#still posting this primarily for me and for everyone else second

[art-from-the-juice-box]

gen loss dump part 2 :]

i have a gen loss playlist so the last two was me hitting randomize and drawing a pic based on the song before it finished. the second one technically isn’t that cause charlie’s inferno isn’t on apple music cause they hate me so it’s way more of the song out of spite because they wouldn’t give it to me.

[eightdoctor]

my eda recs :) for anyone interested in getting into this series

i am prefacing this post with the note that i am an avid completionist and generally dislike telling people to skip certain books unless it's a john peel novel or placebo effect. however i understand telling people to read 74 novels is not at all accessible and i need you all to read. these books. please. please

this post is going to be long as shit i know it so i'm putting it ↓ here. books that can be skipped because theyre a bit shit will be colored red, ones that you Can Skip but are good/have some important character or plot bits in will be orange, and ones that are sooo good and necessary and the best books ever will be green. unfortunately i think a lot of the ones colored orange should be colored green but i know restraint. i can stay my hand. kind of

also i should say that i primarily read these for the characters - the plots themselves come second. so lots of my opinions come from the standpoint of which books have good characterizations. basically some of the ones that i color green would probably be skippable if any normal person were reading them but i'm insane!! and this is my list so fuck you!!!

The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks: ah my color trichotomy has bitten me in the ass on the first book. because truth be told i still haven't finished this one (nor have i really felt the need to yet), yet it introduces the first companion in the series, sam jones, and contains some other entertaining parts like the doctor getting caught with cocaine. as far as introductory books go it's meh

Vampire Science by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum: this book. i truly can't sing my praises any louder than i already have. orman & blum took the character of the eighth doctor as portrayed by paul mcgann in a few measly minutes of screen time into a fully fleshed out, compelling and complex character. if you're a fan of the eighth doctor but aren't interested in reading all of the EDAs you have to read this one at the Very Least. it begins, as all good stories do, in a gay bar. it features vampire squirrels, the doctor with kittens, and the doctor infodumping on the beauty of science in a speech? conversation? that still touches me to this day, four years after i first read it.

The Bodysnatchers by Mark Morris: this book is Gross, and i mean that positively. mark morris held nothing back when describing how disgusting and putrid london was in the 1800s (he's primarily a horror writer, and that comes through rather clearly in this book). i genuinely enjoyed this novel a lot, but i know it's not for everyone because again, it's quite gory and disgusting

Genocide by Paul Leonard: don't you just want to see the doctor in a sun hat? being tortured for weeks on end? don't you want to examine his morality in termsof what species he thinks needs to be saved or doomed? jo grant is there

War of the Daleks by John Peel: fuck john peel all my homies hate john peel. for some reason all his books in this range contain daleks and it’s like…why. get some creativity. everyone else did. bitch

Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles: this novel is So Good. it introduces faction paradox, the war in heaven plotline, humanoid tardises, and a couple of the most interesting & fun side characters in the whole range (homunculette and marieeee <3 cousin justineeee… aaaaaaahh). I shan’t spoil the entire conceit of the story but just know it’s. insane and fucked up and so so funny

Kursaal by Peter Anghelides: this is just a solid doctor who story, really. i wouldn’t call it imperative to the overarching plot of the novels (as tenuous as it is early on), but it’s an enjoyable enough read. it’s about an ancient race of alien werewolves underneath a theme park. what more can i say

Option Lock by Justin Richards: i recall enjoying the doctor and sam’s characterization in this one, and the story is like doctor strangelove meets, well, doctor who. it’s skippable, but i had fun reading it, and that’s really all you can ask for

Longest Day by Michael Collier: this is the start of the arc where sam gets separated from the doctor. actually the most tense and stressed i’ve been reading the edas was reading this and the next three books. it’s so dire, but it’s so so good, with incredible character moments from sam and the doctor. plus you have anstaar, nashaad with his metal legs, and some really fucked up body horror involving Time messing with people’s existences and driving ppl mad and stuff. people tend to either love this one or hate it from what i’ve seen, and i’m solidly in the former category. would definitely recommend 

Legacy of the Daleks by John Peel: ughhhhhhhh… ughhhhjhhhhhh i guess you have to read this one. i guess you have to. it’s definitely an improvement on his last book but still. daleks again john? really? whateverrrrr.. some important stuff happens to susan is in this one though. and the master as well. so if you care about either of those characters you should read this i suppose

Dreamstone Moon by Paul Leonard: a general rule of the edas is paul leonard always writes excellent books (in my opinion, anyway), and this is not the exception. sam and the doctor are still separated, but they’re in the same place and keep missing each other and its like UGGHHHH!!! UGHHH!!! but you have interesting commentary on capitalism’s exploitation and effective revolutionary action and all that stuff. also aloisse is an incredible character and i love her

Seeing I by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum: HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD LIRD!!!!!!!!!!! kate and jon do it again, those crazy bastards. you know how every author loves torturing the shit out of eight? these guys take that and run with it in the opposite direction, asking the question what if the worst thing the doctor could go through isn’t agonizing torture, but rather just a lack of enrichment in his enclosure? what if he had to stay locked up in one building for three years and couldn’t escape for the life of him? meanwhile sam, now a refugee with no social support (as she technically shouldn’t exist in this time and location), has to deal with homelessness, and has to decide whether it’s better to have a stable, yet soulless corporate job - or do something that’s meaningful and benefits society. she’s at her best in this book for sure

Placebo Effect by Gary Russell: throws up. don’t read this because it is actually rhe worst book in the whole range and i’m not joking. sorry gary you’re a nice guy but i thought the arguments against evolution that went on for like 3 pages were extremely egregious and also plain wrong. you may look at this book and think “oh cool! Stacy and ssard from the comics are in this one!” well they’re there for like a paragraph and don’t do shit. so

Vanderdeken's Children by Christopher Bulis: really fun novel that’s pretty much the epitome of the classic doctor who question “wouldn’t that be really fucked up and crazy?” it also established the fact that the doctor told sam his real name which is really fun and awesome

The Scarlet Empress by Paul Magrs: much like paul leonard, paul magrs Never disappoints. this book is just so fucking fun. in essence, it’s a road trip story. they drive across a planet listening to abba and visiting lots of kooky places and picking up lots of wacky characters. it also deconstructs gender and self-identity and what it means to be an individual. a cyborg and a giant spider get lesbian married. aewsome 👍

The Janus Conjunction by Trevor Baxendale: i really debated on making this one skippable, i did. because while it doesn’t continue any of the established plots or themes or whatever, it does show the doctor breaking the laws of time to save his companion’s life, and that’s really cool we love that. there’s a lot of fun body horror too if you go for that sort of thing. and more giant spiders but these ones are different 

Beltempest by Jim Mortimore: ok honestly? i didn’t vibe with this one. i know some people really liked it but i felt as if the characterization was Off. some wacky wild stuff happens to sam though

The Face-Eater by Simon Messingham: <-doesn’t remember much of this one cuz i was high while reading it. i think it was a solid story though? 

The Taint by Michael Collier: yayyyyyyyy fitz is hereeeee my babyboy… lots of people don’t vibe with this one but i do. because i love fitz and everything he’s in and him and the doctor are such bastards to each other in the beginning it’s great. their repartee is genuinely so entertaining and really elevates the book for me, even if the plot itself is a bit mediocre. either way even if you don’t like it you have to read it because it introduces fitz. so there

Demontage by Justin Richards: telling you to skip this one would be a disservice. because technically it Is skippable, but it has some absolutely hilarious moments that really drive home the fact that fitz is Cringe. they’re on a space casino called vega in the far future and fitz dresses in a (from everyone else's perspective) old-fashioned tuxedo. he smokes indoors and everyone gives him nasty looks because he’s in the future and no one smokes inside. he asks for his cocktails shaken not stirred and the bartender fucking hates him. and he also accidentally gets involved in an assassination plot. but i suppose if you must skip it then go ahead… 

Revolution Man by Paul Leonard: mr leonard does it again. this is an excellent novel for both companions that begins with sam and the doctor engaging in leftist discourse with an anarchist and ends with the world almost ending. it happens.

Dominion by Nick Walters: you have to read this one just for the doctor’s first gay kiss. sorry i don’t make the rules. also it  just features a neat concept imo and has a great moment where the doctor punches a pillow in frustration and then sadly apologizes to it

Unnatural History by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum: this book is one that i think every doctor who fan who’s ever gotten mad about canon not making sense should be forced at gunpoint to read. it’s a novel that’s essentially one big metacommentary on doctor who canon & why it Doesn’t Matter At All, Actually; the doctor was birthed and he was loomed and both are equally true and untrue. also features the iconic paragraph calling the doctor a (verbatim) “backrub slut”, as well as wrapping up the ongoing arc with sam jones hinted at in alien bodies and a few other books in a way that’ll have you side eyeing moffat very suspiciously

Autumn Mist by David A. McIntee: this one’s pretty good and has a couple great moments (fitz calling himself james bond, for one), but is, i think, ultimately skippable unless youre a world war 2 buff

Interference Books 1 & 2 by Lawrence Miles: nothing i can say will adequately put into words what these two novels made me feel, you hear me? absolutely nothing. good fucking god. jesus christ. holy fuck.. if i sat here listsing all the important and iconic moments in these books we’d be here all shitting day and this post is already obscenely long. read these 2 books. then read them again. 

The Blue Angel by Paul Magrs: ok i know i just said this but HOOOOOO..WHOA NELLY! the blue angel is easily in my top 5 edas. it literally heavily features a canon domestic au wherein the doctor is a “middle-aged gay man”. fitz says he wants to get laid by the doctor. the doctor’s mother is a mermaid. there’s off-brand spirk. someone turns into a giant squid. literally this book is so good they wrote a screenplay adaptation of it and a spinoff short story that you should also read

The Taking of Planet 5 by Simon Bucher-Jones and Mark Clapham: you’re going to be hearing this a lot from me but we Are entering the part of the series where it really takes off and gets sooo fucking good. anyway this novel is sooo fucking good and quite important to the plot and establishes stuff about the war in heaven and gallifrey so. read it. also there's ELDRITCH BEASTS!

Frontier Worlds by Peter Anghelides: i can’t tell you to skip this one because it’s so good. fitz goes by the alias frank sinatra & also talks like him for a solid portion of the book. we get excellent compassion moments. great doctor moments (including that Hot and Sexy dream he has about the tardis!) and all in all it’s a wonderful story

Parallel 59 by Stephen Cole and Natalie Dallaire: lots of stuff happens in this one, especially to fitz. by that i mean it gets referenced quite a bit later so i would recommend if you want to catch all the references. also a woman worked on this one so you already know eight is going to be written phenomenally and very sensually. 

The Shadows of Avalon by Paul Cornell: rather important development happens to compassion in this book (understatement). but it’s also a really good story in general with lots of memorable bits - paul cornell wrote one EDA and did a great job and then vanished from the range. it also has the BRIGADIER and his ROMANCE with MAB the BIG BOSOMED CELTIC QUEEN so like.. read it?? 

The Fall of Yquatine by Nick Walters: a pretty important thing happens to compassion in this one too (another understatement). also withnail & i references galore, fitz has a bad time (has he had a Good time for the past few books? questionable!), and the doctor spends time with a gay baker/contraband parts dealer

Coldheart by Trevor Baxendale: you could skip this one but why would you even want to? it’s literally one of compassion’s best stories and has plenty of excellent doctor and companion moments. it’s just fun and engaging and an outstanding doctor who story. and, as always, fitz is effortlessly cringe as ever <3

The Space Age by Steve Lyons: this one’s just boring and kinda stupid. nothing big or important happens and you can tell steve lyons didn’t care for writing compassion at all. skip it

The Banquo Legacy by Andy Lane and Justin Richards: Big Plot Developments in this one - mostly in the beginning and end. also the only (?) mention of irving braxiatel in the whole run! it’s written from the POV of two Normal people not on the tardis so it’s interesting to see how they perceive the doctor and fitz, and how this contradicts the way they define themselves in other books where we’re privy to their internal monologue 

The Ancestor Cell by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH AAAAGHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU HFHOA8U8OIA AOUIY4P98 YT39 7UGHYIB3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this one drives me insane and there are parts of it i reread nearly every day. because i’m CRAZY. it’s a controversial novel in the doctor who fandom because of how it handles gallifrey and faction paradox lore but WHO FUCKING CARES? FATHER KREINER IS BACK BABY

The Burning by Justin Richards: this is the start of the Earth Arc, so it’s the first portrayal of the doctor stuck on earth without any of his memories. it’s a bit slow at the beginning, and as a normal doctor who story i would consider it subpar, but the characterization of the doctor really carries it i think. you see how losing his memory impacted his restraint with things such as hypnosis and Other Stuff I Shan’t Spoil

Casualties of War by Steve Emmerson: this has the first appearance of the Note, so it’s especially important for that reason. but it’s also just a neat story that has way more elements of a fantasy than a sci fi and again, seeing how the doctor acts now, stuck on earth without his memories, and juxtaposing that with how he acted before, super fun and neat

The Turing Test by Paul Leonard: if i could graft this book onto my DNA i would. i already KNEW the circumstances surrounding alan turing’s death and yet i still cried about it while reading this!! paul leonard’s portrayal of turing as both a gay and autistic man (though the latter is never explicitly stated) is INCREDIBLE and i really can’t recommend it enough just based on that. but the story itself is amazing and really delves into the doctor’s Differences and his desperation to leave earth after being stuck there for decades. 

Endgame by Terrance Dicks: people really like this one and i guess i had fun with it but i just can’t really get into terrence dicks’ writing style. that being said it features the doctor listless and just so sad and depressed so you kind of have to read it. if that’s not reason enough there’s a fat gay alcoholic spy who absolutely rocks

Father Time by Lance Parkin: i hate that this is green. i hate it. i hate this fucking book. i hate lance parkin also. but this is where miranda (the doctor’s adopted daughter) is introduced so alas, you must read it and imagine a version of this book thats infinitely better in your head. sorry! 

