#this passage has two of my favourite lines in it

[pangur-and-grim]

this might be cringe, but we had to write 1 page of description about something and I chose my favourite object in the whole world

From how it looks, the statue should smell like algae and regurgitated milk (like an unweaned kitten, if it fell into a pond). In actuality, its only odour comes from the thick blanket of dust it wears. Its four legs are stout, toe-less. Its tail stands straight like the pole of bumper-car, eager and tensed to wag. Two wet eyes peer up. They are black enough to see your own face reflected. Under them, the tight line of a mouth, melancholic and imploring. 

Tapping its stout back (and leaving fingerprints in the dust) would reveal that it is hollow. A living animal might contain organs, and bones, and even a swallowed meal, but this creature holds only air. It can produce no sounds of its own. It will produce no waste. It will never want anything, nor squeeze anything foul out of its rear, but still it seems to beg for sustenance. Being frozen only adds to this tension; staring at it, each would wait for the other to blink. This is why a slab of plastic meat has been laid before it. An offering, like cream and butter for a fairy.

‘Frog kitten’ is how the online listing described it, and accordingly, it has an amphibious lack of ears. Its square body, shaped like a loaf of bread, is covered in mouldy splashes of night-green and white-beige. Two dabs of a cleaner white across its back only serve to emphasize the drabness of its majority. Five rake-marks trail down one side: scars, wounds, the bright green of its meat bleeding through. Could the sculptor have scratched it with their fingers, deeply and deliberately? And why? Why create such a young, sweet creature, and then harm it? 

The creature has no anus. The creature has no ear canals. The creature has no urethra, nor cloaca, no mouth, nor pores, but it does have two penetrating nostrils. If you shone a light down those narrow passages, you could explore the hollowness of its belly.

Touch the creature, and it is cold. Stroke it, and it is smooth, but speckled with the smallest of lumps and warts. It is dry but shines as though wet with perspired oils. You cannot look at this mute dead thing without seeing it as alive. The longer you hold its gaze, the less of the dust you smell, and the more of the algae and the milk. 

[midnightorchids]

hey babe- I sucks so much that your sick and stressed. Maybe some soft Jason HCs will help. - Jason will highlight and annotate lines or passages in his book that remind him of you. He will say them to you late at night when both of you are tucked away in bed to make it seem like he made it up himself. You know he's lying since you have read all of his books but you indulge him. That adorable proud smirk on his face is too kissable not too. - Both of you have scheduled reading dates once a month where you'll spend most of the day just reading on the couch. Your head in his lap or his head in yours. You spend supper that night talking about your separate books. - He loves it when you slightly tug on his hair or gently scratch his skin (non-sexually). It's like a reminder to him that he didn't make you up and that he can still feel you so closely. He's dead asleep as soon as his head connects with your chest and your hands tangle in his thick black hair. He'll smile and giggle like a little kid as you kiss the white tuft of hair tangled over his forehead. - If your a hero/vigilante yourself, he coordinates his patrol times so that you'll start patrol together. He only takes his mask off during patrol time when he's with you on a secluded roof-top or warehouse. The first thing he always asks is 'you ok hun? anything happen?' - After patrol, he's always antsy to pamper you first. He helps you out of ur uniform, sweeping you up into his arms to be placed in the bath. The warm water, scented at your request, settles your nerves, the tension leaving your muscles as Jason starts washing down your shoulders and chest. He settles behind you, your body trapped against his. His legs on either side of you and his thick arms holding you tightly against his chest. His chin usually rests on the top of your head as you ramble about your evening. He'll press soft sweet kisses under your ear and along the curve of your neck, making you giggle. - He'll help you step out of the bath and wrap you tightly in a towel, giving you one of his shirts to change into as he finds his sweatpants. You fall asleep on top of him, nestling into the safety of his arms. Both of you are cozy and extremely sappy. But it's just a fraction of the love that he pours into you and your relationship. Jason falls asleep smiling, knowing that he has the most important person in his life wrapped up and safe tangled in his arms.

You don’t understand, this genuinely just made my whole day, week even!! Thank you!!! These are the sweetest headcanons ever, I would die for soft Jason. I had the stupidest grin on my face reading the first one, he’s such a loser, but in the best way possible. And because of that, I’d also like to add on to that one…!

You know when a song comes on that you know really well and you just can’t help but sing along? I think there would be a time in your relationship where he’d recite you a verse from his favourite poem, acting all high and mighty like this is his own work. You’ll look at him with a small smile on your face, trying to hold yourself back from reciting along with him, but you can’t help it!! Once you start, he’ll stop and get this really cute, sheepish smile, knowing that he’s been caught.

You’ll both let out a giggle and to tease him further, you’ll tell him he’s an amazing writer and that you’re a big fan of his works. This will end in one of two ways, he’ll tackle you and smother you with kisses or he’ll tickle you until you’re both a laughing mess. Either way, this doesn’t stop him from reading out his favourite lines to you and pretending like they’re his own.

The scheduled reading dates one also has me on such a chokehold. I want to be bundled up in a cosy sweater with big blanket and have him lay his head on my lap, while I play with his hair and read to him (I suck at reading out loud, he’d probably make fun of me LMAO).

I also want him to tell me about the books he’s reading, his eyes wide, full of life and beaming with passion.

This is when he looks the prettiest. He’s so excited, he’s waving his hands around gesturing to things, pacing around the room, trying to explain this crucial point in his story to you. You can’t help but stare at him in awe, he’s just so so pretty like this.

[idontknowreallywhy]

Resurface 35 - Reappraise

Story to date in order (Tumblr / AO3)

Previous chapter

ART!VIRGIL KLAXON

Perhaps if you hadn’t read them before these two chapters (here and here) may make more sense of what Virgil has been drawing.

And if you missed the wee!Earth&Sky flying machine adventure, that is contained in this one and this one.

But now, onwards! Virgy-boy still has some demons to exorcise and needs Scooter to help him. Points to whoever spots the cameo from an old friend 😈

💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚

The view from Virgil’s balcony was very similar, but subtly different. They weren’t adjacent - both John’s often-empty and Dad’s always-empty room lay between - and the shift of a few metres to the left meant the light reflected off different facets of the damp rocks of Mateo and the shadows changed shape. The sea met the shore at a marginally different angle, the light refracting through the shallows and hitting the greener end of blue. Two of the trees visible from Scott’s were hidden by the curve of Roundhouse Peak.

Scott hadn’t noticed any of this before Virgil pointed it out. What he did know was that on his own the breeze was stronger and there was fractionally more sky. On a hot day he’d always advocate for the cooler, more exposed position. Where he could see as far as possible. Where he could breathe.

But on a cooler evening, there was something comforting about how the sun’s residual heat radiated from the stone and bathed Virgil’s preferred haven in a warm glow.

Virgil had added to the warmth that evening by opening a bottle of Scott’s favourite scotch which he’d clearly stashed away at some point. Had it been one of the others who produced such a thing, Scott would be waiting for ‘The Favour’ or ‘The Difficult Question’. In Gordon’s case, quite frequently ‘The Confession’.

Virgil, however, often just did it to be nice. And Virgil knew that, unlike Dad and himself, Scott preferred his liquor without rocks. He took another sip and rested his head back with a contented sigh, allowing the liquid to rest on his tongue.

“Scott?”

“Mmmmhmm?” The heat spread through his sinuses as he breathed over it.

“Can I ask you a favour?”

Oh!

The whiskey hit the back of Scott’s throat and his eyeballs burned. Virgil seemed hesitant which mean this was going to be important! He coughed and croaked out a hurried confirmation:

“Always.”

Virgil, staring out to sea, appeared not to notice his brother’s nasal passages vaporising which, again, indicated something was Up. Scott scrubbed at his eyes with a sleeve and with an iron will, forced himself to get a grip of his respiratory system. He was about to say something else encouraging when Virgil suddenly spun to face him and in a voice of utmost seriousness stated:

“It’s a weird one.”

Scott raised an amused eyebrow.

“I can do weird.”

“Would you wear it again?”

The other eyebrow joined it with vigour.

“Wear what? If you’re asking about Halloween and that cursed Superman costume, Alan beat you to it and it’s a hard no. I might be persuaded to consider Batman but only if you’re Robin.”

Virgil snorted and swirled the ice in his glass. The not ungenerous measure he’d poured himself having already disappeared.

“As you very well know I don’t do tights. Not after the Christmas debacle.”

“I think you made a lovely elf.”

“You’re deranged.”

“Yeah but you love me.”

Virgil threw an ice cube at his head before conceding: “I do. Yes.”

He then frowned.

“Scooter, are you CRYING?”

“Nope. No no I’m just… enjoying this with ALL my senses.” He raised the glass and winked.

Virgil narrowed his eyes as if invisibly scanning his brother, then with a quirk of an eyebrow seemed to conclude there was no sudden emotional devastation and released him from scrutiny. He looked back out towards Mateo and tracked the petrels swooping to and from their rocky nests.

Scott followed his line of sight and started a little. There was a small cave at the base of Mateo which was invisible from Scott’s balcony. How had he never seen that before? He was about to point it out when he realised he’d distracted Virgil from his question.

“If you didn’t mean Halloween… what are you asking?”

“Your uniform. The, uh, air force one.”

“Hell no. I’m planning to burn it. That’s not part of my life anymore.”

“That doesn’t sound very environmentally friendly…”

“Alright bury it then. Shred it and bury it. No… shred it, dissolve it in acid then bury it.”

Virgil blinked. “Have you been watching murder mystery reruns again?”

“They’re relaxing.”

“Riiiiiiight.” Despite the feigned disbelief, Scott knew that Virgil had been the one to add three hundred and thirty-six hours worth of ‘A Century of Detective Classics’ to the family server and he knew Virgil knew that he knew that he’d done it as a cunning way to tempt Scott into some downtime. Devious little brothers… who… needed reassuring, immediately.

“It hurt you so it’s got to die. Don’t worry. I don’t even want to touch it again. If Grandma hadn’t spirited it away somewhere to clean it would be gone already.”

“Oh.” Perhaps imbibing scotch straight into his brain had slowed him down, but Virgil didn’t seem as reassured as Scott had intended.

“Don’t you need it for Ash’s dinner? You should go to that, it’s important.”

“I’ll work something out.”

“Oh, ok.” Virgil went quiet again and Scott realised he’d given the wrong answer somehow but wasn’t quite sure how to change it.

“What’s on your mind, Virgil?”

He sighed and cracked his knuckles one by one, making Scott cringe.

“Would you… um, would you wear it once more if… I… for me to… uh…”

“For you?! But… I don’t understand! It made you so unwell? I thought you hated it?”

“I did. I do. But… I don’t want to carry that fear anymore, I can���t be scared of CLOTHES. It’s… I just can’t. It’s ridiculous. And, well… and I was thinking perhaps if I was prepared… if it wasn’t a surprise… it might… I might not react quite so badly? My last memory of it wouldn’t be… uh… so heavy? And maybe I could finish my book.”

“Your book?” Now Scott was really bewildered.

Virgil put down his glass and disappeared into his suite, returning swiftly with one of the large black ring-bound pads of thick art paper the like of which Scott had seen many times. This one was more battered than most and his little brother clutched it to his chest for a moment then cleared his throat awkwardly as he sat down.

“I found it when I was hunting for a sketch I wanted to work up for the exhibition next month. Some of them aren’t… very nice. I was going to just throw it away but Gordon thinks I should complete it… finish the story.”

“Gordon’s seen it?” Scott wasn’t actually jealous, he was relieved to discover - the little snakelike green monster’s appearance seemed to have been limited to the ‘other’ version of himself. But he found himself kind of intrigued that their fish brother was apparently giving art advice these days.

Virgil rolled his eyes and growled quietly. “You know what he’s like… I foolishly tried to hide it when he burst into the room and of course he noticed and he wouldn’t let up until I showed him.”

“May I see?”

Virgil chewed his lip and nodded. Scott shuffled his lounger closer such that they were shoulder to shoulder and felt his jaw drop as Virgil opened to the first page and he saw a vivid recreation in pastel of his toddler self proudly holding a tiny baby Virgil, Mom and Dad hovering in the background. The baby’s fingers were wrapped tightly around his thumb and Virgil had sketched several enlarged views of their chubby hands in pencil along the bottom.

He turned the pages slowly and Scott saw several scenes he definitely recognised from childhood photographs and some he thought must have come from Virgil’s memory. They paddled in a watercolour sea together, rode their bikes in oils, Scott dangled upside down from a charcoal tree with chalky Virgil underneath, arms stretched upwards. There was a cartoon school bus with a dimpled stickman waving from the window.

He smiled as he recognised the two of them with the flying machine on the roof, although he remembered it as much sturdier than the painting suggested. The faded but detailed cross-section taped in to the next double page disabused him of that impression. This one was covered in his own scrawly handwriting. Scott chuckled and raised a hand to the scar on his jaw.

“Oh DEAR, I’d thought it was a much better design than that!”

“Hmmmm.” Virgil rumbled “The basic concept was sound but the materials and our duct tape-biased construction methods left something to be desired and yeah… your “math” was a touch… shaky…”

Virgil smiled and turned over to another cross-section, only this time of a much more elegant design which was surrounded by small sketches of joints and diagrams showing balanced forces, each with the appropriate calculations painstakingly recorded in Virgil’s neat handwriting.

Scott gasped as he realised that this… this could work. Who was he kidding - it was Virgil’s design - of course it would work.

“You fixed it!”

“I did. I felt… bad that we never tried again and you didn’t get your moment.”

“My moment?! Virgil! I nearly killed us both!”

“You were only eleven.”

“Even so…” Scott tried very hard not to think of all the occasions since then when he hadn’t had ‘being only eleven’ as an excuse but the more he tried the more of them bubbled up in his memory like some kind of noxious gas polluting his only fresh water source. No. They were past this now… it was better. Things were changing. He was changing.

“I guess I had this idea that I could build it and if… if you ever came back…” he shook his head “it was just a silly…”

“No.” Scott interrupted, grabbing his arm and pressing his forehead into the side of Virgil’s head. “Not silly. Thoughtful. Ingenious. Seeing the potential in an idea and making it work? Very… YOU.”

Virgil gave a small smile and turned back to the book. Scott felt himself blush at page after page of sketches, all of himself - as a wide eyed child, a cocky teenager winking, a laughing adult flipping pancakes… even a few where he had apparently sprouted falcon wings, one where Virgil had them too.

Scott couldn’t imagine how many hours these must have taken to create

“When did you do all this?”

As soon as the words had left his mouth he knew it was a stupid question. Virgil shrugged and turned the page.

“When you were gone.”

Scott put his arm around Virgil’s shoulders and squeezed as he turned again, seemingly keen not to linger on any one image.

A blazing sun burned out of the page, the wall of colour marred only by a silhouette of the falcon-winged man, clearly falling, curled in on himself as the wings trailed limply behind, the dark shapes of lost feathers becoming larger and more detailed towards the top. No prizes for spotting the reference there. The real sun, heading swiftly towards the horizon seemed to lose most of its heat and a modern day Icarus-but-for-Many-Miraculous-Escapes wondered yet again how he could have been so blind.

If that one gave him a chill, the next made him shiver, the warmth from the whiskey had now entirely dissipated - a faint pencil outline Scott holding a heavily shadowed Virgil in his arms. Then… there was that same Air Force Grad photo, reproduced in a dozen different styles. The last one almost photo-realistic but crossed through in heavy red pen.

Virgil tried to skip several pages but Scott gently took his hand and turned back. He recognised the image of the crashing jet, over and over… pencil drawn, painted, scratched with a blade into a thick black layer of wax crayon. There followed a page solely of fire. Skeletal outlines of fighter jets. Storms. Crowds of agonised faces. An incredibly detailed map of Bereznik decorated with vicious-looking black insects.

The last few pages shocked Scott the most - all the pictures were drawn on scraps of paper, and then glued in. The largest was a drawing in black ballpoint pen of an almost unrecognisable bearded stranger in a hospital bed, covered in bandages and tubes. There were smaller pencil studies of bruised hands, a foot, an ear, eyebrows over sunken eye sockets, a nearly skeletal chin with a scar… his scar. Scott swallowed hard - he’d looked that bad?

One smaller image stood out as it had clearly been screwed into a ball before being flattened out to stick on to the page. Scott’s younger self winked and laughed up at him from behind the creases, one arm wrapped around a huge box of popcorn, the other hand reaching out of the page towards him. Virgil had clearly got hold of a blue ballpoint pen for this one and had skilfully used it to produce a rainbow’s worth of blue shades. The picture somehow gleamed at him and Scott felt the green serpent stir in his gut. He bit the side of his tongue and motioned for Virgil to turn over to the next.

