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#but the author (of the actual book) went on and on explaining how deep and subtle the hidden meaning of the title
hedgehog-moss · 2 years
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It’s always embarrassing when a character in a book is a writer and publishes a book that you’re told is incredibly well-written and a best-seller and you get a suspicious amount of fawning over how brilliant the character’s book is and how clever the title is and how glowing the reviews are, until you realise you’ve been ambushed by an insidious form of self-insert fanfiction in what looked like serious literature. I once read a book in which a character was writing a book whose plot was “structured like a cathedral” and I was like well that sounds nice, I wish I was reading that book instead. It’s fine to have a character who’s a successful writer but as a rule it’s not a good idea to frustrate your reader by making her feel like the book you wrote is inferior to the fictional book
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telekineticseance · 1 year
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STUDY BUDDIES
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pairing: ted logan x afab! reader
summary: your teacher gives you the assignment of tutoring one of the dumbest kids in school
genre: smut
word count: 1895
cw: p in v, dick riding
author’s note: this is mainly for @animulnitrate because they asked so nicely and they're my roomie so i can't say no
“Help out Ted Logan? The guy who thinks Joan of Arc is Noah’s wife?” You asked your teacher, you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You were usually fine with tutoring others but when it came to Ted Logan, it was a lost cause. He barely knew basic math, spending hours with him trying to teach him history would be a nightmare.
“Yes..I know it’ll be hard at first but he needs to pass this exam or else he’s not passing the year and he’ll have to repeat a grade.” Mr.Ryan, your history teacher, explained to you He knew how bad Ted was and Ted’s best friend Bill was just as bad. You couldn’t imagine being in his shoes and having to teach not one of them, but both of them, at the same time. You let out a sigh of agreement and nodded before walking out of the class running into Ted at the end of the hallway.
“Whoa hey there Dudette! Gotta watch where you’re going.” He said, his hands holding onto your arms as he looked down at you with a grin on his face. You scoffed slightly at him while rolling your eyes and brushing his hands away. “Look Logan, I’ve been given the task of tutoring you tonight in preparation for your exam.”
Ted chuckled while nodding his head, his hair bouncing in the process, “Well alright! Alone time with a babe like you? I’m so down!” You hid back a giggle, as he smiled down at you. “Uh yeah..right. So do you want to study at your place?” You asked him.
“My place sounds sick!” You nodded as he gave you his address and the two of you parted ways before you went to the rest of your classes.
You walked up the steps to Ted’s front door and knocked gently, while holding onto the bag on your shoulder with your other hand. You heard footsteps run down the stairs before a loud bang on the door and the door opened revealing a disheveled Ted with one of those grins on his face, “My savior! Come in.” He said, moving to the side so you can walk in. You walk past him, looking around at the decorations, expecting to see something the total opposite than the preppy vibes you were viewing.
Ted lightly grabbed your arm and led you up the stairs, “Come on we can go to my room!” He ran up the stairs with you closely behind before leading you to a bedroom which was a lot more like you expected. The bed was unmade with posters plastered in random spots all over the walls of different movies and rock bands. Including some homemade posters of something called Wyld Stallyns. He stood in front of you throwing his arms in the air, “Presenting tu casa!”
You paused looking at him, “Actually..” You started before he dropped his hands and raised his eyebrow and you stopped, “Nevermind. Yes this is tu casa.” He grinned while nodding again before sitting down on his bed with a plop and you took your bag off your shoulder, sitting next to him before pulling out books. You sat your history book in your lap, opening it to a page before turning to him, “Okay so I thought I would start with the beginning and then just going through at whatever pace is more comfortable for you?” You asked him, looking over as he looked down at the book in your lip while nodding.
As the two of you looked through the book, Ted would inch closer to where your legs would be touching and you’d scoot away a little more. He would also move his hand close to yours as you held the pages open, lightly stroking his pinky against your hand in the process. Every time he’d try you would awkwardly clear your throat and move away from him, but he’d just go back to trying. Eventually Ted took a deep breath before looking at you, “You know…you’re quite the babe.”
You raised an eyebrow, looking at him as he grinned that same grin he’s had practically all night. “Thank..you?” His eyes widened a little bit and he shifted his position to look at you more, “No what I meant was you’re bodacious! Uh..a sight to see! Hot!” You couldn’t help but let out a giggle at his actions, he wasn’t smart but you did think he was cute at times. He blushed slightly, looking back down at the book, pointing at a picture of Napoleon, “Who’s the guy with the funny hat?”
You started to tell him the history of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution as he listened closely, nodding while you talked. Eventually you were interrupted by Ted moving in close, kissing you deeply. Your eyes widened as you pulled away and looked at him, “Oh I’m sorry.” He apologized, putting his hand over his mouth. You sat there in shock before leaning in and kissing him yourself. He slowly moved his hand up to your arms, stroking them as the two of you kissed. Your hands gripped onto the black vest he was always wearing as you deepened the kiss.
He pulled away, his lips a dark shade of pink from the kiss as he looked down at you, “Whoa.” He grinned as he slowly opened his eyes, almost as if he were in a trance. You felt your face heat up as you nodded. He bit his bottom lip slightly looking in your eyes, as his hand lightly stroked your cheek.  “Can we do that again?” He asked gently, leaning closer again. You nodded, caressing his cheek before kissing him again. You repositioned yourself, letting the history book fall to the floor as you sat in front of him on your knees.
Both of your hands were on the sides of his face, while his hands moved to your waist. Your tongue explored his mouth as he let out a few hums during the kiss. You slipped off the vest from his torso, and started to pull at his shirt before he put his hands on yours, pulling away. “I can’t.” He whispered against your lips. You pulled your hands away and distanced yourself from him, “Oh.”
“No no I want to,” He corrected before thinking for a minute, “But I just…I wouldn’t know what to do.” He mumbled, looking down at his lap, picking at one of the patches on his shorts. Did he mean? You lifted his face, looking into his eyes, “Have you done anything like this before?” He shook his head, looking into your eyes. You thought for a minute before moving close to him, “I can teach you..if you’d want.”
He smiled as he looked at you, “You would?” You nodded slowly as he nodded back, “Okay!” You giggled while rolling your eyes playfully before kissing him again, leaning him back against the headboard. You straddled his lap, moving your hands to start pulling off the shirt again. He moved his hands to your waist, pulling you close to him. Your hands moved to your own shirt, pulling it over your head as Ted watched, his eyes widening once he saw you in your bra. His gaze lingered on your chest, “Do you want me to take this off too?” You asked him, tracing your fingers along the lace of your bra. He gulped, nodding slowly as you unclasped your bra, pulling it off and putting it next to the two of you.
His eyes stayed focused on your chest, as you felt his length growing against your crotch. You bit your bottom lip before Ted leaned in, placing wet kisses on your chest before placing his lips on your nipple. Lightly sucking and biting on it, causing you to let out a moan. Your fingers tangled into his hair before he pulled away and looked up at you, “Is this okay?” You nodded slowly and he moved his mouth to your other nipple before repeating the process.
You moved your hips, grinding your crotch against his. He pulled his mouth away, letting out a breath of air while closing his eyes tight from the feeling. He looked up at you, his lids barely open. You bit your bottom lip before removing yourself from his lip and starting to pull off his shorts. You were slightly confused from the layering he was doing as when you pulled down the shorts, he had a pair of gray sweats on underneath. He bit his bottom lip, “They’re comfier than boxers.” He said softly.
You nodded, pulling down the sweats, revealing his growing length. He bit his bottom lip when he noticed you staring. He was definitely above average and you couldn’t help but let your gaze linger. You slowly pulled off your panties from underneath your skirt and threw them onto the floor before straddling Ted’s lap again. You could see the sweat beads from his forehead as he looked up at you, “Are you sure you want this?” You asked him, your hand caressing his face. He nodded slowly, “I-I’m just nervous. You’re really really pretty.”
You giggled slightly at him before kissing him deeply, moving your to the base of his cock, stroking him gently. He let out a gasp into the kiss, followed by a soft groan. You positioned the tip to your throbbing clit before lowering yourself down, He buried his head into your chest, letting out a small whimper as you continued moving your hips against him. He leaned his head back against the headboard, biting his bottom lip as you slid up and down on his length.
A mixture of moans and whimpers escaped his lips as you continued moving, rocking your hips in the process. You dug your nails into his chest, as his grip tightened on your hips. He thrusted his hips up causing you to let out a moan, throwing your head back in pleasure. Ted opened his eyes partially, watching you before leaning back and starting to kiss on your chest again, leaving marks all the way from your neck down.
Your hips moved in sync with one another as you felt Ted’s stomach tighten from underneath you before his eyebrows furrowed, “I-I’m cl- hmm.” He interrupted his sentence with a hum, throwing his head back against the headboard once more. You leaned down and pressed your lips to his once you felt yourself starting to reach your own high. Ted let out a small gasp as you felt his tip twitch , the two of you releasing at the same time. You rode out your high, practically sinking onto his chest, feeling the energy evaporate from your body. Ted’s face was flushed a deep shade of pink and his hair was sticking to his forehead from the sweat. You pulled yourself off of him, sitting on the bed next to him while processing the events that just happened.
“That was..” You started, “Excellent?” Ted said, looking at you.
You giggled slightly in response, “Sure. Let’s go with excellent.”
“Can we do it again?” He asked, his hand snaking around your waist as he buried his face in your neck. You nodded, knowing the two of you probably wouldn’t be getting much more tutoring done for the night.
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deancaspinefest · 3 months
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Books, Pies, and Roommates
Author: seidenapfel | Artist: Kit Shay
Posting on Sunday March 17
Everything seemed so easy when Castiel landed a job in Lawrence as a literature professor at Kansas University. He even found a place to stay with his cousin in Topeka, less than thirty miles away. But the daily commute quickly gets on his nerves and he begins looking for a little room in town. When he finally lucks out on a house, it comes with a catch. His mysterious landlord/housemate works and lives in Topeka during the week, and will only be in Lawrence for the weekend while Castiel is back at his cousin’s to honor a promise he made. When Dean walks into his favorite pie shop, the new sales assistant takes his breath away. Steve is gorgeous, and part of the owner’s family. Dean doesn’t even mind that Steve picks up Gabriel’s stupid moniker for him. After all, Deano has one syllable more, and Dean will do anything to hear Steve’s voice just a little bit longer. Though, as breathtaking Steve might be, he isn't Angel. If only Dean's book-loving best friend for over a decade weren't a mystery in himself — a guy who Dean has only met online, but who has slowly taken his heart away. And it seems that Dean isn't alone in his feelings. When the lines blur and fantasies merge three guys into one, disappointment and heartbreak seem to be inevitable.
Keep reading for a sneak preview!
“Dude! You did what?”
“I found you a new roommate,” Sam explained and Dean knew his brother was rolling his eyes. “As you asked me to.”
“Yeah, I heard you,” Dean muttered. “And well, I did, but duh? Did you take the first one that came along?
The silence at the other end of the line was enough of an answer.
“Seriously? The first one? You pick the first Tom, Dick, and Harry that walks into my home?” Dean couldn’t believe it. “You didn’t even—”
“His name is Castiel. And he’s nice,” Sam cut in, defending himself.
Nice?
Before Dean could interrupt him, Sam continued, “So, get this, Castiel is actually in the same predicament as you are. He lives in Topeka, but teaches at KU and he’s already fed up with his daily commute to campus.”
“Castiel? What a mouthful of a name is that?” Dean grumbled.
“As far as I know it’s the name of an angel,” his brother answered calmly, taking none of Dean’s shit.
“Angel?” Dean huffed while another Angel came to his mind. Shaking his head to clear the thought away, he went on, “You telling me the guy is some religious weirdo?”
Sam laughed and Dean could literally hear another eye roll. “Don’t worry. I don’t think that should be a problem. Quite the contrary. He seemed very interested in our library. Or, more precisely, /your/ part of the library.”
Dean huffed. “That’s most of it anyway, dude.”
Groaning, Sam ignored him and went on. “I don’t think he realized how obvious he was when he skimmed through the titles of your collection of gay pulp.”
“Hey, it ain’t gay pulp, not all of it,” Dean protested.
“Pulp, romance, literature — whatever. You can’t deny it’s kinda gay.”
Dean laughed before teasing, “Just kinda?” Even though his brother couldn’t see him, he wiggled his brows.
“How would I know? I haven’t even touched half of it,” Sam backpedaled and Dean laughed even louder. “Somehow I need to keep my sanity,” his brother shot back. Then it hit Dean. “Wait, you showed this guy, this—”
“Castiel,” Sam offered helpfully.
“Whatever,” Dean snapped. “You showed him the library?”
“Dean, he lives there now. Of course, I showed him around. Besides, how do you think I should have hidden the shelves in the living room? You’re not very subtle with your interests.”
Subtle? Dammit, it was his home, for fuck’s sake. “Still, the library? And you let him stay? Alone at home?”
“Yes, because that’s what happens when you rent your house, dude.” Dean could see his brother’s bitchface in his mind. “Do I need to remind you that you were the one who asked me to take care of the viewings?”
“Goddammit, Sammy,” Dean grouched. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath before giving in, “Yeah. Sorry. I did. But that didn’t mean that you decide who lives with me.”
“I don’t know. He just seemed… perfect.”
(continue reading on Ao3 on Sunday March 17)
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shhh-secret-time · 1 month
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hello ^^, i saw your secret soulmate au about craig, i don't have the words to explain how much i giggled, twirled my hair and everything XD! well, when you have the time, could you do a craig x clyde x reader smut? of course, if you feel comfortable with it! reader can be female or gn. it's practically normal smut but just craig fucking the reader from behind and clyde from the front, so that's it! tysm for reading, i love your writing too! <33 -✨️ Anon (I'm still new to tumblr so i might get confused on some things sometimes!)
Completely understandable, I too am confused with how tumblr works and I've been on this godless site since fucking Dash Con. I'm glad you liked the way I wrote those dorks! And thank you for fueling my Clyde agenda!
