#that will. probably hopefully be either its own post or its own fic

[cuteniarose]

So I… completely forgot I was tagged in this 😅 In my defence, January was one hell of a month and I didn’t get one moment of peace, so we’re finishing this off now!!

Words written (published or not, WIPs totally count too!!):

It’s rather hard to calculate just how much I wrote because a lot of it is in the form of (often unfinished) snippets sent through DMs that are impossible to keep track of, but I tried my best to compile the word counts of all my finished pieces together (yes, only finished, the rest don’t deserve to be counted), and it comes out to roughly 69054. Not as much as I would have liked, but it’s something, at least. Better than pretty much all previous years, as far as I’m aware.

Smut scenes:

Actually finished? Two. I’m horrendous at writing smut. I really wanna get better at it because I cannot keep relying on Kat to provide it for me, but since I’m aroace I have absolutely no frame of reference and everything I write feels stiff and awkward and not hot at all 😭😭😭 Maybe it’s an “I wrote it therefore it’s bad” kind of thing, maybe a “can’t get turned on by my own writing or imagination” kind of thing, idk, it’s sucks either way :/

New things I tried:

Smut writing, I’m pretty sure? Also just romance in general (if the singular kiss between Jia and Aiza counts lmao). And more serious introspection, which was… 90% of what I wrote this year tbh

Fic I spent the most time on:

AIDIB, hands down. I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about it sometimes, I hate that goddamn thing. Don’t get me wrong, I can recognise that it has its good parts, but ffs I’m 100% I lost 20 years of my life writing it. Kat, the rest few instalments of UtOS are on you, I don’t even care

Fic I spent the least time on:

Not counting the Avatar Sapphic Week chapters, probably a tie between Out in the Garden and The Winter Solstice? I basically spedran writing both of them within like… two days of my self imposed deadline. I was definitely possessed by Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy in those moments, don’t even try to convince me otherwise

Favourite thing I wrote:

Either Where Land Meets Sea or nobody’s son, nobody’s daughter. There are parts I hate about both so I can’t really pick a favourite

Favourite thing I read:

I don’t read fic lol. Does Tomorrow Was the War count??

Writing goals for next year:

Actually finish something for once you lazy piece of shit (/lightheartedbutnotreally). For a more serious answer, write at least the first chapter of my Haya fic before March 1st, complete the remaining 5 ASW prompts, and finish and post my translation of Tomorrow Was the War HOPEFULLY before my exams bc I can already tell this summer will kick my ass once again. Not aiming for anything else because I’ll just end up hating myself for missing the mark, let’s be real

Year-End Writer's Roundup: 2024 Edition!

thanks so much for the tag @sweetorangepoptart!! i had to wait to actually do this until i finished the last fic i wanted to post for the year, so now it's time for the roundup!

i'm honestly not sure who to tag, so if you see this and you wrote anything this year, feel free to do it and say i tagged you!!

Words written (published or not, WIPs totally count too!!):

let's not even get into my WIPs there's so many lol. going by just published works, i wrote 73,234 words!! honestly crazy to think about!

Smut scenes:

three! all in their own standalone works. doing the math, that means my smut fics alone take up about 1/3 of my words written this year haha

New things I tried:

i've written for lots of ships for the first time this year! in fact, i believe all the ships i wrote for are the first-time ships for me, which is always very exciting

as well, i tried a slightly different writing style than usual in my fic i'm glad i get forever to see where you went. i really enjoyed writing like this, and i can definitely see myself doing it again in the future!

Fic I spent the most time on:

i think that title has to go to my fic Likewise, as it sat half-finished in my drafts for... honestly most of this year i think

Fic I spent the least time on:

i can't say 100% for sure, but i think my fic Something Nice. it was written for yangvik week, and it was quite literally written the same day it was published. i did that several times during the week, but as this one's word count is a bit lower than the others, i think it's most likely the one i spent the least time on

Favorite thing I wrote:

ughhhhh this is like asking me to pick my favorite child. i love them all!! but if i had to choose, i think i need to go with The Push. i am honestly so proud of this fic, and i actually go back and reread it quite frequently. it also became popular beyond my wildest belief, and was sort of my jumpstart into the yangvik ship/fandom. the response to it helped give me the confidence to write seven (and counting!) more yangvik fics!!

Favorite thing I read:

actually this is like having to pick a favorite child. how can i possibly choose when i read not only lots of fic, but lots of good fic?? i've gotta choose multiple lol

anything by my lovely mutual @katkastrofa, i legitimately can't choose any specific one to focus on because they're all so incredibly written! Ruby by KingWuko; i love all your wuko fics but this one in particular gets me every time! and outside of the atla fandom, i've been really enjoying this owl house fic on ao3!

Writing goals for next year:

honestly? just keep writing! writing fanfiction has honestly been incredibly helpful for me while i'm in college. seriously, my mental health is always so much worse when i'm not writing. even if i don't publish it, writing is so good for my brain. so i want to keep up with it as i go into the new year!

i've also worked on a loose writing schedule for the upcoming year - i'm not holding myself to it super strongly but i really am going to try and follow it! it's just a way to help me focus more on individual fics and know when i want to try and finish them. that way i can do things like publishing fics for friends' birthdays and participating in more fandom events!

and last but not least, a semi-writing goal that i have is to host another wonderful yangvik week! the 2024 event was amazing, and since it ended even more people have found it and expressed interest, so i 100% would like to do it again. and if i do it again, this time i'm going to try and write for all seven days! considering i wrote for six last time, it seems pretty manageable lol

----

thanks again for the tag! this has been a great writing year for me, and i can't wait to see what 2025 holds!

[axe-trio-commanders]

Hm. You know what, it's time for various, disconnected rambling about Zori, bc I've been thinking about her a lot lately

One of the vew things Zori actively despises is the Consortium. She wasn't around for LWS1 events, so it isn't for those reasons- no, the "Burden of Choice" achievement line (the one with the leyline anomaly visions and the shadowstone) is cannon here

Which makes her first real interaction with the consortium getting a message saying "listen, clearly the priory is understaffed and doesn't know what they're doing here, why don't you use our services instead :)"

Which. As a member of the priory, specifically a member of the priory very often tasked with the retrieval, collection and study of highly magical artifacts, Zori took that very personally.

She has found out where a majority of consortium operations are and has since been intentionally poaching their recruits and employees by loudly daydreaming about how cool the priory is, how well they pay, how diverse their job opportunities are, how humane the working conditions are... either they'll join the priory or demand better working conditions, it's a win-win in Zori's book. She's never mentioned this to anyone else tho, so as far as most of Dragon's Watch is concerned, she'll just occaionally start talking about the priory a lot more for no apparent reason.

(Icebrood saga spoilers)

Speaking of things Zori loathes, kudos for the return to icebrood event for reminding me how much she absolutely loathes every aspect of Bangar's existence. It's the 'invited aurene's champions to the ralley but never once asked about the dragons he wanted to tame', it's the outdated paranoia, it's the causing a civil war on purpose, it's the 'oh so that's why Rytlock is Like That'-

But most importantly it puts in very very sharp focus the fact that they have a similar amount of influence, and that all this is what happens when that influence is used poorly. They've both rallied armies together, pulled different people into a common cause... this is what could happen if she does it wrong. Raise an elder dragon early, close friends, family at each other's throats, blood of thousands upon thousands on her hands, in her throat, drowning her, and Bangar doesn't even seem to care. How do you manage to be the kind of person that doesn't drown in this?

(Bangar is the reason Willow Tree March is on her playlist)

(Janthir Wilds spoilers)

The most recent development as of JW is that, since I've gone and developed them into their own characters, I figure it'd be a fun time to introduce her to Amiaza (her aunt, soulbeast ranger that bonded w/ a sand lioness for so long her skills look more like a Scourge's) and Strea (her dame, elementalist with a knack for fire that caused enough friction at her home among the Olmakhan that she decided to venture away to see the rest of the world, met Vallus, died in the brand, brought back from the dead via brand/dragon shenanigans i might elaborate on in later fic), because having them all interact, especially in the expansion that gives her access to a homestead to decorate and maybe kind of settle down in...

Strea and Amiaza recognize and care about her, are protective of her, and... at this point, Zori just. Doesn't know how to process that anymore. It's been so, so long since anyone has wanted to protect her and care about her as anyone other than a means to an end or an equal (and she's... not really certain there's a difference. There is, in actual reality, but that doesn't stop her from wondering...) She's just. Really not sure how to... have parents, and she doesn't really know either of them, and she's pretty sure this should be a relief or fulfilled dream but it just... isn't setting in right, like the charging port's just a little too crooked... (until in some moment it suddenly isn't as it hits her all at once that it's been years since she's been able to fully believe that someone cares about her and doesn't expect anything from her, because she can't find a single reason either Amiaza or Strea would. They don't need her, they're just.... there. She knows other people have claimed the same thing, somewhere she knows it might be true (it is). But when they're in tbe guild you're supposed to be leading... but this? This, she can't find an alternative explination for. Maybe... maybe it's true elsewhere, too. Maybe it's okay to want that.)

(More Janthir Wilds spoilers,msome SoTo spoilers)

Since Enkkioh became the newest Official Commander(tm) as of EoD into SoTo, Zori comes along to the big meeting in JW primarilynas an advisor and emotional support- in Priory wear rather than full commander regalia, so most of those present outright don't recognize her. (Gixx does, of course, and it feels extensively off to both of them to only trade pleasantries. Zori hasn't visited the Priory at all in years at this point. Neither mention it. Trying to reclaim that comfort feels like a betrayal to her, somehow.)

