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morganaseren · 15 days

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Snippet Sunday (Arranged Marriage AU)

Tagged by: @blackjackkent

Tagging forward: @illusivesoul, @this-is-something-idk-what, @noeldressari, @chaosroid, and anyone else who wants to participate!

Pairing: Leliana/Niamh Cousland

Rating: Teen

AU: If You'd Cross An Ocean for Me

Note: Honestly, you could consider this scene to be a continuation to this one I posted a while back.

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Following dinner, Leliana found that the tent she was meant to share with her new wife had already been pitched up. It was domed in its design, and as expected as one of the leaders of the nomadic coalition, it was larger than many of the others that darted the valley. As La Louve brushed aside the tarp entrance to allow her through, Leliana couldn't help the sudden nervousness that settled over her as she wandered into the darkened space.

With their wedding ceremony and the feast that came afterward, the consummation of their marriage was, of course, to be expected.

Leliana was hardly new to sharing her body with another, whether for romantic intent or to satisfy a carnal curiosity. Despite the abruptness of their arranged marriage, La Louve had so far shown herself to be rather courteous--enough that Leliana wouldn't have been opposed to laying with her.

Still, after Marjolaine, Leliana knew all too well that the persona one presented in public could be so very different when behind the privacy of closed doors...

Before her thoughts could darken upon that memory, her breath hitched when she heard the snapping of fingers behind her. Her startlement had less to do with the sound but the fact that the act itself had instantly lit the candles that were lined in various locations within the tent. It brought a comforting warmth to what had been an unknown space to her.

Leliana could see the clean reed matting placed over the ground, providing a clear separation between the outdoors and one's personal sleeping area. Given how nomadic the Fereldans were, she expected the tent to be rather sparse, which was proven true. Save for a collapsible writing desk and chair along with the bags that held their clothing in the corner, the majority of the space was taken up by the pile of furs that Leliana realized was meant to be their bed.

She found that she had wandered over to it without truly meaning to, and as she reached down to touch a large, silvery pelt, she found that it felt just as soft and luxurious as she had expected. Looking over her shoulder, Leliana found that her wife was still standing at the entryway and hadn't bothered to close the distance between them. From the sheepish expression on the other woman's face, she couldn't help but wonder if La Louve was perhaps just as nervous about the expectations of their marriage as she had been.

Soft lips parted to speak, but before La Louve could voice a single word, a shout--a summon perhaps?--from outside had the woman frowning. In response, La Louve poked her head out of the tent briefly, and Leliana could just barely hear the muffled conversation outside. Before long, her wife flashed a look of apology her way. She didn't understand the words that followed either, but she also didn't miss the way La Louve gestured emphatically toward the bed before she left the tent entirely, her dark cloak sweeping behind her.

All in all, it was... not quite how Leliana expected to end her evening.

With nothing left to do, she began to undress, leaving herself only in her smalls before she tucked herself under the covers of the bedding. She couldn't help her sigh of relief as she sank into the soft furs, grateful for the chance to simply relax after such an eventful day.

An eventful month in general if she were being completely honest.

Exhaustion weighed heavy upon her, but she felt it polite to at least wait for her wife before succumbing to it. However, as the candles around her gradually lowered and dimmed, and with La Louve still nowhere in sight, lethargy settled more quickly into her bones.

A few minutes, Leliana thought to herself, barely suppressing a yawn. She could rest her eyes for a few minutes before continuing her vigil. She curled up more comfortably beneath the covers to take a brief rest, but despite her best intentions, her breathing soon slowed as she transitioned into deeper slumber.

---

When Leliana next awoke, it was to the sound of gentle clamoring outside the confines of her tent along with the scent of food being cooked. Much closer, however, she could hear the repeated scratching of quill against parchment. Blearily shaking off the lingering dredges of sleep from her mind, Leliana slowly sat up in bed, causing the sound of writing to be stopped.

"Leliana."

She recognized her wife's voice immediately. Common was perhaps a coarser language than her native Orlesian, but Leliana had quickly noticed that La Louve and her siblings had a distinct inflection--different from the linguistic standard found in Ferelden--when they spoke. Her wife in particular was rather soft-spoken, and it added a pleasing... lyricality when she uttered the syllables of Leliana's name.

She looked up to see La Louve standing from her desk to deliver two bowls to her: one filled with an arrangement of freshly picked berries while the other held the remnants of the ram they'd had last night but in a stew-like form. Energy for the day ahead, she supposed.

Leliana took the food from her wife gratefully, and if her wife appeared at all discomforted by her current state of undress, the other woman didn't show it, offering only a friendly smile, which she recognized to be genuine.

"Thank you, but did you not eat?"

As expected, her inquiry drew confusion in that gaze even as the smile across from hers remained politely in place. The language barrier was likely going to be a continual test for their marriage, Leliana thought, as she carded a hand tiredly through her hair in an attempt to make it more presentable.

"This," she said, pointing to the bowls atop her lap that were barely half empty. She gestured to La Louve then. "Surely, you need more sustenance than this to get yourself through the morning."

Thankfully, the other woman caught on quickly to what she was trying to ask and responded in kind, saying something in Common as she gestured to the bowls and then back to herself before holding up two fingers.

