#this is wonderfully put and entirely correct | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writing-havoc · 1 year

Note

ok, my request is: nikolai lantsov x reader where they are married for convenience but are friends and support each other. they secretly love each other and that's why they kiss when they don't have to and sleep together, really adoring each other, and that's where spicy comes in, although it's completely optional if you don't feel comfortable doing it. oh, and i imagine that after zoya becomes queen, nikolai and reader finally declare themselves to each other, assuring that they love each other with or without a crown. like, angst/comfort and fluff at the end? if you can't include spicy it's ok! you write wonderfully well ♡♡♡

An Exhausted Smile

♡ Summary: You consider your position as the Ravkan King's spouse. It doesn't feel as fulfilling as you'd like it to be, and he surprises you by feeling the same.

♡ Pairing: Nikolai Lantsov x Reader

♡ Fandom: King of Scars, Grishaverse

♡ Warning(s): 18+, says cock once, mentions nausea

♡ WC: 5.5k

Hi hi! Tysm for this request!

I didn't know what gender you wanted reader to be. However after writing the whole thing I feel it's obvious that you may have wanted a fem reader, but this is what I came up with!

It doesn't get completely smutty, but it does reach a point that I'd consider adult. So I hope it's still to your liking <3

Please ignore any spelling and grammar mistakes, the beginning of this before the bedroom scene was written with a massive headache so I do apologize if it seems a bit rough around the edges there.

∘₊✧──────────────────✧₊∘

The ballroom is filled to the brim with people. Each one varying in their level of importance and showcasing as such by either vastly overdressing or being a bit more modest, but still wanting to put on their best for their King.

And you, by proxy.

Your clothes match your husband's in their own right. He wore the standard garb that fits a King, white base and gold accents, matching gold aiguillette wrapped around his shoulder. While you lacked the fancy rope, Genya compensated with a few select ribbons and even jewelry where she felt it needed.

The rings on Nikolais gloved fingers made your decorated wrist feel less alone.

"Just have to get through this and then we can retreat back to our room." He whispers, working on his smile in a silver vase.

The way he says "our" still makes your heart flutter, even close to a year after your marriage was sanctioned.

You give him a glare, despite him being unable to see it. "You act like this is only going to last an hour or two. You know just as well as I do that this is going to be an all night endeavor." A sigh nearly deflates your entire being. "Especially with the representatives from Kerch. They always get everyone riled up."

He chuckles. "You speak of them as if they're just regulars at the tavern and not government officials."

You pick off a piece of hair that managed to dislodge itself from your scalp and wrap around your fingers. Genya's going to be mad when she sees you.

She hadn't done much with your hair aside from the occasional color correction, but she did make a point to get any kinks out and help it move in one solid direction in contrast to your usual bedhead.

You feel a little bad for messing it up, smiling when you imagine her reaction.

It's not as if you weren't royalty before your engagement. You were simply second born. So it's not like anybody particularly cared so long as you appeared to be put together and well behaved. Your hair was allowed to be a bit messy if you were extra respectful and made an effort to engage when spoken to. You were allowed to have your clothes a little rumpled so long as you came in late, apologized profusely, and fixed them while doing so.

Exceptions were allowed to be made. But now...

Nikolai is in front of you, boots oddly quiet on the tiled floor. His fingers card through your hair, fixing it and moving strands that wandered one way or another.

You weren't meant to accomplish much in your life. Until Nikolai offered his hand in marriage.

"Keep doing that and you'll go bald."

You swat at his hands, no real anger behind it, an uncontrollable grin pulling at the corners of your mouth. He smiles too, and it's a pretty little thing. Teeth poking out and lips shiny with a gloss you know Genya made clear and taste like berries.

You know because he kisses you now, hands pulling you close.

And it hurts.

It makes your heart ache in all the wrong ways.

But you can't help but lean into it, hand pulling at his neck to make him come just that little shuffle closer.

A throat clears from behind him, which he promptly ignores and chases after you when you go to pull away, a chuckle spilling from both of your throats.

"As lovely as it is to see you both happy," Genya marches forward, inserting herself between you both, "you are messing with everything I have spent the last several hours crafting. Hands off until after your guests leave."

She quickly begins fixing your hair, drawing color from swatches she keeps around her wrist and fixing your cheekbones, smiling when you wet your lips and taste the gloss.

It takes everything in your power to not let your eyes nervously flicker around the room, instead letting them settle on Nikolai, who looks just moments away from gently pushing Genya to the side.

"If Ravka and it's neighboring countries have a problem with a King who openly loves his partner, then that's their business."

A plethora of feelings cascade over your mind and heart, seeping into your essence.

It feels... complicated.

And you feel like one of those annoying novel protagonists for saying so, but really you can't find a word in any of the languages you know that could give someone, anyone, some sort of insight into your internal dilemma.

Nikolai is your best friend. Has been since you were eleven.

But you have also loved him since you were fourteen, the feelings slowly moving through your veins like a poison, obvious to you from the very beginning and only becoming stronger as the days pass.

And as far as you can tell, Nikolai does not feel the same.

You remember the day he proposed you get married, and the exhausted and pained expression he wore when he presented you with a ring, smile completely and utterly fake.

You know all of his smiles by heart. And you know on that day, in that moment, he was grieving.

No matter how many times he kisses you behind closed doors, you cannot be rid of the fact that this marriage is for convenience and convenience only.

Love is not shared between you two. Not in the way you want, anyway.

But you take what you can get. Every fruit flavored kiss. Every hand perfectly slotting into your own. Every night filled with hushed sighs and names whispered behind the shell of your ear because he knows you hate the feeling of hot breath no matter who is speaking into it.

You take it, and you put a cold rag over your sad, swollen eyes when you feel like you can't.

Once Genya is done fixing you up, she moves onto Nikolai, who now looks more concerned than anything.

You flick invisible dust off your shoulders, giving yourself a moment to compose yourself when you turn to the silver vase Nikolai was using earlier.

Everything is warped on the surface. Parts of you look bigger than they should when you turn one way or another. You don't know how he could make himself look as good as he does while using it.

"I know you aren't over there poking around at everything again."

"I'm not." You say. "Just admiring your work."

She hums. "As you should."

Nikolai is still looking at you as you turn around, a silent question flickering across his face.

You give him your answer by walking up to him, looping your arm through his and offering a small smile.

He's not convinced. But the doors are opening, and you both have to step through with smiles on your faces and hands outstretched, taking on Ravka's problems and hoping there's enough favors in the world for what's coming.

There's music playing in the corner, people are mingling but still trying to stay in tightly knit groups, and a few refuse to stray farther than a few feet from the table which held a constantly refilling onslaught of finger foods.

For the next few hours you're approached by various people, most of whom you remember from your wedding.

But there's a few who make snide comments, with very thinly veiled insults.

It bothers you a lot more than it should, having thought most of them during your darker hours.

"Will you remain after the war?" Someone from the Kerch council asks.

You chuckle, feeling nauseous. "Of course I will. The war being over doesn't null our marriage."

They just smile and say 'Of course' before walking off, whispering lowly to each other.

After the third time, everything feels a little too much.

"Excuse me." You don't wait for whoever approaches you to nod or protest.

Navigating out of the ballroom feels a little too much like an act of survival. You think a few people try and talk to you, but you're not sure, exiting out a side door and standing in the middle of the hall.

What the is going on with you?

You wipe your clammy and shaking hands on your clothes, dusting off invisible dirt and grime from your hips and chest.

It feels like you're going to buzz out of your skin. You tighten your ears, making a rumble in your eardrums to drown out the music and idle chatter from inside.

The guards that stand outside the ballroom doors give you the side eye. No matter how long you've been conventionally married to a King, you will never get used to having eyes and ears on you at all times. It feels like you can't even breathe without them judging or assuming something is going to happen.

You get it. You really do. After the bloodbath that was Nikolai's birthday, security had been upped. It'd be a political nightmare for something such as that to happen twice. It'd prove that Ravka was as weak as everyone thinks it is. That it lacks the means to protect itself, that it's an open buffet for everyone to take a piece of.

But did they have to have such probing glances? Legs so ready to spring and hands itching to take hold in the face of the slightest danger?

Sometimes your body doesn't feel like your own.

And maybe it's not.

Not when your marriage is founded on a lie.

You exist as an arm piece. Your presense only has one use: to provide the illusion that should Nikolai perish, the country will remain strong.

"Are you alright, my love?"

Nikolai puts a hand on your back, leaning forward to look you in the eye.

Guilt immediately eats at your gut.

"Ill be fine in a few minutes." You manage, relaxing your ears. The rumbling seizes and your head teeters backwards as you whisper, "Just too much pretending."

He doesn't say anything for a moment, eyes roaming over your face with what looks like disappointment flashing over his features. "Do you need to head to bed for the night?"

You chuckle. "Good luck explaining that one to Zoya. The ministers and ambassadors and whatever other important persons there are, are expecting both of us tonight. We cannot disappoint."

'I cannot disappoint.' Is something you keep to yourself.

"You forget that I'm the King, not Zoya." The way he rubs at your back with his gentle fingers makes your heart stutter. "If my partner is feeling ill and wishes to retreat to their room, then they shall do so."

You only sigh, not having anything to say to that.

The bed did sound particularly comforting about now.

For a long moment the world becomes dark as you imagined yourself out of these formal clothes, dressed in your worn out shirt and wide flowy pants that didn't feel like they were castrating your legs. You imagined crawling into your plush bed, tightly packed wool sewn into soft silk.

It was a mistake.

"Nikolai?" You hum, eyes opening to stare at him with heavy lids.

"Yes?"

"One more hour. Then I'll head to bed."

It was a compromise, one he didn't usually entertain. He would much prefer you laying down when you got like this than have you force yourself to stay until the party ends.

But you lean into him a little, wrapping your own arm around his waist, and he becomes a bit more pliable.

"One hour," He agrees. "But I get to check in on you every quarter to ask if you're alright."

You chuckle. "I wouldn't except anything less, Sobachka."

You do not miss the way his eyes go just a bit thinner, a black well forming in each of his multicolored irises.

Just because you feel poorly for your situation doesn't mean you have to make him feel miserable as well.

Especially since you know he's really trying.

Guilt continues to eat at your gut throughout the night, because even if being just an arm piece is your role, Nikolai hasn't done anything to make you feel that way.