The very last page contained only the sky in vivid shades of blue with light wisps of cloud: Virgil’s starting place.

Scott swallowed hard as he realised Gordon hadn’t been giving art advice at all.

“I put it away when dad brought you home.”

“It’s… Wow…”

“It was an outlet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Scotty.”

“Not all of it. Some things though.”

He pulled his brother close again and planted a kiss in his hair.

“So how do you want to finish it?”

💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙

Next chapter

[lialox]

Singnsong's writing advice

Singnsong hides little snippets of writing advice throughout ORV. The one that has helped me the most was when KDJ asked HSY if an author can really control everything in the story and her response was something along the lines of:

"The author doesn't know everything and can't control everything. After a character is created, they begin to act on their own. All the author can do is create the setting, and from then on it's up to the character to decide how the story goes."

After I followed this advice, writing became SO EASY.

I used to struggle with writing anything past the 5k word count, and now here I am at 60k words in my docs for a single AU. And I'm still going, my inspiration hasn't run out. It's unbelievable.

It's like stepping into their shoes for a second, looking at their skills, inventory, desperation, and they seem to find a way out of it on their own.

The thought process goes a little like, chatting with the character themselves inside your head. Like:

Me: Ok, KDJ is back. What are you going to do? YJK: I'm going to kill him. Me: Ok, the stage is set and you did it! He's a complicated guy to beat these days and it took so f long. What now? YJK: I'm going to marry him. Me: .... what.

or

Me: Ok, the protagonist had his turn, but you're my favourite so I'm shifting the flow a bit to give you a chance to shine. What are you going to do now that KDJ is back? HSY: I already did everything I wanted to do. He's back. He's happy. As long as it stays that way, that's all that matters. Me: ...wtf... I mean, that kind of pure love is exactly why I ship Doksoo SO MUCH but still!! Can't you pls PLS decide to give me some fanservice?? HSY: You really want me to write everything for you?

or

Me: Can you believe these two?? Say something, PLS. I know you're going to deny how much you love them but I KNOW. KDJ: *after 20k years of heavily dissociating* This is all just a story. A chapter I'm on. A moment ago, I couldn't even remember which regression turn I originally came from... and that's how it will be in the future as well. If they want me to be happy, fine, I will be while I'm reading this passage. This is the story I love the most, you see. If there is a wish I can fulfill, even for a brief moment in this eternity... Me: omfg!!!!!!

...and then you, as the author, just make up a 'setting' (a situation) that bulldozes their desires/preconceptions to force them to act. And you have this conversation with them again in you head. As long as you have a good enough grasp of 'who' and 'what' they are and their 'abilities/skills', they really do come up with the story for you.

But to keep a sense of direction for the story, you need to keep a vague goal in mind for the ending.

And then if you can't decide on a goal, then there's another piece of advice from Singnsong that I got:

"The story and the characters exist to tell that one reader a message."

What's the narrative in your story? What are you trying to tell the person on the other side of the wall? This will help you pick out a path or a goal.

One thing is for certain, you will survive.

* Remember, characters can disagree with your narrative and decide otherwise.

Writing gets easier the less you try to control it, and the more you simply try to describe how a character would react to a given situation. 10/10 thank you Singnsong!!

My piece of writing that has my best attempt at getting this actualized:

[piratefern]

that's was Long and great explanation you can actually wrote a wattpad book of it! And I actually like the storyline it's really great and really felt bad for scp 049 :( honestly it was too much for poor birdie TvT

And yea why bother! I will like to read scp 035 one too ☆(≧∀≦*)ﾉ Thanks for taking my questions ( ˘ ³˘)♥

YIIPPEEEEE, thankyou so much :’D

alright with dyo, we’ll need some context too, in the sense that you will need to be aware of the original lore for Alagadda so id recommend reading the wiki if you haven’t already)

(Another note is that my version of Alagadda’s time doesn’t work linearly, so in this sense, it is entirely possible to enter alagadda during any time it exists, and exit to earth in a different era than when you left. It explains how the culture is affected by different eras in time, and this will be also important narratively!)

(He is originally from Alagadda as per the usual lore, except in my au he wasn’t banished to earth, and instead took refuge there, fleeing execution from the ambassador and other lords.)

In my au, dyo has a toxic sibling relationship with the other lords, ontop of this he’s also the shortest and the runtiest of the few and so was picked on, which lines him up to becoming the hanged king’s favourite as he was the easiest to manipulate.

Originally working as the jester for his king he is killed by a peasant uprising (as per the original lore) and is brought back to life three days later, offering his king a cup filled with the blood of his enemies gifted by the brothers death.

The lore follows the original story line from here in which he invites a bird like doctor to the palace to cure him of his influence of the hanged king (remember how time in alagadda isn’t linear? Yep, thats hasel! He finds a broken passage to alagadda after the point in which he has left dyo and just before the foundation finds him. He researches it and fixes it, hoping to find the “cure” for the vine on the other side)

Hasel doesn’t recognise dyo’s old form as the black lord and dyo at this point is yet to even meet hasel, and so neither of the two realise that they were intwined from the beginning.

after being cured by hasel and attempting to fight the influence of the hanged king, his execution is plotted against him by the other lords and the ambassador, and so, he escapes to earth.

yet, in my au the lords and the ambassador are still after dyo, but are unaware of his ware-abouts, Dyo destroys the portal which in turn wipes his entire memory, hoping that it will never be rebuilt again.

But didn’t hasel rebuild the portal? Uh oh! He did! Meaning he had unintentionally both freed and doomed his lover. Not only that, but the foundation had been tracking the signal that the portal had been omitting, causing the capture of both the portal and hasel! And, of course, the foundation would absolutely never destroy it!

On another note, sometimes memories of Alagadda will seep through the cracks, instances from the past that dyo forged reflect memories from his childhood and experiences in Alagadda.

Dyo landed in ancient Greece, and genuinely believes he is from there. He believes that he was a balatro (roman jester) for the king, and was fused to his mask by the ancient Greek gods as a punishment for stealing the golden wreath from the king of Rome.

However, it is evident that this story isn’t true, at the time Rome had a consul system not a king, and despite the fact Rome had capitulated Greece they didn’t share the same gods despite their similarities.

He makes his way through life, but aware of his immortality he drowns himself in alcohol and lavish parties. He doesn’t get close to anyone as he knows that they will one day die and that he will not, causing him to build bad behaviours, appear overtly cocky and confident, a tendency to avoid rejection as a side effect and a need to convince himself that everything is alright.

So! Imagine dyo, an immortal being, avoiding close relationships with anyone he meets and putting up a persona to avoid anyone liking him, finding another immortal being!I

He grows incredibly attached to hasel, for the first time in almost two millennia he doesn’t have to be alone anymore, he can finally learn how to open himself up and build on his issues and break down his persona.

But this causes abandonment and attachment issues, so you can imagine how he must have reacted when hasel leaves!

He can’t handle this, and embarks on a journey to find him again, this journey spanning over a century from WW1 to present day, in which he is also captured by the foundation and placed in the same facility as hasel… and the portal!

They are given their numbered codes 035 and 049, but with dyo being so close to the fixed portal he gradually begins to remember his past…

So yeah thats all im up to so far :3

i haven’t written anything past the foundation and the portal plot, but technically in the original draft i made with my partner a couple years back they escape with the help of Laurence (106). They learn to mend their broken relationship and also learn how to get along with laurence despite his creepiness, but that part is all old stuff so i might rewrite it. But the fact hasel leaves at WW1 was important, as this is around the time Laurence becomes anomalous, so it ties their stories in too :3

[curioushabitforarivergod]

dark(ish) academia books that I don't see recommended enough

I read a lot, both fiction and non-fiction, and a lot of the stuff I've read over the past 2-3 years has had underlying academic tones. I've tried to include books I've at least enjoyed, although there are a few 3 star ratings. All of these books are ones I haven't really seen mentioned in compiled dark academia lists (mainly because some of them fall outside the general scope and are more ✨vibes✨). Feel free to add more less well-known books. I've included my own blurbs of the books but I've got shit memory and some I read like 2 years ago so yeah

Fiction

"Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world." Voltaire

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Takes place over 10 years and explores family and the destruction left behind after WWI. It discusses the feminine vs. masculine in art and while it can be a little slow to read (took me close to 3 weeks!) theres some really beautiful passages and also some funny ones as well — the characters spend several chapters at a dinner party convinced everyone hates them and constantly hating other people too.

The Dark is Rising (series) by Susan Cooper

Okay, yes this is a kids book series from the 70s/80s but it explores English, Cornish and Welsh mythology and has really good characters and world-building. Even though chronologically the series goes: Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King; Silver on the Tree, it's best to read The Dark is Rising first and return back to Over Sea, Under Stone. Anyway, I love this series and I read The Dark is Rising every Christmas because it corresponds pretty much with the days and is easy to place and that's kind of what makes it feel very cozy and academic. Also, theres some brief moments of time travel to the past.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

This is a beautiful written masterpiece set across the 20th century featuring plenty of train rides across Europe and vampires. It explores some of the history of Walachia and Dracula, as well as the Ottoman Empire and European politics of the time. It's a hefty read but I loved it because it combines history, dark academia, fantasy and vampires.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

My favourite of Shakespeare that I've seen so far and honestly murder is so dark academia I don't need to talk any further. Strangely, I don't see this recommended enough.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

This was quite popular a year or two ago, and honestly for good reason. I think it's only really academic because it's linked to Shakespeare and explores the less well-known lives of Shakespeare's family, but it's very good and I thought I'd include it anyway.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

This one feels really light academia to me, but I think it's mainly because of setting. It's set in this fantastical old and crumbling mansion that goes on forever. It's filled with statues and it floods and only two people live in the world. The story is told entirely through diary entries, but it's so well-written because it defamiliarises the reader entirely. It was a light and easy read for me, which is probably why I'm associating it with light academia rather than dark academia.

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

This book kinda mixes chaotic academia and cottagecore academia and is a reflection of girlhood and youth spent in the French countryside in the 50s. There's a toxic relationship between two friends who write a book together before one of them attends prestigious girls' school in England. Also the opening lines are amazing: "You cannot cut an apple with an apple. You cannot cut an orange with an orange. You can, if you have a knife, cut an apple or an orange. Or slice open the underbelly of a fish. Or, if your hands are steady enough and the blade is sharp enough, sever an umbilical cord."

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Another classic! I love Waugh, and Brideshead revisited is amazing and my favourite of what I've read of his. The book is quite homoerotic — explicitly so at times, which is fascinating for something published in 1945 — and deals with romanticisation. It nestles quite snugly between Picture of Dorian Grey and Secret History in terms of a dark academic literary canon.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

This is more gothic than dark academia, but it's also a satire of the gothic genre so I feel like it counts. It's definetly not as well known as some of Austen's other works and feels much more raw, particularly because its her first work (although not published until after her death). It's not my favourite Austen, but I love it all the same, especially because of its commentary on warning the romanticisation of other peoples lives and the gothic/dark academia. Although dark academia wasn't a thing in Austen's day!

Possession by A. S. Byatt

I love the main story but because its so metafictive and explores the relationship between two made-up poets (one of whom is bi and cheats on her gf with the second) from the perspective of modern academics, it can get quite hard to read sometimes. It's also really long, but definitely worth reading.

Non-Fiction

I feel like non-fiction is pretty over-looked when it comes to the academia aesthetic which really says something, given that its… kinda the whole point of academia?? Anyway, I read a lot of history books, but I only put down the ones which I found interesting or easy to read, so they're more popular histories than academic histories. Also; essays.

The Year 1000: What Life Was Like At the Turn of the First Millennium by Robert Lacey

This explores early medieval life in England based on the Julius Work Calendar, an Anglo-Saxon manuscript believed to date to 1020BCE. It's honestly a really light and interesting read and it talks about what everyday life was like, which I think is important in history. It's in a narrative style so it's quite easy to read even if you don't consume history often.

Oh, to Be a Painter! by Virginia Woolf

This is actually a short, published collection of Virginia Woolf essays on art. I read the essays all in one sitting because they're quite short, but if you're into art and art academia, I'd highly recommend. There's also an essay on the cinema which provides some interesting insights into todays world particularly as Woolf was writing at the time when cinema was only just becoming widespread and an industry in its own right.

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

This is a satirical essay on attitudes towards the poor and it suggests that poor people might sell their children as food for the rich, highlighting the callousness of the upper classes. It's available free online and very much relevant today, despite being written close to 300 years ago.

The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer

Very useful if you ever find yourself stuck in the Elizabethan period! It's read as a sort of travel guide but includes plenty on history as well, providing a picture of what England looked like in the late-Tudor period. Also people will think you're a time-traveller if you carry it around, which adds to your intrigue and mystery.

A Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh

If you like Jane Austen and haven't read this memoir, you should. It's written by her nephew, so it's quite biased and it's not amazing in any way, but it provides a lot of context to her life and is a good light-read or coffee table book. Also my copy was pale pink so win.

Thats it folks. Feel free to include your own less well-known book recs that follow dark/light/chaotic, etc. aesthetics! I'd love to compile a huge list and read more outside my comfort zone.

[daenysx]

Hiya, so I saw that your requests were open and I wondered if you could write like a prequel to the oneshot where the reader has oral fixation? It's one of my favourites of yours, and I'm just really curious how Aemond discovered that reader has an oral fixation? Could you write that pretty please, with a cherry on top? :)

(If you don't want to, I completely understand, don't worry <3

you can read this as a prequel to this! hope you enjoy. modern!aemond x reader who has oral fixation

ps; @aglaias-blog thank you for being so kind to me all the time, you are an angel. i really do hope you like this, i tried my best! love u ���

you look nervous.

your relationship with aemond is fairly new, but he knows your tells. you can't sit straight, your eyes look glossy, and you keep biting your lip. your shaky hands are curled on the table as you turn the page of your book. your lip looks swollen already, your teeth leave marks on the sensitive skin. you bite the back of your pencil this time, leaving your poor lips free. well, for a moment at least. you give your attention back to your lips as you underline a passage on the book.

aemond watches you studying, he tries not to stare but it's hard considering how he has so much to learn about you. he is pretty sure that you are not aware of the bitings, you don't use your teeth consciously. he can't lie to himself, you look cute with those red lips, all swollen and soft, but it must hurt you at some point.

you flinch suddenly, and so does he. he is out of the trans you got him in, looking at you to see what's wrong. you've made your lip bleed, a small line of blood is recognizable. you put your finger on the spot, looking at the drop of redness on your fingertips with sad eyes.

aemond is quick to move. "let me get you some paper towel, yeah?" he leaves the table, comes to your side in literally 2 seconds. "there you go, we should press here. you're okay, sweetheart."

you smile but your bottom lip aches with the movement. you make a small sound, earning a soft look from aemond. "keep it pressed like this, i'll find you some cream to put on."

you listen to him, and your lip feels better after 5 minutes of him taking care of you. he's still standing by your chair, tilting your chin up to make an eye contact. your lip looks better but he's not gonna leave your side until you feel better.

"do you wanna tell me what's wrong?" aemond asks. "why are you so nervous?"

your look at him with big eyes, soft and tired. "i'm having trouble writing my assignment, and it's due in two days."

he understands how you care about academic validation, and he can find solutions for your problems if he tries hard enough. "my head is so full, i can't stop thinking about my finals, and- and other things." you continue.

aemond nods, his thumb stroking your chin. his hands are so big, and fingers so long that he can cover your entire jawline when he uses his thumb to touch your skin. "you have every right to be nervous, but please don't hurt yourself like this." he says. "i know you didn't mean to, but still..."

you nod, closing your eyes. your hands reach his thighs to support yourself as he stands tall in front of you while you sit. he keeps stroking your chin, and suddenly your lips part when his thumb goes beneath your bottom lip. your eyes closed, face all relaxed in his palms, and your hands holding onto his thighs; aemond almost loses his mind when you open your mouth ever so slightly to take his thumb inside.

he recovers quickly, presses a soft fingertip on your sensitive lip. you get encouraged, part your lips further for him. he slowly pushes his thumb inside as your lips close around him, keeping him inside of your mouth.

he isn't sure if he heard that correctly but you make a small gasping sound as you suck on his thumb. his other fingers keep stroking your cheeks, his thumb inside your mouth pressing softly on your tongue, only for you to suck it harder. you are visibly relaxed, aemond feels like he found a way to reduce your stress.

he wants to discover more. do you enjoy having him in your mouth? do you feel relaxed when you busy yourself focusing on the pressure between your lips? do you like using your teeth? he is curious, and he moves his thumb quicker that he intends to. your eyes snap open as if you just realize what you've been doing. you pull yourself away from him, his shy girl, and you blush.

