#I'm writing this in some sort of fugue state

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Sorry I can't get them out of my brain.

Movie!Sonic waking up movie!Tails at dark o'thirty. Tails groans and rubbing at his eyes, starting to ask Sonic what's going on before Sonic cuts him off, holds out a hand, offers to go on a nighttime race (no one will find out). The two race up to the highest point in Green Hills (Sonic wins, of course, but Tails is getting faster), but instead of running home afterwards, Sonic reveals to Tails that he was actually bringing him up to show him something. Sonic, woke Tails up, raced him to the peak, all so they could take in the sunrise on earth together.

Sonic and Tails curling around each other, cuddling in Sonic's racecar bed while Maddie and Tom are out of the house.

Thinking also of the first time Movie!Tails experiences a thunderstorm on Earth (early into his friendship with movie!Sonic). Tails instinctively grabbing onto Sonic for comfort, trying to apologize initially, but becoming too scared to do anything more than hold on. Sonic getting the instinct to push Tails away, not expecting the sudden physical touch, but ultimately (tentatively) wrapping his arms around Tails and pulling him close. He's no good at things like this, but he does his best, telling Tails that everything will be alright, trying to talk about things that may he scarier to the fox than the thunderstorm in hopes that that'll lessen his fear. And by the time it's over, Tails is apologizing for latching on to Sonic so suddenly, for probably making him uncomfortable. And, sure, Sonic won't lie that there was a level of awkwardness to it, he wasn't fully comfortable. But, despite this, his heart is warm, and his arms feel...empty now that Tails isn't in them. Strange, right? In the end, Sonic tells him it's no problem, just to try to warn him next time before he just suddenly latches on.

Or even...Sonic running to the kitchen to get a midnight "snack", only to get stuck in the doorway, staring at Tails—who's leaning against the kitchen counter and staring off into space, absentmindedly sipping on some hot chocolate. Maybe Tails notices him eventually, and as Sonic rushes to make his snack, trying to avoid the fact that he'd been caught staring, Tails prepares another round of hot chocolate (for the both of them this time)

Idk I just need them soft I need them domestic I need them navigating their weird friendship I need them feeling warm around each other and being embarrassing about it

[inanerial]

How many Kryn souls will be born in the Empire?

A riddle

Sometimes you're trying to write a character becoming obsessed with a calculation problem and you accidentally face-plant into being obsessed yourself. That being said, the fanfic in question is Temporal Shunt, so if you want to have a look, have fun!

The brain teaser in question is: How many children will be born outside the Dynasty with Kryn/Dynasty souls because of Essek's theft and where will these souls be born?

First of all, it's necessary to preface this strange brain teaser with the fact all my calculations here are based on some profoundly huge assumptions.

1) Presuming a child is born within range of either of the beacons stolen and taken to the Empire, there is a corresponding soul available in the beacon. This treats each beacon's souls as unlimited as far as this calculation is concerned. We have, as far as I can tell, no idea how many souls are in each of the beacons Essek stole, nor does he seem to know how many souls are in a beacon or if souls can cross between beacons through some sort of shared planar space. Ultimately, the floor of this calculation is 0, if somehow both beacons were empty.

2) A single beacon can cover the full area of Rexxentrum and/or Zadash in its radius. I cannot find records of their throw, but given that the Dynasty only has a few and they strive to have most consecuted souls within a beacon's radius, I think we can assume around a beacon per city?

3) The beacons cannot emit souls from inside the lead box & bag of holding.

4) Halfling and Human birthrates are approximately the same. Human birthrates in this period are approximately the current US birthrate (12 per 1,000 people per year). That assumption, I know is massive, because on the one hand, more agrarian society and D&D ye olde times. On the other hand, birth control potions?! I don't know how to handle all that, so I stuck to 12 per 1,000 and let the extra month's (11 months in the Exandrian year vs 12 in an Earth year) be the allowance for the more agrarian society.

Even given all these assumptions, these calculations end up being a massive shrug, because we don't have an actual date on which Essek gave the beacons. We have him saying it had been three years since the "start of the conspiracy" (see "Dark Waters" (2x98) at 16:58), but I would argue that context clues indicate that's when they started corresponding, not when Essek handed over the beacons. That means Essek really could have handed over the beacons at almost any point between Thunsheer 833 PD (3 years before when he says that, in Thunsheer 836 PD). For the sake of all of our sanity, I have set bounds of Thunsheer 834 PD as the earliest time Essek might have handed over the beacons (1 year of correspondence) and Thunsheer 835 PD (2 years of correspondence) as the latest time. The early bound is based on the idea that it would likely take a reasonable amount of time for the Assembly to convince him to commit massive treason. The later bound is a marker of pure convenience for me.

That gives us the rough time span of:

Now, given that gnarly chunk of assumptions, we have another mystery to tackle. Where was the Assembly keeping the beacons? For lack of a better argument (though feel free to make one, if you're feeling so inspired) I'm going to assume the Nein's beacon/Zadash Beacon is in Zadash from the time it is stolen up until it comes into the Nein's possession. The other beacon is even more uncertain. We know it was in Felderwin for some span of time, so I've made the executive decision to assume it was in Rexxentrum briefly, then Felderwin for most of the time, then back to Rexxentrum shortly before Yeza's shop was ruined. I am also assuming the Nein discovered the ruin of Yeza's shop within a week or two of the attack.

Let's make it even crazier! When I went into this calculation fugue state, I was particularly interested in whether or not the Nein spread souls all over the Empire at large, the Clovis Concord, and beyond as they went on their pre-Dynasty adventures and took the beacon out to get Fragments of Possibility. I therefore made the assumption that getting a fragment takes around 1 minute, although as you will see, the exact timeframe, short of hours, does not really matter. I also assume that except for when Caleb just like... took a nap with the beacon in Zadash, they replaced the beacon in the lead box and their bag as soon as they received the fragment.

That gives us, thanks to CritRoleStats and Critical Role Linkable Transcripts for beacon viewing timestamps and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount for the city populations:

So, for poor Essek's conscience, that's somewhere between 0-168 children in Felderwin, 0-1,119 children in Rexxentrum, and 0-1,362 children in Zadash. Of course, families may move, so there's no guarantee those children will still be in each of those places when they experience anamnesis, but according to my incredibly slushy math, there will likely be a Nogvurut Situation in around 13 years in Felderwin, Rexxentrum, and Zadash.

Well, that's all I've got. The assumptions are messy, the calculations are rough, and the results are uncertain, but hey, when you're given such a fun riddle... how can you not?

[jakesbestfriendtiffany]

so with the new fionna and cake episodes out I'm just going to throw my theory out there:

The Fionna and Cake universe exists inside Simons mind and is being brought to the real world via residual magic from Ice King and Golb.