Escape Velocity by Colin Brake: this one’s mid but it’s the end of the earth arc and fitz and the doctor reunite and ANJI KAPOOR IS HERE!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!! so if you read this and get a lil bored just know it’s about to get so fucking good you guys

EarthWorld by Jacqueline Rayner: genuinely can’t say enough good things about this one. it’s funny. it’s angsty. it’s all in all just a really fun book. and it’s the shortest one i think so like you have no excuse to not read it

Fear Itself by Nick Wallace: this is technically a PDA because it was written after nine was announced, thereby making 8 technically a “past doctor”, but who give a shit. read this one are yoyu kidding me. read it read it read it read it READ IT. there’s a twist in it that rendered me absolutely catatonic for about a week 

Vanishing Point by Stephen Cole: don’t skip this one even though it’s orange. are you listening to me? don’t fucking skip it ok!!! steve cole is the #1 fitz/eight shipper and this really shines through here. also maybe i’m just easily entertained by reasonably accurate science in my doctor who books but i liked all the genetics references

Eater of Wasps by Trevor Baxendale: trevor you sly dog you did it again. you mad bastard. not only is the storyline in this one soo gripping and also Quite horrifying but the characterization?? hoooooo boy. this is the book where “you really love him, don’t you?” “well, i like to think we’re just good friends.” comes from and so even if it was dogshit you’d have to read it just for that like cmon

The Year of Intelligent Tigers by Kate Orman: holy. fucking. shit. good grief. the doctor has a boyfriend and they go on picnics and drink chocolate martinis together. the doctor becomes a catboy for a few months. this story takes place on a colony world whose culture is predominantly centered around music, so you have the doctor playing his violin (hot). you have scientifically accurate zoology/xenobiology. you have a Mysterious lost civilization. most importantly you have fitz’s song he wrote for the doctor

The Slow Empire by Dave Stone: this one’s just FUNNY okay. dave stone has such a characteristic way of writing prose it’s just kind of a joy to read. if you get the hard copy all of the bits from a side character’s pov is written in comic sans. while some of the characterization is a bit meh and anji didn’t Really live up to her full potential in a couple scenes i’d still recommend it. there’s footnotes

Dark Progeny by Steve Emmerson: this is another one i colored orange even though i whole-heartedly recommend it.. it’s a commentary on corporate apathy and greed and how it destroys entire planets and just a really engaging story besides. not to mention we get a “fitz fitz fitz fitz fitz!” bit from 8 <3

The City of the Dead by Lloyd Rose: i can’t even talk about this oine lest i lose my mind… not joking when i say lloyd rose writes some of the best and juiciest angst in the whole series like some of the scenes in there made me feel like i was being helplessly entrapped in flowing grain for a month

Grimm Reality by Simon Bucher-Jones and Kelly Hale: i really do sound like a broken record at this point but this is another one of those books i could never say enough positive things about. there are two novels in this series that genre-hop and this is one of them. the tardis lands on a world where everything runs on logic straight out of the brother’s grimm (hence the title). there’s magic cloaks and evil stepsisters and giants, and the doctor, fitz, and anji all have their own separate adventures so it’s super interesting to see how each character deals with being in a fairytale. not only that but there are parts of the book written in the style of those old fairytales and i really do get a good kick out of  gimmicky stuff like that 

The Adventuress of Henrietta Street by Lawrence Miles: buckle the fuck up everyone and get out your highlighters and sticky notes because this one is so fucking dense you’ll have no choice but to annotate and take notes, sorry! it’s written in the style of a historical nonfiction which occasionally falls flat (where’s the fucking works cited, lawrence???), but the story is fucking crazy. you got arcane rituals, prostitutes doing sex magic that summon great apes, sabbath is here, the doctor is weak and sickly (always awesome), sabbath is here, the doctor gets married so he can save the earth, sabbath is here,

Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Paul Leonard: this is the petplay book featuring multicolored poodles that have human hands. need i say more? 

Hope by Mark Clapham: not the best book but it’s got some pretty crucial anji moments in, and we all love love love anji so much so we’ll read mediocre novels just for her!! (but we also see the doctor struggle with only having one heart so that’s fun too)

Anachrophobia by Jonathan Morris: literally my top 3 book in the series EASY. it takes place on a planet ravaged by a time war (as in a war that fights with weapons that fuck with time. not like That time war), yet despite that particular futuristic conceit the entire atmosphere of the book feels like something out of the 40s or 50s  - almost like the aesthetics of fallout, but instead of nuclear radiation it’s Time. most of the story takes place in this sealed off bunker that’s doing experiments to try and develop time travel, and while they’re successful in going back in time the guinea pigs who volunteered for the trial develop an illness that fucks up their personal timelines so bad they literally turn into clock zombies. and it’s contagious. but no one can leave because theres fucked up time outside uh oh!!! if you liked the themes of war profiteering from boom in the new season you’ll LOVE this book

Trading Futures by Lance Parkin: fuck you lance parkin i can’t stand your ass! you can’t fucking write for shit!!! i’d recommend this book if you want to see anji referred to as ‘the asian woman’ more than her actual name :) and a southeast asian character with a name that might as well have been taken right out of a book written by  jk rowling. really the only good part of this book is when anji almost calls the doctor an otter-fucker

The Book of the Still by Paul Ebbs: this book is a WILD fucking ride. this book is fucking insane in the most positive of ways. paul ebbs writes an absolutely top tier eight that manages to encapsulate all the development he went through in the series as well as evoking the characterization from the 1996 movie

The Crooked World by Steve Lyons: this is the second book that does a genre-swap, but instead of fairytales this time the tardis lands on a planet dominated by saturday morning cartoon physics and logic. but the doctor & co being there begins to introduce Real Life concepts such as death and sex and swearing, so all these wacky cartoon characters who’ve spent their whole lives doing wacky cartoon things like blowing each other up with sticks of dynamite or hitting each other with big hammers suddenly find that these actions actually have very very serious consequences, which really kicks off when this story’s equivalent of tom rips off this story’s equivalent of jerry’s head, killing him instantly. idk i just watched a lot of saturday morning cartoons as a kid so seeing the parodies of wacky races and scooby doo was very enjoyable. to me

History 101 by Mags L Halliday: to put it simply this book is about leftist infighting. to put it more complexly this book is about the spanish civil war and how differing opinions and principles can alter one’s perception of history - and what happens when history actually starts being changed in accordance to these differing principles. there’s also the subplot featuring fitz’s homoerotic, yet very traumatizing, travels with a guy named sasha as they journey to guernica so they can watch it be bombed

Camera Obscura by Lloyd Rose: this is where sabbath and the doctor’s relationship really reaches it’s peak. this is The Esteemed Toxic Old Man Yaoi Novel. but also remember when i said lloyd rose writes the best angst? this holds especially true here. i won’t spoil it for you but Something Crazy Happens to the Doctor! haha. haha

Time Zero by Justine Richards: this is just quantum physics: the novel. while fitz goes on his doomed siberia expedition with the geologist boytoy george in the 19th century, the doctor investigates some strange readings in siberia like a hundred years later, and some crazy confusing hijinks ensue! the events in this book kick off the arc that’ll continue for the next few books until sometime never where the multiverse is collapsing and the doctor has to fix it. even though he doesn’t know how. ALSO TRIX INTRODUCTIONNNNNN!!!!!!!!

The Infinity Race by Simon Messingham: this one’s whatever. the sabbath characterization is wack but there are a few good moments. you think it’s going to be mostly about a cool boat race but sadly that comes secondary -_-

The Domino Effect by David Bishop: this book is ASS, both plot-wise and characterization-wise. it also just seems like the author was trying to be needlessly edgy when he developed the setting, and there are just some baffling moments where characters say and do things i frankly think they would never say 

Reckless Engineering by Nick Walters: the events in this one center around a tragedy that is fucking batshit insane. the universe this takes place in features a post-apocalyptic earth. i shan’t say what this apocalypse was because finding out what happened is all apart of the fun guys. i can’t spoil everything for you

The Last Resort by Paul Leonard: what if a corporation discovered TIME TRAVEL and set up RESORTS all across human history? what if there was a mcdonalds in ancient egypt and advertisements for microsoft in the original version of the bible? also what if something just soooo fucked up happens so many times <3

Timeless by Stephen Cole: anji’s last book. sobs.

Emotional Chemistry by Simon A. Forward: idk what it was but i just didn’t really vibe with this one. it’s not awful by any means and there’s a bit of plot carried in from the last novel that continues into the next but the actions that surround it don’t really matter i think. honestly i’d just read a summary of this one and continue on 

Sometime Never... by Justin Richards: the culmination of the multiverse stuff. i liked it - miranda makes a reappearance, and the fact she’s written by someone other than lance parkin is already a plus. my only qualm is i don’t really like how it handled sabbath but that’s sort of how i felt about all the books post camera obscura… sigh

Halflife by Mark Michalowski: ANOTHER EASY TOP 3. i’m simply obsessed with all of the concepts and tropes in this book, not to mention it’s where fitz’s infamous Ass Dream can be found. there’s commentary on racism, colonialism, and religion, and it also features cannibalism as a metaphor for love :D

The Tomorrow Windows by Jonathan Morris: another case of me coloring a book orange even though i think you should read it anyway. it’s positively saturated with so many interesting alien planets and creatures and societies you’d be missing out if you didn’t read this one tbh. it’s also the first novel ever to feature the ninth doctor!

The Sleep of Reason by Martin Day: this one ok. it’s another book written from the pov of an outsider and her insights into the doctor, fitz, and trix are interesting (and their characterization when they show up is outstanding!) but it feels like they’re rarely in it & this close to the end of the series i just want to see more of my guys you know...

The Deadstone Memorial by Trevor Baxendale: i loved the atmosphere in this one. it’s more of a ghost story with sci fi elements, and the stakes involved aren’t Bigger Than Ever like they tend to be nowadays, but instead surround the wellbeing of a family of a single mom and her two kids which i appreciate - the doctor isn’t saving the Whole Universe and World; just a family from a small town; it’s effective in getting the point across that the doctor thinks everyone’s important and worth saving 

To the Slaughter by Stephen Cole: this one’s fun and goofy and steve cole wrote it solely so he could fix an error from a fourth doctor serial in which the doctor got the number of jupiter’s moons wrong. that being said the reason it’s not colored orange is because the last book of the series is written by lance parkin and i want to help you procrastinate reading his godawful prose for as long as possible. your welcome

The Gallifrey Chronicles by Lance Parkin: fuck you lance parkin

[wolfes]

NEW EDITOR 101: A GUIDE FOR GIFMAKERS by v @shangs

Hi friends! I know I said I would do this way back in April/May when this change was announced but I've been massively busy lately so thank you all for being patient with me :)

Based on the results of this poll, I will be trying my level best to help make a guide for gifmakers to best deal with any problems that have been present with the new editor. However, it's worth noting that I have personally not experienced any of these problems myself and I have no record of any problems from other people that I could send to staff and get guidance on, so for some of these issues I will unfortunately be a broken record.

That being said, I have been using the new editor for a few months now and it hasn't been too bad. So don't be discouraged by the new editor if you still love to make gifs and share them. You may need to adapt a bit, but it's doable!

This is meant to be comprehensive and will be explanation and image heavy. Full guide under the cut.

CONTENTS:

What is the new editor?

Steps to take before posting

Making a post

Troubleshooting

01. WHAT IS THE NEW EDITOR?

Some of you may be asking yourselves what the point of the new editor even is and why it's being implemented in the first place when we already had a (mostly) functional editor. My very limited understanding of it as a CS student is app compatibility and flexibility. I'm not totally clear on the details nor am I 100% certain this is the case, but NPF posts (basically, posts made with the "new editor") first started with the mobile app. I'm unsure if the different post types were simply too unwieldy to transfer to the app - having to make a whole bunch of post types when with the new editor you can now have posts with any elements you want without the rigidity of a set post type - or if it was simply not able to be implemented, but the apps have always used NPF. The majority of Tumblr users are coming from the mobile apps. Then it became a case of having the legacy editor for the web users (which were fewer in number) and the new NPF editor for everyone else. That takes resources to keep around and it's pretty inefficient. Naturally the older editor that was used by less people was going to get the axe, especially since you couldn't tell on mobile that there was even a difference between NPF or legacy posts.

So now here we are and the posts are NPF. This means they're in "Neue Post Format." Basically, every post you make is by default a text post, containing "blocks" of other media - as gifmakers we will primarily be dealing with photos.

I understand that it's frustrating to many to see "our gifs are now rendered as text posts" and ask WHY it's happening when photos should logically be rendered as photo posts - but the fact is, there's now no real delineation between a "text post" and a "photo post." The reason NPF posts are now "text posts" is because that's how they are rendered for desktop themes, not because everyone is going to see your post as text and your gifs are going to be compressed into the quality of a potato (though I know some have seen this issue - more on that later.)

02. STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE POSTING

The long and short of it is that you may have to update your theme. More detail here for those who are interested, but check that your theme supports "new editor posts" or "NPF posts" AND that this is true for original posts (you can read more about why in this ask and, although this may be a bit time-consuming, test it out on your blog). I can say with certainty that my second theme Cygnus supports original NPF posts. This is NOT true of my first theme, though.

You can try to add the NPF Fix by @glenthemes to your own theme (beware if you don't know HTML/CSS) or try this tip by @burningblake for original posts.

Feel free to add theme makers with fully NPF-compatible themes in the notes! I have been happily using my own theme so I can't say to what degree others' themes are NPF-friendly.

