#she promised she wouldn't. but she did.

[copypastus]

Feyre's selective hearing is the origin of my villain arc.

[painted-bees]

music

[fictionadventurer]

"If the structure of your world ever evaporates, I will still be here."

I think The Q might contain one of the greatest declarations of friendship/love ever.

[dawnssummers]

— i never liked that ending either. more love streaming out the wrong way, and i don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way.

buffy the vampire slayer, 5.07 fool for love + 5.18 intervention + 5.22 the gift / richard siken, litany in which certain things are crossed out

[cuteniaarts]

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

Who's the fairest of them all?

[reiverreturns]

not enough stories exist where maverick actually wanted bradley to fly when he was older. he could feel it in his bones, see it in the stars. he showed the kid around a toolbox and taught him to strip an internal combustion engine and scrubbed the oil off his hands before he went home to mom. taught him to drive stick (probably underage lets be real) because it’s important to feel the bite and the grip and how the revs drop when you shift up. more than once he found bradley sitting in the idle car with the engine on because the dull roar helps him think - mav understands that feeling better than anyone. and yeah carole’s not thrilled but she’ll come around because one day she’ll see what mav sees. right? right?

she doesn’t tell mav she doesn’t want bradley to fly until she’s sick. until the lucid days barely outweigh the confused. there isn’t time to fight back, to talk her round.

so maverick doing what he does and pulling rooster’s papers isn’t just tragic because he’s making a choice that hurts his boy. it’s tragic because he’s shattering his own hopes and dreams for rooster. he’s sold him on a lifelong feeling and a passion and a lie that he never meant to tell in the first place.

[medicinemane]

So... I hadn't checked for a while cause I knew the government was covering my $0 a month income ass with the SAVE program (which I've since learned republicans have been suing to put a stop to and federal judges have frozen which... thanks guys)

Anyway, before that happened they must have paid off my loans cause... I mean... I cut everything even remotely identifiable out there, but just look... paid in full, $0.00 balance!

So... thank Biden, thanks Harris... you actually did what you said you would

That's a huge weight off me. I mean, I was in forbearance (or whatever the one is where you tell the loan company you've got $0 in income) for a long time (which I learned probably had kind of screwed me over with the old rules) but... this way I don't have to worry that if I ever get on my feet I'll suddenly be slammed by student loans

This means I get to focus on making things better for myself by doing stuff to work on my house so it holds heat better and so my backdoor has a deck instead of a 5 foot dead drop into the basement stairwell

Really fucking wish these student loan repayments wouldn't keep getting blocked by judges, like sorry, now that mine's been paid off I still want the program even though I got mine... I want everyone else to get theirs too

Just... yeah... some good news, some real good news

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Lily Orchard still acting like her opinion on story driven/lore driven shows is a fact and not just what I called it, her opinion? Not even surprising at this point with her. Seriously, the day Lily learns she can just not watch these shows is the day pigs will fly, I swear, because this is the thousandath time she's gone on about this and each time, its the same take from her: her trashing all the story driven shows she dislikes and trashing the creators of the shows and acting like her thoughts are all facts, all the while demanding shows cater to her interests and her interests only.

[tittyinfinity]

when you're disabled, being financially abused by your parents never ends

[emily-prentits]

i love the fact that we live in a world where jessica sutton COULD and DID publicly express her love for her character's sapphic ship. over and over and over and LOUDLY. do you even know how much this means to me

[read-the-pinned-post-first-pls]

I still wanna do it, I want to make myself feel something other than numbness, I'm tired of this feeling,

[goldeneyedgirl]

day 125 asking for home again please i'm begging u i don't mind if you have a new chapter an idea or just rambling randomly about this fic i'm only asking for crumbs i hope it will touch your heart

Anon, you moved me. I'm so sorry I forgot your request. I have a memory like swiss cheese.

The rewrite has temporarily stalled, only because I have four chapter fics going, three one-shots needing to be finished, and I'm plotting out Whumptober, Nanowrimo, and Ficmas. Plus I have uni work which involves planning and writing a manuscript in 2025. Soo rewrites have escaped me for the time being.

But I do have plans to add a couple of fics to that series. The next fic I was going to publish was second chronologically - Cynthia's wedding. So this takes place maybe eight weeks after Home Again, so everything is kind of new and Jasper gets to experience Alice's family nonsense and how the insanely rich live.

