#maybe i will start on this while i work on my other longfics

[msfbgraves]

Fanfic authors have been getting increasingly horribly exploited in the past five years especially. Our work stolen to feed AI that is then being used to put other writers out of work. Wattpad antics. The reselling of plagiarised works published for free. And then this trend of not including an author in the gushing about the works. That is like holding a birthday party for a person to share how much you love them, only not inviting them. Because your love for that person is personal to you and your other friends and none of the celebrated person's business. You're shy! You don't know what to say!

I have been incredibly lucky on having had a lot of engagement on Tumblr in the Silverusso fandom, but I have been in other fandoms whose works are still on Ao3 and also still being clicked on, for what purpose I don't know. But with the current climate, I don't feel like adding much more to other fandoms there especially. There's a few Cherik fics I have toyed with updating, but haven't been inspired enough for, knowing that it's like a lottery nowadays. Sure, the effort could pay off, but what is more likely to happen, at least when posting on Ao3 alone, is mocking silence. Deep in my heart I know that some people will be made happier if I did do it, but knowing that others will use it only to enrich themselves is not a joyful thought at all.

Love will get your fanfic authors a long way in sharing their stories, but if they get nothing at all in return, while knowing that people may even be stealing it for their own ends; that is not an environment conducive to writing. It's an abusive relationship, and we all know that not doing anything beats being in an abusive relationship.

I mean, theoretically my works and other works are being enjoyed because there is an outcry when Ao3 is down. But there is a reason people applaud after live performances. If they didn't, people would stop doing it! Even when the reasons to start doing it are mostly altruistic on the artist's part. Everybody tells you in life to stop putting your efforts where they're not actively appreciated. I mean, did Cinderella's stepfamily enjoy the efforts of her labour? Did it enrich them? Likely yes! Would you have encouraged her to keep providing it, even if she may have started out of love for her family's home? Girl no! Even this kind hearted girl left, because that is what you do when your efforts are unappreciated and exploited, even when they're clearly of value.

If I simply posted and got zero response - no engagement even, I could say the fault was mine. Either for being in the wrong place or doing the wrong thing. But when there is engagement, but no appreciation and people are hawking it somewhere, which I now know they are through the mere existence of AI, adding more is an actively stupid thing to do.

I'm not blaming readers exactly, I'm just pointing out that when you're getting no appreciation and are being exploited, continuing to do something isn't wise and stopping an activity (in this case, writing fic) is a rational decision to make! There's more rewarding things anyone could be doing, even if the activity itself is of much value!

Maybe I will post more in some old fandoms or even new ones, but right now, the only thing that could really compel me to post anything when I am not 100% certain there already is an active audience is an obsession so strong it overrides logic. And that will get you some fic, but not multiple longfics, I assure you.

And no updates. Things that aren't nourished die.

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[mariyekos]

One day I want to write an AU where Dante and Vergil were actually born a few hundred/thousand years pre-story, which is something Dante tries to hide while Vergil doesn't. I have 2 main ideas for it- DMC1/3 Fusion AU and DMC4 AU. These got long, so I'm putting them under the cut!

In the DMC1 AU, it'd be sort of like a combination of the anime, DMC3, and what you see in DMC1. Dante'd look like he's in his late 20s for this one. He and Lady would meet because they've both been hired for the same job, then encounter each other on some odd jobs before they end up working together on a big one. Maybe Arkham killed Kalina Ann when Lady was a teenager, but didn't manage to enact the rest of his plans right away so Lady's been chasing him for a decade, hunting demons in hopes of finding a lead. Dante meanwhile just likes the human world, so he goes from place to place hunting demons until it gets too suspicious he's not aging and he has to leave. This AU'd have branching paths at the big job they take take together: the Temen-ni-gru or Mallet Island. In both cases Dante and Vergil haven't spoken for a while. Vergil's gone silent for years or even a decade or two in the past, but he'll have a bad feeling about this particular silence (for good reason).

The main difference between the two would be who Arkham allies with. In both cases, Lady isn't aware of how old Dante is, or just *who* he is until partway through. She knows he's part demon, but with the way he acts she assumes he's actually in his late twenties and the kid of a demon that was probably fairly powerful, but unknown. But the truth would come out partway through, which...would maybe change things, maybe not. It would be a shock regardless.

Back to the branches though, in Mallet you could go with the plot where Arkham is trying to revive Mundus, so Dante intervenes. This one would have a Nelo Angelo bit (making Dante feel terrible because he'd just allowed Mundus to do whatever he wanted with Vergil for who knows how long, all because he hadn't bofhered to check up on his unusually silent brother). I might have a sort of B-plot involving Lady, Arkham, and Trish to accompany the Dante, Mundus, and Vergil angle.

With the Temen-ni-gru, it would be your classic Arkham+Vergil relationship, but with a much older Vergil he wouldn't be tricked by Arkham this time. Arkham would think he has Vergil in the palm of his hand until he clearly doesn't and Vergil deals a fatal blow as soon as Arkham pulls off his betrayal. I think Lady would be pissed Vergil stole her kill, but ultimately have to back down for the Dante vs Vergil fight because with that many extra years under their belts, she'd be no match. Seeing them would be an interesting contrast though, because Vergil so clearly clings to the past (he'd be in a more Renaissance style than Dante) while Dante's all about the present and human world. This one...I think would be harder to resolve than the other one, because I'm not sure how Dante would convince someone so set in his ways (again, hundreds of years old at a minimum) to change, but it could be fun to play with.

As for the DMC4 AU, this one would be a case where Nero is still a teenager, and Dante's really surprised because oh boy, who in the *world* managed to convince Vergil to sleep with them when he'd been so uptight for centuries? And Dante's excited to have a family member and can't help but mess with them.

I think in this one it might also be fun if Fortuna was aware that Sparda had children because then you'd have a case where people potentially worship said children, whether or not they realize it's Dante. Maybe Vergil ruled Fortuna for a little while after Sparda left and that meant people knew he existed. Dante hadn't been aware he'd apparently come back, but Nero's proof enough so he's really going to have to have a talk with Vergil the next time he returns from his travels. I'm not set on whether the people of Fortuna would know that Sparda had twins, or if they'd just know about Vergil and thus be in denial that Dante could possibly be the son of Sparda because he's *so* different. In either case eventually people (or at least Nero and Kyrie) would have to reconcile Dante with the figure they'd been worshipping and that would be hard (and for Dante, hilarious). I think in this one I might make Lady part of a bloodline that has fought alongside Sparda since he split the Human and Demon worlds, sort of like the Castlevania series with Alucard and the Belmonts, while Trish would be someone Dante recruited a few decades to centuries ago (importantly, she's younger than him).

In this one I think part of the driving force would be that Dante wants humanity to be able to protect itself/prove its worth, or for Nero to protect them/prove his worth, because if they/Nero don't then Dante's worried Vergil might instead deem humanity a scourge and do something bad.

The plot of DMC4 revolves around humans using demons to fuel their own power, and in this case I think Dante will have found out about what Fortuna was doing too late to erase what they've done, so it's a case where humans need to prove that there are more good humans than bad humans so Vergil doesn't slam down the hammer. Dante can encourage them in the right direction, but he can't carry them the whole way. If he does then Vergil will deem his interference proof of humanity's weakness and do...Dante isn't totally sure what, but he doesn't like how Vergil's been the past few decades and he's increasingly been feeling like Vergil might decide he's had enough of the human world and side with the members of the demon world Dante *knows* have been slipping through the border to speak to Vergil. And while Dante doesn't think he'd *lose* to Vergil, the battle would lead to immense destruction and would weaken them enough that Dante's fairly sure Mundus or some other demon would take advantage of the chance to invade the human world while they're in no state to defend it.

...Anyway! That's two/three ideas for first that I will...maybe get to, one day, once I finish the million other fic ideas I have. I just really like the concept of "totally goofy guy is actually super old" or "frustratingly unserious guy is actually one of the guys you grew up worshipping, somehow." I think there's a lot of room for fun there.

