#but i've been wanting to write something where sex is sort of in the background while aftercare and the power dynamics are the focus

[1425fivefive]

✨ kink prompt fic retrospective ✨

over the past eight-ish days, i've been cranking out kink prompt fics. i've finally reached a point where i feel ready to take a break and wanted to post a little retrospective about what i wrote to help me reflect!

total kink prompt fics completed: 26 | word count: 36,569

pairings i wrote for the first time: oscarmark, norstappen, dando, nortrell

favorite fic: norstappen + virginity

i honestly adore this one. i tried to lean hard into the quintessential sex-experienced king/virginal new spouse, while subverting some of the tropes i don't love and still making it hot. i tried to make max give lando some agency despite the constrains of the genre and i genuinely think the fic is hotter because of that. when i wrote the line about lando "taking his own virginity" i think i might've briefly blacked out. i also just threw in every single thing i find hot: piercings, small dicks, virginity kinks, multiple orgasms. like it was just my most self-indulgent delightful fic

(honorable mentions for favorite fic: carcar + piercings, oscarmark + chastity, and nortrell + cockwarming)

hardest fic to write: charlando + chastity/forced orgasm

as a general rule, i don't really like pain. like i'm much more into the dominance/submission aspect of bdsm, rather than the sadism/masochism aspect. i also love when both partners are very enthusiastically into the sex they're having, and this fic has a decent amount of visceral pain and ambiguous consent. i wrote this because i really wanted to write something that made me uncomfortable but it also made me so stressed out that i had to decompress immediately after by taking a shower. i think it works as the type of fic i set out to write, but it's not one that i think i'll return to a lot just because of how visceral it feels

favorite pairing to write: oscarmark

this one shocked me but i loved writing oscar and mark's whole weird thing. i loved mark's pervy old man vibe where he's mean but not cruel with oscar. i loved oscar getting off on the power dynamics of it all. i really like mark's vague thing with seb haunting the backgrounds of these fics, and mark seeing oscar as this blushy young thing reminiscent of seb but also not. i feel like i've become an oscarmark convert in the span of four kink fics

pairings i wish i'd written: galex, gax, alex/franco, lando/franco, max f/oscar, max f/lando/oscar, maxiel

i think in hindsight i was overly cautious about the pairings i said i'd write. i was so scarred from someone asking me for glance once that i stuck to pairings i knew i could do decently well. but then i kept wishing for new pairings! i think if i did this again i'd ask for people to send basically any pairing they want

kink i came around to: omorashi

i included a few kinks on the kink list just because i was curious to see whether i could write them well despite them not being kinks of mine (breeding, omorashi, sounding). but omorashi... i came around... i think what i really like about it is the desperation and shame surrounding it. like i could take or leave the piss aspect itself, but i like the emotions and dynamics it allows me to explore. it's sort of the same reason i like cock cages (another kink that's an avenue to explore desperation and shame)

hardest kink to write: breeding

i really, really thought breeding was synonymous with creampie. it is not! and i have a severe fear of pregnancy! so that was a harrowing discovery once i'd already gotten ten asks for breeding. but i forced myself to push through and wrote landoscar + breeding. i'm actually delighted with how the fic came out and i think it only worked because they're both cis men so any pregnancy was purely fantasy

thing that surprised me: giving everyone pussies

i literally don't know what came over me, but for like five fics in a row i was just giving everyone vaginas. like why did lando, oscar, and max all need vaginas? i think i was just so bored of writing the word cock over and over again and describing blowjobs that i just wanted to do something different. also... why did i write not one but two fics about people being fucked in the ass while begging to be fucked in their pussies? it genuinely doesn't even do all that much for me but i was really milking that concept for a bit there

kinks i wish i'd written: exhibitionism, sloppy seconds, cnc, public sex

generally, i think the kinks i wrote ended up being quite tender and... timid? i was one of the earlier writers doing kink prompts and i honestly just wasn't sure what the boundaries were for rancidness. i was sort of afraid people would be turned off if i went too hard. but now i wish i'd done some harder kinks (i ended up turning forced orgasm into sex slavery just because i was yearning for something more fucked-up). also i just really wanted to write a norstappen + exhibitionism sequel to my norstappen + virginity fic where max fucks lando on a throne... unfortunately it will only exist in my mind

favorite part of the process: i loved getting to write new pairings and kinks in a relatively low-stakes space! it was so amazing getting reblogs and asks saying that i'd maybe awoken a new kink in people. and i loved seeing so many other writers start doing kink prompts because of mine (even though other writers were also doing it before me!!) every time someone sends me an ask about my silly little kink prompts, i am the happiest girl in the world! the community of it all has really moved me

hardest part of the process: i got really burnt out near the end of writing orgasms. like there was just something so copy-paste about writing orgasms and i simply did. not. care. i also started getting bored with very traditional, more tender bdsm stuff (begging, multiple orgasms, handcuffs) and just, like, wanted something weird. which is why landoscar + selfcest and landoscar + sounding were so delightful to me!

concepts that are haunting me

older oscar domming younger oscar

chastity belt consort lando

bunny hybrid oscar pissing himself

evil prince!charles

how much i like writing pervy old man mark

the implication of seb orgasm denialing himself to win championships

oscar's pierced clit

max buying the latex sheet so he and oscar could engage in more piss play

the entire sounding fic

conclusion

i'm so glad i decided to do this. it was so much fun seeing people's reactions to fics and helping start a freaky moment on the dash! i received so many lovely messages from people about how they felt like my writing about sex was really free of shame and just about, like, the joys of experimenting and learning new things about yourself through sex and it honestly made me tear up. i adore all of you and i'm so glad you all have made posting these fics genuinely some of the most fun i've had all year. this fandom really is freak4freak and i'm so glad i took the plunge and started writing this year 🥰

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Not a lot of variety in Hazbin Hotel

Another thing I dislike about Hazbin Hotel is the genuine lack of diversity.

With a setting like Hell you have the amazing opportunity to have characters from so many different time periods interact. With different fashion, different skills, different believes or upbringings it's incredibly easy to make characters that stand apart from eachother and create conflict (atleast it should be).

But with Vivzepops disinterest in making characters that even slightly stray away from the specific way she likes to write them, a lot of them end up blending together in how they act/look. Hazbin Hotel has this pretended diversity, where it seems like the cast should vary because on the surface they are very different, but in the show they blend together. This is because Vivzepop throws around different jobs, sexualities, nationalities, goals and inspirations for her characters, but never puts in the work to make them feel like it.

Sir Pentious, Alastor and Vox are all from different times, with different occupations. Sir Pentious was an inventor in the 1880s, Alastor was a radio host from the 1930s and Vox was a TV show host from 1950 (that's the era they died in). Yet they all wear very similar suits, just colour shifted. They all have shoulder pads, the same lapels, stripes and bowties. Alastor and Vox even wear the same pants and have the same shoes (atleast in shape).

Not to mention that in almost all of the designs there's that obnoxious red colour (especially with the red-black-white combination she just loves to put on her creations).

Even characters like Vox who seem like they have different colours (for him a mostly blue colour sceme) still have red accents and only very few characters are allowed designs without any red. Which is not that great since the background is also mostly red and it just hurts to look at sometimes.

Theres also all of the "typical" Vivzepop desing traits. Mostly sharp shapes and features, very slim bodies, sharp teeth, tophats, suits etc. A lot of her characters already blend together even though it doesnt make sense for them to. Would an inventor from the 1880s really dress the same as a TV show host from the 1950s?

