#a hopeful ending isn't unequivocally happy

[not-poignant]

OMG, I literally found your Astarion/Raphael fic yesterday, desperately looking for something like it. So happy someone else had the same brain worms as me XD

I was wondering if I could pick your brain a bit about what kind of direction you think you will take the fic? I was wondering if you had any plans in your head or if you are just following the vibes so to speak.

Especially with Raphael being in the pairing, I wondered if this is more of a "It turns out they are actually good for each other" kind of thing or more of a "Astarion has to find out what his life is going to be now/get over some things and Raphael will enjoy every second of making him squirm" kind of thing.

In any case, I am looking forward to reading more, thank you :)

Hi hi,

So I guess answering this would kind of be talking about really end-game spoilers, but I also don't have a plan for this story beyond Astarion/Raphael, and 'hopeful ending.'

(I mean I do have more than that, I just don't know how much of that I want to reveal at this stage, when it's only chapter 5, and this story could easily be over 40 chapters long - there's a lot of potential for change and growth that could alter the trajectory of the relationship in a lot of different directions.'

What I will say is that:

I do not consider Astarion giving into a regular non-consensual situation and just accepting it and making painful peace with it, a hopeful ending type situation. Agency is important to me in my characters. Even if he one day decides to voluntarily submit to scenes he doesn't love - that would at least be a choice. Anything done while under contract with difficult consequences will not be where the hopeful ending happens.

It's an Astarion/Raphael story, therefore the hopeful ending will be an Astarion/Raphael ending. That's just how my brain works. It will not be a 'they break up and THAT'S why it's hopeful.' However, the end may not have a conventional looking relationship. And I've written unconventional endings in relationships before (like Stuck on the Puzzle)

For me, a hopeful ending (as opposed to a happy ending) means that we have to have confidence in the idea that Astarion's life will continue to improve and get better even after the story has ended. There's now enough evidence that he has enough enrichment and potentially for happiness in his life, that he won't downward spiral like he has in the same way again. This means he needs - more support, more healing, healthier avenues for communication even if the relationship isn't healthy overall all the time/every second, and some pretty big personal realisations about what he wants in life. Hopeful ending is both 'better than where we found him, but also genuinely, when most people think on the last chapter, they think 'he's got some ways to go in healing, but I really think he's/they're going to be okay'' not just physically, but also emotionally, spiritually, mentally.

Those are the things I'm happy to reveal because that's how I feel about almost all of my hopeful endings. That's what that means to me.

I do think Raphael and Astarion can actually be good for each other, but I think we're missing huge pieces of the puzzle as to why that's true. Because we're missing so much of Raphael's post-death story, because he's deliberately hiding it.

But we'll find out more soon. At some point, High Inquisitor Verillius Receptor will visit, and then we'll find out a lot more, lol.

(Also yeah this story will be long, easily I suspect around 150k in length as a baseline - we're on an emotional journey folks! Sometimes the growth will be healthy, sometimes it'll be negative, we're going in all the directions lmao).

#asks and answers #palmarosa #thespectaclesofthor #raphael x astarion #astarion x raphael #bg3 raphael #bg3 astarion #hopeful ending #hopeful endings #a hopeful ending isn't unequivocally happy #we know he'll still have trauma #maybe he'll even still have grief about things in his life #(of course he will - his life is fucking tragic and running from it constantly isn't great for him) #it's not like 'marriage and kids' and kind of stereotypical happiness #it's more like a sigh of relief #and a feeling of confidence and trust #if i can get those feelings in the readers #like 'oh wow we made it oh he's on such a good path now' #that's the aim #and frankly i don't think any ending where astarion has been brainwashed #into being a happy captive #is a hopeful ending for astarion #even if raphael *is* kinder to him #freedom/agency matter sdaflkfjas #especially for astarion #but he will spend most of the fic under contract

[talkdutchtome]

Glitch- chapter one

pairing . . . max verstappen x reader / mason mount x reader )

summary . . . when mason mount finds out that his assistant has been harbouring feelings for him for years, he makes it clear he doesn't feel the same way. but once he sees her become closer with formula 1 world champion max verstappen, he realises he may have underestimated his feelings towards the girl he has now pushed into the arms of another )

genre . . . angst )

song . . . glitch- taylor swift )

warning . . . tbd )

series masterlist . . . available here )

a/n . . .i wanted to thank everyone for the amazing feedback i got on my teaser. i hope the first chapter isn't too much of a let down after how long i made you all wait, i promise the wait for the next chapter won't be as long. also max will be in the next chapter )

Y/N was completely and unequivocally in love, the kind of love that made you feel like you were 14 years old in your room crying to Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong With Me’, the kind of love that hurt more than it felt good. When she moved to London, desperate to get out of her sleepy town in the English countryside, and applied for a job to be the personal assistant to somebody who was then a relatively unknown professional footballer; she could have never imagined that this is where she’d be 5 years later. Y/N had joined Mason Mount’s team just as he had joined Derby County on lone and due to the fact that the man had just moved to a brand-new city away from all of his friends and family, the pair quickly bonded and developed a relationship that became more than one of an employer and his employee; they actually became friends. So, when Mason moved back to Chelsea at the end of his loan and they gave him the chance to upgrade to an assistant with much more experience working with premier league football players, he turned it down; likewise, when Y/N was scouted by another footballer who was offering more money and better hours, she also turned it down. They were happy. They were friends, maybe even best friends. Why then did Y/N consistently feel like something was missing? For months she couldn’t put her finger on it, couldn’t understand why she wasn’t completely happy, it wasn’t until one day when they were sat having one of their infamous movie nights that she understood what it was she was feeling. Despite Mason living in a penthouse apartment in the middle of London worth millions of pounds, their movie nights always took place at her flat, a much smaller one-bedroom place in, to put it bluntly, a much rougher area of the city. They would sit together on her sofa and put on a movie, (usually a cheesy late 90’s to early 2000’s romcom). And one day, she found herself watching Mason rather than the movie; she watched him watching the movie intently, giggling at the funny bits, tearing up at the sad bits, and she realized that she loved him.  

Every so often she thought that she should maybe put some space between herself and the footballer, to try and move on from her feelings for him, but then he would do something that would reel her back in, something that would make her think that maybe she had a chance. He would fall asleep cuddling her on the couch, he would dance a little bit too close to her at a party, he would seek her out after winning a big game and hug her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. But then she would overhear him telling Ben and Reece about his latest conquest or she would get a text message from him 15 minutes before he was due to come to hers for a movie night cancelling because he had a date. To put it plainly, she simply just did not know where she stood with her best friend. Despite sometimes feeling like there could be a chance of more between them, she never said a thing to Mason, valuing their friendship too much to risk it; so instead she just went about her life, following her best friend and the man she loved around the country, always hiding how she truly felt, or attempting too at least. There had been a few times when she was spending time with Mason and his friends, that one of them would catch her looking at Mason. There was one time when Ben actually asked her about it, asked if there was anything going on between the two friends, she had told him that there wasn’t, of course, but she could tell from his facial expression that he didn’t believe her. Truth be told, a lot of their mutual friends were worried about the two of them. 

So, when Mason and Y/N walked into the club together despite living in completely different areas of the city, Ben and Reece exchanged a look, wondering how their teammate could be so clueless. The rest of the night they watched the way the pair interacted; they watched the way that Y/N would look up at Mason with such love in her eyes whilst Mason looked at her like he would look at any other friend. They were caught between a rock and a hard place, they wanted to tell Mason what they knew so that he could stop leading her on, but they didn’t want to betray Y/N by telling her secret. Even though she was Mason’s friend more than anyone else's, they both really liked her and wanted to protect her from the hurt that her situation with Mason would inevitably bring. But when they caught sight of Mason sat with his arm thrown around the shoulders of the girl, periodically leaning in and whispering in her ear, they knew that they needed to saw something; and when Y/N walked up to the bar and got chatting to somebody on the way back, Ben knew that this was his opportunity. 

