#obliquely fanart for the fic but also

[argetcross]

a lamb to slaughter - (x)

[cloudstrifing]

@spiritxgeyser sent me 4, 7, 25 :3c tysm I always enjoy vibing with your huge brain takes and correct opinions 💖

4. How do you find inspiration for new ideas?

I walk around and listen to my blorbo playlists a lot deep in thinky thoughts... sometimes I will also see fanart that gives me brain worms, but honestly revisiting the source material is probably the best way to get inspiration (for fic at least) bc it will remind me what I love about a certain dynamic, and then I'll just try and zero in on what exactly is releasing the serotonin and spin off that!!! As far as concrete scenarios go most of my fics are just the same trope over and over, all that's different is the trappings so that's making it easy for myself lmaooo

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

The first time I write for a pairing I will choose whoever I feel most aligned with (usually the more snarky and/or obnoxious character 💀), then I'll inevitably want to try to get into the other one's head later down the line eheh.

25. What fic do you wish you got more of a response on?

ALL my ff7 stuff, where is rebirth so that I can revert to being unhinged about this old ass game full time‼️ truly ik the trigunposting has taken over atm but ff7 is forever.

HOWEVER ALSO I rly wish more eyes would perceive my first vashwood fic, bc I think from a technical perspective it's the best fic I've made. The structure is full of very clear eyed Decisions that makes it coherent in a way most of my stuff is not. I would maybe have had them be a bit more oblique about their feelings at the end knowing what I know about the characters now, but overall I’m very proud of it and think it struck something true!!

[heyclickadee]

I’m so sorry, @apocalyp-tech-a—I meant to thank you for the tag and and then didn’t type it out. This was fun!

1. Your favorite member of the bad batch is: All of them. I’m sorry.

2. Because: They’re all fantastic and I can’t choose.

3. You identify the most with: Tech, Hunter, and Gonky.

4. Because: Tech, because I recognize a lot of his traits and behaviors in myself, especially the version of myself that existed before I started masking heavily. I’ve had the conversation that Tech has with Omega in the cave scene in “The Crossing” before, though I’ve never handled it half as well as Tech did. Hunter, because I’m a chronically exhausted oldest sibling who has no idea how to handle failure, and I get overloaded just hearing the air conditioner and the electricity in the walls, so I feel for a guy who’s got his senses cranked up to fifteen AND can sense electromagnetic fields. Like. That’s got to be so overwhelming all the time. And Gonky, because I, too, am a rectangle who makes funny noises.

5. Your favorite minor character from the show: Aaaahhhhhh I don’t know. Most of them, but let’s go with Phee and Mayday in a solid tie.

6. Because: Phee’s a pirate, repatriator of cultural artifacts, adventurer, treasure hunter, has oodles of confidence, intelligence, and fantastic taste in men. Mayday’s just…he’s Mayday. He’s so fun and snarky and SAD I just. *cries in “The Outpost”*

7. A TBB-centric piece or post of yours that you’re most proud of: Probably my “Omega deserves to be angry,” painting.

8. Because: I wasn’t super happy with how it looked, but I was still proud of it because it was the first piece of art of any kind that wasn’t either for work or for school that I took farther than a sketch and actually finished in years. Long story, but I had to switch careers and go back to school in my late twenties, got a job at a call center to pay for rent and food at least, and by halfway through my junior year of school round 2: career switch boogaloo, I was so desperate to get away from the call center that I found a full time (technically freelance) gig at a small local game studio at the same time I was going to school full time and working on my senior film. Between the call center, which was…a bad fit, let’s say, working full time at the studio, and full time school + capstone project, I got a little burned out. A lot burned out. So, so burned out, and I haven’t recovered. After graduation I didn’t draw or model anything that wasn’t strictly for work for about a year and a half, and even doing it for work was a stretch a lot of the time. I’m only just now starting to get back into it and, honestly, I’m super rusty at anything that’s not the kind of stuff I do at work (mostly models of teeth and bones). So it was really nice to actually finish something that was just for me.

9. Link: https://www.tumblr.com/heyclickadee/723760359202258944/omega-deserves-to-be-angry

10. A TBB piece of fanart that slaps so hard you enjoy and why: That one piece of fanart of Crosshair strapped down on that torture slab and crying by @beetlecrest because holy shit. The colors? The emotion? The textures? It’s GUT-WRENCHING but it’s so, so well done.

