#otp: i'd choose you every time

[yamujiburo]

Since I've seen many posts about people missing how common asks used to be, I have been trying to send to more asks to engage more. I really don't want to bother anyone though so I'd love to know if you enjoy receiving asks and if so what kind of asks. Detailed? Vague? Work? Fandom? Movies? Books? Childhood? Gardening? Thoughts? OTPs? OCs? I'm sure there are way more categories, I'm not limiting you to these listed options. Perhaps if it's an easier question what types of asks do you not like?

I love getting asks! It's probably my favorite part of this platform~

I don't mind any kind! I get a lot of asks every day so I do pick and choose which ones I answer on any given day. I usually pick the ones that are related to what's already being talked about. But I do come back to old asks if it's relevant again!

The only time I'm not thrilled about an ask if it's a question that I have in my FAQ or in the pinned masterpost that I have. But even then it's not that bad haha. If nothing else it's a reminder for other people that I have an FAQ haha

My favorite asks are ones where people share their own headcanons about Jessie/Delia or Team Rocket in general, or write little stories/dialogue bits! Those tend to really inspire me and I love bouncing off of them

[carlyraejepsans]

Sans Undertale.

the funny one. blue guy. skeleton dude. if u please

favorite thing about them: god how to choose. i love how contradictory he is. i love how much he blends into the background and has a net zero relevance on the game's story, and yet he sticks out like a sore thumb, both thematically and tonally. the judgement spiel makes him the direct deliverer of a core game mechanic, and yet he's... such an outsider about it. i love how morally grey he is. a resonance hybrid between a painfully selfless good man and a self serving bastard. he's the depressed nihilistic man. he is his girlfriend's manic pixie dream girl. he is just some guy. he is the last barrier against universal annihilation. he serves cunt (but only once). he parallels flowey in his refusal to engage the narrative, but whereas the narrative starts orbiting flowey instead, sans condems himself as the audience to the player's actions. #finalgirl. also it's still a theory, but if the otherworld stuff is ever confirmed ingame that will make him the most video game character of all fucking time. hands down. no competitors.

least favorite thing about them: every morning i wake up and i stare in the mirror and i ask myself "do i wanna fuck sans undertale??" and i hesitate. and well i could do without that kind of pressure

favorite line: "that's a promise" "besides. chances are... i've already tried to steer you in the right direction. so what can i say? what can i say that will change the mind of a being like you...?"

brOTP: i like whatever he and grillby got going on. that barman/regular comradery, the mood of the bar late at night and being the only client left. the silent vulnerability of it. it's all hypothetical since grillby doesn't really Have much of a presence in the game, but they obviously get along well. alphys too, what a pair of nerds. oh my god i didn't mention papyrus. oh well, they don't feel like a brotp tbh, it's like. they're halves of the same coin. sans inevitably implies papyrus in my mind, and vice versa. do NOT separate them.

OTP: do you have to fucking ask

nOTO: you know people usually put stuff like incest or age gap ships here because they make them understandably uncomfortable, but if there's a ""ship"" that i violently HATE re:sans it's. whenever they make him and toriel a mother-son dynamic. i am not talking about platonic or qpr soriel, i love those as well, they are besties first and lovers maybe, i mean SPECIFICALLY the take that she's his mother. no the fuck she's not. infantilization of sans and mommyification of toriel aside, that's the entire point of their friendship she is NOT his mother. they're on the same level, he is literally the first person she's gone eye to eye with as an equal in her centuries of isolation and THAT is what helps her snap out of her cycle. she is not his superior, he is not her protège. it grosses me out so much.

random headcanon: half decent singer, but hates to sing in public unless he's being a clown on purpose. used to sing papyrus to sleep as a baby. that's a pretty standard hc though, uhhhh.... he hates drinking. though he's surprisingly knowledgeable about corks, for some reason.

unpopular opinion: abby i'm so sorry i know u like it & i 🤝 about it in some cases ex: specific fics we both like, but he does NOT canonically have 1HP outside of a genocide battle. and i'd really appreciate it if people stopped pushing that hc on everyone else.

song i associate with them: Pinch me by the Barenaked Ladies, and If I Ever Feel Better by Phoenix. helplessness but silly and helplessness but funky. v sans songs

favorite picture of them:

heart eyes motherfucker

[gwynrieldreams]

Whats your ship? gwynriel/elucien 🥰

When was the moment you shipped them?

What are your top 3 reasons why you ship them?

What is one thing you'd love to see in their book?

My otp is gwynriel. I read acosf as soon as it came out and I started shipping them since they started training together. I noticed that every time Gwyn was doing something Cassian would comment Azriel's reaction. The ribbon comment and the bonus chapter just confirmed that they're mates.

Reasons why I ship them:

1. Imo they're mates and they're going to be endgame. Also, Azriel is my favourite male character and Gwyn my favourite female character, they have banter and chemistry, so why not?

2. I like their themes. Religious imagery, darkness and light. Their parallels are also interesting finding solace in darkness, being deprived of natural sunlight.

3. I love love love how his shadows interact with her. I love that he can be himself around her. They have seen each other at their worst and they're still going to choose each other.

I'd love to see them fall in love and I'm really curious as to how their bond will snap. I want to see Azriel hearing Gwyn's singing and them singing together. I want to see religious and water-themed imagery. I want to see Gwyn overcoming her trauma and going freely outside. GWYN SWIMMING. I want them to wield Truthteller and Gwydion together. I want them to revive the Dusk Court. I want to see Gwyn flying on her pegasus with Az by her side. Ok maybe that's more than one thing, I got a little too excited.

[kitkatt0430]

2, 20, 22, 23 for Westallen?

2.) What would they do if the other woke in a manic state after a nightmare?

