🎩 — What would an Exceptional Story featuring this character be about?

Exceptional story for May: In Violant, Inviolable

You grasp the Story by an overlong character introduction – but it sheds it, flopping to the cobbles and fleeing. You toss the squirming, adverb-coated passage and give chase, leaving the Apologist to wrangle the cut text into a sheet of flameproof paper.

A story has been stolen from the skin of the Bazaar – the very oldest of its kind – and the Violant-Scrawling Apologist has enlisted you to see it safely returned. Track a nascent thief across the Zee. Discern the nature of the Treachery of Records. And learn a little Neathy history, while you're at it.

Writing: violant-apologia

Editing: who needs editing anyway firmament certainly didn't have any (i'm joking FBG i love you)

QA: Stacy Fakename

Art: letters-of-fire

something you said has been on my mind for a while - "kink is not inherently sexual". good faith! I don't understand that at all, could you explain it a bit?

This post is educational, hooray! Extensive discussion of kink under the cut. Nothing explicitly sexual is described in detail.

Please note that in this post, I use the terms top and Dom/me interchangeably. This is because I personally identify as a "top" and not a Dom. Some communities draw sharp lines between these two terms, and it's useful to make sure that you're using the same definition as other people when you're talking. Some people use "top" solely to refer to the giving or penetrative partner, which is not synonymous with the dominant partner. Topping subs, power bottoms, and all other permutations exist. I just use that term for myself because I don't like being called a Dom. It sounds like a guy's name to me, I don't like it.

When I text my wife in every morning, "Please bring me my coffee," and she answers, "Yes, Sir!" is that sexual? I'm surely not feeling sexual when I'm barely awake. When I hold my other wife's hand when she's having a depressive fit and tell her, "Daddy's got you, it's okay," that's kink, but it's not sexual. In that moment, neither of us feel particularly sexy, and we're surely not engaging in sex, but it's kink that - forgive the pun - binds us more strongly together.

One of my girls wears a 24/7 collar that I locked in place. (She can ask me at any point to take it off, or she can take it off herself if she wants to, but she chooses this.) That's kink. It's also... a necklace. That's not any more inherently sexual than her wedding ring, though it - for us - certainly symbolizes part of our relationship that happens to sometimes include sex, exactly the same as a wedding ring.

There are a lot of types of kink that don't include sexual contact in any way or which might include sexual contact but don't need to. One of my friends is a sex-repulsed ace bootblack. They literally take care of the boots of tops, usually at play parties. For them, this act of service and submission allows them to go into a particular headspace that's very fulfilling for them. They are explicitly serving the people whose boots they clean and polish. The Dom/mes receive that service and not only get really great-looking boots out of the deal but also get the feeling of power from having someone eager to take care of them and serve them. For some of us, that kind of service allows us access to a feeling of power that can be hard to access in our daily life, and that feels really good.

Sometimes, it can feel good in a sexy way, and sometimes it feels good in a "makes lizard brain feel powerful but not sexy" way. Neither one is inherently better or worse or more or less kinky than the other.

Sometimes, people who like being whipped like it because the line between pain and pleasure is like a wave on the ocean, and they want to surf it. Sometimes, that involves mashing squishy bits together, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, it's just about riding that endorphin wave and then having someone take care of you afterwards.

Sometimes, people want to be tied up in elaborate shibari knots and fucked. Sometimes, people want to be tied up in elaborate shibari knots because that process requires a lot of trust and is an intimate ritual that takes a lot of time. Sometimes, it's both. Sometimes, people want to tie up others because it's a beautiful work of art, because that ritual of binding is a ritual and accesses something sacred for them. Sometimes, they want to be tied up because it's playtime, and that's fun for them! Sometimes, they want to be tied up because when they're tied up, they are 0% in control, and they want to just surrender control to someone whom they can trust.

Some people want to go into sub space - that headspace I talked about earlier - because in their everyday life, they have a lot of responsibilities and stress, and going into that space where nobody can ask anything from them, where they have no responsibility to make any decisions at all, is a relief to them. That might involve squishy bits, or it might not. Some people like going into that sub space because being someone's Good Boy, Sweet Girl, or Good Pup is gender-affirming for them. A friend of mine only feels really safe when he's got his pup hood on, because that means he's With Master, who will protect him.

Some people get gender affirmation out of being in control, being someone's Daddy or Mistress, Sir or Boss. It allows them to access a power that helps them to square their shoulders and take on the world.

All of this entirely skips over the fact that a person's primary sexual organ is between their ears, and some people do get sexual fulfillment out of kink even when no genitalia are involved at all, but I cannot stress enough that the reasons that people enter into the multitude of kink situations in the world are as varied as the people involved. People gain access to comfort, to feelings of stability and order and control over their lives, to gender affirmation, to endorphins that are or aren't sexual in nature, to release from responsibility, to ritual and intimacy, to the ability to provide for others and take care of others in a way that their outside lives may or may not permit. For that matter, they may simply gain access to a paycheck, and that's fine, too. That's no more or less "selling your body" than when I used to run my ass off for 13+ hours a day at my retail job, and I guarantee they're making way, way better money.