03. MAKING A POST

If you're sticking around to post on the new editor and you have trouble ordering your gifs around, here's a little guide on how to post.

If I click on "Photo" from web and open up the editor, here's how it looks:

I went ahead and added three full-width gifs and the editor put them in like so:

You'll most likely also have to order your gifs around in the way you want them. You can go ahead and hover over your gifs to see the button to orient them (the four dots in the top left corner) and the button for an image description (the three dots in the bottom right corner). I've attached images of all three below:

If you hold the orientation button, move your gif around until you see the blue line that shows where your gif will end up in the spot that you want it. For example, I wanted to move the second gif below the first one, so I oriented it so that the blue line would show the marker between the two gifs:

Now my gifs are oriented nicely! Of course, this is a simpler layout, but the principles still hold.

If you save your gifs as a draft and reopen them or you just notice a large gap like this in between your gifs when you're in the editor, don't worry.

This will not show up in dash view or on a desktop theme that supports original NPF posts. For example, this is how the gifs' gap (without modification) looked in my desktop theme:

With your gifs ordered, the final step is to add alt text. You can read more about alt text and why you should use it here. (Feel free to ignore the sections about the captions on the legacy editor since it is no longer relevant. It's also unnecessary to clearly mark descriptions if they're not in the caption of your post because they will clearly show up under "ALT" on Tumblr.)

If you click the three dots in the bottom right corner as seen above, and click "update image description:"

You can add the description you like and click "update." Your photos' alt text will show up under the "ALT" bubble on Tumblr. This is generally a good practice to get into to make your content more accessible, so I hope you guys will consider using alt text regularly :)

Also, I've noticed that in the editor, if you go back and edit something it will take some time to show up. You may have to refresh the page or load it again after some time, but your edits should be there. I would not go back and edit posts again if you see your posts haven't shown up. I also advise against editing your posts on mobile because it's easier to make a mistake.

And there you go, you've successfully made a post with the new editor!

04. TROUBLESHOOTING

I'm sure you've all been waiting for this. Unfortunately I am probably going to be extremely unhelpful if the editor hasn't been refined in the last few months for those experiencing issues. I'm going to go in the categories that I listed out in my original poll, but keep in mind that I haven't personally seen any of these issues on my end so I haven't been able to contact staff with any evidence that this happened other than my poll.

Dashboard view quality issues: I haven't noticed this issue. I'm not sure if this has been fixed since the original poll was posted. If you're experiencing this issue, this is not something I know how to fix so I would contact staff with screenshots of the issue.

Desktop theme side padding: As noted before, this is a theme issue. If you change themes to something that is NPF-compatible with original posts, there shouldn't be any more issues here.

Small gifs on mobile: In my experience this was happening regardless of what editor was used; it's a bug that seems to have been fixed since this poll was created. If you're still experiencing it, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would advise contacting staff.

New editor doesn't accept gifs of size 9.8MB < x < 10MB: I haven't experienced this issue so I would say the only workaround would be to either trim the size of your gif so that it is under 9.8MB or whatever threshold seems to be the cutoff or contact staff (I am so sorry for constantly having to suggest this 😭 unfortunately there's no trick I can offer because the new editor has been taking all my gifs just fine)

Logistical issues ordering gifsets: I hope this guide has been able to answer the majority of questions and shed some light on some of the more buggy behaviors of the new editor, but if you have any more specific questions you can feel free to shoot me an ask!

HTML issues / colored text: Unfortunately it seems colored text may be deprecated entirely? This could be for accessibility purposes because I believe screen readers would read out every single letter of gradient text in captions which I imagine can get quite frustrating for users of this technology. I recommend just using the normal rich text editor. If you want small text, you can highlight and click the <s> button!

Other: If it seems like something I may be able to answer, please feel free to ask me. Otherwise... hound staff 😭

Here's where you can hound staff, btw. If you're having major issues I would advise you guys to submit support tickets. That way if there are any widespread bugs, staff will hopefully be able to fix them.

I hope this guide was helpful to you guys in dealing with the new editor, and happy giffing <3

[becauseimanicequeen]

Timelines and the Color Red in 4 Minutes

(I've already published this in a reblog of my timelines post. However, since I know not everyone has the energy to read through all that (since it's basically three long-ass posts so far), I've decided to add this in a separate post as well.)

First, let me summarize my thoughts on the timelines so far so that you have an idea of what I've been thinking these past 4-5 episodes. (Also, I've highlighted my theories in purple so that you can choose to ignore them if they want, lol.)

I still believe there have been at least 3 timelines present so far:

The present timeline.

The 4-minute timeline (which is Great's do-over timeline).

The real past/Tonkla's timeline.

I also still believe that both Great and Tyme are having OOBEs (and a possible third character), and that we will now get to see Tyme's perspective on what's happened. In other words, I will most likely add another timeline to my list at the end of this post.

How I've been able to see/notice the different timelines so far, has been primarily through:

The clocks/watches and the times they display.

The difference between Great's environment before vs after his 4-minute phenomenons (4MPs).

Details that change throughout the scenes (like items and their positions, lamp colors, etc.).

I won't go into detail about these two aspects in this particular post because I want to focus on something else this time. However, we did get to see the clock move to 11:03, first on Great's wall:

And then on the news:

There was also the way Great's mom talked to him before vs after he had his vision of her getting shot. Before he was sent back, she was almost pleading for him to apologize to his dad, while after he was sent back, she was more commanding. Also, as he came back, the gunman was ready to shoot before Great even had a chance to leave his mom and drive off, the way he did before his visions.

(This moment of precognition was very different to his previous ones, btw. This time, he only saw the things happening rather than "living" them.)

There also continue to be the smaller details that tell me there are different timelines/realities at play. Like the things on Chanin's desk in the scene where Samarn went behind Korn's back vs in the scene when Korn is scolded by both his dad and Great's mom:

The lion figurine is facing the wall behind the desk in the first scene while it's facing the room in the second, and the framed family portrait is on Chanin's right-hand side in the first scene and on his left-hand side in the second. (Those two items in the second scene are placed in the same positions as they were in the 1st episode when Korn walked into his dad's office to talk about his new position at the company, btw.)

In other words, this episode was also consistent with the time, the differences in the before vs after Great's precognitions (even though this one was different than the 4MPs), and the other details to show us that different timelines/realities are at play.

With that out of the way, though, I want to focus on something entirely different in this post. It's still related to the timelines, obviously.

I want to see if a theory I have about a specific color is true or not, and if that specific color can help us figure out the backbone of the story (about the core events of the story). In other words, I have a theory that may (or may not) tell us which of the events we've seen in Great's 4-minute timeline so far also happened in the real past.

So, in this post, I'm going to go back for a moment before I make some predictions of where we might be heading in the next episode and onwards.

But, first, I need to emphasize Den's research, and especially what he reiterated in the 5th episode: What people go through during their cardiac arrests varies because of their experiences.

In other words, if what we've seen so far has been Great's OOBE (which I believe), then it means that (most of) what we've seen so far was his interpretation of what really happened (as well as filler content of stuff he might've wished had happened, but I won't focus on that here). And now that we're going to get Tyme's perspective (at least I believe we will, in one way or another), that will be colored by his experiences and be his side of the story (and possible filler content from him as well).

We've all heard the saying that "there are two sides to the story", which is true. But that doesn't mean either side is completely forthcoming about what really happened because the truth is usually somewhere between those two (or more) sides. But that doesn't mean there isn't at least some truth in the two (or more) sides of the story.

I want to focus on that middle ground in this post. Specifically, if the color red tells us which scenes are the backbone of the story. So, let's get into it.

Does the Red Reveal What Happened in the Real Past?

I think we all know that the color red is often used to indicate the red thread of fate (mostly in Asian media). Where I'm from (northern Europe) we also have a red thread saying, but it's used more as a synonym for theme. For example, an essay can have a good red thread if the theme throughout the essay is clear and concise.

Red is also a great color to use to capture attention (which mine was as soon as I saw the trailer). So, I've been tracking the red (and other colors) throughout the show so far to figure out if it had a specific meaning. (I even made posts for the red in episode 1 and in episode 2.)

It might.

And, it might not.

But, let's go with Great's idea and start connecting the dots with the red...

My theory as I go into this is that the red shows us the things in that middle ground I wrote about above. Those scenes/events might be the backbone of the timelines that are at play. Let's see if that's a hit or miss (or somewhere in between).

I will only focus on a few major scenes from the currently released episodes and mostly focus on Great and Tyme's part of the story (because I only have 30 images to play with, which is giving me a headache, btw). So, let's start from the beginning and go through it in chronological order of the episodes.

When Tyme is shot in the first episode, there's a red light behind the shooter:

And when the patient is flatlining in the same episode (whom I believe is Great), red lights are blinking:

Whether everything we've seen so far was triggered by these events or if these events were triggered by something else, Tyme being shot and that patient flatlining is at the core of the story.

Then we see Great and Korn's dad wearing red when he gives Korn the responsibility of managing the illegal gambling sites:

That surely happened in the real past as well, right?

Chanin also wears that same outfit during the family dinner later on in the episode. And while I don't believe Manee survived in the real past, I do believe the dinner happened, it's just that the conversation would've been different.

Then we have Great, who hit Manee with his car, where the seats have red lines on them:

So far so good, right?

Then there are red roses when Tyme gets home and jokes about Coachella:

He and his grandmother also eat from porcelain plates with red flowers on them when we find out Tyme's motivation for becoming a surgeon (to make a better life for his grandmother and himself), which I'm sure was part of the real past. (Unless Great, in his OOBE state, made up the story about Tyme's parents being murdered by his dad...)

Then we have Lukwa, who carries something red the first time she enters Den's office to talk about her own cardiac arrest experience.

She clearly has an important role in the story since she's the woman in that gallery with the red lights where Great saw her. (Perhaps it's the red from that gallery that spills into the story to show us what the key events are?)

I will forego the legendary Tonkla by the lighthouse opening of the 2nd episode where he has blood splattered across his face because I feel like that's the future from our current vantage point, and right now I'm more focused on looking at the things that could've happened in the real past.

Dome clearly saw what happened between Title and View in front of that red trashcan (with a 4 on it, btw):

Which led into this scene where we have the red lights from the car plus the red blood when Title kills Dome:

Considering I think that most of Tonkla's timeline (at least in the beginning) is the real past, Dome was definitely killed.

There are also red folders on the desk Win is leaning against when Tonkla comes in to identify his brother's body:

Which is probably how they met in the real past as well.

And then we have the red Aston Martin Great parks as Title barges in and accuses Great of betraying him:

Now, what's interesting about this scene is that it only seems like Great is in the timeline where he saved Dome while Title isn't. First of all, Title already had that bruise on his face when Great got into his car that night he killed Dome:

The other side of his face doesn't even display any evidence that Great clobbered him with the rock. That's why (apart from the red) I believe this scene happened in the real past as well. It's just that, in the real past, Title was pissed at Great for betraying him about something else rather than saving Dome.

Then we have the hacker attack, which turned their screens into a multitude of reds:

Then we have the shareholder with the red umbrella who was, more than likely, shot in the real past as well. What impact he may or may not have on the story remains to be seen. But I still wanted to mention him here (even though I'm saving on the image limit with this one, lol).

Then there's the red tea Tyme gave to Great:

Which he might've given Great in the real past to get closer to him (due to his family) rather than telling him to check his wound at the hospital (which might not even exist in the real past). Great might've taken that as a sweet gesture, which might've been why this scene popped up in his timeline.

After that, we have Great in the red gallery with a mystery woman (which we know is Lukwa):

This is where things might get a little wonky. But, I think this is meant to highlight a connection between Great and Lukwa that happened in the real past, which is why they are both in that (subconscious?) gallery together. That's why I've included it here. (Also, like I mentioned before, what if it's the red from that gallery that spills into the story to show us what the key events are?)

Then we have Great driving Tyme home after their claw machine date in his red car:

I don't necessarily believe they had a claw machine date at the mall in the real past, but I do believe Great drove Tyme home after a possible date at some point.

Then there's the red light as Tyme walks out of the operating room:

That leads into the scene outside where Tyme tells Great to get out of his sight (before the 4MP changes things). The way Tyme acted in that scene (before the 4MP) was a lot more like the Tyme we saw in the 1st episode than Great's rizzless version of Tyme. So, that might've been the real past Tyme bleeding through in that particular scene.

Then we also have Tonkla's red cat collar, which goes even further back in time as he buried his cat while at Uni, but also now that he's thinking back to that time when he and Korn started their relationship/situationship:

Both those scenes (burying the cat, which leads to his thing with Korn, and looking at that collar after having a fight with Korn and fucking Win) could've happened in the real past.

Why do I think this matters to the story, though? And why do I believe it's part of the backbone of the story? Well, I'm basing this off my theory that Title is Fasai's brother. If that's true, there's a chance that Title knew about Dome's brother (Tonkla) being Korn's "toy" (as Fasai put it). That could very well be the reason Title clearly hates Dome as much as he does. And it all started with Tonkla burying that cat at Uni.

Then there's the blood around Nan as she's held captive and is beaten (and later shot):

Which, in the real past, might've led to Great and Korn fleeing town in Great's red car:

And considering we still haven't seen the scene from the trailer where they're lying in a boat out on the water (which I think is at the same glamping site as at the beginning of the 5th episode), they're probably going back there again in Tyme's timeline. And if they're going back there, there's a big chance it happened in the real past as well (since both characters are imagining it).

The same goes for when they returned to the city in Great's red car. They likely returned to different circumstances in the real past, but they must've returned either way.

Then there are the red features on the news as they report about the accusations against Great's dad and his company (which can be seen in an image above).

I'm sure the evidence Tyme had gotten on the illegal gambling sites leaked somehow in the real past as well (it might've been Tyme who did it, which might've led to Great and his mom being shot).

