#officially have a WIP about this ep

[osiiiris]

Whole Emeritus family Headcanons (backgrounds)

I’ve added a new WIP to my long-Fics projects and this one will be focused on the teen years of the Emeritus brothers and why, at a certain point, it became evident that they needed separate rooms. So I have finally developed my background headcanons for each one of them (+ Nihil and Sister Imperator bonus). I think I could extend their HC for specific topics in the next future.

The Sister Imperator one is, surprisingly, the one that came out more naturally. Feel free to discuss about these 👇🏻

Primo

Being 15 years older than Secondo and Terzo, he mostly spent his teenage years alone, but he was also the only one who had the chance to meet his birth mother, even if it was only for a few years. She was one of the fans Nihil had an affair with when playing with the first Ghost. She chose not to be part of the Ministry and agreed to leave Primo with Nihil, ensuring him an heir.

During his youth, he grew tall and slender, developing in an elegant figure. Despite his appearance being cold and severe, he had a soft heart, and was deeply focused on his duties.

Undoubtedly the most diligent and educated of the three brothers, he was well-behaved and respectful. From a young age, Nihil imposed strict education on him, treating him as an adult even when he was just a child. He claims he has no memories of regular childhood games or playtime, only recalling his religious and black magic studies.

Of the three brothers, he was perhaps the only one who genuinely felt a deep devotion to the Church, earning the ironic nickname 'The Saint' from his brothers. 

He seemed blind to girls' advances, or simply uninterested, to the extent that Secondo and Terzo believed he was still a virgin, having never seen him with a girl... until, at around 31 (for him), they finally caught him with a lady in their room. This was the most embarrassing event for him and the funniest for his other two brothers. 

He didn't spare his brothers from his strictness but was never cruel to them. His intention was for them to behave and be prepared for their future rule. Secondo and Terzo understood that even his harshest comments were for their betterment, as it was his only means of expressing himself.

He remained reserved throughout his life, making it difficult for his brothers to understand his thoughts or interests. He seemed like a product shaped by Nihil's will, with his primary interest lying in the cult and maintaining righteousness. Rarely did he allow himself to relax with laughter and enjoyment.

He was the one who discovered the 'Seven inches of 'Satanic Panic' EP in Nihil’s office and shared it with his brothers, initiating the decision to resurrect the Ghost project and summon the band Ghouls.

Secondo

He was notably tall and strongly built, starting to shave his head at a young age and engaging in exercise to gain muscle, bestowing upon him a striking appearance. He was the favorite among girls until Terzo began to realize the potential of his own charisma.

Only three months older than Terzo, they grew up like twins, developing an exceptionally close bond, despite frequent fights and arguments, typical of real brothers. However, a good laugh and conversation could mend any conflict in a short time. As they matured, their relationship evolved into one of mutual respect and admiration.

Neither he nor Terzo remember their biological mothers. They were too young when Sister Imperator chose to return to the Ministry, and no one ever disclosed what happened to their birth mothers. Sister Imperator - apart their nanny - was the only maternal figure they knew. 

He officially established the Sisters of Sin order during his papacy.

Of the three, he could be deemed the most robust and composed, despite their education and hardships. He grew resilient enough not to let his past taint his future, endeavoring to relish every moment of his youth. The weight of his past visited him only later, in his old days.

His fascination with black magic developed later in life, gradually becoming his core interest. He incorporated this passion into his music.

He and Primo shared such a strong resemblance in appearance, with similar facial structures and noses, that they suspected being brothers from the same mother. They never knew if it was true.

He was the most relieved when asked to renounce the papacy. Although music and popularity had been rewarding, he didn’t mind retiring and returning to his interests without the pressure from above. His sole regret was not receiving the acclaim he deserved for the exceptional album Infestissumam was.

Terzo

Even if Sister Imperator was the only woman he had called mother, he and Secondo were mostly raised by an older nun who was particularly affectionate to him; She affectionately referred to him as her 'little prince,' a nickname later adopted by his brothers. She provided the maternal tenderness that Sister Imperator lacked, becoming the person he sought for comfort or advice, offering a hug whenever needed.

His teenage years were undoubtedly the darkest and most troubled. He was solitary and reticent from a young age, seeking solace in metal music and poetry, but unable to fill the internal void except by being cruel to the weaker individuals, such as the orphans of the Ministry. Copia in particular, due to an inexplicable attraction force, was his primary victim. While he might have later recognized this as a projection of his own orphaned background, he refused to admit it.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t always the most sought after among his brothers, despite being strikingly beautiful. He was considered too sensitive and enigmatic by girls, his beauty too particular, dark and delicate that managed to attract only a small target of girls (and a considerable part of boys), with others preferring the more conventional appeal of Secondo; Yet, his presence invariably captured attention whenever he entered a room. However, things changed with maturity as his demeanor evolved and grew stronger. Surprisingly, he found that the more he adopted a somewhat haughty and snobbish attitude, the more attractive he became.

He began using makeup after realizing that his musical idols did the same. Starting with black nail polish and kajal, he eventually experimented with dark lipsticks, primarily during parties or private gatherings.

Prohibited from developing a healthy emotional and sentimental side, he, like others destined for the papacy, was strongly advised against engaging in loving and stable relationships that could detract from their paths. This rule affected him more deeply due to his sensitive nature, stunting his emotional growth. This, however, didn't prevent him from forming at least a healthy and free relationship with sex. Potential romantic involvements often crumbled due to his obsessive and controlling behavior, stemming from his struggles to control his feelings; This later developed in chronic anxiety. He managed to soften that side of him with time, returning to a distinctive romanticism. 

He wasn't a top-performing student but possessed a different kind of intuition and extensive knowledge in his preferred subjects. He was just too easily distracted to listen to someone explain boring stuff in a boring way.

He would not consider himself a feticist, just… curious. His weak points in bodies are wrists and ankles. He likes them thin.

Copia

Despite being the only biological son of Nihil and Sister Imperator, his fate was the most arduous among his brothers. He was condemned to live as an orphan within the Ministry until his Papacy.

Shy and introverted, he made earnest attempts to gain acceptance, yet consistently met with failure, which left him disheartened and caused him to abandon further efforts.

His challenging childhood did not mold him into a cruel or unstable individual. On the contrary, it fostered a profound sense of empathy and sensitivity, especially towards those considered less valuable, both people and animals, such as rats. 

His affinity for these creatures began when he rescued a rat ensnared in a glue trap in the Ministry garden. He cares for the creature in secret until he could request a proper cage to keep it.

That first rat was then killed by Terzo’s cat. He swears to have seen Terzo wait for him to arrive and watch while he gave Bastet the go to attack, but was never believed and that episode just fell under “incident” label. That episode deeply scar him until adulthood.

He put all his efforts into study and the goal to become a prominent personality in the Ministry. He looked at the Emeritus brothers with admiration and desire to demonstrate his worth one day, even if his introversion and insecurities often worked against him.

He enjoyed spending time looking at the illustrations in the animal encyclopedia. Occasionally, he'd jot down notes and sketches in his notebook. He still has some of those notes.

To his surprise, his clumsy ways started to gain unexpected success with girls, in his youth. He discovered that some girls preferred harmless and amusing individuals over dominant alpha males. However, his insecurities tempered his confidence, and he typically allowed the girls to take the lead in romantic advances. When he asked a girl why she liked him, she simply answered, “You're not scary like the other guys. You're sweet and funny, and I feel like I could tear you apart and eat your insides, not the other way around.” He cherished and treasured that comment

His first time with a boy was quite easier than with a girl, for him. He just felt less anxious.

He had a secret crush on Terzo for a long time, despite the treatment he received by him. He probably realized his bisexuality by looking at him. Discovering their shared parentage was quite an awkward moment.

When he was promoted following Terzo's removal, he experienced an explosive boost in confidence; however, it didn't endure for too long.

Sister Imperator

During her youth, she immersed herself in the Summer of Love movement, becoming a groupie for numerous rock bands between the 1960s and 1970s. Her association with satanism began upon meeting Anton LaVey and Kenneth Anger at one of their parties and even took part in their Witches Sabbath.

She had several relationships, all failed very badly. Despite being a beautiful, strong woman, she lacked emotional intelligence and always fell like strong women fall: fast, hard and for the wrong guys.

Her on-and-off relationship with Nihil persisted for years. Despite leaving the Ministry multiple times due to his unreliability, she always forgave the unforgivable. Eventually, she permanently returned, even accepting to take care of his children, as she realized she had no alternative place to go for herself and her son, finding no other solace beyond the confines of the cult. 

The person she became in her later years was a product of the disillusionment that consumed her after her relationship with Nihil failed, compounded by postpartum depression following the birth of Copia. A beautiful, lively, and strong girl transformed into an empty shell, teeming with hatred and resentment. After Nihil, she was undoubtedly not the same woman she once was. In a way she was unable to explain, she found herself unable to resist loving and remaining devoted to him.

When discovering she was pregnant of Nihil she felt happy and couldn’t wait to tell him, until she had the final proof of what a twat he was. She had genuinely hoped for a chance to settle down after a life of excesses and failed tales. She made the decision not to disclose the existence of Copia to him and spent years trying to recover from that significant letdown. She vowed to herself never to place trust in another person again.

Despite her libertine life and being into BDSM, all she secretly hoped for was a romantic love and a family.

She named her son Copia in the hope he would grow looking like Nihil. In her delusional fantasies during postpartum depression, she swore that if she could not have the love of his man, she would have the one of their son. A mini version of him that, it turned out, didn’t resemble him in anything. To her horror and surprise, the only sons that really resembled Nihil turned out to be the first three he had with other women.

Some say she used to sneak into the orphans rooms at night to quietly talk or sing to Copia in his sleep in his first years. Sometimes she was seen crying on his bed, repeating to herself that all she was doing was for his protection.

Nihil

Nihil wasn't inherently a bad man; he was brimming with good intentions that, unfortunately, he couldn't fulfill. Strangely, he seemed to consistently squander the positive opportunities the universe presented to him, including the Ghost band, despite being a talented musician and composer.

He met Sister Imperator when performing at a satanic party organized by LaVey and Anger in the 60’s. She led him into the cult and into BDSM.

In creating Ghost, he followed the path of the emerging rock bands of the '60s, drawing inspiration mainly from Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Like Jimmy Page, he held deep admiration for Aleister Crowley, even claiming that Satan himself directed him to form the band.

His genuine love for Sister Imperator endured throughout his life, but his emotional disconnect and inability to take things seriously ultimately led to the downfall of their relationship. He struggled to express the depth of his affection for her. 

