#this is totally not the plot of my wip

[pillowenvelopchair]

Flowers

[mx-myth]

Okay so I've had some meta thoughts about Laurence's amnesia and how it relates to his relationship with Tharkay sitting in my drafts for like over a year now so I figured I'd finally clean it up and post it. Heads up it's really long.

Laurence finally consciously realises that he loves Tharkay (or is in love with him, whatever nuance you'd like) after "knew him, and knew himself." But at this point he's completely in pieces as a person (more on this next paragraph). Post-amnesia, he's an entirely different man. Pre-Temeraire Laurence is the harshest, strictest version both of and with himself. He follows the rules to the letter, basically takes Temeraire only out of duty in the beginning, and even keeps the promise between him and Edith despite there being no formal arrangement at all. Post-Temeraire but pre-amnesia Laurence has softened. He's putting less emphasis on the rules and more on his morals (see: treason). He has more leeway but still carries that honor/duty/order with himself.

Which is why post-amnesia Laurence is the version of himself that discovers that he loves Tharkay. In the wake of losing his memories and then regaining them he's lost and unmoored. Both of his past selves are so different and therefore so distant. They're both true but it's too jarring for him - especially in his current circumstances, much less the overall war - so Laurence becomes a new person. This is Laurence at his most vulnerable, his most unguarded, who smiles more often now because he doesn't really know that he didn't smile that much before. He has two major tethers to his personhood: Temeraire and Tharkay (I hesitate to say only tethers, simply because Laurence's life isn't that small, but repeatedly these two are the ones who have had the biggest impact on his life, who have kept him going). Obviously he loves Temeraire, he's never going to stop loving Temeraire, he just isn't capable of it, but seeing Temeraire didn't bring back his memories (I can't imagine how Temeraire must have felt, meeting a version of Laurence who had never met him). Laurence loves Temeraire in the most unconditional, selfless way - to be very Greek about it, his philia. But I think when he finally comprehends how Tharkay was the catalyst behind this radical change of his self he dives into his memories again and goes over them in excruciating detail (and he was definitely doing that already, but now he's doing it with a lens exclusively focused on Tharkay). At some point he comes to the realisation that Tharkay loves him, and that he loves him, and that he's been unconsciously shoving it down every time it's surfaced (past-Laurence was saying no homo while actively homo-ing). And with the benefit of being an new version of the same person (and also some hindsight, finally), this Laurence says, I've committed treason. My country sees me as a traitor but they still need me to serve them as a tool. I lost myself once in a war (see: "what are you doing?") that's still being fought. Time is short and there's no guarantee I won't lose my memories again, that I will still be the person I am right now. What do I have to lose?

(And on some level, this Laurence thinks, what can stop me?)

He begins giving to Tharkay what Tharkay always had given to him. His acts of devotions start small (relative to Tharkay's; transporting too many ferals is obviously a little outside of what Laurence can feasibly do). He cares for Tharkay once he wakes ("have you noticed the top of your head appears likely to come off?"), he helps him eat and drink, he massages his hands once they heal, he stays with him through the nightmares that come to haunt him. And he continues doing these little things for Tharkay, hoping that he understands (he's willing to wait, Tharkay waited for him after all, and Laurence doesn't want to push him, especially as he's healing). But I think the act that hits Tharkay like, oh, it's different this time is when Laurence bargains his freedom to Napoleon. I feel like that carries unspeakable meaning for Tharkay, who was ostracized growing up and ended up never having a "permanent" home since he travelled so much. I can't imagine that he hasn't been in a similar situation before, but he's probably always been expected to weasel his way out of it without any outside help. He's trained himself out of expecting someone to help him, to care enough about him to save him. Yet part of the man who turned to treason simply so the dragons of France wouldn't die in pain lives on in this Laurence. Pre-Temeraire Laurence is rules and post-Temeraire pre-amnesia Laurence is morals, but post-amnesia Laurence is all heart. There was never a way he was going to leave Tharkay behind.

So Tharkay starts watching him. He watches Laurence continue to devote himself to him, again and again. He brings him his coat on cold days. When it rains and their scars ache he curls around his hands and rubs lotion into them. When he goes into town he always brings Tharkay back a little gift. He starts growing vegetables in the garden and he learns how to cook non-wartime foods and how to knit (because he is a man forged by war and what does one even do during peacetime when one's dragon is busy reforming the government, anyway?) and suddenly he's providing for Tharkay like never before. He looked away for one moment and suddenly Laurence's prescence and all that he does has made the manor a home.

