#had to go edit it because the original title was a line that no longer exists lol

[dannybobany]

Psssttt …. Cecil playlist anyone?

( @sotogalmo perhaps you’d be interested? You seem to like music )

[xinyuehui]

Link Click live action drama EP1-4 thoughts

Where to watch: Bilibili (no eng subs at the moment) Bilibili English site (Releasing on Jun 22, assuming it will have subs)

After seeing the atrocious live-action adaptation of Fox Spirit Matchmaker, all hope is lost. But the Link Click drama is produced by the same team who adapted Hikaru no Go (Qi Hun), which was good. Let's see how this goes…

Plot

The screenwriter said this is a prequel, but I disagree. I would describe it as taking the Link Click universe and creating a canon adjacent edition of it, an AU to the original. The outline of the story is very similar, but the finer details and premise are very different from those of the donghua.

In the donghua, the boys were already engaged in time travelling, and we learn later on that they met at university. So far, it has never been explained how they discovered their superpowers.

Whereas in the drama they changed the premise, Cheng Xiaoshi meets Lu Guang for the first time when Lu Guang rescues him from being beaten up by a fish vendor...interesting choice of first meet...Cheng Xiaoshi explains that he was born with a natural instinct, but it's not exactly clear what the superpower is. Qiao Ling is also unaware of Cheng Xiaoshi's superpowers.

Instead of Emma, we have Zhang Xueting, a corporate worker that face injustice. But in this case Cheng Xiaoshi doesn't take over her body, but some other guy. The relationship she has with her parents and the iconic line "Dad, mom, I miss you" is no longer in the drama. I feel like this one is a miss since the family aspect has been shifted.

Then the noodle lesbians...haven't appeared, unless they moved that to a later episode???

Following the donghua, the next one is Chen Xiao who went back in time to say final words to his loved ones before the earthquake. This one made me cry once again 😭

Characters

Everything has changed. OOC at some moments in my opinion. Since season 3 of the anime is not released yet, I'm taking a wild guess that the drama will have an original ending as well. The donghua team appears to have no involvement with the production of the drama.

Qiao Ling is not just a landlady, she is also a journalist at her day job. By the looks of it, helping people will be executed through her reporting profession, and it seems like she will have a lot more involvement compared to the donghua.

Her parents also comes into the story, her parents on the right in the screenshot below. They run a restaurant. Cheng Xiaoshi is very close to them and helps out some times.

Cheng Xiaoshi is portrayed as someone with no real job, he hasn't gone to university and uses idioms incorrectly. Obviously Lu Guang couldn't have met him at uni in this universe. He's a lot more exaggerated and cartoony. I have mixed feelings about this.

Because of the casting, Cheng Xiaoshi is shorter than Lu Guang. I'm sorry to all the girlies who were into canon tall Cheng Xiaoshi 🙏

Lu Guang now has a back story, he has a teacher who passed away that taught him about time travelling?? He briefly mentioned he found the Cheng Xiaoshi they were looking for. Looks like they will unveil the superpowers origins in the drama.

^ A glimpse of the teacher in his memory. Can you believe it's Yuen Kingdan?!?

The overall acting from the cast is fairly well done. There are several actors acting as Cheng Xiaoshi at the same time, and it still feel like it's the same person. Anyone who watched the Hikaru no Go live action will find familiarity here, as some of the actors from that production are also part of this one.

Overall

It's okay so far, although that might change as it airs. It's difficult to digest if you treat this as a faithful adaptation (I know the none cdrama fans have been questioning why Lu Guang don't have white hair). However, if you watch it like it's an AU, and resist the urge to compare it, it's not unwatchable.

I do have one small complaint, the drama should have had a different title because now it's going to get mixed up with the donghua content when people look it up.

One last thing. The ending song slaps hard!

[aaronstveit]

hi there! you said in your tags that the latest chapter of deep end contains the two scenes you built the entire fic on. i hope i'm not too nosy but i was wondering if you could tell us more about those two scenes? <3

omg hi anon!! yes i would LOVE to tell you more about those two scenes 🫡 gonna put this beneath the cut because i am a certified yapper and this WILL be longer than i intend it to be

the scenes in question are the two arguments with cosette and grantaire at the end. the cosette argument in particular is the basis of so much of this fic — the line "The dutiful martyr Enjolras, who has a flag where he should have a heart." was one of the very first things i wrote for deep end. not a very charitable place to begin from when it comes to enjolras' characterization, but even when i first wrote it, it was less about who enjolras was and more about how he was perceived.

okay i just scrolled allllllllll the way back to the very beginning of the edit history in my original deep end document (still titled "enjolsette siblings?" btw) and first of all i started writing this in MARCH which is wild to me. that was the month i finished reading les mis. wow. anyway apparently i wrote the first drafts of both these scenes in the same evening, and i'm honestly surprised by how much of them remained unchanged in the final version. at the time that i wrote them, they both occurred in chapter 8 of what i PLANNED to be 10 chapters. that's also extremely funny to me. there was really a time when i thought i could contain this story to 10 chapters...

when i wrote these chapters, i hadn't even written enjolras and cosette meeting yet. the original draft of the grantaire argument didn't have enjolras realizing he was in love with grantaire then. i was still in the first 10k of writing deep end when i wrote them. all that existed before these arguments were the original draft of chapter 1, half of the original draft of chapter 2, and the conversation with combeferre in chapter 5 that begins with combeferre saying "You've been spending a lot of time with Grantaire lately." so when i say these scenes are the basis of the entire fic, i really mean it. the whole time i was writing, i was pushing enjolras toward this point.

from the moment that i began writing deep end, it was intended to be an exploration of enjolras & his ideas of duty and justice. it has spiraled into being a story about a lot of other things, but in the kitchen with cosette, it comes down to this again. it comes down to: enjolras, and what he thinks his duty is, and just how wrong he is.

because he is wrong. money, whether she wants it or not, isn't going to "fix" cosette. there is no "fixing" cosette, because she's not broken. has she been hurt? yes. did their father fail her? undeniably. but depositing a check into her bank account isn't the answer to this. enjolras wants to heal her in some material sort of way, and that just isn't possible. all he can do is be her brother.

so, i had to take enjolras to that place. i had to make him obsess over "paying for his father's sins." i had to make him stressing himself out over the money. i had to make him love cosette without understanding it. and i had to make him terrible.

i love making enjolras terrible, i won't lie. a lot of the time when i'm writing, i like to see how terrible i can make him without alienating him completely from the reader. when i was trying to decide what line from this chapter to use as the summary, i sent a few options to my friend cossette, who read an earlier draft of this fic. she chose the line about him being "capable of being truly terrible" for me, because she said that was kind of the whole thing i was going for.

and it was! for him to be able to say the things he says in this chapter — from telling cosette "Look what he did to you!" to him saying to grantaire "Your chest is even emptier than mine. All you have is an empty bottle and a half-assed joke." he HAS to be terrible. these are terrible things to say!

unfortunately, i think they're also very human things to say. i joke a lot about how much i enjoy making characters say the worst possible things to each other, but it's true. i love doing it. because i think it's so tragically human. especially when you're saying these things to a person that you love. it's easy to hurt the people we love, because we know them well enough to know just where to hit them.

when enjolras hurts cosette, it's mostly by accident. he is coming from a good place, but going all about it wrong. when he hurts grantaire, it is with intent. he and grantaire have spent years hurting each other. when enjolras finds himself falling after fighting with cosette, it's too easy for him to cling to the closest familiar thing: fighting with grantaire.

building up to the fight with grantaire was a different beast. whereas the argument with cosette is borne from misguided ideas of justice, the fight with grantaire is entirely personal. as i was writing deep end, i had to write an enjolras and a grantaire who could come to this place, in very different ways. enjolras had to find himself leaning on grantaire; he had to be in more pain than anyone realized, including himself; he had to be terrible. grantaire, in contrast, had to have some amount of self control; he had to be someone who could be leaned on; he had to be able to walk away. the grantaire we meet in chapter 1 meets very little of these requirements. his development is just as important as enjolras', even if he isn't the main focus.

this answer is, as predicted, much much longer than i intended so i will wrap things up. when writing longform fic, i tend to start with the worst thing and work my way outwards from there. these two scenes are the worst things. because i knew where he was going, i knew while i was writing that i had to shape and enjolras who would find himself saying and doing the worst things he could. that's why he's cruel to grantaire in the first few chapters, why he finds himself arguing with grantaire despite knowing better, why he constantly finds himself self-destructing. i always tell everyone that deep end is about enjolras beating the marble statue allegations, and that's never truer than it is in chapter 18.

for the record, you are always welcome to stop by and ask me about deep end! i have soooooo much director's commentary and i love to yap. i could talk all day about what happened in the original draft, what was added later, ideas i toyed with, why i made the decisions i did, etc. thank you so much for this ask <333 i had lots and lots of fun answering it even if my answer is pretty much as long as deep end herself.

[elvisabutler]

spark ( chapter two: prayer )

fandom: elvis presley | elvis ( 2022 ) rating: m pairing: elvis presley ( fameless big daddy electrician/handyman ) x female original character word count: 10570ish so just shy of 11k this time. warnings: talk of children. a bit of negative self talk. infidelity in some form. elvis in glasses. religion playing an at least faintly important part. use of a washcloth in inventive ways. faint naivety regarding come and precome and pleasurable parts of sex, i suppose. fingering. implied/referenced masturbation ( m and f ). pining. talk of female reproductive issues. author’s note: so before you read anything involving this. i need you all to either go into this chapter blind other than my note about female reproductive issues or i need you to scroll all the way down to the bottom of this past the tag list for a bit of an explanation for that warning. i'm fine either way but i didn't want to spoil it in the warnings considering i left what happened fairly nebulous. all that being said hi y'all, welcome to the second chapter of spark! there is not a lot i can say other than telling you all i am so very thankful for every single one of you who read it and especially those of you who left comments in the notes or reblogged because hearing what feelings i invoked or what i did to y'all was a highlight and truly makes me want to interact with all of you more and makes me just want to hear more from all of you. this chapter and the next are a doozy but this one specifically has the nearly 6k bath scene as i've called it so you're in for a treat. special thank you to my southern gothic/southern sticky romance soulmate @precious-little-scoundrel because y'all know this wouldn't exist without her little whispers. additional thanks to my discord wives @ab4eva and @butlersxbirdy, my princess and my peach y'all know how much hearing y'all scream about my snippets made me know i was heading in the right direction. @blurredcolour thank you for also reassuring me that the one bit i showed you worked and wasn't just completely a mess. and last but not least @powerofelvis and @prompted-wordsmith thank you both for the edit job and smitty specifically for a few choice lines. i still am never gonna not laugh about you trying to sneak weepy in there though. and now before this author's not gets much longer, i present the second chapter of spark, titled prayer.

It's so quiet in the room. It's too quiet in the kitchen. It's too quiet even as Lilly hears Elvis's deep breaths against her back, hears her own softer breaths mixed with something that sounds almost like a whimper—a soft cry of elation with every other breath and shift of her body against his. Her vagina—her pussy—oh, she doesn't know what to call it now—aches in a way she's never felt before, not even when her husband took her for the first time in their bed. It aches but it doesn't hurt, it burns but in the way her legs burned after she would go running with Melly or how her arms burned after lifting up a basket of Nathan's clothes. Her—what had Elvis called it?—her clit, her button throbs as she feels his soft cock brush up against it as he moves forward just a bit, causing a noise that sounds so obscene Lilly can't help the way her cheeks darken even as another noise leaves her. Another whimper, this time lower in pitch, a keen leaves her mouth as Elvis stills his attempt to separate them.

"Lilly, darlin' I gotta—you gotta let me let ya down. Ya leg's startin' to hurt, ain't it?" Elvis murmurs, his hand moving down her flank, watching how her body starts to shiver, their shared sweat starting to cool on her body as the fan–the fan he just fixed whirrs above them. "Don't… it's gonna start hurtin' the more we stay here, darlin'. Let—" His hand moves to her thigh, feels how it's so sticky and slick with God knows what fluid, his or hers or both, and he's not sure how he's going to take his hand off of her if it starts to stick. Her shivers are starting to strengthen, be it from nervousness or the cool air or a combination and Elvis can't help the way a singular one flows through him, causing him to tighten his hold on her thigh and bury his face against her shoulder, a groan leaving his lips as he feels her clench at it. "It's—come on, Lilly, I gotcha, let me help ya."

It's those words, that mild parroting of words he had just whispered against the shell of her ear not even 15 minutes ago that has her head falling forward just a little, has her body going lax completely, a rag doll for him to maneuver how he sees fit. She doesn't trust herself to help him, doesn't trust the thoughts in her head that tell her to make him keep her this way, to keep him inside of her and keep her filled and aching all at once. Doesn't trust the traitorous thought that tells her Nathan would have never done this, would never be this gentle and calming with her. She'd already be standing on shaky legs with him tucking himself in his pants before telling her that was good. Elvis's arm catches her, holds her tight against him still as he helps her pull her leg down off the counter even as she hears that noise again that—squelch of her arousal and the sheer amount of come he had released in her. If this is how he sounded inside of her, what would happen when he pulled out of her? What would happen as he left her stretched and satisfied? Would—perhaps some would take. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. 

"Lil." His whisper is gentle, almost as if he's scared she'll bolt. "You hold onto me. Gonna get outta ya now. Gonna pull out of ya."

Her arm and her hand grip his own tightly, her shivers increasing as she feels Elvis start to pull out. The more he inches out bit by bit the more empty she feels, the more she feels as if there's a wound there that won't heal caused by him leaving. It's never felt like this with Nathan and she knows, she knows so deep in her bones and soul that should worry her. But her mind, her body, her everything has narrowed down to her and Elvis as he finally breaks free of her vagina and she feels a wetness like she's never felt before slide down her legs. Unbidden and unrestrained, a sob is wrenched from her throat as she's set down, her feet finally touching the floor once more. A sudden shift back to reality she wasn't prepared for.

Elvis's arm tightens around her even as her shivers worsen and as he feels and hears the sob that comes from her. He doesn't think he hurt her—not physically, at least—but he can't… he can't check her like this. Not when he looks down at her legs and sees his release sliding down her leg.

