#im unhappy in this fandom space

[3-aem]

Do you don’t mind if people steal your art? Because I have been seeing a lot recently, or do they need too give credit? By the way I love your art style I am just seeing it everywhere

i get a lot of asks about this and its not that i don’t mind (why i don’t respond very often) but that atm i don’t have the energy to fight this.

speaking from experience these things cost energy to track down and resolve, not to speak of how it’s upsetting to really contemplate the actions of the reposter.

im already upset about a lot of things constantly.

i want My work to do well and i suppose as long as my original stuff is getting plenty of attention I am fed. i have internal rules I follow for handling this. if the account is small i don’t bother. if they credited me via a direct at I don’t bother.

ideally people would credit me and i have also told people too in the past if they ask.

[shinraelectricpowercom]

Current Events in Silm fandom rlly reinforce my feeling that, despite claiming an ethos of acceptance/tolerance of anything that doesn't hurt ppl, a lot of ppl in the section of Silm fandom I frequent do follow a set of socially-agreed-upon mores about what concepts are "not acceptable" to discuss or propose (or the ways in which certain topics must be discussed to be acceptable), that you all seem to have agreed on despite the things those mores restrict not being harmful to anyone.

And when someone does say smth that violates those mores, the response is disproportionate to the amount of harm done (which is typically none, imo). I know it's tempting to say "but we just want people to be comfortable and safe", but treating ppl badly for the sin of sharing thoughts you dislike is NOT the same as preventing people from doing things that are harmful. The former is much more of a harmful behavior than the sharing of the thoughts that sets it off. Fannish etiquette, people: you shouldn’t act like someone’s meta makes them morally suspect just because you disagree with it; save the “this is morally bad” for things that are ACTUALLY harmful. We're all stuck on this website together & if you want to have any sort of community, you need to ACT like you're in a community, and that means letting other people say things you dislike. Block them if you need to! I block people all the time because i know it's better for me AND for them if we can both blog in peace.

I am not particularly comfortable with the young-queer-on-tumblr silm fandom rn due to this tendency to rebuke things that are uncomfortable rather than harmful. Maybe that's fine with you. But if your goal is to make all fans feel comfortable and accepted, you need to actually do that. If your goal is to make people who share your unwritten rules comfortable in your space, you need to admit that, and write those rules down, and curate your space so it follows them.

Edited 8:10am PST to clarify the specifics of the behavior I find concerning.

[manicpixiefelix]

head, heart, hand. {Felix Catton/Reader/Oliver Quick}

Part 4.

Summary: While Oliver may struggle to fit into your group of friends as a whole, he seems to fit perfectly by you and Felix's sides. Farleigh grows more unhappy with this arrangement as the weeks go on, and finally Felix has enough of his attitude towards you, and you accidentally overhear. Upset at both Farleigh's attitude and how Felix had to fight with him on your behalf, Felix spends the rest of the night making sure you know just how much you're worth.

{ masterpost }

Need to Know: They/Them. Explicitly NB Reader. FWB!Reader/Felix. Reader is from a well off family but has pretty much been adopted by the Cattons.

Warnings: drinking/intoxication, smut but somehow i managed to still write around the reader's AGAB??? still explicit tho (reader bottoming), and 'dog' being used to demean the reader once.

A/N: 3825 words. it hasn't been even 24 hours since the last chapter. im making good time lol. i promise there will be a lot more oliver in the future (i already have part of chapter 5 that is VERY reader/oliver) but this is an especially Felix/Reader chapter. i know its kind of going slow, we're still only in the first bit of oxford, but it will pick up, i just like really getting into the character interactions. as always, this is unedited, and i'd love any feedback you may have!!

Taglist: @strangemaximoff @renaissance-mama @tsach @malscorner @xhoneymoonx134 @yelchinweasleylothbrok @tarriea @florencediet @butitsbetterifyoudoittoem @belladonnadarksshade @fandom-multiamory @snazzynacho @jubileexoxo @soocore @be-lla-vie @nightingale2124 @willow-sages @null4ndv0id @gracieluvthemoon @day2dream @marvellover98 @navixfr @bitxhinthecomments @daintylovers @alesunsets @noturningbacknow @d0llysposts @alilcloudy @callsignwidow @moviequotes23 @325575 @bonnieblue0606 @osoqueen125 @hot-dino-nuggies @darkness-falls-xo @mattymurderdocks @flowerecs @weepingwitchofthewest @ilovemydinoboi @marsmallow433 @king0flies @cashtons-wife @jessicascharacterbananza @gossvedd

TAGLIST ALWAYS OPEN ! (just message or comment to be added)

----

Oliver, by nature, does not appear to be an incredibly tactile individual. Getting shitfaced at your first proper meeting at the pub aside, and not counting the nights he joins you all at the club, he seems perfectly gentle and demure, always taking up as little space as possible, never really reaching out for another person unless they make the first move.

Except with you.

It's never overt, nothing about Oliver is ever overt, he's not throwing his arms around you every time he sees you like Felix, not tucking himself close to you as you all walk to the pub the way the girls of the group liked to do, nor is he leaning on you and treating you like furniture the way Farleigh liked to expression his familiarity. It was small, constant contact. Sitting too close in a booth, knees knocking under the table, shoulder checking you at the bar and staying that close as you both wait for your drinks, studying together in the library, sitting across from one another and his leg sticks out under the table, his ankle reaching yours.

For you it's normal, honestly it's a little toned-down from what you're used to, but there's always something in his eyes when he first makes contact, like he wants to memorise your reaction. Oliver is always memorising, always watching, always observing. There's something almost voyeuristic about his company in those quiet moments, but you're used to being watched, you're used to putting on a show, so you find yourself matching his energy, giving a coy smile when you meet his unreadable gaze. Underneath the table you'll press your ankle back against his, or knock your knee against his with purpose, or lean against his at the bar, acknowledge the contact, relish in it for the moment.

Felix, however, is the king of overt, and has never in his life waited for someone else to reach out for him. Every chance he has he'll pour his focus and attention onto Oliver. The more he learns about Oliver, the more insistent he seems to have him around, even if the rest of the friend group is less than enthusiastic. None of them would ever say as much to Felix, except of course Farleigh, but Felix grows ever more protective of Oliver, and Farleigh learns to keep his mouth shut in the end.

It takes you a long while to see the difference, actually it takes you a long while to realise there even was one. But there was. For all Oliver would orbit around Felix, looking at him like he hung the stars in the sky, he didn't touch Felix unless Felix touched him first. Call it reverence or respect, you just remember the way he'd shrunk away from Felix's bike when you'd first met him, how he'd shrunk away from your handshake after he'd dropped it, always weighing up every decision, never leaping without calculating the risks. He'd rather be touched than reach out and get rejected.

When you finally realise this, that feeling from the pub hits you again, sharp, bright, and intrigued. Everything's already warm and a bit fuzzy, the two of you sitting on Felix's bed, back to the wall, sharing a bottle of orange juice that's also half vodka, pregaming for a party and waiting for Felix to get out of the shower. If this were anyone else, chatter would be flowing brightly between you both, but you'd found early on that you settle into comfortable silence well beside Oliver. The CD player is playing that pop punk CD Annabel leant Felix last week, and Oliver is focused on playing with the rips in the knees of your jeans. He's always a little more bold, a little more tactile when he's drunk, he'll dance with you, will sit with an arm around you or on your knee, but its taken you until now to realise that you've never seen him really do that by his own choice with anyone else, even while drunk.

"Ollie, Ollie, Ollie~" you practically sing his name softly, affectionately, and when he hums in acknowledgement, looking up from your jeans, you lean your chin on your shoulder with a coy little smile, almost nose to nose with him.

"Sorry should I not be -?" He glances to your knee once more, but you snort a laugh and shift your leg to lay it out across both of his. You take another long swig of the juice, and feel his hand fidgeting once more against your knee.

"You make me feel all special, Ollie," you laughed, tipping your head against his, and he once again goes still, "I don't want to treat you like a horse but you do have to stop being so skittish," comes out without you even properly meaning it to, and suddenly Ollie's half spluttering through apologies and explainations.