"i'm so sorry, aemond." you whisper. "i didn't mean to- i mean, you-"

he is quick to hush you by pressing his fingertips on your lips. "i wanted you to do that, sweetheart. you didn't do anything to be sorry for, i just-" he tries to be gentle. "it felt good, didn't it? your mouth being occupied?"

you nod, shyly, you're trying to get used to the feeling of your new boyfriend as he tries to find a way to help you. "i don't do it on purpose. biting my lip, or chewing on the pencil i mean."

"i see." he says. "i can help you, you know? you don't have to hurt yourself."

you shake your hand. "i don't want to hurt you."

he gives you a sly smirk. "who says i'm hurting?" he reaches for your hand, giving it a tight squeeze. "i liked it."

"yeah?"

"yeah." he nods. "of course."

you stand up from your chair to hold onto him, arms wrapped around his abdomen. he makes you feel so comfortable at that moment and so safe, you feel like you can fall asleep right there with the sudden relaxation you get. "can we go to bed?"

he rubs your back, a big hand around your neck. "we can, baby."

you are tired but you keep your eyes open as you settle down. you've been on aemond's bed before, it's nothing new, but somehow it feels more intimate this time. he gives you one of his shirts to wear, folds your clothes gently before he puts them on the chair. he lays on bed next to you after he adjusts the pillows the way he knows you're comfortable.

you wrap one of your legs around aemond's thighs, he supports you by holding your waist. he tilts your chin up and leans into your space, pressing the softest kiss on your lips. "does it hurt?" he whispers.

"my lip?" you already know the answer.

"mm-hmm." his fingers wander on your cheek.

"no." you say. "i'm okay."

"that's good." he says. "i was terrified, thinking i can't kiss you."

he doesn't even wait, he just puts his lips on yours and kisses you. you kiss him back, you know he won't let you go for a long time. he moves his lips ever so gracefully on yours and you are desperate for breathing his air.

you hold onto his arm, pulling him closer. neither of you breaks the kiss, you suck his bottom lip, and he pushes his tongue in your mouth. you make a small sound, accepting anything he gives you. now that he knows how much you like using your mouth on him, he gives you plenty of opportunities to take what you want.

you are breathless when he stops. you give one last, little kiss on his bottom lip and try to catch your breath. aemond pulls the covers on you, helps you lay down on top of him without forcing your neck.

"you know," you begin, quietly. "i'm still nervous about my finals."

he lets out a laugh. "i know. i'll wake you up early, okay? just try to get some rest."

you nod, brush a thank you kiss on his neck. "aemond?"

"hmm?" he sounds tired, too.

"can i-" it takes every piece of bravery to form your question. "can i have your fingers?" you ask him quietly.

he rubs the corner of your mouth, his thumb playing with your bottom lip. "yes." your part your lips for him and it's the most perfect thing he's ever witnessed. "anytime you want, sweetheart."

[cha-melodius]

Fic Pride Weekend

Rules: Post your favourite line or passage from as many of your published works as you’d like. Let yourself feel proud of your creations! Tag as many people as you post snippets, so your fellow fic friends can be proud, too.

@kiwiana-writes tagged me for "Fic Pride Friday" but let's face it, no one is actually doing this on a Friday anymore and Fic Pride should go the whole weekend.

So I decided to try to give some superlatives—my favorite action sequence, my favorite kiss, my favorite love confession, my favorite comedy moment, etc etc. But the problem was I came up with a LOT of superlatives! Oh well. A few up top, and the rest below the cut. Oh, and there are some spoilers below, so be warned!

Favorite Shouted Love Confession: Love is a Losing Game

“Then what, Illya?” Napoleon demands sharply, frustration heating his face. “What exactly was the problem?” “I love you, Napoleon!” Illya nearly shouts, the words ringing loudly in quiet of the club, and the silence that follows is only broken by Illya’s ragged breaths as Napoleon stares at him in shock. Illya closes his eyes, as if trying to steady himself, and when he opens them again the raw vulnerability in them is startling. “I love you,” he says again, with something like resignation in his voice, “and when they told me you quit I thought I would never see you again, and— and that was not something I could bear.”

Favorite Action Sequence (Duo): This Hell of a Season

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the headlamp rapidly approaching. He’s not sure if it will be fast enough. Henry watches as the dark shape of the man, little more than a shadow under the meagre moonlight, shifts slightly out from behind the hedges again. A few more shots, fired near where the shadow lurks, buys Henry some time, but Alex’s approach feels impossibly slow, as if he were travelling through treacle. One heartbeat passes. Two. Three. Four. The motorbike gets close enough to bathe Henry in a wash of yellow-tinted light; he’s now far too tempting a target, and the man shifts out from behind his cover again. Alex nearly puts the bike on its side as he skids into a stop, cutting the lamp at the last minute and plunging them into darkness. “Here!” he yells, and Henry flings himself in his direction, nearly blind after the brightness of the headlamp.

Favorite Action Sequence (Solo): A Good Man is Hard to Find

Pulling a rope off his belt, Mobius ties it securely around the empty window frame then measures out what he guesses is the right length before attaching the other end to his belt again. On the other side of the table, the guards have stopped firing, but he has no doubt they’ll be advancing on him now that they’ve realized that he’s not shooting back. He’ll need to stand up to be able to jump out far enough, which unfortunately means making an easy target of himself for at least a few seconds. He peeks around the table and sends a couple of bullets toward their feet, which succeeds in making them scatter and retreat backwards. Then, holding onto the window frame for support, Mobius takes a deep, steadying breath and rises to his feet. In the second before he jumps, the guards start shooting at him again and a bullet tears through the outside of his upper arm, but he barely feels it past the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He launches himself out as far as he can until he feels the rope snap tight at his belt, punching the breath out of his body. The line starts swinging him in an arc down toward the window, and he twists wildly as he tries desperately to orient himself in the air. Just before he smashes into the huge sheet of plate glass, he manages to fire twice into it and, in a rain of glass, crashes back into the building two floors down. The shouts of the guards are audible from above, as is the sound of running feet; no doubt they’re already heading back down the stairs. Mobius scrambles up and over toward the delivery entrance where he and Sylvie first came in, smearing the blood that’s dripping down his arm along the floor and doorway in a trail. Satisfied at the feint, he takes off toward the utility room and gets through the door, closing it carefully behind him.

Favorite Car Chase: The Hardest Cut (continues from here, hard to put the whole thing in!)

They turn again, away from the courthouse, and Mobius can unmistakably feel the horrible cocktail of adrenaline and dread that floods into his veins. Loki doesn’t answer his question, but his hands tighten on the steering wheel as he stares fixedly out the windshield, knuckles going painfully white. “You’re starting to worry me, you know,” Mobius says with a nervous chuckle, like it’s a joke. “Little heads up on what we’re doing would be great right about now.” Finally, Loki glances sideways at him—once, twice, then a third, lingering look—then he takes a deep, shuddery breath like he’s coming to a decision. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he swears emphatically, then jerks the wheel hard to the right, sending them fishtailing into a wild skid and down an alley that looks entirely too narrow. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

Favorite Moment of Slapstick Comedy: The Makings of a Perfect Christmastime

Waverly, on the other hand, looks surprisingly unperturbed. “Oh, I know,” he says, incredibly. “Because what it looks like is that my war hero is playing home-wrecker to my star author’s marriage.” He looks pointedly at Illya, who’s mouth opens wordlessly as he flushes a deep scarlet, before his gaze slide back to Napoleon. “But that’s not actually what’s happening here, is it?” Napoleon’s mind is whirring as he tries desperately to figure out what the hell is going on, but before he can think of anything that might offer some kind of reasonable explanation, the door to the kitchen opens again. “I’m hoping that the fact that you didn’t come back to the room means you were getting laid and not in here cooking all night,” Gaby says as she comes in, so focused on the coffee that she doesn’t even see Waverly standing off to the side. For a moment, no one moves, until she turns with a mug of coffee in her hand, spots Waverly, and proceeds to drop it on the floor.

Favorite Wrestling Scene: Double Dutch with a Hand Grenade

Two can play, and all that, and he is not having this conversation on his back. Not when Illya has been seemingly holding all the cards to this point. He cants his hips under Illya—slowly, deliberately—and is gratified when his partner’s eyes go wide. More importantly, the distraction makes his grip on Napoleon’s wrists loosen. Napoleon yanks his hands down, out of Illya’s hold, then slams the heel of his palm hard into his sternum. Illya grunts in pain and surprise, shoulders curling inward, which gives Napoleon enough of an opening to grab the front of his t-shirt and roll them both sideways until Illya’s back thunks hard against the mat. It’s Illya’s turn to glare up at him, still grimacing. Napoleon has effectively reversed their positions, pinning Illya’s wrists to the mat over his head, though he hasn’t managed to secure his lower body. Instead, Illya’s legs are wrapped around his waist, preventing him from maneuvering or getting any better leverage for a subsequent attack. Of course, that also means Illya’s legs are wrapped around his waist, which is something he’d been valiantly trying not to imagine ever since that encounter at the café. So much for that. Neither of them is completely in control of this situation, and it’s rapidly starting to seem like that’s true in more ways than one.

Favorite Emotional "Confession": Please Don't Let Me Be So Understood

“Yeah, I mean, it hurts,” he says with a nonchalant shrug he’s pretty sure doesn’t land. He wants to ask, ‘what makes me different? why are you friends with everyone but me?’, but that would give up the game for sure. Instead, he aims for something close. “Sometimes it feels like you’re more distant with me than with other people at the office.” “You’re right,” Henry replies with shocking matter-of-factness. “Casual friends are easy, Alex. There’s no risk when you don’t want anything more from someone than the ability to hold a five minute conversation over coffee in the break room. It’s different when it’s… someone you might truly care about. You’re different.” Alex doesn’t really know what to do with that. It’s quickly becoming difficult to tell where the lies end and the truth begins. “Oh,” he says, floundering a little. “I guess I can see that.”

Favorite Flirty Email: Class(room) Warfare

To: Alexander Claremont-Diaz <claremontdiaz@mcquiston.edu> From: Henry Fox-Mountchristen <foxmountchristen@mcquiston.edu> Subject: Re: your shirts Dr. Acerbic Cocky-Disaster I am quite certain you’ve never given anyone a break in your life. Regretfully, Henry Assistant Professor of What Did I Do To Deserve This

Favorite Seductive Spoon-licking (yes, I have more than one): All the Old Showstoppers

Locating a clean tasting spoon, he scoops a bit of the buttercream out of his mixer and holds it out to Alex across the top of his station. Their fingers brush when Alex reaches out to take it, and an image of Alex holding a very similar spoon up to his lips flashes through Henry’s mind. His mouth goes slightly dry at the memory, and that’s before Alex proceeds to stick the spoon deep into his mouth and draw it slowly out between his lips. Alex’s low hum, which skirts dangerously close to a moan, is somehow audible over the buzz of activity in the tent, and his eyelids flutter slightly as his pink tongue slips out to lick the back of the spoon in a manner that is far too seductive for their current setting. Who could have guessed that giving Alex a spoon would be such a massive mistake? Because Henry can see a camera currently filming them out of the corner of his eye, but he still can’t seem to force his own bloody mouth closed, nor can he hope to control the flush that is no doubt painting his cheeks a rather lurid pink, if he knows himself. The best he can hope for is that he just looks stunned rather than incredibly turned on by the display before him. “Ok, yeah, that’s good,” Alex says, snapping him out of the daze he finds himself in. He grins, and the mischief sparkling in his eyes is enough to make Henry believe he did that on purpose. “Guess you’re gonna make things hard for me, huh Wales?”

Favorite Movie Adaptation Moment: False Dichotomy

“Sometimes I wonder,” Alex says, staring up at the leaves fluttering in the breeze over the sidewalk. “If you hadn’t been Mountchristen, and I hadn’t been Under the Rainbow Books…” “Alex,” Henry breathes, a little unsteadily. Alex keeps going because he is, as previously established, an idiot. He can’t quite bring himself to look at Henry, though. “Maybe I’d have gotten up the courage to ask for your number.” “I’d have asked for yours,” Henry says firmly, surprising him. That does make Alex turn back toward him again. “That first day in the shop. Wouldn’t have been able to wait even twenty-four hours before asking you out to dinner.” “We’d never have been at war,” Alex continues. “The only thing we’d fight about is what to watch on Saturday night.” “Only because you have terrible taste in Star Wars movies,” Henry teases.

Favorite Angsty Kiss: So Close to Something Better Left Unknown

Alex hesitates a moment too long for it not to be an answer. Henry’s eyes are dark and wild with primal desire and something else, something more terrifying than even that, and Alex murmurs, “It doesn’t matter.” “Alex—” Alex turns in his arms and drags him into a kiss that catches like dry tinder, lighting such an inferno under his skin that Alex feels like he’s the one who’s been drugged. This is a fucking mistake, he thinks desperately, then his mind goes blissfully blank as Henry’s tongue slides into his mouth. It’s rough, demanding, as much as sparring match as a kiss, particularly when Henry sinks a hand into his hair and tugs hard, then bites down on Alex’s lower lip when he gasps as stars burst in his vision. Alex gives as good as he gets, though, finally getting his teeth on those sinful fucking lips and swallowing Henry’s answering moans.

Favorite Almost Kiss: White Knuckles

When he comes out of his last spin, Napoleon joins him for the final movements, an expansive trip across the ice that usually ends with Illya hunched over, almost on one knee, as if clutching an apparently dead Juliet. Now, though, there is an actual body in his grasp: Napoleon is underneath him, back bent into a graceful arc, being held off the ice only by Illya’s grip on his hip and his palm splayed between his shoulder blades. As the music comes to its grand conclusion he meets Napoleon’s eyes, and suddenly Napoleon doesn’t seem so unaffected anymore. He’s certainly breathless, all right, his eyes wide and his lips slightly parted, and it would be so easy for Illya to flex his arms and draw him upward until their lips meet. Illya considers it a true testament to his self control that he doesn’t do it. “Wow,” Napoleon breathes, after a long moment in which he has made no move to disentangle himself from Illya. Then one corner of his mouth quirks upward into a smirk. “Now that’s more like it.” It is also a testament to Illya’s self control that he doesn’t drop him on the ice.

Favorite Cliffhanger: Nova, Baby

A couple of officers with red crosses on their helmets hurry forward as Raf grabs Alex’s arm and tries to pull him to the side. Somewhere deep inside, Alex knows that he has to let go, that Henry’s only hope is the medical team. The panic choking him has fully taken over now, though, and he only clutches Henry more tightly to his chest. “N-no, Raf, please,” he pleads. “You have to let go of him, kid.” “No, no, I can’t, I can’t—“ “Alex! Look at me!” Raf commands sharply. The order catches Alex full in the chest and he responds instinctively, his gaze snapping up to meet dark, worried eyes. A face much like his own, but lined and careworn after years at the agency. A face that has seen more than its share of hopeless situations. A face that is telling Alex, now, to trust him. “You have to,” Raf says again, his voice gentle but firm. Alex lets go.

Favorite First Meeting: Cold Light

“That doesn’t sound good,” the man replies as he straightens up again. Whatever he was doing he seems to be done with, even though he hasn’t touched a thing. He stares up at the sky for a moment, as if lost in thought; in the silence that follows, Mobius watches ribbons of what’s shaping up to be a rather spectacular display of the aurora borealis begin winding their way across the night’s sky behind him. “So? What do you think?” “Hm?” “About the engine.” “Oh, I don’t actually know anything about engines.” Mobius stares at him for a beat in disbelief. “Then why’d you want to see it?” The man shrugs, a vaguely amused expression playing on his features. “Seemed like a thing one does when your vehicle breaks down.”

Favorite Outsider Perspective: That's What Other People Do

“You know me so well, Peril,” Solo says to him before taking a huge bite. He briefly looks, somewhat bizarrely, like a chipmunk. “I know you are somehow always hungry,” Kuryakin returns. “And you get as excited about greasy diner food as gourmet restaurant.” Solo swallows and grins broadly. “Sometimes there’s nothing better than greasy diner food. If I’m gonna have to go to Jersey for this mission, I might as well indulge. Gimme some of your milkshake, would you?” Kuryakin lets out a put-upon sigh, but his mouth is unmistakably tugging up at the corners as he slides the half empty glass over toward his partner. Robin chews slowly as she watches them continue to banter about the food as if she wasn’t there at all. Kuryakin stretches an arm out along the back of the booth behind Solo’s shoulders, and when Solo finally polishes off the burger he settles back against it, almost but not quite tucked against Kuryakin’s side, looking immensely satisfied.

