#if you’re finding this post thru tags or something; i’m editing it to show the number of codes i have once they get claimed

[iceicewifey]

i have 2 bsky invites again... anyone want one? even for a friend? i don't want these 😭

[majicmarker]

so i’ve had a lot on my mind lately — the good, the bad, the ugly, you know the drill. i’m used to the bad and the ugly, but i think (and ofc by my therapist’s rec) i need to give a little credit to the good, too. not to mention the good is largely comprised of people, and those people deserve a sports stadium wave, yk? idk shit abt sports, whatever, but i know what the wave is and it’s like the grandest gesture i can think of, SO

listen, y’all. to get real here, i hate fandom. my time spent therein has been hit-or-miss, but the misses got me hard and contributed to some major self-loathing, etc etc. we’re not gonna get into the specifics, i don’t owe that to anyone, but suffice it to say things got Rough.

but so much of it can be so, so good. and rn i want to keep on my rose-colored glasses, and the rosiest parts for me have always been @kitten1618x and @mygutsforgarters

(quite a few others, too, but i no longer have everyone’s info. and some ppl are newer friends, or relationships that have moved more slowly. i have mad love for u guys too, obvs, but ik melissa and gus irl so we know each other More and they’re who this post is rly about atm. pls know i don’t want to harsh on anyone’s feelings)

the tl;dr version of events is i met them both via fanfic. i happened upon theirs like “bitch!!!! **i** wanna do this, they’re bomb as hell” and then i made them be friends w me. they’ll tell you they wanted to be friends w me first, but that’s not important bc **i** am the one making this post, so they can both like,, suck it.

ANYWAY.

@ melissa : so bitch listen. here’s the thing abt melissa…… i found her while browsing jonsa fic back when i cared abt GOT, and she brought me back to what i loved so much abt romance when i first started, way back in junior high, what’s up. i bad a fascination w historial romantic epics for a loooooong time — those formative yrs, amirite ladies??? — but girl i could never write it so well as melissa. immediately she struck this balance between the drama you expect from historicals and the levity of a good romance, and i was just like, “hand to god this woman must be published already, surely???”

(she’s not, but that’s ridiculous so we’re gonna skip that)

(also she’s busy?? we’ve been friends for like six years and i will never know how many kids she actually has, but the point is she’s a goddamn superhero and i’m obsessed w her, MOVING ON)

i just Had to be her friend for two reasons: 1) she’s too talented, and b) i have said that abt 2 ppl my entire life and she was the first, so i was like, “AH YES MY HOLY GRAIL”

so ofc i slid into her DMs just as effectively as that one guy i had a crush on when i was sixteen and he’s still shooting me texts every valentine’s day bc of the societal pressures i guess (it is Far Less Effective these days, he’s my age and therefore too young for me, gross, but i digress), except me and melissa go way stronger.

she reminded me of why, half a lifetime ago, i started writing romance — bc it’s fun, bc i want to. bc i can do absolutely anything i want, bc who else is gonna read it but me and whoever i share it with? it was all up to me what i wanted to do with it, and i could do anything. nothing really mattered but what i wanted, and i hadn’t felt that way abt anything in such a long time — let alone abt something i used to love so much.

melissa’s writing is so beautiful, it’s everything i wanted to achieve when i was fifteen and never got around to perfecting. and i’m totally okay w that now, bc what do i need to do myself that she’s not already doing/wants to do in the future? when i found melissa’s writing i found a missing part of me — a part i’d maybe lost, maybe i gave it up, idk, but it was totally gone until i found her fics and they fucking clicked. i had to reach out bc there was a part of me that was a part of her, and she helped me find that again w/o even knowing it.

so i found melissa via GOT, and from the start she’d been trying to get me to write some bethyl. years and years, she dropped not-so-subtle hints — and by “hints,” i mean legit directives that i watch just enough TWD to write her some beth/daryl fic. real crafty, she is.

eventually the stars aligned: i was bored w the same dynamics i’d been writing for years, i wanted smthn new, i was restless, i was line editing a bethyl fic she’d written, and — again — this shit clicked. her fic made me want to explore this dynamic i’d never done before, so i watched the prerequisite episodes (no more than that tho, i super hate the show and i’m begging y’all to not @ me abt it anymore). i found smthn that i’d been missing, smthn that challenged and excited me and brought me back around to why i love romance and, more importantly, why i want to write it myself.

so as i was starting to write bethyl, i was poking around the ao3 tag to get a feel for what had been done, what hadn’t, anything i might be missing. and goddamn BAM —

