#fan art made for a fic i wrote this is the fucking dream

[elysianholly]

So I have been pretty candid in recent years that Zack Wright, an OC in my 20+ year old Spuffy fic Harbingers of Beatrice, was physically modeled after Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who is in many things but best known as Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell. @flyora surprised me sometime back by creating fanart for Harbingers, including this bestie pose of Spike and Zack (Zangy). Well, MPG came to town for a con and I decided to have him sign this rather than anything, you know, he'd understand or recognize. And he was definitely confused, LOL, but a good sport. Now I just need JM to sign Spike's half.

Thank you again to @flyora for this amazing piece of art for Harbingers. If you'd told me 20 years ago that not only would it exist, but I'd have been bold enough to present it without explanation to MPG, I wouldn't have believed it. What a time to be alive.

[elysianholly]

To say I was floored to learn someone had commissioned art based on one of my fics is more than an understatement. It broke my brain. It still does. I have not recovered.

And just personally... Seven is the fic I poured the most of myself into of anything I've written in 20+ years. The fact that it resonates with anyone to this degree is one of the reasons why I've found writing for fandom so much more rewarding than writing for publication. Feels like this are more valuable to me than royalties.

Thank you to @tinkthatsme and @flyora so much.

My Spuffy fanart commission from the masterful @flyora inspired by the fic ‘Seven’ from the amazing @elysianholly available on @elysianfieldsarchive.

#I am beyond obsessed #exceeds all expectations #s7 rewrite #s7 supremacy #balm for my canon induced heartbreak #hollydb #flyora art #elysianfieldsarchive

[yogsandchaos]

Okay more seriously I made a post about when the Iskall stuff with the Hermits went down and I do want to reiterate a few points i made there again for the dream smp fandom, tommy fans, etc etc etc

1. just because someone has left or did a bad thing, doesn’t mean you’re a bad person for enjoying the content, along with still wanting to watch that old content they did or were a part of

2. Just because someone has left or did a bad thing does not mean you cannot continue to make fan content. While it’s understandable if you don’t make more or remove art you have made, you are also not bad if you don’t. YouTube is all about collaboration and transformation. Fanart? Fanfic? Cosplay? That’s all transformative, you don’t have to stop making a new thing from the old thing. It’s fully in your right to do so, but it’s not required.

3. Do not harass people about whether they do or don’t make art or delete art, it’s transformative works and personal choice, the most you should do is ask for it to be tagged so it can be filtered.

4. Be kind to each other, and remember the people you watch are people, and people do dumb or fucked shit sometimes, every youtuber has probably held an opinion or been a part of something you’d find distasteful, that’s just what it means to be human. It’s up to you to decide where your personal line is and your comfort levels on that stuff, and no one can make that choice for you.

I want to be extremely clear I am not saying this in support of dream, fuck dream, all my homies hate dream , I just want to be clear about my own experience with how fandoms who have had issues with problematic or shitty creators have best dealt with that fact while also balancing the creative side of fandom and how you can't always just delete them from the story and have it still make any sense or not need major revisions. It's a tricky thing, and everyone's lines and understandings and sensibilities will clash against each others.

In my own personal experience, trying to police the people trying to find their own balance between "this is a bad person who should not be given more attention" and "this is a story that means a lot to me along with had many other people who worked on it and i dont want to give up on it" never ends well. I don't want someone to get hurt because they still are updating their unfinished 40k dream smp fic or something.

While I hope Dream goes away forever, I still support people who want to keep writing with the dream smp setting, or manhunt ideas, or anything. If you don't want to see it or anything, that's perfectly fine as well, but be kind about it. Have some understanding of why some people may throw themselves into fixing it, while others distance themselves entirely from it. It's messy, and you need to be kind. Everyone handles this shit differently.

Creating something transformative is deeply personal and everyone's level of comfort will be different. You can have discussions about it in a general sense yes, but please be kind to each other okay? Don't attack each other over it. I don't want anyone to feel like their a bad person because they don't want to delete some random one shot they wrote four years ago because one of the actors turned out to be a piece of shit.

[tigers1o1]

Sit with me for a moment while I talk about writing, and growth. (And if you're a beginner to any creative hobby, I urge you to listen)

A few years ago, at the start of my fanfiction writing journey, I joined a discord server that was for fans of a specific fairly popular fanfiction. There were many writers in the server, not just the one that created the server. I didn't really write fanfiction upon joining this server, but it only took a month and a half for them to encourage and convince me to start writing. This was almost 4 years ago and I've been writing fic ever since (I've been writing for much longer, though)

One of the things I most vividly remember from my time on this server was when I was talking to the creator about how she was writing this absolutely massive fic (i believe its currently at 500k words, but at the time of this conversation it was still around 80k). And I remember asking her, "How do you write such long fics? No matter how hard I try, I can only barely manage to pass 10k." and she said,

"I don't know. One day I just did it, and now I can't stop writing long fics."