"I can't- I can't help it, you just kind of say things that catch me off guard, I don't mean to -" this time his fidgeting has a more nervous energy, and you carefully put your hand on his to settle him.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said that," taking a deep breath, you try and organise your thoughts, "that was mean of me, I'm too used to people without much of a filter."

While Oliver is quiet, doesn't quite feel the need to speak, he does flip his hand around and lace his fingers with yours. Both of you look at your joined hands for a long moment.

"I like being next to you," you tell him with quiet sincerity, "and I like that you want to be next to me."

"Everyone wants to be next to you," Oliver says softly, and out of the corner of your eye you see him turn to look at you, "I just feel lucky that you keep saving space for me here." You give his hand a squeeze, terrified to meet his gaze, terrified of what you might see in the way he looks at you.

This moment overwhelms you, thrills you, makes your chest hurt in a way that's so unfamiliar. The idea of Oliver looking at you, seeing you for all you are outside of Felix's shadow, for wanting to be close despite that - you take another drink.

The shower turns off, and the two of you fall back into silence, sharing the drink as you hear Felix scuffle about the bathroom getting dressed. When he emerges only wearing jeans, towel drying his hair, you wolf whistle at him with the biggest grin just to see him blush. Lobbing the towel at you both, he leans across the bed to take the bottle of juice from Oliver, taking a few long chugs before passing it back.

For a moment, his eyes linger on your still-joined hands, and he smirks as he turns to his wardrobe.

"You two look cute."

"I'm stealing your new best friend," you announce with a shit-eating grin, bringing your joined hands up to your chest, and Felix throws an amused look at you over his shoulder as Oliver ducks his head, unable to his hide own abashed smile.

"Oh it's like that, is it? You'd let yourself be stolen so easily, Ollie?" Felix teased, pulling out a flattering button-down for himself to wear, turning back expectantly. Oliver flushes, looking back and forth for a long moment between yourself and Felix, who was slowly sauntering over to the bed. There's something in his eyes, that look he got when he was carefully evaluating what to say next without trying to look like he was thinking too hard, but it was gone once he settled on Felix.

"It's Y/N, can you really blame me?"

Oh, he's good. Something lights up in Felix's eyes as his gaze darts back and forth between the two of you, something adoring and amused in equal measure. Felix has always held a very high opinion of you, and just as you found joy in his happiness, so did he find joy in yours; he had never been shy about how he loved when others truly adored you, since he thought everyone should. Still, it wasn't something he tended to broadcast the way you wore your loyalty to him on your sleeve. Oliver was very good.

"I actually can't even argue with that," Felix's voice has a kind of softness to it that most people will never hear, but you know it, and there's something about how he's letting Oliver hear it to that warms your heart.

There moment breaks as the CD finishes and Felix starts hunting for his socks, declaring that he should be ready to go in only a few more minutes.

The change after that is less gradual. Of course you're still social and integrating yourself with the whole group, still playing your role in the group dynamic, offering affection and yourself without hesitation, just as Felix did too, but the two of you always make room for Oliver too. He's easing into it more, talking, laughing, reacting and seeming to live more outside of his head. Still, there's a divide in the group, there's something that makes the others hold back, something that means they can't quite understand the affection you and Felix have for the newcomer. Farleigh is a lost cause.

Farleigh can only seem to bring himself to be condescending and bitchy to you when he's sober, and outright won't speak to you while intoxicated.

"The fuck is your problem with Y/N?" You're pretty sure you weren't mean to hear Felix confront Farleigh by the bathroom of the club.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Farleigh snaps, but then you hear a scuffle and thud, and ducking your head quickly around the corner you see Felix holding Farleigh to the wall by his collar. There's a strange sensation in your gut at the sight, knowing his anger was on your behalf, but you didn't want to get caught, and pressed yourself back to the wall.

"My problem is with Oliver," Farleigh hisses, "you both know that, but you don't fucking care."

"Then treat me like dirt, not them."

"Nothing I could say would ever stop you from doing what you want, or who you want, cousin," you hear the sneer in Farleigh's voice, and feel your stomach sink, "but -"

"But what? You expected- expected what? Better from Y/N?"

Farleigh's silence speaks volumes. Once more you peak around the corner and see Felix shove himself away from Farleigh, who simply straightens his shirt, standing tall.

"The fuck do you want me to say?" Finally, Farleigh snaps, "congrats, Felix, you got your dog a dog, and now I can't look at either of you without that freak hanging around like a fruit fly."

"Fuck off," Felix sounds like he's about to be sick. Farleigh obligingly fucks off, and you have to take a long moment, head tipped back against the wall as you fight back tears in your heightened, intoxicated state. While you know you should leave, shouldn't be caught eavesdropping, you can't bring yourself to move fast enough, and Felix rounds the corner, walking almost directly into you.

"Y/N -!" He's clearly forcing a smile for the half second that it takes him to register that it's you, but then he sees your expression, the tears in your eyes, and his face falls, "you okay? What- what's-?" While you press your lips into a thin line, trying not to give anything away, he glances over his shoulders and he's quick to connect the dots, "you heard?"

"I'm sorry, Fi," your voice trembles, and immediately he's wrapping you up in a tight hug, "I don't like making Farleigh mad at you," you sniffle, clutching his sweater tightly.

"Farleigh's being an asshole, that's not on you," Felix's voice leaves no room for disagreement, but still he rubs circles into your back, "that's never your fault."

Its Felix who suggests the two of you head home for the night, but you're glad he knows you well enough to intuit that was what you'd wanted anyways. The two of you say your goodbyes for the night, putting on a happy face, thankfully obscured by the haze and neon lights and highs of your various friends. Farleigh seems to be avoiding you both, so it's only Oliver who seems to want to cling, just a little, as you say goodbye.

Somehow you know he's the only one who can see the truth of your mood in your eyes. He hugs a little longer than usual, still holding you tightly when Felix reminds him about lunch between the two of them the following day. Oliver nods before he steps back, but he doesn't entirely let go. For a moment he looks between you and Felix, you already reaching back for Felix, who takes a hold of your wrist, and then Oliver quickly takes your face and kisses your forehead quickly.

"Get back safe, alright?" He insists with a resolute nod. Both you and Felix manage a genuine smile at that, and finally head from the club.

At first, the walk back to the dorms is quiet; your own mood is low, but there's something about Felix that you don't realise until he starts to fume.

"Can you believe he'd talk about you like that?"

"What?"

"Farleigh; where the fuck does he get off talking like that? Fucking entitled." It's fury, radiating off of him in waves. His intensity surprises you, but your heart's not beating faster out of any kind of fear, "he should know better."

"Felix -"

"I don't care if he's my cousin, he -" and he stops dead, finally turning to look at you. In an instant, seeing the wide-eyed, almost awed love you were looking at him with, all his fury seemed to disappear. Still, there was intensity as he stepped up to you, wrapped one arm around your waist as he cupped your jaw, "he made you cry," the anger was faint but still audible, his thumb running gently over your cheek, where you had wiped the tears away not ten minutes ago, "I never want anyone to do that ever again."

Felix knows how to make you feel good, has had years of practice, but tonight he dedicates every ounce of focus he still has to that cause. It's been a long time since he's properly taken his time with you like this; there's been a lot of quickies, or drunk, sloppy sex when neither of you want to hook up with someone else, messy handjobs in janitor's closets between classes simply because you were bored and liked the thrill of it, or giving each other head in the bathroom of the club or pub when the other loses an arbitrary bet. But the way he worships you is something that only happens when he's feeling especially sappy.

When his mouth isn't on you - kissing, sucking, biting - he's lavishing you with praise until it almost becomes righteous, and his nails dig in and he's losing himself in you and babbling about how anyone who even got to fucking look at you should be grateful.

