#i think it's entirely possible and actually quite likely

[penig]

Well...I'm in my 60s, and I wrote my first fanfics (ACD Sherlock Holmes and When Things Were Rotten which no, you haven't heard of it) in my teens, but they weren't for publication. They were writing practice - and, in the case of When Things Were Rotten - also a letter game with a friend, the only other fan in the entire southwest and possibly the world.

My first uploaded fanfic was a snippet of shipping fic and I uploaded it in a post to the AOL X-files Relationshipper forum. We were all doing that. I wrote The Light in the Tower at Mulder Manor and The Scully Girls and the Submarine Mystery on Martha's Vineyard (Hey, it's been awhile, I got confused but it had to be Martha's Vineyard because the submarine was the solution to the mystery), and a bunch of shippy little "scenes we'll never see," and a chapter of a round robin that never finished, in this fashion. I think the first scene may have been the one in which Mulder was at Scully's house for Thanksgiving and instead of watching football with the men he kept wandering into the kitchen where the women were cooking and gossiping to tell Scully how the game was going, and when he saw her reaching for something on a shelf that she couldn't quite reach went to get it for her, checking that he got the right one, correcting, taking it down and handing it to her, all without ceasing to talk about the game - the checking and correction was all body language. When he wandered back to the living room, of course, Ma Mulder and Missy are all over her and she's all "it's not like that" and they're all "suuuure it's not." I think I still have those, actually; I printed them out.

I didn't upload a fic to an actual fic site till 2019. So yeah, I remember that really well.

authors!!

quick question...

also can you remember where you first uploaded your first ever fanfic??

[elodieunderglass]

OK - more Killie nonsense in my brain tonight. I was randomly searching racehorse names to see what kind of person/horse Killie would have been had he actually been named "Killer Instinct" and on Equibase there's actually quite a few horses named that. From the (very) little I know, I thought each racehorse had to have a unique name? Like actors? or Mormon babies?

(In reference to Killie the jockey OC being short for reasons he can’t help! they’re generational jockeys, they’re a very short family possibly Killer Instinct (but you can’t name babies like racehorses because of woke))

Alsjdjdksjfhdkf MORMON BABIES. Thank you so much for this.

Yes, racehorse names are supposed to be unique, but reading this (USA-looking) registry it makes sense. Names are retired on death of the horse and become available again, and the racehorse registries are region-locked. The top one, the mare born 2020 by Lookin at Lucky out of Queen of Diamonds, is the only active one in the USA. Below that’s an Australian, then an Indian horse. The 2003-born American horse is clearly minced dead; racehorse names are only protected from further use if the previous holders were notable enough for the name to be retired. (You can’t name a racehorse Man o’ War or Secretariat.) killer instinct is such a good name that it will probably have an active user for most of the rest of the history of the sport.

I’m not entirely sure what happens when the horse is shipped overseas to compete in a country where there might possibly be another horse of the same name.

The British Horseracing Authority lets you check what names you can have, and if it’s taken, they have some GENUINELY good suggestions somehow! It isn’t like “xXxdragon1989xXx” suggestions, there are some good ones.

I think they are pulling suggestions from the records of dead racehorses. I can’t explain why they’re so good otherwise.

[arsquare]

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is my Heishin Exchange piece (event hosted by @heishinvalentineexchange2025) for oreganocactus on Ao3! The prompt I used was: "heishin yuri would be awesome…i love explorations of how gender would affect how characters behave/change so that would be cool :)"

Thoughts and process under the cut!

And also an NSFW sketch at the very bottom btw. as a treat for clicking on the readmore

So originally I had wanted to do a comic retelling the Murdered Diplomat Case Except They're Both Girls This Time AKA Heiji's debut case, but I got about 8 pages into the storyboards before I realized it would be impossible within the exchange's time frame. The Murdered Diplomat case is really really long, even if I cut everything about the case out LMAO... here's what I had if anyone is curious!

It was already sprawling by my standards here. We're on page 8 and Heiji has nary shown her face in the Mouri Detective Agency (also boy Kazuha is there? The part with the details of the case was supposed to be sort of timelapsed through a bunch of texts Kazuha sent Heiji because he was worried about where she was) So in my desperation I tried redoing it from page 7 to be more concise:

This was the point where I was officially like yeah this is not happening this is going to take one william pages at this rate and I just am not going to have the time to do that!! So I scrapped it and started working on the final product you see up there.

(BTW IT'S REAL!! about 80-90% of the comic actually exists in the real world!! I actually drew and inked it physically this time!)

I had really WANTED to retell the Murdered Diplomat Case because I would have been able to totally recontextualize Heiji and Shinichi's relationship, because I do think it would have been kind of different.

For one, I think Heiji's adoration of Shinichi would have had a more desperate quality to it. Between the two of them, Shinichi is definitely the more self-assured one of the two. With her laissez-faire parents who just does whatever they want, I'm sure they would have been fine with letting Shinichi pursue her detective dreams (though I'm sure Yukiko's even more sad about Shinichi not being a child actress </3 whatever though who cares about that), and so she's more confident that it's something she can be.

Heiji on the other hand comes from a more traditional family. I think her parents would highly disapprove of her detective pursuits, and as a result she becomes a more rebellious child-- but one who harbors a deep insecurity about whether she's doing the right thing or not, even if she knows she wants it.

When Shinichi vanishes off the radar, it's more than just a person that Heiji's developed an intense parasocial relationship with going off the grid, it's an entire nail in the coffin of the idea that being a female high school detective is something that's possible at all. That's why she's so desperate to find Shinichi-- she needs assurance that this hiatus that Shinichi is taking is not because society or the world put her into her place and made her quit doing this, but because of... something else. It has to be something else.

This I think would really bleed into how Heiji ends up treating Conan. In canon Heiji's super dismissive of Conan, initially only treating his as a nuisance on the crime scene before he figures out that he's Shinichi, despite the fact he no doubt was in those shoes a decade ago. But because of the continual pushback from her parents, the officers on the scene, and friends (cough boy kazuha), the struggle of being treated like she isn't supposed to be there on the crime scene is much fresher in her mind. She sees herself in Conan much more than he does in canon.

