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elentiyawhitethorn · 2 years

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Hiiiii! Hope you're feeling okay and happy. I love your work!

Could I request a modern vampire au with Feysand, where her blood is not only tasty but an aphrodisiac? 🙂

Bite Me, Prick

Warnings: language, horny vampires I guess?? vampire shenanigans? let’s just say NSFW

AN: Okay, if I’m being entirely honest… I had no idea what to do with this. Vampires are not really my thing. In addition to that I haven’t written smut in a long while and it feels so cringy as I reread it. But I did my best so hopefully you’ll enjoy this, and hopefully you’re still around to see it since this prompt has been in my inbox since July 😅

Smut//4766 words

“Very bad idea, Feyre,” Lucien hissed.

Feyre shot him a glare. “Not my idea, first of all, and second, it’s not like anything bad’s going to happen. I’ll be fine.”

“Sure you will,” Cassian whispered ominously. He was the one who’d first suggested this trip, which had resulted in her being dared her to spend the night in the castle, which was said to be haunted. As if.

Feyre rolled her eyes. “I’m not an idiot. Magical creatures are not hanging around in there. I’ll walk in there, maybe wander around for a bit, then find somewhere to crash. I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Don’t forget, you have to wait until sunrise to come out,” Mor said. They were just making up rules as they went, Feyre was sure of it, but she didn’t argue.

“Fine. Sunrise. See you then.”

Feyre gave the three of them a merry wave, turning and starting down the stone path.

This little escapade probably warranted an explanation. See, in the small village of Velaris, there were certain requirements to becoming a “true citizen.” One of these included going into the Velaris castle and spending the night inside. Beforehand, however, it was tradition for the graduates (people who had already completed the task) to tell ghost stories about the building to the initiates, as Cassian and Mor had done for her and Lucien. Once both were properly frightened—once Lu was scared and Feyre was amused and skeptical—they had conducted The Ritual (played eeny-meeny-miny-moe) to decide which of the two were sentenced to go inside. Lucien had been relieved for it not to be him yet, but worried about Feyre.

Cass and Mor had both already spent the night in the castle, of course, and Feyre could tell from their lack of ability to lie that despite all the stories about ghouls and near-deaths, neither had actually spotted anything remotely terrifying inside.

Which meant that this night would be easy and uneventful.

Little did Feyre know, it would be anything but.

—

The large oak door (seriously, were people in the olden days giant?) opened with a series of loud creaks and groans. Feyre turned as she closed it behind her, and thought she could make out her friends in the distance, on the other side of the long rope bridge she’d crossed to get to the entryway. Knowing they wouldn’t be able to see her, Feyre flipped them off before shutting the door.

She turned. The stone entrance opened immediately to a stone staircase, framed by a stone handrail. Was everything stone? Surely at least wood existed when this castle had been built.

Feyre started up the stairs fearlessly, finding her way to a hallway that split in two directions. Choosing the left at random, Feyre followed the hall for a ways, peering in rooms curiously but sticking to the main hallway so as not to get lost.

After a decent chunk of time, Feyre stumbled upon a dining room made of the same stone but decorated with all sorts of nicknacks displayed on the walls and the grand dining table. The table itself was a sturdy wood with carved chairs surrounding it of the same composition. The table was bare and the room exuded an emptiness that couldn’t be feigned, yet not a speck of dust coated any surfaces.

A blue and silver tapestry hung on the wall on the other side of the table, grand, delicately woven, and containing little figures in some sort of image, too faded for Feyre to make out. It was beautiful.

Feyre pulled out a chair in the middle and sat down. She settled, imagining a grand feast, the type that would have resided here long ago.

The image in Feyre’s head and the sight of the long wooden table had her growing a bit famished. It was late at night, perhaps nearing ten o’clock, so of course she’d already eaten dinner. But suddenly a pit opened in her stomach as she eyed the area. Her stomach growled at the thought.

“I can get you something to eat if you’re hungry.”

Feyre spun around in her seat, a gasp tearing from her mouth.

A man—only a man—leaned casually against the doorframe, dressed in black, his rich, dark skin and flawless features instantly drawing her attention. He didn’t look threatening at all, not with his amused smile or relaxed stance.

“Who are you?” Feyre dared to ask.

The man raised an eyebrow. “I’m Rhys. What might your name be, darling?”

Feyre frowned, knowing she should be wary but somehow only feeling calm and slightly sluggish in his presence. “Feyre.”

“Feyre,” he repeated, tasting the name on his lips. “That’s beautiful.”

Her breath hitched. “Who are you?”

Rhys tilted his head inquiringly. “You already asked that, darling.”

Feyre shook her head. “Not your name. Why are you here?” She got the feeling he wasn’t another twenty-year-old staying the night because his idiot friends dared him to.

“May I sit?” Rhys asked.

Feyre opened her mouth, debating how to respond. “Yes, I suppose.”

Rhys gracefully sauntered over and pulled out the chair next to Feyre. “Let me get you something to eat, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know about me.”

Feyre didn’t have a bone in her body that could summon any resistance to his pretty eyes.

Rhys smiled at her apparent lack of opposition. He waved his hand lazily and Feyre’s eyes widened as the table filled with a whole feast, exactly as she’d imagined. A giant sliced turkey sat as the centerpiece, surrounded by mashed potatoes, and soup, and roasted vegetables, and pudding, and all sorts of other fancy foods.

“I.. that’s…” Feyre stuttered. “I wasn’t really that hungry.”

Rhys shrugged, his lips twitching. “Eat however much you want.”

Feyre, half terrified and half intrigued, grabbed an apple. She slowly took a bite, not taking her eyes off of Rhys.

Who was he? What was he? Feyre knew some creatures had magical powers—she’d never been skeptical about their existence, merely their presence in some run-down castle in Velaris—but creature was the last word she’d ever use to describe Rhys. He was a man. A beautiful man.

Rhys smirked as if sensing her thoughts. “I told you I would share. Where should I start?”

Feyre swallowed, ridding herself of both that mouthful of apple and the lump in her throat.

“Are you human?”

Rhys smiled at the question. “No.”

His blatant answer should have frightened Feyre, and it did, but she felt no surprise whatsoever. “What are you, then?”

“What do you think?” Rhys purred, flashing a grin at her. His smile was wide enough for Feyre to notice two fangs inside of his mouth.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Rhys leaned forward. “Do I scare you, darling?”

“Yes,” she answered bluntly.

He smiled again, his eyes crinkling. “You’re very honest.”

“Not really, just a bit stupid.”

Rhys laughed, throwing his head back. It was the most breathtaking thing Feyre had ever seen. “I don’t believe that for one second, Feyre.”

She shrugged mindlessly. “Just out of it, then. My mind feels foggy. Are you making me like this?”

“I wish I could deny it. It’s not intentional; humans merely find me enchanting.”

“You’re awfully full of yourself, huh?” Feyre asked, picking up her apple once more and taking another bite.

Another laugh floated out from Rhys’ delicate lips. “I suppose you could say that.”

“Well?”

“Well what?” Rhys asked.

Feyre squinted. “You said you’d tell me anything I want to know. You can hardly reveal you’re a vampire and expect my curiosity to abate.”

A flicker of surprise flashed in Rhys’ eyes, and Feyre got the feeling he wasn’t often questioned. “Of course, darling. Shoot.”

“Why are you here?” she asked, twisting the apple in her hand.

“I live here,” Rhys said simply.

“But Mor and Cassian—those are my friends—have both been in here, and neither seemed to be telling the truth when they were telling me all their silly ghost stories.”

“I didn’t appear to either of them. I haven’t shown myself in centuries.”

“It must get tiring,” Feyre said, “having your home invaded all the time by a bunch of fools.”

Rhys snorted. “Sometimes. I have fun, though, messing with the so-called fools. Making noises and shadows that leave them screaming. It’s not a bad life.”

Feyre tilted her head. “Why did you appear to me, if you haven’t to anyone else in centuries? I’m nothing special.”

“Now that,” Rhys responded, “is not true. You are very special, Feyre darling.”

She frowned and finished her apple, taking a moment to think that through. She set the core on the table and said, “I suppose I probably have a higher IQ than most of the idiots who pass by here, but I’m not special. Besides, I thought vampires only go after virgins. I’m certainly not that.”

Rhys bent over the table laughing, and the gesture was so human it was hard to remember the fangs. After a moment, he straightened and started speaking, none of the humor gone from his face. “That’s a myth. And I’m not going after anybody. And you are beautiful and intelligent and I’ve been drawn to you since the moment you walked in. Does that satisfy everything?”

