#so on one hand my favourite version of this particular ship is

[erstwhilesparrow]

For the ask meme! How about your choice between 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 19, or 27 for your choice of Outsider SMP ship, if you have any!

ship asks game

ooooh. am i allowed to do all of them. will i be publicly executed for doing all of them. well. okay. let's pick mohwee/owen for ship and see how many of them are actually applicable.

Who is the better cook?

i'm... worried that it might be owen? i cannot imagine either of them are doing fantastic things with food and at least he knows how to bake. UNLESS. mohwee after his [horrible no-good very bad time in the maze alone] gets very into cooking. he is going to have something better than raw scallions and it's going to be something he makes with his own two dang hands. the outsiders have farms and campfires and maybe even utensils; he could make Anything! okay i've decided mohwee wins on power of [that would be cute]. owen is by turns encouraging, bemused, and competitive about this hobby.

3. Are they into PDA? Who initiates most?

ohhhhh my god owen will implode and die if anyone so much as looks at him too fondly. if they are doing any pda ever it is initiated by mohwee and only happening because he's doing his level best to embarrass/confuse owen.

5. Who is the cheesier one of the two?

mohwee will happily do things for the bit, and this includes being cheesy. owen is just. disarmingly sincere sometimes, in a way that he is not registering as cheesiness, but might nevertheless be cheesy. mohwee, on the other hand, is gleefully making owen roll his eyes with every other sentence out of his mouth. if any of it loops back around to being sincere, he certainly is not admitting to it.

6. Who is always, always running late?

answering in the spirit of the question: i don't think mohwee is actually always running late but he is less often on time than owen "was a soldier who had it drilled into him deeper than his bones that he Must be punctual" keldor. it's another fantastic way to aggravate owen <3

answering in the outsiders sense of running: it's still mohwee. i think in the earliest days sometimes he just. decides to check something in the maze and it's like late afternoon and it drives everyone, owen especially, up the wall. after his Very Bad Time, he does this less.

8. Who is a morning person? Who is a night owl?

you know what. i think if you asked them, mohwee would say he's a night owl and owen would say he's a morning person, but the actual thing is the maze has fucked with their sleep and sense of time so bad neither of them cleanly fit into these categories.

9. Who travels lighter?

oh. difficult. might be mohwee just because owen is so often carrying weapons and food and a clock around with him? he needs his quiver and his spear and all that and mohwee is used enough to not having much. he is saying this is fine to cover up for how he's Not Thinking About It and owen does not think this is fine at all.

19. What do they fight about most often? (Alternative: what was their biggest fight?)

um. well. empirically they fight most often about how to handle the maze. and who should be in charge. and who should go into the maze. and when. and whose terrible coping mechanisms are actually right and correct and adaptive. and so forth. but you knew that already. ^^; in the alternate universe where they actually Get Together, perhaps they can argue about who makes the best pie.

27. Craziest place they had sex?

i would say in the woods but like. early outsiders the clearing is Mostly trees, as far as i can tell, so given the givens, not actually really wild place to have sex? ditto for in a cave. owen spent like. what. days or weeks living out of that cave under the water. maybe mohwee proposes fucking in the maze once, but they're not doing that.

[someonelookingpraediti]

Bookshelf Tours All for the Game

I had to rearrange my shelves recently - my CD collection was lined up on top of my laundry bin, but it just got too big, and needed a full shelf. It was the perfect opportunity to make an "All for the Game" shelf, and finally have them all lined up together!

1. This is the Italian version, and it's a gorgeous hardback omnibus edition! It's the only hardback edition I've found (so far - I can't wait for the Rainbow Crate editions!) and it's also the only omnibus edition I've seen.

2. These are the French editions. The covers are really cool, and the titles translate to "Well Hidden Secrets", "Never Give Up", and "A Reason to Live". Honestly, I love that. Such cool titles!

3. The "Pipe Dream" fanzine by @llstarcasterll is so, so cool! It's full of the most gorgeous artwork, so is totally worth buying if you can get your hands on it. If I was flush with cash, I'd buy like, six of them, so I could pull them apart and put the pictures on my wall, in my diary, in my scrapbook.

4. The Spanish covers use the same artwork as the French ones, so I probably didn't need both, but I'm obsessive. These ones have the advantage of having really awesome chapter heading art.

5. These are the Russian editions. The artwork is, I believe, by @kiiakostet. This is some of my absolute favourite AFTG artwork, and I wish they were available as dustjackets for the English editions.

6. And speaking of dustjackets: These replacement jackets are by @llstarcasterll. They're beautiful, and I love how the spines look! I'm really looking forward to getting the "Raven Cycle" and "The Sunshine Court" jackets by the same artist. No idea where they'll go, though, the shelf is full!

7. And these are the @ouijacine jackets! I also have the prints of the artwork framed on my "All for the Game" art wall, so with this book facing outwards, it just looks like I'm super obsessed with this particular artwork. Oh wait. I am.

8. The originals. The ugly, terribly designed English language originals. I love them so much. These copies are messy and well-thumbed, and stuffed to bursting with colour co-ordinated page tabs. They are more annotation than book, at this point.

9. Ok. Technically, this isn't AFTG. But these copies of "The Raven Cycle" get a space on the shelf because the jackets are also designed by @ouijacine. Also, it makes the book stack sit at the exact perfect height.

10a. Special mention for the shelves above and below. The shelf above is my "Leigh Bardugo" collection, including some collector's editions, those gorgeous Illumicrate editions of the Nikolai duology, several beautiful copies of the Alex Stern books, and "The Familiar", which I still haven't read.

10b. The shelf below is the reason for the rearrange. I needed a long shelf, and a ridiculously tall one. These are my BTS albums. Yeah, I'm that person now. I actually still have a fair few to get, so there's a chance I'm going to overfill this shelf too. You can just see a couple of my boys peeping out over the top of the CDs, in flip photo form. I want to get one for each of the members, but weverse shipping is fucking extortionate.

At the moment, these all fit perfectly on this shelf, but with the many editions of the TSC duology I'm going to be buying, and the Rainbow Crate hardback editions? Yeah, I'm gonna need a bigger shelf.

[sunbeamah]

Can I ask your top 10 fav fics ever (from any fandom, if you don't mind)?

Also, just curious, is there a story behind your name "sunbeamah "?

OF COURSE!!! I'M SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET BACK TO YOU D:

I currently have 999 bookmarksgdfjh so this is gonna take a moment. And I've also been in many, many fandoms over the years, so please forgive me!

As for my name— there's only a little story!

One of my (many, lol) names mean 'sunrise', and one of my nicknames is Mah (that's the shorter version tho). Sunrisemah was a little strange imo, and Sunraymah reminds me of my Aunty's name, so Sunbeamah it was! It rolled off the tongue a little nicer too, I thought!

When I first made this account I would sometimes get confused and accidentally type in sunbae mah haha. I was reading too many manhwa!

Below the cut, in no particular order, are some of my top favourite fics that came to mind!!

Nobamaki (JJK)— witches x mafia au, what a mix!!! Absolute genius, I need to re-read this fic, it's part of what got me into nobamaki and urged me to finish jjk season 1 last year. I love Nobara and how feisty she is, and how powerful Maki is. The power struggle and I really enjoy fics with magic, and this one has a really cool system mixed with cursed techniques! I've read heaps of Rigamaroler's works, they're so good

Dabihawks (BNHA)— I remember being on Tumblr the DAY the hotwings ship started. I can't remember the exact user who started it up, but I remember in the week following it just ramped right up. I hopped on the hotwings train immediately-- even though I was even worse at using Tumblr than I am now. These 2 are fics that I LOVE, they're tied! Both set in canonverse, top one is a soulmate au, angsty with a happy ending and reformation (SUCH good angst, sometimes when I cry I come back to read it). Second one is an au where Rei divorces Endeavour and Hawks is saved from the Commission, it's so good!! Juurensha is awesome

Zolu (One Piece)— THIS ONE GOES CRAZY!!! So the backstory is like one of those christmas movies where a woman (Sanji, ironically (jkjk)) with a high powered city job goes back to her snowy home village and reunites with a charming man she grew up with, a lost love if you will (Ace), falls in love and realises her relationship with boyfriend (Zoro) is going nowhere. And said boyfriend comes to surprise her, only to find she's moved on. WITH A TWIST! A zolu twist. I love their instant attraction, they're so funny in this fic. Very real of them. Background Frobin, too!!

