#fic: chirality

[cringesatan]

thinking about madarame watching towa sleep after they hooked up, and it was usual for them to hook up now, but this time towa curls in on himself while he sleeps, he makes small sounds and twitches and it reminds madarame of a kitten, towa looks so vulnerable like this. then he starts groaning in pain, the slight twitching turns into thrashing, but madarame doesn't wake him up. he watches attentively as towa mumbles 'no' repeatedly, watches as he grips the sheets with white knuckles, watches as he calls out for his mom, once.

he told towa he fell in love at first sight, and it is indeed true, but it was at that moment that madarame decided towa would be his pet. towa needed him, he couldn't take care of himself not even in his own dreams. he was beautiful, intelligent, strong. like a house cat. what to do if towa's own instinct wasn't enough to keep him safe?

madarame would. madarame would feed him, pet him, keep him. madarame would take care of him.

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

Summary: Carlos moves to Night Vale and finds himself slowly falling in love with Cecil. There's just one problem: Carlos' ex… …Kevin. But then Strexcorp comes to town. Then Kevin comes to town. And if the battle for Night Vale looks set to be difficult, it will be nothing compared to the battle for the heart of its favourite scientist.

Author: Shadow_Side

Submitter: @dandelioncasey

Note from submitter: Warnings for blood and gore, especially in later parts of the series (and ESPECIALLY in the AU fic Believer by the same author)

[gayleafpool]

Varian ran to Quirin hysterically sobbing and trying not to throw up while explaining that Dr. Quack is gonna get removed from Webkinz because he cured every disease and Quirin was like "is that... good?" And Varian was like "NO"

varian hates universal healthcare we need to cancel him

[ectogeo-rebubbles]

fanfic end of year asks!

a fic you didn’t expect to write

something you learned this year

fic(s) you completed this year

fics you’ll continue next year

Thanks for the ask! ^_^ (For this ask game.)

14. a fic you didn’t expect to write

speech is silver, silence is golden, lmao. I really truly did not expect to write Garak/Morn smut. But when my friend requested it, I knew exactly how to write it lol. <3

15. something you learned this year

I may have already learned this, but exchanges with delayed fic reveals and then author reveals a week or so after that are BRUTAL on me, and I may (or may not) just avoid them from now on hahaha. The usual fic-posting waiting-for-comments anxiety but drawn out over a muuuuuch longer time period (finish the fic before the deadline to submit, wait a million years for it to even get revealed anonymously, then wait another whole week before I can even link to it on my blog...).

16. fic(s) you completed this year

27 fics finished this year!! Wooooo! (...And I may update this post later if I post any more hehe.)

completed fics posted:

the looking-glass war (Past Prologue Sisko POV, background Garashir)

and if you don't love me now, you will never love me again (Garashir, Broken Link getting together fic)

lockstitch (Sloanshir, embroidery as torture, sometime post-IAESL)

partners in crime (Siskarak, post-ITPM smut)

kiss me hard before you go (Garashir, Extreme Measures getting together fic)

Unlikely Weapon (Garashir, Julian killing Sloan = Garashir getting together scenario lol)

a contract is a contract is a contract (Quark/Brunt smut set during Body Parts)

me and the devil walking side by side (Siskarak smut about devotion and corruption and recognition of the self in the other and all that good stuff)

you're a criminal as long as you're mine (Siskarak smut set during Second Skin, about crossing and setting boundaries, and the homoerotic relationship between a weapon and its wielder)

speech is silver, silence is golden (Garak/Morn smut with pre-Garashir feels. Garak obvs gags Morn during the sex lol.)

every breath you take (Sloan records Garashir having sex)

going up, going down (cracky Siskarak smut, blowjob in the turbolift during ITPM)

A Professional Interest (augmentphobic Sloan interrogates Julian)