For 2 and a half years, I never really understood. I didn't get how a switch could just flip and suddenly you can do it. That is until November of last year, when I started writing a silly little modern au that suddenly surpassed 10k. And I was 2/5 chapters done. And then the third chapter alone was 12k. And the 4th? 16k on its own. The fic ended up being 47k words total. I have no idea how I did it, and I'm not here to brag, but it's also one of my proudest works.

What I am here to talk about is how it happened just like how my old friend described it. One day, the fucking spirit of little gay boys possessed me and I wrote way more than I ever had previously. And now? I'm currently writing my 4th planned longfic. It just surpassed 10k, but I'm expecting it to be 60k. And after this, I'm going to finish another long fic that's already my favorite thing I've ever written (it's about half finished at the moment). I haven't written anything under 10k in a while.

And something very similar happened with my art. I've been drawing for nearly 10 years. And one day, I drew something that suddenly, after years of what I thought was shit, I was proud of. And sure, I've made shitty drawings since then and my skill has regressed at times, but I woke up one day with the ability to make something I was proud of.

I'm not trying to give you the impression that one day you'll just magically have the ability to do what you're dreaming of. However, if you work at something and you don't stop, even when it sucks and you can only write a few hundred words, one day, you'll be able to look at your work and see something you're proud of. And you'll think, "Now how did that happen?" because at some point you stopped trying to get to your goal, and you just started enjoying the process.

That 47k fic was born of a pairing I loved, and it was written for someone I loved. And I started enjoying the process of creation, rather than thinking about how good I wished I was.

If I leave you with nothing else, I hope that one day you'll wake up and find that you are capable of the things you want to achieve.

[elysianholly]

NOTHING TO SEE HERE JUST ME LOSING MY EVER LOVING SHIT OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

«Don’t accept what you’re offered,

Don’t make any promises,

Don’t forget your name»

ff: «The Writing on the Wall» by HollyDB

3/9 of my Spuffy Collection (part I) ���️‍🔥

[payphoneangel]

For the ask game!!!

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app? 

hi this ask has been sitting in my inbox close to a year and its a good fucking thing you put the questions in here bc i would NAWT remember but!! I happened upon my favorite fanart and it made me think of this SO HERE I AM.

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

This guy!!!!!!!

as you already know I am a huge fan of this artist (i have two physical prints from his store) so OF COURSE my fav piece of fanart is from him!

I just love the color palette and the backlighting and the expressions and the YEARNING ITS ABOUT THE YEARNING. For only a 4 panel comic w/o any dialogue it does SUCH a fantastic job of conveying its meaning through microexpressions alone. I think its SUCH a good example of the less-is-more approach to story telling.

I could probably talk abt this piece for hours but i'll try to be quicker than that lmao

I love the amt of texture that Mr. Cowboy puts in his digital drawings. There's so much consideration when you look at the different brushes and color contrasts you see in his work that adds SO MUCH detail without the piece feeling too busy. Like seriously go click on the images to enlarge them and just look at the color blocking on the faces and where the highlights are.

This piece is in Mr. Cowboys style while still doing a great job of capturing the likeness of the actors without going into uncanny valley territory of hyper realism (nothing wrong with realism im just not personally a fan of it). I've always appreciated his style bc I love how evocative it is of those vintage posters or pulp fiction novels. And i think Dean and Cas just look real real good in the style. Plus I love some of the personal touches Mr. Cowboy added to their character designs!! Like giving Dean ear piercings and showing a chain around his neck (that is presumably a necklace)

THE RIM LIGHTING. THE RIM LIGHTING!!!!!!! I can't get over it. The highlighted dust particles floating through the air. How their hair and the tips of their noses have an orange/red tinge to them from the warm lamp lighting. How their profiles are haloed by the lamps (which was completely intentional if you read Mr. Cowboys description of the piece) THE FUCKING!!!!!!!! EYELASH HIGHLIGHTS!!!!!! and the way in panel 4 how Dean's eyes just get that much shinier. Like he's holding back tears AUUUUGH MR COWBOY IM CRAWLING THROUGH YOUR VENTS LIKE A RABID SQUIRREL

i am generally just a big BIG fan of like. how do i describe this. blocked gazes/close cropping in art or photos. I can't get enough of it. There's just something about it. Is it my fear of intimacy or eye contact? or perhaps that the piece becomes voyeuristic in nature from the audience's obscured view thereby implying that it is not FOR us and we are only seeing a glimpse into the complex world of the subjects???? Some combination of all of them????????? probably! but yeah i simply ADORE that we don't get to see Cas' expression!

The title of the piece is 'I had a dream and you were in it' which in the tags of Mr. Cowboys post is said to be referring to a Father John Misty song, presumably To S. which i LOVE FJM and im a huge slut for connecting other forms of art to music (hence why i always name my fics after songs)

Ok that was still a HUGE amt of rambling so I will be done now.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

this is from the next part of this series that YES I am still trying to work more on.

