#she’s over 75k now

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Aug 29th

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1. hello! i’ve been looking for a fic that involves an OC (i think?) that acts as a beard for nie huaisang. it was wangxian centric but that’s the main detail i remember. thank you!

FOUND? 🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 859k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement) has NHS getting himself engaged to a female OC that he has no romantic interest in (& vice versa - she's a lesbian) because she has useful skills

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2. hi! Do you recall a fic where wwx was like an omega courtesan in a school who was bought by lxc for lwj. Mianmian was also there with him too for a bit. I remember a scene where lwj got mad at wwx for wanting to wash him. They fall in love eventually. If you could find this fic I'd be grateful! 🙏

FOUND! Rattling our cages by danegen (E, 69k, wangxian, A/B/O, but like polite, Slow Burn, Pining while fucking, so much hair combing, WWX has a vagina, POV WWX, no yin iron or wars or plot really, Canon Era, spiders–see the notes, Spanish Translation Available)

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3. Hello! Thank you for all the work that you all do <3

I've been trying to look for a fic for some time now. I think it had wangxian pretty much adopting a little girl. Like the girl is an orphan and just keeps clinging to wx and being super sticky and I think there was a plot in her backstory dealing with resentment. Wwx knew abt it but lwj did not figure it out until later i think. This girl just accompanied them on some nighthunt or smth. The story has the Lan take in orphans due to reasons(tm) and the girl was one of them.

FOUND! the low sky, raining over by chibilwj (thelogicoftaste) (M, 37k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Kid Fic)

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4. Hi. I have a fic to find. In this fic, instead of Yanli dying at Nightless City, Lan Zhan gets critically injured and it sends Wei Wuxian into a spiral. Lan Xichen is very angry at him and will not let him anywhere near his body.

Thank you for your help.

FOUND? If I Could Go Back in Time by Runningbarefoot (M, 122k, WangXian, NieLan, Canon Divergence, Role Reversal, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, YL WWX, Eventual Happy Ending, The Twin Jade Brotherhood, Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Twin Prides of Yúnmèng Dynamics, Slow Burn)

FOUND? 🔒❤️ kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight by AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf, tardigradeschool (T, 75k, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Eventual Happy Ending, Getting Together, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Inspired by The Parent Trap (1998), Kid Fic, teen shenanigans, two a-yuans, Fluff and Angst)

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5. hi this is for fic finder!! i’m looking for a fic where wangxian leave the cultivation world for a while with lan sizhui and only come back accidentally. i’m pretty sure everyone else thinks they’re dead and they might have been residing with baoshan sanren in her mountain. thank you!

FOUND? If It's Too Hard To Forgive by Machevalli (M, 94k, WIP, WangXian, XuanLi, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Fluff and Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Yunmeng Jiang Sect Bashing, WWX Leaves the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Mpreg)

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6. Hello! I'm looking for a WangXian fic, they were both dragon shapeshifters, but they met each other in their dragon forms. They both assumed that the other was a regular dragon and both made the decision to commit to the relationship and live out their lives as dragons from now on. I think only when JYL visited and WWX turned human for her, LWJ realized that he was a shifter too. It might have been a twitter thread fic. Thank you so much for your help!!

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7. Looking for an arranged marriage au for wangxian. Yiling laozu wwx, he and lz don't know each other and lz is initially worried cause of wwx reputation. Wwx does the marriage, but doesn't immediately trust lz cause he could be a spy/sent to hurt wwx etc. Specifically there was a scene where people came and attacked wwx's household, I think wwx was away. Everyone hid in the cellars only to realize a-yuan was missing. Lz goes after him and saves a-yuan from being harmed but gets badly hurt.

This leads wwx to realize he can trust lz. Wwx may have taken lz's sword away before the attack cause of a misunderstanding and lz fought to protect everyone any way. And I think another scene lz comes out in his night clothes and yells at a group of cultivators who had come to rescue lz cause they thought something happened to him and lz is like why r yall breaking into my house in the middle of the night and the cultivators (lxc might have been with them) were like this is awkward.

but mebbe I just made it up/misremembered or accidentally combined things?

FOUND? 💖🔒 love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, YLLZ WWX, Arranged Marriage, political scheming, Gratuitous Domesticity, Mutual Pining, EXTREME SLOWBURN, the inherent eroticism of the forehead ribbon, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, neither wwx nor lwj want to be Perceived, but sorry kids! it’s gonna happen!, rated E but the the NSFW stuff doesn’t begin until chapter 19!, bottom LWJ in chapter 20 and 27, Mojo’s post)

FOUND? Caught Between Sun and Shadows by Alliandra (E, 71k, wangxian, LXC & LWJ, grapshic depictions of violence, sunshot campaign, arranged marriage, YLLZ WWX, pining, battle husbands, versatile wangxian, falling in love, resentacles, sex pollen, fuck or die, golden core reveal, politics, hurt/comfort) also sounds like

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8. Fic finder? I'm suspecting it has been deleted but I need to try. It's a fanfic where wwx attempts s*ic*de (suicide) and jc finds him in the bathroom. He calls 911, he's hospitalized and all of that. Please help me 🥲🥲

FOUND! 总有一天; a place to hide (can’t find one near) by yiqie (E, 76k, WangXian, Modern AU, Pianist, Getting Together, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt, Suicidal Thoughts, Depression, Hospitals, Overdosing, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Additional Warnings In Author’s Note)

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9. a modern AU where LWJ and WWX reconnected at a party when Su She was hitting in LWJ, takes place in grad school and WWX doesn’t know they were dating until the end when they visit LWJ’s uncle’s cottage

thank you so much for your help!! @anonionsodelicious

FOUND? without your new eyes by anaphoricae (E, 66k, WangXian, Modern, Didn’t Know They Were Dating, Sexuality Discovery, Self-Discovery, Literal Sleeping Together, (there is so much sleeping in this fic), mentions of WWX/others and LWJ/others, Drunk LWJ, Teacher LWJ, WWX is a… throws dart… computer scientist, No Angst, Jealous WWX, Flirty WWX, Eventual Smut, Bottom LWJ, Fluff, Non-Sexual Intimacy, WWX’s Love Language is Physical Touch, Guess what: even more non-sexual sleeping together, the plot of the fic is just… co-sleeping, call it the Nap Fic ™, Podfic Available, WWX isn’t so much 'oblivious’ as he is wilfully blocking some feelings subconsciously, WWX 'idk how I feel’ to 'I’m gonna marry him’ pipeline)

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10. Hi im looking for a specific fic. The fic was on ao3 and was a modern au where Wei Ying realizes he might be a bit gay and kisses lan zhan but then freaks out, and they get a bit awkward. He then goes on to forums to see what others might think of his situation, he tries watching gay porn etc. and finds that he's dreaming of lan zhan. He ends up being jumped by homophobes goes on a drinking binge for the next few days as a result and hears that lan zhan has been staying in his room and hasn't been doing well, wei ying thinks it's because he kissed him but later finds out he sent lan zhan a homophobic message when drunk. Any help would be appreciated!!! @livesformitski

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11. Hello! I was hoping you can help me track this fic down!

In the fic Lan Zhan finds out about Wei Yings golden core and he schemes to get it back with Wen Qing no matter what. I think it was a dark lan Zhan fic?

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12. For FF, I am once again asking for wlw wangxian fics. There’s a specific one I can’t seem to find, wherein Lwj and wwx are roommates, and wwx is planning on moving out to mm’s bc she constantly hears lwj hooking up in her room, but there’s an issue at the new place or something so she keeps putting off moving out until eventually she’s convinced to stay when they get together

I’ve tried digging through tags but it’s giving me issues, I would appreciate you forever if you find it🙏🙏🙏

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13. Hi I'm looking for this wangxian fic but can't find it anywhere, I don't remember a lot but all I remember is lan wangji getting his lashes punishment and wei wuxian (who is alive) turning up getting angry and destroying all the clans. Yanli (also alive) - and I think zixuan- was like ' well what do you all expect, you've all brought this on yourselves'

Sorry I can't remember much else,

Thank you ☺️ @haseenaay99

FOUND? An arrow to the heart by IsilmeLasgalen (T, 47k, WangXian, SongXiao, XuanLi, ZhuiYi, LQY/NMJ, XiSang, A-qing/OYZZ, BSSR/LY, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, YLLZ WWX, WWX Lives, BAMF JYL, Protective WWX, Good Parents LWJ and WWX, Married WangXian Have Children, JGS "falls" down the stairs, Bad Parents JFM and YZY, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, JYL Lives, JZX Lives, Protective WN, Implied/Referenced Abuse, POV Multiple, Post-Sunshot Campaign, Cultivation Sect Politics)

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14. I'm looking for a Modern AU crack-fic-ish from Jiang Cheng's POV (I think?) where Wei Ying seems obliviously in a relationship, and later married, to Lan Zhan. It's also implied that maybe they're just trolling Jiang Cheng. @hiperfyxation

FOUND? Six in one hand by deliciousblizzardshark (T, 2k, WangXian, Modern: No Powers, Crack Treated Seriously, Compulsory Heterosexuality, POV JC)

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15. Hi i need help looking for a fic. I don’t remember much but it was a sort of time travel fic where wei wuxian goes back in time. I think there was a scene during the sun shot campaign where wangxian confess? I remember lan wangji being jealous of his future/ alternate self who is wwx’s husband

I’m so sorry I don’t remember more but please help me find this fic 🥹

FOUND! 🔒 if you can’t beat them, recruit them by moeblobmegane (T, 228k, Wangxian, NHS & WWX, WWX & WQ, Time Travel Fix-It, Conspiracy, Spies & Secret Agents, Team as Family, Found Family, Burial Mounds, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Pining, Morally Ambiguous Character, Rumors, Politics, Developing Friendships, Good Uncle LQR, Demonic Cultivation, YilingWei Sect) i think its - chapter 26

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16. Hi, this is for a fic finder. I’m looking for a fic where WWX is a Wen. When Lans were attacked, LWJ, LSJ and LJY were taken to Qishan but were taken under WWX’s wings and they were taken care of. It was lan sect bashing and LQR bashing. LWJ did not return to Lans. I just remember that towards the end of the fic, there was a scene where WWX asked his spies from each sect to come out and MXY came out from Jiang, XY came out from Nie and MY was from Jin. I thought I’ve bookmarked it but could find it. I also have checked Wen WWX compilations and War Prize LWZ compilations. Did not find in either list. I’d appreciate if anyone know the name! Thank you!

