#the fic has been written but I'm still illustrating it

[unscrupulousartist]

hellerby fic, part 3/10

10 March 1929

Like most days since returning to the Lackadaisy, Mordecai woke in his modest one bedroom apartment between soft cotton sheets. Unlike most days, he was woken by a hyperactive Ivy Pepper.

"Good morning!" She cheered, bounding across his little room to pull open his curtains. Leafy plants sat on the white windowsill. It's already mid morning, but the North facing windows denied the worst of the sunlight from his personal sanctuary. "I need you to drive me to St Charles!"

Groaning, Mordecai pulled a pillow over his head. "Ask Viktor."

"Viktor's tired from the Kehoe run."

"I'm tired from the Kehoe run. Or have you forgotten, it was twilight when we returned."

Little hands took hold of the edge of his blankets and yanked, exposing him. "Viktor never betrayed my trust to work with the enemy," she huffed and grabbed his pillow.

He hissed. "You can't keep using that excuse to—to—bully me into doing what you want!"

"I can," she propped her hands on her hips. "And I will. Now get dressed." Sticking her tongue out at him, she spun around to stomp out into the main room. He took notice of her dress; a more conservative cut, reminiscent of something his mother might have worn to church, had his mother paid any attention to fashion.

Rolling onto his back, he allowed himself a moment to stare at the ceiling and rub the sleep from his eyes. At length he sat up, running his claws through his fur to attempt at taming the inevitable bedhead. Partially dressing, he ventured after Ivy to make his way to the tiny bathroom.

Over the years, Mordecai had collected a number of items to decorate his home. The initial design had, of course, been plotted under Mitzi's careful eye. It showed most in the cozy sitting area, with curved plush chairs clustered around a little fireplace, mostly ignored in favour of the desk set up adjacent to the kitchenette. At the time, Mitzi insisted it was for her own comfort, and indeed she had spent many afternoons sprawled across his otherwise unused chaise to complain about Zib, or Atlas, or Church, or whichever poor soul had evoked her trivial anger that day. Now, it's where Ivy sat.

"Aren't you ready yet?" She kicked up her feet, frowning at him.

"If you expected expediency, you should've called ahead," he left the bathroom door open as he fished for his brush. "What are you dressed up for? Where are we going?"

"Nevermind what!" She pointed a finger at him, then proceeded to outline a series of complex directions—no doubt pulled from the depths of her memory.

He rolled his eyes, but let her rant as he brushed his teeth and wandered around the apartment watering plants. Her voice followed him back into his room as he finished up his routine, purposefully going slow to rile her up. Taking a cue from her tasteful earrings and necklaces, he donned his favourite cufflinks and picked out his nicest shoes.

"Finally!" She jumped up while he pulled on his jacket. "Why do you take so long!?"

"I could go back to bed," he reminded.

"No, no, no!" Scooping a long box under an arm, she moved to push him towards the door. "Let's go!"

"How did you get in, anyway?" He asked, pausing to lock up. "Do I need to dispose of my doorman?"

"What you need are better windows," she snickered.

"The fire escape, of course," he sighed.

Offering his arm, they took the stairs at a moderate pace. They bid the doorman a good day, then walked the three blocks to the Lackadaisy Cafe to borrow one of the company cars. It was only Horatio behind the counter, and Ivy chatted with him for a few minutes while Mordecai continued to the garage. He drove around to pick her up out front, and they were on their way.

It wasn't until they were out of St Louis proper that Ivy looked at their surroundings. "Take that left!" She pointed at an oncoming intersection.

"This would be easier if you just told me where we were going."

"I told you, we're going to St Charles!"

Hackles rising, an old memory came to him. The details were fuzzy, the context unclear. 

"I'm drivin'—" Rocky hiccupped, laughed, and wrestled his way past Mordecai to the driver's seat.

Swaying on his feet, Mordecai tried to follow, only to stand awkwardly in the open door. He blinked. "Where are we going?"

"Someplace special," Rocky grinned. Then he took hold of the front of Mordecai's vest and started hauling him into the car—and, consequently, into his lap.

Feeling loose and amenable, Mordecai let the musician maneuver him up and over into the bench seat. He rolled with the motion, ending upside-down with his feet against the passenger door. Which was when he noticed: "Where'd my shoe go?"

This time, he recognized the bridge.

"There's a little road, a couple miles along," she gestured to the other bank of the Missouri River. Beyond her side of the vehicle, a streetcar rumbled past in the opposite direction taking people toward St Louis. "I remember, there was a funny rock with a tree growing up on top of it."

"Fascinating," he scanned the road periodically as they ambled alongside traffic, wedged between an empty farm truck and a couple other leisure cars. "Perhaps it would be helpful to consult a map."

"There weren't many signs," she admitted.

He sighed. "I'm beginning to think you don't actually know where we are going."

"I do know," she insisted, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. "It's just, been awhile since the last time I was there."

"Of course," he raised his chin to put on an air of arrogance. "Do I at least get to know the name of the person you're courting?"

Her nose wrinkled. "You're not allowed to judge him."

"Judge?" He raised a brow at her. "Who do you take me for?"

"Shush you," she swatted his shoulder, pouting. "You think you’re so clever."

Humming, he caught a glimpse of the little turn off that disappeared beneath the bridge.

The car bumped over the uneven path. Boneless, Mordecai noticed the reflection of headlights in the Missouri from where he was plastered against the passenger door window. The truss bridge passed out of and into focus, and he shifted to rub his dry eyes and look at Rocky. "Where are we?"

"He wakes!" Rocky sang. Changing gears, the car jolted to a stop and the engine went quiet; though the lights stayed on. 

"So it seems," Mordecai hummed. 

"Are you sure that we are awake?" Rocky asked. Only, his voice dipped theatrically and he turned to face Mordecai. One hand braced on the bench seat, beside Mordecai's knee, and he leaned close. "It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think—" reaching into his jacket, Rocky pulled out his flask. "—the duke was here, and bid us follow him?"

Mouth dry, Mordecai pressed himself back against the door. "What?"

Rocky sighed, and uncapped the flask. "My own fault, for forgetting."

They lost their entourage one by one to the major intersections before Ivy pointed out the funny boulder wearing a tree. It was nearly another half hour of zig zagging through the outskirts of St Charles, then they pulled onto a semi affluent road. The houses there were modestly spaced between privacy bushes, offering an allusion of wealth.

"There!" Ivy leaned over the dashboard to point at a specific house. It was differentiated by plant boxes in the window and meticulously tended flowers. "Pull over, pull over!"

"Calm down," Mordecai took his time parallel parking, eyeing an angle that he might be able to see from the front window. "Does your father know you're making housecalls?"

"No," she glared at him as she pushed open her door. "And if you tell him, I'll sneak mayonnaise into your office."

His tongue curled in disgust, but she had already jumped out of the car. Following, he caught up to her on the cobblestone path to the front door. "And what if I tell Viktor?"

"Viktor is the one who told me to come here," she boasted. Juggling the long box she'd carted the whole way, she took hold of the door knocker and struck the hammer three times.

"Then why not take Viktor?" Mordecai crossed his arms. "And don’t give me that excuse about the Kehoe run."

"You know how Viktor is," she raised her brows.

Then the door opened, and an older lady frowned at them. She was dressed in something borrowed from the previous century, with narrow glasses and curls piled beneath a bonnet. "I've already found the word of God," she clipped. "And I'm not interested in buying."

"Goodday!" Ivy demured, performing a perfunctory curtsy. "Mrs McMurray?"

The name registered, and Mordecai's ear twitched.

"Yes," said Mrs McMurray. "I don't fancy on repeating myself."

"We’re not trying to sell anything. I was hoping to visit with Calvin?" Ivy asked, tone sweet and eyes innocent. "My name is Ivy. Ivy Pepper? I brought Calvin a present, for his birthday."

"Oh," Mrs McMurray seemed to relax, her expression turning to curiosity. "He never mentioned you."

"He does seem awful shy," Ivy agreed, nodding. "I've asked Rocky about a million times to bring me over, but—" Ivy hissed and bit her cheek when Mordecai stepped on her toe.

Mid headshake, Mrs McMurray didn't seem to notice. "Say no more. That nephew o’ mine is half handful, half dalliance, and not a speck of common sense. Come in, come in—" she stepped back, opening the door wide for them to enter. "The boys are working in the yard, we'll have to call them in for tea."

"Splendid," Ivy grinned, nearly vibrating as she tried to control her excitement. She bustled in, wiping her shoes and moving far enough along for Mordecai to follow.

"Thank you for your hospitality," he managed not to grit his teeth around the words.

"Of course," said Mrs McMurray. She shut them in, then gave him a considering look. "You must be Miss Pepper's chaperone. Mr..?"

Behind Mrs McMurray's back, Ivy pretended to gag.

"Mordecai Heller," he introduced. "I used to work with Miss Pepper's father—I've known her for quite a few years now."

"How quaint," Mrs McMurray intoned, eyes flat. "And what is it you do, Mr Heller?"

Ivy blanched, panic causing her fur to rise.

"Accounting," answered Mordecai. "Your roses are growing nicely. Do you tend to them yourself?"

"Yes," Mrs McMurray preened, her shoulders squaring. "A gentleman who knows his flora?"

"Plants are easier to understand than people," he explained.

"Well, then we should take tea in the garden. It's a good day for it." She hustled ahead of them at a good pace, spry for an elderly.

Ivy waited for him to walk beside her, and leaned close to whisper. "A gentleman who knows his flora?"

"Ivy-Ivy?" He mocked.

"Shut up."

"I hope Calvin doesn’t mind seeing his supervisor on his birthday."

"You're not anybody's supervisor, Mordecai."

"The paperwork says otherwise."

"Here we are!" Mrs McMurray announced as she threw open the back door. She charged ahead, maneuvering down the steps and toward a grassy patio surrounded by fruit trees and shrubbery. "Calvin! Roark! We've guests!"

Ivy elbowed ahead to pause on the stair; her ears perked and angled forward. Her grip on the gift tightened as Mordecai loomed on the step above her. Following her line of sight, he quickly determined the cause of her symptoms.

"Guests?" Freckle asked. He stood in about the middle of the lawn, a hatchet in hand for splitting wood, dressed down to his undershirt and suspenders. He blinked in the sunlight, lean muscles on display. A pile of logs beside him explained his state. 

Next to him, in a similar sort of undress, Rocky dropped the two splinters of wood he had been carrying to a wheelbarrow. 

"You have me at a disadvantage—" Rocky wagged his brows as he shrugged out of his vest. The whole while, Rocky managed to keep a hand on Mordecai's chest, pushing him lightly against—

"Miss Pepper!" Rocky shouted, taking immediate notice of them both. "What are you doing here?"

Ivy raised a hand, fingers waving as she held the gift with her elbows.

"She's come along to visit your cousin, Roark," Mrs McMurray tutted. "I thought, I surely misheard when Miss Pepper said you refused to bring her along for introductions. Have you no consideration for your family, Roark?"

Freckle coughed, and Rocky scooped the dropped wood to toss into the wheelbarrow. "I considered us to be living in progressive times, dear Aunt. If the boy wanted to introduce her to his mother, he would've invited her along ages ago."

Ivy chewed on her lip as Freckle panicked and looked at her. Mordecai prodded her along.

"Yes, I did wonder at that," Mrs McMurray narrowed her eyes at Freckle.

All of Freckle's fur stood on end, his tail raising straight as his shoulders hunched. "We work together—" he glanced at his mother, back at Ivy, then turned to the ground. "We never—um—"

"You know how he is," Rocky placed a hand on each of Freckle's shoulders, pushing as he spoke to Mrs McMurray. "Our Funny Freckle can barely speak to you, Dear Aunt. How did you imagine him approaching an intimidating figure like Miss Pepper?"

Snickering, Ivy smiled as Mrs McMurray looked back at her. "It's lovely to be here," she deflected.

Sighing, Mordecai edged past them all to choose a seat. He tuned out the idle chatter as he studied the round table set in the rectangular space. There were only four seats, each angled so one's back faced a corner. Seeing few opportunities for true symmetry, he clenched his fists and picked the spot with the best view of the ingress.

Ivy bounded over as Mrs McMurray followed Rocky and Freckle inside, and dropped into the seat next to him. A pleased smile decorated her face, and her eyes seemed wistful. "Did you see how surprised he was?"

"No more surprised than me," Mordecai removed his glasses to inspect the lenses, then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. "I somehow doubt that Viktor advised you to ambush Mr McMurray in his home."

"Not in so many words," Ivy shrugged, focusing on carefully placing the gift in the center of the table. 

"Just the other day he called McMurray a weak jawed milk drinker, unfit for our lifestyle."

Gasping, Ivy punched his shoulder. "He did not!"

"Not in so many words," Mordecai shrugged, brows quirking at her as he cleaned his glasses.

"You'll be nice today, Mordecai," she hissed. "I really like him."

"Ah, yes, the one quality I am known for," he replaced his glasses. "My niceness."

They had a couple more minutes to quietly bicker before Mrs McMurray returned with a tea-laden tray. Five sets, Mordecai noted, plus a little jug of syrup. "Make a bit of space please, Miss Pepper," she directed, not-unkindly. Ivy scrambled to pick up the gift again, holding it in her lap. "Thank you—Roark says you work together. What instrument do you play?"

"Not in the band," Ivy managed an awkward laugh, nodding in thanks as Mrs McMurray placed a teacup and saucer in front of her. "I—um—sometimes I wait tables at the Lackadaisy."