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

STRETCH BEFORE BED!!!! also shower by candlelight for the #vibes

📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?

But I wouldn't mind it if you did I wouldn't mind if you stayed over I wouldn't mind it if we stayed for the season Discarded logic and reason Found a new reality

uhhhhh i think these were potential lyrics for a song? Seems fun! Guess I'll have to get back to this WIP too lmao

Thanks for the ask <33333

[zenkindoflove]

Surprise self-rec time! Pick 3 of your favorite things you’ve written and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow writers to spread the positivity and help celebrate already written fics

(Added side quest from @achaotichuman, tell me what inspired your fics, why you love them so much etc etc, tell me EVERYTHING)

I can only choose three?!? *cries* Okay, I'll try lol.

...And Again Into the Light (Elucien)- This is a fic I cowrote with @crazy-ache. After our joint writing adventure where we wrote Dear Lucien, Dear Elain, we wanted to write together again. I suggested we write a horror romance story because I thought it would be a fun co-writing genre because we could leave each other with both spooky and sexy cliffhangers for the other to pick up. And that is exactly what we did. When we write together, we start with a basic idea and structure and we really "yes, and..." the rest of the process. I really like writing horror. It's one of my favorite genres and this was an opportunity for both me and Ariana to play around in that sandbox. And I think we did a DAMN good job at it. I think it's a pretty unique piece too, which is kind of a theme we've had in the projects that we've co-written. We both were really inspired by the idea of Elain and Lucien being trapped in a haunted house together, and what we ended up creating was a interesting exploration of the mating bond (because duh, it's them) on top of all the haunts and scares that were going on.

Kneel Before Me (Elucien) - I wanted to include this one because it was the first fic that came to mind when I read this question. I love this fic because both the inspo and the premise is kind of unhinged for me. This fic was entirely driven by fandom ship war wank. At the time, the new ship war topic of discourse was whether or not Azriel really could defeat Lucien in a blood duel, and the takes were driving me nuts. So, Kneel Before Me was me channeling my rage into art. The premise is Azriel and Lucien spar on the HoW's roof top and Azriel eggs him on into a real fight that tests the theory of who would actually win in blood duel like circumstances, followed by some hot Elucien smut where I might have went a little crazy writing an excessive paragraph long description of Lucien's dick because all of the bat boy obsessions, wing span jokes, and just generally people forgetting Lucien's existence and that he's HOT. And hey, look. I know when I'm cooking and I fucking COOKED with this fic. Even though I did tag it anti-Azriel because I wanted to be upfront that the fic doesn't depict him in a positive light, I've had a lot of Azriel fans read it and confirm for me that they don't actually think it's anti-Azriel at all and they like the twist I incorporated that made it all make sense and feel in character. Because even if I'm being a little cracky, I can't help but want things to make sense for the characters as they are.

Summer Heat (Elucien + Erixius) - This fic is my big multichapter fic that is now turning into a series with the sequel I'll write once I'm done with Pull Me in Deeper. The inspiration was really simple. One of my falling asleep day dreams included Elucien having some fun and awkward flirty moments in awkward and making out on the beach and I was like, "okay I keep thinking about this so I should write it." It definitely is an example of my first outline way underestimated the story it became. I didn't even initially have a plan to have a significant Eric x OC side story but once I created Alexius it really just became an animal of its own. This story I think is some of my best work in that it really spans the spectrum of my skills - comedy, romance, smut, angst, and generally a decent plot. It's the first time I made an OC. I did some new world building. And from experimenting with those the story blew up into something way bigger. I anticipate Golden Visions, the sequel, to be an even longer story which sort of gives you a perspective on how much I was inspired by both of those processes. At its core, I really wanted Summer Heat to be a romantic comedy. And I think it still has that essence but I'm not sure it can really be called that anymore with some of the angst and fantasy world building I built into it changed things. I also tried to write a slow burn for Elucien (and very much not a slow burn for Erixius) which I think I was successful at by my definition of a slow burn lol.

Thank you so much for this ask!!! This was so fun! I could write little paragraphs like this about all of my fics 🤣.

[elysianholly]

I've already said thank you, and there's not enough thank you -- not enough words, really, to express what it means when an artist makes art out of a story I wrote and surprises me with it. Just...you're awesome.

“No two people in this world are the same, Slayer. Reckon you heard that a time or two, so why the bloody hell would the way you feel things be the same? Not like love has a sodding checklist—not like it can be studied. You know it’s love because you know what love feels like for you. You can never know what it feels like for someone you aren’t.” – Drive by @elysianholly

[hillbilly---man]

A list of my works on AO3

(they're all Saiki K fics at the moment but I'll add fandom categories to this post if I ever get a new interest lol)

It doesn't fit my plans; it's something I don't understand

Published July 11, 2021

Summary: Saiki is fascinated by Satou Hiroshi, and the people around him start to see that this might be more than just a platonic curiosity.

