#but don’t you understand i’ve written a billion of those for you and i’ve said them to you on my knees in front of you

[flanarchy]

.

[thegloweringcastle]

La Belle Fleur Sauvage

@elucienweekofficial​ Day 5: Nature

ao3 

a/n: This is unlike anything I’ve ever written before. So I'm a little nervous, but very curious to hear your thoughts! Even if it hasn’t turned out as I hoped, it was certainly lots of fun to write.

It is a songfic based on La Belle Fleur Sauvage by Lord Huron, and even if you don’t read this I am begging you to still listen to the song because it is absolutely enchanting.

Happy reading and listening! <3

Word Count: ~1.9k

~~~

I. What you’re looking for won’t be found easily

It grows upon the mountain, in a sacred place

Lucien had been reared in a family that valued power; raised by a father who controlled with an iron fist, surrounded by brothers who thirsted for riches and every exotic pleasure known to humankind.

His mother, a kindhearted woman too pure for the likes of his father, was his only solace. She offered him a refuge, a quiet place to hide, to live freely and exist simply.

That was the only sacred place in his entire world; not one other honorable being could be found within miles. As a boy, he doubted he would ever find anyone as loving as his mother in the rest of his life.

II. Up beyond the clouds an ancient ground, so they say

And many men have died trekking up that way

The first time Lucien heard the legend of the woman had been at one of his fathers banquets - one of Lucien’s first attendances.

He remembered, with shocking clarity, the many horrors recounted to him by rich merchants. There were stories of every ill-fate that had befallen those who set out in search of such unearthly beauty. Some had been so jealous - of whom or what, Lucien couldn’t understand - that they threw themselves from cliffs, while others never even survived the first leg of the journey, lost to the beasts that roamed the foothills.

But while each variation had a billion different details, one thing remained the same: the woman who dwelled in the mountains was of another world, another kind; her beauty so unnatural that anyone who could keep it would live a bountiful life.

III. Once he’s gazed upon her, a man is forever changed

The bravest men return with darkened hearts and phantom pain

There was not much that happened in the village. Peddlers came and went, merchants sold their goods and expanded their mansions, beggars crowded the street corners, and young men set off to intrude upon what did not want to be found.

Lucien was never one to believe the stories that circulated. Everyone had their own version of the legend, but as he matured he realized it was all nothing but the wishful thinking of those who craved what they would never deserve and could never obtain.

But his mindset changed when the O’Donoughy brothers left and swiftly returned, ice cold in the dead of summer, their eyes distant and watery. What they had seen, nobody knew; but everyone had suspected. As Lucien grew into a young man, more and more of the people he had known as boys set out mountain-bound. The O’Donoughy twins had returned aged beyond their years in those few days, while others - the ones never seen again - were said to have simply sat there, watching and waiting until they rotted to nothing, some force spending their lifespans tenfold.

Lucien always prided himself in being level headed and respectful, and he had every intention of leaving well enough alone no matter what legends were wrong or right. Honestly, he did.

Until the truth of his paternity came out, and they were forced to run.

He may have been able to help save his mother, but his life had been left in rubble, the knowledge that his mom was safe and happy the only salvageable debris.

IV. Her colors change to mark the passing of the days

No earthly sight can match the beauty she displays

Exiled now by his half-family, Lucien was left to seek out a new home; somewhere he could start fresh. But that meant risking trespassing on the one place he had always sworn not to intrude. A new, better life could only be found over the mountains, through the same pass that hosted so many legends and tales.

Evergreen trees towered above Lucien, toying with the golden sunlight and disorienting all sense of direction. As he wandered, following meek flower paths and worn animal trails, morning light took on the telltale orange hue of afternoon. Yet, even as time passed and the light changed above him, the sun never actually moved. Birdsong grew distant and rare as he gained elevation, the odd silence chilling him to his very marrow.

The woods grew so dense that the forest floor never saw daylight, and Lucien could barely squeeze between each tree as he forged ahead. He knew he should have taken it as a warning, but he had no other options.

V. I've meant to find the place where all good things begin

To smell her scent and watch her dancing in the wind

Finally, finally, the forest opened up to a meadow of rustling wildflowers and billowing grass and-

He did a double take. Triple take. He pinched himself.

It was real.

There she was, flesh and blood - maybe - and swaying through the tall grass; she looked like she was dancing. Rosy cheeks, gleaming honey-brown hair, and big doe eyes. She flowed with the wind as if it were a song made just for her. She understood the whisper of the grass and the humming of the bees as well as her own heartbeat. She flowed so smoothly as if she herself were part of the wind; a bird guiding the breeze across the dramatic hills.

And Lucien couldn’t fathom it; so many things, he simply couldn’t wrap his mind around. How could such beauty still exist? Why would anyone want to interfere with it? It was perfect just the way it was; humans didn’t deserve this. They simply weren’t good enough.

In circles she spun, dipping low to pick a flower before turning to brush one slender hand through a bundle of cattails. Lucien simply watched her, wholly enraptured by her supple movements. He didn’t even think about it when he stepped forward, wanting to keep watching her as she began to move away.

He saw her, she saw him, and the world froze. The breeze dissipated, the whispering grass held its breath, the dancing flowers paused.

Predator and prey held eye contact, stuck between cycles. Something glinted, the hollowness akin to fear. But he could have been wrong; he was on the edge of the clearing, after all.

She took one, timid step towards him. He took one, timid step back.

“Who are you?” Her voice, lush and gentle, rang louder than it should have. Wholly unnatural.

His throat was dry. “My name is Lucien Va- Lucien. I hail from the village to the east.” He paused, continuing when she didn’t speak. “I wish to use your alpine pass to continue west, with your blessing.”

Lucien’s heart constricted as she approached, her radiance even more devastating up close. But now he saw - proof. She wasn’t human. Pointed ears, wide eyes, long, slender fingers.

“Why should I believe you?” The sound of her voice would be the death of him. “Why would I offer you safe passage, when that is what everyone else has asked for? It has never turned out to be the truth.”

So neither were predators; both had been prey at some point in time. Lucien wanted to see to it that it would never again be the case.

“Lady…” He went down to one knee, looking up at her figure haloed by the sun.

Her brow quirked up as she hesitated. “Elain.”

“My Lady Elain,” It came out as a benediction. “I don’t know what proof I could present to you, but I swear to leave you be. I merely hope to pass through and allow you to enjoy your space.” Even if he didn’t want to leave.

She leaned in, evaluating him just as he did her. He caught her scent - honey and berries. Sweet and addicting.

“There is a flower,” She started. “It grows farther than most can travel, higher than many wish to go. But I’ve heard its beauty is unlike anything else, and I wish to see it. Help it flourish here,” She gestured to the clearing. “With the others. If you can find it for me and bring it back with roots intact, I will allow you onwards.”

She did not wait for a response before turning smoothly, her cotton dress rippling with the motion. Lucien waited another heartbeat before standing, struggling to process what had happened, what he had seen.

He began his quest.

It could have been days that he searched, or months. The sun never moved, only disappearing suddenly to leave room for night. Time moved strangely in the woods; one day it was mild, spring weather, and the next it was crisp autumn, with auburn leaves raining down. Once it snowed, but then it was blazing hot.

The entire time, Lucien searched. He thought long and hard, he went at it ruthlessly, he went over the same places dozens of times. But he never gave up. Because as he searched, something blossomed in his chest. Something warm and soft and right. He didn’t aim to find the flower just to move on; he wanted to please her, to give her a reason to smile. The thought of it made his heart yearn.

So he stayed resolute, fending off the beasts in the woods and pursuing any hint of unique greenery that could possibly match what she wanted.

But nothing he found would ever be enough, would never be as beautiful as her.

VI. I'd give it all to love that girl, oh

I'd be the one to pluck that fleur, oh

Lucien found his way back to the clearing, hoping to any higher power that she would be there again.

And sure enough, there she was, this time lying in the tall green grass and basking in the sun.

“My Lady Elain,” He called.

She stood slowly, brushing herself off as she moved towards him. “Lucien of the East.” A faint smile graced her face. “Have you found the flower?”

He returned the smile in kind with an added bit of mischief. “Indeed, I have.”

Her chin tilted, her eyes squinting.

“Where is it, then?”

“My lady, I am afraid you sent me on a snipe hunt.”

“Oh?”

“You asked for a flower whose beauty was unlike anything else. You wanted to help it thrive here,” He stepped forward, bolder now. “But I realized something.”

“Tell me, what did you realize?”

Now they both moved in, meeting each other halfway.

“I was meant to find you.”

Her eyes sparked, a bright boundless smile overtaking her features. It nearly brought Lucien to his knees. She tucked her slender, ivory hand into his broad, tan one. With a shared smile, she guided them through the meadow towards the small cottage hiding on the edge.

Lucien decided he had no reason to go over the pass; everything he could ever need was right there in that sacred place.

VII.  And when I die, I want her lying by my side, in my grave

I'd give it all to love that girl, oh

~~~

Another big thanks to @elucienweekofficial moderators for their dedication! <3

[potteresque-ire]

Can you talk more about the usage of the word "wife" to talk about men in the BL context? I've noticed it in BJYX (particularly with GG), in the (English translations) of MDZS, and then it came up in your recent posts about Danmei-101 (which were super helpful btw) with articles connecting the "little fresh meat" type to fans calling an actor "wife." My initial reaction as a westerner is like "this is very problematic," but I think I'm missing a lot of language/cultural context. Any thoughts?

Hello! First of all, for those who’re interested, here’s a link to the referred posts. Under the cut is arguably the 4th post of the series. As usual, I apologise for the length!

(Topics: seme and uke; more about “leftover women”; roster of feminisation terms; Daji, Bao Si & the origin of BJYX; roster of beautiful, ancient Chinese men; Chairman Mao (not part of the roster) ...)

[TW: feminisation of men]

In the traditional BL characterisation, the M/M (double male) lead pairing is essentially a cis-het relationship in disguise, in which one of the M leads is viewed as the “wife” by the creator and audience. This lead often possesses some of the features of the traditional, stereotypical female, but retaining his male appearance. 

In BL terms, the “wife” is the “uke”. “Seme” and “uke” are the respective roles taken by the two male leads, and designated by the creator of the material. Literally, “seme” (攻め) means the dominant, the attacking / aggressive partner in the relationship and “uke” (受け), the passive / recipient (of actions) partner who tends to follow the seme’s lead. The terms themselves do not have any sexual / gender context.  However, as male and female are viewed as aggressive and passive by their traditional social roles, and the attacker and recipient by their traditional sexual roles respectively, BL fandoms have long assigned uke, the passive, sexual “bottom”, as the “woman”, the “wife”. 

Danmei has kept this “semi” and uke” tradition from BL, taking the kanji of the Japanese terms for designation ~ 攻 (”attack” is therefore the “husband”, and 受 (”receive”), the “wife”. The designations are often specified in the introduction / summary of Danmei works as warning / enticement. For MDZS, for example, MXTX wrote:

高貴冷豔悶騷 攻 × 邪魅狂狷風騷 受

高貴冷豔悶騷 攻 = noble, coolly beautiful and boring seme (referring to LWJ)  邪魅狂狷風騷 受 = devilishly charming, wild, and flirty uke (referring to WWX) 

The traditional, stereotypical female traits given to the “uke”, the “wife” in Danmei and their associated fanworks range from their personality to behaviour to even biological functions. Those who have read the sex scenes in MDZS may be aware of their lack of mention of lube, while WWX was written as getting (very) wet from fluids from his colon (腸道) ~ implying that his colon, much like a vagina, was supplying the necessarily lubrication for sex. This is obviously biologically inaccurate; however, Danmei is exempt from having to be realistic by its original Tanbi definition. The genre’s primary audience is cishet females, and sex scenes such as this one aren’t aiming for realism. Rather, the primary goal of these sex scenes is to generate fantasy, and the purpose of the biologically female functions in one of the leads (WWX) is to ease the readers into imagining themselves as the one engaging in the sex.

Indeed, these practices of assigning as males and female the M/M sexual top and bottom, of emphasising of who is the top and who is the bottom, have been falling out of favour in Western slash fandoms ~ I joined fandom about 15 years ago, and top and bottom designations in slash pairings (and fights about them) were much more common than it is now.  The generally more open, more progressive environments in which Western fandomers are immersed in probably have something to do with it: they transfer their RL knowledge, their views on biology, on different social into their fandom works and discourses. 

I’d venture to say this: in the English-speaking fandoms, fandom values and mainstream values are converging. “Cancel culture” reflects an attempt to enforce RL values in the fictional worlds in fandom. Fandom culture is slowly, but surely, leaving its subculture status and becoming part of mainstream culture. 

I’d hesitate to call c-Danmei fandoms backward compared to Western slash for this reason. There’s little hope for Danmei to converge with China’s mainstream culture in the short term ~ the necessity of replacing Danmei with Dangai in visual media already reflects that. Danmei is and will likely remain subculture in the foreseeable future, and subcultures, at heart, are protests against the mainstream. Unless China and the West define “mainstream” very similarly (and they don’t), it is difficult to compare the “progressiveness”—and its dark side, the “problematic-ness”—of the protests, which are shaped by what they’re protesting against. The “shaper” in this scenario, the mainstream values and culture, are also far more forceful under China’s authoritarian government than they are in the free(-er) world. 

Danmei, therefore, necessarily takes on a different form in China than BL or slash outside China. As a creative pursuit, it serves to fulfil psychological needs that are reflective of its surrounding culture and sociopolitical environment. The genre’s “problematic” / out of place aspects in the eyes of Western fandoms are therefore, like all other aspects of the genre, tailor-made by its millions of fans to be comforting / cathartic for the unique culture and sociopolitical background it and they find themselves in. 

I briefly detoured to talk about the Chinese government’s campaign to pressure young, educated Chinese women into matrimony and motherhood in the post for this reason, as it is an example of how, despite Western fandoms’ progressiveness, they may be inadequate, distant for c-Danmei fans. Again, this article is a short and a ... morbidly-entertaining read on what has been said about China’s “leftover women” (剩女) — women who are unmarried and over 27-years-old). I talked about it, because “Women should enter marriage and parenthood in their late 20s” may no longer a mainstream value in many Western societies, but where it still is, it exerts a strong influence on how women view romance, and by extension, how they interact with romantic fiction, including Danmei.

In China, this influence is made even stronger by the fact that Chinese tradition  places a strong emphasis on education and holds a conservative attitude towards romance and sex. Dating while studying therefore remains discouraged in many Chinese families. University-educated Chinese women therefore have an extremely short time frame — between graduation (~23 years old) and their 27th birthday — to find “the right one” and get married, before they are labelled as “leftovers” and deemed undesirable. (Saving) face being an important aspect in Chinese culture introduces yet another layer of pressure: traditionally, women who don’t get married by the age agreed by social norms have been viewed as failures of upbringing, in that the unmarried women’s parents not having taught/trained their daughters well. Filial, unmarried women therefore try to get married “on time” just to avoid bringing shame to their family.

The outcome is this: despite the strong women characters we may see in Chinese visual media, many young Chinese women nowadays do not expect themselves to be able to marry for love. Below, I offer a “book jacket summary” of a popular internet novel in China, which shows how the associated despair also affects cis-het fictional romance. Book reviews praise this novel for being “boring”: the man and woman leads are both common working class people, the “you-and-I”’s; the mundaneness of them trying build their careers and their love life is lit by one shining light: he loves her and she loves him. 

Written in her POV, this summary reflects, perhaps, the disquiet felt by many contemporary Chinese women university graduates:

曾經以為，自己這輩子都等不到了—— 世界這麼大，我又走得這麼慢，要是遇不到良人要怎麼辦？早過了「全球三十幾億男人，中國七億男人，天涯何處無芳草」的猖狂歲月，越來越清楚，循規蹈矩的生活中，我們能熟悉進而深交的異性實在太有限了，有限到我都做好了「接受他人的牽線，找個適合的男人慢慢煨熟，再平淡無奇地進入婚姻」的準備，卻在生命意外的拐彎處迎來自己的另一半。

I once thought, my wait will never come to fruition for the rest of my life — the world is so big, I’m so slow in treading it, what if I’ll never meet the one? I’ve long passed the wild days of thinking “3 billion men exist on Earth, 0.7 of which are Chinese. There is plenty more fish in the sea.” I’m seeing, with increasing clarity, that in our disciplined lives, the number of opposite-sex we can get to know, and get to know well, is so limited. It’s so limited that I’m prepared to accept someone’s matchmaking, find a suitable man and slowly, slowly, warm up to him, and then, to enter marriage with without excitement, without wonder. But then, an accidental turn in my life welcomes in my other half.

— Oath of Love (餘生，請多指教) (Yes, this is the novel Gg’d upcoming drama is based on.) 

Heteronormativity is, of course, very real in China. However, that hasn’t exempted Chinese women, even its large cis-het population, from having their freedom to pursue their true love taken away from them. Even for cis-het relationships, being able to marry for love has become a fantasy —a fantasy scorned by the state. Remember this quote from Article O3 in the original post? 

耽改故事大多远离现实，有些年轻受众却将其与生活混为一谈，产生不以结婚和繁衍为目的才是真爱之类的偏颇认知。

Most Dangai stories are far removed from reality; some young audience nonetheless mix them up with real life, develop biased understanding such as “only love that doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations is true love”. 

I didn’t focus on it in the previous posts, in an effort to keep the discussion on topic. But why did the op-ed piece pick this as an example of fantasy-that-shouldn’t-be-mixed-up-with-real-life, in the middle of a discussion about perceived femininity of men that actually has little to do with matrimony and reproduction? 

Because the whole point behind the state’s “leftover women” campaign is precisely to get women to treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations, not beautiful sceneries that happen along the way. And they’re the state’s destination as more children = higher birth rate that leads to higher future productivity. The article is therefore calling out Danmei for challenging this “mainstream value”.

Therefore, while the statement True love doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations may be trite for many of us while it may be a point few, if any, English-speaking fandoms may pay attention to, to the mainstream culture Danmei lives in, to the mainstream values dictated by the state, it is borderline subversive.

As much as Danmei may appear “tame” for its emphasis on beauty and romance, for it to have stood for so long, so firmly against China’s (very) forceful mainstream culture, the genre is also fundamentally rebellious.  Remember: Danmei has little hope of converging with China’s mainstream unless it “sells its soul” and removes its homoerotic elements. 

With rebelliousness, too, comes a bit of tongue-in-cheek.

And so, when c-Danmei fans, most of whom being cishet women who interact with the genre by its traditional BL definition, call one of the leads 老婆 (wife), it can and often take on a different flavour. As said before, it can be less about feminizing the lead than about identifying with the lead. The nickname 老婆 (wife) can be less about being disrespectful and more about humorously expressing an aspiration—the aspiration to have a husband who truly loves them, who they do want to get married and have babies with but out of freedom and not obligation.

Admittedly, I had been confused, and bothered by these “can-be”s myself. Just because there are alternate reasons for the feminisation to happen doesn’t mean the feminisation itself is excusable. But why the feminisation of M/M leads doesn’t sound as awful to me in Chinese as in English? How can calling a self-identified man 老婆 (wife) get away with not sounding being predominantly disrespectful to my ears, when I would’ve frowned at the same thing said in my vicinity in English?

I had an old hypothesis: when I was little, it was common to hear people calling acquaintances in Chinese by their unflattering traits:  “Deaf-Eared Chan” (Mr Chan, who’s deaf), “Fat Old Woman Lan” (Ah-Lan, who’s an overweight woman) etc—and the acquaintances were perfectly at ease with such identifications, even introducing themselves to strangers that way. Comparatively speaking then, 老婆 (wife) is harmless, even endearing. 

老婆, which literally means “old old-lady” (implying wife = the woman one gets old with), first became popularised as a colloquial, casual way of calling “wife” in Hong Kong and its Cantonese dialect, despite the term itself being about 1,500 years old. As older generations of Chinese were usually very shy about talking about their love lives, those who couldn’t help themselves and regularly spoke of their 老婆 tended to be those who loved their wives in my memory. 老婆, as a term, probably became endearing to me that way. 

Maybe this is why the feminisation of M/M leads didn’t sound so bad to me?

This hypothesis was inadequate, however. This custom of identifying people by their (unflattering) traits has been diminishing in Hong Kong and China, for similar reasons it has been considered inappropriate in the West.

Also, 老婆 (wife) is not the only term used for / associated with feminisation. I’ve tried to limit the discussion to Danmei, the fictional genre; now, I’ll jump to its associated RPS genre, and specifically, the YiZhan fandoms. The purpose of this jump: with real people involved, feminisation’s effect is potentially more harmful, more acute. Easier to feel. 

YiZhan fans predominantly entered the fandoms through The Untamed, and they’ve also transferred Danmei’s  “seme”/“uke” customs into YiZhan. There are, therefore, three c-YiZhan fandoms:

博君一肖 (BJYX): seme Dd, uke Gg 戰山為王 (ZSWW): seme Gg, uke Dd 連瑣反應 (LSFY): riba Gg and Dd. Riba = “reversible”, and unlike “seme” and “uke”, is a frequently-used term in the Japanese gay community. 

BJYX is by far the largest of the three, likely due to Gg having played WWX, the “uke” in MDZS / TU. I’ll therefore focus on this fandom, ie. Gg is the “uke”, the “wife”.