“Mason why did you and Y/N come in together, aren’t your places on opposite sides of the city?” Ben asked his best friend already knowing the answer to his question. Despite the fact that Y/N worked for Mason as his assistant, the pair were close, very close; so when they arrived to the party in the same car, Ben didn’t have to wonder too hard about the reason why. “Oh, she was at mine for a movie night last night and she was too tired to go home so she stayed.” Mason told his friend matter-of-factly, not seeing what the issue was or why his friend in front of him looked so annoyed. Even if you took away the widely inappropriateness of an employer having his employee stay at his house, there was the small issue of the fact that Y/N was madly in love with Mason and had been for years now. As much as she tried her best to keep it hidden, the only person in their circle that didn’t seem to know about it was Mason himself. Ben and Reece had a conversation a few days before, discussing whether they should tell Mason as from an outside perspective, even if it was unintentional, he did seem to be leading Y/N on; they both knew their friend extremely well, so they knew that he didn’t have the same feelings that she had for him and they knew that if Mason knew the full story there are aspects of his relationship with her that he might change.  

“Look mate,” Ben started, unsure of exactly what to say but knowing he needed to say something. “I think you should know that Y/N has feelings for you” Mason’s brows furrowed, completely taken aback by his friends' blunt honesty. “What? No are you sure?” he asked him, truly hoping that he was mistaken or playing some kind of prank. “I’m 100% sure, it’s obvious to be honest with you mate. You can see it in her eyes when she looks at you, she really truly loves you. Having her stay at your place and being that close to her, it’s going to make her think that someday you two could be more than friends, so if that’s not the case then you really need to reconsider doing things like that as it isn’t fair on her. Y/N’s a good girl, you know that she deserves to be happy.” Ben’s words make Mason’s head spin. Y/N was more to him than just his employee, she was one of his closest friends, but he really didn’t see her as anything but a friend. “Oh, fuck Ben what should I do?” Mason asked with his brain completely frazzled at this point, 15 minutes ago he was feeling great, he had just had a great day with one of his best friends and then then he came to a party to blow off some steam after a very stressful week, but now it seemed like everything had come crashing down. “I think you need to speak to her, make it clear that you value her friendship but you don’t see her as anything else, let her down gently.” he told Mason who simply nodded before starting to walk towards the girl in question who was at the bar talking to one of the other players girlfriends., the second Ben realized what he was trying to do he put a hand out to stop him from going over there, causing Mason to look back at him with a puzzled expression. “Maybe telling her right this minute isn’t the best idea though mate, considering you’re in public. Not to mention the fact we’ve all got that trip planned for the Spanish Grand Prix in a few days, maybe you should wait until after that. If things don’t go well that could make the whole trip so awkward.” Ben pleaded at his friend, but he could see on Mason’s face that his words were going in one ear and out the other. “Fine go, but be nice to her and you better not ruin the race for everyone” he relented, taking his arm off of his friend and letting him walk towards the unsuspecting girl.  

“Hey Y/N, can we talk?” Mason asked with no regard for the fact that she was already deep in conversation with somebody else. His bluntness combined with the pained look on his face made her recognize instantly that whatever he wanted to talk about wasn’t likely to be lighthearted. She hesitantly followed the man as he gestured for her to come along to a quieter part of the bar. Before she could ask what was going on, Mason had already asked her a question that made her stomach sink - “Do you have feelings for me?” She had absolutely no idea how to answer his question, of course she knew the answer; she had been pining after him for years at this point, but she just wasn’t ready for him to know that yet. “Will you please just answer my question?” he almost demanded, his harsh tone making her freeze. Looking up at her best friend with tear filled eyes she muttered the last thing he wanted to hear - “Yes”. Her voice was so faint that it didn’t come out as anything more than a whisper but to Mason it was the loudest thing he had ever heard. Y/N had imagined having this conversation with Mason so many times, imagined herself finally telling him that she loved him but in all her fantasies, in all her daydreams, he had never flinched like he had done just now. “Mason I -” she started but stopped in her tracks when she saw tears forming in her best friend’s eyes. “How could you do this Y/N, why would you ruin our friendship like this?” he asked her in genuine disbelief. Mason watched the girl stood in front of him stumble over her words, clearly not expecting to be asked that question, before putting her almost full glass down on the table and running out of the bar. 

In all of the daydreams she had had where Mason found out she loved him, he didn’t react like that in any of them, even the ones where he told her he didn’t reciprocate her feelings he was never that harsh, never that heartless. Y/N was nothing if not a realist, she truly didn’t expect him to come to her and tell her that he had always loved him too but she at least thought he would try to be nice about it, try to protect her feelings as much as possible, tell her that no matter what they would always be friends. Instead, he basically told her that their friendship was over, and she was the one responsible. She didn’t even have to wonder how Mason found out about it either, she knew Ben knew and she had also seen Mason and Ben talking moments before he came storming over to her. More than anything she just felt stupid; stupid for believing that somebody like Mason would ever love somebody like her, stupid for putting one of her most beloved friendships on the line over a schoolgirl crush, stupid for running away instead of explaining herself to him.  

“Y/N, are you okay” she heard a voice come from above her, breaking her train of thought. She was sat on the floor outside the club, staring into space clearly lost in thought, looking certifiably insane. Looking up she saw Reece James stood before her. There was no question that Reece knew what had happened but even still Y/N wasn’t sure if she should talk to him about it. Whilst she was closest to Reece out of all of Mason’s friends and teammates and she would consider him to be a friend, he was still Mason’s friend before anything else. There was also a good chance that anything she does tell him would be repeated to Mason. As if he could read her mind, he spoke again “You know you can speak to me right, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m sorry that Ben told him by the way” he sat down on the street next to her. “It’s okay I don’t blame him; I understand that he wanted to protect his friend” her words were met with Reece shaking his head, “No actually I think he wanted to protect you” he said causing her brows in confusion. “He tho- We thought that the way he acted with you was a bit unfair, doing things that were giving you hope that you could be more than friends. Mason’s not a bad guy and he wouldn’t do that stuff on purpose, so we wanted to make sure he knew what he was doing.” Y/N looked up at the man's face, his serious expression laced with sincerity; she could tell that he was telling the truth and that he and Ben truly cared about her and wanted to protect her from hurt. “Thank you, Reece, make sure to tell Ben that I’m not annoyed at him for saying anything.”  

“Of course, I will. I know we only know you though Mason but you’re our friend as well okay, remember that.” He said before he threw his arm around her pulling her into a hug. “So what do you think is going to happen now?” he asked her. “Oh I really don’t know, he seemed pretty mad at me. I think I’ll probably leave the Grand Prix this weekend though, give things a chance to cool off”  

“What no you can’t do that, you love F1 and it’s your first opportunity to go to a race, you can’t miss that because of him. Worst case scenario, go and stick with me. You can’t give up those sweet paddock passes, what if you meet a cute driver eh?” he said jabbing his fingers into her sides playfully teasing her in an attempt to get her to smile. “I’ll think about it” she said, attempting to fight the smile on her face but to no avail. “You going to come back in or are you going to head home? We probably look crazy sat out here like this” he asked her and she paused thinking about it, she thought about going back in and trying to talk to Mason, to try and fix everything. After a moment she shook her head “No I think I should give him some space” Recce nodded understanding her decision before walking over to a cab and giving them her address along with enough money in cash to cover her journey three times over. “You get home safe okay” she nodded before thanking him for being to kind to her tonight. Just before she had the chance to close the door he spoke again “Y/N wait, are you going to be okay? I could call someone if you need?” Again, she found herself smiling at the care Reece had shown her. “No, I’ll be okay, I always am” 

Tag list-

@nightlockcornucopia @jaydensluv @girlytots19 @formula1mount @alwaysclassyeagle @aundercover @sofifiia @dessxoxsworld @lpab @lorarri @thelovehypothesis @torrie421 @ironmaiden1313 @celesteblack08 @glow-ish @urfavouritef1girly

#f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #formula 1 #max verstappen #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x y/n #mason mount #mason mount x reader #mason mount x y/n #football x reader #formula 1 fanfic #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 x you #formula one x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fics #footballer x reader #footballer x y/n

[chirpsythismorning]

My favorite combination of endgame byler proof dates back to the promotion for season two (bc of course it does)!