What is this feeling called love?

[Notes: Bittersweet ending. Nobody gets together. My insistence on theming these early fics after songs is pretty embarrassing now. I'm not proud of my writing here but the story is ok. I might rewrite it someday. Not bad for my first fic since like 2003 though]

Something Changed

Published August 11, 2021

Summary: Aiura wrote a letter to her soulmate the night before they were supposed to meet.

She's predicted a lot of things... how could she have gotten this one wrong?

[Notes: Another sad ending. The format of this is almost entirely an excited letter about the future Aiura imagined that would never come to pass. Not really much of a story happening here tbh]

Won't it be strange when we're all fully grown?

Published August 28, 2021 (INCOMPLETE)

Summary: With graduation quickly approaching, the psychics of PK Academy (and Akechi) worry that they'll drift apart. Luckily, they come up with an idea.

"Let's all meet up in the year 2030!"

A lot can change in a decade.

[Notes: Kind of like a psychicker class reunion where they're all adults with jobs and everything catching up. Future chapters were going to have almost a Scooby Doo vibe (with a twist reveal at the end about Aiura's husband!) I abandoned it because I posted some art and someone called my art creepy and it made the whole fic feel bad to think about. Maybe I'll get back to it someday. It's cool to see how quickly my writing improved. I was also super proud of how well I wrote Akechi's dialogue here]

Hotel Valentine

Published September 24, 2021

Summary: Toritsuka Reita is a pretty lucky guy. He somehow managed to not get expelled from PK Academy, he graduated, and he's avoided creeping on any living girls for a few months. To celebrate, the PK Psychics paid for a one-night stay in the fanciest hotel in Tokyo so Reita can creep on the ghost girl of his dreams. Pretty lucky, right?

Too bad things aren't going his way. He's being ignored by the staff, he's bored out of his mind, and he can't find the ghost girl anywhere. Some vacation, huh?

[Notes: Spoiler: Toritsuka's a ghost stuck in a nice hotel. This is based on a concept album that most of you have never heard but hear me out! It really has nothing to do with the Cibo Matto album of the same title except that the chapters are named after the songs and there are fun Easter eggs for fans of the album. Another slightly sad ending but not too bad]

Coffee & TV

Published August 27th, 2022

Summary: The new silence in her house felt heavy on Kumi's shoulders. Everything reminded her of Kumagoro... especially her grandson Kusuo, who has been coming to visit more often than ever before.

[Notes: this is my least popular finished fic and I understand why. It's about grief and the loss of a grandparent. It's about the unique pain that a psychic would have after failing to prevent that death. There's a sad twist that TBH I think I was a little too subtle with. One of my favorites]

Friendly Fire

Published January 8, 2023

Summary: Being an adult is great until the Problems start. Good grief.

30-year-old Kusuo's psychic powers have been pretty well controlled for over a decade. Why are things starting to go haywire all of a sudden?

[Notes: Friendly Fire my fucking beloved!! In this fic, Saiki gets essentially psychic multiple sclerosis and has to deal with some complicated emotions. I don't think it's a masterpiece or anything but it was cathartic to write and I'm in love with the versions of these characters that I wrote here. So much so that I'm writing a sequel just so I can write more of them. Also, FINALLY a happy ending!!]

Ramen Ikouze?

Published April 28, 2023

Summary: After being dragged to get ramen with Nendou every week, Kusuo starts to realize that it's not so bad after all.

[Notes: I love Nendou, he's so good. This fic is very cute and about their friendship. A couple of fun twists]

Saiki has Plans?

Published May 2, 2023

Summary: Saiki mentions having plans after school, and the overactive imaginations at PK Academy work themselves into a fuss trying to imagine what he could be doing.

[Notes: This fic follows around a bunch of Saiki's classmates as they gossip and snoop to find out what he's up to. It's my most popular fic for some reason]

A Bright Flash

Published May 13, 2023

Summary: Saiki develops an annoying new ability, and through some comedy series logic is forced to tell Teruhashi about it. She tries to be a good ally to her "newly psychic" crush.

[Notes: Teruhashi accidentally finds out about Saiki's new power and he's like "fine. I'm a psychic. But it's just this one power and nothing else."]

Heat Wave

Published June 6, 2023

Summary: There's a historic heat wave in Hidariwakibara, and some of our favorite PK Academy students end up running into each other while taking refuge from the hot weather.

A series of four standalone (but connected) stories taking place at the same time:

Aiura has a vision of disaster, and she and Nendou try to stop it

Yumehara gives Toritsuka some advice to improve his game

Akechi meets Teruhashi's brother

Saiki really wants some shaved ice from the kakigori stand where Mera is working

[Notes: The summary explains it well but also I weaved so many connections between the chapters (that are all happening at roughly the same time). It was also a lot of fun writing interactions between characters that didn't get much in canon. Also you can tell it was hot as hell when I wrote it because I definitely gave Saiki some kind of psychic heat intolerance lol]

Immunity

Published July 6, 2023

Summary: She didn't know why, but Kokomi was finally able to see the truth.