“Hmm. I suppose so. Though if you’re not going after me, what are you doing? Don’t you want to suck my blood and murder me or something?”

Rhys’ lips quirked and he appeared to be making an effort not to laugh again. “I have no intention of killing you, darling. Though sucking your blood isn’t something I’m opposed to, if I had your permission.”

Feyre blinked.

“But mostly I’m here to see what you want. I haven’t spoken to a human in a long while.”

“I… what I want?”

Rhys leaned in closer. “What do you want, Feyre?” He lifted his hand, and a shiver ran down Feyre’s spine as his fingers gently caressed her cheek.

She leaned into his touch shamelessly. “I want to walk out of here and not be dead,” she murmured. “If I don’t run now, is that still going to be possible?”

Rhys was so close that his breath fanned across Feyre’s face. “I won’t hurt you. You have my word.”

“What do you want from me?” Feyre asked helplessly as she gravitated toward him, hand coming to rest on his thigh.

“I want to feel something again,” Rhys told her, his voice soft. “I want to touch you.”

“Then touch me.”

Rhys hesitated, but Feyre’s voice was firm. He trailed the fingers on her cheek downward, moving over her neck and down to her shoulder. Feyre was only wearing a t-shirt and leggings—she hadn’t exactly come into this in an evening gown and a full layer of makeup. But Rhys looked at her like she was something to be looked at, touched her skin like it was velvet.

His fingers grazed over her arm and all the way down, until his fingers could wrap around her hand. He gently brought her hand up and pressed his lips against the back of it, the way people used to do in greeting. The feel of his lips, so soft, so warm, so restrained, had Feyre burning up inside, alight with a fire that paved its way downward and set her body aflame.

Feyre gasped and scooted on the chair, desperate to find some relief. Rhys smirked at the motion and leaned in slowly. His lips made contact and gods… He kissed her the way Feyre had always dreamed of being kissed, and it was so refreshing, like a breath of air after years of suffocation.

“Rhys,” she gasped out again his mouth, and that one syllable seemed to snap every ounce of restraint in his body. Rhys moved in, the new angle pushing their mouths together in a deep, dangerous dance as his arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her. Feyre wrapped her legs tightly around him, groaning into the kiss.

She vaguely registered Rhys waving his hand and the feast on the table disappearing. She barely noticed the walk down the hall, too caught up in the way Rhys’ tongue swirled through her mouth.

A door was pushed open and it swung in smoothly. Rhys finally broke the kiss as he walked inside, not a hitch in his step, the picture of ease. Feyre could only see the wall behind him as he glided in, until he set her on the bed and she looked around.

Feyre was lying on a lavish canopy bed cluttered with silk pillows. The walls surrounding her were mainly bare, aside from several smaller tapestries matching the large one in the dining hall. There was a nightstand and a tall, wooden wardrobe. The stone floor was covered with a massive red rug, bordered with gold.

No coffin in sight. No bottles of blood, no victims, no smell of dead bodies.

It was old-fashioned and cozy and sexy and it smelled like money. Rhys waved his hand once more, and candles appeared on the nightstand, bathing the previously dim room in a soft, almost supernatural glow.

And gods, was Feyre ready to be fucked.

Rhys seemed to follow her train of thought with a wicked gleam in his eyes as she tugged her shirt and leggings off. Feyre had almost gone with a sensual leg spread, before realizing leggings probably weren’t the best clothing item for that move. So she stripped down to her underwear, thanking the gods the black, minimally lacy, scant matching bra and panties set was far from the worst thing she could have been wearing.

Rhys stalked toward the bed at a leisurely pace, looking every inch the predator he was. If Feyre’s panties weren’t already soaked, they sure as hell were now.

Rhys smirked and reach for his shirt, pulling it off and revealing a muscled chest and arms. He had looked strong to begin with, and with his shirt off Feyre couldn’t help but wonder if he spent his free time benching in a cellar or something.

His muscles rippled deliciously as he reached for his pants, undoing them and tossing them aside, underwear and all. Leaving him entirely bare.

Feyre whimpered at the practiced unclothing, practically drooling at this point. She played with the strap of her bra, hoping Rhys would hurry the fuck up, but he just smiled and casually climbed onto the bed, making no move to come nearer.

Panting, Feyre breathed, “Rhys.” It was a plea that she was too proud to voice, and she knew they both could hear the desperation in her voice.

He only raised an eyebrow in inquiry. “Yes, darling?”

Feyre pouted. “Rhys,” she repeated.

He seemed to take pity on her—for now—and crawled forward, reaching for her. “May I touch you?” he asked, ever the epitome of manners.

Feyre almost whacked him on the head. “If you don’t, there will be problems.”

Rhys laughed, his fangs showing again, and like the foolish slut she was, a wave of desire washed through Feyre at the sight.

Hands already sliding over her body, Rhys moved closer and whispered in her ear, “You’re mine tonight. Do you understand?”

Feyre gasped soundlessly, her head falling back and hands clenching to fists in the sheets. “Yes,” she replied, shakily but with resolve.

That was all Rhys needed. His hand reached behind her and plucked Feyre’s bra off deftly, then reached down and slid her underwear down her legs, tossing it aside.

Feyre could only squeeze her eyes shut as Rhys’ mouth covered hers and one hand delved straight into her folds. She let out a long groan at the feeling of Rhys toying with her clit the way only someone with both experience and arrogance could do. His thumb massaged the sensitive bud of flesh and Feyre whimpered into the kiss.

“Gods, Rhys,” she rasped.

He kissed a line along her jaw. “You feel so good on my fingers. I love the way you sound when I touch you.”

Feyre bit her lip.

Rhys slipped a finger inside of Feyre, and she released an animalistic sound. He started finger-fucking her, adding a couple more fingers to the fray. Feyre clenched around him in pleasure, though not quite enough to come yet. She needed…

“I need more,” Feyre demanded shamelessly.

Rhys smiled smugly. He pulled his fingers from her sex with the most sinful of noises, then brought his hand to his mouth. Feyre almost passed out at the sight. He inserted his fingers into his mouth and sucked and everything went molten.

Feyre wondered what she looked like now. Hair askew, pupils dilated with lust, dripping for a fucking vampire of all things.

“What do you want, darling?” Rhys asked once he was finished licking his fingers clean of her juices. “Tell me.”

“I want your cock,” Feyre demanded. “I want you in me.”

“That can be arranged,” Rhys replied, voice smooth and smug. He carefully pushed her backward and hovered over Feyre, bracing his hands on either side of her face. His cock slid over Feyre’s folds in the most teasing, edging way before—

“And I want you to bite me.”

Rhys was solid stone above her. “Feyre.”

“I want you to. I give you permission.”

“Are you positive?” he asked. His voice had taken on a dangerous tone.

“Do it.” Rhys just stared at her. “Please,” Feyre added.

Rhys replied with his movements. He slid into her in one slow, sensual thrust. At the same time, Rhys brought his mouth to Feyre’s neck, his fangs out and sliding along her bared throat. She arched her neck impossibly far, giving him more access.

Feyre moaned listlessly, so lost in the pleasure of being filled up that she nearly didn’t realize Rhys’ teeth were scraping along her neck until he applied pressure, and suddenly there were too many sensations for Feyre.

“Oh!” she cried, writhing beneath Rhys. His tongue flicked out and pressed against her skin as his teeth pierced. Feyre whimpered in pure, unadulterated please, back arching.

Rhys groaned too, seemingly lost in the haze of pleasure. He lazily thrust into her as he rested against Feyre’s neck. The erratic huffs of his breath, all bouncing off Feyre’s neck, coupled with Feyre’s panting, occupied the room, the floor, the whole damn castle, it felt like.

Rhys bit harder, adding a deep sense of painful rapture to Feyre’s plethora of sensations with a low groan and that did it for Feyre. She yelled as release crashed over her, shaking her to the very core with the tang of blood flavoring the air.

Rhys wasn’t finished. His hands went to her wrists, pinning them to the bed. He finally withdrew his teeth from her neck and Feyre whined at the feeling. She bucked her hips, no more satiated than before her orgasm, ever turned on by the intoxication of being pounded into by Rhys.

His fingers tightened their grip around Feyre’s wrists and she started cursing as she realized blood—her blood—was dripping from Rhys’ mouth.

“Fucking hell,” Feyre hissed as Rhys’ tongue darted out and applied a gentle pressure to the wound. She dragged his mouth back to her own after wrestling her hands free, groaning at the taste of iron.

