#so here i am writing in a fucking gOOGLE DOC
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oloovia · 2 days ago
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long poem "i hate myself"
literally just pouring out emotion here, bit of a lengthy one i hate myself so deeply within my soul that little girl inside is all i hear the knocking, knocking, knocking the scratching, begging, clawing for some sense of relief relief. what is relief? a sense of calm that lasts temporarily? the quietness that i so desire? does relief come in the form of a pill? can i get it injected into my brain? my veins? can i please just get some sort of fucking answer i am tired i am drained i am e x h a u s t e d  fuck, at this point i’ll take that sigh of relief writers write about a sigh is better than the mess my mind is right now as long as i get the silence i need without needing to be asleep. why does my mind never stop racing, rushing, running, wrapping around every single little thought just give. me. a. break. one second of peace is all i yearn for that second of peace will do more for me than any self-help, self- guided, self-studied therapist journal, video, meditation, coping technique has ever done. back to that little girl the one i failed so flawlessly i feel sorry for her she was once filled to the brim with hope and happiness dancer, actress, singer,  professional fucking clarinetist all dreams that died. all dreams that were unattainable to start with. and realized quickly. now i stay up until 3 am, screaming and shouting my heart and mind  into a keyboard and google docs. everyday is the fucking same wake up: 9:15 work: 10:00 lunch break (if taken): 13:00 get home: 18:00 if motivation is present (typically not): gym: 19:30 if motivation is not present (usual): doom scroll and nap intermittently: 18:00-0:00 shower (sometimes wait until morning): 00:00 journal (in between): 00:30-03:00 hate self with rage and stay in my brain: 00:30-03:00 find time to hate self via google docs poetry: 00:30-03:00 go to bed and repeat every. single. day. all i wish for is one second. just one.
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h-f-k · 1 year ago
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you know it's bad bad when you start writing in your journal again
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crossbackpoke-check · 8 months ago
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it’s all the rest of what i want with you
connor dewar/brandon duhaime :: 8k
Summary:
“Brandon,” Connor says with a sigh. “There’s no baby in there.”
“Not yet,” Brandon says. Connor feels his stomach twist, almost like what he would imagine a baby kicking to feel like.
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in these trying times of dewvorce, may i offer you 8k of pwp inspired by @stillfertile’s wonderful art which i had. several breakdowns about 🫶 anyway please enjoy!!!
#OFFICIAL FIC ANNOUNCEMENT ����️🗣️🗣️‼️‼️‼️ i wish i had pretty fic graphics but alas i have No Skill and also. so much work i should be doing bu#HI SHE’S HERE i would love to say this is a complete surprise drop except i have Anxiety & i needed to ask you guys about it beforehand#in my defense i started writing this in like. january far before any tragedy occurred#because square asked about my tags on their dewey2 art and she spawned like. a million more thoughts about it#including the part where i got absolutely kicked in the face with the lightning vision of those two lines.#like those two lines are the first actual lines of the fic i wrote ajdhkwdiowdjiw ANYWAY please be nice to me i know i am always like#‘this is not the first real fic i ever thought i’d post’ and if i had a nickel i’d have three but this is the first pwp i’ve ever posted#and it’s 8k and it’s not a fic for an exchange (although technically i did very much write this for the dewey^2 hivemind so.)#i have SO many things to say i have so many comments on this doc also i couldn’t pick a title for the LONGEST time and i finally decided on#this one but the full quote was too long:#all the rest of what i want with you that scares me shitless#so. i was angling SO hard to make a yung gravy lyric as a title bc i saw the video of him at a wild game but i couldn’t find a good one#and instead y’all got a very sentimental title l m a o.#liv in the replies#shout out to the extended universe this lives in and also my unhinged comments in the docs.#if you liked fun fuck a baby in him friday i’ll be here all week i promise i am the exact same in the comments as i am in the tags 🫡#the NUMBER of times i wrote something in this by pulling it out of my ass and then actually went back and did the research & was RIGHT is.#far too high. also the amount of coincidental things that dropped while i was writing this (yung gravy song about pregnancy AFTER i wheeze#laughed myself into a yung gravy title the athletic player poll confirming my restaurant & bar choices from googling ‘st. paul good bars’…)#also if anybody got advice on formatting for these little announcements. help. this is different from my miro/luka one &i’m still not happy
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serenescribe · 5 months ago
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40k has been broken. still not done. please help
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mythvoiced · 9 months ago
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-. and some more about jiang cheng, he really just does... not win. like, i mean, sure it doesn't get worse i guess, because at the very least the story gets some kind of resolution, but the story is a resolution for wei wuxian, jiang cheng is and remains a secondary character.
he doesn't have villain to unmask and a mystery to solve and a love interest to finally get together with.
i'm not insinuating he needs any of those things, but he also doesn't really get a lot, unless my memory betrays me, other than being 'forced' to realize that his vengeance towards wei wuxian is misguided and misplaced - even though it's completely understandable that he'd feel this way towards him at all, considering, WELL, IYKYK.
he has a future to build, that is true, a nephew to perhaps raise a little gentler as the story goes on, but his prospects aren't as dreamy as, again, wei wuxian's. and maybe jiang cheng doesn't need all of that to be happy, or at least content, or start on a proper path of healing, but isn't it still relatively maddening for him that wei wuxian yet again seems to be simply... more deserving than he is?
sure, that'd be an odd thing to hold onto all the way from his teen years, especially considering what wei wuxian is put through, but things do stick with you, you know?
jiang cheng is by no means fragile, okay, but... he's a good man too, at the end of the day, at the bottom of his heart. doesn't he deserve a lil tenderness 🥺 a little winding down 🥺 a little no more having to fulfill expectations or live according to what is needed in an heir, in a brother, in a figure of authority 🥺
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sixosix · 1 year ago
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cw injuries, desc of blood, scara patching reader up, profanity bc its a sixosix fic AND it’s scara, wc 500
for @scarahearts the craziest scara main
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“so annoying,” wanderer hisses under his breath, cursing again. his breath is on your skin, almost as scorching as the scowl he’s wearing. “infuriating. is your hobby getting on people’s nerves?”
“is your hobby degrading your patients?” you retort, then yelp when he tightens the bandage a little too hard. “ow— fuck you!”
he smirks smugly at your defeated glare, but it fades quickly and back to a frown when blood seeps from the cloth. 
you murmur and fidget, “sorry for inconveniencing you.”
his gaze snaps up, sharp. that was probably the wrong thing to say.
“thanks for helping me…?” you try instead. he rolls his eyes.
wanderer stares at your plastered arm for a moment too long, eyes tracing the curve of your elbow, where blood is seeping and staining the once beige bandage dirty red. he then sneers, a snarl of teeth; you can almost see in his eyes where he’s replaying the exact moment you were picked up and thrown to the ground.
you almost want to say that shouki no kami did the same thing to you (read: the balladeer himself), but you have a feeling that those canines aren’t for show, and he’ll end up biting your arm off or something.
you’re startled out of your skin when he suddenly grabs your chin with his hand, rough and demanding you to get a clear view of his displeased expression. ...and yet the grip he has on your injured arm is gentle. a mess of contradictions, a push and a pull, a scowl and a brush of skin—hate, and love.
“when will it get in your fucking head—” he enunciates each word by pulling you closer and closer to him, until your faces are a heavy breath away, “—that you have travel companions for a reason? am i just for show? a doll for you to show off?”
instinctively, you back away, a little bit of fear racing in your heart at the familiar hostile face he’s making. “it’s not that! it’s— i wasn’t— thinking.”
“right. because nothing ever goes in that pretty little head of yours,” wanderer muses, readily agreeing.
“hey,” you fume, face burning.
“you disagree? prove me wrong, then.” he still doesn’t let go of your face. and although puppets do not need to breathe, there’s warm air shared between the two of you where his lips are in close distance with yours. “prove to me that you aren’t forgetting i can fight just as well as you. that i am completely capable of protecting myself and you.”
“that’s not…” you want to say that your little incident didn’t involve any of that, but his gaze is fierce. you realize that it may not be your intention, but it might be what came off to him. “...okay.”
after a beat, you add; an afterthought, “you don’t have to protect me. you saw that i was able to beat their asses easi—” at his unimpressed stare, you correct yourself, “—with a bit of slipping here and there. still, i won.”
“not without an almost severed arm.”
without thinking too much about it, you say, “let’s protect each other, then.”
surprise flits across wanderer’s expression before it settles into something like muted satisfaction. “don’t make it a promise, so you can’t break it.” it’s the closest you can get a ‘yes’ out of him.
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im gonna be honest i dont know where this came from like i literally tokd myself if im gonna write a genshin fic itll be HEIZOU. but this bitch held me hostage at 2am with a phone and google docs open — and then i made it happen fr for ellie cus we both lost our minds over the scara art in the 3.8 stream
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marioluigifan134 · 24 days ago
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The Voice of Skeeter/Henry about Nora/Starbitedreams/UmbreonDarkEdge
Hello, this is Nickolas of Miiblr writing for a brief moment here, I need to address what is really happening between us (more specifically, a user named @patti-mayonnaise A.K.A. Skeeter/Henry) and Nora/Starbitedreams, because I am getting really sick of watching people defend this person when they are not an innocent person at all. I will give this post to Skeeter's side now, here's his side of what is going on.
This is about Skeeter's relationship with Starbite.
Everything Skeeter/Henry writes will be in black text to avoid confusion (my text is in purple).
Also, there are some Trigger Warnings that I want to warn you all about, as this post contains sexually explicit and suggestive content and manipulation!
hey. im henry (starby's ex boyfriend, who came out about his actions to the mods.) fuck idk where to begin. maybe i should start with the harmless stuff because god i suck with my words starbys obsessive behavior always bothered me when i was with him. i felt like it'd be impossible for me to even speak to him because of how clingy he could get. this also came to play when i started to get f/os (i use self shipping as a coping mechanism which i guess.. pissed him off??)