"Neither of them take their jobs very seriously," Mordecai added. "But the customers like them, so Mrs—" he hesitated a moment, and settled on a borrowed euphemism, "—M keeps them around." 

Ivy's lips pinched as she glared at him.

"Roark takes very few things seriously," Mrs McMurray sighed. "And Calvin?"

"We're lucky to have him," Mordecai managed. Ivy relaxed into a small smile. "He's good at… fixing things."

"He's always had a mendful spirit," Mrs McMurray nodded.

The door opened again, and Freckle stumbled out, as if pushed. Freezing, he glanced up at the table with wide eyes and pinpricked pupils; but he was well dressed, with a jacket overtop of a pinstriped vest.

Rocky waltzed out a moment later, violin and bow in hand. He wore his usual duds, sans jacket, with his sleeves rolled up. "Hark! Have you started without us?"

"Heaven forbid anything should start without you, Roark," Mrs McMurray tutted. "Calvin, come sit at the table. Roark, something soothing, if you'd be so inclined."

"Of course, Dear Aunt," he fell into a deep bow, then kicked Freckle into motion. As Freckle joined them at the table, sparing Ivy a shy smile, Rocky put his instrument to his shoulder to tune.

Though Mordecai had never made a habit of watching Rocky play—the opposite, in fact, had been his general goal—he'd had, over the years, plenty of opportunities. Enough to realize that, regardless of piece or company, each performance always brought the same image to mind.

Bow flying across strings, Rocky seemed preoccupied in some other plane of awareness. He stood on the car's roof, the headlights catching the underside of his chin and arms as he plucked a pizzicato. The fireflies were out and dancing about his head, an ethereal chaos that incited the musician to laugh and spin, tail wavering.

Mordecai's grip tightened on the flask, holding the borrowed drink between both hands as he leaned heavier on the car's hood. "What song is that?"

Rocky slowed, the rhythm cutting in half as he peered down at Mordecai. "Hm?"

"Well, Calvin," Mrs McMurray settled in the spot between her son and Mordecai. "Now is as good a time as any to say how you met Miss Pepper."

"Ah—?" Freckle grimaced and looked at Ivy. 

"Rocky brought him along to work," she jumped in. "And at the end of the day I asked him to come dancing."

"How forward," said Mrs McMurray.

Beyond the table, Rocky hopped onto the splitting log. He cocked a toe and pulled a long note from his instrument, then pitched into sing-song. "Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are, of imagination, all compact."

“No quoting, please, Roark,” Mrs McMurray sighed. But she readied the fifth cup for him, placing it on the arch of the table closest to Rocky. “Or, if you can’t contain yourself, something less frivolous than Midsummer’s Night.”

“Do you have requests, Dear Aunt?” he asked, pivoting into a spin. “Perhaps from the happy tale of Hamlet?”

Freckle snickered and Ivy grinned. 

“That’s Shakespeare?” Mordecai guessed.

Rolling her eyes, Ivy elbowed him. “A little literature wouldn’t hurt you.”

“A big enough tome could cause significant blunt force trauma,” Mordecai challenged.

Ivy’s eyes widened as Freckle winced; she tilted her head significantly at Mrs McMurray.

Sighing, he shifted in his chair to address the matriarch directly. “That was a joke. I prefer to restrain my small talk to shrubberies,” he reached as if to feel the closest leaves, but they remained too far away. “Is this a Japanese Cypress?”

It proved a decent tactic. “You’ve a keen eye, Mr Heller,” Mrs McMurray appraised. She slipped into an easy lecture, and Mordecai made sure to hum and nod and ask questions at appropriate intervals. Rocky played an Irish aire, and Ivy leaned close to whisper with Freckle. Quietly, she passed him the gift box; he peeked inside, grinned, and looked up at her shyly.

A hasty equilibrium held for half an hour, before the performer descended from his pedestal and approached the table. “I’ve heard not a word of dancing,” said Rocky. Juggling bow and instrument in the same hand, he tipped a generous portion of syrup into his teacup.

“Then you need to clean the cotton from your ears,” Mrs McMurray drawled. “For it was the first thing Miss Pepper mentioned.”

“And you dropped the subject,” Rocky nodded. “No doubt thinking of our dear Freckle’s two left feet.”

Ivy giggled, and Rocky winked at her.

“Rocky,” Freckle hissed.

“Is there supposed to be a story there?” Mrs McMurray asked, looking over her glasses at Rocky. “Or are you determined to embarrass your cousin at every turn?”

“I entreat you to imagine a scenario where both could be true,” Rocky grinned at his aunt. “For Miss Pepper has spent many an evening teaching our dear Freckle to dance.” He cradled his fiddle like a ukulele, and plucked a quick tune. “Perhaps your eyes would believe faster than your imagination.”

Squealing, Ivy jumped from her seat and pulled Freckle with her. “Come on!”

Laughing, Rocky managed a quick sip of his tea before readying again his instrument. Propping a foot on Ivy’s abandoned chair, his eyes swept over Mordecai. But it was only for a moment, then the musician started a fast paced jazz improvisation. It was somewhat lacking without accompaniment, but it was more than enough for Ivy to guide a smiling Freckle through the Lindy Hop. 

“How lively,” Mrs McMurray failed to keep some fondness from her voice, and she managed a small smile. She raised her voice to address the merrymakers. “And where did you learn to dance, Miss Pepper?”

“Mostly my godmother,” she admitted with a laugh, spinning with Freckle. Her coordination survived the extra task of talking. “But all her friends took turns teaching. Even Mordecai!”

“Ol’ Serious Face?” Rocky snickered.

“Don’t be rude, Roark.”

“It’s simple fact, Dear Aunt,” Rocky soothed. “Though my memory might fail me, I am certain I have never seen this cat dance.”

Mordecai rolled his eyes and sipped his tea. “Many things have failed you, Roark.”

Gasping, Rocky struck a discordant note, then pointed his bow at Mordecai. “Take that back.”

“Calm down, Rocky,” Ivy giggled. She slowed to a stand, arms still around Freckle.

“Nope, no, only Aunt Nina calls me Roark,” Rocky shuddered.

Ivy sighed. “Are you done being dramatic? I was having fun.”

“The dramatics are never truly over,” said Rocky. He took the opportunity to slurp more tea. 

“It was nice of you to come visit,” said Freckle. He looked almost at Ivy, smiling. 

“I’ve been meaning to, for a while,” said Ivy. “But someone seemed to think I shouldn’t come over.”

“Let me play the lion too,” Rocky performed another gasp, then raised his voice. “I will roar that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me! I will roar that I will make the Duke say—”

“No more quotes, Roark!” Mrs McMurray yelled over him.

A prickle wound down Mordecai’s spine. He couldn’t help asking: “Who is this Duke?”

Rocky turned to him with a wide smile.

“Nevermind Shakespeare,” Ivy groaned. “Be quiet, Mordecai, or I’ll make you dance with me.”

“That would be a sight to see,” said Rocky.

Mordecai made a show of pulling his watch from his pocket. “If you’re finished dancing with Mr McMurray, perhaps it is time we go.”

Ivy opened her mouth to complain, but Rocky interjected. “A serendipitous notion. You’re no doubt going my way, you can give me a lift.” He turned to Freckle and Ivy and waved his instrument at them both. “Chop, chop, lovebirds. Say your saluts so we can be on our way.”

“Rocky!” Ivy stomped a foot.

But Mrs McMurray was unaffected. Standing, she picked up her teacup to take with her. “I suppose it’s prudent to take opportunities when you see them, Roark. But perhaps next time, you could do your cousin a favour?”

“We’ll make a meal of it,” Rocky placed a hand on his chest. “Next Sunday dinner, I’ll bring Miss Pepper around for a proper interrogation.”

She shook her head, then looked at Freckle. “Calvin, see your friends to the door while I gather your cousin’s things.”

“Yes, mother.”

The four of them watched Mrs McMurray retreat inside; then Rocky’s smile dropped and he pulled a familiar flask from his jacket. “Blast you, Miss Pepper.”

Freckle flinched.

“Don’t be such a spoil sport, Rocky,” Ivy huffed.

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times,” he complained as he tipped a measure of liquid into his teacup. As an afterthought, he offered the flask to Mordecai.

“No, thank you,” Mordecai drawled.

“We should go inside,” said Freckle. His shoulders were raised, but he still held Ivy’s hand.

“Not you, too,” Ivy groaned.

“You groan because you don’t understand,” Rocky flailed his arms, then drained his syrupy drink. “It’s bad enough we dragged Freckle into our sordid mess of a life—and yes, Miss Pepper, you still get to share in that blame, I don’t care how you rationalize it—but what do you think will happen if you, Little Miss Princess of St Louis, were to be followed? Am I to one day return here—” he gestured at the house, then pointed at Freckle. “—to our childhood home, to find Dear Aunt Nina dead or worse?”

“Worse than dead, Rocky?” Ivy crossed her arms.

Mordecai sighed. “There were four vehicles that crossed the bridge with us,” he said, standing. “None of them followed us off the main road.”

Arms dropping, Rocky blinked at him. “You’re certain?”

Mordecai hesitated, heat flushing beneath his fur.

“You’re certain?” Rocky asked, breath ghosting across Mordecai’s lips. “Absolutely? Because the others seemed to insinuate that—”

Mordecai kissed him. 

“Most of my job relies upon attention to detail,” Mordecai rationalized.

“But are you certain?” Rocky pressed.

He recognized some semblance of desperation in the other cat’s eye. Clearing his throat, Mordecai looked up at the well maintained home. “I’d risk my mother’s life on it.”

The musician relaxed, a comfortable grin coming back to him. “No you wouldn’t,” he challenged.

“I wouldn’t,” Mordecai agreed. “But, by definition, it wouldn’t be a risk because no one followed us.”

Mrs McMurray poked her head out the door. “Are you coming, or have we changed our minds?”

“Coming!” Freckle and Rocky chorused together.

The ensemble was hustled inside, and Rocky disappeared to sort his violin and do whatever else he still needed to do in the home. Freckle and Ivy loitered, talking in whispered giggles. It left Mordecai to entertain Mrs McMurray again; this time he focused on the photos on the walls. "You've a lovely home," he gestured.

"Thank you, Mr Heller," she nodded, following his movement. "It hasn't always been a peaceful place, but we make do."

Reluctantly, he took a look at whatever frame he had inadvertently drawn attention to. It appeared to be a family portrait, with a young Rocky and Freckle both front and center. Freckle's head was ducked and he looked up at the camera awkwardly; whereas Rocky had his normal huge smile, a tiny violin cradled in his arms. Behind them was a host of adults, Nina McMurray near the edge. More than half were close enough in appearance to suggest siblinghood, and one—who rested a hand on Rocky's shoulder—held a full sized version of the child's instrument.

"I'd imagine any house with Mr Rickaby to have been chaotic," Mordecai mused.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Mrs McMurray huffed.

Then Rocky came barrelling down the stairs, a case in hand and fully dressed. “Pick up your feet, players! Time to make our exit.”

“You could stand to foster a little more serenity, Roark,” said Mrs McMurray. She handed him a parcel of clothes. “Your laundry; pray, please get less blood in them next time.”

“I shall try, Dearest Aunt,” he leaned to kiss her cheek as he took the items. “But you know how clumsy I am.”

“Mhm,” she glowered.

“And we’re off!” He danced out the front door, then froze on the step. Shoulders dropping, he sighed. “Of course, he parked out front.”

“Where else would I have parked?” Mordecai asked. He glanced back to check on Ivy, who gave Freckle a quick peck on the lips. 

“Nevermind,” Rocky waved back at him, already on the move again. “I’ll drive.”

#lackadaisy #lackadaisy fanfiction #lackadaisy fan comic #lackadaisy fanart #fanfiction #the fic has been written but I'm still illustrating it #posting all the parts here before i upload to ao3 later #inappropriate use of shakespeare #i haven't picked a title #hellerby #mordecai x rocky #mordecai heller #rocky rickaby #*slaps fic* this baby can fit so many headcanons #like mordecai is a plant person #ivy and freckle being cute #nonlinear #flashbacks

[harmonysanreads]

I'm not sure if requests are still open since it's early in the morning where I'm from and idk how our timezones work, please delete this if it isn't orz. If it isn't too much trouble, a dainsleif fic mayhaps 🙏😔? I miss him so much and he didn't come home this patch, can be a short drabble ^^.

Not sure if it's leaning on your "things in consideration" list, but the prompt can be:

You've been under his radar for years but now that he's tracked you down, an unknown child who mirrors his blue Khaenriahn eyes guards you with his small and very fragile life. Those eyes... They're eerily familiar.

(side note: Dain isn't the type who thinks children automatically have a heart of gold lolol. He's kinda a hater when it comes to children cept for Yaoyao /jjjj, maybe that's some extra spice to add for the reason why reader is so terrified and left as soon as she had the opportunity?)

Reconteur

yandere!dainsleif x reader

cw(s) : yandere, implied female reader (the narrative is not gender specific but the word 'mother' has been used once)

wc : 1.7 k

this was an interesting challenge for me because this is one theme i've not done before, with a character i've also never written for! i'm extremely sorry for the wait as i got distracted by hsr :') and thank you so much for requesting<3

a delightful illustration by the loveliest person <3 (spoiler alert!)

Stories are truly spectacular.

They're capable of preserving bygone memories ; changing, adapting and sometimes, becoming far too distant from reality. Like saplings of the tree which extends its roots throughout Teyvat and, their seeds are welcomed by the flighty wind, soon to be cultivated by the torrents of time. The present will one day become history and that history will be archived for posterity to learn and criticize. One such story inspires much intrigue, dressed in charming rhetoric and is thus cataloged among fairy tales : a bittersweet tale of a Knight and an Angel.

