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dyrewrites · 7 months

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Weald and Wen - i don't care that i already shared a snip today, you're getting another

As the cyan-streaked shadows dissipated, blush stalks and violet light greeted Faerai, met soon by wet moss and a canopy of wide, colorful caps.

Gormwoods, Mitra’s words flitted through her thoughts, with a wave of fear for the little light, we are back in the Wen.

Her rucksack remained tight against her side despite the swift exit from the Darklands, but the strap bit hard and she had to pry it loose from moss silks and fur before looking around.

Delgrij was not beside her.

Ozma neither.

And Faerai’s freshly rustled fur stood on end, smoothing as she found her shadow at her feet. It was stretched thin but rippling taut...leading into nearby brush.

She sighed then asked after it, irritation coloring her tone, “Da, come out.”

Ozma slunk from the brush on all fours, its head bowed low and eyes flickering.

But Faerai was not finished, “We not know why da choose now, but know why pull Delgrij with and trap in deepwoods.”

Ozma shrank in her accusation, its eyes stuttering dim and low on its shadowed face.

“Da grips jealous memories too tight,” Faerai continued and it rippled as she sighed, “Delgrij not steal papa, and not steal us. Delgrij is friend and da needs to let jealous memories go.”

Ozma spiked, raising its snout high as its eyes burned brighter.

“Let. Go,” Faerai insisted.

Ozma spiked again, wriggling its head up and down and side to side but Faerai held its gaze, hers burning hotter. And, after another ripple and another wriggle, it cooled and slipped closer to nuzzle its apology.

“Elleyfen, da,” She sang to it, petting its shadowed head, “We understand how hard it is to share love, but papa would not want you to hold this pain,” she narrowed her eyes then and added, “or act so rough with one he care for.”

“Sprout!” Delgrij’s voice broke through the large fronds growing between the stalks, terrified and cracked, and Faerai raced toward it.

Then Faerai snuggled up in the moss beside and poked him with an elbow, “Delgrij shiny?”

A few strides through the brush, his silks ragged and slaked in moss, she found him. And, though he jerked away first, he returned her embrace just as tight, with ichor beading in his eyes.

“Delgrij shiny,” He repeated and, picking moss off his silks, said in a hushed tone, “the pebble must not know I said that.”

“Need find Mitra first,” She whispered.

“We do,” He agreed and the memory of the howling Auru shuddered through his bark, “but I am certain the Auru we were to follow are...gone.”

“Nothing take,” she said, too easily, too certain.

“That is likely, given their cries,” he told the brighter light of the fungal canopy, his eyes and bark yearning for the sweet dim of the Darklands, “Then again, I assumed that darkness took me. Can we be certain that–”

“Da save us,” Faerai clipped, “Not save hunters.”

Delgrij nodded and eyed the sprout’s shadow, reaching a shaking branch out as it tilted its wisping head towards him. As his fingers met that shadowed fur, not sticking or burning, the shadow’s eyes flickered up at him and he pulled back. “A–About your shadow...”

She watched Ozma slink closer to Delgrij’s branches; wriggling for another touch. And the glow of its eyes itched beneath her skin. With shame it itched, shame not truly her own but shared as fully as she shared all else with her shadow.

She answered with that shame warbling her voice, “We not know how da take Delgrij...but know why.”

“A beat, sprout,” Delgrij asked as he looked away, searching the crowded stalks before he rose from the wet moss and took a seat on a wide, and dry, cap set low to the ground. Then he patted beside him and Faerai scrambled up.

“Da have trouble with Orn too, when Orn and papa grow close,” she explained, once settled, and Ozma rippled on the ground beneath them as she continued, “would trip and bite and play tricks but not, not...that. We are...sorry, for da.”

“Ah, so this is that nuefey again?” He asked.

Faerai smiled at his use of ladysong, how perfectly he sang her word, before she said, “Yes. We should have warned. Da tell us in cap, in not many words, that Delgrij is niphyet.”

“Oh, oh, I know that one,” He perked as a strange twinkle took his eyes, “Ozmanei referred to me as that so often that I begged Naunni to translate. It means love stealer, correct?”

The chuckle spilled before she could trap it, but she nodded and said, “Yes, is love stealer, but it is wrong, and we tell da it is wrong. Delgrij is not niphyet. Cannot steal what is given.”

“Wait...given? Naunni and I never,” Delgrij stopped as Faerai pointed to his slingbag, “What?”

“The cloth,” she said simply.

Taking the fur cloth out, he presented it to her and she pointed to the swirling script sewn into it. But Delgrij scoffed at the implication, “No, he explained these words. It says, ‘to my closest friend’, a harmless gift.”

But the sprout’s eyes suggested otherwise.

As did her small smile and quiet voice, “ 'For he whose laughter shames the Song,’ ” She looked at her shadow then, rippling in its bestial form and added, “Papa compare Delgrij to Song and use personal words. This is not easy thing for Fyrni. Those words are...special, meant only for family...and bonds.”

Delgrij stared then, at the cloth, at the words he thought he knew, the love he thought unrequited as he asked, “And what are personal words?”

“Papa call Delgrij ‘he’,” she said and took his branches in her paws to force his eyes to hers, “Papa cared for you very much.”

Those beading tears spilled, if only a drop or two, and he gazed again at the cloth, at the fur, still so soft and vibrant despite the ages apart from its owner, “That does warm the memories we shared,” then he eyed her shadow, “and explains the ire.”

“Memories all we have,” she said, smiling yet unable to wring the whimper from her voice.

“No, no sprout,” Delgrij soothed, gesturing to Ozma, “He is here, right here in the protective glare of your shadow. Those eyes are nothing if not Ozmanei's and Naunni…is here,” he offered her the fur cloth, holding it flat in his branches, “I watched him stitch it, you know. An unbelievable sight, I hardly believed he could accomplish such fine sewing with those…gigantic paws.” Faerai laughed behind her lips, spilling her own tears and Delgrij smiled at their shimmer as he pressed the cloth into her paws, “It should be yours.”

But she would not take it, “Is Delgrij’s gift,” she said, then her pupils flared, sudden and bright and her ears popped upright, swiveling as she shouted, “Hunter!”

And before he could ask, before he could shout back, she was gone; barreling on all fours into the stalks.

#writeblr #snippet #novel #writing #weald and wen #darkfantasy #nonhuman #i may never explain the relationship between delgrij and naunni outright #but it makes me happy #so there's a lot of it sprinkled about in the story #even if it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot

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blueskittlesart · 1 year

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Hi! As someone who now kinda wants to check out Trigun because of the hype, do you recommend that I can start with Stampede? Or do I really need to watch the OG anime first to better understand/enjoy it? Thank you! 🙋🏻‍♀️

you can start with stampede! i'd say knowing the context of the original enhances the experience but isn't necessary to enjoy the show. I would consider stampede more viewer-friendly, especially for those of us who are used to modern storytelling conventions (the original suffers the consequences of general writing trends in anime at the time it was produced and of the fact that it was produced long before the manga was finished, so the story is somewhat disjointed and has a lot of filler which makes it REALLY hard to get into.) if you do end up liking stampede, however, I'd suggest trying out watching at least SOME of the original because it adds a lot of cool nuance and context to the story that stampede tells!

#your only REAL handicap is that you're missing out on references that clue you into the context of the story early on #and quite a few references in the finale. but none of those references are hugely necessary to understand the plot so you should be fine!#i didn't DISLIKE the origial and like i said im glad i watched it first but it was. REALLY hard to get into.#even as someone who understands writing trends & enjoys a lot of older anime trigun is. a product of its time.#there's almost no context given for the story you're witnessing until a good 20 episodes in.#the main villain isn't named at all until halfway through the runtime #and even TWO EPISODES BEFORE THE FINALE i still did not have enough information to fully understand what the hell was going on #vash was going into the final fucking battle and i still didn't know what knives WAS let alone what the fuck he WANTED #not to mention nick was FULLY DEAD and i still didnt know what his deal was. like ok go off king have ur moment bleeding out in the church #but can you EXPLAIN WHATS GOING ON BEFORE YOU SUCCUMB TO THE BLOOD LOSS PLEASEEEEEEEE GOD #stampede does that whole thing WAY better imo. it sprinkles the backstory more naturally throughout the show #again. part of this is 90s writing conventions. but there's only so much i can take fr #it was like comparable to evangelion in terms of LACK OF CONTEXT #anyways. this isnt supposed to be me complaining about the original. it had its moments. i watched 24 episodes of it like it was not BAD #but like. i think the story really benefits from the way that stampede chooses to lay everything out. is what im saying.#tldr watch them in whatever order but if you like stampede try the original #you might not like it more than stampede but you WILL feel cool when you realize how it all relates to stampede #asks #vash is also WAAAAAY sexier in stampede. HOWEVER. the women of the show are like 10 times sexier in the original. so. pick your poison ig

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carolinanadeau · 2 months

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In Praise of Sally Ann Howes

As I've made it one of the purposes of my blog to share photos and songs and general positivity about the wonderful English actress Sally Ann Howes, I thought I'd make a post to talk in much more detail about all the great things about her and why I adore her so much!

This classy English beauty possessed a highly expressive face and eyes, an astonishingly powerful soprano, a great sense of humor, and the world's most charming laugh. One thing I cannot stop saying about Sally Ann is that she did not and does not get nearly enough credit and recognition for her immense talent and prolific career, and it's precisely for that reason that I'm here to do my part in giving it to her!

This overlong rambling post is a combination of biographical information and my personal fawning over her performances... whatever I felt I most wanted to put out there in the world and what I'd like people less familiar with her to know.

Click on Keep Reading and I'll take you on a journey!

As she preferred to work on the stage and didn't really pursue a film career, the catalog of Sally Ann's work that can still be viewed today is unfortunately small - though you can find almost all of her early films on the internet if you look hard! In her early film days, mostly made before she was able to pursue her true passion of musical theatre, her extraordinary singing talents weren't utilized by the producers at all.

However, we were fortunately blessed with exactly one musical film role from her, and it's an iconic one: the aptly-named role of Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), the golden-haired, golden-hearted candy heiress who falls in love with and eventually marries Dick van Dyke's character Caractacus Potts after joining him and his children on a madcap adventure. She's a sweet, intelligent ingenue with hidden depths and one of my favorite sorts of character arcs - the uptight, lonely woman who becomes more and more warm and open as she discovers newfound freedom and joy in life and falls in love.

There is something about Sally Ann that just glows in every scene of Chitty, and it's not only that bright blonde hair! The way she widens her eyes sometimes, the way she raises her eyebrows, her gentle and soft presence in the happiest scenes, and the particular airy lilt she has to her speaking voice are all so distinctive and appealing, and I can't take my eyes off her. And her smile! When I say she glows it's barely even a metaphor, the woman just emits light.