Spurred on and taken over by a desire to demand and command, Feyre said, “Stop. I want to try something.”

Rhys measured her words first to make sure she was still comfortable, then pulled out, leaving Feyre wet and impossibly empty. He leaned back and raised his eyebrow, a challenge if Feyre ever saw one.

She smiled prettily. “I’ve always wanted to taste vampire cock.”

Rhys grinned wickedly. “Have you really?”

Feyre laughed. “Okay, no. This is a new thing. Still.”

Rhys chuckled, and the deep sound was enough to have Feyre taking a deep breath to restrain herself from reaching for her own pussy.

Ignoring the amusement in Rhys’ eyes as he observed the way her body reacted, Feyre fluttered her eyelashes daintily. “Don’t look so fucking entertained,” she said. “I think you’d rather like the sight of me playing with myself in front of you, coming undone just for you.”

Rhys growled, and a chill ran down Feyre’s spine at the clearly inhuman sound. “I’ve spent long enough watching. I want to touch. I want to be touched.”

The command was clear enough. Struggling to maintain the dominance that had racked her body before, instead longing to crumple under his dark gaze, Feyre leaned forward. She repositioned herself to be on her stomach, held up by her elbows.

“How would you like me?” Feyre rasped. “Like this?” She lowered her head and licked a stripe up Rhys’ cock, the long appendage she’d been ignoring throughout their conversation in favor of not begging him to start fucking her again.

Rhys growled once more, arousal flowing through Feyre’s veins in synchronicity with her blood. The blood that Rhys enjoyed so thoroughly.

“More,” he barked in response, the single word much, much more of an order than a plea.

Feyre smiled. “Or what about this?” She closed her mouth around his tip without warning, sucking hard on the sensitive area before releasing him.

“Feyre,” he warned.

She just gave his a questioning look, pretending not to understand how she was playing with fire. As if it was possible not to.

Feyre placed a gentle kiss on Rhys’ tip, and she knew the action would get the desired effect: Rhys groaning and growling and reaching for her hair to grab. He got his fingers wrapped around a thick handful of her brown locks and he tugged her forward. “I wasn’t asking,” he snapped.

Feyre just smiled as he held her head where it was, close to where he needed but far enough that he could still berate her before she got to work. She licked her lips and Rhys’ eyes darted to the movement.

“Now tell me, darling,” came Rhys’ voice, something that could slice the very air around them. “Tell me if we’re going to do this the easy way or the hard way.” His grip tightened, tugging Feyre’s scalp deliciously.

She was nothing if not stubborn. “I don’t like doing things the easy way. Why don’t you make me.”

There wasn’t much more Rhys needed to hear. He tugged her head closer and closer to his thick length, Feyre pressing her thighs together in anticipation.

Feyre could only moan as her mouth was forced onto Rhys’ cock, the sinful desires coursing through her painfully mortal body too much for her. She immediately started bobbing her mouth, taking in as much of him as she could get then pulling back, repeating the process before Rhys could grow impatient. His hand didn’t stray from her hair, and his grip lessened none, but he didn’t bother taking over yet, not as she eagerly repaid Rhys for his generous hospitality.

Feyre felt his tip hit the back of her throat and he released a groan. She gagged slightly, unused to so much. She’d slept with plenty of men, but it had never gone down like this, never turned this rough. And rough was certainly the word for it, gods was it as Rhys started fucking Feyre’s mouth, unsatisfied.

All sorts of incomprehensible noises were flowing out of Feyre’s lips, the lips she had wrapped around Rhys, and she could only imagine what the vibrations were doing to him. He was louder than her, louder than most of the men Feyre had been with, and it was driving Feyre crazy.

She relaxed her throat as Rhys’ thrusts got harder and deeper, Feyre gagging on his cock continuously with each thrust. Fighting off the urge to give in entirely, Feyre reached for Rhys’ balls, massaging one delicately. From the progressive heightening in volume as she worked, Feyre decided he rather liked her ministrations.

Wanting to see what it looked like when Rhys came, and wanting to taste him with every ounce of her being, Feyre scraped her teeth along Rhys’ cock as he pumped into her mouth.

But he was having none of that. Rhys yanked Feyre’s head from his cock with a ferocity that scared her in the best way. She was shoved back onto the bed and Rhys lunged before she could so much as beg him for more.

Rhys slid his cock into Feyre. The motion was deep and quick enough to leave her seeing stars, nothing compared to the gentleness he’d portrayed the first time he’d entered her.

Feyre sensually dragged her hands to her breasts, intent on hearing another growl. She flicked her nipple and moaned, but was stopped before she could go any further.

Feyre gasped when Rhys swatted her hands away from her own breasts, instead moving in to take one in his mouth. The shock of his warm mouth laving at her tit was like a push, roughly sending her spirally toward the edge. His fangs made contact with Feyre’s sensitive nipple, the small bud of flesh aching in protest. A shout tore loose from her throat.

Feyre could only relax into the bed, listing each sensation in her head in an effort to keep herself grounded: Rhys’ cock steadily pumping in and out of her slick pussy, Rhys’ teeth scraping and teasing her nipple enough that it would certainly be bruised in the morning, Rhys’ hands, one massaging her other breast and the other at her throat, tracing her pulse point, the spot where Rhys had bitten her before.

All of it was too much, and not enough, and everything at the same time. Feyre had never in her twenty-three years felt such excruciating gratification.

The feeling Feyre chased was gradually building inside of her from everywhere Rhys touched her with his gods-knew-how-many years of experience. A thrill raced through Feyre’s body as that wave crested and coursed through her body. Every limb shook as Feyre screamed.

Apparently the feeling of Feyre clenching on his cock was enough for Rhys as well, for he came with a roar that seemed to shake the very foundation of the castle.

Their combined shouts were probably enough to wake every ancient beast that may reside in the forest. Still twitching limply, Feyre couldn’t even open her eyes, gasping for air. Rhys pulled out of her with a hiss, then started stroking her hair as he collapsed beside her. “You did so well, darling,” he whispered.

Feyre hummed in response, already losing consciousness. She only fell faster when Rhys tugged her closer and changed positions.

Rhys’ slender fingers tracing patterns on Feyre’s bare side, along with the way her body was submerged in the silken sheets and the surprising warmth of his chest sent her to sleep quickly and peacefully. If any night was one to be blessed with deep slumber and sweet dreams, it was this one.

—

The sun was overhead as Feyre took the long walk down the bridge, leaving the castle behind. She felt serene and thoughtful during the trek.

All three of her friends were pacing the length of the path, seemingly agitated. They all lit up at the sight of her. “Feyre! Thank the gods you’re okay!”

Feyre smiled calmly at Mor. “Of course I’m okay.”

“You’re late, Feyre,” Mor replied accusingly. “Hours late. That wasn’t funny whatsoever.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “I slept in.”

“So no ghosts? No demons?” Lucien asked.

“Nothing bad,” she replied truthfully.

He hesitated. “Quite positive? We thought we heard some… shouts, maybe?”

Feyre almost choked on an embarrassed laugh, but she managed to keep her cool. “I didn’t hear those.” That statement most definitely was a lie.

Cassian sighed. “I told you idiots she was fine. You were all worried over nothing.”

“Please,” Mor scoffed. “You were worried too, you just didn’t want to go in.”

“Neither did you,” he retorted.

Mor scowled. “And at least I can own up to that.”

Lucien sent Feyre an exasperated glance, and she got the feeling he’d been dealing with the two of them for a while now. Their little group started down the path toward their homes, Cassian and Mor still bickering, Lucien glaring at them, and Feyre silent. Absolutely, dead silent.

She felt a twinge of sadness as she looked back at the towering castle, thinking of everything that had happened inside, but her longing quickly dissipated as she remembered Rhys’ last words to her, whispered against her ear.

“Feel free to visit anytime you like.”

———

Tag List:

@aelin-bitch-queen

@charlizeed

@emikadreams

@evolving-dreamer

@feysand-loml

@flora-shadowshine

@gracie-rosee

@infernoqueen19

@leiawritesstories

@lemonade-coolattas

@live-the-fangirl-life

@midsizewitch

@morganofthewildfire

@nehemikkele

@realbookloverproblems

@rhysandswingspan

@rowaelinismyotp

@rowanaelinn

@sleeping-and-books

@story-scribbler

@swankii-art-teacher

@the-lonelybarricade

@thebonecarver

@yesdreamblog

#feysand #acotar #bite me prick #my writing

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geshertzarmeod · 3 years

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Favorite Books of 2020

I wanted to put together a list! I read 74 new books this year, and I keep track of that on Goodreads - feel free to add or follow me if you want to see everything! I’m going to focus on the highlights, and the books that stuck with me personally in one way or another, in approximate order. Also, all but two of them (#5 and #7 on the honorable mention list) are queer/trans in some way. Links are to Goodreads, but if you’re looking to get the books, I suggest your library, the Libby app using your library, your local bookstore, or Bookshop.