Upon assuming the role of Papa, he focused solely on the persona, using it as a shield to avoid any emotional entanglements, and this emotional evasion intensified over time. 

He always neglected his responsibilities, including parenting and, were it not for Sister Imperator's assistance, he might have faltered in his papal role too.

While Primo was coming to life, he was cheating his mother with another groupie. Being still too drunk to think about a better name, he just named him by the first thing that came in his mind. The other two names went by naturally.

In his later years, he was gradually marginalized, losing any substantial influence on the papacy of his heirs. Sister Imperator gained complete control over the Clergy and his son's fate without him even realizing.

He only vehemently opposed Terzo's and Copia's promotions, deeming them unsuitable for the role.

[jackalope-with-a-pen]

.....oops. the last time I made a post here was in June. 😂😅

anyway.

It's super exciting that a lot of the pulp tags on ao3 are canonized now (I did finally go back to my published fic and add some tags I was missing from @tapestryoftrauma's very helpful tag guide like I've been meaning to, lol) and I've been thinking about my Radiant Sunsets blorbos since ep 4 aired so I think I'm gonna get back to working on that series!

My current wip, Keys To The Press And Keys To The Door, is at 2.7k and I would like to finish it so I can get to writing the other parts I'm really excited for. I have thoughts and ideas and a lot of notes thrown together because this series has officially upgraded from my notes app to its own growing doc. 🤩

[kaiowut99]

ARC-V Dubbed Episode 1... “Uncut”?! (Re-Edited 4K Dub/Japanese OST)

Swing Into Action/”A Trail of Light -- The Pendulum Summon″ [WIP #1 | WIP #2 | WIP #3 | Release WIP #4 (New!)]

Ladies and gentlemen! (And everyone in between, of course)

Finally time to get this edit off my project backburner, haha. After plugging away at this for more than a year--or I may have actually started this a little in 2022 at some point, but due to my SSD dying on me in October of that year, I pretty much lost everything and eventually had to restart this--my "dub-uncut" take on ARC-V episode 1's dub is all done! As when I worked on those 5D's "dub-uncut" episodes, I find that there's some potential in the 4K/KCM dubs, but overall it's hampered by the dub's music [which especially hurts for ARC-V given the awesome Japanese score by Kotaro Nakagawa], some writing/voice-direction choices, and other little oddities/cuts; like with that mini-project, the goal of this, as a successor to the dub-with-JP-OST take on episode 10's first 10-or-so minutes I worked on years back which served as the project's catalyst (now with better voice-isolating tech available), is to re-score the dub with the Japanese soundtrack, while also modifying the dialogue in spots to be closer to the Japanese dialogue (using either dialogue from other episodes or Duel Links/Cross Duel voicelines as needed) while editing it to the Japanese footage.

I'd been chipping away at this mostly for the past year, but worked a bit more on finalizing it and leveling the audio over the past few months to get it off the backburner, lol, along with revamping my subs for BelieveXBelieve and One Step (the former including a revamped edit of Sawatari's cards being hidden [as V1 of this OP with that was never released textless officially] and reprising my edit during the chorus to translate "KABA CARNIVAL" sliding in under the Hippo Tokens to "HIPPO CARNIVAL"; both also use the singable translations I worked on years back, though One Step's is shortened in spots). I also looked into commissioning a voiceover artist to provide voiceovers for the undubbed pre-OP prologues throughout ARC-V, and I'm very happy with the results provided by mattsindt over on Fiverr! 😄

As for the episode itself, overall they did a good job sticking to the original dialogue, so my edits were more to bring them in line with the original dialogue in those spots where they weren't. Gong[enzaka] gets his early line modified to include the names of the Monsters he's tributing; I removed Yuzu's "what do you have to say for yourself"/"figures" pre-OP; Yuya's "boulder" crack at Gong was removed; Nico gets his "as in free" line edited slightly to fit that part over the hand motion he does that was cut; I did have to slightly recycle some of Yusho's dialogue in the flashback because it was shortened some in the dub; I kept Yuya quiet as Sledgehammer [Ishijima] reacts to seeing him in the clown getup; I grabbed some Nico lines from the Maiami Championship arc to remove the added computer voice as the Action Cards get dispersed after the eyecatch; added in a missing "Ladies and gentlemen!" for Yuya as he swings towards making his first move; Yoko's lines during the Yuya flashbacks were swapped a bit since the dub swapped the scenes; I stitched together a "I tribute Hip Hippo to Tribute-Summon" line before Yuya summons Odd-Eyes Dragon, timing his hype line for it closer to JP Yuya's line; due to the aforementioned Yusho-flashback trimming, I had to get a little creative with his lines in the pre-Pendulum scene as Yuya remembers his words; I stitched together a full line about Yuya using the Magicians to set the Pendulum Scale to remove the "I'm taking control" bit; I added his "Pendulum Summon!" shout from episode 6 and shortened his "My Monsters [are ready to] swing into action!"; during the preview, I used lines from ep. 2 [or DL] that were similar to the JP dialogue, using a recycled "How'd he do that?" from ep 1 for Yuzu where it came up; and other little things here/there. Oh, and also, I've replaced and will be replacing every mention of "Zuzu" back to "Yuzu." 💁🏽‍♂️ (Still A Choice to change her name for a reference five people would get...) I might also be doing the same with mentions of "LID" to "LDS" depending on what audio works, to be consistent with the visuals [and later "Lancer Defense Soldiers"], while still keeping "Leo Institute" as an alternate name for it. (There will likely be some scenes that'll be in Japanese with hardsubs as 4K cut them, as opposed to trimming; Sora's Synchro-explanation scene in 10 or 11 comes to mind; we'll see what audio's available to make something work. Also, if Ishijima ever comes to Duel Links, I'll revise this to add in some "My turn! Draw!" lines lol.)

And speaking of visuals, I've also applied a few visual translation edits to help enhance the "what if dubbed straighter" feel to this; I translated the destination sign on the bus early in the episode, the Yusho poster at You Show, the Fan Appreciation Day poster that Nico shows to Yuya/co--a leftover from when I planned to sub ARC-V like I do my GX subs, before Crunchyroll took the wheel, though I had to revamp it (thankfully had it posted here so it survived my drive failure) and newly do the Yuya/"Special Match" closeup--and the sign on the building behind Yuya as he's crying during his flashback. I thought of resuming my attempt to translate the billboards during the early panning shot of the downtown area, but I couldn't find good enough reference shots for some of the further away/smaller ones (saves me some madness in the end, no doubt); I'll be translating stuff as feasible in future episodes, like location references in establishing shots/etc.

Footage-wise, I also chose to work off the DVD video I've had for years (with encodes for episodes 1-4 provided by GX_ST), largely because they have touchups done to the art/animation after the episodes' airings on TV that aren't used in the Crunchyroll or Amazon TV masters that make up the 1080p downloads available. (I do think the dub itself works off the DVD masters overall, and I may see if it's feasible to try and splice that footage as needed with the 1080p downloads, since the DVD masters are unfortunately not at their total best [how do you have a show airing in HD but release 480p DVDs and not BluRays guys pls save us Discotek].) I'd love to see proper/touched-up DVD rips made of ARC-V sometime, but as it is, none are available (not even from Astral_Union or NW-Sartiend who did rips for GX/ZEXAL and 5D's).

So, as with the 5D's project, I'll be releasing these over on NeoArkCradle (where I also post my GX work), as both an .mkv with the original video and a hardsubbed .avi with the visual edits, and I'll be making a Masterpost to compile the hardsub/visually-edited streaming links. The .mkv files will be dual-audio with this and the Japanese audio, with subs for the full JP audio (sourced from Crunchyroll with edits by me, as credited at the start), Signs/Lyrics per the dub audio, and Signs/Lyrics per the JP audio (It is funny how I didn't plan to sub ARC-V given CR being on it, but in revising their subs for this, I still made more than a few edits to effectively make it my own take, so I guess I am kinda 🙃 [how is their sub timing so bad])

Aaanywho, with all that establishing info out of the way, hopefully this came out nicely! Am definitely planning to work on more episodes, so stay tuned as I get those started. The fun's just swinging into action!

[aeternallis]

The Third Song / Why Kim chose to rewrite Chay’s first song 

So one day, I was thinking about what happened to that song Kim was working on in episode 9. 🤔 The tune Kim strums and vocalizes to is pretty catchy, and so I also wondered about how we don’t get a lot of scenes of Kim’s creative process with his music in general, yknow?

I have a fic idea about this subject in the works also, so I figured I may as well write a meta too to get my thoughts in order. Haha!

But before I go on and start ranting, for the sake of this meta I think it’s important to establish the level of fame Wik already has by the start of the show. Admittedly, it’s quite difficult to do this since Kim’s persona of Wik hardly makes an appearance, and the show didn’t necessarily focus on Kim’s life as a celebrity. But from the minimal amount of clues, I think it’s okay to make an educated guess. 

From Chay’s shrine, we know that Kim has done at least one photoshoot with GQ (if memory serves me correctly), and a number of smaller publications. So he’s gotten some exposure already; his fame isn’t limited to the internet, in other words. Due to this, it’s most likely he does have a PR team of some sort, by virtue of being a public figure and most likely because he’s an heir to the Theerapanyakuls’ (very public) business empire. There’s no way Kim can afford to remain a private citizen, not only due to the notoriety of his family, but as well as his own celebrity status. 

Incidentally however, it’s also hard to look at the crowd size in the university during Kimchay’s first meeting as an indicator of his fame, because I imagine the school would have had to make it very clear to the staff that the performance was for prospective students only and perhaps have prevented non-students from entering the grounds to see his impromptu show. Furthermore, according to the trivia session at the time, he’s also starred in a number of MVs, and we know he has a recording studio of his own. 

Yet still, Ohm is not aware of who he is, and if we give Ohm the metaphorical role of being the outsider to all this, it would seem Kim’s fame is also somewhat contained. This being the case, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Kim is also most likely under a label as an indie artist, since I feel like he does not yet have enough clout that he can move to build his career independently. 

So if I were to take a gander at Kim's fame, I would probably say it’s at the level of Jeff Satur’s just before he made his official announcement of leaving BOC–rising fame to come close to reaching national stardom, but not just yet to say he’s a true international (or even regional) star. 

(Arguably, one can also say that a good chunk of his fame is his good looks, but that’s a different meta altogether, lol)

Having established his level of fame for this rant, now I can maybe make a gander at tackling his creative/thought process. XD 

By the time we’ve reached past the midway point of the show, the audience sees that despite the level of success he’s achieved so far in his career as a musician, Kim is currently in a bit of a creative rut / writer’s block.