Here I should mention that I don't mean blend together as in being completely indistinguishable from eachother but rather having too many similarities that it doesn't make sense for them to have.

As far as personality goes I do have to say that the characters are different enough in their basic chatacterizations. Vaggie especially was mostly refreshing because she acted as a voice of reason sort of and Charlie with her often naive (but very childish) attitude also stood out. But the devil is usually in the details.

I've heard people complain countless times about how pretty much the only continuous joke the show has is a character cursing, insulting others or making a sex joke. I get that cynical characters are sort of the appeal of HH but there's also just a lack of variety there for me. This is probably just a small nitpick here and something that is already done sometimes in the show, but there are different ways a person can be insulting and mean.

Like, for Husk it makes sense to be so up-front with being rude. He's a bartender and dealing with drunk people often requires being very clear and assertive.

But why does Angel never get to do anything else then directly talking about being sexy and making fun of others in such an obvious way. I think they wanted to give the appeal of him reading someone like a drag queen would but he just makes the same observations again and again and not in really clever ways (from what I remember!).

Alastor and Vox could've also been used better in the sense that atleast from what I know people in the entertainment industry (especially ones who do interviews or that stuff) won't directly tell someone that they don't like them. It's much more common for them to bring it up in small ways, like asking a question tied to an embarrassing topic to force the person into having to talk about that stuff.

Like I said this isn't really all too important though. What makes me more annoyed is the lack of diversity when it comes to the villains and how they're treated.

To me Viv has an issue with trying for every villain to play a more goofy role even though it doesn't always fit. Of course you can have "stupid" or silly and mostly funny villains but that shouldn't be every single one. When there are multiple villains in a show what makes them interesting is often how they differ from the others in their attitude and motivation and in HH we just don't really get that.

Sir pentious is never taken seriously as a threat and is mostly treated as incompetend, (I know he gets out of being the villain rather quick but even before that) Adam is just constantly portrayed as a dumb and irrational until we are supposed to take him seriously in the end. Vox doesn't do anything in the show apart from be kinda antagonistic towards Alastor and outside of that he is mainly also presented as being a fun villain rather than an intimidating one (very prominently in the song he has with Alastor where Alastor just completely bashes him at the end). Velvette also has nothing to do. Lucifer isn't treated as an antagonist (even though he should be in my opinion) and is shown to be just a "goofy and silly little guy" ig.

And apart from Valentino's genuinely terrifing scene he has with Angel Dust in episode four, he too is shown to be whiny, obnoxious and mostly dumb in his other scenes (this isn't helped by Viv pushing the idea that the Vee's are just like fun little saturday morning cartoon villains outside of the show). I guess Alastor is different in that regard kinda.

This plus the fact that outside of the characters who are obviously villains no one is allowed to be even slightly critical of Charlies idea without being presented as totally irrational, makes for no variety when it comes to the opposition in Hazbin Hotel. It's just kinda dissapointing to me that a show with this opportunity to create different characters gets stuck in the same conflicts and ideas over and over again.

[castlebyersafterdark]

i just rediscovered this gem of a post from years ago about lover's lake and byler... in light of recent discussions on here, you might be interested! its in screen shot form as it's been deleted by the original user. in two parts, long but you like long and this was one of the original lover's lake/byler sexuality posts back when we were all in the trenches! would love your thoughts!

part 1

https://www.tumblr.com/pinksmonkey/762360269808762880/the-truth-about-hosegate-and-lovers-lake?source=share

part 2

https://www.tumblr.com/pinksmonkey/762360644233232384/the-truth-about-hosegate-and-lovers-lake-part-2?source=share

PART ONE 🦞 PART TWO 🦞 PART THREE

Whewwww!! That was a long one. Very insightful deep dives back into the roots of Stranger Things theory. I've been so entrenched into celeb gossip and speculation and horny headcanons and fic writing that it's fun and useful to take a revisit to some show analysis. This was certainly a thorough venture.

Thoughts:

I don't know enough about It's Always Sunny for the references but if you do, enjoy!

It's always refreshing to see everything listed out - all the sexual references in the show. Sometimes I feel like, am I fixating too much on this subject? Is something wrong with me? But, no. It's a response to the lack of willingness to talk about this stuff in the greater fandom. It's just concentrated here as a reactionary decision. And it's interesting. This is only one aspect of the show - but it's important? As a part of life. And television. And the medium. Coming of age. 80s nostalgia. Supernatural mysteries, of which several are metaphors and allegories for growing up and identity and trauma and sexuality. Analytical discussion validates this.

A call back to the juxtaposed horror of Barb getting killed while Nancy loses her virginity would be a perfect full circle moment for Will and Mike having an intimate scene together. Their lovemaking or whatever the scene would entail would not be paired with something terrible, because we've reached a climatic point in the coming of age arc of the whole show. Nancy's was a loss of innocence, a step too quick perhaps into swiftly leaving childhood. Sleeping with Steve while her childhood best friend was dying. All the while, Will was in the Upside Down, thought to be dead, yet for a greater purpose, even younger than Nancy/Barb, and ultimately another representation of the loss of childhood. A lot of imagery with Will, too. Things forcibly taken. He and Mike - that's a choice. A positive. Down with love and culmination of breaking out of repression. Not having to leave childhood, but but forge forward on the natural progression because it's happening with your childhood best friend.

I'm not sure what would be going on simultaneously in the scene, but I like the acknowledgement of the cinematic inclusion of nature shots to represent intimacy and sex and orgasm, etc, when these elements aren't blatantly shown in some sort of sex scene. Could be onto something there. I've seen great theories and ideas involving Lover's Lake and gates and keys lately where this could play in (see Greenfiend's recent ideas! Shoutout!)

Liked the line in the first part "It's not possible to sexual something that's already sexual" which - absolutely. Agree or disagree, I personally agree. Like it or not - that's puberty.

I don't think I've ever addressed it, but I'm a big supporter of the one way sign theory. Some fans I think have grown weary of over-analysis and getting too caught up in the tiniest of mundane set details (every single instance of certain colors don't all hold meaning, counting ceiling tiles to prove time travel, the arbitrary and slightly slightly anachronistic inclusion of a very small background book or cassette a year too early, etc.) but the one way sign?? Hugely meaningful. Just wanted to acknowledge that.

"It is this tension between disgust and curiosity that allows shame to find its way into the coming of age of every human who has ever lived." 👏👏👏

I'm including this gift of a scene screenshot here because it's always worth looking at again. This sums it all up!! Come on!!

AND - I always forget this one. Hmmmm.

Love the symbolism mentioned I never fully correlated myself which is neat - the painting as a symbol of maturity as well. Color pencil drawings on notebook paper -> oil paintings on canvas. Their relationship as an evolution. "This fight felt more adult. Like one you can't come back from." Childhood, growing up. They can't really come back to the way things were post-painting gifting, van speech. Everything has changed about their dynamic now. "There is a huge sensuality in creating artwork for someone."

I feel like Mike taking the painting like that is the first step into the shifting of the tides. His hesitant acceptance of sexuality through symbolism. Coinciding with hosegate, of course.

Everything on this slide really. I never noticed the drill in the Jonathan / Argyle conversation. This show loves and adores a suggestive visual metaphor!!! So we can acknowledge all of those and not the hose? The HOSE is the most OBVIOUS one.