For Gg alone, I’ve seen him being also referred to by YiZhan fans as (and this is far from a complete list):

* 姐姐 (sister) * 嫂子 (wife of elder brother; Dd being the elder brother implied) * 妃妃 (based on the very first YiZhan CP name, 太妃糖 Toffee Candy, a portmanteau of sorts from Dd being the 太子 “prince” of his management company and Gg being the prince’s wife, 太子妃. 糖 = “candy”. 太妃 sounds like toffee in English and has been used as the latter’s Chinese translation.) * 美人 (beauty, as in 肖美人 “Beauty Xiao”) * Daji 妲己 (as in 肖妲己, “Daji Xiao”). 

The last one needs historical context, which will also become important for explaining the new hypothesis I have.

Daji was a consort who lived three thousand years ago, whose beauty was blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. Gg (and men sharing similar traits, who are exceptionally rare) has been compared to Daji 妲己 for his alternatively innocent, alternatively seductive beauty ~ the kind of beauty that, in Chinese historical texts and folk lores, lead to the fall of kingdoms when possessed by the king’s beloved woman. This kind of “I-get-to-ruin-her-virginity”, “she’s a slut in MY bedroom” beauty is, of course, a stereotypical fantasy for many (cis-het) men, which included the authors of these historical texts and folklores. However, it also contained some truth: the purity / innocence, the image of a virgin, was required for an ancient woman to be chosen as a consort; the seduction, meanwhile, helped her to become the top consort, and monopolise the attention of kings and emperors who often had hundreds of wives ~ wives who often put each other in danger to eliminate competition. 

Nowadays, women of tremendous beauty are still referred to by the Chinese idiom 傾國傾城, literally, ”falling countries, falling cities”. The beauty is also implied to be natural, expressed in a can’t-help-itself way, perhaps reflecting the fact that the ancient beauties on which this idiom has been used couldn’t possibly have plastic surgeries, and most of them didn’t meet a good end ~ that they had to pay a price for their beauty, and often, with their lowly status as women, as consorts, they didn’t get to choose whether they wanted to pay this price or not. This adjective is considered to be very flattering. Gg’s famous smile from the Thailand Fanmeet has been described, praised as 傾城一笑: “a smile that topples a city”.

I’m explaining Daji and 傾國傾城 because the Chinese idiom 博君一笑 “doing anything to get a smile from you”, from which the ship’s name BJYX 博君一肖  was derived (笑 and 肖 are both pronounced “xiao”), is connected to yet another of such dynasty-falling beauty, Bao Si 褒姒. Like Daji before her, Bao Si was blamed for the end of the Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC. 

The legend went like this: Bao Si was melancholic, and to get her to smile, her king lit warning beacons and got his nobles to rush in from the nearby vassal states with their armies to come and rescue him, despite not being in actual danger. The nobles, in their haste, looked so frantic and dishevelled that Bao Si found it funny and smiled. Longing to see more of the smile of his favourite woman, the king would fool his nobles again and again, until his nobles no longer heeded the warning beacons when an actual rebellion came. 

What the king did has been described as 博紅顏一笑, with 紅顏 (”red/flushed face”) meaning a beautiful woman, referring to Bao Si. Replace 紅顏 with the respectful “you”, 君, we get 博君一笑. If one searches the origin of the phrase 博 [fill_in_the_blank]一笑 online, Bao Si’s story shows up.

The “anything” in ”doing anything to get a smile from you” in 博君一笑, therefore, is not any favour, but something as momentous as giving away one’s own kingdom. c-turtles have remarked, to their amusement and admittedly mine, that “king”, in Chinese, is written as 王, which is Dd’s surname, and very occasionally, they jokingly compare him to the hopeless kings who’d give away everything for their love. Much like 傾國傾城 has become a flattering idiom despite the negative reputations of Daji and Bao Si for their “men-ruining ways”, 博君一笑 has become a flattering phrase, emphasising on the devotion and love rather than the ... stupidity behind the smile-inducing acts. 

(Bao Si’s story, BTW, was a lie made up by historians who also lived later but also thousands of years ago, to absolve the uselessness of the king. Warning beacons didn’t exist at her time.)  

Gg is arguably feminized even in his CP’s name. Gg’s feminisation is everywhere. 

And here comes my confession time ~ I’ve been amused by most of the feminisation terms above. 肖妲己 (”Daji Xiao”) captures my imagination, and I remain quite partial to the CP name BJYX. Somehow, there’s something ... somewhat forgivable when the feminisation is based on Gg’s beauty, especially in the context of the historical Danmei / Dangai setting of MDZS/TU ~ something that, while doesn’t cancel, dampens the “problematic-ness” of the gender mis-identification.

What, exactly, is this something?

Here’s my new hypothesis, and hopefully I’ll manage to explain it well ~

The hypothesis is this: the unisex beauty standard for historical Chinese men and women, which is also breathtakingly similar to the modern beauty standard for Chinese women, makes feminisation in the context of Danmei (especially historical Danmei) flattering, and easier to accept.

What defined beauty in historical Chinese men? If I am to create a classically beautiful Chinese man for my new historical Danmei, how would I describe him based on what I’ve read, my cultural knowledge?

Here’s a list:

* Skin fair and smooth as white jade * Thin, even frail; narrow/slanted shoulders; tall * Dark irises and bright, starry eyes * Not too dense, neat eyebrows that are shaped like swords ~ pointed slightly upwards from the center towards the sides of the face * Depending on the dynasty, nice makeup.

Imagine these traits. How “macho” are they? How much do they fit the ideal Chinese masculine beauty advertised by Chinese government, which looks like below?

Propaganda poster, 1969. The caption says “Defeat Imperialist US! Defeat Social Imperialism!” The book’s name is “Quotations from Mao Zedong”. (Source)

Where did that list of traits I’ve written com from? Fair like jade, frail ... why are they so far from the ... “macho”ness of the men in the poster? 

What has Chinese history said about its beautiful men? 

Wei Jie (衛玠 286-312 BCE), one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men (古代四大美男) recorded in Chinese history famously passed away when fans of his beauty gathered and formed a wall around him, blocking his way. History recorded Wei as being frail with chronic illness, and was only 27 years old when he died. Arguably the first historical account of “crazy fans killing their idol”, this incident left the idiom 看殺衛玠 ~ “Wei Jie being watched to death.” ~ a not very “macho” way to die at all.

潘安 (Pan An; 247-300 BCE), another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, also had hoards of fangirls, who threw fruits and flowers at him whenever he ventured outside. The Chinese idiom 擲果盈車 “thrown fruit filling a cart” was based on Pan and ... his fandom, and denotes such scenarios of men being so beautiful that women openly displayed their affections for them. 

Meanwhile, when Pan went out with his equally beautiful male friend, 夏侯湛 Xiahou Zhan, folks around them called them 連璧 ~ two connected pieces of perfect jade. Chinese Jade is white, smooth, faintly glowing in light, so delicate that it gives the impression of being somewhat transparent.

Aren’t Wei Jie and Pan An reminiscent of modern day Chinese idols, the “effeminate” “Little Fresh Meat”s (小鲜肉) so panned by Article O3? Their stories, BTW, also elucidated the historical reference in LWJ’s description of being jade-like in MDZS, and in WWX and LWJ being thrown pippas along the Gusu river bank. 

Danmei, therefore, didn’t create a trend of androgynous beauty in men as much as it has borrowed the ancient, traditional definition of masculine Chinese beauty ~ the beauty that was more feminine than masculine by modern standards.  

[Perhaps, CPs should be renamed 連璧 (”two connected pieces of perfect jade”) as a reminder of the aesthetics’ historical roots.]

Someone may exclaim now: But. But!! Yet another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, 高長恭 (Gao Changgong, 541-573 BCE), far better known by his title, 蘭陵王 (”the Prince of Lanling”), was a famous general. He had to be “macho”, right?

... As it turns out, not at all. Historical texts have described Gao as “貌柔心壮，音容兼美” (”soft in looks and strong at heart, beautiful face and voice”), “白美類婦人” (”fair and beautiful as a woman”), “貌若婦人” (”face like a woman”). Legends have it that The Prince of Lanling’s beauty was so soft, so lacking in authority that he had to wear a savage mask to get his soldiers to listen to his command (and win) on the battlefield (《樂府雜錄》: 以其顏貌無威，每入陣即著面具，後乃百戰百勝).

This should be emphasised: Gao’s explicitly feminine descriptions were recorded in historical texts as arguments *for* his beauty. Authors of these texts, therefore, didn’t view the feminisation as insult. In fact, they used the feminisation to drive the point home, to convince their readers that men like the Prince of Lanling were truly, absolutely good looking.

Being beautiful like a women was therefore high praise for men in, at least, significant periods in Chinese history ~ periods long and important enough for these records to survive until today. Beauty, and so it goes, had once been largely free of distinctions between the masculine and feminine.

One more example of an image of an ancient Chinese male beauty being similar to its female counterpart, because the history nerd in me finds this fun. 

何晏 (He Yan, ?-249 BCE) lived in the Wei Jin era (between 2nd to 4th century), during which makeup was really en vogue. Known for his beauty, he was also famous for his love of grooming himself. The emperor, convinced that He Yan’s very fair skin was from the powder he was wearing, gave He Yan some very hot foods to eat in the middle of the summer. He Yan began to sweat, had to wipe himself with his sleeves and in the process, revealed to the emperor that his fair beauty was 100% natural ~ his skin glowed even more with the cosmetics removed (《世說新語·容止第十四》: 何平叔美姿儀，面至白。魏明帝疑其傅粉，正夏月，與熱湯餅。既啖，大汗出，以朱衣自拭，色轉皎然). His kick-cosmetics’-ass fairness won him the nickname 傅粉何郎 (”powder-wearing Mr He”).

Not only would He Yan very likely be mistaken as a woman if this scene is transferred to a modern setting, but this scene can very well fit inside a Danmei story of the 21st century and is very, very likely to get axed by the Chinese censorship board for its visualisation. 

[Important observation from this anecdote: the emperor was totally into this trend too.]

The adjectives and phrases used above to describe these beautiful ancient Chinese men ~ 貌柔, 音容兼美, 白美, 美姿儀, 皎然 ~ have all become pretty much reserved for describing beauty in women nowadays. Beauty standards in ancient China were, as mentioned before, had gone through significantly long periods in which they were largely genderless. The character for beauty 美 (also in Danmei, 耽美) used to have little to no gender association. Free of gender associations as well were the names of many flowers. The characters for orchid (蘭) and lotus (蓮), for example, were commonly found in men’s names as late as the Republican era (early 20th century), but are now almost exclusively found in women’s names. Both orchid and lotus have historically been used to indicate 君子 (junzi, roughly, “gentlemen”), which have always been men. MDZS also has an example of a man named after a flower: Jin Ling’s courtesy name, given to him by WWX,  was 如蘭 (”like an orchid”). 

A related question may be this: why does ancient China associate beauty with fairness, with softness, with frailty? Likely, because Confucianist philosophy and customs put a heavy emphasis on scholarship ~ and scholars have mostly consisted of soft-spoken, not muscular, not working-under-the-sun type of men. More importantly, Confucianist scholars also occupied powerful government positions. Being, and looking like a Confucianist scholar was therefore associated with status. Indeed, it’s very difficult to look like jade when one was a farmer or a soldier, for example, who constantly had to toil under the sun, whose skin was constantly being dried and roughened by the elements. Having what are viewed as “macho” beauty traits as in the poster above ~ tanned skin, bulging muscles, bony structures (which also take away the jade’s smoothness) ~ were associated with hard labour, poverty and famine.

Along that line, 手無縛雞之力 (“hands without the strength to restrain a chicken”) has long been a phrase used to describe ancient scholars and students, and without scorn or derision. Love stories of old, which often centred around scholars were, accordingly, largely devoid of the plot lines of husbands physically protecting the wives, performing the equivalent of climbing up castle walls and fighting dragons etc. Instead, the faithful husbands wrote poems, combed their wife’s hair, traced their wife’s eyebrows with cosmetics (畫眉)...all activities that didn’t require much physical strength, and many of which are considered “feminine” nowadays.

Were there periods in Chinese history in which more ... sporty men and women were appreciated? Yes. the Tang dynasty, for example, and the Yuan and Qing dynasties. The Tang dynasty, as a very powerful, very open era in Chinese history, was known for its relations to the West (via the Silk Road). The Yuan and Qing dynasties, meanwhile, were established by Mongolians and Manchus respectively, who, as non-Han people, had not been under the influence of Confucian culture and grew up on horsebacks, rather than in schools.

The idea that beautiful Chinese men should have “macho” attributes was, therefore, largely a consequence of non-Han-Chinese influence, especially after early 20th century. That was when the characters for beauty (美), orchid (蘭), lotus (蓮) etc began their ... feminisation. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which started its reign of the country starting 1949, also has foreign roots, being a derivative of the Soviets, and its portrayal of ideal men has been based on the party’s ideology, painting them as members of the People’s Liberation Army (Chinese army) and its two major proletariat classes, farmers and industrial workers ~ all occupations that are “macho” in their aesthetics, but held at very poor esteem in ancient Chinese societies. All occupations that, to this day, may be hailed as noble by Chinese women, but not really deemed attractive by them.

Beauty, being an instinct, is perhaps much more resistant to propaganda.

If anything, the three terms Article O3 used to describe “effeminate” men ~ 奶油小生 “cream young men” (popularised in 1980s) , 花美男 “flowery beautiful men” (early 2000s), 小鲜肉 “little fresh meat” (coined in 2014 and still popular now) ~ only informs me how incredibly consistent the modern Chinese women’s view of ideal male beauty has been. It’s the same beauty the Chinese Communist Party has called feminine. It’s the same beauty found in Danmei. It’s the same beauty that, when witnessed in men in ancient China, was so revered that historians recorded it for their descendants to remember. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any women who appreciate the "macho” type ~ it’s just that, the appreciation for the non-macho type has never really gone out of fashion, never really changed. The only thing that is really changing is the name of the type, the name’s positive or negative connotations.

(Personally, I’m far more uncomfortable with the name “Little fresh meat” (小鲜肉) than 老婆 (wife). I find it much more insulting.)

Anyway, what I’d like to say is this: feminisation in Danmei ~ a genre that, by definition, is hyper-focused on aesthetics ~ may not be as "problematic” in Chinese as it is in English, because the Chinese tradition didn’t make that much of a differentiation between masculine and feminine beauty. Once again, this isn’t to say such mis-gendering isn’t disrespectful; it’s just that, perhaps, it is less disrespectful because Chinese still retains a cultural memory in which equating a beautiful man to a beautiful woman was the utmost flattery. 

I must put a disclaimer here: I cannot vouch for this being true for the general Chinese population. This is something that is buried deep enough inside me that it took a lot of thought for me to tease out, to articulate. More importantly, while I grow up in a Chinese-speaking environment, I’ve never lived inside China. My history knowledge, while isn’t shabby, hasn’t been filtered through the state education system.

I’d also like to point out as well, along this line of thought, that in *certain* (definitely not all) aspects, Chinese society isn’t as sexist as the West. While historically, China has periods of extreme sexism against women, with the final dynasties of Ming and Qing being examples, I must (reluctantly) acknowledge Chairman Mao for significantly lifting the status of women during his rule. Here’s a famous quote of his from 1955:

婦女能頂半邊天 Women can lift half the skies

The first marriage code, passed in 1950, outlawed forced marriages, polygamy, and ensured equal rights between husband and wife.  For the first time in centuries, women were encouraged to go outside of their homes and work. Men resisted at first, wanting to keep their wives at home; women who did work were judged poorly for their performance and given less than 50% of men’s wage, which further fuelled the men’s resistance. Mao said the above quote after a commune in Guizhou introduced the “same-work-same-wage” system to increase its productivity, and he asked for the same system to to be replicated across the country. (Source)

When Chairman Mao wanted something, it happened. Today, Chinese women’s contribution to the country’s GDP remains among the highest in the world.  They make up more than half of the country’s top-scoring students. They’re the dominant gender in universities, in the ranks of local employees of international corporations in the Shanghai and Beijing central business districts—among the most sought after jobs in the country. While the inequality between men and women in the workplace is no where near wiped out — stories about women having to sleep with higher-ups to climb the career ladder, or even get their PhDs are not unheard of, and the central rulership of the Chinese Communist Party has been famously short of women — the leap in women’s rights has been significant over the past century, perhaps because of how little rights there had been before ~ at the start of the 20th century, most Chinese women from relatively well-to-do families still practised foot-binding, in which their feet were literally crushed during childhood in the name of beauty, of status symbol. They couldn’t even walk properly.

Perhaps, the contemporary Chinese women’s economic contribution makes the sexism they encounter in their lives, from the lack of reproductive rights to the “leftover women” label, even harder to swallow. It makes their fantasies fly to even higher, more defiant heights. The popularity of Dangai right now is pretty much driven by women, as acknowledged by Article O3. Young women, especially, female fans who people have dismissed as “immature”, “crazy”, are responsible for the threat the Chinese government is feeling now by the genre.

This is no small feat. While the Chinese government complains about the “effeminate” men from Danmei / Dangai, its propaganda has been heavily reliant on stars who have risen to popularity to these genres. The film Dd is currently shooting, Chinese Peacekeeping Force (維和部隊), also stars Huang Jingyu (黄景瑜), and Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚) ~ the three actors having shot to fame from The Untamed (Dangai), Addicted (Danmei), and Word of Honour (Dangai) respectively.  Zhang, in particular, played the “uke” role in Word of Honour and has also been called 老婆 (wife) by his fans. The quote in Article O3, “Ten years as a tough man known by none; one day as a beauty known by all” was also implicitly referring to him.

Perhaps, the government will eventually realise that millennia-old standards of beauty are difficult to bend, and by extension, what is considered appropriate gender expression of Chinese men and women. 

In the metas I’ve posted, therefore, I’ve hesitated in using terms such as homophobia, sexism, and ageism etc, opting instead to make long-winded explanations that essentially amount to these terms (thank you everyone who’s reading for your patience!). Because while the consequence is similar—certain fraction of the populations are subjected to systemic discrimination, abuse, given less rights, treated as inferior etc—these words, in English, also come with their own context, their own assumptions that may not apply to the situation. It reminds me of what Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina,

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Discrimination in each country, each culture is humiliating, unhappy in its own way. Both sexism and homophobia are rampant in China, but as their roots are different from those of the West, the ways they manifest are different, and so must the paths to their dissolution. I’ve also hesitated on calling out individual behaviours or confronting individuals for this reason. i-Danmei fandoms are where i-fans and c-fans meet, where English-speaking doesn’t guarantee a non-Chinese sociopolitical background (there may be students from China, for example; I’m also ... not entirely Western), and I find it difficult to articulate appropriate, convincing arguments without knowing individual backgrounds.

Frankly, I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing. Because I do hope feminisation will soon fade into extinction, especially in i-Danmei fandoms that, if they continue to prosper on international platforms, may eventually split from c-Danmei fandoms along the cultural (not language) line due to the vast differences in environmental constraints. My hope is especially true when real people are involved, and c-fandoms, I’d like to note, are not unaware of the issues surrounding feminisation ~ it has already been explicitly forbidden in BJYX’s supertopic on Weibo. 

At the same time, I’ve spent so many words above to try to explain why beauty can *sometimes* lurk behind such feminisations. Please allow me to end this post with one example of feminisation that I deeply dislike—and I’ve seen it used by fans on Gg as well—is 綠茶 (”green tea”), from 綠茶婊 (”green tea whore”) that means women who look pure / innocent but are, deep down, promiscuous / lustful. In some ways, its meaning isn’t so different from Daji 妲己, the consort blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. However, to me at least, the flattery in the feminisation is gone, perhaps because of the character “whore” (婊), because the term originated in 2013 from a notorious sex party rather than from a legendary beauty so maligned that The Investiture of the Gods (封神演義), the seminal Chinese fiction written ~2,600 years after Daji’s death, re-imagined her as a malevolent fox spirit (狐狸精) that many still remembers her as today.

Ah, to be caught between two cultures. :)

[smol-and-grumpy]

To counteract the discouraging messaging you’ve been seeing lately here’s an encouraging one to hopefully help you breathe a little easier!

I only found you about a year ago when you were posting Home To You, an amazing heart wrenching series that perfectly filled my angsty wants.

It’s a little insane that I’ve only recently found you, I’ve been in this fandom since 2012 (oh my god it’s been a decade) and I thought I knew of all of the professional level fic writers (yes you fit that category). So you can imagine my surprise when I happened upon one of your fantastically written fics, a very happy surprise.

This app especially allows us to stay in our own little echo chambers, with the ever slowing number of reblogs and likes it’s even harder to break out of it to find fresh blood but I really REALLY hope that doesn’t disparage your truly natural talent as a story teller.

Take all the breaks you need, go on hiatus if you must, though I do hope you tell us beforehand so we don’t think you’ve died. We are here to support you as a writer, NOT just to support your writing.

I truly understand why you have a patreon, if I had your abilities, I’d try to market them as well. It sucks that being a creative in this world does not sustain a healthy life. And in the future, when the checks are a little more stable, I hope to help you, as well as other writers, continue to create beautiful pieces that keep this fandom going.

Lastly, you’re a fucking work horse. The amount of content you pump out, from gifs and pictures of our beautiful men, to the ever amazing fictitious world you build that I choose to hide away in, is insane. I recently had to write a 6k word assignment and it gave me a WHOLE new appreciation for you all who literally do that like every week, like actually WHAT THE FUCK. I wish I had the stamina, the imagination, the drive to put my thoughts into tangible words on paper and you do it for fun? WTF.

