#i guess. that comment seems shippy to me

[sy-on-boy]

(Potentially) new information from the Spy x Family exhibit book!

Okay, I’ve done some digging around and not gonna lie, some information in there has me excited. I can’t read Japanese so I took photos and put them through translate, so it’s not the most accurate, and please take this post with a grain of salt. Here we go!

Translations are more than welcome! Feel free to use these photos and feel free to DM me for clearer photos. I would also love to know what this all means haha. Japanese “raw” text is taken from Google translate and may be inaccurate to what is actually shown in the photos.

✩ The SxF world apparently has no Christmas!

I’ve heard claims of it, and here’s a picture I took.

“遠藤達哉先生 コメント

こちらは冬の休載イラスト です。 電飾一個一個を北斗 神拳ばりに連打して描きま した。 クリスマスっぽい雰 囲気を出していますが、 『SPY×FAMILY』の世界に クリスマスはありません。”

Google translate tells me that there’s no Christmas in the SxF world but he tried to create a Christmas-like atmosphere? Not sure but it would align with other people’s claims.

✩ Yuri apparently had a girlfriend in a rough draft!

This is Endo’s handwriting so the machine can’t recognise the words easily, but I think the woman in the bottom of Yuri’s sheet is his “girlfriend”? And Google translate tells me she’s Yuri’s “weakness” and Twilight might use her against Yuri / take advantage of the girlfriend? This is a very interesting idea that didn’t get used in canon (yet?). I think in canon, Yuri is popular but he’s too devoted to his sister. A new significant other of a prominent character would shake things up. Especially when it comes to Yuri, a member of the SSS.

By the way, Yuri’s potential designs are kind of cool. I like the ponytail.

✩ Apparently “Oscar” was one of Twilight’s potential names! + Early Twilight designs

I think we know Yor was originally short for Yorlanda (this is in the upper sheet). There’s a whole list of names beside Twilight and the name Oscar オスカー appeared frequently. There are also more names that I can’t decipher.

✩ Designs of some potential WISE agents! (And early Fiona)

Fiona’s sheet (next to Yuri’s) was titled “WISE spy (female)” and now we have a sheet titled “WISE spy (male)”. Was Fiona a placeholder spy that made it to the main cast? Or will this “male spy” end up having significance too? The two smaller heads at the left are apparently Twilight’s associates. Also, a Melinda sketch. Not gonna lie, the male spy feels kinda cute. Hope he’s not completely scrapped.

✩ Endo’s interview!

I feel like I should put this earlier but I was distracted with the Christmas / Yuri’s potential girlfriend thing. This is at the very end of the book. Apparently Endo was influenced by the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This interview was apparently taken in March 2023. I think it’s fairly important so I’ll wait for a proper translation before saying anything else.

✩ Comments on Donovan, Melinda, Redacted, and Sylvia!

These two pages are together and I found it significant because Endo discusses the SxF themes. (My notes are not direct translations.) Apparently:

Sylvia’s scene in Mission 20 is Endo’s favourite scene, and he was looking at materials related to war for a long time and wondered if he could make use of it. [JP below]

とてもお気に入りのシーンです。 「SPY×FAMILY」の連載とは関係無し 昔から戦争に関する資料は色々見て いたので、多少はこの作品にも活かせ ているのかなーと。

Donovan’s statement of “in the end, people will never understand each other” (rough paraphrase) is the theme of the work. And Endo wanted to create a feeling of Donovan being the final boss. He didn’t plan on arranging it from the beginning, but he thinks the Desmonds are a good contrast to the Forgers. (Does this mean the Forgers think people will understand each other?) [JP below]

作品のテーマでもあるセリフ ですね。 少しでもドノバンの ラスボス感を醸し出せればい いなーと思いながら描きまし た。最初から意図して配置し たわけではないですが、デス モンド家はフォージャーと 良い対比になっているのかな と思います

The chapters on Twilight’s past coincided with the anime so Endo thought it was a good idea to explore Twilight’s past. [JP below]

アニメが始まるタイミングな のもあって、黄昏〉という人 物を掘り下げる良い機会かな と思い過去編を入れました。 あまり重たくなりすぎないよ うに、でも伝えたいことは最低限伝えられるように、自分 なりにバランスを取って描い たつもりです。

Melinda is described as “friendly” (?) even though she is dignified. A positive description of Melinda… interesting. What’s also interesting is that after she learns that Yor is the mother of the child who got into a fight with Damian, she “shows interest”. Melinda, what do you want with Anya? [JP below]

ダミアンの母で、東国元首相夫人。気品に溢れつ つも、気さくな性格。 ヨルが息子と喧嘩したアー ニャの母親と知り、興味を示している。

I personally think these two pages contain hints about the mystery of the featured characters and would love to know what it means :D

✩ Early Yor and Bond!

There’s a lot more Yor but again the image limit is constricting me. I really like the Bond designs, they’re funny and he’s just a chonky little boi :)

✩ Comments on the panel of Twilight’s head in Yor’s lap!

“珍しいイチャイチャシーンです。 ヨルさん は一年中酔っ払ってればいいのに”

Which apparently means: “a rare flirting (?) scene, I wish Yor was drunk all year long”

?!??! Twiyor?!! Hello!! I cannot resist mentioning this one, this is one of my favourite Twiyor / SxF scenes. Are we gonna get more drunk Yor? More Twiyor? More flirting? I’m excited now.

I’ve reached the image limit, so here’s all for this post for now! Translations are totally welcome and again I would love to know what this all means. I’m sorry if I accidentally said misleading information, so please tell me so I can correct it. Once again, don’t take my words as complete fact. The Yuri girlfriend thing is really surprising to me haha.

[lestappenforever]

So, I’m like a realist, right? Sure, yes, I ship people from time to time but I know it’s just for funsies. So, I saw a lestappen edit last week and was like “hey cute guys, what’s up with these two? I better check it out.” and have fallen into a bit of a rabbit hole it seems. So I’m back in the real world now, where Max is in a long term relationship and Charles has a girlfriend, and am wondering: how does one explain Max’s behaviour? Does he just have a friend-crush on Charles? Has he always wanted to be friends with him since they were young and it was just hard since they’ve been rivals for so long? Does he envy him maybe since his father wasn’t a pos and he still turned into a great driver? Is it a “it’s lonely at the top” kind of situation, where he’s never been able to make many friends his own age? (I’ve seen Charles with a bunch of friends outside of racing, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Max with any, but that could be on me.) I mean, a blind person could see that Max takes every opportunity to talk to him or be close to him and he knows stuff about him I’d personally be too embarrassed to admit (like getting his “stupid” quote exactly right or knowing about the twitch thing with his girlfriend forgetting her keys, etc.). I guess I’m looking for the actual non-shippy explanation for this behaviour cause it fascinates me. What are your two cents on this?

Hi anon, and welcome to the world of Lestappen! We're happy to have you. ❤️

I will preface this by saying that shipping is solely for fun, and I don't actually believe Max and Charles are in a secret relationship or anything of the sort. The majority of Lestappen shippers on Tumblr are on the same page about this, with some exceptions, but there are exceptions to anything. And a big part of shipping is speculating, being delusional about them, and overanalyzing things.

Now, in terms of a non-shipping explanation as to why these two behave the way they do around each other, I think it's a combination of all the reasons you've already listed. And the thing about Max and Charles is that they have known each other for so many years. They have been in each other's orbit, in one way or another, for the majority of their lives, and there is no denying that they have seen each other as one of — if not the — biggest rival they've had since they were children. Despite the fact that a lot of the current drivers on the grid have raced each other at some point before F1, there doesn’t seem to be any of them that have the same sort of rivalry that Max and Charles have, which goes so far back. And that kind of bond is one that I believe sticks with you forever.