We see perhaps a hint of it in episode 4 when he’s just nonchalantly strumming his guitar off camera before Big hands him Porsche’s bodyguard application, but we don’t see it explicitly until episode 9, when he’s visibly frustrated by the WIP song he’s trying to figure out:

So by this point, there’s technically two completed songs between him and Chay, as well as a WIP song that he was struggling with. For reference, I’ll refer to the songs between them as follows: 1stver.WDYS (ep 5), TSiCY (ep 8), Kim’s WIP song (ep 9), and Finalver.WDYS (ep 14). 

So knowing that Kim’s WIP song was partly inspired by Chay, knowing that Kim currently had a song in the works, why did he not choose this WIP song to sing to Chay in their final scene together? Why did he choose to rework Chay’s 1stver.WDYS to become his (Kim’s) Finalver.WDYS, when he already had a song up in his sleeve that was different from the other two? 

Why choose to re-write one of Chay’s songs, rather than use one of his own? 

Thematically and for their relationship, choosing to re-write 1stver.WDYS makes perfect sense. This is the song that holds the most weight between them, because it was the very first one they had worked on together (kinda, lol). It carries with it a powerful sense of nostalgia, of simpler times, and it’s a symbol of all that had been between them before everything fell apart.

Furthermore, Kim came into Chay’s life at a time when Chay had been vulnerable and very much alone. In a way, WDYS–both its first version and final version–is symbolic of Chay’s and Kim’s own narrative journeys, of their respective worlds expanding beyond just the simple (yet also very complicated) existence they’d been living up until that point, into allowing one another into their hearts. The yearning within Finalver!WDYS’s lyrics can apply to both Kim and Chay, which makes it all the more resonate with the audience. 

Yet still, this is only partly the point of view of the audience, not necessarily of Kim himself (although there is some overlap). 

So what would have been Kim’s thought process when he’d decided to rewrite 1stverWDYS? How would he have ultimately decided to willingly choose to steal from Chay? 

After all, Kim is a musician, an artist. One who is starting to grow exponentially in fame, but also one who does take his craft very seriously. Being as Kim is an artist, he would know more than anyone what it means to have artistic integrity in his field. Especially with how the music industry is nowadays, I would imagine that Kim is the type to do whatever he could to stand out, but not so much that he would be the sort to just copy someone else’s style. He has his pride, for one, and he wouldn’t have garnered fame the way he did had he been in the habit of copying. 

On top of that, it's not hard to see that music is very much personal to Kim; it's an alternative avenue for him to express himself and his thoughts and feelings.

In the end, the way I personally see it, Kim choosing to rewrite 1stver.WDYS was very much a calculated move, designed to break through Chay’s defenses, to illustrate his intent in getting Chay back, and what he’s willing to sacrifice and do in order to do just that. 

Nostalgia - This is the first song they ever worked on in the studio, and at least for Chay, carries significant weight emotionally. It’s a song initially about Porsche, and the impact he’s had on Chay’s life. Knowing that this song means so much to Chay, I don’t think Kim is above using that emotional significance and turning it on its head to change the meaning of the song: from Porsche’s influence in Chay’s life to Chay’s influence in Kim’s life, in order to bring Chay’s guard down.  (Sidenote: In a way, WDYS carries more weight than TSiCY ever did, even if that's the song that was meant to express Chay's feelings for Kim. TSiCY was straightforward, and accomplished what Chay set out to do: complete the homework Kim gave him, and express his feelings to his idol while he was at it.) During their final scene in episode 14, there’s hints that it's the first time Kim reaches out to Chay in a month, if not the first time Kim has reached out to him in this specific manner. If Kim has any hope of capturing Chay’s attention as soon as he catches him off guard and he clicks on that video link, Kim has to be able to not only grab Chay’s attention right off the bat, but also keep it. What better way to hold Chay’s attention than to serenade back to him the first song he ever wrote? When Kim chose to rewrite 1stver.WDYS, it wasn’t necessarily to impress Chay, but to grab hold of his attention with the least possible chance of Chay closing out the video and turning his attention elsewhere. 

Intent to show Chay that he wants him romantically - This is pretty straightforward, looking at the Thai version of the song, and its translation (Ex: Just you, just having you, no matter what. A world without stars but the two of us will move forward). It’s a song about yearning, of wanting Chay back in his life, of how much Kim has missed him.  Per Jeffy himself, WDYS is a love song. (credit to IYSmomo on Twitter for that translation!)

Sure, his delivery of the song in the video makes it sound like an apology, perhaps, but ultimately, WDYS is a love song–a most selfish one at that, and within the context of that final scene between them, also highlights Kim’s nature as a Theerapanyakul. This boy easily throws away integrity over his shoulder to tell Chay he’s in love with him. Lol If that isn’t in keeping with family tradition, I don’t know what does~  Could Finalver!WDYS act as an apology? Does Kim regret his treatment of Chay? Meh, debatable imo, considering his deception was meant to safeguard his family and figure out the mysterious circumstances surrounding Porsche’s swift employment. Sure, there’s definitely guilt, but regret? That’s up for interpretation. 

Intent to show Chay what he’s willing to give up - Oddly enough, Kim is completely honest with Chay only twice in the show: the first time they meet, as well as their final scene together. By the time Kim sends him the video link, the mask Kim wears as Wik has been completely discarded. It’s a bold and risky choice to get rid of this mask, even temporarily, because this is the armor Kim has in his sleeve that separates his life away from the mafia. And he does get rid of it, not only because he singles out Chay in that video, but by appropriating Chay’s song in the first place, had Chay been a lot more vindictive than what his disposition allows, this is incriminating evidence of his theft. Lol  But getting back on point: Wik is Kim’s livelihood outside of the mafia. Without this mask, is it even still possible for him to operate outside the mafia? It’s a dramatic question, but I think a legitimate one, considering he’s put quite a bit of stock and time in perfecting it, to the point he’s close to reaching national stardom.  Yet still, he gets rid of that mask when he sings to Chay of his feelings. At the very least, for Chay, he’s willing to drop that armor altogether to tell him he’s in love with him. It’s a powerful statement, and imo, shows the depth of his feelings for Chay, in that he’s willing to sacrifice it entirely, if it would mean being with him.

Writer’s Block / Chay is Kim’s muse – Of course, I don’t think we can dismiss the fact that Kim was going through a bit of a creative block during the time we see him in the show. Perhaps we can say that part of the reason Kim chose to rewrite 1stver.WDYS is because he couldn’t think of anything else. Lol Thinking of Chay was able to get him out of the block in episode nine, and he was able to figure out the chords for the WIP song. Chay is definitely a muse and a source of inspiration for Kim. Yet still, I don’t want to be too hasty in making the leap in logic that he couldn’t think of anything else, since we don’t see him past the point after he sings Finalver.!WDYS to Chay. We don’t know whether he continues to struggle with his creative block, or if he manages to get past it (especially for when he and Chay get back together--//hits).

Ultimately, Kim’s gamble to repurpose Chay’s song about Porsche–although he doesn’t know it just yet–works greatly in his favor, judging by Chay’s reaction in the end: Chay not only watches the video all the way through, he’s unable to click “Delete” right away, unlike the other times, when he’d blocked Kim without hesitation. 

The fact that Kim can make that decision to take Chay’s song to use it for his own purposes, the fact that Chay can listen to his own song that’s been stolen and repurposed, only goes to show that at the end of it all, they’re still very much wrapped around each other’s fingers.

[aces-and-angels]

5, 7, 11

hello hello beloved human🖤 a thousand thanks to you for sending these in

answers below cut:

---

5. how many wips do you have? what fandoms/pairings are they for?

currently, i'm rocking with three wips: 2 for the windverse (one of them with a sprinkle of martin x wind) and 1 for it lives within (abel x mc; i'm so sorry to this beauty that's been shelved- the loa phase is working its magic on me rn)

7. post a snippet from a wip

bc you asked about enid earlier, it's only fair that you see what i've been cooking up for her. here's the opening to 'the tale of enid'

Park & Davis; Manhattan, New York; one year ago… Every day was like clockwork. Up at 6:00 AM. Out at 7:00 AM. On the A train by 7:30 AM, iced chai in hand.  There were several stories to be told crammed inside one subway car. Epics of wannabe musicians desperate for someone to listen to their latest EP. Chronicles of broke college students rushing through assignments splayed over their laps. Legends of wide-eyed tourists ready to explore the big city. And sitting just by the sliding doors was the greatest of them all- the tale of Enid Mendoza, attorney at law.  The official workday didn’t start for another hour, which gave her just enough time to prepare for yet another deposition. The client: Randall Guzman, a 49 year old Hispanic male and owner of Guzman’s Jewelry. Over $40,000 worth of product was stolen from his shop last month, making him the latest victim of a string of armed robberies centered in the Bronx area. Not Enid’s usual clientele, but a favor is a favor.

11. do you write scenes in order, or do you jump around?

i'm going in order; there are times where i wish i could jump to a scene that i want to write about at that moment, but the thing between my ears is adamant that i lay out some proper groundwork first 😭

at most- i'll jot down a line/dialogue that i know i'll want to include and then start from the beginning of whatever fic i'm working on

ask game

[s3thwrit3sstuff]

Hi Seth!! I finally found the time to write a proper message…

First off, all your recent works have been so good! Your art too, it’s all so well done. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything sally face and it made me go watch some old playthroughs… brought me back to my childhood.

(Also, not sure how I never noticed your creepypasta work? Reignited a few of my childhood crushes.)

I don’t know why but I always get so giddy when I see song lyrics from the songs I recommended being used, I’m so glad you like them as much as I do.

I’m sorry anons are being rude in your messages, I fear they need to relearn the virtue of patience and that you don’t owe them work. I personally am willing to wait however long you need for one of your works (even if it isn’t in a fandom I’m from) because I know your works are always absolutely amazing and nothing short of a masterpiece. <3

Have you listened to Ariana’s new album and Hozier’s new EP? I loved ‘We can’t be friends’, ‘don’t wanna break up again’, ‘boy is mine’, and ‘I wish I hated you’ from Ari’s album specifically, although every song in that album was so good. ‘Too Sweet’ and ‘Fare Well’ were my favorite from Hozier’s album, the guitar in both is just so good.

My recommendation for this time (if you haven’t heard it already) is Luna Day’s ‘Obsessed’ and ‘Say it Back’. Unrequited love songs will always have a special place in my heart.