Warning: NSFW, Strong-Language, Dirty Talk, Slight Sub/Dom dynamics, blow jobs, orgasm denial, threesome
Pairing: Clyde x Fem!Reader x Craig
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The sweet air of the votives swirls around the empty church. Empty except for the dim orange and red light that illuminates the book in the man's hand.
A woman at his feet, clothed in fine silks. A mix of reds and whites that twine together. Beautiful patterns of stars flow across the dress.
She dips her head in prayer alongside the man. The father of the church glides his fingers across her cheek as her mouth closes. Reciting scriptures of one's devotion for an unseen God. Everything in that moment was peaceful.
The warmth in the Father's eyes doesn't go unnoticed, the greens darken with a desire that he knows better than to have. It's difficult to hide the growing ache in his pants. More so when the woman's lips curl into a mischief smile, the warm glow of the candles makes them shine with an otherworldly glow. She looks up at him and her eyes fall deep into those pools of lust. Her hands break apart from that folded prayer and onto his black dress pants. They card up further against his thighs where they settle and clutch the material.
"Father, bless me...", a whisper that makes the Father groan.
Temptation never looked so sweet. This woman made his chest pound. Unholy thoughts flood his mind and go straight to his-
You let out a loud groan. Your forehead drops and hits the table beside your keyboard. The forgotten mug with now cold tea rattles.
Writer’s block, the very bane of any author’s existence. It's been haunting you for weeks now, making it impossible to get anything done. You've been stuck on this part of your romance novel the entire time. A part you were so excited to get to!
The buildup was perfect! You had calculated, plotted, and carefully crafted a budding romance between a witch and a holy man. A forbidden romance that took place within the walls of the church, the furthest outside the walls it went were the gardens that surrounded the area. The two fell in love after he saved her from the townsfolk claiming sanctuary.
Inspiration struck you like lightning after you fell in love with your partners. After publishing a sci-fi series, that honestly changed the name of how science fiction would be written forever, you met two fans at a book signing event. You had made a surprise appearance at a local library in some little town called South Park. Coming from the big city yourself, it was a huge surprise that anyone in the little town would actually be a fan of yours.
Apparently, you had quite a few. A man with bright red hair who had a black-haired man following alongside him. Both gushed about how the story inspired some kind of board game they played with their friends. A sweet blond woman who had the cutest southern accent you've ever heard. She gave you a piece of fan mail that had the most adorable sticker on it. Another black-haired man who dressed as Spock for some reason. He went on for a solid thirty minutes about a fanfic he wrote regarding the main character of your book and Star Trek's very own Captain Kirk.
Finally came the oddest duo you had ever met. The two were like day and night, a cat and a dog, fire and ice; the whole nine yards. A bright smile with baby brown eyes on one, and an ice-cold deadpan look with amber eyes to match on the other. At first you thought the brown-haired one was your fan and the man with the blue hat was just along for the ride.
"Haha! No way! I'm not into that..." He paused as if to stop himself from saying something he shouldn't, "...kinda stuff."
"That kind of stuff?" You repeat back at him, raising a brow.
"He means reading. He doesn't know how." The other spoke putting a hand on top of his head. With a little push he forced the brown-haired man's head down.
You giggled at that. The protests coming from the poor man was comical. You almost felt sorry for him, watching him struggle to move the taller man's hand off.
"Then I take it I'm signing this book out to you?" With a click of your pen, you look up at him.
The NASA jacket on the bright blue sleeves of his jacket should have given it away honestly. There's was a small tinge of a blush on his tan cheeks, almost hidden under the skin tone but you were able to make it out under the light. He looked away for a moment before nodding at you.
"Yeah."
"Name?"
"His name is Craig! He's a huge fan of yours by the way! So, if you could write something sweet for him that'd be awesome!" His friend chirped at you as he broke free from Craig's grip.
Craig's face twisted, those piercing eyes of his narrowed down. Before he could reach and grab him, the brown-haired man slid behind your chair. Putting his hand on your chair, he bent down to your level and tapped the blank white page.
"As you can see my big guy has a baaaaaad case of resting bitch face."
"Clyde..." the warning that slipped out of Craig's mouth made a shiver roll down your spine. It was even directed at you, and you felt threatened.
"So, you gotta imagine my surprise when he came home smiling! I was shocked! He didn't even smile when we started going out!" Clyde ignored him, an attest to his bravery. Or foolishness. Either way he continued, leaning down next to your ear. "Your book made him so happy, so it makes me happy. Think you could do that for me? Because he'll never ask you to do it for him."
You look up at him for a while, not even bothered that he had gotten closer to your face as he spoke. The browns in his eyes flickered with mischief but there were layers of love behind them. Chocolate that seemed to melt into tiny hearts when he spoke about Craig. It was honestly sweet, even if he was trying to tease his partner.
"How can I say no to that? I'd love to." You smiled at him and began writing on the empty page.
Yeah, who would have thought that fate would tie you to those two like that. Falling in love with Craig and Clyde was nothing like what they wrote in books or movies. It was a tornado of events that landed you in the eye of it all.
Despite their polar opposite personalities and looks, the two worked off each other well. Then when you got thrown in the middle, you filled in a little spot they desperately needed.
Clyde was social enough for the three of you. He was the one who reminded you and Craig that you needed to get out of the house. When you lock yourself away in your office, he would drag you out with a fun date idea. Movie nights, football games, arcade dates, and his favorite late-night walks. Doing the same to Craig who always seemed buried in work.
Craig gave off such scary dog privilege that you and Clyde never felt threatened. You could take those late-night walks with Clyde because you knew nothing would touch you with Craig following close behind.
That was nice sure, but under that scary looking shell was a soft teddy bear of a man. While he wasn't vocal with affection like Clyde, he was observant. Craig remembered everything, everything about you and Clyde's interests. If he saw something you mentioned in passing it was yours. Clyde needed new shoelaces because the ones on his favorite pair of red shoes were tearing? There was a new pack waiting for him on the table. You complained about the shift key on your keyboard sticking too much? An adorable keyboard that looked like a typewriter was found on your desk the next morning.
Then there was you. You have no idea how these two survived this long without you. Truth be told they don't either. Craig and Clyde couldn't cook to save their lives. Their diet consisted of diner food and Chinese takeout. While their house was clean enough, laundry was never put away or folded. Clyde was horrible at putting his dirty laundry in the bin and Craig was too tired most nights to even make it to bed. The final straw was when you took a shower, and their only soap was 3 in 1.
Absolutely not.
So, when you moved in things changed. When Craig was at work, you would take Clyde grocery shopping. Slowly you started him on simple dishes, working with him until he was comfortable in the kitchen. What was surprising was that he took to it quickly. He was a natural and before you knew it, he was cooking things you had never heard of. He had gone as far as looking up Peruvian dishes, practicing with spices and techniques that had your mouth watering. When you asked how he learned to do all of this, he gave you the biggest grin and told you it was YouTube.
When Craig came home that night to Chupe de Camarones it was the closest to crying you've ever seen from him.
Clyde really stepped up after that, feeling a sense of pride in taking care of you two. Seeing as you worked just as hard as Craig did. Clyde proclaimed something about being more than happy to be a malewife.
In return Craig started taking better care of himself, actually starting to care about his health. He stopped staying up so late and made use of the giant bed. Clean sheets and blankets that felt good on his skin. Even better that you and Clyde would be in it waiting for him. Clyde long passed out on your chest, a bit of drool sliding down the side of his face and onto your shirt. Not that you seemed to care as you just continued to read next to the little bedside lamp. Only pausing when you felt Craig's presence in the doorway.
Craig's smiles were rare, little treats from the universe to you. Ones like these where he smiles with love in his eyes. Where he kicks off his shoes and strips down to his boxers, crawling into bed next to you. Arms wrapping around Clyde and with a hand settling on your hips. A silent squeeze lets you know it's time to put the book down and join him.
How can you say no to a smile like that?
Of course, not every day was perfect. Your relationship took time to hash out. It was different being with two individuals at the same time, but you made it work. The three of you were committed to one another.
Now if only you could commit to this fucking scene.
Your head’s little meet and greet with the table must have been louder than you thought because whatever Clyde was yelling about in the living room stopped. It was one of the rare weekends where Craig was home and off work. Choosing to spend it watching some show with Clyde, listening to the man ramble on about something.
So wrapped up in your thoughts, you let out a scream when you finally lift your head and Clyde is right there beside you. His body bent over just like the day you met him. With his hand on the back of your chair and his face next to yours. Except instead of using, you as a shield from Craig, he's reading your computer screen.
While he doesn't understand what it takes to be an author, he sees the effect it has on you. Days like this where you take on the posture of a shrimp, forgetting to come out to eat.
His lips start pursed, but as he continues to scan over the screen they break out into a smirk. He covers his mouth in a fake surprise, a gasp with widened eyes.
"Babe! This is...scandalous! Spicy, naughty even! What are you doing writing something like this?" His dramatic act continues, forming some feign surprise.
"What are you doing using words with more than one syllable?" You shoot back with a little smirk.
It takes everything in your power not to laugh at the actual pout on his face. Try as you might, the giggles escape your lips, and it makes him smirk. He leans down and nuzzles his nose into your cheek.
"Maybe you're starting to rub off on me babe! I'm getting smarterer with you around!" You know he said that word wrong on purpose, just to get under your skin.
But he kisses you quiet before you can say anything. Holds your face in his hands so you can't pull away. You can taste the cherry chapstick on his lips, and the growing smile along with it.
"So, what's got you bashing your head into your desk baby? Craig and I heard a thump and got worried." He moves the kisses towards your forehead.
"Was it that loud?"
"Heard it over the tv." Craig's voice almost makes you leap out of your skin.
You bite your lip, looking down at the keyboard with a distant stare. The faded green and blue, spots where your fingers had smudged away the paint from typing so much.
"I'm just having trouble with this scene. I've been stuck on it for weeks now." You exhale softly.
Craig raises a brow and leans down on the other side of you. Both Clyde and Craig bent over to take a look at your screen. You're not sure why the fact both men reading your unfinished work makes you feel nervous, but it does. Or maybe it's the fact this is your first time writing a spicy scene like this.
"It's good. Never would have thought you'd go the Priest kink route." Craig says it so matter of fact, there's never hesitation in his voice. You can count on one hand the number of times you've seen him flustered, and even then, his tone is flat.
"I-I’m not into it! I just- you guys are only reading a snippet of my book! There's been a romance blossoming between the two the whole time!" You try to defend yourself, but it only makes Clyde's lips tug into a smirk.
The temptation to tease you was too great, it was being handed to him on a silver platter. Clyde leans up and walks next to Craig, leaning into his chest. The man wraps his arms around himself and lets out a dramatic sigh.
"A forbidden love! A tale as old as time! But what I wanna know babe-" Clyde stops and lets the tension build. It makes you glare at him as you turn in your office chair. "-is why the witch's descriptions are reaaaally close to mine."
"That's a woman Clyde! She's got short brown hair because it was cut off when she was running from the townsfolk! Brown eyes are common and beautiful! There's not enough representation for them!"
"Aaaaaand her dimples?" He points to his, the little spots in his cheeks that sink in when he smiles. "Plus, my eyes are totally beautiful."
"It's not you!"
"Oh, and the Father isn't Craig. Tan skin, black hair? You gave the Father green eyes but other than that, it fits Craig to a T." Craig actually nods along with what Clyde is saying. He's got his eyes closed as if this is some kind of philosophical debate.
"Are you serious right now Clyde?! This is why you two aren't allowed in my study!" Your face was burning now, hot and flushed from his teasing.
"What did I do?" Craig breaks the little fight with a simple question.
"Nodding your head along! You know what he's doing and you're encouraging it!"
"So, you took inspiration from your partners in your romance story. It's cute." He responds with a shrug. He looks down at Clyde who's still smugly leaning against his chest.
Your mouth falls open, you go to respond but nothing makes its way out. Your brows furrow. Arms crossed under your chest in a pout.
Had you unintentionally based your characters off your partners? Is that why the romance novel was easy to write up until this point?
Whatever the case may be here, you didn't like being called out. So, you do what you always do when they get like this, you turn in your chair and ignore them.
Usually this works, let's them know that you're not in the mood for their games. That you'd rather be left alone than entertain another minute of their shenanigans. But this time Clyde wasn't going to let you go. He grabs the back of your seat and wheels you back towards him and Craig.
"Baaaaabe don't pout. Look I'm sorry~." No, he's not. "But hey I've got an idea."
You let out a little huff, enough to where he knows you're not actually mad at him. If you were you would have picked your chair up and walked it back to your desk. Instead, you sit there and wait for him to continue.
"You're stuck on that scene, but I think you need a break. Sitting here and bashing your head against the table isn't going to fix that. Soooo..." He trails off, moving to stand in front of you.
His fingers glide across the side of your face, cupping your cheek so gently. Clyde guides your face up to look at him, behind that cocky smile of his he's got such love for you in his eyes. The way his thumb brushes across your cheek, making your heart flutter so slightly.
"What do you say Craig and I help you out a little babe?" Clyde guides your face up towards him. He presses his thumb against your lips just as his voice dips into that playful whisper.
You raise a brow at him in response. It's not until Craig puts his hand on your shoulders, that you piece together this wasn't just his idea. Thumbs pressed into your muscles working out the knots and tension. For such a hard worker, somehow Craig's hands always stay so soft. The worn-out oversized t-shirt you stole does little against his hands. The material is thin from how often it's been washed and worn.
His hands pull a soft moan from you, it feels too good to keep yourself silent. Clyde pushes his thumb past your lips and into your mouth, the digit presses down on your soft pink tongue. He all but purrs when watches you wrap your lips around it.
"See...let's work out some of that tension. We'll make you feel real good and give you a little inspiration." Clyde hums as he pulls his thumb out, smearing the saliva across your lips.
