#i wrote another 1400 words

[hotshotsxyz]

i didn't

perhaps i should put this down for the night

[yourkevlar]

officially done with my spring semester can i get a hell yeah

[the-queen-of-hell-666]

Boring Saturday

Kinktober 2024 - Day 12

Pairing: Lawyer!Sam Winchester x Fem!Reader

Kink: Sex Toys

Word Count: 1400+

Summary: Sam had a fun idea for you two.

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (oral sex (f! receiving), morning sex, sex toys (vibrator, butt plug), double penetration, cunnilingus, slight d/s dynamics), domestic life, non-hunting au

a/n: Here's day 12! I wrote this a long time ago but never posted it so I took it and edited it so it would work for today!

Banners by @vase-of-lilies

You had been dating Sam Winchester for a few years. You met in college, he was a law major, you were an astrophysics major and you were visiting from Caltech to Stanford. You exchanged numbers and kept in touch for the rest of your years in college. You were two years older than him so you graduated earlier than him. You moved to Palo Alto and you got a place together. Sam had graduated and was working as a lawyer, and you were a college professor in the field of astrophysics. 

You woke up to feel Sam between your legs and he had you legs strewn over his broad shoulders. He was suckling on your clit and he had two fingers curling and thrusting into you, pressing into your sweet spot wanting you to cum for him. You moaned and arched your back and your heels pressed into his muscly back. You were fully awake by that point cause you felt yourself getting closer to your end. You felt him smirk against your pussy and he picked up his pace. You reached down and gripped Sam’s soft hair and he continued to curl his fingers up and hit your g-spot, making you cry out and pull on his hair harder. 

“Sam! I’m gonna cum!” You cried, and he pulled the duvet back so he could watch your face. He leaned over you and caught your lips in a kiss. He swallowed your moans as the coil in your lower stomach tightened. He pulled back and kissed and sucked on your neck. 

“Cum for me, baby.” Sam whispered in your ear, and that pushed you over the edge and you came screaming his name. 

He fingered you through your orgasm then pulled his fingers out. You smirked and grabbed his cum coated fingers and sucked on each one, tasting yourself. Sam groaned at the sight, then when you were done he captured your lips in another kiss. You two pulled back and his hazel eyes looked into your eyes. 

“I love you, Sam.” You whispered sweetly and a bit breathlessly, making him smile.  

“I love you too, babygirl.” He whispered back, and then stood up and walked away from the bed. 

You whined and looked over at him, “What’re doing? It’s Saturday. Come back to bed.” He turned and looked at you as he put on a shirt. 

“We have stuff to do.” He stated, and walked into the bathroom that is connected to your bedroom. 

“Yeah I know. I have some papers to grade and I have to go grocery shopping for the house.” You sighed, and then realised that you were naked from the waist down, “Hey, where’d my panties go?” You questioned then you stood up. You looked around but couldn’t find them. So you bent over to look under the bed and Sam walked out of the bathroom to help look, but he saw your bare ass as you looked under the bed. You felt his gaze locked on her ass, “If you keep staring at my ass instead of helping me. You’re not getting any later.” You threatened and stood up then turned to face him. 

“Fine. I’ll help but I was enjoying the show.” Sam stated, and saw your black lace panties under the duvet. He grabbed them and held them out to you and you grabbed them off his pointer finger and slipped them on. 

“Thank you.” You smiled, and then got dressed for the day. You were about to leave the room when Sam grabbed your wrist and turned you around, so that your back was flushed against his chest.

“I have something that I want you to wear today.” He whispered into your ear. 

“What’s that?” You questioned, and he placed a small box in your hand, and you opened it. Inside was a small black butt plug that had a dark blue jewel on the back, and it was a bit thicker than Sam’s thumb at the thickest part. “You’re kidding.” 

“Nope. I want you to wear that all day.” He said and you looked at him like his head fell off, making him sigh. “At least try it on.” 

“Fine, but I’m putting it in.” You stated, and he pouted but let you go into the bathroom. You came out of the bathroom a few seconds later a little flustered. “You ready?” You questioned, regaining your cool a bit.

“Wait,” He said, and went to the bedside table and pulled something out of one of the drawers. He held it up and it was your small, pink Lush toy. Sam knew you loved using it out in public because of the risk of being caught. He walked back up to you and reached up your skirt and slipped it into her with ease, making you moan softly as it settled against your sweet spot. “Now we can go.” 

“I swear, Sam you’re going to be the death of me.” You huffed, and linked arms with him and walked out of the bedroom. 

You two got into Sam’s car and you sat in the passenger's seat and he sat in the driver’s seat. Sam had his hand in his pocket and you started to feel a low hum of vibration coming from the Lush. You lightly gasped in surprise, then you felt the speed increase. You got to the grocery store and you felt the vibrations go down. You two got through grocery shopping fine, well with the few times you had dropped something in surprise, as he turned up the vibrations. You two got back into the car and Sam turned down the speed.

“I forgot to tell you we’re meeting my parents and my brother for lunch today.” Sam shrugged, and you turned to look at him with wide eyes.

“Are you serious, Sam?” You questioned, “I am not meeting your parents with a butt plug and a vibrator in.” You hissed, and he glanced at you then the road. 

“It’s the only day they can do it before they leave back to Lawrence.” He stated, and you sighed and slumped down in the seat. 

“Okay, but no making me cum in front of your parents.” You said and leaned back in the seat.

“Fine.” Sam shrugged, then turned the vibrations all the way up and your head fell back, as you let out a loud moan. “I want you to cum right now.” He stated, and you gripped onto his knee as he brought you to an orgasm without touching you. The vibrations bounced off the Lush to the plug nestled in your ass, and it only added to your pleasure. He drove with one hand and used his other hand to reach into your panties and rubbed your clit with fast circles. You whined in pleasure as he rubbed tighter circles into your bud. 

“Oh god, Sammy! I’m gonna cum!” You exclaimed, and he sped up his fingers and you cried out as you released. Your orgasm washed over you and you arched your back. Sam pulled his hand back and turned the vibrator off, making you breathe out and he rubbed up and down your plush thigh. 

A few moments later, you two pulled up to the restaurant where you were going to meet Sam’s parents. You let out a breath of relief and you pulled the vibrator and plug out with a soft gasp, then you grabbed a tissue from the glovebox and wrapped them in it. You placed them in the glovebox and closed it, so you could clean it when you two got back home. Sam got out of the car and walked around and opened the door for you and he helped you out. He pulled you into a passionate kiss and you pulled back and he had a smirk. 

“That was so hot, sweetheart.” He whispered in your ear, and you smirked knowing that Sam probably had a major hard-on right now. 

“Well if you can keep your hands to yourself during this lunch.” You said, then looked around to make sure no one is listening then you leaned in. Your lips brushing his, “I’ll give you a blowjob in the car on our way home.” You whispered, and his eyes widened and a goofy smile crossed his face. 

“You got yourself a deal, baby.” He said, and pulled you into the restaurant.

[the-laughing-lunatic]

Scout x reader who's never been to a baseball game before (ROMANTIC)

(I was bored and wrote this, I actually have been to multiple baseball games before but my ass still doesn't know anything about it. Reader's gender neutral as always. Trying to get better at writing oneshots so have this ig :/ Word count: ~1400)

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─── 

It was strangely calm that day, it was one of the occasional days off that the mercs had. You sat on your bed, reading through some random magazine you’d picked up here or there when your boyfriend Scout barged in. “Hey doll!”

You continued flicking through the pages of the magazine, not flinching. You’d gotten used to this after a year of knowing him and two months of dating him. The door might as well not have existed at this point. “Yes?”

“Wanna go to the game today? With me?” he said, flashing you two tickets in his hand.

“What kinda game?” You looked up.

“Only the best game to be created,” he said with a smirk. “Baseball.”

You shrugged. “Sure, I don’t have anything else to do—” you barely got out before you were tackled with a hug by Scout, your magazine falling somewhere on the bed as you were wrapped up in his arms. “Jesus, you’re that excited, huh?”

He only chuckled and kissed your cheek. “Hell yeah I am! I get to have my two favorite things, baseball and you, dollface.” 

You roll your eyes and give him a kiss on the cheek back, relaxing into his arms for a moment as you soak up his warmth. “...wait, am I below baseball?”

“Uhh…”

ੈ♡˳

“Bye Engie! Thanks for the ride!” Scout yelled out as Engineer drove away in his pickup truck, leaving the two of you to the sea of people waiting to get in despite the insufferable heat. 

“Geez, are there normally this many people at these things?” you said as you held onto Scout’s hand to not lose him as you walked to the back of the line for the ticket booth.

“What, ya never been to a baseball game before?” he said with a laugh. It was a rhetorical question from his perspective, but not for you. 

“No.” Scout’s jaw dropped. 

“W- whaddya mean you’ve never been to a baseball game before, w- why? How?” In his mind, baseball was the most amazing game in the world, and it was simply a crime that the most amazing person in the world had never seen it.

You shrugged. “Just never did.” Scout was full of feelings about this. On one hand, you were his dollface and it hurt that you had been deprived of one of the greatest pleasures life could offer. On the other hand, he got to be the guy to introduce you to your first baseball game, which had the same significance as a first kiss. In his mind at least.

“D’ya at least know the game? Like, how it works?”

You thought for a moment before saying: “Um, you hit balls and run a lot?”

Hoo boy. Scout sighed. “I mean- you ain’t wrong but ya ain’t right. Listen doll, so there’s nine guys on each team, right? And one of the guys is the pitcher for the inning. The pitcher, he’s the fella who . . .”

ੈ♡˳

“. . . and then the outfielders, once you have those fellas you can get somethin’ called a line drive where it hits right to ‘em without touchin’ the ground–”  

It had twenty non-stop minutes of Scout explaining the entire concept of baseball to you, and if you heard another way a ball can be thrown you were gonna snap. You took his face in your hands and kissed him before another move could be explained. 