The fact that so many people see kink as only and purely sexual means they're missing out on so much of what kink can offer, and narrowing down the experiences of others to this tiny little sliver of what actually exists. Yes, it can be sexual, but it doesn't have to be. The reasons that people engage in kink are as varied as the reasons that people engage in any other kind of interaction, and the fulfillment they get from it is as varied, too.

if anyone's still interested, I'm gonna open these again somewhere in June!

I'm opening commisions for FL portraits! (examples below) the price is 100 Fate which can be sent via Social Engagements in FL. if you're interested, DM me here or on discord (my handle is porcelaincrusader)!

eyes on the road

(Florence belongs to @neathbound-fiends)

I believe that it is this woman's duty to take a BIG FUGGEN NAP

eyes on the road

(Florence belongs to @neathbound-fiends)

NIGHTMARES IS INCREASING...

Samuel is dealing with the horrors just fine! hes fine. just needs a lil laudanum to take the edge off. Just a little, tiny, several bottles of laudanum,

wheezes and collapses HI HELLO I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED..... THIS!!!!.... I don't know what possessed me to make this out of pixels but im v pleased with how it came out!!

[Everyone has been extremely cool abt this!! but just to be sure: no Fallen London spoilers/suggestions/hints in tags, replies, etc. please! I'm still in the middle of some of the stories referenced here and I'm excited to discover it all for myself! ]

Nightmare sources referenced here:

A small, velvet-lined box from Light Fingers

The coiling spire bit from Light Fingers

Poor Edward from Light Fingers

I Shot the Albatross from the southern wind zee dreams

and of course, the Comtessa

At some point during Light Fingers I finally grabbed some laudanum to help with nightmares before some zee trip or other, and discovered that once you're Important, taking laudanum gives you "A Less Than Laudable Laudanum Habit" and that the initial, normal result is locked once your habit gets over level three. Naturally, I HAD TO KNOW.... WHAT HAPPENED AT OTHER LEVELS.....

I'd also decided to finally do the rest of the Watchful MYN at University, which I'd already heard about from several friends as a place where you are constantly going insane from the mundane stress of just, like, uncooperative witnesses while trying to solve a murder. The timing ended up perfect -- Samuel just coming back from the horrors of the Orphanage in Light Fingers and Trying To Be Normal And Hold Down A Normal Job For A Bit, and maybe just a lil laudanum to keep it together for class, and when withdrawal is ratcheting up everything, some annoyances like "can't find info for your murder investigation" might just tip you over the edge,

hilariously he hit level 8 on the laudanum habit -- helpfully labelled "a wretched slave to the hellish stuff" and the point where it stops working altogether -- IMMEDIATELY before running into a step of light fingers where you have to get rid of all your nightmares before you can proceed. HAHA OOPS.

ANYWAY HE STILL HAS IT BECAUSE IT TURNS OUT, IT TAKES A REALLY REALLY LONG TIME, TO KICK A LAUDANUM HABIT...... i, uh, dont recommend giving urself a laudanum addiction but narratively im having a great time lmao

thought I might explain the cards symbolism so here we go first of all, there're three cards in a reading, indicating past, present and future

the Devil symbolizes giving in to material pleasures, lust, hedonism, addiction to luxurious lifestyle and losing control of one's desires

Three of Swords quite literally means heartbreak, loss, separation and grief

and the High Priestess. she symbolizes intuition, mystery, divine femininity, and ALSO, as I found:

If you are a man, The High Priestess appearing in your reading in a love Tarot context usually signifies you will become infatuated with an attractive feminine sensual person who may be unattainable to you. If you are a woman, The High Priestess indicates that you will be highly-desired by more than one person

additionally, the High Priestess is usually depicted in blue/white robes, but here she's in scarlet and also has red hair. and you know WHO ELSE wears scarlet and has red hair….

and aside from the cards, Howard is wearing funerary coat and holds Exile's Rose so there's that

the High Priestess

@zeebreezin's evil sequencer power couple have a hold on me.

was a mistake

Commission for the wonderful @neathbound-fiends of their Blorb! Middle schoolers are ruthless, man. I wouldn't cross her.

Some locations I’ve been picking at! In order, The Hurlers, The Mirror Marshes, Aestival, and a Random Zee Island!

the High Priestess

okay from the top, I have no delusions of fixing her. I am defecting. I am compromising my morals. I have become the secondary antagonist, and for what? Villain Pussy

wonderful Elias Leroux for amazing @the-dye-stained-socialite c: thank you so much!

Ballgown, 1900. House La Religieuse.

Honestly? My main piece of advice for writing well-rounded characters is to make them a little bit lame. No real living person is 100% cool and suave 100% of the time. Everyone's a little awkward sometimes, or gets too excited about something goofy, or has a silly fear, or laughs about stupid things. Being a bit of a loser is an incurable part of the human condition. Utilize that in your writing.