He has only ever treated you with the utmost respect and affection. Triumvirate meetings always include you should you wish to go, and your opinion is never overshadowed by him, always taken into consideration even if playfully mocked by the others. He knows every little ick you have made known to him and ones you have not, and has done his best to purge those things from your daily routine.

If what he's craving for that night doesn't suit your tastes or contains a texture you find reprehensible, he makes sure the palace chefs make something that you're craving too.

'It's only fair' he says.

At night, in the dark of your shared bedroom, he'll talk and talk about the things he loves most and rope you into them, dumping any information he has right into your lap for you to pick apart and inspect, and he'll watch as the cogs turn in your brain and find the right questions.

There's never a rush to get the conversation over with. It doesn't feel like just a nicety, because he's still your best friend at the end of it all and he still cares.

He has only ever done his absolute best to make you feel adored.

But it doesn't feel like enough.

Even as he does his last and final check in, not missing the other three by even a minute, you see the way his shoulders are squared and his attention is half elsewhere.

He is a King. He is a performer. And you're part of the act.

"You ready for bed?" He asks, voice low with a flute of undrunken champagne in his jeweled fingers.

You take a look around, and sigh deeply. "Yeah."

His face morphs into a wide smile, immediately finding a server and handing them the beverage to deal with as he ushers you out of the room and towards your shared chambers, flashing that changed expression to the people he was just talking to and giving them some sort of excuse about your health.

The buzzing has lessened, now that you're promised a nice rest. Nikolai nudges you along, but walks at your own pace as you undo ribbons and clasps and buttons.

There's an urge somewhere, to scream. It creates a feeling of anxiety that attacks your backside, feeling as if someone is behind you.

But Nikolai continues to rub your back when he feels you begin to stiffen, sees your hair stand on end, and the feeling dissipates, albeit slowly.

As he opens the door for you, he begins giving some long winded instructions towards the guards that stand outside the doors, everything you were feeling before is replaced with longing and grief.

It's taken you a year, but you're finally realizing that this is your life now.

You won't ever be going back to your home except as a guest. You love your husband. And everything feels too hot and tight.

You shed your outer layers, tossing them over the chair at his desk and undoing your shoes. All that weight feels like a blessing to be shed so easily.

The cool air sends goosebumps trailing up your arms, and Nikolai is there to rub them away.

"I've told the guards to not bother you unless the word comes directly from me." He presses a long, lingering kiss to your temple. "Ill be back in a few hours, hopefully with some leftover snacks from the tab-"

He doesnt get another word in before you turn and capture his lips in yours. Surprise holds his mouth still, but it doesnt last long before he's pressing back into you.

For saints sake (you almost cringe when you remember they're real, according to your husband), if this is your life now, why can't you be a little selfish with it?

You swear you have this oh moment once every few months, but it sinks in a little deeper every time.

It hurts, you think, as you part for only a moment, lips coming back together.

But it feels worth it for now. Right here. Where you can kiss him and kiss him and use the married excuse.

His hands cradle each side of your head, his body pushing into yours. You can hardly feel anything through that damned coat but you'd be hard pressed not to try, fingers feeling the silhouette of his ribs and the way they flow to his hips.

You want that coat off, and pop just one button before you're rudely interrupted by Nikolai walking backwards, taking you with him.

He sits on the plush bed you fantasized about crawling into, and you climb on top, feeling powerful in the way you're able to look down at him.

His mouth opens to speak, but you kiss the space between his brows, trailing down his imperfect nose and finally catching the corner of his still open lips as you undo even more buttons.

Your shoulders feel like they're on fire, a sort of fog clouding anything besides the link between your mind and core desires.

But you'll still take this slow, loving on him and edging him towards the side of staying rather than gaining his senses and walking out that door.

The door that closes behind you.

That, is enough for you to take a squallors power to the fog that covers your brain.

He has a party to go to, you think, turning around and looking at the door, watching a shadow retreat off to the side. He has people to entertain and people to ask favors of.

"Are you alright?" Nikolai asks for what seems to be the hundredth time today.

You feel a little embarrassed, about wanting to ravage him and nearly succeeding with the door wide open for the guards to hear, to see.

And now that you really think about it, the feeling gets so much worse.

"Um- yeah." You decide after much deliberation. "Just wasn't aware the door was still... open."

You move to get off of him, but he hooks his arm around your back and flips you over. You meet the bed with a little 'oof', and in the span of only a few seconds he's got you pinned down.

No real weight is applied to you, but you have no where to shimmy off to should you desire.

One of his legs are between your own, much to your dismay, a hand pressed into the bed beside your head, and a hand gripping anything he can grab of your hip.

His vest is wide open, a loose white shirt the only thing between you and the warmth you crave.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

It almost feels like he's trying to seduce you into honesty.

You release a shaky breath, silently fighting with yourself if this is the moment you want to potentially ruin.

"I love you."

It's really a shame that the seduction works, and that you're just too damn tired of pretending anymore.

His hand tightens around your hip then, the tips of his fingers beginning to dig into your skin. It makes you take a deep breath, almost unable to pass the lump in your throat that was left after your confession.

A horrible parting gift of sorts.

A reward for your idiocity.

But then he leans down, hand coming away from your hip as he slowly sinks down.

His fingers trail up the side of your torso, hips pushing into yours as the rest of him trails behind, stomach meeting stomach and chest touching chest, and if they could you think your ribs would slot together just perfectly with his until your hearts could meet.

He presses a kiss to the corner of your open mouth, hand finding yours and lacing your fingers together.

"Promise?" He asks, heavy eyes and blond lashes fluttering as they look into your own.

Moments like these almost convince you that he loves you too. That he lays awake at night thinking about where to go from here. That he doesn't on some level completely regret getting on one knee and asking for your hand.

"I promise."

He smiles, so genuine and soft.

You feel your heartbeat spread throughout your body, blood pumping harshly through your veins, and you know he feels it too when he has to shut his eyes and compose himself.

You want to move, want to feel him.

So of course that's when he decides to parrot back at you the words that constantly play on loop in your head.

"I love you too."

You look at him then, really really look at him, and watch has his eyes fall open, pupils blown and red waves flowing over his cheeks and nose.

It's a sight to behold.

You want to believe the words that spill out of his mouth, and there isn't anything about him that gives him away as a liar.

But you just can't believe him.

And he sees that.

Because just as well as you can read him, he can read you too.

"I love you." He says, leaning down and kissing just beneath your eyes.

The gloss makes his lips soft, a stark contrast to their usually chapped texture. But he's also just plain gentle, kissing you and whispering small 'I love you's between each one as he moves to your jaw and then to your lips.

"Nikolai." You whisper. Nothing comes to mind anymore.

"I love you." He says again. "And ill do anything to make you believe it."

The lump in your throat returns. "Nikolai."

"I'll whisper it in the morning when you wake up. I'll yell it at you from across the courtyard. I'll scream it from the top of my lungs everytime we—fuck." A moan spills out of him like thick candy, your own gasp surprising you despite it being your fault that your hips came up to press into his.

He takes a moment to think, to wrangle in the words he wants to say before they escape him. "I'll declare it before all of Ravka all over again. I'll eat the little things you hate because I love you more than I hate anything."

It can't be real.

He leans down, his nose brushing against yours till your foreheads meet. You can feel his lips barely brush your own. "What do I need to do to make you believe me?"

"Stay?" You say without thinking. "For starters? Just for a while."

He kisses you, the taste of blueberries welcomed by your tongue.

"With the way you were talking to me, I won't even make it half a bell."

That makes you chuckle, which is completely replaced with a low moan as his cock presses into you. It makes your fingers twitch shut around his gloved hand, the rings digging into your bones.

The pants he's wearing are too tight for your liking. You can't really feel him. Just a vague idea.

And right now, vague ideas are not going to cut it.

He seems to have the same idea as he leans back, climbing off the bed. His coat slips off his body, and his fingers tease under his shirt, well within your line of sight from where you sit up, missing the warmth and friction he was graciously giving you.

"You'll have to wait until I get all this off, darling." He sheds the shirt and moves to his hands, slowly plucking off the rings. The gloves come off after, and you nearly whimper at the sight of his blackened fingers. "It could take a while."

You shuffle to the edge of the bed, not giving him the opportunity to back away as your legs hook behind his own and bring him back to you.

He stills as he watches you reach forward, the tips of your fingers feeling the edge of his pants and barely touch the skin of his lower torso, veins teasing your eyes. You feel like you're floating, the littlest sparks popping around your neck and exploding below your naval.

"We can't have that, can we?" You croon, finding the clasp of his belt and undoing it. "You still have a party to get back to."

He groans the moment his belt slackens, pants falling soon after you unzip the little zipper that held everything together.

You almost wish he would have worn his first army outfit for tonight.

"That I do." He gets out, the sound of various metals falling to the floor. "We should make this quick."

You should be worried about the rings, you think. Either you or him will step on them later and hurt your feet.

But as he leans down again, pressing his lips to your neck and starts sucking that little patch of skin he's mapped out so well, you can't bother to think about it.

You have a King on top of you. You'd be a fool to think about anything else.

-----

The moment Nikolai relinquished his throne in front of the four present nations, your heart sunk.

He didn't look at you for a while, focusing his attention on Zoya, and you were almost thankful for it as you did everything in your power to keep your expression even, forcing a smile on your lips as Zoya began to take charge, addressing those around her for her place as Queen.

You wanted to smack Nikolai for not giving you some sort of warning, but it seems Zoya didn't know either as she gave him the occasional glare when the crowd seemed too focused on gossiping with eachother.

But more importantly you wanted answers.

After that night where you told him you loved him, pouring every bit of meaning into those little words, things were looking up for your relationship.

Little by little you allowed yourself to believe him. He did everything he proposed to you and then some. You unwrapped more of him than you could have ever accessed before and you found yourself allowing him to do the same.

But if he loves you like he says he does, has loved you for just as long as you have, why the hell did he look so damn sad when he proposed to you?

Would he still love you now? Now that he's not King and there truly is no more use for you?

Because despite everything that he's done within the last few weeks, fighting for his country on the front lines and somehow still finding some way to tell you he loves you, staying up into the dead hours of night writing letters and just thinking while holding your hand, you still have your doubts.

He came to you out of obligation. You werent his first choice but he came to you anyway when it seemed the other options were no longer there.

Now that he wasn't King, would he still try?

The Darkling came out from the shadows, challenging the authority of The Apparat.

Nikolai stood beside you, shoulder just slightly between you and the little spat.