If it's Iris waking up this way, Barry would check in on whether she wants to be held first. If she does, he absolutely holds her and soothes her until the manic energy passes and she's calmed down. But sometimes when she gets that fight or flight feeling after a nightmare she's too fighty feeling - or too flighty feeling - and being hugged will just make her feel too confined and make the bad bad feeling worse.

So Barry helps her find some kind of outlet for her energy. I'd like to think Eddie taught Iris some boxing basics, like he did with Barry, and they've got a punching bag that maybe used to be Eddie's that Iris can work out fighty-feelings with. And a normal-person treadmill she can run on for the more flighty-feelings. I'd bet especially after having been the Flash herself for a bit, running's a pretty big outlet for her. And while she's doing one of those in the guest room/home gym, Barry's probably sitting up reading (or falling asleep in a comfy chair) so that Iris can look over and see she's not alone. And when she's ready to sit down and talk and get a hug, he's there waiting for her.

When it's Barry, though, he absolutely has to get that nervous, anxious energy out with running. He'll circle the block a few (dozen) times until he can calm down while Iris heads to the kitchen to make him something tasty to eat when he gets back, since running always eats up his energy and makes him hungry. As to whether it's actually tasty or not depends on what she's making, if she isn't so sleepy she accidentally skips a direction here or there, and she doesn't put the heat too high on the stove that things will burn on the outside and not be totally cooked on the inside. She's gotten very good with a waffle maker, though. It does even heat every time without her having to set anything and it beeps at her when the waffle is ready.

But no matter what Iris makes and how tasty it may or may not be, Barry comes home calmer to Iris having made something for him because she loves him and worries for him? It makes him feel so much better just seeing how much she wants to take care of him.

20.) Choose one song that perfectly describes their relationship.

You and Me by Lifehouse

It's a really sweet love song and I can see both their feelings echoed by different parts of the lyrics.

22.) What reminds each of their partner?

I think Iris watches Star Trek and/or Star Wars when she misses Barry. Or Back to the Future. Basically, nerdy sci-fi stuff she knows he loves. But she enjoys needling him too much with incorrectly identifying things from those so she'll never admit it.

So she watched a lot of sci-fi while Barry was away for college. However, when things got really bad for Iris when Barry was trapped in the Speed Force between S3 and S4, Iris watched Barry's musical collection and remembered all the times they watched those together.

When Barry misses Iris, he reads (and re-reads) books he knows are her favorites at the time. It's the only reason he's read Twilight. Sometimes one must suffer for love and if reading Twilight isn't deliberate suffering, I don't know what is. (He did draw the line at the sequels though.) But he's also read a whole bunch of other books. They ended up basically having their own little book club over email/text/phone calls while he was in college. Once she's a journalist, though, he takes to re-reading her old blog posts and articles. He hears them in her voice in his thoughts and it makes him feel closer to her when she's away.

23.) Who's more likely to convince the other to stay in bed come morning?

Barry is always trying to 'just a few more minutes' extra morning cuddles from Iris. He's mister time blindness, perpetually late, ADHD disaster, so he's not paying attention to the clock. He just wants more time holding Iris or being held by Iris.

Iris is much better at staying aware of the time, but sometimes she just can't resist... and gets 'just a few more minutes'-ed into being a little late for whatever her first thing to do that morning was. It's worth it every time.

[grapehyasynth]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged by @lollygirlpops thank you!!

How many works do you have on Ao3? 126

What's your total Ao3 word count? 962,860

What fandoms do you write for? Currently, Young Royals

Top five fics by kudos:

Red White and Blue Jays

Agents of Shield drabbles

obviously

now you see me

your mother should know

Do you respond to comments? I do!! It usually takes me a bit because I have a system... When I am cleaning out my personal email inbox, which I do approximately every three days, I also respond to up to 5 AO3 comments. If you're concerned about my system, so am I. But it works. But I loooooove comments and I love responding to them and I love getting responses when I comment on others' works!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I had to go poking around because I definitely avoid angsty endings, but it would be my little Schitt's Creek fic the ex.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? all of them? 😂😂😂

Do you get hate on fics? not outright hate per se - i've gotten some kind of condescending or disappointed comments, and sometimes people leave rude stuff on their bookmarks (....truly, why??).

Do you write smut? i do, though it usually takes me some getting used to with a new otp.

Craziest crossover - I haven't done crossovers I don't think, but I do lots of aus combining fictional worlds, like young royals and normal people or rwrb and schitts creek. but only one set of characters, if that makes sense.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Kind of - there was someone who took chunks from my fic and someone else's fic, allegedly thinking it was okay to build their own fic around it. Not sure if it was an honest mistake or not.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, but not in a long time!

All time favourite ship? I don't think I can possibly choose hahaa. Wilmon are my current ship so that's where the feeling is strongest, but each OTP has held such a special place in my heart and life.

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I started drafting a Wilmon Step Up AU that I think would be fire... I also started writing a Felice and Simon besties fic that I'm sad I no longer feel like writing.

What are your writing strengths? I think/hope I can really put the reader into what the character is feeling and thinking, really immerse them that way.

What are your writing weaknesses? I'm impatient! I hate editing, I hate sitting with a story, I'd rather write it all in one go and post it right away.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I think it's all about context. Why is it in another language - what is that meant to convey? Is one of the characters left out? Is it showing an intimacy between other characters? Is it an emotional outlet for a character? Is it supposed to keep the reader from understanding?

First fandom you wrote in? Harry Potter (Harry/Ginny)

Favourite fic you've written? Oh lord. You're asking me to choose between my children?!?! It might be recency bias but I'll say obviously.