When he doesn't continue, you realize he's waiting for your confirmation. Waiting for you to agree to their little plan. But that doesn't stop Craig from bending down and placing a kiss on your cheek. He trails the kisses down to your jawline, using his nose to nudge your head to the side. Lulling your head to the side, you gave into the feeling. Craig's lips move to capture the exposed skin. You can feel just how eager he is from the way the kisses turn to nips then to full on bites. His teeth sinking into the soft parts of your flesh pulling another sharp gasp from you.
"Come on honey. Let us take care of you." After he's done leaving small love bites on your neck, Craig moves to your ear nipping the shell.
"Y-yeah that sounds...that sounds good." You move your hands up towards Craig, running your fingers through his hair. One of the rare moments he's not sporting his blue hat. "I could use a little break..."
"That's our girl." Clyde's praise goes straight to your core. He lifts you up from your office chair, hands cupping the back of your thighs for support. They give your thighs a little squeeze, digging his fingertips into your flesh.
Craig moves out of his way and goes to push your office chair back towards your desk. Clyde chuckles softly seeing the confused look on your face. Instead of protesting you wrap your arms around the brunette lazily throwing your arms around his neck.
"We're supposed to be relaxing, we're gonna get nice and comfy on the couch." He drops you down on the couch, making you bounce a bit. He laughs when you let out a gasp of surprise.
"You ass." Your grumbles fall on deaf ears. Clyde just runs his fingers through your hair and gives it a harsh tug. It makes you cry out, craning your neck up towards him.
"Sweetheart, that's not very nice. You're being a brat right now." He tuts, feigning disappointment.
"You dropped me on the-" You suck in another cry when he tugs your head to the side, that firm grip on your roots sending a shiver down your spine.
"Hm? You were saying something? I did what?"
Clyde's smug little smirk made your blood boil. But his fingers in your hair felt too good to protest further. Especially when he switched between tugging and massaging his fingertips into your scalp. You watched his eyes flicker from yours to behind you. Before you could turn around to get a glimpse of what he was staring at, Craig's hands slid down your back.
Gently, much more than Clyde, he pushes you down towards Clyde. His other hand comes down to grab your ankle, pulling your leg back towards him. Once your knee is tucked against the couch, he does the same to the other leg.
If your face wasn't burning up before it certainly is now. Just as you go to hold yourself up with your hands, Clyde removes his hand from your hair and takes you by the wrist. Guiding you up towards him, he places them on the hems of his sweatpants. The grey university sweatpants do little to hide his hardening cock, you watch it twitch against the fabric.
"This is about where you left off right? She was about to take the Father's cock out of his pants?" Clyde says watching as you slowly pull his sweatpants down. He lets out a low chuckle that turns into a moan when you slip your fingers around his cock. "That's it, now keep your eyes on me baby."
There's a moment of hesitation as you bring the tip closer to your mouth. The bright red tip glides across your plump lips begging for you to open. His hand returns to your hair, smoothing down your locks from his earlier manhandling.
The gentle touch makes you look up towards him, just like he requested. There really was something so intimate about those chocolate brown eyes of his. Past that smirk and layers of darkened lust, there was devotion. The feeling of your hands on him alone made him weak in the knees. You put that to the test, pressing just a little kiss on the tip. Dabbing your tongue against his leaking member. Just from that alone he's letting out the prettiest moans.
"Sh-shit, c’mon don't tease me." That cocky attitude of his melts. You almost laugh at how easy it is to break him down. He was puddy in your hands.
With a little hum you move your hand up and down his shaft, creating enough friction to make him buck his hips towards you. He nudges his cock further into your mouth, pushing past your lips. The underside of his cock glides down against your tongue, smearing the pre-cum along with it.
So caught up in your little game, you almost forgot about Craig behind you. Almost. It's hard to forget him when he's got his hands all over you. Large palms cupping any exposed skin. Craig takes his time exploring every curve he can get ahold of. His nose nuzzled into the back of your head. His breath tickling the shell of your ear. Just the sight of your mouth around Clyde's member alone is enough to make him growl.
Neither men are patient when it comes to you. Craig shoves whatever is left of your pajamas down and off you, he doesn't bother with your shirt as it'll pull you away from your lover. Instead, he decides it'll make the perfect handle. He bunches it up until it collects at the collar. His hands grip the shirt and tug it backwards, making your hips rock back into him.
Somewhere along the way he stripped away his pants. The barrier between the both of you was the thin material of your underwear and his dark blue boxers. While Craig wasn't as vocal as Clyde was, with his teasing and little whimpers, he could be just as unfair if not more.
Grinding against your cunt slowly, grabbing and groping at your ass the entire time. He digs his nails into your skin, leaving little crescent moons. Craig rewards good behavior not with sweet words, but by giving you what you so desperately want.
He waits until you've got all of Clyde's cock in your mouth before he finally shoves your underwear down. It makes it to your knees before he just decides to leave them there. Too many times he got impatient and just ripped them off, and too many times you scolded him for it.
The hand in your hair pulls you back from his cock. Clyde moves your head back just enough to where only the tip remains, then slowly he brings you back down. Pushing you all the way down his length until your nose hits his stomach. You watch as his muscles flex under his skin like he's trying to resist letting his head lull back. He needs so badly to keep his eyes on yours, loving the attention you're giving him.
"Your mouth feels so good." He whines when he reaches the back of your throat. You gag around him, and it pulls another whimper from him.
Your hand slides down his thighs, using it to hold you up. The other hand is still being held by Clyde's grip. His hand wrapped around your wrist, holding it up near his shoulder. Craig waits until Clyde rocks you back again, using the momentum to slip inside your wet folds. A pleased hum rumbles from his chest. You can feel it from how he's pressing his entire body against yours.
Just as slowly as Clyde moves your head, Craig pushes further into your cunt. The two find a slow and steady rhythm with one another. When Craig snaps his hips against you, it pushes Clyde's cock further down your throat. Your moans vibrating around him causing him to moan loudly in return. Clyde's whimpers and whines get louder when you dig your nails into his thighs. In return the grip on your hair is tightened. Creating this delicious cycle of pleasure.
"Baby, please. I wanna fuck your throat. You gonna let me? I need it so bad, please." Clyde's begging spurs something in you. Gives you the feeling of control even if you’re physically stuck between the two. From the beads of sweat that trail down his body and the way his body is shaking, you know he's at his limit.
You're able to pull back just enough, his cock springs up with a little bounce. Craig slows down just enough to let you talk, but you can tell he's not happy about it. The way his grip on your shirt tightens, you're sure he'll rip it soon.
"If I snap my fingers, you stop, okay?" You say giving him the okay. He caresses your face and presses a kiss onto your face, letting you know he understands the boundaries you've set.
At first, he's careful when he pushes his cock back into your mouth. You reward him with a swirl of your tongue, rubbing against the veins that are popping out.
"He's so needy." Craig huffs as he leans back up. The assault on your neck stops, but he's left it covered in bright red and purple marks. No amount of makeup will cover up what he's done.
You don't need to see him to know that he's smirking at it. Taking pride in the fact that he's marked you up. Or the pride making Clyde blush from his comment.  Craig's hips snap back into you, the force much sharper than his previous lazy thrusts. They're calculated, each time he pushes deep inside you he hits that spot that has you seeing stars. Clyde's hips take up the same pace, shoving his cock into the back of your throat.
Tears begin to well up in your eyes, trickling down your cheeks. Moans turn to muffled cries, yet everything feels too good to stop. They're rough paced fucking brings your mind to a haze. All you can focus on is feeling good and making them feel good.
Craig's close, you can tell from the way he starts to lose rhythm. He's having a harder time controlling those grunts and growls. A hard time not leaving bruises on your skin from how rough he's holding onto you. He's long since let your shirt go, instead grabbing onto the back of the couch. But he waits until he feels that familiar clench around his cock. The way your walls clamp down around him as you cum. The only warning being the high-pitched muffled moan that gets swallowed by Clyde.
His hips slam into you one more time before he pulls out. Grabbing the base of his cock, he shoots that hot thick load onto your back. Heavy amounts of cum drip down your spine making you whine and shiver. Clyde can't take his eyes off the way his partner paints your backside. It makes a trail of drool slip down his chin.
The poor man can't do it anymore, he can't stop his eyes from rolling up to the back of his head. Not when your moans vibrate up him and your throat tightens from choking on him. He needs this release.
"I'm gonna cum baby. Please, let me cum. Let me cum in your mouth." Clyde all but cries in between panting. His begging dissolves into your name and the word please over and over again.
His flickering eyes catch yours again. It's when you give him a little wink and a hum, his cock violently twitches and cum spills from his tip. His cum is sweeter than normal, it makes it easier to swallow.
Slowly he pulls out of your mouth with one final whimper. It isn't until Craig swipes his thumb over his cheek that you realize he had tears streaming down them. Clyde presses his cheek into Craig's hand and lets out a pleased sigh. Once he knows Clyde is okay, Craig stands up and goes to get a towel to help clean your back. He does the same to your face, swiping away the left-over tears.
"Feeling better?" Clyde asks as he helps pull your underwear up. "Nice and relaxed?"
You nod and rest your head against his chest. "You've got good ideas sometimes."
"I've got wrinkles on my brain." He smirks to himself, taking your little praise miles.
Craig comes back after tossing the towel in the dirty laundry with a large blanket. He throws it over both of you before climbing in next to you. He lays his head down on Clyde's and grabs the tv remote.
"Kitchen Nightmare or Hell’s Kitchen?"
"Kitchen Nightmares! I need some petty British accents after my orgasm denial!"
You scrunch up your nose at Clyde’s comment. Almost wanting to pull back. "Smooth brain behavior."
"Smooth brain behavior." Craig chimes in.
The three of you relax into the couch, almost ready for the group nap that comes with the afterglow of love making. That is until inspiration strikes you again. Your eyes light up and you go to wiggle out of their hold. But Craig's arms are faster, they keep you firm against his chest. Clyde's hands come down a moment later, cupping your hips.
"Nope. You're staying right here."
"Guys! No! I just figured out how I'm gonna get that chapter finished! You gotta let me go! I gotta do it!" Your pleads are wasted, like they're not even heard.
"No. You're warm and I'm tired."
"That's not my fault or my problem."
"I'm making it your problem. Sit still."
"You know Tucker bear isn't going to let go. You're fighting a losing battle babe." Craig at least has the decency to let Clyde finish before pinching him. You know Clyde's nickname for him makes him grumpy. His little yelp makes you giggle.
"Fine....at least until you fall asleep."
"Look if you think you can get out of his hold, then be my guest. You earned it at that point." Clyde's smirk returns. He throws his leg over yours and tucks it in between Craig's knees.
"Fuck you." Your eyes narrow up at him. He's not as slick as he thinks he is, trying to cage you in with a sleepy Craig.
"Again? So soon. You're insatiable babe. Let us recover first." Clyde presses a kiss into the top of your head, pulling back before you can headbutt him.
His hand guides your head back down onto his chest and he just chuckles. It doesn't take long before Craig is passed out with his head nuzzled into the curve of your waist. Holding you like a teddy bear against his chest. Clyde's smile grows when he sees you trying to fight off sleep. But it eventually takes you and you lose the battle. He turns the tv down just a bit, deciding to join the both of you.
That chapter can wait another day.
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katapotato55 · 1 year
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How to write a good metaphor
yall seemed to like my post on "how to write good horror" so i figured i should make another one of these.
1- do. not. explain. the. metaphor.
don't.
"oh but how will the audience know my deep and meaningful message- "
SOME PEOPLE WONT GET IT. if you explain what you mean then suddenly the metaphor won't be deep anymore. it becomes a generic forced message.
i know you are tempted to make a character infodump about everything, fucking don't.
followup on this:
2- a good metaphor should potentially have multiple interpretations.
"but i don't want people to get the wrong impression of the story!"
then you either need to make damn sure its an elegantly written metaphor, or none at all. the death of the author is the idea that everyone has their own vision of a story they read, rearguards of authors intent. you need to come to terms with this or else you won't improve your writing skills.
you need to trust that your audience is intelligent enough to understand the metaphor on their own without bashing them over the head with it. sometimes people misunderstand meaning, it is a fact of life.
The game little inferno was thought of as a metaphor about pollution, in which later the creators went out to say it was actually about capitalism and wasting your life with things like exploitative mobile games. you just need make it SUBTLE and hope for the best.
3- The story/gameplay/etc should inform the metaphor(and sometimes reference real life examples)
To mention little inferno again, the "you must wait x amount of time for in-game item to be given to you" is a mirror of mobile games in the real world that use timers to leach money from you.
another example: analogue horror.
broken old technology is scary on its own, but many good analogue horror artists tend to use this to the advantage.
analogue horror can be used as a metaphor for dying trends and technology, like how in the 30's through 70's we used asbestos in the walls. Analogue horror makes a great parralel to this idea (see Blue_channel by gooseworx for a good example.) . the audience questions WHY this is on an old CRT tv and not just a smartphone, perhaps to imply this was an event that happened years ago.
undertale is another example, where most RPG's encourage you to fight and to level up, undertale uses this as a simple metaphor about obsessive control and being cruel to get an arbitrary achievement (i recommend the escapist's video on "why i didn't review undertale" on youtube for way better examples)
tldr: a metaphor is stronger if you lightly reference real life occurances and implement your metaphor in the medium presented.
4- the curtains are blue because they are blue.
not everyone is going to understand your metaphor
and not everyone is going to notice every single little metaphor you add to your story.
remember those teachers that would constantly stretch to imply something in a story is a metaphor and that the curtains are blue because of some deep metaphor for death and sadness and shit?
those teachers are full of it. ignore them.
metaphors are allowed to be simple. not every metaphor needs to be a hyper deep depth defying world changing thing. I could even argue a bunch of small metaphors connected to each other can be better than one big metaphor depending on your story.
relax. don't think too much about it because your average audience member won't.
5- study movies, tv, books, games, etc and understand why their metaphors work.
don't fall into that "the curtains are blue because of a deep message" English teacher mindset mind you.