@ gus : this is where u enter dramatically thru a red velvet curtain that i don’t wanna touch (Metaphorically bc you do romance better than me and i’m cool w that bc your talent simply Cannot be touched, and Literally bc i hate velvet) — i was like, “please for the love of god let her want to write contemporary romance, i need some good fckin food”

i happened upon “doo wah diddy diddy” first. ofc the summary hooked me, forget my usual hard no against pregnancy fics (i have issues w pregnancy and that’s all anybody Needs to know, back off), but This Bitch !!!!!!! has a way with words and i wanted to be friends w her straightaway. lmao too bad for her, now she’s stuck w me

gus’s fics gave me what i wanted without having to write it myself. her style is so distinctive, she hits the notes between porn and Actual Affection that is missing from uhhhh, every romance i’ve tried?? (why is everyone so intent on the sex part?? fckin chill. at best it’s unrelatable and at worst u sound like u’d rather wear someone than fuck them, check urself)

she writes w such care, she wants you to know what she’s doing here, and what she’s doing here is combining the physical and emotional needs of both characters w/o infringing on anyone’s comfortability. you root for these characters bc they simply want to be together, no strings (and if there are strings, damn, they talk abt it).

gus makes you believe in love in the modern age. like, not to sound like one of those ppl who post fckin “no one in this generation knows how to love!!!1!!11!!” memes on facebook, those are dumb, but gus’s writing made me think “yeah man, love ain’t dead, it’s just abt how we approach it.”

(if y’all haven’t guessed yet, i have some hang-ups abt relationships. i’ve goddamn earned those. but melissa and gus both brought me back to where i needed to be — in this place where, yeah, we’ve got some shit to deal with, but we all still deserve the things we want, and those things are achievable. i could not have gotten here without them, so jot that down.)

gus is Real, she’s funny, she’s unapologetic in the way she writes. ofc she has her personal hurdles, but who doesn’t?? and tbh nobody writes a sex scene like gus does. physical, realistic, but balanced w the emotional depth that makes you root for these characters bc you can Feel how much they want each other — not just sexually, but in the less-erotic aftermath of that passion. it continues to blow my mind, bc i’ve never seen anyone do what she does. i can’t even pinpoint the specifics, bc she just… Does It. and you’re reading it like “yeah bitch that’s it,” and That’s It.

it’s fckin wild.

these two — my best friends, the lights of my life, both of whom always make me crave chicken tenders at THE most inconvenient hours bc somehow we always talk abt chicken or ice cream or ultimately DQ, but they're both so hot idec — have something special.

i really, really want them both to know that: it’s not just in how they’ve treated me as a friend, but who they are as people, in their creative pursuits. i’ve never known support the way they’ve shown me; i’ve never known this much enthusiasm or investment or belief that i can do what i want with my talent. i want them to know that i feel the same way abt them and their works.

sometimes, when i look back at their writing that completely kicked my ass, i still can’t believe that they’ve become two of my best friends. it’s totally bonkers. they’re This Talented, and they wanna be friends w my spastic ass? GIRL. i’m out.

i’m not always the best at being present, at giving people what they need when they need it. but with everything that melissa and gus have given me in the past few years, i need them to know this — honey!!! i need all y’all to know this, bc i know fandom shit is hard, but you should know some of these friendships are so, so worth all that bullshit, so —

they have so much to give, so much to say, so much to offer. i could not have kept going without them. i couldn’t believe in myself without the faith they’ve given to me. i hope that i can always give that same faith right back.

and that, babes, is what real soulmates are all about.

[menkhu]

just finished pathfinder wrath of the righteous and i have. thoughts. spoilers ofc

hOW are y’all finding this and liking it two years later and actually do not tell me i will simply continue to pretend that this is my private little diary kept locked with a little plastic key and no one can see how many times i’ve doodled my name with my crush’s last name inside

lol if for some reason you’re here on this post i made like a year ago that isn’t in any main tags, i’ve. been updating. adding new thoughts i just have so many i finished an azata run and i loved aivu sm she reminds me of a friend

the updating does mean that this is going to become incomprehensible pretty quickly because new thoughts are inserted where i feel they’re relevant and the surrounding text is not edited bc the effort isn’t worth it when this is entirely for my own gratification so if you’re reading good luck

OK not to be hvaing Daeran Thoughts™ in this the month of december 2023 but. i just wanna talk about how “i thought you didn’t want to lose me” and “see? i’m indispensable” are two voice lines of his. this man? who doesn’t acre about how other people see him? who never wanted to be on this adventure in the fisrt place? is worried about being unwanted?? i am clenching this thought in my powerful jaws and i am frantically shaknig my head like a dog with a bone

ahahahahah gonna be playing for a third time. i think i’ll do the trickster mythic path? i have a strong distaste for evil shit and a mild distaste for lawful shit, which make demon, lich, and aeon not particularly appealing. i could also switch to dragon or smth; i was tempted in my last playthrough but didn’t want to potentially lose aivu, so.