Yet Tharkay, for years, has told himself so many times that Laurence is off-limits, untouchable, that he can love him but that there's no chance that Laurence will love him back. The only way he can love Laurence is silently, nearly from afar, and so he tried to do that. But he can't just stand by and so every time he finds himself committing a deux ex Tharkay (see: ferals, again). He understands that there's some shit Laurence needs to learn himself (and god is this series very good about character development for Laurence) but he's not going to do nothing when the man in about to die. For him it's about caring and providing for Laurence even if he doesn't know it. He learns to content himself with the knowledge that, even if nothing comes of it, he can still be by Laurence's side.

But then the amnesia plot happens (which he only learns of after all of it goes down) and suddenly there is a half-stranger wearing the skin of the man he loves (loved, he tells himself) looking at him with those familiar blue eyes filled with a completely unfamiliar emotion. He's relieved that Laurence remembers but he's said that his Laurence is gone that he's even thinking of it like that (Tharkay has a lot of anger, both at himself and others and the world). Laurence is right in front of him, he's not gone at all, but he's gone in a way that matters. But also this new Laurence is by his side all the time. He's feeding him and helping him drink and dress and he sleeps on the floor by his bedside. Tharkay is so confused because this has to be some kind of fantasy dream he's having. He must still be in the cave (and it's believable that he is, because he returns there every night in his dreams). But he isn't and he has to struggle to come to terms with this new Laurence.

So every time Laurence does something even remotely nice he hyper-analyses it and rationalizes it to himself. He deludes himself into thinking that this is normal for Laurence now. It's normal for Laurence to fuss and hen over him now; it's normal for him to smile at him with that emotion written plainly on his face that Tharkay still hasn't (refuses) to decipher. And he does this well into post-canon.

For that reason he only gets with the program when Laurence has to leave the manor (leave home) for a long while (probably with Temeraire) and suddenly Tharkay is all alone in this huge manor. He's wearing the socks Laurence knitted for him and eating food Laurence grew and walking into rooms and seeing little parts of him scattered everywhere. There's a novel he's reading left on the table by the chair he prefers in the library. There's a cookbook in the kitchen in which he's bookmarked recipes he thinks he might like. Tharkay finds a handwritten list of things they need to buy in town left out for him. He left his pillows on Tharkay's bed because he knows he likes sleeping with a ton of pillows (and they smell like him, and Tharkay pretends he doesn't bury his face in him, that he doesn't miss him while he's gone). When Tharkay wakes up in the morning he makes two cups of tea and waits for Laurence to come in from talking with Temeraire before remembering that neither of them are here (home). He expects Laurence to appear in the evenings to ask if he wants to go on a walk through the grounds with him (and he always ends up saying yes). Tharkay learns that the manor is too big for one man who has always been a little too lonely in his life.

So until Laurence returns home he plots and plans and agonizes. After a week once Laurence has come home (and the first thing he had said to him was welcome home, and Laurence had beamed at him, and it was so unbelievably natural to say it) Tharkay begins his attempts at reciprocating. He wakes up earlier so that he can brew Laurence tea so he can take it out to sit with Temeraire. He says that he cooked some of the recipes from Laurence's cookbook and insists on making them for Laurence (he had to figure out his system of marking which recipes were Laurence's favourites). He gifts him a sturdy, functional, and beautifully crafted knife to wear around the house for daily use; he specifically makes sure the knife is up to Temeraire's standards. In fact, Tharkay talks to Temeraire about everything, and Temeraire tells him, with no minced words while completely drawing his own conclusions, that it's very nice that Tharkay is asking him for his blessing, but does he really need it at this point? Haven't they been courting long enough? He's always approved of Tharkay, because he makes Laurence happy.

That's how Tharkay realises he and Laurence have been dancing around each other like shy birds, both of them subtly showing off but not making the first move. And maybe he realises that Laurence is thinking how he used to think - that it's okay as long as he can be by his side, that he doesn't need his love reciprocated (it's a very long chain of Tharkay loving Laurence, Laurence knowing Tharkay loves him and loving him back, and Tharkay loving Laurence and knowing he knows he loves him and loves him back). And of course Tharkay wasn't going to make the first move back then, and if Laurence hasn't by now, then maybe he should borrow some of Temeraire's courage.