"but how do i tell what is and isn't a metaphor?" you may ask
simple. trust your gut. you won't understand everything you come across but the human brain has a way of telling what is and isn't a metaphor in stories.
(spoiler about bugsnax)
I could argue Bugsnax is a metaphor about drug abuse and addiction. The characters have personality traits commonly associated with people vulnerable to drug addiction. An athlete, a hippy, a married couple going through a rough spot in their marriage with the threat of divorce, a mentally ill person with trauma and paranoia, etc.
It isn't obvious, many people may disagree with me, but you can't deny that there are signs i may be right.
(end of spoiler) the point i am trying to make: don't stretch to find a metaphor when you don't see one. if you are curious google other people's theories and make your own opinion. metaphors are hard and you will learn over time. and finally 6- do not ever do "it was all just a dream" or "the character is secretly in a coma" etc this applies to writing in general but it is still related to metaphors. the only time i have seen this done well is driver san francisco, but what it did right was A- make it so the players can guess ahead of time the mystery, such as the radio saying voices of your character in the hospital, or if you zoomed out you could hear a heart monitor. and B- it didn't completely un-do the entire story. that is my core issue with this trope. it either wastes your time un-doing the entire story readers worked hard to finish, or it is just nonsensical and terrible. "dora the explorer is actually in purgatory!" "spongebob is a metaphor for the 7 deadly sins!" "ash is in a coma and that is why he never ages! " ooooor it is a cartoon and you are forcing meaning that doesn't exist in something that doesn't even imply it. the world being a bit weird is not enough to be a metaphor for anything. If you want to make a good metaphor: do more effort than just slapping a lazy "it was all a coma" thing at the end. Like horror, stuff like this needs to be built up properly. also consider authors intent. I understand death of the author and all of that, but do you really think a retired marine biologist made spongebob to be a complex metaphor about sinners in hell ? (rip Stephen Hillenburg btw. we didn't deserve him.) thank you for reading, hope this helps. and please, learn to understand the tropes of metaphors before you attempt to make the story of a generation. edit- adding a couple more things i forgot 7- "the darkness is going to destroy the land or whatever!" i see this used all the time. spooky wookey dark shadowy bits going to destroy a land and is the hero's generic bad thing to fight. stop it. it is not a deep and complex metaphor about depression or whatever the hell you are on about. its lazy and stupid. 8- a story should stand up on its own regardless if audience members understand the metaphor or not I don't like Gris. it is a very pretty game with lovely visuals But also the entire story is just the main character moping about artistically and shit and go on about how artistically sad and dramatic this all is. if i don't understand the story without understanding the metaphor, then your story and your metaphor sucks. an example of a metaphor done well: spiritfairer without the metaphor, it is a simple game about running a traveling boat. even if you didn't care too much about the deeper meaning it is a cute story and the gameplay is fun (spoiler) if you look deeper, it can also be taken as a metaphor about greif and learning to accept your loved ones will one day die. things like the boat being filled with empty houses you can't remove is a good example of this. (end of spoiler) your story needs to stand up on its own to be good. don't use a metaphor as a crutch.
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ceilidho · 4 months
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How do you research for fics...? I remember vaguely you answered another anon how you went on a deep dive for Joe Graves religion.
How do you even start? Is there a dummies guide books for how the military operates? This stumps me with writing, especially ones with a lot of secrecy.
Hmmm ok so 2 things. First off, there are some basic things you can do for research - the source material is always a good start, so with Bear Graves for instance, watching the show gave me a rough idea of some military chain of command and protocols and such. Then there’s Wikipedia as a next step (to help you with definitions, basic things like a captain’s day to day duties, anything crucial to your plot like if you need to know what could get someone honourably discharged or the different factions like marines vs the army vs the navy), and then you can start diving deeper. Quora and Reddit are actually very good for specific questions.
Second, I personally feel like - at least for fanfiction - if you have the basic skeleton understanding and you aren’t making any huge egregious errors (like saying a lieutenant reports to a sergeant, for instance, you know, something that feels obvious), I think sometimes it’s better to just make shit up rather than getting caught in the weeds of research.
For tv shows, movies, and authors with actual book deals, they have more time at their disposal and resources. They can take months to do a ton of research on military operations, talk to actual military personnel or former personnel, and sometimes even have a team of writers to help with the research. For our silly little fics that we just want to write for enjoyment, it’s okay if you know how exactly how to coordinate a SEAL mission, you know.
I think I’ve said this before and it personally took me awhile to learn, but I think often when you, as a writer, are not personally familiar with something, we have a bad habit of thinking we need to learn everything about it and then overexplain it in our writing. But you’re allowed to gloss over things! The story often doesn’t need you to go into detail about things if that’s not the point of the story - if your character is a mechanic repairing a Humvee, you can maybe mention their tools and maybe one thing they have to do, but you don’t have to explain it as if you were teaching someone how to do it. Unless that’s something you actually want to do, I think it’s usually just an ingrained habit to overcompensate for not being totally comfortable with a subject.
That’s just my two cents! I hope that helps though!!! I’ve had to do a lot for various fics and these are the two things I often come back to :))
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kaleldobrev · 8 months
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My Hero (3)
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Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader
Summary: After having a successful girls day, Shell almost slips about reading the books to Sam. Meanwhile, Y/N and Dean have a conversation about something that Shell said.
Word Count: 2.3k
Warnings: Cursing (2x), Fluff, Angst, Cliffhanger
Authors Note: Here's part 3 of my mini-series! I think that there's going to be one more part to this | If you liked this, don’t forget to like & reblog. I really appreciate it! Feedback is always welcome ♡
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My Hero Masterlist
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As you were driving you turned to Shell who was still mindlessly looking out the window, tapping her finger along to the current song that was playing on the cassette: Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. Not listening to this cassette for a while, you had forgotten how many love songs Dean had actually put on here. “Hey, can you do me a favor?” You asked.
Shell turned to you. “Sure, what’s up?”
“Can you call Sam or Dean and ask them what they’re planning for dinner?” You asked. “I was thinking about just the two of us going out but I want to make sure my boys actually have a plan or they’re waiting on us.” You explained. “They have a habit of doing that a lot.”
Shell nodded. “Sure. I’ll call Sam. He’s my favorite.” She winked, getting out her phone and going through her contact list to find his name. Although there was a slightly joking tone to her comment about Sam being her favorite, in a really weird way...she actually wasn't. When it came to the Supernatural books, Sam was quote-on-quote her favorite character in the series (besides you of course, and obviously nothing against Dean). One of the reasons for him being her favorite was because she had felt that she had related to him the most, related to what he had went through – not wanting to go into the family business. Fortunately for her, her parents and you were extremely supportive of her decision of not wanting to be a hunter, when Shell had told you three, it was almost like there was a weird sigh of relief; unlike when Sam had told his father and Dean – which was on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. "Hey Sam, it's Shell. I have a question for you."
"Shoot." Sam said.
"Y/N wants to know what you and Dean-O are doing for dinner." Shell said, the nickname rolling off her tongue like it was nothing.
Sam shrugged, despite knowing that neither you or Shell could see him. "I know I'll be fine. But Dean's the only one I'm unsure about." He said. “Mind if I call you back?"
"Why am I not surprised." Shell mumbled. "Sure thing." She said, before the two of them hung up. Shell turned to you once she placed her phone back in her lap. "Sam said he's gonna call me back."
You looked at your sister with slight surprise. "Why?"
"Sam said he needs to see what Dean wants to do." She explained. You let out a deep sigh. "What?"
"I don't know why Sam couldn't just put you on hold and walk down the hallway to mine and his bedroom to ask him what he wants to do for dinner. If I know Dean, and I like to think I do, very, very well, he's either watching a movie in our room or listening to music." As much as you loved these boys, you were amazed by the lack of common sense they had at times.
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"So, before Sam calls back, what did you want to do for dinner? Cause I'm pretty sure Dean is going to want pizza." You said, the mixtape finally changing to something that wasn't a love song: Kashmir also by Led Zeppelin.
"I mean, I'm honestly fine with pizza if that's what Dean wants." You sister said, slightly shrugging. "I'm here for the whole summer, you and I have plenty of time to get dinner just the two of us. Especially if Sam and Dean decide to go on a hunt at some point during the summer."
"Yeah you're right." Your voice sounding just a tad sad, sadder than you had intended it to sound. "It's just...I don't know, I guess I'm just surprised that you'd be down for pizza with the gang versus just hanging out the two of us." Which was essentially the whole point of her coming here for the summer.
"I can text Sam and say that him and Dean are on their own. I don't think he minds." Shell unlocked her phone ready to text Sam.
"No, no. It's okay, honestly. Like you said, we have all summer. And even though you're an adult, I'm not just going to leave you by yourself and go hunting with Sam and Dean." You said.
"I wouldn't be alone. I'd be with Jack and Cas." Shell noted. Before you had the chance to comment, her phone had started to ring. "Oh, it's Sam." Her smile ever so gleeful. "Hey Sam. What's the verdict?"
"Dean wants pizza." Sam said, clearly on speakerphone now.
Shell turned to you. "You were right." She mouthed. "Y/N and I are fine with that."
"Mind if I order the usual?" Dean chimed in, Shell's face full of confusion. "It's everything on it."
"So, you like gross pizza?" Shell said, not even fazed by her comment. She couldn't see Dean's face on the other end, but you knew that he must of look offended. You couldn't help but let out a small laugh, not caring if Dean could hear you on the other end or not.
"How dare you." Dean said, his voice clearly sounding like he was offended. "You are so lucky I'm in love with your sister." He mumbled.
"Just get plain cheese babe." You said, hopefully loud enough for him to hear as for some reason your sister was refusing to have her phone on speaker phone.
You swear you could hear his eyeroll. "Fine. I'll get stupid just plain cheese."
"My poor baby." Your voice sarcastic.
"Order it whenever. We'll be home in less than 20 minutes." Shell interjected.
"Sounds good. See you guys soon." Sam said hanging up the phone.
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"We're back guys!" Shell yelled almost singsong like once you closed the Bunker doors behind the both of you. "See you boys didn't burn the place down." She smirked.
"Ha ha." Dean rolled his eyes, putting his jacket on. "I'll be back. Gonna go get the plain cheese pizza." He made sure to enunciate the last three words. This attitude had made you and Shell roll your eyes. Placing his gun in his back pocket, Shell's eyes went wide.
"Why do you need to bring a gun with you to go and pick up a pizza?" She asked, sitting down at the War Room table.
"You can never be too careful." He smirked. "'Sides, bet you didn't even know your sister here had her gun on her the whole day." Dean turned to you, and you stood there chuckling nervously. Shell turned to face you like Dean was doing currently. "Tell me I'm wrong Sweetheart."
You reached into your purse and slowly pulled out your gun. "Like Dean said," You began, pulling your gun all the way out. "You can never be too careful." You winked at the two of them before putting your gun back into your purse. "Want some company picking up the pizza?" You asked turning to your boyfriend.
He smiled. "Always." He walked over to you, and gave you a quick peck on the lips; a simple gesture that had made you smile from ear to ear.
"Okay, we'll be back. Try not to kill each other while we're gone." You winked again, before you followed Dean out of the Bunker.
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"So, what's it like living with those two 24/7? I mean, I got a little glimpse of it a few years back when you went to Hell and from –" Shell almost slipped, mentioning the books.
"From what?" Sam asked, curious.
"From...this week..." Shell hoped that she had managed to save herself from her slip up.
Sam looked at her, a little unsure of her response, but he decided to ignore it. "It's interesting to say the least." He started to explain. "I've been...I've been on the road with them for over a decade, something that I thought would never happen."
"I know what you mean." Shell said, understanding where he was coming from. As much as Shell knew that Sam had loved you and had loved Dean, he never thought that this was how his life was going to turn out. He had hoped that he would be living that white picket fence and apple pie life with Jessica.
"When I found out that Y/N started hunting with you...I was happy for you. Happy that...it wouldn't just be you and dad all the time." Was a line Sam had told Dean in Wendigo (if Shell had remembered correctly). Shell knew what he had meant by that line; there was a lot of different meanings behind it. In the words of Chuck: "Sam hoped that once they found their father, once they found Yellow-Eyes, that he would be able to go back to school, back to the life that he wanted despite the death of his true love. Sam was happy that Dean had found Y/N, because in a way, it was a comfort knowing that Dean wouldn't be or feel so alone."
"I'm glad that Y/N and Dean found each other I really do. But, hunting with three people is a lot different than hunting with two or by yourself." Shell knew exactly what he was talking about, at the same time, it was something that she never really considered.
"I always thought that it was better to have bigger numbers. You know, so everyone has each other's six." Shell said.
"Well...Yeah. But, when you're by yourself you have no one but you're the only one you have to worry about. When you have two, not only do you have to worry about yourself but you have to worry about your partner. With three people, you not only have to worry about yourself, but your other two partners as well." Sam explained.
"So me becoming one of your hunting partners is out of the cards uh?" Shell laughed to herself.
"I'm sure you'd be a great one Shell." Sam tried to reassure her.
"You don't have to humor me Sam." Shell smirked.
"You miss her." His comment seemingly coming out of nowhere, but Shell nodded in agreement. "She talks about you all the time, and she's insanely proud of you."
"She...She talks about me?" Shell asked, almost surprised to hear that. Sam nodded.
"Of course. You have no idea how proud she was when you told her you got accepted into medical school." Sam smiled, remembering the memory. "She told Dean and I how proud she was that you decided not to be in this life. That...you wanted to help people in a less dangerous way." He chuckled a little.
Hearing this had made Shell's heart melt. She knew how proud of her you were, but she never realized that you had actually bragged about it to Sam and Dean. Shell remembered when she had told you and your parents about how she had got accepted into medical school. Although she wasn't a fan of the books yet when she had told you guys, when she had become one, it was something that she was looking forward to reading about; but it was something that never had come up in the books. She wondered why Chuck decided to never include something like that. Then again, he did seem to be against wholesome moments.