About a week before s2 premiered, David Harbour did an interview, and deadass the only thing that makes any sense in regards to what he could possibly be referring to here, is endgame Byler:

"We’re talking about ending Stranger Things at either season four or season five. I know there is an end to the story. It’s a very beautiful end. We’ve already been laying out the pipework. There are easter eggs in season one that you won’t get until season four. You’ll look back and say ‘we’ve been seeing this story the whole time, we just haven’t realized it’. To me, that’s wonderful.”

Now, one could try to argue that David was referring to Will’s sexuality/feelings for Mike here, and I would agree, at least partly, because David’s wording sounds an awful lot like what Noah said recently in his interview with Variety:

"I mean, it’s pretty clear this season that Will has feelings for Mike. They’ve been intentionally pulling that out over the past few seasons. Even in Season 1, they hinted at that and slowly, slowly grew that storyline. I think for Season 4, it was just me playing this character who loves his best friend but struggles with knowing if he’ll be accepted or not, and feeling like a mistake and like he doesn’t belong. Will has always felt like that."

Where it gets complicated though, is that if David was referring to solely Will sexuality/unrequited feelings in this interview, then it doesn’t really make sense for him to frame it as ‘wonderful’.

But, it is important to note that David was talking about the ending, not the beginning of the end, which is what s4 ended up being. His assumption back then, was based on his knowledge of the ending, and how long he hoped the show would go for them to close off that story.

S4 obviously wasn’t a 'beautiful', nor 'wonderful' conclusion to Will’s story arc involving his sexuality/feelings for Mike being built up since s1. So, even if that’s all David was referring to, we are still yet to see the payoff.

This is where the damning proof combo comes in...

Most of you probably know, but as promotion for s2, Spotify collaborated with Netflix for official playlists dedicated to each of the ST characters. It was said that these playlists were specialized and unique to each characters traits.

But especially when it comes to the first song on each of these playlists, almost all of them are instantly recognizable as to why we can assume they chose that song, for that specific character, to start off their playlist. And arguably, even for the most casual of viewers.

For El it’s, Papa Don’t Broach. Pretty self explanatory.

For Will, it’s Should I Stay or Should I Go. Again, self explanatory.

For Mike, it's Smalltown Boy...

To those who don't know, Smalltown Boy (1984) is an unequivocal gay anthem about a young, gay man in the 80's who experiences homophobia and alienation in his small home-town, only to leave (run away) by the end, in order to be happy.

The music video leans even more blatantly into this narrative. Here it is beside this shot of Mike in 4x01 (one of the very few POV shots we got from him in s4, might I add), and it fits quite well with the Smalltown Boy agenda...

To be clear, this isn't just some song the queer community loved and so it turned into a gay anthem overtime. Because, yeah, there are definitely some songs that lyrically just feel like they could be queer (despite not intentionally being), and so the gays sort of claim it and it gains even more meaning and importance over time. However, that is not the case here. This song is undoubtedly one of the most intentionally gay songs of the 80's. And a heartbreaking SYNTH one at that!!!

If the hints for Will were intentional back then (confirmed), then it’s highly likely Smalltown Boy being the first song on Mike’s official playlist, may just be one of the many Easter eggs pointing to the fact that Mike has also been gay (and in love with Will??) this whole time.

Also worth mentioning that when Finn was recently asked about M*leven's relationship in season 5 (the ending), he had this to say;

"I don’t know, I’m really interested… I don’t know, I’m interested kind of like for the end of the show kinda in general (…) Who’s gonna stay in Hawkins, who’s gonna leave. Who’s gonna try to find a life outside. Is there even gonna be a Hawkins? I don’t know. But yeah. I’d be interested to see if Mike stays in Hawkins, or tries to find a life outside of his town. And also, you know it’s hard to tell, like obviously with Eleven and his relationship, but I hope they find, you know, happiness."

When they make-up after fighting in 4x04, Mike tells Will that Hawkins isn't the same without him. After literally listing off all of their friends, basically separating them from Will, "They're great... but-" sort of confirms to us that no matter what Hawkins has to offer, without Will, it's not the same to Mike. Which means if Will isn't going to stay in Hawkins at the end (he won't), Mike probably wont either.

TBH, Will and Mike both having feelings for each other since the beginning, and ending up together, fits a whole lot better with: ‘we’ve been seeing this story the whole time, we just haven’t realized it. And I think that’s wonderful’, than an unrequited love story does....

And the fact that all of these easter eggs, for both Mike and Will, started picking up more prominently after season 2, makes the Duffers whole "what is s2?" act right now even more funny...

#byler #stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things 5 #stranger things theory #stranger things meta #stranger things spoilers #stranger things 5 theory #mike wheeler #will byers #smalltown boy agenda

[acupofqueercoffee]

“The moon that chases the sunflower”

Lady Lesso x Female Reader

Request by @anonymous

Hi, I really love your writing style, you're so talented 🥹🥹 I was wondering if you could do a lady Lesso x reader in which reader is already in a relationship with lesso and she's kind of innocent and still a virgin but lesso isn't aware of that so, whenever things become heated between them, reader backs off because she's insecure and she's scared that once lesso finds out about this she's going to break up with reader. When it happens again Lesso confronts the reader and once she finds out what the problem was she's extremely soft and understanding with her and tells her that she's going to wait whenever she feels ready but then it ends with their real first time. If you can make it extremely soft and fluffy, with Leonora being a bit goofy and extra gentle to make reader more comfortable. Thanks in advance, and sorry if this request might seem dumb 😅😅

awwn thank you so much! o(>ω<)o your request is not at all dumb! i’m so happy that you like my writing enough to send something in. sorry for the delay tho (this is to all the ppl whose requests i’ve yet to finish ꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ) anywho, i hope you’ll find this satisfactory dear anon.

───────────────────────────────────

Some instances in life are nothing short of mysterious. One such instance includes that of a sunflower, ordinary except for her deep devotion not to her creator, the sun but to the beautiful, enigmatic moon. To the little sunflower who, since birth, has followed the sun, it is not the sun’s bright golden beam, but the moon’s silvery shine that truly fascinates her the most.

Every day, she chases the sun as it is her duty, soaking in her golden warmth, all the while longing to be enveloped in the silky coolness of her beloved moon. Every night, in a sea of sleeping sunflowers, one stands silently awake, drawn towards the moon like a moth to a flame. She admires from afar the moon’s otherworldliness; charming, curious and unequivocally out of her reach. She envies the stars that surround her beloved moon, watches with a melancholic tilt to her lips as they entertain her dearest with their dazzling twinkles and allures.

Yes. That’s right. Rejoice. Rejoice, for her happiness, after all, is my happiness.

On the very same night that the sunflower has quietly, dejectedly uttered her terrible confession, the moon declares her love for the sunflower. Although it has come as a shock, it has been a delightful shock nonetheless, and crazy in love, the sunflower unreservedly believes her.

You are the sunflower, and the moon, your lover: none other than the wicked and the wonderful, the evil and the enchanting Leonora Lesso.

She is nothing but a delightful bundle of warmth, you learn rather quickly, always kind and considerate despite her cool front and her sharp tongue. She is sweet in the way she cares for you, soft in the way she caresses your body. Her love for you is genuine, unconditional, unmistakably conveyed in her every little gesture, but unfortunately, it is the very fact itself that breeds insecurities.

The woman whom you have been enamoured of after all this time has also been in love with you. Is it not a little too good to be true?