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ah! speaking of his bpd! he would blame it on literally everything. especially his hypersexuality. hell, he even thought making porn of IRL ME, WHOS 15 (he drew it when i was 14) WOULD BE OK??? STARBY HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING THAT SHIT CAN GET YOU IN TROUBLE
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before you say "oh henry!! why didn't you stop him??" well with the given ss, i didn't have a choice. considering i was his bf at the time, i thought it'd be best to keep my mouth shut and let him do what he wants, but i was very uncomfy. considering im asexual
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starby, YOU. ARE. MY. BOYFRIEND. i should be having to ask you to comfort me, ffs!!
now here's the flat out racism. before september 8th hit and i was still 14, i was talking to starby about how my dad didn't give me a quince (for personal reasons, even tho its our tradition) and with one google search, heres what he had to say
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"pedophile ass shit" STARBY THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS??? AT LEAST THATS NOT HOW MY FAMILY DOES IT??? you're not even mexican yourself so how do you know???? insensitive ass
anyways moving on, going back to my self ship discussion, he would get very butthurt about my obsessions and f/os (mostly doug, my comfort character and bravoman, my f/o (who is portrayed without his suit and his mii form) which i find very ironic considering he would not stfu about wanting to fuck an old man (taizo hori)
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(context for the last two images) i was in a doug server with him (since he asked and i figured cuz hes OBSESSED) with me and idk i guess he got jealous that i wasnt in the same fandom as him so he found reasons for me to not like doug??? idk but the way he worded it was very rude and i was reached out by two mods and the server owner with how uncomfortable he made everyone felt. so eventually he got banned
..thats all i have to say. bottom line is that i hope he gets the help he needs.
henry out
Alright, Nickolas is back, and I want to mention that me and my friends also had our fair share of experiences with Nora. While it is not finished (as far as I know), I feel the need to share the doc explaining them here, because what it contains should tell you everything in our true experiences.
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dragonmuse · 1 year ago
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How to be a Dirtbag Fic Writer
I got to do some talking about writing today and I couldn’t stop thinking about it so here are my full thoughts on the matter of being a dirtbag fic writer.
Being the disorganized thoughts of someone two and a half decades into the beautiful mess that is writing fanfic (and a few non-fanfic things too).
What is a dirtbag fic writer? 
 I am talking about someone who is not cleaning up anything. We show up filthy, fresh out of rooting around in the garden of our imaginations. We probably smell a little from work. We will hand you our hard grown fruits, but we have not washed them and we carried them in the bottom upturned parts of our t-shirts. The fruit is a little bruised. It’s not cut up or put in a bowl yet. But we got it in the house! It’s here. Someone can eat it.  
Why dirtbag it? Because the fruit gets in the house. If you’re hemming and hawing, if the idea you want to do seems to be big or you want it perfect and shiny. If you’re imagining a ten thousand step process, so you’re not taking the first step? Dirtbag it. 
How do I dirtbag? 
That’s the best part. You just write. Sit down. One word after the other. No outline, no plan, no destination. No thought of editing. Just word vomit. Every word is a good word. It’a word that wasn’t there before. Grammar sucks? Who cares. Can’t think of the perfect word? Fuck it, put in the simplest version of what you mean. 
Write the idea that you love. The one thing you want to say. Has it been done 3000000 times? WHO CARES human history is long, every idea has been done, probably more than twice. YOU have never written it before. It’s your grubby potato that you clawed out of the ground and guess what someone can still make it into delicious french fries. 
Now here’s the critical part. Write as much as you can squeeze out of your brain. One word in front of the other. 
And then I challenge you this: at most, read it over once and then put it into the world. Just as it is. AND THIS IS IMPORTANT: DO IT WITHOUT APOLOGY OR CAVEAT.  I challenge you, beautiful dirtbag to not pre-emptively apologize. Do not make your work lesser. THAT IS YOUR POTATO! It has eyes and roots and dirt clinging to it because that is what happens.  We are dirtbagging it today. Hell really confused people at do #dirtbagwriter on it.  
Dirtbag writes id, base, lizard brain. Dig in the fertile garden of your imagination. What is the story you tell yourself before you fall asleep? What’s your anxiety this week? Your fantasy? What is going well? What do you wish things looked like? Who is the feral imaginary character you’ve been crafting to take your frustrations and joys out on? 
But, VEE, I wish to have an editor and an outline, use a cool software like scrivener instead of retching up onto a google doc and making it look NICE and PRETTY!
COOL! DO THAT THEN! IF YOU’RE ACTUALLY DOING IT! You should have a process! That’s cool and healthy and necessary for sustainable writing. But if you’re not writing because all of that seems too much? THEN DON’T. 
Did you know fic is free? That we do this from love? From sheer desire? For the love of the game? If you have a process, and the words are flowing, amazing, I love that for you, you don’t need this essay.  If you don’t, let us continue. 
What does dirtbag writing look like? 
It’s messy. It’s a little raw and tatty around the edges sometimes. It’s weird.  It’s someone else’s first draft. Maybe it winds up being your first draft, Idek, that’s your business. 
It’s jokes that make YOU laugh. It’s drama that would make YOU cry if you read it. You are your first commenter. You are your first audience (and possibly continuing pleasure! If you don’t go back and reread your own work sometimes, you might be missing out on one of your favorite authors cause you wrote it for you! Wait until you’re not so close to it. Years sometimes. Then hey, maybe some of this is pretty dang good actually.) 
It has mistakes. 
Dirtbags make mistakes, but dirtbags have published pieces. They have things other people can read out there. 
What if I don’t get good feedback? 
Look, the most likely outcome of any new, untried fic writer (and even established writers trying something new-ish)  is that you get no feedback. That’s real. Silence. It’s eerie, it’s terrible, it sucks. I don’t want to pretend it doesn’t. But nothing is not negative. It’s a big fic-y ocean out there and we are all wee itty-bitty-sometimes-with-titty fishes.  
You should still do it all over again. And again. And again. You get better at writing by writing. You just do. Nothing else replaces it. If your well is dry? Fill it with new things. Go do something new, read a new kind of book, watch a new film,  (libraries have so much good shit, you don’t even have to spend money for so many things if you have a library card), just go for a walk in a new direction. Stimulate yourself. Got a cup of something hot and eavesdrop on conversations. Refill yourself with newness. 
And hey, speaking of, do you leave comments? Because you get what you give. You can build relationships with people by commenting and that builds community and community means places to get feedback in the end. Comments are gold. They are all we are paid in. Tip your writers with ‘extra kudos’ or ‘this made me laugh’. And hey, when you go back for a re-read so you can tell them your favorite part? Ask yourself how they made that favorite part? What do you like about it?  Tone? Metaphor? The structure? Reading teaches us how to write too! 
BUT, okay. Sometimes. Sometimes there is actual bad feedback and people suck. 
You know the best part about being a dirtbag? Unrepentant block, delete, goodbye. You don’t own anyone with a shitty opinion any of your precious time on this earth. You did it for free, you gave them your dirty, but still delicious fruit and they went ‘ew, this is a dirty strawberry, how could you not make a clean tomato?”  Because you didn’t plant fucking tomatoes, did you? Don’t fight, don’t engage. Block. Delete. Goodbye. 
If someone in person, looked you in the eye when you brought them a plate of food to share at a party and they said “Why didn’t you bring me MY favorite? This isn’t cooked well at all.” You would probably write up a Reddit AiTA question about it just to hear five thousand people say they were an asshole.   Fic is no different 
And hey, when you dirtbag it? You know you did. It’s not your most cleaned up perfect version. So who cares what they think? You might make it more shiny and polished next time! You might NOT. 
Ok, but what if I don’t finish it? 
Fuck it, post it anyway. 
What if it’s bad? 
Fuck it, post it anyway. 
What if it doesn’t make sense? 
That’s ART, baby. Fuck it, post it anyway. 
What if what I want to write doesn’t work with current fandom norms? 
Then someone out there probably needs it!  And what the hell is this? The western canon? FUCK IT POST IT ANYWAY* 
*Basic human decency is not a ‘fandom norm’. Don’t be racist, sexist, ableist, fat shaming, classist or shitty about anyone's identity on main, okay? Dirtbag writers are KIND first and foremost. Someone saying you are stepping into shit about their identity is not the same as unsolicited crappy feedback about pairings. In the immortal words of Kurt Vonnegut: "God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
You’re being very flippant about something that’s scary. 
I know. I know I am. I know it can be scary. But no risk, no reward and hell, you aren’t using your goddamn legal name on the internet are you? (please for the love of fuck do not be using your legal name to write fic) You’ve got on a mask. You’re a superhero. With dirt on your cape. 
That niche thing that you think no one cares about? Guaranteed you will find someone else in the world who wants it. Maybe they won’t find it right away. Maybe they will be too shy to comment or even hit a button. But your dirty potato will stick with them. They will make french fries in their head.
You have an audience. But they can’t find you if you have nothing out there. 
Go forth. Make. 
You have some errors in this essay. 
PROBABLY CAUSE I DIRTBAGGED IT.  But I picked this strawberry for you out of my brain, so I hope you run it under some cold water and find the good bits and have a nice snack. Or throw it away. Or use it to plant more strawberries (I know that’s not how strawberries work, metaphors break when stretched).  
#dirtbagwriter 
Go forth and MAKE
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ivymarquis · 10 months ago
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I saw that post that @ceilidho shared of Barry looking all “tf are you doing out of bed” and then I had to write this down for John. Sidebar the title of this in my google docs is “John decides he’s keeping his ONS”
Get Back Here
Pairing| John Price x Reader Rating| T Word Count| 863 Content/Warnings| This is post coital with them having fucked like rabbits but everything is above board. This theoretically would be such a nice jump off spot for a darker twist BUT my heart is still mostly fluffy for the cod boys. I am working on something a lil unhinged with Price tho.