A realization hits him in that exact moment as his arm tightens around where—where a child would grow if any of his release caught. Where their child would grow if it caught. He hadn't worn protection. He allowed himself to enter her bare and come not once, but twice. Right in this very moment he could be sealing both of their fates. Her to have the child of a man who is not her husband and him—him, to see another man raise his child. To see his child grow up through pictures instead of being there for every waking moment. His thoughts are interrupted by another of Lilly's sobs and he shakes his head. She–she needs a bath, he can't let Nathan come home and see her like this. Even if he had been neglecting her, leaving her to wilt and leaving her to be watered and in the worst of cases fertilized by another man, Elvis couldn't be sure of his reaction to seeing the proof leaking out of his wife.

The fan creaks as it spins, unused to spinning after the break it had been given from being broken. Elvis's brain settles on the noise even as the air circulating causes even his body to let out a shiver. His own natural heat feels like it isn't enough in this one moment, as if it's too busy trying to keep Lilly warm to remember to keep him fully warm and yet he thinks he can handle it. It's nothing compared to winter in France. Nothing compared to the bite of the cold against his skin then. And yet—and yet it cuts far more to the bone, through his muscles and fat and everything that should protect him. Straight to the heart of him.

His arm finally falls from around Lilly’s waist as she moves to stand on her own, her legs a little shaky like a newborn deer. He hastily tucks himself back into his jumpsuit—she can't see what he put inside her, can't see his uncut cock even if it brought her pleasure he wonders if she's never had before. When she finally looks at him he has to stop himself from pulling her into his arms to kiss her. She looks… she looks like an angel and he's corrupted her like a devil. He's touched something that might not have been pure and innocent but was as close as he’s seen in such a long time and sullied it. Touched it with hands that have seen war and have seen death and threatened to cause death even in peacetime. What sort of person did that, what sort of man who believes in God with all his being now would do this to another man’s wife? Breaking not one, but two sins, and for what? To try and fix something that it isn’t his place to fix, that will never be his place to fix? To try and fix something only to potentially cause more things to break inside and out. He hopes she doesn’t see how his hand clenches into a fist, hopes she doesn’t see how he can’t look her in the eye right at this moment. He hopes—he hopes—he hopes she can forgive him, he hopes God can forgive him. 

Lilly can’t help the way her legs shake slightly and how her body trembles just a little bit. She’s not cold, not in a way that would cause this much shivering and yet here she was acting as if she had been dunked in a bath filled with cold water and shoved into a Yankee winter. Elvis was—is warm in a way she knows would help. Or at least she feels as if it would help because it would just be an extension of taking care of her, wouldn’t it? It would be him continuing the duty he’s given himself despite not… not being the man who promised to love and to hold and to take care of her in every conceivable way. He is just a man. He is just a man who she has grown quite fond of but a man nonetheless. A man who is not her husband and yet—no, this was just both of them being tempted and falling for temptation. In her mind, she thinks of never having Elvis speak to her again, thinks of a world where this act has ruined their relationship. No, their friendship, and she bites her lip to keep from crying out in anguish. He had been such good company. He is such good company and to lose that would have her all alone once again with nothing to show for it except… perhaps. Perhaps his release could catch inside her. Perhaps it could catch and form a child, their child and she would have someone to be with. She would have the child she longed for to spend her days doting on and mothering. She would have her company and she could be so much less angry—despondent over her friends and she could enjoy Melly’s pregnancy and any other ones that would come after because she’d at least have her own child. Too preoccupied with her thoughts, she nearly misses Elvis speaking to her and grabbing ahold of her hand. 

“Lil darlin’, ya shakin’ like a leaf. Ya got a robe or somethin’ in that bedroom of yourn?” He asks all while walking them ever so slowly to the bathroom near the other bedroom. It has a bathtub, that much he knows from using it but he knows it’s likely not anything compared to the one in the main bathroom adjacent to her bedroom. Lilly can only nod as an answer. “Ya good to go grab it? Don’t wanna—it’s not my place to see ya bedroom.”

He’s right and she knows he is but a part of her, the part of her that’s clinging onto his hand for dear life and doesn’t trust her legs to carry her into the bedroom and back to him shakes her head. “I’m—I don’t—walk me to it?”

“Lilly,” he starts before he looks up and sees her face pleading with him, begging silently in almost the same way it was up against the sink and he stops himself before nodding. “Just keep holdin’ my hand. I’ll walk wit’ ya.”

Between the walls and Elvis’s hand, Lilly’s steps are a little more certain by the time she makes it to the doorway of her bedroom where just on the inside there’s a hook that has her robe. She creaks the door open just slightly to grab it before pulling it on. It smells faintly of Nathan’s cologne and she can’t help but crinkle her nose in distaste, wishing it smelt different. The walk over to the other bathroom is just as slow and just as measured but the moment they reach it, Elvis moves to set her on the toilet after shutting the lid. His knees crack audibly as he gets down on the floor with a groan. Lilly winces as she hears the water turn on. “Warmer than you think I should have it.” 

He hadn’t asked what temperature she wanted the water but she figured it was best to tell him ahead of time, just in case he thought she needed it only lukewarm. His response is a chuckle before he turns the hot knob just a bit more. 

Her mind wanders as she sits there feeling more of his release sticking to her leg. Her mind wanders as she looks at Elvis in his jumpsuit still half open but done up so she can’t see what was between his legs, what had given her such pleasure that her vagina clenches 

involuntarily at the memory. Clenches at the memory of how full it felt, how it felt like it was catching, how it felt different than Nathan’s penis. Surely—oh surely with how full she feels even now with his release inside her it would take. It would catch and take and her belly would swell with new life. Her child would grow inside her and kick and roll and make her so happy even as she pushed them out, painful as everyone had told her it was. Her child would look like her if it was a daughter or perhaps a healthy mix of her and Elvis if it was a boy. Her breath catches at the image and she finds herself leaning against the toilet and clutching her hands to her stomach with her eyes shut. Her eyes shut so that the lord could hear her prayer because she’s only focusing on Him and the words she was praying up into the heavens. Please, Lord, please let it catch. Bless me with just this one baby.

Elvis looks over at Lilly over the rims of his glasses and is struck by how she looks so serene in the moment. How her robe covers her and how her head is tilted up as if she’s praying for something. His eyes drift down and notice her hands on her belly. Her hands that seem small compared to his on her belly and briefly, in a flash he berates himself for later, he pictures her growing round with his baby after the release he's just left in her has taken root. Pictures her blossoming and blooming right before his eyes as she thanks him with his favorite dinner with their child rolling inside of her under an apron. The word please leaves her lips, though, and it shatters that image quicker than anything else. She is married to an idiotic child, yes, but he is still her husband and is still a strapping young man. Perhaps still more suited for her than him. More suited to give her those children to help her bloom. He has to shut his eyes and pray for forgiveness and for God to dissolve his come before it reaches those parts of her that can bear fruit. She’s pleading with God that it doesn’t take—that they aren’t caught with their indiscretion and his mind is being selfish with the desires it has for her.

It doesn’t take long for the tub to fill and Elvis turns off the water before it gets to be too much. He can’t look at Lilly, hasn’t looked at her since he heard the word please fall from her lips and yet he knows he has to. He knows to help her into the bathtub he has to but he stares at the water, watching it ripple just a little until he hears Lilly’s voice. 

“Are you—? You can… can you stay?” Her skin flushes at her own question, as if it’s the worst possible thing for her to say, as if it’s mortifying to have it leave her lips. He is not her husband. He is, at best, a new friend—and she wants him to see her completely bare. “You don’t—”

Elvis cuts off her words with a shake of his head. “I’ll stay for ya. Since ya want me to.” He pauses, his eyes finally looking at her: specifically looking at her legs where his release is still sliding down onto the floor of the bathroom. Had he honestly come that much? “Ya—e need to—I came in ya, Mrs. H—Lilly. It’s gonna need to be washed outta ya,” his hand twitches as his eyes drift to her stomach and he has to stop himself from placing his hand on it with his next words. “Don’t want ya bein’... Don’t wanna cause ya any issues.”

Don’t want to have my child growin’ inside of ya, is what he means, Lilly thinks. Her traitorous mind wants to be that mean woman Nathan’s accused of her of being and spit that she wants to swell with his baby. She wants to grow round with his baby because she wants a baby and Nathan won’t give her one. She wants a child to love and dote on and to cherish. She bites her tongue though, because it’s not right to say it, it’s not proper to admit she might do anything for a baby. Instead she nods and moves to take off the robe, motioning for Elvis to help her with the rest of her clothes as she stands up. Ever the gentleman, he obliges, and Lilly can’t help the goosebumps and shivers that dot her in his hands’ wake as his fingertips glide across her skin. Her body hunches over just slightly to protect her modesty as if he hadn’t just had her against her kitchen sink not once, but twice. Elvis frowns slightly when he sees this, the frown only deepening as she moves to step into the tub on her own. It doesn’t take him but a second to scoop her into his arms.

Lilly squeaks slightly at the unexpected touch before she leans against him, her hand moving to play with his chest hair until he sets her down softly into the tub. A whine escapes her lips as her vagina hits the water, the temperature difference reminding her of their actions. A moment passes before Elvis opens his mouth to ask something and Lilly tilts her head to the cabinet above the toilet. “Middle shelf.”

A nod is his only response to her direction until she hears the crack of his knees signaling how he’s back down on the ground. Her eyes haven’t left the water, watching how there’s little bits of white, stringy and almost clear swirling around the water. It was all going to waste. It was all going to be going down the drain and she was going to remain barren, a woman with no fruit of her loins to call her own when there should be no reason for that. Elvis eyes her before setting the washcloth in the water and humming, his hand moving to touch her shoulder, a strangely domestic touch that she doesn’t shy away from.

“There’s so much of it.” Lilly whispers absentmindedly, her head tilting just so as Elvis hums and chuckles slightly because she’s not wrong. 

“It’s just—that’s my—that’s what I produce before I actually release inside ya. Hell, I think most of it might be that ‘cause I ain’t ever produced this much.” A truth if he’s honest with himself, even in his younger days he doesn’t remember this much being in a condom and yet he had filled her with so much it’s just leaking out of her. He had filled her like he was her husband and they were trying for a child. He had done the unthinkable and yet there’s a small part of him that wonders how much of his release is inside of her. That small part has his cock twitching just slightly against his leg, ready to give her more if she asks, to fill her up and replace what’s being lost in the water. He shakes his head to clear it, to direct the blood flow back to his thinking self and not the desirous snake in his pants.

“This ain’t the part we gotta worry ‘bout anyway. It’s the thicker stuff,” he points to a small bit that’s floating from her vagina as he speaks, “like that right there that we gotta worry ‘bout. But the rest? Ya see how it's slidin’ right out? We don't gotta worry bout those parts.”

Lilly has to stop herself from perking up at that knowledge. That there’s more where this came from and that this? She can lose as much of this as she is right now while still perhaps having his seed catch. This was just the initial bit, the majority of it is still inside of her and she clenches, tightens her vagina even as it feels to be an insurmountable task as it throbs and pulses from the effort. She can't tilt her hips up like her mother had told her but later, perhaps, later she could lay in bed and tilt her hips to help whatever is left behind reach where it needs to be. 

Elvis can't put it off any longer as he stares at rippling water, he needs to help this along, other than those small bits not much of his release is coloring the water. If too much stayed within her—her body would change soon, her body would change and it would be all his fault. He would be responsible for her blooming and blossoming but with a child that wouldn't be, couldn't be taken care of the way he'd want them to. He leans closer to Lilly and finds his hand holding the washcloth sliding up her leg. 

"Don't—I gotcha Lilly. Gonna help clean ya out, alright? Gonna be as gentle as I can." He waits to see her acknowledgement of a nod before he finally moves his hand up to between her legs, the heel of his hand against her mound and his hand covering everything else.

Her body—her vagina feels as if he's shocked her, as if there's a live wire from his hand to her. A gasp leaves her lips even as she inadvertently grinds down on his hand, chasing a feeling she can't quite put her finger on. It’s almost instinctual the way she reacts, the way her eyes shut as she hisses, the pressure too much while at the same time too little. At her hiss Elvis pulls back his hand as if it’s been burned. It’s not his job to take care of her, it’s not his job to make sure she’s alright after their intercourse against the sink and yet he doesn’t think he could live with himself if he hurt her. He knows how to take care of a woman after sex and he’d be damned if he didn’t treat Lilly with all the respect—and love, his mind traitorously whispers—she deserves.

“Lil, ya alright? Did I…” he starts before his words are cut off with a violent shake of her head. Words are failing her and his eyes search her face for a clue as if that will explain her actions and finds it in the way she shifts in the bath slightly. “Ya sensitive down there?” 

Lilly nods and breathes slowly through her nose. “I think so? It’s—It feels like it’s throbbing, Mr. Pre—Elvis.” 

In the back of his mind he knows that means she took him well and that he pleasured her thoroughly. It means that her body is overwhelmed with the sensation. It means that it’ll be like that for days to come. A small, sick bit of joy shoots through him at the thought of her aching for him and his stomach roils as soon as the thought comes to him. He would be no better than her husband who ignores her if he took pleasure in the idea. If he took pleasure in knowing he left her aching for him while she is married to her husband. 

His words are measured when he speaks, a low murmur as he leans closer, taking the washcloth back in his hands. “Ya ain’t—I’m a lil bigger than most, should have prepped ya better. Jus’. We both got a lil�� overwhelmed, didn’t we? ‘S’alright, ‘m gonna make it better, darlin’. Gonna be gentle as I can. Gonna help ya get all this out of ya. Keep ya from having my baby.”

Lilly’s face falls at his words even though he doesn’t notice, too preoccupied with shifting his focus downward to her vagina. Her breath is slow and measured as she watches him, trying to give this a clinical air, trying to make her body realize there’s nothing arousing about this. This is him just trying to clean his release out of her to keep from being tied to her in some way permanent. Her hand drifts to her belly as she curls into him, her head leaning onto his shoulder. He’s methodical with the outside of her and using the cloth he tries to reach between her folds, tries to open her up only to feel as she tenses just that little bit harder. Forcing her open isn’t an option, not one he wants to seriously consider, at least, and he pauses. His fingers through the rough washcloth threaten to ignite another fire low in her belly as they rub slightly against her skin—at least, if the way she whimpers softly is any indication. Perhaps if he brushed against her clit, perhaps that could open her up. It’s helped in other times when he’s wanted to pleasure another woman. His thumb is already near it and without dwelling on his thought his thumb swipes against it, the wash cloth adding friction that has her unclenching faster than he thought was possible, the shock of it ricocheting through her system. A gasp escapes her lips. A gasp that sounds like his name. He refuses to dwell on what that means as he brushes his thumb against her clit once more. 