Now that he was just Nikolai, would he still find worth in your presence?

He can have anybody now. He doesn't have to worry about the political nightmare it might cause for him to take on a partner with a less than desirable upbringing. He could go for the seamstress at that little hat shop he likes to eye or a baker from the heart of Novyi Zem.

The Apparat is surrounded by Royal Guards and Sun Soldiers nearly leap from where they stand in pursuit of the Darkling. Zoya talks with Nina and the young prince of Fjerda, and Nikolai stays put, a giddy almost childish smile barely contained on his face as he stares at you.

You look at him, begging him to explain as Zoya is roped into conversation with various Ravkan officials, but it seems he's just absolutely overcome with joy.

It makes you smile too, despite the dread and confusion building up in your gut.

"Would you care to explain what just happened?"

He chuckles. "I, just set us free."

"What?"

It's so... surreal.

He looks nervous now, looking around as Ravkan officials slowly peel themselves away from Zoya, the masses still chanting their approval for a Grisha Queen. The seats around the hall are completely empty, and the longer he waits to explain to you what he means the more you feel like you're going to burst out if your skin.

Finally, the last of them leave, and Zoya turns her angry gaze at Nikolai once more.

Wind whirls around the hall, windows shutting. "I," she points a finger at Nikolai, "am going to choke you."

"You'll have to wait in line for that." He takes your hand and squeezes it.

She looks at him then, and scoffs. "We will discuss this after you're done here."

"Depending on how this goes that would be either my greatest pleasure or worst nightmare."

She's already out the door, probably not having even heard a word Nikolai said.

Once the door is shut he turns back to you, a steady breath exiting his lungs.

"Nikolai Lantsov you had better tell me what in saints name you were talking about before I have Zoya throw you so far into the sky you'll touch the stars."

He's still smiling, and giving you that look he always does right before he says the sappiest things.

"It became clear to me a long while ago that no matter what I did I would not be accepted as the Ravkan ruler everyone wants." He takes both of your hands in his now, giving them another squeeze. "And, not so strangely at all, the more I thought about it the lighter I felt. The crown has to go to someone, and as lovely as you are, it brings me great sorrow that those around here wouldnt have found solace in you being crowned ruler either."

And it's true. You were a topic of conversation for no more than two minutes before everyone moved on. You didn't want the crown, and Nikolai was right that the age of the Lantsov's had to come to an end.

"So, I gave the crown to Zoya, because it wasn't all that improbable that they'd accept her after her little display on the battlefield." He chuckles, and you follow along, heart beating hard and fast. "But I would be deemed a liar if I said I didn't have some doubt about it, since it might have meant losing you."

Your blood runs cold. "What?" You want to ask how he could think that, but you were just thinking the same not minutes before. "Nikolai-"

"I am no longer a King. Meaning any marriage I had before means nothing to the people... but it means everything to me." He gets down on one knee, smiling up at you. "I was hesitant asking for your hand in marriage last year because I didn't want to trap you in an arrangement that you found no joy in. But these last few weeks with you where you said you loved me and I've had the joy of showing you I felt the same, have made me feel so grateful that I eventually did."

You could swear your heart was about to explode. You half want to look around the room for a heartrender, convinced someone else is doing this to you.

But it feels so genuine, and it hits you like a pile of rocks why he looked to utterly exhausted that day he proposed.

His lips greet your knuckles, his lashes shiny with what you can only assume are tears. "I will continue to love you, for as long as I shall live, if you will let me and wish for the same."

And suddenly you can't see, because you're squeezing your eyes shut, relief nearly sending your entire system into shock.

You fall to your knees, dirtying your expensive clothes you have absolutely no care for, and grip him into a hug.

"You- You utter buffoon." You sob, tightening your grip on him just as his arms come and wrap around your waist. "Of course I want the same."

That's all he needs to squeeze you against him. You can feel his eyebrows squish together against your neck as he tightens his hold.

If he could completely envelope you into himself, merging your bodies together, you think he would.

If he could hold you so tight that your hearts could kiss, you know he would.

It's a long time before you eventually pull apart, and humor is not lost from him when he does.

"What are you going to do now?" You ask.

He sighs, helping you wipe your tears. "Well considering youre my spouse, I feel like there's an obvious answer here."

You scoff, taking his hand away from your face. "Animal."

He laughs, catching your hand and lacing your fingers together.

"How would you feel about becoming a privateer?"

You look around the room, pretending to think about it.

How would you feel about a life on the seas with your husband? Sailing in nearly any direction you please with goofy hats and guns strapped at your side? Walking the decks with a crew you'd trust with your life and fish and brandy for dinner?

What is there not to love? "I think that'd be pretty fun."

There's hardly anything you can do to make him wait to get back to the palace before stripping your clothes off, the word "captain" coming out of your mouth and sending you both into a fit of giggles.

∘₊✧──────────────────✧₊∘

Tags:

@xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx

#ask #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov x you #nikolai lantsov x y/n #nikolai lantsov fanfic #grishaverse fanfic #grishaverse x reader #grishaverse x you #grishaverse x y/n #fanfic #anon

549 notes · View notes

asherloki · 6 months

Text

Until I found you

Sherlock x reader

Word count:- 815

Fluff

"oh how wonderful indeed" I exclaimed as I touched each string of violin in order with my index finger, making it buzz. Sherlock was still stuck with his microscope, examining the specimen he's been given by Hopkins recently. This officer, Stella Hopkins, she's a huge fan of Sherlock and to our surprise Sherlock doesn't mind her, he says "this young officer has potential". I took his violin as no response came from the man with the microscope. Imitating how Sherlock holds his violin I took the bow in other hand. When I let it touch the strings, it made an awful sound. That's when I turned and found out the detective lifted his head from it.

"You didn't hold any chord did you?" he enquired getting up from his chair, leaving the kitchen table as it is, messy.

"I don't play violin detective, so I don't know the chords" I replied putting the violin down. As I turned back again I saw my man was walking towards me or was he walking towards the violin?

"perhaps you'd be interested in learning it?" he offered as he stood infront of me.

"how many times have I offered you to learn a bit of piano from me Mr Holmes?" I teased him and I was delighted at how he pouted at my teasing. Whenever we visit my mum's I always play my old piano, perhaps I've asked him to play it a thousand times and he didn't agree to do so for once. Even though I caught him once or twice admiring it, as he pressed a few keys with his index finger.

"I'm not a pianist, sorry Mrs Holmes" him referring me as Mrs Holmes has never failed to make me giggle, "guitar, Ukulele, all the instruments you own" he said walking past me and grabbing his violin, "I'm fascinated by you" he praised holding his violin over his shoulder, then spinning the knobs as he tuned it.

"you were?" I enquired, sitting on the arm of his chair as he faced the window.

"wrong" he replied taking the bow in hand, "I still am, very much fascinated".

I smiled, did he smile too? who knows. Even after being his wife I can't always tell what's going on in his head, the mystery that he is, the man that he is.

"I always wanted to learn violin next" I said for I've always been drawn to how wonderful this musical instrument sounds.

"why didn't you?" Sherlock asked staring at his dearest violin.

"here you are" I replied, the only musical instrument I knew not how to play, my husband does, and he does it wonderfully, "you can, maybe one day I'll have enough courage to ask you to teach me too".

He gave me a hum in response, as if he wondered 'when will you be genuinely willing?'

"what will you play Sherlock?" I enquired, wanting to know if he has prepared anything, he loves to compose sometimes, he did one for me, the day we were married, three years ago, twenty second November, he made a rather happy melody for me. It was so joyous that everyone asked about it, like what is the inspiration behind it. He replied "my sunshine", he named it so as well. For he says he's never truly been happy, until I came one day, while he was playing with Rosie, John's daughter. He says he felt as if the sunrise for which he waited for a long time, rose that day.

"something my wife would love" he replied turning a bit to me, his smile indicated he will play my favourite song. A song that sounds beautiful when he plays it for me. And then his bow touched the strings, and the buzz was perfect, for the man held the right chords, unlike me. With Swift movements of his fingers, as if they were dancing on the chords and the bow sliding over the strings he started the part that goes,

heaven, when I held you again....

I smiled widely as my guess was correct, the song he says is ours, for he never fell in love, true love, in his entire life until he found me. Seriously though, the cold, grumpy detective, melted for someone like me, immature they say, childish too, young, alot younger than him, but then, I love him, so does he.

"would you mind humming with me?" he asked turning to me, with a nod I agreed and started singing,

"I would never fall in love again until I found her" he hummed as I sung then the next line, he joined me,

"I said I will never fall unless it's you.."

"I'm falling to" I continued,

"I was lost within the darkness" we sung together, looking at eachother, for we dedicated these lines to one another, "but then I found her... I found you..."

#bbc sherlock #sherlock x reader #sherlock x y/n #sherlock holmes x reader #sherlock x you #i am sherlocked #sherlock fandom #Spotify

85 notes · View notes

velidewrites · 2 months

Text

Don’t Look Back

Five hundred years ago, the humans fought hard for their freedom in the Great War and won. Now, their former masters seek retribution in a rebellion that grows stronger year by year. When Elain Archeron finds out marrying Greysen Nolan might be the only solution to keep her family safe from the ancient, cruel Fae, she doesn't hesitate to fulfil her duty. What Elain doesn't know, though, is that the man with the fiery hair and russet eyes is not her fiancé, but his killer—and when she finally finds out, well…it will be far too late to turn back.

Chapter 4/15 || Read on AO3 || Go to Chapter 1 || beta'd by @ablogofsapphicpanic

Chapter 4: The Runaway

As much as she hated to agree with anything that came out of Lucien Vanserra’s mouth, Elain was angry. The rage burning in her cheeks felt hotter than the fire flickering at Eris’s fingertips, ready to reduce the tent and everyone inside it to ash as she seethed, “He is no betrothed of mine.”

“The feeling is quite mutual, I assure you,” Graysen—Lucien, she had to correct herself—told her.

“So let me go, then.”

Lucien didn’t even meet her gaze. “Ah,” he said, studying his nails—long and sharp now, Elain realised, so unlike the hands that held her at the ball last night. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Elain gritted her teeth. “Explain.”

“We’re many days from New Prythian, Lady Archeron,” Eris’s voice reached her. She’d nearly forgotten he was in the tent—him and Azriel, who now stood guarding the entrance, hazel eyes not leaving the scene for one second. “We’ve reached Braemar this morning, There’s no turning back.”

