#<- at least I'm pretty sure this counts as that

[baronfulmen]

Pretty skeptical of a lot of you guys. Like, come on you can do better than zero or one. Surely you can do at least two.

Likewise I'm willing to believe I've forgotten some (I got five) but I don't think there's eight or nine. That's bullshit. Are you counting "fluids" that just happen to be there, like the Mountain Dew in the back seat?

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[stillness-in-green]

What do you think of shouto's arc? As a person who uh. used to be pretty similar to his "earlyroki" incarnation for lots of similar reasons I find it really reassuring that he gets to be a happy person who is generally content(somewhat negated by the treatment of Endeavor in the story admittedly lol)

Hey, anon; I'm touched that you'd come to me, a dedicated endgame hater with a question like this. I appreciate the interest and/or faith! This reply is going to talk a lot about the family in general and the broader themes of the story, as well as Endeavor and Dabi and their own arcs, but I've tried to keep tethering it back to Shouto throughout and at the end.

Shouto isn’t a character I devote a ton of thought to—I’m so-so on most of the Heroes at the best of times, and Dabi is an easy pick for my least favorite of the core League.  For a long while, Endeavor actually was my favorite of the Todorokis because I found him the most interesting—that went out the window in the last war, alas, as it became clear that the narrative had no intention of meaningfully grappling with his repeated failures to work with and prioritize his family despite his repeated promises to do so.

As to Shouto, though, I suppose I have three major thoughts: that he does okay for himself, that he got a bit shafted all the same by the decision not to kill Endeavor, and that I wish I felt more confident that his arc had any impact at all on his opinions about the Hero System.

(Hit the jump.)

Taking the last of those first, as it’s the point that involves Shouto himself the least, the systemic problems of the setting were always my primary interest with regard to the conflict between Heroes and Villains.  Because I was invested in relatively few of the Heroes, and also because the story was pretty assiduous about not letting the League kill off any characters the reader could reasonably be expected to give a shit about anyway, I never bought into stuff like Deku getting righteously fired up about the people Shigaraki had hurt.  For the most part, I cared about the Hero/Villain interpersonal dynamics only insomuch as they served as a path for the Heroes to recognize the scope of the real issues they needed to be addressing, and the Villains as—while dangerous—ultimately victims of those issues.

Unfortunately for me, the Todoroki plotline is ultimately treated by the overarching narrative as being, by and large, self-contained, unconnected and unreflective of the broader society in which it plays out.  Thus, while Uraraka connects Toga’s tragedy to the lack of acceptance of her quirk and devotes herself to finding some way to correct for that problem going forward, Shouto and Enji don’t make that same connection between Dabi’s tragedy and the problems in Hero Society that led to it.  Touya is, to be sure, primarily a victim of Enji’s choices, with Dabi being the ultimate result, but while no one forced Enji to make the choices he made, they were not made in a vacuum.

By my count, there are three ways in which the structure of Hero Society failed Todoroki Touya and his siblings, only one of which impacted them directly.  Firstly, Hero Society demonstrates a studied lack of concern for the mental health of orphaned children, which meant that young Enji was never going to get appropriate amounts of grief counselling, meaning there was nothing to inhibit his spiraling obsession with strength.[1]  Secondly, that obsession was given a perfect frame to build on in the form of the Hero ranking system.  And thirdly, we have no evidence that the Todoroki family was so much as mildly probed by law enforcement or regulatory bureaus about the string of accidents and tragedies facing it.[2]

1: From the Shimura Kotarou of forty goddamn years ago to the Izumi Kouta of the present, there is zero reason to believe that Enji would ever have gotten professional psychological help following his father’s death.

2: One might also add a fourth consideration, that being the whole-ass Himura situation that led to Rei feeling her abusive marriage was as inescapable as it was.  Perhaps if she felt less trapped by her family’s need—itself entirely a result of quirk-based bigotry, remember, so that’s a fifth societal consideration!—then maybe she would have been more willing to try taking the kids and leaving, or seeking help from authorities.  My focus here, however, is more on things that could have directly circumvented Endeavor's abuse, so I’ll leave the other factors here.

But BNHA doesn’t probe any of this, either, nor does Shouto.  The only people other than Endeavor who are remitted any scraps of responsibility about Dabi’s entire existence are All For One (for saving Touya’s life!) and Rei, Fuyumi and Natsuo, collectively given a few moments in which they regret not doing more. Otherwise, Endeavor is allowed whole and unadulterated blame for the situation.  It’s not something Shouto blames on any outside parties or circumstances, and so, once it’s resolved, he makes no efforts to try to address any of the very obvious contributing factors.

While it’s very much to Shouto's credit that he put so much proactive effort and thought into stopping “his” Villain without causing further harm—by far the most forethought of any of the students with Villain foils!—I’m not as positive about how he just lets everyone but his rotten father off the hook.  It’s a problem I think is less about Shouto as a person and more about the meta-narrative’s sudden third-act unwillingness to engage in systemic critique, but a problem it remains, given that it’s the systemic critique that I really wanted.

Moving on, I also think Shouto’s arc is severely hindered by Horikoshi changing his mind about not killing off Endeavor.  I’m not one of those people who thought Endeavor had to die to make up for his crimes, or who desperately wanted him dead because he’s an abuser and All Abusers Should Die, Actually.  Solely looking at it from the perspective of Endeavor’s arc, I think he should have lived!  It’s much more interesting for him to live and have to grapple with the consequences of his actions!