Favorite Angsty Confrontation: Little by Little

“How many have there been?” Napoleon whispers. Suddenly his proximity is unbearable. Close enough that Illya could lean in and kiss him in an instant, and wouldn’t that just be the perfect cap on all of this misery? He can almost imagine the slide of his lips and the heat of his mouth for a moment before the fantasy threatens to choke him. Illya drops his arm and turns away, striding across the room as he scrubs his hands over his face. “I don’t know,” he says into his palms, and it’s nearly inaudible to even him so he knows Napoleon did not hear the answer. “How many, Peril? I mean are we talking a one or two, or a handful, or—” “I don’t know!” Illya bellows, wheeling back toward him. 

Tagging @orchidscript, @historicallysam, @leaves-of-laurelin, @tintagel-or-cockleshells, @three-drink-amy

@loki-is-my-kink-awakening, @nicijones, @justabigoldnerd, @magicandarchery, @14carrotghoul

@mirilyawrites, @eusuntgratie, @cactusdragon517, @violetbaudelaire-quagmire, @magicandarchery

@myheartalivewrites

So that's the number of snippets I posted, but PLEASE if you see this and want to do it, jump in!! Be proud of your fics!

[pinehutch]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

Thank you for tagging me!

I should be honest: I am not much of a fic writer. This isn't self-effacing; I've been reading fic since the early aughts but only have 10 works on ao3. One of them is a poem. One of them is a few hundred words of something I've never finished.

That said, fic is important to me for a lot of reasons, but one is that in 2016 I started following a tumblr for a Dragon Age fic exchange, and in 2017 I wrote the first fiction I'd written in almost 20 years. I had been struggling to write poetry for about 10 years before that, too, and fic writing was part of my path back to writing at all.

This isn't to say that I think fanfic is valueless unless it results in 'original' writing; every story happens in context, and we all know how the lines between fanwork and original work blur, both in fan spaces and in commercial ones. But my particular, personal fondness for fic is because it gave me a path back to the first best thing of my life, which was language, and what we do with it.

With that said, my personal top five (links in titles):

Fundamental Forces (or, Root Causes)

Literally my first fic. This was when I remembered that writing can be fun. It's Dragon Age fic, femHawke/Varric. It's also written with a focus on Hawke's POV, a thing I think I pulled off quite well and have never attempted again. It's very silly. It features a 40-year-old and a 35-year-old being profoundly bad at emotional honesty. I riff on turnips for a while. It has a happy ending, which should surprise no one.

She breathed in through her nose and her eyes fluttered shut. “Kiss me, you idiot. Before they think I’m horrified.” Their first kiss. Quick and mostly chaste and part of a joke. She thought it was fitting.

Chapter Last

This is also T-rated Hawke/Varric, written for the same exchange, a year later. It's about near-misses, and trying again, and not being able to pick up where you left off, and it's stumbling back onto the path later, unexpectedly, and after having found another way. It is about stories, and why we do them.

It's fic of the games, of course, but in a way it's also fic-of-fic: there's a novella that's both a tie-in novel and a diegetic book in the Dragon Age setting, and it was printed irl the summer before I wrote this fic.

What I'm proud of, with this story, is character voice. Whenever I share any Varric-voice writing, even years later, people always say very generous things. Varric's also a writer, canonically, and I had fun mimicking 'his' style in passages of this, and trying to keep in mind how his writing and his inner narration would align and diverge. (Lots of Dragon Age fans are understandably thirsty about Varric; I think I've always found him relatable, in many ways, and it didn't occur to me to thirst. But I love him.)

I don't love the structure; I chaptered this, and way more than I needed to. I'd love to rewrite it, someday, but I also think it's good for me to sit with the awareness of its imperfections and the knowledge that people have loved it anyway.

Afterimage (there are two colours)

The Magnus Archives fic, E-rated. Basira/Daisy. This was meant to be a single installment in a series - I think I have a 20,000 word 'outline' in my gdocs, still, but I'm unlikely to ever finish it. The point of this story is self-indulgent, purple-prose, dreamy smut. Wanting the thing and having it, but not keeping it.

This was baby's first E-rated fic ever written. I have no explanation for this, either.

Transformative Work

Written for the 2022 OFMD Big Bang with @mia-ugly. Mostly Frenchie/Jim, a bit Jim/Oluwande, a bit Frenchie/Oluwande, a light sprinkling of polycule potential.

Transformative Work is my favourite thing I've posted to ao3 for three reasons.

It's 40k! I never finish longer works, so 40k is a big deal to me.

I think it's actually brilliant. Clever as hell, at minimum. But mostly brilliant.

It's collaborative!

Writing has always been a solitary thing for me; one of the things I love about Mia is how we can get on a wavelength about a story. (This is mostly a them trick: they're an excellent collaborator and instigator, in general.) I wasn't at my best when we were writing this, dealing with undiagnosed health issues and workplace burnout and an accumulation of grief, but it was beautiful and joyful work, in the end.

Also, I think it is almost exactly what we wanted it to be, and that is such a high.

Number 5 is a bit of a cop-out but still:

Remember when I said "we all know how the lines between fanwork and original work blur"? This is a poem I started writing when Succession 4.3, "Connor's Wedding" aired. I was in a worst spot than I had been the previous year, health-wise, grief-wise.

The title of this poem, "My Father's Dead and I Feel Old," comes out of Connor Roy's mouth in the episode. I had to pause the episode and just get pummeled by that perfect, simple line of iambs. I was a wreck, just generally. Yeah, man, my father is dead and I do feel old! That sort of thing. (The aforementioned health issue? Still not identified or addressed when this aired in spring 2023, btw. My brain was not braining well.)

But there were words for it. I was off work on medical leave at the time. I had just made the transition from crying like it was a full-time job to sleeping like it was a full-time job. The sleep wasn't helping. The crying hadn't helped, either. It wasn't something people could help. But words, and what we do with them - that helped.

Anyway, I'm actually quite proud of this poem, both as an original piece of poetry and as fanwork. It's not on ao3 for reasons including 'I haven't gotten around to it' and 'I don't know if this is sufficiently transformative, by the invisible guidelines I've just set for myself.'

Thank you for sending this to me, it was a lovely thing to think about on my Friday eve! <3

[frostironfudge]

Labyrinth - Bucky Barnes - Chapter VIII

Summary: labyrinth (noun), a complicated set of paths and passages, through which it is difficult to find your way. Bucky and You would do anything for Steve and Wanda, your respective best friends. In an attempt to avoid a tradition Steve and Wanda come up with a lie involving their best friends.  A lie, that involves building a labyrinth. Bucky and You begin to build but will you two find your way out or be caught in it?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader, (Modern AU)

Word Count: 8.1 k || Dividers: @firefly-graphics

Warnings: chapter contains 18+ moments, minors DNI, angst, fluff, sm/ut, dir/ty talk, p in v, worried bucky, swearing, soft bucky, protective bucky, drinking.

Main Masterlist || AO3 || Fic Masterlist || Fic Playlist

There is a shuffle near Bucky’s chest, then the warmth begins to slip away. He frowns, his arms tighten around his source of comfort pulling it closer to him. A familiar softness is flush against him. 

Sleep leaves him as he pulls you closer. Hands roaming your body, hips grinding against yours, your little squeak has him smile. 

“Morning Sunshine.” He whispers stubble tickling your neck, you giggle feeling his hard on. 

“You’re excited.” You laugh as he tickles you again, turning you in his arms. 

His hair tousled, blue eyes happily meeting your own. You lean closer kissing his nose he scrunches it making him look even more adorable in the morning light. 

“You’re adorable, Puffin.” You declare.

“I’m not adorable.” He huffs. 

“Oh yes I forgot, you’re a diabolical evil genius wanting revenge.” Your eye roll has him lean above you. Holding himself up with one hand while the other guides your leg around his waist. 

You bite your lip, his strength was always something that impressed you. Your palms rest upon his chest, slowly your eyes and fingers drift to the constellation that he has tattooed. 

“Why this one?” You ask, the question always burns on your tongue, you had never dared to ask him about his ink. 

Now though? 

The way you feel as if this one last layer separating the two of you was gone. Giving you all of him and giving him all of you. 

“You always did like that one.” He murmurs, your gaze lifts to him. Warmth spreads across your cheeks and he smiles. 

“You think I didn’t notice it is one amongst your favourites to touch and trace.” He nudges your nose with his; his chest filled with love and happiness. He had so much to tell you. So much to share. Now no longer needing to bite his tongue. No longer did he need to hold back his emotions.

You trace it yet again, the little stars and the intricate line work. Even as he had an impressive expanse of tattoos this one never seemed to be overshadowed. A small linework sun nestled near it. That was your second favourite. You trace it as well. 

“Do you know the constellation?” He murmurs, there is something in his voice that draws you in, you nod. 

“It’s a zodiac sign.” You answer, his soft laughter greets you. 

“Yeah, but which one is it, Sunshine?” He kisses your forehead. 

Your eyes drift to the tattoo and then back to him. Bucky watches as your eyes widen, then you do a double take. Realisation hits you, it's your sun sign. 

A soft gasp leaves your lips, “Bucky.” 

“You remember when we took you guys back home in that taxi?” He recounts, “You fell asleep right against my left arm. Your head rested on that very spot. I had my arm around you for the first time. The way I wanted to for so long. I swear I felt your presence against that spot for days after.” 

Your eyes meet his, Bucky looks at you with some of the love he carries for you. 

He knows if he looked at you with all of the love he has, it would consume him before he could show it all to you. 

He would never be able to look away because he hasn’t been able to look away since the day his heart decided to harbour you. He may have tried to rid his heart of you, but all attempts were feeble, fleeting and futile. 

“Six years ago, you took my heart. I thought you broke it but it turns out, you had it tucked away safely. Waiting for me to find it again. Look at it and then give it back to you. I love you, Sunshine.” As Bucky speaks, tears brim over, you look up at him and a tear from his eyes falls onto your cheek mixing with your own. 

“Bucky,” You sniffle, “I love you so much with every bit of me.” Your hand moves from his chest to cup his face, the other remains over the tattoos inked onto him that signify you. 

Bucky meets your lips with an urgency, the need to have you near him ever growing. Clawing into every part of him. You allow him to sink into you, every bit of him igniting every bit of you. 

How could you have been such fools? 

How could you have let anyone else ever try to take the place in your heart which Bucky had carved for himself? 

How could he have sought you out in the most meaningless of nights when you were already inked onto him, etched onto his heart? 

How could it be that the two of you lost years of togetherness, lost years of happiness, lost years of being the one the other could come home to, run to, fall in love every single day?

The kiss is messy, needy, the two of you wanting more, needing more. Your hands seek him out, legs parting. Bucky’s hand finds yours, fingers intertwined. You arch into him as he sinks into you inch by inch. 

Moans swallowed by the kiss, his forehead rests against yours as he moves, deep, slow and pleasure blooms with the love creeping along your veins, taking its rightful place. 

Bucky drowns in you, your warmth, your scent, your body, you. 

The languid pace with which his strokes have you cry out his name. The way he feels your walls claim him. Your arousal marking him, your call of his name, your declaration of your love for him met by his own for you. 

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.” 

The two of you shatter together, mending back with pieces of one another. There is so much that awaits and will remain for when the two of you awaken again from the afterglow. 

For now Puffin would hold his Sunshine closer, whispered sweet nothings on the precipice of slumber. 

Dreams awaiting to be explored together. 

Steve runs from the bathroom into the kitchen where Wanda glares at the airfryer. 

“Check your phone!” Steve bellows, his fiancé turns, staring right at him and then her eyes move downward. 

“Steve, you’re… naked?” She questions. 

“Fuck that.” He says pointing at her phone. 

“Oh I plan to fuck that,” she grabs her phone pointing at him, well one of her favourite parts o him. 

Her eyes widen and Steve screams with joy as she starts jumping up and down excited at the text message you’ve sent. 

“WE DID IT!” Steve declares with mirth. 

“Holy shit Steve!” Wanda leaps towards him. 

Steve catches her, “We did it!”

Wanda’s legs wrap around his hips, she kisses him deeply, smiles can’t be wiped from their faces. 

“Celebratory shower?” He whispers, eyes darkening, she nods, ridding herself of his sweater as he carries her towards the bedroom. 

“No reply from Steve either?” You ask, Bucky meets your gaze over the kitchen counter, shaking his head. He pushes your plate of food towards you as you take a seat opposite to him. 

The snowstorm still raged. The hotel was nice enough to drop food supplies for at least two days and a few board games. 

“Bet they are celebrating in their own way.” He adds after a moment and you start laughing. His quiet laughter turns boisterous as the two of you recall every place they have gotten kicked out from due to their indecency. 

Your phone lights up from an app notification. You can’t help but smile at the new lockscreen. 

When the two of you woke up again, Bucky decided that you needed a polaroid to mark the day, encapsulate the new beginning you two are upon. 

He had set up the tripod and somehow timed it just right as you exited the bathroom from your shower all dressed in fresh warm clothes. He pulled you to him grinning down at you and cupping your face. You had a shy smile on your face, eyes giving away your mirth and the flash took you by surprise but the picture was everything. 

Bucky insisted on more pictures, the two of you had eight couple polaroids to share and one individual one that the other took. Your keepsake was of Bucky washing the dishes with soap on his cheek (that you smeared) and Bucky’s was of you sticking your tongue out at him when he had a dollop of soap placed upon your nose. 

The lock screen was the couple picture you requested that has his heart beat erratically. Recreating your head resting over the spot on his arm that was yours. It wasn’t a fake sleeping candid, you were awake and looking at each other. 

You took the picture to be your lock screen before Bucky demanded he wanted the picture as his keepsake. 

Bucky watches you trace the screen, “I wanted to ask you something important.”

You look at him with furrowed brows. 

“So are we still fake engaged or are we reverting to still in the first date wooing phase?” He raises a brow. 

“I’d consider the cake tasting our first date.” You hold back your laugh. 

“So we were almost cursed by dolls on our first date?” Bucky shakes his head. 

“No, we were almost eaten by those dolls.” You correct him. 

“Right and we did it in my car on the first date.” Bucky smirks when your knees brush against his under the table. 

“I suppose we aren’t a conventional couple.” You shrug, you fiddle with the ring, “So what do these mean then?” 

“These rings are a promise,” He says, grasping your hand with his own, “from me to you.” 

“Careful Mr. Puffin, I’ve had promises broken.” You try to say it as a joke. 

“Raza de soare (sunshine), I only ever would give my word to you.” Your hand is lifted and he kisses the spot under your thumb. 

Your fingertips brush over his cheek, “I trust you.” 

“It means so much that you do.” 

It’s quiet for a few moments then he chuckles thinking over something. Your questioning gaze has him nod. 

“Remember when you said I’m a diabolical person out for revenge?” He quotes you. 

“I was making a joke, Bucky,”

“No I know that, but those two aren’t going scot free.” 

“Bucky leave it, what they did was shitty but we aren’t stooping to their level—,”

“Sunshine.” He says incredulously. 

“Fine, okay I want to pull her hair extensions out ever since she flirted with you in the library.” You admit. 

He snorts, “I wish you had.” 

“How do you think that book fell on her head from the top shelf?” You confess the crime. 

“That was you?” Bucky stares at you in disbelief, “Are you secretly evil?” 

“When I need to be.” You rest your chin on your palm. 

Bucky is about to say something when his phone rings, he frowns, staring at it then looks up at you, “It’s work, I’ll take this in the room but if you need to come in then you can don’t worry about disturbing me, okay?”

You nod but don’t say anything, just push around your food with your fork. 

“Hello, yeah I have a moment.” Bucky raises a brow when you don’t verbalise your response, he cups your jaw, “hang on,” he says into the phone.

Carefully he tilts your head, meeting your gaze, “Sunshine, did you hear what I said?” 

You nod, he tilts his head, “I did, I won’t bother you.”

“Baby, you wouldn’t be a bother ever, if you need to use the room or you need me, you come to me. Okay?” His words and sincerity make you blink. 

“Are you sure?” You whisper, he nods looking between your eyes. 

“Absolutely. Now this shouldn’t take too long, if it does I’ll come and tell you, okay? Unless you’re inside at that point. Don’t worry about the dishes okay?” Bucky kisses your forehead.

As he is about to leave you grab his sleeve, stopping him, he yet again pauses the call. 

“Thank you.” You reach up kissing his cheek, Bucky’s cheeks tinge red and he rewards you with his bright smile which you return. 

“Yeah, tell me…” He keeps his eyes on you as he makes his way into the room. 