ajshdfjgka playing as a man this time to maybe hit on sosiel we’ll see and when i went to retrieve woljif i lost it when he called me dreamboat i just wasn’t expecting

working through a lich playthrough now and in chapter 3 it’s actually been really sick. my favorite little touch is how, when controlling the crusades, each victory adds more undead to your forces. in order to get myself to choose the option i had to go hardcore into the roleplaying. my commander is maya, a druid, worships urgathoa, doesn’t like being human and is honestly indifferent to human suffering. she spends most of her time in wild shape. ppl confuse her and her leopard companion, lilia, often. probably would have disappeared into the sunset except that she found being made commander extremely funny and then developed a possessiveness for the crusaders so she’s actually trying to lead well.

i am physically incapable of choosing the dialogue options that let you start arueshalae’s romance like i am not grabbing anyone’s hand and telling them i’ll teach them how to love (if i had the power to rewrite, i’d have the line be something more like. i’ll help you thru this every step of the way. anything you need. anything you want.) similar problem with camellia. i refuse to lay on thick compliments and butter her up by talking about her social stature. and then the next chance to express interest is when she’s high off committing murder and wants to fuck like. nah. it’s impossible to romance any ladies in this game whoops

sosiel’s romance is also kinda,,, painful. i cut it off w him start of the 5th chapter because i just couldn’t feed into his fairytale romance novel bullshit and pass on something that felt more genuine (yay 3rd time romancing daeran.) it’s p easy to follow his route by being kind and showing that you appreciate the gestures he makes without fully buying into it. and like. being inexperienced in love and trying to express your feelings by writing bad poetry is actually super charming. but sosiel darling if you’re going to give an ultimatum while extolling the beauty and virtue of love shared by two people while your competition says that my heart doesn’t have to belong to any one person you’re just asking me to give up something good that comes at no cost for the privilege of being trapped a role in your fantasy. nah.

started lann’s romance. i do not like him. it’s fitting that i’m having the commander i don’t like romancing him. lmao it’s only my second time not romancing daeran; first was with arueshalae (pinched my nose and made those starting choices, found the whole thing kinda lackluster? tbh?) hate the way lann is sometimes straight up mean. and how he tries to frame it as a joke. hate how he’ll say you should hang crusaders who commit petty theft. hate his weird hero complex that’s incompatible with the way other’s lives aren’t a priority to him and mostly arises out of. idk a sense of ego? still holding out hope this’ll be interesting even if exploring the character in this manner isn’t the most appealing to me. (LOL i cut it off with him. he was just like. oh look at me being so pathetic trying to date you it’s crazy how could someone like you ever take an interest in me i’m so pathetic and i was like. okay. maybe you are pathetic. maybe i don’t have an interest in you. and then i was running the lich path so this saved his life actually lol. lmao. lmfao.)

ember is my daughter

i’m kind of surprised that that was the final chapter. it was an appropriate end and everything but the way crusade management was set up, it felt as though there was more to come. like. events dumped three free generals into my lap when i already had the map cleared out. there were some references to generals reaching level 20 but none of my three (the ones i actually used) got anywhere close to that. there were so many different types of units but for most of them, there wasn’t any reasonable way to accrue a usable number. with the way galfrey mucked things up, i was frantic about getting the armies in order to face big things to come and those big things just didn’t come. the fact that crusade management wasn’t rewarding is probs my second biggest complaint.

i’m really glad there’s a wimpy baby difficulty mode because w h y are so many enemies able to rip me apart when i have 57 ac and w h y are there so many enemies with absurd spell resistance and ac high enough that you can only pray to crit

lol @ this previous paragraph because i have a playthrough on core difficulty where i fought most of the extra bosses for the achievements and leveling the characters myself from the ground up gave me a good understanding of their abilities. i definitely am not an advocate of the autoleveling; either the builds are inherently mid or just incompatible with the way i play. also dispel magic is so strong.

pretty sure i’m going to be playing through again though because i want to see other mythic paths (my first playthrough i didn’t look up anything about unlocking them so i only had angel and demon available at first lmao) and to spend more time with some of the companions. i never found all the masks for nenio :(

(edit: after azata path i did find all the masks for nenio and we became friends ! there was a lot of content there jfc. i do not recommend playing when u have a migraine and ur memory is diminished but it was neat. i do like puzzles even if some of them are obtuse it’s fine we all have the internet to help with that.)

ran into a lot of glitches which i guess will happen when you dive in headfirst on release day. there were a few times people didn’t recognize the choices i had made. at one point i had a dialog option with camellia that implied we had a salacious history except no such thing happened and also i was playing as a lady and she’s straight. wasn’t able to finish a quest because the necessary items didn’t exist.

lol i had an entire companion glitch on me. i had literally no interest in greybor and i accidentally killed the dragon before i went traveling with him anyway so when he met up with the group and told the commander to hire him or he’d be forced to kill her i was like sure okay buddy you can do that. he did not die. he showed up wherever companions were supposed to show up, but i could never talk to him, just attack him. he didn’t realize he had already been rejected how embarrassing

(idk if greybor glitched again or if i did something wrong but azata playthrough i really did try to recruit him but he got pissy after the fight when i wanted to pursue the dragon and even though i tried i failed but maybe i did something wrong?? waited too long? did very little to endear him to me tbh)