In the first episode Cake is chasing after ice and freezers which is obviously the way to portal to Ooo. Left over IK magic in Simon's brain is causing these fugue state AU coping characters to physically manifest in the real world.

Cake is brought to the adventure time universe through Simons head after he tries to harness the magic of Golb for Betty.

There’s also the fountain of Betty. Since this is all in Simons head it’s not surprising that there’s some sort of shrine for her.

Not to mention "Cheers" is the only thing that plays on Fionna TV.

I think the reason that Fionna is suddenly getting all these weird dreams is an implication towards Simons resentment towards how people feel about the Fionna and Cake stories. It’s clear that it’s something people admire and like about him that he doesn’t enjoy himself. The constant reminder of these stories he didn’t write is manifesting inside the magical universe via Fionnas dreams.

The end of ep 2 shows prismos time room and his remote gets a new button. I think this indicates that a new improbable event in the universe has come about-- implying that fionna and cake are not an alternative universe but rather something else.

[quidfree]

hello! i've followed you to indulge in your TSH content, having just finished the book and your fanfic Sober II (Melodrama) back to back! (i'm destroyed!!)

i'm wondering if you've given any thought to whether Richard (Tartt's Richard, or yours) is gay or maybe bisexual? he ofc probably would not make that distinction himself - given the time period, or his aversion to that kind of self reflection, or the apparent finality of his relationship with Francis, or maybe all of the above - but it's fun to think about now, especially myself being someone who now IDs as a lesbian after 10 years of IDing as bi.

thank you for your service 🫡

hello! love your username btw. and thank you, glad to have you in the quidfree extended tartt community.

i like the 'tartt's richard or yours' distinction- i would say i do make an effort so that (to me at least) my richard is a plausible iteration of hers, i.e. i do not like to write so that the characters are 'my' versions unless i think the source material is bad (or at least bad in that specific way). but some of my less serious tsh material veers further into the 'my' side of the scale, for sure. anyway all that to say i don't have separate sets of thoughts on 'both' richards, it's more that there's some stuff i'm 100% on being in canon and some stuff i know i extrapolated into the extended materials my tsh fic constitute.

all that aside, i actually do not have strong feelings on whether richard is gay or bisexual. i think both have strong canon grounding and present similar but slightly different psychologies of the character. the obvious thing is that richard is repressing his attraction to men, but whether he's also comphet in his attraction to women is debatable. he's consistently attracted to them and sleeps with/dates them across all of canon, but on the other hand the key female love interests for him are 1) judy, whose interest he doesn't reciprocate 2) mona, who he sleeps with post murder in a fugue state 3) camilla, who he deifies as a feminine ideal and also always lauds the androgynous beauty/looks she shares with her brother of and 4) sophie, who does lend the most credence to him actually being into girls but also is someone he latches onto when his whole group has deserted him and then fails to emotionally connect with despite several years of dating. of course that could be the trauma, the repression, or both! but my point is there's evidence both ways, no pun intended. richard has very distinct ways of thinking about men and women but it's not as simple as one thing- there's his own self-perception/masculinity, his sexism, his homophobia, and his sexuality all playing a part.

you're right that he wouldn't make the distinction himself, though- either way, his canon thought process is very much 'well i'm not one of those' and that's a catch-all. if and when he gains self-awareness it would have to be through a prolonged relationship of some kind, e.g. with francis in sober ii-verse, because one-offs he can excuse and repress. which is why i think once that sort of long-term realisation happened he would think that he had been lying to himself/everyone the whole time beforehand and secretly consider himself a homosexual (regardless of whether this would be accurate).

i think modern day richard would be more likely to call himself bisexual regardless of which option you go with as more likely. you know that quote from obama's biography about reading marx to get with bisexual college girls... that's somehow richard-coded but in the sense that he thinks calling himself 'flexible' or whatever lets him sound liberated but plausibly heteronormative. in any setting francis delights in the corner he paints himself into.

[1425fivefive]

I guess this counts as something I want to know about you for the ask game 👀

With your kink prompt fics from recently, how much time did it take you to write one of those? And did you feel like you understood how to portray the kink (if you don't have it yourself obviously hehe) before you started writing or did you kinda discover and research after you'd already started? Also... did you work on multiple prompts at a time or one by one?

Sorry, I don't know if those made sense or if you've already answered these questions. I just find it so fascinating how you were able to create these complete and brilliant fics/scenes in such a short amount of time.

I hope you are feeling better. <3

this is SUCH an interesting question and makes total sense!

it honestly varied a lot based on the prompt and whether i felt like i could figure out a "hook" for the story. there were some (maxcar omorashi, carcar piercings, nortrell cockwarming) where i immediately knew what i wanted to write and those only took me about an hour to an hour and a half to finish (i didn't edit at all). i think i was in a sort of horny fugue state while writing some of them and those felt like... incredibly easy to write lmao

but then there were other kinks where i sort of struggled to figure out how i wanted to portray them. breeding and sounding were sitting in my inbox forever because i couldn't figure out how i wanted to write them, just because i couldn't figure out how to make them "hot" because i'm not personally into them. i ended up lurking around reddit threads to try and get in the right headspace and finally figured out angles for both of those fics that would, like, make them hot to me

the fic that took the longest by far was charlando forced orgasm. that one took me maybe eight hours, just because i found it so psychologically intense that i had to take breaks from it. i also really struggled writing landoscar selfcest just because of the logistics of having three people involved, and because i wanted oscar to want to fuck himself, and have that feel believable. i think that one took me maybe four hours

i tried to work on just one prompt at a time, but there were some i started then had to drop because they weren't working and then came back to them later. i still have a few half-finished fics kicking around in my google doc that i just couldn't be motivated to actually finish because they didn't feel like they "worked"

hopefully this was interesting/answered your question!!

(for this ask game)

[scenetocause]

FIC WRITER INTERVIEW

tagged by @glasscushion thank youuuuuu <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

currently 60 but i periodically nuke my ao3 so that's not really the total and i know i've got quite a few on anon even now

What's your total AO3 word count?

