#one thing i really appreciate about mxtx's writing

[holy--milk]

i have a strong suspicion that this phenomenon re: fanon characterisation of sj (and other characters like him in other media) stems from some people's inability to see fictional characters as like… people? rather than a system of narrative roles and tropes.

so when someone says "sj is a victim of abuse" and "sj is an abuser", they don't see it as descriptions of his lived experiences at different points in his life, they see it as two inherently conflicting roles in the narrative.

and that's where the need to resolve that conflict comes from, with sj antis trying to minimise or straight up erase his very genuine trauma, and sj apologists trying to soften the less appealing aspects of his personality that make him come across as a "bad" victim.

which, if you think about it, is very ironic in the fandom of a story about a virgin nerd who learns that the characters in his (least) favourite novel are actually real three-dimensional people underneath the masks of narrative tropes and genre conventions.

Shen Jiu is an abuser. Shen Jiu abused Luo Binghe and (depending on how you interpret certain parts of the novel) most likely others. He was a profoundly unpleasant person to be around by his own doing, not just some poor misunderstood baby.

Just because he didn’t murder Liu Qingge or sexually abuse NYY doesn’t mean that he was innocent of everything. Especially not his abuse of LBH which is a fundamental part of SVSSS’s story— about cycles of abuse and how someone’s life experiences can shape them in different ways.

Learning about Shen Jiu’s backstory humanizes him. It explains his actions and how he got to where he was.

It does not, and should not excuse him.

Humans can be both abuser and victim. That’s how the cycle of abuse fundamentally works.

I love Shen Jiu. He’s one of my favorite characters of all time. He’s still an abuser.

You can feel sorry for him, but don’t make him innocent. He knew what he was doing. He did it intentionally. He wanted to spite LQG, he wanted to hurt LBH, to destroy his cultivation and even his life.

Shen Jiu is a brilliant portrayal of a truth people are afraid of— that sometimes survivors are not inspirational. Sometimes they’re mean. Sometimes they’re bad people. Sometimes they carry the worst parts of their abusers with them because that was what they feared, and if others feared them then they would have the control they so desperately needed.

Shen Jiu is not a one dimensional villain who is evil for the sake of it. He’s a human character with complex reasons for being the way he is, and a traumatic upbringing he didn’t choose or have any control over.

He’s still an abuser.

[baiwu-jinji]

translated the postscript of the revised edition of TGCF, it's beautifully written and you can just tell from the tone of the writing that MXTX's been through stuff:

"I write first to entertain myself, then to entertain others. Of course, self-expression and self-affirmation are given priority, but other people's appreciation is important positive feedback as well. Therefore, above all I want to thank my readers who have stayed with me all along unwaveringly and unfailingly. It's not as if I've never thought about walking away from it all: everyone has different opinions and it gets too loud, too much turmoil in the community makes me want to abandon social media. That would have seemed nice too. But looking back, my steps always waver, and I'm reluctant to part with some readers who are true and sincere.

In the past, there were writers I really loved who just disappeared from the internet, and I always felt as if days of my youth disappeared with them. This is a terrible feeling, and makes one think thoughts that are too grand and harsh, like things tragically forgotten by time, or the overwhelming movement of history. Therefore, I want to stay with my readers longer to the best of my ability. Maybe the day of parting will come eventually, but it could come just a little bit later. Maybe I'm not good enough as I am, but I will try to become better in the coming days. Maybe you've never understood what kind of person I am, or even completely misunderstood me, but anyone who comes is a guest, and anyone who stays is a friend; as long as you like my stories, we can sit down and have a chat."

original Chinese:

“写东西先自娱，后娱人。自我表达和自我认可固然为第一，但他人的喜爱也是很重要的正反馈，所以，首先感谢一直以来坚定不移陪伴我的读者们。也不是没想过一走了之：众说纷纭，吵闹；江湖纷扰，弃号！这样好像也不错。但回首却总踟蹰，终归是舍不得一些真心读者。

我曾有很喜欢的作者消失在网络，我总觉得是我的一段青春销声匿迹了，这感觉很难受，让人联想到一些诸如时代眼泪、历史洪流之类过于宏大冷酷的东西。所以，我想竭尽所能地陪伴我的读者更久一些。或许离别的那一天终将到来，但它可以来得晚一些。或许现在的我还不够好，但日后的我会努力变得更好。或许你从来不了解我是什么样的人，甚至是全然误解，但来者是客，留者是友，只要喜欢我的故事，咱们就能坐下聊聊。” ——天官赐福新修版后记

[touchlikethesun]

TW: sa. Hi! I hope it's okay to talk about it but about your tags in that post about SVSSS and SA being a recurring theme, I agree with a lot of it. I would say that even Bingge can be argued to be have some trauma since his first time was coerced. Someone pointed out Bingge could've become hypersexual as a result of that trauma and that it made me see the whole harem thing in a new light (but it doesn't make him innocent since he forced himself on a bunch of wives). It really is such a recurring theme it's hinted for Shen Jiu and for Su Xiyan and Binghe with the Old Palace Master. Su Xiyan's story is even the catalyst for Binghe's tragic backstory... You made a very good observation OP!

hey anon, yeah it's alright to talk about! i do appreciate you including a tw, but this is a topic i find really interesting, i actually opened my laptop back up to answer you lol

as for luo bingge, i didn't get into it in my tags bc… lowkey didn't expect ppl to read them lol (ty for doing so tho xx) and also he's quite a complicated case. we obviously can't say for certain since we see so little of him and what we do know is told to us thru multiple layers of unreliable narration, but i do think there is enough to suggest many of luo bingge's early sexual experiences were probably coerced or non-consensual, leading to trauma-induced hypersexual behavior. (edit: i am adding this parenthetical a few hours later after writing the rest of this and i didn't know how to fit it in otherwise so apologies, but i think it's worth pointing out that luo binghe - both bingmei and bingge, so i think we can consider it to be a core trait - do naturally have a much higher libido than most people. with bingmei we see how this causes issues for him in his relationship with shen qingqiu, but it's managed with kindness because sqq loves him and is patient enough to teach him boundaries and managed by binghe himself who loves and doesn't want to hurt sqq and who has been taught consent and respect from a younger age. when it comes to bingge, who lacks the sort of safe space provided by sqq and has no education in the matter, i think it's easy to see how he would have a much harder time understanding and managing his libido - again it isn't an excuse for SA, but this is just another convention of the genre that were it to be realised has horrible implications and consequences.)

but also, luo bingge lives in a world where healthy consensual sexual dynamics are so rarely modeled for him (the aforementioned coercive sex, but also constantly being gifted wives by other men, and the normalisation of rape in a world with sex pollen (sorry ik i already said that but like really it is so incredibly fucked up if you think about the implications of sex pollen in a real world)), and where he is being taught that the only way to be safe is to have physical power over others - of course we the reader know this is because it's being written as a venting male fantasy revenge story with a target audience of incels, but concretely this is bad for luo bingge's psyche, and you know, also leads him to do horrible things in retaliation and hurt and innombrable amount of people

and again, i don't know how much of this was really intentional on mxtx's part and how much i am reading into it, but svsss is about making one-dimensional smut novel characters into fully realised people and extrapolating out the implications for what it would mean for that world to be a real one. like, shanq qinghua and especially shen qingqiu have to learn that the people they live with are not as simple as they might have appeared on the screen of the webnovel. and part of the extrapolating, from my read of svsss, involves interrogating the ways characters have and have had their agency infringed upon in the original pidw and finding ways to return their agency to them in svsss. this is perhaps most clearly seen in the way all the "wife" characters in svsss are allowed to be their own people separate from binghe, with different passions and drives and again, agency to direct their own lives, contrary to sqq's expectations of them. however this also involves bringing to light just how pervasive and damaging the sexual violence in the original story really is, by showing the abuse that su xiyan suffered, by showing how binghe is negatively affected by xin mo and the other coercive elements of this world, by subverting expectations with shen jiu and showing how he was also a victim, and by making the only truly irredeemably evil character the old palace master, a disgusting old pervert and sexual harasser.

anyways yeah i think it's a really interesting aspect of svsss, and while i can understand why it might not be at the forefront of everyone's mind (good lord is it a BUMMER to think about), it would be a disservice to the narrative to forget it entirely.