"Fi -" you gasp, hand coming up to muffle yourself as he's got you to the point of speechless. But he stops, cock deep inside of you, hips pressed flush to yours as you have your legs wrapped around his waist. You groan and whimper and try rolling your hips to create more friction, but his grin is wide as he leans down over you.

"Come on, no, don't do that," he practically purrs, taking your hand, pinning your wrist to the bed next to your head, pinning the other in just the same way so he was braced over you, "I want everyone to hear how you sound when someone's making you feel good." He starts to move again now, slow this time, while this new angle has your thighs splayed somehow further open, all new moans of pleasure escaping you now. Felix looks pleased, face close enough to yours that you're practically panting and moaning into his mouth as he delights at the way he's making you feel.

One of your favourite things about fucking Felix is that he is consistently Felix, which is that he very rarely shuts up, which is fantastic because you love hearing his voice. The praise and love he lays on you this night is interspersed with the way he always is during sex, chatty, always checking in, somehow making casual and curious sound like the hottest things in the world. Even when you're past the point of words and his head is between your thighs, he'll have two fingers inside of you and -

"This alright?" He knows the answer because he knows you, but you've always been endeared by it. Still, you make a breathy noise of confirmation, and you hear his voice drop to something low and firmer, "words, Y/N." God, fuck, the things that voice does to you when he uses it.

"Yes, oh god, Fi, it's good, it's good, it's good -"

You can feel his pleased chuckle as his mouth is back on your tender skin.

Dawn is breaking beyond his window, through the curtains neither of you had bothered to close all night, when you both finally concede, feeling thoroughly satisfied and spent.

"I know you don't like me getting into scraps on your behalf -" Felix, laying out on his back, easy smile on his face as he looks to you, begins.

"Or ever," you roll your eyes, but turn to lay on your side, facing him, unable to stop smiling yourself. Felix chuckles.

"Fine, sure, but," and he wets his lips, his gaze softening for a moment as his eyes meet yours, "I'm never going to sit by and let someone chat shit about you, you know that, right?"

After a long moment of deliberation, you finally admitted -

"I got a girl expelled because of how she was talking about you," you blurted out. Immediately Felix's eyes went wide. He shot up, sitting dead straight and looking back at you.

"You what?!"

"I don't get into scraps like you, but what she was saying was fucking vulgar, and I asked her to stop but she started making these awful, gross comments about how she was going to baby trap you and you'd be too stupid to know, and- and-" you flipped to lay on your back, fidgeting as you recounted the details. Felix was watching you, but you couldn't quite figure out what the look on his face meant, though perhaps he was simply processing it all, "and so I paid someone to plant a whole load of illegal shit in her room and called campus authorities."

Quiet suddenly filled the room, and slowly Felix looked away, choosing to simply stare at his hands.

"The only reason I don't like you getting into scraps is because I just don't want you to get hurt; it actually means so much to me that you care enough to defend me, you know? I'm not a hypocrite, I just worry about you," you tried to laugh, but it sounded lame in the quiet.

"You got a girl expelled for me," surprisingly, you can hear the grin in Felix's words. When he turns back with an incredulous laugh, relief floods through you. In an instant he's pitched himself practically on top of you, peppering your face, neck, and chest with kisses, "you're fucking diabolical, I'm so glad you're on my side!"

Eventually the two of you manage to get to sleep, though it's not nearly enough, as a knock comes at the door at around eleven. Both you and Felix groan, but he insists that you stay in bed.

"Be there in a sec," he calls to the door. After sourcing some boxers, he opens the door just a crack, and you can hear Farleigh on the other side.

"I was a dick."

"You were," Felix agrees.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said all that."

"No you shouldn't have."

"So are we good?"

"I don't know why you're apologising to me," you can hear the passive-aggressive lightness in Felix's tone, and Farleigh sounds confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Of course you know what I mean, Farleigh."

Then, a long sigh from Farleigh, and quietly, almost too quiet to hear it, you hear him ask if Felix knows where you are. You can almost picture the smug smile on your best friend's face as he steps aside and opens the door wide enough to reveal you, in his bed, still mostly asleep.

"Morning..." Farleigh says awkwardly.

"Morning, Farleigh," you yawned loudly.

"I..." he started, looking deeply uncomfortable; Felix had to prompt him to continue, "am sorry for treating you like shit these past few weeks. I don't like Oliver, that's," he sighed, unable to look you in the eyes, "not your fault."

"It's not my fault but you're making it my problem," you tell him bluntly, to which he scowls, "I love you, I have loved you for years, I do not love you less because of Oliver; your jealousy is childish."

"Fine," Farleigh rolls his eyes, "I'll temper my urge to vomit at the sight of him and his poor attempts to fit in whenever you're around- either of you are around."

"We appreciate the sacrifice," Felix rolls his eyes, sarcasm all but dripping from his words. Still, you accept the apology and tension between the three of you seem to ease as the conversation comes to an end. Felix throws himself back down on the bed with a grunt, half laying on you.

"What time is it?" He voice is muffled against the mattress, so you glance at his alarm clock.

"Eleven fifteen."

Another groan from Felix, but he still doesn't move. Slowly, he crawls to a more dignified position, and back under the covers beside you. He wraps am arm around you, pulling you in close so your back was flush against him, his breath warm on the back of your neck.

"Fifteen minutes and I'll leap out of bed with enthusiasm," he says in the absolutely least convincing manner, tucking himself as close to you as possible, "I got lunch with Ollie at the pub."

"That should be nice," you yawn, and rest your hand on his where it's warm against your bare stomach.

"Gotta have a shower, get dressed, figure out if I'm biking or walking," he's mumbling mostly to himself, voice drifting off.

"I'd join your shower but I plan to sleep here until Monday."

"I'll probably join you when I get back."

It's a comforting thought, and you let out a contented hum, before finally adding before you drift off.

"Give Ollie my love when you see him, won't you?" And as your asking, Felix presses a kiss to your shoulder.

"Of course."

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

Y'all I've always thought it was hilarious what Anet did to warbands.

So. you have Rytlock, who in Edge of Destiny said he had "about a dozen" brothers and sisters each. so including himself, that's 25 in a warband. The wiki says a warband is 6-25 members, so Rytlock was on the high end, and average would probably be 12-18 members.

and then every warband in the game proceeds to have BARELY 6.

you have 5 options to choose from for a sparring partner. Rox's old warband had 6 members (or maybe 7). We've still never met more than one of Rytlock's 'bandmates. Almorra gets one 'bandmate mentioned by name.

most charr in the entire game, including top-ranking tribunes and imperators, are not with their warbands, do not talk about their warbands, do not go places with their warbands. Tribune Bhuer Goreblade shows up with a small handful of 'bandmates in the charr level 10 story.

You do not see groups of 12-18 charr warbands roaming around Ascalon with fascinating life stories and 'bandmate dynamics and mourning the latest one(s) who died, with mementos, with stories about how 'my sparring partner saved my life' and 'this member of the warband whom I know least of all my bandmates would die for me and they proved it last week' and 'Im unhappy with bandmate X but I would kill for them' or 'bandmates Y and Z obviously love each other. wanna join the betting pool?' and the legionnaire who confides in you about their tough decisions of who they're picking to be their second/replacement. All within the same warband.

Not even one warband like this. Much less the multiple that charr culture deserves.

Even in IBS, the, at least half-way, charr-centric story, our main focus warband is Ryland's Steel warband. Who has, predictably, 6 members. And like 10 fresh-faced, unnamed recruits who have 0 history or dynamic with the Main Cast. even the 6 named members, who have vibes and character and a bit of a dynamic, are stupid shallow. (and tbf they didn't have time to explore it much, but really?)

We do not see Bangar's 'bandmates. We do not see Rytlock's 'bandmates. We do not hear anything about Almorra's old 'bandmates. We do not see Ember Doomforge's 'bandmates. We do not see Smodur's 'bandmates. We do not see Malice's 'bandmates. We do not see Efram's 'bandmates.