Two... Leliana's brows furrowed, trying to make sense of what was being conveyed to her. Her second bowl then?

"You already ate?"

La Louve seemed to confirm as much with a nod although it was done hesitantly, as if she wasn't sure if she completely understood the question.

"I see." Leliana huffed out a small laugh at the early morning charades before picking up the spoon in the stew bowl. "Thank you then."

With a relieved smile, her wife wandered back over to her desk to begin working anew on the various missives atop it. With the way the other woman's cloak was so casually draped across the back of her chair, it didn't seem she or the Fereldans were in any rush to leave the area anytime soon. Still, there was likely work to still be done, and she didn't want her new wife and clan to think she was a layabout. As such, she ate her fill before preparing her mind for the rest of the day ahead.

---

It was on her second week with the Fereldans that Leliana found herself growing increasingly perplexed, but it had little to do with the differing customs.

No, that had long been expected.

Rather, her bemusement came with her wife's continual disappearance from their tent whenever night fell. It wasn't as if her wife was avoiding her, Leliana knew. La Louve was always at her desk when Leliana awoke in the morning, rode at her side when it was time to travel, and joined her for every meal.

Yet, Leliana still went to bed alone.

Frowning as she stared at the empty pile of furred pelts, she finally wandered out of the tent to seek an answer. Of course, she soon realized that trying to find one was quickly turning out to be an exercise in frustration.

She had tried to speak with a group of returning hunters to find the whereabouts of La Louve, but, as always, the language barrier proved to be too much. They were hardly rude as they stood there, struggling to understand what she requested of them. As the wife of one of their leaders, perhaps they were wary of showing anything less than the proper deference to her. Still, after a time, one of them--a mage if the staff over her shoulder was any indication--motioned for Leliana to follow her.

She sound found herself led to one of the campfires dotted around the area. As luck would have it, both of La Louve's siblings were there. The mage shouted a greeting, drawing the attention of the two warriors, who saw Leliana and grinned widely in greeting. Both rose to meet her, but the mage who led her there got to them first.

A rapidfire conversation followed that Leliana had no chance of understanding, and the two leaders' gazes darted to her every few seconds, but from the puzzlement in their own gazes, it didn't seem they were any closer in offering her the answer she desired either. The mage could only offer a smile of apology to her before she quickly left to find the other hunters and help dress and preserve their catch of the evening.

Weary, Leliana was all but prepared to return to her tent at that point, but she tried yet again with a small sigh. "Do you know where La Louve is?"

The two warriors glanced at one another for a long moment before the blonde woman spoke to her.

“Neev?”

Of course, the word itself meant nothing to her, so Leliana couldn't help but stare blankly in response.

“Lah… loov?” the woman asked haltingly, trying to form the Orlesian words. She then drew her head back to emit a low pantomime of a wolf’s howl before raising her brows in question at Leliana, who recognized at once what she was trying to tell her.

“Yes! La Louve!" she replied excitedly, relieved at having finally gotten a lead. "Do you know where she is?”

The woman could only grin smugly at her brother, who rolled his eyes before waving her off. “Neev,” she said profoundly before escorting Leliana away.

Neev?

Leliana tossed the word around her mind for several minutes as La Louve's sister led her through the throng of tents. The way the other woman had said it seemed important however--at least in relation to her wife.

She blinked then.

Was it La Louve's actual name?

Before long, they had gotten past the settlement and were making their way down a grassy incline towards the riverbank. The fires of the camp didn't encroach as far out, but with the twin moons hanging overhead, there was little concern about losing their way in the dark.

Or finding La Louve as it turned out.

The woman in question was sitting at the edge of the water atop a bedroll with a sketchbook in hand, determinedly filling in the details of something or other on the page. Leliana knew she always carried it about when they were traveling. Her wife was apparently quite the artist, one who could often be found documenting the flora and fauna around them when her duties as the clan's emissary weren't needed.

"Neev!" the warrior beside her boomed out humorously, causing that dark head to turn toward them.

Moonlit eyes were surprised to see them there although La Louve seemed less than pleased to see her sibling if her expression was any indication. Although Leliana didn't understand the words being spoken between them, the rapport of sibling banter was as universal a language as anything. She bit her lip to keep from laughing when she saw La Louve's eyes roll so hard in exasperation at her sister's comment that she was almost half-convinced they were going to roll right out of their sockets. Having had her fill of the teasing, La Louve clicked her tongue and summoned the mabari pup that had been laying next to her.

In response, the white-furred puppy rose to his paws and immediately placed himself between the warrior and his mistress, bristling and yapping with infantile fury even though his current foe was several times his size. It was so adorable that Leliana almost couldn't resist cooing at the sight. La Louve's sister laughter was a deep, bellowing sound, but she held her hands up placatingly while backing away from the pup. Still, the little mabari insisted on herding the woman away from the two of them, tail wagging all the while--likely pleased at protecting his favorite human--while barking at the warrior's ankles in a vain attempt to get her to move faster. The sounds of them both soon faded away as they passed the perimeter of the encampment.

"Leliana is... okay?"

Leliana turned to see La Louve looking up at her with concern, but she smiled. "I'm fine, yes. I was just curious as to where you've been all these nights." As expected, all she received in return were dark, furrowed brows as her wife tried to piece together what she was saying with little success. Leliana shook her head, unbothered. "But never mind that. Is Neev your name?”