“Elvis,” she whimpers his name as his thumb swipes a third and a fourth time and she can feel her vagina clenching and unclenching at the feeling, at the sensation as finally she relaxes fully, allowing his fingers to enter her without a question. “Sensitive.” 

Her mind is narrowing to single words, the swirl of arousal curling tighter and tighter in her abdomen with each brush of his thumb and each press of his fingers inside of her. The washcloth shouldn’t help the feeling, it shouldn’t make her eyes want to roll in the back of her head from the friction and the slight roughness. The splashes of his arm and hand hitting the water as his fingers move in and out of her ground her and yet have her floating away. Her brain registers him speaking through her whimpers of pleasure. Pleasure that she doesn’t know what to—to do with, having been denied it for so long. 

“I know it’s a lot but gotta be thorough, Lilly. Gotta make sure it's all out,” he whispers softly to her, his fingers never stopping their task. “That's it, unclench for me, Lil darlin. Let—ya gotta help me, we gotta make sure there isn't anything left up there."

Faintly she can hear him and feel herself nodding, too busy trying not to rock against his fingers. That’s not what he’s doing this for, he’s trying to prevent—he’s trying to prevent a child. He’s trying to protect her marriage and yet her body wants to move on instinct. She wants to be beholden to her instincts just this once. Just this once she wants to have pleasure and happiness she doesn’t have to beg and plead for. It’s nice, this haze that overwhelms her senses, and she can’t truly recall the cold, distant figure of her husband leaving each and every day for work without so much as a kiss on the cheek as it has been recently. Instead she is nestled into the crook of Mr. Presley’s neck, lips tasting of the salt of his sweat. She wants to feel like he made her feel against the sink. Her body cants itself just so in order to earn another swipe of his thumb and she feels herself dangling on the precipice of something—of her orgasm, maybe? Was she about to find release on his fingers as he cleaned her body out with a washcloth? As he cleaned his release so a child didn’t form inside her, giving away their actions from tonight? A miniscule part of her feels as if she ought to be mortified but it doesn’t drown out her sighs and whines as she feels his fingers curl just so—trying to make sure she’s clean. It doesn’t drown out how her hips move once in another attempt to grind before he puts his hand on the back of her neck. A comforting gesture, yes, but when paired with his next words seals her fate.

“Take what ya need right now. Jus' takin’ care of ya. It’ll help get more outta ya. That’s it, Lil darlin, Elvis’s gotcha.”

A keen, high pitched and pained, leaves her mouth as she feels herself fluttering around—no, clenching around—his fingers before becoming practically boneless against him, the aftershocks from the orgasm causing a new round of shivers and goosebumps to happen. Her face burrows into his shoulder as he works her through them gently before her hand moves to grab his wrist, the sensitivity finally becoming too much. 

“Elvis it’s, o-oh—” Lily struggles to articulate her words and breathe and exist in this moment, the sensation drowning out any thoughts other than the pulse of her own heartbeat she feels between her legs. “It—”

Elvis shushes her, trying his hand on her neck, rubbing it and tightening over and over as he finishes cleaning her out, knowing that whatever is left is too high up for him to reach. He’d have to just pray to god for that to be done away with. "Shhhh, Lilly… Darlin', I'm sorry, bein' as gentle as I can.”

Lilly should object to how his hand at her neck feels almost as if she's a kitten being dragged along by their mother but she can't find it in her to do such a thing. She can't find it in her to since objecting would mean he'd remove something that truthfully is keeping her tenuous grip on reality and the Earth there. She figures she'd float away without it. There's a part of her that doesn't think she'd mind in that moment, that she'd understand floating away after what's happened because it almost doesn't feel real, especially as he takes care to wash her body despite her being fully capable of doing it herself. His grip loosens for the last time as she watches him lean over and unplug the drain. The water swirls slowly at first, gaining speed the longer she stares at it and the more of his release slides down the drain. She hears the crack of Elvis's knees as he stands up and winces for him even as his shadow towers over her. She should get up out of the tub, she knows this and yet her legs feel just shaky enough that she finds the task impossible until she feels his arms underneath hers.

Getting out with his support allows her to fully catch her bearings as he hands her a towel that she wraps around her body, drying herself off as he grabs another and assists with her legs, his knees cracking once again at him getting back down. She makes the mistake of looking down at him and seeing him look up at her with a surprising sense of worship she only ever usually associates with church and God. A shiver makes its way through her at the realization. 

Her voice sounds like it's going through a tunnel as she says something about how she's fine from here. She swears she hears herself say Mr. Presley and hears him say Mrs. Harris like he hadn't seen her naked and like he hadn't just helped her to clean out his release. Their formalities would make her laugh in any other situation, especially if she thinks of his seed catching inside of her. It wouldn't do to call her that when she was carrying his child, now would it? Wouldn't do for her to call him that as her belly rounded out with his baby, would it? Would it?

He leaves and she waits until she hears a goodbye burst forth loud enough to break through the tunnel her ears are in to finish drying off and getting ready.

She barely finishes making dinner as Nathan walks through the door.

Elvis… Elvis finds himself under his shower cursing his actions even as he remembers her face and her pleasure. He dreams of a life. He dreams of a life with her. He dreams of their life together. It feels worse than any nightmare.

Charlie notices something is up the moment he walks in the diner and sees Elvis already sitting down at their table, a plate with just bacon in front of him in addition to eggs and what looks like toast, or at least he hopes it’s toast. It looks like a plate for him and Elvis and yet he sees the man he's willing to call one of his truest friends eating it all as if it's just for him. He ought to be gentle about the whole thing, ask Elvis a question calmly and innocently. 

Instead, as any sensible friend who’s seen you naked and bleeding and cryin’ for your mama does, he steals two pieces of bacon and sits down in the chair across from his best friend and chomps on said bacon before asking one, singular question: "What are you doing?"

Elvis's hand darts out with a speed that betrays his army training to grab the other piece of bacon only to be rebuffed with a frown. "Eating bacon, Charlie. Ya suddenly blind now? Short and blind, what a catch for ya wife."

Charlie visibly recoils and waits for Elvis to apologize or give him some clue that the statement was just his normal, playful ribbing. The crunch of the bacon disabuses him of that notion as the minutes tick by. "We got a family so she must've seen something in me. Just thankful she didn't see you first."

"Ain't that everyone's damn thanks. Thankful I didn't see their wives back then but if I see 'em now they ain't gotta worry. Women don't go for this body like they did back in the day." Elvis stabs at his eggs and Charlie—Charlie thinks he knows what's going on and he can't help but roll his eyes internally. 

"Did some woman turn you down and now you're moping? Over a plate of bacon after church?" He tries to keep the judgment out of his voice but there's still a hint there that he can't do away with. 

If looks could kill as well as every gun both he and Elvis have ever used, Charlie's certain in this moment he would be preparing to go to sleep in his eternal resting place. As it stands he once again realizes that perhaps he ought to not poke his absolute bear of a best friend. Elvis's next words punctuated by another crunch of bacon and a laugh so bitter Charlie's never heard it come from him seals that idea.

"Oh. Charlie, my boy, my boy, that would have been better. I would have handled that like a champ," he shakes his head, "ya 'member Mrs. Harris? The—the woman I told ya 'bout?"

“Yeah, the one with the niece and the husband who can’t work his way ‘round a wrench. What about—?” Charlie stops mid sentence and stares long and hard at Elvis trying to school his face into something normal and something less like he looks about ready to murder him before realizing it’s impossible and saying the first words that come to mind in the most hushed tone he can manage. “Wasn’t one of your rules you wouldn’t sleep with a married woman?”

Elvis can’t help but curse the fact that Charlie has seen him through some of, if not the worst, parts of his life and can regrettably read him like an open book sometimes. He doesn’t answer with words. Instead he allows himself to eat a piece of toast that is both soggy and crispy all at once. His silence is practically deafening before Charlie exhales. 

“You—ou got me thinking your daddy died or something and all this is because you slept with another man’s wife? A man who’s practically ignoring her despite how she looks like a—” Elvis swallows and holds up his pointer finger before practically growling. 

“Not other fuckin’ word, Hodge. Not a single fuckin’ word. Lilly ain’t some fuckin’ European floozy we forgot ‘bout the next day. Don’t ya say ‘nother fuckin’ word.”

A chuckle leaves Charlie’s mouth despite his best efforts to stop it. Elvis is moping about a woman alright, just not the way Charlie thought he was. He wouldn’t have—He loves Elvis, he does but he would have never predicted him managing to charm a woman like that if she didn’t know who he was beforehand. If she didn’t know him as he was when they both came back from the war, both struggling with things they had seen yet pared down to a lean type of beauty: the scraggly pines that grew on Italian mountaintops. Yet maybe, just maybe, there was hope. Very stupid and unwise hope, but hope nonetheless that Elvis might be able to enjoy the same sort of life he has. 

"Cursing on the Lord's day. At me. She's got you—pass me your whole pig's worth of bacon and tell me what happened, E."

Elvis stares at the plate and lets out a heavy sigh as he scoots the plate over. “It ain’t a whole pig’s worth of bacon.”

“It’s as big as my head.” Charlie states, motioning to get the attention of one of the waitresses in an attempt to get a plate and different food even as he eats a piece of bacon.

“Ya have a tiny head, Hodge. Like a damn lil hedgehog.” 

Meanwhile across town Lilly finds herself in her sister’s kitchen, sitting at her dining room table with the light of the sun shining on her through the window. Her sister Melly busies herself with the finishing touches of a lunch for the two of them and Jerry. Lilly had tried to help only to be waved off with an ease that had her sitting down in the chair watching, her hands settling on her stomach as they had been since that fateful afternoon. It’s too soon to know, she reasons, too soon to know if Elvis’s seed took and has filled her empty womb with a child she’s craved for years. Yet her hands gravitate there anyway, almost trying to provide a cradle as if to tell the child she hopes is forming inside her that it’s okay to stay, it’s alright and that she’ll be their mother. She’ll take such good care of them and they’ll get to meet their cousins. They’ll get to meet their cousins and grow up with the one swelling underneath Melly’s apron. 

Melly notices this, of course, notices how her sister is cradling her belly and yet she doesn’t dare ask. She doesn’t dare ask if Nathan’s finally done right by her sister and given her the baby she so desperately wants. Her chest hasn’t changed and she hasn’t felt a firmness when she’s brushed against her but perhaps it’s just too early.

“You’re looking happier,” Melly comments as she sets down the plates of food. She leaves Jerry’s on the counter, knowing her husband will grab it when he comes back inside from dealing with the yard.

Lilly can’t help the way she smiles slightly and practically preens at the acknowledgment that she seems happier. Elvis might not be—Elvis might not have been by since that afternoon but there was something so beautiful about his actions, so gentle and nourishing about him that it stuck with her. The throbbing in her vagina’s finally stopped after days of her cupping it and playing with it next to Nathan’s snoring body, wishing her fingers were thicker and longer and wishing it was Elvis’s cock sliding in and out of her. That he was keeping her full and telling her he’s got her, he’s always got her while filling her with so much of his release that there’d be no other choice but to swell with his child. 

She doesn’t dwell on the fact that it’s taken another man to make her feel a way she hasn't for years. She can’t dwell on that because it’s improper and she’d like to just bask in the glow of everything for now. She’d like to bask in the glow of things before a different glow would overtake her. 

“I feel happier.” Lilly answers, still continuing to grin as she digs into the food. There’s a hint of nausea at some of it but she chalks it up to being hungry. “I feel different.”

Melly’s eyebrows both move upward as she settles into her chair and takes a bite of her toast first, knowing how her stomach reacts to food without a bland base to start off with. “Different. Does that have anything to do with Nathan and you? Anything you want to tell me?”

Lilly’s hand stills in its subconscious rubbing as her eyes widen. “No. Not—not yet.”

There’s something that shifts in Melly, a brightness that shines through as she looks at Lilly. If she is pregnant it's too soon to tell but the idea that she'd be carrying her second while Lilly is finally carrying her first delights her in ways she can't put into words. It's perhaps a secret dream she's always had. The scrape of her chair against the linoleum is harsh to both their ears and yet it’s a small price to pay for the feel of Melly’s hand against her stomach. 

“You’ll tell me as soon as you know?” Melly’s voice comes out as a whisper, as if she’s scared to speak it any louder. “You’ll tell me I’ll have a niece or nephew on the way?”

Lilly nods quickly as she hears the door open and hears Jerry’s voice carry into the kitchen. Melly’s hand moves off of her stomach as quick as can be before Jerry pops his head in and smiles. “Won’t ask what you two were doing before I got here.”

Life doesn't stop that Sunday and instead continues on and on with one week passing by and then another and another until Lilly knows she's due for her cycle and yet it doesn't appear. Her underwear remains pristine and white with not a drop of blood in sight. She doesn't dare tell Melly or anyone yet, knowing it could be a fluke, a stress induced issue but she swears she feels her womb hardening. She swears she feels it bloating in a way that feels different than what comes before her cycle. Perhaps, perhaps Elvis had done it. Perhaps Elvis had filled her and their child was forming unbeknownst to either of them. It occurs to her that she should try and reach out to him and see if he can come by her home. There's nothing that's broken for him to be fixed and yet he deserves to know what's happening inside her. That soon her stomach will round outward and their child will kick and roll and grow inside of her. That she is still married but it would be cruel to deprive him of ever knowing of their child. 

It's too soon for him to know, she'll tell him when she's sure, when there's no mistaking what has happened to her because of their actions that afternoon. She'll tell him then, she'll convince him to come by and press his hand against her stomach so he can feel what he's—what she wished and prayed to have happen even as he washed himself out of her. He ought to be able to be in their life somehow because he's their father and he'd make such a brilliant one. He'd make such a brilliant one and her mind traitorously tells her it's a shame she wouldn't be raising the child with him. 