FOUND? To the Heavens and the Earth by IsilmeLasgalen (E, 77k, WangXian, WWX is a Wēn, POV LWJ, Good Parent LWJ, Marriage of Convenience, Accidental Marriage, Implied Mpreg, Time Travel, Canon Divergence, WWX Isn't Adopted by the Jiāngs, CSSR and WCZ Live BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ, Cultivation Sect Politics, Bottom LWJ, Top WWX, POV NHS, Protective LJY, Good Person WRH, Protective LXC, Immortal LWJ and WWX, POV LXC, Mpreg, WangXian in Love, Soft WangXian, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, POV JZX, Emperor WWX, Emperor LWJ, Past WWX/Other(s), Everybody Lives, Fluff, Angst, Smut, LWJ is LJY's Parent)

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17. Hi! I'm trying to find a fic where lej continuously aaja to play cleansing fir wwc but he keeps reusing cuz resentful energy is the only thing holding his body together but the eventually agrees and then almost dies but wen qung is there and then the course reveal happens and it angsty and wwc thinks lans wouldn't have cared if he told them cheating him if resentment could possibly kill him, thanku!

FOUND? 🧡 decay by antebunny (G, 15k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Angst, Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, the fluffiest ending, Hurt/Comfort)

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18. Hello, this is a fic finder ask:

I’m not sure of the entire plot the the fic but I remember Meng Yao getting caught and being slapped by SiSi in front of the other sect leaders because of what he tried to do knowing his mom’s upbringing. He tries to play it off but he gets imprisoned in a Lanling Tower and isn’t allowed to use anything with strings because of what he did to Nie Mingjue.

FOUND? 💖🔒 love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, YLLZ WWX, Arranged Marriage, political scheming, Gratuitous Domesticity, Mutual Pining, EXTREME SLOWBURN, the inherent eroticism of the forehead ribbon, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, neither wwx nor lwj want to be Perceived, but sorry kids! it’s gonna happen!, rated E but the the NSFW stuff doesn’t begin until chapter 19!, bottom LWJ in chapter 20 and 27, Mojo’s post) I think #18 is - chapter 30. But its only has the slapping part

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19. hi, I have a finder fic ask, well two actually:

A. jin guangshan tries to assault yanli but he is stopped but there’s a plot twist because yanli knew it would happen because jin guangshan has a special garden when he does that to people and she is maybe a time traveler so she sets him up to be caught

B. WWX has died and there’s a celebration happening and there’s this special guest that will be there, possibly called The Painter, and when they get there the guest actually sings the story of how the different sects are hypocrites and the guest curses all of them except Lan Wangji and when the guest goes to leave, they lift up their veil and reveal themselves to be baoshan sanren.

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20. Hi!!! I hope you're doing well. Please help me find this fic. It's a modern setting one, where I think WWX is sending LWJ suggestive pictures and videos of himself, and LWJ just doesn't know who it is. I think WWX is some kind of IT or something. I came across this fic on Twitter/X in a promotional of the AO3 fic, but I can't find it anymore. I forgot the parts of the fic but I know there's pictures and chat logs inserted in the fic. Please help me and thank you so much!!!

FOUND? might be this thread (unrolled because I don't have twitter)

also on ao3 its called + xx xxx xxx xxxx by 3neetee (E, 12k, WangXian, Modern, Shameless Smut, PWP, Dom/sub, Stalker WWX, Manipulative LWJ, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Masturbation, Rimming, Spanking, Spit Kink, Under-negotiated Kink, Identity Porn, Explicit/NSFW Pictures, Twitter threadfic, Semi-Public Sex, freak4freak wangxian)

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[lucytara]

leah/fatin fic [1/3]: there's something in the static (i think i've been having revelations)

Kissing Fatin is like a sedative; not in the way where someone’s forcibly injecting some cocktail directly into her bloodstream, but like something that sinks into her gums, makes all the edges and corners of the world look like around, not through; around, not over. Kissing Fatin is the opposite of smoke and mirrors, the opposite of gunpoint, the opposite of pressing her thumb against the sharp point of a knife just to see if it’ll cut. Kissing Fatin makes every moment after something to look forward to. It’s so simple, so miniscule, so inconsequential: Life can be good again, if she lets it.

[leah and fatin, canon continuation. the power of love and the weight of trauma - and tragically, no, leah's learned, they don't cancel each other out.

rated m for now? almost entirely written already, sitting at 75k. this chapter is 21.7k.]

[cuntess-carmilla]

That person also said that caring whether something is Real Goth or not is silly and ykw, I would agree to that IF actual goth music had a fighting chance against everything else that gets constantly mislabeled as goth, but that's just not how it is. Metal, Industrial, and almost any other form of dark alternative music is much more mainstream than goth and we're constantly fighting against honest to God extinction.

It's not that when you go to a night advertised as a goth night you'll hear an equal amount of goth, EBM, Industrial, Metal and Alternative Rock. It's not even that you'll hear most of those other genres and very little goth. I wish!

You can go to any night advertised as a goth night without hearing A SINGLE goth song, from 10 pm to 6 am. And it's not like, a travesty that happens sometimes, it's the norm. The absolute RARITY is going to a goth night that plays a minimum of 45% unquestionable goth music with the rest being debatable or outright not goth at all. I end up jumping in excitement and glee at even the most BASIC goth song being played in a supposed goth night once.

I've said this before but Sisters of Mercy, which pretty much is to goth what Megadeth or Slayer are to Thrash Metal, is touring in NIGHTCLUBS. Fucking imagine Slayer attempting to fit a singular Thrash Metal scene into a small underground nightclub. I saw Two Witches play at a shitty underground BAR. You can argue that they're not as universally liked among goths as Sisters of Mercy and Bauhaus, but they're still legends in the scene who've been active since 1987 non-stop.

The new artists goths get UNIVERSALLY excited for have 55-75k monthly listeners in Spotify at best. Drab Majesty and She Past Away are an exception at... 113k and 223k respectively. Compare that to even Nu Metal revival bands coming out now. Compare that to the most mid Symphonic Metal or EBM bands.

We simply have NO fighting chance if we don't get more territorial and don't literally campaign to not be pushed out and erased. This isn't me bragging; we're a severely underground scene. I wish we weren't! But we are.

Successful goth nights in terms of attendance are PATHETIC compared to the numbers that emo nights pull, and unlike emos, a huge portion of goths actually remain consistently goth throughout adulthood and our subculture is older and more superficially hypervisible. On average goths tend to remain living an alternative lifestyle consistently while most emo adults are at most emo on weekends bimonthly. We either get territorial and firm, or we're fully pushed out and stomped over, and the music we love dies out.

[hellcat1324]

Fundraiser Masterlist

Latest Update 09/27/2024

Since there’s so many fundraisers that I try to reblog/share, this will be the masterlist for all of them just so ya’ll don’t have to bother going through BOTH my blogs to find them.

They’ve all been vetted either by me, Operation Olive Branch/Poppy Flower, or by others I trust.

I will declare LOW FUNDING if they are less than 1/4 through their goal

CLOSE TO COMPLETION will be to those who are 5-7k away from their goal.

HALF WAY is pretty self-explanatory, but I’ll also do it if it’s a little over half way.

DONE will be those who reached their goals

Vetted Family Escape GFMS:

Fidaa (mother of 2 small children under 3): @fidaa-family2 vetted by @90-ghost $30K Goal completed, new goal is $75K. Currently at $38.867K/$75K OVER HALF WAY

Ahed (family of 8): @ahedalshaer

Vetted by Butterfly Effect and on #407 on their campaign list. Multiple family members have health issues and such. Currently we are at €7.349K/€80K VERY LOW FUNDING

Alaa (family of 5): Alaa is who messaged me on Instagram, and he is followed by those who I have already vetted, so I trust he is real. He dreamt of being a football player before the war. Currently we are at €7.205K/€22.5K LOW FUNDING

Anas (family of 10, which is him, wife, 3 children, mom, his brother and sister, SIL, and nephew): Anas took out loans in order to get his family evacuated first due to their health risks, so he is now all alone in Gaza and in desperate need to reunite with his family. We are currently at $140.716K/175.7K HALF WAY

Lina (4, baby born safely in Egypt): We just need to get Lina’s husband out since she and son were evacuated out of Gaza before baby was born. Currently at €37.952K/€47K

Ibraheem (7 people in total, which is him, parents, older brother and sister, and 2 younger sisters, one of whom is still in highschool): $97.5/$94K DONE

Ibraheem has a NEW GFM, this one is for expenses for once he and his family get to Egypt to continue their education. As of now, he is at $10.389K/$25K ALMOST HALF WAY

Madleen (4 people total, which is her, her husband, and 2 young children): As of now, they are at $55.555K/$70K HALF WAY

Deyaa and Family (him, his mother, 2 younger brothers, and sister): 15 year old Deyaa is the only member of his family who speaks English, so he is the one pleading for help evacuating his family from Gaza. On June 15th, he and his family reached their goal to evacuate and live their lives in Egypt COMPLETE

Fatma (4 people total, which is her, mom, brother and sister): we are currently at $21.517K/$40K. HALF WAY

Fadi (family of 11, which include Fadi’s 9-month old son): We are currently at $39.380K/$62.5K HALF WAY

Leen (5, which is Leen, her parents, and 2 brothers people total): the 17 year old daughter: Leen was the one who contacted me on Instagram. We are currently at $34.055K AUD/$50K AUD HALF-WAY

Lujayn (6 people total, Lyjayn, her husband, and their 4 children, one of whom needs medical care) Lujayn was the one who contacted me on Instagram, and they’re verified by Operation Olive Branch. We are currently at $97.284/$105K CLOSE TO COMPLETION

Dr. Jehad-Zedan (5 people total, which is him, wife, and 3 young daughters): They’ve been safely evacuated to Cairo now (yay!) but they still need living expense money. So we are $35.317k/$40k CLOSE TO COMPLETION

Ashraf (Him only, his wife and family is already in Egypt): He suffers injuries from an Israel attack, so he needs the funds to travel to Egypt and get medical attention in a hospital. As of now, we are at £37.388K/50K HALF WAY

Maryam (4 people total, which is her, hubby, and 2 young children): As of now, they are at €52.645K/€80K. HALF WAY

Tala: As of now, she is at €27.668K/€30K CLOSE TO COMPLETION

Islam (Family of 9) : As of now, she’s only at €54.779K/€55K CLOSE TO COMPLETION

Haya (5 people total, her, parents, and 2 siblings: Mother has Lupus/kidney failure, so medical attention is REQUIRED. $64.277K/70K CLOSE TO COMPLETION

[thehopefuljournalist]

unrelated- what's your favorite news story recently?

Hello, thank you so much for asking!! I've had a hard time because this week was actually full of news stories and I'm working on releasing them all to you guys!

