#Io rambles

[ionized-alpaca]

sometimes you get a little emotional scrolling reddit

just. imagine. painstaking removing glue from teeny tiny bugs that most people don't even notice when they're outside. because you've decided these ones are yours and you're responsible for them. they're your babies. idk man, the human-animal bond just gets me.

[island-ofthelost]

I hate stuff that's like "only 90's/2000's" kids will understand. And it's like a CD. Or a generic toy that literally everybody played with. Or a TV show or Movie that is still very much widely available. Yes, my birth year does start with a 20. Of course that makes me physically incapable of cognitively processing anything that was around before that. I only understand phone and social media and pronouns.

[iodoesdolls]

So the Remco I Dream of Jeannie has been my dream doll for a couple year now, since I spotted her for like $50 at an antique store. And I finally have her! Technically.

I bought her on eBay, nude except some underwear. The listing did tell me that she had melted hips. I went in fully aware of that.

However. Never before have a seen a doll with hips quite so melted.

The underwear was fused to her, so I had to cut it off. In the process, her legs popped out. Nbd, I thought, I’ll just pop them back in.

But they cannot be popped back in. Because her hips are made of soup, and the underwear was the only thing holding her together.

Photos:

(The thing about Jeannie is that she’s gorgeous from one single angle and so funny looking from all the others because her head mold is weirdly, like, deep? I love her anyway.)

I thought I could just pop her onto a space dawn body, but she has a slightly larger neck peg, so I get a wobble head. Not the end of the world, but I might see if I can salvage her original body.

Also need to to figure out clothes. I hate sewing at this scale, so looking for any way to avoid it. Some of my initial thoughts:

Both pants only, so I’d still have to sew a shirt, but I feel like that’ll be easier.

Also like this jumpsuit:

Not exactly the right look, but I feel like the vibe is soul

[iowriteswords]

Hi Io! I was looking at your Tumblr and saw this post:

https://iowriteswords.tumblr.com/post/758746805347532800/fanfic-author-ask-meme

I wanted to ask you some of the questions! Actually all of the questions if you have time, but if you don't, I'm most interested in your answers to 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 31, 34, 36, and 38 (you can answer any or all of them).

Alternatively, you could just answer the questions you most want to answer. XD

Got this ask by email! Answered all of them, because I was bored last night, and I think I bolded all the questions you mentioned specifically.

Thank you for asking!

1. What was your first fic and could you stand to reread it today?

My first was Homecoming, and I’m still pretty happy with it. I reread it fairly recently when someone left a specific comment, and I had to go back and see what they were talking about. It was my first fanfic, but I’d already been writing for several years and had gotten a degree in literature and writing, so it certainly wasn’t any kind of early writing project. I’ve improved since then, but I already had a decent grasp on what I was doing.

2. What’s your most recent fic and how far do you think you’ve come?

I have one called Voice that I’ll be publishing on November 19. I don’t know that this is the best demonstration of how far I’ve come; it’s a short piece that doesn’t necessarily show off a lot of my strengths. But I do think I’ve come pretty far. I have a better understanding of my characters, I’m better at writing more complex characters, I can juggle a large cast better.

3. In your opinion, what’s your best fic?

Probably Robins and Other Flightless Birds.

4. In your opinion and without looking at any numbers, what’s your most popular fic?

Definitely Robins and Other Flightless Birds.

5. Is there any fic that makes you super happy to reread and remember you wrote that?

The Most Important Thing. I just like it.

6. Is there any fic that makes you super embarrassed to reread and remember you wrote that?

Nope. Occasionally I’ll read back, like, a certain line or scene and be embarrassed, but not a full work.

7. What’s the fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

Right now what I really want to do is the sequel to Who Shall Make the Clown Laugh? I mean, excluding my current project; it doesn’t seem right to talk about plans to continue when I’m, like, actively working on it. (15 chapters written, 0 posted.)