Now this is not a delusional take at all, as this quote by Armando Filini, manager of the Maranello Kart, the first team for which Leclerc raced, proves: “They were always fighting. It didn't matter if they were competing in a tie or in a final, if it was raining or if the track was dry. Once we were in Genk, Belgium, in the first free practice, and they went on track. Charles and Max met, began to push each other and almost hit each other, with the risk of being left out. Jos Verstappen and I were glued to the fence to look at them and he turned around and said to me: 'These two will fight forever. They will fight even in F1′. A prophecy”.

Even though Max and Charles obviously haven’t been best friends for the majority of the time they've known each other, and they've only started building what appears to be a genuine friendship in the last few years, they share a connection that has been evident to people around them since they were little.

Max's comment from last season where he said that he wasn't surprised both him and Charles were sitting in that press conference together because he always thought that if he made it into F1, Charles would too, is just another testament to how tied together they actually are. And Charles' fond recollections of their karting days in the past season shows that it's a mutual thing: that Charles feels that same bond with Max that Max feels with him. And I think this is the whole baseline for why they've never been able to be normal about or around each other: because they go so far back and their lives are so intertwined that I honestly don't think either of them is fully capable of treating the other as just any other colleague or friend, because they don't see each other that way. They're something more, and by that I don't mean they're secretly in love with each other — they just have this bond that goes beyond normal friendship, forged through years of rivalry, envy, conflict, mutual growth and respect, and eventual friendship.

I have a childhood friend sort of like that: obviously not with the rivalry and drama that comes with the surroundings in which Max and Charles met and grew up, but someone that I share a bond with that I don't share with any of my other friends, old or new, and it's honestly my most treasured friendship because it has helped shape me as a person in a profound sort of way. He's not my closest friend and not the friend I talk to the most since we live on different sides of the country and our paths haven’t crossed much in the past few years, as is often the case when you grow up and become an independent adult. But when I do talk to him and hang out with him, it kind of feels like coming home. And to me, it seems like Max and Charles share that same type of bond.

This is just my personal take as I obviously don't know Max or Charles, and this is all based off of watching their interactions and watching their relationship develop over the past few years, as well as deepdiving into their history in the past. But this is the explanation that makes sense to me.

[d3sertdream3r]

I've been loving trop this season!! I am wondering how the whole SauronxGaladriel thing is going to play out though I'm nervous it won't be very satisfying with everything they've built up and all the marketing hype it's gotten. I'm worried they're baiting shippers to get more people to watch. Thoughts?

Oh boy, I have MANY thoughts!

I am absolutely DEVOURING this season, anon! The first episode in particular really blew me away. As a Saurondriel/Haladriel shipper, I thought all the direct parallels shown in Sauron and Galadriel’s journeys were PERFECT! 

I was worried they were going to retcon Sauron’s genuine feelings of despair and questioning if he should “repent” or not due to the amount of hate and toxicity from the usual suspects on the internet. Instead they really leaned into it, and I loved seeing The Dark Lord having nightmares. It’s a side of him we’ve never seen explored before! And that Annatar reveal… holy moly! Celebrimbor and I were both like: 

Galadriel has been breaking my heart in each episode. Elrond and Gil-Galad need to give my girl a break! Morfydd Clark’s acting is stellar. She is so heartbroken over not recognizing Sauron for who he truly was and even worse… catching feelings for him! She’s really going through it and it hurts, but it’s also brilliant on the writers’ part. 

Everyone else’s acting and stories are great too. Arondir was a favorite of mine last season and continues to be this season. Disa is FANTASTIC and I love her and Durin so much there aren’t any words to describe it. Isildur and Estrid are cute and I’m interested to see how their story plays out. I hardcore ship Elendil and Miriel, and his daughter needs to take a seat before she helps Pharazon destroy their home! I know the story, but MAN was it killing me to see how Eärien is contributing to its downfall in this show (in a good way… I think having her be involved with the opposite side of her father makes for great drama). 

As to the second part of your ask… I have been involved in many online fandoms for about 13 years now, and I gotta say that 98% of the time fans come up with way more interesting storylines than the creators of any show. A lot of the time they just don't deliver. I’ve been burned over and over again, so my bar is pretty low at this point. 

They’ve done a fabulous job with the Saurondriel dynamic so far, and I’ve seen some really interesting fan theories about Galadriel briefly joining Sauron or being taken prisoner by him. As truly fascinating as that would be, I’m not holding my breath. I think it’ll be a rehash of season one’s ending with more violence since they have swords this time around. After that, I’m guessing they’ll focus on Sauron gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing his way to the throne of hell while Galadriel and company work together to stop him. They’ve hinted at Celeborn a bit, I’m sure we’ll see them reunited at some point. 

I’m sorry if this isn’t very reassuring! I wish I could be more optimistic about Saurondriel in season 3, but I honestly don’t think Tolkien’s estate would go for Galadriel falling to the dark side in any capacity. Sauron taking her prisoner could happen, but I highly doubt it simply because as I said before, fans tend to have better ideas than a lot of creators in my opinion.

I could be completely wrong! I have just learned not to trust creators to handle things the BEST way, but that doesn't mean it won't be handled in a GOOD way. Hopefully that makes sense, lol. I think some people will be satisfied and some people won't, just like every other story. The shippy photoshoots and marketing have been delightful! I can't tell if they're baiting until I see the last episode. I think they were just having fun, but some comments from cast and creators would definitely seem a bit baity if the payoff is underwhelming. We'll see!

I really hope the season goes out with a bang and we all have something to love about it; especially Saurondriel shippers!

[unbiddenrhythm]

All Aboard the SS UrbDev

OH HELLO THERE 

With Rebirth out officially for a few months now I'm posting some of my initial rambling feelings about Reeve and Rebirth

Guess who's back on my bullshit (as if I ever got off it) 

I have so many thoughts about the scene with Reeve in his office, but I'll start with the broad strokes: 

Cait Sith makes Reeve SO happy! To the point of being commented on by his Secretary  Assistant (ugh, why could the translation team not be consistent about that moniker, I do NOT want to have to relabel all my fics and the tag) 

This scene further cements my earnest belief that Reeve is incredibly close (dare I say, intimate???) with his secretary. I've mused previously that they had to have been, and that she is likely as close a "right hand" as he has (given that he plainly stated it was Shinra that was responsible for the plate fall right in front of her) 

Seriously, not only is Cait Sith out in the open for her to see, but Reeve's comment to her "it's been productive" while nodding toward his screen is enough implication for me to assume he's told her he's on special assignment from the Turks 

Which then of course is further supported when Tseng himself shows up. I laughed at her reaction – she scoffed(!) in his face before giving a commiserating look toward Reeve. Clearly he's told her that he's under the Turks' thumb currently (and of course, her previous knowledge of the plate fall would also further enhance her dislike toward Tseng) 

I cannot emphasize enough how tickled I am that I've written about her antagonism towards Tseng and here it is canonized 

Speaking of antagonism toward Tseng – wow, that interaction between him and Reeve! I can't help but speculate how much of Rufus' words burn in Reeve here – after all, Rufus had the gall to ask why none of the Directors "stopped" his father from dropping the plate. There has got to be a part of Reeve that chafes at that, right? Especially since he DID speak up! Hell, he even sent Cait Sith and he was ready to throw down against Reno and Rude, because at the end of the day, Rufus/Tseng chose to have the Turks press the button instead of intervening against the President at that moment. So when Tseng drops by Reeve's office and smirks, that has to sting, right? 