But let me tell you about my favourite one from today :)

As an activist, working within my own country and out especially in climate-related themes, I believe in people-power, fully. I know, of course, that some people have more power and influence than others, but there's no denying that there's strength in numbers.

This recent, huge, protest in New York is such a hopeful turn, I think. I love seeing that I'm not the only one worried, that I'm not alone in my fighting. With numbers, we have a bigger chance of winning over our world leaders, and by doing that, to protect ourselves and our futures.

Well, this is my favourite news story from the past two days.

This past Sunday, 75K climate activists took to New York's streets in a “march to end fossil fuels”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the US continuing to approve fossil fuel projects, something which the Biden administration did earlier this year with the controversial Willow project in Alaska.

“We are all here for one reason: to end fossil fuels around the planet,” Ocasio-Cortez told a rally at the finish of the march, which ended close to the UN headquarters where world leaders will gather this week. “And the way we create urgency is to have people around the world in the streets.”

“The United States continues to be approving a record number of fossil fuel leases and we must send a message, right here today,” adding that despite record profits the support for the fossil fuel industry was “starting to buckle and crack”.

“This is an incredible moment,” said Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity, who helped organize the mobilization. “Tens of thousands of people are marching in the streets of New York because they want climate action,"

“This also shows the tremendous grit and fight of the people, especially youth and communities living at the frontlines of fossil fuel violence, to fight back and demand change for the future they have every right to lead,” she said.

The march came during Climate Week, as world leaders gather for this week’s UN general assembly, and a UN climate ambition summit on Wednesday.

On Friday, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Biden was not currently scheduled to take part in Wednesday’s UN climate summit. Biden has been praised by climate activists for last year passing a historic $369bn climate law but criticized for allowing oil drilling projects and the expansion of gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

A decision for Biden to stay away from the UN climate ambition summit is “unacceptable”, said Su of the Center for Biological Diversity. “The time is now for Biden to lead on the world stage, and show he means it when he calls climate change the existential threat to humanity.”

During the march, the Rev Lennox Yearwood, head of the Hip Hop Caucus, likened today’s climate movement to the US fight for racial justice. 

Youth climate activist Vanessa Nakate, from Uganda, said: “When we say that we want climate justice, we’re not just talking about transitioning to solar panels. We are talking about leaving no one behind when you’re talking about addressing the injustices that come with the climate crisis."

Article published September 17, 2023 - The Gaurdian

Another article, interviewing a young climate activist

[javaghoul]

because I'm in a TG ideas slump, I'm gonna turn my complaining into

✨h✨e✨a✨d✨c✨a✨n✨o✨n✨s✨

Tokyo Ghoul characters who are fed up of hot weather

• Yomo lives inside a METAL shipping container. His home is now an oven. Yay.

• "Summer? Don't you mean scummer?"- Nishiki.

• How the fuck do you get sweat stains and sunblock out of white linen? If you know, tell Naki please.

• Hot weather ruins chocolate and food in general, and Saiko is not about it. Iced drinks are fun though. And ice cream.

• Touka naturally gravitates towards darker colours, so is a magnet for heat. She becomes short tempered and she KNOWS she's being shitty with everyone.

• It's too hot to have the windows closed, but when they're open 75k fucking flies and other disgusting insects invade Ayatos' home. He is not a happy bunny.

• Banjou suffers. All that muscle is a wonderful insulator, and he chafes ☹️

• Look, Shuu likes sunshine. He likes sunsets. He doesn't get sweaty either. What pushes him over the edge are people's stupid, unruly children running about being loud and gross. Quiet walk in the park? Ruined. Coffee shop? Ruined. Book shop? RUINED.

• Amon has noticed that warmer weather encourages more idiots to go out idioting. More ghoul attacks, worse driving, more fights. It's silly season.

[simply-smitten]

Smitten Master Post!

About me - my socials - my fics

About me~

She/her pronouns

26 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in social work

Mcyt is my first/only fandom

I primarily write DNF and Karlnap, but I do have a few multiship thread fics on my 18+ NSFW twitter :)

My boundaries: do not interact with my NSFW content if you’re a minor, do not supply my NSFW content to minors, and do not repost my work whatsoever (only exception is to translate it, but please contact me first to get permission)

My socials~

Ao3: simplysmitten

Main twitter: simplysmitten_

Alt twitter: simplysosmitten

NSFW twitter: simplysmutten (must be 18+ with your age in your bio)

Wattpad: simplysmitten

My fics~

Thread fics - Separated by ship (dnf, karlnap, snf, dnn, dnkn), NSFW threads have a warning in red and are posted to my 18+ twitter (simplysmutten), SFW threads that were turned into chapters of “Between Friends” have the Ao3 and Wattpad links, and NSFW threads that were turned into works for my “Beyond Friends” series have the Ao3 link.

Karlnap fics~

Because You Are Love (rated T, 140k, 61/61 chapters)

Summary: Sapnap grew up in Texas, a state where being gay just wasn't something you were allowed to talk about- so he didn't. He never came out to his family and even when he made new friends who loved him unconditionally, he still couldn't bring himself to come out. Staying in the closet never felt like a problem once he moved to Florida with Dream, well, until a video collaboration introduced him to a boy that made him question if he could keep hiding. Now, Sapnap has to return to Texas for the first time since his move to Florida for his step-sister's birthday. What's waiting for him when he arrives is going to make keeping his sexuality a secret from his family that much harder.

(i’m worried) it will always be you (rated E, 120k, 20/20 chapters)

Summary: College AU. Sapnap, a notoriously sullen computer science major, is attending North Carolina State University, along with his roommate and long-time internet friend, Dream. While Dream has been pining over the pretty British boy in a couple of his classes, Sapnap finds himself having a much harder time avoiding a certain gray-eyed ray of sunshine.

*Story is not told chronologically. Chapters will vary from Freshman year (2015-2016 school year) to Senior year (2018-2019 school year). Chapters will be dated at the top to avoid confusion. Also, for reference, 'present day' is spring semester of senior year.*

Your Telephone Calls are my Favorite Place (rated T, 100k, 62/62 chapters)

Summary: Karl is finding it more and more difficult to hide his feelings for his best friend, Sapnap. He's willing to risk it all for his chance at love, but does he really understanding just how much he's risking?

DNF fics~

Please Let Me Go (rated M, 75k, 14/14 chapters)

Summary: Dream finds himself in an introverts worst nightmare when Sapnap convinces him to host seven of their close friends for Sapnap's 21st birthday. The only thing holding Dream together was knowing he could finally meet his best friend, George, in person. However, the person who stepped off the plane felt like a complete stranger to Dream- an unrecognizable personality inhabiting the body of the person he thought he knew better than anyone in this world. Years of online friendship had built up this moment for him, only to come crashing down when George wasn't the man he thought he was.

Between Friends (rated T, 110k and counting, oneshot collection)

Summary: A collection of fluffy DNF oneshots. Each chapter is its own completed story (aside from ‘Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas’ and ‘Homesick-London-Cafe’). Most oneshots are canon adjacent, and so far two are AUs. Primarily takes place around the time of the meet-up.

All paths lead to you (rated T, 30k, oneshot)

Summary: When George is stressed, he has nightmares, and when George has nightmares, he sleepwalks. In a subconscious search for relief, George sleepwalks to the safest place he can find- Dream's room. Dream finds out more than he bargained for when trying to decode George's nonsensical sleep-talking, but he struggles to make conscious-George as comforted by his presence as unconscious-George.

‘Idiot’ means ‘I love you’ in Floridian (rated T, 20k, oneshot)

Summary: Model-George x bodyguard-Dream AU. George has been working as a model for a few years now. His father, a higher up in the English government, insists that George has a bodyguard with him at all times. As an act of defiance, George makes a point to sneak away from his bodyguards to prove to his father they're useless and he doesn't need one. Desperate to find a bodyguard that can actually keep track of his son, George's father hires a bodyguard from a different background- a masked man named Dream. For once, George isn't so eager to get this bodyguard fired.

The Colors We Don’t See (rated T, 7k, oneshot)

Summary: Soulmate AU. Soulmates are predetermined, but that never held Dream back from loving George. When George is finally able to move to Florida, the first thing Dream notices is the way his laugh bounces more clearly than ever before. The second thing he notices is the bright yellow aura surrounding him, like George had stolen the sun out of the sky and placed it in his heart instead. George is his soulmate, that much is clear, but trouble arises when George can't see Dream's aura in return.

Live, Laugh, (Blood)Lust (rated T, 6k, oneshot)

Summary: Vampire-George x wizard-Dream AU. George doesn’t believe bloodlust is real, so Dream offers to put a love spell on him to prove him wrong… but he’s not the best wizardry student.

The Remedy to Everything (rated E, 196k, 50/50 chapters)

Summary: After nearly a year of waiting for his visa, George is finally allowed to go home. Home, meaning a house in Florida that was already inhabited by his two best friends, Dream and Sapnap. Being an omega, George feared what trouble moving in with two alphas could potentially create. He never expected that trouble would come in the form of soft curls and green eyes, sparking something irreversible inside himself.

First Love / Late Fall (rated E, 13k, 3/3 chapters)

Summary: George has been going down a dark path for a while, carelessly using people in order to satisfy selfish needs. He hides who he is from his friends who only know him via the internet. This double life becomes a lot more challenging when someone shows up on his doorstep in the middle of the night. Could this be the event that triggers George to change?

It Takes Two to Edge (rated E, 7k, oneshot, part 1 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Dream and George are in a fwb (... plus feelings) type of situation. After their edging session gets interrupted, George rewards Dream with the promise of fulfilling his breeding kink for the first time.

my honey, my moon (rated E, 20k, oneshot, part 2 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Dream and George go on fake honeymoons, indulging each other in everything they miss about relationships. Then things change when Dream actually gets a girlfriend.

bet your ass i’m right (rated E, 12k, oneshot, part 3 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Dream and George like to make bets, even over the dumbest of things. The stakes get higher when they start to wager sexual favors.

More Convenient (An Arrangement of Sorts) (rated E, 8k, oneshot, part 4 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Dream can't get off without having a partner to please, but luckily for him, George just moved to America. (also they are idiots in love they are so dumb and so in love but not in an angsty way just a "they're so stupid" way)

GeorgeNotFound OnlyFans (rated E, 37k, 5/5 chapters, part 5 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Fresh out of university and struggling to land a job in his field, George finds himself desperate for a way to make ends meet. While his friends have big dreams of blowing up on YouTube, George decides to make an OnlyFans profile. Shockingly, George goes viral on both platforms, making his money troubles a thing of the past, but maintaining his anonymity a constant worry. How funny is it that he manages to make a friend named Clay on both platforms?