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell, illus. by Ned Asta (originally published 1977). I had a hard beginning of the year and was in a work environment where my queerness was just not welcomed or wanted. I read this in the middle of all of that, and it helped me so much. I took this book with me everywhere. I read it on planes. I read it on the bus, and on trains, and at shul. I showed it to friends... sometimes at shul, or professional development conferences. It healed my soul. Now I can’t find it and might get a new copy. When I reviewed it, in February, I wrote: “I think we all need this book right now, but I really needed this book right now. Wow. This book is magic, and brings back a sense of magic and beauty to my relationship with the world.” Also I bought my copy last July, in a gay bookstore on Castro St. in SF, and that in itself is just beautiful to me. (Here’s a post I made with some excerpts)

Once & Future duology, especially the sequel, Sword in the Stars, by A.R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy. Cis pansexual female King Arthur Ari Helix (she's the 42nd reincarnation and the first female one) in futuristic space with Arab ancestry (but like, from a planet where people from that area of earth migrated to because, futuristic space) works to end Future Evil Amazon.com Space Empire with her found family with a token straight cis man and token white person. Merlin is backwards-aging so he's a gay teenager with a crush and thousands of years of baggage. The book’s entire basis is found family, and it's got King Arthur in space. And the sequel hijacks the original myth and says “fuck you pop culture, it was whitewashed and straightwashed, there were queer and trans people of color and strong women there the whole time.” Which is like, my favorite thing to find in media, and a big part of why I love Xena so much. It’s like revisionist history to make it better except it’s actually probably true in ways. Anyway please read these books but also be prepared for an absolutely absurd and wild ride. Full disclosure though, I didn’t love the first book so much, it’s worth it for the sequel!

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum. This book hurt. It still hurts. But it was so good. It took me on a whole journey, and brought me to my destination just like it intended the whole time. The author’s note at the end made me cry! The sheer NEED from this book, the way the main relationship develops and shifts, and how you PERCEIVE the main relationship develops and shifts. I’m in awe of Ancrum’s writing. If you like your ships feral and needy and desperate and wanting and D/S vibes and lowkey super unhealthy but with the potential, with work, to become healthy and beautiful and right, read this book. This might be another one to check trigger warnings for though.

The Entirety of The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty. I hadn’t heard of this series until this year, when a good friend recommended it to me. It filled the black hole in me left by Harry Potter. The political and mystical/fantasy world building is just *chef’s kiss* - the complexity! The morally grey, everyone’s-done-awful-things-but-some-people-are-still-trying-to-do-good tapestry! The ROMANCE oh my GOD the romance. If I’m absolutely fully invested in a heterosexual romance you know a book is good, but also this book had background (and then later less background) queer characters! And the DRAMA!!! The third book went in a direction that felt a little out of nowhere but honestly I loved the ride. I stayed up until 6am multiple times reading this series and I’d do it again.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I loved this book so much that it’s the only book I reviewed on my basically abandoned attempt at a book blog. This book is haunting, horrifying, disturbing, dark, but so, so good. The character's voices were so specific and clear, the relationships so clearly affected by circumstance and yet loving in the ways they could be. This is my favorite portrayal of gender maybe ever, it’s just... I don’t even have the words but I saw a post @audible-smiles made about it that’s been rattling in my head since. And, “you gender-malcontent. You otherling,” as tender pillow talk??? Be still my heart. Be ready, though, this book has all the triggers.. it’s a .

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender. This book called me out on my perspective on love. Also, it made me cry a lot. And it has two different interesting well-written romance storylines. And a realistic coming-into-identity narrative about a Black trans demiboy. And a nuanced discussion of college plans and what one might do after college. And some big beautiful romcom moments. I wish I had it in high school. I’m so glad I have it now! (trigger warning for transphobia & outing, but the people responsible are held accountable by the end, always treated as not okay by the narrative, and the MC’s friends, and like... this is ownvoices and it’s GOOD.)

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. My Goodreads review says, “I have no idea what happened, and I loved it.” That’s not wrong, but to delve deeper, this book has an ethereal feeling that you get wrapped up in while reading. Nothing makes sense but that’s just as it should be. You’re hooked. It is so atmospheric, so meta, so fascinating. I’ve seen so many people say they interpreted this character or that part or the ending in all different ways and it all makes sense. And it’s all of this with a gay main character and romance and the central theme, the central pillar being a love of and devotion to stories. Of course I was going to love it.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom. “Because maybe what really matters isn’t whether something is true, or false. Maybe what matters is the story itself; what kinds of doors it opens, what kinds of dreams it brings.” This book was so good and paradigm shifting. It reminded me of #1 on this list in the way it turns real life experience and hard, tragic ones at that (in this case, of being a trans girl of color who leaves home and tries to make a life for herself in the city, with its violence), into a beautiful, haunting fable. Once upon a time.

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver. I need to reread this book, as I read it during my most tranceful time of 2020 and didn’t write a review, so I forgot a lot. What I do remember is beautiful and important nonbinary representation, a really cute romance, an interesting parental and familial/sibling dynamic that was both heartbreaking and hopeful, and an on-page therapy storyline. Also Mason Deaver just left twitter but was an absolutely hilarious troll on it before leaving and I appreciate that (and they just published a Christmas novella that I have but haven’t read yet!)

The Truth Is by NoNieqa Ramos. It took a long time to trust this book but I’m so glad I did. It’s raw and real and full of grief and trauma (trigger warnings, that I remember, for grief, death (before beginning of book), and gun violence). The protagonist is flawed and gets to grow over the course of the book, and find her own place, and learn from the people around her, while they also learn to understand her and where she’s coming from. It’s got a gritty, harsh, and important portrayal of found family, messy queerness, and some breathtaking quotes. When I was 82% through this book I posted this update: “This book has addressed almost all of my initial hesitations, and managed to complicate itself beautifully.”

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro. I wasn’t actually in the best mental health place to read this book when I did (didn’t quite understand what it was) but it definitely reminded me of what there is to fight against and to fight for, and broke my heart, and nudged me a bit closer to hope. The naturally diverse cast of characters was one of the best parts of this book. The romance is so sweet and tender and then so painful. This book is important and well-written but read it with caution and trigger warnings - it’s about grief and trauma and racism and police brutality, but also about love and community.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden. This is a sci-fi/fantasy/specfic mashup that takes place in near-future South Africa and has world-building myths with gods and demigoddesses and a trip to the world of the dead but also a genetically altered hallucinogenic drug that turns people into giant animals and a robot uprising and a political campaign and a transgender pop star and a m/m couple and all of them are connected. It’s bonkers. Like, so, so absolutely mind-breaking weird. And I loved it.

Crier’s War and Iron Heart by Nina Varela. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED the amount of folktales they told each other with queer romances as integral to those stories, especially in Iron Heart. A conversation between the two leads where Crier says she wants to read Ayla like a book, and Ayla says she’s not a book, and Crier explains all the different ways she wants to know Ayla, like a person, and wants to deserve to know her like a person, made me weak. It lives in my head rent-free.

Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston @ekjohnston . I listened to this book on Libby and then immediately listened to it at least one more time, maybe twice, before my borrow time ran out. I love Padmé, and just always wish that female Star Wars characters got more focus and attention and this book gave me that!! And queer handmaidens! And the implication that Sabé is in love with Padmé and that’s just something that will always be true and she will always be devoted and also will make her own life anyway. And the Star Wars audiobooks being recorded the way they are with background sounds and music means it feels like watching a really long detailed beautiful Star Wars movie just about Padmé and her handmaidens.

Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story by Jacob Tobia. I needed to read this. The way Tobia talks about their experience of gender within the contexts of college, college leadership, and career, hit home. I kept trying to highlight several pages in a row on my kindle so I could go back and read them after it got returned to the library (sadly it didn’t work - it cuts off highlights after a certain number of characters). The way they talk about TOKENISM they way they talk about the responsibilities of the interviewer when an interviewee holds marginalized identities especially when no one else in the room does!!! Ahhhh!!!