(trickster playthrough and i finally have greybor as a companion. i’m hoping to like him better after spending more time with him but. he really is just a wannabe manly man’s wet dream of a roleplaying character. in a want to be him way, not a want him way. haha unless)

kinda surprised that i ended up romancing daeran but tbh no regrets. the more i got to know lann the less i liked him (the final part of his questline was. ugh. why are you so whiny about how i kept you from killing yourself.)(i swear sometimes he says things just to remind you that his alignment is lawful neutral)(one of my first impressions of him was scaly alastair but that might be disrespectful to alastair tbh)(actually he and daeran told me to choose btwn them at one point and i was like???? lann i said it’d be cool if you wanted to hang out without making up stupid excuses like sparring matches meanwhile daeran has been doing all sorts of wining and dining what sort of incel bullshit) (there’s some party banter with ember where she’s like, lann jokes but really he’s just sad and i was like yea i feel that)(it’s like he isn’t even committed to his jokey persona) and arueshalae was wonderful but i’m not a fan of the teaching someone how to love narrative (i wanted to. i really tried but i just couldn’t bring myself to choose the dialogue options where you like. take her hand and tell her you’ll show her how to love it’s too much.) daeran has the best banter and also he filled the war room with flowers so a+ partner

(his alignment is evil but honestly i don’t see it? he can be vengeful ig? not that he’s never shitty but i’d put him at neutral maybe leaning evil bc the good counters the bad. like he only punches up he regularly condemns evil acts and he’s sweet with the other companions so it’s not difficult to be fond of him)(FURTHER. something i put together after uhhh some number of playthroughs. there’s banter where daeran asks arue if she’s actually good with desna having taken control of her life bc the same thing happened to him with the other and it was terrible and he hated it. so. all those times he tries to tempt her. he’s not just being awful. he’s trying to give her a choice.)

more thoughts abt his relationships with the companions!!!! it’s actually rlly funny that my instinct was to say that he was sweet with them bc on a replay i became aware of just how shitty he sounds if you fully take his words at face value. you can’t, though. he acknowledges himself that venomous is his default affect and that he has trouble expressing his kinder emotions. he also says that when he has a problem with someone, he isn’t afraid to let them know it. there’s a bit of banter where lann says anything less that an insult from daeran is p much a compliment which i think is an oversimplification but just drives home the point that even others can see that when he’s being mean, it’s often more about having fun than genuine distaste. when coming from him, things that might seem mean are actually meant as playful teasing. 

when i say he’s sweet with the companions, i mean that he lambasts paladins frequently, but always lets seelah know that he isn’t talking about her; he likes her. (yOu’rE nOt LiKe tHe oThEr pAlAdInS is maybe not a great worldview but)

he lets sosiel know that he appreciates his art. there’s banter where he tells sosiel that he would be quite the catch ;)

he’s actually protective of ember; he warns her to be careful about cultists and zealots. this one really gets me because the two have such fundamentally different views but i don’t recall him ever castigating her for it. rolling his eyes from time to time, maybe, but mostly nudging her away from what he sees as dangerous.

he’s happy to play along with nenio’s dumb experiments. finds them amusing.

he and camellia can be so bitchy about other nobles together it’s like they’re on the same team and it’s great.

don’t even get me started about his relationship with woljif ok. woljif is everything high society hates so of course daeran latches onto that right away. i love the banter where he talks about introducing woljif to parties with other nobles, which of course could be interpreted as him looking to rope woljif into those things for a few laughs, but what really gave substance to it for me was an exchange they had in the thousand delights. woljif is excited to be in a brothel and daeran is like. listen we don’t consort with demons they’re miserable creatures instead, when we get out of here, i’m going to give you a whole bunch of gold and give you a tour of the brothels in absalom. he so easily tells woljif that he’ll give him the things that he desires. he commits to making this trip with him. there is very little to gain there for daeran; he could easily tour the brothels alone were he so inclined, but instead, he agrees to do this for a friend.

actually i feel like in banter, the others are more likely to be making fun of him than he is of them? he’s both perfectly self aware and he likes who he is so he’d mostly be amused by it. in general i don’t think a companion insulting daeran (or he them in the case of those like lann and seelah who can bite back) is a sign of a bad relationship.