(Funnily enough, I started to realize that many of the laudatory quotes I've found about her also refer to her in this way, like this quote from a 1965 TV Guide article, from playwright Sidney Kingsley: "She's luminous as an actress. I mean that literally. In Brigadoon she really lit up the stage.")

For me, I'm weak for any actress who can do the defrosted-ice-queen trope so incredibly well. Truly starts out as closed-off and prim, and nearly reverts to that state when she and Caractacus have a Big Misunderstanding near the end, but in the scenes where she's happy and carefree, the warmth just radiates off of her.

She also has the most adorable chemistry with Dick van Dyke in an annoyances-to-friends-to-lovers relationship that absolutely shaped my young brain. Whenever Sally Ann and Dick glance at each other, whether with irritation and frustration early in the film or with warmth and affection later on, their chemistry is obvious and natural, and there's so much expressed in each one of those glances. One has no difficulty believing that these characters are going to be very happily married.

(Here's a cute on-set interview where she talks about, among other things, how easily she and van Dyke clicked.)

While I acknowledge that the character of Caractacus Potts was absolutely originally planned to be an actual Englishman, Dick van Dyke played him with an American accent, and to me they will always be an adorable English-American couple. It's a whole part of the charm of this pairing to me!

Sally Ann also had a great relationship with child actors Adrian Hall and Heather Ripley who played Jeremy and Jemima Potts, and did her best to help make them more comfortable and happy during the many very long days on set. Having been a child film star herself, she knew a great deal about how difficult and alienating it could be. The genuine affection the three of them shared is obvious in their scenes together, especially in the extremely adorable "Truly Scrumptious" number, and it really makes the developing mother-child relationship between the characters so believable.

The beach scene, where so much of the relationship between Truly and Caractacus and the Potts children is developed, is incredibly cute and heartwarming, and a lot of that rides on Sally Ann's performance and how her previously prim-and-proper character shows herself to be warm and loving, once she (literally) lets her hair down. We've already seen how happy the Potts family is together; now we see how Truly fits in perfectly and makes them all even happier.

Look at her! Literally glowing!

(One thing I should mention: I think both the plot and the love story of CCBB are greatly improved if one just treats the "dream sequence" as real events, which was possibly the original intention anyway, so just note that is always the perspective I'm coming from here. It's the only way to make some things make sense and for the characters and their relationships to fully develop.)

"Lovely, Lonely Man" is Truly's big solo moment, and was probably the least comprehensible part of the movie to me as a kid (lol), but is now indisputably one of the very best parts to me as an adult. It's an exquisitely beautiful love song, especially the bridge, and I somehow love it more and more every time I rewatch it. Sally Ann's dreamy, graceful movements and the way the whole scene is shot make her look like a princess, and the slow build of the song is masterfully done. She has this distinctive crisp way of articulating her words while singing, especially the closing consonants like N and M, that I just love to listen to. The string section and the building countermelodies are so beautiful it makes me want to weep. Everyone involved in creating this scene and song deserved an award, I'm being so serious. While it's not the highest of soprano songs and doesn't fully show off Sally Ann's astonishing range, she shows an incredible amount of vocal control here through the many diminuendos and crescendos, and she's mesmerizing to watch and listen to. One of her "glowiest" scenes, for sure!

While I've seen people call this song irrelevant to the plot, I strongly disagree - the romance is part of the plot, of course, and while I didn't fully understand the meaning as a kid, this song establishes how much Truly's outlook on life and hopes for the future have already changed since meeting Caractacus, and how much happier she is with the poor Potts family than she's ever been in her life of luxury. Plus, now we know for certain that she's head over heels for Caractacus, but he doesn't know... increasing the dramatic irony of the pining and yearning to follow!

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In the reprise of "Hushabye Mountain", which was sung in a much earlier scene by Dick van Dyke alone, Caractacus loses the will to continue the song because he's overwhelmed with emotion thinking of his children being held captive. Truly comes in to aid him with the final verse - another pivotal moment in the developing romance - and Sally Ann's singing here is nothing short of breathtaking.

And of course, I can't neglect to mention the "Doll on a Music Box" number, where Sally Ann, who was not a trained dancer and in fact considered herself to be "appalling" at it, performs an incredibly precise, incredibly impressive clockwork song-and-dance number while on a spinning turntable! She practiced it so well that she managed to successfully complete the shot in a single take, prompting the stage full of extras to burst into applause.

This is another important character moment for Truly, though it's disguised in a diegetic performance: though it's another thing that went over my head as a child who only got to see the movie once, the lyrics about being trapped up on a music box and longing to be freed by love pretty clearly symbolize how trapped the real Truly's high-society life makes her feel, and how she yearns to break free from class restrictions and live happily-ever-after with Caractacus, as it's only with him and his family that she really feels free.

Then there's that incredibly warm romantic look that Truly and Caractacus share at the end of the song when she silently acknowledges the love confession he's just made while singing in counterpoint with her, though they're still in a dangerous situation and can't give themselves away by appearing too human and breaking their disguises... sadly this vital moment is cut off on all the Youtube videos of the scene I can find, because none of the people who clipped it understand that that's the whole point of it all, apparently. But here's a gif!

The character of Truly doesn't exist at all in the original (quite different) book by James Bond author Ian Fleming - surprising, I know, given her name! - and, honestly, the fact that Truly and the romantic subplot of this movie exist are why it had such a strong impact on me as a child, and very much why I fell in love with it again as an adult. Even though the score is wonderful anyway and the story is charming and magical, I can confidently say that I would not have become as completely enchanted or had such a strong desire to revisit it again and again if there'd been no Truly and no love story. The fact that Sally Ann's performance makes Truly so loveable is, obviously, a pretty crucial factor there.

Sally Ann's delivery of "Well, Mr. Potts... now you'll have to marry me!" after Caractacus kisses Truly... that slide from prim mock-outrage to the playful, warm, you-can-hear-the-smile-in her-voice conclusion is flawless. Not even exaggerating when I say that this was the moment that made me into a hopeless romantic as a 9-year-old child. Sure, this wasn't the first movie I'd seen where two people fall in love and live happily ever after, but I distinctly remember that this was the first romance story that had me in a giggling, kicking-my-feet, "I ship it so hard" state of mind. And after revisiting it as an adult for the first time last year, I have confirmed that yes, child me already had great taste in fictional romances!

Oh, I could say so much about the difference in her body language between the two scenes where Caractacus carries Truly out of her car that's become stuck in a pond. The first time, Truly is affronted and extremely embarrassed by the situation, holding herself so stiffly and awkwardly to avoid an accidental embrace that she causes him to nearly lose his balance and drop her. The second time, when they're in love and they know it, she snuggles right up into his arms without hesitation and it's the cutest thing ever. Sally Ann was 5'6" but looks so tiny in that scene!

(And that kiss! Maybe I'm getting off-topic here in terms of strictly focusing on Sally Ann's contributions, because Dick van Dyke deserves tons of credit for making this kiss so good... but wow, the kiss. Several times I have called it "the Most Kiss they could have gotten away with in a children's movie." Again, giggling, kicking my feet etc.)

While Truly's costumes and hairstyling are rarely historically accurate (the film is set around 1910), the stylized nature of her fashion is iconic and memorable in itself. Sally Ann also completely pulls off playing a fresh-faced ingenue who is 12+ years younger than her actual age - and I do wonder if the aging-down of Sally Ann is at least part of the reason why Truly wears her hair loose throughout most of the movie! Either way, it works perfectly and I was shocked when I first learned how much older she was than her character. (If you watch her in The Admirable Crichton, where she is also in Edwardian costume and was closer to Truly's actual age, she really doesn't look all that much different. If anything, I think she looks even more glowingly beautiful in Chitty!)

Also, as for Truly wearing her hair down... it may just have been an intentionally anachronistic stylistic choice, but in-story, I think it actually contributes to her character by showing a willingness to flout convention and pursue whatever will make her happy instead of what's expected of her, which happens to be a key theme of her character arc.

Another thing that led me to adore Sally Ann as a person as I learned more about her over the last year: in the 1960s, she appeared as a panelist in quite a few episodes of the game show To Tell the Truth (as well as a few episodes of Password), and these can be found on Youtube. I really adore how her personality shines through - she's unfailingly bubbly, witty, self-deprecating, and a bit quirky. Just listening to her speak is a delight and she has one of the best laughs I've ever heard. Here is one of my favorite little moments that I clipped.

By all accounts, she was a delightful person to know and work with, witty and clever, very professional, and very serious about her craft. She also always maintained a great affection for and pride in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and her role as Truly, which is always a wonderful thing to know about an actor in a beloved role.

Another bonus: here is a super charming interview with her after a backstage disaster at What Makes Sammy Run? on Broadway.

She was also, along with Twiggy and Diahann Carroll (as Julia Baker), one of the first three celebrities to have her likeness made into a Barbie doll.

Two of her earlier films I recommend are the comedies Fools Rush In (1949) and The Admirable Crichton (1957), if you can find them (hint-hint, you can.) You may also be able to find the 1966 TV movie of her reprising her Tony-nominated role of Fiona in Brigadoon with Robert Goulet, and although I feel like the oddly close-up way the film was shot kinda does a disservice to the actors at times, it's still amazing to be able to see and hear her in a role she performed on Broadway.

Richard Rodgers once called Sally Ann "the greatest singer who ever sang on the American musical stage." Now, I don't quote this to claim this superlative as some kind of objective fact. If you know anything about me, I am very, very strongly opposed to pitting women against each other and all the Golden Age sopranos are absolute queens who deserve crowns, no matter how much mainstream success or present-day name-recognition they have/had. I just think it's phenomenal that she received such high praise from a man who worked with many of the best musical theatre singers who ever lived... and to think, many people today have never even heard her voice. Without her performance as Truly Scrumptious, it's possible almost nobody would in the future! I am so glad that Sally Ann's lasting legacy was ensured by such a beloved film role.

Sadly for us, many of the theatrical roles which she originated (and thus, for which cast albums featuring her exist) were in shows that either flopped quickly or at least did not enter the theatrical canon, so she never achieved the level of mainstream recognition she clearly deserves. But Sally Ann also played such legendary and challenging roles as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, Fiona MacLaren in Brigadoon (for which she received a Tony nomination), Maria Rainer von Trapp in The Sound of Music, Anna Leonowens in The King and I, and, much later, Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music. She received great acclaim for all of these performances and, judging by what we know of her process on My Fair Lady, was excellent at making roles distinctly her own and never merely imitating another performer.

