#likecastle

[radialarch]

Hey, your tags on that gym/showers gifset you just reblogged made me real emotional. He didn’t just light the spark he cupped it in his hands and fed it tenderly until it roared to life!!! What if I cried about Ilya making space for Shane to recognize his desire! What then???

LISTEN, it drives me crazy! hudson williams has that quote about ilya saying i love you first but shane building the home for ilya to say it in. I THINK the reason why they work so well together is ilya does this in inverse when it comes to sex. ilya makes it safe for shane to feel sexual desire & shane makes it safe for ilya to feel romantic desire. you can see it in the places where each of them aren't able to make eye contact -- shane can't look at ilya in the hotel gym & ilya says no, fucking look at me. water in the mouth. grinning as he holds out the bottle. ilya can't look at shane in tampa and shane says no with the force & weight of his entire body!!! they're so drawn to each other because they're just so unconditionally generous with what the other one is missing, i think. IS THIS THE SHIP OF ALL TIME??? I FEEL DISEMBOWELED ABOUT IT ACTUALLY.

[crushcandles]

rec: laughing at clouds by cassyl (Stranger Things, explicit, Robin/Nancy, 5.7k)

All of @likecastle's ronance is wonderful, but laughing at clouds is truly my ideal ronance story: snappy dialogue, the possibility of going to the movies, feeling like a square peg in a round hole even after all these years, and open ending. It even has some light shenanigans! All of it written with such a naturalness I can't believe it doesn't happen like this. This story is a huge influence of all of my own ronance thoughts, feelings, and writing.

After Steve hangs up, she tries to answer Steve’s question. What’s the harm in her and Nancy hanging out? Why is Robin making this such a big thing? It’s not that she’s actually all that intimidated by Nancy, really, despite her promising career and excruciatingly normal clothes. They were friends once, however fleetingly. They could be again. It could even be fun, hanging out with her. But if it’s not, she thinks, she’s not sure she’ll be able to bear it. And maybe that’s what she’s really afraid of—discovering that, somewhere along the way, the bright spark she saw half-hidden under Nancy’s prim and proper exterior has gone out. What if she’s no longer the girl who made Robin run barefoot across the grounds of Pennhurst Asylum and turned to laugh breathlessly at her clumsy gait as they fled the scene? Robin doesn’t want to find out that all she and Nancy Wheeler really are to each other is two people who went to high school together. She thinks that might be worse than never seeing Nancy again.

[crushcandles]

You know I have to ask about theymustnot[redacted]_ronance! The [redacted] is taunting me!

There's a mild mystery in this fic, which the redaction covers, although the bulk of the fic is how Robin and Nancy deal with said mystery. Mystery aside, there's a lot of Robin freaking out both out and in the video store and hopefully a hook-up in a cabin or similar structure.

The next time she and Steve are working together, she asks, "Have you, uh...seen Nancy lately?" She scratches her cheek. Steve's flipping through some body-building magazine he found under the counter. He never brings his own books or magazines in, just poaches from everyone else. "She came in a couple of days ago," he says, puzzling over some over-tanned, greasy meathead with pecs the size of personal pizzas. "Oh yeah?" She tries to sound cool and casual, but her heart is thumping in her chest. Steve must be deaf to her heartbeat because he just says, "Yeah," and flips the magazine around so the centrefold tumbles free. His eyebrows jam together as he looks at it. "She didn't rent anything. Just snooped around. Spent way too long in Thrillers. Nancy stuff."

[crushcandles]

Goddamnit, I’m already thinking about this Halloween costume fic. I can’t believe I did this to myself!

Truly, all part of my evil plan - just make 'em think about it a little and they do it to themselves.

(I would love to know more - halloween ST fics are the BEST)

[dufrau]

Was it you who told me ages ago that Liis Ethereal Wave was inspired by the Cocteau Twins? Apologies if it wasn’t, but I finally tried it and the opening smells exactly like Lipton instant iced tea to me, and I needed to share because that was a truly wild experience.