[haza1ll]

animation for THE NEON VOIDD BABYYYY

this post is for @sugarpasteltmnt

‼️‼️MEGA YAPPING AHEAD PLEASE BEWARE‼️‼️

this might end up being really long and rambly and sappy but maybe not who knows.( it was) (and also featuring numerous spelling errors i am way too tired to fix and i am not re reading what i just wrote) SO. yknow how when chap idek..25(?) came out and i was all like “yeah so i made this animation for TNV and ill drop it when the fic ends” in your ask box? so. I FINISHED IT RAHHH. technically it has been finished since i sent that ask but ohhh my goodness did it need polishing. i haven’t animated in 4 years before that and omg it felt so good getting back into it but IDFK SOMETHING IS STILL NOT UP TO MY STANDARDS. i feel like i could have done so much more with it and i deffo wanted to but as soon as i told myself “oh yeah this is basically done” art block literally sucker punched me in the gut out of NOWHERE. I COULD NOT PICK UP MY I PAD. I COULD NOT DRAW. I WOULD STARE AT THE WIP ANIMATION AND BE UPSET BC I DDINT WANNA WORK ON IT AHH. that goes with saying. i kept having this thought in the back of my head “you need to finish it. you have a wip sitting. finish it. go do it. what are you doing are you STARTING ANOTHER PROJECT??? anddd yeah i got super distracted with other stuff and other projects and then i started spending my free time rewatching 2012 turtles and omg this summer has been a mess. i have all the free time in the world and i choose to be the least productive as possible with it even though i have a job that lets me literally sit on my phone and do whatever i want if no one is there. (i’ve brought my switch to work numerous times ☠️) what i was trying to get at is the fact that TNV has inspired a lot of the old me to come back and i lowk missed her. i really missed the point in all those words up there but im here now so whatever. BUT. TNV made me make a tumblr account, i got back in to animation AND digital art in general, got back into longfics that are ongoing, AND it also helped kickstart ideas for writing. i’ve got so many stories now!! you are such an inspirational person pastels i just- every time i read a new chapter of yours it made me wanna go get up and do something. i wanted to create something. because at the end of each chapter, i would think- “woah. a person out there just wrote this. they just sat down one day and committed. i wanna do that” so i did that. just huge thank you and shoutout to you pastel. like damn. idk no words from me here. just a bunch of platonic hugs and kisses and thankyouthankyouthsnkuou for this lovely heart wrenching but also sweet story. i love this fandom (tmnt) so SO much and i think it’s so awesome how interactive you are with your own personal NV fans. crazy how we’re all here because of a bunch of turtles. 

STUFF ABOUT THE ANIMATION:

okay i really like to talk and if you let me, i will run my mouth. this is the internet so im gonna do just that. so more words for you to read 😁. AHEM. so like i stated before in the genuinely scary mess of words up there, i haven’t touched animation in a while, like, 4 years a while. yes i’ve done digital art here and there along the years, i haven’t been doing it nearly as much as i need to to use some programs to their full potential. layers are still confusing, and don’t even get me started on multiply and all that jazz. shading never comes out right on digital for me, i gotta work that one out. so, for this animation, i decided to go with a very rough style. nothing needed to be perfect, i just wanted to live my little life of trying to experiment with a bunch of different things all at once in one short animatic. I wanted to do that little ball bounce thing all animation artists start with (i kinda included that with the key). i also wanted to have a go at lip sync (no hate it was my first time) and also timing the animation with the music. i wanted to see how smoothly i could move a figure in and out of and out of the screen as well, which honestly, i think that part might be my favorite. i think i did a good job, and thats what matters. the animation itself lost a bunch of quality on importing it- no clue how it happened but now the ending is grainy af. ignore that pls lol- but it was sitting in my flipaclip for god, i dont even know, 3 months now? i kept going back and forth on if i wanted to share it or not, so im throwing it to the wolves and i guess whatrver happrns happens and im good with that. yay. im actually rrwlly tired now sooo *leaves this absolute pile of words with a video attached at your feet and stumbles away quickly*

also i’ve genuinely never posted anything so i’m learning how to use tumblr too ☠️

[milkywayes]

dreamt a cipher

a shepard/garrus post-destroy ending longfic.

[AO3 link]

I’ve debated a while about when to start posting this. Now it’s the new year, and I’ve been working on Cipher for over a year and a half, and I’ve waited long enough to start sharing it with you all. I’ve decided it’s finally time to start uploading while I work on the final chapters.

I started writing this before I ever drew a single piece of fanart for Mass Effect. It’s all the things that were bouncing around in my head after choosing the destroy ending with a mostly-paragon Shepard—consequence and responsibility and self-recrimination; her relationship with Garrus and with herself; their ties to each other and how much weight they can bear; their differing perspectives and how they slot together—all that fun stuff—compressed into a story, a place, a narrative. 

I believe in the power of love, and I promise a happy ending. They’ve just been taking the long way to get there. Feel free to yell at me in the meantime.

A huge thank you to @callista-curations for her meticulous and invaluable beta work, and to @that-wildwolf and @gammaraydeath for being the best hypemen I could ask for!

A more detailed list of warnings can be found on AO3.

I've posted the full cover art here.

────

Summary:

Pairing: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian Rating: M (subject to change) Important Tags: post-destroy ending - angst with a happy ending - slow burn (of sorts) - arguing - reconciliation - survivor guilt - minor original characters Her own personal Noverian peak. That’s what it was supposed to be. Nothing but the discovery: no distractions, no comfort, no windows looking out—no familiar faces. But it's starting to look like her winning streak might have ended in that pile of Citadel rubble, if it ever extended that far to begin with. ──── “How does the Earth idiom go? No use beating a dead—” A long-suffering sigh. “What was it again?” “A dead horse. And yet, you’re here. Beating it.” Pot, kettle. She wishes he’d just fucking say it.

-> AO3.

Read the start of Chapter 1: Constant Velocity under the cut!

────

The overhead lights flicker as they always do when the data screens are up and running. It’s not something one gets used to, even so. It stings at her ocular nerves��or something like that, anyway, somewhere along the delicate wires that extend from her eyeballs into her brain—but her focus on the data doesn’t waver.

“In that case,” says Shepard, squinting against the ache, “what we need is salvage from a relay outside the immediate burst zone. Four jumps away. Five, if possible. There’s no point to any of this if we can’t scrape together a control group.”

She glances back at Elsawy, who so far hasn’t made it more than a meter into the room. She nods without looking up from her omni-tool; orange shimmers off her shiny, black hair, giving her the uncomfortable air of a Cerberus operative. Not the worst comparison, except that Miranda would waste no time letting her know if her logic took a faulty turn somewhere. Elsawy’s just as likely to agree now and write a message detailing all her crap conclusions later.

Leaning her hip against the conference table, Shepard shifts her weight off her left leg, bites down on the sigh that almost manages to slip out. Once in the clear, she grouses, “Where the hell is Meyer? He’s the one that called this meeting.”

As it is, it’s three people in attendance and she’s the only one talking. She could’ve achieved the same results with a voice call from her quarters, where she could elevate her leg in peace and without witnesses. In the dark.

“Lab Two,” answers Elsawy, finally ripping her attention off the omni-screen and gracing Shepard with a second of eye contact. Maybe in another life she could appreciate the effort—Jesus, as if she hasn’t had her fill of lives already. “We’re close to a breakthrough on the initial output patterns. Sorry. He’s been feeding his data to me.”

“Right.” She blinks once, twice, in time with the flickering. It doesn’t help; it never does. “I’ll swing by later, then. Anything else he asked you to relay?” 

“Just that, Commander.” Elsawy is mumbling just enough that her voice has to compete with the drone of the air vents. The translator takes a second to filter out and amplify it. The result is less than perfect: “More salvage—” bzzrt—“bigger picture, you got it.” She narrows her eyes, and Shepard raises a brow. “Left leg or—” bzz!—“left hip?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Commander.”

“It’s nothing relevant,” she says pleasantly, forcing herself to stand up straight again. There’s a brief tremor shaking up her hamstrings; she waves a hand to distract from it. In the frenzy of the lights, the movement looks jerky, nervous. She soldiers on. “Old field injury. Unrelated. Anything can set it off.”