8. What’s the oldest (longest since last update) fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

I guess the Flightless Birds series? I mean, it hasn’t been long at all yet, but I know it will be a while, and I don’t really have very many other things I’m planning to go back to? It has been way longer since I worked on Ozma, but idk if I’ll even post the next bit on ao3; it’s in the public domain, so eventually I’m going to heavily edit and what I have posted now will be the first 2 chapters in a book.

9. Have you ever written for a fandom without watching/reading/playing the source material?

No, though I’ve definitely read a lot more of the source material since I started. There is just so much Batman to read and watch.

10. Have you ever written for a fandom without reading other fanfic for it?

Nope.

11. Have you ever written a fic for a concept you know someone else has done before? How did it impact your writing process or feelings after posting?

Not really, although someone else did start posting a Tim and Jason in Arkham fic after I started mine but before I started posting it. I just avoided reading it so I wouldn’t be influenced, although I do intend to read it now, if it ever finishes.

12. Have you ever written a fic and decided never to publish it? Why?

Not a complete fic. Before I started Batman I tried both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but only got a couple hundred words into each.

13. What’s the biggest change between your style when you started in fandom and today?

I don’t think my style has changed much. I’ve matured and become a better writer, but I think the core of what I do and how is basically the same.

14. What’s the biggest change in your taste between when you started in fandom and today?

I don’t think it’s really changed very much. I’m more inclined toward Redemption for Everyone, probably, and much more reluctantly to let anyone die. I have less tolerance for anything tragic or unhappy. I read a wider range of things, in terms of both fandom and subject matter.

15. Have you ever purposefully written one fandom/fic idea over another because you knew it’d be more popular?

I’ve only ever posted fic for Batman and Oz, and I definitely prioritize Batman because people actually read it.

16. Have you ever stopped writing a fic/for a fandom because it wasn’t receiving enough attention?

I will eventually finish my Oz stories, hopefully soon, but for now, yeah.

17. In your opinion, what’s your most overrated fic?

I don’t want to say any of them are overrated? Like, I do not want people to like any of them any less. I’m always surprised by how much people like them, but also I don’t want to be like, no, that one’s not as good as they think it is - I worked really hard on all of them.

18. What’s your most underrated fic?

The Oz ones. For Batman, probably Maybe Someday We’ll Laugh again? It has the fewest views out of the ones that weren’t posted pretty recently.

19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?

Fic, scene, and chapter are, like, wildly different options to choose from. I generally point people toward The Most Important Thing, as a good representation of my work that isn’t a major time commitment. For one scene I’d say the one in Robins and Other Flightless Birds where Bruce and Kate are talking about the kids on patrol, which contains one of my favorite lines I’ve written: “Mine is a pity bat theme, so you don’t have to be a dork on the streets of Gotham alone.” I think it’s a good summary of the kind of Batman I like to write. I do not remember individual chapters clearly enough to answer for that.

20. Have/Would you ever rewrite a fic? If yes, would you take the original down?

I’ll rewrite the Ozma ones as I turn them into the start of a book. Otherwise no. And I don’t plan to take them down.

21. If someone starts kudosing and commenting your fics in a spree and has a few works of their own, would you go look through theirs?

Yes, I’ve done that several times.

22. Has there ever been anyone who’s made you freak out because they read your work and followed/favorited/reviewed?

I remember on my first or second fic someone whose work I’d read a lot of commented, and that was exciting. But I don’t remember who it was - that was like 6 years ago.

23. What’s the nicest review you’ve ever gotten?

Most of them are so nice. Like, I don’t know how to single out one review. Raberba girl leaves a long, amazing comment on every chapter of everything. I got a review I loved on We’re All Mad Here that I didn’t answer for like a year and felt horribly guilty about; I think the commenter was seaofserendipity.

24. What’s the meanest review you’ve ever gotten? Do you think the reviewer intended it?

I don’t know. I try not to think about them. Something from Rewind, Reset, I’m sure.