Warm, like Starlight (rated E, 53k, 2/2 chapters, part 6 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Humans are banned from touching other species in the galaxy, but George, a cat-hybrid, takes a leap of faith and lets the human aboard his ship, Dream, pet him. It awakens a side of George he’s desperate to satisfy, and Dream is more than willing to meet all of George’s needs.

Extra-Circadian Activities (rated E, 12.4k, 3/3 chapters, part 7 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: George had never grown out of the 'wet dreams' phase in life. He'd learned how to navigate it- never sharing a bed, no sleepovers, not falling asleep around other people for more than a quick nap, etc.- but then Dream had to go and derail his plans. Between the flirting, the touching, the kissing- it made George want to do something stupid... Stupid, as in tell Dream all his fantasies about being touched in his sleep. After George's innocent nap in the living room went on for a little too long, Dream got more than he bargained for when he let George use him as a pillow.

(A dnf love story of truly finding the match to your freak)

Use me or Lose me (Beg for it) (rated E, 16.4k, 1/1 chapters, part 8 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: After Dream's most recent fling fizzles out, he's left pent up and searching for relief. George finds himself in the unforeseen position of being the center of Dream's desire- a desire that he's so desperate to fulfill, he's willing to beg for it. Pathetic eyes and frantic pleas for George to be his sex toy for one night open a can of worms in George's mind. But it'll just be this once... right?

high risk, high reward (rated E, 20.2k, 1/1 chapters, part 9 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: George can't come. Okay, he can, but it takes him a ridiculous amount of time to reach his climax. Dream pokes fun at George about it until he goes a little too far, which leaves him scrambling to make it up to him. What starts as spit-balling ideas to solve the issue unintentionally turns into Dream claiming that if he gave George head, he'd come within a designated timeframe. His off-handed comment grows into a full-fledged bet.

Three tries, a thirty-minute time limit, and instructions to pull out all the stops.

The Dream Method™ (rated E, 27.2k, 1/1 chapters, part 10 of Beyond friends)

Summary: The last thing George would have considered himself was a voyeur…

Yet, he had found himself in quite the compromising position.

George had always known that Dream was a person who took creative liberties when it came to his art. What George didn't know was that Dream could transform something as simple as jerking off into a talent.

---

OR

The trials and tribulations of George's self-discovery to being a bottom.

Happy reading!

<3 smitten

[heyidkyay]

I guess I’ll take this pain, instead of your name |

Part Eighteen

A/n: Hey, this part is a lot tbh, lots of emotions!! But we're also at like 75k words now and this was meant to be a one parter...?? I'm spiralling but I'm also so invested in this fucking plot. Hope you enjoy!:)

Summary: In life, things changed. The boys you'd once grown up with were men now, and famous ones at that. The type that toured the world and had millions of adoring fans.

The five of you shared a shit ton of history. But you also shared a lot of mixed emotions for one of them in particular, a certain drummer.

Warnings: a few changes in pov! Lots of swearing but if you're reading this fic then you should be used to it by now.. um, arguments, tears too.. not sure what else:/

Masterlist

--

(Continuing on with Ross’s pov!)

—ROSS’S POV—

“Dickhead’s here!”

Ross made a face at the welcome received as he made his way through the front door- hadn’t even been here a full minute and yet Matty was already being a prick. Though it was to be expected, sort of like turning up to one of those fancy fuck-off restaurants knowing you’d only be leaving more hungry. What the fuck was it with them and those tiny portions?

He shook away the thought before it could start to piss him off and footed the door closed behind him, honing in on his best mate who was stood leaning against the wall, typing away on his mobile.

“Well, hello to you too, knob-face.” Ross huffed as he moved past Matty to make his way into the kitchen. “Always love spending time with you and your phone, mate.” He mocked and dropped the carrier bags he’d brought in with him on the counter.

Matty gave an impish smile as he slid in right behind him and Ross gave his choice of clothes a quick once over, deeming that he was probably headed out on the pull tonight.

“Sorry, was just texting Y/n. Said you were here.”

Ross paused from where he’d made a start on unloading the shop to frown over at him, “Didn’t you just do that?”

With a careless shrug, Matty jumped up onto the counter and started riffling through the contents too. “Easier. Sometimes she’ll hear me but can’t make out what I’ve said. Other times it's… a whole thing.” He shrugged again, giving a pack of biscuits the eye, “First few days I thought she was in a right strop with me, ignoring me and crap. But nope, just didn’t hear. Oi, where’d you find mini-eggs this time of year anyway?”

“None of your business.” Ross quipped, quick to snatch the Easter treats back before the nosy rat-faced prat could open them up, then went on, “Is it really that bad then?”

“What, with her hearing?” At his nod, Matty mimicked the gesture, only a little more avidly, and continued with his reply, “Yeah, mate. Been worrying over it for a while, enough to speak to the doctor’s about it at her last appointment, but even they keep spouting shite about time and telling.” He rolled his eyes then grabbed at one of the many chocolates that’d been haphazardly added to his shopping basket before Ross could even blink.

He narrowed his eyes at the blatant theft whilst Matty merely grinned at him from his perch and begun munching away.

“Wanker.” Ross muttered before he carried on with the unloading, actively making sure to place all the good stuff out of the shorter man’s reach. “Anyway, figured we’d do a movie night or just get plastered like we usually do-”

Matty cut him off rather promptly with a heavy hand to the shoulder, Ross stopped and glanced between his mate and the opposing limb. Matty’s eyes widened briefly before he hastily pulled away, only to then scuttle his entire body a little closer. The curly headed freak tossed a fretful look over his shoulder out towards the hallway whilst Ross just simply stared at him. 

“No alcohol.”

Ross blinked at the nutter.

“No alcohol?”

Matty nodded solemnly. “Sorry, mate, no alcohol. Doctors orders. She can’t mix it with all the medication she’s on.”

With a scoff, Ross shook his head. “That’s bullshit. What’s she even on- pain killers?”

“Nah, diuretics or some shit like it, alcohol will only counter them they say. Looked it up.” Matty informed him as he fiddled with the empty wrapper he now held. “That and these other ones she has to take for the dizziness and balancing shit she’s been going through. Vertigo or, I don’t know. We reckon it’s down to her hearing though, not the head injury. Which is the only good thing about it.”

With a wave of his hand, Matty pulled away again and Ross had to take a moment to really look at his mate. The same bloke who’d spent most of his life looking for the next best buzz, for only the fun and fruitful times, who’d wasted so many of his years on the edge of almost nearly killing himself. This was not the same person he was currently stood with.

No, this Matty knew all the odd bits of information about medication he wasn’t even on. Who looked so sincere in his warnings, in his understanding of the things he’d gone out of his way to research. This Matty was the same Matty that’d camped out in a hospital waiting room for hours on end, and then stayed for days, weeks. Who hadn’t left even after threats and arguments. Who’d waited with agonising patience during his best friend’s emergency surgery, who’d been there when she’d seized and coded, sat there through her comatose state, paced in waiting rooms and hallways before he could even get to her bedside.

This Matty cared. 

Not to say that Matty had never cared. No because that just wasn’t true. When you were one of his people, Matty cared so much it was honestly a struggle to try and match his affection. He loved and gave like no other. But he could also tend to be selfish. As most could be, sure. But Matty wasn’t the type to mind it, it was the same with his arrogance, his ego, his in your face charisma, too. Sometimes he just didn’t care who suffered as long as he was riding high.

Ross blinked out of his musings when Matty nudged his arm in silent warning, completely unaware of his inner thoughts, and gave him a stern look. Ross frowned down at the action, confused, but it all made sense when he heard a soft scuttle coming down the stairs.

“Not another word about this, yeah? And hide the fucking alcohol.” Matty whispered waspishly, already moving to hide the liquor bottles that’d been placed on the countertop into one of those seamless cupboards he had under the sink.

Swallowing, Ross fought to clear his heavy head and plastered on a grin when the woman he’d been waiting on finally walked through the door. 

—

I halted in the kitchen’s doorway to find Ross surrounded by a very large variety of food and snacks, whilst Matty was faffing about with a couple of glasses in the sink. I snorted at the very sight. 

“Are you actually washing up?” I asked him, bewildered and in utter disbelief. “In all the time I’ve been here- actually scrap that. In all the time I’ve known you, not once have I ever seen you wash up.”

I was met with a playful scowl from the man himself when he pivoted to face me. “Yeah, yeah. Keep on laughing it up, but I do know how to do some basic tasks, darling.”

With a sarcastic hum, I simply nodded. “Sure, Matty. You also speak Cantonese and can deep sea dive too.”

Ross’s sharp bark of laughter filled the room and a gasp from me quickly followed it when Matty flicked a round of soap duds in my direction. 

“Careful, Healy.” I warned him with a finger pointed his way. “Keep at it and I’ll have to ruin that swanky new outfit you’re trying to pull off.”

“Trying?”

“Swanky?”

Both Matty and Ross replied at the same time and I simply shrugged them off before I made my way over to where the bearded giant stood. I stared up at him until he finally glanced back down at me, then motioned towards the countertop with a jerk of my head. Ross raised an eyebrow in retort and so I countered him, raising both of my own.

He relented with a mere sigh and a roll of his eyes, but was rather careful when he did finally lift me up by my hips and onto the side, delicately dropping me just outside the mountain of chocolates he’d since created.

“Ta.” I smiled at him, patting his arm twice before I peered over at the buffet he’d brought along with him, simultaneously ignoring the unsubtle look the two men shared over my head. “What’s all this then?” I quizzed him.

“Movie night.” Was what Ross answered with.

“Movie night?”

“Yeah, movie night. As in a night, where you watch a bunch of films in a row, whilst engorging yourself on a shit ton of crappy food.” Ross slowly told me in a sarcastic tone, “I mean, we can order in if you’d prefer but I spent ages picking this lot out, you know. This one oldie working in Tesco’s kept giving me the evil eye too, reckon she thought I was gonna nick a couple crisp packets or something. As if I fucking would.”

“What ‘cause you’re such a sweetheart?” I replied, fluttering my lashes up at him mockingly.

“Nah, ‘cause I’d be caught before I could get far enough.” He quipped right back. 

“Too fucking tall not to be spotted, innit?” Matty added with a slow nod of his head before Ross followed in agreement, my forehead pinched when I saw that the former had just bitten into a Double Decker of ours.

“Oi, those aren’t for you!” I chided, throwing one of the many Snickers provided at Matty's head.

Matty gave me a mardy sort of glower in turn but snatched up the offending chocolate before Ross could do so instead. “Cheers.” He grinned snidely.

