#fic: Crooked Love

[eddiemunscns]

Crooked Love // a Ted Lasso fanfic

There were four things that Kiara Otterly was certain of:

1. Tom Holland was the superior Spider-man

2. Taylor Swift’s best song was All Too Well (the ten minute version obviously!)

3. Coffee was way better than tea

4. She hated Jamie fucking Tartt

She used to hate him anyway. Things were different now though. He was different now.

Taglist: @far-shores @starcrossedjedis @steveshcrringtons @steve--harrington--gal @acabecca @sgtbuckyybarnes @cas-verse @valdrinors @drbobbimorse @malafvma @arrthurpendragon @fakedatings @asirensrage

[reinedeslys-central]

"Leo, not to offend you or anything, but I can't see shit."

Leo scoffed. "Wow, must be pretty bad if you, of all people, are swearing. Hey, maybe it's because -" quick as a minx, he shot his hand out and -

"Wha- hey!"

-stole the glasses out of Jason's hands. Which is. Something you never do to people with glasses, seriously, Leo? Glasses are literally everything to people who need them?

"- your glasses are dirty as hell, bless your heart. Let me get that for you." Leo continued, unfazed by Jason's yelp and raised eyebrow at Leo, of all people, cleaning.

But as Leo's perpetually grease-stained fingers gently prodded and turned his glasses, Jason found himself wondering if that was maybe unfair of him.

Calloused, nimble hands danced over the wire frames, before pulling a microfibre cloth (and how surprising was that) out of yet another pocket to erase each smudge with care that not even Jason gave his glasses.

They were lying close enough that Jason could see Leo's hunched shoulder and furrowed brow, the sliver of petal-pink tongue poking through the corner of his mouth as he gave Jason's old, tarnished wire glasses the same attention he'd give any of his newest machines. He was close enough to touch the stray curl that fell across Leo's forehead, that he kept blowing away. Close enough to smell that old smell, of syrup-sweet grease and woodsmoke and water. Close enough to hear Leo's pleased little hum as he inspected the frame a final time before straightening and raising his hands to park them right back on Jason's face.

"Better?" He whispered, and Jason didn't reply. He couldn't.

The stars really were beautiful.

"What did you do to these?" He said, finally. "I've never seen this clearly before. Maybe on new-glasses days, but.."

Leo grinned. Jason looked away.

Time and space might have a shot at diluting that burning of his. There was a reason no one went blind watching the stars. But Jason would never be far enough to escape that smile. Like the stars, like the galaxies above, it was about as inevitable as a supernova.

Leo leaned over. "That's the thing, darlin' -" — and Jason's chest went thump — "I've got it all. Perks of being the one-and-only super-sized McShizzle."

Gods. Maybe Nico was right when he said there was clearly no accounting for taste.

He cleared his throat. "Well, thanks anyway. Just.. give me a little warning next time. I could've decked you for stealing my glasses, y'know."

Leo only laughed and leaned back against their blanket. The light from the waning moon fell across him, highlighting his nosebridge, his half-lidded eyes, the spot where his jeans hitched around his knees in his artless sprawl.

Jason let out a shaky breath, and copied him, reclining to give himself a better chance at drinking in the sky.

The stars were beautiful. That much anyone could admit.

..Leo was the most beautiful of them all.

outtake from 'burning like a glowing star', this new valgrace fic I'm writing. (yes, yes I am borrowing vibes from xdinary heroes. the song is called pluto and you should absolutely listen to it).

more stuff: Writing Directory

[snek-panini]

Today I've got binderary book #3 to share! It's a lighthouse (burning) by books-and-omens. This is a really excellent canonverse (sort of) historical setting liminal ghost story-esque fic that I read practically in one sitting sometime last summer. It's fantastic, well-characterized, angsty and fluffy and fairly plotty and with some really unique worldbuilding. I honestly can't sing its praises enough; it's one of the only times since taking up this hobby that I've known I wanted to bind something before I actually finished reading it.

Have a look at the rest of the photos under the cut; this one came out really well and I'm in love with it.

