#conceptually about my fic but also generally

[youhavereachedtheendofpie]

The tragically unrealised girl dad potential of Clem Andor tho 😔

[olderthannetfic]

I thought it would be interesting to see if I could easily determine which ships had the most works updated in 2023.

It turned out to be fairly easy, though a little time consuming. I think these results should be reasonably accurate.

Some points to note:

I did this on my own account, and I have like 2 people muted. So I am capturing the effects of archive-locked works, but my numbers might be off by one or two works due to muting.

Works updated in 2023 is a number that constantly changes as works are deleted or updated again in 2024.

I didn't scrape the entire archive or anything like that, so it's possible I missed a ship that would bump one of these down below 100. I'd take the last few at the bottom there with a grain of salt. But I think we can be reasonably sure the top ones are accurate and that the kinds of numbers that we see at the bottom there (eighteen hundred plus works updated in 2023) are about where the cutoff will be even if we find a ship I missed.

--

As for how I did this, I went to the category tags and the rating tags, filtered for updating in 2023, then excluded ships in the sidebar till I got to 130-150 ships excluded. I also grabbed ships that are big in general from tag search, which you can use to find all relationship canonicals, ordered by frequency.

I combined those lists of ships, cleaned off the works numbers, and generated a list without duplicates. That got me three hundred and something (yes, they were mostly duplicates). I generated the relevant AO3 URLs, opened them in batches with Open Multiple URLs, and copied the works totals into a spreadsheet. Not as tidy as using a script but honestly pretty easy if you know a few spreadsheet formulas to clean up data.

The key here is that if you're only going for pretty good and not accurate beyond a shadow of a doubt, all you need to do is generate a list of likely ships, then check them.

It's possible that there's some much-updated ship that is so evenly spread across these various other tags that it just missed showing up in the sidebar. Hopefully, grabbing more than just the top 100 avoided this problem.

This method also doesn't take into account backdated works. If a whole archive was imported in 2023 but all backdated, there could be some ship that didn't have new works but where AO3 users experience in 2023 was of an influx of content.

I also did this just now, in late March/early April, so some 2023 works have inevitably been deleted or updated again. So the exact work counts don't represent the experience of using AO3 throughout 2023. A fandom active in early 2023 might not have much updating in early 2024, while a fandom active in late 2023 would. This could demote the latter a few places in the rankings since I didn't grab numbers on January 1st.

Even if a person scraped AO3 every day or was monkeying around in the databases, you also have to ask what conceptual answer you're after. Is it works a user could have read at some point during 2023, whether they were deleted by the year's end or not? Is it new-to-AO3 works or only newly-created ones, not including imported archives? Does it matter if the works are fic? If they're in English? What about accidental double-uploads or translations of a single work?

I hope this makes it clear why a definitive ranking is not actually possible.

However, despite these drawbacks, I am confident that the rankings above accurately represent the broad trends on AO3 in 2023. Just don't get too fixated on whether a ship should be at number 73 or number 74.

And, of course, I excluded these from the top 100:

Original Character(s)/Original Character(s) - 20,026

Minor or Background Relationship(s) - 16,187

No Romantic Relationship(s) - 8,052

Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s) - 7,195

Original Male Character/Original Male Character - 6,283

Other Relationship Tags to Be Added - 5,618

Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s) - 3,990

Original Character(s) & Original Character(s) - 3,210

Here's a spreadsheet if you want to see the actual numbers not as a shitty screencap. I left the next few below 100 for context.

[antimony-medusa]

*I emerge from several weeks of talking about conceptualizing my cubitos and who else populates their world and what the precise nature of the character is* Hello. Hi. It's time for my twice-yearly thoughts on RPF.

Okay so I was one of the people who was emailing Ao3 about it when we had all of MCYT wrangled into VBRPF going please please please please can we have our own server tags pleeeeeeease I promise it's not just video blogging rpf pleeeeeeease my streamer doesn't have wings in real life pleasssssseeee— and my general stance is that writing about Dream SMP characters is writing about characters, it's not RPF.

Not quite. It's not quite RPF. There is a meaningful distinction there, but it's not a really huge one. That distinction exists and is important to me in how I conceptualize those characters and whether I'm mentally going "okay I need to study lore streams for vocal patterns" for voice research or if I'm going "okay I need to pull up technocord logs " to get techno voice right. What I consider the authoritative canon "character" is a rp guy who spawns withers, not a real streamer in california with a little white dog.

But like I do multifandom exchanges and I wander into them with my cubitos clutched tight in my palms, and I see what other fandoms look like— and importantly, I see what other rpf fandoms look like— and guys, I think that line is legitimately blurry and I think that's literally fine. If I walk into a mulltfandom space with my guys they're going to squint at me and go "rpf fandom— kinda, I think" and I can go "hahaha, not quite", but also I do not blame other people for thinking this is RPF cause like— there are a lot of similarities!

What MCYT tends to classify as "RPF" is directly stories operating in a world where the characters are streamers, they post on twitter, they have lunch with the CEO of twitch. And anyone not writing that, is obviously not writing RPF. And that is not untrue, up to a point, but there is a broad category of fics that tend WAY harder into the pure fictional that are still considered RPF fandoms, if you actually check what other RPF fandoms are doing. There are 599 works in "Demon Shane Madej", many of which are in AUs that have no connection to the real world other than the character relationships, and they're still officially considered RPF.

I have a friend who's in a c-drama rpf fandom that has a rpf ship they really like, and a really popular thing is to take the various characters these actors have played (totally fictional characters from various media) and ship them together. And that's just a crossover of two fictional mediums, but because the thread connecting them is two guys in real life, that's considered RPF.

The banddom tags are absolutely COMPLETELY full of aus that are not set in the real world at all, no connection to the music industry, and what the people in those fandoms will say is like yeah, I have no idea about the real guy, I'm working with a character/persona who's put on for the stage and interviews and personas, and that guy is not REAL, who knows what the real guy is like, but like, I like the persona, I deal with the persona, and then they put that persona in an au where he kisses other personas— and this gets considered RPF.

Wrestler RPF is directly dealing with invented characters who are beating the bloody snot out of each other (hot), they have names like "the undertaker", dealing with scripted storylines, but it still get considered RPF.

And like, I look at myself as I am entering my third year of writing Technoblade most of the time, and what I'm doing here and— there are a lot of similarities in what I'm doing to what other RPF fandoms are doing. I'm a fan of the DSMP character but I'm also a fan of the guy, so I want to play in this extended universe, so I want to include nods to his other stuff. So I will pepper in a cheeky nod to the potato war here, I'll mention hypixel there, etc, kind of make an extended Technoblade universe. And I think that's not RPF (quite) because I'm working from a fictional canon that includes references to the potato war and hypixel etc, I'm just expanding on it, but like, this is literally what my friend in c-drama rpf does as well when she's writing aus about her guy. It's kind of close to RPF. That line is not really obvious to the casual viewer.

So I do not blame anyone else if they look at what we're doing and they go ah, nods wisely, you are a rpf fandom, I've seen this before, and we go um actually, hahah, you'd think that, but no, and then they nod and clearly do not understand how it's not a RPF fandom.

But the thing is it's literally fine if people think that, I think. RPF is not the end of the world. It's just a bunch of people working with people's various performancesonas and worksonas and having fun with it. Spoilers for mythbusters in the real world, but we now know that by the end of mythbusters adam and jamie were not really friends, but most of the mythbusters rpf keeps them as friends because that was the professional persona they provided for the camera, and that was the fictional world the writers wanted to live in. I don't think it's a problem if someone wants to write straight up streamer fic, you do you, and that's unequivocally RPF, but once you start getting into AUs and extended universes and bringing emduo content into qsmp and writing fic based on GIGS streams, the line legitimately gets WAY more blurry.

