Wundergeek - Building Rome In A Day - Tumblr Blog

"Too much?" I asked hesitantly.

"No!" he exclaimed, shaking his head vigorously. "I just..." G'raha's mouth opened and closed several times. "I didn't even think to ask for this," he finally said in a small voice. "And it's exactly what I wanted? And I don't know what I've done to deserve this."

My heart jack-knifed in my chest as I moved to the love seat and pulled G'raha into a crushing hug.  "You were yourself, you dolt," I scolded gently. "You deserve nice things, and we enjoy giving them to you."

It seemed as if G'raha might try to argue with me, until Alisaie cut the tension with a typically Alisaie joke. "Especially when the nice things we're giving you are our dicks. I rather like that bit."

G'raha laughed weakly and relaxed into the embrace. "Good. I do too."

--

(Chapter 2 of my Free Use G'raha fic that is planned to be six chapters is going to be twice the length of the first chapter.

Why am I like this.)

Excerpt of the fic I finished about G'raha and my WoL's ridiculous rollercoaster of how they actually got together:

G'raha was in the Exarch's solar with his head in a book when I returned the First. I gestured to Lyna to give us some privacy as I entered, and she nodded and closed the door behind me.

I stopped in the doorway, crossed my arms, and cleared my throat to get G'raha's attention. "I can't believe I have to be grateful to Emet-Selch for shooting you," I said, giving him a Very Unimpressed Look. "I hate that guy, so I don't like being in his debt for foiling your terrible plan."

G'raha looked down as he closed his book carefully and set it on the table next to him. "I understand you're angry with me for lying to you," he said, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. "But the ultimate purpose was achieved. And the stakes were too high to put my feelings above the fate of two worlds."

I sighed gustily and crossed the room to kneel at G'raha's feet. He started as I took his hands in mine, the mismatched textures of his crystalline right hand and flesh-and-blood left hand an odd contrast. "In your shoes, I can't claim that I would have done differently," I admitted reluctantly, knowing that G'raha's penchant for self-sacrifice was a quality that we both shared in abundance. "And I understand why you kept your secrets. What I'm angry about is that you don't value your own life, to the point that you assume that I wouldn't either. And I do value you. So much."

G'raha was watching me with wide eyes. "Oh," he said in a small voice. "I didn't mean... It's just... Even with a hundred years to think about it, I couldn't find of another way. After a while I just got used to taking it for granted that my death was... necessary." He paused to take a deep breath. Shuddered. "Wrapping my head around the fact that it wasn't, that we succeeded and I'm still alive? It's... a lot."

I hated the idea of that so much that I climbed into his lap and cupped his face with my hands. "I forgive you. And I'm so glad you're still here."

G'raha shuddered a second time as his eyes darkened with self-recrimination. "I don't deserve--"

"Just shut up and kiss me, G'raha."

The corner of his lip twitched upward as he gave in. He relaxed by degrees and settled his hands at my waist as I kissed him slowly, like the wonderful, precious impossibility that he was. And I kept kissing him and kissing him like we had all the time in the world.

Finally, G'raha pulled away to look at me with regret. I was half afraid that he was going to say he couldn't do this for some bullshit reason or another - self-sacrifice isn't a habit you unlearn overnight. (I should know.) But instead, he surprised me by blushing faintly. "I'm afraid I can't do more than, uh, this. On account of..." he reached up to gesture at the crystal which extended down his neck and beneath his collar. "It... it doesn't work anymore," he stammered.

I smiled at him softly. "I don't mind. This is nice."

G'raha's blush deepened. "It is," he mumbled, then closed his eyes to kiss me again.

Read the whole fic on AO3

How I explained G'raha Tia to a friend the other day

"His backstory is. ...convoluted.

Like. Imagine if Kingdom Hearts made sense.

That level of convoluted.

It's all like. Very logical given the established lore and how shit works. But the place you get to is "my boyfriend has super trauma because he put himself into stasis, woke up in the apocalypse timeline, merged his essence with a magic supercomputer, traveled to an alternate dimension 100 years in the past, and became an immortal but benevolent king so he could prevent the timeline where I died'

Primary side effect of merging his essence with the magic super computer that is made of crystal? He's fucking turning into crystal. And then he sacrifices himself and FULLY CRYSTALIZES.

So then you do some soul magic, go back to your world where he's still in stasis because the apocalypse that woke him up hasn't happened yet, and are like - here have this other version of your soul where you were half crystal and lived a hundred years and experienced the end of the world twice.