Karonico (Runaways)— Does anyone remember runaways?? I loved Karolina and Nico when I watched it. I hadn't read any hades/persephone au's until this fic, and ever since I've always been reminded of this one. Love their relationship, Nico's gentleness shining through the walls she's built around herself, Karolina wanting to be with Nico no matter what. It's how I like their relationship, as two girls who have been through a lot and when they come out of hard times, they want to be holding each others' hands. Very sweet!!!! This fic made me want a relationship so bad when I was younger. I still remember the OCs this fic lowkey inspired, too.

Fraxus (Fairy Tail)-- university au where Laxus is a wrestler and Freed becomes the wrestling team's social media manager. It's so so good, I love their relationship and their raw attraction. All of Eryiss' fics are amazing, I binged every fraxus fic they ever posted while I was recovering from surgery earlier this year. So good, alleviated my pain 100x better than medication haha

Klance (Voltron)— ahh yes, my voltron phase. My dark past, if u will. Jk jk. I made on ao3 account just to bookmark this fic haha! It's been so long, but I have to give this fic its roses. Lost in space au, injuries, fighting, angst, getting together, the whole lot. It was amazing, changed my life, genuinely. Cw for past non-con in Lance's life.

Elhani / Teleanor (The Good Place)— I can't figure out which ship name I like better. This is the fifth fic I ever bookmarked, I read this instead of studying for an important test. It was absolutely worth it. I remember it took me hours to read 'cause I kept trying to picture every scene perfectly. And also because I'd stop to 'study' haha. Tahani and Eleanor struggle with their attraction to one another, and yet it's love at first sight (I LOVE love at first sight..).

Sasunaru (Naruto)— I have to admit something. I love omegaverse. I know it's not for everyone, but it's definitely for me. Usually I go for F!omega x F!omega (i have a nobamaki wip of this), M!alpha x M!beta, those dynamics are super fun to me. But this one is M!alpha x M!omega, which I also love of course.

Anyways, I loved this fic, read it all in one night and then re-read it the next day, and when the final chapter came out I reread it all again haha. I'm a Naruto glazer, every time I read a fic and Sasuke acts like he's doing Naruto a favour by dating him, I want to claw at him. He doesn't know how lucky he is! In this fic, Sasuke knows his place! Jk jk, but I really do love their all-encompassing love for and devotion to each other, and I think it's especially present here!

Viktuuri (YOI)— Another omegaverse! This is also royalty au, Viktor is a little dark here but not to Yuuri and that's what I'm all about loll. It also has mpreg. Anyways, the protectiveness and cold opulence is something I really enjoy, and whenever I feel terrible and don't want to write, I'll read this and feel comforted that, between me and him, at least one of us is having a good timejfbhdgk.

[saltynsassy31]

What is your favorite media for Sonamy content? Like is there a particular comic or episode of a show or scene from a game that are your favorite moments for the ship?

Oh oh omg okay

So I don't think I have a favourite yet

I've only watched sonic boom and prime and I'm yet to finish the idw comics and buy frontiers

But so far, mostly due to nostalgia, boom is my favourite sonamy media. Also mostly cuz it's heavily hinted at to the point they might actually really be dating lol

But I think the IDW version is growing on me as a favourite XD

As for favourite moments...ah, I can't think of many right now (and honestly I should be sleeping actually-)

But hmmm, tryna think here I'll have to say when Sonic was dying in Prime and all the Amy's were worriedly surrounding him, one of them even holding his hand as they tried to figure out what to do

Another moment would be...every time both Amy and Sonic in boom got jealous that they were hanging out with other guys/girls XD

Oh oh! I haven't gotten to that part of the Archie comics, but one moment my sis found the page of where Werehog Sonic goes "You're leaving!?" And Knuckles goes "You're jealous~"

Actually! I think I still got the page, lemme look

Yeah! Here! This page is by FAR my favourite and I'm still tryna to figure out when it happaned XD

I really wanna play frontiers soon as I've heard there are plenty of moments between the two and I've seen some images

Oh, also, honorable mentions to all the official Sega valentines merch/drawings of the two in their classic form XD

[equixen]

Happy Anniversary to 'Run To You'!

This video became 1 year old a few weeks ago (original post) and also just passed the milestone of 3 thousand views this week. So, because this one happens to be my favourite of all my Caspeter videos, I thought I’d celebrate by talking a little about it. Specifically, about why it’s my favourite and also do a little deep dive into the lyrics and how they’re represented in the video. 😃

So yeah, this one is my favourite of all my Caspeter videos because it’s a culmination of a series of events that started with me creating this video edit of an Aslan’s Country reunion for Caspian and Peter which then inspired me to venture into writing and posting fanfic for the first time (Live With Me Forever Now) in order to continue the story. Then there was a certain moment of that fic that I’d constantly be picturing in my mind whenever this song was playing (specifically the moment of them running towards each other when the ‘run to you’ lines of the song were playing) which then resulted in this video.

After my first attempt at writing a fanfic for a school assignment 20 years ago not going anywhere, I’d never in a million years expected to write another fanfic. OR that I would write as much as I have done for this fandom. So, the fact that this video in particular is a product of that writing journey, makes this one rather special to me because of it being a full circle moment. 😊

Also, I just adore this song for Caspian and Peter. This song had already made its way onto my regular Narnia playlist because of this lovely video about Lucy and Aslan. But as soon as I started associating the song with Caspian and Peter instead, it quickly started to feel like this song (and therefore the video) perfectly encapsulated the version of Peter and Caspian that live in my head and, at the same time as this video was coming together, it’s those headcanons that were forming the basis of my other fic, Our Hands Are Tied. 😊

So, in short, it seems most of my early Caspeter creations were interconnected and drawing inspiration from each other and I LOVE that!

Also, interesting fact… this is the only one of my Caspeter videos where I’ve tried to show both of their points of view. All my other Caspeter videos have stuck to one character’s point of view per video.

Now, let’s get into the lyrics 😊

‘I would run to you, If you want me to, Just give me some kind of reason’

Caspian POV: I love these opening lines! For me, they’re perfect for Caspian’s feelings about Peter. Caspian knows how he feels and wants to make the most of the time they have. Peter on the other hand is reluctant to proceed with a relationship because of his sense of duty. Towards Narnia and his family. Not to mention Peter KNOWS his time in Narnia is going to be limited. Just like it was the last time. So of course, he’s going to put up walls around his heart to protect himself. All Caspian can do is wait and hope that Peter will change his mind.

‘I'll take the pain, take it all away, Give it some kind of meaning’

Peter POV: And yet Peter has the biggest of hearts. He knows how much pain Caspian has suffered at the hands of his uncle so, despite him holding himself back when it comes to telling Caspian how he really feels, he’d still do anything to take Caspian’s pain away.

‘Let's let go, let it be the start, You know I'm feeling the same thing’

Caspian POV: Peter wears his emotions on his sleeves, particularly where Caspian is concerned, so of course Caspian knows how much Peter loves him. He sees it every time Peter looks at him. But Caspian is patient so he’ll wait as long as he has to for the moment when Peter does finally give in to what they’re both feeling. And that shot of them facing each other after the confrontation with Jadis feels like the best representation of this sentiment. How anyone can look at these two and not see the potential for this ship is beyond me.

‘Let's let go of our broken hearts’

Both POV: The ‘enemies’ phase will always be a defining part of their story. And during that fight outside of Aslan’s How, they both knew exactly the right buttons to push to get under each other’s skin. But they came through it stronger together then they were before and also grew to truly understand each other as a result. Before they could reach that understanding though, they each had to let go of the hurt they felt in that moment.

‘Cause you'll be safe in these arms of mine, Just call my name on the edge of the night, And I'll run to you, I'll run to you’

Both POV: Of course I had to use the moment where Peter pulls Caspian out of the pit as well as the moment where Peter puts himself between Caspian and Jadis. 😊 Both are defining Caspeter moments. As for the moment when Peter hands Caspian the sword, though we don’t hear it, I like to imagine that Peter says Caspian’s name in order to invite him onto the duelling ground. And in it, Caspian will hear all the things Peter hasn’t been able to put into words. Also, I feel like essays could be written about the look on Peter’s face when Caspian first arrives at the duelling ground (and the way he walks forward a step but holds himself back at the last second) and the look on Caspian’s face when they’re facing down the Telmarine army from the top of Aslan’s How. They love each other sooo much. 🥰

‘Even if it's gonna break me, love, Gonna make my way to you, Anyway it's gonna take me, love’

Peter POV: Finally, the moment that Peter has feared right from the very first moment he realised his feelings for Caspian were real. He really doesn’t want to leave Caspian behind but he has no other choice. Despite how much he feels like he’s falling apart, it’s time for him to say goodbye so he takes that first step forward and hands over his sword.