Funny, kind of, since it’s that very leg that ends in the most perfect, cooperative example of a foot she’s ever had the pleasure of treading on. It’s cloned; a replacement. Not the only one either. They should’ve just done away with the whole limb, but she hadn’t been consulted. Same with her trick shoulder. Not even Cerberus had managed to get that one back on the straight and narrow.

“I’d rather you bring it up with the doctor,” replies Elsawy. This is, apparently, what it takes for her to finally speak at a reasonable volume. “If we manage to fill even one of the data gaps…”

“I know,” she says. “I know, and I’m telling you, it’s unrelated.”

-> continue reading on AO3

[fragilefirstchance]

It's Either Tourist Traps or Drugs

Gen, family-centric, rated T or M depending on installment

Do you like longfics? Gen fics? Reflective, OC-centric examinations of family dynamics? Maybe you'd like my fic!

Look at this fanart!!!! by Tardibabe and by ranchsoda92

Hi! I am not generally speaking active on Tumblr, but I just completed Part 5 of a fanfiction that is almost 150k words and which shows no signs of slowing down soon. I figured I'd show it to class. :)

Fragile First Chance and its follow-ups is a story about a nineteen-year-old boy whose legal name is Joss William [redacted] Pines but if you call him anything except Will you might end up in a fistfight. It's also a story about how the Pineses are basically good people with a lot of baggage.

Major themes are tagged and optional content warnings for individual chapters are included in drop-down tabs in the notes. For the most part, heavier themes are not gratuitous.

Below the cut you'll find a rough outline of each section. If you don't want spoilers, though, just head on over.

This story was well under way before The Book of Bill came out. It isn't perfectly TBoB compliant, but the themes and plot aren't really something that makes that an issue.

Part 1: Fragile First Chance

Dipper and Mabel Pines were sent to Gravity Falls at the beginning of summer for, from their perspective, no reason. In reality, it was because they were being sheltered from some very old family drama.

Will is May's son from her first marriage and Fil's son by adoption. He's nineteen years old, just getting out of his second incarceration, and a recovering addict. They planned to put him up for a few months, and after that Fil's weird black-sheep uncle agreed to give him a shot in Oregon.

Ford, of course, knew nothing about this. He's not happy about it.

Part 2: Learning to Breathe

Will and Ford are slowly acclimating to each other like two feral cats. They don't really have anything in common except insomnia and a mutual desperate quest not to get in too many fights.

Will doesn't like Gravity Falls. It's lonely, there's nothing to do, and it's full of weird bullshit he doesn't want to deal with. He's coping, though - Soos is pretty cool, the local teens are entertaining, and he ends up getting a long really well with the local bait shop guy and his dad.

Part 3: When Family Matters

Will has started to figure out how Ford works and make an effort to be nice to him. He also tentatively almost likes the guy. (cue Stan audibly sighing in relief off-screen.)

Also: Dipper and Mabel have figured out that their long-lost brother has reappeared, and there are certain family traditions about how you deal with long-lost brothers.

Part 4: Lancing the Wound

Ford and Will are both under a phenomenal amount of stress for a wide variety of reasons. By this point in the story, words like "panic attack" and "therapy" are coming up more often. They have more in common than they ever realized, although for two people with severe abuse-related PTSD, that's not necessarily a good thing.

The McGuckets are around to help. The Twins are too, although whether that's a good thing is open to debate.

Part 5: Nature versus Nurture

In the wake of Part 4, Stanford Pines is coming to realize that his mental health is a much more serious problem than he had previously realized. He struggles to come to terms with this and decide what to do next. This segment of the story is primarily about self-reflection and realizing that you need to change. We also get some serious discussions about the mental health industry (and how it tied into the gay scene in the 70s) by people who are personally invested in it.

Part 6: Definition of a Real Pines

This story arc just started and concerns Ford navigating his life as he tries to re-integrate with his family and society while working through a very difficult mental health situation.

We'll get to meet more of the Pines family. Shermie lives in Florida with his sister-in-law. (Note for those curious about the timeline incongruities: Shermie's age is- wait, look over there! *smokebomb, jumps out the window*)

Part 7: Consequences of Inaction

Will has pretty much adjusted to his new life, and the family as a whole had stabilized. However, there were some things left to rot outside the family while everyone was getting their feet under them.

This arc deals with Tate McGucket, straight-faced stoic extraordinaire, who may not be doing as great as he pretends he is.

Bonus: Erastus Kankerson's Toxic Ex

This is a stand-alone one-shot about Erastus Kankerson, an old friend of Fiddleford McGucket who dated him for a while after the divorce.

[sky-scribbles]

Playlist for my Aeor longfic

I failed to figure out how to do a fancy spotify embed like the kids do but uh. Here's the playlist for Gravity!

I listened to this while planning and writing, and there are even a few shout-outs to the songs in the fic... Songs are arranged chronologically, so you should be able to hear the story happening, hopefully :'D

Further yelling about song choices under the cut!

A Matter of Time - This one is... sort of the fic's opening titles in my head? I wanted to start out with an instrumental, to capture the vibes of the months before the fic opens - Essek and Caleb apart, thinking about the T-Dock, and each other. Wondering. Waiting.

Horse to Water - Essek in Chapter 1, knowing his life as the Shadowhand is ending, waiting for Caleb to come and take him away to whatever comes next. (I'm normally very picky about not putting songs that reference modern day stuff on fantasy playlists but this one's vibes were too perfect)

Dear Fellow Traveller - Two wizards heading into Aeor together.

Conquest of Spaces - A song for Aeor. A dark, beautiful city, the remains of a people who lived by greed and power. (And two wizards in the ruins, trying to draw closer to each other.)

Neptune - This is mostly for Essek's breakdown in chapter 5, as he worries he'll never break out of his Shadowhand manipulation, wanting to be closer to Caleb and not knowing what that would even look like. And it's a little for Caleb in chapter 6, too, grappling with his feelings for Essek and his fears that they'll ultimately be bad for each other.

Please Don't Say You Love Me - ... and as they move past those fears, this song is for them tentatively acknowledging what they might be to each other. Not yet. But maybe soon.

Woodwork - This is for the chapters 6-9 span, as they learn more about Brashaar's plan. The pressure of a crisis has an odd way of making them realise just how deep their trust and care for each other runs.

Two Evils - Since we're at the point where Brashaar shows up, she gets a song now! This is pretty much her internal monologue during her confrontation with the wizards (though she really should have paid attention to 'if you're not careful, you will lose her' in reference to Quaera...)

Winter - Travelling northward, and yearning. Wishing they had more time.

Mind - A song for a young Quaera, slowly forming a personality, wondering about who she is and how her identity forms...

The Tower - ... and having their own breakdown.

What Could Have Been - I love me a good villainous breakdown, and this is a song for Brashaar's. This is how I imagine she feels during the final confrontation, raging against the gods, against Caleb and Essek, against Quaera after they turn from her. Not quite able to let go of what she thinks Aeor could have been. What, in her eyes, the world is meant to be. (As a bonus, I think the second verse sounds a bit like a retort to her from Quaera...)

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - This is such a fun cinematic cover, and I can't tell you how many times I've imagined a mental AMV of the final battle with Brashaar set to it :'D

Ori, Embracing the Light - I wanted an instrumental here too, because... Essek is dead, Caleb is in shutdown, and Essek and Quaera are communing with the Luxon, a being that doesn't really speak with words. Also, 'embracing the light' is exactly what Quaera does at this point.

Would That I - I know we all use this as Caleb's 'learning to live and love again' song... and I am no exception. This is for him after the T-Dock, finally fully acknowledging his grief, and his love for Essek.

First Day of my Life - Just two wizards realising that they have a future, and agreeing to slowly work at what's between them.

Ready to Call This Love - This one speaks for itself, honestly.

Five - Both of the wizards in the final chapter, but especially Essek realising how isolated he's been from the world, and letting it all in so he can feel it. (Also, studying the universe is a love language - )

Gravity - Gravity is a metaphor for love!!!!

[deadly-diminuendo]

Snippet Sunday

I'm finally getting into my creative mode again so I wanted to share a little taste of something new I am working on.