And in classic format it goes — once upon a time, a defiled Knight cried out to the heavens, for he could not win against the temptation of seeing the forbidden pearl. This blatant defiance earned him but a curse of eternal agony and soon, he begged the skies for salvation. The clouds softened and sent him a little Angel, who quelled the fires of his pain bit by bit, until it became an infinitesimal dot in the Knight's soul. Brimming with gratitude, the Knight offered his very being to the Angel's service and of course, they lived happily ever after.

Now suppose, fundamentally speaking, if fairy tales are but stories and the retelling of history follows the same pattern — who are the storytellers?

The victors, of course.

The dull thud of pages colliding shut assuages Dainsleif, for the story which now finds itself beside children's bedside tables serves no other purpose than to instigate dulcet fantasies, losing credence before the trials of history. It brews a litany of feelings in his numbed heart until they intertwine and transform into a yarn of befuddling human emotions ; echoing in his ears that this is what his past has become.

Albeit, this hardly astonishes the Bough Keeper. When a war ends and the winners hoist their flags, they'd obviously be privy to recounting their glories — none of them would ever write that the Knight in the story had never begged the heavens for forgiveness and no such Angel was sent. Instead, he'd seen fit to snatch the Messenger that'd implored him to return to his right mind and one would think that Celestia had taken great offense in this act, but no one batted an eye.

That is because the Messenger, too, was forsaken by their home, a fallen angel with no wings and no divinity left. Whose existence became synonymous to that of a firefly and the Knight, became the darkness that allowed it to glow. When two broken individuals unite, they either complete their flaws or destroy one another and sadly, in his case, it was the latter.

But is it such a sin to wish for a normal life? Dainsleif muses as he passes by giggling groups of unassuming humans, desperate vendors trying to sell their wares and many more individuals who might carve their places in the next epics of Teyvat. Often is it said, you only learn to value things after they leave your grasp and while his memory does erode day by day, he'll forever remember that Angel's — your countenance, how the corners of your lips used to curve before they did no longer, how every word of yours bewitched his decaying mind and built it anew.

He was an ant chasing after the fragrance of sugar, a mindless bug blinded by a speck of light, an apophyte clinging desperately to the bough, a sinner. And sinners do not deserve luxuries called normalcy, love or a home. The aftereffects of the Cataclysm that befell his homeland drove uncountable masses to nihility, some embraced their hatred while others rotted in corners of this world. It is testament to Dainsleif's willpower that he'd not been conquered by insanity yet. Indeed, he's always practiced rationale and patience ; which have also aided him in his prolonged search for you.

He investigated till every rock of this wretched world became his acquaintance and he kept on hanging to the last traces of your existence. But, as every expedition led to a dead end, he was forced to accept a lamentable realization, that he missed you. He missed you so much. He'd vowed to never kneel before those who took everything from him, at this point in his life though, he found himself one breath away from begging that floating island — if only it'd bring you back to his side.

Rain. It'd rained before that catastrophic day and on the eve you trespassed in his life as well. Would you laugh if you saw him in this state? Or, would you coax him up from his knees and shield him from the rain? A hoarse chuckle leaves his lips, how shameless does one need to be to still expect comfort from the being they hurt repeatedly? He'd rather not hear the answer.

“Mister?”

The sky growled at his misery but he could not differentiate it from a mocking sneer. He blinked upon feeling the absence of raindrops falling on his person and raised his head to stare.

It is as though the stars gazed at him back, “Why are you kneeling on the ground on a rainy day, mister?”

Dainsleif stared owlishly, his mind momentarily ceased to comprehend the present. The boy that'd reach his knees at most if Dainsleif had been standing returned his gaze in equal interest. Though the man failed to decipher those familiar eyes, it seemed that the boy had reached a conclusion.

“Oh, you must be in pain! Here, take one of my apples.”

The Bough Keeper jolted at the fruit that was shoved to his hand, in the blur of his confusion he'd not taken note of the bag full of apples clutched by the boy's other hand.

“My mother said that an apple a day would keep the pain away—ah, or was it the doctor? Anyway, please take it and don't look so sad. I should really be returning now…!”

Dainsleif opened his mouth (To protest, to question or to thank? He didn't know.) as the boy dashed away, the pitter-patters of the rain lulled his footsteps and left the man a great deal dumbfounded. He looked at the apple, now glistening with rainwater and recalled the boy's words. On normal occasions, he'd be tempted to immediately evacuate the vicinity after that mildly embarrassing encounter but, the memory of the starry gaze that rendered him speechless implored him to follow the boy's tracks.

At this point, his mind was operating on instinct, tracing the footprints of an unknown child without purpose would be the farthest thing he'd put on his agenda in his current state. The dense forest swallowed his form until it finally gifted him with a clearing, a small source of light peeked past a half open window and enticed him closer.

“...re…were…y…?”

The man only came to his senses after hearing muffled voices, standing before what he assumed was the door to the thatched cottage. For a second, he debated whether to continue this rendezvous but resigning that he'd come too far, he decided to take a peek through the window.

The rain lulled just enough to not be an outright nuisance, succinct yet unforgettable — there you were, separated by but a weak wooden structure and Dainsleif's stupefied mind. You are there. Are you really there? Right before his eyes, emerging out of nowhere after he turned Teyvat upside down just to find some reassurance that you're still alive? Your eyes narrowed in that familiar frown and rubbing a towel through a boy's hair—

Wait, what?

Fine strands of blonde clung to Dainsleif's forehead, a few drops of water dripping down to join the small puddle under his feet. He gaped like a fish at the scene and at the boy who led him to this epiphany, completely forgetting vigilance.

“Did you talk to anyone, son?”

Flowers bloomed in his heart at the sound of that familiar lilt and his breath hitched as he processed the contents you uttered. Son. You called that boy son. In the light of your humble abode, he noticed the boy's golden locks of hair that he'd previously foregone and a conclusion crawled its way to his mind. He has a child. He has a child? Dainsleif knew you have a knack for unpredictability but this level of surprise was not what he was expecting upon your first appearance after all these years. He dwelled on the question of how it was even possible for a while, he recalled the boy's eyes ; those characteristic star-shaped pupils would never lie. Voices reached his ear again and he decided to cast aside these questions for a later time.

“I did, but the man looked so sad all alone in the rain! So, I gave him one of the apples because I didn't know what else to do. I promise I didn't talk too much!”

You paused for a while, a cautious query followed, “What did he look like?”

The boy copied your silence this time, finding great interest in your nails before exclaiming, “Pretty ordinary!”

Dainsleif didn't know why but that gave a sting to his heart, he looked back to you to see the unreadable expression on your face slowly shift to a soft smile. You affectionately ruffled the boy—his boy's hair, the action somehow softened the ache in his soul. Until he remembered that he was ignorant of his own son's name. He was one who preferred to form his opinion of everyone from a neutral point of view and while he's not one to excuse children's behavior just because of their age, seeing his own son speak half-truths at this stage raised many more concerns to be dropped in the pile.

You're not someone who'd preach dishonesty to a child but considering the situation you are currently in and the things this child must've seen, he found himself understanding. The skies rumbled and Dainsleif barely pushed back the urge to kick down the door and take his family to where they belonged. But seeing the smile that he'd yearned for so many years, he hesitated. You'd fought hard to earn this little happiness and acting on his impulses now, however justified they might be, would be dishonoring your efforts. And judging by your reactions, he can already sense that you won't just sit idly by for him to pounce on.

So, he'll be patient for bit longer and when the time is right, it'll seem as though his family returned to his arms out of their own volition.

#requests: batch two #answered #beloved-brynn #yandere dainsleif #yandere dainsleif x reader #dainsleif x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere #yandere genshin impact x reader #yandere genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #something in my heart tells me that dain gives off girl-dad vibes #buuuut since you mentioned it #tbh dain is so real for that opinion like.. have you seen children these days 💀

[sparks-olivarpente]

Byler reunion fics list

Here is a list of "Will and Mike haven't talked for months/years and now find their way back to each other" fics I've read and loved! If you know of other such fics or have written one, please reblog and add them :) Thanks to the writers <3

are there still beautiful things? by @aceoflanterns will attends an open mic poetry night at a local cafe, invitation courtesy of one max mayfield. this turns out the unexpected effect of seeing one mike wheeler again… and maybe also sparking a conversation long overdue.

see me (i'm waiting for the right time) by agustplz (shout_out_lou) It's been ten months since the last time Mike and Will last spoke. Mike shows up at his dorm in Chicago, determined to fix things for good.

the gaps and the silence by @parkitaco (delusionaltogether) "Oh my God, I had such a crush on you back then," Mike says, laughing a little, and sounds so easy with it that it takes Will a couple of seconds to process. or, will and mike reunite 5 years after their friendship ends

bury me in metamorphoses by @hiscleric It’s been seven years since Will Byers vanished from Hawkins for the second time; seven years since he picked up his life, moved across the globe, and finally settled. OR: Running away and the reunion of a lifetime.

anything, anything by inblue It isn’t before Will is inside Mike’s two-bedroom apartment for the first time that Mike realizes a part of him had expected the world to implode as soon as he stepped past the threshold, as if Will’s presence in Mike’s apartment would trigger some sort of ancient curse or something. Or: Five years after the Byers family leaves Hawkins, Mike and Will rediscover each other within a small apartment in New York.

things lost, buried, and found again by iwannabeyourpoetry It’s December 1993 when, in the wake of Lonnie Byers’ untimely death, Will finds himself returning to Hawkins for the first time in years—a morose husk of the person he once was.

Lost Without You by Julia_Skysong After graduating, both Mike and Will struggled to adjust to life after the Upside Down. It didn't help they had already drifted apart. But now, 8 years later, Mike finally reached out again, and the 2 struggle to rebuild their friendship while also hiding their romantic feelings for each other.

The Crossover by @futureboy-ao3 (nbfutureboy) Will Byers, a comic book author and illustrator at the very beginning of his career, initially turns down the invitation to Hawkins ‘HorrorCon’. But after hearing that a certain musician has gone missing - and despite the fact that Mike and Will haven’t spoken since their high school graduation - he can’t seem to shake the feeling something’s seriously wrong. With embeded sounds and songs! :D

More Than a Metaphor by Nikocat Will Byers returns home from college for the first time for Christmas break and he's a bundle of nerves. He's reckoned with some deep truths while away at school, finally coming to accept that he's gay. While he can be open and honest in his new city of New York, Hawkins is an entirely different story. Or Will Byers comes out to the people he loves and gets more than he bargained for.

Reunion by Nymphadoragreenleaf Will comes back after two years away and Mike can't wait to spend the summer with him! But there's someone with him… bonus: Mike being secretly good at cooking &lt;3

The Cemetery Dance by oceanfruit Will doesn't like his memory. He calls it his inflammable wood-- No matter how long it sits out and dries, a fire can never quite catch. Even with the challenges, he tries to forget, hoping one day he'd become unrecognizable. Yet there are things, people, that exist with him in a ghost-like manner. or, Will works in a restaurant, his memories wont let him alone and he can't stand the flickering light. When someone from his past walks in… AU full of mystery!

Path of the Paladin by olliecoddle "A paladin who has broken a vow typically seeks absolution from a cleric… " or, a few hours after delivering his father’s eulogy, Mike Wheeler punched his former best friend squarely in the face.

Can This Be a Real Thing (Can It?) by Pseudologia They’d graduated and Will had disappeared — not just to Mike, to everyone. It’s not like it was mean-spirited. He needed to leave Hawkins in the rearview, to figure out who he was without the ghosts of monsters at his heels (…) Except, well, now Mike is sitting here, at a gay bar…

Fool Me Once by @queerxqueen It took nearly three years of growing apart, but Will Byers has finally gotten used to life without Mike Wheeler. He has El, he has Max, he has his art, and, as of two days ago, he has a full ride to art school in Chicago, so things are good. Right? So when Mike climbs through his window one night and stumbles back into his life, Will’s not prepared for the resurgence of old feelings…

I Wanna Be Anything You've Lost by @edelweiss-coffee (scout_thewise) Will left his hometown after graduation, determined to get to know himself in New York City. It's 1992, he has a great job as a florist at The Secret Garden, and life is beautiful and fulfilling. He wouldn't change a thing… -or- Someone familiar has been hired at the coffee shop below his loft, and Will's avoidance tactics are taking a rough blow.

meet me at memory lane by @smoosnoom Still, it’s fine. It’s all fine. He’s allowed a bad day or two. It’s fine. “Will?” What’s not fine, however, is when he finds Mike Wheeler on his front porch step. or, It's senior year, and, after three years of silence, Mike and Will find their way back to each other.

Shrike by StepfordSnarker It's the late '80s, and Will is coping with the loneliness of having left the Party behind (…) It's the early '90s, and Mike is coming to understand that there are some people worth losing your false sense of self for. But now that Mike and Will have parted ways, this realization may have come too late.

Stepping On the Last Train by @suzieburself After everything they've been through, it is Mike who rips off the final band-aid of their friendship. Years pass of Will pretending like he never thinks about Mike at all. Years pass of him forging his own life and finally letting go. But when a young boy shows up at Will's apartment, it becomes clear that he'll never fully be done with Mike Wheeler.

I’m a Wreck (Without You Here) by @talkingtothelights Mike has been living 2,200 miles away from his family and hometown for the past fourteen years. He rarely visits, but when he receives heartbreaking news, he’s forced to return home for a funeral. It’s in this unfortunate chapter of life that Mike must come to terms with the consequences of abruptly running away from home and perhaps reconnect with the one person he’s tried his damnedest to forget about.