I don’t really know if you’ve ever realized this, but people, literally all their lives strive to do something to be remembered by, to have someone think of them and the things they created fondly. You’ve done something like that to at least one of your followers (me) and I’m sure many others. No matter where life takes you in the future, if tumblr will survive then, if our existence on the internet is actually archived somewhere, there will always be this group of people who will think back to the works you’ve created and smile. Because you have written literal novels, FOR FREE, that other people have consumed, and thoroughly enjoyed. I for one still think about some of the fan fiction I read in my youth that I’ve tried finding again but have had no luck, but either way, I remember the feelings those stories brought out in me.

The world is always going to be chaotic, it’s the nature of our being, but your stories along with other writers, published, unpublished, or self published, have created billions of worlds that we have been able to use as an escape from the chaos. And it’s a beautiful thing.

I hope you continue to use your talent, I hope you continue to share that talent with us; but most of all, I hope you’re happy or on the path to finding it ❤️.

😭😭 I wish I could hug you right now.

Professional fic writer level got me. I am humbled you think that of me, and it left me a bit speechless and misty eyed 🥺

And theeeeeen I went into gross sobbing the further I read on. You have a way with words and I’m really not great at taking compliments, but just know that my day has been significantly better after reading your ask.

To tell you the truth, I’ve been having so much going on in my personal life that it doesn’t leave me a lot of time to write, so when someone said that I wasn’t enough, it really got me. If I would be in a better shape, it probably wouldn’t have bothered me that much.

Honestly, to know that I made a little impact on your life, and that you’ll remember me for my little story, is really what gets me going. It makes all the sweat, the family time I sacrificed and the tears I spilled all worthwhile.

I adore you. Thank you for sending me this, anon

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[thickenmyblood]

hey maca :)) I have sth that I’d love to hear your input on! (wall of text incoming so beware- I’m absolutely not mad if you don’t want to answer lmao). Basically it’s about how you portray women in your works and to what extent you see that portrayal mirrored in the canon books. I have noticed that a lot of writers tend to go a traditional route with for example daughters not being heirs like you also mentioned in an answer for a wtsioa ask on here. Considering the cultures Vere and Akielos are based on that’s obviously very logical and a lot of authors (including you) make it work fantastically! Yet personally I never got the vibe of Vere and Akielos being as patriarchal in canon, mostly because the Information we get is kind of confusing. On one hand damen is a walking manosphere (and. all of Akielos in general as well) without any prominent female figures in his life but on the other hand damen only ever speaks appreciatively of for example the female vaskian warriors. Both countries seem to ban women from the army yet Damen also refers to a warrior queen. The regent is a total misogynist but with the wording Laurent uses it almost seems like that is more the exception and not the general rule of veretian court life. Both countries also have ties to Vask, an exclusive matriarchy and Akielos is said to be similar to Patras which Pacat has stated is also partly a strong matriarchy due to vaskian occupations in the past. I could go on for a lot longer but I guess that damens overall positive attitude towards women and especially stereotypically spoken masculine women is what sticks out the most to me. It just seems kind of misplaced in a world that supposedly is as sexist as the original cultures from our world. Which is why I’d say both countries do have gender roles but are overall a lot more egalitarian than their respective real world og cultures. But that’s only my take and I’d love to hear more on what others think about the portrayal of women in canon and how they chose to portray it in fanfiction. Love you and your new work, hope you’re doing well❤️

HELLO!!! Thank you for asking me interesting stuff :, ) you always have the best questions and my sad little inbox is open to you any time, friend. I divided this into parts, so:

My portrayal of women: I need to work on this a lot lmao. I’m not proud of any female character I have ever written for this fandom, and I’m also not proud to say I struggle horribly when it comes to writing female OCs, especially if the story is not about a female character that is a literal projection of me. Or Bella Swan (yes, Twilight literally shaped my sad little brain and the way I write and consume fiction).

Authors writing female characters in a “traditional” way (for fantasy settings): I can’t speak for other authors but I definitely think, in my case, that using the “it’s a patriarchal society, women have no rights, women can’t be heirs, etc.” blueprint is a matter of being lazy. It’s quick, and easy, and it’s been done before so we all know how it works and a) it’s unlikely that you’ll mess it up (in the plot hole kind of way) and b) it’s obvious that most readers know how the usual system works and so you don’t have to spend paragraphs or even chapters explaining it to them. I am very lazy when it comes to world-building for fics. Why? Because when I’m writing fanfiction I don’t give two shits about the world, I just care about the characters doing Things and having Feelings. The moment you start to question these issues (a society where women can join the army, where they can be heirs, where maybe they can have multiple husbands, etc.) a billion issues arise because it’s not the “usual way” and so you’ll have to deal with “unusual problems”. See: plot holes, info-dumping, etc.

Vere and Akielos in canon: I think the books get very, very confusing at times when it comes to gender roles in that specific world. They also get very confusing about how royalty works, in my opinion. So:

Damen never mentions female influences in his life, not even nannies or wetnurses or anything. He mentions past queens and his mother, but even then… It’s always struck me as “what the actual fuck” that we get no information on Egeria. In TSP, he doesn’t even read as curious to me, especially when I think of that line that goes something like “oh, well, he’d never asked how tall she was”.

Then you have Jokaste, who is highborn and also… perhaps trained in politics? It’s unclear to me if she’s ever been directly involved in meetings or been an active member of the Council or even been allowed to study these issues. Clearly, she’s smart and capable and cunning, but like… how? Did she have private tutors? Is she a self-made woman? Like, what’s up with that? Are women allowed to engage in public politics? Are they allowed to be kyroi?

IMO, Damen complimenting the female warriors in Vask has to do with how appreciative he is of war-related stuff. Like, he thinks people with his own qualities are neat. We see this time and time again in the books—having honor, being brave, respecting one’s family, protecting those who need protecting… He compliments these things when he sees them in others, especially in Laurent. Obviously one of the big changes in Damen as a character is that he goes from being daddy’s boy to being like “well, actually… maybe war isn’t always the answer, and maybe war isn’t always honorable”. The Vaskian warriors prove themselves worthy of praise in a “manly” way, if that makes sense. (In the same way, Laurent proves himself in the Okton, not so much to Damen but to other Akielons). So, in essence, War > Any issues he may have about women doing Stuff.

Don’t judge me for this but I can’t remember the Regent talking about women. Do you have any quotes about that? I feel like Book 1 is super rich when it comes to world-building stuff and yet it’s the book I remember the least. I know he obviously has a preference for boys and not girls, but I don’t recall him having interactions with Vannes or ladies at court? I’M SORRY I’M SO STUPID but I don’t own the book so I can’t exactly word search my way out of this one, and so instead of saying stupid stuff, I’m asking anyone reading this (lol, you and my mom probably) to please tell me what canon says on this issue.

Ties to Vask: Er, yeah, I mean… They’re clearly not at war with Vask and have some sort of economic deal (there are Vaskian pets in Arles? Which makes me wonder if they, like, buy them from Vask? Or if the pets are Vaskian and turn into pets in Vere? Slaves are not like pets so I don’t know?), BUT just because they have deals with this kingdom/are on good terms with the ruler does not mean they necessarily approve? Like, maybe they’re like “yeah, it’s weird they give women so much power, but also I need that silk/leather/WHATEVER, so I’ll shut up about that”.

“Akielos is said to be similar to Patras which Pacat has stated is also partly a strong matriarchy due to Vaskian occupations in the past.” Is this in the books or is this something she said in an interview/post-releasing the trilogy? I know in the books there’s a quote that Akielos and Patras are similar because they both have slaves, but other than that I can’t quite remember anything about Patras? Like, I don’t recall Pacat giving us extensive and thorough world-building on either nation, at all. Once again, I am asking you for more explanations on this because I literally don’t remember.

4. My opinion and a Stupidity Disclaimer: As I’ve said above, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t remember and so I’m not trying to preach to anyone reading this or even saying that I hold the truth about… anything. I’m answering questions as I see fit and asking more questions when I run out of answers.

I believe world-building is not one of Captive Prince’s strong points. I will not elaborate on this because this is already long enough but there is simply, in my opinion, not enough material to reach any solid conclusions when it comes to world-building questions such as the role of women in Vere and Akielos, how compulsory homosexuality affects the development of highborn men and women in Vere, exactly what makes Akielos’ view on women different from Vere’s (if there’s any difference at all), the history of gender roles in this world and how it’s evolved up until canon, how Lamen can solve the heir issue without recurring to, once again, “the usual stuff” (concubines, bastards, marriage to women, etc.). It’s clear from what I’ve read that Pacat has come a long way as a writer and that her new trilogy has a lot more in-depth explanations to world-building questions, but this is not the case with CP, and so I’m afraid my answer to most of this is “I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone can know for sure”.

Lastly, I think I struggle a lot with understanding the role of women in this universe because I simply did not see enough women doing stuff, so I don’t know what’s permitted, what’s unacceptable, what’s illegal, what is straight-up execution worthy, etc. This is not me complaining about the lack of female characters in CP, at all, which I know is contradictory to stuff I’ve said in the past (I answered a couple asks a year ago about how I’d wished we’d gotten Vannes’ POV or Jokaste’s POV in the short stories). I’ve changed my mind, and so I think Pacat is entitled to write whatever she wants, just like I’m entitled to talk shit about KR with any living soul who will listen lmao.

To end this on a spicy note, I think sometimes we consume the wrong media and then complain because it doesn’t have what we wanted. If you’re looking for a trilogy with strong, fleshed-out female characters, Captive Prince is not for you. If you’re looking for a trilogy on female struggles and, I don’t know, defying… the male gaze… Captive Prince is not for you. There are plenty of books out there that focus exclusively on female characters, featuring sapphic relationships, and dealing with gender issues. WHICH IS NOT TO SAY WE SHOULDN’T BE HAVING THESE DISCUSSIONS. This is not about this particular question, but more about a lot of posts I’ve seen floating around… complaining about Pacat’s writing and the themes she didn’t explore.

If anyone has made it this far, thank you for reading, and know this is NOT me telling you what to think. This post is an open question that anyone can engage with, although I hope people will engage with this directly and on this platform, instead of… taking it somewhere else where I sadly can’t engage back! Unlike what happened with our awesome fat Laurent discussion, I will be replying to any questions I get on this (Note: I did not reply to most of those questions because a long time had passed and they were sort of repetitive).

[alwaysdarkestbeforethedawn94]

Work You Out (M)

Authors: @alwaysdarkestbeforethedawn94 and @nomunamuinmybrain​ 

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader 

Rating: M 

Disclaimer: Everything marked as M includes explicit content. Do not read if you are under 18 years of age.

Genre: Slice of Life/ Idol AU/ Smut 

Summary: Working for Hybe has been an experience. Being Jungkook's manager is another story. His sharp eyes, firm jawine and snarky attitude was a deadly combination to begin with. The guy easily found his way to your heart and you simply couldn't take it anymore.

Notes: Hello!! That's another installment of the imaginary scenarios myself and my best friend @nomunamuinmybrain​ come up with while driving by the coast line. This oneshot is going to be cross-posted on her profile too. Enjoy!!

Word Count: 2.4K

Thinking back to how I managed to land such an unimaginable employment opportunity must have been a miracle. Unquestionably, working for HYBE had so many benefits; I swore to never leave this place. Sure, I was a simple manager's assistant, but I was by the side of one of the managers that handled the most important talent in the stretch of South Korea, the entire globe to be honest, BTS. I was assigned the position of assistant to the manager of one of the guys, none other than Jeon Jungkook. I really couldn’t believe my luck. Not only was I a part of one of the most skyrocketing influential enterprises in the country, but I also had the chance to meet some of the most inspiring people in the whole world! Who would have thought?!

Did I have a crush on the guy by the end of my first month working here? Yes, but who wouldn't? He is the sweetest, always polite and courteous. I've met my share of self-boasting asshats; this industry is flooded with such. This guy is worth billions and he has remained ridiculously humble. Word got around about him being a wonderful young man and I could positively say he is so much more up close. Jungkook is ridiculously handsome that’s a given already, but his personality was the real deal-maker. He reminds me of a dark stormy thundery night where I cover myself with my favourite warm fluffy blanket starring out of the window a rich flavored hot chocolate in hand.

In general, I quite enjoy working at the company’s principled environment. Don’t get me wrong, nothing in this world is rainbows and butterflies, but overall, I can confidently say that it’s been a mainly positive experience. Thankfully, the department I am in is assembled by kind, funny people who like to get things done. There hasn’t been a day were I regretted coming here. As for my daily duties as an assistant, working for Jungkook meant keeping up with his appointments, helping him with anything at anytime, managing his schedule, making sure it matches with the other guys' and so much more. I was required to work around the clock and as a single independent woman in her late twenties who was trying to figure out the world around her that didn’t sound like such a bad idea, though I digress. Essentially, I was one of the employees responsible for pretty much anything and everything he needed. Our department was at his disposal 24/7 running around, living that busy life.

That's until the pandemic struck. That was the first time I thought to myself that this might be nature’s valiant plan to get back what man so forcefully took from her. Suddenly, everything was canceled; life got put on a hold. My dearest supervisor, Jungkook's manager, had to stay at home because he had kids. In fact, a lot of people had to stay at home. Abruptly, days became weeks and weeks became months. The desperation and frustration we were feeling was like nothing else ever experienced. Truthfully, it felt like something had been stolen from us and we could never get it back. In this manner, when the gears finally started grinding again I was assigned to be the on-site manager for Jungkook. That meant being in direct contact with him more so than before and of course, being responsible for a ton of other obligations.

Not going to lie, the first months were slightly awkward for both of us and understandably so. We both were used to very different working arrangements. I might have been working behind the scenes before, but now I had to step into the spotlight becoming his own personal shadow, and I am sure he wasn’t really comfortable with that. Taken into account the current situation everyone looked like a volcano ready to erupt.

Once, I happened to accidentally step in a not so common incident; maybe it was a circumstance I wasn’t supposed to witness. He was on the phone at the time, when I saw him. That’s why I decided it was best if I stayed behind the half closed door of the studio. I couldn’t hear what he was saying and it was none of my business after all, but I could tell by the minute I laid my eyes on him that something was wrong. Something had been bothering him; irritation written all over his face. He was pacing back and forth, phone still on his ear. He was clenching his fist so hard I wondered if his nails cut into his skin. He was breathing heavily, almost as if he would burst and his muscles grew tense.

Then, in an instant, it seemed that the call ended and as he was putting the phone in his pocket he slammed his fists down onto the table a loud bang echoing in the room. After some consideration, I knocked on the door to make my presence known and he sharply looked at me. Without having the chance to say anything to him he let out a loud growl and left the room leaving me dumbfounded and unaware by the door. Soon after that, he apologized for the way he acted confessing that he had an unfortunate falling out with one of his closest friends and at the time he couldn’t process what was happening. I would never forget that day. It was the day I came across a not so familiar side to him.

From that day forward, things miraculously became easier and Jungkook was way more relaxed around my presence, we joked around often and he even texted me to ask about a variety of things outside of regular working hours. We managed to develop a teasing relationship full of endless borderline flirtatious banter. He had this other side to him that only a selected few got the chance to know. Jeon Jungkook was indeed a comforting raging night, but he was also an infuriating playful mischievous brat when he wanted to be. This in all honesty, made him a hundred times more irresistible in my eyes.

Life was going on smoothly until Jungkook decided that taking after midnight trips to the gym was perfectly acceptable, insisting that I escort him instead of his bodyguard. I cursed every single time but I went anyway. Forty-five minutes after midnight he was lifting weights, unbothered. Taking secret short glances towards him I contemplated what I had done in my previous life to deserve this torment. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t care less about the late hour, but to have this view in front of my eyes was causing me both mental and physical pain. The guy was clearly sculpted by the gods. With his broad chest, muscular arms and thick thighs he could have anyone he ever wanted. He even sported an hourglass figure; He is insanely unreal. That’s the main reason why I decided to sit there preoccupied with a silly game on my phone to kill time until the suffering ended. I was barely hanging from a string at the verge of blowing off the barrier between my personal and professional life.

Out of the blue, with a loud grunt, he dropped the weights, drawing me out of my contemplation. He looked annoyed for whatever reason. He tried his best to seem nonchalant but it was obvious, in his beautiful stern eyes. Could he be craving for an audience? Abandoning every rational thought I had, I put my phone away, looked in his direction as I got up to get water. I smirked at his clear annoyance. Surely, we weren't supposed to interact with the artists this way but I am cranky and sleepy, and for the first time ever, he was being kind of an ass to me. Was I perhaps the reason behind his sudden personality change? The thought kept floating at the back of my mind.

This kept going on for about three weeks or so and I gave him nothing. His annoyance prominent in his expression, more and more as the weeks went by. He was hot but I am sure all he had been seeking was an audience given that he missed it, or so I thought. Thursday evening rolls around and I was particularly iffy tonight ‘because I was extremely frustrated, sexually. This one was making my situation worse, sporting a tight black tank top and skinny grey sweatpants which made him look like a treat. He could easily pass for a bodyguard with those broad well-built shoulders. As my eyes scanned his body I realized this was the first time his tatted sleeve was on display. I couldn’t help but let my eyes wander. By the time I was done his eyes were already fixed on mine and I turned away immediately, embarrassment written all over my face.

Seeking solace in the women’s bathroom I tried to extinguish this ravenous yearning. The feeling of cold water did nothing to help the burning desire that was building inside me. Without warning, a knock at the door was heard, his sweet angelic voice following "Are you okay?" he asked, the remnants of a smirk could be heard still. "Jungkook you cannot be here, I am okay. I'll be out in a minute." I exclaimed, as calm as I could. "It's been ten minutes. I can't continue unless you're there." He insisted, I heard him chuckle after that.

With that, it was now or never, I pushed the door’s handle and made my way outside rolling my eyes in the process and he caught that, quickly moving closer, clearly annoyed, jaw clenched, eyes taking in my features, making him look not quite intimidating but definitely interesting. No, it was my mistake. Not just interesting, he looked ravishing. "As I said, I'll be out in a minute. Then you can finish up" I argued. But he didn't budge, moving even closer, if that was even possible, he was almost a breath away. "I don't feel like working out anymore" he declared like a child whose toy was taken away from him. As if I chose to play heads or tails with my career, I poked the beast further, "What is it that you want to do then?" I asked making sure he heard the annoyance in my tone. Coming even closer, to the point where he was completely pressed up against me, "You" he uttered calmly yet authoritatively. Before I could process what he had just said his soft lips crushed mine with a vengeance, thirsty. Pulling my lip with his teeth, he kept planting kisses from my lips to my jaw trailing down to my neck and décolletage; a surprised panting left my lips.

It felt as if I had involuntarily awakened this beastly hunger within him. His kisses insatiable and his touch was possessive, "I've been thinking about this for so long" he confessed as he took my hoodie off. "Sitting there, not giving a word let alone a glimpse. If you think this is off-limits you're wrong" he growled pointing at himself. "I can guarantee that once we're done here you definitely won't be able to look at me, ever." As he said all that, he managed to get me in a compromising position against the sink, his slim waist in between my legs. He kept my gaze as he lowered his head between my thighs. Little shit kept giving me hickeys on the soft flesh of my inner thighs, so close to my now dripping core. He enjoyed tormenting me and it showed. I was helpless but oh, God was all of this hot. He licked a stripe over my soaked panties, "Oh baby, you smell delicious" and with one hand he took off my underwear completely.

He sank in my folds, letting a guttural moan that I felt vibrating through my core. Not being able to think about what was happening I let myself indulge in my carnal desire my hands tangled in between his luscious hair.

He loved food and I've watched him eat before, but this must be one of his favorites ‘cause he was doing his best not to let a drop go to waste; he acted like a man starved. His hands held me in place, thankfully, ‘cause everything was too much; nothing could stop me from shaking, feeling everything deep in my core, he was too much. He just had to be good at everything. He kept a torturous tempo, from sucking my clit to his sinful tongue penetrating me, and as tears gathered around my eyes he decided to add his slender fingers in bringing me closer to heaven than I've ever been. "That's it baby, let go. Let go for me" he exhaled and just like that I had the most intense climax. My limbs felt numb, my whole body felt like rubber.

Before I could register what was happening he was back at it, sucking my over stimulated clit, my thighs unconsciously closing around his head as oversensitivity hit. "One more, please, come on baby, you can do it" he begged. He kept pumping his fingers while sucking my clit, as if it was his only goal in life. My screams muffled through my own hand clamped on my mouth as I reached my high for a second time that night. I felt it take over me with such intensity I didn't register what had happened. He emerged from between my thighs, soaked from me squirting and with a proud look on his face he declared "Now I look like I had the workout of a lifetime".

He helped me get dressed and pulled me close for a soft peck. He must have noticed my concerned look because he wrapped his arms around me in a warm hug and said "Don't be scared about this, we can work it out. I really like you and I'd like you to stick around". Starring into his eyes, I nodded and he pulled me close for the sweetest kiss, trying to tame my bewildered hair. He helped me get dressed and got out the door first to make sure that no one was around. I waited for a moment and then I got a text.

[i-have-a-wonky-eye-too]

How about steve x reader where they met by a mission . Y/n is a assasin and spy a freind of nat during the red room but y/n has powers based frm fire manipulation and use as a weapon both met when they are taking down hydra didnt mean to confuse you

Thank you for your request. Hope you enjoy.

Warnings: unconscious reader, talks of brainwashing, talks of the Winter Soldier, talks of the Red Room, self doubt

Steve didn't know what to expect when the Avengers were called to take down a vigilante that had taken it upon herself to take down Hydra bases, one by one. He really didn't know what to expect when Natasha had told him she knew who the vigilant was. But when his eyes fell on your figure as you burned the Hydra base to the grind, he hadn't expected to find himself falling for you almost instantly.