So I guess all I'm saying is that I think Heiji would have been nicer to Conan in my retelling LOLLL

As for what's going on in the comic I actually posted... well, you know, this wasn't my first choice precisely because I don't think it's necessarily gendered as much? Like, I can see this playing out if they were both still guys as well, maybe even more. After all, girls in general are more able to be physically affectionate with each other while suffering fewer consequences.

At the same time though I think Shinichi has an intense "not like other girls" thing going on. This whole thing is actually a subset of my genderbend universe where the whole teenage cast gets swapped and actually it was originally me just wanting girl Shinichi to comfort boy Ran (but badly because she's lowkey kinda autistic and not great at that...) as his parents got divorced LMAOOO. But anyways it would mean that Shinichi's closest friends are... Sonoko and Ran? Who are both guys...

So I think she would intentionally distance herself from that physical affection girls are able to have. She feels like if she indulges in that, then everyone else will take her less seriously and think "oh she's just a girl after all" and all the negative connotations of not being as capable or as smart as she actually is. In my head, she associates physical affection with being manhandled as a kid.

Another thing I kind of waffled on was... what should Heiji and Shinichi call each other? And maybe it's a bit of a weird choice for them to still refer to each other by last name but like. Hear me out.

I think to refer to each other by their last names is a token of respect, especially from Heiji to Shinichi. He keeps slipping up in canon and accidentally calling him Kudo, and while I do agree that part of it is him being careless and possibly inconsiderate to some degree, I also think... he really wants to call him Kudo? Like, this is someone he deeply respects. He wants to be professional equals to him more than he wants to be friends at the start, but never was able to actually GET that kind of relationship due to contrived circumstances of Shinichi getting shrunk. He can't call Conan "Edogawa", that's weird as fuck, so he has to wait until Conan's back to being Shinichi to even begin calling him "Kudo" for real. I think he'd really relish it, as a long-time-coming kind of thing, and I don't think it's any different as girls. In fact I'd argue it's even more intense because of that.

These two characters are both in such an intense hurry to grow up. Hell, Shinichi even dislikes it in canon when his mother calls him Shin-chan, and I think it's because he feels like this diminishes his self-perception as a "grown person". All the more since they're girls: I think this type of affectionate, diminutive name-calling would have been used against them to try to coax them away from crime scenes they wanted to be at. Like, "Oh, come on~ You're just a little girl, you shouldn't be here, Hei-chan~", something like that.

I think this is sort of an implicitly understood undercurrent that lies between them. If we have nobody else in the world who respects us we at least have each other. So when Heiji tries to push their relationship a bit, tries to become more than just friends, Shinichi sees this as a betrayal in some ways. Even if she rationally knows that Heiji isn't trying to belittle her, she can't help but conflate her recent experiences as a little girl again with how Heiji treats her now in the comic.

This whole thing could have been avoided if Heiji was more straightforward about her intentions btw but of course see above careless and possibly inconsiderate PLUS he's also kind of a tsundere character like everyone in detco when it comes to the person he likes so. inevitable... </3

Anyways thank you for reading all of this nonsense. Originally this comic was going to be longer and like, (this is a grossly incompetent summary,) they'd have a yuri makeout session in the Kudo Mansion Study. But we can't have good things in this world because there's not enough time so I only have this to show for :(((

I hope everyone likes it 👍️

[worrywrite]

Okay, so I know there's a bigger branch of this post.

But I want to take this a different direction.

So, when Harrow and her team of spirits fight off Wake they win because Ortus believes so hard in Nonius that he brings a perfect fix-it fic version of Nonius into being that is just strong enough to fight Wake back. And for reference, Wake is quite possibly the strongest willed character in the entire series bar none (she orbital dropped onto Pluto with a broken space suit, crashes with next to no oxygen in her system and at lethal levels of hypoxia, and she's still trying to get to her feet still trying to get to the tomb, still cursing Gideon, the nuns have to put her down).

So imagine, narcissist Ianthe, tower prince, gets her brain shoved out of her puppet and there's Palamedes. She thought he was dead. But wait, what's this, it's his entire fanfiction cast that looks strangely like an erotic novel she read once out of boredom. But wait, again, something is wrong. Every character at his beck and call is imbued with the strength, skill, and determination of Camilla Hect the intergalactic badass that wiped the floor with Ianthe's swordmaster boy toy (let the record show that I tried to type "boytoy" and forgot the space but autocorrect changed it to "bottom" and I think that's very accurate, thank you auto-correct) that she stole her skills from. So Ianthe has to go all out against one of the most dangerous Necromancers she knows (possibly the most dangerous non-lyctor she is aware of) and a small army of regency smut clones of one of the most dangerous fighters she is aware of (and I'm not laundering Camilla's skill, she went toe to toe with an incredibly skilled lyctor while she had broken bones and blood loss and these clones are Camilla as Palamedes sees her, so even better). Also, maybe there's a Naberius specter in there and he's pissed too, but more of a third party to it all.

If this is an actual battle in a river bubble, it probably looks less like Ianthe struggling to hold her own and more Palamedes just relentlessly beating back an unstoppable force with countless immovable objects.

Though, let's be honest, it's a battle of wills. They're both incredibly stubborn. Palamedes just wants it more. For Ianthe this is a game for her pride and personal goals. For Palamedes, it's a battle of life or death.

Seriously tho Palamedes said his battle with Ianthe took "a great deal longer" than a few seconds. How long did it take?? What was it like?

It would have been in the River, like Wake and Nonius' duel. And it would have been between two master necromancers already proficient in navigating the River. It could be anything. All bets are off.

[shmisky]

Now, that is a good question. There is a way to make Stan feel a deep hatred towards Ford or decide to let him go and stop love him, feeling only indifference towards him, without the need of magic or Bill or supernatural, tragic stuff?