I think many people have done this already, but I'll tag some folks: @bigalockwood @skibasyndrome @earlgrey-lateatnight @petrodobreva @wordthieve

[manhuntingbonanza]

Danny

Bet

favorite thing about them: I find him relatable as all hell! Thank goodness he didn't turn out to be an edgy James Earl Cash knock off!

least favorite thing about them: Something about him being a Project scientist in the past doesn't sit quite right with me. I mean, I get it and he did suffer the consequences (and then some), but still... :/

favorite line: "I can be you. But I have a choice! A CHOICE! And I choose to be ME!"

brOTP: With Judy and Dr Whyte. I'd include Leo, but we both know how that ended up lmfao

OTP: Him and his wife, until 2001.

nOTP: No hate to those who ship him with Leo, but I just don't see it.

random headcanon: He and his family used to go on vacation to San Andreas and Vice City. When he and his wife were young, they once traveled to Carcer City.

unpopular opinion: I'm pretty sure some people know this already, but I like Daniel way better than Leo. Apparently the other way around is more of a popular opinion. I'll take an awkward average Joe as a protagonist over an edgy hardass like Leo and Cash (much love to Cash, still), because I feel Daniel is more fleshed out.

favorite picture of them

I got two!

The one of the left cracks me up every time 😭😭 As much as I hate the endings, I very much like the shot on the right.

[vaporwaveanxietywitch]

So I was trying to explain my otp to my friend and thought I'd share

KawoShin is "I only just met you but I already know you" I know you like we were supposed to be together from the beginning but it went wrong somewhere and now I have you but it's at the end of the story and there's no time left. It's "I know you because you're just like me and see you see and think and feel the way I do, and at the same time you're different from me". You're different but you see and feel and understand the way I see and feel and understand or at least are trying to understand me. This is the first time connection hasn't felt like an unbalanced fight.

It's "I only just met you and I already love you" I know it's too fast and we're too young and that this should have years to unfold slowly and beautifully and natrually but we're out of time and we only have today and I love you and I'm telling you that now because there is no more time and I need you to hear it and know it because I'm the first to give you that love and you're the first person to love me. And that's awful and not fair and not how it should be but that's how it is. And somehow it's still unfolding naturally even if it should feel rushed it doesn't. If we only have time for the most important things then I need to make sure I tell you that I love you because you deserve to be loved and I'm sorry no one has ever thought so before they were wrong for that. And I'm sorry that all of the people who actually wanted to love you were too hurt and in their own heads to actually do it but I'm here and I love you and that's enough even if it really isn't at least for today it can be.

It's "Every second of this day is making up for a year we don't get to have". It's "all of forever in one day". It's spilling my guts to you because you're the only person who has ever cared enough to listen.

It's "I know you and I love you because I never wanted to be here and you never wanted to be here and up until now life has been nothing but pain. But I'm here with you right now and for the first time I can finally see this beautiful thing that living is supposed to be and I want you to keep having that. I want you to live and keep living and be happy for the both of us because I can't be there with you." It's "my whole life I have had no choices and no point but now I feel like even if the whole point was this day here with you that's enough and I'm content with that. If I get to choose the meaning my life has I am choosing you. I'm choosing you and you're choosing me and we are choosing this day and all the happiness we can make in it."

It's "our story is already over but I am going to love you so hard that it echoes backwards and rewrites the narrative because 24 minutes is still enough time to undo everything that has happened up until now and open up a path to something better." "Because we deserve better, because you deserve better with or without me."

And it's "I will tear out the throat of fate and crack the spine of time as I bend it around backwards to give us another chance, a better chance, a chance at what we deserved to have at the beginning. Because trying is the hardest and most painful thing I have ever done but you give me the strength to try, you make me want to try again."

[damnfandomproblems]

@ 4234:

Not sure if they're checking for any responses, but mostly I wanted to agree. I haven't been in many fandoms, but even the main one I'm in now is alot more "cliquey" compared to years ago when RP and ask blogs were still really common. Now, alot of RP is mostly in Discord, and while I agree the messaging is easier/better than on Tumblr, Discord groups feel more closed off and gatekeepy at times. Plus my OTP is a NOTP for alot of people in the fandom, and I'm not interested in the juggernaut ships, so I get left out of alot of fandom events.

Tbh, I know it's not for everyone, but I've done better in a multi-fandom server I joined compared to any of the servers that are specific to the fandom I'm in. The one I joined I only did,cuz the admin is someone I already knew from my main fandom. I knew they were fair and kind, and they had modding experience in other servers, and it's been overall a great experience, until the server unfortunately died a while back, just due to the admin and other mods having irl stuff come up and take up all their time.

The only other server I've had a good time in was one that's specifically for fic writers in the fandom, which has events and showcases fics of people in the server, so it's alot of us pumping each other up and infodumping about our ideas and AUs.

Something I've had to learn to look out for when going into servers is in rules. Channels that state people's triggers and squicks is well-meaning, but unfortunately, in every server I've been in that had that turned into a wankfest sooner or later, usually with 2 or 3 BNFs in the server attacking each other or smaller creators in the server, using things in the trigger and squick list to harass or claim they were being harassed. Similar wankfests happened if the server has a list of topics and/or ships that aren't allowed to be talked about. Even if someone doesn't mention a forbidden topic/ship in the server, if they post stuff about it on Tumblr, Twitter, or ao3, they usually end up getting attacked in the server or just straight-up banned.

The servers I had/have good times had few if any forbidden tropes/topics/ships. If anything, it was only asked they only got mentioned in certain channels. The few times any wank came up, it got shut down within the same day.

Unfortunately, I don't have any advice for navigating fandom on Tumblr (and I avoid fandom spaces on Instagram and Twitter). I tend to just keep to myself on here, only ever talking to 2 or 3 people and not even all that much.

I hope you're okay, #4234. I'm in a small fandom, too, and I know that gossip runs rampant, so people end up hearing about callouts, even if they don't see the actual post. I've never been in that situation, so I don't know if this is good advice or not, but I'd suggest only sticking to talking to a few people for now. There will be some people who will refuse to interact with you, but even if others aren't actively reaching out, there are others who don't believe the callout, whether cuz they know the person posting it isn't credible or they've become skeptical when it comes to callout posts in general. So there will still be people willing to hear you out, if you choose to stay in that fandom and try making friends in it again.