I hope you’ve been well! I missed being able to send messages but school has been kicking my ass… Rereading your works has reinspired me to finally go work on my wips tho lmao

Lots of love,

-Music anon! 🎶🎶🎶

Music nonnie! ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

I’m so sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I always worry a bit about not replying with the same energy sometimes because every time you send an ask it makes me so excited 🥹 I just wanna sit down and give proper responses!

Hehehe, I’m happy to hear the fics have made you stroll down memory lane~! I scoured around online for Sal Fisher X Male!Reader works for so long, that I decided to just make my own at that point. Truly, a queer icon Sa is 😤 I’ve only ever watched Jacksepticeyes playthrough, although! I am peeking at the dubbed playthrough that I saw floating around 👀 Thank you so much for supporting my writings and my art 🥹

(Whenever I streamed myself playing Sally Face on Discord with my IRL friends, we always made silly voices so hearing real VAs do it instead sounds both fun and humbling, lmaooo)

Also! Yes! I’m a huge Creepypasta fan 😫 I may need to touch up on their new “fan-official” lore now but TBH, I tend to just make up my own little stories for them in my head. 💀Very happy to hear that you’ve returned to the trenches that is the creepypasta fandom ☝️😋

About the anons,,,yeah :/// Unfortunately, some people think just because writers are writing fanfiction, we’re not entitled to some respect and patience. I am so thankful for your kindness and understanding, Music nonnie 🥹 You have no idea how comforting your words are to me 🤍

I only listened to “We Can’t Be Friends” but I hopped on to listen to her entire album and my heart hurt 😭 The upbeat songs were so funky though! But “I Wish I Hated You,” made me wanna sob (instantly added to the Gojo YN playlist ☝️).

Hozier always slaps with his siren songs. Seducing me with his voice and lyricism and ARCK! “Too Sweet,” makes me wanna gnaw off my own arm because of how good it is, god...

I’ve listened to the two songs and you never miss 😭 The lyrics, the instrumentals, the vocals...They both sound so full of yearning but so different! Like, they both love someone but they way its expressed makes them angsty itch in my brain go stupid and crazy 😫 You always give me such a big boost in writing with your songs recommendations, ong.

I hope you’ve been doing well, too! School sucks but I know you’ll get through it, I believe in you! >:3 I’d love to read some of your works once they’re published! We can be mooties! 🥺

All my love to you, Music Nonnie! I’m terribly sorry that I suck at replies but I adore your messages and your music so much 🥹

[athousandbyeol]

wip tag

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have wips.

tagged by @silverquillsideas :) thanks for the tag.

i just realised i have so many wips... hahaha

we're the shape of our love (even if it's imperfect) [forcebook/former muay thai player force x basketballer book/hurt/comfort, angst, slice of life, hope] this is supposed to be the second part of the story written from force's pov. i couldn't find the rhythm so i ended up writing only a few paragraphs and stopped. i might get back to it someday.

it's the buzzing sound [forcebook] this has no title tbh, but from what i remember, this was supposed to be another angsty forcebook story.

and i shall wait for you, even when the world is blue. [morkday/angst] this document is literally blank hahaha i didn't know why there was nothing written. maybe i just thought the title was beautiful but couldn't really think about the story.

we fall like the stars (and i'm wishing upon you)/it only takes seven days (and all i need is seven more) [original characters/forcebook/angst, death, bittersweet] so i have this idea that i wanted to write (note: try) during my semester break. it's an original story based on forcebook as the main characters. the official title for this story is a secret but right now, i'm constructing the character profile and the plot of the story. this one is going to be a bit dark and sad (if i ever write it).

never the same [forcebook/office romance, fluff] i had this floofy idea while i was watching the mv for sam kim's scent. i wanted to write this one today but i couldn't find the spark in me to begin so... but i'll write it someday. hopefully!

lights down low [topmew/introspective, sharing a bed] this was another idea vomit i had after i saw a few topmew gifsets. i was reminded of how heartbreakingly adorable top looked snuggling close to mew. so... yeah.

hollow prayers from mere sinners. [morkday/forbidden love] i think i got this idea after watching ep 9. it was based on their bam bam in the ham scene. but i posted a story inspired by the scene titled once again, i'll say it whenever i can. so, this might not be a wip? hahaha idk

tell me [topmew, topboston, topboeing/angst, polyamorous relationship, heartbreak] i wrote a few paragraphs today but i couldn't find the drive to write it. but yes, this might be posted at the most random time and on the most random day so...

these are all my wips and they're mainly forcebook :') it shows how much i miss actors!forcebook that i keep writing scenarios just to feed the longing in me omo

tagging my writer friend @forcebookish because i don't have many friends and i'm just a weird potato

(anyone who sees this and is interested in participating, feel free to do so!)

[captainaikus]

I AM BACK!!!!!!! And idk if you saw the post I tagged you in explaining and apologizing tumblrs being wonky again because I didn’t see that bachisagi post you tagged me in on your main until I was scrolling through and catching up just now. I have been swamped with juggling school staring again, family, and that friend stuff I told you abt. And the only free time I’ve had is watching TR. I HAVENT EVEN WATCHED THE LATEST BLLK EPISODE YET AND I WANNA SOB BECAUSE ITS THE POST-BACHISAGI BREAKUP EP 😭😭😭. I’ve just had no energy at the end of the day and every time I think I finally have time to respond back to you something always comes up and I wanna tear my hair out. I PROMISE I HAVENT BEEN IGNORING YOU LOVE. But I understand if you’re upset at me and I’m sorry Belle.

I was furious like my blood was boiling when I saw your fic got flagged down. Like what is wrong with people??? Can you not just let other people be and keep your negativity to yourself??? Just because you’re falling doesn’t mean you have to drag others with you asshole. Seriously. You did not deserve that and being so angry and upset over it (with it happening AGAIN and it not even being the FIRST time unwarranted) is completely understandable, I’d be pissed too. I still am actually. It’s so frustrating working so hard on something and then getting pointless hate for it like get a life and stay away from me. 😤😤😒

On another note, I have been getting SO MUCH Tokyo Revengers content the past few days and that has been my only relief from this hectic week. Im being fed so well girl. New episodes every Saturday with my favorite arc being animated, the new character book, new official arts, AND SO MUCH MORE AFJHFFHJGHINH. Also I’m so sorry I missed your event 😭😭😭. You even extended it and I had so many asks saved too 🥲🥲. But I didn’t wanna just demand stuff without explaining where I’d been because I’m not an ass like that but every time I started drafting something for you (not for the event) I’d get interrupted 😒😒. *sighs heavily*

IVE BEEN READING YOUR EVENT ASKS CAUSE I JUST GOT OUT OF CLASS AND ASDFJJGFFHHGFKJ THEYRE ALL SO GOOD BELLE 😭😭. I love them all so freaking much (esp the Bachira ones 👀😌✨) and I’m sad I couldn’t participate but hopefully next time. BUT DONT WORRY IM ALREADY DRAFTING AN ASK FOR THE MATCHUP EVENT THERES NO WAY IM MISSING THAT 😤😤.

CONGRATULATIONS ON 1.9K BELLE IM SO FREAKING PROUD OF YOU LOVE!!!!! 🥹😭❤️ Your numbers keep climbing so fast and it’ll only be a matter of time before you hit 2k 😌😌. Also I’m so glad you’re getting support from new people too and how they’re all loving your works it’s so heartwarming to see and read and really a testament to how far you r come. Be proud of yourself because no matter how much hate you get you’re still continuing to do amazing love ❤️❤️❤️.

I really am sorry for going MIA for a bit there and I understand if you’re upset with me. How’ve you been irl btw?? Uni going well I hope? How’s gym? Has your break ended yet? Go on and vent if you need to love!! Update me on your life because I truly do want to know how’re you’re doing yknow?? Remember to take breaks and take care of yourself love!!! Eat something and drink a glass of water if you haven’t today!!! *sending all the virtual hugs because I missed you and I’m sorry*

p.s. no asks on the way soon 👀🫡

- ✨ anon

Starry!! Ofc I’m not upset with you! You’re usually very active on my blog, so I figured something must’ve come up cause you were away. I wanted to drop in your askbox; but I could find it so I decided to tag you in my posts instead to see if you’re doing alright and you’re doing well so I’m relieved <3

Tumblr has been acting wonky :/ - literally. I had to write to staff about my posts not showing up in the tags and all they did was delete it?

I figured since it was taking so long, I might as well just shift to ao3 and my work has been good so far - working on a yandere rin wip and I’m about 2k words in but since Uni and work keeps getting in the way, i can’t finish it as fast. But. Ik for the fact that this’ll be worth the wait cause. You’ll see 😏

As for my works getting flagged down, it is an inconvenience, but with every work that does get flagged down - people on the other side of the screen are just proving the fact that they can’t keep up with my writing or the fact that my content is well received and I get mostly healthy interactions. I was pretty angry with it, but then I just decided to take it to ao3 instead and I had been thinking about this for months. I take that this was a sign that I should do it and not leave it as a plan cause tumblr has turned toxic over a period of time, among authors and readers alike. So why not minimize the trouble for everyone go somewhere better? Ao3 had really good content;

