#*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!

Blank version under the break:

words posted:

additional words written:

grand total of words:

fandoms:

highest kudos:

highest hit oneshot:

new things I tried:

fic I spent the most time on:

fic I spent the least time on:

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.

[stealingyourbones]

Out of all of the people The Ghost King Phantom expected to relate to, it definitely wasn’t the scrawny red headed photographer of the Daily Planet. Jimmy Olsen has gotten so many temporary superpowers over his time being Superman’s friend. Hell, he once gained a 4th dimensional being’s reality warping abilities when he was given said dimensional being’s powers during a fight. Sure there’s a dozen or so heroes with the same amount of powers he has, but none as suddenly granted to them as a all powerful god that can relate to a teenager.

[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

[avicecaro]

hate to say it, but part of ending the stigma around sexual assault means not assuming every woman blames herself. yes, female socialization encourages it, but that doesn’t make it a given, and the goal of all of these campaigns is to eventually diminish the proportion of women who do blame themselves. it is entirely possible, and increasingly common, for women to experience sexual assault and not feel shame or guilt, which we should be happy about. but instead, there are only so many times you can hear “you know it’s not your fault, right?” before it sounds like “it was your fault”. and there’s only so many times you can hear “don’t blame yourself” before it sounds like “you should blame yourself”. because it feels good to say, doesn’t it? sure, you don’t believe she’s guilty, but you do believe she should feel guilty, so that you can disabuse her of the notion. just something to consider.

[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.

[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

[noxcheshire]

Might be blasphemy within the Danny Phantom fandom but I just cannot see Danny x Sam being an actual ship regardless of it being canon in the actual show and now book.

Even as a kid I thought it was weird and couldn’t figure out why that bothered me, and I think now it’s because I never saw any indication of Sam or Danny ever being actually romantically attracted with each other. To be fair I saw that show when I was little, and maybe I’ll see those romantic moments that the show was building to if I can find actual length videos of the episodes.

But at this moment, I can’t recall ever having seen it.

And it baffles me, because I kinda don’t feel like Sam really loved Danny, even as a friend. And I think that really showed in the episode with her wish that changed the structure of time and space so that Danny never died and she was never friends with Danny and Tucker.

If she loved Danny, regardless if it was as a potential lover or friend, she would never have allowed him to die. Not once, but twice.

The first, okay, it was an accident. Kids do dumb things all the time, the more potentially dangerous it is the better — but the second time? The second time was deliberate.

She put him into that suit, without explanation, and without assurance. Nothing but a change of his hero signature.

She didn’t hesitate to let him die again, instead of asking herself if she could stomach watching him go through that again.

What person who loved you could do that to you? Could stand to see you go through that pain?

I feel a good example of love as well, especially in the show, is Jazz. She loves Danny, as a sibling, as a friend, and with all that love she would choose to walk herself into that portal then to let Danny do it instead.

She shows that deep love for Danny to the audience by choosing to protect him from their parents so they would never know he is the ghost boy that they want to rip apart molecule by molecule because she doesn’t want to take the chance of loosing him twice.

Jazz wanted to do that.

So why couldn’t Sam?

[rockethorse]

The basegame wedding dress has a pregnancy morph??

[cockroachesunite]

i have no explanation for this

[poolseason]

locked room

bonus! the background by itself and close up

[natelia-aldelliz]

1 : Soap never had any idea that woman wanted him carnally, he's not the most observant on that front (he never noticed Ghost flirting with him and thought his love was one-sided for the longest time, but tbf Ghost was also very discreet about it)

2 : He sewed the hat, eyepatch and hook himself, because he's the best uncle and then got distracted as he was wrapping it up, so now he's watching a tutorial on youtube about how to build a voice box. Honestly how hard could it be, he builds explosive devices as a hobby (listen, Price doesn't have to know)

3 : He is out to his family, but doesn't want his mum to know he has a boyfriend because he knows she'll insist on meeting him and welcoming him to the family and making a big deal out of this, and he knows that Ghost isn't ready for that.

4 : Christmas is obviously a very hard time for Ghost, but he is very very in love with Soap and some days still can't believe that it's mutual, but then his Johnny does something like that and his head gets quieter while he's melting a bit.

5 : For the people that didn't see my other post : the bird is a Caique parrot, and they're supposedly very energetic, a bit loud, medium sized, unintelligible, very friendly to what they consider their family, adventurous and danger prone, with an explosive personality and a hate of boredom, so basically the adhd bird.

[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.

[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.