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fangswbenefits · 10 months ago

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Everything

Summary: You're used to staying still whenever Astarion feeds on you. This time, he wants you to feel everything.

Pairing: Astarion x female!Tav

Warnings: 18+. Vampire bite. Blood drinking. Blood kink. Inappropriate use of tadpoles. Dry humping if you squint. Handjob. Innuendo. PiV. Creampie. Precum.

Word count: 3.2k

AUTHOR'S NOTE: At the time of posting this fic (Feb 11th), I was unaware of a fic by @bhaalism that had been posted on Feb 6th and that some similarities are present, even if totally unbeknownst to me. It was not consciously done, but I can understand how some people might see it differently. I've discussed the matters privately with Kita and, as such, here's the link to their fic so you can check them out and appreciate their work!

I also want to emphasise that no negative behaviour should come of this (in either direction) as we've both discussed matters privately, and no one else has to get involved!

You've done this so many times before that it feels as natural as second nature.

It feels right.

If the multiple scrolls of Lesser Restoration are anything to go by, this is meant to be a prolonged feeding session.

You don't mind.

And by the looks of it, neither does Astarion as he pulls you by the waist to sit more comfortably on his lap.

He has this ritual of sorts with you. It would be so easy to tilt your head to the side, exposing your neck to his bite and let him feed comfortably, but he takes his time.

And you know it's only a matter of time before you start feeling it.

“You can just feed, you know?” you purr, pressing your forehead against his.

As expected, he huffs in feigned annoyance.

“Gods, are you about to lecture me with the ‘don't play with your food’ nonsense, darling?” he bites out dramatically, but you do know he enjoys a good tease.

“Maybe I should,” you say, swirling the soft curls at the nape of his neck around your finger. “You need to feed, after all.”

A devious smile curves his lips and you pull back to slip from his lap.

But he immediately halts you halfway with a firm grip on your waist, fingertips digging into your skin and holding you in place.

Oh?

This is new.

And that's when you first feel it twitch for the first time.

It's no surprise that Astarion gets easily hard with you and for you. In fact, it doesn't take much effort at all. It's as if his body is set to react to yours in unfathomable ways.

But when you press down softly against him, and the motion earns a groan from him and yet another twitch from his cock, you know this is different.

Usually, he feeds on you as you lay flat on your bed, making use of the comfort a mattress can provide as he drinks your blood.

It is easy and quick and enough.

But tonight, it seems that Astarion has other plans and his lustful gaze paired with his hardening cock are proof enough.

He is evidently hungry for more than just your blood.

“As much as I adore you under me,” he begins, gaze dropping to your shirt, “I think I'd rather have you on top of me this time.”

Your hands come to grip his shoulders for balance, and your eyes widen slightly. “Why?”

A gentle tug at the laces of your nightdress nearly breaks your concentration, but you somehow manage to keep your composure as his crimson eyes find yours.

“Why not? Why shouldn't this delicacy be shared?” he asked with another tug and you felt the fabric at your chest begin to loosen. “You should enjoy it, too, darling. And I want you to feel everything.”

He emphasises his words with a final pull that brings your nightdress fully apart, unravelling your breasts to his hungry gaze. They heave in unison with your quickened breathing and it's enough to transfix him.

You can't necessarily feel it, but you are certain his cock just got harder just as blood rushes downwards, swelling your clit.

The shift in temperature causes your nipples to slowly harden and that is what makes him groan.

“Enjoying the view?”

He nods. “You can feel how much I do.”

You feigned ignorance. “I don't think I can.”

The grip on your waist tightens and he pulls you against his cock, the flimsy fabric of your undergarments allowing your clit to drag along his covered length.

Hard and needy.

“You were saying…?”

Smug and cheeky and infuriating.

Three adjectives that fall short to fully grasp how he is with you when it comes to intimacy, but it's a good place to start.

He's good and he knows it and he wants you to validate him every step of the way.

“Connect your tadpole with mine,” he says unexpectedly.

“What? Why?”

“You know why.”

You do and it baffles you that he even suggested it in the first place. Connecting tadpoles intimately is reserved for when privacy is a guarantee. And being inside one of the many rooms at the Elfsong Tavern offers everything but privacy.

“We're at a tavern, Astarion…”

He quirks an eyebrow, bucking his hips upwards ever so slightly. “Yes, I'm aware. Your point being…?”

“We'll be heard.”

“Do you not intend on being loud?”

Your mouth falls agape at the nerve. Silence is never an option with him. He takes pride in how he makes you feel, knowing fully well he's ruined you for anyone else.

“Would you have it any other way?”

His cock twitches in response, but it's the way his half-hooded eyes roam deliciously slow across your face that makes you clench.

“And miss the opportunity to inconvenience our next-door neighbours?” he tuts with a smirk that bares his fangs. “I don't think so.”

In the midst of all the lust-heavy words and slow hip rolls, you manage out a chuckle.

“You're vicious. Shadowheart and Lae'zel will definitely not appreciate the midnight ruckus.”

He bucks his hips so that your face gets close enough for your lips to brush.

“And what exactly are they going to do, hmm?” he says with a smirk. “Kill me?”

Before you can answer, he leans in and captures your bottom lip in between his teeth. The suddenness of it all, makes you flinch back and when a fang grazes the frail skin, it draws blood.

It stings enough for you to curse, and you see his hungry gaze admiring the droplet that pools on your lip.

“They could do much worse to you,” you tease with a giggle, proving your point by denying him the taste of your blood when he leans in again.

He lets out a low rumble of disapproval as he slumps against the headboard. “If by ‘worse’ you mean ‘whispering healing prays and hurling nonsensical curse words’, then I agree. A torment,” he feigned pain dramatically.

There is something oddly satisfying about teasing Astarion to the brink of frustration.

You almost feel inclined to satisfy his bloodlust, but decide against it, wiping the droplet with a swipe of your tongue.

That immediately earns a deep frown from him and an obnoxious click of his tongue. “Honestly, what a waste.”

“Then be nice,” you say, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

Astarion's hips buck and you're sure your undergarments are soaked enough for the wetness to seep through the fabric of his trousers. If he feels it, he doesn't say.

When you pull away, there's a faint stain of blood on his lower lip, which he pulls in between his teeth to suckle on it gently.

The sight is enough to have you roll your hips twice.

Suddenly, he looks uncharacteristically serious. “Connect your tadpole with mine.”

There is urgency in his voice and you can only assume he is past warming up and ready to move on to the next step.

And you're not one to deny the offer of a good time if there is a promise that him feeding on you can be pleasurable to you as well.

You allow your mind to stir the dorment tadpole, urging it to find his.

It is rather simple and you've done it before with him during your sexual endeavours. But this is different. It already feels different. It's as if the worm knows this connection bears other purposes.

Astarion lets out a groan when his body meets yours through his mind.

The tug inside your head is enough to draw a breathy gasp as you are made aware of his intentions.

He wants your hand.

Your… hand?

Your eyebrows furrow together in confusion, but not for long enough as his hand pulls yours from his shoulder.

And what he does next makes you clench so hard, you feel a gush of wetness drip from you.

“I want you to feel it – everything – as I feast on your blood,” he purrs, placing your hand around his throat.

Oh.

The tadpole squirms in anticipation as you feel his cock throbbing in your mind and against your clothed clit.

His skin is cool to the touch but it quickly heats up under your palm and, with his other hand, he undoes the laces of his trousers with unmatched dexterity.

You gasp as his thoughts bleed into you, allowing you to know what he expects next.

This time, he doesn't need to utter aloud his intentions.

You can hear him inside your head and you find yourself utterly unable to look away from his piercing eyes.

Take it out and grip it, darling.

Your hips buck, driven by pure instinct as you comply with his request. A shaky hand reaching down and tugging at the fabric of his own undergarments, and in one swift motion, you free his cock.

As expected, he immediately welcomes your grip with a thrust, and you feel just how hard and wet he already is.

His cock is still cool to the touch, but you know that is about to change soon enough.

With a gentle squeeze, his eyes flutter shut, head tilting back slightly as he adjusts to your touch.

It doesn't take long for a thick bead of precum to roll down his length before reaching your knuckles.

Inside your head, your tadpole shudders and you're sure it's because he wants to feel how swollen your clit is for him.

It pulsates rhythmically and Astarion growls with a smirk.

He adores feeling your clit.

Just as you adore feeling how stiff his cock can get in your hand and in your mind.

“You're already quite hard already,” you say, doing a laughable poor job at keeping your voice steady.

“I can get harder,” he says and you feel his voice rumbling against your palm.

You clench in sheer reflex. Mostly because you know he can and will.

Instinctively, you let out a soft moan from the delicious friction.

And it's enough to have Astarion's ego soar high enough that it pulls the most devilishly alluring smirk from his lips.

After all, he never misses the chance to remind you that it is your blood that makes his cock thicker and warmer and harder.

Astarion finally opens his eyes again and brings his hand to your face, fingers tracing your jawline before he tips your head to the side, exposing your neck to him.

Hold on tight, darling.

He cranes his head and he plants a fleeting kiss below your ear, as he grazes his cool lips along the length of your neck. By now, he knows your pulse points by heart, so when he finds one, his fangs break skin and sink into your inviting flesh.

Out of reflex, you grip his cock tighter and he lets out a muffled groan.

No matter how many times you allow him to feed on you, the initial uncomfortable feeling is always there and it lingers until his lips wrap around the bleeding wounds.

And when he begins to suckle hungrily, downing mouthfuls of your blood, you nearly moan from the way you can feel it under your palm.

Your tadpole allows you to be aware of your blood rushing and coursing through his body at a steady pace and when it finally reaches his lower half, a faint pulse stirs his cock.

Immediately, you clench, frustrated that it's around nothing, but you quickly brush the disappointment aside as you finally understand why he wanted your hands around him.

He swallows your blood at a rhythm that matches the throb in his cock, and inside your head you can feel it beat in unison with the one in your clit.

It's your blood that brings him alive in more ways than one.

Warmth spreads across your palm and fingers and the veins that snake around his length begin to bulge as your blood fills them.

Tighter… tighter… tighter.

He repeats it like a prayer that he hopes you can answer.

He's so lost in you that his senses blur and he becomes one with you.

You try your best to comply, the back of your hand soaked with precum, as he hardens even more.

In between your legs, your clit swells up as if in response and you're so wet you're sure he'd be able to slide his cock inside with little to no effort.

How is it possible? How…

The connection allows him to hear your thoughts and he groans in response, rolling his hips at a clumsy and broken pace.

Astarion's concentration is hanging on by a thread. You can hear him curse in sheer frustration as he tries to hold on to some semblance of control.

But he gets too drunk in your blood and he is unable to keep his focus.

It doesn't help that your own arousal is spilling into his mind and mixing with his own.

A double-edged sword.

He wanted you to feel him as he feeds on you, and now he's stuck having to withstand double the arousal and the pleasure that your blood provides.

The first loud growl comes from him and you feel your grip around his cock loosen as he thickens.

Your walls flutter and he feels it, bringing one hand down to close around yours, ensuring you grip him firmly once again.

You keep clenching like that and I…

His next words aren' heard in your head and you feel your body begin the inevitable battle between overwhelming pleasure and the numbness that always comes whenever he feeds.

A faint growl slips past your lips and it quickly morphs into a strangled cry that echoes around the room.

You want to call out his name and warn him… warn him that your body can't take much more bloodloss and arousal.

But the tug inside your mind lets you know that he knows.

After all, your body is his now.

Just as his is yours.

He fucks your hand slowly with his atop yours, keeping the pace. The lump in his throat bobs rhythmically with each gulp.

Astarion… it's too much…

It takes him a couple of more seconds, two more mouthfuls and at least five more thrusts of his cock for him to finally unlatch from your neck with a guttural growl.

He drags his warm tongue across the puncture wounds, not wasting the rivulets of blood that dribble down.

The wet sound is nearly intoxicating and you nearly jump in his lap as his other hand finds your breast, fingers tugging at your hardened nipple.

Astarion is close and, by extension, so are you.

Your blood rushes throughout his entire body and you now understand how good it feels. How good you feel inside him. He's warm and flushed from feeding on you and his head tilts back against the headboard as loses himself in you.

