#they're a rapunzel retelling btw

[thermo-catz]

Bg3 tav headshot concepts (updated)

They are..so sad. And so numb.

[the-diabolist]

Strade in the ballroom with a machete. Could be very interesting.

Kinktober 2022, day 4 - interesting indeed. Possibly too interesting, judging by my word count :) btw your art is baller 👌

c.w: gn reader, dubcon, soulmate AU (marked w/ first touch), restraint, biting, rough sex, Strade is his own warning. 1.4k

When you were little, you couldn't figure out why adults always seemed to recoil from you upon first meeting. They usually recovered fairly quickly, but the strange, sad look they directed at you never quite went away.

Once you were old enough to understand soulmates, you also understood their apprehension, and your parents' crippling fear.

For a long time, you weren't allowed to go anywhere without a chaperone. There was even talk of hiring a bodyguard, but that never happened. What did happen was practically a modern-day retelling of Rapunzel: your parents locked you away in your room after your 18th birthday.

Naturally, you tried to escape. They had no legal right to keep you there, but unfortunately the law didn't hold a candle to large steel padlocks and barred windows. They took care of you, of course; you were well fed, given plenty of things to do, and you were allowed out to spend time with them when they were home. You weren't really living, though, and you couldn't go on like that.

Finally, a few years later, you got an opening. Your mother tripped on her way through the front door, and you shoved past her quickly, bolting out into the night. You kept going until you were sure you'd lost them, and then, with some of the money you'd been slowly saving, hopped on a bus to the next town over.

You didn't have enough for a hotel, and you weren't sure yet what to do, so you started looking for someplace you could sit for a while, maybe get some food, and figure some things out. The first place you found was a fairly quiet-looking bar, and you dipped inside. It was scary, suddenly being on your own, but at least you were free.

Unfortunately, that freedom didn't even last 12 hours, because he was waiting inside the bar.

He seems nice. You chat a little, he buys you an appetizer, and a while later you decide to head out in search of a safe place to sleep.

He corners you a street over from the bar - charges you, shoves you into an alley, wraps a hand around your throat, and pins you to the wall.

You're terrified, of course, and it's not any better when you realize that his hand is placed exactly, perfectly, over the soulmate mark on your neck.

He pauses his assault, and you can guess why. Your hand had flown up to his chest in an attempt to push him away; it's still sitting there, and his eyes are locked on it, transfixed. You know what you'd find beneath your palm if he unbuttoned his shirt.

You're panting harshly around the pressure on your throat (which hasn't eased at all, despite his distraction), afraid to move, afraid of him, afraid of all the implications of this moment - and meanwhile he's seemingly gone comatose on his feet.

"Oh..." he breathes quietly, slowly lifting his other hand to touch yours. Startled into action, you try to yank it away, but his grip closes around it like iron, keeping it pressed so firmly against his chest that you wouldn't be shocked if it bruised.

The hand around your neck releases you, only to seal itself around your jaw instead, tilting it upward so he can see the glaring, hand-shaped mark there.

"Oh! Oh, darling," he croons, face splitting into a grin that fails to comfort you - in fact, you feel the fine hair on the back of your neck stand on end. "Look - you're mine!"

Your hand is still trapped in his, and he drags your conglomeration of digits from his collar and down his chest, snagging the buttons of his shirt as he goes, until they're all either undone or popped off - at which point he pulls the fabric open wide enough to show you what you'd expected: a shadow of a handprint, exactly your size.

You don't know how to respond. He's practically vibrating with excitement, face flushed, tone overjoyed; does this mean he'll let you go? Change his mind about whatever he'd been about to do to you? Somehow, you doubt it.

"Uh - um, it's - it's nice to meet you...?" you squeak out.

"Ah, such a sweetheart! Aren't I lucky?" He says, seemingly genial despite his bruising grip on your jaw - completely at odds with the bone-chilling, hungry way his eyes now travel over your form. He licks his lips, the sight both terrifying and oddly arousing. It makes something start to churn your belly.

He leans forward, slowly. You want to lean away, but you're trapped between him and the wall. You startle when his lips meet your throat, trailing along your mark, and then you whimper when you feel the graze of his teeth. He bites, a sharp nip, and you release a strangled yelp.

"Ahh... hmm. I think it's your turn, soulmate," he breathes. He's still excited, but for the first time there's a dangerous edge to his voice that makes you tremble. "We should be even, don't you think?"

Before you can ask what he's talking about, his hands move, surging beneath your shirt, roughly pulling it off, baring your torso despite your weak attempts to stop him. He finishes removing his own shirt as well, throwing all the clothing to the ground in a heap.

"There now, much better," he grins.

"Please, I..." you start, unsure what you're trying to say, and knowing it isn't going to matter anyway. Your hands push at his chest, deliberately avoiding his mark, but he grabs both of them in one of his and pins them above your head.