I think a bunch of fic (including my fic) can start to exist in a "both things are true" state where it's drawing from direct fiction but it's also drawing from a lot of stuff that other fandoms would consider RPF sources, and like, I don't mind this. I don't think it's bad if you're doing this too. We're not getting more DSMP content, the fandom police are not gonna turn up at your house if you want to pull strongly from minecraft monday for your fic. Do schlackity on QSMP. Do a DSMP extended future where tommy gets tubbo to marry him for a bit and then tubbo immediately demands a divorce. The canon of material we have to draw on is not something where big obvious lines exist between "rpf content" and "pure fiction" if you step at ALL outside of canon-compliant. Like fuck, in my very first DSMP longfic I included all these hermit cameos and mcc references which would make it RPF in any other canon, but also I was pulling mainly from the prison arc lore and beats and relationships for the core, which is NOT rpf, and at this point it is not worth the hassle in my head to draw a strong distinction between them.

It's kinda RPF. It's not quite RPF. It's fictional. It's based in the real world. It's all personas. it's drawing on off-lore-stream dynamics. It's drawing on scripted scenes where my streamer had his camera in lore mode. It's COMPLICATED to unpick and I legitimately think that's fine. RPF is literally fine, some people are gonna think we're writing RPF, it's not the end of the world. Just have fun with it.

[ardafanonarch]

Hello, in fic I've come across mentions of

- the elves stopping frequently on their journey to Aman to have sex (and Orome urging them forward by creating storms?)

- elf sex being too intense for most mortals to survive

I think these come from HoME or NoME (or similar sources), but I've never seen the actual quotes. There might be other things related to elf-sex in there as well.

So I guess my question is: What else did Tolkien mention about elf sex, apart from (the already relatively well-known) LaCE?

Elf Sex Lore

There comes a time in every Tolkien fan’s journey when they come upon the Professor’s writings on Elf sex — and, since 2021, there are even more! Elf Sex Lore remains a hot topic as the fandom continues to experience the aftershocks of the spurt of new lore that came with the publication of The Nature of Middle-earth (NoMe) in 2021.

As you say Anon, before NoMe was published, the fandom’s primary resource on Elf sex was the (in)famous essay Laws and Customs Among the Eldar (LaCE), published in 1993 in Morgoth’s Ring, the tenth volume of the History of Middle-earth series. LaCE is full of juicy (or not-so-juicy) lore about Elven aging, marriage, gender roles, naming, death, and rebirth.

It is in relation to the first two that we get some details on Elf sex, such as the knowledge that “it was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete.” (Laws B). We also learn that:

“…the Eldar say* that in the begetting, and still more in the bearing of children, greater share and strength of their being, in mind and in body, goes forth than in the making of mortal children. For these reasons it came to pass that the Eldar brought forth few children; and also that their generation was in their youth or earlier life, unless strange and hard fates befell them. But at whatever age they married, their children were born within a short space of years after their wedding. For with regard to generation the power and the will are not among the Eldar distinguishable. Doubtless they would retain for many ages the power of generation, if the will and desire were not satisfied; but with the exercise of the power the desire soon ceases, and the mind turns to other things. The union of love is indeed to them great delight and joy, and the ‘days of children’, as they call them, remain in their memory as the most merry in life; but they have many other powers of body and of mind which their nature urges them to fulfil.” The History of Middle-earth Vol. 10: Morgoth’s Ring, ‘The Later Quenta Silmarillion (II)’, Laws B

*Note how this paragraph is introduced: “the Eldar say”. Phrases like this signal to us that LaCE is not written from a Elvish point of view. There are indications elsewhere clearly pointing to a human author with a human audience in mind.

Translation: Elves use up a lot of energy in baby-making, including in the sex part (“begetting”) but even more in the pregnancy and birthing part (“bearing”), so they don’t have a lot of children and they do so early in life, shortly after marriage. But even if they marry later in life, Elves are still able to have babies because being able to and wanting to reproduce are the same thing for Elves. But once they’ve fulfilled the desire to make babies they’re good and turn to other things. Still, they look back on the time of baby-making as “the most merry in life”.

In most (if not all) cases, when Tolkien writes about sex he is writing about reproduction. Did Elves have sex solely for pleasure? Maybe; I cannot find anything that says they didn’t. I also can find little conceptual separation of sex and reproduction in Tolkien’s writings. Make of that what you will.

(At this point I want to reiterate a principle central to this blog: it’s about presenting what canon says; it is not about casting judgement on creations that subvert, reinterpret, or ignore canon, none of which makes a work lesser than one which adheres strictly to canon.)

So what did NoMe add to our knowledge about Elf sex? First of all, let’s make sure we all know what NoMe is.

What is The Nature of Middle-earth?

NoMe is a volume of texts by J.R.R. Tolkien collected and edited by Carl Hostetter. It is basically a supplement to the last three volumes of The History of Middle-earth (Morgoth’s Ring, The War of the Jewels, and The Peoples of Middle-earth), which cover a period from the late 1950s to his death during which Tolkien was undertaking a rather massive project of worldbuilding, working out the structures underlying his Silmarillion mythology in preparation for revising and publishing what he had written of it before ‘a sequel to The Hobbit’ (LotR) took him away from it for the better part of two decades.

Christopher Tolkien in Morgoth’s Ring called this undertaking “analytic speculation concerning [the] underlying postulates” of his world (Foreword to Morgoth’s Ring). That’s how we end up with essays like LaCE and the philosophical debate about the fates of Men and Elves in Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.

The texts in NoMe all date to around the same time and deal with the same sorts of questions about the physics and metaphysics of the world: it contains the essay on ósanwë, for example.

The Context of the NoMe Sex Lore

The first section of NoMe, ‘Time and Ageing’, is where we get the new lore on Elf sex. As it happens, the sex lore is rather incidental to extensive ruminations two core questions:

How did Elves experience the passage of time and how did they age?

How did the population of Elves go from 144 at Awaking to a sufficiently high number (around 30 000) when they reached the shores of Beleriand on the Great Journey?

(It is not relevant to get into why 144 and why 30 000 here; suffice to say those are the numbers Tolkien wanted and he expended great imaginative and mathematical energy trying to make them work.)

A note on the textual context: Anyone who has ever engaged in worldbuilding knows how it can go. You think (for example), “Okay, I need to develop a backstory for this character’s spouse,” and before you know it you are knee-deep in invented genealogies and geographies and Eru-knows-what-else.

It’s important to bear in mind that this is what Tolkien was doing. The quotes we are about to look at (yes, very soon!) are from a collection of evolving (and unresolved) notes in various states of refinement from barely legible scribbles to carefully penned essays. I will let you decide what that means to you based on your personal definition of canon, but I wanted the textual context to be clear.

Elf Sex Is Intense

In relation to Question 1, Tolkien considers the time-scales of Elven growth, including pregnancy. In the essay under discussion, Tolkien decides that Elven pregnancy should, like human pregnancy, take about 3/4 of a year. Oh no - not that kind of year. A yên, a ‘long year’, the unit used by the Elves and to which the matter of their bodies (their hröar) is bound. Elves gestate for 108 Sun years.

I know what you’re asking: If the pregnancy lasts 108 years, then how long does the sex last?