Actually, everything on this slide as well. Validates WHY someone who is also not a 15 year old finds this story so universally resonating. Cosigned.

"Lover's Lake exists in the show for a reason." - YES. I feel like Chekhov's scenic body of water has been underutilized. Sure, it was a gate in season 4, a hideout for Eddie, but otherwise has cropped up again and again. We've yet to utilize the Lover's namesake. I lean more towards Will and Mike having their consummate moment here more than anything else. Poignant. Thematic. Cinematic. All of the above. There's plenty of storyline opportunity for Will and Mike having to run, to hide, to seek refuge together somewhere. They're attached at the hip, they'll find and escape together somewhere. Cabin at Lover's Lake is where I'm placing my bets for any intimate scene together. "Moonlight on the water at the end of the world." Beautiful, truly.

Will and Mike have always been inevitable:

Closing thoughts and cosigned agreements that stand on their own:

❤️❤️❤️❤️

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia !! I just saw your retweet about letting authors know when you like their work, and I've been thinking about sending you an ask anyway so hereby I shall do both!!! First of all I want to tell you that I'm currently rereading Game Theory. A friend of mine told me about a fantasy world he created in his head and then let me rant to him about how much I love and adore Fae Tales, which then got me back into rereading it. While rereading, I got the notification that you're editing GT. That's so cool!!! My question for you, if you want to answer, is how does it feel to go back to GT after all this time? Besides the question I just wanted to let you know that I REALLY REALLY REALLY love GT and Fae Tales in general. Thank you so so so much for writing it. Its a huge comfort to me <3 I love you!!

is how does it feel to go back to GT after all this time?

Omg anon it's SO WEIRD

It's like getting into a time capsule.

So first up, I haven't reread Game Theory in its entirety for a few years because I find it kind of painful, a few things are out of character, and I know there's a lot of stuff to change to make it better suited as an original story and introduction to the world, and so when I start rereading it I see all the work I have to do and can't just immerse.

And that's been so annoying on a personal level, because I really believe in writing stuff you love - and for a long time I did!!

Going back to it I've found that:

Baby Pia didn't use the word 'cock' as often as I use it now. Which is kind of cute. I think I was still getting comfortable with writing explicit sex, or...something?

It's still better than I remember it. Like, as a follow on from SAL it's solid. I like the dialogue, and I like the 'feel.' I have no interest in changing that and in many ways I'm trying to remove as little as possible. I'm tightening prose/sentences, and being additive. I do know there's at least one scene I will have to remove (like Gwyn masturbating) because it's OOC and I will try and make that up to people somehow.

I really want more...background in the story. Not infodumps, but like...Gwyn actually fighting a fae driven mad because it was poisoned because of Augus' actions. Or Gwyn talking with his family. Gwyn talking to the trows!!! I'm so excited to add these sorts of scenes, things that are fleshed out and hinted at more in COFT and TIP, that I can make really robust now in GT as well. Things that I think will really strengthen the story, but also make it more captivating, and perhaps also make Gwyn more...understandable as a character. He's an extremely cold character to love if you haven't read SAL first.

I actually kind of get frustrated with how long the chapters are. I remember why I made them so long, and it was because I felt so terribly ashamed of how long the story was! So I 'hid' how long it was by condensing the number of chapters down and putting things that really deserved their own chapters into the same chapter and as a result, wrote shortcuts and really squished things that deserved more time and writing. I'm not angry at past me, I was genuinely frightened that people would hate the story if they saw a really big chapter count. And it's taken me a long time to let go of that. I know some people really like long chapters, and I think when it's appropriate it works so well, especially single sex scenes, but like...oof there are some chapters where it's like 'damn Pia you really were just trying to tell this in less than 45 chapters weren't you.'

While some folks say 'I can see how much you've grown as a writer' there's still some stuff I did better then than now. I think there's something to be said for having a long break there. Although I can also see some of my weaknesses a lot more clearly, because they're things I've like mended since then, or have been actively working on.

It's honestly been pretty fun. It's really important to me to preserve the integrity of the original story, because that's the story that got me here, and it reached people for a reason. Even if I'd write it differently now, I want to keep the basic essence of it the same. Ideally it just feels like reading 'Game Theory with some extra scenes' and all the other stuff blends into the background naturally, and doesn't feel jarring or strange.

It makes me so happy that you love Game Theory! Honestly it's folks like yourself letting me know things like this, and letting me know that you'd love to have it as a book one day, which has kept this as a dream in my head for a decade, and while I may be the world's slowest editor, the fact that this could actually come to fruition in 2024 is wild to me. Apparently it just takes me a really long time to commit to something lmao

[embolden-the-broken]

The urge to write

I've been wanting to write down my thoughts for a bit. I've been on leave from work for depression and burn out. Yes, that's a real thing. The road to recovery is long and I don't know how or if it ends. I don't do much but go to doctor appointments and watch movies and TV. I feel like I'm being lazy but my therapist says I'm actually going through a lot. I guess I'm used to just stuffing it all down. Anyway, what I wanted to write about tonight was a show called The Bold Type. It was this sort of Sex And the City type show for millennials on Freeform from 2017 to 2021. Also I don't remember watching it in 2020 or 2021 so that's weird because I remember watching all of it. i loved it... But I digress. It is nice to sort of go back to a time when I remember being okay. A time before the pandemic when life seemed a little less hopeless and I was less agoraphobic and people seemed less horrible and the world seemed less horrible and and and... all of that. Now, I will say that was also before I found love and I definitely don't miss that part. But I do miss not hating my job so much. I miss having hope for my future. I'm hoping it's reminding my brain that those feelings exist. It is definitely bringing me joy, so that's something right? I want to write down more. Write about all the things that led me to where I am now in the first place. That would probably be a book and that's a lot. What's the real climax? Hopefully it's already passed because I have had SO much character development that I could really use a break, be a background character or NPC for a little bit. I need to find a new job and I wish I could just do something that makes me happy but I don't really even know what that is anymore. I need to find a hobby but everything feels like it needs to make money because capitalism and also that was the way I was raised. I wish I could get over that but I've only been in therapy for 3 weeks so we're just not there yet I guess.

Digression again... The Bold Type. It's fun and very woman-empowering and I like it and I miss it. I wish I could see what these characters were up to now. How they handled the pandemic and their 30s and such. I would definitely watch that. I wish I could watch that. Kat, Sutton, Jane. I miss you ladies.

Until next time.

[veliara]

hihi! i'll ask a few <:

12. How much does your OC's background and origin affect their approach to relationships? Are there specific insecurities or preferences that lead on from their past?

29. What makes a scene or situation "romantic" in your opinion? Is this something you find easy to portray?

38. What is your favourite depiction of romance (or sex if you prefer) that you have produced? Or if you haven't produced one yet, then what is your favourite example from another creator?

Well, hi ^^) thanks for the ask! (I'm going to speak from Ciel's example, since she's my main original character) 12.How much does your OC's background and origin affect their approach to relationships? Are there specific insecurities or preferences that lead on from their past? Ciel's background, her family's influence had a lot of effect on her preferences. She is naive at times, a bit too trusting with those who have treated her with kindness. Growing up in a loving and affectionate family, she misses the feeling of serenity she had at home. Until one day she discovers that same serenity in the oddest company in whole Ishgard. She didn't plan on seeking a relationship at the beginning of her adventures, let's just say they sort of fell on her. She wanted to see the world, to taste freedom. The result of her upbringing has caused her to have a strange flaw. She doesn't know how to live for herself. She doesn't want anything for herself. That's the way she was raised. To live for others. Only to give. It's normal for her. So finding herself in Ishgard, in a world where she, “half-breed boy” is despised at best, in a company that almost the entire city tries to stay away from, she learns to live for herself, to want something/someone and learns to protect it. (Even if that “someone” is a 7ft tall guy in plate armor who clearly doesn't need this protection.)