I assume you don’t mean through brainwashing nor total/partial amnesia (forgetting his sweet moments with Ford) or anything of the sort either, right? That would be cheating, after all. You probably mean genuine hatred, coming from the bottom of Stan’s heart, with all his memories and his mind intact.

So no, I don’t believe so, hahah. Stan is simply too forgiving when it comes to Ford, and imo there’s nothing canon!Ford could believably do that would earn his true hatred. Pre-Weirdmaggedon Stan is very angry, true enough, and initially refused to help save Ford from Bill, but I think he was 1) running from his feelings and 2) didn’t know and refused to think about what was truly happening to Ford (that Ford was literally being tortured instead of just serving as gold décor). He also “disowns” Ford for a while—up until Ford changes his mind about Stan and apologizes and invites him to sail away together, that is.

The guy spent thirty years slaving away with the portal to save a brother whose last words to him were still pretty hostile! Ford didn’t intervene when Stan was kicked out, then after ten years without reaching out called him to the other side of the country in the middle of winter with just a postcard written PLEASE COME and then demanded Stan to help him with the first “worthwhile” thing Stan would’ve done in his life (according to him), and Stan still chose to sacrifice everything for him! Ford refuses to thank Stan, kicks him out... but Stan still accepts his broposal when Ford changes his mind! I’ve seen a lot of people say that in Stan’s place they wouldn’t have forgiven Ford, understandably so.

I actually think it’s possible for Stan to not forgive Ford if you do it well, but not to stop loving him. Like we say in my country, Stan doesn’t “play on duty” when the subject is loving Stanford Pines, and that of course affects his ability to forgive him. As I see it, he loves Ford more than he loves himself. He’s quite devoted, codependent, and—truth be told—has too low of a self-esteem. He needs Ford, so he has to forgive him.

I can see him not forgiving Ford if another beloved person is involved (such as one of the kids) or if he develops more love for himself (but that wouldn’t happen out of the blue). Not easy to happen, since we know Stan basically chose Ford over the entire world:

I think some love would likely stay even then, though, because it’s too deeply rooted. In a way he’ll always love Ford deep down.

[ckret2]

The music questions are making me want to ask a music related question.

Bill’s criteria for weird is probably too high for these songs, but never hurts to ask! (Unless you’re tired of these questions in which case, I’m sorry)

Tara the Android - specifically I Feel Fantastic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VVyVXz-drQ) - and Throbbing Gristle - specifically Hamburger Lady (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fih-xzWGKPA)

These songs aren’t very danceable, so it’s possible he might not like them, but I think they’re good so maybe the quality will make up for the fact that they’re not pop.

but I think they’re good so maybe the quality will make up for the fact that they’re not pop.

you've activated my trap card: Very Specific Personal Criteria For How I Decide Whether A Character Likes A Song!

There's no such thing as a universally "good song" and your personal "this is SO good that it TRANSCENDS genre and EVERYONE would like it" is somebody else's "this is so bland." What songs resonate with you is a function of how YOU'RE wired, NOT how the song's wired; the character you're making a playlist for is not wired like you.

As soon as you start going "this song is SO GOOD the character HAS to like it," you're no longer making a playlist of the character's tastes, you're making a playlist of YOUR tastes.

now, all that said: you sent in a couple of songs that are pushing at the outmost boundaries of human listenability, so you're in the clear lmao, you're cultivating a Billish mindset. (The above disclaimer is what I more often pull out if someone goes, say, "but Bohemian Rhapsody is SO GOOD, surely the character loves it too"—which has happened with multiple characters in multiple fandoms.)

Throbbing Gristle is actually one of the bands I looked into when I was looking for songs to fill out the "weird alien noises" side of Bill's playlist. (They didn't make it on just because I didn't happen to find a track I vibed with enough to add lmao.) For the "weird alien noises" side of thing, the songs I've picked out for Bill are like... you're right in that Bill himself would probably think Throbbing Gristle still sounds "too human" to meet his alien tastes; but on the other side, the way his weird alien tastes sound TO US probably sounds the same way that Throbbing Gristle sounds to us, so they (or bands like them) work for me to like symbolically represent the kind of music Bill would listen to. Simply because human beings are incapable of imagining entirely inhuman music; if we imagine it, it's not inhuman.

Particularly the instrumentation in Hamburger Lady pulls off a similar disconcerting repetitive drone to what you get out of a rising shepherd tone, so good pick.

Tara the Android I don't think quite goes far enough, but it's in the right direction.

last time I tried to fill out the "weird sounds" side of Bill's playlist, I mainly looked into noise music and electroacoustic composition. The latter especially is my go to for alien Bill music.

[starsonmarsy]

i wish i had more friends that lived near me

my irl besties from high school are like impossible to reach most of the time

[tvboaerosmith]

I thought it'd be good fun if I did a list like this for Smith and Neo, so I took one that looked interesting and this happened. Happy reading.

1. When did you start shipping them?

I first watched The Matrix somewhere around May or April of 2023. I didn't ship them on my initial watch through of the Matrix... It was just more of a gradual like for them as a pairing. I think I started concretely liking them around August 2023? In fact, the first ever ship related art I drew for the Matrix was Morpheus and Neo, and my first ship fic was quite literally *Merovingian* and Neo!

2. What do you like about them as individuals?

I'm surprised to say that what I love most about Neo isn't even actually his looks or his personality (even though I like these parts of him too) but rather what he represents. He's a second chance, freedom personified.

Though he was indeed a puppet in the end, I loved what he built for himself even as he was stuck to his role, how calm and collected he can be. He really is elegant, svelte, but that doesn't mean he's blank or wooden — It makes me smile that sometimes classic "90s badass hero" speech leaks through, like "Hiya fellas".

As for Smith, I initially only found his writing interesting. I cannot say I am attracted to Hugo Weaving. Gradually I understood his character more and more and found that I really can relate to him. Actually, people often call the Matrix movies a trans metaphor, and I feel like this metaphor for self discovery and struggle with the world can actually be found most in Smith?