457,512. what the fuck. that's like 2/3 of the bible. (if any of the words in my fic were in the bible)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

ok i was so certain i could predict the order of these and i literally only got the top one right because what

climb up to your lips (girloscar, multi-chapter, 719 kudos)

shoreline i see when i'm off course (a/b/o, loscar & mando, wrote in about half an hour in a fugue state, 628 kudos)

just telling it like it is (lando/maxv, stupid little 5+1 thing i increasingly dislike and might orphan, 458 kudos)

(i) just wanna get a little bit closer (mando, honestly probably not the one i would have expected to be the most popular you know? like i think i would've assumed that was no plans of staying on. not that i dislike this one massively or anything it's just definitely one of my least thought through fics. 482 kudos)

every colour illuminates (genders georg/lando, if i'm objective about it i think this is probably my best fic or at least it's the most pure love letter to queerness which is sort of what they all are. 467 kudos)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i would like to. i always intend to. then i get overwhelmed and avoidant. i can't handle people saying nice things about me or at least have to sort of microdose it and responding feels too difficult sometimes, at the same time as i desperately crave praise haha really hard to tell i have a failed past involving a racing license definitely no need to dig into that one. there are some comments people have left on my work that mean so, so much and i hoard them and read them again when i can manage it so if i don't respond don't think it's because i don't want comments or don't appreciate them, my head is just a bear trap.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

i don't really write angst but it's probably one of my george/mercedes ones like don't say no or you'll have to go (george/valtteri, the horror of getting what you want) or well past the weeds (george/toto, fucked up team debrief dynamics) - lando is incredibly easy for me to project onto because my lando is just me but younger and richer and hotter but the real psychological goop gets spilled out onto george.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

definitely every colour illuminates or pick me up, no headlights (george and max accidentally acquire a baby) which are sort of intentionally good outcomes. but i actually think turn my heart into something gold, where lando sort of sorts himself out, is maybe the most optimistic.

Do you write crossovers?

not in a true sense. i'll write an au but i don't like the idea of blending characters, idk why but that feels too chaotic for the blorbo sandbox. i guess maybe every day i let go just a little bit more is a crossover in the sense f1 and fe really are totally separate worlds.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

no. probably loads of people hate my fic but they don't tell me about it, which is exactly the way i'd like to keep it. fic is a safe little sandbox for me to play in.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

haha. well. all the kinds? no, that's not true - you can definitely tell when you're reading an emptyhalf production. i've got a lot of things i think are incredibly hot that don't necessarily feature as essential to other writers (which is fine obviously! these are my tics not a ticklist) from ~broader concept things~ like having really clear consent to a thing for like, thinking it's hot when someone parts their legs? idk. brains man. generally i'd say i have a courageous approach to the concept of inserting things pretty much anywhere. i don't really give a shit about blow jobs tho and that probably shows. (which is funny cus i quite like giving them and am happy to make someone suck a strap? they've just never done anything for me as something to think about for whatever reason)

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i think i did ages ago when there was some wattpad theft thing idk

Have you ever had a fic translated?

i think i have but i can't remember which one

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i feel like nearly all my fics are co-written bc they often come from ideas in group chats or discords or whatever. and i quite often have to ask for help with shit i don't know about because i'm stupid as hell. i wrote burn a hole as a sort of postquel part of ivycrowned's fic, which is probably the most collaborative i've ever really been in that sense. i think the only fics that have been totally my own thoughts are the daniel goes to fe one and girloscar. altho with a lot of my mando the co-creators are max and lando so 🤷🏻‍♀️

What's your all-time favorite ship?

idk man. lando x being able to be vulnerable enough to get what you want. queerness x living a life in full vibrancy and without fear.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

god i really do actually want to finish daniel goes to fe but i haven't been able to open the document for ages because there are millions of things wrong with me.

What are your writing strengths?

when i am in the mood i can bang out a lot of words. i think i am more easily able to access lando-voice than a lot of people bc i too am a whiny goblin but idk if that's a strength per se.

What are your writing weaknesses?

lmao god how long have we got what's the character limit on a tumblr post. uh, so. i don't plan i just write. like literally nothing goes on i just switch on the word tap and words come out. i don't edit, ever which means my fics are littered with grammatical errors (how DO commas work? not like that) and repeated words and shit that annoy the hell out of me when i spot them later. i have so many weird phrasing tics. i don't understand the concept of romance. i have a very offbeat and queer interpretation of relationships that only tangentially links to "normal." my kinks are excruciatingly obvious.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i think i don't really give a shit? like i probably wouldn't do it unless it was a language i could write it in first time because of the aforementioned 'turning on the word tap' method but idk if i care what other people are doing. i find it mildly off-putting when people write characters speaking their second language and throw words from their first language in because that is not how anyone speaking a second language talks or at least, it tends to get done wrong. like when i'm speaking english i will use words from (original language) but only in the context of referring to eg: a relative (like an italian saying nonna not granny) or if i really can't remember the word for some food or something. but also it's like, largely harmless and far from the biggest writing sin out there.

(the biggest writing sin is obviously having an incorrect take on my blorbos and also woobification and especially incorrect woobification of my blorbos)

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

p sure i would dox myself if i said this but i have written for quite a few. i've never been as active in a fandom or for as long as with f1 rpf. (shout out to the livejournal girlies, of which loads ended up working in f1)

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

i would never exercise the self-restraint to stop myself writing something i wanted to tbh

What's your favorite fic you've written?

idk. probably girloscar, i was proud of myself for finishing that. it's difficult for me to think positively about things i've done, so i don't know that i have favourites. the ones i re-read the most myself are genders georg and genders maxy. who can say if i have something going on with genders! but yeah idk i don't think i write like defining fics or anything profound like a lot of people do, it's mostly just weird horny thoughts percolating into a gdoc like drip coffee. actually you know what, it might be has-a-pussy-with-no-real-explanation max.

tagging @saintdevote @strawcars @lost-decade @des-iderate if you haven't been tagged already and no pressure obviously!

[the-hwaelweg]

The idea of vacation: I'm going to catch up on so much reading and I'm going to write and I'm going to work on my complicated knitting projects and I'm going to do some yoga and I'm going to watch all those movies I've been meaning to see and I'm going to cook.

The reality of vacation: replaying a 20-year-old video game you have memorized in a sort of fugue state while your brain tries to recover from the unrelenting stress of living and working in a capitalist hellscape where you don't really get vacations, as you actually become more and more stressed because you're "wasting" your one precious vacation but your brain can't actually handle doing anything else, particularly because this vacation involves the stress of a major holiday that also means way more social people time than you normally experience in a week condensed into a single day.

[coopigeoncoo]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

Thank you for the tag, @andypantsx3! I am both delighted and horrified to have my work regarded in a positive fashion because apparently my emotions are just like reaching blindly into a bag of trail mix; you get what you get.

But as my homeboy Socrates said, 'The unexamined life is not worth living', so it's probably beneficial for me to slow down and do some reflection on my work as a writer and appreciate the journey of growth I've been on.

So, in no particular order, here are 5 stories I've written and why I'm proud of them.