No? No! You’re probably asking yourself why Tolkien hated Elf-women so much (don’t worry, he says there’s no pain…)! But Tolkien was interested in the first question, which he answered thus:

“On the other hand the act of procreation, being of a will and desire shared and indeed controlled by the fëa, was achieved at the speed of other conscious and wilful acts of delight or of making. It was one of the acts of chief delight, in process and in memory, in an Elvish life, but its intensity alone provided its importance, not its time or length: it could not have been endured for a great length of time, without disastrous “expense.”” (NoMe, p. 24)

An earlier version of this passage, which you may also come across in fandom, comes to a similar conclusion:

“But the act of procreation not being one of growth until the union of the seed and being under full control of the will does not take long - though it is longer and of more intense delight in Elves than in Men: too intense to be long endured.” (NoMe, pg. 27)

Translation: Pregnancy, like other aspects of physical growth, is a process of the hröa over which the fëa has no control; thus it is bound to unfold on “Elvish time”, i.e. 1 year = 144 years. But the sex leading up to it is an act of the fëa and under its control and therefore occurs at a “normal” speed. The Elves love it, too! But not because of how long it lasts, which is a regular amount of time, but because of how intense it is. In fact, it is so intense that if it were any longer they would suffer “disastrous “expense”.”

What is this “expense”? Basically, it’s referring to the usage of an Elf’s natural “vitality” — far greater than that of Men but not infinite. As far as I can tell, this passage means that having intense Elf sex for too long would have spiritual results similar to Míriel’s bearing of Fëanor, or Fëanor’s creation of the Silmarils. Too much of their spirit would be expended (used up) in the act, with possibly disastrous consequences.

These are the quotes from which, I think, originate the rumour that Elf sex was too intense for mortals to survive. As you can see, the discussion is about Elf/Elf relations. Elf sex is too intense for Elves to endure for too long. Anything about what this means for Elf/Mortal sexual relations is fan conjecture.

That’s the Elf Sex nugget from Tolkien’s considerations of Elven growth rates: Elf sex (between Elves) is intense but of a normal duration.

Elven enthusiasm for baby-making delays March

As you can imagine, more nuggets are unearthed in relation to Question 2, which boils down to Tolkien crying: “I need the Cuiviénen Elves to breed a lot and quickly!”

Initially, Tolkien developed some Elven life cycle schemes that had them taking a leisurely approach to reproduction, with each generation taking many hundreds, even thousands, of Sun years to materialise.

This scheme did not work for getting him from 144 to ~30k in the timeframe he wanted. So, he made some adjustments to the scheme with respect to the timing of Elven maturity and consequent desire to begin reproducing — and then set about getting those Elves procreating!

One of the solutions he entertained was giving the Elves opportunities to reproduce on the Great Journey. He laid all of this out in a timeline (NoME, p. 49-53) detailing where and for how long the host of Elves would pause because of the “desire to beget children” (p. 49).

Reading this timeline, it can become increasingly comical each time this desire to reproduce (i.e., have sex) halts the host. It can start to read like, “The Elves took forever to cross Middle-earth because they couldn’t stop banging!” And, in a way, that is what happened. But bear in mind the context is an attempt at solving the problem of increasing the Elven population to a number Tolkien considered satisfactory for his worldbuilding endeavours. An Elven enthusiasm for sex is there, but it’s not the whole picture.

There are several points on the timeline when Oromë hangs out with the Elves or checks in on them, and he does become increasingly concerned with their begetting-related delays. For example:

“About 2000 pairs (of available Telerin 8th gen. of 4,950) beget children in the spring 1130/80. The Chiefs and Oromë are disturbed.” (NoMe, p. 51)

(“The Chiefs” are Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë.)

And:

“Either by chance, machinations of Sauron, and/or because Oromë withdraws protection (hoping to make the Eldar less content with their new Home (Atyamar), winters are hard and the weather worsens.” (NoMe, p. 51)

The second quote is the origin of that rumour about Oromë creating storms to urge the Elves on because they were having too much sex. Is it canon? Not quite: Oromë didn’t create the storm, for one, and the emphasis is on sex for the pleasure of children more than the pleasure of sex on its own (though, as we know from the previous discussion, sexual pleasure was certainly had!). But the rumour you've heard is not without basis in Tolkien’s notes.

The First Elves Really Loved Sex

There’s one more Elf sex nugget in NoMe that I’d like to end with. While scrambling to get his Cuiviénen Elves reproducing at an adequate rate to reach his population-at-finding target, Tolkien came up with what he calls the “Quick prolific” scheme (p. 99).

“The Quendi in their first few generations before the March (or reaching Valinor) must — as is quite reasonable — be made far more eager for love and the begetting and bearing of children. *They must have larger families, at shorter intervals between births.” (p. 107)

To explain this attitude of reproductive eagerness in the first few generations of Elves, Tolkien coins the term “philoprogenitive” — they love to procreate! Procreating — not artistic and intellectual pursuits or exploration or leadership as with later generations — is their number one priority in life. So much so that “they mated almost at once with their predestined mates” (p. 54).

Not only that, but they have so many babies! In one version of the scheme, 12 children per couple in the first generation (p. 108). (This soon changes to 6 per couple. Philoprogenitive they may be, but no one gets to outdo Fëanor).

As with the highly intense Elf sex and the Great Journey delayed by procreating, this is another bit of NoMe lore with great imaginative potential. As we learn from LaCE, Elves enjoyed sex, quite a bit actually, but they enjoyed a lot of other things also, and after a period of baby-making they would usually move on from sex (though they would always remember it fondly). But the First Elves, those early generations by the shores of Cuiviénen? No such balance between sex and other pursuits. It was all about sex and procreation for them.

Of course, what we’ve been looking at are drafts and notes. While all written around the same time (late 1950s to early 1960s), none of the texts here examined were ever finalised and many of them don’t even agree with each other. Tolkien was experimenting; he was worldbuilding. And with the publication of these notes in NoMe, we in turn get some intriguing ingredients for worldbuilding of our own.

So, do as you like with the Elf sex lore. But if you’re looking for a great setting for some canon-compliant smut, may I suggest Cuiviénen?

Resources

PDF of LaCE

Mythgard Academy’s seminars on The Nature of Middle-earth. You don’t actually have to have read or own NoMe to follow these discussions. Great for getting a handle on the material, and ideal for listening as you work your way through reading.

[lesbianrobin]

waking the witch behind the scenes EXCLUSIVE

first of all: this fic started off with a prompt about eddie struggling to hide his magic from buck while said magic constantly Did Things for buck bc eddie just loves him so much. so for the next few paragraphs, keep in mind that the central idea here is eddie essentially attempting to hide his love.

i've seen and enjoyed a few different witch eddie fics and i think they're all so cool!! and i noticed that in most magic eddie fics, the magic is a Family Thing, but more specifically, it's a Diaz Family Thing. and we here at lesbianrobin hq are #feminists so obviously my next thought was, well, what if it's matrilineal? the idea of a "witch" is heavily gendered, and when i started thinking about this fic i was initially gonna take a lot of inspiration from charmed, so i thought it might be neat to make the magic something from his mother's side.

once i decided on that, it occurred to me that the only family we ever see or even really hear about is from the diaz side. eddie is close with his dad's side of the family, but we don't really know anything about his mother's side besides a vague ethnic heritage, so i was like, well, what if they don't really Have much family on that side? and from that came the idea of eddie being isolated in his magic, lacking guidance and support. pretty much all we know about helena's family is that she has some swedish heritage, though there's no telling how far back.

to recap: we have eddie, isolated in his magic. vaguely scandinavian heritage. i start looking into old norse religion and stumble upon seiðr, a type of magic traditionally practiced by women wherein male practitioners were viewed as effeminate and maybe gay. all of which coalesces into eddie's magic essentially being a manifestation of his sexuality and everything else that fails to live up to his parents' expectations.