Of course I'm not saying I think his character is trans, just that his problems really felt like mine. I like that he's such a lonely character in perfect parallel to how popular Neo is, I like that he is the perfect personification of bigotry because people hate what they do not understand because they are crucially scared of it just the way Smith is terrified.

He reminds me of a child grappling tearfully at things he just can't understand, because he simply has a mental blockade to these things because he was made and bred and raised in a totally different purpose and world than that of Neo's.

3. What about their dynamic appeals to you?

Actually, I often see others say their appeal is in Smith and Neo as the classic enemies to lovers troupe. I admit a lot of my favourite ships fall under this too, but I've always viewed Smith and Neo's story as one of redemption and one of a second chance.

Smith represents somebody who doesn't fit into society, suddenly finding himself ripped away from the comfort of conformity, even when he was made specifically for that. He hates everything that he perceives, because to him they are mentally and physically vile. He craves the comfort of belonging.

And when he is totally thrown and discarded from the system, instead of changing himself the way Neo does for his own freedom and peace of mind, he foolishly deigns to change his cage, to hijack The Matrix.

He struggles, and in this struggle I find sympathy with his character. Neo on the other hand is Smith's saviour, as is his entire character as the saviour of the human race, but I like to think he can save other races too, even when Smith is to me the most human of the two.

This is important: Neo is the ONLY one in the whole world who can possibly understand Smith's anguish. Inexorably they are linked not just through fate but also by choice. They need each other, they love each other, they hate each other, and all these things surmount to such importance it cannot not be mentioned in tandem with the names of Smith and Neo.

They are together in life and in death. Neo is the only one who can soothe Smith's fears, and it is Smith's own refusal to accept that Neo understands that dooms him. They matter more to each other than anybody else. The Matrix is a love story—but not between the characters of Neo and Trinity.

4. What are their favourite things about one another?

This is a hard question to answer, considering Smith and Neo aren't just some regular pairing.

I can't decide if Neo's favourite thing about Smith would be his machine side or his humanity. Would he enjoy that Smith is a program, because it shows him the whole new world he didn't know of, of programs who love just like Rama Kandra told him, or would he enjoy that Smith is so human in his emotions and his inner conflict and find it beautiful in a creature meant to be incapable of them?

Would he love that Smith can access these emotions, that Smith chose to access these emotions, that it means he can love and hate Neo so deeply and so subconsciously and so truthfully?

Either way, Neo's favourite thing about Smith would definitely be his character. I think speaking on terms of by the end of Revolutions, he'd like to watch Smith struggle, because it shows Smith is trying, Smith is alive. But he would not like Smith's pain, or his fear.

And how about Smith's favourite thing about Neo.... Hmm, I don't know! I thought maybe "his capacity to understand Smith" would be a good answer, but Smith's just scared of that as proven by his reaction at the end of Rev.

I think I'll still have to keep that as my answer though, but with some notes, that Smith would come to love this part of Neo, that he is the ONLY ONE for Smith, but only with time and only by learning this very very slowly. In the end, what he likes (or maybe more accurately, what part of Neo successfully attracts the most of Smith's attention whether positive or negative) most about Neo is that he *is* Neo.

He's human in all the worst ways, he's relentless, he's able to learn his own mistakes, he's able to rise above conflict, he's able to accept Smith as his death, that Neo believes in love so fiercely that he'd throw the world away for said love.

5. How do you envision them getting together?

I don't think there's such a thing as "dating" or "talking phases" for these two. It's more of a natural, unspoken thing. From the start they've "gotten together" after all, they're stuck to each other from beginning to end!

Technically they've been "dating" since conception, even. To be honest, I have never once agreed with any portrayal of Smith or Neo confessing to each other, because they understand each other so innately that none of it even has to be said. It comes to them like breathing, their love for each other.

Maybe if I had to picture it, Smith would be the first to explicitly say something like "I love you" years into the future after Revolutions (this is following the theory that Smith and Neo become tutelary saints after Rev), but only just to say what they've already known, and what they've frankly already said a thousand times with their eyes or their actions, just to set it all into concrete, to acknowledge this in a healthy way because Smith would definitely become a changed man after everything.

By then, Neo wouldn't have any reaction to it, he'd probably just reply "I know", and they'd continue on as normal.

6. What would their dream home look like?

7. How do they split up the housework and chores?

Going to skip both these questions because by the way they operate, neither Smith nor Neo would require anything like a house. But whenever I imagine them in any kind of living quarters I surprisingly imagine either the mail building where Mouse was killed and Morpheus got captured, or in The Merovingian's chateau (thanks to this old RPG on LJ). Though I do think Room 303 would be a place of significance to them both.

About question 7, I don't even need to elaborate on why I can't even answer this one.

8. What are their love languages, and how do they show their affection?

If we're talking about affection the way a regular couple would show it like buying flowers or a peck on the cheek or holding hands—thats just a big fat MAYBE for this pairing, and probably only YEARS after Revolutions with a lot of character development for Smith.

Otherwise? I think the way Smith would show affection in a very unhealthy way would be by possession. He must own Neo. He will chase him (the exact way he did in Reloaded through Revolutions, even chased him all the way into the real world!) until he gets him. He'd be overly territorial to the point it'd be overbearing.

If we're talking about how he would show affection while the timeline is still set in the movies, he simply would not be able to understand his own intense feelings for neo adequately enough to be able to interpret and act them out in a way that wouldn't be completely destructive. In order for his manner of "affection" to win Neo over, Neo has to be a god that understands and forgives and sympathises, and thankfully, Neo really is this kind of "god". Smith would break the moment Neo sees through him.

Neo on the other hand, if I'm going to go off what I can parse out from the movies.... To be honest it'd probably be sex. We can see that he never ever once gets his hands off of Trinity in Reloaded. For fucks sake he jumps on her the MOMENT Link walks out. He'd probably crave sexual contact with Smith.

In the draft script of Reloaded though there isn't any such thing as an explicit Neotrin sex scene, there's still a scene where Dujour and Chong tell them about how important it is that they should have sex, etc etc. Plus the existence of the rave orgy scene implies that apparently this is what is considered the highest form of affection and intimacy for Zionites, so it'd be the same for Neo.