…But that would require that he actually have to grapple with said consequences.  Which he doesn’t.  And if he was not going to, and the story was not going to address him not going to, then yeah, absolutely, he should have died.  What’s the point of him surviving if he’s going to face no story-impacting consequences?  Feeling sad and bad about it, and getting yelled at once or twice by nameless bit characters, do not count as story-impacting consequences, I’m afraid.

More to the point, though, that’s Endeavor’s arc.  Endeavor’s arc, however, badly needed to take a backseat to Shouto’s arc, and probably Dabi’s, too!  While I think Endeavor could have survived without his arc torpedoing the arcs of his sons, that’s definitely not the story we got.  And I think this is in large part because Horikoshi didn’t change the story enough to account for Endeavor’s survival.

The echoes of that original story are all over the third act.  Consider:

Endeavor does nothing of consequence in the Edgy Deku arc.  His press conference doesn’t prevent societal breakdown; he limply defers to Deku in ways that let him remain active while ensuring those actions have no impact on the plot; he makes no major contributions to Hawks and Jeanist’s talks about the Villains; he’s not involved with the plans for the second war; and finally, we learn nothing from the hospital flashbacks that we couldn’t have gotten from any of the other family members, instead.      

We get early hints about too many quirks causing mental breakdowns, and this foreshadowing is fulfilled in Spinner’s corroded perceptions at the hospital—but miraculously, Lady Nagant has no problem at all with having an extra quirk.  Sure, she’s only got the one extra, and maybe it doesn’t happen every time, but…  Isn’t it a little odd that she comes out of nowhere, with very minimal foreshadowing, an elaborate HPSC backstory that Hawks shares, and the combination of quirks she’s packing is one that precisely replicates Hawks’s “long-distance flying attacker” shtick?  It’s pitifully easy to imagine a scenario in which Endeavor’s death in the first war leads to Hawks going rogue.  Also, while I don’t know exactly what circumstances would lead to him and Deku fighting, I do think Deku’s platitudinous speech about light and dark and reaching out to people feels far more tailored to a Hawks who only just went rogue than it does a woman betrayed by her own bosses who hates shallow platitudes, especially coming right on the heels of Deku rescuing Overhaul in a way that strongly echoes Hawks’s reflexive rescue of Twice but carries no inherent meaning for Lady Nagant.[3]       3: See here for the whole rant about this, but the short version is that it’s goddamn absurd that Lady Nagant hates platitudes and shoots at Overhaul on the assumption that Deku will have to save him, only for her heart to be changed by Deku’s platitudes and saving of Overhaul.      

Speaking of Hawks, the whole matter of Twice’s death goes less than nowhere, which makes one wonder what was the point of including it as an ethical dilemma at all? The public didn’t care, Hawks faced no consequences for it, and he was never forced to change his stance or grapple with his decision in any way, to the point that when he’s faced with the same situation later, he makes the exact same judgement, and this is something the narrative doesn’t even seem to notice, much less address.  Toga’s very personal feelings of hatred for Hawks get relegated to a single shallow knife slash from a clone that doesn’t even manage to leave a goddamn scar.  And all this lack of consequence leaves Hawks free to be reduced to nothing but an Endeavor Supporter in the final arc, possibly because whatever his arc could have been was incompatible with Endeavor’s survival, leaving Hawks with no final arc of his own but also no established place in anyone else’s.      

Endeavor’s dream about the family eating dinner around the table but him not being there, on top of Shouto’s stated intention to eat soba with his brother—seems like foreshadowing for an ending in which the family eats dinner around a table, doesn’t it!  But because Endeavor lives, Natsuo cuts contact in a way he’d have had no reason to do if Endeavor had died, and so there can be no family dinner, and Shouto’s soba thing has to be relegated to a frankly pretty thin line of dialogue about mutual favorite foods rather than an actual shared meal.      

The whole thing about buying/building a new house for Rei and the kids to live in so they can be away from the bad memories in Endeavor’s house.  Does that happen?  It kinda seems like that doesn’t happen, given that Rei seems perfectly happy to be pushing Enji around in a wheelchair at the end!      

The strange replay tape finale version of Shoto beating Dabi, where he does the exact same move twice, just once alone and once in the presence of family.  Almost like Horikoshi only came up with the one idea?      

The fact that the family promises to deal with Touya together but then Endeavor not only spends a chunk of time running from Dabi when he does arrive, but even when he does finally try to talk, he can’t because Dabi’s brain is so overboiled that he’s incapable of rational conversation—even though he was having rational conversation with Shouto some five minutes prior!  And then it’s Shouto and the family’s ice that actually save Dabi from those consuming flames, with Endeavor contributing nothing to that finale—huh, almost like the family saving Touya wasn’t written to include Enji to begin with!      

The Geten as a Himura reveal feels super vestigial.  I like it, mind you!  I like it a lot!  And I don’t know exactly how it would have factored into a version of the endgame in which Endeavor died, save that the Dabi-Geten combo really feels like The Final Boss Scenario That Wasn’t for Shouto—one guy with fire hotter than his who hates their father and Shouto personally, and one guy who can take control of any ice around him and stop it from melting and who hates the other side of Shouto’s family![4]  But instead Geten just winds up in prison and the Himura reveal does nothing but handwave Dabi having latent ice powers, which didn’t need a Himura reveal to justify it since we already knew Dabi had a physical compatibility with ice!  And even, via Shouto himself, that the mixing of ice and fire could produce a quirk with elements of both!  Geten being a Himura simply feels like a relic of a story in which Geten had more of a role to play, and while that may be my bias because I feel like the entire MLA was set up for a bigger role than they wound up having, it’s still easy to wonder if part of the whole, “We’ll deal with Touya as a family,” promise would have involved facing the other side of the family’s damage as well. 4: While also espousing a writ large version of Endeavor’s own Strength Is All That Matters mentality and still being a victim of eugenicist machinations masterminded by Shouto’s relatives!  Truly it is a mystery to me how Geten could just get defeated by Cementoss when he’s such a perfect distillation of so many of the issues swirling in and behind Shouto’s family situation. He even connects to a potential systemic critique in his ties to the MLA, who are practically nothing but systemic critiques of Hero Society.