[askew-d]

Fanfics ideas, cause you love MXTX works . Your top 3 fav MDZS characters will be besties with who (in your opinions) if they were in other universe, with characters from TGCF & SVSSS? Hope my questions are not confusing.....

hi, anon! sorry i’m terrible late for this ask. hope you don’t mind :) i am not sure i can provide great fanfic ideas, but here’s my opinion about who’d be besties with who in the mxtx universes, and i added more than three or favorite characters, by the way:

1. wei wuxian would create a group of besties with xie lian, shen qingqiu and hua cheng (and get together really often with nie huaisang group of friends)

wait up! i mean, wei wuxian would get along with xie lian because of his obvious fair morality principals and they would eventually get along with shen qingqiu for their intimate experiences with their husbands. if shen qingqiu was frustrated with luo binghe, of course xie lian and wei wuxian would share advices. wei wuxian would love to hear xie lian's lifetimes of stories and xie lian would love to hear his in return. shen qingqiu would slowly warm up to them.

and now, why hua cheng? i personally do not see hua cheng warming up to a human other than wei wuxian. not only because wei wuxian is a demonic cultivator, but also because wei wuxian would always thoroughly respect xie lian and have him like a great friend because he also has been treated like shit by others and understands xie lian. i think hua cheng would appreciate that. shen qingqiu would not judge xie lian either, so i guess they would all be ok nicely hanging out.

and they would spend time with:

2. nie huaisang, shang qinghua, shi qingxuan and sha hualing

you cannot tell me that nie huaisang would not become friends with sha hualing. they are both capable of everything. nie huaisang would be a little scared of her at first? surely. but something would happen, perhaps a case in which only he could help her out, and they would end up turning into acquaintances bordering into friends. one hand helping the other (perhaps not always for the greater cause).

anyway, shang qinghua and shi qingxuan though? personally, i think they would hit it off right at the first sight. shang qinghua would help him with writing, even, and open a new word for nie huaisang.

3. jiang cheng would slowly start being friends with feng xin, mu qing and liu qingge (even if none of them will admit it)

jiang cheng? admiting he made friends with those angry idiots mu qing and feng xing who cannot stop fighting? admittng that he made friends with that weirdass liu qingge? and vice versa? no, they will never say it. but fairly enough, i think jiang cheng would end up getting drunk one day, they would all start complaining, being angry, hitting things over, discussing over those gays kissing at their feet all their time, and the next morning, they would just grow an inch closer.

they would still roll their eyes at one another every time they are in a social conference. they would still be tsunderes even if they just spent an afternoon hanging out gossiping back and forth. yet, i think they would grow closer, and in a life and death situation, they would fight together like reluctant sworn brothers.

4. lan wangji would befriend ling wen, mobei-jun and luo binghe

lan wangji and ling wen i think its clear that they would be nice friends, helping each other and having tea together. mobei-jun would just be there because, if shang qinghua must have his time to be with nie huaisang and other human friends, at least hanguang-jun is one human that he tolerates for the simple fact that he does not talk much. so that is enough for him. luo binghe would only become close to lan wangji because they would trade nice recipes for their husbands. and also, it would be nice if lan wangji also helped ling wen, binghe and mobei-jun out with understanding how human works. they would be so confused and would want explanations of human experiences from hanguang-jun (one time or another, i can swear that mobei and luo binghe would want to receive advice towards their sex life too).

5. lan xichen would grow fond of yue qingyuan and he xuan

lan xichen, my dear! for you, i think you would have a good friendship with yue qingyuan, only. with he xuan, i think its horrible to say that he xuan would seem to be a wise guy, so you would become close to him, you would have tea together, only for at the end you have another disappointment to discover that he isnt exactly who you think he is and another time you will be crumbling in sadness, so i will not say it. but there, i will leave you all with this angst side. or perhaps you would get along with shi qingxuan better because he sure been through this whole experience just like you, huh.

6. the juniors would be besties with shang qinghua, shi qingxuan, lan qianqiu, ning yingying and ming fan

do i need explanation for this one? hahah, they would all love to learn more from shang qinghua and laugh at his antics, follow around shi qingxuan just like ducklings, be impulsive with lan qianqiu, play around the town with ning yingying and judge others with the company of ming fang. perhaps beat some that threaten their superiors in the middle :) would love to check their shenanigans.

[tossawary]

As I post about rereading SVSSS for lore and characterization, and about sometimes ignoring canonical details for the sake of whatever story I want to tell / explore in fanfiction for fun, I want to make it clear that I don't make these changes because I think it makes a "better story" or that I can write a "better story". I don't even like using the term "fix-it" for my canon divergence AUs that avert some in-universe tragedy, even if it is the "correct" fandom term in some cases, because I don't think that SVSSS is a story that needs to be "fixed".

(Honestly, a lot of my minor alterations to canon's details are because I can't remember what exactly canon is and can't always be bothered to hunt for one sentence (which I may or may not remember existing at all) across multiple volumes, especially when I don't always think strict faithfulness to canon is that crucial to the main concept of what I'm doing. I wrote PINTWILF and several other fics before the official English translations were fully released, when checking minor details was an even greater pain in the ass. Sometimes, I'm cooking without the recipe in front of me because I just want to eat.)

Like, I have criticisms of SVSSS, definitely. When I first started writing SVSSS fic, I was more frank about this (fond but less fond of the characters and world than I am now), and I've talked about things I wished the story expanded on more. I think it has flaws. I know those flaws are a dealbreaker for many people. But it's not my story. I can't tell MXTX's story better, because I believe that every author's story belongs to them and only they know what they're trying to achieve, even when I may personally think that the story might have been stronger if it had done something differently or I'm ignoring some minor detail specifically because I don't really like it.

It's awkward, sometimes, occasionally being told by someone that they enjoyed my fic more than the original story. It's very flattering (I can't pretend I don't have an ego) and I don't think anyone means any harm by this, people enjoy stories or don't for many different reasons (enjoyment is not necessarily an indication of quality and I think engaging with fandom can often be more fun than just reading a story on its own by yourself), but it is a little awkward, especially when SVSSS is not an English / western story. I have an advantage appealing to western readers. Reading a translation of the original story, I know there are details of SVSSS going over my heard, references I'm missing, nuances I don't recognize, even as I endeavor to keep learning. I personally enjoy some of my fics more than SVSSS itself because I associate them with good experiences and a lot of them appeal to me personally in some way or another (all of my favorite tropes! we all have favorite tropes!), but they are built on the back of someone else's original work on the other side of the world, and I want to be respectful of that.

I don't want to compete or fix. I'm not trying to compete or fix, I think I would fuck it up if anyone seriously set that task on me, and I don't think that's a good way to view anything. I want to explore and appreciate. I'll type up a lengthy post at some point as to why I'm generally not interested in concrit on my fics (honestly, mostly it's because I'm not interested in being told that a reader hates the present tense and wishes I would rewrite the entire story, which has happened to me before), but I hope that doesn't come off as disinterest in the original story or its cultural context, or as me thinking even a little bit that any of my stories are flawless and/or better than the original.

I want to make a "why would you put two bad bitches (compliment) against each other like this?" joke here, but I also want to be clear: I think MXTX is by far the badder bitch (compliment) in this situation.

(Turning off reblogs, btw, because this post skews more on the personal side.)

[bloopitynoot]

Reading SVSSS: Chapter 15

For those who don't know, I am reading SVSSS for the first time and sharing my thoughts!

If you have not read it, there will be spoilers! Consider this a warning.

Also- if you want to follow along, I am aiming to post updates daily. You can find all the posts in the tag bloopitynoot reads SVSSS. You can also check out the intro post for context on my read.