Why Saiki seemed to appear and disappear without explanation. Why it seemed like he always knew what she was planning. Why he wore those weird hairpins.

It was all so obvious now.

Saiki had psychic powers.

[Notes: The veil is lifted suddenly and all the truths that Saiki kept locked behind his mind control were revealed to Teruhashi. He and Aiura have a chat with her about it. Also this was the first fic of mine that an IRL friend read (to my knowledge) and his comment was something like "I don't know anything about your boy but he sounds autistic and gnc" and I took that as a fucking compliment! You know you've written Saiki right when people can see that shit from space]

The Disastrous Financial Situation of Saiki K

Published August 9, 2023 (IN PROGRESS)

Summary: Adjusting to his new limitations has been annoying, and now Kusuo (age 31) needs a car to get around.

Unfortunately, taking time off work has drained his savings.

How is he going to get the money for a car now?

[Notes: This is my sequel to Friendly Fire but it's a lot lighter in nature. 100-Yen-Man goes around doing stuff for Saiki's friends. There are mentions of his disability from Friendly Fire and it's plot relevant but I think you can catch on even if you didn't read the original. I haven't updated in a while but I am actively working on it!! A Yumehara and Makino chapter next and then a Toritsuka chapter after that. TBH this isn't my best work and it's pretty unpopular but I'm having fun and that's all that counts)

[elysianholly]

My heart is so full

So @lystacre created this amazing piece of fanart that I, someone who has made it their job to decorate their house with as much Spuffy as possible, immediately knew I wanted on my wall. I asked if it was for sale anywhere and while it's not, Lyst was incredibly beyond gracious and offered to print it and send it to me (with me covering the costs for both).

I expected the print they sent. I did not expect a bonus drawing -- a scene from my fic, Seven. I received it today, along with Lyst's incredibly sweet note, and I am just bursting with all the feelings. Sharing here with their permission.

[hxhhasmysoul]

For ships: ItaFushi, Higuruma/Kusakabe, Sukuna/Kashimo

ItaFushi

it's complicated

What made you lose interest in shipping it actively?

I think there is a lot material in canon to get this ship going, especially from Megumi's side. The problem is I don't like canon Megumi much, I actively dislike fanon Megumi. And this ship tag is overwhelmingly fanon melancholic emo boy Megumi POV with Yuuji as his manic pixie dream himbo. And it actually drives me up the fucking wall. Or even worse, some of them write Yuuji as a selfish asshole jock?! Stumbling on a few of those really made me disinterested in even trying to look for the good stuff in that tag.

What would make you reconcile with this ship?

If at least like 30% of the writers actually put any effort into Yuuji's characterisation and at the same time wrote Megumi like he is in canon. He is very unpleasant in canon but that could make for an interesting dynamic. Also less Gojou as Megumi's loving caretaker would be great because that is not canon at all, I kinda can stomach Touji trying not to be a deadbeat dad in an AU but the Gojou thing is a slap in Megumi's face, and especially Tsumiki's if she's a part of the story. Oh, and what @yuujispinkhair actually mentioned today in a reply to an ask. This ship is much more tolerable when it's top!Megumi. Top!Yuuji is usually basically where the manic pixie dream himbo shit goes.

Do you have anything positive to say about it?

It's not all bad, there are a few really good fics there, it's just that sifting through the aggravating stuff takes a lot of time and I usually just feel like it. The art can be cute too.

Higuruma/Kusakabe

hmm? not really

Why don’t you ship it?

I don't really respect Kusakabe, he's kinda spineless. He did everything to do nothing during Shibuya. And then blamed Yuuji for Sukuna's crimes... And Higuruma is a very principled guy, one who was broken and disillusioned by the world but meeting Yuuji made him find himself again.

What would have made you like it?

Idk, actual growth on Kusakabe's part? Higuruma showing any interest in Kusakabe? Them having some interesting interaction?

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

Some people draw nice art of it.

Sukuna/Kashimo

seriously no, as crack it could work

What could make you ship it?

I find the Sukuna groupies funny.

What could you like about the ship?

And all of them could work as one-sided crushes, though when it comes to Yorozu, I'd actually be more interested in her getting over her crush and falling for Uro or Angel, or even some other guy. Like they all very strongly project their issues onto Sukuna, it's a very selfish kind of love they offer, one that really doesn't care for his opinion and he's very valid in having no interest in that.

In an AU setting where there's no fighting, Sukuna could sleep with his groupies instead of the fights. Or have like fan meetings? Or something else where they could try to catch his interest. And maybe succeed for a brief moment.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I'm honestly surprised this ship isn't more popular here considering how popular Kashimo is. Or their ship with Hakari. I guess their fight with Sukuna wasn't interesting enough, and Sukuna dismissing them didn't get the fan imagination going. Maybe it's more popular on other social media.