Even in her iconic original role of Truly Scrumptious, you don't get to hear the true full power of Sally Ann's extraordinary soprano. For that, I highly recommend listening to "Another Time, Another Place" from Kwamina (1961), and "Something to Live For" from What Makes Sammy Run? (1964). I'm always sad that we don't have any recordings of her in her "fiery" star turn as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, but you can at least hear her do a Cockney accent, be silly, and sing "With a Little Bit of Luck" with Bing Crosby here!

If it weren't for the enduring success of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, few people might have even heard of Sally Ann Howes today, and that would be a terrible loss. I cannot overstate that I am so grateful that we all know who she is because she played this role and we get to see her give this radiant performance of a character that's all her own. Maybe this sounds strange, but I think the fact that this was Sally Ann's only musical film role (and the ONLY role most people will ever see her in) makes it even more precious, and makes everything she brings to the character that much more distinctive and unique and special.

Both for all of the talent and charm she brings to the role itself, and everything else that I and many other fans have been able to learn of so much of her otherwise-obscure work because of it, the world is incredibly lucky to have the lovely Sally Ann Howes immortalized as our Truly Scrumptious, and I wouldn't have it any other way 💖

#*mic drop*#sally ann howes #chitty chitty bang bang #and that's why you should vote for... wait there's no poll involved? I may have gotten carried away ;)#ok so I doubt anyone will even pay attention to this post but if you are going to tag or comment on this BE KIND AND POSITIVE ABOUT HER #like this is obviously a labor of love on my part here... don't be weird or backhanded. I don't need to hear how you disagree or whatever #and no pitting women against each other on my posts I am so serious #this is a fan post! this is a stan post! this is a celebration! do not derail!#I feel like I need to sprinkle holy water on this post before I release it out into the world #oh Sally Ann we're really in it now #also parts of this are poorly written I know. it's literally just an infodump about my Special Interest English Lady what do you expect lol #the switches between formal tone and informal fangirling are intentional btw #this is what I'm using my degree for apparently #I know I mixed in a lot of character/story analysis here and maybe that's slightly off-topic from lauding her performance but hey #it's not like I'm getting graded on this. and I mean you can see these things in her character BECAUSE of her performance #take my hand. love her with me. life could be a dream #you know the lyric in Hamilton - 'I wrote my way out'? that's what this was for me. I wrote my way out of a mental health crisis with this #when I came up with this idea I was going to save it for her birthday but that is sooo far away. so I'll post now and reblog it then!#I'm shocked tumblr can even handle whatever I'm trying to do here #I wouldn't have put SO many photos except that I needed to use multiples so I could make them smaller!!#my original post #long post

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soy-sauce-and-mothra · 9 months

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Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

#yes some of this was directed at steven universe #the only thing su got right was bismuth crying when her anvil broke #cus those things are goddamn expensive and hard to transport #blacksmith #blacksmithing #writing #writing prompts #writing advice #writeblr #writer #writer problems #writerblr #writerscommunity #writers on tumblr #writers and poets #writers

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undyinglantern · 10 days

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for so long nostalgia and looking back has always had a fucking depressing tint to it that it almost feels unnatural how much joy reigniting my interest in hq brings me

#personal #it feels like coming home (in the fuzziest warmest way possible)#its funny because i was uncertain between re/watching ibo and hq and picked hq out of the 2 because i felt i needed something less depressi #after the couple previous shows i had just finished #but i never expected for it to resonate so deeply again #its strange because im always thinking of the past in terms of regret and self loathing but. idk something about having already #liked volleyball even before getting into it. then finding out theres a series about a thing you already like. and the lessons the mangaka #sprinkles into the narrative. its such a positive story despite all the hardships #i know i mention oik a lot this past week but i dont think i truly understood 'talent is something you make bloom' as a teenager #i was too hung up on the immediate loss to look at the larger picture. ive been repeating talent is smth you make bloom to myself all week

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art · 27 days

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Creator Spotlight: @mimimar

Hi! I’m Michelle (Mimimar), an illustrator born and raised in Venezuela, currently based in Italy. I enjoy making colorful illustrations that reflect the things I love: fairy tales, fantasy, tenderness and queer (especially sapphic) stories. Occasionally, I also make paper dolls, comics and animatics. I have a lot of interest in book illustration and I’m currently developing my own stories that I hope to share as an author-illustrator someday!

Check out our interview with Michelle below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

I always enjoyed drawing when I was a kid, but it only became a hobby that I did almost every day when I was around 11. At first I only used traditional mediums, but I decided to make a serious effort to learn how to draw digitally when I was 15, and once I got the hang of it I never stopped!

I didn’t go to art school so all of my learning was done through studying the tutorials and resources that other artists generously share on the internet and lots of practice / trial and error.

How do you want to evolve as a creator?

I want to do many things but what I want to do the most right now is work on books! I want to make art for other authors’ stories and also my own stories as an author-illustrator. I want to grow as a storyteller and create art and stories that will really resonate with people emotionally. I’m always striving to improve my skills as well.

I also really love dolls, so working on doll box art or as a doll designer is something I would love to do someday. I actually have been designing paper dolls on my Patreon for the past few months, it’s been a fun project that is still ongoing right now!

What is one habit you find yourself doing a lot as an artist?

Probably using a lot of purple! It’s my favorite color so I find myself using it a lot. If I can find a way to sneak a little bit of purple into an illustration or a character design then I will.

Congratulations on finishing your Ivy Comic! Did the outcome turn out like how you expected or were there some unexpected bumps along the way?

Thank you! It’s a project that I worked on very slowly in between other art because I wanted to really take my time with every spread and make each of them a fully detailed illustration. I thumbnailed the full comic before starting but I kept changing the sketch for the final spread until the very end! Overall I’m really proud of the end result. I sprinkled a lot of hidden details in every page that I hope some of the readers will notice. For example: the meanings of the flowers in each page represent what the characters are feeling in that moment, and the colors of their wardrobe become gradually lighter as the story progresses to represent their emotions, as well as the changing of seasons.

We’ve noticed that you have created some amazing cover art for TGCF. Is there another series you would like to do something similar with?

That was another passion project that took some time to complete. Initially, I didn’t intend for them to be specifically covers, it was just a series of illustrations based on the 5 books/main arcs of TGCF. But since they were well-received and I had people telling me they wish they could use them as covers for their books, I decided to rework them into dust jackets for the english translation of TGCF!

I haven’t thought of any other specific series but I love doing cover art so maybe I’ll do something similar again in the future!

What’s your favorite part of your style? Why?

I’ve heard from other people that there’s a delicate quality to my art, this is something that I like a lot! I like pretty things, fairytales and vibrant colors. I think all of these things probably reflect in the art I make as well.

If there is one thing you want your audience to remember about your work, what would it be?

I hope that they remember how it made them feel. Feelings and colors are the two things I give priority to in my work. Most of the time I like depicting tenderness, softness and emotional intimacy. If that could reach the viewer and stay with them it would make me very happy.

I make a lot of art with queer (mainly sapphic) themes because they’re the kind of stories I personally like and want to see more of, so whenever people tell me that my art has helped them in their journey to discover and accept themselves, or that they see themselves and their partner in my art, it is always extremely meaningful to me. When art that I made to give myself comfort can provide comfort for others, no matter how small, it reminds me once again that despite any hardships art is genuinely worth pursuing.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

So many artists! To name a few: I love @sakizo’s amazing eye for fashion and detail, @paneeps’ gorgeous style and striking colors, the sweetness of @bevsi’s art, @vickisigh’s pretty colors and concepts, @idledee’s warm and heartfelt art, @littlestpersimmon’s dreamy wonderful art, and @loish has been an inspiration for as long as I can remember.

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing, Michelle! Be sure to check out their Tumblr blog over at @mimimar.

#creator spotlight #artists on tumblr #tgcf #ivy comic #mimimar

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bahablastplz · 3 months

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SKZ Recs (NSFW)

As a chronic fanfic reader, I have a lot of recommendations. So, these are the ones I think about the most. All of them include smut, so they're 18+. Red text indicates fics on AO3. Go support these amazing authors!! Enjoy!! <3

Bang Chan

The SKZ house @writeonwhiskey (Chan x reader x Hyunjin…SKZ but make it a frat… and also sexy)

Silent cry @j-0ne25 (Fake dating/friends to lovers, live laugh hurt comfort… emphasis on the hurt)

Love is intuitive @skzonthebrain (forbidden love and angst… so emotional and loving <3)

Kinktober Day 8 @dreaming-medium (breeding, best friend, fake dating, so sweet and spicy)

Summer in Seoul @writeonwhiskey (strangers to lovers, summer love, spicy and romantic)

Saturday mornings @skzdarlings (Chan/reader/Seungmin where Seungmin is an absolute menace that gets reader in trouble… dom Chan is so good in this one omg)

It’s cold out @therhythmafterthesummer (roommate Chan is going through his rut… oops there’s more ABO on this list than I realized sorry not sorry)

Bodyguard: The first guard @skzdarlings (A sequel to the bodyguard, an ongoing work that has elements of enemies to lovers and great, in-depth world building and character development)

However you want it, lover-lover @cbini (you ask your bf Chan to step on you after watching spicy edits of him on tiktok omg)

More than just friends @kwanisms (roommate Chan is entering his rut... he's usually able to control himself but this time you're ovulating. sprinkle some brat taming in here as well and it's so delicious)

Lee Know

The Experience Project @leeknowsallyoursecrets (Enemies to lovers Lee Know, really good plot and relationship building!)