Deserted (Garashir stranded on a desert planet)

touch (Garashir IPS/BIL missing scene multichapter fic)

fics for events/exchanges that had restricted word counts (250 words or 300 words):

gaslight gatekeep girlboss (Kira/Winn and Kira/Ziyal, exactly what the title says lol)

the pros and cons of being possessed (Kira/Keiko, argument about what happened to Kira in The Reckoning and what happened to Keiko in The Assignment)

feels so right (Jadzia/Kira, Kira's fun way of coping with her internalized homophobia)

both lips on the mirror (Intendant/Kira, mirror Kira is obsessed with her counterpart)

not unfaithful but I'll stray (Kirawinn, Strange Bedfellows)

chirality (Intendant/Kira smut, Crossover)

drabbles (100 words):

lying down with dogs (Siskarak smut)

i think we're alone now (Garashir, IPS/BIL cuddles)

The Descent (quodo, The Ascent smut)

never loved nobody fully (Disko, two alternate versions provided depending on which Cardassian you want Sisko to actually be into lol. also some amazing people made a podfic of this, which is just so cool!!!)

The Mole (Sloan vs Kukalaka >:3)

sunshine bouquet (Garashir fluff, DBIP)

aaaaand, not fics, but while I'm rounding everything up, here's links to the two amvs I finished this year too:

Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls - Garashir (tumblr, youtube)

meet me in the pale moonlight by Lola Violet (tumblr, youtube)

17. fics you’ll continue next year

Sleep Awake is my only partially posted wip, but I have many unposted wip documents that I intend to post next year (or whenever I finish them)! These include wips with document titles such as: siskarak strip poker, Sub Rosa sloanshir, soulmate sloanshir, aphrodisiac sloanshir, Inquisition in the Abscess 'verse, julian jealous of imagined siskarak, and garak jealous of imagined sloanshir. :) (P.S. - Anyone can always feel free to ask me about any of those and I will immediately go write/edit at least a sentence on it. Trick me into making incremental progress on my shit, please!)

[nightskyfoxyy]

Quick rendition of a scene from @niobiumao3 s' wonderful fic Chirality.

They have very selective hearing. A dangerous little duo!

Highly recommend reading the fic! Its a wonderful read, and its doing so much justice to Tech and Phee especially. I love it very much and am so honored that the girls have their place in it too! >v<

[serenityhime1]

Reflections Chapter 10 is up! It's bittersweet for me to be wrapping up this project, but I am so incredibly grateful that everyone has been so supportive of my writing experiment and I've truly enjoyed reading everyone's feedback. It's also encouraged me to do more experimental stuff in the future, so you can look forward to that :)

I'm thinking about doing a Q&A on this fic. You can absolutely ask questions in the comments, but if you have burning questions about the story, things that weren't explicitly shared, things you'd like to see answered, or want to know more about the process/how the sausage was made on this one, feel free to send them to me!

If there's interest I'll put up a post maybe mid-week answering questions (with things hidden behind a cut to avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn't read the whole story yet, of course.

Thanks again for taking these journeys with me, friends.

[bronte-deserves-better]

*wrestling announcer voice* New fic posted!

Title: Chiral

Wordcount: 8277

Summary:

adjective: chiral of or relating to a molecule that is not superimposable on its mirror image - Sophie tugs nervously at her eyelashes with one hand, reminding Tiergan painfully that however brave and brilliant she is, she’s still an anxious teenager trying to find her place in this world. “I- I wasn’t sure about this, but I figured that you would get it.”

Before Tiergan can ask what ‘it’ is, she pulls out a necklace from under her tunic.

Grief sticks like a knife in his throat.

The gold-and-ruby phoenix gleams proudly in the light from the window, and Tiergan- Tiergan can’t do this. - Or, Sophie reveals a secret that forces Tiergan to confront griefs that he thought he'd left in his past. Bronte helps.