We see a lot of 'cubs this' (with Rytlock and with Efram), I heard a lot of speculation about 'cubs that' in fandom spaces, we see a lot of 'ohoho relationship/mating drama' (from Rytlock/Crecia and also Almorra/Bangar). We do NOT see ANYTHING about warbands, supposedly the building-blocks of charr society.

Even the charr player's old warband is mostly disbanded/defected to Dominion.

I have yet to see any real warband dynamics in canon.

Even in the books! Rytlock's 24 'bandmates are fair game because they're offscreen. And Anet has consistently refused to show any of them. Even Rytlock's dynamic with Crecia is pretty much just "we're old exes" and never "we grew up together. we fought together. our bonds are deeper than those of biology, than the fact we have a cub. I stabbed you once and you knew I didn't mean it because we are 'bandmates." Sure, Crecia mentions once "ohoho we used to see the ice elementals here as cubs."

But in the books! Sea of Sorrows for instance! iirc the majority of Sykax's warband is unnamed! Ember Doomforge, again, no mentions of warband! Rytlock nor Malice nor Almorra talk about inter-warband relations!

we never see any warbands larger than 6 members.

And this is all because, OBVIOUSLY, who wants to come up with 12-18 whole characters when it's just the one who's relevant to the story? Coming up with 6 is hard enough it only happens in special occasions. which doesn't include the legit actual player character.

(the player character, whose warband is decimated to TWO flaming members (including yourself!!) in the tutorial, and! yay! fun lorebuilding! you get to rebuild the warband. this adds a flaming total of TWO members. now you're at flaming four. FLAMING FANTASTIC. the player-flaming-character gets FOUR 'bandmates. this is atrocious!! and tbf if you compile all the options across all the branches you might end up in the (low end, probably) of 12-18. which is fair!)

but like. I do sympathize. I really do. characters are hard. names especially! which would be the bare minimum yknow. have an 18-member warband with zero dialogue but! they do have names! that wander around Ascalon. not even an event chain just average-sized warband representation PLEASE.

like. I did it myself. I invented a warband and I BARELY got them to 6 members. I had name, gender, profession for each of them. they were minor characters so they didn't even get the development that Ryland's Steel got. names, professions and the vibes from that. I felt so bad for only giving them 6 bc I was reinforcing the stereotype!!

but, so, uhhhh

I have been handed an OC. from a friend. who has given me full creative license to write abt them in my story.

I gave him 23 'bandmates. They all have names and genders. They're split up into who is whose sparring partner and who bunks with whom. That is all.

I also get VibesTM from each member's name. I'm slowly building relationship maps. (mostly just. from character A's PoV, ranking who they are closest with. Then doing it from Character B's PoV. it's WILDLY fascinating.) I have three charr 'bandmates who have their own little niche, they three are besties, they're each other's sparring partners and bunkmates and everybody (main relevant characters at least) knows them as 'those three'. and I know their names. none of the characters I'm writing about know them very well (relative to the rest of the warband ofc. ofc each one would DIE for them and probably knows their struggles and combat strengths and weak points and so on. but I haven't invented any of those yet) and that's all. I don't have a single bit of info about them except that and the vibes of each name. but hey!!!! WARBAND DYNAMICS MY BELOVED!?!!

[silence-between-seconds]

Im a jegulus shipper and I like happy endings. Why do people keep recommending me all the young dudes? Doesn't that fic follow canon and its ending? Meaning jegulus doesn't happen? Its not listened as a ship on the fic I think? That's why im so iffy about reading crimson rivers and choice too(mostly because of the controversy I head avoit crimson rivers) i love angst and pain and hurt. But i also if im investing in a super long fic there better be some form of a happy ending in there. Dont get me wrong i like tragic and dark endings. But only when I know thats the type of book i pick up(romeo and juliet, a murder mystery, the woman in the widowz horror)

All the young dudes is one of the fics that kickstarted the marauders fandom's popularity and it's very well written and captivating from what I've heard. I haven't read it either because honestly I don't think I'm in a head space for all that angst and I don't have time currently.

Fanfiction is read only by choice, if you don't want to read something you simply shouldn't. No matter how good others say it might be, seriously don't read it if you're not a fan of an unhappy ending. I totally understand where you're coming from. And yea I think it has jily not jegulus.

[mqfx]

unfortunately my most prominent jyl thoughts start with the soup. & im no expert on ancient chinese kitchens, but given that lotus root & pork soup is something that simmers for hours, i think that as much as the soup is an act of service & a tried and true "we dont have to talk about it" comfort tactic, its also... a great excuse to duck away from everything going on. the kitchen being the safe space, so to speak! and overall jyl seems more avoidant than confrontational? i havent read mdzs for the details in years can you tell but i think theres a good chance under the right circumstances she could have become jfm 2: shijie edition, in which she can read emotional cues fairly well and she doesn't want anyone to be unhappy, but how proactive she might be about resolving a situation is entirely based on how secure she feels. im not forgetting her valiant defence of wwx "i take insults against him seriously" moment! but theres a difference between an eroding stagnant unhappiness & a situation that is more clear cut. im just not confident about how she would raise jin ling in the whole (waves hand) jin situation if she had not been collateral damage. is this making sense 😭

this is all true but let me make clear that my problem with how the fandom conceptualizes jiang yanli is NOT the soup. I'm not mad about the soup and in fact since it's one of basically three things that we even know about her at all, it stands to reason that when we think about her we're Gonna Have To Mention the Soup.

and one can (if one cares enough about her, which I'm sure you do anon) draw reasonable conclusions about her character based on this thing that she does. after all, everything is (supposed to be) important in a given text. I don't disagree with anything you said. she is a careful, conflict-avoidant person due to her tumultuous childhood with abusive/neglectful parents; despite this, she possesses strong morals and protective instincts. I don't think she would've been bad at raising jin ling because unlike her parents, she and her husband actually loved each other and communicate instead of willfully misunderstanding each other then bottling it all up (if she had married someone she didn't love, then yeah she might've been jfm 2. either way we'll never know because guess fucking what mxtx did)

my ISSUE, which fandom can barely acknowledge let alone address, is that "soup" has become a convenient shorthand to refer to her, but it's not a quality. it's a thing that is associated with her, not her personality. this isn't fair! "avoidant" is a trait, "comforting" is a trait, "kind" is a trait, "average" is a trait, soup's not a fucking trait! and some of that is just the general fandom trend of flattening characters in fanon, but the fact that she's a woman and therefore not paid as much attention compared to the ~Complexities~ of the men doesn't help

and I get that sometimes it's not that serious, sometimes it's for Joaks, but why is it that even when joking people can come up with all sorts of qualities for the men but when it's her it's just that she cooks soup? and in more serious discussions, why is her sole purpose apparently to be emotional support or tragic motivation for her brothers? (because mxtx herself wrote her that way!)

why did mxtx not delve into her reactions or point of view (mdzs is the only one of her novels with switching pov, so she could have)? or even just written more scenes with her? (CQL notably gave the women more scenes. the book is abysmal on this regard.....and in others)

tl;dr mxtx did a shit job of developing her character and that of the other women, and fandom makes this problem worse by not giving a shit. the feedback loop continues. your ask and my answer combined are already more words and effort than mxtx spent on writing her

[eastereggie]

woohoo !! didnt except to respond to this whole essay (for more context, im talking about the document jay made about the drama in the kaeloo fandom lol) considering the fact that its basically just 222 pages of insults towards random (and especially her mental state -who tf do you think you are btw) and then pretending to be a saint by randomly saying "b-but ! i dont h-hate you guys 🥺". i knew that this whole "call-out post" would be bullshit, but thats just low. really, really low. i figured that you and your little friends (or should i refer to yall as a cult too ? since we're going in the extremes :)) were mostly just here to insult people and play the victims, but i didnt think it would be that bad. i wont say much about whats in the document because i think its randoms place to do so, since its basically just a long ass diss to her, but i still wanted to write a short response. am i allowed to though ? i mean, as a teen (even if im 18 in a few months, ive been called underage in your document so ill go with that) i can draw and read explicit content to explore my sexuality 🥺🥺 but i cant think for myself right ? :/ thats too bad. i cant agree with my friends because that would also mean that im a yes-man and that im being manipulated or wtv helps you sleep at night lol

this is just to respond to the little part that has been directly adressed to me: if my answers are short when the drama is brought up its because...i actually dont give that much of a fuck about the drama itself. do i think that you guys are gross for writing and drawing porn of children and animals ? yes, i do. would i care if you just stayed in your own server to share that shit to your "safe place" ? absolutely not. you do you. that is none of my problems if you dont bring it up in a space you share with KIDS. thats the whole problem with you. you posted your disgusting content in websites where kids will obviously find. as an adult, you must be really naive to think that they will just read your warning and think: oh yeah !! ill just move on to a new fic :3 !!

