batshieroglyphics

[batshieroglyphics]

Re your post about holiday cards (sorry for asking here, too shy to ask publicly and your other blog doesn't seem to allow asks): if we want to send you cards, what kind of greeting would you prefer (christmas, holiday, just neutral as you're using, anything else?) Hope you have a good day, and thank you for doing this every year!

Yeah, I had to turn off asks at @batsutousai due to spam asks.

So, my family celebrates the Winter Solstice, or Yule, which is why I've always sent out the neutral winter/holiday greetings. My preference is to get neutral holiday greetings in return, but I recognise that's not always possible for folks to find, and nor is it the ones that those who celebrate Christmas, especially in western nations, tend to gravitate towards, so I honestly don't care.

If you see a card and think, "That's a card I think Bats needs", I am absolutely going to accept it. And hang it on my wall. (And forget to take it down for.... *peers at card string still full of last year's holiday cards* ...a few months. 😅)

[batshieroglyphics]

Hello! I really admire your writing, and wondered if you'd be alright with me using some of Feemor's lineage members as minor characters in one of my fics. Make a Brand New End is one of my all time favorite fics and I loved how you depicted Feemor and his crew. Thank you for all the awesomeness you've shared with the world!

I'm glad you enjoy!

You're quite welcome to use them, yes. Just credit back to me. :)

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Hey Bats, any chance you’ll upload your works again on Ao3? I love to re-read your FMA fics when life gets rough and when I checked your profile I couldn’t believe all your works were gone 🥲 got some LJ flashbacks. Maybe it’s a fluke of some sort?

Were you logged in last time you checked? All of my work is set to only be visible to Archive members.

If you do not have an account, I have spare membership keys.

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I had no idea you were a Tortall fan until now, is the fic you wrote posted anywhere still?

Surprise! One of my aunties was a children's librarian; she sent my sis and I the Alanna series when I was...9? 10? Somewhere in there. I think only one of those original four is still around, and it's lost it's front cover and the spine has been taped to keep it together. (It's also signed, which is the main reason that copy hasn't been trashed. 😅 I got a second copy in college, so I could reread it without worsening the damage, lol)

Yes, of couse. It's on AO3, under the pseud I used for the first, eh, 3-4 years of my fandom existence. It's not quite the FIRST fanfic I ever posted, but it was pretty close. (Not entirely certain about the month/day I backdated for, but the year should be accurate. The FFN account the fics on that pseud were posted under got a ban in...2008? Maybe sooner; that's when I realised I could no longer find it. So, I don't have accurate posting dates for any of them.)

It's an OC comes and fixes things that the canon characters can't fic, no romance. This text is the link.

[batshieroglyphics]

Marvel x Real Person Fiction scene breaks

First up is that standard FrostPudding break. Since Loki is in all my ships, I picked a sort of standard blue-ish magical swirl with the ship name coming out above it. And then the ship name is coloured with an ombre of the colours closest related to the characters; green and brown for FrostPudding (chocolate pudding, come on y'all). I originally had the ship name in a straight line above the swirl. It worked okay for FrostIron at smaller sizes, because it's a shorter name, but it didn't work for ThunderFrost or FrostPudding, and I wanted them all to be a matching set, so I broke the names into two levels. So, first image is the broken ship name, and the second is the ship name in one straight line.

Next is the break I made for my Clouds of Coffee ficlet series, so it's a cup, presumably of coffee, with the steam forming into a heart above it. Found the image while looking for teacups to recolour and then ended up just using this instead of getting super crazy.

The next one is for Sin with a Grin, my smutty ficlets series. I went super basic with this one, just using the title against a sort of rainbow lens flare crescent. I did play with the fonts, so the 'Sin' is very sharp edges and coloured red, the 'with a' is smaller text and green, and then the 'Grin' is blue and a kind of fun font with some sort of misshapen letters and holes in them and some spiking along the curve of the R. I didn't want to do any faces or bodies, tho I thought about that, so here's what we did instead.