(sequel to Avowal, and part of the Ancillary series)

AO3 Link

[marabarl-and-marlbara]

hi Mara, i reread your old A:N fanfic the other day (the hatecorp one), its really interesting and i liked it!! i just wanted to tell you that + im looking forward to the next A:N fic you write ^^

hey anonymous, i appreciate that--really: i don:t think my readership is particularly high and for most of my writing i wholly expect its reception to be little more different than tossing it into a bin, so i:m always pretty happy to hear someone read/liked something i wrote (like someone snuck it out of the bin and read it);

the hatecorp fanfic is a weird one because it was my first 'clash' with going against autofiction and feeling of friction from writing simulacrum of experiences that are not my own--although i:ve been to Clearwater and talked to Scientologists and bought the books and read the books and visited teeny tiny little orgs and been yelled at by protestors and watched the Sea Org march about stony faced before entering shuttles that scuttle around the roads--i had not paid for any courses and my attempts to join the Sea Org were waved off; the hatecorp as it exists for me would stop at the org and with telling the receptionist that i want to join the org, and going home after.

i think it was part ~2 of that fanfic where i felt like i had no idea what i was writing except that i did not like the feeling i had while writing it, "i:m just regurgitating knowledge i know"--it was a fanfiction i couldn:t write with any real heart, so it only had the simulacrum of anothers heart; parts 1, 3, 4 were mostly from me (i still write about the founding sister; there are several unfinished stories about her), but it also wasn:t coincidence that immediately after writing that fanfic i decided to value my own experiences more highly and became fixated upon the Adventists and Ellen White and started re-attending my local church where i had gone for schooling and rehabilitation, and that basically all my writing after became a murk of Adventism and chirality, because, after-all: i am haunted by a ghost of adventism and christianity.

the latest fanfic i:d been working on ('which you can read as a draft on my substack on the monthly paywall posts >:-))' feels like dirt advertising a clunky draft, but i do put all my drafts in those posts) is focused on viva because, lately, i:d been wanting to reconnect with 'old mystiques,' spoon-bending, silvery flying saucers, cattle mutilation, almond-eyed aliens, crop circles, ESP, telekinesis, gangstalking, and of course: 5G, though mostly grafted onto john keel's superspectrum stuff from eighth tower--a move away from Love Corp, and a move away from a childhood in scientology that was not my childhood; i wanted to write about those blue cars i keep seeing, because i keep seeing them; just yesterday they pulled up on the shoulder and far into the grass and nudged up against the sidewalk as soon as i approached and waited for me and idled. there was that anonymous question about "what i would like to tell someone," which i still think is a silly question because as i view myself i have become stuck on a single paranoia and religion that has threaded itself through every single thing i have written and every single thing i have drawn, and every-thing is a desperate attempt to seed that singular rotten datum into everything else in different weathers and soils--and this fanfic is no different, because i can only write from the hauntings of my own experience.

fifth linebreak,

sixth,

seventh,

take care anonymous, thank you very kindly for your readership; unrelated note: i was thinking about "daydream season 3 castle rock" and what i would want to see is "protagonist is a Christine possessed teen who is starting to see the 'shitters' that are befouled by his car, and his attempt to survive the very real infection of the outer-space saucer filled with dead Tommyknockers that are haunting the town from a mile down inside the earth--sideplot is the advertising firm from Cujo is trying to establish itself within the infected town but is facing John Carpenter They Live style opposition"

[tech-aficionado]

I need everyone to stop what they are doing and join me in my latest fixation.

I’m seriously considering a AO3 book club and making a discord server dedicated to reading and sharing fic. I’m already on a few TBB servers (and I know there are many amazing ones out there too!), so maybe one more would be overkill? Idk.

Anyway, @niobiumao3 has crafted something ASTONISHING and yall need to come with me into this CX-2 Tech rabbit hole because my gods it’s incredible.

[gvtted-ratz]

>request/idea rules<

requests: open

>MXTX<

literally just about any character from mdzs, tcgf, or svsss

>GAMES<

error 143

micah yujin

john doe +

john doe

duskwood 

richy rogers, phil hawkins, jake "hakermen", thomas, daniel "dan" anderson

nitro+chiral

just about any character from any games they have, just ask

killer frequency

forrest nash, henry barrow

the price of flesh

machaete, thomas (tom), jackal (jack/dean), derek goffard, matt goffard, mason heiral, dragon (jace/jason), komodo (mike/michael), the announcer (fox/ren hana)

studio investigrave games

rody lamoree, vincent charbonneau, protagonist, co-worker, normal guy, fake protag, fake co-worker

call of duty (+modern warfare 2)

könig, simon "ghost" riley, kyle "gaz" garrick, john "soap" mactavish, alejandro vargas, rodolfo "rudy" parra, gary "roach" sanderson