so. eddie hides his magic. eddie conceptualizes his magic as something separate from himself. eddie disconnects himself so thoroughly from his magic that it operates against his will, that he can't even feel it. magic is gay 🫶🏻

buck knows that eddie is magically doing these little things for him. he complains about the coffee on purpose so that eddie will conjure him good coffee. and it works! yay for bratty whiny buck!

eddie's prophetic dream about his and buck's first time twists every sensation into something negative and overwhelming due to The Repression. he's terrified of coming out and really accepting and acting upon his feelings; once he actually does it, it isn't scary anymore.

the way we never were: american families and the nostalgia trap by stephanie coontz is a great book and very accessible to a general audience! also, BLK & Bold coffee is really good. i am giving buck my exact taste. don't worry about it.

i have some Thoughts about how exactly buck realized eddie has magic, how he and chris started talking about it, and the various times that buck Knew eddie was doing some magic shit and just pretended to be oblivious. however! i'm gonna hang on to those in case i ever want to write a prequel.

aaaand finally: i don't know where the hell that proposal came from. the spirit of eddie dies possessed me.

ok that's it for now love u all hugs and kisses 🫶🏻 bye

[artsharki]

(Erm apologies for writing inconsistencies and also an obvious lack of knowledge about religious terminology... I'm literally just going off what I learned from GO and fics lmao. I am just having fun with this.)

Okay so I have been thinking about my Good Omens, Generation Loss AU lately... Adding some more lore filling if you will. And of course I couldn't conceptualize this AU without drawing something for it!! Pre-fall Ranboo is someone who helped to oversea the creation of humans as well as watched over them on Earth. Which makes their fall all the more tragic as their eventual questioning of the Almighty's cruelty to mankind results in their deviation from Heaven.

Their beautiful smile destroyed in the fall, it becomes replaced with a terrible, toothy snarl. Which is where the Generation Loss mask comes in! In their human form, GO!Ranboo covers the most demonic part of their face. As a duke of Hell Ranboo uses that ranking to monitor the humans they so loved as an angel. That part of their soul never really went away. The betrayal of God shattering everything they thought they knew about the plan for mankind. Ineffable and all that.

He thought he were doing the right thing. Denying the fated suffering of the humans he thought that She (God) loved so much. But his love for the morally grey beings of earth truly changed him. The human condition lighting a flaming interest within them. They fell in love with watching humans fall in love over and over, angel Ranboo (angel name pending) could never get enough.

Idk that’s all I have for now. Writing feels like pulling teeth for me. I much prefer drawing and having everyone else interpret my art for me.

[the-everqueen]

wip tag game

tagged by @two-hands-toward-the-sun. i have...more wips than i remember at any given time, and i just peck at whichever one when the spirit moves me (usually when i'm procrastinating actual work). currently there's eight active in the rotation, with another handful that are more conceptual/bits and pieces i want to come back to later.

Sandman

Lucienne takes the Corinthian for walkies: this is in response to a Valentines day prompt @two-hands-toward-the-sun sent me, "going on a platonic date and being mistaken for a couple." Dream weaponized his sad wet eyes at Luce to make her take some PTO and also provide some enrichment for his recreated masterpiece. they go to the MOMAT

As though attuned to her thoughts, the Corinthian hangs back at a respectable distance—not out of sight, but perhaps out of mind, if she wished. When Lucienne frowns at him, trying to discern whether this is some kind of trick, he makes a show of fiddling with the audio guide, head turned away as he hooks the piece over his ear.

does your husband know the way the sunlight gleams on your wedding ring: Corinthian/Calliope fic in the period between Orpheus and Calliope & Dream's divorce. once again, a woman takes Coco out for her idea of a good time and proves literally anyone else would be a better owner for the Corinthian than Dream.

He means to retreat. He doesn’t think she’s noticed him, and he wouldn’t impose on her privacy. Calliope was always nice to him. But grief smells like weakness, and a Muse’s grief smells different from that of the humans he stalks in dreams, wearing the faces of their long-departed. His mouths water at the scent, unfamiliar but delectable. For a fleeting moment, he wonders what her eyes might taste like, what he’d see if he took them in his own.

gay coworkers: words are HAPPENING in the next installment!

“Technically—" “C’mon, a memory wipe is hardly better—" “I’m not defending his actions, I’m simply pointing out—" “Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” the Corinthian snaps. Matthew and Lucienne exchange guilty glances. “You could at least wait until you’re back at the palace. Doing it in my house, that’s just fucking rude.”

la guard dog literal: Morpheus recreated the Corinthian as a (sort of, semi-eldritch) dog because surely that will fix his behavioral issues. Daniel still rehomes him with Rose Walker.

Jed twists around in his seat. The Corinthian snuffles obligingly at the hand he offers, gives the fingertips a quick swipe with his tongue. Jed’s face splits into a smile. That smile makes something warm unfurl in the Corinthian’s belly, prompts him to worm closer with a thready whimper. No threat. Which is maybe the biggest lie he’s ever told and he didn’t even speak it in human words, but in the moment he desperately wants Jed to believe it, and not just so he can sink his teeth into that vulnerable neck still soft with baby fat.

what if we made those daddy issues literal: semi-period accurate 1920s fic where the Corinthian is Dream's troublesome ward and Matthew is the tutor Dream hires to bring him in line. is this because i'm obsessed with Assad Zaman's outfits in hotel portofino? yes.

“Dream’s not my father.” “I thought—" “He’s my guardian. Keeper. Master. Whatever.” “He—" “Of course he’s benevolent. Can afford to be, I suppose. So long as I perform well.” “Does he—?” “Not how you’re thinking.” Cori barks a short, humorless laugh. “That wouldn’t be conducive to his long-term plans, would it? Breaking his toy before it can be of any real use.” “That’s—" “Good? Yeah. Sure.” Something shutters in his expression. “After all, what would become of this poor orphan child without some generous benefactor to mold him into a productive member of society? Why, then he might just be a scoundrel or, worse—an inconvenient corpse rotting in the road.” “I—" “Well. No use speculating, right?” He flashes a grin that makes Matt think of a dog baring its teeth. “I’ll see you after lunch.” Matt, dumbfounded, watches him walk away.

Logan/X-men

rehome that animal: sequel to the dog crate fic

Mendez isn’t sure what he expected to find in the Wolverine’s hideout. It certainly wasn’t this. This being his former boss, presumed dead after A-T’s last (as in latest, as in final) attempt to retcon its X-23 project several months ago. Mendez didn’t recognize him at first, but he thinks he’d be forgiven for the slight: the Donald Pierce before him looks a lot different from the Reaver commander who’d swanned around in a leather duster and tinted sunglasses, barking orders. Now he’s mostly naked and washed-out looking like maybe he hasn’t seen much sun. His once carefully groomed beard has been shaved to expose sharp cheekbones and a delicate chin. All his muscle and fat is gone, so the jut of his ribs and spine and pelvis show with every small twitch. There’s a lot of twitching, like his body can’t decide whether to prepare for fight or flight.

horse is a one-trick pony and the trick is Werewolves: if you didn't foresee me turning the Reavers into a (literal) wolf pack...well, that's on you at this point.

The pack leader is keeping an eye on him. Not quite staring: casual flickers of his attention between Donald and whatever is happening on the laptop. Mendez’s eyes shine almost green in the bluish screen light. His face looks sharper. His lip twitches and shows the barest glimpse of fang.

...tagging @evenmyhivemindisempty, @cosmictapestry, @aisalynn, @crimeronan, and @stellerssong. no pressure, i just like seeing what people are working on.

[blindmagdalena]

Was re-watching Diabolical and have been genuinely wondering for a while about this………

Do you think Homelander could have been redeemed within those first 1-4 of his years of his initial roll out? It was obvious that he had no moral compass but he wasn't intentionally malicious back then. He seemed just kind of like a paper cup blowing from here to there as long as the promise of adoration existed.

