Tumgik
#but I guess also we're reading the book. so it's all still 'remembered' in that way
saint--claire · 3 months
Text
When I was a little child, there was a particular library book I checked out week after week, endlessly renewing it as much as I was able. The book, How to Raise and Keep a Dragon by John Topsell was a quasi-nonfiction guide to, as you guessed, rearing different species of dragons. I loved it. Tiny-me had plans.
As an adult, I tried to buy it a few times. No dice. The book was so old that no mainstream bookseller stocked it. Even when I tried niche websites recommended by various booksellers and librarians, I still couldn't find it. It was sadly lost to time, apparently not popular enough to make it into the archives.
But.
My best friend had a copy of that book. We're going to call her G, for several reasons not relevant at the moment. I was discussing my search with G one day, for some reason I can't remember now. She got a funny look on her face, asked me a few questions about the cover, listened to me do a very poor job of explaining with my hands how the hardcover copy had included a real gemstone in the dragon's forehead, and then went off to fish it out of her bookcase.
I was Gobsmacked.
I should not have been, given that the history of shared childhood books between us both would have made a circle with ragged edges, more so than a venn diagram, but I digress. The book came home to live in my house for a few months, and I was delighted by the chance to read it again.
Do people remember those type of books? Dragonology, Egyptology, The Stone Age - a way of introducing children to non fiction. They very earnestly spoke about the responsibilities needed to raise dragons, the practicalities involved. There was a record of registration you could fill out, if you had carefully considered the information to your self and felt you were responsible enough to to go through with adopting a dragon.
I vaguely remember filling out some of the riddle and puzzle questions in the Dragonology books. I would never have written in John Topsell's book, it was a library book.
But.
When I re-read G's copy at home, smiling over the familiar artwork, I was surprised to turn the page and find the painstaking, somewhat-wonky handwriting staring back at at me. Baby G, with her name spelled out in freshly-joined but still-not-quite-got-the-hang-of-this-yet cursive lettering. Baby G had filled the registration out in her best handwriting, in glittery green gel pen to denote the importance of the document. This was compared to the earlier, less important checklists done in plain black ink.
I read the registration certificate. Smiled. Smiled some more at the names listed for G's dragon, her dam, and her sire - Eragon was also a great book. Go off, Christopher Paolini.
Breed; standard Western Dragon. The box 'miniture' was ticked, to show that G's dragon was of the minature specic variety, rather than a full size dragon. This was, as she would later explain to me, chosen on the basis that baby-G felt it was the more financially responsible choice. Also so she could keep her dragon in her house with her, but we're not there yet.
I looked at that certificate. Looked at it again. Looked at the calendar, and then looked at the sewing machine I had just been given for Christmas.
G celebrates her birthday in January.
The template came first. I studied the different images of the standard western dragon through the book, picked my favourite, and re-drew it to a significantly larger scale.
Tumblr media
Inking the design to the fabric, four times over probably took the longest.
Tumblr media
I very subtly asked G the next time she was over (after hurling all dragon-related materials in a panic into the depths of my wardrobe) what type of colour dragon she would have, should it come up. As G later said, that type of question from me truly did not register as anything other than a question asked from theoretical interest. I transitioned the topic as discreetly as I could after she answered, and delightfully, my sneakiness went in one ear, out the other, and she forgot I had ever asked until several weeks later.
I enjoyed painting them.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Don't ask me how many mistakes I made through this process. So many. I do already know how to sew, but it's been a long time. I'd been meaning to get back into it for a while.
Tumblr media
Given that various aunts and grandmothers and my mother had a knack for calling when I was up to my elbows in either paint or pins, it became a family affair. Each of them peered at the project through face time and offered their advice.
Tumblr media
Some of the advice I took, some I didn't. No regrets about sewing it in pink thread. Considerable regrets about accidentally slicing one of the feet in half and having to fix that.
In the end though, she was finished.
I carefully pinned on her name tag, with the name baby-G had chosen with a little blue ribbon. A collar was unacceptable, this is a dragon, people, come on. Dragon's don't wear collars.
I put the book in the box, open to the registration certificate, and put the dragon on top. Wrapped the whole thing up with a bow and then refused to touch it before I sent myself mad trying to fix details that didn't really need to be fixed.
A bit late for her birthday, sure, but there we are. We'd gone for a trip off to nowhere for a weekend, to go try wine made out of blueberries and hike up a waterfall. (And climb on it. And swim in it. It was a very good waterfall).
I gave her the box, informed her she wasn't allowed to keep the box, just the contents (it was the only thing I had that was big enough for me to keep all of my A3 portfolios in, it had only been temporarily-repurposed as dragon housing), and then left the next bit up to the gods.
A surprise, sitting un-awaited for some 15 years in amber, to catch up to baby G and adult G together.
Happy Birthday, baby and adult G.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
322 notes · View notes
kisses4lao · 9 months
Note
Ok so I was thinking about a smut with a leech and wanted to ask you to do (i love how u write)
What about a AFAB!reader that likes to open her mouth and sometimes you do it without realizing it.
I read somewhere that eels have it like an invitation to mate or something like that (dont remember so much)
And about if is jade or floyd… well, both are my favs so I cant choose. What works better I guess
EEK TYSM!!! I feel as tho floyd would fit this better bc jade is a smart boy, probs knows that humans just open their mouths wide for random shit but floyd
...
Hes a lil stupid when it comes to these things(I love him I swear)
10/10, would fuck in the VIP room again
-floyd probably lmao(also the name of the fic)
♧CW!!! fem reader, breeding kink yas slay, unsafe sex(wear condoms kids), degrading(? Floyd calls us a slut for yawning around other men but he loves us 🤞), little to no foreplay hes too hawny, semi public sex, pwp?, mentions of jade but light, none that I can think of right now but floyd is such a silly little goose(im terrified of him)
NOT PROOFREAD
~~~~~~~~~~~~~♧♧~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
♧ you were originally here to study.
Seeing as your boyfriend, Floyd, was nowhere to be seen. Sitting in the mostro lounge while waiting for Floyd to be on break was a normal occurrence.
Since it had been awhile with slight glimpses of him taking care of customers, you decided to start studying on your own. Opening up a text book and starting to read and take notes, Jade comes over with your order.
"Apologies for my brother taking so long. The customers he has are being seriously rude, we're trying our best to have him not squish them." Jade says as he places your tea on the table in front of you.
"How long will he be?" You ask as you take a small sip of your tea. Jade rests his chin on his hand as he closes his eyes, seemingly in thought.
"Soon." He simply says as he walks away.
Although odd, you've gotten used to Jades strange behavior. As you were about to return to studying, you spotted Floyd waiting on the table across from you. He shoots you a smile before turning back to his customers.
You took that as a sign to go back to studying. Flipping open your text book, you begin to take notes again. As you get further into the book, your eyelids begin to feel heavy. Resting your head on your hand, you start to close your eyes for longer periods once blinking.
As you began to drift off to a light sleep, you felt yourself yawning as you began to shift in your chair.
Having finally settled in a comfortable position, you begin to get lulled into a peaceful sleep by the surround sound of calming music in the lounge.
Drifting off, you get woken up by a sudden loud noise. "Boo!" It was Floyd, creeping up behind you just to scare you awake. Playfully punching his chest as you complain about how you just fell asleep, he takes your hand, leading you off somewhere.
"Floyd, where are you taking me?" You say between giggles. "Somewhere, it'll be fun, I promise." He says as he gives you a wink.
He leads you to the VIP room, which usually isn't occupied by anyone, like now. Just the two of you. He turns around to lock the door, he turns back to you, eyes widened with an unpleasant look on his face.
"That thing you did out there, I cant believe you did it infront of other men. Do you understand what they may think now? Think im not your boyfriend? Think I dont treat you well enough?" Confusion. All you felt in the moment was pure confusion.
"Floyd, what the fuck are you talking about? I was just studying, nothing happened." You could tell he was getting frustrated. "That thing! Where you opened your mouth wide!"
"You mean yawning? The.... thing people do.... when they're tired?"
"You can't do that around merfolk." Oh. Oh? This seems like something you can tease him on.
"Oh? And whys that, Mr eel boy?" You say as you chuckle. Somehow, floyd got even more pissed at this, he slammed both your arms above you and against the wall behind you, eyes still wide, and very much angry.
"You don't understand what you're doing. You're making a mating invite by doing that, what if the other merfolk saw? Or worse, what if Jade saw?"
"Floyd im sorry okay, I didn't mean to, seriously-" you were cut off by him smashing his lips onto yours, you fed into it, not resisting in the slightest.
He began to sink his head down to your neck, making soft bites on it and licking up the semi bloody aftermath. "If you want to act like a slut, then I'll fuck you like one." He says before digging his open hend into the flesh of your thigh and biting down on your collar bone.
You choke out a groan at the sudden pain as floyd slowly kisses the bite, making it feel more pleasurable than anything.
Once hes done, he looks up at you. "You're okay with this, right?"
"Yeah, just don't do anything stupid." You're able to say between puffs of hot air. Giving you a smile, he hooks his finger under the strap of your panties, taking his other hand off your wrists. Sliding down the peice of fabric while biting off his glove, he starts to suck on your neck as he begins to work his fingers into you.
Taking his thumb and rubbing it over your clit as he slowly sinks two fingers inside you. You moan out as he begins to curl them in you, sucking on the bite mark you made earlier.
"F-fuck... I cant take it anymore." Floyd groans out as he unbuckles his belt. Lining up his thick cock with your hole, "You're sure you're okay with this, right?" He says one last time in a panted breath.
"Yes just... don't do anything stupid-" and you were cut off once again by him doing something stupid.
He thrusts his whole length into you at once, earning a low, throaty groan from him as you were just trying to find stability. He takes both you thighs and wraps them around his waist, being able to hit much deeper in the position.
Mere seconds later, all the pain you felt turned into pure, absolute pleasure as he started fucking you against the wall.
Filling the room with moans of utter bliss from the both of you, having Floyd come completely undone after minutes. "I'm gonna fill you up so fucking good- make everyone know you're mine- have those other eel bitches know if you're gonna be a slut, you're gonna be mine, understood?"
You're barely able to make his words out as you start to feel lightheaded from the pleasure. His grip on you tightens as you feel him twitch inside you. "Fuck, im gonna-" he was cut off by a powerful moan as he came inside you, slowing down his pace in the process.
Floyd slowly sinks down to the floor as he places you down on it, leaving you for a moment as he grabs a wash cloth. He starts to clean you in silence, waiting for you to say something. You were too tired to speak, however.
Once you're clean, he makes himself presentable again as he picks you up and walks you back to your table. Once he sets you down, he walks off and brings back a bottle of water and some snacks.
"Dont worry, they're on me." He says with a wink.
As he turns to walk away, you grab onto his sleeve to get his attention. He leans in close to hear you over the bustling crowd. "Floyd, I didn't get to fini-" he places his index finger over your mouth.
"Now, now, I didn't forget my dear, I promise. If you're good today then I'll double it tonight, hm?" And with that, he walks off and returns to his job where jade and azul kept yelling at him for bailing.
As you sit in silence while occasionally looking over at Floyd, he makes eye contact with you while being yelled at. Going back to you table, you realize something, your tea has gone cold.
Oh dear, whoever will you call over to replace it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♧♧~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/n: i had no clue how to end this fic wiwhwihsiwow im going insane
809 notes · View notes
thebestofoneshots · 7 months
Text
Gilded Constellations | wolfstar x reader
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Series Masterlist | Previous episode
Pairing: Wolfstar x Reader Word Count: 5.3 K Warnings: PG-13 kisses Prompt: You venture to a reading club, entering a part of Hogwarts you had not yet been into, and meeting new and exciting people. A covert trip to the library, on a quest for a werewolf book, leads to an unexpected encounter. This IS a wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it. A/N: Sprinkling in a bit of spice, hope you enjoy <3
Tumblr media
Chapter 15: No One Like You
The week went by a lot faster than you expected it to, Remus, just like the last time, had gotten a lot better by dinner, Madame Pomfrey told him he could go once he took a painkiller potion, and gave you some anti-headache drops. You both thanked her and walked together towards the Great Hall. You were in awe of how fast he healed, really, just the thought of how bad he had been in the morning, and how much better he was now, was outstanding, and it made you wonder what other benefits his condition brought along, even if it was clearly a nuisance for him. 
Later on the week you’d gone to the book club Nina had invited you to, you wondered if she had also guessed Remus’s condition by reading the book she’d lend you, even if she hadn’t spent so much time with Remus; and to be honest, one of the reason you realised was because you were made pretty aware of the moon phases by your classes and professor on the past few months, you had gotten that silver ring as a gift, and you spend a great deal of time with the boys, down to the point that you easily noticed when they were all acting weird. All of them things Nina had not been a witness to, at least not up close like you had, but she had been around a lot longer than you, you really had no way to tell, unless you straight up asked, and that was obviously not happening.