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Dinner went by without incident, without any kind of slip ups; something that Shell was happy about. During the day she knew that she had almost slipped up several times, but had managed to catch herself. She honestly had no idea how you, Sam, or Dean would react if she did mention something by accident. Well...she had a slight idea. You and the boys absolutely despised these books, and she could understand why. The pages were intimate in nature, private. Revealing things that shouldn't be revealed to the average person. Secrets that were meant to be kept solely between you and Dean, Sam and Dean, you and Sam, etc. Although the books weren't popular, these were secrets that had become fixture in the fandom.
There was a part of her that had wanted to venture further into the fandom, as there were countless numbers of fanfiction about the three of you or people adding themselves into the story. But that was a line Shell would never cross; the thought being too odd for her because you, Sam, and Dean weren't just characters in a book - you were real life people with feelings, emotions, personalities.
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"So you and Shell had a good day?" Asked Dean, taking the towel that had been around his waist and currently using it to dry off his hair.
"Yeah, it was a really fun day." You said, fixing the blankets on the bed as to try and get comfortable as you talked to him; admiring his body a bit as he stood in front of you. "But...I don't know there was...something weird though." You said. "I'm probably overthinking."
Placing the towel on the back of the closet door, Dean walked over to the dresser and grabbed a pair of boxer briefs and put them on. "You're probably not overthinking." He assured you. "What was weird about it?" He asked, grabbing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt and putting it on before making his way to the bed.
"She said..." You huffed. "Have you ever told her that you and I considered bacon cheeseburgers to be better sex?"
Dean looked at you, and thought about it for a moment, trying to think about when he could have said that to Shell. "No...I don't think so." He said, shaking his head. "Why?"
"Well, when we were at the diner today, she mentioned that. And I don't know...It just seemed...Odd." You tried to explain.
"What made it odd?" He asked.
"It's odd because I know I've never said that to her, and you never said that to her. And I know for a fact that Sam, Cas, or Jack wouldn't say that." Especially Cas or Jack, you thought.
"Huh." Was all Dean said, raising a brow. "That's weird alright." He said, getting under the covers now. "She say anything else weird?"
"No. But, when we went to the bookstore today they had the fucking Supernatural books." Dean rolled his eyes. "And she didn't seem put off by them."
"Of course she wouldn't. She's not the main character." He said, putting air quotes around 'the main character.'
"I know but...She didn't seem...I don't know how to put this...She seemed...Like it didn't faze her to see it. Like, like she's seen them before." You explained.
"You never showed her the books right?" He asked.
"Oh fuck no!" You said almost too loudly.
"Weird." Dean stated.
"Weird is an understatement." You said.
"So should we like...talk to her?" He asked, unsure of what else to say.
"And say what?" You asked.
"Have you read the Supernatural books?" His question seemed so simple, and all you could do was just give him a disgusted look. "What?"
"That's not even what I'm implying." You stated.
"What are you implying then?" Dean asked. "Based on what you said, it sounds like you're assuming she's read the books. But, that bacon cheeseburger thing could have been said by anyone."
"Okay, who? Cause you and I are the only ones, and I mean, only ones that have ever said that. And she referenced specifically the two of us when she said it." You felt your blood pressure raising.
"You should have lead with that Sweetheart." Dean said, using the calmest voice you have ever heard him have. His calmness automatically making you calm.
You sighed. "I'll...I'll wait to see if she says anything else."
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Tag List: @roseblue373 @beansproutmafia @queenie32 @deanwanddamons @missy420-0 @jackles010378 If you'd like to be added to a tag list, let me know!
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mixelation · 1 year
Text
i attempted to write some sasori girl au. however it turned out less zany than intended??? anyway new lore ahead
Tori stayed up late reading The Book, only to fall asleep on the couch. As per what usually happened when she did that, she was woken by someone shoving her off the couch. 
Tori made some inarticulate noise from the floor and she watched her attacker prop his feet up on the coffee table above her. The Book was still clutched to her chest. The sound of the TV filled the room, and a pale arm set a mug on the coffee table. 
“You know Sasori lives with you,” Hidan said, staring down at her. “You don’t have to read a book about him like a weird freak.”
“Takes one to know one,” Tori mumbled back, rolling herself over to crawl out from between the coffee table and the couch. Hidan kicked the back of her thigh as she went, because of course he did. 
Hidan had a good point, though. Sasori should still be around the hideout. 
“Why are you reading that garbage?” Sasori demanded when she showed up in his workshop. He paused in the middle of setting a bunch of disembodied arms out on his workbench, looking her up and down critically. “Also, I told you to cover your hair when you sleep. You destroy your curls.”
Tori was sure she looked like a mess. She didn’t care. 
“You gave this lady an interview,” she said, cutting straight to the chase and waving the book at Sasori. “Or at least she says you did.”
A lot of people wrote into the official Sasori mailing list with crazy nonsense, about how their second cousin met him and learned his favorite fruit was peaches or something. There was no reason the author of The Book hadn’t also written a bunch of crazy bullshit. 
Sasori eyed the book with a look of deep disdain. 
“I was young,” he replied, and then turned back to his arm pile. 
“You did?” Tori repeated, voice louder than she meant. This was an incredible, horrible discovery. This meant that Sasori had sat down with the original Sasori girl and answered questions and basically implicitly given her the go-ahead to write her vaguely horny Sasori biography. 
Tori continued, “Have you read it?”
Sasori’s hand froze over a skeletal arm that had a bunch of metal spikes sticking out of it. 
“Are you about to describe it in excruciating detail to me?” he spat out, eyeing Tori like she was some sort of horrible offense to nature. 
“Just a summary,” Tori defended. “So you know the context. You said you liked when I explained things.”
His exact words had been something mocking about her being every Intelligent agent’s dream, because she offered up information so easily and thoroughly with very little prompting. 
“I said your enemies would like it,” Sasori snapped back. “I hadn’t yet realized your entire personality was actually a series of advanced torture techniques. Hold this.”
Sasori had Tori hold various arms, because apparently she was roughly the same proportions as his next puppet, and he wanted an idea for scale of various modifications. This meant that he did let her explain The Book, which was a very long and meandering biography of Sasori that ended up being banned in Wind Country. It was obviously heavily dialed back in places, to make Suna seem more powerful and Sasori seem less terrifying, and yet all of this had utterly failed to hide the desperate hard-on the biographer clearly had for him. 
An angelic face, she’d written. Tori supposed this was true, if you were unaware of the personality that went along with the face. 
Which, like, if she’d interviewed him, how could she not have noticed he was a mean, violent, awful man?
“Hold it up higher,” Sasori commanded. 
“Arms are heavy,” Tori complained. “Why’d you do the interview?”
Sasori reached over and pressed his hand under the wrist of the puppet arm Tori was holding, raising it up while he glared thoughtfully at it. 
“I left Suna to seek artistic freedom,” Sasori said after a beat, pulling the arm out of Tori’s hand and replacing it with another. “I thought maybe having another person who understood would assist with artistic catharsis.”
That was… surprisingly sentimental, actually. Tori felt something tug at her heartstrings. She hadn’t realized she could still feel like this. 
“Of course, I was young and foolish,” Sasori said, taking a step back to frown at the silhouette Tori cut with the puppet arms. “That woman asked useless, frivolous questions. What did she say about me?”
The chapter containing the interview was honestly the weirdest one. If Tori read individual lines of the dialogue, they did seem like things Sasori would say. He’d talked about art and beauty, and offered up a criticism of the teahouse decor that the biographer had found charming. 
The thing was, this was all spliced around descriptions of how lovely Sasori was. The biographer waxed poetic about his exotic hair, the blush of freckles over the bridge of his nose, how casual and handsome he looked seated in this quaint little teahouse. She’d gone on for a very long time about how he was used to the refined teahouses of Wind Country with their plush carpets and gold-threaded pillows, and she’d contemplated how hard leaving must have been for him. She’d described his mannerisms with her and the waitstaff as polite and friendly, which was hilarious. 
She also must have cut a lot of what he actually said about art, because there was only surface-level statements on things lasting forever and no mention of playing dress-up with people’s corpses. Most RPF writers made him a painter, wandering the world to paint…. frescos or some shit. 
“I didn’t show her my art because it rapidly became apparent she wouldn’t understand,” Sasori said plainly when Tori described the borderline humor in her romanticization of his art. “Although, yes, it sounds like she omitted some of what I said.”
He handed her another arm and then started fucking around with its elbow, adjusting the length of it. 
“You don’t seem mad about it,” Tori observed, watching him work. The forearm was all metal canisters– some sort of weapon. Her own arm was getting sore from holding it up. 
“Why should I care what some nobody writes about me?” Sasori asked. 
“Aren’t you your own best art?” Tori replied, her eyes glued to how his hands worked. “I know you don’t like when people don’t interact with art correctly. Isn’t it even worse if the art is yours?”
Sasori believed it was the responsibility of the beholder of art to bring themselves to the experience of art as it was meant to be experienced. Deidara thought it was the artist’s job to force a viewer to experience art the way the artist intended. It was a whole thing. 
Sasori popped one of the canisters in the arm free and rolled it over in his hands. 
“I don’t like it when people misrepresent you,” Tori tried. 
Sasori snorted, setting the canister on his work bench and then reaching forward to further adjust the length of the puppet arm.
“You don’t like it when you see anything at all is represented in a way you feel is disingenuous,” Sasori told her. “Don’t pretend otherwise.”
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be-my-prince · 1 year
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Keir/Reader - Predictable
keir is best boy of the week. i had to do this eventually. i’ve been egged.
word count: 739
[masterpost]
Keir wasn't a chaser. He wasn't one to mother, despite the jabs and accusations thrown at him once the crew was one too many drinks in.
He could argue that it was simply because he didn't have it in him, but frankly, he just didn't care enough to. Sure, he knew some people who needed to get their shit together. But that wasn't his problem.
Their shit, their problem.
Life was just easier that way.
But when he saw your cloak draped over the side of the sofa, it sat oddly in him, a discomfort that had him scooping it up before he could think twice. And then there he was, knocking at your door.
"Hey, you left your stuff out here."
Not that he cared. He couldn't care less about where you left your belongings, as long as you were neat about it. But you never went anywhere without your cloak, and he had slowly come to learn that you were a creature of habit.
He couldn't pinpoint exactly when he'd realized it, just that it sort of seeped into his way of life until he simply couldn’t deny it.
Maybe it was in the way you tidied the kitchen after meals. He chucked the dishes and silverware into wherever they fit. You took the time to sort them out, like you actually cared about this shithole.
Or maybe in the way you liked to organize his books alphabetically. Sometimes by title, sometimes by author. Oh yes, he noticed. He may be messy, but that didn't mean he didn't have a system in place. One that you'd completely ruined, by the way, but he found himself oddly... charmed more than anything else.
Or it could just be the little quirks he came to notice over time. The way you tilted your head when you were deep in thought. How you shifted your feet when you were uncertain. The soft hum when you were making a decision.
You were predictable. Maybe that was boring to most people, but in his wayward lifestyle, it was almost... comforting.
He knocked on your door again, more firmly this time. You probably wanted your cloak.
When you didn't answer, he glanced down at the doorknob. It was a boundary that had been crossed once— and only once. It had been an emergency. You were sick. He slipped in food and water. Both of you agreed to stop locking your doors after that incident, but that was still as far as he'd ever gone in your room.
This wasn't so much an emergency, but it bothered him. He figured it'd bother you too. And knowing you, you wouldn't mind terribly as long as he kept his presence at a minimum.
He opened the door to your room, and it was probably half way open when he found himself staring at your masked face.
"The fuck?" He jerked back, heart in his throat. After taking a moment to let it settle, he shot you a glare. "By the Lunar God's scars, why are you just standing there?"
But you could hardly explain, having doubled over in laughter at the sight of him. It was such a stupid sound —this whole situation was stupid— but it had his stomach doing somersaults.
His anatomy was so fucked.
"Oh hells," you giggled, hardly able to speak through the bouts of chuckles. "I-I can't believe you fell for it.” “Explain.” He fought to keep his voice flat, steady. “Griff and I bet 20 coin that you mother people when given the chance to,” you managed to get out while definitely wearing a shit-eating grin. “I was just wondering how far you'd go."
"You set me up." He was in near disbelief.
"And you are a nagger." You stepped out and shut the door behind yourself, snagging the cloak from his hands. "I'm gonna go collect. Don't wait up, mum."
He watched as you wrapped the fabric around yourself snuggly, then disappeared through the front door. Slowly, he shook his head, but failed to stop the corners of his lips from twitching upwards.
Just when he thought he had you pinned, you were something else.
But he didn't dwell on that for long— he was too busy chasing you right out the door because, well, he wasn't just about to let you ruin his reputation.
