#this suckers is 1500+ words

[charaznablescanontoyota]

you have very identifiable transitions and in betweens. the way you move from one scene or moment to the next is rlly very much a Marn Thing — in part bc, and i know this is intentional from you, the length of a scene tends to be very consistent.

this is so funny because scene transitions are the bane of my existence. i hate writing them. it’s so funny to think that i have a signature way of doing them because every time i have to write one i’m like ugh let me just step away from this google doc for 3-5 business days and maybe it will write itself LMAO

[lunesprite]

@dca-prompts @simpalert

Original prompt:

Trying this a different way this time! ~1500 words today. Takes a little bit to get there, but I hope you enjoy it!

______________

Nothing ever happens on Wednesdays. Well. Not from the hours of midnight to 6am at least. 

It’s the perfect night to come back. 

Around and above you, the lights of the pizzaplex flick off, casting your path in wells of deep shadow between islands of neon glow. 

It was unsettling walking to your office the first few times. Management wanted you clocking in no more than five minutes before your shift officially began, and unless you sprinted from the time clock, there was no way in hell even that would get you from point A to your office down in the depths of the place before it got spooky in the pizzaplex. You used your phone flashlight for a bit - speed walking between neon streams and the glowing eyes of the ever-watchful wet floor bots - but, well. 

Then Moon stole your phone. 

It was your fault, to be fair.  

You’d been late, you’d been hurrying, you heard a noise behind you and instantly thought ‘horror movie’ and whipped around and uh. Kind of flashbanged him in the face from two inches away. In your defense, no one had ever bothered to tell you what the other night security was, or tell you that it had a mischievous streak a mile wide. 

So you figured you deserved it when he stole your phone and spent a good fifteen minutes suspended above you, sulking like a kicked cat before you gave up and stumbled your way to your office in the dark. And there, in between staring at the screen static of a completely empty plex, you decided to write him an apology. 

One, you wanted your phone back. You’d just paid it off. 

Two, call you a sucker, but he’d been kind of… cute? You’d never seen an animatronic sulk before and he’d sold it so well you’d really wanted to beckon him down and pet him. 

You left that bit out of the apology. Which was a good thing, because when you’d clocked off in the morning and slipped by the daycare looking for the guy with your actually neatly written letter of apology, sealed with a sticker and everything, Sun looked at you like you were about to grow a second head.

And then, insisting that he was just checking it over for you, read the whole damn thing. Out loud. With acting. 

You hadn’t been allowed to leave the tiny table he’d plonked you down at. 

You’d been so mortified, your brain didn’t even register it when he whipped out your phone from somewhere and made you re-enact the incident with him - except Sun, wearing a hat also produced from places unknown, followed up the flashbang with dramatic wailing on the floor. Smote down, cruelly wounded, etc. 

Which was all well and good, you’d said. But Moon’s was a lot cuter. 

Yeah. 

You know in those choice games, where like. Sometimes it brings up a notice? ‘There will be consequences for this action’? 

There were consequences for that action. You still don’t dare go to the daycare during operating hours. 

Sun, the menace, had gotten this gleam in his eyes and started howling and you fled like literal hounds were on your heels. 

You hadn’t expected to clock in late the next day, the lights off before you even made it to the time clock, and then turn around to Moon right there. 

And. Look, ok. 

He was too big to be in that pill box of a room. So he was kind of scrunched up a bit. Hunched in on himself, his hat more crooked than usual, long legs and arms drawn in like. Like a cat, sitting behind you, with those big red eyes watching you. 

He was cute. And you didn’t know about his and Sun’s whole situation - that liar - so you just. Did what you’d wanted to do the night before. 

You reached out and pet him and that big cat just melted. 

He made the deepest, happiest purr, eyes dimmed in contentment and next thing you knew, you were on the floor with an animatronic oozed across you, his face in your hands and his claws kneading the shitty carpet. Only, worse than a cat, there was no way to move the big cute lug to go anywhere. 

Once Moon cuddled, you were stuck. 

But you worked things out. 

As much as the two of you enjoyed sitting in your office, his chin resting on your thighs as you watched the security feeds and idly pet him or wiped him down, he did have to do patrol, so you’d made a deal. 

Wednesday, when nothing ever happened, Moon could come flop on you. 

It wouldn’t take him long to show up tonight. After all, you’d been gone last week - vacation - and it’d taken a lot of pacifying to get your sulky cat to accept he’d have to go without cuddles for one week. 

You unlock your office, flicking on the light switch beside the door and leave it open as you dump your overstuffed bag beside your chair and set your drink on your desk. If you didn’t keep the door open, Moon would claw at it. The exact same way a cat would paw at a closed door, except his are titanium and explaining it to management is a lot more… awkward. They always seem to expect so much more from your answers when they ask. 

You only manage to get the screens turned on and dig out the wipes from your bag - the scrubby ones, a little treat - before the lights overhead go out, leaving you in only the faint light of the security feeds. And when you turn, you try very hard not to laugh. 

All you can see are Moon’s eyes, staring accusingly in at you through the window beside the door. 

“I’ve wronged you,” you say, as solemnly as possible. 

His eyes narrow. 

“Truly,” you turn, pulling out the starry blanket and new pillow wedged into your bag. “I have been a most cruel friend, to leave you uncuddled for a week.” 

His claws creep around the edge of the doorway. 

Almost everything else, you pull out from assorted hiding places in your office. Pillows. Not one, but two giant sleeping bags, spread out across the floor as you shove your chair to the edge of the admittedly small space. By the time you’ve finished, fluffing up the sturdy pillow you sacrificed from your old couch, Moon sits in the doorway. 

Now for the final bribe. 

Under his watchful optics, you set the wipes on the floor near the couch pillow. And then your drink. And then, with a wink, you reach into the bottom of your bag. 

And pull out a massive power cord which you hold out in both hands, head bowed. 

His eyes gleam, a quiet cackle hissing from his voice box. 

“As an apology, please accept this offering of a night of cuddles and charging - just as long as you don’t blow up the circuits again.” 

“No promises,” he hisses, already slinking inside and burrowing under the top sleeping bag as you huff out a laugh, pushing aside a bit of shelving to reach the heavy duty plug hidden behind it. You plug in the stupidly heavy cable and drag it over to the jingling blanket lump, grinning as he pops out his head. Just like a cat, he takes up 90% of any surface he deems his bed, and you drop the cable on him with a clunk as you clamber over him to the other side to your stash of wipes and drink. 

The screens flicker as Moon plugs in the cable, and for a second you pause, wipe in hand, before he slinks an arm around your waist and plops his chin in your lap with a soft purr. 

You laugh softly, checking over the security feeds for a second before you tilt up his face, smiling at his dimmed eyes and take the wipe to his forehead. 

“I thought you were gonna knock us offline there, Moony.” 

“Mmmm.” He hums, curling his lanky form around you until you’re hemmed in, his arms deceptively loose around you. “Still thinking about it.” 

“I guess I’ll just have to convince you otherwise, hm? Can’t clean you up all nice if I can’t see a damn thing.” 

You pat his head, settling back into your pillows as Moon mumbles something and, slowly, as the trash can fills with dirtied wipes - your eyes flicking to the screens each time you grab a new one - his purr evens out. 

It’ll be a long night. Somehow, you suspect he’s not going to let you up until the end of your shift this time.

With a fond sigh, you hook an arm around him in turn, fiddling lightly with his hat as he snoozes and turn your eyes back to the wall of security monitors. His fingers rest loose and light against your sides. Every now and then, his claws twitch. His inner machinery ticks and whirrs lazily. 

He really is a sweet thing, underneath all that mischief. 

You almost want to kiss him. But, ah. This is enough, isn’t it?

[kingstoken]

Full card for @feedthefandomfest smut edition!

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[ao3feed-zukka]

[Podfic] Gossip Lord Zuko by RejectsCanon

Read now on Ao3 at https://ift.tt/3YlLdAE by TheLordOfLaMancha This is a Podfic of Gossip Lord Zuko by RejectsCanon. Author Summary: Zuko was probably more involved in the gossip around the palace than he had any right to be. It’s not his fault, it’s really not. It’s just that sometimes he’s sitting in the kitchens (the best place to get the gossip) drinking tea and trying to relax for once, and some of the kitchen staff will start gossiping where he can still hear them. He doesn’t really try to listen in; it’s not his place and he won’t judge the staff based on whatever rumors are running around, but Spirits is it interesting. He tries not to listen too much, or get too invested in it though. Gossip is gossip after all, and rumors hardly ever turn out to be true. But Zuko absolutely needs to know if Maya from the laundry room broke up with her piece of shit boyfriend. Or, 5 times Zuko got invested in/meddled in palace gossip, and 1 time he was the subject of the gossip. Words: 204, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 80 of TheLordOfLaMancha's Podfic, Part 2 of Post-Canon Lord Zuko (and his staff) Podfics Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M, Multi Characters: Zuko (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar), Original Characters Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & The Fire Nation (Avatar) Additional Tags: the original characters are fire nation staff/citizens, Matchmaker!Zuko, Fluff, Mentioned sexual harassment, nothing is outright described and it's over quickly but still, Zuko will fuck harassers up, you're making someone uncomfortable?, get ready to throw hands with the Firelord, Zuko is a sucker for pregnant women, will offer them the world or at least his bank account, the Fire Nation loves Zuko, and Zuko loves the Fire Nation, Zuko and Sokka are soft and gay for each other, Post-Canon, it's canon that Zuko got rid of homophobia in the Fire Nation and I love that for him, am i creating a whole tiny universe revolving around zuko and the palace staff?, perhaps, me writing an academic paper: 1500 words is so much work, me writing fanfic: writes nearly 10000 words easily, zuko plays matchmaker but those relationships are minor, Fire Lord Zuko, Ambassador Sokka, Podfic, Podfic Length: 45-60 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Audio Format: Download Read it on Ao3 at https://ift.tt/3YlLdAE

[dreamerinthemoonlight]

The Masks Wounded Hearts Wear

Character: Kaeya (ft. Zhongli, Diluc) Constellation: Chamaeleon Season: Winter Genre: Angst with a Happy ending @yunthebishoujo  here is your request CW: Angst with a Happy ending, Injuries,  A/N: This was long and sometimes emotional, but damn was it worth the effort. Slightly edited, but not beta read, since my beta reader requested this and wanted it to be a surprise. 