It's chapter 15! Time to figure out what happened to SQQ in the latest cliff hangar.

Today no tea- but I did have a blackberry cider that was very tasty.

I also did impulse buy a baby's-first-fountain pen to get into my little writing flow and add to the ambiance of my note taking journey. So, pls ignore the worse-than-usual writing; I am learning to write with it.

let's goooooo!

Well, SQQ appears to be in a coffin? p29

fuck, i'm already smudging the ink with my new pen. The lefty curse of it all. IDK how much of this is going to be legible later. RIP

okay... but how long has he been in here? MXTX is describing everything as dusty as hell. p30 (resolved as I read further- not very long LOL)

and he has his original body! That's exciting! Who did it though?? p30

LOL SQQ has 0 chance with this "advanced level plot" p31. He is totally fucked for sure.

These 'blind corpses' sound like a walking horror show. I would be so scared omg. I don't know how far the animated series got- but if this is animated that would look cool as fuck. p32

okay! they're fueled by breath! that's really neat though! pp33-34 Scary, but cool.

I would die immediately in this situation. When the thing (blind corpses) that are already horrible and unbeatable are scared of something else -> absolutely no hope in surviving. p35

ah, it is our little snake-man. I had a suspicion this was related to him and Luo Binghe's dad. He probably took SQQ's corpse too and brought it here. p35

OMG LOL Luo Binghe's dad is awful, but also feels like a troll AND is serving dad jokes. Re: thinking back to when SQQ knocked on the coffin and he answered from inside LOOOL. p36

Listen. Can we just take a moment to appreciate the absolute DILF that is Luo Binghe's father? I am a whole lesbian but that character art cannot objectively argued as anything else. p37

and now SQQ is going on about Tianlang-jun having BDE (not those exact words but I mean when you say he's working that coffin like it's a Paris fashion week runway and Luo binghe - the man you are obsessed with- could NEVER, it says something.). p38

That fucking power move too! SQQ: seems you've waited a while to meet me, why don't you come out of there and do so. Tianlang-jun: *bats eyes* okay but only if you hold my hand and work for it p39

SQQ has this habit of getting kidnapped "for his own good" but no one ever tells him why it's good for him XD this entire situation is so annoying. Tianlang-jun did this all so that he could get him away from the sects he wanted to destroy. p43

OMG scratch that. He also wants to use him as bait to snatch his sons body as his own. p45.

aside: I'm going to have to organize these notes later- I'm not catching the nuance in the hand written notes LOL my brain is processing faster than my hand (you will notice that the last 2 points here do not match my hand written notes because they were a hot mess).

What an entrance Luo Binghe! p47

Yes SQQ! You rescue your man from his dad (RE: holding Zhuzhi lang hostage) p51

holy shit. Zhuzhi lang is WILD - he really was about to just die instead of be a hostage LOL p52 I want to know what his character motivation is. He's giving the same blind trust energy as The Core Melting Hand in MDZS. Both just so loyal to a fault/their own demise. Do we learn more? or is this it? (genuine question- don't tell me WHAT we learn, just yes/no if we learn more).

That was so smart to hit the anti-theft measures in the tomb p53

aaaaaaaand he snatched the wrong person on the escape. well, that's fantastic. p54

I am loving the traps in this mausoleum though! The face with the magma and then the various rooms. I want to know if this exists as a D&D dungeon crawl/anyone has made one, I think it would be so fun. p59

omg. I don't think that Luo Binghe realizes/knows that that was his own father and cousin. that's so terrible. Truly Luo Binghe was treated so fucking badly literally his entire life. His dad does not even give a shit. Honestly probably only had him for this situation - needing a new body. p61

:((((( Our boy, Luo Binghe is in a bad way rn. gah! so many cliff hangers. p63

MXTX Cliffhangar Lord

And now I have to wait until tomorrow to see if baby Luo Binghe makes it. I'm sure SQQ is going to do something about it but dang, he is not well.

[qiu-yan]

16, 17, 22, 23 for the ask game?

choose violence ask game

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

answered here!

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

there's a decent amount of this sort of content already, but i'm always happy to see more content revolving around jiang cheng, jin guangyao, and qin su's coparenting adventures.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

honestly, i feel like all the parts of canon i enjoy have no shortage of other fans, due simply to how big and diverse this fandom is. that said...

canonically, the yiling patriarch was op as fuck. wei wuxian was not some uwu unfairly maligned defenseless innocent, he was one of the most powerful, genius, and dangerous people of his generation. wei wuxian is not weak! wei wuxian is a once-in-a-lifetime genius who invented entirely new modes of violence and cruelty, and being afraid of him is in fact an entirely understandable response!

one of the things i really appreciate about MDZS is that, from their own flawed and half-informed point of view, the public turning against wei wuxian was not entirely unreasonable. it's very easy to write a story in which The Evil Society turns against the Poor Maligned Protagonist for no good reason, thereby making it look like your fictional universe is inhabited purely by morons, but MXTX did not write that story. MXTX actually put thought into her story, so the internal logic guiding the public's actions, while flawed and morally corrupt, is still something the reader can logically follow. even if we disagree with their conclusions, we can still logically understand how the mob got from point A to point B.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

xicheng. for precisely one reason: it would make lan wangji really mad.

i already really enjoy the massive haters-forced-to-become-BILs relationship between lan wangji and jiang cheng. and now you're telling me there's a way we can add even more BIL drama to the mix? we can give lan wangji a reason to beef with jiang cheng that's entirely unrelated to wei wuxian? we can have someone provide snarky asshole commentary on how lan wangji ding dong ditched lan xichen at the end of canon? sign me up. i am already on board.

there are a lot of reasons to ship xicheng, and there are a lot of reasons not to ship xicheng. the xicheng that exists in my mind is just as much of a problem-causing ship as it is a problem-solving ship (a post for another day). but listen. i don't care about any of that. none of that matters to me. the one and only thing that does matter to me is making lan wangji seethe.

i've also come around to lan qiren x jiang cheng for similar (identical) reasons.

[jaimebluesq]

ship ask! Yu Ziyuan/Wen Zhuliu and/or Yu Ziyuan/Jin-furen

also xisang

Yay!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!! I very very rarely get any of these ships in ask games, so I'm going to answer them all (because it's my blog and I can :-p).

Yu Ziyuan/Wen Zhuliu

Ship It

What made you ship it? - We know there is a history - he's the only person to ever refer to her as something other than YZY and Madame Yu. What is the story behind the Violet Spider and the Core Melting Hand??? Like, okay, MXTX probably didn't intend it to be sexy, but damn, when you look at YZY's marriage, the idea of her having some secret past before JFM where she really got to live, but gave it up for duty... That's the kind of thing I eat up!

What are your favorite things about the ship? - THE NAMES. Seriously, Violet Spider with a sexy purple whip, and hand that could crush your golden core, two seriously dangerous people that one-on-one you would NEVER want to mess with!!! *Sighs* yeah, definitely sexy.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? - Are there any *popular* opionions about them? /s When I think about it, I guess it would be that they would be no better for each other than YZY and JFM, that there is a reason their history is history, having much to do with the sects they ended up in, and they were never a "meant to be", just a "could have been, maybe, had the world been different".

Yu Ziyuan/Madame Jin

Ship It

What made you ship it? - Because there is a history between them we know so little about, two women who were so close they pledged their firstborn children into an arranged marriage (and you know Madame Jin would have had to fight JGS tooth and nail to arrange it, because logically JGS would have wanted to choose the most politically/economically advantageous option, and while the Jiang had some political clout at that time, I'm sure JGS would have preferred an alliance with someone like the Wen). And because I think they'd be sexy together :D

What are your favorite things about the ship? - To a certain degree, the ship is a blank slate because we know so little about Madame Jin (including her effing name), but what we do know is that both of them are strong, opinionated women who can be vicious in their own ways, particularly when they believe they're protecting their children, even if they don't always show it in healthy ways (this is fiction, who cares about healthy ways lol). And again, the actresses in CQL are gorgeous and remind me I'm bi over and over again.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? - That, personally, I find them more interesting and engaging than any other femslash pairing in the fandom? Because I can enjoy various groupings of Mianmian, Wen Qing, and Jiang Yanli, but to me they just don't have that tooth, that bite that the older ladies do. But that's just a personal opinion - I'm very ship and let ship so enjoy your ships :D

XiSang (for this one, I'm going to borrow a format I saw on one of @fortune-maiden's responses to one of these).

