#suttttton

[bluejayblueskies]

Binderary 2023

This February, I participated in the @renegadepublishing Discord's binderary bookbinding event. For this event, I decided to bind a book for every day in February, but in order to be realistic about my time constraints, I chose to do each book as a single-section pamphlet bind! I chose 14 different fics by authors (and friends) in the Malevolent fandom and did the typesetting for them during January, then bound 2-3 copies of each fic over the course of February. Here is the final spread!

Each cover design utilizes either public domain images from sites such as rawpixel and the Noun Project or art created for the fic! It was a pleasure to work with the authors of these fics this month, along with the associated artists, and I had a wonderful time with this project. Below is a list of the various fics and their associated authors and, if applicable, artists.

Phagia | PrettyArbitrary, author; Vandy, artist (cover, chapter header)

In Vino Veritas | @organchordsandlightning, author; @ratscantwrite-alt, artist (cover)

(you're) the only song i want to hear |@acemartinblackwood, author

Sanctity of Your Form | @sqwormywormy, author; Wyrm, artist (chapter header)

Gingerly Held |@shadow0haven, author

Guess This Makes Me The Godfather |@croik, author

An Invitation | Anonymous, author; ihaveyoureyes, artist (centerfold)

The Neighbors | Llwyden, author

A Home to Go Home to | quakergoth, author

The Sharp Static of a Restless Mind | @anonymoussong, author; @hyenasatanist, artist (centerfold)

City Hall Fundraiser | @organchordsandlightning, author

Dessert | @suttttton, author

Repetition//Retention | @kahtiihma, author; @shadow0haven, artist (cover); Kraik, artist (chapter header)

Recrown the Creation/You're Half of the Flesh and Blood That Makes Me Whole | LoyalMonsterFan, author

Pictures of the title page and chapter header for each fic can be found below the cut! Some images and text may be NSFW.

[karuvapatta]

A pic inspired by this fic by @suttttton

It’s a work in progress, and, as usual, I bullied @keire-ke into doing most of the heavy lifting ^^

Go read the fic. It’s awesome.

[inklingofadream]

Ink's 2023 Fic

It’s the end of another year, and you know what that means! Or you joined me this year and don’t, one of the two. At the end of every year I post a list of everything I wrote to become my blog’s pinned post for the upcoming year. However, this year, it’s a bit different. We’ll get to that in a minute.

According to my AO3 stats, I posted 709,908 words of fic in 2023, across 8 fandoms and spread over 64 individual works. That’s a 765.784% increase in word count from last year! I’m unwell!

Normally, I post everything I wrote, split up by fandom and in chronological order, with basic stats and descriptions that vary between synopsis, liner notes, excerpts, or all of the above. However, 45 of those 64 works were written for Whumptober this year. Since they’re mostly for The Magnus Archives (dominating the list as usual) and many of them are very short, I’m not going to list all the TMA fics. I’ll list my favorites and ones I think got less attention than they deserved, as well as all fics for other fandoms, and since that’s my most popular stuff I’m listing it last/under the cut. Wordcount and relationships (romantic or platonic, healthy or not) are listed, but check the AO3 tags, warnings, and notes, as I won’t be including the content warnings here.

Batman

Mom’s Been On a Parenting Kick Lately- 9k, WIP, Talia/Bruce, Talia & Batkids;This is still getting off the ground (I need to get back to it), but I’m excited about the future of this fic! It’s my take on Jason’s post-resurrection time with the League of Assassins, but with timelines turned into spaghetti to facilitate bonding. Talia is currently in possession of 3 batkids, but she isn’t done stealing Bruce’s kids yet :)

i'd walk a wire, jump through a fire for you- 800, complete; literally just just shy of 1k about Dick have feelings about falling and parents

The Locked Tomb

lyin’ on our backs and countin’ the stars- 900, complete, John&Gideon; I’m actually shocked there aren’t way more John and Gideon “bonding” fics out there. This one also has a backstory for Gideon and Ianthe’s friendship bracelets!

The Adventure Zone- Balance

old worn out suit and shoes- 600, complete, Taako&Lup; Post-finale nightmares for Taako, now that he can remember he has a sister to lose

Malevolent

Please Come Back To Me- 2.9k, complete, Parker&Arthur; Parker lives and goes to hunt down and kill whatever used Arthur to try to kill him.

You’re here. That’s all I need to know.- 300 complete; Arthur finds Faroe in the bath.

