#*no* idea why that could possibly be...

[shivunin]

2023 Writing Roundup

Thank you for the tag @inquisimer! This is a really neat game c:

words posted: 392,883 (AO3) and ~70,748 (Tumblr)

additional words written: 90,683 (unfinished wips)

grand total of words: 554,312

fandoms: Dragon Age (and a lil bit of Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate)

highest kudos: *Tie between Saccharine and Between Strokes of Night at 107 kudos each (both smut with feelings haha)

highest hit oneshot: Also Between Strokes of Night at 1,244

new things I tried: New ships (Zevwarden and Fenhawke) and fan events for writing (the Big Bang, 14 Days of Dragon Age Lovers, and Zevwarden Week)

fic I spent the most time on: Katabasis. I don't think I've ever edited any piece as much as I edited this one.

fic I spent the least time on: Byways and Lay-Bys, which I scribbled out very quickly right before I left on a trip. I really wanted to post something on my birthday and on the other side of the country, so it had to be drafted in AO3 before we left.

favorite thing I wrote: So torn between As Two Reflected Stars (I am such a sucker for wound-tending and yearning and writing this was purely self-indulgent), Breath of Life (someone confronting their feelings after a near-death is also one of my favorite things) and A Golden Bell Hung in My Heart (which I wrote for a friend's birthday and is thematically The Last Unicorn meets Dragon Age; I think it's one of the best-composed things I've made to date).

favorite thing(s) I read:

Impact by Baejax (4,173 Words | Fenhawke): Wound-tending and yearning again haha. I really liked the way the author addressed memory and memory loss in this one.

Blue Shift by bloodbright (4,324 Words) : Loved this Mass Effect piece about what Shepard and their crew are like from an outsider perspective. Excellent noir-esque vibes

What to Do by Undomiel_Writes (1,039 Words | Shakarian): This fic has this lovely cadence to it, by which Garrus counts the time he's been waiting for Shepard to wake after the end of the third game. I think it's the one I reread the most this year, too haha

Iron Bound by loquaciousquark (96,959 | Fenhawke): This arranged marriage AU has everything: chivalry, forbidden lovers, a love triangle that is actually a triangle and well-written, absolutely gorgeous descriptions of landscape, really well-done character development and, most importantly, so much yearning. I really can't recommend it enough.

writing goals for 2024: Continue to work on descriptions of place and setting and finish at least one of the long fics I've half-written.

new works: 25 (on AO3)

*Leaving out Your Fate for Mine, which I only posted an epilogue for this year

Tagging @dreadfutures @heniareth @bumblewarden @greypetrel @vakarians-babe. I know things tracking progress can sometimes feel less than great and the new year can be hard, so I am intentionally leaving the tag list short. Please let me know if you'd like to do this and I will tag you immediately!

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favorite thing I wrote:

favorite thing(s) I read:

writing goals for 2024:

new works:

[krazieka2]

Fe3h did not have a beauty pageant sequence, but if it did I'm 99% sure this is how it would go

[twinstxrs]

so much happened in this whole episode but i’m still on fig infiltrating ruben’s dream, making it look like the place where his friend was murdered, and then disguising herself as kipperlilly & repeatedly saying different variants of “somebody needs to take the fall for this, and it’s not going to be me. it’s going to be you.” while adaine as the elven oracle shows up next to her. can you imagine waking up from that, the idea of a horrible truth being pinned on you by your friend to save her own skin while the personification of fate and destiny stands there, almost as a promise that this is GOING to happen to you. we don’t even know if this kid is guilty. my god.

[batcavescolony]

I see a lot of people upset about William Kaplan being dead and no one mourning him cus Billy stole his body and I just don't see it that way. The kid in Wanda Vision is Billy Maximoff, The teenager at the Bar Mitzvah is William Kaplan, the Teen that got taken to the hospital after the wreck is neither and both Billy Maximoff and William Kaplan. That Teen went home with the abilities of Billy Maximoff, to the home of William Kaplan, with memories of neither and lived there for three years. He cares about Rebecca and Jeff, he lied to the to protect them from pain, they are his parents. He wants to find Tommy, he has magical powers, he wants to know who he is. All of these things are true. I wouldn't say William Kaplan is dead he just doesn't remember, like Agatha wasn't dead when he was Agnes, she just didn't remember.