"Oh? So polite," he mutters, burying his face in the crook of your neck, dragging his lips, teeth, and tongue haphazardly over your skin, nipping and sucking and lapping his way from one side to the other, then over your collarbones, down your sternum - you whimper and whine reflexively, trembling in his grip, increasingly disturbed by the growing warmth between your legs. "Keep begging, okay, darling? You can even cry if you want! It gets me so excited..."

Your eyes widen at his words, squirming in his grasp - half trying to break his hold, half looking for friction. He's horrifying, definitely, but he's also... thrilling. You'd managed to have some experiences in your teens, despite your s-tier helicopter parents - who, you know, must have been terrified of you ending up in exactly this situation - but never anything like this. You're not even sure you want him to stop anymore.

Suddenly, he yanks you away from the wall, and you yelp again as he tackles you to the ground, pinning you against the articles of clothing he'd thrown there earlier.

"We're going to have so much fun, liebling," he purrs, roughly freeing you of your pants - and now you start to panic again, do you really want this?

"You're going to love the house," he continues. His breathing grows ragged as he undoes his belt, rushing to do away with anything separating your skin from his - and you couldn't do anything even if you wanted to, he's got your hands in his iron grip again - "you're going to love your collar," he all but growls as he shoves himself, newly freed and alarmingly hard, inside of you with one thrust.

You scream; he moans.

"S-Slow down," you warble. He didn't prepare you - didn't even ask if you wanted -- the sudden stretch is uncomfortable, burning, too much friction, and the most you can do is writhe beneath him, stuck fast in his grasp. Begging is your only recourse. "Please - "

He's not listening to you.

"I'll try not to hurt you too much - " he thrusts again, deep and hard; you cry out - "I'll take care of you - we'll be so close - " his teeth sink into your shoulder, his pace ramps up; his free hand slides down your body, between your legs, and starts stroking you vigorously. For the first time, the sound that leaves your throat is more pleasure than pain.

"Who you belong to?" he asks, panting hard.

You don't want to say it - but his fingers slow to a crawl, and you're a hair's-breadth from orgasm.

"You," you crumble, "I'm yours - ah!"

He comes, flooding you with warmth, and you follow at his heels - already regretting your affirmation, but it's far too late now.

And after all, it is the truth - thanks to whatever cruel god created soulmates.

[transmasc-wizard]

What does it mean when you say you're writing a retelling of a story?? How does it work? How do you write it?

(sorry if this is a difficult question, I'm just really curious)

hi! it's not a difficult question at all, don't worry!

So basically, a retelling is very much what it says on the tin: you take an old (public domain!) story and rewrite it as something new.

Sometimes it's very close; think children's books of rapunzel that just maybe make it simpler and shorter. Sometimes it's farther from the source, such as Disney's the little mermaid, which changes some major plot details. and sometimes they're like my wip, which is an absolutely off-the-rails loosest possible form of retelling!

Some good retellings include: Cinder (Marissa Meyer), a sci-fi cyberpunk cinderella retelling; The Boy Who Steals Houses (C.G. Drews), a fun modern goldilocks retelling; and These Violent Delights (Chole Gong), a Chinese 1920s Romeo & Juliet retelling.

Retellings are often but not always retellings of fairytales/folktales. This is because most fairytales are no longer copyrighted; Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White... all of those are public domain. (yes disney has retold them, but the copyright is on the disney versions only. it's still legal to retell, like, the 1600s original cinderella.) They're also often old classics! Jane Austen books get retold a lot, as do Shakespeare stories. you can't retell something like LOTR, because LOTR is still under copyright. (You can be inspired by LOTR though, and many authors are.)

As for how do you write it, there's a lot of ways! But typically a big part of writing a retelling is reading the original story/stories, then deciding what you want to keep and what you want to yeet! From what i've seen, most people keep general ideas of character, the basic plot structure, central objects/things, and the overall themes. Personally, for GFW1--my Cinderella retelling--i kept a very, very loose version of the plot, amped the themes up to 11, kept some central objects*, and almost completely rebuilt the characters' personalities; their roles are the only hint of who they were.

(*the pumpkin carriage became an old taxi they stole and fixed, the shoe is still there, the ball became a masquerade, the fairy godmother and stepmother are 1 and the same but still there.)

Then, once you've figured out what you're keeping, you fill in the rest of the details and write the story.

I personally love retellings; they're really good examinations of theme and plot and stories, because a cinderella retelling is not actually cinderella, and yet almost everyone who reads it will understand where it's coming from if you do it right. Also, from a much more chaotic viewpoint, i personally love going "hmmm how many gay necromancers can i add before this story is unrecognizable??". Aka, seeing how far i can stretch it and still keep the story.

(btw gfs is only cinderella for the 1st book. after that it rotates through fairytales like a roulette wheel and gets looser and looser each time.)

I actually highly suggest that curious writers dabble in retellings a bit on their own! Even just, like, 1000 words. If you're interested in retellings, they're great to try out. They can make you think a lot about what makes this story this story and think about themes and dynamics and worlds, as well as stress less, because nothing is original anyway!