For this cover we have lineco book cloth on the spine, a strip of chiyogami paper that I got in one one ChibiJay's random paper packs, and blue-gray sketch paper for the primary gray space. It's a little hard to tell in the photos but the HTV for the titles is in two different colors, silver for "a lighthouse" and pewter for "(burning)". The effect is more pronounced in person and I love it. The pewter came in a multi-pack of cricut foil HTV and I can't seem to find it on its own anywhere, which is a shame because it's beautiful. The sort of streaky effect on the cover was unintentional but I'm kinda liking it? It's a more porous paper for drawing or painting or something, and I tried to wax it for waterproofing, but when I used the heat press to get the title on the wax darkened in the spots where the glue was applied to the cover board. At first I was disappointed, but the fic features a really massive unnatural storm, and it sort of looks like water running down a windowpane, so I'm leaning into that and calling it an aesthetic. The back didn't get this heat treatment, so it doesn't have the pattern.

Top view, showing the bookmark and handmade end bands. The bookmark is a navy blue ribbon cut from the inside of a shirt, and I chose red and white because there are so many picturesque lighthouses that have red and white stripes. It's the only color in the book that's not blue or gray. The endpapers are a navy blue silk moire, and I had better luck with them than I did with the platinum ones on my Persuasion bind even though they are the same brand. Maybe it's practice or maybe navy just hides more sins than platinum.

For the title page I went fairly simple (for me anyway) with just a frame I pulled from rawpixel. It suits the story, though, being set sometime around or before the early 20th century. I also played with text colors on the title page, with some words being grayed out to mimic the effect on the cover. The section break is me getting clever with a feature of my printer. I often use a gray line to denote section breaks, but for whatever reason my printer doesn't like them and often makes them blurry. It is only these lines that come out blurry; larger images don't do this even if they are complex. So for this one, where a major feature of the story is trying to figure out what's real and what's a supernatural occurrence, I made one that was deliberately heavier in the center so it would come out sort of smoky or fuzzy, like it wasn't quite real and couldn't be clearly seen. It doesn't look this fuzzy in the unprinted file but I love the effect and I feel very clever for manipulating the printer like this.

I'm going to show off some interior shots but this bit contains spoilers for the story, so if you don't want to see that then maybe skip the rest of the post.

I wanted to get creative with my title placement since a lot of my binds look very similar inside, and this concept really let me try that out. The plot of the story is that the reason there are so many supernatural phenomena at this lighthouse is that someone in the future ran an experiment to harvest energy and accidentally cracked spacetime with it, and bits of the future and the past and the might-have-been are seeping through the cracks, and the longer the cracks exist the more seeps through them and the worse the ghostly stuff gets. At first it's not clear whether there's anything weird happening at all, and it becomes clearer that something is wrong the further in you get because the cracks are worse. So I had this idea for a vintage lighthouse illustration with an overlay of cracks in glass, that become more defined as the story progresses until something is done and they're sealed up in the end. I am not a visual artist and even this straightforward concept was too much for my skills, so I chose the lighthouse and the crack overlay and my amazing husband did the actual image manipulation. There are five different images, with the cracks invisible in the first and final chapter and most visible in chapter 10 and 11, when the characters are trying hardest to fix the problem. I'm really really proud of how well this turned out.

And that's it! I have several more binderary books to post but they are all still waiting for titles before I do the photos, so I don't know when I'll have them up.

[demitriacalynn]

yes, you love them, but would you let the world burn for them? would you rip everything else apart to save them? would you let go of everything else just to see them again? if it was a choice between the world and them, who would you save? love isn't something to trifle with, you say, so for the sake of them, choose.

[lunarthecorvus]

Just read a brilliant 27.5k word Kanej regency au fic in an hour... It was amazing

[dasiesanddarkness]

Who wants a snippet from the explicit Wesper fic I'm currently writing?

