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#and that’s the point of the denouements
sentientsky · 4 months
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Here, I’m bored and tired, so have an excerpt from my fic, “Until the Bitter End”, specifically a major plot point in chapter 8 because someone bookmarked it as “start at chapter 8” aksjsajsjkskdj
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dimensionzero · 10 months
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anyway there is actually a couple things that niggled a bit at me from atsv but OVERALL very good very very good film
#pavitr makes up for any problem in that movie just by his presence#across the spiderverse#across the spiderverse spoilers#but seriously: (and there is gonna b spoilers in these tags so watch out)#the pacing was kind of off? it felt like introduction right up until the big SNAP of the climax and then the denouement dragged a little#like me i was pleased that there was more movie to watch but as a structure thing i felt like the movie was JUST ABOUT to end#for like... the whole last 45min or so i think#this is a personal complaint but GIVE ME MORE SPIDERMAN INDIA. THANKS#miles did him such a solid and then he vanished immediately for almost the whole rest of the movie whats up with that!!#hobie too hobie was the MVP fr and he peaced out way too early as well#it wouldve been so nice to see just one person being fully on miles' side helping him out and they---#(pavitr especially)---#wouldve had such a good reason to stand up for him!#more real complaint: i understand why earth 42 miles had more of an accent in a watsonian sense bc his dad died and he was raised more---#---by his spanish-speaking mom#but. uh. the doylist idea that Evil Miles has a stronger accent than Good Miles is... not the best implications chief!#and why tf was this movie so focused on cops. yes i know it was a dramatic device to parallel miles and gwen's fathers#(as well as pavitrs girlfriends dad)#and making them all police captains as the precursor to them dying is for ~drama~ so the characters+audience#get the cue of 'this is the point of no return where they become Doomed By The Narrative'#(and subsequently understand the cue of 'no longer doomed' like with gwens dad)#but like. why make that cue a cop thing??? why not have it be like. anything else? the cop thing isn't important#those people are important bc theyre FAMILY or loved ones who are dragged into spidermans fight through their circumstances#Why Are We So Obsessed With Cops. Riddle Me That. i just dont see the point#<<< dont get me wrong its a great movie and i love it!! but there are still some nitpicks yknow#gotta get it out so i can go back to the happy
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whatsagirltoblogabout · 8 months
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5.13 - banger finale.
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kanyniablue · 9 months
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haha i used too many tags on that last post
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artemiss-moonchild · 1 year
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genshxn · 7 months
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dan heng being bad at feelings, the sequel.
started writing this pre-1.3, so i am once again emphasizing that i am making shit up. (well, 1.3 dropped while still working on this and the TB mission was rather lacklustre, so i'm gonna half ignore it).
sorry for any typos/mistakes/whatever, most of this was written at dubious hours of the night.
contains. mild-moderate canon divergence, dubious jing yuan shenanigans, dh being somewhat down bad. i dropped a bit too much spice in, so it is no longer “mild”. take that as you will.
7.5K words. THIS IS SO FUCKING EMBARRASSING.
here's the first part in case you haven't read it. you're still not the trailblazer.
tags: @akhiran @cypunk-0 @fiona782 @seelelovesbronya @bleakqblake @xiaos-poems
this place is not a place of honour. no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here…nothing valued is here. Below 15, DNI. Go away.
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the next day, you awoke to a feeling of emptiness at your side. any part of the bed that your limbs weren’t splayed upon was long cold with dan heng’s absence. you were alone, still left in the nest of sheets and pillows he arranged himself. it couldn’t have all been some kind of fever-dream, could it? 
no, any such possibility was dashed when you looked at the messages on your phone. one unread, left two hours ago. 
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with the ellipsis and all. oh, the self-inflicted misery. (does he really consider every single person his enemy?) you sighed, swinging your feet off the side of the bed to get up. if you knew him well enough, then you already knew the next little while was going to be tricky, to say the least. it was obvious what his plan was from the beginning, with him abandoning your side at the sun’s first rays: avoidance. 
and avoid you, he did. in the denouement after phantylia’s attack, he still had to be around you, but the stiltedness he carried with him was palpable. he made a point to stand as socially acceptably far from you. it was almost like he was acting like a ghost solely to you. elusive, non-communicative, only seen out of the corner of your eye. perhaps leaving you with the lingering feeling of being watched, and ultimately gone before you could even call his name. in fact, he quite literally ghosted you. he wouldn’t even respond to your messages.
once the day after the final events rolled around, you thought that maybe he would have had enough time to finally be able to face you again, but no. apparently he elected to confine himself to the archives the moment he returned aboard the express. however, this didn’t deter you from going knocking on his door. 
"dan heng?" you tapped on the sealed door. your ear was right up against the frame, listening intently. 
whatever shuffling was coming from within fell still at your voice. 
"dan heng, i know you’re in there. i just heard you stop moving." 
there was more silence, then followed by a sigh. "did pom-pom not relay my one request?" 
"no, they did. told me that i’m not allowed near the archives."
"yet you’re still here…" his voice was strained, and distant from the door. he must have been sitting either at his desk or on his thin, messy futon. beyond that, it was hard to imagine what he was doing in there, or even what he looked like. it was surprising. you thought he struggled to control his form, but it seemed no problem when he wasn’t with you. so was he the regular old dan heng sitting in there? or the vidyadhara that laid next to you that night? 
"you really think i’m gonna listen? i never do." you squared yourself further towards the door. "now, c’mon. we’re already talking, so can’t you just—" 
"n-no, i can’t," he cut you off. "i… i’m sorry, but not here, and not like this." 
"can you at least tell me why you say you can’t be around m—?" almost as if on cue, in came an angry pom-pom inbound like a squishy freight train. 
"hey! what did pom-pom just say?!" they cried. "can’t you follow one simple rule for the time being?"
as pom-pom ushered you away from the archives with weak thumps to the back of your legs, you grunted to yourself. you were tempted to chuck them in the opposite direction, but alas, such a thing was not in the cards for you. after all, it would be wise to not tempt fate with the conductor. things seemed like they were going to be more difficult than you anticipated.
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early the next morning, long before either march or stelle would rise, you shuffled your way into the parlor car in search of food. if it was going to be anything like yesterday, you were anticipating being the only one in the parlor car. however, to your surprise, there was another person present when you silently closed the door behind you—dan heng. he was in his regular appearance of shorter, fluffy hair and his regular attire. you sighed as quietly as you could, staring at the back of his head that leant on his wrist, propped up on the table. seeing him staring dejectedly at the food was a sorry sight.
the unspoken tradition you had with him was that when the whole express wasn’t eating together, it’d always be you two sharing your meals together. it began when you first joined the express—after dan heng himself, but before march. left adrift as a vagrant amidst the stars, you were all too familiar with the feeling of loneliness. it was always at its worst when you managed to gather together enough scraps to resemble the meals you used to eat in your old home. to you, when possible, meals were something that should be shared in the company of others. so when you first saw dan heng sat alone on your first proper morning aboard, you saw part of yourself in him. a part that you wanted gone, now that you had a new home. so you sat yourself down next to him, your own food in hand. you were met with some minor (albeit polite) resistance, but you being the stubborn ass you were, would not have it. you knew your persistence was risky, but it paid off. not long after that, he would wait until you were sitting with him. 
so to see that sight left you saddened, but also vehemently annoyed. normalcy was out the window thanks to this baffling, self-imposed restriction he had against you. as quietly as you could, you stalked up behind him. moving as lightly as possible felt like it was the only way possible to get closer to him. it wasn’t like he developed a sudden allergy to your presence or something, was it?
you were successful in thwarting his pre-occupied senses as you reached the velvet couch. but maybe you were too successful, because he almost leapt out of his skin when you planted yourself down next to him. you leaned against the table and spoke. "how about us talking if it’s over breakfast?"
he did manage to calm down, but not by a lot, and not enough to give you a reply. his expression was still frazzled as he struggled to keep himself in place. 
"can you please tell me if i’ve done something wrong? i don’t understand why we’re suddenly like strangers again," you said, reaching out to put your hand atop his one that was clenched at his side. but he snatched it away before you could feel the warmth of it.
"it’s my fault. you’ve done nothing," he said. "but please, i need some time before i can talk to you properly."
he turned to get up and leave, but you caught him by the sleeve. "w-wait, by why?" you trailed off, voiced far weaker than intended.
the look he gave you was weird. it was a jumble of confused emotions, but the most you could make out was nervousness. you had no idea what that light flush could have meant for you. his mouth parted to make some sort of reply, and you could have sworn you the glimpse of sharpened canines. "since when have you had fangs in this appearance?" you blurted out after doing a double take.
his eyes flared wide open and a hand flew over his mouth. "s-since never." with that, he slipped from your grasp. "please excuse me."
you watched incredulously as he walked out of the parlour car and back towards the archives as if he had wooden knees. you had no idea what just happened. rejection, you supposed. but considering how he was that night, it made no sense. nothing about this made any sense. 
whatever it was, it was slowly eroding your patience, leaving you biting the inside of your lips in irritation. it’s true you were doing some type of avoidance when his alternate form was finally revealed, but it was nothing of this calibre. it was almost impossible for it to be the case with dan heng, but if this really was some kind of petty revenge, he may as well have whipped out a steel chair after you knocked shoulders with him.