And so on and so forth.

Shouto is a major character: by far one of the most prominent student characters, Deku’s first real victory in terms of changing someone’s heart, a foil for one of the central Villains, and with a profound insight into the kinds of damage the current system encourages and then willfully ignores.  He desperately needed an arc that centered him and his perspective.  But that arc also has to contend with Dabi, and Dabi as-written simply cannot convincingly prioritize Shouto when Endeavor is still alive.

There are certainly signs that Dabi did care for his other family members at one point in time, most prominently that he thinks remorsefully about how he acted towards them when he wakes up after Sekoto Peak, and emphasizes that he has to apologize to them.  But when the story so prioritizes Dabi’s obsession with Endeavor, to the point that he’s gleefully endangering the rest of the family’s lives and peace by sending dangerous Villains to their door, airing videos outing Endeavor as a domestic abuser, and talking about Shouto like he wants to leave him disemboweled on the Endeavor Agency’s front stoop, then that obsession has to be dealt with in some way before I’m remotely capable of believing that anyone other than Endeavor can get through to him.

So, Endeavor could have died, which would have neatly deprived Dabi of that driving focus that kept him going—what does he do without it?  That’s a question Shouto could have given him an answer for.

Endeavor could have fallen into a coma, leaving genre savvy readers confident he’d eventually pull through but the characters themselves in a state of muddled emotions about when or if he’d ever regain consciousness—that’s a half-measure, but I like it better than the half-measure we got.[5]

5: And heck, maybe we could have gotten Dabi trying to invade Central Hospital alongside Spinner and the heteromorph army, since that plot included a number of small nods to the Todoroki plot anyway via Spinner reflecting on Dabi’s unstoppable will and Shouji on Shouto’s strength of character.  Also, you know, more chances to poke at Dabi and Shouto’s tendency towards calling heteromorphs derisive animal names.  Probably not a scenario that does the heteromorph mob scene any favors, I’ll grant, but it would be hard to make it worse.

Heck, I could even see a version of the story where the narrative was simply more cynical about Endeavor’s ability to prioritize his professed atonement.  All his actions in the story as we have it show him continuing to prioritize his Hero duties despite his repeated claims that he intends to prioritize his family.  If the story actually recognized that contradiction, it could build Dabi up to a point of screaming frustration that I could, hypothetically, see Shouto breaking through.  Endeavor could still be trying, still be sincere, but if his ego or a rational decision to prioritize the lives of strangers over those of his family mean he cannot ever be counted upon to truly put his family first, then maybe that would be something the rest of the family could tackle.  Alternatively, the whole story could have had a mindset more like Natsuo’s, with the goal being to cut Endeavor off because his desire to atone, regardless of its sincerity, does not entitle him to a presence in the lives of those he hurt.  But none of is an option when the story itself is cheering for Endeavor the way BNHA does.

For Shouto’s arc to be at its best, something needed to give.  Dabi needed to be more open to the rest of the family from the start, or Endeavor’s desire for atonement needed to be complicated or stymied in some way that made it not feasibly attainable, be it his narcissism, his health, or the whole story’s outlook on abusers trying to atone and whose perspective to center in a story involving such abuse.  But with the Dabi we have and the Endeavor the story insists on, Shouto’s arc itself is what wound up giving.  It certainly has its moments, but I can’t imagine a world in which it wouldn’t have been far, far better served by Endeavor kicking the bucket as originally planned, allowing the brothers to confront each other, properly and fully, with Shouto the primary driver in saving Touya rather than having to constantly fight for screentime in his own finale.

That all said, I can definitely see the perspective that Shouto is just one kid from a shitty family situation and he does not deserve being called upon to solve the problems of the whole world and wrangle his family damage for the rest of time.  It’s not what I would have prioritized, in that I have pretty steep meta-narrative demands for a class of kids that we’re being told collectively became the greatest heroes, but from a more grounded, realistic, in-story, individual frame of mind, I think it’s wonderful that Shouto is exploring who he is as a person separate from his family issues and the career he semi-chose when he was in pre-K.

No sarcasm here; I do actually quite like his last scene.  I have some quibbles with the framing—I don't like that the rankings still exist, and I think he should just be allowed to go on sabbatical rather than trying to fit time for self-improvement/self-exploration classes in between Hero work, if we’re really meant to believe that the Villain incident rate is declining.  But just in concept, taking pottery classes and cooking classes and figuring himself out? Good for him!  That’s wonderful!  He did his best and he deserves every inch of it.

That is all to say, what I want from a fictional character in a relatively moralistic narrative is not what I would want from a real person in a situation anything like Shouto's, and while I don't love what we got in the former regard, I’m glad that people who empathize/identify with him can take comfort in the ending he did get. You, anon, and any others to whom that applies, deserve all that and more.

Thanks for the ask!

