#anyways i love fixit content so much

[wiredaughter]

@tropetember #23: wingfic

☆-☆-☆

Dream to Sleep

supernatural ♡ adam milligan/michael ♡ mature ♡ fixit ♡ wings ♡ 831 words ♡ ao3

The first night they're back on earth, the first night they're separate people in ages, it becomes clear things are going to be different now. For one, Adam sleeps. Michael is pretty sure, anyway. He frets about it, after the human has brushed his teeth just to go back to the couch to continue his reading, reassuring him he doesn't feel tired yet. He lays off it for a while, ruminating on what he knows about humans and circadian rhythms, resting his head on his shoulder. Then, he has an idea so bold he'd probably selfcombust in any other circumstance. It's that feeling of breaking a rule, in part, which makes his mind up. He stands up, heads for the bedroom but stops at the door.

'I think I'm going to lay down a moment.'

'You? Are you feeling alright?'

The angel smirks at that, he's got him. 'Eh, I could use the space to stretch my wings.'

He hears the book thud against the coffee table, the light steps behind him as he comes to kneel on the duvet, discards his shirt. When Adam asked about his wings in the cage he explained they didn't work in hell, and true as that had been, he also felt strangely unsettled about the idea of showing them to a human. But he wants to now, even if the bashfulness hasn't entirely receded. Not turning to look at Adam where he stands in the doorframe, he closes his eyes and spreads two pairs of shimmering silver wings, eliciting a gasp from the human and knocking over a generic ornament from the bureau. He didn't really think about that, but before he has the time to recriminate himself he feels the bed dip behind him, Adam's breath ghosting on the nape of his neck. When he touches him, a firm palm on the small of his back, he sways back into the contact, forgetting his worries as he leans into the human's chest, wings fluttering at the contact with his shirt. He hums, content as Adam wraps his arms around his waist, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head.

'Michael...' His voice is rough but his hands are gentle, rubbing circles into his hipbones. 'Can I...?'

He's nodding before he can finish the question, a whine escaping from his throat as he's guided forward to lay on his stomach, careful hands tracing up his spine and along his shoulders as the human straddles him. Still not touching his wings. Was that not what he meant? Oh, but that's what he wants. He bites on his lip before forcing the word out. 'Please.'

However mortified he was at that, the mercy of Adam's long fingers caressing his covert feathers is worth it, fingertips pressing lightly as his thumbs stroke his back. He strokes his long primaries, as far as he can reach without getting up, slow and painstakingly tender. It sends shivers through him, but it's not quite what he wants. 'You can... harder.'

Adam hums amused, but plunges his hands into his feathers at once, letting out a satisfied sigh. He bends down to press light kisses to Michael's shoulderblades, and lets out a groan as he unceremoniously buries his face on his right wing, kneading his cheek into the fluffy feathers. This takes the angel by surprise, but not as much as the overjoyed solace that radiates through him at the gesture. 'You like them.'

He regrets saying that as soon as he does because the human is breaking apart in a moment, until his touch returns, turning him on his back. His wings give a beat when his hands return to them, but his attention is captured by his eyes, smiling, pupils blown and bearing into his own. 'Of course I like them.' Adam kisses him so sweetly a shiver goes through his entire body, which only makes his hands work deeper into his wings and slid a leg between his own. 'I love them. And you've been so good with my body, all that time you possessed me- I don't want to...'

Michael is pulling him down before he can finish the sentence. He kisses him openmouthed, almost desperate, only breaking away with a whine when Adam presses his thigh on his groin. The human follows his mouth, pushing his tongue inside, making his knees close tight around his as he arches off the bed aching for more. He slides his arms of his lover's neck to pull at his shirt, only to let out a weak whimper at the moment they have to stop making out so he can get it off. The heat of his bare skin on his is too much, and they fall into a fast, urgent pace when their lips reconnect, chasing their climax.

Michael presses small kisses along Adam's forehead afterwards, as he drifts off wrapped in his wings, and he figures things are really going to be different. He's excited about that.

[theangryblueone]

danganronpa games: g—GAY PEOPLE?!?!!? 🤢 wha🤢t the fuck??? We’re just making harmless jokes

Danganronpa 3 and danganronpa kirigiri: actually there are many canonically gay characters bc we needed violent characters with romantic motive to further the story one way or another :)

[chadmothman]

Day 3 post banana fish: still hurting

[nevertheless-moving]

Pop Star Wars AU: Waking

Drabble set in this au which I wrote way back a few weeks ago.

Back then, I had only recently decided to look up my tumblr password for a third attempt at being an appreciative fandom community member instead of just trying to think really hard at internet strangers, and maybe shout into the void a little. (But there’s like, several people here now??? How did you even find me on the internet? )

Anyway I have since learned how to spell Anakin’s name and insert links. Also that if you resize your window while typing directly into tumblr everything disappears.

Self Indulgent Crack Pop Star Wars Time Travel Fixit (star wars au no 3):

After several years of exile in the Jundland Wastes, Ben Kenobi had not quite finished mentally unpacking the decades of mistakes, grief, and failure that had led him to the desert. It was the work of a lifetime, and some days were harder than others. But after several forays in and out of alcoholism, spice addiction, and every other form of geographically-accessible self-destruction, he could at least say that some days were easier. 

The process was no doubt made more difficult by the abject solitude. Unlike the chaotic years that constituted the fall of the Republic, he had all too much time to think, and no one around to share his thoughts with. He closed his eyes in the dark of his hut, thoughts drifting between past and future. 

The past was as ugly and lovely as ever. The larger future didn’t look much better, but he could find some joy in the thought of tomorrow and fresh bantha milk when the herd roamed near. Owen was always much less begrudging of his presence when he came with an offering, and Beru would likely invite him to stay for noon meal where he would share in fresh cheese as Luke rambled about his plans to fix-up a junked speeder bike.

The thought of Luke’s happiness at the treat allowed him enough peace of mind to meditate more deeply.

He carefully broke off a piece of unfair-bitterness from his larger loving-grief. The bitterness he released into the force. The grief he turned over and soothed until its edges dissolved. He accepted it, now smoother if not smaller, laying it to rest alongside his hard-earned wisdom and unfinished poetry.

Tired, but fractionally lighter, Ben Kenobi drifted to sleep.

He opened his eyes to the first rays of daylight peeking in his temple chambers.

The room was intimately familiar. For a few years they were Ashoka’s, on the rare occasion she found herself temple-side and in want of privacy but not complete solitude. For a solid decade before her, the chambers were Anakin’s, though he was quick enough to accept the common room couch when Ashoka entered their life. And before that...they were his. That was his model rocket on the shelf, and his astronomical mobile hanging from the ceiling, and his robes scattered on the floor, though they hadn’t been arranged as such in this room since his apprenticeship with Qui-Gon. He sat up. 

Glad he had put energy into meditation last night, he used the lingering clarity of mind to try and work through possible explanations. 

Vivid Dream? No a quick pinch to his inner elbow debunked that, as well as the fact that the morning taste in his mouth was more the minty tang of denti-cleaner, rather than the saltiness of dried meat which he had grown accustomed to.

Hallucinogenic mushroom flashback? Possible, though it still wouldn’t explain the detail of physical sensations he felt, running his hand from the temple-spun linens on his bed to the warm-carved wood of his bedside table. He stood and did a perfect forward flip in place. Shockingly his knees didn’t ache at impact, but a drug induced hallucination of this intensity would have some sort of impact on his equilibrium, and he felt perfectly balanced, at least physically.

Force vision seemed most likely. Sinking into cross-legged meditation, he gradually lowered his mental shields. There was no whisper of Vader or Palpatine anywhere near Hutt space at this time, so the risk of reaching out was both manageable and necessary. Rather than the pure energy he personally associated with intense visions, he felt gradients of light, echoing ripples of emotions, and the unique solidity of force-imbued stone walls.

Heart beginning to race as reality set in, Ben concluded that he was, indeed, in the Jedi temple on Courascant. Even if he had suffered a complete psychotic break, his force sense couldn’t lie with such crystal clear detail. Confused unreality mixed with images of the past and future, sure. But this was the temple. It just was. 

He couldn’t make sense of it. Even if he had somehow been found, drugged, and transported to the heart of the empire, the rooms as he sensed them didn’t exist anymore. The contents were lost or burnt, the stone walls destroyed and rebuilt into a wing of the Imperial Palace.

Obi-Wan sank deeper into the force and reached out further, searching for he answers. In general, the force felt light, the shroud of the darkside was a hazy irritation in the distance, not a smothering blanket. The manifold wounds in the force formed by senseless war and destruction were absent. Also gone were the tang of grief and loss that he had begun to associate with the temple’s signature even before- even before the purge.

The temple was also full to the brim with tens of thousands of lights in the living force. He reached out to them incredulously, nudging many just to feel a living, sentient response. The last time he remembered feeling so many Jedi all in the temple at the same time was...well, when he still lived in this room. The nearest living force sensitive presence was achingly familiar, though notably and unquestioningly living. He could feel the presence moving nearer and retreated, pulling himself fully back into his body.

The only explanation that fit was that he had suddenly, miraculously, inexplicably traveled back in time. 

He half ran to his closet, opening the door with a yank to reveal a full length mirror. A once-familiar, 25-year old padawan stared back with visible shock. Of course his knees didn’t hurt, this body hadn’t yet been broken and abused by knighthood, war, and Tatooine. His hands examined the smooth chin, the unwrinkled forehead, and even the terrible, terrible haircut.

Obi-wan startled at a knock at his door, freezing in place. 

“Padawan?” Came Qui-Gon Jinn’s voice softly, “I don’t intend to pull you out of meditation prematurely, but is there a particular reason you were sprawling over the temple this morning? You startled me somewhat. To be perfectly honest, I think you might have alarmed a few people around the temple, I’ve already received messages from council telling me to reign in my padawan before he hurts himself.” 

Qui-Gon sounded more amused than reprimanding, and he paused, clearly waiting for an answer. 

Obi-Wan’s jaw locked up. What could he say? How could he even to begin to explain what had happened? He sank to floor, head pressed to the ground and tears silent streaming down his face. All he could do was offer to the force were words, the feelings could come later Thank you. Thank youThankyouthankyouTHANKYOU. 

For whatever reason, the force had granted him a second chance. Regardless if it was intended as punishment, gift, or inexplicable chance, he would build a better future than the one he left behind. 

“Padawan?” Qui-Gon knocked again, sounding concerned, “Are you alright? If you don’t answer I’m going to have to come in there.”

And all at once he had flipped back to not enough time to think and too many people needing his attention.

Obi-Wan managed to open his mouth to call out some meaningless assurance, intent on gaining more time to process the fantastical situation. Much to his surprise, what came out was a strangled, keening sob. Qui-Gon burst through the door. 

Obi-Wan realized, with a little embarrassment, that he was curled up practically into a ball on the floor, tears streaming in a shocking waste of water. It was probably not the most dignified, nor the most reassuring position for Qui-Gon to walk in on. 

Qui-Gon rushed to his side, pulling him up by the shoulders to frantically look him over. “What happened?” he demanded, “Are you hurt? Did something go wrong while you were meditating and you were trying to reach out for help?”

Obi-Wan smiled at the barrage of questions. He had almost forgotten that on the rare occasions when Qui-Gon’s perfect Jedi serenity broke, he became somewhat counterproductively intense. 

“I’m alright, Master,” he tried to say, but what came out was more of a croaking, “MNNrlerR.” 

This predictably, only increased Qui-Gon’s concern.

To Obi-Wan’s deep consternation, he was dragged by Qui-Gon to the healer’s wing. He remained quiet during the examination, not wanting to risk whatever was compromising his ability to speak. It could be readjusting to his younger body, or a manifestation of the admittedly great emotional shock he was still experiancing. Or simple lack of practice- it had been several weeks since he had last heard the sound of his own voice, from a certain point of view.

After finding no physical cause for concern, Master Vyr asked Qui-Gon to wait outside.

“Padawan Kenobi?” The Tortugan healer asked gently. “Your Master seems quite insistent that something is wrong. Would you like to discuss what the problem seems to be?”

Obi-Wan cleared his throat and was relieved when his voice came out smooth and under his control, “I’m alight, Master. I apologize for disruption. I experienced a... particularly strong vision when I woke up this morning, and temporarily lost control over myself. I’m already feeling more stable. I believe I simply need to meditate on what I’ve seen. My master unfortunately came in while I was dealing with some of the emotional aftermath.

“I see,” Vyr responded. “Did you experience this vision before or after your expansive foray into the force? I understand a surprising swath of the temple felt your presence press against them this morning.”

“I reached out after,” Obi-Wan admitted. “My vision was...particularly dark. I felt the need to ground myself with the presence of other Jedi. I’ll make certain to apologize to anyone I may have startled.”

Eventually he was cleared with the strict instruction to stick with shallow meditation for the next few days as well as a strong recommendation to seek out Master Yoda, Sifo-Dryfas, or one of the other Master known to experience visions. 

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan walked back to their quarters together in a peaceful quiet. It wasn’t until the door clicked behind them that Qui-Gon rounded on his padawan.

“What vision could possibly have left you in such distress?”

Obi-Wan walked to the kitchenette to make tea, stalling before answering. “You have always told me to stay focused on the present, Master”

Qui-Gon frowned. “Yes, however this...vision seems to have altered you somehow. You are grieved by it.”