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your shameful failure of an interaction left you in need of recuperation. you hadn’t felt that irked and downright baffled since one of herta’s curios fell on your head. so now, you were blathering a ranting tirade at stelle and march over some snacks, all in the parlour car. "i swear to whatever aeon’s listening, he’s turned emo or something." you folded your arms across your chest, sinking down in your plush chair. 
"like he wasn’t before?" stelle mumbled, not looking up from whatever gacha game she was playing on her phone. 
"eh, not really. he does have his moments, though." march shrugged, grabbing a single chip. "but yeah, i’ve never seen anything like this. it’s so weird, he almost never avoids you like this!"
"hence why i’m so confused."
"things seemed to get pretty tense between the two of you after he had his magical girl transformation," stelle added while shovelling a handful of chips into her mouth, still not looking up. "then maybe… the day after phantylia, he got even weirder."
"yeah, like, he won’t go near you for some reason, but he keeps staring at you so longingly and sighing like you’re the last cookie in the jar and he’s been told he can’t have any more!" march said with the melodramatic flourish of a swoon.
"that one sounds like it’s based on real experiences." stelle cast her a sideways glance, to which march let out a sniff and wiped away a dry tear.
"just how much has he been doing that?" you muttered, unable to comprehend. 
"a fair amount from what i’ve seen. he’s looked like a kicked puppy every single time," march said. "well, as much as dan heng can look like a kicked puppy." 
"not that he’s particularly talkative, but i’ve tried asking him about it. was only met with howling winds of jarilo-vi’s everwinter storm." stelle placed her phone down on the table and sat back with her arms crossed. "but now, he’s just being straight up weird. (y/n), what’d you do to him?"
"yeah, i mean, he won’t even eat in the mornings if you’re there!" march cried. 
your nails dug into your knees as you looked at your lap. you could feel a heat creeping onto your face as you recalled him so close to you. his words still rung in your head. if they were true, then what the fuck was he doing now? "i—i don’t really want to say, since it’s between him and i," you said. "but some pretty… significant things happened, i guess."
march suddenly drew in a comically loud gasp. "DID HE FINALLY CONFE—" she began, but you clapped your hand over her mouth before she could finish. 
"must’ve," stelle said, leaning forward with her hands on the table loosely clasped in front of her. 
"it wasn’t… exactly like that." your voice was low. your attempts to protect your dignity were feeble at best. it’s true, he never explicitly told you he has feelings for you in the classic format of ‘i like you’, but… who were kidding, it was a confession in all forms except literalness. you grabbed at your face, hiding the creeping heat behind your hands with a groan. 
"no, it was totally a love confession. he’s been head over heels for you for a while now! even when i first met you two, it was so obvious he had a big ol’ crush on you. how’d you not notice it?!" 
"cuz they’re denser than dan heng." stelle deadpanned, staring right at you.
"if you’re going to be making indirect insults about me, at least do it to my face," a familiar voice muttered from somewhere a distance behind you. in walked dan heng, eyes closed and pinching the bridge of his nose. he was once again in his normal appearance. stelle immediately squashed you down beneath the square table, leaving you only to look at everyone’s legs. 
"oh, so the elusive dan heng finally graces us with his presence, huh?" you couldn’t see march’s face, but you knew she was making a half-lidded, unimpressed frown at him—the certified march classic.
"i’ve had a lot of information to collate and put into the archives, so i’ve been busy—" his words stopped short. from around the bend of the chair’s edge, you could see him inch closer to the table. 
"been busy what? you just stopped talking." march sounded confused. 
"is that… (y/n)’s scent?" his tone was far sharper, but his wording sounded unsure. 
"are you calling them stinky? that’s kinda rude, isn’t it?" march frowned. 
"huh? no, of course not!" he sputtered. "it’s just v-vidyadhara senses. they’re quite acute." there was the shuffling of some fabric. he must have crossed his arms.
"well i say it’s cuz you’re going heehee-silly-delulu with your big fat crush on them." march chimed in. your eyes widened as you frowned. why were they both baiting the literal dragon?
the only sound that came out of dan heng was something like an indignant cry that was cut-off at its head. "i… i do not—"
"you don’t like them? alright, keep telling yourself that," stelle said. 
"…what hand does (y/n) have in this? they were just here, weren’t they?" he took a few steps towards the table. you imagined him with a strained look on his face, fighting to keep his composure like he yesterday. as he was stood right in front of you, you felt yourself shrinking back. it was maybe only seconds until ground zero—until everything hit the fan. "because that’s their scent nearby…" he changed his footing just a touch, and the second you saw the tips of his fluffy hair peak down past the table, you launched headlong into him. not by your own volition, but because a heeled boot slammed into your lower back, jetting you forward. your face collided with some part of his legs (of which was not very soft), sending you both in the same direction with simultaneous cries. there was a significant thud when dan heng hit the floor, and your head knocked into something bony.
your eyes cracked open, rubbing your forehead with a groan, but all sounds fell silent when you realized you were hovering between his knees. you stared up at him with wide eyes and a stifled breath, where he met your owlish gaze with his own. in other words, you were almost right between his legs. both of your faces lit like infernos, but neither of you moved. a grand total of two seconds passed before the vidyadhara features came out. it was quick—his horns rose from his head, and his hair spilt over his shoulders. his tail appeared behind him, laying still. even his clothes suddenly swapped out on him. his chest rose and fell as his breath seemed to quicken. 
"s-sorry," you swallowed thickly. in almost an instant, he dug one of his clawed hands into his arm. he clambered to his feet, unable to look you in the eye.
"wh-what the hell was that?" his voice cracked.
"fuck, that was my bad." stelle said from behind you. 
"ngh, you… please excuse me," he quickly turned and strode back towards the archives, still holding onto his arm. you hadn’t moved from the floor when you watched the passenger cabin’s door close behind him. 
"what the heck, stelle?!" march cried, startling you.
"holy fuck, i’m so sorry. i did not think it’d go like that," stelle said. when you looked back over, she was leaning back and had raked her bangs back, hand still on her forehead.
"how did you think it’d go?" you groaned, unsteadily raising to your feet once again.
"i dunno, but not like that."
"why’d he suddenly change like that, i wonder?" march tapped her finger to her chin, looking off to the side. 
"cuz he’s down bad." stelle looked very confident in her answer. 
you almost choked on your spit.
"he’s down bad, but then he keeps running off 'cuz refuses to let himself be so."
"what kind of a theory is that?!" march huffed.
"a simple observation. mr. yang says i’m perceptive, so i have final authority on all judgements ever made." stelle crossed her arms over her chest, face seldom making any expressions. "and i say exactly what i said."
you stood with your head hanging in your hands, burning with embarrassment. things couldn’t keep going on like this. if this was the new dynamic, then how were any of you supposed to function while you’re out trailblazing? how were any of you supposed to function even just normally? that was it. you raised your head until your eyes lifted from behind your hands, a new resolve filling your blood. maybe jing yuan might know something. 
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managing to secure a time to speak to jing yuan was unbelievably easy. then again, you should gave guessed it’d be. over messages, he told you that since he’s been doing nothing but resting, he’s incredibly bored—someone to see or speak to is more than welcome. and so, it quickly was organized that you could stop by a planned location in aurum alley to see him.
the time soon rolled around, as long as it took. during the day, as expected, there was no sign of dan heng having any interest in interacting with you normally, much to your growing irritation and mild chagrin. even march and stelle were shaking their heads and clicking their tongues in disapproval. 
it didn’t take long for you to get there. you agreed to meet him in a small, secluded area, just out of the way of eyes that might seek to pry into the general’s private business. it was a bit into the early evening. it wasn’t too hard to find him sitting at his table since he wasn't exactly the most conspicuous person out there. the golden artificial sunlight poured in from an oblique angle overhead, coating the tucked-away courtyard in a honeyed light. once he saw you approaching, jing yuan cast you one of his usual sleepy, cattish smiles. 
"um, hello," you spoke, pulling out a seat next to him. 
"and to what do i owe the pleasure?" there was almost a purr in his voice. "tell me, what is it you wished to speak about?" he leaned forward, resting his head on his wrist propped up on the table. "or did you simply come here to chat with me because you felt like it?" he made a closed-eyed smile laced with mischief. 
"ah, i’m sorry to disappoint, but it’s because i’m having a bit of a dilemma." you scratched the back of your head with an awkward laugh. "please hear me out on this one, but it’s about dan heng." 
"oh, dan heng? what about him?" jing yuan tilted his head. "as it stands, i’m afraid you might know him better than i do, unfortunately. so i don’t know if i would be able to provide the best of help for you." there was a faint, bittersweet smile on his lips, making you bite your own. 