Sanguis Limerence @jl-micasea-fics (Vampire OT8, Lee Know x Reader x Chan, SUPER good world building, especially in their sequel with the backstories… I was so invested. And it’s super hot)

Barb Wired Brat @roseykat (BDSM Lee Know with reader going into subspace… awakened things in me)

Audience @gimmeurtmi (2 min, wet dreams, exhibitionism, degradation… yeah)

Well Shit @2chopsticks2eyes (Brother’s best friend, inexperienced reader, enemies to lovers and fwb… literally so good)

Sea May Rise, Sky May Fall @skzms (Lee Know x Reader x Han, complete series, Pirate AU with beautiful world building, in-depth characters and GREAT smut. One of my all time favs)

rsvp @cbini (teasing dom vampire boyfriend Minho and you get the punishment you deserve... brat taming and so so so sexy like it's insane)

Changbin

The accidental acquisition of sugar @skzdarlings (accidental sugar daddy Changbin x reader that’s absolutely hilarious with great smut)

Valentine’s series ‘do you really think you’re in a position to give orders’) @skzdarlings (forbidden love/romeo & juliet style but with gun play… um this was so hot tho)

Close your eyes (...And count to seven) @MysteryBird (Possessive gang leader bf! Changbin that you’re trying to piss off by sleeping with the other members… 100k+ words and so delicious)

Hyunjin

Praise kink Hyunjin @dreaming-medium (A kinktober fic, enemies to lovers detective Hyunjin… absolutely delicious)

Snowed In @moonjxsung (really artistic, heartfelt, and beautifully written)

Jury’s still out @straywrds (rivals to hooking up/hate sex… super spicy and hot)

Dressing down @jl-micasea-fics (shopping trip with best friend Hyunjin turns out spicy ahh the chemistry)

Four of wands @straywrds (beautifully crafted story I was so immersed in!! witch Hyunjin and sex magick, the characters have so much depth! crazy tension)

Han

Watch your six @dreaming-medium (sensory deprivation kinktober ah this is engraved in my brain)

The same but different @skzdarlings (ahh hanlix fairy au where they’re linked with great world building and is so funny… I maybeee think about this every day)

Sea May Rise, Sky May Fall @skzms (Lee Know x Reader x Han, complete series, Pirate AU with beautiful world building, in-depth characters and GREAT smut. One of my all time favs)

Screen Identity: Mismatched Passion (SIMP) @leeknowsallyoursecrets (Spin-off series to the experience project! Jisung x reader enemies/academic rivals to lovers in which they’re both anonomously sexting each other on discord without knowing who’s on the other end of the screen!!! top tier level tension)

Felix

The bodyguard @skzdarlings (Forced proximity, enemies to lovers, had me SUPER invested and made me cry)

The same but different @skzdarlings (ahh hanlix fairy au where they’re linked with great world building and is so funny… I maybee think about this every day)

Snap out of it @2baabbies (Felix gives you the option to either go home with your shitty boyfriend or go home with him at the end of the night ahhh!!)

Seungmin

Bet on it @skzonthebrain (Academic rivals, enemies to lovers and such good tension/chemistry)

Audience @gimmeurtmi (2 min, wet dreams, exhibitionism, degradation… yeah)

Saturday mornings @skzdarlings (Chan/reader/Seungmin where Seungmin is an absolute menace that gets reader in trouble… dom Chan is so good in this one omg)

Seungmin + hairpulling @straykeedz (kinktober fic, best friend Seungmin finds out you have a thing for hairpulling and can't get you out of his head... this is taken straight from the deepest depths of my fantasies i s2g)

no nut november @gimmeurtmi (this whole nnn series is fantastic but seeing Seungmin lose his composure because of his breeding kink does something for me)

august is a fever @seungminheart (mean dom Seungmin... you don't think he is really into you so you see how far you can push him/I love mean dom Seungmin and I think this fic does it just right)

I.N.

Lavender boy @hyunsvngs (A/B/O Alpha jeongin… super sexy and great dynamics)

Clueless @jeongin-lvr (inexperienced big dick I.N. that just wants to make reader feel good… also omg he’s so hot in this pls)

Better and better @seungminheart (sharing a bed, best friend Jeongin, amazing banter, soft dom Jeongin, brat taming, every trope from my hopes and dreams)

Third leg? @beesspacedotorg (huge dick alpha Innie... some brat taming, great banter and dynamics and sexy)

OT8

Sharing a bed series @skzdarlings (Best trope ever and they really do it justice) (Chan's is linked but you should read all 8)

Sharing is caring @skzms (Minsung x reader x OT8… really well written spice)

Fake texts @thefantasyden (I swear these are like crack I read them every single time)

Kinktober23 @roseykat (one of the first SKZ blogs that I started reading that really brought me deep into the fandom… My fav from this is Table Manners and Bible Studies, and it has a part 2)

All Bark no Bite @doitforbangchan (Main pairing is Chan x Reader with some OT8, it's an ABO au with some really good spice)

Masterlist

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sirenthestone · 1 year

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If there's anything improvised storytelling (like ttrpgs, for instance) proves, it's that you don't need to overthink every aspect of a plot to include foreshadowing and the like.

You don't even have to know where the plot is going. You will accidentally foreshadow stuff whether you meant to or not, if you're writing with any amount of detail. So don't stress about it!

#writing #ttrpgs #im gonna be honest #as a professional writer #(nonfiction mostly #but i write fiction for fun too)#i basically never use any of that literary analysis stuff on purpose #like the foreshadowing or whatever always just kinda happens #and im willing to be that happens to a lot of ppl #so yeah dont worry too much about carefully sprinkling literary tools into your story #theyll probably happen anyway

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jessiethewitchzard · 10 days

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Seeing @thydungeongal constantly wrestling with people interpreting her posts about D&D in ways that seem completely alien to me has convinced me that there are actually multiple completely distinct activities both being referred to as "playing D&D" Before we begin, I want to stress that I'm not saying one of these groups is Playing The Game Wrong or anything, but there seems to be a lot of confusion and conflict caused by people not being aware of the distinction. In fact, either one works just fine if everyone's on the same page. So far, I think I've identified at least two main groups. And nobody seems to realize the distinction between these groups even exists. The first group of people think of "Playing D&D" as, well, more or less like any other board game. Players read the whole rulebook all the way through, all the players follow the instructions, and the gameplay experience is determined by what the rules tell each player to do. This group thinks of the mechanics as, not exactly the *whole* game, but certainly the fundamental skeleton that everything else is built on top of. People in the second group think of "Playing D&D" as referring to, hanging out with their friends, collaboratively telling a story inspired by some of the elements in the rulebooks, maybe rolling some dice to see what happens when they can't decide. This group thinks of the mechanics of the game as, like... a spice to sprinkle on top of the story to mix things up. (if you belong to this second group, and think I'm explaining it poorly, please let me know, because I'm kind of piecing things together from other people saying things I don't understand and trying to reverse engineer how they seem to be approaching things.) I think this confusion is exacerbated by the fact that Wizards of the Coast markets D&D as if these are the same thing. They emphatically are not. the specific rules laid out of the D&D rulebooks actually direct players to tell a very specific kind of story. You can tell other stories if you ignore those rules (which still counts as "playing D&D" under the second definition, but doesn't under the first)And I think people in both groups are getting mad because they assume that everyone is also using their definition. For example, there's a common argument that I've seen play out many times that goes something like this:

A: "How do I mod D&D to do [insert theme here]?" B: "D&D is really not built for that, you should play [other TTRPG] that's designed for it instead" A: "But I don't want to learn a whole new game system!" B: "It will be easier to just learn a whole new system than mod D&D to do that." A: "whatever, I'll just mod D&D on my own" And I think where this argument comes from is the two groups described above completely talking past each other. No one understands what the other person is trying to say. From A's perspective, as a person in the second group, it sounds like A: "Anyone have some fun inspirations for telling stories about [insert theme here]?" B: "You can't sit around a table with your friends and tell a story about that theme! That's illegal." A: "But we want to tell a story about this theme!" B: "It's literally impossible to do that and you're a dumb idiot baby for even thinking about it." A: "whatever, jerk, I'll figure it out on my own."

--- Whereas, from B's perspective, the conversation sounds like A: "How do I change the rules of poker to be chess, and not be poker?" B: "uhhh, just play chess?" A: "But I already know how to player poker! I want to play poker, but also have it be chess!" B: "what the hell are you talking about? What does that even mean. They're completely different games." A: "I'm going to frankenstein these rules together into some kind of unplayably complex monster and you can't stop me!" ---

So both people end up coming away from the conversation thinking the other person is an idiot. And really, depending on how you concieve of what it means to "play D&D" what is being asked changes considerably. If you're only planning to look through the books for cool story inspiration, maybe borrow a cool little self contained sub-system here or there, then yeah, it's very possible to steal inspiration for your collaborative story from basically anywhere. Maybe some genres are kind of an awkward fit together, but you can make anything work with a little creativity.

If, however, you are thinking of the question in terms of frankensteining two entire board games together, then it becomes a massively difficult or even outright nonsensical idea. For example, for skill checks, the game Shadowrun has players roll a pool of several d6 at once, then count up how many rolled above a target value to see how well a character succeeded at a task. The whole game is full of specific rules about adding or removing dice from the pool, effects happening if you roll doubles, rerolling only some of the dice, and all sorts of other things that simply do not translate to rolling a single d20 for skill checks. On a basic level, the rules of the games work very differently. Trying to make them compatible would be much harder than just learning a new game from scratch. Now, neither of these approaches is exactly *wrong*, I guess, but personally, I find the rules of TTRPGs to be fascinating and worth taking the time to engage with all the weird little nuances and seeing what shakes out. Also, the first group, "TTRPG as fancy board game" is definitely the older and more widespread one. I kind of get the impression that the second group largely got into D&D through actual play podcasts, but I don't have any actual data to back that up. So, if you're in the second group, who thinks of D&D as basically a context for collaborative storytelling first and a game second, please let me know if I'm wildly misunderstanding how you approach D&D. Because I'm pretty sure it would save us a whole lot of stupid misunderstandings.

#aj oc #dungeons and dragons #D&D #ttrpg

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its-your-mind · 9 months

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ALWAYS rotating TAZ: Balance around in my brain like microwave but ESPECIALLY with the announcement of The Suffering Game graphic novel

The dope thing they can do (and are doing) with the graphic novel series is sprinkle in moments of foreshadowing and hints to the reader about what REALLY might be going on here, which is so cool and I’m a huge fan of it, especially when you’re telling a story in this form.

But what is REALLY FUCKING TASTY about Balance as a story is that none of the motherfuckers telling it had any clue what they were doing when they started

Gerblins is dick jokes and not knowing how dice work and making fun of each other for voices. LICHRALLY the scene where Taako grabs the Umbrastaff is immediately proceeded by Clint trying different voices for Merle while Justin begs him to stop, as Taako. Merle gets launched across the room cuz he failed his save, and now Taako has an umbrella. The scene moves on.

Griffin brought them up to the BOB, introduced them to the Director, and gave them memories of a war fought over nameless, lost, powerful but mysterious artifacts. The memory that Taako takes from it is the idea of soured cream (ya know, for his taco quest).

And then they’re off, on different adventures, making friends, saving lives, making more dick jokes, and Griffin is in the background, slowly building in the meta-plot, as all DMs do.

But this meta-plot was HUGE. It was ALL-CONSUMING. It completely changes everything we know about this world and these characters. It takes the moments of dick jokes, and arguments about character voices, and flirting with death, and adds a layer of tragedy and complexity that just wasn’t present the first time they told that story.

