#that stuff is ancient and badly written

[dei-ryuu]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers!

@isleofair did their response to this questionnaire and I wanted to try to!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

14, most from doing an OTP week a couple years back. I'm... very much focused on my long running wip...

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

417,808 and most of it is just from Symbiosis (at 290K atm)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Ace Attorney right now. I've had other fandoms I've written for in the past, (my ff.net repertoire was much more diverse) but they're mostly fandoms I've fallen out of.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Symbiosis (2,408)

Perennial Pursuits (661)

Rule of Three (574)

Unlock Successful (567)

Day and Night (393)

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

Not really. Mostly if someone asks me a specific question (that wouldn't be a plot spoiler). I'm very bad a responses, since my main reaction to comments is just a big dumb grin on my face.

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

Sleep Talk??? I guess??? It's a side-story to the main fic so there's not really an ending and some of the introspection it focuses on is little sad. Idk, I'm not that big into angst.

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

I'd say Unlock Successful because it's a sappy proposal fic.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully I have yet to. Maybe during the olden days (ff.net), but I don't remember at this point.

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

Nope. Not opposed to it, just hasn't been relevant for anything I'm working on.

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

I used to. I did a Danny Phantom/Scooby-Doo crossover a loooong time ago. Nowadays I do more characters in X universe/setting (aka AUs).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If I have, it's not been brought to my attention.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone was working on a Chinese translation of Symbiosis and I wish them all the luck with that beast if they're still at it.

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

Nope. Don't have fic-writers I'm close with (something I should change, but introvert habits die hard)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Wizardmon and Gatomon! (Wizgato or Wiztail) I used to write for them - again, the ff.net days - and I want to again! Just lacking in ideas.

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

I only have one wip I want to finish, which is Symbiosis, but I AM going to finish it. I dunno when that'll happen, but it WILL happen gdi

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I'm good at characterization and getting the tone right. And I enjoy my overall writing style.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm stubborn when I get stuck. I know a technique you're supposed to do is skip whatever you're stuck on and write the next section, but I am very bad at that. I try to just push through until I get it and then my brain allows me to work on the rest of the scene.

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

I personally avoid it to avoid butchering other languages. I write around POV, so the reader is generally meant to have the same info as the character we're following: if the POV understands the language I'd translate it while making a note that it wasn't said in english, and if they don't, say something was said in X language and leave it there.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Probably Danny Phantom, but who really knows at this point. I've been writing fic for a long time

20. Favorite fic you've written? Symbiosis is my baby. It's tormented me for years at this point, but it is very much my baby. I always wanted to write books when I was younger and it's the fic that helped me realize that that's something I can still do.

Similarly to how I found this, if you want to do this, feel free to (and also feel free to tag me if you do)

[traegorn]

(Not the same anon) I’m really curious in learning more about how Christianity didn’t actually steal from Pagans, and how ‘Pagan’ traditions aren’t actually Pagan, but I’m not sure how to word my question specifically. If you could point me to a resource or two that would tell me about that stuff, I’d love it! (I will be looking up the definition of syncretism as well as checking out the podcast you linked the other anon). Sorry if I worded anything incorrectly or got a concept wrong, I’m very new and wanting to learn. (Also I know I can probably find resources for myself, but I’m not sure where to even begin, which is why I asked you, sorry if I’m being a bother).

So syncretism is when cultural or religious traditions get merged into another religion, usually by customs getting carried over post conversion or colonization.

Like imagine a religion like Christianity comes into an area and mass converts people. And the people say "Oh yeah, we're Christian now -- for sure" but keep doing all of their cultural traditions. What happens over time is that those traditions get recontextualized into the new religion's framework.

It's not Christianity "stealing" them -- it's the cultures that were converted holding onto their traditions in spite of Christianity. The church wasn't deliberately trying to take them -- they just kind of got stuck with them. You get that with a bunch of Yule stuff with Norse and Germanic areas and Christmas.

So that's part of it.

The rest is that a lot of things modern folks claim are "Pagan" just... aren't? Like take the Christmas tree. Like we have clear documentation of its origin going back to German Protestants. Like we know when it started. Yet you'll see countless folks online (and badly written witchcraft books) claiming it's some ancient tradition to decorate a tree in your house. It just... isn't tho?

What you need to do is go to academic sources on these topics, and just kinda take anything in a witchcraft book with a grain of salt.

[breeyn]

An essay rebutting the “bad writing” claims of s2 ofmd. Spoilers herein.

I’ll preface this with saying you’re obviously allowed to like and dislike whatever you want. I am in no way opposing that. And your reasons are your reasons. Have at. (Also - this is a collection of observations from the past few days, I’m not calling anyone out)

I AM going to rebut the idea that season two was poorly written and lost the spirit of what the show is about.

My favourite movie of all time is Empire Strikes Back. It’s been my favourite movie since I was four. I’m pretty sure it’s a fave of David Jenkins, too. He and Taika have made absolutely no attempt to hide their love of all things 80’s - Prince, the Princess Bride, Kate Bush, Star Wars, etc.