Then we have the sign on Tyme's place saying "House for rent" in red letters:

Whether he (in the real past) left because Chanin bribed him or because he just wanted to take his grandmother somewhere safer is up for debate.

But at least I'm pretty sure Great was shot (and, most likely, his mom too):

Just look at that red splatter.

This is as far as we've come in the show right now.

So, does it make sense that the red tells us what happened in the real past and/or which events are the backbone of the story? Yes.

Do I think I cracked a code or something? Not really.

But it does make me eager to keep tracking the red in the remaining episodes to see if it will keep being the red thread of the real past/the backbone of the story or if any pitfalls will come up.

Now, let's move on to my predictions of what might come in the coming episodes.

Jewelry, Clothes, and Bruises

At first, I was going to write about the jewelry after the 5th episode because I've been tracking them (besides clocks/time, numbers, and color, to name a few things) since the start, and I think it will play a role now that the show is moving toward Tyme's perspective instead. But, @yakdee wrote amazingly about the jewelry in this post, which means I don't have to. I recommend you read that post first.

To that post, I want to add that the 5th episode ended with Tyme wearing the clothes he was wearing when he was shot in the 1st episode (he also doesn't wear any jewelry in the scene when he's shot):

Is he still in Great's timeline here, running towards his own death so he can have his own OOBE, or is he in the real past?

Or, a third option, perhaps he's in both at the same time, which could be indicated by the bruise on Tyme's nose that he had in the 1st episode when he was shot (image above), which also showed up every other time the lights flickered in the last scene in the 5th episode:

Perhaps the spinning of the camera in that last scene was to show these two versions merging together. Perhaps it showed one Tyme ending while the other Tyme beginning. Or, perhaps it just showed that everything is upside down.

Now, whichever version of Tyme it is that gets shot, I believe that will be the trigger that moves the show into Tyme's perspective of whatever happened in the past. Because I do believe we will be sent back into the past again (somehow) since there are scenes from the trailer that haven't yet shown up and yet would've chronologically happened in the past from our current vantage point (I'll get back to these in a bit).

(I would personally argue that the Tyme with the bruise is the Tyme from the real past. I also believe it's that version of him we'll see get shot in the next episode like we did in the 1st episode, and that will be the trigger that sends us into his OOBE timeline.)

In other words, this is where I believe we're headed.

Tyme's Timeline

I've had the theory for a while that Tyme is having an OOBE as well because there are times when the thunder has broken through into the events we've seen, which I think is his real present reality bleeding through (the thunderstorm at the abandoned place where he was shot in the 1st episode).

So, what can we expect from Tyme's timeline? Or, what will I keep my eyes open for when (if?) we get Tyme's timeline?

Again, considering the things Den commented about in his research, it's obvious that the person from which perspective we're seeing is coloring the narrative.

We might be getting a completely different vibe going forward when seeing things from Tyme's perspective. And just like @yakdee wrote in that post, there's still the scene at the bar from the trailer as well as the sex scenes Great had visions of. The vibe in those scenes is very different (in my opinion) from what we've seen so far from Great's perspective.

There's also this scene of them lying in that boat out on the water:

Which I believe is at the same countryside/glamping site they were at in Great's timeline.

We know that these scenes will show up at some point and we'll likely get to see them from Tyme's perspective, which will be an interesting contrast to Great's.

Also, from a color perspective, Great's OOBE timeline had him in white and Tyme in black for the most part (that might not change very much in Tyme's OOBE timeline, but it's definitely something I'll keep my eyes on). Just look at that image of them in the boat, though. Great is wearing primarily dark clothes with a white jacket while Tyme (who has basically only worn black clothes excluding his doctor's robe, his gray clothes when visiting Great's Uni, and the clothes he wore when he was shot) is wearing a black shirt and white pants... (Also, look at the yin and yang they're creating lying there in that boat. It's just so visually stunning.) That's super interesting to me.

I will keep tracking clocks/time, the color red (and other colors), numbers, more tilting camera shots (which also appeared in this episode, but I don't have the brainpower, or the images left, to write about that right now), and more as the show continues.

So, if I'm to summarize the major timelines right now, they would be:

The present timeline (where Great and Tyme are dying).

The 4-minute timeline (which is Great's do-over timeline).

The real past/Tonkla's timeline (which may be the same timeline or have diverged into separate ones as the show has progressed).

And the addition I think we'll get in the next episode: Tyme's timeline (which may get another name if he also develops a supernatural ability).

I can't wait to watch the next episode and see how wrong I am.

Is it Friday, yet?

[crystaldoodler]

A very long post of doodles relating to @theminecraftbee ‘s smallishsona AU (sorry for the tag again). I think of this AU while wandering Tartarus, so, I’ve had a lot of time to think. This post is really long and has a lot of rambling so, I’m putting it all under the cut. I’m sorry world I have too many words and rambles in me

First up, character designs!

I used primarily their mc skins for design, with only a few rl things thrown in. But, I didn’t bring them up so the colors are off a bit.

Starting off with Joel:

He’s following the persona protagonist tradition of mostly wearing the school uniform correctly, but with some minor embellishments. I’m still debating whether or not to add more, but w/e. His signature color is green.

Then Skizz and Impulse:

The greatest dichotomy of time to design, Impulse I knocked out on the second go, but I’ve done many iterations of Skizz and I still am not satisfied with this design. The ripped sleeves looked too out there (to me, at least) but nothing else seems to work so I settled for the shirt under uniform shirt look. Something I struggled with that these two emphasize is making them look like teenagers, and what they look like, and also keep to the anime style, and also my own incompetence with drawing facial features so It’s something all of these lack in. Impulse is yellow, and Skizz is blue.

Scar and Grian are next up, Scar’s facial Scar is from summoning his persona, because he stabbed himself in the face lol. Not much to say about these guys, I settled on orange for Scar and red for grian, which I am still struggling with beacause mumbo:

is ALSO red. So I guess they are just, both? red? If you look at the party select screens in persona though, the characters have pretty strong color coding, so I guess I’ll figure something out. If anyone is still reading: help. Anyway, mumbo wins the award for wearing the uniform the most normal (except for the tie)

Last but not least, Gem!

She’s wearing a longer skirt than the usual uniforms and also some big-ass boots. Also, she’s a sea monster thing? So, I was thinking, staring at SEES cool new uniform things and thinking about the Phantom Thieves and how cool their outfits are and realized the persona games have at least some design change to separate their daily looks from shadow hunting. Even if it is only glasses in p4 lol. So, I thought maybe weapon holsters? but, that seemed a little too generic. So! I decided to combine how I normally draw the hermits (and a lot of the fandom does) as having non-human traits as the big things setting their combat looks apart. It is both a) fun to draw, b) creates an eye catching and distinctive design for combat and c) is really funny. I thought it was funny so I drew a comic about it:

and here’s a sketch of what everyone looks like and also the transformation gives them very distinct eyes, for no reason other than I think it looks cool:

mumbo is a normal human btw (or at least, he appears to be)

Welp,that’s all I got. If I look at these drawings any longer I will hate them so here they are, yippee. Also, Bee/OP, sorry for exploding; I am into persona and hermitcraft right now so this AU is like a perfect storm to give me brain rot.

[bcdrawsandwrites]

(Please reblog if you want to, do not repost! Do not post to Pinterest!)

[ID: A Team Fortress 2 fanfic cover featuring a render of Pyro and Spy standing back-to-back in profile, with Pyro facing left and Spy facing right, standing against a dark purple background. Spy is smoking. Both characters have a yellow/orange rim lighting. Above them is the title of the fic, Flickering, glowing the same glowing yellow/orange. /end ID]

Fandom: Team Fortress 2

Rating: K+

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship

Characters: Spy, Pyro, all the other mercs, and Miss Pauling (primarily Spy and Pyro, but everyone else has important moments too)

Warnings: TF2-typical violence, PTSD, panic attacks, trauma in general (none of these guys are okay)

Description: After the events of the comics, the mercs try to go back to how things were, but it's never that easy.

Spy can see his teammates going through their own struggles… but something seems to be very, very wrong with Pyro in particular.

And since no one else seems to be doing anything about this, Spy makes it his mission to get to the bottom of what is troubling Pyro. For no particular reason.

Beta Readers: @mechmolar, @gonturan0, @junuve (Teeth (mechmolar) also did the render for the cover!)

Notes: This fic is legit like around 80% complete already because it takes me forever to actually post anything these days. I'll be posting new chapters as I feel like it. It'll be around 10 chapters in total. Also, Pyro is nonhuman and uses it/its pronouns in this fic. Okay? Okay.

---

Prologue

They were pretty sure they knew what awaited them when they got to Gray Mann's base. Or, Spy was sure, anyway. Mann was after the same Australium they were, and they'd be interrogated for what little they knew. And he wasn’t going to get that information out of them easily.

Spy’s tongue nudged one of his fake teeth. The time would come for that eventually.

His suspicions were confirmed when Demo, still distraught from the loss of Sniper, was dragged out by a couple of the enemy mercs, who snickered over the ways they could "make him talk."

That left him, Miss Pauling, Soldier, Zhanna, and Pyro, all of them chained up in a tiny room, waiting out their fate.

Well, until that thing entered.

It was the other team's pyro. Their Pyro perked up with an interested hum when it saw the other, only to jump—as much as it could with its feet chained to the floor—when the enemy pyro removed its face.

Spy had, admittedly, been caught off-guard, but rolled his eyes immediately after. This was not like their Pyro. This one was a human—a woman, her face scarred with old burns and one eye missing, her hair pepper gray with half her scalp scarred over. The fact that she was human had startled him more than any disfigurement could have.

Of course, he had to remind himself that his team was the exception, as always. They'd become so accustomed to the incredibly strange nature of their comrade that it felt eerie to actually see a human behind a similar mask.

Pyro must have felt the same, with the way it tilted its head with a hum of consternation.

The woman stared at it in turn. "Hm. This one seems promising."

Miss Pauling's head shot up, but Spy nudged her and subtly shook his head.

Unfortunately, Soldier was not on their wavelength. "That one? HAH! If you need a building burned to the ground, maybe! But Pyro doesn't talk!"

One of the woman's eyebrows raised in interest. "Really."

Spy shut his eyes, imagining himself flipping open his butterfly knife and driving it through Soldier's throat.

"Nope! It's completely incomprehensible! It can’t tell you anything! The rest of us won’t, either—we will not yield under torture, especially not me. Though I'd love to see you try!"

"Soldier, no!" Zhanna cried. "I must be tortured first!"

But the enemy pyro did not respond to them—likely still staring at their Pyro. "It doesn't, eh?" she said, putting a heavy emphasis on the pronoun. "Good. I like a challenge."

Seconds later, several robots filed into the room, immediately heading for Pyro and unlocking its shackles from the floor. Pyro mumbled something at them.

"Wait, no!" Soldier cried. "Pick me, pick me! I'm a good challenge!"

But the robots paid them no mind as they escorted Pyro out, and Spy cracked an eye open to see it showed no signs of worrying about what was about to happen. The door slammed shut, and he let out a sigh, tipping his head back. "Soldier, you are going to get us all killed."

"We're gonna die anyway!" Soldier protested. "We can at least go down fighting!"

"We are not going to go down fighting, you imbecile. We are—" He stopped himself there, deciding he didn't particularly want to reflect on their fates with someone who wasn't going to care anyway.

"Poor Pyro," Miss Pauling murmured. "What are they going to do to it?"

Spy shrugged. "Better it than us." He lowered his voice. "With luck, they'll waste several hours trying to get information out of it before they realize Soldier, idiot that he is, was more-or-less telling the truth. That may buy us some time."

"You think we can still get out of this?" she whispered, hope edging into her voice.

"Not likely. We're probably delaying the inevitable." His tongue nudged one of his molars.

"We'll have to hope.” Miss Pauling sighed, staring at the door. "I guess Demo or Pyro could break out."

Spy barely resisted the urge to snort. "The drunkard? Not likely. Pyro? Who knows."

"I still can't imagine what they would do to it."

Spy tipped his head back to regard the ceiling for a moment. "Who can say? Waterboarding, perhaps?” A random guess, and he snorted at the absurdity of it. “Though I struggle to imagine what could break that creature."

"Neither could the Administrator. That's one of the reasons she recruited it." Miss Pauling shook her head. "If that's the case, maybe it'll find a way to break out. And break us out of here."

"Unless it decides to burn down the whole base with us inside. Regardless, resisting torture and breaking free are two different things. But we shall see."

Soldier groaned. "But when's it gonna be my turn to get tortured for information?"

"Will be our turn soon," Zhanna reassured him.

Spy heaved a sigh, and Miss Pauling shut her eyes.

They sat in uncomfortable silence (save for Soldier and Zhanna's chatter) for some time, Spy keeping an eye on the door while Miss Pauling stared at the floor, lost in her own thoughts.

The minutes ticked on. For how long, Spy was uncertain—he couldn't reach his watch to read it, and the feeling of dread in the air was not helping with their perception of time. Next to him, Miss Pauling occasionally muttered to herself, and every so often he could pick up phrases.

"...and we could go back to Australia, and..."

"...if Scout or Heavy are still out there..."

"...and Sniper could... wait, no..."

Sighing, he almost considered tuning her out, but it was a good distraction from his nicotine cravings, at least.

At some point, she raised her head. "Where is it?"

Spy raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"

"Pyro. They've been keeping it for a long time."

"Yes. Demo has been gone for some time, too."

"Yeah, but... they can get information out of him." She turned to face him again, and an unspoken question hung in the air.

Spy returned her gaze. "Miss Pauling, if you are under the impression that we are in the hands of anyone other than violent sadists, I do not know what to tell you."

Before she could react, the door burst open.