She is legitimately excited to explore a new place and culture (she's purposefully ignoring the implications of the Ward existing. Just a whole organization that really probably could have helped with the dragon situation. Maybe prevented some deaths. A lot of deaths.It's fine. This is fine. She is not going to start a political incident today this is fine. (Enkkioh has been lowkey bullying Isgarren about this pretty much since she learned the ward existed. She figures whacking him over the head with a newspaper every time he does something stupid is basically the rest of the wizards' job, so it's her job now too. It's not too different from her experience as third commander so far in some ways))

She absolutely adores the journeykin, though, and immediately takes charge of taming the first one they encounter- she perfectly understands the need to wrastle, and has plenty enough experience with different cats (Kiori (jaguar), Claw (tiger), Snowflame (Canthan white tiger), herself, Amiaza,,,) to recognize the attitude of 'wants to play and forgot other creatures are not immune to Giant Claws', she's incredibly releaved at how graciously the lowland kodan take them in. It is. Such a relief to interact with a leader that makes thoughtful, informed decisions..... (she still has a near heart-attack every time Poised Arrow does basically anything. What do you mean interacting consistently with Ryland who's nearly the same age as her and had very similar traumas had a lasting impact she's fine nothing is wrong these are normal reactions.) So mostly things are initially going fine, but once she and Enkkioh begin to figure out what's going on, once it very... very quickly becomes less a 'cool adventure learning vacation' trip and more a responsibility she needs to fix or people will die (of course it's literally the titans! Of course it's literally the titans and the white mantle and Caudecus is involved too! Great no great this is fine. History sure is a flat circle huh.) And like, out of the people there... Caithemprobably starts to notice it's getting to her, but isn't really close enough to her to drag any sort of confession out of her, Enkkioh doesn't know her well enough to really notice at all... but Malice is perspective enough to notice, and still technically being her imperator, isn't near intimidated enough not to drag information from Zori if she wants to. (She's also smart enough to have recognized who Zori is early into her appointment as commander, and to have kept trackmof her since.) Which... Zori hasn't really considered herself a part of the legions, or charr culture in general, for a long while now... even just Malice still considering her as part of Ash as a base assumption would throw her for a loop...

[gffa]

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Do you take rec requests? If so, can I ask for your recs for Obi Wan centric fics where Obi Wan is just absolutely adored by everyone around him? Like people love him, think he's great, beautiful, talented, etc. you could also include fics where Anakin isn't one of his adoring fans but he comes around eventually. If you've ever read the Shoulder The Sky series by @kcrabb88 ? Where Anakin is kind of weird about Obi Wan in the beginning but he'd die for him at the end? Yeah like that.

Preferably no Obitine please, and also no order 66, if you would. They can be fix its or maybe they just don't get to order 66 in canon. Long and short is fine. I just want to read fic to justify my absolute rabidity over Obi Wan Kenobi.

Yknow if you're going to answer the ask? Might as well include every fic that you know that portrays Obi Wan very well. Whether everyone thinks so or not, I just want an excuse to fangirl over Obi Wan. Whether it's cute adorable initiate obi wan; smart skilled Padawan Kenobi, best master in the galaxy Kenobi, best general in the gar Kenobi, unfuckwithable Kenobi that everyone knows not to piss off, the Jedi's best member, whatever. Just fics of obi wan being great, whether people acknowledge it and love him, or acknowledge it and go still like prey animals when he looks at them

Hi! Oh, this is going to be a bit of a difficult set, mostly because avoiding Order 66 is a tough one, and I'm not sure how you are with various Obi-Wan pairings (which tend to have some good Obi-Wan fic), but I can at least start you out with a few recs sets I've done that have a lot of Obi-Wan fic and hopefully the Order 66 fic will be pretty avoidable.

My Star Wars fic recs tag (pretty much anything that mentions Obi-Wan in the subject will treat him well)

Obi-Wan Kenobi epic fic

Post-OBW's first two episodes-centric set

It's hard because some of my favorites:

Reprise by Elfpen (absolutely epic time travel fic that does the really good, hard work of showing us the timeline shifting and why it has to be done in baby steps)

Fire and Ice by Yesac (set in an AU where Order 66 happened, but Anakin won the fight and took both Obi-Wan and Padme hostage, and it's about the incredibly long road to recovery from there, which does have some love = attachment minor, minor notes, but has an Obi-Wan characterization that was fundamental to how I see the character)

Aren't necessarily about Order 66, but it does happen in both those fics, as something that's either being avoided or fixing the aftermath of them, and I'm not sure where you stand on such things, since you don't want Order 66. Same for

The Desert Storm by Blue_Sunshine (time travel AU where Order 66 happened in Ben's timeline, but not in the one the fic is set during)

Knightrise by deviantaccumulation (this one includes Order 66 happening on-screen, but it's an AU where more Jedi survive and they go into hiding together to rebuild)

where it's time travel to fix things, is that still over your line? Is it about the other characters that love Obi-Wan or the narrative of the story that loves Obi-Wan, because that would change a lot of the recs I make! Not that he's unloved in them, but Cataclasm by dendral is one of my favorites, but it has Obi-Wan off on his own a lot of the time, so the narrative loves him, but the people around him aren't in the room with him, etc. I also have a Jedi culture set of recs, which you can scroll through to find Obi-Wan mentioned in the summary, it's probably going to be about how much everyone loves him. But some good places to start for you would be:

ruth baulding's Lineage series and then her Legacy series. The first series is an epic length run of adventures when Obi-Wan was a padawan with Qui-Gon, and then the second series is his time teaching Anakin, with more adventures

Remedial Jedi Theology by MarbleGlove, a fantastic look at Jedi theology, philosophy, and interaction, with Obi-Wan in a prominent role.

Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi stonefreeak, which is crack treated seriously, very Jedi-positive, and while it's an ensemble piece overall, Obi-Wan is very much at the heart of the story and the focus will always come back to him. Just so much fun and very soft on the heart, this is a universe where everything goes right.

Tano and Kenobi by FireflyFish, which is a time travel fic where Ahsoka goes back into the past and becomes Padawan Obi-Wan's Master instead of Qui-Gon. The fic is kind of harsh on Qui-Gon, but if you love the disaster lineage or if you just want more Obi-Wan & Ahsoka, this fic will scratch the itch so good.

Unexpected Awakening (The Rewrite) Rhiw, another time travel fic where Order 66 did happen, but the fic is about Legends!Obi-Wan taking a different path from what happened in the first Jedi Apprentice book, instead of becoming Qui-Gon's Padawan the way he did in canon, he and Bruck go to Bandomeer and then get wrapped up in an epic story about Obi-Wan slowly changing the galaxy's course.

walk by faith/tell no one what you've seen by Killbothtwins, which is time travel with Obi-Wan after the end of the galactic civil war (the one against the Empire) going back to his 12 year old self and diverting the timeline, with a really great voice for Obi-Wan's character in this fic.

The Uses of a Sandwich by Laura Kaye (laurakaye) is a fun young Padawan Obi-Wan fic where he meets Qui-Gon's first apprentice and has a great sense of comedy.

Uncle Ben and Little Luke by phoenixyfriend which is de-aged!Luke and suddenly alive again!Obi-Wan and is just so much fun for a dynamic that doesn't get enough fic. (NEVER ENOUGH.)

Well Met by avocadomoon is one if you don't mind Obi-Wan/Padme fic, where they develop a friendship and later in life just slowly fall into a relationship, where it's about discussions and politics and philosophy and worldbuilding, it's such a subtle dynamic between them in a way that felt so natural to me. I also enjoyed the author's other fic Anamorphosis just as much, too.

[lesbianherald]

Please. Please. PLEASE! You HAVE to continue Coming home (But Not to You). Don’t get me wrong the ending was perfect, magical, and astonishing. But I need more! The way your able to deeply express each of their feelings making it feel like we’re feeling it with them, your attention to detail in being able to let us know even a slight change in their breathing is amazing! Other fics are good but believe me when I say they don’t compare to yours. After finishing the read it left me with an empty void that no other stories can fill. I just need more! I need a book with thousands of pages. I just need to hear more lol I want more of your perfect description of jayvik. :(

hello friend ! this is just so so so kind ! it means so so much to me that people feel this way about my work. I am so grateful for the kindness sent my way.

that being said there are some just phenomenal fics out there that are so so worth it like the one I just posted about :).

I'm far from the end all be all of jayvik writers. There are so many writers who approach things in a way that's simply not in my wheelhouse and so many writers with so much heart, soul, and skill!

So, while I appreciate the sweet words, I'd love to exist in a space where we aren't compared with each other, you know! These writers are my friends, my community, not my competition. As kind as the sentiment is, I don't want my work to be called better or worse than anyone else's. I want it to be good on its own with other people's work being good and with merit as well.

Again, its an incredibly kind sentiment! I am so so aware you probably just meant that coming home was special to you, and that means so much to me. Just comparisons, even broad ones like this, can be tricky in fandom where we're all doing this out of passion and we can all see each others posts and what people say about us :)

i'll be posting a fic rec list sometime soon so look out for that . hopefully, that'll give you a good jumping-off point.

re: coming home

I will be posting a couple of one-shots for sure. coming home will always have sentimental value to me and I left a couple of small loose ends in there so I could come back to it when I felt like it.

buttttt..... chapter 14 will be the end of coming home proper. i wont be posting new chapters. I worked hard to design that ending as an ending. It may sound silly because its just a fic and one that I call a "silly project" multiple times, but I want to have enough respect for the story and for myself as a writer to know when to let it go. its hard, but I think its a really important part of having creative integrity.

also, i'm simply ready to move on to other passion projects. There's so much tonally, concept-wise, and genre-wise I really am looking forward to exploring as a writer and exploring through these bizarre fictional scientists in the sort of fun and low-pressure (ish) form of fanfic.

Fanfic for me as a writer is a really fun way to learn. Seeing what in my stories works and what people respond to is so exciting It's like a crash course for me, and sticking with coming home outside of a couple small one shots would be like staying in the same class.

I doubt any of my future stuff will have the same sort of appeal as coming home. My past stuff hasn't either. and it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm okay with that. :) I think the months I spent on coming home and the 118,000 words is enough and its time for me to move on. It is such an honor that people want more, but I feel I gave it my all.

Thank you so much for your words and encouragement. I'm so sorry if I came off as unappreciative. I just love my fellow fic writers a lot <3 and I also have so many more facets to me as a writer than coming home that I'm really excited to continue to explore.