Summary: Kaeya tracks fatui in Dragonspine as a favor to Diluc. When things go south, he receives some wise advice.

CW: Angst with a Happy ending, Injuries, Ragbros being shitty at feelings

Word Count: Between 1500 and 2600 depending on whether you ask google docs or Ao3

AN: It's been freaking ages since I wrote this and it's still high on my list of favorites. Like, I am a total sucker a) for ragbros reconciliation, and b) for Zhongli being super wise and giving advice. Also for platonic cuddling, if this counts. I dunno if it counts in context.

Kaeya crouches in the shadows cast by one of Dragonspine’s massive hills, watching a fatui squad feat on a boar.

The knight’s stomach growls. The hundred or so feet between him and the fatui is not enough to dissipate the smell of cooking meat. After two weeks of tailing the group, eating nothing but standard Knight’s of Favonius trail rations, a growing part of him is suggesting joining them for dinner.

Unfortunately for his stomach and frozen fingers, he and the redhead vigilante that sent him are equals in the art of espionage, where discipline rules over all.

Kaeya brings his fingers to his face, trying to use what little breath escapes around his borrowed fatui mask to warm his fingers, but only succeeds in making them wet and cold, not just cold.

He shuffles forward a few steps, training his ears on the camp below him. 

As he does, a soft snow begins to fall, leaving a light layer of misery on the fatui agent outfit that Diluc loaned him. Where Diluc got it, Kaeya isn’t sure he wants to know.

With the uniform on, he tracked this squad from a spot just south of the Dawn Winery, up Wyrmrest Valley (where the number of fatui alone nearly got him bought) and down the road that clings to the western side of the mountain’s main peak, to where they are now. 

All Diluc said on the matter was “You still owe me a favor from when we trained as knights. I’m calling it in. There’s a squad of fatui not too far from here. Track them and figure out why they’re so close to the winery. And leave your vision behind. You won’t be able to hide it wearing that.”

When Kaeya asked why, Diluc responded with “You should know why.”

Kaeya sighs, watching his breath mix with heavy snowflakes. If he had to guess, the sour look on the redhead’s face was because he knows full well that Kaeya is the only one he can trust with this. Kaeya is the liar, the one with the masks, the one who could pass for a fatui if need be. And, Kaeya thinks with a smirk, Diluc’s shoulders would never fit in the pyro agent’s uniform

Kaeya waits for what seems like hours, listening to the fatui’s conversation while he acquires a layer of snow.

Eventually he hears a pyrosligner ask the others “we should be far enough from the wine maker’s mansion. We should open that wine now.”

Oh. Oh. Awareness dawns on the knight. You’re showing your hand little brother. This has nothing to do with the Dark Knight Hero, just a theft you apparently only trust me with.

Kaeya shuffles forward, trying to remain within sight of the fatui camp.

Two steps from his original position, however, the worst happens. With his eyes trained on the fire that serves as his only guide in the rising storm, he slips on a patch of ice.

His legs go out from under him and he lands on his back with a sharp crack before sliding into a snowbank. 

Kaeya lays there for several minutes, gasping for air that only burns.

Suddenly the mask on his face weighs a thousand pounds, mirroring the one that he’s worn since he was a mere ten years old.

His next breath is half sob. A stern face, framed in scarlet hair, filled with grief and bitter rage fills his vision.

So like a Knight of Favonius, inefficient, incompetent. A liar. You’re not my brother.

“Diluc. Brother.” Kaeya whispers.

As the snow falls on his mask, lingering as if they were frozen tears, Kaeya finds himself wanting to flee Dragonspine, to return to the Dawn Winery, his proper home. And embrace Diluc like a brother again. To see Diluc smile.

Kaeya stirs, pushing himself up, wrapping that desire around him like a cloak, then stumbles off into the storm. He doesn’t know what direction he’s going, but promises himself, no matter what, he’s going home.

While Kaeya fights a blizzard, Zhongli wanders around the Liyue edge of Dragonspine.

All around him, the few birch trees found in Liyue have lost the last of their leaves. But Zhongli finds that their winter state has an austere beauty. The ending of one year leaves room for the beginning of the next.

Not unlike the Geo Archon, Zhongli thinks with a wry chuckle.

Before he can move north, however, a flash of red and black amidst the blizzard raging on Dragonspine catches his attention.

A fatui pyro agent stumbles out of the wall of white. What few parts of the fatuus that aren’t covered in snow are frozen solid.

The ex-archon summons a stone spear, still his weapon of choice when it’s needed, but approaches the fatuus calmly. Although he seems to bear no threat, any fatuus warrants a certain level of caution.

The pyro agent tilts his head at Zhongli, as if confused  or disoriented, before collapsing.

After a moment’s thought, Zhongli releases the spear, letting it return to the earth, before lifting the fatuus and bringing him to one of the abandoned houses in Mingyun Village.

Once settled, Zhongli lays the motionless man on a bedroll, then curls up around him, chest to chest, using his own body heat to warm him. Then he removes the agent’s mask, curious as to the face of his new charge.

The sight of the supposed fatuus--or rather the battered young man wearing a fatuus uniform-- has Zhongli leaning back an inch and raising an eyebrow.

“This is… unexpected. Let's see what I can do for you, youngling.”

Zhongli examines the young man carefully, finding a sprained ankle, a couple broken ribs, and a number of scratches and bruises covering him from head to toe. 

Given the area the man came from, it all points to a bad fall--and likely a head injury.

At the thought, Zhongli lays a hand on his charge’s shoulder, gently shaking him awake.

As if a non-fatuus in pyro agent clothing wasn’t shocking enough, when the young man opens his eyes, Zhongli is met with something he hasn’t seen in 500 years, something he swore never to speak of. The violet irises looking back at him--or in his general direction, as the young man don't seem to be capable of focusing on anything in particular--surround the star-like pupils of the Khaenri’ah people. Khaenri’ah, which should be gone, something of the past and painful memories. But with eyes like his, there is no doubt, the young man is from Khaenri’ah.

Zhongli shoves the thought aside. Khaenri’ah fell half a millennium ago. No matter where the boy came from or what people he owes his allegiance to, Zhongli isn’t going to let him die from hypothermia and the worst of his injuries. So, he wraps himself around the young Khaenri'an and waits.

The Khaenri’an man slowly warms, regaining color in his lips and cheeks. As he does, his eyes clear and he reaches out for something, accidentally hitting Zhongli in the process.

“What are you looking for?” Zhongli says, mindful that his lip are inches away from the other man’s ear.

“Eye-patch,” the young man rasps, putting space between them.

Zhongli doesn’t follow, taking the opportunity to get a better look at his face while he takes a seat next to the bed-roll. Over his right eye the not-fatuus bears a prominent scar. 

“You didn’t have one with you. What’s your name?”

The more Zhongli speaks the greater the confusion present in the not-fatuus’ face. “Kaeya? Wait where am I? Where’s Diluc? I need to---”

Kaeya shoots up, but Zhongli pushes his shoulders down. “You’re in Liyue. You came out of Dragonspine. I trust you remember that much.”

“Dragonspine? Oh. Oh. How bad is it?”

“Broken ribs, sprained ankle, some bruises and scrapes. I wouldn’t be surprised if you started showing signs of a concussion. You shouldn’t be moving for a bit.”

Kaeya sinks into the blankets and stares up at the ceiling. “I guess.”

“Where are you from? Khaenri’ah has been gone for 500 hundred years.”

A spasm of pain crosses Kaeya’s face, before the emotion is shoved aside in favor of a well-practiced mask. “It’s a long story.”

“I have a fondness for long stories.”

Kaeya regards his savior with a guarded look. “You haven’t introduced yourself.”

“Ah. Pardon me. I’m Zhongli.”

The blatant suspension tells Zhongli that his charge is adept at reading others-- seeing things that aren’t spoken of--and that the current answer is not one he’d accept. 

“I’ll tell you my story if you tell me the truth.”

A contract: A secret for a secret; a truth for a truth; a fair trade of deep secrets. 

“It’s no lie. But trading one truth for another is fair. I will agree.”

“Thank you.”

Zhongli takes a moment to read Kaeya, the hesitancy, the exhaustion--certainly physical and likely emotional--, as well as a weight ill-suited for a man still in his early twenties.

“I think I’ll start, if that is acceptable to you.”

Kaeya nods. “Please.”

“Where to begin… Ah. Once, many, many years ago, the gods fought for dominance, seeking to claim the chairs of the seven archons. It was a brutal time and there was no peace in Teyvat. To protect one’s people, one would have to fight for the throne. Those who didn’t, died.

“One of those seekers was Morax. As history tells it, Morax won the Geo Throne, and spent nearly three thousand years watching over the Nation of Geo as Rex Lapis.”

“Rex Lapis is dead.”

“The only way for a nation to live without their archon is for that archon to put himself beyond the reach of his followers. The Geo Archon knew this well.”

“You’re Rex Lapis.”

“Morax is dead. I am simply an old fashioned Liyue citizen. I’ve simply seen more years than most and held power very few can comprehend. Now, I think it’s your turn, young Kaeya.”

Kaeya takes a deep breath and starts from the beginning, of how he was raised and the task he was given. He tells of how he was abandoned by one father and raised by the next and of his adopted brother. 

When he speaks of Crepus’s death, his fight with Diluc, and the vision that saved him, his voice weakens and he curls in hon himself.

“I don’t know how to make it better,” Kaeya confesses. “I don’t know how to make him not hate me. I did lie to him, to Father, and everyone at home, but I can’t tell them the truth. I just want to go home.”

Zhongli is silent for a long moment. “Perhaps it is best to stop lying to your brother.”

“What do you mean? I told him the truth. He nearly killed me for it.”

“About the past, perhaps, but have you told him what you just told me?”

“He wouldn’t accept it. I was surprised when he asked for my help tracking some fatui wine thieves. Really, all he had to do was tell me someone stole the wine. How, I don’t know, but they did.”

“Even for an archon, it’s impossible to truly know the hearts of others. You cannot know how he’ll react because you are not him. He went to you for help, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

“I’ve seen six thousand years and watched humans for more than half of it.” Zhongli smiles softly as he speaks. “Trust me, Kaeya. Be honest.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good. As soon as you can move around easily, I’ll take you back to Mondstadt.”

It takes two weeks for Kaeya’s ankle to heal and for his ribs to not twinge every time he moves.

With each moment that passes the ache in his heart grows. The longer he’s away from home, the more he wishes that he had never given it up. 

