#iotama

[dreamsevens]

days 21-28 of femslash february! stay yuri-pilled everyone

[hypnotisedfireflies]

Our boy Tommy is so much on my mind lately, I don't know if it's because Gabe is so active on social media but man, I just want more of him.

You don't by any chance have any thoughts of what transpired with Tommy between when he left the fireflies and when Joel and Ellie run into him in Jackson, do you? Like the time period had to be somewhat significant if he had time to find Jackson, meet Maria, fall in love with her, and get married. In the video game, he also took a trip down to Texas to get some of Sarah's pictures from Joel's house.

Hi hi! I would love to eventually write what I think happened to Tommy in those years. In Driftersverse, he left Joel and Tess in late 2009, so I have about fourteen years of time to play with. I've dot-pointed some of my thoughts below - thank you for asking, I have no idea if I will ever write these so it's nice to share.

Some spoilers for Tommy activities in TLOU 2, nothing major:

Tommy went south from Indianapolis with Marlene, Lachie, Iotama and the other Fireflies.

Canon has Tommy meeting Eugene Lindon and I've not managed to work him into Drifters yet, but he's there.

Regardless, he had nightmares about that for years and still has them in Jackson.

Tommy, Lachie and Iotama joined a Firefly cell in Denver.

Following canon, he bombed checkpoints while fighting FEDRA, killing innocents, and tortured a general. The irony of this was not lost on Tommy, but he told himself that it was different because it was for a bigger cause than himself.

At some point, Iotama, Lachie and Tommy went through Texas to reach the Firefly research facility on Padre Island. During the journey, Tommy and Lachie went through Austin. Tommy's house was gone - firebombed - but Joel's was still standing. I reference this somewhere, I think it's in Lachie's chapter of The Ensemble.

Joel does not know that Lachie was ever in his house.

Joel was humanised to Lachie a bit more after that point. Had that not happened, he may not have been as amenable to helping Tess find him again in 2003.

Tommy left the Fireflies the next day. Seeing the old house, the photos, trying to deal with what he'd done in Denver and the violence he'd committed since leaving Joel caught up with him. This was when the Firefly fairy tale fell apart for Tommy and he stopped believing in it all. He left without a word to anyone.

I haven't really turned my mind to how he came upon Jackson and Maria yet.

He probably joined some other people going north because otherwise, I can't really reckon with him willingly going that way again.

He kind of went where the breeze blew him for awhile. He tried to do good deeds to atone, but just kept getting screwed over and having to kill to survive. 🥺

But I feel like most of those 14 years he was with the Fireflies. He had sacrificed so much to join them - separating from Joel - and he was determined to make it work. He stayed with them for years, lying to himself about the righteousness of the cause, trying to make it worthy. It wasn't something he gave up on after just a few.

He also refused so many promotions within the Fireflies. Both Iotama and Lachie outranked him after only a few years.

Thank you for asking! It's nice to get my thoughts out of my head. <3

[ainana-ao3]

by engchi

7-year olds Iori and Tamaki are arguing about the existence of mermaids.

Words: 562, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Gen

Characters: Izumi Iori, Yotsuba Tamaki, Kujou Ten

Relationships: Izumi Iori & Yotsuba Tamaki, Kujou Ten/Yaotome Gaku

Additional Tags: iotama are in kindergarten, gakutenn is only implied tho hehe

[dance-with-the-diaval]

I know it's probably been ages since you did it, but what are your first names for everyone in your Pacific Rim AU moodboard? (I'm guessing Javert's stands for Inspector haha)

This one right? That’s exactly what I was thinking xD But hey, I’ll give him a proper name now.

LOCCENT MISSION CONTROL

Marshall I. Javert = Iotama: Iotama is Maori boy’s name which means ‘God is Perfect.’ Since Russell Crowe was born in New Zealand and does have Maori blood from his great-grandmother, we can still claim him as one of us.

 Lt. J. Valjean = Jean: ‘Nuff said. K-SCIENCE LABProf. M. Combeferre = Matthieu: A personal head canon name for the sake of ‘Mothieu’ puns. Otherwise it’s a Hebrew name meaning ‘Gift from God’.

 Dr. B. Joly = Byung-Soo: A Korean name with the first character meaning bright/luminous or glorious, and the second character meaning to defend/protect/guard/conserve. I thought it was appropriate with Joly as more as a nickname then anything, but they put it on his file anyways for Reasons™.