they are kids. this is a kid show. obviously, you are sharing your fandom with kids, and you have to be careful about that. that is your responsibility, whether you like it or not. you cannot except to be appreciated and respected when you write porn about kids, in a fandom full of kids. if you genuinely, truly believe that everyone should accept you for that...then man, theres nothing i can do for you. but you know, you could share your things since you cherish them so much in patreon or in your discord server if its too explicit, but ao3 ? wattpad ? the stm ? those are FILLED with young teens. i can't believe you're whining about having to respect rules to coexist in a fandom of a show about kids with kids...wild

again, this is my OPINION. i cannot force you to not like...well, the things that you like... but i can definitely call you out if you're sharing that to kids, even if its indirectly and that you put warnings or whatever. you need to be cautious about the members of the fandom. if you're unhappy about this, then leave the space that isnt for you.

as i said, this happens in many fandoms filled with minors: bunch of adults are weird. they're being called out for being weird. they cry about it and create a group. they call people who call them weird, weird. its really common. thats why the center of the drama isnt new or interesting to me. thats why i dont write essays whenever it is brought up in the main server, or when nsfw fics were posted there. creeps exist in EVERY FANDOMS. do i still think its good to call them out ? totally. but that explain why i:

1. didn't really say anything when jay were posting their fics. since they agreed with us on the topic of kaeloo fics with nsfw but still were posting them, i figured out that there was not point in arguing. i just ignored the weird parts of the stories or simply didnt read anything. i dont like conflicts, and had a lot going on (still do), so i didnt speak about it before. thats my bad though: even if jay wouldnt have cared because they have a different opinion than me about aging up characters apparently, i shouldve said something whenever i had the chance and not only when the subject of fics with porn was brought up, and i take full responsibility. but you must know that i do not support those type of works and never have said that i do. whenever we spoke about it, i made it very clear that it was gross and that i dont agree with it at all. to tlak about jay's fics again, i mostly was enthusiastic about all the parts where sex wasnt involved (about the ss of me talking about jays fic about pregnancy, i loved seeing how mr cat and kae would act as soon-to-be parents ! i think its cute !! do not mean that i agree with writing full scenes about how that child is made).

jay has great ideas, thats why i liked their work so much. i will never pretend that i hate EVERYTHING that they do. theyve wrote and drew great stuff, and just because i dont agree with them as a person doesnt mean that ill ignore that or the compliments that ive given to them. i admire a lot of their work and didnt lie about any nice things ive said to them. this is not all white or all black.

2. didnt write really big responses in the STM. this is a server about kaeloo. the drama isnt really brought up there, except when its important or at the start of it. with college, job, family issues and the start of adulthood soon, i do not have time to be on discord in the first place. either im here for a brief moment, or i can be active when everyone is asleep so they already said everything i had in mind and all i can say is "yes" to messages i agree with and "no" to messages i dont. you do not know me, and if you genuinely believe that this is all i think about what is happening, then you're just extremely stupid...obv i wont talk about everything i think in details in the STM, or rub it in your face.

the only reason why im involved is because you're harassing my friend and i do not want her to suffer alone. its as simple as that. i will always support my friends in public, and correct them in private if i think they did something wrong. is random perfect ? do i think that she does no wrong ? ofc not. i'll always tell her if i think that she's not doing something right, the only difference is that i'll tell her in private, not in a discord server. how do you except anyone to listen to you if you already don't respect them enough to confront them privately and privately only ?

i think ive spoken for my part and i will not speak for any other people involved in this ridiculous drama. i think this is all really a personal issue with random (and also khamil apparently) and i do not believe that it's my place to speak for any of them. as i think your friend said, which i think is true, im not relevant in this drama, and again im just really here to support random but also to express myself when i think that its a general matter.

so ill conclude this by saying that this is a really disappointing document. posting the insults that have been told to my friend, for no reasons other than hurting her, giving her a few really serious and uncalled for diagnosis, posting her vents from when she was a teen to make her feel vulnerable, posting hateful and ableist comments about her publicly, posting comments of people insulting vulnerable members who need to vent and more...that is so, so petty.

jay, i didnt know you for long and we weren't super close, but i still liked you a lot (/p ofc). i know you'd love to think that you're the victim and that we are all just shit talkers who hated you or whatever, but that is not the case. reading the messages of the drama after the drama has been shocking. reading your tumblr posts, reading what your friends said to my friend, reading your document, all of that have been so disappointing. not here to play violins and act dramatic btw, this is just a fact i wanted to share.

theres a lot of things unsaid, but i think that it's really random's place to speak about it, not me or anyone else. id like to respect her opinion in all of this, so ive only really spoken about what i generally think :] !! that being said, i wont post this seriously about whats going on anymore except if i need to, thats why im blocking a few people too. i want to enjoy my post without child porn being rubbed in my face. i really feel like all this other part of the fandom wants is attention, so i wont focus my whole tumblr on them lol, but calling them out is still important to me. i dont except them to change their ways since they look so sure of themselves, but anyone can dream, right ? sorry about how disorganised it is, or if my english is bad and also for my spelling mistakes lmao 🤸🤸 ty for reading this far though !! please check out random's response when it comes out !!

[kinaesthetiqueer]

You've more or less single-handedly altered my entire perception of Nora as a character, and I mean that in the best way possible, making me enjoy her so much more every time I rewatch RWBY (which I gotta do again at some point, but that's neither here nor there)

However! This leads to my question :3 I noticed you had a few fics about her, and that she's also a very present character in your brain space, I kinda wanna know more about Satya Vaswani (which I now know her name is!!! Which is so cool!!!) and specifically your thoughts about her, what about her appeals to you, basically sharing as much as you want to!

I had a mild overwatch phase some years ago, so I know some Basic lore, but I always love learning and hearing about people's favorite characters :3

Oki thank you byeeee!~

aksnskajdhskanjs WONDERFUL QUESTION AND THANK YOU THIS TOOK DAYS TO WRITE BUT IT WAS NICE TO BE REASSURED THAT I DO STILL LOVE HER (AND HER GIRLFRIENDS, BY PROXY).

quick psa below for anyone who follows me for overwatch; otherwise, you can skip to the blue text & read more for sym gushing

im gonna preface this by saying my knowledge of overwatch ends in about mid to late 2019, which is right around the time i finally and miserably acknowledged that i could no longer play sym in the game because i could not adjust to sym 3.0. (for context, when blizz announced her 3.0 rework in 2018, i crawled under my desk and cried; there are pictures). while i also played rein and lucio, my real joy was playing sym and once i could no longer do that, i basically stopped playing. i'm not good at fps. there's a lot going on. i scream a lot. i cannot aim. overwatch remains my first and only fps. i just couldn't handle letting my friends down as a bad support-turned-dps as i cannot aim (even though they insisted i did not let them down) plus eventually a lot of other folks stopped playing, i got busy, blizzard continued to suck ass, etc. sym 3.0 was a personal death knell for my SI in overwatch

SO the last thing i read was the bastet short story and the last new chara i cared about was baptiste. i got soured on the fandom and the shipping base and crawled out of it into a perfectly happy ot3 isolation bubble. i say all this NOT to sound unhappy about this question, but to set up for the single boundary that i MUST enforce when it comes to overwatch:

i do not want to know anything about ovw post 2019!

this may sound harsh but i don't care about overwatch lore anymore!this is simply to prevent my brain from just absolutely self-imploding. i have a clear and complete outline for the take to the skies series and i only care about that series (and the demons/witch au) and a few other things that ive written; i do not want to corrupt that. i've heard whispers about sym lore updates and im simply not engaging with that. i don't need to know nor do i want to! thank you, good night! i'm content to willingly live in denial.

you see, my satya "symmetra" vaswani lives safe and sound in my brain. blizz can't touch her.

satya vaswani, also known as symmetra to her teammates and also her enemies, is a character near and dear to my heart! i knew nothing about her until i stumbled upon the fact that she was intentionally written as autistic. this was at a time in my life where i had recently discovered i was too, in a fun (not) series of events, and so i latched on immediately, not to mention when i started playing her, i found a niche and became a rather successful sym (which to me means being helpful, getting kills, STAYING ON THE FUCKING POINT, and not getting in the way). i don't remember what my hours ended up being on her but im pretty sure it was well over 100 and since the servers are gone??? i'll never know? im not downloading ovw 2 to find out. it's probably on my old blog. GAH. im not here to be be salty about blizz.