[sympathytea]

[ID in alt] Zam! The Prince in Yellow himself! This is mainly a design I mocked up to make writing him easier on my brain since having a physical image for me to reference and describe is significantly easier on my brain than not having one. Uh reason he doesn't have the trident this fic is (so far) taking place inbetween ep 4 and 5 rather than like. post finale ok? ok. more fun stuff under the cut (maskless included, along with other details on the fic that i'm writing!!!)

[ID in alt] Kept seeing everyone draw him half blind? Love that for him. I'm assuming that's a reference to his LifeSteal designs either way i think the concept is sick and wanted to work with a character that has that detail worked into the fic as something they need to work with/around since this is a combat heavy series which I'd imagine wouldn't be easy to do with one eye, but not impossible. girlboss is gonna have it rough in the fic though tried to make the scar more obviously trident-shaped? since that's where I'd imagine he'd get it assuming he was sent to the sword civilization against his will? rather than to actually retrieve the eternal sword on his own accord like Tabi was. idk hopefully s2 don't fuck me up some expression testing + additional notes on behavior

(excuse him he's been shaved for this, also IDs in alt) disclaimer uh. very minimal research was done for his behaviors. i'm not a medical professional but i did find a giant thread full of folks who had half-blindness who did mention the head tilt thing as a thing that they did, facial paralysis is from the injury assuming the trident went deep enough to do nerve damage thus the whole 'one side moves other side doesn't' my apolocheese for inaccuracy I'm sure that the tilt thing and the facial paralysis thing are probably a bit too extreme to some folks but due to my artstyle being very exaggerated, this too had to be exaggerated for it to be something noticeable, otherwise its completely hidden despite me being mostly focused towards expressions i have made a decision that might seem jarring to some to..limit the faces of characters in my fic. mainly because all of them are hiding or masking something underneath, it just suits them well to have this be a trait that everyone in pvp civilization shares in various ways Characters like Evbo, Julie, Tabi and Parrot are more obvious masking via emotional repression rather than a physical mask that they wear Wemmbu, Ferre, The Guard Friend and Zam mask due to wearing some form of face covering but once that face covering comes off then they start to be a bit more honest, not having anywhere to hide MinuteTech masks via..other means. More on him specifically later when i get around to designing him. he's fascinating is all im gonna say There are of course other characters in this fic, Marty and Ellie are two iron-sword level specific OCs I made for the sole purpose of being evil, and they are shockingly the only two people in the fic that are full on honest with themselves and others. They have their shit figured out (so I wont feel bad killing them off hehe) PVP Language guy and the similar Wooden Plank guy are the two non-main characters turned major characters that due to their species, literally don't have a face nor a proper voice for others to understand what they are thinking, but if you give them a way to talk, then they will! This project be warned: gonna take a long time. I'm notoriously slow at pumping good quality stuff out. I'm working on like 4? other character refs at the time of writing this and I am nowhere near finished with any of them. Dear god.

Thats all for now, though. Until I post again!

[taste-of-the-divine]

ꕤ | Inked | Percy De Rolo

— VOX MACHINA : switch!percy x femcumslut!reader

✩ 𝙎𝘾𝙀𝙉𝙀: ​you're the first to fall asleep at a party, and you get cumslut written over your forehead with a marker. it causes an "issue" for percy a few hours later. ✩ 𝙋𝙊𝙎𝙏 𝙄𝙉𝙁𝙊: fic (Part 1), 1.8k words ✩ 𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙉𝙏 𝙒𝘼𝙍𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙂: missing consent/dubcon (percy as victim), powerplay (subby percy into dom percy), degredation, namecalling (cumsl*t, wh*re, l*ve), somnophelia, cumhungry!reader, power dynamic switch, sir, mentions of breeding

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ 𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙀𝙎 𝙁𝙍𝙊𝙈 𝘿𝙄𝙑𝙄𝙉𝙀: i did not proofread this :') hopefulyl its legible BUT eventually i'll go back and make the edits i need. the idea was inspired by this post, and it's probably (?) not done yet.

♡ REBLOGS + LIKES ARE APPRECIATED ♡ 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘝𝘖𝘟 𝘔𝘈𝘊𝘏𝘐𝘕𝘈 | 𝘔𝘈𝘚𝘛𝘌𝘙𝘓𝘐𝘚𝘛 & 𝘖𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘙 𝘞𝘖𝘙𝘒𝘚 | 𝘔𝘠 𝘗𝘈𝘎𝘌

“Oh cmon, wasn’t the bet that the first one asleep gets a dick drawn on their forehead?” 

Percy, your boyfriend, shoots Scanlan a dirty look through his rosy drunk cheeks. “Have you no decency? She’s a lady for God’s sake, Scanlan. How will I explain to all of Whitestone tomorrow if we have to leave the confines of our home?” 

The pop of a marker and the cap clicking against the floor was enough of a signal that Scanlan didn’t quite care all that much for the high maintenance prince. “Well, then you have an excuse to stay in for a day. Resting’s important, Percy,” he says, before hopping onto a stool to get to your head, slumped over on the couch. Percy stumbles to his feet to try and stop him from putting that bright pink ink on your skin, but he’s forced back into his chair at the hand of Vax. 

“Hey, he’s right, you know. You kind of need a day at home, if you ask me,” Vax says, leaning his weight on Percy’s shoulder to keep him down. Percy glares at him too, going to shove his hand away so that he could get to you, but to no avail. Percy’s too wasted for hand eye coordination.

“Oh, Percy, darling, relax,” his sister says from across the table, looking at Scanlan trying to balance and draw on your knocked out face. “She agreed to the game before we even started drinking, and she’s an adult, so I’m sure she’ll be fine. And if she isn’t– well, you can make sure she’s fine. In the morning. No more fussing about it now, you can barely get to your feet,” she says, words slurring before taking a swig out of her bottle. 

He can’t relax, at least not when Pike isn’t around. Pike’s usually the babysitter of the group, and with Keyleth vomiting her guts out again, they were somewhere downstairs in the bathroom. Grog wouldn’t be of much help either– he was entranced in some sort of conversation with his reflection in the mirror, flexing and unflexing his muscles to look at. 

“Annnnnd, ta-da!” Scanlan grins, showing the marvel to the three others in the room. Cumslut was written across your forehead in big, bold letters, with a penis as the T. Scanlan was really, an artist of all trades.

Percy was the first to react, and the only one that didn’t burst out in absolute side pinching tears. “Scanlan! You little useless bard!” He swung around to Vex and Vax. “I thought we agreed that it would be the dick drawing?”

“Well,–” Vex laughs, whipping away his tears. “There is a dick. There’s just–” he makes eye contact with Vex across the table, who was holding her own laughter for a little before the two burst out again into hearty giggles. “–some other additions.”

Percy sighed. There wasn’t really another other choice; what’s done is done. Hopefully you wouldn’t be too mad when you woke up in the morning about it. And hopefully, the ink would come off soon.

-

Percy, with his lithe frame, was not the one that carried you into bed. Grog actually carried the both of you into bed– bragging that he could do anything with his giant muscles. Percy would have been grateful for that omission of an opportunity to make a fool out of himself, had he been properly awake during that time of the night. He’d passed out on his own accord after a few more shots into the night.

It didn’t take long before he stirred awake. Alcohol never quite helped keep him asleep as well as it put him to sleep. But his body sure felt warm, skin flushed a little as he reveled in the pleasure of being under clean sheets. There was also pleasure budding from his core, some shifting between his legs– 

“What on earth?!–” he manages to choke out before throwing his head backwards as some cavern of warm, wet heat descends on him. It felt good and needy and desperate, and when he had the moment to take a breath from the sudden crashing waves of pleasure, he lifted the blankets to find you, face nestled neatly between his legs, with his cock in your mouth and a protruding cheek. 

“My love,” he says, voice soft and hitched at first. “Y-you need to stop or else,–” A groan cuts through, his hands fisting the sheet that he’s holding up to see you kitten licking his tip. 

“What’s gotten into you?” he hisses, but he doesn’t get an answer because you take his whole length into your mouth again, mushroom tip gliding against the roof of your mouth before sinking into your back tongue. He’s watching you, or doing the best he can with his eyes half-lidded and his mouth agape. When you wrap your hands around his base, twisting and bobbing at the same time, Percy grimaces, one eye forcing itself shut as he watches you with the other. His cheeks are flushed a deep red, and his skin feels sticky under the touch of your fingers, but all you can think about is his cum, and how much you want it down your throat. 

“S-slow d-down,” he stutters, a frustrated moan drawing out of his throat when you don’t listen. He can’t stop his hips from bucking up into your mouth, the sensation of your tongue swirling around the tip all too much for him. He’s close, and you know that, feeling his balls twitching under your chin– and perfect, because that’s exactly what you want. So you keep at it, watching him writhe and pant and seize up with his head thrown back and his eyes cross when he cums down your throat. It’s sticky and a little bitter from the alcohol, but you don’t mind it at all, because you’ve been craving this feeling since you woke up. You suck, and suck, and keep sucking him, milking every little bit that you can. 

He’s a whimpering mess now, his other hand grabbing you by the hair to attempt to pull you off his cock. 

“Love, love, please– please stop, I’m done, I can’t–” but that gets cut off by another moan, his knees shaking and bottoming out underneath you as your hands work his cock from base to tip, using spit and cum as lube. 

He’s never seen you like this before, so needy, so pushy for it– whatever it, was. In a moment of clarity as your hands lift on the pressure to his cock, he reads the word on your forehead again. Cumslut.

He puts two and two together in the middle of a desperate whimper, throwing his head to the side as the pleasure in his overstimulated dick multiplies. On the nightstand was the marker that Scanlan used, capped and sitting neatly by his nightlight. Grabbing it off the table, he managed what he could with you turning him into putty from the waist down, grabbing one of your hands that you were using to support your weight scribbling “obedient” into it the best he could.

Nothing different happened at first– you continued to milk him for all that he was worth, and Percy couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling to the back of his head as he felt the familiar coil in the abdomen forming, ready to snap. “Hah- hah, hmpfh, s-stop, love, h-hang on–” he begs of you, and for the first time in the night, you oblige, hands and mouth lifting off his cock with the nasty squelch. 