#this took me forever to write x_x #but i love reunion fics #byler #byler fic recs #byler fic #byler reunion fics #reunion fics

[naranjapetrificada]

Fanfic Friday

Here's what I've been reading this week (3 OFMD fics and 1 GO):

This Sudden Burst of Sunlight by @piratecaptainscaptainpirates, which as of yesterday is complete! It's a modern AU that starts with Ed in a pretty dark place, but over the course of 15 chapters he he meets Stede and finds his community and reconnects with his art (he's a painter) and basically learns to love life. It's a wonderful journey of healing and so so sweet.

Invisible String by @dimplyowl, which is an older, illustrated (!) modern AU with a fun twist: Stede lives in the modern world, but Ed is the star of Stede's comfort novel series, a fictional version of Blackbeard. One day Stede notices the books have started changing from what he remembers, and Ed seems to be trying to communicate with him? It should be hard to pull off but they make it look easy.

Switzerland by @oatmilktruther, which is set after season 2 and explores disordered eating. What I like about this (besides everything there is to like about their fics) is that we get to see Stede do some healing and processing. It makes perfect sense why so many of the post-canon healing fics are Ed-centric, but one thing that season 2 could have accomplished with enough time is some of the growth Stede still has ahead of him. This scratches that itch while also being beautifully written.

A Lighthouse (Burning) by @books-and-omens, whose back catalog I'm working through after recommending them last week. It's another location-focused, canon-divergent story that puts Crowley and Aziraphale in a position where they're forced to acknowledge their feelings for each other, while also reflecting on time and memory and choice and desire. Wonderfully evocative as expected and stuffed to the gills with spooky atmospheric vibes. Highly, highly recommended.

#happy reading #fanfic friday #fic recs #fic rec #ofmd fic #ofmd #our flag means death #edward teach #stede bonnet #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #ofmd s2 #good omens fic #good omens fic rec #good omens #crowley #aziraphale

[dragonagitator]

Smutty BG3 fanfic prompt / scene / ficlet:

I wrote this scene with my own "Modern Girl in Faerun" author self-insert WIP in mind, but who knows when or if that fic will ever actually see the light of day. So if someone who can actually write smut wants to use this scene as a prompt for a lengthier fic, please do, and please also feel free to make any changes necessary to make it fit your own story or just generally improve the writing.

Summary: Post-game, Dom!Gale/sub!OFC, established relationship (but one that's about to change in a big way), discussion of consensual mind control, touches on bondage, breeding kink, and worship kink, implied impending fellatio. Features the aforementioned Book of Erotic Fantasy and teases the side of Gale revealed in his origin playthrough line about how he "always liked the idea of being worshipped. Adored. Obeyed..."

I apologize in advance for it not being very good and for cutting off right before the actual smut should begin. I'm not putting this out there because I'm proud of it, I'm putting this out there because I sincerely hope that writers who are actually good at this sort of thing might find it, take it away from me, and do it better.

If you're still interested then there's about 1,800 words of unhinged brainrot below the cut. Criticism welcome!

We’d been home in Waterdeep for less than a week when I found Gale sitting on the balcony loveseat, frowning at a book that sat closed in his lap.

“Did the book do something to offend you?” I teased as I bent over for a kiss.

“Ah, no,” he replied, “it’s just I find myself with a bit of an ethical dilemma.”

‘An ethical dilemma?’ I wondered, raising my eyebrow and taking a closer look at the book.

It was a rather thick book, with a velvet cover and tied closed with a silk ribbon. The cover imagery was extremely suggestive.

“The Book of Erotic Fantasy,” I sounded out carefully. “And exactly what sort of ‘ethical dilemmas’ does a smutty book provoke?”

“It’s not just erotic literature,” Gale explained, “It’s more of a manual.”

“A Faerun sex manual? This I gotta see,” I said and made grabby hands at him. He hesitated for a moment, then somewhat reluctantly handed it over. I sat beside him and snuggled into him as he put his arm around me, positioning us so that we could look at its pages together.

I untied the ribbon and opened the book, and laughed when the book itself moaned in my hands. Reading anything written in the Thorass alphabet was still a challenge for me so I flipped through the pages simply looking at the illustrations. There were a LOT of illustrations depicting various sexual positions and techniques. It appeared to be something like an illustrated Karma Sutra.

“Whenever did you have the time to go buy this?” I asked him with delight. “Are these things you’d like to try with me? Because that–” I pointed at a particularly intriguing illustration of a woman in bondage in some sort of complicated contraption I’d never seen before “–looks like it could be fun, if you know a good smith we could commission it from.”

“No, I, uh, that is, this volume has been in my library for some time,” Gale stammered and I smirked. I’d always loved how he could somehow still be so bashful sometimes despite being such a freak in the sheets.

“And it’s more than just a manual of… activities,” he continued. “The book is magical in nature–”

“Yeah, I got that part when it moaned,” I interjected.

“Yes, and when studied at length it can confer certain… abilities and… enhancements to the person who reads it,” he continued.

“Oooh, tell me more about these ‘abilities’ and ‘enhancements,’” I purred, setting the book aside so I could turn and straddle him, throwing my arms around his neck. He blushed so prettily.

“Well, studying the book makes one more charming and increases their endurance,” he began listing the effects while lazily stroking my sides. “And it ensures that one’s partners are never left… wanting.”

“Oh, so that’s your secret,” I teased, thinking back to all the mind-blowing nights we’d shared since he’d finally gotten over his hangups about bedding me.

“Ah, no, while I’d studied the book once years ago, the effects wear off after a tenday of celibacy. So after the year of isolation in my tower, I had only my… native talent… to rely upon,” he confessed.

His “native talent” had been more than enough, but now my curiosity was piqued.

“So you’re saying this book could make you an even better lover than you already are?” I started to grind against him lightly and his hands settled on my hips. “While I’ve been perfectly satisfied so far, I have to admit that I’m intrigued… although if you got any better, I might not walk quite right ever again.”

“It also conveys mastery over one’s own reproductive system, and that of one’s partner,” he continued. “It acts as a perfect contraceptive. Or, if one so desires, it can… guarantee that conception takes place.” He looked me directly in the eyes as he said that last part, seemed to search my face for clues as to how I felt about that.

Just the idea of it sent a jolt of desire straight to my core.

“Are you saying,” I responded, my mouth suddenly dry as the urge to spread my legs even wider for him overwhelmed me, “that this book would allow you to breed me whenever you want?”

He tightened his grip on my hips and shuttered slightly, his eyes fluttering closed for just a moment before he looked back up at me with determination. His pupils were blown so wide that I could barely see the brown of his irises anymore. It felt like he was looking directly into my soul.

“Yes,” he confirmed firmly.

‘So, my fiance has a breeding kink too,’ I mused. ‘That’s convenient.’

I was so aroused from our conversation that my hips took on a mind of their own, and I found myself grinding in his lap against the rapidly hardening bulge in his breeches that revealed just how much he enjoyed the idea of using his magic book to impregnate me at will.

“So,” I said breathily, continuing to grind – we were basically dry-humping at this point, and I was so aroused at this point that I suspected that I might be able to get off just from this, “what’s the ethical dilemma?”

“The book does have one minor detrimental property,” he explained, “in that satisfying one’s partner then places that partner under the effects of a Charm Person spell. Of course I’d never do that to someone without their consent,” he said hurriedly, “and with Mystra it was never a concern because as a Goddess, she’s immune to Charm spells,” I scowled at the mention of her name, “but with you, my love…” his right hand left my hip to gently stroke my face, soothing away my frown, “...you have no such immunity.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “Oh, sweetheart, is THAT what you’re worried about? I don’t think I could be any more ‘Charmed’ than I already have been by just your – what did you call them? – ‘native talents.’ And it’s not like a Charm Person spell can make someone do something that they’re completely unwilling to do.”

“That’s actually the problem,” he said, tone turning serious. “I’ve heard rumor that when the book’s gifts are used on a partner who is already as enamored as you so inexplicably are with me, it can have… other effects. Change them.”

“Change them how?” I prodded him.

“You could find yourself consumed by desperation to please me. The book could make you more pliant, much more… submissive,” he continued, his voice low with a hint of darkness creeping in as he gently thumbed my lower lip.

My brain short-circuited and I heard myself blurt, “I want you to read the book.”

“Oh, darling, you have no idea what you’re saying,” he sighed and leaned his forehead against mine. “It would be far beyond the games we’ve played. You’d still have your safeword, but the book could strip you of your desire to ever use it.”

“I want you to read the book,” I repeated, gently cupping his face in my hands, my entire body on fire at the idea of giving up that much control to him. It was terrifying, and thrilling, and deeply erotic.

“It doesn’t wear off as fast as a regular Charm Person spell,” he warned me, “The effects last for a year and a day,” my core pulsed with need at the thought of being under his spell for so long, “and that hourglass would reset every time I brought you to ecstasy. You could fall deeper and deeper under my control until you could no longer dream of wanting to escape it.” I trembled at the idea that it could effectively become permanent.

“I want you to read the book,” I said again, and kissed him deeply.

As I pulled back from the kiss, I could tell that he was as affected by the idea of it as I was. His skin was flushed, his pupils blown wide, he trembled slightly, there was a slight hitch in his breath, I could feel his heart hammering where our chests had pressed together, and he now had an erection so hard that I could feel every inch of it through the layers of our clothing.

“I don’t understand,” he protested half-heartedly, sounding almost broken with desire and longing. “How could you want something like that? Why would you give yourself so completely to someone like me?”

“Gale,” I said firmly, and began punctuating my statements with more kisses. “I love you.” Kiss. “I trust you completely.” Kiss. “I love submitting to you.” Kiss. “And I’ve wished for a while now that it could be more than just a game we play in bed.” Kiss. “I know how hard it was for you to give up the Crown of Karsus, because you’ve ‘always liked the idea of being worshiped. Adored. Obeyed,’” I quoted. He looked away in slight embarrassment, but didn’t deny it.

“If you think you could be content with a single worshiper,” I continued, giving his face one last gentle caress as I slid off his lap and onto the balcony floor, “then I would love to spend the rest of my life getting on my knees for you.”

I posed myself carefully before him. Knees spread, hands clasp behind my back, back slightly arched to thrust my tits forward, head bowed submissively. I silently trembled with desire and anticipation as I waited for his answer.

“I will read the book,” he declared as he stood up. “But it will require weeks of study to acquire its powers.” I could hear him unfastening the ties on his breeches. “You will use that time to prove to me just how much you want this, and if I’m not convinced by the time I reach the final page then I will not complete it,” he warned. 

My mind began whirling with all the delightfully degrading things I could do for him to prove my devotion. Through the lashes of my downcast gaze I could see his pants falling to his ankles, confirming that we were of like minds of what sort of “proof” he had in mind.

He gripped my jaw firmly and titled my head upward, forcing me to look him in the eyes.

“Do you understand?” he demanded. 

I’d never seen such an expression on his face before – perhaps I’d caught glimpses of something like it on the battlefield, or seen a ghost of it flicker across his face the first time I’d asked him to dominate me in bed – but nothing like this. He radiated power, desire, command, and more than just a hint of darkness.

“Yes, sir,” I agreed enthusiastically.

“Good girl,” he said approvingly. 

His praise washed over me like a blessing as he guided my mouth to the weeping head of his erect cock.

#BG3 #Baldur's Gate 3 #BG3 smut #Gale #Gale of Waterdeep #Gale Dekarios #Gale BG3 #BG3 Gale #Gale/Author #Gale x Author #Author/Gale #Author x Gale #Modern Character in Faerun #MCIF #Modern Girl in Faerun #MGIF #bg3 fanfic prompt #fanfic prompt #fic prompt #writing prompt #i cannot write and yet my brain is filled with plot bunnies #i must release them into the wild to find sustenance #fanfic authors pls #I have the brainrot #i wrote this instead of going to therapy #please just kill me now before I die of embarrassment #oh you always liked the idea of being worshipped adored and obeyed? well i would be delighted to get on my knees for you sir #it's a beautiful day in faerun and i am a horrible author self insert

[erzthewitchblackwood]

Written by: Amgine

Illustrate by: @erzthewitchblackwood for the #MEBigBang23

This story is part of the MoShang Big Bang 2023 organized by @moshangevents

“The first sign of warning should have been the system. It popped up some time after his birth to congratulate him. It also informed him that he was in the world of proud immortal demon way and that his body was the one of Shang Qinghua, the traitor. Not the best he could have hoped for, but still. While one possibility of how he could spend his life was predetermined, there still were plenty more. Nobody could force him to become a cultivator or to meet Mobei-Jun or to betray him and die in retaliation.” When Shang Qinghua is born into the world of PIDW, the system is a nice and steady companion. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stay that way. But Shang Qinghua has spent his whole previous life obeying the wishes of an unfeeling audience that didn’t care about him. This time, he will fight.

Hey people! Do not miss out on this fricking fantastic fic written by Amgine (I swear I'm going to change it as soon as I get her socials) All we can guarantee is...BAMF Shang Qinghua, and honestly...aren't we all here for this?