Once his sprained ankle heals, however, he wraps himself back up in the pyro agent’s clothing--a large part of those two weeks was spent mending the holes his fell had made-- and replaces the mask.

Zhongli frowns when he sees Kaeya back in the guise of a fatuus, but doesn’t comment. 

“Let go,” Zhongli says before leading Kaeya back home.

The night Kaeya returns to the Dawn Winery is a frigid one. Zhongli had left him at the edge of the two nations, wishing him luck and reminding him of the advice he gave.

Well after the sun has set, Kaeya checks his mask. It’s dirty and scratched, but it covers the scar over his eye. 

When he’s sure that all is in place he creeps up to the mansion and scales the walls. Diluc’s window is lit like it always is this time of night and rather than trying to get past Adelinde and the servants who are blissfully unaware of their master’s pastime, it’s easier to just pick the lock of the window.

The window creaks as it opens, startling Diluc out of his work, but Kaeya is in the room before he can move.

Diluc reaches for his claymore. “Who do---”

Kaeya hurries to remove the mask, certain that if it came to blows now, Diluc would wipe the floor with him. Frustrating, but true.

“Kaeya? What the---”

Diluc punches Kaeya, sending the latter’s head snapping backwards.

“Dammit, Diluc, what was that for?”

“We thought you were dead, you asshole,” Diluc hisses. “I thought I had sent you out to die. You should have at least sent a letter or something.”

“I didn’t know you still cared, D.”

Diluc opens his mouth to retort but closes it. “Where were you?”

“Recovering in Liyue. Getting some advice. It seems like Zhongli is as wise as he’s rumored to be.”

“Oh?”

“He told me to tell you the truth.”

Diluc raises an eyebrow. “The truth? The one you lied about until Father died.”

Kaeya backs up and sits on Diluc’s bed, rubbing at his aching ribs. Climbing the winery wall might not have been his brightest idea.

“I had bad timing on that. Father’s death messed me up too, D. He was larger than life and losing him was---”

“Hard.”

“Yea, it was. But there’s something else I haven’t said.”

Diluc glares at Kaeya. “Then say it.”

“I miss being here. I just about died after I slipped and fell during a storm--heroic, I know-- but all I could think about was how much I missed the way things were. I heard you calling me incompetent and a liar and all I wanted was for you to smile and call me brother again. I wanted to come home, to the Winery, to fight side by side. But I didn’t think you’d ever want to.”

Diluc takes a seat on the bed next to Kaeya. Kaeya's honesty twists something in his gut, reminding him of the many times Crepus helped the two make up after their typical sibling squabbles. The guilt and mistrust that has constantly warred within him is quelled by those memories.

The redhead sighs and stares at his toes, not quite willing to look his brother in the eyes. “I think Father would be ashamed of us right now. We were brothers and brothers are supposed to stick together. Or that’s what he’d say.”

“He’d be lecturing us until our ears burned.”

Diluc looks over at Kaeya. “Can we try again?”

“What?”

"Can we try again? To be brothers. And maybe make Father proud."

"You really want to?"

“I was pissed, but I overreacted.”

Kaeya smiles. "Yeah. We can try again. It'll be nice to hang around you when I'm not working on drinking."

"Which you could stand to cut back on."

"Says the person who supplies my vice."

Yet, as they go back and forth, all Kaeya can hear is the unspoken “I still love you.”

[copperfoxwords]

Fear is the mind killer

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

A little bit about myself:

༓ I'm a 28y/o female

༓ GMT+1 (Middle-Europe)

༓ I can reply a few times per week. Sometimes,it can be daily, other times only one or two times a week. Though, I'll always keep you in the loop of updates

༓ Post length varies from 2 to many paragraphs (usually 200 words at least - up to 1500) . I just really love details, so hit me with the insight of your character and the surrounding!

༓ 3rd person, past tense

༓ Very communicative - love making moodboards and the like

༓ I do rp with Faceclaims (Realistic)

༓ Able to rp as any gender, though most comfy and experienced with "classic" cis fe/male

༓ I love character sheets - but they are not really necessary

༓ Doubling friendly!

What you should bring

༓ Be doubling friendly (or okay to write the male lead)

༓ Also kinda chatty ooc

༓ Someone to bring at least a bit creativity

༓ Detailed (long) replies - I'm a sucker for getting into the charas heads

༓ Someone who understands life and doesn't push for replies

༓ Someone at least 18 y/o

༓ Someone who is alright with "harder" or more "mature" topics

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Dune

I love the series a lot and am pretty well versed in both the new movies and the books. (Original ones from Frank Herbert himself + a good bit about the prequels from his son)

I think the setting allows for lots and lots of liberty and exploration. Thus being said, we can lean and follow the main plot, or we can breach out. Whether that is a prequel setting or going nuts with the "original" plot, I am all good with that.

CanonxOc and OCxOC is absolutely welcome.

Make this a "bigger than life" thing, lots of drama, love & romantic, destined and star-crossed lovers. I am all in for that, so please don't hesitate to go above and beyond with any kind of ideas.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

[jcbbby]

Can you please make a Kit Marlowe one-shot of him and the reader being friends and they go to a party and the reader get a little bit too drunk so he takes them back to his place and things get a  spicy and they become some more? (If you’re up to it after everything that happened and if you’re not comfortable that’s fine too) I love your work and I need more of it ❤️

first of all omg you’re so sweet 💖 thank you so much for being thoughtful after my lil incident, but I’m doing okay now! I’m happy to fulfill this request for you!! I am such a sucker for Kit, he holds a special place in my heart hehe. and AH! stahpppp, thank you so much, that final comment made my day 😭😭 I hope you enjoy this! (lowkey I think I put my whole Kitussy into this) I luv u 🫶

Warnings: SMUT but like…poetic romantic smut? idk, still smut, so 18+, get off my lawn minors!!! friends to lovers, p in v sex, unprotected sex (I mean it’s the 1500s, so…), use of candle wax during sex 🫣, alcohol. probably some historical inaccuracies.

-

It had been a long night of drinking, dancing, and entertainment. One of the wealthier Londoners was having a party and your friend Kit Marlowe had brought you along. The party was one of the more rowdy ones you’d been to, and the wine and ale were flowing freely for hours. Admittedly, you should have eaten more before arriving, but the day had been busy with errands you needed to run around town before getting ready for the night. After quite a few cups of wine, you were feeling light and bubbly, engaging in conversations with everyone and stumbling over your feet as you tried to dance to the flautist hired to entertain.

Taking a break for a moment you and Kit stood over in the corner for a peaceful moment in this sea of chaos. You leaned slightly too far left against the wall, losing your balance, hitting the floor with a thud and a quick shriek when you made impact. Kit watched the clumsy moment in real time, but his reaction was hindered by the wine, as he reached for you a little too late. You lay spilled over on the floor, your hair fallen over your face, as you giggled uncontrollably at your fumble.

“Oh, my word…” Kit heartily laughed along with you. “Here, let me help you up.”

He bent down, holding his hand out to you. Flopping yourself upward, you grabbed his hand and tried to pull yourself up. Your flimsy body was a little more uncontrollable than he had accounted for, and he soon found himself stumbling forward, falling over on top of you. The two of you giggled into one another at the state of yourselves.

“Oh Kit, we’re a mess!” You squeaked through your laughter.

“We? Darling, I was doing well until you insisted on having another round. You’ve corrupted me, you deviant!” He joked, clamoring his way on to his knees and using the wall to stand back up.

Securing his stance against the wall, he took both of your arms and pulled you to your feet. You collided with his chest, lingering against him as he held your arms still. He smelled like lavender. You closed your eyes, feeling a wave of emotion slip over you, likely enhanced by the alcohol.

“You’re a good friend, Kit.” You said, your face smushed against his chest.

“Oh, come now, let’s not get sentimental.” He chuckled, patting the back of your head gently. “Why don’t we make our way back to my house, hm? I’m closer than yours.”

You nodded as you pulled away from him. Linking arms on your way out, you walked through the streets together, zig-zagging your path; the wine still hindering your balances. Arriving at Kit’s doorstep, he swung the door open, holding it for you as you staggered inside. He followed behind you, closing the door behind himself.

“Let me start a fire, it’s a bit cold.” He placed a hand on your shoulder as he walked past. “Please, get comfortable. You can stay if need be.” He smiled.

You followed him to the fireplace, plopping down on the thick bearskin rug in front of it. You watched him intently as he him as he placed a couple logs down and struck a match. He first lit a few candles on the table behind you, before tossing the match onto the logs in the fireplace. He struck another, quickly tossing that one in as well. He poured a small amount of old wine from a cup that sat on the mantle on to the meager flame; it quickly rose, sending a blast of heat out into the room before settling down into a crackling, low burn. Kit rubbed his hands together, walking over to where you sat and lowering himself down next to you, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his hands. You still shivered, as the alcohol had thinned your blood, rendering you susceptible to the chilly fall air.

“I’m sorry it’s so drafty in here.” Kit frowned. “Here-“ He reached for a blanket that lay in a heap on the floor. He put one end around your shoulders, scooting closer to you as he draped the other end around his own shoulders. “Better?”

You nodded, smiling. “That’s better.”

He smiled, turning to look at the fire. You still held your gaze on him. Kit had been one of your closest friends for some time now, but something about being here with him, wrapped in a blanket in front of a fire…it felt different. He was always so gentle and caring with you, while often cold and short with others, even others he had called his friends. It always made you feel special, like you had charmed a cobra snake. He made you feel special. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was this moment of innocent intimacy, but you felt awfully overwhelmed with passion.

“You know…you really are a good friend. I meant that before.” His head turned at the sound of your voice, meeting your eyes.

He smiled, snorting slightly, leaning his shoulder against yours. “Oh, you sweet little thing. Your head is clouded with drink…but alas, so is mine, and you’re a good friend too.” He smiled a toothy smile.

Without a second thought, you turned yourself into him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders in a hug, burying your face against his neck. For a moment, he was stunned. It was rare that he was embraced like this. Slowly, he brought his arms around your back, applying comforting pressure around you, coming to rest his cheek against your head with a slight smile.

“I love you, Kit.” You whispered to him.

His smile fell as his eyes widened. “Oh…no, you don’t mean that…you’re just drunk, love.” He patted your back.