The next one is for my Interaction series, where Loki is stuck on Tom's Earth, unable to be seen by or interact with any humans, until Tom runs into him one day. He learns, before Tom, that mortals will notice blood stains, and when Tom teaches him about twitter, he likens that as another way to make mortals realise he's there. So, I did bloody hand prints to either side of a circle with texting-esque chat bubbles inside, recoloured green and blue, sort of for Loki and Tom.

This last one is for Victims of Ourselves, which is...so dark, so tragic. (I actually reread it while working on these and, wow, it is a fic. I put everyone through it.) It is very much a Loki is hurt, so he decides to empower himself by hurting others, and Tom is both his first victim and probably the only person who can convince him to stop, to find healing through other means. For the scene break, I decided to pick the illusion of is it two people facing each other, or is it a goblet. So, took a side profile of Tom, mirrored it, and then coloured him green on either side and the in between gold. Added a long crack down the centre of the 'goblet', because this is very much a story of broken people. And then added a sort of shooting stars arc to either side. (Which I'm noticing, the longer I look at it, is very much not mirrored well. Like, at all, wow, that is... coughs Not looking at it any more.)

[batshieroglyphics]

Surprise self-rec time! Pick 3 of your favorite things you’ve written and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow writers to spread the positivity and help celebrate already written fics 💞

I feel like this is a trick question, mostly because I am multi-fandom, and I tend towards favs per fandom, as opposed to favs of all time, lol So, uhhh, how about a fic from 3 diff fandoms that...I don't know I'd call them my 'fav', but they're the ones I'm most inclined/tempted to reread in that fandom on a whim.

For Fullmetal Alchemist, I'm going to say Colours in Your Eyes. It was a Big Bang piece, and I really, really loved how it turned out. Playing with soulmates is always interesting, but I loved the chance to fuck around with this one. I had a lot of fun playing with the ideas of cultural differences and how when you discovered your soulmate could change things. And I was just so, so happy with the ending. I think the last ending I adored as much as I did this one, was Reclaim. It just....hit that sweet spot.

Picking one for Final Fantasy VIII, lol, okay, that's...rough. I going to go with Noblesse Oblige, I think. I did so much work on developing the world in this fic, and building out original characters that were able to join as part of the main cast. It's also my only fic that really looks at how the events of canon might have unfolded in the following months. It was very much a labour of love, and I remain very proud of it.

I'm going to cheat, for Star Wars, actually, and pick a series: JasBen Save a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Because it has the healing and the happy ending that Obi-Wan—Ben— deserves. It's also got Jaster being an awesome and supported Mand'alor, and Tor not going batshit, and Xanatos getting the healing he deserves, and little baby!Obi-Wan being the cutest fucking thing. And it manages to be both pro-Jedi and pro-True Mandos, without shitting on either one, or shitting on the New Mandos (although it's pretty clear they're less than respected, oops), which is...such an achievement in this fandom, I am so proud of myself for it. I am sad that the clones aren't in it, but the series feels to me like healing and acceptance, and that's almost always going to be my go-to when I'm trolling my fic, looking for something to read.

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It occurs to me, I did not say: Thank you for the ask! (I am bad about that; I found it a delightful thought exercise, even if I did stumble a bit at the thought of only picking three, lol)

Nah, the idea of pick [number of] fics that are your favourites gets...infinitely more complicated the more fics you've written. At over 400, picking three is...hard.

I, actually, tend to lean a bit more towards the fics that I, personally, enjoyed writing the most, or that give me the mood flavour I'm more likely looking for. Or, you know, are the most likely to spawn more bunnies, because what's the point in rereading your own fic if it's not to spawn even more ideas? *hopefully drops anvil on muse, somehow ends up with five bunnies and muse cackling as he drops the anvil on me*

But, also, I have a tendency to lean towards the....I wouldn't say least popular of my fics, but the ones that aren't at the absolute top of any metric list. (This brings to mind, a handful of years ago, when I was still neck-deep in FMA, I listed one of my, at the time least popular fics—it's actually still pretty low, although I recognise not so low as might hold true for other writers—as my favourite, because it meant a lot to me when I was writing it, and it still meant a lot to me when I was doing those answers. It actually does still mean a lot—it's Candles to Light Your Way, which is a story about the cast celebrating the Winter Solstice; it's essentially platonic with non-Christian holiday celebrations, which I think is why it's less popular—although it's not one of my go-tos when I'm dipping my toes back into the fandom, so I don't really think of it as a favourite, now, like I did those years ago.)