“So… did you like it?” She asked you with a bright smile when she spotted you outside of the Ravenclaw common room. 
You nodded “It was really nice, helped me learn a lot too.” 
She frowned “Learn a lot… about werewolves you mean?” 
You nodded “I hadn’t studied them before,” you added later “I mean I know it’s not all accurate…” I certainly hope some of those Alpha and knotting things aren’t accurate, you thought “but it got me investigating more about them, it’s pretty interesting.” 
Nina nodded “It is, right?” She told you with a smile “I was taking an extra class on magical creatures and they’re all super interesting. They say Newt Scamander may come give a talk at some point next year, it would be absolutely brilliant!” 
“Yeah, totally!” You agreed she guided you inside her common room, and you marvelled at the ceiling. You remembered Remus had told you about it, how it was enchanted to look like the sky above instead of a  normal roof. It was definitely prettier than what you and Rem had created together, but you rather liked the Gryffindor one best.
Nina smiled when she saw you, “beautiful, right? I’m sure you would’ve fitted in perfectly in Ravenclaw.” 
You smiled at her “I’m not sure I’m as studious as most of you,” you told her with a smile “Just the other day I skipped some classes because I had a headache.” 
“Yeah, but you still have incredible grades,” she told you, matter of factly “Everyone thinks we’re nerds that study all the time,” she whispered, leaning in closer to you “but just because we’re reading it doesn’t mean we’re studying,” she smiled mischievously “as you saw with the book.”  
“Yeah, those spicy scenes were certainly something…” you replied. 
Nina guided you towards a small little gathering in front of the fire, it was different to the Gryffindor one, it somehow looked a lot more regal and elegant, reminded you of Professor Nightshade, and then made you wonder how the Hufflepuff common room would look, perhaps Alex could sneak you in one day, after all, he was the head boy. 
“Hey everyone, this is (Y/N),” She said as she pointed at you, you waved awkwardly. 
“Not that she needs much of an introduction,” a boy said, standing up and offering his hand for a shake, you took it with a smile “Neil Perry, it’s nice to meet the new Gryffindor legend.” You laughed, Neil had a very dashing smile, he almost reminded you of Prongs, he was just as bright “That’s Alice,” he said pointing to a girl with silver hair. 
“We share a class, don’t we?” You asked with a smile, she nodded, and the two of you shook hands. 
“That over there is Nox,” he said pointing at a boy with Slytherin robes. 
You both shook hands as well, “Nice to meet you,” he said “This is Comet, by the way” he said, pointing at a girl who was sitting right next to him. 
 “I’m really sorry about the Slytherins that have been picking on you,” she told you with a smile “We’re not all entitled pricks.”  
“Some of us are even nice,” Nox added.
“I don’t hold grudges against houses,” you told them with a smile “I kind of skipped the whole indoctrination moment by getting here so late,” you joked, and it cracked a chorus of laughs from the entire circle. 
Comet extended her hand for you to shake, “I already like you,” the girl said with a grin, which you returned with a wink, you already liked her as well. 
“I’m Jennifer, everyone calls me Jane,” a girl with curly black hair and freckles said as she extended her hands, you shook it. 
“She picked the book,” You heard another girl say from behind, she was wearing Ravenclaw robes too “I’m Clara,” she told you with a smile. You’d seen her around Nina often. 
“Marina,” said another girl with a wave, she was wearing a Hufflepuff beanie. 
“I believe that’s all of us?” Neil said with a smile. 
Then another boy barged into the room, he had light brown hair and looked a little distressed for being late, “I’m sorry, got caught up on the stairs when coming from the library,” he said.  Neil smiled fondly when he saw the boy “That’s Todd,” he told you, “he doesn’t talk much, but he enjoys listening to us a lot.”
You also smiled at the boy “Nice to meet you,” you said looking at him “I’m (Y/N)!” 
He looked at you puzzled “Same (Y/N) Nina won’t shut up about?” He asked, still fondling with the amount of things was carrying in his arms.  
You raised your eyebrow, smiling at the same time “All good things, I hope.” You said as you shook his hand, and helped him hold some of the books he was carrying. 
Todd nodded “It’s like she completely forgot about her old Gryffindor crush and replaced him with you.” 
“Will you shut it, Todd?” Nina said, with a tight smile on her face.
He just shrugged and took a seat next to Neil. Nina looked a little debased, so you placed a hand on her shoulder “Don’t think too much about it,” you told her with a smile, you could feel her ease under your hand “Where should we sit?”
“Come here!” Jane said as she slid to the side of the rug where she was so you could both fit in as part of the circle. Once you did, she took out the book and levitated it towards the centre of the circle, letting it float in between you all. “All right, session starts now.” 
“Favourite parts?” Asked Clara. 
“The chase scene at the end,” Said Neil “No offence Jane, but the book was a bit slow.” 
“Excessive with the descriptions of abs,” added Nox.
“Nah, I rather enjoyed those,” countered the first boy. 
You raised your eyebrows at that but nodded in agreement. 
“I like the way they depicted the werewolf.” Said Nina, who was next to you. 
“Yeah, especially on the sexy scenes,” added Comet with a cheeky smile. Alice hit her on the arm playfully “What? It’s true!” She retorted. 
“I don’t know about the knotting though,” you added in. 
Nox cringed from the other side “Please don’t remind me of that,” he said “I’ve been trying to erase those lines from my mind.” 
“I found it rather interesting,” said Jane “That’s why I chose the book.” 
“But it’s not like that in real life, is it?” You asked, trying to sound playful. 
“Well I’ve never done it with a werewolf, but I highly doubt it,” Responded Comet casually. 
“It’s not,” Todd said, everyone stared at him, and he turned red “I looked it up on a BOOK! Merlin guys!” that got a chorus of laughter from everyone. 
The reading circle continued on, with its playful banter, jokes and a rather in-depth discussion of the relationship mechanics within the story. You actually had lots of fun, Nina was right, just because they had their head buried in a book, it didn’t mean they were nerds. Even if some people would see you from afar, talking about a book so gleefully and entertainedly, that they would consider you as such. Once the reunion was over, they decided on the next book that would be reviewed, Nox picked a wizarding world book titled “Point of Know Return” and he promised it would be delightful, with Pirates, mermaids and fairies and underwater cities deep in the pacific. He also promised there would be no knotting. 
As the night started to fall, you realised the stars on the Ravenclaw ceiling became a lot brighter, you wondered if there was a  spell that you could implement to make the same thing happen to the one you’d created in the Gryffindor common room. “All right guys,” said Jane, “I think we should all head to bed, especially our guests from other houses since you don’t want to leave after curfew.” 
Everyone nodded and started to stand, as you grabbed the book they’d borrowed, you remembered “Hey Guys! Sunday’s the Halloween Party at Gryffindor, you should all come! Costumes are obligatory tho…” 
“You’re inviting us? To a party?” Nox asked in disbelief. 
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” 
“We aren’t exactly the type of people that get invitations to parties often,” added Todd.
“Speak for yourselves,” added Neil “I’m down!” He smiled, yeah, he definitely reminds you of Prongs “I’m sure I can conjure something to dress up as before Sunday.” 
“I’m coming too!” Said Jane with a smile. 
“If she’s going I’ll be there,” Clara said as she gave you a thumbs up.
“Yeah, I’m definitely coming,” smiled Comet. “Minho will be there, won’t he?” You nodded in response. “Good, I’ll tag along with him.” 
“I’d be lovely to see you all there!” You assured, and waved at them as you walked towards the door, Nina walked close behind you. 
“Did you enjoy yourself?” She asked you with a smile. 
You nodded “Yeah!” You responded excitedly “It was excellent! I’m pretty sure Remus and Lily would also love to join in, have you asked them?” 
She seemed surprised but shook her head “They uh… they’re not like you. Remus is always very polite, but too closed off and Lily is always busy.” 
“I think you should ask Remus,” you told her “I could ask him for you if you wanted,” you offered, but she shook her head again. 
“I’d rather it was just a you and me thing,” she said shyly. 
You raised an eyebrow at her statement but shrugged “Just us then,” you said, placing your arm over her shoulder, Nina tensed up with the unexpected contact and then relaxed back again, once she remembered it was you. 
“I really like hanging out with you,” she said, almost in a whisper. You reassured her by rubbing the side of her arm with your hand, Sirius’ touchiness was rubbing off on you.
“I like hanging out with you too, luv.” You smiled “You’re coming to the Halloween Party, yeah?” 
She shook her head “I’ve got a thing that day,” She told you. 
“A thing? What kind of thing?” 
“A date,” she mustered. 
You stopped the two of you dead in your tracks “Shut up! With who? I thought you liked Remus. Wait… Is it Remus? He didn’t tell me a thing, I’ll punch him!” 
“It’s not Remus.” She said and then frowned “How did you know I liked Remus?” 
You arched an eyebrow “You should be more surprised no one else knew, I figured it out on the first day of study group.” 
She laughed, “Well, I was pretty hung up on him then, that’s not a lie. But…” she cleared her throat “Someone else came around, made me realise Remus wasn’t really my type.” 
“What?!” You narrowed your eyes at her, “Come on, tell me who!” 
She shook her head, a diverted smile playing on her lips “No-uh.” 
“Awww… Nina!” You complained. She just shrugged in response.
“You figured out who the first one was by yourself, figure it out a second time,” she replied. You smiled and shook your head at her response. 
“Fine them, what prize do I get if I get it right?” 
“Knowledge.” 
You raised your eyebrows at her, “Not a Ravenclaw, remember?” 
“Fine then, a kiss.” You gave her a look. “What? You wouldn’t kiss a girl?” 
You laughed “I would, I have. Kissed Evans a couple of weeks ago actually.” You explained “But… I’m kind of dating Sirius now.” 
She frowned as if the news were a shock to her “Sirius Black? You’re dating him?” You nodded “And is he aware you are dating?” 
You opened your mouth, drawing a bit of air in before speaking “Well… uhm– he seemed pretty aware last time I checked.” 
“What I mean is…” she started, shaking her head as if she wasn’t sure which words to use “Does he know you are exclusive?” 
“I’m sorry?!” 
“Sirius has a bit of a reputation…” 
Finally, you understood what Nina was going on about and you smiled at her softly, she was worried about you, so sweet. “He knows,” you reassured her “We uhm-“ you cleared your throat “We’ve got a bit of history.” 
“And what about Remus?” She asked then, curiosity getting the best of her. 
“What about him?” 
“I thought you’d end up dating him.” 
Now you frowned “Remus? Why would I–“ 
“-you always seemed to be really close to him, from the day you arrived, really.” 
“I…” you started, but you weren’t exactly sure what to respond. Remus really was great, very different to Sirius, but he had his own charm to him, and he was just as beautiful as your boyfriend, just a different kind of beauty. The more you thought about it, Nina wasn’t wrong, if you weren’t so enamoured by Sirius, you might have fallen for Remus instead. 
“Nevermind,” she said as she discovered you weren’t saying anything, “Want me to walk you back to your dorm?” 
You smiled “That’s so gentleman-y of you Nina,” you told her with a smile “But I’m gonna stop by the library on the way, it’s better for you to stay here, or you might be returning after curfew.” 
“The library?” She asked, puzzled “What for?” 
“I’ve been looking for a book,” you told her with a smile “for a little investigation I want to do on Magical Creatures.” Nina nodded, and pulled you into a hug before the two separated, she stayed in her common room as you walked towards the library. 
When you arrived, the doors were closed and you carefully sneaked inside, not wanting to disturb anybody. You were pretty sure no-one had spotted you, cause even when it was past curfew, and you were still roaming the halls of the library quietly, attempting to find a book, you realized no-one had asked you to leave, the librarian seemed to have left too. 
“You’ll have trouble for sneaking about at this time,” you heard a portrait say disdainfully. 
“I’m not sneaking about,” you responded “It’s not my fault no one was looking when I entered.” The portrait raised an eyebrow at you, as if he thought what you were saying was bull. You stared at the old wizard for a second, narrowing your eyes and turned your back on him, still trying to find the book. As you scanned through the old bookshelves, you finally spotted a book that could be useful, “Dark creatures and the things that make them tick'' you were just about to grab it, when you heard a very low whisper from a couple of bookshelves behind. 
“Merde…fuck-fuck.” You recognized that voice. You would recognize it anywhere. It’s Sirius. 
You looked around, trying to find him, but no matter where you looked, there seemed to be no-one there. Since you had to move further into the library, to try to spot the boy, you decided to put a disillusionment charm on yourself, so you could walk more freely, and perhaps sneak up on him. 
You walked through the lines of shelfs, quietly so you didn’t make much noise, but no matter how hard you looked, Sirius was nowhere to be found. Just when you started to think you had imagined it, and started walking back to get the Dark Creature’s book you’d found, you heard the creaking of a door. You turned around and saw how the door of the restricted section was being opened, by itself. 