Neutral Ship

Why don't you ship it? - I'm trying to put my finger on it. Because I HAVE read a handful of fics, and I can appreciate the stories and the writing, and it's a perfectly fine ship! How can I not appreciate a love for NHS and LXC. I guess it just comes down to me not feeling it. They don't reach into my chest and grab my heart and scream at me that their story needs to be told in every variation possible.

What would have made you like it? - I dunno, really. As I said, I've read a few fics and tried, so I'm not sure what would shift it over from neutral to ship. I can see the potential, it's definitely there, I just kind of... *shrugs*

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? - The biggest one is the shippers - a lot of the people I started following on Tumblr when I first got into the CQL/MDZS fandom were XiSang shippers, and they're all such awesome people that I will defend the ship on their behalf at the first sign of attack ;) And the characters are both ones I enjoy (NHS more so, he's my MAJOR BLORBO), and I can at least see the potential in the ship! It's one of those things where all the ingredients are there and correct, but it's just not the cake I want to eat.

[chanquokka]

Here's A Little Get-To-Know-You Tag Game!

Tagged by: de wonderfulest ppl @noonaracha @straykidsgallery and @itsstraykids thank you sm!!! (go appreciate their cool point stories!)

Name(s): juni! is what i decided. some friends on this hellsite also call me solar so wtv u prefer. atp i just have a bunch of nicknames bcs i also have a Weird Name, A Weirder (Family) Nickname in real life

Pronouns: he/she/they/it<3 when i say feel free. pls and thank u

Star Sign: libra, right when it starts (and just a day after seungmin's!)

#of Siblings And Fun Facts About Them(if u have any): one (1) younger gremlin brother, and the funnest fact abt them is that he has been a walking directory of telephone no's since he was 4 and now can be relied upon to calculate large numbers inside his head in point seconds. Still hates physics(and most things theory)> by which, he also stores insane and inane amount of stats info (abt all types of things, but mostly sports) inside his head ready to be flourished at a moments notice, which is mildly impressive when ur 6 and debating with college students the scores of a game that happened 15yrs before u were born but not now when ur 17 and ppl are more focused on your test scores rather than ones u know, so</3 also has his birthday on changbin's but he doesnt know abt that

#of Pets: there's a history there. with fishes that my ma deceived me with on my 12th birthday(when i asked for a pet, i imagined smth i could hold) and then liked too much herself that we had them for 5yrs. three times; birds, but my brother kind of freed them while singing a lullaby with only me as an unbelieving witness. a dog (belovedest of em all) my dad picked from street as a puppy and who, then, had to be given away after 3yrs bcs of Stupid Reasons im still mad abt. now i just have street cats showing up at my front door to safekeep their babies on my staircase's isolated nooks till they grow up and vanish and street dogs who believe i have endless supplies of treats and show me sad faces when i dont. i really want a pet</3 but for now im contending with pictures of kitties whose moms operate on strict 'see-dont-touch' policies and sweet sweet strays who like to befriend u too easy.

Fandoms: many, but rn im active mostly in skz and mxtx. id love to be in other stuff i read and watch but since Capitalism hates me dearly,,,

Favorite Color: darker shades of all and any colors(esp blue green and red)!!! can be relied upon immensely to look warm and pretty always

Favorite Song: picking favorites for anything is out of my capabilities. also am just listening to my favorite bollywood playlist a lot these days.

Favorite Author: have a working list of favorite poets that does not end at 1. have not read a book seriously in four years of exam/prep-locking. but even if i did, idt ill be able to pick any favorite bcs, yk. good things in many things. (tldr; its roald dahl) (and ruskin bond who i read when i was 5 and still read when im so tired bcs his stories inspire me to write always)

Hobbies: I dance(perform) sometimes? I write??(←derogatory, dubious) make stuff, mostly poems and stories and tinker with free things i can do, both online or craft. analysis of things with friends is a beloved activity. i liek yoga and stretching (rn in an ongoing war with 3° winter mornings to drag myself out of bed and go to class at 6) cooking when i have time but mostly, always, reading (or! watching) stories, poems and learning abt cool nonfiction things (does crying abt fiction count)

Favorite Holiday: none of the above its the trips and getaways u make for yourself. all my beloved memories are always mostly from when our family makes a trip to someplace my mom insists or there's a non-worrying emergency to go somewhere. just family getting together under some pretense, even tho it is stressful as fuck.

Do You Have Any Partner(s): persuading my best friend atm but sadly she's straight</3(no lmao)

Fun facts about you/anything extra you wanna share!: since im having it rn- coffee doesnt keep me up or sometimes even makes me nod off, a fact i discovered after my 14yr old brain had the brilliant idea to try out the cool, forbidden drink after dinner knowing i wasnt allowed to. this is not fun to my ma but growing up in a sort of restrictive household, im also just weirdly good at sneaking and doing stuff im not supposed to without getting caught. i also do not know how to talk in lesser words. this is an absolute curse, yes i have tried. beware</3

this^ is a mess but thank u i had fun!! lemme tag: @winterfloral @syannie @hyunhomoons @quokki @chogiwow @agibbangs @rainknow @lixence @hyunebear @straykidsgallery @jerirose @ambivartence @hongjoongpresent + anyone who wishes to! apologies if tagged already!

[outsiderempire]

A lil’ intro about me:

Hello! I decided I would make this since I have been gaining new followers and it's been a long time since I have done one of these (probably about a decade, holy hell I'm old)

So, please, continue on reading if you're interested in learning more about the strange person that I am!

⛧ The basics: aroace, agender (they/them), 30 years old

⛧ Some of my favorite things/hobbies/interests: writing, crochet, painting, reading, anime/manga, danmei, music, researching, collecting things, Japanese culture, libraries, academia, exercising, wrestling, antiques

⛧ More specific favorite things you will encounter on my blog: Oli Sykes, South Park, Dishonored, D.Gray-man,  MXTX, Stranger Things, ATLA, Michael Myers

⛧ Some of my favorite characters you will probably see lots of: The Outsider (Dishonored); Nea D. Campbell (D.Gray-man); Damien Thorn, Christophe DeLorne, Kenny McCormick (South Park); Zuko, Jet (ATLA); Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove, Robin Buckley (Stranger Things)

⛧ All time ships/OTPs: Bunny, Gregstophe, Dip (South Park); Harringrove (Stranger Things); NeaLink (D.Gray-man); Zukka (ATLA)

⛧ Other facts about me:

⸸ I have a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing which I have put to use primarily to write fanfiction (of all things), so be sure to pop on over to my AO3 if interested!  —> Click for fanfics!

⸸ I work in an academic library as a cataloger and acquistions specialist and I love every aspect of my job.

⸸ I hyperfixate like crazy and jump from one extreme to another, so my blog will be an amalgamation of all different sorts of things!

⸸ I am autistic, I also suffer from depression, OCD, and anxiety—a fantastic mixture of awfulness that makes life incredibly difficult to navigate, but I am still here chugging along and doing my best to get by.

⸸ I am an Oscar Wilde fanatic and collect all sorts of antique books and other interesting items related to him!

⸸ I have a 17-year-old cat named Patches who I have had since he was a baby and I love him dearly, he is my son. We spend our days together living contently and quietly in a little cottage by a lake in a peaceful and quiet community.

⸸ I have zero interest in relationships/dating, but you will always catch me writing the fluffiest, cheesiest, romantic bullshit because, for some reason, I love it even if I don’t love myself being a part of it.