The Cardinal Rule (Hawks x Gender Neutral Reader)

A story where Hawks learns that while humans might be awed by his flying skills, the bird population is decidedly less impressed. --- "The birds are refusing to work until their demands are met," you explained, trying to subtly slide your body between Hawks and the birds who were quite literally calling for bloodshed. "Which are?" Hawks asked as he lifted the bottle of water to his mouth and took a long sip. "They, ah, want you held accountable for your numerous bird crimes." Hawks abruptly choked, water spurting from the corner of his lips as he attempted to swallow the remaining liquid as he sputtered helplessly. "My what?" He coughed, thumping solidly on his chest with a closed fist.

This one started with a late night passing thought: 'What if birds hated Hawks?' and it spiraled out of control for there. I entered into some sort of fugue state and wrote and edited the entire thing in like, three days (which is very likely a person record for me). But everything just clicked together so easily on this one- my scenes flowed well, my jokes seemed to set themselves up, and I honestly had an absolute blast writing this. This is likely the story I reread the most because I have so much fun coming back to it.

2) An Itch to Scratch (Creature!Kirishima x AFAB Reader)

Kirishima Eijiro is everything you never thought you'd find when you packed up your car and moved to a dilapidated fishing town.  He was handsome, funny, and kind; the sort of man who took your breath away.   And that might actually be a bit of a problem. --- "Good girl ," Eijiro praised, his hands like a vice on your hips as he pulled away from your mouth with a satisfied grin.  You returned his smile with one of your own; the vibrant joy that had churned in your belly unfurled throughout your body, leaving you feeling breathless and lightheaded.   "Eiji," you gasped, eyes widening in panic as your lungs seemed to seize in your chest.  "I- can't breathe!"

I knew going in that if I was going to write a Mermay story I would want to write one that subverted expectations and common tropes. I removed the story from the typical tropical setting and plopped the Reader down into an dilapidated New England-ish fishing town, and threw in an additional surprise plot twist that I'm incredibly proud of.

I focused a lot on the world building here; on making the town and the people in it feel real and fleshed out. I really wanted to make the Reader feel connected to the situation they were dropped into and feel like I managed to do that successfully and even fell in love with the aging fishing town a bit myself.

3) Hot Dish (Shigaraki x AFAB Reader)

Down on his luck and scrambling for survival, Shigaraki Tomura was just looking for a place to score a hot meal. Instead, he ended up scoring a hot date. --- "You want gravy?" You asked, waggling the ladle of onion sauce enticingly, some of it sloshing over the edge of the spoon and falling back into the pot with a wet squelch. Tomura glared at the chunky sauce disdainfully before closing his eyes and sighing. "Whatever." "Gravy it is!" You cheer, pouring the sauce over the meat patty before passing it to him. "There you go! A hunk of meat for my favorite hunk." --- A slow, domestic romance between a volunteer at a soup kitchen and the newly destitute leader of a notorious villain organization.

Hot Dish is most popular story by far, which was honestly very surprising for me! I didn't realize how big Shigaraki's fan base was heading in because I wrote this for a server gift exchange and hadn't really read too many LOV centric stories. But I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to craft a soft romance for such a difficult character and think I managed to write a believable scenario where Shigaraki would be receptive to romance.

4) A Persistent Lack of Follow Through (Shouto x AFAB Reader)

Shouto had learned a lot from his Father; how to take a hit, how to pull himself back up, and how to hold a grudge. But one thing Endeavor could never teach his children was how to be a good partner. Shouto had to learn that particular skill the hard way. --- He had spent long, sleepless nights reflecting on the things you had told him; the reasons you left. Every moment of your acquaintance was turned over repeatedly in his head and examined until one devastating conclusion was reached: "I was a bad boyfriend," Shouto muttered dejectedly, idly picking at the label of the shochu bottle in the middle of the table. --- A story where Shouto loves, loses, and learns.

I'm very much a happy ending sort of person, so it was a real challenge crafting a story around the prompt of 'heartbreak'. Hearts, obviously, needed to get broken; but then I wanted to try and write a believable healing journey would look like for two people in a shattered relationship. It was equal parts satisfying and frustrating building the same relationship up twice, but ultimately I feel like the relationship I depicted is stronger because of that struggle.

It was also my first time writing Todoroki Family shenanigans, which is honestly now one of my all time favorite things to do.

5) The 3-Cs of 3-A (eventual Bakugou x AFAB Reader)

This one links to Ao3 because I'm still in the process of crossposting it to Tumblr.

Mineta Minoru is a perverted misogynist whose antics should have had him expelled from UA long ago. But he wasn’t. And now it’s your job to fix him. May God have mercy on your soul. --- “Well then, I’ll leave myself in your capable hands,” Mineta purred before popping open the top two buttons on his shirt, sending you a coy look from under his lashes. “Mold me into the perfect hero, Pygmalion!  Make me your Galatea!” he screamed as he ripped open his shirt, buttons flying haphazardly through the air and pinging off the walls and floor.  You throw your arms up to cover your eyes, as though blinded by the pale skin of his belly.   “Why do you always have to make this weird?” you moan forlornly, already bending down to search along the floor for the missing buttons.  

Aaaah, my passion project. This was my first foray into writing MHA fiction and my only continual WIP. I'm constantly editing and working to improve this one because it's so important to me.

I noticed very early on that Mineta is a character that authors tend to ignore or replace entirely, so his character really appealed to me because I hadn't really ever seen it explored very thoroughly before. 3-Cs is, at it's core, a Mineta redemption story where I try to mold him into the character he could have been; but it's also a place where I get to explore a lot of my ideas about what it's like for an average person to live in a Hero-centric society.

My absolute favorite moments as a writer are when people comment on chapter 1 with messages like 'I really hate Mineta, let's see how this goes' and then 10 chapters later are posting comments like 'What have you done? I actually like this grape-flavored weirdo now.' I actually had someone mention last chapter that they now were interested in a Mineta x Reader story, so I'm putting some weird vibes out into the universe and proud of it!