More plot leaning and good story lines with occasional smut, and both sides are really chilled out. Plus another thing that disappoints me about tumblr is that smut sells really fast here and even Twitter links get more likes than actual writing. And after thinking over it for a while - I realized that my writings are more to do with things human along with lust than just purely writing about lust yk? So in short, my work isn’t meant for tumblr. And I’m not a very interactive author either - I don’t reblog much works and neither do I have any author I can personally recommend cause I stopped reading fanfics here about 2 years ago and I don’t even check the tags anymore since then, only to see if my work showed up or not. but anyway- i made my moveout official still gonna answer asks and host events here tho - and talk to anyone about stuff in general

now talking about tokyo rev, super happy about the new season coming out and honestly? this is the fastest i've seen them make it cause JJBA fans- ykw i'm talking about. Had to wait so long just for stone ocean part 2 to come out And i'm really looking forward to watching vinland saga (cause that's out and istg - canute is such a pretty boy, this is that one anime that made me cry cause Askeladd. nvm I don't wanna give spoilers) AND YES! you did make it to the matchup event !! (i got your ask) as for the character ask i had fun with it as well - Some of the highlight questions I liked; one of them was a question for Rin, asking if (y/n) was single? and istg the way i laughed cause the way he would have a look on his face after that, Bachira is a ray of sunshine to have - such a cutie (>///<) [take your time on working starry! There’s not rush! Ik how annoying it is to get interrupted when you’re writing something] And tysm for your kind words !! Seriously though I should be thanking you guys for giving me your support esp you starry - cause you were one of the first anons along with blue to actually make a convo on my blog and it kinda made other people wanna talk as well (҂ ꒦ິヮ꒦ິ) And no! I'm not upset with you! I knew something was maybe up cause you're never usually gone this long - And you can come to my blog anytime you want - to rant, ask for advice or just talk anything 'kay? ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა As for uni, its on full throttle - *sigh* so much work to do but I'm working on it a little everyday and getting things done as soon as possible. but the cold is making me so drowsy to function. I cut my hair shorter too, its an undercut with a pixie so now i look like a fem ver of corpse - And i re-watched some of my old animes - like i had the urge to watch devilman crybaby this week and i did. the only reason i watched that anime was cause of the clip i saw of Akira's... on the ceiling... (ikyk), rewatched death note - cause i wanted to see L and honestly L is THE emo king. (yeah i had a whole emo phase before turning into a dark academia/ classic aesthetic gal -) and alot of people are getting into tokyo ghoul - *finished the whole manga collection at the age of 14* As for gym... story time. I was busy lifting weights and this man. he is muscular sure, got bulging biceps and a lean body and yet. he had the audacity to chase me out of my corner in the gym and take it instead to lift his weights. He looked at me dead in the eye and gave me the meanest look possible. I couldn't take him seriously cause... he was shorter than me... *not size shaming i swear but when you look at me like that - i can't take you seriously* Me : I do not care if you're more macho than me, I will throw you across the gym, you tiny tiny man. And I just finished another whole bottle of water - hope you’re doing well starry! *sending hugs back*

[windydrawallday]

This is a nice way to poke around peeps, batty buddy! Thanks for leaving this open to grab (I hope what I'm doing in replying like this is fine)

Alright, let's unpack:

Currently, I'm working on 6 sequential artworks for my usual rarepair because I have a month without doing something for them and since the past year I have this thing dated to be posted on 11/11 (tomorrow).

Tho, a few hours ago I finished setting up a cardboard box to be my new photoshoot lightbox... tho I will need to delay the testing of it because I discovered my trusty lightbulb lamp broke u_u

This was quite a sunny weekend! Today the sun was so strong it helped to dry clothes and of course, the glue and painting I applied to the cardboard box I mentioned before x) So, it was a productive weekend with what I can manage in my current creative energy.

You already know what project and why I'm excited about it coff ISAID-

I doubt you want to know how many WIPs I put off for years. LMAOOO, there are too many to count, but if I need to pick one, it's making a Meet the Artist sort of presentation (I have the sketch, but I haven't inked it… since February orz).

My color scheme to go is usually the Magenta/Cyan/Yellow combo, LOL, but I like to pick other colors from this palette!

Show finished recently: Batman Animated Season 01! It is one of my oldest visual inspos, with the clear sharp grimdark + art deco mix that characterizes the cast and mature themes it shows. Show started recently: Scooby Doo Mystery Inc; I'm taking so many screenshots because the backgrounds with those grunge textures and abandoned feel is hella rad!

Comfort characters: I've been with the same rascals you know for three years right now. Four? LOL It's difficult for me to get attached this hard and for a long time to fictional characters. Though I can't call him a comfort character, I enjoyed the Penguin on Batman Animated! There was an EP where they let him show such an awkward and gentlemanly side that I just WANTED TO SQUISH HIM.

Books read: AFTER THREE YEARS I FINISHED KING'S DANSE MACABREEEEE. I saved lots and lots of QUOTES I will be citing and using in my work for decades to come MUHAHAHA coff I want to start reading NEXT YEAR Frankenstein: I left it half there idk why so, I will need to start over. It's for the better.

Someone that inspires me… Y O U The end

Re-reading/Rewatching: in my bookcase, I always have The Little Prince and Lovecraft Anthologies (quite the contrast, eh?). Now if we go very personal-intimate: Neverending Story will always be absolutely groundbreaking to me, it really deserves its in-book title of "the book of all books". In the movie department, I'll never get tired of Scooby Doo's animated movies between 1990-2000s, the animation and storytelling were top! In a memory stick, I have tho Treasure Planet and Atlantis: Los Empire for similar reasons.

About the rewatch/re-reading effects mmm I think it affects me but to certain games: movies and series are unilateral in interaction, with games the interaction depends on you and I admit even if I like a game with all my might… there's always a level or part of the story I loathe to do again orz

Collecting wise: I never was into it until robot hell tackled me and it made me brave to spend and be more versed in buying this or that figures and toys was quite an experience. Out of that… I print official artworks and plaster them in collages around my journal, that counts? xDU I don't live in a place where merch is easy to get. And yes I draw fanart so technically I printed my own merch too skdfhskjdhf

Laughing is a rare thing from me daily I'll refrain from replying because *explodes*

I personally see my art better as stickers and postcards in format… I never designed art for t-shirts and such… or even tattoos idk, I feel a tad uncomfortable in general to take my art in such bold ways? Something rare because I worked before doing logotypes and such mmmm

I'm stupidly multifacetic x'D From drawing traditionally and digitally with inks, watercolors, and acrylics to then sculpting with clay, and cold porcelain to then designing maquettes for packaging (I'm learning to use the cutting plotter) without counting baby steps knowledge on game coding… I would LOVE to sew my own plush toys but %D I don't have that level of patience… same with SCULPTING IN 3D??? Idk, that's witchcraft to me!

… Too many hobbies you can guess from what I said before this point HAHAHA Aside from character design and goofy worldbuilding mmm Board game design? Big dream of mine.

Something new I learned: using the cutting machine!!! Was like going back to my Illustrator era roots sdkfjhsdjf On a personal level… I turned back to my witchy side and created my first magic servitor, my first spell on the 31 of October and I'm excited to try more things during rituals!

I think I have enough of this year? Even if at times I feel like it won me over… it wasn't so bad. But I need to take action in setting more habits I left aside like walking more frequently and respecting my sleep schedule (I slipped bad so many times in the year, I think that's why I'm feeling so sleepy lately).

That's all I think! I hope you find it educative entertaining haha

Thanks once more for the opportunity x)

To bring a bit more social into social media…

Tell me what you’re working on!!

How’s you’re weekend going?

Do you have any projects or plans you’re excited for?

What’s one thing you feel like you need to work on but keep putting it off? (could be a wip or practice with drawing backgrounds, house hold chores ect.)

Do you have a color / color scheme you are obsessing over right now?

Have you watched any shows/movies you really fell in love with?

What is your favorite comfort character right now??

Have you read any good books lately? What cute characters in there made you laugh or smile?

Who is someone that inspires you?

What is a show / movie / book that is so precious to you that you keep reading it over and over again?

Can you reread / rewatch a beloved thing over and over or does that bug you?

Do you like to collect merch from favorite shows, or are your favorites so obscure you have to make your own??

What’s one thing you’ve seen online recently that has made you laugh?

Do you enjoy making your work / pieces into wearable art? (making merch ect.)

Do you like to do artistic things? ( Draw, write, music, sewing, jewelry, scultping, crafts)

What hobbies do you have?

Have you learned anything new this year?

If you could learn one new thing this year what would it be?

[ilkkawhat]

10.06 Death and The Maiden

[nwarrior777]

TEMPERATURE OF LOVE comics

Season 2 Ep 6 “The beach episode”

TOL is a comics about queers with superpowers. The main characters - gay duo - one (Brian) is trying to get in control his fire power, and another one (Demian) is helping his boyfriend. They also have friends - Tamara (teleportation) and Inga ( super strength), who are dating with each other.

New, fresh episode of TOL - The Beach episode (so now TOL is officially seinen anime) This is that you need in so hot summer!

Season 1 on tumblr: Click here

Season 2 on tumblr: 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5

Read all chapters on Tapas and Webtoon: Click here

Thanks @stingdragon for text editing and inspiration! 

Also we have TOL discord! With exclusive wips and teasers! Write me in DM to get the link!

[woonietune]

Calling your attention to fandom contributions by my fandom wife thememoryofthatday. She's been regularly posting episode summaries of Warrior Baek Dong-soo every Sunday on Archive of Our Own. Not your ordinary summaries--they are full of wit and charm and historical links and behind the scenes info; they call out all plot holes like Swiss cheese in the script and poke fun at characters while maintaining a total adoration for (most of) them and the glory that is the Dong-soo/Woon ship (and others). Memory is a history nerd and will zero in on sageuk crazy errors, but she’s also caught some storyline inconsistencies I’d never noticed in all my years of fangirling and ficcing for this drama (Hong-do can teleport! Dong-soo rides a horse that flies through time and space!) The comment section is full of rambly, fun meta (and alternate Gwang-taek thirsting/bashing, relentless jokes about Chun’s alcoholism, the size of Dong-soo’s dong, and a decidedly WHY CAN’T THE GIRLS FIGHT MORE pissiness). 

Each ep summary includes 1) a 60 sec recap 2) a long-ass recap 3) beautiful screencaps and gifs 4) funny captions 5) tally of body count, awards for dumbest moment, most romantic moment, etc... 6) Clips from the official SBS YouTube channel. QUITE THE GIFT TO FANDOM. Since I kinda hate the show (really), I’m using this episode guide instead of the show as my major source material for fics in the future, so I don’t have to fast forward through so many scenes that are yuck, boring, or downright triggery for me (ohhhhhhh, wait until you see what Memory has planned for that trainwreck of ep 29 and... um... an all new interactive ep 30!)

Recently, Memory covered covered the famous jailhouse scene in EPISODE NINETEEN HERE. Go look.

Also, Memory is at work on a longfic that I’ve been telling everyone will be the best the fandom’s seen. Just you wait. It’s characterization of Woon is so razor-sharp, true to canon, wonderfully imaginative yet fair to the “what if” of a very believable canon divergence.

In the meantime, enjoy the latest in her Under the Sun series. From the viewpoint of Gak the royal guard, this is just a wonderful short piece that makes sense and saves Woon (YES, LET’S SAVE WOON--I Iove stories that save Woon) in a way that honors canon. I beta-ed this fic, but I still haven’t put my mind together as to what to say about it in the comment section because it’s just such a beautiful piece I have to measure my words. At the very least it’s tiny scene with Yi San has inspired my next fic (and yet again postponed another chapter to my WIP).

Sunrise

thememoryofthatday

Summary:

(Sequel to Second Favorite.)

Baek Dong-soo wasn’t the only one with Yeo Woon in the wheat field... nor is he the only person on Woon’s side. A companion piece to After Sunset with a much happier ending.