[ninja-confession-go]

I'm not here to start any arguments really as I'm sure there has been plenty I'm just here to share a bit of the whole ""#jayinwomenfields"" stuff cuz I think I may be able to explain it in a way that non Jay fans can understand as a non Jay fan myself who kinda agrees with them

As someone who's has at least been an og watcher of the show I honestly don't blame Jay fans for believe that Jay revoles entirely around Nya cuz the show doesn't do a good job showing otherwise

Liek Jay from the beginning was infatuated with Nya and as such so many of his actions were made to impress her

His biggest(and honestly only cuz I do NOT count Prime Emprie) arc that led to the most development for him was entirely brought in by his desire to get Nya back. Sure it wasn't the only focus and it wasn't the only thing in that season that led for Jay to change but their relationship WAS the catalyst for everything that followed and was even the catalyst for the conclusion(it was due to Nya dying that Jay was able to find the correct words to resolve everything)

And then from then on Jay...ceased being a complex character

Jay became more and more simplifed down to just being the comedic relief, his intelligence, his skill with machinery and inventing skills were all wiped away and he became a dumb, goofy character with nothing else too him who's main focus (and honestly only interesting thing) was his relationship with Nya.

His relationship with Nya was THE one thing they kept and as such was pretty much the only good and relevant thing about Jay in those seasons

Than PE showed up and it was finally the chance for Jay to get some developement.. it was all set up to finally have a season focused on him that didn't involve his relationship with nya

But then...the rug was pulled out from under Jay fans feet

The seasons had nothing to do with Jay, in fact he got NO focus except for the final episodes where he talk-no-jutsu'd his way to victory

Stripping Jay fans of thier shot of seeing Jay get some individual focus

Now about Nya

She was treated like absolute shit by the writers In the early seasons I'm not even gonan fake. She was barely a character and while she had some good moments (aka being the badass samurai and her intelligence with machinery) she still suffered from misogynistic writing

But then eventually the writers got their head outta their ass and realized that she should actually be a character and staring working on such

In the beginning it was ROUGH as they were trying their damn hardest to undo all the misogynistic shit they had about her

Eventually though they started fleshing her out. they started giving her hopes and desires and a wish to choose her own path and it was exciting to see! Nya was finally get some interesting development!

Than she became the water ninja and we really got to see her shine even more! She just kept growing and becoming better and it was awesome to finally see her get the development she deserved!

Fron then on Nya became better and better, she got more and more development and became more complex to a point where i would say she was becoming more complex than the boys

Than seabound happened and that's where it hit peak for her character. She became so much more and got the praise from the citizens of ninjago that she deserved they mourned her loss so much more than the others ninja. She was essentially a legend and it's what she deserved.

So why bring this up?

Simple.

The reason many Jay fans say they believe Jay's Arcs revolve around Nya oz cuz the writers had one Arc for him that essentially did and proceeded to do nothing else with him. Stripping him down to nothing and making his relationship with Nya the only interesting thing about him in the later seasons

As time went on Jay became more and more simplied down to a bare bones character while Nya became more and more complex, a more individual character with perhaps the most development out of all the ninja! She went from being a character with no personality to being one of the most complex characters in the show

While Jay went from being a decently complex character to being one of the least with his relationship with Nya being the ONLY thing interesting about him in those later seasons

Nya got development that didn't focus on jay

Jay's only Arc was driven by his relationship with Nya and then his relationship with her proceeded to be the only interesting thing about him later on

If it sounds like I'm repeating myself a bit that's cuz I am. I want to drive home that these reason are why Jay's fans feel the way they do and why as someone who isn't a Jay fan I can kinda agree with them

Alright I'm done with this I've been typing for waaaaay too long I just wanted to share this cuz it's been in my head for a while

Sorry lol

.

[wholahoop]

Writing Interview

Thanks to the excellent @xalandrix, @lqtraintracks and @saintgarbanzo for tagging me! ❤️

how many works do you have on ao3? 61 (though I think technically it's only 59, as I'm pretty sure I still have double versions of a couple of old Yuletide exchange fics back when they moved the collections over to AO3)

What’s your total ao3 word count? 1,242,791

Your top 5 stories by kudos?

A big hello to most of my hd_holidays and Erised fics, lol!

Tea and No Sympathy (52k 😮)

Written on the Heart

The Sleeping Beauty Curse

The Potter-Malfoy Problem

Star Quality

(My remaining hd_hols and erised fics are numbers 6 and 7, haha)

Do you respond to comments? uh, sometimes? I usually respond to comments that come in shortly after I've posted. Otherwise, I tend to have a burst of energy every now and then and leave a heap of replies that can be summarised as "lol this is 3 years late, but thanks for your comment ilu!!!" I've caught up on comments on everything, pretty much, apart from my four H/D longfics. I probably won't go back and reply to everything on those, because I suspect it would take me a full working week 😅

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? My ends range from happy to extremely, extremely happy, haha. Even the one fic that has an open ending I view as happy, because it leaves the characters in a really good place where it's pretty obvious (to me, at least!) that everything is going to go beautifully well.

Oh! I did write an origfic take on the Bluebeard fairytale once, Jam Tomorrow, which has a less straightforward ending? This is the only time I've ever tried second person pov, and it's a more experimental/literary-style fic than is usual for me. I was really happy with it!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? What a difficult question 😂 For non-H/D, I'd say Best Nightmare Come True (SK8, matchablossom) lingers the most in the afterglow, and I think Kyoya Ootori's Guide to Self-Deception for Fun and Profit (Ouran High School Host Club, Kyoya/Haruhi) is pretty lovely.