[elysianholly]

When I bind this fic, this is gonna be the cover. I am so fucking in love with it.

Two pathetic lovers from spuffy «Masquerade» by @elysianholly

Randi Joan Pratt.

«a bloody neon sign flashing I am Buffy Summers in his face»

im dying 😅

[erstwhilesparrow]

🍓 🏜️ ❄️? for the ask game? if you want also 🍬?

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

hm... taizi, i think! i started reading their writing right around the same time i started high school and i went, "wait. you can just do this?" i'd read fanfic before this but taizi's work was what made it click for me that fanfic is, like, A Type Of Writing, and you can do it really well, and put it in places where people will see it and enjoy it. so i did the thing. wrote lego ninjago fanfic in microsoft word on the days school started late and i had nothing to do in the hour before the bus arrived.

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

oh gosh, that's difficult. i think, and maybe this is too vague, maybe the ones that get into the crunch of the thing. i am always on my all fic is meta train, so i think comments that seem to Get That, and expand on or pull into the open my thinking are my favourites? also a big fan of when someone says something i didn't think about while writing, but is nevertheless There In The Fic! new insights! that's very cool to me.

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

oh god oh fuck. i'm gonna take 'dream' here as meaning i cannot personally Make It Happen because a lot of the things i could say i dream about seeing in a fic are also things i could just put in a fic and tada, there, not a dream anymore. so it's gotta be some kind of stupid plot-heavy ensemble cast AU because that's just not the kind of thing i know how to write well enough to be satisfied with if i did it. i know if you asked me this again, like, tomorrow i would probably have a different answer, but right now i am sighing longingly about some kind of empires smp modern au. catrina belovedgamers and i were talking in dms the other day about a circus au in which some of the strays, stowaways, and outcasts of the world discover, with great joy, that they never have to go home again if they don't want to, and the idea of scott and shrub and joey (these three specifically, yes) getting happy endings amid the shenanigans of Circus makes me really tender. but it also has to be sad and difficult. it has to Deal with the corruption and xornoth and the fact that none of this is easy, and scott still has to try to kill himself and joey still has to get tangled up in xornoth and be just as prickly as he always is and shrub still has to lose everyone. and that's Just the three newest runaways this circus has picked up, all of wra is still here too, and so are pix and lizzie and joel and jimmy, so. do you see why this would be really fucking hard to write,

who would write it best? for it to be warming and gentle all the way through like a cup of tea at just the right temperature, probably taizi. but for it to pluck out the sad and difficult bits exactly right, probably alouette_des_champs, who consistently does The Best modern aus for pretty much every fandom they've written for. they are not in mcyt fandom at all, but they did this with drawga (comedy art actual-play web series), and atla, and naddpod (actual-play d&d podcast, also mostly comedy), and if there's anyone who could do this right i bet it's them.

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

[guy who deliberately surrounds itself with people who have good fandom opinions that it generally agrees with voice] do i have. unpopular opinions. about popular fandom characters.

i think canary jimmy is deeply boring and gets focused in on to the exclusion of almost all the Interesting Things Literally Happening On The Screen? i have total faith that it can be a fun/useful/interesting framework with which to consider [jimmy in the life series] but mostly i think.... jimmy's got a personality in there. it feels weird that he seems so popular but so few people have Things To Say About Him outside of what he represents to other life series members.

i dunno, that feels like a really easy take to have, just disagreeing with The Most Popular fanon. and maybe i haven't Reviewed The Literature enough. but that seems like it meets the requirements. so!

[writing-for-life]

Thank you for an amazing 2023!

About metas, fics and sparkly things…

This won’t be short, but you wouldn’t expect that from me, would you? 🤣

I’ve been on Tumblr for just a bit over a year because I needed to get off my family’s back after my three decades long Sandman brain-rot got worse again due to the Netflix series. I hovered around a handful of followers for months until things exploded (I still don’t know why tbh, I think it was one particular meta that kicked things off a bit), and I somehow ended up with hundreds of followers, which might not be much to some, but it’s a lot for me.

So to all of you I’d like to say: Thank you for being here. I don’t always manage to stay on top of things because my notifs are a mess and I lose track, plus I have a rather busy life and can often only write in batches and then queue, but each of you is appreciated, even if I accidentally forget to get back to you or if we aren’t mutuals.

I’ve made such lovely connections over the last year—my interest in The Sandman definitely does not align with the main focus that shan’t be named, and I’m glad that you folks are out there. You probably know who you are.

Now to the obligatory “your posts wrapped” thing—and I’m only doing it because I need to make a point (of course I do 🤣).

News and art

My by far most successful posts have been casting/shooting news and pretty pictures (two examples are linked). And I’m grateful for all the reblogs and likes of those, but apart from curating them, they’re not really me. They’re someone else’s work.

