#this will be my last rant on this sorry I just have so many feelings about this

[apricitae-world]

BASHFUL DAWN

Xavier is exhausted after fighting against Soren and reliving his past. You try to help. [XAVIER X READER FLUFF]

THIS POST CONTAINS: Xavier X gender neutral reader, angst, fluff, Xavier is implied to have self-esteem issues, talking about feelings, cuddling and snuggling, my take on "Voyage of the Outcast" story chapter.

Enjoy.

BASHFUL DAWN

After the report of the college incident and the device left by Soren, Xavier had been missing from your life. The last day you two spoke seemed like a dream now, when he promised he would tell you everything.

Xavier always lies. Bile rises to your throat right after you wake up in the morning, plagued by the memories of your (boy)friend. Even though Xavier lived literally on the floor above yours, it seemed an invisible wall had been put between you.

You knocked on his door the following afternoon, but no response. You hadn't seem him in the Hunters Association for work either, Captain Jenna's brow furrowed in concern, but brushing it off like a "well earned rest". When you left the apartment to feed the stray cat, there was already a bowl of food in its telltale place. You visit Philos, inquiring poor Jeremiah to where his friend might have been. The man was sweating cold, saying he didn't know. Things reaching a breaking point when you visited your garden, the one you saved from a Wanderer oh so long ago.

It really felt like he was gone from your life, barely any signal of life to say he was there at all.

After a few days of trying to pick yourself up (Tara truly was a wonderful friend to hear your rants and watch your comfort movies), you see a familiar bedhead leaving a convenience store with five bowls of hotpot in hand.

"Xavier?" His lustrous blond hair was now matted and lifeless. His blue, shiny eyes did not reflect any light anymore, and his lovely white sweater, the one you stole and wore so many times, was almost falling from his shoulders.

He looked terrible.

"Hi." He says, still not meeting your gaze. You wanted to yell, scream, grab him by his arms and ask where the hell he has been. Even so, seeing him like this made your anger deflate like a sad balloon. "Are you okay?" You ask.

Xavier lifts his head, shocked. Guess he wasn't expecting that reaction either. "I was the one who ghosted you. I'm the one who is supposed to be making amends." He concludes and falls silent again. "I'm sorry. I keep messing up."

This version of your lover was nothing short of terrible. You had never seem him look so defeated. "Why didn't you reply to me texts? My calls? I dropped by your place so many times." Street lights and car honks were all around you, but you coudn't find yourself to care. In fact, your world seemed just too quiet.

"Let's go to my place. I guess I owe you an explanation." No more words were exchanged during the walk, and maybe you prefered it that way. The last thing you want is to make a fuss in front of the whole building.

The inside of Xavier's apartment was messy. Some dirty dishes here and there, unfinished books scattered around and no calm music playing. His trustworthy cleaning robot, the one he would not stop talking about a while back, layed gathering dust in a corner. The entire place seemed pretty much unrecognizable.

Xavier put some water to boil for his hotpots and sat beside you on the fluffly couch. "The first thing I should do is apologize. No one should go missing like that, especially after what we went through." You hum. A sign for him to keep going. "I tought things would be better if I tried to solve them by myself. No matter what, I want you to be safe. And happy."

"What makes you think I don't want to be part of this? Of finding things out with you?" You squish his face gently between your hands. He goes limp in your hold, content. "It's dangerous, and I don't even know if my plan will work at all."

"If you tell me what the plan is, then I can help you." You say matter-of-factly and raise a brow. Xavier's face scrunches and he laughs. His voice was a little hoarse, but beautiful as always. How you missed that.

"What do I have to say to make you understand we are in this together? Don't think you're getting rid of me so easily." He closes the distance between you, holding all of your body close against his. "I would never want to get rid of you."

Your lovely silence was interrupted by the sound of metal clanking against each other and the smell of something burning. "Xavier! The water for the hotpot!" You both look at each other with newfound horror before sprinting to the kitchen.

Some things never change.

-

The hotpots were delicious, even if you scolded him for eating instant food for a week straight. You both made a promise to clean the apartment on the following day and start putting things in order. Slowly.

"Thank you for being here. And not being mad." You think a little before replying. "I am mad, I won't deny. But I also like you a lot and don't want to lose what we have. If you promise me to be more open about what you want and what you need, we'll be alright."