Uncaring, I simply shrugged, “They’re shit anyway.”

Ross’s eyes widened as he choked at my words, Matty snorted. “Fuck off, they are not!”

“Are too?”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

It was safe to say that we were at it a while, long enough for Matty to have slipped out, thrown his shoes on, doused himself in aftershave, and then made it back to find that we were still going on.

“Are n-”

“Alright, kiddies! Daddy’s gotta get going, so can we stop with all the fighting please?” Matty mocked as he picked his house keys up off the side and moved around to where I was still sat.

“Don’t ever call yourself that.” I grimaced, feeling a tad bit sick at the implication. “And are too.” I was quick to add, knowing that Ross couldn’t continue on with our bickering and I’d win. He scowled at me whilst Matty simply tugged me into a hug.

“You sure you’re gonna be alright?” He asked me, for what felt like the umpteenth time that evening.

“Yes. Don’t worry about me, ‘kay? I’ll be fine.” I told him, barely holding back a groan, “Plus I’m looking after Ross so I kinda have to be.”

Ross’s scowl deepened into a deathly glower that amused me to no end, just as Matty pressed a kiss to the side of my head and pulled away. 

“Fine. But ring me if you need anything, yeah?”

I rolled my eyes but withheld another sigh as I nodded.

“Oi,” Ross called out just before Matty could make it to the door, “Where’s my kiss?”

He only received a finger in response. 

—

I loved Ross.

I truly fucking did.

He was just this huge lovable giant that swore constantly and always smelt lovely. But at the moment he was really pissing me off. 

It was just that... he kept on giving me these annoying little looks whenever he thought I wasn’t aware. Just out of the corner of his eye whilst we were sat watching one of the many films we’d decided on.

It was grating. 

Ross was supposed to be the only normal friend I had!

The one I could count on to treat me as though nothing had ever happened. Like nothing had changed. As if I hadn’t been hit by a fucking car.

And he’d been doing a hell of a job of it, he’d been doing so, so good in fact. Before he’d gone and finally cocked it all up. 

I don’t know what had occurred for the change to happen, but it was pissing me off. He was pissing me off. Enough that if he did it one more time I was willing to either snap at him or snap him in half.

But then what did he do? He did it again.

“What.” I bit out, turning myself towards him on the settee.

“What?” Ross parroted back, obviously startled by the break in our quiet.

“Why the fuck do you keep on looking at me like that?”

“Like what!” Ross exclaimed.

“Like some homeless man you’re passing on the street when you haven’t got any change. Or a- a fucking dying dog!” I retorted in a right huff.

Ross only stared back at me.

“A fucking dying dog?”

“Yes, a fucking dying dog!” I fumed- and you’d have thought he was the one with the dodgy ear. “It’s annoying. I don’t know what Matty’s told you, but I’m fine, alright? So just stop it.”

He held his hands up in silent surrender, and I rolled my eyes at him before I set my sights back on the tele.

A few tense minutes ticked by, but I was soon startled by a bag of sweets that’d been tossed my way.

“Here.” I heard him say.

I frowned down at the brightly coloured bag now sitting in my lap, then casted a confused glance towards him.

He dipped his chin, eyes still on the screen. “Your favourite, ain’t they? Used to use them as bargaining chips on tour, remember?”

I did. But still, I couldn’t find it in me to soften my frown. 

“‘M not that hungry.” I quietly told him instead, dropping the sweets back into the pile that sat between us.

“Ah, come on.” Ross groaned, “I’ve been here ages and you haven’t touched a thing. Don’t make me eat this all on my own. Twitter will start a fucking hashtag when they see the extra pounds it’ll only add.”

I gifted him a soft snort in reply, unable to stop myself.

Ross seemed to take my pitiful laugh as an opening though and swept the sickly treats up into his arms before he slid closer to me on the sofa, throwing the mountain back onto the seat he’d just vacated. I gave him a bewildered look but he merely tossed an arm over my shoulders and pulled me in nearer towards him.

“Comfortable?” He questioned and, although confused, I could only nod at him in reply, shuffling slightly to ease the throbbing I felt in my side. “Alright then, good.”

And that was that, I supposed. He continued watching the film without anymore fuss, with me tucked up under his arm and his feet propped up on the coffee table (something that often drove Matty crazy), whilst I had mine tucked up beneath me. 

We stayed like that for a little while longer as the film carried on playing, but I found it more and more difficult to make out what was happening from behind the blur of tears that’d gone and filled my eyes.

I think it was the sniff that I’d been trying so hard to hold back that finally caught Ross’s attention, he peered down at me to find me close to sobbing and I just wanted to curl up and die. His expression faltered ever so slightly before he wrapped me up closer, his chin falling to rest atop my head whilst I could only bury my face further into his chest.

I cried. I cried a whole lot. And I wasn’t even sure why. But in that moment I just felt so incredibly sad and embarrassed, and couldn’t seem to help myself. 

And Ross, he just let me. He let me bawl into his shirt and didn’t say a fucking word, only rocked us ever so gently back and forth whilst I cried my little heart out.

—MATTY’S POV—

To say he was excited would be a MASSIVE fucking lie.

He hadn’t been on a night out in… well, ages. Since a little before the accident, he supposed. 

But both Ross and Hann had reasoned that he ‘deserved’ it- that phrase had pissed him off a tad but he’d let it pass- and the pair had all but forced him out of the house. Out and away from the one person he was meant to be taking care of.

He’d smoked a little over half a pack in the cab-ride over then lit one as soon as he stepped out of it, handing the driver a couple extra quid for being a saint and having let him get away with it. He even waved the bloke off as the car pulled away, then took a deep breath before he made his way over towards the pub Hann had mentioned earlier.

He lingered outside on the curb for a bit whilst he finished off the cigarette and let the evening air chill fill his bones, trying his hardest not to think too much about how Y/n must’ve been feeling. 

But she had Ross there with her, and Ross was almost as good a substitute for him. Almost.

Even so, it was still a struggle and a half to keep his mind off of it and in the end it only proved to be a futile attempt, seeing as he moved to light yet another fag before he fished his phone out of his trouser pocket to text Adam.

He’d actually just managed to pull up their last text conversation when a well-known voice caught his attention, Matty glanced over his shoulder just in time to catch sight of not one, but two familiar faces rounding the pub’s corner. He stilled.

“The fuck is he doing here?” Matty spat out the second the drummer’s eyes met his, and immediately pointed the hand holding his cigarette up towards George’s approaching figure.

Hann was quick to jump between them though, gaze darting skittishly between the two. “Take a sec to calm down, ey Matty?”

“Calm down?” Matty scoffed at him with a breathy titter, he shook his head at the blond, “Hann, ain’t it bad enough I have to put up with him in the studio? Now you’re lying for him and letting him tag along like he’s done nowt wrong.”

“Matty…”

Whatever crap George had just been about to say was promptly cut off by a sharp glare from him, before Adam’s voice then took over. “Look. This shit needs sorting, now. Whether you like it or not, you’re both adults, so act like it.”

“Are you for fuckin’ real?” Matty all but gawked, unable to believe this was the same man who’d looked ready to come to actual blows with George only a few weeks ago. Hann just stared right back at him, undeterred. “What- so it’s like that then, is it? Him or me?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Fuck sake, Matty. No, so stop being such a prat and listen to me, will you? You really think I’m not as pissed off as you? That I haven’t wanted to bash his head against the nearest wall just to get him to think straight?” Hann retorted, and Matty got a the tiniest bit of pleasure out of the expression George made then. “But we’re mates, and people fuck up, alright?”

Matty glanced between them, at Hann’s solemn face and then at George’s hunched shoulders. He did look like shit, in fairness. Almost as bad as he imagined he’d probably looked headed into rehab. Deserved it though.

“Look mate, he’s promised to actually talk.” Hann sent a prominent look towards the drummer when he said that, and even with his dropped chin George nodded at him. “Wants to give us an actual explanation for everything. Don’t you want to at least hear him out?”

Matty took a second to think it over, taking in their mate’s mopey state. George’s entire demeanour appeared to have changed completely as of late, like all the guilt he should’ve been feeling was slowly weighing him down. His shoulders were slumped, he had his hands stuck in the pocket’s of an old pair of jeans, his hair was in dire need of a good wash, and his eyes never strayed too far from the cracks in the pavement.

Matty huffed, then took a long drag as he dipped his head in silent agreement. 

Hann seemed to loosen at it and so he nodded too, “Right then, I need a fucking pint pronto.”

…

The pub was half-full. As to be expected on a Thursday-fucking-night when there was no match on the tele.

It was mostly just the locals meandering about, a couple of grunts up by the bar, a few younger lads playing snooker, and some old pensioners perched in a nearby booth drinking shandy.

Adam had gone and left them on their fucking own. Because he was giant cock of a twat, and of course he had. 

It was probably one of those reverse psychology techniques Carly had been going on about the last time they’d been over, and Hann probably reckoned he’d been slick with it, the fucker.

Matty fought down the urge to do anything but toy with a coaster that’d been sat on the table they’d taken in the far corner. Knowing if he did, Adam wouldn’t be too happy with him.

George was tapping anxiously away opposite him. First it’d started in his foot, but the tic had quickly transferred up into his hands. He’d been tap tap tapping away on his knee, then decidedly moved onto the table, and now the continuous sound was coming from the way he was tapping the backs of his nails against one another. 

It was fucking annoying was what it really was.

“Would you stop that?” Matty hissed before he could catch himself. He didn’t dare look over towards the drummer though, instead he honed his intense stare on the back of Hann’s head from where the man was stood ordering them a round at the bar.

The tapping did stop and for a moment Matty felt like he could finally breathe, but then George shuffled slightly. 

“Stop what?” The idiot asked, his voice sounding like gravel going through a mixer. Matty wanted to wince for him.

“That.” He replied instead, waving a careless hand over at him. “Faffing about with all the tapping. It’s pissing me off.”

Matty didn’t have to look over to know that George was watching him now, could feel the holes being burnt into the side of his head. 

He sort of wished he hadn’t said anything at all then. At least if he went and lost his head to the incessant tapping sound, he’d be muddled enough to not have to be apart of this inevitable conversation. 

With an irritated sigh, he tossed himself further back into the booth’s armchair to glance up at the wooden beams that lined the ceiling. Thinking about it, he reckoned that they’d been in this pub at least once before, only it’d been a whole lot livelier then, and a couple years back now.

“Oi, was this the same pub we almost burnt down that one night we went to smoke a joint under the pool table?”