She peeled her gaze off of Lucien’s hand, his stupid, handsome face, and made herself look at Eris. “You seem like a man who loves to hear himself talk,” she said to him. “So talk.”

Lucien snorted.

Eris’s amber gaze cut to him instantly. “Something funny, little brother?”

Elain blinked. “Brother?”

Her question was ignored entirely. “There’s just something wonderfully satisfying about watching a human put you in your place,” Lucien crooned, a familiar smile returning onto his full lips.

If I may return the compliment…Your eyes are the most beautiful I have ever seen.

He’d spoken these words to her with that smile. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Whatever she had felt—whatever she thought she had felt before when she looked at Lucien was long gone now.

He was a liar—he was such a liar, and Elain had been nothing but a fool.

Clearly unaware of the turmoil whirring through her mind, Eris said, “One more word, and you’ll be leaving this camp on foot.” He turned to Elain. “Do you ride, Lady Archeron?”

Elain narrowed her eyes on him. “I am not going anywhere with you,” she spat. Then, like a flicker of light sparking in her head, she added, “You’re the Fae rebels the Huntsman has been after, aren’t you?”

They had to be—there were so very few of them left. And if Braemar was indeed where they’d taken her, the three males standing before her like predators circling their prey must’ve been the ones who had made Father give Nesta away to Hybern—and Elain to Rask.

As great as that went.

“Would you look at that, Eris,” Lucien purred, “Our reputation precedes us.”

“All the way to New Prythian, it seems,” Eris agreed, his expression sour. “Wretched place. I never enjoyed coming back here.” He grimaced. “Especially when it was known under another name.”

“You’ve been to our lands before,” Elain told him, the words not entirely a question.

Eris nodded. “I’ve had the displeasure,” he said. “Spring Court. Nothing but nasty beasts roaming everywhere. Terrible leadership.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Some things never change.”

Elain ignored the jab. “And you?” she asked, turning to Lucien.

“First time,” he shrugged, the hard muscles of his arms shifting with the movement. Damn him. “And while I certainly wish it could be my last, Princess, I’m afraid we’ve got some more work to do in New Prythian.”

“I hope by more work you mean returning me to the Manor, because I am not going a step further with the likes of you,” Elain seethed.

The corner of Lucien’s mouth quirked upwards. “The likes of us,” he hummed. “What could you possibly mean by that, little fawn?”

The bastard saw through her again.

So Elain finally asked, “Are you the Fae who killed my mother?”

It wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. These Fae had broken into Elain’s house like it was nothing—like they had been there before. And, since they were the only rebels who had dared to cross onto New Prythian, into her father’s territory…

Eris looked directly into her eyes as he said, “Yes.”

It was strange how one simple word had managed to knock her breath out of her chest—how it replaced all the air with that angry, sizzling fire, begging to be let out like a caged animal.

Elain choked through the feeling. “You did this?” She looked at Lucien. “Did you?” He said he hadn’t been to her lands before, but, in the less than twenty-four hours Elain had known him, he had not been truthful with her once. Why should she believe him?

Lucien met her stare calmly. “Would it change anything if I did?” he asked.

Elain would kill him, she decided right there and then. She didn’t care when, she didn’t care how—hell, she didn’t even care if it really was him who had done it. One way or another, Lucien Vanserra would pay for it—for all of it.

Perhaps she would hire a mercenary—or send an entire guard after him, if she ever managed to return home. Perhaps she would find the worst magical object in her father’s prized collection and use it to do it herself. An enchanted dagger, perhaps, shoved right through his neck.

So Elain told him, forcing that resolve into her trembling tone, “I want to know if the male who ruined my future is the same one who ruined my past.”

Lucien’s brows rose.

“It was me,” Eris said then, once again reminding Elain that perhaps Lucien was not the only male she had to swear to kill.

Her head whipped towards him. “How?” she questioned, jaw tensing as she made herself add, “There wasn’t any blood on her sheets when she was found.”

She had to know. Whatever they’d done to her, she’d repay it tenfold.

A rare thought crossed her mind that Nesta would have enjoyed the newfound bloodlust in Elain. Her sister had always harboured more vindictiveness inside her than Elain, which apparently was something Lucien Vanserra had a talent of bringing out of her. Perhaps she needed to get to Hybern, first—to alert Nesta and her allies, however terrifying they were, of the rebels who dared to kill their family.

If the promise was written on her face, Eris seemed to care for none of it. “Your mother died a lot quicker than she deserved,” he simply said, fixing the cuffs of his immaculate bronze jacket.

“Monsters,” Elain seethed. “You’re such monsters.”

A warning flame flickered in Lucien’s russet eyes. Beautiful, Elain had called them. She cursed herself for a fool once more.

“My brother is many things, Princess,” Lucien said slowly. “But a monster is not one of them.”

Eris’s gaze shot over to Lucien’s.

“And my sister?” Elain asked, dread building in her chest in anticipation of the answer. “What did you do to her?”

Eris’s attention returned to her. “We did not kill Feyre Archeron,” he told her. “Your mother was trouble enough.”

Her throat burned. “I hate you.”

Eris sighed. “I’m sure you do,” he nodded, as though she was nothing but a mere child and he was the one forced to pacify it. “That doesn’t change the fact that we need your help, Lady Archeron, and we will not release you until you give it to us.”

Elain shook her head. “You’re insane,” she told them both. “Insane. Why would I help the monsters,” she repeated, secretly enjoying the way Lucien’s nostrils flared at the word, “who had spent centuries trying to kill every last one of my kind? My own family?”

Lucien bristled, “Liars. Humans have always been such liars.”

Elain’s features were crafted of stone as she faced him again. “You have been lying to me from the moment we met,” she told Lucien. “I don’t ever want to speak to you again.”

A muscle jutted in Lucien’s jaw.

“If you don’t listen to my brother,” Eris interrupted, watching her closely, “Perhaps you could be convinced by an old friend.”

Elain did not have time to question any of them as the flaps of the tent opened, the pale sunlight pouring in through the gap. As a new figure appeared in the entrance and brushed past Azriel, her hair shining like red-hot, molten metal.

That face—Elain knew that face. Had remembered how it lit up in a smile the very last time she had seen it, six years ago before the messengers alerted the Manor of her death.

The Huntsman’s daughter, her death the very first time Elain understood just how cruel the Fae truly were, stopped right before Elain and smiled.

Alive.

Elain swallowed in disbelief. “Vassa?”

***

The camp had been packed up before Elain even got the chance to see it. She had simply been placed in a rather unimpressive, open wooden carriage when a black-haired female appeared in her tent and announced they were ready to depart.

You can save your heartfelt reunion for the journey, Eris had told her then. We need to keep moving.

“I don’t understand,” Elain now told Vassa, trying not to scowl through the pain in her rear as they made their way through the bumpy road. She had ignored Lucien, who was quickly proving a rather unfortunate company, and the smirk still playing on his lips from the first time she’d yelped out in surprise when the carriage went over a rock. “I thought you were dead.”

Vassa smiled lightly, “My father certainly likes to spread that story around,” she told her. “It helps his cause, if nothing else. Truth is, he’s never liked me very much.”

“Does he know you’re alive?” Elain asked.

“He’s heard rumours, I’m sure,” Vassa nodded. “It brings me comfort to know they keep him up at night,” she added, a smirk of her own now curling her mouth.

Elain’s brows knotted. “Your father is a good person, Vassa.” She didn’t the Huntsman all that well, yes, but he was the one who had been keeping the Fae like Lucien away from New Prythian for all those centuries. Mostly successfully.

Vassa gave her a look. “Come now, Elain,” she almost scolded. “We haven’t spent much time together in the past, but I’ve always thought you were smarter than this.” She looked out to the path ahead as she added, “They all want us to think of them as our saviours, but those of us who have broken free of their lies…we know the truth.”

Elain angled her head. “Which is?”

“You’ll find out soon,” was Vassa’s cryptic reply.

“Where is it you’re taking me, exactly?”

Lucien shifted in his seat, reminding her of his rather unwelcome presence. “That is none of your concern,” he said, crossing his arms over his muddy, white shirt. He’d gotten rid of the jacket he’d worn at the ball, his sleeves now rolled up to his elbows, exposing arms so well-built she had to wonder just how many ex-fiancés he had to kill to look that ridiculous.

“I was not speaking to you,” she rudely told him. Then, upon further consideration, “I hope you know this engagement is over,” she added.

Lucien rolled his eyes. “My poor, broken heart,” he mocked, then rested an arm on the wooden rim and returned to brooding in silence.

Good. Elain was quickly finding out she was less aggravated the longer he kept his mouth closed.

“And they tell us to be afraid of the Fae,” she told Vassa. “Are they all such idiots?”

She could have sworn she heard a quiet scoff coming somewhere from the front.

Vassa grinned, clearly hearing it, too. “Oh, yes.”

“I am still here, Vassa,” Lucien grumbled.

Fine. If he so badly wanted to be part of the conversation, she would indulge him. As vexing as Lucien Vanserra was, she could at the very least get some answers out of him. And at best…he could be more useful to her than she'd originally thought.

So she asked, “How did you kill him?” She clarified, in case he really did spend all his free time killing mortal men, “Greysen?”

Vassa turned to Lucien. “I don’t think she wants to hear—”

“I ripped his heart out,” Lucien told her as if he was describing no more than his breakfast. Then, “It was over before he even really felt it.”

Elain looked at Vassa. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Vassa’s eyes widened. “Should we stop the carriage?”

Elain nodded. “Plea—”

“We are not stopping the carriage,” Lucien cut in. “The Princess has heard of worse things in her life, Vassa,” he added, his gaze drifting back to Elain. “But that was a clever move, I’ll give you that. Too bad it didn’t work,” he shrugged, that shit-eating smirk returning onto his face.

“I hate you,” Elain told him truthfully, silently cursing all the gods for letting him ruin all her plans again. The open carriage would have been a lot harder to slip out of if it weren’t for his interrupting.

His smile only grew as he pointed out, “You didn’t seem to hate me at the ball.”

“And you didn’t seem to be such a—”

“Alright,” Vassa said, her voice rising over the rather unladylike nickname Elain had opted for. “Let’s all calm down, shall we? There really is no need to ruin a perfectly good carriage, especially when we’re going to need it for later.” A look at Elain. “I would appreciate it, though, if you didn’t try any more tricks on us, Elain. As difficult as this one is making it for me to prove, we do mean well.”