“Yes. But what I grieve may never come to pass.” 

It won’t come to pass. I might not know his every tool, but I do know Sideous’s biggest secret, and I WILL stop him.

“Will you not tell me what you saw?” Qui-Gon asked, sounding somewhat hurt.

Obi-Wan poured the hot water carefully, feeling torn. If he told Qui-Gon everything... would he believe him? Perhaps, eventually but...what would become of Anakin, still just a boy? And the moment he knew of Palpatine’s evil...he knew Qui-Gon. He would favor the direct approach, underestimating the sheer breadth of the trap the sith had laid (Obi-Wan himself lived through it and only began to understand long after it had closed).

“I saw...a great shadow fall over the republic.”

He sat at the table, relishing in the simple pleasure of pouring a cup for Qui-Gon and himself from a shared pot.

Qui-Gon cradled his mug in his hands. “I see. Nothing specific?”

“Your death. At the hands of a tool of darkness. You ran ahead...” Obi-Wan took a scorching sip to stop himself. “It was foolish. Unnecessary. And I was forced to fight alone without you.

Qui-Gon set the tea down to stroke his beard in thought. “Well. I have no great desire to die. While I make no promises, I will endeavor to avoid leaving you behind ‘unnecessarily.’”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan replied, over sincere. 

They drank in peaceful silence. It was interrupted by a shrill noise from Qui-Gon’s comm.

“I’ve just received a personal request from the Chancellor to immediately assist in negotiations with a Trade Federation blockade around Naboo. Are you feeling up to it?”

“You know, I think I am”

[ashdoesfandomarchieved]

My R&M fandom experience right now is being incredibly frustrated/upset with certain writing decisions in the S5 finale, seeing most of the tag gushing praise for those same parts, and feeling like I'm going insane lmao. Like obviously people can have different interpretations, but some takes I see make me feel like I watched a completely different show than them (specifically with how people interpret Morty and his fallout/"reconciliation" with Rick, and see zero problem with how it was handled)... at least there are some good fanfics being written to distract me, including yours lol

I don't use the word "gaslight" ever, but it does feel like we're being collectively gaslit by an entire fanbase over the final for sure!! There are parts of it that I absolutely love, but I'm in total agreement with you on the frustration.

Not to take the middle path here, but I understand that people are going to have different interpretations of the show, depending on which characters they like, dislike, etc. For instance, most of my friends who are Rick stans are praising the final to high heavens, while my friends who are fellow Morty stans are absolutely in tears over it.

My personal feelings are: it was ok, but it could have been so much better. As in they could have kept Morty in character and written the best episode adult swim ever witness in their entire run, but I digress. It's fine I'm writing a fixit fanfic its fine its fine its fine its fine its fine-

Aaaaah I'm so glad my fic could help distract you!! asldkfj honestly the highest compliment you could give me I'm weeping. 😭😭

Also as long as we're being honest, you Morty fanart has me INSANE like every time you post something I gain a health point or something bc that's my son omg omg omg laskdfjasldkf

Anyway aaaah thank you for talking and sharing how you're feeling about the fandom right now! I empathize with your frustrations completely. I hope that when the next season comes out, more like-minded fans will crawl out of the woodwork and I can finally start a Morty discord server and we'll get more positive content!! <3

[definitely-not-karen]

My unnecessary and irrelevant reviews about the transformers media I have consumed.

Please let me have this. I was doom scrolling and transformers is my comfort fandom.

G1: I have not watched all of it, I do plan on doing so but I did watch it when I was younger and does invoke nostolgia. I watched it on Teletoon Retro (does that even exist anymore?) ((just googled it, rip teletoon retro)). For some reason I really like the episode The Ultimate Weapon. I am a huge fan of First Aid and it was because of this episode and I have no idea why. Rodimus is the main character of that episode with First Aid just having a very prominent role in the side story of that episode. I really liked the Aerialbots and their storyline with the time traveling and the not knowing if they’re on the right side was really cool. Honestly the animation errors and weird inconsistent story are part of the charm I guess.

RID 2001: another show I’ve only seen tidbits of. I watched this one via random episodes illegally uploaded to YouTube in the early to mid 2010s and now all those videos are taken down. As a lover of camp, this is camp. I love it. Transformers as a concept is pretty camp (which is why I adore it) and I definitely will watch all of this one day. Though Sideburn is cool and all, I do wish he didn’t chase a red sports car every episode. Otherwise he’s one of my favourites cause himbo rights I guess.

Transformers IDW 2005: So... I read the entirety of the idw comics purely because I found out Thundercracker was a screenplay writer and I wanted to read the entire story so I got the complete context of his development from scary fighter jet to an Oscar winner. I was not disappointed, I was met with queer and trans representation of all sorts, a diverse storyline with action filled parts, comedy elements, slice of life, political drama, adventure, horror, and the best road trip through space. Honestly I was not expecting transformers of all things to have queerness represented so casually and quite well in my opinion (though technically they are guilty of bury your gays, I don’t count it cause there was a clear reason for that death) Thundercracker was marked as one of my favourites cause of this series. I did experience a wonderful story because I wanted to see how he got his happy ending. My biggest criticism of idw transformers is that I love their interpretations of characters and sadly I know I’ll probably never get to seen them like that again. But if I want to experience those characters like that, I’ll just re read it I guess.

Transformers Animated: I have watched the entirety of this great show twice and it still love it. Funny characters, a human character that has a purpose, and a fun change to the formula, Transformers Animated has one of my favourite Optimus and made a Bumblebee so lovably loud they had to take away his voice so he wouldn’t become too powerful. Loved all of the characters except the human villains, Headmaster did not age well and I wasn’t in love with Ratchet’s design but his personality more than made up for it. If you want more animated, I love Transformers ReAnimated the void is filled by that series and channel. While I wish it got another season, it’s ending was satisfying enough I guess.

Transformers Prime: Smokescreen is great and was underutilizes -100/10. Just kidding, kind of I really enjoyed Prime. I’ve only watched through it completely once cause when I was a child I did not like the designs since apparently as a child I was a G1 loyalist I guess. Though now Prime has one of my favourite styles that still holds up today. Dramatic story with actual character development, I can over look that the plots a tad slow. I wish Breakdown was utilized more and it also could have benefited from an extra season but the movie wrapped it up much better than animated’s ending. Knockout is an amazing character and I was spoiled while I was watching it that he turns Autobot though I didn’t realize that wasn’t until the literal end of the series. Would’ve like a completely fleshed out Breakdown and Knockout or at least Knockout redemption arc but there’s always fanfiction I guess.

Robots in Disguise 2015: I didn’t hate it? It definitely helped that I watched this before Prime for some reason. I liked the designs, Sideswipe... himbo rights. Biggest flaw is the lack of character growth. I just want nice things for Sideswipe, Strongarm and Fixit. Grimlock was fun, I like Bumblebee trying to be a good leader and Optimus should have stayed dead. The crossover and referenced to Rescue Bots was fun and Blurr and Sideswipe was the rivalry I didn’t know I needed. But the one I really needed was Smokescreen in there too. The ending arc was interesting though not executed the best and Steeljaw did a lot of the heavy lifting for the villain side to a point where they over utilized him and his character suffered as a result. Windblade was not as bad as people online said she was, splitting the group up into two was stupid cause I’m bitter and still don’t want Optimus there. Also long list of underutilization: Denny and Russel Clay, Jazz, all the characters from prime except Optimus and Bee, Jetfire and Jetstorm, More Rescue bots, and many more! Like that girl that’s Russel’s friend that I literally don’t remember because I’m pretty sure the writers forgot about her! Anyways, in retrospect the show probably wasn’t great but I liked it I guess.

Rescue Bots: This show is way better than it needed to be. I actually love the no Decelticons and war. I’m a sucker for slice of life and especially slice of life with a twist. Human villains that were actually interesting, actual character development, continuity (somewhat), great human characters all while being target for children. I’m so happy I watched this show while I was kind of the target age and rewatching it for the third time was great cause some of the science jargon actually made sense to me. Satisfying ending too and honestly it can just appeal to everyone. Love all four of the main rescue bots and constantly wish they made evergreen designs and toys for them so they could at least make cameos in other transformers media. Sometimes it’s nice to have transformers being wholesome I guess.

Rescue Bots Academy: ... I was not the age democratic for this show and I somehow still liked it? Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been gravitating to more wholesome content due to current events but it was actually good? Love all the students, I do miss the old crew and characters like Doc Green and Frankie are under utilized and the Burns family is almost nowhere to be found :(. Once again there’s some actual character development and Hot Shot’s mentor relationship with Heatwave is super sweet. Also actually having positive post war Decepticon and Autobot relationships in this children’s show? Woah. Biggest issue is like RID 2015; the lack of continuity and characters completely disappearing. Perceptor was fun and I was not expecting him to appear. And I love me some microscope dude. It was a good send off for the aligned continuity I guess.

Cyberverse: ending too soon. I was about to be upset that bumblebee didn’t have his voice but he had his voice in his head which was great. Episodes like the velocitron one was really good and it definitely got better with each season and peaked in the Quintesson arc and then rolled to the cancellation date. Thundercracker shouldn’t have been killed off but I’m very biased. Seeing the rebuilding of Cybertron was cool. Windblade and Bumblebee had a fun relationship. I really liked this iteration of Grimlock. Perceptor was super interesting but then they did nothing with him after the Quintesson arc which was a shame and I would have liked to see better relationships between the Autobots and Decepticons after the team up. Also wholesome Whirl was fun. Honestly this needed one more season so bad. I just think it could have been great if it got one. But it’s still good I guess.

War for Cybertron: ...let’s see how I feel after Kingdom comes out but right now, meh. For me my favourite transformers characters usually end up being side characters due to me wishing they had more screen time so in this case, Red Alert is great please show me more of Red Alert. I get what all the people are saying about the voice acting and whatever but I can look past it (though please give us Peter Cullen or let the current VC make his own Optimus voice). But one thing is that all the YouTube reviewers be saying that I completely agree with is that it’s dark. Like lighting wise. I occasionally had trouble making out what was happening because it was dark. Honestly my biggest issue isn’t a fault of the show. I like development of multiple characters to be shown so I can fall in love with a multitude of characters but due to short seasons, it makes sense to focus in completely on one character at a time. Siege in my opinion at least let me see more of the background characters rather than Earthrise but I’d probably like Earthwise more if I was a bigger fan of Optimus. I’m going to watch Kingdom but I’m not expecting to be wowed I guess.

In conclusion, I should watch Beast Wars, I’m going to re read the ending of Lost Light again and revel in the melancholic ending I adore and I really like Thundercracker and First Aid. One great thing about transformers and other franchises that have been around for awhile, if you don’t like the current thing, there’s plenty of last media and you probably won’t need to wait too long for the next piece of media you’ll hopefully like.

Please be good idw 2019, I’ve read a bit of you and I have a scrap of hope. Oh please please please be good. Give some characters the Thundercracker treatment.

[arofili]

how’d u get into writing? like, writing fic and being part of the silm community, being Known, that stuff? i’m really new to being a silm cc and i’d love to know ur advice! also: how’d u build up the confidence to start posting meta/hcs? bc i have a Lot of hcs and meta ideas but also i’m really anxious abt posting them bc yknow anxiety is like that

these are some great questions, anon! I’m gonna go through them one by one :)

how’d u get into writing?

not to be like, super cliche, but I’ve...kind of always been a writer? as long as I can remember I’ve been telling stories, and when I was too young to read or write I would dictate them to my mom, who would type them up for me and help me choose clipart illustrations to accompany them. when I got old enough I would always be writing; I attempted my first novel at age 9, and while that never really went anywhere I did finish the darn thing and it had some pretty sophisticated plot twists for a 9-year-old!

like, writing fic

around the same time I got into fandom! I was deep into Warrior cats (like. really deep) and I believe I started writing my first fics when I was like? 10 or 11? my memory is kind of fuzzy on the order of things, but I know I got an account on the Warriors forums when I was 9, and that I was already posting my fic there when I made my FFN account. I believe I was 12 when that happened, but who knows. I haven’t the faintest idea of what happened with those forums, but uhhh pretty much all of my Warriors fic is still up on FFN lmao. you could probably find that if you want to but um...maybe don’t?

my first Big Fic was a self-insert of...my entire 5th/6th grade class into the then-current timeline of the Warriors books...well. I honestly think that might still be my most popular fic of all time l m a o though I try not to think about it because Hashtag Cringe. though as much as I look back on that time with a “yikes,” I am very grateful for the Warriors fandom in a way? that place was so accepting and encouraging of OCs, of AUs, of completely disregarding canon, of worldbuilding that is completely alien from canon - it was a fantastic sandbox to begin with, there were so many ways to write stories and practically all of them were accepted and had fellow fans invested in them!

and being part of the silm community, 

soooo I wrote Warriors fic until my freshman year of high school (wow sdjfhkdsjfh), which was when BOTFA came out, and I was absolutely wrecked by the ending and immediately started writing my own fixit fic. I was also super hooked on Kiliel! so that was my intro to the Tolkien fandom; and simultaneously, I joined tumblr, and, well, the rest is history tbh.