I think a lot of the people that I would tag have likely already been tagged, but just in case here are some no pressure tags! @confused-red-head @grxywxrrxnn @auraxins @pikatsum @lou-struck @stellamancer @namodawrites @sipsteainanxiety

[barbatusart]

hey that ask/answer about sad sack/sortie semiotics reminded me to ask u a question I've been thinking/journalling about for like weeks now: how deliberate/intentional/meaningful is the symbol of mask-wearing in sad sack? I've been concocting a theory about the significance of Garv being the first to take his mask off in A Small Plot of Land & Sal being the only one still wearing a mask in AMF & how the concealing/revealing of the face maps to shame/acceptance of their own acts of violence, and I'd love to know if I'm reading into it way too hard lmao

along those same lines when I read the lil scene towards the end of A Small Plot of Land in which Stone can't take his own mask off by himself, I immediately interpreted it as a metaphor for Stone having something to hide about his own motivations in his relationship with Sal, which. uh. hoooooo boy I was not expecting the direction that would ultimately take but MAN it was fascinating to see that go down

you do some amazing work dude, you're an incredible storyteller and I'm stoked to see the direction that sortie goes (I haven't read any of it yet bc I read sad sack like a month ago and I'm waiting to read sortie until I feel like I'm done rereading/thinking about sad sack)

ahhh fuck goddamnit you caught me on glass no.2 hahaha. ah man im thrilled about this ask, thank you for taking the time to really mull over the visuals! putting this under a cut because it's long winded + includes some spoilers for SAD SACK & SORTIE alike

the mask is extremely deliberate & something i use as a touchstone for sal's psych profile work specifically. (though arguably the entirety of these comics are about metaphorical Masks lol) sal is an incredibly dissociative individual by the time SORTIE rolls around but arguably kind of always was - i deliberately went out of my way not to write DID, but i wanted to explore the space of fugue states & the messiness and muck of first person dissociation by the time we hit SORTIE.

he has a perception of his Self that exists in fragments, which all serve the purpose to continuously pass the buck on any responsibility for his present poor behavior. he in fact sees his normal self that people on the street as "the mask," and the ski masked man as his true self, ie someone selfish who takes what he wants through brute force. simultaneously then the masked man is "the mask," because whatever violence he engages in as this persona isnt something he himself (the normal everyday man) would do. you're 100% on the money on the reveal of The Face being this sort of full blunt acceptance, which sal in particular cant handle - even on the street, he goes out of his way to obfuscate himself in that manner.

he's incredibly low EQ with zero concept of his own inner world, overall. with that being said, there is a great deal of Headless motif in SORTIE that im excited for you to hit when the time comes, with all this in mind

also, garv taking his mask off first in SADS2 was absolutely deliberate as well lol i was trying to paint him as the odd man out from the very start (the first tip-off was him being conspicuously absent from the epilogue) to start planting a sort of ? seed about him.

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

A few days ago @little-smartass tagged me to self rec 5 of my fics so here we are! Out of 84 fics published to AO3, here are the 5 (and a bonus sixth lol) in no particular order that I'd like to highlight 🥰

The Sculptor (WangXian, 27.6k)

This fic was inspired by a fabulous piece of fanart by @ceru-draws and I wrote it in a 3-day sprint/fugue state. I'm still really proud of it mostly because I think it's the tightest narrative I've managed to write yet so far, and I really enjoyed creating a modern AU but set in the American 1970's, with some of the little undercurrents of queer/counter culture that that entails. It was really fun to write, the art it's based on is beautiful, and I think it's a nice little read. (It's also part of a series, so if you like it there's more to the universe!)

2. Outta Time (3zun, 4.7k)

Okay so this one is relatively short, less than 5k words, but it's about the ✨vibes✨, alright, and they're immaculate if I do say so myself. @little-smartass and I realized last summer right about this time that we both love Orville Peck and I said I'd always pictured 3zun so vividly for the line in Outta Time that goes "Drag me to the party guess I got nowhere to go / Got a man to my left and one on my right and they're tellin' me 'bout what they know". And aren't I just a lucky duck - she had great ideas for writing a whole fic AND she drew that scene that sparked it all 😭 This fic is also the start of the Orville Peck Cinematic Universe, which is currently only 2 published fics but there are many more in the works! This is the fic for you if you like soft gay cowboys.

3. Tales From Jianghu Shopping Center (Wangxian, NieLan (implied), SangCheng (unestablished), 6.6k)

This is another one that's all about The Vibes, this time inspired by a post by @lansplaining reimagining all of the Great Sects as businesses in a seedy strip mall. It's the 90's, it's summer, it's fluffy fun and low-stakes drama for everyone! I wrote this one partially out of homesickness when I was missing the boiling hot Southeast American summers I'm used to, but also I just really have a deep love for shitty little strip malls and the weird shit you find in them so this was bound to happen either way once I saw that absolutely INSPIRED post. This is also another one that's part of a larger universe (are you sensing a theme?) and they're all slice-of-life fluffy little summer things focusing on various ships within the community. And I have more in the works!

4. After Each Midnight Begins A New Day (3zun, Wangxian (background), 54.4k)

The one that started it all! This is not only my first chaptered fic for The Untamed, it's the first chaptered fic I've ever finished in my life, and I'd been writing fic for a decade by then. I feel like I can't really rec things I've written without including this one, which was a turning point for me in the fandom both in terms of starting to really actively participate by sharing stuff I'd written (outside of tags and short one-shots) and in really letting 3zun take over my brain for what would be the next three-ish years and counting. I still go back and reread this fic every now and again and of course there are things I would change now with so much practice under my belt since I wrote it, but I do still love it as it is. (This one is also part of a larger universe with plenty of extra scenes, some of which are chaptered fics themselves....shocking, I know.)

5: You Need Tending (12k) and You Are Of Their Ilk (44k+/WIP) (Baby Wangxian)

I'm putting these two fics together for number 5 because this is my post and I make the rules now lol. I wrote the first fic and then decided that I wanted to explore the sort of ripple effects of what happens after the Lan save WWX from the streets, and then it really got away from me, so the sequel is much bigger and more emotionally fraught than the first (at least in my opinion). It just feels weird to recommend either of them without the other when they're so closely linked! It's been ages, I know, since I last updated You Are Of Their Ilk but I'm still claiming that it's a WIP - I will finish it one day, I just don't know exactly when. So if you love it and want to see it finished, don't give up hope!

So there we go! I know this is more than 5 (a LOT more than five if you include the extras and stuff for all the fics lol) but oh well. As per usual I'm terrible at knowing who to tag for these things but I'm going to give it a shot (and if you see this and you're not tagged but you want to play then consider yourself tagged by me!)

@wei--wuxian @omgpurplefattie @iamwestiec @rhysiana and/or anyone else who wants to play!

[arokel]

AO3 Wrapped 7 & 10!!

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist's songs did you pull from the most?

That'd be the band Trousdale, with a whopping two (2) titles lmao - I'm pretty all over the place when it comes to my titling so honestly I'm surprised I have even one repeat

10. What work was the quickest to write?

Uhhhh can I just say any/all of my tumblr prompt ficlets? Those usually only take me an hour or two at most (because I do not edit my work 😊)

But if I have to pick one then I'll choose To the Victor, because I basically saw @savvylittlecoxswain 's headcanon, went into some sort of fugue state for 90 minutes, and emerged with a fic I had no real memory of writing.

