#critfic

[wyvernspirit]

There was this fic I read where Essek started sleeping every night instead of trancingd slowly he started to age like Caleb as he cut himself off from the source of elfs longer lifeline

And the like God or being who gives that lifeline dragged him into a trance dream to try tempt him again and Essek basically said Fuck You I have something better

He's happy to grow old with Caleb

Does anyone know the fics name?? I'm struggling to find it

[vexing-imogen]

nocturne

Elsie sees to him last, at his insistence. Rajan has never been overly fond of doctors (with one notable exception), and whatever she had done in the tunnels below Greyslate has kept him from death's door for now.

"I'll be back," she says, once he's settled on the sofa, assurance and threat in one. He won't be weaseling his way out of this one.

He regards the crumbling ruin of his torso and thinks that is probably for the best.

Rajan settles in to wait for Elsie to return, knowing it may take a while, given the extent of Cosmo's injuries alone. He closes his eyes, tilts his head back, relaxes into the cushions of the sofa, and...does not sleep. It is not the pain in his chest that keeps him awake, rather the yawning ache of emptiness. Stillness and quiet where there is usually a low drone of activity.

It reminds him far too much of their his house that sits abandoned in Briar Green. The only difference being that he knows the swarm will eventually return.

Soft footsteps draw him out of thoughts that are spiraling into maudlin. "Raj?"

He cracks an eye open, takes a moment to focus through the kaleidoscoping fractals. Elsie stands in the doorway, her black bag in one hand, still covered in dirt and blood, her hair falling from its pins. Beautiful.

"Elsie." He gives her a half smile, sitting up straighter, wincing as the movement pulls, close to tearing.

She brings a stool over to sit in front of him, sets her bag on the sofa beside him. "How are you feeling?" she asks, tracing cool fingers over the scars above his eye. He leans into the touch for just a moment.

"I've been worse," he tells her. That gets him a raised eyebrow and an annoyed twist of her lips.

"Right, of course." He can see the muscle working in her jaw as she turns away from him. Her hands clench and unclench in her lap. "You promised that you wouldn't make this difficult."

He hadn't really, not in so many words, and certainly not with any degree of sincerity at the time. But he knows when to swallow his pride, and so he takes one of her hands in his, strokes his thumb gently over her knuckles, his touch lingering on the indent where a ring used to sit.

"What do you need from me, darling?"

Elsie turns back to him with a sigh, pulling her hand back. She steels herself before pulling open the tattered remains of his shirt and jacket, exposing the gaping wound on his chest.

"Tell me how I can help you," she pleads. "How do I-" Her hands flutter nervously for a second. "Is there anything I can do to fix...this?"

Whatever Rajan may have been expecting, nothing could have possibly prepared him for Elsie reaching her hand into his chest and stroking along the torn edges of the hive. All of the breath leaves his lungs on a gasp, and something hot races down his spine. He meets Elsie's wide eyes, and realizes belatedly that his hand is clamped, vice-like, around her wrist.

"I'll take that as a 'no'," she says breathlessly, withdrawing her hand.

"The swarm will return," he says after a moment, his extremities still tingling, "and they will take care of...internal repairs." And expansion, but she needn't worry about that. "The most you can do for me is close the wound."

"Okay." She nods, reaching for her bag, all business. "Lie back."

She works in silence for several minutes, cleaning the edges of torn skin, numbing the area as best she can, and starting to stitch him up. The sensation is uncomfortable, but never painful. He allows himself to relax into it; her hands delicate and precise, her gaze intent.

"I-I didn't realize-" She starts and stops tentatively. "How long has this been a part of you?"

He doesn't answer right away. "Since the night I lost my sister."

"Raj," she breathes. He has to look away from the pity in her eyes. "Why did you never tell me?"

He hums. "I suspect for the same reason you never told me about your illness," he says. She freezes, and he reaches up to tuck an errant curl behind her ear. "It was my burden to bear, Little Bird."

She is nearly finished before she speaks again, working on the last few stitches. "I never wanted to hurt you, Raj," she whispers, loose strands of her hair tickling his bare chest.