Also, can we appreciate that the only reason Tseng stops in is likely because Rude called saying "somehow we lost our reservations" and you know Tseng instantly clocked it to Reeve enjoying the ability to torment his colleagues 

Other thoughts 

Does Shinra know that Reeve sent a second Cait Sith? 

The Turks saw CS go into the temple as it was being destroyed. It would be quite simple for him to say he was destroyed trying to help the group escape but that they wouldn't accept a second him back  

Some Shippy Things! 

Okay, am I crazy or was Secretary was totally flirting? She seemed super smiley, and she even did the head tilt.  

Reeve was equally smooth in his response to her; his tone of voice, the smile, the hesitation after where it seemed he wanted to say more but instead he just smiled – ooooh wow 

It seemed like they both wanted to say *something* else to each other 

I totally got the impression here they’ve hooked up in the office after a late night before 

Where would the conversation have gone if Tseng hadn't shown up right then? Reeve clearly was done for the day (all his monitors were off). Secretary didn't have any reports for him. She was just stopping by, and wow was she disappointed when they were interrupted. 

I <3 them 

[chromatic-lamina]

Hi! You seem quite knowledgeable in this, so I though you might be the right person to ask: I'm trying to find some nice heart pirates fics with them as family doing shenanigans/general stuff. Most of the fics I've found in the Heart Pirates tag in ao3 revolve around a ship involving law and the hearts are just background characters who barely do anything, which isn't what I'm looking for. Do you have any recommendations? (I've already read some of your works, but if you want to recommend those that's good too!)

Platonic Heart Pirates Fics Rec List

Wow! huge compliment.

Yeah, I wouldn't classify myself as a Hearts Pirates writer, but I do write them. I think my best characterisations of them are in my multi-chaptered works, but they're super dark, and the Hearts aren't the focus (but boy do they shine when they get the chance!).

You've probably come across my Bepo's one shots and drabble collection. There's a few shippy pieces in there, but they're clearly marked. Most are just the crew, although focus on the main four. This was also done for the Hearts' Pirates Week, so covers all named crew members (up to that point). This one shot is surprisingly popular: Dark like the North Blue Sea (aka The Sea-Hill you Die On), and you might have come across the Straw Hat and Heart Pirates crews intermingling in this fic featuring Bepo and Chopper. I'm also guessing that you probably saw the piece I wrote for the op summer festival zine: Sun Path Ozoni. An earlier version of that is in Bepo's collection! There's also Bepo's Beptober, which features everyone, but I wouldn't really say explores them in depth!

Okay, RECS!

Any of the fics with the Hearts Pirate tag by @op-sheepy Here's a link to their AO3 dash. There are quite a few Heart Pirate drabbles on their tumblr page too.

@itsxandy 's work, stormy weather, is criminally under-read. That's 22,2221 amazing words on Law's dynamic with the crew in the polar tang in close quarters. Not necessarily happy families, but, oof, it's good. Even a very plausible theory put forward for the recruitment of Clione, I think! Or maybe Uni.

Dragon_in_a_Cypress_swamp has 6 amazing Hearts & Trafalgar Law fics too. Really good (I haven't read all, but what I have read just blows me away).

This is not a place of honor by Hyperbolic Reverie (I'm not guaranteeing that all the fics are sweet). And you've probably come across

the devil knows how to row by fab_ia, is set in Law Novel land, but with flashbacks to Law's time with the Donquixote Family. It's a work in progress. But very good. The author is keats on twitter, and I think one of the guest writers for the up coming Hearts zine. Their AO3 actually has a few Hearts' fics I want to pick through.

Dunno if this counts, but the Scrubs AU with Penguin and Shachi as Law's interns, and Bepo as a trusty nurse is both hilarious and poignant. @thegrimshapeofyoursmile

Cal14's recently been uploading some of their tumblr pieces.

@slashseeker (not getting their blog come up) has some platonic stuff on their AO3 page (their slash is pretty good too though!).

And that's about all I know for now. I'm sure you've read / been pointed towards the big collection: Tales from the Heart.

Almost forgot! If you go through @purplehairedwonder 's page, towards the start of beginning to write OP (so second page), there are about 5 fics that I'd classify as Heart centric, or the Hearts seen through Law's eyes. Not necessarily shenanigans though.

It is a ship fic, and it started before a lot of the Heart Pirates were named, but razbliuto's Methyl Nitrate Pirates really builds character and crew (and it's funny). @fablecore

Hope it helps! Sorry to anyone I've forgotten. Thanks for the ask! Let me know how they go.

Remember all, drop a kudos and comment if the fics strike your fancy❤️ Makes a Heart Pirates Heart loving Heart beat heartier.

[autumnslance]

Fic Writer Interview

Tagged by @sheepwithspecs technically on my main but this is where fanfic goes. Do this if you wanna!

How many works do you have on AO3?

47 as of 2/6/24. There's a few things I need to get around to adding there though.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

411,290 as of 2/6/24

What are your top 5 fics by kudos

Downtime (compilation of younger Scions & other teen chars being pals in Norvrandt) Unexpected (compilation of shippy nonsense) A Constant Distant Thunder (Thancred in ARR patches post-Lahabrea) Ruminations (General Warrior of Light introspections & adventures) Rogue's Prelude (My headcanons on Thancred meeting Louisoix, Papalymo, and Yda)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I usually do! I often try to. So my comment count is almost, not quite though, doubled.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hrm; I tend to do a lot of bittersweet endings. We'll keep it simple and say "Never Gets Easier", a fic where Edmont and Charlemend talk about their lost sons. There's no sweetness there, just men haunted by mistakes and losses.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Maybe "When Everything Changes" which is kid fic from the POV of my WoL's older brother when she's born and his ambivalence turns to big brother joy and love.

Do you write crossovers?

Haven't yet.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not that I recall.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Occasionally. Usually pretty vanilla. It's all right, I guess.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Had an OC's backstory on our WoW RP server's fic blogging site lifted wholesale; they changed the names and class, and then…walked into our weekly guild meeting that I was leading and tried to join our guild. When confronted, the person claimed their partner had leveled the character for them and based the backstory on Skyrim (my OC's story is very specific to WoW). They tried to message me later as if we were pals who would laugh this off someday. I informed them that was not a thing and btw the site mods knew they were a plagiarist now. Also everyone knew who their alts were and a bunch of other trouble they'd caused. So far as I know, they bailed from our server after that.

I hoped they learned better and grew up quite a bit; this was well over a decade ago.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Once or twice now; so long as folks credit and link back to my originals, and share the translated link with me, it's all good!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Roleplay and actual story collaboration both. It's a lot of fun.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

How dare you.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

*stares at WIP folder*

Come back with a warrant.

(I won't say never, but there's a lot that probably are just noodling and scraps to feed something else later)

What are your writing strengths?

Folks seem to like my dialogue.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Impatience, and certain grammatical abuses that do nothing for length nor clarity.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Depends on the fic. Depends on the intended audience.

For dialects, mostly the concern is "don't overdo it" as it can slow things down, be really jarring at best and offensive at worst, and difficult to understand if laying it on too thick.

Other languages entirely have different guidelines though, from sprinkling in single words or short phrases, to entire passages, and whether or not you translate or leave it up to the reader. Depends on fandom, on the characters, on the story, author intentions.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Narnia, in a my little girl diary as a pre-teen. I wanted to pick up Susan's story as a grown up and bring her and family back to a magical land. Cuz I knew it could, would happen someday, even if Lewis never got to write it himself.

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Final Fantasy XVI. Midst. The latter is tricky as I really don't have ideas at the moment, but really want to dig into that vibe. My writing needs to be more weird in general, really.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

How dare you, come back with a warrant!