>HORROR/THRILLER<

slashers/antagonists

billy lenz (black christmas 1974), brahms heelshire, martin mathias (martin 1977), harry warden/the miner (og and remake), asa emory (the collector), jason voorhees (og and 2009 remake), michael myers (og and rz remake), lester sinclair (house of wax), vincent sinclair (house of wax), mark hoffman (saw 4/5), lawrance gordan (saw 2004), hannibal lecter (nbc hannibal), will graham (nbc hannibal)

final/”good” guys

arkin o'brien (the collector/the collection), nicholas "nick" henry jones (house of wax), peter strahm (saw 4/5), adam faulkner stanheight (saw 2004), david radford (saw 0.5)

>TV/MOVIES/WEB-SERIES<

the batman (2022)

the riddler/edward nashton

marble hornets (2009-2014)

masky/timothy "tim" wright, skully/jay merrick, alexander "alex" kralie, hoody/brian thomas

>WILL NOT DO<

• incest

• suicide

• ddlg/ddlb

• scat/urine

• pregnancy

• heavy angst

• age regression

• teacher/student

• sa/rape/non-con

• full smut/sex scenes

• illnesses/issues we're unfamiliar with (ask)

• underage/child anything (papa, uncle, child, etc. reader &/or character) - this includes childhood friend AUs

• fem reader (including pronouns/detailed anatomy due to high discomfort) - anything else is fine

>CAN/WILL DO<

• fics (1k+)

• past abuse

• headcanons

• past self-harm

• drabbles (100-1k)

• alpha/beta/omega

• polyamory relationships

• blood, gore, violence, etc.

• anything soft, comfort, fluff

• aus (soulmate, cafe, bookstore, etc.)

• some ships/otps/rarepairs (feel free to ask)

• death of character/reader (character/reader kills the other)

• nearly any pronouns (including neos, just provide pronouns)

• male/masc, gender-neutral, nonbinary, trans male reader, inhuman reader (this includes monster, alien, divine etc.)

• "steamy" scenes/dub-con <- will be posted on ao3 ONLY (link will be provided for requests)

[the-bloody-sadist]

Hello... Do you mind if I ask your top favorite fanfics that you've written or top favorite arts that you've drawn? Why are they're special to you? Do you have specific inspiration when you wrote or drew them? Thanks if you want to answer.....

Ah!! It's so nice of you to ask! I'll list my favorite fanfics I've done (there aren't many) since the artworks are a bit harder to define as a favorite or as something I just enjoyed working on that didn't give me much trouble.

Sinner (Bungou Stray Dogs | Fyodor x Dazai) : I'm sure it comes as NO surprise that my most popular fanfic is the top favorite I've ever written, but I'm glad it turned out that way. Whenever I finish turning it into an original work, I hope it rings just as true to all the fans who read it for Fyodor and Dazai as a standalone fiction. This one is special to me because it's based very closely on my real-life experience with an abuser who was my first partner. There's a handful of other influences on the story as well, including some Killing Stalking and Nitro + Chiral games (Togainu no Chi, Shiki route, if you're curious), but I explain this in far more detail in my author's note at the end of the fanfic! I won't beat a dead horse!

The Unpredictable Structure of Control (Bungou Stray Dogs | Fyodor x Dazai) : Fyozai is my top favorite ship for self-reflection, and since all of my writings are clearly about me (help) and the things I've felt or have wanted to feel over the course of my life, this one centered on my thoughts about asexuality and the hatred of pain along with the need to self-destruct. It's overly flowery and poetic, but the alien nature of the way I get to write when in Fyodor's perspective is one of my FAVORITE styles to play with. I'm very happy with how it came out! I don't believe there was a specific inspiration for this one other than myself and probably whatever fanfics I was reading at the time. Usually when I write, I have a basic theme in mind to build off of, and the one for this work was "second-hand self-harm".