His ears flushed red and he froze for a moment after you pulled away. “Uh, what was that all about, doll?”

“I love you but if I hear another word about baseball I’m gonna lose it. Can I just watch the game with you and enjoy it that way?” you ask. 

“Fine, fine—” he cuts himself off as the two of you are both hit with the realization. You said I love you. Shit, shit, shit shit shitshitshit!

Before you can stammer out a sorry or any other form of explanation, the woman in the ticket booth says “Next!” and you’re left to panic while Scout gives her the tickets.

We’ve only been dating for a few months, is that weird to say? It must be, he didn’t say it back. Maybe he didn’t hear me? No, he definitely heard me. Oh god, I fucked this up bad, fuck—

“Hey dollface, she said we can go in, c’mon,” he said with a smile, squeezing your hand and leading you into the stadium. You two found a spot in the bleachers, luckily under the shade of an awning. You nervously bounced your leg as you prepared for the game to begin.

He’s not treating me any differently, maybe he’s just gonna ignore that I said that. Please, god just ignore it. 

“Geez, real anxious to see the game, huh doll?” he said to you with a smile.

“Yeah, yeah.” Maybe this would all be okay, another normal date. Just ignore that gross feeling in your gut and it’ll be fine.

ੈ♡˳

It was not all fine. Everytime the word ‘love’ came out of Scout’s mouth you couldn’t help but feel a growing annoyance. And he said it a lot.

“Man, I love that guy!”

“ —fuckin’ love this hot dog—”

“Love the view, right doll?”

It’s like he was rubbing it in. The gross feeling, the loud noise and the tight packed crowd all teamed up to give you a headache. Great. You distracted yourself from the feeling by leaning into him and eating your popcorn, desperately trying to understand the game in front of you. Maybe you should have listened a little more to your boyfriend’s explanation. “You cold dollface?

“Nah, just tired and have a little headache, ‘m fine,” you said as you popped another piece of popcorn in your mouth.

He wrapped his arm around you so you could have more support. “We, uh, don’t have to stay if you don’t want to, y’know. It’s the bottom of the fifth if you wanna get out of here.”

“No, no, it‘s fine, gotta stay for my first baseball game. Besides, isn’t that rude to just leave?”

“Naw, it’s fine. ‘S pretty normal not to stay the whole nine innings for your first game. ‘Sides, I don’t want you to feel like shit. We could go to a game some other time, how’s that sound?”

You smiled softly. “Sounds perfect.”

“Good, now c’mon,” he said as he picked you up in his arms to carry you out of the stadium.

“Jeremy, my head is the thing that hurts, not my legs. I can still walk, you doofus,” you laughed. He kissed your forehead. 

“Whatever you say, sweetcake, but I’m still carryin’ ya.”

ੈ♡˳

It was dark out, and Jeremy had just finished calling Engineer on the pay phone while you sat on a nearby bench: Scout’s jacket draped over you. Only a few people milled about, leaving to their cars underneath the street lamps.

Jeremy sat down next to you, reaching to hold your hand. “Engie’s gonna be here in ‘bout ten minutes...you alright doll?”

You delicately took it. “I dunno…”

“Did anything happen?”

“I mean, kinda? It’s stupid though, dunno why I’m getting so focused on it.”

“Can you tell me?”

You took a deep breath and looked at the concrete. “Well, I don’t know if you actually heard me, but earlier I accidentally said that I love you. I- I mean, not accidentally, I do, but it just, y’know, slipped out.”

“I heard you doll,” Scout said, tilting your face up to look at him.

“Then why didn’t you say anything? I mean, I get if you don’t love me yet, I’m not gonna blame you, but just say something.”

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know if you were bein’ serious, doll,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Y’know, you’re amazing and sweet, and almost every time I’ve liked someone this fantastic they’re just with me for laughs.”

“Jeremy…we’ve been dating for two months, did you really think that I don’t care about you?”

“Well I mean, two months right. I kinda thought you would’ve already said ‘I love you’ by now, so just- I dunno. . . do you actually love me?”

“Of course I do, Jeremy, I just was nervous because I thought I said it too early,” you said, leaning closer to him, looking at how his face caught the light of the street lamp.

“I love you too,” Scout said with a dorky smile before pulling you close and kissing you. You probably would’ve kissed for much longer but the sound of a truck horn interrupted you. 

“Hey lovebirds, get in!” Engineer shouted from the truck.

Scout pulled away and blushed before getting in with you, holding your hand tight the whole time. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

[petermorwood]

More Sword Questions...

These are further questions prompted by a post already long enough that I’m not reblogging the whole thing.  It’s here.

@softness-and-shattering (who posted the original Ask) wrote:

Thank you so much! What Im getting is that there arent any exact rules, different people and places mixed and matched sword features as they liked. Is that more or less correct? The swords that are green, is that oxidization? Theyre very pretty. And if fullers are to reduce sword weight, what are ridges for? Thanks again :)

*****

(1) Yes, it's oxidation. The uncomplimentary word is "tarnish", the complimentary word is "patina". Bronze swords in museums can be various colours ranging from green (verdigris)...

...through golden...

...to shades of brown and almost black.

I don’t know why (archaeological metallurgy is a mystery to me) but at a guess it's related to the acidity of the ground in which they were found, the proportions of copper / tin / other metals in their bronze.

It may also be the point at which conservators decided they'd gone far enough with that particular artefact and further restoration / cleaning would cause damage.

*****

(2) Ridges on sword-blades add stiffness, is the remnant of the bar or rod of steel from which the sword was made, and are created as the blade's final form is hammered out on either side, leaving a sort of raised centre-parting.

(If this is over-simplified or just plain wrong and swordsmiths reading it are going "Nooo!", please correct me!) ;->

Here's one example with a very prominent ridge, from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London...

...and another with a more restrained centre-line from the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

*****

(3) Sword shapes and features changed depending on functional requirements. If a shape worked and its use didn’t change, it stayed the same. The Roman gladius and Japanese katana are two examples of not much change in shape over several centuries.

Demands of fashion also played a part in what kind of sword was worn when and with what.

While swords (not just Messers or falchions or other "fighting knives") do appear without armour in medieval art...

...swords only became a regular part of civilian dress in the mid-late 1400s.

In Germany this was called a Reitschwert - "riding sword" - for self-defence when out (riding) in ordinary clothes. In Italy it was a spada da lato - "side-sword" - for what's now called EDC (every-day-carry) not just in war. In Spain it was an espada ropera - "robe sword" - for wear with regular clothes rather than armour.

That last one, worn down, mispronounced or just plain pinched, became "rapier", and because it was worn every day, with stylish garments, it became yet another way in which to show off.

The most common Europe-wide rapier was a "swept hilt", comprising bars and loops, while Spain and Spanish-influenced places like Italy preferred the "cup-hilt", which had a different style of swordplay.

Cup-hilts are familiar from movies because it's easy to dress up a sport-fencing sword as something much older. Here's a stage-combat modern épée and two real rapiers.

Cup-hilts could be plain metal bowls like those, or beautiful examples of chiselled, pierced metalwork.

Swept-hilts could be equally impressive.

They were proof that their wearers were dedicated followers of fashion, men of wealth and taste - and, of course, always armed and just as always ready to use what they carried at the drop of whatever was just dropped.

Duelling became a craze, laws against it were ignored, any excuse would do, and Shakespeare summed it up nicely:

MERCUTIO:  Nay, and there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou? why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast; thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? With another for tying his new shoes with old riband? And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling?

(That one about the doublet had echoes in 1922, with The Straw Hat Riot in New York, involving assaults on men who hadn't stopped wearing straw hats by the fashion-approved date of mid-September. At least nobody got run through...)

Oddly enough, portraits which include rapiers usually show swept-hilts, even in Spanish portraits where cup-hilts might be expected (I've seen a couple, but not many). Perhaps the artist didn’t have one to hand, or thought the swept-hilt style was more visually interesting.

The smallsword (shorter, lighter, less cumbersome to wear) replaced the rapier, and it too featured a lot in portraits. It was a piece of masculine jewellery, with a stiff narrow blade on an elegant hilt which might be metal...

...or some more exotic material like mother-of-pearl or porcelain.

Then fashion changed again, smallswords also went away, and once again the only people wearing swords on a regular basis were uniformed military types, whose swords could be all sorts of shapes and sizes depending on branch of service and function.

Even when that function is just to be part of regalia, and look good on parade.

[crazypersonslayy]

[Lessons in love]Severus Snape x Prof!Reader

~~Part 2

Summary: Y/N is the Herbology professor who has worked in Hogwarts for a few years since Professor Sprout retired. She has never really interacted with Snape, until Dumbledore assigns the both of them to work on combined lesson courses to improve student engagement. Things seem professional, maybe with a hint of unspoken attraction simmering beneath the surface. Until one thing leads to another.

~~

Two days had passed, yet they hadn't spoke a single word about the arrangement. She was starting to worry. What if he didn't want to work with her? Was she that unbearable? Surely he had forgetton about it. She paced around her room, debating whether or not to go down to the dungeons and find him herself.

Speak of the devil. Her owl flew in the window, dropping a letter on her desk. She took a closer look, realizing it was just a small piece of parchment paper that read:

Professor L/N,

Come to my classroom in 10 minutes.

S.S.

She almost choked on her coffee. His handwriting was definitely nice. More than that, it was an elegant script, and she liked the way he wrote his "l"s in a loop. Her thumb brushed over his writing, smudging the fresh ink. Her heart thumped in her chest as she imagined Snape bent over his desk, writing the letter, writing her name. Heat rushed to her cheeks. Then she paused. What am I thinking? He's my colleague. Shaking her head, she folded the piece of paper paper and tucked it away, then grabbed her wand before heading down to the dungeons.