SATYA.

satya, much like nora, is a side[ish] character that i have taken every scrap of canon lore and extrapolated to the stratosphere. i acknowledge that i have surpassed canon and inserted my own, especially when it comes to her childhood.

that being said

here's canon:

After she was identified as one of the few capable of becoming a light-bending architech, young Satya Vaswani was plucked from extreme poverty and placed in the care of Vishkar's architech academy, never to return home. Isolated and lonely in her new life, Satya immersed herself in her education and training. She quickly grasped the applications of the technology and was one of the top students in her class. Satya approached hard-light manipulation differently than her peers, with their more procedural, mechanical constructions, instead weaving her constructs in the motions of the traditional dance of her homeland.

and then i, to recap practical ghosts to some extent, made it worse. she was singled out for a scholarship by the vishkar academies who intentionally sought out young kids with high compatibility with hard light tech. she has an older brother aditya and a younger brother krishna and her mom karishma. her father died when she was three; she is, at the time of pick up, eight.

she's taken away to the fledgling vishkar town of utopaea where she atends the prestigious vishkar dawn academy boarding school. fairly quickly she takes to HL. it just makes sense to her and she loves it! never mind that she's without her support net for the first time ever. higher up staff order her teachers to excuse her 'problematic' behaviour because they don't wan to damage the prodigy in the making. her mother fights to have satya come home regularly and succeeds in making sure she gets to visit. the higher up staff even court these wishes, hoping that karishma will see the good in vishkar's training and ABA therapy but satya's mom sees her daughter's personality changes and misery and the way she talks about her autism now, the bullying she receives from both adults and students, the way she only seems to focus on architecture. she doesn't like it one bit. and after four years of this back and forth fight between vishkar execs and karishma over the 'budding jewel' of vishkar, karishma finally finds another school closer to home and begins to make moves to take satya out of vishkar academy at the end of the school year.

in response, vishkar ensures that satya has no family left to go home to. they also make sure that not only it looks like an accident but a specific architectural failure that galvanizes satya's single track minded drive to make the world a better place in which no one ever loses their family to a building collapse again. she becomes a ward of vishkar through a series of legal dominos vishkar had in place; she's only twelve. she never finds out that vishkar is the one who killed her family (except for in this little riff i did on twitter that may or may not load). ALSO funny that i named it indomitable, bc i didn't know what rwby was when i wrote that XD. anyways i have all my tweets downloaded but it's not that important.

practical ghosts is a fun narrative because it's told completely outside of satya through documents about her (with the exception of three little chapters at the end, only one of which is from her POV) it's my fave of my satya vent fics. PG is in line with on the run from tomorrow and thursday's daughter's genre of 'no one asked me to go this deep with canon plausible backstory but i did anyway!'

satya NOW though. she comes to the watchpoint, essentially surrendering her vishkar insider info in return for asylum, and proceeds to have the meltdown of a lifetime the second no eyes are on her. she throws herself into discovering how much of her life is a lie (her first comic, where she begins wondering, inspires much of this, as it obvs happens before; while i have read her 2020 comic, i don't use it at all except to smile because it did not contradict my HCs or if it did i ignored it; i was made vaguely aware against my will that she has history with LW but again, i don't care)

she's sassy, she's deadpan, she's devoted, she's practical. she loves dance and cooking and all forms of gymnastics, skating, and ribbon arts. she'll take you to task for doing stupid shit and explain how you should fix it in the same breath. she's ruthless when it comes to making other's take care of themselves. she's harder on herself than anyone else dares to be. she likes birds. she likes making new ways to stim that aren't obvious. she has reclaimed her arm and her relationship with it. she's done an absolutely stellar job of reinventing herself in the wake of everything she's done and been involved with. she's taken all of vishkar's tech and made it better and more accessible. she prefers rebuilding missions more than combat ones. she loves drinking tea with ana. mei was her first human friend outside of vishkar; athena was her first friend at the watchpoint. her and lucio actually get along fine eventually. she is fearlessly devoted to those she loves. she's an early riser and early sleeper. she still cries sometimes when she allows herself to stim unhindered. she is a huge fucking demiace lesbian. she doesn't give a fuck about gender. she wears heels so she can discretely toe-walk and dresses because they're easy to move in. she can and will talk your ear off about her special interests but only if she loves you.

NONE OF THIS IS CANON

last i checked in canon, and based on voicelines, satya hasn't even LEFT vishkar. she's just doubting. she's still there under their thumb and i mean sure yeah that's fine but that was the great of overwatch HUGE sandbox, no plot, WOMEN, and oh my gods an autistic woman of color with the most wonderful voice and voice actor ever (hi ms bhimani i hope you're having a LOVELY day)

i took to sym because i wanted a more hopeful future for myself and i am awaaaaaaaare ive projected on her very hard but i gotta admit the fact that i turn 28 (her age) this year might have actually just made me grin like an idiot because oh my god i could NOT imagine that when i first got into overwatch in early 2017. jesus fuck i was twenty, i could barely see past my own nose. i REMEMBER tho, being like heeheehoohoo one day i'll be satya's age that'll be wild. complete hypothetical. ANYWAYS

i don't think im really answering the question here.

haven't even got to my favorite fuckin head canon. i SCREAAAAAAMED SO LOUD when i realized this. fuckiing rip to my friends bc i was in game and i was playing with a skin i had just unlocked and i noticed something incredible-

satya has a prosthetic left arm. she has two skins though where she looks more like she's wearing a school uniform. i think they're called architech and utopaea? but hey. hey. hey you know what she doesn't have in those skins?

her prosthetic.

SO. my second saddest and most favorite headcanon is that as an 18th birthday gift, when satya technically became an adult and thus could leave vishkar, vishkar offered her a choice. to quote 'nothing here to run from':

Just shy of her Academy graduation ceremony, an offer was made to officially cement her place in the Vishkar Corporation. “We only offer to the best and the brightest, Satya,” Sanjay had said, grasping her left hand in his right. “Wouldn’t you love to be the perfect architech, ready to change the world at a moment’s notice?” By the time she was eighteen, Symmetra only had room for perfection.

BECAUSE YEAH

i heavily headcanon vishkar to be just as bad as talon, since they are heavily intertwined. i would not put it past them.

so yeah, heavy heavy heavy disclaimer that i love satya 'symmetra' vaswani a normal amount but due to the inherent need to extrapolate a million things from a game that initially had three rubber bands and a paper clip worth of lore for her, i humbly recognize that the version of her that i love does only live in my head. and im okay with that!!!! but i love her canon self too, otherwise i would have never gone so feral about her to write over like 100k of her being loved, growing, living and learning!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gods i need to write her again.

also she has the best skins in the fucking gaaaaaaame she's so pretty and i am GAY

[shanny-banany]

Writer Interview Game

Thank you so much for the tag @weird-felt-hat!!!!!

When did you start writing?