Worth, as Determined by a Lover (Trigun Stampede | Wolfwood x Vash) : This one was inspired by one of my favorite Vashwood fics I've read multiple times by intimatopia called careful fear and dead devotion . I adore the fic and was left with a craving to do something of the same vein ever since I'd first read it! It felt so accurate to their characters and relationship, and I felt like I'd done a good job at what I wanted to do when I finished mine! There's always a little bit of me in every work, but there was definitely a LOT of current events and friends who'd inspired that one, particularly, and I still hold dear what it meant to me and them at the time. Even though one or two relationships have soured since then (not because of it LMAO), I hope if I update this work, that person will see and possibly read and feel heard. I don't know if I'm capable of that, but we'll just have to see! (Sorry for the cryptic talk on this one, it's late.)

There you go! I didn't want to do more than a top 3, otherwise I'd ramble about several others even though they're not exactly my favorites to this day. These are the few that even I'll go back and read when I'm feeling lonely, and they've somehow managed to avoid my self-disgust reaction.

Thanks again for asking! <3

[niobiumao3]

In which three people are nowhere near as sneaky as they think they are.

~*~

I like to think of this song as a closer for this fic:

The Beauty of the Unhidden Heart, The Glitch Mob

Some lovely art of older Tech and Phee:

MrSnailDood Lornaka gingerpines cloned-eyes

And of course, the chaos children, Helena and Djoura by @nightskyfoxyy.

Thank you all so much for reading, kudoing, and commenting. I encourage everyone to keep making art, fics, gifs, edits, and whatever else strikes you for Tech, to keep him and his story ever expanding. Phee as well; there was nowhere near enough of her in the show.

This fic owes its existence to all of the CX-Tech theorists, the CX-Tech HCs and art, and the TechPhees of the fandom. I wasn’t enamored of CX-Tech as a theory, but everyone convinced me of ways to do it so it could be satisfying and interesting. Thank you all for inspiring me to write this, and in doing so keeping Tech and Phee’s story moving ever onward. Here’s hoping this isn’t the last we’ve seen of them.

[prophecydungeon]

year in fic 2024

(crossposted from dreamwidth)

word count for posted works: 38,500 (+ 907*) words word count for unposted works (incl. wips): 36,326 words total word count: 74,826 words

works posted to AO3 in 2024

in stitches one piece, zoro/sanji, law[?]luffy, rated T 4,119 words — posted 1/7

one of my writing goals from last year was to write something humorous, and i feel great about having achieved that with this fic, right off the bat at the start of the year. law has such an inherently funny pov on the straw hats and i’d love to come back to him for it. i’m also really happy with this as a B-side to the blood of the covenant.

situs inversus one piece, zoro/sanji, rated E 16,396 words — posted 3/15

finally!!! i finally wrote bodyswap fic!!!!!!! my god!!!!!!!! i am SO happy with this fic. nuff said.

swordbearer one piece, zoro/sanji, zoro & hiyori, rated G 5,201 words — posted 5/29

i joked about 2024 being the year of outside POV at one point and boy, it sure was. this fic got a bunch of attention at the end of the year; it seems that someone Popular (?) found it and recced it, and i’m really touched by the kind comments it’s received. i love outside POV and i’m happy to spread the word in any way.

consummate liars destiny, shin/drifter 907 words — posted 7/29

this fic is my asterisk’d +907 words from my total word count – i found this in a document that hadn’t been touched since 2022 and it was cohesive enough to toss out there into the world on its own, and wouldn’t otherwise have seen the light of day. i miss shindrift.

susrevni sutis one piece, zoro/sanji, rated E 4,190 words — posted 8/1

this was a B-side that had legs, lost the legs and became a PWP, and then regained its legs and became the next fic, lol. when i was in the process of writing situs i had considered writing out this scene, but it didn’t quite work with the flow and i’m glad i went with sanji’s POV for this rather than zoro’s. the yearning added to the spice, if i do say so myself.

chirality one piece, zoro/sanji, rated E 8,097 words — posted 9/22

the PWP’s lost legs, regained! i wrote two B-sides this year (three, if you count the above PWP) and i really enjoyed writing all of them. i’d really like to do more B-sides and flipped POVs, i really love reading them.