It's something small. The words come later, given how action-forward both Laurence and Tharkay are. They don't even need words. Maybe Tharkay takes Laurence's hand during dinner and intertwines their fingers, maybe he touches Laurence's cheek after he's braided his hair as their eyes meet in the mirror, maybe as they pack away the port and piquet he kisses him good night. Whatever it is, they look at each other and simply know. Tharkay sees Laurence slowly start to smile, a huge one that spreads across his entire face, one that he's only seen on Laurence when he thinks he's alone with Temeraire. He seems to brighten, almost radiating light.

For his part, Laurence reciprocates. He squeezes Tharkay's hand, he turns his cheek into Tharkay's touch, he pulls him in for another kiss. He watches as something seems to drop from Tharkay, something that he hadn't even known he was carrying. He becomes loose and relaxed, his body language more open as he looks at Laurence with one of his little smiles, a bit of shyness that he's never seen before evident on his face. He tells Tharkay that he's the most beautiful person he's ever seen.

[hereidinathoreauwrites]

Chapters: 7/10: This Can Only End Tragically

Fandom: Barbie (Movie 2023) Rating: Mature

“I want to do something for her.” Gloria admits.

Apparently, that hadn’t been what Sasha had been anticipating. “Oh?” Her other eyebrow shoots up. “Why?”

“T-to thank her for her help at the hospital.” That’s innocent enough. Gloria teases the edge of her bathrobe. “Do you…know what she might appreciate?”

Sasha thinks for a moment. “She likes books.” She suggests, somewhat deadpan.

Gloria sighs. “Yeah I…kinda figured.”

“And I think her favorite flowers are daffodils. Make of that what you will.”

Now it’s Gloria’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “O-kay…?”

Sasha nods, getting that mischievous look on her face. “And I think a nice dinner and some wine wouldn’t go unappreciated…”

“W-well, I don’t know if I’m going that far…” Gloria sputters, certain her cheeks are crimson. She cant tell if Sasha is being serious or not. Either way, she doesn’t like it.

“Mom,” Sasha’s admonishment is uncharacteristically serious for her. She taps Gloria’s leg with the tip of her crutch, the closest to a reassuring hug she’s going to get. “Stop over thinking it. Barbie’s easily won over. She will love whatever you do for her.”

Gloria’s not so sure of that anymore.

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Margot Robbie's Barbie/Gloria (Barbie 2023), Margot Robbie's Barbie & Sasha (Barbie 2023), Gloria & Sasha (Barbie 2023) Characters: Margot Robbie's Barbie (Barbie 2023), Gloria (Barbie 2023), Sasha (Barbie 2023), El Esposo de Gloria (Barbie 2023), Ruth Handler (Barbie 2023), Ryan Gosling's Ken (Barbie 2023) Additional Tags: Divorced Gloria (Barbie 2023), El Esposo de Gloria exists and he's awful, This Barbie is a Teacher!, A Hot Teacher, This Gloria is Horny, References to classic literature because my expensive education has to be used for something, Lots of Sex, From Sex to Love, eventually, Lots of Shenanigans first Summary:

All she wanted was some casual, low-stakes sex with a hot woman. It’s totally not Gloria’s fault that her partner of choice is also her daughter Sasha’s drop-dead gorgeous English teacher. It’s just an unfortunate turn of events when she’s recently divorced and just realizing she has the WORST teacher fetish imaginable.

A single revenge hookup has a cascade of unintended consequences for one Gloria Esperada.

[rita-rae-siller]

Okay this is an absurdly specific ask for Storyteller Saturday....what is one wip outside of your posted/main one you'd like to talk about? Or alternatively, what is something within your main wip you want somebody to give you an excuse to talk about?

Feel free to answer either or both!

Oooooo, I’ve been looking for an excuse to rave about my vampire WIP!!!

So this is my longest story. The Price of Blood currently sits at over 120k words in draft 1. Almost 30 chapters. I took a break from working on draft 2 to work on The Lies They Tell during a fiction writing workshop I took in the spring semester at school.