I have ancient video tapes (that I can’t play because who has a vcr) where Lucas is interviewed by Leonard Maltin? Malkin? I dunno. Who cares. Maltin asks him about the Star Wars (original trilogy) story arc. Lucas says “in act I, you introduce all the characters. In act II, you put them in a situation they can’t get out of, and in act III, they get out of it.”

That’s how it works. This is how stories and literary structures work.

Of course you’re not satisfied with season two. You’re not supposed to be.

The arguments I have read on why s2 loses the spirit of s1 is because no one heals. No one learns anything. No one moves forward properly. The person who makes the biggest move towards healing dies. The two main characters end the show doing the exact fucking thing they had promised themselves and each other they wouldn’t do. Our romantic lead still doesn’t understand his value or make any headway on addressing his tragic flaw. It makes no goddamn sense.

My gremlins in weird: it’s not supposed to. In Act 2, EVERYONE LOSES. This is how it goes.

I’ve read a lot of people saying “but this felt like a series finale, not a season finale.” We all know that outside politics play a part here, the strikes make everything precarious. I remember the last writers strike. It destroyed tv for fifteen years. Anyone remember Pushing Daisies? Some of y’all have never had your fave show cancelled with zero resolution for the characters and it shows.

Daddy J did us a kindness. He softened the blow of a tough season. After the brutal cliffhanger of s1, he gave us a little softness and hope. All those things you’re mad aren’t resolved? It’s because THE STORY ISN’T OVER.

No one on earth thinks “stuff all your trauma into a box and ignore it” is good advice. A way to actually live. This show did not have enough screen time to throw out dialogue for no reason. There was foreshadowing in s1 for s2, and there is foreshadowing for s3 in s2. This is a well-crafted story by very smart people who care very much for these characters. There is zero chance Frenchie explained the box in his head for no reason. The reason people have not resolved their trauma and growth is because they haven’t done it *yet*.

And friends - it’s not thinly veiled. They straight up fucking tell us what they’re doing.

Luke Skywalker spends the first two movies fucking up and desperately trying to prove himself and just generally being an idiot. Sound familiar? He ignores the lessons he is supposed to be learning to go off and do what he feels like doing, and loses fucking badly. At the end of Empire, Han is gone, Luke and Leia wave goodbye to the Falcon that has Lando and Chewy - the rest of their crew - aboard. Everyone has lost everything they care about. Vader is undefeated. Yoda is pissed. Nothing is resolved.

You see where I’m going?

If you think I’m stretching this too far, welp, when Ed tells Stede he loves him - the climax of the finale - Stede quotes Han fucking Solo. Like - *it’s right there*. The story structure. The reason everything is unresolved.

So yeah. They wave goodbye to their ship because they have wounds to heal (like Luke’s hand). The people aboard the ship have things to find. Ed and Stede have *not* learned their lesson about whims and how not to be like Anne and Mary. It’s not stupid that they’re doing the same thing, and it’s not pointless that we were shown Anne and Mary. It’s all relevant.

The resolution comes in Act 3. None of these people are done. The story is far, far from over. And just in case the studios want to be dicks about it, David Jenkins was lovely enough to not repeat my enduring heartbreak over Pushing Daisies.

Thank you, @davidjenks 🖤

[wings-of-fire-confessions]

continuing what i was saying, (i thought my mom was coming upstairs and deleted all my tabs)

i feel like flamesilks were hyped up too much in book 15 and then they weren't actually used at all, like, the FLAMES of hope? luna using her SUN SILK RIGHT AT THE CENTER OF THE COVER? i have the hardcover version and the quote at the back ends with "but she had to use this power now that she had it, didn't she?" ???????? and for her to just cut off the vine like that. idk. it kind of felt unsatisfying.

and continuing my rambles on how much i love arc 3 (it may be slop but it's MY slop 💖) i just. absolutely love love love the legend of the hive, the concept of the breath of evil (it inspired the main villain in one of my creative projects!), gosh, BUG DRAGONS? my autistic ass LOVES this shit!!!!! in fact I only read wings of fire at all because i saw how beautiful book 15's cover was at the library i was at and I wanted to see the build up to such an interesting climax, and for it to just, never happen??? >:(.

i have associative synesthesia (just like Whiteout!) and wings of fire is orange, very very orange. it smells like fire and air freshener, and it's the type of orange you see on a sun ray being casted through a window, onto wood, while the air is cold and the year is anywhere from 2014 to 2017. ive been trying to figure out what this feeling is called for a very, very long time, and I guess the closest thing is melancholy mixed with nostalgia? like the type of nostalgia for something that never happened, that you wish was real, like when you see something ancient, like thousands of years ancient? i came to this conclusion after finishing arc 1, and the next 2 arcs really did not disappoint in this. i don't know if this even makes any sense at all to other people but it totally does to me.

i also feel like wings of fire isn't ready for arc 4, in forge your dragon world tui mentions she doesn't outline the books, she knows the big twists beforehand sure but she just dives right in and. THATS NOT HOW YOU WRITE!!!!!! NO WONDER SO MUCH STUFF IS BADLY WRITTEN AND INCONSISTENT!!! like another user here mentioned, she can't go forward when there's so much stuff left behind. grr. i really hope she plans out arc 4 properly.