Six weeks is a long time for him to be avoiding Lilly and he knows that. He knows that she didn't deserve to be left out in the cold like that—to be left without company and companionship like that but he can't help it. He can't help how his mind drifts when his exhaustion sets in remembering how her body felt against his when they danced and when she sagged against him. It’s a sin to covet a man’s wife as much as he covets Lilly. It’s a sin to want to be in another man’s home taking care of his wife in any way she’ll let him. It’s a sin and yet it feels so right, it feels like he’d be doing what he’s meant to be doing. Elvis is not her husband and yet his mind—his traitorous mind and soul tells him he should be and tells him she needs him in some way. She’s been happier, he thinks, since that afternoon—and his mind tells him that he had something to do with that. There’s a glow about her and it draws him in like a moth to a flame before he pulls himself away every Sunday when she passes off her niece. A nagging thought crosses his mind as the weeks go by and he swears that glow is stronger every time he sees her, that perhaps it wasn’t just happiness and joy causing her to glow that way. He ought to ask her and yet the idea feels invasive in a way that makes him think he has to find the right time for it. If his suspicions prove to be correct, he figures they both will need time to process it. 

Six weeks is a long time for him to avoid her and it makes it so that when he gets a call that sounds like Lilly crying there isn’t a moment of hesitation before he finds himself jumping into his truck and driving to her house she shares with her husband. Her door is unlocked and he wants to admonish her for it, tell her that she shouldn’t leave the door unlocked because you never know who might come in but then he sees her. He sees her tear stained face and her rumpled dress and fears the worst. A flash of pure anger courses through his veins as his mind swirls with possibilities of why she’s crying. Why her face and body betray such anguish that it twists his gut and has his mouth opening to speak before her voice sounding so small in a way he’s never heard interrupts him. 

“I was waiting. I was being careful!” Her words don’t make sense to Elvis even as his eyes trace over her form and around the house where they’re standing as if either thing holds the clue for what’s going on. As if some part of the way she’s carrying herself—hunched over—or the way things seem out of place—her lunch was sitting on the table only half eaten—would explain what’s happening, why she had called him crying, muttering about needing to fix things. 

His tone is soft and comforting as he moves to touch her shoulder, to pull her into some form of a hug. “Darlin’—” The word slips out before he can stop himself but he continues. “What’s… what’s wrong?”

Her eyes look up at him and he’s struck by how bloodshot they look. How long had she been crying? How long had her body been wracked by sobs that no one was there to comfort her from? Elvis watches as her mouth opens and closes several times before she shakes her head. “I—the oven is broke again.”

“Lil—Mrs. Harris, things I fix don’t break like that. Not this quick.” He tries to defend his work, knowing there’s no Earthly way that it was broken already. He had made sure to fix it, he had made sure that her oven wouldn’t need his touch for quite a long time after he was inside of it that day. In the back of his mind he thinks he’s missing something.

“It’s broken, Mr. Presley. It’s broken and can’t keep heat and bake anything and I’ll call someone else over if you won’t fix it. Just please take a look at it. Just make it work like I thought it was.” Lilly’s voice shakes but doesn’t waver when she speaks. If anything it seems to get stronger the longer she speaks. It seems she’s more insistent with every word that comes from her mouth. Something is broken—the oven he was supposed to fix is broken and she wants him to check it again. That nagging feeling grows as he looks at her in confusion. He prides himself on being a smart enough man, but… maybe it’s because she clouds his judgment. He can’t tell what she’s talking about.

“Lil—Lilly, why did you call me here?” He manages to almost stutter out the words, wincing he hears it. She has to answer him when he asks point blank, doesn’t she? 

Lilly is silent for the longest while and Elvis thinks he pushed too hard, thinks that he’s overstepped for once—twice—in their friendship and opens his mouth to apologize before she grabs his hand and places it on her stomach. In a rush everything clicks into place for Elvis and swears his heart stops. He should move his hand and yet he can’t, it’s almost as if there’s a magnet keeping his hand attached to her stomach. The oven is broken, her oven is broken and empty and can’t keep heat. 

The night before, when his body gave out and had him sleep he tossed and turned over images of him and Lilly together. Images of her swollen with a child and laughing next to him. He remembers being on his knees kissing her still-flat stomach and laughing with her hand over his and telling her how she’s made him the happiest man alive. He could still hear her giggles ringing in his ears when he woke up. That was fantasy, a dream dreamed up by an old man who shouldn’t be dreaming of a life with a woman he isn’t married to and who is married to another. They’re brilliant company for each other but—but she is not his wife and he is not her husband. 

“I’m sorry.” Elvis whispers the words and they feel so insubstantial, so insignificant to what he feels in this moment. The sorrow he feels for her being fed by her tears and the way her silence just drags on and on. Perhaps this was his doing, perhaps there was something there and he had broken it. Perhaps—perhaps he should have been selfish and not cleaned his release from her. Or perhaps—he can’t dwell on it. It threatens to drive him mad if he does. 

And yet his mind can't shake another time and place where his hand is there for another reason, with her hand over his, a smile on her face instead of tears rolling down her cheeks and onto his suit as she curls into a hug he offers. She looks so young and yet like she's been crushed by the world all at once. A flower run over on the side of the road, soaked in the gutter. The attempt he finally makes to move his hand is thwarted by her own grasping his wrist, forcing him to press down to feel that she's bloated but still very empty.

It was supposed to be different. Things were supposed to go well, she had prayed and begged and cradled her womb and for what? For her cycle to be off and there to be blood mocking her in her underwear? For there to be cramping that feels like it might threaten to tear her in two. No one she’s known has lost a baby, there’s no one she can ask to see if that’s what’s happening. If the child she swore was growing from the moment Elvis released inside of her not once but twice was gone. Or if there just wasn’t one at all and she had been deluding herself. Either option feels almost unbearable and feels like a lead weight in her stomach.

Elvis doesn’t speak and Lilly’s thankful for it. Her dream of telling him and them figuring out how he would be involved has been flushed down the toilet multiple times today and is currently flowing between her legs. Her hand finally loosens its grip on his wrist and her chest tightens as she looks into his eyes. Those blue eyes shouldn’t be so caring, they shouldn’t look so caring when looking at her. There shouldn’t be sympathy in those eyes directed toward her or her empty womb. Yet there is and Lilly is struck not for the first time at how different Elvis is from Nathan. She’s struck by how she’s been in this sort of position before with her husband and she doesn’t recall there being nearly as much care and—dare she even pretend?—-anguish in his gaze. She remembers frustration at himself or, or her? She doesn’t know. She can’t recall just now.

“I—I was late,” She starts, and shakes her head, sniffling. “I was late for my cycle and I didn’t—I don’t know why I called you.”

Elvis doesn’t dare say the first thoughts that come to mind. Doesn’t dare tell her that he thinks she knows exactly why she called him because the mere idea shouldn’t be put into words. He’s already damned himself and her anguish, her pain is perhaps a consequence of it. Had he not given in to his baser urges perhaps Nathan would have given her a child that she could tell him she was growing inside of her. If he hadn’t given into his baser urges she wouldn’t have thought his child was growing inside of her. He shuts his eyes, trying to not think of the image of her swollen with his child once again. 

“Comfort?” The word as an answer feels safe and from the look on Lilly’s face, how it relaxes just a little bit and how her hunched over position straightens out even as she grimaces in pain he was right. However, that urge to fix that had caused so many problems rears its ugly head again and Elvis knows he should ignore it but the grimace on her face reminds him that she’s in pain and to leave her in pain without attempting to help her feels cruel. It feels cruel to just allow her to deal with this on her own. Perhaps that’s why she had called him, taken the chance that he wouldn’t want her to be alone in this situation. Taken the chance to assume he missed her and just wants what he's craved from her more than anything else: her company. 

A nod is the only thing she manages before her body is wracked with another flare of pain as Elvis watches. He’s never—he’s never been here when she’s on her cycle so he doesn’t know if this is normal or not but he remembers June and remembers the other girls and knows, in this moment, he can’t leave her like this. Especially after she had called him. His mind tries to think back on what other women would do before he remembers how some would curl up in bed and ask for heat and any number of other things. The flash of memory at her in the bath after their activities and a flash of a fantasy of her in the bath with him runs through his thoughts until he shakes his head to clear it. 

“Missus—Lilly. Darlin’, I—wouldn’t it be better to be laying down? For your pain?” His words are chosen as carefully as he can and yet he still feels like he might have said the wrong thing until he sees her move to lean and sag against him as if he’s the only thing that’s going to keep her standing in this exact moment. 

“My—oh, just help me to my bedroom, you don’t—” The words are lost as Elvis picks her up, earning a bit of a shocked gasp from her. “You don’t have to pick me up, I can w-walk.”

Elvis stays silent for a moment or so as he walks, ignoring the ache in his knees that tell him he should have prepared more for this. That he should have known better than to pick Lilly up like this and yet he finds that it’s easy to ignore the ache as her protest grows a little quieter and she practically burrows into his hold. He is not her husband and yet he wonders if her husband’s ever done this for her. Ever treated her with care when she’s like this. 

Nathan had noticed her pain that morning and brushed it off, much to Lilly’s frustration. It’s not that she wanted him to know she had engaged in a transgression but she was his wife and she was in pain. Jerry had made sure Melly was taken care of after Lizzie and Nathan couldn’t even be bothered to call her sister or anyone. The neglect is what feels like an even worse knife than the one she swears she feels in her lower stomach. The neglect is why she called Mr—Elvis. Even in the short time she’s at least partially known him—the actual him, not the image she had of the man who taught her niece’s Sunday school—has taken care of her and hasn’t left her to rot and wallow in her pain and loneliness. He’s kept her company and fixed so many things around her house that at this point she’s thinking she’s going to have to break things just to have an excuse to get him to visit under the guise of working. 

She knows she shouldn’t relax in his hold, she shouldn’t burrow into his arms like he’s her husband and he’s just carrying her to their bed but she can’t help it, the sheer joy and calmness that settles over her from the care he shows overwhelming her. His arms allow her to feel safe in the moment, help her to forget how much pain she’s in physically and mentally. They are a balm to her aches even as she potentially causes some for him. It doesn’t take too long for him to reach her bedroom, using his body to open the door the entire way from its cracked open position. Lilly hears him sigh and feels his head move to try and avoid looking around before she feels him shift her in his arms.There’s a difference, she thinks, in knowing that he would have to eventually set her down on her bed and him actually doing it. 

A shiver runs through her body that has Elvis’s grip tightening as he moves his hands away. It’s not cold and yet here she was shivering like she was that fateful night.

“You alright?” he murmurs, low and questioning in a way that he shouldn’t be.

“You’re warm,” she whispers back at him, looking into his eyes and trying to pretend that answers everything. Pretend that telling him he’s warm will get him to stay and comfort her until it’s time for Nathan, cold, icily indifferent Nathan to be home. “I feel—it felt good.”

Elvis opens his mouth to speak before his breath catches in his throat at the sheer intensity of the look she’s giving him. He can’t put a name to what he sees in her eyes, only that it threatens to overwhelm him if he stares at her for too much longer. He has to leave, he needs to go back to work or home or just somewhere where her eyes aren’t burning holes into his soul. He finally starts to step away only for Lilly’s arm to find its way in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. Her hand moves to grab his and grasps it so tightly he can’t wrench it from her. 

“Can you—can you stay?” She asks, quiet as a church mouse and looking as if she expects him to say no. As if she expects to be left alone to deal with things once again. It makes his stomach roil and twist and he feels almost like throwing up before he moves to sit down on the bed. 

“Not for too long, Lilly,” he answers, as he watches her move to the other side of the bed, letting go of his hand as she does. He sits down, groaning slightly as he does at the feel of her bed underneath him. It dips more than it did when she was occupying the same spot, his weight causing the springs to creak just a bit more. Lilly waits until he gets comfortable to move closer to him. He stays sitting, his body leaning against the headboard, not even daring to try and lay down in her marriage bed. It makes trying to cuddle with him harder than it should be but after a moment of a deliberation she settles on laying her head in his lap. The warmth of his belly seeps into her head, soothing any headache she’s gained from crying and the vantage point allows her to feel encased in what feels like a protective shell. Elvis tries to keep his hands to himself but as he feels Lilly settle against him and sees every wince and shift his hands move to her hair, running his fingers through it. Scratching ever so softly against her scalp. Lilly’s sigh tells him it was the right thing to do and emboldens him to sing, breathe out into the world the first song that comes to mind when he thinks of her. 

Lilly hears Elvis’s voice singing Jo Stafford to her, a song she’s only heard once or twice before but it feels so romantic that something inside her chest feels warm and feels almost like it’s blossoming the more she hears his voice singing in that low tone, his hands flowing through her hair. 

“But just remember, darling, all the while, you belong to me,” he sings, watching as Lilly’s eyes start to flutter shut, the pain and the emotions of today getting the best of her. The more he sings the more he realizes he wishes those words were true. The more he wishes he wouldn’t have to leave in a few hours. But she is not his wife and he is not her husband and he’ll leave in a few hours as he should. He’ll leave after he shakes her awake lightly, grimacing as she winces in pain and as her eyes practically beg him to stay once again. He'll leave watching her curl back into her sheets but won't see her head move to where he had been sitting or see her hands grab at the pillow that had been behind his back.

She will wake up alone right before Nathan comes home. She will wake up to a simple dinner made with two plates on the table. 

She calls him back over the next day.

taglist: @ab4eva, @blurredcolour, @butlersxbirdy, @precious-little-scoundrel, @eliseinmemphis, @prompted-wordsmith, @missmaywemeetagain, @lookingforrainbows, @thatbanditqueen, @ellie-24, @be-my-ally,  @austinbutlersgirl67, @heartbrake-hotel, @ccab, @18lkpeters, @slutforsomegoodlettuce, @dkayfixates, @kendralavon7, @chasingwildflowers, @notstefaniepresley, @wanderingelvis, @kxnnxy, @powerofelvis, @stylespresleyhearted, @marriedtopresley, @memphis-menace, @steph-speaks, @coolgirl462, @vintageshanny, @memphisflash1935-1977, @j-v-9-2, @sexystarfish, @duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, @jessicarcates, @chirssycrumble9456789, @shantellescrivener, @yomammalolha, @honey6578, @urmom11111111111119, @myradiaz, @elvispresleyxoxo, @tryingtogettoelvis, @joegramoe, @rainblue-art, @fav-fanficssss, @moodyblueriver, @misspresley, @fallinlovewithurlove, @ash-omalley, @yynneessmons good heavens, i think that's everyone. those of you who didn't get the tag, know i'm gonna head to the messages within the day. also i including those of you who reblogged the first chapter. i would have done likes as well but there- there was a hefty chunk and i didn't know for sure if you all wanted to be tagged.

additional explanation: so if you haven't just read the fic instead of just scrolling down to the bottom to see what's up, hello. but even if you did just read the fic, let the record show that i myself did write this with the idea that lilly had a very early miscarriage. and it's why i added a tag just in case for it since i know some people avoid the subject matter for their own mental health. however i purposefully left it nebulous because she herself wouldn't know for sure and it's- the same result occurs either way, she is not pregnant and that wrecks her emotionally because she had put so much stock in the possibility that she would be. no matter what if she wasn't pregnant she was going to be sad and depressed and generally in a state of anguish. so, you can read this whichever way you want, it does not really change the intent/what happens afterward in this. but i didn't want to directly spoil all of you in the warnings especially since it causes a turning point of sorts, but i also don't want anyone to be in duress because of me. also i promise honestly these two have a happy ending, just trust me like y'all trusted me with professor presley, okay?