JACKAL GRAVE COMMAND CREW

Pilot E. Claquesous = Erik: A Scandinavian name which means ‘Ever Kingly’. it’s also a Phantom of the Opera reference, plain and simple.

Co-Pilot M. Gueuelemer = Marcel: I like to HC Gueuelemer as Haitian Creole, so he has a French name which roughly means ‘little warrior’ or ‘defender’.

VIPER FURY COMMAND CREW

Pilot E. Thenardier = Eponine: Of course, what else would it be?

Co-Pilot S. Montparnasse = Satoru: A Japanese male name that can be translated as ‘daybreak’ with the right kanji ;)

EDEN CROSS COMMAND CREW

Pilot E. Fauchelevent = Enjolras: Enjolras and Cosette tend to be related in a lot of my AUs.

Co-Pilot R. Grantaire = Reuven: The Grantaire HCs were linked along with Cosette’s in the mood board description, but basically it’s a Hebrew name that translates to ‘behold, a Son.’

VULCAN REBEL COMMAND CREW

Pilot L. Bahorel = Lucas: An English/Dutch/Portuguese/French name that meant ‘from Lucania’. This universe’s Bahorel was South African so a Dutch name worked…Afrikaans names are limited online :’(

Co-Pilot H. Feuilly = Hayes: Anglicised form of the Gaelic surname ‘O hAodha’ meaning descendant of Aodh (fire). Thought it would be fitting for a red-headed Feuilly who started out as a J-Tech Engineer. 

[childrenofasgard]

Genderfluid god of medicine, snark, and sex. Not sure how this one is going to go over, but we'll see. 

[hypnotisedfireflies]

"Everybody in Indy was fucking one another by the time they escaped, with the exception of them, because they were all trapped with each other and had basically nothing else to do" please this is making me laugh I need to know. whats the wildest Indy pairing you can think of

Jiyoung wanted to keep a trespasser for science but Tommy shot him instead: ("Are you out of your goddamn mind? What is wrong with you?!")

Jiyoung did keep another trespasser for science in late 2008

The group action started cute but by 2008 it was Bacchanalian and Ricardo would hide out at Rachel's because it was literally one of the only safe places to go (we all know what happens if you mess with Rachel, right?)

In fact it started to freak Ricardo out so much that he moved in with Rachel. He was very good looking and mysterious, and there was a little game going around as to who could fuck him first

The man was asexual but that was nobody's business. I mean tbh in 2003 most people had never even heard of the concept

Rachel and Hannah had a few ~moments but they were astrologically incompatible and Rachel felt like Hannah was just wasting her time (R doesn't do casual)

The Firefly visit was a big deal. Fresh blood

Marlene/Iotama but ssh literally nobody knew about that

There might have been something going on between Olive and her nephew

Lachie got extremely experimental. He got himself an education

[hypnotisedfireflies]

Loved your post on who you pictured Joel and Tess as in the drifterverse, but I’m going to need that for the rest of the drifterverse characters please and thank you 😊

Hello anonymouse! Thanks for sending an ask. :)

So to be quite honest, I didn't cast known faces when I was writing and so doing this is definitely me trying to match up celebrities with what's in my head (with maybe the exception of Lachie??) I'm going to put this under a little Read More thing because I don't want anyone thinking their personal head canons for what the OCs look like is in any way invalidated by who I have put here. They are TOTALLY valid and I love that readers have come up with and shared their casts for the Driftersverse.

HANNAH: Camilla Morrone

RICARDO: Diego Luna (40s version, I did picture him as mature)

JIYOUNG: Bae Suzy

IOTAMA: Maybe Uli Latukefu?

CLAUDIA: Simone Kessell

LACHIE: Heath Ledger c. 2000, though Josh Holloway has also been suggested as older!Lachie too

RACHEL: I can't decide on her tbh. Both Melanie Lynskey and Emmy Rossum have been suggested and I could actually see them both, different though they are, but I think I saw her more clearly than the rest and I can't find a face that matches up yet

I am also not sure about Keisha and Ash and ... idk. I think that's most of my main OCs??