⸸ As for my fanfiction, I primarily write modern day fanfiction, focusing on teens or young adults. Occasionally, I will write middle-age characters, but not often. I do not take requests as I only write what really excites me and I want to focus on those things first.

⸸ Most of my writing will also focus around themes such as: abuse, mental illness, romance, disabilities, slice-of-life, family (especially found family), sexuality/gender, identity, friendship, fluff, poverty, realism.

Please, never be afraid to reach out if you want to talk to me or leave feedback on my fanfiction. I appreciate every comment, reblog, and like that I get!

[hsavinien]

Fic Writer Interview

Tagged by @wheremermaidsdwell

tagging @asparklethatisblue, @degenezijde, @hyenabeanz if you want to.

How many works do you have on ao3?

441. 183 of those are The Owl House because I have a problem.

What’s your total word count?

360,262 (ish). Some co-written, so not all my words.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Silver is the Moon (Old Guard, Joe/Nicky)

Calling Across the Sea (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley)

Remedy (ST: AOS, Kirk/McCoy)

Teasing Means We Love You, Irritation Means You're Still Alive (Old Guard, team fluff)

Such Simple Trials (MCU, Bucky/Steve/Peggy)

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

Always! I appreciate them so much!

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

Coupla Owl House ones. Maybe Raine captured by Kikimora: Leashed, or Camila and "her daughter's" changed behavior: Changeling.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Ehhh... A lot? Like. So many? "We saved the world and got back together and find each other wildly attractive, let's fuck about it!" is not an uncommon theme for me. New Morning Dawning (Raine/Eda) is fun.

Do you write crossovers?

Occasionally. I've done a few Good Omens ones:

We Must Bear Witness (GO/Tolkien, female maiar Aziraphale & Crowley, fusion)

Knightly Virtues are a Pain (GO/Arthuriana, female Aziraphale & Crowley, fusion)

Østenfor engelen og vestenfor demonen (GO/East of the Sun, West of the Moon, female Aziraphale & Crowley, fusion)

Out of Ambit (GO/Discworld, male Aziraphale & female Crowley, isekai)

A Holmes/Doctor Who drabble: A Loose End (Ninth Doctor & SH minor character)

A HP/Justice League Intl. remix for an exchange and a Girl Genius/Marvel comics one for my own joy: Nadia Not-Heterodyne and the Spark Girls (Jaeger OC & Nadia Van Dyne)

An Owl House/ST: TNG fic: Away Mission (King & Tasha & Deanna).

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, but I did get a self-identified aro person telling me I was doing romance wrong while having me blocked so I couldn't respond without logging out of my account to respond to a comment on my own fic. That person's comments no longer appear on my stories.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yeeeeep. What kind, like...genders? Species? Yes.

M/M, M/F (occasionally), F/F, F/Nonbinary, M/Nonbinary, Nonbinary/Nonbinary, Multi. Monsterfucking. Some bondage. Angsty masturbation.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yep! With @intosnarkness: And mony a canty day, Jim, We've had wi' ane anither (ST: AOS, Kirk/Scott)

and @hyenabeanz: Eda's Reprise (Be Refreshed, and Be Well) (Owl House, Eda/Raine)

Also 10 years and thousands (millions?) of messages of epistolary RP.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

Aging antifascist queers. Raine/Eda, Joe/Nicky, Baze/Chirrut.

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

I'm GONNA. I'll figure it out! I ONCE tried posting a WIP in hopes that it would make the words come out and it did NOT but I'm going to figure it out eventually! Hyenabeanz helped me figure out what the overarching theme is, so I do in fact have a general direction now. It's already the longest thing I've ever written.

Threads Binding a Wide Universe (Old Guard future fic, sci fi team adventure with new immortals)

What are your writing strengths?

Emotion and worldbuilding. Precision with words.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Sustained plot is hard.

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

I use it very occasionally and provide translations in a footnote if I don't think readers will be able to figure it out from context.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Good Omens. Long time community member on LJ. Counterpoint (Aziraphale & Crowley, the Arrangement)

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

Ehhh. Might eventually write for MXTX, but no ideas have really jumped out at me.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

Again this question... Today, let's say I am very proud of A Reflection Bereft, Not Dark (Old Guard, Joe/Nicky, parallel universes).

[composeregg]

What's up I'm Egg (they/them) I'm queer, an adult, and this is my pinned post

My queue is a time loop simulator and has been since June 2023, I have diligently tagged all posts with "time loop spam" and "unreality" since September 2023 if you do not want to see them

DO NOT SEND ME DONATION ASKS: I do not answer asks calling for donations, or reblog donation posts, unless it is from a mutual, a friend, or a friend of a friend. All my condolences.

I am irregular at answering asks and doing reblog games, but I do appreciate the thought 💜

Previous pinned post was about my twewy discord server, which you can find here

I am proship, I work in a library, I am a tag wrangler for Ao3. Sometimes I post about it, especially when recruiting is taking place

I am also ComposerEgg on ao3, find my fic there. Browse my bookmarks if you want some good material! You can chat with me about my fics here or at my writing blog, @composereggwrites!

I have a carrd, which I try to keep updated, and it also lists all the zines I've been in.

I have a ko-fi, and as you might expect by this point, it is ComposerEgg

Icon by @medi-melancholy (very good art)

tagging system notes under cut, also a funny list of reasons I've blocked people

Tagging system:

Fandoms: usually acronyms, unless it is 1-3 words

Twewy

Isat

Tma

Danganronpa

Gravity falls

Undertale

Tgcf, mdzs, mxtx

Ships: whichever ship name I like best. I should work on standardizing this. Always a smushname. I WILL tag things platonically and romantically with the same ship name

Isafrin, sifloop, isasifloop, isaloop, sifdile, loopdile, mirasif

Jonmartin, jondaisy, jontim, timsasha, dasira

Characters: First name last name, western format. Or first name fandom acronym, for those pesky one-named characters

I'll list more of them here later this is still a wip

Things I've blocked peope for (an incomplete list):

please read this with a fair bit of humor

Bigotry (racism, sexism, queerphobia, ableism, fatphobia, I'm forgetting things)

Technically falls under that but any form of queer separatism like aphobia, transandrophobia, transmisogyny

Anti-ship

Anti-kin

Anti-endo

Posted hate for ship I like where I've seen: joshneku, jonmartin, blupjeans, others but this is off the top of my head at 7am

It's really funny actually in the past there was a 1:1 ratio of blupjeans hater to aphobe, literally all of the haters were

Posted xReader fic in tags I follow

Too many rp promos in tags I follow

Supported the bullying of John Green on tumblr (that was sexual harassment on top of an anti-led crusade)

Disliked cats a bit too much (as in literally the animal)

Saw your takes while browsing replies to a random post and didn't like them a bit too much

At least 1 person for having my deadname

Vibes

Spam bot

Asked me to boost a donation post (not my friend or friend of friend)

Actively encouraging people not to vote and encouraging "burn it all down" accelerationist takes as if a violent political upheaval won't kill many people who need aid the most

If concrete reasoning no long applies let me know somehow I guess if this is fucking you up lmao, I don't think I make enough hit posts for it to matter but dm a side blog like @composereggwrites or something, I think it works like that, if it doesn't someone let me know ??? Idk just give an contact any way you figure out idc that much

Last updated 11/30/2024

[shamera]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @bbcphile 🥰🥰🥰

1. How many works do you have on AO3? site says 21! (I also have 50+ on ff.net from when I was younger, and uhhh idk how many that I shoved into my dreamwidth/livejournal never to see the light of day again.)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 619,848

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently Mysterious Lotus Casebook! (Although I might sneak something for Love and Redemption or Scum Villain.) I am mostly a writer in the Final Fantasy XIII fandom, although I have spent years in Code Geass and Merlin fandoms. Before that, it was Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto, Harry Potter, and Star Wars.... loads more.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Leave Me Your Starlight, Code Geass fic Nunnally-centric time-travel fix-it

Five Minutes, FFXIII fluff oneshot featuring Noel and Hope

World Enough and Time, Code Geass AU post-apocalyptic rewrite

First (and Second) Impressions, FFXIII modern babysitting AU Noel/Hope

Lost in a Moment (lost in a song), Mysterious Lotus Casebook post-canon fix-it casefic

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to! I'm, um. I'm really bad at it. In that I will attempt to respond to everyone in the first few days, but then I get distracted doing/writing something else and I am so tunnel-visioned that you won't hear from me until a week later and then I feel bad about taking so long to respond. Also I am very, very bad at responding because while I love love love seeing comments, it's just happy reactions and incoherent noises from me. How do I words to translate my appreciation???