And he's like whoa okay. That's fucked up. Not super sure who I am anymore, this is kinda wild. But you don't find out that's what he's thinking until subsequently when you travel to the literal edge of existence and he TRANSFORMS HIMSELF INTO CRYSTAL AGAIN TO SAVE YOU.

And it's just like. G'raha. My guy. I get that you're having a hard time but fucking stop it.

AND ON TOP OF ALL THAT god dammit he's just the fucking most wholesome nerd. Like "I got too excited about books and forgot to eat or sleep for 3 days" nerd.

And there's this WHOLE SPEECH he does when he's still the Crystal Exarch right at the end of Shadowbringers where he's like, what are you going to do when this is all over? And I'm like rest lol. (Yeah right) And he's like - so I've got this friend, and I'm keeping secrets from [insert your pronoun here], but they're fucking rad and I'm hoping sempai will notice me and maybe we could go on an adventure together? And it's SO FUCKING OBVIOUS he's talking ABOUT YOU in an "all right, keep your secrets" kind of way.

EXCEPT THEN YOU FIND OUT THAT HIS BIG MASTER PLAN WAS: get the WoL to kill all the Lightwardens and absorb their light which will save both worlds, but no one person can hold that much light and live, so I'm going to take it from them and then teleport myself INTO THE RIFT BETWEEN WORLDS AND DIE.

And the only reason he doesn't succeed is because HE GETS FUCKING SHOT

So. [ahem] Yes. I think it says a lot about me that I am like. Yes. The nerdy twunk with super trauma who is OBSESSED WITH ME is my boyfriend.

I took GREAT SATISFACTION in dying for him for a hot minute at the end of Endwalker.

9 week update:

Twelve year old is openly gleeful about inheriting my best t-shirts, very sad that my favorite leather jacket is now too tight in the biceps

Yesterday: THREE WEEKS ON T WHY NO SHOULDER GROWTH????

Today: (puts on shirt, sleeves are borderline too tight) ....huh

I have a feeling that beneath the little halo on your noble head There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed You fascinate me so

You Fascinate Me So, Blossom Dearie

Someone caught G'raha at it again

pentiment

I'll preface this update by saying that this is only the second sweater vest I've made.

So yeah, there's some wonky tension and I slightly fucked up the arm holes, but... Pretty pleased with it.

People have asked about a pattern and I uh. Didn't think I'd ever share my shitty graph paper scribble that I copied from a junk mail envelope but here we go. THERE ARE MISTAKES that I was too lazy to correct and just fixed as I worked, including the numbering.

Next step: bind off the shoulders and then I have the joy of the ribbing for the neck and arm holes.

(Tagging by request: @swingingardensludgestudent @garaksapprentice )

Sweater vest attempt number two is going well

G'raha was staring at Alisaie with the embarrassed look he usually wore when he wanted to ask for something sexual directly. And Alisaie, it seemed, had known him long enough to recognize his tells, even in this very different context. "What do you want, G'raha?"

"You could," he began, only for his voice to break. He swallowed and tried again. "You could...if you want... fuck my throat."

Alisaie blinked. Raised an eyebrow. "Not opposed, but... not what I was expecting."

G'raha attempted to maintain composure, but the twitching of his tail betrayed him. "A skill acquired at the Studium."

Alisaie's face lit up with surprise, then delight, both eyebrows now sky-high. "At the Studium."

G'raha went adorably pink again. "While it is certainly not the experience of every man, many young men have... have certain urges, and one doesn't always want to leave the library to indulge them. Over time, I formed a circle of acquaintances of... like-minded individuals who made a habit of relieving each other without any expectation of personal attachment, and. Well. I've always believed that there's no point in doing something if you don't do it well."

G'raha looked so mortified as he finished his explanation that I honestly couldn't blame Alisaie for the cackling laugh that burst out before she could get control of herself. "I'm sorry," she said, belatedly covering her mouth. "I'm just... I'm realizing now how badly I misjudged you. We had so much more in common back then than I would have guessed."

G'raha struggled for a moment to process this, then gave up. "So..."

"Do you want me to fuck your throat? Because I'd love to do it, now that you've brought it up.""Yes."

(Look, I'm so proud of these horny nerds okay.)

I'm quite proud of this sentence:

"G'raha, the poor, sweet moron, looked as if he'd been hit over the head, as he always did when confronted with the undeniable fact that he was actually quite lovely."

Me: Hey internet, how long should I wait before following up with an agent about their request for a full manuscript? The Internet: minimum 3 months Me:

Viera is the trans option.