I honestly do not remember when I first read the Silm, but I kind of got into the more obscure parts of the Tolkien fandom through fandom osmosis, and I do have a vague memory of doodling the Finwean family tree in geometry class so it might have been later on in freshman year? that was also the same time I was having my Queer Awakening, and Russingon definitely contributed to me unlearning my internalized queerphobia, so probably around then.

anyway - queer awakening, tumblr, Tolkien, transitioning from FFN to AO3 - all of that was happening around the same time. I know I dipped my toes in the Silm fandom then, but I was still primarily a Hobbit fic writer focusing on Kiliel. toward the end of high school I kind of shifted to LOTR and (qp) Gigolas...but somehow the Silm fandom is the most active of the Big Three within the Tolkien fandom, and I was getting dragged further and further in.

it wasn’t until @backtomiddleearthmonth 2019, my freshman year of college, that I really dove into writing Silm fic! I picked some Silm-specific bingo cards and never looked back :D that was really not all that long ago but I am obsessed in a way I don’t really remember being even with TH/LOTR, I obviously cannot see the future but I anticipate hanging out here for a long time. the Silm fandom is great overall and there’s just so much material to work with!! <3

being Known, that stuff?

so I don’t really have a whole lot of context on how “well known” I am in the fandom?? definitely within the past year and a half or so I’ve noticed that I like, get asks like this, and get a significant amount of notes on my posts, and I’ve made a lot of fandom friends especially since I joined some Silm servers on Discord (hmu if you want invites; I’m on the SWG server and 2 general Silm servers and the Russingon server) this past year. and I have 3,000 followers as of this month - and while ever since I hit 1k I don’t particularly pay attention to my follower count I can definitely say that I have more engagement now than I used to! but it took me a long time to build this “audience,” I suppose; I’ve been around the Tolkien fandom since late 2014, so nearly 6 years of this, lol.

really the best way to build a following, in my experience, is to just post a lot of stuff. when I started making edits I got a lot more engagement, because for a long time I would post one every day! (I made them in batches and queued them; I didn’t actually make one every day lol...and now I’m too busy to do that, so I just make edits for events and whenever I feel like it) And I have [checks ao3] 145 works in the Silm fandom as of today - I’m fairly prolific! I’ve come to generally expect 3-10 comments on most of my oneshots, which is a lot more than I used to have back in the day. consistency and quantity are more likely to attract people to your work - and quality, of course.

also: how’d u build up the confidence to start posting meta/hcs?

I’ve been writing since I was very young, and I’ve been writing fic for like...11 years? I think? in that time I’ve produced a lot of garbage, but imo most of that was in my Warrior cats phase, so I came into the Tolkien fandom with confidence in myself and my writing. I’m also working on original fiction on the side (I hope to eventually become a published fantasy author, but right now school takes up most of my time that I don’t devote to fandom, which gives me more immediate gratification and also is just Very Fun) and I know I’m a good writer.

basically, I’ve been doing this for like...half my life, and I’m still fairly young, so I’ve had time to build up my skill and confidence and I know I’m only going to get better with time. you will get better with practice. like I said, I’ve written a lot of terrible stuff, and it’s only through sucking for a long time that I’ve gotten to the point I am now. and I am far from perfect; I know I still have lots of room to grow!

for meta and headcanons specifically, I started with writing fic, and then when I didn’t think I could stretch something into an entire fic I would just make a hc post. I have a vivid memory of writing my first meta in a notebook during driver’s ed because it was so goddamn boring and I had Thoughts about Tauriel and Thranduil!

in my experience, meta comes from having Opinions and wanting to share them and most importantly to back them up - you need to have sources! you need to have reasons! you need to have justification! otherwise it’s not meta, it’s a headcanon or an AU. which is fine!! I love hc/AU!!! but they are not the same as meta, and I’m a stickler for being accurate when it comes to meta. if you have sources and shit to back you up, that will help you build the confidence to share your meta.

sharing disinformation and passing it off as meta instead of just coming out and saying this is a headcanon/baseless theory/AU or whatever is such a fandom pet peeve of mine; it’s not bad for something to not be Accurate! you just have to have that disclaimer - and even when you’re writing meta, you’re offering an interpretation of the text, and you need to acknowledge that other interpretations also exist and are valid.

um. I hope this answers your questions? and sorry for basically word-vomiting my entire life story, lol. this post got long; the main reason I’ve written so much fic is because I really just cannot shut up for the life of me. sooo if you can tear of that filter of being shy and just. say shit. you can go so far~!

OH and one more thing - I can’t believe I almost forgot this - but part of being a writer is participating in the community. this is code for LEAVE A DAMN COMMENT IF YOU LIKE A FIC. that’s how I made most of my fandom friends before Discord! I follow @ao3feed-silmarillion and stalk that blog for new Silm fics; I read the ones that interest me and comment on them.

I know this is not really the most common way for folks to find fic but it’s so rewarding to interact with new fic, new writers, new commentors, new stories - you can find gems that don’t rise to the top of the kudos/bookmark lists; you become friends with your fellow writers; you can watch people grow and change; you support smaller content creators. yeah, you might not be getting Just The Best Stuff, but it’s so so so worth it!!

and if you make friends in the comment section of other people’s fic - I guarantee you some of them will go to your AO3 profile and check out your fic, too! and they’ll leave comments! this is a fic community, and that’s what I cherish about fandom most of all, tbh.

anyway - again - sorry for rambling so much, but I hoped this helped! feel free to send in another ask, or to come talk to me off anon if you’d like! and definitely send me your stuff if/when you decide to share it; I would love to support you!!! <3

[primeemeraldheiress]

I loved that snippet from the Hit the Window fixit!!! so good!! Can we see something from the angsty version too please?

Fuck yeah you can

Cut for content. Heed the tags, folks

Spikes of pain jabbed into her brain every time she tried to move. Her entire body was sore, like she’d run a damn marathon. She tried to open her eyes but could only whimper when the light seared into them. 

What had happened? She shouldn’t feel like this.

Jay tried to think.

She remembered spending the first two days of her heat in bed, scrounging what she could from her practically bare cupboards. (It wasn’t much.) She remembered giving in and ordering from the closet place, making sure that her gun was conspicuously in sight when she opened the door.

Fuck, why hadn’t she just waited it out? It’s not like going hungry was new to her. She was getting soft. Weak.

Her door had been kicked in a few hours after that. By men that knew what they were doing; who they were after. Men that weren’t surprised to be almost immediately fired on. 

The greasy looking delivery man must have seen something - her helmet. In a flash, she remembered that it had been in pieces on the coffee table before her heat had hit. She’d been doing some maintenance. It had been scattered but someone, with a good enough look and a bit of mental gymnastics, could have recognized it.

Who knows what happened to it. She vaguely remembered sending one of Mask’s men through the table. The circuit boards were probably in pieces. 

Mask. Black Mask. Roman Sionis. That was who had come through that door. With four men. Looking for revenge. Looking to rip her throat out.

Until they’d had her on her knees and he’d seen her face.

“You know, I’d thought for sure the Hood was hiding a dog face under that contraption.” He’d told his men. “But she’s downright foxy.”

“Fuck you!” Jay spat, venomous.

Idly, he struck her across the face and watched her a moment as she recovered. “Oh no. I think, darling, fuck you.” 

“Just kill me and get it over with!” She growled, trying - and failing - to keep the fear from her scent. 

“Don’t like the idea, do you?” Roman taunted, “Scares you.” He stated with relish. “You’d rather I just kill you.” He smirked and turned to his men. “Robbie, tape up the windows. We’re gonna be here awhile.”

Jay shuddered, pushing away the memories of what happened next. It was disjointed - painful - anyway it didn’t tell her anything about where she was. What else was -

“You’re mine, now, princess.” 

“No.” Jay breathed. Please let it be a nightmare and not a memory. She heard a door open and flinched. Oh god. No. She tried to move and whimpered; in too much pain. Her stomach dropped as Roman’s oily voice washed over her.

“Oh, princess. You’re awake.”

[dsudis]

M/M romance novel recs

The last time I meant to do this I wound up procrastinating for, uh, approximately eleven months because I got fixated on Doing It Right, so... here are an arbitrary number of recommendations for books chosen unsystematically from things I’ve read in the last year or so, that aren’t as detailed or thoughtful as the books probably deserve, because the perfect is the enemy of the good and all that.

All of these are M/M, with a range of gay/bi/pan character identities.

Salt Magic, Skin Magic by Lee Welch - YOU GUYS I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH. I don’t think I’ve actually read the text version of it yet but I’ve listened to the audiobook narrated by Joel Leslie (available through Hoopla!) twice and this book is! so!! great!! It’s set just after the Great Exhibition of 1851--working  magician John Blake helped secure the structure of the Crystal Palace, and Thornby, who is mysteriously trapped on his father’s estate in Yorkshire, is livid at having missed the whole thing. Also oh my god this one goes HARD on the hurt/comfort, like I think there is swooning-from-injuries and being-cradled-in-the-other’s-arms in Chapter Two. I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH.

How to Howl at the Moon by Eli Easton - This is the first book in a series based on the premise that dogs who are sufficiently loved by a human, who then are left behind when their beloved human dies, can become Quickened--sentient, and able to shift into human form. So brace yourself to cry about sad dogs but on the bright side NONE OF THE DOGS DIE, JUST HUMANS. Now if you think this premise through for a minute you will realize that this could lead to some super hinky situations, because an adult dog, shifting into an adult human, is like... as little as three years old? and brand-new as a human? So you will be glad to know that this first book introduces you to the whole idea with the least-hinky possible version of the story: Tim is a human who comes to live in a town of Quickened, and Lance, the local sheriff and also a border collie shifter, is a third-generation Quickened, so he has grown up in a totally linear fashion. Books 2 through 4 then proceed to explore progressively more, uh, delicate permutations of the idea, but they are all great I swear. 

The Werewolf’s Fae Mate & The Broken Faewolf’s Mate by Liv Rider - I read the second book of these first, because I could not resist the premise of a werewolf who’s been stuck as a wolf since childhood suddenly shifting back to human when he meets his true love (who has werewolf blood but is determined never to lose control and shift into wolf form). Both books are delightful and do werewolves without the whole a/b/o situation, building a whole rivalry between fae and shifters.

How to Bang a Billionaire (trilogy) by Alexis Hall - This is very much like 50 Shades of Gray but a) good and b) gay and c) Arden has a much better instinct for self-preservation than Ana and is willing to say “um you’re treating me like shit and I don’t care about your money more than I care about my own happiness, so I’m out.” Also the kinky sex is something they work up to over time, because of reasons. Lots of delightful secondary characters and a really lovely development of their whole relationship. 

Briarley by Aster Glenn Grey (aka @ospreyarcher) - A Beauty and the Beast fixit set during World War II, where the country parson trespasses on the beast’s manor and then, when the Beast demands that he exchange his daughter for his freedom, says, “Uh, no, I’m not going to do that to my daughter, you lunatic, and also she has important war work to do” and stays put and makes the Beast adopt a disabled dog in order to learn what love is. And also the Beast is a fucking dragon and it’s great. 

Seven Summer Nights by Harper Fox - Set just after World War II, with both heroes coping, with varying degrees of success, with their combat traumas. Rufus is an archaeologist and a war hero, but he’s missing the memory of the events that left him with his scars and medals, and attacks a colleague on a dig during a flashback. Archie is a small town vicar who’s lost his faith but still believes in looking after his people--and his church, which seems to have a really unusual history. Rufus is sent to Droyton Parva to investigate the archaeology of the church and to hide from his ruined career, and he and Archie run headfirst into some of the last remnants of magic in a mostly-mundane world. Amazing supporting cast of women (and one trans guy who gets a great happy ending although bits of it were... not written in a 21st century way which makes sense for characters in 1946 but, you know, it might be jarring. Also, content warning for offscreen death of an infant.) Mostly this is a story about finding, and creating, and protecting, the spaces where you can be who you are with the person or people you love, and, you know, also some weird magic? It’s great.

(Also I am just permanently recommending that you go read everything by KJ Charles, Cat Sebastian, and Keira Andrews, I have not gone wrong with them yet.)

Anyway, if there’s a particular kind of book you’re looking for, ask and I’ll see what I can come up with! And if you have if-you-liked-x-you-should-read-y suggestions related to the above, I’d love to hear about them!

[Cross-posted to my blog at dessalux.com]

[inevitably-johnlocked]

hi steph! know of any fics where sherlock dates someone else and john gets jealous and confesses his feelings?

Hi Nonny!

AHHHHHHH Okay, so I have this weird thing where I have a hard time reading fics where Sherlock is dating someone else, LOL, because I’m garbage. I dunno why… the closest I can get is fics with Victor Trevor in them as a “replacement” or “past bf” D: I’m so sorry I’m useless in this regard… Methinks these lists may help you out a bit? :)

MY FIC LISTS:

Jealous John

Jealous John Pt. 2 and Jealous Sherlock Pt 2

Jealous John Pt 3 and Jealous Sherlock Pt 3

Jealous John and Sherlock Pt. 4

ALEXX’S LISTS

John is Jealous of Victor Trevor

Victor Trevor Appears

MORE Victor Trevor/Sherlock (Part 2)

Jealous John

Sherlock with Other Men

John thinks of Sherlock with Other Men

EDIT: ACTUALLY NONNY, I just found an offline list in my folders that I think you will like; I’ve been waiting to post it anyway :P I hope this is good :D

VICTOR TREVOR / VICTOR IS SHERLOCK’S PAST FRIEND (S4)

Unforgiven by 221b_hound (M, 4,721 w., 1 Ch. || Marriage Proposal, Victor Trevor, Jealous / Protective John, Jealous Sherlock, Sherlock’s Past) – Sherlock’s latest case is for his ex boyfriend, the brilliant and handsome Professor Victor Trevor. John is not too happy about that. But things aren’t what they seem, an old friend of John’s is involved in the case, and John has a few surprises up his sleeve. Also - a proposal! Part 16 of Unkissed

Laid Bare by esplanade (T, 6,529 w., 1 Ch. || Romance, Fluff, Pining, Angst) – “I suppose it comes as no surprise that I always rather detested grand romantic gestures. They struck me as unnecessary and contrived, feeble attempts at desperately holding together relationships, most of which should have been allowed to fall apart.”