It’s my other queer fantasy novel, featuring one very tall princess (Her name is incredibly long, but she goes by her first middle name, Victoria) that’s abducted by a vampire cult to harbor the soul of the God of Shadows and Subterfuge, AKA the vampire anti-christ. Her entire homeland Halaafin, ruled by the Halaa—sort of half elves basically? They’re one of the only people in this world that have magic. Pure humans can’t use magic—is overrun by this cult and basically destroyed. She makes a bargain with a spider witch that's also been betrayed by the cult to save her life and that of her unborn child. The ritual to summon the vampire anti-christ is sabotaged, but the vampires don’t know it. She manages to escape not long after.

Queue 15 years of living alone with her son in the middle of the woods of the neighboring empire until he’s old enough to help her fight the vampires and retake their kingdom. But things don’t go according to plan. The spider witch tells her she has to get a jump on their plans to destroy the cult early, before her son is ready by Victoria's standards. Queue her teaching her son a lot about his history and also her running into her childhood best friend/almost lover, a duchess in the empire that serves the empress as a professional monster hunter. The two reconnect to fight the cult, fall back in love with one another, and also work on healing from the trauma of losing their families to the cult. It's a very gay story full of angst, dry humor, and lots of dead vampires. Also stresses the importance of family and loved ones in the healing process, and how grieving is inherently ugly. (I wrote a lot of this WIP while my own grandmother was dying, so loss is a big theme in it, as well as love continuing after death)

Also guns. Victoria has been removed from modern society for almost twenty years, so when she comes back to civilization, she's introduced to more modern monster hunting equipment used by non-magic people. And let me tell you: nothing makes this giant bisexual disaster happier than getting to shoot vampires and monsters in the head point blank with a revolver.

[authenticaussie]

20. Tim sticks his foot in his mouth and threatens to jump out a window

Feed me my cringefail ex-boyfriend

Cringefail beef!! <33 u know i love his cringefail everything 😔😔❤️❤️ honestly from all the aus too this is probably his most "oh my god you idiot". Bar the trans!tim + dami one i told you about where he's just an asshole because he and dami have the world's most incompatible communication styles.

Anyway this one is so silly <33 I was reading a lot of uhhh "tim was robin but didn't share his identity aus"? And i like the concept but I didn't find any that stuck out to me as like. Yes this is so fun!! But then I started writing my own and had to put a pin in THAT idea to write an "okay but also tho what if he was NEVER robin but still knew about the bats and is a liiiiil bit of a stalker/tries to help them as civvies" 🤭 and so the gist is he's working at WE and offers some unsolicited advice that makes Bruce go: UH....(RED FLAG ALERT!!) and Tim 100% fucks up and admits their identities. Bruce throughout 90% of this is still trying to be like: haha whatttt batman?? Me?? So silly :) what are you talking about! While Tim, who has suppressed this for over a decade, is now totally autistic info dumping at this poor man 😂

------

“Would you like to try again?” Bruce asks, a tinge of mirth in his tone even as his heartbeat starts to kick, and Tim lets out a helpless snort.

“Fourteen years,” he says, and Bruce blinks. “Fourteen years of a perfect streak and then a one-on-one conversation and I stick my foot in my mouth? Oh, yes, Drake, you're the perfect secret-keeper, you don't spill shit, only to the guy who-”

“Son, do you need anything?” Bruce interrupts, when the tangent seems to be gaining an uncomfortable level of self-directed vitriol.

“I need to know if this window opens outward,” he says, dry and humiliated, and Bruce decides to take it as a joke rather than immediately reaching for the security alert on his desk. Tim Drake heaves an infuriated sigh, then says, “Hurry up then, let's go. Wipe my memory. I'll have to figure it out again I guess. For this bullshit, I deserve it!”

[polux-aka-hyakunana]

Ok but has anyone ever done a Geats sponsor switch!AU because

[leslieseveride]

that anon was wild ANYWAYS chenford’s gonna have 2 beautiful children and raise them together happily what are we naming them

omg ikr, wasn't that just bizarre? i was like "huh?!" 🤨 like i'm not saying they should start having kids this season cause even i think that's a bit of a far fetched plotline. but anyways i picture them with three kids. two whirlwind little girls, and a super sweet little mama's boy. i came up with a full name for their first daughter when i was writing my pregnancy fic (really lost the fuel to my fire for that though when i accidently deleted my previous main account a couple years ago, idk if i'll ever really get back to that one sadly 😔).

[inkedhorror]

oh when did that happen...