"Please," Steve stepped forwards as you went to leave. He caught your hand in his, lightly tugging you to look at him. "Natasha's right. We can help you and give you a place to call home." He didn't want you to leave. "Just, tell your story."

You looked into Steve's blue eyes, something twisting in your stomach as you did. "It's not a very pretty one." You whispered.

Steve shook his head, "None of ours are."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You sat at the large conference table with the Avengers listening as you told them everything you could remember.

"I don't remember my parents, only they chose to sell me, and I ended up in the Red Room, when I was child. My abilities meant I was everything they looked for in a weapon. I was brainwashed into destroying, everything. Killing innocent people... Until I became too much, and I'd no longer listen to their orders or allow them to brainwash me, so I was moved to the Wolf Spider program.

"They wanted to create the ultimate Super Soldiers, so they tried to breed me like some animal..." You turned your head until you could see Bucky, "Я шрам тебя, солдат?" Did I scar you, Soldier?

Bucky’s head hung low in shame as he listened to you speak. The moment he saw your face he remembered. He knew who you were and he felt sick. "I deserved to burn alive after what I did to you. M'sorry." He looked up with teary eyes.

You shook your head, "I've learnt to not blame those who had no control." You offered him a small smile. "When the actual, physical mating proved ineffective, they began to experiment on me." You quickly wiped your tears away. "That didn't last long however, cause their Winter Soldier was lost and so, all hands were on deck to find him. I was practically left alone in the base, so I burned it to the ground and ran. And I've been running ever since."

Silence settled over everyone as they took in your words.

"What now?" You asked looking over to Steve.

He took a deep breath and looked at everyone around him before looking back at you. "Welcome home."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A year later...

Steve ran as fast as he could, smashing into the wall as he turned the corner instead of slowing down. He had to get to you before it was too late.

"Y/N!" He called out, grabbing hold of the banister and jumping over it, landing on the floor with a thud. "Y/N," He knelt beside your unconscious body that laid at the bottom of the stairs. "Please," He gently cupped your face in his hands.

"Steve?" Nat called out over the coms. "We've cleared the base. Find where Y/N went down?"

Steve nodded, "... Yeah," He croaked before clearing his throat. "On our way back to the quinjet."

Steve felt guilty as he carried your unconscious body back towards the quinjet. It was all his fault. The two of you had had an argument before the mission. Steve had found out about a date you were going on, and being jealous of the fact he'd never had the courage to ask you out, he made sure you were going on the next long mission so you'd miss your date. The two of you argued right up until you got off the quinjet, even whilst you were in the middle of fighting Hydra agents, you were bickering. Your lack of concentration caused you to get hit and knocked over a railing from a great height, resulting in you laying unconscious on the ground.

Once Steve had you safely back on the quinjet to be taken care of, Bucky slapped the back of his head.

"Dumb ass! This is all your fault." Bucky scowled at him.

"My fault? Buck, that's not fair." Steve defended himself.

"No, Bucky's right, it is." Sam nodded, "If you'd just asked her out when we said to, none of this would have happened."

Steve frowned at the pair of them. "I don't understand. How would that have stopped-"

"THERE'S NO DAMN DATE!" Bucky yelled. "Sam convinced her to pretend there was to make you jealous, thinking you'd finally make a move."

"But why would she-"

"Cause she feels the same way!" Sam slapped Steve at the back of the head this time.

Steve glared at him, "Why wouldn't she just, tell me?"

"Why haven't you told her?" Sam asked.

Steve shrugged, glancing at Bucky before looking down to his feet. "I guess... I thought she'd never be interested in me, like that."

"Just... Talk to her," Bucky placed his hand on Steve's shoulder reassuringly, "She likes you too, punk." He smiled at Steve before turning to take a seat, letting Steve think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you were finally given the all clear to leave the medical bay to return to your room, you walked in to find Steve placing a large bouquet (or five) on your dressing table as well as other surfaces around your room.

"Steve?" You raised your eyebrow at him.

"Y/N," Steve let out a relieved sigh and almost ran towards you, "I thought I'd lost you." He wrapped his arms around you, almost crushing you as he hugged you.

You smiled into Steve's chest as you hugged him back. "Nah, I'm good."

Steve pulled back and looked at you. "Can we talk? Please. I think there's something we should talk about."

You nodded, "Sure."

Steve smiled softly and took your hand in his, leading you over to the end of your bed. You sat down beside Steve and waited for him to begin. "I wanted to apologize, Y/N."

"For what?"

"For what happened to you. If I had behaved in a better manner, none of this would have happened." Steve frowned at himself, guilt written all over his face.

"Steve," You smiled warmly up at him, "We were both arguing, so you don't need to apologize."

"No, I do. If I hadn't been so petty, we wouldn't have been arguing."

"Petty? What do you-"

"I know about the date... being pretend." Steve rubbed the back of his neck.

Your eyes widened as your face began to blush. "Oh... That was Sam's idea. Don't know why I agreed to go along with it." You lowered your face.

"Me neither." Steve teased.

You looked up at him with a grin. "Why were you being petty?"

Steve's face began to blush, "... I was jealous that some other guy was taking you out on a date that I had been so desperate to ask you on since the moment I met you." He sighed and shook his head. "I should have just told you, how I felt, and then none of this would have happened."

You frowned softly at him, "You're not the only one who's said nothing, Steve." You placed your hand on top of his. "I could have easily said something to you, but I was too scared."

He looked up to meet your gaze. "Scared of what?"

"Rejection. Humiliation... My past, isn't exactly something to be proud of. I'm broken." You whispered and took your hand away from Steve's.

"Your past was controlled by others. That doesn't make you the person you are today. You, making amends every way you can for it, now, that's what makes you the person you are..." Steve took your hand in his and lifted his other to pinch your chin between his thumb and index finger. "And have you forgotten I'm like a billion years old?" He grinned making you laugh. "That's better."

You looked up and smiled at him before looking up at the different bunches of flowers that littered your room. "Why did you get me so many flowers?" You asked curiously.

"Oh, hmm," Steve ran his hand up the back of his neck, his face reddening as you looked at him. "Well, I wasn't sure, what sort of flowers you liked so, I thought I'd get a selection..." Steve blushed, "What is, your favorite flower?"

You looked over at a bunch with yellow and purple flowers in then to a bunch with red and pink before shrugging. "I've... Never had flowers before so," You shrugged again and looked up at Steve.

"Never?" His eyebrows shot up. You shook your head. "Well, I'll buy you all the flowers you like, every chance I get, doll." He smiled at you making you look down as your face began to blush. "Would you like to get dinner? Maybe not tonight, you should rest, you've been through a lot today. But tomorrow, maybe? Or the day-"

Steve's rambling stopped when you leaned forwards and pressed your lips to his in a firm but short kiss.

You blushed even more as you pulled back from him chewing on the inside if your cheek as Steve's face reddened. "Sorry, but you were rambling."

Steve shook his head with a smile, "I guess you'd like to go to dinner then?" You nodded biting your bottom lip, "Good." Steve reached up and held the back of your head as he leaned in and pressed his lips against yours in a soft kiss.

[futurewriter2000]

If I can't have you, nobody can - pt. 7

A/N: Bruh... I have such a headache but this is coming out quite well. I think a part or two and I'm done with this serie. Enjoy <3

XX

You had been stuck behind a book that you didn't much enjoy but still wanted to finish. It wasn't easy since it had too many uneccessary details that only dragged on through the page. You tried to follow it but your mind kept wandering off.

You could finish this book in a day. You knew that but it was so dull that was why it took you so long to finish it in the first place.

But as you were finally getting into it something flew on your desk.

A letter.

From James.

You felt your heart cut itself into two, three, billion of pieces as you stared at the envelope. Taking it in your hands, you wanted to rip it open but at the same time, you were terrified to see what was written inside.

Since your little encounter with James, the little sleepover you had, you had started to experience an odd feeling in your heart and stomach. Some minutes you thought of him, found yourself seeing his face, his hazel eyes watching you from the balcony. How he wrapped you in a blanket and how he took care of you like a true gentleman.

It made you smile and blush in the moment.

But he was a taken man. He was in love with Lily Evans and you had not spoken to any of them, besides James that night, in almost a year.

You let the envelope stay on the desk.

"I'll see what I want to do with it."

---

You've walked about hundred of steps down the kitchen floor. Pacing... contemplating and watching it as if it was watching you back.

You hadn't got a single clue why you were being so dramatic about it. It wasn't an acceptance letter, or a description of your death. It was a letter.

Nevertheless, you threw yourself at it and grabbed it. You opened it gently and you could feel your heart beating through your entire body.

"I'll pick you up at three." said the voice behind you, causing you to jump from your seat and point your wand at him. "Woah, woah, woah!" he lifted his hands above his shoulders and started to laugh.

"JAMES YOU- YOU FUCKING FUCK FUCK!" you bent over to catch a breath. "You can't just apparate into my home like that."

"It's a fancy one." he laughed, walking around the kitchen and looking around. "You have zero photos of you or your family. " he mentioned as he kept looking around.

"Yeah... well... we're not your ordinary family." you pulled yourself together and leaned back on the counter. "What-"

"Have you opened my letter just now?" he cut you off and narrowed his eyes at you. "I've sent it around 10am."

"I wasn't planning on opening it, to be honest." you spoke sincerely.

"Ouch." he placed his hand on his heart. "It wouldn't have mattered anyway. I'm here and we're going out."

"We're not going anywhere." you said, grabbing the letter and throwing it in a trash can.

"Oh, come on. We always used to sneak out-"

"No, James. You don't understand." you shot your head at him, furrowing your eyebrows. "You can't just come in here and pretend that we're those kids again- those stupid kids from Hogwarts who didn't spend a day apart. Maybe that kid would go with you right now but this-" you gestured to yourself. "That kid grew up into this. Into an adult, who has responsibilities to take care of."

"All of us have responsibilities." James said more seriously. "I just want us to reconnect again. I want to-" he stopped himself. Something stopped him but you hadn't take notice to it.

"You have Lily to go back to, James." you said out of the blue, almost broken as you did and he took notice of that. He spent years loving every single part of you. Don't you think he hasn't noticed whenever something wasn't right with you. He has. Even when you stopped talking to each other back in Hogwarts.

"You want me to leave and never return?" he asked and you looked at him with a bit of surprise. "Okay." he said and he could see your eyes pleading otherwise. "I'll go and never return. I'll go back to my job and work hard until I can afford a ring so I can propose to Lily. We'll have a big wedding and have a family, loads of them children..." he started to glare at you. "That's what you want."

"Yes." you spoke more of envy than truth.

"Fine but since we won't ever talk or see each other again because you have responsibilities, I might as well tell you."

"Tell me what?"

He stormed towards you until the two of you were inches apart. Before you could say anything, he spoke first. "I fell in love with you when we were both 14 years old and I was mad furious when I saw that you didn't give me a span of a second to notice it. And for those four years I had tried to catch your attention but your attention was always on somebody else. I was jealous, immensely and we stopped talking to you because I was in love with you and you were in love with somebody else. "

"No." you shook your head and took a step back because everything that he was doing sent the wrong chemicals to your brain. You couldn't think straight when he was so close, that the heat from his chest literally radiated onto yours and the breathing of his, furious and attractive, was the only thing you could hear. "I thought I was in love with him. I truly did and when a person gets attached to somebody the line between love and attachment is very blurred." you pushed him away. "I was in love with you." you shoved him again and he felt all of his power waver, his dominance fade and his eyes bulk out from surprise.

"Surprised?" you scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest and smiling. "I was too when all I kept wanting was for you to look at me back in school. But you didn't. Because with Sirius it was fun and games and goofing around but with you shit was real. There weren't only butterflies and happiness, there were all sorts of emotions that I was so afraid of but then imagine you going for the red-head, a Gryffindor, of course. And I was furious and jealous and sad but I made it through and when you were not talking, Sirius still did. Sirius would look at me and he would still let me know I exist."

"YOU DID EXIST! YOU ALWAYS EXISTED INSIDE OF ME!" he started to shout.

"THEN WHY DID YOU LEAVE!?"

"BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU LOVED HIM MORE THAN ME! AND IF I COULDN'T HAVE YOU, NOBODY COULD!" he started to cry, breathing out a suffocating sob as if he had held it for years and years on. "I've been watching you love him for years. And as a kid, you don't process emotions as you do when you're older but it's coming after me." he continued to look at you as you stood there, speechless. "When you and Sirius talk about this stupid bond the two of you have, it pisses me off and then you tell me that you love me and all I am is confused. It makes me feel left out. It makes me feel like I'm not good enough and you're putting all your feelings and emotions of what that kid did to you. That kid didn't know any better and I can't go back and tell him to not fuck this up. He already fucked it up and I feel that no matter how much I apologised, you wouldn't forgive me. Don't you think I don't know that I hurt you? I am well aware of that and it tears me up inside but I'm trying to fix it and that has to count for something, (y/n). I'm trying but you're not letting me."

You stood there watching him sit down on the chair and take deep, calm breaths in.

"Alright." you said at last and he looked up at you confused. "I'll just get dressed and we'll leave."

[aliwritesfic]

The Night Shift Part 9 (F!Reader x Frankie Morales)

Summary: Your first night at Frankies, yearning mostly . . . no hanky panky! (yet 👀)

Warnings: Talk of abuse, talk of death of loved ones

W/C: 2.2k

Spotify

Part 1 Part 10

Frankie was buzzing with adrenaline as he drove you and Manny back to the restaurant. His hand hurt slightly, but he couldn’t stop think about how damn goodit felt to punch Kurt in the face, how when he heard the fear in your voice, everything turned red. How it took everything not to crush the vermin under his boot. But, he would unpack those feelings later, preferably over a case of beer with the boys. They, of all people, would understand.

You got out of the truck to say goodbye to Manny, and Frankie didn’t miss how you rubbed your lower back, how even from where he sat, he could see the ring of a bruise blossoming around your wrist.

“Sorry that took so long,” you said, climbing back into the truck. Frankie glanced at the clock on the dash – barely five minutes had passed. “Are you completely sure it’s okay I stay with you?”

“I want you to stay,” Frankie said. “Please, don’t get it in your head that you’re an inconvenience. I know you well enough by now to see that’s exactly where you’re heading.”

You laughed weakly. “I hate that you’re right,” you said, “I’m just not used to having extra help.” Frankie nodded, and waited for you to continue. “For a second in there, before you and Manny came in . . .I was terrified. I forgot I wasn’t alone and I – thank you, for what you did in there. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come in when you did.”

You slumped back in your seat and closed your eyes.

“I think this whole thing got rid of my hangover, though,” you joked.

“You’re young enough that you can bounce back quickly from hangovers,” Frankie said, taking the obvious hint for a change in the subject.

“Please, you’re barely older than me,” you said. “You’re like, what? Thirty?”

“Thirty-two,” Frankie corrected.

“Oh my apologies, you’re ancient,” you said with a roll of your eyes. Frankie grinned and shook his head. It amazed him how easily you could still make a joke, despite everything you had been through today alone.

It was almost sunset when he pulled up to his home. Golden light splayed across your features, making you glow. Stunning. The thought was in Frankie’s mind before he could stop it. You turned to smile at him.

“Nice gnomes,” you said gesturing to the dozens of gnomes of varying sizes that were scattered around Frankie’s front garden. He rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced.

“Thanks. My Abuelo used to give me one every Christmas, right up until he died last year.”

“I’m sorry,” you said your voice sincere, “I know how hard that is.”

Frankie shrugged, not wanting to talk about how after his Abuelo died, he made himself sick with grief. Instead, he chose to share something happier. “He used to hide things in them, since they’re all hollow. Sometimes it would be candy, or money. Once he hid my first iPod in one.”

“Sounds like he was a cool dude,” you said and Frankie nodded.

“He was the coolest,” Frankie agreed.

You were quiet for a few moments, holding your arms across your chest. The toll of the day was written plainly on your face, weariness lending itself to the dark circles under your eyes, to the way your shoulders curled inwards. Without thinking about it, Frankie wrapped his arms around you. You leant into the hug, burying your face into his neck. He rubbed your back gently, careful to avoid the spot he knew you were still hurting. You stood like that for a while, warmth leeching into him, and when you finally pulled away, you were almost quick enough to hide your damp eyes.

“Wanna go in?” Frankie asked, already feeling colder without you. He wanted to tug you back, hold you to him and not let go. You nodded, still not looking directly at him.

Inside, the house was cool and dark. Frankie tugged his cap off and placed it on a hook by the door, running a hand through his curls to fluff them up. He was suddenly more self-conscious than he had ever been before. He very rarely brought women back here, and when he did, he never liked them as much as he liked you.

He tried to imagine what you were thinking – were you grossed out at his unwashed breakfast plate sitting in the sink? Was the number of photos of family and friends that hung up on the walls and sat framed on every surface excessive? He didn’t remember seeing any photos like that at your apartment. But then, he also hadn’t been looking.

“It’s uh, not much,” he said rubbing the back of his neck.

“It suits you,” you said. Was it a compliment? Frankie wasn’t sure, until you continued. “Like, at first, it seems a little understated, but the more I look the more I see how you it all is.” You wandered over to a shelf stuffed with books and records, most of them coming from his old room at his parents when they had cleaned out their home a few years back.

“Tell me to fuck off if I’m being nosy,” you said, tilting your head to read the spines. Most of the books were well loved classics – stuff that Frankie had read over and over until the covers became loose and pages began to fall out.

“Just don’t search the drawers in my bedroom, that’s where I keep all my vintage Playboys and a spare bag of mushrooms.”

You snorted with laughter and turned to face him properly. Your eyes were still puffy and red, but no longer teary. Frankie counted that as a victory. “You always struck me as more of an acid guy. Just like you’re striking me as a fan of Thai food?”

“Big fan, actually.”

“Excellent, I know this great place that delivers, I’ll pay.” When Frankie opens his mouth to protest, you hold a hand up silencing him. “Please, let me pay. I owe you big time for doing this, all of this, for me.”

Frankie eventually conceded, sensing that you were infinitely more stubborn than him. Thai food was ordered and delivered, the scent of the panang curry made Frankie’s mouth water. You sat across from him at the table, eyeing him. It took a few moment for Frankie to realise you had put one of his albums on – Erykah Badu, he quickly identified.

“Can I ask you something?” you said after swallowing a mouthful of pad Thai.

“Anything,” he said. Just don’t ask me how long I’ve wanted to fuck you.

“What’d you mean today, when you said it’s not my fault?”

Frankie wasn’t expecting that. “Well, all that stuff Kurt did – like trying to kill himself, that’s not your fault.” You shrugged, clearly unconvinced, so Frankie ploughed on. “It’s just a form of emotional manipulation. Do you remember Benny, the guy your friend went home with last night? His sister, Eve, kind of went through something similar. Her partner would threaten to hurt himself and her if she tried to leave. It wasn’t until she ended up in hospital that she told Benny and Will what was happening.”

You looked horrified. “Is she okay?”

Frankie made a wavering motion in the air with his hand. “Some – most days are better than others. She moved to Portland, met a really nice lady, they’re getting married in the summer.”

“Good for her,” you murmured.

“But like I said, it’s not your fault. None of it is. He’s the one to blame, if he tries anything. He’s in control of his actions, you aren’t.” Frankie’s voice was firm, and he refused to look away from you as he spoke. He needed, more than anything, for you to understand that.

The next few hours passed quietly, sitting next to each other on his worn couch, Netflix half forgotten while you drifted in and out of sleep. Eventually, when the sky turned from black to grey to pink, Frankie showed you the spare room and gave you some privacy, knowing you probably needed some time to yourself after the gruelling day. He knew that sometimes all a person needed was some time alone to process. He sat on the couch and pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket.

Andi, the waitress, had given him her number, followed by three x’s and a winky face. Once, Frankie would have opened his messenger app and texted her, asking her out. But now. . . he found he wasn’t at all interested. He crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash.

~*~

How long is too long to spend in someone else’s shower? Five minutes? Ten? Until the hot water runs out? Vanilla and honey body wash? Oh, shit that smells delicious.

You kept your thoughts light, avoiding the darkness that brewed in the forefront of your mind. You felt like you were going through a billion crisis’s, so instead of focusing on any, you decided to focus on none.

You thought back to Frankie’s intense gaze as he spoke to you at dinner, how incredibly sexy it had been. You were shocked you could think something like that after the day you’d had, but the thoughts had entered unwelcome into your mind. You tucked them away for later, when you weren’t so close to him and wouldn’t feel burning shame if you looked at him.

Stepping out of the shower, you took a deep breath and decided to truly inspect the . . . damage that was done today. Your wrist was already bruising and ached slightly when you thought too much about it. You faced your back to the mirror and twisted, grimacing at the sight of the damage Kurt had caused. Your lower back, like your wrist, was bruised black and purple. You quickly wrapped a towel around yourself, hiding the damage.

Deep breath, Spud, you’re stronger than you think.

Your grandfathers voice echoed in your ears. It was what he would say to you whenever you were hurt – just fallen out of a tree and fractured your ankle, sliced your finger open cutting onions, sobbing because the boy you had convinced yourself was your soulmate at fifteen just dumped you the day after you lost your virginity to him, it was always your grandfathers voice saying those words. Your heart ached with missing him.