Definitely close your asks (or at least close anon) if you haven't done that already, and depending on the level of harassment you're getting, I'd suggest making your posts nonrebloggable. I'm not sure if you're a creator in the fandom, so I know it can hurt to keep creating and not get any notes, but it's better than people reblogging your art, edits or writing only to add hurtful comments to keep harassing you.

I might not know who you are, but I'm rooting for you and hope you'll find a space in fandom (current one or another fandom if you decide to move on) that welcomes you.

Posting since this is a response to a previous problem.

[hesbuckcompton-baby]

alright alright! you have too many ships i'd want to ask about for your otp asks SO i hope its okay if i ask for a couple of them 🥺 how about 2 for susie/demarco, 7 for frankie/rosie, and 20 for george/curt!

THANK YOU BLU ILYSM

2. What would they do if the other woke up in a manic state after a nightmare? - Susie x DeMarco

I think it would just be a case of holding the other tight for as long as they needed to go back to sleep, and then they might talk about it the next morning once whoever had the dream has fully rested. DeMarco is definitely the better of the two when it comes to saying words of comfort, but he's also the one who has nightmares the most. I think he would take comfort from just hugging Susie as tight as he needs to, listening to her heartbeat and feeling her stroke his hair until he can calm down again.

7. Would they build a pillow fort just because? - Frankie x Rosie

YES. They have both spent so much time with Alice and Jill that they have become master pillow fort builders - every piece of furniture in their house can be used in some way. When Frankie gets pregnant they use it as an excuse to build them all the time for just the pair of them - Rosie claims it's practise for when the kid is born, but it's really just for fun.

20. Choose one song that perfectly describes their relationship. - Curt x George

God, there were SO many possible choices for this question but I feel like I have to go with Lover, You Should've Come Over by Jeff Buckley

It's never over / My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder / It's never over / All my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her / It's never over / All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter / It's never over / She's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

[autisticwriterblog]

I was tagged by @pintsizeninja. Thanks for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2345. That's what happens when you've been posting since 2016 and don't study or have a job for health reasons so you've got nothing better to do than write fic. 😂

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

2,682,156 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently it's Alan Wake and Control, with occasional dips into Dishonored and sports anime like Haikyuu.

4. Top five fics by kudos

All of these are old (like over 6 years old) and I'm not that proud of most of them (especially the HP one because fuck it). But they're popular for some reason, so here they are!

Healer - My Hero Academia

The Boggart - Harry Potter

NSFW OTP Challenge: Erasermic - My Hero Academia

"Keep breathing." - My Hero Academia

The Date - My Hero Academia

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try my best to, because I really appreciate every comment I get.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Let's stick with Remedyverse fics for this question. In that case... I'll pick:

Five Times Ilmo Hugged his Brother (and the Time he Didn’t) - because for spoiler reasons, we all know why Ilmo doesn't hug Jaakko at the end. It's otherwise a fluffy or hurt/comfort fic until the end and then bam! Angst!

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, sticking with just my Remedy stuff... let's go with:

The First Step is Always the Hardest - from my Ahti/Norman series.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have done in the past, to the point I've needed to block them on ao3. Just the other day, I got a transphobic hate comment on an old fic. Luckily, it hasn't happened with my current fandoms.

9. Do you write smut?

Quite often, yeah.

10. Craziest crossover?

It's more an AU than a proper crossover, but recently I wrote an Alan Wake fic set in a Zero Escape AU.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A few times, yeah. It was super flattering to be approached with the offer to translate my fics!

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

Nope, and I'm not sure I'd want to.

14. All time favourite ship?

All time? Hmm... let's go with my faves for my current fandoms, plus a few I've written a lot for in the past/think about a lot:

Ahti/Norman MacDonald - Alan Wake (my incredibly niche rarepair that I love a lot)

Jesse Faden/Emily Pope - Control

Amity Blight/Luz Noceda - The Owl House

Micah Bell/Arthur Morgan - Red Dead Redemption (I like enemies-to-lovers and redeeming utterly hateful characters lol)

Kozume Kenma/Hinata Shouyou - Haikyuu

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I've got a half-written oneshot for Critical Role somewhere in my drafts that I never finished. It's about a character getting hit with the Feeblemind spell and the others looking after him.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm good at dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I really struggle with fight scenes.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

If the character drops dialogue in a different language in canon, it only makes sense to do it in fic too. Case in point: the amount of Finnish idioms and swear words I've learned because of Ahti.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

This would've been way back in 2012 when I was 13. On fanfiction.net, I posted (really cringy) fics about The A-Team.

Although, techinically, the first time I wrote a fic was when I was 6. I didn't know other people did it and I certainly didn't share it. But I've got an old story (and illustrations) in a notebook from like 2005 when I wrote about Charlie and Lola, a British kid's show.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Just sticking with Remdyverse again... currently I'd choose:

Episode - part of my autistic Odin series. It's angsty, but also has lots of protectiveness from Tor and Bob being a good friend. i just really like writing about the Old Gods at the moment and I'm especially proud of this one.

Tagging: @quailfence, @koskela-knights, @taniushka12, @hamyheikki and anyone else who wants to do this!