#moshangbb23 #MEBigBang23 #moshang #mobeijun #shangqinghua #摸尚 #mxtx fanfic #mxtx fanart #bigbang #svsss #god complex #fandom #illustration #mobei jun #airplaine #mu qingfang #luo binghe #shen yuan #Cucumber bro

[silenzahra]

Dear friends: I LOVE YOU 💖💖💖

I don't even know where to start... I feel so HONORED that you've enjoyed my latest post so much 🥹😭💖

Thank you so much for all the comments, and likes, and reblogs, and for recommending it to your followers and friends. I swear I still feel like dreaming and you guys make this feel even better 🥹🥹🥹

@nuctoria @peaches2217 @itsavee4117 @keakruiser @bberetd

@alex-procrastinates @vulpixfairy1985 @hyperfixatingonbowuigisohard @cool-taya @charlie-the-ghost64

@mrs-luigi-vargas @luigitime83 @fandomphantom1 @thedragicloudluigi @canela2001

@wogwoman @imaginativefanatic @nunchukaninja-archive @pepperycar @brave-little-pauper

@thesavagekitten This goes for all of you 👇

I really hope I didn't forget about anyone! 💖💖💖

In all honesty, I never thought this would get this far... It all started with some silly ideas from an avid bookworm who began to see herself reflected in her favorite character and got extremely excited every time she saw him with a book. And, from then... it all came alone, more or less. I've totally poured into Luigi (and the whole post) my own feelings when reading and fangirling over books, for you BET I'm also extremely intense when I'm enjoying a good novel. I simply thought that Luigi would act the same, since I have in common with him that I also get emotional very easily and experiment my own feelings in a very intense way. And it only makes me feel all the way more connected to my beloved boy in green 💚💚💚

So thank you. Thank you for your enthusiasm (I didn't expect that there would be so much anticipation when I shared my teaser post a few days ago!), and for welcoming all my ideas with open arms. I totally enjoyed writing them, and it was definitely something I needed after everything I went through last month. These headcanons have helped me connect with Luigi (and the whole gang) again, which means I totally feel like writing fics again and I just couldn't be happier because I've missed it so much! 🥹🥹🥹 I really hope you're ready, because some of the HCs I've shared today will definitely become written works in the future! And I'll obviously be bringing at last my pending fics! ✨

Of course, I can't leave without giving special thanks to the amazing @itsavee4117 for his lovely post (please go check it! 💖💖💖). Dear friend, it's been such a pleasure to work with you and to see some of my ideas come to life in your gorgeous art style! 🥹 I just LOVE how you've illustrated them, the many details here and there, how expressive and CUTE all the characters look... And of course, seeing our beloved Luigi in a beautiful dress is always such a treat! 💚 I seriously LOVE all of your drawings, but if I had to choose, I'd go with the babies (MY HEART 😭), the Cycle of the Common Reader (Peach and Luigi are so ME in that one!), and of course...

LUAISY 💚🧡

They look so damn CUTE 😭😭😭 I swear, I've enjoyed writing the whole post, but the Luaisy parts were my ABSOLUTE favorite because this couple really owns my heart. And, more specifically, their first Book Day together, with Daisy's purple dress covering Luigi's legs while he tries to read the book he has gifted her... My God, how I ENJOYED writing that. These two cuddling and kissing and sharing their love for literature I just 😭😭😭 I love them.

And then you go and draw this MASTERPIECE and I'm. So dead and happy and crying 😭😭😭😭😭 It's literally my phone wallpaper right now, THANK YOU, thank you for all your drawings, Vee, but especially for this one 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 You made me SO HAPPY 😭😭😭💚🧡✨

Again, thank you everyone for all your love and support! You truly mean EVERYTHING to me 🥹 I still can't get over the fact that what I write not only interests you, but you also enjoy and love it. I'm so elated to be part of such an amazing and wholesome community 💖💖💖

I'm now off to bed, but again, thank you so much for making this the best Book Day I've ever had 🥹🥹🫂🫂 I love you all with all my heart 💖💖💖💖💖

#THANK YOU #I don't deserve you #you're all so GREAT and SWEET #I truly and deeply adore you #thank you so much 🫂💖 #Luigi the Bookworm #Book Day #Luaisy #thank you post #silenzahra

[arom-antix]

Yuri!!! On Cards collaboration!

So, I know I've been pretty inactive recently, at least in posting my own art but for good reason! In the Yuri on the Web Discord server artists and writers alike have all collaborated to illustrate a deck of cards and write stories for each of them. And as a resident artist myself, I couldn't not take the opportunity to draw for this project UuU

Oh and if anyone was wondering, yes, I am to blame for inflicting this giant project onto the server BUT I REGRET NOTHING AND NEITHER WILL YOU IF YOU CHECK OUT EVERYONE ELSE'S WORKS. Trust me, they are amazing! The masterpost can be found here!

GIANT thanks to @lines-on-ice and @yaoiconnoisseur for helping so much and being amazing co-administrators and basically making this entire thing possible! You really saved me from my own overambition XD

The guidelines for this project can be found on the Yuri!!! On Cards blog as can the masterpost with all the links to everything. All the art that gets posted to Tumblr will also be reblogged by the blog.

With all that said, here's the actual art I made! (Break for those who don't want their dash to die UuU)

Okay, I lied. First, I'd heavily recommend for you to check out the guideline posts, both the general and artists' and even the writers' if you're up to it to get a grasp of the perimeters of this project. There's also some vague lore and AU stuff about the whole thing to find which will give you context for why the art looks the way it does to a certain extent.

You can also just jump right in and take everything as I ramble about it which, I mean, I won't stop you, the guideline posts aren't short. I will not blame you. You can still just look at the art. If that's your choice, go on ahead!

First up!

Ace of the Kingdom Otabek, The Deep Shadow

Being of the Kingdom of Diamonds, he's skillful and sharp. He moves quietly as a shadow and is just as mysterious.

Okay, I can't comment much on how he actually is, you'll have find that out by reading his fic(let?). They were supposed to be ficlets but as writers tend to do, none of us could manage that so take "ficlet" with a big grain of salt for every written work.

I've, by the way, not read any of the ficlets for this project beside my own so I'll get to experience the reveal with y'all and I'm gonna perish waiting.

Anyway, about the art. The yellow of course comes from the Kingdom of Diamonds' designated colour. As for the outfit, it's based on this handsome fellow I found who's supposed to be a Kazakh archer which I thought fit Otabek's whole shadow thing perfectly (and Writingfromtheshadow's fic Equivalent Exchange has me in an iron grip and I don't want to be released).

If there are any Kazakhs in the audience, you are free to laugh at me for any inaccuracies or missteps, I am but a humble little not-Kazakh, I don't expect to have gotten it all right UuU

Next up!

King Yuuri, Wanderer of Dreams

The ruler of his realm, he is as the mind flows. Kind and benevolent yet of fickle thoughts, the spirals of the subconscious are ones he both masters and bows to.

Again, gonna be waiting for his fic with everyone else but like. It's Yuuri. Anxiety is kind of a given.

In terms of art, I don't know if you can tell but this was where I started writing my will because oh my stars, what did I get myself into. If you follow me or my art, you'll know that I don't draw lineless. Like ever. And apparently I decided this project on a deadline that others were depending on me making look nice was the place to go all out.

And the worst part is that I'm not even mad at it so I have no argument to not do it again.

Anyway, the blue is from the designated colour of spades and yes, you've guessed right as to why this colour was picked for this suit. I'm predictable, leave me alone. As for the rest, the outfit is inspired by traditional Japanese dress that the Internet told me about (again, Japanese may laugh at me all they want UuU Your culture is very cool but also there was so much info, I hope I got it at least a bit right).

Also I spent like eight hours looking at hanakotoba for this and I've never been this happy about a decision I regretted so much while I was having to draw that many flowers. And you know I had to include The Gay Flower^(TM).

The Japanese iris is now Yuuri's btw.

All the flowers used are: Japanese irises, Jasmine flowers, Forget-me-nots, cherry blossoms, white roses, green carnations and blue roses (Viktor's flower. Read: I am predictable).

And finally!

Queen Minako, Tamer of Minds

Of the Realm of Dreams, she sees your fears, the snares laid by the subconscious and, strict and blunt as she is, she clears a path for the motivated and lets no potential go to waste.

Again, haven't read a word of the fic.

This one was by far the one that I made the fastest and I would've loved to do more with it but like deadlines. I'm gracefully skipping over the fact that I set the deadline and am fully to blame for being late.

But, as with Yuuri, blue is for spades. And since I wanted her to have a leotard but still match Yuuri and make her outfit look even slightly Japanese inspired, sheer fabric to the rescue! With cherry blossoms, of course, because CSP had the pattern preinstalled UuU

And I don't know if it worked but I tried to make her hair both look like her signature style, traditional Japanese hairstyles I found on the good ol' Interwebs and then kind of a spade by having that middle stick be the stem and the hair the spade's butt.

Also this probably goes without saying but the ranks of the characters are just titles. Yuuri is not married to Minako, she is just the Queen and he the King, don't worry.

Again, a BIG thank you to everyone who also participated, it was so fun to work together on this and see everyone's progress! Nic and Lil, you're amazing, thank you so much for everything you've done for this!

And to everyone who's made it this far, thank you for sticking around and please go check out all the other art and the ficlets! I promise it's worth it!

Masterpost | AO3 collection

#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this project almost killed me #i am so infinitely happy about everyones contributions they are so lovely and i am gonna die happy now #but seriously what idiot decided to try a new and more detailed rendering style on a deadline #its me #i am that idiot and if i had a time machine past me would have gotten the fattest slap #idk if im ever gonna do that again but if i know myself at all itll happen because this wasnt disastrous enough a result to dissuade me #and most of it im pretty happy with #also i had so much fun with otabek #i got to play with light and texture and light and those smoke tendrils in the back and light and that fabric and light and #also rendering minako was a BLAST even if i churned her out on severe sleep deprivation my only energy being spite for my own mortality #oh and yes it was a this we decided that the aces should somehow incorporate the king of the given suit so the anger kitten is there #in otabeks i mean #now ON TO ANOTHER PROJECT #THATS... ON A DEADLINE #UH #yuri on cards #yuri on ice #yoi #yuri on ice fanart #yoi fanart #fanart #art #arom antix art #arom antix #otabek altin #katsuki yuuri #okukawa minako #collab

[thotpuppy]

✨ Fic Writing Review 2023 ✨

tagged by the love @dear-massacre uwu

Words and Fics

According to AO3: 295,177 words posted, however, I did a lot of art for events this year, so this number isn't wholly accurate.

I actually wrote and posted 122,354 which is actually WAY more than I thought I did?

1 fandom represented: Teen Wolf (but I'm a multi-shipper, so many ships hehe)

Most Recent Drop: TECHNICALLY mu submissions to @sterekreversechallenges's past participant server event, 1000 Cakes, but the work featured is still anonymous, so I can't count it here.

Most Recent Drop (readable): 'My Whole Life is a Reference to the 1995 Hit Movie Clueless and I Still Don't Know the Plot' by Fall Out Boy (Stackson, T, 2k)

Longest Fic according to my stats page: Yoda Said It Best by @okdeannawrites (Sterek, E, 99k+) (I did the illustrations)

Longest Fic I actually wrote: Under My Skin (Stackson, E, 59k+)

Top Fics by Kudos (I'm including 6 because 1 of my top 5 isn't mine lol)

Grandma, What a Big Dick You Have! (the better to fuck you with my dear) (Sterek, E, 5k+)

Yoda Said It Best (Not my fic) (Sterek, E, 99k+)

Higher Education (you can confess when you're stone-cold sober) (Sciles, E, 6k+)

Under My Skin (Stackson, E, 59k+)

Daisies and Daffodils (You Make Me Smile) (Sterek, T, 3k+)

Thirsty (Stiles/Scott/Derek, M, <2k)

My fandom fic events in 2023

I THRIVE on events. They've been absolutely integral to my ability to write fic this year, and I'm really proud of what I've done. That said - I absolutely participated in WAY too many. There are a number of fics that I was involved with that don't show up in my ao3 stats and that's okay! I'ma just... list them out akdjhgk

7 fics (or 13,394 words) this year were posted for the Stiles Shipping Server's monthly ficlet exchange.

2 fics and 4ish art pieces were done for the @stacksonreversebang

1 fic was written for the Sterek VDay Exchange, but my participation was revoked.

1 art was posted for @stetervalentines2023

3 arts and 1 podfic were posted for the @steter-bang

1 fic was posted for the @teenwolfminibang

1 art was posted for the @teenwolfminibang

1 item was posted for the @sterekreversechallenges 1000 cakes event

2 Major arts and uh at least 4 minors arts were posted for the @wipbigbang

1 fic (and my longest solo fic ever) was written for the @wipbigbang

1 art which is not currently posted but will be revealed by the end of the year is for the @stereksecretsanta

Upcoming Events and Projects for 2024

The first thing that's going to be 'posted' is the Sterek Reverse Challenges 1000 Cakes anonymous work, which will be revealed Jan 6th.

Events:

Stiles Shipping Server monthly ficlet exchange - many more months will be participated in again

@sterekposevents - probably gonna write smth for this next year (stares forlornly at my unfinished summer wip)

If the Stackson Reverse Bang runs again, I will absolutely participate in that, but i will definitely not commit to 4 projects!!!!

Absolutely the next go around for Sterek Reverse Challenges!!! I love reverse bangs (and bang in general)

If I do the Steter bang again I will not sign up for as many projects because I did too much all at once and it was stressful.

I will likely participate in at least 1 vday event and at least 1 santa event. (:

There is one event I will definitely be participating in but the event itself has not been announced yet so I won't talk about it... publicly. If you're into Sterek and Events you can DM me for Spoilers though~ ;*

Projects:

Addabge Dmaddiage - Sterek MedFantasy Omegaverse Arranged Married Dark-ish fic. Currently Writing

Higher Education 2: Electric Boogaloo - I already have over 2k written, I just need to finish it.