Living, Dead, or Undecided?- 1.7k, complete; Arthur is sacrificed to the King in Yellow as punishment for what happened to Faroe.

His head and limbs were heavy with ornaments, much of his flesh left unprotected from the elements. It was far too mild a summer evening for that; he deserved to freeze or burn at the freedom of open air. His thoughts were fuzzy with the overpowering cacophony of scented oils and chanting. He was deposited at the top of the hill, too gentle in slope to burn at his atrophied muscles, on a stone slab. They chained him in place, the seeping stone finally sapping enough warmth from his bones to feel appropriate.

Dracula

i still see your ghost- 200, complete, Jonathan/Mina; Some fill-in angst about Jonathan seeing Dracula on September 22… which I did actually write on September 22.

Hannibal

I can’t remember if I cried- 1.7k, complete, Abigail/Marissa; This is actually a concept I came up with in high school lol. Hopefully, someday I’ll write a fic expanding on the shipping kernel of the concept.

Hench

The Kind of World Where We Belong- 1k, complete, Anna/Quantum; AU where Leviathan dies and femslash ensues.

The Magnus Archives

The Vampire Saga- 68k, 6 works, Jon/Martin; The first of several shared universes with @suttttton on this list. Vampire!Elias snacks on Jon until Vampire!Martin gets hold of him instead, fluff and romance ensue. The new works this year both feature Gerry!

The Vampire Saga Route 2- 38k, 7 works, Jon/Martin, Jon/Elias, Jon/suffering; Shares a few fics with its predecessor, up to Martin entering the picture, this is the darker version. Fic this year mostly focuses on Jon meeting Tim and Sasha, and the gang rescuing Danny from the Circus. And the aftermath thereof. I’m really proud of the Circus stuff I wrote!

Bird-Verse- 37k, 7 works, Jon/Beholding, Jon/Martin;Spin-off of cult au, also with Sutton, featuring a happier resolution to many of Jon’s problems, so he gets to live with all his friends and marry Martin. Except for how this year’s additions are about him dealing with the lingering cult intrusions and trauma :)

Indent AU- 50k, 2 works, Jon/everyone;My first foray into writing smut. I’m very proud of it, and I’d say it deserved more love than it got, but I’m realistic about the content being very much not for everyone.

Cult AU Bad Ending- 9k, 2 works, Jon/Beholding, Jon/Jonah; This is a good time to mention that, as I have 10,000 Cult AU derivatives, they have their own AO3 Collection now. This one is a far future fic where Jon is immortal with Jonah and sad about it. It’s a crier.

Interesting- 3.7k, complete, Jon/Elias, Jon/Martin; This is an old fic of Jon and Elias in the Panopticon that got a new chapter for Whumptober! It took about 2 years to get that draft to publication…

restless soul who always skips town- 900, complete, Jon/Peter; This is the one I most wish got more attention. Peter keeps Jon in the Lonely.

When Peter comes, it's wonderful. Peter is a person in a way the Archivist isn't and, he knows, Peter even sometimes leaves the fog. He knows it because Peter gives him journals that are red and gold and violet, so different from the limited palette of the fog and the Archivist and Peter that they make the Archivist's eyes hurt.

dead if they knew- 6k, complete, Elias/Jon/Tim; I had SO much fun fiddling to differentiate the four POVs from each other!

Familiar AU- 16k, 4 works, complete; Jon is kidnapped by Elias and turned into his familiar; for Sasha, Tim, and Martin, it’s a long, hard road to rescuing him.

no beat, no melody- 600, complete; Canon-compliant fic in between Jon getting the tape of the birthday party from MAG161 and the episode itself, hanging around the safehouse in the Depression Zone.

welcomed you with open doors- 1.6k, complete, Martin/Jon; Spiral!Martin in a role reversal au that swaps him and Michael. Martin is much more proactive as the Distortion (and more liable to fall in love with nearby Archivists)

save some face (you know you’ve only got one)- 1.4k, complete; Sasha is altered by the NotThem instead of killed. Half body horror, half giving her my fibromyalgia, all bad times!

somebody once broke me- 2.7k, complete, Jon&Gerry; Gerry lives! Visibly monstery Avatars! Jon gets kidnapped from a kidnapping! It’s all the hits for my body of work ;)

remember this moment- 3.8k, complete, Jon&Daisy; I initially planned this fic for, I think, Februwhump 2021. It’s been slated for every Februwhump and Whumptober since, and FINALLY finished!