What if she finds out that you are not what she wants, that you are not what she believes to be you? What if she decides that your lack of experience makes you a bore? Worst of all, what if she comes to realise that it has always only been a passing fancy and nothing more? Too many questions and too little courage to seek answers, due to which many a belly-butterfly-inducing moment has been ruined by deeply-rooted doubts that occasionally rear their ugly heads.

A caress of her lips can effortless reduce you to your knees, but every devastatingly delicious moment that has you craving more and more of your lover is always tailed by what-ifs and what-nots. In the face of doubts, you have foolishly done what you do best: cowering away from the one thing that you desperately desire. As absurd as your excuses are, and as frustrating as it must be for her, she has, thus far, released you without so much as a complaint. Understandably, her forbearance can only extend so far, and with another little tug from you, it reaches breaking point.

“I know that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea but alas,…” The smile that touches her lips appears fragile. Meanwhile, disappointment laces the voice that finds your ears as the tentative pad of a thumb traces the bone of your cheek. “…it did not occur to me that my own lover could find me undesirable.”

Leonora Lesso, undesirable? What nonsense is this woman talking?!

You express your denial together with an adamant shake of your head.

“You’re sorely mistaken. I-”

“Don’t.”

The beautiful face in front of you crumples as if you have physically maimed her. Fingers flee your face, silver nails leaving soft kisses along your jaw while a pair of dark stilettos carry your lover two steps farther away from you.

“I can understand if you don’t want me, but do not take me for a fool.”

When you advance to close the distance between the two of your bodies, she rejects you by taking a step back. It is the delicate feel of your touch on her face that makes her hesitate, foxy eyes falling shut as soon as your fingers crawl onto the chiselled plane of her cheek.

“Oh Leo, how can I not desire you? You’re my dream come true, everything I’ve ever wanted and so much more.” Graceful digits, like a snug bracelet, catch your wrist whereas a face, like that of a touch-starved kitten, nuzzles your palm.

“Then, why? Why do you keep denying me?”

“I’ve never desired anyone else in my entire life the way I desire you. It’s a beautiful, irresistible feeling that becomes progressively powerful, but on the other hand, it does not come without challenges.” Your face seeks solace in the little dip of your lover’s throat, voice but a whisper when you divulge your secret. “I’m scared, Leo.”

“Tell me. What is it that you’re afraid of?”

She responds to the tightening of your grip on her coat by enveloping you in her arms. They hold you with so much care and delicacy, and yet, at the same time, her touch is strong and dependable, instantly offering you a sense of comfort and security. Emboldened by the new-found courage, you establish eye contact before answering resolutely.

“Failing you.”

“You foolish girl, don’t you know that I’m hopelessly in love with you?” Your chin is gingerly plucked between a forefinger and a thumb. “As long as I can have you in my arms, I care not for the rest. If it is time you need, I’ll merrily wait for you until you feel ready.” The pink blossom of a smile is sweetly pressed onto your lips, followed immediately by another cottony-soft kiss that is dropped atop your nose.

A beat of silence.

And then, you speak.

“I think I am. Ready that is.”

“Are you quite certain?”

“Have me, my Leo. I want you so bad it aches. Please have your way with me.”

“Delighted to oblige.”

She scribes poetry on your body, the stars that you have envied so much kissed into the very swell of your breasts, clusters of nebulae exploding beneath a mouth so wicked that with every suction and nibble, the dizzying twirls of her tongue has liquid lava pooling in your gut.

Once she finds satisfaction in her craft, her signature stays as a violet bloom on your hipbone. Coaxing one leg over her shoulder, warm lips ghost along the inside of your thigh while her sun-soaked strands softly kiss your knee.

The sunflower has spent the better part of her life gazing longingly upon the moon, always convinced that her devotion is, and will remain unrecognised for evermore, but presently, it is her dearest magnificent moon who has her glittering gaze fixed upon her, admiring the sunflower as though she is a goddess worthy of worship.

Your lover has one arm twined round your waist with her other hand locking around the swell of your thigh, soft flesh yielding beneath her fingertips. Meanwhile, in the sultry green of her eyes, you catch a glimpse of yourself; cheeks sanguine, lips swollen, and drenched in love bites, you look a salacious mess.

“Leo, I-ngh!”

Upon feeling the unexpected flat of a tongue between your folds, your lips fall open in a gasp. Fleeting though the touch is, the vibration from the moan that follows thereupon has your thighs quivering around a head that wears maroon mane like a crown of flaming rubies.

“Oh sweetling, you taste devilishly divine.”

Your eyes are greeted by a cheeky grin, the face of your lover the very picture of a sly fox.

“If it soothes you, my charming princess,…” After carefully unfurling your digits to release the death grip on the bedsheets, she guides your hand to her head, allowing your fingers to sink into her hair. “…do with me what you will.”

Lips stamp a dewy kiss onto your thigh before a mischievous smile finds home on them.

“Bon appétit.” So she drawls in that low sultry timbre, that tantalising tucks on your heartstrings.

You may suppose that it is her consuming you, but little do you know, she is in fact consumed by you, both body and mind, as every little mewl, every little curve of your back, every little curl of your digits amongst her strands, and every little flutter of your walls colour her downright untamed. Despite her irresistible hunger for you, she is nothing but soft and controlled in the way she handles you.

She is your devoted puppet and you, her beloved puppeteer as she dances to your every demand, always heedful of your body’s responses.

By the time your heels dig into her muscled back along with your back arching off the mattress, she doubles her efforts, seeks the little bundle of nerves and sucks it into her mouth, intent on safely escorting you to the highest of ecstasies.

It does not take much longer than a twirl and two of her tongue for you to see stars, thighs trembling helplessly as you fall apart in your lover’s embrace. The eruption of copious juices spills into the awaiting mouth of your lover, and ravenous, she laps it up down to the last drop.

When she goes to lie down beside you, you cosy up into the curve of her body, and all too happily, she receives you, cradling your naked waist as lips pepper warm delicate kisses along the sweaty plane of your forehead.

“You were so good for me darling. Simply exquisite.”

In the gentle glow of the moon, swaddled in her loving arms and drenched in rhapsodies of praises, the sunflower thrives.

────────────────────

#lady lesso x reader #lady leonora lesso x reader #leonora lesso x reader #lady leonora lesso #lady lesso #leonora lesso #character x reader #charlize theron #charlize theron x reader #the school for good and evil #sge movie #sge #sge netflix #insecurity #fluffy #soft smut

[quordleona03]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

I was tagged by @marley-manson and @ofmdmash - so I will tag:

@topshelf2112-blog @remyfire @allcanonisrelative @jaelijn @amrv-5 @mycenaae @muirmarie @thebreakfastgenie @uncomfyfriendly @rescue-ram @blistersonmefingehs @fieryphrazes

(but don't feel obliged unless you want to play, and if you'd like to play, consider yourself tagged!)

How many works do you have on Ao3?

253.