[jennegatron]

entered a fugue state and wrote 8k words of the absolute raunchiest shit this weekend. don't know if any of it is usable. i became possessed by some sort of demon or devil that was working soooo hard to find an angle for theo yaoi that i would like and even then it was still gooeybear, just adding various other male characters.

sometimes i write something and i publish it right away because i know it's done. sometimes i write something just for me that i never intend to publish (particularly indulgent happy endings, AUs that I'll never finish but are fun to play around in). sometimes i write stuff that there's a kernel of something there and i just need to explore it more or make many revisions and sometimes i'm happy enough to publish it way later (or sometimes I'm not and it just sits in my drafts) and i don't know if this is in category 2 or category 3.

[kris-and-the-pnictogens]

a Chara (and a Kris) without a country

So far as I know...I do not have an AU. At least, I do not feel that I do.

Indeed I have a difficult time remembering how I landed here, on what seems to be Earth or Tellus (the third planet of Sol, to be clear) in our year of the Common Era 2024. My first clear memories of feeling as though I had gained some sort of life again through my host was late 2016 or early 2017, during a period of extreme personal turbulence. That was the interval of time during which our system experienced (among other things) the intensely painful breakup of an intensely passionate sexual relationship, our main partner undergoing GRS, the 2016 electoral disaster, and our awakening during a relatively short span of months to being plural, trans, otherkin, starting to have regular spiritual experiences of gods and other supernatural and numinous things, and hosting fictive introjects. (*Chuckles*) It was a busy time! I'm glad that I really can look back and laugh at it, a little.

Paradoxically, one of the things that my arrival and establishing myself in the Pnictogen Wing was that our engagement with the Undertale fandom dried up. (cont'd)

We'd played Undertale for the first time in approx. April 2016 and were bowled over, and even started trying to write fanfic, which was not usual for us. Some of that stuff is still on AO3; we haven't really wanted to go back to it. I mean, we have, but we haven't. The whole subject became, rather abruptly, far too painful and personal for us to touch—my fault, I suppose. I wanted to remember, and sometimes I seemed to have extremely vivid flashes of the Underground, especially of Waterfall which was my favorite place in the Underground by far when wandering around. I liked the dark, the phosphorescent rock formations, the relative abundance of flora and fauna, the mists and the ever-changing "microclimate" of Waterfall, and the sounds of running water. But the visions faded. Learning how to live with other human beings and navigate the cruel and wicked world of the 2024 United States took extreme precedence.

Our RL age at the time we first suspected our plurality was over forty! I find myself thinking of Morpheus in The Matrix talking about how releasing someone from the Matrix when they're too old is problematical; the mind has difficulty adjusting. I feel like we just barely managed to keep ourselves from completely losing control and even as it was we were pretty unhinged sometimes. We have been fortunate to have forgiving partners here, a solidly established household, and an unusually broad and eclectic education. It's enabled us to rationalize ourselves, bit by bit, approaching our own strangeness in a dispassionate and analytical way, like scientists or scholars.

Hence we now find ourselves several years onward, having tamed our worst personal problems, feeling much steadier than we ever were in 2016 and the years and crises that immediately followed (including the decline and death of my RL father, the last surviving member of my RL family), and also having a much clearer notion of how our plural system, the Pnictogen Wing, is structured. For a while it seemed like we'd never stop discovering new introjects, some of them popping up from long ago. We had no idea just how badly we were dissociating and going off into fugue states when we were growing up. It was just "being absent minded" and having unusually vivid and troublesome daydreams and so forth. And we were consuming ridiculous quantities of media, too! Hence we've got folks in the Pnictogen Wing from all over.

But beyond doubt, the Undertale / Deltarune multiverse is our chief home. Our human host, Kris, isn't just a person living in a house in Seattle with their polycule—they're a Deltarune fictive who's had (rare but extremely powerful) flashbacks to Hometown, and who regards Hometown as the reference point for themselves. Their memories here on Earth only go back to about 2013-14, which I note is before the release of both UT and DR. How THAT came about I'd love to know; it suggests an isekai type situation and we've had inklings about how that happened (ironically we've never watched an isekai show and only know the genre by reputation) but until now the mystery has not been a high priority.

So...where are we all from, exactly? There's more UT and DR fictives who've landed in the Pnictogen Wing besides Kris and myself, but many have disappeared into the system somewhere. I suspect there's a lot of unsettled tensions among the lot of us. Other introjects seemed to fade and disappear from the system over time, which I take as a sign of conflict or hostility. I've had some ugly speculations in the past that I don't know whether to believe or not, such as the idea that Toriel had tried to mᴜrder me at some point (thus precipitating my desire for escape of some sort). In any case, no flashback we've had seems to point towards any definite AU...and I feel very strongly as if I am not supposed to make an arbitrary choice.

That's been such a powerful guiding principle for me that I wonder why I feel it. I've actually felt a bit baffled by other fictives I've met who seem to feel a freedom to vary from canon that I myself do NOT feel. Indeed I've painstakingly combed the game's text over and over trying to familiarize myself with its constraints. If I don't exactly know who I am, then at least I can work within what I'm not. The difficulty is that Undertale is so elliptically written (that is to say, it's very sparse in its details, with huge gaps in knowledge), especially when it comes to the character of Chara, that one can derive remarkably little from canon.

It's occurred to me, for example, that we don't even know if the Monsters' account of the War of Humans and Monsters is even correct. Historical records on Earth are fragmentary and uncertain and susceptible to being distorted by political bias and myth-making. Why therefore can one assume that the Monsters are remembering the War correctly?

(*sighs*) I've been trying to live with as much doubt as I can stand, but I suppose that's getting to be dissatisfying. Why the heck am I here in the first place? I can still remember how excited I was, back in fall of 2019 when I was first able to "front" completely. I remember walking around the streets of my Seattle neighborhood feeling unbelievably exhilarated. "Oh my gosh I'm walking around a CITY and I'm buying FAST FOOD and I have no idea what I'm doing!! but it's great!!!" That wouldn't last, of course. Now I feel almost ordinary sometimes. Except I'm not really. Kris isn't ordinary either. Why are we here? Is there some purpose that we've forgotten?

And where are we from? Do we even have an "Alternate Universe" to ourselves? That seems implicit somehow—that is to say, I have my own sense of identity as Chara, Kris has their own sense of identity as Kris, and we are distinct from other Charas and Krises we have met. We must therefore have some distinct "timeline" that sets us apart from other fictives. Yet I feel peculiarly as if I need to reason my way there, not simply...make things up. Should I even trust that feeling?

I feel like I'm going in circles. I'm at a loss.