[fandomfluffandfuck]

i hope this isn’t a bother, i’m not sure if it’s worth knowing at all. but i was disheartened earlier when i was on x/twt and saw a seb fan hating on the idea of sebchris, and realized the specific speculative shippy post they were being vague about was recent from your blog.

ik everyone is entitled to their own opinion and it’s understandable to find rps unsavory, but it seemed very much like rage-bait for attention: acting like they’d never heard of it before and taking time out of their day to comment. i think you even mentioned you’d never want CE or SS to know about it and would never be disrespectful, it’s all in fun to be teasing. same for me. i swear so many mcufans live in a bubble, rps has been around since forever, lotr anyone? and speculation is kinda what hollywood already does. every celeb magazine cover you see is like: “are they DATING?” as long as no one is bothered, it’s really not that serious. there’s occasionally a double standard with non same sex co-stars too. these fans even ship themselves with the same actors and that’s not “creepy” either.

the reason we like the two of them as friends (or potentially more) isn’t bc we project steve/buck onto them, it’s how well they get along and how rare their irl connection is. without their chemistry SB wouldn’t even be what it is. and it’s sad that due to fandom, ppl feel the need to assert that CE and SS are straight or would never like each other, when that’s really their personal business and not ours. we just enjoy moments what they’ve already shown us, being invasive isn’t on the table.

but yeah, tumblr is a separated fandom space and i wish other fans would just ignore what they don’t like. you and all of us don’t deserve that. i guess we should be careful what’s posted in the SS or CE tag. sorry again about this.

Nah, that's fine, I get that. You need a place to express those frustrations and, also, yeah. Just. Yup. It's definitely rage bait because if you've been in fandom for longer than a minute than you've come across RPF. It's been around forever with fandom. It's fine. Besides, it's not like you can stop it by now, it's for fun and there's so many people that indulge. I do wish that more people, generally, including on Tumblr, but mostly off Tumblr would learn that if it's not for you... then navigate away from it. I think more people would be happier if they learned that lesson, lol. But, yeah, Tumblr is certainly a very unique internet place.

No need to be sorry, I'm totally chill to read your rants, haha.

[dreamblasterharuka]

If you’re still taking requests:

Would love a piece about Trigger and Count (non shippy, just friends), maybe after barely making it back from a risky mission in one piece. Or if you have any other ideas for other lil soft moments of them being besties and idiots, I’ll take anything. Their relationship and how they slowly started having each other’s backs is everything to me

Snapshots from Trigger and Count’s growing friendship.

I like getting to write these two and their funky dynamic. Thank you for the request!

Also on AO3

Moments

Annoying. That’s all Trigger thought of Count at first.

When they’d been told they were getting sent to a penal unit, they expected a bunch of gruff, scary guys that didn’t want some scrawny newbie, and they’d be struggling to be taken seriously. Instead, they were mostly pretty nice. Granted, they got a chance to prove themself immediately, but it was still a pleasant surprise.

The only one who really fit that bill was Count, the self-proclaimed leader of Spare Squadron. From what Trigger gathered, he was a fraudster and a coward, who disliked them because they blew his (inflated) records out of the water. Add them taking over as leader out of sheer desperation, every interaction was making it very clear he hated their guts. He kept making snide comments and leaving them to clean up his messes.

The most annoying part was that Count had talent. They could see it clearly in the maneuvers he pulled, and the tricks he pulled on enemy pilots. They watched him talk violent criminals out of fights, and talk the tough-as-nails Bandog into letting them use supply lines. He easily could be squadron leader, if he weren’t such an asshole.

It was a mask. A smooth, unbreakable mask of a perfectly unaffected con man. They probably should have guessed. Everyone wore one to deal with all the trauma, but it wasn’t like they were close enough to know, and Count kept it up perfectly. Except for one time.

When Bandog used Count to murder Full Band. They didn’t use that word lightly, either. No matter if Full Band really found something top secret or not, to just have him killed like that, by one of his comrades without any warning or trial was just…

Prisoners were disposable. According to the law, they didn’t have basic human rights. No one cared about what they did to deserve it, as long as they had warm bodies to throw at a conflict. Did Full Band’s family even know that he’d passed yet? Did Champ’s? High Roller’s? All the others left to die so Osea could secure a fancy energy source?

Trigger hadn’t intended to talk to him. He disappeared right after the debriefing and they were pretty sure he didn’t want to be found. So it was just their luck when they stumbled across him around the back of one of the hangars, smoking and staring off into space. Before they could back away, Count stared them dead in the eye, pure, clean, anger written all over his face.

“What do you want?”

Trigger threw their hands up in surrender. They didn’t want anything, but that only seemed to make it worse.

“What, you here to gloat? Tell me I should’ve paid more attention? It’s not like it was my fault! There’s nothing I could’ve done about it!”

The quiet after his outburst was deafening. They could barely make out voices in the distance, but not what they were saying. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine them talking about the day’s operation.

Ah. Trigger understood. They understood the feeling exactly. It wasn’t their fault, but that didn’t change anything. They’re still the one who fired the shot, bad information or not, and they would have to live with the blood on their hands. It didn’t matter what they said in their defense, they could still hear the condemning whispers. There would be no trial, and no way to prove innocence.

Back then, they didn’t want pity, or empty reassurances. They only wanted to hear one thing.

“I believe you.”

Count broke eye contact and looked ahead again, but he didn’t say anything in response. After another still moment, Trigger turned on their heel and absconded. Who knew if their words helped him. For all they knew, they just made it worse.

It wasn’t until Bulgurdarest, stuck in a briefing room, waiting around for some kind of plan, that Trigger realized that Count stopped calling them murderer.

*******

The Hair Incident wasn’t really a distinct incident like the name implied. Mostly it was just a passive-aggressive back and forth about the length of Count’s hair.

Trigger, despite what the others seemed to think, tried their best to stay out of it. Count’s hair was well out of regulation, but Wiseman was getting on his case more than necessary. When Trigger cut their own back to what it was before they were arrested. Count took it as betrayal, and Wiseman was disappointed they weren’t being more of an example. It didn’t really have to do with anything. They just cut it in an attempt to return to normalcy. Of course it didn’t work, but it made them feel a little better.

The whole thing boiled down to pride, not that anybody wanted to admit it. While Trigger could see where Count was coming from, they dealt with McKinsey’s power tripping bullshit too, afterall, he was kinda being an ass about it. Wiseman wasn’t anything like McKinsey. He was just trying to maintain order in a situation where lack of discipline could be deadly. Honestly, they probably should’ve stepped in and said something, but they didn’t trust themself not to put their foot in their mouth and make everything worse.

All of it came to a head the night before a mission when Wiseman threatened to ground him if he didn’t deal with it. It wasn’t done in front of the squad, but Trigger heard all about it when Count came grumbling into their room to sulk. 

His complaining did raise a question. “Why don’t you just tie it back? Huxian has long hair, but she doesn’t get in trouble.”

“Yeah, well, Huxian’s a girl. She’s allowed to.”

“So why can’t you? As long as your hair stays out of your face, you should be good, right?” 

They didn’t say it as a solution, only an observation, but Count’s brows furrowed.“Do you still have your rulebook?”

“No.” All soldiers had one when they joined, but Trigger looked at their’s once and forgot all about it. 

After an evening of pouring over a rulebook they borrowed from Fencer and a run to the convenience store for some elastic hair ties, Count arrived bright and early to the airfield, hair pulled back in a short ponytail. Wiseman looked like he was going to say something, but Trigger pointed out that there was nothing in the rulebook saying he couldn’t.

Wiseman just shook his head and let him join the mission. Count sent Trigger a satisfied smirk that hopefully only they saw, lest all that work went to waste.

*******

Trigger felt like they were going to hurl and they hadn’t even touched their drink. 