Vampire!Stiles Sterek fic, which I will hopefully be doing for one of the events

Stackson MedFantasy Bastard Prince x Freedom Fighter AU

New! Sex for Work - Sterek office sex AU: Next chapter and/or Rewrite and/or Finish (low priority)

Sciles in Ancient Greece - this is possibly more of a long form poem than fic? We'll see how it goes ? low priority

Rules, Tags & Rambling below the cut!

I technically have a massive list of WIPs and Prompts I am constantly working from. I pick the ideas when they feel happy in my brain for "free time" writing - I actually meant to work on the office sex AU for the month of december but got whacked upside the head with Addabge Dmaddiage. UMS was my FIRST "long fic" ever so I am... feeling really, really invigorated.

in 2021 I climbed out of my writing hole where I hadn't written seriously in over a decade. That year, I wrote and shared 22,418 words by myself, and wrote half of a 69,599 (incomplete, part 1) role-play fic with a friend. At the start of 2022, I watched teen wolf for the first time because @sinnabon-cosplay is a menace and can't be stopped. It lit an absolute FIRE beneath me and I lost all control of my life. I started writing and drawing with a wholly renewed fury. I started doing way more events and wrote and posted 40,247 words. At the end of the year, I thought to myself - wow, wouldn't it be cool if i doubled my word count again? 80k? haha, that probably won't happen though. I'll be excited if I write and post 60k.

YALL. I wrote and posted 60k in ONE FIC. I wrote and posted over 120k?????? that's INSANE to me. I haven't had that much drive to create since I was in high school.

Teen Wolf is like... fixing my brain chemistry. I feel so invigorated.

Despite some setbacks with some REALLY unfortunate Sterek fans at the start of my experience here nearly tanking my creative drive, I've managed to stay on track without totally losing my love for the ship because of some rotten eggs. Shoutout to all my homies keeping the space worth hanging around in. I appreciate yall so much <3

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass but don’t feel like you have to do this either.

Tags: No pressure ANY time from me, i love you I appreciate you I like sharing with you. Don't wanna play, don't worry about it <3 @clotpolesonly @lucky-bishop @adrianfridge @sinnabon-cosplay @okdeannawrites @foofsterwolf (Sorry i panicked and couldn't remember if u posted FIC on ur main or just original so i tagged ur TW even tho this doesnt have to be TW related) @just-another-busy-fangirl-writes @lavender-lotion

#my writing #sterek #teen wolf fanfiction #tag meme / #tag game / #long post /

[unscrupulousartist]

hellerby fic, part 1/10

21 August 1925

If pressed, Mordecai could, eventually, recall a few things of the night in question. In a rare good mood, he sat at an otherwise empty table—recently vacated by Viktor, who had been dragged out to the dance floor by an excited Miss Ivy Pepper—tucked at the back of the Lackadaisy where the general hustle and bustle of the speakeasy seemed a little further away. The books were balanced, the booze was flowing, and there was no pressing need for blood or carnage. Atlas and Mitzi were making their rounds, shmoozing with investors and patrons alike; the band was testing out a new member, a fiddle singing high above jazz chords; and the bar was flush with paying customers. With his favourite ficus within reach, Mordecai sipped through half a glass of Canadian whiskey while, reluctantly, allowing himself to enjoy the moment.

If inclined to answer, he wouldn't be able to say when, exactly, Rocky Rickaby sat down across from him with two cocktails of something blue and sweet smelling, except to say that the dancefloor had become sedated and the bar less busy.

"Hey-oh, Mr Serious Face," Rocky greeted. Smiling, he pulled a flask from his jacket.

"Good evening," said Mordecai. He lifted his glass, only to discover a lonely icecube skirting the dregs of his drink.

"Some might argue it to be morning," said Rocky. He bit his lip, fangs showing as he added a splash of the flask's contents to each of the cocktails. "But who can judge time while so merry? Night becomes day becomes night again, and us in the business of Dionysus become heros of the cheerless."

"Is that why you are here?" Mordecai drawled. "I assure you, I am filled with cheer. Brimming with it, even; at least, I was before being so rudely interrupted."

"I'll strive to return you to your happiness," Rocky raised his brows, and one of the cocktails, then stared expectantly. "Drink with me."

Narrowing his eyes, Mordecai inspected the cat in front of him. Though it was their first official meeting, the musician had been pointed out to Mordecai earlier in the day. Rocky was neatly dressed in a clean blue suit, but years of shopping with Mitzi gave Mordecai insight on last season's fashion and the mismatched colour of mended seams. "You're the new addition to the band."

"Almost," Rocky nodded, and lifted his free hand to hold two claws close together. "Very nearly. It seems the last leg of my initiation is to enjoy a drink with you."

"What?" Mordecai frowned.

"Ms M insisted upon it," he nodded again as he bit his lip. 

Scanning the room, Mordecai found Mitzi sitting at the bar with Zib and Viktor. All three of them watched Mordecai and Rocky with varying degrees of intrigue and humour. "It's a joke," Mordecai sighed. "Mitzi already handed in your paperwork; I signed off your payroll at the end of the day."

"Then it should be an easy celebration!" Rocky grinned, pushing the second cocktail closer. "Come on, Mr Serious."

"My name is Mr Heller," Mordecai corrected. But his good mood carried, and he saw little personal sacrifice in subjecting himself to the request. Still, time and experience warranted caution. He picked up the cocktail. "What, precisely, did Mrs May say you had to do?"

Rocky shrugged. "There may have been mention of drinking you under the table."

Mordecai rolled his eyes. "And you assumed one glass was enough?"

"Zib was under the impression it might be," Rocky agreed. "But I thought I might convince you of an alternative route, just in case." Standing, he took his drink and sat on the floor.

Stunned for a moment, Mordecai looked across the bar at the baffled and laughing faces of Mitzi and Zib. He tried to find consolation in Viktor, but the old Slav just shrugged. He had little choice but to tilt in his seat to look down at Rocky. "What are you doing?"

"Drinking under the table!" Rocky cheered, then schooled his expression into a mockery of seriousness. "Thou this underhandedness will be wasted if you don't join me."

Amusement bubbled inside him, but Mordecai maintained his airs. "You've done little to convince me."

"I saw you back here, basking in my playing," Rocky boasted. "You seem the type to enjoy fine things; wouldn't it be nice to continue hearing motifs of Paganini and Bach?"

There were some areas of expertise that Mordecai had long given up mastering. Needless to say, he could only suppose the musician to be referring to some niche of his profession. "Correlation does not equal causation," he replied.

A dash of uncertainty pulled at Rocky's facade. "Reason might suggest drinking to be the easiest way to get rid of me," he argued. He continued in sing-song: "One drink under the table, one drink to make me able, one drink under the table and I'll be on my way."

Looking up, Mordecai leveled a glare at Mitzi. The mirthful lady took a considering sip of a martini, eyes hooded with mischief. "You'll need to make better rhymes," he said to Rocky.

"You want something more poetic?" Placing the cocktail glass precariously by his knee, Rocky broke into verse. "The raging rocks, and shivering shocks, shall break the locks, of prison gates. And Phibbus' car, shall shine from far, and make and mar, the foolish Fates."

"What?"

Ears drooping, Rocky sighed. "Not a fan of Shakespeare?"

"Who has time for Shakespeare?" He raised his glass to toast to Mitzi across the room; her and Zib both lifted their drinks, and the three drank in tandem. Then Mordecai coughed, gagging on an extra sharp tang that tasted like nothing in their inventory. He looked again under the table at Rocky.  

The rest of the night was decidedly harder to remember.

#lackadaisy #lackadaisy fanfiction #lackadaisy fan comic #lackadaisy fanart #fanfiction #the fic has been written but I'm still illustrating it #*slaps fic* this baby can fit so many headcanons #inappropriate use of shakespeare #i haven't picked a title #hellerby #mordecai x rocky #mordecai heller #rocky rickaby #posting all the parts here before i upload to ao3 later

[aimmyarrowshigh]

14. What have you been finding frustrating with writing this chapter/fic?

Complain a lil bit at me. I love me some complaining. Brains are the absolute worst, honestly, there has to be a better way to have a consciousness.

GAH, well, since you asked for complaining, haha...

I HAD written all of Lent From Tomorrow. Or, well. I had written fully-fully the first 3/4 of it and had a robust outline and chunklets in the last quarter. So I felt safe to start posting it. I KNOW myself. I am BAD at posting WIPs. I am bad at it. My track record of my entire life illustrates this.

So I started posting it and things were going swimmingly! "Yes!" I told myself. "I'm successfully posting a WIP!"

But then I pulled a WandaVision and went, "oh, dear, everyone consuming this story figured out my red herrings much faster than anticipated, I must CHANGE THE STORY" but not in a "screw the audience over" way like WandaVision, just in a "this reveal comes much sooner than I had written, because otherwise I'm worried it will come across like beating a dead horse to keep dropping hints when y'all already know."

So... that completely undid the back HALF of the story, and I started writing it chapter-by-chapter as I posted, and I was doing okay. It wasn't the weekly update schedule I'd had with the prewritten chapters, but that's fine. It's fanfiction. People go years without updating sometimes, especially me, because I AM BAD AT WIPS. But it was still going okay!

And then April and May happened, and I'm ngl, literally every day of April, something cartoonishly horrible happened in my real life and I did not write a word for the entire month. Or do much of anything. I don't even think I read any comic books. I did zero. And then May was... not much better. Like, maybe something cartoonishly horrible happened every three days instead of every day, but it was still way too much.

I actually wrote more in May than I've written in that same time span since 2024 started, which I'm really proud of myself for -- I wrote 14,000 words (plus like 800 words of unpostable noodling) in three weeks, and that's not, like, Impressive or Enough but it's better than I've been able to produce in a while. I told myself just focus on the drabbles and tiny ficlets that were coming out of the prompt/pairing list I'd set up for myself for MLMay, and I tried not to freak myself out, and words happened, and it was nice! And then the last week of May also happened and we're back to Very Bad Brain Times.

So... I know what happens in the last quarter of Lent. I WANT to be writing it. But my brain is just not "together" enough right now to slip into the mindset for such a heavy-duty, plotty, researchy, emotional longfic, and I'm just spiraling and making myself feel even worse by getting more and more anxious about how long it's taking me to write it.

I know, logically, that it's not a huge deal. If people are gonna stick around to read what comes next, they will, and if they don't, they don't, and that's fine. That's how posting serial fiction works. I mean, that's even how TV used to work in the before-streaming times, and it's not like I worried about the feelings of a showrunner if I got behind on a show or decided it went somewhere I didn't care to follow. That's just serialized art! It's fine! I know logically that it's fine!

But reader, Emotionally, It Is Not Fine. I love this story so much, and I'm so invested in actually finishing something for once and I've stupidly pinned like... a lot of my beliefs about my Worth As A Person on "whether I can finish and successfully post an entire longfic," which, I get it, that in itself is not the biggest issue at play here, but whatever. Baby steps. And I just... it sounds so stupid. And I KNOW that it's small potatoes.

I just want people to like it.*

And I know that every passing day that I don't update, fewer people are going to read it and/or like it, and that also feeds the Bad Brain Spiral. And I don't know.

So tl;dr, the most frustrating part of writing this chapter is myself? I guess????

*Before anyone jumps in to whine about and/or laugh at this statement, I'm not saying "I want it to be a stucky fandom classic," or anything ridiculous like that. I literally just mean that I want the people who choose to read it to enjoy it enough to finish it and maybe have an emotionally positive experience from reading it.

**I also feel very. This is another dumb complaint that I know won't come across right, because internet, but -- I feel very like... separated from stucky fandom (in part because I'm a newer fan who came to the fandom after its heyday, in part because I don't like a lot of currently-popular fanons, in part because I am way too shy for Discord?) and I feel bad bugging uninterested people with thoughts/feelings about my own stories, so I've kind of just... stoppered up my excitement for this story for a long time. Also, an asshole ex-friend of mine straight-up told me that "stuckies are going to hate it because there isn't enough sex and it's really boring for being a fic, especially since it's Steve POV and not Bucky POV" and that just kind of made me feel like. I couldn't squee about the story. And it's HARD to write longfic and not feel like you can share it with people??? IDK. Stuff and thoughts. Whatever. etc.

#fanfiction ask meme #fandom #fanfiction #my fic #lent from tomorrow (today was too small for us)

[word-wytch]

My thoughts on Flight of Icarus (so far!)

I finally got my hands on the book yesterday and also had time to read which hasn’t happened in a very hot minute.

These are just my first impressions, commentary, and takeaways from chapters 1-9.

More will come, but I am realizing that I have so much to say that I need to break it up ✨

I will start off by saying that I was skeptical, as all of us were, when this book was announced. Prior to reading it, I had been steering clear of spoilers and others’ reactions just so that I could go in completely unbiased and with an open mind and heart.

Within the first 10 pages, I was crying. Like, openly weeping. Something about Eddie talking first person about his childhood experiences and confirming what so many of us suspected hit me so suddenly. I was not prepared for the swell of emotions that bubbled over as a result of not only that, but reading his name printed on a real, hard bound book when I've only ever read it from a screen was something else as well. Something about it being officially licensed by ST and providing us with some concrete backstory (if we choose to take it) for so many things that we've been only speculating on for the last year and a half.

These are a few snippets that really had me going:

Anyway, I'm broken.

Onto the writing --

I genuinely think what I've read so far has been incredibly well-written. The first person narration sounds so much like Eddie, as does the dialogue. The insights and ways he describes things cleverly but also with that touch of dark humor that he deflects with so often is very present. I do feel like I'm stepping into his curly noggin and viewing the world through his bambi eyes. It's such a treat.