It's the beginning of what I plan to be a short-multi chapter fic centred on an alternate start to how Astarion and Tav meet (and maybe just maybe I might make it into a proper longfic?)

This features Astarion POV during pre-tadpole times, nothing too intense, but definitely leaning into the angst. Check it out under the cut!

"Astarion stalks the streets like a ghost, compelled to haunt every tavern, every brothel, every inn. For nearly two centuries it has been so and so it shall forever be. No peace. No vengeance. No end.

The greatest ghost stories say spectres are meant to haunt their murderers. To torment, to terrorize, to torture them until their fear is so great their hearts cease to beat. Astarion learned long ago that it is the other way around. No, it is his own murderer that still torments and terrorizes and tortures him incessantly. Besides; the monster’s heart—if he ever had one at all—ceased beating eons before Astarion’s ever did.

Night after night the ritual begins anew: find a victim; make love to them with his words and with his body; surrender them to him.

Every move is automatic; the actions and words of an actor who has performed the same play a thousand times over. His legs know when to sneak invisible and when to strut with counterfeit confidence. His eyes lock onto suitable targets with the accuracy of a practiced hunter. His mouth repeats all those pretty lines that have lured fool after fool into the arms of temptation, into his trap.

He enters the Elfsong, attracting curious and greedy stares that tell him what the mirror no longer can. He is, of course, immaculately dressed—at least he can find some pittance of pride in good taste and tailoring—or nearly so as one can be without new clothes in decades. No one looks closely enough to see the snags, the stitches, the frayed edges. The scars." I'm really excited to keep writing this one! And here is a quick list of a few other things I am planning/working on:

a x reader lovers-to-friends-to-lovers one-shot that I shared a piece of a while back / post-game, tailor Astarion!

an admittedly rather self-indulgent series of short stories inspired by songs from my favourite band Blackbriar. Some smut, some angst, some 2nd person POV, some third person POV depending on the story - especially excited to include a smutty one-shot featuring my tiefling Tav Enigma (the one you see in all my screens for my stories)

maybe a few smutty one-shots featuring Astarion x other origin characters (honestly the one that I'm most inspired by right now is with Lae'zel - not a whole lot out there with those two.)

[alpaca-clouds]

Okay, let me explain!

Okay, you know what? Given that at least one person (hey there, @vengencefilledwriter) say after my shitpost yesterday, that they wanted to read about this... let me talk about how I very randomly started shipping Astarion with Themberchaud.

Because, yes. It is a crack ship in many ways. However, I will maintain that it actually totally makes sense.

And yes, Themberchaud is the chubby dragon from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. I kinda talked about him a bit before (but tumblr search cannot be assed to show that to me), so...

See, me shipping the two arose from Wishing Well, the Astarion-centric longfic I am writing right now (which is also the sequel to Voice of the Voiceless). The story takes place about a year after the end of BG3 and centers around Astarion and Tav finally visiting the other vampire spawn, who in this have simply settled the Grymforge, after it was abandoned by the duergar.

Given the story takes place completely in the Underdark and features a conflict centered around the duergar, I thought it would be a fun little thing to have Themberchaud show up at some point as a cameo.

Yeah, I thought wrongly.

Because then I started the research on Themberchaud, and oh boy, let me tell you guys, this dragon is actually such a poor little blorbo who in truth just needs a big ol' hug!

Yes, yes, I see you there, muttering: "But red dragons are chaotic evil." To which I just say: "Sssssssh! Listen!"

Themberchaud...

Okay, even if you play DnD there is a very high chance that you never really encountered Themberchaud, because he is kinda locked into one place: Gracklstugh. The duergar city in the north of the underdark. And while the movie kinda plays his fatness as cute and funny, actually it is in his case super tragic!

See, Themberchaud is a slave. Because the duergar's masterful weapons can only be created in dragonfire, which is why for so many hundreds of years they have held themselves a dragon slave. The current one is Themberchaud.

Of course, given that dragons by nature have a rather big ego, they know well enough to not let him know that he is a slave. He has all the servants he wants, gets gold for his hoards and unlucky adventurers to feast on, and all they ask of him in return is that he keeps their forges running.

Well, and just to make extra sure that he plays along, they use some of the psychic powers they have gotten from their millennium of illithid enslavement to keep him content.

The fact that he got fed so much without having to hunt for it, is what made him so fat. And in fact that came as a bonus for the duergar, because the fact is, that Themberchaud has become so fat that he could no longer leave his hoard and hence very unabel to flee or fight back.

But dragons get stronger as they age and as such it becomes harder and harder to keep him controlled. Which is why he was supposed to suffer the same fate as all the other dragon slaves before: Get killed.

Something went wrong however. We just do not know what. Only that for some reason by the time the movie takes place, Themberchaud has somehow managed to escape Gracklstugh. But something is very clearly wrong with him. Because for one, he does not seem to have any capacity for reason in the movie - and also... his dragonfire somehow does not work. And remember: The duergar kept him for his fire.

Now, maybe his mind got just melted away by the psychic magic. Who knows. But yeah, that is the backstory there.

Okay, did I successfully get you invested in the story of the poor dragon? Yeah?

Hopefully. Let me just talk about why I ended up shipping him with the sad vamprie boy. Which kinda brings me back to why Themberchaud did not just remain a cameo in Wishing Well. Because I was planning the story and hence researching, I realized something: Astarion and Themberchaud are weirdly similar.

They both were slaves for around two hundred years and barely know anything but slavery.

Their respective masters used mindcontrol of them, which would logically lead to them both having trouble to even know who they are. Were they begin and the mind control end.

Both of them were abused by their masters through food. While Astarion was starved, Themberchaud was overfed. But both is still abuse through food!

Their enslavement ended through some circumstance (which for Themberchaud is still unknown) the plan of their respective masters to kill them failed.

Throughout their enslavement they were kept from the sun. (Note: While it is not explicitly said for Themberchaud that he wants to escape the underdark to see the sun, there is some implication for that.)

Like, those are actually fairly strong parallels. Something that undoubtedly was not intended by anyone, because I kinda doubt anyone at Larian even had Themberchaud in mind, when they were creating Astarion.

Never the less: Those are parallels.

And those parallels made me decide against the Themberchaud cameo......... in so far that instead of being a cameo, he literally becomes the sixth ranger in Wishing Well. Because he and Astarion pretty much talk to each other for like 1 hour and instantly are like: *scream* "BESTIES!!!" With Astarion afterwards being very unwilling to abandon the big dragon once more.

I will spare you the shenanigans that happen afterwards, but let me just put it like this: When they get granted a wish, Themberchaud gets turned into the more handy form of a dragonborn, which allows him to travel to the surface world. Because, you know, see the sun for himself.

Yes, yes, I hear you once again: "But that is just what happens in your fic!" Which, yes, sure. You are right. But you know what?

I still totally think that the two of them would totally at least platonically hit it off if they were ever going to meet. Because they just are so darn similar in their dramatic backstories as runaway slaves whose masters were trying to kill them.

Like, just look at all the bonding potential there!

What I love about it too, is that it has Astarion in the role of a caretaker for someone. Like, people (well, mostly Tav) took care of him, when he needed it and now he is capable to support someone else who has lived through similar shit.

You understand me? ALL THE HURT/COMFORT POTENTIAL!!! JUST LOOK AT ALL THE POTENTIAL?

And yes, in case you are wondering: No, Astarion does not break it off with my Tav in that stuff. Because polyshipping is a thing xD And that polycule is already just a bit bigger.

And, just... Look people. I JUST WANT MY BLORBOS TO BE HAPPY TOGETHER, ALRIGHT?! *feral*

[grayintogreen]

OKAY SO. I am (and this is obvious for my followers as opposed to this tag), I am currently running headlong towards the ending of my huge CR longfic, but I have started to develop my next project. Not sure when I'll start posting because if I do it too soon it's going to be hard to keep up with it and YCDHN and I do NOT WANT THAT, so I'm gonna poke at it casually while seeing how much of YCDHN I can write before I come back from my posting hiatus in March. If it looks like I'm making a lot of headway in getting the next three chapters written, we'll see.

