#but we also have decent amounts of

[saltybenchday]

Ahh! A year ago today I posted my first fic. I’m so damn grateful for all I’ve learned in the last year, and for the community I’ve found in and around the world of fic writing. If you write, read, kudos, comments etc. I am also so grateful to you for making the community what it is 🤍

8 11 fics, and 124,004 166,427 words (and counting!) later, I can’t imagine ever not writing. I also figure this is a good time to assemble AO3 links to what I’ve written in one spot, as a little ficaversary treat to myself, you’ll find that below the cut.

As always, read the tags and if its not your jam, no worries!

Cheers friends, keep reading, keep writing- I’m so proud of us 🤍

Auroras and Sad Prose Outlander

A possible alternative to what happen toward the end of Scottish Prisoner, after the duel. Making their way back north to Helwater, the tension that has built up between Lord John Grey and Jamie Fraser eventually reaches a breaking point, with delightful results. Jamie/John, M, Words: 11,447

A Fiery Oath (Part 1 Between The Lines Series) Outlander

Jamie Fraser asks Lord John Grey to pledge his oath during the gathering at Fraser's Ridge. Jamie/John, T, Words: 1,221

Come Back to Me Outlander

After a duel, Lord John is badly injured and near death, Jamie makes a heartfelt confession to him. Jamie/John, M, Words: 1,460

Hope in the Shadows (Part 1 Hope & Daylight Series) Outlander/Black Sails

On their way to carry delicate information to Jamaica, Lord John Grey and his step-son William are set upon by pirates. Through a series of misfortunes, misadventures, and occasional stupidity, they find themselves immersed in the world of piracy on the high seas. Eventually, William and Lord John come to learn that heroes and villains are not always what they seem, and that sometimes friendships can be forged in the most unlikely of places. Outlander X Black Sails Crossover, Lord John Grey/James Flint, William Ransom, Long John Silver, M, Words: 51,532

Wee Beasties of Jamaica Outlander

Jamie Fraser is very afraid of snakes, Lord John Grey, of spiders. Jamaica was perhaps not the best place for either of them, but together they’ll muddle through. Jamie/John, E, Words: 4,825

Would You Ask For More (Part 2 Between The Lines Series) Outlander

After tragedy strikes, Lord John brings news to Frasers ridge in hopes that he might be able to provide some comfort to the family. In the end, he brings a great deal of comfort, though in a much different manner than he had imagined. Jamie/John, E, Words: 2,798

Through the Fog Outlander

Lord John Grey is on the road to Aberdeen to tend to family business when his horse spooks and throws him from the saddle. He suddenly finds himself very far away from where he was going, running away from the Wild Hunt and right into the arms of Jamie Fraser. Jamie/John, E, Words: 4,003

Chase the Stars 'Til Daylight (Part 2 Hope & Daylight Series) Outlander/Black Sails

After learning that Thomas Hamilton is alive, Lord John Grey enlists the help of Jamie Fraser to attempt a daring rescue. Complications occur and the two friends are forced to journey to Nassau and back in an effort to reunite Hamilton with his lost love, a task that turns out to be easier said than done. Between storms and shipwrecks, vengeful pirates, and scheming redcoats, they face hardships that test their friendship, and put their lives at risk. In the end, choices are made that will change their lives forever. Jamie/John, Jamie/Claire, Flint/Hamilton, John/Flint (past), M, Words: Words: 78,744

Sweet Nothing (Part 3 Between The Lines Series) Outlander

It is Lord John Grey's last night on The Ridge before returning to England, and Jamie Fraser finds himself restless and awake. Going in search of whiskey, what he finds is much better. Jamie/John, T, Words: 2912

Pas De Trois Black Sails

Miranda and Thomas teach James how to dance. James/Thomas/Miranda, T, Words:1821

Infinite & Inevitable Outlander

After coming across a set of standing stones, Lord John Grey finds himself on Fraser's Ridge, but absolutely nothing is as he remembers it. Meanwhile, Jamie Fraser has a surprise visit from his best friend, only Lord John seems to believe there's much more to their story. Jamie/John, Jamie/Claire, M, WIP

[bacchuschucklefuck]

found those sketches I mentioned. and added more

[starry-bi-sky]

okay so i was thinking of a joke earlier about how in DPDC Amity Park's slogan "a great place to live" is not only city propaganda but also the city lording it over the rest of America for being normal. But then I remembered that, despite how many DCU Cities with heroes in it there are, the amount of cities in America without heroes still far outnumber the amount of cities in America WITH heroes.