~~

She dragged her feet begrudgingly towards Snape's classroom, goosebumps erupting on her skin as a gust of cold wind travelled through the dungeons. She shivered, making a mental note to herself to bring a coat next time. She reached the wooden door to his office, hesitating slightly. Knock, knock, knock.

"Come in." His deep voice instructed from the other side.

She pushed the door open, the loud creaking of the rusted hinges made her cringe internally. She stood between the doorway, looking down at her shoes as she mumbled a "Hello, professor". "Sit", she raised her head slightly and saw him gesture to a chair across him. She hurriedly closed the door behind her and made her way towards him.

The first thing she had noticed about him was his reading glasses, which were rested on his crooked nose, threatening to slip further down. His onyx eyes were fixated on the mountains of papers in front of him. They were stacked neatly into piles, some littered wlith red crosses and scribbles in the same handwriting she had admired a few moments ago. His posture was ever more perfect, he sat upright in his wooden chair, legs crossing beneath the desk. She sat down across him, then looked down at her hands.

A moment of silence passed, the only thing that could be heard was the sound of scratching parchment. She figeted with her hands, clearing her throat, "So..Professor, is there anything-" Snape cut her off, "I sent that letter at exactly 1107 hours, I had expected you in ten minutes. It is currently 1115 hours, you sit and wait." He continued with his marking. "..Oh, alright then" She mumbled. What a jerk he is.

"Excuse me?" He looked up again, his eyes staring daggers into her soul. Her eyes widened. I swear I didn't say that out loud.. "I hope you realise that your thoughts are quite loud" Oh. He's a Legilimens. Shit. Her eyebrows scrunched together, "Please stay out of my head, I prefer for my privacy to be respected". He scoffed, removing his glasses, "I did not call you here to tell me what or what not to do. " She stood up from her seat, "We are here to work together, not bicker like children. I expect to be treated as an adult". He pinched the bridge of his nose and put down his quill, standing from his chair, "Let's just get this over and done with". God save me.

"I have the new timetable for this year, we have combined lessons on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. 1300 hours to 1400 hours for the sixth years, 1400 hours to 1500 hours for the seventh graders. I was thinking we could teach our separate subjects on Mondays and Wednesdays, I will be free to assist you if needed. Then on Thursday we could have half an hour each." She explained. "I will not require your assistance whatsoever, not after that stunt you pulled". He hissed. What? Oh.. She did in fact blow up a cauldron by accident back in sixth grade. "That was once." She grumbled. "Once is enough to blow up my entire classroom, I would advise you to stay out of my teaching. I will teach Mondays, you on Thursdays. And on Fridays we will have theory lessons in my classroom, understood?" She sighed, fighting the urge to roll her eyes, "Alright. I will send a letter to Dumbledore to inform him of our plans."

She turned away, walking towards the door. Then he called out to her "L/N," before she could react, Snape appeared in front of her holding a small vile of potion, "Your hand," She looked down at her hand confusedly, realizing there was a gash between her ring and pinky finger on her right hand, with dried blood smudged around it. She hadn't noticed it before, it was probably from handing those thorny plants that morning, "Drink this, before it gets infected." She hesitantly took the potion from him, "Oh-I uh, thanks" Her cheeks flushed as their hands brushed ever so slightly, a jolt of electricity shot down her spine. Snape had merely nodded, his expression unreadable as he stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. She had sworn she saw something more in his eyes: maybe concern, maybe kindness.

She shot him a small smile and pocketed the potion, before turning around and walking briskly out of his office. Walking through the halls, she felt another gust of cold wind against her cheeks. But this time, instead of the sharp, freezing sensation, her cheeks felt warm.

Maybe he wasn't that bad after all.

~~End

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this! Feedback is always appreciated :)

Tags: @pear-1206

[neyswxrld]

stormy weather

Echo, no pairing

summary: Echo has a low and is in a lot of pain after his physical therapy. Wrecker is there to help. Set after TCW S7 E1-4.

warnings: derpessed feelings, hopelessness, phantom pain

words: ~1400

a/n: hello everyone! here's another fic for @summer-of-bad-batch! this time i could even bring in three different prompts: "you're a bad liar.", battle scars and the bonus prompt light in the darkness. it's been a long time since i wrote something for echo, i hope you enjoy!

MASTERLIST

Physical therapy was horrible.

He hated it with all his guts.

His legs hurt, they burned, and he felt like they were going to fall off. But the worst thing was: he couldn't make it feel better.

Hell, he didn't have those legs anymore and still they made his life so much more painful.

Pump, the physical therapist, tried to help him a lot and even though his tips and advice sometimes did wonders, he still hurt.

Then there was his stomach - he had problems adjusting to the amount of food he needed. When he was on Skako Minor, he was mostly fed with fluids. Now he needed to chew his food again, taste the grossness of it, and just swallow down the weird consistency.

Also - his muscles hurt. Pump always said he needed to build them up, so he can be fast and strong again. And he knew he had to. He really wanted to. But on some days, he just felt like he couldn't.

Today was a day like that.

Pump made him do some exercises with an odd looking thing. He never did those exercises before. Not even in ARC training. And even though he tried so hard, at some point he just couldn't do it anymore.

He felt like a failure. Like he wasn't good enough. How would he ever be able to keep up with everyone? Especially with the Batch? He could learn all their crazy plans, but how could he contribute anything, when he just wasn't strong, fast and persistent enough?

Pump had tried to cheer up him up, but Echo almost fled out of the training room.

He needed to get away. At the same time, he already felt the embarrassment creep up his neck. He felt like a shiny, on his first day on a Venator-class Star Destroyer, where everything was just overwhelming even though they already learned how it would be like on the inside. In theory, at least.

He was stumbling along the walls, trying to find his way to the Batch's barracks.

He just wanted to be alone and sulk in his hammock, until he felt better about his sorry self. He was so disappointed in himself and his lack of ability.

When he reached their barracks, he slipped inside. Relieved, he realized that he was alone. The others seemed to have training, or were up to something else.

He sighed once, before making his way over to his sleeping place, not bothering to turn the lights on.

From outside, he could hear thunder. The rain rattled against the large windows, and not for the first time he could laugh about the irony of Kamino. He felt like the weather was mirroring his conflicted and sad feelings. The storm outside was just as unpredictable and unhinged as the one inside him.

He curled up into a small ball, trying to disappear in himself.

When his hands... His hand touched his metal knees, and his scomp made a small 'clink' noise, he sighed a second time.

Never did he expect to turn out... like this, when he finally passed his final test, such a long time ago. With Fives, Hevy, Cutup and Droidbait.

He knew it was practically hopeless, but he still always imagined how all of them made it out of the war alive. Together. He liked to daydream about what would happen after all of it. After all the pain, and fear, and grief. He was sure Droidbaid would start a bakery one day. Cutup and Hevy would open a gym, just to train like maniacs themselves. And Fives probably would have traveled a lot. He always wanted to try and see new things. Just about his own future, Echo wasn't sure. But he soon realized, it wouldn't matter anyway.

After Rishi, after Hevy's, Droidbait's and Cutup's death, he realized that all their dreams and hopes were indeed meaningless.

He always thought he would during the war.

He was so sure he would, when that shuttle exploded on Lola Sayu.

He never knew what life would have brought for him, but he never would have guessed to turn out as a cyborg.

He almost didn't hear how the door opened behind him. Just when Wrecker's face appeared in his sight, he realized that he had company.

"Hey, Echo. Back again already?" the brawler asked and grinned down at him.

Echo looked back with big eyes. "Yeah," he nodded.

"So soon, too? Thought it would take another half an hour at least. How was it?" Wrecker started to talk to him, patting the side of his hammock.

Echo blinked a few times.

"Yeah... I-... Pump decided we should take a break. It was... great," he murmured and looked around, just not to meet Wrecker's eyes.

Wrecker stared at him for a few seconds, not moving an inch.

"Are you feeling okay?" he then decided to ask.

"I? Y-Yeah. I'm fine," he tried to assure his new brother, and forced a light smile on his face. It didn't reach his eyes. He knew that.

Wrecker knew, too: "You’re a bad liar."

He sighed again. "I know," he whispered.

Wrecker carefully stepped over and took a seat next to Echo, making the hammock swing back and forwards a few times.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked and put a hand on Echo's metallic calf. He couldn't feel the warmth of Wrecker's fingers, couldn't really feel the pressure. It was almost as if they weren't there at all.

Echo looked at Wrecker. At his younger, bigger brother, who seemed so happy and joyful all the time. He was so strong and gentle at the same time. And when Echo looked into Wrecker's face, at the scar and his milky eye, he just knew he could talk to him. When someone could understand what he was going through, even just in a slight way, it was Wrecker.

"It's just hard... Adjusting and stuff," he almost whispered.

He saw how Wrecker's thumb was moving up and down, swallowed, and took another breath.

"Physical therapy feels like torture. I can't- I just can't really do anything like I could before. I'm weak, and exhausted so fast. And I know it takes time, but it just takes... so long," he started to play around with his scomp, "and everything hurts."

Wrecker nodded, with an understanding look in his eyes.

"I know it's hard. And it's never going to be like before again. But we can try. We can try to make it easier. To make it better. And to make everything feel okay again," Wrecker said. "Healing isn't easy. It's hard and it's exhausting. And it's not just a straight line up. It's like a road full of holes and bumps and stones. But you have to try to jump over them, Echo."

Echo looked up at him with teary eyes. Wrecker's expression was so honest and genuine, that he didn't doubt a word he said.

"I know it's hard, but you have to keep going. I know you can. And if you need help, we're always here for you," Wrecker ended.