For H/D, I'd say either Star Quality or The Sleeping Beauty Curse. Though I only exclude Written on the Heart, haha, because the ending is a bit rushed - I think it works well enough and I'm not unhappy with it, but if I hadn't been writing to a deadline oh god I was so late then it might well have been 30k longer, with more aftermath of them fixing the spell.

Do you write crossovers? I was going to say no, but I remembered I did write one once! And Then It Bit Him, a Harry Potter/Petshop of Horrors crossover for the amazing painless_j, who was a really respected and influential reccer back in the day. I think it has Snape's animagus form being a worm 😂

I haven't reread Petshop of Horrors, for years! It's a light horror manga series, with a Japanese nature god, Count D, who basically sells people animals with rules attached, which they inevitably disobey to their peril. Like the film Gremlins, haha. There's a great ship with him and the local cop, Leon, who's VERY suspicious of him, but who somehow becomes his closest friend against both of their wills. It's not BL but it's very shippable. I loved it, but it's also 20? 25? years old, and Count D is androdgynous leaning towards feminine, while Leon is, er, a cop who's clearly resistant to the idea he might be gay and falling for D, so there's a good chance it has some nasty dated humour lurking in there.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? Maybe a few times a year? It's mostly hate towards the fic rather than hate aimed at me, haha, although sometimes it's both. I usually just ignore it or delete it. If it really, really winds me up, then I reply 'lol', so they know I've read it, and then delete it 😂

I usually consider it positive, in the sense that if I've really wound someone up, then at least I'm making them feel something with my writing, right?! Usually people who leave rants fall into a couple of categories:

They really, really love Draco, and think he's perfect and pure and blameless, and how dare Harry be even slightly shitty to him, Harry is the WORST. At the pinnacle of this, is the lengthy comment that still makes me laugh/grind my teeth about how Harry was abusive to Draco and I was a terrible person for presenting such abuse as romantic. (I mean, that sounds like it could be a hot, fucked up fic 😂 But it's not one I wrote!)

They are OUTRAGED by the unfairness of McGonagall re-sorting Harry into Slytherin in an eighth year fic, rather than the hat doing it, lolol. Have they never considered that the idea of sorting people into school houses based on the goals and personalities they have when they're 11 - and one of the personality types is 'ambitious and evil', while another is 'everyone else' - is a particularly fucking stupid one? That maybe their school house isn't all that important when the kids have grow up, and have fought a war? And that the only thing the houses are actually used for in the books turns out to be dormitory allocations, house points and sporting rivalries?

They are triggered by Harry taking up the arse, when obviously it is Draco's role in life to be ploughed instead

I did not tag for [rimming, a bad joke, that the couple are fifth cousins twice removed so it's INCEST you freak, etc etc]. Strangely, I don't remember ever getting any hate on my actual incest fic, The Evil Devil Child and the Perfect Gift, where Scorpius is a charming teenage psychopath who finds out his dad is hot for Harry, and manages to persuade Al to roleplay Harry/Draco in his mission to get their parents together. It's even filthier and more fucked up than it sounds 😂 I still love this Scorpius with all my soul.

Do you write smut? Maybe?

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yes. Frequently.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! ❤️ A lot of my fics are in Chinese and Russian, and some in French, and I think a couple in Italian and Spanish too. It's so cool!

Have you ever co-written a fic? Nope. I drive myself up the wall trying to get a fic written. I couldn't inflict that on another person 😂

What’s your all time favourite ship? H/D (yes, I still prefer calling it that to Drarry, lol!)

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? A long time ago I completely failed to finish a Snarry fic I'd promised to someone who'd won an auction :( She was very gracious and understanding, and completely forgave me, but I still feel shitty I didn't come through. I used to love Snarry, but it was a complicated ship for me with competing love and ick feelings, and the pressure got to me so I lost my Snarry mojo completely.

What are your writing strengths? Oh, that's a hard one to answer, but with my self-confident hat on: I think I can write a bloody good love story.

What are your writing weaknesses? Overwriting, for sure - I don't always need to use so many words, or have such long sentences. I overuse italics and ellipses and dashes. If you think my posted fics have a lot of these, you should have seen them before :D

I love an adverb! I replace a lot in editing, because showing rather than telling is so much more effective, but a lot also stay.

I also get stuck on particular words/phrases and repeat them. I try to catch the worst offenders in editing, but in a long fic sometimes you just have to go with it - so please forgive me if you spot I used the word ridiculous a billion times, or someone runs their hand through their hair as a nervous tic a billion times, or whatever.

I also repeat a lot of ideas in fics, though I'm not convinced that's a weakness. If I do reread my fics though, it's pretty obvious what my narrative kinks are though, haha: significant gifts, fireworks, proposals, dining at a fancy restaurant, I could go on.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic? Mostly I avoid it - I don't see the point in including foreign dialogue when my reader won't understand it, unless my viewpoint character doesn't understand it either. (And even then, it's risky unless I speak that language - which I don't - because you can guarantee a reader will, and they'll lol at your ropey Google translate attempt.)

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? I have plenty of ships I haven't written anything for yet, but nothing I'm actively longing to write - if I was, I would have already started something.

What’s your favourite thing you’ve ever written? Oh, that's mean. I'm proud of basically 99% of everything I've written. I think maybe my favourite H/D is Star Quality - I think it's the best paced and plotted, and there's something about pop star Draco covered in glitter that feeds my soul 😂 Plus I love the journeys they both go on in terms of coming to terms with their sexualities - Harry's self-acceptance of something he was ashamed of, and Draco's bravery in doing what always felt impossible to him and coming out to his parents, because he wanted Harry so much he couldn't stand it any more ❤️

I also adore my Ouran fic. I don't write much het, and I don't usually write teen-rated fics either, but it's quiet, and heartfelt, and somehow the most romantic fic I've ever written. Plus I did a ton of research about Japanese culture so I think it does actually feel relatively Japanese. Oh, and I did a ton of research about Harvard too, where part of the fic is set, and I got a comment from someone asking if I'd been to Harvard too, so I considered that the highest of praise!!!