"it’s, ah, a little more about him as a vidyadhara, i suppose. i’m not sure if he has anything in common with his previous incarnation, but i thought there must be something there." 
"well, i can say his obstinance seems to have certainly survived reincarnation."
"it’s thriving," you huffed, at which jing yuan lightly laughed. 
"so is that the root of your problem? him being too stubborn on something?" 
"that’s about it, yeah." you pressed your lips into a line. "he’s been avoiding me for… reasons i won’t divulge… and i don’t what i can do to get him to talk to me again." 
"you don’t need to put it like that. i can tell he really likes you," he said, the trace of a smug grin on his face. after you coughed loudly, he continued. "he’s rather obvious if you know what you’re looking for. but anyway, what happened between you two? if i’m allowed to know, that is." 
you swallowed nervously. should you really be revealing everything like this? you did it anyway. "one night, we said a few things of… i guess questionably romantic nature to each other, and he reacted in a way that i think was influenced by some sort of… vidyadhara shenanigans."
jing yuan looked at you with raised eyebrows and wide eyes. "go on." 
"he hauled me off to his bed and then got uncharacteristically affectionate. he had a back-and-forth with self-doubt once he realized i was really confused by it all, but i told him it’s fine. i mean, i even pet his horns out of my own volition and stuff." it was all coming out at this point. "then he eventually drifted off and then pretty much declared his feelings in his half-sleep. but even though i told him i’m fine with him doing whatever he was doing, he still decided to run off the next morning. i’ve tried to talk to him repeatedly, but he won’t reply to my messages and he almost freaks out every time i’m in his vicinity. i don’t get it!" 
"mm, that’s quite the situation on your hands there," jing yuan hummed. there was a mischievous spark in his eye, and you weren’t sure if you liked the look of it. "now, i couldn’t tell you the specifics, but if you say he got ’uncharacteristically affectionate’, then that’s definitely some old vidyadhara response. they can get very protective over the things they love." 
your gaze dropped somewhere in front of your as your face prickled with heat at his words. 
"but now, i’d wager he’s stuck in some sort of self-imposed battle of will against himself."
"and how would you suggest i get him out of it?" 
"i suppose there is technically the option of waiting this out," he glanced at your face. you looked embittered at such an inane suggestion, making him laugh. "or you could simply make him lose the battle, since it sounds like he’s set on taking it ad infinitum, if needed." 
"small issue… i’m now allowed near the archives," you sighed, leaning yourself back. "it’s hard to simply go there with both the conductor banning me as well as dan heng refusing to open his door." 
"hmm…" jing yuan shifted his hand beneath his chin. "might i do something a bit uncouth?" 
"uhh, okay." 
"come here for a moment." he slid himself next to you, turning to face you a little more. with a slight frown, you turned towards him as well. "now, i can’t guarantee his reaction to this, but—" he suddenly pulled you closer toward him and placed his head in the crook of your neck—the same side dan heng had his. one hand snuck its way around your neck and held the base of your neck ever so gently, while the other looped around your back. you had to fight a shudder when you could feel jing yuan’s lips ghost over your neck and shoulder. "if i do this, it may be enough to knock him from this cycle of his." 
"wh-what?" you strained out. 
"he’ll be able to tell i’ve been with you. and by the places i’ve been in contact with you…" he said, voice low. his faint breaths were cool on your shoulder. you couldn’t suppress a slight shiver. "…it should be enough to grant you access to… the archives, was it?" 
"y-yeah." you blinked a few times. your brain had been reduced to a single cell bouncing around inside your brain like a shitty maraca. 
jing yuan finally pulled back, assuming his original pose. "please forgive me for that… but you’ll likely see why i did it." he still couldn’t help but wear his usual small grin for the second part. "i’d now recommend that you find him again, and try to keep his attention long enough for him to notice you were with me. vidyadhara’s senses of smell are perceptive, so it shouldn’t be long. well now, you’d best get back then." his stupid grin was even wider and even smugger. his gaze wasn’t condescending, but read more as if he were thinking just wait and see.
"i… guess i’ll be going then. th-thank you, general." you made an awkward bow as you hustled back the way you came, hyperaware of the air brushing against your shoulder. it all felt incredibly foreboding… but that was to be expected when you were about to enter the dragon’s den. 
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your plan was flawless:
1. jing yuan does his shit
2. go back to the express. 
3. bait with bubble tea to get the door open. 
4. "talk" to dan heng long enough until he notices jing yuan was up to something
5. ???
6. profit. 
just as detailed, to further your chances of getting that door cracked open, you decided to buy a bubble tea. a classic milk should have sufficed, since he tended to favour the more simple things. the chances of him actually opening the door to take it were already slim, but desperate times called for desperate measures. knowing him, he’d simply make you leave it at the door, which was a problem. so there you were, stuck on an express couch, plotting. (or, perhaps more aptly, chewing your nails in nerves). as you sat there, in waddled pom-pom, looking mighty chuffed for some unknown reason.
"hm-hm-hm! dinner of pom-pom’s own creation will be ready in just over 20 minutes!" they declared, puffing their stuffed chest. they waited for any reaction, but no one looked up at them, making them deflate with a scowl. "stelle, (y/n) you go tell everyone," they grumbled, shuffling back into the passenger cart and beyond. 
"wait, what?" you looked up—you hadn’t even noticed them. 
"we’re on messenger duty," stelle said from her seat. she was placed upside down on the couch, hair grazing the ground while she played her usual gacha games. 
"can i try and deal with dan heng?"
"i mean, sure." she looked over at you. "but what’re you plotting?"
"my entry into the archives. i come baring gifts." you motioned towards the untouched bubble tea sitting in front of you. 
"i’ll leave you to it. i’ll go tell march and the others then." she chucked her phone elsewhere on the couch and got up, wandering towards the passenger car. you followed shortly behind, offering in hand. 
it was a short walk. you knew you were being dramatic, but you couldn’t help but grow more and more nervous the closer you drew to the archives. you had already weathered so many rejections, so it’s not like this was going to somehow have a worse result. perhaps it was because you put too much on this. you’ve gone to a rather large effort just to have a slim chance of getting him to open the door—speaking of, you were already there. 
you raised your hand to knock on it, but before you could even lay your hand on it, dan heng spoke from inside. "what is it, (y/n)?" he was once again somewhere further off in the room, speaking with undecipherable emotions. 
"um." your voice cracked, making you cringe. "pom-pom said dinner’s ready in 20." 
"ah. thank you," he said plainly. it still kinda stung, being back at what felt like the stage where you were only acquaintances. 
"i also got you something." you tried to cast another line. 
"you can leave it at the door." 
you flopped your head against the door. of course he said it. "i’d rather give it to you now. it’s some bubble tea. the ice is melting." there was no response. you couldn’t tell what he was doing. "c’mon, it’s not like you’re sick or something." 
"hah, more like lovesick," stelle called as she walked past behind you. 
"stelle!" dan heng cried indignantly. he sounded closer to the door. "i am not—"
"if you’re not, then open the door." she simply kept walking. 
you were stood with wide, unblinking eyes and an open mouth, watching her jacket pass through the cabin door until you were left alone in the hall. the door suddenly slid open a little. you jumped, turning to stare up at him. as usual, there was a strained look on his face that he was trying to suppress. "see, i’m not—" he looked out and around for stelle, but she was nowhere to be seen. instead, he simply sighed. 
you tried to swallow your heart beating in your throat, but it still hammered away. "hi." 
he closed his eyes, leaning his head on the inner door frame. "hello," his voice sounded tired. tired with himself. "please forgive me for how i’ve been acting. i know it’s not fair to you. it’s just…" 
"i know, you need more time. you like to say it," you muttered with a slight, strained grin. "by the way, here’s your tea. it’s just your usual order." you held it out it to him, and he looked down at it with softened eyes. as he went to grab it, his fingertips brushed over yours. he seemed more startled than you, but after a moment’s hesitation, he placed his hand back over top of yours.
"i haven’t been completely honest with you," he said. (that was certainly one way of putting it).
you held your breath, as if making a single noise could suddenly startle him back into the archives. 
"i… since that night, i haven’t known what to do with mysel—" he suddenly paused, frowning the tiniest bit. he leaned forward, seeming to concentrate on something with closed eyes. once they opened again, his pupils had constricted into slits, and he was staring intently at you. uh oh. 
"wh-what is it?" 
"where were you before this?" he took the tea from you and placed it somewhere next to the door frame inside the archives. 
your stomach flipped. was this really going where you thought it was? "um. i was wandering around aurum alley." it wasn't a lie. "why?" 