I can't help but wonder if he had been surrounded by actually decent people rather than Vought psychopaths and manipulators if he still had a chance, even at that age.

a lot of things could have been different for Homelander when he was that young. it's a little fuzzy how old he was in Diabolical 8, but the general consensus seems to be 18-20.

we know he already had a kill count in the lab. he killed several of his teachers/nannies by the time he was 13, maybe more after that. he experienced a deluge of being made to crave the love of humans while also coming to view them as disposable.

as toys, if you will.

vague potential spoilers for s4 and longwinded rambling under the cut.

in my (wholly uneducated) opinion, this is where the foundational fracture of baby John's psyche begins. he had three "core" members of his team who formed a dysfunctional parental unit. Barbara, Vogelbaum and Stan Edgar. i believe that as a child, John had genuine and strong love for both Barbara and Vogelbaum, whereas i think it's always been a fearful respect of Stan Edgar.

then there were the regulars who existed in periphery, but mainly as antagonists. such as Marty and Frank. think of them as like... creepy uncles.

the rest of the scientists and caretakers were nothing but nameless, faceless props. the first time he killed someone, they were swiftly replaced. same with the first, second, third... who knows how many he went through. who knows how many "accidents" Vogelbaum swept under the rug in his pursuit of the Perfect Hero.

that little smile we see at the end of the clip? that's all Homelander.

Homelander fundamentally does not care about people, but has a deep-seated desire for their approval, and does grow strong attachments on an individual level. this is the "split" that exists in him. this is the 16 year old that left the lab.

he was always going to latch onto someone and have little regard for anyone who wasn't them. no matter how well-meaning and kind that person was, Homelander would have been an extremely difficult (and frightening!) child to manage.

you think he's immature and temperamental now? try him from the ages of 16-25. yikes!

he may not have hurt anyone on purpose initially in that rescue gone wrong, but he had absolutely no problem covering his bases once shit went sideways. he was only afraid of retribution from Vought/His Favored People. he wasn't upset that he hurt people. he was upset he might not get away with it.

it would make for a really interesting fic to explore what would have happened if the hero "Homelander" had been scrapped entirely for whatever reason. if he'd been if he had fallen into the hands of someone who actually meant well, who would parent him.

someone who would love enough about him to teach him the fundamentals of caring about other people not just on an individual level, but on a conceptual one. whether or not he still could.

ultimately, Homelander isn't a real person. it's entirely up to the author whether or not he could or could not be "redeemed." he'll always carry the trauma of what was done to him, but at the very least, maybe he could come to understand some degree of empathy or compassion outside of himself.

either way i'd read the hell out of it!

[the-bitter-ocean]

10 12 and 15 for isat ask game :3

(FULL GAME SPOILERS + 2HATS/A6SE SPOILERS ) Thank you for asking these questions @aroace-poly-show ! I’m going to answer 10 since 12 and fifteen I’ve already in previous asks! If you’d like to know my answers to those you can find them here (ask 12) and here (ask 15) I have a ton of headcanons for both the setting of the game as a whole and also for individual characters but for now I think I’m gonna focus more on the world building aspect in this ask! I won’t delve into all of them but I’ll grab some that I talked about to my friends:

10- any headcanons about the in-game world? (about the forgotten island, craft types, just like. world building hcs, etc)

For the island I like to think the people living there would collect dandelions, folded paper cranes and looked for shooting stars because all of those are methods of making a wish. I also like the idea of there being festivals and ceremonies where people would make and light up lanterns to put in the sky. I also think that the Island had a close trade relation to places like Vaugarde (Bambouche specifically given how close it is to the island + both areas are coastal and how its cultural aspects seem to have major overlap in some areas as well with the favor trees etc). We don’t know a lot about the island or its culture in game but from what little we see from Siffrin’s memories and optional content in game it is very fascinating. I like to think out of all the countries the island is the more technologically advanced (given the studies on the stars and cultural practices of wishcraft/ time craft that region could have been the main ones studying it, hence the lack of info on either of these things once the island got wiped from everyone’s memories). I love when people in aus and fics and art explore the effects of this post game. Seeing everyone’s interpretations on whether the islands culture slowly gets remembered or more stuff about time craft/wish craft gets discovered or explore the effects of the color red being a permanent thing people can see now due to the events of act 5 is wild to think about.

In general I like seeing the different cultures views/ gods / faiths and belief systems and seeing how that affects the environment and characters who live within it. Odile mentioned having multiple gods aka “Expressions” (polytheistic) and that you build shrines / pray to only the ones you need in that moment, Mirabelle believes in the Change God (monotheistic) and Siffrin believes in the Universe (which to me reminds me more of a way of life/ belief system / conceptual idea of “Fate” itself rather than a conscious thinking autonomous being in the way expressions or the change god is ) All in all having these different elements makes the setting feel more open and interesting/ grounded in reality which u appreciate immensely. In the photos listed down below I said my personal HCS about the country of Mwudu since we don’t really get to hear about it in game aside from passing mentions and flavor text when you click certain objects.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Hello! May we hear/read more about Revelator, please? 👀

You wish to know about my original work??? Chatter mode has been unlocked with this query.

Revelator is my attempt to make my workaholic brain shut up. I struggle to continue finding purpose in writing fics when I can't capitalize on it. So I decided it would be a good idea to take the basic premise of one of my fics and apply it to my own original work to inspire me to work on something productive and maintain my hobby. That said, Revelator follows the general premise of my most popular fic, The Many Lives of Optimus Prime.

Rant incoming.

In a universe where humanity has fled to the stars after their empire was shattered by an unknowable entity, twenty sentient robotic units are created by a relic that humanity does not understand but still houses. Due to a series of misfortunes on the world they tried to terraform, the last remnants of humanity are wiped out, leaving the entire world to the Twenty and the relic that made them.

The main character of this tale is the only one out of the Twenty who foresaw the coming deaths of their human masters and was promptly ignored. After humanity fell, he tried to guide the rest of the Twenty into creating a civilization in light of more of their kind being forged by the relic. His vocal nature led to his destruction at the hands of one of his fellows. However, against the odds, he found himself returned to full functionality in a new frame and with newfound purpose.

The relic that made him and the rest is more than it seems. It has sensed the threat that doomed humanity and it has no interest in watching its creations fall as well. And so it has chosen a champion, one whose sole mission is to endure the test of time, learn, grow, and ultimately gain enough power to shape this fledgling race so that they might stand a chance against the doom that is coming.

My original work follows my main character throughout his various lives and throughout the various eras of his world. He will watch, he will learn, and when he has lived long enough to have gained wisdom, everything will come together with him taking power. In many regards, his tale will mirror my fic. However, I am taking care to create an original world with a unique race to inhabit it. I hope to make each life its own story so that there is always something new to see and explore. In a way, its my worldbuilding project. I also want every excuse to not write humans. I need to keep to my niche or I will lose interest immediately. Thanks TF.

Thus far I have twenty three pages written, nine chapters fully planned, and the second arc mostly conceptualized. Here is a snippet from chapter one.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━

“You were not made to serve us, child of the Mind. Your creator made you for a reason that far exceeds anything myself or the commanders of this vessel could ever envision.” There was something sad in the priest’s tone as the lift came to a stop. Nineteen found himself conflicted as he watched his master step forward and onto the platform that ran around the exterior of the Great Mind.

“That conclusion has no logical basis.” He managed to murmur as he followed the priest. There was always something strange about being so close to the thing that made him. The thrum of its crimson core always had Nineteen’s personal fusion core pulsing in sync with the greater machine. 