(enough about daeran back to the other companions lmaoo)

i like nenio more than i expected she’s so funny. she seemed cold at first what with her refusing to remember your name and all but after a while, with her earnest enthusiasm for what she does, it became endearing.

actually i’ve discovered that having good banter is one of the most important factors in how much i like a character. like i have no problems with seelah or sosiel but since their banter tends to be flat i just never fell in love. also i’m not really into camellia’s whole thing but i have fun with her because of the noble code switching she and daeran will do, like referring to each other by title.

i think a lot of the reason lann fell flat for me was because of his inability to maintain the funny guy persona? everyone thinks of him as the guy who makes jokes, but. i remember first talking to him and he tells you he wants to make a difference. and when you ask for clarification he’s like imma invent a new type of salad :) jk actually i hate myself and i want to die in battle because i’m afraid of my death being as meaningless as my life. took like no prompting for him to switch. rewrite of that exchange bc it frustrates me

lann: i’m going to invent a new type of salad and have it named after me

commander: a new type of salad.

lann: what, not aiming high enough? fine, i guess i can take the culinary world by storm and have enough food named after me to serve an entire buffet, but only if it’ll make you happy

commander: it might not be well received if you’re making mongrel food. your people have...interesting palates.

lann: ah, but that’s my secret advantage. by including mold, i can guarantee that my salads will be one of a kind.

commander: what is it really tho

lann: not the salad, no surprise there. not the buffet either, though i like how you encourage me to reach new heights. it’s more that...i want to fight on the front lines. if i’m risking my life so that others don’t have to, then i’ll know i’m making a difference

unsurprisingly, i like lann more in the context of his interactions with daeran.

wish we could have irabeth and anevia as companions. love them.

(azata playthrough, galfrey lived and i was so pissed. never again.)

anyway daeran and woljif are best friends forever and it’s so funny have some screencaps 

[dragonnan]

Author Interview Tag

Tagged by @aelaer a week or two ago, thank you!

Name: Tanya (among family I'm Nan or Auntie Nanny)

Fandoms: Sherlock, MCU, Psych, Prodigal Son, and a goodly collection of others

Where you post: For a number of years I posted on FFN but between the really shitty reviews and extremely cumbersome posting process I finally quit.  I posed on Psychfic while still an active part of that fandom but that, too, has pretty much ended.  I put a few stories on Wattpad but found it to be pretty meh. I now post exclusively to AO3.

Most popular multi-chapter fic: It's a tossup between “Fury” on Psychfic and “All Nighter” on AO3 – one based on comments and the other on Kudos.  Frankly “popularity” is really subjective because there's also stuff like read count and with comments, at least nearly half are replies from me and read count also includes re-reads as well as every time I clicked on the damn thing to edit so....

You know I'm just really not sure how to properly answer this??

Favorite story you’ve written so far: Like others have stated you can ask me this on three different days and get three different answers and there will be more than 1 fic mentioned every time so.... Because I write in different fandoms I just absolutely can't list a single fic.  The best I can narrow it would a fic from my top 3 fandoms.

Psych: Paint it Black.  I had read a fic where Shawn was gradually going blind and had really been enjoying it and the challenges it presented.  Sadly it was never completed.  As has happened before I decided I would write my own damn fic if I couldn't get a completed story so that was the primary motivation to start this.  What I most love about this is writing from Shawn's perspective as he navigates being blind and not knowing whether or not his condition is permanent.  I did my best to honor the experience of blind and partially blind people and tried to look beyond the cliché.

MCU: I have so much fun writing these stories! In spite of the dumpster fire the film canon became I do so love this sandbox and employing various forms of unfucking it.  So I'm gonna cheat a little and pick two for my faves here since one is a WIP.  Sed Diabolus.  I don't need to have completed it yet to know this will be my all-time favorite.  This is the first fic that has been entirely plotted out and OMG I'm so excited for iiiit!!  The second is Simple Math which seems like an odd choice given there's zero action – mostly just one character – hell, not even any whump.  But there is something about that deep dive into Tony's mindset that keeps this as a fave even though it was the first thing I ever wrote for the MCU.  I learned about Tony as I wrote this and I also worked my way through those motivations that bothered me regarding Stane.  Even years later I still mentally go back to this fic whenever I write Tony because I feel encapsulates the essence of how I see him as a character.

Sherlock:  Compared to other fandoms I'm still quite new to this fandom so I don't have nearly as many fics.  But I still have a favorite!  And, like with the MCU, it's the first story I ever wrote for this fandom; The Tiger and the Shark. Returning to a plot device I've employed in other fics, this one is built around a sexual assault and taking the character on a journey from that terrible event to the point where they rediscover themselves.  PTSD ever being my favorite form of whump I employ that fairly a lot in this story and employ some kinda radical methods for coping with those memories.  

Fic you were nervous to post: I mean until I start getting comments I'm a world of anxiety with every story I post.  But grabbing a specific fic that hit my nerves – that Sherlock fic I'd said was my fave certainly qualified.  Not only was it my first Sherlock fic – it also was charging out of the gate with a very heavy topic so yeah – I wasn't sure if people would absolutely hate it or find my characterizations totally off or what.

How you choose your titles: It varies a bit.  In some stories, like Sed Diabolus, I actually consult friends on various ideas.  Other times I'll consider songs or lyrics and my favorite thing is if I can alter the known title just a bit to make it more relevant to the fic (I did that a LOT with Psych fics which was the method the show also employed for its episode titles).  One of my favorite Psych titles is “The Wizard Was the Wicked Witch and the Scarecrow Lost His Courage”.  