Meta analysis

Then you have my metas, which make up the bulk of the other posts that are doing quite well (you can find all of them in my pinned post).

Even if it wasn’t my most “successful” one (what does that even mean?), this one meant the most to me:

I love writing metas, whether they cover literary concepts, psychology, music or art because I’m a permanently brain-frazzled multi-hyphenate who has to talk about everything that won’t leave her alone.

I also love when you’re sending me asks btw. For the latter, I hope they pick up again in 2024 because they really nosedived since I switched off anonymous asks (which I won’t change, soz) after some people just thought it’s good sport to be an arse about my not being here to pray at the altar of the ship. I guess we have briefly covered the ugly side of Tumblr, too, then.

Writing

But what I'm most proud of when I think of all the things I've done in 2023 is my fiction and poetry. And that's both a happy and slightly sad thing to address.

My 31 Haikus for Sandtober started as a bit of fun, but they’ve developed a life of their own, and people seemingly liked them. The post also contains a bit of my fan-art:

I still intend to turn them into a hardcover at some point, but I won’t be able to create all the artwork myself, so if you’re a fan-artist and want to know what I’m thinking of, please get in touch (I’ll still talk about this in more detail at some point though).

The other thing I’m incredibly proud of is “The Light of Stars”.

I started it as a NaNoWriMo project in 2022 (I always use NaNo to do something that is less stressful than my professional writing projects), wrote it in a bit more than a month—and then did nothing with near 80,000 words until June 2023.

And then I thought “Fuck it,” and published it on Ao3. It’s a canon x OC fic, and this is where it gets a bit sad. Because for most of us writers, these are never the posts that get most engagement (the ratio is really something like 100 : 1 — 500 for a shitpost, 5 for an average writing post).

On Ao3, it gradually picked up because I published chapter after chapter, and I think I can say that it’s done fairly well over there in terms of engagement for an OC fic, and above all how people engage with it. Because it’s a bit deeper despite being romance, it deals with heavy topics like grief, and I’m so glad to have touched a few people’s hearts with it, and that it was meaningful to them. So much so that you all convinced me to write a sequel.

But here’s the thing: The general engagement with writing, especially non-explicit, non-ship, non-readerY/N on Tumblr is very, very low.

Writers who write canon x OC are still struggling to be heard through the noise (it’s not just me, I’ve had many conversations about this, so I’ll just say: I’ll speak for many of us). There are basically hardly any events for us to participate in (most of us only ever do so if we shift to canon one-shots, poetry or metas. If we don’t: Again, no one cares), and fandom often actively chooses to ignore us because “all OCs are self-inserts, ew.” Which is patently not true, and I could go on a long rant now why many canon x canon fics are very obvious self-inserts, which I won’t.

But even if all OCs were self-inserts, even if all characters were—so what? All writing is to a degree based on self-insertion because it comes from our brains—it’s not a bad thing. But apparently, it becomes a bad thing if the character is an OC, heaven knows why.

So if I had one wish (I’m allowed one, right?) for 2024, it would be that people engage more with OC fics and include them more in community events. That fandom, which prides itself in community, includes writers who don’t write for (the main) ship/s a bit more, especially if they don’t write smut (which I personally even do professionally, but I don’t want to have to do it in fanfic just to get engagement). I’m not holding my breath because I know that’s not where fandom’s oft single-minded focus lies, but a girl can dream, right?

And with that, I want to get to my proudest accomplishments of them all:

Being the curator queen of the sparkle realms:

Being one (arguably the main) instigator of the maddest crack ship that has ever graced (?) the face of the earth, spawned the most unhinged discussion (much truth in it though 🤣) and even NSFW fanart. I promise I’ll write that fic about Murphy and his Cool Hat:

Have a lovely 2024!

[alexissara]

The Best of Me 2023

I did a ton of writing on tumblr this year, with at least one post a week but multiple weeks with 2 or 3 posts in a week. I've worked hard to make writing that is relevant to my fellow sapphics and artists. I want to talk about the stuff I wrote this year I am most proud of.

Note: This list does not include my articles for Anime Feminist because they are professionally edited therefore a cut above anything I am posting on tumblr but please do read them here and tell them you want more articles by me [I actually have more to write for them ooops].

Why Hunt Monsters?

I am so proud of this little article, for me this is one of the things I feel very strongly about. As a TTRPG player I have found myself retreating from a lot more games because I just can't get behind, we murder monsters plots and I was really happy to share my perspective on this fairly taken from granted feature of games.

How To Find Sapphic Media 

This little guide to finding Sapphic Art was really important to me because well, I was really tired of seeing people say there was not compelling art about and by sapphic women and so I wanted to make a base level resource for finding amazing sapphic shit.