A shiver runs up your spine, the throw blanket on the couch wasn’t cutting it. You had loaded the dishes into the dishwasher despite Bucky saying not to bother. Now, however, you felt you should go into the room. 

The blanket wrapped around your shoulders you head to the room, hand hesitating on the doorknob. It had been twelve minutes. You knock on the door, then open it. Bucky faces away gazing out of the window, his laptop open on the small desk. He turns eyes moving over you. 

“Yeah, I can understand why that would be causing distress,” He says while walking over to you. The back of his hand makes contact with your forehead, “I mean the numbers seem fine. Nothing out of line but there is an unsecured loan. I need the details. Just a second,” he places the phone lower.

“You’re getting a bit warm.” Bucky’s thumb strokes your cheek, you lean into his touch.

“Feeling a little cold too.” You admit, sighing in content as he continues to stroke your cheek.

“Okay, get into bed,” He guides you, taking the blanket back, “Hey, can I call you back in a bit? My girl’s unwell. Thanks, yes I’ll tell her.”

“You didn’t have to–,”

“Sunshine, work can and will wait,” Bucky cuts you off, finding it absurd how you still don’t want to verbalise your need for help or wanting care, “Now come on, get into bed, sit for a bit, have your meds then lay down.”

Bucky makes sure you’re okay before he heads to your carry-on luggage, knowing the packing cube that has your medicines. You had given him a tylenol for his headache during the short layover so he knew you had other medicines, 

He brings back a paracetamol and a vitamin C tablet each, a bottle of water and a hershey kiss. You chuckle seeing the chocolate, “Why?”

“Because you’re having icky meds and this is the reward.” He laughs, “Habit that mum instilled in Becca and I.” 

Bucky brings his laptop and diary onto his side of the bed, connecting one wireless earpiece, carefully he tucks you into his left side. His warmth further reduces the cold feeling. 

“If I begin to talk too loudly just pinch my side okay?”

“You don’t have to be bothered, Puffin, I can–,”

“Sunshine, I’m sensing that you were told to stay away and stay out by others.” He shakes his head in disappointment when you look away affirming his suspicions.

“Who did that to you? Who made you believe that you were a bother when you are the only one that should matter?” He kisses the top of your head, patiently waiting for your answer, “I know in our misplaced anger and ire I may be responsible too, I’m going to work on that, I know we can’t erase or forget it but we can grow from it.” 

“Beck… and sometimes members of my family… I know, you never made me feel as if I was a bother to you, just, I think it was mutual that we both felt unwanted by the other? Which was misplaced and somehow I feel so irritated with myself that why did we both just not talk and sort things out earlier?” You sigh, looking up at him, “Do you think we should go to couple’s therapy? It may help us navigate and not allow the past to seep in and ruin the future we’re hoping for together. The love is there and now known.” 

Bucky’s eyes fall to where you fiddle with the blanket, he had tried therapy, it was helpful. He did in fact want to avoid the past of the way you both were indifferent and well rude on occasion to each other not to taint the future, “I think it will help.”

He smiles seeing you smile, “Okay good.” 

“Now get some rest and if I begin to get annoying I want you to pinch or smack my side.” He taps your nose. You roll your eyes but snuggle closer to him. 

“You’re so warm.” You practically purr happily, his laughter rumbles, your head near his chest. Warm palm rubbing up and down your back coaxing you further into slumber. 

“What the fuck was that for?” Bucky whisper-yells, blocking the pillow coming his way.

“You tell me you got together but not that she almost got hypothermia?” Steve glares looking for something else to throw at his best friend’s head.

“We wanted to tell you in person!” He defends, making sure not to jostle you. 

“James Barnes if anything happens to my best friend.” Wanda warns while glaring at Bucky.

“Nothing happened to her! Also how the hell did the two of you get inside?” Bucky questions.

Wanda points at the masterkey she had made, “I’m the mastermind here.” She declares.

Steve coughs.

“We’re the masterminds here.” She corrects, Bucky snorts.

You whine curling closer to your man. Bucky runs his palm over your head to coax you back to sleep, “Wan, shush, I’m cuddling Bucky.”

It makes the three of them laugh. You huff, opening your eyes, the two of them stand at the foot of the bed smiling at the pair of you. Your cheeks heat, hiding your face against Bucky’s chest. He pulls you closer, “I love this,” he whispers. 

“Same.” Wanda claps happily.

“I don’t think that was for you to hear, Wan.” Steve laughs when she shoots him a glare.

You look up at Bucky, smiling at him, impossibly happy and warm. You reach for him, wanting to give him a kiss. He beams, closing the distance, happy to give you whatever you ask of him.

When the two of you pull away, giddy grins grace your happy faces.

“Now, can we catch up?” Wanda demands the two of you. 

Bucky shakes his head amused, you tuck the strands of his hair that fall forward. 

Steve exchanges a happy glance with Wanda. Finally his best friend had found his sunshine.

The four of you make it to the living room only after Bucky has the fireplace running, plus he’s burrowed you in a plethora of blankets. As well as a mug of hot chocolate in your hands and of course he somehow has you snuggled with him. Then turn by turn you both begin to recount everything.

Wanda and Steve blink at the two several times before they both launch into yelling at the two of you.

“I was right!”

“I told you Bucky could never say that!”

“I knew Y/N would never ever talk about someone that way!”

“And you!” The pair say in unison to each other, then launch into a seemingly old argument, over the two of you being stupid and stubborn and idiots in love.

“Should we stop them?” Bucky whispers to you.

“I think we let it play out, you know catharsis?” You take a sip of your beverage. Bucky wipes the whipped cream from your top lip, bringing it to his own lips. He hums, you narrow your eyes at him, “Tease.” 

“Just warming you up.” He drawls, licking his lips.

“Oh you both are worse than us.” Steve points a finger.

Bucky scoffs, “You both had sex because we got together.”

“Uh uh, we had sex cause our plan worked.” Wanda waves her hand dismissively.

“And what was the goal of the plan?” You would move but Bucky has you cocooned. 

It’s silent for a beat.

“Moot point?” Steve offers a white flag.

“Moot point.” Bucky agrees in acceptance.

“So how are we taking revenge?” Wanda produces a new notebook, Steve stares at her in disbelief.

“I have information however we have to wait for a few things, also this stays between the four of us.” Bucky tilts his head till there is a satisfying crack sound, then sighs at the release of tension.

“Well, go on.” Wanda urges excitedly.

“Wan,” Steve shakes his head grabbing the notebook away, she pouts, he gives her a stern look.

“Fine, you don’t let me have any fun.” She grumbles, crossing her arms.

“I let you have plenty of fun.” He shakes his head, then looks back at Bucky, “Go on.”

“Alright,” Bucky clears his throat, he meets your gaze, “So we know how Brock and Sharon are married correct?” 

“Yes…” Steve, Wanda and you answer.

“Alright Steve your uncle, Sharon’s dad is basically a very rich man?” He raises a brow, his best friend nods in response.

“Brock’s company, which is in joint with Beck, although Brock thinks we’re only looking to acquire Beck’ sole company. But mainly the joint one is on our radar to be acquired by a third party, they want to take over, retain the lower level jobs but get Brock and Beck out. On further digging it turns out it’s bleeding money but they are hiding it by showing profit in the books. We got our hands on their balance sheets from previous filings and audit reports, and there is a major unsecured loan on Brock's side. Which has come from,”

“Sharon’s dad?” You offer making Bucky nod.

“Now I don’t understand why he would loan such a huge amount to Brock. From what I recall Steve, you said, and I quote, ‘My uncle thinks Brock is with Sharon for the money and Sharon is with Brock for his money.’” Bucky shrugs.

“Wait a second, Sharon told me there was a prenup signed.” Wanda pipes up.

Steve gives her a confused look, “I don’t know about this?”

“Sharon spilled the details once when she enjoyed the wine at mum’s place but not enough details to know about the prenup.” She adds.

“So why don’t you guys ask Brock under the pretence of a guy’s night. Steve can say that his dad is insisting Wanda signs a prenup but get him sort of drunk I suppose?” You bite the inside of your cheek, contemplating if you should have stayed quiet.

“That is actually a pretty smart plan.” Steve nods, then looks up at Bucky, “Would this help?”

“If we know where the loan has come from–,”

“We can get the prenup to come into play.” Wanda cuts Bucky off.

“Wan…” You shake your head, breaking up a couple that didn't sit right with you.

“Y/N, come on, they kept you and Bucky apart for god knows what reason?” She seethes, “It isn’t fair that you both had to suffer and lose out time.”

“Wan,” Steve reaches for her hand, “I know, but maybe,”

“No shit we lost time, but if Brock and Sharon were the catalyst we had our own roles in it as well.” Bucky adds, “Yes I want them to pay but ruining a relationship, hard no.” 

“I’m not saying ruin it, just jostle it a little, be chaotic, have fun, live a little.” Wanda’s eyes sparkle with mischief. You’re familiar with it, hell you’ve been part of her elaborate pranks on the mean girls who stayed on the upper floor of the dorms and reigned hell.

“I mean they flirt left, right and centre with other people…” Steve purses his lip, “So is the marriage really…” 

“Steve Grant Rogers, are you suggesting that it is a mutually benefitting marriage? A sham marriage? A founded on a lie to your very religious and tradition believing Uncle and Aunt marriage?” Wanda’s eyes are wide but there is a grin on her face.

“Wanda I don’t think that is a matter of smiling…” You trail off, she shushes you and looks at Bucky, “If they get busted, does it help with your deal?” 

“If I reduce the value it's a better negotiation for the buyer because the two can’t drive up the prices, we still get a commission and I think we get a bonus depending on the contract signed.” The wheel’s in Bucky’s mind turn and churn, “However, if the value reduces drastically they may fire employees who are innocent.” 

“What is your timeline?” Wanda reaches for the notebook Steve had tucked between his thigh and the armrest, he rolls his eyes as she begins to jot things down.

Bucky goes on to explain how the possible acquisition will take place around the time of Wanda and Steve’s wedding. Insider information stating that Beck is eager to sell off the company to retain some of his money. 

Wanda jots down the points, you look at Steve, he sighs. 

“Okay so we have only tomorrow night to get any information before we leave the day after.” She decides.

“Wan…” You shrug the blankets away, Bucky makes a sound of protest, “Bucky it’s getting too warm.” 

“Okay, okay,” He helps take it away.

You look up at him, Bucky gives you a soft smile but a raised brow as well. Patting his thigh he chuckles, setting you between his limbs and your back against his chest, arms circled around your body keeping you close. 

“Much better warmth.” You grin happily.

Steve can’t help the smile that takes over his face, he can’t even help himself when he picks up his phone to take a picture of this moment. He would remind Bucky, of the one night they were talking about deep things. Their friendship turned into a lifelong bond. 

--

‘You know what I want, Steve?’ Bucky passed the pint of ice cream to his best friend.

‘What?’ Steve takes it, twirling his spoon around to gather the best bits of the toppings.

‘I want a girl to call mine, you know? Want her in my arms all the time,’ Bucky shoved Steve when the latter snickered.

‘I’m sorry but, all the time?’ The blond shook his head in disbelief, ‘I mean we’re going into college and well, I don’t know if something so permanent will find its way to me atleast.’ Steve gave the pint back.

‘Mark my words, you’re going to find someone you’re head over heels for, and you will pull me into some elaborate scheme to help you woo this girl of yours, Stevie.’ Bucky pointed his spoon at him, then stared down at the pint of ice cream, ‘You ate all the toppings.’

Steve’s on his feet before Bucky can throw the spoon on his head. Bucky still chucked the spoon at him. It fell off his back and onto the floor. 

Bucky lay back on the carpet, heart thudding at the thought of college, the scholarship and him needing to find a flexible job to help.

Steve returned with a fresh pint of ice cream, ‘Listen, I’m pretty sure your girl who will be in your arms always, will support the schemes I rope you into.’ 

Bucky takes the ice cream, ‘You better not get us into any big messes, punk.’

‘Why would I, jerk?’ 

‘Because you will, you have all the stupid with you.’

‘Trust me, and I say this with love, you’re taking all the stupid with you to the library tomorrow.’

--

Steve returns to the present feeling Wanda rests her head on his shoulder. He kisses the top of her head. He was glad Bucky’s words came true. 

“I’m so happy for them.” Wanda whispers, looking up at her man.

His blue eyes meet hers, a grin on his face too, “I am too.”

They both gaze back at Bucky and you, he’s whispering something to you as you trace the calluses on his palm. Soft laughter as you both snuggle impossibly closer. 

Bucky nudges your cheek with his nose, then he makes a face at something you say to him.

“What? That book was funny to read to you.” You recall the moment.

“I know, I couldn’t get the thought of you doing that out of my mind.” He admits, thumbs tracing the skin of your abdomen, “I brought your book, you left it in my car, I was meaning to give it to you, oh and even the bear you won at the Khan’s.” 

“You kept it?” You wonder why it surprises you, “I thought you would have given it away.”

“Sunshine, I want to keep reminders of you wherever I go, wherever I am.” Bucky slowly shifts you aside, he only answers your questioning gaze with a kiss to your nose. He returns from your shared room holding the said bear. 

“I fought off Alpine for it.” He shows you the now faded scar from his cat.

“My brave knight.” You kiss his cheek when he settles in behind you. 

The bear stays in your arms, you play with its ears as the conversation flows between the four of you. No more awkward stretches of silence only filled by Steve and Wanda. No more cold shoulders given to each other.

Wanda and you fall asleep halfway through the random movie Steve selected. The two men chuckle as they adore your sleeping forms. 

Bucky tucks the stray strands of your hair behind your ear. You’re laying on his chest, a smile graces your features and he promises himself he would do everything in his power to not let that smile fade. An hour later Bucky carries you to bed and then helps Steve turn the couch into the pull out bed before returning to you.

The morning light wakes you up from one of the most peaceful sleeps you’ve gotten. The sun rays have Bucky glow in the morning light. You trace your thumb over the freckles on his cheek. He stirs in the slightest but his breathing evens out. Bucky nuzzles closer to your palm. 

His hair falls forward on his forehead, the sunlight highlights the light brown in his hair. You think back to the feelings that you had developed in college. Wondering how it would be waking up next to Bucky, having him close. Loving him in every way you could show him.

“It’s rude to stare.” He mumbles, the crinkles by his eyes give away the blooming grin that takes over him. 

“I’m admiring.” You counter, kissing the corners of his eyes, making your way to his lips.

Bucky hums happily, hands roaming over you, then cupping your face. When you pull away from the kiss his cheeks tinge pink at your adoring gaze. 

“What?” He wonders, your thumb traces over his chin and then his cheek, your loving gaze doesn’t waiver.

“Just, thinking about college me.” You smile, “She used to wonder what it would feel like, waking up next to you.”

“So she thought about sleeping with me?” Bucky raises a brow, you roll your eyes and then grab onto him as he shifts you above him, “Does it live up to her expectation? Because college Bucky would be fucking ecstatic he got his dream girl.”

You laugh, cheeks heating, “Pretty sure she’s squealing into her pillow.”

Bucky sits up and you continue to straddle him, “I want you to bake the brownies.”

“Bucky–,” Your palms rest on his chest, your path towards his tattoos interrupted by his request.

“Please? I want us to rewrite that moment.” Blue eyes sincere, look between yours. He worries his bottom lip waiting for your answer. 

“Alright. I’ll bake them.” You smile, his hand trails from your lower back to the back of your neck pulling your lips to his yet again.

Sharon stumbles to the booth of the small club, clearly she had enjoyed pre-gaming while getting dressed. 

��I’m still sceptical about you as maid of honour. No strippers? Booooooooo.” She pokes your cheek.

“Well none would match up to Steve’s body for Wanda.” You shift away taking a sip of your own drink.

“True, he’s got a banging body. You know who else does?” Sharon bites her bottom lip, failing to hide her lust.

“Brock?” Wanda offers and Sharon looks like she was just given pickle juice with the way her nose scrunches in disgust.

“Please, I’m talking about Loki.” She sighs dreamily.

“When did you see his body?” Wanda adds laughter, she widens her eyes at you.

You school your features to one of surprise.

“I approached him right before the storm, he warmed me up, you could say.” She giggles, twirling her blond hair as a group of guys walk by the table.

“Are you not happy with Brock?” Wanda enquires then takes a sip of her drink.

Sharon blows a raspberry but doesn’t give a verbal answer. 

“How are things with Bucky?” She turns to you.

“They are well, we got over the fight. He’s stressed about work.” You shrug, she nods.

“Yeah Brock has been moaning about the buyout, like shut up and swipe your card. You understand right, Wan?” Sharon reaches for the red head’s hand.