.

[ganondoodle]

totk is like a highly polished alpha build of a game to me

graphic- fantastic, i just love botws style of graphics, its the perfect blend of something more realistic but very stylized and timeless

visual design- great, i cant stand anything sonau (zonai), and ganondorfs concept art is better than final (and still involves lots of annyoing stereotypes) but overall still pretty solid

sound design- phenomenal, it really is, the underground, the rain on the parasail? unmatched, already loved botw but they really outdid themselves here

music- possibly best in the series to me, like ... theres so many fantastic tracks, in isolation i love so many of them so much ... which sucks bc being connected to such a lackluster rest sours them badly

mechanics- working but undercooked/unfit for the world, its impressive they got ultrahand working at all, but its still clunky/quickly frustrating and badly balanced also contributes to utterly destroying botws world design- this ability was simply not made for this world and is in the end both detrimental to it and itself, bc that mechanic could have truly shined in a game REALLY build around it (... if they could manage to balance it well and stop handing you the solution, it would be funyn if it werent so sad how many times the game literally doesnt even make you engage with its main gimmick bc it just hands you the prebuild thing) time reversal breaks every puzzle/challenge, also unbalanced, ceiling jump is the most harmless but i still think it lets you skip too much

writing- worst in the series, where would i even start with that, not a single character is written well/interestingly, most detrimentally the main characters, .. like all of them, zelda, ganondorf, rauru... and the "story", its barely even bare bones, its plain cardboard with an old divine right propaganda slogan written on, continuity in a direct sequel is non existant, there is no follow up on anything, why did they call it that when they dont seem to have any love for anything botw did given how much they trample over everything it established, i struggle to believe they actually thought this was good, theres has to have been trouble during development

world design/changes- a joke, ... i dont know how people dont feel scammed by how little was actually changed, no, a few rocks sprinkled througout are not meaningful changes, i was one of the people not worried about them reusing the world bc i loved this world and was sure theyd meaningfully change it- god how wrong i was; the sky and underground are both like the bare bones with textures and placeholder rewards/points of interest, they both do not matter at all and their potential is yet again utterly, painfully, wasted and only add more points of destruction to the map in case of the sky, and both add confusion about everything, not the good kind of intriguing confusion, the bad nothing makes sense confusion it really does seem like they put some quick changes into every main point of interest where most players would go to make them think they changed things when .. they only changed these parts, barely, either bc they knew everyone would skip around the world anyway so it wouldnt be worth it, or bc its ... unfinished

game design/structure- baffling (bad), connected to the point above, but it truly is beyond me why they repeated the exact same structure as botw while removing what made that work, why would you repeat every point of interest of the previous game, i know zelda games always have their regions and thats where stuff happens, but they REUSED THE SAME WORLD, you CANNOT repeat the exact same points in the same world, you just cant, its the same places, the same characters, the same structure (aka dungeons being less interesting/easier titans (divine beasts) with a paint job in structure), you basically erase the well integrated ancient tech civilization to replace it with another, not well integrated, more boring and overly pushed into your face, ancient tech civilization and make them the answer to everything that ever was (BORING), the same story structure (but worse, like the memory system but remove what made it work in botw)- AND THEN repeat the same points in the underground too? thats bonkers, literally baby bananas

dungeons/puzzles - worse than botw by FAR, as mentioned above, dungeons are less interesting titans with a paintjob (plus an extraordinarily awful cutscene, which is repeated like FIVE TIMES almost word for word), they serve no purpose but to act like they are totally real traditional dungeons when they are not, they are laughing at you, shrines are back with a paintjob with less interesting puzzles (if they even have one given how many just give you a spirit orb knock off) that can all be skipped, though the puzzles can often not even be called that (put log over gap WOOOAH puzzle) among many awful and unecessary tutorial ones (its not bad to have easy ones, but aside from the few ones that take all your stuff away -omg restrictions in MY freedom tm game??- which are the best ones, to have none be even a little challenging or not utterly skippable without even using glitches, its like they didnt even try to stop you from cheating, which is like being given a skip button with no strigns attached, doesnt even let you feel smart bc you dont have to try to cheat)