Take Me Through the Darkness- 15k, complete; Superhero AU, ft. epistolary interludes! Several more of my greatest hits! (And also Jon getting kidnapped from another kidnapping.) My personal favorite is Jon thinking Tim is a hallucination and crying.

look upon your greatness (and she’ll send the call out)- 8k, complete; Cult AU AU where Georgie tracks Jon down a few months after his kidnapping.

The chances of Jon being abducted, held somewhere, and still alive are so narrow that they might as well not exist. Checking the resources the charity sent, Georgie realized it's even grimmer than that. She struggles to picture Jon doing anything to appease his captors. It's extremely easy, however, to picture him literally or figuratively daring them to kill him.

Something Wretched About This- 2.9k, complete, Jon&Tim; Jon returns from the Circus without vocal cords, and he and Tim have a moment of peace, if not reconciliation.

just like a real-life thelma and louise- 6.6k, complete, Sasha/Annabelle; Sasha and Annabelle have superpowers and escape from the lab experimenting on them.

Kinky Polychives AU- 70k, 2 works, WIP, Polychives; My second, much fluffier smut verse. I tagged Jon as “horny for predicaments instead of people” and I think it’s the thing that’s been commented on specifically by the most people lol

til the veins run red and blue- 200, complete, Jon/Martin; I really like the Lonely, and I don’t know why I don’t write it more. This one is a little Somewhere Else coda with Jmart

come home (to my heart)- 8.7k, complete, Jon&Gerry; a fusion of Little Archive and cult au where Jon is the specialest boy in the whole Cult of Beholding, and Gerry grew up with Mary. If anything I wrote this year gets a sequel, I think it’s this. The fic is all Gerry POV, but I had a chunk written in Jon POV I cut, ft. Jon convincing Beholding that he can definitely wander London solo and it’s FINE, he won’t disappear in the house of a murderer or anything… ;)

Extras- 18k, Jon/Martin; My fae au is complete, but this is a bunch of little bits that inspired me beyond the bounds of the main story, like meeting Melanie, Martin proposing, and so on.

sitting pretty on the throne, nothing more i want (except to be alone)- 217k, WIP, Jon/Beholding; Cult au wraps up another year! Hopefully, by this time next year, it’ll be complete at LAST!

Beneath the Stains of Time- 98k, WIP; Also a contender for longfic that I hope to finish in 2024! This year, we FINALLY got to the gang figuring out Jon’s identity and now it’s all unraveling…

Little Archive- 85k, WIP; Last but certainly not least! I’ve been so happy to see the warm reception for Cecile and Anika this year 💗

[morning-softness]

Last Line WIP Game

I was tagged by @wordsintimeandspace

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words in the line.

Have the most recent sentence from my TMA Season 2 au, which I am very excited about:

He only hopes the labyrinthine tunnels are just as confusing to the creature chasing him.

Tagging @areafae @bos10blonde @gentlemancrow @journalofimprobablethings @judesstfrancis @little-lamb-lyosha @mysecretsickficblog @nyctolovian @ombreblossom @read-watch-sleep @somanyfuckedupiftruebooks @suttttton @thewrongshop @three-magpies-in-a-trenchcoat @transmascsteveharrington

If any of you want to participate!

[a-mag-a-day]

it seems most likely that jon would have recorded over the tape in trailer 3 but I'm obsessed with the idea of the assistants listening to the tape later and hearing the spooky voice

the assistants: uhhh jon? the archives are haunted

jon: Oh, what nonsense befalls me now? *listens* This is clearly just audio distortion.

the assistants: ???

the tape, very loudly and clearly: vigilo audio opperior VIGILO AUDIO OPPERIOR

jon: Some dust must have gotten on the tape. We'll have to be more careful about how we store them.

Cut to a few hours later, Jon is alone in his office, middle of the night, listening to that tape on loop, scowling deeper than the Forever Deep Below Creation

[tmatarot]

Hi! Would y'all mind sharing what company produced the music boxes? I absolutely adore mine and am wondering what it would take to produce a batch for a different fandom. Thanks!

We ordered them from Alibaba, and Mod Ly did all the design work.

[voiceless-terror]

What are your favorite Sasha headcanons?

Sasha Headcanons!!! 