“Um, yes but we might be getting a prenup.” Wanda pats Sharon’s hand.

“You too?” She sighs sadly and then pouts.

“What do you mean by that?” Wanda hopes for a breakthrough. 

“Let's dance!” Sharon pulls Wanda and in turn you get pulled to the floor. 

Wanda motions for you to text Bucky about the hitch, you hoped they could have better luck with Brock.

Bucky stares at the message then back at Brock who was on the table dancing to the random song that was playing. 

Steve sighs from next to him both of them stare at Brock as he jumps to the floor then climbs the bar table and continues dancing.  

“Live a little!” Brock cheers and hollers at the equally drunk woman clambering up with his help to dance with him. 

The song changes and Bucky can’t help but smile. It was the song where he had taken a leap of faith and danced with you. 

“Man, Sharon had promised me head if I poured my beer on Y/N and you.” Brock cackles and Bucky is pulled out of the memory. 

“What?” He calls out, Steve holds him back by his arm. 

“Yeah she totally was pissed you blew her off for her. Not you sweetie, I got my eyes on you.” Brock pulls the woman closer, their dance turns obscene. 

Bucky stares at Steve, “I will punch him.” 

“You will not punch him.” 

“Give me one good reason not to punch him.” 

“Y/N isn’t here to tend to your wounds.” Steve offers. 

“Bold of you to assume I’d get hurt in the process, this fucker I’m going to—,” Bucky takes a steadying breath at the thought of you. 

“I’m going to the table after I return from outside, you separate the leech from the poor woman.” Bucky presses a finger to Steve’s chest, then heads out. 

The line rings and he hopes you pick up the cold air helps get his anger into a simmer and your voice saying hello calms it further. 

“Puffin?” You wait for him to speak, hearing him breathe steadily. 

“I need you to give me a reason not to punch Brock.” He requests. 

“As long as you give me a reason not to punch his wife.” You chuckle, Bucky feels his heart warm. 

“He was the one who poured the beer on us on her request.” He hears your sharp intake of breath. 

“The fuck? Why? What the hell?” Your mind reels for any kind of inclination as to why would that happen, “Wait was it all because you didn’t go out with her?” 

“I’m thinking yes, that is exactly what happened.” Bucky taps the wooden barricade. 

“It just got a lot more personal didn’t it?” You bite the inside of your cheek, your earlier hesitation to take them down turning into nothing. 

What kind of people would do that to someone? Knowing full well how you felt about Bucky. 

“It did, Sunshine.” He affirms. 

“I’ll get the prenup information for you.” You promise him. 

“No punches.” He reminds both of you. 

“No punches.” You agree, “I love you.” 

“I love you, I’m sorry I was stupid enough to believe these idiots over you.” Bucky sighs, shoulders slumped. 

He hears as you take a deep breath, “The both of us were stupid enough to believe the lies that these two said to us. Maybe, it was meant to be this way, us finding each other amidst this entire chaos of pretending.” 

“Because we know the way out, together.” Bucky adds with a smile on his face. 

“Exactly, my Puffin.” You smile as well, “Now we get to work.” 

“We get to work.” 

Steve’s head is between his hands when Bucky returns, Brock is drinking right from a bottle of whiskey, “Come on Rogers, lighten up you’re getting married!” 

Steve looks at Brock and gives him a short lived smile. Then looks towards Bucky with a help me face. 

“He would be happy if she wasn’t so controlling all the time.” Bucky slides into the booth with a wink towards Steve.  

“Ugh, tell me about it! it's like they plan the littlest of things and if you don’t behave a certain way they’ll chew your head off complaining.” Brock rolls his eyes and points the bottle at Bucky, “You’re lucky you can break your engagement still.” 

“I don’t think that is going to happen.” Bucky narrows his eyes at the drunk man. 

“What things does your wife control? I mean I know Wan’s meticulousness is persistent but is it that bad?” Steve feigns worry and it seems to do the trick with Brock as he sets down his bottle. 

“It's not even a recent thing, it started way back at college when we were hooking up. If she wanted a guy’s attention she’d plan for me to come in and make the dude a jealous fuck. It even occurred with Barnes but she was so pissed he wasn’t interested in her at all then the way you blew her off over the date, sheesh I didn’t hear the end of it while I went down on her during our hook up like? I know my skills with my tongue yet all she does is moan and complain, not even the hot kind of moans.” Brock stares at the bottle yet again. 

Bucky signals the server for another, Steve shares a disturbed glance with him.

“What were these other plans then?” Bucky redirects as the new bottle comes in, Brock lights up at the new bottle. 

Steve raises a brow in concern, Bucky brushes him off with a wave of his hand. 

“She planned this whole thing when the beer spilling didn’t work, at your party. I had to say things to Barnes and she had to say things to Y/N, to break them up. She was elated when it worked.” Brock chugs more of the bottle. 

“Then she got all pissy over the engagement and kept saying it's fake, it's fake. Like bitch please shut up let it go the guy isn’t interested in you.” Brock groans, donning a mocking mimic of Sharon, “It’s gotta be fake Brock, they hate each other. I made sure she couldn’t get him if I couldn’t. She deserved a disloyal guy like Beck, she stole Bucky from me.” 

“Sharon knew Beck was a cheater?” Bucky keeps his expression neutral, heaven forbid he do anything to mess up this tell all Brock moment. 

“Man she’s hooked up with him so many times, St. Tropez she was all over him.” 

“Weren’t you together?” Steve interjects. 

“We keep the cheating on the DL or together, if her dad even sniffs out infidelity that prenup will ruin me, because little miss Sharon would never be the kind to chase another dick.” Brock rolls his eyes, “I’ve kept tabs.”

“So what, you're just together for the money?” Steve says hoping the surprise in his tone isn’t evident. 

“My money is stuck with Beck, the loan was collateral to him gambling things away to high stakes people.” Brock sighs dejectedly. 

“Oh.” Bucky frowns, mind running a mile a minute to bring forth everything he knew about the deal. 

“Cutting costs and I’ve been wanting to push for the sale but Beck isn’t agreeing.” Brock takes another large gulp, he seems displeased. 

Then Brock grins, “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this Barnes, you won’t betray me will you?” 

Bucky smiles at him, “Oh don’t worry, I’m too drunk to remember anything.” He takes a sip of his own drink. 

“Yep, so drunk Brocky.” Steve adds for good measure. 

The man eyes the two best friends, gauging their levels of inebriation. Both of them grin and laugh to play along. Brock breaks out into a grin as Bucky and Steve exchange a glance and a sigh of relief. 

“Why don’t we take pictures?” You cheerily suggest as you head back to the booth where Wanda and Sharon are taking shots. The latter made a dent into the former’s line of shots as well. 

“Oh my gosh! Yes! Wan gimme your phone!!! Y/N get into the frame!” Sharon cheers, grabbing Wanda’s phone. 

An idea pops up in your mind. 

You: Steve text Wan about looking through the prenup draft

Steve: ????

Sunshine: Bucky, can you text Wan from Steve’s phone about looking at the prenup draft?

Puffin: on it 

Sharon begins taking pictures along with Wan and yourself, you wait for the moment and keep smiling through the Sharon focused pictures and then it happens. 

Snoopy Sharon reads the text and turns wide eyed. 

“You got a prenup too?” She gasps, her words still slurred

“Too? You have one as well?” Wanda gasps, you gasp too. 

“Wait, you have a prenup too?” Sharon narrows her eyes, “Sweetheart, prenups are for rich people, so sweet you think Bucky’s rich. Oh, poor dreamy baby.” She reaches for your hand to offer comfort and coo. 

“I’m gasping on behalf of Wan. Also prenups aren’t always about money.” You hide your intention to punch her behind your smile and pat Sharon’s hand. Your mind brings forth Bucky from this morning basking in sunlight looking every bit of an angel. 

“Oh makes sense, well what's your prenup saying, know what it's all the same isn’t it?” She turns back to your best friend taking another shot. Wanda offers you an apologetic look. 

“Anyways as I was saying do the prenup, but make sure you get dirt if he breaks any of the conditions. I have so much on Brock he will be drained dry for every penny. Also…” Sharon giggles, “I cut a deal with Beck, I’m going to divorce Brock and take all the money and invest it with Beck in a new venture.” 

“Sharon, that is unethical and wrong!” Wanda shakes her head.

“Oh please nothing is in this marriage, it's out of convenience for both of us.” Shron taps Wanda’s nose with her index finger, “Oh sweetie, this love shit fades, dollar bills, they remain.”

Pursing her lips Wanda is about to say something but Sharon’s eyes widen and then she hunches over to the side and retches. 

You cover your face as she further hurls the contents of her stomach out. Wanda scrunches her face while rubbing Sharon’s back. 

After a hefty tip and multiple apologies the three of you return to Wanda’s cabin where Sharon falls asleep on the couch. 

“What a disaster.” Wanda sighs as she slides a bottle of water towards you. 

You shake your head, disappointed you couldn’t help your boyfriend? Fake fiancé? Man? Yes, your man. You giggle at the absurdity. 

Wanda chimes in laughing as well, “What's so funny?” 

“Just in my head I didn’t know what to call Bucky and then I settled in on, ‘my man’.” You laugh harder. 

“He is your man.” Her arms envelope you in the tightest of hugs. 

You hug her back, sighing with relief and with so much happiness, “Does it always feel this way? Finding smaller things to love about him every day?” 

“Some days you will want to strangle each other and some days you will want him to strangle each other in a risqué way.” Wanda laughs and you lightly hit her arm, “It’s true.” 

“I think we’ve done enough of the former strangling.” You tease as her eyes widen comically and she pesters you to dish details about the other kind of strangling. 

“Tell me again why are we not taking him back to his cabin?” Bucky huffs carrying Brock across the threshold of the hotel to wait for the cars. 

“Because,” Steve takes a deep breath, “On three.” 

They set him down onto the sofa, Brock grumbles then turns to his side snoring loudly. Bucky glares at Steve.

“I didn’t make him drink.” The blond defends. 

“Oh and I made him drink?” The brunette counters. 

“Why are you both arguing?” You ask as you hold the to go cups of hot chocolate. 

“Sunshine?” Bucky whirls around a smile spreading across his face and then his expression turns stern, “Why are you out in the cold?” 

“We wanted hot chocolate and there was limited staff so I asked if the driver could pick me up and well…” You raise your full hands, “I’m wearing a sweater and thermal wear and this coat.” You assure Bucky when his worry does not relent. 

He stalks over to you, grabbing your chin and tilting your head to look up at him. Blue fills your vision, as his eyes connect with your own. His thumb traces over your lips. His own press into a thin line as he considers his next move, you watch his tongue dart out and lick his bottom lip. Then you feel his lips and your hands are now grasping the lapels of his coat as he deepens the kiss. 

Bucky hums appreciatively as you draw him closer, almost wanting to chuckle at how you've forgotten all about the hot chocolate which he holds now in his right hand. When his tongue meets yours, you moan the sound ignites every fibre of his being. 

Bucky pulls away, his left arm encircling around your waist. His lips brush along your earlobe, “If you keep making sounds like that Sunshine, I’m going to have to fuck you right here in this lobby.” His voice is low, inviting, and you almost want to tempt fate. 

“Bucky,” You mean for yourself to sound stern and chastise him but all your voice conveys is how much more you want him. 

Bucky kisses your jaw softly and then your neck, then kisses the love bite and he nips at the flesh at the base of your neck. 

Your hand finds his hair tugging on it wanting his lips back on yours, and then someone clears their throat. 

Bucky and you both glance to the side, Steve points to the car waiting out front. Your man huffs annoyed and then hands the hot chocolates back to you. 

“When did—, how?” You look up at him not recalling when it was taken from your grasp. Bucky winks at you heading over to help Steve with Brock. 

Heading back inside Steve and Wanda’s cabin, the boys drop Brock right next to Sharon on the couch and they instantly cuddle up. 

“For people who want to drain the other dry they sure do cuddle like a married couple.” Wanda whispers as the four of you watch them from the kitchen. 

“And we thought we were in a fake relationship.” Bucky brushes your shoulder with his, grinning at you. 

“You think we should tell them that the other confessed about wanting to end the marriage and do the prenup thing?” You stare at the two lying, cheating scumbags. 

“Maybe we should, maybe add our own spice to it.” Steve nods in agreement. 

Wanda and Bucky share a look of concern. 

“Nah, maybe not.” You dismiss the thought.

“I agree, let karma do its work.” Steve agrees and then looks at Wanda. 

“You wanna tell them don’t you?” Bucky whispers, you nod, “Give me till the flight time to set the business end in order and then we can pick them off and pull their move on them.” He didn’t want to resort to it, but the two left no choice. 

“Did you know your best friend and my best friend almost engaged in public sex?” Steve speaks as if he has the latest scoop. 

Wanda gasps, “When?”

“Almost being the key word.” You defend, Bucky kisses your shoulder, pulling you to him. 

“A very insignificant key word.” He assures with a teasing grin. 

Wanda looks up at Steve, “They might take our spot.” 

“We can’t have that now can we?” Steve nudges her nose with his, grinning as his fiancé giggles. 

You look up at Bucky, he smiles down at you, arms encircling your waist, your hands placed upon his and fingers intertwined. He raises a brow sensing you want to say something. 

You just smile at him, squeezing both his hands three times.

A.N.: i know it has been a while but i hope you enjoy this update, i am very nervous to post since it has been this long but I hope i get back to my regular posting schedule, thank you for reading and being kind and showing your love and for sticking around 💜

tagging: @slutforsexyseabass @elle14-blog1 @sxnshinebxcky @sebsgirl71479 @pandaxnienke @stevesmewmew @tfandtws @povlvr @tanyaspartak@maggiejackson3@brodymarx @ladylee76 @buckyinluv @buckymcbuckbarnes @almostcontentcreator @stickyjudgeturtleghost(strikedthrough if unable to be tagged)

[victoriansecret]

Vails

I haven't actually talked about it here a lot, partly because I try not to do heavy history stuff here - this blog is meant to be a hobby, after all - and it's something I'm frankly too passionate (obsessed) about, but my main area of historic interest and focus, especially when it comes to my own personal research, is the history of domestic service. It is not an exaggeration to say it is my life's work. Another reason I don't write about it often is I don't really know where to start. My breadth of knowledge on the subject is quite broad, so there's a lot I could say, but I think I'll try to write some small things about specific aspects of it. Vails were, in the 18th (and I believe also 19th) century, basically what we could today call tips, often paid to servants. And when you read things written by the 'master class' of people being served, while they're obviously biased and exaggerating, it does become clear that servants rather enforced them. There wasn't a guild system for servants like there were for trades, but there were informal clubs and groups, and this is one of the ways they seem to have acted together, almost as a form of unionization. There's a letter to a British newspaper where the write says that he estimates many servants are doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling their annual salaries through vails. I could write more but I'll just transcribe some of my favourite passages on this subject from the book Life in the Country House in Georgian Ireland by Patricia McCarthy: I will add too, while this is specifically talking about paid servants in Britain, you do see vails paid to enslaved people in America as well. Probably not as often, but Philip Vickers Fithian, who wrote a diary about his experiences in Virginia in the 1770s, writes about similar things of the enslaved people at the plantation he's staying at expecting their "Christmas boxes" of vails, although they weren't quite as beholden to the actual date of Boxing Day.

... The customary scene in the hall, as their guests waited for their carriages or horses to be brought to the door, embarrassed many. [Marshall, Domestic Servants] Hosts feigned ignorance of their guests' fumbling in their pockets to find shillings and half-crowns to distribute to the servants, who had lined themselves up expectantly. Whether the motive for allowing the practice was to salve the collective conscience of the employers at paying such low wages is not clear. [Bridget Hill, Servants: English Domestics in the 18thc.] It was not confined to great houses, but was also expected in more modest establishments, although the amounts given were less. It was also not only expected on departure from the house of a friend: vails were disbursed by 'house tourists' to whichever servant showed them around - in most cases an upper servant.

...

An army officer described how much his visit to the house of a friend would cost him: 'The moment your departure is known, all the domestics are on the qui vive; the house-maid hopes you have forgotten nothing in packing up, if so, she will take care of it till you come again; this piece of civility costs you three ten-pennies; the footman carries your portmanteau .. to the hall, three more; the butler wishes you a pleasant journey - his greate kindness in so doing of course extracts a crown-piece; the groom brings your horse, assuring you 'tis an ilegant baste, and has fed well' - three more ten-pennies go; the helper runs after you with the curb-chain, which he has 'till this moment carefull secreted - two more; making a total of seventeen, or, in English money, upwards of fourteen shillings. A heavy tax for visiting a friend!' [Benson Earle Hill, Recollections of an Artillery Officervol. 1]

...