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

1,393,465.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Primarily (and in more or less chronological order): Blake's 7, Star Trek: TOS, The Professionals, Highlander, Star Trek: tng. MASH, House, and The Fugitive (the film with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones). I have also written fanfic for MacGyver (the 1985 TV series), the West Wing, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Quantum Leap, , and various literary fandoms as an exercise in pastiche.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

The top three are MASHfics: Tuttle, All We Know, Go, tell them in Sparta - and four and five are both Star Trek fics (both Spock/McCoy): A Man of Integrity, and Through A Glass, Darkly.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh, that's a difficult question. Possibly it's ""I would not be you for a kingdom" " - my Villette slash story: though in that case I was just using the angst Charlotte Bronte handed me in the novel. Likewise with the Blake's 7 story Cruelty Has A Human Heart, and the Good Omens story Let this cup pass from me, and the Highlander story Day and Night But, even what with stories where the angst is built into the source material, I think the angstiest ending is that of the long series The Games. (I considered MASH in Drabbles and concluded that as I wrote the 80 or so drabbles in the sequence individually and out of order, it doesn't really count.)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

That is an extremely difficult question to answer. I like writing in universes full of angst. Many of my stories have hopeful endings, which make me happy, but I think the unequivocably happy ending is the MASH story Responsible Indefinitely For Each Other’s Welfare. Because there they are, together, at the end of a long life: and Hawkeye is still the same delightfully annoying trickster as ever.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Sometimes. Usually for ridiculous reasons. "I hate that pairing!" Well, don't read it then. "So-and-so isn't gay, he's too masculine!" - Oh, honey, let me introduce you to some big strong bears, you'll love them.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I would say mostly no, but occasionally yes. I believe sex scenes should be essential to the plot and full of character development, so I rarely write just pure smut. But I did write a Stargate Atlantis story, What I Tell You Three Times Is True, which was purely written as a sex scene, after a giggled conversation with a friend who was into Stargate Atlantis.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I love crossovers, both the reading and the writing of them, and have written dozens. I would say the weirdest one I ever wrote was a West Wing / Star Trek:tng / Drop The Dead Donkey crossover, No More Overtime.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not as far as I know.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, sometimes. It's a fun thing to do with friends. I co-wrote the More Deadly MacGyver/Highlander crossover with Jakrar, sparked out of a paragraph she sent me in an email.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

"All time" - I don't think I have one. I've loved and still love Avon/Vila, Spock/McCoy, Bodie/Cowley, House/Wilson, Holmes/Watson - but right now my favourite ship is definitely Hawkeye/Mulcahy.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The Buffy/MASH crossover. I just don't see where I'd find the time.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, perseverance, imagination, angst.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Heterosexuality. Certain words which I always misspell unless I look them up, each time. Not understanding what is going on in people's minds, see 'heterosexuality' - also racism, sexism, and classism.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Mais c'est impossible. I prefer to write in English but signal that this is a different language being spoken. Bene, plerumque. I had to think about this a lot when writing ASL dialogue for All We Know.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Blake's 7.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Usually the one I am writing at the moment, which is to say All We Know - and the one I want to finish: A Hawk Through the Mirror. But I think technically one of my best is Friend and Stranger - a story set three years after the events of the 1993 movie The Fugitive, written in form as much like the movie as I could make it, full of sudden POV changes between Gerard and Kimble and attempting to get the emotional intensity and chemistry between the two of them that we saw on screen, down to a satisfying conclusion.

#ask meme #my fanfic #i am writing #Blake's 7 #Star Trek #Highlander #The Fugitive #Buffy the vampire slayer #house md #west wing #stargate atlantis #holmes/watson #spock/mccoy #Macgyver #crossovers #good omens #quantum leap

[miranda-mundt-art]

Wow, so I just finished reading Muted. I loved it. I was doubtful at first because, I don't know, I'm just overly-critical for no reason, but as the story went on I really fell in love with the characters and the storytelling. Muted is great.

So, you don't have to respond to this (I know many creators don't view "shipping culture" among their fans too favorably), but I am so curious to know- what is the state of Avaline and Raum's relationship?? I mean, maybe it's obvious, but I can't really tell, I'm not sure why.

Is Raum more of a close, supportive friend to Avaline? Or is their relationship more of a romantic one? Have you thought of their future at all? I am so curious.

Also, (sorry to ask so many questions, feel free to disregard any of these if you do choose to answer) how come Raum was willing to get so deeply involved with Avaline and her family drama? Is he just a kind spirit?

Oh, now I have lots of questions about how the demons work in your world, but I'll cut myself short for now. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and thank you so much for putting in so much effort to create such an impactful and visually appealing story, I've actually been inspired quite a bit while reading Muted.

Just once again, thank you so much! I really admire your work.

Thank you for giving it a chance and I'm very glad you ended up liking it!!!

For your questions: I consider them to be in a relationship. TBH I didn't want to show them to be traditionally kissy/lovey in a romantic way because 1. Avaline isn't really ready for that and 2. I'm aroace and so is my wife, we don't kiss and we don't even sleep in the same room but I love her totally and completely. I feel like ... you know. Fandoms, from what i observed, only seem to feel validated in their ship when there is a Kiss involved like the happy ever after of a disney movie. That's what signifies to people 'this is a couple', but tbh I think kissing is gross LMAO so while I am fine doing it with the trio I wanted avaline/raum to be outwardly more like how chase and I are.

And this isn't a knock at your question - just an observation that I found funny when i see people react to Raum and the way he helped out.... I dont' think I had any comments about how Dendro dove head first into helping Camille's family drama - or they didn't think that it was weird that she was so interested in helping. or at least not as any. To the point where multiple ppl thought that he was somehow Avaline's reborn twin because they didn't understand how he'd care any other way (he's not. he's older than avaline lol)

Demons are summoned basically based on what the summoner's deepest needs are. Avaline needed the truth of it all but she also needed someone to support her and be in her corner unequivocally. Raum wanted to be that, because he's a nice dude, but also with his abilities he could see how badly she needed that. also, dendro/raum know the likelihood of them actually getting hurt/killed by humans is next to none. (See - dendro getting her arm ripped off and then just sticking it back on) So there is a security in them knowing that they'll come out of this alive no matter how crazy it gets lmfao hope this.... helps? LMAO or at least gives you some more to chew on hahaa

#m answers asks #long post

[rennebright]

It's been almost a month since my grandma passed away and it all still feels so... surreal.

It's not like we hadn't seen it coming, she was 86 years old and 3 years into chemotherapy, up until they discovered the tumor she had always been a strong and working woman but the surgery coupled with the beginning of the pandemic left her with almost nothing to do on a daily basis. And I was well aware how active and energetic she was, I was by her side for these last 5 years, first working under her and then directly doing her work when the chemo had affected her to a degree she couldn't properly focus, and towards the end being by her side if she needed anything, accompanying her to the hospital almost weekly, while free, Mexican healthcare isn't exactly efficient on its patients, it was mentally and physically exhausting simply going there but she never gave up hope, her body never gave up.

So after spending a good 5th of my life always by her side, now not having to worry about her is such an oddly empty feeling, I'm glad she's resting in peace, these last few months were particularly rough, but it's empty not going downstairs anymore to see her napping, calling me over on clear nights to look at the moon, hearing about her childhood and relatives that i never even met, while I wouldn't call her a cheerful person exactly, she loved things dearly, she didn't look back in melancholy, but rather glad that whatever happened was part of her, for better or for worse, fitting for someone that lived through so much, always helped by the people around her.

I thanked her for all she did for me weeks before we even knew about the tumor, I readied myself for the day it'd happen, expected myself to cry, but I have yet to shed a single tear, it's not that it didn't affect me, clearly, but rather knowing that she lived and died as painlessly as she'd have wanted, the last conscious words we heard from her was that she wasn't in pain, that was such a relief, I simply hoped that'd carry over until her last breath.

When a doctor told us that she was in a natural comatose state and she couldn't reason or react as she'd want to anything going around her I knew it wouldn't be long, all my family did. Her siblings came together for one last goodbye, shared some words of gratitude, one last hug, and one last goodnight. I remember holding her hand abd comforting her, she'd throw her hand around, even punching me a couple times, it was clear that even if she was ready to go, her body wouldn't give up. But fittingly enough, she passed away in her sleep that night.

Funerary services went without issue, she had had the foresight to arrange all of that beforehand, so it was seamless, but once we came back home it's all felt so at peace yet eerily chaotic, she might have not left her bed for much for the last few months, but the house feels unequivocally colder.

I don't know where I was going with this, I guess I made that post asking for help back when the tumor was detected, maybe I felt the need to tell this, leave a record about her.

She turned that 6 month life expectancy into 3 years of fulfilling effort and perseverance, 86 years as a mother figure for more people than she ever realized, came to terms with mortality and how long she could stand, and yet, her body never gave up.