Somehow, he's able to keep a steady pace as he fucks your hand, the most beautiful moans spilling from his mouth as he does so.

You caress his neck lovingly as he tugs on your nipple.

“Darling…”

It's a plea.

Under different circumstances, you'd have to ask him what he wanted. But you're inside his head and you know why he's begging you.

He doesn't want his cum to go to waste.

He doesn't think the tightness and warmth and wetness your hand and fingers can provide.

I need to be inside you.

The alarm in his voice stuns you momentarily and your eyes widen as a very urgent tug

He's about to come.

You let go of his cock and his hands are suddenly in between your legs.

Your body reacts to this instantly and your walls tighten in anticipation, eager to squeeze something else.

Stop. Clenching.

A loud moan is all you give him in return as your vision blurs from how his cock pulses and throbs and leaks precum.

Another clench.

“Gods above… I can't take it anymore.”

And neither can you.

You hear the sound of fabric being torn filling your ears and his hands claw at your waist to position himself at your entrance.

A languid snap of his hips and he sinks into you, stretching you in a way that has you slumping against his chest, hardened nipples grazing his skin as he bottoms out.

He's so thick from your blood that you're sure you'll be sore from it, but none of that matters now.

All that matters is that you're stuffed to the brim, his balls pressing against you and the best part is that you can feel how he feels.

You're not sure whose climax hits first as you're so entwined with him.

You reckon it's his as you feel his balls tighten and cum coarse through his length, spilling into you with hurried thrusts.

It feels too good to be true.

You can feel just how tight you are around him and you can feel each gush of cum leaving his bodu

He whines. “I… it feels – Gods…”

Astarion is a babbling mess under you and his words soon lose meaning as they become incomprehensible.

The sound of skin slapping against skin mixed with the creamy sounds of you milking his cock is enough to send you into overdrive.

The uncontrollable contractions hit you like a tidal wave and both you and Astarion groan in unison as you both get thrust into each other's climaxes.

Your head is buried in the crook of his neck and you vaguely think in the haze of your peak that you should use a scroll of Lesser Restoration. You're still bleeding from the wounds and the fear that you might faint looms on the horizon.

But pleasure overcomes numbness and you welcome it with no resistance.

Still, as Astarion gets warmer and warmer, you begin to fade to the coldness.

Your tadpole is writhing with his and you feel him push you from him so that he can latch his lips against your bleeding wounds, careful to keep his fangs to himself.

He suckles gently as you descend from your shared climax and it's as if the action could lull him into a trance.

Blindly, you try to feel for a scroll that is somewhere scattered across the bed.

He's still buried deep inside you when the connection is severed, showing no signs of slipping out.

You find what you're looking for and utter the right words to activate the scroll, battling against your laboured breaths.

Vigour blooms inside you almost instantly and you feel warmth spread throughout your body with each pump of your heart.

The wounds close and he has no choice but to unlatch one final time, lips dripping with blood.

“I think I understand now… why you wanted to try this…” you breathe out, collapsing against him again.

The sudden motion causes a few droplets of cum to drip from you.

His hand is splattered across your back, fingers caressing your flushed skin. “Why are you so surprised? You should know by now that I always deliver what I promise.”

You think it's impossible to love him even more, but the way he holds you surely tests your resolve.

“This was really good… really, really good,” you say.

“Keep on praising me like that, and we'll have to go for a second round.”

Two loud bangs on the wall are heard accompanied by a “Tsk'va!” and you chuckle.

“Well, do you think our neighbours enjoyed the show, darling?”

You doubt it, but this isn't about anyone but you and him.

Masterlist

#astarion #astarion bg3 #astarion x tav #astarion x reader #astarion smut #astarion x you #astarion x female tav #astarion x female reader #astarion x f!tav #astarion x f!reader #astarion x oc

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washeduphazbin · 9 months ago

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I know were all on an Adam kick rn but I wanted to get your take on what Alastor would be like with a fem partner?? Maybe someone thats a bit more innocent than him and doesnt ENJOY partaking in murder or cannibalism like he does

Unsure if this was a fic request or for me to answer in general! So if you want a fic just lmk!

But I think Alastor is really tricky because I love him but I don’t think he has a bone in his body that isn’t manipulative at least not one we have seen. So I think at first it’s a very (not toxic necessarily but still manipulative) but a much more guiding, nurturing role type relationship. Similar to Charlie and him AT FIRST cause I get that you would have the same vibes as Charlie with your hope, optimism and innocent. Cause I imagine innocent you falling down to hell being terrified and Alastor taking her under his wing. At first it’s just to get another deal or another soul but then he realizes like.

Oh. Oh I don’t think you’re supposed to be here at all. There’s absolutely been some sort of mixup because this girl is incapable of hurting anybody.

From then on I think he’d be more of a silent protector role. He’d know and respect your unease at his cannibalistic and violent lifestyle so he’d do his best to keep her out of it. No interacting with Vox, no other overlords other than Rosie, any freak outs/power trips he has he would always make sure you’re away from the danger and the sight. He doesn’t like you seeing him like that for some reason. (Rosie would have to explain to him that he might be in love or whatever that means to him)

I also think No one would know they’re together romantically until one day Angel makes an offhand comment to reader and as follows:

Angel: I just don’t understand toots, you’ve been in hell for ‘dis long and there hasn’t been a single dame or lad that’s tried to woo ya? It’s a crime! I mean look at ya!

You: *very flustered* oh thanks Angie. That’s not entirely true though Al and I have been together for…oh goes going over seven years at this point.

To which you slap a hand over your mouth because you and Alastor are very private and you just did the one thing he told you not to do. Al just slowly turns to look at you eye twitching.

Reactions as follows:

Angel: flabbergasted. Jaw has dropped. Eyes BULGING. Asking a million questions about your sex life.

Husk: chokes on his drink while promptly also dropping the bottle and shattering it on the floor

Niffty: she def already knew.

Charlie: LOUD SQUEALING, HUGS, A MILLION QUESTIONS

Vaggie: shock, horror, curiosity…but mostly the first too.

Both you and Alastor would get very overwhelmed and he’d teleport you both away, with a promise of answering questions later but him and his dear heart must be off on important business.

Anyway yah hope that’s what you’re looking for! That’s my take! And if you guys want little blurbs like this lmk I can probably crank these out much easier.

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x y/n #hazbin hotel x you #x reader #just chatting #answering questions #answering asks #imagine #hazbin hotel imagine #alastor x reader

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gallavichthings · 8 months ago

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Gallavich Fanart Masquerade 2024

It's here! Our first ever fanart-only event (thanks @michellemisfit for the idea!).

The rules are pretty similar to the fanfiction masquerade. In a Masquerade, artists will create fanarts anonymously, attempting to create something in a style different from their usual in order to fool the "admirers". These fanarts will all be revealed at the same time on May 12th - our Fanart Masquerade Ball! - and admirers (who may also be other fanartists) will have two weeks to attempt to guess who's behind each mask, that is, who did which fanart.

Details after the read more.

Requirements

None. Any art style will do, as long as it's drawn, I suppose. Traditional or digital, colored or b&W or lineart... Just no edits. And absolutely no AI, of course.

I need fanart ideas!

Maybe this will help.

Sign-ups

Signing-up is required and can be done here. For this event, sign-ups can be done up to the time of posting. Unlike other events, this is one where you will need to sign-up only at the end, after the art is done. You'll be required to add your AO3 username and the title of your fanart (yes, you'll have to give it a title, sorry - it can be pretty simple though).

Is NSFW accepted?

Yes, as long as it is correctly tagged. Please keep in mind that in this case, it's possible some people might not be comfortable in viewing it.

What if I don't have an AO3 account?

Then I'm very sorry, but in this case, you won't be able to participate (as an artist). For his event, having an AO3 account is mandatory so that you can post in the collection. That being said, a lot of people have AO3 invites, so ask right now and someone may be able to send you one. (Or, worst case scenario, we can find writer buddies to post for you.)

Posting

Posting needs to be done on AO3 because the Fanart Masquerade Collection will be unrevealed and anonymous. All posting must be done until the eve of the Masquerade, so May 11th. On May 12th, all the fanarts will be revealed and available for the admirers. The fanarts will remain anonymous until May 26th, when the game ends. The winners will be revealed shortly after, along with the prizes (more on that below). After the artists identities are revealed, they are free to post their fanart wherever they please.

Because unfortunately AO3 doesn't host images, your fanarts will have to be hosted elsewhere and linked to AO3. They should stay as hidden as possible. One possibility is posting privately on Tumblr and then using the image link to post on AO3. If you don't know how to do that or don't have a place to host the fanart, please contact us and we'll help you out.

When posting on AO3, choose to do it under the Gallavich Fanart Masquerade 2024 Collection (as in the picture below). I'll take care of the rest. It's important to do so when posting and not after, or it won't work.

Voting

Voting will be done via a new form, which will be disclosed only after the fanarts are posted. All fanart titles will be displayed and the admirers will chose from a menu who they think the artist is.

Points

There are two ways of winning this game, as an artist and as an admirer.

Artists are awarded 1 point for each person who correctly guesses their fanart and 3 points for each person who wrongly guesses it. That's right, you get more points if you're actually able to deceive everyone!

Admirers are awarded 5 points for each fanart they guess correctly, but they lose 1 point for each wrong guess.

Artists can also be admirers, so they have twice the chance of winning.

Prizes

The winning fanarts will get short fics based on them! And the one by the winning artist will be the prompt for one week in the @galladrabbles.

#Gallavich #Ian x Mickey #Shameless US #Gallavich fanart #GFaM2024 #events #mod post

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cry4mina · 6 months ago

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Supernatural

(Dahyun x gn!reader)

Word count: 1k

Fluff!

TW: Kinda suggestive?

A/N: Hello everyone! I’ve decided I’m going to start putting out shorter stories as well! Just a little something to keep putting out content and keep my brain going while I write the longer one shots/series fics I have planned! :) I hope you enjoy! 🖤

As always, DMs and Feedback are always welcome and appreciated! Have a great day/night!

—

The skies are clear, stars shining brightly down on you through the light breeze. It’s perfect sweater weather, leaves are browning and threatening to fall on the trees around you. Crickets play their symphonies in the distance to the tune of the calmness around you.

Sitting with the driver's seat leaned all the way back and your legs stretched out, you glance over at your crush who’s in a similar position but with her hands underneath the back of her head. Seat belts off, top down on the convertible that’s parked in a secluded area up on a mountain side.

Dahyun is just…everything. Hair so sleek and perfect, eyes always reflecting purity. A smile that could knock the wind out of anyone who got the chance to be graced by it, and a personality that would make even the blandest person fall in love with her.

The butterflies in your stomach never cease when she’s near. Even without many words shared between you two in the last hour, she had such a way of making you feel so comfortable. You could tell her anything without fear.

“Do you think aliens do the same thing?” Dahyun breaks the silence with a strange question.

“What?” giggling at her random inquiry.

“Well, we are laying here” she looks over at you with those eyes…god, her eyes just make you want to protect her from everything.

“And I’m just thinking…do you think that life forms on another planet do this too? Stare into the sky and think about life…or whatever it is they think about?”

A tight lipped smile on your face slowly creeps into a smile as bright as the moon, chuckling softly and turning on your side to face her.

“What parts of life are you thinking about?” curiosity getting a hold of you.

She halfway crosses her arms, not ready to share her thoughts. She’s always been private about certain things and you never pushed her to speak before she wanted to. Noticing the shift, you change the subject.

“You know, I think they might…what type of tv shows do you think they watch?” playfully lobbed back at her.

Dahyun mirrors your position in her own seat now, making eye contact, causing the stir in your stomach to swell rapidly. Even if she never says it, she’s always so grateful for your patience.

“I’d love to watch an alien sitcom some day!” joyfully expressed with more enthusiasm than you expected.

“Or maybe like one of those competition shows…like Survivor or something? Wouldn’t it be so cool to see what the atmosphere looks like?” eye wide with excitement and wonder.

“How many moons do you think they have?” enjoying her responses too much to let it fall back into comfortable silence while also keeping her mind off whatever it was that made her uneasy.

“Well if they have more than one moon, wouldn’t it be hard to see the stars?…the moon and the stars need each other…” she’s toying with her fingers but keeping her soft eyes on you, watching your movements.