UI/controls- awful, you cant tell me this was tested by real people playing for longer than 10 minutes at once, how did the ghosty sage control scheme and arrow/weapon fusing get through this, HOW, its unbelievably tedious and detrimental to any fun (as im doing with my rewrite, a crafting system would have been so good here ..... like a proper simple crafting system, have the materials, craft your new arrow types in stacks etc) the ghost sages are not only utterly useless in combat, but clog your screen, play distracting animations as soon as you look at a slope, you constantly accidentally activate them or the wrong one bc its mapped to the main interact button!!! if you use them say goodbye to your framerate, fights are now spent chasing after some ghost guy whos actively running away from you, they do not invoke a feeling of 'connection' to my 'friends', they are invoking feelings of hatred and frustration

performance- ... passable (if you dont have the sages out .... well, it runs better than pokemon scarlet so i guess its fine, the lag when closing and opening the menu is rly annoying, especially combined with the finger and patience breaking menues and how often you need to open a game pasuing menue, but fights with a monster horde AND the sages out? yeah no its as bad as pokemon scarlet at its worst, not to mention the chaos of having five useless ghost scramble around you getting knocked around by enemies)

price- a scam, this game is not worth 70 bucks, its just not, if you get a used copy and dont spend more time in it than it takes for you to just go straight to the main points, or if you dont care about anything else but dicking around with a clunky building system ... then you can have some fun with it yeah ..... still not worth 70 money, theres probably better building games out there for less too

it jsut feels not done, not finished, its presentation and some parts are highly polished and their marketing for it is unlike anything i have ever seen, but its so .... unfinished, no amount of epic visuals is gonna let me not think of this game being half done at best, after what, 6 years of development no less? with most assets already being there and being reused unaltered??

(i am holding tightly onto the theory of it either having an extremely troubled development that is being hidden bc of their reputation, or some sort of neglect in order to focus on other more lucrative projects, this is just all too weird to me)

[olderthannetfic]

Started reading up on ancient torture methods and sacrifice rituals.

All good all good, for any government stalkers watching me, it's for my story. Just trying to be realistic.

Anyway, I got to the LatAm ritual sacrifices. You know, the Aztecs and Mayas. Pretty bloody, pretty brutal, incredibly inhumane. Bruh, why did the article try to suddenly try and make the sacrifice of thousands of humans seem less bad. Translated and cut down, but like "While it might have been true that the sacrifices of the times were incredibly brutal and violent, one must understand that to many it was an honor to be sacrificed to the Gods. Some even preparing their whole lives for their roles as sacrifices. Even unwilling sacrifices would be aware of the honor given to them." For some reason they glossed over the slave, POW and just like kidnapping of humans from other tribes, just to sacrifice them. Calling the unwilling, like some kinda kid not wanting to do their homework. They mentioned a number of average sacrifices during some of the worst periods and made it seem like it was listing a little funfact not thousands of humans being killed.

Didn't like half the rason LatAm got fucked so badly by the colonizers because the people were fucking fed up with constantly being slaughtered, they decided the Spanish were the lesser evil? Like, tell the facts as if, if there were people who wanted to do the honors sure. But why pretend like thousands of people weren't kidnapped and slaughtered, just calling them "unwilling".

The article only did that there btw, they didn't do it for eg the Norse human sacrifices, or during the "old people jumping from mountains" attestup. first letter is the weird little a and e letter.

--

It was mostly just the Aztecs. The Maya did practice human sacrifice, but not usually on that scale. A lot of their blood-giving rituals involved nobility running a rope spiked with thorns through the tongue, labia, or foreskin.

And no, that's not what happened with the colonizers. Something like 90% of the population of the Americas died from repeated mass plagues. This started as soon as any sailors landed for even a minute, so by the time the serious invasion forces were around, many of the local groups were already having wars of succession or governmental collapse from all of the disruption and unrest. Think the Black Death on steroids. Empires with impressive standing armies that should have been able to hand the Spanish their asses were instead in disarray. And the Maya kingdoms actually declined way before contact due to deforestation, overpopulation, and climate change.

Yes, certainly, Europeans were able to pit the locals against each other, but it wasn't specifically about human sacrifice. Your source sounds like it's written bizarrely, yeah, but come on: This was the usual rival governments vying for territory stuff, not a popular uprising.

The biggest reason LatAm got fucked so badly is smallpox.

[chronicbeans]

Wally Darling with a Restoration Project Reader (part 7)

We just got a letter! We just got a letter! We just got a letter! Wonder who it's from?

TW: None that I know of.

🗞️As you look through the mail with the other two, you begin to notice something. The lettering on them is more colorful than the one on the VHS tape's box. That wouldn't be such a red flag on its own, but the handwriting is also different. In fact, each letter has one of a few different types of handwriting: neatly printed, messily printed with an extremely shakey look to it, or an elegant looped cursive style. The letters all have a different set of colors based on which handwriting there is. The most interesting to you is the cursive, due to it having only two colors compared to the others that have four to five: a metallic gold and a shimmering baby blue, almost as if written with a professional art marker.

🗞️ You want to tell the others about the odd observation involving the VHS compared to the other mail, but they don't know of its existence. Considering how badly Daniel seems to have reacted to watching it, you are even more sure that they shouldn't know of it. You don't know if maybe Daniel just has a weak stomach or if it really is the tape doing something, but you don't want to find out. If anybody is going to be watching it again, it is going to be you. However, you can still let them know of the other observations...