A picture of the last day I feel she was genuinely happy and content, new year's 2023, surrounded by her family and a night before her condition overall took a turn for the worse.

#cw death mention #dropping this in the middle of the night because I want to go back to regular posting tomorrow lmao #personal

[greenchlorine]

Just my 2 cents about Misaki's character and the resolution of her arc:

While I understand why some people would feel like it's not satisfying that she ended up dying despite having resolved herself to change and wanting to own up to and make up for her past mistakes, I thought it was a realistic end to her character.

She was someone who made a lot of mistakes and was selfishly pursuing her own idea of happiness for a big part of her life. Always putting herself first, a naive country girl who came to the city in hopes of making it big.

Getting into a relationship with a married man, who was part of the mafia and a human trafficker, and continuing abusive relationships after that because she wanted to accomplish her dream of becoming a singer and thought those men could help her.

That's a pretty sad character arc in itself, but then she also got cancer and had very little time to live. Pretty bleak. I appreciate that she resolved herself to change. But life isn't that simple. Sometimes that resolve comes too late. Your past mistakes and bad decisions will come back to haunt you.

Also, the disastrous butterfly effect of her choices: When she decided to send Miri off to her dad, she basically started this whole chain of events, that choice being the catalyst of Miri being found by Kazuki and Rei, which led to Rei's father ultimately putting a hit on her child and Kazuki.

So Misaki being senselessly killed was actually very real in that it was absolutely pointless. We don't get pretty arcs resolved and tied up with a bow in real life. I'm surprised they had her emotionally deliver some lines to Kazuki before her death. It would've been even more gut-wrenching if she'd died just like that, no last words or anything.

She was condemned either way due to her disease,but the shackles of her past got to her first.

Buddy Daddies is actually quite grimdark when it gets serious. :)

Personally, I don't particularly want my stories to be HFN/HEA or unequivocally good vs evil, good guys always win, which is why I actually appreciated that they went there instead of giving her a full redemption. That would've felt weaker to me.

So, to conclude, I really liked Misaki as a character, thought she was very realistic and complex, and wish it was a longer show so they could spend a bit more time developing her. Thanks for reading if you got this far!

#buddy daddies #buddy daddy spoilers #misaki unasaka #my thoughts

[purlturtle]

⭐

Thank you for the ask, Anon! I appreciate the chance to rhapsodize about one of my fics!

I'm gonna go ahead and pick my magnum opus (so far!) And Now You, aka the high school AU. (If this isn't one you wanted to hear about, no worries, just send me another star and I'll do a different one! :D Or, send me another star if you LIKE me going on about this one and would like to hear more about a different fic!)

So, let's do a kind of director's interview/stream of consciousness thing, shall we?

What inspired the fic?

The movie The Half Of It, tbh! I loved it; I liked the Cyrano storyline, and I thought it would work really well for Myka - but! Record scratch, freeze frame: The Half Of It is very much more than "just" a high school/coming of age movie; it's also about the experience of second generation immigrants, and that isn't really in the books for our Warehouse team. There's a tiny little bit left over from the original premise, in this sentence: "[Myka] can almost always tell if a couple will work out or not." - I'd originally thought that Myka would have this ability, and be able to tell Pete that he would stand no chance with Helena - but as it turned out, that wasn't necessary, because no Cyrano storyline in the end!

Did I plan it to be a teenage pregnancy story from the beginning?

Not quite, but the question came up pretty quickly. I wanted Helena to be a foreign (British) student, and there aren't a great many storylines that would have given me this. Helena moves here with her parents, Helena is sent here by her parents (for a benign reason, such as this school being particularly amazing, or for reasons of punishment or at the very least neglect), Helena is sent here by someone else than her parents (for example after losing them, so she's being sent to live with relatives), random fluctuations of the space-time continuum. I went with the punishment reason, and from there to "she's being punished for having had sex and being caught", and then from there to the daughter that Helena had in canon, after all, wasn't all that far. And then I remembered that there already was a high school AU that had a pregnancy storyline in it, and a really great one at that: Auxiliary Room 13, by @nerdsbianhokie! Which I loved! So I reached out to them; I didn't want to impinge or step on their toes or anything. They encouraged me to go on, and I did! Still grateful for that, TBH!

Did I think/anticipate that it would become so successful?

I'd be lying if I didn't hope for it, in terms of a lot of people liking it and being made happy by it! But, mostly, I write for myself - and this particular fic absolutely and unequivocally kept me sane during the first part of the pandemic. The Half Of It came out in April 2020, so very shortly into the pandemic; my first ideas file is from May of the same year. I was done (yes, done, as in, the entire fic written and edited) by the end of August. Of that year. Twenty-twenty. 264K words. When I tell you I DIVED into that fic to the exclusion of almost anything else, I am not lying. Escapism, no, all-caps ESCAPISM, was absolutely my motivation here. Big time. And hey, I've never gone to a high school in the US. I've never been a teenager in the US or in the UK, much less in current times, nor do I know any. And hey number two, I know high school AUs, and teenage pregnancy even more so, are not everyone's cuppa tea - but also, by that time I did know that my all-time most popular fic was a kidfic. Did I worry about any of that? Not much; the first part more so than the latter. I always want my stories to be realistic enough not to break my readers' immersion. And then I started publishing it, and oh boy did it take off! And the comments were so, so wonderful.

Speaking of publishing it...

That's right - I realized as I was finishing it up that it was the end of August (almost exactly two years now!), and that since I had a very clear timeline for this entire fic (I wanted to get both the pregnancy parts and the parts about the academic year as right as possible), which started in early September, I could basically publish "in real time" - so the chapter with events that happen on September 4th would be posted on September 4th, and so on. I thought that that would be a fun style to read it (hey Dracula Daily!), so I went ahead and did that. Which meant that the story wouldn't go up all at once, but over the course of an entire school year, finishing up with [spoilers] at the end of May. The most chapters at one time was around Thanksgiving, with four chapters going up at once; the longest waiting time was early in the next year, between Jan 7 and Feb 14 (because hey, of course there was a Valentine's Day chapter, what do you take me for?). You know, what with September coming up again in two weeks, and Dracula Daily being so successful, I could do that again, come to think of it. Anyone interested, give me a shout!

And those rest spot notes, what's with that?

Hey, 264,777 words is A LOT. And for anyone catching up all at once, or these days marathoning it, I wanted to tell them hey, this chapter break? is a good moment to take a breather. Get hydrated, or go the fuck to sleep, relax your jaw, whatever. I saw those notes on another long fic somewhere, and I really liked the idea (yes, I'm the Mom friend, can you tell?), and so I put that in my fic too.

What do I think of this fic, and what do other people think of it?

I am SO hecking proud of it. Someone commented that they thought a lot of younger queer people, teenagers, could benefit from reading this as a help for exploring their lives/identities, and hey, that is the most amazing comment I think I've ever gotten. To think that not only did this reader enjoy my fic; they thought it would help youngsters deal better with life? Was so, so amazing to hear. But also, hearing from people who weren't really sure if they should read the fic because they weren't into the topic of it all that much, and then trusting me as an author, reading it, and enjoying it? Also amazing. I still don't really know if it was all that realistic, both in terms of pregnancy (because I've never been that either!) and in terms of American high school life, but hey, people like it, so that's good, right? I do think I got the characterizations pretty right, with Myka being as driven as she is, Helena being as reticent as she is, Pete being his usual self only more so, because they're all just on the cusp of adulthood, not in their thirties. And I am proud as all get-out about Warren Bering's arc here. And: there are several moments in there that I can so vividly envision in my head that I would love to see art of that - the prom dance under the glitter ball, Helena and Myka in the snow, the attic - if anyone feels called to creating some art for that, please I would be so, so utterly stunned and happy.

I think that's it! Thank you once again, Anon, for asking me, and I hope this was all you ever hoped for and more (I can't shut up about my stuff, I'm sorry!)