Tbh, I'm not sure I'd call those choices my "best" work. But they are important to me, and I enjoy rereading them. And, as a writer who writes, firstly, for myself, those are far more important qualities to me.

Surprise self-rec time! Pick 3 of your favorite things you’ve written and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow writers to spread the positivity and help celebrate already written fics 💞

I feel like this is a trick question, mostly because I am multi-fandom, and I tend towards favs per fandom, as opposed to favs of all time, lol So, uhhh, how about a fic from 3 diff fandoms that...I don't know I'd call them my 'fav', but they're the ones I'm most inclined/tempted to reread in that fandom on a whim.

For Fullmetal Alchemist, I'm going to say Colours in Your Eyes. It was a Big Bang piece, and I really, really loved how it turned out. Playing with soulmates is always interesting, but I loved the chance to fuck around with this one. I had a lot of fun playing with the ideas of cultural differences and how when you discovered your soulmate could change things. And I was just so, so happy with the ending. I think the last ending I adored as much as I did this one, was Reclaim. It just....hit that sweet spot.

Picking one for Final Fantasy VIII, lol, okay, that's...rough. I going to go with Noblesse Oblige, I think. I did so much work on developing the world in this fic, and building out original characters that were able to join as part of the main cast. It's also my only fic that really looks at how the events of canon might have unfolded in the following months. It was very much a labour of love, and I remain very proud of it.

I'm going to cheat, for Star Wars, actually, and pick a series: JasBen Save a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Because it has the healing and the happy ending that Obi-Wan—Ben— deserves. It's also got Jaster being an awesome and supported Mand'alor, and Tor not going batshit, and Xanatos getting the healing he deserves, and little baby!Obi-Wan being the cutest fucking thing. And it manages to be both pro-Jedi and pro-True Mandos, without shitting on either one, or shitting on the New Mandos (although it's pretty clear they're less than respected, oops), which is...such an achievement in this fandom, I am so proud of myself for it. I am sad that the clones aren't in it, but the series feels to me like healing and acceptance, and that's almost always going to be my go-to when I'm trolling my fic, looking for something to read.

[batshieroglyphics]

Surprise self-rec time! Pick 3 of your favorite things you’ve written and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow writers to spread the positivity and help celebrate already written fics 💞

I feel like this is a trick question, mostly because I am multi-fandom, and I tend towards favs per fandom, as opposed to favs of all time, lol So, uhhh, how about a fic from 3 diff fandoms that...I don't know I'd call them my 'fav', but they're the ones I'm most inclined/tempted to reread in that fandom on a whim.

For Fullmetal Alchemist, I'm going to say Colours in Your Eyes. It was a Big Bang piece, and I really, really loved how it turned out. Playing with soulmates is always interesting, but I loved the chance to fuck around with this one. I had a lot of fun playing with the ideas of cultural differences and how when you discovered your soulmate could change things. And I was just so, so happy with the ending. I think the last ending I adored as much as I did this one, was Reclaim. It just....hit that sweet spot.

Picking one for Final Fantasy VIII, lol, okay, that's...rough. I going to go with Noblesse Oblige, I think. I did so much work on developing the world in this fic, and building out original characters that were able to join as part of the main cast. It's also my only fic that really looks at how the events of canon might have unfolded in the following months. It was very much a labour of love, and I remain very proud of it.

I'm going to cheat, for Star Wars, actually, and pick a series: JasBen Save a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Because it has the healing and the happy ending that Obi-Wan—Ben— deserves. It's also got Jaster being an awesome and supported Mand'alor, and Tor not going batshit, and Xanatos getting the healing he deserves, and little baby!Obi-Wan being the cutest fucking thing. And it manages to be both pro-Jedi and pro-True Mandos, without shitting on either one, or shitting on the New Mandos (although it's pretty clear they're less than respected, oops), which is...such an achievement in this fandom, I am so proud of myself for it. I am sad that the clones aren't in it, but the series feels to me like healing and acceptance, and that's almost always going to be my go-to when I'm trolling my fic, looking for something to read.

