Good…" Malleus' voice was filled with delight. He leaned down atop your body and grabbed you by the hips, sliding his body closer to yours. His mouth slid to your ear, and his tongue was teasing one of your sensitive ears as his hand caressed your thighs.

"Ready, dear…” His eyes met yours, and the two of you looked at each other, both desperate for more after this long moment of longing. Malleus licked his lips and his smile was mischievous and cruel.

You gasped and shuddered as Malleus teased your ear, your eyes fluttering, your face flushed pink as you tried to stay in control, but you knew that there was no way he would last much longer.

"Yes! Yes, oh my god yes! Please take me. I want you, I NEED you, and I'm ready!" you were desperate, you couldn't wait another minute.

Your body was shaking with nervous excitement, and there was no fear in you, just pure, unadulterated need. You heard your own breath coming in shallow heaves, and you felt your own body's hunger as you watched Malleus move towards your entrance. You can feel Malleus' tip hitting and rubbing your pulsing core ever so slightly.

“I want you as well…” Malleus' voice was a husky whisper, his teeth gritted and his tongue working the edges of his mouth as he spoke to you. His eyes were heavy as he puffed, his warm breath hitting your skin as his desire for you grew with each word that left his lips.

You were right where he wanted you, completely vulnerable, totally exposed, completely open to him. Malleus' hands and feet slid around you, as his tongue worked over your neck, chest and arms. He was completely and utterly prepared to take everything you had to offer...

Malleus leaned closer to you once more until you were chest to chest, as his hand left your thighs and moved up your body to grip your waist. His mouth stayed glued to your ear, and he whispered softly in your ear as his body slowly slipped overtop of yours. He made sure to keep his eyes on you, his gaze firm and dominant, with a hint of desire in its glint.

"I know," he growled softly as he felt you shake with excitement. "Hold onto me... “

Your answer was a groan, a loud, lustful moan as Malleus moved over your body. Your eyes closed tightly as your body quivered, trying to contain yourself. You could feel Malleus' body against yours, and your own stomach churning with gleeful anticipation.

"Oh... oh Sevens, I..." your voice trailed off.

A loud gasp escaped your lips as Malleus’ tip started to push inside. Your eyes shut closed, all your attention was poured into the sensation of Malleus' shaft tearing its way inside you and stretching your flesh.

Malleus' mouth was right in front of your ear as he whispered to you. "You're mine, you… are completely mine."

And with a slow motion, with the speed of moving glaciers, Malleus started to thrust deliberately inside your walls.

He moved with determination and a cold hunger, for he knew how close you were to being his. He knew how much you wanted him and he knew it was only a matter of time. It was time to end this, to put the finishing touches on the perfect night.

"Hold onto me..." Malleus' command rang out once more, and his voice was a growl as he made himself clear.

He was in charge and you would know it. Malleus did not want to hurt you and he did not mean to hurt you. But, it was part of the game, and you would be fine by the end. Malleus let his movements be measured and slow for the first few seconds as he eased himself in, and then he slowly increased his pace. He wanted you to feel it, to feel every inch and every moment.

You were breathless, completely frozen in shock as Malleus claimed you in the most intimate way possible. Malleus was right on top of you, his manhood pumping fast and deep inside you, and you were helpless.

You tried to keep yourself together, but you were completely under Malleus' power and it seemed Malleus was in no rush at all to finish. Malleus moved with a confidence that matched the hunger in his eyes and the cold, dominant gaze he was giving you.

You let your hands move to Malleus' shoulders as you gasped out in the final act of surrender.

"I won't run away so claim me as your own," your words were punctuated with a low moan.

Your body shook involuntarily and your legs slowly spread even further apart to make sure that Malleus was able to move his hips faster and deeper. You let your mind go and you let his body take over. You were Malleus’, completely.

That moment of surrender was exactly what Malleus needed. He moved slower now, but his eyes never drifted off of you. He pushed his shaft fully inside you, and he stayed there for a beat, just to let you feel the force of his presence.

"I claim you," Malleus' words were a whisper, but there was no doubt as to their meaning or to his intention. After the man spoke, his hands began to slide back up your body, and his mouth was going to explore every inch of your neck.

Malleus moved slowly, but it was a steady rhythm. He was completely in control of the situation, and of you, and he was certainly going to take advantage of that situation. He wanted to enjoy every moment of this experience, and he wanted you to enjoy it as well.