25. What constructive criticism, however well-meaning, always makes you feel bad when you see it in a review?

I can’t think of any, like, genuinely constructive criticism that I’ve felt bad about.

26. What aspect of your writing do you most enjoy to see praised?

I’m not sure. Maybe when people think it’s funny? Or maybe when they like how I handle complex issues around mental illness and trauma. Which are two very different aspects.

27. If you could only ever write crossovers or single-fandom fics ever again, which would you pick?

Single fandom.

28. if you could only ever write for a single crossover or a single fandom again, which would you pick?

Batman.

29. Does the division of your writing across fandoms line up with your reading? What’s the biggest discrepancy?

No. I really only write Batman. I read Batman, other DC, Buffy, Veronica Mars, and Star Wars pretty often, and Marvel, Harry Potter, and Supernatural if I’m in the right mood. I love Oz fic, but don’t read a lot of it because there’s not a lot currently being written.

30. Do you continue to write for a fandom after you’ve moved on or do you focus solely on the new one?

Not really applicable to me with my single fandom writing.

31. Who’s the one character you’ve just never managed to get perfectly right?

Idk. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten anyone completely perfectly right. I definitely struggle with Damian. Yeah, my answer’s gonna be Damian. I have gotten around the difficulty of writing him by making him younger twice (and have a 3rd story planned where I’m also doing that), and since he’s younger/newer to the family/newer to existence as a character, he often just doesn’t show up at all because I’m starting from a pre-Damian point in the timeline.

32. Who’s the one character who shines without you even trying?

Probably Tim. I have a Tim thing.

33. Is there any particular character whose scenes always wind up being longer/more frequent than you expected? Does the quality hold up?

Tim. Always Tim, in every fic. And I think so, for the most part.

34. Was there any fic that you wrote that really surprised you in the fandom reaction? Was it just by the numbers or did they take it an entirely different way?

How upset people got about Rewind, Reset, definitely.

35. Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?

I almost never mean to. It just happens. When I wrote my 2nd novel, the first scene I wrote was one from the middle of the book where they had a conversation about how Definitely There Is No Romance Here, specifically so that the platonic were locked in and it couldn’t happen to them.

36. Have you ever sincerely written a ship you do not support into a fic?

Nope. My fics aren’t, like, super ship heavy, and I don’t have really strong feelings about any Batman related ships. I just go with whatever feels right for the story.

37. Have you ever purposefully bashed a character/ship in a fic?

I don’t think so? I definitely portrayed some characters as worse people in earlier stories than later ones, like Harley and Talia, but that wasn’t, like, bashing - I just hadn’t read as much about them yet and didn’t have a very nuanced understanding of their characters.

38. Have you ever purposefully written something you know your readers would find uncomfortable/would not enjoy? If yes, why?

The scene where Bruce shoots Black Mask in Rewind, Reset, and the scene where Barbara lets aliens get tortured in Pinioned. Although no one was really unhappy with the alien situation like I worried they would be. They just felt like the right moves for the story.

39. Do you consider yourself to have a readership?

Yes. I have a good sized group of people who read all the bat-fic I write.

40. Do you feel like you put out enough content?

Yes.

41. If you cross-post your fics on multiple sites, do you have a favorite? Are there certain fics you would only post on certain site?

I only post on ao3, except occasionally snippets on tumblr.

42. How many views has your most popular fic gotten?

250,247 (Robins and Other Flightless Birds)

43. Your least popular?

680 (Ozma: Part II)

44. Do you follow/favorite/kudos/comment/review more stories than you have received?

I don’t comment as much as I should. I kudos everything I read. Sometimes even if I don’t finish reading it. I don’t really keep track of numbers.

45. If you had to call yourself an author of a single genre (besides fanfic) what label would you give yourself?

Outside of fanfic, I’m definitely a fantasy author. But in terms of, like, what genre my fanfic falls in besides just fanfic - idk. Is Trauma Recovery a genre?