If you (Anon, or anyone else) wanna know even more, about this fic or others, here's the ask post; feel free to send me another ask!

#ask meme #fan fic director's commentary #And Now You #bering and wells #warehouse 13 #fan fic behind the scenes

[bacon-sandwich-of-dionysus]

Mandela Catalogue and the horror of not knowing 'why'

I'm gonna preface this by saying I impulsively scrawled this down on a whim- this is clumsy and prolly full of grammar mistakes. Sorry about that :/

I honestly have never encountered an analogue horror series that had an impact on me like Mandela Catalogue.

I'm a bit of an avid horror fan, so I am a little desensitised to the tropes, the scares and the stories. I think horror is actually quite a hard genre to write because it's very easy to fall into the formulaic way of doing things and also difficult to create a compelling story with the right amount of twists and turns, plus you're doing all this while also trying to actually scare people. Horror always seeks to make impact and because it's frantically firing rounds here, there and everywhere, it's really hard to hit the target.

This is where the Mandela Catalogue comes in... but I'll take a quick side to talk about another horror franchise so we can get a better idea of what the hell I'm getting at lol.

When the first FNAF game came out, I was enthralled by the horrific idea of dead children haunting animatronic suits, aimlessly wandering about in hopes of getting their revenge on their killer. The subject of the Purple Guy was such a massive topic way back when, that it was hard to avoid the character. Best of all though, it was hard to work out why he did it. Why did he commit such a heinous crime? What was he getting out of it? We didn't even know his name, let alone his personality, his reasoning or his face.

The mystery of 'why' was the biggest piece missing from the puzzle, teasing us at what we didn't know. And to add salt to the wound, what we didn't know outweighed what we did. 'Why were things they way they were? Why did the Purple Guy do what he did?' was what certainly frightened me back then.

An unanswered question is something I'll always find more terrifying. As humans, I think we're constantly wanting to rationalise everything- it's just who we are, we like explaining things away. So when someone or something commits an action out of the norm with no particular explanation, it frightens us.

'Why' is what made FNAF scary. And explaining that 'why' so elaborately has taken some of that horror away. Now, I'm still invested in FNAF and will always be happy to engage with new instalments, works and whatnot, but unfortunately, I'm not enjoying it as much as I used to because things have become so convoluted and entwined. Putting names to faces, family troubles and sci-fi concepts like Remnant, have kind of taken that grounded-horror-feel away from the original franchise. Now, that's not to say FNAF is a shadow of its former self, I just personally am not as into it as I once was, and I think that's because of the lack of mystery. I'm no longer asking 'why'. I'm more of just staring at the screen with knitted eyebrows as I wonder how the hell Fazbear Entertainment hasn't gone under already at this rate of innumerable scandals attributed to its name... maybe that company is just as stubborn as Afton, who knows.

Mandela Catalogue on the other hand, has exploited our fear of the unknown excellently. I am genuinely terrified of the main antagonist of this series, a.k.a Satan (though it is up for debate as to whether he is Satan, an alien or even fallen Gabriel but I'll be going along the lines that he's the devil).

Satan has always been a fascinating concept to me, partly because I've always been intrigued by the idea of something so ungodly even its own creator isn't really sure what to do with him, but also because we don't really know his whole story. Satan is hardly mentioned in the Bible, he's kind of elaborated on in other scriptures but again, not much is known about him other than that he's the bad guy and he's not gonna win in the end because no one can withstand the might of God.

Mandela Catalogue, uses that fear of unequivocal evil compounded with mystery to make Satan terrifying. What I love about the series is we don't see much of Satan and we don't know why the fuck he's doing what he's doing.

All we know us that he's executing his plan and we're bearing the brunt of it. And that's frightening on an existential level.

He knows what's going on, he's doing whatever he's doing, he knows why he's doing it and we don't.

That's how you do horror like this. You don't tell your audience 'why'.

Now, we can try to give some reasoning, using reference to previous depictions of Satan and also the Bible itself to suggest that maybe he's taking revenge on God, or maybe that he wants to be God, or that perhaps he's jealous that Jesus is the new favourite and lashing out at him, but we can't definitively take these reasons as gospel (pardon the pun :P).

That's what's so scary, we don't know why, we can't explain this and because we can't explain this... we can't predict, we can't prepare and we can't understand.

Mandela Catalogue exploits our need for reason to create a villain so terrifying that he hardly ever needs to show up- we can just behold his work and dread.

#ah yes writing #writing #mandela catalogue #analog horror #fnaf #horror #args #alex kister #fear #existential dread

[mistresspandorawritesthings]

When I was in high school, in the absolute buckle of the Bible belt, someone I thought was my friend outed me as a "witch" (pagan). Word got around, and one day after lunch I was approached by a group of upperclassmen I didn't know. They were enormous guys, probably three of them, maybe more, I don't remember. But they were really upset that I existed. Guess they took "suffer not a witch to live" pretty literally.

They threatened me. Promised bodily harm. Wanted me to suffer, to be afraid. And you know what? I was terrified. I thought this was the day I learned what broken bones feel like. This was the day the bullying escalated and I went home bloody.

That day I'd eaten lunch with my actual best friend at the time, we'll call him "Sam" for the sake of the story. Sam knew I was pagan. Sam was methodist. Sam was my friend anyway. He took "God is love" very seriously.

Sam pushed me into a corner and stood in front of me and faced off with a group of guys bigger than him (and Sam was not a small young man), vastly outnumbered. He didn't run for help because he didn't think I had that kind of time. He made a decision that if these people were going to hurt me, they were going through him first.

I don't remember what he said to them, but it was firm, and it was definitive, and it was a warning. His courage surprised my would-be attackers and bought us enough time for the bell to ring and the crowd to force them away.

I'll never forget the way Sam looked at me after, put his hand on my shoulder, and told me I was okay. It wasn't a question, it was a fact. I WAS okay. Then he turned to the school resource officer (the cuddly name for the school cop) and said, "Where were you? You couldn't see Pan was nearly eaten alive? We were right in front of you." Sam shook his head like HE was the adult and was terribly disappointed in some idle child, then walked me all the way to class.

This is perhaps one of my formative memories. I think about it a lot, years and years later, about what it means to be brave and to be a friend.

That day my best friend installed my backbone. And I say that because the next altercation he helped me avoid was one in which someone harassed me and I came up swinging. Apparently I have an M.O. 😂

Sam and I lost touch over the years, as happens. Last I heard years ago, he finished college, got married, and had a beautiful family. I hope he's well, and I hope he's happy and thriving.

I'm still okay. I'm still an outcast and a misfit and a lot of things that hateful people think I ought not be, and I'm comfortable with who I am.. To Sam, getting between me and those bullies required no thought, it was just the right thing to do, and outside of a thank you, we never spoke of it again.

My point is... you don't always have to be willing to throw hands. You don't have to have a plan. You don't have to be the one getting targeted. When you pick a side, when you step between an abuser and the abused, you do so much more than protect their body. You show them unequivocally that they're worth protecting, that they don't deserve the abuse. You help them find their own courage because you lead by example.

And at the end of the day, the thing I remember about that experience isn't the faces of my attackers. It's Sam, his back to me, fists clenched, resigned to rumble if that's what it took.

There's a line from a Shinedown song (showing my age again) that goes, "All you'll ever be is the faded memory of a bully." I'm old enough to tell you this is true. Maybe not always, maybe not to the extreme, but it's true. Those boys could be astronauts now, but I don't know and don't care. They're just blurry shadows to me now. They don't matter.