‘I run to you, I run to you, Run, run’

Both POV: Yep, it’s this part of the song that kept making me picture all the moments where they run to each other, both in the movie and in my fic. So, if it wasn’t for this section resonating with me, this video would never have existed. And not only does it perfectly represent their need to be closer as soon as they are near one another but also the fact they’ll run into danger to save the other as well run into battle by each other’s side. They are each other’s ride-or-die.

‘Cause you'll be safe in these arms of mine, Just call my name on the edge of the night, And I'll run to you, I'll run to you’

Both POV: This is, BY FAR, my favourite part of this video. The mid-duel scene including the shot of Caspian helping Peter to stand was made for this line of the song. If only we had a front facing shot of that moment! And then being able to combine the moment of Caspian using the horn with Peter’s return to Narnia for ‘call my name’… yep, I could not love this sequence more.

‘Even if it's gonna break me, love, I run to you’

Caspian POV: And then because of this video being inspired by the Aslan’s Country reunion video edit and the subsequent fic, I simply HAD to include that reunion sequence somewhere in this video. Putting it here specifically meant I got to mirror, ‘Even if it's gonna break me, love, Gonna make my way to you’ that represented Peter’s departure, by showing their reunion with this line. I LOVE mirroring things and highlighting parallels in my videos when I’m able to and I rather like how this turned out. 😁 And of course, it’s at this point in my fic that Caspian does in fact run to Peter. 🥰

Bonus:

‘Let's set fire to the lonely night, You're beautiful when you look at me, Let's give love another life’

Caspian POV: Though this line from the song wasn’t included in the video, I do rather love it as another line showing Caspian’s thoughts about Peter before they get together. He wants so badly to take a chance on what he’s feeling while Peter is still reluctant.

------------

So yeah... Happy 1 year anniversary to this video! 😃

At this stage, I don’t have any plans to do other video analysis posts like this for my other Narnia videos. Basically, I just wanted to give this one some attention because I love it so much 😁 But I may reconsider if there’s interest in me doing more? Let me know! I could potentially make a series out of it when I’ve got the time. 😊 Although first, I need to finish my latest Caspeter fanfic. 😉

Also, I’m open to questions about this video—or any of my others—if there are any (either here or via Ask/PM) so feel free to reach out!

[orionsangel86]

Subtext Glorious Subtext! A Dreamling on Netflix analysis in The Sandman - Part 5

1789

How romantic it is to be defended by ones love!

My favourite century! This is where the show starts deviating more heavily from the comic and upping the heat on the subtext (probably why it remains a popular century in fandom especially for gifsets).

Firstly, the show makes some good choices by changing certain elements in order to increase character likeability, which I think were necessary tbh. In the show, Hob mentions getting into a “new trade” regarding shipping and slavery. He describes the process to Dream and is immediately scorned for it via the “poor thing” line. In the show, it is implied that Hob’s involvement in the Slave Trade is something new for him. Dream is immediately dismissive and judgemental of this (as we would expect any decent person to be). Hob initially defends himself “It’s just how its done.”  but agrees to consider Dream’s advice.

This is not how either the comic or the Audible audiobook go and honestly, I was surprised.

In both comic and audiobook, Hob brags about the slave trade. He talks gleefully about actually having a hand in starting it 200 years back. He’s proud of this. He’s completely repugnant in both comic and audiobook and it makes you want to punch him hard. Dream only makes the following comment: “You take pride in treating your fellow humans as less than animals?” but he is otherwise not dismissive or disgusted by these things. He is not judgemental, just curious and surprised. When Hob dismisses this question as it being “business”, Dream drops the topic. It isn’t until the very end of the scene after Johanna’s interuption that Dream tells Hob its “a poor thing...” and that is where both comic and audiobook leave it without giving Hob’s reaction to this line.

You can see why the show made the wise decision to change these things. I think it is another example of where the show is taking the story and characters in a softer, kinder, and more likeable direction. We have to remember that the show versions of Dream and Hob are NOT their comic counterparts. Both comic characters are unlikeable at times and Hob in particular is just generally a pretty shitty person. It is difficult to marry the two versions of Hob sometimes because Ferdie gives SUCH a likeable, warm, engaging performance. Yes, Show!Hob is still a slaver for a short while, and yes, that is absolutely not forgiveable and fandom would be wise to ensure that this is never downplayed or ignored, but I think it is worth mentioning that the show has made the decision to lessen his involvement in the slave trade compared to his comic counterpart. But we shall see where they decide to go with this particularly nasty part of show!Hob's history in future episodes.

I think the show in many ways is taking a more classical view of the Sandman characters - here are your good guys and here are your bad guys, here are the people we want you to love and root for, and here are the ones you should love to hate. The comic tends to keep the majority of characters in the middle ground of morally grey. They have a rather cynical viewpoint imo that works for a gritty graphic novel about a depressed eldritch entity. But that viewpoint wouldn't work so well in a high budget fantasy drama series with a desire to draw in as big an audience as possible.

Anyway, back to 1789. Aside from Tom and Ferdie acting like they want to climb each other all the way through this scene (the sexual tension is through the roof throughout), all of fandoms favourite elements here are new.

Whilst Hob does ask for Dream’s name again here in the comics, there is no response or reaction from Dream given before Lady Johanna interrupts them. In the show, it is clear that Dream is about to give an answer - Hob almost gets his name. This is - tropey. The interruption may be comic canon but the almost response to the answer you’ve been craving for 400 years isn’t. A brilliant little addition. The audience is on the edge of their seats wishing Dream would just tell Hob who he is dammit! It adds to the expectation that eventually Hob will get his name. Dream's identity reveal at this point is basically a Chekov's gun. Hob will get it, even if we don't see it happen.

Then we get the fight. There is no rambling from Hob about some Jack Constantine he knew, instead he is calmly making flirtatious jokes at Dream right in front of Lady Johanna’s salad. “I look terrible, you look worse.” The terrible drawing from 1689 is new for the show, as in the comic it is simply a description of the 1689 meeting that Johanna found. Making it a portrait instead gives the characters something to react to, and I do love how bad the caricatures are in the drawing. Though sorry Hob, but anyone can see that Dream absolutely does not look worse than you, and your teasing flirtations are kinda obvious.

The two characters share catty side eye glances in silent communication as Lady Johanna talks which indicates how close and comfortable with each other they have become by this century.

When Hob jumps up to attack the thugs, he goes for the one with the knife at Dream’s throat first. Hob gets to be an action movie star for a short moment whilst Dream looks up at him in subtle delight. It’s glorious.

AND THEN Dream ONLY makes a move once he sees Lady Johanna has her blade at Hob’s throat.

In the comic, the minute the thugs get their blades out and Lady Johanna threatens them, Dream is like nope! Magic sand! Poof!

But the show, oh the glorious, brilliant, creators on the show, decided this was going to be a “partners defending each others lives” scene. They want to protect and defend each other! They care about each other.

And then we get this:

GIF by ghorestes

Dream. Darling. Sweetheart. He may not have needed to, but you enjoyed it nevertheless.

“Clearly. Still, I didn’t want to be drinking here alone in 100 years time.”

GIF by mrskillingjoke

(Thank you to all gifmakers by the way I am kissing you on the mouth for the gifts you give us)

LOOK AT HIM. We all obsess over these little moments I know, but this is CLEAR flirtation.

If there is a better example of *eye fucking* anywhere outside of a season 4 Destiel scene I have yet to come across it.

It doesn’t even stop there. Because right after the best example of *eye fucking* I have seen since season 4 Destiel is an honest to god proposition.

Hob: "So do you want to find another pub tonight?"

Dream: "She may have told others about our meeting. It wont be safe for you."

Hob: "Im perfectly safe. I can't die remember?"

Dream: "Aye, but you can be hurt or captured. We must be careful"

Hob: “Always.”

NONE OF THIS IS IN THE COMIC.

So what new info has the show given us with this scene?

On a surface level, Hob wants more time with Dream. He wants to find another pub to continue their date.