"that’s not all. what else?" he took you by the arm and drew you into the archives. it was an uncharacteristic mess in there. low-lit, and with clothes, books and items were strewn all over the place, perhaps as a reflection of his state. you watched the door close behind you, and when you looked back, there stood dan heng with his full vidyadhara look on display, right in front of you. uh oh. 
he stepped closer to you until you could feel the warmth of his body radiating off of him, then grabbing hold of your shoulders. it was a tight grip, but not enough to hurt yet. he dipped his head into the crook of your neck and drew in a long but quiet inhale. "what were you doing with jing yuan?" his voice was low, almost with a slight growl. as he spoke, his arms had wound around shoulders, so he was holding the back of your head, just like jing yuan was. only far harsher than the other’s ghost-like touch. 
yes, this was going the direction you thought it was. "we—we only met to talk about something," you sputtered out, your heart in your throat again.
"then why do i smell him on you, as if you were doing something more than just talking?" with a free hand, he took your jaw and turned your face towards him. he was only inches away from you, gazing at you with narrowed, dimly-glowing eyes. "why go to him when you have me?" 
you frowned, eyes wide. "huh? what do you mean i have you? you’ve refused to speak to me normally ever since the morning after you hauled me to your bed. besides, i-it’s not what you think." 
but your words were lost on him. "no, this won’t do." his voice was barely a murmur. he seemed to be living in his own version of the world. dragon-brain was back, evidently a fuller force than ever. you weren’t sure what you were expecting, but it wasn’t him drawing you even closer, placing his head in the crook of your neck and nuzzling. your face lit like an inferno as some kind of noise escaped your lips. it was really back to the nuzzling. only with surprising fervour, this time. he nestled his face into your neck, exhaling small sighs against you. his nose and lips brushing against your skin was almost ticklish, but you weren’t laughing when his tail snaked itself around your hips, twining itself down one of your legs. 
"d-dan heng?!" you cried when he suddenly lifted you with his hands clasped beneath the backs of your thighs, assisted by the tail. he had his mouth placed right over top of your collar bone, watching where he was going from over your shoulder. "dan heng, put me down!" you had to hold onto his back and shoulders for stability. 
he gave you no reply, only taking you back to his mussed futon. similar to his bed at the inn, the blanket was strewn in a way akin to the base of a nest. stray pieces of clothing made up the rest of lack-lustre structure—you could have sworn one of your own old shirts you’d forgotten somewhere was poking out from beneath a different article. dan heng sat himself down in the centre of the futon and brought you into lap. your position was a bit awkward as you sat perpendicular across from him. both your legs went one direction while your torso was turned to face him. he sunk his head into the crook of your neck again, drawing in more, shorter inhales. 
"seriously, wh—what are you doing?" 
"he’s still on you." he said against your shoulder, warmth breath making you shiver. there was a slight growl in his throat again. 
"even after that?" as you spoke, he tilted your head away, exposing more of your neck. "hey, w-wai—ah!" you made a cry of pain when a pair of fangs suddenly bit down into your shoulder. it wasn’t hard enough to draw much blood, but more than enough to hurt. you shuddered with some ungodly, almost harrowed noise when his tongue glided over what would blossom into a bruise. his arms and tail wound tighter around you, as if you might slip away at any second. he moved on, this time toward your jaw, peppering it with desperate kisses. you tried to say his name as he trailed down in between his own rapid-growing breaths. he was panting once he reached your shoulder, his kisses sloppy. in some work of miraculous dexterity, he had readjusted your seat on him until his waist was slotted between your legs. all the while, one hand was in your hair angling your head for his best reach, the other around your back. you had to hide your face in his hair when he had began making small vocalizations, something like tiny whines. 
you said his name again, this time louder when he trailed his fangs back up your shoulder. right after he left a hot kiss on your shoulder, he bit down again. you seethed in pain, trying to push his head off, but you were only met with purrs. even though he didn’t seem fully aware of what was going on, those purrs had to be weaponized against you. he shifted to another part of your shoulder, mouthing another kiss on it, but before he could bite, you grabbed his horn.
"dan heng!" you yanked his head back, surprising him. but instead of some sort of pained cry, he let out a heady moan. to your surprise, that noise slipping from his mouth seemed to restore his lucidity in an instant. his dilated eyes shot wide open and his hands flew to cover his mouth, almost sending himself backwards in the process. his face burned with embarrassment, colouring his cheeks and pointed ears in a bright crimson. you huffed, but didn’t remove yourself from your position. in fact, you anchored yourself down by locking your ankles behind his back if he were to try and push you off.
"(y/n) to dan heng, can you hear me?" you said, almost tempted to knock on his forehead. 
"i-it happened again," his voice was quiet in horror. 
"hey, i need you to listen to me before you clam up on me again." you brought one hand to the side of his face, gently making him look up at you. he jumped at the contact, sending his hands further up his face until they were covering his eyes. 
"please forgive me," he rushed out.
"look at me," you said softly, placing one hand on top of his to move it to the side—one of his faintly glowing eyes glanced at you. "i’m more happy to make out with you, but we need to talk first."
he made a strangled groan of embarrassment in answer, moving his hand back in place again. 
"are you listening?" 
he nodded.
"alright, the whole thing with jing yuan was me asking about you," you said. "i thought he might know a bit about you as a vidyadhara and your behaviour, so i went to ask what i could do to get you to let me into the archives. his idea was a less than tactful, but i guess it worked. that’s why ‘his scent was on me’, as you say. he only stuck his head on my shoulder for a bit because you’d be able to tell and then demand an explanation or something." 
his fingers had parted to show his eyes again, and they were staring in bewilderment. 
"so, i’m sorry for doing all that to you." your voice was soft. "i just wanted to see you."
"no, i should be apologizing. i have no control of myself and i haven’t been fair to you." he lowered his hands to hovering somewhere over his chest. "i was saying before… since that night, i have been an embarrassment. all i’ve wanted to do is steal you away and… smother you in affection until you returned it. the feeling was so intense that i didn’t trust myself around you, so i hid. i thought if i waited, it’d calm down, but it really only made it worse."
your heart swooned then and there, lighting a fire in your cheeks. "o-oh… so if i did return it, then you wouldn’t act like a lovesick ghost anymore?" 
"hey." he frowned, but his face soon fell back into the same flustered expression from before. "but to answer you, maybe after a while. i could also just get worse… but i really don’t want to subject you anything you don’t want." while he couldn’t meet your gaze, he still leaned his head into the palm of your hand. with a sigh, you held his jaw and angled his face to look at you again. 
"how many times do i have to say i don’t mind? you can’t seem to fit that one through that thick vidyadhara skull of yours." you did actually knock on his head this time, making him wince.
"i—i don’t know, i just get embarrassed." he hid face his face against your chest, face a shade redder and his ears drooping. "you also always look so shocked. i don’t want to do that to you." 
"that’s only because you tend to forget any kind of warning," you said with a light laugh. "truly, i like it—when you give me warning, that is—because i really like you too, stupid." 
his breath audibly hitched, and he raised his head back up. "t-too? but i’ve never said—" 
"are you kidding? you don’t need to say it when the aeons and their grandmas know. even march says it’s obvious. you’re seriously worried about that after you’ve made out with my shoulder sloppy style? by the way, what was with the bites?"
"ngh, don’t word it like that." his tail that was still tangled around you thumped against your back indignantly. "…and the bites are a weird territorial thing. i’m sorry if they hurt." he leaned his head against you, running his thumb over one of the marks.
"dragons…" you sighed with a smile. "you’re lucky you’re so cute." you pet his hair, and he leaned into your touch.
he moved his chin so it was on your collarbone, looking up at you with softened eyes. there were almost stars of reverence in them when he gazed at you. "i love you."
"wait, wha—" you began, but he swallowed the rest of your words when his lips were upon yours. he pressed himself up against you, his hands gently holding the sides of your face. as he kissed you, there was a faint rumbling and vibration coming from his chest—he was purring.  
he pulled back again, leaving you a little short of breath and a lot dazed. you’d always thought it’d be you that had to kiss him first, not the other way around. he began to leave another trail of kisses starting from your lips to your jaw, this time leading toward the other side he had already been. your hands fell from their place on him and inched onto his back while his lips were on your neck. one hand slipped into his back window, and he suddenly gasped. his back arched into you, almost knocking you over. he panicked, and his tail constricted behind you like another set of arms to catch you. 
"what was that?" you laughed, trying to re-steady yourself. 
"your hand was cold. i don’t know, i guess i have a sensitive back," he huffed. his ears were angled down and a flush was heavy on his face. you couldn’t really articulate what it was about him, but you were suddenly overcome with cuteness aggression. you leaned your weight onto him, sending him backwards onto the futon and—perhaps somewhat out of revenge—hovered yourself over top of his hips. he stared up at you with widened eyes and a held breath, frozen and waiting for your next move. 
"you said i need to return your affection, didn’t you?" 
he swallowed and nodded the tiniest bit. 
"so let me have some fun too, my beloved." you placed a hand on his cheek.
"wait, you heard—i actually said that?" it almost looked like steam would start rising from the top of his head at any point. 