Other fics I was messing with in this universe (the file for these has disappeared, so I have to do a deep dive on my harddrive to see where it was filed but it's totally gone at the moment) includes Alice's father showing up in Mexico for a surprise visit at a very inopportune time; the Brandons deciding to have a pre-Christmas gathering at Alice's house so that Alice's mom can get a bunch of photos for social media; Alice and Jasper in Seattle (I mean, we need to have Maria show up at some point - I love writing Maria); plus drama around the rest of the family - Edward and Bella having a baby, Peter and Charlotte getting married, and just other wholesome nonsense.

I might also drag the OG drafts for celebrity Alice out of the archives for Ficmas because, listen, the original Vision was very different. I think there were three different versions in 24 hours, lol.

Anyway, here is some of the draft of Cynthia's Wedding/the Spectacle.

jasper.

Flowers.

That was Jasper’s first thought.

He’d never seen so many flowers in one place before.

Or ribbons.

Or people.

“Breathe.” Alice was standing beside him, looking much more at ease than he felt. She looked beautiful but almost foreign on his arm; she’d had hair and make-up people in their suite early, and had emerged with an artfully messy updo and an almost porcelain-doll appearance.

She didn’t seem entirely real, honestly.

None of this did.

They’d arrived in New York City the afternoon before and this had been the most eye-opening twenty-four hours of his life.

First of all, the chauffeur that had picked them up from the airport had swept them to one of the most expensive hotels in the city - he knew Alice had vetoed the Plaza, where Cynthia was getting married, citing a complete lack of privacy - and they had been quickly and efficiently swept up to a suite that was, frankly, nicer than his Seattle apartment. A perfectly tailored suit and Alice’s dress for the wedding had been waiting for them, along with a handwritten schedule and half a dozen floral arrangements - as well as a bottle of champagne and a ‘good luck’ note from Carmen, which made Alice snort.

There had been a dinner reservation made at the hotel restaurant with Alice’s godmother - a pinched woman who downed three martinis and left citing a need for a cigarette before they’d even received their entrees. Alice had laughed at his total bewilderment - “I’ve known her my whole life, Jas, and I’ve never seen her eat anything more substantial than a martini olive - or stay at an event longer than thirty minutes.”

The next morning, Alice had disappeared to spa treatments, hair, and makeup after breakfast, and returned to the room looking rather blank and popped two pain pills on a relatively empty stomach but had reassured him that she was fine. He’d even gone out to get her something to eat, but she’d only picked at it and blamed nerves about being in front of the camera.

And now they were at the wedding.

Alice’s dress was beautiful - dark plum lace tailored close to her body with a high neck and buttons running down her spine. The hem brushed the floor, concealing the fact that she had insisted on nearly four inch heels despite the pain they caused her. A small fortune of diamonds hung from her ears and around her wrist that Alice claimed belonged to the family trust, from a long-dead family member. The suit Carmen had arranged for him was tailored so perfectly that it was one of the most comfortable things he’d ever worn - and one of the nicest, far and away nicer than what he'd worn at his own wedding.

That made him a little nervous - first class flights to New York, the hotel room, the suit… Alice had convinced him that as her date, she was going to cover everything. He was doing her a favour, after all - Cynthia wouldn’t have allowed her to attend without a plus-one. But this whole weekend was costing more than his entire life, and that made him somewhat uncomfortable.

“This is…”

“A lot, I know.” Alice’s smile is pasted on her face, and doesn’t look quite right. “Just look like you’re happy to be here and no one will notice.”

“I’m happy to be here with you, this is just terrifying,” he murmured in her ear and for a moment, Alice’s mask dropped and she gave him a genuine, albeit bashful, smile.

The entrance had an actual red - well, gold - carpet at the entrance, against a wall of white roses. Various photographers were lined up, snapping away. It took him several moments to place a few of the other guests dotted along the carpet - models, celebrities, singers… It was surreal.

Ignoring people calling out to her, Alice carefully guided him inside the hotel.

—

The ceremony room was all gold and white, adored in hundreds of white candles, and masses of flowers in whites, pinks, and lemons. It was dizzying and oddly hypnotic, like standing in a secret garden but knowing that something wasn't quite right about it.

Gold chairs draped in silky fabric were arranged for the guests - rows and rows of them, negating Alice’s assumption that this was planned to be an intimate wedding. A white and gold bar was set up at the back of the room, where numerous people were clustered around - people Jasper had only ever seen on TV.

“You’ll be seated in the front row,” the perky attendant said, escorting them down the aisle, gesturing to two seats.