Otherwise and on a far less sexual note, his way of showing affection is probably just *being there* for Smith as he struggles through his messy existence. Quality time together, you know.

9. Do you see them getting married, and if yes what does their wedding look like?

No, they wouldn't get married. Marriage is only a piece of worthless paper made from only human customs to signify a relationship. It doesn't have to be the end point of any relationship to "perfect" or "complete" it. Neo and Smith have a deeper connection than this, but I still think there is potential for fun in an OOC type marriage scenario.

10. Can you imagine them having any kids or pets?

I actually have this weird running thing that keeps popping up in my head where Neo and Smith adopt a white cat called Jamais Vu, a parody of Deja Vu.

Of course the word "adopt" doesn't quite fit here, it'd be more like the cat shows up often from time to time til the point Neo can name it and they recognise each other.

And a little bit of OOC guilty pleasure: I like to think they might unofficially adopt Sati, though she'd definitely think of Smith as the bad parent and Neo as the good parent and get grumpy when she sees Smith. You best believe Seraph would be "fighting for custody", though.

11. How do they comfort each other?

With presence, with existence, with words and feelings and their connection. With deep, unrivalled understanding of each other and therefore who they are, what they're here to do, how they feel.

12. Is there anything you don't like about this ship?

Nothing. Not even the fact it isn't canon, actually, in fact I think that makes it even better. "The fact Smith died!" Could have been a potential answer, but even then, that was such masterful writing on the Wachowski's part, that I can't say anything.

13. What would be their least favourite thing about each other?

LMAO.

Smith hates Neo's ability to understand, ability to believe in love or even in something no matter what it is, hates Neo's ability to be unbothered by the stench and smell and abhorrence of his own human kind, he pretty much hates Neo himself, even, even if I like to interpret that hate as more of a messed up byproduct or outcome of his own hard to understand, burning love for Neo that he interprets as obsession, and because he is wired the way he is and made for that one purpose and that purpose only: To Kill Neo, his love comes out as hate.

Neo probably hated Smith too in the beginning, but as a personification of the system. After all Smith is an enforcer of it, this fake digital prison that has so many of his fellow men in it. And also Smith literally kidnapped Morpheus, a man Neo already had held in high regard. But frankly, that hate turned into understanding into a little bit of pity or sympathy.

14. What sorts of things might they argue about?

Everything they already do argue about in the trilogy (take special note of their final conversation in Revolutions). I have nothing to add onto this.

15. Do they face any pushback from friends, families, or society over their relationship?

Now THIS is an interesting question! I read once in this really cool RPG a scenario where nearly all the programs and rebels disapproved of Smith and Neo's public relationship because they were "different races", and they even had a made up slur for a human that dates a program (little questionable, but keep in mind this RPG was made in 2005)

Meanwhile, Neo's "parents" who are still alive in this AU are deeply shocked that he's dating a man, but if we are to be precise, Smith is not a man, he's genderless lines of ageless code meant to look behave and talk like society's portrayal of a man and to inhabit a man's shell. We don't even know for sure if Smith has a dick, I don't even think he's ever taken his clothes off before frankly!

So basically I mentioned this AU because it got me thinking: holy shit, Smith and Neo would be the ONE and ONLY program/human mixed relationship in their world. That'd be cool. I like to imagine they'd be more of a beacon of the humanity in programs and the ultimate symbolism of humanity and machinekind's ability to love each other and work together more than a point of disdain for all three factions (machine, programs, humans) though.

So no, no pushback, though I imagine it would definitely be shocking to learn that the adored One is in a relationship with what is considered the "enemy", but that's nice too, because it shows the ultimate acceptance, and isn't that exactly what progressives(the rebels) strive for?

16. Who has more experience with relationships?

Definitely Neo lol. Neo would be the first ever person Smith would have ever had something going on with. I think Neo may have had relationships with others before Trinity, too.

17. What physical traits do they find most attractive about each other?

Hmm, this is tricky.

I can't exactly see Smith outwardly liking anything physical about Neo to be honest? I know that sounds absurd, but if following canon we all know Smith finds humans repulsive to smell touch and even see, I think. It'd be hard for him to overcome this problem even when together with Neo.

But then again, that's the thing about being in love. When you love them, you will love the body that holds the mind and the person that you love. The more you speak to them, the more you are enamoured by them, the more attractive they appear to you, the more you are able to romanticise their body. That's the case for me as well.

So maybe.... Smith's favourite thing about Neo's body is... His elegance??? The way he moves with totally unconscious grace. He'd love everything about Neo's body, there wouldn't be a favourite part, all parts are equally liked.

And Neo's favourite thing about Smith's is his expressive face that shows his humanity, particularly his eyes, the window to the soul.

Sorry, I can't answer these questions sexually as originally intended. I realise that I've never even put in thought to that question before answering this, which is a bit shocking.

18. Do they ever engage in PDA, and if so, to what extent?

Neo seems to be more private. Everybody knows what goes down behind doors, but he still has the decency to wait until they'd be alone to go ham on Smith. If in public, I don't think I've ever seen him even ONCE touch or hold trinity's hand or kiss her in the audience of several people.

If however let's say they haven't seen each other in a long time etc or something serious is going down, Neo would probably abandon all pretense and kiss him and throw his arms around him at his first chance, just the way he did for Trinity in Mobil Ave and after she revived.

Smith on the other hand.... Oh boy. He'd PDA all OVER the damn place. In the first place he wouldn't hold any regard for what is considered acceptable in human society or etiquette in the first place, he's a rogue program.

That's ironic, since he is supposed to be the personification of those societal expectations. Plus because of his tendency for possessiveness that I mentioned earlier, he'd probably feel a need to signal to everybody and anybody that THIS IS MINE, HISS, DO NOT COME CLOSE.

Besides, Smith is childish in the sense that he is just now figuring out his own humanity, so like a child he'd probably want to completely own the one constant and one thing in his life, Neo, and cling onto him.