“Kind of like…how I need you…” biting her lip in nervousness, unsure of how you’ll reply to what she’s just said.

Truthfully, you’re completely shocked. You knew your chemistry was immaculate, the friendship you had made was one people only write stories about…you had no idea the emotions you felt for her were reciprocated. Especially with a heavy word, like need.

Without hesitation, you reach your hand over and intertwine your fingers. Even in the chilled air, the gesture radiates warmth. Her grip tightens, almost out of pure disbelief. Her eyes match her body language in that same regard.

“That was corny as hell…but” pulling her hand lightly, faces now mere centimeters apart.

Dahyun’s breath hitches, processing how close you are to each other. Your hand slips underneath her hair and lays on the back of her neck, guiding her through the last bit of space right onto your lips.

Sparks fly from the contact, both of you slowly familiarizing yourself with each other's lips. Fingers interlocking, the soft sound of sweet small pecks that slowly turn into long, more passionate kisses.

You rest your forehead on hers and try to catch your breath, it seems that sentiment is shared between the two of you.

“So, do you want to get dinner sometime?” Sitting up, keeping hold of her hand as you sit more comfortably.

“Like…like a date?” Dahyun is completely overwhelmed with happiness, it’s refracting off her cheeks in a way that was contagious.

“Yes…absolutely a date.” confidently stated.

All she can do is smile at you.

“Sooooo…can I have more of those?” smirking as she asked to be close to you again.

“More of…these?” Laying your lips lovingly across her knuckles.

“Yes, but…uhm, maybe a little higher?” flustered by your lips on her skin, in any regard.

Laying your lips further up her arms, just to get a laugh before leaning over and passionately kissing her. She maneuvers you so your back is against the door, practically climbing into your lap.

The windows could’ve steamed up in the intensity. Dahyun reaches for the hem of the shirt you were wearing and pulls it up a little, dragging her finger up your stomach in the process.

“Wait, wait, wait” you say between your lips meeting over and over again.

“Let’s not rush” cupping her cheeks, both almost breathless as she lets go of your shirt.

Dahyun just nods her head at you, unable to speak but absolutely happy about what was transpiring and the proximity of your faces.

“Let’s start with that date…and see where it all goes.”

“You know, there is a cafe down the street that might still be open…if you wanted a late dinner…” suggested coyly, crawling back to the passenger seat and plopping down in it.

“Someone’s impatient��put your seatbelt on” leaning to kiss the tip of her nose.

You adjust your seat back into a comfortable position for driving, start the car and look over, Dahyun is lost in you. Memorizing every part of you.

“Everything okay?” grabbing her hand again and giving a little squeeze.

“Yes. Very much so. I’ve just…never been able to take you in without it being a secret.” winking at you as she readies her GPS to that cafe.

“Ready for our first date?” Dahyun asks, excited was an understatement.

“And ready for every date after.”

#kim dahyun imagines #twice x reader #twice imagines #kpop x reader #kpop imagines #dahyun x fem!reader #kim dahyun scenarios #kim dahyun imagine #dahyun imagines #dahyun x reader #twice dahyun #kim dahyun x reader #kim dahyun #dahyun fluff #Kim Dahyun fluff

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whileyoureinschoolidothisallday · 6 months ago

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◇𓂂☽��🐚Arisa Cliche's Wips for Gaza! 🐚𓂂☾𓂂◇

Hi, hi friends! @ficsforgaza has started a charity event and I'd really like to participate, so I've decided to start a sponsorship page! Right now, I'm only writing for MHA and Obey Me!, but I have enough fics brewing or in progress that you'll have plenty a selection!

How this works ~ The rate is $1 for 100 words. Basically, you would make a donation and send me an ask with the following details:

🍉 The name of the wip you're donating towards

🍉 A screenshot of your donation with your private info censored (I will not be publishing these asks)

🍉 A link to the fundraiser you chose! I will be accepting donations to anything on this list, Crips for eSims for Gaza, and my personal fave!

I will keep the WIP section of this post updated with all donations as soon as possible!

Now...let's get to the WIPS!!!!!

⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧﹥ ┈┈┈┈*⛧⋆⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧﹥ ┈┈┈┈*⛧⋆⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧

MHA✼ ҉　✼

{In Progress}

⚝ Bury my Ashes at Sea (Touya "Dabi" Todoroki x Reader) (Longfic)

You and Dabi have been broken up for some time now, but you're still the only person he wants to see before he takes his final bow. With your grieving face still fresh in his mind, he can't help but wonder how things would be different if you two met when you were kids. In his daydreams, he gifts you a Quirk, and you both go to U.A together. He becomes a hero, and you his adored engineer. When everything inevitably goes to hell...you become a villain with him. A villain he names Hex. Content: Hero!AU, female reader, childhood friends to lovers, mutual pining, established relationship, post break-up, angst, reader is physically disabled and chronically ill and has an established backstory, non-explicit sexual content in later chapters, very very lovesick and typically obsessive Touya, Sad Ending Snippet:

est wc: 55k current wc: 22707 sponsored wc: 0/32293

{New Concepts}

♪bottom of the river. (Touya Todoroki x Siren!Reader) (Oneshot)

The eldest Todoroki boy is found adrift at sea. Covered in burns from head to toe, but somehow still breathing. He was missing for days. The accident should've killed him. No one knows how he survived. The town praises it as a miracle. But when Rei notices that he suddenly keeps sneaking to the ocean in the middle of the night, and hums a disjointed melody when no one else is around, she begins to suspect that it was no miracle that saved her son. Content: Fantasy!AU, horror concept, Touya is being claimed by a Siren but Rei is not willing to give up her son, VERY inspired by some of the things I wrote in Bury My Ashes at Sea so there might be similar imagery, reader's gender is simply not planned to be mentioned, sfw, Rei's POV est wc: 10-13k current wc: 0 sponsored wc: 500/13000

🧛🏽Unnamed (Touya Todoroki x Vampire!Reader)

Touya doesn't know a kind of love where he doesn't hurt. He prides himself in it, really. He's perfect for you. You bite him and he doesn't feel it. He's already covered in bandages from his Quirk, so no one notices a difference. And if he's a little extra dizzy or laid up in bed, who cares? He's always been a little sickly. No one notices. Don't worry about him. You tell him how good he tastes and he doesn't think he's ever felt so alive in his life. He lets you take as much as you want. See, you don't need other, stronger humans. He can take it. This is what love is. He'll never tell you to stop. Not even when he can't feel his fingers anymore. Just don't pick someone else. Content: Fantasy!AU, GN!reader where I would try to keep specific body mentions very limited, Bratty Needy Touya, Quirks still exist but so do monsters because why not, Civilian Touya who never had his accident, this has potential for nsfw I could be persuaded! est wc: 7-10k current wc: 0 sponsored wc: 0/10000

⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧﹥ ┈┈┈┈*⛧⋆⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧﹥ ┈┈┈┈*⛧⋆⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧

Obey Me! ʚ♡ɞ

{In Progress}

💖Love Is A Liar's Game (All of the Brothers + Diavolo and Solomon x Three OCs) (Longfic. Like...very long. Covers at least the first two seasons)

When Diavolo announces the plan for a human exchange program, the Charas, MC, Y/N, and OC (real names redacted), see it as the perfect opportunity to pull off the ultimate scam: seducing the rulers of hell and taking the throne. However...falling in love with their marks might complicate things. Content: Religious cults, drug use, the Charas are Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss incarnate, toxic relationships, polyamory (each of the Charas date three boys), humor, disabled mc (OC), plus-size mc (Y/N), and non-binary mc (MC), some angst here and there, mostly canon compliant but I fix some things, explicit content eventually...the first chapter is already posted on ao3 so please read my author's note to get an idea of what to expect! Snippet:

est wc: over 100k easy current wc: 6816 (the 2nd chapter is almost done!) sponsored wc: 0/120000

🍬Touch-starved (Beelzebub x OC) (oneshot)

This is a companion piece to Love is a Liar's Game. Beel's Gluttony is not restricted to only food. He's avoided even kissing OC to prevent himself from becoming a bottomless pit for her love, which has ruined plenty of his relationships prior. But when her and Belphie finally become intimate, and his brother can't stop talking about her (or keep his hands off her), a strange, sour taste won't leave his mouth. It's jealousy. (If this is donated to completion I will also post the Belphie oneshot I already finished, Breathless!)

Content: Post-Chapter 16, pining, explicit sexual content, oral reference (m), recreational alcohol, submissive beel, use of pact during sex, tiny bit of angst for flavor, typical humor for this fic universe, lots of pet names between these two lol

Snippet:

est wc: 15k current wc: 9909 (it's almost done!!!!!!!!!!!) sponsored wc: 0/15000

⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧﹥ ┈┈┈┈*⛧⋆⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧﹥ ┈┈┈┈*⛧⋆⋆⛧*┈┈┈┈﹤୨♡୧

If y'all have any further questions, please let me know!!!! Thanks in advance for any and all donations!!!!

From the river to the sea!! 🍉🍉🍉

#fics for gaza #sometimes I do this thing with words

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bunnis-monsters · 4 months ago

Note

Do you have any tips when it comes to posting stories? I struggle a lot with getting the confidence to post things I've written even if I feel proud about it and lately if I do post something I get really bad anxiety and delete it after a few hours.

I think trying to find out why it makes you anxious to post is the first step. If you already know that, finding ways to help ease that specific anxiety can also help.

I’m just going to give some general tips, these won’t work for everyone!

1. Maybe try finding a friend that will read through your work first. They can help to reassure you!

2. Post small snippets of your story instead of the entire thing. This can help build up your confidence and give readers a peek into what you’re going to create. And smaller posts are a little less anxiety inducing!

3. Turn off your tumblr from being searchable. It might help make your tumblr seem a little more private, so people will only see your posts on your dash

4. If you’re anxious about it not doing well, study other similar fics and see what tags they use, post consistently, and pray that people actually reblog your work(people can be stingy with reblogs so be aware of that)

5. Keep your standards low. If you’re just starting off, your posts probably won’t have 1k within a few hours. It takes a while of consistent uploading to reach a good following.

6. If you are nervous about criticism, you can turn off comments and ask for people to not add any criticism in the reblogs.

7. The block button is your best friend if people are disrespecting your boundaries

8. If you don’t think your writing isn’t good enough, just know that I think that too. Most writers that you follow/enjoy also think their writing is garbage, but it isn’t! Someone is going to love your stories, you just have to post them!

And last but not least, remember that you are putting FREE writing out into the world. You are doing a service for no money and people that are rude about it are ungrateful assholes.

If you end up posting, feel free to tag me and I’ll give it a boost. Unless it’s something I’m not into, but I won’t be upset either way.

Good luck!

#tips #writing tips #writer problems #ao3 writer #writeblr #writblr #writers on tumblr #writer stuff #writing #writerscommunity

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lemmilemura · 2 years ago

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Dating Simon headcanons

If you know me, you know I literally made this account because Tumblr was the only soure of Simon screencaps etc I had. And, since I am writing what I believe to be the first ever Simon x reader fic on the entire internet over on AO3, I thought I’d feed you all some more. So, here’s some headcanons of what I think it’d be like to date Simon. Might also include NSFW if I feel like it/if anything comes to mind, but it will be marked with 🍋(real original, I know) so you can skip it if you want to. It is also currently 2 hours past when I’m supposed to go to bed and I haven’t gotten proper, 8 hours of sleep in like a month so yeah, apologies if there’s any grammar mistakes or anything similar.

They’re all kept gender neutral, and reader is referred to as ’you’.

Specifically book Simon, since book and show are pretty different I now realize

Emjoy.