[presidenthades]

Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 2!

(Note: I originally planned to put out these commentaries once a day, but I’ve been recruited for an urgent knitting/crochet project IRL so I might be a bit slow.)

For this chapter’s title, I chose the lyrics for the Father in “The Song of the Seven” because Aegon finds out he’s going to be a dad. 😳

Opening line: I wanted the reader to spend a half-second thinking Aegon was in the middle of a sexual activity 😂. Later in the chapter, both Daemon and Alicent briefly think he’s been out at the brothels, so I wanted to foreshadow that here. But it turns out Aegon just really likes pies.

Gyles and Ronnel were throwaway characters in my original plan, but they ended up being very important to the plot 😅. I took a brief line from Aegon’s letter in Chapter 3 of the Handbook, about him eating pies that were almost better than sex, and created Gyles from that. So Aegon’s been patronizing Gyles’s business for several years.

Gyles rents a small storefront on the Street of Flour, which I presume is where most of the bakers in KL live/work. He’s probably part of the local bakers’ guild, and he’s on the poorer end of the street so his customers tend to be laborers who want a quick hot meal. Aegon stumbled across the shop one day as a young teen when he was hangry, and he’s been coming back ever since.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching the history of cheese and barely used it for the fic 🥲. But I want everyone to know I thought very carefully about the type of cheese Gyles uses in his pies! It would be similar to appenzeller, which is a cheese of Swiss origin that uses cider/wine during the cheesemaking process, and it supposedly has an herby flavor (I’ve never had it but I want it). It’s a hard cheese (so it travels well) that melts well (good for pie filling), and it’s from an Alpine region (like the Vale where Gyles is from).

Ronnel barely got a glimpse of Jace during her wedding parade, but he would die for her 🥲.

We get our first glimpse of the Tyroshi, which I tried not to draw too much attention to so readers didn’t get suspicious, but I wanted it in there to set up Aegon’s investigation in Chapter 4. In hindsight, Aegon wishes he just stabbed the man that day…but he probably would’ve gotten beat up or killed in turn by the bodyguards.

BTW I am very proud of the sentence where I describe the bodyguards as looking like chickens 🐔. Sorry, just have to pat my back here.

Author’s nitpick about Maegor’s tunnels! My understanding is the secret tunnels are in the Red Keep but NOT in the Holdfast, which only has one super special secret escape route that book!Aegon uses when Rhaenyra takes KL. I have to remember not to let the characters just pop around anywhere they please using the secret tunnels. If everyone used secret tunnels all the time, they wouldn’t be very secret 🤧. I imagine the passage Aegon uses to sneak in and out of the castle is one that a lot of Targaryen royals have used, so it’s not a HUGE secret.

Daemon heard about the pregnancy pretty quickly after Jace got sick during small council. Nobody is sure where Aegon went, only that he sneaked out (pretty normal for him), and of course Daemon’s first suspicion is that Aegon is out whoring 💀. So Daemon went to the tunnels to catch Aegon on his way back and verify if Aegon was at the brothels or not. If Aegon was out whoring while his wife just found out she’s pregnant, Daemon would probably have done…something not nice 😅. But Aegon was just eating pies so it’s fine!

Aegon is no longer scared of Daemon (he was a bit scared in the first part of the Handbook), but he still doesn’t want to be alone with Daemon in a dark tunnel 👀.

Aegon has excellent zingers in the book, so I wanted give him some very sassy lines in this fic. Hence, Aegon implying Daemon is getting fat 😂. If you can’t take it, don’t dish it, Daemon!

Daemon’s line about “a spate of missing persons in the city” is a reference to the Tyroshi’s doings. The Tyroshi has kidnapped enough “good citizens” (tradesmen like Gyles, as opposed to poor prostitutes) that it’s becoming noticeable.

And yes, Daemon did deliberately make Aegon think something bad happened to Jace as revenge for Alyssa and the early wake up calls.

Originally, I was going to do brief POV scenes of all Jace’s sisters reacting to the pregnancy news, but it got very repetitive so I cut out all of them except Luce. But in the deleted bits, there’s a scene where Alicent asks Rhaena to help find Jace’s premarital nightgowns because the only nightwear Jace has right now is sexy lingerie 🤭. Then there’s a kinda sad bit where Rhaena realizes Alicent thinks she’s helping Jace by removing temptation from Aegon, because a pregnant woman should want reprieve from her husband’s attentions, because that was Alicent’s experience: being pregnant meant she didn’t have to sleep with Viserys. So Alicent struggles to realize that on the contrary, Jace might enjoy her husband’s attention.

Alicent and Rhaenyra have a comedic bit where they synchronize as they transform into Overprotective Future Grandmother mode, to showcase that they’re more similar than they admit. It’s self-explanatory why Rhaenyra is fussy, but this is also Alicent’s first grandchild. And she has always liked Jace, who is basically Alicent’s ideal good-daughter. I also think Alicent is a little jealous that Rhaenyra has Jace; Alicent definitely loves Helaena, but we see her struggling to connect with her daughter on the show, whereas Jace has always been polite, dutiful, and overall “easy” to interact with.

Because Alicent likes Jace so much, she is extra offended at the thought that Aegon might be out whoring. In a way, she still thinks of him as the profligate young prince before the Stepstones (at this point in the story, he’s only been back two months), so she assumed the worst. But it’s obvious to her that Aegon is head over heels for Jace, and she realizes he changed while he was away. So she apologizes, which doesn’t erase the hurt of her accusation but Aegon recognizes it as a big deal since she’s never apologized to him before. And she’s embarrassed about her mean reaction, but she’s too proud to do anything else to make amends.

In an earlier draft of the scene where Aegon learns about the pregnancy, I dragged out the misunderstanding where he thinks he made her cry. There was a whole miscommunication sequence that somehow ends with Aegon thinking Jace doesn’t love him anymore (he tries to give her a new ring, she cries because she knows her hands will swell and she’s worried she’ll be hideous and “I won’t be your pretty girl anymore” or something like that), but it was too melodramatic so I cut it down to a brief moment of pregnancy hormones 😅.

Using her sleeve to wipe her face is a bad habit that Aegon taught Jace because he used to do that for her when they were little and she cried 😭. (He still does it sometimes.)

Another theme in the story: when Jace is nervous, scared, or otherwise feeling negative emotions, Aegon uses humor to bring her out of her pit of despair (e.g. wedding night, during the storm at Dragonstone).

A hennin is that tall cone hat you see in medieval paintings. It was a status flex because it’s so impractical, which means only rich non-working women can wear it. Rhaenys’s hairstyle kinda reminds me of it too 😅. I imagine hennins to be very old-fashioned at this point in time, and maybe Rhaenys made Jace wear a few hennins when she was little and that’s why Jace hates them so much lol.

When I was writing the Handbook, I thought might’ve been the one to come up with the elopement idea. But she’s such a naturally cautious person that now I think she needed nudging first, and Aegon is reckless enough to go for an elopement without thinking about consequences too much.

I also have this idea that Otto has always been a big Jacegon shipper in this universe 😂. It’s the perfect match for his Plan A, B, C, X, Y, and Z. I like to imagine that before Rhaenyra took her daughters to Dragonstone, Otto was telling Aegon things like “bring Jace flowers!” and “wash your hair!” to help the romance along. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point, Otto straight up told Aegon “you need to marry that girl no matter what” (and it’d be hilarious if this planted the seed of the elopement in Aegon’s head).

Tyroshi purple is basically the real-world Tyrian purple, which was made from sea snails and so expensive that only royalty could afford it. I thought it very fitting for Jace, who’s supposed to be the future queen. The color also reminds me of wine, but I worked so hard to make Aegon not an alcoholic that I didn’t want to mention it in the fic 😛.

When Aegon avoids telling Jace his real, dark thoughts, we get a glimpse of how he tries to protect her from bad things in life. This is a point of friction that comes up again in the fic: Aegon thinks it’s best not to tell Jace certain things, and she disagrees.

Jace doesn’t like naps because she thinks they’re a waste of time when she could be doing work 🥲.

When Aegon is in the Tower with Otto, he notices a petition about thugs extorting money from guild members. This is also a reference to the Tyroshi’s doings!

Otto is a neat freak, Aegon knows it, and Aegon takes advantage of it for fleeting moments of malicious glee.

I also have a whole list of old people habits that Otto partakes in. Here, Aegon references Otto’s daily glass of prune juice, but I won’t go into detail about that 🙈. I also imagine Otto taking brisk early morning walks around the Tower, with his elbows pumping in a very old man way, to get his daily cardio in.

I made Otto’s late wife a member of House Mullendore. They’re vassals of the Hightowers, so it’s an acceptable match for a second son. (The Mullendores sided with the Blacks during the Dance, so I’m headcanoning that Otto had a terrible falling-out with them after his wife died.) More importantly, their sigil is a bunch of orange butterflies (see: Helaena’s embroidery that Otto displays in his study). We all know Helaena loves insects, and I feel like this is an extra reason she’s Otto’s favorite: her hobby reminds him of his wife.

Otto is generally happy with how things are going in this verse. Of course he would prefer if Aegon were the heir, but right now he’s guaranteed to have his blood on the throne even if it’s a few generations down the road, and he finds Jace to be reasonable, intelligent, and dutiful. But Otto is still sneaky, because he’s Otto. When he talks about “a royal grandson,” does he mean Rhaenyra’s grandson (baby gets his claim as Jace’s son) or Viserys’s grandson (baby gets his claim as Aegon’s son)? 🧐

Otto supports Jace attending the Small Council because her fate and reputation are closely tied to Aegon’s. If she does well, that reflects well upon her husband. Otto is also aware that if/when Rhaenyra is queen, she’ll want to sack him and send him away from court. But if he maintains a good relationship with Jace, who would be the Princess of Dragonstone at that time, he’ll still be able to retain influence at court not just through Alicent, who would then be dowager queen and less powerful. And if Jace demonstrates herself to be more capable at governance than Rhaenyra (who is less diligent about attending matters of state), Otto isn’t going to say no to that.

Jace knows that Otto has clashed with Rhaenyra in the past and that he has emotionally and physically hurt Aegon, so she doesn’t like Otto as a person. But she appreciates his skill as Hand and respects him professionally. So she’s willing to work with him, but she isn’t leaping at the prospect of spending time with him. And I think that suits Otto just fine. He doesn’t want to be liked, he wants results.

Sorry I couldn’t resist making a “we forgot Daeron existed” joke 🪦.

I really like Aegon and Aemond’s brotherly relationship, and I don’t see nearly enough of it in fics so I had to make my own contribution. Even in the show canon, where Aemond covets the throne and scorns Aegon, he’s still loyal to his brother and they have that brotherly telepathy moment during the last supper. In this verse, they’re much closer but they are still mean to each other in a delightfully sibling fashion. After his relationship with Jace (and eventually Cheeseball), I think Aegon’s relationship with Aemond is his most meaningful relationship in this fic, and I’ll probably keep tugging on it throughout the series.

Aegon won’t admit it but he’s excited to tell his brothers he’s gonna be a dad 🥰.

Daeron spent the last three years in Oldtown, which is the heart of the Faith, so the sex ed he received was very…censored 😅. And since he spent so long thinking that kissing = babies, you can imagine he has a strong reaction when he accidentally kisses Joff later.

Joff has plenty of older sisters (including Baela), and Rhaenyra and Daemon aren’t very quiet at Dragonstone. Thus, Joff figures out how procreation works as a young age 💀.

Aemond does not tell Daeron what a quim is. He tells Daeron to go ask a maester.

As mentioned in Chapter 10, Aegon knows Baela was/is attracted to Jace, and this is a big source of friction between them. But Baela’s never acted on her feelings, and Aegon feels fairly secure in Jace’s affections, so he doesn’t talk about it out loud. But if Baela ever provoked him enough, he would mention it to get back at her (Aegon still has a mean streak, he’s just better at suppressing it).

Helaena’s three egg-shaped beads are a reference to the children she’ll never have in this verse. I’m of the opinion that her prophecies are very vague and mostly vibes (e.g. “he’ll have to close an eye” = she sees Aemond riding a dragon with one eye closed, like an extended wink). So she definitely doesn’t know “ah yes, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera and Maelor, who are all going to die terribly,” but she has a sense of the children she would’ve loved and lost in another life. So she’s a bit sad about not having those children in this life, but part of her is relieved she’ll never have to endure the horrible loss and suffering her children’s deaths caused.

“Sunflowers should not be watered with wine.” Helaena compares Jace to the sun (“to the sun I go”), which makes Aegon a sunflower that’s always turning to face the sun. He isn’t an alcoholic here, so he’s thriving more.

“The egg is crowned with gold, and all the creatures love it so.” The egg is Cheeseball, of course. He’s crowned with gold because he’ll be king one day, and gold is his parents’ color. The creatures = dragons, seahorses, towers, etc., all the houses with competing claims to the throne but who all agree that Cheeseball is the future king.

“Buzz, buzz. Your hive has gathered.” Jace is the queen bee, but she’s also constantly working like a bee.

“A lovely summer egg.” Cheeseball is born toward the end of summer. Also a reference to how his future reign will be peaceful and prosperous.

“A beloved egg free from sorrow.” In contrast to Helaena’s children/eggs 🥲.

Helaena’s freak out about the name Jaehaerys is 100% a reference to Blood and Cheese. Again, she doesn’t know exactly what would’ve happened in this alternate universe, but she’s getting very bad vibes from the name.