Notes:

For Tepid_T.

If Warrior Baek Dong-soo is new to you, you may want to start by reading my guide for fandom-blind readers.

Many months ago, I wrote a story that I still hate called After Sunset. It’s a short piece about the aftermath of Woon’s canon death, as told from Gak’s POV. Ever since I posted that story, I have been promising to rewrite it with a happier ending - which obviously means Woon has to live.

So this is the rewrite I’ve been promising for the better part of a year. I’m sorry it took so long.

This story falls into the Under the Sun series and overlaps with the events at the end of my first WBDS story, Shadows of What Would Have Been. If you haven’t read that story, this one should still make sense, but that longer story provides more details about why Woon survived, as well as some of the conversations that you don’t get to see here. Because this is an alternate version of After Sunset, some of the dialogue and events are the same as in that story. Self-plagiarism is fine, right?

Thank you to my lovely beta shalomdebbie for fixing all of my errors and convincing me not to delete most of the things I write.

Finally, this story is dedicated to Tepid_T, whose first experience of this fandom was that cursed canon-compliant story I mentioned above, and who loves Sang Gak so much that she wrote him a fabulous porn story that everyone needs to read: The Threat to Hanyang.

Tepid, you are a marvelous writer and an even more marvelous person. I’m so happy we met, and I can’t wait to see what you do next.

[albiorixsims]

This guy is yet another attempt to play a legacy. And at first, I wanted to make it a vanilla game without mods... Guess what? I failed two hours into the game and returned CAS mods, WW, and MCCC (I don't use it to cheat, but I AM a control freak, so I just need it there. And for easy access to CAS, of course). But! I've added a twist - I decided to play only the Base Game + Stuff Packs and add EPs, GPs one by one for each new generation. This way I will be simulating my experience with TS4 from the very start, when we didn't have all these amazing things in the game we have now.

Honestly speaking, lately, I've become a bit frustrated with all the possibilities in the game, it's so hard to make a choice sometimes! And this way I will have a chance to experience the game more deeply, I think. There are so many things I haven't tried yet.

I'm writing this mainly for myself because I have this big idea in my head and just need to somehow structure it. (the practice of writing in English is another bonus =))

And another twist, to make the game more exciting, I will be incorporating different gameplay-oriented challenges. In the beginning, it will be a mix of Legacy, Homeless, and Rags to Riches Challenges. Not as strict as the classic TS4LC, and not as easy as TS4HC, something in between.

In future posts, I will share more details, like a set of goals and rules or smth alike. For now, I've made a table specifying what generation will "live" in what EPs or GPs, also there is some basic info like careers and aspirations, which were added with updates. You can check it here, but please, be aware that it's a WIP and will be modified.

Anyway, please, officially meet Toma Verrone, the founder. It's not his initial look, as, in the beginning, he is a homeless sim. I will share more details about him in the next post. This one is too long already))

skin | eyes | eyelashes (uncurled version) | hair (personal recolor) | skin details (structure) | nose shaders | eyebags 1, 2 | freckles | brows (Charon) | tattoo | eyebrow piercing | septum piercing | earrings 1, 2 | t-shirt (shirt 3b, patrons) | acc vest | jeans | shoes

LGBTQ tag will be explained later on. Now just look how cool it's colored! wow!

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Vickie Moseley

Vickie Moseley has 252 stories at Gossamer, some of which have also made their way to AO3. She has obviously contributed a ton to the fandom over the years! I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Giving Thanks, Stunned, and a bunch of post-eps for particular episodes, including “Firewalker” and “Pine Bluff Variant.” Big thanks to Vickie for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Not really. Well, actually, it has always surprised me that anyone would read my stories even during the heyday of the series, but that’s my self-consciousness talking. That people are discovering The X-Files is not at all surprising and that they are stumbling on fan fic is a natural extension and I find that wonderful. My husband and I never watched Grimm when it was on network TV and we’re currently going through that series, so it’s the streaming-on-demand-there-isn’t-anything-new-on-TV times we find ourselves.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

Friendships. I have a group of women that I’ve been friends with for over 20 years. Until this year we gathered in person every year. We are in contact on Facebook messenger all the time and a conversation will start up just out of thin air when we haven’t conversed for months! It’s been wonderful knowing these women from all parts of the country (and the world for that matter).

And strangely enough, medical research. My writing tended to focus on ‘injured Mulder’ (or Mulder Torture as we termed it) and I also liked reading that in fan fic. Two years ago this managed to help me in real life. My husband experienced a bilateral pneumothorax (both lungs collapsed spontaneously). One of my favorite stories that I have read and reread is “Short of Breath” by the incomparable dee_ayy. She did some serious research while writing that story and it’s all in that fan fiction. I’m not saying it’s the same as a medical degree, but I knew what was happening, why the doctors where performing certain procedures and it really eased my mind as we went through the whole experience. I never would have known what was going on if I hadn’t read that story so many times.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Email was the ‘social media’ for the day. That, and newsfeeds. There were two newsfeeds in the beginning: the official FOX website had a message board, and there was one on ‘alt.tv’ which was an internet newsfeed where fans posted spoilers and discussed episodes. The alt.tv newsfeed got tired of the fan fic writers posting stories so a separate newsfeed was formed just for fan fic. EMXC, which was an AOL mailing list, was invite only and somewhat exclusive at first, but opened up to everyone. When the old OSU (Ohio State University) mailing list turned into Gossamer and Ephemeral, the fandom, and fan fic just skyrocketed.

But what you lived for the most, as a writer, was actual feedback. Emails from people all over who read your story. It was nice to get a quick ‘Hey, read this and really like it!’ but the wonderful emails, the ones you kept in folders on your inbox, were the ones that went into detail, sometimes critical, sometimes grammar related, but always showing where you could improve, or where you touched someone. Every friend I have from the fandom started as feedback, either to me or from me. I’m on AO3 and I appreciate ‘kudos’ but I really love getting comments.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Confidence in my writing. I learned a lot from other writers. Constructive feedback was a gift! I may never write the great American novel but I don’t think I’m afraid to give it a shot after all my years in fan fic.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

They had me at ‘aliens’. I’m a sucker for UFO shows. Was front row center at Close Encounters of the Third Kind, read many of the UFO standards, still watch Ancient Aliens on History Channel. I was waiting for The X-Files based on the tiny blurb in the 1993 Fall Preview Guide from TV Guide.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I kinda got fired from a job I loved and couldn’t go back into that arena for a long time. I was so depressed I was cleaning out my kitchen cabinets. My husband ‘gave’ me the internet for my birthday just to get me out of the dumps. I went straight to ‘yahoo’ and typed in X Files. After reading all the character bios I saw a ‘hyperlink’ (yes, that’s what we called them in 1995) to something called ‘fan fiction’. It was the OSU tree directory of about 100 fan fiction stories. I was instantly hooked.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

I still love the show and all the fans I run across. I was not happy with S8 or S9 but I did watch The Truth. I was on Haven for a while during the reboots (S10 and S11) but it wasn’t the same. I’ve got all the seasons on DVD or blu ray and both movies. When I hear from fans, I’m so happy to connect but I don’t go out and look for new stories anymore.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

None. My heart belongs to Mulder ;)

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Captain Kirk, Spock, Captain Picard, Will Riker, Luke, Han, Leia, Poe, Rae, Kylo at the end. I like strong characters but it’s OK if they have flaws. I’d like to see more strong female leads in science fiction (Gammora and Nebula are favs of mine, too). I love Brea Larson’s portrayal of Captain Marvel!  

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

Sure. When the Pandemic hit we started going through the series for maybe the 20th time. It’s nice to watch them on a larger TV screen. Kim Manners was a genius with lighting and showing just enough of the ‘monster’. I suspect he will be better appreciated in the future than he was at the time he was alive.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I still go back and read my favorites from XF. I read Blood Ties by Dawn about once a year, the whole series. I go back and read the Virtual Season X seasons. We had some really good stories in those years.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Too many to list! Dawn, of course. Susan Proto (I co-wrote with her), Sally Bahnsen, dee_ayy, Suzanne Bickerstaff’s Magician Series was the first (and only) fantasy I ever truly liked! I loved all my co-writers and there are plenty of writers that I wish we’d gotten around to collaborating.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I’m proud of Out of the Cold because it’s Mulder before Scully. I’m partial to the Flight Into Egypt series because I like ‘righting’ what I thought Carter got wrong in the end.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I keep trying! I’m working (have been working for almost a decade now) on a Flight Into Egypt story set at Christmas. Each fall I drag it out of mothballs, write a paragraph or two and get busy doing Christmas stuff. Funny, but it was easier to find time to write when I was a working mom of 6 than as a retired grandma of 3.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I’m putting together a cookbook for my kids and grandkids of all our family recipes. It’s not just the recipes, but the stories behind them. It’s a WIP (work in progress).

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I had a book, just a cheap paperback of unexplained events—all true stories, supposedly—that I got a lot of ideas from. Or, like Carter, I would see something in the news and it would turn into a story. One time I had a dream about our Pur water filter and it turned into a fan fic.

What's the story behind your pen name?

My older sister named me because my Mom and Dad let her. I never used a pen name. That’s my real name, you can google me and find out all about me. I used to have a wiki page or so my kids told me.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My kids used to tell their friends that ‘Mom is famous on the internet’ as a joke. Most of my friends know. My other life is in politics and the two lives usually don’t cross but once on a campaign I was asked by a reporter if I was the ‘same’ Vickie Moseley who writes fan fiction. If I had lied, that would have been the story—that I lied about this hobby of mine. Like it was something to be ashamed of or I was ashamed of my writing. So instead of ducking the question I said ‘yeah, have you read any of my stuff?’ Fan fiction was not mentioned in the finished article.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

I’m on AO3 but only a partial list. My website is still up thanks to Mimic.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Back when I started writing (1995) it was a sort of commune. We all loved reading fan fiction, we didn’t want the story to end with the credits. So if you wanted to read, you were encouraged to write, too, so that others had stories to read and share. It was a cooperative arrangement very much like the old Literary Societies back in the 19th Century.  I really miss that, so I hope that on some level that is still going on.

(Posted by Lilydale on November 10, 2020)

[thegoodomensdumpster]

I WATCHED GOOD OMENS IN FRENCH SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

and it wasn’t that bad. Here are my thoughts, barely edited as I wrote most of them while watching the show.