//

Securing a glass of champagne for Alice and a gin-and-tonic for himself, Jasper immediately returned to where Alice was seated - where a man was looming over her. He wearing a well-worn, rumpled suit, clutching a drink like it was a lifeline, and looked like he needed a shave and a good night's sleep. He wasn't anyone that Jasper recognised, but the way he was scrutinizing Alice made Jasper feel oddly protective of her.

"Mary, Mary," the man said in a rough voice that sounded almost mocking to Jasper's ears as he handed Alice her champagne.

“Alistair,” the fake smile is back but Alice doesn’t rise, merely nods at him. “How are you?”

Alistair, the former fiancé - a long-time associate of Alice’s father and not someone Alice has spoken of fondly. He didn’t know the details of the break up - or even the engagement - and he couldn’t bring himself to google search his own ... what? Girlfriend? Either way, it felt very disloyal to google things Alice didn't really want to talk about.

“You look better than I expected,” Alistair is frank, and is inspecting Alice like a piece of meat. “The way your family has carried on, I expected...”

"To be at death's door?" Alice offers sweetly.

"You not to be here," Alistair chuckles, before looking Jasper up and down.

//

Mr Platt is exactly what Jasper expected; an imposing man with salt and pepper hair and generic movie star looks. He doesn’t acknowledge anyone around him, firmly focused on his phone. There’s a haughty looking woman next to him in a shimmering dark blue dress and smooth red hair that Jasper suspects is his wife, even if she isn’t old enough to be Alice’s mother.

“Fourth wife, former assistant,” Alice murmurs to him from behind her champagne glass. “Mother of two daughters, and she’s very upset that neither of them were boys.”

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

🎟

[oveliagirlhaditright]

So, in "Tempted Champions" there's this Slayer who was turned vampire. And when Buffy's about to stake her at the end, she asks Buffy to join her.

And she's actually starting to get Buffy to give in, by pointing out the Watcher's Council controls her and stuff, and that she gives up her entire life for them and what does she have to show for it? (The same thing happened to the turned Slayer.)

The Slayer turned vampire then brings up Angel and that really makes Buffy think about it:

At first, Buffy's imagining that maybe she could become a vampire with a soul, because surely Willow could find a way to give her her soul back like she did with Angel. And that really, they could continue on like they are now--fighting evil, but together (and truly together, like being able to make love and whatnot. Because Buffy thinks of how she knows Angel: and if she had to become a vampire to truly be with him, he'd never be able to forgive himself for that. And that would be the one thing that would keep him from achieving perfect happiness and losing his soul again)--but as vampires.

But then she starts wondering if she really wants them to have their souls. And she sort of contradicts her previous thought and thinks that she would be able to make him happy, after all, in order to lose his soul. And this whole thing is crazy, because I never thought Buffy would ever entertain the idea of wanting to be an evil soulless vampire, alongside Angelus.

She doesn't do any of these things, of course, and is able to pull herself from the edge, but damn. I sort of thought all of these things were sort of fanfiction ideas, with maybe the slightest bit of canon hinting at the possibility of it (like when Buffy told Angel that when he kissed her she wanted to die), but apparently not.

Edit: Here's the scene.

[fideidefenswhore]

okay i am still working on that henry percy write-up but another angle i wish was explored more:

very few allow for the possibility that chapuys was exaggerating jane’s support of mary as heir to the throne to the extent he was because he’s gone beyond and arguably to some extent, even against charles’ advice/instruction in his support of jane and active role in the boleyn downfall, over any princess charles wanted him to wed when it became clear there would be a new english queen (consort)....

of course he’s lost face regardless, but the solution to minimize that (basically, for promising different outcomes than resulted and overestimating jane’s influence on henry and the power that would be hers once queen) might have been to repeatedly insist that jane was vehemently attempting intercession for mary and even to reinstate her as heir, but that henry was dead-set against this, and of course, nobody could ever have predicted this (it was within the expectations of the ambassador’s role to predict political outcomes, an element where chapuys was more often than not, an abysmal failure, particularly wrt this timeline)

aside from the one report of the bishop of faenza ( she has five times thrown herself publicly at the King's feet, requesting him to send for his daughter and declare her Princess), who was not the most reliable source of the tudor court, this is not corroborated by any other contemporary source beyond a report that mary sat at the king and queen’s table for meals (much later), and the later spanish chronicle. chapuys’ own eventual face-to-face meeting with jane preceding mary’s capitulation contained commitment from her that was soon interrupted by henry, although of course chapuys attempts to spin this as best he can and save face later when events plummet soon after:

