#sorry I'm fighting some small depression which is why I'm like ghost

[rubbersoles19]

SOLE I'D LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR IDEAS (post them coward) (I'm sorry you're not a coward aaaaa)

Asdjflsg but I have so many and so little time it's the curse of being an artist instead of a writer creating takes so much TIME

And I'm a student with a full time internship

Anyway as soon as this Big Thing is done and we actually have wifi in my apartment I want to post some more doodles about my ideas but here's spoilers I guess??

I CAN'T USE A READ MORE ON MOBILE I'M SORRY

Lord I'm pathetic

Bounty: the Irken Armada was lost in the Florpus, leaving a huge vacuum in Irken strength. Resistance groups rallied against them, some Invaders failed without the Tallest' support, others self-destructed, others adandoned their missions to live on their planets, go into hiding, or reconvene at Irk to protect the Control Brains, and others simply vanished. Zim, busy rebuilding his base and oblivious as always, had no idea. Then, when most of the Irken forces were gathered at Irk, the planet was attacked and destroyed. This, Zim noticed, and began trying to contact other Invaders, for months. For months he tried to locate and other Irkens out there, but it was like they had all... vanished. Eventually, Zim put the peices together, and when some various space debris crash landed on Earth, he rushed there to claim any answers or supplies it might have had. Dib, however, was also there, and once the tractor beam started, they realized it had been a trap. They were taken aboard a massive ship that collected alien life forms, either for collection or bounties, and where rather thrilled to fetch an Irken since there were "so few left." Zim and Dib were categorized and separated, while the ship operators figured out what to do with Zim. It was tempting to keep him, but he was a defective. It was tempting to hand him over to the resistance for torture and execution, but he was rare. Before they could decide, Zim and Dib both escaped, Dib having learned that Irkens were a dying race, and Zim facing a new wave of depression at his inability to even be a good collection item.

Mr. Nash Toil: After Bounty, Zim vanished. In that time Dib had helped grow and expand the Swollen Eyeball Network, and was only a few nights away from heading to basic S.E.N. training when another Irken ship crash landed on Earth. Zim reappeared and rushed there, and the Irken pilot lived long enough to tell him that they were the last Irkens left. The Swollen Eyeball Network then arrived, and Zim used the dead Irken to fake his own death. Dib was told, and went to training believing Zim was finally dead. After graduating, Dib was made a member of the S.E.N., but only a junior member since he was still completing school. He was assigned a new partner, a short, pestering, and angry human named Nash Toil, who seemed to exist to annoy Dib. Nash also proved to be a huge work hazard, continuously neglecting SEN protocol, endangering himself and the mission, and generally having a bad attitude. He also asked Dib a lot of questions about Dib's thesis on aliens and the fallen Irken Empire, or what was left, and his theories about what happened to it. One night, Nash said one too many "educated guesses," and sparked Dib's suspicions. That was the first time he actually saw Zim's body, as well as the captured ship and robot companion. Convinced he was just paranoid, Dib dropped the subject until one certain mission, when the Resistance he had theorized about came to Earth... They targeted Dib, who was the only one with still working Irken technology, captured him, and tortured him for the location of the Earth-Irken. The only Irken on Earth, of course, was dead, or so he thought... Dib's partner, and a strange companion, lead the SEN/military attack against the ship, and once again disobeying orders, broke into the ship and rescued Dib themselves. The Resistance, having found their Irken prey, put up enough of a fight for Nash's real identity to be revealed. Zim and GIR then dragged Dib out of there, and the ship erupted, killing most of the Resistance forces, a large portion of SEN and military agents, and stranding various Resistance f aliens on Earth. Zim nursed Dib back to health, and finally revealed what he had been doing these last years: after the bounty was put on his head by the Collectors, Zim began traveling across space to find any remaining Irken soldiers, technology, or any signs of life. He spent quite a bit time on the cold, dead husk of Irk, meeting various refugees, running from the Resistance, and rebuilding as much of his own tech as he could, including reprogramming his PAK as any and all codings he could, creating new armor for himself, rebuilding tools and weapons he could salvage, and finally built Gir a somewhat functioning brain. When he returned to Earth, he had confirmed all slimy humans indeed thought he was dead, crafted a new disguise and identity, and joined the SEN to spy on them from within. He had already learned that while the Collectors had put a bounty on his head, they had done the same for Dib, so Zim tried to protect him. His name, Nash Toil, was a clue all along: Not A Stinking Human, The Only Irken Left. Now, however, that the SEN wants his human identity dead and the aliens know his alien identity is still alive, he should leave and go into hiding once again. Probably leave Earth. Dib, understandably, was furious at first, but then realized the best way to track down those aliens hunting for Zim is to stay within the SEN. And Dib would help him. Right after graduation.