He looks at you, panting, undignified drool at the edge of your lips, and he slips a finger over it and wipes it away. Catching his breath, he dedicates a moment to taking you in; needy, glazed-over cum-hungry eyes as his cock rests on your cheek, tousled hair, plump, shiny lips coated in a thin sheen of spit and semen, the white of your teeth poking out from under. You looked gorgeous for him like that, and he let you know by pushing a strand of hair behind your ear. 

“You want my cum that badly, is that right?” he says, tentative at first. But you nod, rather vigorously, at that. It flips some sort of switch inside of him, and you feel him pull you by the hair, your own whimper leaving your throat as he exposes your throat to him. 

“A little cumslut wants her holes filled. What a sight,” he taunts, a wicked smirk brewing at the corners of his lips. The way he looks at you runs a chill down your spine– it was the way he looked at something he wanted, no, needed, to be under his control. 

And you were more than ready to give that.

“Be a good girl, then. Get on with it. On your hands and knees, on the floor,” he commands you, nodding towards the wood floor you have next to the bed. You glance down and back at him, and he’s watching you expectantly. Heat rising to your own cheeks, you shuffle down, assuming position on all fours as he requested.

You hear him shifting off the bed, stalking behind you– you feel his hands wrap around your waist, and then– a searing burn on your knees as you’re re-oriented, looking up to see the closet mirror and yourself staring back at you, cumslut written over your forehead. And dauntingly, above and behind you, stood Percy. 

You’re naked, because you woke up earlier and tried to satisfy your urges by touching yourself, which, went nowhere, clearly, otherwise you wouldn’t be in this cum-drunk state– but he is clothed; well, partially clothed, his sleeping robe untied and hanging off his shoulders. He knees behind you, secures your ankles to the ground with the weight of his calves and body, and sinks his fingers into your sides. 

“Spread your pussy for me.”

Your eyes go wide, thundering in your chest. He notices your hesitation, and grabs a fistful of hair and pulls you towards him.

“I said, spread your pussy for me. Do I need to repeat myself?”

Some sort of noise comes out of you that sounds vaguely like a whimper and a “yes, sir,” as you take your hands and grab your ass to satisfy his request. You feel a bubbling of dopamine in your chest when you obey him, and it feels good, addictive, almost.

When you feel the weight of his cock pressed against your entrance, your body instinctively gravitates towards him, craving to be filled. But you feel his weight pull away, teasing it along your slit as he leans over to your ear. 

“Be patient, love. Just enjoy it, I’ll do the work, my little cumslut. You’re such a needy little breeding whore, aren’t you?”

© copyright @taste-of-the-divine 2023 ♡ REBLOGS + LIKES ARE APPRECIATED ♡ 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘝𝘖𝘟 𝘔𝘈𝘊𝘏𝘐𝘕𝘈 | 𝘔𝘈𝘚𝘛𝘌𝘙𝘓𝘐𝘚𝘛 & 𝘖𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘙 𝘞𝘖𝘙𝘒𝘚 | 𝘔𝘠 𝘗𝘈𝘎𝘌

[halsinsnaturepocket]

WIP Wednesday - Help me decide where to go with my Fic

Help me make a decision on the direction of my fic Yearning for a Taste I'm going to post what I have so far under the cut. Consider it a teaser, or a chapter 1 with a cliffhanger. (This is a bit that might make it into my longifc, but I'm playing around with it as a oneshot with a generic femme Tav because I think its hot and can go in a few different directions and I'd like to explore those directions.) Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure fic and the final piece will be posted on Ao3 reblogging for sample size / commenting&tagging with suggestions is always encouraged :3 MINORS DNI

Summary:

After one night in the shadow-cursed lands, Halsin is in his tent minding his own business reading a book when he hears Tav allowing Astarion to feed on her but it becomes….more.

Halsin hears the whole thing and is trying to be Normal about it, but the poor elf has been pent up for so long and is trying to focus on lifting the curse...but alas, he has needs.  CW: Voyerism, dirty talk, Astarion feeding on Tav

Halsin was lying in his tent, using a bedroll to prop himself up as he read one of the books Tav had managed to find during her travels. A book on mindflayer anatomy - a fascinating read, bringing him further insights into the threat they were facing. His attention was so focused he almost didn’t hear the sounds of two people meeting up near his tent. Unfortunately for him, his hearing was rather keen, and the secluded clearing he had settled in blocked out most of the noises from camp, but not the sounds of anyone in the clearing.

“Gods you're such a little freak,” he heard one voice purr. “You're so good to me, sitting in my lap, letting me feed on you.” The praise was followed by the sound of lips smacking against skin followed by a soft moan – he recognized those voices. 

“Did you want more, darling?” Astarion’s voice was silken, lined with hazy lust. “Or did you just want to be my little snack for the evening?”

“You’re sure you saw Halsin go towards the north of camp?” She heard her whisper.  That was most definitely Tav, her soft voice was very distinctive. There was nobody else that voice could belong to.

“Almost positive, my dear. There’s no light on in his tent either, he’s probably off meditating or whatever it is he gets up to.”

They were quiet for a moment. It was true, he had wandered to the north of camp earlier in the evening, but while everyone was enjoying a meal by the fire, he had returned to his tent, rather exhausted from trying desperately to commune with whatever living things he could find in the shadow-blighted village that surrounded them. There wasn’t much, and his efforts had expended quite a bit of his magic. 

“NNnnf…Don't stop…” Her voice was barely a whisper, a near-silent plea. 

Halsin squirmed uncomfortably in his tent. Of all the people to have a liaison behind his tent…it had to be these two. From the sounds of it, Astarion was drinking from her neck, his hands likely snaking beneath her clothes, pleasuring her…

Halsin was desperately trying not to listen in. He had been pent up for so long, and the two of them had tried a few times to bed him; it had taken everything in him not to give in. He was glad they sought company with each other, but did it need to be right outside of his tent? There was a pause in their sounds, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully they were through. Hopefully he would just bite her and be done with it. 

His hopes were futile as he heard a soft gasp escape from Tav. “Astarion–gods that feels so good.” 

“Breathe a bit deeper for me darling - that's it.” He heard Astarion coax. “Good girl, that's my good little treat. You're so nice and wet for me…” 

Halsin turned on his side, his back towards their sounds as he tried desperately to focus on the words swimming around the page of his book, trying to ignore the sound of the two of them, but it proved…difficult. Her stifled moans were stirring emotions he had been trying to suppress for far too long. Both Tav and Astarion had long since held his attention - maybe it was just the kindred feeling of being around two other elves, or maybe it was more…He didn't want to think about it. He had to stay focused on his goals, the shadowcurse lurked right outside the edge of their camp. He couldn't entertain such frivolous thoughts of companionship —

A loud moan interrupted his thoughts. 

“Bite me again, Astarion.” 

“With pleasure.” He heard him murmur, followed by the sound of Tav hissing from the sting of being bit, followed by another soft moan. 

“Gods you taste so sweet when you're on the edge…cum for me darling. Cum while I drain you dry.”

Halsin froze, recalling the sensation of Astarion’s fangs when he sunk into his flesh. He had allowed the spawn to feed on him once or twice when Tav was too exhausted. It was an intimate experience, to say the least. Silvanus forgive him, but it must feel amazing at the precipice of pleasure, to be on the edge of pure ecstasy and feel yourself shaking with the cold chill of life being drained—fuck. He turned his attention back to his book. "Many curious scholars have noted the illithid's disdain for arcane magic, yet do not understand the reasons behind it. In traditional illithid circles--" Yes, quite interesting, to find that illithids were weak to magic. He had noted the tadpole he studied had reacted to arcane magic when used on it. He had read this same sentence at least 4 times now.

“Oh gods, fuck, Astarion!” He heard Tav cry. They weren't even trying to be quiet anymore. 

He couldn’t avoid it any longer. The familiar sensation of arousal gripped at his senses as he felt his heartbeat quicken and his trousers grow tighter. If they kept this up for much longer he’d have to find a way to relieve the tension himself.

“Shhh… my love you'll wake up the whole camp at this rate,” he said, a twinge of teasing laced with lust spilled from his voice. 

Halsin had always wondered what sounds Tav would make…he'd heard her laugh, cry…her sneeze even. He savored the sound of her moving, of humming to herself. Her battlecry, her happiness…they were all so beautiful. But the sounds of her ecstasy…he didn't realize they could sound so sweet. 

“Don't make me gag you darling.” He heard her moans become muffled, as though a hand had come to cover her mouth…likely exactly what was happening. 

Halsin gritted his teeth, picturing the image of Tav tied up his vines, a thin cloth gagging her. And then the thought of her entwined in the pale elf, one hand over her mouth while the other was plunging himself into her sopping wet cunt while a trickle of blood from his fangs runs down her neck… He couldn't help himself. A groan escaped from him. He stifled himself, a worried hand covering his mouth, trying not to let the longing into the sound that dared escape his throat.

The sounds stopped. Utter silence. The silent eeriness from the shadowlands was not helping. 

“Shit–Astarion you said he wandered off to the north of camp, is Halsin IN HIS TENT?”  He heard Tav whisper angrily. They had heard him. Hopefully…this would pass, and it would never be brought up again. 

“I–ugh, I don't know, Tav, I thought I saw him leave his tent. What's it matter anyway?…I'm sure he’s enjoying the show. If he was so inclined he could join if he wants. Though, perhaps he’s deep in a trance.”

“Gods…damned it Astarion—” She moaned loudly. 

‘Should I stop?” He asked. 

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle watches New Wish - Post #29

Jumping off from my previous and pending liveblogs through The Battle of Big Wand -> but this is mostly me talking about Dale headcanons and 'fics

Partway through my next liveblog post, I started rambling about Dale and doodled a joke, and... it got really long, so now it's in its own post.

I'm sorry you have to see this, SDKFLJ...

Mildly suggestive stick figure honeymoon doodles - #ScarletPenguin

why does he still look anxious and pathetic even when he's plotting a takeover... he's the goofiest guy. I love him.