[batshieroglyphics]

Marvel Cinematic Universe scene breaks

First break is a standard Avengers break for fics that aren't shippy. (I don't remember how many fics actually got it.) It's the silver A logo symbol with sort of rainbow light lines curling out to either side.

Standard FrostIron break. Since Loki is in all my ships, I picked a sort of standard blue-ish magical swirl with the ship name coming out above it. And then the ship name is coloured with an ombre of the colours closest related to the characters; green and gold and red for FrostIron. I originally had the ship name in a straight line above the swirl. It worked okay for FrostIron at smaller sizes, because it's a shorter name, but it didn't work for ThunderFrost or FrostPudding, and I wanted them all to be a matching set, so I broke the names into two levels. So, first image is the broken ship name, and the second is the ship name in one straight line.

This next one is specifically for my fic The Lightning Strike, so I did the Iron Man helmet in red, outlined in gold on the left, and Loki's gold helmet outlined in green on the right, with a lightning strike in an ombre of green between them.

I knew, when I started on the MCU set, that I was going to need to do literal shattered glass for my Shattered Glass series. I debated adding something additional, but it all felt like it was taking too much away, and it wouldn't work so well at smaller sizes. I did recolour the glass from the sort of standard clear-blue to be green with blue accents, since the one who shattered was Loki.

This next one is specific to my fic Blackened Bones. In fitting with the title, I did a black skull inside Loki's helmet—which completely vanishes against the dark themes I prefer, lol, should have outlined it—with the helmet the standard gold outlined in green. And then, a bit like wings, blood spatters going out and up to either side.

This next one is for What Would You Do?, which has a female!Loki as a human living in our world, and she ends up getting a job as a stripper, and then catches Tony's eye. So, a female silhouette holding on to a pole and leaning backwards, in green outlined in gold, with a vine and leaf flourish mirrored on either side, which is an ombre from green to gold to red outward from the centre.

The next one is a relatively simple break for A Life Inside of Me, which is a Loki falls back into time and mentors and eventually has a relationship with his younger self. So, the word Loki is green outlined in gold, and mirrored , but the mirrored version is a darker shade and is sort of crumbling and broken, to sort of show the difference between the younger Loki in a stronger, kinder timeline, and the broken remains of a Loki who lost everything.

I did exactly one fic pairing Loki with Thor and Tony, and I decided to make a break just for that fic, going with a rather simple Iron Man helmet, Loki's helmet, and Thor's hammer in a row. Tony's helmet and the hammer are images pulled straight from the web, not recoloured, while Loki's helmet is my standard gold outlined in green.

Standard ThunderForst break. Since Loki is in all my ships, I picked a sort of standard blue-ish magical swirl with the ship name coming out above it. And then the ship name is coloured with an ombre of the colours closest related to the characters; red to silver to gold to green for ThunderFrost. I originally had the ship name in a straight line above the swirl. It worked okay for FrostIron at smaller sizes, because it's a shorter name, but it didn't work for ThunderFrost or FrostPudding, and I wanted them all to be a matching set, so I broke the names into two levels. So, first image is the broken ship name, and the second is the ship name in one straight line.

Last one is for Seasons of Love, which is my Loki/Dr Strange fic, although Stephen is sort of...an almost incidental character, someone Loki fixates on while trying to find a safe place to settle in New York City. I ended up doing my standard Loki helmet, gold outlined in green, in front of a magical circle, sort of like Stephen's portals in the comics.

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One-shot Fandom Scene Breaks

These are the scene breaks for fandoms that I've only written one or two fics for, or a single scene break covers multiple fics. (Basically, the fandoms it's not really worth it to make an entire post for.)

A couple of these, actually, I have written a fic in that fandom, but that fic doesn't actually have any scene breaks. I sort of made them as a bit of a just in case, but, also, because I was having fun.