[georgieluz]

a winnix playlist for the otp prompt of day 2 of band of brothers appreciation week because i got distracted and didn't finish any of the writing i was originally going to post

you found the light in me that i couldn't find

i'll tell you the truth, but never goodbye

i don't quite know what to say but i'm here in your doorway

i've been under scrutiny, you handle it beautifully

let them wonder how we got this far cause i don't really have to wonder at all

i'd stop the world if it gave us time

i wanna believe, if tomorrow was not guaranteed, minutes to spare, if i could choose, i would spend every minute with you

am i in your head half as often as you're on my mind?

you asked me "do you wanna die alone or watch it all burn down together?" i said i'd rather try to hold on to you forever

i know a place where we can hide out, and turn our hearts inside out, they won't know who we are

there's a hole in my parachute as big as your heart and the gravity's pulling me down

i spin for you like your favourite records used to

it's not gravity or ocean wind that always brings me back, wanting you, i'll be true, it's just you

when the trees are all burning, all the stars will keep on turning, and i know i won't stop searching for the moment when the world stopped for you

where you go, i'm going, so jump and i'm jumping

will you fix me up, will you show me hope

you, soft and lonely, you, lost and lonely, you, just like heaven

when the world surrounds you, i'll make it go away, paint the sky with silver lining, i will try to save you, cover up the grey

[lanistas]

Omg I love Babylon 5, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!!

Hiiiii! Thank you for asking, I can talk about Babylon 5 for days 😃 (This is probably going to be a very long and chaotic post, but please bear with me 😅)

My most vivid memory of Babylon 5 is me crying my eyes out in February 2017, when I watched the final episode of season 5. My mom walked in on me in the kitchen, ugly sobbing and struggling for breath, and, well, my mom was very concerned for my well-being, to put it mildly lol.  And I guess this perfectly illustrates my relationship with this show. The story, the characters, the themes and motifs that Babylon 5 dared to explore influenced my psyche and became an integral part of me, and I was super not ready to let go when it was time to watch “Sleeping in Light”.

Like with any other show that I adore, it’s very difficult for me to explain which aspects of said show I like in particular. As I am first and foremost a shipper when it comes to watching and analysing tv shows, John Sheridan and Delenn of Mir were the main reason why I decided to start Babylon 5, and John/Delenn remain one of my most beloved OTPs up until this day. However, once I started properly watching this show and understanding it better, I realised that Babylon 5 is not only a shipper’s paradise, but also an incredibly well crafted and coherent show, a true masterpiece when it comes to weaving a compelling and logically consistent story. To add to the gradually developing plot, every character has their role to play, and each character is well written, complex, and important to the narrative. John, Delenn, Susan, Michael, Londo, G’Kar, Lyta, Marcus, and so many others – all of them taught me important lessons and helped me overcome real life struggles. They taught me courage, compassion, honor, but also they taught me that nobody's perfect, that both human and non-human beings can make stupid decisions, can take a wrong turn, may be difficult and insufferable, but it doesn't mean that the world is beyond saving. In fact it means quite the opposite, and that's what the characters in this show prove to the audience time and time again.

One more thing that I love about Babylon 5 is the fact that it doesn’t shy away from discussing difficult topics, very often mixing sci-fi concepts with philosophy, psychology, cultural studies, and even religion. As someone who studied intercultural communication at university, I cannot help coming back to Babylon 5 and choosing scenes and moments from different episodes that I can analyse from that perspective. Moreover, Babylon 5 managed to masterfully comment on politics, political institutions, and various types of conflicts, which also impresses me and makes me adore Babylon 5 even more.

All in all, I want to say a huge ‘thank you’ to J. Michael Straczynski, to the cast and the crew of this show for bringing Babylon 5 to life. I will never shut up about it, and I will never stop recommending Babylon 5 to people 😄

[seth-burroughs]

yakou for the ask meme? (i also hate what the fandom has done to him so i trust your rc opinions. keep up the good work)

Thank you anon I'll do my best🙏

Yakou:

favorite thing about them

How he's a fucking loser but pulled off the most elaborate murder plan just to get revenge for his Dead Wife and stabbed Dr. Huesca not once but like three times and was fine with dying afterwards if it meant that bitch is gonna die too. And now he's stuck with him in the restricted area for an indefinite period. Oh well

Not my actual favourite thing about him (because I cannot choose man) but I really wanted to point it out because I don't see enough people talk about the sheer BLOODLUST that guy had in chapter 4 like holy shit good for him I think he should be allowed to kill murder & destroy whoever he wants

least favorite thing about them

Nothing comes to mind, I'd say he got underutilized but that's the case with most of the characters here tbh (mdarc feels kinda rushed 😔😔) and Yakou is not THAT bad compared to the peacekeepers it's like. It's fine!

favorite line

Can't really pick, probably the chat Yuma had with him in the prologue, but there are a lot

brOTP

Him and the NDA, but especially Yuma his best pal buddy bro ziomek morda mordeczka Yuma who never remembers to get the fucking groceries.

OTP

none tbh

nOTP

Uhhhhhhhh yakou/seth, yakou/yomi. honestly i'm not big on any Yakou ships can't imagine him in a healthy romantic relationship (viviakou toxic sludge is fine though)

random headcanon

Makes the best fucking spaghetti sauce you ever ate in your entire life. But he puts like an entire garlic in it and you can choke to death on the smell. Also he's a trans man. Usually I don't really hc male characters as trans men etc (rather I go the other way, like a canonically female character being a trans man, non-binary et cetera) but both he and Vivia fit the vibes so! Let's goooooo.

unpopular opinion

I HATE HATE HATE the common fandom hc of Yakou being a father figure to Yuma or the whole NDA or to any character. The vibes aren't aligning on that one, he's their extremely tired boss/acquaintance/pal/best pal that lets them do terrible things to his budget if they torment him hard enough. And also because I constantly see Yuma getting treated like a 12 year old, no guys he doesn't need an adult male role model and father figure, he needs his 6ft tall 1000+ years old death god gf back from the book and to explore his much more attractive rich and successfull perfect homunculus clone's body that'll fix him I believe.

Also: I'm all for NDA found family (even if we didn't get much of them from the actual game...) but please stop making them like. a nuclear mom dad and their beautiful two children family it doesn't have to conform to any rigid roles pleaseee sometimes you're found family and fuck each other it's FINE jeuss. I was about to say something but I'm having a real one right now qhat what I forgot what I typed I suggest you forget too.