Liveblog Notes

As far as me loving characters with traumatic backstories goes, I do enjoy Peri, but he has way too many blank spots in his lore and things that are making me look at him sideways, waiting for him to say something I can work with.

I would've liked to see more of his backstory come into play... I feel like that would've been a great episode theme focused on the Peri-Dev dynamic (Them figuring each other out, uncovering bits and pieces, struggling to find areas where they relate until they do... like the clinginess or abandonment issues). Hopefully we get that in the future.

- Don't get me wrong- I'm really enjoying Peri, but from a fanfic perspective, I don't have enough breadcrumbs that don't come from the OG series I based my aged-up Poof on anyway. - That said, still love the implication that he brought Dev to his parents' house while he ate too much sugar and Jorgen almost caught him, and I'm deeply interested in his many layers of trauma. No notes.

I can make up stuff for Peri, but... I've already been making up his story beats for 8 years, so I'm personally not excited at the thought of designing a new backstory from scratch if I don't have any springboards like his friends, school life, where he's been living, or what he did while his parents were gone for 10,000 years. The OG series gave me Sammy Sweetsparkle, Goldie, and Spellementary and Steve, my beloathed. I don't have much to go off here.

We don't even know what his relationship with Irep is, like if "Best of Luck" was the first time they'd seen each other since Spellementary and/or if Irep was banned from continuing his schooling. I mean... one would have to assume Irep has his godparenting license if he's allowed to jump in on Dev, but who knows...

Me just now blinking in confusion that Da Rules allow Irep to yoink Dev as a godkid when Irep blatantly disregards all the other Rules. Cherrypicker...

And yes, I can work with it if I want to, but I already write a bunch about their dynamic, teen, and adult years in Cloudlands AU, so... I'm fine letting other people deep-dive into him; I'll probably be surface level on my end <3

So... That's all set-up for why I think Dale is my favorite in this show... He captivates me by having this clearly defined mess I can pick at. Locked up and forced to make lemonade for 7 years? wild. We know what it was like, where he was, how old he was when it started, who did it, for how long, how he escaped, what his family situation was, and we saw Doug's estate in "Engine Blocked," so we have a decent idea of where he lived and how he grew up.

We've seen a lot of clues about how his trauma lingers around him today, how he forbids his son from drinking lemonade around him, he seems to be withholding details from Dev (who has no clue who Vicky is and seemed grumpy that lemonade is presumably a trigger for his dad and thus he's not allowed to have it). We also know how his young self ended up as an adult... We know he has meltdowns when he loses money and he doesn't bat an eye about stalking or hurting children...

We've got a partner missing from his life, so he's got single dad stress in there somewhere unless the O-pairs were there from the day Dev was born... potentially divorce or widower baggage and either of those is funny... I still think Doug might be dead in New Wish and that becomes increasingly likely the more I look at my age timeline compared to how old Doug was when he struck gold, which is canon in New Wish rather than given to us by the OG...

And if he and Vicky are the same age, were they friends when his torment started? You can even mess around with vibes like "Did Dale get a fairy?" or alternatively, "Why WASN'T he miserable enough to qualify for a fairy?" because that gets really dark if you start thinking about Vicky yo-yoing his emotions to keep him on the line above misery. What was she doing to him...

Like ??? unfortunately, the most obvious thing I can think of is that Dale was so blinded by his vision of Vicky being his friend (and/or crush?? idk) that he kept forgiving her, which is... awful.

We never got a confirmed reason why Tootie didn't have a godparent despite Vicky tormenting her daily, though I always felt like age or her blabbermouth tendencies might play into it (or she clung to Timmy for stability and thus wasn't miserable enough so long as Timmy was there to "support and comfort her" (her perspective). ?? Did Fairy World think it wasn't worth the paperwork to assign someone to Dale because they assumed he'd just make a single wish to free himself and then be fine? skdljf... I just can't stop thinking about it. It's not like his father's wealth disqualified him; Remy and Dev both had godparents assigned. Idk! I think about it a lot. Fascinating.

AND you're telling me this kid grew up with the OG cast after his escape?? There's a LOT there I can play with. Did he have to go to high school with Vicky? I want to believe he was homeschooled, but we never see Doug with a partner AND Doug is a busy person running a ton of businesses. The logical assumptions here would be either "Dale went to public high school" or "Dale was shipped off to boarding school" or something like that. Each of those comes with its own implications, which excites me.

As a bonus, this guy's severe trauma is connected to lemonade?? A drink that shows up a bunch of times throughout the OG series because it's just casual and everywhere? That's so funny...

Insert joke about how it's smart to give your protags weaknesses or fears that are commonplace so they'll run into them in a casual adventure or everyday life

And YET... Despite everything we know about him, there's still plenty of wiggle room for me to play with. I like that.

Honestly, I love the entire Dimmadome household... Dale and Dev and the O-pairs and Peri and the weight of absence of whomever else was in Dale's life once upon a time. Dev is a cool character at all, but at the end of the day, he's a 10-year-old bratty bully who's neglected and lonely. I appreciate him dearly, but it's nothing I haven't seen before.

Dale is my favorite. His utterly bizarre backstory has captivated me. I can make him worse <3

I did have a role planned for him in my Cloudlands AU 'fics - have since 2018 - but I was gonna play him as quiet and jumpy... Curious, easily excited, but not as fingers-in-every-pie as his father. But nowhere would I have guessed 7 years of trauma. And that changes everything. I'm extremely excited to play with that.

He's been on my backburner for ages as "one of those characters I want to delve into when Timmy's older and has a reason to cross paths with him, such as in the working world as Dale becomes more involved with the Dimmadome businesses." My plan's always been to make a funny trio of Dale, Remy, and Dale's wife [my very first FOP OC, Hadley] (whom I've been slowly setting up to become Remy's close friend in the 130 Prompts series when they're kids) and they're just... laid-back rich people who hang out and go on silly rich adventures.

Here's a fun Hadley profile, finally digital since I've only drawn her in colored pencils up 'til now!

In spite of me repeatedly mentioning her in my New Wish liveblogs, words cannot express how shocked I've been to see Dale, who was a tiny mention in the OG series, come back as a critical character...

My girl's shy husband in Cloudlands AU canon, whom she was betrothed to when neither loved the other, turned out to be a horrible person in A New Wish who's 99% likely to have divorced her, and I could NOT be more ecstatic to work with that in 'fic. It's like this was set up just for me! :D

- How funny would it be if they had a Season 2 arc where Dev disappears for a while because he's staying with his mom? lol. - If Dev's mom suddenly showed up because she'd just left for an extended work trip or something, would that be silly'd up or what?

Bonus Hadley Facts!

- She's 12 & 13 around Timmy's time period and attends middle school with Remy. They went to a dance together.

- She and Timmy are briefly in middle school together. They vaguely knew each other in elementary school before either had a fairy- I like to think they had multi-grade gym classes, field day, lunch, and stuff like that and sometimes saw each other.

- Never had Crocker as a teacher, but has crossed his path at the grocery store and stuff. She skirts around him.

- Her mom is a professional painter. She also has a blood blossom garden. Leadly keeps making Hadley give them to people he's trying to sus out as witches.

- Very aware of her dad's horrible dating life. Unfortunately knows he's chasing magical creatures because he's getting desperate for "idk, something new and fun" at this point. Bribes Cupid on the regular. Unclear if Cupid is screwing her dad's life up on purpose to keep the money coming in.

- Has been to Texas a bunch of times (Pencil Nexus has a branch there - "The Boss of Me").

- She hums the Pencil Nexus theme a lot, especially if she's waiting in a line or doing chores. She's bad at sneaking around because she'll forget she shouldn't hum.

- At the time of posting this, her two speaking appearances are in the 130 Prompts "Back In Action," where she's at the Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour dance chasing squirrels, and "Trying Too Hard," where Ed Leadly brings her along when he tries shaking Gary and Betty down for the Learnatorium (again); Hadley's very embarrassed.

- Although offscreen, she was heavily mentioned in "End of the World" when Timmy led Remy to her house so she could help with the cure for Juandissimo's fairy flu. She was briefly mentioned in "Opportunity" when Leadly put the pieces together and realized his daughter has a fairy godparent.

- Her surname was dropped in "Entire World," "Solo," and "Looking Back," confirming her as on the Pixies' radar & as a member of Gary and Crocker's Fairy World invasion team.

- I designed her in December 2015! Nearly 9 years ago now :'D

So, there ya go... That's Hadley.

Basically, instead of meddling and buying buildings and stuff, my vision of the future "rich kids" generation is that they're "supposed" to be in the city like their parents raised them to be, but they blow it off to hang with friends. This whole generation is rebelling against their parents. Are they making things worse for the city? I don't know.

My rough plan was Dale and Hadley bringing their kid [His planned name was Dave] on ski trips and yacht adventures and world travels, with Remy and Juandissimo being bonus parents as the kid grows up :) Aroace Remy making peace with living mostly alone, my beloved... BFF Hadley ensuring he's not ignored when she gets a partner, my beloved... And my main idea here was "Their kid is so spoiled, but he's also getting incredible amounts of attention and love... It's the first time in AGES Dimmsdale has broken its "miserable rich kid" curse, and Remy and Juandissimo couldn't be happier. I just realized that probably doesn't make sense out of context- but yes, in Cloudlands AU, Juandissimo and Remy are still together when Remy's an adult. But it was always my "Eh, I'll think about it later" arc, and Dale a "think about him later" character. And now ?? I just want oodles of him... He's so funny. I've already got a whole sketchpage of him on my desk... I probably won't scan it because it's messy as I'm exploring him in my style, but I really like drawing his hair <3

Dale had a bad week or two with Vicky in my head, but he was gonna grow up fine and live with his friends :) Or... Hadley's friends. Unclear. This doesn't really work with the New Wish canon, but I still think it's funny. I think in some way, this still happened in my canon, but only during Dale's early adulthood. He and Hadley split, orz...

Like... I can't even be mad, because in my canon, they were arranged (upper class kids; Doug cared more than Remy's parents) and in Cloudlands AU, they're affectionate but not in love until they slowly grow on each other while raising their kid, but... GURL, you were supposed to carry this for me, SKDLFJ...