As per previous scene break posts, these were created because I wanted fun scene breaks that were screen reader-friendly at AO3. The images on AO3 are smaller than the versions shared here—I like the larger versions that let you see a bit better the specifics that aren’t always visible in the smaller versions—and due to the coding I use, they only exist when you have creator’s style on, and cannot be viewed as an image.

First up, James Bond. Since my only fic in the fandom is shippy, and I don't see myself doing any non-shippy fics, I just went right for the shippy break, with the text 00Q in a font that's vaguely digital, and them a silhouette of a gun on the left and a silhouette of a Bond next to a vertical 007. All kept black, outlined in grey, with a red shadow, because I just went for it, with this one, lol

BBC Merlin has two. This first one I edited an existing scenebreak (the second image above) of a silhouetted dragon in flight against a moon with calligraphy swirls out to either side for my monster Merlin fic; I edited to add blue to the interior of the calligraphy lines and outline them in red. (There is not a larger version of this break, as it's an older edit, from before I was saving larger sizes.)

Second BBC Merlin break is the Camelot shield of a gold dragon on a red field, with green swirling vines going out to either end, outlined in gold.

For Detective Conan/Magic Kaitou, we have Kid's white top hat with a blue band, above Conan's red bowtie. With swirling vines that are a pale blue outlined in white because, well, magic. If I ever manage to finish my longer DCMK piece, I'll probably create a different scene break for it. Or, at least, an alternate one, which can be used when Conan is Shinichi. Maybe. We'll see.

Neither of the two Yuri!!! On ICE ficlets I've done needed any scene breaks, but I decided to make one anyway, just to pad out this batch a bit. Skates in blue to either side of a figure skater in purple.

Only Star Trek ficlet, again, didn't need any scene breaks, but made this one, anyway. It's a silhouette of the USS Enterprise from TOS, coloured shades of grey, with a blue medical badge and a gold command badge to either side, because you will take McKirk from my cold, dead hands.

The Witcher! Using the wolf's head variant from the games, because that's the version that'll always be the correct one, to me, not the variation they're using in the show. It's grey outlined in red, but the grey was too limited, disappeared at smaller sizes, so it really just looks like it's done red. Swords to either side, with the one on the left notably lighter that the one on the right, to indicate one as being a silver sword, while the other is steel.

Done exactly one CBS Elementary fic, which was a yuri hate-sex fic between Joan and Moriarty. Which was fun, but, again, no scene breaks. Not sure I'll ever do any other fic in this fandom, tbh For this one, skyline of New York City, where the show takes place, coloured like a sort of golden sunrise, because I went looking for images of the logo to try to get a reasonable font and realised they were often shades of gold. So, did the background of the skyline in the shades of gold and left the text of ELEMENTARY in black.

This one is meant for Tamora Pierce's Tortall series, because I did a fic in that fandom, uh, gods-awful forever ago, and it did have scene breaks, stumbled over it while I was working on the Marvel set, not sure how. Blue jewel in the centre, for the Dominion Jewel, and swords to either side, slightly different hilts, with the one on the left outlined in blue, for Jon, and the one on the right outlined in purple, for Alanna. I originally thought to have the sword on the left outlined green for George and the Jewel outlined blue for Jon, but then I reread the fic and realised I hadn't included George in it, for whatever reason. (Idk, 2001!me surely had a reason? Assuming George was at Pirate's Swoop, I'd guess.) So I decided to just have Jon and Alanna with swords. Couldn't remember what shade of green George's Gift was, anyway.

And then, since I'd already done a break for one of my very, very old fics, it made sense enough to make a couple of breaks for Yu-Gi-Oh! (Planning to do some for my Digimon fics, too, but that can be a project for later, probably after redoing the SW set.)

First one, the Kaiba Corporation's KC logo, in blue, in the centre, with the duellist field arm things Seto created. Used this one for all of my fics that had the focus on Seto, Mokuba, and/or Noa.

Second one, all of the Millennium Items: left to right: the Key, the Scales, the Eye, the Puzzle, the Ring, the Rod, and the Necklace. Used this one for all my other fics.

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Last Line

@algandarsplaguepositive tagged me!

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you like).

I'd not written anything and not written anything and not written anything, and now I've written two holiday ficlets in the past 24hours, so this was excellent timing.