SO WHAT IS THIS NEXT PROJECT? Glad you asked.

learn that even death may die is going to be a Hazbin Hotel fic that goes AU after 1x06 (due to that being where I started plotting it). The official summary is as follows:

When Lucifer agrees to seal his powers to set an example of humility to buy more time for the Hotel to work, Adam and the Exorcists scheme with the Vees in order to take the Hazbin Hotel down once and for all. Meanwhile, Alastor has a little secret that he'd like to be through with that would change the face of Hell if anyone knew...

And Husk has caught feelings, which is unrelated to all of the above.

It's a plotty, ensemble piece, featuring Found Family dynamics, Alastor and Lucifer being each others' biggest haters, Husk and Angel in a bodyguard AU for reasons, and the kind of plot you can expect from the idiot who brought you two million words about Cree Deeproots.

Here's an extended preview of the first chapter. Spread the word! Get hype! It's something I'm really excited to work on when I've gotten a lot more progress on my YCDHN backlog.

The last week had been… Harrowing, to say the least. The Extermination had been personal- deeply personal- and while no one at the Hotel had fallen, the line of angelic spears stabbed into the ground outside with demon heads proudly spelling out YOU CAN’T HIDE FOREVER (Vaggie had noted that was such a waste of spears) had made the message clear. This was going to continue and next time they wouldn’t be so lucky.

She didn’t know when the next would come- back to a year or another six months or another week. She had paced, relentlessly, as the Hotel put itself back in order and those who had been injured licked their wounds. Husk, in particular, had survived a scuffle with Adam, himself, and while he didn’t appreciate the warm embrace he got for his bravery, she didn’t know how else to thank him aside from maybe a very expensive bottle of booze at Angel’s suggestion, which he did like and seemed to like even more when she told him it had been Angel’s idea.

That should have been something she lit on! Something that she could really sink her teeth into and do something about! Were Angel and Husk an item? Was there unspoken tension? What would that do for Angel’s suitability to Heaven? Surely, a stable, monogamous relationship could only-

But no. She’d let that thought slide out of her mind with barely more than a hum, never mind a full number about it. Her mind had to be on the Hotel and protecting it. She couldn’t even do a lesson plan in these conditions! Activities had ground to a halt in favor of ‘work together to clean up the corpses.’ She was going to scream or bite or… or something.

Vaggie helped. She always did. The initial shock of learning about her being an angel had passed and while there had been some distance in the month leading up to the Extermination, Vaggie’s dedication to her remained absolute and she had nearly gotten herself killed multiple times to make up for what she felt were her sins in the past.”

”Demons kill each other and that’s different,” she’d said when Charlie told her that no one in the Hotel, save herself, was fully clean of demon blood.”They aren’t killing because they think everyone here deserves to die. It’s different.”

So that was still sort of a whole unresolved thing too, and that was just before her father kicked the door in, ready to throw down because he had one rule when his hand was forced about the Extermination and that was not putting his family in direct harm. Getting him to do more than fume and fuss over it had occupied a lot of time she didn’t actually have, but the end result had led her here… Back to Heaven.

With her father.

Outside the golden gates, he stood ramrod straight, fingers clenched so tightly around the head of his cane she was certain his fingers would grip right to the core. She glanced at his shaking hands and laid her own over them. “Dad, it’s okay.”

“I haven’t been back to Heaven in… Oooh.” He whistled. “Awhile. It’s…” He tugged his collar. “Not actually full of great memories, y’know, sweetie?” He leaned over to whisper. “Maybe we should just go back down and work on this on a lower level. I know some phenomenal wards. You think that dusty radio guy has moves? Your dad has better moves. I invented some of those runes he uses. My wards- pristine.”

She wrinkled her nose and pulled him closer to the front desk. “Daaaad, come on. It’ll be fine. I think things will actually work out this time if you’re here.”

“Really? ‘Cause I feel like they’re gonna go much worse.” As if to prove it, the second the pair strode towards the desk, St. Peter nearly flung the guestbook to reach for something underneath the desk. Charlie had to lunge to stop his hand from hitting a button with a very familiar runic symbol on it- fuck, they had a Lucifer button.

“Wait wait wait! He’s not- we’re not here to cause any trouble. We just need to talk to Sera- or Emily. Actually, I’d rather talk to Emily, if it’s… all the same.” She shot him a winning smile.

Behind her, Lucifer was making what could only be described as a ‘stink face.’ “This is going greeeeat. Are you sure about this, Charlie? It’s not too late to go back.”

“Dad!”

“Charlie!” A winged shape suddenly burst free of the Gates and wrapped tight arms around her middle. Unable to resist, Charlie wrapped her arms around the gray-clad form as well and spun her around. “Emily!”

“Oh my Heavens, Charlie, I’m so glad you’re okay!” Emily pulled away to grip Charlie’s hands so tightly that it was a pleasant kind of crushing. Like a weighted blanket. She leaned forward to whisper, “I’ve been doing all I can. There are angels who truly believe this isn’t right. Sera has told me to give it up, that doubting leads to Falling, because-“

Both girls looked askance at Lucifer, fiddling with the head of his cane awkwardly, that vapid look he got when he was overwhelmed making it clear that he’d stopped paying attention.

Charlie, for the first time daring to doubt, whispered back in a nervous high-pitched lilt, “Iiiis it bad that I brought him here?”

“No! I… I don’t think.” Emily frowned. “I should warn Sera, of course.” She stepped back and approached Lucifer, who flinched like he was about to be scolded- oh dad how badly did the angels hurt you. “Greetings, Morningstar,” she said, bowing a bit. “It is an honor to meet you. I was only a fledgling when you Fell.”

“For the record, I didn’t Fall. I was pushed.” Lucifer, seeing Emily’s own flinch, immediately softened and underneath all the anxiety, Charlie caught a glimpse of the angel her father had been once as he ducked his head and accepted her greeting graciously and with the genteel quality of true nobility. “Thank you for being courteous about this. Tell the High Seraph that we won’t take up any of her time. We… have a deal to renegotiate. It seems Adam’s legions have forgotten what we agreed long ago.”

Emily bobbed her head with a grin and slipped through a portal, leaving St. Peter to anxiously open the Gates without his usual aplomb. Charlie strolled through and Lucifer, feeling somewhat more confident after seeing how Emily treated him, tapped the poor angel’s desk with his cane. “Keep up the good work, Pete.”

The promenade was still full of people dancing about in a joyous display of virtue and peace, but now looking at it, all she saw were people who had somehow gotten lucky. She tried to find a commonality in any of them, something that she could take back and use to prove her point, but there didn’t seem to be a single thing these people had that hers didn’t… besides, you know, the fixation on sin and murder. And, honestly, some of them might have that too, hidden under the surface. Look at Adam.

“Heyyyy, Short Stack! How’s it goin’?”

Speak of the fucking prick.

Every fiber of Charlie’s body reached for Hellfire and only her father’s iron-tight grip on her shoulder kept her from exploding in a rush of demonic energy. Her horns appeared and vanished in the blink of an eye and she focused on deep, healing breaths as Adam, the walking canker sore, swaggered up to them on the promenade.

“They’ll let anyone in here these days, huh?” Adam planted his hands on his hips and grinned. Behind him, Lute bristled.

“Funny. I was gonna say the same thing about you. Hah!” Lucifer barked. All that anxiety he’d worn outside had been cast aside like an old coat- something about Adam had struck the same nerve that Alastor had only in a different key. A beat, and then: “No seriously, how did you get in here? I was there, remember. You also ate the apple. It was a, uh, whole thing, actually.”

“Yeah, but I did it second.” He reached into his ear with his pinky to dislodge a bit of wax and flicked it across the golden streets. “That counts for something.”

Still lingering on the angels’ wishy-washy answer about how precisely one gets into Heaven and with the proof that there wasn’t some actual code to follow right before her eyes, Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and fought the urge to scowl. Scowling gives you lines that make your smiles less effective. Everyone knew that.

“How’s the wifey, by the by, Lucy? Still smokin’?” Adam slammed a hand into a fist. “Oh wait. I forgot. You two are hella divorced, amirite?”