On a subtextual level, Hob is full of adrenaline from the fight and the mystery man he’s been obsessing over for 400 years is looking at him like he wants to jump his bones. He wants to find another place so they can continue their date, and possibly fuck until the adrenaline has worn off.

On a surface level, Dream cares about Hob’s safety. He doesn’t want them being seen together together outside of the tavern to draw attention to anymore of Lady Johanna’s goons.

On a subtextual level. This is 1789 Hob and they hang men for doing what you very clearly want to do, and it’s not safe with the additional attention Lady Johanna and her goons have put onto you. If I go with you now, they could follow and find us in more compromising positions. Don’t risk it.

In the comic at this point, I would argue that Hob is still nothing more than a curiosity to Dream. He does not show him any real affection or care, and certainly doesn’t comment on his safety at any point. Whilst comic!Hob at this point is clearly itching for more info on Dream, he doesn’t ever push for it, and he is never as focused on Dream as he is talking about other people he’s met and interacted with. They are barely friends.

But by 1789 in the show, we have genuine care for each other, camaraderie, a growing friendship, and arguably sexual attraction.

The other point to note is something I only realised after answering this ask the other day. Comic!Dream has never had anyone else truly care about him enough to rescue him or come to his defence since Alianora (and he basically married her). When Hob defends Dream in the show, its so impactful to Dream because this is a version of Hob who truly cares about him enough to endanger himself (a trait comic!Hob never shows). No wonder Dream looked so pleased and acted so coy about it. He really was ready to pounce!

Basically 1789 is the turning point century. The point at which the show starts to lean heavily into homoerotic tropes and increases the tension. In this century we get:

An almost name reveal followed by an unwanted interuption

Amused side eye glances at each other sharing unspoken communication

Flirtatious jabbing over a bad drawing

Defending each other from harm

Putting themselves at risk in defence of the other

A thinly veiled proposition

Genuine concern and care from a character that never appeared to care previously

Ridiculously over the top eye fucking

All of which adds up to further the audiences investment in the continued development of this relationship whether romantically or platonically and which therefore makes the break up in 1889 even more impactful.

The analysis continues for 1889 in part 6!

[thelordofgifs]

One characterisation choice in the fairest stars that I feel compelled to defend a little is that of Maedhros – and specifically, the way he grieves. Honestly Maedhros being both such a fandom favourite and also SO messy and complex makes him an intimidating character for little me to try to write, so I do hope he comes across in tfs as recognisably himself!

Anyway, I think after the posting of Part 10 (which ended with Curufin’s dramatic lie that Fingon and Maglor were both dead), a lot of people were expecting Maedhros to go absolutely feral and furious with grief; and the direction I chose, of grief that absolutely froze him, grief that broke him, grief that was completely disabling even before the unreality attack started, might be a little unexpected? After all, Maedhros in canon is defined by his resilience: within a few years of being rescued from Thangorodrim, he’s done some impressive political wrangling, learned to fight left-handed, and headed off to the eastern front of the war against Morgoth.

Counterpoint: Maedhros canonically responds to the loss of a loved one by freezing, messing up, or otherwise removing himself from the narrative.

A chronological list of examples:

Finwë. Okay, admittedly Maedhros keeps his head quite well on his grandfather’s death: in some drafts he’s the one who delivers the news to the Valar and (though he doesn’t realise it) his father. What he notably doesn’t do, however, is rush after Morgoth and Ungoliant in a blind quest for vengeance. That’s his father’s job! And despite some superficial similarities, I don’t think Maedhros is much like Fëanor; or, rather, I think he deliberately makes an effort to be different to Fëanor.

Amrod. Not really published silm canon, but it’s worth noting that in the Shibboleth of Fëanor version, after Fëanor realises that he accidentally killed his youngest son, “nobody dared speak of this matter to Fëanor again” (might have slightly butchered that quotation bc I’m not looking it up). This is in a version of the story where Curufin was the only son involved in the ship-burning, so Maedhros doesn’t even have any particular culpability or guilt complex around Amrod’s death, but still – no significant reaction.

Fëanor. One of the obvious examples! Immediately after his father’s death, Maedhros makes the stupidest decision of his life and agrees to parley with Morgoth – despite having just sworn to avenge Fëanor! My own reading of this situation is that Maedhros simply wasn’t thinking clearly; stunned and grieving, he went along with what felt like the easiest course of action, and paid a terrible price for it.

Fingon. Another classic example. Maedhros after Fingon’s death is absolutely defined by his inaction – he spends some thirty years post-Nirnaeth simply wandering in the wilds, and, when time comes for the Second Kinslaying, it’s Celegorm who spearheads that. We aren’t told anything about Maedhros’ reaction to Fingon’s death (because ouch), but it doesn’t feel like a huge leap to say that it devastated Maedhros, so much so that he just. shut down.

Post-Second Kinslaying things get murkier because Maedhros has imo more upsetting things to deal with than his brothers’ deaths, namely his own terrible fall from grace. But I would like to point out that after the Third Kinslaying and one or both twins’ deaths (depending on your preferred Amrod crispiness), it’s Maglor who cares for Elrond and Elros; Maedhros, you could argue, is not in the mental state necessary to do so.

God this got long. Anyway, with regards to tfs specifically, Maedhros is dealing with a loss that’s actually worse than anything he experiences in canon – he thinks BOTH Fingon and Maglor are dead, at the same time! So I hope his reaction doesn’t feel too out-of-character; I was worried, in writing it, that I was woobifying him too much, but I do think there’s some canonical justification for this interpretation of him. Hopefully. And thank you to everyone who’s indulging this silly little story and all my unasked-for babbling about it ❤️❤️

[according2thelore]

📝pssst Lizzy I saw that you listed the AOS in some of your favorite movies! I loved them too but it seems like that fandom was kind of a flash in the pan. I miss it!

I have a deep abiding love for Kirk/McCoy from the reboot but only in the reboot! I agree Kirk/Spock is the choice for the original series. Something about Pine and Urban’s chemistry. They were so good together!

No worries if you’ve never really hopped into fandom for this and just enjoy the movies but if you do, do you have a ship there?

hello!! <3

the AOS fandom in it's heyday was FANTASTIC!!! i discuss this lower down, lol!

for those unfamiliar with star trek, the original 60s TV show ("the original series"/TOS) and the movies with chris pine ("the alternate original series"/AOS) are based on the same characters, while other "generations"/shows/iterations (like "the next generation" with picard, etc.) have different crews and ships (literal physical spaceships).

the whole movie series (AOS) wasn't "oh let's make TOS again," it was "what would TOS look like if one detail was changed," and this detail was the premature death of kirk's father (played by a pre-fame chris hemsworth, which is pretty fun!). by changing this, the whole thing shifts, and the trajectory of the lives of all of the characters changes pretty dramatically. it's quite literally an AU fanfic!!!! which is SUCH a fun concept i wish more reboots did!!!

i LOVE the AOS for so many reasons, but i think i kind of fall into the "love what it almost was/could've been" rather than strictly "what is on screen/what it is"

one of the main reasons i love AOS so much (particularly "into darkness") is its thematic shift from the TOS.

it makes sense why kirk would be on tarsus iv after the death of his father, it makes sense that spock has a bit of an identity crisis after the death of his mother, it makes sense that bones is so jaded after his divorce moved his daughter away, it's just delicious!

while one of the main incredible things about TOS was its earnestness and ownership of its hamminess (or shall i say, camp), i think some of it was to the disservice of its characters.

finding out about tarsus and the tarsus nine during a full-out shakespeare production? and it never really being mentioned again? strange. like...they fully had to eat people to survive (or if not, they had to do other impossible frightening tasks)...and kirk was a CHILD fighting to protect other CHILDREN. also SAM DIES? and kirk never really talks about him again after that.

so the AOS engaging more with the characters being scarred/traumatized was fun as an angst, H/C, and whump lover, lol!

i (unfortunately or fortunately, depends on who you are) am a spock/kirk diehard truther. any version of these characters are deeply in love/intwined in my head!

i particularly enjoyed pine's/quinto's chemistry (not to mention the fact they always talk like they're trying to smell what mouthwash the other used that morning)

while i tend to shy away from enemies/lovers (just not my particular cup of tea, usually), i think it's really fun that they explicitly placed them as adversaries that have to earn each other's respect and trust.

i think the closest we get to canon spock & kirk & bones dynamic is ST:ID, which is why it's my favourite. kirk is like "yes <3 i will break the rules <3" and spock says "...i'm calling the police" and bones says "i am breaking his phone in half bc we HAVE to break the rules here, jackass"

and i personally think it's so fun that they changed the death of spock to the death of kirk in ST:ID, and then proceeded to have spock try to beat a man to death with his bare hands--an act of grief and self-harm and revenge, given what we know about vulcan hands.