While this piece is rated T, I am an MDNI blog. Minors + ageless blogs will be blocked.
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If she has any sense in her head, she’ll slip out from the sheets while he’s snoring beside her, get dressed and fuck off back home.
Of course, how much sense she has at the moment is debatable at best because he went and fucked her brains right out of her skull.
Forget pipe- The man laid infrastructure earlier and it’s already screwing with her head. Making her really have to try and talk herself out of the urge to see where things go. The only thing she needs to see is where the fuck her drawers went. Getting dickmatized is a real struggle and while she doesn’t often go out, she lets the soldier sweet talk her on the expectation that there would be a fair degree of “get in, get done, get out”.
Post nut clarity is nowhere to be seen on his end, as he’d tucked her into the spot next to him with the promise of breakfast in the morning. A well deserved reward on her end for all her hard work.
Maybe her brain just likes to torture her but she starts to think that she’s just not meant for casual hook ups like this. He is kind and respectful and a phenomenal lay and her brain is already trying to twist this to justify finding a way to wrangle down another night with him. She just needs to rip this bandaid off and go.
Chalk this up as go-to spank bank fodder the next time she’s lonely.
It’s easier this way, she tells herself as she peels back the bedding he’d cocooned her in.
Less humiliating this way, to sneak away in the night as the cold bites at her as she gathers her clothes. All the while he’s snoring up a storm, assuring her that he’s still out of it and unaware of her escape attempt that is delayed by not being able to find her damn bra.
There’s a small part of her that somewhat feels bad for planning to sneak out in the middle of the night, but there’s a larger part of her that doesn’t want to hear whatever is his go to prompt when it’s time to kick his partner out of bed and back to the rest of the world.
She fixates on locating her wayward bra to the point she doesn’t notice the lack of white noise as he -John- stirs at the loss of her. She doesn’t see the way he gropes blindly at the space she was occupying not five minutes ago, nor the way his expression screws down into a scowl as realization sinks in when he fully awakens.
She does hear his huffed “The fuck are you doing?”, lacking any bite to it despite the phrasing. What she’s doing is fairly obvious given how her clothes are gathered in her arms as opposed to rifling through something she shouldn’t.
“I, um,” she blinks stupidly. He’s a gorgeous man, just enough moonlight filtering through the window so she can see him even in the dark. “I’m getting dressed,” finally her brain clicks into place.
His eyes are squinting at her as he blinks back sleep, shuffling partly up to get a better look at her, the blanket pooling at his waist. Christ her knees are already weak just looking at him again. “None of that,” he dismisses firmly, “it’s too cold, love. Come back to bed. Promised you breakfast in the morning anyway.”
She has a decision to make, she realizes- if she’s adamant about leaving it’s not like he’s going to keep her hostage. He has to let her leave.
But, her thoughts trail off, it is fucking cold. And that bed is incredibly warm. And she still doesn’t know where the fuck her bra is.
“Come on then, back you get.” He prompts with a pat to the spot she’d previously occupied, and that’s enough to make her fold (she can’t deny that she’s been lookin for a reason to fold all night, even if a part of her knows this is a bad, bad, bad idea). Setting her clothes back in a neat pile rather than them being strung all over the floor-still sans bra-, she returns to the bed and slides back under the covers he’s lifted for her.
Immediately his arm bands across her torso, pulling her in snug against him. Well, there’s certainly no sneaking away now. After a bit of shuffling as they settle in against each other, John ensuring there will be no more half hearted attempts to flee.
He doesn’t snore-likely keeping an eye on her to ensure she’s not going to run again- until she’s securely in that half-awake-half-asleep limbo. It’s incredibly easy to slip into. The room is cold, he is warm and the bed is so incredibly cozy. The math is very simple and the end result is her dozing in the arms of a man she can very stupidly see herself getting attached to- even if he snores like a bear.
Come morning, John makes good on his promise for breakfast.
She doesn’t end up needing to find her bra until two days later.
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aerodaltonimperial · 2 months ago
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okay, i am GENUINELY not trying to be patronizing or condescending right now, but the amount of pearl-clutching and freaking out that's happened in the past six months or so about the wrestlers you write about finding your fic has been quite high, and VERY GENUINELY, if you are one of the people panicking: how did you not factor this in as a possibility in the first place? i'm being serious. how did you, when you sat down to write about real people, not think that those very real people with internet connections and a metric fuckton of boring travel time were not going to find fanfics about themselves if they wanted to?
we are in an age where fanfiction is mainstream. back in 2000, when i was in high school, you didn't talk about that shit, but now? people are reccing fanfics on tiktok videos. publishing has figured out that writers here put out good stuff and are repackaging it for profit. ao3 is a hugo award winning fanfiction archive. y'all. it's out there. it's all out there. this is a fan space. it's still our space. you can't stop them from ending up here, but that's on them, not us. if you're freaking out, then maybe this isn't something you want to be doing. i'm being very serious. if this is causing you panic, you probably should not be part of this in the year 2024. but, like, i would bet a fairly substantial amount of money that at least 50% of them are well aware of what their number one pairing on ao3 is.
they're already here. they already know. they have always known lol. i'm, like, 75% sure i've had lines lifted from fics before, and honestly, that's not a panic moment, that's a fuck yeah i really nailed that moment. you're not doing anything wrong. this is a fan space. as long as you aren't putting it in front of them and they came here on their own? besties, you're good. you're great. it's fine. i'm being serious, please stop panicking. you gotta roll with it if you're gonna be here. you gotta assume that, at any point, someone involved could find what you're writing. genuinely, if you are not comfortable with that, then you're gonna have to just keep your fics to some google docs you share with a few friends. i know that not everyone has had a red alert level 5 the call is coming from inside the house moment, but it's one of those things. it comes with the territory.
we gotta stop freaking out every month lol. take the acknowledgements and laugh about them. it's fun when they give shout-outs! they know what's cookin'. it's cute that they keep an eye on fandom and what's hitting with us. don't put it in their faces, don't tag them on social media with it, just keep doin' what you're doin' here in the fan space and having a nice time. i promise you'll be okay.
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helluva-simper · 4 months ago
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The urge to write a fanfic was too strong
So I am awake right now with the need to write a fanfic that i really need someone to make a actual fanfic out of because my hopeless romantic ass needs something to relate to. So here ya go.
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      You were lying horizontally on the armchair in the lobby of the hotel. You were reading one of those romance books you called, “The source.” The source of what, they may ask. Wel, they never get an answer. Before they can protest you change the subject. 
      You were feeling kinda restless tonight so you decided to chill in the lobby till you felt tired. 
       “He silently chuckled before grabbing her by the hips hearing a small gasp escape her lips. A hand rose and rested on her cheek, slowly caressing it. 'You look stunning.’ (Male character) said with a grin. (Female character) rolls their eyes as they grab his collar and-” “What's got you up so early?” A voice from behind you questioned, making you jump and quickly shut the book like some teenage boy trying to hide their weird fetish from their parents. 
        “O-oh, Alastor. It's you. I was just reading. Didn't feel tired, you know?” You tone screamed how nervous you were even without the complete book throwing moment. Well… not actually. The book rested on your stomach but it felt like it. Alastor hums reaching for the book, grabbing it before you could stop him. “I'm guessing this is some romance story you found?” Alastor asked, examining the book. You weren't surprised by the comment though. Those were the only types of books you read. What did they call those types of people? Oh, yeah. Hopeless romantics. 
        Not saying your partner wasn't great at being your… well partener. But there wasn't much- no. There wasn't any touch in your little arrangement. They thrived off of pure words and small gestures. Which was absolutely nice, especially from them. Who are they? Well, they're standing right in front of you reading the back of the book with an unreadable expression. 
         Alastor hums before placing the book back on to your stomach. “So.. You like… those types of books?” Argh! This man! Why did he say it like that?! You just wanted to strangle him. Yes, your book has its spicy scenes but nothing Angel dust would reenact. You chuckle nervously. “Y-yeah. I guess they just interest me.” You replied. And God! It sounded so wrong. “I mean like the plot. The plot is good. Because you kno-” You were quickly interrupted by a cold, yet soft plush against your lips.
           Your eyes widen when you notice what, or shall I say whom, is causing it. Alastor. Alastor was fucking kissing you. You couldn't believe it. Yeah, you two were pretty much dating but he never wanted physical touch of any kind. At least that's what you thought. Now you kinda feel a bit stupid. 
              You wrap your hands around his slender waist since he has to lean all the way over just to make it to your face. 
                He breaks the kiss standing all the way up making you reluctantly pull your hands away. He offers you his hand. “Now, Darling! Let's get you off to bed!” He says as you grab it. It pissed you off how nonchalant he was acting after all… that. And how warm your face felt.
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I wrote this on google docs without rereading it or writing on paper 1st so I apologize if it's shitty. Because its like...
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in the goddamn morning. And my phone is literally on 2% so yeah. Night! Also if created Plz give credit 😜
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kumquats-are-gay · 1 year ago
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sparing with Johnny, and you pin him down only to find that he's rock hard, maybe some teasing/sex? idk idk
(TF YOU MEAN “idk”?? THIS PROMPT IS HEAT AND I’M ‘BOUTTA COOK!! 🔥💯😤)
Johnny Cage x gn!reader (SFW/NSFM)
NOTE: This will be a two-parter because I just couldn't wait to post what I had already, lmao. This first part only has sexual themes and foreplay, while the second part will have actual smut (also, while this first part is totally GN, the second part will be mentioning afab anatomy, but I will still be using GN pronouns). I'm sorry this took so long to get to; I've been working almost every day for the past two weeks and ya girl is tired, lol. Was super excited to write for this though! :D
ALSO I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE HOW ACTUAL FIGHTING WORKS I JUST MADE SHIT UP LMAO PLS DON'T COME AT ME
Pasted straight from Google Docs and NOT proofread, so please excuse any grammatical/continuity errors/syntax and formatting. I am also still VERY much an amateur writer so pls go easy on me <3
AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51869623
Come On With a Come-on
         For a ‘professional’, Johnny Cage is about the least professional person you’ve ever met. Propriety must be a foreign concept to him with how frequently he flirts with you, especially on set—you know, in front of all of your colleagues and crew? The man was shameless in his relentless pursual of you, like a goddamn dog with a bone. And worst of all? You liked it, and this fact frustrated you to no end. 