I don't remember who hasn't done this already to tag 😂 So, uh, @bewarethesmirk, @sweet-s0rr0w, @tackytigerfic, @eleadore, @epitomereally, @letteredlettered, @kamaela and any other writer friends scrolling on by who haven't!

[fraymotiif]

@next-stop-reblog-station as you wish! Treyn/Trewyn/etc – pretty self-explanatory. first names are "ingoing" and "outgoing", might as well add the "train" part back in as a surname Grey – from impossibleJedi's fics. according to the author: "based on a blend of their uniform colors, the black and white game theme, and the dragons. they're working together as a blend of truth and ideals! thus: grey" Vanderbilt – suggested in the previous poll, after the railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who apparently had Grand Central Station in NYC built (which Gear Station is arguably based on) Cardinal – from evtraininguniversity's fics, after the four cardinal directions, Ingo being north and Emmet being south, and their parents (in the fics) representing east and west Trevithick – suggested in the previous poll, after Richard Trevithick, who built the first steam locomotive Conway – from yautjan's fic In Tandem and suggested in the previous poll. i'm actually not sure why the author chose this one; perhaps something to do with the scenic railroad in Conway, NH, or the word "way" denoting directions like their first names do Wagner – suggested in the previous poll, a German surname meaning "wagonmaker" or "wagon-driver", somewhat alluding to conducting trains. also goes along with their first names being Germanic in origin Stockton – from raisansgrapeon, from what's considered the world's first public railway line, the Stockton and Darlington Railway Subway – this one's a joke lol Pokémon characters don't have surnames – came up a couple times when discussing this headcanon in various places. technically this isn't able to be proven true or false, since there are characters like the professors who seemingly go by their surnames (at least Oak does for sure, but then it gets confusing with say, Kukui and Burnet, who are married but have different names. could be that she just didn't take his surname but we can't know for certain lol). however for the most part we only get first names for characters. i'm not counting Ash, as he's anime-only and only has a surname in the English translation there were more suggestions that i did not include, but these polls only allow so many options!

the sequel! using suggestions from the original one way back when

[semi-completely-original]

this is how i envision childe and skirk's time together in the abyss went

[sysig]

what if you drew the cutest little mettaton. possibly shitty despot king mettaton looking sooo cute on his throne. or adorable shy ghostie mettaton. or literally any mettaton. what then.

Day 9 - Teeny Tiny Tyrant

[nagareboshiko]

It wasn't the thick air grating her lungs, neither the lack of constant light between her lumen torch dangling erratically and the attacks from the enemies that she found herself struggling with during that battle. The wound on her temple had stopped bleeding minutes ago, or so she hoped, but it made itself clearly noticed when she had moved the 5th Ruin Grader and vertigo had moved the world faster under her feet as another shot of electricity had shot towards the eerie eye staring back at her. Not to mention the ankle that had been fully throbbing inside her soaked boot that was now dirtier and most uncomfortable than ever. She had even stopped counting her body count, all of her energies focused in pure survival.

Perhaps, she had even felt grateful that he of all people had been fighting along her side in this kind of dire situation or else...

A heavy breath burnt her lungs as it left her dry lips, the last of the mechanical ancient machines finally falling somewhere in the cavern. Her muscles were shaking, her sword thrown behind her in exhaustion only to disappear in thin air.

"I believe we should keep moving." Her answer was short, her chest raising heavily as she brought her feet to move forward- or what she thought it could be any direction that would take them as far away as possible from whatever had been hiding in the darkness of that part of the Chasm.

Every step was a loud splotch under her weight and drenched clothes, always making sure to not put too much pressure on the ankle that sent a stinging fit of pain every time she wasn't careful enough with her movements.

She had no clue where they were, she couldn't recall a similar place when she had made her way down there for the first time. But after all, most of those caverns and tunnels looked exactly the same, so the faint warm breeze was the only hint she took to keep pushing forward.

The map right. Her fingers patted her sides-

"It's gone." Her voice was barely a frustrated noise. Great. The only help they could have had, the map Zhiqiong had given her was now lost in the depth of the Chasm. She hoped the girl had at least made another copy...

"The deeper we adventure and the closest to water... I'm pretty sure there should be some Starshrooms to help us light the way." She didn't know if those words were spoken more to reassure her uninvited company or mostly herself. Had the air become even more thicker? A hand pressed on the wall by her side, her vision slightly unclear.

Aether had come all the way down there to leave an Inteyvat for her, she couldn't stop now. Her brother could be there, and all she needed it was a simple answer.

Why? Why had he embraced that darkness and took upon himself such a heavy burden as to cause more pain to those cursed creatures?

Her feet came to a halt, the ground under her feet spinning around her. She wondered if that was how the forgotten Fatui skirmishers had felt when they had found themselves lost at the end of the world, with the hope that one day they'd still be found by their people.

"By any chance, you wouldn't happen to have a map with you?" her head barely moved as she finally addressed Childe, as she still attempted to let the world set once again. And she didn't even get any Mora for this selfish trip of her at the end of the world.

From their first fight, Childe was astounded by her prowess. She moved so effortlessly with a sword, her strength and talent were so incredible, so intoxicating, it had always left him wanting for more. In the darkness here, it was hard to appreciate it to it's fullest.