Anyway him and Yuma play minecraft together they pull of the most complicated redstone mechanisms and once every few days his house gets burned down by Desuhiko who logs into Yuma's computer while he isn't looking. He always leaves behind a very visible trail of cheeto dust on the keyboard however Yuma would never snitch on the boy that makes him warrior cats pride pfps free of charge so he just tells Yakou it's a hacker

song i associate with them

Generic old songs on the radio. I don't have any

favorite picture of them

h-HELLO???

[starrybouquet]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged several weeks ago by @doodledrawreblogs - thanks cy! and sorry this is late lol

1. how many works do you have on Ao3? counting drabbles, 77 works!

2. what's your total Ao3 word count? 127,611 (yes, most of the works are oneshots)

3. what fandoms do you write for? I have AO3 stuff for Stargate SG-1, NCIS, Top Gun, and RPF!

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

I thought this would just be all the multichaps I've written (or started) but I guess there's something to be said for older stuff because it's actually all Stargate! I suspect penny!fic will eventually appear on here if I ever get off my butt and finish it

In All Duty and Service (T, Stargate, S/J, 13k)

4am (G, Stargate, S/J, 2.4k)

for here I am sitting in my tin can (strike him down) (G, icemav, 7k) - 964 kudos

and ease my mind (G, icemav, 533) - 947 kudos

so put me where I belong (G, mavdad, 3k) - 853 kudos

5. do you respond to comments? Originally, I responded to every comment. Then I started getting the inevitable daily/weekly "please update" or "update" or "are you going to finish this??" comments and now I don't respond to every comment. If your comment says something nice, though, I'll do my best to respond to it eventually!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uhh...nothing yet, I think? I'm really way worse about saccharine-sweet, syrupy, TERRIBLY FLUFFY endings.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I wrote a 200-word ficlet that is literally only the happy ending! Just Like in the Movies

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not yet, but all my more ~controversial~ stuff is safely in my GDrive still, so....*shrugs* all my current AO3 stuff is pretty bland.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Nope. Every year I threaten to do it and then I just get all embarrassed about it and never share anything.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Not yet, but if I had a good idea for one I'd absolutely write it!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Stealing Cy's answer for this because it's so true lol. I don't...think so?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of! (If you would like to translate anything of mine, please go for it! There's not much to work with right now though lol)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nothing that's on AO3, only super-secret stuff that may never see the light of day!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? is this question asking for an OTP? Because I have two: Sam/Jack, SG1 and Janeway/Chakotay, Voyager.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Gah, all of them. Uhhh, there's a marriage-of-convenience SJ AU where Sam and Jack have to be married to be on the same SG team that @carothepoet and I brainstormed years ago, and I doubt we'll ever finish?

16. What are your writing strengths? Silly dialogue, short fics! That's...um...it.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? WRITING VOLUME. It's not that I can't do it, it's that I don't ever prioritize my writing enough to find the time. In terms of actually putting words on the page...description is hard. Plot is hard.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Honestly, I'm just insane and "what the hell, it's a hobby not a job" enough to Google Translate something if I really need to have some dialogue in another language. Obviously I'd put a disclaimer that I have no idea if it's correct. I like making fun of the "everyone speaks English" TV trope though, so I'm far more likely to just have the aliens randomly speak English XD

19. First fandom you wrote for? The first thing I published was for Stargate. The first stuff I wrote before I knew what fanfiction was? God, probably...actually I have no clue? percy jackson? chronicles of narnia? who knows.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? I am choosing to be an optimist today: I don't think it's been written yet!! I do, however, have a special fondness for Chapter 3 of Letters to Archie for, yes, its pettiness and fluffiness, and also for in for a penny, in for a pound because it's fun!

I haven't been on here in ages so I have no idea who to tag. I'm just gonna tag a bunch of people and hope some of them are actually active. Uh, no pressure tagging @malewifebillcage @tommyjop @curator-on-ao3 @mylittleredgirl @mrv3000 @delicatelie89 @ladywaffles @sluttyhenley @redbelles?

[innerchorus]

Gurgin for the ask game, pick and choose whatever numbers you want! It's a free-for-all! :D

I probably am gonna ask you about Shapur, Isfan, and Kubard later too because of course I am

I said I wanted to answer every question for him and I wasn't lying. Thank you for enabling me! (Ask game post is here, for anyone else who wants to send something in / reblog it themselves. I have a few others to answer already which I'll get too asap now this post is done, but feel free to send in more!).

My first impression of them

Just one of a handful of evil masked guys. Best mask design by a long way, though.

2. When I think I truly started to like them (or dislike them, if you've sent me a character I don't like)

I first got curious about him when I read about his backstory and found out about his shared past with Farangis. Honestly I'm not quite sure how I got to the point where I love him as fiercely as I do now, but I know I started shipping him with Zandeh after seeing art by @strangeshipper and it built from there. I don't know. I just find him really interesting.

3. A song that reminds me of them

I know I've mentioned You Are The Blood by Sufjan Stevens before, but also Don't Worry, We'll Be Watching You by Gotye (POV: you are being recruited by Team Zahhak).

4. How many people I ship them with

Always with Zandeh. OTP status for sure. I have considered other stuff (such as the Zandeh/Gurgin/Parizad OT3) though. And Hilmes/Gurgin in Mage Hunt AU. And if anyone wants to suggest other ships for him, I'm listening.

5. My favorite ship of them

Zandeh/Gurgin, obvious answer is obvious.

6. My least favorite ship of them

I don't know whether anyone actually ships it but Gurgin/the Master.

I won't lie, it's crossed my mind, but my headcanon is primarily that although the Master was once interested in stuff like that he's been alive for so long that he doesn't really have those sorts of urges any more (overlaps a bit with my thoughts on how the type of magic that Team Zahhak use might affect sexual desire, I don't think I've directly mentioned that before but the basic concept is that it can warp it from its baseline just as it warps their bodies, and results vary from person to person, but it's quite common for it to be either dulled or switched off completely and kind of goes hand in hand with the headcanon that their magic renders them sterile).