You can see Malleus' face tightened as you shifted your body underneath him. You accepted the gift, and welcomed Malleus into you by bucking your hips against the fae’s. Malleus' body was moving with a slow and consistent pace, giving you enough to feel it, to build the intensity of the moment, each moment and every inch of it.

"Right there! Ah..." You whimpered breathlessly as Malleus' tip hit a sensitive spot inside your flesh despite the deliberate and tender thrusts of his hips.

Malleus' lips slowly worked their way down your neck, leaving small kisses in the wake of Malleus' mouth. He kept a slow pace, letting his motions carry your mind and body away with them. He slid your legs further apart, forcing you to move your thighs even further down the mattress, opening yourself up even more to Malleus. He was enjoying this and he was not going to be finished so quickly.

Malleus whispered in your ear once again, his voice a soft but cold voice that spoke of his pleasure…

"Enjoy it." Malleus whispered into your ear again, the words sent shivers down your spine. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he knew he wanted more than just this.

He was a man of control, a man who kept calm in everything he did... except tonight. Malleus' focus was entirely on you, his words and eyes sharp and cruel, but they were a mask for the hunger he had for you. He was moving deeper now, forcing the tip of his manhood even further in.

Your mouth was open as your breaths were shallow. Your mind was lost to Malleus' body. You were his toy, one of his possessions and you belong entirely to him. You swallowed a low, lustful sound that escaped your body as Malleus' shaft kept on tearing its way inside your tight and slippery flesh. Your body tremors with anticipation, your voice was a breathy moan that you could barely get out.

"Ah... I... Malleus... " you quavered as you stumbled with your words. Instead, you responded with a moan, letting your head fall back as you gave it completely over to Malleus. Your eyes were closed and you felt your mind drifting away.

Malleus' pace was picking up slowly now, moving back and forth, back and forth, and pushing himself deeper and faster. He felt the insides of your body clenching and pulsing around his shaft in every thrust of his hips.

He whispered into your ear, "You are mine."

The words were like a wave, moving over you, the feeling of Malleus' ownership over you. It was a cruel thing, that ownership, but it was also a powerful thing. Now Malleus would have his way.

Malleus' tongue was working on your neck; licking, moving, and whispering to you the things he knew you wanted to hear. His mouth was a whirlwind of motion. Each part of your body was being worked to perfection. He knew you would enjoy them all.

You could feel every deep movement, every moment of being stretched out. Your thoughts were cloudy and you were breathing heavily. Each thrust by Malleus was a new experience. Your words came out in broken sentences, your mind was in a vortex of pleasure.

"I am, I am yours..." With each word from your mouth, Malleus' pace grew faster, and he drove deeper, faster, harder.

Malleus' voice had grown harsh and was more demanding by the second. He felt you giving way completely and he knew it was only a matter of time. He was in the driver seat and he would keep the pedal to the metal.

"Oh, you! What a mess you are..." Malleus' voice was a purr, one that carried a hint of amusement with it. It was like he was seeing you through a fog of lust and desire, of unadulterated excitement.

"Are you ready?" His voice was quiet and it carried just enough menace, just enough warning that you were close to the edge. But you also knew that the question was not a request for permission, it was a question of Malleus' curiosity.

You had taken Malleus at his word, and you were giving into every sensation that was coursing through you. Your mind was losing itself, and each moment was getting even closer to losing control.

You could feel his manhood pumping in and out of you mercilessly. The way it throbbed and twitched, how warm it was, and the way it hit so deep inside that it gave you a burning sensation. His deft hands grope your flesh with a vice grip, leaving reddish traces of nail marks here and there; and how those hands leave handprints on the back of your thighs from his harsh spanks and grip. How the pleasure and pain mixed together to drive you closer to the edge. You felt the pressure accumulating by each passing second.

"Yes!" You felt like you were in a dream, like your body was completely removed from your mind. Your body responded instantly to the harsh voice of Malleus, it's every cell moving to please him. Your voice was a mix of pleasure and agony, as if you were struggling to hold on to yourself, to hang onto life.

"More... please.”

It was like he was punishing your body. Keeping you wanting, keeping you desperate. Malleus was going to hold you right there on the very border between submission and denial, of pain and pleasure that he inflicted on your body. All the while he was making it perfectly clear that these decisions were his alone.

Malleus' voice was a growl as he pushed himself deeper into you. He wanted you to feel every inch of him from every stroke. He wanted you to feel his possession, his dominance, his power. His words were a demand, not a request. He had been patient with you the entire time, and he had enjoyed the process. That patience was beginning to fade slightly now and every single word out of his mouth was filled with a sharp edge.