"Didn't realise this was a timed race." Childe dodged a punch from another giant, the way it hit the ground sent shock waves through the cave causing pebbles and dust to fall from above... Ah right, the sooner, we get these monsters on to their arses the less likely the rock above will become their grave. Dark thought. No matter. He was quick on his feet, faster with his swordsmanship.

Yes, her elegance and skill with a sword was the most stunning thing to behold, in all his years of fighting, he had never met someone who was able to challenge him in the way she could and yet matched him at the same time.

Without total use of his Foul Legacy, Childe conjured the best of both; something between a sleek stream of the perfected skill of his vision and the raw talent of his well tamed delusion to swiftly attack the monsters one by one.

4 for him. 6 for her. 7 for him. 7 for her. 11 for him. 8 for her.

He was too focused on making sure each and every red dot became a dark nothingness that he couldnt even fully enjoy the way the gears screeched to a halt or the way the giants crashed to the ground. But he was aware enough to know that his companion wasn't covering the ground she usually would. That there was something wrong. That was all the determination he needed to finish this thing as soon as possible.

Once they were done, he stood panting softly in his exertion. Somehow, the way he balanced his delusion like a light switch between on and off was more hard work than just using it outright.

It was over. The next step was to leave.

"Girly, You done?"

[townofcadence]

The first time you change, do you even Remember how to be Human? Do you really really believe you can be again, once you've opened a door you can't close?

[canon-notcanon-warriorcats]

i've heard criticisms about sunbeam x nightheart and i expected to not like them together or not care

but i'm gonna be so real with y'all, they're SO CUTE TOGETHER, i love them, they're so sweet

like yeah, the pacing was a little weird for a second of when they were actually falling in love, but they were SO CUTE TOGETHER even before they were in love and you could actually see them getting closer and warming up to each other

both of them thinking completely separately how they wished the other was there because they felt so comfortable talking to each other when they were both having trouble with their parents/friends/clanmates

i didn't know that nightheart just jumped into joining shadowclan like that, i thought he was going to have a more thorough conversation with sunbeam about it and they have a more classic confession scene but no that little idiot just jumped right in

AND SUNBEAM LATER THINKS ABOUT HOW HIM JUMPING RIGHT INTO THINGS IS SOMETHING SHE FINDS ATTRACTIVE ABOUT HIM IS SO CUTE

like they sprinkle in these little thoughts for both of them thinking how pretty or handsome or attractive or cool they think the other is and appreciating the other's skills and they're just so cuuuuuuuuuute

and the fact that they actually have conversations and communicate about problems and even if they disagree on something or something upsets them they compromise or work it out before it causes a bigger problem, like how nightheart actually TALKED to sunbeam about what berryheart told him instead of just assuming the worst things and ruminating on them and getting irrationally angry or upset about it and ending up causing a big fight or something

and also I FUCKING LOVE FAKE RELATIONSHIPS TURN TO ACTUAL LOVE TROPE LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO

[qourmet]

my erha experience

[ajarofpickledtears]

is it just me or is the marketing on this kinda... not great?

like, there is no info about the story except that it's a dystopia. goodreads or amazon ratings tell me nothing. yeah, I could click the link in hopes to find out more, but there isn't even an incentive for me to want to find out more.

this was posted on October 28th and has only 4 notes, so... yeah idk.

and while the review thing is valid, I feel it's kind of... out of place or random? the post hasn't made me want to even look up info, let alone even consider buying it, so reviews aren't even on the edges of my mind.

edit: posting like this bc even though I'd like to give the author constructive feedback I don't know if they even want it and can't put my thoughts into words properly rn. don't want to come across as mean or passive-aggressive.

[glow-worms-are-believers]

The Curse of a Cure (dp blurb)

(tw lab animal testing, tw animal death) A lab rat dies gruesomely, so be warned. This whole thing is pretty grim, really.

At first, Madeline had been horrified. There was Danny standing in front of her and Jack, looking like he was expecting a blow and Madeline had thought "I did this". She had shot at her son and had hoped to dissect him and write a successful paper on it. For a second, Madeline thought she might throw up.

Jack had surged forward for a hug and while her husband didn't notice, Madeline saw the flinch Danny tried to repress at the sudden movement. Her heart had felt like it was slashed by one of their sharp scalpel. She had joined in and had squeezed her baby as hard as she could as they all started crying. Jazz had joined in and soon they were on the floor blubbering as she and Jack tearfully apologized and made sure to smother both children with hugs.

It was only afterwards, when her emotions had calmed down that she started thinking about the implication of her son being Phantom. And that was when the doubt first started.

Because Madeline may have been a mother first, but she was a scientist second. And she had dedicated her life to the study of ectoplasm and what was termed in the common vernacular as 'ghost'. There was a reason she and Jack had gone with theory of ghost being imprints of consciousness instead of simply a continued state of existence. Ghost formed upon the death of a being if that being was surrounded by enough ectoplasm. However, they had observed that nothing that was lost from the corpse during the formation of the ghost. In other words, the ghost did not use any of the existing tissues to transform it and feed the ectoplasm, it simply copied what was existing. The ghost was a mere imperfect copy of the previous being, and one that did not evolve over time as living organisms did. They were incomplete, violent copies of living consciousness that could not learn and change which explained why so many ghosts displayed obsessive behaviours as they could not grow past them. Jack and Madeline had thus determined that ghosts were not real beings, but rather twisted echoes of people.