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about how deeply lucanis' life has been defined by a lack of control of that life -- as he himself points out, even before the ossuary went and carved the headline out again with big bloody letters. of course he reacts badly to losing what little control he did manage to construct for himself even within those circumstances.

(namely: experience has taught him that things (caterina, loss, pain, love, all horribly and indelibly intermingled) will happen to him whether he wants them to or not and there's nothing he can do about that... but he gets to decide what's let in or out of his soul as it happens, even if he has to close it all down and deaden and numb himself out in the process. (even if that means he drifts further and further away from illario, who's been desperately reaching out and trying to keep hold of him until he finally gives up completely and tries to cut the bond all at once when lucanis doesn't seem to reach back anymore.) it's such rare well-observed freeze logic solidly constructed from the bottom up, I'm still so impressed with it.

the way illario seeks constant external means to cope with caterina's abuse and importance in his life -- he can't win her admiration or acceptance or warmth (or like. acknowledgement even, at times :') ), no matter what, so he goes out and finds those things in others and then disdains and dismisses it for how easily and falsely it's won from them. he plots, he conspires, he tries to beat her at her own game however clumsily, he tries. lucanis doesn't try things that way. he's not about 'how do I improve my situation' by nature, he's 'how can I stop this from getting worse'. he avoids, he internalizes, he hunkers down and makes himself nothing until the pain maybe ends. he's fundamentally not a plotter, he's a reacter. an expert assassin pantser, if you will, to illario's clear and stated exasperation fhsak. man I love them. illario says 'get us out of here!!! if you loved me as I love you you'd help me get us out of here before it kills us both', lucanis says 'there is no other place, there's nowhere to go, all we can do is endure. and if it kills us... well, that's just family. that's what love is (the way things are headed I'll die first anyway so it's fine I won't have to face losing you)', and they're equally baffled and hurt by each other's POV. but they're both right, and they're both wrong. there's no 'right' way to deal with caterina's treatment of them, or their situation. the house always wins, if you pardon the expression. house dellamorte still stands and that is what matters to caterina in the end more than anything.

it also fits so well b/c like... their core wounds are that illario is the least favourite and is constantly dismissed, so he has to prove to caterina again and again that he matters. not even that he's worth love or respect or warm regard, but that he's here at all and as such should be considered. he has to shout 'in case u forgot I EXIST!!' at the top of his lungs or else be rendered nothing within the family structure (and himself, because it's all about family, that's all that really matters. in some weird twisted way I think caterina openly declaring him before all the other crows to still be of house dellamorte -- and no one from house dellamorte kneels -- is kind of a victory for him, as much as it's also a furthering of a prison sentence and public humiliation. house dellamorte brainfuckery goes hard.). lucanis is the favourite, and it's the double-edged sword that he gets all the affection and attention but also all the control and impossible expectations. drowning under all of that constant stress and close evaluation, his brain whispers 'I don't exist' to try to escape, to hide and hold on to the deep parts of himself that are crucial to life but not part of the perfect grandson caterina demands of him as the price of her love.)

I think a lot about how what seems to disquiet lucanis the most post-ossuary (as it would anyone with that psychological makeup) is the dissolving of internal boundaries and control he's been relying on, which is part of what spite symbolizes. his anger and reactivity has seceded from the union to the point of personification as a little guy (a little guy he resents and fears for his unpredictability and invasions into regions of his psyche he wishes to stay frozen and barren, and yet cares about deeply, loves! and also constantly dismisses and frequently helplessly lets down unless he's helped to learn to do otherwise. does this remind you of another relationship in his life, perhaps. it makes me feel nuts to think about the illario/spite parallels thanks for asking), and now that little guy is out there running the show freely the moment he glances away or closes his eyes. literal nightmare scenario I feel for him so deeply. so much of his coping is predicated on being able to Not do or feel or want certain things, and that's out the window now, Spite has Opinions. Spite refuses to stay wisely in place even if that place is hell on the logic that if you move you could find yourself in a place that's even worse, somehow. Spite actually wants to experience the world, however fucked up and scarring the way he arrived here, not just endure it. Spite means he has to face that maybe illario wasn't wrong all those years, at the same time as having to admit and face what illario has done to him, and figure out what to do about any of it.

anyway. mary kirby ma'am that's some good fucking metaphor work. thank you, and sorry about all the shit that happened

[poolseason]

locked room

bonus! the background by itself and close up

[infinizero]

Demon Twin AU but Damian has been seeing ghostly visages of his twin slowly growing up with him

So, the Danny Damian Twin AUs! They're fun!