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thelivingautomaton · 8 months
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so lately i've been curing my brainrot by listening to audiobooks while i crochet, the result being that i have gotten really, really into the wheel of time (which i've previously bounced off of like, 3 separate times) and also been tweeting about it. anyway i have finished the first book and simply must scream into the void about it
jesus, okay, where do i even begin. let's talk about characters
so i KNEW that mat was gonna be The Character Of All Time going right in, i am self-aware enough about what kinds of blorbos i enjoy (read: cocky roguish guy who is actually a sopping wet cat of a man and uses snark to obscure deep-seated angst and/or doubt in himself, his identity, and his goodness). and i do have an affection for mat at this point
although ngl it kind of totally went over my head when i last tried to read these books that he is also? kind of a dick this early on? though to be fair he was having his soul eaten by an evil dagger for like, two-thirds of the book
that being said. what i did NOT expect was for the dark horse surprise contenders for Character Of All Time to be nynaeve and rand
nynaeve is literally the funniest, pettiest bitch ever and i love her SO MUCH. literally what if you were a preternaturally gifted healer and given a position of authority at a very young age so you had a complex about it, but that complex manifests itself as a bullheaded stubborn drive to Take Care Of Your People, and you are ready to throw hands with every magic lady Jedi on the way because you are fueled by Pure Unadulterated Spite at all times
every time she'd try to start a catty slap fight with moiraine and moiraine would just, like, sip her tea unbothered? now THAT'S comedy
sidenote, dear lord do these characters drink a lot of tea. do they have coffee in this nebula. do they have new world crops. i feel like someone must have mentioned potatoes. where was i
oh my god, rand. RAND. literally WHAT IF you were a farmboy from the ass-end of nowhere and you get pulled into this fantastical adventure like a hero from legend, but you spend 700 pages having all of your assumptions about the world and yourself systemically questioned and tested and broken down. and the whole time you're holding onto the hope of going home and going back to the way things were, until you experience the crushing weight of the Hero's Journey and the fact that you can never really go home (read: go back to the simple life and the way things used to be) ever again
EXCEPT!!! THAT THERE IS ALSO WONDER AND EXCITEMENT AND CURIOSITY TOO!!! like, obviously i loved all the times that rand and the other farm kids are agog seeing different parts of the world (especially the cities -- dude, i LOVE the setup for caemlyn) but literally one of my favorite scenes was when rand is on the spray sitting at the top of the mast and he just starts laughing aloud for the freedom and joy of it all. the journey will be long and terrible and arduous but it's so important to show that there are bright moments on the way too. i'm going to puke
also there's a few moments between rand and the dark one (ba'alzamon? bro idk how anything is spelled) that were so *chef's kiss*, like rand telling him "i belong to myself" or in their big fight when he screams that he'll never be a hound for the dark one. more generally i love the emphasis placed on the importance and power of people taking a stand, even if they know it's futile. ESPECIALLY if they know it's futile. (there was this line from moiraine like "the wheel weaves as the wheel wills, but i refuse to believe it weaves an end to all hope". waugh)
also i know the reveal that rand can channel was telegraphed from a mile away but i ain't even mad about it because i feel like the setup was done so nicely. you get a scene of moiraine explaining to nynaeve about how channeling feels the first time you do it (i.e. you have the greatest need you've ever known, then a week later your body has a delayed reaction that feels like a weird flu), you get rand and mat escaping whitebridge via improbable lightning strikes, then you get rand coming down with a weird flu. like, idk, i like it when creators set up dominoes and i as a reader can SEE the dominoes getting set up and i get to go like, hoohoohoo, can't wait for those to get knocked down!
unsurprisingly since rand and nynaeve are my two favs i also am enamored with their dynamic. maybe it's because you're in rand's head the most in this book, and so it's the closest you as a reader are to seeing a straightforward platonic relationship between a male and female character? but okay like, listen. nynaeve is the FIRST PERSON (maybe the only person rn??) rand shares his fears with re: tam not being his dad and him not knowing who he is. and nynaeve immediately reassures him that it doesn't matter, she saw tam and kari with him and she KNOWS they loved him like any father and mother
or like, the scene when rand overhears lan and nynaeve having their whole Dramatic Star-Crossed Romance (which is like, cool, but also, can't wait for lan to get over his TTRPG Tragic Backstory [affectionate] and kiss her already), and the chapter ends with a line like "Rand closed his eyes. He did not think the Wisdom would like it if he saw her cry." good GOD!
how old are these kids supposed to be anyway. like i know nynaeve is older by a few years and she's...24? so are the rest 18-20ish? oh my god you guys, they're KIDS
i'm sure i will have more thoughts about the other characters as these books progress and shit continues to pop off and Get Funky (especially relevant vis a vis perrin going full wolf mode and egwene learning how to be an aes sedai). also i love how often it's repeated that people from the two rivers are The Most Stubborn People Alive, and how rand holds onto that as part of his identity (re: envisioning hardy two rivers soil)
now let us talk about the world because OH MY GOD
one of the things that definitely stuck with me was the secret hidden lore re: "this is actually post-post-post apocalyptic earth", cf. thom telling stories about "lenn flying to the skies in an eagle made of fire" and "salya walking among the stars", because it is so fucking insane as a concept and jordan does it REALLY WELL, in the sense that any references to "our" earth are so oblique and indirect that they're barely comprehensible, which is as it should be if these books take place a whole two ages later
but it's also such a perfect excuse/reason to deliberately echo and make homage to myths and stories that we as readers are familiar with, the most obvious being the legend of artur hawkwing (and also half of our main cast having arthurian-esque names). something something george lucas saying that it's like poetry, it rhymes
the part that really dropped me flat on my ass though was when perrin and egwene and elyas are leaving the tinkers and elyas LITERALLY recites anglican catechism at them ("as it once was, so shall it ever be, world without end"), reader i screamed
that being said. i do kind of wish there was more Weird Religion Bullshit. i mean it makes sense that the cosmology and people's theological beliefs are pretty universal (given that it's a Canonical Big Deal Historical Event that the embodiment of evil punched a hole in reality and made magic evil and fucked up for men forever), but like. where is the variety! where is the spice! where are the religious freaks! give me religious freaks!!!
however this is ameliorated by the fantastic variety in cultures/societies/stories, and also the overarching theme of "the world has moved on from what it once was". like, everything with loial (also strong contender for Supporting Character Of All Time) talking about the groves and how different the world is from what he'd read about in the stedding! the entire scene with the green man (which still makes me feel completely fucking insane, just btw)! perrin and egwene at the ruined statue of artur hawkwing! moiraine telling the people of emond's field about manetheren! WHEWWWWWWWWWW
like, it really does give you this sense of history and loss. but also i hope that as the books go on it gets more into, like, "okay, the world has moved on and nothing will ever be as it once was. so what are we going to do with the world we have? how are we going to keep it safe and let it grow?"
sidenote: the tragedy of listening to the audiobooks is that i can't flip back to look at the map or the glossary if i start getting a little lost 😭 help i just want to get everything Right in my head
i also feel like jordan does a fantastic job of like...getting the reader further and further into the more fantastical or impactful elements of the world step by careful step and pacing out how he escalates the characters' importance to the world. does this make any sense.
like, baerlon -> whitebridge -> caemlyn is a steady stepwise escalation in Experiencing A City. and the one-two-three combo of loial explaining ta'veren to rand + rand overhearing a farmer gossip about queen morgase and her family + the repeated references to seeing the false dragon in caemlyn all leads perfectly into rand falling into the garden and the entire chapter with elayne and gawyn and morgase. (side note: this chapter was fucking incredible, good god i am obsessed with royal political bullshit.) OR having all these moments of the characters with moiraine to establish her nature, then providing an immediate contrast with the introduction of elaida as the "other" aes sedai. DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL. it's dominoes, baby
okay i have a few other miscellaneous thoughts
i fucking love how unapologetically trope-y these books are. it is so crunchy. not just vis a vis the hero's journey, but also, like, all the repeated motifs? spooky symbolic dream sequences? excerpts from in-universe writings and poetry? Foreshadowing Via Fortune-Telling? chef's kiss
also, dude, i love that robert jordan really dropped all of the fucking symbols for the next who knows how many books into three paragraphs via min. he knew the girlies would go crazy for this. AND HE WAS RIGHT
same goes for the whole concept of ta'veren, like i know on the surface it's kind of a goofy concept that you are Assigned Main Character At Birth by the wheel/the pattern, but also like. this man knew people on tumblr would be obsessing over characters doomed/haunted by narratives 30 years after these books were published. his third eye was OPEN
in a bizarre way so much of the story elements and pacing feels like a d&d campaign. mat is the rogue who picks up stuff he really shouldn't. perrin is a barbarian that accidentally took a level in druid. lan is the dm's npc blorbo with the intricately detailed tragic backstory that gets dumped on the players all at once (this is affectionate i swear). do you see what i'm saying
hi i love these books a lot already and i can't wait for them to get even more insane. thanks 4 ur time
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augustheart · 1 year
Text
DC Pride 2023 Tribute to Rachel Pollack
This is a transcription of the text that appears at the end of DC Pride, written by a variety of authors in memory of trailblazing writer Rachel Pollack. I've done my best to copy everything exactly as it was written, and I apologize for any errors. It's over 3,000 words, so I'm going to put it under a cut outside of the foreword. The rest of the tributes are in plain text and not italicized except in places where they were by the original authors.
(If you would like a PDF of the following transcription, one is available here.)
“On April 7, 2023, the legendary writer and Tarot expert Rachel Pollack passed at age 77. Her work for DC's Vertigo imprint—including the celebrated Vertigo Tarot deck and a long run on Doom Patrol that was a deep influence on the property's recent HBO Max series—was profoundly meaningful for generations of comics fans. She was a trailblazing trans woman in comics and sci-fi communities that were frequently male-dominated, and her lifelong love of both superheroes in particular and the comics medium in general allowed her to confidently turn their storytelling tropes inside out, truly queering her comics in every sense of the word.
In the months before her passing, the editors of DC Pride were speaking to Rachel about writing a new story for this very issue, and her enthusiasm for the project was boundless, as she planned to return to her themes of the superhero and the secret identity, of the "kink" of costumes, and of the revelatory freedom that she found in these characters. Unfortunately, just as work was set to begin on the script, completing it became impossible for her. In the absence of that last great work, but with gratitude for the incredible stories she did give us, we've opted to turn the pages we reserved for Rachel's story over to her friends, and to the fans whose lives she changed, to share their memories of her.”
—Unspecified Author or Editor
“I met Rachel Pollack in 1985, at a convention, where I was interviewing her about Salvador Dali’s Tarot, and then I met her again a couple of days later at the Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Conference, and we became friends fast. She was smart and funny, she was a brilliant writer, and she was the first person I’d met who knew more than I did about obscure Jewish mythology.
She told me off for writing a line of dialogue. ‘But that’s the only thing in the whole story that’s actually true,’ I told her, and she explained that art truth and reality truth were two very different things. And I knew she was right.
I don’t know how much I learned about writing, but listening to Rachel and Gwyneth Jones and John Clute and Lisa Tuttle and the rest of them, I learned so much about reading, and what I learned would change me as a writer.
Rachel was my friend. I had never met a person who had transitioned before and I had so many questions and, patiently, she answered all of them. She decided I needed to know Roz Kaveney, and Roz and I have been friends for decades now.
In 1988 I was writing Books of Magic and knew I needed a Tarot reading in the comic. Rachel was in London, and I asked her what the reading should be. She took me out to buy a Tarot deck that spoke to me, and I saw what happened when Rachel Pollack walked into a Tarot shop. It was a little like what happened when The Beatles went on Ed Sullivan. And then she gave me a beautiful reading of four cards, which encapsulated the whole of the story I was trying to tell.
She won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1989 for Unquenchable Fire, and I read it and suspected Rachel was creating her own school of fiction, her own brand of magical realism.
We argued, gently, about Wanda’s fate in A Game of You, and Rachel did what I wish everyone who had an argument about art would do, which is she took what she wanted to say and put it into a comic. Tom Peyer had asked her to write Doom Patrol after Grant Morrison left, and she did a remarkable job. I loved the delirious joy of her comics, the magic and the sense of fun, in Doom Patrol and in the comics that followed Doom Patrol.
I was thrilled to see Rachel when I moved to Upstate New York, and then I didn’t see her for years. I did that thing where you think you’re in touch with your friend, but really you’re just on social media at the same times. I was stuck out of the country during COVID, and Rachel had cancer. I was thrilled when I returned to hear that she had beaten the cancer, and then I was going to see her and she hadn’t beaten the cancer. A whole new cancer had turned up on the day she had beaten the first one.
I got to see Rachel more in the past few months than I had in the previous few years. She was as funny as ever, as sharp and as wise. I got to know her wife, Zoe, and to appreciate their love. I got to tell her bad Jewish jokes that, I suspect, I’d probably first heard from her. ‘Everywhere I went, people said ‘Look at the schmuck on the camel!’’ Some people die well—not necessarily bravely, necessarily, but gently and wisely and kind. Rachel was going to be one of those. She asked me to come to her funeral, and I said that I would.
Her funeral, several months later, was in the sunshine. It was filled with friends of hers from comics, from fiction, from Tarot, from writing, from teaching, from family, from the world, and Rachel lay above the grave on a wooden plank, wrapped in white winding sheet. We said true things about her, and we were funny and honest and there was so much love, and then we shoveled the earth on her, and cried, and said our goodbyes.
I’ve never met anyone like her. I’m glad she was my friend.”
—Neil Gaiman
“Rachel Pollack and I had the same favorite comic book—why, Doom Patrol, of course—and for a while she was its writer and I was its editor. She followed Grant Morrison, whose name was big and growing even then, and for years it seemed like Grant’s era might totally eclipse hers in memory. But DC released her Doom Patrol omnibus in 2022, and in the process unwrapped the radiation-proof bandages from her work, exposing the piercing and radiant appreciation that so many fans felt for it. On top of that, this year Dennis Culver and Chris Burnham, the creators of the excellent Unstoppable Doom Patrol, paid a moving in-story tribute to Rachel’s cast of broken-but-healing heroes.
I’m glad she got to see the omnibus, and I’m grateful for the chance it gave us to relive her perceptive, ironic, unsettling, and revelatory run. It was known for being strange and surreal, but there was so much more going on. Doom Patrol had been weird before, and funny, but never quite as wise or kindly meant.
A story that I always think of when I think of Rachel featured yours truly. At the end of my time as an editor—I had decided I wanted to write full-time—I called the creators I worked with to let them know I was leaving. Most of them, quite understandably, reacted with some implied variation of ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ It made me start to think I was being horrible and selfish. But when I called Rachel and nervously told her what I had decided, there was a silence, and then she said, ‘Quitting is good for the soul.’”
—Tom Peyer
“I met Rachel Pollack in the late ‘90s at WisCon, the feminist science fiction convention where we were both guests. It was the first day of the con, and they were introducing all the guests. I had read Rachel’s Doom Patrol comics and at least one of her books, Unquenchable Fire, and was excited about meeting her. She must have felt the same about me, because when the introductions were over, we headed straight toward each other as though we’d been magnetized, and we became friends immediately.