"heard it loud and clear." you smiled to yourself, leaning down and managing to get your fingertips into his chest window—only for the door to slam wide open. 
"hey, it’s dinner! what’re you two even doi—!" march called, leaning her hand on the doorway. you and dan heng leapt off each other, landing on the opposite sides of his futon. march stared in silence for a long while before lolling her head back. "jeez, finally! anyway, can you two wait until after dinner? pom-pom’s ‘bouta blow a gasket waiting for you two."
"w-we’ll be there in a minute," you said, trying to readjust your collar to try and hide dan heng’s bite marks. 
"don’t be long!" march said as she strode back off down the hallway. a couple beats passed and you looked over at dan heng. by some miracle, he’d managed to swap himself back to his human look, but he still looked disheveled as he went to stand back up. 
he held a hand out to you and pulled you up, pausing for a moment. he glanced at the bite marks on your shoulder that still peaked out, made some sort of strained sound and then removed his coat. "they don’t need to see that," he said as he strung it around your shoulders, fixing the collar so it hid the marks from sight.
"i’m wearing your coat. march saw us before. if she learns something, it’s guaranteed to be said," you deadpanned. "they’ll know."
instead of giving you a direct response, he took your hand in his and lead you out of the archives, looking at you with what was probably meant to be a neutral expression. his light flush and knitted eyebrows betrayed him though. "can we at least pretend we have dignity?"
"i mean, sure, but it’s not gonna do anything, looking the way we do. now c’mon, don’t wanna keep the conductor waiting." you walked off with him in tow. 
he only made a small groan in response again. 
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queer-geordie-nerd · 28 days
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Having read some of the reports and testimonies from survivors of Oct. 7, there is a part of me that *has* to believe that for a lot of those activists celebrating it as an “act of resistance” they don’t fully comprehend or are even aware of the extent of the brutality, in order to preserve what is left of my faith in humanity.
I’ve said this before but I really do think that for rather a large amount of these people, it’s an abstract concept - they’ve spent their privileged Western lives (I say this as a privileged Westerner) cheering on plucky oppressed underdogs overthrowing Evil Oppressors in the most sanitised way possible in their favourite fandoms.
For a lot of them, that’s their point of reference. The Oppressors are cartoon level evil and their much deserved downfall is an exciting denouement. It’s easy to conceptualise extreme violence as “necessary” when literally your only experience of it is a sanitised version through a TV screen that you can switch off.
If they really had to stand and confront the actual reality of what it is they’re cheering, *really* see and feel on their own skin the almost inhuman level of sadistic depravity displayed by Hamas - a fixation on torture and sexual violence that is truly nightmare inducing - would they understand what true evil actually looks like? Would they understand that far from being an oppressed group rising up against their oppressors and fighting for justice, Hamas employed the age old, extremely common tactic of mass rape as a weapon of war in order to humiliate and dehumanise people they see as less than human? You need only look at any war or genocide from the last 30 years - Bosnia, Rwanda, Ukraine, Sudan, countless others, to see it’s a tool of subjugation, not resistance.
Or are they so far gone at this point that they *do* understand and they just don’t care?
How on earth do I square this in my brain? As a human being? As a woman?
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justlikeeddie · 3 months
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all of layton and nikita's strictly dances ranked CORRECTLY by ME
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14. Samba, Week 1
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unfair to have to rank this one really because nobody really knows what they’re doing in week 1. FASCINATING to go back and watch this though. obvs this is strong in the context of a first week dance! but knowing where they’re going to go from here… this is the one and only time you can see that nikita is dancing layton through the steps and keeping him afloat. they’re not yet a PARTNERSHIP here. they don’t KNOW each other!!! anyway good luck to these boys with navigating what they are going to experience over the next three months <3
13. American Smooth, Week 10
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the infamous bottom-two dance. a result which i believe was undeserved!!! but the american smooth IS the most boring category on strictly unfortunately, so it’s a humble placing for this one. i did not love their outfits, for once! why don’t they go together. why does nikita look like peter pan. however, obviously i liked it when they both picked each other up and did a little skip in the air. also enjoyed how much craig enjoyed being bammed up by the ending.
12. Rumba, Week 12
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controversial to place this so low in the ranking perhaps?? obviously this was a complex routine that they performed beautifully AND was very tender and intimate. but the rumba is the second most boring dance on strictly after the american smooth i’m afraid I’M SORRY. however, points awarded for nikita saying afterwards that dancing this felt like the rest of the world fell away and they were the only two people in existence. girl what
11. Salsa, Week 5
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a great dance! fun! good vibes! their first lift! followed by a bit that i like where nikita has to sort of kick layton upright again. loses points ONLY for being perhaps their least homoerotic dance, which one of them, i guess, has to be.
10. Tango, Week 6
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all the ingredients for greatness are here. TANGO. HALLOWEEN. layton is in high goth drag. nikita looks a bit like paul gross as geoffrey tennant as hamlet in the flashback sections of slings and arrows s1. but weirdly i don’t think this dance quite lives up to the level of drama i expected from it. having just rewatched it i think it’s because they’re ACTING like it’s a MELODRAMA, and it FEELS like they’re acting, as opposed to the way they usually totally inhabit the narrative of a dance. however. the switch from this vibe into the denouement - the BACKFLIP (fuck!!!) - and then the breathy, drawn-out final moment, which they suddenly ARE inhabiting, braced over each other and staring into each other’s eyes like they are ON GOD going to fuck in the middle of the dancefloor, is astonishing. once again i am asking the bbc if this is what they thought they were going to air
9. Cha-cha-cha, Week 4
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okay. we are entering the section of the list where everything from here on down pretty much makes me feral. layton is everything in that jumpsuit. the THROW into the SPLITS. the raw sexual dynamism somehow contained within nikita taking layton’s coat for him. unbearable.
8. Charleston, Week 12
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off the charts crazy. how can people move like this. they CARTWHEELED across the STAGE for what felt like YEARS. points only deducted for the fact that when nikita cried in the interview afterwards because he loved layton so much he had to do it in this extremely silly outfit.
7. Quickstep, Week 2
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they danced the equivalent of a gay leyendecker illustration in week 2. IN WEEK 2 THEY DID THIS. they’re having so much FUN here. and to follow up on the week 1 ranking, the transformation from them feeling like a professional and a celeb to two people actually dancing together happens SO fast. it’s only a week later, but already something’s changed; layton’s totally at home in the routine and nikita’s REALLY enjoying it. it’s just so nice and i love them so much :’) also the quickstep is one of my favourite strictly dances because it’s inherently funny watching grown adults run full-pelt around a room and occasionally do a little skip. perfect 90 seconds of television.
6. Viennese Waltz, Week 3
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ok so this is actually one of their lowest scoring dances on the show. but NOT according to my ranking. this ought to feel as faux-dramatic as the vampire tango but it doesn’t. something is HAPPENING between them in this dance and it’s real. i could write paragraphs about the eternities contained within the long, long seconds of them holding each other after it’s over, which goes on for long enough that the editor just has to like. give up and cut away from them. i’ve been linking to the bbc’s youtube clips throughout this post, but if you have access to iplayer i strongly recommend you watch this dance as aired (i have linked to the timestamp for your convenience) in order to see the full effect of this ending. there’s something about the combination of… the sincerity of the dance. the gender of it all. the refusal to break character. nikita’s slightly baffled-looking parents in the audience lending whatever the fuck is going on here a bizarre frisson. i’m completely obsessed with it
5. Jive, Week 7
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the first thirty seconds of this dance genuinely make me feel like i’m coming up. overwhelming transition from the sexy sexy opening section (why are they dressed as little sailor boys? why are they touching like that?) into the supercharged beat of the side-by-side. people pay good money to feel like this. as has been pointed out, the jive is not a traditionally racy dance, and my question to nikita as choreographer is: why
4. Showdance, Week 13
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cunt. cunt. cunt. cunt. the absolute fucking serve of the matching slutty magician elbow-length gloves. nikita dropping his hat while layton executes everything perfectly. obviously in the finale, homophobia won <3 but my god. they ATE. no notes.
3. Paso Doble, Week 11
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i have said this before. but dancing to BACKSTAGE ROMANCE. in a show where i (facetiously) believe they may be experiencing a BACKSTAGE ROMANCE. seems illegal. anyway. this dance is insane. almost worth them being in the bottom two in week 10 in order for them to produce the unbridled energy of this comeback. as a category the paso doble has similarly melodramatic energy to the tango, but this performance is so unlike the slightly campy vampire number; they’re IN it, they’re living and feeling and breathing every moment. something about the mood of this dance, the power dynamics of it, nikita on the floor looking up at layton in awe as he emerges at his absolute fucking fiercest - happening in THIS week, rising above the stress of relegation and the overwhelming tide of online hate, is, like, pretty incredible, tbh. also the series of searingly erotic snapshot poses at the beginning of this routine are among the worst things i have been subjected to on this show, and as you may be gathering from this list, this is a crowded category.