"Nor I, you," he says. "And, yet, here we are."

"Where do we go from here?" she asks, once he is stitched and bandaged, his shirt mostly back in place.

Rajan sighs. "To sleep, Elsie."

"Be serious."

"I am," he insists. "It's been a long day, we're both exhausted. Anything else can be left for the morning."

He watches her shoulders slump, the stubborn set of her jaw relax. "Fine." She finds a blanket for him and turns off the lamps. Then he watches as she frees the rest of her hair from the pins, removes her shoes, and curls up like a cat on the opposite side of the sofa.

"What are you doing?" he asks, incredulous.

Elsie huffs. "All of the guest rooms are occupied," she says, adding in a softer voice, "and I don't have the energy to climb the stairs to my room tonight."

He hums, can feel sleep finally coming to claim him. "Sleep well, Elsie," he murmurs, running his thumb over her ankle; once, twice. "May your dreams be free from shadows."

She pokes him in the hip with her toe. "And may the morning come swiftly."

***

Rajan wakes just a few hours later, as the sky is starting to lighten in the pre-dawn. There is a warm weight pressed against his side, and he finds that he and Elsie have migrated towards each other in the night. Her head is on his shoulder, her arm flung across his waist, and he barely has to move his head to be able to smell the traces of jasmine and honey on her skin.

She mumbles something unintelligible and snuggles closer. He inhales deep, catching the underlying scent of petrichor and bleed, closes his eyes again, allowing them both a moment of comfort before they have to face a new day and whatever lies ahead.

[ineffablebardwrites]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Orym/Dorian Storm Characters: Orym (Critical Role), Dorian Storm, Cyrus Wyvernwind Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drinking, Mutual Pining, Developing Relationship, Pre-Relationship, Canon Compliant, Literal Sleeping Together, Anger Series: Part 29 of CritFics Summary:

After a heated discussion that leads to hurt feelings, Orym finds Dorian on the roof, drunk and grieving.

They finally talk about Cyrus.

--

Spoilers for events in 3x92 and 3x93

[animatedamerican]

⭐ Hullo! Hope you're well - just wondering if you've had any Cass thoughts since completing 'forgive us the days forgotten to fear'. It's still my favorite Cass fic bar none and I'm hungry for any further thoughts on her, or ideas that didn't make it into the fic?

Hello! What a great question to get. :D

Yes indeed I have had further Cass thoughts since completing that fic, including thoughts on her presence in the Dalen's Closet oneshot. I'm honestly still sad there wasn't more of her there, especially given who the villain was. And while I'd really like to talk about what I think Cassandra was doing during that plotline, I am not yet giving up on actually finishing the sequel fic I have in mind, and I don't want to spoil it. It's planned to cover the period between the campaign end and the end of the oneshot, from Cass's POV, and includes another present-but-forgotten character or two. I really hope I can manage to get it written.

Ideas that didn't make it into the fic? A few. I've kept the deleted snippets in a notes document in case I should ever get a chance to reuse them somewhere. There's, let's see ... oh you know what, why not, I'm just going to copy two of them below. These were both cut out of Chapter 6, which covered the timeskip year, mostly because it was already a terribly long chapter and there didn't seem to be a better place to put them back in -- but I still like them.

-----

pelor can do his own damn research

The history of the Grey Hunt, as she’s been finding in her studies, is both fascinating and frustratingly vague. There’s no way of knowing if it’s always been this vague, or if the crucial details were maintained by the clerics of Pelor, never written down.

Not for the first time, she grieves the loss of Father Reynal -- not just the death of a good man, but the loss to Whitestone’s heart. Yennen has been doing his best as the new priest of Pelor, but he doesn’t have the institutional memory; if there were things Reynal would have taught his successor that couldn’t be learned any other way, they’re lost now.

Well, if that’s the case, it will just have to be up to the Dawnfather Himself to make good that loss. He’s meant to send a vision of some kind to the prospective Master of the Grey Hunt, he can feel free to add whatever other details they need to know.