(I also changed to Viera when I started transitioning)

When you start to transition IRL so you’ve gotta transition your Warrior of Light too

Been really enjoying getting back into FFXIV recently, watch out for a lot more of my new bunny boy in the future

Jesus Christ yes. This.

figured out why i dislike the term non-man so much thanks random screenshot

Snippet from my queer polyamorous romance novel, Community Witch - an unapologetically trope-y, cozy, and relationship-driven romance story about the healing from trauma, found family, and joyful queer relationships. (Looking to publish next year.) ---

“My life has turned into a Lifemark movie,” Aspen groaned, flopping dramatically onto their bed. “Thirty year old enby leaves the big city, including their terrible partner and the job they hate, to move to a beautiful small town, has meet cute with beautiful stranger before running into The One That Got Away.”

There was a choking sound on the other end of the line.

“You’re allowed to laugh,” Aspen grumbled. “Even I think it’s ridiculous, and I’m living it.”

Becks didn’t laugh, but Aspen could hear the grin in her voice. “I assume the beautiful stranger is Rav, but who is The One That Got Away?”

“Remember that guy I was hopelessly in love with in high school? The wholesome football player?”

“Maybe?”

“My best friend? The one that was over all the time?”

“Oh my god, that himbo you tutored, then pined for the rest of high school? The one you wanted to smash from orbit?”

“Not a himbo,” Aspen bristled, unable to argue with the rest of Becks’ description. “Anyway. She’s Nat now. I ran into her at the gym just now when I was dropping off cards around town. And we’re going to catch up when she’s done with work.”

This time, Becks did laugh – gleeful peals that made Aspen smile despite themself.

i know we joke about cis artists having the weirdest sense of anatomy, but also even when the anatomy is fine, no one seems to want to draw women doing normal things

I had an attack of absolutely cursed inspiration and ended up cheating on my current multi-chapter WIP to write a dream sequence crackfic that is: 1) as close as I will ever get to porn without plot and 2) possibly THE MOST DERANGED THING I HAVE EVER WRITTEN

New FFXIV fic: I had a crazy dream about a Scion sex party

Length: 2.8K words, wall-to-wall smut Alisaie/G'raha/WoL, Aymeric/Estinien, Urianger/Thancred, many others with enthusiastic consent (and no incest)

Excerpt below the cut

I was standing outside the Rising Stones, holding a party invitation I didn't remember getting. After a moment's hesitation, I walked in through the public bar and into the Scion's private back rooms, only to freeze in the doorway.

There were naked Scions fucking on nearly every available surface. G'raha was bent over a table at the center of it with Thancred balls-deep inside him while Urianger worked Thancred's ass open with his fingers.

What in the hells was going on?

And when had I taken off my clothes?

"You made it!" I heard Tataru's voice before I saw her bustling over - somehow she was fully clothed while no one else was. "It's about time you showed up. I was afraid I was going to have to refund people's tickets."

"Tickets?" I asked dumbly.

Tataru ignored me as she turned toward a line of people standing behind a velvet rope. "Number one!"

A hot viera twink walked forward, handed his ticket to Tataru, and went to his knees in front of me, staring at my slowly stiffening cock as if it was an object of worship before taking me in hand and starting to stroke me.

"Whoa!" I spluttered. "What's going on? I don't know you!"

The worshipful twink ignored my protests.

"He's not a Scion," I protested, looking over at Tataru.

"It's a fundraiser," Tataru said with a shrug as she showed me the ticket the viera had handed her. It read 'Touch the Warrior of Light's Dick'. "Be a good sport," Tataru added, giving me a pleading look.

I looked over at the long line of people presumably waiting for their turn to touch me. Sighed. And allowed Twink Number One to continue stroking me for another half a minute. "All right, that's enough."

He nodded and left, looking starstruck.

Read the whole thing on AO3

New FFXIV fic: G'raha wants us to fuck him about his trauma

Length: 4K words - with 5 more chapters planned, (Eventual) very smutty smut coming in the next chapter Alisaie / G'raha Tia / Warrior of Light

G'raha was reading a book in my sitting room the next time I woke up and shuffled out in search of food. Despite having been warned by Alisaie, it was hard not to react to how terrible he looked. The bags under his bloodshot eyes made me suspect that he might not have slept at all since our return.

He looked up at me as I approached and smiled with forced jocularity. "Ah, Savvel! I see my guess as to when you'd awaken was accurate. Alisaie went to get dinner for all of us - she'll be back shortly. I also took the liberty of reading you while you were out, and you'll be relieved to know that you should be able to do things besides eat and sleep by tomorrow." He fidgeted nervously with the book in his lap as he spoke, looking so fearful that I was going to be angry with him that I didn't even have the heart to tease him about how utterly predictable he had been in choosing crystal transformation as his method of self-sacrifice.