19. What are the most sensitive parts of each others body?

Neo: Waist, stomach, back. He probably doesn't have a ticklish neck if he can wear that long mandarin collar all day every day. Maybe his inner thighs if I let myself be a little idealistic?

Smith: Does Smith even feel sensations???? Or does he just mechanically register them in code or some shit? Maybe he only is able to start registering them after he goes rogue? Either way I don't think Smith would be sensitive literally anywhere. That or the complete opposite, where he is sensitive everywhere because he is unused to the new sensation of pain or pleasure or touch etc, and hates it.

20. What is their dynamic like in the bedroom?

As for the question of top or bottom, I honestly am only interested in Neo as a bottom and Smith as a top, but realistically speaking they would switch. Although here's my take on that: I think the very first time they do it, Neo would definitely have to be the receiver, because of Smith's desire to consume and own, and because Smith who has always craved a position of power/security would probably rather shoot himself in the head than ever bottom.

For Smith to bottom would have to take time and would only happen later into their relationship once Smith fully trusts Neo, and once he's developed enough. Besides, Neo would probably like to try something different from what he's used to with Trinity.

And no, I don't believe Trinity would have ever pegged Neo at all, because that's a common projection from the queer fandom onto two characters who are a typical cisgender heterosexual couple. So yes, Neo would have something different in bed with Smith. I think that's a cool parallel with the two people most important to Neo's story.

Okay, seems like that's it. Thanks for reading through this whole thing, if you did! Feel free to make your own SmiNeo or TriNeo or etc etc versions of this, I'd love to read that.

20 Shippy Questions for your OTP’s, OT3’s, and Polycules

The basics

1. When did you start shipping them?

2. What do you like about them as individuals?

3. What about their dynamic appeals to you?

4. What are their favorite things about one another?

5. How do you envision them getting together?

The fluff

6. What would their dream home look like?

7. How do they split up housework and other chores?

8. What are their love languages, and how do they show each other affection?

9. Do you see them getting married, and if your answer is yes, what would their wedding look like?

10. Can you imagine them having any kids and/or pets?

The angst

11. How do they comfort each other?

12. Is there anything you don’t like about this ship?

13. What would be their least favorite things about one another?

14. What sorts of things might they argue about?

15. Do they face any pushback from friends, families, or society over their relationship?

Bonus ~saucy~ questions

16. Who has more experience with relationships?

17. What physical traits do they find most attractive about one another?

18. Do they ever engage in PDA, and if so, to what extent?

19. What are the most sensitive parts of each individual’s body?

20. What is their dynamic like in the bedroom?

[essektheylyss]

Does no one else find it odd that magic that had been inhibited by the Malleus Key keeps being slowly and quietly returned with seemingly no changes to the key itself? Is the Solstice still stuck or is it simply progressing very slowly? Is anyone working on this in Exandria? Can we get some answers about this?

[feroluce]

Belobog was my fave main quest but a lot of it is so. Contradictory. It's like they had multiple groups doing different shit and none of them checked in with each other for consistency. And you see this so much in Gepard's profile.

So in the main quest, they made him unfailingly, unquestionably loyal to Cocolia. Gepard's character arc is him learning to question authority etc etc. And this isn't even a bad thing; that's a story worth telling! It makes good conflict between him and Serval! And I love that we got Gepard as a boss battle and I get to see him all the time in SU!

But then you look at his character stories and it's like. The complete opposite.

According to his profile, Gepard has already HAD this awakening, long before the Astral Express, and he'd already decided Cocolia sucks. Even outside of his stories, there's a pretty damning readable between him and Pela.

He even disobeyed direct orders right in front of her- he has been disobeying orders for a while now!

So I've decided I'm marrying the two different sides of this into a 1.5k fic-ish thingy, because I think there's some fun potential there with Gepard not trusting Cocolia, but still having to pretend to be a good obedient little soldier.

Anyway. I love to think of it as like. Gepard knows Cocolia has sunk into her apathy. He can see it in her eyes every time he looks at her. She doesn't care. Not about him, not about Pela, not about all his soldiers on the frontlines giving their lives to protect the citizens. And that's... It makes him bristle a bit, but ok. Gepard can deal with this. Even if Cocolia no longer cares, as long as she does her job then it's fine. Having compassion behind an action doesn't matter as much as the action itself. If Cocolia's heart is no longer swayed, then he'll just have to care twice as hard to pick up the slack. He considers it part of his duty as a captain of the guard anyway. It's fine. Gepard can deal with it.

And then, Cocolia starts coming down to the restricted zone. Issuing direct orders.

And Gepard realizes he is in way over his head.

Because Cocolia orders him to stay back and issue commands from the ramparts, away from all his comrades, away from where he can protect them.

Gepard had thought nothing could be as bad as watching a fellow guard die right next to him. But the first time he watches someone struck by a killing blow, so far away, it hurts. Every defensive scar across his arms itches, his fingers curl in want of a weapon, the cold cannot numb his hands enough as they desperately ache for his shield. It hurts.

Gepard tries to find any reason to stay. Because surely... He knows Cocolia has lost her love for her people, but surely... She wouldn't...

One day, Cocolia orders for their gunners to advance 20 yards. There are no survivors. She almost looks like she smiles.

Gepard doesn't sleep that night.

Pela brings him the report at the end of the first month; and then the month after that, and the month after that. A significant uptick in losses, and all of it started on that first day Cocolia started overriding his authority and issuing her own orders. The ends of Gepard's pens have all been nearly chewed off. Pela outright calls Cocolia an idiot, and Gepard corrects her. Cocolia isn't an idiot. Gepard had known her through Serval, knew her through all her college years and then some, and he knows how intelligent she is. It's not that she's stupid, and it's not that she's inexperienced, it's nothing of the sort.

Cocolia knows exactly what she's doing.

She must, there's no way she could make such a horrible mess of things so badly by accident. And Pela, quick as a whip, sharp as a tack, always too smart for her own good, catches onto the meaning behind Gepard's correction without any further prompting. The tent goes deathly quiet, nothing but the wind howling outside.