Finally it downed you, James’ invisibility cloak, Sirius must have it, you thought before walking up behind him. Or, at least behind where you assumed he was. Eventually you saw his wand come out of the cloak, along with his delicate but strong looking hand. You smiled, almost wanting to applaud yourself for recognizing your boyfriend with a simple “merde.” 
You sneaked up on him, sharply placing your hands over his shoulders, He turned sharply, the cloak falling on the floor before he pushed you against one of the bookshelves. He narrowed his eyes, and then he drew in a breath “Mon Coeur?” he asked, visibly confused. Truth be told, he had smelled you earlier, but he assumed it was just that your scent had stuck to his own clothes from when you were sitting together in the common room earlier that day. 
Finally you vanished the disillusionment charm and smiled “Surprise,” you whispered, he still had you pinned against the wall, hand bunching up your uniform threateningly, you bit your lip “I had no idea you liked it rough, Puppy,” you joked, a playful smile on your lips, as you eyed the way he was holding you. 
“Shit, sorry.” He whispered, finally letting you uniform free, you quickly straightened it, and then turned your head back to him, “What are you doing here?” he asked. 
“Came to find a book after the reading club with Nina.” 
Then you heard noise  and he quickly picked the cloak up, placing it over the two of you as he drew you a bit closer to him. “Shh, it’s Peeves!” He whispered, he probably didn’t need the two of you to stand so close together, nor did he need to place his hand over your mouth, since the two knew you were sneaking about, but he was certainly enjoying it.
And you were enjoying yourself too, especially when you slipped your tongue out of your mouth and licked the hand that was covering it. He made a disgusted expression when you did, pulling back and cleaning it off on his pants as he stared at you in disbelief. “What the hell?” He mouthed, the shadow of a diverted smile playing on his lips. 
You shrugged, with a smile placed on your own, you found his reaction really amusing. You then looked to the side, the sound was further away, far enough for you to whisper “What are you doing here?” 
“Looking for a book,” he said as he placed his hand on your shoulder, thumb brushing on your neck as he pushed your forwards lightly, motioning you to move. 
“And here I assumed you’d come for a barbecue.” 
He rolled his eyes as he chuckled “It’s for a prank, the one for the Slytherins that we talked about the other day, remember?” 
“And you got commissioned to pick the book by the boys?” 
“I was meant to come with Remus, he was feeling off, and I told them I’d come alone. I wasn’t really eager to spend a long time snuggled up against Wormy under the cloak.” 
“But you were eager to snuggle up against Remus, I see,” you teased. He chuckled again. 
He used his free hand to pull his wand out and illuminate the titles of the books as he read through them, he now stood a lot closer to you, his chest basically pressed against your back, you could feel it going up and down as he breathed. Somehow it felt different to when you sat on his lap, almost more intimate. Maybe it was the rush of sneaking about together, or maybe you were just being silly, “What are we looking for?” You asked him, turning your head to see him better, reflecting on how lucky you were a boy like that was your boyfriend. His stunning grey eyes, framed by his dark eyelashes, were scanning the bookshelves as he did. 
“It’s a book called The Compendium of Pernickety Enchantments.” He told you as he continued scanning the shelves. You nodded and did the same. But then in-between some books, further down on the shelves, you found a small tome about werewolves. You had to take it. But you obviously couldn’t do it while Sirius was still there, or at least not while he was paying attention. 
You had to think of something, a distraction, but one that wouldn’t get the two of you caught. And then you remembered Sirius was a boy, and there was one thing that could easily distract any boy “Hey Puppy…” He hummed in response, his face awfully close to yours, his long hair brushing against your cheeks “You haven’t cashed out on those kisses that I owe you.” 
He frowned, giving you a look before turning back to the bookshelves “You’ve been too busy, haven’t you?” he responded, “with the whole trying to finish the book before the session and then the session today, on like our only bit of free time of the week” 
You arched an eyebrow at that “You jealous?”, you teased.
“Well, you should spare some more time for your boyfriend.” 
“How about I spare it now?” You said, finally turning to face him. 
“Right now!?” He questioned, eyebrows furrowed as he looked at you, confusion evident in his face, we’re in the restricted section of the library!, he thought. 
“Of course, if you don’t want to…” you said, with feign innocence and a little shrug of your shoulders. You were tempting him, and Sirius wasn’t one to resist temptation, let alone if it came from you. So he placed his hand behind your neck and pulled you towards him. You gently let your backpack fall on the floor. 
“C'est une idée terrible,” he said as he finally closed the gap between the two of you. 
“When have we ever been known for doing the most prudent thing?” you responded in between a kiss. And it was true, when you and Sirius were together it seemed like you threw caution to the wind, responsibilities be damned, fun? Pleasure? They always seemed to come first.
 Sirius now had both of his hands on your face, expertly leading the kiss, as you pulled your wand from your pocket and started using it to levitate the werewolf book towards your bag. You felt terrible as you did, distracting Sirius with a kiss to take a book from the shelves without him noticing, even if it was harmless, made you feel dirty, and not in a good way. Sirius trusted you, and here you were, hiding your knowledge from him, even if it was because you feared you’d lose a friend over it. 
When the book was safely inside the bag, you decided you’d make it up to him, and placed both hands around his neck, drawing him just a little closer to you and focusing absolutely all of your attention into the kiss. And that had you almost completely forget about the werewolf book in your bag. Sirius was kissing you hungrily, thirstily, like you were water and he’d been in the desert for days.
 You weren’t too far behind either, his lips might have been the most incredible thing to ever be created. So incredible you almost wanted to bite them. And you didn’t hold back from that either, you gently bit his lower lip as the two of you separated slightly, panting for air. 
“Did you just?” He whispered, but you ignored it, and went to place soft, wet kisses over his sharp jawline before using one of your hands to pull his hair out of the way and trail kisses all the way to his neck. 
Sirius Black smelled incredible, of pine trees, musk and a tinge of leather, probably from the leather jacket he often wore, he smelled like an adventure, and you couldn’t help to be hauled by it. Sirius had lowered his hands over to your hips, and held you close as you kissed his neck, eventually you found a particularly sweet spot, and kissed away, stopping to smile as he stifled a moan. 
“Shhh…” you whispered as you continued kissing the spot. Eventually his hand found his way to your waist, tucking your shirt out of your uniform skirt before placing his hand in the warmth of your back, his cold rings causing a shiver to rush down your spine. But his touch, oh, his touch made  your skin feel like you were on fire. You placed your hands over his hair and pulled him back a little, bringing his lips back to yours. Both you and Sirius had kissed plenty since you started dating, but never like this, in fact you were certain he’d never reached for your skin the way he had today, but it felt good, and you didn’t want him to stop.  
Eventually he stopped the kiss, letting his forehead rest on yours, his hand still in the small of your back “We should stop,” he said, panting. 
“…don’t want to,” you answered, a little bratty in the way you’d said it. 
“Don’t make it harder for me Starshine,” he groaned, as he softly bumped his forehead on yours. 
You reached for a quick kiss on his lips “‘m not…” you replied, and kissed him again, now in the corner of his lip “I just–“ you kissed his cheek now “don’t want to stop kissing my beautiful boyfriend.” 
“…merde…” he said, it was taking him all the restraint in the world to stop himself from pinning you against the bookshelves again, this time with your legs around him instead, but with you being so willing, it was harder, so much harder. 
You looked at him expectantly “je m’en fous,” He whispered, and dragged the two of you onto a nearby table, easily hauling you to sit on it, you helped accommodate the invisibility cloak around the two of you, managing to set it around the table by the time he was kissing you again. You weren’t sure you’d ever felt like this before, especially when he reached his hand higher and unclasped your bra. He broke off the kiss to look at you, to make sure you were ok with it, you only brought him back to the kiss in response. 
You moved yourself to reach him better, his left hand already in your abdomen, dangerously close to your breast, when, all of the sudden a vase, that was at the end of the table, tumbled and fell to the ground, making a very loud noise in the otherwise quiet library. You broke off the kiss, pulling apart just a little and staring at each other, both alert of what may happen, over his shoulder, you managed to see a shadow, it was peeves in the distance. 
“Shit, we’ll get caught.” You whispered, turning back to look at him. 
He looked at you impassively, as if he was itching to tell you the “I told you so”. You deserved it, but he very well knew it had also been his fault. He seemed to be thinking about the possible escape plans now, but he hadn’t found the book he was looking for by the time you started snogging. 
“The book,” you whispered. 
“You find it, I’ll distract Peeves.” 
“What? No way! You’ll get caught.” 
“Aw… put a little faith in me, will you?” He told you with a smile, “Find the book, I’ll see you just outside the library.” 
You weren’t entirely convinced by his plan, but nodded, turning around to look for the book, while he got out of the cloak and used the same disillusionment charm you had used earlier. You took a deep breath, still trying to gain back composure from the kiss, and moved towards the bookshelves, scanning through the names of the tomes, trying to find The Compendium of Pernickety Enchantments. After looking through three shelves, you finally found the book, and right next to it, there was one called, The Refined Art of Mild Hexes: A Sophisticated Spellbook, so you grabbed it as well, since it looked like it could be useful. 
You scurried all the way to your backpack, which was still laying on the floor from earlier, and threw both books inside of it. Once the backpack was securely hanged over your shoulder, you scurried outside of the restricted section. 
You were already close to the door when you spotted Sirius, hiding behind a huge shelf, he was almost imperceptible, but close behind him was Peeves. Sirius didn’t see him, since he wasn’t looking towards him, but you could. 
So even if Sirius had told you he’d deal with it by himself, you weren’t about to let him get caught, you had to improvise. You kneeled behind another bookshelf, cloak still covering your frame, and pulled out a piece of parchment, scribbled a small dialogue on it, and charmed it. You used your wand to levitate it to the other side of the library and then, you popped the seal. Now there were whispers coming from the other side of the library, Peeves smiled wickedly as he heard, and started flying towards them. 
You ran towards Sirius, and covered him with the cloak quickly, he was a little startled at first, but then smiled. “That was you?” You nodded “Brilliant! It’s like you’re made for this.” He told you, and it was no lie, he was genuinely impressed with your cleverness, one more reason to the pile of why he was so smitten by you.
“Thanks,” you said, a small blush creeping up your cheeks. You looked to the side so he wouldn’t notice, he’d probably tease you mercilessly about it if he had. After a couple of seconds you took his hand in yours and did a small head gesture to indicate him it was time to move, Peeves was far away enough that you could sneak out of the library unnoticed. 
A couple of minutes later, you were out of the library and speeding through the halls under the cloak.  Sirius was the one leading the way now, he took sharp turns, taking you through stairs, doors, halls and even small passageways. He clearly knew the way by memory, and it made you wonder how many times he had sneaked about the castle like this, how many he’d do it with you from now on. 
Another sharp turn, and he pulled you into a broom’s closet. Letting the door shut quietly behind you. “What is it? Did you hear someone?” You whispered in his ear. He almost felt guilty from the shiver that your innocent whisper had sent down his spine. 
He shook his head and raised one of his eyebrows with a smirk “You said something about… wanting to continue kissing your beautiful boyfriend, didn’t you?” You looked at him with amusement, your eyes shining at his words. “Turns out he also wants to continue kissing his beautiful girlfriend…” 
You were about to ask “here?”, but then again, why would a broom closet be any less proper than the restricted section of the library. You bit your lip and let him close the gap between the two. The common room would have to wait. 
Tumblr media
Disclaimer: This story WILL NOT include knotting; I also do not mean to poke fun at anyone who reads / writes it either, this was just meant for comedic purposes, and I firmly believe you can read and enjoy whatever type of smut you like. Now if you don’t know what knotting is… google it if you’re brave? But trust me, it’s not for the faint of heart. 
Series Masterlist | The Interlude | Next Chapter
TAGLIST: @rayrlupin @callmelovergirl @warcelia @ireneop @endversewinchester @moonyunebi @smuttysluttybitch @mazzymoons @drugs-for-memes @sofiacblair @vmpir3lvr @remuslupinisbae @rabluver @willgrahamisalesbi4n @thatobsessedreader @orkwardx0  @itskailey24 @hell0-kittie @belovedmoony @blacksgarden @loving-and-dreaming @cassie-love20 @starchaser-lily @zucchini-queenie @springflwer07 @sseleniaa @cometsghost @orkwardx0 @imdoingbetternow  @sbrewer21 @remuslupinsbae @maxinehufflepuffprincess @wifiatthetrainstation @unstablereader (hi lovelies, this chapter came out on Wednesday, but for some reason the tags weren’t working, I was told by dear Lily, so sorry for the inconvenience, hope you guys enjoy <;3)
Leve a comment telling me if you wanna be tagged on Gilded Constellations
Want to support me? Like and reblog this post (reblogs are extra nice since they help me get my work to more people), also guys, I absolutely love reading your comments, so do throw them my way if you have any!