(also, while kirk is dying, "you had to know why i went back for you" and the ta'al kiss through the glass???? launch me into the SUN!!!!!!!!)

(small note, but i also think it's so interesting the default emotion for TOS spock is anguish (when it's forced upon him), but the default emotion for AOS spock is fury...like yes...tell me more, thematically...)

it's SO true that karl urban just has INSANE chemistry with all of his castmates. the spock & bones corporate bonding retreat in ST: Beyond was delightful start to finish.

urban's mccoy is one for the HISTORY books, truly! grumpy and loveable and dickish. i want to kiss him on the mouth; who said that?? that was weird. anyway,

the entire cast was just FANTASTIC. i especially adore zoe saldana as nyota uhura. john cho and anton yelchin were incredible choices for sulu and chekov, and simon pegg as scott was INSPIRED. even relatively background characters like winona rider as amanda greyson, indeed!! yes!! thank you!!

are there issues with the AOS? OH YES. YES INDEED. but the potential was there and fun and campy and angsty and i shovel it with a spoon into my greedy little writer hands. this movie series was like if they caught lightning in a bottle and then got scared that they did something so awesome and gently placed it on the ground (wow i guess i have a media type...spn is just...that as well...). it was still incredible, but i wanted more!

i deeply adore bones & kirk as best friends, and think their dynamic in the AOS is so inherently relatable and tender. i can definitely understand and respect your shipping of them! like...oh my god...they were roommates...(and also will do anything for each other, and have a deep, abiding respect and care for each other that is not akin to any other relationship they have)

i mentioned this once briefly a bit ago, but i have another account where i write all of my non-spn fanfic, and have a pretty well-loved AOS spirk fic over there. (some of the people in my real life follow that account and it'll change my life for the worse if they find our wincest blog, unfortunately.) i've been occasionally opening another spirk fic i've been working on laboriously for a year to lovingly look at the screen before being hit with another psychic blast of These Brothers That Want To Kiss and end up writing a hanahaki fic instead, lol!

some of the best fanfiction i have ever read--period!--comes from the AOS and the incredible writers there. these fics are spirk, so if that's not your particular cup of tea, i totally get it! but i thought i'd recommend some anyway for stray spock/kirk fans wandering through here!

shine like the sun --> imo THEEE AOS spirk fanfic; spock gets amnesia and the last thing he remembers is turning kirk in for the kobayashi maru

anything --> morally dubious spock tries to find comfort after kirk dies!!! yes!!!!

the bond --> A CLASSIC!!!! spock gets amnesia and assumes he and kirk are together...kirk doesn't correct him

please don't touch the vulcans --> christmas! and tarsus! yummy!

the Proposal AU one!!!

(if you want more of these PLEASE ask i have SO many recommendations, lol!)

i am so sorry!! this was so long!!!! THANK you for asking!! this was so long and i have no idea if i actually answered your question! i hope this was fun to read! (i spent like an hour responding and then editing my answers bc this was originally An Essay, haha!)

asking a girl about one of her hyperfixations will get her yapping (i once explained the entire series to charlotte on our kitchen floor at like 3 AM).

i am now going to go rewatch ST:ID, lol! <3

-lizzy

[scramble-crossing]

2 3 8 10 12 16

2. A headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like! Hmm. Hitting a roadblock trying to think of other people's headcanons (usually I like them right away or don't and they immediately slide out of my brain) so for my own headcanon I've gone back and forth on how I think Sho died between a long, complicated struggle with some sort of illness-possibly a lifelong autoimmune disorder-and suicide (though he doesn't see it as being suicide; he knows about the Game and is damn certain he can win, so to him it's more like "moving into a more exciting plane of existence." I also see Joshua as going out in a similar fashion, though he's more realistic about his chances and just doesn't care if he wins or disappears). I've always liked the illness route for how un-Minamomoto-like it feels for him to just quietly wither away, but the second parallels him with Joshua in a way I think is interesting (coupled with the theory that they could both see the UG when they were alive, they lived and died the exact same way, they were the same, so why can't Sho beat him?) But also if you're feeling really dark about it you can combine em. Sho knows he's on his way out anyways and takes matters into his own hands, fuck you I die when I say I'm dying.

I don't think this even answers the question. Whatever. Sho time.

3. A character that fandom has helped you appreciate I love seeing content of background characters in general like shopkeepers + sidequest guys :] it's always fun to see someone breath a little more life into them. I like Futoshi + Mick and even if I'm not too interested in them particularly I like seeing what people do with Mina and Ai and Eri in fics.

Also! Tsugumi's brother! I saw one design for him and it immediately fastened itself deep into my brain. He's definitely an interesting character and I'd like to see + write some explorations of him in the future.

8. You hope more people will come to appreciate ___ (a ship, a trope, an episode, etc) Sho and Neku's whole dynamic (both existing and potential) is so, so fantastic in the many ways in which they mirror each other in their limited, self-centred beliefs that are eventually challenged and soon reshaped entirely, changed merely by the action of letting themselves be changed, and how much fun it is that Sho's whole neo arc is essentially a failed-or at least faltering-version of Neku's (and by extension very much like Joshua's). In that sense they're capable of understanding each other like no one else can. And it seems like they do! Sho maaaaybe has some begrudging respect for the guy (as much as he can respect anyone, anyways) and Neku's sees the best in him in a way no other character does. It's a super fun narrative and also just plain sweet and I'm very attached to the idea of a bizarre post-neo ShoNeku friendship where Sho's like this mangy stray Neku somehow finds charming and slowly earns the trust of by plying him with sweets and reciprocal math-speak. I wish there was more fan content of them. But the crumbs sustain me.

Also. From the wiki:

Me and the bestie when we're cosmically connected by Monkey

12. Compliment someone else in your fandom

YOU

I LOVE your artstyle (big fan of that one shoka and sho catsiblings drawing especially. I don't know art speak but something something shoka and shos muted, mostly-black colour schemes set against the bright + colourful background is super pleasing to look at) and the shofutomicki get throupled idiot is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my entire life and I'll treasure it forever

Also I don't think they have a tumblr, but shout-out to oddvector on ao3 for writing some VERY impressively-written Sho fic with mathspeak I aspire to be able to write someday. I haven't totally worked my way through their collection of works, but the ones I've read are some of my favourite fics (Minamimoto Turns Up to the Function in particular is everything I love in a Shofic)

Actually speaking of which, A New Friendship it's just you and me on this cold hard bitch of an earth (one of like 11 whole fics in the Sho&Neku tag. 2 of which are mine. one of which is nsfw. one of which is ShoJosh. horror show.)

16. A tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate Can we talk about what's going on between Sumio and Maito please I don't have the screenshots on me but there is something deeply troubling and possibly homoerotic going on with those two in neo. If you know you know.

[thesomewhatliterateaxolotl]

witch hat atelier for the fandom ask!!

Favorite character: Coco <3

Least Favorite character: no one in particular..okay obvious answer but all the abusive/shitty teachers and parents

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): I can't list 5 <3 WHA isn't really heavy on ships! i do like orufrey (implied) and the cute arkco crush (at least one side of it's canon!) and that's it

Character I find most attractive: I tend to find the WHA characters more aesthetically attractive than anything else, but. Alaira. also Beldaruit is very pretty with his cunty long hair, especially in those super detailed panels where sensei went off. he may be a shady politician but like. the hair. the STYLE.

Character I would marry: Alaira <3

Character I would be best friends with: Agathe!! she's so real

A random thought: very random thought, but...when you get past the silliness of it, the space toilet is yet another fucked up thing about this world and its disparities. particularly when you compare it with the sewer problem in the city, and with the initial scene of Coco washing clothes by hand. Zozah's disparities are shown through nearly every aspect of their lives, including plumbing, and that's such a good detail tbh.