Gurgin in Sacrifice AU falls into that category, he doesn't completely lack interest but his focus is dominated by his work for Team Zahhak and by the time the AU picks up his story afterwards he's also underweight and depressed so his sex drive is basically 0. And then he meets Zandeh, and gets better, and realises what it's like to want someone so badly you can't think of anything else, lmao

(My headcanons for Gurgin vary a bit in this respect depending on the AU, though. There's probably an AU out there where his desire never returns or he never had any in the first place but even in that case I still see him and Zandeh as life partners and feel they'd work it out somehow.)

7. A quote of them that you remember

What he says when he's rallying his comrades at the end of Book 7 after their Master is (temporarily...) killed: "Let those who do not respect the Snake King Zahhak boast of their victory! Three years, just three years is enough. At that time, they will fall from the peak of joy to the bottom of the valley of despair. The higher they climb, the further they fall!"

It's primarily the last line that sticks in my mind. If I ever make the Gurgin playlist that I daydream about so often, I'd definitely title it 'The Further They Fall'. Anyway, that's actually the last line of dialogue from the final scene of Book 7 (the last book before the timeskip). A very ominous way for it to end, right?

8. Your favorite outfit of them

He has One Outfit. (He would've worn something different when he was a trainee priest, but there's no description of it. A manga flashback to that time feels much less likely now, but you never know, maybe Arakawa will decide to reveal a little of Farangis's backstory before the end… my one hope…)

9. Your least favorite outfit of them

One Outfit, and I love it so no complaints. But I wish Arakawa had planned to adapt the second half so I could see him getting drenched by the rain in Soleimaniye.

10. Describe the character in one sentence

My blorbo who did lots of things wrong.

11. What’s the first thing you think about when thinking about the character?

Huh, this question made me realise that in the mental picture of Gurgin that first pops up when I think of him, he's not wearing his mask. His hood is up, though, and he's in Team Zahhak black. Maybe it's because I've been thinking about the Magical Healing AU more recently, where his appearance is often like this.

12. Sexuality hc!

He doesn't waste much time thinking about it, but he's mainly into men. However, I do headcanon that he had a crush on Farangis when he was young.

13. Your favorite friendship they have

This question makes me sad because I don't see him as someone who's ever had many friends. I don't think his peers at the temple liked him that much (though honestly I think he probably felt quite indifferent about this). There were a handful of other trainees he spent time with, but his closest friends were probably his brother and Farangis. There's certainly no real evidence of friendship between any of the Team Zahhak disciples.

He deserves more than having one-sided conversations with winged apes! Was that mainly for exposition purposes in canon? Perhaps, but it's also a result of a lack of human contact — the novel makes it clear that the mages feel loneliness as their numbers dwindle, and at that point Gurgin is operating alone and hasn't heard from his remaining comrades for a while.

(He absolutely does talk to Hamkar from time to time in Sacrifice AU before Zandeh arrives on the scene, too.)

14. Best storyline they had

Is there anything about his canon trajectory that I really wanna label 'best' lmao? I mean, I wish things had turned out different for him but I do find his loss of faith / corruption arc interesting. Though that's because I also love to think about a future for him where that all gets reversed.

15. Worst storyline they had

His involvement with what went down in Oxus, probably. Oof.

16. A childhood headcanon

You know, I haven't spent much time thinking about what his childhood was like (aside from Mage Hunt AU specifics that differ from whatever a general /baseline headcanon would be). I guess the only thing I feel certain of is that he and his brother had no other siblings, and whatever region they grew up in didn't have much to offer in terms of creating a better life for themselves, and that's why they ended up at the Temple of Mithra in Khuzestan. (Tentative headcanon is that he grew up in / near the Nimruz mountains.)

Aghriras entered the priesthood because of ambition, and that reasoning makes sense for Gurgin, too (they're azat, freeborn commoners aka the lowest social class above slaves, and if they want to climb above the few opportunities that affords to them then it's either joining the priesthood or proving their merit on the battlefield) but I do think that to a certain extent Gurgin followed his brother.

lmao I can feel a backstory headcanon forming even as I type this.. like, what if their father died or left them when they were young (Gurgin probably doesn't remember him much) and they were raised by their mother, who wanted them to have a better life than she had? She wouldn't have wanted them to face the horrors of war, so she encouraged them to work hard on their education so that they could find their place in the priesthood. Perhaps she, too, had passed away by the time they left for the temple, so at that point they only had each other. I feel like Gurgin didn't have any close family after his brother died.

Oh no Gurgin, are you desperate for recognition from your Master because you never had a father figure? Fuck.

17. What do you think their first word was?

Eh, probably some variation of 'brother' or 'mother' (with the headcanon above). I feel like most first words are… not that interesting.

18. How do you think they were as a kid? (Like, were they shy, noisy, wild, etc)

Curious and intelligent! Asked a lot of questions. Easily frustrated when things didn't go his way. I imagine at school he had trouble making friends as he both sought approval from his teachers and thought himself superior to others who were not as clever as him, plus he could be impatient with others. (He was, in general, a bit better about all of this at the time he joined the priesthood, but when he's with Team Zahhak all those negative traits are brought to the fore.)

19. The most random ship you've seen people have with them

Well, I'm not sure this really counts but sometimes I'll ask my boyfriend really weird ArSen questions out of the blue, and recently I asked him "give me a Gurgin ship" and usually when it's something like that he'll try and pick something at random that he thinks I won't like… He said Gurgin/Farangis.