“We are not divorced.” Lucifer began to panic, whipping to Charlie like he expected her to believe any of that shit. There was something in his eyes that spoke volumes about the truth of what was going on with him and Lilith that she would have to unpack later- she hadn’t asked before. It was too painful to bring up. “We- we’re on a break. Yeah, a break. Just a break.” He swallowed, leaned on his cane, and adjusted his stance. “Which is more than I can say for you and yours. How is Eve, by the way? Oh waaaait! She’s in Hell. With me. Just like your first wife. Hah. Man, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say one of us knows how to treat a woman.” Another pause. He leaned into Adam’s space and whispered. “It’s me.”

Adam’s ghoulish face screwed up in disgust. “Yeah, okay, pal, you just drink your ‘respect women’-” are the air quotes necessary? really?, “- juice. You can use it to gargle after you lick my balls.”

“Adam,” Sera’s voice said, coarsely, snapping him to attention with a mumbled aw fuck mom’s home.

She hovered as glorious as ever with her six wings, towering over Lucifer as she landed between him and Adam, shunting him out of her space and into Lute’s. Charlie and Emily both shot him sour looks and held hands in solidarity as they watched the fallen Morningstar engage with the High Seraph for the first time in millenniums.

The seconds ticked on in agonizing awkward silence. Lucifer’s throat bobbed. “High Seraph.”

“Morningstar,” Sera murmured, politely, her shoulders tense. Another long moment of silence followed- clearly she was waiting for Lucifer to explain himself. Charlie’s palms started to sweat, but not Emily’s. Angels apparently didn’t sweat. Her grip alone, however, spoke to her anxiety matching Charlie’s.

Lucifer’s jaw trembled and he finally, finally yanked himself together again. “Maybe we can talk about this somewhere more private? The street is… Open.”

Indeed, they were starting to attract attention. People might not recognize Lucifer on sight these days, but that apple and snake motif was sort of painfully obvious when you thought about it for a moment. Sera gave a nod and circled her fingers in the air to open another portal. “Certainly. Come into my office.”

Adam started to follow and Lucifer thrust his cane to stop him. “No, no. Not you. Seraphs only.”

Adam snarled and lowered the staff. “Your piece of hellsnatch daughter ain’t a seraph, Little Man.”

Charlie saw her father’s eyes light up with a fire she only saw when he had to be in a room with Alastor. “What did you say about my daughter?”

“Dad.”

“You want me to say it louder? Or do you want me to moan it, Daddy?” Adam leered.

“That’s enough!” Emily snapped before Sera could, her small form crowding into Adam’s space, all of her angelic eyes open and glowering daggers at the lesser angel. He shrank back. “There will be no more disrespect in this room. Adam, this concerns you, so you will be allowed entry, but please keep your mouth shut.”

Charlie felt her heart squish as Emily brushed off her dress and then strolled through the portal, nose primly in the air. Sera, lips pressed together, only gave a sober nod and followed.

“How come he-“ Adam snarled, but Lute gripped his arm and pushed him into the portal.

“Pick your battles, sir.”

“I wanna pick this one,” he whined as he vanished into the Seraph’s study. Lucifer and Charlie lingered for a moment- one with hope in her heart and the other rapidly descending into the pit of despair after just seconds of glorious, if not damning and futile, wrath. She reached for his hand.

“C’mon, dad. You got this.”

The soft smile melted her heart even more than Emily’s protection had. He stood on his toes to pull her into an embrace and give her a kiss on the head- more to comfort himself than her, she was sure, but she didn’t mind. He hopped through the portal and she followed into an austerely decorated space. Painfully minimalist. Ooh this was not a side of Heaven she liked at all. There wasn’t even art on the walls. Just gray slate with a huge plate-glass window behind the bare desk. Not a single knickknack to distract from its function.

Sera slid into the seat behind the desk, while Emily stood at attention next to her, hands clasped in front of her, eyes still fixed on Adam, daring him to speak. He skulked in the background, intentionally toying with the boring book-laden shelves- also free of knickknacks and personal touches- by running his fingers on the spines or pulling them out and pretending to read them before tossing them at Lute to put back with a bored eyeroll.

Conjured chairs were produced for Lucifer and Charlie, which they took, gladly. With everyone who was going to settle having done so, Sera sighed.

“Let’s talk, Lucifer. What brings you back to Heaven? You were told to never come back.

[that-wildwolf]

Which one-shot/completed fic are you most proud of?

Which WIP do you regret starting, if any?

Which WIP do you think you'll finish next?

Who's your OC blorbo? Tell me about them

What's your favourite line you've ever written?

Which one-shot/completed fic are you most proud of? Gah. What a difficult question. I love all my children equally. Just kidding, it's somewhere far from goodbye. I love the way I write Saren's POV.

Which WIP do you regret starting, if any? the fucking fallout 4 rewrite longfic. it will be the death of me please i started in 2018 and it's still going it's at 340k now what the fuck fuck fuck fuck i hate it so much right now. oh i guess this means i don't actually love all my children

Which WIP do you think you'll finish next? It's a three-way tie between the omega blood puddle fic, the garrus smut, and the therapy fic, all of them require maybe 2K at this point and I jump between working on them.

Who's your OC blorbo? Tell me about them

MARTAAAAA... god i love marta. my little bridge builder. she's like everything to me and she was supposed to be this like vessel for the narrative, she wasn't supposed to be a character but wahhh i love her so much. gah. this woman was getting her medical degree while humanity was making real life first contact with actual aliens??? and then she??? chose to specialise in treating those aliens???? because she wanted to help heal the wound left by that war????? and she's polish and bisexual and canonically has a non-binary child and she's everything to me i love her so much. she can't function without coffee. she hates shepard. she gets emotionally invested in her patients' recovery. she cares so so much. fuck. i love my oc..... 😭

What's your favourite line you've ever written?

i love all my children......

what is a "line". what is "pick one". i do not know these concepts.

Saren slowly realises that the very same purr is also coming from his own larynx, that he's unconsciously tuned in to Nihlus's timbre and matched it perfectly. He thought he wasn't able to do that anymore. He thought that the soft melody of affection that other turians shared was gone in him, replaced by white noise and static. And yet here it is, vibrating in the heavy summer air between them. - [x]

It's terrifying — she knows his body by heart. She knows every tiniest scar and dent, she knows every inch of him like the back of her hand. She's touched and hugged and kissed just about every spot on his body, but right now, suddenly, he feels alien to her. She has no idea what she's looking at. The same Garrus she knows and loves is all of a sudden a completely unknown expanse. - [x]

He's been going through life like a ghost, haunting the empty shell of the person he used to be. - [not posted yet]

Their peace was built by Garrus strengthening their home against any possible intruders that probably won't come, and by Shepard keeping guns hidden in strategical places in the improbable case they need to defend themselves. It was built by two people who don't know how else to feel safe than by amassing weaponry slowly learning they don't need it anymore. - [x]

He's immediately by her side — he didn't even notice the moment his legs moved to run to her. It's an instinct. He's always run to her. Whether it had been running to catch up with her or running by her side, he'd always made his way towards her, ever since he'd first met her. Running to her is the only thing he knows. No matter how badly hurt, how terribly broken, he will always run to her. - [x]

Like the strong gravitational pull that causes planets to orbit around a star, there's always been some invisible force drawing Shepard to the Reapers. - [not posted yet]

Honestly, there were barely enough pieces between the two of them to make one whole person, but here they were. Two people desperately holding on to each other in the swirling tempest of this war around them, both putting on a charade before the world to pretend they didn't need help. - [x]

Shepard was still amazed by that. Not that Garrus was gentle — that anyone was. That there was still some softness in this world, in her life. Despite everything, despite all the death and all the pain and all the rage... Even someone who had more blood on her hands than anyone could find a respite. Even she managed to find a gentle touch. - [x]

honourable mention for the "I love you" in Edge of Yesterday, because I would need to quote the whole chapter leading up to it for it to hit.

[best-titan-7274]

I would love to see a scene of cooper working on a vanguard chassis, maybe assisted by an exasperated SRS tech

I'm imagining the line "now I know you've never had to work on a vanguard chassis before, but *please* don't touch the reactor casing"

I'm bringing in an OC from my longfic for this one, 'cause I can 100% picture her saying that.