They had never been a drinker. Alcohol tasted gross and they dealt with enough drunk people that any of the appeal of it faded pretty quickly. Nobody wanted them to drink with them, so there was no social aspect to it.

So why did they agree to go to the bar? Well, they didn’t really.

Longcaster, true to his word, took them all to a nice restaurant to celebrate their victory at Stonehenge. It was a good excuse to talk to their squadmates in a relaxed setting, and the food was pretty tasty. The evening was starting to wind down, and Trigger was planning to go back to base and get some sleep after the hectic day they had. Maybe fate would smile on them, and they could sleep in a little.

Unfortunately for their peaceful evening, that’s when Count and Huxian started trash-talking about how much they could drink. Then they decided that a restaurant wasn’t enough celebration for them, and that a bar crawl was in order. For reasons Trigger couldn’t wrap their head around, Count threw out an offer to join.

Bar hopping didn’t seem like it would be their thing, but again, no one had ever invited them to go, and they were eager to hang out with their friends. So with an order from Wiseman to keep the other two alive, they swallowed their trepidation and went along. 

As it turned out, it really wasn’t their thing. Bars were loud, social environments, so they were already way out of their depth. Not helped by the fact that a lot more people were celebrating the day’s victory, so it was pretty packed. Other soldiers and pilots noticed their patches and kept coming up and offering to buy their drinks. A brave few even tried to get their numbers. It was incredibly odd to get called a monster and cute in the same sentence.

Count and Huxian dealt with the attention like absolute masters, talking to complete strangers like they had known them for years. Or maybe it was one of those ‘human’ things that Trigger never seemed to get. Earlier that night, they all sang to a lady, just like the scene in that one movie. If it was them, they would have died on the spot, but everyone just laughed. Like it was no big deal at all. 

They took a sip of their neon pink drink. It tasted like artificial cherry and straight sugar. They always felt like that, it just got worse whenever they were in big groups like this. Where there was supposed to be a connection to the camaraderie, was just empty. Like an empty wire socket.

Someone bumped their elbow into their shoulder hard enough to knock them out of their thoughts. Count watched them, searching for some kind of reaction. “You good?”

Trigger shrugged. They’d live.

“Wiseman was joking, y’know. You don’t actually have to stay and babysit.”

“I know.”

“So what’s the problem?”

They gestured to the group and tried to find the words. “I’m not very good at all this. But you invited me, and I wanted to hang out because we’re friends.”

Wait. Were they friends? Trigger thought of Count as a friend, but did he think the same? “Unless you don’t want to be. Sorry. Maybe I should just-”

Count heaved a heavy sigh, but they could just barely see the smile in his eyes. “You really are bad at this. Look, follow my lead, and we’ll have you talking like a normal person in no time.”

It was a long evening of trial and error, but Trigger found themself to slowly start enjoying the evening. Maybe this could be their thing.

*******

Trigger was the last to land, which was normally just how they liked it. Unfortunately, this time it meant a few more minutes before they could check in on their teammates.

Trust was a wonky thing, as they were quickly finding out. On one hand, they knew their squadmates could handle themselves, and take on anything thrown at them. On the other hand, the anxiety of just seeing them in tough situations made Trigger want to claw out of their own skin. Better yet, they were going to rip Clemons’ off. Would serve him right for all the shit he pulled.

Most of their squad was waiting for them when they landed. Some were more banged up than others, but from their understanding, everyone was fine. At worst, they’d have to go through another checkup before being cleared for take off. Huxian was visibly bandaged, but they were pretty sure there was no way they were going to talk her down.

Count was the first to notice and greet them, still also in his flight suit. He hadn’t gotten too hurt, but he had yet to be seen by a doctor. Even so, Trigger was just relieved to see him alive and well after the attempted assassination. It had been extremely touch-and-go for a minute, but Count’s plan got them out of it.

His plan was simple, but its effectiveness was clear. Just switch over to another radio frequency. Trigger would’ve never thought of it that quickly, and it reminded them how thankful they were to have him as a wingman. They would even go so far as to call it cool. Unfortunately, that coolness was barely eclipsed by the acidic worry of watching him use himself as bait. It was that same simultaneous confidence of knowing he could handle it, and the stress of watching him take on the sibling mercenaries mostly by himself.

“Don’t do that again. That was really, really cool, but please don’t do that again.”

Count just laughed, the kind of laugh one gave after hearing good news after a long day of bad luck. Trigger couldn’t help but join in. They chuckled under their breath until someone loudly cleared their throats behind them.

The interrupter was a naval officer. One of Clemons’ men. They could tell by a uniform too neat to have seen any actual work. Perfect. That meant the Brigadier General was still there. After all the stuff he’d put them through, they were ready to get their hands on his throat. Putting their friends in harm’s way was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Now that they had him on record for committing treason he would definitely be put away. And if not, well…

They’d been to prison for murder before and they’d done just fine. 

The officer seemed to sense their intent and quickly stammered out that the debriefing was starting soon before practically running away. Count seemed to sense it too, since he grabbed the back of their jumpsuit, rooting them firmly in place. He shook his head at them. There would be no murder. For now.

*******

Deep, dark blue. As far as the eye could see.

It was over. They won. The drones were gone for good, and now they knew why Harling turned back that day. He was willing to die to safeguard the future. Trigger was free, both legally and conscientiously. Well, as free as one bound by gravity could be.

Part of them wanted to keep going, to touch the stars, to run their fingers across the thin veil that separated them from the heavens until they could rip it down. Maybe they would get to say goodbye to all the friends they lost too suddenly. Maybe they would join them. If they got high enough, maybe their debris would never come back down, and they’d stay among the destroyed satellites.

Still, they could hear their squadmates’ radio chatter. People were waiting for them down below, so a cold death in the upper atmosphere would have to wait. There would only be one chance to do this, so they might as well do it with style. They flipped into a dive. They went straight down, taking on as many Gs as they could before they had to level out. 

Landing was remarkably mundane after what had happened. Due to the odd logistics of the operation, everyone had to land at a different location, but they were assured all their friends were fine and headed to solid land. Since they were the hero, they got to ride in the fancy helicopter.

The crowd around the landing pad was worse than any other event they’d been through by a long shot. If they weren’t so exhausted, they’d probably be on the brink of a panic attack by now. Strangers shoved into their personal space to pat them on the back or shake their hand. As soon as Trigger saw Jeager, they stuck as close as possible in hopes that the people would back off a little. Like a person umbrella. Or maybe a meatshield.

Count was the last to arrive, since he had to taxi the entire way out of the tunnel. Trigger owed him a drink for that. They owed him a lot of drinks for all the stuff he’d done for them, both in the skies and on the ground. But taking that hit and landing in such a small area was particularly impressive.

They barely caught a glimpse of blond through the throngs of people. The man was about the right height, and had the right hair, but they couldn’t be sure. Trigger had an idea, one that was way scarier than fighting drones. For the first time in years, first time in memory at least, they puffed out their chest and yelled. 

“YOU ASSHOLE! I told you to stop doing that!”

Several around them jumped, though they had no idea whether it was from the sudden loudness or the fact that they could get that loud at all. It caught Count’s attention, and thank goodness it really was him, or else Trigger would have walked straight into the ocean. He was smiling, laughing even, while they continued to yell at him and tried to push their way through the crowd.

When they met in the middle, Count gave them a one-armed hug. Trigger was going to keep scolding him for taking a hit for them again, but was shut up when he used his free hand to give them a noogie. 

“You did good, kid.”

“Who’re you calling kid?”

They tried their best to duck away from him, but now he had them in a headlock. Lots of people were watching, but in this moment, they didn’t care. Their friends were safe, and that was all that mattered to them.