"More? You want more of me?" Malleus asked, and then his fingers curled firmly on your waist, digging their nails on your supple flesh.

Malleus smiled as he heard your mumbled words and desperate moans. He knew he had you at the edge of the cliff, and with the words he just heard, he knew it was time to push you over.

"Moan for me as much as how you pant like a dog in heat," Malleus' voice was low and demanding, and his tone had shifted to a more cruel edge. “Like how you are desperate for me to fill you with my seed.”

His hands were running up and down your body, and his face was just inches from yours. He was pushing and pulling, he was taking and he was giving... he was playing with you to his heart's content. He was going to get as much pleasure as he could out of you. He was going to push you over the edge into the abyss of sensation without remorse.

"Yes, please. I want more of you. Please!" Your plea was desperate, a desperate voice of a person pushed past their limits and into a realm of sensations beyond anything you had ever known before. Your body was shaking, your legs were wrapped around Malleus, your back was pinned to the bed and your head was thrown back in surrender.

"Oh god, please Malleus! Push deeper! Faster! Please, please!" you cried out loudly in a fit of passion and submission. It was as if Malleus' body was a lock, and Malleus' voice and words were the key.

"Yes... yes... give it to me... More!" And with that utterance from you, Malleus knew that the game was over. Malleus' voice was a purr as he pushed himself even deeper, and your voice was a rasped mess of pleasure, pain, and ecstasy.

Malleus knew that you just crossed the bridge into surrender. You had no words left and your body was doing all the screaming. Your eyes were closed and your breathing was ragged.

Just as your body was wracking with waves of pleasure, Malleus pulled himself out of you, just to plunge in with a force he had reserved for very special occasions. Malleus knew that this was where it ended, and he was ready to take that step too.

Malleus' pace was frantic now, as if he had held himself back all this time just to reach this moment of pure pleasure. He moved deeper, he moved faster, he moved harder. His grip on your body was iron and his voice was cold, harsh and demanding. No man was going to take what was his. Malleus was in control. The pace and heat were increasing as you both prepared yourselves to climb the pinnacle of pleasure. His body was the paint and your body was the canvas.

"Oh you... Oh..." Malleus' voice was heavy with lust and utter pleasure.

Your body was in perpetual tremor and your legs were wrapped around Malleus, unable to let go of the fae. You were quaking so hard and was almost unable to breathe. You weren't really in control of your body at all anymore as though your body was acting on its own.

You were in a heaven of pleasure. You screamed and your back arched so much that if Malleus let go, you might snap in half. It felt like a fire that was consuming every inch of you, every nerve in your body was set ablaze. It didn't feel like a fire of pain, no it felt like a fire of lust, a fire that was spreading from inside of you and consuming you entirely. You couldn't hold it in any longer, it was impossible.

"Yes... Oh, Malleus... Yes! " The scream was enough for Malleus to know it was finished.

And with a final powerful thrust of Malleus, you gave everything you had in a final act of lust. Your voice was a loud, dragged out guttural moan, and the words left your mouth slipped in a breathless whisper. You moaned Malleus' name over and over again. It was a pure, immaculate, physical release.

There it was, that single moment. Malleus could feel it too, you were giving yourself to Malleus and that was just the beginning. He had been patient but now he was pushing for more. Malleus had found a sweet spot and he refused to let his prize slip away. His own pleasure had been growing and he would not be denied any longer.

"My dear... I am still inside you." Malleus' voice was filled with heat, with the promise of more.

Your moan was broken and raw, every bit of your energy seemed to leave you with that final release only to be replaced almost immediately with shame. Your body was still shaking but your voice was broken. You could feel Malleus still inside of you, you knew that Malleus had no intention of letting you off the leash quite yet. Your eyes were closed, your face was flushed, and you were breathing as if you were being suffocated.

You managed to find your voice, albeit barely. It was not the begging words, it was not the strength of the voice you had been using so easily a moment ago. It was the voice of a person completely overwhelmed by a pleasure you never knew existed.

"I... Yes, I need more." Your eyes fluttered open and you turned your head just enough to look up at Malleus. Your hand reached out and grasped Malleus' buttocks trying desperately to keep him close as you let the fae find his own release.

Malleus was holding back no longer whilst he chased his release as you begged for more. His pace was growing more frantic than ever before. His voice was a murmur and his grip on you was a vice. His voice was becoming an endless cascade of his own pleasure, and his hands were moving in circles, kneading your body as all the while he was growing closer towards climax.