Sapphic Games Goddess List

In my efforts to make Sapphic Art more known I have worked really fucking hard to research what sapphic games are coming up so people wouldn't even have to put in the effort to go hunting them down. I want people to be able to live out there sapphic dreams and so it's important to me to share what I am researching for my own play time since I at this point really only play games I can be a lesbian in or otherwise are standout in gameplay with probably no romance instead. I even did an updated version of this list since most of the games on the first list have come out and I am working on the next one as we speak with more new additions gearing up.

Why Obsession Hits Different When Gay

I love diving into queer theorizing. I am not going big brain citing a ton of people or doing a lot of academic research but I like to share my own thoughts, experiences and the stuff I have learned over years especially as a writer and general creator of sapphic art. I think it's a perfect little rebuttal for folks who may claim there is a "double standard" that lesbians have or something.

Polyamory Is Queer

This is a deeply personal little blog post I did where I talked about why polyamory is so important to me and why it is in fact queer. I have seen so many people demonize polyamory over the years and I was just tired of seeing people in my own community bullying other polyamorous folks.

Fantasy Vs Sexuality Labels

As a writer this is maybe one of the things I feel most passionate about a creative choice for my fellow queer creators. I really wanted to make my case on why we should use labels in fantasy worlds and why these labels matter for stories.

My entries for Edelgard Rarepair week and Monica Week

I from time to time to time write fan fiction and I had a blast doing it this year for two different week events going with both the Edelgard Rarepair week and the Monica fics week. I love Three Houses/Hopes so it was a blast to throw my passion into something even if in general I don't like to be a free marketing arm for companies by making creative works like those.

TTRPG Characters Need Trauma In Their Backstory

I had one person who utterly hated this post and started attacking me in basically every post I made on some social media site I abandoned because of it. That alone makes me love this post even more because it made me sit down and think about this post and feel even more assured that what I wrote is correct and that trauma is in fact needed for TTRPG characters. I think I wrote something that really dived into the idea of what is trauma, how trauma relates to us as humans and why it's basically propaganda to remove us from trauma.

Trans People Deserve More 

I feel super strongly about this article, I sat on it for a long time but I've met so many other trans people with awful relationships and mild relationships with their family. I wanted to make a shout out to all my fellow trans folks to tell them that it's okay to demand more, that we don't need to settle.

A Dive Into Heather 

I adored diving into one of my all time favorite Fire Emblem characters and it's something I've wanted to do more of. I'd love to do more dives into characters in video games I like and I did well before this post have a series of drafts that I still have up as a series that particularly is just a bit by bit break down of Edelgard's political beliefs.

[butchladymaria]

1, 2 and 17 for the 🔥violence🔥 ask game?

also revisiting this SUPER late but -

OG POST HERE!!!

the character everyone gets wrong

would it be cliche of the guy who wrote a whole long thing about how the doll is misunderstood to say the doll is misunderstood? probably. i'm going to anyway though.

i feel like a lot of folks sometimes miss or overlook the horrifying implications of the doll? i wonder if a partial reason the horror innate to her character slips through the cracks is because she falls into the "level-up maiden" trope of the soulsborne series; which seems to be comprised of generally soft-spoken and/or somewhat submissive feminine women who help the player progress (even if they have goals of their own). i'm not here to argue that my interpretation of her is objectively correct here - but i do think the takes that posit her as a willingly subservient idealized fantasy of a woman are... shallow at best? it feels like some folks piece together that doll is made in the image of a dead woman by gerhman, and then... simply do not wrestle with the Implications of that.

for another example of this, just see adella. she seems to be reduced to "yandere psycho" at her most complex in a lot of fan interpretations, despite so much evidence indicating that it's much deeper than that.

all these examples make me wonder if the sentiment, subconscious or otherwise, that women are "meant" to be submissive and gentle is what leads these portrayals to go unquestioned or seen as more "normal" than if it were a man in that position. even maria, a canonically gender nonconforming character, has people bending over backwards to explain how she is actually totally a good little gender conformer because she... wears a hair ribbon…? (i wish i was exaggerating that claim but that has Been in my inbox lmao)

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

i've given this a lot of thought, anon, and come to the conclusion that the best (and maybe funniest...?) interpretation of this question is to answer it as follows:

miss doll would indeed never top OR bottom, mostly because i see her as asexual. i feel like the way she unless you want to consider the implications of gerhman pulling a victor frankenstein and giving his creation working sex organs. but i like to think we live in a nice world instead of a world where that is canon. eugh.

then again, i guess doll body probably isn't stopping ranni from bisexually topping the tarnished...? hmm.

in all seriousness i don't tend to have strong opinions on top/bottomhood for bloodborne characters, because i think they're mostly too catholic to fuck!

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

MORE BLOODBORNE YURI!!!!!!!!!!! vampires were literally and unironically MADE for lesbian barely-concealed-subtext babey!!!!

MORE BLOODBORNE TRANSGENDER!!!!!!!!!! i love trans people's takes on bloodborne! body horror is transition goals if you're not a coward!!!

i also just love cainhurst - artfight was a dream bc i saw SO many cute little knights :)