[plantsucc]

pony reflection hours.

I finished Jenny Nicholson's video about Bronycon finally, and decided to check if Equestria Daily still exists. amazingly it's still up. I went to check out the article that featured my art once - I realised THIS MARCH marked 10 years since I had a moment of Horse Fame!! XD

my old username was ArtFlicker and I was featured in an Artist Spotlight. it's nice to be reminded of what people actually see or saw in my drawings. (ignore the she/her pronouns - I was about 14, didn't realise I was a trans guy yet, and wouldn't acknowledge it for a few years at least. :P)

I explored gender through pony genderbends / genderswapping and shipping. it made me ask questions about society and probably made me who I am today. made me ask why does society treat you different depending on what you were assigned at birth? if a character were the opposite sex, what would change in both their body and their upbringing? (I didn't know about trans or nonbinary options yet. I think they call it cisswapping these days?) I also genderbent straight ships gay because... boys. I liked boy characters! and BL. and I got to explore the new dynamic. like if they're gay now, suddenly their relationship is unacceptable to some people, and actually illegal in many places. even though everything else is the same, suddenly it's transgressive? really makes a teen realise that they're living in a society. the whole thing made me think more deeply about gender and in turn stereotypes, inequality and oppression.

(some gay (M/M gay not lesbian gay) Rainbow Dash genderswaps + gay-fied/un-straighted SoarinDash. I drew more of Pinkie Pie/Pokey Pierce but I show them in every post where I mention my Pony Past, so here's a rare selection of Rainbow Blitz instead)

um okay, it doesn't need to be that deep, everyone just seemed to love my cute shippy art, which I really appreciated. I put a lot of work into it and it was great fun. I think I put more work into these than I do my art nowadays... I want to go back to finishing things digitally but I don't know how anymore. it's like it's harder now. then again, 4-legged characters who don't even need clothes were very easy to design, draw and pose. should I return to that??

a nice comment similarly delving into love for my messy art. I guess maybe I'm too obsessed with (even romanticising and envying) the idea of clean line art being superior and my own being permanently "worse" for being a mess.

the date was 12.03.2014 and the Artist Spotlight was written by Calpain. thanks again. :)

The Last Bronycon, the video essay, was kind of hard to watch through, for personal reasons. it's like I'm coming to terms with my cringe past. but I cringed at the brony fandom for years after I left not because "embarrassing to be hyped about the colorful kids show," but because of the oversexualization and homophobia that seemed to plague the fandom.

at first, Equestria Daily didn't even accept M/M shipping fics, because they were allegedly """out of character,""" while F/F or F/M shipping fics AND suggestive fan art was allowed without question. it was meanspirited and conservative, typical for a "cishet dudes" kind of community. very typical for a "fandom originating from 4chan" kind of community... I'm over my hatred for bronies in general but THAT part is what I'm ashamed of when it comes to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

and yet it was a mostly good experience for my first big fandom. I made self-discoveries, lifelong friends and I got a good grade in shipping and art according to the fandom overlords of EqD. normal to want and possible to achieve. XD I didn't even realise the fandom had quieted down. the MLP:FiM fandom was SO prominent, it was everywhere in the 2010s. it was a very 2010s moment and I didn't even realise it until it was over. it's very similar to Homestuck in that way, because I don't see Homestuck cosplays anymore either, but in my mind it still feels MASSIVE even though I was never part of that fandom.

they're not Annoyingly Prominent anymore and the absence feels kind of... bad? painful?

I miss it? it's like, wow, you REALLY don't realise what you have until it's gone.

(looking at my ponysona makes me want red hair again)

now for huge fandoms we have just have fffffucking Gensh- nonono I'll probably feel the same about that one in 10 years, just like I hated Homestuck at first and appreciate them now! I'm self-aware!! I am!

[draw-you-coward]

yeah maybe you reblogged that thing like 2 days ago but I'm going slow right now so if you still want to do the character ask thing, maybe mr Aloth Pillars of Eternity?

ogh im just happy to get one! lol

First impression: he's just a sweet lil lad. a sweet boy.. he seems so nice and shy and somewhat pathetic... i take pity on the lil squishy wizord in deadfire: damn aloth's old and cynical now lmAO

Impression now: this is tough bc i've slooowly started replaying deadfire and i forget most of my impression of him 🤔 I remember thinking that he makes a lot of very funny snarky comments and I liked how they gave him nervous stims esp with his hands. he just seems so done with all the bullshit and i feel that. I do wish he still had some of that sweet ladness left under all that cynicism though... but I think Rake thinks it's a little sexy

Favorite moment: bruh he propositioned Rake in the bathhouse literal seconds before tekehu did... i've been wanting to write a fic about it. besides that, there was a bit in the first game where rake failed a str check and aloth also failed a str check to help him and dislocated his shoulder and I just thought it was so sweet :-) so little rng things i guess... although i do like the comment he makes after you kill the memory monster in the wael dlc

Idea for a story: ok ok u know how i do like. vignettes. well i've been wanting to replay deadfire and sloowly make a fic abt their relationship? starting with the first time they enter the bathhouse maybe ahaha it'll be more playful in tone. my writing's improved a lot since i started the rake series and I still think about one comment I got that said they were so glad i was writing because barely anyone else did male watcher/aloth... 💀 i wrote like. three things and i still feel guilty about it sometimes

Unpopular opinion: oo boy! i feel like i stay so far away from fandom that i dont know what anyone thinks anyways LOL. ig just a general thing for me which is I'm not really a fan of romance? shippy stuff kinda gives me the ick 😅 For characters like aloth (esp bc i. dont like men lmao) I'm mostly drawn to their vibes and personality, and I really liked his whole wizard deal plus iselmyr and the abusive dad backstory ; i feel like there's a LOT of potential to dive into how that affects him that no one really explores

Favorite relationship: with edér :)) just two good ol boys. i like how theyre pals

Favorite headcanon: oo i dont really make these for characters esp if I like canon. i guess i'd like to further expand on how iselmyr functions for him, esp since in game it doesnt seem to follow specific rules or guidelines. does she come out when he's triggered? does she come out just to yell at me for friendly fire or to be upset when my unkillable ghost dog dies? how did he learn to function well in combat if she delivers attacks sometimes ("i dinnae con the spellybooks" girledfriend then woter u doing here? 😔) i guess i'd headcanon that there'd be a learning curve, esp since his first instinct was to fight/suppress her 🤔

from here pls feel free to send me more i love attention

[icepixie]

20 questions for fic writers

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

158 (22 of these are fanvids)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

430,454

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Many. The top 5, per AO3, are Babylon 5, due South, Stargate SG-1, Farscape, and Northern Exposure. The most recent have been Strange New Worlds, China Beach, BBC Ghosts, Enterprise, and DS9. (Though to be fair, DS9 is an old fandom I started writing in again, and China Beach has been a mainstay since ~2014. Farscape...uhhh, oh, wow, I last published something for that in 2003.)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

I'm adjusting for the fact that the Agent Carter fics have by far the most kudos simply because it's the one large fandom I've written in. I'll count one of them and then go to the next-most-kudosed.

Necessary (Agent Carter; for once in her life, Peggy needs Jack for something)

Moves in the Field (The Cutting Edge; Yuletide fic where Doug and Kate visit Doug's brother and hometown)

Closing the Circuit (Enterprise; Baby Elizabeth lives and Trip and T'Pol spend their first night as parents)

Imperfect Recall (Strange New Worlds; Una and Chris recall his invitation to spend shore leave together 20 years ago very differently)

My Late Enchantments Still in Brilliant Colors Shine (Babylon 5; Susan Ivanova runs into a technomage)

5. Do you respond to comments?

98% of the time. Occasionally if it's a busy week they get away from me.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Either The Snow Maiden (Susan Ivanova childhood angst) or If Equal Affection Cannot Be (Marcus Cole, death and poetry) or Amo, Amas, I Love a Lass (more Marcus death and pining). Babylon 5 is the only fandom I've ever really gone angsty in.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Like...most of them? I'm not much for angst. I guess A Way to Walk on Water and Not Drown ended with the big theatrical happily ever after business...