Echo nodded. He knew, but everything just seemed so hopeless sometimes.

"What helped you the most?" the former ARC-Trooper wanted to know.

A small smile appeared on his brother's lips.

"My brothers. The Batch," he said, and his smile grew even bigger.

"Every time I felt like I was at the bottom and couldn't do it anymore, they were there. And they pulled me up again. I couldn't have done it without them," he confessed, and Echo's heart warmed a bit by that.

He smiled at Wrecker, and he realized that everything just felt a little lighter.

The storm in him seemed to calm down a little. The clouds made space for a small ray of sunlight.

He still had aches everywhere, and he still was way too exhausted. But at least he felt a little spark of hope in him, like a light in the darkness. Warm and cozy, and ready to get even brighter.

Wrecker's words felt good, and he knew he could seek out the others whenever he needed them. Even Crosshair.

He knew everything would be going to be okay again. He knew he could do it. He knew he would be up and kicking again, even if it would take some time.

Sometimes he just needed a little heads up.

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST

@isthereanechoinhere96 @trixie2023 @freesia-writes

[verdemoun]

Dutch Motherfucking Van Der Linde in timewarp au.

@themodernpr0metheus because this is your fault be warned it's 1400+ words

so much to process. every single damned character in timewarp is affected by the very idea what became of Dutch Van Der Linde again let alone how they're meant to handle it when Dutch comes back. also gentle reminder that in the report the bureau wrote that John shot and killed Dutch so that's a whole other conflict they're going to have to deal with

also for the 1899 gang it's been 12 years. honestly for most of them it's been 12 years the only person who really interacted with dutch after 1899 was Micah and Dutch fucking shot him. Micah is still salty about it. look at that rat man you know he can hold a grudge.

12 years, no Dutch. Hosea's nearing his 70s, he has his wife and a house. Lenny, Jenny, Karen and Sean aren't kids anymore they're well into adulthood with legitimate jobs. Arthur and Charles are the new curious couple with Isaac their unruly son. Kieran doesn't jump or flinch anymore when people try to talk to him. Hosea really got everything he wanted - they're out of the gang, they're safe and happy.

Also Dutch isn't the only one coming back in a relatively short time period. They have to go all the way to Mexico to get Javier and Bill. They have to get John!! John, who was shot at the house Charles and Uncle helped him build for Abigail, who stared down a firing squad because it gave Abigail and Jack time to escape. They absolutely have to be there for John.

Hosea thinks long and hard. Dutch: who left Lenny to bleed out alone, who was willing to leave John to be executed in prison, and left Arthur to die alone, and abandoned Javier and Bill. Dutch: who formed another gang and killed innocents, used Muriel Scranton as a human shield before shooting her IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE OF A DISTRACTION TO LET HER GO ALIVE DUTCH. Is it everything he feared would happen to Dutch? Is it the Dutch he started to see glimpses of after Blackwater or did he know, deep down, this is what Dutch was always capable of?

What's the pettiest, bitchest thing he can do? Absolutely nothing. Hosea Matthews sits down with the gang trying to prepare for the 1911 returns and says that he is not going to get Dutch Van Der Linde. He is not going to see Dutch, talk to Dutch or help Dutch. Dutch is not welcome in his home or near his family and he doesn't expect nor want any of them to afford him the luxury of coming into their lives.

Annabelle is the one who goes to collect Dutch from the base of a cliff. The last time Annabelle saw Dutch, he was young and idealistic, and she had to read about Blackwater and everything that came after it right up to his death. She needs to see him so she can understand how someone she did genuinely love became something so evil that the people who did love him had to sit down and seriously ask themselves if he could be redeemed.

And Dutch Van Der Linde hits her with the 'you're as beautiful as the day I lost you'

She so nearly, nearly faulters. God as much as she hates him she wants to believe there is a reason, a sound, logical reason how Dutch abandoned so much of the ideals that made him Dutch. It's a tremendous burden only people who have loved Dutch know but deep down there's always a part of you that will love Dutch, as much as you try to kill it. She desperately wanted to believe she as the oldest, the most separated from Dutch, she was over it - but it's there. That awful demon is clawing its way back into her mind as she wonders if she can fix him, if she can save him and make him something recognizable again.

She knows damn well this is why Hosea knew he couldn't be the one to get Dutch.

Remembering why she has to be the one to get Dutch, to protect the gang she is now part of again and cares so much about from falling into the very real, intoxicating charm of Dutch, she holds her ground. Pulls away and tells him to get in the back seat of the car.

She takes him to a very nice, private, well-researched, pre-booked and thoroughly inspected in-patient mental health ward. the gang themselves have argued whether or not Dutch did the things he did because he was mentally ill or hit his head too many times or if he would've become a monster regardless but they do agree something is not right with Dutch and frankly 24 hour medical supervision is probably something he needs regardless because no one wants to just… bring him into the homes and lives they've tried to hard to build in modern era.

i promise, dutch is thriving. the d in dsm-5 might stand for dutch once the doctors are through with him but he's getting diagnosed with A lot.

they're paid to listen to him so he's going on so many rants and giving speeches and they're sitting there listening and nodding and asking questions (as they frantically write notes) and he's just basking in the attention. -> this. this is dutch's life

also dutch getting to finally admit to and work through his grief over what happened to the gang. he saw the old guard die. he lost so many people he cared about. he lost john. john left. john would've moved on completely after micah's death if not for the bureau. and the gang did lose faith in him, even before then. he felt it, he knew it. they did betray him (in his warped sense of betrayal)

also just dutch getting into intense philosophical and ethical debates with both his doctors and other patients. his doctors knowing they are absolutely not meant to engage when dutch is on a rant but it's just so fun debating with him

medication does help get Dutch back to something closer to 'old Dutch' he's still very grandiose but he's calmed down to the point he isn't reckless he can recognize when his behavior is crossing into outlandish

it's inevitable the gang do reach out to him and find it personally terrifying how close they can get to forgiving him before they remember all the shit they went through as a direct result of Dutch's actions

occasionally take him out on day trips but he is not getting to the point where he can be left to roam freely. Dutch always was and always will be a dangerous person when he can morally justify it to himself.

Dutch reuniting with Hosea hits so hard. hosea can only avoid him so long and dutch is old and tired and pulls hosea into a hug on the verge of tears and hosea cannot stop himself from hugging dutch back he still loves him god damnit he loves his wife but he will always love dutch and seeing dutch get help and try to become his old self again would hurt so much in such a positive way

his doctors (who have searched dutch van der linde and now think Dutch has delusional disorder and only thinks he is the Dutch Van Der Linde) do not think he has actually committed murder but the gang know he is very, very capable of murder

dutch is an avid triple mango vape enthusiast. no one knows how he keeps getting them.

he still thinks everything would be fine if they just went to tahiti

he is the #1 evelyn miller fan and thinks evelyn miller's death is further proof of his brilliance. during supervised computer time he will be on the evelyn miller subreddit and sometimes needs to be forcibly removed from the computer because he becomes so enraged at bad takes

the gang are all very protective of their kids being around dutch when he is there (including micah who does not want his stupid annoying pain in the ass grand-nephew kai to become Dutch-ified) but somehow they managed to raise well-rounded young people who just shrug and go 'lmao dutch is talking again'

dutch goes on volunteering excursions for habitat for humanity (under annabelle's supervision) and thoroughly enjoys it. he gradually becomes less 'fight the system for the good of all man' and more 'focus on the good i can do in one (second-chance) lifetime'. all i want is aged dutch in the modern version of his 1911 outfit kneeling in muck and smiling because he's Actually helping people again and he didn't know how much he missed it

[steamberrystudio]

26/08/2024 Devlog

Hallo everyone!  Tumblr devlog time. Sorry I missed the last one. Sometimes I just miss the notification when it pops up. Sometimes I remember on the off week but don't want to throw off the schedule and end up just waiting for the next one to roll around.

Summary:

Finished Yren's Play test

Finished Raif's Play test

Finished Noel's Play test

Started Kav's Play test

Finally got the colour slider in the game with help from Windchimes

New music room (slightly redesigned)

New gallery screen

Bonus scene page

Wrote the rest of the ch1 bonus scenes

Got the affinity indicators coded

Multiple new BGs

Finished Yren's Ch 2 CG

Started Noel's Ch 2 CG

Worked on coding sprite expressions

Set affinity scoring up through Ch 5

Worked on the premium and public game guides

Writing/Playtesting:

I have been working on my own play test of the game which is essentially another round of reading and editing. Last time I said the script was 616,000 words. Well it's now 621,000 words. 

I'm not just cramming in filler. A lot of that is additional choice options. Sometimes I would find places where you went a really long time without choices. Others I would encounter a choice menu that had 3 options when it needed 5 or 6 options (one for each LI).

Adding menus and choice options can increase your word count pretty rapidly so that is where most of the increase has happened.

I'm also fixing a lot of small continuity issues. This usually results in a small variation or callback being added into the script for clarity or to correct a seeming contradiction. For instance, at one point I realised that I  needed an additional variation in Ch 5 to account for a game state that wasn't accounted for in the existing options. And I had to do it for all 6 LIs. Which meant that a 200 word variation became a 1200 word addition to the word count.

So yeah, those things add up fast when you have 6 LIs.

I am continuing to work on this. And I will do one full play test of everyone's "best" ending before beta testers touch it.

I also have decided to add in "bonus scenes" these will basically unlock at the end of some chapters. Some of these will be POV scenes and some will be other scenes and content told from the MC's point of view. These are just extra scenes that I think help flesh out the characters and relationships but really didn't fit into the main story because you just...can't fit everything in the main story. I will be writing any bonus content as I work on the episodes and as I get ideas for them.