return, return, return one piece, zoro/sanji, rated G 2,246 words — posted 11/10

outside POV! outside POV! this is a fic about THE masterclass in outside POV, one piece fan letter, and i am very happy with how the mood of it turned out. OPFL was beautiful and personal and had such a feeling of triumph and hope to it, and it was really nice to write about all of those things.

general thoughts

i wrote a lot this year without any intent to publish it, and i really enjoyed doing that. i've done it in past years too, but this year i feel like i wrote A Lot More with the intention of not publishing it (rather than this category of word counts being high from cut fragments of other projects). i don’t really feel pressure when i’m writing, per se – not in the usual way that i feel a perfectionist itch – but i do want to post A Whole Thing when i’m posting something, and a lot of what i wrote specifically Not For Posting is just random strings of scenes, handfuls of sentences long, without any real cohesion.

i started the year off with a personal project that was Not For Posting: i took somebody else’s fic that scratched an itch for me but is also something i would have written (and characterized) differently, and did… just that. i went quite literally side-by-side with that fic and took all of the plot beats and most of the dialogue and did it My Way instead. obviously, this is not something i’m ever going to publish; it was just a personal exercise for me. it was really interesting! at one point i found myself trying to pick apart the whole underlying logic of the fic because i would do it so! differently! which is to say, i would not write this fic. and i didn’t, because it’s not my fic. it’s someone else’s. i had to yank myself out of Figure It Out mode and into Editing Mode, and when it became an exercise in [SNIPER DOTS APPEAR ON MY CHEST] editing [SNIPER DOTS DISAPPEAR] rather than “ooooughgh fuck i gotta make it work My Way” then it became a lot more interesting AND valuable. it was really neat to see my own style quirks in a literal side-by-side close-read comparison to someone else's whose writing is very different from my own.

a lot of times the fic i find myself rereading over and over isn’t the fic that’s got takes on The Character and The Ship that turn me inside out and make me scream OH MY GOD YOU GET IT, it’s the fic that’s really, really different from what i would write. there’s probably something there philosophically about seeking out what you can’t create, or whatever. it’s like looking at sweet lolitas and loving their coords but not having any interest in wearing sweet. Or Something. anyways, i routinely re-read this rewritten fic since it’s the ultimate sort of idfic – the kind of thing i’d never write myself because i don’t have any interest in writing it, but with the “voices” i use for the cast at hand.

goals for 2025

i’m skipping the end-of-year meme for today because i did an AO3 Wrapped ask meme a while back and that covered most of the questions i usually go through. also, man, i’m very tired today. i had a good-busy week and now i’m Tired.

2024 was a really terrible year in so many ways — this was easily one of the worst years of my life, if not the worst — and i’m a little surprised that i managed to write anything at all. things have been settling for a little bit, though, and i’m slowly starting to feel like myself again. right now, i don’t really want to set any writing-specific goals for myself beyond “just keep writing” in the spirit of being gentle to myself. maybe i’ll come back to goals later in the year and see how i feel! for now, though, i’d like to just keep writing and hopefully finish the WIP i’m working on.

oh, actually, that’s a goal i feel good about setting: write a trope i really love! that's good motivation to keep working on this WIP, where the trope in question is fake relationship. tee hee.

[olderthannetfic]

as a teen not particularly interested in sex, i sure did read a lot of smutty fic (no surprise there) but most of it went over my head at the time, and now that i'm an adult rereading some of them do i think 'wow i sure was reading a ton of hardcore stuff i wouldn't pick on a regular day' 🤔 like i even played dmmd at the height of its popularity and didn't blink at all the gory endings, i just didn't have a point of reference on how uniquely fucked up it was compared to all the other bl i could've possibly encountered at the time (it did give me my rimming kink, so thank you nitro+chiral for that one lmao)

obviously i'm still a virgin (and very asexual so i'm not too hung up about it) but i think constantly reading fic has probably given me a not very accurate idea on how sensitive body parts are 🧐 it doesn't help that i like reading about overstimulation, because i don't think it's going to be as fun for me irl (also i don't own any toys so clearly i'm not an expert in that front, my hands do the job just fine 💪)

not sure where i was going with this but if anyone has any similar experiences (disinterest in irl sex, catering fic to your tastes as an ace person, early bl exploration...) i'd love to hear it!