Ghostly-grey eyes lit up toward the end of her sentence, and Leliana felt she was making progress with communicating with her although perhaps not quite enough to bridge the language together just yet. She glanced down at her wife's sketchbook and found the woman had been drawing a flower of some sort but had also written some notes next to it. As she eyed the writing, she found Orlesian and Common shared a similar alphabet although the latter seemingly lacked any diacritics.

Leliana gathered her cloak more tightly around herself to ward against the night's chill before crouching beside the bedroll, motioning for the sketchbook and charcoal pencil in La Louve’s hands, who gave them away without much protest. In little time at all, Leliana had her own name written on a fresh page, which she showed to her wife.

"Leliana." She pointed to the page emphatically before gesturing to herself. "Leliana," she repeated again, watching as more understanding filled her wife's gaze. With the connection made, she proceeded to write what she assumed to the other woman's name just below her own. "Neev," she stated then, pointing to her writing.

After a brief inspection, Leliana could see her wife was very clearly trying not to laugh at her if the smile threatening to curl at the edge of her lips was any indication. Clearing her throat, La Louve gestured for the sketchbook back. From there, the other woman proceeded to cross out the attempt at her name before writing something else down in a neat, flowing script that she finished with a flourish, which she presented to her.

"Niamh."

It was... clearly not spelled as Leliana had expected, and when she looked back up with suspicious eyes, La Louve--no, Niamh--merely smiled.

"Are you just teasing me now?"

Niamh bit her lip, shoulders shaking silently, before writing down another name on the page. “Fergus,” she announced, pointing to her brother in the distance, who Leliana could see was helping another clanmate set up a tent. The spelling was more or less what she had anticipated it would be, but when Niamh pointed to her sister, who was currently wrestling with an absolute beast of a mabari--and was laughing maniacally all the while if her ears were to be believed--the arrangement of letters that had been revealed to her was even more complex than Niamh's own name.

"Saoirse."

Silence.

"Now you are teasing me..."

Leliana doubted her wife completely understood what she'd said, but she supposed her expression said enough for the both of them because the laughter that spilled from her wife's lips then were akin to the wind chimes that hung along the stables back at her mother's estate--airy and beautiful in their tinkling sound.

"Alright then, Niamh," she said with some measure of humor once her wife's amusement faded on the breeze. "Why are you sleeping out here--" She tapped at the bedroll the woman was sitting on. "--and not in our tent?" she finished, gesturing toward the Fereldan encampment.

As her wife's gaze following her outstretched arm, Leliana wasn't expecting any answer she would truly comprehend, but the pensiveness she saw settling on Niamh's features had her curious as the woman turned back to her.

"I sleep here to..." A jaw worked itself thoughtfully as she struggled to find the words. "...To give Leliana comfort alone."

Leliana blinked as she turned Niamh's answer about in her head.

If she understood correctly, her wife had taken to sleeping out beneath the stars every night because of her. It wasn't far from her initial assumption. Their marriage was still new, and with them both being of different cultures, perhaps Niamh hadn't wanted to overstep any boundaries Leliana might have had. Rather than inadvertently risk making her uncomfortable, Niamh had stayed away to allow Leliana to acclimate to her new surroundings alone.

It was... very thoughtful, Leliana could admit. Unnecessary but thoughtful all the same.

"Well, if you won't join me in our tent, then may I at least sit here?" she asked, tapping the bedroll repeatedly with her request.

Her wife's gaze turned to Leliana and the bedding several times before her eyes widened in seeming realization. The other woman nodded rapidly with her consent, making room for Leliana, but she scooted herself over so much that Leliana couldn't help but laugh when Niamh nearly ended up on the grass.

"Come here, Silly!" she said, reaching out to steady her wife before she needed to fish her out of the river. She tugged her closer across the bedroll and marveled at the warmth emanating from the mage's body even on such a cool night. She smiled. "There's space enough for both of us, no?"

---

And that's it for now! I always love writing soft things about these two! If you liked this, please leave me a like or comment, and consider checking out the other AUs I have!

#dragon age #leliana #female cousland/leliana #OTP: What If We Rewrite the Stars?#AU: If You'd Cross An Ocean for Me #my writing #lee's au ideas #yes i know this snippet was longer than i planned it to be #i'm also aware it's not sunday anymore 😂#i'm always very slow with these things unfortunately #again this is still very early on in their relationship for this AU #it's not realistic for leliana to understand niamh's language and vice versa just yet #niamh probably sounds like a cavewoman here trying to communicate with leliana but i promise it won't be forever!#please tell me i did good 🥺

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lokiinahornyjail · 2 months

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Happy Valentines Day~

#cyberpunk 2077 #oc: zayn mackenna #dino dinovic #otp: low octave #mlm #GOD look at Dino's mouth tho #I'm gonna sjkfhdkfjgh #it's not valentines day yet dfkjghdfkjh but here we are

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dylanconrique · 1 year

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ever since jan. 3rd i've been stuck in a regina george hell loop of just continuesly getting hit by that school bus over and over and over again with all this adorable canon chenford content.