I can’t pretend by Salambo06 (E, 7,692 w., 1 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Victor Trevor, Jealous John, Miscommunications, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Anal, BJs) – They had arrived more than a hour ago, and the moment they had walked inside the hotel reception, John had understood why Sherlock hadn’t wanted to come. Two men, posh suits and expensive watches on their wrists, had come to greet them with sharp remarks and badly hidden mockery, and John had seen red. Sherlock hadn’t said anything, mostly ignoring the two men entirely, and without thinking twice about it, John had slid an arm around Sherlock’s waist and introduced himself as his husband.

My Life for His by QuinnAnderson (E, 8,816 w., 1 Ch. || Guardian/Protector, Greek Mythology || Growing Up, Sex, Religious Themes, Suicide, Minor Character Death) – It began when Sherlock was eight, and he attempted to climb all the way up to the highest branch in the old willow tree in his back garden. He’d thought he was still small enough that it could support him, but the second he’d grabbed hold of it to pull himself up, the branch snapped, and down he went, plummeting a solid twenty metres. The odd thing was, he never actually hit the ground.

Illogical, even. by magikspell (E, 9,119 w., 1 Ch. || Grey-Ace Sherlock, Character Study, Growing Up, Victor Trevor, Romance, First Time/Kiss, Sherlock-centric) – Five reasons Sherlock never believed in love and one reason he does now.

I’m content as we are (but) by inqui (The_Circus) (E, 13,086 w., 1 Ch. || Jealous John, UST/RST, Pining, Victor Trevor, Minor Whump, First Kiss / Time, Misunderstandings) – In which John Watson sees something unusual, becomes jealous, and makes too much of a small thing as an old friend of Sherlock’s shows up in the middle of a case.

Say For Me, Love by MirabileLectu (T, 13,147 w., 1 Ch. || UST, First Kiss, Drama, Pining John, Victor Trevor) – If you had asked John this morning what the result of his quiet afternoon at home would be, discovering a truth about Sherlock’s past startling enough to shift the foundations of their friendship would not have been his first guess. So naturally, that was what was bound to happen.

Let’s Make a Bed Out in the Rain by theimprobable1 (M, 17,664 w., 11 Ch. || Pining Sherlock, Angst & Fluff, First Kiss, Unrequited, Jealous Sherlock, Protective Sherlock) – John is devastated after his long-term girlfriend leaves him. Sherlock helps him through it.

That Partitioning of the Things of Youth by wearitcounts (E, 35,353 w., 7 Ch. || Humour and Angst, Post-TRF, Fake Relationship, UST / RST, Friends to Lovers, Jealous John) – Victor Trevor is in town, and nobody’s happy.

(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea by DiscordantWords (M, 39,968 w., 7 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It || Grief / Mourning, Victor Trevor, Friendship, Sherlock is Not Okay, Nightmares/Flashbacks/Panic Attacks, Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, John Comes Home) – Baker Street is very much the same. Only different. And Sherlock is just trying not to drown.

Resistivity and Relative Charge by liriodendron (E, 41,750 w., 8 Ch. || Synesthesia, Angst, Case Fic, Romance, Est. Rel., Homophobia, Religious Content, Victor Trevor, Mild Jealous John, Mild John Whump) – In which Sherlock Holmes meets an old acquaintance, John Watson doesn’t enjoy a trip to the country quite as much as he thought he would, and the past absolutely refuses to stay where it belongs. Part 3 of Conductivity

Sacré Coeur by Mamaorion (M, 95,236 w., 27 Ch. || S4 Fix It Rewrite, First Kiss, UST / RST, Eventual Happy Ending, Coming Out, Holmes Family, Marriage Proposal, Husbands, Healing, Evil Mary, Beekeeping, Caretaker Sherlock, Mind Palace, Alzheimer’s Disease, Protective / Big Brother Mycroft, TD-12) – In this s4 fixit, John must piece together the gaps in his altered memory if he and Sherlock are to face the terror that has plagued Sherlock since childhood. As they untangle the web, seven years of hidden love ignite. (TO READ)

A Further Sea by i_ship_an_armada & ShinySherlock (E, 125,492 w., 23 Ch. || Historical Pirates AU || Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Doctor John / Pirate Captain Sherlock, Sailing, UST / RST, Masturbation, Action / Adventure, Mild Angst & Peril, Romance, Shaving, Molly/Janine, Bottomlock, Hand / Blow Jobs, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Mild Violence, Happy Ending) – Here be a tale of adventure for both body and soul, but beware if ye be not of stout heart, for this be piratelock, ya savvy? Luckless ship’s surgeon John Watson takes a chance, and finds himself eye to eye with The Ghost, the scourge of the seven seas and a definite thorn in the side of the blaggard, James Moriarty. But when John finds there’s more to this most cunning pirate than be meetin’ the eye, he has to choose… is it a pirate’s life for him?

Colors by Quesarasara (E, 140,537 w., 17 Ch. || Pleasantville-Inspired AU || Soulmates, Colour Bonds, Alternating POV, Angst, Fluff, Pining, Case Fic, Medical Procedures) – Everyone on earth is born with eyes that see in black, white, and an endless series of greys. When you meet your soulmate, you finally see the world in color. We’re all searching for the person who brings color to our lives. John and Sherlock are no exception. Part 1 of The Colors ‘Verse

SHERLOCK AND OTHER MEN

Nothing to Make a Song About by emmagrant01 (E, 36,833 w., 10 Ch. || Post-TRF, First Time, Reunion, Jealous John, Pining Sherlock, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending) – When Sherlock returned from his faked death, John could not forgive him for the deception and broke off their friendship. Ten years later, John returns to London in search of yet another new beginning. Sherlock, not surprisingly, is waiting.

Drawn to Stars by Silvergirl (E, 66,392 + w., 42/56 Ch. || WiP || S4 Compliant to TLD / TFP Doesn’t Exist, Sherlock’s Italian Adventure, Jealous John, Mutual Pining, Misunderstandings, First Kiss/Time, Idiots in Love, Angst with Happy Ending) – After the Culverton Smith case Sherlock is clean, working, and looking for a romantic partner—since John has told him that’s what he needs. Shame John didn’t mention he was interested in that role himself, before Sherlock went off to Rome with a gorgeous Italian copper to try to fall in love and become a complete human being. (MARKED FOR LATER / TO READ)

[wandering-bitch]

Annotations on Falling in Love with Love (Again) pt 1

Falling in Love is my 3zun Cinderella/Qin Su Solidarity Fixit fic. It’s got some dumb angst, but i promise every ch with Angst (tm) has at least some soft gentle fluff with it. 

It’s structured like cinderella (servant gets surprised with the clothes + disguise for the ball, falls in love, runs away but leaves behind a trinket, gets found out later and happily ever after), but really it’s About recognizing the growth you’ve gone through, and uh. falling in love again. It’s also, to a lesser degree, about how important Qin Su is.

Notes on writing the first third of this below the cut

Every chapter title is a riff on a song lyric from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (which you might remember as the Brandy and Whitney Houston movie from 1997). Title is “falling in love with love,” the BITCHIN ballad from the stepmother

i keep stumbling on cinderella aus from parts of 3zun and i never like them bc im picky so i started thinking about this and now im HERE, writing thousands of words and thinking about social shit

in this house we love qin su, by the way

Don’t Believe in Sensible Rules

this chapter was called “Enter the Fairy Godmother” in my outline

writing this fic made me like jin zixuan pfffff

look im not saying that qin su is fucking vital BUT

having qin su know that she’s meng yao’s sister means that he has someone who can empathize with wanting but hating jin guangshan’s attention, and so someone who can remind him that jin guangshan’s respect isn’t worth the effort

aka qin su being actively meng yao’s sister fucking stops him from making terrible choices aka this is my fixit.

originally i just was hand-waving away “it’s a good au bc i said so” but as i built the timeline more, i realized that it all comes down to qin su

which is valid!! because yeah, the middle and end of the fic are about qin su

anyway back to this first chapter

i know in canon qin su is probably younger than meng yao but counterpoint i wanted her to have more respect built into her role

what’s up with meng yao’s makeup? it’s a combination of opera + tang dynasty makeup!! 

you know that promo image of zzj playing an opera performer for a movie next year???  this one??? it’s basically this but on crack

if you’re not thinking about that promo image twice a week then i highly recommend u do it bc it certainly brings me joy and serotonin 

oh hmmm meng yao is wearing a fancy emotionally important accessory??? i wonder what might happen

You’ll Never Know a Finer Night

”a lovely night, a lovely night/ a finer night you know you’ll never see”

qin su + meng yao rights!!!

qin su + meng yao rights!!!

the mengyin han sect is something my spouse came up with for their Nie Parents fic that they’re never gonna write.

you should bug @isimplydonotvibewithjgy to write it. why???

it’s about happy healthy nie parent polyamory!!! 

nie huaisang is named in part after nie mingjue’s mother’s sword

meng yao is only a little bit kidding about stealing a baby for qin su. qin su, in turn, is only a little bit kidding about stealing a baby for meng yao

meng yao fucking with wangxian is very important to me, a bitch

Back In the Past, lan xichen wasn’t so much Jealous as he was frustrated with himself for not saying anything for so long (so long was barely a few months)

“second daughter of a third rate sect” is the type of dumb meng yao shit i love

qin!!!! su!!!! rights!!!!!!!

Most Entrancing Sight Of All

from “the greatest love,” the first song from the brandy version

i actually hate this song whoops

i lov every time i get to write meng yao being clever

it is very convenient for me that im writing the entire fic from his perspective

it’s sword content!!!! hooray!!!!

i looked up so much sword dancing for this it made me so happy

swords!!! good!!!

i do wish i had been better at figuring out ways meng yao could eat li bolin alive, but i wrote it, it’s done, im never editing it again

sword! content!!

The Sweet Invention of a Lover’s Dream

AWWW YEAH my favorite chapter because the xiyao troll showed up and said “oh so meng yao’s a selfish little slut now then” and i think about that every fucking day

the title is from “do i love you” 

the breakup was hard to write bc like. neither’s in the Wrong, sometimes u just don’t fit, and that sucks

like it wasn’t Hard emotionally, but it was hard to balance properly

“Eat Wen Xu Alive” -- meng yao

in my early draft, meng yao + qin su had an agreement to check on each other every hour. i scrapped that but u can see 

“time to meddle”

i had fun learning about azaleas + azalea poisoning

i spent SO LONG trying to decide who meng yao would pin the poisoning on but settled on the li sect being complicit in wen imperialism

nie mingjue is here because nie huaisang whined about it. lan xichen is here because he wants to date someone to move on from meng yao

what’s that? he’s dating nie mingjue? that’s not enough to move on? no, actually, it isn’t

sorry lan xichen the way to move on is just time, not dating

to be clear it’s not that lan xichen is greedy or nie mingjue Isn’t Enough, it’s just that there’s an ache still in lxc’s heart

(there’s an ache still in nmj’s heart)

we’ll actually go over all of this in an auxiliary chapter where nmj + lxc snuggle in the middle of the night

healthy polyamory rights

in case it’s somehow not Obvious, the song lxc is distracted by reminds him of meng yao. 

lxc is one hundred percent that friend who doesn’t let u say anything slightly mean about urself

my one ex specifically wouldn’t let me say i wasn’t smart enough to talk about a sociological issue/socialism thing. it was so sweet honestly

like she would let me not have an opinion but i couldn’t say i wasn’t smart enough

lxc is so proud of himself for that “tell me what this song is about” line and he SHOULD be. it WAS sexy it WAS polite it WAS a good line!!!

im not tooting my own horn im just talking about lxc being a polite, sexy hunk

never forget: so meng yao is just a selfish little slut then lol ok

come back next time for ch 5-8 where we see boys being cute and together and also where qin su gets many more rights

[mizzy2k]

Creator Tag Game

tagged by the lovely @carol-danvesr

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2019. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

1. Where Our Restless Monsters Sleep

I didn’t like how this smushed up five solid months of my life, but I couldn’t have done any better with the output. It’s my Endgame canon for now. If you haven’t tried it yet, please do! It’s got action and romance and a little bit of gore and a LOT of gross worms from the comics and it fixes a ton of the dumb shit Endgame did & smushes Steve/Tony pining into the mix too & fake dating. <33 and so many fight scenes. why do we love superheroes?? they’re so punchy. SO PUNCHY. it’s also really long. i was pretty sure fandom liked long fics but apparently they didn’t mean this long, i think. whoops. anyway, it’s got cool art, like, holy shit super cool art, and I can say that, because I didn’t art it.