--

[ectogeo-rebubbles]

Fanfiction first lines game

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern.

Thanks for the tag, @cardassiangoodreads!

sunshine bouquet (Garashir, G, drabble)

Julian collapsed on his couch, arm flung over his face.

not unfaithful, but i'll stray (Kirawinn, T, triple drabble)

When the Prophets spoke to Winn plainly for the first time in her life, she’d felt transcendent.

chirality (Kira/Intendant, E, triple drabble)

The Intendant stood up from the bath, waving away the servants who moved in to wrap her in a towel.

every breath you take (Sloanshir (one-sided) + Garashir, M, 1598 words)

Julian blinked blearily, unimpressed.

going up, going down (Siskarak, E, 923 words)

Sisko’s head fell back against the turbolift wall and his mouth opened in audible pleasure. 

A Professional Interest (Sloanshir + implied Garashir, E, 1834 words)

“What is it this time, Sloan?” his captive groaned upon returning to consciousness. 

Deserted (Garashir, T, 2569 words)

Red lights flashed and consoles blared angry warnings.

touch (Garashir, T, 4769 words)

“Elim will never love you, you know.”

dirty little secret (Siskarak, T, drabble)

Seducing him while they collaborated on the business of luring the Romulans into the war had merely been practical.

expectant (Garashir, M, 465 words)

For all the sex he'd had with Garak, he still didn't know much about Cardassian reproduction.

~

It seems like I like to open with a description of action, like someone doing something, or something dramatic happening. I also def start a fair amount of fics with stuff that attempts to set up the aspects of characterization or character dynamics I'll be exploring. I do start with dialogue sometimes, but not often. (Also, wow, that last one is kind of a banger huh? Well done, me, lmao.)

I tag @sapphosewrites! I also tag uhhhh anyone who wants to do this. (I genuinely can't remember who else likes these kinds of tag games.)

[faejilly]

Omegaverse with Shepard/Joker?

So this turned into something more like meta or the old @headcanonwednesday In-Universe Ramblings or what I tend to tag as a not!fic, but I hope it still fills the prompt reasonably well. Or is at least entertaining? 😅 (Of course, now I have to figure out how to post it. And now I have a meta/not!fic collection on ao3 apparently.)

Every military in earth's recorded history has always made pheromone blockers mandatory while on active duty. Close living quarters and emotional conditions followed by separation as people were transferred or went home or died... it was that or half their soldiers never would go home and settle back into 'polite' society, too hooked on the heightened pheromones of such a tightly knit group to accept the looser connections more common in civilian life.

Going into space made a whole range of hormone and pheromone blockers even more common, what with recycled air and water that either tasted a bit like everyone on board or too much like the chemicals used to sanitize it.

And then Humanity made first contact. Dextro-pheromones were undetectable to levo species (and vice-versa) which added to how poorly Turian to Human communication began... but the Citadel was a revelation.

Almost an apocalyptic one.

Asari pheromones were completely unblockable by every technical, genetic, or chemical process humanity had figured out. Even staying in a fully enclosed suit didn't work once you were sharing an atmosphere outside said suit. (Once trade opened up with other species, Humanity found rumors that the Salarian Task Groups had a method to do it... but no one could get further than rumors.)

Asari were thus omnipresent. And while the sense other species could get of them was almost universally pleasant, would shift and change with age or mood or cycle just like anyone else's, they were also completely incomprehensible. Asari were there, you could tell exactly where they were, all the time, but that was it.

Somehow, the Asari had no trouble understanding anyone else's pheromones, regardless of chirality, age, attempted blockers and filters, or even atmosphere. (They could read the volus! Somehow! It made most non-Asari researchers devolve into swearing and ranting gibberish if you got them on the topic.) No one had a clue how they did it, and while most peoples assumed the Asari knew how it worked, they were not sharing.