2. Argentine Tango, Week 8
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god it was a TOUGH GODDAMN CALL on these top two places. and tbh i think this is actually, truly, their best dance. the sheer SKILL here… whatever the move is where layton has to jump in the air and kick his little leggies around… stunning. i don’t really have a comical paragraph to write about this because i genuinely think it’s an incredible piece of dance and there’s not much more to add to that. however, extra points for the truly unhinged decision to do some dom nikita roleplay at the end? again, please watch this one on iplayer to experience the full unedited effect.
1. Couple’s Choice, Week 9
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as i say. probably, technically, the argentine tango is better. but if i think about any element of this routine, i immediately black out. i cannot stress enough that he is standing on his back. he is STANDING. on his BACK. nikita choreographed this dance and he was like. i want you to stand on my back. PLEASE don’t worry about it. watching this routine is like looking into the sun. if i saw two men doing this in the club i would have to politely turn away to respect their privacy. also sorry to do this for a final time but i also need you to watch this one on iplayer because nikita stays on that pole at the end for so much longer than you are expecting and then does something sooooo unnecessary. this dance should be expunged from the internet so that i never have to contemplate it again.
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greedandenby · 8 months
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Jacob & Sam talking about queerness in IWTV.
A compilation of stuff they've said in interviews.
(Long post!)
A.V. Club
Q: The show is being hailed as unabashedly queer as compared to the film adaptation. Why was that important to both of you and the show’s creators?
SR: It’s what’s written in the book. We’re doing the book and it’s the way it’s supposed to be.
JA: It’s true to the story.
SR: It’s true to what Anne wanted and, yeah… it’s time.
JA: It would be rude not to.
SR: Yeah.
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Comicbook
Q: How important was it for the two of you to get this aspect of the story (the queerness of the books) not only correct, but to tell the full breadth and aspect of this very unique relationship?
JA: (…) For one, we have to acknowledge that the books are very queer. I think that IWTV Louis is not talking about it, at least in terms of Lestat.
SR: Until you get to the second half of the book. By the second half of the book, Louis does sort of start to acknowledge that it was something more, which I think is such a cool… (…) I think the relationship, the way Louis describes it in the beginning is sort of like, is it subtext or has he acknowledged it or is he just angry with the way it worked out? But I really feel that as we go on, the text is the text. It’s very clear that they’re in love and that they’re in a romantic relationship. I don’t think we would be doing the Anne Rice universe or doing the Vampire Chronicles if that wasn’t the case. I think it would be something else. And it would be a waste of time for us too because the fun stuff comes from the complexities of the relationship and the dynamics and all the detail and nuance that they have. If we’re doing a “will they won’t they” or, like, subtle glances across the room then you spend all the time on that tension rather than the really complicated toxic dynamic that exists between the two of them.
JA: Yeah, and then also playing that off against that tension and the aftermath of some of those fights. It suddenly rebuilds this sexual and emotional tension. Like you said, you get to explore the breadth of a relationship. But yeah, they’re each other’s endgame, aren’t they? In the books, they always come home to each other. I think it’s telling that that seems to be the denouement or the end of a lot of the novels: Louis and Lestat being petty and in love.
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Esquire
Q: The 1994 film adaptation of Interview With the Vampire shied away from depicting the romance between Lestat and Louis. Your adaptation is very explicit; at one point, we even see Lestat and Louis have sex while levitating. Rolin Jones described this series as “an excitable, aggressive, toxic, beautiful love story.” What did that mean to you, finally getting to tell the story in its full, explicit sensuality?
SR: I was very happy it was going that way, because it wouldn't be Interview With the Vampire if it didn't. It’s really important that we explored that, because a big part of their relationship is this intense connection. Anne Rice describes drinking each other's blood as incredibly erotic, almost like having sex. So how do you translate that on screen? I guess nude levitation translates quite well. I think it's really important that we don't shy away from it, because if we spend the whole season going, "Will they? Won't they?," we don't get to the really interesting parts of this complex relationship. Getting straight down to it means we can look at the dynamics of this pair—how they hurt each other and how they build each other up.
JA: With the levitating scene, we talked a lot about how you need those moments of joy and excitement and romance so it's not all about tortured Catholic guilt. We've seen vampire stories told that way before, and like Sam said, you then can't get into the messiness of their relationship. You have to really believe. You have to know that these two people are in love. Being in love is complicated and beautiful and messy.
IFC Center
Q: Sam, from the beginnings of the vampire traditions in literature and theatre, there’s often been a gay subtext. But for this adaptation, subtext becomes text.
SR: Yeah, I would say it’s not subtext, cause in Anne Rice it’s pretty damn clear. So it’s not subtext becomes text, it’s just text is now being text. And I think, fuckin’ yeah, it should be. If we’re going to do Anne Rice, we might as well do Anne Rice properly.
SR (about Lestat’s otherness): He’s come from some pretty intense experiences where he’s learned the history of vampires and things like that. And Lestat has come over from Europe to get away from the catechism of humanity and the way that’s kind of slapped on top of the vampires. That it’s all about self-flagellation in Christianity, Catholicism, that we’re all monsters and as a monster you have to serve Christ by being a servant of the Devil. You’re a monster: wake up and serve Christ. Which is what he’s discovered in his past. And Lestat thinks “That is garbage, and I’d much rather have a good time and I’d much rather celebrate myself.” Because he didn’t get a choice, he didn’t get to choose to become a vampire, he was forced into it. And I think we comment on it on the show, that all vampires are born out of trauma and that’s why people identify with them so well. Because they are traumatic, painful beings – often there’s sexual trauma in it as well. So he’s come to New Orleans to get out of that, to start his own new life, really. I think his bisexuality, his pansexuality has always been a part of that character when he was human, before he was a vampire, and I think that’s something he’s always embraced. It’s also something that’s quite heavily embraced in the vampire world as well, so it’s a nice space for that to work. And then once you become a very powerful being, the mess of humanity, all of these rules and things, they don’t matter.
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io9
Q: Why are vampires associated with queerness?
SR: It’s being an outsider but also owning it, and owning a space. And they’re sexy and cool. They’re awesome.
JA: There’s definitely as well something about growing up marginalised, and sometimes (…) you feel like you relate to the monsters more when you grow up othered. You feel like “Oh, this is supposed to be scary but this creature’s being treated the same way that I’ve been treated sometimes”. There’s just something very welcoming and comforting about that and I think those ideas exist together.
SR: And they also live life by their own rules, define their own terms. It’s their own space, it’s not within any conformity. And actually, in our show, we do that a lot, like “Why are you so interested in this bullshit human existence?” I mean, there’s so much more than being confined to one thing or being told that you’re one thing by society.
Pride.com
Q: In this version, the queer subtext is out the door, it is fully textual. Why do you think that was important for this version?
SR: I mean, it’s funny when we talk about subtext because, like, I was a fan of the books previous to being a part of it, and I can see why, particularly in the first book, it could be considered subtext. But I feel like, especially from the second book or even the second half of the first book, it’s really text. And so I feel like it wouldn’t be Anne Rice’s IWTV or Anne Rice’s universe or Vampire Chronicles if that wasn’t properly dealt with and addressed. And as soon as you get through the fact that they’re in a romantic relationship and that they love each other very deeply, then you get to really look at what the hell this relationship was about, what are the nuance and the complexities of it, cause it’s not as straightforward.
ScreenRant at SDCC 2022
SR: I’m really excited for Anne Rice fans to actually get to see Louis and Lestat in a romantic relationship, and we’re not shying away from that in any way, shape or form at all, and don’t even bother… It’s straight up from the very beginning.
Q: Can’t say they’re besties?
SR: Never. No, it’s love at first sight.
JA: They actually kind of don’t like each other. They’re just very in love.
SR: Yeah, very in love. I mean, it’s love at first sight and Anne was very clear about that, for Lestat at least. Had to do a bit of wooing to get him there, but he gets there. So I’m excited for people to see that, because everyone deserves it.
TV Guide
SR: You can see these two monsters, these two men, kissing under Jesus Christ like they’re supposed to be and like they’re valued and important in the eyes of God, and they’re loved; or like they’re the antichrist and they’re here to burn that church down.
TV Insider
Q: Sam, Louis and Lestat’s romance is made explicitly clear in this version, and other than it being loyal to the book, why do you think that’s important for a modern series?
SR: I mean, it’s what exists in the world. Sometimes you hear people say that we’ve made the subtext text when actually we’ve just gone back to the text. It exists. So it’s important to honour that because that’s what was written and that’s why a lot of people love these stories. This love story exists and it’s a complicated love story and they’re complicated monsters who are in love. It would be a real shame if we didn’t honour that.
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slayingfiction · 21 days
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The 5-Act Story Structure
The 5-Act Story Structure, often associated with classical drama and Shakespearean plays, offers a more nuanced approach to storytelling than the 3-Act structure. It is designed to provide a deeper exploration of themes, characters, and conflicts. This structure is divided into five parts: Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement.