AND THAT’S WHY THIS STORY KICKS ASS. The vibe of the story changed as Tres Horny Boys grew closer and closer to remembering the lives they had lost, as Griffin upped the stakes, as people started dying. They still don’t know shit for most of The Suffering Game, but you absolutely could not have predicted the tone of that arc after just listening to Gerblins. It sounds like a completely different story. And so when the other shoe drops, when shit breaks bad, when it’s the end of the world… again, and they have to reclaim their Stolen Century…

It makes sense. The tone has shifted enough to accommodate that kind of change. The characters have grown (back) into themselves enough to make this work.

Because TAZ: Balance is a tragedy. But the tragedy happened before the podcast even started, and had been erased. So of course it started off with goofs and dildo jokes. Of course the three of them started being standoff-ish with each other and making light of every situation that should have had a lot more weight. They didn’t know what they had lost, and we, the audience, didn’t either. So it was easy to laugh and joke… until slowly, it wasn’t so much anymore.

Plenty of people have praised Griffin’s storytelling abilities, but I think the thing that was most impressive to me was how he took the disparate threads laid out behind the Boys on their adventures, and followed them backwards, into the story they had lost, and forwards, into the ending they earned. I fucking love that he settled on Istus as the deity to interact with them, because I don’t think there’s a better representation of the story Griffin was weaving behind the scenes of the arcs.

Story and Song wasn’t really an arc driven by dice rolls and role playing - but it wasn’t railroading either. Griffin took every story they had told, every happy ending they had fought for, and twined them around and through each other. The world was saved not because of a lucky nat 20 roll, but because every person they had helped through the story came out in force to fight beside them to save their world.

And so in the end, the Stolen Century was a tragedy. But The Adventure Zone: Balance was a story of hope, of family, of the power that just a few loveable doofuses can have when they move through the world, making friends and saving lives. So when the world was ending and they needed help, there were dozens of people waiting to hear the Story and the Song that would give them the push they needed to fight, and the hope they needed to win.

#taz #taz balance #taz balance spoilers #taako adventurezone #merle highchurch #magnus burnsides #McElroys #griffin mcelroy #the adventure zone

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zhongrin · 2 years

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— a short and casual genshin impact otome game.

⟣ 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 ⟢

┊ (Windows 🪟, Linux 🐧, or Mac 🍎 only!)

◇ 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬? ◇

Just a simple something I had in mind for a Genshin otome game... I have 0 attention span, 0 time, and 0 knowledge to write and build a full-fledged 3D game with intricate stories, plot, and mechanics. This is just a simple visual novel with a streamlined plot and partial voices. You should be able to complete everything in like... 30 minutes long in total. Might be less, even.

◇ 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 ◇

The game will contain the following: established relationship, FLUFF, comfort, lots of pet names, suggestive themes, lots of kissy sounds on some routes, implications of violence (not towards player), a sprinkle of protective behavior

◇ 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 ◇

Zhongli, Xiao, Childe, Diluc, Kaeya, Itto, Kazuha (Zhongli is selected by default because who doesn’t love geo daddy???)

◇ 𝐰𝐡𝐨'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫? ◇

This is a very self-indulgent project, hence the dialogues were written with fem!player in mind. It will contain suggestive themes, so please be aware of that before downloading / playing!

◇ 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲? ◇

Yes, it's totally free - in fact, I do not accept payment.

◇ 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲? ◇

Click the link to download the appropriate file based on your OS. Only Windows, Linux, and Mac are supported. No, I won't release it on other platforms.

Open the game, and you’ll find that it’s pretty straightforward. Customize your profile, select your love interest, then start the game.

There are no wrong answers and the love interest can be changed anytime (just go back to main menu and select the character’s picture on the right side).

◇ 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐢 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬? ◇

You can personally send links to this post / the game’s itch.io page to your friends via DMs, but outside of that (reposting), NO. For example, posting about this on Reddit is prohibited.

◇ 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞? ◇

This is a super casual project.

Scripts are not proofread. Probably lots of grammar mistakes.

Novel format without narration (full dialogs).

There are no actual sprites, just official art and something akin to a speech bubble to cater to the characters’ changes in ‘expression’.

There are voices, but only partial - mostly just grunts, chuckles, kisses, and stuff. I’m using JP voices EXCEPT for Itto because Max Mittelman is a gem. No, I will not add other languages' voice versions.

Sound cues and voices are quite important for this game so I recommend using headphones.

Depending on when you open the game (morning, afternoon, nighttime, midnight), your currently selected love interest might greet you differently.

To reiterate, there are no wrong answers.

Selecting all talk/act options for a character will unlock a small event where they'll give you unique gifts.

I lowkey have so many ideas on how to expand on this in terms of gameplay and options but let’s be real here it probably won’t happen lol why can’t my brain be this creative when it comes to work

◇ 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐮𝐬??? ◇

No... That said, anyone can literally say that. Please be responsible for your own actions.

I have also released other games on the same itch.io profile, so this isn't my first rodeo. Feel free to check the reviews on those before making your decision if you're wary about downloading!

◇ 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 ◇

hyv please don't sue me i gain 0 dollars for this and i just wanna simp in peace

⟐ 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚜 🄸 𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑.𝚒𝚘 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎 🄸 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 ⟐

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starplanes · 3 months

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A (5 star) review of Bury Your Gays, by @drchucktingle!

I read this book in one sitting. I did not plan to read this book in one sitting, but I could not put it down, accepting that my lunch break was now an extended reading break. Bury Your Gays was just that good.

It starts simple. Screenwriter Misha has been told by his exec that the season finale of his show must out, then kill the two leads. He needs to bury his gays because the board has determined it's where the money is. Misha says no. Then starts getting stalked by his (definitely fictional, right?) characters from other shows. Either Misha developed some incredible supernatural powers in that meeting, or something more sinister is at work…

Bury Your Gays illustrates why queer people should be allowed to tell the stories they want to tell, instead of being made to use queerbating, tragic tropes, or fake relentless optimism in the name of corporate Pride. It's a story about the queer struggle to find oneself in a world that makes it so, so hard. There's a lot of love for the queer community poured into this book, and oh does it shines. I especially adored the ace rep - and the concept of ace rep as a plot point. I shall not explain further. However, I am more scared than ever of the corporatization of Pride.

Bury Your Gays also criticizes capitalism's monetization of tragedy and exploitation of workers. It explores what happens when ethics are ignored in the name of an ever-growing profit margin, to the point where the bottom line becomes a near-sentient thing. It leans into the horrors of AI and data-mining by combining the two and going all the way with it. Chuck Tingle has acknowledged all my fears of black box algorithms and also made them ten times worse. Truly a feat! I will be sleeping with my router off!

It's a masterpiece of horror, both visceral and psychological. Since the main character is a horror writer, the story is very genre aware. There's a lot of fun to be had in the tale of "writer being followed by the monsters he wrote," and certainly no small amount of terror. It gets gory here and there, with plenty of suspense in between. Hints are laid out for the reader, enough where I was occasionally able to predict what was coming just a page or two before it landed. My jaw dropped multiple times! The writing is descriptive enough to pull you right in (and gross you out!), and it's paced near-perfectly. There's all these little moments sprinkled in that elevate the whole story, from fun references of other work to subtle clues you'll only catch on a reread.

This book will be living in my head rent-free from now on. It's about so many things and yet has interwoven them all perfectly. Fans of classic horror movies will love this story. Those of us fed up with AI generated trash will love it. Anyone who joined a WGA picket line will love it. Asexuals fed up with lack of representation will love it. People who watched multiple seasons of Supernatural will love it. Is that you? Go pick up Bury Your Gays. Be scared, be sad, be angry. But also validated, loved, and joyful.

TLDR: Read this book when it comes out on July 9!

#chuck tingle #bury your gays #book review #publishes july 9 #I was SO EXCITED when I got approved for an eARC of this book #it was everything I wanted it to be and more

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luveline · 8 months

Note

Girl pls pls write stripper reader and Spencer where she thinks he would never date her bc she’s a stripper and just a sprinkle of angst with lots of comforting fluff and Spencer reassuring

thank u for requesting! ♡ fem, 1.5k

cw mentioned past domestic/workplace abuse, unhealthy eating habits

Someone broke into my apartment. 9:14AM

Spencer reads the message under the table but forgoes discretion when he registers what it says and who it's from. He excuses himself from the round table, something he isn't even sure he's allowed to do, and hurries out onto the landing.

You answer on the second dial. "Hey, did you see my text?" you ask.

"Are you okay?" He squeezes his phone.

"I'm not sure. I'm fine, but my lock is busted and the door won't stay shut."

"Where are you?"

If you're surprised that he's steamrolling, you don't show it. Spencer leaves work to meet you at the coffee shop you've chosen for refuge, your eyes tired, a small bag of your most important possessions hanging on a slumped shoulder. He hugs you straight away.

"I'm fine," you say into his neck.

He hugs you tighter. "That's good," he says, feeling useless, fingers stroking little paths into your shoulders. He pictured the worst from your text, and seeing you in person is the only true mitigator. You'll talk down bruises and black eyes —you have in the past.

He pulls the story from you as you walk back to his apartment, shoulder to shoulder in the cold street. "It was open when I got home, the door, but I did what you asked me to."

"You didn't go in?" he confirms proudly.

"Not at first."

"You really won't call the police?"

"I texted you."

Spencer takes the strap of your bag from you and throws it over his own. "I'm not that kind of cop. I'm not really a cop at all."

"No, you're a fed, which is worse. The girls at work told me to stay away from you." You wipe under your eyes sluggishly. Sleep clings to you like a shadow trailing behind you, ever-present.

He puts his hand behind your back, worried you'll fall up the steps to his apartment building. "They think I'll what, extort you?"

You shake your head, something sad in the slow side to side. "Girls like me have no business around guys like you."

"You probably get too much business from guys like me."

You laugh, but you both know it's not what you meant. Spencers noticed it more and more lately, nothing so obvious until now, this dead set belief you hold that he's one type of person and you're another. He gets that your work isn't what you wanted for yourself when you were growing up. He knows it isn't easy, even on your 'good' nights. It takes a toll to be seen as you are, nothing left private. But you've always said you liked stripping as much as anyone should like their job. "It's a job," you'd said, having barely known him, tired and hungry, curled up on his couch with nowhere else to go. "Only the luckiest get to really enjoy work. S'why it's called work."

He'd hoped, perhaps in a self-absorbed way, that having more support might make you feel better about yourself; he wanted his friendship to give you some confidence, basically. Before you met Spencer there was no one else you could depend on. It's why you stayed working for a man who broke your wrist until Spencer weaselled his way into your life and made you a bed in his living room for the time it took to get you out. His credentials helped, of course, but you survived it because you're resilient. You're awesome. You've done everything you can with what you have and you don't think it's enough.