(No, he didn't remember that they knew each other. And I can't think of a way this would work but it sure gave me a whirlwind of feelings to think about. The thought of something happening between them because of shared grief, years after they last saw each other? It's so angsty and messy. If something did happen I think Gurgin would feel immensely guilty for it, but I'm not sure about Farangis. I feel like she might be able to compartmentalise it as something that happened that shouldn't have done, and move on. She'd handle it better than Gurgin, at any rate.)

Wait, my Hilmes/Gurgin ship is pretty random I suppose? Think of that as an alternate answer. Zandeh/Gurgin probably qualifies too given that they don't ever meet in canon, but I can't see it that way now, not after spending so much time thinking about them together.

I've also had very vague thoughts of yeeting Gurgin back into the past, but would I ship him with anyone in that circumstance? Eh, not sure.

20. A weird headcanon

I'm sure I have many! The 'he likes hot baths' headcanon is a pretty random one that came from 1. reading that the real Mount Damavand has some pretty nice hot springs near it (which in ArSen verse are probably disgusting bubbling sulphurous poison mud pits but whatever), and 2. the fact that he probably had a bad time during the flooding of the Dark Temple and it amuses me to imagine him enjoying water in a different context? I just want to let him relax from time to time? He works hard, he deserves it.

I want to write a bath scene for him in Interlude (Magical Healing AU). Or I keep thinking about a comedy scene of him at one of Ecbatana's bath houses with a gaggle of bird-faced beasts for company, because it amuses me.

Here's another headcanon: he's pretty bad at archery. It was taught at the temple, but it didn't interest him much and he wasn't that motivated to work on his skills, even though Farangis tried to instruct him. As far as weapons go, later on he uses a Team Zahhak-typical knife, which he wears strapped to a thigh like Farangis. (He still has it in Sacrifice AU! Chekhov's Snake Knife lmao.)

21. When do you think they were at their happiest?

When he was at the temple with Farangis and his brother, before things went wrong. Other than that, he was pretty fucking ecstatic in Book 16 when the Master said that he would be his successor (disregarding the fact that it's because there is literally nobody else left at that point lmao). I'm not sure I believe the Master was ever planning on stepping aside, but whatever.

22. When do you think they were at their lowest?

After his brother's death.

23. Future headcanon

The whole of Sacrifice AU, I guess. Just anything where he makes it out of Team Zahhak and tries to lead a different life.

24. What do you think is a secret they have that they never told anyone?

I love this question. I wouldn't necessarily know the answer for every character but I do have a headcanon for this for Gurgin, and that is that no matter how vehemently he protested his brother's innocence, a small part of him wondered whether Aghriras really had done it. I don't think he'd ever admit that to anyone (except perhaps to Zandeh in Mage Hunt AU, where Gurgin's backstory adjustment gives him very good reason to hope that Aghriras had killed that particular person). The fact that Aghriras's innocence was later proven only makes it much worse.

25. When do you think they acted the most ooc

I don't think any of his canon scenes are OOC? Is that what this question is asking? I may not like what he does, but none of it feels unbelievable.

26. When do you think they were being "themselves" the most?

Maybe I'm picking this just because it's before he went down a dark path, but I think the conversations he used to have with his brother back when they were at the temple are pretty typical of his true self. The little flashback conversation we get in particular gives the impression of someone who's curious about stuff he maybe shouldn't be, and is attracted to power, but it also shows that he was willing to listen to his brother's guidance. I don't think he'd have ended up with Team Zahhak if his brother had lived.

Otherwise, his Book 16 decisions that get him killed are unfortunately also peak Gurgin, at least in his Team Zahhak era.

27. If they could meet a character from another show/movie/etc, who would be the most fun for them to meet?

Either (or both) of the Devil Forgemasters from Castlevania, 100%.

28. The most unnecessary thing they ever did?

Killing the dog at the temple. Or lashing out and cutting off the hind legs of a winged ape (a creature that is on his side, and under his command!) when his plans started to go wrong in Book 13.

29. How do you think they would be as a parent? (and if they are a parent, how do you think they would be if they weren't?)

Honestly, not great but not as bad as he might think. But it's not something he wants. Thoughts of having a family aren't really on his mind (except for AU instances where he's worried it's something Zandeh might want that he won't be able to provide).

30. The funniest scene they had?

Okay, Gurgin's not actually present in this scene but it's hilarious to me so I'm choosing it: after the winged ape attack on Soleimaniye in Book 13 was thwarted, Kubard and Narsus are discussing what happened. They don't know that Gurgin was the one in charge, but Narsus's opinion is that it couldn't have been Ilterish (the usual commander of the demon army) because Ilterish would've done a better job, lmao. Sorry Gurgin but your inexperience is showing.

Anyway, that's the end of the questions! Not sure how many people are interested enough in Gurgin to make it this far, but like... if anyone does want to talk about Gurgin with me... my inbox is always open...

[softasawhisper]

if you could make any sort of fan creation pop into existence, what would it be? could be a fic plot you'd like to see or an idea for an art piece or anything else

aww thanks for sending me this sorry everything i typed is so vague, i think i'd just be overwhelmed given the option to actually choose something made by someone else ♡

fics: idek i just love angst with a happy ending, thats all i can really ask for. a nice cry and a smile. that and my ongoing ridiculous fics i write in my head about my favorites as i drift off to sleep that vaguely change every night depending on my mood. like gimme a not actually unrequited love fic, gets me every time. the build up is so nice. ooh and i'm a sucker for soulmate AUs.

art: in an imaginary world where i could draw, honestly the options would be limitless. i'd draw cute shit for everyone. for me,realistically, i'd love to be able to edit a believable kiss. that's why all my romantic edits are near kisses because i've tried and it always looked so cringey and fake. now if it were someone ELSE drawing idk i just would love some sweet cuddles or kisses of my OTPs. i'm a simple gal who just loves sweet stuff idk

ultimate fantasy fanart creation that will never happen during my lifetime: wish we could send OTP movies we dreamed up to each other's minds lol