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? ...probably everything I wrote as a kid? I have very different ideas on angst nowadays, but I guess while I was writing it... between Gedächtnisse (FMA fic) and Sound of Silence (HP fic), I guess!

Newer stuff might be between The Other (FFXIII fic) and Test Subjects (FFXIII fic).

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I write a lot of fluff pieces nowadays! But overall, probably Something About December (FFXIII fic), since it's a Christmas fic or Family (FFXIII), which was written to give Sazh more support in the third game.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Once, someone pointed out my join date on the website and asked me why I was still writing fanfiction.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I have, but generally don't. Even most of my ships are closer to gen than not. I'm closer to the repulsed spectrum of ace, but I do like attempting to write all sorts of things.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Yes! Love them! I've written a good handful-- but the craziest one was when I was... 10? 11? and I wrote Orions'Ka on a notebook and when I typed it up, it was well over 60,000 words. It had absolutely everything I loved back then.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not by a person, no. By website bots, yes.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have had... people ask me if they could translate my fics? My answer is always yes, but I don't recall seeing it anywhere.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I had an entire online journal with my best friend back in middle school.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? ...MXTX ships, maybe? I don't feel particularly strongly about ships most of the time, only about characters, who I will ship around for the fun of it. But for MXTX pairings, that just doesn't feel right. They just belong together.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? ....my old Harry Potter stuff, I'm sorry. Not a fandom I got back into again.

16. What are your writing strengths? I've been told it's characterizations! And descriptions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else. Confidence, I guess. Also energy and interest. And once I overcome those, plot.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? ...me, or fics that do that? Because I've seen fics do that, full on paragraphs of dialogue in the original language but descriptions in English, and I don't understand. But if it's just... an important word, a statement, something the fandom would normally understand kept in its original language because there's just no good translation in English for it, then it absolutely works. Some things don't translate well, and fans usually like learning more about their canons. I personally try to keep things mostly in English nowadays, though, but I slip time to time.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Star Wars. I was in the single digits age, and wrote an introspective ficlet on Luke and Leia's feelings about how the original trilogy's ending, sitting together on Endor to watch it all burn.

20. Favorite fic you've written? ...I don't know if I have one. I either tend to be proud or hate what I've written, depending on the day, my mood, wind speeds, and cats. Currently I want to say Lost in a Moment, because I finished that recently and I had so many doubts about it so I'm proud I got through it.

Tagging... omg, anyone who still follows me all the way from FFXIII days and writes, or all the way from the Gundam Wing days gosh.

but also @seventhstrife, @rhystheceo, @teekettle, @adriannasharp @tunnelofdusk 🤭 ya'll suffer through my random selection because I know you guys are writerssss

[veliseraptor]

May Reading Recap

I'm doing this so late, don't look at me. In my defense it's been a very busy month and a half. I am presently writing this while a little bit high, so forgive me any, uh, oddities.

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan. As a study of the KKK's resurgence in the early 20th century, and how deeply embedded and powerful it was, including in political terms, this was a pretty strong book. Where it fell down a little was the fact that it was trying to hang that book on one about the brutal rape and eventual death of a young woman and how her testimony, given posthumously, helped bring down some of that political machine, and I don't think those two things ended up fitting together very well. Not to mention that the way this book was titled and marketed (and introduced at the beginning of the book!) made me expect for it to be more about Madge Olberholtzer, but it was very much more about D.C. Stephenson. I think it would've been a better book if it'd owned that more.

Also, yeah, content warning for some seriously gnarly, detailed description of the abduction, rape, and abuse of a woman. I don't get fazed easily and it was a lot even for me.

Lone Women by Victor LaValle. I liked this one! I wouldn't say I loved it - Ballad of Black Tom is still my favorite Victor LaValle work by far - but this is probably second place. Good story, loved the choice of setting (I haven't actually read a lot of horror set in this place/time, which was fun), enjoyed the cast of characters. I was a little irked by the "postlude" tying things up with a nice bow, but overall I'd give this one a "if you're thinking about it already go for it" rec more than a "I actively want to recommend this to others" rec.

The Storm is Here: An American Crucible by Luke Mogelson. This book was a lot to read. It was about the leadup to (and ultimately the events of) the January 6th insurrection, and one of the things I really appreciated about it - maybe appreciated most - was the way it specifically discussed the dynamics of how the Capitol Police interacted with most of the insurrectionists - and contrasting that to how the police interacted with BLM protestors. I think there's a bit of a desire sometimes for some liberals to cast the Capitol Police as "heroes" in contrast to the insurrectionists themselves, and Mogelson doesn't shy away from contesting that narrative. This is definitely a book for "people like me who are fascinated with right wing conspiracies and also with histories of the american far right" than, like, broadly a recommendation, but as far as those books go (and there are a lot of them) this was a pretty good one.

Ascension by Nicholas Binge. This was a really good book that was making good use of being really weird about its horror and then it kind of fell apart in the last ten pages when it became a "villain explains their master plan in a monologue and the whole thing ends with an anticlimactic splat" sort of thing, and then the whole thing was dead to me.

The Social Lives of Animals by Ashley Ward. I feel like lately everytime I read natural science books I end up with this weird mix of "I liked this but I also found it sort of irritating but I did learn some new stuff out of it that was interesting" and this book definitely continued that trend.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, vol. 5 by Mo Xiang Ton Xiu. Last volume of the official English translation of MDZS is out, I have finally read the Wangxian extras. I also feel like I remembered that I did/could ship Wangxian by reading this book so now I just have to not talk to anyone on the internet about it.

Villainous Friends is still my favorite extra though. Possibly of all the MXTX extras, narrowly beating out the Shen Jiu ones for SVSSS.

Victory City by Salman Rushdie. I think I need to read more Salman Rushdie. I didn't find myself in love with this book, but I'm glad I read it, and I feel like I like Salman Rushdie as a writer thematically if perhaps not in terms of prose style as much. So, yeah. Didn't blow me away, but nudged me toward finally actually reading more Salman Rushdie, which I've kind of been meaning to do for years and then haven't.

Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear by Erica Berry. I thought this book was going to be social sciences and it ended up feeling like there was a lot more memoir in there than I bargained for. This book more of a narrative-focused book than an analysis-focused one, and it was a pretty good book for that, but because of the mismatch between expectation and reality (and what I wanted and what I got) means that it lost me. I'm also not much of a memoir person specifically, so in this case that mismatch was really in an unfortunate direction in terms of how much I enjoyed this book versus how much it felt like I was struggling through it to finish it.

There were some interesting insights and commentary in here, just not enough to be the book I wanted it to be. Not precisely this book's fault, but it did make me want a different book than the one I was reading at the time, which is never a good sign.

I've already read a few books this month (though again, no real big winners so far); presently I'm reading Superior: The Return of Race Science and Indigenous Continent is next on my list. I also need to finally finish the last little bit of Qiang Jin Jiu that I haven't read yet and might try to do that this month.

[astrowaffles]

A through Z for the ask game >:]

HI JAMMIE

this is another long one, bear with me!

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Uhhhhh well obviously I'm loving the gojo & megumi father-son shit at the moment, it really heals the depression. ALSO @grungeeuvu (alt. account @grungiiuvu) has gotten me back into MXTX, especially TGCF, so fengqing is top of my romantic ship list at the moment. I keep meaning to write something for them. Whoopsies.