29.What makes a scene or situation "romantic" in your opinion? Is this something you find easy to portray? For me, it's the details that make a scene romantic: the glances, the soft and gentle touches. Silence or quiet, relaxed conversations, when my characters are at ease, “without the armor and masks” they wear in front of outsiders. The intertwining of fingers. A kiss on the temple, when lips linger a little longer than necessary. Intimacy of being themself in the company of their partner. Allowing themself to be vulnerable and knowing they won't be harmed (in any sense of the word). That's what romance to me in a scene. I'm completely incapable of writing spicy scenes, too afraid to vulgarize the precious things I've been trying to create for so long. But I absolutely love writing soft romance.

38.What is your favourite depiction of romance (or sex if you prefer) that you have produced? Or if you haven't produced one yet, then what is your favourite example from another creator? There are a few scenes, in part 2 that make me smile stupidly. My favorite is when Ciel, at Paul's request( Oh, you one-eyed devil!! >.<), comes to keep an eye on Grinnaux, who is asleep after being wounded by a poisoned blade. He missed the blow because of her, so she blamed herself. In the end, the stroking of his hair, which to her surprise he loves, turned into a gentle cuddling. She doesn't understand what's going on, he's not really conscious and acting on some inner instinct. And then he wakes up… I'm not gonna write this scene here. Maybe one day I'll translate it and make some screens if I feel like it. Who knows?

P.S. I apologize for the long answer. I would like to say a lot more things, but I`ll keep myself in bay. I'm the kind of person who can talk for hours about my character and her adventures.

[yeyinde]

I want you to know how absolutely IN LOVE I am with Lavender Skies

The whole time I was reading it I was genuinely in awe.

I’m so bad with words and explaining but it’s genuinely written so beautifully.

The way you give such life to it is astounding.

It’s so easy to see yourself in it but also so easy to see it as almost an oc? Not in the way where it feels alienating but in the way that there so much personality and love between them that it makes it seem so full of life it that makes any sense?

And the

“That you live, instead, somewhere in the parentheses of both.”

And

“You fit against him, tucked safe between the parentheses of his arms.”

K i l l e d m e

It’s one of my favorite aspects of it it’s so beautiful

I really love also how there no smut lmao

I love that it’s just romantic and comforting and full of love and affection.

Fanfiction is such a powerful medium and of course people can write what they want but it does get a little repetitive to see nothing but sexual content in my opinion. (No shade of course that’s all lovely too and can be very well written) but it’s so refreshing to see something so beautiful and full of love without sex being the main ‘theme’ ig?

Especially for how under-written Gaz it makes me appreciate this so much more.

I really hope that you’re as proud of this as I am cause it’s genuine a work of art.

My new favorite fic out of literally any I’ve read.

Thank you so much!

💚

Ahhh, thank you!!! I'm really glad you liked it 🖤

I've written tonnes of smut - a lot of it is incredibly gratuitous and just there for the sake of being there, but I also think physical intimacy can be a great way to explore deeper, more complex emotions like vulnerability, too. It can definitely be deeper than just instant gratification, but it just wasn't as important as the feelings already festering between them, if that makes sense. Plus, I think first time smut between these two would be pretty heavy on the emotional side since these two have been pining for a decade (and it would be a side of each other not yet explored which has it's own caveat, me thinks), but this was already chocked full of emotion and adding anything else felt a bit overwhelming.

I also had this whole background planned out for them (from college to now) to give more insight into their relationship but I cut it out to focus on them, in the present, instead. I was hoping the ambiguity would let people dream up their own scenarios about what happened, charting this relationship from start to finish with their own personal experiences and desires, but it snuck in, anyway 😅 I like blank slate characters but sometimes you need to give them a little bit of life to get the plot moving lmao

Ahhh, this comment really made my day!! I was pretty worried about this since most of what I write is a lot like an essay where I feel the need to constantly prove my thesis (they're in love and here is the proof in example a, b, and c), so this was a bit new to me and almost completely void of flashbacks (almostttttt), but this sort of quelled a lot of my fears. Thank you so much!!! 🖤

[mild-lunacy]

I think I view romance as a sort of crutch, perhaps, in terms of things I'd like to read. I really like the *idea* of friendship-based stories rather than romantic narratives, and yet I have some weird PTSD-like avoidance of them. This probably is a product of my over-familiarity with fandom and particularly the frustration of the source material. I'm afraid that somehow friendship wouldn't be enough, even though this is unlikely for me. Half the time I actually find the stupider/more immature parts of romance (jealousy, misunderstandings, love triangles, imbalance with the physical attraction, etc) more frustrating than friendship by far. I mean, one main reason I stick to genre romance is that there's little time to spend on those plot lines. I actually prefer extraneous sex scenes to extra scenes about romantic anxiety and misunderstandings. Not to say I don't like well done romantic tension, 'cause I do.

Mostly thinking of this as I found a new sci fi/fantasy author, Rachel Neumeier, and I'm thinking about reading the series starting with Tuyo. It's one of those super-close male friendship fantasy epics that I both adore and avoid like it's kryptonite. It also gets old *always* seeing men and women interact romantically. I actually try to avoid this even in romances-- I like where the female main character is only secondarily 'a woman', as opposed to whatever else she does or wants to do.

I have a lot of the personality preferences of the readers who *never* read romance, except that I constantly do. One of the things I look for that resolves this sort of dynamic is that in a genre/romance *series*, by book 2-3, the couple is usually already together and the focus is on their partnership and meeting new obstacles and their friends and family. Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs-- urban fantasy books in general-- are well established in doing this.

So I've read pure urban fantasy as well as genre romance-adventures but I've been avoiding pure science fiction. In part because it's more often written by male writers who focus on plot to the exclusion of characterization. On top of that, I like a certain kind of character/culture centric story, even if it's focused primarily on plot. Women tend to write that kind of story even with science fiction (eg, some old Ursula K LeGuin or Lois Bujold and Sharon Lee/Miller or Catherine Asaro, and recently I've found Rachel Neumeier and Dorothy Grant).

Anyway, so while I dip my toe periodically in non-romantic fantasy and particularly sci fi by women, I've still been avoiding genre stories (by women) that are about male friendship. There's no good reason for this, rationally, particularly when I only like family stories when they're in the background of an individual's life (though I love that background, and I love Ilona Andrews, Seanan McGuire and Nalini Singh partly for that reason). Without a focus on primarily family dynamics, without friendship what else is there? And this is how I get to settling on romance. I just like books about 1-2 people *primarily*. Even 3 protagonists is really pushing it if they're dominant.

So I'm wondering if I did read Tuyo, would it be a beginning of something? Or would I never get over my fandom trauma. That would be sad.

[brattyprettysub2]

Something I really appreciate about your writing is that you do age play stories that includes mmf stuff with the guys being bi, both where they are both doms or where one is dominant and the other is the little. It seems to be really uncommon compared to bi girl stuff, so it's been nice to see! Do you know of anyone else who does that?