         How could you possibly be attracted to someone who is so insufferably arrogant, loud-mouthed, and impossibly far up his own ass? An ass that, admittedly, you find yourself staring at whenever you think he isn’t looking. But, because you’re an actual professional, you’ve rebuffed his every attempt to seduce you thus far. Plus, you had a reputation to keep and dignity to hold onto; you weren’t sullying either when the likely outcome would involve your face and name on countless tabloids. 
         Without warning, his stupid, smug, and incredibly handsome smile invades your mind, and you suddenly find yourself wanting nothing more than to punch it off of his unfairly chiseled jaw.
         …or maybe kiss it off.
         “Grah!” you abruptly shout while burying your hands in your hair, momentarily tugging at the roots in annoyance. God, you had a problem. 
         Bzzt.
         “Huh?” You look down at your hip where your phone had just buzzed in your pocket. You pull it out and flick your finger across the screen to unlock it, then tap on the messaging icon.
         Johnny Cage: Hey, wanna spar later? 👊👊
         You raised a brow. You and Johnny worked in the same sphere for a reason. Action films were your guys’ bread and butter since the both of you knew how to fight as well as do your own stunts. 
         You and Johnny hung out casually here and there, but the two of you had never sparred before. You sensed an opportunity in his proposal, though: an effective way to get your frustration out on the source of said frustration. Shrugging, you figure, ‘why not?’
         You: Yeah, I’m down. But I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into b/c I won’t be holding back!
         Johnny: Woah, don’t go threatening me with a good time ;) 
         Your stomach twirled in unbidden delight at the cheeky response, and you internally chastised yourself for being so easily affected by this man. You and Johnny sorted out the details of your meetup—his place, late afternoon—and returned your phone to your pocket. You would just have to kill some time until then.
~~~
         “Of course you would have your own gym, and of course it’s fuckin’ huge,” you joked with a bit of sarcasm, yet enough lightheartedness as to not offend. Though, you doubt Johnny could be so easily offended; he’s got way too much self-confidence (for better or for worse) to be put down that easily.
         “Oh, honey, you haven’t seen ‘huge’ yet,” he boasted with a smirk. The wink that followed did nothing to abate the heat that was slowly taking over your body, but you did your best not to let the effects show. Since when were easy, immature innuendos such a turn on for you? You just closed your eyes and shook your head.
         “Alright, I am definitely knocking you on your ass for that one.”
         “Hah, see if you can, sweetheart!”
         The two of you stood in your  respective corners and took your stances. One quick little countdown later, and the game was on. 
        You knew Johnny was a very good fighter being a martial arts expert and all, but you didn’t realize he was that good. In all honesty, you figured he was more bark than bite, and that you’d have no real problem going toe-to-toe with him. Unfortunately, it seems like you may have underestimated him. It turns out that Johnny Cage was one of the rare few you had met who could back up their arrogance. Bully for you.
        Furthermore, this shithead was fighting dirty! Well, okay—technically he wasn’t fighting dirty. He was just talking after all, and there’s nothing wrong or “illegal” with that. But it was a dirty tactic regardless, and it only infuriated you further with how helpless you were to try and block him out.
        You pivot sharply on one foot and  use the momentum to lift and swing the other around, aiming the kick at his head. You expect him to duck under such a high-reaching maneuver—maybe he’d follow up with a low sweep with your single foot planted on the ground—so you prepare yourself to counter this. See, before you went into acting, fighting was your primary activity; you won many tournaments and managed to make a decent living off of it. One of the main things you were known for were your notoriously powerful kicks; few would risk trying to outright block them rather than moving out of the way.
         You must have forgotten who you were up against; that was the only reasonable explanation for your short-sightedness. You were not distracted by him or anything like that, thank you very much. Johnny-fucking-Cage just lifts an arm and grabs your leg. With one hand. Like it was nothing.
         The impact creates a loud smack! that briefly leaves you dumbfounded; you felt the force of that blow against his palm, and it was enough to leave the skin there tingling unpleasantly. Johnny didn’t look phased in the least bit with a crooked smile dancing across his handsome features, just gripping your ankle. Casually. Like you weren’t currently being held in the near-vertical splits.
         Johnny took this fleeting opportunity to give you a quick once-over, and his smile only grew. “Nice legs,” he quipped, “bet they’d look a lot nicer over my shoulders.” You openly gaped at his brazenness, and he used your shock to his advantage, flipping you in one fell swoop. You grunted when your back hit the mat underneath you, but the heat that overwhelmed your person (caused by your anger and fury, obviously) had you back up in a flash.
         “Best two out of three,” you nearly seethed. Johnny had the audacity to appear as anything but intimidated. In fact, he seemed rather amused.
         “You know, you’re like, really hot when you’re mad.”
         You nearly flung yourself at him in a mindless bout of rage, but caught yourself only a split moment before you could make such a devastating mistake. A delightful idea quickly sprang to mind—two could play at this game. 
         You kept up the facade of indignation and outrage in order to trick Johnny into thinking that you actually were going to make that blind charge at him. You stepped off of your dominant foot, using the momentum to make a lunge for him. He braced himself to counter your head-on attack, but you feigned right at the last possible second, swiftly gripped his shoulder with your left hand, and brought your right leg in against the back of his knee to buckle it. Johnny was quick to recover, though, keeping enough of his balance to twist and grapple with you as his leg nearly gave out. 
         Ah, so it was time for plan B.
         Before he could finish off the move, you brought your face right up to his, making sure that the two of you were making eye contact, and looked at him with sensual purpose. It was almost enough to disarm him, so to ensure you had the upper hand, you threw him another curveball with a breathy, “I wonder if you fuck as good as you fight.” 
         That did the trick. Johnny’s mind was sent reeling with your seemingly out-of-pocket comment, and you jumped at the chance to knock him flat on his ass. Johnny got the wind knocked from him as he landed with a resounding thump. Not wasting a minute, you straddled yourself across his hips and held his wrists against the floor mat. While Johnny had more raw strength than you, you hoped that the KO would leave him dizzy enough to keep him subdued.
         “Ha! Gotcha!” you barked out in triumph. Johnny just blinked up at you in a daze as his response. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle the taste of your own medi-” you had cut yourself off when you felt something stiff beneath your pelvis. ‘What…? Wait, is he…’
         “Are you hard right now?!” you squawked incredulously. Johnny just shrugged his shoulders and gave you an audacious smirk, as if to say, ‘Uh, yeah I guess so. What about it?’ You were flabbergasted. “I can not believe you right now!” You released his wrists and made to get up, but he grabbed your hips before you could get away. Damn it, his body was so warm, and…holy shit he felt big.
         “Woah now, hang on just a tick,” he spoke like he was trying to soothe a startled horse. This fucking asshole! Why, just why did you have to fall for him? “It is very difficult not to pop a boner when I’m getting up close and personal to the most gorgeous person I know,” he spoke with an immense amount of charm and a surprising measure of sincerity. Your eyes widened comically before you squinted at him with a healthy amount of suspicion. 
         “Oh, really now? And I don’t suppose you’ve used that line with every other person you’ve taken to bed, hm?”
         Johnny just sighed like he was the exasperated one here. “Darling, I’ve been laying it on thick for half a year now. There’s no way I’d still be after you just to get into your pants.” He looked at you with this sort of ‘duh’ expression on his face, like he couldn’t possibly understand your confusion. “I mean, don’t get me wrong: you’ve got just the kind of body that I love,” he added, and you nearly clocked him then and there, but you relaxed again as he spoke further, “but I’ve come to really like spending time with you. There’s never a day that I don’t look forward to working with you on set, you know.” And, just like that, you felt like the stupidest person on the planet for denying yourself something that you evidently could have had for a long time now. 
         You hung your head low and shook it from side to side in disappointment of yourself. You fool. You buffoon. You absolute imbecile. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Johnny took this the wrong way, looking offended, and opened his mouth to say something. However, you were quick to shut him up with a short yet firm kiss of which he wasted no time in returning. He ground his hips against yours in short, desperate thrusts like there would never be another chance to do so, and you eagerly mirrored his movements like they might be your last. Without warning, he rolled the two of you over to flip your positions. Sprawled out beneath him with your hands held beneath his own, Johnny thought you looked like a dream.
         “By the way, I think you’ll find that not only do I fuck as good as I fight, but I fuck like I fight, too—hard n’ fast,” he intoned in a voice nearly an octave deeper. 
         You squirmed in anticipation at his words, and retorted with equal huskiness, “let’s see it then.”
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ilyfynn · 4 months ago
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and it's here. the boxing au, written for mcytblr aufest.
Feinberg does first place, and first place alone.
Welcome to the ring. We hope you enjoy the show!
kier @im-bored-so-i-draw's gorgeous, brilliant art, which is the basis of this work:
@mcytblraufest
thank yous and bonus fic beneath the cut (very long)
many many MANY MANY MANYYYYYYY thanks to:
the mod team for organizing and running the event. i'm unbelievably grateful for the time and effort it must have taken to keep all of this up and running, so thank you for fuelling this creation of ours <3
@theembergazer for perpetually being there for me and listening to yap on about the fic. you are goated and lovely, and i hope you don't hate me too much for it.