#*and this is icarly!#the rookie #tim bradford #lucy chen #chenford #otp: you know me so well #.... like #we really did it fam!!!#we're here! they're official!! and cuter than ever!!!#of course we have a lot of them we need to unravel yet but- !!!!!#THEY'RE DATING #THEY ARE BOTH SO SMITTEN WITH EACH OTHER!!!!!#i feel like joey in that episode of friends where he eats a whole thanksgiving turkey himself #i'm so full!!!!!#GIVE ME A MINUTE TO DIGEST PAH-LEASE 😩😩😩😩😩#(but also keep it coming cause if i'm gonna die it might as well be at the hands of my beloved's)

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zabrak-show · 2 years

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Barbie can do anything 🥰

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bugeyedfreaks · 6 months

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While I don’t personally ship it but I do love the idea of Mitch/Buttercup, mostly because he’d definitely be her type. She’ll go for edgy troublemakers bad boys, though she’ll also prefer tough/strong person that can hold their own, so Mitch better toughen up

I feel like as long as she’s the comparatively stronger one, she’d go along with whatever mischievous antics the person she likes would get up to (maybe after the whole Ace deal she wouldn’t want to be put in any situation where she could potentially get taken advantage of, and being stronger would give her some security at least?). Of course, I’m sure it’s possible that Mitch would probably strain himself to try to bulk up in order to tag team with her/impress her with feats of strength… or perhaps if he cant quite cut it in strength, he’d just accept the fact that he can’t match the power of such a badass queen and settle for letting her bench press him. 😆

#there are……. many possibilities [steeples fingers]#lmao I love how somehow Mitch/Buttercup became the ship I have talked about the most on this blog #when it comes to ships I LIKE anyway #it isn’t even my OTP and yet here we are #not a bad one to talk about though because it IS potentially a source of tons of humor hahaha

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mister-eames · 8 months

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Anyway, thinking about formative OTPs from your youth slash childhood, yknow, the ones before you even know what shipping or fanfic is, and how they are not so much the blueprint for subsequent OTPs but the first thing that makes every nook and cranny in your brain go ding ding ding !!!!! and in a world of contrived media it makes your heart swell and bellow: that's love!! that's chemistry!!!

and suddenly it's been twenty years and it's a friday night and you come to an abrupt understanding of why the fics you're reading now make you feel like you're 12 years old again and discovering shipping for the first time - because maybe you weren't watching or reading the thing for a ship but your heart stops traffic all over again, points, and says: that's love!!! that's chemistry!!

#this is about joey x pacey and arthur x eames #and how #you go into media with zero preconceptions and zero agenda #and there is this pairing that falls into your lap when it isn't supposed to #you weren't looking for it #but your heart threads these bits and does the fic 'oh' before you even read it #joey and pacey were not meant to be endgame #arthur and eames have two and a bit minutes of screentime together #and yet here we all are #and you realise yeah i have been obsessed with the same ship dynamics since i was in single digits #enemies to friends to lovers to exes to friends to lovers #its the banter!#its the exaggerated disdain!#that they must overcome!#and grow up!!!#even when you're an adult you still gotta grow up!#the character arcs involved!!!#its about this: life is complicated but i need to know everything is gonna be ok #don't look at me #arthur and eames are my adult otp to my jacey childhood otp #their paths waver and realign #meant to be in all sense #i don't even know what im saying anymore #except that it just makes sense to me #anyway

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bibibuck · 20 days

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i know we’ve been saying this for so long but like, this is almost unprecedented, y’all. normally when you want queer characters and queer relationships you have to SEARCH for them. you go into shows knowing they have lgbt+ rep and ships. especially for m/m otps. they’re planned beforehand. they are introduced with the idea of “these characters are achillean and will get together.”

but this? buck? i can assure you no one on the 911 team thought he would be introduced as bisexual at any point. but the truth is, just like it happens in real life for so many bisexual people (and queer people in general), he’s found himself. he’s found his truth, his light. he’s realizing this was always who he was even if he did not understand it before or have the words to express it properly. we’ve watched a character organically grow into one of the best (if not the best) representations of a bisexual individual there has ever been on tv.

and buddie? oh my god don’t get me started on buddie. they bloomed. they’ve happened organically. they were never ever ever supposed to be what they are. and yet here we are, 6 seasons later, knowing we are getting there. knowing they are each other’s heart and soul. knowing they will be together not because execs created them to be together but because they make sense. finally there has been a show brave enough to see the magic and beauty of what they themselves created. they’re taking a chance on them, on us, and i think there will never be anything else to top this.

we should enjoy this. we should savor it. this is special. a once in a lifetime kind of thing (just like buck and eddie are living their once in a lifetime love story.)

#buddie #911 #I’m sorry I’ll stop now and go to bed but i am so so so so so so so so grateful to this show

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novelbear · 9 months

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love paradise - summer vacation scenarios for your otp

prompt list by @novelbear

"god, it's so hot out."

taking the vacation's plans as an opportunity to teach their partner a skill they don't know yet (like how to swim, surf, fish, etc.)

"should i buy these?" "you have like five of those at home." "but they're not from here!"

commenting about the overpowering smell of sunscreen/mosquito repellant that the other constantly uses

pictures. pictures. pictures.