We lived on opposite sides of the continent, so we didn’t get to see each other that often, but thank the Goddess for email. I visited Rachel’s house once and she visited mine once. Her house was nicer. She took me to visit Hyde Park, Franklin Roosevelt’s old home, now a historic site—we were both FDR fans—and I taught her a Yiddish World War II song. We were both into our Jewishness, but from different angles. Rachel was interested in the mystic side, and I was into Yiddishkeit. Rachel had a bat mitzvah, and I studied Yiddish.
Rachel and I discovered we had the same birthday—August 17, which we shared with Mae West and Davy Crockett. So we sent each other birthday cards that also included happy birthday wishes to Mae and Davy.
I knew Rachel had written many books on the Tarot, so when one day I found a complete set of Tarot cards lying in the street, I decided the Goddess wanted her to have them, and I sent them to her on our birthday. After that, the Goddess would put out Tarot cards for me to find almost every year, often just in time for Rachel’s birthday presents. In return, she sent two Tarot cards that she had drawn for me when I was being treated for cancer. (I’m cancer free now!) I saved them and put them away safely—somewhere.
Last year a neighbor who was a collector of stuff died and left his collections to us, his neighbors, to take for free. Among all the stuff in his stuff-filled rooms was an unopened set of Tarot cards. Shortly after I found the cards, my Romani neighbors who lived around the corner put a book on Tarot out on the street, so I took that for Rachel. I mailed the book and cards to Rachel for our birthday.
For the first time, I got no answering card. I didn’t know that Rachel’s lymphoma had come back.
And somehow, it all got away from me.
Periodically, I would think, ‘Phone her—must phone Rachel,’ but something would come up and I’d forget to phone, or it would be too late to phone because of the time difference between New York and California. Damn it!
I miss you, Rachel. In our next lives, I’ll try to be a better friend.”
—Trina Robbins
“I first met Rachel Pollack when I was the assistant editor on The Sandman and she was the new Doom Patrol monthly writer. I shared an office with Tom Peyer, who was Rachel’s editor, and when Rachel swept in like a redheaded bohemian priestess, I always wound up putting aside my own work so I could chat a bit with Rachel as well. She had the rare gift of wielding her considerable expertise about comics and mythology in a way that made the person talking to her feel smarter.
After I left DC Comics to write full-time, I moved to Rhinebeck and discovered that Rachel lived there, too. We formed a small writing group that met once a week, usually in my kitchen. Always as kind as she was insightful, Rachel spent more time celebrating what worked than critiquing what didn’t. She did a lot of celebrating, of others’ writing and of her own, delighting in the words and worlds that moved through her.
She was, pre-pandemic, a frequent guest at my Passover Seder, the only person besides myself and my mother who knew all the Hebrew and all the traditional melodies. Her vast knowledge of midrash and Kabbalah made her comments more delicious than the charoset she made, and let me tell you, that was pretty damn good. 
In October, when she started to get really sick and I started to visit more frequently, often with Neil Gaiman, Rachel defied any expectation of how a dying person ought to act. She cracked Borscht Belt jokes and talked about writing and writers, and then I went with her wife, Zoe, to pick out a grave. We discussed the Tarot, which I had belatedly begun to study along with her seminal book on the subject, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. I asked, ‘What does it mean when you get an auspicious card in a place that means it’s negative?’ ‘It means that’s what you’re struggling with,’ she replied.
I am struggling with this turn of the cards. I cannot fully fathom that she will not be sitting at our favorite local café, writing, but ready to put down her antique fountain when she sees me. Yet when I turn back to her writing, I feel her still with me: Doom Patrol Rachel, Writing Partner Rachel, Rachel of the Passover Seder, Rachel Poet, Rachel Priestess, Rachel Friend.”
—Alisa Kwitney
“Rachel Pollack loved comics.
When we first talked about comics, it was about her own. Eight years ago I asked Martha Thomases if the Doom Patrol run after Grant’s was worth checking out, as I hadn’t heard much talk of it. She said ‘Yes. Read it.’ I adored the run and reached out to Rachel via email to let her know. To my surprise, I heard back from her within 20 minutes.
Over time we talked about the comics and creators that she loved. Carl Barks and the Duck comics, particularly the characters of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, meant a great deal to her. Little Lulu was high on her list. And The Fox and the Crow inspired a whole arc of her Doom Patrol run. The works of Jack Kirby (particularly on Fantastic Four and the Fourth World saga), Steve Ditko, and Gene Colan were brought up often, as were series including Xambi and Promethea, which she revisited often. She had even reached out to Marvel back in the early ‘70s inquiring about writing opportunities, two decades before writing at DC. 
Rachel saw the inherent queerness in superhero comics back in the Silver Age. One example she would reference was “The Town That Hated Superboy!” from 1967’s Superboy #139. In it, the citizens of Smallville turn against Superboy for nearly two pages. What stood out to Rachel was how Ma and Pa Kent pretended to hate Superboy out of fear that if they didn’t, those around them might suspect that Superboy was really their adoptive son, Clark. Though taking this sequence and relating it to an idea as heavy as the violent consequences of inadvertently outing someone by simply treating them with kindness was unlikely Otto Binder’s intention, the subtext was picked up on by many queer comics readers at the time in addition to Rachel.
Through the years I got to have a greater understanding of Rachel’s unbelievable kindness as well. She saw the world as a positive place and held out hope for just about everyone. Rachel discussed how attitudes with London’s Gay Liberation Front turned against the trans community in the ‘70s, but she would also talk about how some of the same people came back around and were vocal advocates for trans rights by the ‘90s. Whereas most, understandably, would allow themselves to be bitter and resentful, Rachel’s capacity for love and compassion was too strong for that.
I was devastated knowing just how many projects Rachel had in the works and how many stories she still had to tell. But after taking time to think on it, I know that no matter how long she stayed here with us, her work would never be done. Her stories will continue through those who love her and those who haven’t found her yet but will love her just the same. 
I love talking about Rachel’s work and her kindness. I plan on doing so for the rest of my life.”
—Joe Corallo
“‘It’s so cool that you created the first trans superhero,’ a very nice person told me recently. Writing feels like stuffing a message in a bottle and lobbing it out into the open sea, so to meet someone who had caught one of my bottles and read what was inside was extremely exciting. Unfortunately, I am a nerd first and a lover of accolades second, so I had to correct them. 
Galaxy, the character I created, is not the first out trans superhero in the DC Universe. Kate Godwin, created by Rachel Pollack 30 years ago, is. Kate is important, but more than that, she’s important to me. 
I was a teenager 30 years ago. That’s also important.
There’s a lot of talk of firsts in superhero comics, most of it meaningless. Dick Grayson absolutely deserves the ‘Sensational Character Find of 1940’ label trumpeted on the cover of his first appearance, Detective Comics #38, but you don’t need to read it, even as a die-hard Robin fan.
You can’t say that about Doom Patrol #70, the first appearance of Kate Godwin. That issue changes everything. That issue changes lives. Because Kate, a kind and funny woman, with an amusing power set and questionable taste in superhero outfits, who is beautifully, unapologetically trans—Kate is the viewpoint character.
Imagine the power of that. Holding up a trans woman—a lesbian trans woman, at that!—and saying ‘This, this is who you, the reader, should identify with.’ To have a trans woman be smart and pretty and likable, and not an object of scorn or pity, or a side character. She was the hero! I can tell you from experience, that is a tough sell now.
Reading that comic in the 1990s felt like a lightning bolt from heaven.
It was too powerful for my teenage self to handle. It was radioactive, and yet I would read my copy ragged to bask in its glow. I can call up its panels from memory. When I finally began my transition, many years later, I wore a lot of black tank tops and jeans, unconsciously aping Kate’s unofficial uniform. I didn’t put it together until recently, rereading those 30-year-old stories that I had imprinted upon like a baby bird. Early on, I wasn’t sure of the kind of woman I was, but clearly I knew the kind of woman I wanted people to see. Someone like Kate Godwin.
I never got the chance to meet Rachel Pollack and tell her how I had received her message in a bottle. How I had held it close to my heart until I finally found the strength to absorb its message. How she showed me I wasn’t alone, and I could be a hero, even if that just meant saving myself.
But I hear people say those words to me, having read about Galaxy. Which will have to do.
Thank you for being first, Rachel.”
—Jadzia Axelrod
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taschamonnii · 1 year
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More Than A Woman - Part 5 (Lay All Your Love On Me) 
You x Shirley Carter (70s-80s Southern Housewife Original Character  - Elizabeth Olsen) 
Find All Parts Here
*Disclaimer/Summary: This completely Fictional Character is based on the way Lizzie plays old-fashioned Housewives. (Some inspo is taken from WandaVision, I Saw The Light, and Love & Death) This character is in no way a portrayal of any real-life people. Audrey Williams and Candy Montgomery were real people that Lizzie has portrayed for entertainment purposes in tv & film. This story is not about them. I just want to see Lizzie play a 70s-80s housewife that is secretly Gay and stuck in a religious small-town in the South. Since she has never done that but has played the part of perfect housewife I decided to make my own character.* I will be using edited pictures from the characters she has played and unaltered gifs since it's way too hard to edit those.*
Character Description since this is a made up character: mid length-wavy-dark brown hair (think more the length in I saw the Light like it falls to her collar bones but the deep dark brown from goth Wanda era, Emerald Green eyes, Wears form fitting dresses and high waisted pants and skirts.  
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Angst/Smut/Fluff
TW: SMUT, 18+, Cheating on husbands to be GAY together, 
I am so obsessed with Lizzie playing housewife that I made a playlist! More Than A Woman
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AN: This is part Five to this Original Series
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Word Count: 1,506
Imagine This:
“Maybe someday you could. We won’t be here forever. Theo's company estimates maybe a few years.”
Her face drops and you can see the sadness in her eyes. “Oh.”
Her eyes filled with tears and her bottom lip trembled. “No. No. Don’t cry.”
You reached for her cheek and she sat up quickly. “What the fuck Y/N?”
Angry tears raced down her cheeks and you rushed to sit up. You went to reach for her again but she swatted your hand away. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry. Shirley, I was hoping to talk to you about this differently.”
“We just. You just said you love me! We just made love Y/N! Now you are telling me what exactly?"
"I'm telling you this because I love you. Can't you see. I want you. We could be together easier in Cali."
"I can't just leave my family, Y/N. You know that."
"No, your family would come too. I want you and your girls and there is something I've been meaning to talk to you about but I think now might be a bad time.."
She raised her voice but it was still broken. "A bad time? Something worse than you moving away!?!" 
"Fuck!" You run your hands through your hair and take a deep breath. "Shirley, I don't plan on leaving you unless you want me to."
She glanced away and you could see she didn't believe you. "Huh it sounds like you are leaving me."
"I'm not."
"Then explain. What is the worst thing?"
"Well, I am not sure it's worse than you thinking I'm leaving but I just well it's complicated. I don't know how you will react."
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Just say it."
"I think well Theo and I, we think John is, mmm might be, gay." 
"What?"
"It's just he cares about his appearance a lot. He, according to Theo, acts a bit shy in the bathroom and we just see it. We could be wrong. You know him best. Does he shower for longer than 10 minutes? Does he prefer fucking you from behind? Does he want to fuck you all the time or is it more special occasions?"
She looked shocked. "You and Theo think John is gay?"
"Yes and Theo has a bit of a thing for John if I'm being honest." 
"Oh my God. John has commented on Theo's appearance a few times. He actually wants us all to be friends. What the fuck? John loves me though."
"I know he does that is obvious to everyone but does he lust after you? Like how I lust after you. You know lots of staring and eye contact especially in bed. If he isn't looking at you in awe every time he fucks you then he might be picturing someone else. Have you ever pictured someone else while you have sex with him?" 
She bit her bottom lip and ran her hands through her hair then ran her hands over her face. "Oh God, is my entire life a lie?"
"No, it's just different than you thought. You love John but it's different than how you love me right?"
She nodded yes and took a deep breath. You gave her a reassuring smile. "This could be really good."
"Good."
You reach out and take her hand and she finally lets you. "Good."
She sighed and brought her free hand up to squeeze the bridge of her nose. "What am I supposed to do now Y/N?" 
"Well we take things one step at a time. Do you think that John would ever have an affair if Theo proposed one?"
She twisted her lips in thoughts. "Well if you had asked before we had this little conversation I would have said absolutely not but now I don't know how well I really know my husband." 
You nod and squeeze her hand "okay take a deep breath this is a lot." 
"You think?"
You pull her closer and wrap your hands around her. "I think maybe we should take a step back and relax." 
You kissed the side of her head and pulled her face into view so you could kiss her forehead and cheeks and chin. You capture her lips in a passionate kiss. She kisses back quickly deepening the kiss. She sucks on your bottom lip and moans into the kiss. She pushes you back and straddles your lap. Her hand travels down between the two of you. Her long fingers quickly find purchase and you throw your head back in a moan. You move your hand between you and quickly match her movements. 
She drops her head on your shoulder as her breaths heat your skin. Your movements sync as your hips chase the pleasure. She bites your neck and sucks on your skin. You dig your blunt nails into her shoulder with your free hand. 
You lose yourself in the feeling of having her inside you while being inside her. Everything feels heightened. Your bodies tighten even as you resist falling into pleasure. You want this to last and you can feel she does too. Your bodies tremble and stutter and your hips jerk against each other. You both tumble over the edge blissed out. Her full weight collapses on top of you as she breathes out. You both hold onto each other tightly like letting go would change everything. 
Things feel different and you both know that nothing will ever be the same. You breathe her in trying to memorize her sweet scent. The way her weight feels on top of you, the way she holds you tighter as she comes down from her high. You hold her tighter and kiss the skin of her shoulder and neck trying to ground yourself in her. 
Time passes and you are truly unsure how long you both lay there holding each other. Eventually your breaths even and both of your grips on each other lighten gradually. She lifts her head up and kisses your lips softly before rolling slightly off of you. She sighed out. “I don’t want to leave this moment, I don't want to face reality.”