@bioluminescentfrog also for listening to me yap. i appreciate it goat <3
@goober890 again, ALSO for listening to me yap. i know i put you through intense torture talking about it. but it's here now. i appreciate you so much - you're one of the people who can boast of having read my works before i shifted focus. thank you thank you thank you <3333333333 the happiest of birthdays to you :3 (everybody wish him happy birthday right NEOW)
all of mcsrblr for having to put up with me going on about the fic. it must have been exasperating. sorry about hiraeth's multiple month hiatus. i love you mcsr - don't you ever stop being awesome ppflower
and last but most of all,
kier @im-bored-so-i-draw.
it has been the pleasure of a lifetime writing this au. i can still remember going fucking insane over whether i would get your frankly absolutely stunning gorgeous art. and then i did and it was absolutely unreal. when i walked into this i didn't expect to produce what i ended up producing. i never would've dreamed of writing a 22k+ fic in 2 months.
and kier, you have GOT to know this, half of the writing was done by you. if not in reality, then in spirit - all those times i thought i was going insane by staring at the doc, you pulled me out of it. i am absolutely, eternally grateful for your consistent presence throughout this entire journey. because that's what it was, wasn't it? a journey, starting with new beginnings and ending with - if i allow myself not to be modest for a moment - a masterpiece. this is my longest work to date. and i have you to thank for that. from complaining endlessly in the google doc to watching httyd together, you have been there the whole time, and i cannot stress enough how absolutely wonderful all this has been.
so thank you. thank you! thank you for everything. thank you for starting this gorgeous au with your art, and thank you for making it come alive in the same way. your art is absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, impeccably beautiful. i am in love with it.
thank you for choosing to participate in the aufest at all, and thank you for supporting me as i mentally collapsed struggled to write halfway through. thank you for your patience, and kindness, and all those words and emotes and gifs - they mean so much, and i will forever be grateful.
i could not have done this without you, kier. we've made it, see? we've made it! look how far we have come. only the Universe can see how thankful i am. i love you because you are love. you are one of the kindest, most brilliant people i have ever interacted with. remember that.
i hope the future holds more for the both of us. i absolutely hope that we will immediately recollab on - gets shot and dies
but i couldn't let this go without gifting you something you haven't seen yet. so. just for you, have silverrreign's side of the story.
enjoy :3 (for those who are not kier please read the main fic first there are spoilers 😭)
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moonshynecybin · 5 months ago
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what would you consider essential marc and rosquez watching? i don’t mean races but the stuff happening around it, there seems to be so much and idk where to start 😭
BIG ass question. i think it depends what you want outta this and how you best interact with content slash consume information. for me (not to brag but. winner of multiple historical essay writing competitions in high school. for context on the kind of freak i am bringing to the table here.) the research is kind of the fun part ! like i just started googling shit! i would go to inactive blogs and just search 'marquez' on them to see what would happen ! a lot of the times that works ! but it also takes a lotttt of time lol so i'll chuck some good resources your way, why not...
okay im not sure how basic we're talkin here but um. background. so the documentaries are, i think. the best place to start. theyre entertaining and offer a good amalgamation of clips to provide context for the actual racing. and like i know you de-emphasized racing (which is fine lol who cares) but it really is like the most important thing in the world to these fools and its a pretty visual sport so i think its at least helpful. like yes sepang IS about the press conference, but its also about the conversation they have ON the race track using their motorcycles. which is also somewhat a conversation that they HAVE been having all year long...
i'd start with hitting the apex (2013), its a GREAT introduction to the "characters" that does a lot of legwork to contextualize everything. lays the scene for where vale is at coming into his relationship with marc (both personally, wrt to marco simoncelli, and career-wise concerning his flop at ducati), and also how insane marc's whole deal is in general. the second half is. materially a study on what him entering the premiere class did to the sport as a whole. the introductory chapter in many respects
marc marquez: all in. MY introduction and blissfully free online. marc comma in his own words, with all the implications of that. a self-produced documentary where he is giving feedback about the edit of said documentary straight to camera and no less vulnerable because of it which is very marc imo. revealing both intentionally AND unintentionally about his whole deal with injury, vale, and his image.
motogp unlimited. im gonna be real kind of boring. like i would still watch it ! but do it kind of later, once you know the major players so youre automatically more invested. it doesnt really give you more than marc says himself in all in tbh, and i get the sense him and vale were NAWWWT interested in doing more than the bare minimum for it.
marc's rookie doc. free and subtitled on the youtubes. the first half of this is deadass just him wanting to fuck vale so bad while every comment from vale has me saying GIRL. out loud because the foreshadowing would be genuinely shocking if this was fiction. anyways the laguna seca of it all....
next i would hit up PODCASTS ! i think it makes sense after the documentaries, because these are all podcasts that arent strictly about rosquez (even if they are in many ways the main characters lmao) and personally it helps to put faces to lesser known names that might pop up before i listen to a purely audio product and get lost in the soup of sounds. the paddock pass podcast has two retrospective episodes about the 2015 season that are really good at context, oxley bom pod has a fun recent episode on valentino that i love, again just poke around a lil
videos. these guys have never filmed a lot of content together tragically. what i wouldnt give for someone to make them do an escape room. anyways ranch visit HERE (post explaining the ranch visit here). sepang presscon (sowwy) here. vale unhinged podcast interview the month after marc's documentary came out here. vale retirement interview where he gets asked about marc here. vale talking about asking marc to the ranch here. vale postrace at argentina 2018 here. UCCIO postrace at argentina 2018 here. theres a lot moreeeee just go on my blog archive and filter for rosquez and vids its easier lol
journalism. hello. okay so you should genuinely spend some time reading through mat oxley's stuff he can write (theres a paywall but you can run that shit through wayback machine). he also loves an insane comparison which i do enjoy.... again this is one that can be solved by googling his name and tacking on 'marquez' or 'rossi' or a specific time period or race it will probably reap some dividends. in terms of specific ass articles this one is kind of load bearing in terms of sepang and some of the interpersonal competitive tensions at play. that being said there are manyyyyyy crazy interviews and snippents of articles from other journos floating around motogp tumblr (like literally too many to link) adn its fun to dig around to find them, but mat oxley gets a shoutout because i was reading this article TODAY !
other content. honestly one of the best resources I'VE found for plotting out the arc of their relationship is @kingofthering's everyrosquezpodium series. you can REALLY see it play out lol. also her tagging system rules she very neatly lays out years and races... so if something jumps out at you, CLICK ITTTT ! also all of @ricciardoes fave presscon moments series. insane.
all this to say a small little rpf fandom like this rewards some digging! i would just recommend following narrative threads that interest you ! its also a small fanbase that is pretty research oriented, so if youre ever confused about somethin, just shoot an ask or run a search on someone's blog (@kwisatzworld has endless vale resources and @batsplat is one of the most thorough researchers ive ever seen, for example) like for real theres so much... i also have a primer that i made forever ago that has some links on it so you can peruse that if you so wish. but frankly a lot of it is just using those research muscles and being sufficiently deranged enough to be screenshotting reddit threads at one am so you can post them to tumblr because they mentioned marc and vale in the same sentence and that lit up some of the neurons in your brain
(and i know you said outside of races but i think theyre good benchmarks as turning points soooo you should do some diggin on laguna seca 2013, jerez 2015, argentina 2015, ASSEN 2015, sepang 2015 obvi, argentina 2018, and misano 2019. those are the big tentpoles of insane rosquez relationship drama imo. i mean theres many more but. im limiting myself.)
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lucky-clover-gazette · 5 months ago
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kings rising highlights & annotations
chapter 2
(easily the most chaotic commentary i've done so far)
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indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!
also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!
i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.
this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.
CHAPTER TWO
okay so this is the first of two laurent pov chapters we ever get, and it’s an intense torture/interrogation scene. this works SO well with the “laurent is in a different genre” bit. like the reader is not only getting his perspective, but the entire vibe just shifts. damen is a passing thought. this is a psychological thriller now, full stop, for this chapter. for the first time in the series, a first-time reader gets an idea that laurent is living a totally different flavor of reality than they’ve been reading. it’s genius to put this here and now, right before the reveal, as we’re scrambling to put everything together and hurting emotionally on damen’s behalf. like, fuck the emotions and romance, we’re doing a gritty torture scene. because that’s just how it is for laurent on this bitch of an earth, as a result of his own ridiculous choices and in general
Laurent woke slowly, in dim light, to the sensation of restriction, his hands tied behind his back. Throbbing at the base of his skull let him know he had been hit over the head. Something was also inconveniently and intrusively wrong with his shoulder. It was dislocated.
oh you know i’m annotating every little detail of this man’s internal narrative. for two scenes i get to be inside laurent’s brain and i am taking every opportunity to document things about his way of thinking that are outside of damen's perception. this is cs pacat allowing me to learn things about the way laurent's mind works, that can re-contextualize the entire rest of the series. i am calling these details, which i would not be able to ascertain if not for a single chapter being from laurent's pov, “cool laurent facts.”
cool laurent fact #1: laurent orients himself in a new situation first and foremost based on the current state of his own person—physical, mental, emotional—and his surroundings. from that, he uses inductive reasoning to understand what is going on.
inductive reasoning is a method of thought that typically goes from specific and limited observation to general conclusion. from what we know of laurent, the idea of him using inductive reasoning on a regular basis makes a lot of sense. laurent might be "mr. probably" who does random insane shit, but the truth is that laurent thinks through almost all of his random insane shit before he does it. the exceptions to this are almost always narratively significant, and they happen when laurent's emotions overwhelm his ability to reason things through at all.
so, like, in this quote: "throbbing at the base of his skull let him know he had been hit over the head." the observation is the physical pain, specifically at the base of his skull. the conclusion is that he was hit in the head. it's a reasonable general conclusion, even if it could potentially be correct.
then we have "something was also inconveniently and intrusively wrong with his shoulder. it was dislocated." observation: shoulder is not working as intended, and in fact is so dysfunctional that it's intrusive. conclusion: it's dislocated.