With Dib a full time member of the SEN, and successfully earning lead on hunting down the alien survivors, he and Zim continue to do just that, clean up whatever messes they leave behind, and do a little ghost hunting along the way. The ship's massive explosion had unleashed a huge wave of radiation onto the planet, mutating random people and animals as well as whole towns. And Dib and Zim investigate it all.

Random ideas

Meet M.E.M.E.: Zim, now a scientist, works constantly to preserve Irken technology and develop his own. One such invention is M.E.M.E., or Miniature Enhancement Microbot Equipment, a swarm of Irken Microbots that are mentally controlled by the host to create armor, weapons, tools, and whatever else they want. Dib goes through his own rough patch, constantly failing and falling short. With his SEN testing right around the corner, he's even more stressed, and decides go to the alien for help. Zim, however, refuses to allow Dib to use MEME. During it's creation, Zim used a small fraction of it on himself for simple tests, and through it passed the tests, it also infected his PAK, both driving him to new intellectual levels and severely draining his energy. Dib, however, neither knows this nor cares, and though he does accept Zim's help to train and study, he also takes MEME. From that point on, MEME does improve his mental and physical limits, but also enhances his less desirable and often suppressed emotional impulses... Zim has to figure out why Dib is spiraling out of control, is there more to play here than just stress, as well as stop Dib when he goes after the one whose rejection started the whole thing: Dr. Membrane. (Dib will continue to use MEME throughout their adventures as his narrative equal to Zim's robot companion and PAK system, but only under Zim's very careful and always reluctant supervision.)

Rise of the Aukins: ( inspired by the one post about winged Irkens ) Zim picks up a transmission and after frantically confirming his own instincts, begs Dib to double check it. Dib does, and confirms what Zim already thought: it's Irken. Or rather, it's a version of Irken. Once they realize there are coordinates included, the two head into space to investigate, and discover a whole different species of Irken: this time, they are peaceful, emotional, and have wings. The Aukins reveal the true history of Irk, which was never taught to Irkens, and invite Zim and Dib to join their society. Admittedly, it's tempting, but are these soft spoken aliens actually as peaceful as they seem?

My Coworker is a Vampire: Gaz is the head of her department at CompBiz, respected coder, hacker, and programmer. She doesn't talk to her brother unless he needs something or they've got some ultra-rare family event, but this time, it's her who needs their help. Her new co-worker, despite being all levels of weird and unnerving, even for Gas, might be stealing her designs. Oh, and he might also be a vampire. The latter she can forgive, but how else will she get her workaholic brother to look into it and bust the creep?

Old Faces: Multiple reports of people in town acting out of character, unusual items going missing, and traces of unknown radiation take Dib and Zim back to where it all started: home. And what luck, they are just in time for Hi Skool Reunion! Well, Dib is, Zim never actually went, and the human is far from excited to return. But when the shape shifting stowaway leads them there, the two have a completely new reason to question everything their old classmates tell them.

All for Nought: For being the only Irken left, Zim has made quite a name for himself. He defeated his own armada, escaped a Florpus, has repeatedly dodged Collector capture, capture by the Resistance, some of which had set up base on his own planet, and has every code the Irkens ever developed in his PAK. He's not exactly famous, but he's definitely known, and had he been foolish enough to risk detection by listening to the outer space chatter about him, he'd be honored. But how will all that change when, according to the rumors, the Florpus returns, and it brought survivors?

Uh that's all the more or less formed ideas, at least for now. I'm sorry this is so long!!

[chut-je-dors]

Sorry but I don't think you can say you're trying to "contribute" to making the mclennon fandom "more equal" with the way half your fics portray paul thistring after john's dick and making him be sub in all your fics and I hear people say how good the hor mechanic is but I think paul is just super annoying, not realistic at all and I'm sorry I don't understand how that fic became so popular in the first place or how your contributing to this fandom

You know what, I usually delete all this kind of asks after the whole hysteric!Paul controversy took place, ‘cos my patience was just running out and I was simply getting tired of it, but I actually want to answer this time, and will do so thoroughly. So beware, a LONG post coming through.

I’d like to begin with the claim that half of my fics portray Paul as the “bottom” one. First of all, I’d like to clarify that for me, it doesn’t matter who bottoms and who tops — the important thing is whether the relationship between the two men is equal, and that equality has nothing to do with who bottoms. One of them has to, if they were to do anal sex. It is true that in most of my fics, Paul has been the one to bottom, but that doesn’t mean he’s beneath John in any other way than just physically, literally lying under him.