EP 1

OK i like god’s voice so far

possibilité d’embarras gastrique is a good formulation, I wonder if it’s the same in the book ( I think I kinda need to read it in french now...)

aghghdhgs « primo-délinquants »

of course subtitles don’t match the audio for a variety of technical reasons but when you get things that have very different underlying meanings i find it… not good This one about Crowley being evil / a demon : subtitles : « c’est ton travail » - « it’s your job » audio : « c’est dans ta nature » - « it’s in your nature » i mean dang

crowley sounds like a little shit asking az about his sword

« T’AS FAIT QUOUA » - he just loses his shit (kinda giving me some le coeur a ses raisons vibe)

ok crowley sounds very nerdy when he tries to explain that he took down the phone network, i think i actually like this voice acting

ligur sounds… very suave (im a little ill at ease)

crowley getting called mon chou by satan freddie mercury is a thumb up from me

i see the part where aziraphale speaks japanese wasn’t dubbed over and we can still hear michael sheen. it’s a bit disturbing considering french aziraphale has a higher pitched voice (and he sounds soooo much more anxious than sheen, give this angel a xanax )

“sandwich bœuf cresson” ( beef and cress sandwich ) deirdre really who makes this kind of sandwiches

im being reminded that the chattering nuns prepared little cut outs for their explanation about the antichrist switch… such dedication to useless crafts (it made me laugh on my first viewing and it’s still funny to imagine that some of them either ordered or built these things themselves just so they could make this two minutes long presentation for the most important act of their satanic nun careers)

retire-toi vil démon infernal, créature des abysses XD i swear az doesn’t sound even remotely convinced when he is saying the « get thee behind me foul fiend » line in french, it’s just too over the top for credibility, it sounds like it’s straight out of some super intense dnd session

they still can’t say bouillabaisse (which, like, weird because french, but still valid). nice touch is crowley couldn’t say soupe de poisson (fish stew) either and said poupe de soisson (sish ftew)

warlock mah boy how can you be a teenager and not like dinosaurs

c’est un dinosaure un nullosaure plutôt - apply burn heal

La façon dont warlock s’est exclamé « C’EST NUL » m’a fait penser au nain de naheulbeuk

the english version has nothing on french speaking aziraphale for the second hand embarrassement during the magic tour. it’s over 9000 i literally hid my head in my jumper when he was presenting harry the bunny. Horrible experience, 0/20, would not recommend

EP 2

oooh agnes has a lovely voice !

why is young newton having such a quality dub for the three sentences he has to say

dick turpin’s name is jesse james (tbf dick turpin is not known AT ALL in france, i discovered him reading good omens)

shadwell is pure chaos (as expected). No particular accent for him though, the chaotic energy was probably enough. Would have made me laugh if he had like, a chti or a marseilles accent.

aziraphale is so fucking stressed out by crowley’s driving i thought he was gonna explode

« tu es un gentil garçon » => « you’re a nice boy » said az to crowley DANG THAT’S SO INFANTILIZING AZIRAPHALE YOU’RE TALKING TO A DEMON FROM HELL NOT TO PINOCCHIO

ARGH FIRST MON ANGE OF THE SERIES i’m hit straight in the heart

anathema’s mom doesn’t have a spanish / latino accent at all when talking in spanish…. why...

dog being called toutou is definitely adorable (it’s basically « doggy » but way cuter imo)

tickety-boo has become ça gaze. that’s valid. it’s corny but i still use it unironically from time to time so ... i stan

EP 3

« je répands la fomentation » « i’m here spreading foment » « quoi tu fais des crêpes au froment ?????? »  « what you’re making crêpes with wheat ??? » love the fact that we shoehorned in one more ref to crêpes

az called crowley mon cher camarade, unintentionnal communist propaganda ftw

« pas de repos pour les… bah, pour les bons » « no rest for the… good »  – az was so deflated about the ineptitude he realized he was saying, he felt zero percent commited to his sentence

i was wondering how they would play aziraphale not being able to speak french in the bastille and they opted to have him stutter a bit and say to his executionner « excuse me i’m anxious » XD

« vous êtes le 999e aristo à mourir par mes soins. Mais vous êtes le premier en costume beige » « you’re the 999th aristocrat I’m going to kill, but the first one in beige attire » yeah i guess now that az isn’t english anymore his most noticeable feature is his cream aesthetic

« c’est au cas où ça tournerait en eau de boudin » « j’ADORE le boudin » => « in case it all goes pear shape » - the literal translation featuring food in french is « turning into black sausage water ». I don’t know what pear shaped inspires to english native speakers but the mere mention of boudin always make me giggle, it’s such a funny word and such a funny food

OH !!! no terrence rampa for the tv series, we’ve got anthony J. rampa. Rip terrence petit démon parti trop tôt :’(

« tu roules trop vite pour moi rampa » SERIOUSLY i know we can still infer « rouler » (here as in driving, but literally rolling) as a metaphor for their relationship but you could have said TU VAS TROP VITE that would have been so much better argh

has anathema got an emergency stock of potteries to break in case of emotionnal crisis ?

« Rampa, un démon très futé, il m’oblige à redoubler d’effort » « crowley, a very clever demon, he forces me to make double the amount of effort » oh so admitting you’re making an effort there aziraphale ? :))))))

dang i really want to know how shadwell said that major milk bottle died because not only did he die in combat but aziraphale’s reaction is a bit intense, it must have been quite a tale (this could be a crack fic prompt : «The Epic Tale of the Death Of Major Witchfinder Milk Bottle, by Sargent Witchfinder Shadwell» )

des sorcières et des phénomènes sorciéreux x)

CROWLEY CALLED AZIRAPHALE DUCON ?????? EXCUSE ME ????? #NotMyCrowley #CrowleyWouldNeverDoThat  #CancelAnthonyJRampa2K20  => ducon would be an insult, the gathering of du and con, con being a very nasty but common swear word, and associating it with du- makes it extremely patronizing. it’s like « absolute pathetic digraceful moron +++ ». thanks i hate it *frowny face *

EP 4

l’apocalypse c’est pour aujourd’hui juste après le goûter : it could be translated as « apocalypse is scheduled for today right after tea time » except that « goûter » is not quite tea time but rather the little sugary snack kids take when they come back from school and that most adults drop out of (i haven’t and i’m sure az hasn’t either). thanks aziraphale for having exclusively food related notion of the time because tbh same

ligur has no right to be this sexy between ariyon bakare and his french voice actor that’s just not allowed

radio crowley’s voice vs french ligur’s voice, who has the sexiest voice : FIGHT

(jk french agnes nutter’s voice is by far the sexiest)

gender neutral doesn’t ‘quite’ exist in french but pollution has been assigned a female voice actress and masculine pronouns (i’m saying it doesn’t quite exist because officially we have no gender neutral, but it’s a serious wip among lgbt+ circles to the point where it’s started being used in a few medias)

hastur « en attendant qu’un plombier vienne » / « while waiting for a plumber to come » does hell have a special plumber unit or do demons have to call on human plumbers for their pipes damages ? Dang hastur having to call a human plumber for hell’s plumbery is another damn good writing prompt for a crack fic

Michael is called Michel in the subtitles but Michael in the audio *shrug emoji*

EP 5 

to get a wiggle on has become « il faut qu’on se remue les fesses », literally « we need to shake our butts » like, yes, se remuer les fesses is a common expression to say « we need to act in order to get things done » but it really casts the image of people shaking their booty to some music and obviously crowley thinks the same Weirdly enough I have almost nothing to say for that episode. Sorry. But we’ve discovered most voice actors and actresses so far and no bit of dialogue really struck me as worth discussing or pointing fingers to mock it.

EP 6 

« on va BROUTER quelques derrières » - « we’re gonna lick some butts » OK THIS IS UNQUESTIONNABLY FAR SUPERIOR IN FRENCH THAN IN ENGLISH you thought LICKING butts was good ??? you really thought that ???? AZIRAPHALE HERE SUGGESTS TO GRAZE BUTTS. TO NIBBLE THEM. TO EAT THEM. TO. MUNCH. ON. THOSE. BUTTS!!!! not just licking, guys. This is as serious step beyond licking. (oh yeah he should have said « botter » instead of brouter btw, which is really just kicking, fyi)

« moi je crois en la paix, pétasse ! » wow, language, pepper (fyi i think « pétasse » is far far worse than « bitch » even if it means roughly the same, pétasse is almost never used while bitch is rather common, so it’s a swear word +++)

Dagon sounds like she’s got a nasty cold. #GetDagonIbuprofen2K20

I can confirm that Crowley offers Aziraphale to not just stay at his place, but to move in with him. « tu peux t’installer chez moi si tu veux ». omg they were roommates.

Bad translation strikes again : i don’t know why, but the french dub doesn’t have the « tickety-boo » / « ça gaze » being referenced as Rampa / Aziraphale is being knocked down, which is… a real mistep. It was narratively significant and I’m quite mad the translators missed it.

The Jesse James explanation from Newt has become very nonsensical, instead of the neat and to the point pun « wherever I go I hold up trafic » we’re getting a circonvoluted « because it’s a crime to mechanic’s diligence ». I’m not judging that one too hard, I have no idea how to make it better, and that’s probably how it was translated in the book as well thirty years ago, but it definitely doesn’t have the same impact. On the other hand, it definitely IS a very bad joke that doesn’t even deserve a chuckle, so Anathema’s embarassement really matches the audience’s (aka mine).

OVERALL :

I wasn’t convinced by Crowley… I mean, Rampa’s voice at first, but as the nerdiness showed up it really grew on me. I still think that french dubs have often problems with some voice inflexions every here and there, and for instance in Rampa’s case it was when he was annoyed or frustrated ( at the Globe when complaining about horses and Shakespeare’s plays that aren’t comedies, and also when discussing Azirphale’s magic tricks, it’s like… there is a step between having the right amount of grumpy complaining and overdoing it that is overlooked. It’s overacted, it should have been a bit quieter imo. I don’t mean to criticize voice actors too hard either but as an audience watching french dubs this is a very recurring problem and it always feels off to me. It’s actually one of the main reasons I avoid french dubs whenever possible.)

I have a hard time judging Aziraphale’s voice dub because it clashes so much with both the idea I had formed with it when I read the book and Sheen’s delivery that I just… kinda filtered it. It was too high pitched for me, and too anxious (though for this last point I must admit it could be funny at times, but I’m not fond of this character portrayal). The rest of the cast was rather good, nothing to complain about. There wasn’t anything stellar either, but everything that needed to be conveyed was and it was professionnal. It was also very homogeneous, no voice really struck me as being way too bad or way too good compared to the others, so it was really consistant.