So I did a little digging so the joke would still land. Something most heroes have in common is that they operate in major cities. What makes a major city? I found that the general consensus is that the population is roughly over or around a million. THEN I looked up the populations of cities in the DCU that I thought of off the top of my head. So Gotham, Metropolis, Starling City, Central City, Jump City. All of them ranked up to millions in population (most of them were in the tens of millions).

Amity Park's wikipedia describes it as being similar to specifically Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Philadelphia's Population: 1.576 million as of 2021 Chicago's Population: 2.697 million as of 2021 San Francisco: 815,201 as of 2021

Whiiich means that Amity Park if we take that from canon, is probably a major city. There are approximately 19,000 cities in America with probably less than a hundred that are major cities. Adding the DCU major cities wouldn't skew the data too much.

Which MEANS that I can make the joke that Amity Park's "great place to live" is not only just typical city propaganda, but also its Amity Park lording it over the other major cities for being one of the only major cities that doesn't have problems bad enough to warrant a superhero or a vigilante. Cue stage left the Fentons and Phantom :)

Amity Parkers were probably SO proud that they didn't need a superhero. They didn't have to worry about things like 'world ending threats' and 'super-powered individuals' and 'staggering property damage'. And then enter Fentons.

It also could be used as an excuse for why nobody took notice to Amity Park getting ghosts if folks like me aren't huge fans of the notion of a media blackout via Tucker, Technus, or the US Government. Or if you want to keep Amity Park as its urban city self. Amity Park's news on ghosts gets drowned out in a week because there's news on more popular, well-known cities going on every other day. The shit going on in Amity Park is every other major city's regular Tuesday and it gets filtered as such.

[chirpsythismorning]

When the interviewer asked when we should expect s5 to be coming out, that’s when Shawn mentioned that a little bit of an answer to that might be out there soon.

He actually mentions that this answer could be out by the time the video for this interview comes out, and since this interview was filmed mid-May and it’s now mid-June, I’m assuming we could be getting something soon or within the next couple months, potentially about a release date aka possibly a small teaser with 2025 stamped at the end…

[bonker-bananas]

okay sanders sides board game headcanons go

roman-

has the shortest attention span you have ever seen in your entire life, 90% of the time he has to be bribed to play a game longer than five to ten minutes. uno is the exception.

loves-uno, the idea of risk

hates-most other games, the reality of risk

logan-

into the most long, complicated, rule-and-insane-mechanic-heavy games you could possibly find. also anything trivia or random-knowledge-based. he and virgil make everyone play dnd. he is the dm and only does very elaborate homebrew stuff.

loves-trivial pursuit, everdell, that one stock market game that’s really confusing, matching games likes eye spot it, scrabble, mobius (math bananagrams)

hates-those games where you just roll dice and pass them between the players for five minutes

virgil-

either short games where you brutally destroy your opponents or long games where you brutally destroy your opponents, depending on his mood. also teams up with logan to make everyone play dnd.

loves-unstable unicorns, monopoly, uno

hates-any cooperative/working-together-as-a-team games

patton

big fan of games that let you be on teams or work with other players. loves games where you collect cards with characters on them but is usually bad at the actual game. really is just bad at most games, to be honest. he’s a good sport about it, though. (he likes to make jokes about how “your dad is getting too old for these games” and is immediately shut down by logan because “we’re literally all the same age, patton.”) he doesn’t mind long games but doesn’t do well with extremely complicated games. loves physical building/balance games, weirdly good at trivial pursuit.

loves-pokemon, any cooperative/working-together-as-a-team games, catan (he likes to build little houses with the blocks), bananagrams, jenga, suspend

hates-“now, hate is a strong word, but-” any games where players or characters “die”, uno (apologizes whenever he does literally anything to anyone)

janus-

obviously any game where you have to pretend/lie but also strategy-heavy games that require a lot of planning and thinking. likes slower paced games and takes forever on every single turn he has, no matter what game it is.

loves-mafia, bs, runes and regulations, solitaire (he and logan sometimes sit next to each other and play separate games of solitaire and race to finish theirs first. Janus always cheats.)

hates-wham (he hates the one hand only rule)

remus-

anything wildly inappropriate but also anything structured like apples to apples. give-me-a-prompt-and-i’ll-answer-it-in-a-weird-way games. has a longer attention span than roman but only if he’s interested in the game.

loves-cards against humanity, apples to apples, ransom notes, operation, trophies (he always manages to find words that only technically fit the prompt and you want to disqualify him but you can’t. very annoying.), the telephone game where you have to draw

hates-any game that you just play with a deck of cards (no gimmick and therefore boring)

[essektheylyss]