There is a lot in this whole thing that people don’t really get:

First of all, you need to understand what kind of a place our fandom was when I was first starting as a reader. Most of the fics featured Paul as the bottom one, but John as the emotional drive in the stories. I’ve lost count of the oneshots I read back then that had John pining after Paul, and there didn’t seem to be any corresponding fics where Paul was the one desperately pining for John. Their relationship didn’t seem equal; Paul was too soft, John was too hard. Paul was the romantical one, John couldn’t have cared less. Paul was a stuck-up nun, John was a reckless arsehole without any regard for others feelings.

I started reading fics in 2009 at the age of 13, and two-three years later I was writing my first fic ThighGHGHGHGS. This was both an outlet for my personal frustration over John’s thighs (man was I high on hormones at 15), a desire to write something that would make other people laugh, and an attempt to do something that was often less seen; Paul pining over John.

After that, there were a couple of smaller fics that I won’t be discussing here, meant as crack fics and never to be taken seriously. (What 1 being my personal favourite.) The big needle in the wound for everyone seems to be the Hot Mechanic and the Hot Series in general, so let me tell you about that fic:

In 2012-2013 the steady stream of new fics on JohnHeartPaul seemed to be dying down. There were maybe one or two multichapter fics being published, new chapters appearing every now and then, and the place seemed to be dying down. At that point the JP-archive stopped being updated. I was 15, going on 16, and growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of good new fics in the fandom (at that point I’d read the whole archive through like, twice). I started roaming over to the Merlin fandom and was blown away by the amount of good fics that incorporated the characters into all sorts of AUs seamlessly. I especially loved the modern AUs, and felt that that was missing from our fandom. At this point (in 2013) there were about two or three Modern AU fics in the fandom, and all of them were oneshots! We simply had no multichapter modern AU fics.

I decided to simply continue on the same policy I’d previously had with ThighGHGHGHS; I wanted to bring something new into the fandom. (Note: I don’t want to sound egoistical in this essay — the reason why I haven’t explained this before now is because I am a very, very modest person, and I have a problem in taking credit and compliments over something that I don’t feel was such a big deal. But these are things that I’ve heard from other people over the years, and as such I feel safe saying them, even though I’m still battling to accept the high praise.)

So why is The Hot Mechanic so popular? Because it is the first long, plot-driven modern AU in this fandom.

I wanted to do it as a crack fic, because I love humour. I wrote a fic that made me laugh, and I never expected it to become a thing that’s still going on. But because it’s a crack fic, it brought a few changes into the characters. They don’t react like normal people do. Hell, George isn’t a normal person. Ringo is the closest one we get to a normal person in that fic, and Paul literally walked in on him fucking his cousin! They’re all completely out of their heads, and it’s made for the laughs. Since it is a deliberate crack fic that isn’t even trying to make the characters look real (think of it as a really long Monty Python sketch), and since I literally wrote it SIX YEARS AGO, I don’t think it is fair to continuously keep on using that fic against me as a proof of how I “always” write Paul and John.

The following parts to the Hot Series have followed the same pattern as the first part, because, y’know, continuity. You can’t change a character just like that in the middle of the story without an explanation, and since the lads’ characters were well-established in the first part of the series, I had to keep it up. And I wouldn’t have changed it either, because writing them was, and is, genuinely fun, and that’s what matters.

What’s important is also the fact that Paul and John’s relationship is equal. They are both loving towards each other, showing affection openly. John is pining after Paul at work, dreaming about the moment he gets back to Paul on a regular basis, and Paul often reacts to this with fond humour. They laugh at each other’s jokes, walk out hand-in-hand, are equal when it comes to sex — they decide together what they want, standing constantly on equal ground. That sort of an open, fluffy relationship was kinda new as well, mainly due to the fact that this fic takes place in the modern day; they are allowed to be together.

I wrote the Hot Mechanic with a conscious wish of people copying it, taking my lead and jumping into the world of AUs. I hoped that people would get inspired by my first futile attempt at a modern AU, and bring more of them into the fandom. In the end I don’t know how much of an impact the HM had on the authors in general, but some sort of a switch has happened in any case, since in these days we’re gloriously swimming in Modern AUs.

In 2015 I wrote the Vomiting Adventure. I can’t remember if there was any particular reason, other than that I had probably been ill, and wanted to write a fic to commiserate with my subconsciousness. (And those who complain about the hysteric!Paul never seem to mention it at all. Maybe because it doesn’t fit the profile?)