I don't have any specific rules I'm going to hold myself to for bonus content. They're just fun extras. They may be quite short in some cases. The ones for Chapter 1 are 1400 or so words.

Art:

Art wise, I've received new BGs - they're about 90% done at this point.

I also completed Yren's CG and started on Noel's. Raif's is already done, Kav doesn't get one for Ch 2.

So yeah. Getting those completed bit by bit.

Other Stuff:

Lots of other stuff. 

We managed to get the colour slider set up for Wil's sprite (we being me and my friend from Windchimes games). This required re-colouring the original sprite and original CG for Wil in greyscale and then coding in everything necessary to have Wil colourised by Ren'py rather than by  me.

As you can see from this Wil's hair and eyes are not colourised. Wil's eyes being silver/grey are just kind of a plot element and is related to their species. And while I contemplated having Wil's hair be on a slider too the reality is that the hair styles were not designed to be colourised in this way and some of them don't look as good. Particularly the curly hair which doesn't have strong outlines or, really the same type of shading to give it depth. Some colours looked quite good on it and others looked quite bad.

I tried redrawing that hair half a dozen times to see if I could make it look better while retaining the same overall look and feel and it just was not possible. I could have redone the hair but frankly. I didn't want to. And some of the other styles didn't look *amazing* recoloured. They were just okay.

I think if I want to revisit the slider in the future then I just need to approach the art with that in mind versus trying to add it to art not designed for it.

But in any case, Wil having only black/silver options was also originally with intent so I don't mind keeping with that set up.

In terms of other features that are finally in game we have affinity indicators, a newly designed music room, the bonus scene page, the gallery screen and things like that.

I did the affinity scoring up through Chapter 5 which is when the route gets locked in. That was primarily so I could test that section properly. But yeah. That's done.

And I've been working on coding sprite expressions. If you have been following me for a while you know that sprite expressions are an *ordeal* for me.

I have a lot of expressions coded in which means I tend to change the expression every 1-4 lines - especially for the main character. Gilded Shadows had about 6500 expression changes per route. Including the common route, that's about 60,000 expression changes coded manually. Which is a lot.

About half of those probably...were Morgan. She is on screen more than anyone else, of course. All the narration is her internal dialogue. She is on screen for it and her expressions are changing based on what she's thinking.

WSC is very much the same.

So the expressions are a lot.

I got Wil's expressions completed through Chapter 2. This chapter is about 50,000 words and of course I've been working on a ton of other things so I've only dedicated an hour or two a day to work on expressions. It's very tedious. It's also impossible to not edit as you go because you have to read the script line by line to decide what expressions people are using. Inevitably you see typos and stuff that you fix as you do expressions.

So it's just kind of a time sink that isn't *difficult* but does tend to take some time.

Upcoming Weeks:

My huge checklist has become smaller and smaller over the last few weeks.

The main things now are...CG creation, flowchart set up, coding expressions and getting my play test done. 

Those are kind of the things that have to get done before Episode 1 can go to beta testers on Patreon.

There are always features and elements I consider big milestones when they get ticked off the main list. The colourised sprite was one of the remaining "big ones" - the flowcharts are another.

Anyway, that is all for this update. I will hopefully see you all again in *two weeks* this time.

(I swear I need a less easy-to-miss reminder). LoL

[dracoxmalereader]

Bandage

Draco x Male Reader

Context: Part 2 of 3 of my Gryffindor!Reader little drabble trilogy. <3

Summary: Umbridge's 'discipline' is barbaric, and it's baffled you how Draco doesn't see that, much less how he could participate in it... until now, at least.

Part 1 | Part 3 (or just read it in full on Wattpad or Ao3)

Word count: 451

Footsteps come down the corner of the hall. They echo in the silence, bouncing off the high, evening-darkened walls. The stone floors do little to cushion the sound, and less to hide the way you sniffle in panic and hurry to rub your face clean of tears. 

Even the noise of your robe’s red-lined sleeves rubbing against each other is deafening against the quiet.

You look up to see platinum blonde hair swaying back and forth, making its way towards you. Draco. You felt like puking. Clumsily fumbling with the bandage you’ve been stuck at this bench trying to wrap your hand in, you silently pray that he’ll leave you be.

“What’s wrong?” He draws out as he gets closer, smirk plastered on his face like the silver ‘I’ on his robes. “Why the waterworks? Mighty wimpy for a Gryffindor, no?” 

“It burns.” You hiss. Your voice is wetter than your lashes as it leaves you, low and laced with anger. “Something you wouldn’t know. Of course Umbridge’s lapdog gets immunity.” 

Your throat bobs and your chest jerks, lungs jumping when your trembling knuckles once more lose hold of the bandage and your black quill scars are exposed again to the stinging air. Fire flickers in the back of your nose, and new tears well up to clog your vision.

Draco stands still in front of you, and you look away just in time to miss the way he rolls his eyes. He leans down, and his hands come forwards to take the bandage himself. You slap them away. 

“I’m trying to help you, incompetent lion-face.” His brows are furrowed when you turn your gaze to look up at him. Your chest jumps again and you sneer, lowering your uninjured hand to let him do the bandaging. Fresh tears have already made another mess of your face.

His eyes are trailed on your hand, and his face cinches inwards whenever he prods too hard and your fingers flinch. It’s uncharacteristically gentle, and static roars in the pit of your throat. He makes quick work of it, and you’re almost sad when he lets go. 

Your eyes meet, and your heart beats just a little faster. 

“There.” He starts after a moment, rolling his eyes and looking away from you. “Just don’t go getting yourself into trouble next time.”

“You say it like it’s easy,” You sniffle again, finally calming down. “Lapdog.”

Draco scoffs and turns away, subtly shaking his head back and forth before he stomps away down the corridor, leaving you to your own devices once again. You swallow around a nasty lump of snot in the back of your throat, and try not to let yourself miss his company.

Grrrah enjoy waiting for part 3. <3

When I wrote the outline for this in my notebook it looked like it was gonna be way longer, but then I wrote it and it's only some 1400 words give or take. TT

Tags: @nowayisthistakenyet @gayaristocrat @siuspider @dracoshusband @skrunklespoingo @esperfraud @joongbin @midwestemosblog @we2222

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Rereading The Fellowship of the Ring for the First Time in Fifteen Years

The previous chapter was all grouchy wizards and atmospheric walking...and this one opens with the return of Professor Tolkien medieval literature scholaring all over the page. So let's just jump in and talk "The Bridge of Khazad-Dum."

So finding the tomb of a comrade always sucks, but context is EXTREMELY required in such cases. Unfortunately, this is the moment where Professor Tolkien rears his ugly head once again. I'm a Shakespeare scholar, and moreover I was a Shakespeare scholar at a reasonably broke school in Alaska, so I designed my thesis to not require me to go look at extant original texts. When I got to my PhD, some fuckery at an administrative level meant that when my first supervisor retired, I was dumped into the lap of a film scholar, so my dissertation because EXTREMELY about film adaptations. So I don't have firsthand experience with extant historical documents and texts, but I am aware of the process. As an undergrad, I once questioned why my text said "safety" while another text said "sanity" (and was very scoffed at before the professor actually understood the question, because I phrased it poorly). The good answer though?

Extant texts from Shakespeare's day and older are PLAGUED with slipperiness that makes them difficult to read and reproduce. They come from a time before standardized spelling, and printers often weren't that careful setting type. If they come from before the printing press, you have issues with handwriting legibility and misspellings. Then there are issues with extant documents being damaged or torn or missing pages or faded by the time we get to them, especially if they've been in private hands without the experience to properly preserve them. So the difference between "safety" and "sanity" was some editor or academic's educated guess because they had a word that started with "s," ended in "y," and was probably about six letters.

Tolkien, as a scholar with an interest in medieval texts, would have understood these issues because I'd be willing to bet hard cash that his academic work required using primary sources and original extant texts. And I'm willing to bet that because we get EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN ONE OF THESE ISSUES with the Book of Mazarbul. In no particular order, here are the issues Gandalf calls out while trying to read this thing:

multiple pages are missing from the beginning

blurred words

burned words

staining (probably blood)

edged blade damage

deteriorated pages that break off

shitty handwriting

partially visible words and guesswork that goes with it

a total lack of context for any of the words you CAN make out

This book is every book scholar's worst goddamn nightmare, because you'll never recreate the whole thing, your guesses are likelier to be wrong than right, and if you don't have plot armor preserving the important stuff, you might literally end up with a description of someone's breakfast but nothing else.

I will say though, there's one thing in here that Tolkien SHOULD have been familiar with in extant texts that isn't represented here. Marginalia. Humans were humans even in the 11-1400s, and scribes and apprentices got bored while copying out books by hand. They doodled. They wrote snarkastic comments in the margins. They had to scratch things out and redo. They had cats around and sometimes little paw prints are found in old manuscripts. Like...ancient books had personality. I get where the dwarves might not have done this in their log book, especially towards the end, but I would have loved some marginalia too.

Because the first few pages of this chapter feel less like Gandalf reading the final account of the attempted Moria colony to me and more like Professor Tolkien having a moment because WHY IS THIS GODDAMN PAGE MISSING I JUST NEED THIS ONE PAGE BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, ITS FUCKING MISSING...

Academia some days, I swear.

But we get knocked out of the academic and into the adventurous pretty fast when the drums in the deep start tolling "doom, doom." And everyone loses their goddamn minds, as any reasonable person would, because we just finished hearing about the dwarves being trapped while the drums in the deep boomed.

Aragorn isn't going down without a fight though. He and Boromir get their asses on securing the door from which the immediate danger will come, with a bit of an assist from Frodo and Sting when some ballsy Uruk puts a foot through the door.