What a lovely message! Thank you!

I don't honestly have much time for the mfm kinds of threesomes where the Dicks Can Never Touch. Everyone has their own taste, their own kinks, their own sexualities and ways of engaging with it, but that is just not for me. If I'm having sex with two boys, I want to see them make out, damn it. And that carries over into my writing.

I mean, honestly, all of my characters are some flavour of queer. I'm a slutty little bisexual who's attracted to so many people across genders, and I like incorporating that into my writing. And that comes out in the fact that yes, some men are tops, some are bottoms! Some are switches! Some people aren't men or women! Some people move between genders on a daily basis! I haven't played with gender fuckery as much as I'd like to, and I haven't written as many non-binary or trans characters as I'd have liked to, but all those different ways of engaging with gender and sex and kink and power are all swimming around in my brain.

(I'm currently plotting a book that feels like it will be M/m and part of me is nervous because I don't know if it will sell as well as my M/f stuff, but it feels like the story I want to write, and this ask gave me some courage to go with it, so thank you so much for that)

I can't think of any authors off the top of my head who do the same thing. My background in smut writing is from fanfiction. That's where I first started reading smut, it's where I first started writing smut, and it's such a queer space. I use Archive Of Our Own for a lot of my smutty needs, so that's my first suggestion for spaces to look! It also has the best tagging/sorting system I've ever seen on an internet archive.

Thank you so much for the lovely message <3

[shivunin]

15 for the get to know your fic writer ask game please?

Ooooh great choice! I have a lot of thoughts about this. Thanks, Anon c:

Obviously, I'm going to be talking about sex here, so if that in any way makes you uncomfortable I recommend giving this one a pass.

(Fic writer questions)

15. How do you write smut scenes? Do you get very visual or detailed? How important is it to be realistic?

Okay, so! Background information in order for me to answer the actual questions coherently:

I think the first thing is deciding the point of the smut scene I'm working on. I notoriously struggle with just writing straight-up PWP, but usually the idea has to do with the positioning of the characters and their relationship with sex/intimacy.

Some of that (often a large part) has to do with each character's relationship with their body, or in other words how much they "live" in their body versus how much they "live" in their head. A character who's distant from their body will have a totally different perspective of sex and touching than someone who doesn't think very hard about that relationship and so on

Secondary to this is the character's relationship with sex. Are they inexperienced but curious? Experienced and uncomfortable? Untrusting, but willing to be vulnerable with their partner/s? Are they coming into this scene with any expectations of the experience or their partner/s? Have the character/s in question been intimate in this way before, and if so how do they expect this round to go?

<- all of that is something I would have in mind before I even begin to start plotting something out. It's not necessarily something I'd write down, but if you have a good feel for the character these are things you'd probably be considering about them...If that makes sense.

Now for the actual questions!

Often, the precipitating "seed" for smut winds up being something like "how might Fenris's alienation from intimacy/physical touch be expressed in a moment centered around intimacy and physical touch?" or like, "how does Cullen express complex feelings about jealousy and loss when he really doesn't have the experience/language to do that?" They usually wind up being questions about how a character relates to someone close to them and the expression of those questions takes the form of exploring sex/intimacy.

And yes, sometimes it's just "someone needs to peg that man and by golly I may well have to write it myself," which is also perfectly valid

I've read a lot of sex/smut/erotica/romance novels etc. so I have very strong opinions about what I enjoy/don't enjoy in this sort of prose. I think the most important thing, for me, is finding a balance between concrete and abstract. "Purple prose" is just not my thing, so overuse of metaphors or very mixed metaphors are something I try to avoid at all cost. I love poetry, but sometimes it just drags me out of the moment.

If my reader doesn't know where their legs and arms are, it's going to pull them out of the emotional heart of the moment (whatever it is).

If my reader only gets, you know, body parts and flesh and fucking, that's all well and good but there's already porn out there for that. Which I have no specific objection to, but like---the point of fic is that it's a representation of particular characters. I want all of my fic to feel like a true representation as much as possible, smut or no smut. I don't think I can do that without some reference to their personality traits/emotional characteristics/etc.

So, again, it's a balance for me. I want it to be easy to visualize what they're actually doing while still holding onto the thread of the emotional/plot part of the scene. For some characters, touch is an easier and clearer way to communicate than words. How are they showing that? If touch is hard, how are they showing that? And so on.

Is it important to be realistic? For me, yes. God. There is so much awful smut out there (I read a list of lube stand-ins a while back and like....please, please, if you ever think of using motor oil or peanut butter for lube, please just stop and go to a sex shop instead) and inaccuracies like that, again, pull me right out of the moment. If I want to feel totally drawn in by the scene and the characters couldn't physically be in the position they're in, I am going to be so focused on trying to figure out how they're doing it that I've already stopped caring about what they're doing.

Idk I just really enjoy writing smut. I feel like it can be such a fun microcosm of a character's personality and beliefs and it's just!!! so fun to delve into. I have a whole bunch of wips that I may never post about it, because I find some questions so compelling but don't necessarily want to get into figuring out if it's a misrepresentation to say that, for example, Fenris is into consensual voyeurism or w/e.

I think the TL;DR here is that with smut, I like everything in moderation: clear physical details balanced with emotional motivations, powerful visuals intermixed with internal considerations, and, of course, I have to be having fun doing it or there's really no point in writing smut at all!

[cbk1000]

❤️|👓

❤️ What is your favorite line that you’ve written in a fic? I've written a lot of lines and can't say that I have a favourite that really stands out to me, but I do think this one is notable: 'An erect penis has something of a fine ear for comedy (so to speak); it is not that sad sea vegetable of which the flaccid penis is close kin, but a sort of merry absurdity which has been put on in afterthought and might as well do as it pleases.'

👓 What helps you focus when you write? I actually am not a very focused writer. lol For as many words as I put out, you'd think that means I'm devotedly hunched over my keyboard banging out (cymbal clash) sex scenes, but you can find me doing the following things while writing: checking my email; checking my tumblr; playing with my hair while staring off into space; walking around the room; checking my email again. (To be fair, this is not me just pissing about and avoiding writing, my brain is actually working in the background while doing things that don't require a lot of concentration. So I'll go back and forth between writing and stuff that doesn't require a lot of my brain cells to kind of let my brain work out exactly what I want to say/where I'm going in a scene.) I do often listen to music, and that does help me to kind of shut out the world, but if I can't find a song that helps to set the specific mood I'm going for, sometimes the music itself can be distracting, so in that case a lot of times I'll just sit with my noise cancelling earbuds in but not actually play anything through them. That way the noise cancelling is blocking out the sound of Mr. Jenn moving around or watching the TV, which is on the other side of our bedroom wall, and I'm cocooned in a nice little nothing with just my thoughts.

[bisexualchrissycunningham]

📓

There are a few different ideas I've been noodling with, but there's a few I wanna keep under wraps for now, cause I'm terrible at announcing detailed plots and then never writing them (😬) Here's one I'm happy to share, though it's a gen fic that would eventually feature background Hellcheer:

The Cunninghams and the Binghams always spent their summers at the same lakeside resort. Maybe somewhere in the Adirondacks, not sure on that yet, just that it's somewhere in the general Northwest region of the States. Chrissy and Eden met and became friends as kids, but it's not until the summer they meet Kali that they all make a promise to stay in touch and become pen pals.