11. Link: GO LOOK AT IT https://www.tumblr.com/beetlecrest/724401897544597504/it-was-heartbreaking-to-see-crosshair-get-strapped

12. A TBB-centric fanfic that gives you life you enjoy and why?: I really like @niobiumao3’s Obliquity, partly because it’s a Tech Lives fic, partly because it’s Techphee, but especially because they’ve got a really interesting take on Phee’s backstory. Also, Jedi Phee!! And I have to put @eclec-tech’s A Crosshair Carol in here, too. The end of the first chapter punched me in the gut.

13: Links: Obliquity: https://www.tumblr.com/niobiumao3/715766610818973696/obliquity-niobium-star-wars-the-bad-batch

A Crosshair Carol: https://www.tumblr.com/eclec-tech/704074527449219072/a-crosshair-carol-chapter-1-amberowl24-star

14. A TBB headcanon or trope that is basically canon to you: The Bad Batch trained as commandos their entire lives, but the Kaminoans never intended to let them out into the field. It’s not that they weren’t capable, but they were an experiment, and depending on your point of view sort of a failed experiment; they’re fantastic at what they do, but all that conditioning the Kaminoans put the clones through didn’t really take with them. But then Cody stepped in directly after the battle of Kamino and vouched for them, thinking their skills would be useful despite (or because) of their differences, and then the Kaminoans decided, well, okay, let’s see how this experiment does in a field test.

15. Color(s) you think would suit Crosshair if he were given “mercenary” armor: A blue that isn’t quite gray with red and orange highlights here and there.

16. One thing you NEED to see happen in season three: Tech being alive, first of all, though that’s less of a need and more of an expectation. When I said that I was going to talk about Tech’s survival as a matter-of-fact after the Joel Aron tweet, I meant it. He’s alive, and the onus is on the show to prove him otherwise.

What I really need, though? I need this little family to be okay. I neeeeeed the clone force 99 family to be okay. A worrying percentage of my mental health is hinging on this family being okay in the end.

NPT (also sorry if you already did this): @im-no-jedi @lightwise @littlefeatherr @eriexplosion @eclec-tech

Fellow Zealots of The Bad Batch, Unite!

Please share your answers to these questions and pass them on to some of your Bad Batch-loving buds!

Your favorite member of TBB is:

Because:

You identify the most with:

Because:

Your favorite minor character from the show:

Because:

A TBB-centric piece or post of yours that you are most proud of:

Because:

Link so that we can appreciate it:

A TBB-centric piece of art that slaps so hard you enjoy (and why):

Link:

A TBB-centric fanfic that gives you life you enjoy (and why):

Link:

A TBB headcanon or trope that is 100% canon to you:

Color(s) you think would suit if Crosshair gets "Mercenary" armor:

One thing you NEED to see happen in Season 3:

@wwheeljack @wrenkenstein @floundrickthewayfarer @raevulsix @enigmatist17 @slenderboo @echojedis @nika6q @zaana @wiseowl18 @toastyrobos @eclec-tech @jigget @destril @niobiumao3

[otterintheflightdeck]

For the fanfic asks: 1, 11 and/or 15 for The Plight of the Elves, please and thank you! <3

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

The initial spark was probably the idea that Geralt cares for Iorveth in the same way that he cares for the alcoholic troll in Flotsam or ghoul!Marlene or any of the other monsters he chooses to spare/help out instead of killing -- I ended up lampshading that outright by having Ciri make fun of him for it in one scene.

I think I was also attracted to the idea of delving into the huge amount of trauma Iorveth has lived through and giving him a tentatively happy ending without glossing over the ugly aspects of his character. Iorveth is often portrayed as a grumpy bad-ass in fic and fanart, but like... he is so, so emotional and so grandiose and flowery in the way he speaks. He goes around saying things like “You’re the most noble human I know, Gwynbleidd” and “A more determined demon has never walked upon this earth” (about Roche) and plays the flute at strategic times just to make a dramatic entrance. I wanted to explore that side of his character instead of just the “angry about elf rights” thing.

And then of course I just become instantly inspired to write sprawling fic whenever two sad-sack, emotionally dysfunctional male characters exchange glances in any medium, apparently, so there was also that. 8D;

11: What do you like best about this fic?

Wellll, I’m kind of proud of myself for managing to write something resembling politics and something resembling a twist/unexpected reveal. I always write navel-gazing, character-focused pieces, so I was terrified by the idea of delving into Nilfgaardian politics and decrees and contracts and political moves and so on. I don’t even know if it’s noticeable, but I made an effort to drop hints about Nilfgaard, like the Beauclair city guard being from the capital, or Ciri mentioning obliquely that Emhyr has talked about Geralt’s “soft spot for the downtrodden” with her (and then dodging Geralt’s question about it), and the hope is that those tidbits are enough to tie everything together once the penny drops at the end.