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I feel like I got some sort of weird LJ comment once, but I barely remember it and it may have been more spam than anything.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Love me a good crossover. I don't write them often because doing them right requires a lot of thought, but they're very fun to do. I've written the most for due South, and the conceit of "Fraser and Thatcher come to New Burbage for Shakespeare-related reasons" has worked well for me. I also quite like the Wonderfalls/Fringe crossover I did back when Peter was missing...I felt like I had a cool idea I followed through on, and the canons meshed better than one might expect at first.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

I vaguely recall someone asking permission to translate something into Russian once.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

When I was 13 or so, with a RL friend, we wrote several hamfistedly shippy DS9 and Voyager fics together over the (landline) phone.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

AO3 says it's Fraser/Thatcher (due South) with Ivanova/Garibaldi (B5) a very close second, which seems about right. I'm also extremely fond of Maggie/Joel (NX) and McMurphy/Richard (China Beach).

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I'd love to finish the "Ivanova and Garibaldi try to honeymoon on Earth and get swept into defying a political plot against the president" fic I started years ago, but it always seems to require more plot than I want to deal with.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. I can't write it unless I can hear it in the character's voice in my head, and it seems to serve well for accurate characterization.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot. Plot plot plot plot plot. I just want to write characters vibing with each other, not have them do things!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've done it a couple times. Most of it was Russian, for the skating RPF, and for that I just googled a lot and apologized for any errors in the notes. I think it adds some flavor, and unless you're doing something really specific you're probably framing it so someone with no knowledge of the language can get the gist, so even if you've gotten it wrong it doesn't matter that much.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

It was either DS9 or Voyager. I would say I deleted all the evidence, but alas, usenet is forever.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

The Future an Affirmation (China Beach; the AU where McMurphy and Richard get married and we follow them for the next 25 years. Except backwards, because I very much enjoyed writing it like that. I feel like I effectively packed all my thoughts and feelings about McMurphy into that fic and did justice to what she would have done and been had these circumstances played out.)

I have a lot of honorable mentions, but maybe the most honorable is Out of the Ashes, a Northern Exposure fic where Maggie resorts to staying with Joel after her mother burns her house down. I got a fair number of "this reads just like an episode" comments, which I was quite proud of.

[versegm]

Ok actually after a discussion with a friend I decided to run some more statistics re: fanfics and engagement, so here (statistics taken off my own fanfics):

General results:

I did both the median and the average to try to smooth out any statistical outlier, but the results were roughly the same lmao

Roughly, 11,20% of readers drops a kudo after clicking on a fic (which I assume to be a good baseline for "amount of readers who clicked here on purpose and didn't quit midway through")

On average, 2,8% of readers bookmark a fic after reading it (would be curious to know if that's a general thing? Because don't really write shippy fics or the "popular" stuff so that might incurs statistical bias. If anyone else is willing to run some numbers I'd love to know.)

On average, 0,88% of readers drop a comment after the fact.

Hypotheses:

I included the release date (or something close to) of each fandom to see if there was a correlation between ratio of comments vs age of the fanbase. There was none.

There are some fandoms where I actively linked my fics everywhere and got involved with people ect ect. I included that as well to see if there was a correlation between ratio of comments vs how much it was promoted. There was not. (It is possible that people directly dmed me their impressions instead of leaving a comment, in which case sorry guys I hold your compliments close to my heart but they were unfortunately lost to time.)

I wanted to add whether or not the fandom was currently active, but that's... actually really hard to gauge (what metric to use? Amount of fics uploaded on ao3 daily? Amount of new tweets under a given hashtag?) so I didn't.

Conclusion: I couldn't find any specific reasons for these numbers so uh I guess "10% of people bother finishing your fic/3% will like it enough to bookmark it/1% will go the extra step to tell you about it" is the default, and any deviation from that norm is fandom specific.

Fandom-specific observations:

Biggest ratio of comments/hits goes to all my Fate/Stay Night & Fate/Grand Order crossover fics, weirdly enough. Either 1) the fsn fandom is really generous in comments, or 2) the fact that it's a crossover means that it attracts two very different crowds which leads to twice the usual amount of comments.

The dubious award of having the worst ratio of comments/hits goes to the Amphibia fandom with a whooping 0,41%, half as much as any other fandom. Jesus Christ. That being said it is a fandom mostly populated by kids (I think?) which is probably (?) not the case for these other fandoms.

This is a fate blog so I do have to point out that the second worst ratio of comments/hits goes to the Fate/Grand Order fandom, so I can only encourage you guys to actually comment on the fics you like.

AI: The Somnium Files has a nearly 20% of kudos per hit. Though the ao3 tag is also not very active (last I checked it could go weeks without any update) so it might be a case of "we're so starved for new fics we'll read anything at this point."

TL;DR:

It seems like on average, 10% of people drop a kudo, 3% will like it enough to bookmark it, and 1% will go the extra step of leaving a comment. If you're a fic writer and you are despairing over the amount of attention your fic gets, worry not- that is normal.

[sojirosteacup]

I translate the excerpt that supposedly started the Moriharu rumor

Part 2 of my post about the origins of the Mori/Haruhi rumor.

After taking a look at the english excerpt and translating it from spanish and portuguese, we barely looked at the original japanese text. I translated one word and left it at that. But why not translate the whole thing and see what is really in there?

Let's do it after the cut! ↓

Disclaimer: I'm not a native speaker and only took 3 years of japanese classes. I took two days to translate this and reviewed all the grammar I could to do it right, but there might be mistakes here.

But the translations we have aren't much better so, shrugs

First of all, let's take a look at the japanese text again:

My first thought was "that's a long ass sentence at the beginning, fml!".

Because of the differences between japanese and english grammar (and japanese being able to cut some things from the sentences) the text can be worded differently depending on how you interpret it or structure it. No wonder this excerpt has so many different translations, it can be taken in different ways depending on the translator.

Here is my own attempt to translate it (with comments below):

"If he is left alone - a 'doesn't talk, serious face guy' as always - the story tends to end up progressing¹. A person that can nonchalantly torment Hatori² over and over. But my love for him is big³ (laughs) For Hatori, Mori and Haruhi may be⁴ a target⁵ dark horse⁶ couple, or not."

¹I feel that it could also be read as "the story tends end up plot twisting". Yes, the same kanji means both "plot twist" and "development, progression". But I think she meant that the story goes on without him doing anything. Yes, this sentence was hard to translate. Another possible way to translate it could be "if left alone, the 'doesn't talk, serious face guy' story tends to end up progressing/twisting." But then why would she worry about it? lol

²could also be read as "casually worries Hatori over and over". I can't figure out the exact verb because they both use the same kanji and very similar conjugations. But the meaning doesn't change much. And torment sounds funnier with the next sentence lol

³Unsure if it's her love or his love since it doesn't use a name. I'm going to guess it's about her, since she just talked about how much he worries/torments her.

⁴she uses とか, that is a quoting structure used for something uncertain, unconfirmed or a rumor.