I’ve always loved writing! I was in 6th grade when my childhood best friend introduced me to the magic of fanfiction though. We started out co-writing, and then as we took our writing more seriously we started sharing separately. She was the only person that’s ever known that i write fics in real life (aside from one of my sisters as of the last few months lol) and the only person I’ve actually shared my work with, and when we drifted apart in high school my sharing online tapered off as well. I kept my writing to myself for around 10 years after that, but the aoex community pulled me in a few years ago and it was like falling in love all over again.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading other than what you write?

Yes and no? What I read falls across a broader spectrum than what I’ve shared so far, but it’s more about the ending that generally needs to be in the same vein for me. Unhappy or largely unresolved endings leave me with an almost cold sort of hollowness, like im left with a characters heartache long after I’ve finished reading it, and I just really don’t like it. A happy ending scratches a really specific itch for me, and it’s what I’m personally seeking from fics in both my writing and my reading.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I don’t think anyone’s ever directly compared me to anyone, and while I definitely have writers I look up to I wouldn’t say there are any I’d want to imitate, especially not with the intentions of surpassing.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I’ll write anywhere and everywhere and almost always when I shouldn’t be writing lol. My ideas usually come to me when I’m doing my best critical thinking, like when I’m tackling something complicated at work. Then I’ll start to daydream, and then I just have to jot the bits and pieces down while they’re there. My sister says it’s because I’m in “productive mode” and that’s when my brain works best. I write on my phone, my work computer, my iPad, sticky notes, whatever is close to me is good enough for me.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I don’t have a ton of free time so I don’t usually actively try to muster up my muse, but just about any time i interact with the source material at all I end up teeming with new ideas. I have so many fics and drawings in progress, it feels like there’s always a muse hovering over me whispering about aoex.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Most of my writing is silly little get togethers, so there are a lot of recurring themes that are pretty expected lol, but I guess I’ve been surprised to see how much worries of inadequacy seem to flow throughout them.

What is your reason for writing?

I love it! I love writing in general, and I love the entire world of Blue Exorcist. I love Rin and Ryuuji individually as characters, and I LOVE their chemistry together. I love the relationship they’ve built in canon and how much I can build off of that in my writing. I love the resolution I can give myself through writing and I love how healing it feels for me. And I love this community and connection it’s given me as well <3

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I don’t know if it counts as a strength, but I’ve always been very passionate about my interests and I’d like to think that shows through into my writing.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Honestly, I have a weird relationship with my writing. I’m really proud of and happy with the end result of every fic I’ve shared. But imposter syndrome is something I’ve always struggled with in a lot of different ways, and I guess because I was never singularly active in fandom before I didn’t expect how much that self-doubt would have an impact. I’m working on being gentler with myself, and with my writing, and I’m hoping that in turn I can get out of my own head and not hold myself back as much.

[goldencuffs]

you are so sweet and enthusiastic about everything and i wish i could come off anon just to have a conversation but im scared and shy and maybe one day! but not today! your blog is a safe and happy space for me that i kind of just got really idk relieved to see you in my dash just bc something happened recently that reminded me that not all fandom experiences are Good or Friendly. so thank you!! for being the nice person that you are

listen...... this was so incredibly nice and came at such a perfect time bc ive been feeling really unhappy lately so this was the first thing in a while that made me smile ❤️😭

and!!!! please come talk to me im the worst at replying as several people in this fandom can vouch for but i love yapping!!!

thank you again my love!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[dark-visitors]

Fic Tag Game

Tagged by @therulerofallpotatos 💕

1) How many works do you have on Ao3?

New/Current Account: 1 (though I have 3 more long fics in the works (wyler, wyclair and a hotd fic) that I'm hoping to start posting chapters for by the end of the year)

Old Account: I think I had 8 works on Ao3 before I threw my toys out of the cot, logged out, made a new account and never logging back in but this was 5-ish years ago now so idak lol.

2) What's your Ao3 word count?

22,107

(don't know my old account count)

3) What fandoms do you write for?

Currently Wednesday and House of the Dragon but I’ve previously written for Game of Thrones/ASOIAF, MCU and Victorious (I've started writing for other fandoms though I don't think I ever posted anything)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I’m taking my old account to the grave but my Wenclair fic Blood and Shadows is currently at 704

(also my Victoriuous fics (don't judge me I was a child) were all posted on fanfiction.net)

5) Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I always respond to my comments. I want my readers to feel open to engaging with me on my works and I find that answering questions, matching their energy and dropping a quick thank you for their compliments makes me more approachable (hopefully). Also I have had some bad experiences in the past and so getting a influx of positive comments after posting a chapter means more to me than my readers can know so I like to do something to acknowledge that.

6) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Tbh, I don't really like unhappy endings. Like I love angst fics, the angstier the better and I find writing/reading fics that aren't at least a little despairing to be pretty boring. But at my core I’m a slut for a happy ending and I don't think I've ever gone into writing a fic that I planned to end on an egregiously unhappy note.

However, I did write a Game of Thrones fic focusing on Sansa’s relationship with Cersei that I ended up abandoning at a point where Sansa was still in Kings Landing being groomed, tormented and plagued by the grief of her entire family dying… so that’s not great.

I also have a House of the Dragon WIP set in the unseen years during the time jump where Alicent and Rhaenyra start to reconcile after Jace and Daeron are born within months of each other. It’s an Alicent POV where Jace’s obvious status as a bastard and Rhaenyra’s fear surrounding the ridicule that follows initially has her feeling sympathetic. Alicent puts out an olive branch and Rhaenyra feeling vulnerable accepts. They start to repair their relationship and old repressed feeling resurface only then Rhaenyra has Luke (another obvious bastard), Alicent feels betrayed, resents Rhaenyra’s recklessness, everything goes to shit and it ends with the implications that their canon relationship will continue as is (which for them is of course very tragic). I based it on Alicent’s line after Joffrey's birth where she says something along the lines of “to have one son like that is a mistake, three is an insult”. It’s a one-shot but it got really long and I lost interest before I finished it lol.

7) What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Idk. A happy endings, a happy ending I don't think any of them stand out as being the happiest.

8) Do you get hate on fics?

I have.

Not on my new account (thankfully) the Wednesday fandom overall is very positive (at least in my experience) and the response to blood and shadows has been overwhelmingly positive so far.

I did receive some criticism on my earlier fics. I was very young and still in the process of learning to deal with my dyslexia so they weren't very good and though they hurt at the time, I put little effort into those fics and I got over it pretty quickly.

Then when I was in my late teens I experienced a very consistent string of hate comments on fics that I was pretty proud of at the time. Some of it was valid, some of it was just mean. I also wasn't in the best head space and it all imploded into me giving up on writing and posting for a few years.

I still wrote fanfic, as creative writing is something I've always strived to get better at, I just wasn't taking it seriously or posting anything. But I started posting again earlier this year and I plan to stick with it, even if everything doesn't stay perfect as I know I'm more equipt to embrace the hate now.

9) Do you write smut? What kind?

Fuck yes. And… the kinkier the better? 😏

I’m not opposed to writing more vanilla smut if it's part of a longer romance-focused fic. As super kinky smut coming out of nowhere can give readers whiplash. But I always try to spice things up where I can and I love writing more complicated emotional and power-related dynamics over focusing on the physical actions of a sex scene. Because when you grow up reading smut (not recommend but it's too late for me now) the physical act of sex alone does little in the way of… invoking a reaction, and therefore can be pretty boring overall.

Like yay, cool, she's sucking a dick. Now tell me about the sexual consequences of those mommy issues.

Also dialogue. I don't care if people don't actually talk that much during sex. That fuckers not shutting up and you can't stop me.

10) Do you write cross-overs?

No. I'm not opposed to it. Just never felt the need.

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

12) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No. I'm a bit of a control freak and I’ve loved all my mutuals over the years too much to ever make them deal with that.

13) What WIP you would like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I have been casually working on a long (LONG) House of the Dragon fic on and off for like a year now that I will most likely never post simply because of the scale of it. I just don't think I’ll ever finish it in a way that I'm happy with and I don't want to start only to lose steam and either abandon it or feel obligated to finish it when my hearts not in it anymore.