Some general ones: Sasha James is aromantic. She’s the oldest of the Archives crew, maybe around 32-33? She’s almost six feet tall. She enjoys a good cardigan, but always wear super-fashionable clothes underneath it. People view her as the most put-together of the bunch and she enjoys that, even if it’s not true.

Some oddly specific ones: She does not have any pets but wouldn’t mind getting a cat. She and Jon became research buddies by bonding over their mutual hatred of most of the other researchers. She is not a good cook. She enjoys starting fights in the comments section of any website. Sometimes she’ll leave sarcastic comments on Tim’s instagram photos with a burner account. She read all of Martin’s poetry when he lived in the Archives. He does not know this. She can hold her liquor. She’s written several fake statements with all of the tropes Jon hates just to rile him up. She will eat the food you left in the fridge and blame it on someone else. She has a wicked sense of humor. And even though she can be a menace, she cares about her coworkers a lot <3

[m-e-w-666]

Re: why do you follow me meme

Purple

(we're going to super hell together <3)

Literally every time I see you on my dashboard or interacting with my posts my brain lights up like f r i e n d ! ! !

What if....🤔 🤔 we were both angels... 👼 😇 and we confessed our undying love to to eachother 😍🥰💕 and we immediately got dragged down 😔😔 to superhell together🔥👭🔥 ..... just kidding 🤣🤣.... Unless? 😳

Ok but seriously this ask made me so happy I cri, everytime I see you in my notifications my brain goes f r i e n d ! ! !

[the-haiku-bot]

Archivist: We all

have a domain here, Martin.

The place that feeds us.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Archivist: We all have a domain here, Martin. The place that feeds us.

Martin: Oh. (brief pause) What's yours?

Archivist: (laugh) I mean we're--traveling towards it.

Martin: Oh. Right, obviously. Duh. Uh, what about me?

Archivist: (cautiously) Would you...like me to--

Martin: (overlapping, sharp) No, no. Don't tell me. I don't want to know.

MAG 167 - Curiosity

Just a little reminder, presented for no reason in particular~

[ombreblossom]

fanfic asks: 10 +14!

10. at what point in the process do you come up with titles, and how easy or hard is that for you?

Titles are the VERY last thing I come up with when I’m writing something xD I wrote an original fiction piece recently, and it took me a couple weeks at least after finishing editing to come up with the title. It’s just that every one I tend to come up with feels trite and uninteresting because I tend to think of titles that like. Encapsulate the essence of the work, which isn’t always the best choice? I don’t know haha. Choosing titles is tough work, folks.

14. what’s your worst writing habit?

Not writing for months at a time Genuinely, I think it’s my compulsory need to go back and edit everything I write as I write it. My personal filter is already very, very strong, and to stop any flow I’ve managed to attain to edit something I’ve already written can devastate my ability to continue writing in individual moments. It’s a significant part of why I don’t produce very much writing, comparatively.

[bluejayblueskies]

10 Stories/10 First Lines Tag Meme

tagged by @shadow0haven (which tumblr did NOT notify me about and i chanced upon this morning while doing something else, smacking this website with a newspaper)

The rules are: post the first lines of your 10 most recently published AO3 stories.

and i'll tag @thewrongshop, @suttttton, and @croik!

like amai, i'll be skipping around a little bit to avoid it being 'oops all malevolent' (and skipping my podfic) and i am also cheating and giving you the first line of a story that i will be posting tomorrow because i can ✨ though i will offset that by only posting the first sentences and nothing more, no matter how tempted i am XD

list below the cut!!

heavy is the head - The Magnus Archives - royalty AU

Martin’s chest aches.

2. epithet - Malevolent - missing scene, part 5

The irony of it all, John supposes, is that he doesn’t even remember the first time that Lilly calls him that.

3. whiskey old fashioned sour - Malevolent - modern AU

To say that John is interested in the stranger who’s been sitting at the far end of his bar for nearly three hours now would be an understatement.

4. half-light - Malevolent - canon divergence

Arthur has always found a sort of comfort in dreams.

5. ten thousand flowers in spring - The Magnus Archives - deity AU

Jon opens the cottage door to a cloud of dust and the smell of mildew and old wood.

6. growing pains - Malevolent - post-canon separate-bodies AU

They’d been separated for a week and a half before Arthur realized that something was wrong.

7. merry and bright - Malevolent - missing scene, part 28/29

“Arthur, slow down. You’re walking too fast.”

8. Fata Morgana - The Magnus Archives - pre-canon mystery AU

The train station was packed full of people, elbow to elbow and shoulder to shoulder.