Loki considered him him for a moment, head cocked to one side, before he leant back down to finish his lunch, and began to purr.

Uh.....yeah, okay, open tags: if you've a hankering to do it, consider yourself tagged.

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DC TV (Arrowverse) Scene Breaks

As per previous scene break posts, these were created because I wanted fun scene breaks that were screen reader-friendly at AO3. The images on AO3 are smaller than the versions shared here—I like the larger versions that let you see a bit better the specifics that aren’t always visible in the smaller versions—and due to the coding I use, they only exist when you have creator’s style on, and cannot be viewed as an image.

There's 8 scene breaks for this series, and they're mostly variations on the same theme, lol.

I actually had a terrible time with the sizing for these, because I didn't add any embellishments on the ends to widen them enough to make up for how tall they are, especially the pairs.

Minor edits were made to the colour Flash symbol—mostly in adding the lens flare—so it matched the official Legends of Tomorrow versions of Len and Mick's symbols. Otherwise, those symbols are all as found on the web.

First up, ColdFlashWave (Len Snart/Barry Allen/Mick Rory) with their TV-canon symbols. Have a minor hate/love relationship with Mick's symbol, since the flames at the top means his circle never matches up right. UGH

FlashWave (Barry Allen/Mick Rory), which is actually the couple variation of this poly that I tend to write most, in part because canon makes it easier—Len has more appearances in Flash episodes, I think? But Mick's character survives longer, due to actor choices—but also because there is plenty of ColdFlash filling the fandom, I don't need to be adding to it, lol.

ColdWave (Len Snart/Mick Rory) I've written...a couple of times, usually as part of a lead-up to the poly. I did, actually, use this one in my coffeeshop winter holiday ficlet from a few years ago, because while that's a poly setup, Barry doesn't actually appear in the fic.

ColdFlash (Len Snart/Barry Allen) is the one I made because I already had all the component parts and it was easier to just create it, but I've yet to use it for anything.

The oddball option is intended for David Singh, the police captain of Barry's precinct. It's the CCPD symbol—comics, I think—in between mirrored police captain rank markings. It is 100% for my fic, The Trials of the Hero's Beleaguered Captain, which is from David's POV.

These next three (ColdWave, FlashWave, and ColdFlashWave) were created for my soulmate AU, Only Half the Rainbow, which is a 'meeting your soulmate lets you see colours' variation. Recoloured each of their symbols with a slightly metallic variation of a single primary colour—red for Mick, blue for Len, and yellow for Barry—and only made the three variants that I would use in the fic, so no ColdFlash.

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For the Tomarry discord group’s femslash challenge.

Most days, Harri couldn’t tell whether the looks Riddle sent her when they passed in the halls meant the elder girl wanted to kill her, or kiss her. Some of those days, she wasn’t certain which outcome would be more preferable.

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Once upon a time, the Snow King’s soul broke, and one of the pieces, the smallest one, found a new home next to the warm heart of a kind orphan boy. But no amount of warmth can chase away winter’s bitter cold forever, and the boy began to draw away from his friends, becoming cruel when they pressed for an explanation he didn’t have.

One day, when the boy is near a man, and has no friends left, he finds his way through the snow to the ice palace of the Snow King, whom he asks to remove the cruelty in his heart. But the Snow King is as greedy as he is cold, and he will do anything to ensure his guest never returns to the warmth of summer again.

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Aren’t there times when you want to share your feelings with someone?

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Harry Potter Scene Breaks

As per previous scene break posts, these were created because I wanted fun scene breaks that were screen reader-friendly at AO3. The images on AO3 are smaller than the versions shared here—I like the larger versions that let you see a bit better the specifics that aren’t always visible in the smaller versions—and due to the coding I use, they only exist when you have creator’s style on, and cannot be viewed as an image.