You pulled yourself away from him, bringing your knee over his outstretched legs to the other side of him. Now straddling him, you met him at eye level. Your arms rested over his shoulders. He stared back into your eyes, and you felt his breathing pick up. You shook your head.

“No, no. I mean, I am drunk. But I do…” Your heart raced, your glance shifting between his eyes and his mouth. “I-I…I love you.”

Before Kit could respond, your lips were hungrily pressed against his, as if you were trying to press your words into his mouth physically. To your pleasure, Kit quickly brought his hands back around you, pulling you in tightly, kissing you back with the same intensity. Your hands raked up through his hair, as his hands slid up and down your body. You both breathed heavily into each other, overcome with desire for one another. Quiet, sweet moans vibrating from both of your throats, taking turns biting at the other’s lips.

Kit slowly lowered himself back onto the rug, rolling the two of you over so that he was now on top of you. He lifted his head, pulling from your lips, causing you to quietly whimper. He brought his hand up to your cheek, running his thumb along your bottom lip before lowering his mouth just centimeters from yours.

“I love you too...” He met your lips again, full of want. He then moved down into the crook of your neck, kissing and suckling just above where your neck met your shoulder. “I love you.” He whispered against you.

“Kit...” You breathed. “Oh Kit, I need you, please.”

“I’m yours, darling…I’m all yours.” He kissed down to your chest, nuzzling into your bosom.

You reached down, taking fistfuls of the bottom of his shirt, pulling it greedily up towards his head. He assisted you, ducking down so that you could pull it over his head and arms. You tossed it to the side, and he rolled the two of you back over again, so you were on top, bringing you back to connect with his lips. As he slipped his tongue into your mouth, he reached around to undo the buttons of your dress that kept your flesh hidden from him. You felt him harden beneath you as your ache for him between your thighs grew with each unclasp of the dress you were caged in. You began grinding your hips against him, hoping to feel some sort of relief.

“God…” He moaned into your mouth, his fingertips pressing into your back.

Losing the patience to undo the remaining buttons, he resorted to aggressively ripping the material open; the sounds of tearing and buttons hitting the floor mixed with your breathing and soft moans.

The top half of the dress fell around you, allowing you to slide your arms from the sleeves. You adjusted yourselves to sit upright, the top of the dress falling away, exposing your bare chest. Kit breathed for a moment, taking in the sight of your perfect breasts, before ducking down to kiss and nip at the sensitive flesh. You moaned sweetly, your head resting to one side as he ran his tongue over your nipples.

You reached between the both of you, working with one hand to undo his trousers, just enough to free his hardened length. You stroked him slowly as he worked his tongue on your nipples, coaxing shallow, breathy moans from him; his hot breath against your skin making your already desperate pussy throb, your body begging to be one with his.

Kit began pushing you back down onto the rug, hands moving to collect your disheveled dress at your waist. He guided your hips up as he slid the garment down over them and your legs, now revealing all of you to him.

“A goddess…” He leaned down, placing sloppy kisses across your lower abdomen. “An angel who has been heaven sent to me.”

“But I have only been made an angel by your sacred touch.” You whispered.

He placed a kiss over your pubic bone, teasing a finger against your eager cunt, tracing a delicate line up your slit that was already slick with your intense desire. Your breath hitch as he pressed his finger to your clit, working fast, tight circles. Moans of his name fell from your lips as you threw your head back and your eyes fell shut.

For a few moments, the only thing in the entire world to you was his touch. But suddenly, a white-hot sensation upon your stomach stung you back down to earth; though it quickly faded to a comforting, warm, and pleasurable feeling that only elevated your ecstasy. Opening your eyes and looking back up to Kit, you watched as in his other hand, he held one of the candles that was on the table, now angled over your body. You gasped as the hot wax dripped off, landing this time against your thigh. He grinned with delight as you shuddered in pleasure while he continued to circle your clit and the wax cooled against you.

“Sealing in my devotion to you. A love letter, darling.” He said quietly, dripping another pool of wax over your chest, before setting the candle back down.

Your back arched as you ground your hips against his hand, biting your lip.

“Kit…Kit please…make love to me….I need you.” You whined, taking his hand away from you, dangerously close to coming undone, but desperate to feel him inside you when you did.

He leaned down to tenderly kiss you as he pushed his trousers the rest of the way down his legs, tossing them to the side, before coming to rest over your body with his weight on top of you. He pulled back from your lips, taking a moment to look into your eyes. Your hands came up to rest on the back of his head, staring back at him with glassy, blown out eyes, full of passion and full of desire. Kit briefly glanced down, positioning himself to line up with your entrance before slowly easing inside. A shuddered moan escaped his lips as he bottomed out, eyes fluttering shut as he began to move, slow and heavy.

“You feel so perfect…you are so perfect.” He breathed, dipping down into the crook of your neck again, leaving soft bites as he thrusted.

Your fingertips pressed into his back, leaving shallow crescent-shaped indents from your nails over his skin. His nibbling and kisses along your skin grew more haphazard as he continued slowly and deeply grinding into you, grunting softly. Your legs found their way around his hips, crossing over the small of his back, pulling him even closer to you as if your body were just trying to absorb every inch of him.

“Darling, faster...please…” You whined out, your head falling back.

His rhythm picked up, as his mouth sloppily came to meet yours, his tongue furiously plunging in. You moaned into each other’s mouths, along with quick, hot breaths. The pressure in your core was starting to build, inching closer to your release with each buck of his hips into you. Your hands clamored their way over his back, digging your nails now firmly into him.

“Oh, my love…” He ducked his head back down to your shoulder, sweet moans falling from his mouth against you.

“Kit I-I’m…oh god-” Your back arched as you gasped.

You felt yourself spilling over into euphoria, crying out in your pleasure as you clenched around him inside you, holding him impossibly close with your arms and legs. Following in just mere seconds, he came undone as well, spilling out inside of you. The warmth of him filling you only adding to the ecstasy you were in. You felt his teeth against your skin, open mouth pressed against your shoulder as his breathing shallowed and sounds of his own pleasure caught in his throat. You held each other tightly, quivering together, letting the waves crash over before settling into stillness. You lay there, eyes closed, breathing slowly, but still heavily. You felt him crane his neck up to kiss you gently on your jaw, generating a quiet, content smile across your face.

He slipped out of you, gently rolling himself next to you on the rug. He reached for the blanket that had fallen to a heap once again on the floor, throwing it out in front of him and letting it fall over the both of you. His arms pulled you in, allowing you to rest your head against his chest. No words were spoken for a few moments, just the low crackling of the fire, as he stroked your hair. You took a deep breath, and let it out with a smile against his warm flesh, nuzzling into him.

“I love you." You said quietly, eyes fluttering closed as you grew tired.

"I love you, I always have darling." He kissed the top of your head, holding you against him as you both floated away into slumber.

[roleplayfinder]

Nameless Liberty. Six gun

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

A little bit about myself:

༓ I'm a 28y/o female

༓ GMT+1 (Middle-Europe)

༓ I can reply a few times per week. Sometimes,it can be daily, other times only one or two times a week. Though, I'll always keep you in the loop of updates

༓ Post length varies from 2 to many paragraphs (usually 200 words at least - up to 1500) . I just really love details, so hit me with the insight of your character and the surrounding!

༓ 3rd person, past tense

༓ Very communicative - love making moodboards and the like

༓ I do rp with Faceclaims (Realistic)

༓ Able to rp as any gender, though most comfy and experienced with "classic" cis fe/male

༓ I love character sheets - but they are not really necessary

What you should bring

༓ Be doubling friendly

༓ Also kinda chatty ooc

༓ Someone to bring at least a bit creativity

༓ Detailed (long) replies - I'm a sucker for getting into the charas heads

༓ Someone who understands life and doesn't push for replies

༓ Someone at least 18 y/o

༓ Someone who is alright with "harder" or more "mature" topics

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Setting

Maybe some of you recognize the title, maybe some don't.

I am on the search to induldge into a Modern, Slice-Of-Life rp that has it's main focus on the pairing -> musician x non-musician/fan

It'd also be MxF for my side - with my character as the female. Though, Doubling is very welcomed.

As per title - I would like to go alternate universe with this SoL setting, but keep an overall aesthetics of Visual Kei and J-Rock Bands. (Yeah, I hit that kind of Teenage-Rabbithole again...)

A broader rock&metal based could be a common ground, if you hugely dislike the topic above.

Aside from that, I would like to have this placed in Japan. (Yeah, I'm on the nostalgic trip again and looked at old photos from japan trips)

But I am open to different topics as well, though this would be my absolute favourite currently. If we double up, I am happy and glad to rp in other settings as well and am fairly open to a lot of thing.

Please like this or message me directly! :)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

[mondscheinprinzessin]

A kiss that isn't meant to happen but does so anyway - joel/tommi

This somehow ended up as a non-Blind Channel AU and with a different familiar relationship. Don’t ask me, I don’t know either.

Joel was fuming. He had been waiting for ten minutes already and by now his patience had run out, getting away from him faster than his sprint last week from the police when they had found him illegally playing the guitar near the train station for money.

But he wasn’t there now to maximize the amount of bills hidden under the mattress on his bed but standing in front of Joonas’ house.

His feet were tapping incessantly on the street as he was waiting for Joonas to come like they had agreed on. But the curly head wasn’t showing up and Joel was close to leave on his own though he really needed the ride Joonas had promised him to the concert.

Although Joel couldn’t even say why they were going there together at all, it wasn’t like they were friends or something. The only times they saw each other was at band practice and when they were at each other’s houses to get on each other’s nerves under the pretence of rehearsing their guitar parts.

So, really, no friends.

When the door finally opened Joel already had a comment on the tip of his tongue to piss Joonas off but not the one he was waiting for stuck his head out.

It was Tommi, Joonas’ older brother.

Joel hadn’t been aware he was home since Joonas mourned his beloved brother gone at last week’s practice to check out apartments in the big city.

Because Tommi was in his last year of studying medicine and apparently, he was about to start his internship at a hospital in the capital.

“Better come in.” Tommi told him and opened the door further. “Joonas looked like he would need a few more minutes and the clouds say it will rain soon.”

With a quick look at the sky Joel had to agree, the clouds were indeed looking dark and heavy.

As he stepped into the house, he didn’t come around brushing against Tommi’s chest as the hallway was pretty small. But then he followed him into the kitchen as he had nothing better to do and standing around had been boring enough outside.