Act 1: Introduction sets up the story by introducing characters, settings, and the initial situation or conflict.
Act 2: Rising Action builds upon the foundation laid in the first act, developing the story's main conflict and complicating the characters' lives.
Act 3: Climax is the turning point of the story, where tensions reach their peak, and the main conflict is confronted head-on.
Act 4: Falling Action deals with the aftermath of the climax, leading towards a resolution but still containing elements of conflict and tension.
Act 5: Denouement resolves the remaining conflicts, wraps up loose ends, and concludes the story, often leaving the audience with something to ponder.
The 5-Act Structure is particularly suited for stories that require intricate plotting, detailed character arcs, and a gradual buildup to a climactic confrontation. It allows for a more layered exploration of themes and a complex interweaving of subplots, making it ideal for epic narratives, complex dramas, and stories with a wide scope of characters and settings.
Compared to the 3-Act and 7-Act structures, the 5-Act structure offers a balance between complexity and manageability. It’s best used when the story demands depth and complexity but still needs to maintain a coherent and focused narrative arc. It is perfect for stories where the journey, including its ups and downs, is as important as the destination.
Happy Writing!
See Slaying Fiction for more fun posts!
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septembercfawkes · 24 days
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Do you have any tips on how to write endings or come up with good endings? I usually have no problem coming up with a beginning and writing the meat of the story but by the end they all just kind of peter out..
I may have too many 😅
How to Write Exceptional Endings 
Story Structure Explained: Climax, Denouement, Epilogues, and Endings 
The Hero's Journey Explained: The End 
5 Keys to a Satisfying Denouement
Save the Cat! Explained: The End 
7 Point Story Structure Explained in 5 Minutes
Related, but a slightly different:
The Steadfast, Flat-arc Protagonist in Story: The End
Using Character Arc to Create Story
Variations on Story Structure: A List
Character States: Orphan, Wanderer, Warrior, Martyr I would probably look at them in that order . . . The first two are probably the most helpful?? I would think. Hope it isn't an overload. ☺️ Best wishes with the writing!
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books · 8 months
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Hi! So, I’ve struggled A LOT with this in the past, and I was just wondering what a good way to outline a book was? I understand that there are many different ways to do it, and that it’s different for each person, but it’s hard to find good examples online on the different methods.
When we talk about outlining, we're often talking about structure, even though I think the best outlining also offers some connective tissue between the events of the story and the motivations and consequences of those events. My personal favorite outlining method is what I call a narrative outline, which is kind of like a reverse synopsis. In a narrative outline, you pretend you're explaining your story to someone very invested in it, who wants to know all about it. It's in paragraph form and written in your voice. It can be casual and incomplete. You can fill in the gaps with things like [FIGURE THIS OUT LATER]. Then you can take each paragraph you've written and make it into a chapter.
Sometimes, though, I don't even know enough about what I'm working on to do a narrative outline, and that's when I break out the tried and true four-part structure. This structure has served me well for many years, and even if it doesn't work for you, it's at least a place to start. Long-form stories generally have four major parts: exposition, rising action, climax, and denouement. I like to think of them as buckets in which I toss various scene ideas. The scene where characters A and B meet probably goes in exposition, which is the part concerned with establishing context and leading to an inciting incident. My characters getting to know one another would fall into the rising action bucket. Rising action involves raising stakes and escalating the tension. Then, the climax. This is when the rising action culminates into a major breaking point. Maybe my characters have a fight and break up. And lastly, my denouement, the action that falls in the aftermath of the climax. Here's where my characters, after some time apart, reunite.
Generally speaking, the halfway point of a story parallels the ending. If your halfway point is a major success of some kind, you likely will also have a happy ending. If your halfway point is a failure or a loss, you're probably writing a tragedy. Deciding off the bat, "Will this have a happy ending or a sad one?" will help you start putting events in order. Of course, there are also complicated or bittersweet endings, and those will also be reflected at the halfway point. For a complicated ending, your halfway point may be the most complex part of the book, the point with the least clarity. And a bittersweet ending will have a bittersweet middle.
Other writers have other structures they employ. There's Freytag's pyramid, which is two parts only: rising and falling action. There's the three-act play and the five-act play. There are the six stages and the eight key turning points. I've used all of these just to test them out, but I always end up back at my four parts. The trick to choosing an outlining method or an existing structure is to use it only as a jumping off point. It's a lot easier for me to start writing something knowing my job is just to fill four buckets. Often I end up with five parts instead of four. Don't box yourself in too much; as you begin writing, your story will let you know how it wants to be written. Trust your process and your intuition.
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For those just joining us, @bettsfic is running a writing workshop on @books this month. Want to know more? Start here.
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felassan · 1 year
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David Gaider on Twitter: "Going through my old DAI files and came across the original plan for a playable post-credits Epilogue... which, due to time constraints, eventually got down-scaled to the post-credits cutscene you saw on release. A lot of the meat here was, I believe, resurrected for Trespasser." [source] "At the time, I was pushing hard for an actual denouement - as opposed to always ending the story so abruptly after the climax. Considering how few players ever get that far, I suppose I can see the argument that it's not exactly a great place to focus resources. I did like where the cutscene ended up, mind you. A nice, Marvel-esque stinger that hinted at story to come. Took the sting out of having yet another story plan go awry... which is simply par for the course for game dev. Writing can always imagine more than we can produce. ;) And in case anyone wonders: no actual work was done on that playable section prior to the cut. You can imagine it being this fully-fleshed out, glorious thing, if you like... but it could just as easily have been half-baked and terrible. The team was fully stretched as it was." [source, two, three]
Some further info from follow-up tweets -
User: "It's a bummer, though I understand the logic. A proper end to cap off the experience can make or break your enjoyment of the full game though, imo" DG: "That was indeed my argument. There's a point where we have to draw the line and finish the story, however, and I'm afraid the original plan was... mmm a mite too big. This was far from the only cut."
User: "WAIT. Am I reading this right… Solas drains Flemeth and then COMMANDS the Well of Sorrows drinker to kill Flemeth?" DG: "I think it was Flemeth who commanded it. I'd have to look through the whole document. It's complicated. Part of why it was eventually cut, probably."
User: "Hold on. We were to kill Flemeth on Flemeth’s command to, possibly, prevent Solas from taking everything? Was passing whatever energy she did to the Eluvian her way of preparing for survival ?" DG: "I don't think it was going to be explained any more than it was in the cutscene you got, tbh."
User: "My WoS Lavellan is SCREAMING rn god please help her in the next game" DG: "Keep in mind that none of this *actually* happened. ;)"
User: "Interesting to see this was envisioned as having adversarial encounters between Solas & Flemeth with the well-drinker being ping-pawned between them. I noticed the Inquisitor lurking off-camera in that cutscene and wondered if they were originally meant to be part of it." DG: "Heh. I'm pretty sure the Inquisitor being placed there in the actual cutscene's level was because a player had to be present *somewhere*. Might be wrong, though." John Epler: "the way the cinematics worked, if you had them firing too far from the player character the engine would try to optimize and cutscenes would start jittering" DG: "Yeah, I thought it was something like that! Thanks, John."
User: "Does this have any link to the fact that there are dialogue audios of Morrigan reacting to solas “absorbing” Mythal in the game files?" DG: "Possibly? I finished writing the epilogue, so it's possible some of it got recorded prior to the cut."
User: "So Morrigan would've finally gotten to kill Flemeth herself, and nobody had to turn into a dragon this time? Also, this clears up what even happened to Flemeth at the end. She's definitely dead. Presumably, the spirit or essence of Mythal and possibly Urthemiel are inside Solas?" User 2: "does it? it can be theorized that flemeth commands the inquisitor/morrigan to kill her so solas wouldn't be able to take all her essence. regardless, in the ending we did get it's not entirely clear what happened. but i doubt she's truly gone. she cheated death before." DG: "And remember that what this stuff points at never actually happened. Whatever becomes of Flemeth in the future is up to the current writing team, and is based only on the cutscene you saw."
Summerfall Studios: "Our creative director davidgaider shares some insight into how Dragon Age: Inquisition's epilogue evolved over production" DG: "You want "evolved over production"? *cracks knuckles* Lemme tell you how we cut Corypheus attacking Skyhold. Now *that's* evolution."