 the satisfaction of this people with the marriage was incredible, especially at the restoration of the Princess to the King's favor and to her former condition [...]  begged her to favor her interests; which she said she would do [...]  I begged him the day before, when he spoke about it, to take care that it did not contain anything which could directly or indirectly touch her right, or the honor either of herself or of the late Queen, her mother, nor yet her conscience; otherwise she would not consent thereto for all the gold in the world [...] Meanwhile I went to talk with this Queen's brother, whom I left very well informed of the great good it would be, not only to the Queen his sister and all their kin, but also to the realm and all Christendom likewise, if the Princess were restored to her rights; and I am sure he will use his good offices therein. [...] the King got into a great anger against the obstinacy and disobedience of the said Princess, showing clearly that he bore her very little love or goodwill [...]  In this case it would be important for the Princess to be declared heiress, at least in case of no male heirs. Has some hopes of this from the demonstration lately made by the King, the Queen's goodwill to her, and the words of Cromwell. [...]  it was proposed to deprive the Bastard and make [Mary] heiress [...]  the matter proceeded so far that, in spite of the prayers of this Queen, which he rudely repulsed, the King called the judges to proceed according to law to the inquest and first sentence which is given in the absence of the parties [...]  I even sent to [Cromwell] several times, when matters were so desperate, to advise the Princess to consent to the King's will, and I have since fully assured him that he should know before two months were over that there was no man in the world who had done better service in this matter than I. /  the danger of interrupting our negociations for amity, in which the English proceed so coldly that I know not what to say /  The ambassador writes that she was a maid of the late Queen, and afterwards of Anne Boleyn; that she is virtuous and kindly and welldisposed to the Princess, in whose favor she has spoken to the King, and that there were hopes of her being declared true heir in the parliament. / They have also renewed and aggravated the statutes against those who should use the name of Pope, which is also treason; and it is said they will cause the whole realm to be sworn again, in confirmation of the statutes against the Holy See, against the marriage of the late good Queen and the legitimacy of the Princess, to whom no one should dare give that title on pain of his life. /  [...] doubted whether he should have any child by the Queen; for which reason he intended, in a few days, to declare the Princess heir of the kingdom /  I think the Princess has acted more prudently, whatever Count Cifuentes and Doctor Ortiz may say, who in my opinion have not considered all the circumstances. /  The Princess is well. Since her reconciliation to her father, she has been treated even with more ceremony than in times past. /  As to the Princess, Cromwell tells me she will be declared heiress apparent without fail. /  She is now served as Princess. /  Chapuis writes on Sept. 2 that the Princess is well, and is served as Princess. 

jane either over-promised or chapuys exaggerated the vehemence of her promise (he certainly did cromwell’s... ‘without fail’ indeed); edward it seems made no commitment at all (none chapuys reports, at least...) and yet he is ‘sure’ he will do his utmost to restore her to her rights. 

the question becomes, what corroborating evidence do we have of chapuys’ reports on this dynamic as he reported? really it’s only mary’s letter to jane, which seems to be in response to a letter of support jane only wrote and sent after mary’s submission/capitulation (the copy of which has not, frustratingly, survived, although mary quotes it partially-- “no less full of motherly joy for my towardness of reconciliation than of most prudent counsel for my further proceeding therein"-- although it seems like jane was only able to keep one promise-- “of your goodness you promise to travel to bring to a perfection” was kept, but her request to “have in remembrance her desire to attain the King's presence” after the initial visit was not met for another five months-- “the delay of the coronation will do no harm except that the coming of the Princess to Court is put off till it takes place”). 

[inevitablyuncertain]

ornj... for free..

:o

What is a trait your OC hides about themself from others? Do they refuse to acknowledge it or begrudgingly accept it?

See the thing is that Free's pretty bad at uhhhhh disguising her emotions. I don't think she's really tried to hide that fact that in an ideal life, she'd just be living Normal and not an adventurer even though at this point i don't think she'd give up on helping people. That, despite knowing that the world and its morals are complicated and gray, she really prefers clear answers. Nor is it secret that she's got a rather impulsive streak, stubborn on her core beliefs. That's she's often at the same time scared and insecure about those very beliefs. Truly, Free is one shade of levelheadedness laid over a pretty openly messy woman, though she's gotten progressively better about these over the past few in-game months