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

my jjk moots are going to think i'm insane for this, but itafushi. It did NOT occur to me when I watched the anime, but then someone suggested it to me and then I rewatched with new eyes and ... yeah. itafushi canon.

also kuromikashou. I'm a fan of that now, too.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

the rats are going to absolutely hate this announcement, but ushioi and oikage. Hate them both. oisuga? sure. iwaoi? love it. oihina? don't see it as a long term thing, but don't care. even atsuoi is passable. But both ushioi and oikage really irriate me for zero reason.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

bokuroo. they make total logical sense and they'd be hilarious together, but to me they're besties. sorry guys :(

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

i hear lots of good things about my JNT Rulebook, which is a whole load of crack. Also, for AOT i wrote Chaos Theory, which earned comments like "I had no idea funny fics were possible for this fandom". If you are a long-term aot girlie, I am so sorry for your loss.

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

Uh, I'm not sure? The first fandom I contributed to was PJO. I was there for maybe two years, and that's probably my record. I'm just over one year on haikyuu now. I'M SORRY I JUST KEEP CHANGING INTERESTS

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

My very first OTP was probably Eadric & Emma from The Frog Princess series. It doesn't really have a fandom but god, I loved those books... OR Ash & Serena from Pokemon. They were good too.

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

I mainly watch anime at the moment and usually they have more active fandoms, so I'm happy to stay with them. With books, you can never be sure that anyone else has ever read them.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

Nope, because I am good at staying away from scary people. #slay

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr.

Supernatural. No explanation needed.

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

From Haikyuu, it's got to be Hinata, hasn't it? And he's weirdly underrated, considering he's literally the main character.

From other fandoms, I love Yona from Yona of the Dawn. She goes from literal spoiled princess to some kind of warrior queen, PLUS she gains emotional maturity. May we all grow to be like her.

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves.

You know what, guys? I do think Goshiki's cute. I do understand wanting to put him in your pocket. Personally, I don't, but I totally see it.

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Sugawara. He's top tier friend material - chaotic, funny, caring, and would definitely feed into your delulu.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

My main fandom is probably haikyuu, so I wish I saw more of:

Appreciation for the writing!!!

Love for main characters. It sounds weird, but the fandom is full of people who have a pet side character who barely has any lines. This is GOOD, all character deserve appreciation, but can we get some applause for hinata??

Love for rarepairs. This sounds even stranger, considering my last point, but we need to get used to letting people ship whoever the fuck they want. As long as it's legal.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

After a good old shuffle of my 94 hour playlist, I got Bad Romance by lady gaga. This is gonna come out of left field because I've never mentioned this fandom before, but it's sherliam from moriarty the patriot.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

I've mentioned this to friends before, but we totally need a TGCF hosptial au. Mu Qing is a surgeon, Feng Xin is a physiotherapist, Xie Lian is either a GP or an anesthesiologist, and Hua Cheng is some random reception guy. Mu Qing is always bullying Feng Xin for not being a 'real doctor'. Hualian are married. you see where I'm going.

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

Harry Potter, for obvious reasons.

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

I would die for Nobara & Itadori & Megumi. They deserved to be happy forever.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon

I wrote whole sections of fanfiction based off my headcanon that Megumi has flat hair like Toji, but he styles it spiky to be like Gojo. I KNOW the canon disproves it. I don't actually care.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

Nope, because I am non-confrontational and uncreative.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

I'm going niche on this one - well, more like going into fandoms my followers probably aren't into.

Ayame Sohma, Fruits Basket. Loving brother, perfect example of how to make reparations, and also literally fabulous. And gay.

Ooharano, All Out!. Voice by Ian Sinclair, very good at his sport, hilariously sarcastic. Emotional backstory that was just never mentioned again???

Siatrich Wynknight, The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke's Mansion. Very funny, likes to be a bit evil for the giggles, thinks it's funny when his younger brother endangers national relations. Gay.

V - Which character do you relate to most?

GUYS I HAVE NO IDEA. I'm probably closest to Bokuto or Kageyama - and that seems odd, because they're different people, but that's how I am.'

Also Gojo. Don't tell my readers I said that.

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

Exes to Lovers, my beloathed. Hate it so much, I can't even explain why.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS CHILDHOOD FRIENDS "I KNOW THE PARTS OF YOU THAT YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOURSELF" MY BELOVED

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

RWBY, ITSV, Demon Slayer.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!

I guess I've always been interested in the idea of a true morally grey character, because sometimes there are characters that are described as morally grey, or even evil, when they're actually Just A Guy (*cough* Oikawa *cough*). The only character I can think of is probably Dazai from BSD. Everyone has an opinion and very few of them are correct. There is no way you can say he is a bad person, because many of his issues come from the fact that he is an orphan, raised by the mafia, and someone who took the opportunity to leave when prompted. Also, in his life after the mafia, he made a genuine effort to make good on his promises and fix his life, including saving Atsushi.

HOWEVER, you can't say he's a totally good person. He lived well in the mafia, because he didn't care about killing people and perhaps even enjoyed it, depending on how you view certain scenes. Many people would say that he's still not on anyone's side, he's only on his own side. This is debatable, but it's still there. PLUS you've got his continuation of the cycle of abuse through Akutagawa, and his willingness to pretend to betray his friends in order to get the outcome he wants. Everyone else is just a pawn to him.

I'm still undecided on him, but I'm proud of every fan that says "he's morally grey" rather than cutting it up into black and white. Remember that BSD was written for the stray dogs, not the ones who have lived happily all this time...

Thanks for the ask!

[sinterblackwell]

2023 - mid-year book freak out tag

yay to getting into danmei. yay to my current read, qiang jin jiu, that’s wrapped itself around my brain.

yay to turning 22, and so as a gift to myself, i wrote to my heart’s content about some of the reads that have stood out to me this year so far.

it was really fun <3 and long lol enjoy

best book you’ve read so far in 2023?

the grandmaster of demonic cultivation (vol. 3) by mxtx

this is actually a much more objective answer, like scum villain would seem the most obvious choice being that it’s my new all-time comfort series but genuinely, the plot and character arcs of mdzs were so truly well-done and completely mind-bending to me, i was obsessed with it through & through.

best sequel you’ve read so far in 2023?

the scum villain’s self-saving system (vol. 2) by mxtx

this is the volume where shen qingqiu/shen yuan really gets himself in deeper trouble as despite how adamant he is that the people he’s contending with, including luo binghe, are simply fictional characters, he twists the story so much that he finds himself enveloped in it. and he soon has to come to face that his actions do have serious consequences that affect the emotions & actions of others.

also the angst….luo binghe was so goddamn heartbroken the whole time and sqq couldn’t even understand it, it was a lot. i loved it.

new release you haven’t read yet but want to?

ascension by nicholas binge

this story reminds me so much of echo by thomas olde heuvelt, one of my top 3 reads of 2022, and while things certainly will be different, i am very excited for what the premise is promising.

most anticipated release for the second half of the year?

the husky & his white cat shizun (vol. 3) by meatbun

this official english translation by seven seas entertainment was set to be released much sooner, im recalling maybe around the first half of the year?? and then it just got set back even further, which absolutely pained me with the way things ended in volume 2. it was definitely probably for a good reason since it promises that the translation will give the story a lot of justice by being more thorough, but damn 🥲

imagine starting this series in late january and then finding out you won’t get to know what happens next for about seven whole months. i’ve had lots of experience at this point, you would think i’d be used to it, but i simply am not. what makes it worse is that there are already fans out there who know what happens, they know the story from beginning to end. and for those who couldn’t understand chinese, there were fan translations to help include those better with english into the fandom, but now that’s gone, since seven seas has taken the rights of the official english translations.

this volume isn’t set to come out until september. i wholeheartedly cannot wait another moment, and yet i am simply here….waiting :’)

biggest disappointment?