“Child of the Mind, you have so little faith. Look upon yourself and your siblings, then see the rest of those made by the Mind. You are unique, each and every one of you.” The priest paused and gestured to Nineteen, prompting him to stop in his tracks. The surface of the Great Mind shifted in time with the priest’s words. Nineteen would almost claim it to be in response to his master’s commentary if he were a believer in any capacity. 

“We have purpose, and we shall serve.” Nineteen stated simply. There was little thought in his response. Whatever the priest was getting at was beyond his design. He and the twenty were made to serve. That was all. The loyalty coding, their sentience, and all the rest meant very little in the grand scheme of things. Nineteen would still be disposed of if he proved a burden, regardless of the potential mysticism around him and his kin. 

“You shall serve. But it shall not be those of flesh that you give your loyalty to.” The priest smiled, and it was only then that Nineteen noted the cables running from underneath his master’s robe. They were part of the augments priests of the mechanicus received, and at some point during their short walk, those cables had connected to the Great Mind.

There was no railing separating them from the relic, and as such, there was nothing to theoretically stop the priest from connecting to the Great Mind. Even still, Nineteen found himself unsettled. When had the connection occurred? Why did his master’s eyes hold a strange gleam to them?

“I do not understand.” He stood stiffly, his gaze flicking between the relic and his master. The thoughts of machines did not often translate cleanly for organics. Perhaps the priest was confused and interpreting the logical processing of the relic incorrectly. The twenty were made for the express reason of serving those aboard the Eden. They had been told as such from the moment of their forging and it had thus far proven true. There was no reason to believe the murmured prophecy of the elderly human before him.

Despite that, there was a degree of unease that wormed its way into his mind as he watched the priest grin in an almost understanding way. 

“You don’t need to. I have a feeling it will make more sense to you as you age.” A red glow entered the priest’s eyes. It was hardly present, but to Nineteen who possessed far superior vision than any unaugmented human, it was almost impossible to ignore.

“Come here and pass me that cloth if you would be so kind.” Then, just like that, the moment ended and the priest disconnected from the relic. His cables slipped back beneath his robes into whatever holster they originated from and he approached the only work table on the platform. Nineteen quickly reset his optics and filed away the data for later review. It wasn’t important right now. 

[meenawrites]

Spider's BackUp Plan

Should I be studying right now? Absolutely. Am i? No, but if I get this out maybe it will put me at ease enough to.

SO inspired by a reply from @silverringeddragon, I've been thinking about how scared Spider is that he'll be sent to Earth once he's old enough, or just the possibility of being made to leave, especially after that one occurrence in the comics where he was almost forced to leave with his foster family, and just what that would entail for him.

I've seen this in a few fics as well, so I just wanted to put my take out there.

I think Spider 1000% has a very detailed backup plan for if anyone attempts to send him to Earth when he hits adulthood.

In my mind, as soon as he was old enough to really conceptualize that fear, and doubly so after he almost had to with his foster family, he's been creating a stash of things he would need to run off and survive on his own in the Pandoran jungle. That would probably include spare exopacks, any exopack batteries he could swipe without getting caught, maybe some knives, a bio-scanner, a plethora of arrows, his own bow.

He probably doesn't hide it at Hell's Gate either. I'd imagine it's hidden in the crevice of a tree of in the side of a burrow. Something along those lines that no one would know about. I think the only person who would know is probably Kiri. I'd imagine he had a stash at Hell's Gate or wherever the foster home was, but after that incident, he decided to move it out, and probably either got caught by Kiri or asked her help to find a place.

So it's just this massive pile of exopack batteries, arrows he continues to fashion and add to his collection–survival stuff ya know, and maybe one or two personal items he really can't do without. Like that one picture of him and Paz that's an absolute non-negotiable. Maybe some childhood favorite comic book–a worn thing that one of the scientist had brought with them when first coming to Pandora and opted to give to Spider. Just little things.

I think the one thing Kiri wouldn't know about is Spider's backup-backup plan. The only thing Spider REALLY needs from Hell's Gate and the human settlement in general is exopack batteries. He can't do without them (to this knowledge if he's in fact not Eywa blessed). SO, if he ran out of exopack batteries and found himself in a position where he couldn't get anymore, I unfortunately think that Spider would try to give himself to Eywa.

Kind of like in @eirianerisdar 's fic Half Alive, I really think he would go to the Tree of Souls, take off his mask, and beg to be taken into Eywa.

Pandora is not only the one place he knows, but also a planet he has completely fallen in love with. He loves everything about Pandora from the flora and fauna to the Na'vi's customs and way of life. I don't think he would leave for anything, even if he ran the risk of dying. It would just be very in character. I think going to Earth and being shipped away from this world he is entirely enamored with would crush his soul.

And damn if that doesn't make me sad as all hell for him (as if I'm not already sad over him constantly, every day).

[btheleaf]

What made you like Pema? :3 Just out of curiosity, I feel like she's a character many people tend to kind of ignore or dislike.

Short answer: Spite

(Very) Long answer:

Tenzin was my first love and obsession when I got back into LOK. I went to AO3 to read about him and his wife! and found the attitudes towards Pemzin... odd? The ship is way less popular than Linzin, which was strange to me at the time, considering Pema/Tenzin are literally married in canon. But hey, whatever, to each their own. Maybe people just like Linzin more. Lin is a sexy badass, so I get it. Maybe people don't wanna write about the air babies. Maybe the age gap or any other countless things were giving people the ick about pemzin. Fine. It's all good to me. I began to look for pemzin fics to enjoy and found 🥲 strange things.

Pema was usually written as some kind of man-stealing demon with a magic coochie that could make Tenzin bend to her will and stay with her despite the fact that he loved Lin more, but at the same time she was a dumb and useless broodmare? More often than not, the Pema/Tenzin fics seemed to be written by people who didn't actually care for the ship and had Linzin endgame in mind.

I thought, "Okay, I'll check out Linzin, surely with way more fics to pick from, I'll find something that focuses on Lin/Tenzin and not Bad and Evil Pema."

I was disappointed to say the least.

So much cheating and lying, so many secret babies. SO MUCH Pema v. Lin, which doesn't do anything for me. I could understand it if there were Actual Reasons, but it was like Pema was showing up to be an emotional homewrecker despite her being IN HER OWN HOUSE. I just... like what the fuck is going on there?

Why does Pema hate Lin SO MUCH? Did the stories ever touch upon that? No. She just hates Lin. Obviously. Lin dated her husband 20 years ago, so she hates her. Logical. Much logic. No explanation. Look no further. Your bad guy is here. Bye-bye interesting concepts. Pema is a bitch and a snake and a man-trap and she never loved Tenzin anyway. She just wanted to be a trophy wife who ushered in a new generation of airbenders. No explanation. Don't question it. She's one-dimensional in a 3D world.

Pema is everyone's favorite bad guy in Linzin fics all because of that one line from Book one that is honestly super fucking cringe about her "seeing her soul mate with someone else." Linzin shippers asked if anyone was going to demonize this mother of four and didn't wait for an answer.

Both Pemzin and Linzin shippers need to learn how to tag their fics for both "emotional cheating" and just straight up "cheating." Navigating this shit is terrible. I once read 50k of a very interesting concept, and then all of a sudden Pema came out of nowhere and just started acting like a jealous 13 year old for no reason and Tenzin QUICKLY left her and the kids to go be with Lin. Like?? I do not understand what the fuck is going on in some people's minds.

WHERE WERE THE FICS THAT PAINTED PEMA AS A WHOLE HUMAN PERSON WITH FLAWS AND WANTS AND DESIRES??? I think most of my comments started having "thank you for writing Pema like a person" somewhere in them.