"Instead of arguing about which of us is angry at who, how about we skip all that and admit we're both idiots," I groaned as I flopped onto the couch next to his chair. I looked over at him through half-lidded eyes, taking shameless advantage of the fact that I knew G'raha found me irresistible when I was sleep-rumpled. "Though if you tell Alisaie I said that, I'll deny everything. Now come here."

The wondering disbelief in his eyes almost broke my heart in two. "You... you're sure?"

"Raha," I shot back, packing those two syllables with loving derision. "I'm too tired to sweep you off your feet properly, so meet me halfway here."

G'raha's eyes were watery as he finally tumbled forward into my arms where he belonged, and for several minutes we said nothing as we just... held each other. And it was everything.

Alisaie returned a few minutes later, carrying what seemed like an obscene number of bags until I mentally tallied everything I had eaten since first waking up. She grinned when she saw G'raha and I cuddling on the couch, though I noted that the tension in her shoulders didn't ease completely.

Not that I blamed her. G'raha was clearly in worse shape than I was.

Alisaie set out her purchases on the table and we helped ourselves to a selection of our favorite foods from The Last Stand. I shared a concerned look with Alisaie when G'raha just stared at his burger instead of biting into it.

"I... I want to ask you something," he said slowly, his voice almost completely toneless.

"Okay," I said gently when he seemed to need a prod.

G'raha's ears were flattening themselves against his head. "I suppose it's more accurate to say that I want to ask you for something. Though, I acknowledge that it may sound foolish, or silly, and that you might not... you might need..."

"Raha." Alisaie said, with such exquisite tenderness that she even surprised herself. "Tell us what you want."

G'raha's ears came up slightly, but his tail continued to twitch. "What would you say to going away where no one could get at us for... say. A week? All three of us?"

"I'd say that sounds nice," I responded cautiously. "I'm under strict orders to get some real rest this time anyhow. Where did you have in mind?"

"I... I didn't have my heart set on a particular destination, as such," G'raha demurred as he unaccountably started to turn pink. "I was thinking more of. Ah. A possible agenda."

We said nothing and waited him out.

"I want to be your free use fuck hole for a week," he finally blurted out.

Read the whole thing on AO3

Part nine on ao3

I had to split this one too lmao

edit, wrong link whoops

In the 10yrs since you last discussed Bayonetta, have your opinions changed on bayo since everything between 2014 to now (tl;dr the "Bayonetta is good, actually" opinion best typified by Maddy Myers and Leigh Alexander seemingly won the "feminist bayonetta wars" circa 2017 or so, then Bayo 3 came out last year, ended it all on a very comphet note and a lot of the "bayonetta is feminist actually" ended up feeling betrayed while the haters took a very smug "told you so" tone to the whole thing)

Wow. Okay. Uh. So.

1. Do you somehow not realize that it's fucking weird to track someone down on a different social media platform and grill them about opinions they had TEN YEARS AGO?

2. You don't get to give me homework, I don't owe you shit.

3. Internet weirdos like you are exactly why I shut down my blog. Get a better hobby.

Oh shit, I gotta look into this

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

In retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised that this content would do well here

Sweater vest attempt number two is going well

Snippet from my queer polyamorous romance novel, Community Witch - an unapologetically trope-y, cozy, and relationship-driven romance story about the healing from trauma, found family, and joyful queer relationships. (Looking to publish next year.)

---

Aspen glanced around the space but couldn’t identify anything strange. Neither were they able to sense any obvious malevolence. “Does anything here look out of place to you?”

Rav looked around, then shook his head. “Not here. But mostly it stays back in the studio.” He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door behind the register. “Which is back here.”

Aspen, who had hung out with a lot of artists in university, had expected chaos and mess. They were surprised to instead see a studio that was so immaculate and neatly organized that it barely looked as if it were in use. Even more surprising was Rav’s sudden inarticulate cry of anguish as he strode over to a painting in progress on an easel. “I wasn’t done with that!” he yelled in frustration at the ceiling.

“I take it something was moved?” Aspen asked mildly from the doorway.

“It put my paints away! And the brushes I was using!” Rav gestured in frustration at the large unit of pull-out drawers. “I left out the colors I was using so I’d be able to match them!”

“And… the ghost put them away?”

Rav held up a finger, clearly mistaking their confusion for skepticism. “I know this sounds crazy, but look.” He opened one of the drawers and started tossing tubes of paint on the floor.

Not more than a second later, the tubes lifted themselves off the floor and floated back into the drawer, which then slammed shut. Aspen blinked in shock. “Well there’s something I’ve never seen before. You have a poltergeist that cleans!”