I was thinking they girls would all be around 13 or so. Maybe Eden and Chrissy would be 12, and Kali 13, as I think she's probably a bit older. It would be within the months after Kali escaped the lab on her own, and she's homeless and on the run. Chrissy and Eden find her stealing food from the kitchen one night and make it their mission to take care of her while they can - sneaking meals, bringing her blankets and clean clothes. After some thorough sneaking, they find an abandoned shed on the outskirts of the resort and the 3 of them work together to make it livable for Kali - kind of like her very own Castle Byers.

Over the years, Kali moves around a bit but maintains a PO box where she can receive mail from Eden and Chrissy. Chrissy and Eden's love and friendship helps Kali be a little more trusting, and to let go of some of the anger and self-destructive lessons she learned from Brenner and Henry. When El finds her in '84, she's a different person. She's not hunting lab employees, though she has located a few of them and spent more than one night calling Eden and Chrissy with *69 to cry and beg them to stop her from doing something dangerous with the information.

I think Eden and Chrissy as they move into their teens would talk more about religion and what it means to them. Eden would rebel first, being dismissive and angry about how restrictive her parents are and her awakening pushes Chrissy to start questioning things too. Having two sounding boards completely removed from her daily life is vital in keeping Chrissy from fully succumbing to her mother's control.

The summer vacation when Chrissy and Eden are 16 is when Eden confesses to them she thinks she likes girls and boys, Kali confesses she's not sure she's interested in sex at all (I headcanon her as demisexual and hasn't met anyone who awakened that part of her yet), and Chrissy just wants to dreamily recount the story of the Boy with the Guitar from the middle school talent show. Again. (They've heard the story MANY times).

Basically it's a coming of age story of female friendship where everyone is a little less traumatized than in canon cause I'm giving them love and support they didn't have before. It feels like the sort of universe that could be the setting for a lot of different types of stories.

I think Eden was definitely Chrissy's first kiss at least, and Kali probably experimented with both of them when she was trying to figure out what she liked because they were the only truly safe people in her life until she reconnected with El. There is definitely a lifelong physical intimacy between the 3 of them that goes beyond friendship at different points in their lives, but never becomes something overtly romantic. I think there's room for an interesting exploration of a poly dynamic with Stali, Rockie and Eden (maybe Argyle too, though I'm not married to that ship) once they reach their 20s and realize that's a possibility. Hellcheer would be monogamous and codependent as hell, but super open and supportive of their friends exploring the boundaries of what their relationships can look like.

I don't know if I'll ever even start writing this, but I'm very attached to the Chrissy, Kali & Eden best friendship that exists in my head.

[sirsparklepants]

Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Answered here!

How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Uhhh, depends on what you mean by "nurturing", honestly. Things I think will actually develop into stories: like, one other than my current wips, but that one is really dead dove so I won't detail it here. There's like seven of those bits that I mentioned that are there just for fun and probably never going anywhere, and once in a great while I'll leisurely poke at them. One of the most fun ones is a Mass Effect Wrex/Garrus one sort of inspired by the way that turian society is highly hierarchical and military based, and since Garrus is expected to get along with Wrex (and does because of that mindset), he has to confront the fact that they do have a lot in common and Wred would probably be very respected if he was a turian. The actual fic is like. Drunk frenemies sex. But that's the background driving it.

Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

It was pitch dark as they climbed a nearly invisible path circling the town, cut through the purplish-red rock. Their flashlight beams seemed dim, not up to the task of lighting up the path, the light shying away from the darkness that clung to Ben. The crunch of their shoes over the rocky dirt was oddly soft, the sound falling flat and failing to carry the way it should have against the rock. No other sounds broke the heavy pressure around them. There was just the too-quiet sound of their steps and the too-loud sound of their breath. It made it even more obvious that Ben was breathing shallow and slow and off rhythm, like whatever was piloting him wasn't used to having to breathe. It was hard not to feel really alone, in the dark and cold and unsettling quiet around them. Steve could hear Billy, his breathing a little heavier than usual as he grunted occasionally, but his outline behind the wavering light in his hand was unclear and unfamiliar, like he could have been one of the shadow creatures they'd been chasing. Like he could have been replaced without Steve noticing. Steve wanted to fall back, to look - to touch him, maybe, to make sure. His hand drifted over the place where his gun was holstered under his suit jacket, and then to the place on his hip where his hunting knife was kept. Both of them felt too far away under the layers he was wearing. His hands tightened.

That's from Call Up The Devil, my Stranger Things horror fic (as well as tribute to the X Files and early Supernatural, although that I saw like. Three episodes of tbh.) I'm proud of it because it's very atmospheric and I really think I conveyed something unsettling well. There's also some more formal writing devices in there I don't often purposefully play so much with in fic, but it was really fun to do here and I think it adds a lot.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across? What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

The worst writing advice I've ever had is that it's bad to repeat the same words too many times. You can do a lot with repeating words! You can create patterns and rhythms. I also think this advice is responsible for a lot of unclear actions in sentences or over use of non-name identifiers in writing. Repeat their names! Please! Even in the same sentence if it's necessary to keep from pronoun confusion!

I think the best advice I've ever received is to push it a little farther. Write that more ridiculous dialog. Take your self indulgent premise and run with it. Use more detail. Involve more senses. Try for an idea you're not sure you can execute. You can always take it out!

Second best however goes to the person who was like "yeah if you can't think of exactly the word or phrasing you want put something in brackets and move on, and if you're stuck on anything else, do that until you're not stuck." Actually implementing that drives me crazy. I'm obsessive about the way I write and it HAS to fit together in the correct way. But it does make things go so much better when I suck it up and do that.

Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

I usually write in order, because even for short stuff I usually have have a relatively detailed outline, but sometimes (the baby fic is doing this to me right now) I don't know what order the scenes should go in, or I get stuck on one and have to skip ahead. I admit it irritates the fuck out of me when this happens, because I am very rigid about my writing process and I don't like deviating from the plan or not doing things exactly as I have them laid out.

Jesus christ sorry for the novel. I love talking about myself and I have a lot of thoughts about writing as a process!

Fic writer asks

[guiltypleasurefandomface]

I understand if you disagree but one of the best moments of television for me during my teenage years was when Joey/Rachel didn't work out.

And, I know the background reasons are to make way for Ross/Rachel and more of that romanticised toxic crap. But the in show, character reason is that it doesn't feel right because they're too good friends. And it might have been something just to say to make each other feel better but as someone who believes friendship is just as valid as romantic relationships to fulfil your life, I really resonated with that even before I figured out I was asexual.

And a few times I've gone to write fics where the will they/won't they has ended up "won't" because they're friendship is too good. Not "to risk it". Just "too good already that nothing else is needed". It didn't feel natural, it wasn't whst they really wanted, and their friendship is not ruined by it at all.

But I know that would go down like a lead balloon in some fandoms. I also know some people would take it like a statement against a pairing in some other fandoms so I've never gone on to write it.

But, yeah, as an asexual, two friends who really mean a lot to each other coming to a mutual agreement that it won't work with added romance and sex and following the expected adult romantic relationship life path, so they should remain firmly in the friends category, it really meant a lot to me.

And if I ever do write a fic based on that concept, please think of this post and not that I'm shitting on the pairing to make some sort of point.

[klysanderelias]

But for real though, I hate these sort of semi-spiritual NPC fortune tellers that know the entire plot and are willing to play therapist because of it, both because it's deeply annoying to have someone tell you the plot to the game you're playing but also because like, something about it shreds my belief in what's happening.