Every push of his hips sent your body into further spasms of pleasure, each moment had sent you to another intense climax. It was as if your souls were meeting somewhere in the middle, as if your bodies were two halves trying to become one.

His voice turned into a yell and he gave out one last mighty push to bring him over the edge. Malleus' voice was hoarse and it was ragged, it was a sound that seemed to echo throughout the room. He let out a final loud breathy moan and then he collapsed down on top of you as his semen filled you to the brim and flooded out of your clenching hole.

"Oh… my love." He groaned as he found his breath again. "You were perfect." He breathed out.

Malleus was laying on top of you. Malleus' breath was heavy and he was completely out of air. Your body was still wracking with waves of pleasure, as if it was still trying to adjust to the sensations that had been unleashed within. Your eyes were clenched shut and your body was shaking slightly as if you were in a dream and trying to wake yourself.

You were still struggling to find your words. There was no breath left in your body. Your voice had given out and your body was completely exhausted. The only sound that came out of you were a few gasps and a broken, hoarse moan.

Your whole body was shaking and you could barely move. You had given Malleus everything you had and you had nothing left anymore. There was nothing in your head either, your senses were all overwhelmed and you were not even sure you were still in the same reality. You were just a broken mess, utterly spent.

After what felt like an hour, although you're still breathlessly in a daze and exhausted, you managed to let out a hoarse chuckle and spoke.

"That was amazing, it was the best I've ever felt."

Malleus raised his head and looked down at you lying beneath him. He was looking at you still feeling his own sense of euphoria from the experience. He felt as if he was still high from the sensation, as if his entire body was awash from head to toe. His voice was still husky, still rough, and every breath he was taking was filled with the after effects of everything that had come before. He could not describe just how good he felt.

"You were perfect." Malleus smiled down at you, completely unable to wipe the grin off his face.

He turned his head around, his eyes locked onto yours. He leaned in as close as he could get to you and he whispered:

"The best you've ever felt, so far. " His voice was a warm growl, the kind that only promised more of what you just had.

"Oh, my dear, this is only the beginning.”

[chillentertainer]

Archive Classics: Typesetting Fics

TL; DR: the internet is temporary!!! printed books (for your own private amusement) are forever!!!

What I do:

Basically, I choose fics that I think deserve to be printed and typeset them using a software called Adobe InDesign. InDesign is the professional standard in the industry, but there are definitely easier (and cheaper!) options for formatting.

Once I've chosen a fic, there a few different things I have to decide: the font, glyphs, book size, and the hors-texte (title page, contents, etc).

Then, I go about copy + pasting the text into the software, and formatting them. Usually, that just means deleting the blank space of lines that for some reason appears between paragraphs.

Every element, and I mean every single element, is designed for the reader's comfort. At no point should the reader feel lost or unable to continue because of the way the text is formatted. This means using serif fonts instead of sans-serif fonts for the body text and making sure that there aren't any widows/orphan lines. I have specific justification settings so that the spacing between words and letters are even and smooth to the reader's eye.

I also think about headers and page numbers more than you would expect. Should the page numbers be on top or bottom? Centered or at the corners. Should I have headers at all? And if so, what should they say?

When I began, and I still do this occasionally, I grabbed books off my shelves and examined their formatting. Then I'd question why they made this design choice or that. All publishers have their special little quirks and features, and if I spotted something I liked, I would incorporate that into my own works. For example, Penguin Classics love their classic serif fonts and headers. Barnes and Noble Classics have a feature in their hors-texte that is their "From the Pages Of" section.

My favorite part is creating the cover. If you couldn't tell based off the title "Archive Classics," I *borrowed* Penguin Classic's grid. I love to use paintings or other kinds of artwork (like Étienne-Louis Boullée's architectural drawings for Fractals)

Why I Do This:

While there are many amazing and necessary reasons to read e-books, I enjoy the physicality of a printed book. Nothing can beat the sensation of turning the next page, the smell of paper, or the weight of your next great adventure in your hands. Fanfiction more than deserves to be experienced in that way too.

But also, I've always had a lingering suspicion regarding the temporal nature of digital media and of the internet in general. Fanfiction, in particular, are at risk of disappearing forever, and while you can obvs download it (which I always always do), there's a slight chance that you may not be able to access the technology in order to view it. Books don't require laptops or phones or internet service.

It's a silly movie, but Leave the World Behind (2023) showcases this perfectly, albeit with streaming services and dvds.