“Don’t forget who her father is,” Lucien added, his tone betraying nothing but mockery. “She may not understand the meaning of the word.”

“You didn’t even know him,” Elain spat.

“I didn’t have to,” Lucien said. “The fact that he married someone like your mother, of all the monsters on this earth, is telling enough.”

“Oh, you mean the woman you murdered?”

Vassa sighed deeply. “There are many things you don’t know, Elain,” she told her. “Everything will be explained once we reach the—” Lucien cleared his throat, and Vassa rolled her eyes once more. “Once we reach our destination,” she said instead, and Elain cursed them both for yet another lie they were feeding her.

“Why should I believe anything he says?” she asked. “Anything you all say? You kidnapped me from my own home, killed my fiancé, and are now taking me Gods know where in hopes of…what? That I’ll help you?” She almost laughed. “Give me one good reason, Vassa,” she told her. “Give me one reason why I should listen.”

“You don’t exactly have any other choice,” Lucien muttered from the front of the carriage.

“Shut up, Lucien,” Vassa told him. “Look. I know this is…difficult to understand,” she started, and the pity in her eyes was enough to make Elain seethe all over again.

“Don’t patronise me,” she accused.

“I’m not,” Vassa pressed. “I was you, once. Did you know why my father sent me to the Wildlands all those years ago?” She scoffed, more to herself now than Elain as she added, “I was getting out of control. His control, of course, and he was not happy with it. He didn’t like seeing my power grow—didn’t like seeing how his court rallied around me, how every hunt I returned from was more successful than the last. His hold over Braemar was slipping right into my hand.” Something like sadness took hold of her freckled features, and the air around them seemed to thicken. Even Lucien’s attention drifted back towards them as Vassa said, “But, at that time, my hand was his own. I was his daughter. Everything I did—all of it—had been to gain his favour. I killed and slaughtered because I thought that, with enough bloodshed spilled in his name, he would eventually claim me as his heir. Hell, claiming me as his child would have probably been enough for me.” Cerulean eyes met Elain’s own. “But all my father saw was a threat. So I became exactly that.”

Vassa continued, “When he sent me to the North under some pathetic excuse of protection from the Fae rebels marching on Braemar, I knew it was to get rid of me. I begged and I pleaded for him to let me stay—to let me fight by his side, to avenge our ancestors and kill the masters threatening our family again. All this time, I had no idea it was us, the humans, living in their ancestral home. That it was my family who had taken that home from the ones who had once been our allies.”

“But my father didn’t let me stay—he forced me onto my horse and, with a legion of twelve sentries who I knew were really my executioners, sent me to the border. The fact that he thought twelve men could hold me down…” A sly smile curled the corner of her mouth. “Then again, my father had always underestimated me.”

Elain swallowed.

“They attacked the moment we stepped into the Guardian’s lands,” Vassa went on, “But the border was empty. He was likely in on it, too. No one in their right mind ever wants to get on the Harvester’s bad side. So when the first of the sentries swung his sword at my neck, there wasn’t a single soul in those woods to help me.”

“Please,” Lucien said, a smile of his own now tugging at his lips. “It’s not like you needed any help.”

Vassa offered him a grin—then turned to Elain, her next words preventing her from analysing how in the hell the Huntsman’s own daughter befriended someone like Lucien Vanserra as she added, “When Eris found me, my hair was sticky with blood and my fingers half-frozen from the snow.” Elain shuddered. “But I survived. The fire he’d cast brought me back from the cold death I was succumbing too. I knew who he was right away—I recognised the magic still haunting the halls of the home I was exiled from.” She shook her head, her curls grazing her collarbone slightly. “He knew who I was, too, and what my family had done to his own. I was dying, defenceless and his enemy. But Eris did not kill me,” she said, “He helped me up.”

“He told me the truth—about everything. Had proven it, too, because as much as I hated my father, I still believed the lies he’d been telling me my entire life. You all showed me another way,” she said to Lucien, a small smile lighting up her face before she turned back to Elain. “I’ve been by their side ever since.”

“And we owe you a lifetime’s debt for it,” Lucien said.

Vassa tilted her head slightly. “There are no debts among friends, Lucien.”

“All this to say,” she said to Elain, “I know why you hate them—why you probably hate me right now, too. But I’ve seen true monsters, Elain, and they don’t look like the males who have stolen you from New Prythian.” That sadness returned to her stare as she told her, “They look like the man whose eyes you see in the mirror every morning.”

Elain studied her face. “And I suppose Eris will show me the truth,” she said slowly—then turned to Lucien. “He is your brother,” she added, remembering the familial term Eris had called him back in the tent.

“He is,” Lucien agreed.

“Older?”

Vassa snorted.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “You wound me, little fawn.”

“Stop calling me that,” Elain told him.

“As you wish, Princess.”

“Gods, I don’t know which is worse,” Elain grimaced. She continued, though, curiosity getting the better of her, “Eris called you the seventh son of the Autumn Court—the old Braemar,” she clarified. “Would that not make him…” she hesitated, not entirely sure whether the words she’d learned from her old history books were truly a spell of some sorts—a spell that would bring them back to life.

Lucien hummed. “Are you afraid, Elain?”

If she admitted it, he would probably call her something infuriating like little fawn again. So she told him, “No.”

Lucien smiled knowingly. “Then ask me the question.”

Elain pushed through the words. “Is Eris the High Lord of the Autumn Court?”

“Yes,” Lucien simply told her. “He is.”

Elain’s shoulders tensed.

“If it helps, it was a shock to me, too,” Vassa chimed in.

“I thought the High Lords were all dead,” Elain said, hating the quiet hollowness invading her tone.

“He is the last one, as far as we’re aware,” Lucien explained matter-of-factly. “But he doesn’t wish to be addressed as such—not while the humans are still living in our home.” He added, “Our father was killed shortly after the War, and the rest of our brothers followed shortly after. The ancient magic became Eris’s, and he became the High Lord.” A shadow passed through his handsome features. “A High Lord without land, without subjects, without family. As the humans took over, our magic dwindled, too. The things we were once able to do are now all but a distinct memory. Eris will not call himself High Lord until that magic—until everything—is returned to us.”

He looked at Elain. “That is why you’re here, little fawn,” he crooned. “You’re going to help us get it back.”

The carriage halted with the words—and Elain realised the rocky path had finally ended. They had somehow ended up in the middle of a forest, so golden and bright she had to squint before she took it all in—before she noticed the leaves, gleaming with health and all the shades of auburn and red, the wooden pillars forming a circle around the clearing stretching right before them.

A dozen balls of fire cackled to life atop the pillars, prompted by a magic so ancient Elain could practically taste it on her tongue.

“Welcome,” Lucien’s voice sounded behind her, rich and deep, as if brought to life by this strange place, too. “To the Vanserra Hold.”

#elucien #pro elucien #elain x lucien #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #elucien fic #elucien fanfiction #acotar #my writing

29 notes · View notes

wen-kexing-apologist · 9 months

Text

You're My Sky

I just finished You're My Sky at the recommendation of both @bengiyo and @ginnymoonbeam and can I just say this was PHENOMENAL. Ben was very correct about the before and after I Told Sunset About You mode of storytelling, this came after both ITSAY and IPYTM and you can tell ITSAY was a heavy and direct influence on the method of storytelling, the cinematography, and certain themes that were a part of the show. (@waitmyturtles if you do not have You're My Sky on your OGMMTV list, you should add it because the ITSAY influences seriously ring loud and clear)

Suar Kritsanaphong is a goddamn revelation and I must have said "holy shit this man can act" no less than twenty times an episode, because it remained true, and NEED I REMIND EVERYONE THAT HE HAD BEEN IN EXACTLY ONE OTHER SHOW BEFORE STARRING AS A LEAD IN YOU'RE MY SKY.

Like, seriously, think about his performance in La Pluie, and understand this man is green. La Pluie is the 3rd television show he has been a part of. THAT"S IT. THIRD. Like Ohm Pawat, this man has absolutely no right to be this good this early in his career.

This is, dare I say, one of, if not the most beautifully colored show I have seen maybe ever. Like the entire show felt like it was shot on film, the show read so much like a memory in the way that it was colored, I don't know what I am explaining myself well and I do not know who the colorist was on this show but the one thing I do know is I owe them my life because those colors were saturated and gorgeous (let me be clear, none of these screencaps have been edited, these are just how they appear in the show themselves).

Like, seriously gorgeous

Like absolutely, unbelievably, incredibly, wonderfully GORGEOUS

If you haven't watched this, you should.

Personally, I have no complaints whatsoever with this show. I thought the pacing was good, the narrative compelling, the couples had great chemistry, and the cursed Episode 11 was painful to watch in all the best possible ways.

This show did two things that made me eternally grateful:

One: The show put Suar in this shirt (once again proving that he should always be dressed as a lesbian).

Two: It gave me this shot (aka my new pfp) so what complaints could I even possibly have?

It's a 10/10 for me

#you're my sky #suar kritsanaphong #suar's eyebrows deserve an oscar #tae chayapat #fah x thorn #thorn x fah #fahthorn #taesuar #suartae

72 notes · View notes

thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 2 years

Text

Writing Advice #?: Choose your descriptive details wisely.

To start, I’d like to share my favorite phrase in the entire English language:

Coffee the temperature of piss

I know it’s no “cellar door.” But it’s wonderfully evocative on several different levels. First of all, the obvious: the temperature of piss is also known as... perfect drinking temperature. Coffee slightly less warm than human body temperature is coffee optimal for drinking. But the choice of comparison has immediately put us off that coffee.

Second, the phrase is viscerally gross: it’s comparing a beverage to a bodily fluid. And it’s crude: “piss” is rude slang, not childish like “pee” or technical like “urine.” Third, it’s a great metaphor: pee is acidic and has a strong smell; bad coffee is acidic and has a strong smell. But the narration didn’t come out and say “the coffee had a strong acidic odor similar to the smell of piss”; it simply evoked that comparison indirectly.

Fourth: I first encountered the phrase in a since-deleted fan fic, in which the narrator was sitting in a hospital room waiting for his son to wake up from surgery. (A fic about John Winchester on a Supernatural LJ, if anyone cares.) So the phrase worked on several other levels.

We’re in a hospital setting, you’re comparing something to pee: ick, we can guess why that’s on the character’s mind.

The narrator is former military, so the use of profanity fits.