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie. Disclaimer for this one that the author was rightfully criticized for writing a Black main character as a white author (and how the story ended up playing into some fucked up stuff that I can’t really unpack without spoiling). But also, the author has been working to move forward knowing she can’t change the past, has donated her proceeds, and this book is really good? It has all the fanfic tropes, so much delicious tension, a totally unexpected plot twist that had me immediately rereading the book. This book was super fun and also kind of just really really good Star Wars fanfiction.

How To Be a Normal Person by T.J. Klune. This book was so sweet, and cute, and hopeful, and both ridiculous and so real. I had some trouble getting used to Gus’ voice and internal monologue, but I got into it and then loved every bit after. The ace rep is something I’ve never seen like this before (and have barely read any ace books but still this was so fleshed out and well rounded and not just like, ‘they’re obsessed with swords not sex’ - looking at you, Once & Future - and leaving it there.) This all felt like a slice of life and I feel like I learned about people while reading it. Some of the moments are so, so funny, some are vaguely devastating. I have been personally victimized by TJ Klune for how he ends this book (a joke, you will know once you read it) but it also reminds me of the end of the “You Are There” episode of Xena and we all know what the answer to that question was.... and I choose to believe the answer here was similar.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. I wish I had this book when I was in high school. I honestly have complicated feelings about prom and haven’t really been seeking out contemporary YA so I was hesitant to read this but it was so good and so well-written, and had a lot of depth to it. The movie (and Broadway show) “The Prom” wants what this book has.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth. I never read horror books, so this was a new thing for me. I loved the feeling of this book, the way I felt fully immersed. I loved how entirely queer it was. I was interested in the characters and the relationships, even though we didn’t have a full chance to go super deep into any one person but rather saw the connections between everyone and the way the stories matched up with each other. I just wanted a bit of a more satisfying ending.

Honorable Mention: reread in 2020 but read for the first time pre-2020

Red White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I couldn’t make this post without mentioning this book. It got me through this year. I love this book so much; I think of this book all the time. This book made me want to find love for myself. You’ve all heard about it enough but if you haven’t read this book what are you DOING.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan @sarahreesbrennan . I reread this one over and over too, both as text and as an audiobook. I went for walks when I had lost my earbuds and had Elliott screaming about an elf brothel loudly playing and got weird looks from someone walking their dog. I love this book so much. It’s just so fun, and so healing to read a book reminiscent of all the fantasies I read as a kid, but with a bi main character and a deconstruction of patriarchy and making fun of the genre a bit. Also, idiots to lovers is a great trope and it’s definitely in this book.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book is forever so important to me. I am always drawn in by how tenderly Sáenz portrays his characters. These boys. These boys and their parents. I love them. I love them so much. This is another one where I don’t even know what to say. I have more than 30 pages in my tag for this book. I have “arda” set as a keyboard shortcut on my phone and laptop to turn into the full title. This book saved my life.

Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book hurts to read - it’s a story about trauma, about working through that trauma, healing enough to be ready to hold the worst memories, healing enough to move through the pain and start to make a life. It’s about found family and love and pain and I love it. It’s cathartic. And it’s a little bit quietly queer in a beautiful way, but that’s not the focus. Look up trigger warnings (they kind of are spoilery so I won’t say them here but if you have the potential to be triggered please look them up or ask me before reading)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. When asked what my all time favorite book is, it’s usually this one. Gail Carson Levine has been doing live readings at 11am since the beginning of the pandemic shut down in the US, and the first book she read was Ella Enchanted. I’ve been slowly reading it to @mssarahpearl and am just so glad still that it has the ability to draw me in and calm me down and feels like home after all this time. This book is about agency. I love it.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman @chronicintrovert . I’ve had this on my all-time-faves list since I read it a few years ago and ended up rereading it this year before sending a gift copy to a friend, so I could write little notes in it. It felt a little different reading it this time - as I get further away from being a teenager myself, the character voice this book is written in takes a little longer to get used to, but it’s so authentic and earnest and I love it. I absolutely adore this book about platonic love and found family and fandom and mental illness and abuse and ace identity and queerness and self-determination, especially around college and career choices. Ahhh. Thank you Alice Oseman!!!

Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray @claudiagray . I have this one on audible and reread it several times this year. I love the fleshing out of Leia’s story before the original trilogy, I love her having had a relationship before Han, and the way it would have affected her perspective. I also am intrigued by the way it analyses the choices the early rebellion had to make... I just, I love all the female focused new Star Wars content and the complexity being brought to the rebellion.

#red white and royal blue #aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe #osemanverse #star wars #queer books #lgbtq books #books #alice oseman #miri personal #wow this took so long but was so worth it!#long post #book recs #PS: if you've read any of these or have questions about any of these books #this is your formal invitation to talk to me about them!!!! even if i don't know you at all!#even if i don't follow you and even if you don't follow me!#my ask box is open anon is on!#original content

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mkstrigidae · 3 years

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Okay so I'm making my way through your masterlist and I'm in love?? Like let's start off with Winter's Child- a masterpiece. You make Sansa a loving and relatable character and interweave the powers into cannon in a way that actually makes cannon make more sense (preconceived biases and such). Jon and Sansa's relationship is SO SWEET and they way they bonded was absolutely adorable (and the backstory with the houses and the powers they have make so much sense) 1/3

(2/3) Neon Rain literally the best Cyberpunk AU! I've ever read. Like what you did with the world building?? The stark class differences (haha see what I did there?), the choices in SOUND, and I could FEEL myself there! I love the family dynamics between the Starks and I'm loving the little details you're dropping with the Greyjoy's , Jon's parentage, and all of the medical procedures. Jon is dramatic af and I love it and Sansa is a bamf AS SHE SHOULD. Nothing but love for this

(3/3) A Past Worth Having has a special place in my heart. You build up this setting like a tapestry, just seeing more richness and depth the longer you look. I'm proud of Sansa for holding her composure, just FEELING in the angst that the older Starks feel at her return, and loving the relationships with Robin and the rest of the Starks + Jon Arryn. The detail that you're putting into the investigation/Oberyn is awe inspiring and I can't wait to see what you do next with the trial + Jonsa

Haha thank you so much!!! This is such a sweet ask to get! My response is under a cut, because this might get kind of long! (lots of my own meta below, bc i accidentally had a lot to say, haha)

With ‘Winter’s Child’ I’ve really enjoyed weaving in fantasy elements to the world because I like to look at stories and pick at loose threads until they unravel and asking ‘what if?’. I thought it would be a super interesting concept to take a character like Sansa, who in ASOIAF is exactly what she is supposed to be as a noblewoman of her class and conforms very well in that role, and put her in a position where she was essentially a societal outcast in a lot of ways! In WC, Sansa has a lot of similar coping mechanisms to ASOIAF Sansa, in that she sort of romanticizes society to avoid thinking about how absolutely awful it is. In ASOIAF, Sansa holds tight to the notion of knights and chivalry and courtly love to cope with the fact that she essentially has no control over her future and, as a woman, is basically property. In WC, I have her really struggling to make herself into that perfect lady and using that as a sort of shield to the fact that, without a gift, there isn’t anything she can do to improve her lot in life. Sansa has these ideas about becoming a perfect lady and hoping that being perfect in other areas will ‘make up’ for what society perceives as deficient about her, but is more jaded than ASOIAF Sansa due to her age and her earlier exposure to the ills of society. So you get a Sansa who gets along better with Arya and Jon as a result, in part because she’s had that exposure to what it’s like to be an outcast in society. I think that the best fantasy has a really strong emotional backdrop (a really great example is ‘Fruits Basket’ which starts by hooking you with this wacky, fun premise about people in a family turning into animals when hugged by a member of the opposite sex, and slowly builds into a point where you can see that the family ‘curse’ is a representation of generational and familial abuse- of bonds that should be broken, and of bonds that may kill us even as we cling to them- it’s extremely complex and rich and if you haven’t read or watched it, I can’t recommend it highly enough), and so while I really love writing about the fantasy aspects, and writing scenes where Sansa does really cool things with her ice powers, the core of the story is really about Sansa coming into her own, and learning that she was a person who was worth something even without any sort of gift. Sort of overcoming societal stigma and realizing your worth and forcing others to see it. It’s so much fun to write, but i’m stuck at the moment, because i need to reread the books, and my roommate is borrowing them right now haha!