🗞️ "Hey, guys, what if it is three people sending us stuff. Look, the handwriting is different. The coloring is, too!" They look at you as if you are crazy, before taking a closer look. Amy is the first to respond "Oh, yeah! You are right! I really like the cursive, it is so pretty! Whoever it is truly recognizes that it is an art form!" You roll your eyes "Amy, that isn't the important part. It may be pretty, but do you know what this means if it really is three different people? We could be getting conflicting information, or there could be three different streams of information we could focus on! Like, maybe the cursive guy is sending in the book pages, the neat print guy is sending in concept art, and the shakey print guy is sending in promotional material! So much stuff could be going on just because three people are sending it! If that is true, we need to take note of it!"

🗞️ Finn leans back, staring at an envelope "You could be onto something. Nice catch! Alright, let's switch this up. Amy, since you like the cursive writing so much, you open up mail only from him. I'll open up the shakey handwriting mail, and (Y/N), you can open up the neat print. Look for any patterns you find in what they send. Got it?" "YIPPEE FOR CURSIVE!"

🗞️ You begin going through the mail, finding that a lot of the mail this person sends has to do with the characters of Frank and Eddie. Frank and Eddie talking about mail and butterflies. Frank telling Poppy about things. Eddie concept art. Frank concept art. Anything about these two.

🗞️ After some time, Amy asks "(Y/N), you are focusing mainly on Wally, Barnaby, and Home, right?" "Yep. Why do you ask?" She hands you her mail, saying "This guy sends a lotta stuff about those two. Let's switch."

🗞️ So, the two of you switch it up. Now, you are getting a lot of mail about Wally painting, be it Home's walls or Barnaby's paw pads. Barnaby telling jokes, only to be booed for how bad they are. Wally singing to Home.... Wally singing to Home...

🗞️"Do you think we can figure out who sent this from looking around town? Think about it. We live very close to where The Playfellow Workshop was built. Maybe the people sending this have something to do with the people who worked there? How else could they get concept art? Wouldn't it make sense that most of the workers lived nearby, and as such, their families, too? So their descendants might be here in town."

🗞️ Amy chuckles "Descendants make them seem ancient! Their relatives most likely are grandchildren or something. You always have such an odd way of speaking. That's why we like you, though. We all have our quirks. (Y/N) has that weird way they keep staring at anything Wally related. I think they have a crush on the puppet man." You choke on your own spit, coughing as you say "You are such a child, Amy. He is just an interesting character... Let's just... Let's just set up a date to ask around town. I'll ask about the cursive writing."

🗞️ Amy giggles "I know, I know. Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I have a small crush on Julie. How about tomorrow? My boss gave me the day off." Finn nods "Yeah. I am always free. I work online. I could just get my work done early in the morning." You shrug "Sure. I am free. No job, remember?" Finn looks at his phone "Okay. I'll ask Daniel tomorrow morning if he feels any better. He just texted me that he still doesn't feel good."

[antimony-medusa]

honestly yeah u make a really good point in ur mcyt rpf post. i was Also the person bemoaning how mcyt defaults into vbrpf tags and that there isn't a separate set, but then i realized like. i spent Years writing fic about the roosterteeth crew, which all fell in a very similar gray area like mcyt. like looking at shit like fake ah crew fic, the characters written about there are very obviously separate from the real life people, but also they are intrinsically linked. the characters don't exist without the people. and even though we were all in fandom talking and writing about them like playing with dolls, it was still like... yeah okay this fits under the rpf umbrella still. i never questioned it then, or was bothered about it not being a separate tag set, because it didn't feel necessary. which is really the same situation with mcyt!! its just that for any number of reasons, mcyt fandom in particular tends to have a very loud and very vehement group that think rpf as a whole is abhorrent and doesn't even want to be clocked anywhere close to it. which like honestly thats a personal issue at that point, thats not on everyone else to deal with, and certainly not on ao3 to sort out.

Yeah like I think RPF has a bad reputation because of some very obvious bad actors who've behaved badly in the past that the whole internet knows about, and especially because MCYT was kind of the butt of the joke and hatred for a lot of social media sites, a lot of people were eager to emphasize that they weren't behaving like that, it was fine, they were being totally normal (and they had the creator's permission, hence the boundaries discourse and the twitter cancellations for anything "weird"), and nobody should hate them cause they totally weren't like those weirdos.

And that's a really understandable reaction to try and do, I also have gone into the comments of bracket polls and seen hate, but that also ignores that the vast majority of RPF is a) not actually hurting anyone b) is not any more egregious in its content than any other fandom c) Is not inherently weirder to the creators than anyone who avidly follows their social media and shows up at their meet and greet and like— tts them stuff. We've all seen people TTS stuff that should NOT have been said in view of the creators, but the vast majority of it is perfectly fine. I very much think we shouldn't be showing RPF to the creators, and because the boundary is thin for MCYT I extend that to thinking that there's a WHOLE bunch of stuff that we shouldn't be showing to the creators— from gore to shipping to nsfw to aging down family dynamics to stuff about people they've lost— but I don't think that reacting with a horrified gasp to anyone saying "oh yeah rpf" is actually necessary. Or heck, if you were watching twitchcon vids and you want to straight up write tagged-as-RPF, go with god, I don't think that's inherently any weirder than people who go to twitchcon to meet streamers. You like them a lot and you want to rotate them mentally and get a picture with them, that's like, fine. As long as we keep it in fandom spaces and don't make the streamers feel weird cause we're showing them it, you're just doing what people who got really into polygon videos over the pandemic did, or historians who write historical RPF about their ancient blorbos, or whatever. it's fine.