Wearing a fully enclosed body suit or armor in atmosphere meant you were blocking pheromones to everyone except the Asari, which just added to the Asari advantage in political circles, and was thus considered at worst an act of aggression against non-Asari, and at best unbearably rude.

(A large part of why the Quarians were looked down upon, and the Volus never could quite get recognized as a full-fledged Council Species, was this low-grade irritation from everyone else at not being able to scent them while knowing that the Asari could, no matter how little anyone was willing to admit that was part of the problem.)

The Volus managed a partial exception in that something during the actual construction of their suits made them palatable to the Elcor, who, having an even more scent and pheromone based society than anyone else, had actual physiological symptoms (mostly vertigo and headaches, but occasionally full fainting spells and nausea and very rarely full-blown hallucination) upon having to be in close quarters with anyone completely blocking their scent.

No one wants to be anywhere near a dizzy or queasy Elcor, even beyond the ethical constraints against making another species that sick if it was avoidable. (Most Quarians added a pheromone mod to their suits during their Pilgrimage, something that would at least mark them as there to everyone else, especially the Elcor, even if it was clearly a series of artificial notes rather than a naturally varying, layered scent.)

Everything that humanity did historically as a matter of course to manage large populations in small areas or high-risk/emotionally heightened situations was no longer an option, not for anyone who wanted to leave Earth.

Part of Alliance training now involved pheromone acclimation, both in how to manage your own, and how to read everyone else's without being too invasive or rude about it.

Which brings us to Joker. Whose lifetime of complex medical treatments mean his hormone levels are not remotely standard and whose pheromone output is, shall we say, unique. (Potentially even a little distracting.) Historically that would have been a perfectly acceptable reason to be on some sort of blockers for the rest of his life, but he wants to fly spaceships.

Which means he can't do that.

Does this make him even more of a sarcastic bastard because every Human he ever meets tends to do a weird stutter/stop the first time they're in scenting distance? Yes, it does. (This is a bonus, not a detriment, I am not accepting opinions on this matter.)

Biotics tend to be less obvious about it, because their pheromones are also a bit weird in comparison to non-biotics, but most biotics have the same sort of eezo tang unlike Joker's very odd melange of various artificial hormones & gene-therapy-induced protein strands that were attempted to improve his bone development as he was growing. (Some of them even worked! Some of them didn't. Most of them didn't cause any particular negative side-effects, but all of them linger in his pheromone profile.)

Most non-Humans don't pick up on it, because Alliance pheromone training and gene therapy are similarly artificial to them, so they tend to think that's a Human Thing.

(It is kind of hilarious to most Alliance personnel on the rare occasion someone from Earth or the Colonies who hasn't had gene therapy ends up on the Citadel, because the non-Humans get so confused.)

Which means that Flight Lieutenant Jeffrey Moreau's friends, acquaintances, and assorted contacts he keeps on the modern-equivalent of speed-dial for the trading of favors and intel, are almost exclusively biotics, aliens, and all of three non-military/non-family people he's known since they were all going through cutting-edge medical treatments together as kids.

Which definitely doesn't help with some of his more conservative CO's, but is absolutely in his favor when the Normandy SR-1 is being built. Even if he hadn't been arguably the best pilot in the Alliance, he would've been Anderson's first choice because Anderson knew he'd get along with a non-traditional crew.

Anderson requests Joker, who is not-so-secretly delighted by a CO who realizes his odd background is a benefit not a detriment. Nonetheless, Joker is prepared to be his usual asshole self to the other Alliance personnel when they show up.

And then he meets Alenko, who is not just a biotic but an L-2 who gets just as many weird raised eyebrows as Joker does, and responds by being very calmly, diplomatically, exaggeratedly even-handed with everyone about everything. (And only occasionally rolling his eyes at them behind their backs when he's been especially provoked.)

And Joker meets Williams, who ALSO gets the side-eye, though in her case it's for her name rather than her scent, but who is very equal-opportunity unimpressed by anyone else's opinions which is delightful.

And most of all he meets Shepard, who regardless of background is an outlier by almost every possible human and galactic metric, and may give Joker shit for his attitude (depending on your Shepard) but never once calls him out on his skills or his scent.