(And if there’s a tinge of resentment in that thought, she rather feels she’s earned the right to it.)

-----

formal dinners

Sometime in late summer, they begin to have formal dinners together at the castle once every week or so: multiple courses, and the table laid with fine linen and silver and porcelain and crystal, and everybody dressed for company. It isn’t often they have any other company aside from Taryon, who hardly counts as company now that he’s effectively part of Vex’s household, but once in a while there’ll be visitors from elsewhere, or they’ll have Archibald or Keeper Yennen or some other members of the Chamber.

The place at the head of the table is, undisputedly, Cassandra’s. She’s gotten over the profound discomfort of sitting in her father’s seat by dint of having the staff rearrange the dining room entirely, moving the sideboard and turning the table perpendicular. The head of the table is now in a different place, and somehow that makes all the difference: not her father’s seat, the one that was usurped by Sylas Briarwood, but her own.

[rubyisms]

With the posting of this chapter, we’re so miserable and stunning is officially on hiatus for the holidays as well as my moving houses. Enjoy the last update of 2024, and see you all in 2025!

[chaos-burst]

for smut prompts. 👀👀

how do you feel about dorian and orym’s first time <33

[ID: a screenshot of an anonymous tumblr ask that reads "for your smut prompts... thinkin bout Orym with a size kink even tho he's Small (partner choice is up to you)". End ID]

I did it! :D Have some soft Dorym smut on this grey Sunday 🌸

[twilightwrites]

“Breathe.” Percy’s voice rumbles against Vax’s back as he settles in comfortably. 

Vax can’t help the little smug smile on his face as he leans back to glance at the man behind him. “Breathing is second nature, Freddie. Hard to forget.”

There’s a twinkle in Percy’s eye that Vax knows doesn’t come from the light off of the silver scales that have appeared on his skin around his eyes. It’s mischievous, much like the twinkle in Vax’s own. 

“You say that now.”

It’s slow as his cock is eased into him. Despite all the fingers, lube, and foreplay to prepare him for it, it still burns as he’s stretched open. He’s taken Percy like this countless times before, but it seemed every time, his body had to readjust and become familiar with the shape of his cock, the texture and sheer size. He can feel the smallest swell in his stomach as he feels Percy’s full length slide all the way in, bottoming out deep inside of him, and forcing the first of many moans from his lips. 

“You’re doing so well, Vax.” The voice growls in his ear and a sharp thrust leaves the half-elf’s mouth falling open in a pathetic whine that fades into a moan. “But that’s to be expected from my mate. Your practice is paying off.”

Even if he wanted to say something, he couldn’t. Percy’s so big that every thrust nearly splits him in half and each one leaves his breath being punched out of his lungs. It’s a miracle he’s able to breathe at all, honestly. 

“Look at you.” Percy shifts the slightest bit behind him, bringing a hand down to his back. He can feel the sharp claws digging into his back before they slowly drag down to settle on his hips again. “Taking my cock like you were made for it. It’s a pretty picture, Vax. I wish I was an artist to immortalize it on a canvas forever.”

“Perc—“ Another sharp thrust as this slightly new angle has him cut off, gasping loudly. He didn’t think he could feel anymore full, but here he is being proven wrong as Percy stuffs him full with every last inch of his cock. 

“I could give you this every night.” He’s panting in his ear and Vax whines, desperately thrusting his hips into nothing but air. “Every day, just keep you on my cock, surrounded by my hoard, until it’s all you want.”

He manages to move a hand from where it’s balled up in a fist in the sheets back behind him, brushing out to find something solid and warm, something that was so definitively Percy. There’s a familiar brush of flesh into silver scales and he can hear the little rumble of the beast kept at bay rumbling in Percy's chest. 

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Not until you’re satisfied, my mate.”

Mate… It’s all Vax can think as he’s stuffed full over and over, chasing the promise of a release that builds up in the core of his belly, a release that’s swelling behind him in the promise of Percy’s knot. 

He wants it all. He wants more.

[sylv-e-on]

I feel like I'm committing a crime right now

[ladedanixie]

heres a snippet from chapter 4 of flowers are the way to a girl’s heart

be warned there are shitty dads ahead.