God, APWH is like, indulging my inner world-building suspense-narrative loving writer persona. It’s literally my all time favorite trope- which is of someone growing up to find out that they’re a long-lost somebody or have family they never knew about- combined with a lot of research on trauma (which i’ve been doing for academic and other reasons for a while) and a lot of slowly growing psychological horror courtesy of Petyr Baelish (trust me, it’s going to get WAY more intense). There are so many pieces of media that I love, but I think that GRRM has so many characters and such a well fleshed out world that it’s very fun to dive into his worlds and create something there. Inherently, I love a slowly unraveling mystery and morally gray characters, and this is allowing me to indulge in both!!! World-building is my favorite, because i tend to be fairly detail oriented, and i’ve been laying bread crumbs in so many places throughout the story to hopefully build up to a decent conclusion! I know sort of how it ends, and I think people are going to absolutely lose their minds if I execute it correctly. We have a few chapters to go until we get to anything in the semblance of a trial- there’s some more emotional aspects that I think need to get addressed first, and so I’m so grateful that people are so supportive of being willing to wait for the Jonsa, because they really start spending a lot of time with each other during the trial and prior to the trial (i’m a big believer in bonding via long car rides and so there’s a lot of that!). I’m just so humbled and awed by the response to it- I never dreamed that people would enjoy the story this much- when I started it, I was writing a light-hearted family piece that wouldn’t be too long, and, uh, it kind of evolved from there. Clearly, I am not good at keeping things concise haha.

I left Neon Rain for last, because your comments on this one really made me smile! Of all of my stories, oddly enough, Neon Rain is actually the most deeply personal for me, and I’m just so flattered at your kind words! I spend a lot of my time thinking about the flaws inherent in our society, and without getting too detailed, Sansa’s experience with a family member struggling in the medical system is not unfamiliar to me. There’s a weight that comes with the realization that a system that is supposed to care for people is based on capitalistic ideals of profit maximization, and as someone who has experience working in the healthcare system- no matter how bad you think it is in the US, I can promise you it’s actually worse.

Neon Rain actually just started out as a series of mental images from listening to music that I had to get down on paper, and evolved from there. I actually really love the ‘soulmates’ and ‘class differences’ and ‘mastermind art thief’ tropes, but am incapable of writing fun stories without thinking about the reality of those tropes (see APWH for another extreme example of this haha), and so as I was writing and trying to capture this mental image, the rest of the world began unfolding around me. Jon is different because of a different upbringing here, and so is Sansa, and to see the formerly idealistic Sansa become so jaded by the time she meets her soulmate is just catnip for me. You have this interesting dynamic between them, because Jon wants nothing more than to have Sansa in his life, and give her everything she wants and needs, but where the old Sansa (who was arguably middle-class and somewhat naive, as financially secure teenagers understandably tend to be) would have swooned over that, the Sansa who meets Jon when the story begins is seeing the world and all the unfair and unequal systems in it. She can’t just live happily ever after with him right away- there’s a sense of guilt there, of sansa not feeling like she deserves nice things, and there’s also Sansa’s deep sense of compassion and kindness that won’t allow her to just live life as the well taken-care-of girlfriend of a wealthy man, because she isn’t able to just put on blinders and pretend that all the injustice in the world around her doesn’t exist, simply because it wouldn’t affect her that way anymore.

I think that the core to writing Sansa, for me, in any universe, is that she is a kind and compassionate person who is capable of feeling sympathy towards even the people who have done horrific things to her and her family- that emotional awareness and empathy is a harsh thing to have in a world like Neon Rain, and in our own world, honestly. I’m so glad that you appreciate Sansa’s BAMF-ness in the story- I think that her chapters demonstrate that she is capable of doing extraordinary things when she’s doing them for people she cares for, to be kind (The scene where Alayne helps Robin down from the eyrie is most indicative of this I think), and so in this world, I just love having Sansa be a complete badass out of necessity. Also, it’s fanfiction, and I really wanted to give Sansa a cool motorcyle, because no one else was gonna do it!!!

Also, my characters like to run away with me, and before I knew it, Rodrik Greyjoy had a huge adorable crush on Sansa in the story that I immensely enjoy writing. The Greyjoys are fun because they’re all absolutely insane, and i’m a total sucker for ‘gruff dangerous character is completely a sucker for the kind sunshine-y character’ trope.

God, this accidentally got really long??? I’m sorry- thank you so much for such a kind ask!!! I love hearing what people think of my stories, and this was so sweet :)

#my writing #joanofarkansass #ask answers

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brightwaterforarainyday · 3 years

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GGK Quarentine ReRead Progress

Tigana (the artistry, the beauty. Read this book to unlock new, previously unknown emotions)

Sailing to Sarantium (This book changed me, 100% my favorite alongside LoE)

Lord of Emperors (Oh boy, oh man, oh man, I just…. I just need a minute alright)

The Last Light of the Sun (GGK’s least horny work so far, sparser prose than his other books but still pulls out some absolutely devastating lines)

The Summer Tree (There will come a tomorrow when you weep for me. Just fuck me UP why don’t you.)

The Wandering Fire (There’s something about the way GGK writes sorrow, especially in the Fionavar books, that I’ve been trying to put into words but I don’t know if I can. There’s a kind of inevitability to everything that happens and it makes it so much heavier.)

The Darkest Road (I’m honestly mad the Fionaver books were written in the 80′s and not later, entirely because Loren and Matt have a better, more compelling relationship than any of the actual romantic pairings in the series, and that should have been acknowledged.)

Under Heaven (How we remember changes how we have lived. Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives. A breath of fresh air after the Fionavar Tapestry tbh. The last few chapters are especially brilliant imo)

River of Stars (The words “under heaven” occour more times in River of Stars than in the book actually titled ‘Under Heaven’)

A Brightness Long Ago (GGK FINALLY LEARNED HOW TO WRITE QUEER PEOPLE HELL YEA also i love how thouroughly it ties back to the Sarantine Mosaic like yes please make more references to my two favorite books)

Children of Earth and Sky (I think this is a book about – among other things– change, and how we respond to it)

Ysabel: (the parts with Kim and Dave were the most interesting parts of the book I think it should have been about them)

Up next: China Mieville’s Three Moments of an Explosion, as a treat (and a morale booster between Ysabel and Arbonne lmao

A Song for Arbonne

The Lions of Al-Rassan

#Ring's Ggk Quarantine reread project #I never thought I would be excited to return to the Fionavar characters but Kim and Dave are COOL #couple goals tbh

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veliseraptor · 4 years

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A Decade of Fanfiction: 2009-2019

I’ve seen artists I know and love doing this, and I figured I’d self-indulgently make my own fic version of it. So: I’m choosing one fic a year for the last 10 years that I feel is somehow ~representative~ of that year.

I don’t know that I have any overarching observations, except that hopefully I got better over the course of these (I feel like I did) and I think my writing in general has...shifted in terms of focus. Earlier in the decade I wrote a lot of short pieces and character studies; also a lot of very dark and depressing endings. Moving forward I started picking up things with more plot, writing longer stories, writing series and multi-chapter things.

And I also started ending my fics, generally speaking, on a more hopeful note. Still a lot of pain; still a lot of sorrow. But more and more, I tend to end on a note that says that if things aren’t perfect, if everything isn’t fixed, it is still better, and there might be brighter still to come.

2009

The Damned, The Silmarillion. This was a year where I wrote a lot of short fic from a lot of different fandoms (A Song of Ice and Fire and The Silmarillion, mostly, though also Doctrine of Labyrinths). This was my first long, multi-chapter fic I actually completed - the AU where Curufin dies after they leave Nargothrond, and Celegorm goes off the rails. I have no idea how well it would hold up - I haven’t reread it. Though someone did make art of it (cw: horror) only four years ago, so it must at least have some good bits in there.

2010

The Sky Is Darkening Like a Stain, Supernatural. I thought about picking one of my Death Note fics (this was a year of Death Note) as the fandom with my first real hero/villain slash ship, but this was the year where Supernatural started to make an appearance (late in the year - the first fic I have is from September 2010). It’s also the first Sam/Lucifer fic I wrote, which feels significant.

I did also consider a number of “fics where the main character dies at the end” because I wrote a lot of those both this year and next year. It tapers off later on, but boy, did I love killing my own favorite characters and/or writing about their canonical deaths.

2011

Silver Glass, The Silmarillion. This felt in some ways like a year I should have chosen a Supernatural fic, since this was a year when Supernatural by far dominated what I was writing. But I’m going with this one, because it was my first ever foray into second person, and it’s a weird little fic stylistically speaking that shows me starting to experiment a little more. (The date on AO3 for this one is 2012; I’m going from the FFN date, which was the original posting.)