First up is actually both the last one I created, and not actually in use. I wanted a non-ship, non-specific HP scene break—made myself a note and everything—and then got so focussed making breaks for fics, I actually forgot about this idea until this morning. Went with the original Hogwarts crest, the shield with the House animals in the secondary colours on fields in the House primary colours with the scroll-work around the outside, the helmet at the top, and the ribbon with the school motto—Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus—written on a ribbon beneath it. With a sort of lens flare effect shining off some of the scroll work on the upper right and lower left, because I wanted something vaguely magical moving out to either side, and I ended up liking how this turned out. There is one HP fic on AO3 with scene breaks that I just used the default grey line—Not Children's Fare—instead of using something a little more styled, because I wasn't finding a good way to capture that fic in a scene break. I think this break is a little too bright for that fic, but I may darken it, then end up using it for it. Dunno, we'll see how I feel after I've tackled the Avengers lot.

This scene break, of a blue fire inside a gold box with filigree at either end, is actually what started me on making fic-specific scene breaks. This is for Gelosaþ in Écnesse, and is meant to be Tanwen's—Harry's blue-feathered phoenix—flame inside a golden cage with latticework, akin to the Priori Incantatum cage that sent Harry back into the Founder's era.

Stand Against the Moon and  Nose to the Wind were the next scene breaks, because I knew exactly what I wanted for them, which was a howling wolf-head against a moon. For SATM, I went with a harvest moon, as a sort of nod to the use of Sol (as in sun, referencing his eyes) as his alternate name, while I used a standard white/grey moon for NttW. Outside of the moons, I put mirrored weapons, black-silhouetted and outlined in red; SATM has the Elder Wand, since Harry used it in that fic, and NttW had a scythe, in recognition of the alternate name he used in that fic.

Xerosis is the next. I almost went with the moon theme again, but decided it changed getting mixed up with the Ghost in My Town series, so I went with the Ravenclaw crest, since this is my Ravenclaw!Harry fic. Tried two versions of the crest—binned version is below—and ended up picking a silhouette version of the original Ravenclaw crest, instead of the coloured-in, more modern version. Coloured it dark blue, then outlined it in bright, Avada Kedavra green. Turned a stylized letter X on its side, had it the same bright green, and mirrored it . Not my favourite of the breaks I made for HP, but I don't hate it. Might try something else at some point, but probably not.

For Abandon and Reclaim, I just decided one break for the whole series. The words Abandon & Reclaim in red in the foreground, with a green shadow, and then a black silhouette of the London skyline—finding one without the Eye was a trial, because the fic does take place before the Eye was built—and then a silhouette of Hogwarts in the background, which is sage green and outlined in bright green. Thinking about maybe recolouring London, since I use dark mode, so I can only see the part that's got Hogwarts behind it. I originally was going to have it red, but then the text got too hard to read. Ugh. Something to maybe muck about with some other time.

The next six follow a theme, and it's one that was also shared by my Harry Potter/Doctor Who crossover scene break, of a black silhouette of Hogwarts castle, outlined in purple. In front, in the HP font, is HP/ and then another character's initials. LV, TMR, SS, and LM are all red text with a green outer glow effect. AD and JP are both red with a gold outer glow effect.

These ended up being used very generally, and saved me a lot of time. I almost made more for some of the shorter fics I created specific breaks for below, but ended up not, for...reasons.

Angels & Demons was a series about Harry, an angel, meeting Voldemort, who is basically Satan, and falling in love, and following how that ends up throwing heaven into complete disarray. (I have some questions and a number of concerns about the me of 19yrs ago, lol.) It wasn't terribly hard to find a set of wings I could run off with that had one white and one black, both feathered. Text in front of the wings is the series title in gold text, using the HP font, and a black shadow.

The scene break for Royal is the one I probably did the least with, in terms of editing. The gold crown above unfurling gold leaves out into a line with balls and a star before slimming away to nothing was in a set of free-to-use scene breaks I found while looking for crown images. It was already coloured gold, as I recall, but I did add some colour in the form of gems to the crown, and I gave it an outer glow effect of a deep purple.

The scene break for Broken started as an image of just, you know, a pair of glasses with a broken lens, like the cover I made for it. Ended up trying to find half-moon glasses, like Dumbledore wears in the books, and then had to do a lot of edits to the best version I found, so they're kinda misshapen. There is a cracked lens effect, but it kinda gets lost when it's at scene break size, especially on a black background. Added a blue orb for the prophecy and a red feather for Fawkes, to sort of jizz it up a bit, and I actually do like how that part turned out, far more than the glasses.