2. inside my shell-shaped mind

Researching the appearance of the uni-mind appearing in Avengers (2018) led me down a rabbit hole warren of old comics, and to the discovery of a legit soulbond in the canonical wider Marvel universe! i also wrote this fic for 616 day in honour of the Steve/Tony 616 Discord server, my new favourite online location for 2019, so it’s a double reason for this fic to get second place here :D I need more fic about the Gann-Josin now we know it exists; I’m still super desperate for the fic where Tony--unused to the uni-mind power--accidentally starts Gann-Josin’ing everyone around him. I need it. 

3. let none be content with me

this is the first fic I’d written after a very long break and it was a healing process for me. I wanted to go in gentle so picked a moment in canon that couldn’t be altered by new canon easily, and I got very obsessed with early volume 1 iron man and especially tony’s relationship with the o’brien brothers, a highly emotional early arc for him. learning how to write this fic healed me in ways i can’t explain. 

4. Wash That Man (right out of my hair)

when the hot tub Avengers issue came out I was SO SURE there would be SO MUCH porn now we had a CANONICAL HOT TUB in the avengers base where the avengers CANONICALLY GOT NAKED TOGETHER IN... so i felt confident enough that no one would mind that my attempt at the smut was just outright crack. had i known we would have a drought of hot tub fic i’d have gone for it without the jokes, i promise. now i have regrets for fandom that canon gave me us a sexy hot tub premise and i gave you......this. whoops. 

5. Mister Fixit and the Mechanic

the last thing I ever expected to do was remix Iron Man 3. I love that movie so much, it’s my favourite, it starts with a song my whole family identifies with me, it’s just the best movie, and the last movie I ever ever thought I would rewrite. and yet i had a Pretty Good Time and met some fun people doing it, yo for reverse bangs <333

Tagging: @withinmeloveresides1 @laexploradoraaa @la-toratempesta @loraneldin @serinah80 @rose-on-the-mountain @the-faultofdaedalus @the-casual-cheesecake @cathalinaheart and anyone else who wants to, you can say I tagged you <333

[eirian-houpe]

FANFIC TROPES

I was tagged by @emospritelet <3 <3

I would like to thank her for including me in this little exercise, it's made me think about a lot of things, so... as per usual, I'm bending the rules.  Oh, I'll  (try and) choose one over the other of the options, but I'll also give a brief explanation below (not required by the original game).  Also, I may add some of these tropes to my 'prompt' list, because there's some I've not ever tried.

So here goes:

slowburn or love at first sight

There's a lot to be said for slow burn, but why does it have to be mutually exclusive? I love a good story where there is that hint of love at first sight but for whatever reason it's never acted upon for the /longest/ time. There's nothing like UST if you ask me and I recently read somewhere that 'There can be no Lust without UST.'

fake dating or secret dating

These are two tropes that I've not actually tried to write, and I don't really think I've read too much of, though Gold's propensity for keeping his personal life to himself in most fics pushes me toward the 'secret dating' side of things, as does the teacher/student kind of story... which now I come to think of it I /am/ writing in All Our Past Mistakes, so... there you are.  Secret for me.

enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers

Actually here's one from which I can't make a choice. I can't see the potential in both but for me it seems they would both be very different. Coming close with the 'We Three' series, but I wouldn't actually say that Belle and Rush are enemies per se, rather just very antagonistic toward one another.

oh no there’s only one bed or long-distance correspondence

Okay, though I've not tried writing either of these, (I've lived one of them, and it's hard and soul destroying). I would love to see how other fic writers handle the 'one bed' conundrum. - might try it at some point myself. :)

hurt/comfort or amnesia

Without a doubt my favorite is hurt/comfort. I'm an angsty kind of writer.  Of course there can be angst in amnesia too, just... not my thing I guess.

fantasy au or modern au

If you're going AU, for me it has to be a 'modern' AU, and I put that in quotes because for me 'modern' includes historical as well, so maybe 'realistic' instead of fantasy. Of course I've not tried the fantasy AU, and the one I've /read/ that comes to mind, I enjoyed, so... anyway, as far as writing goes, then modern.

mutual pining or domestic bliss

Pining for me. There's a lot to be said for domestic bliss, but I have trouble writing fluff... though I do enjoy reading it.

smut or fluff

Love me some smut or a hint of mature, but here's the thing, why can't fluff be smutty too?

canon-compliant or fix-it

Again, can't really choose.  See, I did a huge fix-it AU series (never did finish it but I still have the plans...) in my Stargate Virtual Season 5, but even in fix-its, I don't like to completely 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' as it were.  I like fixits that are as canon-compliant, or include many elements of canon-compliance.

reincarnation or character death

See this is another where I can't really choose, and for me they're not really mutually exclusive, since one has to occur before the other could happen. I've written reincarnation stories - not fics though - and I'm planning a character death (if I've got the balls to go through with it, because it's hard. I did it once, and OMG it hurt.) so... we'll have to see.  If I had to make a choice, for the sake of angst, I'd say character death.

one-shot or multi chapter

I would love to be better at one shots, but... my brain doesn't seem to work that way, so - multi chapter, and/or series for me.

kid fic or road trip fic

Um...I haven't ever written either, but I'm enjoying reading a series of fics that have elements of both kid fic and road trip fic in them. (Growing Up - @peacehopeandrats)

arranged marriage or accidental marriage

I haven't written either, and though I know there are a few arranged marriage fics out there, I haven't read any of them. (Unless you count the arranged marriage that never quite happens Gaston/Belle fics). Not sure how one could have an accidental marriage (unless by that its means the kind of 'shot-gun' wedding kinda thing). The idea of both almost appeal.

high school romance or middle aged romance

More mature romances are my style - and I'm not speaking of content necessarily.

time travel or isolated together

There's so much research in time travel, I'd never get anything written... and there's always that butterfly effect kinda thing going on there. Stuck together for some reason, and come on, we're living a pandemic people, great scope for fics (right Sprite?). Maybe time to delve into that a little bit.

neighbors or roommates

Um... I guess neighbors works. I mean roommates works too but with the genre I'm mostly writing, and my preference for 'middle aged' then roommates doesn't exactly work well.

sci-fi au or magic au

Well, I can't really choose here, I really can't.  That's like asking me to choose between Rumbelle and Rushbelle, so just... no.

body swap or genderbend

Neither really appeals here, I think I'd be uncomfortable writing either, and I don't think I've read either either, so I can't really make an informed choice. Recommendations, anyone? (I mean, aside from enjoying Quantum Leap when I watched it - does that count?)

angst or crack

Without a doubt, angst! I'm not that much into comedy at the best of times, I really have to be in the mood, but crack that takes that to the n'th degree is really not my thing.

apocalyptic or mundane

For reasons I can't really go into, this is a tough one. LOL - Seriously though, I think I would go for the mundane as a matter of course, because the mundane is often so full of angst and story potential, you don't always need to base your fic on something that could bring about the next Apocalypse!

("You, lighten up. You, big trouble. You, get in the car...." - brownie points for identifying the quote.)

So that's me, and I will tag (and if you've already been tagged forgive me.) @jackabelle73 @peacehopeandrats and @xiolaperry

[anchanted-one]

3 fixits or changes I may not know to canon you made either cause you were peeved at canon or it fit your narrative better

Ahhhhh you already know my top five: no healing for Vaylin, insufficient revenge against scorpio, everything Iokath, Nathema arc, and Lana = 9.

For overall Star Wars.. Like a lot of other people, I like to pretend that the Luke/Leia kiss didn't happen.

I would have loved to go the other way and write a long story where they weren't, in fact, related, but then I'd be upending (among other things) the entire sequel Trilogy. And no, I don't want to talk about the sequel Trilogy either, even though there's only a few changes I'd make that don't affect the overall story much.

Hmmm. Anyway, I'll have a go!

1. The Exile. For the novel swtor: Revan, writer Drew Karpshyn didn't even bother to properly research her or her accomplishments (if he had, he'd have known that planet eating was something that Nihilus did before he invented the Sith Emperor, but I digress). As a result, she was reduced to a side character, with no personality, and certainly without the backstory we know her to have from Kotor 2. In fact, there is a point in the story where Revan proves that he is several times stronger than the Exile by beating a Sith she (with Scourge's help) couldn't. So, my big change? ... It was some other random Jedi that day when Scourge became the Emperor's Wrath. It's such a small thing, but it makes me feel better. Exile was far more compelling than Revan. What happened to her, though? Died from her wounds on Malachor V. That kind of end--quiet, unsung, but having saved the very fabric of the Galaxy--that suits her)

2. Jaesa's gift during the Shadow of Revan. It makes no sense whatsoever for PC and Co to worry about who may or may not be Revanites when Jaesa can tell with a single glance™. Which is why the Wrath can not be part of the initial storyline of SoR. In my story, she joins shortly after the team arrives on Rishi. She and Nox were pursuing the Rogue Sith who was responsible for Arkous' murder.

3. Basically, the likes of Malgus and Revan and Arcann and Vaylin cannot be touched by non-Force classes. For comparison, look at the Vader comic where he faces off against a whole army of Rebels and tears them apart, for comparison. This is the divide that exists between the strongest Force-wielders and ummm. "Regulars". Now add to this that anyone who can kill the Sith Emperor in single combat is a god-tier warrior. The JK is quite clumsy and weak in story content KOTFE onwards. These are the main reasons why I write Arro as deadly as he is. Also, he does not blind side or sucker punch his opponents.

Bonus: I feel that all good Sith (who aren't largely cybernetic like Vader) should be able to Force Lightning. For this reason, Kai'rene can use it--and does, to power up the odd console or something. For real combat situations she prefers pure bladework. No Force Pushes, Crushes, or Chokes from her either, at least not during combat.

[buckybarnesbingo]

Week 23 Roundup!  Go forth and appreciate your fellow Bucky lovers!

Title: Enchantment Collaborator: Caiti (Caitriona_3) Link: AO3 Square Filled: U1 – Secret admirer Ship: Bucky/Clint/Darcy Rating: Teen Major Tags: Alternate Universe/Canon Divergence Summary: An unexpected attack on the lab might just lead to some surprising revelations. Word Count: 2985

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Title: error code 606 Collaborator: halfwheeze Link: AO3 Square Filled: C3 - free space Ship: Bucky/Rhodey/Tony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Automaton Bucky Barnes, Dubious Morality, Angst, Moral Dilemmas Summary: Error Code 606: Missing or Corrupted Data. Run the program anyway? Run the program. Program: Asset is now running. Word Count: 2424

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Title: Quiet Collaborator: awkwardfangirl2014 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K2 - Anticipation Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Explicit Major Tags: explicit sexual content, fluff, getting caught Summary: none Word Count: 1400

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Title: This is Going to Hurt Collaborator: axzanier Link: AO3 Square Filled: U5 - backrubs/massages Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: Massage, Work Injury, Post-Mission Summary: none Word Count: 2878

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Title: Baby, We Could Be Enough Collaborator: alittlewicked Link: AO3 Square Filled: U5 - murder strut Ship: Stucky Rating: Not Rated Major Tags: Bucky recovering, Endgame fixit, swearing, self care, plants Summary: That damn bench had been irking him since they set up the time machine outside of Tony’s mansion after the funeral. Sitting there all idyllic and lovely, looking out over the lake. All peaceful and shit.So Bucky stalked over there in his murder-strut-glory, grabbed it with his new and shiny vibranium arm, and ripped it out of its bracing. And threw it into the lake as far as he could.Or: A kind of Endgame Fix-It where Bucky takes extensively care of himself after Steve left. You're doing amazing, sweetie. Word Count: 3542

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Title: Choice Collaborator: until-theend-oftheline Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y2 - AU: Single Parent Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Gen Major Tags: single parent AU Summary: none Word Count: 2500ish

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Title: chasing a dream (only fools like me would follow) Collaborator: candycanedarcy Link: AO3 Square Filled: B1 - Didn't Know They Were Dating Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Gen Major Tags: clothes sharing, sleepy cuddles, Deaf Clint, thirsty Bucky, Clint feels, Bucky recovering Summary: First it's a sweater, then it's a shirt, and finally it's a bed. Turns out sharing is caring. Word Count: 1884

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Title: The Lows and Highs... Collaborator: pherryt Link: AO3 Square Filled: B1 - support group Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Gen Major Tags: fluff, some angst, soulmarks, cuddling Summary: Bucky's adjusting to life in the tower and to being Clint's soulmate. He finds things a little easier when he realizes that he helps Clint as much as Clint helps him. Word Count: 2897

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Title: Bucky Adopts A Dog Moodboard Collaborator: louisianaspell Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C1 - adopting a pet Ship: None Rating: Gen Major Tags: moodboard Summary: Bucky adopts a rescue dog

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Title: If It Were Up To Me Collaborator: queen-of-the-avengers Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B3 - I regret nothing Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Gen Major Tags: fluff Summary: Your daughter’s favorite thing to do pass time is be with Bucky, and who knows what might come of it. Word Count: 961

----------------------------------- 

Title: Watching in Slow Motion Collaborator: ceealaina Link: AO3 Square Filled: U1 - PTSD Ship: Bucky & Tony Rating: Teen Major Tags: PTSD, fluff and angst, hurt/comfort, pre-slash, hopeful ending, Tony has a heart Summary: It came on suddenly, out of nowhere and with no warning at all. Bucky had been “better” (better being a very relative term) for awhile now. He’d been cleared to work with the Avengers for months, had gone on multiple missions with them, with no sign of any problem. But they’d all been more hand-to-hand combat, and while that was all well and good, Bucky was a sniper at heart. He had missed it, missed finding his vantage point, waiting for a target and making the calculations. Missed the stillness that came over him, the way his mind quieted and his thoughts calmed as he waited for just the right moment. So when they’d been called out again, and Steve had placed him back on sniper duty, he’d been relieved. Right up until he moved the edge of the rooftop he was on. *** His time with Hydra ruined even the parts of Bucky that he thought he knew. Terrified of losing his shiny new place on the team, he doesn't realize he's not the first person to deal with this. And if there's one thing Tony knows, it's an anxiety attack. Deals with PTSD-related panic attacks. Word Count: 2060

[megabadbunny]

Minuet, Part VIII

“You help so many people,” she says. “Why won’t you let anyone help you?”