Wylan leans down and places open mouthed kisses in a line from Jesper’s belly button to the space between his collar bones. Jesper twitches with each press of Wylan’s mouth on his skin, but he does his best to stay still. It’s hard, but he tries, because he knows it makes Wylan happy- knows it makes him proud, and Jesper wants so badly for Wylan to be proud of him.

"Tell me what’s wrong.”

The words are surprising, not at all where Jesper thought this would go, but he supposes it makes sense. Wylan has never let him ignore his feelings like he wants to.

“I don’t know,” Jesper breathes. Wylan presses a kiss to his shoulder.

“Yes you do,” he says softly. “And I want you to tell me so I know exactly what I need to do for you.”

Jesper sighs, arches his back. He does know, or he would if he thought about it like Wylan wants him to, but he’s never been good at thinking. His mind moves too fast for him to fully process most of what goes through it, and on days like this it moves even faster. It’s easier to just pretend the thoughts aren’t real and distract himself, but Wylan won’t let him. So he thinks, back to ten minutes ago when he had zoned out and his mind had wandered into dangerous territory.

“I don’t-” he cuts himself off when Wylan licks over his nipple. It makes it both harder and easier to talk through this, but he doesn’t want Wylan to stop.

“I don’t feel right,” he continues. “I feel disconnected from everything, like it’s happening and I’m just watching it.”

“But that’s not it, is it?” Wylan presses, and part of Jesper wishes he would just leave it alone.

“No,” he says. Wylan makes a noise, encouraging him to keep talking, and Jesper sighs. Squeezes his eyes shut. Sighs again, because he doesn’t want to talk about this, but he will. For Wylan.

“I feel like you deserve better than me.” The admission comes out in a whisper, and he almost hopes Wylan doesn’t hear it.

He does. Of course he does. Wylan pays attention to Jesper in a way very few have before, so of course he hears when Jesper admits that he doesn’t feel like he’s good enough.

Wylan’s hands leave his wrists and his mouth leaves his neck, and then he’s cupping Jesper’s face in his hands and kissing him insistently. Jesper threads his fingers through Wylan’s hair, lets the soft feeling of it ground him.

“Jesper,” Wylan whispers against his lips, and then he kisses him again.

Wylan isn’t good with words. He’s told Jesper that, made sure early on in their relationship that he knew that sometimes it was impossible for him to express himself properly, but that it didn’t mean he didn’t love him. But in moments like these, when Jesper is hurting and Wylan needs to reassure him and tell him that everything is okay, Wylan wishes he was good with words. Wishes he knew exactly what to say to make the anxiety sharp in Jesper’s head melt like icicles in the presence of the sun, how to make it go from jagged and dangerous to harmless and manageable.

“Jesper,” he says again. He tries to convey everything he thinks, everything he knows in that one word, but he knows it won’t work, so he kisses him instead. He kisses him, and then he tries again. “Jesper, I don’t deserve better that you.”

Jesper tries to open his mouth, tries to disagree or protest but Wylan isn’t having it, so he kisses him for what must be the hundredth time. “I don’t deserve better than you because there is no one better than you.”

There. It’s not poetry, and it’s not particularly eloquent or clever, but it’s true. It’s what Wylan knows. It’s a fact, and Wylan has always dealt in facts.

[zarnzarn]

heart by the fingers final chapter coming out tomorrowwwww

(i was gonna put this in the tags before I added too many- but here's my genuine request to give this fic a chance! lemme convince u ;) hehe)

[lullabyofmyworld]

What if there is a fic where Kaz and Inej are together (in the future, post CK), and Kaz is further along in his healing journey than Inej? Taking into account that neither of them are in the ace spectrum in this universe that I describe. As a fan, what would your reaction be if Kaz explored his sexuality with someone else? With Inej encouraging this, no cheating. It hurts not to be able to be where he is, but she doesn't want to hold him back.

And so this happens, and Kaz choose someone close, whom he trusts (woman, man, whatever you want). And he really enjoyed it. And let Inej also know that he enjoyed it. As a fan of this ship, would this bother you? or is it something you would be willing to explore?

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Hello, I should be asleep but I’ve been thinking about this concept for too long and this just kinda unexpectedly happened so here it is, hope you enjoy!