Like, if you want to have tarot card readings that are spot on accurate, that's one thing I guess, if only because they're not required for the plot, but if a core progression path takes me to a strip joint where a sex worker is going to start going on and on about my deepest darkest fears or whatever, it's like...

I think part of it is that it implies that the character doesn't exist outside of the confines of the game - like, my deepest darkest fear is that I died and now am dying again? Not the ocean? Not getting brainjacked and turned into an immortal subroutine for god knows what purpose? Not being a worse father than my own father was to me? Not my dick falling off from leprosy? Oh I'm alone and there's no one left? Welp, guess I have to throw out any headcanon or invented backstory because it turns out that my V actually doesn't have a family, or friends, or any connection to any NPC I've met so far. It's weird because the corpo background V actually DOES reference things that happened before the game starts, specifically some sort of issue at the Mexican border, but it never actually goes into detail, and it only comes up to make you feel bad about Jackie.

I'm genuinely of the opinion that this sort of thing just can't work in a AAA game, because if they want to have voice acting then they can't just farm it out to a sweatshop overseas like they do the graphics and animation afford it. It's the worst of both worlds of character agency - V isn't a realized character with their own thoughts and feelings, so you can't just have prewritten dialogue that shows off and explores that character, but also since their lines are voiced and so are the NPC responses, there's only so much dialogue you can actually have per scene. It's not like kotor or some of the older cRPGs where you could have pages of text per conversation because the main cost was writing.

But also like, some of this stuff feels like it was written piecemeal - like, if V's biggest desire to be remembered, well, they successfully pulled off a heist of one of the biggest pieces of tech established in the game so far, and got away with it. Their legacy at this point in the game is genuinely 'killed one of the biggest CEOs in the world' as far as anyone knows. Yeah, maybe they didn't, and maybe they don't want to be known for that, but you can't say 'I just want people to know I was here. That I mattered' when in-universe EVERYONE is talking about how you personally killed THE head of Arasaka. And partially I think that falls through because the game kind of doesn't really want to talk about that? Because it's not interested in telling a story where you have to go into hiding because you're the most wanted criminal on the planet? Because then you couldn't do your little walkaround missions for the police? There has not been a single moment so far where the game goes 'hey remember how you're a wanted criminal?'

But also this sort of semi-spiritual fortune telling stuff also rubs me the wrong way because it's always spot on the money - which means that either you have to accept that in this universe, white people who sell crystals are inherently correct about religion, OR that this is the result of some other higher power stepping in to provide you direction in a game that's pretty damn agnostic/atheistic about religion otherwise. The alternative, of course, is that it's the game developers breaking the fourth wall to explain the plot to you and reassure you that everything's going to be fine, because they think you're either too dense to understand their groundbreaking ideas, or that the game isn't good enough on its own to answer those questions so they needed a little interlude to make sure you didn't quit because no one was holding your hand.

And I'm a little salty about that sort of thing, obviously.

Also? Sex workers aren't your damn therapists! Don't pay for a session with a sex worker and ask them to help you through your emotional crises! You're not paying them enough for that, even if they both were qualified to do that AND agreed to do so for you.

Why the fuck does cyberpunk have sex doll mama murphy

[roseategales]

VORACITY — ONE-SHOT.

fic rating: explicit. | categories: fluff, hurt/comfort, smut. | pairing: solavellan. | content warnings: biting and scratching as kinks, discussions of dubious consent. | word count: 2.3K. | alternate link: ao3.

author’s note: the smut in this fic mostly functions in the background and in dialogue, but, although it’s described in detail, is not the focal point. the fic was written to focus mainly on the discussion of motivation, consent, aftercare, and the dynamic between solas and my lavellan, who are in an established and loving relationship by the point that this fic happens in. thank you to @thebookworm0001 and @jarakrisafis for beta’ing. <3

_____________________________

“I can heal these.”

Cooled with a spell at the ready, Solas’ fingertips hover over her hip, where an imprint of his earlier grip on her is darkening to bruises. It’s not the only wine-red patch. There’s a counterpart on her other side; and an irregular trail of marks in the shape of his mouth, starting from her throat, wandering down to her breasts, and ending below her ribs. In the morning, their contrast on her skin will be deeper, and will appear harsher than they are in daylight’s emphasis. She’ll have to be grateful Josephine ordered so many high-collared tunics for her in spite of her protests. Secretly. Or her Chief Ambassador may fuss even more. But Eludysia doesn’t think those things warrant her worries. Nor should they warrant Solas’. Easily concealed displays of a night enjoyed with her dearly missed lover? Hardly worth the trouble, when their lives are full of worries as things are.

“So can I,” she reminds him. She curls closer to his side. “Leave it. I don’t mind them,” she says. If anything, they serve as a reminder that there are some things of Eludysia she can keep guarded. For her love. For herself. Apart from Herald and Inquisitor.

Solas hesitates for a moment, the line of his mouth severe, eyes searching hers in the shadows cast by the dim firelight. “Ma nuvenin,” he says eventually, when she voices nothing more. The spell is returned to the streams of the Fade, and he arranges the quilt to cover her body and his.

She should know him better by now, however. The way she’s learning to know the lean grace of his form, the sharp angles of his features, the specific timbre of his voice. His acquiescence to her is conflict with himself. She has her dismaying confirmation as he lays back down to face her and brush her hair behind her ear, without a kiss to her forehead or her lips. Without holding her. He tries a smile, but it’s as withdrawn as he is. Like he doesn’t dare to allow himself her closeness, his mind lost to rumination.

There’s something behind his offers to clean her up and heal her love bites.

“You’re upset,” she says, as both a statement and a question.

“Do I appear to be?” Solas asks. It’s tempting to interpret his lilt and raised brow as amused surprise, and not concern. A simple yes or no would’ve made it easier to pursue the subject. She wouldn’t feel like she’s walking on a thin line, caught between potentially overstepping his boundaries again or never knowing the reason for his reservation with her.

Her desire to know wins.

“You do appear to be,” she tells him. “You’re distancing yourself and dodging my question.”

“I do not wish to concern you, vhenan. Moreover, you must be tired after your journey from Ferelden, and I have stolen enough of your time and energy. You should sleep.” He winds his arm around her, palm flat on her spine. His thumb strokes her skin. If the gesture is meant to soothe her, it has the opposite effect.

“I’ll toss and turn the whole night if you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Eludysia is aware of the manipulative undertone to her words. Though she is being truthful and her intentions are genuine, she could have let this go. Didn’t he say he would work on trusting her? She could have admitted that she is tired, and asked if he would discuss things with her in the morning. She could have asked if he’d help her sleep with a spell. Left him to mull things over on his own in the Fade. Perhaps he’d feel better if she did. But then, she doesn’t feel it’s a good idea to leave the conversation here. It is just as likely that he’d continue to avoid the subject and she would be no closer to the explanation for his mood’s sudden shift. She was so happy to be able to see him and be held by him again. She counted down the days, ached to have him all over her at night. Her hand and mere recollections of him between her legs brought poor relief. She thought he ached similarly and was equally thrilled for her return. Now...

Solas removes his arm from her. He rubs his face, as though he was the one who’d spent a week in talks with the Ferelden crown and nobility on a mutual effort to expunge the Venatori. For a moment, she braces herself for him to evade her or leave again. She wouldn’t blame him. But he doesn’t. When he drops his hand, his expression is as composed as a still pool.