Tommi and he had always exchanged a few words when Joel was over and while Joel seemed not to be able to shut up at times Tommi was the complete opposite. He tended to listen to Joel’s ramblings till he had to go somewhere and Joonas showed up, but Joel liked this arrangement.

If he was being honest, he liked Tommi’s presence more than just in a casual way, but he was Joonas’ brother, and he certainly didn’t want to fuck it up in that regard and as a consequence lose the only person that voluntarily hung out with him and get shunned out from the band. The only thing that gave him a reason to live.

So to this date he never gave Tommi a sign that talking was not enough for him when he watched Tommi resume his work on dinner and looked at his broad shoulders and back.

Joel might be all gangly and limbs, but Tommi was once again contrasting him, and Joel had a hard time looking anywhere but Tommi as he stood awkwardly in the kitchen.

And where the fuck was Joonas?

“Can you get me the steak out of the fridge please? Should be in the middle shelf.” Tommi asked of him, and Joel found it right where Tommi had guessed it to be. “You can lay it on the cutting board.”

Again, Joel did as told but this time he ended up close to Tommi when he suddenly turned with his knife to take the meat from him.

“Good luck at the band contest next week.” Tommi continued before Joel could put some distance between them.

His heart jumped two times, from their closeness and because Tommi remembered. Joel had talked like a waterfall the last time that this contest could be their breakthrough although…could just as well be that Tommi only wanted to see his baby brother’s band succeed. It had nothing to do with Joel at all. He was just Tommi’s little brother’s weird friend that hung out at their house every other week.

Before he forgot to say anything, Joel murmured a quiet thanks, not in the mood anymore to talk. Not that they had held a big conversation since Joel entered the house. Tommi seemed more quiet than usual even for his character.

Again it was Tommi who raised his voice after another minute of silence. “I’m leaving next week. For good. Found an apartment and a job in Helsinki.”

“That’s good, right?” Joel asked as if that wasn’t obvious from the many conversations they had in the past. “It’s what you always wanted. Moving away and doing your own thing. Being a perfect doctor and all.”

Joel wasn’t sad. Not a bit. The weight in his chest, suspiciously right about where his heart was didn’t came from the realization that he wouldn’t be able to see Tommi anymore. Couldn’t tell him what progress their band made and how his mum threatened to throw him out of the house again if he didn’t get a better job soon to help her out with rent.

He would be fine, on his own.

Tommi nodded while he was carefully preparing the steaks. “I’m happy that everything turned out like I had it planned. It won’t be easy, but I’m confident it’s the right thing. But Joel…” Joel’s eyes snapped up when Tommi turned around to him, cleaning his hands at the towel hanging over his shoulder. “Can you do one thing for me please? Make sure Joonas stays out of trouble. At least the big one. Keep an eye on him when I am away, okay? Joonas likes you and even if you pretend to not see it, Joonas is looking up to you and I wish you two would finally be the good friends you could be if you unveil this weird enemies to best friends kind of thing you have going on.”

For a moment Joel didn’t know what to say. It was a lot. And it also hit him square on that Tommi really was going away. For reasons Joel already knew it made him want to tear up, but he wasn’t about to do that in front of Tommi.

“I- I can do that.” Joel told him after clearing his throat that had started to close up like the traitor it was. “Will you come around sometimes?” He asked like it wasn’t in his interest but for Joonas’ sake or his parents’.

“We will see each other again, I promise.” Tommi said with his voice dropping lower so that just Joel could hear it standing right in front of him and with a hand cupping the back of his head Joel again looked eyes with Tommi. “But just to be clear…nothing will happen even when I come back. I’m sorry Joel, I wish it was different.”

His tongue was heavy and almost cutting off his ability to breathe where it lay in the back of his mouth, but what Tommi had said made his heart speed up double time and Joel grabbed at Tommi’s waist to stabilize himself.

Tommi knew, had known all along?

“Can you-” Joel pressed out and took a deep breath, tilting his head up to give Tommi a hint of what he wanted. Just one time. “Just this once?”

“Joel…” Tommi sighed but contrary to what he said his face was suddenly closer to Joel’s. “We shouldn’t.”

With Tommi’s lips almost brushing against his Joel couldn’t care less what he was saying but he wasn’t brave enough to cross the last of the distance. He needed Tommi to do the step, needed to convince him how much he needed this, and wanted this.

“Please. One kiss.” Joel whispered and watched how Tommi’s lips parted. “Only one. Please.”

With the last word leaving his mouth Tommi pressed his mouth on him, and Joel gasped at the sudden touch, opening his lips for Tommi to give him what he had been craving for months now.

Ignoring that it was Joonas’ brother or that he wouldn’t see him for months. Wouldn’t get this a second time.

It wasn’t meant to be.

Joel wouldn’t cry over it. Not now at least. Maybe later when the adrenaline and euphoria of the concert left him dry and empty, and he could silent his sobs in his pillow. But right now he would saviour every drag of Tommi’s lips against him. The tip of his tongue licking on his lower lip and the sigh escaping into Joel’s mouth.

But as much as Joel didn’t want this to end, it had to be. At last when they heard Joonas coming down the stairs.

Tommi gave him a last meaningful look before he let go of Joel’s waist and turned back around to get the steaks ready. Like nothing had happened. And like it would never happen again.

[eirenical]

@judyknow replied to your post: OH MY GOD YOU SHIP LJY AND LSZ!!!! YAAAY!!!!!!!

   tell us moooorreee about that self indulgent headcanon    

Since you and @decayingliberty​​ asked so nicely... how can I refuse?  ;D

(First, you have to understand that this is part of a MUCH more sprawling headcanon, but I’m just going to share LSZ/LJY’s piece of it for now or it will be way too much.  XD  And... I’ve mentioned this is REALLY self-indulgent, yes?  OK.)

OK, so the basic premise is that Lan Sizhui cultivates his way to immortality.  He does this mainly because 1) he’s been raised in a world where that is the normal goal for cultivators and 2) he believes that as the last living scion of the Wen Sect, it’s his responsibility to carry his genes and their legacy forward.  As for Lan Jingyi... I haven’t decided if he just wasn’t strong enough to achieve full immortality or if something tragic happens and he just died too young, but Lan Jingyi... does not.  By the time Jingyi dies, they’ve been married for a while, though; they at least had that.

Fast forward a number of years: Lan Jingyi has been going through a cycle of reincarnations.  Lan Sizhui finds him as often as he can (eventually he develops an early alert system of sorts to help him find him), usually trying to meet up with him some time in his 20s.  It’s too hard, he’s decided, to meet him any younger than that.  It feels wrong, as though he’s influencing the person Jingyi would grow up to be.  But if they meet in Jingyi’s 20s, then he’s an adult; he can choose.  And the vast majority of the time--memory of the past or not--he chooses Sizhui.

Sometimes Jingyi is a woman and they have children.  Sometimes Jingyi is a man and they don’t.  Sometimes they adopt.  Sometimes Jingyi remembers and convinces Sizhui to employ a surrogate, because he knows how important it is to him that his family line not die out.  Sometimes Jingyi doesn’t remember and those lives are the hardest, because Sizhui can never stay.  People ask too many questions.

In the times between Jingyi’s death and him being old enough to approach, Sizhui spends his time in Cloud Recesses, teaching the children, spending time with his family, occasionally taking a turn as Sect Leader, when necessary.  It’s a welcome retreat from the world, especially when the pain of losing Jingyi is so fresh.  It does him good to see Lan Wangji, Lan Xichen, Lan Qiren, Wei Wuxian, and Wen Ning.  It does him good to spend time with the children, to hear their little voices piping up with “Hanhuo-jun is back!!” when they see him coming up the mountain.  It’s not everything, but it’s enough.

By the time we reach the present day(ish--we’re talking circa the late 90s or so), Sizhui has figured out a spell that will link his apparent age to Jingyi’s, allowing them to at least appear to age at the same rate.  It doesn’t last much more than a few days beyond Jingyi’s death, but at least now Sizhui can spend his whole life with him, if that’s what Jingyi wants.  In this life, Jingyi had remembered, had convinced Sizhui to have biological children, and they have a sprawling family (...yes, I know all their names and occupations.  I’ve thought about this headcanon a LOT) and have been kind of half raising one of their granddaughters.  (Vague thought is that particular life happens in the US/Canada.  Sizhui is a Stratford actor.  I don’t make the rules.  He just is.  ^_~)

And... Jingyi dies.  He’s in his 70s, it’s not entirely unreasonable, but it’s unexpected.  And Sizhui is caught unaware.  He doesn’t have a plan ready or even a story or explanation.  He could fake a car accident or simply disappear, but he’s not at his best and he’s not thinking clearly, and spell fades before he’s quite finished putting everything in place, so the story is shaky at best... and he’s forgotten that his teen-aged granddaughter has a key to the house.

As he’s packing the last of his things... she barges in.  She’s distraught and she’s angry and she sees this strange young man in her grandparents’ home TAKING THEIR THINGS and she just goes off.  And may... kind of... a bit... shoot some fire out of her hands.  And Sizhui is just Not Ready For This Shit.  Because now he CAN’T make a clean break.  He can’t leave her behind knowing that she’s inherited the Wen gift and has no idea how to control it.  After some discussion, where certain truths come to light, she decided she’s coming with him wherever he’s going.  She’d rather that than stay here alone.

So, he takes her back to Gusu.  He enrolls her in school and himself in college, because he can’t bring her to Cloud Recesses until he’s figured out WTF he’s going to tell his uncle and until he’s sure she’s not going to burn the place down by accident.  (Wen Ning helps.  Of course, he does.  And Wei Wuxian, too.  It’s a whole thing.  ^_^)  They tell the new people in their life that they’re cousins, and it’s strange for his granddaughter, but it’s fun, too, and she’s enjoying seeing this part of her grandfather.  She’s enjoying her great-uncles, too, and being away from home.  And learning magic.  It’s the best time she’s ever had in her life, even if she misses her other grandfather.

A few years in, around the time when Sizhui is finally ready to introduce his granddaughter to the rest of Cloud Recesses... he gets a missive.  It’s from Lan Xichen.  Two of the cultivators in Cloud Recesses have had a son... and they’d like Hanhuo-jun’s blessing on their chosen name, and will he please come?

Sizhui is perplexed, but he agrees.  He returns to Cloud Recesses and he meets the parents in question... they’re Jingyi’s parents.  Sizhui would know their souls anywhere.  And the baby?  The one whose name he is supposed to give his blessing to?