But what if, when Danny fakes his death/is killed, he actually dies and becomes a halfa as a kid? Danny because he is Danny, has the great idea to live a double life upon figuring out he can be both ghost and human!

As a human, he goes to America where he gets adopted by the Fentons and live as Danny Fenton

I headcanon that halfas are very adaptable and basically get powers according to their needs. So he figures out how to portal.

As a ghost, Danny stays around Damian and helps him out. Sometimes he slips up and Damian sees Phantom right next to him.

To Damian, this is the Pit Ghost of his brother who has come back to haunt him, made even worse when he realizes that Danny is also growing exactly at the rate he was despite being dead. He thinks that Dannys last wish was to grow up with Damian that's why he's doing that.

It gets even worse for Damian when he realizes the ghost of his dead twin brother has been helping him invisibly the entire time and it's possible that that's why Danny's staying around

Now, I need you to picture one of the Batfam seeing Danny

Imagine them asking him about it

Imagine Damian having to explain that the ghost of his dead brother sometimes accompanies him

Of course, on Danny's human side of things, the Fentons finally made that portal and he has to take up being a hero in Amity Park. Meaning he has less time to look over Damian.

What does this look like to Damian?

It looks like his brother is fading away slowly because Danny's decided Damian is now in a safe place

This all comes to a head when Danny disappears for a long time, long enough for Damian to think he's gone gone

And then Danny comes back and he's injured or maybe he has a baby Ellie and for the first time in years actually talks to Damian and asks for help

[opbackgrounds]

since you brought it up, what is your ideal op video game?

Well, honestly, I don't think a perfect one piece game could exist. The charms of the series is the expansive world and its depth of story, and achieving both in a single game would be difficult, if not impossible. I also think there are way too many games rehashing the manga, and that's boring. So many possibilities exist beyond the Straw Hat's journey.

I do think it'd be cool if there existed a sort of build your own pirate crew game set in the op world. I'd actually set it in the past during Roger's last journey, with the goal of becoming the Pirate King. It gives a hard 3 year time limit to beat Roger to Laugh Tale. The Four Blues are the starting zones, and which ones you pick change certain bonuses you get at the start. Like, the East Blue has the reputation for being the weakest sea so combat would be easier but you'd have a higher chance of recruiting a crew member with a Dream at the cost of lower Reputation. Since it's pre Buster Call Ohara, the West would give higher chances of recruiting researchers, and the North would have higher science and military backgrounds, etc.

It'd be a mix of peocedurally generated locations and hand crafted islands, and as you go along recruiting people and fighting you gain Reputation, which in turn lets you fight and recruit stronger people. The bigger your crew the more you have to plunder to keep them happy, and if any of your crew have a Dream you have to help them achieve it or else they'll mutiny or leave the crew, but as Dreamers they're stronger with bonuses based on their skill or occupation.

Maybe how you resolve conflict also affects the type of people attracted to your cause, so if you gain a reputation for brutality more bloodthirsty pirates are more likely to follow you, and they get pissed if you go too long without letting them kill something. As you go along you gain maps, log poses, and other things to help survive the Grand Line, but if your Reputation gets too high a Big Player will come after you to knock you down a peg. Like, stay in the East Blue too long and Garp'll come knocking, and if you lose or fail to flee then he'll wipe out your crew and you have to start over.

Once you hit the Grand Line you gain a new Reputation meter specifically for the Grand Line. No one cares if you're the baddest dude in the East Blue once you hit Twin Capes, but if you find a merchant or NPC from your home sea then they'll know your Reputation and react accordingly. Same goes for the New World.

The end goal is to read the poneglyphs and reach Laugh Tale, whether by recruiting Oden, someone from the Three Eye Tribe, a member of the Oharan archeologists before they're blown up, or stealing the intel from another pirate crew. Should you achieve that goal, the game ends with an epic fight against Roger for the title of King.