The room Frankie had showed you was more of a home gym with a bed shoved into the corner than anything else. There was still a scattering of things that were undeniably Frankie in the room: a pile of old boots with holes in the canvas, a greasy looking toolbox, a poster for the Brooklyn Nets with players that looked like they had wandered out of the 90s. You didn’t know much about basketball but decided to at least keep an eye on when the Nets lost so you could rag on Frankie about it.

You grabbed your bags, assessing what Manny had grabbed. God, he’s good, you thought, realising he had packed you everything you needed. You dressed and grabbed your phone, breathing a sigh of relief when it was free of messages from Kurt. You typed out a quick message to Manny.

You are truly the most amazing friend anyone can ask for <3 thanks for packing my stuff.

Then, after a few moments, you sent one to Sara.

I broke up with Kurt, should I be sadder about it?

It was 7 in the morning, but within a minute your phone was buzzing with a call from her.

“Tell me you’re not lying to me,” her voice was hushed. You could hear her moving, a door clicking shut.

“I’m not lying. It’s done.” You laid back on the bed and closed your eyes. “It was a fucking nightmare to do though.”

“Spill, what happened? Are you okay?” Sara’s voice was louder now. You gave her the rundown of everything that had happened, from the lunchtime confession to the actual breakup to how you were now sleeping in Frankie’s spare room.

“Wait – Frankie? Benny’s friend?”

“Are you still with Benny?” This was different: Sara had a policy of one night only – anything more and she claimed they’d fall in love with her.

“Of course, he has a massive dick. But back to you missy, you’re staying with Frankie?”

You sighed. “Yeah, just until I get the keys to my new place.”

“Are you gonna fuck him?” Sara sounded hopeful.

“Oh, my god! No!”

“Aw, c’mon, rebound sex is good for the soul.”

“Maybe with strangers in seedy bars who have half a chance of giving me the clap. Not with someone I-”

“-Have a huge thing for. Please, I saw it the moment you spotted him at fight night. You’re so hung up on this guy and Benny says-”

“This conversation is over, it’s my bedtime. I love you and you’re wrong.” You hung up quickly, cheeks burning with the lie. Did you want to have sex with Frankie? Desperately. At the most inappropriate of times, like when you heard the rumble of his voice through the window at work, like when you caught a glimpse of his beautiful, unique side profile, like when you were alone and allowed your thoughts to wander to what could be under his jeans.

You sighed, frustrated with yourself and rolled onto your side. If you were braver, more sure that his attraction matched yours, you would have gone to his room, crawled into bed beside him, let whatever was meant to be, be. But right now, you weren’t brave. You felt like you had used up all your courage quota for the year in a single day, which was a ridiculous sentiment.

So instead of going to Frankie’s room, like the pulsing in your underwear desperately wanted you to, you closed your eyes and tried to sleep.

Taglist: @hnt-escape @sharkbait77 @1800-fight-me @annathewitch @darnitdraco @frankiecatfish @punkerthanpascal @nakhudanyx @gracie7209 @quica-quica-quica @pintsizemama @phoenix-of-loki

[hollowandmerciless]

So it was a love story after all

One of the things that has been said over the years about Attack on Titan is that it had no romance. Isayama, was the general consensus, didn’t write a love story. AOT is not about ships. It’s about the nature of humanity, about hatred, about racism and the will to survive. It’s got its roots in Norse mythology, in real life events from the recent past and a more ancient past. But love and romance, so everyone thought, never had a place in this story.

How wrong we all were.

As it turns out, Eren’s motivation for everything he did was always his eternal and undying love for Mikasa.

Here’s where I stumble.

I never saw any convincing signs of Eremika in this story. I didn’t like their dynamics in the first place – Eren seemed annoyed with her a lot of the time, or at best consider her his adopted sister – and what really rubbed me the wrong way during the entirety of the story was Mikasa’s unhealthy obsession with Eren. Yes, he saved her, and yes, she’s an Ackerman, who are known for their intense bonding to their host (although this was a false assumption as well, according to Zeke), but her obsession was unhealthy and annoying to the point that I was unable to see her character development or her actions. 

Her looks didn’t make her special to me (contrary to a lot of male fans I encountered on social media and irl), to me she was just one of the characters, albeit a rather uninteresting one, so I wasn’t paying as much attention to her as they did – we all pay most attention to our favourites (which in my case are Eren and Levi and to a lesser extent Hanji and Connie), and as a result I may have been blind for any character development she had. 

Maybe it’s because I’m a woman and I feel like she’s one of those poorly written -“the man is my only goal in life” -women. Women who in a story solely seem to exist as an appendage to the main character and have no life or will of their own. Eren and Mikasa were, in my opinion, never equals in this story.

I know many people do see Mikasa’s character development, and do see meaningful interactions between Eren and her, but I’m sorry, I can’t see them unless I use a microscope, and I think this is the main flaw in Isayama’s writing: with all the twists and foreshadowing (which I so thoroughly enjoyed), some hints he left are way too small, while some of his red herrings are too in your face to ignore. 

It also feels like Isayama changed the ending too often and forgot about a lot of foreshadowings along the way.

This is why it feels that we’re left with so many plot holes – if you read closely, there aren’t many, but the red herrings were sprinkled so abundantly throughout the story that we may have expected way too much. The origins of the Ackermans, the importance of Historia’s’ baby and “who is the father”, Zeke’s presumed 4D chess and Eren’s 5D chess, the Underground cities as protection against the rumbling, what caused the titan forest trees to grow so large, what happened 854 years ago in the year 0, Reiner heavily being foreshadowed to become the new Helos, what is the Hallucigenia thing, where did it come from and how does it create titans, where did Ymir’s first titan come from if there was no one in PATHS yet to build it – we don’t need all these answers, but somehow Isayama made us believe there was more to this than there actually was, and that’s why many of us feel robbed of the ending we wanted or expected.

The Historia storyline bothers me the most. The dynamics between her and Eren were much more interesting and realistic than those between Mikasa and Eren. To begin with, they were equals. Whatever happened, they always had each other’s backs. So it made sense to me that Eren had at least something to do with her choice to have a baby, especially because he was so vocal against it. Instead, she too married a guy who hadn’t been particularly nice to her in the past and nothing of it had anything to do with Eren or his plans, or their shared memories of previous founders. 

Parallels between OG Ymir and Historia seemed abundant, but apparently, in the end, we were supposed to see an essential parallel between Ymir and Mikasa. Her Stockholm-syndrome-love for the first King Fritz felt like a sort of deus ex machina (and yes, if you reread chapter 122 there were hints, but so scarce, so small, that they didn’t seem to hold much significance).

I find the fact that OG Ymir needed to see someone break loose from the clutches of obsessive love in front of her own eyes to finally break loose from her own love for Fritz a bit far-fetched, especially since I consider that this is what the entire story hinges on.

(Now we do understand why Isayama had Levi so severely wounded in chapter 114 (the explosion). Had he been fit, then he had most likely been the Ackerman who killed Eren (because this has been foreshadowed too, multiple times) – and that wasn’t supposed to happen. It had to be Mikasa, or else OG Ymir wouldn’t understand how to break loose from her bond.

Another thing that bothered me was Eren’s sudden confession of his love for Mikasa to Armin. Like I said, I found the Eremika dynamics particularly uninteresting, so this confession felt very unnatural and far-fetched to me – but, again, this is what the entire story is built upon. 

He does what he does for them, specifically for her.

It’s actually kind of sad that some fan theories were better/more interesting than the canon ending, but Isayama is the creator of this story and we’ll have to accept his ending – I do know that the more I’ve been rereading the final chapter, the less it bothers me how the story wrapped up. I might even come to like it, and when I reread the full story (which I will certainly do, I LOVE this story) I’ll pay more attention to the small hints Isayama sprinkled between the lines for us about the love Eren felt for Mikasa, to see if his words in 139 will finally make sense to me.

For now, Eren’s motives don’t feel real or grounded. If he’d cried about the millions (billions?) of deaths he’d caused instead of about Mikasa, it would have made more sense in the grand scheme of things. He’d cry for the lives he’s taken, and for the realisation that it has all been in vain, because the ones he tried to protect so that they can live long and happy lives, will now be consumed with grief and survivor’s guilt.

Still, could any of this have gone differently?

No.

Eren was rightfully desperate when he, from behind the bars of his cell, yelled at Hanji if there was another way. Because there wasn’t.

The irony was that Eren always fought for freedom, but all his life he had been a slave to his own destiny. He was unable to change the future, and could only try to influence it. Or else, as Kruger said, this cycle would repeat itself, again and again.

All in all I feel there was more to this story than what we got, it could have gone deeper, more foreshadowing could have paid off instead of being a red herring.

A bittersweet ending

Levi surviving and finally getting closure with the knowledge that this was what all of his old SC friends died for, brought me to tears. And that smoke, was that the disappearing of his Ackerstrength? 

The frame where he travels the world with his carers/adopted children Gabi and Falco and his new best friend Onyankopon (friend? lover? just look at that glance they share) made me so happy that this is now the desktop background of my laptop.

(I hope they’ll travel to the AOT equivalent of the UK so he can finally enjoy some decent black tea)

To me, at least this part was sweet. The rest: bitter, even the fates of the Alliance members. This is a story with an open ending. We don’t know if they’ll succeed on their peace mission, we don’t know what the Yaegerists will accomplish, we don’t know what the rest of the world will do; all options are open again, but maybe that is the point. Eren never meant to end the hatred, there’s no fighting the nature of humans. Erwin knew this already: mankind won’t stop fighting among themselves until there’s only one person left. 

Eren’s goal was to end the titan era, and at the cost of his own life and that of 80% of humanity, he succeeded. 

Learning that Eren, who held freedom in such high regards, was a slave to his own destiny all along was painful and ironic, but in a way he lives on as a bird, finally free, finally Vogel aus dem Käfig.

Thank you, Isayama.

[mooshua]

hi uh it’s mooshua (aurora, moosh, whatever you want to call me). I’m so sorry about my sudden leave and everything and worrying some of you. that was really uncool of me to do and I really am so regretful for that. honestly I’m kinda embarrassed right now. explaining myself is rather difficult because, I won’t lie, I’ve been having feelings of inadequacy towards both myself and the works I put out. lol so I’m kind of having a hard time articulating my emotions because my mind is all over the place and I’m literally sweating as I type this out.

long story short: I got burnt out, started hating my writing with all my being, accumulated some Not So Nice messages, and then just did not want to be perceived anymore.

the long story: like I said above, I’ve been having Conflicting Feelings with regards to what I have been writing. anytime I read what I wrote I would just feel my gut twist and turn like I was going to throw up because I WAS SO EMBARRASSED. nothing about it was... up to my standard? nothing flowed right, I could point out a billion mistakes, and I wasn’t laughing like I used to. and it wasn’t just feeling embarrassed, it was like whenever I wrote something I would Not Be Having Fun With It because I kept thinking “deadline deadline deadline you need to finish this by the end of this week it’s only 5k words are you saying you can’t come up with a measly chapter in a week you used to be able to write 15 chapters in a month you dog” and I would just force myself to sit in front of my computer for hours and when I finally finished I wasn’t really happy with the final product I would just think “god I need a smoke break” even though I’ve never smoked in my life. and then I’d also get “please update!” messages/comments in the dry periods and, don’t get me wrong I really appreciate that people are reading my stuff, but I’d feel more and more stressed because then I’d automatically think “Oh My God People Are Waiting And I’m Letting Them Down.”

so with all these bad feelings welling up inside me I thought “I need a break.” and that’s what I did. I took like a 3 week break in september/october (I honestly don’t remember because the days have been bleeding together) in hopes that I just needed to rest to get my brain started again! after those 3 weeks I then did the usual routine of writing and updating, but again Things Just Didn’t Feel Right because it felt like I was diving back into that stress inducing spiral of the dreaded Weekly Updates.

I mean, I would get so hung over this stuff because in the back of my mind during my free time I’d be thinking “I could be writing and finishing up both series right now” and you know what? I’d do that. well, I tried at least. I’d force myself to sit and type whenever I had ANY free time because I already had everything planned, I just needed to put words to a page. well, doing that for nights on end was just mentally exhausting me to New Levels. everything I was doing was not sustainable at all.

AND THEN THINGS SLOWLY GOT WORSE because I would have zero confidence in my writing and every week or so I’d get a message in my inbox saying something along the lines of (or rather word for word) “your writing isn’t that good/special/anything new I don’t understand why people are reading it/why you get so many notes/you’re not as funny as you think you are” and at first I would kind of laugh at it and go “oh trust me buddy, I’m wondering the same thing too” and then delete it because I do Not Wish to entertain the thought on my blog, but then I was hitting a new all time low in my mentality and I got another message on the day I deactivated which was a Really Bad Day and it read “your writing isn’t good” and I went back to the chapter I was editing for the day, felt my gut do that twist and I thought “you know what? you’re right. it’s not. goodbye.” pressed the forbidden red button and honestly felt a weight lift off my shoulders because that meant I no longer had to deal with that stupid cycle of constantly updating in order to Feel Something.

I kept thinking “why is this not as fun as it used to be, why am I so stressed out all the time opening that stupid doc and going on my blog?” like I would literally sit down and think about this as if it was a math problem or something. my inadequacies kept rising within me but I would just bottle it up, go to writing and trying to answer messages like nothing was wrong because I really didn’t want to worry anyone or think I was a charity case who needed help, but now that I think about it I really should have talked this out instead keeping my mouth shut. I just thought this was something everyone goes through so I was like whatever it’ll pass. I kept thinking “this shouldn’t be as deep as I’m making it” and brush it aside, but then I kept thinking negatively about my ability to write and literally DREADED sitting down in front of my laptop that I would have to hype myself up in order to get a sentence in. I think the last time I actually felt really proud of something I had written was during the summer...... and then after that it was just downhill.

and listen. I know this is just a Fun endeavor and I really shouldn’t care about what other people think as long as it makes me happy, but along the way I stopped being happy because I started caring Way Too much and putting unrealistic expectations on myself. it’s weird. I know at my Big Age I should have a better mentality, but it’s been eating at me for a while and I just wanted to pull the plug.

okay now the part that a lot of people are wondering: are you going to finish your series? I plan to. I really want to. I think it’d be a waste not to. I’m still feeling pretty conflicted right now with my writing, but I already mapped everything out, and I don’t like to break promises since I already said I was going to do this thing. thanks to anyone who read my works and I’m sorry to have worried you. I just needed to take a step back and think about what’s good for myself.

yeah. so that’s my explanation. this whole thing is so long and for that I’m sorry. if you went through this then pat on the back for you. I don’t know when I’ll come back or how long it will take. I just want time for myself and to not think about anything with regards to writing. like at all. also I only have 1 request: for anyone who downloaded the series from ao3, please do not repost or reupload or redistribute them. please I’m literally begging. I deleted them for a reason and I really don’t like the idea of these stories floating around without my consent. when I do get back into it I’d like to make edits to what I have written. idk if any of my mutuals still want to talk to me after this but feel free to lmk lmfao sorry I know that I sound like I’m off the deep end but I really just need to cool it before I start diving back into a Healthy Relationship With My Writing Hobby lol. why am I so dramatic... SORRY. anyway. I hope you guys are staying happy and healthy during this time. don’t forget that.

[quickspinner]

Snake in the Silk

Written for the @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers Sprint Challenge, using the @mlweeklyprompts Next Door Neighbors. The fic is supposed to be 45 minutes plus "editing," but I kind of doubled the length in editing, so...oops.

I received a lot of prompts for my 500 follower celebration that I never used (although I did end up writing a surprising number of them eventually, when I looked at the list), and I was sharing them with the sprint server as possible future prompts. One of them involved Luka getting an exotic pet, which collided with the neighbors thing in my brain, and thus this fic was born.

As always the irrepressible Dingo King belongs to Verfound, who's kind enough to let me use him.

Rated T, mostly for innuendo and language 

Find it on AO3

“I hate you,” Luka fumed, keeping the phone pressed to his face as he kicked his door shut behind him. “I hate you so much right now.”

“Not true,” Dingo said cheerfully over the phone.

“I’m serious, you jackass, I can’t trust you with anything!” Luka threw his bag in the corner with probably more force than he should have, and then winced. He set his guitar case down more carefully. 

“Also not true,” Dingo said, a little sheepishly this time. “Buuuuuuut I’ll grant that maybe you shouldn’t have trusted me with this.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Luka snapped as he stomped through his apartment. “Juleka was with me, and Evan’s a freaking pansy, and—” Luka stopped dead and sighed as he stared at the empty cabinet—the cabinet he had personally, carefully refurbished and remodeled to be as escape-proof as possible. Not that any of that did any good, with the door sitting ajar. Luka swore and only barely resisted the urge to kick something. “If anything happens to him,” Luka warned his best friend, “I will murder you, do you hear me?” 

“Fair,” Dingo sighed. “Look, Lu, I seriously am sorry, and I would never have left except I had to work, and as soon as I can find an excuse to bail I’ll—”

“No,” Luka gritted out. “No, it won’t matter if you’re here or not. Don’t lose your job over it. I’ll figure something out.” 

“It’ll work out, Lu. That stupid snake adores you, he won’t stay gone for long.”  

Luka made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and grit his teeth around the things he wanted to say. “I gotta go,” he finally managed to grind out. “I’ll deal with you later.”

“Right.” Dingo laughed nervously. “I’ll bring takeout and beer and then we’ll turn your place upside down looking for the little bugger.” 

Luka hung up without saying anything else, and jammed his phone in his pocket. He put his face in his hands and screamed quietly, then dragged his hands down his face and surveyed the empty enclosure again—as if Sass were just going to show up and slither right up his favorite branch and flick his tongue out like ‘Sup . 

Okay, he needed to think. It wasn’t the first time Sass had taken a little pleasure jaunt. Think. How many places could a four-foot corn snake find to hide in a small apartment like this? Luka didn’t even have that much stuff, so he shouldn’t be that hard to find.

If he was even still in the apartment. Luka swallowed hard. That had never been much of a worry on the Liberty, since while there were about a billion little crannies that a snake could crawl into, most of them were unpleasant for a cold-blooded reptile, and at least he couldn’t escape the ship entirely. But here, who knew? And this was the first time he’d escaped since Luka had moved into the apartment, so Luka didn’t know what his favorite places were likely to be, and— 

And standing here panicking was not doing anything to find his beloved pet. For all that Sass was a little shit of an escape artist, Luka had raised him for years and he loved the quirky little snake and his stupid little snakey face with those bright black eyes and— 

“Come on, Sass,” Luka muttered, looking around helplessly. “Don’t do this to me.”

Okay. First things first. Luka swung the front of the cabinet open wide, so that if Sass did decide he preferred his (very comfortable, Luka thought with a little pout, he had done a lot of work to make sure it was) home to whatever random, dusty corner he’d managed to find, he could get back in. Probably if nothing else, Sass would come back when he was hungry, if…

Luka sighed, and took Sass’s little pool out of the bottom of the enclosure to dump it out and refill it with fresh water. He made sure the heating mat was at the right temperature, and checked under the substrate and poked around among the various hides—damnit, he’d worked so hard to make this habitat, and that stupid, ungrateful little—

A muffled but clearly audible scream broke into his thoughts, and Luka froze. There was a second, yelping shriek— from the apartment next door, he suddenly realized, and he ran for his apartment door, knocking over his guitar case in his haste to get it opened. 

He’d barely had time to turn from his door to the next door down when it burst open and a young woman stumbled out of it, eyes wide in panic. She collided with Luka and he grabbed her arms on instinct. 

“Are you okay?” he asked stupidly, as she looked up at him. 

“I—there was—” she panted, clearly still panicked. “A snake in my panties!” 

Luka stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending as he took in big blue eyes, pink cheeks, and a soft mouth that was opening and closing without saying anything, and then she balled her hands into fists and closed her eyes and shrieked, “There’s a huge snake in my underwear drawer!” 

Understanding hit him like a lightning bolt. “Oh thank God,” Luka sighed, and the young woman gaped at him as he moved her aside and went into her apartment. 

“Wait, what are you—” she spluttered. “Where are you going? Hey!” 

Luka halted about four steps into the apartment, abruptly realizing that he didn’t know where he was going, and she crashed into his back in her rush to follow him.

  “Sorry,” Luka said, turning and holding his hands up placatingly. “Sorry, it’s just—my friend was watching my flat, and he let my pet snake out and I’ve been frantic to—find...him…” It struck him all at once that the young woman currently staring at him had wet black hair hanging around her shoulders, and a red and black polka-dotted silk robe wrapped haphazardly around her very nice body. It was still sticking to her in places and he suddenly felt like his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth.

“That thing is yours?” she demanded, pushing her wet hair back and gripping her robe more tightly closed with the other hand. “I don’t know whether I’m mad at you or just relieved the whole building isn’t...infested or something.” She looked around nervously. “So there’s no more? Just the one?”  

“No,” Luka laughed, burying the fingers of one hand in his hair. “No, no, no infestation, just one irresponsible best friend and my freaking Houdini-wanna-be pet snake. I’m so, so sorry he scared you, but if you show me where he is, I’ll get him out of here and you can get—uh, get on with your day, um….Miss.” 

“Marinette,” she sighed, tugging the robe around herself a little self-consciously, her cheeks turning an attractive pink. Shit, she was cute, and this was really awkward. Ugh, Luka was going to kill Dingo, and maybe Sass too for good measure. 

“Luka,” he said, offering his hand. “I live next door and I promise I don’t let my snake out all willy-nilly.” 

Marinette snorted and covered her mouth with one hand as Luka blinked at her, feeling his face slowly turning red. “I can’t believe I just said that,” he muttered under his breath, and Marinette laughed aloud.  