Her dad spun around, face red with anger, and slapped her. His rings made contact with cheek and nose, drawing blood, splattering it across the floor. Tiny buds emerged, crimson. 

“Thoreau?” Her mother’s voice echoed down the stairs, unsure and scared. Beau wanted to scream, call for help, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the flowers spreading like wildfire across the floor. 

“Go back to bed darling,” Thoreau called back. Voice full of all the gentleness he didn’t have for his own daughter. His own flesh and blood. Spilled across the floor. Spreading across the floor. Reaching toward her, it was enough to make her choke on her own rage. 

But her mother, mom, mom, mom, she could sense her mother’s hesitation on the stairs. She couldn’t see her from here, but she wouldn’t leave her. Wouldn’t let him do this. Right? Hope licked at the heels of her heart with its beginning embers of light. The creak of wood transformed hope into a fire until—the sound of fading footsteps. A door shuts, followed by silence. And Beau was left with smoke. And the flowers. Still growing. Still reaching. The sound like the rushing of blood in her ears.

Beau’s eyes burned with tears, with anger, with—Beau tried to speak again, which only earned her another backhand. Why did she even bother? Didn’t stop her from wondering if her father would feel something, anything at the sight of her tears. Would he reach out?

But, Beauregard didn’t get to see his reaction as the monks pulled the cloth back over her head and dragged her out into the night. The scent of blood and flowers permeating the air.

Beau wakes and

[sparxwrites]

Hello (⁠ ⁠˶⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ꁞ⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠˶⁠ ⁠) I'm Zori from Ko-fi! If I could ask for Perc'ildan + wing kink, I would be delighted! Ty (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

want a lil fic like this one? you can get one here!

“These are beautiful, Freddie.”

“They’re really not,” says Percy. There’s a wry twist of self-deprecation to his words. Vax can’t see Percy’s face with the way they’re sitting – his back to Vax’s front, Vax with his hands hovering over the half-ragged primaries of his wings – but he assumes there’s an equally wry, self-deprecating smile on Percy’s lips, too. “You don’t have to lie to me, Vax’ildan, I’m perfectly aware of what they– ow!”

Vax pokes him in the side, and then again, harder, for good measure. And also just because he can. Old habits, namely winding Percy up, die hard. “Shut it, you. They’re gorgeous. Sure, they’d be a little more gorgeous if you didn’t muck all the feather up by hiding them under that coat of yours all the time, and if you actually preened them, but…”

He’s not lying. The wings are– well. They’re beautiful, pale, ghostly, the same shade as Percy’s hair. There’s the faintest of gradients from shoulder to tip, though, the silvery edge to them where they meeting skin fading away to pure and solid white at the tips.

They’re undeniably damaged, though. The scars that cut through them are mostly only visible by faint ripples in the way the feathers sit, but a half-dozen of the larger feathers are missing entirely. They don’t look like they’ll be growing back in again. 

But dozens more, smaller feathers are missing in a way that suggests an awkward moult, or a broken quill, or simply too much friction. The ones remaining are dusty, or dirty, or crooked, bedraggled from long weeks on the road. It makes Vax wince just to look at, but he has to assume that, for Percy, it itches something awful.

Which means that the primary problem here, to Vax’s inexpert eye, is not even remotely the scarring. It’s simply an entirely mundane lack of self-care.

“Yes, well,” says Percy, stiffly, and fails to actually follow up his half-hearted objection with an argument. “Luckily for me, you’re apparently going to see to– mmh. Oh. Yes. Th-there we go.”

Vax has finally set fingers to wings – starting gentle, carding through the primaries and secondaries, adjusting the corresponding coverts a little. He knows how easy it is to get overwhelmed, if you’ve not preened in a while. It’s taken weeks to coax Percy into this. The last thing Vax wants to do is scare him off.

After a minute, two minutes, Percy sighs. It’s a soft sound, a heavy sound. More importantly, though, it’s accompanied by the relaxing of his shoulders. The tension eases out of the line of his spine, inch by inch. He leans back into Vax’s hands, ever so slightly, and Vax can’t help but grin. 