"First of all, safety and regulations," Jeanie says.

The booklet she hands him is well-worn, unidentifiable grease stains of various types sludged across the cover and edges, and he's pretty surprised to see that the pages are all readable.

It all seems pretty straightforward. In fact, he's not sure why he has to read any of this. There's an entire page dedicated to a set of diagrams explaining why you'll probably get squished flat if you make a habit of standing underneath cranes with heavy payloads. Who needs to be told that?

He doesn't comment, though, just leafs through the thing and hands it back. Jeanie tosses it off to the side, and he's not sure if it lands on the nearby table through skill or luck.

"Right, let's go."

She takes the scaffolding two steps at a time, and he follows a little slower, not used to being up this high. Not without being in a cockpit, at any rate, but BT's nowhere around.

"So, what's step one?" he asks when they're both at the top of the scaffolding. He's not sure if her eyeliner is really electric blue, or if it just looks brighter around her dark brown eyes. Not the time, Cooper.

"Step one: do not touch the reactor casing."

He blinks. "What?"

"I know you've never had to work on a Vanguard chassis before," she explains, one hand on her hip as the other gestures to the Titan in question, "but please don't touch the reactor casing. You will die, and it will hurt the entire time you're dying."

"Do people really do that?" is all he can think to ask.

She lets out a heavy sigh, and that answers his question pretty well.

"Don't touch the reactor casing," he says with a nod. "Got it."

He can only imagine what BT would say if Jack even thougt about it. Actually, he can imagine the Cooper, that is very dangerous pretty well. He might be a tad more reckless than he's willing to admit. Eh.

"So what's step two?" he asks, partly against his better judgment.

"Don't lose your balance while you're all the way up here."

That seems slightly more important, but apparently there are people who fail step one. So he nods again, and watches as Jeanie digs through a massive metal toolbox that was left up here. By her? He's not sure. He doesn't ask.

"Attach these sensors to these places."

The bundle of cables are flopped over his shoulder, clanking and heavy, and the mechanic's glasses he's wearing soon come up with an overlay. Everything's colour-coded, which seems like it'll make things easier. Great!

He takes a deep breath, then another, then steps off the scaffolding.

The soles of his mag-boots lock onto the unique composite of the chassis, keeping him from falling, but he still doesn't look down. Instead he starts trekking, careful not to step too heavily, as told in orientation. He has a hard time thinking the chassis can be anything approaching fragile, but better safe than sorry.

A sharp, screeching whine from behind him nearly scares him into toppling over. He looks over his shoulder, fully expecting to see some kind of danger, but it's just Jeanie with a circular saw of some kind. Sheesh. Could've warned him.

He starts putting sensors where they belong, the glasses adjusting his path and inventory every so often. It's easier than he thought it would be, as long as he pretends he's not a spine-snapping distance from the concrete below.

It's easier to think of this as BT. Mag-boots or not, he's safe there, no matter what's going on. And besides, Lastimosa never would have let him get so far in his Pilot training if he didn't have some sense. That's a serious responsibility. Even if he and BT screw around sometimes in a way that's decidedly not responsible, but hey, the fastball is fun.

He doesn't mention that part to Jeanie, cause somehow, he doesn't think she'd approve.

She's waiting for him when he steps back onto the scaffolding, a datapad in her hand.

"Good job not dying on your first day, newbie."

"Should I have been worried about that?"

"Depended on how stupid you were, honestly," she says, and takes one look at his surprised face, and laughs louder than he expected.

He takes half a second to think of what his expression just looked like, and laughs with her.

[thistlecatfics]

marginalia by @spindrifters (E, 266k+, wolfstar)

This story began a long time ago. That part is already written. Nothing can be done about it now. It began with two young men—barely more than boys—who upended the world, magical and mundane alike. Grindelwald and Dumbledore, glorious leaders of the revolution, who brought wizardkind out of hiding and into the light during those last, violent days of 1899. But a winter's night seventy-seven years later is where things really kick off. Because Remus Lupin knows what to expect when you’ve been sold somewhere new. He knows it better than he ever thought he'd have to by this point. He knows how to survive. And Sirius Black is doing his best to just graduate Hogwarts and get himself and his brother away from this goddamn house. He's got it figured out by now. He has a plan. Neither of them, however, had accounted for the other messing everything up by the mere fact of just existing. (Or, the one where Sirius is heir to a pureblood first family and Remus is a half-blood servant, but a chance meeting leads to healing old wounds, stumbling into love, and just maybe accidentally kickstarting a revolution.)

I feel slightly nervous queuing up this post for WIP day since the updates have been coming fast and furious lately!

I love, love, love a thoughtful canon divergence with big magical theory and deep heart. I'm also a sucker for a servant & master trying to figure out how to possibly navigate a relationship together! This fic handles power dynamics so thoughtfully, and, as a privileged rich white kid, I particularly love seeing how Sirius navigates and angsts about and works against his privilege.

This fic also has one of the strongest openers of any longfic I've ever read. Usually, I find longfics struggle with how to start, but that first chapter is both gripping and exciting AND manages to perfectly introduce the key characters AND drop key hints about how this world works. It's a masterclass in first chapters.

Other things I love about this fic: Sephardic Jewish Remus! Boldy badass Dorcas Meadowes! An actually thoughtful version of the Snape & Lily friendship! Tedromeda!! James & Sirius friendship!

Read it while it's still a WIP and so you can say you were here before it blew up :)

My other recs for @hprecfest here

[rivalsforlife]

hello!!! sorry for the long text (and for possible mistakes in this) in advance!!

in december last year i stumbled upon your fic "the catch up game". i decided to read it and honestly that was the best decision of my LIFE. that is the best fanfic ive ever read. this changed my life actually. i remember being impressed at how amazing the characterization was and how everything felt so canon. i was awake until 4 am reading because i couldnt sleep without knowing what would happen next. i started to cry while reading, not because of sadness, but because EVERYTHING was SO GOOD that i wasnt able to express my emotions properly and all i was able to do was CRY.

recently, after months have passed, i've decided to read your fanfic again, and everything was even better than before. i felt all the emotions again, and i was awake until late to read again, and i cried because it was great AGAIN. after i finished reading, i decided to read your other works and EVERYTHING is so well written!!!!

i should say that i LOVE the way you interpret narumitsu as a ship but more importantly as individual characters. i love the way you interpret the other ace attorney characters as well, they all feel so,,, alive? idk how i should put this (im horrible with words, sorry sgdugshs).

all i wanted to do telling you all this is: thank you. thank you for sharing your writing with us. know that when you write again (if you want to, of course!) i will be there to support you!!! i deeply admire your work and you deserve ALL the kudos.

well. i think thats it. i hope you have a good day/night <3 <3 <3!!

🥺 this is such a sweet ask, thanks so much for reaching out!! I'm so glad to hear that my writing had such a strong effect on you and that you enjoyed my works!

ace attorney is always so much fun to write because they're all fantastic characters on their own, but the games have all these great relationships between the characters and such a strong emphasis on platonic relationships as well (which might not be the thing to bring up while talking about a narumitsu fic, but it's always something I want to pay special attention to). Especially with the catch-up game which I intended to be more of a Phoenix characterization study/exercise I wanted to pay at least a little bit of attention to all of his important relationships!

I remember hearing writing advice once that you should have a general idea of what every character in a scene has going on in their own life, like where they came from before this scene, what they're doing after, what's the pressing issues on their mind, etc, so it doesn't feel so much like "and Maya stands off screen until she comes back in to talk about Phoenix and Edgeworth's relationship". So I'm always super happy to hear when people notice things like that because it means I'm doing it at least a little bit correctly!!

Anyways all that is to say that I really appreciate this ask and it definitely brightened my day. I know I haven't posted anything in a while (school + unemployment hell year + more school and now work??? have done a number on me). I have been writing, but I always want to wait until things are done before I post, and I think I've officially hit the year and a half mark on this project as of today, but I have no idea how much longer I'll be able to stand it before I decide it's too much work to wrangle this thing into something I like - and it's not ace attorney anyways and writing characters for the first time and figuring out how they sound is always a bit terrifying. (There's like 2/3 longfics that are the first things I wrote for ace attorney that I've abandoned.)