2012

I heard you killed your only friend last year, MCU. This was the year the MCU showed up, and there are a lot of candidates I could have chosen for this one - I almost went with Life in Reverse (still might, for the year it’s finished) but ultimately...this fic was never meant to be the first installment in a series that is now 800,000+ words and still going, seven years later, but here we are. It almost never got posted.

This was hard, though! This was also the year of Curufin/Finrod becoming a thing, of Clint/Loki, of some of my last really brutal major character death fics. But ultimately this has to go to recognizing the beginning Remember This Cold.

2013

Perdition, MCU. After waffling around with a couple others, I realized that it had to go to this one, because @portraitoftheoddity and I might never have met without it - specifically, without the fanart she made for it that very much caught my attention and got us talking. For that reason alone, I’m calling this the most significant fic of 2013.

2014

Road to Nowhere, MCU. Oh, yes, a classic in the Lise genre of “awkward road trips forcing characters to talk about their feelings, eventually.” I considered one of the two major character death, hella bleak fics I wrote this year, as well as one of the (many) Remember This Cold fics I wrote, but I’m going with this one.

2015

There are fics from this year I like more (The Children of the War, for one, and Birthright) but I’m going to go with the fic that surprised me most just by existing, which was Now Three, MCU. I said for years I’d never write mpreg fic. And then I did it. I think that’s where I learned not to make categorical statements about what I’ll never write.

2016

Shit, man, this was a year of some personally iconic fics. This was the year of I have lived with shades, a shade, of The Vivisection Mambo, of there’s a hell of a good universe next door. It was the year of The Villain Wrangler, the fic I wrote in one sitting that is one of my most popular fics ever, no I don’t resent that a little. I wrote a lot of really good fic in 2016. (If I do say so myself.)

But I’m going to have to go with to face unafraid the plans that we’ve made, MCU, because this was the year that Steve proposed marriage to Loki in Remember This Cold and that was kind of a big fuckin’ deal.

2017

This was another tough one - do I go with one of the first Wheel of Time fics I wrote in years, because this was the year of the Wheel of Time reread? Do I go with Seven Years because it remains one of my favorite fics I’ve ever written and was the first glimmer of a return to the Silmarillion after a couple years of silence? My first Dragon Age fic ever? One of my Loki/Grandmaster fics (a new ship appearing on the scene late in the year)? The middle fics of the Tapestries series, which series is in many ways closest to my heart emotionally?

But ultimately I landed on the obvious candidate: we’re not friends, we’re strangers with memories, MCU was finished this year. It was the longest thing I’d written and finished to date, and I ended up feeling really good about how I closed it out. I’m still proud of it, which is no small thing.

2018

Yeah, okay. I wanted to pick a Loki/Grandmaster fic for this year, because it feels like the year I wrote a whole fuckin lot of those and they’re very much...uhhh representative, in some way.

But this has to be Life in Reverse, MCU. The labor of six years, over 200,000 words, blood, sweat, and literal tears, and I finished it in 2018. I feel like if I’ve left a mark on the MCU fandom at all, it’s with this fic. And you know what, I’m good with that.

2019

We’re not quite done with this year yet, but I’m done posting fic for it, so I feel okay choosing one here. And while I’m going to go more in-depth with a 2019 fic recap with a different post, if I had to pick just one fic that feels emblematic of this year I think I’d go with gather frankincense, Lymond Chronicles. Not just because it’s one of my proudest accomplishments of the year, but also because this was a year where I branched out when it came to fandoms. The MCU still dominated, but for the first time in a long time I was writing semi-regularly for other fandoms - Good Omens, Lymond Chronicles, Doctrine of Labyrinths, The Silmarillion, even some Wheel of Time.

It was a good feeling. I used to be a very multifandom writer, and I like the feeling that I’m circling back to that. Especially when it comes to small book fandoms, which were my first internet home.

#confessions of a frustrated writer #this is navel-gazey as hell but whatever #long post for ts #other people feel free to do this! i'll be curious

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apocryphalia · 4 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens) Additional Tags: Love Confessions, First Kiss, First Time, Museums, Tapestries, weird metaphors, Aziraphale is very into Crowley’s hands, Not because I have a weird thing for hands shh Series: Part 1 of Material Culture Summary:

All at once, Aziraphale could understand exactly how humanity had fallen from grace. He pictured a long-fingered hand outstretched, a perfect, bloodred fruit hanging from the tips of slender fingers just as this glass of bloodred wine was held before him now, just as countless other glasses had been held before him over the millennia. He pictured the brief brush of skin on skin as his own solid hands accepted the offering, the touch of red fruit flesh against his lips while gilded eyes looked on.

Hardly a choice at all, really. Eve must have been powerless against such a temptation.

Aziraphale was only now realizing that he, too, had been powerless against this demon for quite some time.

Six months after the averted apocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale take a trip to America. Aziraphale sees something in a museum that leads him to reflect on his feelings for his best friend, and to make some long-overdue decisions.

—-

Hey guys, I know this is ridiculous but I reread my own fic recently and I swear I was possessed when I wrote this one. I’m sitting there reading it like “hello author, write more shit! …oh wait, I’m author, and none of my other shit is this good.”

Anyway, please allow me my moment of silliness and a bit of shameless self-promo, and if you haven’t read this yet, here it is. :)

#good omens #fanfic #ineffable husbands #aziraphale/crowley #self rec #the setting suns are open #material culture series #I know i'm on some serious bullshit tonight #i swear i'm not even drunk this time #just very sleep deprived probably

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nearlyfandoms-blog · 6 years

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Artemis and Orion - Chapter One

Summary: Sixth-year Ravenclaw, Valerie Halliwell, had spent the past five years a bright, successful student at Hogwarts. However, when she arrives home from her OWLs to find her younger sister missing, she can’t help but blame herself. Over the course of the summer, she slowly loses herself, becoming a shell of the person she once believed to be her true self. Upon arriving at her sixth year at Hogwarts and cutting herself off from her past self almost entirely she finds solace in a new group of companions, the Marauders. Valerie’s life finally seems to be on the upswing once more. However, Voldemort and his group of Death Eaters grow stronger and stronger, becoming more prevalent in the public eye, lashing out more frequently in more violently. The group once viewed as a powerless fringe company of dark wizards grow more and more powerful everyday and those, like Valerie, who believed themselves to be safe from the threat find themselves in constant danger. As the threat against Valerie and her family escalates in ways no one could foresee she may be forced to abandon the new life she has cultivated for herself for the good of her family and the ones she loves; the ones who love her the most.

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading the first chapter of this series! I hope you all enjoy it and I would love to hear what you all think. To be fair, I’m not the best at writing summaries so I hope that the one above does enough justice to the story. Let me know if anyone has any suggestions for it as the story goes one! Also, just a fair warning, this chapter is very expositional but I tried to make it as interesting as possible. Again, thank you so much for reading! I hope you’re all having a lovely day/night!

- nearlyfandoms

0.1

Silence. That’s what my life has boiled down to, a constant state of silent anxiety. An inescapable dread that my life had become unhinged and was spiralling wildly out of control coupled with the feeling that I was helpless, yet it was my own doing. My fate had little to nothing to do with me. At least, that’s what it had taken a summer to convince myself. My entire vacation away from Hogwarts was spent in a continuous cycle of sleeping, hardly eating, crying, and sitting in introspective silence. Each day continued the same. I had lost contact with all of my friends. Every week their letters arrived and every week a new piece of parchment was accumulating on my bedside table inside of my almost equally as silent and dreary household. I guess that’s how I ended up like this, sitting inside an empty cabin on the Hogwarts express on my way to my dreaded sixth year, the shell of who I used to be.

While boarding the Hogwarts Express for the past five years I had been filled with nothing but excitement. The joy of beginning another new and magical year at the world’s most prestigious school of witchcraft and wizardry was beyond thrilling. I would finally get to see my best friends and Ravenclaw peers after a long summer in my hometown of London. They were the ones who understood me. My mother tried to help me with the feelings of being lost outside of school. However, she lacked the experience to properly understand the sensation of being stranded in a world of people who were unlike me. I had my father, a fellow Ravenclaw, but he worked almost constantly, especially this summer. Who could blame him though? My house was the last place that I wanted to be too.