***

(ten/rose angsty post-gitf au/fixit; this chapter sfw except for language)

(full-size image)

Minuet, Part VIII

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX

Pulling his robe close around him, Mickey shuffles down the corridor, stifling a yawn as he waves at other guests amidst the sounds of his grumbling stomach and his slippers slip-slide-slapping over the floor. His empty stomach has compelled him to embark on a valiant (if a bit drowsy) quest to the dining hall, to discover whatever delightful assortment of extravagant ceremonial dishes the Temple has provided for breakfast—but first there’s the matter of proper clothing, left behind in his haste to escape the Doctor’s nonstop chattering.

God, he hopes the Doctor has already stepped out for the day. If he hears one more hint of conspiracy theories or hydrologic events or ridiculously-prolonged event durations, Mickey, it’s just not meteorologically feasible!, he’s going to scream so loudly the neighboring solar systems will hear him.

But probably Rose and the Doctor have both already eaten, or they’re eating now, Mickey thinks. He imagines them quibbling over alien toast, or pointedly-not-talking-to-each-other while sipping their alien tea, or hurling snide quips at each other between mouthfuls of jiggly-faced alien eggs. Mickey rolls his eyes. Maybe he’s lucky and they’ve already departed the hall, and he can avoid the teeth-gritting awkwardness and tension that keeps blossoming between them. Or maybe he’ll just nab a plate of something and hide in his room until the storm passes. Both the literal and metaphorical storm, that is; the lightning and its violent cracks and splits in the dark sky overhead have got nothing on Rose and the Doctor’s pointlessly stressful nonsense. Why don’t they just kill the tension and shag already? Mickey scoffs to himself as he pushes open his bedroom door.

Then his eyes widen as he takes in the scene in front of him and the irony of his last thought hits Mickey with all the subtlety of a slap to the face.

Like a hunter stalking wild game in the forest, Mickey’s gaze follows a path of tracks, starting at the door in a cluster of shoes dropped pell-mell on the floor, his and hers mixed, leading up in a tangle of flung-off tuxedo jacket and jewelry and oxford and necktie and discarded bedclothes and women’s underthings to the bed itself, canopy-curtains tossed aside to reveal two occupants lounging about within. The Doctor looks as rumpled as Mickey has ever seen him—more than, actually, Mickey’s fairly certain he looked more composed in his post-regeneration coma—clad only in a tee shirt (hopelessly wrinkled) and his tuxedo trousers (even more wrinkled) and a pair of mismatched socks (has Mickey ever even seen his socks?). His hair is a right mess, sticking up even more than usual, as if it’s alarmed to find itself in such a state; it’s an odd counterbalance to the Doctor’s relaxed posture, leaning back against the headboard as he reads some book he procured from goodness-knows-where. And Rose—

Well, Rose is just naked and asleep. Not much else to be noted about that.

At least that answers the question of whether she and the Doctor have gone to breakfast yet.

Mickey’s eyes flicker briefly over Rose’s body, more out of confusion than anything. She’s lying on her stomach, a duvet hastily half-tossed over her—did the Doctor hear Mickey coming and cover her up, he wonders? Because the Rose Mickey knows always kicks off her blankets halfway through the night whether she’s clothed or not—so all her crucial bits are covered. (Not that Rose would particularly care if Mickey saw her in such a state anyway. Nothing you haven’t seen before, she’s often said, with a shrug, while she changes right in front of him. Mickey, of course, will say nothing, but blushes furiously.)

Frowning, Mickey glances at the Doctor, a question forming on his lips. The Doctor shoots him an imperious look over his glasses. It’s a challenge, Mickey thinks. Go on. Say something. I dare you. Mickey bristles at the thought.

But then he notices the way the Doctor’s hands fidget with the book, fingers drumming quietly on the cover and sliding along the pages in a manner that Mickey would almost describe as nervous, if he didn’t know any better, and oh—this isn’t some bullshit macho display after all. The Doctor doesn’t plan to lock antlers. No, instead he’s wary. Waiting. Like he’s nervous about Mickey will react. Like he might even actually care about Mickey reacts.

Wordlessly, Mickey scoops up his clothes, offering the Doctor a curt nod. The Doctor dips his head in reply, his shoulders visibly loosening, and Mickey turns to go. But upon reaching the door, Mickey has a second thought.

“You break her heart, I break your skull,” he says to the door. He turns back round to hit the Doctor with his very best threatening glare. “Got it?”

“Fair enough,” the Doctor replies evenly.

Mickey nods. “Damn right it is.”

He eases the door shut behind him, quietly, in an effort not to disrupt Rose’s sleep. Out in the hallway once again, Mickey expels a deep breath, leaning against the wall. A twinge of jealousy flares up somewhere in his chest, a tiny burning gnawing thing burrowing between his ribs. He closes his eyes and tries to will the hurt away.

Rose loves the Doctor. God help her, but for whatever reason, she loves him. And in his own strange way, maybe he loves her too. (Probably he loves her too, Mickey thinks with a grimace.) But as much as it stings, Mickey’s not going to be the one to stand between them and their happiness.

Besides—it’s high time he pursued some happiness of his own.

Eyes open, he pushes off the wall and heads back to the other room. Today’s pursuit, he thinks, should begin with a little investigation into this whole missing-priest-conspiracy business. Might as well get in a little snooping while Rose and the Doctor are otherwise unoccupied, right? He’s more than capable of doing things on his own, after all. Who knows, maybe he’ll even solve a little mystery or two without them.

But first: breakfast.

 ***

 Rose is not surprised to wake up and find the bed empty beside her.

She only allows herself a little disappointment. It isn’t as if she expected anything different. The Doctor doesn’t do domestic; he’s made that quite clear. And this—waking up in a bloke’s room, lying naked in his bed, the morning after—it doesn’t get any more domestic than this. Honestly, she’d have been more surprised if she’d awoken and he was still there. A few minutes of affection and attention and he’s totally overwhelmed; he’s sort of like a cat, that way. The humor of that comparison does not escape Rose.

Drinking in a deep yawn, Rose sits up and stretches, muscles straining satisfyingly against each other a thick early-morning haze, only to indulge in a great flop back on the mattress after, limbs cast out like a starfish or a child making a snow angel. A sleepy, contented sigh escapes her lips. She can’t remember the last time she felt so well-rested, or the last time she was this pleasantly sore between the legs, for that matter.

But soon the itch to move (and perhaps more importantly, to scrub off an evening’s-worth of body glitter and sweat and various other things) becomes overwhelming, so move she does, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress so she can snatch the Doctor’s abandoned tuxedo-shirt off the floor and pad over to the en suite for a shower. The water is deliciously hot, rolling over her hair and skin in soothing sheets, and Rose silently thanks her lucky stars that this planet has the gift of indoor plumbing. Good grief, but she’d missed her hot water in eighteenth-century France.

Lost in that odd timeless quality of a good shower, an unmarked bout of moments passes, Rose’s thoughts suspending in sluggish liquid laziness. She curiously inspects the range of available soaps and cleansers, each likely intended for a different species, some of them sweet and fruity-smelling, some of them harsh and astringent, others earthy, the smell of dirt fresh and clean. Ultimately Rose settles for the bottle that smells most familiar and scrubs away makeup and sweat and sex and something uncomfortable that’s haunted her skin ever since that jump through the mirror five and a half months ago, watching it all wash away down the drain in a swirl of suds and glitter. She dries herself off with a luxuriously fluffy towel, reveling in the glide of soft cotton fibers that brush over her like a kiss.

Just as Rose finds herself wishing for a toothbrush, she notices one lying on the bathroom counter, one that looks suspiciously like the stock the Doctor keeps in those bottomless pockets of his. Upon unwrapping it, the scent of Venusian spearmint floods her senses and she brushes her teeth with a grin that won’t quite go away. It was an oddly considerate gesture on the Doctor’s part—if a bit domestic, she thinks, her grin widening. After, she pulls on the Doctor’s tuxedo-shirt and doesn’t even bother with half the buttons before stepping back into the bedroom, humming at the surprise of crisp cool air against her still-damp skin.

“Blimey, took you long enough,” mutters the Doctor, and Rose startles to find him in the room, back in his old suit, lounging on the bed and splayed over backward as if he flopped there out of sheer impatience. A plate of goodies sits next to him, its contents already picked-over and jostled by the Doctor’s movement. “You just took a shower yesterday, how could you possibly already require such an extensive—”

His eyes find her and his words falter. His eyebrows knit together. He swallows.

“That’s my shirt,” the Doctor says flatly.

“Technically, it’s the Temple’s shirt, isn’t it?” Rose replies, laughing as she plunks down next to him on the bed and plucks something warm off the breakfast plate. She’s got no clue what it is, but it’s salty and starchy and good. “And good morning to you, too, by the way.”

“It’s evening.”

“The hell?” Rose peers out past the bed-canopy at the sky flashing overhead. Lightning cuts a bright white arc through the stormclouds, interrupting the inky darkness with patches of watery pink and red. It looks exactly the same as it did the night before, and the evening and the afternoon, for that matter. “How long was I asleep for?” Rose wonders.

“Fourteen hours and sixteen seconds,” the Doctor replies. “Give or take a few seconds.”

Rose laughs, raking a hand through the wet strands of her hair. The motion causes her shirt to ride up, exposing several inches of thigh that weren’t exposed before, and if she hadn’t been paying attention, Rose almost could have missed the way the Doctor’s eyes flickered down to her legs before resuming their blank stare into nothingness.

Hiding a smile, Rose shifts, lying down on her side next to the Doctor. “So—” she starts to say, but immediately the Doctor springs up so quickly the mattress ripples in his wake.

“So anyway, just thought I’d check in after your endlessly long sleep session and even longer bath, see if you were up for a bit of nosing around—overheard a bit of gossip whilst I was pilfering nibbles, something about the cleaning room and the High Chauncery’s personal chambers and strict orders to avoid each other at all costs, all very promising, nothing says conspiracy like refusing to let the staff do their job,” the Doctor babbles, hands shoved firmly in his pockets as he slowly backpedals away. “Figured it merited a good checking-out if you were up for it, so I’ll just leave you to eat and get dressed, shall I…?”

“Oh, god,” Rose sighs. “Doctor, please don’t tell me you’re gonna be all weird about this.”

“Weird?” the Doctor scoffs, mouth opening and closing ineffectually several times before any other noise decides to come out. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I’m being perfectly normal, thank you very much, and I rather resent the notion that I might be anything otherwise. I’m the picture of normal. The very portrait. The very realistic, well-lit, well-painted, brushed-by-Vermeer-himself portrait, thanks.”

“Did Vermeer ever get all flustered about a woman wearing his shirt and nothing else?”

“I’m sure he did.”

Then, after a pause, “…nothing else at all?”

“Let’s find out,” Rose says brightly, fingers flying down to her shirt-buttons.

Stammering, the Doctor darts over, stilling her hands with his. “Ah,” he stutters, “as delightful as whatever you have in mind undoubtedly is—”

“And it is,” Rose says with a grin.

“—with everyone else away at this evening’s ceremonials, I was thinking this might be a good time to do a bit of investigating—”

“Mm-hmm.”

“—or rather, you know. Poking around a bit.”

Rose’s eyes widen with mischief but the Doctor’s hand claps over her mouth before anything salacious can escape it. “Good grief, is that all humans think about?” the Doctor laughs. “At the shops, down the pub, on the bus, when’s the next time I’ll get to squish bits?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“It’s a wonder the human race manages to get anything else accomplished.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Rose agrees, voice muffled as she smiles against the Doctor’s palm.

“Indeed. However, if we’re going to get in any snooping this evening, we’d best hop to it, distraction-free. So, if I remove my hand,” the Doctor says, fighting the smile that threatens to quirk the corners of his mouth, “will you promise to behave?”

Rose shakes her head no.

Sighing, the Doctor shifts back. “I suspected as much.”

 ***

 A few moments and nibbles and a fresh pair of trousers later (but still clad in the Doctor’s borrowed shirt, because she’ll be damned before she passes up any available opportunity to fluster him), Rose follows the Doctor through a series of chambers in the Temple, each one smaller and more round-walled than the last. But even amidst the air of conspiracy and subterfuge that lies heavy on them like a thick woolen cloak, pressing more and more urgently as they creep ever-closer to the Temple’s heart, prompting them both to regularly swivel round on a sharp lookout for stray guards or Votaries, Rose feels lighter than she has in months.

“So tell me about this conspiracy,” she says, idly glancing about the place as the Doctor scans orb after orb with the sonic. It isn’t the library they visited the day before, but rather, a sort of private records-room, as the Doctor described it, but Rose will have to take his word for it; all she knows is that the orbs are white, they glow, and every time the Doctor takes a reading, he scowls afterward in impatience. “What do we know so far?” Rose continues, tabbing one of the globes.