"aw, come on. a little water won't hurt!"

"since when did you know how to barbecue?" "i always have. i've just never gotten the chance to cook for you like this..."

piggy back rides when one gets tired from walking for so long

"oh, can we go on that one? please?"

"i have sand. everywhere."

putting sunscreen on for each other

maybe one has been to their chosen spot before and is so excited to show the other their favorite places

^ and of course, their lover finds their excitement absolutely adorable

"the lady over there just asked if we were a couple." "well, we did just kiss." "i know but it's still cool that we've finally been asked, don't you think?"

trying to find those little souvenirs with their names on it

^ and making it a little game to find a product with their name first

sharing drinks with two straws and being all cute

"how many swimsuits did you bring." "all of them."

complimenting them with every single outfit change of the trip

late night beach walks >>>

#otp prompts #writing prompts #imagine your otp #otp writing #writeblr #prompt list #otp #romance prompts #fluff prompts #cute prompts #love prompts #vacation prompts #dialogue prompts #prompts #request #seasonal prompts

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coffeetank · 7 months

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Writing ROMANTIC TENSION!

When you're writing romance, you need to have TENSION. Your characters need to pull your readers into the story with not just their dialogues, but also their chemistry. What is tension, you ask? It's quite simple. When two people are attracted to each other, or like each other, or are in love with each other, it causes a certain shift in the air. When these two people come together, they seem to outshine everyone else in the room and make it just about themselves (in a good way ofc). This shift in the air which hooks you into the scene is called tension. The chemistry that your main characters carry, will infact carry the whole story --- if you're writing romance, i.e.

How do you write this romantic tension? Well, as someone who's been writing romance for 4 years now, here's a few things I do to show the chemistry between my characters.

Show, don't tell: This is probably the most common advice you'll ever receive. And spoiler alert: IT IS TRUE. Any scene that includes an emotion will require you to show it, visualise it for the crowd instead of just writing it down. Romance, love, is a sensitive emotion. The readers need to SEE it happening, instead of just reading about it. Eye contact, long stares, switching their gaze from the eyes to the lips & back to the eyes, coming close for a few seconds, banter-turned-flirting are some ways you can show the chemistry.

Intimacy is key: Proximity. Closeness. Coming together. Put your characters in situations where they have to work together. Show their differences/similarities in handling tasks and make them argue or slightly quarrel if there's any differences and show them rejoicing if there's an agreement. Intimacy lies in more than just the body, bring out a quality in your characters, preferably a good one, in your characters when they're together. Make that quality their strong suit that drives them closer.

Words are sexy: Dialogues can create tension better than anything else (in my opinion). Notice how every time your ships/pairings are bantering, one of them ends up saying something sexual or romantic in a frisky way and we end up blushing like crazy? Yep, that's the goal. We absolutely love it when the guy says "oh yeah?" or ends up calling the girl a cute nickname while bantering. Dialogues can reach out to readers in a more personal way because they are the direct interactions between your characters. Make your OTP interact and have fun (pun intended!)

Add restraint: Sometimes, when the characters are almost about to kiss and someone interrupts them, we feel like throwing the book away. But at the same time, we want more because we want to see our characters kiss, or confess, or even get down dirty ;). You have put your characters in each other's close proximities, given them a driving force and added a razzle-dazzle with the dialogues and flirting! Yet, something is missing and the romance feels too....predictable? Put a constraint. This is especially important for slowburns. Personally, I love me a slowburn - it creates higher tension, emphasises on a foundation between characters and makes the kiss/confession/sex even more hot (again, my opinion). I suggest, a hint of a barrier won't do any harm. When you've reached the level of tension where it's normal for your characters to kiss or make-out, your readers are more focused than ever. Adding a restraint will make them crave the romance more and hence, stay hooked into the story. HOWEVER, DON'T STALL THE PROJECT. Just because your characters got interrupted in chapter 7 doesn't mean they can't kiss till chapter 15 or something. If they don't kiss in this chapter, they kiss after maybe 2-3 more chapters. You want to delay the romance only by a tad bit, so that your readers are still interested.

That's all I have for today! I hope these help you guys! - ashlee.

#writer #writerscommunity #writers on tumblr #romance #romance books #romance genre #writing #books #romancebooks #write #writeromance #writingromance #writingtips #writing tips #female writers #tips and tricks

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theemporium · 1 year

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33 with remus in the otp dialogue prompt pleaaaaaaaase ><

33. “I don’t want them. I want you.”

Remus Lupin was usually quite a dignified drunk.

It was rare for him to get to a state where he embarrassed himself, even when he pushed his limits to blackout conditions. He, by some grace that James and Sirius envies, always managed to keep himself together quite well.

Until tonight, it seemed.

“Let’s go.”

“Darling, we can’t go.”

“They won’t notice.”

“Remus, it’s our wedding. I think they will notice.”

The day had been perfect down to every single small detail and you were blessed enough to share it with your closest friends and family. It was a small event, nothing glamorous or grand because that didn’t match either of your styles. It was a simple ceremony with a reception just for you to let loose and enjoy the love you shared with the people you cared about most.

It had hit just past eleven when Remus had stumbled over to you, yelling ‘my wife’ comically loud before attaching himself to you and he had yet to let go.