TELL HIM YOU LOVE HIM AND HE WILL MELT

Ok, sorry, I’ll calm down

But seriously, we know this kid hasn’t really gotten that much love or compassion from others, and probably was never even in a real relationship before you, so whenever you express that you genuinely like him and want to be with him, he kind of schort-circuits

He’s also kind of worried you’re only with him to get info on others, and once you’ve got enough you’ll leave him, and that it’s all a cruel joke

But, again, if you reassure him that no, you’re not just here for info and you do infact love him, he’ll slowly learn to not listen to the voice in his head, it will take a while tho, so get ready

Of course, since it’s Simon, if anyone ever messes with you, in any way shape or form, be that at school, online, strangers in public, whatever, he will have them on display on AboutThat the next morning, or even within a couple of hours, front and center. He doesn’t really care who it is, but if they mess with you, they mess with him too

🍋 Now we all know Simon likes to feel all high and mighty, untouchable, right? So, might I suggest, that Simon would probably enjoy power play? Of course he’s always the one with power, and I feel he’d get a reeeeeeal kick out of getting to use you however we wants (with your consent of course, he might be an ass who kinda ruins peoples lives but he’s not a monster). If you’re into it too then even better! Though he’d never push you too far, he doesn’t want to hurt and maybe even lose you! Call him something like Sir, Mister, Master or anything of the like and wheeeeeew you’ll be in for a ride. Most of the time literally xD

Simon is definitely terrified of losing you, I mean you’re one of, if not the, first people to really care for him. He’s always worried that he’ll say or do something wrong and that you’ll leave him. :( please do reassure him you won’t leave, it will probably end up with him crying, though.

At school, of course, he’s all cocky and confident, but I feel with you, in private, be that at yours or his place, he’d stop being so braggy, and actually be quite touchy and affectionate and quiet. I can imagine you two just sitting on whoever’s house you’re currently in’s bed, both sort of doing your own thing, but still leaning on another, maybe occasionally saying a few words, but mostly keeping quiet. Sometimes the Tv will be on in the background, playing whatever channel was last on, sometimes it’ll just be music, or maybe even nothing, only the sounds of both of you clicking away at laptops, phones, the sound of pages in a book turning, whatever.

I think we can all agree that Simon is probably pretty touch-starved, I mean lookatem! At school he’d probably not be that touchy, maybe just holding your hand or his arm around your waist, just small things people easily miss. He’d probably not be the biggest fan of PDA, but also probably would’t hate it. Sure he’s give you a quick kiss or two, but you wouldn’t get into full on makeout sessions in the middle of school. He hates when others do it, so he also won’t.

In private, however, it’s as if he’s superglued to you, always touching you in some way. Leaning on you when you’re both working, holding you when you watch Tv together, you sitting on his lap when he’s at his desk, whatever. He’s always hesitant to let go because his brain tells him that if he lets go, he’ll never get to hold you again, that you’ll disappear.

Maybe, just maybe, you’d even be enough for him to scrap his plan, to not actually kill himself. I doubt he just one random day decided to do it, he must have started planning ahead years before. And it will take a while for him to decide that no, he doesn’t want to do it anymore, because he has you. I feel the day it’s all officially cancelled, he’d probably sit down on his bed or desk and just, take it all in for a bit. Never had he felt this safe and happy with someone before, so much so that he doesn’t want to kill himself anymore. He definitely cries.

I feel you’d eventually find out. Maybe you do by accident, maybe he tells you, doesn’t really matter. Either way, a lot of crying happens. You crying because he wanted to kill himself, then because you are the reason he didn’t and then him crying because of all the emotions and how new this all is for him.

NEW

So we all probably know the song 'Teenage Dirtbag' right? Well, I just heard it on tiktok, the end part where she also sings to be precise, and I dunno why but I just thought of Simon and his S/O. Like he never thought they'd ever even acknowledge him, and when they do he's just like "Wot". I dunno, my brain just does stuff sometimes.

In conclusion: I fucking love Simon, I want him to be happy, healthy and loved and I will gladly give him that love. <33

If anything else pops into mind, I will add it, I’ll mark it too so you’ll see what’s new!

#simon kelleher #one of us is lying #oouil tv show #oouil #headcanon #x reader

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probablytrapped · 3 months ago

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There's been an ongoing debate for years between users on AO3 about whether or not people should be allowed to add works from other authors to collections.

Generally this debate is now over with the the default for a work to not allow others to add it to anything, meaning less and less works are available to add, which I really do think it is a shame. I understand the the general danger of losing fics since whoever was running the collection could make the works all anonymous, and the original author couldn't undo. That's pretty scary and annoying. Not sure exactly the the mechanics, but in general the issue stems from the fact collections were not designed for what users were ending up using it for.

Some argue that this is what the Bookmarks function is supposed to be, but I disagree. Bookmarks, while they can be either public or private, don't have the same social or organization power that collections had. (And if I'm remembering correctly, have a slightly stunted filter..)

Any reader could see what collection a work had been added to...And this is a bit of bad thing honestly, some fics have been added to SO many collections that it sometimes is a larger block than the actual tags. But that doesn't change the fact that it was a user built "what to read next" function.

I'm not suggesting that that's something that AO3 needs, I DO believe that a huge part of reading fanfiction is learning to fucking dig and search for what you want. But, user curated lists of recommendations? I don't see the harm in that. If often times is just a smaller pool to dive into rather than all of a specific tag or series.

Bookmarks aren't that easily delved into. Usually you might find an author you like and check out their bookmarks, but it isn't quite work the same as reading a specific fic and then seeing it's part of a collection called "NaruSasu timetravel fics I LOVE". Someone else also really loved that story! and here are some other works that they thought were similar! how nice!

If we COULD keep the collection system open and in use as it was or create something similar, I do think it would need some improvements:

Default number of viewable collections or rec lists should be capped at like 10, and then there's either a toggle to show more or a link to a new page with all the collections the fic is added to.

The ability to hide the collections list entirely from readers. It'll still be in the index page or something, but ultimately if authors don't want people redirecting to other things from their story....I get that.

I don't really love the idea of authors being able to remove their stories from a list, but that might be something to keep people appeased. But I don't think people should be able to opt out?? If there's no harm created by adding to a list I really don't see the point. Of course maybe someone starts a "Trash fic that should DIE!" kinda thing....anyway it's complicated

Being able to subscribe to a collection who be rad as hell. This unfortunately feeds into the social media aspect that I think AO3 tries to avoid, so I'm not sure if that would go over well. Maybe the people who run the collections can't have their accounts public on the collection page? dunno

And to spice things up, some general OTHER upgrades to AO3:

can i PLEASE get some easy to read indicator on a fic in the search level that i've read it before? There are so many extensions I've used over the years for this, but most of them break after a certain point...But I just need a "you've given kudos" or "you're subscribed" or SOMETHING. I don't mind rereading fics, but I don't love being Gandalf half the time!

In the same vein as above....just a personal status tracker button. Maybe it's visible on the front end, but anything really to indicate if it's "TBR", "Reading", "Finished", or "DNF". The "DNF" is kinda important to me. Since if I mark it, that means I gave up for A REASON. This should all be private an not visible to authors or anyone else.

I would like to see all the fics I've given a Kudos to. please.

#ao3 #archive of our own #here's my 15 years of use complaint lol #fanfiction

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herearedragons · 5 months ago

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every word you shouldn't say (will come bubbling out of your throat)

Read on AO3

Summary: Something about sisters, wanting your loved ones to be happy, and admitting the truth to others - and to yourself. (two Watchers + hanahaki disease AU)

Content warning: emetophobia, hanahaki-related body horror

Spoiler warning: spoilers for two of Aloth's and Edér's possible epilogues, as well as for the Dyrford section of the game and the ending of The Master Below.

Additional notes: Helaine belongs to @curiouslavellan. Selene and Edér's situation is the same as in Cold Water; all the context needed for this fic is that because of something that happened during the events of POE1 she believes that if she starts a relationship, Ondra will use it to hurt her.

"Do you think there's something wrong with us?" Selene asks one day as they're having dinner.

They're having it in Helaine's room; not that there's something wrong with the dining hall of Caed Nua, but sometimes it's nice to have a more private atmosphere - and, besides, for some reason the Steward wasn't a fan of the Watchers eating their meal sitting on the floor where everyone could see.

"Nuh-uh," Helaine says with her mouth full of chicken. "I think everyone should have indoor picnics. It's fun."

It comes out more like "I fink erryon shoo hae indoo pikns, is faa", but that's fine, Selene's in her brain anyway.

"I'm not talking about the picnics," Selene says.

Helaine swallows.

"Then what? Being godlike? Watchers?"

Selene sighs and lowers her eyes, picking at her own plate. Helaine notes that she'd barely eaten anything.

At this point, she's starting to get an idea of what this might be.

Selene looks up at her again.

"Why haven't you told Aloth?" she asks.

Wha? -

"Told him what?"

"You know. How you feel about him. Why?"

Why does she want to talk about Aloth all of a sudden?

Helaine shrugs, maybe a little too quickly, and says:

"Well, he was going away to fight the Leaden Key. It wasn't the right time, and he wasn't ready, and... and I wasn't ready. You can't rush these things!"

She tries to keep her tone nice and light, but somehow the pitch of her voice keeps climbing higher and higher as she speaks, until the last phrase comes out squeaky.

She can feel her cheeks getting hot.

Alright, enough's enough.

"Selene, what's this about?"

"You're nervous," Selene notes.

"Well yeah I am, we were having an indoor picnic and then you just started questioning me!"

"...I asked one question." Selene sees her open her mouth again and continues, before Helaine has a chance to speak, "I was just wondering. When you said it wasn't the right time back then, I believed you, but... Is it ever going to be the right time?"

Helaine inhales, preparing a retort - and then bites down on it.

Nope. If a year of traveling with Durance has taught her anything, it's to know when she's being baited.

Time to take a page out of Selene's book.

Why is she talking about this? What's wrong with her?

She's sad, that much is obvious. And she asked about Aloth.

...Oh, of course it's that.

Helaine sighs in relief; she feels the fire in her hair surge and then dim down, pacified.

"Selene," she says, "Are you pining again?"

Selene grimaces and twirls her fork in her hand.

"...Yes."

"You should talk to him."

"No."

It doesn't even feel upsetting to hear that anymore. The words are rote, part of a ritual; that's what Helaine says every time, and that's what Selene answers every time. The real conversation hasn't even started yet.

Helaine sets her plate aside on the floor and leans forward, elbows on her knees, face propped up on the palms of her hands.

Will she get to Selene this time? She hasn't managed to, so far, but Selene has ceded the advantage by starting the conversation herself. She wants to hear what Helaine has to say.

Helaine feels a little thrill somewhere in her stomach that's suspiciously similar to what she feels when a fight is about to start. She can't help but compare these talks to combat; poking and prodding, dancing around her sister as she tries to find a gap in her defense.

Is it bad that she feels that way? She kind of doesn't want to think about that.

It's because she wants to help. She wants Selene to be happy, and Selene just - won't let herself be.

"But you miss him," Helaine says.

"Of course I do, but it doesn't matter."

"You miss him and it's bad enough that you're talking to me about this with words."

"Well, this isn't what I wanted to talk about," Selene says, "You're making this be about me; I asked you about a choice you made."

Helaine raises her eyebrows, smiling just a little:

"Oh and why are you suddenly interested in my love life? It's because you're thin-king about someone."

The "thinking" comes out almost singsong, teasing, but not in a cruel way - at least she hopes it doesn't come off cruel.

Selene shakes her head, sets her plate aside too, and covers her face with her hands.

"Yes. Yes, I am, and I shouldn't be, and it's torture. Is that what you wanted to hear? Well, you're right. You won. And I just wanted to ask..." She takes her hands away, and looks Helaine in the eye. "...Why aren't you doing what I can't? If I didn't have to keep quiet - if it wasn't about saving his life - I would have said something. I would have said it a hundred times by now. Why aren't you doing that?"

Her voice gets louder and sharper as she speaks; Helaine knows Selene's probably not really mad at her, but it's still kind of scary.

But, once she stops speaking, all that goes away; her shoulders slump, her head bows in defeat, and now she's just staring at her own hands instead of facing Helaine again.

She's not defending herself anymore. In the analogy of a fight, Selene has just thrown her weapon aside and then turned her back to Helaine, letting her do whatever the Hel she wants.

That's... not fun. And wrong. Selene doesn't do that.

Whatever's happening to her, it is bad, and it's worse than usual.

But she also just asked Helaine a question that's really hard to answer. She threw her sword away without looking, but somehow, it has wedged itself in the cracks of Helaine's armor, and now she's going to have to leave it in or pull it out.

Her stomach feels a little funny now. Does she know why she hasn't told Aloth yet? Is there a good reason not to?

Well… Yes, there is. They're so far apart right now; they trade the occasional letter whenever the circumstances allow, but those letters are rarer than Helaine hoped they’d be.