It’s Jingyi.

And this is both his fondest wish, that Jingyi come home, and his deepest fear, because he can’t do this.  He can’t stand and watch his husband grow up, knowing that he can’t interfere, that he can’t influence him, that he can’t he can’t he can’t... he can’t stay away.

But he does.  He brings his granddaughter to Cloud Recesses so she can train in cultivation, because it’s what she wants, and he... wanders.  He visits, of course he does, because he can’t stay AWAY, but he makes those visits short, tries to influence Jingyi as little as possible.

...but we all know Jingyi.

He grows up bright, and loud, and mischievous, and copying far more lines than any other disciple... and he gets firmly attached to Hanhuo-jun.  There’s just... something about him.  Jingyi can’t put a finger on it, but sometimes when he smiles just so, or turns his head up to look at the sky, or wields his sword as he practices... there’s something so familiar about him.  And he develops a bit of a crush.  When he’s fifteen, he asks Hanhuo-jun to be his first kiss.  Sizhui panics.  He leaves Cloud Recesses that night and doesn’t come back for six years.

At 21, however... Jingyi knows what went wrong.  The other disciples just shake their heads.  This is going to go badly.  Jingyi is going to chase him off again and then they’ll all lose out.  Some of them make signs of support.  Some of them are taking bets.  All of them are gathered on the stairs as Jingyi waits at the top for Hanhuo-jun to come home.

And when he does... when he sees Jingyi standing at the top of the stairs, arms crossed over his chest, and that cocky smile on his face that is so hauntingly familiar... Sizhui stops.  And he looks up.  And he says, “Jingyi... what are you waiting for?”

And Jingyi shifts his weight, cocking his hip out to the side, and rolls his eyes.  “For my husband to get his ass up the stairs so I can finally kiss him properly.  It’s been far too long since he’s been home.”

And Sizhui freezes.  “You... remember?”

“Yep.  Everything.”

Sizhui can’t get up the stairs fast enough, and Jingyi meets him halfway down.  They come together with a crash of tangled limbs and it’s like Sizhui is trying to climb inside Jingyi’s skin because he can’t get close enough.  When the ruckus has calmed down, Lan Qiren threatens everyone--Sizhui included--with handstands and line copying because THERE IS NO YELLING OR RUNNING IN CLOUD RECESSES, and Sizhui’s granddaughter fires back with, “I'M IN LAW SCHOOL AND WE’RE ON THE STAIRS, OLD MAN, NOT INSIDE THE GROUNDS, SO DON’T GET YOUR GOATEE IN A TWIST.”  And Jingyi is beaming because THAT’S HIS GRANDDAUGHTER, and Sizhui is laughing so hard he starts crying.

And eventually it comes out that Jingyi returned to Cloud Recesses on purpose.  He’s ready to try to cultivate to immortality again, because he’s seen the toll his constant losses take on Sizhui, and he’s had enough of being the cause of that, thank you very much.  And Sizhui notes that dual cultivation could help him progress much faster... and Lan Wangji puts his foot down, because they will get married first and Wei Wuxian would kill all of them if he missed it.

And they live happily ever after.  ^_^

Hanhuo-jun -- I’m cribbing off what little I know of Chinese (NOT MUCH AT ALL) and Hanguang-jun’s title to get this: If Hanguang-jun is “Light-bearing Lord” then Sizhui could be “Fire-bearing Lord,” yeah?  ^_~  Because one of my FONDEST headcanons is that he inherited the Wen’s gift of fire.

[floralbfs]

if my dad thinks im voluntarily going to wake up at 7am on the day i just found out that i get to wake up at 9am after two (2) weeks of waking up at around 7am to have like 11+ hours of classes with barely any breaks (a seminar and two classes with a 3h break between them (btwn the classes i mean, there's no break btwn the seminar and my first class), which i use for commute and the homework for the second class bc i wasnt able to do it before bc it ends at nine p-fuckin-m) he is sorely mistaken

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Right-Clicker-Mentality

Having coined a few terms in my day, I revel in new coinages that capture something really gnarly and interesting.

Take “bezzle” — JK Galbraith’s term for “the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it.” So much of our contemporary economy is captured by that delicious term!

https://pluralistic.net/tag/bezzles/

Recently, I happened on another coinage that is marvellously apt for our current moment: “right-clicker mentality.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgzed/what-the-hell-is-right-clicker-mentality

The term comes to us from the world of NFTs, which have blown up into a massive, fraud-ridden speculative bubble that is blazing through whole rain-forests’ worth of carbon while transfering billions from suckers to con-artists. A bezzle, in other words.

The creators of NFTs envisioned them as a kind of bragging right that described the relationship between a creator and a member of their audience. When you paid for an NFT, you recorded the fact that you had made a donation to the artist that was inspired by a specific work. That fact was indelibly recorded in a public ledger — the blockchain — so everyone could see it.

Instantly, the idea of supporting artists with NFTs was converted into a financial bubble. The point of an NFT wasn’t to support an artist — it was to acquire a tradeable asset that would go up in value because the buyer thought they could unload it for even more.

In this age of stock markets that boom in response to mass unemployment, supply-chain collapse, monopoly and runaway climate emergencies, NFTs aren’t really that weird. They represent the dream of “retail investors” to participate in the rigged lottery that minted 412 new billionaires during the covid lockdown.

In the NFT bezzle, NFT “owners” deliberately blur the distinction between owning the right to say you helped an artist and the right to say you own their work. They treat the NFT as equivalent to the image it refers to, rather than a bit of metadata that relates to that image. That’s not surprising, as speculators are far more interested in inflating, tradeable assets than in arts patronage!

In response, NFT skeptics are wont to troll speculators by right-clicking the NFT image, choosing “Save As…” and making a copy of the image. Then they taunt NFT bros with the copy, driving home the point that their speculative bubble is trading in something even more abstract than a digital image.

On Oct 26, an NFT bro calling himself Midwit Milhouse coined the term “right-clicker mentality” to refer to these spoilsports who insist on pointing out the inconvenient truth of his white-hot ponzi scheme.

Milhouse used the term to disparage an amateur chef who made his own version of a $2,000 “Salt Bae” steak for $90. Salt Bae is a trendy London chef who charges tens of thousands for gold-leaf-covered steaks that he showers with salt in a kind of tableside piece of performance art.

Milhouse called this person “a great example of right-clicker mentality,” whose homemade steak didn’t deliver “the satisfaction, flex, clout that comes from having eaten at Salt Bae’s restaurant.”

https://twitter.com/kenlowery/status/1455662848345055232

Milhouse went on: “The value is not in the cost of the steak. Go ahead, make yourself a gold-coated steak at home. Post a picture of it on Instagram. See how much clout it gets you.”

And then, displaying galactic-scale lack-of-self-awareness, “Salt Bae’s dish costs around 1500GBP because people want to pay 1500 GBP to show off that they can afford to pay that much. It’s all about the flex.”

You really couldn’t ask for a better encapsulation of the NFT bezzle: buy an NFT to “flex” and “show off you can afford to pay that much.” Ignore the intrinsic value or satisfaction of the underlying work. You’re doing this for “clout.”

Right-clicker-mentality is a value we should all aspire to. As Matthew Gault wrote on Motherboard: “Sometimes a word or phrase comes along that’s so perfect it almost makes you angry.”

“To right-click is one thing, but to have a right-clicker mentality implies an ontological break between crypto-fans and critics. Indeed, it implies the person saving the JPEG to their hard drive isn’t just wrong, they’re broken in some way.”

Image: Nenad Stojkovic https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hand_on_the_computer_mouse_-_50202556601.jpg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[internetcowboi]

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY BAYBEE

hi!!!!! hello!!!! ty for the tag today @artsyunderstudy! In a shocking turn of events, I have things to share! Thank you sooo much for all the tags in sss/wipsday the last few weeks, for whatever reason I got into a mental rut about sharing wip progress and sort of shut off for a bit. My bad! Anyway, I'm sharing six sentences from the upcoming chapter of my COBB, The Boy and the Summoned (M, 25k so far), and also from an AFTG fic that I had an idea for and spat 1500 words out at 3am. When the inspiration strikes, it strikes lmao.

Baz

Kissing Simon Snow is diving headfirst into the sun and revelling in the burn. He’s lighting me up, filling my chest with warmth. It’s gentle at first, the brush of his mouth against mine. He keeps his thumbs on my cheeks, stroking back and forth, and it’s so comforting I could cry (again). I don’t want to cry now, though. I want to soak this in. I want all of Simon’s light inside me, bursting at the seams of my skin. 

and some andreil/implied future kandreil! I've been having thoughts about crushes and monogamous relationships and attraction and unpacking some of the ideas I was raised with about how those things overlap (yay religious trauma!) and also... I'm a sucker for Kevneil and Kandreil haha.

Kevin shoves Neil again, this time into the elevator. It’s quiet as they descend to the ground floor and make their way out to the Mas, and Neil likes it. The company, the familiarity, the routine. For a moment, his mind is quiet, too. 

Only a moment. 

Kevin jogs around to the back door and yanks it open. Neil watches the movement, cataloging it absently: the toned flex of Kevin’s lithe calves, the taut bounce of his ass, the dimple in his cheek as he tries to hide a smile when Nicky whines about being relegated to the middle seat and receives an elbow to the ribs from Aaron, who’s sick of ‘being piggy in the middle just because he’s the shortest thank you very much’. Neil’s chest is tight and warm, and he can’t help smiling after Kevin— which is precisely when he locks eyes with Andrew through the front windscreen. Andrew narrows his eyes and mouths, ‘staring’, and Neil scowls against the flush creeping over his cheeks.

tags below the cut, cause I'm early af and want to say hi to everybody <3 :)

@mostlymaudlin @sillyunicorn @martsonmars @facewithoutheart @excalisbury @pipedream-darling @amywaterwings @ivelovedhimthroughworse @forabeatofadrum @johnwgrey @confused-bi-queer @prettylightsbigcity @creepyspice @ileadacharmedlife @bookish-bogwitch @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @moodandmist @palimpsessed @cutestkilla @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @fatalfangirl @whatevertheweather @urban-sith @tea-brigade @basiltonbutliketheherb @themandilorian @bazzybelle @mrskrementz @captain-aralias @aristocratic-otter @frjsti @letraspal @stardustasincocaine

[writersblog20]

Love at first sight underneath the fairy lights.