He had wrapped his arms around you, his sleeves rolled to his elbows and his blazer lost after his third drink. His head was nuzzled into the crook of your neck, sloppy kisses placed against your skin and drunken serenades made as he sang along with whatever music that was playing through the speakers. The summer night air was thick and sweet and made your cheeks glow, and fuck, Remus had never been more in love.

“You look so pretty, m’love,” he grumbled against your skin, his fingers fiddling with the small details of your dress. It was simple and white and it was truly nothing special, but you looked like a goddess in it to him.

“You’re not so bad yourself, Mr Lupin,” you teased lightly, your hand coming up to tangle themselves in his messy, sandy-brown hair. Whatever product Sirius had put in it at the start of the day was long gone and completely helpless now.

“Good because I plan on fucking you, Mrs Lupin,” Remus retorted bluntly.

You snorted. “Is that so?”

“Don’t laugh, I am being deadly serious,” he whined softly and his hands squeezed your waist a little tighter. “I wanna fuck my wife.”

“We have guests to entertain, love,” you said to him, though you were unable to bite back the smile on your face every time he used the word wife. “They need us down here.”

“I don’t care what they need,” he muttered.

You tried to hold back your giggles as his nose brushed against a slightly sensitive spot. “Don’t you wanna dance and celebrate with your friends?”

“I don’t want them. I want you,” Remus said to you before he lifted his head, twirling you around so you could take in his flushed cheeks and hooded eyes. “I wanna fuck you in this dress.”

You couldn’t help but smirk. “Yeah?”

“Mhmm,” he nodded his head, his hands bunching the material of your dress in tight fists. “Been thinking about it since I saw you walk down the aisle in it.”

“That’s a long time,” you teased.

“Then you know how desperate I am,” Remus countered.

“Half an hour more then we’ll sneak off, okay?” you compromised, holding out your pinky to him.

Remus pouted but relented as he linked his pinky with yours. “Thirty minutes and not a second more.”

“Always a man of virtue, Mr Lupin.”

“Virtue is the last thing on my mind when it comes to you, Mrs Lupin.”

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deadbeatbirdmom · 2 months

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I've a vague recollection of posting something about this before at some point, but I've seen other posts around about it and felt like saying something.

Yang Xiao Long is canonically sapphic. At this stage the only thing we know for certain is that she's romantically paired with Blake. There was this whole confession of love and kiss, and seeing a gif of that cross my dash was what got me into RWBY.

There was also the Volume 9 Bluray commentary released later on last year, the gist of the relevant part of that is Blake is Yang's first love, and as of that confession scene Yang is realising something new about her sexuality. If CRWBY had wanted to confirm Yang as lesbian, bi or pan, they could've. But it sounds like Yang herself hasn't fully figured that out yet. The only thing that is certain is that Yang isn't het.

That means there's nothing wrong with headcanons that she's lesbian, or bi, or pan. Or even that she's Blakesexual and not interested in anyone else and never will be. All are valid. There's no erasure or phobia of any sexual orientation involved with any of these headcanons.

My own headcanon is that she's lesbian, or will be when she's figured it out. It's something that takes time for a lot of people, me included. I was over 25 before I figured out I was bi. You'd think that being bi I'd headcanon Yang as bi too, but no, and that's not internalised biphobia. I just don't get the impression she's interested in men.

But what about this moment back in Volume 1?

Yang leering at shirtless boys, after saying she approves of them in response to Ruby commenting that she doesn't think their dad would approve of all the boys. This is the single time Yang shows any interest in boys, and it sounds a lot like a joke. It can be interpreted as Yang genuinely finding those boys attractive, but with the way Yang has a thing where she deflects with humour it's hard to tell for sure.

There's also the secondary canon of that Volume 9 commentary. At this point in Volume 1 Yang herself presumably had even less certainty of her own sexuality than she does at least a year later. She's 17 here, and she's 19 when she kisses Blake. We also know from that commentary that Yang's first love is Blake, so anyone she might have been with before that? She didn't love them. And I personally find it unlikely that she'd be with anyone she didn't love.

Secondary canon is one of those things that some people ignore. If it's not in actual main canon, they don't consider it canon. It's also easier to miss than main canon. There could well be people who haven't heard about the Volume 9 commentary. There could even be people who don't know that Blake is bi, because it's not explicitly stated in RWBY itself. It's just implied by her romantic history, and by Bumbleby being canon.

There's also nothing wrong with shipping Yang with anyone else. She's with Blake in canon, but there's no reason she can't be with someone else in headcanons and fanfic or fanart. And vice versa with Blake. Which does feel kinda weird to type, but then they are my OTP.

#Yang Xiao Long #Bumbleby #Blake Belladonna #deadbeatbirdmom posts

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lampmeeting · 8 months

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IT'S ABOUT THAT TIME, Y'ALL!! 👀

What is Kloktober?: An incredibly zazzy event taking place in October where we celebrate all things Metalocalypse. There’s a prompt for every day of the month to interpret as you see fit! Draw, write, paint, cosplay, make memes - all forms of participation are welcome!

How do I participate?: Make your totally brutal creation inspired by the day’s prompt and post it using the tag #kloktober2023 - it’s just that simple! Post it here, post it to Instagram, post it to AO3, post it to Twitter, wherever, go nuts!