A/N: Is it me or is it geting hot in here? Next week we have the Q&A, you can send in your questions now for the long post, or save some for asks later that day, (The halloween special is coming and boy, is it going to be fun! One of my fav chapters tbh, also a tad angsty, but you'll see...) Ly, Lilly xx
Raead more Marauders Fiction
241 notes · View notes
Text
/r/relationships
My (32m) husband (30m) keeps saying he isnt gay. We've been married for five years. Help?
We met when i was working as a freelance writer. He was one of my regular readers, and he hated my writing so much that he paid me to move in with him (dont ask, it's complicated) so that he can edit my stuff. To his credit my work has gotten a lot better since then, but that also might have had to do with regular food & the lack of rent. Anyway we started making out like 3 months in. things clearly escalated and now we're married and we have 2 cats.
For like a year after I moved in he kept on saying that he was straight. Since we were having sex I kind of thought he was joking? Or that he at least stopped thinking he was straight when he introduced me as his partner to his family. He stopped bringing it up at some point anyway, and i figured it didnt matter after we got married. Only recently i brought up how he used to think he's straight and he told me HE STILL IS. How the fuck does that make any sense? Who can be straight after nearly 10 years of monogamous dicking?? I've never even heard him call a woman attractive!!! He is CONSTANTLY telling me about some new hot dudes he's seen!!
How do I convince my husband that he's probably not straight?
Edit: stop calling me fake i WISH i were joking but he is very serious about this. i asked if he thought i was attractive, and he said of course he does. i thought that was a "gotcha" moment but he said that because the protagonist of my novel is a self-insert, and that i described him as the most attractive man ever, my husband would obviously be attracted to me? because of novel protagonist logic?? i literally do not understand
Edit 2: Okay, i've tried some of the (ACTUAL) suggestions people left. I printed out pictures of "hot" people, men and women, and asked him to sort into a Hot and Not Hot pile. Most of the men were deemed Attractive and all the women (+some men) were deemed Not. i asked him what that means. i can't remember his exact logic but i think it boils down to the fact that he thinks all of his opinions are actually objective fact. i guess it's nice that he thinks I'm objectively hot. i spoke with his siblings, they all agree that he's absolutely gay, and they talked to him individually but he's still telling me he's straight.
Edit 3: i was going to ignore all those comments but you ASSHOLES won't leave it alone. YES, WE MET BECAUSE I WAS A NOVELIST AND HE HATED MY BOOK. He was NOT normal about it. i don't know what else to tell you. He's a closeted rich kid (as some of you had guessed already) and i guess he just yearned for the touch of a man so hard that i had to marry him. Whatever. it was our anniversary yesterday and he said "no homo" when he gave me flowers because i guess i was too insistent about him being gay. he was kind of joking but definitely not entirely.
Edit 4: some of you have guessed my pen name?? how??? A few others have even guessed my husband's username. Absolutely insane. I didnt even give that much info. He still says he's straight btw. Honestly i've kind of given up on changing his mind, but i did direct him to some queer websites a couple people suggested, so maybe reading more about internalized homophobia will cure him? It's actually stopped being funny and now I'm worried for his mental health, so I'm really hoping that personal stories he can actually relate to might do something.
Edit ??: you've fucking done it guys. he found this post. my sweet darling husband yelled at me for 5 minutes. those websites must've worked though, because he can easily go on for 20 minutes if he actually cared, and all the replies people left maybe helped a bit too. he actually apologized to me at the end!! can you believe that??? if you want to see him in all his glory he's the jerk with all the awards and upvotes in the comments here. you will definitely recognize him for a stephen king antagonist when you see him.
Edit 6: our cats are named Crybaby and Little Fucker 😊
1K notes · View notes
chireikiden · 3 months
Text
Might be a pretty basic take by the standards of more seasoned yuri fans, but it's my perspective as someone who's mostly read yuri in a Touhou context (though a lot of it), and exclusively manga from the Japanese fans as opposed to i.e. written fics.
Touhou yuri (using it very broadly here to describe any kind of wlw shipping present) is, across the board, in a pool of fan literature going back twenty years, remarkably good at taking the lesbian part for granted. Not counting outright het content or works that simply don't bring it up, I have only very vague memories of a character's lesbian orientation being either denied or even brought to question (even in the cliche "But we're both girls!" manner, which even as a somewhat dead horse trope you might still expect to see, given plenty of doujin writing isn't exactly highbrow). You might be able to read "Does she like girls?" between the lines in the usual question of "Does she like me?" if you really want to, but the way it's still basically treated as default is fun to me. There's a reason Touhou basically has honorary yuri status on e.g. Dynasty Reader, even the stories with effectively zero shipping in them. You might not notice if you haven't browsed the site, but it's literally nothing but yuri + Touhou. We even got upload rights just so we could post more Touhou.
(Of course, Touhou being yuri city is part of the reason any hint of straight romance gets a really strong kneejerk reaction from people, including me. But that's also because the lack of usable male characters makes that shipping inherently hamfisted, up to and including literally making up cardboard villager OCs. Basically the only positive example I can remember off the top of my head is Hisona's An Old Poem for the Cuckoo Bird depicting Youki with a 1000-year-old mostly joking crush on Nue, which after some chin-scratching I decided I liked alright. And Hisona of course has plenty of yuri cred to cover for it.)
But although taken for granted, most Touhou yuri is one or more of: a.) On a "blushing maidens thinking about holding hands" level in its approach to romance, b.) Only depicting the starting moments of a relationship, at best - usually just pining, c.) Only off-handedly teasing, basically to acknowledge the ship is there, d.) Showing a very close and loving relationship but leaving the romance part subtextual, even if thinly veiled.
While those are all fine - some of my favorite artists like e.g. Ashiyama undeniably fall under d.) - it means that artists who depict more established couples, and couples that get depicted as more established, stand out. I love when a story is very blunt about two characters, whether the focus is actually on them or not, already being an item. Be it due to a difference in target demographic or what, many of these works seem to have a slight lean towards being more raunchy/horny even when not outright R-18, but I don't actually mind that too much when it does happen - as long as they're fun and raunchy, as opposed to only raunchy or, god forbid, unfun in raunchy ways.
I like how Moyazou depicts Mokou and Keine as basically-married. I like how Atoki depicts YuuParu or SakiYachi after drawing like twenty books of them (each). I like when Kawayabug depicts Tojiko as Miko's beleaguered wife. But the example of the day is obviously risui (of Ladies of Scarlet Devil Mansion), who you might have guessed inspired this ramble. Funnily enough, in LoSDM she seems to have walked back Meiling and Sakuya's relationship coincidentally at the same time she toned down the content to fit SCoOW's guidelines, compared to her usual works that have MeiSaku at a much more established and mutual stage.
But the point stands that it's really fun to see LoSDM almost rub it in your face from the very start - from Meiling's dream to every other conversation she has - that everyone in it is unapologetically and openly lesbian, assumes everyone else to be a lesbian, and doesn't hesitate to talk about it like a (romcom idiot) adult.
Also, risui draw lady very good
147 notes · View notes
obae-me · 1 year
Note
tacking onto what castlelibrarykeeper said - I have also done something like that, I cut my elbow open in 2nd or 4th grade and didn't notice until people nearby started freaking out... never knew how badly I wanted to read about an MC doing this
We're all just out here doing similar things, huh? Oh, I had another instance when I was like 12 where I was riding a four wheeler while someone else was driving it, and this stupid teen at the handles decided to drive us in-between/through these dead hedges, and I remember watching his body push this thin branch forward, and then it swung back and hit me in the face. I didn't feel it much till I went back inside the house and someone else had to tell me I was bleeding.
Guess it's not that uncommon, since humans can be surprisingly fragile.
…I want to have MC do this too...darn it, guess I gotta write it out or I won't be satisfied!
Just a little mini fic won't hurt... Jokes on me, it's a bit more than just a 'mini' fic.
Dumb Injuries
TW: Blood and Injury
--
It was bad enough being a human in general. Every demon and angel they'd come to know already felt as if they might break from the smallest of things. So, of course, the human felt a constant need to reassure them that they were not a Porcelain Doll. Although, making sure they stayed safe down here was harder than they expected. Who knew Devildom wind storms could literally pick them up and blow them away? Having a demon simply run into their shoulder in the hallway nearly left them with a bruise for days. That's not even to mention the curses that could be sitting around any and every corner.
Plus...human clumsiness is a given. Mistakes were bound to happen. Who knew a little blood would cause such an uproar, though?
It had been a silly thing, really, which wounded their pride more than anything. They were simply walking up the stairs to the second floor of the House of Lamentation, texting while they were doing so. Next thing you know, the tip of their shoe clipped the edge of the stair as they were heading up, gravity doing the rest. They hardly processed what had happened, getting up, looking around themselves, hoping to whatever higher power existed in this world that no one had seen them just absolutely eat it-- in other words, slam their face into the stairs.
Heart pounding, absolutely mortified that they'd just done that, they rushed the rest of the way up the steps with their hand firmly on the guide-rail. It does exist to prevent such things, after all. They shook their head as soon as they reached the upper landing, sighing in relief that it seemed they got away from their blunder scot-free. Jeez, if any one of the brothers had seen them do that, they'd never hear the end of it. They padded down the hallway, a little grin on their face as they rounded the corner. Good thing no one--
A deafening screech rang through the halls. MC hardly even had the time to turn their head in the direction the screech came from before two hands grabbed them by the shoulders. "What happened?" Asmo looked frantic, like he was about to burst into tears. MC stared at him curiously, opening their mouth to question him. Before they could get their words out, Asmo shouted again. "Someone come help!"
Two doors opened at the same time. Satan exited his room first, lips formed into an annoyed scowl while his eyes still scanned over the book in his hand. Seems he didn't take Asmo's plea too seriously. "What are you screaming about now?" After he finished the page he was on, he shut the book with a brisk and satisfying smack. The moment his gaze lifted, his eyes widened. The book that was in his hand clattered to the floor, the pages fluttering. He nearly shoved Asmo out of the way just to get to them, cupping his hand around their chin. "What did this?!"
"I don't know!" Asmo released his grasp on their shoulders, covering his mouth with both hands in terror. "What do we do?!"
Going back to the second door that had opened, Levi had come out rather irritated, headphones over his head with one of the cushions pushed back to free one ear. He had simply tilted his head out of the doorway, ready to tell his brothers to be quiet. He was trying to concentrate on his games! Then, he too fell victim to the calamity. "I-I-I-I," he stuttered, taking a moment to catch his words, swaying on his own feet, like he was about to faint. "I'll go get Lucifer!" Then he dashed away.
"I don't--" MC had tried to say, confused at what exactly was happening.
"Shh." They were shushed by Satan. "Don't use up your energy. It'll be alright...You'll be okay." 
At this point, MC felt like they must've been being pranked or something, right? 
The noise brought a few more people out into the halls, Mammon's bright-white hair bobbing from around the corner. "Oi, oi, oi! What's everyone freaking out--" He caught the sight of them and the life seemed to drain from his eyes. In a flash, both Asmo and Satan were thrust aside, his hands holding the side of MC’s face. "What the hell happened?!"
That had been enough. MC pulled themselves away from Mammon, glaring at the brothers around them. "Will you guys quit it?! Seriously? What are you all even talking about?"
Saying that only seemed to make the brothers look even more concerned, each of them frozen in place, stunned, like they had seen a ghost. "MC, darling," Asmo finally spoke up. "You're bleeding."
“You mean to tell me you didn’t even notice?!” Mammon’s jaw was slightly open.
"Huh?" The human went to raise an eyebrow, only for them to be met with a sharp pain when they tried. They glanced down to Mammon's hands, the side of one of his palms lined with a bright red liquid. No...they couldn't be...They raised a few fingers to touch a spot on their forehead that felt a little bit sore. Soon enough, they were rubbing away crimson from their fingertips.
Well...this was a problem.
The twins were next to join the group, Beel genuinely concerned at the sound of all his brother's frantic voices. Belphie, however, was not as worried. In fact, he probably wouldn't've even joined at all were he not being carried by his twin. "Is everyone okay?" Beel wondered, settling Belphie down on his own two feet. "We heard yelling."
"Everything is not okay!" Asmo's shrill tone almost made MC's head spin...or maybe that was finally the pain starting to settle in. "Just look at the state MC is in!"
Surprisingly enough, Belphie was the one to spring to action, looking absolutely furious at his other siblings. It was pretty terrifying. "Why are they still standing?! Make them sit down!" He nearly got into a sparring match with Mammon, pushing the second-born away so he could support MC by their side, guiding them down to the floor.
“Be gentle with ‘em!” 
“I am!” 
“Will they be okay?” 
“What if they go into shock?” 
“Someone do something!” 
“You’re not doing anything either!” 