[katara-draws-sometimes]

when you're tired of slamming through 5278946798 school assignments so you make custom stickers of your silly little ship to cope <3 (these were completed back in November 2022 i just forgot to post them here oopsies)

[boygirlctommy]

man i want to make an animatic about my ocs so bad

[thedeviousdevilxx]

I love how my WIP basically became what if not-Mick/The Stones and not The-Beatles fall under the influence of some charismatic cult leader who uses their fame and massive fan base of millions across the globe to create a Scientology-esque organization.

And everyone is a messy bisexual on top of it all.

[nostalgia-tblr]

WIP Ask Game

Rules: post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it!

I wasn't tagged for this I'm just procrastinating, and it's been a while since I did this one so New! Filenames! Appear! I left out my main AU WIP and also a couple that got asked about in previous editions of this meme. These are all Loki show/MCU fics because apparently that is my Thing at the moment:

5 times seduction

lokius stockholm syndrome fic

sylki hurt-comfort (but she's shit at it)

parry

mobius made them do it

the one with the file

fucked up sakaar dubcon fic again

straightforward

twee thor

suddenfilth

thor's tragic arranged marriage (NOT THORKI FIC)

[mutable-manifestation]

lmaoooo the footnote sent me

you are personally and directly hit by a bus¹ and isekai-ed, via resurrection, into the body of the main character your most recent WIP

reblog and tell me: on a scale of 1–10, how screwed are you right now?

¹ this is, transparently, a plot device, so if you are about to tell me "joke's on you, I never leave my fifteenth floor apartment!" then you may rest assured it will have tremendous comedic value when the bus is launched into the sky and crashes through your apartment wall to flatten you anyway

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

realizing i have to give my older ocs haircuts when they were younger that might even be different than their current ones....

[armentas]

Ok ok ok considering I have an actual (though very basic) outline written for Haven's new concept, I need to give very major updates and eventually update my pinned post.

The details:

Haven is now going to be a second person perspective piece of interactive fiction!

Haven's new plot: You, as Heather, find a way to go back in time after the suicide of your older brother, Beau — both to relive your brighter childhood years, and to try to prevent the circumstances leading up to his death. Meanwhile, Beau's starting to get a nausea-inducing sense of deja vu... Focuses on suicide prevention, balancing taking care of yourself versus others, and the lie that is nostalgia: no matter what you think, you don't actually want to be a kid again. Additionally, it will have a mechanic to mimic what it's like living with an anxiety disorder, and 4 different endings, one meant as the "canon" ending. Lord help me.

Ever since I first became a writer, I've generally assumed that even once completed, I'd just keep all of my stories private, outside posting some info and excerpts online. With Haven, it's different! Since it's a game, after all, I do fully plan on making it public, that way others can play and enjoy! I might be in the beginning phase right now, but I'm still SO pumped about all of this. It now has me considering my other projects becoming public when they're complete, too. We'll see :)

In Haven's previous concept, I was working with some extra characters: Skip, Milo, and Josie. The issue with them is that they kind of had their own story going on that didn't relate much to Haven's plot, so they do still exist, they're just being given their own WIP. I haven't developed much about it yet since it's low priority, but Skip's the main character, Milo's his love interest, it's largely about their baggage and growing dynamic as delinquent kids in the early 2000s, and the story's currently called The Day You Left or TDYL for short.

New(ish?) characters and WIP! (Celio and his backstory are old and repurposed; Finn is new.) Once again, not too developed yet, but here's the general concept I'm working with: Loosely Victorian esque theocracy fantasy world. Filler title is The Tower. Celio is a priest hiding a lot of baggage, Finn is a poor religious scholar looking to learn. They become romantically involved in secret, eventually developing an unhealthily codependent relationship while simultaneously only really manipulating each other for their own ends. Lots of murder happens, very doomed by the narrative — Celio's run from the guillotine stopping as Finn lovingly coaxes him back to it. My sort of controversial opinion on media is that I don't care for fantasy most of the time, and honestly? I'm not too great at writing it either LOL, so this will definitely end up an experiment to see if I can successfully stretch the required creative muscles, or if it'll just be another plot tossed to the side. At the very least, I really love Celio as a character and his so painfully clear, inevitable fall from grace. He's probably the most complex character I've ever written, and he only really suits a fantasy plot, so it's worth trying to do him justice!

And, finally, Delora and Stasia are still doing about the same, living their best lives. If you don't count the misery I put them through, of course.

[vasattope]

~