Not - not that she hoped for, or expected, anything from him. That wouldn't be fair. Aloth has a duty, and so does she, and that comes first. That makes sense.

She's been over this many times by now, in her own head; usually around this point she'd force herself to stop thinking about it and go hit some dummies with a sword.

But she can't bail on Selene.

Damn. She really did get her with this one.

"I don't know," Helaine says. "It just hasn't felt right to say it."

It feels a little scary to admit that; she's exposing a vulnerability, and a part of her feels like maybe all of this was a fakeout, like maybe Selene is going to turn around and lunge at her and force her to admit defeat.

But it’s relieving, too. Honesty feels right; it's the most her thing she can do, and it centers her after Selene's question has thrown her off balance.

Selene doesn't lunge.

She sighs again, and nods, and says:

"Alright. I trust you."

It's a relief, but Helaine realizes that she's too worried to really savor it.

"Listen, I know you've been saying no to this, but if it's really bad... You could just talk to him? You don't have to tell him, just talk to him. See if it makes you feel better."

Selene shakes her head.

"I don't even know where he is."

Helaine rolls her eyes:

"Alright, Miss Spymaster. You have a whole cipher network working for you; it’s not like you can't find him."

"I guess." Selene shrugs noncommittally. "...I don't think I should, though. I'm not really feeling that bad, and tracking him down would defeat the purpose of him going away in the first place."

"Remind me what that was?"

"...Letting him figure out a life that isn’t about gods or Watchers?"

"Riiight. Well, what do you think he'd say if he knew you were like this?" Helaine asks, pointing at Selene with the blunt end of the fork she hasn’t put down. “Do you think Edér would want you to hurt yourself?”

"Helaine, I'm fine," Selene says, a tinge of irritation creeping into her voice. "Well - not completely fine, maybe, but I've been not fine before. I know the difference."

Well, that's one thing Helaine can't argue with: Selene has more experience with not fine than anyone else she knows.

"...You're sure it's not that bad yet?"

"I'm sure."

Helaine doesn't really want to do this, but it's only fair. Selene just did that for her.

"Alright," she says. "I trust you."

"Thanks," Selene says, and then she coughs a little, and swallows.

"...You good?"

"Yeah. I need some water."

Selene sounds fine. She sounds... genuine. Her voice isn't weird or strained or anything like that.

Helaine still gets a bad feeling about it.

She pushes it down.

She just said that she trusts her sister.

Some say that the flower sickness comes from Hylea; that it's a benevolent curse meant to patch up quarrels between lovers and family members, so that joy and prosperity may blossom forth. Some claim that the sickness is brought on by Eothas; that it's a sign to give a second chance to the thoughts and dreams you have buried deep within yourself.

In Helaine's experience, though, you can get it over pretty much anything.

In her travels, she'd come across kith who got the flower sickness over unrequited love, unconfessed crimes, even religious doubt; there never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to it besides the fact that it was always cured by saying something you really didn't want to say.

In a way, it almost felt Magranite; not that Helaine ever thought the flower sickness was Magran's doing - if it was up to her, the goddess probably would have made the poor kith spit out burning coals - but there was an element of trial to it. Confront your weakness, or die.

And people would die, eventually; the truly stubborn ones would have their lungs fill up with petals until they could no longer breathe.

Still, eerie as it is, the flower sickness has always been something that happened to other people. That was the good part about an oath of honesty: if you tell no lies, they'll never weigh on you and fill your lungs with flowers.

Selene does a really good job of hiding her flowers, at first.

Sometimes there's the occasional stifled cough, or she leaves the room all of a sudden and comes back a minute later, but those slip-ups are few and far between, and give Helaine nothing to point a finger at.

Then, it gets worse.

They're in the main hall, listening to a visitor; some merchant from the newly rebuilt Gilded Vale, offering a business partnership. Helaine, as always, is in the Steward's chair, presiding as Lady of Caed Nua; Selene is standing over her left shoulder, silent, reading minds and relaying the information to her sister.

Except, as the merchant speaks, Helaine begins hearing a strange noise above her left ear.

Selene's breath becomes sharp, ragged; not loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, but upsettingly loud from where Helaine is sitting. There's a gurgle to it that sounds really bad.

Helaine is halfway through the motion of turning around to check on her when Selene's voice comes through in her mind:

...I have to step away for a second. Keep going without me.

And Helaine finishes turning around just in time to see the swish of Selene's cloak as she leaves, disappearing behind a door leading to the storage rooms.

Helaine cuts the meeting short.

She finds Selene doubled over behind a shelf stocked full of blank scrolls, wheezing out violent coughs. At her feet is a growing pile of tiny golden blooms; just as Helaine arrives, Selene takes a hand away from her mouth, full of the same flowers, and lets them tumble down into the pile.

They're Pilgrim's Crown flowers. Pretty common, reasonably edible, and - as Helaine has learned recently from one of her trainees - a common gift for lovers.

"Selene," Helaine says, "What the fuck."

Selene looks at her like she's about to say something, and then crumples into another coughing fit.

It's horrible to look at. It's horrible to listen to. Not because the flower sickness is repulsive to her - it is creepy, but Helaine has seen worse - but because every nerve in her body wants to help Selene, and she can't. Not now. Not here.

But there is something else she can do.

"Tell the Steward I'll be gone for a couple of days,” she says. “I'm getting Edér."

No!

Selene's voice in her mind, sharp, clear, nothing like the noises that are actually coming out of her mouth.

"Yeah, no, I'm not listening to you," Helaine says. "You're killing yourself. I'm not gonna just stand around and watch that happen."

Helaine, WAIT.

"What?"

Selene finally manages to take a breath that doesn't sound like it's being dragged through gravel, and says, out loud:

"We don't need to get him - let me finish - because there's another way to fix this. I'm working on it."

Helaine hesitates for a second.

Selene has lied to her once about this, already; she lied about being fine. She could just be lying again. If she got it into her head that she needs to die over a stupid crush -

"...What's that other way?" she asks.

"Flower sickness isn't actually lethal," Selene says. "There are ways to minimize it. There's medicine. You can live with it, and it won’t be much worse than a cold."

Helaine crosses her arms, guarding. If it's a trick, she's not going to fall for it. She's not.

"That sounds made up."

"It's not."

"Proof?"

"I've had flower sickness before."

Helaine blinks.

"You... have?"

"Back at the temple. People would get it all the time; kind of an occupational hazard for a Giftbearer."

"But... If it's curable, why don't people just - "

"Take the medicine?" Selene shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe we were the first to figure out the recipe. But honestly, it's kind of gross; if I could choose between confessing and drinking that, I'd just confess."

Helaine throws her hands up in frustration:

"Then do that! "

"What part of Ondra tried to kill him once and she'll do it again do you not understand?" Selene snaps.

Countered and forced to defend again, Helaine scowls, but doesn't manage to scrape together a good enough retort.

"...What do we need for the medicine?" she asks finally.

"I've already bought most of the ingredients; it's just taking a while for them to be delivered. The last one is one of your own flowers; you soak it in the solution for a day, then it's good to drink. It dissolves the flowers before you have to cough them out."

Selene looks down at the pile of Pilgrim's Crown at her feet.

"...I should probably save these ones."

Helaine doubts the medicine at first, but months go by, and Selene isn’t any worse for wear.

She doesn’t stop coughing completely, but she doesn’t look sick all the time anymore. She gets maybe a handful of flowers once a week, and sometimes weeks go by without a single petal.

Turns out, it is possible to outsmart the flower sickness. Sometimes, Helaine wonders what the god that came up with it thinks about that.

Still, overall, things are fine.

That’s what she keeps telling herself: things are fine. Selene isn’t dying; her Pilgrim’s Crown blooms are a minor annoyance at worst. She’s got it under control.

But Selene is unhappy, and she won’t let Helaine do anything about that.

Helaine pretends not to notice. She pretends not to see the look that comes across her sister’s face when something reminds her of what she’s given up. She pretends to approve when Selene dives headfirst into her Dunryd Row work, absent from Caed Nua for weeks on end.

It’s not really lying, she tells herself. It’s just making life easier for someone she cares about.

Eventually it starts to feel like she’s learned to live with it, but the knowledge that Helaine could be helping and isn’t weighs heavy on her still.

One morning, she wakes up with a cough, and tastes ash in her mouth once it passes.

Turns out, when you’re a fire godlike, the flowers will burn up before you can get them out. At least that’s what happens when there aren't a lot of them; as their number grows, eventually bits and pieces begin to make it through unscathed.

Helaine stares at a charred bloom in the palm of her hand. It’s not a flower she knows; it’s small and light blue, with five petals and a yellow center.

Selene notices before Helaine ever tells her. She doesn’t say anything, just gives her a sympathetic look and leaves a bottle of the medicine on her bedside table.

Helaine is pretty sure that she thinks the flowers are for Aloth, which just makes her want to grab Selene by the shoulders and shake her like a straw doll, because for some reason her mind-reader sister doesn’t understand that the flowers are for her.

You’re doing this to me, Helaine wants to yell at her. You’re causing this because you won’t let me help you!

But all that would do is make Selene feel worse, so Helaine doesn’t say it.

She drinks her medicine.

Funnily enough, the potion seems to help her more than it helps Selene; maybe it’s the furnace in Helaine’s throat, or maybe she just doesn’t have it as bad.

Either way, as long as she keeps drinking it, she doesn’t get flowers at all. Which is why, when she wakes up one night to a coughing fit so bad she can’t breathe, Helaine has no idea what’s happening.

She freaks out. Her brain flashes through several thought in the matter of seconds: the medicine has stopped working - the medicine hasn’t stopped working but the flowers are trying to get out - she’s been poisoned - she’s dying -

Then, suddenly, she can breathe again, and her mouth is stuffed full of flowers. She can already tell that something has changed, because these blooms are larger, with thick, velvety petals.

Helaine spits them out into her hand and examines them in the flickering light of her own hair.

She’s seen these before, she’s sure of that. But where -

Oh gods damn it.

She knows what these are, and she knows where she’s seen them.

Admeth’s Wyrt flowers. Aloth would press them in his grimoire, to use for scroll components.

Helaine sits in her bed and stares at the gross spit-covered flowers in her hand, and for some reason there’s a lump in her throat like she’s about to cry.

Is it even possible to get flower sickness for two different things at once? Is she the first person in the universe this has ever happened to?

Would she even get these flowers if she didn’t get Selene’s first?

It’s not fair. She’s not even the troubled one - that’s Selene - so why does she have to deal with two kinds of flowers now?

No, Helaine decides. She’s not going to suffer through this.

She gets up. Rummages through her drawers for paper and ink and a quill, sits down at her desk, and starts writing.

It’s easy, she tells herself. Just think about what you’d say to Aloth if he was here right now.

She writes and writes and writes. By the time she’s done, there’s a heap of discarded drafts on the far end of her desk, and the letter she ended up with is five pages long, crammed full of words.

The words “I love you” are not in there.

She tried. Gods, she tried, but it just… it wouldn’t come out.

Is it because it’s a lie? Does she not love him, after all? Then what in Hel are the new flowers for?

As she sits there with her head in her hands, with half a mind to let a strand of her hair fall onto the letter and turn it all into ash, Helaine remembers a conversation from months ago.

Do you think something’s wrong with us?

“I don’t know,” she mutters to herself sleepily. “Maybe there is.”

She burns the drafts. She does keep the five-page letter.

The next time she prepares a dose of the medicine for herself, she drops two flowers into the clear liquid: a small blue one, and a red Admeth’s Wyrt bloom.

“I think it’s going to be fine,” Selene says.

She’s saying it for the second or third time, maybe; it’s kind of hard to keep track of the words coming out of her own mouth, and, really, she’s trying to convince herself more than she’s trying to convince Helaine.

In her hands is a letter: a single page filled with slightly uneven handwriting.

Hey, Watchers.

I know it’s been a while. Case you don’t remember: I’m the guy you almost fed to the dragon under your keep two years ago. It worked out though, so don’t worry about it.

Honestly I was gonna write to you sooner, but then there just wasn’t much to write about. I was just kind of on the road for a while. Figuring stuff out.