Henry Cavill x reader

Not my gif! Creds to maker!

Summary: it’s your third date with the famous Henry Cavill and he gives you the best date in the world.

Warning: fluff! like serious cheesy romantic fluff.

Words: 1500

A/N I’m a sucker for romantic stuff.

Love at first sight underneath the fairy lights.

 You got ready for your third date with the famous Henry Cavill. You always had a crush on the bear of a man and  now you’re going on your third date! You couldn’t really believe it and yet here we are. He had asked you to put on some comfortable clothes like sweatpants and a sweater or something so you were really curious what he had in store for you.

The first date was a walk in the park with coffee and a picknick. The second date he took you out to a restaurant. And now you would go to his house. You took everything you needed with you and left. You knocked the door slightly anxious. You really liked Henry and it made you very nervous. He opened the door with a big smile which immediately calmed you down. He pulled you into a hug. He was wearing grey sweatpants and a sweater with slightly scruffy hair but you loved it.

“hi, come in, please.” He told you and took a step aside for you so you could get in. “I brought snacks” you said while holding up the bag. He chuckled and let you into his kitchen so you could put it down. “I love your house.” You looked around with big eyes. Kal came running into the kitchen to say hi. You crouched down and petted the Akita. Kal seemed to like you a lot which made you smile. “Okay Kal, don’t steal the gorgeous lady from me now.” Henry told the Akita and you felt your cheeks heat up and gave a shy smile.

“I got a surprise for you” he told you slightly anxious. “Do you trust me?” he asked while slightly chuckling. “I don’t know what you have in store but alright.” you answered. He placed his big hand in front of you eyes and let you, apparently, outside. He smelled his cologne and felt him close to your back and it made your heartrate speed up. “Almost there love. I’m going to remove my hands but I need you to keep your eyes closed” He let go of you and you already missed the warmth welcome of his body but did as you were told. “okay you can open your eyes now sweetheart.” You heard nervousness coming through his voice giving him away.

You opened your eyes and they immediately grew big. You looked around in awe. He put a couch outside with a tent over it and fairly light lit up his entire back garden. In the tent there was a tv and fairly lights in it too but a little more dim. It looked extremely romantic and cozy at the same time and you couldn’t wrap your mind around the fact that someone would do this for you and yet there he was standing. You looked at Henry in surprise and he shuffled form one foot to the other, seeming a little nervous. “Henry…. This is amazing!” he looked up and you saw all the anxiety leave him as it got replaced with a big smile.

He stepped closer to you. “so you like it?” he teased with a big grin. “I love it!” he led you inside the tent and you saw snacks on the table and two beers. “I wanted you to feel special because you are.” You looked at him and he immediately corrected himself. “I mean in a good way of course! I eh am making a fool of myself right now.” he chuckled, looking a little embarrassed. You wrapped your arms around him and it took him by surprise but it calmed him down and he held you tightly. You looked up into his eyes. “ Henry this really is amazing. Nobody ever did something so romantic for me. Thank you!” you could see that he started to relax and he gave you a kiss on top of your head. “you deserve the best sweetheart.”

You both sat down on the couch and he got two blankets from his side. He placed a blanket over your shoulders tucking you in which made you chuckle and it gave him a warm smile on his face. he started the tv and you both decided on a movie but it was more as background noise since you only had eye for each other and talked a lot throughout the movie. You were fairly close to Henry. At one point you laid against him, the you were between his legs resting against his back with your head on his chest, then you were face to face and you had a good conversation about how you both saw relationships and it all the things you talked about grew you both so much more closer to each other then you already were.

At one point you both stopped talking and just looked at each other. He came closer and his big hand rested on your cheek. You felt your heartrate go up again and then you felt his soft lips against yours and at that moment it felt like the storm in your head calmed down instead of picking up. It felt like it was just you two and nothing else mattered. He picked you up and placed you on his lap which wasn’t so hard since you were already so close to each other. You placed your legs around him and he held you close while the kiss started to become more passionate and full of love. His hands went underneath your shirt but not sexually, his hands just rubbed your back softly and you felt your stomach do flips no rollercoaster could.

You both got out from the kiss and just looked at each other. “I really like you. Like really like you.” he told you looking you deeply into your eyes. “I really, really like you too.” You told him back with a smile which you got returned by Henry. He kissed you again and this time you got a little more bold and softly grabbed his face in between your palms while he kneaded your side and tried to get you closer. You both stopped before it got too heated. “would you like to be my girlfriend?” he asked you chuckling at the childish sentence. “I would like that Cavill.” You told him and gave him sweet pecks before pulling away.

He chuckled while he looked at you and you frowned but still had a smile on your face. “what?” you asked him. “I’m just so in love with you and it grows with every minute.” You chuckled. “Well, in that case we’re in the same boat.” You told him and he smiled brightly. “please do tell me when things go to fast.” He told you. “the last thing I want is to scare you away.” You looked at him adoringly. “I will if you promise me you’ll do the same thing.” He nodded and he laid down with you on top of him wrapping his arms tightly around you.

You felt so serene and full of peace, like you’ve never experienced before. His hand went over your hair messaging your scalp and you felt yourself  grew tired by the loving gesture of Henry. After a while you both flipped so this time Henry was on top but not crushing you. His head rested on your chest this time and you did the same thing Henry did. You went through his soft curls, messaging his scalp and playing with his hair. He took multiple deep sighed to let you know he felt serene as well. You smiled looking down. His arms were draped around your waist and legs intertwined.

You saw that he grew tired as well as he tried his best to keep his eyes open. He looked so relaxed, it was like a puppy on your lap falling asleep and you wouldn’t dare to get up because you don’t want this moment to end. You saw how hard he tried to stay awake that it filled up your love but the bear of a man deserved some rest. “Close your eyes love. It’s okay I’ll still be here when you wake up.” You told him and gave him a kiss on the top of his head he let out a deep sigh of relaxation. He looked up tiredly at you. “Promise?” he asked you which made you smile at him. “I promise love.” He gave you a tired kiss and laid his head back on your chest and grabbed you just a little tighter but it made you feel safe. It didn’t take long before you both fell asleep in each other’s arms. And of course as promised, you were still there.

[dear-mrs-otome]

Gute Besserung - IkeVamp (Faust)

'Tis a silly ficlet that's being rattling around in my head ever since that PV came out...and I'm a sucker for 'taking care of the sick'. 1500 words of Faust self-indulgence. Thank you to @mikotomizuki and @ambrosiallkiss for letting me scream about this!

She woke slowly. Swimming up through thick sleep that clung to her limbs and consciousness enviously, as if loathe to surrender her. Eyes too heavy to open still as she took stock - of the odd weight of her body, of what she could only imagine was the warmth of sunlight basking one half of her face, of the dry rhythmic scratch of nib on paper somewhere nearby.

Faust.

She knew without even needing to see for herself, recognized that omnipresent sound. Only he ever wrote thus, in a frantic scathing scribble, as if his thoughts were always tumbling faster than his hand. As if he were always racing time, trying to outpace something.

Ironic, given how much of it he had, she supposed.

Her own thoughts were sluggish, too-warm and chasing themselves in nonsensical circles, like withered leaves in the last heated gasps of an autumn wind. Her mouth dry with that patina so particular to a long convalescence.

She managed to crack her eyes open just as the writing stopped. Greeted by arched ceilings, stonework and heavy wooden paneling, walls lined with shelves that groaned beneath the weight of countless books. The faint astringent waft of chemicals framing a sharp counterpoint to the softness of the featherbed she reclined on. She needed no more than a passing glance to realize she was in Faust’s room...but why?

The ensuing silence was only broken by the slight tick of Faust’s glasses on the desk as she watched him set them aside, one hand rubbing at the bridge of his nose and over his eyes before raking through his hair, mussing the midnight strands with a sigh. His usual jacket had been cast off somewhere, leaving him in naught but rolled up shirtsleeves, looking altogether far more rumpled than she had ever seen. His broad shoulders bent as if beneath some burden, and in her daze she wondered what sort of weight could ever possibly bow his Atlas frame.

Her lips were parched as she sought her voice, finding only the barest ghost of it. “Faust?”

He jerked, snapping to attention, blinking owlishly in her direction for a moment before snatching up his glasses. They settled back on his face at the same moment his customary smile settled on his lips. Sardonically charming, effortlessly wicked.

She’d often thought the Serpent must have smiled at Eve much like that, from amongst the verdant fig leaves. More the fool she was then she knew, for recognizing it as such and still letting herself be seduced.

"Still among the living, then?" It was delivered in his usual droll style, the hint of a laugh always threatening to break through it seemed, as if ever ready to have a joke at her expense...but there was something taut about the inscrutable gaze he leveled at her. A wariness, almost. That of a breath long held, not yet released.

She sighed her indignance as best she could, offering him a kitten-weak glare even as an answering smile tried to tug at her lips. "Feel too terrible to be dead."

He hummed his assent, the sound rippling into a chuckle as he scooted his chair closer beside the bed, reaching for a pitcher and glass upon the nearby table and pouring a small measure out. Swift deft movements helped her to sit up against the pile of pillows and held the cup to her lips, letting her have her fill of water.

“What happened?” she managed, when her tongue no longer felt bone-dry and cleaved to the roof of her mouth.

“You fainted dead away in the midst of the soup course, four days ago. I was unaware that you found broccoli so repugnant.”

“Hah,” she huffed, and he seemed to relent.

“It would appear you came down with an illness of some sort. You’ve had a fever, some delirium, these past three nights. Influenza, or scarlet fever perhaps, though I see no sign of you presenting with a rash…” He trailed off, speculation creasing his brows as he lay a hand on her forehead, gauging her temperature. "The fever only broke this morning."

She sifted through the shards of memories his words unearthed, trying to puzzle them back into something whole. Snatches of long hot spells, of strange dreams and visions and feeling utterly wrung-out. A voice speaking often, low and sonorous, syllables broad with the brunt of German. And amidst all that, blissfully cool touches much like the fingers still settled on her brow.

She didn’t even realize she had been nuzzling into the reprieve of them until she felt them lingering on her cheek, their slight chill a welcome comfort - pausing just a heartbeat past propriety before withdrawing, pulled back so that his fingers could twitch into a tight knot on his lap.

“You've been here the entire time?” She framed it as a question, but they both knew it wasn't.