Hang on, I gotta draw exactly what I mean by "Hadley didn't ignore her BFF when she started a romantic relationship..."

Bonus context for Remy's arm for anyone curious & here's him in color

They're just so funny to me... Dale and Hadley are each other's comedic straightman somehow. My favorite thing is Remy being a good friend despite actively trying not to be.

There's a secret joke here about how Remy's dad is also aroace in Cloudlands AU, but his whole thing was being repulsed to the point that he was relieved every time his wife had affairs :'D Fortunately, Remy's glad Hadley found someone else to bother and never got him involved in that drama. Remy still doesn't know what's up with his parents' love life or lack thereof, but... he knows what he himself wants (Peace & quiet and 2 hang out with Juandissimo).

tl;dr - I like what A New Wish has done with Dale specifically. It's definitely wowed me, it's way more captivating than anything I'd loosely planned for him, and his layers of trauma, wealth, and negligence really take me back to the OG series vibes, so I like that!

I can't wait to do 'fics with this fascinating, traumatized loser... but Hadley is definitely his wife and/or ex in my works <3 b/c I set my plot up for this 6 years ago and it would make me sad to "boot" her from my Along the Cherry Lane 'fic plans lmao. I will never experience this oddly specific situation ever again; you gotta give this to me.

Also:

He done goofed...

I couldn't decide on dialogue, but I was thinking "In my defense, I never had a health class and I didn't know babies came that fast." (She was there for many hours btw).

Bonus honeymoon panel ft. (/checks notes) - mildly suggestive stick figures (again)

Other secret bonus ending: "Wait a minute, if Hadley's been to Texas a lot because of Pencil Nexus, does she ALSO have fun cosplaying in boots?"

...... :)

[alpydk]

2024 Writing Year in Review

So I got tagged by @graysparrowao3 and then completely forgot because brain. But thank you!

I guess it still counts as 2024 as I'm still on holiday? Going to tag @auroraesmeraldarose and @judasiskariot and open tag anyone else.

Words posted (on AO3, not including Tumblr posts): 271,831

Words unposted: The first chapter of the isekai fic, the start of the Gale solo act smut fic. There's about 6k words there.

Total word count: No idea. Just none. Almost all the Tumblr stuff is on Ao3. Need to update my masterlist at some point...

Fandoms: BG3 - Gale, Rugan, smattering of others too in there. House MD - Chase comfort and a singular angst fic. And I am currently the sole writer for Last Days of the Space Age as well.

Highest Kudos: Cabinet of Oddities - The Nana story. 56k words, the first real fic I ever wrote and closest to my heart.

Highest One-Shot Hits: Technically its Consequences and Confessions. Does that count as a one shot? It's only 8k of smut.

New things I tried: All of it. All of it was new. Writing fanfiction in itself. Never written smut, never read it actually either. Never write about characters or worlds, or researched or anything. The entire thing was a whole new world for me.

I'm going to also include being more open with folks as well under this. Being a bit more me and not what's expected of me. That's gone down mostly well.

Fic I spent the most time on: CoO is the longest but I also had so much of it prepared from my D&D campaign and from BG3. Otherwise probably Red on You. I spent a lot of time looking at the layout of Waterdeep and planning routes, and plot points. My notepad is a mess. I'm still not satisfied with the final chapter and really want to go back and add the 4k of words to make it complete.

Fic I spent the least time on: I do a lot of short fics so maybe they don't count but the 515 words of Where is that Child now? Most was typed on my phone as I watched something on TV then got a quick edit before going up.

Favourite thing I wrote: Tattered Souls or Blue Seas - The first allowed me to really embrace fanfiction. Doing what I like with characters I love and just including all the tropes and insanity that I love from movies. It was honestly just fun. The latter is my love letter to Chase. Written for Judas when she needed it. All the inside jokes and songs, all the fluff and comfort we want. It's 20 years in the making.

Favourite fics I read this year: Strange Highways by @nocryptographer is right up there. Since Chapter 1 I've been in love with the idea of Cazador in a rock band in the 80s.

A Firm Hand by @viennacherries - Rolan spanking. Need I say more?

Midwinter in Waterdeep by @weaveandwood - Hurt and comfort. It's so beautifully written.

My Tulpa by @senualothbrok - Too relatable, too heartbreaking. But perfect.

Stars of Simril by @sorceresssundries - Homesickness provoker 9000 - Bring tissues to cry with.

From @auroraesmeraldarose - this beautiful gift - Gale and Tav fuck under the moonlight after skinny dipping. She got it just so fucking right with the softness and I need to go read it again.

Trick or Doctor Chase by @judasiskariot - My own Halloween Chase comfort! With amazing characterisation and House and a crocodile!

There are so many more as well that I've linked throughout the year too and I'm sorry if I've not added some. It's simply otherwise this will go on for ever with recommendations. Here are my bookmarks for you to look. A little of everything there (including weird shit)

Writing goals for 2025: - Work writing into being busy full time again. - Get through the smut blockage yet again and hopefully permanently - Write more for Last Days of the Space Age

New works for 2025: The Gale/Rugan Smut I promised and their wedding. Ongoing Thomas fic. More Chase stuff. Need to get back to poetry.

Anyways, I've waffled on long enough now. It's been one hell of a year and hopefully there are a lot more to come.

[olderthannetfic]

Hope it's okay to ask here, I love your blog and how you give clear, concise answers to questions without assuming bad faith so hopefully it's ok to throw my own "warning tag" question in here, TIA for the answer! So, childhood friends-to-lovers is like one of my favourite romance tropes to write in fanfic. I've done a LOT of ships with that, but I've never actually written anything more uh...spicy, shall we say. Until after the ship were both adults. I was raised Extremely Fundie and wasn't very sex positive for a LONG time as a result but now that I'm older & out of that environment I've grown a lot. So because of religious upbringing I just avoided writing smut before both characters were 18 "to be safe". In a recent new fandom I'm in I have a character who I feel like very much WOULD have explored her sexuality before she turned 18. The partner in this context is her childhood friend so they grew up together and are probably at most like 3 years apart, if that. So my question is, would I tag that as Underage because, even tho they're close together in age (ie. both "minors" in that sense) they ARE Underage or is the Underage tag on AO3 solely for Adult/Minor ships? (not judging writers of Adult/Minor pairings either, I'll add. It's just not my scene and I don't want to give people the wrong impression in the tags, either way around, whenever I inevitably write & post their First Time fic, yk?) -🌸 (hope its okay to tag this so I can maybe find it later? I don't wanna ask this off anon in case I get blasted by That(tm) side of fandom at large who might see my username and then come into my DMs/inbox to scream "P*do!!" at me, but I DO wanna be able to see the answer when it comes up, esp if I am not on tumblr the day that it does haha)

--

Ah. You're still thinking about that tag in a more cultural sense, but that's not what it's for. If you dig through the FAQs and such, the explanation is in there somewhere, but to summarize, it refers to:

On page depictions of sexual activity including at least one character under 18.

(So if they just kiss or you just say she had sex but you don't show intercourse, oral, etc. on the actual page, it doesn't count.)

AO3's underage tag is actually to protect users who live in jurisdictions where <18 sexytimes are banned from art or banned unless there's ~artistic merit~ or whatever. Around the time AO3 was starting up was when Australia was having a big upheaval over such things, so it was on people's minds in the Anglosphere.

Whether the sex is problematique or age gap or whatever doesn't matter. The actual age of consent or laws around sex in the real world location these characters are in, if any, does not matter. Your 17-year-old UK characters fucking still need the warning or CNTW even though that's laughable in context. 18 tends to be the age most used in international law for... like... porn star ages and such, so 18 is what AO3 went with. Never mind that it's not necessarily the age of majority or that age of consent laws can depend on partner age, etc. etc.

Unlike noncon/graphic violence/character death, this warning isn't there primarily because readers find the topic squicky.

It's a legal ass-covering thing.

[fayedartmouth]

I always thought you were a teenager. Not a mom and you have a kid. (Hopefully she will be obx fan sometimes)I dont wanna sound rude, i mean this in nicest way hahah. I once read some wattpad story sooo good and it was a women writing it, while i thought it was a teenager. Guess the writing doesnt know age. And i love that. To see that many people cheerishing obx and writing these absolute speechless works. Thank you for your service 🫡 hahah.

When i read your stories i was always left speechless. I like how you talk more about jjs trauma and his mental health. Its hard to find those fics now. And i am always happy when you upload a new one i would spend my free time reading them

Seriously i wish you all the best, you are great.

I think as a general rule we tend to think everyone else we meet online is our age. It's just kind of an inherent bias we build into our interactions with people we can't see. Our visualization process tends to assume everyone is like us.

But no! LOL, definitely not a teenager. I am a mother of teenagers, though, if that counts for anything. I have a 16 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. The 13 year old does love OBX and does love JJ. The 16 year old does not and he thinks I'm a scrub so I guess that's fine. For Christmas, my daughter got a ton of OBX stuff and has a giant flag of Rudy Pankow in her bedroom. I kid you not, we have matching OBX sweatshirts. So at least she has good taste??

I am aware that OBX is highly geared toward teenagers, but coming of age stories are sort of timeless and I may be kind of old now but I'm not blind, lol. The actors across the board are attractive, and it's a pretty show to watch on all levels. And it hits all my buttons for found family. Or, it did. Until, you know.

But writing is ageless! In truth, I have been writing and posting fic since I myself was a teenager. I could talk about how things were back in the day -- where I shared fic on message boards, mailing lists, and half-assed Angelfire sites -- but I've been around for quite a bit of evolution of fandom, for better and worse.

While I've always written, I used to be a lot hot/cold when I was younger -- very driven by inspiration spurts and would have longer hiatuses. Now I've developed some excellent writing habits so I'm able to produce work more consistently -- something I could not have done were I still a teenager.

I hope the JJ fandom doesn't dry up completely, because that would be very sad. I will continue to do my part because I love JJ and his wellness and happiness still matter to me. The way the show dropped his storylines and abandoned his mental health development was nearly criminal. It is my current mission to rectify that if for no other reason than my own sanity. Which, for the record, is always in jeopardy.