"Okay. I'll try." Xavier takes a deep breath. "I love you." Thank goodness your boyfriend didn't have a phone right now, because your face was priceless: eyes open and mouth agape. "I love you too."

You two end up sharing a bed that night. His room was messy like the rest of the house, but you promised to fix it in the morning. As so, all the lights were turned off and you hugged Xavier from under the covers. Everything seemed alright in the world.

When the sun arrived the next morning, you two were still holding each other close. No matter how dark the night, there would always be stars to guide the way, and the morning would surely arrive. You hold Xavier a little tighter and drift back to sleep.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO REQUEST A FANFIC, DRABBLE OR FANART? TRY TIPPING ME ON KO-FI! IT HELPS ME BRING MORE CONTENT LIKE THIS IN THE FUTURE:

[kelocitta]

What a worthless animal

[applestorms]

much love to the (multiple) mutuals i’ve seen agony posting on this fine new year’s day my heart is with you all in spirit 🎉🎉 the pain is incredible but this too will change

[blarrghe]

haven't promoted this story in a minute because idk I got tired of tumblr and took a sort of break. Tomorrow I will be posting ch. 14, which is halfway through the story, so it's a great time to pick up...

The Hunter The Snake and the Fox

Rating: M | Category: M/M | Words: 27 081 | Chapters 13/28

Summary:

When Magister Dorian Pavus' expedition meets unexpectedly with a clan of unhappy Dalish elves, First Taren Lavellan may be the unhappiest among them. Unhappier still to be put to the task of helping to see his quest through. This is the tale of how a fortnight in the forests of the Free Marches can change everything.

And here's a long snippet from Ch. 3 for some Drama:

A sliver of light shone briefly in from a crack in the tent, and a leather-clad elf stomped through it. The elf barked something out towards the tent flap, and before Dorian could muster more than a groan, he stomped out again. Dorian blinked a few times after the fading blur of light.

Minutes went by. Possibly hours. Dorian’s head hurt. He tugged on the binds at his wrists, bending them uncomfortably this way and that. It only seemed to tighten them, so he stopped. His head began to clear. More time passed. He attempted to count the minutes. When the elf returned again, Dorian managed a few inquiring calls for attention. Things like, “Where are the others?”, and, “damnit, I’m talking to you!” His calls went ignored.

The elf poked his head back out into the bright daylight beyond the dark tent, and shouted something in grumpy Elvhen. Another elf soon pushed through the flap, they stomped grimly forward together, and then one on either side hoisted Dorian up by the elbows. 

Dorian’s legs were half asleep and still bound, painfully tingling with each jostling step as the two elves dragged him forward. He groaned. The elf on his right barked back something he was sure was an insult. His unwilling legs were dragged on.

Dorian did his best to make his case for answers and mercy as they went. “We have no qualms with you," he pleaded, " I know Tevinter hasn’t historically been kind to your people, but really, this expedition wants nothing to do with you, so if you’d simply let us go on our way…” 

Sharp grunt. 

“You’re making a huge mistake. Kill me, and you’d be inviting a war, do you have any idea who I am?” 

Angry Elvish epithet. 

“Dorian of house Pavus,” he said proudly, “ Magister Pavus as of recently, I have a fortune, you could be handsomely rewarded and —”

Big knife.

“— and a wife! And children! Please!” 

The big knife pressed closer to his throat. There was a bandage there already. 

“Alright! So I don’t have children, or a wife, but I am engaged, and —”

Dorian was shoved through a tent flap by the elf holding the knife, who wound up at his back as his second captor pushed his unstable and bound legs down into a kneel.

“Relax, shemlin,” said a low voice. 

Thank the Maker, Dorian thought, blinking now at the woven mat he’d been forced upon, its zigzagged pattern slowly coming into view in his still foggy vision. Finally, here was someone who spoke the Trade speech. King's Tongue, they called it in the south. Crude. In Tevinter, the nobility still had its own.  

Dorian’s eyes rose from the ground to take in warmly lit canvas walls draped in soft pelts and colourful woven blankets. He knelt near a smouldering fire pit. Smoke was rising up through a narrow hole in the tent’s roof. Through its haze, in a grand and intricately carved wooden seat, sat a man. The man stood, and Dorian watched leather-wrapped feet pace forward, around, circling him. There were more seats, less grand but still intricately carved, all around the fire pit. None sat in them except for one old woman. She sat still and proud, squinting at him through the smoke. 