There are enough canon characters from this era to make it recognizable (imagine fighting pre-Kaido Moriah!) while giving wiggle room for new characters, islands, and scenarios. I think it'd have to make the act of traveling on the high seas fun with hopefully some cool monster fights to spice things up.

Is this feasible? I don't know, probably not. But I think it'd be fun.

[hyohaehyuk]

iwtv_updates: Jacob felt pressure adding lines to the Reunion scene, as Sam told him these would become canon for his Lestat. Rolin approached Jacob with the idea first, knowing Sam would dislike it. Jacob agreed, enjoying the opportunity to wind Sam up.

Video: INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE star Jacob Anderson unpacks the gothic horror of Season 2 | TV Insider

[marzipanandminutiae]

Average historian denies all gay relationships statistic false!

No-Lesbians Ruth Franklin, who lives in an archive and denies any possible sapphic interpretation of Shirley Jackson’s work 50 times a day, is an outlier adn should not be counted

[shannonsketches]

I'm sure it's been discussed at length already but I think it's easy to assume saiyans are strong so their genes are dominant but I (like to) think it's the opposite. It's interesting to think that the ecological nature of a saiyan is stealthy and invasive, and according to Jaco a saiyan invasion was going to be extra dangerous to earth because they look like earthlings (and a lot of other human-like races in the db universe) and one baby saiyan will easily go completely undetected until it starts the extermination process.

so it actually makes a lot of sense to me that a saiyan hybrid would take more physical traits from a local species, while maintaining the potential to house a saiyan's strength and inborn power over ki (which I think due to the story following a group of people who use it is a thing we often forgotten is a super rare and dangerous ability in that universe, and inborn/instinctive to a select few very powerful races). Could also be a fun way to explain why their tails can detach and grow back, since that may be the only real Tell.

because like yeah gohan and goten look like goku but they also look like chichi ykwim? trunks and bulla look like bulma. pan looks like videl. thoughts i chew on.

I also just find parasitism a real good meaty horror concept to put in my little 'this is why everyone's afraid of saiyans' headcanon file along with 'can see in the dark, biologically strategic energy consumption, can go long periods without food or rest' and of course the canonical 'surprise monkey werewolf kaiju'

[cockroachesunite]

i have no explanation for this

[bardicindignation]

Wild, Spaghetti on the Wall Theory Time

Braius Doomseed is NOT a paladin of Asmodeus.

Based on Subclass choices, vibes, and the Sam with the out of nowhere curveball character trend that we all know and love. Sticking the rest under a read more bc this got...long.

I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out! Sam always has a curve-ball in his back pocket with the characters he plays from Scanlan to FCG, we all know this. It's possible that the back pocket deal is gonna be a last-minute betrayal bc, yk, Asmodeus but! BUT!!! Braius can cast Moonbeam, and since, according to his character wiki he's at least a ninth level paladin, he doesn't yet have the 10th bard feature that allows him to pull spells from other classes even when you're not College of Lore (he's a Tragedy Bard). This means that he's either Oath of Watchers or Ancients, and while Watcher's could make sense for the fight against Predathos regardless of what god Braius follows...that's a lot of paladin levels to have been brought out just since the gods were aware of the situation (like, a couple weeks I think?) and neither super seems like an Asmodeus associated Oath. (As opposed to, say, Crown or Conquest, or Vengeance, or Oathbreakder.) Plus, Tevan had no fucking clue who he was, and it seems like one of Asmodeus's lieutenants might be appraised of a high level follower of his Lord being tasked with going directly after Asmodeus. But Joy! You might say. Oath of the Watchers is pretty Neutral, and he could have just ! What about the sign he god from the ichor on the wall? Why would the god of Lies tell any of his followers shit? And if not Asmodeus who the fuck is Braius following??? Ok, so, first off, let's break down the Oath. I really, really, think that it's gotta be Watchers if Braius is really a follower of Asmodeus bc Ancients is not only heavily nature aligned (not something that the Lord of the Hells is at all associated with) but the language of the description of the Oath also seems heavily aligned with good (I mean just look at the tenents) and...y'all. I don't think Braius is a Watchers Paladin. First off, Sam never once asked (to my memory) about who was within 10 ft of him at the start of initiative, when Watchers would have given all of those people a bump on their initiative. Now, this could be 'new character who dis' except. Except. Sam did consistently ask Matt if people who were within 10 feet of him who were being targeted with Delilah shit were getting hit with spell damage.