So I don’t have much to complain about overall despite a few wonky translations here and there, BUT there is one thing I felt very robbed of : Crowley calling Aziraphale « mon ange » happens only once, when giving a lift to Anathema, and I’m almost certain they translated it that way because otherwise the joke about Anathama mistaking them for a couple wouldn’t work. So, they were forced to make it that way. The rest of the time Crowley calls Aziraphale « l’angelot », and despite being literally translated by « little angel », it feels sarcastic more than anything else ( the « L’ » in front of « angelot » is part of the reason why, it creates some distance, the other reason being that this word in itself has a very corny vibe and people being affectionnate to each other wouldn’t use it as a term of endearment). So, that’s a shame.

I like the English dub much much MUCH better than the French, but the french wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. The voice actors and actresses were quite good, the dialogues mostly faithful and endearing despite a few really missed steps. It really had its moments. Props to brouter des derrières, that one was fantastic.

[pocketmouse18]

Thank you so much to @herosofmarvelanddc @cloudypaws and @mtab2260 for the tag! This was so much fun to think about :)

(fair warning, I wrote too much for many of these...)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Just 2 :)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

450,577 if I did my math right!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Officially? Just 1 - Agents of Shield (two, I guess, if you count MCU as separate, since I use characters from both...). Off the record, many more than that! I have lots of bits and bobs from other fandoms that I tinkered with when I was younger, still getting the hang of writing, not brave enough to post things, etc. etc. Some of those include X-Men, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, the Fosters, Star Wars, the Hunger Games, the 39 Clues, and a few others I can’t remember. None of those will likely see the light of day, mostly because they’re unfinished, not very good, and just not reflective of who I am as a writer anymore, but they were fun to play around with at the time :)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I just have the two, but The Important Thing is to Try wins, hands down, with 1227. Shoulder to Shoulder has 95, though, which I’m also very proud of! Important Thing has a definite advantage, being as long as it is, so I don’t know if that’s really a fair comparison between them.

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes! Or at least, I always try to! I just can’t believe someone would be kind enough to take the time to tell me what they thought of my story, so I always want to take the time to thank them and return the favor :) Plus, as I’ve learned, it’s a fantastic way to get to know some really lovely people!

6. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Well... I technically only have one story that has an ending, at least on Ao3, and it’s not an especially angsty one, since it ends in Phil and Melinda getting married :) I have some angsty chapter endings in Important Thing, if that counts? I’m not even sure if any of my unpublished fiddlings have angsty endings (most don’t have endings at all lol)... I don’t mind writing angst, but I don’t know if I’m capable of making something without a happy (or at least hopeful) ending.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've ever written?

Not really, unless you count AoS/MCU crossovers (which I guess technically count, but also I would argue it’s not a true crossover since (and I will die on this hill) AoS is a part of MCU canon). When I was younger I was a fan of playing around with crossover AUs more so than the actual characters crossing paths (so like, what if these characters from XYZ were demigods or went to Hogwarts or what have you, and not so much what would happen if the X-Men met Luke, Leia, and Han on one of their space adventures). I started writing a crossover between AoS and the Marvel Rising cartoon once (which again, not sure if that’s a true crossover, since Daisy was in Marvel Rising, but I digress), where Coulson tasks Daisy to work with Kate Bishop and Rayshaun Lucas to collect and train a team of young Inhumans, starting with Kamala Khan, but I ran out of steam pretty quickly when it got too plot heavy.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t think so. I’ve had some people not understand some choices that I made, but they asked it in a way that I thought was perfectly nice, and I was happy to talk about it with them. Sometimes people get “mad” at me when I cause pain and suffering, but I know that’s all in good fun :)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope, not for me. I don’t read it or write it, personally. Writing a kiss is hard enough!

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge! Important Thing is probably too long and unwieldy to ever steal :P

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone once asked me on FFN if they could translate Important Thing to Russian, which was basically the coolest thing I’ve ever been asked!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A fic, no. I’d love to try sometime! I had a friend in college who I co-wrote with A LOT, though, so I know I enjoy that process, given the right partner. We wrote several short plays together (ranging from ~15-50 minutes in length, including one that we wrote in a single afternoon!), selected scenes from a larger (unfinished) play inspired by historical letters we found in an archive that were sent between a man from Massachusetts serving in the American Civil War, his wife, and his 8-year-old son, and several scripts for TV sitcoms (2 pilots for 2 different shows, plus additional eps for those pilots, and a couple of later eps for a different show that a classmate of ours wrote the pilot for - we were trying to practice what it would be like to be on a staff with a showrunner haha). The sitcom scripts in particular I’m very proud of, and could talk somebody’s ear off about if asked (one’s about ghost hunters and one’s about a DnD party!), but maybe that’s better saved for another post ;)

13. What's your all-time favorite ship?

That’s a very hard question for me! Mostly because shipping stuff is usually one of the last things to register for me when I’m thinking about shows/books/movies I like haha... I’m always a sucker for Philinda, and younger me was rather taken with Percabeth, I suppose.

14. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Hmm, several, really. The aforementioned AoS/Marvel Rising crossover I think could be really cool if I got it to work, but I don’t think that’ll ever happen. I also have a WIP that’s like an angstier version of a Hallmark Christmas movie AU where Daisy has to come home to her small town right before Christmas and figure out what she wants out of life, but I’m a little stalled out on that one, mostly because I’m waffling on who the charming love interest should be and because I don’t have enough of a plot, just lots of feelings about coming back home to a place you thought you had left behind lol.

I’d put Important Thing and it’s (as of yet) untitled sequel on here as things I want to finish, but I’m much more determined to see those through, so I don’t think they qualify for the “never will actually write” part of this question :)

15. What are your writing strengths?

I don’t know if other people agree with this, but I think I write pretty decent dialogue. My “training” (if you can call it that) is in, as you might have figured out by now, script and screenplay writing (those were the only creative writing classes I took in college). So having a sense of the rhythm a conversation needs to have and how to write dialogue that sounds mostly like how people really talk (but shined and tightened up enough so that it’s not actually like verbatim dialogue, which is far less interesting to read!) is something that I feel like comes pretty easily. I also think I do okay with similes and metaphors - my brain tends to work in that way. It’s easier for me to think of stuff (feelings, especially) in terms of comparing it to more familiar things than to just think of the thing directly, if that makes sense?

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

If I was being honest, this would be a very long section, but I know it’s not fun to read a big ol’ paragraph of someone self-criticizing, so I’ll keep it to one or two items ;) A big one for me is pacing, I think. I tend to write more than I need to and to over-explain things, so my chapters get very long and sometimes don’t really go anywhere? Until all of the sudden, they DO, because things need to HAPPEN! I’m a pretty rigorous self-editor, but I do have a really hard time cutting out sections (unless they’re really just not working), so even if it would help the pacing to leave out this conversation between character A and character B, I often can’t make myself cut it. I also think I struggle sometimes with balancing my ‘showing’ and my ‘telling,’ especially in the sense of me over-explaining certain things - like when it comes to feelings/facial expressions/etc, for example. I compensate for that in Important Thing by making it a part of a few people’s POV, but it’s not really a good habit to have in general. Also spelling! I’m really bad at spelling and run my stuff through robust spellchecks and text-to-speech before I post anything to make up for it :)

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I do it with some regularity, although I always get nervous about doing it wrong! It’s hard to avoid in AoS, where characters are spies and should (in theory, at least) have a working knowledge of multiple languages (”We’re spies, I thought we all learned languages?!”). Even in an AU, where characters aren’t spies, I like to try and pay homage to that, plus pay homage to certain characters’ native languages or just general multilingualism. I’ve spent a fair amount of time around people who speak more than one language, so I feel like it’s a natural part of groups of people to have more than one language spoken. I have a pretty good handle on written Spanish, a patchy idea of French, plus I know some Russian phrases from my dad and some German words from my grandfather, but I do rely on internet translation a lot. I usually run stuff through google, then run it backwards to see just how far off the initial translation was, then consult some actual, like, language learning sites to see if there’s particular idioms or common phrases that use different words than what google will give me, then run those words through backwards in the place of the original words to see if I can massage the whole thing to sound reasonably competent. Languages like Russian or Mandarin (which have their own alphabets/characters) are the hardest, since I have to also try and do a transliteration. I always try to put an apology/disclaimer in the notes any time I write in a language that isn’t English, because I’m sure I make lots of mistakes.

Also, I tend not to italicize words that are in other languages, because it looks weird on the page to me to set the other language apart like that (and because I italicize mainly for internal thoughts or emphasis, and usually what’s being said in another language isn’t internal or being emphasized). I put a rough translation at the end so we don’t have to pause the story for a parenthetical translation, but because the translation’s not right there, I try to either put in enough context clues that a person can still understand what’s going on, or I make sure that what’s written in another language isn’t critical to the overall understanding of the scene.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Officially, it’s AoS, since that’s the only fandom I’ve published for. I think the first true fandom I wrote fic for was probably either Harry Potter (entirely populated with OCs lol, I just liked using the world/setting), Percy Jackson (a mix of OCs and canon characters), or X-Men (all canon characters). I was a bit of a latecomer to fanfiction, though, like, I wrote a ton as a kid, but mostly original stuff, because I didn’t know that fanfiction in its current form was even allowed until I was in high school lol.

Oh! I almost forgot one! I’m not sure if this really counts as a fandom, but it’s definitely the earliest version of fanfic I wrote haha... I was like 12 and I wrote more than one story of an OC joining Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men, and then also one of that same OC becoming a knight of the Round Table, so like... do what you will with that information haha.

19. What's you're favorite fic you've written?

I can’t choose between my two darlings :( I mean, okay, technically it’s probably Important Thing. That story’s my baby. It’s huge and I’ve been working on it for almost 2 years, and I’ve poured a lot of my heart and soul into it. I’ve fallen in love with the universe I built in it, so much so that I wrote an entire prequel and have very concrete plans for a lengthy sequel. But I can’t not crow about Shoulder to Shoulder (the aforementioned prequel!), too... I’m just really proud of that one - it has a lot of firsts for me. First completed story. First romance-focused story. First foray into expanding the Important Thing universe. But yes, if I have to choose, then Important Thing wins. That’s a story that I started writing exclusively for myself - to give myself characters I could relate to and to explore a style of AoS fic that I loved reading - and that’s a story I will always and forever be proud of.

I think most people have probably answered this tag game at this point, so I don’t want to accidentally retag anyone! If you haven’t yet, and would like to join in, please do! This is your invitation <3