It was a surprise to even him that he’d gone and asked that question aloud, especially after he’d been so avid in his avoidance of doing exactly that. But having been friends with George for so long it just felt strange not to, subconsciously his body was aware that one of his best mates was sat right there beside him, but his mind also hated him at the moment. 

For everything he’d done, not just as of late, but for having been such a massive twat over the last year.

George must’ve been shocked by it too, because it took him a long second to come up with an actual reply. And when he finally did, it wasn’t much of one.

“Yea- yeah.” Then he coughed lightly to clear his throat. 

“Right.” Matty mumbled and gave a curt nod.

They sat there a little longer, just growing more and more aware of the awkward silence that now stretched between them after the short interaction. Matty almost wanted to snap at George again, if only for something to fill it, but couldn’t find it in him to deride the bloke any further, especially when he sat there looking so fucking sad.

But then again, what fucking right did he have to act as though he’d been on the receiving end of a shitstorm? He’d been the one to create this whole fucking mess!

Matty was far too thankful when he finally saw Hann wandering back over, tray in hand, because his anger was suddenly reaching new heights and even though George looked like utter shite, he felt like the prick pretty much deserved it at this point. Even if they were mates, he’d gone and fucked up big time. So he reckoned he had a lot of grafting and grovelling to do if he even wanted to be spared the time of day.

“Alright?” Adam started up once he’d sat the pints down on the table and slid onto the chair just outside of the booth. It allowed them each to have their own sides and made an odd triangle of sorts. Matty didn’t linger too long on the realisation.

“Cheers.” He murmured as he took the nearest glass and necked a fair bit. George appeared to follow his lead, only he looked a little antsy in his movements, eyes flying between him and Hann as he pulled the pint towards him.

Hann glanced around the table then and Matty took that time to observe the rest of the pub, even taking in the fist-shaped hole that was presented proudly in a nearby wall. Adam only huffed.

“Look. We came out tonight to have a good time, yeah? And we can’t do that until we’ve finally hashed things out. So let's get on with it.”

Hann had a point there, but Matty couldn’t bring himself to be the maturer person here. If George had something to say, then fine, he’d listen. But he’d best get on with it.

“G?” Adam tried.

And Matty glanced over to find George staring down at the tabletop, cheeks hollowed as he shifted his jaw. He didn't reply.

“Fucking hell, man.” Matty blew out, having grown impatient with all the theatrics. “You gonna speak or what? ‘Cause I’m not hangin’ ‘round here all night when I’ve got better places to be.”

“What, like back home playing happy family with the new missus?” George snarked back, the harsh bite very apparent in his words. And so Matty couldn’t help his smirk.

“Jealous much?”

George’s eyes narrowed into fine slits that imitated the harsh lines that marred the skin between his brows and Matty watched as Hann placed a hand on his shoulder, as though to keep him seated.

He, himself, just laughed.

“You are, aren’t you?” Matty found himself pleasantly surprised by that and the alcohol only proved to savour the warm feeling he felt in his chest. “What a turn of events this is, hey! Go on, G mate, how’s it feel to be on the receiving end of all the backlash for once? Funny me sat here on this high horse you’re so used to, innit? Reckon it must be pretty fucking shit for you, seeing me all chummy with Y/n, taking care of her whilst you can’t. Does it wind you up, George? Does it-”

Matty cackled loudly when George jumped over the table to take a swing at him, only to be held off by Adam. He’d still created a bit of a scene though, even managed to draw the attention of the barkeep who gave them all a warning glance.

“Sit the fuck down, would you?” Hann whispered harshly whilst he shoved the drummer a bit, then he turned towards Matty. “And you, stop egging him on.”

Matty’s smirk still wouldn’t dim even as he took a sip from the pint that had spilt a tad in George’s tussle with the table.

“Fuckin’ prick.” George mumbled under his breath, obviously fuming.

“You’re both pricks.” Hann decided, perched on the edge of his chair just in case he need to intervene again. “Pricks who need to grow the fuck up. I mean, you’re meant to be best mates.”

“Some mate he is.”

All humour Matty had been feeling fled in that exact moment and he turned a dark set of eyes towards George. “Fuck you. Some mate-" He scoffed, "You’re really going there? I’ve been the mate trying to help clear up your mess.”

George rolled his eyes at that and Matty felt his jaw tick.

“You know what, Hann? I don’t need this.” He said, and his pint glass hit the table with a resounding thud before he moved to get up out of the booth. Adam jumped up to stop him, crowding him a tad.

“Matty, come on. Just, calm down and give him chance. Please.”

“A chance. How many’s that been now?” Matty replied instead of returning to his seat. “Gave him a chance after he went and broke her heart. Another one when he asked us all to lie to her about not knowing where the fuck he’d been after they'd split. Then again, when he decided he wanted to worm his way back in. Fourth times the charm though, right? ‘Cause how could he possibly fuck up again? Oh right, no that was when he went and let her get hit by a car!”

“How the hell was that on me?” George interrupted through gritted teeth, barely holding back.

Matty angled his body to face him then, looking him dead in the eye just as his lips dragged themselves up into a lifeless sort of smile. 

“How’s it not?” He countered with an eery sort of calm he didn’t quite feel. “You told me you loved her, and when she came to you- when she came to you, George- you just let her walk the fuck back out again.”

“You told him you still loved her?” Hann’s quiet question lodged itself into the tainted air which surrounded them and Matty could only nod in reply, unable to tear his eyes away from George and his unblinking stare. 

“‘Course he did. Outside that restaurant the night she got hit, didn’t he? Jealous then too, of that waiter, weren’t you?” Matty said snidely, and he leant in closer then, palm pressed against the tabletop he kept his voice hushed. “And then you went and left her in that ambulance alone. Fuck up, number five.”

George tore his gaze away, the whites of his eyes swimming. Matty could only shake his head in scorn and turned back towards Adam.

“How do you explain that away, Hann? How do you explain just leaving her?” He asked, feeling his own torment starting to overwhelm him now.

“When I got there she was already in surgery. They told me to prepare myself for the worst. And I sat there waiting. On my own. Thinking about where he was. And if he was okay. If maybe he’d been hit too. Because, the George I knew. He wouldn’t have just fucking left her with strangers. Not whilst she was vulnerable. Not when she was hurt.

"The George I knew would’ve been right there beside me when she seized that first time I got to see her. He would've been there when she finally woke up. But he wasn’t, Hann. He wasn’t, and I was stuck there wondering how many times it’d happened, how many times she’d been in so much pain that her body just couldn’t cope, and had to suffer through it all on her own.”

He sucked in a shaky breath and bit down hard on his tongue before he finally casted a pitiful glance back at George. 

“Where were you?”

Part nineteen>

[canon-in-too-deep]

End of a Series, and Deleted Dinner With Gortash Scene

After over 75k words, I closed out the last part of my Don't Forget You Love Me series on AO3 yesterday. It's a light hearted Baldur's Gate 3 fic starring Gortash x Tav that started out as a rom com and ended with family fluff. The final chapter was a small scene for the sequel The Fluffy Raccon (a fluffy one shot collection after the main story ends), and I just had so so much fun with these characters, I wanted to make a post here to mark a personal milestone. 🦝🦝🦝 The last year, I've gotten back into fandom, which led me back to writing, and writing has led me to typesetting...and it's been a helluva time! I'm having a blast sharing everything I've made in my hyper fixated frenzies, and have loved getting to focus my passion on all these projects. So thank you to everyone who's stopped by to smell the pixels! The first chapter of my Gortav fic can be found here. Below the break is a deleted scene from Don't Forget You Love Me that I wrote for Chapter 3 that I ended up scrapping and rewriting. I found it in my old notes folder, and decided to let it get some sunlight here. I have some more Gortav (Tavtash?) deleted scenes and snippets cluttering up my google docs. If I get time or if there's interest, I might post them here as well. Also if you're just here for free typesets I'm working on more of those too!

Scene: Tav has amnesia. Tav has forgotten that she is married to Gortash. Tav has dinner with Gortash. Tav glared at Gortash from across the dining table.  So what if all the healers and clerics in the city had come to the archduke’s residence and spent days fussing over her, before declaring that her memories of the last fourteen months were assuredly gone?  So what if all the politicians and lords of the Upper City bowed to her and sent her get well missives, all while bemoaning the poor health of their dear archduchess?  So what if even her friends—those that she could get a hold of, anyway—told her themselves that the Elder Brain had long ago been dealt with and her pact with Gortash had been expanded to involve marriage? She still wanted to kill him. “Dearest, at least eat something whilst you glower at me,” Gortash said, not even looking up as he sliced through a cut of meat with a silver blade. “Maybe it’s poisoned,” Tav suggested.  “Maybe that’s how you got me to marry you.  Maybe you doused my food with some kind of love potion, and—” “Enough.”  Gortash spoke sharply, and set down his utensils.  He cleared his throat, and braced both hands against the table.  “If you insinuate such things again, I may lose my patience.” “And what, you’ll show your true colors as a monster?” she said, crossing her arms. “And I just might take more drastic measures to jog your memory,” he said, lowering his voice. Tav’s brow furrowed.  “Like what?  What the fuck are you talking about—” Gortash got up, his chair scraping against the floor as he left his spot at the head of the table to stride over towards where she’d positioned herself farthest from him.

Tav gripped the arms of her chair, staring up with open irritation at the archduke now towering over her.  His dark gaze swept across her features, before settling on her own eyes.

“Perhaps you might remember something more…engaging of the senses,” he mused, his voice dangerously low to Tav’s ears.

“What are you—”

Her words caught in her throat, as a large hand came up to caress her cheek, stroking down with calloused fingers, to end with a delicate hold of her chin.

“The first time, we had dinner together, you refused to eat less there be poison in the food.  Of course, I offered to feed you by hand, but you were such a stubborn little thing…”  His thumb came up to trace her bottom lip.

Tav slapped him and snarled.  “Bastard!”  She got up and stormed off.

Gortash, unperturbed, nursed his reddening cheek, and said aloud to himself, “Ah…she did the same thing the first time, too…”

[tomionefinds]

Sup! Love the work that y'all do here. This blog is my lifeline at this point. It's has helped me during tough times. I actually wanted fic recs where hermione goes back to the past meets tom, falls in love, and then comes back to the unchanged future, where everything is the same but Voldemort remembers her. I have read Building a mystery, Unsphere the stars, Carpe diem, Take my heart away, Tempora Abducto, Somewhere in time, All the wrong choices, and many more that I can't recall. But I would like the fics to be like the fics I have mentioned, and please I want a straight tom and hermione and straight other characters ( I have read too many gay fics and I am tired). AND yes it should be a magical story.