maniac (necessary evils, #7) by onley james

you know….this series is not perfect by any means. the writing can be pretty average every once in a while, the dialogue cringey at times and almost juvenile, even, despite how dark the content is. but the author writes one hell of a case for each book, and it’s a very unique premise for the story as a whole. this is the same author who completely changed me after reading asa & zane’s story in headcase, making me break outside of my comfort zone when it came to what i consume in romance; and the fact that i actually enjoyed it??

as someone who has just recently experienced this same thing with danmei, this is something i’ll always appreciate her for because it was a huge jump out of my comfort zone that i would’ve never given a second thought to before but i was already five books into the series so there was no turning back, i was committed.

with this very interesting take on the found family trope, and the clear care that the author took regarding the subject of these psychopaths handling these grim cases, i was very much sad about having to say goodbye to the characters because i don’t think this is something i could’ve read by anyone else, and i don’t think there’s anything similar. so it made it even more disappointing when with this particular relationship in this final book, all the build-up that had been written of this dynamic from all the way back to unhinged, just suddenly collapsed and didn’t feel nearly fully resolved. the subject matter, especially with thomas’ painful backstory, was just as dark and difficult to read as the others, and it felt personal because of course it was, he was the center of this entire project that made this story. but….it was hard to reckon with knowing how the plot itself actually was pretty solid but then just kinda tied itself up way too neatly by the end?

i like this found family, i really really do, and it’s nice to know that they get their happy endings, but the way it was written felt so easy. what these characters were doing were pretty huge on a national scale and all eyes are on them due to their fame & popularity, and yes i can believe that the system maybe is just that oblivious, maybe that’s why they’re even doing this in the first place, but a part of me was hoping to see much more tension, more stakes built that puts these characters all in all in a very precarious position. this final book hints at that in the synopsis but it doesn’t follow through that well, because again, everything just seemed pretty rushed and a bit lackluster in execution once this final mystery was solved with a bloody red bow. the closest to these characters getting into any trouble was when zane in headcase, as a budding crime reporter, was actually pretty damn close to completely unraveling all the secret dealings that the mulvaney family were involved with. but then he meets asa, and well…here he goes becoming a part of the mulvaneys and easing into their operation with his own skill set as a reporter, which you gotta love for him.

if i look at this from a different angle, i can see another reader possibly enjoying this because again, this series could just be a nod to how fucked up the justice system is that a group of psychopaths are the ones to rid these terrible people off the streets. what they’re doing isn’t evil at all, it’s just as a minor character tells zane in headcase, that if what the mulvaneys were doing was to be revealed to the whole goddamn world, a great majority would probably be thankful for it because these people they’re taking out are genuinely awful and completely irredeemable. so no, i don’t wish for the mulvaneys to get punished, they’ve already been through enough in their own pasts and they deserve to get to live this very unconventional and comfortable life with each other; especially noah and zane.

is this an outcome that any good therapist would wish for these two in particular?? hell no….but they’re happy and they’ve been through enough neglect & abuse in their childhoods, let them be pampered by their psychopathic lovers and be part of a family that has well and done proven they would literally kill for them to secure their protection….because they already have.

at the end of the day, i guess for a finale…i just expected more, personally?? and it felt a little flat for me is all. the more time goes on, the more i don’t feel all that positive about my enjoyment of the final book. but i still have soft feelings for the characters, and it does kill me to think i simply don’t understand the story as well as i wish i could’ve.

the ending just wasn’t entirely for me, sad to say. and the writing, didn’t do a lot as i hoped for.

so yeah….there’s that 😅 (i’m definitely using this as my goodreads review)

biggest surprise?

hawk mountain by connor habib

see, the writing style was pretty interesting, which was a bit of a surprise on its own since it was just so completely unlike a lot of what i’m used to reading. but even more so, the big surprise lied in a plot twist that happened in the story. and now, with this twist, it was something i already had predicted, but it happened so much sooner than i had thought and so to see how the author wrote the aftermath, the next 200 or so pages that were still left in the book, it was very impressive, making the story that much more intense to me, and it also made me appreciate what he was doing at all.

i also would say another surprise is just the fact that i even read this book at all since i literally read it in the spur of the moment after first hearing about it in a booktube video where the creator was being recommended this title and the words “an English teacher is gaslit by his charismatic high school bully” immediately made me check out this story on libby, which!! would you look at that?? it was available.

i wasn’t reading anything else at the moment since at the time, i had to wait to read the next volume for tgcf, so that definitely made for a memorable reading experience :’)

new favorite author?

rou bao bu chi rou, aka ‘meatbun doesn’t eat meat’

if we’re looking at the numbers, mxtx would actually be the one who’s a new favorite since i’ve read all her translated books up to this point. and while i do respect her a ton as an author, meatbun just really stands out with only two of the works i’ve been able to read by her: dumb husky & his white cat shizun + yuwu.

yuwu especially, even though i’ve only read the first volume in the seven seas eng. translation, it made a huge impression on me because of how much i loved the way this particular author writes her characters. there’s a different brand of humor that’s unlike mxtx, which makes it difficult to compare, but the relationships meatbun has her characters involved in in particular, especially the main pairing, really throw me for a loop because they’re like the definitions of tragic lovers, but there’s still so much more going on in the story, so much deception and political struggles going on, i deeply enjoy every bit of it. yeah there’s a lot of angst, but the yearning….i can’t get enough. especially being in mo xi’s pov.

newest fictional crush?

i….do not have one. the closest ones i can come up with are michael stirling from when he was wicked by julia quinn + wyatt mckinley from how to say i do by tal bauer. and this is just because they’re definitely my most favorite love interests i’ve read this year so far :’)

newest favorite character?

- jiang cheng from grandmaster of demonic cultivation by mxtx

it’s as i said to another reader friend of mine (i’m doing this word for word lol):

he has anger issues. a bitter human being. he lashes out pretty quickly because he doesn’t like being seen as vulnerable. he turned out very closely like his dead mother, who was abusive, but it wasn’t written all black & white, at least the story didn’t make it so but the fandom took it upon themselves to do as such. he lost a lot and the way cultivation society manipulated that to make him turn against his own brother, was very hard to read.

he’s so complicated, i love that in characters. i love characters who get so many chances to be better and they have that potential but their own vices make them fall short, they just…feel so bittersweet, and they have these moments where the sweet shines through a little, but it’s not permanent. it’s there, but it’s fleeting.

book that made you cry?

ahem….heaven official’s blessing (vol. 4) by mxtx

TWO words: blackwater arc

book that made you happy?

- sent to a fantasy world and now all the men want me (vol. 1) by jaclyn osborn

no, this is not a manga, but it has all the tropes seen in a book where the mc is “isekai’d into a fantasy world and magically gets into a harem” (as said by a friend when i was speaking to them about it). and they were right!!

at first, i was going to list the true love experiment by christina lauren as the winner but just a few days ago, i finished this story, and it was so ridiculous and fun and heartwarming and had such an interesting world for evan & me to dive into, i couldn’t help myself putting it on here.

it’s so incredibly self-indulgent, and it just makes the story even better. i already miss kuya and can’t wait to see him & sawyer get their happy ending in the future because it will come. same for lake, lake is a sweetheart who deserves better.

most beautiful book you bought this year?

- all the sinners bleed by s.a. cosby (x)

literally just bought this book and i gotta say, 75% of the reason was because of how stunning the blood moon is on the cover :’)

books you really need to read by the end of the year?

- dark heir (dark rise, #2) by c.s. pacat

- all the hidden paths (the tithenai chronicles, #2) by foz meadows

technically, these books don’t even come out until the end of the year. but i know damn well that is there no way i’m not reading them before the world turns 2024.

dark heir i have been waiting for for about TWO years now, and all the hidden paths was a pleasant discovery since the first book read pretty much as standalone; but with how expansive the worldbuilding was and same for the court intrigue, plus all the drama that happened near the end, it only makes sense that there’s still a lot to uncover in this universe so i am very much looking forward to it.