⁵This kanji confused me because I'm used to see it in the context of turning words into adjectives. But it doesn't seem to be the case here since it's missing the な used with it. 的's meaning alone is "target" or "subject". I'm going to go with target since it's the only one that makes sense, but it might be some kind of slang I don't know. Maybe it's used to mean something like 'endgame'? DON'T TAKE THIS AS TRUTH, I'M GUESSING HERE. But if that's the case, then I can see how it could confuse people.

⁶in japanese, she uses a term that means an unlikely win in horse racing, I tried to use the closest thing in english. I go more in depth about the term on my last post.

One thing that surprised me is that every single translation we looked at on my last post skipped something from the excerpt. The english one cut the "story develops/plot twists" part entirely. Same for the spanish version. The brazilian portuguese one kept closer to the original text (using "plot twist" instead of "developing"), but the translation error at the end kinda ruined it.

So what conclusion can we take from this? It definitely does not confirm them as a couple. The "or not" at the end of the text makes it obvious that she was joking with this. It's something similar to the shippy illustrations of the Hosts with Haruhi at the end of the manga volumes, just another of Hatori's attempts to confuse the readers and keep all Haruhi couples as possibilities.

But looking at the text (and it's many different translations) we can see where people took some parts of the rumor from:

The "they were supposed to be canon!" could have come from people missing the "or not" at the end of the excerpt, along with the uncertain tone of the sentence being lost in translation. It could have also been the many translations calling them Hatori's favorite couple, or maybe even the "my love (for him) is big" part being translated as "his love is big".

The "she changed it" probably comes from the "plot twist/development" part being translated differently depending on the language.

The "Tamaki became the male lead because he was more popular" part is not here are at all, but, like I said on my last post, I have a theory that it got taken from a rumor from another fandom.

Does that mean this excerpt was the origin of the rumor? Who knows! It could have come from something else. But since this is mentioned in every discussion about it, I felt like it wouldn't hurt to translate the original.

(if anyone else speaks japanese and wants to add something to this translation, fell free to reblog or reply with your suggestion/correction. I could be wrong or maybe you can see something I missed, who knows.)

[ozrockbitway]

If Vale had groovy cards, what do you think they would look like/be the story behind them? 👀

Vale groovy cards...I eventually plan on drawing their Groovy art at some point. Im just drawing blanks on how to do it + I'd wana do a BG and make it SICK like an actual card. So...one day...eventually :')) I am drawing more recently so!! its a possibility!!

I'll focus on the 2 SRs I have for them I guess?? Considering the bday one is technically an interview so...not much story there?? Although for that one I'd like Grim to be the one interviewing them & have him in the groovy art too uwu/

Suitor Suit Vale!

It starts off with them fretting over their looks. Like a bit after they've all changed into the suits to go save Idia. Vale is just nervous cuz they don't usually dress up, but they also like it?? No time to appreciate it all though when the homie is in danger!

There's also talk on how to woo the ghost bride. I'm thinking that Vale ends up suggesting really good lines?! They just say it's cliched stuff from novels about princesses and whatnot but hey, those kinda things might actually work. I think Ace would try to prod them a little like, what would you say to get someone's hand in marriage, without 'cheating' aka using your novel knowledge. Do something from the heart.

To be continued in pt 2 lol

Commentary from Vale about how this tragic tale of the ghost bride finding her one true love would make for a good novel. Insert comments about oh please dont do it. They laugh...maybe they won't but no promises hehehe.

Ima dab me in some Corpse Bride reference here. sorta. Basically it's Vale on their way back to Ramshackle at night with the looming thought of how they never got to give their hand at wooing the princess. They take Ace's words to heart and try to think of something to say. Also a comment from either Rook or Epel, probably Rook about thinking about someone who inspires such thoughts (coughs Idia coughs)

They give a soliloquy, their own heartfelt confession and lines for a wedding. They get a bit embarrassed afterwards and glad that no one is around. But they're totally using that in the future.

haha funny bonus is if the Shroud bros hear it or something and Ortho just eye emojis at his bro like HMMMMMMMM lil bro knows what's up

I'd like their groovy to be like gets down on one knee and extends hand out to the player or something?? w/ the ramshackle background?? to be more shippy its them doing it to Idia B))

Starsending Robes Vale!

steals my own fic idea lol. sort of. but it starts off with Ortho asking about what Vale's wish would be despite giving/sharing it with Grim. They're honestly not so sure about it like?? The thought of having magic does come to mind and they say it but they know that isn't possible. So maybe something else? Ortho says to think on it and he'll grant it!

Vale ends up hunting for wishes with Ortho & Idia the most out of the selected trio. I know the Shroud bros get the wishes from the Leech bros, so Vale ends up hanging around them for a bit. The eels are so kind and willing to lend an ear to Vale's woes...at least they seem to be interested.

Vale admits that they don't know what to wish for. Floyd points out it doesn't matter since they don't get a wish anyway while Jade is softens the blow saying its all for fun and its not so serious. Conversation ensues and it boils down to Floyd's side saying be selfish or following after Jade's with his selfless wish. Ugh decisions!

to be continued...

The night of the starsending...

They're still conflicted on what to choose. Selfish and selfless. They're rarely the former, but the latter is so much easier. They consider the bros (Jade & Ortho) and their wishes. As they think on it they end up seeing the "shooting stars". And then it hits them.

The whole thing is done and Idia is probably trying to peace out but Vale spots them and is just like!! I know my wish!! Idia is like?? wishing is over but go off I guess??

My wish...is to spend as much time with my friends here.

They probably explain that they were tempted to wish for everyone's wish to come true, but they can be a little selfish and wish for that instead, right? It's silly, but that means they also get to spend more time with him and Ortho too!

tbh the image I have in mind would be similar to the header on my sideblog or just focusing on Vale making the wish with Idia in it uwaaa

[thatsnotbeautiful]

it’s finally sunk in for me that we never get to see Mithrun’s version of his backstory, we only get Kabru’s rendition of it. and considering that one bit here comes with a huge asterisk in the extras (i.e. Kabru: he was a perfect youth Mithrun: no i wasn’t, i was shitty in XYZ ways), i’m choosing to believe that not everything we get is 100% true or the entire story

i initially read Kabru’s “everyone loves a tragic love story” as him commenting on how Mithrun’s actual experiences lend themselves so well to ppl being sympathetic, but now i think he’s congratulating himself for choosing to present the story that way.

he describes Mithrun’s story as a “complicated” one that he has to “simplify”. so, sure this serves my shippy needs, but i don’t think Mithrun made his wish just bc he loved Sultha. i think that was the reason Kabru deemed to be the simplest and most relatable to an audience.

he also goes on to narrate that “Mithrun wished for a life where he never joined the Canaries”, which i think is way closer to the truth… but it’s harder to explain if you list all the reasons when instead you could just go “he was in love 🥺”

i’m also picking at “he was left with a body that doesn’t register desire”. again, this is just Kabru’s interpretation. but to me “a body that doesn’t register desire” is different to “completely lacking desire”. if the want doesn’t register it seems like more of a… disconnect? and seems to make more sense that he would occasionally react to things, seem happy/satisfied or distressed… but he just can’t drum up wanting the thing that just made him happy or not wanting the thing that distressed him. i guess

back on my dunmeshi backreading and… someone mentioned that Kabru doesn’t have to deal with the stresses of being “the leader” when he’s stuck on the dungeon lower level with Mithrun. multiple times Mithrun is shown being the one deciding what to do during an attack and saving their asses, bc he’s more experienced with dungeon monsters… so Kabru doesn’t have to stress abt keeping it together and figuring out what to do bc he has a party depending on him

[laufire]

I know I might be guilty of this as well (in my defense, sometimes two characters trying to kill each other is written in a very, very shippy way, okay xDD), but sometimes seeing what people in big shipdoms find “shippy” is... mildly disturbing.