We also get badass good guy Samwise Gamgee:

When thirteen had fallen the rest fled shrieking, leaving the defenders unharmed, except for Sam who had a scratch along the scalp. A quick duck had saved him; and he had felled his orc: a sturdy thrust with his Barrow-blade. A fire was smouldering in his brown eyes that would have made Ted Sandyman step backwards, if he had seen it.

Our boy took out an ORC all on his own!!! Sam is more than capable of taking care of business and apparently he gets scary when you back him in a corner. I entirely approve, and I cannot believe we didn't get this in the movie. GIVE ME SAM SINGLE-HANDEDLY TAKING OUT AN ORC, PETER JACKSON!!!

We also get an Orc chieftain stabbing the hell out of Frodo, which was an honor given to the cave troll in the movies. This goes by pretty fast though, even for a Tolkien battle. It's kind of a one-two stab and grab before everyone makes a run for it. We do get Sam freeing Frodo by chopping the spear haft in half, but if you're reading quickly, it's easy to miss that this should ABSOLUTELY have killed Frodo. The language is pretty clear that it doesn't, and Tolkien only kind of tokenly tries a fake-out death here, since we literally just got the mithril reminder at the end of the last chapter. But I guess technically we get a fake-out death here.

It is very quickly confirmed that Frodo is alive though, with everyone being like, "Wait, you're NOT dead?" and Aragorn and Gandalf both going, "jesus christ, hobbits are tough as nail."

As we keep running from the hordes of Orcs, Uruks, and cave trolls, things start to get hot and there is firelight in places firelight SHOULD EXTREMELY NOT BE. But it does cue Gandalf about where they are, and he points everyone toward the titular Bridge of Khazad-Dum, and the exit. Now it's just a matter of hauling ass and getting out.

Unfortunately, when Legolas turns around to shoot some bitches and buy time, this happens:

Something was coming up behind them. What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which a dark form, of man-shape, maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in and to go before it. It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as if a cloud had bent over it. Then with a rush it leaped across the fissure. The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed about it; and a black smoked swirled in the air. It's streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it. In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs. "Ai! ai [sic]!" wailed Legolas. "A Balrog!"

And I just need to take a second here, because like I've said, I was more familiar with the movies than the book. And I just need Tolkien to EXPLAIN HIS DAMN SELF with this description. It's maybe man-shaped, but it has a mane? Like that does give adapters a lot of room to get creative, but WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GET HORNED SHEEP LAVA THING from??? Because that ain't in the text. I do love the drama of this description though. Like, the Balrog knows it's freaking magnificent and is going to play to all the drama that being wreathed in fire and smoke gives it. Which...ngl, I love for it. This thing is damn cool.

And I appreciate that we have FINALLY met a foe that makes Gandalf just kind of stop and go "...fuck me." Because he was starting to feel a bit OP and bored, and now he's taking it seriously, which means I as a reader should be FUCKING TERRIFIED right now, and I appreciate that.

From there, this goes down basically as the movie does, with the sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight deviation that Aragorn and Boromir get BACK on the bridge to have Gandalf's back, so they're like, within arm's reach of him as the Balrog falls and drags Gandalf down with it. But even the dialogue was lifted almost exactly from the page, so I don't feel like I need to go over this bit in much detail. It's badass, it's tragic, and it happens FAST.

And then, of course, everyone else has to haul ass out of there because the Balrog just took out your OP wizard with a flick of its wrist.

So they run, and they run a LOT for a LONG time. They run until they're out of bow-shot of the walls. And as readers, we are left with this final image:

They looked back. Dark yawned the archway of the Gates under the mountain-shadow. Faint and far beneath the earth rolled the slow drum-beats: doom. A thin black smoke trailed out. Nothing else was to be seen; the dale all around was empty. Doom. Grief at last wholly overcame them, and they wept long: some stand and silent, some cast upon the ground. Doom, doom. The drum-beats faded.

So my little headcanon here? Those drumbeats stop being harbingers of doom in that final paragraph and transform to metaphorical heartbeats for Gandalf. We know--because Pippin established it--that falls in Moria can be LONG. They take a while. The Fellowship got out of immediate danger range, and Gandalf could still have been falling. But all they have to go on is those faint, distant, slow drum-beats. The heartbeat/drumbeat comparison is so easy it's not a reach, and when they finally fade and stop, the sense is that there is nothing else for the army of evil to attack. That is--as far as anyone knows or can reasonably assume--the end of Gandalf. It's the literary equivalent of a jump cut and sudden stop of the drumroll in film execution scenes. It cues everyone that something has ended.

Well, this chapter was ABSOLUTELY not more atmospheric walking, and even though it cost us our wizard, I appreciated the tension, the fear, and the pacing in the chapter at large. The mix of breakneck action and still or slow moments to let everyone react or comment was really well done, and finally having something that actually managed to shake Legolas and Gandalf was genuinely scary.

We're going to leave it there for now, and next time we'll pick up with the aftermath of almost getting eaten by a Balrog and losing the mentor wizard of the party. We've only got four more chapters to go, so let's see what the pacing and party dynamics do as we head for Lothlorien sans wizard.

[weemsfreak]

Botany...Of Course, Pt 5

Alright all, this is the second last part of Larissa and Peyton's vacation!!! Hope you all like it :) ~1400 words

Warnings: Light smut

Pt 4

Monday

It was finally Monday, a day Larissa had to herself. Nevermore allowed you both four days off, so tomorrow you would fly back to Vermont. You rolled onto your side, Larissa was still sleeping. You couldn't help but smile at her, hands over her head on the pillow, she looked exhausted. What headmistress of Nevermore academy wouldn't be exhausted? Getting ready quietly, you ventured down to get some coffee for when she woke up.

You were sitting up in your bed drawing more plants in your notebook, ready for wherever the day would take you, when you heard blankets ruffling. You looked towards Larissa's bed and caught her propped up on her elbows, staring at you with a smile. She looked so celestial this morning, long white hair hanging loose, perfectly matching her blonde eyelashes and eyebrows. Her pale face led down to the white skin of her body, and you couldn't help but notice her bare pink lips. Her eyes were the only thing with deep colour, she reminded you of deep blue myosotis flowers contrasted against the purest of snow. "Are you writing another poem, Pey?" she purred at you.

You wrinkled your brows at her, "Another poem?" you asked confused. "Yes darling, another poem." You thought for a minute before remembering that you did, in fact, write a poem about her a couple days ago. You let out a shy "Ohhh, nooo" with a giggle before you fell back onto your bed. She chuckled at you, "Don't be embarrassed darling, I apologise for looking in your notebook. On the contrary, it did almost bring me to tears." You sat up and faced her, surprised. "What? You liked it?" You couldn't believe that a stupid poem you wrote about seasons would almost bring Larissa to tears. Although you did write it about her, and it was all true, you weren't totally sober when you wrote it. "Yes Peyton, I liked it very much. Did you write it?" she asked, tilting her head In question. Her voice was very soft this morning, very relaxed and soothing. She sounded very seductive honestly, and all of a sudden you couldn't help but feel hot. "Um, yes I wrote it a couple days ago. I'm glad you like it" you said sweetly, looking away from her shyly. She put her hand to her chest and gave you a warm grin, more sincere than you've ever seen from her before. You heard her mumble "Well, I think we should get some coffee" and you were on your feet retrieving her coffee in a second. When you turned back around she was sitting up now, and you brought the coffee to her. "I got you some this morning, you looked exhausted." She smiled up at you with her teeth this time and dropped her blankets to take the coffee from you. You smiled at her before you noticed her bare chest, stomach, and bare legs. She was in her bra and panties. "You're not wearing pajamas" you stated, like she didn't know that. "I got warm last night while I was sleeping, sorry" she admitted quietly. Her hand reached to pick the blanket back up but you stopped her. "No it's okay, I don't mind." Sitting back on your bed you stared at her and took a sip of your own coffee. Between her voice, the hot coffee, and her not wearing any clothes, you began to feel too hot as well. Grabbing at your shirt you stuttered "Damn, is it hot in here? Are you hot? I mean you are hot. I mean uh-." Larissa watched you struggle with your shirt and when you said this last thing she almost spit out her coffee. She let out a loud laugh as she put down her drink and reached over to grab your shirt. Pulling it over your head, she came back with a "Damn, you do look hot, let me feel you." She pressed the back of her hand to your chest and you gasped at her touch, her hands were rather cold. She winked at you and in the most seductive tone said, "Oh no, you're burning up baby." You felt your breath hitch and your brain lagged and not two seconds later you threw yourself at the woman. You forced her onto her back and straddled her, running your fingers through her white hair. You hesitated as you didn't know if she wanted this, but you couldn't resist her any longer. She grabbed the back of your neck and forced you down to meet her lips. The last time you kissed, it was gentle and sweet, that was one side of Larissa. This time it was rough and needy as she held you close and squirmed beneath you. You grabbed her face as she stuck her tongue into your mouth and you let out a strangled moan. She brought her hips up to grind against yours and you concluded that this was the most turned on you've ever been. Just then an alarm went off and you pulled away from her startled. She groaned, "Oh shit, we have to get ready and go." "Where?" you panted, not wanting to go anywhere right now. "I have a surprise for you" she smiled wiggling her eyebrows, chest still rising and falling fast. You whined before grabbing her face and kissing her once more as you climbed off of her to let her get ready.

As you walked down the streets of the busy city, there were so many people and so many shops and bars. It seemed like a fun time, but it also intimidated you. How did people like being so out in the open? Or crowded in some small place with a bunch of other people? Spending their money on expensive drinks and food? Larissa was walking in front of you, she seemed like she knew exactly where she was going. You wondered how she had the confidence to be out and about like this. Looking and dressing like she did, you thought people would be all over her, in one way or another. Her heels clicked on the sidewalk as she made her way through the crowd until she came to a stop. She turned around to look at you and only then did you realize that you had stopped first. Noticing that you looked nervous, she took your hand and mumbled "It's alright darling, I got you."