Finally, with the ever-changing landscape of the internet and technology, who knows if say archaeologists would be able to access ao3 in a 100 or even 50 years. Look at USB-As, and how quickly they're going out of use. Physical media like printed books will certainly last for decades longer. My ultimate (and idealistic) goal is to have a physical, printed library of fanfiction for both private enjoyment and for the academic study of fanfiction in the anthropological and literary fields. The latter will most likely not happen in my lifetime (if ever at all), but a girl can dream!

Copyright

This is slightly sketchy but from what I can tell from my research is that most sites don't give an af if you print like one copy for yourself and you do not print en-masse or start selling them. So like Manacled. Don't do what those kids did and put up your copies on etsy. I don't. I print this for myself and myself only. And I've never gotten a cease and desist letter or anything like that.

Requests are open: if you have a fic you think deserves the archive classics treatment, lmk! I do not accept payment. This is all free.

Examples!

A Current Cover I'm Working On:

This one is a linen wrap, which means it has flaps!

[baejax-the-great]

Fanfic isn't a possession.

When an author deletes a work on AO3, they haven't taken anything from the readers. It's not a physical object that can be snatched away, and if readers wanted a digital copy to keep, AO3 made that possible. It is the reader's choice whether or not to keep a copy. The author has absolutely no say over whether or not they do this.

If you have a favorite exhibit at the museum, and that exhibit closes for whatever reason, nobody "stole" art from you. Same thing with whatever play is currently at your local theater--it's temporary, and when it closes, the actors didn't take away your entertainment. Before streaming and box sets of tv shows being sold at Target, all of television was ephemeral, too. You caught it or you didn't.

I don't know why there is an expectation that fanfic should be permanently made available to readers. The archive certainly gives a place where that can happen, but there is no reason to assume that it always will happen, nor that readers are entitled to that.

There are many reasons to delete a fanfic--not orphan, not post anonymously, but delete. It's fine to be disappointed if that happens. It's not fine to harass authors or try to wrest control of the work from them or create archives full of stolen work.

[skimmingmilk]

Summary: When in the position to do Tails a small favor, Shadow finds himself immediately regretting it when Sonic shows up and goads him into what should have been a simple game of chess. But things are never simple when Sonic the Hedgehog is involved. Shadow should really know better at this point than to ever involve himself in the shenanigans of Sonic and Tails; they know all too well how exactly to get under his skin.

A/N: Since this is Shadow's big movie debut week, I wanted to post a little something in his honor! Congratulations, Shadow!

This was inspired by combining one of the answers from the most recent Sonic Twitter Takeover (for Sonic x Shadow Generations) with my own headcanon regarding Sonic, Tails, and chess :3

Please enjoy!

Fried Liver with a Side of Emotional Indigestion

Shadow didn't make a habit of stopping by any of Tails's workshops. In fact, he could confidently say—barring the times where Central City's had been used as the headquarters for the Resistance—he'd never once stepped inside. It might've been a mild jog from his apartment, but there was never a reason to go out of his way.

Except Tails had called him, asking for a favor. He wanted to study the design of Shadow's air shoes and get his feedback on a prototype he'd been developing for himself. Something more shock resistant to high falls with a quick recovery time that would lessen the fatigue on his tails.

"I haven't seen anything of a similar size that can utilize the power and intensity of five jets without overheating in a matter of minutes. And I'm curious to see how they manage their intake to avoid compressor stall in the turbocharger despite the rapid throttle changes when you move at high speeds. They're a mechanical wonder, as much as it pains me to say that about something the late Dr. Robotnik created… aside from you, of course! Obviously, heh…"

"The professor didn't design them."

"Oh?" Tails's voice cracked as it jumped up an octave, his surprise audible. 

"He oversaw their construction, but their initial conception was… someone else's."

"Of course. I should've known better than to assume. There were a lot of scientists aboard the ARK, weren't there? Distribution of assets amongst the team was likely instrumental for a quick turnaround," Tails chuckled to himself. "Well, whoever did design them was a true visionary! I'd love to pick their brain about any of their other ideas for improving aerospace technology—"

"That's impossible," Shadow interrupted.

"Right… sorry. I didn't mean—I just wanted to give them credit where credit's due." Tails paused to clear his throat, but it didn't quite clear the awkwardness in the airwaves between them. "But even though I can't discuss their design choices with them, getting to see their thought process by studying their design would be the closest to a conversation we could have. I completely understand if you'd rather leave the past in the past, though. It's your call, Shadow."

Shadow could've said no. He'd certainly thought about it.

And yet he showed up on the doorstep of the Central City workshop two days later, looking just as put out about it as he possibly could.

[Continue at AO3]