Also, I have noticed her using many words that he frequently uses in his limited dialogue on the show in her narration, the main one I can think of right now being "not exactly". It's touches like these that let me know how closely she's paying attention.

I am also impressed with the general quality of prose, how she seamlessly integrates setting and character description into the scene. Also clever and creative ways to describe objects that still stay very in character. This one stands out:

Also this. This hyper-awareness that his home life is different than his peers, something I try to illustrate in my own writing and appreciate that this author did as well:

As a writer, I learn so much from reading. I can honestly say that I am learning from this experience as well, and dare I say it, am inspired.

The chapter I am working on now for DSSCTM deals heavily with similar themes and questions that FOI covers, such as Eddie's motivations for staying in school, his relationship to his dad, and how he views himself. So I feel a lucky sense of coincidence that this book was released during the time I am writing it. I, like everyone else, invented my own backstory for his parents that suited the story I was trying to tell and will keep it for consistency going forward.

Characters that stuck out to me --

Gareth -- OH. MY GOD. BABY GARETH. Little fluffy ball of rage. I cannot. My heart is going to explode fr. Also the tenderness with which Eddie handles him is just too much for me.

Ronnie -- Stan her. You know, this character really makes me wonder how much of our fics the author has read because I feel like it is one of the most common and earliest tropes for our Reader characters to be best friends of his that grew up in the trailer park along side him. Maybe it's just an obvious trope? But interesting she included it. Also making her the book-smart one who's got a golden ticket out is another very common thing I see in our stories.

Chrissy -- I love the bit of backstory I've read so far and how sympathetic she writes her. I love that we get the whole scene of them before the talent show and them bonding for a short moment.

Al -- There aren't enough words for how big a piece of shit this man is. When he said this to Wayne I almost yeeted my book across the room. Nobody talks to Wayne Munson like this in my house. 😤

Paige -- Eh. Not sold tbh. Although I do appreciate reading through Eddie's first person narration about him having a crush on someone though. It's cute. Just the crush part, not Paige specifically. She's mid so far.

Principal Higgins -- I had to suspend my disbelief a bit for how strong he came on tbh. I mean, I think she made a somewhat believable case for his absolutely unhinged behavior but it still struck me as borderline unbelievable how Higgins spoke to Eddie like that. What it did confirm for me was something I had suspected from the beginning, which is that Eddie's dad never graduated high school. Also, I appreciate the question being asked about why he is still in school BUT my issue is that this question isn't as applicable in his first senior year as it is in his third. I think the author was trying to find a reason for Higgins to be asking it and had to dig a little to try and make it believable. It's a question I have asked myself, one that I had Teach ask him in the first chapter of DSSCTM, and one I will be exploring in ch. 16.

One final theme-related thing I noticed and appreciate:

How chapter 4 ends with his dad telling him to sleep on the idea of pulling off a heist with him and chapter 5 begins with "The question is pretty simple. At the end of the day, who do you want to be?" and proceeds to a scene of him building a character with Gareth. Likewise in real life, Eddie is figuring out who he wants to be, and I think using this as a metaphor is really clever and beautiful.

ALSO. A theory. Illian died right? Illian wasn't Gareth's he was Jeff's. What if this is alluding to the possibility of another character we all know and love who supposedly died in canon to be able to come back and re-invent themselves? 👀

Could just be my delusional ass reading into this way too much but it was just a thought I had.

Anyway, onward. ✨

#flight of icarus #eddie munson #stranger things #please tell me your thoughts!! #I wanted to just have a place to dump all mine but also want to start a dialogue!

[trulybetty]

Sunday Week In Review XIV

How's everyone doing? I skipped out on last week's update since it was a really slow week on all fronts for all the things for me last week. Things picked up a bit this week - but I'll be honest, I'm having a hard time finding my feet around here at the moment and finding a groove to get into.

Not sure if it's that time of year, a bit of a writing lull or what - but I've been a little meh, not in the sad sense - more like I'm a petulant child offered six different things and I turn my nose up at all of them because I don't know what I want lol.

Also trying to figure out a system for getting through my TBR list, right now it feels like it's out of control and there are only so many I can read in a week. Especially since I want to get through some of my physical TBR pile and dedicate a couple nights a week to offline reading.

Anyway, enough about me seemingly channelling Baby Truly™️ - on with the recap of the last two weeks!

T R U L Y   U P D A T E S . . .

I did a second round of the 'First Sentence' ask game, which I absolutely adore! If you haven't done it before, I very much recommend it! If you do this, tag me so I can come throw a sentence at you!

Round 2

tim x cagney (f!reader)

jack x reader (f!reader)

joel x Charlotte (OFC)

dieter x bryony (OFC)

jack x reader (f!reader)

frankie x clementine (OFC)

W H A T   I   R E A D . . .

Delta Landscaping (Triple Frontier) by @rhoorl Jess' series has me on tenterhooks for every update and then on the edge of my seat waiting for more! This last update we entered the start of Frankie's arch and while it pulls at the heartstrings, I'm so here for it and what's to come next! Also, Benny entering his Rocky era (Jess didn't write this, I've decided it) is something I'm also very much ready for!

Paranoid Hearts (Javi P.) by @goodwithcheese This series. This series is just something else and I finally got my ass into gear to get caught up, and while on the one hand, I'm sorry I started so late on the other hand I enjoyed this smorgasbord of Javi and Tabitha.

he makes life better (Joel) by @wildemaven This is such a warm comforting hug of a fic that just seeps into your bones, that makes your toes curl in softness and you re-read more than once. This is everything fluff should make you feel and I adore each and every last part of this and will be re-reading this.

Headshots (Marcus P.) by @secretelephanttattoo I was not ready for this to end, but El gave our boy Marcus the ending he and his Ella deserved and it was both spicy and sweet. If you've not read this yet, I suggest you do. Also, peep her forthcoming wip... 🔎

Thrash Metal (Dieter) by @morallyinept Jett is back with another delectably mouthwatering smutty one-shot with our favourite deviant Dieter Bravo. This is sinfully indulgent and a must-read and one that lends itself to definitely more than one read.

Six and a half minutes - Frankie's version by @avastrasposts This one calls for a breakout of the Hot Ones gif for sure, because this was the mood the entire time I read this. If anything, Frankie is not one to back down from a challenge...

Medicine (Joel) by @goodwithcheese I was so excited to see Megan had written for Joel that I had to drop everything to read this over my coffee the other morning. I love everything about the dynamic between these two and how Megan illustrates the deep affection they have for one another through their actions as we all know our post-outbreak Miller is not one quick with his words. I hope this isn't the last we see of Joel here!

M E M O R A B L E   P O S T S . . .

Heidi’s amazing mood board inspired by Sequins! 😍 I’m still in absolute awe of it and I love it so much! I think it's going to get a spot on my work desk this week! 💕

These thots had started off as Joel Thots, but have now morphed into Tim Thots and I'm not mad about it... might share a little snippet later 😏

@morallyinept's 'Ode to Writers' this week - I'm going to refrain from getting on my soapbox here (I'd be here all day) - but the table is not finite, it's infinite. If you're not inching your chair down to make room for another chair, or pulling the spare chairs in from the garage, then maybe you need to re-evaluate your relationship with this community.

E N J O Y E D  T H I S  W E E K  . . .

Finally watching ‘Strange Way of Life’ and getting to live message my thots to @rhoorl as I watched - it was a cinematic dissection.

Date night with Mr. Truly - we spent the entire two hours wondering what people do on dates aside from watching their phones and waiting for a call to say your kids are out of control and have taken over Nakatomi Plaza. But needless to say, we had fun, I even ate a meal without someone else's hand in it.

Amazing moots being mooting awesome 🙌 - I'm thankful every day that I get to interact with some wonderful people and have found a lovely corner of this hell site to play in a sandbox with some amazing people 💕

S P E C I A L M E N T I O N . . .

Check out this writing challenge that myself and a group of people that I'm lucky to call moots created that we would love for you to join in on! Everything about it is random and everyone starts with the same parameters and everything else after that is up to you! So excited to see what everyone does with this!

Do I know anything about Javi Pēna? Nope. Am I going to join in? Yes I am! 🙌

See you January 1st to dive into all the fics this challenge I hope produces! 💛

T H I S  W E E K ' S  J A M . . .

Thank you to @gnpwdrnwhiskey for inspiring this week's selection after she pointed out the parallels to Chiffon that I haven't been able to get out of my head since.

Hope everyone has had a great week! Here's to a great week ahead and I hope its a good one full of obnoxious drinks of choice and soft places to land and enjoy.

#betty's sunday in review #sunday week in review #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #Spotify

[nixknacks0-0]

Thank you for writing "Bittersweet Reunion"! I enjoyed it immensely and it has definitely found a place on my list of all-time favorite Roudise stories! And thank you for offering to answer readers' questions about it! Here are a couple (hopefully, not too many) I've been wondering about:

This is really basic, and possibly it was mentioned in an earlier chapter and I just don't remember, but what age are Louise and Rudy supposed to be in the story?

I would love to know where you got the idea for the story from or what inspired you to write it? As I mentioned in my comment on the last chapter, to me Louise and Rudy feel like the least likely of the Belcher kid friendships to fall out of each other's lives, so I'm curious what led you to think of a story starting from the premise.

In the second to last chapter, Rudy explains that reason he left town was because he needed to get away from his parents. I know you started the story well before "The Amazing Rudy" aired and I was wondering if that episode- where we see Rudy's mom for the first time and see more of his relationship with his dad- changed your view of his relationship with his parents or led you to change anything about how that part of Chapter 11 was written? (Of course, there's all sorts of things that can happen in parent-child relationships between the ages of 9 and 18 that could explain why older teen Rudy would feel the need to get away from them.)

I loved the way you wrote the older Pesto twins in Chapter 3! I find the Pesto twins to be the hardest characters to imagine aged up versions of (I actually decided not to write a scene with them in it for my Roudise wedding fic when I realized I was still writing them like they were 9). I was wondering how you came up with the ideas you did for them and if you had any additional ideas for them that didn't make it into the story?

Similarly, where are there any ideas for any of the other background characters that you weren't able to work into the story but would like to share? (Feel free to ignore if this will spoil other stories you are working on.)

Thank you for reading it, and I'm so glad you enjoyed it! And don't worry, I'm happy to answer all the questions (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)

1. Louise and Rudy are in their early to mid 30s in this. I really wanted to capture the vibes of people can find love at any age (vs Gene and Tina who in this au find love in college and right after).

I also wanted to emphasize that Louise has a very established life at this point, she's taken over the restaurant, she has friends and weekly hang outs, she isn't necessarily looking for anything romantic to happen, but sometimes it happens anyways.

I just think it was interesting to explore a budding relationship between two people who very much know who they are, as opposed to younger people just figuring out who they are in life.

2. This story actually started with me thinking about how I really wanted Louise to take over the restaurant when she's older, and things kind of grew from there.

Another thing I really wanted to explore is this sort of abandonment issue Louise has. That's not quite the words for it, but I always got the vibe that she cares so strongly for the people in her life and hates when they have to/choose to leave, which ended up being a really interesting dynamic to explore when coupled with her figuring out she's in love.

3. Rudy's parents seemed to me the easiest vehicle for his moving away. We've seen how Sylvester acts (even though he cares, he obviously has his own problems, as illustrated in the House of 1000 Bounces and The Kids Rob a Train), and in earlier episodes Rudy talked about his mother caring very strongly about his safety and "hating fun".

Obviously that seems to change as the seasons go on, and especially with The Amazing Rudy. I did consider changing the story at that point, but why Rudy left was kind of woven throughout the story, and I realized that it's fanfiction. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate to canon, and the story probably wouldn't be 100% accurate even if I did change it.

I did love seeing how much his parents actually care in The Amazing Rudy, and I think it was a really great episode to analyze the inner workings of our favorite asthmatic boy.

4. My portrayal of the Pesto twins is 100% inspired by @tallgirl14, whose work I saw on TikTok. She's got some really great comics of the kids in high school, and she illustrates the twins as these sort of trouble makers because anyone who is friends with Louise for so long has to be a little crafty.

I sincerely recommend you check out her work, her art is so cute and makes me squeel every time.

Once I had the personality, it did take a little work to figure out where they would be and what they'd be up to, but I really liked the idea of them being restaurateurs with Louise, and even having a fake rivalry to draw business. Of course, leaning more into real Italian food than their father, even taking a trip to Italy to reconnect to their mother's heritage. Don't remember if I did write that into chapter two or three, but that's my favorite detail about them for sure (⁠´⁠∩⁠｡⁠•⁠ ⁠ᵕ⁠ ⁠•⁠｡⁠∩⁠`⁠)

5. I did actually do a lot of thinking about Millie's character, even though she is barely in the story. She's definitely a regular at the restaurant, coming in for coffee every morning and afternoon, and she works as a detective for the police.

I'm still a very acab person, but being a detective just fits Millie's personality, and honestly the way she can be a bit obsessive and a little less than moral fits the cop vibe to me. She's also backed off of Louise a little, and the two have managed to foster a reasonable level of friendship, though Louise is still wary to invite her to things because she flat out doesn't trust her.

The other background characters I absolutely adore are Tammy and Jocelyn. I always ship them, and I thought it would be a cute cameo that they show up to trivia night and just have fun drinking and giggling with each other rather than taking the game seriously.

Thank you so much for asking, and I hope this answered all of your questions (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠) I don't think I have any other Roudise on the backburner (⁠´⁠；⁠ω⁠；⁠｀⁠) but if you choose to reas any of my other upcoming stories I hope you enjoy just as much as you did Bittersweet Reunion!