I know this is a lot, but I am really grateful. 🥺 AND if yall can't find first like these it's okay, I am happy that u tried.

THANK YOU SO MUCH !!

Hi Anon:

You've hit most of them and perhaps you've read the ones below, but they may hit what you are looking for. All are magical and all involve Tom coming to the future (or interacting with the future) and only Tom/Hermione- Haus

A Big Ball of Wibbly-Wobbly by Colubrina

M | Complete | 27k

The war is over, the good guys have won, and Hermione Granger goes to sleep in her lovely flat only to wake up in 1953 in the bed of someone she'd really much rather were dead. "I'm working on the 'kill Lord Voldemort now, work out the temporal paradox issues later' plan," she tells him. He laughs. Tomione.

A Wind from Nowhere by Elywyngirlie

M | Two-shot | 7k

She is ripped from time, fleeting, only moments of bonding, before hurtling back to her time. He thinks magic is gifting him to her. She thinks only of survival.

Nightmare by provocative_envy (this one may be the most different from your ask in the time forward aspect)

E | Complete | 156k

A broken time turner shouldn't have sent me back so far. It was unprecedented. Stepping on it--smashing it--nothing should have happened. At most, I should have lost a week. At worst, I should have disappeared altogether. I shouldn't have traveled back fifty-two years; half a bloody century. This should not have happened.

The Itch by seollem

E | Complete | 75k

Tom looked intrigued. “Soul Glass? I’ve never heard of it.” “Oh, yes, it’s a very rare material, indeed! If you look carefully, you can see the other half of your soul on the other side. Perhaps that of a lucky lady?” Mr. Burke winked conspiratorially. “How fascinating.” A slow, predatory smile overtook the handsome features of Tom’s face, something flashing in his eyes as they locked on the shadow beside his reflection. “A piece of my soul, you say?”

[l-e-morgan-author]

Patience, Changing has hit 75k, with a total of 123k of various Patience stories! I think the draft is going to run longer than I expected; I doubt I've only got 6k left in this story, but I know I can condense some of the earlier stuff and rejig the pacing later.

An excerpt:

The phone rang out again. “I’m going to ring the police,” said Jude with decision. “And get them to send an ambulance too.” “Ring triple zero, not just a wellness check. Whatever this is—it isn’t good,” she said. “I know she’d answer, if—if she could.” “I will.” He rang, gave the address in a sharp, clipped tone. Told them that he wasn’t sure but that he knew she was unwell. Convinced them to send an ambulance. “And now we wait,” he said, once he’d hung up. Patience felt cold all over. She wanted to say that she was scared, too, but that would do no good. Nothing she could do would do any good. She hoped and prayed very hard that Aunt Hannah was okay. Or okay enough, anyway. Like she’d said the other day, “Well enough to go on with.” “How long will it be?” asked Mum. Patience began pacing restlessly. “I don’t know,” said Dad. “Should I serve up dinner now, or do we wait?” He hesitated. “Serve up dinner, I think. Though I don’t have an appetite. We can always put the stuff in the fridge and come back to it later. Besides, Hannah will probably be in hospital and we might visit her.” “Okay.” Today they ate dinner in sober silence. Every motion, every small sound was audible. The family jumped. And just as Patience, slowest of them all, finished her meal, the phone rang. Her father ran to the phone, snatched it up. “Hello? Oh—okay. How is she? Is Hannah okay?” Then he uttered a great cry and collapsed to the ground, gripping the phone so hard his knuckles were white. “No—no!” he cried. “Please God, not that!” Patience stared and stared and didn’t move or breathe. Her father was sobbing as she had never seen him sob before. The call ended. He laid down the phone and folded in on himself. “Jude… what did they say?” asked Mum quietly. Very quietly. She sounded scared. “They found her,” he said brokenly. “They had to break in. She was without a pulse, and had been dead for several hours. They suspect heart failure.”

[tragedycoded]

Happy STS to you too, Jamie! I was trawling your blog looking for something to ask you about, but it seems you got to me first :D Anyways, this is your chance to infodump to me about any plot issue you're currently stuck on!

Because I can only imagine how much fuckery there is when it comes to time loops.

OMG it's @leahnardo-da-veggie! Hi!

I hope you're ready for me to bitch about Royston for three pages straight, because right now he's my plot issue.

(Unfiltered fourth-act spoilers for book 2, probably makes no sense, etc.)

Background Fuckery.

OK so the loop I'm referring to right now, their "checkpoint" is the night Tom Huston sent a hit squad to try and take out Royston. It was a Friday night, so Sullivan is there.

"Why is Tom Huston trying to kill Royston"--Huston is the father of the horse thieves from Book 1. Royston killed one of his sons in April of 1873, then mopped up the other three plus his daughter-in-law when they ambushed Sullivan on a train in June 1873. Huston has an understandable vendetta against the little fucker.

75k words in, they've done this loop twice now. The first time Royston got shot in the fucking head.

The fact that Royston has always been an alone wolf is a thread I didn't anticipate still yanking on in book 2, but here we are. Despite the fact he and Sullivan are ride or die, as of this point they've never had to work together in a fight. He also has empathy for the first time in his life (only for Sullivan, and only because of the events of the Bad Ending in Book 1) so I'm kind of torturing him a little with that. This sounds fucking stupid out of context, but Sullivan dropped his crutches during the shootout to get a better shot, and Royston got distracted by the sound, so one of the hitmen no-scoped him.

That loop lasted less than fifteen minutes, it was impressive even for them.

The second time, they did their little blood-knitting party trick and were able to negotiate the shootout with only one dude being left alive. Win for the team.

I Broke My Own Plot

Originally I was going to introduce a bounty hunter who had romantic ties to Gott and was in town because someone wanted her to bring in Royston.

She only physically appeared in 1.5 chapters but the fact that she was inbound and would have caused the second reset (by way of Royston refusing to go with her quietly and them killing each other) was foreshadowed/insinuated/whatever in several other chapters.

Then I started looking at my book 3 outline. Like as a concept. And I realized if Reeves was there, that meant they were on another Bad Ending route. I need them to be on a Golden Ending route.

[truck backing up noises]

Now I'm looking at a seven-square hole on my post-it note board bc I have to fix everything leading up to and following the third shootout loop.

I Can Fix It

One dude survived the shootout. Gott marched him down to the jail, where she happened to find a deputy. (Someone got too rowdy down at the saloon and he had to do an arrest ig. I haven't pinned down what was going on at the jail while Hofer was reacting to resetting in the middle of the night.)

I need to work out when the eighth assassin would be sprung from jail relative to all this other shit that's going on (Gott and Hofer had to go shake down Buck for info on where Mason was, then Hofer and Royston had to drag Mason out of a brothel to go up to the fort to talk to Sullivan, and all of this ended up simultaneously being The Only Option Available and The Option That Gets Someone Killed) because I need to decide if this eighth assassin

would be punished for failing to do his job because if yes -> he's going to go right back to the boarding house and try again;

is actually good at his job;

caught Gott off-guard in the kitchen when he got back over there and if not how much of a fight she put up.

Because Royston's dumb ass is asleep upstairs, how much noise he hears when he wakes up is going to determine how armed he is when he goes down into the kitchen.

Part of me wants to make him have to fight an armed assassin unarmed because I'm an asshole. But wait! There's more!

Want to remind everyone he is a fucking killer bc I've kind of been kicking him around for 200 pages.

Want to show him showing his work to get from "We need to reset -> Fuck it, I'll die." Royston is lazy, meaning he could just "let" the assassin merc him, but Royston doesn't "let" anybody do anything to him. Also he cares about what Sullivan wants, and Sullivan would not want to reset with no clue what killed whom.

He's been "Gott's not my friend she's just my landlady" for like... nine chronological months, but with all the looping and Gott remembering every damn loop it's more like years. Gott refers to him as her friend.

It would be funny to me if after he's been all "Meh it's a business relationship" we watch him kill her murderer, realize the loop hasn't restarted even though she's dead, and then march right up to the fort and convince Sullivan to reset the loop.

When Sullivan hears "Gott's dead" he immediately agrees to a reset. But I haven't sorted out how he feels about having to be the one to do it because I only have an outline for the chapter where it happens, I haven't completed a full draft. I've been hopping all over the place trying to plug the leaks from removing Reeves.

Fuck I can't wait to write her her own story she's too cool for this one.

Conclusion

Infodumping helped me figure out what all is going on in the kitchen to wake up Royston, for which I thank you. Especially knowing at least half of this makes no damned sense.

BRB I have a fight scene to block out.

[mermaidsirennikita]

The Cait Corrain situation is entirely Cait's fault, but I can't help but think about how it indicates how uneducated some writers are about the realities of publishing and what is "good" versus what is "bad".

Cait, based on screenshots compiled of what she said and screenshots she gave of what "Lilly" (the person Cait made up and was pretending to be to take blame off herself) was insecure about her advance and the marketing of her book. She clearly thought she was at some kind of disadvantage, which--along with plain old jealousy and cruelty--led her to review bomb other books (like, to a delusional extent imo--giving Thea Guanzon's The Hurricane Wars wasn't going to stop that well-marketed book with a big built-in fandom thanks to the extremely popular fic it was adapted from, from being successful; she also review-bombed Ali Hazelwood, one of the most popular contemporary romance authors right now, who again writes contemporaries that didn't have much crossover appeal with Cait's books anyway).

Things in Cait's advantage that many, many other authors don't have:

A) Cait is a white woman, which according to publishing trends and also, I don't know, reality, is automatically an advantage.

B) Cait had a $75K advance. I don't know much about Cait's series plans, I don't know her deal, this could've been anticipated to stretch over multiple books. But advances, especially right now, are not FABULOUS for most authors. This, based on what I've seen, was pretty solid coming from the imprint publishing Cait's book, for an adult fantasy with some romance (perhaps enough to market as "romantasy", whatever that is). Which, by the way, is having a bit of a moment, so that was in her favor too. $75K, meant to stretch over a year or more, most likely, is not exactly "quit your day job" money. But the typical author doesn't quit their day job, especially not early. I can think of some authors a lot of people would consider pretty successful who still maintain part or full time jobs, often coming from dual income households.

C) Cait was known (positively) by the reylos, who've had a good bit of success in making books sell.

D) Cait was friends with successful authors like, again, Thea Guanzon, who blurbed her book and met her in person. Having a successful author invested in your work matters, especially when they share your genre space. See: Ali Hazelwood blurbing reylo books. It can help a lot and made it even clearer that this book could potentially appeal to reylos at least.