The same year I wrote Hate Is Such A Strong Word. That fic was... never intended to be what it is today. It started as deep, thoughtful few sentences, and then suddenly Paul was tied to the bed, and ??? It suddenly became a try on how to write smut, since I had no real experience in it. It was also a crack fic, and as such I ask you to look at it like at the HM: As nothing meant to be realistic. It was not planned, and Paul bottoming didn’t hold much meaning. It was my first smut, and someone needed to bottom. And Paul was already tied to the bed, which was convenient.

When you look at my fics, you’ll see that most of them are in fact meant as a light, fun reading experience. They are crack fics. The only clear exceptions are This Is Not Them, and Ten Minutes.

This Is Not Them came from that old damned desire to once again do something new, but this time something new for me, since all I had ever done was write crack fics. I wanted to challenge myself and write a fic in a completely different style and tone, I wanted to show people I could do other stuff as well. This fic has Paul bottoming at the beginning when he’s with John, because wordless agreements between characters about who tops and who bottoms? Y’know how those work -- but he tops with other people. He is depressed. Sex is his only way of feeling something, which is explained in the fic (meaning that he is not a slut, but feels conflicted because he feels like one, but doesn’t want to, and doesn’t know who he is anymore). And John has his own depression to fight against, and here, Paul bottoming is kind of a plot point... uh, like a small dot in a bigger plot point about who John is and Why Is He Like That? I don’t want to spoil the fic for those who haven’t read it yet, but; there isn’t a sentence written in that fic that doesn’t have a meaning behind it. Paul doesn’t bottom for the reader: he bottoms because John won’t, due to the man’s ghosts from the past.

What underlines my work is that I always want to do something no one else has ever done before, or has never done properly. I have decided not to delete my older work, because I know people enjoy those fics, and I hope people wouldn’t judge how I write now based on those 6-year old works. The fics that I’ve been working on within this past year are This Is Not Them, Ten Minutes, and 5 Thomas Lane. Read those fics, and tell me whether you see a sign of the “feminine and girlish” Paul. (or don’t read them, ‘cos they’re really long... like so many words..... god)

I can say that personally I’ve never liked the fics where Paul was made out to be the crying princess, just based on his looks. The fandom tended to do that (as they often do for “pretty” characters), and I wanted John and Paul to be equal. They are equal in banter, equal in feelings, and yes, equal in bed as well in the way that it matters: mentally. (Except for This Is Not Them, but that is a plot point)

I highly encourage you to take a look at my fic page, where you can see all the fics I’ve written at a glance! It really sounds like you haven’t read most of them, so do give them a go!

As a response to your thoughts that I have not contributed to this fandom at all — I’m sure you’re aware of the JP-Library by now. At least I hope so! Here is how all that happened:

As I mentioned before, in 2013 the fandom seemed to be dying down. 2014-2016 continued in the same way, with everyone having sort of scattered around after JohnHeartPaul had gone quiet. Tumblr isn’t the best place to keep your whole community in, since it doesn’t offer any possibility for good fandom discussion. AO3 was slowly gaining foot in the fandom, and new fics started to appear little by little — AUs to my delight, although even as recently as in 2016 there just didn’t seem to be any new ground-shaking fics. Overall the whole place seemed to be dying down, and I was feeling desperate, because this fandom had been my home for years by then.

4th of January 2017 I had a thought that if no one else was going to do anything, I was the one that had to. Here is a quote from messages I sent that day to one friend after bringing up the idea of a new, updated JP-archive:

CJD, [04.01.17 23:43]I just kinda wanna keep the jp fandom alive

CJD, [04.01.17 23:43]cos I’ve been watching it go down for years :/

This was my core motivation from the start. I collected all the fics from the JP-archive, went through them to sort out the broken links, and started adding AO3 fics into the mix. A month after the idea of doing this had surfaced, I published the site, and have been updating it ever since. Soon after that I took over @mclennonrecs​.

I have been told by several different people that “you’re the one who’s keeping this fandom alive” or “you revived the whole fandom”. I’m not... sure if I agree, but it does however give a picture of what at least a one group of people think of my contributions to this fandom, and I’m glad to think that I’ve managed to make at least a small difference.

Truthfully I find it quite offensive that you would question my involvement in our fandom after all the work I’ve put into the Library and Mclennonrecs. I won’t say anything else on the matter, but I hope you take your time reading through my answer and considering what I’ve said.

I am always ready to receive criticism about my writing and the work I do, as long as it is given constructively. I do hope people would stop hounding writers for writing stories with bottom!Paul. It is discouraging to new authors and tiring to the old ones. I’ve always loved how people of all ages can unite over our love for John and Paul without judging anyone, so let’s not start creating unnecessary tension now.

Learn to see the fandom through its rich history, and don’t judge people without knowing their motivations. Please spread love instead of hate. Thank you! :)