The narrator knows that his son is in this situation because of his own decisions; the self-disgust is evident in comfort (hot coffee) being turned to contamination (urine).

Hospital coffee is famously bad, so anyone who has ever tasted it will get to feel their gorge rise at the image that evokes it so well.

The thinness of the paper cup and the sickly warmth of the liquid within also come through, to readers who know hospitals.

However, like I said: coffee that temperature is good coffee. But the writer has managed to thoroughly put us off it with the extremely specific word choice for that scene. “Piss” is about the grossest thing you can compare a beverage to except maybe blood, and drinking blood comes with a whole other set of implications that the author obviously doesn’t want.

Another example done right: Homecoming describes an overpass where cars “hurtled over that bridge as if the devil himself was chasing them. He’d be chasing them from both directions then; he’d catch you either way.” Why? It’s a bridge that the main characters, on foot, have no way to cross to safety. This description comes at the narrator’s lowest moment of despair. It’s just a bridge, with traffic moving at normal speed, but it’s also not. The circular nature of the description, the sense of fleeing but being unable to get away, are exactly the right details to be evoking then.

An example done wrong: Vampire Academy opens on a sequence where the guy kidnapping the main characters is described as “He was older than us, maybe mid-twenties, and as tall as I’d figured, probably six-six or six-seven. And under different circumstances—say, when he wasn’t holding up our desperate escape—I would have thought he was hot. Shoulder-length brown hair, tied back in a short ponytail. Dark brown eyes. A long brown coat—a duster, I thought it was called. But his hotness was irrelevant now.” This paragraph brings the story to a screeching halt. Instead of the action advancing, it’s dwelling on the “irrelevant” “hotness” of a character’s face. Why would the narrator notice the physical attractiveness of this person right now? Why would she wonder whether she has the name of a designer coat correct? It’s distracting, it’s confusing, and it verbally moves the scene from a desperate shaky cam to a sparkly slow-mo long enough to get a very long pan over this character’s hair and outfit.

It would be easy to describe him as “menacingly large” with “a long dark coat” and keep going. Then the focus of the narration matches the focus of the characters. If it’s important for the reader to know that he’s attractive and long-haired and wears leather, then add those details later when the narrator has already been kidnapped and has time to sit around and study him.

So, yeah. If you have a self-loathing former Marine waiting in a hospital room with a hot drink, “coffee the temperature of piss” evokes worlds of implication in just five words. If you have an upbeat kid eagerly caffeinating, that same cup can be “coffee with the warm zing of a hug.” If a third-grade teacher is sucking it down to stay alert, it’s “coffee as tepid as my soul.” If you’re writing a doctor who sprints past the coffee because their patient is going tachycardic in that same room, don’t mention the coffee at all.

#writing #writing advice #metaphor #figurative language #description #rude language #long post #nothing to do with animorphs

659 notes · View notes

azrielgreen · 7 months

Note

Not sure if you've already talked about this, but now that you and @thorniest-rose have finished part one of Prism, I was curious what it was like for you guys to write and create collaboratively and how it differed from your usual processes? It's such a huge and intense project, and sometimes as I'm re-reading it I think, "Wow I wish I could have been a fly on the wall while they were brainstorming THAT. 👀"

Writing with Brooke @thorniest-rose is just the most incredible experience. She is genuinely so naturally talented, nothing forced, she is authentic and brilliant and she inspires me constantly.

Prism began as a Tumblr post of Brooke's, a single idea, which we then started talking about endlessly until I wrote her a scene from it on Valentines Day, and after that we decided to actually just go ahead and write it together. I had never used Google Docs until then (I am now an expert) and I had equally never written with another person in my entire life, so we were both a little nervous, I think, but once we were both in the doc, I started writing. I watched her correct a little mistake i had made and something just sort of clicked instantly wherein I knew I treasured this person deeply and I no longer felt nervous. (The typo was Stebe). After that, she started filling in and adding to what I was writing, a process I call "the rose through the ribs" and them we swapped, she took over and i did shading and layering. That was our main process throughout all of Part One and it is truly a stunning thing to watch her write sometimes.

When we started posting, we had around 80k written out but we had made several changes along the way and so there needed to be structural edits, often rewrites. There were occasions when one of us would become quite triggered by what we were writing and we had several issues along the way in, I think, feeling somewhat protective of our individual ideas and equally not wanting to steamroll the other or suppress their own natural expression. We always talk it through and explain the feelings, but honestly, writing this story is deeply intense and we have already said that for Part Two we need to create more of a safety net for each other.

The best parts of writing Prism is when one of us will have a tiny idea and then tell the other and it'll become this huge, gorgeous thing that has a life of it's own. It's the mutual encouragement and support of one anothers creativity and ideas and then actually putting those words into the story, getting to see our dark vision come to life.

The things we tend to "disagree about" are usually rooted in our tendency to write in one specific character's mindset, so sometimes what happens is that we will be discussing it like, "No, Eddie wouldn't think of it like that," and, "No, Steve would never do that," and it's so wonderfully challenging, bringing forth a degree of necessary friction for the best parts of the story because that push and pull is present in the story too.

Thanks so much for your question!

💜💜💜

#prism fic #oonionchiver #honeyvenom #fanfiction

26 notes · View notes

eponastory · 2 months

Text

Alright here we go!

Azula: Netflix vs OG

Let's start off with OG first.

I guess it's safe to say she is the Cersei Lannister of AtLA. She is a character we love but also hate. I love her to bits, but I hate that she is just so conniving and cruel.

She is very well written and wonderfully voiced by the awesome Grey Delisle. She's just a well put together character that has a lot of personality flaws.

But she is also a victim, which I'll explain more about in a moment. But first, we have to look at her motivation in the OG show. Her motivation is personified in Zuko. He is her antithesis, which is represented by the color of their fire bending. Azula is naturally talented and well versed in fire bending where Zuko was not. She knows she is superior to him in that way. This drives her motivation to be the apple of Ozai's eye in a manner of speaking. We see this in the show when both siblings have to prove themselves to their Grandfather, Azulon. Zuko fails while Azula is praised. This pits the siblings against each other which we see portrayed differently in the Netflix Adaptation.

Moving on to her sneakiness and her takeover of Ba Sing Se. Where Iroh failed, she conquered. She did it decisively and in less than two weeks (I could be wrong on the timing, but this is the general consensus I see). Once again, she proves she is superior. But why does she have this idea of superiority? It's because she has been raised to believe this. It's been repeated over and over again through her entire childhood by her father, who was also taught this and so on.

I wish I could analyze everything, but others have done it better.

Now, let's talk about her mental breakdown. This is where I have a little concern on how it was portrayed in the show. It was... a little sudden, but bound to happen. The way it was shown was absolutely the way a mental breakdown can happen if the problems leading up are not addressed. All of Azula's life, she had been groomed by her father to be the perfect heir. At the end of book three, we see Ozai leave her behind. This is the straw that breaks the camels back in a sense. Ozai sees love as a weakness, and Azula loves her father, which is why she works so hard to please him. All he sees is a successor to him, and maybe a possible threat later on. There is only Ozai in this relationship. Azula sees this now, and it breaks her. He gives her the title of Fire Lord, but it's essentially worthless now because she still has to answer to him. It's what she wanted. However, she is still under Ozai's rule as he made a more superior title for himself.

It was a blow to her ego.

Now she is seeing her mother because she had always wanted her mother's love, but Ozai was the one who kept that away. He saw how Ursa's influence on Zuko had made his son weak. He corrected that with Azula. Let's be fair and say that daughters tend to idolize their fathers (coming from personal experience here), which is not bad in most cases, but it's really bad when dealing with a narcissist. That's why Azula breaks. And it's heartbreaking because we learn she is a victim of grooming.

Now, on to the next part.

The Netflix Adaptation

The mental breakdown has already started in the first season.

The signs are there, and it's glorious.

Ozai is actively seen pitting his children against each other. He keeps mentioning how Zuko is the one who found the Avatar, which is only fueling Azula's fire. Her anger is going to lead her down the road to hell, and it's going to be more chaotic than in the OG. Like I don't have much to say about it now, but if season 2 and 3 happen, it's gonna be fun.

I am a huge fan of seeing the slow cracking of the mask. So we will see how this goes.

While she is still conniving, Ozai sees it and throws Zuko in her face to edge her on. It's wonderful and as I said in my analysis of Ozai, he is a shit father for doing this. Why? Because it's all about him. He does not care and he is only in for his endgame.

Geeze, I went on forever with this. There are way better commentaries on this, but I'm way too lazy to go on and on forever. I have a story to write, and apparently, I'm doing a relationship analysis on Mai and Zuko next.

It's on my list of things to do.

#there is so much to cover with Azula that i may have to write an entire story for her #characters i love and hate for 500 alex #ozai is a horrible father #avatar the last airbenber netflix #avatar the last airbender #atla #atla azula #princess azula #fire lord ozai #azula #zuko

18 notes · View notes

lightphieric · 1 year

Text

Over the past two and a half years, I have amassed a huge backlog of games and extensively catalogued the ones I’ve played. It started out as a way to keep myself sane during the pandemic, but since then it’s basically just become the way I play video games. I’ve recently reached the huge milestone of 200 games played using this system, and to commemorate, I thought a list of “Each Zero Escape character as one of those 200 games” would be fun! Let’s go!

(FYI, I kept a tier list and for this post, I’ve only drawn from games I’ve ranked B, A, or S. So yes, these are all recommendations! I played some of them via itch.io, but all of them are available on Steam)

Ace: Contradiction

An FMV detective game with elegantly simple mechanics: you do exactly what the title says and it’s very satisfying. Special mention goes to the pair of shady businessmen you encounter who totally don’t brainwash, kill, or kidnap people wink wink.

Snake: Dicey Dungeons

This is almost entirely based on Light’s codename meaning “snake eyes,” but it was between this and that game you play by blinking so this seemed like the more appropriate choice. A cute and cheeky roguelike deckbuilder played by rolling and assigning dice. The fact that its gameplay is built around basic arithmetic gives me 999 vibes in general!

Santa: Tell Me Why

A choice-consequence adventure game from the makers of the first two Life Is Strange games (LIS2 my beloved, don’t @ me). Two siblings who can communicate telepathically revisit their childhood home and the events leading up to their mother’s death. One of the siblings is a trans man so if you are as Correct about Aoi as I am you know where I’m coming from.