46. Do you consider yourself a diverse author?

Does this mean do I have a diverse range of stories? If so, not really. I always write for the same fandom, I do the same things with characters again and again (JJ!Tim), and in non-fic work I almost exclusively retell fairy tales.

47. If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?

Depends on the person, and probably The Most Important Thing. It’s short, it doesn’t get into complicated multiverse stuff, and I like it.

48. Does anyone you know from outside of fandom know you write fanfic? Are they involved in the same fandom too?

My parents know and a few friends, and none of them are particularly interested in Batman.

49. Has anyone in your life ever read your fanfic just because you wrote it?

I think my ex boyfriend started one, but he wasn’t a very fast reader and didn’t have much time, so I don’t think he ever finished. My former roommate read my first fic and part of my second before I posted it, mostly as sort of a critique partner.

50. Has writing fanfic had a significant impact on your life? Would you say it’s entirely positive?

Yes, and yes. I’ve gotten so much better at writing male characters, at writing large casts, at maintaining a schedule, at finishing projects. I’ve become a better and more confident writer. I’ve build up a small audience for my original work that I know came over from the fanfic.

[ikemenomegas]

It's so difficult to wrap your head around and understand that yes, Gojo takes a sort of wild delight in absolutely destroying his enemies, but especially during the Shibuya arc, it doesn't feel like there's a lot of outright joy

He's upset. He doesn't like that non-sorcerers are being used as canon fodder just to stop him, he doesn't like that people are dying because he's around them. He doesn't like these curses and he's gleeful about very quickly showing them they're not as smart as they think they are.

He jokes and teases with he people he likes, but Gojo Satoru is scary. I think there are times he smiles just to put others at ease, because when he's not smiling his face just gets so empty sometimes.

Even in the new panels, people are complaining that Gojo isn't showing enough emotion about Megumi.... he just got here? And for him, the wildly shifting emotives are probably more telling than anything.

He can't dwell on the implications for him personally because in a battle hesitation means death. He's already doing a lot more emotional thinking than is typical for him, so he falls back on his habitual deflection. With fake-Suguru the bantering is definitely habitual.

I honestly think he doesn't know how to respond to Sukuna-in Megumi. His understanding of incarnations is that it makes the body into the person inhabiting it which means he's also not talking to Megumi, because he's not going to gamble on such a thin chance.

So he's going to goad and he's going to fight. Part of what makes Gojo a good fighter is his ability to control his emotions or find a moment of serenity even in a battlefield. He's not letting his emotions control him, but he has a certain talent for annoying anything so he'll use that as needed to get his opponent to lose their cool and put a gap in their armor.

[stelarcat]

unlocked mental illness symptom of being so close to my deadlines that i am overly productive and can focus literally only on the thing that needs to get done

[ionalottabookmarks]

This morning’s comment section pretty much ruined my mood for the day, but my usual commenters are awesome and have as usual improved my mood, and my ereader is going to be fixed before my ebook is ready from the library, and I get to snuggle with *2* dogs tonight, so things are looking up.

[arieswritez]

yan!mark talks to you this way when you try to escape btw!! 🫶🏾🫶🏾 restraining orders are literally just suggestions when it comes to mark 🥺

mumble mumble predator/prey dynamic with yan!mark mumble mumble

cw; mentions of stalking, yan!mark, no smut but suggestive, just me rambling lolll, mdni 💕

yan!mark who never thought about pinning you until one day you sneak up on him to scare him (joke) and he just completely flips you over his hip and onto the floor. you have to fight back the vertigo from the way your entire world tilted to tell him it's just me! just me!!

and he's got his fist in the air, ready to strike.

his gaze softens when. . yeah. it is just you.

but he still hovers over you because. . you look so alarmed. your eyes wide with fear. your breath picking up. he can hear your heartbeat if he concentrates.

you look like a scared, cornered animal and mark has. . never been harder LMAOO. don't be surprised if he just gets on his knees and starts pulling your pants down <3

good luck trying to break up with him!! stalking you gives him a stiffy!!! xx

[scarapanna]

School doodles!!