“Come on,” she giggled. “This way. Um, watch your step...I’m still getting unpacked and all and...okay that’s a lie, it’s always this messy, but it’s organized, I swear—”

“Hey, I’m not gonna judge your housekeeping choices, trust me,” Luka told her absently as he followed her down the short hall. “I don’t think I’m in any position to judge you at all, given the situation. Even if I did that kind of thing. Judge people, I mean. I—I don’t, or I try not to, at least—” He paused and took a deep breath, trying not to let it out as a frustrated sigh.   

Marinette pushed open a door and edged into the room—her bedroom, it was immediately obvious. She stayed pressed up against the wall. “It’s, um, over there,” she said, pointing to a pink and black chest of drawers, the top drawer of which was hanging open. “I just opened the drawer and there it was and I—” She fluttered her hands. 

Luka went over to the drawer and surveyed the contents. “I don’t see him,” he sighed. 

“What?” Marinette’s voice jumped several octaves. 

“It’s okay, he probably just—” Luka reached out, and stopped just before he touched anything, hand hovering over the rumpled pile of silk and lace in the drawer.  “Uh…” Luka looked back at Marinette. “I mean, do you mind if I…” he gestured weekly at the drawer full of underthings. “See if he’s underneath this stuff?” 

“Oh,” Marinette blushed again, but waved a dismissive hand, shifting nervously. “Go ahead. Do what you need to do. I just want you to find it.” She cracked a small smile. “Thanks for checking, though.”  

“Sure,” Luka grunted, carefully lifting a pair of lace edge panties from the top of what had probably been a neat pile before Sass decided to rummage it into a nest. He shifted things aside carefully, trying not to look too hard at any of it. “Come on, you little shit,” he muttered. “You’re killing me here.” 

“Um, could you actually, uh...maybe hand me a pair of those?” Marinette said, and Luka glanced back at her in some surprise. She was still pressed back against the wall and her face was red again, and she was clutching her robe tight around her, fingering her wet hair as she fidgeted— oh . 

“Oh, yeah, uh...any particular...color?” he asked weakly. She seemed like the kind of girl who liked to match. Which was such a weird thing to be thinking right now. He was definitely going to kill Dingo. Slowly . Maybe feed important bits of him to Sass before he murdered his beloved pet, too. 

“Anything’s fine,” Marinette replied, with a slightly hysterical sounding laugh. 

Luka lifted another pair, trying not to think too hard about which pair he grabbed and what it might say about him. He tossed the panties to her, and then quickly turned back to the drawer.

“I’m just gonna step outside for a minute,” Marinette muttered, and Luka swallowed as he heard her bare feet pad away. 

“This is the weirdest fucking day,” he muttered under his breath, carefully moving more underthings aside and trying not too hard to think about what other kinds of things a lady might keep in her underwear drawer. Ugh, why did the damn drawer have to be so deep—wait, was that—

Luka picked up a distractingly pretty blue pair decorated with black ribbons, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the familiar tip of Sass’s tail sticking out. “Got you, you little shit.” 

“You found him?” Marinette said behind him, and Luka jumped. She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt now, and she’d pulled her wet hair back into a ponytail. She stood on tiptoe to look around him, though she still kept back behind him. 

“Yeah, now I just have to get around to his head and get him out without spooking him,” Luka said, reaching into the drawer again. “The last thing I want is him musking all over your things because I grabbed him too quickly and startled him.” 

Marinette wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know what that means, but it sounds gross.” 

“Trust me, it is,” Luka said, removing another pair of Marinette’s underwear and adding it to the pile he’d been making on top of the dresser. “I am really, really sorry about this. I shouldn’t have trusted Ding—my friend. He’s got a good heart but he’s a little loose on details.” In the drawer, Sass shifted, and lifted his head, tongue flicking out curiously, a pair of teal, scale-patterned panties draped over his head. Luka bit back a laugh. “Hey, buddy,” he murmured, moving his fingers near Sass. Sass’s tongue flickered once, and then again, scenting, and then he moved forward, sliding out from under the pile of panties to glide onto Luka’s hand. “There we go.” Luka brought his other hand forward to move under Sass’s body, and finally, carefully, lifted the pile of snake out of Marinette’s underwear drawer. Far from looking stressed, Sass seemed as relaxed and laid back as ever, gathering his nearly four-foot length into Luka’s hands like nothing was amiss. It kind of made Luka want to shake him, but that would have been really dumb, so he didn’t. He sighed with relief instead, feeling his shoulders go slack as Sass poked his head up towards Luka’s elbow. 

“I wasn’t imagining it,” Marinette murmured, keeping behind him, but still leaning on his arm to peep curiously around him at Sass. “He really was that big.” 

“He’s pretty near his full growth,” Luka agreed, and lifted Sass up to eye level. “Which is why I built you that nice, big habitat and made it so comfortable, so that you had room to be you. I can’t believe you just bailed on it.” Sass swayed forward, bumping his snout against Luka’s face. “Yeah, it’s me, you little dummy.” 

“Does he bite?” Marinette asked, and Luka snorted softly, moving his hands to keep the snake supported as Sass began to slither up his arm. 

“Not usually. Sometimes he bites me just to make a point, but not enough to hurt,” Luka told her, “For the most part he’s well socialized, and friendly. Really, he’s harmless to anything much bigger than a rat. I promise, you were never in any danger from him. I’m sorry he gave you such a scare, though.”

“Can I...can I touch him?” Marinette asked, as Sass slithered across Luka’s shoulder and extended his head out a bit, tongue flickering. Luka grinned at her.

“Yeah, sure. Here, let’s just...” He backed up a step and sat down on the edge of Marinette’s bed, then reached up and took Sass off his shoulders to gather him between his hands again. Apparently no longer inclined to stay put after his little panty-nest nap, Sass began to slide up his arm again as Marinette set down next to him. She reached out a tentative finger to stroke Sass’s body as the snake moved up towards Luka’s shoulder. “Oooh, that’s so weird,” she said, but she was grinning, and Luka chuckled. 

“I’ve had him since he was a baby about the size of my hand,” Luka told her, closing one eye as Sass poked his snout into Luka’s cheek. “I was freaking out, thinking that I’d lost him. I’m sorry we interrupted your day, but I’m grateful you found him, and didn’t hurt him.” 

“Hurt him ,” Marinette laughed. “ He just about gave me a heart attack. I just moved in, you know, and—well, I’d seen a mouse a couple of times so I was already a bit jumpy, and then I saw that and suddenly I was sure the whole place was crawling with pests. Which was maybe a dumb thing to think, but I...it’s my first time living on my own and I guess I’m a little paranoid.” She shrank a little, reaching up to tug at her still-dripping ponytail. 

“I don’t think there’s any reasonable reaction to finding a snake in your...er, unmentionables.” Luka coughed as Marinette snickered.

“Unmentionables,” she snickered. “You sound like an old man.” 

Luka laughed with her, only a little self-consciously. “I, um... don’t think you’re going to have a mouse problem anymore,” he commented, stroking a swollen place in Sass’s belly. “I guess that’s why Sass ended up here. He probably smelled it.”

Marinette eyed the lump in Sass’s otherwise sleek form with a conflicted expression, but she only sighed. 

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve been here a few months and I haven’t had any pest problems,” Luka continued.

“I don’t guess you would,” Marinette laughed, looking at Sass. “They can probably smell him and stay away. Maybe I should borrow him sometimes.”

“Well, clearly I could use a better babysitter,” Luka chuckled. “So if you’re interested, we can definitely work something out.” He turned his head to look at Sass, who was draped along his shoulders again. “No more hunting, though. That mouse could have messed you up, you little jerk.”

Sass yawned, tongue flickering, and then stuck his head down the collar of Luka’s shirt. Luka rolled his eyes. “I should let you get back to your day,” he said, standing up. “And I should get this guy back into his cage.” Sass slid further into Luka’s shirt, and then reversed course, his head peeping back out. “What are you even doing right now?” Luka asked him. “Missing your heat rock?” 

Marinette giggled. “He’s kind of cute, actually. He’s very pretty, with those markings...wait, is that him?” She caught the edge of Luka’s sleeve, lifting it slightly to reveal the top of the tattoo on his upper arm. 

“Yeah,” Luka grinned, shifting so she could see it better. “I love that one. They made him look amazing.” 

“They really did,” Marinette said admiringly, and then her eyes widened slightly and she dropped his sleeve, moving back as her face reddened. “Um, sorry.” 

“No worries,” Luka chuckled. She was really adorable, and sweet when she wasn’t screaming. She’d certainly warmed up to Sass quick enough, too, so he gave her points for courage and open-mindedness. 

“Well, it was very nice to meet you, Sass,” Marinette said to the snake, bending down slightly to be eye to eye with him. “Next time I’d appreciate it if you’d wait for an invitation, though.” 

Sass slid up and away from Luka, stretching out toward Marinette as if planning to explore her shoulders next, but Luka put a hand under him and lifted away. “None of that, Casanova,” he told the snake, redirecting Sass back to his own shoulder. “Let’s get you home.” 

Marinette walked them to the door, and when she opened it, Luka paused on the doorstep. “Um, thanks again for being so understanding,” he said, trying not to stare at her too intently. “I’m glad to have met you, Marinette. If you ever need anything, well.” He gestured vaguely. “I’m right next door, and I owe you.” 

Marinette smiled at him, pink tinging her cheeks, and his stomach did a little flip. “Thanks, Luka. I’m glad to meet you too. I’m sure I’ll see you around.” 

“Yeah, definitely,” Luka smiled back, and then practically fled back to his own door. “See you.” 

She gave him a little wave before closing her door, and he was grinning widely when he opened his own. 

He took Sass straight back to his enclosure, and Sass eagerly slid from his hands, beelining for his favorite warming spot. “I’m really mad at you,” Luka told him. “I was worried. I’m definitely still killing Dingo.” He couldn’t keep his face stern, though, a smile twitching his mouth. “I might owe you big time, though. That was a hell of an icebreaker.” Luka sighed, and shut the enclosure, making sure it was securely latched. 

He went back to the door where he’d dumped his bags, and picked up his guitar case, leaving the suitcases where they were for now. He got out his guitar and settled down on the couch with a sigh. 

He lost track of how long he’d sat there, playing a soft tune that reminded him of blue eyes and giggles and silk. When his phone buzzed in his pocket and brought him back to himself, he could see sunset colors through the window. 

“Oi, mate,” Dingo said when Luka picked up the phone. “I finally escaped—ooh, poor choice of words...I mean I’m off work now. I’ll grab some takeout and meet you at your place so we can—”

“I found him,” Luka interrupted, wincing a little. He probably should have texted Dingo hours ago to let him know. 

Oh well, the bastard deserved it.

“You did?” Dingo repeated, obviously relieved. “Yes. Good. Okay. Welp, cancel that then—”

“Oh, no,” Luka interrupted him. “You’re not getting out of bringing me dinner. I still need to kick your ass.”

“Not exactly incentivizing, mate.” Dingo sighed. “You want your usual?’ 

“Actually,” Luka said, thinking fast. “I’ll text you my order in a minute.” He hung up before Dingo could protest, stuck his phone in his pocket, and went out the front door.

“This is stupid,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his palms on his jeans before he knocked on Marinette’s door. 

She opened the door and her curious expression morphed into a smile. “Luka.” She was fully dressed now and made up to boot, and just as cute as he remembered. 

“Hey,” he managed to get out, and hoped his smile didn’t look too manic. “Um, my asshole best friend is bringing me takeout to make up for being a dummy, and I’d really like to buy you dinner to make up for earlier.” 

“Oh,” Marinette’s expression shifted into uncertainty, and she bit her lip. “I’d hate to intrude…” 

“If you’d rather, I can just bring your food over when it gets here,” Luka offered. “But you definitely wouldn’t be intruding, I’d love for you to join us. Totally your call, though. You don’t even have to decide now. Do you like Thai?” He pulled out his phone to show her the menu.

“I love Thai,” she admitted shyly, taking the phone he offered her. “Um...but you really don’t have to…” 

“I want to,” he told her sincerely, and the smile she turned up at him made his heart rate kick up a few beats. 

“Okay,” she said, and he nearly stopped breathing as she pulled up his contacts. “How about I just add my number and you can text me when he gets here, and...I’ll come over for a little bit, if you guys really don’t mind.”

“Y-yes, yeah, definitely, go ahead,” he said quickly. 

Smiling to herself, Marinette did just that, and then sent herself a text before she handed him back the phone. “I’ll text you my order, it’s a little complicated,” she told him, “and then I guess I’ll see you in a little bit.” 

“Yeah,” Luka smiled at her. “Looking forward to it. I’ll text you in a bit.” 

He managed to make it back into his own apartment without cracking, and then he had a (very quiet, since she was still next door) freakout in his living room as he texted Dingo both of their orders and hit send. He found himself in front of Sass’s cage, trying to slow his pulse with some deep breathing. Sass was looking right through the glass at him, and if Luka didn’t know better, he’d have thought the little bastard looked smug. 

“I’m still mad at you,” Luka insisted, but the grin splitting his face probably wasn’t very convincing. “Don’t look at me like that.” He sighed. “Dingo’s never going to let me hear the end of this. If she’ll even speak to me ever again after she meets him.” 

Well. That was a problem for future Luka. Present Luka just got the number for the hot girl next door, and she thought his snake was cute, and—

“Yeah, this dinner with Dingo is going to be a disaster,” he laughed helplessly, flinging himself down on the couch. 

[not-poignant]

I feel like every human alive should be required to read FFS because I think empathy and healing to that level just doesn't exist in most books or other entertainment. Thank you, Pia!

<333

Thank you so much anon.

Honestly, I do understand why even folks who like some of my other stuff can't read Falling Falling Stars. A fair few people drawn to my trauma recovery stories have themselves been sexually assaulted, or harrassed, or abused, and Efnisien has been - to some of them - a villain of the worst order for almost 9 years across many different stories. And for some of those people, nothing about his fictional present will ever undo his fictional past.

At the same time, I am someone who has experienced sexual assault, harrassment, and abuse. I've been through it all multiple times, with multiple people, since I was a child. It's one of the reasons I'm drawn to repeatedly writing different kinds of trauma recovery narratives in the first place, actually, because I've been living my own since I was formally diagnosed with PTSD in 1997. So for some of us, we're drawn to these kinds of narratives instead of being repelled by them. But it's a fine line between 'all of this is acceptable but this one story rubs me the wrong way.'

I don't know if I'd want to read a story like Falling Falling Stars if it was written by another author who I didn't trust, or who wrote in a way I didn't click with. And not everyone (not the vast majority of people) clicks with my writing. It doesn't speak to them. It leaves them cold. They don't like my characterisation. They don't like my narrative voice. They have no reason to trust that they'd get anything out of a story like Falling Falling Stars, because they don't feel much at all from the rest of my writing even on a good day. Or have only one story that they like and the rest they're like 'meh' about. That's also you know, absolutely normal in the world of consuming creative works.

I'm very, very lucky to have found people who do click with my writing, like yourself, anon! That makes me so happy. :)

All of that being said, I think Falling Falling Stars is one of the best things I've ever written in regards to themes relating to humanity, self-forgiveness, self-compassion, second chances and recovery from abuse and brainwashing. I agree that stories like this aren't out there in very visible ways in the world, or if they are, they're heavily diluted (like, say, the redemption of Augus-who-is-a-manipulative-blackmailing-rapist in SOTS - much easier to swallow overall - and even that's a huge turn off for a lot of readers).

The fact is, a lot of people don't even want to read my other works because they feature sympathetic or redemptive narrative arcs of characters who are rapists, killers, murderers and more. There are people who will still never read Game Theory because Augus is in it.

But I also 100% get why people don't want to read FFS, or don't want to try reading it, or frankly just don't have the energy to stop hating a character they've already hated, or don't want to stop enjoying hating a character, or don't want to hate-read, or don't want to hate him more because he's getting good things and he 'doesn't deserve it' (which created the awkward experience of one person trying to argue with me about that, like...I was going to change the entire trajectory of the story or something based on that one argument when the whole point of the story is that everybody deserves second chances if they're trying) etc. etc.

There's lots of reasons to not like FFS that are valid. And antis could think of a billion more (but fuck antis).

I'm kind of glad it's not required reading anywhere (which isn't to say that I'm not extremely flattered and humbled by you saying that, because I really am). I think I'd get way more hate and harrassment, and I'd like to not receive anymore (I haven't gotten much, thankfully! But let's not make it more!) But I also think it's too...I mean it's a very...I mean Efnisien is basically woobified in this story and a lot of people hate those stories on principle. I like 'em. Frankly I think there's a lot to be said for the trope.

But the fact that you think it should be required reading, and that you've gotten so much out of it? Like, that's... I mean, you, and folks like you, are who I'm writing this story for. (Well, and me, because I'm self-indulgent that way). I'm so glad you're getting something out of it, and I hope you continue to! This will 100% be the longest single volume work I've ever written, and will probably be the longest work I'll ever write. Never thought it'd be this story, never thought it'd be Efnisien.

So glad I have good company with me along the ride. :)

[refusethyname28]

Hey you, I think I’m...

Pairing: Sirius Black x Remus Lupin (Wolfstar)

Summary: Sirius doesn’t know how to tell Remus how he feels. Perhaps a thousand and one letters will do the trick?

A/N: I wrote this fic quite some time ago for a weekend challenge on Harry Potter Amino. It was a challenge for pride month and this is kind of what came of it. This is set during the Marauders’ Era. The ending is set around 1980.

Warnings: None

Word count: 6157 words

The moon and the stars cried. The moon lighted the way while the stars fell down while not knowing what to say. It was hard to keep it all in when all they both desired was to be together, yet neither knew what to say or how to say it. That is why they cried.

Dear Remus Lupin,

Before you go out and interrogate everyone, talk to everyone you know and even the people you don’t know, to find out who wrote you this, please believe me when I say that I truly mean what I wrote in this letter. I think you’re wonderful, and I mean that in the best way. I genuinely think you are an amazing person to just admire. You are kind, caring, loving, gentle- even when you say you’re not. The way you study always gets me, you know? It’s your head pining over all that homework, all those books, and then at some point, you will accidentally knock over your inkpot and you’ll curse at yourself. And then you’ll look up to see if anyone heard you. Honestly, it is so extremely adorable. Or when you arrive at the Great Hall with your friends, it is amazing to see that smile on your face as you breathe in the smell of freshly baked goods. To put it lightly, I think I fancy you…

“I think I fancy you, honestly this sounds stupid,” Sirius muttered to himself as he was reading through the letter he was currently writing. The young Black groaned in frustration and shook his head. His three best friend had gone outside to enjoy the sun, but not Sirius. No, he had to write this, he’d promised James that he was going to confess his love to Remus this year. The problem was that end of the year was quite near, it was now the beginning of June and if Sirius did not confess his love this year he’d owe James a lot of money. The male had locked himself in their dormitory and told himself that he was not allowed to leave until he finished this. Sirius’s eyes skimmed over the letter and not that much later he put it down and took out a new blank piece of parchment. “Shouldn’t ‘love’ be a celebration?” the young male murmured to himself. This did not feel like a celebration, this was a lot harder than he anticipated, and he was scared of rejection. Sirius never really wanted to admit that he was scared of being rejected and ignored by the ones he loved most. He could not lose his best friend over a stupid love letter. This confession was more like signing his own will or placing the final flower on his coffin before saying goodbye, because not only would he confess his love, he would also have to come out as gay. Yes, it was a very well-known fact that Sirius made out with girls in the past, and he did enjoy it, kind of, but did he ever feel like he wanted to spend the rest of his life with one of those girls? You guessed right, not ever. Not once did he think that he might be settling down with one of those girls. He did have that feeling every time he looked at Remus. Remus grounded him, he made sure Sirius was true to himself and that is what Sirius needed. Some to ground him, to steady him when he was falling apart. He needed someone to truly love him for who he was, not for the image or reputation he had. It was like Remus had the power to truly open Sirius’s eyes, to show him the wonders and beauty of this world. 

Sirius stared down at the blank piece of parchment on his bed, and he shook his head. He let himself get lost in new thoughts. He wondered what his family would do when they found out about Sirius’s sexuality. They would presumably find out about it not even a second after Sirius officially came out. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to that. The Blacks knew everything that Sirius was up to in the shortest period of time, they had people everywhere- and with people, Sirius meant his younger brother, Regulus. Sirius sighed and closed his eyes. He thought of all the pros and cons of him telling Remus about his feelings, he was rather quick to realise that there were more cons than pros. “I promised James, and I never break a promise,” he told himself, and he went back to writing, starting a new letter. 

Remus John Lupin,

Look I know, I’m not that great with things like love and big romantic confessions. You tell me every time I get a new girlfriend, and I’m sorry. I really tried to change all of that, but it didn’t happen. Something else did happen though, you see, I fell for you. Well, this did not exactly happen recently, let’s say, I think I’ve been in love with you for quite some time now, years even. You might hate me for it, you might think I am not capable of something like this, and I am sorry you feel that way about me. But I’m not going to keep this inside of me any longer, I need to say it. I am madly in love with you, Remus, and I cannot help it. So, is it really necessary for you to ask around who sent you this letter? Not really, I guess I can better say it. Well, it is me Moony. You’re mate, Sirius. Yes, I fancy you. I fancy you and your billion cups of tea at 3 AM, I fancy you and your knitted jumpers, you who folds your socks every night before you go to bed, you who will get grumpy whenever James and I are being too loud while you’re reading a book. I fancy messy you, sad you, angry you, sick you, tired you, I fancy you, Remus. Everything you are, I fancy it all. James told me that it would be easy to tell you how I felt, but it is not. It is the worst thing ever. You make me nervous. You, of all people! I know you’ll probably laugh at me and think I’m being silly, I mean, who is able to make Sirius Black nervous? Well Moony, congrats you’re the one. You’re the winner. 