When I first made this blog and Let It Be Known that I ship pemzin, I got a looooooot of weird anons asking me stuff about like, if I support cheating and shit? I realized that these attitudes towards Pema were not Old Beliefs. These were very real people in the year of 2024 still unable to conceptualize an interesting idea for a character that has SO MUCH room to play with.

We know jack shit about her. We know just enough that makes her entire character like candy to me. She's not around a lot in the show, but also somehow is always still right there? She goes through Some Very Real Shit in every season, and her absence from screen time is like free real estate to fic writers. I literally don't understand how so many people manage to summarize her entire being into the word "snake" and move on. The potential for expanding on her character is limitless because of how little we know. The more people try to stuff her into a box, the more I'll pull her out of it.

I didn't really care about Pema until it became clear that everyone else disliked her. The more people hate her, the more I love her and the more powerful I become.

I'm like this because of how the fandom treats her.

[bluepluto03]

I’m officially using my “reaction fic that’s really not a reaction fic anymore because I now need to write and conceptualize new scenes for them to react to” fic as just like a place where I can throw about 80% of my trolls ideas in an attempt to avoid creating a whole cinematic universe around this

Anyway things that are currently in my outline

- all of brozone went Grey at some point for various amounts of time

- poppy is feral and gets to physically fight creek (see my last post lol)

- a general look into each of brozones pasts and what it looked like for them to be alone

- the snack pack apologizing to branch for being jerks to him

- also just some scenes of emo angsty teen branch interacting with the other kids

[writing-for-life]

Sandman Master Post and Intro

Hi, I’m so glad you’re here! This started out as a small blog but has developed a horrifying (^jk) life of its own over the past two years, so it was about time I organised the links and tags to all my Sandman stuff for you to make it easier to find your way around.

I love getting asks, about analysis, about my fics, prompts or generally just to chat, so see this as an encouragement to slide into my inbox…

[For quick reference:]

[The Ultimate Sandman Character Tag Library]

[The Women of the Sandman Tag Library]

[Sandman Comics: Original Artists Library]

[Sandman Reread (Comics)]

[Sandman Rewatch (Netflix)]

[Sandman S2 News, Casting and Speculation]

[Sandman Reference: How to Collect the Comics, Companion Books, Annotations/Reference Literature etc]

[Sandman Movie Concept Art by Jill Thompson & John Watkiss]

[In Light of Recent Allegations]

Ordered by topics (recommended):

Sandman Meta-Analysis: My literary/conceptual/psychological analyses. I have also written some musical and art metas. You will find further links via all three.

The Sandman Book Club Community: Just follow the link if you’d like to join.

Sandman Fics & Poems: My own work, mostly m/f and f/f canon pairings and OCs, both long fics and shorter works.

I’m also Dream’s Therapist. I think we all agree he needs one.

Sandman Art (general tag that contains all art posts, from fan-art to gif-sets. Separate tag for official Sandman artists. Plus the very few pieces of my own art I’ve ever posted on here).

Sandman March Mania was an event we specifically ran for the comics art lovers, so check it out.

Sparkle Content Curation (a not-quite-serious collection of Dream/Morpheus thirst-trap fan-art and unhinged posts). Please also peruse the tags #contraceptive sparkles, #glitter herpes and #murphy and his cool hat (yes, I am sort of responsible for the #muhulhu tag on here) if this hell-site has left you in a state of being desperate for laughs

A Little Intro…

…and why this blog will keep on existing

Once there was a girl with so many words, so many images, so many songs in her head that had no place to go. So she decided some of them will just go here…

Well, that sounds a bit contrived, but it’s not entirely untrue. Apart from the “girl”-part, because I’m at the younger end of Gen X. Or the “no place to go”-part, because some of my work actually *did* go places. Just not the stuff I decided to put on here…

Which is mostly Sandman stuff right now, let’s be honest (I fell in love with it when I was 16, and it still has a tight grip on me three decades later). And the fact that my blog a wild mix between my metas, my fanfic and a bit of my doodling already shows the pull in different directions I have experienced for most of my life:

I guess I’m just a multi-hyphenate who can’t make up her mind what she wants to do with her life, so she tries to do it all and ends up burned out half of the time.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to publish a few novels under a pen name, and only a select few people know about it. And I intend to keep it that way.

I used to draw much more (mostly pencil and ink), but between working and having a family, something had to give, and if I have to choose, writing always comes first. But I doodle and experiment a lot in Procreate, and it usually helps me when I procrastinate on my writing. I drop the odd drawing in here (like my profile pic), but I don’t see myself as a fine artist, and I’m in perpetual awe of the talent I see on here.

This is just an account for unapologetically being me, with all my hyperfixations—and undoubtedly some pointless shitposts just for fun…

In light of recent happenings, I explained my personal stance and, by extension, why this blog will keep on existing.

[lord-squiggletits]

For the fic-writers' asks, if you fancy them:

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

4. What detail in We Are The Music-Makers are you really proud of?

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

Ask source

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Is it cheating to say Pay Unto Evil? It's not just because it's my most popular fic by all metrics, the longest project I've written, and the first complete novel I've ever completed, though. I just feel like, particularly in the later chapters, it's a good introduction to the themes that I often write about (mental health/suicidality, searches for meaning, bonds with other people, etc) and is the most complete summary of who I am as a writer in a way.

Though, if someone were to prefer something lighter, I'd honestly recommend An Endless Form Most Beautiful because out of all my fics that I started a year or two ago, I feel like AEFMB is the one that holds up the most strongly w.r.t. prose, characterization, romantic pacing, mystery, and so on. It's also dark, but far less grueling than PUE.

(On that note, it kind of amazes me how many people have told me they found PUE to be more depressing/hard to read than WATMM, considering the latter involves a bittersweet ending w/ major character death.)

4. What detail in We Are The Music-Makers are you really proud of?

Off the top of my head, I'd say that it'd be 1. Orion and Megatron interfacing right after escaping prison and basically cementing their love/bond with each other for the high emotion of the moment. I like how it (and moreso their later interface during their rebellion period) is incredibly romantic and affirming and shows how M/OP uphold each other's best traits, but it's also a little dark in that they're clearly codependent on each other and almost... not sane/well when they're not together.

Or 2. The major character deaths in chapter 6, both how I built up to them and how the characters actually died. That one is because that plot point was one I came up with from the very night I conceptualized WATMM, so in my mind, it had a lot of buildup to it. I knew what was going to happen from the start, and it was one of (if not the) most important climaxes of the story, so I was incredibly keen to be sure that the actual execution of it matched what had been in my mind for a year or more by the time I finally wrote it.

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

I'm really keen on the stuff I've been cooking for Cityspeaker AU Tarnma as far as the psychology of a Titan goes. Like, Tarn is a sort of eldritch being (already a fun concept in its own right) that has a sort of collectivist mindset; not in a hivemind kind of way, but his sense of scale and level of awareness is so broad, and he's literally a living nest/colony for his smaller species members to live on. The way that anatomical differences pave the way for massive differences in perspective. Hell, the concept has even opened my mind in general to the concept of like... almost insect colony-esque Cybertronian interspecies symbiotic relationships.

On top of all the mechanical and worldbuilding aspects of it, it's also been really fun to ponder how being a Titan would then in turn alter Tarn's characterization. Pharma's characterization is more or less a slightly different angle on what exists in canon, but for Tarn he has this massive shift in perspective that changes a lot. Not least of which is that Tarn is Tarn without having been converted by Megatron, but he's also not Tarn of the DJD that we know in canon, and neither is he Damus/Glitch. So there's just a lot to play around with there in terms of defining Titan!Tarn's key traits as carried over from canon, and how he'd express himself while also being an eldritch being that Pharma needs training to even talk to without dying.