Do you outline: Almost never – not until “Sed Diabolus”.  That story, though, is so astoundingly complex that without an outline I'd be hopelessly lost.  I am, though, trying to make a practice of outlining more because it helps SO much!

Complete: If we count every one-shot collection and challenge collection it likely is over 200 stories. Of course a lot of those are one-shots.  My total completed chaptered fics number maybe around 34?

In progress: 16 – between Psychfic and AO3.  All Psych stories are on long-term hiatus for the foreseeable future (some, honestly, I will never finish as they are many many years old and I've lost the inspiration for the plot). Several MCU stories are also on the back-burner while I focus on “Sed Diabolus”.  I admit I get LOTS of story ideas and staying focused on a single fic is not something I've ever been greatly successful with.

Coming soon/not yet started: I meaaaan.... lots?? I have probably several hundred ideas and partially started fics across many fandoms.  As to “imminently coming soon...” I don't think I currently have an active story that I haven't already posted at least a first chapter.  Sadly I have zero patience for developing something for months before posting which is why I have so many WIPs.  That said I DO have a Sherlock au that has been poking at me now and then involving the witch trials that started in Denmark and, eventually, made their way to Salem.  The idea would be that Molly Hooper is accused of being a witch.  She, of course, is innocent but cause this unfortunate attention due to her “uncanny” ability to heal the sick and injured (not so much uncanny as opposed to employing methods that aren't so reliant on superstition and folklore).  

She is scheduled to be tortured and executed but is saved by Sherlock – a strange recluse primarily ignored and given a pass as he solves mysteries for people. He and his friend John save Molly from this awful fate. The twist is that Sherlock is a sorcerer (bit of marvel crossover-ish) and able to transport them to safety.  

Do you accept prompts: I wish I could cause I love ideas but I don't have the time/energy to always work on what I already have and I'm awful at follow thru.  Like I will never turn away an Ask wanting to share ideas but I can't promise that I can actually write anything.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write:  As was the reply to a previous query – I have lots that are ideas that will linger in partial stages for sometimes years.  If it's “upcoming” I've already posted the first chapter lol!  But, again, I have several story ideas that whenever I poke through my folders I get excited about someday actually writing them.  Here is a teaser for an MCU fic involving Tony Stark and Obie (I still feel this was never explored enough – certainly not in fic):

They were doing a retrospective, ten year anniversary kinda... whatever.  Unofficial, of course. Certainly nothing Pepper would have dreamed up even at her most drunk (which, honestly, was never her scene.  Tony had sorta owned that space well beyond the time it had started owning him).  Whose idea it ultimately had been?  Frankly Tony couldn't give a fuck.  That he was asked to be one of the speakers was slightly more... awkward. Awkward was the right word, yeah?  Nauseating was certainly another and possibly a bit more accurate.

Dead for a decade and Obadiah Stane still managed to fuck with his life.

But... it hadn't always been that way. At least, not as he'd believed back when the Walkman had been on every kid's Christmas list.  

He'd thought it was bonding; at the time.  His dad had never been one for just hanging out; shooting the shit; telling tales out of school.  No, Pops, when he bothered to interact, led with questions.  “You keeping your grades up?” “You still seeing that floozy?” “When are you going to pull your head out of your ass and grow the hell up?” “You do realize it's my name you're disgracing every time you go on a bender?”

With Obie it was just, easy.  Obie might ask about school but it was always with approval and pride.  He would discuss Tony's conquests as though Tony had climbed Kilimanjaro wearing nothing but underwear and a cape.    

Obie was there when his father wasn't. Which meant that Obie was always there.  The first time he got astoundingly drunk on his father's scotch, Obie was the one to help him hunch over the toilet and vomit expensive, aged booze into the toilet.  Obie was also the one to replace the depleted bottle to keep Howard in the dark.  For a fourteen year old kid still trying to gain his dad's favor, that had meant everything.

He saw his first porn with Obie; sex education ala Traci Lords, three months shy of his fifteenth birthday.  That was the same time he was introduced to weed.  Obie had cautioned him to use it sparingly; didn't want to fry that genius brain, he'd say, and ruffle his hair.  The porn had made him uncomfortable.  Obie had turned it off and told him they could watch whatever Tony wanted.  They'd ended up changing the station to Knight Rider; smoking and munching Cheetos and laughing over their orange fingers.

It was Obie who was there, arm around his shoulders, after his parents died.  He desperately didn't want to sob in front of the man.  Things were so complicated with his dad that all he felt was blinding guilt... as though some part of him had caused this.  But Obie had filled him with bourbon until the emotions got soft around the edges and he'd sat beside the older man, head tipping gradually to the right until he was held up by Obie's shoulder.  Obie had just slung an arm around him and let Tony pass out while he rubbed a broad hand up and down his bicep.