Success. 

Not that he’d ever doubted it would be, though. The fingers that make him such a good pickpocket also make him very deft at setting feathers in order. He’s never had any complaints – and has, in fact, had quite a few compliments.

“…They used to be brown, you know,” says Percy, after a while. His voice is half-dreamy, and Vax has the sudden conviction that his eyes are closed. That he’s made himself vulnerable. The thought sends warmth up from Vax’s stomach to his chest. “Like a hunting hawk’s. All different shades of it… Strong wings, my father used to say. The sign of a good leader, whatever that means. …They changed when my hair did, of course. She didn’t leave anything unscathed.”

Vax lets that sit, for a moment, in the space between them. 

Then– “Stop living in the past, Freddie,” he says, tender, full of hypocrisy. And then, before Percy can point that out, “I, personally, think that they’re fine just as they are. They’re not hers. They’re still yours, just… different, a little. Besides. They’re very striking, like this. I bet all the boys go crazy over them, hmm?” He grins. “Lucky me.”

There’s a noise like a forming argument from the back of Percy throat – but it’s drowned out almost immediately by something between a whine and a moan, his body half-collapsing back into Vax’s hands.

Vax has finally abandoned caution, and let himself sink his fingers into the soft, downy scapular feathers right where wing meets shoulder blade. The skin there is shot through with scars that crawl up onto the wings themselves, leaving deep valleys in the feathers. But, judging by the noises Percy’s making, they’re still every bit as sensitive as anyone else’s scapulars.

“There we go,” says, Vax, with the half-edge of a laugh to the words, content in the knowledge that Percy is far too busy melting beneath his hands to call him out on it. “That’s it. Stop reminiscing, and just relax, Freddie. I’ve got you.”

And, unbelievably, for once in his life, Percy de Rolo does as he’s told.

[vexing-imogen]

Trick or treat!!!! :D

vex'ahra college au

The party is a rousing success, if Vex does say so herself. She can feel the bass thumping in her bones, there are so many people crammed into the house it's probably a fire hazard, she's maintaining a delightful buzz, and her witch costume is perfectly sexy, if the way the boys keep staring at her ass is any indication.

It isn't perfect though, because she can't find the one person that she is desperate to see, to talk to, to make out with.

Her eyes light up when she spots, well, not her quarry, but close enough, over by the keg. She pushes her way through several of Grog's weight lifting buddies and taps Kash on the shoulder.

"Hey!," she yells over the music that will likely get the police called on them, "where's Zahra?"

She has to repeat herself twice before he understands. "Roof!" he says, and then turns away from her.

Vex grabs a pair of cocktails from Percy, then makes her way to the third floor and the roof access that is, conveniently, in her bedroom. She only pauses for a second before she locks her door behind her. She wants privacy for this godsdamnit.

She steps out onto the roof and her mouth immediately goes dry. There's Zahra, in all her pirate queen glory; tight leather pants and a white puffy shirt that's open to her navel. She grins wickedly when she spots Vex, her fangs gleaming in the moonlight.

"There you are, darling," she drawls. "I've been waiting for ages."

Vex saunters forward, holding out the drink as a peace offering. "My apologies, your Majesty," she teases. "I guess I'll just have to make it up to you, won't I?"

Zahra hums, her eyes raking over Vex hungrily. "And just how do you plan on doing that?"

"I have a few ideas," she says, licking her lip. "The door's locked, we won't be disturbed."

Zahra sips her drink, quirks one perfect eyebrow. "Awfully presumptuous, don't you think?"

Vex's response dies on her lips when her hat is blown off her head and Zahra moves into her space to grab it before the wind carries it away, effectively putting the tiefling's tits directly in Vex's face. She can't bite back a whimper, and then Zahra is smiling down at her, all sharp teeth and soft eyes.

Her back hits brick, and then Zahra's lips are on hers, hot and demanding. One hand fists in her hair, the other drags sharp nails along her thigh. She groans, allows herself to revel in the feeling of being manhandled for once.