Am I allowed to–YUP, ANYTHING GOES! There are no wrong answers during Kloktober! :D Your interpretation of a prompt is VALID. If you only want to do a few days, that’s VALID. Don’t burn yourself out, this is for fun! (Even I won’t be doing all of them, so don’t stress!)

What if I haven't seen the movie yet? No worries! If there's a prompt that doesn't suit you, please feel free to reach back in time and choose a prompt from a previous year's Kloktober (2022, 2021, or 2020). And as always, if you have any questions about anything, hit me up!

(plain-text list of prompts below the cut)

1. favorite character or OTP

2. favorite AOTD scene

3. Mordhaus Costume Ball

4. your fave headcanon

5. Abigail Appreciation Day

6. comedy or tragedy

7. missing AOTD scene?

8. mermaids or monsters

9. inspired by Dethalbum IV

10. came back Different

11. horror movie crossover

12. your favorite villain

13. nightmares or visions

14. use a fall food or drink

15. Dethklok on vacation

16. In Memorium: honor the fallen

17. give someone a brand new look

18. inspired by a metal song

19. inspired by an UN-metal song

20. original character or self-insert

21. Dethstaff gets a day off

22. sea horror or cosmic horror

23. use a character new to you

24. novel or video game crossover

25. campfire or left in the cold

26. pick a tarot card for inspiration

27. old fears or new understandings

28. use Brendon Small in some way

29. so what happens after AOTD?

30. HALLOWEEN!!!

31. YOUR choice!

#metalocalypse #kloktober #kloktober2023 #i know i reuse the same basic instructions every year lol...#i'm EXCITED YOU GUUUYYYYSSS

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conundrumoftime · 8 months

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Fandom grandma tales: how I survived canon ruining two of the ships I liked.

(Written after a discussion with some of my TROP fan pals about how canon can break your heart re: shipping, and how fandom manages. There are spoilers here for the entire run of Babylon 5, and for one story JMS wrote after it. yes, that story. sorry.)

Babylon 5 was a sci-fi space opera show that ran from 1993 to 1998. It is sci-fi of the era of 22-episode seasons, of huge ensemble casts with characters who get their own B- and C-plots, with an effects and casting budget that doesn’t always match its ambition, and - something it was quite pioneering in, at the time - grand pre-planned story arcs.

It’s the first fandom that I was involved with in internet spaces as it was running, or at least when its final season was (there’s Discourse and drama from earlier years that I missed). Its showrunner, J. Michael Straczynski - ‘JMS’ - was very active in (non-fanfic) fan community spaces, and you always knew exactly what he was thinking about things because he was part of the discussion around them. There was also fanfic, which he didn’t stop but didn’t go near on the grounds of legal liability for story ideas.

Most of the fanfic in the early days as the show was airing was focused around two big ships, of which one was canon endgame (Delenn/Sheridan) and one was canon all-ends-in-despair (Marcus/Ivanova). I, as a teenager discovering a developing online fandom for the first time with all the overwhelm and excitement that causes (ask me anything about what reading fic was like before the days of tags/ratings/warnings!) got into Marcus/Ivanova and also into one of the minor ships, Delenn/Lennier.

Delenn/Lennier was never, ever going to happen in canon. This is obvious; it clashes with Delenn/Sheridan which was JMS’s baby darling OTP, the show’s big love story. Delenn is married for the later part of the show. Lennier is her diplomatic aide, is absolutely devoted to her, and they have a very intense mentor/student relationship, which it seems is kind of standard in their culture (when Delenn’s own mentor died she went briefly insane with grief and started a genocidal war over it) but is still Very Intense. He is canonically in love with her, but that’s as far as the explicit canon statements go.

However. HowEVER. Canon also gives us, for that relationship, some wonderful ship fuel. Lennier knows about every bad thing Delenn has done, including all the stuff she doesn’t/can’t tell her husband. He’s her link to her previous world and culture and stands by her even when they kick her out. She says at one point, “without him, I would stumble and fall and never get up again.”

And then… we had Season 5, the final season.

Season 5, for various complicated production reasons, was operating a little outside of pre-planned story arcs and in this season the Delenn/Lennier stuff ramped up about three gears in one go. It was still very obviously never, ever going to be canon, and was almost certainly not intended by the creator (who wrote most of the episodes himself) to look like there was even anything there. At this point Delenn is married; any relationship with her aide would not only be going against the show’s OTP, but going against it in the sense where she’s cheating on her husband, and there is Just No Way JMS would have gone there. And yet! Season 5 gave us:

A scene where Lennier says he can’t stay, it’s too painful to be around her now she’s married, and she’s devastated and has the following conversation with her husband about it:

S: I got your message about Lennier. Is there anything I can do?

D [snapping]: Almost certainly not.

S: Is it because of me?

D: In part, I think so.

S: Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, as we say back on Earth, three’s a crowd.

D: On Minbar, three is sacred.

S [slightly uncomfortable laugh]: Well, I don’t think I’m ready to handle that one, Delenn.

Delenn then calling Lennier back to the station to do some secret mission thing for her, which involves her sneaking out of her bed while her husband sleeps to meet Lennier in a darkened alley behind a bar, where she tenderly strokes his face and they have a whole conversation about whether her husband understands her or not.