You both sat at a table in a large restaurant with a stage. You felt better here, it was spacious and nobody was bothering you. After you both settled down at the table with a drink, Larissa looked at you, a huge smile on her face. You marvelled at her teeth and the way that her lips curled into a smile, she was absolutely gorgeous. "So smiley Larissa, why are we here?" you questioned. "You'll have to wait and see" she jested as she took you hand in hers again. As the lights turned down and the music started, you thought that the song sounded familiar. Larissa looked to you again and she squealed in excitement. You couldn't help but laugh at how cute she was and how happy this concert was making her. Just before they came on to the stage, you recognized the song. Fleetwood Mac, this was a Fleetwood Mac concert. Larissa bought you tickets to see Stevie Nicks herself. Your jaw dropped. You loved Fleetwood Mac, but surely Larissa wouldn't have known that. You didn’t know that she loved them either, what a coincidence.

As the concert went on, Larissa was swaying to the music, eyes fixated on the stage. She never let go of your hand. The lights reflected on her face, giving you the best view of her bright blue eyes illuminated with joy, and her white teeth showing off to the world. You shook your head. How had you fallen so hard for a woman after spending a few days with her? Yes, you had admired her, looked up to her, and revelled in her wit and beauty for the longest time, but now you truly were in deep. She was one of a kind. She was so many beautiful, wonderful things that you could never have the time to list. She was the mother of the outcasts, the voice that you'd listen to and tell it to never shut up, the sun when you thought that you wouldn't make it in your darkest days, and the moon when you needed to rest your blinding thoughts. She may have been a sight to others, one that they would revel in for a minute and then forget about. She may have been a random tall woman, a harsh principal, flesh and bones to others, nothing even. But to you and your poor neglected, touch deprived, useless gay heart, she was everything.

Pt 6

[stray-crow]

AUGUST STRATEGY!

200 daily word count -> 1400 weekly word count

"But Milo! That is the same amount of words!" yes but no 🥰

one of the suggestions in Unmasking Autism is to reframe how you quantify progress onto a larger scale. seven short sessions is a higher threshold cost than one long session, especially when Autistic Inertia is in the equation!!

so if i get in the mood to write, then i will write until the itch goes away! however, i want to retain my original goal of "write more consistently so i don't get the Haven't Written in a While Sadness." so, if the weekly wc goal is not met by Sunday, then i have a "Wellness Write" in the Maintenance task for Sunday!

today's aim was for all the missed days of August for a total of 2000 words, but then when i wrote one scene for wildlife rehab!aftg and finished another for warm home, i realized that 1400 is a week! which is how i structure my journaling!!

so i will need to restructure my word count goals sheet... later 😌

[onboardsorasora]

Welcome back to another fever dream random thing i read that made my brain itch. I need to workshop the name lmao but I saw a tweet and made a prompt out of it. I've also lost the tweet but thankfully I wrote down the 'prompt' side of it. This is silly, please don't take it seriously.

Prompt: Dragons re emerge in society but thanks to a long forgotten prophecy, only those who are knighted can slay a dragon. (So that means actors and sports people etc, are the only ones allowed to slay them) 1400 words, near future fic

Lewis pulled his balaclava off of his head, shaking his braids free from the low bun he'd kept them in at the nape of his neck. 

A stern-faced official with RDC emblazoned on his starched white button down came to usher him into the close by FIA building. 

The race had been red flagged because of a dragon swarm.

Lewis looked around at the assembled drivers and staff, accepting his water bottle and towel from Angela with a sigh and a rolling of his eyes. This was their new normal. 

Some archeologist went into a cave that unveiled itself after a glacier melted and unearthed a dragon's lair. Between the archeology dick riding and global bureaucracy, the eggs in the hearth hatched and dragons started swarming the air.

The British government enacted a long dead branch of the house of commons and the royal dragon committee was reborn. Just like the dragons. 

So far there had been little done to combat the new threat. What with the previously stated global bureaucracy and dick riding. 

The archeologists and other scientists wanted to study the creatures and place them under the endangered animals listings. But the governments of the world wanted them all eradicated.

There were many people combing the archives for ways to deal with the dragons, to see what had been written in the past about them. And to see if there was a way for the modern world to coexist with the creatures. 

Until that was sorted, the current mode of operation was to take cover when dragons were swarming in the area. 

The noise level was pretty loud with so many people crammed in the small area that hadn't been expressly created for that purpose. it was still new to everyone so they were still figuring out how best to adjust.

Daniel saddled up beside him, slipping in between a FIA staffer and George. Lewis smiled at him around the straw in his water bottle. 

“Jeepers, they were loud this time, yeah?” Daniel grinned and Lewis followed the upward pull of his lips with his eyes. 

“Have they figured out where this swarm came from?” Lewis asked when Daniel brushed their shoulders together as if he'd stumbled and lost his footing with all the jostling going on. This was the most contact they could manage in public like this.

“No, but just before the red flag I overheard that there might finally be some decisions on how to manage the whole thing ethically.” Angie offered, Lewis' eyes widened.

“For real?” He asked at the same time Daniel went “thank fuck.”

Daniel continued when Angie didn't. “Don't get me wrong, it was like cool at first but dragons are fucking annoying. And like don't get me started on the wyvern crowd. They're so fucking pretentious, we all know you wanna like fuck em– just stop making it our business.” Daniel rolled his eyes playfully, shoulders sagging with relief that maybe the end would be near.

George chuckled and Lewis fought the splinter of jealousy at the sound. 

“Who do you reckon would fuck a dragon Danny?” 

Daniel looked at George with a deadpan ‘I know we're thinking about the same person’ face and the two of them, at the same time said; “Charles” before bursting into laughter. Lewis wasn't sure if he wanted to understand more about that.

They all waited around listlessly for a while longer, reminding everyone of the long delays of the first Vegas race and that similar time in testing in ‘24. By the end of the evening and the race, everyone was cranky and very happy to head back to their hotels.

Lewis left the Ferrari hospitality, pulling his plaits backwards into a topknot and smiled when he found Daniel loitering in the paddock. He was tugging on his Red Bull cap, making that unconscious scrunching face he always does. 

“Hey mate.” Daniel grinned widely, stepping forward to meet Lewis in the middle of the walkway.

“Ready to go?” 

“Let's get out of this hellhole.” Daniel chuckled, tugging on the straps of his navy bag.

They were about to walk away when a group of people including Sir Jackie Stewart came to stop them. Daniel and Lewis looked at each other perplexed.

“Lewis, I'm glad we've caught you. A word?” Jackie asked, the RDC members beside him looked as severe as always. 

“Uh, sure Jackie. How can I help you?” Lewis furrowed his brow but kept his face neutral even as the RDC guys started looking at Daniel as if he would disappear by their gaze alone.

“Uhm I'll give you gents some privacy.” Daniel said awkwardly after a while before turning and walking into the Sauber garage. 

“Lewis, can we have a moment in private?” Lewis noticed now how uncomfortable Jackie looked, along with how tense the RDC guys appeared. He nodded wordlessly, knowing that whatever was happening couldn't possibly be good.

They settled in an office in the stewards building, Lewis leaned against the wall by the door, watching as everyone turned to watch him. “What's going on?” He demanded.

“There's been a new development with the current legislation for dragon eradication and remediation.” it was Jackie who spoke up, his voice as quiet and steady as it always is. Lewis frowned.

“That's great and all but what does that have to do with me? Do you need like a face for the campaign or something? Because Jackie I hardly think I'm the most qualified candidate for this effort.” 

“Actually. That's why we're here. The legislation has been passed down that only the knighted can slay or be present in the act of slaying a dragon.” 

Jackie's statement was met with silence. Lewis stared at him blankly, what did that have to do with him? Then

“Wait– you're not saying?”

“I am.”

“Jackie, that doesn't make any fuckin’ sense.”

“Lewis, it is out of our hands.”

“What the fuck, how does that even make fucking sense?” Lewis was completely blindsided, his wide eyes watched when one of the RDC members stepped forward unrolling a fucking piece of parchment.

“Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton  Larbalestier, by the power vested in me by the King of England, I hereby enlist you in the ranks of the Dragon Knights.”

There was a tone in his head, blanking out anything further that the man before him read aloud. What the fuck. How the fuck was this even allowed? How was this ok!? 

“What the actual fuck?!” Lewis said the only thing that was repeating in his brain on loop. This didn't make a lick of sense. He was a formula one driver, a racer, a sportsman. His knighthood was very symbolic at best and meant nothing in terms of actual power or military prowess. He never had to complete military training like Valtteri or Kimi had been required to. He knew next to nothing about military strategy or dragons. And he sure as hell knew nothing about killing them.

“None of this even seems ethical.” He blurted. His brain didn't know what straw to grasp and hold on to. Everything felt like it was going too fast.

“The archivists found something, a written decree from centuries ago that only those knighted by the monarch could slay a dragon. For the prestige and glory of it all. There's been no addendum, and unfortunately it is the last bit of legislation on the matter.”

“Well can't Wills change it!?” Lewis knew his voice was high, reedy, hysterical. But he didn't care. This was ludacris.

“It's not that simple. There's too much red tape and the monarch answers to parliament so there needs to be unanimous consensus for a new law to be written.”

Lewis snorted. “Jackie, this can't be real life.” He looked at the retired driver, taking in how wan and fragile he looked since Lewis last saw him this afternoon at the anthem ceremony. He couldn't imagine how long Jackie had been sitting with this news. How long now since an RDC member read him his rights.

“You're speaking to the choir.” Jackie sighed, sitting heavily in one of the chairs around the conference table.