Too many voices cluttered MC’s mind. "I really don't think all of this is neces--"
"What have you all gotten yourselves into now?" An exhausted voice announced itself before the person dragged himself into view. He had his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed as if he were mentally preparing himself for the disaster before he laid his eyes on it. Levi came stumbling behind his older brother, a stuttering mess, presumably unable to explain himself to Lucifer clearly. MC thought that maybe, maybe the most logical one in the family would be immune to such panic. All hopes of that were dashed as he audibly gasped as soon as he rested his eyes over them. At the very least, he was the order to the chaos. "Mammon, grab the first-aid kit we keep in their room. Satan, get a clean rag with warm water. Beel, help me carry them to my room. Now." 
Everyone who was given a mission ran off without another word, Beel coming over to scoop the human up into his arms. It was all very disorienting. All MC could do at the moment was blink as they were rushed into Lucifer's bedroom, settled onto his couch. Lucifer lagged behind, coming into the room a few moments later, shaking the last bit of moisture off his freshly washed hands. With a shrug of his shoulders, he let his coat fall to the floor, striding to MC at a brisk pace, thumb and finger settled over their chin to turn their head in his direction. Those of the brothers who weren't given a task hovered nervously behind the eldest, Belphie coming over to sit at their feet, dangerously close to crawling into their lap.
Satan and Mammon nearly crashed into each other, arriving at the bedroom at the same time. Mammon squeezed through first, opening the first-aid-kit as he kneeled beside the couch. He sounded quite breathless as he spoke. "What do we need?"
"We need to stop the bleeding, then we can clean it," Lucifer announced, telling Mammon what to grab to hand to him so he could treat their wound.
"Is it really that serious?" It was the first question MC was able to fully ask without being cut off. However, instead of a verbal answer, they figured out for themselves how bad the wound was as soon as Lucifer began treating it, the pain making itself known in pounding droves. They winced, trying to tug their head away from him, but stuck in his grasp. Satan leaned over the huddle of brothers, using the rag to clean up the blood that had dripped down their face.
"Whatever in the world happened?" Lucifer asked, his frown growing ever deeper every time the human hissed in pain.
A different kind of heat flooded MC's body, one of humiliation rather than agony. "I don't know," they lied, immediately getting seven different pairs of eyes squinting at them suspiciously.
"Was it a curse?" Satan wondered.
"A creature?!" Asmo suggested.
"A- A criminal?!" Levi assumed.
Mammon clenched his hands into fists, a dark aura manifesting itself at Levi's suggestion. "If this was because of some other demon... If I find out who did this to ya, I'll go and--"
MC really had to stop this before it went any further. "It wasn't any of those!"
Belphie crawled up to them further, resting against their knees. He suddenly pointed directly at them, staring straight into their soul. "I bet they did something dumb again. Fall out of bed?"
Beel nodded, which only added insult to the literal injury. "Cut yourself trying to cook?"
"No! How would I even hurt my forehead that way?!" MC tried to sit up straight, only to be pushed back down by Lucifer. Their cheeks burnt with frustration. They rolled their eyes, their gaze stuck on the ceiling as to not look at any of them directly. "I trpedonhestrs," they muttered, jumbling their phrase into something nonsensical.
"Pardon?" Lucifer lowered his hands from their face the bleeding having stopped, MC suddenly gasping in pain as their entire body prickled as he began to disinfect the wound.
MC gritted their teeth for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I just tripped on the stairs, okay?!"
The room went silent. Much too silent. Like all seven of the demons stopped breathing all at the same time. MC found the courage to glance at all of them, a strange shadow seemingly covering all their faces. Finally, Mammon was the one to speak first, his usual energetic voice a frighteningly cold monotone. "You hurt yourself that badly...trippin’ on the stairs?"
MC laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, but it’s okay! Stuff like this happens to humans all the time! Nothing to worry about! Just one of those dumb accidents, you know? It could’ve been worse!” 
That was probably...the worst thing they could’ve said. 
Asmo rested a hand over his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. “Happens...all the time?” 
Levi hadn’t blinked in a long time. “C-could’ve been- been...worse?” 
"Wait..." Satan turned his head in increments so slowly he appeared to be glitching. "I think...I've read that some humans can actually die if they fall down the stairs."
Oh no...Dear God no...MC wasn’t going to be able to go anywhere by themselves for the next few days, weren't they?...
598 notes · View notes
Text
We're Not in CW Anymore - 3
Chapter 1 Chapter 2
The reader gets blasted into another universe - one where Sam and Dean Winchester are real people, real hunters, and really fucked up. To her surprise (or horror), Dean has been getting glimpses of her life in his dreams and is completely enamored with her. It's nothing like the cable-friendly CW show that she knows and loves.
Reader x Dean Winchester
Warnings: language, violence
Tumblr media
Chapter 3: The Bunker
The Impala pulled up to the bunker, the car still awkwardly silent. Dean opened the door for you and offered a small smile as you climbed out of the backseat. It was almost comforting. Almost. You couldn’t shake the idea of him watching you undress or take a shit. God knows what he saw. And until you figure out what exactly he’s witnessed, you’re going to keep your guard up.
Sam led you down the corridors of the bunker, which did actually look a lot like the show. Dean followed behind you, making you a little more uneasy. You were suddenly very aware of how tall they are compared to how short you are. Sam and Dean towered over you. They also walked too damn fast for your little legs. Finally you were standing in the main room of the bunker. Unlike the show, the room was bustling with people. There were a couple gathered around a book, a few staring at laptop screens quietly, and a handful typing away on their keyboards. You recognized one of them – Charlie. She had on headphones and was bobbing her head to the beat no one else could hear.
“Right, let’s ask James where to start,” Sam said after clearing his throat. He went over and talked to one of the men reading off his laptop. You could see them talking, Sam pointing over to you. You blushed heavily. Trying to ignore Dean staring at you again, you took a moment to look around the room. You were pleased to see a pretty good mix of people – not everyone was a white man. They were all dressed in business casual, mostly button-ups. A stark contrast to Sam and Dean’s flannel and jeans. You remembered their grandfather thought of hunters as less than – do these Men of Letters feel the same?
“Thanks, man,” Sam said to James before walking back towards you. He shot Dean a look, probably for staring again. “So, he gave me a few books to start off, nothing really concrete. I guess we won’t find out until we start digging.” Sam gestured for you to take a seat at a table in the back of the room. “Be right back,” he said.
Dean stood for a moment, contemplating if he should sit next to you or across. He decided to sit next to you, maybe he won’t be as tempted to stare. He couldn’t help it – he watched you for months, and he couldn’t help but fall for you a little. You were funny, had great taste in music, and killer curves. He liked the way you talked to yourself and sang in the shower. It’s only natural he developed a crush on you. And now he was in such close proximity to you. He wanted to touch you, just to make sure it was really true. You were here, in his bunker, in real life. Not only that, but you were supposedly soulmates. It made his heart flutter a little, though he’d never admit it.
“Do you think Gabriel was telling the truth?” you blurted, breaking Dean’s train of thought.
“Which part?” he asked.
“You know which part. The soulmates part. That’s crazy, right? Soulmates aren’t real.”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t have time to – by the time he opened his mouth, Sam slammed down several books onto the table. “Alright, everyone pick one and let’s get to work.” This was going to be a long night.
After several hours of reading the oldest book you’ve ever seen, you were ready to call it a night. The number of people in the main room of the bunker was dwindling, just like your patience. “What exactly are we trying to accomplish?” you asked, stretching with a heavy sigh. You didn’t see the point in researching soulmates and alternate universes. It’s not going to change anything. Unless they could get you back home.
“If Gabriel worked hard enough to transport you to a whole different universe, surely it was for a good reason. There has to be some sort of explanation besides you and Dean being soulmates,” Sam said, not even looking up from his book. You stole a glance at Dean, who met your gaze. Your eyes silently begged him to put an end to this reading torture and suggest we go to bed. As if he could read your mind, he cleared his throat. “I don’t know man, I think we should call it a night. It’s been a long ass day.” Thankfully Sam agreed.
“Where am I sleeping?” you asked. Surely there was a spare room in here somewhere. “Let me find an empty room. I think there’s one not too far from our rooms,” Dean responded. You were ready to have some time to yourself to process everything that’s happened today. Especially the whole soulmate thing. That was going to take some getting used to. Dean led you to his bedroom, inviting you to sit on the bed while he searched for a room you could use. His room was decorated with various guns hanging on the wall. A picture of him and his mom sat on his nightstand. You walked over and picked up the photo. Dean was a cute kid, and Mary was beautiful. They looked genuinely happy. It was a nice picture.
“Good news and bad news. There IS a spare bedroom, but it’s filled to the brim with boxes of old files. I’m not even sure there’s a bed underneath all that crap.” Dean’s voice made you jump. You were too focused on the photo to hear him coming. You blushed as you set the picture back down – he caught you snooping around his stuff. “Then where the hell do I sleep?” you asked. This is a nightmare.
“How about you take the bed and I take the floor?” Dean suggested.
“I’m not going to make you sleep on the floor in your own room. YOU take the bed, and I’LL take the floor,” you responded.
“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor after traveling dimensions. Take the damn bed.”
“You’re stubborn as fuck,” you sighed. “Okay, we’re both adults, right? We can share a queen bed without being dramatic about it. Just no funny business, or I’ll kick you in the balls.”
He chuckled. “No funny business. I pinky promise,” he said, holding out his pinky finger to you. You took it in yours and immediately felt sparks fly. You both stared at your hands for a moment, half expecting literal sparks coming off your fingers. The electricity you felt off his single digit was intoxicating. You wondered what would happen if you did more than touch pinkies.
He cleared his throat, letting go of your finger quickly. “I could find something for you to wear to bed, get out of those jeans. I doubt you’ll want to sleep in them,” he said as he started rummaging around his dresser. He pulled out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. “Bathroom’s around the corner. I think Sam set out a toothbrush and whatnot for you already.” You changed quickly, anxious to get the whole crawling into bed part over. That would be the most awkward part, you told yourself.
You walked back into the room, the sweatpants going inches past your ankles like little socks. Dean was matching you with gray sweats and a black t-shirt. You gawked a little. The shirt was tight enough for you to get a peek of the wall of muscle underneath. His arms were toned and muscular. One was covered in tattoos, the other in various scars from fighting monsters all his life. I guess that is more realistic, you thought. The idea of him getting all those scars made you sad, nonetheless. “Alright which side do you want?” he asked. You shrugged and picked the left, crawling under the covers. You stayed as close to the edge of the bed as possible. Dean did the exact same thing, leaving a large space in between you two. You prayed you’d fall asleep quickly, feeling uncomfortable in this awkward situation. Sharing a bed with a complete stranger. God, please don’t let him be a creep.
Chapter 4
Tags 💛
@5tud10-54r4h  @deans-spinster-witch
108 notes · View notes
wutheringmights · 12 days
Text
I finished rereading The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce a couple of days back. I already talked about the first book in a post that garnered more attention than it deserved. I guess we were all happily reminiscing about the menstruation scenes together, or Tortall fans are so starved for content they (we) will reblog anything.(Understandable. I too am starved for a thriving Tortall fandom.)
I'm too lazy to make separate posts about each book, so we're just going to do a mega post covering the second, third, and fourth book.
Unlike last time, I will be giving a little criticism to this series. I still love it endlessly, but there were a few things about the prose I thought was interesting that I want to talk about a bit.
So, without further ado~
In the Hand of the Goddess
I think this one is my favorite one, despite how rushed the plot it. It contains all of my favorite plot points, like awkward romances with George and Jon, attending knight lessons, and a little summer war. Fun stuff.
But it definitely feels rushed. I really wish someone told Pierce to make this a 12 book series, expanding on Alanna's years at the castle. It would have gone so far to better develop the romances and the friendships in these books.
I am fascinated by what Pierce chose to skim over. Characters would die or kiss for the first time off screen, with the prose resuming with Alanna reacting to it. It demonstrates an understanding of character work that I personally adore and try to emulate in my own writing-- the real bones of a story being in how characters respond to fantastic events as opposed to the fantastic events themselves.
Also, the whole veil spell Roger cast in objectively stupid, and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible. You're telling me that Roger used magic to make Alanna lose interest in doing anything about the obviously evil things he was doing? That's fucking hilarious. You know an editor came back to Pierce and asked her to come up with a reason why Alanna wasn't just going to spring into action at the first sign of Roger trying to kill her, only for Pierce to come up with this. It's so silly. I love it.
Woman Who Rides Like A Man
Did this book age poorly? Yes, but not as badly as I remembered. That's not a stirring defense, and it's really not meant to be.
The Bahzir are a mess of Orientalism, and Pierce definitely deserves criticism for not only the way she wrote them but for the ways in which she frames their cultural practices as something that needs to be fixed. Having Alanna want to force them to change their culture to suit her beliefs is not a great look for both the character and the writer. And that's not even getting into the whole assimilation plotline.
But I did enjoy Pierce's attempts to expand on the definition of womanhood, especially as a part of Alanna learning to embrace femininity. There is this running thread in these last two books of Alanna learning about all the different ways to be a woman and choosing for herself what her gender means to her. It's not done particularly well, and anyone looking for a revolutionary examination of gender roles and identity is going to be sorely disappointed. But there's an attempt here that I can't help but appreciate.