the entire time, as laurent is thinking these things, he isn't actually DOING anything. and this, i think, is what tends to drive damen (and the attentive reader) insane, because with the exception of these alternate pov chapters, we don't actually get to live in laurent's head. while we know that laurent is thinking things through almost all of the time, our confusion comes with the fact that we can't even begin to guess WHAT laurent is thinking. and since laurent thinks before he acts, we are usually forced to reverse-engineer how the fuck he got to the conclusion AFTER the resulting action has actually been taken. and that is exactly why my annotations about laurent are the way they are in the first place.
so what happens when laurent gets it wrong? because laurent's observations are ultimately limited, and he prefers to come to a conclusion before acting, any flawed conclusions he makes can lead to immense miscalculations. to someone like damen, these miscalculations are both frustrating and avoidable, because damen is much more likely to use deductive reasoning instead.
deductive reasoning uses pre-existing general premises to come to specific conclusions. we see it a lot in damen's pov, in which the things he "knows" about the world are what often inform the action he takes. these aren't personal and specific ideas, but extant generalized theories and conclusions, which are then either proven correct or incorrect once tested. in general, this means that damen tends to act first and think second—the opposite of laurent. it's pretty obvious how this can be to damen's detriment, especially since we read the series almost entirely in his pov. a good overarching example of his deductive reasoning is the way his perspective on akielion slavery shifts throughout the series. he starts out in book 1 believing that there is honor in submission, slavery is a pact, slaves are consenting, and all slave owners uphold standards of "decency" just as he himself does. but then as damen interacts more with the world of slaves and pets, and is made a slave himself, he realizes that those conclusions were incorrect. then he assumes a new conclusion—slavery is an irredeemable institution—and acts based on that instead.
the strength of damen's deductive reasoning, compared to laurent's inductive reasoning, is the adaptability it allows. damen gets shit done when it needs to be done. he might get it done in a way that's messy or artless, lacking all of the pertinent details to do it perfectly, but his ability to apply a theory to a situation and then play it out is a great counterpoint to laurent's general approach, in which things are overthought so thoroughly that action is not taken in a timely or responsive manner. like, we literally see that in the wall grate scene in prince's gambit, which is then referenced again while they're discussing war strategy.
of course, this isn't to say that laurent's inductive reasoning isn't also adaptable. he can adapt to a situation by thinking really hard about it, drawing a conclusion, and then making his move. it's just distinctively different to read that kind of internal process from him as a pov character, compared to damen's typical way of thinking. it's part of this genre shift, i think, because it's so stressful and meticulous. this is thriller/crime/mystery genre thinking, not romance novel or war/action novel thinking. we have gone from a pov character who is like 70% impulse-driven, to a character who in his right mind wouldn't even consider following an impulse unless it was thoroughly thought through, at which point it would fail to be an impulse at all. damen is built to be a romantic lead and action hero. i can't really think of literary examples because i don't read a lot of romance and action books, but idk, disney's hercules or adora from she-ra come to mind. meanwhile laurent is built to be in a gillian flynn or [insert more niche thriller authors i enjoy] novel.
all that is to say, this isn't damen's mind anymore, and we know it from the first few sentences of the chapter. if this chapter was being experienced by damen instead, i think the opening would go something like this: "damen woke to the sensation of restriction and immediately fought against his restraints. he was not able to free himself. he also realized, in his attempt and failure to free himself, that his shoulder was dislocated."
it seems like a minor difference, and maybe it is. but i find it fun to contrast the narrative perspectives of these two fascinating characters, and i like making my own observations and conclusions. i started my annotations back in books 1 and 2 with mostly inductive reasoning, making theories from my observations, but farther into book 2 and definitely in book 3 i can now use deductive reasoning to draw conclusions about characters and events using pre-existing theories. if i'm wrong, i adjust the theory, and that adjusted theory becomes the basis through which i interpret future events. and so on. the two types of thought work beautifully together, and ideally we should all be able to use both. that's part of why damen and laurent are able to help each other grow so much as people and leaders—they're balancing each other out by mutual exposure to opposing ways of thinking.
also, another little note on this specific passage: i love laurent's snarky dismissive attitude towards his own pain, and the hint of dissociation from his physical form. i would guess that laurent thinks in a similar way about pleasurable physical sensations, too: "something was inconveniently and distractingly happening with his body. he was aroused." fuckin weirdo <3
As his lashes fluttered and his body stirred, he became hazily aware of a stale odour, and a chilled temperature that suggested that he was underground. His intellect made increasing sense of this: there had been an ambush, he was underground, and since his body didn’t feel as if it had been transported for days, that meant— He opened his eyes and met the flat-nosed stare of Govart.
i love when i predict/analyze something in detail and then it’s immediately proven correct by the following lines. laurent going on this whole inductive mind journey before realizing that govart is LITERALLY IN HIS FACE is sooooo laurent, and so NOT damen. like forget what i said before, if this was damen's pov, the chapter would simply start with "govart stared at damen."
again, this is a great way to immediately let the reader know that things are going to be different from this pov. yes yes yes yes
Panic spiked his pulse, an involuntary reaction, his blood beating against the inside of his skin like it was trapped. Very carefully, he made himself do nothing.
yeah i have a feeling the sex scenes from laurent’s pov would read a lot like this too
The cell itself was about twelve feet square, and had an entrance of bars but no windows. Beyond the door there was a flickering stone passageway. The flickering came from a torch on that side of the bars, not from the fact that he had been hit over the head. There was nothing inside the cell except the chair he was tied to.
he’s just like me fr, both in real life and how i figure things out while writing/playing d&d (“what are the environmental features, and what do they imply?” “what items can be used, and how?” etc.)
He was hit by the memory of what had happened to his men, and put that, with effort, out of his mind.
cool laurent fact #2: it takes effort for him to put aside his concern for the well-being of people he cares about. this is not what most people would assume, based on how he acts and speaks
He understood that he faced his death, before which would come a long, painful interval.
observation: he’s in a prison cell with govart specifically conclusion: he’s going to be killed, but also tortured for a whiiiiile first because govart hates him so bad
maybe that's redundant, but i just appreciate how his pov really is written like an analysis within itself. it's great. he's an observer of his own story, as well as a participant. damen doesn't usually think from such a detached angle
A ludicrous boyish hope flared that someone would come to help him, and, carefully, he extinguished it.
cool laurent fact #3: sometimes, he hopes. it takes effort for him to extinguish hope within himself (“carefully”), but he believes that doing so is necessary in order to assess circumstances like a rational adult. but still, he does hope.
in just this one sentence, we are told so much. we now know that laurent believes that hope is inherently irrational and childish, which absolutely tracks with the other things we know about his character. we can see it in his choices throughout the series so far, and we can understand exactly why he believes this based on his backstory.
Since the age of thirteen, there had been no rescuer, for his brother was dead.
as i was saying, about laurent's backstory,
also. damen exists. he literally threw a sword at a guy trying to kill you in the last book. laurent you are so smart and you are so stupid and i can’t imagine your pov being written any other way
He wondered if it was going to be possible to salvage some dignity in this situation, and cancelled that thought as soon as it came. This was not going to be dignified.
in almost every instance where someone has been given the opportunity to assault or objectify laurent in a sexual context, they’ve taken it. damen is basically the only living exception.
deduction: laurent cannot get out of this situation without being assaulted, so there's no point in trying to salvage his dignity
BUT like, unless i am completely missing something entirely between the lines, govart doesn't even attempt to sexually assault laurent in this scene. maybe that's not what laurent means here, in terms of dignity? curious what people think about this. because like on first read especially, my immediate thought when this scene started was "oh fuck am i going to have to sit through a scene of laurent being sexually assaulted", since everyone (including govart) talks so much about wanting a piece of him. so i guess it's like, was laurent thinking about that here, or was it just me? curious what others think too
also "cancelled that thought" is just slightly anachronistic, and PERFECT. love it.
He thought that if things got very bad, it was within his capabilities to precipitate the end. Govart would not be difficult to provoke into lethal violence. At all.
“if i’m going to die, i’d rather be in control of the dying. and i know i could totally piss this dude off into killing me before he means to do so, and then i would technically win. ha-ha.”
i love the slight hint of childish antagonism here, with the “at all.” like laurent needs to take the moment to roast govart in his own head, while considering the logistics of his own imminent death. it is so funny to me that we finally get this scene, where laurent gets to be in the genre he's been living for the past two books, but no one actually relevant to the story gets to witness it for themselves. laurent is moonlighting in this scene as a character in a book that isn't this book at all. he's taking a break from the romance and realism-based war strategy shit to be an out-of-his-depths thriller protagonist taking on antagonists that should absolutely be able to defeat him immediately, but somehow managing to survive by absurd unconventional means AND being snarky about it. damen has seen hints of this side of laurent, and paid attention, and so have we as the reader. but this is just… full-intensity. the narrative is allowing him to have it, and allowing us to see him have it. it’s like we’ve been only watching the a-plots of phineas and ferb episodes the whole time, and assumed that perry is probably doing some cool stuff in the b-plot, and gotten a few glimpses via dramatic irony… but now we actually get to see the perry b-plot, and it's fucking awesome. but the a-plot cast will still never know.
The chair, made of heavy oak, appeared to have been dragged in for his benefit, which was civilised or sinister, depending on how one looked at it.
yeah this is the internal monologue of a person who grew up reading books more than talking to people. just being witty in the prose of his own brain for funsies
He thought that Auguste would not be afraid, being alone and vulnerable to a man who planned to kill him; it should not trouble his younger brother.
of course there’s the damen of it all, but i also like how this sentence suggests just how often laurent really does think about auguste. looking back at past scenes and imagining laurent having auguste constantly on the mind really adds a new dimension of tragedy to his existence, and further depth to his initially hateful and eventually conflicting feelings for damen. we could have assumed this without seeing laurent's pov, but it's nice to see hints in the text.