I'm not gonna put this on the other post cuz I don't really want it rebloggable but I do want to specify that like, yes I was being dramatic about Essek in terms of affect, but every part of that post is also quite literally a description of my experience with a creative field that is pretty centralized around a few locations and that has made it stringently difficult to enter and stay in the field. There are obviously monumentally different aspects around those circumstances, but like... look I left Los Angeles literally two weeks after the c2 finale with a very clear understanding that once I did, I was not going back, and that because of that, my career would never look like I'd wanted it to in any capacity, and in fact it was likely that it meant I would not work in the field I'd trained for ever again, and also knew it was the only choice that made sense if I wanted to, like, have a life. And I do! And it's great! And it still makes me very upset to think about for many reasons! So you can see why I have a lot of feelings about the whole situation.

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

I love going to the local botanical gardens and being the Most Annoying Autistic alive

like I'm sorry but if a bird talks to me I am going to talk back these are Excellent Sound and I am going to Make Them

I have been honking at a goose for several minutes I'm having the time of my life

[icewindandboringhorror]

Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol

[archersartcorner]

Forgot how much I liked this guy… and wanted to play around with the lasso fill on ibis again, don’t use it a whole lot but it’s a lotta fun to get these kinda lines! Wish procreate had a similar option lol

[transfemzedaph]

woagh. eefo.

[fate-defiant]

Doodled this in aggie.io to try it out. Would anyone be interested in doing a drawing collab sorta thingy sometime?

[thedreadvampy]

Btw in all the chat about Dot & Bubble and racism has anyone like. acknowledged that it's kinda weird that in the series featuring the first ever Doctor of colour we have seen uhhhhh:

3 specials in which the new Black doctor appears at the end of the last one for like 5 minutes after being replaced with a previous (white) Doctor for the big event episodes (a thing that has never happened before)

3 regular episodes

Episode in which the Doctor is mostly tangential to the plot except as a bomb

2 extremely Doctor-lite episodes, which are a common feature of Doctor Who but are pretty much never stacked back to back

FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBT. I like all these things:

Russell T Davies' work on Doctor Who

Ncuti Gatwa's fucking masterful acting

Doctor-lite and companion-centric episodes (which honestly are some of the best New Who episodes. Turn Left? Human Nature?)

but. it is notable that this series - which I would consider so far to be 9 episodes in which Ncuti Gatwa has had a reasonable cut of screentime in like... MAYBE 4? - is a) by far the least Doctor-focused episode ratio that I've ever seen, b) the only one where an actor's actual onscreen regeneration has been pushed back by the return of an old actor, and is c) COINCIDENTALLY the first ever season starring a Black Doctor 🤔

(because like. this could be a coincidence. there are often Doctor-light episodes to give the actor a break, for plot reasons, etc)

(buuuuut. two in a row? and they're both genuine Doctor-light episodes, ie one which is Turn Left style where the Doctor only appears to bookend the episode and is otherwise taken out of the universe, and one which is Blink or Love and Monsters style where the Doctor only appears in brief bursts, on screen, through the episode, with one monologue near the end, while we follow another character around for the bulk of the time. I can't think of many series of New Who with 2 Doctor-lite episodes, especially not in the first half of a season. In Davies' original run there were what, 4 Doctor-lite episodes in 5 years (and that's IF you count Fathers Day which I kinda don't)? and we've had half that many in one season, back to back, only 4 episodes after we DIDN'T SEE THE NEW ACTOR FOR ALMOST 3 FULL SPECIALS?)

(and I do know that Gatwa had shooting commitments with Sex Education but the thing is. back to back in the first 5 episodes???? it's not a good look! it's just not! you don't have to shoot in series order, you can literally space them across the series if you need to work with his shooting schedule! like I am sure it's not intentional but COME ON.)

[codecicle]

tu parles???? français???

un peu!! j'ai dans le classe de français à l'ecole pour deux ans, et je regarde baghera et etoiles pour pratiquer l'écoute. je ne pas super a parle français, je suis boucoup mieux à l'écoute LMAO. mais! j'essaie mon meilleur.

[apricot-the-apricat]

This was originally gonna be a specific scene from an rp but then i zoned out and a full nighttime background just appeared out of nowhere (the scene was in that setting but daytime) and then i was just like ok fuck it im gonna just do whatever now so yea thats how i ended up adding lighting too n here we are now

go easy on me i was fully just winging it (hah) throughout the entire piece im still tryina figure out how sai works lol

[doctorweebmd]

Going to Japan tomorrow 🙈

[exopelagic]

this election feels so hollow even though it’s likely ostensibly gonna be a good outcome. labour really just sucks fucking ass rn huh