Anyway, remember Dyrford? The cult village? Turns out, we didn’t clear out all of the Skaenites from there. Was one left still. Tried to get even with me when I was passing through, but I got him first, so you’ll be happy to hear I’ve got no stones in my eyes as I write this.

That guy also happened to be the mayor though, and apparently by Dyrford rules beheading the mayor means you’re in charge of the town now. Didn’t know what to think about this for a while, but now that I’ve settled in I don’t think I mind it much.

Seems like I won’t be coming by Caed Nua for a while, so come visit if you ever get the chance. It’s been a couple months and no one else tried to kill me yet, so I’m pretty sure it’s safe now.

Hope you girls are doing alright.

Edér

“...Yeah. No. It’s - ”

“Fine?” Helaine finishes the sentence for her.

“Yeah.”

It is probably fine. The medicine is working. It shouldn’t be any different in close proximity to the person she’s keeping the secret from - it’s -

Gods, but the way her heart jumped to her throat just from realizing who the letter was from makes her worry. The medicine is going to prevent her from choking on unsaid words, but what if she slips up and ends up saying them?

No, no, that’s not going to happen. She never felt like that when they all traveled together. Maybe seeing him again is all it takes for things to finally go back to normal.

Maybe the flowers are just because she misses him.

“So, we’re going tomorrow?” Helaine asks.

Selene blinks.

“...Already?”

Helaine shrugs:

“I mean, why wait? It’s not like we’ve got other plans.”

“I… guess that’s true.”

“Great!” Helaine grins and slaps a hand on her shoulder. “Then start packing.”

And her sister walks away, leaving Selene standing alone in her study, holding the letter still.

She glances through the written lines one more time, as if reading them again without Helaine there might reveal something new. it doesn’t.

Selene sighs, wincing a little as the air she breathes swirls leftover petals around in her lungs.

She carefully folds the letter and tucks it away in the same drawer of her desk where she keeps her medicine.

The first visit to Dyrford has both of them just a little on edge. Selene has her flower thing to worry about, of course, but also it’s just weird coming back when their last memory of the place is fighting through blood-splattered ruins to rescue a kidnapped woman.

The town has changed, though. The buildings look nicer; there are more people out and about than Helaine remembers, and the looks they get are mostly ones of curiosity or excitement, rather than suspicious glares.

And it is good to see Edér again. It’s not until they’re standing at his door that Helaine realizes she was so busy worrying about Selene’s condition, she forgot how much she missed her friend.

Then, the door opens. Even without looking, she can feel Selene tense up at her side.

Before her sister’s anxiety becomes her own, Helaine grins as wide as she can, and, putting on her best posh Aedyran accent (which isn’t good by any standard there is, but that’s kind of the point), proclaims:

“Greetings, good sir; we are here to see Mr. Mayor Edér Teylecg, do you perhaps know where we can find him?”

His eyes narrow a little, and by the familiar twinkle in them Helaine knows that the bit has been picked up.

“That guy? Nah, you don’t wanna talk to him. He’s probably running around doing boring stuff, like breaking up fights between farmers, or taxes. Pretending he knows how to run a town.”

Helaine decides to ham it up a little more.

“Excuse me, sir! I’ll have you know that we are the Ladies of Caed Nua, and we have traveled for days to discuss important people business with your very important mayor.”

She’s definitely starting to lose the accent, but that seems to work in her favor, because her delivery does crack him up.

“Damn,” Edér says, trying and failing to keep a straight face as a smirk begins to creep out. “Well, I can’t say no to a lady. Guess you two should come in.”

At which point Helaine’s patience runs out, and, with a delighted shriek that feels almost like a battle cry, she rushes in to hug him.

The next few days are the most fun she’s had in a while. They trade stories, catch up on everything that’s happened since they’ve last seen each other; Selene starts out quiet, but Helaine sees her ease into the familiar atmosphere as the hours go by. Eventually, she’s laughing with the two of them, and talking about her Dunryd Row work with the same pride as Edér when he tells them about the latest changes in his town.

The only way it could have been better is if the others were there also. Pallegina, Sagani, Durance - yes, even Durance - and, well… Aloth.

Some months ago, she would have tried to avoid thinking about him like that - but, since she’s already getting flowers for him, there’s not really a point to it anymore.

After that first time, they go back to Dyrford every once in a while.

On their second visit, Selene spots a familiar face in the village square, and they spend some time catching up with Grieving Mother, who - still faceless to everyone but the two of them - has decided to return to her duties as a midwife.

On their fourth visit, Edér mentions weird movements and sounds near the ruins where the Skaenites used to hide out; a quick investigation reveals it to be an infestation of shadows, and they begin to plot out an extermination plan together. A party of three (four, if Grieving Mother feels adventurous, Helaine thinks) seems too small, but there are some Kind Wayfarers in training waiting for her back at Caed Nua, and Helaine decides that they would benefit from this kind of field trip.

Then there’s a fifth visit, a sixth, a seventh.

Months pass.

Helaine knows that Selene goes to visit by herself, every now and then; usually when she has some business in Defiance Bay, since that’s halfway to Dyrford anyway.

Every time that happens, there’s a tiny whisper of hope in the back of her mind that maybe this time it’ll happen, but then Selene comes back, and she’s still coughing up flowers.

But she seems… better. Not happy, maybe, but content - and that’s enough to make Helaine feel a little better, too.

The flowers keep coming for both of them, but overall, it’s definitely an improvement.

Edér catches her just as they’re about to head back to the Dracogen for the night.

He’d offered for them to stay in his house, of course, but they had to refuse; mostly for Selene’s sake. It would have been much harder for her to hide her flowers if they were all staying together.

“...Hey, Helaine?”

“Yeah?”

“I, uh, I wanna ask you something. Kind of a personal matter.”

Selene’s voice in her mind, immediately, almost overlapping with Edér’s last phrase.

Helaine? You coming?

Helaine takes a good look at her friend; he seems genuinely concerned. Whatever it is, she should definitely hear him out.

You go ahead, she thinks at Selene. I’ll catch up.

Alright. See you there.

And with that, her sister’s presence is gone.

“...Is there a lost soul floating behind me or did I say something weird?”

Right. Edér couldn’t hear their conversation.

“No, I was just letting Selene know she can leave without me,” Helaine says. “...Unless you want her here too?”

“No, there’s - there’s no need to trouble her.”

He says that almost too quickly.

That’s… Is something happening here?

“...Alright. Well, what’s the matter?” Helaine asks.

“Well, I was just wondering.” She can hear the effort in his voice as he tries to keep his tone casual. “You two have been getting up to all kinds of things in these last two years. You have your Kind Wayfarers, and you said you’ve been writing to Aloth, and Selene has her Dunryd Row people…”

“...Yeah?”

“I guess I was just wondering, uh. Do you know if she’s been… seeing... anyone?”

The second the meaning of his question gets through to her, she feels her eyes widen.

No. Way.

“Hey, what’s that look? I’m just asking.”

It takes all of her willpower not to grin, and even then, she can’t help but smile just a little.

“Nope,” Helaine says. “She hasn’t been seeing anyone. She’s as available as it gets.”

“Wait, I didn’t say - ”

“How long?” she asks.

Edér stares at her for a second.

“How long what?”

“How long have you been gearing up to ask me about this?”

It’s getting dark, but they’re both standing in the halo of light created by her hair, which gives her a great view of color rushing to his face.

“...Couple of weeks. Since last time she came by. But if I’m honest, I’ve been thinking about it longer.”

“Awww!”

“Helaine.”

“Sorry.” She’s definitely not sorry. “...Did something happen with you two?”

“No? Yeah? Not really. I was just thinking - ” he huffs out a breath and runs a hand over his face, shaking his head like he’s trying to chase something away. “Actually, I don’t know what I was thinking. I just wanted to ask.”

There’s something very familiar about the apprehension, the slight tremble of his voice even as he tries to sound confident.

It’s hope. And fear of losing that hope. Helaine knows this, because it’s the same feeling she gets from reading some of Aloth’s letters.

For a moment, she’s torn; her first thought is that she should let him figure this out on his own time.

But the memory of Selene’s rasping breaths as she coughs out more and more golden flowers is burned too firmly into her mind.

“You should tell her,” Helaine says.

Edér blinks.

“You… think so?”

“Do you trust me?” she asks.

He nods; there’s not even a second of hesitation to it.

“Then go tell her right now.”

There’s a knock on the door.

Selene knows that it’s not Helaine.

For one, Helaine wouldn’t knock because it’s her room too; and then there’s also the fact that she can’t hear Helaine’s mind anywhere nearby, but she can faintly hear Edér’s.

His voice comes from behind the door:

“Hey. It’s me.”

The noise of his thoughts is louder than usual, agitated by anxiety. From a quick glance - she hasn’t dared to look deeper for a while, fearing to agitate the flower sickness - it seems that nothing horrible has happened, but whatever he came to discuss is important.

Selene lets him in.

“What happened?” she asks.

The question catches him off guard for some reason; he hesitates before saying:

“Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you, is all.”

“...Oh.”

So maybe this isn’t related to what he was telling Helaine. Probably nothing dangerous happening, then.

“Well, sure,” Selene says. “Go ahead.”

It’s annoying, to have to fight her own instincts. With every word, her mind is trying to reach for his, to complete the picture by listening to whatever he’s not saying out loud, and she has to remind herself again and again not to do that.

If she does, she might hear something she’s better off not knowing.

Edér takes a deep breath; she can hear him gathering his thoughts.

“...Well, I was gonna do this differently, but… I’ve got a question for you.”

“What is it?”

Even without looking deeper, something strange is happening in his mind. There’s a feeling - a loud one - like fear, but not the kind of fear she’s used to. It’s not painful; just overwhelming, and almost impossible to parse.

For some reason, just catching the faintest trace of it makes her chest tighten with a sickening awareness of the petals scratching against the inside of her lungs.

She should take her medicine soon. But she should be fine for now; she’s been fine for this long.

Relax. Take even, shallow breaths. Try not to stir the flowers around too much.

Then, Edér asks:

“Do you think we could - do you think we would… work, together? If… If we tried.”

He’s stumbling over his own words; his thoughts are getting lost inside that all-consuming feeling, and Selene feels it, too. For a moment, they stand together in silence, both swallowed by it.

She knows what he’s asking. It’s just - it’s just that she can’t bring herself to believe he’s really saying it. This doesn’t feel like a part of reality; this feels like a manifestation of her own mind. She doesn’t know what to do with this. She doesn’t know how to check if this is real.

Somehow, their eyes meet, and she sees him do his best to smile.

“...I know this is kinda like Ondra shooting her shot at the moon, but I really do fancy you, I think. Things just feel… calmer, with you around. Like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

And then, all at once, it crashes down on her; the dreamlike feeling disappears, reality rushes back in, filling her ears with noise and her chest with pain.

He’s asking her. He’s asking her to - and she’ll have to say no - she has to say no, because of Ondra, because of what she’s done to them once, because of what she might do to them again - but, gods, it’s not fair - it’s not what she wants to do - but she has to -

And then she can no longer breathe, because her lungs and throat are stuffed full of soft petals, and they pour right out when she opens her mouth but there’s so much more of them inside, and every function of her body and mind is instantly relegated to getting them out.

Edér staring at her becomes irrelevant; everything he just said becomes irrelevant; all she can think about is breathing, as her chest spasms violently, trying to get rid of the foreign bodies inside. She coughs and retches, and barely anything comes out, and her mind fills with terror, realizing that this is it.

The medicine has run its course. There was only so much it could do. She doesn’t have enough strength left to push them out.

Then, there’s a sudden, sharp pressure over her sternum, and something moves; the flowers come up her throat, pouring out, down, and she coughs and coughs and coughs until her chest hurts and then she coughs more, until she’s on her knees dry heaving over a pile of golden flowers on the floor, and, finally, nothing more comes out.

Her entire body is shaking; her vision is blurry with tears. This is a strong contender for the worst she’s felt in her entire life.

She’s been drinking the medicine. Without it… Without it, this probably would have killed her. Even with it, it nearly did.

Oh, gods.

It’s then that she becomes aware of an arm wrapped around her waist, and a hand holding her hair back from her face. Edér is there on the floor with her, holding her.

She draws a shaky breath in, bracing herself for more flowers.

Nothing. For now.

“...Got it all out?”