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homonationalist · 1 month
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At one point Sameer spoke of being stopped and searched at Israeli checkpoints. He spoke in a manner that seemed not to require my presence. I hadn't seen this level of concentration and detachment in him before. That was fine. He was grieving. "The shameful and humiliating way the soldiers run their hands up and down your body," he said. Then he added, "But the shame and humiliation runs even deeper if the Israeli soldier is an Ethiopian Jew." The earth gave way. The thought that my place in the unconscious of Palestinians fighting for their freedom was the same dishonorable place I occupied in the minds of Whites in America and Israel chilled me. I gathered enough wits about me to tell him that his feelings were odd, seeing how Palestinians were at war with Israelis, and White Israelis at that. How was it that the people who stole his land and slaughtered his relatives were somehow less of a threat in his imagination than Black Jews, often implements of Israeli madness, who sometimes do their dirty work? What, I wondered silently, was it about Black people (about me) that made us so fungible we could be tossed like a salad in the minds of oppressors and the oppressed? I was faced with the realization that in the collective unconscious, Palestinian insurgents have more in common with the Israeli state and civil society than they do with Black people. What they share is a largely unconscious consensus that Blackness is a locus of abjection to be instrumentalized on a whim. At one moment Blackness is a disfigured and disfiguring phobic phenomenon; at another moment Blackness is a sentient implement to be joyously deployed for reasons and agendas that have little to do with Black liberation. There I sat, yearning, in solidarity with my Palestinian friend's yearning, for the full restoration of Palestinian sovereignty; mourning, in solidarity with my friend's mourning, over the loss of his insurgent cousin; yearning, that is, for the historical and political redemption of what I thought was a violated commons to which we both belonged—when, all of a sudden, my friend reached down into the unconscious of his people and slapped me upside the head with a wet gym shoe: the startling realization that not only was I barred, ab initio, from the denouement of historical and political redemption, but that the borders of redemption are policed by Whites and non-Whites alike, even as they kill each other. It's worse than that. I, as a Black person (if person, subject, being are appropriate, since Human is not), am both barred from the denouement of social and historical redemption and needed if redemption is to attain any form of coherence.
Frank B. Wilderson III from "For Halloween I Washed My Face" in Afropessimism (2020)
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Anonymous asked: I struggle with motivation to write and figuring out what I want to happen in my story. I'm really good at picking out tropes, understanding character motivation, seeing where the story is going, recognising good writing, etc. I often have dreams that are full-fledged, complex stories, so I know the creativity is there. It's just, for some reason, when it's my intent to create, nothing happens. I get stuck thinking 'they'll see this coming' or 'this wouldn't work', and I can't figure out how I want it to go. So, I feel like I'm pretty good at stories... when I'm not trying? And i dont know how to do it without trying. I hope this makes sense lol
Struggling with Motivation and Direction
Being able to recognize good stories and dream up good story ideas is a great place to start, but there's more to writing a good story than ideas, tropes, and character motivation. Stories revolve around conflict (internal, external, or both) and the protagonist's pursuit of a goal that will resolve that conflict. Stories have structure... they go through specific phases (setup, rising action, falling action, denouement) and hit specific plot points (hook, inciting incident, midpoint, climax)... and sometimes more specific phases and plot points (there are all different theories on what those are). And through all of these phases and plot points, your character is growing and/or changing (and or changing the people/world around them) while in pursuit of their goal/resolution to the conflict.
There are some writers who can come up with an idea that instantly includes all of those important phases and plot points, and they can sit down over whatever period of time and almost effortlessly hammer out a first draft. However, that is not the case for most writers or most stories. Most stories require some level of plotting or planning ahead of time to work out what happens in all of those specific phases and plot points, and what the character has to do in order to resolve the conflict, and figure out how the resulting events cause your character to change and/or grow/and/or change the people/world around them. Some writers do the bare minimum amount of pre-planning, but then they push through that work as they write, figuring everything out as they go. It's anything but effortless. It's really hard work.
And the thing is, you will probably figure out that you're a planner--meaning that you generally need to put whatever amount of plotting/planning into a story before you write--or you're a pantser--meaning that you do a minimal amount of planning ahead of time but take the time as you're writing to figure things out. Or you may find it depends on the story you're writing. Either way, don't give up just because a story isn't naturally falling out of your fingertips onto the page. Stories are like lumps of clay that you want to turn into a beautiful sculpture. You're not going to pinch here, pull there, and voila. It takes a lot of time and effort to shape them into the thing you want them to be. And sure... there are sculptors who can sit down and create a gorgeous sculpture out of a lump of clay in mere moments, but for most it's not that easy. Same with writing.
So, don't give up. You're right where you need to be. Spend some more time learning about how stories work. (You can look through the posts on my Plot & Story Structure master list to start with.) Read a lot, and when you read, see if you can pick out the different story phases and plot points. Analyze stories you love to see how you work. Author K.M. Weiland has a story structure database that pulls apart popular stories and breaks them down into all those different pieces. There are also a lot of great videos on YouTube about story structure and plotting.
Ultimately, keep at it. You'll get there!!!
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asouefanworkevent · 6 months
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another fall is upon us! another woevember is coming!!
what is it?
woevember is an asoue fanwork event week, that will take place from november 12th through november 18th, 2023. last year there was a different group of characters each day, and this year, each day of the week is dedicated to a different location for a series of unfortunate events or all the wrong questions.
what do i do?
the prompts will be revealed now, so everyone has time to make something. between now and the week of november 12th, you’ll create fanworks about the prompts, and then post it on the corresponding day during november 12th - 18th!
don’t forget to tag this tumblr (asouefanworkevent) in the post so i can find it and reblog it, and tag the post with #woevember !
what do you mean by fanwork?
everything! fanfic and fanart are of course allowed, but woevember has always been meant to be an event that is as big or as little effort as you want! fanwork also means edits, gifs, analysis posts, headcanons!! your cosplay!! your photography!! your photosets!! your web weaving!! your super short fics!! your sketchiest drawings!! your most ramble-y half-fic idea posts!! your wip scenes!! you merely saying 'lemony snicket, though. am i right?????' (and you are. you're so right.) whatever you are moved to make from the prompts! i want people to be encouraged to and be able to create even something small that didn’t exist before for the snicketverse, and share it with other people!
are there any rules?
to keep the event open and comfortable for everyone, no explicit content. also, as always, sibling romance and age gaps will not be tolerated.
do i have to make something for every day?
only if you want to! feel free to just make something for one day if you want :) the point of having a different theme for each day is so some part of canon that you like comes up eventually, and you can at least make something for one of the days. or you get struck by an idea you might not have considered before! i want to get people thinking about all the intriguing people and places in asoue and atwq and the exciting different ways we can interpret and create from the same idea.
what are the prompts?
the description under each prompt is just some ideas to get your brain going -- feel free to take them in another direction too!
november 12th - olaf's mansion
to celebrate the 24th anniversary of the bad beginning! what becomes of the house post-canon? was it olaf's family home? what sort of nefarious, or, perhaps, completely innocent shenanigans have occurred here, pre-canon? does this house also have a secret passage somewhere?
november 13th - the baudelaire mansion
did beatrice and bertrand build the mansion? what sweet pre-canon moments have we missed with the baudelaire children and their parents? what visitors came there? do people still think the mansion remains are haunted post-canon? what sort of new home do the baudelaires make for themselves when they return to the city?
november 14th - the clusterous forest
the wild and lawless place. what was it before the water was removed? what sort of beach or shore was there? where did the water go? does it ever come back? what does lemony, or anyone else, find in there? does another train ever come through after the thistle of the valley? do the stain'd-by-the-sea crew ever go in to investigate it? what sort of rumors might be created about a place like the clusterous forest?
november 15th - the hotel denouement
the last safe place! is it vfd-owned, or denouement-owned? what happens down in the archives? are the archives ever found? what sort of firefighter or firestarter meetings have taken place here? what relationship might they have with the preludio hotel? what were the denouements up to at the hotel? what hotel, or what sort of home in general, might frank and ernest create for themselves post-canon, with dewey's absence?
november 16th - the masked ball
the duchess of winnipeg's masked balls have so much potential! what happened at that last one, where lemony tried to contact beatrice? when was that? what happened at past balls? what is the duchess's relationship with the parties? (whether the duchess is jacquelyn or r or jacquelyn is r's daughter is up to you, dear reader!) what costumes do they all pick! or is there even a different masked ball you might have in mind?
november 17th - the reptile room
to also celebrate the 24th anniversary of the reptile room! what becomes of this house post-canon? how did monty come to own the reptile room, where does his herpetology career fit into vfd? why was the quagmire mansion connected to it? how did jacques get there and find quigley? what other moments with the baudelaire children in the reptile room might we have missed -- or pre-canon moments with the baudelaire parents? do not forget about our beloved, the incredibly deadly viper!
november 18th - free space!
there's tons of other locations, too! prufrock prep, heimlich hospital, 667 dark avenue, paltryville, caligari carnival, the city, the punctilio, veblen hall, the orion observatory, the opera, the sewers, the hemlock tearoom and stationery shop, the museum of items, the museum of bad breakfast, the snicket mansion, the quagmire mansion, the island, the mortmain mountains, lucky smells lumbermill, wade academy, killdeer fields, anwhistle aquatics, the queequeg? or do you care not for locations! use the free space to write about the character or relationship or thought of your choosing!
if you have any questions about anything, feel free to drop me an ask or a message!
happy creating, and i hope to see lots of you november 12th-18th!! ✨
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