“I VOLUNTEER!” Soldier cried, straining against his manacles.

But instead of their captors, Pyro stumbled into the room.

Spy would have hoped that it had indeed broken loose and come to rescue them had it not been for the fact that its hands were shackled behind its back.

The robots escorted Pyro to the end of the bench, where they shackled its feet to the floor. Meanwhile, the enemy pyro stepped into the room.

"Finally!" Soldier exclaimed. "You've had your turn, Pyro. Now it's mine!"

"Our turn," Zhanna corrected.

With an unfriendly smile, the woman turned to face them. "If you insist."

While the robots got to work escorting the two least intelligent people out of the room, Spy and Miss Pauling looked over their recently-returned companion. "Pyro?" Miss Pauling whispered. "You okay, buddy?"

Pyro said nothing, sitting still on the bench and facing forward.

"...Well, it looks okay, anyway." Miss Pauling shrugged. "Guess the Administrator was right."

"Hm." Spy's eyes narrowed as he continued to look Pyro over. While it was true that it looked more-or-less uninjured—the suit was a little roughed up, but that was it—he couldn't be too sure that it was unharmed. The enemy wouldn't have just done nothing with it, and the way Pyro did not answer them, nor even respond to its surroundings, was not encouraging.

Nor was the fact that it was trembling.

But before he could analyze Pyro's behavior any further, the doors burst open again, and this time a barely-coherent Demo was practically dragged into the room.

In the whirlwind of events that followed, the torture that their fellow mercs had endured was nearly all but forgotten.

But it would not stay that way.

[tired-reader-writer]

I was re-listening to the AU playlist (thankfully my headache doesn't seem to be preventing me from music tonight) and I felt the urge to ramble about stuff sooooo. Lyric highlights, a brief aside on why I might've chosen a particular song, that kind of stuff! I won't be breaking down entire songs, though.

If y'all wish to listen along as you read this... inordinately long post... Here's the link to the playlist:

“If these newly sprouted feelings resound in your heart, I can stay by your side and protect you, right?”

-

“Holding up the light I erase my hesitations

What I wanted to give you was a future

I scream out my grief, holding onto crying nights”

— Oath Sign, by LiSA

Ain't this just so fucking Shapur in Wolfsong?

“Even if I lose, even if I fail

I have no choice but to keep living

No matter how many times I fall

I have something to protect”

-

“This is the path I choose, the only path given”

— Kamado Tanjirou no Uta, by Nakagawa Nami, covered by Raon Lee

Pretty much the theme of the AU. They didn't choose this world, but they have to live in it. And protect what they can, while they're at it.

“Can you still smile even after seeing the real world?”

-

“A spiral song clears the way for one willful hope”

-

“You don't know how reckless you are

You make me blue”

-

“Whisper your name again

Then restart it right away

Oh my bitter color ardour wander

Gotta feel it undercover”

— Avid, by Mizuki and Hiroyuki Sawano

Of Ayunnen and Kashi's POVs as they're befriended by Shapur, though the final highlight was from Shapur's POV.

“The moon moves on

Death rides on

The raven flies in the evening”

-

“Long is the journey

Long are the paths to go

Long-lasting is the longing of men, if this is to be”

— Máninn Líður, by SKÁLD

Aaaaaand the massacre happens. They're dead. Grief enters the scene.

“Within this neverending rain

No longer am I afraid of yesterday

The future that had lost you

Had just begun”

-

“The cruel sky shines upon

Both what was lost

And what will never change”

— Aria, by Kalafina

The neverending rain both for the literal rain that bookended the chapter but also the metaphorical rain of grief that will follow the characters for years to come.

“You who are crying, you who are lonely

It is you who is right, it is you who is human”

-

“Dreams you want to fulfill, dreams that you can't reach

They themselves turn into dreams, into hope, and that's how people live on, right?”

-

“Thank you to the miracle

That we were able to meet

Even in a dirty and ugly world

Even like this”

— My Song, by GirlDeMo(Angel Beats) uhhh I haven't tracked down the irl singer who sang this, SORRY 😭

I chose this track primarily for Farangis. Imagine a young Farangis, struck with grief of losing her parents, ostracized by everyone else in the temple out of jealousy, and the first highlight is a reassurance that she has a right to cry, that she's human because of it.

The second highlight is more abstracted from her, more about hope in general.

The third comes right back to Farangis, she feels grateful to have met the clan and expanded her horizons, even in a shitty world like this. It's what draws Ranna/Ashaya to her, as well.

“Tears spill for the days you cannot return to The sky above burns crimson”

-

“Here, fulfill the ancient vow O night, break to dawn!”

-

“As if piercing a passing doubt Nock your arrow to your bow, release it far, far away”

-

“You, don't forget Your dream of seeing the burning end of the skies Those fragments will surely awaken, waiting”

— Akatsuki, by Shikata Akiko, covered by Shannon

Mostly just for these lines

Ancient vows and dawn arriving, it kinda sounds like a prophecy, doesn't it?

“Where it's covered in all the colored lights

Where runaways are running the night

Impossible comes true It's taking over you”

-

“Colossal we come renegades in the ring

Where the lost get found in the crown of the circus king!”

— The Greatest Show, by The Greatest Showman Cast

Mostly for these lines about runaways and renegades lol

Also the song has immaculate Kazai vibes

And shenanigans

“Sticking it out, letting you down

Making it right”

-

“Seasons, they will change

Life will make you grow

Dreams will make you cry, cry, cry

Everything is temporary

Everything will slide

Love will never die, die, die”

-

“Some nights, I think of you

Reliving the past, wishing it'd last

Wishing and dreaming”

-

“Death can make you hard, hard, hard”

— Birds, by Imagine Dragons

The POV of those who remain.

“I met you

And had a dream that would never come true”

-

“Wanting to protect you

I reached out

And embraced you with my still trembling fingers”

-

“All we can do is keep on living

Until we lose all our strength

We'll keep shouting helplessly”

-

“The proof that I was here

Is still there, in your eyes”

-

“Crying, screaming, and even as we vanish

We are alive

We are here”

— Sprinter, by Kalafina

Themes of the story, pov of the survivors, the desire to protect, etc!

And from a people that kept being erased over and over, a declaration that they still exist.

No but really, the song is really good.

“In the silence of a world wearing a veil of misty rain Suddenly, I saw how cold the face of truth could be”

-

“What else shall we let go To live our lives the only way we knew The birds are soaring in the sky So high above us all, we who cannot fly We dragged our wounds behind us And kept walking on”

-

“Through the emptiest of nights, ones that freeze you to your bones If we stay together closely, we will see the morning light What is the reason why, we can't stop this chain of hurt How much longer will we relive the past, the same memories?”

-

“Unlike the birds that soar the sky We have no wings, and though we won't learn to fly We stand above the earth now And keep walking on”

— flowers, by Hana Hope (English version)

Almost copy-pasted the entire song here

It's a song about humanity. It makes me so damn emotional.

Keep walking on. Share the warmth. Stay close together. Hey why do we keep hurting each other?

Themes very relevant to Wolfsong.

“For what reason

Have I been engulfed by flames?

I have been captured by fear

For such a long time

Now these flames will never extinguish!”

— The Star Knows, by Hoshimi Junna (Revue Starlight anime), I don't know who the irl vocalist is

HILMES SONG.

MOST OF THE SONG IS VERY HILMES.

“Now I'm fighting this war

Since the day of the fall

I've been desperately holding on to it all

But I'm lost

I'm so damn lost”

-

“Oh I wish it was over

And I wish you were here

Still I'm hoping that somehow—”

-

“As I'm lying awake

I'm still hearing their cries”

-

“And I'm wondering why

I still fight in this life

Cause I've lost all my faith

In this damn bitter strife”

— Shot In The Dark, by Within Temptation

I know this song doesn't fit Saam's vibes but. Hear me out.

The first parts just scream of him after the siege of Ecbatana, yeah?

Though the part about losing faith reads more Kubard, tbh

“As I paint a crimson artwork on the ground

With every piercing sound another worthless soul lies dead

Until my hands are dyed a brilliant red”

-

“Destroy them all (destroy them all)

I can't stop

No, I cannot stop

This need inside of me for more destruction

Powerless, powerless

So fragile is humanity

Cause in the end (in the end)

They're nothing except useless puppets

‘What's the reason for our creation?’

Hey, I'm asking you

So what do you say?”

-

“Cause here we draw the line

And every single thing is defined (black or white)

The very moment we were given our names

Our roles have been pre-ordained

When I snap my finger

None will remain”

— Karakuri Burst, English cover lyrics by SirHamnet

Ranna/Ashaya and Hilmes duet. On hindsight Hilmes' parts need quite a bit of stretching, buuuut he is dubbed “The Prince of Justice” by the Master in canon so someone who's trying to rid Pars of “evil” could fit right in. Ashaya is lashing out, destroying everything in their path, and sees nothing worth saving in this wretched society. Hilmes is caught up on the birthright stuff (our roles have been pre-ordained) sooo. Yeah.

“Why'd you make my voice stutter?

Why do truths never matter?

Why'd you curse me with ‘You're a natural-born genius’?

Endless inferno (inferno)”

-

“If you wanted me to live

If you wanted me to forgive

If you wanted to pretend like we're civilized humans—”

-

“Why don't deaths end my torture?

Why don't anyone feel my hurt?

Why do we crown our most violent to be champions?”

— In Hell We Live Lament, by Mili

Could be Araya, could be Ashaya. Wounded by the world, questioning it.

“And besides in the mean, mean time

I'm just dreaming of tearing you apart”

-

“I just gotta get you out the cage

I'm a young lover's rage

God I need a spark to ignite”

-

“My childhood spat back out the monster that you see”

— Light Em Up (My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark), by Fall Out Boy

Kazai and Ranna/Ashaya's song. Their feral tendencies coming to the forefront!

“As long as we're together

I will believe

There's a continuation for our destiny”

-

“When we were small

We made a single precious promise

I will not give up

I will recreate it

I wanted to see you”

— Starlight, by Aijou Karen and Kagura Hikari (Revue Starlight anime)

Not gonna lie this song is on thin ice despite how much I love it.

I initially kinda wanted it to be a song for Ashaya and Alfarīd— in the case that they did meet in their younger years, but now I'm not so sure.

On second glance it oddly reads as Daryun and Narsus????

Do with that what you will.

“What will I embrace

As I discard in the shadow of desire

This ideal of mine, drenched in pain?

It feels like another world, but this is the truth

With these stained hands I will protect you”

-

“What have I lost

As my awakened heart

Betrays yesterday's justice?”

-

“Now I'll brandish my glittering dream in the darkness

So that it will shine upon our overlapping lives

With the strength I have chosen

I will reach the place I believe is paradise

The hope that is our bond

Is connecting us to the future

Let us overcome our unhealing sorrow

My full emotions, unafraid of being broken

Are simply waiting for dawn to come”

— Another Heaven, by earthmind

Shapur's song. His and Kazai's, moreso Shapur's for the lines about discarding the ideals he once had.

The song is from the perspective of a protagonist who lets go of his heroic ideals and his dream of becoming a hero, in favor of saving the woman he loves. A song from the story of a sword finally becoming human.

This is Shapur's resolve settling, having decided what it is that he wishes to protect.

“Finally breaking, so where are you now?

It's been such a long time that I've tried to live without

I'm suffocating, I need you to breathe!

So pull me up, pull me out

Before I am buried beneath!”

-

“Thought I was climbing out

But it's dragging me down

What's hidden here with me

Thought I was alone

But it pulls me deeper now

I can't escape!”

— Buried Beneath, by Red

Gurgin's song in this AU, imo. Thought he was sticking it to the society that hurt him and killed his brother by joining Team Zahhak, only to realize much later down the line (after unwillingly staying in Gorgan for a while) that... they were only dragging him down. Maybe he's calling out to his brother.

“Test my will, test my heart

Tell me how the odd's gonna stack, huh?

Y'all go hard, I go smart

How's it working out for y'all in the back, huh?

I've seen that frustration

Been crossed and told no

And I've come back, unshaken”

-

“I can't fall back, I came too far

Hold myself up and love my scars”

-

“I don't fold up and I don't bow

I don't roll over, I don't know how”

— Lost In The Echo, by Linkin Park

Mostly vibes, but I felt this captured Gurgin's kinda haughty attitude, lmao.

“An existence that was born in the city

Seeming stronger than anyone else

Now we can only imagine our cursed and doomed future”

-

“Running and falling

Embracing these wounds that won't heal

For this moment the world has been waiting for”

-

“Drowned in the weakness of my inner self

I don't even know what mask (face) I should wear now anymore

So won't you give me an answer?”

-

“I know that it may look ugly and pathetic

But this is who I am right now

A corpse that cannot become anything, so go ahead and laugh”

— Kaikai Kitan, by Eve, covered by Raon Lee

Hilmes, fresh out of the haunted-forced-redemption-temple :D

“The pain layers upon itself and becomes shackles

I have no time to be crying

The helpless night and the the disheartened morning

They keep passing over and over

And what was left of the cruelly broken hope

Was a wavering light”

-

“The justice someone's wielding hurts so much

Even if someone's crying

It will hurt my heart again

Even if there are scars behind every single truth

I have no choice but to simply—

Forgive them all”

— Untitled world, by ReoNa

Areyan/Arslan's song in the AU, after he's been rescued from Ecbatana.

“I will change reality itself

Even if the truth I find is harsh and cruel

The world is filled with disasters

Time to tame the sins, change our fate”

-

“The rocky castle is starting to shake, it's finally time to decide

Whether to repair or rebuild, a choice must be made”

— Vivid Vice, by Who-ya Extended, covered by Raon Lee

Song for a redeemed Hilmes.