Archive Warnings: Major character death

Summary:

Five times Matthias Helvar spoke to his baby sister through Djel, and one time that she answered

I’ve put major character death as a tag but it’s nothing beyond canon, it’s just depicted in this fic from a slightly different perspective 👍

[unboundbnha]

I’m writing a Jason Todd fic that has everything I want. The foundation of the fic is love: it’s Bruce’s love for his long-lost son. But it’s love that’s gone wrong. It’s love, but it’s love for someone who’s gone (or never existed in the first place). It’s Bruce’s fear — of losing the people he loves, of losing what makes him feel like he’s making the right choices, of feeling completely lost, because admitting that he’s making a mistake, making MANY mistakes, well. That means he’s failed. He can’t fail. Not in this. Not again.

This fic is about love: one person begging the other to see them, to love them as they are, to help them in the way they need. The other person is suffocating the first because they love them. They love them so much and just want them to be happy, but happiness to them has a certain look. Happiness can only be achieved in the right way. It’s horrible and painful and frightening and sad. It’s a story about love. It’s a horror. It’s a ghost story. Don’t you see? In the end, it’s all about love. And how sometimes the people who love us are the ones who kill us.

[eddiemunscns]

Crooked Love // Act I

Taglist: @cas-verse @steveshcrringtons @far-shores @catgrant @acabecca @arrthurpendragon @steve--harrington--gal @starcrossedjedis @sgtbuckyybarnes @fakedatings @drbobbimorse @valdrinors @malafvma @asirensrage

[timeandspacelord]

Doing some research rereading for my fic and goddamn I need to fully reread SoC and CK

[gothsuguru]

suguru’s the most boyfie boyfriend to ever boyfriend

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

for the most part I actually don’t see Harry and Draco as being the get married types or at least not the have a wedding types but it’s also fun to just. Have them do it anyway. Weddings are fun and fun to write and read about!

[lunarthecorvus]

Me: *reads my 5th soulmate au of the day* *kicking my legs in the air, screaming when they finally meet and realise they're soulmates*

[aphroditestummyrolls]

I wrote something. For the first time in 84 years, I wrote and posted something.

She hadn’t written to tell them she was coming, she had no clue who was in town, or who was trying to kill them now. She sent up a quiet prayer that this would be a happy reunion, and focused on this man’s familiar grey eyes.

It would be okay.

“Inej!?”

She’d barely breached the door before she was spotted, swept up into a hug. Nina’s bustle swished as she rocked her friend in her arms, smelling like caramel and bergamot tea. Behind her, Matthias smiled at her, waving. Inej couldn’t help the grin on her face if she tried.

“I’d know your heartbeat anywhere!” All this time, of course, Nina had been talking. “Was this another one of Kaz’s secrets, or did you not write to say you were coming? Regardless, you’re always my favorite type of surprise— and who is this? Just a smidge out of place, aren’t you?”

The man blinked in the face of her whirlwind, pulled out of some type of confused revelry as he looked around the Crow Club. Something was wrong, written in the set of his silver-streaked beard and the way he fiddled with something in his pocket. It must have been a shock— she didn’t know too much about Jesper’s past, not really, but… this was hardly the University district that Colm Fahey had sent his son to, hoping for a bright future for him.

He only said as much as he’d said to Inej, and to all of the others on the docks and in the Markt, probably sounding like a broken record even to his own ears. “I’m looking for my son— Jesper Fahey. Lass here said she could help me. D’you know him?”

Nina all but swallowed her tongue.

“Jesper’s father?” Matthias parroted, eyes huge.

Nina smiled a smile that said she was trying to slow her own heart as much as calm the people around her. Her faltering showed too plainly for Colm, though, who only looked more openly concerned.

“Well, he didn’t spring outta the ground! I’ve been looking everywhere for him, he—“ he pulled a crumpled paper from his coat pocket, “he sent me the strangest letter, with money and, and it just didn’t sound like him. He hasn’t written since.”

On AO3 here