Clover: Chicory: A Colorful Tale

The game where the world is a blank coloring book and you get to fill in the lines. Tells a lovely and relatable story about art, burnout, impostor syndrome and mentorship, although the main reason I’m assigning this to Clover is because it’s just plain adorable. The relationship between Pizza and Chicory also reminds me of her and Alice.

Junpei: Lamplight City

Perhaps aligned more with ZTD Junpei than any other iteration, this is a steampunk point-and-click about a disgraced detective who is haunted by his late partner and can’t rest until he’s avenged his death. The best part of this game is the protagonist’s awesome wife, who, unlike Akane, will actually help you with puzzles sometimes.

Akane: Elsinore

You play as Ophelia. You are stuck in a time loop and must find a way to save yourself and manufacture a happier ending to the tragedy of Hamlet. This is basically tied with Celeste for the title of my favorite video game of all time, and I was delighted to find parallels between it and Akane’s story.

Seven: The Darkside Detective

I love detective games so I had a wealth to choose from when it came to the cop character. I ended up going with this game, a standard point-and-click that is a detective game in name and theming only but is still a lot of fun. A pastiche of Twin Peaks and X-Files with some of the funniest writing I’ve ever seen in a video game, it captures Seven’s zaniness and willingness to believe in the supernatural.

Lotus: Beglitched

A glitzy and girly game full of computer lingo and in-jokes that go over my head. Thankfully you don’t actually need to know a lick of code to enjoy it because the hacking minigames all take the form of really unique and strategic battles.

Kubota: Underhero

An RPG with one of the most wonderfully convoluted premises ever. Put simply, you’re a villain’s henchman who must play double agent when you’re magically chosen to be the next great hero. Kubota certainly doesn’t fit the “secret hero” angle, but a whole game about an underling seemed appropriate.

Sigma: Milkmaid of the Milky Way

A point-and-click (can you tell I love those?) in which a dairy farmer’s favorite cow is abducted by aliens and she must sneak onto the spacecraft to rescue it. Now, that absolutely delightful premise could work with just about any VLR character; I don’t want to spoil the game, but something else does happen that rings very close to Sigma’s story specifically.

Phi: Downwell

I really expected Phi to get a platformer, with all her soaring and kicking! Downwell is kind of a platformer, I guess, although really it’s more of a free-fall simulator and most of the things you land on die. You can either shoot enemies with your “gunboots” or step on them to kill them - killing things with your feet, very Phi.

Alice: Paradise Killer

A quirky open-world detective game where everyone is impractically hot. I’ve truly never felt more like a detective than I did while playing this game, but you can’t talk about it without talking about the style. The world is bizarre, the music is all vaporwave, and again. You, the investigator, are improbably sexy, and so is every suspect you interview.

Dio: Cult of the Lamb

The cute and cozy roguelike where you start your own cult and smite nonbelievers. I feel like I don’t really need to describe this one further, y’all know it already.

Luna: Cloud Gardens

An art/puzzle game about helping plants reclaim an abandoned, decaying urban environment. Has both a story mode which I completed, and a sandbox mode I didn’t try in which you can just grow gardens to your heart’s content.

Quark: Carto

A really cute puzzle game where you manipulate the very ground you stand on using a map. The story is about a little girl trying to find her grandmother, so it’s very Quark in both aesthetic and story.

Kyle: Hades

The mythological roguelike about hating your dad a whole lot. I don’t feel like I need to explain this one further, either, as everyone has talked about it at length including me on this very blog, but I’ll have you know that I’ve played it for hundreds of hours and it’s solidly my third favorite video game of all time.

Carlos: The Rewinder

This is the most recent game I’ve played; I haven’t finished it yet and I can’t even say for sure that it will be top-tier in the rankings, but I’m really liking it so far and since I wanted a puzzle game about time manipulation for Carlos it was between this and Braid. And as far as I know, The Rewinder doesn’t have a creator with the absolutely rancid vibes of Jonathan Blow.

Sean: 2064: Read Only Memories

A visual novel where you solve a mystery in a cyberpunk world with the help of the world’s first fully sentient AI. The AI is a precious baby baby baby; if you love Sean, you will love Turing.

Delta: Evergate

A gorgeous puzzle platformer about the afterlife and a fraught sibling relationship that transcends time. I loved this game so much that I 100-percented all the collectibles and time trials, which is something I never do. Made me want to call my brother.

Eric: Boyfriend Dungeon

Of course, my much maligned fave gets paired with a game that also gets a lot of undue hate but nonetheless has my entire heart. It’s a dating sim for all of the thirsty simps out there that’s also a roguelike about literally attacking your inner demons and fears with crazy impractical weapons. This choice has nothing to do with a certain Boyfriend Dungeon character who gives all Erics a bad name.

Mira: Carrion

Going through all these games I was surprised that this was the only real “play as the villain” power fantasy on the list. You might have heard of this one described as a reverse horror movie; you play as a biological weapon, or an alien, or something, that has escaped containment and it’s just about eating scientists and soldiers in an explosion of pixelly gore.

Diana: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

I won’t be all coy like every other reviewer: this is a video game, a point-and-click about a sentient computer program who really does not want you to use it. It’s really funny and full of meta-references, but the reason I chose it for Diana is because this game is actually a tragic love story not unlike SigDi. I’m not joking about that.

And there you have it, twenty-two great games, one for each Zero Escape character. This is just a silly post but, sincerely, check some of them out if they sound interesting to you!

#zero escape #zero escape 999 #virtue's last reward #zero time dilemma #999 spoilers #vlr spoilers #ztd spoilers #video game recommendations #not gonna tag every game and every character that would be insane

38 notes · View notes

mythgirlimagines · 7 months

Note

ultimate florist Sonia hcs?

I love that for her

The flora in Novoselic was different than in Japan, more unique in her opinion. But Sonia still loved seeing all the wonderfully beautiful flowers the entire world had to offer!

She was very well-versed in flower language, to aid others in completing bouquets with the correct messages. After all, one shouldn’t send flowers of goodbye to a new love!

More than just flower language, she knew how to care for many different kinds of flowers. And if she didn’t, she put in the right research to learn how! That never took much effort.

Even with the effort she put into caring for flowers, it was like she was born with a green thumb. She’d never killed a single flower she was growing, even by some accident.

She loved seeing the smiles people had when they received flowers from someone they loved. What feeling could be better? Even if they were strangers, she was glad they were happy.

#answered ask #anon #headcanons #talentswap #ultimate florist sonia #sonia nevermind #danganronpa #sdr2

5 notes · View notes

dorky-zuko · 6 months

Text

Nature is a system. A gross, gooey, nodule-filled system, one which exists for the sole purpose of facilitating the continuation of itself.

The purpose of life is to be lived.

And whether it is lived here on earth, or in the cold, dark recesses of space, or on the surface of a remote alien planet, it is always lived the same way: with infinite complexity. The heart pumps blood to every single one of the extremities. Infinitesimally small nerve endings in the eyes fire millions of chemical signals back from one end of the skull to the other, in order to induce correct and accurate representative hallucinations inside the brain. Food goes in one end and comes out shit on the other. If you think any of the fictional biological or xenoecological processes depicted in Scavengers Reign are unnecessary or over-the-top or "too gross," then I have bad news for you buddy. Your fleshy human body is already just as grossly interconnected, it's just that it all happens on the inside where no one can see. And taking that complexity out of the body and putting it on display out in the open where it can be seen is one of Scavengers Reign's greatest tricks.

It's all so wonderfully, entirely-needlessly complicated. In one scene, a character needs to get down from a high place, so they ride down on a hang glider. Only it's not a hang glider, it's a uniquely designed alien creature, with a complex, varied, and detailed biology that allows it to function as a hang glider for the purposes of our character. What ultimately transpires in this scene is a character traveling from one place to another. Character designers and concept artists didn't need to spend time developing an wholly unique alien creature to fill this role, and animators didn't need to spend time creating an entire set of animation for it. The character could have just been written to use a hang glider. Even more than that, the ground didn't even need to be un-leveled. The character could have just walked the distance. It would have saved a lot of time and money for the production. But instead, at every turn Scavengers Reign is written in such a way as to indulge in only the utmost creativity possible. How totally refreshing.

And this creativity and complexity of design isn't just for fun and novelty, it can also be profoundly beautiful. It can speak to the creativity and complexity in our own lives, amplified and exposed and expressed with sometimes painfully incisive accuracy. While we live our lives across years and decades, some insects pass their whole existence in the span of a single day. On Vesta Minor, in the heart of an enormous, horizon-spanning grove of densely interwoven black trees, a tiny, humanoid creature lives her whole life in the span of a single moment. She lies inert within a bud, awaiting a time that the petals will finally be drawn back. And when they are and she awakens, she wearily sets to work, diligently laboring to facilitate the continuation of her system. Like a bee pollinating a flower she toils within her bud, aging before our very eyes, until at last the deed is done, the future of her system secured. And as a reward for her efforts, she withers up into nothingness and is buried. Ursula, our POV character, can only look on in wonder, the same as us.

All the labors of a life distilled down into a single moment, the ultimate purpose laid bare. Nature is a system, and if it takes one hundred years to do its job, or a solitary, infinitely-fragile instant, in the end it's all the same.

Perhaps I don't want so clear a metaphor as that, even if it is truly beautiful. Perhaps I'm not quite able to bare it.

#scavengers reign #dorky zuko post #a review thingy #it's a good a show #didn't even have time to talk about the gay robot in my review tho #pls watch it

5 notes · View notes

aroaceconfessions · 2 years

Note

I'm very lucky in that my friends never question my identity or anything I say about how aromanticism and asexuality affects my life and way of thinking. Like, I've just had genuine conversations about how queerness affects platonic relationships, even when one is not a-spec because being queer will, by nature, bring you to put into question societal norms regarding romance and sexuality, including amatonormativity, because no matter how hard you try those norms will never fully fit for you.

Never have any of my friends questioned my identity because, if this is how I say I feel then how would they know better than me ? Even in the few discussions on the matter I've had with friends of friends or classmates in my later years of highschool no one ever dismissed my identity or feelings. Even when I essentially came out to my entire English class during a presentation in my second to last year of highschool I received nothing but words of support afterwards and even caught a couple of my classmates (those with a better grasp on English) correcting the assumptions of others who hadn't understood all that I had said but who immediately accepted it.