9. sunny-side up - Malevolent - PWP

“You’re going to chop the onions next. Do you remember how to do that, sweetie? The easy way we taught you?”

10. cicatrix - Malevolent - daemon AU

The first time they move John to a new pit is the worst of them.

[ichabodcranemills]

FFWF: do you have any WIPs you're really excited about?

Yes!

There's Marigold, which is a Spydoc-regenerating-together fic I started writing when I wanted something fluffy after Doctor Who: Flux, but for some reason it ended getting really angsty along the way. I'm excited not only because the story is coming along so well, but also because I found the perfect title for it already (that never happens!!)

And the other is The Magnus and Sons' Bookshop for the Fantastic and the Macabre which it's actually a series of loosely connected stories taking place in a fantasy-ish AU where the Magnus Institute is... A bookshop. It's something of an ambitious project but I have a lot of it written already and I'm a bit in love with this universe.

Thank you!!

FFWF

[inklingofadream]

I am loving your Sitting pretty on a throne and I love how every single thing attached to the eye is crushing on Jon hard. I think it would also be really funny if people who were marked by the eye (like the statement giver in "Observer Effect") also developed crushes on Jon. I don't think that will happen though.

a;lskgasdhg so you should be aware that the cult au has a spin-off written by me and @suttttton which I'm going to go back and mark out in chapter notes of the main fic one of these days, because it's an au ending for the cult au that diverges fairly recently, probably less than 10 chapters from the current one. And while what you're talking about is almost certainly not going to happen in the main fic, Birdverse is happier and often sillier and I could totally see adding something like that there.

[measuringspoon2]

Hi friend, what kind of school do you go to that there are only eight people in your grade???

a private one, but like, if you took a private school and sent it off through a few parallel universes before establishing it in this one--there’s about fifty people in the high school (it’s k-12) and it apparently is “definitely a front” according to my friends who don’t go there 🏃‍♂️

i love it though, it’s so much fun and it has a very special place in my heart and so do my seven classmates :) it also means that i get to be in person, but they’re staggering class times and enforcing masks so i’m pretty much only around my teachers, the same five other seniors who have also opted to go in person, and the six in person juniors (but only at lunch), and we have had 0 cases so i am very lucky!

[iiiumihottie]

[ID: Three digital drawings for the TMA fic Teeth on a String. The first drawing has two panels. In the first panel, Gerry examines a sparse bookshelf with a neutral expression and a magazine in his hand. In the second panel, Jon is staring at him while sitting down and leaning on the shoulder of Elias, who is mostly out of frame.  The second drawing has two panels. In the first panel, Jon sits on the floor of a hospital room, playing with a curtain hanging from the window. He is wearing all white hospital clothes. In the second panel, Gerry stands in the doorway of the room, watching him with a frown on his face. 

The third drawing is of Tim and Sasha in a crowded fantasy marketplace. Sasha looks around with an amazed expression, adjusting her glasses. Tim looks around with a wary expression and holds onto Sasha’s arm. In the background are various colorful stalls and fantasy creatures walking through and manning the stalls. In the sky there are hanging lanterns and various ribbons, bells, and chimes.

Gerry is white with pale skin and black hair in a ponytail. Blond roots are starting to show. He has various piercings and is shown in both images wearing all black and dark grey. Jon is South Asian and dark-skinned with black and gray wavy hair, wearing a collared shirt and green sweater in the first picture. Elias is white with pale skin and blond hair, and he wears a grey suit. Sasha is black with dark skin and coily brown hair pushed back with a headband. She wears big circle lens glasses, a white collared shirt, and purple mini skirt. Tim is East Asian and pale, with cropped black hair. He wears a yellow collared shirt with a palm tree pattern, and grey shorts. End ID.]

Excited to share my first pieces for the fic Teeth on a String by @suttttton! It’s pretty heavy, so make sure to read all of the content warnings, but if you’re craving a good amount of whump go check it out if you haven’t already! More art is to come when the rest of the fic is posted :D Many thanks to @pilesofnonsense for hosting this Big Bang!

(other pieces: 1 2)

[bittercape]

As is tradition, I have made an art for the Rusty Quill Big Bang, and this year I had the honour of working with Suttttton! 

The fic is The Haunting of Elias Bouchard and it’s so good, I really recommend it. Although do mind the tags, it goes pretty hard.