#bittersweet reunion #bob's burgers #fanfic #writing stuff #roudise #ama #andy and ollie #this was so fun #it was really really fun to go into detail on some of my decision making process #i really am glad you liked the story

[nocompromise-noregrets]

20 questions for fic writers

The impossibly lovely @mihrsuri tagged me in this a couple of weeks ago, and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get round to it - but I find myself in need of distraction, just a little bit, as Last Cat Standing is in the veterinary hospital getting his radioactive iodine treatment for his thyroid, and we can't have him back for maybe ten days as he's going to be somewhat radioactive for a little while; I'm sure he's going to be fine (this is the treatment described to me by the treating vet as both 'the gold standard' and 'magical', in that it's effective in 99.5% of cases, and in the 0.5% it isn't, they just give it another go and then it's effective), but we haven't had an entirely cat-free house for this long in 20 years, and I'm feeling a bit weird about it. Also I'm procrastinating finishing off an essay plan (I'd rather just write the damn essay but no, we have to submit a plan for tutor feedback to make sure we're on the right lines, and as you all know by now, that's really not how I work XD )

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 362 (plus another 76 on the other account for the fandom that does not speak its name...)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 1,491,388 (good grief; nearly 1.5 million?! and if you add in the 270,606 on the other account, that's 1,761,994 O.O )

3. What fandoms do you write for? Tolkien (chiefly the Hobbit movies, and LotR, a mix of movie and book-'verse); King Arthur (2004); Fisherman's Friends (fandom of one); The Alienist (TV; occasionally); Marvel (occasionally, chiefly bits of the MCU and X-Men comics/Evolution); Top Gun (here and there) - and a bewildering number of others...

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? My Heart Is An Empty Vessel (621); Shape Up (422); Safe (414); Not Alone (413); The Unworn Jumpers of Molly Weasley (343)

This is bewildering but also a fine illustration of the vagaries of AO3 and the absolute folly of measuring anything by the amount of kudos a fic has: Empty Vessel is three and a half years old, took two years to post and has 115 chapters, so was at the top of the tag many many times over those two years. Shape Up and Safe were written and posted not long after Top Gun: Maverick came out (I don't know how busy the tag still is, but it was very busy when the film came out so the fics in that fandom got a lot of interaction because a lot of people were there looking for fics) and are both one-shots. Not Alone is also a one-shot (for X-Men: Evolution) and has been up on AO3 for nearly twelve years (and has had a bit of a boost with the release of X-Men '97). And Unworn Jumpers (on which I really ought to put some sort of disclaimer, along with the small handful of other ancient HP fics I've got up there) is a seasonal one-shot that's been up for over ten years and tends to get a bit of a boost every December. So *shrugs* go figure. And if anyone wants to help the only HP fic in the top five not be in the top five any more, Come Home is only 36 behind it, and it is fluffy and cute and has Elrohir persuading Maglor to come to Imladris for Midwinter somewhat in the guise of the Elfling he hasn't been for a very long time... :D

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes. Sometimes it takes me a while (oh god six months, but I got up to speed with them all and now I'm trying to make sure I do it within a week) as I am a champion procrastinator but I feel it's important for me to say thank you. And sometimes squee a bit. :D And sometimes it makes me a new friend, which is extra-awesome.

I have a few very very old comments on the stuff I posted before 2020 which I never did get round to answering, which I feel bad about, but I also feel like it would be weird to go back and answer them now...I dunno, what do you guys think?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don't do angsty endings very often, but The Last Watch (in which Bard dies) is really sad, and Never Forgotten and See This Storm Through (in which Sigrid and Thranduil comfort each other after the funeral, and Legolas comes home to Dale to look after his father and his family and grieve with them, respectively) are almost as sad although they both end with a small amount of hope.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Ah, most of my fics end happily :D I'm far too tired for anything but, most of the time, these days. But let's face it, My Heart Is An Empty Vessel ends with a coronation and a wedding (spoiler alert! XD ) so let's go for that one.

8. Do you get hate on fics? I am lucky; the closest I've had was some anon complaining about Empty-Handed being a spoiler for the then-unposted Empty Vessel although the events it 'spoiled' were inevitable in the context of a mortal-immortal relationship, and someone whingeing in a bookmark comment that Thorin and Bilbo don't even talk until the end of Mr Underhill's Finest Seafood Specialities, thus completely missing the point of the fic (and the 'past' after the pairing tag) - it wasn't about them - which made me chuckle as much as the rudeness annoyed me.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Sometimes. I have phases when I feel like it, and (much longer) phases when I don't. It's generally only fairly tame and euphemistic (with the single and solitary exception of that one hanahaki fic about the twins the premise for which, although not the smut, came to me in a dream) and probably not all that imaginative since, as the acest of aces, the whole idea completely bewilders me XD

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Not unless you count various different parts of the Tolkien legendarium. My brain just doesn't work that way.

11. (there doesn't seem to be a question 11; I feel like this might be one of those Tumblr traditions, as I've definitely done question memes on here before that have been lacking in a question 11...)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have! I am deeply honoured that my KA fic Anniversaries was translated into Russian by Elenabu some years ago, and It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like... appears on Lofter in Mandarin, translated by AntheaXi. There were a couple of other Russian translations of some of my very old stories, but that was 15 or 20 years ago and I can't actually remember which or where.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I have! A long long time ago, the fic that eventually became the original novel that is Two of a Kind, the tale of Hal and Jack, was a co-production, and I really enjoy bouncing ideas back and forth - and of course, there is the Tudors OT3-'verse fandom stuff that @mihrsuri and I have been pinging to and fro just recently, which is also hugely enjoyable. :D :D :D

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Oh, too many to name! Gawain/Galahad from KA2004, the bi widower dads, Legolas/Imrahil, Elladan/Elrohir, Erestor/Glorfindel, Sigrid/Tauriel, to name but a few.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I am determined to finish All I Want Is You. I am also determined to finish part whatever it is now of It's Always Been You, although that's been on the back burner for a long long time. There's one WIP on the other account which I'm also determined to finish although who knows if I'll ever get there. I'm not one for saying never, though. I was out of Tolkien fandom for 16 years, and after the fandom that does not speak its name fizzled out, I genuinely thought I'd never write again. And yet...here I am.

16. What are your writing strengths? Ooooh, I dunno. Spelling, punctuation and grammar, dialogue, leavening the serious romantic stuff with a bit of humour, kindness and love for the characters and settings, happy endings and quite a lot of fluff. :D

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Plot. XD Can't plot to save my life.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Only when necessary for character reasons, and always provide a translation. Otherwise you're shutting out readers who don't understand (unless it's not important that they actually understand precisely what's being said as long as they get the gist).

19. First fandom you wrote for? Knowingly? X-Men (comics), and that fic is here, although I posted it ten-odd years after first posting it to ff.net.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? All of them. I cannot possibly choose.

Thank you so much for the tag, lovely! Entirely no-obligation tags go to @lemurious, @verecunda, @writerman, @scary-grace, @seagull-energy, @herawell, @thenookienostradamus, @sallysavestheday, @myeaglesong, @palavapeite, @bigneonglitter, @bishkebab, @peonybroadbeltofbuckland, @redeemer46, @spiced-wine-fic and anyone else who wants to do this - if you see this and fancy it, please consider yourself well and truly tagged!

#tag game #my writing #wheeeee thank you! <333333

[evelhak]

🔹2023 Wrap Up🔹

I've never really done an end of the year type of post, but I got inspired somehow. Maybe because this year has been in many ways slower and filled with rest more than any other year in my life so far (which is a good thing), but I started looking back, wondering if I'd really done "anything" this year, and I can see there's still a decent amount of things I've accomplished that are meaningful to me. So, this is almost diary type self-reflection. But I'll post it because I would like to see other people do this type of thing too. ✨

This is mostly work and hobbies related.

Original writing published

Rummuttaja (Drummer)

My third published novel and the first book in my first fantasy series. I'll talk about it more in its own post but it's about an island where people can control earthquakes with music, and musically gifted children are brought up as heroes to be. I spent about half of 2023 editing this book and I'm probably more proud of it than anything else I've published.

Sydäntekniikkaa (Heart Techniques)

A short story, or a novella, with a spin on the innocent girl meets heartless boy trope. Discusses politics, environment, prejudice, ignorance and disability in a fantastical setting. It was published in a steampunk anthology Rautasilmä ja muita steampunk-kertomuksia (Iron eye and other steampunk stories) with three other stories. Here's a drawing of my main character.

A book review I wrote on Sankareita ja shakkinappuloita (Heroes and chess pieces) by Heidi Torn, appeared in a Finnish SFF magazine Kosmoskynä. I very rarely make time to help with this magazine I've subscribed to for many years, so I'm glad I did. The book was about Greek gods in modern day Finland, so as a Percy Jackson fan I was obviously intrigued.

Original works written

2023 wasn't the most active writing year since I spent so much time editing, but I managed to write

about a half of a fantastical murder mystery in a ballet school told from the perspective of seven students with very different views on the school and the people in it

a short story about a magical doll maker student attempting to manipulate another guy to be less full of himself

Editing work

I've just started as one of three editors for a magic school story anthology. It is my first time so I'm learning from the other two who are more experienced and actually have their university degrees in Finnish language which I don't. I was asked along as more of the magic school expert since most of my published work so far is set in them. We are only just starting to go through the submissions since the deadline was the end of the year, so I haven't done much yet but I really love helping other people make the most of their writing, so I'm very excited. ✨

Fan fiction

Words published: 225 239

Words written: 263 315

Not including a few 100 word drabbles, and fake chats which are actually from past fics anyway just in visual form.

My fics were mostly KagaKuro, as they usually are, but I also wrote one AoMomo. My plans for 2024 have more diverse focus characters, though!

Illustration/Graphic design

I got more work for cover design than before this year. I'm still such a newbie on this, but I'm fairly happy with many of them, and I've discovered such passion for this art. Only writing books is more satisfying than getting to be the one to bring out the book's core in a visual form. And some of the authors have really loved the covers and felt like I got them, which of course feels amazing. I always wanted to do my own covers but now that I get to do other people's too I just want to do it more and more.

Drawings/Paintings

This was definitely a KnB heavy year! Which I enjoyed a lot. I didn't do that many original things but I was really happy to get back to traditional art after several years now that I think my digital art skills have improved to pretty much the same level.

Comics

I didn't really complete anything but in June I got about half way through this KagaKuro comic (with female Kuroko) based on my own fic Kuroko's Fairytale.

This is definitely one of the things I want to finish the most in 2024! I felt so high drawing it. It was such a strange experience because female Kuroko was not supposed to be a thing for me... (it was supposed to be just one funky fic that happens in a dream, never to be revisited again, because my brain is so much work it beats itself up about even the most minuscule changes I might like to make on existing characters, like, my brain just has no chill about fiction, everything is death serious, it's fucking annoying even to me) But. BUT. B U T. When I was drawing this comic. Oh. My. God. I have no words for how good it felt. Like, I obviously knew you can experience love on behalf of fictional characters (hello, shipping) but I had never before experienced gender euphoria on behalf of a fictional character. There's no other way to describe it, girl Kuroko absolutely destroyed me in the best of ways. So she's here to stay, I can't push her back anymore.

Anyway, have a sneak peek. I still struggle a lot with consistent anatomy as I have my whole life, but there are a few frames I love already, my favourite probably being the one which is also my icon.

Not that I'm not also in love with stupid prince Kagami, but I was never fighting that so it's a little different.

Books read

Not an especially good reading year in quantity. In quality it was, though. I don't think there was one book that I disliked. My problem these days is that every time I try to take time to read a book, about a half an hour into it my brain goes like... You know what? You could be working on your own writing. But it's also very important for a writer to read, so I have to retrain my brain to stop feeling like it's wasting time when I read.

Total: 29 (or 35 if you count KnB as two volumes each since it's double edition)

New books: 17

Rereads: 12(/18)

Several of these are books I did covers for, and I started a KnB reread to check for ideas I haven't covered in my fics yet, so if you take these "business" reads out of the equation, I didn't read that much for just pleasure. That's something I want to improve in 2024.

The most memorable book was probably The Song of Achilles (a damn difficult read since I saw so many of my own relationships patterns in Patroclus to a painful detail, ugh. And yeah Achilles definitely reminded me of some specific people too. Kind of destroyed all my blissful surrealist separation with this story and made me disillusioned with it, but in the end it might have been good for me).

Fics read

Ok, this is downright shameful to me. I read so little. But go give some love to these fics I've read which were obviously made with love.

Reap What You Sow (one-sided (??) AoMomo) by @vespersposts

summer drabble (Kagami) by cempasuchil_03

Noodle Kiss (KagaKuro) by @myndless88

The Art of Self-Pillage (Haizaki, OC) by @lylakoi

Let's Have a War (Kise, Kasamatsu, OC) by @lylakoi

Tastes of Cinnamon (KagaKuro) by @lilypheria

Nail art

A new hobby for me! I hadn't even owned nail polish before. And couldn't stand long nails either. I have no clue what inspired this, to be honest. I'm very new to it, but here are my favourites.

The text print on blue nails was definitely the most me, but I think I particularly enjoy prints in general. I made the star ones for Christmas.

I bet I've forgotten something obvious but this post is pretty long already and it looks like a pretty good summary. Definitely helped me sort out my thoughts on what I want to do in 2024 and what priorities I should have.

Good luck to everyone on all your future plans. ✨💙

#end of year wrap up #writing #art #knb #books #fics #personal