It wasn't me, im not familiar with that fragrance. But I do love tea scents and that sounds kind of nice lol so maybe ill sample it. Bitter Melon Lemon Tea by Chasing Scents also gives me a big blast of ice tea in the opening and im considering getting a bottle for summer tbh. I actually just tried a bunch of tea scents a month or so ago and one I thought was neat was Twin Peaks by Epichron, really dark honeyed black tea opening. I didn't love the entire evolution of it but I still think its worth trying, it was very interesting. <3

[crushcandles]

Well, now I have to say dogtags tie hand, too!

Okay, incredible to have people basically chanting blow the dust off! to me about this fic. ;_;

"Don’t ask," Steve says, rushing. His pulse is pounding between his legs. He doesn’t want to think about this thing, just wants it to happen to him. Bucky takes his hand away. Both hands away, and he backs up until he's kneeling on the edge of the bed, feet of sheets between them. He screws his mouth up. "I want to." He looks down to the side, at his metal hand in a fist. "I'm not. Like that, now." Steve sits up, and the pulse between his legs is second to the hot throb of his cheeks. "Bucky. I know that. Do you think I don't know that?" Bucky's hand spreads out, the fingers whirring. He's still frowning. "You want me," he says so quietly, "to be like that. I saw you. With the –" he gestures to his own chest, the tags. "And after. You liked it."

i do have other wips aside from this one. probably

[crushcandles]

Gotta ask about alphabetaomega_witcher 👀

I talked a little bit about this already here, but spending a bit more time in this doc re-reveals that I've set it up in a very vingnettey way for maximum fucking around and finding out. Conveniently, this is a lot of what's happening in the actual fic.

He pulls the hood off Jaskier, disheveling his hair, releasing his scent. Jaskier keeps his head down until Geralt lifts it with two fingers under his chin, displaying the fresh oil running down his neck to the madame. Jaskier's eyes, dark and foggy, look to Geralt. She snorts in Jaskier's scent and taps her nails on the doorframe once more. "What do you want me to do with him?" she asks, still playing coy. Behind her bulk, something rustles. She keeps her eyes on Geralt and Jaskier. Geralt sighs, turning to Roach. He digs in his own saddlebag, and, turning to block Jaskier's view, in Jaskier's pack hung beside it. He pulls a coinpurse out of each, holding them up to the madame. "Fuck him," he says. "Feed him. For as long as it takes. This should be plenty." The madame drops her barring arm to take the coin from Geralt. She clucks her tongue and out of the darkness behind her an omega appears, soft-eyed, with a tumble of glossy brown hair and a pierced cock visible through his silks. The madame peers into one purse and then the other. "He gonna cause us trouble?" It's Geralt's turn to snort, drawing in a lungful of Jaskier's crackling green sweetness. Jaskier tips his face to look at Geralt, want in the darkness of his eyes, the redness of his cheeks. He blinks at Geralt, long-lashed. "He won't," Geralt assures the madame without looking away from Jaskier. "He's not that kind of alpha."

ask about my WiP names, receive a snippet in return

[crushcandles]

17 & 11 for that book ask, please!

11) What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, published in 2017 and translated into english in 2020. I love a dystopia where the horror has soaked into the cracks of mundanity and you oscillate between horror and well, they had to find some sort of solution, I suppose…And this delivers on that, with an ending that hits and leaves you stinging.

17) Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai was a surprise to me, since I found it through a recommendation from my library, which provides lists grouped by genre, etc. It’s a sort of cyberpunk, bio-engineering, earthy thriller. Really cool!

Also, I wouldn't say surprised, given how often and glowingly I heard about it, but I finally read The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisen and had a blast. I'm on a long-term hiatus from reading series, but thought since this one was only three books and finished I could handle it and I'm glad I did. It was really compelling and the world-building was inspiring.

year in review, reading-style