You let out a deep sigh. “I wish we could stay like this forever.” 
“What do we do now?”
“We have time to take things slowly. Would you be okay if Theo tested the water with John? Or have you heard of swinging? We could work on developing the friendship and then propose swinging.”
“I am not sure if it brings me comfort or concern that you have really thought about all this.”
She laughs nervously and you grab and squeeze her hand. “I know it’s a lot.”
She blows out a dramatic breath letting her lips vibrate and make a cute sound. “No kidding. Uh I guess it would be good to improve our friendship as couples Theo can do whatever he wants. I have heard of swinging but it is not something that happens around here. I read about it in a magazine and was too scared to talk to John about it. I don’t know how he would react to such a thing.”
You nod and smile. “Let's just start with game nights and going on double dates things like that.”
She agreed with the nod of her head. 
>>>>
Time seemed to be on your side as things moved smoothly. Soon it became routine to see Shirley for your little afternoon delights then again at church events and what was quickly becoming more fun and easy going game nights and weekend hangouts with the Carter family. You and Theo developed a strong bond with the girls and John was easily falling into a best friendship with Theo. Flirtatious glances and fun nights as a group felt right. Things sort of fell into place. 
It didn’t take long for Theo to break through and truly connect with John. Theo helped John come into himself and see the truth. Theo even helped settle John when he told him about the love affair that Shirley had with you. Now that he knows things have gotten easier and far more fun. You can mark Shirley's delicate skin without worry and you do. You mark every inch possible. You bite and suck your marks all over her. Beyond that it has allowed for her to spend the night with you and even for you to spend the night at her house. The domesticity you craved with her is finally yours. Well mostly. There are plans for buying a house as a group in Cali so it can be more full time. 
There is love and happiness among you all and it is the most wonderful thing you have ever been a part of. You have longed for something like this your entire life and you finally have it. The future looks bright and you can’t wait to return to Cali and live free and easy and fall asleep with Shirley in your arms every night and wake her every morning. 
A/N: Sorry this is so short but it is wrapping up. There will be one more, probably short as well, part that shows them all in the future. I hope you all have enjoyed this silly little story that was solely inspired by the way Elizabeth Olsen plays these types of 70s & 80s Housewife characters. I have had a hard time figuring out how to end this but I knew when I started I wanted it to be light and fun. We need more movies and shows where Lizzie’s character is not a sad girl even though I love all her sad girl characters. 
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centrally-unplanned · 9 months
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Here is my Comiket haul, for those who may care!
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Arranged on the apartment chabudai for maximum weeb vibes. I won't go through all of them, just note a few to showcase the diversity of things that were on offer. If there is one someone wants a deep dive on, let me know, happy to take photos!
First up, the centerfold star - A Bocchi/Shimo-Kitazawa Fan Celebration doujin in the shape of a vinyl record:
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Its extremely adorable, these guys went all in. It comes in an album case with "tracks", the vinyl-shaped doujin has an A side and a B side with totally different content when flipped, and when you are reading it the text slowly rotates page by page as if you are "playing" the disc.
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Some of it is the circle's thoughts on Bocchi, but more is about their love for the part of Tokyo that Bocchi takes place in, Shimo-Kitazawa, with sections on show-accurate locations and favourite cafes and stores. They even included a map with all of the spots they recommend you visit in the area!
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This one is to me the most "magic of doujin": we all have favourite parts of our cities, and if we sat down could maybe make a map like this. But why would we do that? Who would care? The joint power of a locally-set anime & Comiket, however, makes that personal map into a piece of art people want to own. This piece is pure creativity & passion, and its very special for that - a symbol of doujinshi.
Also one of their members spoke fluent English and aggressively upsold foreigners at the event ^_^ Successfully so! Good job.
For something a little less high concept, this tiny artbook of Rin from Laid-Back Camp as Ghibli characters is adorable:
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A smol kiki, too cute. And look at her as Nausicaa! Full blue and ready to kick ass.
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Its like 5 pages and each page is a gem, great buy.
This next one is a genre of book I really love - the photography/anime composite book focusing on scene locations, starring our girl Haruhi Suzumiya:
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I appreciate how much fun this one has with its concept, lots of cute drawings on the margins; and the photographs are not all Haruhi related, instead it is just the author's own journey put through a Haruhi lens. This book is another great example of how "transformative" these works are, breaking the bounds of their source material.
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"Hey, its me!"
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Okay, now for some extreme Ash-brand doujin - Flowers for Yamada-san, a history doujin about Hiroyoshi Yamada, also known by the name Koji Kawamoto, a manga & magazine editor who played an instrumental part of the lolicon boom of the 1980's:
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He passed away this year, and so this doujin is a memorial to him, an accounting of his influence and role in early manga, a wider discussion of the lolicon boom in general, and its own creative work; sandwiched between essays are comic depictions of moments of his career done in a mimicry the classic loli/bishoujo early 80's style:
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This will of course take some time to read - I am excited to dig into it. As I have mentioned before, I am toying with the idea of a deeper research project on the "lolicon boom"; its, for understandable reasons, extremely neglected in western discourse of the history of anime & manga. But that moral aversion doesn't change how instrumental this period was, so I think a lot of good work could be done documenting and explaining its place. This book was an amazing find to stumble upon, and the creators are extremely well-researched on this period.
Anyway this is probably long enough lol. I did find some ero-doujin as well of course, though very few - as I mentioned, Comiket was a warzone, and I did not 'prep' for that side of things. I laughed at the idea of people doing days of research to prep of their porn buying adventure - I was the fool, they the wise, you absolutely need to do that if that is your goal. It wasn't really mine but I respect it now for sure - and I actually found the Comiket experience sort of liberating on that front, I "get it" now in a way I didn't before.
This is of course a tiny sliver of the book buys from Japan - hopefully I can make a few posts about the rest soon.
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acourtofthought · 11 months
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I recently saw a theory about the Elucien bond being fake or missed assigned.
This is what it said:
The cauldron lie because when Elaine was made AZ was dying and so it picked the next suitable male.
Also; feyre and Nesta describe the bond as a tug on their soul whereas Elain describe it as a thug on her ribs.
I call BS.. pardon my French, because there is so much more that debunk this however what are your thoughts?
First, what kind of bullshit system would mating bonds be if they were randomly assigned simply because one person was injured? 😂. If that's the story we're going with than why was Feysand made mates while she was human, with a mortal lifespan and near starvation at certain points?
Mating Bonds aren't randomly given, they are decided well before people are even born (we have proof of this in the TOG series). New mates aren't assigned in adulthood just because one person from the pairing is injured. Azriel wasn't dead despite his injuries and I'm pretty sure the system that decides who is paired with who isn't going to randomly look at a bleeding guy and go "hmmmm, there's a chance he's not making it, on to the next random Fae male within Elain's vicinity!".
I think this is yet another attempt to discredit the Elucien bond because for all the cries that Elain doesn't want a mate and how Elucien's don't respect that, I think the bond still a worry for them considering SJM is a Fated Mates author.
This is how Feyre once described Rhys pulling on their bond:
I was pulled from sleep by something tugging at my middle, a thread deep inside.
If Feyre can feel a tug in the general area of her stomach ("her middle") or possibly lower since middle is probably more in the area of your intestines and she turned out to have a legitimate mating bond then I feel confident that Elain feeling a tug near her ribs (which protect the heart) is a bit more romantically coded and would also indicate her bond with Lucien is real.
The only time the bond is described by Nesta or Feyre as a thread between souls or something merging them together is when the bond is consummated:
until I felt and saw and smelled that bond between us, until our scents merged, and I was his and he was mine, and we were the beginning and middle and end. We were a song that had been sung from the very first ember of light in the world.
The golden threads shimmered and sang, and she couldn’t take it, the music between their souls, the feel of his body on her and in her, and—
Since Lucien and Elain haven't been physical (yet), we're not going to have the same kind of language in reference to their bond. Lucien went a bit feral over Elain being taken back to the NC. Mor used her gift of truth on him. Az can scent the bond. Elain and Lucien both felt the bond snap at the same time. Feyre used her demati powers to slip into Lucien’s mind and confirmed his feelings and instincts towards Elain as being sincere.
Not only would it be really odd for SJM to have to turn around and explain how every single person was rendered completely clueless for multiple books by this supposed false mating bond but what would the point of it be?
"Your bond is fake".
"Oh, thank goodness! I'm so relieved we spent the last two years feeling angst and confusion and guilt over the past loves we thought we were betraying, all for nothing! Now we're free to be with who we want even though we could have been with whoever we wanted the last two years anyway since we really didn't spend that much time together in the first place. Let's shake hands and part ways, sorry about all the discomfort and tension!"
It just makes no sense and I get they're trying to pull a TOG storyline to make a mating bond between E/riel a possibility but no villain is trying to have Lucien or Elain swear loyalty to them because they're so distraught over the loss of their mate who was never actually their mate. Lucien and Elain aren't really talking so what does a fake mating bond add to the plot? Not only are they not talking but they're both spending time with the character who some claim are their "true mates". Which again, doesn't make sense if the goal was to keep them away from their "true mates" 🤦
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frozen-fountain · 9 months
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For the book recs asks: 1, 5, 18, 23, 54, 71
A book that is close to your heart
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer. I read it about three years ago now and find myself thinking of it when I'm feeling at a crossroads and weighing up consequential decisions.
5. Something in fiction that reads like poetry
Not to be a stuck record but just... anything by Angela Carter. Not only for the beauty of her language and the images it creates in your mind but because, as florid and maximalist as her writing can be, it's all constructed to support layers of symbolism and deep wells of meaningful connotation. It's economical purple prose.
18. Your least favorite book ever
The most recent contender is probably Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw, which on the surface contains a lot of things I should love but completely failed in execution. Everyone knows that I love me some ornate, orchidaceous prose, so you know it's serious when even I am inwardly curling up into a ball of secondhand embarrassment at the excess on the page. Lady, you cannot drop "chiaroscuro" into your narration more than once without a damned good reason, and there's also some really cringy lampshading of cliched illogical things horror protagonists do that read less like an attempt to deconstruct these things in a meaningful way, and more like "So that just happened" humour to cover up the laziness of running the characters through these motions. Worst of all, there's no real subtext to add substance to the scares. There's some stuff in there about mental illness, about toxic and stagnant friendships, about marriage customs in feudal Japan versus contemporary America and what they do to women, but it failed to add up to anything enlightening or compelling. I loved the location, but that's about it.
A popular choice for this question, I think, but I'd throw in Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, too. Not because of the subject matter, or because of the ending, but because it's using these terrible experiences to cover itself in the trappings of a literary great while being, at least in my estimation, incredibly pulpy and borderline exploitative in its execution. I also did not at all see the beautiful, poetic prose that some people did and actually found the language really flat throughout, and found myself especially frustrated at the author's habit of over-explaining the characters' motivations and psychology instead of demonstrating them through action and dialogue - it read like a therapist's notes in many places, which doesn't work for fiction that's so centered on inner experience. But I do also see how and why this book could deeply move and become important to someone, and it frustrates me a bit that a lot of criticism of it seems to focus on anachronisms and lack of realism instead of asking why these devices were employed. But it's very Not For Me and places high on this list because my inability to DNF anything meant it took a long time to slog through.
I feel bad for saying so much more about books I hated than the ones I loved, but in the case of the latter I really am hoping anyone who reads these answers will check them out for themselves. I feel like my "Stay away!" needs a bit more qualification.
23. A book that is currently on your TBR
When I'm finished with Earthsea, I want to reread To the Lighthouse. It's been calling me and I was only twenty the first time I went through it, so I'm interested to see how it hits with all these experiences under my belt and after such dramatic changes in perspective as I've accumulated. For spoopy month I have Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller, Sisters by Daisy Johnson, and The Vegetarian by Han Kang lined up, and I'm really excited for all of those.
54. A book with the best opening line
It's pretty hard to beat "It was the day my grandmother exploded" (The Crow Road by Iain Banks).
71. Your favourite LGBTQ+ fiction
To just about everyone I would rec The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter, which is gorgeously written gender fuckery; The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, which is really effective sci-fi horror with a complicated sapphic slow burn at its centre; and Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, because what more could I say? With a much bigger pinch of salt I would add Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt to that list, because not everybody wants to be in the head of a violent and possessive rapist for several hundred pages, but it's a descent into the abyss that will stay with me for as long as I live.
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soho-anniee · 1 year
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This is my first time reading a book that I truly felt connected to, something that I felt shown. I honestly don’t even know how to explain it. From Vanessa’s different point of views of how hard it is to come to terms of grooming and how hard it is to see yourself as a “victim.” To the very end, when she felt she finally had something just for her very self- even if it is having a dog. It is hers and only hers, from the way she is finding a new part of herself without Strane coming in the way.
I honestly cried my heart out to this, because she was a just a kid and she was just trying to attend school- she did nothing wrong. She was so use to being held “responsible” for the actions being taken, when in reality strane could not come to terms of what he was actually doing. HE KNEW IT WAS WRONG.
I felt so connected because I saw myself as Vanessa did when she was receiving that attention from Strane. How hard she still tried to maintain that youthfulness to herself, because that’s all she knew about herself. She knew that Strane only wanted her (deep down) because Strane was able to fulfill his “darkest parts” because he made her feel like she was the only person for him. He used her and used her, he took over every inch of her body and mind. He made her his dark Vanessa, he consumed her with the own darkness that he held within.
That darkness grew and grew into her, because she was the only thing she knew about herself. When the therapist explains to V about her childhood memories, she can’t remember because she is in reality tainted by the abuse and grooming that went unforeseen by her. At the very end, her mother reminds her of how she would skate and skate as a child- this makes V have an epiphany of sorts that she was never afraid of anything. She finds a dog and she finally has a new piece of herself, something that is just for her and only her- a piece of her childhood beforehand, possibly ?
The author ends with acknowledgments:
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Xx, annie
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