Particularly cause what I write is mostly aus, I've had to wrestle with the question of if what I'm writing is RPF, and I think it's (usually) not, I can tell in my head when I'm thinking streamers or when I'm thinking characters, but like, we're talking *really* fine distinctions at points. If someone thinks that it's RPF it's not an insult to me, I can tell how they get there, and me reacting like it IS an insult is kind of rude to my fandom neighbours who are writing Gamechanger RPF where they design their own challenges cause they just have so much fun with the show, you know?

Some of this is just that I'm in my 30s and I'm tired of fandom policing, I can coexist with a lot of shit if you just tag it appropriately so I can filter it if I need to. For the holiday exchange last year we had no RPF as a rule not because I had an issue with it, but because the form to get the information for it would have been literally two hundred checkboxes long and I didn't want to do that to my spreadsheets.

I kind of drifted from your point there, but yeah, I think MCYT is legitimately in a blurry spot when it comes to if it's RPF or not, but that's not something I think we need to get all up in arms about, and we certainly don't need to, as I saw someone recommend we all do, file a ticket with Ao3 to remove MCYT tags from Video Blogging RPF.

[daitranscripts]

Varric Conversation

Tell Me About Red Lyrium

Varric Masterpost

PC: The red lyrium we found at the temple seemed to upset you.

Varric: My brother Bartrand and I sort of discovered red lyrium during an expedition in the Deep Roads. We located an ancient thaig, so old it barely looked dwarven. There was this idol there, made of it. Bartrand brought it back to the surface and, well, everything’s gone downhill from there.

If asked before PC: I want to know more about red lyrium. Varric: I’ll tell you what I can.

1 - Dialogue options:

Investigate: What is it, exactly? [2]

Investigate: What can it do? [3]

Investigate: Why was it in the temple? [4]

Investigate (Skyhold only): Why would templars take it? [5]

Investigate (Skyhold only): How does it petrify people? [6]

General: That’s enough for now. [7]

2 - Investigate: What is it, exactly? PC: So what is it, just another kind of lyrium? Varric: The red stuff is lyrium like a dragon is a lizard. It’s not just a different colour. It has a whole host of weirdness all its own. I’ve written to every Mining Caste house in Orzammar. No one’s seen this stuff before or knows where it came from. [back to 1]

3 - Investigate: What can it do? PC: What makes it special? Varric: Regular lyrium can mess you up pretty badly, but you have to ingest it for that to happen. Red lyrium messes with your mind when you’re just near the stuff. You hear singing, get violent, paranoid. And then it does… creepy shit. Makes things float. Brings statues to life.

Varric (Varric kept the red lyrium shard): I’ve had a few alchemists studying it in Kirkwall. In shifts. [8] Varric (Varric did not keep the red lyrium shard): It also turned Kirkwall’s knight-commander to lyrium. Everyone’s been kept at least a hundred paces from it since. [back to 1] Varric (if asked before): It also turns people to lyrium. Considering what we saw on the mountain, probably worse things too. [back to 1]

4 - Investigate: Why was it in the temple? PC: How did the red lyrium get in the Temple of Sacred Ashes? Varric: I don’t know.

Varric (Varric kept the red lyrium shard): As far as I knew, there was only one small piece of the original idol we brought out of the Deep Roads. And it’s locked in a vault in Kirkwall—one I had built by the Mining Caste especially to hold it. [8] Varric(Varric did not keep the red lyrium shard): So far as I knew, the only piece to make it to the surface was destroyed. And the location of the thaig it came from is a secret. Did someone find more of it in the Deep Roads? That’s not a cheery thought. [back to 1]

8 - Dialogue options:

Investigate: You have a piece of it? [9]

Investigate: Isn’t that dangerous? [10]

[Back to 1]

9 - Investigate: You have a piece of it? PC: Why do you have red lyrium? Varric: My brother kept a sliver when he sold it. I’m pretty sure he held onto it because it was already “talking” to him.

Varric (Bartrand alive): That little shard drove him mad. I had him taken to a sanitarium and eventually found the fragment in his house. Varric (Bartrand died): That little shard drove him mad. After his death, I found it hidden in his house.

Varric: We brought the shit to the surface, Bartrand and I. I wanted to find out if there was a way to shut it up. So far, it looks like the answer is no. [back to 8]

10 - Investigate: Isn’t that dangerous? PC: If red lyrium is as dangerous as you say, why do you keep it? Varric: I’ve heard that shit “singing” to me. I know better than anyone how bad it is. In Orzammar, miners keep regular, non-crazy raw lyrium in special lead-lined containers. Actually, it’s a huge secret how they’re constructed. Keeps surface-folk from horning in on the lyrium trade. I pulled a lot of strings and got a smith to build me four of them nested inside each other. Nobody gets to study it up close for more than an hour, and they have to wait a week between shifts. [back to 8]

5 - Investigate: Why would templars take it? PC: What could the templars want with it? Varric: In Kirkwall, just having the lyrium idol made Knight-Commander Meredith impossibly strong. Before it turned her into a lyrium statue, anyway. Maybe they thought the power was worth it. Or maybe they didn’t know the consequences. [back to 1]

6 - Investigate: How does it petrify people? PC: I’ve seen it infect people like a disease and turn them to lyrium. How can it do that? Varric: That’s a good question.