She nods, and wipes her mouth with a trembling hand.

“Good.”

He lets go of her hair, then of her waist, and moves away. She kind of wishes he’d stay, but she’s not sure how to tell him.

Edér sits down next to her and gives a low whistle, nodding over to the heap of flowers. Looking at it now, it seems impossible for all of it to have fit inside of an aumaua’s body, let alone her own.

“Never took you for a gardener,” he says. “Nice flowers you’ve got there. But you know there are ways to grow them without killing yourself, right? Whoever you need to come clean to, I’d suggest you do it fast.”

He sounds the same way he did years ago, when he’d wake her and Helaine from their nightmares and jokingly threaten to dump a bucket of water on them the next time around.

And he’s right. Selene isn’t sure she can take another bout of this; she doesn’t want to find out if she can.

She tried. Gods, she tried to keep him out of this. But she doesn’t want to die for it any more than she wants to lose him.

This is the worst time and place possible, but it’s not like she has any choice left in the matter.

Selene breathes in, savoring the relief of having her lungs be truly empty for once, and says:

“I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time.”

She can feel it happen the second she finishes the sentence. Some kind of weight disappears from her chest; something she’s gotten so used to, she forgot that it was there in the first place.

She breathes out.

Before even looking, she can feel Edér’s mind stir; there’s surprise, and then there’s joy, and then dread, and then joy again, and then again dread.

“...And you’ve been getting flowers about it?”

His voice is soft, and warm, and horrified.

She nods. She can feel her hands shaking still.

“...How long?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says.

And then she turns to him and buries her face in his shoulder and wraps her arms around him, the way she’s wanted to do for a long time.

It feels just as good as she had imagined. It feels even better when he hugs her back.

It takes her a second to realize that she’s started to cry.

The hug tightens around her, and, after a moment, she feels him bring a hand up to gently stroke her hair.

“Shhh. It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got you.”

She reaches for his thoughts, and meets no resistance. There’s nothing there that he hasn’t said out loud.

I love you, she says again, with her mind this time.

He presses a kiss to her temple.

“I love you too,” he says softly. “But you’ve got to promise me something.”

…What?

“Don’t ever go hacking up flowers about me again. I don’t care what you’re hiding, it ain’t worth it.”

Wrapped up in the warmth and comfort of someone she’s yearned for for so long, it almost feels easy to agree with this.

Almost.

I promise, she says.

A week after her return to Caed Nua (just hers - Selene said she’d stay in Dyrford for a little longer, and Helaine was all too happy to let her), Helaine opens her medicine drawer and finds it empty.

Selene’s flowers are gone now - there’s nothing left for Helaine to worry about, in that regard - but she’s been taking it for the Admeth’s Wyrt flowers, still.

She’d run out of the potion now, though, and she’ll only be able to make more once she coughs up more flowers to use for ingredients.

The only thing that’s left is to wait.

The same day, a new letter arrives. It’s the first one in a while; Helaine doesn’t want to admit this to herself, but she was starting to worry that something had happened.

Aloth’s and Iselmyr’s alternating handwriting is long familiar and comforting by now.

Helaine,

I apologize for the long silence. The last time I wrote to you, I was journeying through the Old Vailian countryside, certain that I had tracked down a rogue cell of the Leaden Key.

However, I was unfortunately mistaken. Not in thinking that I had uncovered the machinations of an old and secretive order - that much was true - but merely in attributing those machination to the Leaden Key.

The Darcozzi Paladini are nothing like what you told me of the Kind Wayfarers; perhaps Pallegina’s description of her order matches them better, but even that does not account for the thousands of years of scheming and manipulation this order is laced with. They are not my quarry, but by the time I realized that, I had become closer acquainted with their affairs than both myself and the Darcozzi family would have liked.

Nearly got our head lopped clean off, ye dimwit

I was successful in escaping from them - not in the least thanks to Iselmyr, I must say -

Aye to that!

however, I was then forced to lay low and withhold my letters for some time. My sincere apologies for that.

The letter goes on for much longer, but Helaine has to pause there and laugh.

…This sounds like fun. Well. It sounds like mortal peril, but gods, she would have loved to be there getting up in the Darcozzi’s face with Aloth and Iselmyr.

Then, her eyes fall onto the next words.

It is in times like this that I truly miss our adventures together.

“Aw, Aloth, I just said that!”

There’s no one there to hear her, but that’s probably for the best, because it means that there’s also no one there to see her smile like an idiot as she talks to a piece of paper.

When I begin to doubt myself, I remember the things we have accomplished, and know that I must have something to show for myself the next time we cross paths - whenever that may be.

When I meet your Kind Wayfarer apprentices, in a way, I feel as though I meet you again. They carry your conviction, your skill of survival and your compassion - the same compassion you have shown me, and I am certain you show to others every day.

I do hope that you are well and your affairs are successful.

“Aww,” Helaine says to the letter again, softly this time. “...I love you too.”

And by the time she realizes what just happened, it’s too late: the words have already left her mouth.

Her throat catches, but, at the same time, there is a heaviness dissipating in her chest, like a knot coming untangled.

“I - ”

She tries to say it again, and can’t. But it doesn’t matter.

She doesn’t cough up any more flowers after that.

#pillars of eternity #edér x watcher #aloth x watcher #two watcher au #oc: watcher selene #edérene tag #herearedragons writing #7000 completely unplanned words. how did this happen to me #thanks elly for letting me borrow helaine for this #she's a really fun pov and I'm glad I got her right #friend oc: watcher helaine

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milimeters-morales · 2 years ago

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so i’m thinking of a gay realization / getting together fic with Miles and Ganke and it spans the wait between itsv and atsv and miles being spider-man is a very background thing the entire time, and portraits of Ganke / other art pieces are used as metaphors for Miles’s feelings. and at some point i want miles to realize why he’s been painting Ganke so much and be torn between destroying the paintings because he doesn’t want to accept his feelings and potentially risk being found out + ruining the relationship, OR keeping them because Ganke will just see it as Miles destroying pictures of him for no reason (and this would affect anyone’s self-esteem) and might make a connection similar to “he destroyed the art because it was of me / i made him hate painting”, which Miles would never want to happen. And also make one of the drawings of Ganke in his diary and therefore PRIVATE, but Ganke somehow sees it anyway and says it’s his favorite there NEEDS to be a moment like that.. (trapped in a plasma ball and screaming from the inside)

#milesganke #arachnitech #miles morales #spiderman #spider man #ganke lee #m&m posts

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twopoppies · 7 months ago

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Thank you Gina, here are my prompts. Just a quick disclaimer, I've never written prompts before so I have no idea if they are too detailed or not detailed enough...

Historical (victorian) AU prompts:

Harry (his father isn't in the picture, his mother is very sick (maybe dementia), his older sister, Gemma doesn't want to marry -she's quite progressive. They are very private people) is new in town and attends a ball (he keeps to himself and stays in the shadows, so noone pays him any mind) where he first lays eyes on louis (who is an eldest son, his father passed away so he's the head of the house. Has an array of younger sisters and brothers) and falls for him. The next time he meets louis (at a ball again) he pretends to be a girl (he and Gemma are very close so he confides in her, she helps her get a dress and do his makeup and hair), and gets louis' attention. They dance, talk, and get to know each other. Louis starts courting him and then inevitably falls for him (thinking he's a girl). Since the Styles are new in town and Harry only had one public appearance when he wasn't dressed as a woman, no-one suspects anything. If his mum has dementia, she might even believe that Harry (aka Harriet) was always a girl.

Louis eventually asks for harry's hand, and he only then realised what he has done. He tries to break off the engagement but can't come up with a good enough reason, and louis doesn't let him go. Harry can't make himself leave him because a small part of him wants to believe that Louis will love him as a man as well. So they get married, only for louis to realise after the ceremony that harry is actually a man (maybe harry tells him, maybe he only learns the truth when he takes harry to bed and is surprised by what he finds under the wedding dress).

They have to work things out, but that part I leave to the imagination of the dear author, but I'd be happy to help come up with the rest too! Obviously if someone wants to use this prompt they are free to make it their own and change it however they like, but I imagine it to be angsty, moody, and a bit dark. With eventual smut, but I'm fine without it as well :)

And then I have some similar but less thought through ideas as well (also set in the victorian era):

1. harry and louis fall in love and want to get married, but obviously they aren't allowed to so they decide to make harry disappear. Harry reappears as a woman a couple months later, they pretend to court, and then get married. They still have to keep harry's identity a secret, so everyone thinks he's a woman. They navigate life to the best of their abilities, but the steward at their estate suspects something. They have to convince him of harry's womanhood, so they decide to announce that harry is pregnant (fake belly and everything). They maybe adopt in secret, or one of their family members who knows their secret agrees to be their surrogate etc. Obviously happy ending.

2. louis' best friend (I'd imagine the best friend to be niall) wants to play a prank on him, so he asks his cousin (harry) who is visiting town to dress up as a woman and try to seduce him. Harry ends up falling for him and asks niall to keep his identity a secret so he can woo louis. Louis reciprocates his feelings but harry is scared that if he found out that he's actually a man he would be disgusted. Louis actually knew he wasn't a real woman from the beginning (maybe when they were dancing harry got a bit too excited and louis felt it...), but is scared that harry is just pretending to like him and would be appalled by him if he confessed he knows, so doesn't say anything.

None of these are meant to be dress kink fics, but obviously if someone wants to write them that way, be it haha.

Hi, darling. Thank you. Hopefully someone looking for detailed prompts will see this!

#Larry fic prompt

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misc-obeyme · 1 year ago

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what do you think it'd take for barbie to show all those restrained emotions tho? surely theres a breaking point even for him. give the poor guy a hug and massage yknow

Well, anon, I have thought about this quite a bit! I even wrote a little fic based around this idea.

I definitely think there’s a breaking point, but I think there are a couple of ways that he might open up more.

The suggestion of a hug and massage is a good one because I think this guy spends so much time taking care of other people that he wouldn’t know what to do if someone was taking care of him. It’s too unsettling for him if it’s a big deal. In his birthday events I always felt like he was just going along with things for the sake of everyone else. But I think that if someone he loves, like MC, just did something sweet and simple for him in private - like a massage or even just a hug - that he would reveal some of his feelings in that moment. He would finally allow that person to care for him and maybe show the depth of his own weariness.

Kind of similar, but I think he would slowly but surely open up to someone he trusts. Again it feels like something he would only do in quiet moments with MC. When they’re alone and he doesn’t feel like he has to maintain his butler persona quite so much.

And if MC really made the effort to show him that they want to take care of him, too, that they want him to confide in them, to be his full genuine self with them, I think he’d meet them there. I think he would then make the effort to hold back less when he’s with them. Just because he can see how much it means to them.

In the end I suppose I think Barbatos would open up to someone he loves, but who doesn’t need him to take care of them. Sure he likes to take care of MC, but MC is not dependent on him. Because I think Barbatos loves Diavolo too but isn’t as open with him as he might be because Dia needs him. And Barbatos very much indicates that he considers himself to be in Diavolo’s service. But he isn’t MC’s butler. So that dependence isn’t there.

I would say it’s also possible that he might lose some of his control if the people he cared about were in danger. I have no doubt that we’d see how angry he can get if that was the case. But I think even in the face of such anger he’d be able to keep his calm and come to everybody’s rescue.

So I definitely think it’s the soft sweet moments that would make him finally reveal some truths about his feelings. When it’s just him and MC and he doesn’t have to be anything other than who he is. When he trusts that it’s okay to let go a little. When he realizes that MC just wants him to be happy, whatever that means for him. When MC tells him that he’s safe, that they aren’t concerned about whatever reason he has for holding himself back so much. That they trust him. That’s when I think he would show those emotions he’s always hiding.