An unpopular opinion: we need to explore more horror in this fandom. also we need more image descriptions please

My canon OTP: see above

Non-canon OTP: see above also

Most badass character: I'm just gonna say Qifrey because of the power of water, the nourishing life force, to fuck things up. and he does it because he hates water so much. that post about water being destructive in witch hat is so real

Pairing I am not a fan of: idk! I don't have strong feelings about the other ships (not counting any weird ones ofc)

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): ooh..okay, this is specifically about the volume version of Chapter 49. the volume version added an extra scene to Lulucy's backstory which obscures what the original, more ambiguous version was saying about witch society: that it's so motivated by the money it can make off of unknowings that it doesn't give a second thought to abuses committed in the process.

Favourite friendship: I love all the human friendships but can I talk about Coco and Brushbug for a second. Brushbug literally weeps when his friend is in pain. he's always there to comfort her <33

[ask game]

[mareenavee]

Could I please have 9 and 14 for the spread the love asks? ❤️

WINTER!!! Thank you for being here and asking these excellent questions!!

Fandom Positivity asks from this game here.

9. Your favourite fanon.

Hi, hello, I'm gonna be humorous for a moment about this one. Because, well... if we're talking fanon, I want to be inclusive of as many different iterations of a character or situation as possible. So without further ado, I present my favorite ever fanon:

🔥 Teldryn Sero is a Bi Disaster🔥

Okay. Well this might be more just a popular HC rather than fanon, but it seems like a lot of iterations of Teldryn are, in fact, bi disasters. Some are well adjusted, or at least more well adjusted than others, so not -every- version is a disaster. But if they are also Nerevarine!Teldryns (my other favorite fanon/popular hc) the potential of becoming or behaving like a disaster is exponentially increased. This is fact lol I don't make The Rules. 🐐

Anyway, yes, I see the ships across the board and it looks like, to quote Topsy, everyone points to him and goes "that man is a bisexual" lol and idk it just works. I love reading all the different ships with him regardless of pairing and enjoy most of the content immensely. The representation is fantastic.

Shoutout once again to @changelingsandothernonsense for Danger!Josh who not only is a bi disaster, but causes ✨Bi Panic✨ during a lot of his misadventures. And also to @paraparadigm for her 'non-nectarine' Teldryn Sero, who not only is undeniably hot, but is, at points, a disaster (or at least leaning disastrous) and is unabashedly bi. And I love him for that. (: There is a lot more. A LOT. But these two are always at the top of my mind.

14. A ship or character that you started liking because of someone else (give them/their works a shout out!)

OOOh hohoho. This one again. :> I have so many! Let's do a weird one that might be outside your radar, Winter. How about Sheo/Teldryn? (: I was rec'd a fic by Muldezgron (thanks @thana-topsy!) and now this phenomenal author and I are the only two in that cursed tag and I'm still beside myself. Still absolutely floored. This particular fic is a masterpiece lol. And we were cursed by a hellship prompt, the same one, in fact, from Topsy (who is the author who changed my mind on more than half of my list of answers for this question lol).

From Muld's fic Ressentiment:

Teldryn should have been afraid. He would have been, if not for a seed of desperation in the ferocity—a poisoned man trying to coax the last drop from an empty antidote bottle. Sheogorath eventually drew back, breaking the line of saliva between their mouths with a wipe of his hand. His lids were half-closed, eyes scanning Teldryn up and down, though Teldryn had no idea what he was looking for. Whatever it was, he hadn’t found it; if anything, he looked even more tired than he had before. “It’s just not the same.” His tone was flat and emotionless, pitching low without deviation. If Teldryn hadn’t been looking directly at him, he might have doubted it came from the same source. “Sorry for wasting your time. We won’t meet again.”

[pantswarrior]

Hii,

I read Fighting Gravity on ao3 earlier this year and I wanted to tell you I loved it! I'm one of those peripheral members of fandoms who haven't read or watched any of the canon stuff, but are too obsessed with the fanworks to stop. It makes me wonder about stories like yours - is some point in the larger canon where something similar happens, or do you just come up with the idea for an unhoused Spock on your own?

I'm sending my ask to thank your for your story, but I also wanted to ask if you were alright with people printing and binding personal copies (ie. not for profit) of the fic for themselves.

I've been hand binding sketchbooks on and off for a little while, and I saw a tiktok of someone's self-bound versions of their favourite fics and thought that trying my hand at fic binding would be a fun project for this summer.

I just wanted to ask bc I heard some authors aren't okay with personal prints, so just let me know please; I'll always love the story regardless.

Aw, thank you so much! I'm sorry it took so long for me to reply - my laptop completely died several months back and the only one I could get online with is 11 years old, freezes up upon trying to load Tumblr, and is physically falling apart. -_- So I have been away from Tumblr all this time and did not see this until I got a new laptop tonight and could load the site again, I apologize! First of all - I consider it a great honor when anyone thinks enough of my fanstuff to want to do ANYTHING with it. =) I mean, I'm just out here being a nerd, writing fic about characters that are not mine. I can hardly be possessive about them. ;) So while I suppose it's rather late for a summer project, if for some reason the inclination strikes you in the future, feel free! It sounds like a beautiful project and I'm honestly flattered that you would think my story worthy. =) As for the inspiration behind that particular story... there is a rather silly story behind it. (tl;dr, possibly...) My partner-at-the-time and I were both really into the new Star Trek movie when it came out in 2009 - and this was not long after both of us were fixated on Ace Attorney fandom, which had recently had a new game released. Before the game was released, there was some character art showing an existing character looking scruffy, and the Ace Attorney fandom decided he must have fallen on hard times. There were multiple fanfics written about the guy he's usually shipped with finding him unhoused and taking him in and helping him get back on his feet. It became sort of a fandom injoke, "Miles adopts a homeless Phoenix". Not long after the first reboot Star Trek movie came out, the ONTD Star Trek community over at LiveJournal (good times!) dug up some screen test pics of Zachary Quinto wearing the Spock ears... but with a scruffy unshaven look and longer hair. So I showed them to my partner, who reacted with six little words:

"So... Jim adopts a homeless Vulcan?" I laughed because that was ridiculous and impossible given how some things work in the Star Trek canon. ...And then I started thinking about it, and how maybe it wasn't impossible, how someone *could* possibly wind up in such a situation in the Star Trek universe, and stopped laughing. ...And then spent the next several months of my life having this offhand joking comment turn into yet another exploration of one of my favorite themes: predestination vs. free will. OOPS. My partner, of course, was laughing their head off incredulously the whole time as I sent them drafts of the next chapter to read over and repeatedly reminded them that this was ALL THEIR FAULT. ;) So that is the...origin story... of that fic. Apologies for the length of this (and again, the lateness of the reply) - though to be honest it's so absurd it's fun to share it again. :D

[missmisdemeanor]

It's nice to know you still ship them. Do you have a SamDean idea or headcanon that is going around in your head, lately?

(note added after: I wrote a manifesto a little. sorry about that.)

i suppose it’s not one headcanon, but I think a lot about how intimately they know each other. I think about rituals. as kids, a shared cup for toothbrushes, dean zipping up sam’s bag before he walks into school, always falling asleep together in the same position on long drives. i think about the innocent beginnings of intimacy, curling into each other in bed, whispered conversations about nothing in particular. sparring, sharing the shower.

none of their firsts feel like first times, just a natural progression. of course dean kissed him one day, cutting off their whispers. of course sam craved to be closer to him in the night. of course sam learned pleasure with dean’s guiding hand and patient mouth. the guilt and shame and holding back all gives way to the possibility, what they can make with just the two of them.

my favourite version of sam/dean is like this, where the world is utterly miserable and it’s not worth living in and they’re so utterly tangled up in each other that it doesn’t matter. they try to separate; stanford most notably, and it almost kills the both of them.

they can’t exist without each other, even when their relationship gets tense with anger or fraught with distance. they hate themselves and they love each other and they both make up one person, is how they feel.

[tessabennet]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Thanks to both @somanywords and @zenaidamacrouras1 for tagging me 💛

I'm gonna put my answers under a cut, lest this post becomes a nuisance on other people's dash lol

I don't know who already did this in my very small circle of fic writer friends here, so for any writers who see this and want to do it too, you are hereby officially tagged 🤗

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I currently have 7 works on AO3, two translations and 5 that I've actually written. I kind of think of those 5 as one fic though, bc it's one series, and on my laptop it's all one big document

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

493,817 (I can already say though that by the time my series will be fully posted, that number will be much higher, possibly even doubled)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Marve (more specifically the MCU), and exclusively Stucky

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

These City Walls

Carried the Cross

The Hand of a Devil

Still Running

Loosened Chains

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

I always try to respond to every comment I get. If I ever don't respond to one, it's absolutely by accident. I want to encourage people to leave comments as much as I can, and I want to give back the appreciation I receive

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

Uhm. All of them? I stick with canon, which is pretty much only angst, and I can't exactly make it better by filling the gaps realistically.