And, to be frank, although I'm incredibly grateful to have such wonderfully accepting friends and to be surrounded by understanding people (well, at least when it comes to people my age) I can't help but wonder if they would have questioned it, were I to not be so confident about it.

When I talk, my friends listen and take anything I share that is knowledge rather than opinion as gospel truth. Because I'm the one who info-dumps and has a good memory, because I'm the one who figures out the solutions to math problems first. They think I'm 'the smart one' so they believe me when I say something. A lot of my classmates do, too, even if they don't know a lot about me beyond that 'smart kid' image.

When I came out to my English class, I was nearly shaking, my voice was caught up with emotion even if I didn't let myself cry. I refused to move around because I wasn't sure my knees would continue to hold me up if I did. I don't know if I would have gotten through it all, had I not been able to focus on the supportive smile of my squish who was sitting in the first row.

But what if I had wavered ? What if I hadn't sounded so sure of my identity ? What if my stress in the face of mass coming out had come off as uncertainty ? What if I wasn't 'the smart one', who couldn't possibly be wrong ?

Would they still have believed me, then ?

#aromantic #asexual #aroace #arospec #acespec #aspec #aroacespec #arose #queer #friends #friendship #coming out

24 notes · View notes

deuterosapiens · 10 months

Text

It is twelve-twebty-three in the morning and I have "finished" House of Leaves. When I woke up, aware that this would be the session where I put the book aside, I became incredibly aware that there would be no way to talk about it without those dastardly quotes. It feels disingenuous; though it is correct, to a degree, to say that I've reached the point where the Record is done, and all that is left is appendices.

So, the entire Navidson Record has been read. Johnny's footnotes. The Whalstoe Letters from the appendices. I skimmed over the bits and pieces at the end, and followed the notes to whichever references came up, as they came up.

I did not read any of the poems, and there are likely other nifties that I've missed. Describing the final pages of this thing feels a bit like talking about completing in video game terms. You can go for one-hundred percent, or you can just experience the story and shelf it later. For this reason, I say I "finished" it, but didn't finish it (no quotes).

Preamble (pre-ramble?) aside, House of Leaves.

Early this morning, while speaking with a co-worker, I came up with what I felt was a satisfactory description of my feelings for the book: it's a bit like drinking absinthe. There's a very strong reputation to the spirit, just as this book has a reputation: both are mysterious, typically described in elite terms. And so you have this preconceived notion (House of Leaves is impossible to read, it will drive you mad, it's not for the faint of heart; absinthe is hallucinogenic, you'll experience an otherworldly psyche trip), and you build it up in your mind to be this major experience, this huge thing, and you're left a bit disappointed because it's nothing like what everyone tells you it's like.

But House of Leaves, unlike absinthe, at least left me with a pleasing taste in my mouth (actually, I'm eating a bag of græy Skittles, so it might be that). Once you realize what the book is, what it's trying to do, it becomes incredibly straightforward. Er, relatively speaking.

Johnny Truant's sections, in the beginning, did very little for me, though I found them far more desirable than any of those moments where Zampanò drags about physics (describing echoes, the chemistry of the house's walls). This guy is screwed up. I thought Raskolnikov needed therapy when I read Crime and Punishment. Johnny is broken in a way that I was so not ready for. There are not enough drugs in the world to fix this man.

So, there are a few beautiful moments here that just really caught me, and I regret a bit not flagging them. There's a line whose formatting I will not try to replicate, when discussing the potential history of the house, where colonists are wandering, starving, that was wonderfully unpleasant (reminded me a bit of The Jaunt, "It's eternity in there.") There's the story with the dog that I could have lived my life without reading. Halloway's madness was also wonderful to watch unfold.

It's been described as both a love story, and a horror story. Stephen King compares it to Moby-Dick. I feel like there are right ways to read it. And there are wrong ways to read it. Realistically though, it's far more approachable than I would have suspected, and quite a bit more pleasing. There are enter sections I skip when I re-read Notre-Dame, and I believe if I ever read it again, I'll take a similar approach. Perhaps I'll go through the entire book and only read Jonny's footnotes, or I'll only read Zampanò's manuscript. Perhaps I'll skip the Whalstoe Letters and see if reading through without that insight affects my experience.

At the end of the day, or beginning, early morning, whatever, it's an enjoyable read. A lot of work went into crafting this strange tome, and I'm glad I've given it the respect it deserves (you know, once I stopped letting Tears of the Kingdom distract me and actually read the bloody thing).

After this though, and coming off the back of my Philip K. Dick reading, I think I need something normal. Without any substance abuse, or madness, or any thin græy veils masking and disguising what's real. I had intended American Prometheus, but I don't think I'm really up for that. I need something light, a palate cleanser. I recently purchased a beautiful copy of The Neverending Story. Perhaps that will make for a good re-read.

Gives me an excuse to jam out to Lamahl.

#house of leaves #reading #rant #tired rambling #book review #i was not emotionally prepared for this

3 notes · View notes

m-moon-writing-haven · 11 months

Text

{preview of an ongoing ff series, draft part of Chapter I}

{once i am approved, i will move the full fic onto AO3.}

“Mirin, love- you’ve barely touched your mead! You should know how unacceptable such a thing like that is.” The tavern head’s gruff tone rang out over clashing glasses and booming laughter as she ran both hands across wiry red locks spilling from a loosely-tied string bun, “An’ you told Mama you weren’t lightweight, yet here you are making a fool out of me. Come on lad, put those papers down!”

She would linger over her patron’s slumped shoulder until inevitably he would pause, giving an indifferent single nod before lightly tipping his halfway-emptied cup. Truth be told, “Mama Mire” (Rose Gywn, although running Moores Head for ten years or so had seen village residents gift this wonderfully beaming woman with the title) could hardly focus on pouring frothy, bubbling drinks. There’d been something rather off about this one. In other words, he’s far from her standard passing faire: wandering traders, “happily” married men seeking nightly refuge from their wives. Scholarly types are practically unheard of, much less scholars sporting much fancier garments.

“Mama, these are-” Came the young man’s immediate resisting retort.

He had, as any other, taken to her motherly presence quite immediately. Although someone of Mirin’s stoic, diplomatic frame would never verbally admit such trivial details, at least not under sobriety. “You’re gonna strain your neck, darling,” Mama scolded, resting one calloused hand across his left shoulder. While everyone else was bathed beneath flickering amber lighting or swapping drunken tales of forest expeditions gone horribly awry, Mama’s newest patron distinctly chose to distance himself from any possible interaction, gathered up in dust ridden corners like a bitterly rejected hen burying their sorrows in feed buckets. Had he been expecting another-? Despite only knowing the traveler’s name through her ledger, she did still hope another name would find itself penned in.

“Important letters, or so you’ve said. World-ending or not, they can wait until morning!”

“...if you say so, I suppose.”

Mirin briefly let his head drop into his hands, subtle exhaustion taking hold. She wasn’t exactly miscalculating here; every muscle screamed bloody murder several times over. Some could easily speculate, based on tone alone, she’d abandoned some long-forgotten instructors’ position in favor of reining in unruly guests but that time, for her, is lost. With a sharp huff, she wretched several roughly torn, crumpled parchment pieces from the rickety wooden table, carefully lacing them back together. “An’ I do. You should be socializing, Mirin! For Gods’ sake, go sit somewhere else!” If you do not wish to lose your head (or any other crucial parts), you do not argue with Mama. Family letters confiscated, the young Nilfgaardian ran through several possible choices– early turning in will be utterly impossible given that this highly consistent racket until at least an hour before midnight’s toll would surely, easily travel upstairs. Then again, since he was apparently remaining until further posted notice, lingering among locals wouldn’t exactly do harm. Rented rooms facing outside don’t seem as peaceful, now do they?

Political knowledge never held any weight against faulty logic,

That's what his father's lectures meant.

Tonight, however. Something was different about tonight.

“Hold on, Mama. Could you?” He gently inquired, slowly unbuttoning the heavy, intricately laced coat keeping his entire upper body hostage and she gathered it without hesitation. While no clothing article bore any distinctive Empirical ties or tones, he felt himself more at ease. Better safe than dead, correct? Underneath lay a loose, thinner shirt, buttoned sleeves pulled up slightly past slender wrists.

Delicate skin patterned by three distinctly circular burns.

Ah, all-observant Mama left several items behind, much to the man’s amusement. He lightly chuckled before gathering up his books, leather-bound tomes carrying a heavy scent of cedar and old-age. Despite lacking printed titles, he’d memorized every last tome’s contents back to front and then some. Wyvern tales, overly fantastical stories where human men drove sharpened blades through towering, lumbering beasts. He did again consider retiring, only pausing when sudden atmospheric shifts cut swiftly into amber-tinted air…

People had fallen completely silent.

Mirin’s pointed ears perked, gaze shifting.

They’d all gathered their mugs onto an empty table, seemingly drawn toward an unfamiliarity, yet… comforting disposition. “Oi, excuse me,” he murmured. The same dwarf smith he’d noticed shuffling cards earlier that morning returned knowing glances, stained overalls clattering as the man sidestepped enough for another body to tightly squeeze past. You’re not from around ‘ere, the other’s smug smile read. Shut up an’ listen, child.

So he does.

He who’d never breathed outside air stood stock still. Who is this Geralt of Rivia? The name sounded somewhat familiar, clawing at the back of his mind— but that doesn’t matter now. Draped in snugly-fitting clothes, dark locks combed back so… He didn’t quite comprehend the lyrics, but the way this crimson clad bard’s fingers effortlessly flittered across his lute strings made Mirin’s breath catch. He found himself leaning forward, hands clasped tightly together, having forgotten his precious tome, abandoned pastime cast astray among dirty cups and discarded food scraps. The Bard’s voice is smoother than silken honey. It echoes through the rafters, projecting so beautifully. Never did any sound bind him in strings, tightly ensnaring every inch of his willowy form.

“Toss a coin to your Witcher

Oh, Valley of Plenty…”

He’d been staring during the entire performance, stoic gaze melted away and just like that, everything became normal again. Activities picked up once more, pints were filled, coins were tossed to the Bard whose name Mirin desperately desired. I’ve only brought Florens; how dreadfully idiotic I am. Then again, Father wouldn’t want me throwing coins away for useless entertainment.

Am I? No, I can’t be.

My head hurts.

#jaskier #the witcher #witcher fanfiction #witcher fandom #original character #geralt #dandelion #jaskier the bard #jaskier fanfic

3 notes · View notes