Danny did not behave like a twisted echo of himself though, and Madeline had told herself this was proof that there was something the science had not found, something that explained why ghosts were more than they had hypothesized. She did not mention this to her husband as it felt like a betrayal of the total acceptance they had promised to provide for Danny.

It wasn't until a few weeks later that the doubts came back. Danny had explained to her that he was considered a 'halfa' which was a term for half-ghost and half-human. And once again, Madeline went back to their research. Upon realizing human tissue and ectoplasm did not interact naturally, she and her husband had decided to force them to interact. They had injected a rat with an absurdly diluted amount of ectoplasm, a dose so small that even botulinum wouldn't harm the animal in this quantity. At first, there had been no reaction and for a few days the rodent had been fine. After a few days though, the rat had started behaving strangely, it had stopped eating and its breathing had become slow and erratic. It had started having muscle spasm, and within a few hours it had been unable to move. The spasms had soon turned into full on seizures with its muscle locking into place. It had finally died in what seemed like terrible pain after a few hours of torture. A ghost had formed shortly afterwards which they had captured for future reference. Madeline had taken a scalpel to the body and had found that all the blood in the rat had turned to ectoplasm and that its internal organs had started melting as well. After some further testing they had discovered that if ectoplasm entered the bloodstream, no matter in what quantity, it would eventually contain the whole body and would turn it into ectoplasm which would then start corroding the body from the inside. The results were so gruesome, she and Jack had abandoned this experiment and had resolved to insure never to let ectoplasm enter in contact with their blood.

So when Danny had said he was half of a ghost, which meant half composed of ectoplasm, Madeline had known that was impossible. She had still held onto the hope that she may have been wrong and that their results were incomplete, but the evidence kept piling up: Danny's declining health since the accident, how he had stopped eating as much, how he was not breathing as much as he should, how his heart rate was well-below the normal rate. And Madeline had known she could not keep it to herself any longer. She'd shown Jack her findings and he had fell into a grim silence, the realization settled heavily on them. Their son was going to die, probably in terrible pain unless they did something.

This was still Danny, Madeline was convinced, but the ectoplasm in his body was poisoning him and he did not even realize it. It was not a symbiotic relationship as he had explained, but a parasite clinging to her baby boy and siphoning his life away. Every time she looked at Danny now, the image of that rat's last moments, twisting and squealing brokenly kept replaying in her mind.

So, she and Jack told the children they were working on a new ghost shield and they locked themselves in the lab searching for an answer, something to save their baby boy. Time was ticking and both parents were aware that they did not have any of it to waste.

It took too long, weeks, but eventually they found it.

Ectoranium. It was a very rare element that was not found anywhere except meteorite debris. They had been able to get their hands on some of it by pure chance, and after tireless work, they had managed to distill some into a solution that could be injected into the bloodstream and hopefully negate the effect of ectoplasm. They did not have enough for a proper round of testing but they did inject one of their lab rat with it and it showed no adverse effect, even after a week. They'd made sure it was safe for humans as well by injecting a small amount in their own body, which had showed no effects once again.

Madeline had discreetly broached the subject of purging ectoplasm from Danny's body by introducing it as a thought experiment. Both Jazz and Danny had reacted explosively with their son insisting the ectoplasm was what was keeping him alive. She tried to talk about the rat and the experiment they had done. She had compared its symptoms with Danny's but had been brushed away with a roll of the eyes and a "Frostbite would've told me it there was any danger of that." That was when she realized her children would not be convinced no matter what evidence they showed them.

So, one night, while Jazz was on a sleepover with a friend, they waited until Danny was asleep before getting him down to the lab. They secured restraints around his wrists and despite the padding they had added to make sure their baby wouldn't hurt himself, Madeline felt her throat close up and her resolve waver at the sight of it. But she remembered the rat, and she shoved the guilt away to deal with later. She would apologize a thousand times once her baby was safe. They had hoped Danny would stay asleep for the duration of the process, but unfortunately, he woke up as she was finishing up the syringe preparation.

He blinked blearily before realizing he was restrained. Then he pulled on the restrains as he looked around.

"Mom, dad? What are you doing?" he asked blearily.

"Sh, Danny-o," Jack said. "Don't worry, you'll feel much better soon."

"What?" Danny said, before he caught sight of the syringe. "No, wait let me go!"

"This is for your own good, baby," Madeline said as her gut twisted when she saw the fear in Danny's eyes.

He started struggling in earnest and tried to go intangible but the restraint held fast. He yelled at them to stop, but Madeline forced herself to tune him out. When he saw that she was still walking towards him with the syringe, he started screaming in terror and she could see Jack turn away with tears in his eyes and she could hardly stop her own, as she approached her baby. "Sh, baby, please, this will help you, I promise," she repeated in a choked voice.

Danny had started crying and Madeline joined in as well, as she pet his hair in comfort, shushing him brokenly, while with the other hand she inserted the needle in his arm.

"I love you," she repeated as she pressed down on the plunger, injecting the solution in his veins as he let out one last anguished cry that Madeline forced herself to ignore.

This would save him. She knew it would.

[thethingything]

oh yeah also, Bread Quest bread 10: cheese topped rolls

I almost forgot to count these ones and I'm pretty sure there are other types of bread we've had that I've forgotten to count too. we just had these buttered with truffle salt earlier and it was a really nice breakfast

[unproduciblesmackdown]

2023 was alot. Here are none of the bum times and some of the good times, but mostly just cheese plates and cocktails and getting dressed for gigs in public bathrooms and West Coast Summer and Extravagant Everything Else and Diane Kitten.