It’s hard for me to tell you because I don’t know how you feel, I don’t know what I will do when I see your reaction. I just can’t lose you, Rem, I can’t. But that’s not the only thing. I’m scared of the reactions I will get from others, I am scared of what my family will say. I am scared to go back there this summer and face the consequences if I do decide to send this letter. Honestly, I’m scared of it all. An outcast, the white sheep of the family, the disappointment, not a true Black heir, a disgrace and now the word ‘homosexual’ can be added to that stupid list of things and names they can call me. I’m sorry I shouldn’t put this all on you, it is not your fault. You’re too good, even if you can’t see it yourself. I’m also afraid of loving you because I’m not even sure if I truly understand the extremely complex concept that is love. People always say: ‘when you know, you know’ right? With you, I like to think I know, but is that love? Or is it just a stupid little crush, a stupid little crush that I’ve been having since we decided to become Animagi to help you. I’m afraid I don’t understand the concept of love well enough to really be yours and to fully commit myself to you. I’m not even sure if you want to have me. Look, I understand it if you don’t, that’s okay, I think? I might be heartbroken for a little while, but I am not losing my friend over a crush, so you bet your magic arse that I will be there to annoy you the rest of our lives. No matter what will happen when you read this, no matter what you will do, we’re a team. 

Yours sincerely,

Sirius Black.

Sirius stared at the paper as he let the ink dry. This was the very first letter he actually finished. He’d written a couple before but all ended like the one before this one, without a proper ending. They were all written by someone ‘anonymous’, it was slightly odd that this one, where Sirius used his own name, was the one letter he actually finished. But he was never going to send this. This letter was too raw and too personal, he couldn’t send this to Remus. The poor lad would have a heart attack reading this. This letter was never going to see the light of day ever again. Sirius waited until the ink was fully dried down, he then closed the letter and put it away with the other letter. All the letters, concerning this very matter, were being stacked away in a little box Sirius kept hidden from the rest. Not many knew that there was a loose floorboard next to Peter’s bed. You could take it out and hide things underneath it, that is where Sirius hid the box. The male then endeavoured to write a few more letters, but all ended disastrously. In other words, the letters did not even have a proper ending so, instead of putting them with the other letters, Sirius burned them. After a little while, he decided to give up and join his three friends outside by the lake. 

James cheered loudly when he saw Sirius arrive, Remus looked up and gave Sirius this absolutely dazzling smile. It was like the softest smile in the history of smiles and it was a fact that only Remus Lupin could smile like that. Sirius wanted Remus to never stop smiling like this, he was gorgeous like this. As soon as Sirius’s eyes rested on Remus his mind was calm. The sun shone upon Remus beautifully and the hot beams highlighted Remus’s face in the most beautiful ways. “Hey Pads, finally done?” Remus’s voice brought Sirius back to reality, and he nodded, smiling at his three friends. “Pain in the arse, Transfiguration, but please don’t tell Minnie I said that. Otherwise, she might never smile at me again,” Sirius spoke in a very dramatic voice. He let himself fall down next to James and Remus. Peter handed Sirius a bag of peanuts and the young Black took some. “What have you three been up to?” Sirius casually asked. He genuinely tried so hard not to get too distracted by Remus, which was awfully hard as Remus was just sitting there, not having a clue of what he was doing to Sirius by being extremely handsome. Sirius thought it was not fair for someone to look that gorgeous at the age of sixteen. Compared to Remus Sirius himself felt like a mess. A beautiful mess according to a lot of girls, but a mess nonetheless. “Nothing much, Pads. Don’t worry, you did not miss out on anything,” Remus assured his friend and Sirius nodded. The four boys sat there in silence, only the sounds of the birds and the lake could be heard, and Peter’s chewing as well. Remus laid back in the grass, and he closed his eyes, letting the sun all upon his face as he lay in between the flowers. Sirius watched his friend lay back, and he was, again, in awe. Remus looked absolutely stunning already, but this truly was a wonderful sight. Sirius felt someone nudging him, but he ignored it, he was too captivated by Remus’s beauty. The young werewolf always spoke of his face as ugly, because of all the scars but Sirius was someone who actually found beauty in scars. Sirius had scars himself, both mental scars and physical ones. Sirius learned to live with them by telling himself that every scar had a story, they were a sign of survival, how harsh that reality might be to others, it was the truth. Every scar had a story, that’s what made them so special. Remus hated it when people pointed out his scars or even looked at them, but when Sirius did that it was okay. Sirius felt somewhat privileged in that way. The young Black heir just wanted to kiss each scar on Remus’s body and tell gorgeous carrier how wonderful he looked, that the scars did not make him ugly, not at all. They made Remus even more interesting, captivating and more bloody gorgeous than he already was. The nudging kept going on and soon Sirius realised that it was James Potter who was poking his sides with his wand. “What?” Sirius spoke in a slightly hushed voice as he eyed the Potter boy. James just stared his best friend in the eyes and arched his eyebrows up. “Nothing, literally nothing,” Sirius whispered, and he sighed deeply. “Mate, you know our deal,” James said back and Sirius nodded, he was still glancing over from his one side, where Remus was, to his other where James was practically breathing in his neck. “Potter, too close alright?” Sirius chuckled and he pushed his friend away a bit. Sirius plucked the grass as he kept thinking of ways to tell the scarred boy that he, Sirius Orion Black III, was deeply in love with him. The letters were certainly no option, he couldn’t even properly finish them, well except for one. Remus had often told Sirius that he wasn’t sure if Sirius was capable of love and that kind of commitment, and yes, it hurt Sirius every time his friend said it, but he knew that Remus did not mean it in a bad way. Sirius wasn’t even sure about it himself, committing to someone like that was a huge step, and considering everything Sirius has been through, he wasn’t completely sure if he was able to love someone like that. So, Remus did have a point. Remus just wondered if Sirius was ever going to settle down, as he basically had a new girlfriend even two or three weeks. Not that it was Sirius’s fault, the girls were all too clingy, they didn’t like it that Sirius spent more time reading Remus a book, because Remus was too tired to read himself, than he actually spent with them. But it also showed how well they actually knew Sirius, because he would, without hesitation, choose friends over lovers unless that lover was also your best friend, which made things rather complicated. Sirius kept his eyes on Remus, and he observed the male in silence while he was being observed by James Potter. It is kind of uncomfortable to have someone watch you this closely, especially because it was James, and he simply couldn’t do things without being extremely obvious. Or at least, he couldn’t do that with Sirius, the two knew each other too well. “Lads, I’m going to have to borrow Pads for a little while, we’ll be back soon,” James then suddenly spoke and Sirius looked at his best friend with a perplexed look on his face. “‘Course, go ahead, we’ll meet you two here again,” Remus said with his calm voice and his eyes still closed. Peter just nodded and finished the last of his peanuts. The two mischievous Gryffindors got up and walked off, leaving their two friends behind. 

Sirius looked at Remus as he was being pulled along by James. It was obvious that James wanted to talk to Sirius in private. The two often had these little moments where they would just take the other out on a little walk, and they would talk about everything and anything. James and Sirius had that kind of bond and it was an amazing thing. James truly was the brother Sirius always wished he had The two were now far away from Remus, Peter and any other students really. The young Potter stopped moving and Sirius did as well. The young Black heir looked up to his taller friend. James looked at Sirius, and he raised his eyebrows at the Black. “What? You have this look on your face,” Sirius said as he was being observed by his best friend. “You need to take some action, Sirius, it is very necessary,” James said and Sirius groaned. “Did you write a letter?” James then asked and Sirius shook his head, but he then remembered he actually did write a letter with an actual ending. “Wait, I did actually, but it’s horrible and it is messy and. I cannot possibly send him that letter,” Sirius explained, and he sat down. James dropped next to him and patted his best friend’s back. James opened his mouth, wanting to say something but Sirius interrupted him. “And no, I am certainly not going to tell you where I hid it.” James closed his mouth again and stared at his feet. He really wanted to help Sirius, and he knew that Sirius wanted all the help he could get, even if the male did not want to admit that. Sirius was one of wanting but not speaking it out, James figured that had something to do with his past. It was odd how Sirius was so confident and overly dramatic while walking through the halls but when it came to subjects like love, hate and fear he turned into this silent and overly timid person. It seemed as if Sirius was afraid to allow himself to love someone for real, that is how he acted anyway. James had been telling his friend to tell Remus all year long, but it didn’t happen. Sirius was still hopelessly daydreaming about Remus Lupin. “Sirius, are you afraid to be loved?” James then suddenly asked the young Black in all seriousness. Sirius looked up at James with big eyes, and he sighed deeply. Obviously James knew everything about Sirius, James knew Sirius even better than Sirius knew himself. It was kind of annoying at times, but he also loved James for it. “Perhaps,” the long-haired whispered. It almost was as if Sirius was afraid his fear of being loved would become reality if he said it out loud, that’s how soft the whisper was. Sirius did not want to feel like he needed love, he didn’t want to be desperate for it, but he was. Even though he wasn’t truly sure if he knew the true meaning of the word love, he still wanted it. “It’s okay to be afraid mate, you’ve been through a lot. I really don’t know how you feel right now but I can imagine confessing this to Remus must be hard. But please remember you should be proud of this love, even if it isn’t mutual. Remus making you feel like this will prove anyone wrong that said you weren’t capable of real love. You are, and being scared to admit the way you feel about him proves that.” James rubbed Sirius’s back to comfort his friend. “Remus said that,” Sirius whispered. James nodded and kept rubbing the Black’s back in circling motions. “I know Pads, but he doesn’t mean it like that. He knows very well how vibrant you are, and he knows that you are truly capable of love.” James would be there for Sirius, he would always be there. It wasn’t common in the Black household for anyone to talk openly about their feelings, the children were being taught to keep it to themselves and not to bother anyone else with it. They needed to be strong, to keep the image up, and they could not, under any circumstances, show weakness in front of others. That’s something that haunted Sirius, he couldn’t express himself properly, it was a problem for him really. People wondered why Sirius acted the way he did, they wondered why he had so many girlfriends and who he went from one to another in just a span of barely a month. Sirius wanted to be loved, he wanted to feel loved but he did not know how to ask for it. That was his problem. He never knew true love, never knew what it was like to have a loving family who listened and cared for you, how was anyone supposed to love him if his own family despised him for who he was. What kind of effect would Sirius’s coming out have on his family? Sirius also had to keep in mind that he would have to spend his summer at 12 Grimmauld Place. “Hey mate, I’m here for you alright? Obviously, I’m not going to hold you to that agreement we made. That would be cruel. If you’re not ready to tell him you’re not ready and that’s okay. You need to take your own time with this, just know that I fully support you. I am proud of you no matter what.” Sirius smiled softly at James as the messy-haired spoke these kind words to his friend. The two talked about some other things, such as Sirius’s home life, James’s crush on Lily, Sirius’s crush on Remus and some new ideas for pranks were being discussed as well. After a while, the two Gryffindors decided to go back to their friends. 

Dear Remus Lupin,

This is my first letter to you. For your information I won’t be stating my name in this letter, that would be way too awkward. I’m not sure if I were able to face you again if you knew my name. So, no, you will not find out who I am. I just wanted to let you know that I admire you. Admire, that’s putting it lightly, I actually think you are amazing. You are wonderful at everything you do, you’re so kind and gentle even though you say you’re not. You won’t be able to convince me of that. I like every little thing you do, for example, you sitting by the fire late at night while reading a book, or you running around after your friends to make sure they don’t get into too much trouble or even you studying in the library with Lily Evans. I like it all, love it all. To be quite honest with you, I think I’m…

His heart skipped a beat as he read the first letter over and over again. The handwriting was unlike something he’d ever seen before. It was swirly and just absolutely gorgeous. Remus couldn’t believe it, he kept staring at the paper, reading the last words over and over. “I think I’m,” the young werewolf whispered to himself, and he took a deep breath. He then remembered there were more letters, Remus then opened the next envelope that was addressed to him. 

Remus,

I’m just going to keep it simple, I think, or I hope. You see I’m not the best at this grand romantic gesture and all. As much as I would like to do something like that for you, I’m not sure if others would appreciate it that much. Romantic, I said? Yes I did. I’m just going to tell you, I like you. I like you a lot and…

Remus turned the letter to see if there was something written on the back of the paper. Nothing, these two first letters were not finished. He picked up a new one, there were about eighteen letters in the box he found, so he kept on reading. It was a good thing that the other three lads were out, because Remus wasn’t too sure what he would do if they found him in here, with all the letters.

Hi Remus,

I fancy you. I’m—

That was a short one, but it was rather straight to the point. There were a few letters left and even though Remus already got the message, he simply could not stop reading all the endearing letters.

Remus Lupin,

Hey you, I’m trying to tell you something here and I would really like it if you’d take your time to read this before going on a quest to find out who wrote you this. It’s rather personal, the thing I wrote in here. You might wonder who this ‘I’ is, well I’m deeply sorry but I will be keeping that too myself. I just figured, or actually my friend did, that it would be best to tell you. I have deeply fallen in l—

Remus read a couple more, they were all unfinished. Some letters were bold, some of them were romantic and some were serious or formal. But they all told Remus the same thing. It was a beautiful thing actually, to see the writer struggle with putting this into words. To see how the writer wanted to tell Remus but wasn’t too sure what to say and how to say it. That was until Remus opened and read the last letter. 

Remus John Lupin,

Look I know, I’m not that great with things like love and big romantic confessions. You tell me every time I get a new girlfriend, and I’m sorry. I really tried to change all of that, but it didn’t happen. Something else did happen though, you see, I fell for you. Well, this did not exactly happen recently, let’s say, I think I’ve been in love with you for quite some time now, years even. You might hate me for it, you might think I am not capable of something like this, and I am sorry you feel that way about me. But I’m not going to keep this inside of me any longer, I need to say it. I am madly in love with you, Remus, and I cannot help it. So, is it really necessary for you to ask around who sent you this letter? Not really, I guess I can better say it. Well, it is me Moony. You’re mate, Sirius. Yes, I fancy you. I fancy you and your billion cups of tea at 3 AM, I fancy you and your knitted jumpers, you who folds your socks every night before you go to bed, you who will get grumpy whenever James and I are being too loud while you’re reading a book. I fancy messy you, sad you, angry you, sick you, tired you, I fancy you, Remus. Everything you are, I fancy it all. James told me that it would be easy to tell you how I felt, but it is not. It is the worst thing ever. You make me nervous. You, of all people! I know you’ll probably laugh at me and think I’m being silly, I mean, who is able to make Sirius Black nervous? Well Moony, congrats you’re the one. You’re the winner. 

It’s hard for me to tell you because I don’t know how you feel, I don’t know what I will do when I see your reaction. I just can’t lose you, Rem, I can’t. But that’s not the only thing. I’m scared of the reactions I will get from others, I am scared of what my family will say. I am scared to go back there this summer and face the consequences if I do decide to send this letter. Honestly, I’m scared of it all. An outcast, the white sheep of the family, the disappointment, not a true Black heir, a disgrace and now the word ‘homosexual’ can be added to that stupid list of things and names they can call me. I’m sorry I shouldn’t put this all on you, it is not your fault. You’re too good, even if you can’t see it yourself. I’m also afraid of loving you because I’m not even sure if I truly understand the extremely complex concept that is love. People always say: ‘when you know, you know’ right? With you, I like to think I know, but is that love? Or is it just a stupid little crush, a stupid little crush that I’ve been having since we decided to become Animagi to help you. I’m afraid I don’t understand the concept of love well enough to really be yours and to fully commit myself to you. I’m not even sure if you want to have me. Look, I understand it if you don’t, that’s okay, I think? I might be heartbroken for a little while, but I am not losing my friend over a crush, so you bet your magic arse that I will be there to annoy you the rest of our lives. No matter what will happen when you read this, no matter what you will do, we’re a team. 

Yours sincerely,

Sirius Black.

Obviously, Remus knew these letters came from Sirius, he literally found the box after trying to look for his chocolate. The lads were known to steal Remus’s chocolates, especially Peter and this box happened to be hidden underneath the loose floorboard close to Peter’s bed. Remus thought he was the only one who knew about that spot, not that he used it for anything, but he figured that whenever he might need a spot he would have one. The letters were stuffed away in a little box with the Black family crest. Remus actually remembered Sirius getting that horrid thing. The young male got it for Christmas a few years back, two perhaps. It had been a snowy and cold night and the four boys decided to stay at Hogwarts, which took Sirius a lot of trying to convince his parents by owl to let him stay as well. The boy had been thirteen or fourteen at the time. This box arrived and when Sirius opened it there was nothing inside it except for a little card with one word written on it, ‘disgrace’. Seeing Sirius’s reaction to that little note had been horrible to watch. The poor boy immediately got tears in his eyes, and he tried to dry them and not to let it show, but he couldn’t hold it in, so he went upstairs, crying as he did so. Obviously James followed him to their dorm. The common room hadn’t been too crowded at that moment, so not many had seen what happened. After a little while, Remus took it upon himself to check on the two boys, so he made his way upstairs to their dorm. When he opened the door Remus saw a crying Sirius with red and puffy eyes in James’s arms who was holding him tight and telling him how amazing he was and how horrible his family treated him. It was at that very moment that Remus realised that he wanted to be that person for Sirius. He wanted to be the one Sirius would look for to comfort him. Remus wanted to be the one holding Sirius and telling him how beautiful he was inside and out. That was the moment when Remus realised he had fallen in love with Sirius Black. 

Remus read the last letter again, he then grabbed one of the other letters and compared the handwriting. The letter with Sirius’s name actually looked like it had been written by Sirius himself, but all the other letters were in a different handwriting. There were a couple of similarities, for example, the way Sirius always connected the letter ‘o’ with the letter that followed. Remus wondered if Sirius truly came up with a whole new handwriting for just these letters. Obviously, Remus loved the last letter the most. It was personal and really well, Sirius. He read it again and pressed the letter against his chest. 

It wasn’t that much later when Remus heard three familiar voices coming from the common room. James, Sirius and Peter were rather loud. Remus held Sirius’s letter in hand, and he made his way downstairs. He really had no idea what he was going to say, but he just had to see Sirius right now. There were so many thoughts and questions rushing through his head right now. For example, Remus wondered why Sirius kept it all a secret, and for how long this had been going on. He arrived in the common room and immediately looked at Sirius who gave him a soft smile until the Black realised what Remus was holding in his hand. Sirius went pale and his eyes big, he turned his gaze away and avoided Remus’s eyes at all costs. Remus made his way over to Sirius and towered over the smaller male. James and Peter had stepped aside to see how this was going to end. A few other Gryffindor students, who were sitting in the common room as well, were watching everything happen. “Remus-” Sirius mumbled almost inaudibly, he still wasn’t meeting Remus’s eyes. The Black was too scared to see Remus’s reaction, what if there was hate in his eyes or disgust? He couldn’t have that, he could not lose Remus, but he was afraid that he in fact just had. There was a silence, no one said a word, not even the students who were just sitting there, no one. Sirius was about to say something else when he felt Remus’s soft hands cup his cheeks and press their lips together. It caught Sirius off guard, and he would have fallen if it hadn’t been for Remus catching him. Remus’s lips were soft against Sirius’s plump ones. It was truly a magical kiss. Sirius was a bit light-headed at the moment, and he wasn’t truly sure if that was because of the kiss they shared or because of the lack of oxygen as the kiss was pretty intense. 

Several gasps could be heard around the common room when Remus initiated the kiss by pressing their lips together. Everyone had fallen silent, and they were watching the two males kiss, which was kind of awkward. It was pretty obvious that there was chemistry between the two, there always had been chemistry. Then someone started to wolf whistle at the two and people started clapping and cheering. There were some cheeky comments as well, but none of it mattered to the two kissing boys. They were in their own little world right now. All they knew at that moment was each other. They parted and stared each other in the eyes. “You’re in love with me?” Remus whispered against Sirius’s lip. “I am, very much,” Sirius replied and they kissed again. This kiss was a lot lighter than the last one, it was short but still romantic. “I am in love with you, Moony. I am so in love with you.” 

1980

Dear Sirius Black,

Remember how and when we got together? You better do because I will never forgive you if you don’t. I thought it fitting to write you a letter for our three years anniversary. It was exactly this date that you wrote your last letter, a week before we got together. I know it might be a bit too soon, but I have something to ask you. Please don’t freak out, just consider it, think it through. That day, exactly a week from now (which is when I will give you this letter), when I read your letters I finally opened my eyes. I finally saw us together, and so did you. Our horizons met, love. Ever since that moment, you brought me nothing except love and light, all of that light will lead me into the darkest of nights, I am now able to fight those nights because I know that you will be by my side. I am happy and proud to be yours, Sirius, I really am. I know, this relationship wasn’t easy for us, you had trouble with your family because of this and you were afraid. To be honest with you, I was scared that one day you would see me for whom I think I am, and I’m still scared of that, but I also know that you love me. I know the scars we have, they will bleed, they will heal and open up again because that’s how life works. But I believe, Sirius, both of our hearts believe that we can get through all of those tough times because we can. I am sure of it. All of the stars will guide us home Sirius, you are my star, you’re my home. 