It was harder to let go of the battle, to leave his plans at their midway point, to accept that the deadline had come and gone, and that whatever now happened on the border, he would not be a part of it.
yeah forget about my entire breakdown last chapter bc i didn’t want to assume laurent meant to be there and end up disappointed. he meant to be there. good job laurent
The Akielon slave would (of course) assume treachery on the part of the Veretian forces, after which he would launch some sort of noble and suicidal attack at Charcy that he would probably win, against ridiculous odds.
1) laurent refusing to use damen’s name in HIS OWN HEAD is so fucking funny
2) “(of course)” cool laurent fact #3: he thinks everyone is probably going to assume the worst of him the majority of the time, including damen. cool laurent fact #4: he thinks in parentheticals, which makes sense
3) i like how in the same sentence where laurent is trying to distance himself from damen with the name thing, he also admits that 1) he knows damen is a good and noble enough person to fight, and 2) he (laurent) knows that damen is going to win, and is therefore not overly concerned. which means he would be concerned if he thought damen couldn’t win. probably for the best tbh laurent has a lot on his plate already
4) talk about ridiculous odds, laurent, you literally kill someone with a chair in this chapter
One on one: he must think about what he could practically achieve.
me trying to do The Tasks with adhd
Fighting free of his bonds at this moment would accomplish, precisely, nothing. He told himself that: once; then again, to quell a deep, basic urge to struggle.
i like how this is put. i can imagine laurent talking to himself in his head throughout a lot of the series. he separates his base human urges from his rational mind and then uses the latter to placate the former. as long as he can manage to keep reason in control of emotion, this is effective. but when he can’t manage it… lol
also “accomplish, precisely, nothing” is great. he didn’t need to throw the “precisely” in there, it probably just made him feel wittier. even inside his own head to an audience of himself (that he knows of), laurent has to quip
‘We’re alone,’ Govart said. ‘Just you and me. Look around. Take a good look. There’s no way out. Not even I have a key. They come to open the cell when I’m done with you. What do you have to say to that?’ ‘How’s your shoulder?’ said Laurent.
i don’t want to be redundant, but i really am just delighted by this genre dissonance. i’m trying to read more of the romance genre, that's what brought me to capri, but THIS is the shit i'm used to.
The blow rocked him back. When he lifted his head, he enjoyed the look he had provoked on Govart’s face, as he had enjoyed, for the same reason—if a bit masochistically—the blow.
cool laurent fact #5: if the bit is good enough he’ll take the subsequent pain. hell, he’ll even enjoy it
god i want to read a thriller novel with laurent as the protagonist SO BAD. i think if pacat ever writes capri again she should do that, and have damen like. kidnapped. it’s not indulgent romance fluff like summer palace, it’s laurent doing badass chaotic hero shit trying to find his fucking wife
He forced himself to keep his voice steady.
i wonder how many times he thought this throughout the series. probably many
‘I think you have one piece of leverage over a very powerful man. I think whatever it is you have on him, it’s not going to last forever.’
context, as i recall: govart knows that the regent had his brother killed, i think? and he has the evidence to substantiate that claim if it was ever made. laurent pieces this together with guion, somehow, offscreen at the end of this chapter. or maybe he finds out later from loyse? but i feel like laurent is more proactive than that
‘Want me to tell you why you’re here? Because I asked him for you. He gives me what I want. He gives me whatever I want. Even his untouchable nephew.’
again, i'm kinda shocked that govart doesn’t actually try to do anything sexual with laurent here. i mean i'm glad that he doesn't, but also this quote makes it sound like that’s why govart asked in the first place. maybe it was just for violent revenge though, and humiliation?
also, like, how exactly did laurent get here? sounds like his forces were expected and overpowered at the fort, right? and he just kinda… got handed off to govart, under the regent’s blessing and guion’s supervision?
'At some point one of us will dispatch the other.’ He made himself speak without undue emotion, just a mild remark on the facts.
probably not surviving this, nbd (but still actively putting effort into regulating his emotions so he can survive)
digging into this more: i personally have this thing where my response to seemingly insurmountable odds, especially emotional ones, tends to be “once i’ve survived this, how will i explain how i did it?”
this whole approach is demonstrated really well in the masterpiece of a doctor who episode “heaven sent." it's first and foremost a meditation on persistence and grief, which are two themes very relevant to laurent's overall story. laurent’s approach to withstanding torture in this chapter, as well as his manner of survival after auguste's death, remind me a lot of "heaven sent" and my own personal methodology. fuck it, here are some laurent-coded "heaven sent" quotes, as a treat:
"The first rule of being interrogated is that you are the only irreplaceable person in the torture chamber. The room is yours, so work it. If they're going to threaten you with death, show them who's boss. Die faster."
"Rule one of dying: don’t. Rule two: slow down. You’ve got the rest of your life. The faster you think, the slower it will pass. Concentrate. Assume you’re going to survive. Always assume that. Imagine you’ve already survived. There’s a storeroom in your mind. Lock the door and think. This is my storeroom. I always imagine that I’m [here]… showing off. Telling you how I escaped—making you laugh. That’s what I’m doing right now. I am falling. I’m dying. And I’m going to explain to you how I survived. Can’t wait to hear what I say."
"I'm going to get out of here and find whoever put me here in the first place. And whatever they're trying to do, I'm going to stop it. Which might take a little while, so do you want me to tell you a story? The Brothers Grimm… according to them, there was this emperor, and he asks this shepherd's boy, ‘How many seconds in eternity?’ And the shepherd's boy says, "There's this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it. Every hundred years, a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain. And when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed!’ You must think that's a hell of a long time… personally, I think that's a hell of a bird."
it's the small victories, right? laurent can't exactly conceive of an eternity of grief like the endlessly-regenerating doctor, but those seven long years without auguste in vere must have felt like a torture chamber of their own. and, of course, there's this actual torture chamber, which laurent escapes thanks to his insane reckless persistence. what i mean to say is, laurent of vere is a hell of a bird :) i'm glad we get to spend some time in his head.
'If you kill me, whatever it is that you have on him isn’t going to matter. It will just be you and him, and he’ll be free to disappear you into a dark cell too.’ Govart smiled, slowly. ‘He said you’d say that.’
girl that doesn’t make it untrue are you stupid (yes)
‘He said, “The only way to make sure my nephew doesn’t talk his way free is to cut his tongue out.”’ As he spoke, Govart pulled out a knife. The room around Laurent greyed; his whole attention narrowed, his thoughts attenuating.
yeah, this WOULD be the thing that scares him most. last time when he was gagged, it was technically part of his plan. this would be basically a death sentence, because laurent knows that his words are what keep him alive
‘Except that you want to hear it,’ said Laurent, because this was only beginning, and it was a long, winding, bloody road till the end. ‘You want to hear all of it. Every last broken syllable. It’s the one thing my uncle never understood about you.’ ‘Yeah? What’s that?’ ‘You always wanted to be on the other side of the door,’ said Laurent. ‘And now you are.’
“you are a messy bitch who lives for drama. and i AM the drama.”
basically, laurent buys himself more time 1) being alive and 2) keeping his tongue by essentially volunteering to have information tortured out of him. this is actually a pretty classic laurent move—remember all the way back in book 1 annotations, when i brought up this quote from sharp objects by gillian flynn?
"Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you’re really doing it to them… know what I mean? If someone wants to do fucked-up things to you, and you let them, you’re making them more fucked up. Then you have the control. As long as you don’t go crazy."
By the end of the first hour (though it felt longer), he was in quite a lot of pain, and was losing touch with how much, if at all, he was delaying or controlling what was happening.
you know for all of laurent’s comments about damen valuing honor and fair play and Doing The Right Thing, he really has no idea that damen would see this happening and immediately murder everyone involved in getting laurent into this situation
His tongue was intact, because the knife was in his shoulder. He had accounted that a victory, when it had happened. You had to take pleasure in small victories. The hilt of the knife protruded at an odd angle. It was in his right shoulder, already dislocated, so that breathing was now painful. Victories.
love this use of a previous laurent-ism. god he’s made for this kind of situation why is this man in a romance novel (i’m happy he’s in a romance novel if that’s not clear, he shouldn’t have to be in these situations even if it’s entertaining and compelling and badass. being loved is harder for laurent to process than being tortured and that means he’s in the right genre to truly challenge his character into growth and catharsis)
He had come this far, he had caused his uncle some small consternation, had checked him, once or twice, forced him to remake his plans. Had not made it easy.
these sound an awful lot like dying words. the fact that this is the consolation prize laurent gives himself upon imminent death—that he’s won against his uncle a few times—almost feels like a subversion of a heroic martyr. i’m not big on martyrdom, so i almost think it’s more satisfying for laurent to die telling himself he’s Won against someone who’s hurt him, than telling himself he’s dying to save people who love him and still want him around. admittedly he does have that kind of martyr moment later, when he hands himself over at the end of book 3, but... does he even fully mean to die then? i know he has loyse’s testimony in his back pocket. is his intention still to survive, even then, or is he just satisfied that loyse could potentially bring down the regent once he's gone? idk, it just doesn't feel quite right for laurent just to give up his life completely, even if that's how damen interprets it. even then, i think he'd still have the intention to somehow survive, or at least Win against his enemies. laurent isn’t dying for anyone’s sins—if he’s going to die, he’s taking the sinners down with him, and probably counts himself among them.
i'll make sure to revisit this when the time comes.