Man I love that damn musical I cannot stop drawing facial expressions to it/silly

[employee052]

can we talk about the video on TSPUD-IOS' App Store page ive been dying to talk about the video on TSPUD-IOS' App Store page? /ref

footage from my brother.

CAN WE ALSO TALK ABOUT THE DESCRIPTION TOO THO JUST

[sith-shenanigans]

A few things that I have noticed, in no particular order:

A significant portion of my dash is talking about Dragon Age: Veilguard

I am playing Fallen London, which includes a location called Veilgarden

Dragon Age posts make very little sense when you parse “[character] is going to be in Veilguard” as “[character] is going to be in Veilgarden”

In my defense, the art gave her glowing yellow-and-orange eyes

I do not think Fallen London is going to feature a devil named Morrigan in next month’s ES

[ionized-alpaca]

hii, ask game :)) - List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who liked or reblogged something from you!

!!! i have been on this blasted platform >10 years, guess it's about time i do an ask game lmao

a hot cup of tea

jigsaw puzzles

a good craft (i started on origami as a kid, picked up crochet as a teenager, finally learned to knit a little recently)

ice cream

spending time with friends :)

[island-ofthelost]

I feel indescribably sad for no good reason right now

[iodoesdolls]

I want to make her. And *not* using a DCSHG as a base feels weird, but idk if her face shape and body type are ideal for a DCSHG.

And what I really want to use is her:

But it’s so incredibly frustrating because the hair style Bo peep comes with is PERFECT. but completely the wrong color. It seems like such a shame to pull it all out and redo it.

But I couldn’t dye it black. Could I?

Or, like, even if I could, it would probably involve enough hot water to un-set her curls. In which case I might as well just reroot, because like 50% of the reason I don’t want to is I have an incredibly hard time getting bangs curled right.

[iowriteswords]

So someone is reading and commenting to complain about “Rewind, Reset,” which is my fic from 3 years ago which was one of my worst writing experiences because people kept commenting to complain about pretty much every narrative choice I made.

So that’s already super fun, because who doesn’t want to wake up on Friday morning to relive that experience? But for some reason I can’t reply to their comments? I didn’t even know you could make a comment on someone else’s work un-reply-able. So I can’t even be like, “yes, actually all the things you’re complaining about are because I had to keep on shifting things to make other people stop yelling at me back then,” or “hey, if you don’t like the free book, can you stop telling me so?”

And I’ve never deleted a comment in my life, not even the huge wave of anon spam on We’re All Mad Here, but I’m seriously considering it now, because the only way I can think they could have prevented comment replies is by blocking me. And, like, how rude is it to read someone’s free story, tell them all the reasons it sucks, and then immediately block them?

Rewind, Reset: sucking the joy out of writing for 3 years.

[ikemenomegas]

where was the alpha during the whole shibuya arc? Where they also unaliving people like the hot bad bitch they are or were they mainly trying to deal with the elders and providing support from behind the scenes?

And did gojo ever feel his mate removing their mating mark? Also, i have this thought that ive played around in my head for a while, it'd be interesting if the next time gojo meets his mate when he's outside the box, his mate somewhat changed and became more solemn and then gojo gets this deja vu feeling back to when geto acted the same way after gojo was absent a lot because he became more bombarded with missions and now it's happening again to one of the most important people in his life and he slowly gets this foreboding feeling of dread

I'm swinging around this oc like my poor cat hehe. Very pleased that you think they're a hot bad bitch. They're also a total awkward simp, like run into doorways if they see Satoru naked after a shower, so we love someone one can be both lol.

During the Shibuya arc, alpha wasn't ever inside the curtains. I think there's some brief discussion about it, but Satoru tells them not to come with him because this is clearly going to be people batting at his level. The higher-ups also demand that Satoru go alone and he doesn't tend to outright cross them concerning things like this.