I have something to ask you, Sirius, and please don’t freak out.

Yours for eternity,

Remus Lupin.

When Sirius looked up from the paper Remus was sat on one knee, holding a little box in one hand. “Sirius Orion Black III, will you marry me?” 

It was this night, exactly three years ago that the moon and the stars finally aligned. No longer did they cry, they were finally together. After so many exchanged words and letters, tonight was the night that they truly became each other’s significant others. The moon and the stars, proud to be together after all they’ve been through. 

[julemmaes]

Cry

Lorcan Salvaterre and Elide Lochan modern au

A/N: Alrighty alrighty I’M SORRY. I’m not posting anything lately cause I’ve been busy (very fucking much) and I just want to let you all know that I’ll write every single day of MOF even when October is finished (even if that’s not the point of those challenged but still) 

I was on tiktok the other day and I saw this video of a couple in a long distance relationship where she surprised him and he CRIED. A LOT. It’s become one of my favourite things in the world to be honest. He really seemed exhausted coming in his room and he literally SNIFFED the air, cause he could SMELL her and I D I E D.

Anyway, this is basically the plot. Enjoy!

Word count: 1,948

Lorcan would rather shoot himself in the head than listen to Rowan talk about contemporary history for another hour.

He promised him that he would help him prepare one of the billions of exams he seemed to have every month because his girlfriend, Aelin, had abandoned him at the last minute, leaving him alone. Knowing the type, Lorcan would have bet the house that she had told him a lie not to have another long and boring talk about the Cold War.

As much as he loved his best friend, just the idea of what Rowan was studying made his eyelids close faster than any sleeping pill he had ever taken. And Lorcan had taken a lot of medication to help him sleep in his life.

Things had not gone very well lately. With Elide on the other side of the world and their schedules that fit perfectly so that they never got to see each other on skype, he hadn't seen his girlfriend for almost five days. Lorcan had never been an excessively soft guy, who felt the need to talk twenty-four hours a day just to tell others that his relationship was perfect, but the distance was playing tricks on him and the fact that he couldn't sleep well only added stress and nervousness.

There was also the small detail that his father - or rather, his sperm donor - had died a few weeks before and his mother, who had always been the only parental figure in his life, really wanted to give him the letter that the man had written to him only a few days before his death.

Lorcan had tried to read it, several times, even on a call with Elide, but every time he read the first lines, where the man expressed his sincerest apologies for never having been part of his life, attributing part of those faults to his mother too, he could never bring himself to finish it.

"...can you at least pretend to be listening?" Rowan asked exasperatedly, running his hand over his face.

Lorcan closed his eyes sighing, opening them a few moments later. Rowan was staring at him slightly pissed off. He could perfectly understand that talking to someone who didn't even seem to be in the same room as you could be irritating.

"Sorry Ro, I know I told you I'd stay until seven, but I can't do it." he got up, without looking Rowan in the face, but he saw him stiffening, "If I hear you say Gorbachev one more time, I might throw up."

"Are you okay?" he asked him in a lower tone of voice. Two girls sitting at the table next to them turned around, immediately bringing their attention back to their books when Lorcan gave them a hard look.

He tightened his jaw, putting his stuff in his backpack, "Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry about it."

"I wouldn't have started to worry if you'd just told me you were fine," Rowan pointed out, leaning against the table with his elbows and pushing towards him. Lorcan put on his jacket, puffing.

"Well, I'm actually fine," he said, finally looking him in the eye. He felt his breath hitch when he saw that Rowan seemed genuinely concerned about what was surely disturbing his friend and had to turn around so he wouldn't let him see how bad he really was.

"I know you don't do these..." he paused, frowning, "things. But if you need to talk to someone -"

Lorcan interrupted him by putting one hand forward, "Rowan, listen," he laughed dryly, "You're right, I don't do these things and you're starting to sound like Fenrys," his friend made a disgusted grimace, "Exactly, so cut the bullshit and don't ever try to be all mama hen on me again, okay?"

Rowan nodded bitterly, "It's just that Aelin told me that you and Elide," a hint of pain shot through his chest at the girl's name, "haven't talked for a few days and I just wanted to know if things were going well?" he asked hesitantly.

Lorcan pinched the bridge of his nose, "What exactly don't you understand about the sentence 'I'm fine'?"

"I'm just checking on a friend who won't stop bullshitting me," Rowan pointed out abruptly.

"I don't need you to check up on me."

Rowan's face softened so much that Lorcan knew that anything he would say in a few seconds would make him lose every ounce of patience.

"Is this about your father's letter?" he looked him in the face, reducing his lips to a thin line, then Lorcan turned around, without even saying goodbye, and walked out of the library.

It was not because of the letter.

It was the fact that his mother had felt the need to give it to him. It was the fact that the woman who knew him better than anyone else in the world, the woman who had seen him in the most vulnerable moments of his life and who had raised him alone, breaking her back day and night to make sure he had a future, had accepted the words written on that letter to be the truth.

Your mother prevented me from seeing you. Don't be angry at me, but at her. It wasn't me who decided to abandon you. Agnes told me that I could not see you until you were sixteen years old. It is not my fault that you did not have enough during your childhood.

A lot of bullshit if you asked Lorcan.

His father had left the second he found out that his mother had gotten pregnant and took every penny he could find in their house to buy another dose or bottle of alcohol.

Lorcan knew that his mother had read it because when she gave it to him, the envelope had been torn. And he knew that she hadn't done it with the intention of violating his privacy, but rather to protect him. He certainly wouldn't blame the mother if she still cared about her baby when it came to the man who got her pregnant and then ran away.

He did not realize that he had stopped in the middle of the university garden, his hands in his pockets and his gaze fixed on the ground until a drop hit his forehead. He looked up and the sky split in two.

All the students who were lying on the lawn stood up screaming, putting away their notes and books as quickly as possible. Some laughed as they ran for shelter from that sudden thunderstorm, but Lorcan resumed walking normally, reaching his dorm canopy in a few minutes.

Walking up the stairs as slowly as he had never done before, he found himself thinking about his mother yet again.

Perhaps he should have called her.

They had spent hours on the phone after she had given him the letter. Lorcan yelling at her because the man's words had certainly struck Agnes in the heart - so much so that she handed the letter to her son, without warning him that it was all crap - and she apologized to him for something she had thought right almost twenty years earlier.

Lorcan had reassured her that he had never missed a father figure. He had never had the need to go fishing with his "old man" or "play catch".

He ran his hand over his face for the millionth time, sighing and trying to keep his emotions at bay until he reached his room where he would decide what to do. Whether to take a sleeping pill and try to rest or go to the gym and punch something. Or someone, if he found one of the guys willing to get it.

He arrived in front of the door and saw that it was slightly open, the corridor light on. He swelled his chest holding his breath and praying to every god on the face of the earth that Connal or Vaughan were not home, he pushed the door, entering the small apartment.

He heard no noises of any kind and frowned. If one of his roommates had been in the house there would have been at least the sound of pots being thrown into the kitchen or the springs of their beds moving under the weight of both.

Relieved that he had not entered the house in one of their usual hot moments, he made to move and then sensed it.

He smelled the air, stopping in his footsteps.

Lemon and cinnamon.

He would have recognized that scent everywhere.

He turned around, closing the door and expecting to see her hidden back there.

When he couldn't find her, he sprang towards his room, opening that door and throwing his head back laughing when he saw Elide sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Don' t believe it." Lorcan whispered without looking at her.

He turned back into the living room, taking two steps towards the couch before turning around again and putting his hands in his hair.

Elide was smiling at him with her hands clutched between her legs. She got up, going towards him, slowly, "Believe it.”

"You're here," Lorcan told her, with a shocked expression on his face. He couldn't move, the emotion too great to be contained and in a second everything he had taken so long to shove down and not to process reappeared on the surface, hitting him with such force as to take his breath away. Elide smiled at him more widely with bright eyes and threw herself at him.

Lorcan wrapped her in his arms and held her so tightly that she laughed and then stuck his head in the space between her shoulder and neck and breathed deeply.

Without his consent, a sob slipped from his lips.

He felt Elide stiffen, "Lor..."

He knew that if he spoke, he would not be able to recognize his voice as broken it would be.

"You're crying." Elide tried to tear herself away to look him in the face, but Lorcan prevented her, holding her tighter and letting go of more sobs. He was leaning completely against her and when she moved again, to get the backpack off his shoulders, he let her do it, taking her back in his arms immediately afterwards.

One of her hands rubbed his back, "It's alright." she whispered to him, kissing his cheek. "Everything is all right."

"Why are you crying?" her voice was so small, so weak compared to what she normally had. He let go of a trembling breath, taking a step back, and rubbing the palms of his hands over his eyes to wipe away the tears.

Elide was holding her hands on his arms and stroking him to calm him down. He bent forward, extending one hand towards her neck and passed a thumb over her jaw. She half-closed her eyes, looking at his face. Lorcan looked back, with watery eyes.

He hugged her again with a surge, kissing her forehead and sighing with relief, "I missed you so fucking much."

Elide replied in a muffled voice, "So did I."

They lingered a few more minutes, Elide caressing every part of his body she could reach with her short arms, without worrying that he was completely soaked, and Lorcan relaxing under that familiar touch so strong that he could drive out every demon that had dug his way under his skin during those months without her. And even if things hadn't worked out just because Elide had come back for what would surely have been two days, at least he could talk to someone who knew would understand.

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[inchandescence]

To Anon

Question:  Yeolmaes hate baekhyun mostly because his stans are the ones sending most hate to chanyeol and baekhyun never said anything about it, instead he kinda validated their feelings by not showing up to the box premiere, avoiding mentioning him at all costs and straight up saying he doesnt like musical movies Understand that yeolmaes have to deal with hundreds of hate messages written in Korean everyday and they are at a breaking point considering most of them come from bbh’s own fans How is it possible to like chanyeol and baekhyun at the same time in a situation like this? Do you even take chanyeol feelings into consideration? No? Not even once? He has to deal with thousands of nasty comments coming from bbh fanbase while bbh comes on Twitter reminding them how cute they are and how much he loves them If you cbkists choose to ignore this and baekhyun is actually in a relationship with Pcy it just means that you all couldn’t give less of a shit about chanyeol as a person with feelings and are just a bunch of selfish pricks

Answer: Anon...sighs you can't see something from one point of view only really, but it's okay i get you, ok so let us talk about this one by one: 1. You said: Yeolmaes hate baekhyun the most because his stans are the ones sending most hate to chanyeol and baekhyun never say anything about it -When you perceive the assumption that baekhyun stans hate chanyeol the most, did u believe it right or did u question it, like why its baekhyun stans, if its true then since when they started hating chanyeol, and why do they hate chanyeol, does their reason make sense or its just stupid like how other bbhls who hate other exo members too (for example some bbhls hate jd bcs both are main vocalists and they think jd is stealing bh's spot as a vocalist) -But at the same time, we cant find the exact number that would proof that bbhls are the ones who hate chanyeol the most, we only can see what twitter shows us, and it happened to me too that i see bbhls throw hate to chanyeol the most -But at the same time too, I've been seeing yeolmaes who throw hate at baekhyun too since years ago without me knowing the reason why they do that, and I keep questioning it everytime why yeolmaes suddenly started hating baekhyun so bad, when did it start -AND at the same time too, I've been seeing other exo member stans throwing hate to either baekhyun or chanyeol -But my twitter algorithm is the same as you anon, it shows that bbhls hate chanyeol the most and yeolmaes hate baekhyun the most, so I do often make the assumption that bbhls and yeolmaes are always on each other's throat -But yet again, I don't know who started hating the first time, is it bbhls, is it yeolmaes, and why they did that -This knowledge is unknown to me so based on this, to me the most right way is to think that both sides are wrong because hating is always the worse way to deal with things, the fact that we know is chanyeol and baekhyun are good friends they are always there for each other, usually when ppl see im saying this they will say its fake and its fan service, but people can choose to not see what they dont wanna see, so the easiest proofs to prove that chanyeol and baekhyun are good friends is one chanyeol is the only member in exo that baekhyun wished happy birthday on his instagram, two both of them support each other for candy and 1 billion views by coming to the mv bts, three baekhyun and chanyeol go to vocal lessons together, four chanyeol had taken a photo with all of baekhyun's bucheon friends before so in that photo baekhyun, chanyeol, and baekhyun's bucheon friends (istg if people see these as fan service then it doesnt make sense right?)

Before we go to the next thing, I have this assumption that chanyeol and baekhyun are two members that have the highest popularity in sk, either they are the top 3 or top 4, and my reason is bcs everytime there are individual album/photobook covers sold offline, their individual covers sold out the fastest, everytime, even with nature republic stuffs, ok so there's this possibility that we keep seeing yeolmaes and bbhls on each other's throat everytime bcs well both of them are two of the most popular exo members in SK (i mean even in china, chanyeol and baekhyun are the most popular members with sehun, there's data for this)

2. You said: Baekhyun never say anything about this, he kinda "validated their feelings by not showing up to the box premiere and voiding mentioning him at all costs and straight up saying he doesnt like musical movies"

-First of all, let's look at a bigger picture, is there any idol in the k-industry like ANY IDOL that ever said to their fans "guys don't say that to my member" IS THERE. ANY.? what I know is: there is none, none at all zero zip nothing, and if there's at least one or two idols, then its just one or two idols right -And thats it anon, thats just about it, idols dont have the absolute freedom of speech, they never do, and its hurting them all of them, all they can say is: "I love EXO, I miss EXO members the most, EXO is my home" and most solo stans who see that will just say "its bs" yet solo stans are also asking for proofs that the members relationship are fine -None of these kpop idols ever say anything about hate speech from their fans that are thrown to their friends/bandmates, and this kind of thing happens in every fandom anon, not just chanyeol and baekhyun, it's just how korean entertainment industry is, idols never have the ultimate freedom to say or do anything

3. Not showing up to the box premiere, avoiding mentioning him, saying he doesnt like musical movies -That not showing up to the box premiere really changed the way you think huh anon, yeah I think that event also changed many yeolmaes' perspectives sighs okay, not showing up to the box premiere is like a very open information we can easily see it from one tweet that didnt mention baekhyun name during that event -BUT for other cases "avoid mentioning him" and "saying he doesnt like musical movies" is not a very open information, by this i mean u have to read alllll of the things baekhyun say, look at the trans for all of his vlives/shows/etc, read the whole trans for baekhyun's last vlive before he goes to the military, so u or other yeolmaes after that situation are either trying to "search for baekhyun's act or words that deny fans opinion about how they hate each other" bcs u still "have hope in baekhyun" or "search for baekhyun's act or words that support my perspective about how he hates chanyeol and never defend cy from bbhls" -"Validate their feelings" how? once again, it's just what bbhls think, did baekhyun do and say all of that because well "his motive is to support bbhls that hate chanyeol" and who are you, who are we to say that, are we our bias? can we go inside their minds and goes aha! this is why they do this and that! well no. because once again thats the entertainment industry, the chances for idols to "explain" all of the bad situations esp when its about how their fans act, is very veryyy low, or like the chance is even minus

-We are just fans who watch them on cam, without knowing what's on their mind or what is everything they are going through behind the camera, we know nothing, all of our opinions are just perspective that our mind created that turned into assumptions, we could never know the truth because kpop industry prevents their artist from showing the truths that may "hurt" people, who actually deserve to be hurt, but those people are the "money makers" for the company, it's bad it's toxic it's awful that just bcs they have to "maintain the money makers" idols can never get that freedom -Same goes with baekhyun, gdi we dont know him, we really really dont know him, his mind, his motives and reasons for his actions, who are we to judge him and call him selfish? -But what we know is baekhyun helping to defend chanyeol when that fake rumor was spreading by tweeting the mosquito thing, what we know is baekhyun and chanyeol doing their choreo for DFTF together that was practiced since early 2021 until before they enlist, what we know is baekhyun saying chanyeol he's fine when fans asked on japanese fansign, what we know is them still doing vocal lessons together, going to vocal lesson tgt too on march after the box premiere (bcs chanyeol's hair was grey in the vlog) before they enlist, what we know is baekhyun loving and singing "tomorrow" tgt with chanyeol, so what we know is they keep spending time with each other as bandmates and friends 

"do you ever take chanyeol's feeling into consideration, you all couldnt give less of a shit about chanyeol as person with feelings and are just a bunch of selfish pricks" 1. Baekhyun tweeting that mosquito tweet to defend chanyeol -Responses>> People went: oh he's just defending himself, he's being selfish once again, he doesnt care about chanyeol 2. Baekhyun answering fans question about chanyeol's condition -Responses>> No one translated this after few days OP has translated Original post Jan 29: https://twitter.com/tomo_exo/status/1355177834185064451?s=20 First ever translation on FEB 13 (AND FROM A CBKIST): https://twitter.com/NTH_2705/status/1360626904756228096?s=20 Also this cbkist isnt always active translating, I know her, she's not on Twitter as much as other trans account and she doesnt understand japanese, so she actually found the post on weibo and translated it from chinese thats why it was translated 2 weeks after, but before her? does ANY account translate this? well no. 3. Baekhyun and Chanyeol doing choreo in DFTF tgt -No BTS, no anything from SM, people who hate seeing them tgt can ignore easily, chanbaek stans can only watch the part over and over 4. Baekhyun and Chanyeol practicing their hitting the woah part in just usual mv -Again no one commented about this, except chanbaek stans bcs this is easily ignored 5. Lesson With Baekhyun -Responses>> yeolmaes went "chanyeol don't do this, chanyeol im not watching this, chanyeol what are you doing, i want chanyeol only, oh god why is chanyeol with him again, chanyeol is feeding chanbaekist, his fans (bbhls) gonna come at us again, fuck this im not watching" and bbhls went "the translation is wrong look theyre trying to sabotage bbh" and yeolmaes replied with "good for him haha, ya serves him right for being selfish" and also "why is it always chanyeol who does this kind of thing and never baekhyun? oh right because hes selfish hes sm golden boy he never gonna do this bcs his channel is own by SM" "look he promoted kyoongtube even in the nng" "look SM posted kyoongtube but not NNG u can see whos the mistreated one him"

All of those 5 things I mentioned, even tho some are small things....they got mostly negative responses from yeolmaes and bbhls who are not cbkist dont they? The things that prove chanyeol and baekhyun are always there for each other and they are bandmates, true friends, nothing change between them And yet, what did bbhls and yeolmaes do? Throw negative shits and comments to those things, esp Lesson With Baekhyun, and until now still hate Baekhyun... when Lesson With Baekhyun, is a vlog recorded by Chanyeol alone, he taped his phone in the car, he added Candy MV BTS with Baekhyun calling him "chanyeol ah" and baekhyun smiling while holding the food, a vlog where he praised baekhyun's vocals, prepared playlist for him, sing tomorrow together with him, laughing during their vocal lesson, and just...doing things tgt

And yet people still call it a fanservice? feeding chanbaekist? baekhyun is still selfish? when chanyeol worked hard preparing that vlog, providing it for us, baekhyun and chanyeol practicing their part tgt for DFTF, baekhyun tweeting the mosquito tweet

When Chanyeol and Baekhyun have done so many things together, after the fake rumor, after the box premiere, proving they are still good friends... so do you even take chanyeol's feelings into consideration? oh wait not just feelings, his efforts, his time, him uploading to NNG about him hanging out with Baekhyun, have you ever take that to consideration? or just ignore all those facts because "whatever i still hate baekhyun" 

So two options: 1. Hating and keep hating and telling others selfish because yall hate the fact that baekhyun never do this and that, that yall wanted him to do, but actually we don't know the reason why, we just don't know anything at all, accept assumptions that "baekhyun validated fans feeling" and thats according to you, your mind, your perspective, oh wait... it's all about you? 2. Know and accept and support and love, chanyeol and baekhyun's friendship, because thats what we know, thats what themselves say to us, thats what themselves been doing, accepting the fact that "chanyeol and baekhyun are good friends" and know we are not in the position to turn the friendship into bad relationship bcs what? bcs it comes from chanyeol and baekhyun themselves, not yeolmaes, not bbhls, not even exols, and so be a fan that know chanyeol and baekhyun have good relationship, keep reporting bbhls who said bad things about cy and vice versa, bcs what? we never want chanyeol to see that after lesson with baekhyun, apparently his "fans" still think baekhyun, his best friend and bandmate, is still a selfish person who doesnt care about chanyeol, so chanyeol is happy that we know and appreciate his relationship with baekhyun, with exo members because we care about chanyeol's feelings, because we trust his actions, his words, and we love everything he does, and also we love everyone around chanyeol that he loves

So choose... and last thing, are social media and on cam interactions, are enough to "measure" a group of people's relationships, so if your best friend never post any picture of you on their instagram and never tell stories about you to other people who well, actually are also strangers, living thousand miles away from you and your best friend, then it's okay for those strangers to say that your best friend hates you? avoiding to be affiliated with you? a selfish person? Have people ever think that it's tiring that just because you're a celebrity, you have to show everything, including minds, feelings, emotions, actions, personal reasons, to your fans? For them to be validated? And for them to turn into facts? Well, at least for me, the things I don't know then I don't know, I don't have the right to judge, and the things I know, especially positive things, that came from my own idols, that's what I'm holding on, that's what I support. *extra note: exo members always call us as EXO-Ls, not bbhls, not yeolmaes, not anyone, but EXO-Ls, so when they say they love us, "loved ones" are those who say themselves are EXO-Ls, who loves EXO as 9 members, because that's the fact

Have a good day anon, stay safe and healthy, God bless you, spread love and not hate