This book is also where Pierce starts to slow the plot down, which lends it to having the most reasonable pacing out of the bunch. That being said, it's also the book where the lack of development for a bunch of the side characters start to hurt. I really wish Gary or Raoul joined Alanna in the desert. Raoul gets his moment in the sun with the Protector of the Small books, but Gary remains largely forgettable. In fact, I spent this entire read-through convinced this man dies at the end of the last book, if only because I can't remember where he appears in any of the other books.
Lioness Rampant
This book somehow has the improved pacing of the third book while still feeling rushed. The quest for the Dominion Jewel really should have been it's own book, if only to give Thayet and Buri more room for development. Thayet in particular really needs her moment to shine, especially when she continues to be an important character in the other series.
But do you know who did get a lot of screen time? Liam.
Remembered shit about this guy before going into this book. I could only vaguely recalled disliking him as a kid, but not as much as I venomously hated Jon. (Speaking of which-- I love the way this man is realistically shitty. Him getting dumped by Alanna is always my favorite scene.) But Liam? Fuck that guy. Holy shit. I give full applause to Pierce for portraying the important milestones every girl goes through growing up, which includes having a situationship that is so shitty that it becomes essential character development.
Roger's return feels very... cheesy? I think Alex should have stepped up to be the final villain on the story. Unlike Roger, Alex was Alanna's friend. They have history. The betrayal would have imbued that final fight with so many more emotions than it ultimately had. I also would have liked Alanna to have at least meaningfully talked to Alex sometime before the climax.
Honestly, it's impressive how reactive Alanna is as a character in the last half of the book. She doesn't seek out how to stop Roger's plan, or fix Thom, or anything. Other characters make plans and she just... waits for something to go wrong.
That being said, by virtue of Alanna's relationships with George, Liam, and Jon all happening sometime in this plot, this book becomes a good place to look to get the full berth of how Pierce handles romances. Which, I love her approach. The romances are never over the top or, for lack of a better word, too romantic. It's very down to earth, with characters dating, marrying, or breaking up for realistic reasons.
Jon and Alanna were friends who broke up because they had different life plans. Liam and Alanna broke up for having fundamentally different values. As much as I bitch about how shitty Jon and Liam are, they're not cartoonishly evil. They're just a little shitty the way most of your exes will be. Jon and Liam are men could find love with someone else. They just aren't suited for Alanna.
Meanwhile, the most romantic things George does are wait for her and be supportive. He doesn't fight or get territorial. He makes his feelings clear, then waits for Alanna's cues. Alanna definitely loves him, but she ends up with him in the end because their lifestyles and core beliefs meld together. There's no grand romantic gesture or whirlwind affairs. They are just a good pair.
I have read stories with far heavier focuses on romance, and none of those couples feel as perfect as Alanna and George. Those stories prioritize all the gooey moments over showing why the main couple should get together. For how little romantic interactions they have, you believe these two could have a successful marriage. Perfect stuff.
---
Over all, I really enjoyed rereading these books. For all my griping, I still love the story. I love Alanna. She's a character who is fundamental to my soul. No matter where I am in life, I will always want to open these books and find her again, to walk back into Tortall and join her on her quest to be a lady knight.
My copies of the series come with forewards from a previous edition. In one of them, Pierce wrote that this series started off as an adult fantasy story that was much darker and edgier. I need to know what that story looks like, what happened in it. Pierce can claim as she wants that she hardly remembers what it looks like, but I refuse to believe that. Release the unedited first draft, Pierce. I am begging you.
53 notes · View notes
highladyjane · 21 days
Note
While we're waiting for the announcement, what's your guess for the title of the next acotar book?
Lol, you sneaky nonnie! I've seen this Ask all over my dash today yestereve (I fell asleep writing my response to this)😆 Thank you for letting me join in on the fun!
I've actually had a theory about this hiding somewhere in my drafts for a couple of months now, but I've been too lazy to dig into it because 1. Structured writing, and therefore theories, is not my forte 2. I'm a perfectionist but my mind's messy - so it's all a bit messy, 3. so I might sound like a loony... 4. and I'm too insecure about my thoughts at times to even post about what goes through it 😅
But since you Ask'd... Here's a "shorter" version of that draft, at least:
My theory is that Elain's book will have something to do with ✨️Vines✨️.
Like... A Court of ✨️🌿Golden Vines🌿✨️(which I'm leaning the most towards), ACO Twining Vines, ACO Tangled Vines, ACO Blooming Vines, ACO Shadows and Vines... etc. I'm still trying to figure out where to lay my theory 😅🤣
It may sound very Elucien or even Tamlain, but ✨️Vines✨️ are described as "a plant whose stem requires support and which climbs by tendrils or twining or creeps along the ground" which, if you read or search through the books, also hints and applies to the movement of Azriel's shadows in many instances... @wingedblooms absolutely brilliant post that I quite recently came upon, especially supports the 'Twining'... So I think it's the perfect title to confuse people about her endgame 😜
Anyways, to back up my guess/theory...
Elain's scent is of Jasmine (and Honey), which seems to be the bloom of the Night Court 👀, grows as climbing shrubs or ✨️vines✨️. But I'm feeling specifically strongly for the ✨Vines✨ because
Tumblr media
Aaaaand because:
1. Ivy is a ✨vine✨ and Sarah has mentioned it in relation to Elain's book in an interview presented at the back of ACOFAS.
2. Nesta's drawer had flames🔥. Elain had...
Tumblr media
🌿✨Twining Vines of flowers✨🌿
We often see the beautiful petals (Elain's softness & beauty), but we don't think about the strength, resilience, and foundation of the vines underneath and........ 👇
3. ✨️Vines✨️ symbolise:
Strength & hope & resilience = Elain's quiet strength.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Determination = Elain has shown determination to help in ways she can, but is yet to be given the chance to...
Tumblr media Tumblr media
She also has shown a determined disregard and opposition to having a mate...
Tumblr media
Connection = Goes well along with my guess on "Golden" or "Twining" Vines which are often used as adjectives in relation to bonds, threads, and even spells.
Also, Elain is an Archeron sister, Cauldron-blessed, and a Seer - connected to basically every plot and possible subplots in the books (The Cauldron ➡️ Ramiel in Illyria ➡️ Made Objects & People ➡️ The Middle & The Prison/Dusk Court ➡️ The Dread Trove ➡️ Koschei ➡️Vassa ➡️The Human Queens etc.🔁); not just for who she is and her Cauldron-given gifts and abilities, but also possibly through her LIs and family. She's the one sister left unexplored and it all leads back to her. She's basically at the beginning (She's the first sister mentioned by Feyre at the beginning of ACOTAR) and in the end (She's the last sister mentioned by Nesta at the end of ACOSF) of everything. So I don't know if that supports her book being next or last...
Life = the meaning of which also applies to her scent of Honey and "Golden" -the colour of (sun)light, honey, her eyes, her hair.
Tumblr media
3. ✨️Vines✨️ are also mentioned/connected to the earthen powers described in CC3 that Sathia & Tristan Flynn + Bryce have, which I believe many has already theorised Elain to also have... I quite like those theories (can't remember exactly where I read them as of rn) and would like to believe that it's something the Cauldron has blessed her with since she's associated with gardening and life...
Tumblr media
I also read somewhere in a biblical text (which I wasn't too keen to delve into tbh, so don't trust my word for it, but it's Googlable) where ✨️Golden Vine✨️was associated with Life, Rebirth, and Free Will... But if Elain turns out to be the next Messiah/Saviour/Prophet of Prythian, then it's quite perfect 🤷🏻‍♀️
So... that's sort of my take so far 🫣 Hope it makes sense to you, nonnie 😅
What's yours?
34 notes · View notes
hamliet · 8 months
Note
So, Harry Potter ask here:
This one might sound a bit controversial to comment on, I hope it doesn't bother you. What is your opinion about the narrative redeeming Snape, a former Death Eater (the blood supremacists guys), just because of his guilt and love for Harry’s mother. I see a lot of discussions on this topic (Snape himself is already a controversial character, so I guess it's no surprise there are so many discussions around him), remembering you I got curious to know what your thoughts on this subject.
No worries!
I see Snape as a character who is far and away the most complex character of Harry Potter. Now, HP's a fairy tale in principle, so most of its characters are not overly complex. But Snape is (and so is Dumbledore). But I think some people can have trouble processing complex characters inside fairly straightfoward, simple stories, which isn't necessarily the fault of the story.
While She Who Must Not Be Named has had a lot of "..." takes to her own works (and horrid takes elsewise), I do think she's not wrong about her statement on Snape: that he was a hero, and he was a bully, both at the same time. He just was. There's no excusing his treatment of his students. His heroism and sacrifice without any guarantee that he would be remembered as anything other than a traitor was brave.
So, not only is Snape complex, but he embodies the old adage "hurting people hurt people." His childhood is also extremely hard to read about--it sounds agonizing. Snape does grow up to bully others because he was himself bullied horribly--not just by his peers, but at home, where his father abused both him and his mother.
Another potential stumbling block for Snape's "redemption" is that it gets to the heart of what a redemption is. Is it actually a change in character? Or is it a change in how the reader perceives the character? Because technically, in universe, Snape's been redeemed since before Harry was born. It's just that our reactions to him change after the reveal in the last book. And, he was still hurting people while being a hero. (Antihero?) So, how should we feel about him?
I'm going to say that's exactly the question we're supposed to be asking, actually.
And to determine what asking that question gets us, let's look at Snape as a foil to other characters. Snape is a very good foil for Dumbledore, Harry, and Voldemort. Actually, these four all foil each other quite a bit, and it's in their foilings that we come to an understanding of the story's themes.
Like Dumbledore, Snape is somewhat morally gray. We're meant to ask the complicated questions at the end of the last book, which was all about wrestling with the legacy of heroes who turned out to be very flawed. Snape is cruel to Harry, but is ultimately determined to keep him alive no matter what because that is what Lily would have wanted. Dumbledore is loving and a good mentor to Harry, but does all of this while knowing that Harry would have to die in the end. Snape even calls Dumbledore out on this. Dumbledore also allows Harry to stay in two abusive situations--the Dursleys and Snape--for the ultimate benefit of protecting him... so he can eventually sacrifice himself.
If someone is horrible to you but ultimately determined to keep you alive no matter what, are they a worse person to you than someone who is nice to you and believes you must die, even if they are devastated by this?
This is why I really roll my eyes at people not understanding the purpose of "Albus Severus Potter" at the end. It's so dismissed and derided, but it's narratively perfect. (Especially in! A! Fairy tale!)
The names aren't about Harry and how he feels about these men. They are names that are significant symbolically for showing how Harry has reconciled these two complicated legacies, and will keep reconciling with them because their legacies are literally alive and living on (and the weight of having legacies and the question of whether you're seen as yourself is exactly what The Cursed Child explores.)
In the end, both Snape and Dumbledore achieved their goals: Harry is alive, and he died to vanquish Voldemort. All is well. Their legacies live on in a literal new life, who gets to decide for himself what his own legacy will be in TCC. Meaning, even if Harry acknowledges their flaws, he chooses to appreciate their lives. Instead of being kept in the dark, ignorant about his endgame and ignorant of his mother's history, he sees, and he gets to determine how he feels about it all. It's empowerment, not capitulation. It's maturity, embodying the macrocosm (appreciating the big picture) in the microcosm (a single person). (Also, yes, Dumbledore's "the greater good" struggles with Gindelwald tie into this idea, wherein via Snape and Dumbledore's opposite approaches/reasoning to protecting Harry, we see that the greater good vs the individual is not necessarily a dichotomy after all. So having a character literally embody both in the end is--perfect.)
Snape, Harry, and Voldemort all grew up unloved. The difference is that Harry is able to find himself surrounded by loving friends at a point. Snape is able to find one person to love. Tom Riddle isn't able to find anyone, and hence he becomes Voldemort. That shred of love inside Snape saves not just himself spiritually, but Harry physically. Because love is like that. It's the most powerful magic, after all.
As for the whole idea of showing Snape as redeemable thanks to love--I mean, listen, as someone raised in a cult, people need to realize that people inside these cults--even extremist, evil ones--need someone or something to motivate them to leave. They were a person before their joined the cult (unless you were brought up in it) and they're still a person. Giving someone ties to the outside is exactly how most of them will come to realize they have options. No, not everyone has to forgive them or be willing to extend a hand. We can't be everything to everyone. But if someone can, that doesn't mean they're excusing the inexcusable. They're just recognizing the humanity inside them. And even if no one does, the person in the cult can decide to love someone and leave. It's hopeful. It's a fairy tale, and love wins.
88 notes · View notes
darklinaforever · 26 days
Text
TG and their stupidity :
Tumblr media Tumblr media
The link for this post :
https://www.tumblr.com/princessyuue/746484212352319488/rhaenyra-choosing-to-not-have-a-relationship-with?source=share
Tumblr media
These people really don't watch the same show or read the same book as us. Or their brain has a problem.