[potatoesandsunshine]

okay this isn't from the ask list, but i'm curious about what you think about the ethics of the cobalt soul? :D

just to preface: i don’t have any of the campaign guides or newer artbooks - the only info i have to go off of is what we see onscreen in the show! so if some of this is answered in the larger lore, i might not be aware of it.

i’m super happy to talk about this!!! i have a lot of mixed feelings about the organization and this post ended up super long so i’m sticking it under a readmore. tldr the cobalt soul is really fun from a story perspective, but if you were a regular citizen of the dwendalian empire it would just be a big library you couldn’t go to, that spied on you. also what they did to beau is fucked up.

 on one hand, they’re extremely cool. warrior librarians who worship the (pretty obscure, wounded, hidden) goddess of knowledge and skill (and prophecy!!) is a deeply cool concept. all of the NPCs we’ve met from the faction are very interesting, yes even zeenoth. 

on a kind of personal scale, if we just look at ways the mighty nein have encountered the cobalt soul, they’re pretty clearly The Good Side of the various power structures in the dwendalian empire. they’re good because they do tangible things that help the group: we see monks do a bunch of badass stuff, dairon and tubo train beau, various archives do research to help with various quests, etc etc.

but even on this personal scale, what we know from the beginning of the campaign is that beau is not willingly a part of the cobalt soul and that they have sent people after her to bring her back. we learn that her father paid them to kidnap her, that they did so, and that she was not allowed to leave. to me, the fact that they taught her to fight doesn’t change that action at all. in ep115 beau mentions not knowing what she was joining when she got thrust into the cobalt soul in the argument everybody had about how to approach the tomb takers (argument is a strong word here it was like a small disagreement but that’s not the point) and i think that really highlights this point. beau is part of an organization that deeply wronged her and as she gains more power within it (can get a meeting with the head archivist whenever, can direct research even from a distance, etc etc) it’s important to me to remember that that wrong is not erased.

on kind of a broader scale, critical role isn’t a show that’s really interested in exploring questions of power for the most part, and when you have king dwendal (bad) and the cerberus assembly (very bad) and the cobalt soul sitting around a table that i’ve labeled “Dwendalian Empire Power Structure”, it’s really easy to position them as the good side. but not being one of two bad structures doesn’t convince me that this is a good one, just that it’s a different one. they’re an organization that controls the flow of information and that’s just something that i can’t look at and call unequivocally good. i don’t know if the high curators are good people, i just know that they have spies who are encouraged to go out into the world and discover truth, and i think that’s a pretty easy mission to twist (especially when you’re the ones who decide what truths are too dangerous for people to have.) they’re a little too... “it’s okay that we’re spies, we’re the good spies!” for me to be entirely comfortable.

obviously this doesn’t mean i... dislike them? i think the cobalt soul provides a lot of really interesting narrative threads, and i’m really interested in seeing how beau’s relationship to the organization changes over time. i just have trouble looking at them as The Good Guys of the campaign, even though i’m pretty sure that’s what the organization is meant to be. this is a fantasy world and has fantasy world standards for good and i’m sure at some points i’m reading a little too much into it, but there’s always this kind of simmering in the back of my mind that says “wouldn’t it be cool to have a game that was literally just city politics in rexxentrum” where the cobalt soul could play a much stronger role, but that’s not something i expect to get from cr so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

thanks for this ask! i’m sure you didn’t mean for me to write so much but it was fun to try and piece these thoughts together. it’s still a bit of a work in progress as i’m sure you can tell, but i hope it was an interesting one. feel free to send me more asks about stuff like this! i’m happy to talk about it, i really love thinking too hard about this show.

#answering asks #critical role #this take could be ice cold and if it is i'm sorry for inflicting it lol #it's just kind of how i feel about the organization based on what i know about it #i guess this is meta? i feel like i don't really do meta #Anonymous

[daydreamorama]

Tagged by @foxofninetales and @rose-of-tori

Rules: List the LAST lines of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

I actually have > 10 works! ahh 1 year ago I never thought I'd be a writer!

Before looking at my endings I'm going to guess that most of them have the word 'smile' in them.

After looking: wow I'm a lot more ... ambiguous in my endings most of them tend to be speculative (maybe, hopefully, etc). 0% ended in smiling. Also apparently if I think an ending is too speculative, I add and epilogue to 'prove' they got happy? (except that one sad not!fluff piece I wrote, and I hope nothing like that ever comes out my fingers again, it haunted me)

Fic Spoilers below!

1. Space Brigades

He bought three of them. He couldn’t wait to share them with Bai Haotian and Li Cu.

Ok I think for this one maybe the non-epilogue last line

Next Time. Liu Sang hadn’t been sure if they had wanted a next time. He did though.

Well No smiles here either, but happy speculative note!

2. A Lonely Road at Night in a Storm

“I know I want to find out, with you,” Wu Xie replied and Pangzi leaned through his window to kiss Wu Xie. Whatever happened, at least Wu Xie wouldn’t be stuck on this lonely cold road forever.

Well this was a depressing story (what happens when I try to write fluff) so the mere fact it doesn't end in tears is probably a win. (the original ending had something like 'he would just have to move on' which just made me too sad.

3. What to do About your Bondmate's Bondmate

He double checked, and was pretty sure he only had two bondmates, though something told him to not be surprised if he had a third. It was definitely not A-Ning though, which was the important part.

He would have to figure out what to do with his bondmates, but that could wait. Maybe he would even forget about them again before it became an issue.

Okay... another speculative/sad flavored ending... I'm sensing a ... pattern. and not the one I thought. (to be fair I was laughing when I wrote this end?)

4. Bondmates Can Help With Experimentation

He now felt like he could trust how he felt about other things that he hadn’t tried.

When they got home from the tomb he was glad that the hickey had already faded. Wu Xie and Pangzi didn’t need to ever know.

well another kissing-related ending, who knew... But finally something like the word 'happy'.

5. Life isn't a Rom-com

It took Pangzi far longer to fall asleep than usual.

Later, Pangzi would meet Xiaoge. At first there would just be lust and sexual attraction. Later though, later he would fall in love too.

I'm going to put this in the kissing and speculative buckets.

6. Bondmates are What you Make it

He got up and stretched and patiently waited for Wu Xie, Pangzi, and finally Zhang Qiling to hug him. He would never use the ‘L’ word out loud, or even in his own head, it had too many connotations that he was uncomfortable with, but he thought, maybe, this was what it felt like to care deeply for someone. He would cry if one of them died before him and that was enough for him.

Okay that was the epilogue to lets look at the last before that

Wu Xie wasn’t sure he understood and he still wasn’t happy about it, but he would try. For his bondmates. For Liu Sang.

Well another speculative/hopeful ending.

7. Space School

She conceded the point and nudged him to get back on the bed, before pulling the blankets over their heads and creating the perfect dark cozy cave, just the two of them. This wasn’t at all what she had imagined when she had thought about joining a space crew. It was better.

Still no smiles, but unequivocally happy so I'll take it.

8. A new Ship at Port

Liu Sang followed, with the sheet in hand. He looked at it again. Maybe he hadn’t messed this up. Maybe he could have what he wanted. He smiled down at it. He didn’t know what would come next and that was terrifying. He looked over at Pangzi, tapping on the steering wheel to some beat that was only in his head. He could have this.

Speculative/hopeful again.

9. Ships at Sea

Xiaoge knew this wasn’t the end, that they hadn’t suddenly cured Pangzi of his insecurities, but he hoped it was the beginning, and, moving forward, vowed to prove to Pangzi how loved he was. He stared across Pangzi at Wu Xie, who nodded in seeming agreement.

More speculation/hope.

10. Ships at Dock

He had already planned to stay, a compromise he was more than willing to make, but he now realized he wanted to stay for himself. Not just to reassure his boyfriends, but to be part of this moment, to know that they would be here, close as he dozed. So in answer he slid down the bed and grabbed a pillow, which he placed under his head. He laid on his back and crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. He felt Pangzi’s warm hand rest briefly on his head, the low rumble of his voice, before the bed dipped and bounced a bit before going still. He could feel Pangzi’s back just barely brushing his side, as he drifted off into sleep with an unusual ease.

Ooh I get to join the 'ending in sleep' parade!

#tag games #my fic #well I was very wrong about my assumptions