“All right,” he says quietly. “I fear I should not have taken you in the manner I did. I was reckless. Unthinking. I could’ve caused you worse harm.” He places two fingers under the mark at her throat, examining her. As if he waits for her to flinch away from him. She remains at his side, her breathing steady. “My actions were regrettable. I apologise.”

“You apologise,” she repeats, incredulous. Reckless. Unthinking. Harm. She turns each word, each meaning over. Tries to frame tonight’s sex in the light of them. She can see how reckless could be applicable. But unthinking? Harm? And if his actions were regrettable, what would he call hers? Who initiated what past the first kiss is a bit difficult to distinguish. Neither of them could get their clothes off quick enough, neither seemed like they could bear another second without the other’s touch. But this much is clear: She was exhilarated by the voracity of Solas’ desire. She encouraged every move he made. Fenhedhis, his back must’ve stung from her nails sinking into his flesh. He had murmured, “abelas,” when she gasped at how hard he bit her throat, and she bid him to do it harder.

He’d paused, looked up at her. His pupils were dilated, eyes dark as the Void. Did they dance in the firelight or did she imagine it? “Are you certain?” He asked.

She couldn’t help but arch into him. “Yes! Please!”

Eludysia’s worry heightens into alarm.

“Solas…” She says slowly, fearing where she next treads. “Was the sex tonight pleasurable for you?”

His brows crease. “That is besides the point.”

“No, it isn’t.” She winces. Her pitch is higher, shakier than she intended it to be.

He falls silent. A shadow passes over his face. “It… was. Yes.”

She has little cause to assume he’s lying. In all the time she has known him, Solas has proven to highly value truth and deplore falsehoods. He has and will avoid and obfuscate if he sees fit. Mostly out of caution. But he would never lie. Still, she wants to be certain. “Every second of it?”

“I would not have gone as far as I did if it were otherwise,” he says.

“Then why are you apologising? If it was pleasurable for both of us, I don’t see a problem.”

“What is pleasurable and what is beneficial is not mutually exclusive, vhenan.” Though he is gentle as he explains, he points the differentiation out as if it’s obvious. “We have not been apart for quite some time, and your trip to Ferelden was the first since we started having sex. It was like starving in the winter after eating of a summer harvest. We were driven by need and desire. That combination can be overpowering for anyone, making them desperate to be satisfied. I wanted nothing more than to have you, to make you cry out and come apart trembling in my hands as I slaked my lust.” He cards his fingers through her hair. Somehow, his touch underlines his description of what transpired, intimate yet distant. She’d wonder at how paradoxical he can be if she wasn’t familiar with his idiosyncrasies.

He continues, “I knew I had you riled. I asked for your consent not purely for your sake, but to permit myself indulgence. Even if you were not hurt or did not feel mistreated in the moment… I would never want a chance of that happening.” His eyes flit past her, like he sees something she can’t. A scene where she’s pushing him away, covered in bruises, feeling used, her trust broken? It vanishes as soon as it appears, and his gaze settles back onto her face. “Certainly not in bed.”

She considers what he has said. Her cheeks burn and her eyes sting. She catches his hand mid-stroke in her hair, and brings it to her lips, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his knuckles. Then she props up her pillow and sits, arranging and clutching the quilt tightly around her body. Solas watches her, questioning. As she cannot conceal the marks at her throat and the tops of her breasts from his view, she hopes her hair and the shadows fall in the appropriate places.

“Vhenan?” He probes.

Eludysia Adhlea Lavellan, you are a fool. Desiring is easy. Asking for explanations is easy. Receiving and examining them, and giving your own in turn—that’s the hard part.

“You’re the first person to care so much for me,” she says. A lump forms in her throat. She swallows, and glances at the sparks rising off the flames. Takes a breath to compose herself. “Growing up Dalish, sex was taught to me as a matter of practicality. We were given lessons on our bodies, taught how to protect ourselves, instructed through common knowledge and preserved texts and folktales, with the expectation of marriage and raising children one day. I’ve told you about my youth, so you know I was… Rather curious and rebellious.”

“As you’re still inclined to be.”

Solas’ wry note earns a nervous laugh from her. “You have a point. Well, I didn’t live in a village. I didn’t have a house with four walls and various rooms, let alone a castle, or stay anywhere long enough to figure out where there were good hiding spots. If I found someone to my liking, we had to be quick and discreet. That often meant we were rough. I’ve been bitten, swatted, I’ve had my hair pulled, and I’ve done the same to others—and there wasn’t time to embrace or curl up together or talk in bed like this.” Not even with Dhea. The thought is tinged with some regret. Not for what could have been. For what was. They were never right as a couple, but a few of the memories they made together might have been happier, had less insecurity and shame. Before Solas, she had no idea that sex could be so tender, so achingly sweet. She didn’t know someone could draw six, seven orgasms a night from her with the softest of touches. Nor what it would be like to be taken care of and then fall asleep in his arms afterwards. Being with him, in Skyhold and on their travels, has been a privilege she never envisioned for herself.

“I’m not telling you any of this to upset you further,” she hastens to add as his eyes widen. “But for you to understand: I like rough sex. I wouldn’t have sought it out or encouraged you if I didn’t. My only worry…” She swallows again. “Is that I’m mistreating you.”

He sits upright in an instant, closing the gap between them. “No, no. Nothing of the sort, vhenan.”

“You’ve done nothing but give into me, disregarding your own discomfort the entire night.”

“Would I not speak plainly if you had wronged me? My discomfort was caused by my guilt towards you. The actions I took were to assuage it.” He shakes his head at her. “You underestimate the extent of my selfishness.”

“Well, it’s not like I haven’t been selfish either.” Isn’t that how they ended up here? Mutual selfishness? She reaches for him with her free hand. He takes it, and she smiles faintly at their fingers interlacing together. “Heal the bruises if you like. I won’t complain.”

He hums, gently pushing her hair off her shoulders and lowering the quilt to her thighs. His fingers brush the edge of the mark at her throat. She tilts her chin up and straightens her posture for him. But he pauses. “First, answer this for me: Is there a reason you refused initially? You were fine with me fetching the cloth and wiping you.”

She shrugs. “Outside of this room, I’m the Herald and Inquisitor. People don’t see me. Not truly. They see whatever gives them faith, hope, or fear. You don’t. When I’m with you, I remember I’m more.” Gods, she sounds like Cole. Her nose scrunches. “I suppose the love bites and bruises just make that notion more tangible, odd as it sounds aloud.”

“On the contrary, it sounds like you’re clinging to your personhood however you can.”

Of course Solas would be the one to understand.

Eludysia cups his cheek and leans against his forehead. Her smile widens as his hand slides around the nape of her neck. “Maybe I don’t need them. Maybe it’s enough that you’re by my side.”

He chuckles, brushing his lips to hers. “I will be glad to remind you of the woman you are as often as you wish,” he murmurs.

Heat pangs in her belly at his words’ suggestiveness. “Good. Because if you’re up for another round…”

He pulls away, expression darkening. She opens her mouth to speak but all that comes out is a squeal as she is suddenly on her back, the mattress bouncing underneath, his body atop hers.

“It’ll be easier to heal everything with a single spell later,” he explains before she can ask. He pins her wrists above her head. She feels his cock hardening at her thigh. “Is this all right?”

She laughs, leaning up to drag her teeth over his lower lip. “Perfect,” she says.

The grin he gives is wolfish.