I think writing from Geralt’s point of view helped me dip my toes into this kind of story, since a ton of stuff goes on completely behind his back. But! There Was An Attempt at having a story beyond “these men fall in love with each other”, and I’m pretty happy with it.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

Hmmm, probably that it’s okay to create original characters and to spend time with them. I’m always SO worried about alienating readers with OCs that it’s probably kept me from tackling larger stories like this. When I was writing about the siblings at the inn, every molecule of my being was like “NOBODY CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS” and I really had to push through and talk myself into keeping the scene. I knew I wanted the scene there to hint at the bad state Beauclair was in, and to help ground Geralt in Toussaint a little more, but it was still a struggle to write. Same goes for the scenes with Alphonse -- they’re absolutely key in terms of Iorveth’s character arc and they help establish the history of the palace for readers who maybe don’t remember every syllable of every book in Blood & Wine, but I was still like “dhfjshjs nobody will want to read about Iorveth and Geralt interacting with this random old dude”. So yeah, hopefully I’ll have an easier time deploying OCs where needed in future stories.

Thanks for asking <3333333

[the-resurrection-3d]

ok and then his squishier counterpart: raven-winged-pilot

IT’S MY BOY BULLYCON 2

Well, I say he’s Bullycon 2, because even though the ao3 profile doesn’t link to his blog and he’s orphaned most of the fics from this era, his art style is again the same, an OC with the same name, a similar focus on Patryck. If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me - and if they aren’t the same person, then I don’t really have any strong opinion on him.

So tl;dr I’ve been gentle bullying him behind the scenes since late last year, but I don’t have any actual ill will towards him.

Let me back up a bit and make sure we’ve all got our 3D lore here straight. I hope you won’t mind.

 So, for context, the original Bullycon was me commissioning my mutual @/ryanhavwood to write some threesome tentacle skullfucking EddTomTord, which I then read aloud with a group of like, 5 of my IRL friends and Lily adhdbun over discord. I’ve paid them, we don’t talk because their discord is always set to red, but no drama there as far as I know. Go look at Lily’s twitter for the fanart she drew during the call. You won’t regret it. 

Anyway, I don’t think I’ve made myself really clear on Bullycon 2, considering I still have people like Elissa commenting on my Bullycon 3 fic thinking I’m actually offended. So, back when I had my old fic “Gott Ist Tot” anonymized, I posted what would become the fic “Only God Forgives” and soon after noticed that raven-winged-pilot posted what amounted to an uncredited, less angsty EddTord rewrite, right down to having the same freeform tags as me but in all caps. I think I saw through time? ? I’d never had that happen to me before!* 

So I just downloaded it and read it out loud to most of the same friends.  The thing that made it fun was that, while I’ve done similar things before (see my latest EddTord fic), this was for the same fandom, a pairing I came into this fandom writing, the same sex position, and the same damn tags and yet y’all thought I wouldn’t notice. Stunning and brave. Brave and stunning, even. 

Again, I don’t actually mind, because I think that’s a perfectly valid way to respond to a text. Hell, a few of my sex scenes are rape scenes from other fics (not in the EW fandom) that I’ve recontextualized.**   But I didn’t know how to bring it up at the time because he seems incredibly anxious and I didn’t want him to think I was mad at him. 

I have thought about responding more obliquely through fic, because god knows we need more classic literary drama in this fandom, but the most it’s amounted to was Bullycon 3, which for those who haven’t seen the Collection page on ao3 is me and @/rem0-drive re-uploading various chapters of GOT but as TomTord to hurt me. (Also worth noting that the account I posted “Only God Forgives” under is now controlled by @/paul-is-a-real-estate-novelist, to avoid any further confusion.) 

I did start this long (what I called the) flex fic at the start of the year, which was essentially a/b/o EddTord but playing around with alternate timelines and genital arrangements (including ducks’ and those Brazillian flies where the females have dicks with spikes that will tear the male in half if they’re separated). A bit of that is now the EddTom chapter of “clowns.” The real issue is that I was fresh off the heels of finishing Angela Carter’s book The Sadeian Woman (which is great but you absolutely shouldn’t read if you have a rape trigger) (or basically any trigger), and so the prospect of writing just straightforward sex wasn’t that interesting to me. The project fell apart because as much as I like to make a persona around being this arrogant, pretentious asshole, does anyone actually need me a fanfic writer’s fanfic writer? Be honest. 