If I had to pick one though, I feel like Carried the Cross is the angstiest, given that everyone knows what comes next and that it'll be awful

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

The one with the happiest happy ending is currently in the making. The others that I've posted and/or finished writing, while certainly having happy moments, still end more or less angstily

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I had a few anons a while back that called me a copycat and plagiarist. They told me to take down my work bc it was a ripoff of another famous stucky series with the same premise. It's the one I did those translations for in fact.

And that's something I sometimes think myself, so it's not like I don't see their point. But the messages were written so rudely that I deleted them rather than open a whole can of worms of discourse about that

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

I did/do write smut, yes, but none of that is in the fics I posted so far. And the way I write it is definitely very tame, compared to what's out there. But I think the way I write it fits the style I established for the series, and it fits the vibe I'm going for. Maybe when I'll get to editing those chapters I'll make it more explicit, but for now it's pretty mild

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don't, given that I'm doing canon-verse fic. It would probably be fun to give it a try, and maybe one day I will, but right now I'm planning on taking a break from fic writing as soon as I'm done with the series, so idk if or when that's gonna be in the cards

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If so, I don't know about it. I hope not

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Sadly not. I'd love that though, I would be so so so excited to get translations or fanart, and especially a podfic version made from my series

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

Also no. I don't know if I'm cut out for that tbh, I'm very particular about the way I want things to be written. So I'm not really sure if I'm the most pleasant person to work with in that respect

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Stucky. Duh

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I am not writing 90k+ wips only to not finish and publish them. Everything I've worked on so far will be published, if it's the last thing I ever do

16. What are your writing strengths?

From the feedback I've received, I'd say it's digging into the deep, complex emotional states of my characters. I've also been told that the way I'm writing them all is very authentic and in character, and that I'm doing a good job with fleshing them out. Which is important for what I'm trying to do with the series, so that's also something I'm proud of

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am way way too wordy sometimes. I constantly have to cut down my sentences and try to turn them into several shorter ones, bc they get too long or too repetitive. I'm also not entirely sure about the way I handle dialogue, which is kind of a shame since the whole project started with me wanting to practice doing that

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Yes yes yes!! I love it. I loved being able to bring in my native language (german). But even more than that, I like including languages I can kind of understand. I did some French, and luckily I had help with not just getting the meaning across but making it sound like actual native speakers would say it. With Spanish, which I don't speak at all, I asked a friend who's a native speaker, though that was only two lines or so. Also, when I was working on the series and the post-CATFA parts were coming up, I started doing some Russian on duolingo, to drop some phrases here and there. I do have some help there too, but not by a native speaker in this case. Still, it helps to have a second opinion of someone who actually learned this stuff in school

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Stucky is my one and only so far

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Like I said, I kind of think of them all as one big fic, so it's hard to judge. I'm proudest of the one that I'm publishing atm, Loosened Chains, simply bc it's my own post-CATWS fic and those are my personal favourite to read. Skill-wise, I think the best I did is one I haven't published yet, so I'll withhold that information for now

So... there you go! Thanks again for tagging me, guys, I really enjoyed this 🥰✌️

[vaporeonisland]

The History Of IOTS- GEN 1

NOTE: all of my knowledge of pokémon is exclusively from the anime (I never managed to get my hands on the games lol) so if there's shit that doesnt make sense, well.. just. Ignore it.

Also this is long as shit! (Approx 1.5k words of JUST lore. What the hell.) IOTS lore is very vast and and convoluted, and this is probably going to be one of the shorter posts in this series. My punctuation is also very terrible so be warned.

GEN 1: "Sunsetverse"

Time period: 2018-19

Age: 10-11

Media Included: Primarily Pokémon, with characters from winx club and my little pony added (and edited to fit the universe)

ORIGINS:

- this very first version is probably the one that makes the least sense, because i was. Well. Ten. So just keep that in mind as you read.

- Gen 1 was honestly a huge pokeani fix it fic. I created it out of spite because people were being assholes about my favourite character, serena, and pitting her up against ash's other friends. I didn't like that. So this au was essentially a "fuck you" to those people. I made all of ash's travelling companions friends with each other so there would be no chance of any of them having beef with each other or, more importantly, serena.

- ahh the things we do for our favourite overhated female characters..

- As for why it was called the Sunsetverse, i think it came from the my little pony fandom? This is probably niche, but i was obsessed with the part of the fandom where they made OCs that were the basically the mane six's kids? They were called Next Gens and everyone had such cool different characters and ships!! Literally look up "my little pony next gen" on, like, deviantart, and you'll find a bunch of cool shit.

-To differentiate between everyone's next gens, they'd call their particular au (x)verse, the x usually being the name of the creator  or main character of the au. This definitely isnt exclusive to that particular community, but that's how i found out about it.

- I decided to name my pokeani fix it au similarly. Except i didnt get the creator/main character memo and decided to name it after my favourite my little pony character at the time, sunset shimmer (I was in love with her).

GENERAL:

- at the veeery beginning, Vaporeon Island was called Lavender Island, (i forgot Lavender Town existed, lol). I ended up changing it very quickly though.

- there was also a brief period when i had ponies coexist with humans and pokémon? Again, that changed pretty quick. I ended up changing the character's names and basically giving them all trainer sonas.

- Vaporen Island was located in the kanto region, but it had pokémon from all sorts of different regions?? Somehow?? It was like y/n, but if y/n was an island. If you will.

- the names of the towns on vaporeon island were ripped off directly from my little pony and winx club. We had Canterlot, Ponyville, Magix, Melody, the fucking everfree forest, the whole shebag. I was very lazy.

- Vaporeon Island was also implied to have a connection to legendary pokémon, specifically suicune and latias? But i never elaborated on this? I think latias lived next to like a lake in the forest and only ash and the gang knew about it.

- since I wanted everyone to be together, all of ash's travelling companions were now his childhood friends from vaporeon island who just took turns travelling with him in different regions. If they were gym leaders or were in any way influenced by the region they were from (which literally all of them are), well.. not anymore!

- miette was also there? Inexplicably?

- Alola gang wasn't, though. I hadnt watched sun and moon at the time so I didnt know shit about them, so i just... let them stay in alola and figured i'd deal with them later.

- Journeys wasnt out yet either, and by the time it was i had moved on to a different fandom, so goh and chloe never had in on the action either. Sorry guys.

- tara first (kind of, this isn't Tara's FIRST appearance but that's a can of worms for later) appears here as a thinly veiled self insert named Bluebell, who somehow had a full team of pokémon despite never having been on a journey. There were a lot of shinies, and at least three eeveelutions. Her starter was a bulbasaur named berry.

- I'll talk more about her when i make a post about the evolution of Tara as a character, but she ended up splitting from tara and becoming a seperate character of her own.

- I gave the my little pony and winx club characters pokémon teams of their own, except I was REALLY obsessed with eevee at the time, so literally everyone had eevees/ eeveelutions. It was BAD.

- I was also a character. Like me, from real life. I wanted to be, the, like, background character who constantly broke the fourth wall and got the characters confused really often. It was honestly kind of funny

- genuinely there is nothing I remember about the plot because I was so focused on showering everything in eevees???? But it was basically the entire pokémon anime but with those weird changes like erasing a few gyms and changing up plot points I didn't necessarily like.

- contestshipping and geekchicshipping were the only canon one ships if I remember correctly. I didn't really care about any of the other ones

- I think I had Bluebell have a crush on ash because I thought it was mandatory that SOMEONE had to like him, which is absolutely hilarious. Thing is, she was a self insert, and I was EXTREMELY romance repulsed as a 10 year old (albeit unknowingly), so I just.. didn't do anything about that.

THE FUCKING TREEHOUSE.

- before we finish off, there is one incredibly important thing I need to talk about: The Treehouse. TM.

- Ash and his ridiculously large group of childhood friends needed a secret base, a headquarters. I thought having a secret meeting  spot was the coolest shit ever, and I had an immense fascination with treehouses at the time, so.