You and Spencer take the elevator to his floor, and for the twenty seconds it takes to get there, you let your cheek rest on his shoulder. He's just about to drop his head on top of yours when the doors open, and the slice of quiet you'd both savoured slips like sand between his fingers.

"I can go back and get some of your stuff," he offers, guiding you the short walk to his door. He passes you the key rather than struggle with the lock himself.

Your hand shakes as you push down the handle. "There's nothing worth going back for."

"Don't say that, you have all your clothes there, your couch. You have things. I'll take my car."

"You hate driving."

"I'd hate someone robbing you even more."

"Robbing me again," you correct, holding the door for him.

You didn't have anything worth the trouble, it seems. You keep your savings in a locked box hidden in the bathroom that they couldn't find, and though your apartment is clean and bigger than the one you lived in before Spencer met you, it's mostly empty. You don't have a TV, you're not a collector. They took the radio off of the refrigerator, your microwave oven, and a box of cosmetic jewellery worth chapel change.

"But it's your stuff. You deserve to have stuff." Spencer drops your bag gently and his with less care by the door.

"It's only until the locksmith can come tomorrow," you say with a yawn. "Let the junkies lavish in my stuff for the next twenty hours."

"That's not a problem for you?"

"I don't have the luxury of that being a problem for me, Spence. What am I supposed to do? The locksmith can't come–"

"There are a hundred locksmiths."

"Not that I can afford." You shrug out of your jacket. "Spence, listen to me. It's okay. I can't ask you to do that, anyways. You've done more than enough for me already," you say, sitting on the couch. You perch for a moment like you're trying to be polite until fatigue overtakes you, and you sink into the cushions with a relieved sigh.

Spencer crosses the space between you and kneels by your feet to untie your shoelaces.

"Don't do that," you mumble, hand over your mouth as a second yawn in as many minutes catches you.

"Why not?" He slips your shoes off, letting his hand rest on your ankle. "Wanna watch that weird cooking show–"

"Why aren't you at work?"

He climbs onto the couch next to you, unafraid to sit shoulder to shoulder. "You were having an emergency."

You rub your face with both hand. "I knew I shouldn't have called you. You can't just leave work because of me, Spencer, what if you get in trouble?"

"Someone I care about needed my help, and Hotch understands that." Spencer puts on his big boy pants with a wince. "Do you get that?"

"I don't really… I don't…" You falter. "We're never going to work. You'll never…"

"I'll never what?" he asks insistently, voice lilting up with a little incredulity. He can't help it.

You refuse to answer, turning your face from his.

Spencer knows what you're going to say. He's bad with girls but he's good at recognising human emotion; he sees the same insecurity in himself as he does in you. He knows the feeling.

You're not right, is the thing.

Spencer would kiss you if he thought that would change your mind. But tired as you are, angry with yourself, defeated, he knows it's not a good idea. He takes your hand instead, sewing your fingers together with a deliberate slowness. He brings his other hand to them and strokes the back of your index finger with his thumb, careful not to disrupt your press on nails. He knows they have a tendency to come off with too much pressure, and you're always losing your glue.

"If they really need me to go, they'll call me. But I'm staying here." His thumb moves down to your knuckle. You have little calluses and cuts and bruises everywhere from dancing. He's seen the contusions that line your thighs on a semi permanent basis. "When was the last time you had something to eat?"

"Spencer," you murmur.

"Let me take care of you, please," he says, hand curling around your wrist with extreme gentleness. "You need to eat. You need to sleep. Let me worry about everything else for once, I want to."

You still don't look at him, but you sink down an inch at a time until your cheek is on his shoulder again, like it had been in the elevator. Hesitant, you wrap your arm around his stomach.

"I'm so stupid," you say.

He wonders if that's a placeholder for what you really want to say. You think so little of yourself sometimes, but it's like you've told him before. Not everyone has the luxury of enjoying their job.

"You're amazing." Spencer feels like he's on fire everywhere that your skin touches him. Is he saying the right things? "You are. You're the only person who doesn't see that."

"The only person here, maybe."

"You should always be here, then. With me. That way I can remind you."

You sound more like yourself when you answer, though tiredness lines every word, "Thank you, Spencer. I don't deserve you."

"Yes, you do."

Spencer rubs your hand until you fall asleep, and then he buys you a new toaster oven on his phone, and an industrial security lock. He doesn't know what it'll take to convince you that you deserve him, you deserve better, but he's gonna try.

He presses his cheek to your temple and focuses on the softness of your skin where it touches his.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader

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akumakosuke · 4 months

Text

Satoru Gojo was born a god among mortals.

From the moment he opened his eyes he was automatically better than everyone, worth more than everyone.

Satoru Gojo stands alone atop a pedestal at the pinnacle of Jujutsu Sorcery, forever destined to bask in the glory of being the strongest. No one could ever dream to reach his level, he didn’t dream to reach his level but it was cast on him like a curse.

He is a cursed child indeed.

Exactly a week after the miracle birth of Satoru Gojo another clan also welcomed a miracle birth.

M/n Goto was born a god among mortals.

From the moment he opened his eyes he was automatically better than everyone, worth more than anyone…except…

M/n Goto forced the pedestal to grow.

Satoru Gojo tipped the balance of the scales and M/n Goto totally destroyed the scale.

All curse users went into hiding, curses became almost completely inactive for an entire year following the birth of two gods.

During the first few years of their lives they remained blissfully unaware of how deep their destinies intertwine, how truly connected they are.

The day they met was another day to go down in the history books.

Two lone gods, wandering a world that will forever be beneath them, filled with people who will forever be beneath them.

Their paths cross and in that moment time stands still for the young gods, a feeling they’ve never experienced, a sudden tugging at their souls, telling them to turn around and they do.

Crystal-like icy blue orbs clash with star-like fiery red orbs and in that moment two lonely gods became a little less lonely.

The two grew close much to the dismay of many. They knew of their places in the world and they knew no one else understands but them. No one else understands they’re cursed children.

Days of meeting for play dates turned into weekend sleepovers, weekend sleepovers turned into months of bonding, months slowly turned into years and M/n and Satoru thrived, they grew and changed but their bond only got deeper.

They pushed each other to the limits, forcing the other to evolve and keep up and evolve they did.

By the age of 15 they were both Special Grade sorcerers heading into their first year at Jujutsu tech.

Their relationship has also evolved over the years much like their power.

They’re best friends, sure they’re closer than most best friends. They have regular sleepovers and share the same bed, unable to fall asleep without cuddling and sure they are affectionate in public, always staying glued to the others side, an arm around a shoulder here, hands resting on the others hips there and maybe they have kissed a few times but that’s just them being best friends, totally platonic!

Do they have an unspoken agreement to reject any advances from other people? Yes.

Do they acknowledged the agreement? No, that’s why its unspoken, just like the reason they reject everyone else, an unspoken mutual agreement to be each others and only each others without putting any labels on it, besides its not like there’s anyone else alive that could ever tear them apart, come between them or even stand on the same level as them.

Suguru Geto.

The moment M/n and Satoru met Suguru their pedestal was forced to widen again.

They were confronted by another and they had mixed feelings about sharing.

--------------------------------------------------

Okay so I was thinking of making this into an entire fic but im not sure.

I have a lot of ideas already, especially about the in depth relationship of the three of them and how they would function.

It would focus on M/n, Satoru and Suguru and how their relationship develops throughout the years in Jujutsu Tech and what would happen during the hidden inventory arc with M/n present and how he would affect the story.

There will be smut of course with Domtop Amab M/n and Subbot Satoru and Suguru .

Let me know if I should make a full on fic or just a smut with a bit of plot sprinkled in~!

#akumakosuketoughts #dom male reader #seme male reader #top male reader #male reader #jjk x male reader #jujutsu kaisen #gojo satoru #satoru x male reader #gojo x male reader #satoru gojo x male reader #geto suguru #suguru x male reader #geto x male reader #suguru geto x male reader #sub jjk

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acourtofwhatthefuck · 9 months

Text

Practice On Me — Part Four — Azriel x Reader

Summary: It’s Solstice! Reader decides she should probably be honest with Azriel about some stuff. Things don’t quite go to plan.

Oof. Okay. This could be uncomfortable reading for some. There are some hints and depictions of domestic abuse and also of alcoholism, so if that’s something that might trigger you, please, please do not read this. The last thing I want is for my writing to be harmful to anybody. Read with caution. Take care and put yourself first. Lots of love.

Also, please don’t hate me for this 😭we know I’m a hoe for angst and it wouldn’t be one of my fics if there wasn’t some sprinkled in there lmao.

Word Count: 5k.

Warnings: Depiction of abusive behaviour. Heavy drinking. Some violence.

On a brisk winter morning, when the sun hasn’t yet graced the sky, the last place you wish to be is at the Windhaven crèche, watching over a group of tired, grouchy younglings. Every second thought that passes through your mind is a longing one, lamenting on how desperately you wish to be back in your bed.

But alas, you owe your friend, Vegha, a favour, making you the sole minder of ten restless little girls, all annoyed that their brothers get to join their fathers for training, while they have to stay back and be…girls. A downfall, according to most Illyrian males.

You’re supposed to be watching over them for a couple of hours while Vegha runs an errand. And that time is going very, very slowly.

You’re in the middle of reading a storybook — and, yes, doing all the voices — when the door opens behind you. You feel a glimmer of hope that perhaps Vegha is back earlier than planned, but when you swivel on the child-sized chair you’ve perched yourself on, it’s Azriel who looms in the doorway.

And you…your heart does a silly little thing in your chest.

“Don’t let me interrupt.” He says. “I can wait.”

Your eyebrows flick up in amusement. “Come take a seat, then. It’s story time.”

His lips twitch, and he goes to reach for one of those infant chairs — which you’re not at all sure can handle all his muscle — but this sparks a flurry of complaints from the girls, who all insist that they want to sit with Azriel the most, and within seconds, he’s cross-legged on the floor with the children somehow managing to settle around him without bickering, and they’re all able to command his attention at once.

Happy mediums, and all that.

Your gaze lingers on him as he does all the right things; leaning his head down so he can appear less…huge, while listening with rapt attention to one of the girl’s chattering; steadying another one as they climb over him to get themselves seated; gently telling them all that they have to be quiet if they want to hear the rest of the story. That, of course, achieves immediate near silence.