It was an attempt to avoid, perhaps, that had him turn towards the notes on his desk and shuffle them. “Was I to pass up an opportunity to observe the course of an illness up close? To see how a modern constitution fares against diseases of the past? A vampire’s physiology requires little in the way of rest.”

A wry smile did manage to find its way onto her lips them. “You could have just said yes.”

Faust sniffed. “It was either that or leave you to that jackleg Charles, and that was not going to happen. You needed proper medicating. I administered antipyretics first, though they seem only to have taken the edge off your fever. Phenazone, then phenacetin -"

He had taken on an all too-familiar tone, and she attempted to head him off before he got lost in his suppositions. "Faust."

"Although again with little effect. I thought perhaps simply an analgesic would at least allow you rest but opioids are for hacks. Not to mention that a soporific was the last thing you needed, given our attempts at getting you to -"

"Faust."

He rolled on over the top of her interruptions, almost rambling...but this was no mere animated lecture. It was the first time she'd ever seen him anything other than poised, and her attention came to rest once more on the dark circles carved beneath his eyes, those self-imposed bruises poorly masked by the disheveled tangle of his hair. "-regain sense enough to drink. Dehydration was certainly a concern, and your -"

She reached a hand out from beneath the covers and set it carefully on his knee. "Johann."

The muscles of his leg beneath her fingertips flinched, then seized, his words dying in a slight intake of breath. She saw him swallow thickly before he continued.

“You called for your mother. Crying like a lost child.”

His abrupt bald statement startled her, both the unexpectedness of it and the morose implication. Wondering just how closely she had flirted with death after all.

“You called out for me as well. In the throes of your fever.” He spoke to the grip she still had on his knee at first, before his stare shifted to pin her. A hoarseness running through his words, faint but unmistakable. One lone snagged thread in the dark-silk weft of his voice. “And there was nothing I -”

His jaw clenched down on the rest of that sentence and the silence drew taut, like a bowstring poised to devastate.

She didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t know what to do with it. Didn’t know what to do with the green gaze that searched hers, questions sparking through it like sunlight off jade. And so she sidestepped it, let the elephant in the room settle into safe, uneasy repose.

“Thank you,” she told him at last, earnest in her gratitude. “I know I couldn’t have been in better hands.”

The ghost of his usual confidence haunted the lopsided smile he offered her. “You’re welcome.” He adjusted the blankets around her once more, hesitating the barest of moments before taking her hand in his and cradling it in his lap, fingertips pressed to her wrist. “Your pulse seems to be stable.”

But he didn’t relinquish it, long after she knew he must have counted out the heartbeats necessary...and she let the languid sweep of his thumb along her skin lull her back towards the exhaustion that welcomed her with open arms. “You’ll put me to sleep doing that,” she mumbled on a smile, eyes already closed.

“Rest then. You need it still.” His own words were no more than a low murmur now, almost more felt than heard. A soothing rumble that traipsed up her arm and seemed to make itself at home inside her chest. “Schlaf gut.”

And she wondered if she was asleep already, perhaps dreaming, when she felt the careful press of lips against the fingers curled around his - as if to seal that sentiment in place.

[wipbigbang]

2021 Schedule + FAQ

Schedule

All times are by 8:59pm PST. Convert time zones.

Sign-ups Begin- April 1st

Sign-ups Close- April 15th

Check In #1- April 22nd

Check In #2- May 15th

Snippets Due- June 1st

Art Claims Begin- June 17th

Check In #3- June 22nd

Check In #4- July 6th

Rough Drafts Due- July 15th

Posting Claims Begin- July 23rd

Posting Claims Ends- August 1st

Final Drafts/Art Due- August 7th

Posting Starts- August 8th

FAQ

What is the WIP Big Bang? Good question! This is a Big Bang with one goal in mind: to clean out your drafts folder. These are stories that were unfinished for whatever reason, that authors returned to and completed, and the art that goes with them!

Do I need a Livejournal/Dreamwidth/AO3/etc. account to participate? No! You don’t have to have an account on anything to participate, though you will need to have somewhere to post your finished work. Having one or more accounts will help for you to follow what is going on with the bang (we crosspost to Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Twitter at the moment), but they are not required to participate. You can always leave comments anonymously or with an opensource ID.

Will I get emails about the bang? We do send out some emails, mostly for snippets and art claims and to ensure communication between authors and artists, but please do NOT rely on getting an email to remind you of due dates. We currently do not keep an updated email list of participants, so we only send individual emails as needed rather than mass emails.

However, email is the fastest way to communicate with the mods. If you have any questions or are having trouble communicating with your artist/author, please do email us! We will do our best to respond quickly.

Is there a minimum word count? 7,500 words, but the sky's the limit, right?

What do you mean by minimum word count to enter? This is a WIP Big Bang, therefore we ask you to have at least 500 words of your story drafted when you enter. It's okay if you have posted a few chapters of your fic already (you never know when the muse deserts you, after all), we just require you to refrain from posting more until posting begins here.

Is there anything not allowed? As long as you wrote it and you want to finish it, you're welcome to participate. Just bear in mind that original work is only allowed on AO3 if it has a fannish connection and might make it hard for artists to work with. But we'll make a dedicated post for that if there will be any.

What are 'Check Ins’? These are a way for us to see what you've been up to and for you to make sure you're still on track. It will give you a little nudge/reminder if you need it, but they are not compulsory.

What are the snippets requirements? In order to allow the artists to make art for the story they claimed, we require you to supply three snippets from your fic, between 500 – 1500 words each. The snippets will be sent to the artist after they have claimed your story. They're to help the artist match your story for artwork the best way he or she possibly can. It’s helpful to choose scenes or parts of scenes that you feel best represent your fic, but don’t feel like they have to be perfect to be submitted. Along with the snippets, we will send your artist the basic fic info and your email, so the two of you can collaborate more if you would both like.

What are the rough drafts requirements? For the rough drafts, stories should be at least 80% complete. You will not have to turn them in to us, just assure us that you are at that point. Anything less is at the discretion of the mods and those authors should speak to one of the mods asap.

What is, and do I need, a beta? A beta is basically a person who goes over your work to make sure that there are no spelling/grammatical errors and they can even be of assistance in helping you with story lines, etc. It is highly recommended that a beta looks over your work before posting. If you are having trouble finding a beta, try this post.

Where can I post my fic/art? Stories and art can be posted to your own personal journal, tumblr, ff-net, AO3, or wherever you like. For those of you with AO3 accounts, we will set up a collection that will go live on the day of the posting. Also, we've enabled moderated posting to the comm (Livejournal and Dreamwidth) for members. We will post a template for posting artwork and stories to the comm closer to the posting date.

If you don’t currently have an AO3 account but would like one, you can contact the mods for an invitation code to see if they have any available. You can also add yourself to the AO3 Invites Request queue.

How do I know when to post? Posting will be tiered; you'll each get your own posting date that you and your artist will decide on together. There will probably be four fics, plus art, posting per day between August 8th and September 30th. The post with date claims will go up on July 23rd and you'll have to choose your date by August 1st.

If you want to post your story in chapters on AO3 or your own blog (or wherever you usually post), you may do so starting August 1st. However, posting has to be finished by your chosen posting date to the comm. One of the things we're hoping to do with the posted dates is to give everybody on the comm a little bragging time in the spotlight. You know, "this story was incomplete for this long, but I finished this sucker." If you don't have time to post on your chosen posting date, you can queue up a post ahead of time and we can post it on the date you picked. Either way works for us. Art will be due on the chosen posting date to the comm.

Is there a minimum/maximum requirement for my art? There is no strict minimum, but we do ask artists to remember that the authors are writing a minimum of 7,500 words and your artwork should reflect that. You can do anything you like, including banners, wallpapers, icons, mixes, vids, gif sets, picspams, etc. Suggested guidelines for art are 500x500px (or equivalent of smaller pieces like banner + spacers, cover + icons, etc.) for traditional art, digital art, and manips; 2 minutes for vids; 10 songs + cover art for mixes; and 6 images for gif sets and picspams. We also ask that when you are in contact with the author, you work with them to see if there is anything specific they would like (i.e. a wallpaper, book cover, etc.). The art is your work, but having ideas doesn't hurt!

What are 'art claims'? The claims are when anonymous summaries of the story go up for artists to choose from. It is based on a 'first come, first served' basis and artists may choose up to three potential stories (in case their first choice is unavailable). If there are more stories than artists, there will be a second round of claims wherein artists may choose a second story to work with. And on until all stories are claimed for art.

If a fic up for claiming is rated explicit (R, NC-17, etc.), please only claim the story if you are over 18 years of age. Some authors may be uncomfortable working with underage artists on explicit works. We do not verify ages in any way for the bang, so this is solely on the honor system.

Can I get an extension? Community extensions may be given in the event that the majority of the authors/artists need one. They may also be given individually under certain circumstances, but this must be discussed with the mods and will only be a short extension for posting. If you are certain that you won’t be able to finish your story in time, please let us know by June 13th.

What do I do if I have problems or concerns about my author/artist? Sometimes authors and artists do not get along and this may cause problems with working together. If this happens to be the case with you, please email the mods and we will try to do what we can so that everyone has a chance to have fun at WIP Big Bang!

If you have not heard from your author/artist in some time after trying to contact them, you can reach out to us via email and we will try to get in touch with them for you.

Can I drop out? We have high hopes that everybody who signs up can actually finish the round and share in the joy of the reveal with us, but real life can unfortunately get in the way and we completely understand! If you feel like you just cannot finish in time and no amount of assistance from us can help you, just let us know by July 13th (if at all possible).

Is it possible to be banned? We do have a banned users list. We hope to use this to encourage participants who are having issues to communicate with the mods. We want to help you! The way the ban works is that participants, either authors and artists, will be banned for dropping out without notifying a mod. This means that anyone who has not posted or talked to a mod by the time the posting period ends will be banned. Dropping out is not in and of itself a banning offense, so please do not panic if you have to drop out! We understand that there are many reasons you may need to drop, and we want to work with you.

Bans will last one round or until the issue is resolved, whichever comes first. To resolve a ban, authors will have to finish and post the story they signed up with and artists will have to finish and post the art for the story they claimed. Three bans will result in a permanent ban from the bang.</lj-cut>

I have a question/concern that’s not mentioned here. If you need help, you can always contact a mod and we will do our best to make sure that you get your story/art finished. The best and fastest method of contact is through our email, wipbigbang@gmail.com.