Dorian lifted his gaze all the way up to the face of the man who was just now finishing his pacing examination of him. An elvhen mage stood before Dorian with his staff planted firmly on the ground between them. He was not tall, but stood in towering regalness over Dorian all the same. His posture was straight, his shoulders strongly set and covered with a heavy green cloak woven through with threads of blue and gold. He wore his deep auburn hair in a long, thick braid hung over one shoulder, and he held his carved, spiralling wooden staff in both hands, emanating power. 

“You are Master Pavus ,” said the standing elf, speaking down to him. 

“Master Pavus was my father,” Dorian replied, flashing the man a winning smile, “as I am evidently your prisoner, it seems only fitting that you simply call me Dorian.” 

DAFF tags list: @warpedlegacy @rakshadow @rosella-writes @effelants @bluewren @breninarthur @ar-lath-ma-cully @dreadfutures @ir0n-angel @inquisimer @crackinglamb @theluckywizard @nirikeehan @oxygenforthewicked @exalted-dawn-drabbles @melisusthewee @agentkatie @delicatefade @leggywillow @about2dance @plisuu

[solar-halos]

so are we just going to keep ignoring how blond people don’t fucking exist

[ritzyperry]

just found out that some people apparently think milo murphy's law is transmisogynistic, perry is bad ace rep because he's ace as the "safe" option for queer rep, dan and swampy are bigots who shoehorn all of their queerphobic rhetoric into all of their media, and that phineas and ferb was a bigot's paradise all along... it's joever

[kyouka-supremacy]

Mmmhh...

[daz4i]

how and why is there discourse about whether or not certain queer identities exist/if people should be allowed(???) to use them. why is "people know their own identity better than you ever could, and they're the only one who get a say on what they are" such a tough concept to grasp

i think if you find yourself offended by the label someone uses (especially if they're a stranger) or think it invalidates your own, it's a good idea to look inside yourself and question why that may be. more often than not, it's a result of insecurity or uncertainty of your own identity (or many other things, but i won't make a whole list here). whatever reason it is, until you resolve it, you shouldn't take it out on people for having an identity you don't understand

many have said it before but it's worth saying over and over. infighting only helps our oppressors. conservatives don't care if you're a cis gay or a xenogender aegosexual aplatonic lesbian, they hate all of us either way. trying to fit in by going for people who are easier targets for them isn't gonna help you, it'll just alienate you from your own community, and you're never gonna please them. the momentary rush you get from hearing you're not like "one of /those/ gay people" is not worth it and is gonna do more harm in the long run, i assure you

also, it is important to me to say this, but having some less than nice kneejerk reaction caused by confusion about an identity you don't understand doesn't mean you're a bad person or anything. as long as you aren't mean to that person, and you take a second to think smth along the lines of "wait a minute, this isn't any of my business" after having said reaction, you're good 👍 a lot of reflexive reactions we have to things are ingrained into us simply by. well. living in a society 🤡 and you're not terrible for having those thoughts. it's your actions that matter, and your second thought (the "wait, why did i just think that?") is more defining of your actual character and morals than your reflex. i know that having thoughts like this, even tho they're unwanted, can very easily make one spiral, so it's important to me that whoever needs to hear this knows this doesn't make you a bad person 🙏 you're good, keep taking actions to be good, accept other people even if you don't understand them, and you're on the right track :)

[thebigqueer]

maybe the reason im so upset about it isnt cuz she broke up wme but because all that waiting over the summer just feels so worthelss now. like i know we couldnt talk as much or be around each other as much but i was waitingall summer like when we get back all we'll do is be together!!!! all of the 'new relationship syndrome especially now that its long distance' stuff will be fixed when we get back!! but were over and theres no chanec of fixing it because were over and its just like what if we waited what if we just figured it out for another few weeksand see where it went form there

[shineyma]

the number of posts that go around the batfandom that can basically be boiled down to "people aren't writing about the character I want them to write about so I'm gonna shame them"

good lord

[fenharel-archived]

*threatens todd with a bat* there is a good game hidden beneath all this jank todd i can see it. why did you insist on adding all these empty planets everywhere todd? why?! why the forced focus on exploration when we already always wanted to explore your games without you forcing us?!

[ppulverse]

.

[bloodywonder1846]

Alrighty, guess I’m gonna take the risk and post this.

(Pls don’t get mad at me, y’all. I’m just stating an opinion & ranting about my frustrations, I don’t mean to sound rude.)