- I ended up going off the fucking rails and creating a monstrosity that defied all laws of anything, ever. I put more effort into this treehouse than i did the entire rest of this story. I cannot do justice to the wackiness of the treehouse with words, but let me try.

-this wasn't just any treehouse, no. It was deep in the everfree forest (which wasn't as scary as it is in my little pony. Just a regular, non-creepy forest)

- This treehouse was a fully furnished house that was somehow bigger on the inside than it appeared to be at first glance. It was composed of, like, a regular house, with a living room and kitchen and several bedrooms (and also a.. pillow room? It was a room with a bunch of pillows. No idea what the purpose of it was)

- in the hallway, there was a bookshelf, which was actually a secret entrance to a fucking LIBRARY or a LABORATORY (it would open up to whichever you wanted. You just needed to have the intention)

- I dont know how they built this. How did they have access to enough books. The chemicals and apparatus required in a lab. Who the fuck is even using either of these rooms. How was zero magic involved (there was explicitly no magic in this world besides pokémon, if they count as such). These kids are TEN HOW DID THEY DO ALL OF THIS.

- There was also an observatory. As if you can just HAVE one. In your house in the woods. Built by 10 year olds.

- if that wasnt enough, there were hammocks in the fucking branches you had to climb to get to. Oh and fairy lights!! (which sounds like a fire hazard, but I digress)

- There were slides and poles and other freaky shit built into the foliage of the tree. So if you got bored in the house you could just get up there and mess around

- the tree itself was a fucking disaster, because from the bottom it looked like a regular tree. Like an apple or mango or something. But somehow it Like. Morphed into a coniferous one??? As you went up?? And Like these branches stuck out of the foliage so you could climb onto them and enjoy the view. There was no protection. You could absolutely fall and break your neck.

- EXCEPT I took this into account, actually! See, if you fell to your fucking death, there were. Trampolines. At the base of the tree. So if you fell. Youd just. Bounce. And not die. Because this makes complete sense.

- i want to emphasise that i was ten years old when i made this.

- there was a security system involving trapdoors motion sensors?? And poisonous gas??? As if everyone was just itching to rob this fucked up treehouse in the middle of the woods??? Misty was in charge of the security system because of course she was.

- and, to top it all the fuck off, there was a bird stand. I giant bird stand. At the very top. For ash's pidgeot. Just built into the tree, somehow. I don't think I realized birds can just. Perch on trees.

So. To conclude. Gen 1 was very much a mess. It was terrible plot wise and made not a lick of sense. It was basically me going "yknow what would be cool as SHIT" and not waiting for an answer. It was made with love for my favourite characters and also treehouses and defying science. It had the chaos and heart that only something made by a ten year old could have, yknow? And honestly? I love it for that.

[veilchenjaeger]

considering each of the mxtx main pairings, which do you think would be most fun as a f/f ship, and please also talk about why (and what, if anything, changes about the dynamics)

Excellent question that I'm not yet fully qualified to answer bc I still haven't read the entirety of TGCF - but I'm pretty sure that my opinion on this won't change even once I have. I just think that the objectively correct answer here is Bingqiu.

I mean, from what I've gathered from the first 2.5 volumes of TGCF, F/F Hualian is like... partly canon anyways, due to the general gender stuff TGCF gods seem to have going on. And Wangxian would be interesting mostly due to the fact that the MDZS universe seems to be the most sexist one out of MXTX's universes, but I'm personally a little tired of Narratives About Historical Sexism. I'm absolutely deeply in love with fem!Xie Lian and Lan Wangji and I would let both fem!Hua Cheng and the Yiling Matriarch step on me, but the thing is.

Bingqiu.

BINGQIU. F/F Bingqiu fucks so hard! LIKE. OKAY. The thing about Scum Villain is that this story happens on approximately five different layers. You have the actual "reality" of what is happening in Scum Villain, including the emotions and experiences of the characters, but this "reality" is also shaped by the fact that it's a novel, and a particular genre of novel (a stallion novel at first and a danmei novel later on). There is a meta level built into the story. On top of that, you have the additional layer of the original PIDW plot, which again is driven by the conventions of its genre. These are all layers Shen Qingqiu is aware of! But there's ALSO the world Shen Yuan and Airplane are from, and their experiences in that world, including the tropes they know of and the internet they interact with, direct their actions in the world of PIDW as well as the way PIDW itself was written. And then there's obviously the actual meta level, the one that we and MXTX are on, where MXTX writes trope subversions and commentary on webnovel genres and internet culture that we as readers can pick up on. I love Scum Villain.

Anyways, all that means that if you change something as fundamental to the narrative as the gender of its main characters (bc gender dynamics are pretty damn important for a story that is in part about male power fantasies), you have to adjust every single one of those layers. Which I think is dope.

Luo Binghe has a lot of character traits, but on the first meta level, Luo Binghe is primarily the protagonist! So if Luo Binghe is a woman, PIDW can't be a stallion novel. What, then, is PIDW? I think there are a bunch of different options, and every single one creates a slightly different dynamic! Additionally, every single one creates a very slightly different Shen Yuan, AND - and this is vitally important to me - every single one creates different commentary on the second meta level. Subversion and commentary are such a huge part of what Scum Villain is (and what Bingqiu are) that I, at least, want that layer to stay intact in this AU.

I've talked about this before, I think, but I want to talk about it more. Scum Villain is in part about the effects male power fantasies have on men! If PIDW were a reverse harem novel targeted at straight women, for example, Scum Villain might be about the effects female power fantasies have on women! You'd have Luo Binghe, who can have everything she wants bc she's the protagonist, but whose life has to be centred around romances with various men. I'd love to read a deconstruction of the reverse harem genre, bc it's such an alienating type of story for me as a lesbian - like, this type of female power fantasy hinges on the protagonist being attractive and attracted to men; it's unimaginable to have a classic female power fantasy without a romance with a man! On the other hand, PIDW as an erotic novel targeted at men would create so much fun commentary on sapphic sexuality. That's probably my favourite version of F/F Bingqiu, so I'm picking that dynamic to talk about in-depth:

Shen Yuan, in this, hate-reads a bad porn novel where the badass female protagonist - her favourite - is objectified and over-sexualised on every second page and exists to be masturbation material for the primarily straight male audience. I imagine that she writes a lot of rants in the comment section about how sexist PIDW is and how Luo Binghe would be an exceptional female character if she weren't the protagonist of a porn novel.

Luo Binghe, protagonist of a porn novel, after the Abyss starts to utilise her looks and her sexuality to make her way to the top. In the Scum Villain setting, of course, she's however deeply in love with Shen Qingqiu, who unfortunately is the only person her seduction techniques don't work on – because Shen Qingqiu is horribly attracted to Luo Binghe, but can’t detach her perception of Luo Binghe as attractive from the objectifying descriptions she read in the original novel. She already brainwashed herself into believing that she was never affected by Luo Binghe in writing, just disgusted by the fanservice, and now she brainwashes herself even harder bc Luo Binghe is a real person she knows now and not a sex symbol to get off to. (Plus, she’s into the submissive pouty housewife act! That’s even worse! She’s not even close to admitting she’s into women at all, she has to brainwash her way out of that!)

Meanwhile, everyone wants Luo Binghe except for the one person Luo Binghe wants to want her! I imagine that would mess with her head, especially after Shen Qingqiu’s death. Her relationship with her own sexuality is also pretty messed up, because her experience with it is focused on making herself desirable to other people, not on her actual desires. Luo Binghe, who only knows how to perform for the male gaze and gets no satisfaction from that vs. Shen Qingqiu, who can’t deal with the fact that she feels sexual attraction to a woman written for the male gaze. I think that sounds suitably disastrous for Bingqiu, and I feel like these are also extremely common wlw experiences. Layers! I want them to kiss, and I want them to kiss on the meta level! (And I want Luo Binghe to become comfortable with being seductive for the person she actually desires, and Shen Qingqiu to admit that she wants Luo Binghe.)

Finally, I think that there's one aspect of Scum Villain that would work better if Bingqiu were women, and that's Airplane. Like, PIDW is bad because Airplane had to abandon every notion of writing a serious, good story in order to make enough money to eat. In the end, the changes Shen Qingqiu makes to the novel are much closer to the original outline and Shang Qinghua is pretty satisfied with them. But like, danmei is a popular genre. Internationally popular, by now! You can make money with danmei! I think that particular message would be a bit more poignant if PIDW ended up as a baihe - the kind of story you wouldn't tell if you wanted to make money.