“It's a scream that my body alone cannot contain”

-

“I have a heart that trembles

Only when I touch your hand”

-

“It's fine even if it's foolish

It's fine even if it's ugly

There where lies beyond righteousness

I want to hold your hand”

— Suzume, by RADWIMPS ft. Toaka

Song of a redeemed Gurgin who is in love with Isfan.

“A world where nobody hurts each other

May be a baseless optimism

But even so, I want to try betting on it”

-

“Anger and grief get passed

From person to person in the blink of an eye

They create enemies that don't even exist

And thus ignite the call to fight”

— Yakodou, by Sakamoto Maaya

The song's not particularly dedicated to any one character, really, it's more of an all-compassing song

ALL THE MENTIONS OF BELLS

Think of it as a song before the final showdown against Zahhak.

“As I carry irreparable shadows

The promised place is where flowers bloom

With no care for sin or love

There goes spring

The shining light

Is simply dazzling in the sky

Please do not forgive me

I want to be broken, I want to be reborn

I will laugh by your side”

— Haru wa Yuku, by Aimer

The ending song of the finale in a movie trilogy, this one carries a tone of finality. And the lyrics felt fitting for a Hilmes near or at the hypothetical ending of the story.

The rest of the song could be echoed for other characters, but yeah.

And that concludes most of the songs in the playlist!

Rapid-fire round for the ones I didn't cover:

Soleil: roughly has the tone of a tale being retold— a martyr who gave too much and then died— the song that inspired Araya, a mythological figure for the clan.

Lostbelt title theme: an instrumental, to set the tone for a grand story— though I initially envisioned it panning over the long-gone ancient island, where the clan was said to have originated from, the island where Araya died

Noh Chant: Kaykhusraw's betrayal, Iumaka's death

Dance of the Spirit: clan vibes, especially kinda sorta Kazai in a ceremonial setting?

Moonsong: Ayunnen's song

Parent's Feelings: the somber tone of the castle after the massacre.

girls, dance, staircase: the vibes of a quiet morning

Yuki no Hitohira: more of the somber grief.

Rain: The entire song is just so clan-coded

Wolf Blood: Isfan and Kashi, need I say more?

Crucible: Ashaya/Ranna character song

The Nights: Kazai vibes. The line “Think of me if ever you're afraid” makes me go soft.

Homeland: the castle and Shapur's lands as they grow with the clan's presence, the feeling of being home

Garden: joyful tone setter

Yakety Sax: SHENANIGANS

It's My Day: fun tune, an energetic morning

朝市にて: Ecbatana before shit goes horribly wrong

Sulcus: Areyan's brainstorming song during the siege and Lusitanian occupation

Chaotic Battle: Ashaya's battle theme

Shura Fire: Alfarīd's battle song

Spirit of the Wild: Kazai's song

Sediment: Team Zahhak vibes

Silhouette: Team Zahhak vibes

Deep Darkness: the haunted temple Hilmes gets trapped in

Hitogashima Ballad: seems to be a children's song/lullaby, the vibes fit Araya The Younger (not the mythological one, Kaykhusraw's son he killed and wiped off of history), a ghost Hilmes encounters in the haunted temple

Nijamena: I could not for the life of me find translated lyrics so it's on here for the supremely epic vibes

Fate/Apocrypha: preparing for the final showdown vibes, has a mystical air to it soooo

FGO's Grand Battle Theme: HERE COMES THE FINAL SHOWDOWN BABY

The Last of the Starks: Team Gorgan aka Shapur's family and the clan at the end of everything kinda vibes

Labyrinth: Hilmes leads a ceremony to apologize to those Kaykhusraw had betrayed and murdered, put the spirits at ease, held where the haunted temple is.

@innerchorus Since you were interested, here ya go!

[myriadeyed]

I hate binaries I hate binaries I hate binaries

[OK, full disclosure, before I posted this I had a drowned screenshot of part of a post, but I decided I didn't want to blast someone who wasn't actively having that bad of a take (I just got annoyed by phrasing) or accidentally be disingenuous in cutting off the rest of the post so instead I'm just going to explain: it was an informational post about the different experiences with labels and my frustration with it was the given examples of — paraphrased —"some alterhumans don't like the word nonhuman because they're still partly human, some nonhumans don't like the word alterhuman because they don't like the word human, some beings don't like the word person because it implies they're human."]

"It implies they're human" is not ever a true statement. Please understand the difference between how you or another person feels about a word and its definition and "this word implies/means/says/etc. this." I will not ever complain about those who don't like alterhuman or person for themselves due to their experience of dysphoria, but I am annoyed by the subset of that group who makes sweeping statements like "Alterhuman/person implies you're human!" because

I'm alterhuman and I'm nonhuman. I'm alterhuman primarily BECAUSE I'm nonhuman. I am physically not a human and what makes me dysphoric, personally, is half of the community suddenly deciding that alterhuman/person is for humans and nonhuman/being (or equivalent to being) is for everyone else so anybody who considers themself alterhuman is declaring their humanness first and everything else second. I like alterhuman. I consider myself a person because I'm a thinking being with complex emotions, not because personhood is inseparable from humanness. The alterhuman community is my community. I'm not gonna "ok we will make our own place" anymore. (I also hate having to say upfront I'm physically nonhuman otherwise I'm one of those annoying human therians yapping about misanthropy again amiright but wtvr.) It upsets me when alterhuman is talked about like "word for if you're 'kin but still consider yourself human" because I don't! I do not consider myself a human and I don't want that to dictate what labels I'm supposed to use. I do not want to be seen as a human at all, without having to abandon alterhumanity! I'm sorry for wanting to have my cake and eat it too, but this is a semantic divide, not an ontological one.

TLDR "I'm NOT alterhuman because I'm NOT a human!" Good for you! I AM alterhuman because I'm NOT a human! How cool is the subjectivity of experience? Don't project your dysphoria onto me!

I love the word alterhuman because it is up for interpretation. It is open-ended, and has space for everybody who considers their relationship to humanness or species or embodiment etc. abnormal — "alternative." I love it because my own identity is vague, inconstant, complicated and indefinable, and it can't be separated into niche distinct parts for convenient labeling. Alterhuman isn't just a catch-all umbrella term, it's a word you can use if no other words work, because it doesn't necessitate definitions. It implies nothing about identity inherently; if you have personal implications for it, those are yours, not the word's.

I like "alterhuman" for the same reasons I like "queer." Maybe my identity isn't anyone else's business, maybe it isn't even my own a lot of the time. But I always know where I belong. I find it funny how often both of these words have someone else's personal discomforts projected onto their individual users.

Btw did anyone else notice the word human is also part of "nonhuman." Scary stuff. What else is the government hiding from us

[snek-panini]

It's been ages since I had a new book to post, but I finally got through my art block (craft block?) and finished some of the ones that have been languishing, cover-less, on my desk for months. To everyone who liked my last post about the copy of The Machine Stops that I made, thank you! But that was my first book ever, more than two years ago, and I make much better books now! Here, I can prove it:

See? This is Wine Fraud and Other Worthy Pursuits by ImprobableDreams900. It is (unsurprisingly, to anyone who knows me) a Good Omens fic that I asked to bind way back in February. It's a short-ish fic (14k, no slouch but on the short end for this size book), very well-researched and very in character all the way despite being an AU. Though if you're primarily coming from the TV fandom it will be a bit of a departure, as this is a book fic and predates the release of the miniseries. It's not overtly romantic and everyone has more bite than in TV!fic, more in line with book characterization. I love the romantic stuff but there's so much of it, and this was refreshing in comparison.

More pics under the cut!

Endpapers have vintage novelty corkscrews on them. I saw this Florentine print on the Hollanders site while looking for something else and knew I had to have it for this project, it's perfect. And because it's a small book I have tons of it left. The actual front cover is lokta paper, which I hadn't worked with before and am not sure I liked. It's super soft and doesn't seem like it'll be very durable, and it didn't like folding around the board edges. It seemed to get very feather-y as it was handled, shedding little fibers. Though I also experimented with waxing and burnishing the paper to make it waterproof and that might have had an effect. The black spine is book cloth, and the title was done with heat transfer vinyl. This was only my second experiment with HTV and I feel like I still have a lot to learn.

Spot the oopsies! I got the book cloth misaligned and didn't notice till after it was glued down. It's straight but overlaps much further on the back than the front. You don't really notice it unless you look from the top down like this though. In the second photo, you can see where the text block slipped while I was trimming it and I ended up with one signature slightly shorter than the others; it's the last one on the right. Remember to glue before trimming, I guess. It doesn't really bother me; I actually forgot it was there until I took this photo.

Interior photos, title page and first page of text. The artwork was a free download from rawpixel, turned out very nice. I couldn't find any chapter ornaments I liked for this one, so I kept the typeset simple and I think it suits the story well. Understated. Elegant. Exactly what you expect to be there, like a good forgery.

I enjoyed working on this, and it's wonderful to have finished projects to post about again. I can't wait to share the next one.

[sincerely-sofie]

One thing I will say is that saying you "disagree with the term queer" Is Not A Great Look, but that could easily be a me not getting the wording as intended thing - The above assumes you mean just, queer in general though it feels more like you might've meant in reference to yourself? (Which is entirely fine - I'm of the opinion that any given label should be opt-in to anyone who's genuine about it rather than mandatory.)

Really, the main important thing I appreciate is being able to accept others where they're at. Being able to just say "Yeah, sure, ok" and go along even if I don't personally understand is honestly one of my core beliefs* too, and with minimal disrespect it's nice seeing this from a Christian. The little I actually know suggests something worth looking into, and the notion of an eternal soul is something I find fairly agreeable (if not strictly the outcomes of that.) Then again, I'm someone whose personal experience with religion can be described as a tangled web of jokes that ran too long and accidentally became character traits, so, maybe not the best judge of anything here. Also, wow, this post got away from me quickly. Originally meant to just put in the first paragraph and call it good.

*I draw a hard line the second that personal belief starts meaning harm to others. Believe what you want about yourself, but anyone saying someone else needs to change their ways (bar the very beliefs this targets, primarily meaning bigotry/racists) because of a thing YOU feel a certain way about simply can't be tolerated.

Thanks for the critique! Looking back, I definitely should have written “disagree with the term queer FOR myself” (which was actually the original wording I drafted) rather than “disagree with the term queer myself”. I was trying to cut down on my wordiness as I edited my response, but I ended up just making it a confusing sentence to read. Curse my proofreading anxiety. 

I'll try not to get into it too much here because it'd probably derail this entire response to your ask, but I've got a lot of mixed feelings with most labels, especially ones that were formerly derogatory terms. My church has worked hard to pivot from being called “Mormons” because among other (honestly more important) reasons, the term was basically used as a snide and condescending way to refer to my church, and it quickly became the default phrase for addressing us. The fact that members of my faith were basically referring to themselves with an insult as I grew up in the church never really sat well with me, even if we took pride in it. I'm super impressed by those who can take once-painful words and make them into badges of honor, but for me personally, it's a real emotional minefield. Hence, in part, why I don't agree with using the term queer for myself. It's a matter of preference and personal implications.

Agh, I really rambled on for a while there. I hope that made sense.  

For your second paragraph— it's sad to me that so many people have had such disheartening experiences with Christians. I swear, most of us are loving people. There's just an unfortunate amount of very vocal bible-bashers who forget that God's greatest instructions to us were to love Him and love others. 

If you're interested, there's a lot of resources on my church’s website if you'd like to learn more about what we believe (though there's no pressure from me to read up on it!) I just felt like I should share because we don't believe in a Hell where people burn for all eternity. 

We believe in three different “kingdoms” that everyone will be sorted into, with interaction between them being possible so families and friends can visit each other if they end up divided. The least glorious kingdom (for lack of a better term) is still an absolutely amazing place, full of light and happiness. There is a sort of Hell called Outer Darkness that I guess anyone reading about could see it as a form of eternal punishment, but people choose to go there themselves— it's a form of willing separation from God that happens when people who have an absolutely perfect knowledge of the gospel still choose to go the opposite direction. It's not somewhere you go because you drank coffee or swore in life. That'd be ridiculous.

… I opened my mouth and a missionary came out. Oops. 

Anyhoo, that last paragraph is a big deal, Anon! People need to be able to choose for themselves what they'll do in their lives— any forced change is not change at all, and the second you do harm to another person that isn't in the defense of yourself or others, you're in the wrong. As you can probably tell from my tangent above, I'm an advocate for missionary work, which could be seen as telling people they need to change their ways, but the type of missionary work I stand behind is the kind that invites people to learn more— never forces— and respects when they say no. Always honor agency is my motto. Invite, don't incite. That sort of thing. 

Thanks again for the critique! I appreciate your willingness to send it in and share your thoughts. I'll add a link to this ask in my original post so that if anyone else is confused by my wording, they'll be able to see this and get some better information. 

[anivirus]

Andy the Mouse - Meditation (+Personal Status Update)

(For now I will keep this post exclusive to Tumblr)

Howdy, fellow followers and those who are just passing by. Today I would like to address the long break I have taken and try to self reflect. In fact, this art depicts my overall state as of now the best. Foggy and thorny.

Initially I was planning to get back into work in second half in July but a bunch of things happened. I have started feeling exhaustion in a lot of aspects in my life. I have left the communities, projects I was working on, primarily because my OCD forces me into giving all of my energy into them in expense for physical and mental health. By July 3rd I was weighing 46kg while being 183cm tall. Things needed to be changed. I am currently on medication, a healthy diet I couldn't build and sustain ever before, and trying to build up a daily schedule which also contains regular fitness. Currently I am almost never falling into panic and despair which had been draining all of my life force. After 2,5 months I weigh 58kg and still aiming for better results to be the perfect femmmmmm boyyyyyyy!

However... Things are still not perfect, I need more time to adapt and overcome the fog of my mind. However I have a bunch of plans. Let me inform you.