Richard Griffith from Bennetsbridge, Co. Kilkenny, complained in c.1760 in a letter to hise wife that 'an heavy and unprofitable Tax still subsists upon the Hospitality of this Neighbourhood .. in short while this Perquisite continues, a Country Gentleman may be considered but as a generous Kind of Inn-holder, who keeps open House, at his own Expence, for the sole Emolument of his Servants .. this Extravagance is not confined, at present, solely to the Country .. ; for a Dinner in Dublin, and all the Towns in Ireland, is even in a Morning, with a Person who keeps his Port, you may levee him fifty Times, without being admitted by his Swiss Porter. So... I shall consider a great Man as a Monster, who may not be seen, 'till you have fee'd his Keppers.' [R. and E. Griffith, A Series of Genuine Letters Between Henry and Frances, vol. 4]

...

Swift gives similar suggestions in Directions to Servants: 'By these, and like Expedients, you may probably be a better Man by Half a Crown before he leaves the House.' He further urges those servants who expect vails 'always to stand Rank and File when a Stranger is taking his Leave; so that he must of Necessity pass between you; and he must have more Confidence or less Money than usual, if any of you let him escape, and according as he behaves himself, remember to treat him the next Time he comes.'

...

Card money was particularly lucrative for butlers and footmen - so much so that, in London at least, such menservants refused service in houses where gaming parties were not held. [Marshall, Domestic Servants - Two footmen at the court of Queen Anne, Fortnum and Mason, used this perquisite as capital to begin their grocery business in London. Country House Lighting 1660-1890, Temple Newsam Country House Series No. 4] But it was vails that finally undermined the authority of the employers, who virtually allowed servants to dictate whom should be received, and then pretended not to notice when the servants extracted money from the departing guests.

...

In the London Chronicle a correspondent wrote in 1762 that 'Masters in England seldom pay their servants but in lieu of wages suffer them prey upon their guests'. George Mathew of Thomastown, Co. Tipperary, a man famous for his hospitality, was one of the first employers to ban the 'inhospitable custom' of giving vails to servants, and to compensate them by increasing their wages. This was apparently as early as the 1730s. His servants were warned that, if they disobeyed, they would be discharged. He also informed his guests that he would 'consider it as the highest affront if any offer of that sort were made'. [Anthologia Hibernica, I - No date given for this account, by 'Grand George' Mathew, who died in 1737, was the man described, who was host to Jonathan Swift at Thomastown in the 1720s, a visit described by Thomas Sheridan in A Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift] A crusade against the giving of vails began in 1760 in Scotland, where seventeen counties issued appeals to abolish them. Four years later the movement had spread to London, resulting in riots there by footmen, the servants who stood to lose the most. [Marshall, Domestic Servants] It was probably at about the same time that employers from a number of counties in Ireland agreed among themselves to abolish vails. [Griffith, Series of Letters..., IV, 'An Agreement entered into among the Gentlemen of several Counties in Ireland, not to give Vails to Servants'] Like George Mathew before them, they decided to increase staff wages in an effort to compensate them for loss of earnings. One of them was Lord Kildare: in March 1765 he issued a directive from Carton to members of his household, stating that 'In Consideration of Vails &c, which I will not permit for the future to be received in any of my Houses upon any Account whatsoever from Company lying there or otherwise I shall give in lieu thereof... five pounds per annum each to the housekeeper, Maitre D'Hotel, cook and confectioner; three pounds per annum each to the steward at Carton, the butler, valet de chambre and groom of the chambers, and two pounds to the Gentleman of Horse. ...

And I will conclude with this funny account, about the penalty for being known amongst the staff to be a spendthrift, from the same book: ...

An unfortunate guest in England in 1754 found his punishment [for not giving vails] truly humiliating. 'I am a marked man,' he wrote, 'if I ask for beer I am presented with a piece of bread. If I am bold enough to call for wine, after a delay which would take its relish away were it good, I receive a mixture of the whole sideboard in a greasy glass. If I hold up my plate nobody sees me; so that I am forced to eat mutton with fish sauce, and pickles with my apple pie.' [Quoted in Marshall, Domestic Servants]

feel free to tip here (and yes the irony of this is not lost on me, although it did not occur to me until about halfway through writing this)

[karamell-sweetz]

um. i um. i did a thingy and now i’m going to yap under the cut

ok now. so i did this with mainly just dynamics in mind because i am a firm believer that all of these ruikasaverse things can and SHOULD be explored platonically. yk for what they are. and not just in the context of romantic relationships. because. that’s just how relationships work right.

BUT i did split my ult favs into the ones i like more romantically (🚢) and platonically (which i should have labelled as 🍽️). just because i’ve been shipping them romantically for a good while anyway. that said everything in my 🚢 tier can/should be explored platonically too.

NOW ENSUES THE YAP.

TIER ONE: ult favs, romantic

DANTORU OTP OF THE CENTURY. i don’t even have a good reason as to why they’re my favourite of all time, i think it’s mainly just the aesthetics of them together and the romantic implications of piano. and the stars too. think about it guys. imagine playing music with your lover beneath the stars… or playing a duet with them… or laying your hands over your lover’s as you teach them how to play!!! grrrh.

KUROSHIRO OTP OF THE CENTURY #2. dear ruikasers that make them painfully reincarnate into every other universe: you successfully break my heart every single time. that and giving them forbidden romance. and killing tsukasa for plot. it gets me every time. also an aesthetics thing, flowers are awesome and there is something so beautiful about being practically opposites yet coming together all the same. ugh. ughhh.

curtain call has the horrifyingly romantic implications of YEARNING for your lover and the passage of time threatening to break you apart. it’s pining and angst and all the joys and pains of life rolled into one.

if we count filament as nakashira then i LOOOVE them. salaryman yaoi or whatever. it would be AWESOME if we explored them platonically but i like the idea of them getting to know each other and slowly fall in love with each other… and make each other better… grrhh… domestic life… was never quite my style… /lyr

tacthina!! honestly don’t have a reason for why they’re up so high here but i think they’re very sweet. bonus for arranged marriage, and when paired withhhhh tactqilin!!! againnn finding your lover reincarnated over centuries… there’s something cool about going through time and searching for that one person again and again. i think that’s the reason why most of these ships are in the top category lmao it may be my favourite trope.

TIER TWO: ult favs, platonic

GHH as much as i love colorfes ritk romantically i honestly think they should be explored platonically too. like a long distance friendship with an ethereal deity. and also AGAIN with finding that person again and again throughout time and space (teehee)!! because rui’s usually an immortal deity in this au.

both zozos actually could have gone in ‘normal ritk with a mask on’ but idk there’s something about these two designs specifically that scratches my brain. no i don’t really know why i put them so high. they just look really good together.

i can go on forever about pandemonium the event and how it was such a turning point for rui’s relationships and character development and honestly that should be reflected in the cards too. EEESPECIALLY when you put their canon meeting in. stuff like tsukasa slowly warming up to rui’s antics and letting himself be a little less uptight with him. and rui getting to share all of himself with someone close to him!

KIRAPIKA. mmm. i dunno i just like rpg style things. and going out on missions and quests together. i dunno! i think they’re best enjoyed alongside emu and nene so they can all be a party together though.

SURPRISE I LIKE GALAJEST MORE THAN RINGJEST? man i don’t know either? most of the things i see with them are along the lines of rui crafting up tsukasa as a little galactic friend and i think that’s really sweet. hmm other than that i forgot why i put them so high. it’s mainly the idea of rui being tsukasa’s ultimate helper i guess, and tsukasa being rui’s companion in return. :)

TIER THREE: scrumptious!

BOODEVIL IS SO CUTE! something about rui, filled with all sorts of bitterness, being brought into the light by tsukasa’s simple ways of enjoying life.

wl is cute too, not much to say with them. i feel like i see so much royalty-based ritk that it’s hard to have any large feelings about it, at least in my case lol.

ROSEOU… mmm… it’s neat to make friends with your butler or other sort of royal advisor. and also that idea of getting closer from a place of formality, and getting to show the hidden sides of you to another person especially when you’re both in a formal position.

lilyrose goes well together aesthetically. or as aesthetically as you can get with rose’s abysmal colours 😋 other than that it’s usually giving the same as roseou so not much to say that hasn’t been said already.

space opera… not much to say about them. intergalactic partnership ✨

now prommy i DO like ringjest. it’s good that they have each other’s backs. its just that certain bits of fandom have sort of ruined them for me :/ still cute tho

ahhh white day… there’s so much white day out there that i have no idea what’s going on with it /pos. that said, love the doomed yaoi.

i don’t have too many feelings on the seibaitAAAAAsu cards honestly, mainly because i haven’t had the time to read the story or really look into it in detail. these cards are stunning though. love the doomed yaoi again.

ok i’m actually a sucker for phantom thieves even though i have no idea what they actually do… it’s the cat and mouse aspect + mysterious identity for me!

lilyfes… mmm… againnn the reincarnation thing!! or rui looking over his partner throughout immortality and protecting him. oughh.

merking and merprince areee basically the same thing right? i love a bit of little mermaid style pining to be a land dweller, or even the opposite with king/prince wanting to partake in the ocean’s beauty or whatever…

cyberpunk on its own feels a bit too loose conceptually for me to be fully on board with it but once you slide idolkasa in there it has more weight to it. love me some hidden identity once again.

kemo… they are very cute… again not a strong enough concept/difference to get me fully on board with it

pop in my heart! bakerkasa feels very similar to boodevil now but it’s still cute

TIER FOUR: it exists.

hakapega… bwaaaah… i love the idea of pegasus being a robot replacement for tsukasa and the angst that that brings with it, but other than that i have no strong feelings on it. i’m a lover not a fighter 😔

sorry fesdog lovers but i am not sure about the dog… that’s all i will say.

potato boys are fun, just not hitting with me tbh

mmm you all know i have my own fairy au so technically i should be on board with the fairies… i just haven’t seen much of it. the idea is adorbs tho. just two bros living the miniature life in little fairy domestication…

the idea of colorfes and tinykasa is also very sweet, just not my cup of tea personally ><

i don’t have strong feelings for the starry sky melody set in general so unfortunately this ritk is getting the mid.

zozo2… same as zozo1 but they don’t hit as hard for whatever reason. they are still pretty though

knightfes is cool? but once you put sorcerui in the picture it’s not really unfortunately.

octoking is the same as merking and merprince. it’s in this tier because the tentacles do not entail the best things maybe. also i don’t know if i like them on rui.

knightprince could be cute actually. switches up what we’ve seen so far in roseou etc.

rmd… idk it’s interesting in regards to designs and the power dynamics but i’m really not feeling it :/

detectives are cute too but it feels like more office yaoi!! and i just prefer nakashira and phantom thief rui in that case.

never seen skaterzozo in my life but that’s because skaterkasa is relatively new. i think it’s cool tho.

i should have put middle school in tier three because it has a lot of potential platonically, but i honestly just like preserving the canon timeline regarding that era

sanrio is like if boodevil/pimh met merking/merprince. rui coming out of the water to visit tsukasa’s cafe… very sweet. no strong feelings for it though.

TIER FIVE: erm.

with starry sky orchestra it really depends on what angle you look at them from. most of the things i see with these two are trying to push the whole sibling thing in a weird way unfortunately, so that’s tainted my view of it a little. but if you DON’T make them related it’s just mid i think.

again, never seen skaterdog because skaterkasa is a new card. same issue as fesdog though. can’t get over the dog allegations.

‘TIER SIX’: normal ritk with a mask on

these are for the aus that are close to canon. i prefer to look at them platonically in that case.

anyway that’s enough of me!! sorry once i left this overnight i forgot what i wanted to say + after the first few tiers i ran out of things to say :P

[honourablejester]

Watching that North Sea/Hoist the Colours post again, a couple of the lines of that song caught me again: “The bell has been raised from its watery grave; can you hear its sepulchral tone?” And I just …

I really love bells? As an image. A symbol. Toll the Dead is my favourite 5e cantrip. In Pathfinder, my two favourite thaumaturge implements, just for theme, are lantern and bell. I have a homebrew forge god who has the bell as his main symbol. I just. I really love the imagery of bells.

Bells sound for funerals. Bells count the passing of hours. Bells warn of approaching danger. In a nautical setting, bells mean port and/or buoys declaring safe water. The ghostly bell ringing through the mist means death or home. Bells toll out your life. Bells toll out your death. Bells mark territory: the bells of the church mark the parish, the bells of the night watchman mark out the protected area. Fog buoys mark home channels. Given the history tangled up in the Catholic Church, bells also symbolised power and wealth (church/town bells and especially full carillons were not cheap, and the biggest, heaviest, most expensive bells were parish and municipal status symbols) while at the same time, because of the association with death and funerals, also symbolised ultimate equality. Bells symbolise victory and celebration, sounding for weddings as well as funerals. Bells mean a call, often a call to school or to church, or an alarm bell, but also a general summons.

The bell tolls. Sound the death knell. Ring out your great bells in victory. Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clements. One o’clock and all’s well!

Bells have such a lovely tangle of images attached. Death. The inevitable passage of time. Alarm. Warning. The delineation of safe places. Celebration. Wealth. Equality. Summons. There’s a lot to play with.

And just. At the base of it all, and calling back to Hoist the Colours above … there’s nothing quite like the ghostly, sepulchral toll of bell to mark the call, and the end. Heh.

I just. I really enjoy the symbolism of bells a lot.

[kitkatsudon]

KitKat reads the TKEM Novel: Chapter 2

That night, a broken flute

So. Chapter 2. If you haven’t guessed already by the title of this chapter, it covers the topic of that fateful night back in 1994, when Lee Lim kills Lee Ho, little Gon comes in, gets traumatised, they both leave with half of the Manpasikjeok, etc etc. That’s kind of… the first half of this chapter? The whole chapter is definitely affected by this, but after this there are two more scenes in this chapter: one where Gon is looking at Taeeul’s ID card in his Alice in Wonderland book (notably skipping over “Are you having fun, Captain Jo?” and that subsequent conversation between Gon and Yeong which is one of my personal favourite scenes, but anyway. They do reference it, but it’s not the same), and then the scene where Gon is at the stables, he hears the sound of the flute, and he runs away on Maximus and goes into the portal.

My first thought? Not enough Yeong. Again. For real this time. Yeong has one line of dialogue, and that’s just a radio call to Hopil and the others to chase after Gon, there’s no new insights about Yeong in this chapter, absolutely nothing. And I know, I know that I can’t really judge a chapter like this on its Yeong content when none of these scenes contained Yeong in the first place, but like… they could have included that conversation between Gon and Yeong in Gon’s study? Instead, the allusion to it we get is this:

Why didn’t ‘he’ who saved him come back? Wasn’t it worth coming to see him at least once?

Yeong said that he didn’t come because Gon had grown up so well that he didn’t need anyone’s help, but Gon wanted to ask, ‘didn’t he want to come and see how well he had grown up?’

There it is, folks! That’s all we’re getting! And look… it’s easy enough to tell from the scene in the show that Gon isn’t really satisfied with Yeong’s answer, but a part of me does feel disappointed that this heartfelt conversation between those two in the first episode was boiled down to this in the book. None of the tenderness, none of the warmth, just “idc yeongie i still want to see my saviour :/.” And then… hoo boy. I can already tell that this book is going to test my patience as someone who is not particularly a taegon enjoyer, because a few paragraphs down we get this absolute gem.

The government ID in his hand was the only trace he had left behind, and it was a question. Every day, Gon would ask the woman on the card, ‘Do you know why he saved me? Why I survived?’ Thanks to this, the woman had become a habit for him. After twenty-five years, she was more familiar than anyone else. For Gon, it was comforting. Before he knew it, she had become the reason he was alive.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, whAT?! The reason he was alive? His reason for living?? More familiar than anyone else????? Bestie… she is a piece of plastic!!! As far as you know right now!!!!! If this is your reason for living… Gon, blink twice if you need to see a therapist. Oh, wait, hang on, this reminds me of another passage in this chapter…

Was he really dead? Suddenly, he felt a surge of doubt.

Maybe it was because that night, twenty-five years ago, was still so vivid. The stickiness of stepping through the blood of innocents, the smell of blood that stung his nostrils. The pain of the strangulation, the thinning of his breath. The sight of his father’s lifeless body in front of him. The underlying dread, the fear. The emotions were as sharp as the sensations.

However, now that Gon was the king, they were emotions he couldn’t show anyone. Walking slowly to his desk, Gon composed himself as he sat down. The good news was that he wasn’t weak enough to be consumed by the memories of that day.