It's a canon divergence fic where upon Rhaenyra’s bloody return to camp after running away and killing the boar during Aegon ii’s second name day hunt, Viserys revaluates Otto’s proposal to betroth her to Aegon and a season 1 retelling thereafter focusing on Rhaenyra, Alicent and Aegon because they're my problematic favs and the interpersonal relationships between these characters are just endlessly fun to explore (also the show fumbled on Rhaenyra and Aegon's relationship and I need to fix that or ill be forced to scream everytime I think about it which is often).

Basically, slow burn Rhaenicent (Alicent x Rhaenyra) and all the longing, hatred and repression that comes with it interspersed with their relationships with a growing Aegon (and eventually the other green kids) and the weird and complicated family unit that grows between them, as Aegon and Rhaenyra get married while Aegon is fully aware that his sister-wife is fucking his mother (it’s been that way most of his life so he's fine with it). And that's only THE FIRST ACT!

Alicent then dies birthing Daeron (a few years before the end of s1 timeline wise) and Aegon and Rhaenyra fall deep into very a self-destructive grieving process (during which Viserys dies and they inherit the throne) and end up growing closer as they try to heal, move on and run a kingdom together. Eventually progressing into an actual Rhaegon (Rhaenyra x Aegon) fic despite the fact that they have already been married for years and she was low-key a better dad to him than Viserys (derogatory) ever was. (Dont @ me about the incest they're Targaryen’s it doesn't count and this fic would be problematic af for so many more valid reasons)

I have no idea how it would end, only that I'm looking at 300k words minimum and I don't think I'm ready to commit to that.

14) What's your all-time favourite ship?

It depends, I’ve had a lot over the years but some current favourites are:

Wednesday - Wyclair, Wyler, Wenclair, Tynid

HotD - Rhaenicent, Lucemond, Rhaegon, Daemicent

15) What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I have a unique way of writing emotion and I find dialogue comes quiet easily to me.

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

A complete inability to keep it short and simple, I must make everything I write as long and complex as physically possible, which isn't always necessary and tbh can sometimes be too much and therefore worse.

I've tried to be a one-shot girlie and I just can't do it. I get sucked into the lore and the nuances of every tiny detail I come across. I can't write a fic any shorter than 30k (an extreme minimum tbh) and It's exhausting. I need to learn to chill.

17) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've written a few lines in the many fictional languages of ASOIAF where necessary for certain characters but I try to avoid using languages I'm not super confident in without first knowing EXACTLY what I'm saying/trying to say.

I have no issues with it overall but I definitely encourage research beyond Google translate if you don't speak the language. Especially with gendered words as its something that's very easy to spot even for people who are mediocre at speaking the language.

18) First fandom you wrote for?

Victorious. Jori (Jade x Tori) specifically. I can't remember how old I was but I was pretty young at the time and definitely wrote some truly cringe-worthy shit but overall I remember it quite fondly.

19) Favourite fic you've ever written?

Not my best work but I wrote a Bucky x Natasha MCU fic when I was 16-ish. It was the first fic I remember taking seriously (too seriously probably) and I got in trouble for writing on my phone in class several times. It was nothing too serious, fun to write and overall it really cemented my love for writing I think.

Also I'm really vibing with my Wyler historical AU atm. I've got some kinks to work out before I start posting chapters but it's looking to be some of my best work.

20) What fic would you want to rewrite one day?

I don't think I want to rewrite any of them.

Though I think I've improved enough over the years to make them drastically better in theory, if I've learnt anything it's that somethings are best left imperfectly perfect and trying to mold the past into something better will only ever sour the good that had come with the bad.

Tagging (I've seen a bunch of these so ignore me if you've already done it 💕): @kybee1497 @badmoodbatflowers @onlyangelxo @penelopwgarcia @cosmic-lullaby @gardenoblues

[timetoboldlygo]

20, 25, 32!

20: what is your favorite trope to write?

idk why you ask me this . it's an amnesia au. i write one of these for everything. i don't even consider myself in a fandom until ive written an amnesia au

25: what’s your revision or rewriting process like?

i do a lot of revising lmao. usually when i start writing is that i get a bunch of core scenes down and then need to fill in the spaces around them to get the emotional work i'm trying to hit. and its usually those scenes that i do two or three versions of (and am usually unhappy with) so that when i go back to them when im editing chapter by chapter, i totally throw away or reframe and rewrite a lot of these since they just aren't working. they aren't seamless. usually i ask my friends a bunch of questions and talk through it to figure out what the issue is

32: do characters influence your writing style?

a little bit, but not actually as much as i'd like -- i tend to put in a bit of voice when writing from a different character's perspective, but its still my voice and i wanna get better at pushing the boundaries of this!

ask me more q's

[osaemu]

the TS on your pinned post pics is for Taylor Swift?

OHHH yeah its a reference to her next rerecording. honestly i didnt have any ideas for my theme so yea 💯💯

speaking of taylor i have a lil rant about swifties under the cut if anyones interested :3

okay so ive been a taylor listener since the release of the og red and even tho i know 90% of her discography by heart i genuinely hate identifying as a swiftie.

the taylor fandom is so so so toxic and if you have your own opinions then boom u have a whole ass army of white girls threatening to ruin ur life.

like personally i hated speak now tv bc it lost all the angst speak now was known for and frankly i just dont listen to it at all. and it doesnt matter bc shes so rich that a couple cents literally make no difference to her lavish life, but when i see other ppl who share this opinion say so, all of a sudden theyre fake swifties and apparently hate women or something.

if you dont conform to the hive mind of the swiftie fandom, you get hate for it. dont listen to evermore? fake swiftie. prefer a non taylors version song over the taylors version? fake swiftie. and god forbid you point out that maybe taylors the problem in any of her relationships, bc if you say that then wow, you're a mysogynist!

personally i just genuinely cant stand the hate swifties are giving joe alwyn too bc they're always like "joe was there for her at her worst but couldnt stand her at her best" like ok some ppl just dont want to be in the spotlight. thats not a problem, and its for the best that they broke up bc thats better than an unhappy relationship. but joe's getting all the shit and nobodys pointing out the fact that taylor could be at fault too — breakups arent always one persons fault.

and also if u like popular songs then everyone just goes "wow u should listen to folklore". its not a big deal but it just pisses me off a little bit bc ive listened to the entirety of folklore, i love the album, and my fav songs are haunted (the og), wonderland, and red but noooo, if i say that i enjoy listening to blank space all of a sudden im not a real fan anymore.

yeah anyways thats just me going off on the fandom :3

[basofy]

vent lol :=)

idk whyyy but ive been feeling so down about art lately, i do get the drive to draw, im just unhappy with what i do im thinking about that time i didnt have internet and i would draw so much and i think there was more feeling in the stuff i did back then but it was also very lonely and i dont rly wish to return to that i also appreciated the stuff i liked a lot more, for example games i had in my folder and stuff i'd draw for them so often and my love for them didnt die as fast as the love i have for more recent stuff, i think engaging with communities immediately after liking a thing ends up ruining it for me(i dont think a single fandom space is normal some are just more calm than others) i should probably stay silent about stuff i like for some time and enjoy it by myself next time i get into something new i dont rly wish to disappear from the internet at this time but i know i should regulate the stuff i do in it but i dont know how:(

[doveyeellie]

The way some of you treat people who will leave/already left this fandom because of this situation is disgusting....

[itsallavengers]

You didn’t need to be so rude about the ask. I admit it would be wrong and needlessly rude with pepperony but at least with stucky we can agree the fans are annoying as fuck and the ship isn’t canon so it’s not like it wouldn’t be well deserved lol

I want u to take a step back and just. Look at this ask. Like I want u to imagine for a second that u weren't involved in any fandom groups or ships and I want u to look at this ask u sent me and I want u to tell me whether u think this makes u sound like a crackhead or not. Because to me you sound like a crackhead.