This is certainly gonna make people mad. If you disagree with me or are upset by this, that’s fine, I get that everyone has different opinions. Idc, just please leave me alone & don’t harass me over it.

I honestly have a lot of complaints similar to this, but then I saw this happen with my favorite song, and it just absolutely upset me, so yeah-

Can we PLEASE stop over-sexualizing Wait???

Yes, I know that at the end of the day, I’m always gonna have my asexual bias, but I swear that I have more complaints than just, “I’m a sex-repulsed ace who’s tired of everything being over-sexualized.”

I know that a lot of things are gonna vary depending on the production, but at least to me, that’s not what this song is supposed to be. I know the Broadway revival does the whole weird thing with his suspenders, idc what the Broadway revival does, this song is supposed to be a soft, sweet, and genuine moment. (This isn’t an insult to the Broadway revival, btw. I do still love that production despite it making some choices I disagree with.)

Let’s review the scene & context surrounding it:

Sweeney has been presented with the opportunity to off Beadle Bamford, but he’s impatient af and wants his revenge now. On top of that, he’s also stressing over how to get to Judge Turpin. Nellie basically tells him to chill out and be patient, but like, in a sweet and loving way. The whole song is her trying to help him calm down and feel less stressed, upset, and tense. She can see that he’s dealing with a lot, and she genuinely cares about him and wants to help him. By the end, he’s a lot more calm, even if he is still thinking about revenge deep down. You see the calming affect Nellie has on him, and she’s happy to see him okay again, even if it’s only for a moment. He even internalizes her words. During Epiphany, he says, “Why did I wait? You told me to wait!” Obviously he seems to have misunderstood her a little, but it shows he was at least paying attention.

At its very core, this scene is a man who’s gone through a lot and is stressed, a woman who cares about him and wants to comfort him, and him briefly being able to silence the noises in his head because he really does find comfort in her words and her presence.

This is supposed to be a calming type of song, sort of like a lullaby in a way. Maybe this really is just a me thing, but it was never meant to be sexy.

There’s a lot of things that annoy me about the over-sexualization of Nellie Lovett in general & this song in particular, but the main one is that it makes everything feel less sincere. Idc if you have your headcanons, or if you wanna talk about NSFW stuff regarding this show from time to time, but treating it like that’s the whole thing, especially regarding her, just… Idk.

Nellie truly loves Sweeney, and it’s always annoyed me when people say otherwise, and when people say that it was just lust. When people over-sexualize her & every moment between her and Sweeney, all that does is prove their point, and it makes her relationship with Sweeney feel a lot less genuine. When she’s not allowed to have genuine, emotional, and romantic moments without it either being sexualized or played for laughs (or both in some cases), it both erases her complexities as a character and cheapens the moment. (I have another rant regarding By the Sea too, but I’m specifically gonna focus on Wait here)

She truly cares about Sweeney and wants to help him, comfort him, and be there for him. When Wait is instead seen as just seduction, it makes her feelings for him seem a lot less genuine. I would think that none of us Nellie lovers or Sweenett fans would want that, and yet my fellow Sweenett shippers are the ones that are most guilty of this. Do you not also care about the emotional side of their relationship? The sweet side? The soft side? The romantic side? Their friendship? Does it only matter to you if it’s sexy? (I’m not saying this is all Sweenett shippers, or even the majority.)

Idk, I’m just tired of people trying to take away their actual adorable moments and make it all horny.

(Does it feel like nobody’s appreciating everything else about their relationship and is trying to make everything sexual, or am I just ace & losing it?)

Idc if you want to write smut about them, idc if you have differing opinions. I really don’t want to sound rude regarding people’s opinions & interpretations, and I don’t want to shame anyone. There are even people on here that I’m genuinely chill with & like that do this, and I don’t want it to sound like I’m mad at them or don’t like them or anything. I’m just so tired of it all.

Not everything has to be about sex, you guys.

(More stuff in the tags)

[fightingdragonswithwho]

hate to be a hater on the main … but this season of ted lasso excels (once again) at team dynamic and the found family elements and i think the finale absolutely nailed that, i cried, i laughed, it was perfect on that. now as for the individual stories and relationships… yeah, let’s leave it at that

[eorzeanflowers]

i wish dnd/ttrpgs were easier to schedule.

[girlivealwaysbean]

im so embarrassed I told this teacher from my class that I will study her subject on my own when she texted to ask why wasn't i attending batches and