Jace despairs at the prospect of being coddled for the entire pregnancy, which is exactly what happens…

Laenor wasn’t a paragon of fatherhood but he was more present in this universe. The girls being his actual daughters does affect his feelings for them, and I think he likes having daughters. He would have to help educate and train a son, but he can just spoil and dote on daughters. (Pretty similar to Aegon’s attitude in the beginning of this fic.) So Laenor makes a lot more visits to the nursery when the kids are little, hence Aegon’s familiarity with him.

I wrote the interlude because we see almost all the other siblings’ reactions to the pregnancy, but not Luce. I just couldn’t bring myself to delete it with the other reaction POVs so I kept it in 😅. I justify it by telling myself that it’s important setup for the Baratheon drama later lol (even though at the time I wrote this chapter, I wasn’t sure Floris and Sara were going to die, so this is the author retconning).

Rhaenyra made Jace wait until her sixteenth nameday, so she’s applying that rule to all her daughters: no marriage until you’re sixteen. That’s why Luce has to wait. And if the Baratheon stuff didn’t happen later, it would 100% have been a smart move. Luce is very impulsive, and she and Aemond were clashing for so long, it’s wiser to wait and make sure they’re in this for the long haul and not just acting on hormones.

Aemond had visited Driftmark four times in the past month, which means he’s there every week for several days 😂.

I like to think Daemon told Caraxes to tell Arrax to make sure Luce and Aemond don’t have too much fun 🤭. And for some reason, I imagine Arrax looking a lot like a light fury from How to Train Your Dragon. Big eyes and shiny scales.

Earlier in the chapter, we get a monologue about how Aegon would starve to keep Jace fed. Here, Aemond is literally stealing Luce’s lunch 🤣🤣🤣.

Jace knows her sister super well! That’s why she tells Luce to sit down before she continues the letter: she knows Luce is going to have a strong reaction.

Jace loves all her sisters but I think she’s closest to Luce. They’re less than two years apart in age, and Joff was born four years after Luce, so a lot of Jace’s earliest memories are just the two of them as sisters. Just like how Aemond is one of Aegon’s most important relationships, Luce is one of Jace’s most important relationships.

Chapter 3 commentary here

[throughtrialbyfire]

Fic Author Self-Rec!

tagged by the lovely @mareenavee , thank you so much!! <3

tagging @dirty-bosmer @orfeoarte @gilgamish @umbracirrus @totally-not-deacon @v1ctory-or-sovngarde @thequeenofthewinter and YOU!! no pressure to participate, and if you haven't written 5 fics, feel free to just talk about whichever ones you have!!

Rules:

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love!

i'm going to paste each fics summary, and then go on my tangents!

An Inner Sanctity

Two months after attempting to utilize the Eye of Magnus and gain it's power, Ancano wakes up in an unfamiliar cottage, being cared for by the very person he intended to destroy. Navigating their strange and new dynamic, the Thalmor agent finds he may be offered second chance at life, but whether or not he takes it is another story.

this fic is a huge work of exploration into what indoctrination can do to someone who has never known any different, and how that can affect things as broad as worldviews and as personal as one-on-one dynamics with people. it's also partially catharsis-fic, as giving ancano some of my own mental and physical issues and dialing it up to 10000000000% is a hell of a lot of fun. i love seeing that old man suffer and then earn his rise from the ashes. plus, using athenath in a fic where they cant rely on the other two of the trio - as this is in an AU i call the "athenath solo run" - forces me to think of how they would handle situations on his own. spoiler? not too well.

it's on a hiatus at the moment despite having a pretty long backlog, i just don't have the motivation right now to edit and write more for it, but that definitely will change in the future, because i really love exploring ancano's psyche and how he begins to grow and change.

also the fic title comes from the song "Twilight" by Bôa, while that doesnt have anything to do with the fic, i loved the line "you give me an inner sanctity", sooooo <3

The Mark You Left

Two scientists realize, upon losing contact with Dr. Richtofen, that they are truly alone in the aftermath of their actions.

i don't have 5 fics for TES, so have my singular CoD Zombies fic as well! i've had a special interest in the ultimis timeline of CoD Zombies since uhhhh 2011? maybe? sometimes it lays dormant for months and then all of the sudden i think about it daily, especially the dynamics between Dr. Schuster, Dr. Richtofen, and Dr. Groph. so, i wrote this as a bit of a loveletter to a fandom i no longer am part of, but still have a lot of fondness for. it's a quick read that hits on this concept of ultimate betrayal in the aftermath of literally betraying someone else for that person. two people dealing with that, processing that, and what they'll do in the wake of all of this.

the title for this fic comes from the song "Birds" by BENN, who used to make CoD Zombies-based songs before rewriting/redoing them for his own original work!!

Portraits Under Forgotten Suns

A collection of short one-shot fics done for TESFest 2023. A werewolf in his cage, a Bosmer alchemists' first memory, a Dunmer mage's quiet contemplation, a humble keeper's last look at the place he's called home, a sailor's fate at the wreck of the Brinehammer, and an Altmer bard's fond summer memory.

as it says on the tin! its a series of one-shots i initially published to tumblr, then moved to Ao3 to make them more accessible and have a ready archive of them! i loved working on each of these, getting into different perspectives, and figuring out how to convey the narratives of the characters i worked with. i liked writing up details of my dragonborn trio's pasts, too, and the story for "Forgotten/Devotion" was a hell of a lot of fun, getting to pull the wreck of the brinehammer into a fic!

If by Sun and Moon I Swore

With the Empire's victory in the Skyrim Civil War, Hadvar has been quietly readjusting to regular life. When an old friend turns up at his door, that quiet he'd hoped for comes to a halt.

i love hadvar/ralof with all my wretched pining heart okay. i cannot deny this pair has a vice grip on me! and working with them, two soldiers touched by war on opposite sides who once had something (in this case, used to be (and still are) in love), can be something both so tragic and so healing. pulling this pair back together, giving them some form of comfort, even if it's brief, is such a joy. i have intentions of writing more for this couple in the future, but that's likely going to be a while. still, i'll be sure to let you guys know if i do get around to it!!

this fics title is from "Like The Dawn" by The Oh Hellos! its my quintessential hadvar/ralof song for sure <3

Cycle of the Serpent

Surviving Helgen by the skin of their teeth, three elves find themselves tossed into the middle of ancient legends, a civil war, and a hell of a lot of problems. They may all have different reasons for being in Skyrim, but if they have any hope of reaching their destinations alive, it lies in learning to trust their strange new companions… no matter what. From the ruins of Helgen to the plains of Whiterun, from the seas of Solitude to the grim frost of Winterhold, and everywhere sprawling beyond, the unlikely trio will find that being chosen by Akatosh is more than they've ever bargained for. And with their own histories crawling back, and secrets slowly spilled, the trio may find that there's little they can do to escape the cycles they've made.

this longfic is… a huge undertaking. "An Inner Sanctity" focuses on two very flawed people coming to love one another. "Cycle of the Serpent" focuses on three very flawed, extremely fucked up people learning to trust one another and face whatever fate awaits them together, even when that trust is tested, even when the world is cruel, even when trauma batters and bruises them in the current and then rises up from the briny depths of the past to tug them back down beneath. it's about sustained and sometimes self-fulfilling cycles of hurt, anger, and sometimes vengeance, and it's about love and joy and companionship and friendship that lives within it all.

in short, this longfic is one of my biggest undertakings in a very long time.

i started this as a bit of a joke. the idea of there being more than one LDB was a fun idea, and then i created three elves, and those three elves gave me their family histories and their childhood friendships and their previous travels and how it changed them all prior to helgen and i went… yeah i can't just not write this and go insane about it. these three and their various methods for dealing with situations, their triumphs and defeats, and how they bounce off one another became so organic and real to me that i feel continuously pulled to keep their narrative going. this story forced me to write my first ever combat scenes (posted the snippet of my second ever real combat scene tonight!) and learn how to navigate keeping it within TES lore, while also breaking out of some of the stale writing in skyrim itself. i have plans to rewrite/overhaul entire questlines and characters to give them more life, and i've got dozens of OCs lined up - at least one of whom is hinted at within the first chapter. i have this story and these characters arcs planned out, and they do get particularly grim at points, but i never want this story to go into "there is no hope" territory. there's always hope, it just lies in learning to break your own cycles, even if it feels like it may kill you.

the title of this fic was taken from the song "Pillar of Na" by Saintseneca, i very heavily envision emeros as the first verse, athenath as the second, wyndrelis as the third, with the fourth being all three of them, and the fifth (the "eternal, eternal, eternity round…") being a sort of ensemble of all the places and people they've touched in their lives.

woooooooooooooooo!! that was long-winded. thank you for listening to me ramble on these, and thank you so much again for tagging me, mareena!! i hope everyone is having a lovely wednesday/thursday!! <3333

[veradragonjedi]

✍️ - What is your favourite line or scene from the project? for BBB?

WAAAAAA NOOOO THERE ARE SO MANY TO COUNT 😭

I'm gonna bring my top five I think so far (I know this asks for just one, but ugh I just have so many thoughts in my head)

(Edit: this gets more and more insane as I go down the list. Just. FYI..) OH. And. BBB spoilers under the cut! Please... enjoy <3

*Game Theory voice* NUMBER FIIIIVE

5. Everything about Luke changed, but him. He was solid, rigid, reliable.

UGH I'm a SUCKER for moments when Luke's ever-shifting demeanour, ever-changing self, shape and form, are expressed as they are. Luke is the Force, Luke is a corner of the universe folded, origami-style, into the shape of a human. I'd like to believe that you see the Gaussian blur of motion in his body when he moves. Like he is travelling at supersonic speeds through time and space all day every day and we're all just witnessing him at his slowest.

This works EVEN BETTER when you remember that in BBB Luke is totally covered head to toe, with no part of his skin showing. He is Everything. He is always moving. His cloak is always flowing. His eyes are always shifting.

But, despite all that, the thing that is actually Luke Skywalker, that kindness, that strength, remains the same.

He is rigid, solid, in his compassion, but, physically, spiritually, he is ever changing.

4. A sunless, wicked, beauty.

Din's first thought when he sees Luke for the first time, and WHO can BLAME him!? This is in Chapter 1, The Darkness Brings A Shadow, and it's my blog title over at @blood-blindfolds-and-butterflies :3

I'm obsessed with the imagery of it. Just... in awe. I need to eat it. For a very long era in this fic, Din has no idea what Luke looks like, and every word that he first ever describes Luke as is considered wrong.

Luke is not sunless, though he tries to be. Luke hides behind his veil, behind his cloak, behind the locked doors of his temple, and STILL the sunlight peaks through the cracks of his withered body and overcomes everything around it. (This actually reminds me of another quote I love, see 2. !!!) Luke is also, despite the hardships he's suffered, not wicked. He is kind and selfless, but he doesn't believe it himself. And, lastly, Luke would never in a million years call himself a beauty. Him? Scarred? Torn? A vampire?? Luke has not allowed anyone in the galaxy to call him beautiful in a very long time (that's... the essence of bbb. Being loved for who you are, and finding beauty in the ugly and mundane. So obviously this sentence drives me kriffing nuts.)

Luke can't be beautiful, so Din must be wrong about him from the start. And Luke TRIES desperately to get him to understand that he is WRONG about him, but Din has his heart set on learning about and understanding Luke beyond the first image he caught of him, and it's perfect.

3. ...Din was left nursing a feeling of guilt...

Thanks to my wonderful editor (my dad) the verb 'nursing' is in play here. We spoke about this particular sentence after it was posted and... wow do I have thoughts.

Context: Din has found out that Luke is a vampire, and is feeling guilty because he no-longer feels safe around him, even though he trusts that Luke isn't a threat, and knows that it's a horrible thing he's doing (basing someone's character entirely on their species, especially after he had already formed a good opinion of Luke.)

There are two ways to read the word 'nursing' in this context.

1. Din's opinion of Luke is healing. In this case, the guilt is the disease, the pain, and Din is softening the sting. Din is caring for his sore heart, waiting to confess to Luke that he knows he is a vampire, and also regaining his original position on living with him (wants to do that.)

2. Din's opinion of Luke is dying. In this case, the love, the care, is the pain, and Din is driving it out, all the while "nursing" (taking care of—) the guilt he's formed, and preparing to either leave Luke forever or kill him (does not want to do this, however, his son is now in danger, from his point of view)

2. Effortless kindness was so alien, but Luke left a trace of it in his wake, on the rim of every cup he put his lips to, and in the imprint of his footsteps in the ground.

"The Jedi Code is like an itch..." etc etc... 😭 thank you Kenobi.

LUKE oh god. Back to 4, Luke leaves this unwashable, un-get-rid-able trail of kindness everywhere he walks. Every spoon he's ever put in his mouth, every flower he's ever opened, every time he kisses Din's cheek, lips, knuckles, he leaves a little bit of kindness behind, and that kindness is like a virus.

It spreads, infecting others like Vader and Han. It makes roots, it sinks into the ground, it grows and reaches upward, and when it releases its spores, more kindness springs from the places they land.

Luke's effortless kindness is alien to Din because Din has never experienced it. YES Din was given a home, food, armour, by the Mandalorians, but— he was always going to be younger, weaker, and he had to fight for real respect and love just like everyone did.

Luke loves Din. Luke's kindness toward Din takes him little to no energy at all.

Din is mesmerised.

1. Luke loved the child; Din had made him realise that.

Do I even have to say anything. Yes.

Luke is Grogu's dad as much as Din is, we just never got to really see the two of them connect, and I'm really bitter about it ngl.

In the same paragraph, Luke confesses to Grogu that he does love Din (believing that it is platonic)

They're a family they love each other they're helping each other grow and learn and I am so proud of them all.

Because, Din was never really loved. And, now, he believes that taking love from a man who is struggling so hard to even maintain some left for himself IS selfish and cruel and Din won't do that. Din doesn't want ANYTHING for helping Luke. No money, no favours, absolutely no love in return.

Because love, to Din, is like currency. Love is priceless, and help is so so easy.

Luke believes that accepting help from Din is incredibly selfish and rude, as he can't help in return. All he can give Din is love and friendship, and even then, its easier telling Grogu that he loves Din, rather than telling Din to his face (or... helmet, rather.)