"...She's trying to kill us," Pela whispers, her voice swiftly suffocated by the silence.

Gepard swallows. He can't bring himself to correct her this time. There is nothing he could say that he would actually mean.

His gaze drops, back down to his desk and the reports on it. The names aren't listed, just the numbers, but Gepard knows them, knew them, and there must be something wrong, something he's missing, because why, why would she-? What could this possibly accomplish-?

“Gepard! Focus!” Something snaps right under his nose, and Gepard startles, eyes instantly honing in on Pela's irritated face as she leans over his desk. She holds his gaze for a moment before she huffs and begins to pace, wedges a knuckle between her teeth and bites like Gepard hasn't seen her do since cadet school.

Pela angrily strides from one end of his tent to the other, words hissed between her grit teeth. “What are we going to do?” In the dim lighting, Gepard can just barely see the damp spot of blood weeping under her gloves. “We need a plan.”

“A plan?”

“Wh- Yes, a plan! Unless you want more people to die!” Pela rounds on him then, all the wrath of a blizzard, winds roaring and snow sharp enough to cut.

“We don't even know-”

“What does it matter?! She killed-!!” Pela cuts off with a garbled noise when Gepard leaps up from his desk, hastily shoves his hand over her mouth. The prosthetic, not the flesh one, because he knows better than to assume Pela won't seize the opportunity to leave teeth marks in his skin.

“You're right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry; you're right. But you need to keep quiet.” Pela quirks an eyebrow at him and Gepard can read the question in her face. “Because we both saw what she did to Serval,” he hisses.

It's amazing the snow plains haven't thawed out yet, the amount of heat Pela can put behind a glare. The mere mention of Serval, and the smoking ruins Cocolia had made of her life and career, have her bristling up like a riled cat. The sudden hot breath she takes fans fog across his metal skin, and Gepard wisely keeps it in place until Pela finally sighs and reaches up, taps her fingertips against the back of his hand.

The second she's free, Pela bats him away and then her knuckle is right back between her teeth again, Gepard leaning back against his desk with his arms crossed to watch her resume her pacing. “If we spread the word, she'll have us discharged and make sure we can't even touch the frontlines,” Pela's voice seethes like an open sore. Gepard nods but keeps his silence. He knows better than to get in her way.

“And if you and I are both out of the picture, Belobog is fucked.” A little harsher than how he would have put it, but there's no denying that they're both important to the city's survival. Pela has the restricted zone running as efficiently as ever, and Gepard had become the youngest captain on record for a reason. “We need to keep this tight under wraps, at least for now… It can't leak to anyone higher up the chain.” Another nod. “Serval might know other discontents…” Another n-

Gepard's head snaps up. “No.”

“No what?”

“No. We're not involving Serval in this.”

Somehow, even the same tone that leaves entire squadrons shaking in their boots has never worked on her. “You're not deciding that for her, Gepard.”

Pela hadn't seen the worst of it, though, back when his sister had just been banned from the Architects. Serval's pride hadn't allowed it. Pela wasn't the one to find her passed out bottle still in hand, hadn't been the one to wash the sick out of her hair or carry her to bed. 

Serval still has trouble thinking clearly when it comes to Cocolia, still can't quite bring herself to be objective. And Gepard maybe doesn't want her to be purely objective- but he would worry a lot less if she thought twice before she acted more often.

“At least let me be the one to bring it up to her.”

“Whatever, fine,” Pela gestures affirmatively at him as she paces past, and Gepard sighs. Good, at least that's one thing he can help.

From there, it's a lot of hemming and hawing and frustration. Cocolia has them under her boot, and Gepard and Pela both know it. Even with the way she's been cracking down on freedoms lately, Cocolia is still, overall, liked by the people. It's unlikely anyone would believe them. They don't even have solid proof, because most people don't know Cocolia as well as they do and won't see the clues in the same light. 

The Fragmentum has been ramping up in recent years, too. Everyone is struggling just to survive as is, they can't afford a fight on two fronts. Gepard is a damn good captain, one of the best for that matter. But they're at a massive disadvantage, his experience is narrowed to fighting a defensive battle against monsters, that's all he's ever done. That's all anyone there has ever done. He has no way of finding first-hand knowledge for taking the offensive against a human opponent, and if he goes at this blind, there's no way he'll get everyone out unscathed. He's going to lose people. He's going to lose a lot of people.

He'd never thought before that Cocolia would have it in her to have someone killed. And with this new knowledge, he has no guarantee she won't go after Serval or Lynx if she decides to retaliate.

Gepard has to remind himself to breathe when he realizes this.

Pela writes down every name the two of them can come up with. Lists and lists of names and groups and anyone they can think of who might be an ally in all of this. They memorize every bit of it, make their plans of who to talk to and when. Gepard watches the sparks reflect off Pela's glasses as they burn the evidence together.

Pela finally leaves, far too late to make it home, but says she wants to stay in the restricted zone anyway to investigate. Gepard watches her make her way in the direction of Dunn's tent, watches her back until she's out of his sight and squashes down the urge to follow and keep an eye on her. His tent feels empty.

In the morning, Gepard is up before the wake up bells. He drags himself out of bed, leads his soldiers through their morning training. The same people gravitate to each other everyday. Friend groups and training partners. There's an ongoing rivalry between a few squadrons that everyone bets on. Some of them have lockets around their necks, keepsakes, mementos. Some of them wear wedding rings.

Gepard is suddenly, painfully aware of something acidic clawing at the inside of his throat, of a heavy weight low in his chest that blooms, takes up room until it threatens to spread his ribs. His mouth tastes of bile and blood.

He rearranges the schedules. Puts himself down for every open patrol into the Fragmentum, makes sure he'll be on the frontlines every single time Cocolia visits.

He only hopes that it's enough.

[devoursjohnlock]

Thanks for the tag, @belladonnaxy (and question @themysterioushelen!). To my mind, the best metas on the "funny gravestones" are those that focus on deciphering the riddle associated with Eurus's song. I think the first of these was this one by writemeastoryofsolitude, who sketches out Sherlock's solution to the riddle and, importantly, notes that Sherlock adds new words to reach that solution.