The Doctor rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide a grin. “Weren’t you paying any attention yesterday?”

“Nope,” Rose says brightly. “So gimme the scoop.”

“Well, unfortunately there’s not a whole lot to scoop so far, I’m afraid,” the Doctor explains, setting down one orb with a huff only to pluck up another. “Just a few frustrating questions, none of which have any apparent answer.”

“Being?”

“Why is the Allstorm suddenly so long, why are there so many foreign guests in attendance for what should be a cozy local religious ritual, and why has our Most Grant and Generous Host up and disappeared into the ether?”

“And you suspect that something big and bad’s to blame, and we’ve got to stop it.”

“Well.” The Doctor shoots her a glance over his spectacles. “Don’t we?”

Shrugging, Rose picks up one of the orbs to judge for herself. “Sure. Yeah. Maybe.”

The Doctor piques an eyebrow in question.

“You’re probably right,” Rose says. “I’m sure your Spidey-senses are tingling for a reason.”

“Yours aren’t?”

“Eh, I dunno. The missing host is fishy for sure, and I don’t know much about storms, but as far as the international guest list goes…” Rose hands her orb to the Doctor with another shrug. “I’m probably still just stuck a bit in the 1700’s is all. They’d celebrate anything, they would. And I mean anything. One time Reinette threw a party cos she got some new porcelain. She threw a party for a bloody set of dinner plates.”

“Aw, come on, Rose. The birth of the infamous celestial blue underglaze is worth at least a little bit of a hootenanny, isn’t it?”

“No,” replies Rose stubbornly. “And if I never hear the phrase bleu céleste again, it’ll be too soon.”

Chuckling, the Doctor turns back to his orb, his spectacles alternately flashing blue with the light of the sonic and electric-white from the lightning arcing overhead. “So your theory is that the guests are here just because they’re poncy and rich, and poncy rich folk will leap at any chance to party?”

“More or less.”

“Not a bad thought. Got any ideas about the other two-thirds of our problem?”

“If you’re forced to stay here for a whole month without a mystery to solve, you’ll go mad?”

“Cheeky,” says the Doctor, the corner of his mouth quirked in amusement as he scans a new globe. “Was that terribly fashionable in the French court? The cheekiness?”

“Oh, Louis absolutely adored it,” Rose says with a wink.

“I’ll bet he did,” mutters the Doctor.

Rose smiles. Something about this—the investigating, the banter, the still-familiarity of it all even after half a year away, the Doctor’s intense concentration written in the crease of his brow over those stupidly sexy specs of his—something about it all just makes Rose want to hug him, throw her arms around him and squeeze tight. Maybe kiss him, and see where that takes them. But before she has the chance to enact any part of her plan, the Doctor looks up at her over his specs again, eyebrow arched sharply as he says, “Can I help you?”

Rose shakes herself. “Sorry?”

“You’re staring.”

Rose begs herself not to blush. “Yeah? So?”

“Why are you staring?”

“I dunno. Just thinking about…things.”

“What things?”

“Just…things.”

“Because we haven’t got the time for canoodling right now, you know.”

Laughing, Rose shakes her head, willing the redness in her cheeks to die down. “Canoodling? God, you really are old.”

“How’s that?”

“Cos only old fogies say stuff like that anymore. And for your information, I wasn’t thinking about anything like that at all.”

“Really?”

“Really,” says Rose stubbornly. “Cos y’know, that was just a joke earlier, humans thinking about sex all the time. Despite what you may think, not everything revolves around you and, you know, canoodling or whatever—”

But her words are cut off by a tap behind the far wall, resounding through the room, and the Doctor stiffens in response, his head snapping to at the noise. It takes Rose approximately half a second to realize that’s one of those invisible-door-opening taps. They’re about to be discovered, and despite Uruud and the other Votaries’ claims of hospitality, Rose knows that this is one of the few places they won’t be welcome in.

“Oi!” shouts the guard as they step through the magic doorway, shining a light on Rose and the Doctor, freezing them both like a pair of deer in headlights. “Oi, you two! Guests aren’t permitted in here!”

“Right,” says the Doctor, stepping in front of Rose and the table full of scattered globes, shielding them all from view. “Of course. We’re so sorry, complete misunderstanding—”

“What are you doing in here?” the guard asks suspiciously.

“Canoodling?” Rose offers.

“We got lost,” the Doctor says quickly, stepping to the side to block the guard’s view as he tries to peer around him at Rose and the orbs. “We got lost looking for a place to—erm—”

“Canoodle,” Rose supplies, kicking herself.

“—and, well, nothing gets a human girl all hot and bothered like a roomful of private records, does it?” the Doctor laughs weakly.

The guard looks from the Doctor, around to Rose behind him, down at the misplaced globes surrounding Rose, back to the Doctor again. He does not look convinced.

“Sorry, but I think I’m going to have to take you in,” says the guard, reaching for something behind his back. A weapon, Rose thinks, and she freezes.

“And that’s our cue,” says the Doctor, grabbing Rose by the hand. “Time to run!”

Fingers cinched tightly round hers, the Doctor sprints through the records-room past rows and rows of glowing orbs, pulling Rose along for the ride as the guard chases after. Rose runs as fast as her legs can take her, neglected muscles tensing and complaining after months of sedentary stillness, but even amidst that, Rose is grinning like a madwoman, because she’s missed all of this, god has she ever missed it. She stifles a laugh as they run from one chamber to another to another, past columns and pools and guests, the guard close on their heels, adrenaline pumping like hypercharged jet fuel through Rose’s veins.

“Really, Doctor,” she laughs breathlessly as they run. “Nothing gets a girl all hot and bothered like a room full of records?”

“What’s that you said about canoodling?” the Doctor shoots back.

“I panicked!”

“Yes, that much is evident!”

The Doctor pulls Rose through chamber after chamber and the guard doesn’t lose sight of them once, his footfalls dogging them every step of the way. Fear and excitement braiding themselves together in Rose’s gut, she clings to the Doctor’s hand all that much harder, secretly relishing the mad rush of it all.

“Here,” announces the Doctor as they arrive at a huge curved wall, and a rap of his knuckles opens a doorway into one of the great halls, full to the rafters with guests and celebrants swirling about the place in some sort of ceremonial dance. Ducking beneath the wings of a large feathered guest, the Doctor draws Rose into the teeming crowd, away from the prying eyes of their pursuer. Once inside, Rose marvels at the sight all around them, celebrants moving and swaying to the ritualistic and rhythmic beating of drums pulsing beneath the soft flutter of winds and strings. The music swells and expands to fill the room, suffocating even the thought of space, cleaving to the dancers and adherents with an almost intoxicating closeness, leaving Rose dizzy as the drumbeat marches to the beat of her own hammering pulse. The celebrants surrounding her pull her in like an undercurrent, dancing to the beat in an elegant amoebic mass spinning and swirling beneath the lightning-split sky.

“Shall we dance?” Rose teases, half-expecting the Doctor to roll his eyes and snark at her again, but to her surprise, he nods. “Camouflage. Good thinking,” he says, pocketing his specs before stepping directly into the stream of guests, pulling Rose close.

Funny—Rose had sort of thought, when she’d ever allowed herself to think of such things, that if she and the Doctor ever transcended their unspoken boundary of clasped hands and too-tight hugs, then all that ever-present chemistry burning between them might fizzle out, doused like a candle at evening’s end. Not a bad thing, that; candles can’t burn forever, and when their spark has reduced to a gentle smolder, one can safely go to bed with a sense of ease and contentment, curling up for a comfortable and well-earned sleep. But with one of his hands guiding her round, the other clasping her close by the waist, pulling her chest against his, packing them both together so tightly she can feel each and every breath as it enters and leaves his body, it becomes apparent that no, that flame was not extinguished, it’s burning bright as ever, and probably has no chance of doing otherwise anytime soon. At least that would explain why Rose feels so warm all of a sudden, why her cheeks can’t seem to stop burning.

The Doctor spins her in time with dozens of other celebrants, elegantly following the steps of the dance as he scans the room for their pursuer, his glance aloof and oh-so-carefully casual. Distantly, Rose wonders whether he already knows this ritual dance or if he’s just stupidly good at improvising; presently, she’s too busy being distracted by the proximity of their bodies and the feel of his hands on her again to register much of anything else. She faces him again, pressed close once again, and he offers a grin. “Hello,” he says, and Rose remembers a similar sequence from before, a galaxy and a year ago. Almost feels like a lifetime, now.

“Hello,” she replies, a smile blossoming slow and sweet across her lips. She’s got no clue what steps she should be following right now but at least her time at court taught her how to fake it ‘til she makes it, if nothing else; she follows the Doctor’s lead with relative ease, laughing when she falters and her feet skip a beat along with her pulse. “Seem to be doing a lot of this lately, don’t we?”

“What, watching for guards while we stumble over our own feet?”

“Dancing, you great prat,” Rose laughs. A change in tempo means time to change partners and Rose switches off with a flourish, grinning disarmingly at the large rhinoceros-creature that glowers at her before taking her hand. (Though to be fair, Rose actually hasn’t got a clue whether it’s specifically shooting daggers at her, as glower seems to be the creature’s default state.) She twirls back into the Doctor’s arms afterward and there it is again, that heat, that electricity; the lightning flashing overhead has got nothing on the connection burning and buzzing between the two of them, Rose thinks.

“It’s nice,” she admits, her fingers nervously edging upward to fiddle with the lapels of his suit-jacket. “The dancing, I mean. We should do it more.”

The Doctor hums noncommittally.

“You don’t think so?”

“I don’t particularly think one way or the other, at the moment. I’m more preoccupied with our guard friend and wherever he might happen to be. I’ve sort of lost sight of him.”

“Right,” says Rose, nodding. There are other things at hand. Big things. Important things. Much bigger, more important things than the press of their bodies together, warm and close, soft and tense all at once, their clothes whispering against each other as they move, leaving Rose practically vibrating with anticipation, reminding her in full technicolor detail of everything they got up to the night before, his hands slipping beneath her dress, his lips on her skin, her mouth wrapped around his—

“It can’t happen again, you know.”

Shaking herself, Rose frowns. “Sorry?”

“Last night. What we did, what we said. It can’t happen again.”

“How did you know—you didn’t read my mind or something, did you?” Rose asks, startled.

The Doctor shakes his head. “Didn’t have to.”

“All right, I get it,” Rose sighs. “I know you like to tease about that sort of thing, humans and their silly animal instincts and all, but it only makes sense that it’s on my mind, Doctor. It only just happened last night. It’s not like I’m some crazed addict—not like it’s really the only thing I ever think about.”

“It’s on my mind too, Rose.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks reddening, Rose considers the implications of that, wonders what he’s thinking, if his recollections are anything as vivid as hers, what else is going through his mind right now. “Then…why?”

“As lovely as it might have been, it was ill-advised at best, dangerous at worst,” the Doctor explains, still scanning the room, and now Rose suspects he’s just using their pursuer as a convenient excuse to avoid looking at her. “And it’s dangerous precisely because it’s on my mind. It’s a distraction, and we can’t afford distractions. That’s how we end up in the predicament we’re in right now—it’s how things get overlooked, mistakes get made, people get hurt.”

Rose stops in her tracks, staring at him as the crowd bustles and sways around them; the Doctor stops as well, hands moving back to the safety of his own body, depositing themselves firmly in his pockets. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I know it’s not what you want to hear. I don’t particularly like saying it. If I had my way, we’d just pretend it never happened. I’m only saying anything now because, well, it seems prudent, and only fair in light of everything, to make certain my stance on the subject is clear.”

“And what about my stance on the subject?” Rose asks with a disbelieving laugh.

“It’s just a bad idea, Rose. You know it is.”

“No, I don’t,” Rose insists, crossing her arms protectively. “I don’t know that. Last night—”

“I just said last night was ill-advised.”

“You’re wrong,” says Rose. “You’re wrong about this whole thing. Cos you’re not worried about hurting other people. You’re worried about yourself.”

Frowning, the Doctor opens his mouth to protest, but Rose cuts him off with a hand wrapped round his arm, pulling him off to the side so they’re no longer buffeted by dancers and music and other things pounding mercilessly on their senses. Once they’re safely ensconced in a semi-private alcove, Rose sighs.

“Look, I know you’re lonely,” she says, and it hurts for the words to leave her mouth, almost as much, she thinks, as it hurts for him to hear them. “And I know that’s the biggest reason you keep any of us around. To fill the quiet. To make the universe seem new and bright again. To not feel so lonely anymore.”

The Doctor’s mouth twists unhappily and Rose has to force herself to continue. “And I’m happy to do that for you, I really am,” she says. “And if this is truly as far as you want things to go between the two of us, then that’s fine. If that’s what you really want and need, that’s fine. I won’t push you. But the thing is, it doesn’t seem like that’s true. It’s more like, you want things, but you think you shouldn’t have them. Like you don’t deserve them.”

The Doctor fidgets uncomfortably and Rose bites her lip in worry. Things were going so well just moments before—how did they end up back here, how are things already so tense and strained again? Not that she expected sex to really resolve anything, but last night, it had seemed like things were at least edging toward improvement. Why do they keep talking and working only to circle back round to the same bleak conclusion?