Maybe replaying aai2 when the official version comes out will motivate me to write more AA, because I do have one good narumitsu idea in my head that I hope I'll be able to write? But either way I'm glad that even my work from four years ago (!!!) is still having an effect on people. Catch-Up Game is still my favorite thing that I've written and I'm always happy to hear people liked it!!

This got more rambly than I intended sorry about that. Thanks again for the very sweet ask. I hope you have a good day/night as well!!

[splish--splash--minecraft]

So...I've reached 100 followers now (wowie, thanks guys <3) so I've decided to do a little poll to figure out what AU I work on next!

I'm working on a fic for the tiny apartment AU at the moment, but I'm close to finishing it. My plan was to take a little break from that AU once the fic is posted and work on something else (pizza AU?) but I've decided instead that I'll let my followers decide what they want to see from me!

I have...a lot of options. Including tiny apartment AU, since I'm certainly not opposed to working more on it! I've just been kinda focused on it a lot lately, and I have other AUs. But if enough people want me to keep working on it, well...I won't say no.

I have...a lot of options. I'll give brief summaries of each one to help you decide what you want the most! Some also have more written for them than others, while others still are much longer than others (one AU I have dubbed the "longfic" since...well, it's going to be long).

Below the poll is a summary of the AUs, in the order that they appear in the poll.

Pizza AU

The AU in which Grian works at a pizza place and Scar comes in every week at a ridiculous hour to get a pizza. Found here. This fic is fully outlined, though I've not written much for chapter 2.

Tiny Apartment AU

The one you all know and love. No? Just me? Oh well. I still have a LOT planned for this AU. So many WIPs I've started and still other fics for the series I have planned but haven't actually started. If this wins, I might do another poll with some of the WIPs and let y'all decide which one to work on from there. Maybe.

Lifeguard AU

This one's a fun one! Scar works as a lifeguard. Pearl does, too, and one day she drags her brother (Grian) out of the house and convinces (bribes) him to go with her. He complains the whole way there...until he gets a look at Scar. And when Scar's shift ends and he goes to talk to Grian, he decides that maybe going out of the house to the pool isn't the worst idea. I don't have much for this AU yet. I've started it, but it's not a lot, and I only have some ideas for some scenes. This one also has t4t scarian. just 'cause. Both are transmasc

Longfic

Called such because...well, it's gonna be long. It's currently at about 7k words. Technically it's the long series - it'll be a series of fics that span over the entirety of the life series. Each fic is a season, and it also features some stuff back on Hermitcraft in between each. For now, I'll just work on 3rd life. Oh, also, it's mainly from Scar's POV (though there will likely also be a fic with some scenes from Grian's POV). Basically a deep dive into 3rd life, with canon scenes and some of the...in between.

Royalty AU

Scar is a prince, and Grian the knight assigned to be his bodyguard. Except it's really more to keep him in line, because Scar has the tendency to go off and do his own thing, so his parents assign Grian -someone known to take no shit and takes his duty very seriously - as his bodyguard. At the start, they don't really like each other that much. Over time, though, they get closer. Much closer.

Fallen Watcher AU

You guys remember that guardian angel AU? This is that but I've reworked it a bit. Rather than being a guardian angel, Grian is a Watcher. He's put in charge of Watching Scar. The Watchers have some sort of plan I haven't quite figured out yet, but it involves Scar dying. But Grian...has grown attached to him. He doesn't want Scar to die. But as a Watcher, he's not allowed to do more than just Watch. But he interferes anyway, saving Scar's life, and the Watchers are furious so they cast him out. So now he has to deal with being mortal all while the guy he saved the life of keeps flirting with him.

Ranchers fic

Something that's...not scarian! Wow. Nobody tell them but this is mainly for Grace. It's a double life ranchers fic with (poorly) hidden injury. Since...well, kind of hard to hide an injury when the other can feel your pain.

So...yeah! There's the AUs for this poll. I have more, of course, but these are sorta the main ones. Whichever wins I'll work on after I finish a tiny apartment AU fic. Depending on which AU wins, I may also work on the second place winner alongside it. We'll see.

You're also free to reblog to try and rig it! Bribe people. Try to convince others to vote. do whatever idc have fun

[tumblingghosts]

marcus & sejanus time loop, coriolanus pov

i've been thinking about a sejarcus time loop lately- they both return after their respective deaths right back when the tributes are arriving at the capitol

of course, there's the initial trauma of sejanus realizing that coriolanus got him killed and marcus being alive after suffering through the torture the capitol put him through, but they quickly realize that the other has been here before

(mostly because sejanus is trying even harder to save marcus, and marcus realizes that nothing he did so far should have caused a change like this. it doesn't work. marcus dies, and sejanus is sent back with him. they quickly realize that either of them dying sends them back to the start.)

they don't get along immediately, but sejanus keeps trying, and marcus eventually warms up to him realizing that sejanus really is trying to help him (and maybe has a long buried crush that mostly-died when the plinths moved away)

sejarcus figure themselves out and start working on how to end the games. marcus is appealing to the other tributes for an escape plan and sejanus is trying to make conditions better. it's a lot of plans and a lot of deaths to reset.

buuut that's seems like an idea more suited for a longfic, and since i write mostly oneshots...coriolanus pov! one such sejarcus time loop, they're going about their routine & new plan while coriolanus has no idea what's going on (but he's very upset that sejanus is "stealing the spotlight" when he shows up at the train station with a backpack of food) -- read on ao3!

the best laid plans (often go astray)

“You seem to know quite a bit about today’s proceedings,” Coriolanus begins, attempting to keep his voice even and conversational. “Care to share how you came by this information?” Sejanus looks up from his spot on the platform, his expression guarded. “I've got my ways,” he replies noncommittally, glancing back towards the train.

In which Marcus and Sejanus are caught in a time loop after their respective deaths, as told by Coriolanus Snow, who knows none of this.

[fatesundress]

Babe you know you don‘t have to write, right?

You‘ve put a lot of beautiful content out there and maybe this just means you‘re done writing for this character / pairing / fandom. I know the internet is greedy but you‘ve contributed more than enough and it‘s okay to leave it at that if the pressure of people asking you to write more is too much.

And who knows? You might find your way back to it some time but please don‘t put yourself through this misery just to appease strangers on the internet

that’s very kind of you, thank you 😭

i think i have roughly an understanding of what’s going on the more i think about it, which is that despite the fact that i still love writing about tom (and actively do on other platforms), i don’t know how much more i really have to say as far as oneshots/x readers go. i tend to enjoy writing tom with a fully-rounded character, and it’s hard to do that in a format designed to be as applicable and appealing to as many people as possible.

there are a few other ideas i have for longer stories that allow that (while remaining x readers at least in physical description), but they would become mini-fics at that point and my focus right now is on my ongoing longfic + my original works.

alsoooooooo… i know people want smut and despite the fact that the majority of my fics here include it, it’s not at all my strong suit and to be honest it gets tedious to write. what i enjoy about tom is uncovering new layers to him, and i feel like i’ve already said all that i have to say about him in that regard (again, unless i were to be writing about a specific dynamic between him and a less universal partner).

overall, i’m not really guided in my writing by requests — i tend to use the ones that spark interest as outlines for whatever ideas they trigger (though i really do appreciate them!!), and beyond that, i write because i want to write. i have a lot of gratitude for this account and i’m honoured by how many people continue to read my work here, but if i made it seem like i was forcing myself to write, i promise i’m not 😭🤍 all of the requests i’ve gotten have been patient and understanding and i have yet to receive an angry demand for an update in the year+ i’ve been here.

i check my inbox a few times a week, open my document every once in a while to try starting/continuing something, and if it’s not working out i move onto my other projects.

like you said, i might find my way back to it! i hope i do! but this account has always been an outlet for me to explore tom’s character and how i interpret him romantically, and lately i haven’t seen any new ways of doing that that intrigue me </3

i really really appreciate your message, thank you