They never do make it back to the party.

[lowcountry-gothic]

This is it. This is why I find most Swifties’ analysis of her work so frustrating. It’s all speculation about Taylor’s personal life and relationships based on nothing but interpretations of songs.

I’ve also just realized that this is a perfect example of a critical fallacy described by Dr. Corey Olsen (popularly known as the Tolkien Professor) as “critfic.” Olsen defines critfic as essentially a critical form of fanfiction, in which one speculates about the artist’s personal life and motivations for creating their art instead of actually interacting with the art itself on its own terms. Olsen insists, and I think quite rightly, that this is an unconscious refusal to open oneself up to the art and fully receive it. It’s basically just writing headcanon…about an actual human being. -_-

It’s really sad that, with the way everyone's acting leading up to its release, I genuinely don’t think the tortured poets department is gonna be spoken about outside the context of Joe. Every conversation about the album will probably revolve around him and what he supposedly did or didn’t do, with minimal talk about Taylor’s artistry or anything remotely important and inspired. and i'm not limiting this to the fandom bubble, which is disheartening enough, but professional reviews will also probably mention it. that's depressing.

[ineffablebardwrites]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Orym/Dorian Storm, Dorian Storm & Cyrus Wyvernwind Characters: Dorian Storm, Cyrus Wyvernwind, Orym (Critical Role) Additional Tags: Near Death Experiences, Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Falling In Love, Confessions of love, Suicidal Thoughts, Men Crying, Returning from the Dead, Spoilers for 3x93, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort Summary:

Dorian wakes up in an unfamiliar place.

The person he finds there has a familiar face.

[animatedamerican]

Hi Toon! I hope you've been well <3 🌟 for forgive us the days forgotten to fear or Letters?

(from here!)

Hello! I'm good, thanks. <3

Oh man, tough choice. I think I gotta go with Letters because forgive us the days forgotten to fear is just so, so long.

Letters is the second of two short fics I wrote with a stealth Jewish headcanon for Caleb Widogast. I say 'stealth' because nothing is explicitly named as Jewish, and I did it that way for two reasons. Firstly to sidestep around the question of how any real-world ethnoreligion could exist in the secondary world of Exandria; secondly, and more importantly, to underscore the fact that the Dwendalian Empire is currently a place where unapproved religions must be practiced in secret, deniably.

Just about everything I put in that story involving Caleb's upbringing with regard to the Proper Treatment of Books is based on the Jewish traditions I was raised with involving specifically holy books, such as printed copies of the Tanakh or prayer books or anything bearing God's name. If you drop one by accident you kiss it when you pick it up; one must not stack other objects on top of them, or leave them lying open; copies too worn to read must be buried rather than discarded. Without a specific religious tradition to tie to those practices, it made sense to me to generalize them to all books, and that worked fairly well as a Blumenthal tradition of quasi-reverence to the written word itself. (I've also found in myself, and in others I've known who were raised with similar traditions, that we often do unconsciously extend some measure of that reverence to all books.)

All that is to highlight one line in the very last section, where shortly after Caleb has first disintegrated and then burned the ancient writings on time travel in Aeor, and immediately after drawing a direct connection between the burying of books and the burying of bodies, the story says:

"But he is a child of Blumenthal, and burning the dead will never feel any more right to him than burning the living."

I don't recall whether or not I was consciously thinking of a certain Ray Bradbury quote when I wrote that, but I may as well have been.

[rubyisms]

where you decide to stay

A week after the wedding, Vax still hasn't moved on from the lingering heartbreak of giving up his own relationship for a man who his sister loved just as much.

Even if Percy's lies threatened to expose the truth of a reality he's been shielding from Vex this entire time.

[chaos-burst]

Just suggesting a nsfw beujes, I’ve been following since we were the og beujes gang, the girls deserve to have some either casual experimentation or like a. Overly formal set up scene that these two cannot for the life of them keep serious

It only took me forever to finally get to finish this, but:

tasting you

I got sooo many BeauJes prompts so this is for all of you :D Hope you enjoy <333