Well, while she’s pushing things, she might as well push all the way. No point in holding back, now.

“It isn’t just about the sex,” Rose says, and goodness, but she’s really blushing now. “But you do all these things—you make us feel special, like we’re exceptional, like we’re these bright spots you were so, so happy to find, and then on a dime, you turn right back around and make us feel like the lowest, smallest beings in the universe. You take us with you on these amazing adventures, and then when you’re done with us, you leave us behind. You pull us near only to run away when you realize just how close we’re getting. And we don’t get any say in the matter—when you’re done, you’re just done. And it hurts, Doctor, and it pushes people away. It’s only going to make you lonelier in the end.”

“You haven’t got a clue what it’s like to be truly alone,” the Doctor replies quietly.

“No, I don’t,” Rose agrees. “And I wish you didn’t either. Because you don’t have to.”

Wordlessly, the Doctor looks up and away, at anything in the room but her; Rose steps closer, reaching up to place a gentle hand on his cheek, a soft and undemanding plea for him to face her again.

“You help so many people,” she says. “Why won’t you let anyone help you?”

“I don’t need it,” the Doctor replies.

Rose arches an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind,” says the Doctor, pulling away so he can rock back on his heels. “I’ve got a definitive opinion on dancing after all. You’re right, it’s lovely, we should do it more. Starting right now. Right resolutely now, in case our little guard friend comes back to look for us again. Shall we?”

“How do you really feel about Reinette?” Rose asks, before she has a chance to talk herself out of it.

Now the Doctor stares at her. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why are you asking about her again?”

“I want to know.”

“Does it matter?” he asks incredulously.

“It does to me.”

“Why on earth should it?”

“It just does.”

Casting about in disbelief, the Doctor scowls. “Fine. What do you want me to say—that I’m drawn to clever, accomplished people? I’m fascinated with them? That I admire talent and beauty and generally impressive people and places and things whenever and wherever I might find them? It’s all true, I won’t deny it, never have. And I don’t think I have to apologize for it, either.”

“Do you love her?”

The Doctor scoffs. “Really, of all the reductive and oversimplified things—and a ridiculous notion to boot,” he says, looking at Rose with that horrible you’ve just dribbled on your shirt look, the one that suggests he’s very displeased with her for exposing him to her silly brain and its silly limited capabilities. “It’s an impossible question to answer by your standards, because love means too many things for humans. You love your parents and your family and your friends, certainly, but you also love your dog and your favorite ice cream flavor and the latest big thing on telly. You love fashion and science and sleeping in to ungodly hours and apparently pestering me with idiotic questions. The word love means everything, therefore it means nothing. It’s a useless platitude, a saccharine sentimentalism invented purely for the sake of films and fairy tales and song lyrics sugary enough to give you a dozen cavities.”

“Cool,” says Rose drily, because when the defensive cynicism comes out in full force, that’s how she knows she’s really getting somewhere. “So are you gonna answer my question, or haven’t you got all of the usual insults out of your system yet?”

“No,” he says, throwing up his hands in defeat. “That’s your answer, all right? No. Fascination and admiration and even infatuation don’t automatically add up to love, and if you think they do, then you should reexamine your maths. And you’ll just have to forgive me if I don’t conform to your very human standards of what fondness and caring and romance should look like—I’m sorry I’m not in the habit of vomiting out my feelings at every available opportunity, or opening myself up to things that will only amount to a horrendous amount of pain in the end, or carving off chunks of myself to give to people left and right until there’s nothing left of me, nothing, nothing at all. I’m sorry. All right? And that’s it, that’s all I’m going to say on the matter, I’m done, Rose, I’m officially done.”

“Okay,” replies Rose.

Wide-eyed and staring, the Doctor blinks in surprise. “Okay? So that’s it? We can drop this now, move on?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?” he asks suspiciously.

“Really. I learned everything I need to know.”

“And what’s that?”

“You’re a coward.”

The Doctor doesn’t reply, just watches her sharply, brow furrowed in frustration and hurt.

“You can deny yourself all you want, hiding behind the whole curse of the Time Lords business or your self-righteous self-martyrdom or your magnificent higher calling or whatever other noble-sounding excuse you want to come up with,” Rose continues, offering a sad little smile. “But at the end of the day, really, I think you’re just afraid to be happy.”

“Oh, come on now, that’s just—”

“It’s like you think you don’t deserve it cos you had to make some impossible decisions, like joy is some kind of zero-sum game and anything good you might have is taking joy away from someone else somehow, or like you think the universe will punish you or something, and—and honestly, how self-centered is all that, anyway?—but, just, look. Is this something you want, or not?” asks Rose, exasperated. “Just tell me honestly. If you don’t want us to be anything more, if you’re happiest with us just being mates, that’s all right. I’ll respect your wishes. If that’s what you really want.”

“It doesn’t really matter what I want,” the Doctor mutters.

“Of course it does,” insists Rose. “Doctor—do you think that way about anyone else? Would you ever tell someone else that how they feel doesn’t matter?”

Again he doesn’t reply.

“What about me?” Rose tries again. “Do my feelings matter? Do you want me to be happy?”

“Of course. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, I want you to be happy,” Rose replies stubbornly. “It would make me happy to see you get what you want. Even if it’s not exactly the same thing I want. You deserve happiness as much as anyone else. It would make me very happy for you to know that. Yeah?”

Staring at her in dumbstruck silence, the Doctor swallows hard. His gaze shifts uncomfortably elsewhere, a hand carding through his hair as he considers—what he’s considering, Rose doesn’t know, but she worries about his next words, whether he’s weighing them, perhaps measuring the potential damage of them.

Rose hides a sigh of disappointment. It’s all too much for him, probably. She’s pushing him too much. She’s being unfair. This is too much to expect of him.

She can’t ask him to feel the same way she does.

“Look, Doctor. I just—” Rose starts to say, but he cuts her off with a hug, enveloping her in an embrace so tight it squeezes the breath right out of her. Her arms return the gesture on instinct, instantly wrapping round his waist and drawing the rest of her near so her face can burrow against his chest, her arms resting snugly against the small of his back. His double heartsbeat taps a reassuring rhythm beneath her cheek, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, and Rose relaxes a little, sighing in relief. Probably this is among the Doctor’s many hidden talents and gifts, this magical ability to hug and squeeze everything bad out of her until she’s left with nothing but quiet contentment. Or maybe that’s just how it feels anytime someone really needs an embrace and receives it. Either way, it’s a really fucking good hug.

“It’s not that simple,” the Doctor says softly. “But…thank you for saying it, anyway. It means a lot.”

“Yeah. I love you, you know.”

Her pulse racing in her ears, Rose’s voice is so small she thinks the Doctor might not even hear it—and maybe that would be just as well, anyway—but he stiffens, nodding. “I know,” he says quietly.

Stepping back, the Doctor casts his gaze downward, struggling to meet her eyes. “Rose, I—”

“Rose!”

On reflex, Rose’s head jerks at the sound of Mickey calling her name; she still watches the Doctor, waiting for whatever he was going to say, but his attention has already shifted, his focus switching in a millisecond.

Rose curses Mickey’s terrible timing. What was the Doctor going to say?

With a frustrated sigh, Rose turns to see Mickey swimming toward them through the crowd, Naami following close behind.

“Rose, we’ve done it!” Mickey says excitedly. “We’ve figured it out!”

“Figured what out?” asks Rose, lost.

“The conspiracy!” replies Mickey in hushed tones, glancing all about the chamber to ensure no one overhears. “The Doctor was right, something’s going on, but it’s not what you think—Naami, tell them!”

Naami nods, her face lit up in an eager grin. “So the High Chauncery hasn’t been seen in years, it’s true, but that actually isn’t too uncommon in his line of work, right?” she says, glancing from Rose to the Doctor and back. “As you know, Therran High Priests are renowned galaxywide for their scholarship and piety—”

“Of course we all knew that!” Mickey laughs nervously.

“—so of course, none of us ever questioned it. Priests might retreat into study at any time, for any reason, and they could be gone for any number of weeks or months or even, as in this case, years. But after the Doctor’s remarks on the High Chauncery’s absence, I thought I might ask round with some of my connections, just out of curiosity. We’re involved in imports, you see, so if the High Chauncery was bringing in new materials for study, then we’d be the first to know. But that’s just the thing—he hasn’t ordered any sort of religious texts for years now.”

“Because it turns out someone murdered him unceremoniously?” asks the Doctor.

“What? Of course not!” laughs Naami, daintily shielding her mouth with her hand. “Murder? Don’t be absurd!”

“Well, all right, then,” says the Doctor, nonplussed. “That’s unexpected. But certainly not unwelcome.”

“A nice change from the usual,” Rose adds.

“True, a very nice change.”

“That’s not the interesting thing, though! Tell them about the interesting thing, tell them what the High Chauncypants keeps bringing in,” urges Mickey.

Leaning in close, and whispering in a hushed tone, conspiratorial, like anyone around them might hear and gasp in shock, Naami tells them, “Giant mirrors, boatloads of argon, and silver iodide.”

Rose and the Doctor both blink in confusion. That’s not at all what Rose had expected to hear. She was thinking something more along the lines of illicit beasts or exotic drugs or, heck, at least some kind of rare spice. But this…this just sounds like a silly school science experiment, and honestly, after everything, that’s a little bit of a letdown.

“Oh, no,” says Rose awkwardly, glancing at Mickey with a shrug. “Not that stuff!”

She leans close to the Doctor to whisper, “What is that stuff?”

“Well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone was building a big laser,” says the Doctor, frowning. “But I’m not certain how the silver iodide factors in, unless—”

“That’s them, over there!” a voice shouts over the din, and Rose turns at the noise to see their pursuer hovering at the edge of the crowd, pointing at her and the Doctor. Their single guard has been joined by several others, now, all of them staring in their direction. Staring, and grimacing, and brandishing a host of dangerous-looking, pointy weapons.

So much for that famous hospitality, Rose thinks with a gulp.

“Get them!” commands the guard.

“Split up!” Rose shouts as she pushes Mickey away with one hand, grabs the Doctor with another. Pulling the Doctor along, she bolts through the teeming crowd, ducking beneath arms and tentacles and wings; a glance back tells her that Mickey and Naami, though startled, have taken off running in the opposite direction. A half-dozen guards bridge the gap between them, shouting at the dancing celebrants to disperse as they break off to chase each pair.

“Here!” says Rose, pulling the Doctor between two huge elephantine aliens that sway to and fro over the floor, distracted both by the music and the guards’ continuous shouting. The guards struggle to catch up, stopped at every turn by errant celebrants and guests milling about the place in confusion, but after a lifetime of navigating London’s busy and tourist-filled streets, Rose has no problem weaving in and out of the throng, spotting a good-sized gap here, a narrow-but-tenable squeeze there. Before too long she’s drawn the Doctor out of the main hall and into a side corridor, their feet slapping hard against the marble floor as they sprint away from their pursuers.

“Not that way!” shouts the Doctor as they round a corner only to find more guards, and he yanks Rose off in another direction, guiding them both by the grace of his eidetic memory. They weave in and out of chamber after chamber, back through the dining hall and the menagerie and the pools and the garden, past shocked celebrants and shrieking animals and churning waters, lightning violently splitting the sky overhead as they run and their pursuers close in.

“What’ll happen if they catch us?” Rose gasps, throwing a look over her shoulder at the guards and their many, many weapons. And right at that second, as if someone was only waiting for her to ask, a shrill squeal fills the air and suddenly the Doctor is yanking Rose to the side just in time to avoid a barrage of blaster-fire, smacking the wall right beside her and leaving a smoldering crater behind in its wake. Rose lets out a cry as blaster fire rings out all around them, exploding the walls all around and the floor at their feet, filling the air with smoke and shrapnel. Another barrage of fire and Rose feels a beam graze her shirt, its scalding heat missing her skin by mere millimeters.

Heart hammering, air burning in her lungs, Rose wills her legs to run faster.

They sprint round another curve only to reach a dead end. The Doctor halts in his tracks, his grip tightening round Rose’s hand as they both skid over the floor. Rose watches as the Doctor whips back round to face the guards, glances back at the dead end in front of them, brow furrowing as he frantically tries to calculate.

Oh, god. That face. It’s been six months but Rose still recognizes that face. It’s the Doctor’s we’re gonna have to do something supremely stupid and hope for the best face. His we might die, but then again, we might not face.

“Doctor—” Rose starts to say, but, jaw set in determination, he doesn’t say anything, just takes off again for the far wall, yanking Rose along with him.

“No!” shout the guards behind them, their voices high and shrill over their clattering boots and firing blasters. “Halt!”

They reach the wall and Doctor raps a desperate beat against it until it springs open, a doorway parting to reveal a tempest of howling winds and punishing rains roaring loud enough to drown even the sounds of blaster fire all around them. Water and hail scream down in sheets, buffeted by the winds and hammering against the ground like shards of glass on pavement. Thunder pounding relentlessly overhead, the pitch black of the sky and the air are illuminated only by the beams of light piercing the sky, flooding the world in a flash of blinding-white and blood-red.

The Allstorm, Rose realizes, and she shrinks back in fear. She opens her mouth to plead with the Doctor, but terror has crept up her throat and stolen her words.

Pausing only long enough to steel himself with a steadying breath, the Doctor steps through the door, and Rose follows him into the storm.

 ***

Next Part (forthcoming)