All of which is to say, thank you! That's all very sweet of you to say and hearing feedback like that is part of what I love about fandom. I'm easily motivated by positive feedback, so the more I know people are reading, the more I want to write. I'd probably write either way, but the energy levels are higher with interaction across fandom.

I also encourage anyone who has ideas to try writing! You can be young or old -- or anything in between. Whether you're "good" at writing or entirely new -- it doesn't matter. Fandom requires people to create as much as it requires people to interact. That dynamic is what keeps things fun and engaging and meaningful for everyone, regardless of age.

[alicesadventuresinffxiv]

What are the most popular F/F Final Fantasy XIV ships?

(*on AO3, as of October 13, 2024)

I like writing femslash, so while I was doing the FFxivWrite challenge, I had the thought: wouldn’t it be fun to try writing each of the top 10 most popular FFXIV F/F ships? 

I figured it would be a good way for me to learn to write characters I wasn’t used to, plus hopefully it would mean some of the well-liked but rarely-written pairings would get more fic for them!

But then I ran head-first into the question: what are those F/F ships? I hit some interesting challenges attempting to figure that out, so here’s a post about how I reached my answer!

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First things first: I’m using AO3 stats for this analysis, entirely because AO3 has the most robust searching and filtering tools. Trying to wrangle this kind of analysis on tumblr or twitter would be a nightmare, as much as I’d love to know the answer on those sites!

Second, let’s quickly double check my assumption that F/F ships are indeed rarepairs in this fandom.

Yep, if you’re at all familiar with @centrumlumina's work on AO3 stats (which this analysis is somewhat inspired by ^^;), this is exactly in line with general fandom trends! For reasons that I understand intellectually but not in my heart, F/F fics tend to hover at around 6% of AO3 output overall.

Interestingly, this small slice of femslash makes FFXIV more similar to large, broad fandoms like the MCU or MHA (pictured above), and less similar to other online multiplayer videogame fandoms (pictured below). You might think that given its friendly reputation, FFXIV would attract more women and/or LGBTQ+ players and therefore have a higher proportion of femslash. But nope!

(Admittedly, pitting FFXIV against the fandom that contains Arcane feels a little unfair... :P)

.

So alright, with that out of the way, let’s start by doing the obvious thing. Hey AO3, what are the top 10 relationship tags when searching FFXIV on the F/F category?

[Note: Since the Warrior of Light is typically written as the author’s original character - especially in cases with multiple WoLs - I am combining the WoL/WoL and WoL/OC tags together.]

If you’ve been in FFXIV spaces for a while, you probably already guessed the #1 result! But as someone relatively new to the fandom, I was actually quite surprised. None of my previous fandoms had nearly this much focus on original characters!

Indeed, WoL/NPC ships and OC/ OC ships absolutely dwarf the numbers for any NPC/NPC ships, with the exception of the three largest M/M pairings (Aymeric/Estinien, Emet-Selch/Hythlodaeus, and Thancred/Urianger). Also, given that not everyone tags their OCs using either of the WoL or OC tags (ack! please use tags, your works get lost otherwise!)… you can always expect results for OCs to be an undercount. Woah!

Anyway, since WoL ships are so huge, I decided it made the most sense to give them their own list:

Another thing that surprised me is that male characters in FFXIV are so many times more popular than female characters that genderbent M/M pairings will show up in these F/F lists.

And… I wasn’t quite sure how to count those ships in my tallies.

On the one hand, genderbending (not to mention trans headcanoning-ing!) characters is a fun and often subversive way to approach popular ships. More power to everyone doing it!

On the other hand, part of the underlying motivation for my own writing goal was that I wanted to write pairings that fandom somewhat overlooks. 

As such, I went with a compromise: I’m including pairings with canonically male characters in my graphs (those are the pink bars), but I kept the lists going until I reached 10 pairings involving characters who are portrayed as women in the source material.

(There were no nonbinary FFXIV characters which placed on any of my lists, sadly. Apologies to Feo Ul, who is still the loveliest of branches in my heart.)

Other than that caveat, the results here aren’t too far off from my own guesses. Anecdotally, I’d seen that a lot of WoLs are self-inserts for their players, so it makes sense that typical WoL ships are with NPCs that are generally considered to be attractive by the fanbase. Correspondingly, the Reader/Character fics that are somewhat common in other fandoms don’t even rank on these lists, which might suggest WoL/NPC ships are largely fulfilling that niche.

(Something something, FFXIV is a dating sim with combat, in this essay I will…. :P)

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Anyway, WoL ships are nice, but what I actually wanted to write were NPC/NPC ships. So let’s add a bunch more excludes to the filtering… and…

Hm. That's interesting. There's a bunch of F/F ships that I know I’ve seen fic and art for that are missing from this list!

Out of curiosity, I did a few searches specifically on these missing pairings, in case they were so rarely tagged as purely F/F (or so commonly shipped alongside a WoL ship) that trying to find them via excludes didn’t work. These were:

Alisaie/Tesleen (20 total, 13 tagged F/F)

Krile/Tataru (14 total, 7 tagged F/F)

Ysayle/Heustienne (5 total, 5 tagged F/F)

Wuk Lamat/Sphene (4 total, 4 tagged as F/F)

[Note: The first number is what I used during the writing challenge last month… which is how I ended up putting Krile/Tataru over Lucia/Hilda. Oops! But the second number is more in line with the rest of the analysis here, so I will use that going forward.]

Seems my expectations were flat-out incorrect! Of these four, only Alisaie/Tesleen makes the top ten. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat/Sphene is a pairing consisting of very new characters... so perhaps it will grow over time!

Right then, let's add Alisaie/Tesleen in, and while we're at it, let's run direct searches on all the potential candidates rather than using excludes to ensure no fics are getting needlessly thrown out.

With those adjustments in place... I reached my final top ten!

Not bad! Predictably, pairings that get more focus in canon (Gaia/Ryne and Sadu/Cirina) tend to place high, as do pairings involving Y’shtola (since she’s a very popular character overall). 

As a Lyse-enjoyer, I found Lyse getting 3/10 spots on the list to be pretty funny, as was the heavy presence of Stormblood characters! Apparently I’m not the only one who thought StB was a good expansion for lesbians. :D

There are also a few pairings here that I hadn’t ever considered before doing this analysis. But hey, that was the point of making the list! And trying to figure out the dynamics for pairings I didn’t usually ship did indeed turn out to be a fun writing exercise last month.

So what do you all think, tumblr? Did the results surprise you like they did me? Or did I overlook a pairing that really deserved to be included?

In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this analysis!

[licncourt]

begin again COOKED as a post-qotd fix-it (fave fic! <3) but i need to know your thoughts on prince lestat/how you would re-do it in the correct way. to this day i still think LESTAT becoming prince monarch of all the vampires is one of the craziest decisions made during the novels. to me lestat is a prince in the same way that jack skellington was king of halloween (that includes the running away to cause delusional hijinks that ultimately jeapordize everyone)

Aaahhh thank you!! That fic is my child that I birthed so I appreciate it more than you know! It's actually BA's one year finished-iversary next week, my baby's all grown up.

I've talked about that before actually in this post about how I would rewrite the whole series, but I can expand a little here!

Firstly, this could've been two books instead of three. There was nothing going on in there that required three entire novels

Things that have to go entirely: aliens, test tube clone baby Viktor, Atlantis. Sorry, not salvageable

I think rather than the Amel thing, it would have been cool if the sacred core had started corrupting Lestat and altering his behavior as host, maybe changing him gradually into a animalistic, violent folklore-like vampire, making him slowly lose his mind like Mekare, or erasing his sense of self to become a blank host. Then it's a race against the clock and vampire magical biology to save him. This could be the first PL book

Ideally, I think this book should be narrated by Louis and focus a lot on his growth as a character as he finishes his personal. It would bring some happy ending closure to the IWTV version of him without being a jarring change. I also think having his POV for the best of his and Lestat's relationship would be a nice full circle moment from seeing him describe their worst. The idea of Lestat losing himself to the core and them potentially coming together too late would add good drama as well. Maybe this is Louis' follow-up memoir describing how they fixed things

The Rhoshamandes conflict can stay for the second PL and final VC book, but I think it could've been less boring if the drama between him and Lestat had been better fleshed out. They have a lot of similarities that weren't used to their full advantage. It would really highlight Lestat's growth to have him defeat what he could've become

When Lestat reunites with Louis, they would actually have some long, hard conversations about their past, ones that continue throughout the PL trilogy

Hopefully an explanation for why Lestat has made this 180 is included, even if it's just the crushing realization of his own loneliness and longing reaching critical mass after twenty years of who the fuck knows what

The cast is pared down to the strongest written and most interesting characters so the story isn't spread so thin, probably Lestat, Louis, Armand, Gabrielle, Marius, Pandora, and maybe a small handful of new characters with significance in the story. I think Seth, Fareed, Sevraine had the most potential to be good additions to the primary roster if she wanted to add on

Cool characters from the original like trilogy like Maharet and Khayman are expanded on rather than killed offscreen to make room for more Anne Rice NPCs. If we're going to kill someone from the trilogy, please God let it be David Talbot

This goes without saying I think, especially from me, but Louis would be restored to his former glory as a true main character alongside Lestat instead of relegated to lobotomized housewife. There was so much potential for him in an active consort role. We also don't get to see how he got to such a peaceful place at the end of PL, so I would like to see him work through some stuff on the page

I would either cut the Rhoshamandes/Benedict storyline because of how redundant it is with how it mirrors the Marius/Armand dynamic or do something to differentiate it as its own relationship. At the very least, maybe the similarity could be highlighted to become a character beat for Armand

As far as Armand in general, I would make him a much more prominent player. I think he's a great fit for a court setting and could create a lot of intrigue as well as adding coolness factor. I'm always torn about whether I like the reveal of his romantic feelings for Lestat, but in the interest of keeping SOME things intact, I would just play it differently. Primarily, I think he becomes way too agreeable (similar to Louis) in how he submits to and idolizes Lestat, so I would love to see him come into more conflict with Lestat in spite of those feelings. Maybe we can see him make some peace with their history and let go of that intense emotion for something healthier

If we're going to keep the sex injections (IVs, whatever), I think we should do more with it than have Lestat prematurely ejaculate into a random woman. I think there's potential for a very interesting new dynamic with Louis and Lestat. It would be cathartic and maybe an interesting part of their healing process and of becoming a real couple for the first time

That's what I can think of for now, but I might update later!