Oh, well, that’s ok then! Don’t worry everyone! Gon is fine, actually! Sure, he still has very vivid memories of that awful night, he still hates people touching his body, he can’t wear a tie without getting flashbacks to that night, he doesn’t feel like he can share this with anyone because of his status as the king, but don’t worry! He’s not so weak that he’s super affected by this or anything, that would be totally cringe.

Gon, I’m going to say this once again, blink twice if you need to see a therapist. Because this… my god. That’s an unhealthy thought pattern if I’ve ever heard one. I think the show wants the solution to this to be “gon is fine enough to be a great boyfriend, but if he ever does need to talk to anyone, this will only ever be taeeul because he the king to her.” What I’m hearing, however, is “gon needs to trust his loved ones, and learn to be comfortable with the fact that he’s both the king and a person, and he needs to be comfortable with communicating with people like yeong and lady noh and prince buyeong who have loved him for a very long time and want gon the person to be alright.” Like… surely the message here isn’t just that Gon can never ever trust anyone from the Kingdom with his emotions, right? Where’s the growth there? Finding someone from another universe is the most convoluted loophole in this situation, when he could just like… talk to his best friend? Even if that’s hard for him, growth is hard! But it’s important!

But *ahem* anyway, sorry, this is meant to be about the novel, not my wider thoughts about the show in general…

You might be wondering, hey KitKat, you said that this chapter was half about the night of the treason, so why haven’t you spoken about that? And that… is because I don’t really have that much to say? It’s mostly just an action sequence, there aren’t really any character moments that made me like !!!!, like the other parts did. The main detail is that it really hammers in the detail that Lee Lim feels unfairly treated because of the nature of his birth. He’s jealous of his brother and his nephew for being born into a life where they never really had to struggle.

Actually, you know what? I am going to share this paragraph, purely so I can go on another side tangent.

Prince Imperial Geum. Lee Lim was crowned Prince Imperial Geum at the age of thirteen. He was the firstborn son, but his mother died before she could become queen, and she was posthumously declared a noblewoman. So, his younger brother, who knew nothing and was only good, became the king.

Now, let’s do some maths, shall we? Both Lee Lim and Lee Ho have confirmed dates of birth in the show. Lee Lim was born on 27th February 1951, and Lee Ho was born on 23rd October 1952. (Another fun fact is that Gon’s mother was born on 8th August 1965, so when Gon was born on 28th October 1987, his mother was 22 and his dad was 35, and I know that age gap relationships can be perfectly consensual and loving but man… I can’t deny that something there feels a little bit icky… but anyway.) Assuming neither Lee Ho nor Lee Lim were born prematurely, this implies that Lee Lim was conceived in May 1950, and Lee Ho was conceived in January 1952. If their father, King Haejong, was doing everything by the book, if Lee Lim’s mother was his official partner, and the earliest that she died was 27th February 1951, this means that King Haejong moved on from this love of his life to get to the baby-making stage with Lee Ho’s mother in less than a year. It’s… plausible? But if Lee Ho was legitimate, then King Haejong and his new partner had to be married somewhere between February 1951 and October 1952, and it would have had to have been a big royal wedding with a lot of planning, and… mmmMH I don’t want to make any conclusions, because there are a few explanations for this quick timeline and it’s much more fun if this is left up to individual interpretation, but what I am pretty sure on is that this situation with King Haejong and his lovers wasn’t as simple as “:( lee lim’s poor mother died before she could be made the queen.” It’s giving… less tragic, more scandal, somewhere on this timeline. Either way, I am narrowing my eyes at you, King Haejong.

Mmmh… anything else? Maybe this:

In the Cheonjongo scene, Yoo Gyeongmu, Lee Lim’s second in command, says to him that they need to leave because the “Golden Army” is coming. In the official English subs on Netflix, this is just translated as Royal Guard, BUT it’s definitely a different word. Royal Guard, in the book, has always been 근위대, but Yoo Gyeongmu specifically refers to a certain 금군, and this had specific Hanja next to it in the book, so it must be a thing. What is this Golden Army? Will it be referenced again, other than in this scene? It’s not a code name, little Gon also thinks to himself that his saviour is leaving because the Golden Army is on their way. Is it a specific task force within the Royal Guard? If so, what do they do?? I have a horrible suspicion that we’ll never know.

Oh, and one more thing before I bullet point exactly what we’ve learnt from this chapter.

It was said that the prince was a prodigy, a genius who could read, write, and do mathematics at an early age.

*quietly adds ‘hyperlexia’ next to ‘savant mathematical abilities’ onto my imaginary list of evidence of gon being autistic*

That post will come eventually. But not for a while.

So!! What have we learnt in chapter two?

Somewhere on the palace grounds, vaguely near Cheonjongo, is a gingko tree!

Where Lee Lim was described as being bold and cruel, Lee Ho was described as having a “cool temperament that could be considered weak.” Even if Lee Ho isn’t in my good books for getting a 21 year old pregnant when he was 34, that still feels kind of mean.

Cheonjongo was home to “various treasures, from crowns to cash, ceramics to swords, treasures handed down from generation to generation.”

The current Captain of the Royal Guard died that night, stepping in front of Lee Ho.

The Netflix subs miss out Lee Ho saying something that roughly translates to “What the heck?!” before he asks “Brother, what do you think you’re doing?” which is something that I wish they’d kept in.

When Lee Lim killed his brother, he was happy to prove that Lee Ho was weaker than him.

Gon was commended as a little genius, and this is the only measure by which Lee Lim thinks he might be better than his father. That doesn’t change the fact that Lee Lim still has to kill him, though.

Even in that horrible moment, and despite Gon being seven years old internationally, he was actively thinking about strategy, wanting to strike Lee Lim with the Four Tiger Sword while he was laughing, because it was a moment of weakness.

Lee Lim got his royal title when he was thirteen, Korean age, so presumably he was 11/12 years old internationally.

The first time little Gon heard the flute music was when his saviour came for him, not before, which begs the question as to why he went to Cheonjongo that night in the first place. Maybe because his dad wanted to show him the Manpasikjeok?

This “Golden Army” section of the Royal Guard existed, at least in 1994. Maybe it still does in the present. Maybe it doesn’t. That remains to be seen.

The official story was that Royal Guards shot Lee Lim dead on the beach, not that he was found washed up dead like I assumed in the show. Maybe this was just a detail in the show that I forgot about, but I’m including it here because it confused me at first.

Lee Lim’s “death” had always seemed futile and meaningless to Gon.

Apparently, according to Gon, all the fear, grief, and hurt has already faded away from that night with time, and the only thing he still has is the question of why his saviour hasn’t come back for him. Apparently.

Please imagine a strained voice for this next point: Jeong Taeeul’s ID card became Gon’s reason for living. *sigh.*

This is something I’d noticed before, but this whole scene where he looks at the ID card in his book, and everything in the show immediately preceding it that the book cut - this all happens on 10th September 2019. Is there a significance to this date? YES! THERE IS! IT’S YEONG’S BIRTHDAY! THEY CUT OUT YEONG’S SCENE ON HIS GODDAMN BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

The Royal Guard was on high alert after the shooting at the rowing competition, and yet Gon still managed to escape? He’s quite impressive.

The main reason Gon was suspicious that Lee Lim wasn’t dead, despite them having a corpse, was because Lee Lim risked everything to get the Manpasikjeok, but his half wasn’t found on this corpse. This is what Gon is thinking about as he’s looking at the portal for the first time.

As Gon is riding through the place in between, in the portal dimension, he’s thinking of the passage of Alice in Wonderland that he read to the children a few days ago, of Alice following the clock rabbit into the rabbit hole, and then falling further and further down.

And that’s it! I’m… actually surprised at how long this ended up being, because I definitely found the first chapter a lot more entertaining than this one. Though to be honest, that was mostly the shameless Gon worshipping. There was definitely some of that this chapter, but not at all to the same extent. Next time… I haven’t really looked very hard at the next chapter, but I think it’s going to cover Taeeul and Gon’s first meeting, from their very first interaction to Gon’s time in the police station. And now I say that, I’m suddenly realising that I’m quite excited to find out what Gon is thinking when he sees Eunseob for the first time. But not too excited. I don’t think it’s wise to have expectations that are too high with this book.

Final thoughts? Underwhelming. I know this book can’t deviate much from the show, but I was disappointed with how little extra information we learnt about Lee Lim in the Cheonjongo scene. Does he really just want *gestures vaguely* power? Is it really just because he feels it’s unfair that he wasn’t born to be the king? Come on, where’s the flavour? Does he want to be more powerful than God because he just wants power? Does he want to rule Corea? Does he want to rule the world? The multiverse??? What is his endgame here??? He gets the Manpasikjeok, then what??? I was hoping that the book would give us some more insight, but it absolutely has not done that so far. Ah well. I suppose it’s only Chapter 2. There’s still time.

Other than that, my main takeaway is that Lee Gon is taking a long, long swim in a certain river in Egypt in regards to how he’s Totally Fine And Ok after the night of the treason. Did he ever get therapy after that night? If so, his therapist didn’t do a very good job if he still thinks that he can’t tell his loved ones about his “weak” feelings because he’s the king. If he didn’t get therapy, then I want to have serious words with whoever looked at this child who just saw his father murdered and almost got murdered himself, and decided “yeah, he’ll probably be ok.”

But of course, he’s fine! It’s below the king to have these so-called “mental health struggles.”

[the-amber-fox]

AO3 Wrapped

How many words have you written this year? 143.349 published on AO3. Quite a lot unpublished. Quite a lot for other things.

How many works did you publish this year? 10

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? I think it’s One, two, three, four, five, sex on my mind aka sex shop au. This was such a ridiculous idea and we executed it with a passion and fun level that just made it irresistibly fun.

What work of yours has the most hits?

As this was the year of the red white and royal blue movie astoundingly the one fic I wrote for the fandom, Midnight Icecream, won by nearly double the hits than my others.

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? Sex shop au. Normally people comment less on E-rated fics.

Favorite title you used? Nothing here to fear.

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? Nothing here to fear is from a Tori Amos song called Wednesday Also Take Me on is naturally from A-Has Take on Me. The Prince and the Popstar had a lot of lyrics and artists too. Check out the playlist for this one.

Pairing you wrote the most for this year?/ Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? Wilmon

What work was the quickest to write? I think You’re the cutest Jailbird I have ever seen was extremely fast.

What work took you the longest to write? The Prince and the Popstar, because me and the lovely @pagegirlintraining were just insanely busy.

How many WIPs do you have in your docs for next year? Wednesday AU and half an idea about Burlesque style barkeeper Wille.

What’s your longest work of the year? The Prince and the Popstar

What’s your shortest work of the year? Take me on

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? Wednesday AU. I promise I am going to finish it one day.

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? Alternative Universe

Your favorite character to write this year? Simon as Wednesday probably.

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? Wilmon all the way to the end baby. Let’s see if we need fix-it’s after season 3.

Which work of yours have you reread the most? I do not reread my own work in general. But I reread comfort pics like Oh Christmas Tree by @ishotforthestars.

How many kudos in total did you get this year? 2.983

Which work has the most comments? This year The Prince and the Popstar.

Did you do any collaborative works this year? I wrote four amazing fics with @pagegirlintraining and one lovely fever dream of a collab with @ishotforthestars.

Did you write any gifts this year? Yes, I wrote five: One, two, three, four, five, sex on my mind for @ishotforthestars Love is everything, stupid for @girls-are-weird Midnight icecream (Red, white and royal blue) for @rmd-writes Take me on for @pagegirlintraining Slipping’ into Christmas for @piebingo

Did you receive any gifts this year? Yes three lovely ones: Christmas Basket by @tuiiii En-Garde by @girls-are-weird Killing me softly (WIP) by @pagegirlintraining and @ishotforthestars

What’s your most common category? m/m

What do you listen to while writing? This might sound weird but it totally depends on my mood and what I am writing: sometimes I do listen to music, sometimes I even have dedicated playlists. But sometimes I listen to a movie from the genre I am writing or to old John Oliver episodes…

Favourite work you wrote this year? I have to name two, I can’t chose. It’s either The Prince and the Popstar or Sex Shop AU.

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

“Simon, we are an inclusive group. It’s an adult queer romance book club, I doubt that anything you are wearing could–” Wille trails off with a splutter and stares at him as Simon opens his coat and shrugs out of it. Simon doesn’t know if he should feel self-conscious or proud that he made an obvious man of words lose them with cutout tights and a glittery mesh top under his big, violet fleece scarf. It really does leave very little to the imagination, he thinks to himself as he unwraps the fleece. Wille clears his throat, squeezes out “I’ll get you a hoodie,” and turns on his heel to speed walk to the other direction of the shop. 

29. Biggest surprise while writing this year? How well all four coops with @pagegirlinwriting went and how much better of a writer it made me. It challenges you if you have to keep up to another excellent writer.

[star-shapedfruit]

Alright lets talk about THAT scene

Honestly I'm still processing all of it and I don't even know if this is even gonna be coherent or more like

This is long. LETS GO

So it's still very much up in the air as to whether that was really Hiyori or not because of the whole illusion thing that Father has going on in this domain but I'm going to assume this is actually her. It just seems kinda weird for Adachitoka to pull that and then go 'Haha SIKE! Jk!' in the next update. Like, if you're gonna pull a scene like that- you gotta commit to the bit ya know?

So let's assume it's all real. Cord snapped. Kapow. She's dead. Now what? God I wish I fucking knew because Adachitoka LOVE to throw curve balls at us so no matter what we predict it'll probably be wrong 🙃

But I think this might have something to do with it.

Kofuku was the one to originally tie the plaques together (uh oh) but then Ookunushi was the one to place them back and bless them with happiness. So you've got a disaster god dooming them but a god of fortune blessing them. Those poor plaques are so confused lol. But either way, Yato and Hiyori are bonded for life and that's an already pretty strong bond they've got. They're two idiots in love and call it silly and cliché but perhaps it's that bond that will save them.

Hiyori is a special case. She's a half-Ayakashi with ties to both the Near Shore and the Far-Shore and we have no idea what happens to someone like that when they die. Do they lose their memories? Will she forget Yato, Yukine, and everyone else from the Far Shore? Will she forget her name? Again, a tricky one but since she treads the lines between the two worlds and her soulmate is a god, maybe not. It could be possible that she retains all those Far Shore memories and forgets a lot of the Near. She remembers her name but can't recall her parents or friends faces.

(That then brings up the huge elephant in the room of what other shinki will think of that and then start to ponder their own deaths leading to the GGS (the likes of Daikoku, Bishamon and Ebisu's shinki etc) but let's just put that to one side for a minute. I can only have one panic at a time)

I think one thing is for certain at this point though. Noragami won't exactly have a happy ending. Either Hiyori somehow lives and Yato is forced to cut her ties and she forgets everything or she dies and permanently joins the Far Shore, leaving her life, ambitions, friends and family behind. And yeah, neither of those are good. But it looks like they're the only options. Now shoot me for this but I seem to lean towards the latter. I really hate endings where someone forgets the entire journey they just went on and it ends up in a sort of 'it was all a dream' ending. They just make me angry lol. Person has this amazing story and adventure and it ends with a literal I forgor meme? Lame. It's more impactful if both parties suffer 😈 (Why I always get more emotional watching the S2 finale of Doctor Who than the S4 finale. I hate that Donna had to forget everything to save her. But that's a completely different kettle of fish).

I went on a tangent there oops. ANYWAY. If we go down the route that Hiyori is dead then it seems like only two things can happen; she'll become a shinki or she'll be deified. She can't be dead dead I refuse to believe that 😤 Not only because she's my favourite character but I really can't see Adachitoka killing her off for good.

Now call me a hopeless romantic (and my Yatori brain going ding ding ding) but the immediate answer that came to mind when I saw this passage at the end of the chapter is love. Perhaps it'll be Hiyori's love for Yato (and Yukine of course) that will be the Deus ex machina that will ensure that she can come back and that she comes back with her memories in tact, maybe even bypassing the GGS. With that, she may be the secret weapon to destroying Father (did Ebisu and Take even destroy the shrine? Honestly can't remember). Whether that means Yato will name her and the three of them will completely whoop his ass or something else entirely, but I think that post-death Hiyori will be the final piece needed to end Trash Dad and the crisis on earth.

Horrific as it is, It would be fitting for her character to make that sacrifice. She's always been brave and selfless and if she knew that in order to save everyone she loves on earth and the rest of the population by fighting by Yato's side, even if that meant that she had to die, she'd do it.

Yes this isn't the perfect ending but there is no perfect ending. Hiyori has been doomed ever since she jumped in front of that bus.