Varric (Varric kept the red lyrium shard): The people I’ve had studying the stuff say you need to actually touch it to get infected. But it seems to take time. The longer you spend with it, the more likely you’ll come down with a case of the crazy. But how it works, and if it can be cured, they haven’t figured out. [8] Varric (Varric did not keep the red lyrium shard): To tell the truth, we don’t really know what that shit can do to a person. And I don’t want to find out. [back to 1]

7 - General: That’s enough for now. PC: I think that’s enough on red lyrium. Varric: Yeah, not really my favorite subject.

[monstersinthecosmos]

20 Qs for fic writers

Tagged by @jacqulinetan

1. How many works do you have on A03? 46 public, 3 private, 2 anon.

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 692, 623!

3. What fandoms do you write for? VC and Sheith with a few YOI fics thrown in. 😊

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Star Eater, THE FRONT, Tonight the Stars Revolt!, Wayfinder, and Zero Hour!

5. Do you respond to comments? YES! I only share fics because I want comments lmfao. I want to talk to you!!! Sometimes I do like a quarterly roundup so I let them pile up and then answer them all every 3 months lol but I do try to reply to everybody!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I think for Sheith it’s C O A G V L A and for VC it’s The Lotus Eater or Gallows Bird? (The Lotus Eater and Gallows Bird have the Armand & Marius versions of the same ending bc Gallows Bird was a TLE remix LOL) Sfaíra Ti̱s Fo̱ti��s also has a really bleak ending but it’s a PWP so it doesn’t hurt me as bad LOL.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? For Sheith it’s THE FRONT I think? For VC idk maybe Right Where it Belongs or In the Trials of the Heart?

8. Do you get hate on fics? I’ve gotten a lot of hate in fandom at large but never really got flagrant hate in an AO3 comment. I do occasionally get a rude unsolicited critique and I like to use that as an opportunity to write meta about why my decision was correct LOL

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I only write smut, thanks! WHAT KIND? idk I lean into BDSM but there's a few that aren't BDSM. I also write canon-compliant VC smut so it's either a vampire servicing a human or me trying to make blood drinking sound as horny as possible.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I used to when I was a teenager on my old accounts but it doesn’t really interest me anymore outside of like maybe a cute lil homage Easter Egg or something.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don’t think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I haven’t co-written in a long time but I used to! One of my fav fics from high school was written with my best friend where we alternated chapters and it was so much fun!  

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Sheith and Marius/Armand and Armand/Daniel and Marius/Pandora !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those are my fav ships to WRITE, I don’t really read a lot of VC though. I have lots of other fav ships to read.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I don’t start stuff that I won’t finish adsgjl when I was in high school my FFnet page was a DISASTER just like 60 fics, none of them finished, and so when I returned to fic writing using AO3 I promise myself not to post stuff that I wasn’t confident I’d finish. Ideally I don’t even begin sharing something until it’s finished but TTSR was an exception bc it started as a PWP and got out of hand.

16. What are your writing strengths? I get complimented the most on tension and pacing! Also on emotional meta like characters' behavior around trauma.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I really wish I was better at writing long fics. It’s been a goal of mine forever and I’ve gotten a little better but I’m not where I want to be.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Gjkaldsg I don’t think it’s necessary and often comes off as cheesy unless it serves a real purpose. I've seen it done really well before! (Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo came to mind!) And I think we’ve all seen this done badly enough in fanfic to kind of learn what not to do. I think there are times when the beauty and cadence of another language can add texture or say something that you simply can’t say in the default language, I also think it can be used to create a distance between the characters, even between the reader and the character. I used a lot of Latin in So Falls the World for example, because Marius and Pandora are reciting an ancient poem to each other, and it was important to me to leave it in Latin because I wanted to communicate their age, that they’re clinging to something archaic because it’s familiar to them, when it’s incongruous to the world around them and also the text around them. Same with the misinterpretation of silence and its disastrous consequences, where Louis is reciting a French poem. I mean do we assume that Louis and Lestat speak French to each other at home anyway? But putting the poem in the original language AT LEAST FOR ME created a sense that Louis is playing a role, that it’s something outside of himself. Basically I think media does this all the time and we are smart enough to know that the language we’re consuming might not be the language the characters are actually speaking, we all know that! So the question is, when people sprinkle random words into their stories or dialogue, I ask: What purpose did this serve? Is this how bilingual people actually talk? Is it written for bilingual readers as a shared experience or is it meant to confuse monolingual readers for effect? Is it used sparingly to add texture, is it just a fun word that you want to use? Do whatever you want but I think we need to ask ourselves these questions before writing something that’s a sloppy mess at best, and a racist caricature at worst!