[hypnotisedfireflies]

Something I personally really enjoy about your take of Tess and Joel (but especially Tess in particular) is how morally gray you've made them, even before the world ended and before they really had an excuse. I feel like so often people try to make them into these really outstandingly great people pre!outbreak who had to completely start from scratch to adapt enough for survival, which is totally fine!!! am definitely not saying people can't see them how they want especially in regards to a chapter in the story that has no canonical basis. But I just.... really really really enjoy the version you've created where perhaps it actually wasn't that hard to adapt for survival because they already weren't all that great in the first place. It just makes them feel so incredibly human and i just love it so much. Like I never would have came up with Tess have a bit of a drug thing pre!outbreak. I never would have come up with them both being TOO comfortable with the idea of cheating on their loved ones. I never would have come up with Tess not being able to connect to motherhood and the difficulties of that. it's just so interesting and a rather different vibe than what I'm used to seeing in pre!outbreak tessjoel and I love it a lot

Also, I'm super curious about what tour writing process looks like if you're inclined to share! with how you weave your huge stories together so beautifully I'm just curious how you organize all that and all your thoughts, you know?

Honestly, I have the loveliest anons. 🥺💛 Thank you for sharing this with me! The feedback really does encourage and inspire me - I mean, I write what I like to read, so it's a huge boost to know that it is landing with readers, too.

I love writing grey characters because there's so many more places you can take them. Sure, it's fun to write about the white hats tumbling into/resisting darkness but we see that a lot and I don't feel there's much I can add to that fun trope. But grey characters? There's so much you can do with that moral flexibility. I also really like writing characters who are in flux in some way - nobody's ever finished cooking, there's ups and downs and progressions and regressions - exploring that is like crack to me.

I think giving my version of the characters that grey blueprint as a foundation to their personalities helps me to ground them realistically, because it's not such a fantastical leap for them to be able to do certain things or act in a particular way. I think if you're going to survive any length of time in this kind of situation you need to already have a certain set of tools at your disposal (whether that be an arsenal like Bill or a mindset like Tess) or you get lucky (Rachel).

My writing process is kind of ... organic?? I'll have notes for a particular story that I'm working on but I don't have anything bigger than that other than a piss-poor spreadsheet. That just lists significant events, when they happened and the season/year/story/chapter they occurred in. Most of it just lives in my head.

I don't want to sound like an asshole but I don't really have a big plan. Most of the time it just sort of happens. I think it helps that all the characters are fully mapped out in my head and I can reach back into them when I need something. There's so much that has never gotten to page that's in the background to give credence.

So for example, Ricardo might say something that's just a line in a story but I know why he's chosen that particular way to say it. I know Iotama's journey from Outbreak day to Sioux Falls. I know why Tess doesn't talk about her brothers (but that can't come out because Tess doesn't need to explain that to herself or think about why that is, and Joel just flat out doesn't know) but with those details cooking in the background everything is ... I don't know, bigger in my head?

So when it's time to write I just think about what I'd like to read and then build some basic structure around it, think about what I've written before and if there's any way to link it in (most of the time, that just happens when I'm writing) and then if there's any way to "power it externally" with the stuff that's in my head as per the previous paragraph. Then I walk my dog and everything starts to come together.

(Actually, "powering it externally" - you've made me realise something, anon. I'm always writing two stories at once. The one that makes it to page and then the one with that doesn't, all the motivations and backstory that are fuelling what's going on but are never articulated. I hadn't thought about that before, but I'm pretty sure that's what I do).

And then I'll get stuck somehow and think, "That's it! The magic is gone, no more words are ever coming." And then I just either go to bed or write through it, sometimes writing and deleting thousands of words until I find a pathway.

This is why I really like accepting prompts because it challenges me to consider things I might not have otherwise thought of, and stops me getting lazy and just writing what I think I like.

I hope that answers your question anon, and I don't sound like a total nut.

[ainana-ao3]

by Hikkikoumori

“Come on, Iorin. We’ve been together for a few months now, right~? You gotta start admitting when you wanna be romantic or I’ll just have to assume and that’s never good.”

What Tamaki was saying was true, but Iori had no idea how to go about being “romantic”. It seemed every chance he tried to be romantic, it failed miserably. Just earlier he tried to be romantic and his perfection failed him.

Why was it Iori could excel academically, athletically, and physically, but couldn’t be perfect when it came to his relationship?

Words: 2081, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Izumi Iori, Yotsuba Tamaki

Relationships: Izumi Iori/Yotsuba Tamaki

Additional Tags: arcade dates, slight angst, Slow burn(?) I dont know what slow burn is, iotama is the only thing that matters in this godforesaken world