It was strange, now, looking back with adult perspective.  A perspective that included Afghanistan and his intended execution while Obie talked about legacy and responsibility while Tony's lungs slowly seized.  He'd taken the time to sit there – arm around Tony's shoulders while one broad hand traveled up and down Tony's bicep – just like when he was a kid and Obie was the whole world.

He'd tried to remember if it had felt so... tainted... at the time.  Or if he'd always believed it was love.

Obie had never quite crossed that line. Though hindsight offered a peek into that possibility with enough clarity Tony had fought with his cramping gut for nearly thirty minutes.  He'd staved off vomiting though he was fairly certain his dignity had still been in tatters what with Bruce wandering in on his misery.

Upcoming story you are most excited about (this is basically a repeat of the above question so I decided to change it.  Do you have a future story idea you'd like to write that is not yet beyond the vague idea stage?  I love stories that put Molly in some sort of jeporady and I have a barely formed idea to someday write a “stalker fic” of some sort and not I don't care that this trope had been done on  repeat – I still love it lol!  I have a smidge of writing for it:

“I need your help.”

As afternoons at Baker Street went, this was a mundane request heard so often that Sherlock's typical reply, “Obviously, or you wouldn't be here”, could have been printed on flash cards.  The detective had actually made the suggestion after a particularly full day at the flat and having heard the statement no less than twenty times.  

Today, however, Sherlock merely blinked for a moment.  Then, with an awkwardness rare to a man with a lethal sort of grace in his movements, Sherlock gestured to John's chair, JOHN'S CHAIR, before taking his usual seat.

Molly didn't exactly smile but her lips edged up a bit before she sat.

John cleared his throat before pointing a vague hand towards the kitchen.  “I'll just go make some tea, shall I?”

“No, please, I...”  The stammer in her speech was not uncommon; though John couldn't recall such obvious fear.  Forgoing the kitchen he, instead, took the hard wooden chair facing the other two.

“Molly, what's wrong?”

Tagging: @kitcat992 @mizjoely @sgam76 @ariaadagio @hanuko @ceruleanmindpalace 

[izzy-b-hands]