[fancyfade]

19, 22, 24 and 38 :) Have a nice day.

ok i tried to find the last ask game i reblogged hopefully these were it :P

19 favorite superhero family

hmmm this one is hard.

probably batfam, just based on focus and blorbos :P (though they also have so many comics so its easy to continue the focus)

I say it's hard because I did get possessed to read every single aqua solo title that existed. but also batman has way more so even if i was possessed to read every battitle ever i would not be able to...

22 favorite robin

Damian obviously :P Best Robin of all time 0 competition whatsoever.

24 if you had total control what would you change?

okay total control SO MUCH IS GOING TO CHANGE

OK just starting a list.

Give Wonderfam and Aquafam 2 monthly titles like Batman and Superman have. Wonder Woman for main Diana stuff, Sensation comics for Wonderfam, Aquaman for main arthur stuff, Adventure comics for aquafam

Limit # of Battitles. Bruce as Batman does not need multiple titles

Set a new Chronicles of Atlantis (not my original idea but i like it) to synthesize pre new 52 aquaman lore and post new 52 aquaman lore and establish what is canon b/c I DONT THINK ANY AQUA WRITER ACTUALLY KNOWS ATM

Honestly like... get rid of most of Zdarsky's batman run. You may notice lots of Retcons here but like. what does Zdarskys's batman run bring, in tone, that 'Tec does not do 40000 times better? It also cannot exist simultaneously with 'tec. only one of these stories can exist in current canon, and only one of them is good, so ... goodbye zdarsky's batrun.

New 52 onward garth is just an OC or guy from another universe (whatever they did with new 52 roy) and real garth with his character development is going to come back

Babs - some retcons. Either a similar thing with new 52 onwards babs just being misfit with amnesia (a headcanon I saw that I liked) or giving some new 52 Babs as Batgirl plots to Steph, keeping oracle stuff as Babs, and have Babs back as a para in her wheelchair and Oracle with her character development intact

Retcon all of the character assassination associated with Glass's run on Teen Titans 2016. no half-assed williamson stuff like 'uwu he was sad because of alfred's death'. actual retcons.

Retcon Morrison Talia and re-write Damian's childhood to be done mostly without Talia before he was 8 and she just was not aware of his existence due to (shenanigans). I'm doing my own shot at this in my fic The Way My Mother Didn't Raise me (link)

Give Tim Drake a character arc to make him move on from Robin for real.

probably more but i dont want this post to be 400000 words long

38 - who do you think is the most overlooked and underused character?

you know i am gonna go with helena kosmatos. even in the team comic she was introduced in she was quickly shoved to the side to be a love interest for a boring guy.

but like. how is a teenager girl with murderous rage that granted her superpowers due to furies not fun? do people remember being a teenage girl? also shes kind of indirectly* responsible for her brother's death after she blames him for their mom's death when their mom finds out he was collaborating with nazis. there's a lot of angst potential here.

*I say indirectly b/c it was unclear how much was tisiphone possessing her, while she expressed desire for her brother's death verbally i'm p sure she was very much tisiphone at that time

ty for asks!

[eilinelsghost]

Hi! This is very random but I was wondering what made you decide to structure Atandil as a series of interconnected one-shots instead of as a longfic? I really love the way you weave back and forth between timelines – was the non-linear narrative the main appeal for you? Or were you not keen on a chaptered longfic for another reason? Thank you ❤️❤️

Oh this is such a great question! So there is a short (and not very interesting answer) and a longer (hopefully more interesting one). I will give you both. :)

The short one:

I have never written fanfic at all until this series and have also never been involved in online fandom either until about a month or two before I posted Part 1. Consequently I know absolutely nothing about fic best practices or common structures, nothing about “fanon” at all, and I went into this not even realizing I needed to know how to tag things or that there were tropes writers used to categorize or describe general structures. Basically it’s just been me and my Elf obsession hanging out alone in my head for 20 years? Anyway, this story showed up one day (which is another funny story but I won’t get sidetracked on it in this post) and I basically just *needed* to get it out. Which is how we are here. To sum it up, I did a series because I didn’t know it would probably have made more sense as a chaptered long fic 🤦‍♀️ Ah well.

The longer one:

Yes, having it nonlinear was the primary appeal of breaking it up as a series. (In my know-nothing-about-fanfic-head, I assumed nonlinear meant series by default instead of chapters.)

Having it nonlinear was something I’ve always wanted to utilize in the structure because part of what it’s exploring is the whiplash of Elves interacting with mortals in this kind of timespan. It’s only about 150 years between Finrod discovering them and Finrod dying in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, which is a piddly little bit of time to a being with serial longevity for the duration of Arda.

And yes, I know there’s the passage where Tolkien talks about time passing for Elves at the same rate as for Men, but at the same time it would have to feel different, just by ratio. The older I get, the shorter every year seems - and I’m only 35. Finrod is in his 2,000’s at the time of the story so a hundred years is a proportionally small chunk that would feel quite fast, even if it’s technically passing at the same rate, because it’s such a small percentage of what he had lived already.

Hence the nonlinear structure. It gives the reader the same whiplash as Finrod is having, where all of this is happening in such a “short” span of time that it feels all crushed up on top of itself - almost as though it’s all happening at once. So you have Belen as an 18 year old running around in games and laughter one moment, and in the next he’s in his 90’s and on the brink of his own passing. It’s all at once. This aspect jumped out at me when I was reading the Athrabeth and Finrod’s like “well I was hanging out with Bëor a hot second ago” and Andreth replies with “…..buddy, he’s been dead for a…century?” Everything about this is utterly incomprehensible for Elves trying to get accustomed to mortal lifecycles in this mind-bogglingly short amount of time.

Presenting it as solo chunks also lets them function as a kind of kaleidoscope of memories, pieced together by a kind of natural association (which is why I’ve also tried to have deliberate contextual or thematic tie-ins for each, like a mind’s free association might follow). This may not fully find its landing until the epilogue, but the function of memory and *how* things are remembered is also key in this. “The life and love of the Eldar dwells much in memory,” “In memory lies our great talent”Etc.

Thanks so much for this ask! It was so fun to get to talk about this. :)

[danse-or-farkas]

Long time no direct message, hope you are doing well and that you and yours are both healthy and joyful!

So... burning question. May(?) be related to a fic idea. Of the brothers, which of them do you think would have the most mental block against bedding an orc? I could imagine Vilkas having issues because ew, social stigma, but I could imagine Farkas having problems because "um, I don't know how to handle all those protruding fangs and shit".

You are my Trusted Source(tm) for the mind of the two, so I thank you in advance for your contemplation of my thought experiment!

Its all fine, time is a tad wobbly as a concept for me. Yesterday, a month ago, a year ago, all tend to be a tad blurry. Unless its far enough to filter out of memory its recent to me! Glad I’m thought of a trusted source, I always think of my interpretation as a patchwork of canon, headcanon, inference, and just what feels correct inside the framework we have. This is going to be a tad rambly, and probably veers a little off topic. Hopefully there’s something useful in here you can pick out.

Farkas would look at the tusks, contemplate for about a half second if there would be any issues kissing through then, then do it anyway. Problems are to be solved in the moment, not uselessly dwelled upon beforehand. If any of the Circle questioned it he’d probably point out that his fangs are/were bigger in wolf form anyway. If it was for tusks in more fun places he would figure they’ve had them their whole life, they would know what they can and cannot do with their mouth. People couple up with Khajiit and Argonians who have a much more extreme teeth situation by comparison. His entire thought process can be summed up as a shrug, maybe with a slightly flatly delivered joke about it if he’s in the mood to make light.

As for social stigma and reputation, as far as he’s concerned those are for the highborn nobles with too much time and not enough warriors spirit to fret about. You can’t cleave heads with chastity, can’t bulwark a shieldbrother with the approval of gossips. Anyone who might suggest bedding an orsimer is somehow damaging either his honour or ability to fight is more than welcome to come tell him to his face and find out just how wrong they are. People already mistake his directness for dimwittedness so he’s used to shrugging off judgement at worst, and forcefully correcting it at the best.

Vilkas is the one who would have some issues, scaling depending where in the timeline it is. If its earlier he will still be in his own head about matters of honour and the afterlife, dealing with the wolf blood. He will be clinging to his Nordliness hard, and anything that he perceives as a risk to that will have him react less than well. If its later, post Kodlak, he will have also taken on a lot of their harbinger duties such as finding and maintaining contracts with the holds and nobility. This would mean he is the forward face of the guild and his perceived reputation directly touches everyone else.

Torvar is the only one better read on Companion history than Vilkas, so he would be the one most likely to successfully interfere with this if Vilkas refused to have the introspection to deal with it himself. He’d drop a copy of ‘Great Harbingers’ in his brooding lap and tell him to read up on Cirroc and Henantier if he’s going to so uptight about who he drags to bed somehow ruining his honour. If the famously Nord guild could have altmer and redguard harbingers without staining their honour, then his bedsheets could have an orsimer no problem.

Once they got over their issues both would get along with an orsimer fairly well. There would be some quirks, depending if they were legion or stronghold descended, broadly generalising.

Stronghold orsimer culture is based on tight knit groups working together toward a united purpose, honour, and deference to the strongest warrior as leader, and solving disputes with family with a good fist fight. Basically Jorrvaskr, so a good fit.

Legion descended orsimer would have the deference for chain of command, ability to work and live in tight confines with others, and putting the glory and victory of the whole above the self. Another good fit, but perhaps it might take time for them to defrost a bit toward the more found family nature of it and the fact that its fairly accepted to resolve differences by beating the other party in a way that would get you punished in the Legion.