But, Din doesn't want that. Because Din believes that that love goes to waste if Luke gives it to him when Din is simply doing something he enjoys.

Luke believes that Love is all there is to give, Din believes he is selfish for accepting it with nothing in return.

Din believes that Help is all there us to give, Luke believes he is selfish for accepting it with nothing in return.

AAAAAAA IT ALSO WORKS FOR GROGU BECAUSE AT FIRST DIN ONLY SAVED HIM BECAUSE IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. BUT HE SOON REALISED HE WANTED TO BE MORE OF A FATHER TO HIM AND GROGU ONLY EVER SAW HIM AS A FATHER FIGURE

Din, seeing Grogu: this is a thing. I must help it find its kind because that is my purpose and I enjoy it. I will not fall in love with the thing.

Grogu: :)

Din: I have fallen in love with the thing.

Din, seeing Luke: this is a Jedi. I must help him find his calling and also learn how to appreciate himself because that is my new purpose, and I enjoy it. I will not fall in love with the Jedi.

Luke: :)

Din: it will not happen again.

Luke: :( *sigh* guess I am unlovable and unworthy.

Din: ........ by Manda this can't be happening—

Oh my god 😭 they are such different people but when it comes down to it family is the most important thing to both of them 😭 oh... ohh

They love each other, but until they realise it, they are soooo incompatible and that's what makes me the happiest sometimes :,)

I love BBB. I love my story. I am in love with it. I would kiss it if I could.

THANK YOU for this ask. A great big mahoosive THANK YOU. I'm SORRY it took SO LONG getting to it, it has been a troubling year. I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on some of these, I hope I was ever so slightly coherent.

And, tbh, I'm heckin proud of this, so. @doublechocolate @airlocksandaviaries @funkyphonophorae @jspookywolf <3 tagging the people who might enjoy a lore dump?

Ily Nova!!! Keep doing what ur doing.

[nanatsuyu]

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

🥺🧡

I've had a wip that's been plaguing me far longer than I've wanted it to, but I'm finally making some headway in editing it up and finishing the last couple chapters!

It's an au where Neil and Andrew meet at a bar and have a one night stand. But it doesn't go quite as planned because Andrew doesn't usually do fwb, but Neil seems to be some kind of exception. The rest is Andrew's ongoing crisis about it. :^)

Can post a lil snippet just to encourage myself:

—

For being the one to suggest they go together, Neil seems desperate to be anywhere but Andrew’s car the moment he slides into the passenger seat, immediately digging into his sling for the spare outfit he keeps on hand. How each of Neil's bags manage to hold the amount they do is beyond Andrew. Then again, modern magic doesn't exactly come with an instruction manual.

Neil pulls his shirt over his head, wasting no time in swapping it for a hoodie Andrew recognizes as one of his that has been missing for some time, the patches previously peeling off now stitched up with thread that almost matches their original lining. Andrew has yet to see the emergency sewing kit Neil must keep on hand, but chalks it up to yet another thing stored in the void space of a bag only Neil can navigate.

Neil lifts his hips to unbutton his jeans, and Andrew decides it best to put his car in park.

"Someone's feeling voyeuristic," he comments, mildly disappointed that Neil chose today not to go commando. 

Neil snorts in reply and denies Andrew any teasing show, pulling his spare jeans on with little fanfare.

"Your windows are black enough to block out the sun," Neil says, tossing his clothes into the back like it's his name on the car's title. He sits back into the seat with more force than necessary, staring forward for a second before digging through the glove compartment for Andrew's cigarettes. He gets one lit and exhales sharply over the dash.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" Andrew asks, graciously rolling Neil's window down for him.

Neil props his elbow on the door. "Long week."

The dashboard reads a quarter after eight.

"Couldn't have been that bad at Kevin's," Andrew muses.

Kevin's third favourite hobby is fussing over things that don’t matter as much as he thinks they do, at volumes Andrew wishes only dogs could hear. (The first is stumbling across obscure documentaries, and the second, debunking UFO sightings. Both of which Andrew will entertain for far longer than the third.)

"Kevin's fine," Neil corrects, moving to take another drag, but pausing just before reaching his lips to look over at Andrew. He follows Andrew's line of sight down to his bouncing knee, and stills it with his free hand. "Just a lot on my plate."

Clearly, the devil on Andrew's shoulder wants to say.

He hums instead. "Decided to see if flapping your social butterfly wings would solve the problem?"

Neil doesn't deign him with even the hint of a grin a comment like that would normally elicit.

[incorrectclassicbookquotes]

Essay on Goncharov is below cut. I used Wikipedia for the casting so if anything is wrong there blame Wikipedia. The theme of the class was the simulation and reality vs unreality so I had to add that into the essay and it couldn’t be that long because it is a Wild Card essay.

When exactly does a movie become real? Most would argue that it becomes real the moment a movie is filmed and put out for the world to see. However, Tumblr has proven that a movie might become real the moment it is thought up. This is true in the case of Martin Scorsese’s 1973 movie Goncharov which doesn’t actually exist.

On August 21st, 2020, Tumblr user zootycoon posted a photo of knockoff boots that said on the tag “Martin Scorsese presents Goncharov” and titled it “The Greatest Mafia movie ever made.” Of course the original poster learned that the movie Goncharov did not actually exist and wrote underneath the photo, “I got these knockoff boots online and instead of the brand name on the tag they have the name of an apparently nonexistent Martin Scorsese movie??? What the fuck.” Tumblr being Tumblr could not let this go and just a few weeks ago a slew of posts, fanart, fanfiction, and musical scores were flooded on Tumblr with people making casting choices and whole plot lines about the nonexistent movie Goncharov.  

The movie from what I have gathered is about a bunch of Russian mobsters in Italy with the leading man Goncharov who is played by Robert De Niro. He is married to Katya whom Tumblr has cast to be played by Cybil Shepherd. However he is gay and in love with an Italian mobster who is his rival Andrey played by Harvey Keitel. However, that’s ok with his wife Katya because she is also in love with a woman named Sofia played by Sophia Loren. One other character that people talk about is Joseph “Ice Pick Joe” Morelli played by John Cazale. Other cast members include Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, and Lynda Carter. Lynda Carter is especially relevant since she actually cast herself in the movie since she is on Tumblr and got in on the action.

In terms of plot it mostly consists of murder and the relationships between the four main cast members, Goncharov, Katya, Andrey, and Sofia. A big theme is the existence of a clock tower which is present in many of the fanmade posters for the film. Since it is meant to be the greatest mafia movie of all time, adding too much plot would ruin that motif so instead little snippets have been added. These include a boat scene and Katya faking her own death.

Once the posts got popular on Tumblr other sites also made pages on them, including Wikipedia, TV Tropes, and Archive of our Own (a popular fanfiction site). Martin Scorsese’s Wikipedia page was edited so many times to include Goncharov on his filmography section that editing his Wikipedia page is no longer optional at this time. 

On November 25th, 2022, Martin Scorsese’s twenty-three year old daughter, Francesca posted a Tik Tok in which she showed that she had asked her father if he had heard of Goncharov and he responded that he “made that film years ago.” So it has come to the point where the appointed director of this fake film has acknowledged its presence and admitted to making it. 

This begs the question that if the director admits himself that he made this fake movie does it then become real. Even if the movie has never actually been made, is the fact that many people on Tumblr and even the director himself decide that it’s real is it real or is it still fake?

@passiveaggressiveturkeys

[afreakingdork]

What's Next?

Hey, everybody! Gosh, I was really hoping I would have polls to make this more interactive, but sadly tumblr said that is not to be! Since Crush Too Much has ended, I was hoping to ask y'all how you wanted it to be posted up on ao3, but without polls I'll just have to decide.

Therefore, starting tomorrow and for the next 22 days I'm going to be throwing up the chapters of Crush Too Much on ao3!

To celebrate the occasion and hopefully make it fun for people who have already read, I'll be doing a daily post here that include bonus content from thoughts to a timeline and whatever notes I had been pouring over when i was writing! I'm also going through and re-editing the fic because I definitely missed a bunch of dumb technical errors. While I can't promise they'll all be totally eradicated (editing 😩), I can hopefully say that it will confidently read a little better in some ways! Sadly, we'll be losing the color with an ao3 posting, but I hope the chapter titles make up for that.

What's next?

I once stated in an ask that my timeline didn't include anymore rottmntxreader fanfiction because I needed to finish my incomplete kacchako fics and start my original story. That is still the plan, but.... well.... since then I... may or may not have.... uh.... written pages and pages and pages for a new donniexreader fic.... Willpower be damned... I'm still putting it together and I am not allowing myself to really get into it without at least STARTING to finish my other fics, but may I present to you:

Weak Spot

A RotTMNT Donatello x Fem!Reader explicit fanfiction that will explore romance and love when your partner just so happens to be a villain.

That's right! it's going to be a villain!Donniexreader fanfic! It's going to be porn with plot and way more freeform than Crush Too Much. To clarify, they are totally unrelated and unlike it's predecessor, it does not have a single overarching story to tell. Instead, as I said, I just want to languidly explore the many facets of love and self when it comes to good and evil. Since I'll be writing it concurrently while finishing my other fanfics, please note that updates will be longer in between and I still have no schedule. I can tell you that I think about it constantly so expect the first chapter starting next month without a doubt.

I also want to address the shift to a fem!reader. I feel like I'm letting down my audience by not continuing to make reader gender neutral. There's been an ongoing discussion of how to write gender neutral sex and though I know I should push myself, I also find myself leaning back into the comfort of what I know. I going to really push to skirt the line as much as possible tthough, so reader will be generic as possible most of the time. I do truly apologize for the shift and will continue to work to improve my writing.

If you're curious about the process, I have a membership tier on my ko-fi where I'll be throwing up WIPs and other details/notes about Weak Spot as I write! Otherwise, all posted chapters will be going up on there/here/ao3 generally as well. If you're curious, a follow is always free~

Speaking of follows...?

I am less than 50 followers away from 1000! I'm still on track to hold that giveaway contest and write that one-shot when we hit it! Thank you so much for following along and I can't wait until we can celebrate!!! 🎉

I think that clears everything up! I'm always open to hearing your thoughts and I'm super excited for what this year seems to be bringing 😃 I seriously cannot thank each and every one of you enough. My life is different now and truly for the better because of all of you!

[dummerjan]

A while ago I was tagged by @die-schwanenkoenigin to list 10 songs I like with names in the title. Thank you. <3 Right now I am way too intense about a song with a name in the title, Major Tom - Peter Schilling. It's been playing on repeat all day long and it's slowly driving me mad. So I will try to break the cycle by forcing myself to listen to something else before I lose it entirely. 1. Cody's Theme - AJJ - It's the kind of song I want to take apart word for word, note for note to analyze out why it makes me feel so much. The angry child is quite relatable but the music itself is so energetic it makes me want to stomp around like Rumpelstiltskin but in a good way, not out of anger. (Which my parents called me when I was a child because I was perpetually angry and frequently stomping my foot in rage.)

2. Paula Ausente - Marta Gómez - She wrote it inspired by Isabel Allende's memoir by the same name. I used to cry my eyes out listening to this. I no longer do but the tenderness and beautiful wording remain just as moving. The first line of the book still makes me tear up though if I spend a second too long on it.

3. Katharina - AnnenMayKantereit - This song came out at just the right name and it even contains my name. As if it had been written for me.

4. Rebecca - Against Me! - This one just makes me feel good and energized. Perfect to scream along to. And queer!

5. Amie - Damien Rice - For years I have been wondering about the reference to Story of O since it appears both in this song and the album title itself is O. Maybe it's about going in a circle and not the book at all because I have never been able to find any interviews that address this. Either way, I love the song.

6. Für Marie Louise/Voor Marie Louise - Herman van Veen - I can't decide between the German and Dutch version so it's both. His voice is like home to me and his words of utmost comfort.

7. Антонина - Юрий Шевчук (ДДТ) (Antonina - Yuri Shevchuk (DDT)) - DDT has become one of my favourite bands, partially due to Yuri's voice. Russian, to me, is the most beautiful sounding language and hearing him sing evokes such a strong reaction I feel it in my chest. It's oppressive and too much and I can never get enough of it. I go a few weeks without listening to his voice and when I finally do again, I wonder how I could live without.

8. Báidín Fheilimí - Sinéad O'Connor - One of my favourite songs ever. There isn't much to the lyrics but she just knew how to make songs her own and give them her all. Anything her voice touches turns into the most beautiful music.

9. Laura Laurent - Bright Eyes - Perfect depression song! The verse "But you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living" always hits home. As having trouble with living describes quite well how I've experienced a lot of my depression.

10. Paula - Zoé - One last song with my name. I like how my name sounds in Spanish, and I like the song and the album it's on. It's the quintessential autumn music for me for some reason and today I can already smell autumn in the evening air. This took forever – especially editing it down from my original ramblings – but I think the spell Major Tom has had on me is broken. I closed the tab, I think I am free now. As for tagging... @ilovetextingandscones @imminentinertia @biveganpoetbat @mvickym @hummingbooks and whoever else wants to, I am always curious about music and I love songs with names in them. No pressure obviously. :)

[mannatea]

His Choice, a Tales of Symphonia ‘fic

Words: 959 words Summary: He’d known all along he would outlive her. Pairing/Character: Zelos/Sheena, mention of others Extra Info: This was originally written and posted June 22, 2008 for my friend Nico. His prompt was “Finality.” The original title of this work was “Curse of a Man.” Rating: T Genre: Romance with some friendship vibes, also sort of a character study piece for a more mature Zelos.

The title is the link to Ao3! Please let me know what you think. :) This was a surprisingly big rewrite again.

Notes below the cut as usual:

When I re-read the original ‘fic last night I honestly felt I’d keep more of the original structure, but once I started rewriting I just...couldn’t.

So my usual rewriting habit is to open the original in one document, open a blank document and place them side by side. I retype everything and edit/leave things out/etc as I go. 

While the original had some good bits in it (the line about Regal’s death and Raine disappearing did hit pretty hard I think) the theme was based more around love being a curse, which...yuck, no thanks.

I think there’s room for “ageless” (or slow-aging) characters to feel bitterness and loneliness regarding love, but I ended up wanting to explore that relationship dynamic without the cynicism. After all, Zelos did, in the end, get to choose what he wanted for himself. He might be a bit of a dunderhead sometimes, but like Raine, Genis, Yuan, Kratos, and any other person in this game with a long life expectancy, he’d be well aware of what he was getting himself into.