When I boarded the train home for the summer I had been the picture of Ravenclaw excellence; a bright, happy-go-lucky girl who never got less than excellent marks in any of her classes and spent her free time studying in the company of friends. Only three months later I boarded the same car a shell of the person I once was. I’d seen my closest friends Levi, Delilah and Carson sitting in a compartment with an empty seat I knew was reserved for me. My heart clenched when I saw that seat. It represented the five years of friendship that they were willing to preserve despite the numerous unanswered letters I’d received this summer. I was a terrible person. It was selfish of me but I couldn’t handle speaking to them again after the way I’d treated them over the summer. Instead of joining them in their compartment I walked hurriedly past and found an empty one for myself at the back of the train.

It was cold and I was completely and utterly alone. My mind wandered to thoughts of my beloved younger sister, Cheryl. Our situations were probably comparable. This is where the trouble that lead to my entire family’s downward spiral had begun. I arrived home from my fifth year at Hogwarts, excited as ever to see my family again. My sister was unaware of my father and I’s shared magical capabilities due to the fact that she did not inherit these traits as I had. She believe that I had been attending an all girls preparatory school for advanced studies in marine biology. It was a flimsy excuse, but she never questioned it. Cheryl wrote me frequently. Before she would send them my father would have to catch them as they were being delivered to the mail carrier and deliver them by owl. However, a few weeks before the end of school, in the middle of my O.W.L.s her letters had abruptly stopped. I didn’t pay much mind to it.

It wasn’t until I arrived home near the end of May that I was told she had run away from home a few weeks prior. During a particularly stressful night Cheryl had written me a letter and addressed it to the address she’d been writing to for years. She managed to deliver the letter to the post and received a letter a few days later from the headmaster of the school informing her that there had never been a Valerie Halliwell at her school. After confronting my father he confessed the truth about my whereabouts and his heritage. My mother was furious as she was the one that wished to keep it a secret from Cheryl until she was older. Being a muggle, my mother thought she could understand her better than my father and I. I suspect that Cheryl thought herself responsible for the sudden uptake in nightly arguments between our parents in the weeks before I returned from school. She left late in the night close to the beginning of May, a short note having been left behind as her only explanation. I’d reread her note thousands of time and the crumpled remains were currently stuffed in my pocket. My hands instinctively went to the pocket of my jeans to make sure the yellowed paper was still there. I couldn’t help but pull it out and scan over the scrawled and frantic handwriting one more time.

Dear Mum, Dad, and Val,

I’m sorry I’m such a nuisance and I’m sorry that I’ve done this to our family. Maybe it’d be for the better if I was somewhere else. Please don’t look for me, just know that I’m okay. I love you all.

- Cheryl

Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. I’d practically memorized the letter by now. If only my parents had told me earlier, I could’ve stopped her. I believe that she is safe, she was clever enough to protect herself in tricky situations. However, she was still only fourteen and nothing would reassure me more than knowing she was at home and safe. I spent every waking moment worried about her wellbeing. It got to the point where I had stopped paying any mind to my own physical and mental wellbeing. My cheeks had hollowed significantly and everything about me was clearly on the decline, inching further and further away from stability with every breath.

I remember arriving home from the train station by cab. My parents sat in the living room in silence, a pointed glare being the only interaction that the two had probably shared for the preceeding hour before I arrived. My mood sunk immediately and my mind flushed with worry. I recall asking them what was the matter in a tentative and shaking voice. When they explained that my younger sister had been missing for three weeks my sketchbook clattered from my hands and landed with a thud onto the hardwood floors. My mother started to cry. My father disregarded her and instead rose to embrace me. This was the first sign that anything was different between them. Typically, my father would immediately go to comfort my mother, but this time he brushed her off like a piece of dust that clung to his jacket. My mind was too frozen in a state of shock to react in any way. Burly arms embraced my small frame and rubbed my back soothingly but I could only remain still. My life hadn’t been the same since then.

My room, stacked floor to ceiling with my favorite records from muggle bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones now felt foreign and strange. My earth-toned tapestries were falling from their posts above my bed. My bedding sat practically undisturbed as most nights I would fall asleep on the floor, a stack of pictures of Cheryl and I as children in hand. Sleeping in my own bed felt too normal, like I’d be disregarding the current situation and be accepting a life without Cheryl as normal. The girl with curlier hair than mine and innocent green eyes was only two years younger than me but I still felt an almost maternal instinct to protect her. A 14 year old with little to no experience in the real world could not be alone out there. Some parts were dark and twisted and there was so much brewing below the surface that she could never comprehend. A sadistic, elitist dark wizard with abilities the likes of which were previously unseen in the wizarding community was on the rise and he threatened not only the witches and wizards but the entire world. The majority of the population had no idea of the grave threat that they faced.

My family, however, was burdened with the knowledge of this crushing reality and, in an effort to restore some of the normalcy we once possessed, planned a family dinner the night before my return to school. My mother cooked my favorite, chicken alfredo with basil pesto, and bought some of my favorite cookie dough ice cream. However, there was no light-hearted conversation or laughter between bites to brighten the setting. There was only silence and the soft smacking of our chewing. If anything the gathering did nothing but make me feel worse about my situation and myself. I’d never felt so much self-pity in so little time before. I was supposed to be stronger than this. The only conversation that was had during the dinner was my father asking if I was excited for potions class this year. He excitedly told me about how advanced potions had been his favorite class throughout all of his seven years at Hogwarts. His professor had been Professor Seville, a young man not much older than the majority of the sixth years. All the girls fawned over him relentlessly while all the boys wanted to be him. He had been a 7th year prefect when my father was a first year. The amount of detail with which my father was able to recount his first time meeting the older boy was astounding as it’d been close to 35 years. I made this point clear to my father and he jokingly reminded me that he was “38 years old”. A smile stretched across his face, accompanied by the faintest hint of a laugh. The only positive that could be gleaned from that drawn out and borderline torturous hour was that faint glimmer of joy. It was hope; hope that things could return to normal, hope that tomorrow Cheryl would walk through our front door and that our lives would return to the way they were before all of this happened. Deep down all three of us knew that there was no way that was going to happen.

I was pulled suddenly from my reverie by a knock on the compartment door. Through the small glass pane I could see the trolley witch with a smile on her face outside the door. I didn’t have the motivation to get up or the gold to buy anything right now so I simply resigned to giving her a small smile and shaking my head sadly. The older woman gave me a sympathetic smile before turning back to her cart and beginning to holler her offerings of sweets down the corridor to the next compartment. Memories of eating chocolate frogs and comparing which notable wizard we each received with Carson, Delilah and Levi flashed through my mind. A small smile tugged on my lips as I remembered the time Carson accidentally ate a handful of Ernie Bott’s beans and when Levi went to buy some candy but was so startled by the girl he fancied that he dropped all his coins on the floor at her feet. Oh how I wished those could be the times I knew were still to come. Everything was inherently different now and no matter how hard I tried there was nothing I could do to fix it.

An hour or so later the train lurched to a stop. Several voices filled with excitement started to fill the compartments and cars as my peers flooded the halls. There were so many familiar faces that passed by. I couldn’t help but wonder if I would look as different to them as I felt? I waited about five minutes from when the last person passed by to stand and collect my things. The familiar itch of the cotton robes covered my body once more and I found an odd comfort in it, like receiving a hug from a beloved yet distant relative. My footsteps echoed as I hurried out of the train to catch up with the crowd of people getting into carriages to go to the castle. The first carriage I found contained a sixth year Gryffindor that I’d seen passing in the halls a few times. I didn’t know her name but she was pretty with fair skin and reddish hair that fell past her shoulders and framed her slender features. She smiled sweetly at me and gestured for me to join her. It only took a few moments of hesitation before I climbed in next to her. We didn’t say much. We gave each other glances that let me know that she knew who I was but was unable to put a face to the name, just as I was with her. She was the first to get out of the carriage when we got to the castle, which I was grateful for. If I knew she was behind me, watching me get out, I probably would’ve fallen flat on my face. I planned on thanking her before we left but by the time I was securely on the ground she was already running to catch up with a smaller group before us, her hair swishing gracefully behind her.

A breath of stale air that I didn’t know I’d been holding released heavily from my lips as my eyes landed on the castle for the first time in months. I felt like I was going insane. I hadn’t even gone inside yet but already something was different. Was it possible that the castle I’d grown up in could have grown with me too? I told myself this was impossible seeing as I was so small and insignificant in the grander scheme of all the amazing things that were happening within the walls of this school. Some of the finest witches and wizards were growing up here and we didn’t even know it yet. I doubted that I would be among those who fell under the accolade of the finest witches and wizards; perhaps I could have been last year when I was at the top of my class and a favorite of most of my professors, but not this year. Things like that change all the time. Unfortunately, whether we want it to happen or not, so do we.

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