Here's the Aura of Warding from the dndwikidot page on Oath of the Ancients:

"Beginning at 7th level, ancient magic lies so heavily upon you that it forms an eldritch ward. You and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you have resistance to damage from spells." Oath. Of. The. Ancients. Bitch. (also we learned that the name Doomseed came with the oath. Naaaatuuuuure. Also also, doesn't say who the doom is for) So next up, the symbol message...what the fuck was up with that? Just bc it was an Asmodeus symbol doesn't mean he's the only bitch who can interact with it...and it was specifically not coming from the structure of the symbol itself, just the run-off. This is not a super strong point, but Asmodeus is not the only god of trickery...but more on that later. Tevan Klask doesn't know who the fuck Braius is! Look, the Lord of the Hells is a lying-ass bitch. We all know this. It's entirely possible that he keeps his people out of the loop on each other. But he's gotta know that Tevan has a line to the people going in after Ludinus the most and it feels a tad weird that Hot Devil Man would have no knowledge of a high level paladin of his Lord doing the same damn thing.

Also, Braius didn't react, like, at all to Tevan getting banished by Ludinus which feels...a little weird. So. So. If not Asmodeus, then who? What other Trickery, Nature, romance (the flirting is constant which isn't necessarily a firm indicator but c'mon) alligned deity is out there with not only what is possibly the strongest connection to whatever the fuck is going on with Predathos, but also has direct experience with followers of one 'deity' masquerading as another which could have been extremely effective without actual divine intervention? That's right, it's the motherfucking Moonweaver!! Just going by her title, it's entirely possible that this bitch was ultimately responsible for trapping Predathos in the first place, and we've heard suspiciously little of her in C3. Her cleric domains include both Trickery and Nature, and she's heavily associated with deception, misdirection, lover's trysts, and moonlight.

Yk, like with a Moonbeam. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

(My second, last minute theory is that Sam's still playing a follower of Avandra who also has Moon, Trickery, and Nature under her domains. This would be extremely funny to me. Wait fuck I'm still saying Moonweaver for my first choice but the wiki is telling me that The Changebringer is the Archenemy of the Lord of the Hells...fuck. Fuck Sam did you do this Sam let me in your brainnnnn.)

[fatedroses]

Zenos viator Galvus and him trying to deal with actually feeling things for once (Even if he doesn't really understand how to handle the comfort he receives from others for it)

I am also giving this man a dad that actually cares, because this brainworm have gotten me and there is no saving me from them.

[reedeemable]

You know what’s funny? Gavin putting his hands on Connor or even aiming a gun at him is competely optional. It’s all up to the player. None of it is technically canon.

But Hank laying his hands on Connor, saying “Listen, asshole. If it was up to me, I'd throw the lot of you in a dumpster and set a match to it. So, stop pissing me off... or things are gonna get nasty” and aiming a gun at him is canon no matter what.

And yet, Gavin is labelled the asshole 🤔

[bolly--quinn]

The craziest part of the episode to me is the ice cream table exchange about Beth tbh like Morty truthfully believes that Rick would say

“This may as well be our real daughter because she’s just as real as you.”

and

“Put it this way. You’re all basically NPCs. Only Morty and I are real, so your side quests don’t matter. The main quest is us.” (referring to he and Diane exclusively)

And when Diane, rightfully, combats him for his thinking with

“You’re disgusting. You’re talking about our baby girl like she’s theoretical?”

Beth throws in “Welcome to the family.”

Which might be one of the most heartbreaking lines in the whole thing to me because Morty has observed Rick enough to believe that this line of thinking is entirely in character for not only Rick but for the rest of the family too. Like Morty truly believes that Rick doesn’t care about them in anyway and that when faced with this, even Beth would just respond with the belief that this is the norm, at least from Rick anyway. So much so, that he uses an outside character in Diane to call out how insane it is.

Morty believes that Rick only cares about Diane and literally everyone else doesn’t matter and that’s just so sad to me, especially when we have seen otherwise but he can’t be faulted for thinking that when Rick carries that facade with him almost always, and especially to Morty directly.