I’m not 100% satisfied with the end result, mostly because it’s really hard to hit on the characterization of an older and wiser Zelos who isn’t chasing down voluptuous hunnies all the time, but I think it turned out all right. If he commits himself to something of his own free will he’s not the type to back down from that IMO. And there’s something intriguing about a character like Zelos taking love extremely serious when he does decide he wants it. I wanted to show that in the rewrite above all else—that he loves her and the journey they took to get to where they are, aging and all. (Even though it hurts to see the journey coming to an end, even though it makes him feel helpless.)

Anyway, the year I wrote this was the year my grandmother died. She spent the last months of her life in a nursing home and shared her room with a woman in her 90s named Naomi. Naomi was there for end of life care and was never awake or even fully aware, but every day her 101-year-old husband came to visit her and just sat there holding her hand for hours and hours.

I’m sure that inspired at least part of this story.

And while I didn’t have time to explore it fully in this story I did want to touch on how friend groups start to fall apart when no longer united by a commonality. Since the line about Regal dying and Raine disappearing was in the original, I expanded slightly on that relationship and connected it to Zelos’s current predicament. There’s a tiny implication in there that Regal’s funeral was the last time the group was together and he’s heard almost nothing from anyone since. 

I REALLY wanted to explore the funeral more (Raine losing her struggle with grief, Genis unable to comfort her, the group feeling disjointed, unbalanced, and unfamiliar now) but there wasn’t room for it. I guess you can imagine it for yourself. ;)

I almost titled this “Chosen’s Choice” for the sweet alliteration but worried it read too close to Ladies’ Choice and/or Sophie’s Choice and couldn’t do it. 

[sharkneto]

Top 5 chapters from your fics?

This is such a neat ask, thank you anon. I've been open I'm obsessed with my own writing and reread it constantly, but what are those chapters I come back to over and over again... In no particular order -

Negotiations/No More Negotiations/Try Again (Holding It Together Ch 12, 13, and 14) - I'm not cheating, these three count as one chapter. It's like if you give a mouse a cookie - if I read Negotiations, I have to read the following two with it (side note: I am very pleased with the chapter titles of Negotiations followed by No More Negotiations). I just had so much fun writing AJ and his evil corporate speak, the fight between him and Five, Number's heroics, and, of course, Five getting sushi. I wrote the Five part relatively early on in HIT's existence, and I played with the idea of Number and time travel for months before implementing it because I loved what I had going on between Five and AJ and didn't want to scrap it - and it took me those couple months to figure out that I could have the best of all worlds with added angst thanks to the time travel. Insert here my usual plug that S2 did AJ dirty he slaps so hard as a villain.

Thoughts on Umbrellas (Searching for Good Times Ch 3) - I adore this chapter, both for the fun of world building Five's perfect, fucked up world, and for the back and forth of Allison trying to convince Five of his insane life. It was a fun puzzle to figure out, how Allison could try to use logic to break the HOb's illusion and how Five could (or couldn't) rationalize it. And then, of course, it ends with some of my favorite lines of the fic: She cannot believe she’s forgotten one other very, very important fact about Five and Delores. Five is also Delores. And she’s been focusing on the wrong half of the pair. Delicious.

It Will Be Fine (Joining Together Ch 7) - I've said it before, but this is one of my very favorite things I've ever written. A couple firsts for JT - first chapter with Amanda POV and our first view of Five through the eyes of a peer and in his own space. We get a reminder that Five is a world-class superhero, even when he's drunk off his ass, and that, underneath all his problems, he does care. We get Klaus! I adored writing the sibling dynamic between him and Five. And, over it all, that thin, thin, thin veneer that Things Are Fine that is just crumbling the longer Amanda is there. If you allow me to say so, it's very good.

Numbering Mistake (Part 1) (Joining Together Ch 20) - Can you have a superhero in a story and not have a bank robbery? Yes, but ignore that. I like the slow start to this one, and that both Sarah and Five could have been right about the situation and it's just unfortunate that Five was. Sarah finally understands how the Boy fits in to the puzzle that is Five and the Boy gets to kick some ass. Calling Five "the Boy" for that part of the chapter was a last minute edit - I liked the idea of the effect, the separation for this new side Sarah was seeing, but I was worried it would be obnoxious to read. Neat how it worked! And, of course - dear old Reggie makes his cameo. There's just something about TUA villains that are really fun to write, and Reggie is no exception. He came, he emotionally crippled his son, he left. What a man, what a chapter.

Just Our Luck (Sometimes Age Comes Alone Ch 5) - The chapter I rewrote half the fic for. The original version of the fic was allll Viktor and Five - it went from their talk about the apocalypse straight to Five fixing his age problem. Nice, still hit the same themes, but boy howdy nowhere near as impactful as it got when I thought of this fight. It gives us everything - Five and Diego Time, Sparrow Fight, Time Travel, Five Almost Killing Himself For His Family, and it better sets up for things to come to light and motivation for Five to fix his age problem. Five's panic at Diego's injuries immediately flipping to Diego's panic for Five's injuries and the siblings having to piece together what happened next chapter is so delicious. And a satisfying action sequence, if I do say so myself.

This was so fun, and took me forever to answer because of course I had to reread each chapter as I selected it. I thought for a moment of doing some honorable mention chapters, but then we'd really be here all night.

[snek-panini]

I know I just posted another book a few days ago but my new one's done and I have to show it off because it came out so beautiful and I love it.

This is a bind of The Voice of the Lion was Heard in the Land by A_N_D, which is a wonderful soft story that I found by accident. I no longer remember what I was originally searching for, but I'm glad it led me to this one. Check it out!

It's so beautiful! I'm in love with it. This is a shorter work than the last few I've made, so I made it half-sized because tiny books are awesome. First time doing it that way, but it definitely won't be the last. More pics and rambling under the cut. I got a little philosophical with this one XD

This is also the first time I've done the title like this. I formatted it in Word, printed it, cut it to size, and glued it to the front with PVA. I don't know how well it will hold up but I love how professional it looks. Here's a top view and the fore edge:

I must have mis-measured somewhere, because the cover *barely* fit. You can see it's right up against the spine in the back, and still juuust barely within the edge of the boards. I actually had to lay the book block inside upright over the spine, put some glue on the boards and fold them up to the block do the casing in, instead of laying the block flat onto the back cover and folding the front one over it like I usually do, because I didn't trust it to be straight any other way. This resulted in a loose back hinge, which I fixed later, but also eliminated the gap I usually have between the spine and book block, so overall a win even though it made me nervous to do.

Close-up of one of the corners. Previously I've often had bits of board visible here, but I managed a nice turn-in on all the corners for this one and I'm very proud of that.

Couple of interior shots, so you can see how small it is. The endpapers are a pattern I've used before, when I did Flowers from Hell, but I can't help it, they're just very pretty. I have discovered that my printer does not like pale grays, which is unfortunate because that's the color I used for the section break lines. Easiest solution would be a new printer, but printers are expensive so I'm looking for a work-around. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

When I first started making books I wanted them to look as good as something you'd find for sale in a bookstore, and I think this one is the closest I've come on that goal. I also had a really specific aesthetic in mind. My hometown's library had a bunch of vintage children's classics, some of which were reproductions of early to mid 20th century editions. They were much-beloved and also kind of quirky from being re-bound so many times. They were always cloth or buckram, with no cover illustrations and the title done in nice but fairly plain lettering. I don't know how well they circulated with actual children, but college-age me thought they were awesome, and I wanted this book to look a little like that. Honestly I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

Next projects is going to be a second copy of this one, for the author, followed by a much longer scifi fic.

[kipperlillycopperkettle]

2, 18, 29, 76 for the fic writers asks !!! <3

2. do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

sometimes for longer fics i'll do outlines, but a lot of the time, particularly for shorter fics, i just Do Whatever. for longer fics, usually i just have a vague idea of the beats i want to hit (this also works bc usually my longer fics are thg fics, and there's a very wonderful set timeline in those) and then just kind of build off of that. i think the only fic i've had to do a dedicated outline for is the bad kids thg fic, mostly bc that involves each section hitting certain beats that might vary slightly depending on which character wins.

18. do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? how do you come up with titles?

my fic titles are usually song lyrics, and i title them. whenever! usually after unless i have a really good idea ahead of time — with there's glory ahead but our love will be forgotten and baby, i didn't say my vows, i kind of knew what i was going with, because those songs i'd been listening to on loop while writing. but for a lot of others i. struggled. i straight up came up with the title for the sandra lynn 5+1 fic like, two whole months after i'd written most of it.

29. what’s your revision or editing process like?

usually i'm editing as i go, esp for longer projects, but usually what i do is drop it in ao3, give it a reread and edit as i go, then send it to my beta(s) if i have any for that project! if i don't have a beta i just do that final ao3 readthrough and hope for the best 😬😬😬 if i do have a beta, i do an ao3 readthrough, then send it to them, have them read it, reply to comments/make changes as necessary, and then do another ao3 readthrough and post it!

76. did you have any ideas that didn’t make the final cut of [fanfic name]? 

ngl, for fics, usually what you see is what you get? i usually manage to end up reworking everything into the final fic in some manner or another, unless the concept gets scrapped entirely! which. has happened. the bad parents zine fic was originally about angwyn and arianwen getting together at a very fancy elf boarding school, and that wasn't really working out for me, so that got scrapped and some of the lines got reworked into the final version. and then i will also say that my rarepair zine fic that ended up being wuvvy/lady sylmenar was originally about a different d20 rarepair and i ended up having to scrap it because i was looking it and was like, this needs like, another 5k to feel satisfying, so that lives in my drafts forever or until i get the motivation to finish it ig

send me a fic writer ask!

[asphodelical]

Nameless Prince: Full Disclosure

My writing process for Nameless Prince was a wild ride. The idea was first conceived when I was taking a walk in Central Park in August 2021. I wondered what would happen if Zagreus was a mortal with gold’s blood, rather than a god with mortal’s blood—a true reversal. This coined the original title, Goldblood, in reference to Alecto’s “redblood” nickname for Zagreus. It was shot down by kiko_murda, but I still have a soft spot for the name. 

When I began writing this, I wasn’t sure how I was going to end it. This was in stark contrast to my previous long fic, Storm Chaser, where I absolutely knew where I wanted it to go and end. As I was doing my research for inspiration, I rewatched Overly Sarcastic Production’s video on Dionysus, and the section on Orphic Dionysus/Zagreus had my solution. I had my ending. Now I just needed to adapt it to Hades’ canon. 

I wrote myself into a corner with that prophecy. My original solution for the “blood and ichor would be exchanged” line was just Zagreus’ switch. Long after I posted chapter 3, I realized that solution was weak as hell—made even worse when I wrote chapter 15. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn't want to retcon anything, even though I was sorely tempted to go back and rewrite that line. Then I dug up an unused idea I had for Storm Chaser that utilized Ares’ vial of blood keepsake. Turns out it worked perfectly, and kept in line to the recurring sacrificial motif. So I quickly wrote the Thanatos and Ares scene (chapter 11). Not only was it one of the easiest scenes in the whole story to write, but it also got an instant thumbs up from my beta—no edits required. Thank you, Ares, for getting me out of that corner. (My only regret is because I thought of it so late, the keepsakes weren’t introduced prior. So part of me wishes that Aphrodite had given Zagreus the rose, or Hermes had given him the feather. My excuse is that because Zagreus isn’t a full god, they wouldn’t have given him those super special gifts in the first place.)

I originally planned for Demeter to have a bigger role, but Hestia ended up taking her intended role, particularly in the latter half. I don’t have much of an explanation for it, it just happened. And the Demphoon story was a perfect way to phase Demeter out. Contrary to the myth I was inspired by, I also never intended to have Zagreus meet Zeus. Mostly because I fucking hate writing Hades’ Zeus, but with Zeus knowing everything, I don’t think any sort of conflict he would’ve had with Zagreus would’ve been interesting. It would’ve been something like Zeus trying to kill Zagreus so his involvement with Persephone in the Underworld remained a secret, and then them making a deal to just never talk about it in exchange for glory and/or the Olympians leaving him alone. It was very unappealing for me to write, hence the background events of Heracles; A great way to keep Zeus (and Hera) out of the story. 

One night in November 2022 when I couldn’t sleep, I had a massive crisis—what if Athena rejected the vial of blood? Or what if Callisto swooped in and rescued Zagreus from Dionysus? I could make the story even longer! And I could write the bad ending I had thought of! I even had a list of characters I could introduce, and the nicknames they would call Zagreus, and all sorts of myths I could draw from. I wrestled whether I should extend the story or not for days. Then I took a much needed step back and a few deep breaths. I couldn’t, shouldn’t, and wouldn’t extend the story. Zagreus is mostly a reactionary protagonist in Nameless Prince, and he’s strung along by others. I can admit to this, and I can also admit that I hate reactionary heroes. They aren’t the kinds of characters who are well suited to long form storytelling. I would be doing Zagreus, myself, and my audience a disservice by going against the deliberate three act structure I had carefully set up. The integrity of the narrative is king. (Also, for the sake of my mental health, I had to end the story as I intended.) 

Perhaps the biggest confession: the last two chapters (16 and the epilogue) were not beta’d. But I spent a lot of time rereading and rewriting and editing them. Hopefully they came out just as well as everything else. 

What I learned from writing Nameless Prince:  

writing reactionary heroes sucks (Bleach is a prime example of this.)

introduce as much of your cast as you can in the beginning. That way there are plenty of paths the story can take without making it feel like you’re making it up as you go along too much, and you have characters you can go back to. (One Piece and Steel Ball Run are prime examples of this.) This will most likely become a staple of my writing. 

the rule of threes is truly a gift. I used it a bit in Storm Chaser, but I think I paced it better here. This will become a staple of my writing; it’s a great tool for keeping my pacing in check.

don’t write a prophecy. Just don’t do it. Especially when you don’t have a solid solution in mind. 

Sometimes a little chapter restructure goes a long way. (chapter 10 and chapter 16)

This was the first fic I began posting without completing at least 85% of it. When I started posting it, I think I had only six or seven chapters completed. I wanted to test how I could handle serialized writing and posting. It was weird. Probably won’t do it again. 

I’m really proud of Nameless Prince. Time to take a much needed break from Hades fics.