Alpha end up keeping an eye on Inumaki and a third year oc (who will be Inumaki's partner). They end up trying to rescue the other auxiliary sorcerers while the curtain is up, and then helping get people out once the curtains go down - so they'd help Nitta extract Nobara and Akari (this means they do see Nanami's body rip) and essentially guard the retreat, up until they're called back to the school. There's probably a fair bit of unaliving things as part of that lol, but this time they're not going hunting for trouble.

(more below the cut because this is a lot to address!)

Gojo would not have felt the mark removal happen while in the box, because the way I'm interpreting the prison realm, is that nothing physical can happen to him in there that he doesn't do to himself. He feels it when he's released though.

I had some options I was toying with for the eventual unboxing before it actually happened:

Because Satoru feels it the moment the box releases him, I think he actually had time to reject the rejection as it were, and decide to maintain the bond. I would love for that to happen because the imagery of blue flame slowly burning away alpha's name back at the family home and then suddenly dissipating leaving their name intact is very pretty to me.

The other thought I had was that if the box was in a place that made releasing Gojo potentially hazardous, alpha would sense his sudden return to the world and feel the bond reform on their neck and hold back Satoru's powers just long enough for him to regain control, almost like stopping an explosion.

The other option is what's been seeming like the more likely option for a while now, which is that Gojo lets the bond break because alpha still wouldn't be safe as Gojo's mate. The last edict from the higher-ups is still technically enforceable, although they don't have the manpower to try rn. It also suits the long standing imagery of Gojo being a bodhisattva.

In the last few chapters, we've seen his major connections to the earth slowly be chipped away - one ward is taken over, the other is dead, his friends and allies have been decimated, his students are slowly becoming strong enough not to need him, and in this au his mate was forced to sever the connection for their own safety, oh and he killed his best friend a year ago and has to fight that body again. That's a lot of loss to pile on the shoulders of even the strongest. And the bodhisattva ascension is only delayed, so there's still a chance he could never have the chance to make new connections because he's well "ascended".

In my happy ending, I want Gojo and alpha to openly get [re]mated after everything is over. I love love "I chose you again and again" type of relationships and choosing to stay with someone is so hard for Gojo because of the implications of loss or attachment in particular that choosing again feels very powerful. He's an incredibly lonely person but it's so difficult to reach out to him because no one, not even Getou, was forced to live the full weight of his experience then and now.

You're not the first person to bring up that from an outsider's perspective, what's happening with alpha is very similar to Getou's pulling back and being forced to acknowledge that no matter what they want, they can't stand side by side with Gojo and have to do things their own way. I've been trying and failing to write their post-unboxing meeting for literal months because it's so difficult to capture.

Mostly because Gojo is someone who accepts the realities of a situation fairly quickly. It is incredibly painful to realize that yet another person who tried to walk alongside him has changed while he wasn't there. But, he could acknowledge that very quickly and set the pain aside as fast as he could because pain comes from expectations being different from reality, and he has a lot of important things to attend to.

Alpha is one of the most important people in his personal life, which makes all of this easier said than done. There's a lot of lingering looks and quiet moments of emotionally charged "strategy meetings" over the time between his unsealing and the set date of his fights.

Probably the only difference between Getou and Alpha at this point is that alpha has never functioned with the straight cold logic Suguru sometimes did. They have things they certainly consider unforgivable, but they fully joined Gojo's faction so their method is never going to be "literally break the whole world" - they'll just break their own, their rules, their walls, their own source of security/safety, for the people they care about. Objectively, this may be worse than Suguru because alpha will do things they know or think are "wrong" if it can guarantee safety for the people they love.

So it fills Gojo with a whole new type of dread! isn't that fun! Instead of "I might [will probably] have to kill this person in the name of my code and responsibilities even if it's literally going to break a piece of me forever" it's "this person I love might end up burning themself out in the name of their goals because they consider other people and their future wellbeing far more important than themself at this moment, and I can't stop them because that strength of resolve is either going to save them or do the opposite". Either way, Gojo knows they're no longer walking the same path, and in some way, it hurts.