And thus begins an entire performance of you continuing the tale, and the girls — and Azriel — responding in all the right places. They howl when they’re supposed to make the sound of a wolf, and roar when it’s a mountain cat, and you don’t miss that Azriel helps the tiniest of the girls to remember which animals make what sounds.

Most males in this gods-forsaken place are an intimidating presence to these children, frightening them into silence whenever they’re around, because girls are supposed to be seen and not heard. But Azriel is always gentle, always kind, and they adore him for it.

It’s a combination of all these things that force you to face a truth that’s been rapidly snowballing inside your mind and heart for the past four days — something has changed. Shifted. Has been shifting and changing for a while.

You laid awake for hours that night in the dormitory, listening to Azriel’s breathing as he slept deeply, happily sated from the pleasure you’d given him. Your mind had been too much of a war zone for you to drift off.

Nine years, you’ve called this male your closest friend. Ever since the very first day you’d met him, when a group of males had pushed you to the floor and kicked mud at you, and he’d jumped in and defended you for no other reason than that he’s good to the bone. Nine years, you’ve been by each other’s sides, and it’s been comfortable and familiar and just…right.

But now — now, you think you may have jeopardised that all by going along with Azriel’s request for help. Help with kissing. Touching. Experiencing.

You’ll always want to help him in any way that you can, of course. But you didn’t quite anticipate the predicament you now find yourself in. That you want all of those things and more, not just under the ruse of building your friend’s confidence. You want to explore more with him, feel more with him. You’ve been able to think about nothing else for days.

And it might make you a total wretch, but you want Kaeda to be a distant memory. The thought of Azriel taking what you’ve shown him, shared with him, and putting his all into somebody else…it sours your stomach. Makes you feel sick.

Makes your heart hurt.

And, well, you’re fucked, really.

It’s a kind of hurt that won’t go away on its own. It isn’t avoidable nor ignorable. And so your only option is to confront it, be honest about it. Whatever the outcome may be.

The story comes to an end, and the girls are calmed and sleepy enough that they look ready to curl up on the floor and doze off. Azriel peels himself away from the cluster of clingy children and stands up, strolling over to you.

“Well that was fun.” He comments quietly, taking the book from your hands. “Who knew I was so adept at doing animal impressions?”

“One of your many talents, I suppose.” You smile, drinking in the sight of him. He looks tired this morning. Tired, but beautiful. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

His expression sobers slightly, and he tells you, “We’re leaving this morning. For the training exercise.”

Immediately, your stomach churns. Being away from your friends sets you on edge. Windhaven is a lonely, lonely place to be without the love of Rhys, Cassian and Azriel to warm you. And not even Rhys’s mother is here to make it a little more bearable.

Az immediately recognises the bleakness that passes your face. He steps closer, his hand a gentle brush against yours. “I’ll be back for Solstice.” He reminds you yet again.

“I know.” You attempt to force an easy, breezing smile. “What’s the plan for Solstice, anyway?”

Normally, Rhysand’s mother would cook a meal in the cottage. You wouldn’t be able to attend, given that you’re always stuck at home with your father, but by the time he would pass out drunk, you’d sneak out and make it to the cottage just as the games were starting. Some of your happiest memories are of being curled up on one couch with Az, Rhys and his mother on the other, and Cassian stood in front of you, making a terrible attempt at playing charades.

But it’ll be different this year. With the High Lord keeping a tight leash on his pregnant mate in Velaris, there will be no meal, no charades. You, Azriel and Cassian would most certainly not be welcome at their intimate family celebration.

“Rhys will spend the day in Velaris.” Az tells you. “Cass and I will be getting drunk. There’s a celebration being held at the dormitories in the evening, so I suppose we’ll all end up there.”

You dip your chin. “I’ll come and find you there, then.”

His responding smile is a gentle one; one that says he sees right through you, right through to the panic that’s eating away at you, and he understands.

There’s no way he sees everything that you’re feeling, though. Perhaps that’s a good thing.

Your body goes slightly rigid as he dips down and presses a kiss to your forehead. His hand squeezes yours, and then he’s pulling away. “See you on Solstice.”

He bids a quiet goodbye to the dozing girls. It’s as he’s heading for the door that you find yourself stepping after him. “…Az?”

He turns, hand on the doorknob. “Yes?”

“There’s…something I need to talk to you about, when you get back. Something I need to tell you.”

Okay. Shit. You’re really doing this.

Azriel’s eyes rake over you, and then he smiles. “We’ll talk on Solstice.”

✧: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Your head’s not all there today, as you stare out of the window of your father’s forge. Azriel and the others have been gone almost a week, and you’ve spent every one of those days thinking about how you’re going to tell him…whatever it is you’re going to tell him.

You’re not even certain, yourself.

Just that…that things are different. That you know, to begin with, that this was about him and Kaeda — but it’s shifted in your brain at an alarming rate, and now that you’ve shared something so…so meaningful, with him, you’re not sure you can go on acting as though it was all just a favour.

Yeah. That should do it.

And it’s a huge fucking risk, of course. There’s every chance he won’t return the sentiment, and then a giant wedge of unresolved feelings will exist between you.

But you need to — perhaps selfishly — confront this before things between him and Kaeda progress. In case there’s a slight chance that it’ll alter the path it’s heading down.

And you haven’t thought any further than that.

The snow has started again, and you watch the flurries sweep past the window and join the thick layer on the ground. You’ve become so accustomed to the noise of the forge that you hardly notice it anymore — not the constant clanking, nor the heat that the fires swathe the shop in. You used to beg your father to teach you his craft, to allow you to get stuck in and get your hands dirty, but he’s always stubbornly maintained that it’s a male’s job, and that he needs you for the bookkeeping. You’re surprised he trusts you with that.

You breathe a soft sigh, your thoughts once again flitting back to Az. To what he might be doing, thinking, feeling. Whether he misses you as much as you miss him.

But before those thoughts can take a hold of you and sink you deeper into your predicament, the door opens, the bell above it ringing and a gust of cold air momentarily biting you.

It’s rare for females to come to the forge. Very rare, indeed. Which is why, for a second or two, you just stare.

That — and because she’s incredibly beautiful.

Her eyes — the colour of emeralds — sweep the workshop, before landing on you, and she smiles. She has the telltale tanned skin of an Illyrian, but instead of the dark hair that’s so typical around here, hers is red — not orange, not auburn, but blood red. You’ve never seen a shade quite like it.

And if that’s not enough to completely bowl you over, your gaze rakes over her clothing, and you stop, stunned.

Females around here wear homespun dresses of simple brown shades. A few, like yourself, favour basic tunics and breeches. Clothing is just a necessity, not something you lend much thought to.

But this female wears Illyrian leathers. Never, in your life, have you seen females wear Illyrian leathers. It’s simply not a done thing.

But she looks resplendent in them.

They cling to supple curves and accentuate a figure that you don’t think you’d ever be able to achieve with any amount of training. And perhaps the most shocking thing of all — and the most enviable — is the presence of brilliant, beautiful wings at her back. Unclipped. Untouched. Unruined.

How your wings might have one day looked, had your father not destroyed them.

You’re not entirely convinced that an angel hasn’t just stepped into your father’s forge. Or perhaps this is the Mother that everyone worships. Part of you wants to worship her, too, and beg her to bestow upon you her blessings—

You snap yourself out of it before you can fall head-over-heels in love with her. She’s just a customer.

A very, very beautiful customer.

“Good day to you.” She says, approaching the counter. Her voice is like pure music.

You incline your head in greeting. “And to you. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m interested in having some gifts made for my father and brothers. For Solstice.”

Once again, you’re gawking.

Another thing that’s unheard of; females liking their family members enough to have gifts made for them.

You clear your throat, blinking out of your thoughts. “What…what kind of things were you looking for?”

“Personalised daggers.” She answers, and then she grins in a way that makes you want to tell her your life story, and leans closer. “A male can never have too many daggers, right?”

You breathe a laugh. It doesn’t sound natural. “Absolutely.”

“I’ll be needing three. One for my father, and one each for my two brothers. Can that be done in time for Solstice? I can pay extra…”

This female has beauty, leathers, wings, a relationship with her family members, money. She’s magnificent. A few exchanged words, and you’re awed by her.

Who is she? How have you never seen her before?

“It can be done.” You tell her with a flustered smile. “I’ll just need to sit with you and get some details of exactly what you want made, and then my father will get straight to it. I imagine they’ll be ready for collection by Solstice Eve.”

Her eyes light up in a way that reminds you of sunrise. “That’s perfect.”

There’s a second or two where you just…can’t help staring. Her beauty has knocked you speechless.

But once again, you snap yourself out of it and try to retain some semblance of professionalism.

“Can I take your name down?” You say, and clear your throat again. Gods, you hope you’re not blushing. “For the order.”

You grab a piece of parchment and a pen, hoping you’ll remember how the fuck to write.

“It’s Kaeda.” She says, and the pen nearly slips from your hand. “Kaeda Baralas.”

✧: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Solstice morning sweeps in just as abruptly as the fresh onslaught of snow that once again batters the camp.

It’s going to be a rough one. You can feel it in your bones.

You dread it every year, but this year is made even worse by the constant stream of thoughts that have been plaguing you over the last week. About whether telling Az about your feelings is a good idea. Not just because of what it could do to your friendship, but because…

Because you can’t deny that since seeing Kaeda in the flesh, you’re doubting yourself more than ever.

Of course, you can see why Azriel would want her. And why he’d want to be good and experienced for her. And you…you’ve been facilitating that. You’re the practice dummy. Kaeda is the real thing.

At least the chaos of Solstice keeps you busy.

You wake early, and from the noise and foot traffic outside your bedroom window, you know Az’s unit has safely returned from their training exercise. Your relief is short-lived, replaced by the dread of your father hitting the bottle.

Every year is the same. You spend the day trying to focus on your preparation of the huge meal you’re expected to cook, while your father knocks back drink after drink and gradually gets rowdier. You tell yourself that the more he drinks, the better — he’ll fall asleep eventually, and you’ll be out of here.

But then the front door bursts open.

It’s four of your father’s friends who pile into your cramped home, singing at the tops of their voices and reeking of booze. You’re only just able to stop one of them knocking a pot of potatoes off the counter with a careless, wayward wing. They barely acknowledge you, filing through to the sitting room to greet your father. Their voices get louder, and an ache is building behind your eye.

Day bleeds into late afternoon. You try to ignore them, to focus on the task at hand. Cooking is usually enjoyable for you, but with an unwelcome party happening in the next room, you find yourself getting more and more stressed.

By the time your father bustles his way into the kitchen and begins sniffing around the food, you’re close to losing it.

“Isn’t it ready yet?” Your father rudely demands.