#ahh I love him #I really could write about him all day #thank you to all who encourage my Barbatos ramblings #obey me #obey me nightbringer #obey me barbatos #om barbatos #anon asks #misc answers

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hedge-old · 9 months ago

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᯽ Hello! ᯽

Hi! New to posting about this, so sorry if I avoid interaction a bit! I’ll reblog from here, but won’t use my main to interact if possible

A catchall name you can use for me is Hedge, op, or you can use the name of whoever’s tagging under a post to indicate who’s posting, since I think a few ppl in our system might post some? Generally They/Them or He/Him is ok, but don’t be afraid to ask! Current poster tags include, but may be added to; #🦇.Val Posts ᯽ #🦋.Jenth Posts ᯽ #🪶.Dove Posts ᯽ and a general tag # 📺. Hedge Posts if anyone doesn’t want to specify

᯽ BYI ᯽

THIS ACCOUNT IS SFW ONLY. IF YOUR ACCOUNT ISNT SFW, PLEASE DONT INTERACT

We keep our regression pretty private, but it’s still fun to post and make art and talk to people about things we’re interested in! I’ll usually edit or doodle or something similar, but I also write sometimes. Generally I won’t post while small, but might reply to people if I know you well enough. Because of that, we might not be posting all the time, even if you see us reblogging things! It’s probably not us ignoring you, we’re just not in the space to talk at that moment. Also, Tonetags are super appreciated! They’re not required, but they’re still nice to use. I also have a hard time typing sometimes, though I try making sure what I write is legible. Feel free to let me know if you need something rewritten so it’s easier for you

On this blog, you’ll probably see a LOT of Vast Error content, as well as other Homestuck and fanworks stuff. I might Minecraft post occasionally, talk about s4m, Adventure Time, and whatever other shows I’m interested at the time! Some shows might have content not suitable for kids, but none of that content will ever be posted on here

᯽ DNI ᯽

Pr0sh1p / Z00 / etc.

Pro s/h or e/d

Endogenic or Neutral

Adult Content / Using Agere for that

Just use your brain and don’t be gross

᯽ Interests ᯽

Vast Error

Homestuck + Fanworks

Adventure Time

Minecraft

Bugs n Birds!

Whatever interest passes by for a bit

᯽ Request Stuff ᯽

There’s no guarantee I’ll get to it in a timely manner, but my requests are open unless my askbox says otherwise! Just send em in. I’ll do stimboards, moodboards, panel edits, and maybe small doodles? I might do mini fic requests too, but only if I feel motivated at that moment, those aren’t a guarantee

Request Tags! #Hedge.Request ᯽ #Hedge.Boards ᯽ #Hedge.Edits ᯽ #Hedge.Doodles ᯽ #Hedge.Fics ᯽ #Hedge.Asks ᯽

Other Helpful Tags! more to be added… #.rb ᯽ #.fav ᯽ #Hedges.Pesters ᯽

᯽ I Think That’s It! ᯽

#pinned post #pinned intro #pinned info #agere #agere blog #agere requests #age regression #sfw agere #ve agere #vast error agere #at agere #adventure time agere #homestuck agere #🦇.Val Posts #📺.Hedge Posts #🪶.Dove Posts #🦋.Jenth Posts

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valyrfia · 1 year ago

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I really like some of the takes and overall people sharing their opinions in a safe sort of way/space.

I also love how I can trace your point of view not only on lestappen topic but on shipping in general and rpf specifically.

I think sometimes people forget (maybe due to their age or inexperience) that Max and Charles are real life human beings with high stress level jobs and who are public personas as well. If people think about themselves as nuanced individuals they should think the same way about these two too.

Like don’t get me wrong I enjoy analyzing their interactions, I do read fanfiction and always reblog a good gifset or post but I also realize that what I spent my time on is not a true reflection of reality.

Thus I don’t expect them to be publicly smooching every race weekend on camera.

They are just guys doing their job, they seem to have some type of feelings towards each other and they might as well be aware of it but even if it is so we are not gonna know about it probably. Not while they are active F1 drivers at least. And honestly? We are not supposed to know about it. It’s called private life for a reason.

So yeah I’m kinda glad to know that there are other tumblr users with similar opinions on sexuality, personal stuff and shipping and I hope the majority of the fanbase is sharing them.

First of all let me just say this is one of the kindest asks I've gotten, thank you so much <3 I love that you feel I'm curating a safe space for everyone involved

But yeah, I'm an old hat at rpf so I'm pretty good at the cognitive dissonance required to distinguish between the Max and Charles the super famous F1 drivers and the Max and Charles that we cackle about here, which is why I'm pretty straightforward about the fact that I don't like talking about their irl partners or speculating on their sexualities. It does take practice, but I think it's a really vital skill to have if we're going to talk about them. I've been involved with 3 or 4 rpf ships in my time and they get sour quickly unless we explicitly set some boundaries for ourselves.

Also let me play devil's advocate for a moment, let's say either of them are anything not straight. Imagine how absolutely terrifying that is, in an extremely high-stress sport that's had no high-profile non-straight people that competes in countries where being gay can get you killed by law. A grand majority of the fans would change the way they see you, probably some of the higher ups would too. Tabloids would hound you relentlessly and it's likely some people or their families in your circle would shun you. There is no way you would even think about the possibility of being openly queer in an environment like that. Whatever their sexualities are is their own private business, which is why I explicitly refuse to speculate. It's important to distinguish feelings from sexuality here. You can speculate on someone's feelings without speculating on their sexuality or how they identify.

That being said, fic plays by different rules (apart from the partners bit). I think fic can use these characters of Max and Charles to explore some really interesting theses on sexuality and how it would fit into the sport. It's still important to keep in mind that these aren't the Max and Charles that exist here in the real world though, they're characters based off of them.

#i'm not going to get into the age old 'is rpf actually morally wrong' discourse everyone has their own opinions #but what we can and should do is set some good boundaries #lestappen #anon #also this ask genuinely made me smile to receive thank you anon

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the-case-book-of-fanfiction · 1 year ago

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my rewatch of broadchurch has reminded me of how much i love the idea of hopper taking on steve as an intern and showing him the ropes of policework. so, uh, here's a little thing i might make into an actual fic one of these days:

it's not steve's first choice of job. but it was offered to both him and robin, it pays well, it gets his dad off his back. or maybe worse. ("finally getting your life together, are you? finally got yourself an actual career.")

at first, it's simple, easy. reports, paperwork, sometimes some leg work. hopper oversees steve and robin's training personally. he says it's because they show potential; while that may be true, steve also suspects that hop's been told to keep an eye on the two of them by the shady government agents who have been lingering around hawkins—most of them pretending to be regular people, but the townspeople know better. everyone knows everyone in a small town like hawkins, and after the hellscape the town became, people have their own theories about what happened. most of them are pretty close, almost all of them including a government conspiracy.

for the few months, that's all they do. chase after the people who get too close to the truth, hush them up before the papers can snap up the story. they can't stop them all, but for the most part, people outside of hawkins write it off as lunacy. steve and hopper are thankful for that.

two years. two years of pure silence from any related to the upside down; no demodogs, no labs, no doctors, no psychic children. just eleven—jane, now—with the hopper-byers, and she hasn't used her powers for anything other than making max's life easier. the party's gone back to playing d&d together regularly, even though their parents tease them they're too old to be playing it in mike's basement.

and then, a couple months after the anniversary of will's disappearance, the world starts to crack again.

not really, not literally, not like it did when vecna split hawkins into four chunks of hell. but it's close, because steve can feel the world shift and begin to fall, just like it did then. it's worse this time, though, because he didn't really notice last time. he was too wrapped up in himself, in high school, in tommy and carol, in nancy. but this time? this time steve is fully aware of just how disastrous the world is.

it's a body. it's a young boy. all of hawkins stills because it's a little too similar.

when he's found, nobody knows who it is. the body's in the quarry, found by a group of young kids playing a little too close to the edge. (the town starts to get uneasy.)

the police retrieve the body. the family's contacted privately. the mother screams and wails that she was right, that she knew, that if they had just listened to her—

they realize, too late, that a missing persons report was filed about the boy two days ago. hopper hates how much the woman reminds him of joyce.

the autopsy is performed, and it confirms that the boy is really this woman's son. hopper insists on being present for the autopsy, just a little too worried it would be another fake.

for a while, steve is convinced it has to be related to what happened in the early 80s. hopper is, too, until that autopsy. after that, he tells steve it's a perfectly normal murder case.

it takes a while before steve believes him. only after that does he start to think that a regular murder case is even worse.

"i hate these small town murders," hopper says to him one day. "too many secrets about too many people get uncovered. things we never should know."

"but we're the police, shouldn't we know these things? if people are threatening and blackmailing and committing petty crimes, shouldn't we know?" steve asks, confused as to why hopper seems to be okay with these things—small compared to a murder, but big to a small town—happening all the time under their noses.

because that's what has been happening. backs are turning quickly. the town is becoming violent, accusing anyone and everyone who is slightly suspicious as the boy's killer.

"in a regular small town, it wouldn't be as big of a deal," hopper says. "even then, some things are just better left unsaid. but here? there's too many secrets we need to keep. secrets unrelated to this case. secrets that could get the soviets interested again."

and the idea of that makes steve shudder, his body remembering pain he had never really gotten rid of, always feeling it when it's too cold or raining.

robin shares similar ideas to hopper. "all these accusations," she says one night, when it's just them in the office because hop sent everybody else home and he's in the next room making coffee, "doesn't it scare you? like imagine if somebody turns on...i don't know, jonathan or...or nancy? i mean nancy owns guns and people know about it—"

"the boy wasn't shot, robs."

"—and jonathan, i mean, everybody who went to school with us heard about you breaking the camera and why you did it. they might..."

steve shakes his head. "i wish i hadn't, robs. especially now."

"i know that, that's not what i'm saying. my point is, we've all got dirt, every single one of us. eddie's been accused of murder before, who's to say they won't do it again? even if it doesn't make sense, neither do the people they target now. anyone who's done any wrong is in the risk of it being made public. and if that happened to us? if people find out about el, about vecna, about will? what happens then?"

she's worked herself up into a panic, steve can tell. but this time, he doesn't really know what to say. he doesn't know what will happen. the government agents who watched them for months before they disappeared all at once never made verbal threats, but the threat of their presence was enough to silence everyone.

the only thing he can think to say is "eddie's on tour with the guys right now, he's safe from all of this."

"until they get back, then everyone will become the next jason carver," robin says, and steve begs her not to bring him back up.

secrets get dug up as the case drags on, only getting further and further away from closure. affairs, bullying, threats, drugs, alcohol, robbery. whatever small, dirty secret the town could possibly have, it does have, and it gets dug up and aired out like dirty laundry.

steve watches the town pretend to be shocked at every new revelation. it doesn't hurt very much until he watches the entire town pretend that they—and he—didn't know his dad was cheating on his mom and has been for years; that still doesn't hurt as much as the pitying looks they give him when he shows up to ask questions or to take their statements; and that still doesn't compare to the looks everyone gives his mom.

he watches his mom lose her love of life. it was fine, or they could pretend it was fine, before everybody knew (officially) about his dad's infidelity. they could pretend it wasn't happening. they pretended it was some big business meeting or a dinner with a client or whatever it was, except what it actually was.

that's what hurts steve most about policework. watching people go under for things that have nothing to do with him. watching people lose family and livelihoods over mistakes made years ago. watching the life drain from a community, replaced by suspicion and anger and hatred.

because if he stops and thinks about it, steve doesn't really mind it otherwise. he likes the thrill, the facts fitting together, the possibility that they might actually be right.

and when they are right, even after countless wrong leads, steve feels the relief deep in his bones. he feels it in the town, too, feels people start to breathe again and start to go back to normal and live their lives again.

he knows it's not normal again, not really. how can it be? but he watches the case go to trial, he watches it go right, he watches the killer go to jail. he watches the family finally breathe again, hears the mother thank him and robin and hopper, sees them try to go back to their lives and do they best they can.

it's not normal, but it's better. it's better than it was, because the accusations are gone now, what's been dug up has either been forgotten or left alone or maybe it has changed lives, but people are moving on. sweeping it under the rug like it never even happened.

there are some divorces in the following weeks—the couples whose infidelity was discovered. the police chase a few domestic abuse reports. steve handles a few of them, because he's learned to handle the punches now. there'a crackdown on illicit substances. steve and robin are glad eddie's quit all of that now, that he had given it up years ago.

the world stops ending. steve knows it'll end again someday, more often if he ever ends up in a big city. but for now, it's over and he can go back to his boring old police routine.

steve likes "boring" these days. boring is a safety net, something to fall back into when things get exciting.

the other thing steve likes about policework—it is exciting. sometimes. sometimes, it makes him feel alive again.

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