~Chara of Pnictogen

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 2.20.2024

Well, I had another very solid week. I hesitate to call it good, because I didn't actually enjoy it very much, but I did grind out 8,642 words last week. I finished Chapter 8 and made a solid dent in Chapter 9a. Basically, I just tried to write at least a thousand words a day, which I accomplished almost every day. Yesterday, I only did 800, but I did 2000 on Sunday, plus the 800 was the ending scene for the chapter, so I deserve a little grace there. And it was a three-day weekend for my kids!

I am at the stage of the fanfic where most of the ambiguity is gone--I know what scenes are left and I just gotta write them. It doesn't matter if I want to or not, the fanfic isn't going to be done until I write them, so I just do it. I always worry that writing in this mindset is going to produce bad, unlovable writing--like, if I don't love writing this, how is anyone going to love reading it? Historically, though, that doesn't bear out--big chunks of Call Me Back and What We Do with Our Hearts were written in this exact fugue state, and I often end up loving them after the fact, and they still contain parts that are really funny or insightful or heartfelt or whatever. I literally do not know how this is possible, it just is. Also, like: there is going to be editing. It is truly astonishing how hard it is to slap anything at all down on a page and then how easy it is to shape it up into something good later on. It is a lot like throwing flat colors down on a piece of art and then adding a little texture and shading later.

The other thing I don't like about writing in this mode is that it makes me actually insane, which I don't like. I just roll word counts and percentages around in my head 24 hours a day and I'm not really able to relax and do things that are not grinding away at my writing. I can do it for short periods of time, but I think I have too much of this story left to tough it through, plus, like, what's the point? This is the thing I allegedly do for fun, and even though I really really really want to be finished, I feel like I should actually try to enjoy the process a little, at least.

So anyway! My first goal for this week is to be less insane about my fanfic. My second goal is to finish Chapter 9a (I think I have about 3-4k to go). My third goal is to edit Chapters 7 and 8 and send them to the beta.

After that, I'll just have 9b (of which I've already written about 4k) and the epilogue to do. After that, of course, there's still more editing, a beta pass for chapters 8->the end, and then I may try to read the whole thing through again from the beginning. So, 3 weeks, maybe, give or take a little?

In the interest of trying to have a little fun, I think I'm gonna try to post some previews for the next couple weeks? In the past, people have enjoyed previews. Today's is a little long, but it's the opening to the whole thing. It's below a cut for those who'd rather wait until the whole thing comes out.

“I don’t know if they’re trying to capitalize on Boy’s Day, or what,” Rukia said, idly inching her hand toward the plate of hot, steaming gyoza sitting on the countertop next to Renji’s stove, “but they’re having some sort of Seafood Festival out in East Sixth.”

A dish towel appeared out of nowhere, the tip whipping painfully against Rukia’s hand.

“Ow!” Rukia howled.

“They’re hot! It’ll hurt worse if you jam one of those in your mouth whole like I know you were gonna,” Renji replied, stuffing the dish towel back into his obi, and juggling the pan of gyoza he was currently frying. “What about a Seafood Festival? Why the Hell is the East Sixth having a Seafood Festival?”

“It’s being put on by the Train Museum, I hear,” Rukia continued grumpily, rubbing at her hand. “I guess they’re hauling a bunch of spring fish up from the Shiranui Sea at the other end of the line. It only takes a few hours to get out to Six. There’s probably carts making the run that we could take, but I would honestly just flash-step, at least on the way out. I want to eat my own body weight in katsuo. Possibly your body weight in katsuo.”

“Mmm,” Renji replied noncommittally, dumping the rest of his gyoza onto the plate and turning off the stovetop.

“I was thinking of asking Hisagi if he wanted us to take some pictures and do a little write-up for the Bulletin,” Rukia went on. “Get us a little walking-around money.” Not that Rukia lacked for pocket money, but it was a little more expensive than their usual weekend activities, and Renji got a little cagey when she tried to treat him to things.

“That’s a bad idea.”

“Why? We had fun the last time we played reporter!”

“Grab the bowl of sauce, would you?” Renji gestured with his chin as he picked up the plate of dumplings and the teapot to carry them to the table. “Don’t you remember when they built that damn train line? Took ‘em over over thirty years, and there were three to four articles every single Bulletin about the delays, the graft, the politics, the environmental impact, whatever. People got so mad about the idea of a train inside the Seireitei that it doesn’t even go anywhere useful. I didn’t even know they used it for anything aside from twee holidays for bored nobles.”

“I heard a story from my friend, Lady Akizuki, that the old head of the Seshimo clan actually lives on the train! He hasn’t set foot outside it in fifteen years!”

Renji cocked an eyebrow at her. He looked like he desperately wanted to hear about the Train Noble, but also did not want to be a guy who cared about Train Nobles. “Anyway, don’t mention the train to Hisagi unless you got six or seven hours to kill. Preferably when I’m not there.”

Rukia picked up the big, fragrant bowl of ginger dipping sauce with both hands. “It was just an idea. So what do you think? Do you want to go?”

“When is it again?” Renji asked, frowning.

“It’s running for all of May, but the weather has been so nice lately, I thought maybe we could go next weekend,” Rukia suggested. 

Renji was quiet for a moment, but Rukia figured that maybe he was just focused on serving her dumplings, which was, in her opinion, very important. 

“Ru,” he finally said slowly, as he poured her a cup of tea. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Is it that you want to go to the Seafood Festival with me?”

Renji took a big breath through his nose and let it out again. “If things work out, I’d love to go later in the month. Next weekend’s not gonna work, though.”

“Oh.” Rukia frowned. “That’s fine. That’s no big deal.” She looked down lovingly at her gyoza and then up at Renji hopefully. “Itadakimasu?” she asked hopefully.

Renji blinked. “Huh? Oh, yeah, please help yourself. That… that wasn’t the thing I had to say.”

“Well, spit it out, already,” Rukia groused, her mouth already crammed with gyoza. “Why are you being weird?”

Renji still hadn’t touched his own food. He had circled his right wrist with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand and was rotating it back and forth. He used to make that gesture a lot when he was young, and Rukia realized that she hadn’t seen him do it in years.

“I’m having some surgery,” Renji finally said. 

Rukia froze. After a long moment, she slowly finished chewing her dumpling and swallowed it. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m getting my arm fixed.”

Rukia watched him rub his wrist for another few seconds. “Did it not heal correctly after the, um, accident?” “The accident” was when Byakuya had stabbed him through the forearm during a demonstration fight the week prior. Everyone was being very polite about it.