1. I will differentiate some of my social networks

I love you all, my cutest and fluffiest furry boys, girls, enbys and everyone else. However I know that you might not be interested in some other stuff I might do - like composing music, sowtware engineering, or even femboy fashion. The solution for that would be creating multiple blogs on social networks. Like, for example, my idea for Tumblr is making two extra blogs - for bottomposting and software engineering. I still don't know which one would be my main, probably, this one - for furry art. Anyways, I will make a poll in that regard since I'm not sure about the idea

2. Updating my social networks

I have left Twitter because Elon Musk is a literal nazi I will never support. That said, Threads is the lesser evil, which is also connected to my Instagram account. By the way, my social links are down below!

UPD: Reddit is ass, i won't be able to post there. Thinking about using Lemmy instead

3. I will be discontinuing Patreon subscription

In heat of creativity I have gone greedy and decided to try taking money from people. No more! For now my content will stop being paywalled just as it should have been since the start. It will simply act as a hub for all of my content.

P.S. I don't think I'm ready to continue my furry art journey yet. But I am trying my best to come back soon.

Cya! >.<

[alicenpai]

🌟

anime north 2023 con report

finally posting this - thank you to everyone for a wonderful anime north!! \o/ this con prep season was the longest ive ever prepped for a con, and i think it was the busiest con for me ever. it makes me so happy to see people taking my art home!! 😭

so thank you for coming by anime north and chatting and supporting me! and thank you esp to the people who came by gifting their own merch?!??? - either fanart or ocs?! and im honored to see your beautiful ocs?!?? what the hell you guys are the GOAT thank you all 🥹🥹

it was so busy that i wish i had time to walk around & talk to other artists! i really wanted to get dango and onigiri at the delta too.. didnt really get time to eat so im sorry if you saw me shove 10 timbits in my mouth at the end of the con. yes i really did that .

throughout the con i kept saying "he just like me.. HE JUST LIKE ME FR!!!!!!!" every 5 seconds like an NPC. im sorry if you had to hear that more than once.

---

i wasn't able to post my con catalogue for AN on tumblr and instagram... i was so busy.. dying... maybe if i do other cons this summer ill post something similar. i had a lot of new stuff this year so formatting it was rough haha. here it is! more thoughts under the cut (bc this report really is more for me, but maybe someone can find something useful)

---

this is more for me honestly, so it will be really long. but i'm sharing it in case it may be helpful for others. i find that i'm always looking back at my old con reports, so typing out all of my thoughts are really useful to me. overall a great con, fellow artists and customers alike really inspire me to do better in my art.

comparisons to last year: (since i didn't end up making a con report last year!!!!!)

location: the artist alley layout was huge, and im really happy there are a lot more newcomers to the con scene. i know how much my first con experience meant to me, so i want others to join in on the fun! i don't know how the artist alley staff managed to fit so many artists in the building now! we got placed in a corner where there was a lot of breathing room, and a lot of traffic. i got lost a few times (didn't actually have time to walk around, but you know, it was to get in and out of the con centre and to the washroom/water station) because the amount of tables was overwhelming however, and the layout was super confusing. however i didn't feel as if there were any significant bottlenecks in traffic when i was taking some walk breaks.

commissions: last year it was still busy, but i still had some time to draw a handful of commissions. this year was a non stop barrage of customers! i think i may retire on the spot commissions at cons, just because ive always found it too stressful to draw right at the con, even if the traffic is slow. (and im lazy)

fandoms: last year i felt that it was... never so difficult to sell niche and old fandoms...? most people bought primarily 3 things from me at AN 2022, and not much else was touched. it was a struggle, and i even wondered if my art plateaued, if it wasn't good, if i should stop doing conventions altogether, at least for a little while. this year was so surprising with how much love there was for old and niche fandoms. two people from quebec came by and noticed the old fandoms and mentioned that if i was able to come to otakuthon, i should, people in mtl love nostalgia.. i'm gonna be honest otakuthon was pretty bad expenses-wise for me, but i heard it picked up since cons came back in 2022. it is a really beautiful city so mayhaps.. i will come for miss montreal.................

---

and a separate section on the new merch i made:

the new sticker sheets i printed (one piece, baccano, breaking bad/better call saul) did so well! nts to add luffys scar bc apparently i forgot... ive seen this dumbass's face for hundreds of eps and yet i still forgot .

these are a far cry to the sticker sheets i designed in previous years. many sticker places restrict you on how many stickers you can place on a sheet due to spacing requirements... the more stickers you have + the closer they are, the higher the margin of error, which i understand is why many professional sticker printers have these restrictions in place.

the artists i worked with for my AN stickers are so genuinely nice and accommodating with my requests. I just went wild haha. the sheets with the most stickers are brba/bcs at 27 stickers and one piece at 32 stickers.

2021 (top) vs 2023 (bottom), the chara stickers on the new sheet are larger & 2x as many item stickers! the new design makes greater use of the space. my octopath 1 stickers are meant for planners but you could use it for anything!

in 2017 i could only realistically fit 6 ish stickers on a sheet (for vinyl, not cricut home printing) due to printing restrictions. these costed about $3.30 CAD per sheet from s/ticker/mule (not worth it for the price point AT ALL... but i wanted to try sheets for the first time)... and yes it's a tiny 4x7 as well. it was a hard sell for $7 in 2017. but im glad artists have been pricing them a bit higher + sheets have become much more customizable.

now on to charms:

i am so obsessed with this borderless charm look on the new charms... they look like candy... thank you guys for loving my new charms!! i tried out a new technique with designing charms. and im so happy with how they turned out. the charm manu was super accommodating and they are so much better than vograce who fucked up my order so bad in 2022 🤡👍

the soul eater charms from last year were kind of a precursor to this. last year i tried something a bit different than my usual with the transparent bgs, which require full bleed in the file setup, and that was already pretty new for me. i find that charm sales are usually pretty mid for me, so during the pandemic i took a soft break from making them, and i wanted to do research based on others' designs and really tried to improve my design sense. to me i want to design charms that aren't just a flat piece of artwork that gets printed, but something that utilizes the capabilities of the acrylic material it gets printed on 🤔

---

fandoms/merch types i want to try next time i table:

more soul eater? it's one of my favourite animes and im very happy for the soul eater love this year. my partner kept selling out of her soul eater prints even though it was her first time tabling!

fma! ive been rereading AND rewatching it lately. it's one of my top 5 anime of all time so me drawing anything for it is a struggle, the bar is set so high. i never end up having the time or ideas to draw anything for it (and the aesthetics are very different from my usual taste)

shadows house has been one of my favorites recently!

dungeon meshi, the print i made was back in 2018 and i think it's time to retire it! it sold out at AN, thank you! with the way the story has developed in the last 5 years, i really want to draw something new for it if i can.

blue period needs more love!

golden kamuy.....

and many more.....

i also want to try mini prints maybe...

---

administrative stuff:

next time before the con, i definitely need an organized chart i print out before the con so im not.. literally writing down each transaction... 🧍‍♀️

clamps...?

possibly new display? grids even with plastic panels are heavy... and they can be a pain to put up. this AN we had our neighbors and good friends @nappotuna & @stripeyworm helping us put the grids up, they did an absolute speedy banger job! but it might have taken way longer without 4 hands on the grid work.

if we had used tape to hold our prints up as well who knows how long it would have taken. we used magnets, apparently a lot of people were using them at TCAF. they were so easy to put up and adjustable. *jesse pinkman voice* MAGNETS, BITCH!!!!!!!

---

merch i may shelve/do less of:

i really appreciate when artists talk about these kind of things behind the scenes... when products do well, when others dont, products w surprising responses, the factors that we think affect sales... the hard truth is that not everything sells, just bc the art is good =/= good sales, etc etc.

lately ive found it so fun to design sticker sheets over individual die cut stickers!! i understand now why some people only specialize in stickers!! it's also such a pain to stock individual characters and have greatly varying levels, bc of customer interest, and bc of how printing stickers works, you often get extras of random characters due to overflow 😭.. like at some point I had 7 jeannes and like only 1 of the other vnc charas bc the printer had so many extras and she's arguably less popular HDHFJSJHDJS anyways, i think i'll probably do less die cut individual stickers for my next con...

anything old that i only have 1 or a few copies left (meaning i won't reprint) i may not have for display anymore bc of space concerns... before my next con ill just post them on social media to have people claim them!

i may want to do less 3" charms in the future...? theyre a hard sell online prob bc i cant really do deals (i could but id have to be checking the stock every few hours which is not ideal), but they do a lot better in person due to deals.

it's been fun to try specialty products (I've tried scrunchies, stamps, pouches, microfiber cloths, coasters, enamel pins), but i... find they dont sell well for me... maybe my art doesnt have that wide mainstream nostalgic merch type appeal idk... maybe im just not good at designing or advertising them wahahaha. (specialty charms are still charms and i wouldn't necessary consider them a part of this)

my jojo buttons were really popular at anime north 2019 and fan expo 2019, but when the part 5 anime concluded, i noticed that interest for the interest completely moved on 😭 (or it's possible that everyone who was interested bought the buttons already?). part 6 anime didn't rejuvenate the same level of interest. it was a struggle to sell even more than a handful of these at each AN 2022 and 2023. right now they're taking up a lot of space in my con luggage that i'd prefer for newer, better art. i still love the art i did, but unfortunately, i think ill give them a go if i get into otakuthon (and maybe fanexpo too), then it'll be time to retire the jojo buttons. sometimes fandoms come and go so fast, and it's difficult to keep old merch around when they don't have any more interest and when they're occupying a lot of space.

my banana fish lollipop charms do not sell well, and i only sold 5 of them in a 3 year period, across cons and my shop. i created a bargain bin at AN, and it really helped me get rid of old things! unfortunately even in the bargain bin i could not sell a single one of the banana fish charms. maybe it's the art that's not appealing, the characters aren't recognizable, the price point for a lollipop charm was too high, i wasn't hitting the right audience, the market was slow around the time, even when it was included in my promo post... etc. these lollipops were my first time making specialty charms. unfortunately i think that's the last time making lollipop charms, and about time to recycle these charms, so that i have space for fresher and better art!

other thoughts moving on:

maybe go back to simplifying my art a lot more... if i keep making drawings like my great ace attorney tarot + zine, witch hat atelier print, and pandora hearts print, then id not only take 1 month per illustration, id also be destroying my arm 😭 i stopped stylizing my art in 2021 bc i found that my art was getting sloppy in 2020 + i was really struggling in life drawing in school. i needed to buckle down and be more conscientious when drawing poses, learning anatomy and structure... and bc getting back into anime in 2021 really helped me cope with the isolation of the lockdown, so that had a huge influence on my style. but bc of that i think it just took longer and longer to make illustrations and that's something i no longer really wish for.

i really like the period of my art in 2017 with a lot of my persona 4/5 art bc it still has structure even though it's simplified... and the style in my zelda icon... mayhaps experiment a bit more this summer if i can...

[blackjackkent]

Aight, Jaheira, tell Hector the secret you've been keeping from him about what you were looking for at Danthelon's? It's Minsc, right? TELL ME IT'S MINSC.

"I have not been overly generous with the truth. I came here to learn of the Chosen, true enough. But I set my Harpers searching for someone else too. Tell me - what do you know of a man named Minsc of Rashemen?"

Yessssssssss!

Karlach, once again, goes into fangirl mode at once, because she is the best.

"Ahhh! Oh my god! MINSC!"

<3

Narrator: The name is as familiar as Jaheira's own - a hero of the Time of Troubles who saved the city more than once.

Hector, history buff that he is, most definitely knows a lot about Minsc (and Jaheira, and Caden, and the whole pack). He had a couple of big grins here as the narrator was going over this, but I think his smileyness is primarily because Karlach is so excited, which always makes him happy.

"He traveled with you back in the old days," he says promptly, nodding.

Jaheira smiles dryly. "I sense you mean no insult, calling scarce a century ago 'the old days.' Which is considerably *more* insulting."

Hector winces, opens his mouth to apologize, but Jaheira shakes her head, waving it off and continuing, "Minsc is an old friend. Perhaps my oldest. We fought at one another's backs times beyond counting."

Her face twists with sudden pain and she looks away from him towards the floor. "And the last time I saw him, I left him to die."

(A/N: !!!!!!!!

A couple things here - first of all, calling Minsc her oldest friend is, in my mental worldstate, inaccurate but only by a matter of a couple weeks. Caden is still alive in Faenya-Dail with Aerie, but he and Jaheira met Minsc very early in their adventures in BG1, just outside Nashkel, and the three other people in the party earlier than him (Khalid, Imoen, and Rasaad) are all now dead, one to Irenicus and two to old age.

Second - why *isn't* Minsc dead? Isn't he a human? Has Minsc been an elf the whole time and I didn't realize it? Or is it like Volo and I'm just supposed to not question it? :P

Third - NOOOOOOOO. :( Left him to die? What happened? I need to be taking notes in case any of this affects the next chapter of my post-BG2 fic. XD Although hopefully it won't.)

"What happened?" Hector asks with some concern.

"Before we ever heard of this Absolute," Jaheira says gravely, "we received word of a gathering of cultists in the Undercity. What we found was the first dark seed of this plot - a circle of cultists, with mind flayers in their midst. We might have ended it there, cut off at the root. But before I could send for help, Minsc charged in alone."

(A/N: Yeah, okay, that does sound like Minsc. XD )

"It was chaos. He was overrun, dragged down beneath a mass of tentacles. I had a choice - stay, and let word of this cult die with us, or leave him and live to fight another day."

Her voice is flat, weary, sad - but determined. She still has hope for this man she has lost.