Lewis came to sit beside him, heavy with his own fears and swirling thoughts. He wished they had a bottle of something strong to share. He thought about Daniel waiting for him in the paddock and wondered if he should text him to head out without him. Things weren't at all sorted here.

He sighed, then snorted.

“Well with all the knights in the house of commons, maybe we'll get a change in legislation before we know it.” Lewis giggled when one of the RDC guys laughed uproariously.

[freeuselandonorris]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers 💫

tysm for the tag @glasscushion !!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

32 currently!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

241,146 since 2018 which is absolutely wild to me, particularly as i have about another 30k waiting in the wings. three novels’ worth. WILD.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

largely motorsports (formula 1 and formula e) although i do occasionally dip a toe into other fandoms. largely RPF, i’m generally not that interested in writing non-RPF although i do read it sometimes.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

there was always warmth between us (maxiel)

lol, my magnum opus. the stats on this one still blow my mind (almost 1400 kudos at time of writing). sometimes people tell me it’s a comfort fic for them which really makes my day. there’s a lot about this fic i would change if i wrote it again now (the dialogue especially) but there you go, hindsight and all that.

nobody knows the trouble i’ve been (or the exacting improvement of sin) (maxiel)

i think this was the first vaguely kinky fic i posted on AO3? spanking and behaviour correction from the days when max and dan were starting to want to kill each other and it was spilling over on-track. definitely blessed dan with way too much emotional intelligence compared to real life but hey, i can do what i like with my paper dollies.

as if death itself was undone (maxiel)

undernegotiated breathplay porn my beloved! this remains one of my favourite fics i’ve ever written (although the paragraphs are way too long). i’m a real sucker for the trope of people discovering kinks they didn’t know they had and immediately acting on them — v bad idea in real life, v hot in fiction.

a siren on the rocks calling you into the deep (girl!landoscar)

so funny to me that the lunatic squirting rule 63 porn i posted less than a fortnight ago is in my top 4 already, landoscar fans you are all freaks and i love you for it. this is absolute filth, my first rule 63 and contains a lot of bodily fluids, my favourite thing.

unfucktheworld (maxiel)

i was very surprised to see this in my top 5 but honestly i think it’s only there because it’s my oldest fic so it’s just had time to accrue more kudos? it was my first time writing fic in about 10 years, the characterisation is all over the place, it’s just…not that great i don’t think? but it’s sweet and porny and it’s lovely that people are still digging back through the archives to give it a go, so i’m not complaining.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try to! i went through a phase last year where i just got very easily overwhelmed by life and gave up on replying for a while (which sucks because i received some of my favourite ever comments during that period, so if i ever didn’t reply to your comment please know that i DID read and treasure it, i am just very bad at carrying out simple tasks sometimes). i tend to save them up and reply in batches, which is probably why i get overwhelmed 🫠

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

idk if i’ve written any with an outright angsty ending tbh! i am a sucker for a happy ending, or at least an ambiguous one. also frankly a lot of my fics are just porn and don’t really have endings per se lmao.

i guess my weird toto/christian all the blood runs hot before it’s cold has a not-happy ending in the sense that it’s clear that they doomed to repeat unhealthy behaviour with each other (to be explored in the sequel i nearly have completed once i get free of the landoscar brain rot) but it’s not angsty, really, because christian’s too far in denial to be angsty about it.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i think there was always warmth between us, being a slowburn friends to lovers that ends with a declaration of love, probably takes that crown!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not so far, fingers crossed it remains that way! i do remember being very nervous before i posted my first hardkink fic (the watersports fic eight of swords (reversed)) and feeling like i would be driven from the fandom with pitchforks, but thankfully that did not come to pass.

i do quite often receive comments that are just sort of…baffled? because i have a tendency to write extremely sexually explicit fics that are deliberately not actually that sexy. i like writing about the weirdness and grossness of sex, i like weird kinks and psychosexual oddness, i like unbalanced power dynamics and i like it when sex scenes aren’t all soft focus and simultaneous orgasms. so i think sometimes people go in to my fics expecting one thing and coming out with something else, but the comments are always very polite! also i think i have accidentally awakened something in quite a few readers but i consider that a public service.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

looool. do i. as above — i write a LOT of smut and it is usually far too detailed, generally very informed by kink and power dynamics, and unnecessarily verbose. i’m a huge fan of the writing of JG Ballard who wrote the most clinical, bizarre sex scenes that make you horny and disturbed in equal measure, and that’s what i strive towards in most of my fics.

even the ones that are actually incredibly sweet and romantic (to me anyway!) like just found me a brand new box of matches (landoscar foot fetish gremlin weirdness) or playboy in the grotto (landoscar piss fetish gremlin weirdness) are still not sexy in a sanitised way, they’re about love and connection being found through cherishing and honouring the weird and gross and unconventional parts of each other. this is a political standpoint for me as much as anything else, not to get overwrought about it — my queerness is as expressed through my love for the unsanitary and unsavoury and taboo as much as it is my love of people of different genders, and i want to reflect that in my fic.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

i don’t! i don’t tend to read them, either. maybe this is just a side effect of my preference for RPF but i just don’t find the concept all that interesting or appealing. i’m also not that much of a fan of AUs in general (rule 63 excepted), although i will make exceptions if they’re well-written and i like the concept enough.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

yeah someone reposted there was always warmth between us on wattpad a year or so ago and had to do the copyright strike thing. i felt very famous.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i don’t believe so! if anyone wants to translate any of my fics, please feel free to ask.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

not officially! i think i am too much of a control freak for that tbh. but i have written a lot of fics that have been hashed out in forensic detail with @lost-decade and/or @scenetocause and so they probably should be given co-creator credits for half my fics.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

oooooh this is a hard one yknow. I tend to love a ship very intensely for a few months and then lose interest. i guess max/daniel is the one i have liked for the longest time, although i don’t really read it much anymore because i…frankly don’t really like either of them irl all that much anymore? lmao. but yeah it’s probably them! i will also always have a soft spot for jeandre.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

honestly my jeandre opus a universe hesitant to grant us grace is not technically finished, i just left it where it was due to real life events impinging on it at the time. it’s a shame because i did love what i was doing with that fic but i can’t revisit it because it’s too wrapped up in other stuff.

16. What are your writing strengths?

i’m good at vibes! good at small details that give an insight into a character or setting, good at seeding ideas and at description. I think i’m fairly decent at writing snappy dialogue too, and people tell me i’m good at writing humour too which i am always quite taken aback by but i will gratefully accept!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

long-winded sentences, not enough verbs/not making the verbs work for me, and too many adjectives. tight plotting (lack thereof). getting a bit too forensic in my sex scenes.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I do it occasionally when i’m writing people whose first language isn’t english, but i don’t speak any other languages well enough to be confident in using anything other than the odd word or phrase.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

ah, i’m ageing myself here… It was for placebo, on the fan forum they had hosted on their own website (god bless them, no wonder i’m so chill about the concept of RPF) around 20 years ago when i was 14. i learned a LOT from that forum. placebo are indeed largely to blame for stoking my degenerate tendencies at an impressionable age. good for them. the first fandom i wrote for on AO3 was in 2018 and it was F1.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

aghhh it’s hard to choose but i think it has to be all the blood runs hot before it’s cold, the toto/christian madness. it took me such a long time to write but i feel like i really achieved what i wanted to with it and caught the weird psychosexually unhealthy vibe i was aiming for. i’m also really fond of playboy in the grotto, the landoscar watersports porn. it was my first time writing them and it kicked off an obsession. piss kink is my holy grail kink and i just found this so easy and fun to write, and i think you can tell that i had fun from the writing.

WHEW. well done if you read all this. i think probably most people have already filled this in but if you have not and you would like to i am tagging @lost-decade @scenetocause @zeraparker @boxboxlewis @flawlessassholes @beechersnope

(edited to fix many typos)

[huntingingoodwill]

twenty questions for fic writers 💕

thank you so much for the tag @janaispunk !!

1. how many works do you have on AO3?

like 1 lol i wanted to try… and then i didn’t try.

2. what's your total AO3 word count?

3159 words

3. what fandoms do you write for?

cillian murphy/pedro pascal cinematic universe, trainspotting, stranger things, spree

4. top five fics by kudos (copied jana and looked at tumblr notes instead because the fics have been up here for much longer)

take me, so breathless (we could be reckless) - 5070 (SO WILD BTW THANK YOU 😭)

accessory to matrimony i - 1609

the cigarette girl i - 1552

noise complaint - 1445

may the best man win 1400

5. do you respond to comments?

yes!!!

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

help this one is so difficult for me because i love torturing my characters 😭 in recent history probably love is a losing game though the cigarette girl iv is pretty sad. and i have one where the ending is jonathan crane literally kidnapping you in a basement so i guess whichever you think fits the bill best :,)

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

my baby texas reznikoff with joel miller <3

8. do you get hate on fics?

surprisingly no despite the hater energy i put out into the world

9. do you write smut?

nope what’s a peanits

10. craziest crossover?

haven’t written a crossover but i like to name drop javi g in dieter bravo fics and vice versa like they’re rival actors

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

nope but besties @impossiblegrl and @jeffbvckley have had to sit through MANY of my brainstorming rambles

14. all time favorite ship?

me x miguel o’hara 😏

15. what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

literally all the year old requests in my askbox 😭 sorry yall.

16. what are your writing strengths?

i love writing dialogue!!! and i think im not too awful at it lol

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

descriptions of like. anything. scenery. appearance. actions. FEELING. ive never had a feeling in my life

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

LOVE.

19. first fandom you wrote in?

the cmcu… it was a fic for cillian’s soldier in dunkirk (still haven’t watched it lol)

20. favorite fic you've written?

im pretty proud of love is a losing game tbh

npt: @zablife @runnning-outof-time @serenequeendarling @translatemunson @softstarlite