I did end up writing a few mini-essays on vore and cervix-fucking as part of that project, though. Lol. 

For a bit of influence running the other way, while “but I am home” is meant to be a diptych to “Our Love Gorges” primarily, Bully boi is the reason I specifically chose pet play as Paul’s main kink, though I don’t think he’ll end up liking how I actually write it.

* aside from people not crediting me with inventing/naming Oliver YYY, which is now repeating itself, it seems, as people writing Patryck as Jewish without mentioning me. You probably know which two writers I’m talking about, lol.

** (It’s also weird how fandom sometimes gives other fan creators more respect and control over their own intellectual property than we do the actual original creators, but that’s for another time.)

[setepenre-set]

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!

(birthday BIRTHDAY birthday BIRTHDAY)

and I have a cunning plan for us to celebrate like hobbits!!

yes, yes, I know; wrong fandom, but 

that means that you all GET presents!! :DD

(...it--it does not mean that I’m going to use an extremely sketchy magical artifact to disappear from society after making an obliquely insulting speech at you all. just. thought I’d better clarify that...)

A N Y W A Y I’m planning on posting an update to one of my fics (or a new story) every day this week! (February 12th-18th) 

And! I’m also going to be posting a new piece of my fanart every day this week, too!

:DD I am very excited to get to share my birthday week with you all! I hope you enjoy it! 

{M} Set

[mousedetective]

So, my birthday is Monday...

So, I've mentioned it a few times kind of obliquely that my birthday is this month, but it's on Monday, the 23rd, and I've kind of realized I'm super depressed about it? My own family celebrated it on the 7th because we honestly weren't sure what the hell was going to go on with my mom and her surgery and we were hoping she'd be having her surgery around that time, but it looks like everything got screwed up so now we're all...anxious and depressed and it's just really not a good time in our household. And it's just adding onto all these other worries I have and I'm just kind of blah about my birthday this year.

I have gotten some amazing gifts so far (my mother got me four seasons of Arrow and the first season of Supergirl on DVD , plus two movies I've loved since I was a kid since she got some money to buy gifts for me, @greenskyoverme got me Star Trek TOS and all the TOS and TNG movies and @posterofamyth got me Sherlock series 4 since I had to cancel my preorder), so I'm not asking for a lot of physical gifts for me. But I do have a wishlist, so here it is:

Items on this Amazon wishlist, aside from the clothing (we ordered a bunch of clothing off Amazon for my mom and nothing except the pajamas fit) to help me keep the house clean after my mom's surgery, keep my mom and I going with our OTC medications and fewer trips to WalMart for supplies and food since I will be on the bus and it's an hour long trip round trip to get to the closest one (which is not the one where I use the pharmacy...there's no bus I can take to get to that one reliably). I would especially love the gift certificates to clothing stores towards the bottom because my mother has very few clothes to fit her post surgery that she can wear (she needs button down shirts and other things we'll find out later).

Gently used button down shirts in a 2X womens/mens XL and button down pajama sets in a 2X. These are for my mom to wear post her double mastectomy. She'd honestly like pretty stuff but because she'll have drains I'm thinking durable stuff would be good too. I don't know what they're going to do because she will not be having her reconstructive surgery at the same time, so this will be interesting.

Gift certificates to WalMart. I know you have to be in the US to buy them, but I do most of my shopping there and the one closest to my house is a Super WalMart so I can do grocery and household shopping at the same time. I can pick up clothing for my mom as well as food.

Clothing for my son, as well as money for me to get him a dresser for our apartment. His foster mother has stopped sending along clothing for him on overnight visits since he left his clothing over at my house one visit, and I only have a few things for him. He needs pretty much everything: shirts, pants/shorts, sleepwear, underwear and socks. He also said his brand new shoes hurt so I think they're too small already. He's growing like a weed, I swear. I don't know what size he wears in childrens, but I know mens small shirts and mens small sleep pants don't fit too badly on him, so whatever the equivalent in kids would be (XL?) should fit. He's just very tall and skinny.

Fanfic/fanart/podfic of my fics. Seriously, that kind of stuff makes me grin so widely, it really does. I love it all a lot.

If, after all this, anyone wants to get me an actual present? I'm happy with Amazon gift cards (though fair warning, I will probably use them to buy my family stuff of the top wishlist, except if I get enough to buy the entire series of Murder, She Wrote) or anything off my actual wishlist. But seriously, I'd rather have the other stuff first. If anyone wants to help with sending clothes for my mom or son or physical WalMart gift cards, let me know and I can give you my address. If anyone wants to help me get the money for the dresser together, my PayPal page is here.