“Wellll…” Renji drew out. “I mean, no, that healed up fine. Very clean cut, Senbonzakura, as always. But, uh, while I was at the Fourth, the topic of my burnt-out kidou ducts came up. Captain Unohana thinks she can fix ‘em. And I’ve decided to, um, let her try.” “Oh,” said Rukia. Her chest was filling up with a lot of strange feelings. “Oh.”

[idiosyncreant]

The Conditions of Creating

When I was finishing my degree a few years ago with my mother's 3rd-stage cancer weighing me down, and an unidentified but crippling burnout, I had some incredible conversations with my capstone advising professor who is an active visual artist as well as fantastic gender studies scholar (https://www.instagram.com/sarahstefanasmith/) on both productivity and rest in creation.

One thing she said that stuck with me and that I repeat the most to others (which probably drew on someone else's work, I wish I remembered more clearly)

was: you have to set up the conditions of creating.

Part of the practice of art is the mundane things to make it possible. If you spend your designated writing time clearing your desk so you can write later, that is still part of the writing practice.

It also goes for the more internal parts.

After losing both my parents last year, there were times I wondered if I was going to not be a writer anymore. This was both a preposterous idea to entertain, and a gage of how unmoored I felt from my life. The work that I did to set up the conditions of creating again from there were more patchy, intuitive.

Getting back into reading, even if that was mostly romance novels that felt like candy. Relistening to Murderbot Diaries books forty times. Logging into the writers forum I'd been absent from for years, even if it felt like I was disconnected from that community.

I learned that the burnout was autistic in flavor, and learned from other late-identified folks about masking and self-regulating and went to meet-ups for ND people at my bookselling industry events. It didn't always feel like this was leading to something reparative but...

A little over a year after finishing my last manuscript, I've started the next one. It's flowing. It's exciting. And:

It has NOT been a good year for me to get stuff done, if we're just talking about externals. We had a house fire and had to move, and had no furniture for two months. Instead, I went when I had the free time to the library to write for a bit. Lately, that's been between loads of laundry at the laundromat a block away.

I've had a health issue that's made it more important for me to take rest seriously.

But one of the key things I've taken away from this is actually about that setting-up part, and releasing the guilt of not being at the creating part YET.

It's OK for my writing time to be more scattershot. And it's OK if some days instead of writing, I have to just rest.

That's still making the conditions of creating, within my context now. This is a paradigm shift, allowing the restrictions I'm dealing with be something I take into account as part of my process.

I felt prompted to talk about this for a few reasons, some prompted by posts on my dash, some more global. But mainly because I want to note out loud that I've made some serious progress in terms of learning how to live as an artist, in the last few years, in my late 30s.

I thought I knew how I worked as a creator, but then things changed. And I had some good input at a crucial time about how to think about creating and setting myself up to be able to do that work.

If you're stuck as an artist, can you identify one thing that feels like the obstacle, to start? And brainstorm how to get around it without being unrealistically harsh with yourself?

It might be you need to let yourself "goof off" in some way first, or it might be sorting your art materials, or it might be something you can only stumble on after a weird fugue-state task that feels unrelated. And also, sometimes the conditions of creating involve time to heal and rest.

[lakesbian]

Any thoughts on a fitting implement for Blake or Rose? Or for any of the Undersiders?

i will declare right now for my own sake that i shannot discuss the matter of the undersiders as practitioners presently or i will enter an autistic fugue state regarding alec vasil and we will never finish getting through all of the pact questions + resume reading the book. I will continue fermenting my opinions on this matter and return to it at a later date when i have more information to confirm my thoughts.

as for blake: The Stone. no i'm just kidding to make fun of him. it would really be helpful if i had more information on All of the most common implements but i get the gist well enough.

first of all i will state for the record that i do not think blake's aptitude with glamour (as of 3.5) is actually even remotely indicative of his approach to being a practitioner. he's not fucking confident at all with it! glamour is quite literally "fake it til you make it" but magic--if he was intuitively skilled at it, you would expect him to respond to rose's "haha i hope this works or you're fucked!" with "pshh of course it will work," but instead he nervously goes "i hope it works also :(" and then proceeds to sweat bullets the entire time. and despite being constantly paranoid that his glamour is going to be seen through, despite being a complete amateur with it, he gets so into it that it not only holds up largely perfectly but starts seeping into his cracks and emotionally effecting him. as rose put it, It's Not Supposed To Be That Easy. and the fact that it Is despite him...not really being very good at it, i think that indicates more of a weakness he's occasionally able to leverage as an advantage (albeit at intense personal cost) than a genuine talent. that man is getting Corroded. get corroded and subsumed by the violent expectations your family has set for what you were Supposed to be, you fucking nerd.

anyway. as for his actual approach thus far, he's like. hm. as i discussed some during arc 1, he's extremely willing to roll with the punches (& punch back) when he needs to. as much as being humiliated or acting violently upsets him, he can take it And dish it when it's necessary 4 survival. he really really really wants to climb to better circumstances and have a peaceful home and a family comprised of people who are good to him & whom he's good to in return. but ultimately he's extremely familiar with being homeless and beat down and viewed as less worth than dirt, and it's a misery he knows how to force himself through. which is to say his practitioner approach is Miserable Desperate Scrambling by a dude with a Scrambling Degree. he's exceedingly direct so far. he finds out how faeries work and then immediately fights a faerie by literally just telling her how faeries work. he's not, like, utterly lacking in self-preservation during negotiations, but he's pretty direct about attempting to State How Something Is in a convincing manner instead of attempting to mislead people. he responds to finding out that maggie killed his cousin by telling her to fuck right off instead of using her guilt to get a better deal like he could've. etc. ultimate move of Hit You With Pipe or Try To Call The Cops On You (Again) because he simply does not have enough of a knowledge or power base for anything more indirect or clever as of yet. not inherently opposed to trickery per se but thus far he's preferred to feel like all of his actions are some level of morally justifiable, and he's distinctly targeting people who have made the most notable moves against him.

i was sort of hoping that writing all that would make an idea magically pop into my head or brain but it did not. it would be cool if it ended up being a mirror. i can't defend that statement but i think it would be cool! let me see. i think something unique and somewhat decorative in a way that bolsters his personal identity would be fitting, because he stakes a lot on personal identity. he values his body being His to exist in and express himself with, he likes art, he likes having nice new things. i think an implement which bolsters his own sense of self & makes being a practitioner something more comfortable + confident would be a good balance to how thus far it's just sapped him and degraded his identity. something stabilizing, in a way. is that anything. but a talisman doesn't fit, because he Is pretty brash and concerned with the real. something unique and somewhat decorative but with a clear purpose and very direct/blunt application? still struggling for precise objects here, but i think talking abt the Idea behind an implement for him instead of just naming an object is fine.