His only advantage was that he had managed to free his left hand from its bonds.
personal tangent but this reminds me of the time my level 1 sorcerer was arrested in dungeons and dragons and she shoved her hand up her sleeve and replaced it with a mage hand, so it looked like she was handcuffed for her trial but actually wasn’t. and then she used the real hand to flip off the council running the trial and escape. she and laurent would get along
Because it was impossible to hear anything, he reasoned—or had reasoned, when more detached—that whoever had put him in here with Govart would return with a wheelbarrow and sack to take him out, and that this would happen at a prearranged time, since there was no way for Govart to signal. He therefore had a single goal, like moving towards a retreating mirage: to reach that point alive.
not him waiting for his corpse uber… and someone pushing the wheelbarrow who he can turn against govart. i like how laurent seems to have already made this plan, but this is the first time we hear of it. even in his pov we aren’t getting every single thing in his head
Guion’s voice. ‘This is taking too long.’
BOOOO TOMATO TOMATO
His voice was a little hoarser than it had been starting out; his response to pain had been conventional.
“his response to pain had been conventional” god he is so fucking funny.
laurent, rolling his eyes as he swirls the glass of water he’s using to swallow the maximum safe dose of ibuprofen: “my physical human reaction to torture is just so… banal”
Laurent closed his eyes, wrapped his unsteady left hand around the hilt, and pulled the knife out of his shoulder.
i’m listening to an instrumental music playlist right now and an acoustic cover of lady gaga and ariana grande’s “rain on me” came on the second laurent ripped out the knife
The hilt of the knife was slippery.
love how this doesn’t say “with blood,” because it doesn’t have to. also i took a quick break from reading and now there is an instrumental cover of “death of a bachelor” by panic! at the disco playing, which is rather appropriate for this scene
As, with his ruined right arm, Laurent swung the chair. The heavy oak hit Govart in the ear, with the sound of a mallet striking a wooden ball. Govart staggered and went down.
LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Laurent focused all his remaining strength on the task of reaching the barred door and placing himself on the other side of it, dragging it closed behind him and turning the key that was still in the lock. Govart didn’t get up.
laurent, facing certain death and defeat, used the chair he had been tied to and tortured in to murder and imprison his two captors respectively. kind of a shame he doesn’t end up killing the regent with a bed for similar poetic justice (not really, i think the regent’s death is perfect)
In the stillness that followed, Laurent found his way from the bars, to the open corridor, to the opposite wall, which he slid down, finding at the midway point that there was a wooden bench, which took his weight. He had expected the floor.
i love this image so much—wait is this. it is. ladies and gentlemen and others, this is LAURENT LEAN #12!!!!
He did laugh then, a breathless sound, with the sweet, cool feel of the stone at his back. His head lolled.
snarky action hero laurent i love you so very much. sorry about the torture tho
‘Guion,’ said Laurent, without opening his eyes. ‘You had me tied up and locked in a room with Govart. Do you think name-calling will hurt my feelings?’
see previous comment
‘Let me out!’ The words ricocheted off the walls. ‘I tried that,’ said Laurent, calmly. Guion said, ‘I’ll give you anything you want.’ ‘I tried that too,’ said Laurent. ‘I don’t like to think of myself as predictable. But apparently I cycle through all the usual responses. Shall I tell you what you’re going to do when I stick the knife in for the first time?’
it took me a second to understand what’s being said here. i got briefly stuck on “i tried that,” but looking back on previous dialogue and the rest of what laurent says here, i think it’s something like this:
guion: let me out laurent: yeah i asked for that too when faced with imprisonment and torture guion: i’ll give you what you want laurent: i also tried that. damn if you’re saying all the same stuff i did, maybe i’m more of a basic bitch than i thought. well hey if we’re the same i can tell you how you’ll react when i torture you, just how i reacted when govart tortured me (i am threatening you)
‘You know, I wanted a weapon,’ said Laurent. ‘I wasn’t expecting one to walk into my cell.’
okay now he’s just congratulating himself. earned
‘You’re a dead man when you walk out of here. Your Akielon allies aren’t going to help you. You left them to die like rats in a trap at Charcy. They’ll hunt you down,’ said Guion, ‘and kill you.’ ‘Yes, I’m aware that I have missed my rendezvous,’ said Laurent.
every line he says is a banger. this is the verbal equivalent of wearing sunglasses and walking away from an explosion
‘There was a man I was supposed to meet. He’s got all these ideas about honour and fair play, and he tries to keep me from doing the wrong thing. But he’s not here right now. Unfortunately for you.’
THIS LINE FUCKS
and i love that this is how he regards damen. i love that he calls him a man, and not a slave. i love that it's "he TRIES to keep me from doing the wrong thing," because laurent would never give damen the satisfaction of completely taking control (except during sex, but we'll talk about that later). overall, i love how the entire phrasing is just the tiniest bit admiring and endeared, even though laurent is simultaneously insulting damen's integrity (a quality that we know DAMN WELL laurent admires deeply).
and hey!! cool laurent fact #6: he is totally aware of how down bad damen is, and the way damen has willingly taken the role of his (laurent’s) evil impulse control. and laurent doesn’t seem to particularly hate that, or even resist it, at this point in the series. this makes early to mid book 3 even funnier, in which laurent antagonizes damen and his friends (mostly nik) cartoonishly while KNOWING that damen honors him and feels guilty for lying, so therefore tolerates and even defends laurent's petty bullshit at his own and also nik's expense. just because damen cares about fair play, doesn't mean that his ideas about fairness are like… rational. or sane. and laurent knows that damen's thoughts upon his return and dramatic reveal are probably going to be along the lines of "i lied to laurent and also i murdered his brother, so it's technically not wrong for him to lash out."
i'm looking forward to the future of their dynamic, without those giant lies and power imbalances between them. i don't even mind the "angst" of laurent being a petty bitch in the next few chapters, because we know he's being a stubborn idiot and it can only last so long before he breaks, and he doesn't have power over damen to actually abuse. while laurent previously held socially-reinforced authority over damen, they're about to find themselves on even footing. therefore it IS fair play for them to be freaks to each other, and i think a part of laurent is looking forward to that too. like he'll probably figure out his shit with damen, maybe, eventually. he knows damen will try his best to make laurent do the right thing, and laurent will most likely let him win. but he is also going to be a dramatic bitch about it first. as long as he survives.
needless to say, guion does not stand a chance.
‘Isn’t there? I wonder how my uncle is going to react when he finds out that you killed Govart and helped me to escape.’ And then, in the same dreamy voice, ‘Do you think he’ll hurt your family?’ Guion’s hands were fists, like he still had them wrapped around bars. ‘I didn’t help you escape.’ ‘Didn’t you? I don’t know how these rumours get started.’
>:)
Laurent regarded him through the bars. He was aware of the return of his critical faculties, in place of which up to now had been the tenacious adherence to a single idea. ‘Here’s what has become painfully clear. My uncle instructed that if you captured me, you were to let Govart have me, which was a tactical blunder, but my uncle had his hands tied, thanks to his private arrangement with Govart. Or maybe he just liked the idea. You agreed to do his bidding. ‘Torturing the heir to death wasn’t an act you wanted attached to your own name, however. I’m not certain why. I can only surmise, despite a truly staggering array of evidence to the contrary, that there is still some rationality left on the Council. I was put in an empty set of cells, and you came with the key yourself, because no one else knows I’m here.’ Pressing his left hand to his shoulder, he pushed away from the wall and came forward. Guion, inside the cell, was breathing shallowly. ‘No one knows I’m here. Which means no one knows you’re here. No one’s going to look, no one’s going to come, no one’s going to find you.’ His voice was steady as he held Guion’s gaze through the bars. ‘No one’s going to help your family when my uncle comes, all smiles.’ He could see Guion’s pinched expression, the tightness in his jaw and around his eyes. He waited. It came in a different voice, with a different expression, flatly. ‘What do you want?’ said Guion.
1) the complex inductive reasoning is back! laurent is going to be just fine
2) laurent just unpacked guion’s plan exactly how i’ve been attempting to unpack laurent’s bullshit in my annotations for the past 2+ books. except mine are much more bewildered, and oftten inaccurate. but that's all a part of the fun. i appreciate the small victories of occasionally getting it right ;)
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nightcolorz · 12 days ago
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here’s a list of things that I need for my health and functioning as an autistic person or else I will die, (bcus every post I see online about autism is not relatable to me so I made my own)
-run around naked as I blast music in my noise cancelling headphones time. Usually done in the bathroom but doesn’t have to be! This is the ideal sensory experience and is guaranteed to make me feel 90% better at any time
-rock back and forth time in bed. NEEDS to be done before I sleep or I will die. My dog hates this because it causes the bed to shake while he’s trying to nap
-at least 23 hours of sleep every single day (if not I will die) (one hour of the day is for running around naked) (obviously this is usually not achievable bcus it’s unspokenly illegal to sleep constantly, so every day 99% of my power is extracted)
-I need to shower or my hair will start to drive me to suicide, but showering is rlly difficult in general (it’s also my favorite thing) (I fucking love bathroom tiles they are like the angels floor)
-lots of liquids. Unfortunately this will make me pee (I hate peeing) but it’s a risk I’m willing to take
-mashed potato’s (I don’t often get these bcus I can’t peal a potato without suicide)
-my dog Bailey
-jerking off
-a giant boulder to crush me so that I don’t feel things ever
-google docs to write things and lists in (i told someone once that I don’t use the notes app bcus I use google docs instead and they found that weird. What they don’t understand is I will not ever change the app I use to something different or I will die)
-the avocado toast I get from Dunkin’ Donuts every single day that is prepared for me before I arrive since the morning shift workers are aware that I will ask for it without fail
-the vampire armand. When I have meltdowns my family members know to ask me about armand so that I will calm down. Helps without fail
-the five medications I have to take everyday
-my iPad. I don’t use a phone because I have been using an iPad since I was old enough to use a device and I refuse to change that
-my tumblr dash that shows me the same three posts that I don’t care about every time I open the website (at least 1000 times a day)
-internet discourse (this will give me a way to study social expectations and learn what things I am supposed to be mad about) (I don’t ever get angry in real life only on internet)
-bed and giant blanket
-friends that don’t mind that I will never call or text them
-making lists
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