You stare out of the kitchen window, at the dwindling light of approaching evening, clenching your jaw. “It is. I’m waiting for your friends to leave.”

“They’ll be eating with us.”

You whirl on the spot. “We don’t have enough food for that.”

“I told you we’d have guests.”

No, he absolutely hadn’t. This is a power play. He does shit like this all the time. Backs you into corners.

“I bought food for two people.” You snap, unable to stop yourself. “Not six.”

Your father’s nostrils flare. You know that look on his face a little too well — the one where his cheeks redden and his eyes turn cold. It’s always, always made your stomach lurch.

He steps closer, and you press your back against the counter, trying your utmost not to look intimidated.

“You’d better rectify that, hadn’t you?” His tone is deceptively gentle. “Be a good girl and find a way to make the food go around six people. You wouldn’t want to ruin Solstice.”

It’s a veiled threat. One you’d be wise not to ignore.

So you stare at him and he stares at you. And when he eventually nods and leaves the room, you turn and try to work out how to make a meal for two a meal for six.

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The mountain of a male beside you jostles your chair so violently that you almost fall out of it.

His hand grabs a roast potato from your plate. He shoves it into his mouth, chews, and grins. “You weren’t going to eat that, were you?”

The entire meal has been like this.

Perhaps it’s your ice-thin temper that has you staring him right in the eye; a thing many Illyrian males consider a great disrespect from females. “Would it matter if I was?”

He swallows and swipes the lone, remaining potato you hadn’t planned to touch. “Not really, no.”

The dinner is usually the only part you enjoy of Solstice. A meal that you spend hours perfecting, of slow-cooked meat and roasted potatoes and a colourful array of different vegetables that are cooked to perfection. It’s the one part of the day where you can just sit and breathe, because even your father doesn’t usually have a bad word to say about the meal you’ve presented.

This one has been pure, unadulterated hell.

To accommodate your unwanted guests, you’ve skimped on your own food, barely affording yourself a couple of mouthfuls. Wine and ale has been spilled across the table, and the conversation around it has only grown more and more uncomfortable — and vile — as the night has worn on. You want nothing more than to get out of here and find your friends, but your father and his cronies show no signs of slowing down.

You sit, staring emptily at the plates, the little remaining morsels of the meal you spent all day cooking. You try to block out the laughter and jeering, the disgusting comments, the blatant disrespect, but it’s all getting to you, riling you up. You’re not sure how long you’ll last without snapping.

Your answer comes when your father looks at you. And he snaps his fucking fingers at the finished plates.

“Clear this up, Y/N.” He says.

You know your father. You know what he can be like, the damage he can do. Your ruined back is evidence enough. And you know the wisest and safest thing is for you to comply and rant about him to your friends later.

But you’re far beyond that point.

You meet his gaze, and your jaw ticks as you shoot back, “Why don’t you clear it up yourself?”

You regret it the second the room falls deathly silent. All the noise is gone in an instant. Every face is looking your way.

But it’s your father’s face you’re concerned with. The expression that tells you you’ve made a grave, grave mistake.

“What was that?” His voice is quiet. Too quiet.

You look away. Wish you could cram the words back down your throat. “Nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing.” The male beside you sneers. “You speak to your father like that, girl? If you were my child, I’d string you up by the remains of those wings you never should have been born with.”

“I’d do a lot worse than that.” Another one remarks, a sickening laugh in his voice.

Throughout it all, your father is staring at you. Saying nothing.

“Did it hurt, anyway? Having them ripped off like that? I bet it did. I hope it did.”

Your final straw is when the pig at your side has the audacity to reach around and touch your back. You tense immediately, and you’re shooting up from your chair, knocking it over as you do.

“Don’t ever lay a finger on me again.” You will your voice to be stronger, firmer, but it won’t comply. You shake as you gather the plates up in your hand. “I’m cleaning this up.”

That’s met with a chorus of laughter, a pelting of comments. You tell yourself to block it out, block it the fuck out, balance as much as you reasonably can in your hands and book it into the kitchen. You dump the plates onto the counter and grip onto the sink basin, trying to draw in deep, slow breaths.

But then there are footsteps behind you. And the kitchen door closes. And you know that’s not good.

“Y/N.”

Your eyes shutter. You release one of those useless breaths before you dare to turn and face your father.

And when you do, his face is…soft. Eyes filled with concern.

But you’re not stupid enough to buy it.

You’re taut as a bowstring as he approaches you, stopping inches away. He drinks in the sight of you, tilting his head. You wait for him to tell you that you look just like your mother — a fact that only contributes to his vitriol. As if it’s your fault that she abandoned him, abandoned both of you.

He thinks it is.

His hand touches your cheek, his thumb sweeping the skin there. You swallow, hoping he can’t feel the way you tremble beneath him.

“What’s gotten into you, my girl?” He asks quietly. “What did I say about not ruining Solstice?”

You swallow. Lower your gaze. “I thought it would just be the two of us.”

“Do I not have the right to invite my friends into my home?”

“I’m just saying that a little bit of warning would have been appreciated. I didn’t spend hours cooking a meal just for your friends to come along and ruin it.”

“Your attitude has become insufferable. Perhaps it’s those three males you’ve been spreading your legs for. Giving you too much of an ego boost.”

You almost want to laugh in his face — laugh at his cluelessness. But your anger wins. Maybe you’re more like him than you ever thought.

“Or perhaps, father,” you snap, “it’s an accumulation of anger and desperation after twenty years of living with a repulsive, sanctimonious—”

He strikes you so hard that for a moment, you’re simply stunned as to why you’re suddenly on the floor. But the thwack of his hit rings in your ears, echoes through the kitchen.

And then the metallic taste of blood is coating the inside of your mouth. It’s streaming down your chin, and you’re not even sure where it’s all coming from, only that it hurts and your eyes are stinging.

Your father stares down at you. And in that moment, you realise that the eeriest thing of all is that he never glares at you. You think you’d prefer that.

He always stares with that emptiness. That icy vacancy. It makes his actions more unpredictable, more dangerous.

He lunges down so suddenly that you flinch, yanking you up by the front of your shirt. Your legs don’t want to comply as he shoves you towards the door.

“Get the fuck out of my house.” He hisses at you, ripping the door open. “Go on. Fuck off, just like your mother did.”

And then he’s shoving you into the snow, a plume of it erupting around you. You hardly notice the cold. You’re too stunned.

Not stunned enough, though, to refrain from biting back at him. Just like a threatened animal would.

“Fuck you.” You sneer, the words contorted by a mouthful of blood that you spit onto the snow. “Fuck you, father.”

The bastard laughs in your face. Just as he’s always laughed in your face. And then he kicks snow at you because he can and steps back into the house.

When the door shuts behind him, you push to your feet. You’re trembling all over. It might be the cold. It might be the shock.

There’s only one person you want to see right now. So you wrap your arms around yourself and head towards the dormitories.

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Halfway through trudging across the camp, your shoes sodden with snow, your lip still bleeding, the emotions begin to hit.

You resent them. You resent feeling anything at all towards the male who is your only blood relative in this hollow, hollow place. The one who took your wings. The one who has tried to keep a firm grasp on the control he has over your life.

But you do feel things. Hurt and rage and humiliation and — bizarrely — betrayal. As if some small slither of hope had followed you from childhood into adulthood — that your father would one day miraculously awaken as a different person. A family member worth holding onto.

He never would.

No, your true family has always been the small, loving group that crams themselves into a cottage across the camp; a place of warmth and welcoming.

Rhysand and Cassian and Azriel. Rhysand’s mother, too. They are your family. They have always cared, since the moment you met them.

It’s for that reason that you persevere with your walk, even though you’re frozen to the bone. You think you might be crying. You’re not too sure anymore. Your friends will make it better. They always make it better.

The dormitories glow in the distance; a welcome sight, for once. You kick through the snow with desperation, and you’re definitely crying, definitely shaking all over, but the sounds of the celebrations coming from inside are a relief. Playful jeering and someone strumming a lute and off-kilter singing.

You push your way through the door. Inside is as crowded as you expect it to be, but you don’t even care. Anywhere is better than at home.

Your eyes — not really taking in much at all — scan the corridors, the common area, looking for any of your three closest friends. You see none of them, but a hand lands on your shoulder, and you turn to find Vegha there. Her eyes widen immediately at the state of you. You dread to think how bad you look.

“Y/N, what the fuck?” She blurts. “Why are you bleeding?”

“Fell over.” You know how stupid it sounds. “I…I need to find Azriel. Have you seen him?”

“Oh, I think he skulked off to his room a little while ago. Everyone knows he hates big parties like this—”

Perfect. You’ll hole up in his room together and block the rest of the world out. You’re already turning and pushing through people. You’ll apologise to Vegha for your rudeness later. Right now, you just need Azriel’s comfort, his love. The conversation you planned to have with him tonight is now a distant memory, an issue to confront later. You just…just want him. He always makes everything better.

You don’t notice the drink that gets spilled on you, or the disgruntled groups of people you have to shove through. None of that matters. Azriel is your family. He matters.

Finally, you make it to his room. The soft glow of faelights shine beneath the door — an indication he’s inside. You almost sob with relief as you grab the handle and burst in.

Two faces immediately look round at you.

Azriel’s.

Kaeda’s.

Kaeda lies on top of him, hands either side of his head. Her lips are swollen and inches from his. Azriel is palming at her waist, holding her against him. They’re both fully clothed, but…but you get the sense they wouldn’t have been for much longer, had it not been for your interruption.

Azriel drinks in the sight of you, his chest heaving. He blinks. You…you’re rooted to the spot.

And you fucking wince as Kaeda sits up slightly. Az’s hands fall back to his sides.

The beautiful female eyes you, tilting her head. And you want to get out of there, to fucking run, but you can’t do anything but stand and blink as something shatters inside of you.

“The shop hand from the forge.” Kaeda states in surprise, as if it’s ludicrous to consider that you might sometimes venture outside of your father’s workshop. “What happened to your face?”

Azriel is finally springing into action, then, sitting up and scooting out from beneath Kaeda. “Y/N…”

You cannot bear the gentleness of his voice. It may just finish you off.

All of this might. Staying here a second longer might.

So you, for some reason, shake your head and back slowly out of the room. Azriel lurches up, but you’re grabbing hold of the door handle firmly.

“Sorry for interrupting.” Your voice is all wrong and fractured. You quickly shut the door before it can morph into a sob.

You think Azriel might call after you, but it’s probably wishful thinking. You don’t know. Don’t know anything. Don’t know what to do next.

So you simply walk away.

You suppose you’ve taught Azriel everything he needs to know.

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