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

IDW1 MegOP role reversal AU in which Megatron is a cop and Orion is a miner. No one else swapped: so for example, Megatron would be around people like Ratchet, Roller, and Senator Shockwave, and Orion would have Impactor and Terminus.

I think it'd be hella interesting to see how differently everything would go if M and OP were in swapped positions. Like as an example, Megatron probably would've been more conscious of stuff like Senator Shockwave putting the Matrix casing in him without asking and be aware that he was being manipulated somehow. Orion would very likely reject Terminus' teachings on how leadership is lonely and you have to cut off all your relationships so you can sit on the heights and do what you need to do. Or then again, maybe Terminus would be a slightly less evil (but still toxic) influence on Orion making him have the same martyr complex he has in canon.

And you could even do further splits from there like how Megatron deals with increasing evidence of corruption in the government, or how Orion would handle killing someone for the first time in the arena. You could fuck around with whether Megatron becomes the Prime or if Orion still does somehow. Honestly, I feel like in this scenario, M and OP would be way more likely to be able to meet peacefully and help each other out because... it just feels right to me that they would be able to see the evils and prevent their moral downfalls, but only when walking in the other's shoes.

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

I think there's a list of fics that've pushed me in some way or another, honestly:

Pay Unto Evil and The Wicked for finding a way to fit reasonably accurate psychology/therapy into a dramatic story, but without falling into purely clinical explanations for things or making it seem "therapy speak" ish

Cityspeaker AU/Un solo cuerpo is currently pushing me on how to accurately translate characterization from canon to an AU that's so wildly divergent from it, given that I'm normally extremely canon compliant and tend to work off canon divergence rather than completely making up a new AU with a different premise and new lore. This is my first plotfic that, imo, could be more accurately described as continuity soup/original continuity rather than being strictly IDW-based (honorable mentions to Let the Poets Pipe of Love for also having this conundrum)

Every single plug and play scene I've written, PWP or plot, for pushing me to try to describe eroticism from an entirely alien perspective without falling back on human-like sticky sex

For Once, Nothing is Burning, because writing a multichapter plot-focused story where there's literally only two characters present and they are each other's sole source of social interaction (and where the POV character is largely stuck in one place for most of the story) is harder than you think it'd be for someone who's been writing Megatron and Optimus as long as I have

Through the bitter, sweetness: Because trying to describe the eroticism of a foot fetish through strictly a written medium was a big challenge for a kink I see as way more visual/tactile and hard to make appealing with words/imagination alone.

No comment on how it's affected my ability to write moving forward because I basically forget about every story I write as soon as it's done AND because my brain is soup and I can barely keep up with real life, much less look back on hobby writing and do some sort of style study/reflection on it.

[letters-to-rosie]

You said last month that it's not Ekko if he's not involved in activism, anarchism, just actively doing shit to make a change. I absolutely agree. But you also said you "come out of a particular background and that means [you] have certain thoughts and approaches to social change that leave out things that others do and are involved in". Would you please elaborate further on that? Not just for writing Ekko, but for the sake of knowing and maybe applying to real life. You made me curious.

So I sat on this for a while not because I didn't want to answer it but because I wanted to answer it thoughtfully, and I've typed out some things that didn't feel right, but I'm going to try again now.

I tried to find the exact context for where I said that and I failed lol so I am working off memory, but again I will try.

So in terms of background, I'm a Black American. When I was young, I pretty much assumed that my family history would be depressing and I didn't want to look into it. And some of that is there: family trees that get lost once you hit enslavement, dysfunction you can pretty much trace right back to that period, having to explain to people that your family is on the light side not because of consensual relationships but because you're from one of those states that exported slaves, you get the deal. A byproduct of this is that by the time I was an adult and wanted to dig into it and found that there was actually a lot to learn, many of the elders I wanted to learn from had passed on.

That, mixed in with me trying to understand my... financially turbulent?? life led me to engage with black radical thinkers as an adult. And that led into left-wing politics in general. So that's like half of it.

The other half is I've always been the type of person who likes a hands-on problem. My approach to social change has always just been "find a problem and throw myself at it." And that translated into a social service background. Even now, to pay for my classes, I work in social services at my university, still throwing myself at a problem that's sort of followed me around for a decade or so now. I'm not in love with the conditions of trying to fight a problem within the walls of an institution that helps perpetuate them, but for me, the immediacy of people's needs supersedes any need I feel for ideological consistency.

On top of that, I study race. And media. So imagine my excitement when I see Ekko!

I don't know that I've ever encountered a character who checked so many boxes. He sees problems and throws himself at them. He practices radical compassion with people struggling with substance use. AND their victims. And even though he's fighting Silco, he knows that the problems in the city go straight to the top (I oughta write a fic someday where he does make it across the bridge and gets to yell at the council because he so deserves that).

He grieves. I've said before that grief is the emotion that has most defined my adult life. I feel like I'm always grieving. And Ekko models how you do that and keep moving. Rather than giving into the hopelessness of the setting, he creates a place where people can heal and be their best selves. AND HE HAS NATURAL HAIR!!! My natural hair journey is another story but it's honestly tied up in all of this lol.

He's like a treasure trove of things that matter to me, honestly. I'm not even sure how much I realized it at first. But as time passed, I'd keep going back to this character and thinking. His revolutionary spirit is truly to be admired. And I think that evolution in how I've thought about him comes through pretty clearly in my writing, as I come to fully embrace a bottom-up style of conceptualizing revolutionary thought and practice. I know I'll grow and change as I get older, learn more, and do more, but at this particular moment, I think Ekko has a lot of value for me.

So what am I not interested in? Off the top of my head...

versions of the character that leave out that political dimension. I'm not inserting politics into the show. The division between what is political and isn't is a false one. If the politics aren't registering, that's because they're close to the politics of the status quo

which is not to say I think everybody has to write him with politics fully foregrounded, but I wish more people would, you know?

and speaking of the politics, not really interested in ones that aren't radical. Not trying to pass a certain purity test, but we can keep in mind that Misfit Toys shows Scar beating up a dummy Enforcer, in gear. Which they probably got by fighting them. Fun!

another thing I think is key and I would like to see engaged with more is that Ekko doesn't view people using shimmer as enemies. I honestly wonder whether the Firelights know as much as they do about Silco's stuff because they have members who formally worked in the syndicate.

and I bring that up because another thing that the show as a whole and Ekko's interactions with Jinx invite us to think about is not viewing anyone as too far gone. I think in the rush to clearly delineate good and evil, we make too many lines and ignore the material conditions that motivate and contextualize people's actions.

and on that note, I don't like to make Ekko a paragon. I think casting him as a pure soul who is working tirelessly for his people ignores his indignation at the situation around him and how he is actively choosing, every day to do the things he does. I like to keep agency foregrounded.

To close, I wanna share some quotes, because y'all know I love reading revolutionaries.

“It is necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a force capable of announcing justice. For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation.” —Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“We have chosen a different path to achieve better results. We have chosen to establish new techniques. We have chosen to seek forms of organization that are better adapted to our civilization, abruptly and once and for all rejecting all kinds of outside diktats, so that we can create the conditions for a dignity in keeping with our ambitions. We refuse simple survival. We want to ease the pressures, to free our countryside from medieval stagnation or regression. We want to democratize our society, to open up our minds to a universe of collective responsibility, so that we may be bold enough to invent the future. We want to change the administration and reconstruct it with a different kind of civil servant. We want to get our army involved with the people in productive work and remind it constantly that, without patriotic training, a soldier is only a criminal with power. That is our political programme.” —Thomas Sankara, Speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations

“Let me just say: Peace to you, if you're willing to fight for it.” —Fred Hampton