Rhaenyra did not explicitly ask for torture, but for Aemond to be questioned more harshly, because his insult directly put his children in danger. How dare Rhaenyra protect her children ?!
And she treated Alicent like shit ? Really ? Does ignoring her at most in episode 3 mean treating her like shit ? When she literally became queen by seducing a grieving Viserys ? Rhaenyra has no right to be angry ? Serious ?! Rhaenyra literally realized that while she was confiding her insecurities to Alicent, Alicent was preparing to become queen. She has right to be angry. And again, even if she is angry in episode 3, she clearly has positive moments with Alicent all the same. Worrying about moving Alicent who is pregnant / if the journey is going well for her and smiling at her when they were out hunting talking under the aunts. I think it's okay for Rhaenyra who supposedly treats Alicent like shit. She's just cold to her ! And she has the right to do so ! Oh and if that's treating poor Alicent like shit... Alicent who publicly declares war on Rhaenyra during her wedding and who harassed Rhaenyra (treated her like shit) for 10 years, what is that ? Oh but I guess it's nothing since Rhaenyra had children out of wedlock, and lied to her about losing her virginity in episode 4 ! She deserves to be harassed ! Not as if the show (since we're talking about the show) that Rhaenyra tried to have children with Laenor but was unsuccessful and therefore turned to Harwin, a trusted man, to have them ?
Another stupid argument that Daemon is a pedophile ! (While it is Aegon II who in the book sleeps with a woman considered a child for the society of Westeros and have a subtext / and has a symbolism about pedophilia in the episode 9 of the show...)
Tumblr media
And also say that he kills people, as if we didn't know that Daemon was a gray character capable of doing bad things ? What about all the murders the Greens committed ? It does not count ? No, of course they have the right. (#irony)
And then, these people really have no knowledge of history or Fire and Blood, or do we need to rewatch the beginning of HOTD perhaps ? Dragonstone is the seat of the future heir to the throne, the heir must live there. Rhaenyra only did her duty by going to live there. (And then I remind you that in the show, Rhaenyra decides to finally move in partly because of Alicent and her harassment. But no, everything is always Rhaenyra's fault. Especially since normally, in the book Rhaenyra leaves to live sooner that's in Dragonstone from what I remember, and she doesn't run away. She just lives there because she has to. On the other hand, she settles there permanently after the event where Aemond lost his eye)
Also, the TG really aren't tired of always stating that Rhaenyra had 3 children out of wedlock, as if that were a real reason for her usurpation and problems ? Rhaenyra was still being impersonated in an old version of GRRM from Fire and Blood. Rhaenyra could have had children from her marriage that she would still have been usurped, because as the message from Fire and Blood makes clear, and the line from HOTD in episode 3, all that matters is that Rhaenyra is a woman. She could literally be Jaehaerys recussiter, she's a woman.
Anyway... the TG is really stupid.
Tumblr media
44 notes · View notes
reasonsforhope · 9 months
Note
Your blog is a literal god send for me, I’ve been feeling so depressed, pessimistic, nihilistic and cynical at the state of the world right now and my fear of if I even have a future, but your blog is absolutely what I needed right now, so I can’t thank you enough. I’m just so happy to see someone who is hopeful and positive and not pessimistic, and it makes me legit want to cry tears of joy. How are you able to stay so positive and optimistic despite everything going on?
<3 <3 <3
As for how I stay optimistic and relatively positive? Lots of effort and hard work.
I'm not naturally an optimist. I spent most of my life (and certainly my adolescence lol) being pretty angry and cynical.
It's not that I never feel depressed or despairing about the state of the world. There's fucked up shit happening, indisputably, and hey, I'm trans, it's been a rough fucking year for that. But I guess I try to focus on the difference between passing moods and baseline worldview.
Some of the main ways I moved my baseline worldview to be optimistic and hopeful:
A lot of reading and looking at data and in-depth stories. The headlines never give you enough of the story - hell, most news articles don't these days, because they're so skewed toward negative news
Especially reading/looking at good news sites (I have a masterpost of good news sites here). There are good things happening everywhere that you never hear about. Mostly, you only ever hear about the good things when there's been a huge setback, which sucks!
I'm basically not on social media. Nothing except Tumblr, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and I only ever go on FB and linkedin briefly for business. It's fantastic, can't recommend ditching social media enough
I made sure I was doing something to help (aka I started this blog. I would also volunteer but my disabilities and a lot of logistics make that complicated)
My job involves reading a couple dozen self-help books a year lol, not gonna lie that def helps
Taking a long perspective of time. It often doesn't feel like it, but statistically, this really is the best time to be alive. (Here's a fantastic essay about many of the reasons why.) People really gloss over how much most of the past kinda fucking sucked to live in. 50% of all people used to die before their 15th birthday, for basically all of history until the past 200 years!! Imagine having to live with that. Imagine all of that pain and grief literally everywhere. I'm really happy about living in modern times, actually!
That last point is esp helpful to remember for me because I'm 100% for sure on the list of "people who would've died in childbirth" pre modern medicine (and my mom would've died having me, too). It was modern times or nothing lol
The vast majority of the world has spent the past 300 to 500 years being absolutely brutalized by white people and/or the West. There's still a lot of fallout to fix and colonialism to uproot, but I genuinely can't wait to see what people and nations will achieve with sustained self-rule and significantly fewer massive atrocities
Solarpunk and hopepunk stuff
I'm gonna make a whole post about this at some point but the fact that we eliminated scarcity in the past few decades actually changes the entire fucking game for the world (literally it's not a zero sum game anymore) and for the future. We're allowed a bit of a learning curve I think
I listen to the Rent soundtrack a lot and go "well you know what being trans right now sucks but being trans at the height of the aids crisis would've been way fucking worse" lol rip
Meds! Meds. Antidepressants and antianxiety meds unfortunately don't work for everyone (yet!), but also thank fuck for meds
Progress almost always happens in slow, tiny increments, with a lot of stops and starts and setbacks. You have to always remember that there are always people fighting somewhere, and if they're stopped, there will always be more people to pick up the fight in the future
118 notes · View notes
anotherrosesthatfell · 2 months
Note
Is there any story about how Cross received the veil from Killer?
Oh yes, it's a draft but thank God you remind me of it so I finished it already- also I change Cross and Killer age gap- to make it more logical duh- 💀 I didn't count properly back then-
It have been a few days since Cross made a deal with Nightmare. He had to admit that Nightmare is a bit dumb and desperate. At least for Cross he get to walk around the castle freely.
Also he really want to meet with the Queen again. He was so in love with her beauty but unfortunately Nightmare didn't let him to talk with Killer.
"I wonder where is she...." he look around looking for a servant that could help him.
Unfortunately none of the servants want to help him and they seems to avoid talking about Killer.
Well seems like Cross have to use his skill to find- he's too dedicated-
Later he stumbled across a garden. Seems like it was hidden because he only find it because he fell off from the pond which lead him to the garden. Oddly enough his clothes is still dry.
The garden seems to be tend carefully by someone. The flowers, the fishes and kids.
"Wait children? What are they doing here-." Cross muttered to himself.
The two children are sleeping and they resemble Nightmare. Cross guessed it's Nightmare kids since he did told him he was married.
Cross decided to wake the two children so he can ask them why are they here alone.
Before he can do that, a red knife suddenly threatened his neck. Cross recognized the glove, it's Killer.
"Ah! Lady, it's me! Remember?" Cross smiles as he slowly took away the knife from Killer.
"... Oh. You the weird man who proposed to me with that flower ring." Said Killer.
"yes that's is me!" Said Cross. "Are you the one who tend this garden? It's beautiful just like you."
"be quiet, my children is sleeping." Killer took away her knife from Cross then pushed him to the side.
"Wait children-?! Oh damn are you the Queen?" realization hits Cross harder than his almost execution. "You look young to be a mother though, how old are you? I'm 23 by the way."
"Queen.... Yeah sure." Killer sighed and looked dead in the eyes. "I'm 20."
"20..? But your children..." Cross finally realized what's going on. "Oh...- sorry, I heard the king is a very evil man. I should expect something like this... ...-"
"... It's okay, it's not your fault." Said Killer. "How did you get in here? This place is.. Well a prison for me."
"A prison? So you mean you can't get out at all?" He asked.
"Yeah...- I tried and my children ended up getting hurt by him." she replied then start to picking up both Crescent and Angst from the ground. "You should go back, he will come back anytime soon. I don't want people to get hurt because of me again..."
She then enter the small cottage that's is in the garden. It's where she sleep since she hates being in the same room with Nightmare.
Cross had a deep thought for while. He went back to castle, thinking what he can do for Killer.
"hmm... I think this should work." Cross got a wonderful idea now.
The next day....
As usual Killer is tending the garden while Crescent and Angst playing with the fishes.
It was a peaceful morning until Cross came again-
"Hello my lady and princes! I have a great news!" Said Cross happily. "Buckle up because we're going out!"
Killer was startled while the children immediately hide behind Killer.
"What...?" She doesn't understand what Cross meant by that.
"Well I talked with the king. He agreed to let you out once a while so let's go! I'll bring you out for lunch." Cross explained everything to Killer.
"Ah... Mom are we really going out? Can I finally see the sun?" Asked Crescent.
"Of course kiddo! If you want to see the sun you have to go to the light kingdom though but we can go there right now if you want."
"Uwah! Mom let's go there!" Angst tugged on Killer sleeve. "Please I want to read more books too!"
"...- okay fine. Before that we have to wear disguise. I don't want to get weird stares." Said Killer.
"If people stares at you, they probably think you're beautiful you know?" Cross suddenly complimented Killer out of nowhere which got her flustered.
"Ah... Huh...?" a second later she frown. "Real funny- haha, I'll go get some scarfs."
Killer went inside the tiny cottage to get some scarfs-
"Mister, you shouldn't call my mommy pretty. She don't like being called that." Said Angst.
"really? She seems a bit happy when I called her that though. You also should call your mother beautiful, so she can know how much you loves her." Said Cross.
"I don't see the point of loving—"
Crescent quickly cut Angst off and smile nervously. "of course mister! We will always say that to mom."
A few moments later, they arrived at the sun kingdom. Crescent and Angst are wearing adorable onesie bear. Meanwhile Killer is wearing a hijab and Cross wearing a veil...
"Seriously is this necessary?" Asked Cross.
"No but it's funny to see you in that veil." Killer slightly chuckles. "Don't take it seriously, you look decent."
"Really? thanks!" Cross was happy to hear a compliment from Killer. "Oh I pickpockets some people money while you were talking. Let's use it."
"How did you..- never mind..." She chuckles. "Let's go."
It was a very happy time for them. Killer was happy to see her children get to express their childhood.
Hours passed by, Crescent and Angst fell asleep on Killer's lap.
"Here I got free cotton candy for you." Said Cross as he sat next to Killer. "Don't worry I didn't steal it, I seduce the seller instead."
"you're really bad haha-" Killer smiles as she took the cotton candy from Cross hand. "You know this is my first time having this. I was isolated and didn't get to experience my childhood..." Said Killer.
"Oh... Then from now on I'll try to be more free so I can bring you out." Cross immediately replied to Killer. "I also didn't get to experience my childhood since I was living in a slum...-"
"heh... I guess we do have something in common." Killer smiles faintly.
It was a very comforting atmosphere. Cross get to know Killer while Killer got a new friend.
"I really like the veil you gave me. It's actually more comfortable than I thought." Said Cross.
"I'm glad. It belonged to someone I care about. Not gonna lie, it suits you more than them." Said Killer. "you... You can keep it. I trust you to take care of it."
"Really? I mean I don't want to take something precious from you." Cross was about to take off the veil but Cross stopped him.
"It's alright, you're now precious to me..."
"oh...!" Cross quickly nodded, he was blushing but thank God the veil hide the redness on his cheeks. "My real name is Hermes-" Cross suddenly blurted out his real out of nowhere- damn simp-
"... Oh, my real name is Amaris." she suddenly laugh at Cross behavior. "You can call me by my name when we're alone. I don't trust anyone expect you now."
"Oh my God lady please marry me-"
"what?"
"I mean I want to marry a bird!" Cross mentally slapped himself
Wow he really make himself an embarrassment-
26 notes · View notes
sonkitty · 2 months
Text
Crowley S2 Hair Post #0 - Before the Beginning
Tumblr media
Introduction
I'll actually be talking about more than the sideburns throughout these posts. I don't know if I'll really go through the minisodes later because I just plain don't get these parts, but I'll decide that when the time comes. For this one, I figured I could take the extra time to do it even though I highly prefer present day Crowley to any and all versions of him.
...
Sideburns Check
The sideburns are longer than we've known them to be on Crowley compared to season 1. They are even in length and similar in texture whereas later present day scenes in season 2 will actually show subtle differences even between the sideburns themselves.