What It Means... is one of the rare few gen HP fics I wrote. It's an over-powered, Azkaban!Harry fic, where he gets necromancy powers—only affecting ghosts—and three animagus forms, among other gifts. The easiest to find an image for, of his forms, was the panther, which I edited to have green eyes. (Didn't realise it had a shadow until after I'd started posting it. Still haven't decided if I'll go in and erase that or not.) Added mirrored ghosts floating outward because the ghosts are a big deal for this fic. Wish they were a little less cartoony, especially next to the realistic panther, but since I was avoiding using character faces, and I wanted them to be notably ghosts, even at smaller sizes, cartoony was the only option.

The next one is for The Soot Gremlin and the Bastard Prince, which is a Tomarry Cinderella retellling. In that fic, Harry's mark of nobility is his father's pocketwatch, which the Dursleys had hidden away. In the fic, it's gold with a rearing lion and a dent in the cover. I did manage to find a free-to-use gold pocketwatch with a lion on it—holding a sword and shield, hilariously—but not with a dent. (Figured 2 out of 3 isn't bad.) And then added a blooming lily flourish to either side, coloured pink to yellow to green, because pretty.

I Dub Thee Unforgiven is one of the one-shots I almost made another Hogwarts pairing break for. Except, the ship here is Harry/Dudley, and in a fairytale-esque setting besides, so no Hogwarts. I ended up just finding a simplified image of a curled whip I could recolour brown, an impact mark that's curved like a whip-strike, and a blood splatter, since the plot opens with Harry as the person who is whipped when Prince Dudley acts out. (Felt kind of lazy, but it was hard to find ideas for some of these latter fics.)

So, Robots is an April Fools fic, where Fred and George create a potion that turns animagi's animals into a robot variation. This is not shippy, and is one of the fics that prompted a non-shippy break, but the whole premise was a chaotic delight and I sort of ended up searching for robot images while I was at work and just made something for the fic. It's a rectangular robot head, recoloured silver, with bright yellow eyes and antennae going out from the upper corners. Added red arrows mirrored to either side, pointing outwards.

Tomorrow is a shippy fic, but the POV and set-up meant there wasn't really a good way to reuse the Hogwarts silhouette standard break. Since the plot is that Draco is a travelling singer, I ended up finding a simplified microphone image, added some music notes in green, and then, because of the character death, a broken heart in red. I don't hate it, and this is such a terribly old and relatively unknown fic, I decided I just didn't care.

The next scene break was created for the one-shot No Keys—speaking of older, relatively unknown fics, lol—and it's about Sirius thinking about loving Harry from beyond the Veil. I wasn't really finding any images of the Veil from the film I could reuse, so I just decided to make my own slightly lame attempt. Not the worst, lol. Text to either side is the word DEATH in a font that has letters made up of bones. It's been squished and stretched to make it even more unrecognisable, because I could. Facing the correct way on the right and then mirrored on the left.

The Bonds of the Heart was a challenge fic wherein Harry and Tom fuck up, remove magic from the world, and end up being forced to stay close to each other and eventually sleep together, due to how their bond interacted with the loss of magic. The red string of fate wasn't really so widely known a concept back in '07, as I recall, but that's very much what came to mind when I was thinking about scene breaks for this fic. So, I went with two hearts, one red the other green, and connected them with a red string, which has an outer glow effect.

This last scene break I made last night, and it's for yet another older fic, a Charlie/Draco fic titled Dragon Lovers. Again, totally could have just reused the Hogwarts shippy break, but it got stuck in my head, the idea of two dragons curled together. Which isn't quite what I found, ended up going with a sort of ying-yang of two dragons. Recoloured one red to gold and the other green to silver and them added a line ending with a heart to the outsides, recoloured a rainbow, because why not, at that point. I actually really like how it turned out.

[batshieroglyphics]

Rinoa, I understand. Someone might not be there. Someone you love may disappear before your very eyes. It’s tough when you live your life thinking that way. But that’s why I fight…