Privately, Hector suspects he is probably dead. He has fought small groups of mind flayers and they have been the hardest fights of his life - and those were not fights he made alone. But he can only imagine the anguish he would feel, faced with such a choice as Jaheira faced in that moment.

"I'm sorry, Jaheira," he says quietly. "That's a cruel choice to have to make."

She smiles tightly. "The world takes much from those who presume to defend it," she says. "But sometimes, you get to take it back. So don't be sorry, because I mean to use you if you're willing."

She looks at him questioningly, waits till he nods in response. Of course he will help her.

"Infection. Indoctrination. Eradication," she goes on. "That has been the fate of everyone the cult has captured so far. But it has not been yours. With your help, perhaps it need not be Minsc's either."

Hector nods again, slowly. "We can try, Jaheira," he agrees cautiously. "But we don't even know if he's still alive." He is wary of offering false hope, when the chance of success seems so slim. He would be glad to find this man - for Jaheira's sake, and for Karlach who is bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet next to him - but could he truly have survived the situation Jaheira has described?

Jaheira nods soberly. "I'm not asking for promises. Just the chance." She shrugs. "The point is moot without a means to find him. Wihtout the Harpers, we shall have to find another path. I'll have a better idea of what that is once we're through the gates. It seems I need to reacquaint myself with this damned city..."

[kai-ni]

This is gonna be a hot ass take, but don't post art to Ao3. It's not what Ao3 is for, and it's scummy to writers who put their work out there.

And I'm not talking about fics with artwork embedded, that's fine. I'm not even talking about comics, because those involve writing and if they're ongoing I can see why they could work there. I'm talking about people that make a 'work' on Ao3 that's just an embedded image (or a collection of embedded fanart) and nothing else, 0 word count.

Ao3 is the ONLY platform FOR writers. You physically can't post longfic on twitter (I mean maybe in a bazillion tweets, but really?) buttt you can post art on twitter all you want. You can post writing on other sites like tumblr, etc (deviantart? does anyone use it anymore? you shouldn't. anyway) but that's not really what people are LOOKING for on those platforms, and writers will ALWAYS be overshadowed by artists on those platforms because art is easier to consume faster, and anyone scrolling the tags there can scroll past art, appreciate it, like/reblog it in a second rather than taking the commitment to read something (that may take hours to consume) and THEN coming back to like/reblog it/otherwise interact with it.

That's kinda just the nature of writing vs art, and it is what it is.

But people come to Ao3 SPECIFICALLY for writing. It's the ONE platform (I mean barring older stuff like ff.net that's pretty much defunct) where people go specifically looking for writing to consume.

'Okay I get it Kai, but one person putting art on Ao3 doesn't hurt anyone or take away from the writers on there, they're all... there.'

Alas, it does.

In a much smaller fandom I wrote in, one of my more successful fics was on the first page of search results for that fandom when sorted by hits (which is the most popular way to sort 'em and really the only way older fics are found), up until a popular fan artist posted a work on Ao3 that was just a collection of embedded fanart pieces (that they'd already posted on twitter and had been seen there and were very popular) and that very quickly knocked my work off the first page of hits. So, my work was seen less because that artist just decided to repost to a platform primarily for writers. Yea, you're gonna bet that upset me.

'Kai you're just jealous their art was better than your writing'

'Kay not gonna deny it probably was. But their art had already been seen/was really popular on another platform that I, as a writer, didn't even have access to. Doesn't feel great for them to come into the writer's space and also then overshadow. Because again, art is easier to consume. it's always gonna be, that's the POINT of having a site like Ao3 where writers can shine. Fine fine, call me cranky for being bumped, but I wouldn't have cared at all if it were by another fic.

'You can sort out works with 0 words you know'

Yea, sure. Does everyone just visiting Ao3 know how to do that? And again, that's not the default. If you just click on the fandom without doing anything, it doesn't.

Now imagine you're not on the first page, and still had a work in that fandom and your work was on page 10 or whatever for that fandom (again it was a small one). You're now on page 11. Very few people have the patience to search that far back, and now you aren't been seen at all because you got bumped by a popular artist. This isn't something that happens on twitter or other platforms - everyone's bound by the silly algorithm / time on twitter, and time on tumblr. it's a LEVEL playing field. it isn't really on Ao3. Yes, there's sort by 'most recent' and that's all fair, but by hits, kudos etc isn't.

So yes, when those sort functions are taken into consideration, artists posting on Ao3 really do hurt writers, and take space away from them, make smaller writers less seen, etc. It sucks.

There's plenty of other places to post your art. I know, there's fewer places to post NSFW works now and get feedback on them (unfortunately) but Ao3 doesn't even host the images anyway... you have to upload them somewhere else! there are other options. Don't take space from writers because sites like tumblr aren't good for NSFW anymore.

Again this is gonna be a super hot take, but that's how I feel and I lose respect for artists real quick when they do this. No shade, I'm not trying to call anyone out, this isn't specifically directed at anyone, just something that I've seen repeatedly and has been milling around in my head for years now. Disagree if you like, but I'm not looking to get into fights in the rbs so.

[rockinlibrarian]

Fic Self-Recs!

Anyway, I took the self-indulgent dare of an “I tag anyone who wants to do this!” on a post reblogged by not-even-a-personal-Tumblr so I’m sure the “I” wasn’t thinking of ME at all, but I was curious if I could do it. The tag dare is “What are your five favorite fics that you have written?” Anyway also, I failed the dare, because I had terrible trouble narrowing my 37 posted fics (3 are anonymous) (no I did NOT enter the current Masked Author event three times,* calm down) down past ten? And I’m still not sure. How can you ask someone to choose among their babies? Well, fics aren’t babies, and there are definitely some I wouldn’t pick, so there.

I would like to separate it into two parts, one of fics I can recommend to you all, one of fics I’m being entirely self-indulgent by including, but even that doesn’t work out neatly.

I’m going to start with a self-indulgent one, because my #1 favorite fic I’ve ever written is unfortunately kind of inscrutable to people who haven’t seen all three seasons of cult-favorite show Legion:

“The Magic Man of Oz”! It is my favorite so much that I think you should read it anyway even if you won’t get the references! I added an entire chapter of annotations just so you could look UP the references! It is The Wizard of Oz told through Legion references! It has a delightful intrusive narrator! It has the greatest fight scene I have ever written, maybe because it’s extremely untraditional! I will not stop harping on this, my favorite fic I wrote! So let’s skip to a less self-indulgent alternative #1:

“Exploration of the Astral Plane: An Immersive, Multidimensional Study, by Cary Loudermilk, PhD, and Oliver Anthony Bird.” I’ve been on a rereading this kick lately. While this is also Legion, it’s a prequel that requires next to no preknowledge! And it still has wacky dream imagery and unusual structure and you still get to enjoy Oliver Bird being HIM-like, he’s just not narrating!

Now we’ll do the rest of the Legion fics just to get them out of the way! But these ALSO require next-to-no pre-knowledge (even less, actually! “Exploration” requires you to know that it takes place in the X-Men universe and that Summerland is a retreat for traumatized mutants! These next ones don’t even require THAT!), so they make very good recommendations, too!

2. “A Strictly Scholarly Collaboration: the Original Romance of the Mind” is me writing a romance! My way! It’s all about relationship-building, nothing at all physical! Yet one of my favorite AO3 bookmarks was given to it by someone who usually deals primarily in Explicit fics and THEY said “Exceptional viewpoints, intelligence, accuracy, and romance. Solid 10/10,” so that’s a win for everyone! 2.1/2 bonus so I don’t have to give away another slot “Two (or Three) Mutant Freaks and the Strictly Scholarly Collaboration” –are bonus scenes that would exist if it took place in a world where Oliver was already friends with Cary and Kerry! Which brings us to:

3. “Two (or Three) Mutant Freaks Against the Fourth Grade,” which was my favorite that I felt the need to harp on before I wrote “Magic Man of Oz”! It’s just a cute little story about mutant nerd-boys making friends! I think everyone should read it, even if I don’t love it quite as much as I did at first! Okay, we’ll leave Legion now, I promise. How about a couple from my second most-commonly-written-for fandom?

4. “A Captain With Seven Children…What's So Fearsome About That?” asks What if Maria (not Von Trapp because she’s obviously not married in this scenario) from The Sound of Music got hired to be governess at The Umbrella Academy instead? It also requires next to no pre-knowledge of either source material! So you should read it! It’s not done yet because I haven’t figured out how to run away to Switzerland when we’re in America and the bad guy is the father himself quite yet! But that’s okay because everything else is delightful!

5. “On Soul Mates and Nemeses” is where I attempt to justify my obsession with shipping Fiktor! It has lots of little snippets of flashback scenes that are fun and really isn’t that heavy on the shipping! Which leads us back to the self-indulgent list:

2. “New World Symphony” (which is also Fiktor but also has a lot of interesting non-shipping bits) is one I only have one chapter posted for, but I swear to you, Chapters Four and Five are SO GOOD. Unfortunately Chapter Three just BARELY exists. Chapter Two is very likely to be the next thing I post, but that doesn’t make Chapter Three get any more written. You HAVE to read Chapters 4 and 5 though, I’m serious. Speaking of which:

3. “Tesseract” notoriously hasn’t been updated on AO3 since late 2021, but there’s some really amazing stuff yet to come, I promise! I keep chipping away at it and there is so much I can’t wait to share!

I’m counting this last one among the self-indulgents for the opposite reason though:

4. “The Invitation: an epilogue” DOESN’T need any advertising. It’s my most-kudoed fic! (Although “In Which Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank” is only behind by two now so it may actually lose that status sometime soon). But that doesn’t mean it’s not one of my very favorites regardless, so I have to put it on the list even if everyone already agrees with me!

Now I'm supposed to tag people! I feel like I should tag actual people to make up for the self-indulgence! @stephsageek came up as soon as I hit @ so yeah; @a-freemaniac I'm pretty sure it was your Tumblr I saw this on-- I don't know if you write fic or just read it but I'll put it out there; @littlerit; @uniasus I think you might have done this before but you're the next fic writer on my list here-- oh I think I asked you what your FAVORITE was in an ask game once, this is FIVE favorites so it counts; @destinyandcoins!

*Edit to add, 8/3/2024: This comment was a deliberately misleading half-truth. I entered the (now long-completed) Masked Author event TWICE.

[magireco-minibang]

Here we go again!

ABOUT AND FAQ

What is a Mini Bang?

The Magia Record Finale Mini Bang is a fandom event for writers and artists, with the goal of creating collaborative work based on and inspired by the mobile game Magia Record (and its spinoff media).

Participating authors will each write a fanfiction of at least 5,000 words. Once the authors have decided on and submitted summaries for their work, the stories will be claimed by artists and matched. As the author works on completing their work, they will collaborate with the artist. Then, each artist will create at least one piece of accompanying fanart.

Once we reach the deadline, all fic writers and artists will 'reveal' their work, resulting in a 'bang' of MagiReco fan content.

How Does it Work?

Once signups open, authors will have until early September to complete a MagiReco fanfiction of at least five thousand words. A month into the writing period, they must submit an anticipated summary of their piece, and closer to the end of the event, they must submit a draft showing that at least two thousand words have been written.

A month into the event, summaries are received and posted publicly for artists to see. Artists then go through and pick the TOP 3 summaries they would like to draw art for most. We will do our best to get artists the summaries they prioritize highest, but it's very important they select three, because unfortunately giving everyone their number one pick is likely impossible.

Artists will be allowed to tell us pairings, squicks, triggers, tropes, ratings, characters, etc that they refuse to draw for, and they can also inform us if there are any participants they are not comfortable working with.

Once the posting period begins in early September, participants may post their works at any time throughout it. All of these will of course be reblogged to this blog!

Who is in charge here?

Mod Abarero (she/her, cis lesbian): This is my second time running a bang, but I've run several large fandom projects before. I've been playing MagiReco since August 2019, survived playing on both the NA and CN servers until closure and still play regularly on the JP Server.

Tumblr: @abarero

Twitter: abarerokitty

Discord: Abarero

FAQ:

What can I write?

Whatever you want as long as it's Magia Record. This means it must focus on elements that are specifically Magia Record related (those original characters or Holy Quintet in MR-specific world/premise)

There is no rating restriction (but you must be CLEAR about the rating when submitting your summary, and participants under eighteen cannot write or draw for mature fics). Alternate Universe is acceptable, as is crossover as long as the focus is primarily on the MagiReco cast.

Finished fics must be posted on A03. If you do not have an A03 account and need one, let me know.

Finished fics will also be added to a MagiReco mini-bang collection.

Can anyone participate?

Yes, absolutely. Just sign up.

What happens if there are more writers than artists?

In this admittedly likely scenario, there will be a section of the artist signup form that asks if you are willing to complete art for more than one fanfiction.

If you are, please let us know (tentatively, this does not have to be set in stone) how many you think you can do. It is perfectly fine if you can only do one, but we appreciate anyone willing to help out by doing more than one.

Can I do something that isn't fanart? Cosplay, gifs, graphics, or fanvids?

Yes you can! However, there will be a section on the form for writers for if they'd prefer only fanart, or they'd be willing to collaborate on another medium. Please do sign up though!

Can I sign up as both author and artist?

Yes. Definitely. Just select both on the form!

CONTENT GUIDELINES:

• ALL work must have sensitive content labeled.

This includes the standard A03 labels (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage), as well as anything else you may deem necessary. Please do not just label something 'dead dove, do not eat!' You must explain what the dead dove is. All pairings present must also be labeled.

• As mentioned earlier, mature content is okay, but participants under eighteen cannot write or draw for it.

Other notes:

* It is required that participants join the official mini-bang discord to help communication between artists, writers and mod.

* If your story is a chapter fic, you do not have to post it all in one go. If you have a longer fic and want to space out chapters on a weekly basis starting in September, feel free to do so.