The jist is this: Sherlock lists all the numbers on the gravestones, which include birth dates, death dates, and ages. In some cases, he breaks the numbers down into smaller ones, like turning "1818" to 1, 8, and 18.

The song consists of four verses of 32 words each. Sherlock numbers the words in each verse from 1 to 32, and matches his list of gravestone numbers to words from the entire song. Any given number may have come from any one of the four verses, so there are four possible word choices for each number.

There are already problems with his method at this point, because the numbers on the gravestones are only partially visible, *and* Sherlock may have broken the larger numbers down incorrectly, *and* he may have chosen the wrong word among the four possibilities for each number. Regardless: he next rearranges the words pulled from the song to match the order of the gravestones, although again... it's unclear that he should know what the proper order is. He seems to have read them randomly to begin with.

Now, about the extra words: Sherlock's method provides the following words to work with, based on four gravestones:

I am lost help me brother Save my life Before my doom I am My soul seek my room

However, Sherlock's actual solution is:

I am lost. Help me, brother Save my life before my doom I am lost without your love Save my soul. Seek my room

To arrive at the solution, he has added: lost without your love save, which are actually pretty prominent in the visualization:

But it took a few months before impossibleleaf pointed out here that the addition of new words suggests that there was a fifth gravestone, with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 8, and 28 in some combination. As a possible solution, impossibleleaf suggested that the gravestone date might be 2/8/12, age 38 – Sherlock's own "funny" gravestone. This is a compelling theory, but according to Arwel's TRF gravestone (see the very bottom of the image below), Sherlock's birth date is January 6, 1977, making him 35 at the time of his death. Still, it's correct that Sherlock needed 1, 2, 3, 8, and 28 to complete the puzzle. Perhaps someone can come up with another plausible gravestone for them.

In summary... this is a terrible way to create a cipher and the solution is highly implausible, but that's not the point. Functionally, it does what it's supposed to — gets a note to Sherlock saying "I am lost without your love," "Save my soul," and "Seek my room". It does this while being TFP-level melodramatic and fake. It may also present a puzzle: examine Sherlock's own method closely and find the missing gravestone, by extrapolating from four knowns to a fifth unknown. If nothing else, that is tantalizing.

In terms of canonical/Doylean connections, because that's how the game is played, there are quite a few reference points, some of which have been discussed elsewhere. Here are the main ones:

First, in Shoscombe Old Place, Holmes and Watson spend a dark night searching with a lantern among headstones "ranging from a very ancient one, which appeared to be Saxon, in the centre, through a long line of Norman Hugos and Odos, until we reached the Sir William and Sir Denis Falder of the eighteenth century." Naturally, they're looking for a fresh body, rather than an old one. This is the closest physical match for the "funny gravestones" scene in TFP.

Second, the code itself works on the same principle as the book code used by Porlock in The Valley of Fear; we've seen this before in Sherlock, in the A to Z code used in TBB.

Third, "funny dates" are a recurring problem that Sherlockians grapple with all the time; the Sherlock Holmes stories are generally back-dated by at least a few years, and sometimes cannot be reconciled at all. Wisteria Lodge is perhaps the best example, as it was written to have taken place while Sherlock Holmes was dead. But a relevant problem for TFP is that The Final Problem (story, published 1893) begins with Watson never having heard of Moriarty and ending with Moriarty dead and not famous, while The Valley of Fear (published 1914) features a living Moriarty and a Watson who describes him as famous. Presumably, this is why Moriarty appears in TFP, via questionably dated flashbacks/videos. The line "Be not afraid to walk in the shade" in Eurus's song is likely also a reference to The Valley of Fear, whose title is borrowed from a line in Psalm 23: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me."

Fourth, phrases in Eurus's song recall The Musgrave Ritual, ("sixteen by six," "my steps, five by seven," "nine by nineteen," "under we go"), which is unsurprising given that the scene takes place at the nonsensical "Musgrave Hall," but they (intentionally) recall the actual ritual very poorly. In the original, the "steps" were always square ("North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by two, west by one and by one, and so under"), though they do, of course, lead to a sort of grave. The offset numbers given in the song actually reminded me a bit of the signs/countersigns used in A Study in Scarlet ("nine to seven"/"seven to nine"). Because I enjoy pain, I tried applying Sherlock's method to the numbers given in the song itself, and ended up with "Oh who will save me? Nobody." So that's fun. (This is unlikely to be intentional; you can also solve it for "Steps walk back over the hill," for example.)

Fifth, the appearance of a "beech tree" in the song seems to be a nod to The Copper Beeches. I wrote about possible connections between TFP and that story (with Granada as an intermediary) here.

Sixth, the third verse of the song ends with the phrase "inside, brother mine, let Death make a room," which recalls Culverton Smith's "favourite room"—the morgue—and I think is also a nod to Doyle's poem The Inner Room, in which he describes his own personal hall of mirrors.

I'll stop there, before this gets completely out of hand, lol. Thanks for tagging me on this; I've missed it. ;)

Musgrave, huh? The funny graves… what are you doing there Arwel?!?

[sysig]

Bowtie Charm! Inspired by @zarla-s​‘ super cute rendition hehe 💕 (Patreon)

Bonus collar breakdowns:

Changes depending on the doodle!

[forcedhesitation]

I love that the bg3 guys are all written to have this intense adoration of karlach and lae’zel’s abilities to absolutely eviscerate their enemies. they’ve all got the same taste in women, which is “she could gut the big scary man chasing me, and then princess carry me to safety in her blood spattered arms.” and I respect and relate to that, as a bisexual man myself.

[simurghed]

a part of lisa deep down gets feverishly excited every time the waiter gets taylor’s order wrong because it means she gets to say that she asked for no pickles

[scoringeffects]

.

[flippedorbit]

i’m gonna be so for real, if things don’t start changing for me in good ways i will be disappearing off the face of the earth