The reality is that marketing issues with trad books stem to the publisher, almost always. I don't know why some trad books are pushed more than others; I can speculate, but I don't think a lot of authors know the exact formula either. Marketing books is hard. But Goodreads rankings aren't going to make or break your book. Tbh, as much as GR and Amazon are connected these days, Amazon probably has a larger effect on your book making it or breaking it than GR (and it's harder to review bomb on Amazon, especially when the book hasn't come out yet).

It's just... so ugly and so stupid.

[adaines-furious-feast]

you knew i was gonna be up in here immediately after reading the finale lol

but that ending!!! jace finally getting what he wants, getting to have the goddess he'd worked so hard for. and it may not be easy, it may not work out anymore, but he's there, with arianwen in sylvaire.

it is bittersweet in a way. jace got what he wants, but i don't see it lasting. especially if the abernant siblings actually go off and attempt to kill arianwen. we'll just have to wait and see what senior year brings and ill have to imagine that jace is there w/ arianwen even tho canon doesn't know about jace's true motivation <3

i knew the ending was coming and it's better than i thought it would be. jace got something good after the almost 75k words of torture (and the out of universe breakdowns of jace). i'm glad that there's a world where he's out and happy bc canon not reviving him was so fucked up after learning he didn't do this willingly.

anyways, don't think that just bc you're done w/ this fic that you're done with me lol. jace stardiamond will forever haunt me <3

Thank you so much, I'm still crying.

We need to write to Brennan and let him know what's been happening with his characters. Because this is canon, he just doesn't know it yet.

Jace deserves good things. It just feels so sad that he never got anything. I feel like it almost takes something away from "Kipperlilly was condemned because no scar on her chest means she did this willingly" if you then just also say "this guy didn't do it willingly but he's over the age of 18 so fuck him".

But of course, it's not going to last if Adaine and Aelwyn come after their mom. How long would it last even before that?

Arianwen has spent a year with no magic, having to survive in the forest of Sylvaire and (possibly, hopefully?) reflecting on her treatment of her children. Expectations without love and all that. She will be fundamentally different to the person Jace knew, and Jace is different to the person Arianwen knew because he did have a full mental break down over the course of the past year. There's only so much one therapy session with a god can do.

Maybe this would be a better version of Arianwen though. I think she's taken some levels of ranger since she was in the forest. I think she's still "magic is the best", and that might become druid now she has her magic back, but she's not "wizards are the only people that are worthy of respect".

I can see Jace working on being a cleric. I don't think he's deliberately antagonistic towards Kristen, but I can see him connecting with wood elves returning to Sylvaire and talking to them about the version of this god that their grandparents/whoever worshipped and gradually shifting Cassandra a little.

It's fun to imagine the Court of Stars contacting Adaine to go after Arianwen, not because she's actually doing anything wrong (for once) but because her boyfriend has been undoing everything the Fallinel government did with Cassandra. When it's just Kristen and Craig, that's fine, but elves worshipping this goddess again? No, that needs to change.

Thank you again for all your comments and messages while writing this. I continue to look forward to rambling about our piece of wet cardboard with you

[mostremote]

Now that tSS is finished (Congratulations again!)

allow me to ask a million few questions..

When you started it did you know it's going to be this long?

Was this the ending you've always intended or you considered others?

Toughest chapter to write?

Most fun chapter to write?

What was the most challenging aspect of writing this?

When you started it did you know it's going to be this long?

Noooooo lmao. I expected 50-75k and I just got very carried away. I’m much chiller abt my eversnow fixation now but in the depths of my mania I was writing 5k words every day.

Was this the ending you've always intended or you considered others?

This is pretty much the ending I always intended. When this fic was in its very, very early days of planning, it was going to portray a much nastier dynamic between the two. I then had something else in mind, ending with Snow plotting her murder and Katniss getting pregnant to save her own life because Snow wanted a child. But that was very, very early on and the characterisation shook out very differently.

By the time I actually started posting the story I knew I wanted it to end with Katniss and Snow, hand in hand, addressing the nation with Katniss as the new President. Earlier in the writing process I expected it to end with Katniss deciding firmly that she would eventually kill Snow, whereas things ended up much softer and more codependent between them. (Ah, romance.)

Toughest chapter to write? Most fun chapter to write?

The answer to both of these is the same, and it’s also my favourite chapter: “Family”. This went through a lot of rewrites, including starting over almost entirely from scratch. There were all sorts of different versions of this, including versions where Haymitch showed up. It was always going to be the “visit to D12” chapter, but the final version is much more intense than the earlier drafts. I eventually decided to try to ratchet up the tension as much as possible and see just how much this dynamic could take, and so we ended up with Snow putting on Katniss’ shoes (and discovering his cute foot fetish that temporarily ruled me), Snow cradling her face and licking her tears, and Katniss’ final tearful confession. Originally they just had tea with her mum, lol. (There is also a deleted scene I really liked where Katniss annoys/flirts with Snow by trying to get Sulla to zip up her dress. But it was too lighthearted in the wake of Gale’s death.)

What was the most challenging aspect of writing this?

For a general answer, there is the weird mental health thing I went through before Christmas where I was writing this compulsively and giving myself anxiety attacks, and obviously I was processing things through this fic that I wasn’t even fully aware of. (I’m better now.)

More specifically, I think walking the line between the eroticism and horror, the romantic and the abusive, was something I often had in mind. I try not to worry too much about readers misinterpreting the work (not that there’s a “wrong” way to interpret literature but, well, interpretations that ignore significant parts of the text), but there are certain subtexts I articulated more explicitly than I otherwise would. Obviously, I think this is an extremely unhealthy, abusive relationship and it’s objectively bad for both of them, but there are definitely readers who took a rosier view of things. But you can’t hold yourself responsible for reader interpretations that ignore the text in favour of fitting the characters into archetypes.

[fireflylitsky]

Hiiiiii @natsbatscats thanks for picking a bajillion things laksjdflasjdk

Zabutema answered here

Akatsuki Heist answered here

Alrighty so just Main Fic and T4T KakuHida *cracks knuckles* (I will do them in separate posts so it's not insanely long)

I'm sure I've talked about this before but my Main fic (Oh Honey, There Goes Your Bastard) is unquestionably my biggest failure and greatest triumph. It is the reason I got into writing, suffers very much from first fic syndrome, and it is very apparent from reading the beginning that I had started it when I was a teenager. I can hardly bring myself to read anything in the first like 75k words, it makes me want to crawl under a rock 💀

Still, people seem to make it through and enjoy it well enough sometimes, and I appreciate their willpower.

The fic is really just an ode to my love of the Akatsuki and centers around a young woman named Izumi (an OC, not canon--that is how long ago I created this OC, Izumi Uchiha did not yet exist) that finds herself thrown into the middle of this emotionally constipated group of murderers, and treats them like real people deserving of love and affection for perhaps the first time in their lives.

They try very hard not to get attached. (They don't try that hard) It's a lot of shenanigans. (334k words so far to be exact)

I'll share an unpublished snippet where Itachi is begrudgingly helping Hidan figure out what exactly Jashin is by revisiting the cave in the Valley of Hell where Hidan first came into contact with it. (Jashin in this AU is a parasitic entity, the source of Hidan's psychosis, and something he is trying to separate himself from.) Itachi is only inclined to help because he needs Hidan to be able to protect Izumi (she's not a fighter) after he himself dies, and right now Hidan cannot be trusted while he's entwined with Jashin.

“Welp, this is it." Hidan fanned a hand in front of his face, nose scrunching unpleasantly.

“The smell is certainly… pungent.” Even Itachi’s features fell out of alignment.

“Yeah, fucking reeks like greasy dog water.”

It wouldn’t have been the description Itachi arrived at personally, but he supposed Hidan wasn’t too far off the mark. He and Izumi had that in common—spouting off peculiar things. Izumi just happened to be about a thousand times more endearing about it.

“And yet, you were drawn to it…” Itachi mused under his breath with a sigh, staring at the mostly hidden cave entrance.

Hidan caught that and offered up a one-fingered salute. “There were a bunch of dead bodies,” he sneered. “I was fucking checking it out, you prick. Doing a goddamn good deed, or whatever."

Itachi’s interest was admittedly piqued. “Bodies?”

“Yeah, a fucking clan massacre. Pretty sure you’re familiar with the term?”

Blinking back his annoyance at the less-than-subtle jab, Itachi asked a clarifying question, and maybe, perhaps jabbed back a bit. “Oh? A massacre you weren’t involved in?”

“Fucking no,” Hidan drawled. “I wasn’t. It was a massacre neither of us were involved in if you can fucking believe it. This was before I picked up the habit, not sure what your excuse is.”

“I’m only gathering the facts,” Itachi asserted blandly, wishing he were anywhere else.

“Well the fact is, Uchiha, it smells like fucking piss and shit here, so can we hurry this the fuck up?”

“Gladly… lead the way.” Itachi gestured to the obscured cave entrance looking less than welcoming.

Hidan cocked a brow, folding his arms over his chest. “Scared to go in first? You a pussy or something?”

Itachi took a moment, breathing in deeply through his nose, willing himself to think of nothing but Izumi as a reminder of why he was doing all of this. He exhaled just as slowly. “Yes. You nailed it. I am that. Nothing to do with the fact that you’re the one familiar with the area. Now go.”

Hidan snorted—evidently pleased with Itachi’s bending of the knee—and muscled his way through the offending wildlife.

“Alright, follow me, I’ll give you the grand tour.” His voice echoed out from the cave mouth. As if hearing Hidan’s grating voice just once wasn’t bad enough.

At least they were moving. Itachi fell into step behind him.

“So here we have the fucking… I dunno… cave foyer or some shit,” Hidan rambled, walking backwards and gesturing to the small chamber around them. “And through here is some other shit probably, maybe the ritual roo—”

“You don’t actually need to describe the cave… Just take me to where it happened.”

Hidan threw his arms up, rolling his eyes. “You’re no fun, Uchiha. I don’t know what the hell Izumi sees in you.”

“Likewise,” Itachi muttered under his breath, still loud enough for Hidan to hear within the cavern walls. They seemed to amplify everything to an annoying degree. Itachi absently wished it would amplify his patience, or perhaps Hidan's brain cell count.

“Pfttt,” Hidan spewed, shooting Itachi an incredulous look. “Least I’m pretty.”

“Well, I’m—” Itachi fizzled out abruptly, cutting off his knee-jerk reaction to argue that he, too, was pretty. He needed to stop letting Hidan push him into bizarre corners…

“You’re what, Uchiha?” Hidan pressed with a knowing little grin, tongue poking at his cheek.

“I’m done with this conversation. Can you focus, please?” Itachi was not about to argue over which one of them was prettier. That would be absurd...

It was clearly him, right? It... it had to be…