A scene where Lennier comes back from his secret mission to meet both Delenn and Sheridan, Delenn goes to greet him with a hug, and Lennier does this very pointed step back and nod in the direction of her husband, and she pulls back and just sort of pats him on the arms instead.

I MEAN.

But, the issue here is not what fans did about it but what canon did about it. Canon did the canon equivalent of dragging that ship outside and shooting it in the head.

In the final few episodes of the entire series, Lennier tries to kill Sheridan, runs away in shame, and then someone finds his diary in which he’d been writing for ages about what a bad decision he thought Delenn had made and how her whole marriage was an awful idea. Even to this day, it’s fun/awful watching people go through a first-time watch when they get to season 5 and hit that. ‘Character assassination in the form of a diary’ was a whole thing for a while. It’s been 20+ years and the actor who played Lennier is stilll mad about it (not because of shippy stuff, but because he - correctly! - thinks Lennier absolutely would not have done that).

What *fandom* did, on the other hand, was Fixed The Problem.

Delenn/Lennier was not at all a big ship when the series was airing, and for a few years after. Then the fandom dynamics started to change. With less pressure on what canon was going to do, it felt like fandom had more space to play around with things it didn’t do. Fanfic got less interested in trying to fit within the overall story being told and started spinning off in all its own directions. And *this* ship started getting bigger and bigger. People did really interesting things with it, canon divergence went in all directions, everyone wrote a fix-it story of some variety, some authors did a great series of connected stories based on an idea that Minbari have three genders, the quality of the writing has been brilliant. And I think without that absolute whiplash feeling of what happened in canon, there would never have been this feeling of “well I’m not having THAT” which led to all this.

We did not need canon! Canon had done its thing. And canon had broken our hearts enough ways with many of the other stories it told (entirely on purpose) and we weren’t just going to sit back and let it ruin us forever.

By comparison, the other ship I was into was Marcus/Ivanova. This is entirely doomed. Susan Ivanova’s love life is just perpetually doomed. The first partner of hers we meet is an ex who’s interested in getting back together, but then it turns out he’s just using her to infiltrate the station for the fascist terrorist group he’s secretly joined. Then she falls for an archrival of hers, Talia, who works for Psi Corps, the organisation she loathes most of all things - but it’s okay because it turns out Talia is starting to question them too! Maybe these crazy kids can make it work! They have one night together and then OOPS turns out Talia was being secretly controlled by a sleeper personality implanted in her by Psi Corps the whole time. Ivanova’s love life is doomed.

So for two seasons, she has this sort-of-flirty, sort-of-bickery, sort-of-friendship going with Marcus, who is on the surface of it very much “why not fall in love at first sight like a true romantic, YOLO!” but it turns out is actually deeply messed up himself and full of survivor’s guilt and pain and, you get the clear impression, would have died of shock if she’d actually called his bluff on the OTT flirting and said “yeah, let’s go for it”. And then he sacrifices himself to save her life. It is a very tragic ending, it is absolutely the way he would have wanted to go, she wakes up both furious and absolutely distraught, says that the last thing she heard was him saying “I love you”, says she wishes she’d at least slept with him once, and says that in a way all love is unrequited. PAIN.

So, lots of fix-it fanfic, lots of ‘Marcus comes back to life’, lots of canon divergence AUs where he doesn’t die and they live happily ever after and both get over their huge levels of unresolved pain. Pretty standard for that kind of pairing. And as a pairing it doesn’t get in the way of any big canon pairings, it doesn’t imply anything icky like mentor/student power imbalances or adultery. And JMS clearly quite liked it. So that’s better, right?

NO. It was WORSE.

JMS wrote an Marcus/Ivanova story himself, published in one of the sci-fi magazines, to try to give them a happy ending. This happy ending involves Marcus, many many years in the future, waking up from the cryogenic suspension he’s in (it’s sci-fi, keep up, keep up). Ivanova is long dead, but he isn’t about to let this get in the way, so what he does is to *create a new Ivanova* by getting some kind of DNA + computerised memory/personality bank thing, finding a doctor who will clone her, putting himself back into animated sleep until the clone reaches the age Ivanova was when she died, then - THEN, I’M STILL GOING - takes her to a distant planet where, with her memories wiped and their spaceship having deliberately been crashed BY HIM so there’s no way back, they live out their lives in peace.

WHAT.

That pairing still does okay in fandom but it’s not really taken on a post-show world of headcanons and riffing on other people’s ideas and tropes in the way that Delenn/Lennier has (and we all just pretend that story never existed).

So! This has been my experiences in the field of What We Do When The Show Has Thoughts On That Non-Endgame Ship We’re Into. Fandom manages. Fandom will see you through. And in the words of Susan Ivanova:

Babylon Five was the last of the Babylon stations; there would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, for if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings - even for people like us.

#fandom grandma #fandom history #non-endgame ships #shipping #canon and non-canon ships #babylon 5 #delenn x lennier #marcus x ivanova #that story's not canon if I say it's not canon #b5 #what in the actual hell was that diary anyway #snarky bill mumy interview forever in our hearts #never have I seen a more perfect ot3 setup and YET

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