On mobile so I can't put a read more, but I'm going to try and tag well--I need to vent. ----------- So today has been the worst day dealing with my mom in awhile. Like we've been in an okay patch where she hasn't been giving so many mixed messages and orders, but that came roaring back today for some reason. It starts out crappy because we head to my tattoo appointment, but my artist was sick and had to reschedule (though please note I'm not mad at him in any way, I'm glad he was going home rather than suffering sick thru work, because I know how much that sucks no matter what your job is. It just made me sad that I wasn't getting tattooed today and those appointments are like spa days for me.) Before we left for the shop though, she was super pissy and generally making me not want her there at the appointment because I didn't want her bugging my artist or being fussy at having to wait for my appointment to be over (which she's done at past tattoo appointments that I did offer to go to alone by getting a cab or taking the bus.) Anyway, after the tattoo shop we decide to go run a quick shopping trip, and our interactions go down hill. We're both struggling financially right now, but I've been buying a lot for the both of us the past week. But she asks me to get this trip, so I say yes because it won't do any good to say no. Then we get there and she's grabbing extra stuff not on our list, half assedly asking if it's okay even when the thing is in the cart and we're eight aisles away already--like, I'm not gonna argue and say no at that point, cause she'd just get pissy. The store was busy too, so we were both starting to get upset in general. Now, I will note that my fragile emotional state today wasn't all due to her. The whole 'you're still stuck at a shitty job in ND and haven't totally gotten your writing off the ground' thing has been hitting hard for a couple weeks, but especially today. But I wasn't complaining or bugging her with it, I was just trying to ignore those feelings. At the end of it she's rude to the teen cashier, (she knows that behavior is something I don't tolerate), but we get to the car. I offer to buy lunch out from a place we both like because at that point I was more treating myself than her. Like, I'm on the verge of emotionally overwhelmed tears in the car from the day and stuff building up for weeks and she's just hopping cause she gets her fav food. I was literally crying (quietly though) as we left the parking lot and she keeps going on about what sandwich she's getting. At first I thought she didn't notice, but then she looks over and goes "Oh," and that's it. So she noticed, and normally would at least be like, "hey, you're crying, is everything okay?" Not at that moment. In the drive through I started crying more, because I honestly couldn't help it (that hasn't stopped either, I'm on like my tenth cry of the day right now) and then she finally showed concern. I couldn't tell her anything she had done to cause it (in the past that's earned me shouting and 'ungrateful brat' kind of comments that she swears later she didn't mean) but I did explain the wanting to move and earn my primary income from my art frustrations though, and she surprised me by being kind and supportive. I thought we were okay then and the day would be okay. Wrong. We eat, she decides to nap cause she was getting a headache, I decide to play GTA V for an hour or two. The cat wakes her up in about that time (I tried to get Nish to let my mom sleep, but she wanted both her humans awake and wouldn't take any food or toys I offered.) Mom's mood is wildly different then. She's angry. She complains about clothes being ready to hang in the washer (I didn't see or hear her put them in, or I would have taken care of them) and goes to do that. I follow, and try to fix things by taking the basket and offering to help. As soon as we get in to the room we hang the clothes in to dry, she's even angrier. First I'm taking the dry clothes down too slowly, then too quickly when I hang up wet ones in their place. Then I'm hanging the clothes wrong on the hanger. I tried for a bit to make it work, but she was ripping clothes out of my hand, tossing the laundry basket around, and pushing empty hangers to the floor in the same way an angry toddler would. So I get her the extra hangers from my room, hang up my dry clothes in my closet, and go back to my laptop in the living room, and turn it all off. That was the breaking point for me--I knew she'd be pissed at me next for playing a game (that's the usual cycle of these situations no matter what I'm doing--if I'm just sitting there doing nothing then I'm still doing something wrong) so I closed it down. Here comes the mixed messages. She asks when she goes back to the couch, suddenly really quietly, why I'm packing my stuff up. I tell her I have a headache and want to be in my room (partially true, though it isn't a bad enough headache that I'd go lie down) she acts sad, but let's me go and I leave trying to figure out her 360 emotional spin. Fast forward a few hours of me crying quietly in my room, panicking over how she might act for dinner and how even though my psychologist said to stand up for myself and call out her behavior and how she'd be totally pissed at me if I'd acted like she had all day I still can't bring myself to say anything because I'm afraid of my mom yelling when I do that. There's a quick, tense discussion on what to do for dinner a bit later, and dinner itself wasn't awful, just uncomfortable (in part because we had pizza and I had to eat all the pieces left, or she'd do her usual spiel about how I don't eat left overs fast enough so I shouldn't leave them, yet she can leave them because she's formally dieting and I'm not.) I try to go back to my room and she stops me. "Bye," she says in a voice equal parts sad and offended. Now, no matter what I'd done here would have been a problem. In past moments like this, there have been some where she guilted me to staying in the living room (but then acted nasty towards me if I fell asleep and didn't wake her up to help remind her to take out her contacts or get her to bed at a decent hour) and some where I've gone back to my room (and she'd pop in every couple of hours to ask if I still wasn't coming back out, glare at anything I might have on the floor, and sigh even when my room is clean--the issue I've found there is that it isn't clean in the way she'd clean it, so it pisses her off, no matter how much I try and clean 'her way' even when executive dysfunction makes it hard.) Tonight, I chose my room, which brings us to now. She already popped in once, as I was typing so I had to hide my iPad so she wouldn't see this post. I already know she'll have fallen asleep in the living room, so I can't fall asleep yet in case she doesn't wake up by ten or elevenish on her own to go into her bedroom. And I get her headache might be making her feel like shit, but here's the rub-- We've been having these moments and situations since I was four. I know everyone has days where they act shitty cause they don't feel well, but why does she expect me to just ignore her on those days when she never lets me have a day like that. If I acted how she did today, she'd have yelled and been angry with me (even tho she stresses now how we're just as much roommates as mom and kid since I'm an adult, so we should treat each other more like roommates.) I was the one who was gracious and asked my artist if he was okay to check out my healing before he left (which he happily did, and he said he was glad I let him check because it showed responsibility as a tattoo owner that he doesn't always see) while she whined that we shouldn't have to pay for the visit and embarrassed the hell out of me (they didn't charge because we didn't tattoo today, and none of the artists at the shop have ever said they'd charge for a literal 'roll up your sleeve for two minutes and let me look' thing, tho I think they probably could and should--I'm willing to hand over my money to people who care about me and the art on my body.) I was the one who kept us on track during shopping and got us home at a decent time, with lunch, even tho my anxiety was at an all time high and I was already an over emotional mess. And I was the one trying to find a way to make her happy, even after she'd made me cry a few times over. I just wonder how long I'm going to go thru this with her. My five year plan now is to save up to move to California, but it's killing me I can't go now. To be closer to other artists and collab and share my art with them (one book in the series I'm writing is nearly done with my editing, the second books first draft is written, and I started writing the third books first draft this week, and I didn't even plan on it becoming a series); to be away from my mom and my family's bullshit; to be in a state that will protect my orientation and gender identity (they can still fire u for that first one in ND)--it all feels so close yet so far away and days like today I just feel so tired of living the way I am, yet I don't have the money or options to change anything yet. This got way too long--if u read it all, thank u but also I'm sorry. U can tell it got too long cause I've given up typing as formally as I usually do. Anyway, I should take this moment to thank u all for still following me and reading my blog--writing and rants alike. It's a small comfort, but it makes me feel less alone. And on days like today, that's one of the few things I have. Here's to hoping for easier days with family, for me and any of u guys that might be struggling with similar issues right now. If any of u ever need to vent, my ear is ready to listen (and comfort if u want.)