Compared to what we'll see in later scenes, these sideburns are not the longest-length we'll be seeing in the bookshop and close to the end of episode 6 when Crowley is standing at the door to his car.
They more closely match a length like what the car gives with a demonic presence and what they will be for Crowley during extensive parts of episodes 5 and 6 when they don't reach their longest-length.
So, generally that puts them at a supernatural reading in this open space. Well, Earth and humans don't exist yet, so that matches some understanding of how they operate in the present day storyline.
If there is any rank idea to just play around and guess at, in the context of this scene, I would go with Throne.
Generally, I figure Crowley's highest rank was "First-Order Archangel," due to the deliberate framing in episode 6 when a recording of Gabriel claims to be the only one in the Universe. Still, his rank could have changed during his time as an angel, and this version of Crowley doesn't seem to be as high as what I would expect for a First-Order Archangel.
The Throne idea is from a few clues combined from both seasons. He had a noticeable ornate throne in his flat in season 1. Beelzebub summoned him directly onto a throne in S2E1. Muriel specified "Throne" as one of the ranks required to possibly unlock Gabriel's file. Stuff like that.
...
Streak Check
There is no evident more saturated streak of red in Crowley's hair here, which is to be expected in this context. The streak is mainly on for a great deal of the present day story and 1941 minisode but not in other memories. He's got an energetic active curl on the top of his head though. There's also a part in his hair that is above the center of his left eye. Above the center of his left eye is a key place to generally find that streak later.
...
Earthly Objects
For myself on trying to figure out Earthly Objects, the three objects present were eventually understood as a clue to the existence of the Rule of Three within the game itself. Likewise, Crowley's use of the book, for me, was eventually a clue that a supernatural touch onto an earthly object still counted as a touch.
Earth gets a special mention during the scene.
...
Story Commentary
Before the Beginning starts us off with an angel who eventually becomes Crowley. We are intentionally not given his name. While I've seen other posts refer to him as "Starmaker," I'm just going to stick with calling him "Crowley" anyway because that's what the subtitles did. If I remember things properly, I think it's noteworthy that Crowley himself never says his own name the whole season, for any given time period.
Nonetheless, we have entered season 2 a lot differently than season 1. God is not here to narrate. For this segment, no one here is to narrate. We saw Crowley first. Crowley is going to effectively bookend the entire season overall.
We learn some new things, but we're going to learn more clearly later that this story is not to be trusted as it is directly presented to us. Something is very, very off with reality. Among God's last lines to us in season 1 was, "Perhaps the recent exertions had had some fallout in the nature of reality, because while they were eating for the first time ever, a nightingale actually did sing in Berkeley Square." The second part sounds sweet, but the first part with "fallout" and "reality" is something to keep in mind, given what we'll be seeing later.
Not only is something off with reality, something is off with memories. This part is a memory.
It's generally over my head on whatever is going on with this memory beyond stuff already mentioned. I have loads of speculation but nothing I really find worth sharing.
Personally speaking, I don't care much for this scene. I have an extreme fondness for the demon part of Crowley that is Crowley, especially the snake. I'm also a total sucker for black-feathered wings, which are purposely not here. I hope that, given the context of the scene itself, this part is setting us up for seeing Crowley's actual Fall in season 3. It's not exactly an expectation, but that's what this scene makes me want to see.
...
The Sideburns Scheme
24 notes · View notes
tgrailwar-zero · 2 months
Note
I mean, you did call us the devil, wouldn't the company of a demon be pretty fitting?
Tumblr media
You could practically hear him roll his eyes.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
ARCHIVIST: "Mhm."
Any other attempts at banter were met with a brick wall. It seemed like he had said his piece, and didn't exactly care enough to hold a conversation.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
It was at this point that you realized that AVENGER had also walked off.
...Guess that meant it was time to get going.
As you were shooed off by the ARCHIVIST (or left before he had a chance to, at least), it was just you and the cards.
The card really was self-explanatory. It had the name of the section blinking on it, and served as a quiet GPS to lead you there. It was very useful. And, when you found the second you needed, you noticed that the shelves moved and shifted and all you had to do was put in either the specific name of a book, or the topic, and it would get you started.
Reading was… well, uneventful if you didn't enjoy research, but great if you did.
Tumblr media
There wasn't really much here that differed from what SIGURD had told you regarding the Moon Cell specifically, which wasn't a ton to begin with.
The Moon Cell was a natural phenomenon, Magi flocked to it, Holy Grail War, Titan attack.
It goes into some detail concerning a Great Lunar Ritual, with experience prompting that it was supposedly what the locals referred to the Grail War as. A free-for-all, with 999 preliminary participants that eventually got pared down to 128 Masters and Servants, fighting for the 'Holy Grail' within the Moon. Golden kings, massive mechanized warriors, so on so forth.
And then there was more of what SIGURD told you.
Tumblr media
The Titan attacked, and the Holy Grail War went from a Free-for-All to an actual War, at least with the Servants and Masters both alive and willing to participate. An coalition called 'The Lunar Sea Council', headed by the heir to the West European Plutocracy, brought together Wizards and warriors alike.
In your research, you reach a bit of a hitch.
You find a message tucked in the data- opening it up. A knight, blond with shining armor, spoke quietly.
Tumblr media
SERVANT: "I may get in some trouble for this…Caster, sorry, 'The Priestess' wants us to move on. Karna and I are the only ones that remember still. The others are new, fresh, told that this world is the only one that matters until she awakens. To sit on our laurels for now, and await her to gather up all of the power she can before engaging the Titan."
Tumblr media
SERVANT: "I do not blame her. Our current situation is terrifying. They snuffed out Excalibur before it could even begin to shine, and my sword pales in comparison. To be told to sit and wait is irritating, but I can't argue. We're backed against a wall. Wanting a fresh start- a facade of normalcy... "
Tumblr media
SERVANT: "Still… Leo… one day, I will return to the home front, and destroy that Titan for you. I won't move on- I won't forget. Not yet. Not until I can proudly face you when we meet again."
Tumblr media
GAWAIN: "I, Gawain, promise you that."
The message ends. Quietly. You stew in that quiet for a moment, with the knowledge that the Servant in that message- as brave and caring as he was- never made it back to the Moon. The Interlopers and their Servants killed him. Culled him before his dream could be realized.
With that- you continue reading.
The rest of the reading is pretty straightforward. Again, mostly rehashing what SIGURD had relayed to you with some extra details.
Tumblr media
A Heavenly Divinity, having reduced herself to the status of a Heroic Spirit, made a stand against the Titan. Using her immense power, she established a barrier between the remnants of humanity and the great titan, building a new world where life flourished- though the moon remained barren, kept ever vigil by the Lair Servants that protect the new barrier, the new world known as the 'Solar Cell' from harm.
If anything, the most interesting piece of information was the utter lack of information regarding the Moon. No True Names, no names of participating Wizards, no details about the Ritual or what exactly the 'Holy Grail' the magi were hunting for was. The titan attacked, but outside of it being great and terrible and that it had been deterred by the Heavenly Divinity, there really wasn't much else... which, considering how dense this Archive was, there should be something... right?
Regardless, that was all you could find for now.
You put down the books you had, before realizing you weren't alone. There was someone… very close to your immediate vicinity.
Tumblr media
In other words, that was a lot of chest.
...You looked up at the head attached to the aforementioned chest.
Tumblr media
PLAYBOY (NO SENSE OF PERSONAL SPACE): "Ga… wain…"
Now- running into a handsome, sensitive man in the library? If this was a different genre, this might count as a 'meet-cute'. Perhaps a 'romance flag'. For now, it was just a 'meet', and the 'cute' was really up to interpretation considering the opinions of your twisted amalgamated mind(s), and the color of the flag currently raised here was to be determined.
25 notes · View notes
grapenehifics · 2 months
Text
Making of Monday: Can't Stop the Suns Part 1
(I am thinking SO positively rn that I am calling this part 1, like I will remember to actually write more. YMMV; we'll see how I do.)
I'm hard at work on the concluding chapters of Pick Up the Pieces right now, and working on Pick Up the Pieces means I also need to do a fair bit of rereading An Uncivil War, so it's very much on the forefront of my brain, and also I have yet to participate in a single MoM, so: here's some backstory on An Uncivil War.
Okay I actually need to back up even farther than that, all the way to Solsbury Hill and February 2020. I started Solsbury Hill - it wasn't called that, then; it didn't have a name, just 'weird doc file/outline I'll probably never finish because I don't have a track record of finishing creative writing projects, ever' - and then the very next month I started working from home AND season 7 of Clone Wars premiered.
To get ready for season 7 - and because I was home a lot more during the day, now, and didn't have to commute to work - we decided to do a rewatch of Clone Wars season 1 through 6. And you know how we joke about plot bunnies, and why they're called that? That the hardest idea is your first one and once you have that the ideas just keep multiplying? So, I'm sitting on an outline for what would become Solsbury Hill, and we're watching Clone Wars, and we get to season 5, and the episode with Ahsoka's trial, and I think to myself, huh. That's weird. Why is Obi-Wan acting like that? Why is he not sticking up for our Padawan? If he had, I bet things would have turned out differently. Ahsoka might not have left the Order. Anakin might not have turned to the Dark Side. Clone Wars is full of all these little things that individually might not be enough to push Anakin over the edge, but they start stacking up, collectively...
From there, it was a pretty easy leap to, 'what if Obi-Wan left the Order instead of Ahsoka', and that created this whole domino effect because Anakin would obviously leave with him, right, and Ahsoka was getting kicked out anyway, and now I've got this scenario with three Jedi on the run in the middle of a war.
And that was fascinating to me. Once I started thinking about it I couldn't stop. But I was also getting really into Solsbury Hill, at that point, so this new story needed to take a backseat. I dumped a bunch of notes into a Word doc and went back to my AU.
It turns out, though - and this was the first time I'd learned this about myself - that I liked having both an AU and a canon project going at the same time. Solsbury Hill and An Uncivil War both used such different parts of my brain and required a different skillset and researching vastly different things, and if I got bogged down in one it was nice to be able to switch to the other one and hack away at that one for a while. So I ended up, from early 2020 until August 2022 when I posted the first chapter of Solsbury Hill on AO3, working on both projects nearly simultaneously, although obviously Solsbury Hill (despite being three times longer) got to the finish line first.
For a long time - almost three years - An Uncivil War was just called, An Uncivil War. And it had this expansive outline that I just kept cracking away at, and whenever I came across something cool in another piece of Star Wars media or another show premiered or I read another book I'd think 'Ooh, that's neat! That's going in the fic!' and I'd add it to my to-do list. And at some point I looked at my word count and realized I was pushing 100k and not anywhere close to the end of the story I wanted to tell.
So, I started thinking about sequels, and series. I had (still have) this outline, fortunately, and there was one pretty obvious stopping point at what was then the mid-point of the plot. (I say, 'then' because it has since, of course, expanded. It turns out I'm very bad at guessing word counts.) So I took half my outline, dumped into a brand-new doc, called that one Pick Up the Pieces, and wrote the 'ending' of An Uncivil War, as much as possible, as if it were the ending, just in case I for some reason never got around to writing Pick Up the Pieces.
Because it was important to me that An Uncivil War be able to stand on its own. It's got a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the end calls back to the beginning, and the main threat to the characters is resolved, and they talk about what they're going to do next but even if that was the only story you had, it should still be a satisfying conclusion (or, at least, I hope it is).
But it isn't the entirety of the story I wanted to tell. Because they originally were one big story, I actually had maybe half of Pick Up the Pieces already written by the time I started posting An Uncivil War, so while the first part took me three years to write, the second has technically only taken me a year, but I was definitely not starting from scratch.
I also - and this should shock absolutely no one - was once again wildly off in my word count estimate. Pick Up the Pieces is, right now, already as long as An Uncivil War (120k), and I've still got three chapters left to go...plus a bunch more things in my outline I haven't gotten to yet.
So, in true Star Wars tradition, I'm now plotting a part three! Pick Up the Pieces, like An Uncivil War before it, has a logical ending point, so it will wrap up there, but the plot will move merrily along to the next thing on my to-do list, which is in fact the same to-do list I've had since March 2020. (It's a good thing I love this story so much or I would have quit long ago.) Part Three, at the moment, is tentatively titled Sometimes Fate Steps In, and I'm really, really sorry to have to admit that that's where all the smut is going to be. (I know. It's Solsbury Hill all over again.)
(I do love it, though. I feel like I should...apologize, to my fics, somehow, for having a favorite? I do have a favorite, though. It's this series. I love it so damn much. This is the one thing I write where, if you told me right now that I would never get a single comment or kudos on it, I would still write it anyway, because I just get so much enjoyment out of researching and writing it and re-reading it.)
(Which is not to say you shouldn't comment on it. Please, please do! You will absolutely make my day, week, month, year! But I love it enough to do it anyway.)
18 notes · View notes