EssayOfThoughts
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Summary
Better question: What is this place? What-
There is nothing to recall. No sense of self, no useful memory. There’s the sense this should be accompanied by discomfort, upset, but the only things throbbing in the skull are pain and a distant curiosity.
This person. This body.
If you have no memories, how do you know if you're a person?
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Summary
hésperos; “pertaining to the evening”
Night seems to be the only time you get some peace.
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The last thing Percy expects, the night after the Briarwoods’ welcome feast, is to be woken by his tutor, a candle in one hand and her other over his mouth.
“Percy,” Ripley says quietly. “If you wish to live, listen to me.”
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After the attack, the thing Percy wants most is his family restored to him. It doesn’t happen how he thinks.
Series
- Part 1 of Delia AU
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When Vex is twenty two and a half (after so many years with long-lived elves the “half” becomes very important) something happens to her soulmate.
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The Pain-Based Soulbond AU a few people have tried their hands at, but hey, what's another cake at the buffet but more options? Additional Tags will be added as the story is updated.
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something more than flesh by EssayOfThoughts for Nanyoky
Fandoms: Critical Role (Web Series)
11 Oct 2024
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Summary
“I don’t want to be afraid,” Percy says, half a mumble against her neck or hair each time. “Not of you. Not of this.”
Series
- Part 7 of Essay's Perc'ahlia Week '24 Submissions
- Part 2 of Percy-Ripley Oh God I'm Awful (PROGIA)
Recent series
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all we know how to do by EssayOfThoughts
Fandom Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
01 Jun 2016
- Words:
- 7,002
- Works:
- 3
- Bookmarks:
- 1
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Summary
The little moments between every thing we see: quiet moments of contemplation, of comfort, of events we don't get to see.
My little series of mostly canon-compliant oneshots for Campaign 1.
- Words:
- 37,148
- Works:
- 18
- Bookmarks:
- 17
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Percy-Ripley Oh God I'm Awful (PROGIA) by EssayOfThoughts
Fandom Critical Role (Web Series)
11 Oct 2024
- Words:
- 37,789
- Works:
- 2
- Bookmarks:
- 5
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Essay's Perc'ahlia Week '24 Submissions by EssayOfThoughts
Fandom Critical Role (Web Series)
11 Oct 2024
- Words:
- 27,940
- Works:
- 7
- Bookmarks:
- 1
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- Words:
- 6,326
- Works:
- 2
- Bookmarks:
- 6
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Summary
The car whines when Astarion accelerates, a thumping under his feet and center console. The dashboard rattles, teeth in a skeleton, even the steering wheel keening like a death knell. Every time he brakes, something screams. He can't smell smoke, but he can feel heat pouring from the vents, sweating through his nightclothes. There's a dial from hot to cold—he spins it and feels nothing change.
When he presses its gas, the car goes forward. When he brakes, it stops.
He keeps driving.
Astarion escapes Cazador with the clothes on his back, a wad of stolen cash, and a car that's sat abandoned in a garage for thirty years.
There's a metaphor in that, perhaps.
Bookmarked by EssayOfThoughts
02 Feb 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
Summing up this fic is hard. It is the headlong rush towards freedom when someone doesn't entirely know what freedom is anymore, when they have no more idea of it than "Not that" and "that" is what they're fleeing.
Oh. And they learn empathy by having to fix their own car.
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Homemade by Linnetagain for hackemssky
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
22 Dec 2024
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Summary
Astarion wouldn't dare compare Gale’s very clearly lovingly maintained kitchen to a campfire and a chest of pilfered cheese and stale bread. But the feeling of it, the easy companionship, sharing the day’s burden of woes with someone who understands? That's familiar. And that, he didn't even realise he missed. Only now, watching Gale potter around his kitchen and chatter in much the same way he used to potter around the cookpot, Astarion feels… settled.
Maybe even comfortable.
Oh.
Oh dear.
Before he can stand and take his leave, go back to the contract in Calimshan and pretend this embarrassing little episode never happened, Gale sets a goblet down in front of him.
Just in passing. Drops it off on his way to the teapot. Like he thinks nothing of it.
But it's blood. Fresh, too. Pig, if Astarion's nose can be trusted, which obviously it can. He takes a tentative sip. Then downs the rest before Gale has finished pouring his tea.
“It's warm,” Astarion says, nonplussed, staring at the now-empty goblet. It would be beneath his dignity to lick it. He's no starving wretch now. But it is tempting all the same.Bookmarked by EssayOfThoughts
02 Feb 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
Just a very lovely, soft, slowly-falling-in-love-and-rediscovering-"Home" bloodweave fic. Wonderfully soft and warm.
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Summary
Gale can't fuck, until he can. He and Astarion fuck their way to some emotional realizations.
- Words:
- 21,286
- Works:
- 4
- Bookmarks:
- 27
Bookmarked by EssayOfThoughts
30 Jan 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
A fantastic example of character study through smut. Heartily recommend.
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Summary
The chair legs scraped against the floor as he stood and made to walk towards the door to show his guest out. In a blink of an eye, Astarion’s hand closed around his forearm.
“I’m just looking for a place to stay. Just for a while. Somewhere. Somewhere … safe.”The Netherbrain had been deafeated, the orb removed, and Gale settled back into familiar old routines within the walls of his tower.
Until Astarion appeared at his door in broad daylight. Something was deeply wrong with that elf.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 12,089
- Chapters:
- 2/2
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 73
- Kudos:
- 634
- Bookmarks:
- 131
- Hits:
- 3,536
Bookmarked by EssayOfThoughts
18 Dec 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
Lovely little fic that requires both of them to grow just to become friends.
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Summary
An essay exploring how Abdirak's behaviour and beliefs tie into the overarching Loviatan faith.
Bookmarked by EssayOfThoughts
21 Oct 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
A very fun analysis of Loviatan faith as depicted in BG3!