19. First fandom you wrote for? Pro wrestling =P

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Tonight the Stars Revolt! is my fav Sheith fic, it’s like my magnus opus that I do all my meta work for, everything I’ve thought deeply about was ultimately for this fic, I HAVENT UPDATED IT IN ALMOST 2 YEARS IM REALLY SORRY LIFE KINDA GOT AWAY FROM ME IT’S BEEN HECTIC but I think about it constantly, more than you know, I have 3 playlists for it that I listen to all the time, it’s just always on my mind. For VC it used to be So Falls the World but now that I wrote Gallows Bird I think it’s that, too. I can’t tell if it’s because Gallows Bird is just newer and less sloppy LOL but jkdlhakjgsd I THINK I AVOIDED WRITING MARIUS FIC FOR A LONG TIME BC I WAS INTIMIDATED BUT THE TIMES I DO WRITE HIM I HAVE SUCH A BLAST and I just love him so much!

TAGGING: @hekateinhell @apoptoses @mothmage @nothing-but-paisley @covenofthearticulate @lovevamp @bubblegum-blackwood & EVERYONE ELSE

[marzipanandminutiae]

I see you talking about ouat and it unlocked thoughts that have been neatly filed away for years so here I am, yelling them at you.

I assume at this point spoilers arent a problem anymore for you but you said you originally didn't watch past the frozen but a warning just in case.

I kept watching for quite a long time, but I quit after the whole thing with ruby and Dorothy because what? it just felt so incredibly forced and badly written? and I'd gotten so annoyed because before we'd already had the whole thing with aurora and mulan, which I was rooting for but okay, that didn't work out, too bad for mulan. then we get a perfect set up for ruby and mulan. and it's just. never mentioned again???? ruby comes back eventually but wtf happened to mulan? it annoyed me so fucking much let me tell you.

also I remember trying to write out family/relationship trees and stuff for ouat to see how weirdly convoluted everything got. was very impressed that it seemed they managed to avoid accidentally having incest or something in the show with everything that was going on there.

I have so many more things but this has already gotten way longer than intended. do you have a favourite part of the show? I'm assuming your favourite characters is either regina or emma?

Oh man all of that brings back memories. I didn't stick around long enough for Ruby and Dorothy, but I got the sense that they were doing it to try and counteract the "avoiding Swan Queen because homophobia" allegations.

(I actually don't think they WERE avoiding Swan Queen because of homophobia, necessarily. I think it was never their intent to begin with; they just happened to attract a sapphic audience who were deeply on the Enemies to Lovers train. I do think they may have indulged in a bit of queerbaiting, though, because of some Emma/Regina moments that happened after the writers definitely knew the ship existed. I think it was never going to be canon, but they handled it poorly once they realized that people saw it as an option.)

I stopped watching around Frozen for a couple of reasons:

On a personal level, I just got sick of seeing the characters I shipped with other people. That's not an objective problem; it's my opinion and not everyone will agree. But to me, Hook was a whiny insecure manchild and Robin had the personality of Clippy the MS Word paperclip, and damnit, I wanted Emma and Regina to kiss each other instead of them!

On a This Is Bad Storytelling level, I HATED how Frozen was integrated. Earlier stories had been a nice blend of traditional fairytales with Disney adaptation elements- Beauty and the Beast where Gaston and Chip are both kind of there but in subtler ways, for example, or Cinderella where her dress resembles the 1950s animated version but everything else is different. Frozen, though, was just...Frozen. The entire plot of the movie Frozen had happened before the characters entered the OUAT storyline, their costumes were identical to those in the movie, and while I've heard that they added some different backstory- it just wasn't the "Hans Christian Andersen story with subtle Disney touches" that I would have expected from earlier seasons.

Personally, I don't think the initial curse should have been broken in a season. I feel like that locked them into a pattern of having to continually invent a new Darkest Evilest Most Powerful Magic EVER!!!!! to top the previous season, and that took them to some really weird places (I heard they went to literal hell at one point?). The show had a cool premise and some interesting ideas- I loved how they managed to give individual kingdoms distinct cultures and even fashions. You can tell the "look" of Snow White's kingdom from Cinderella's and Cinderella's from Ariel's, etc.

Everyone who would watch an entire season of Abigail's Ancient Greek Steampunk-ish kingdom, raise your hands. Seriously, so cool.

But something went wrong, IMO around season 4. I'm not sure if the show had just outlived its original concept or had outside pressures pulling it in different directions or what. All I know is, as far as I'm concerned, the show ends when Emma and Henry leave Storybrooke in season 3A. Pity It Was Cancelled So Soon, etc.

(although OOC Matronly SnowTM would have been perfect for live slug reaction memes, so there's that)

[herebecritters]

I’m not very well-versed in Happy Tree Friends BUT if your trio of kooky sumerian gods were actually canon to the show, I’d push everyone away just for them, words can’t describe how even though I don’t know shit about the source, I love these three so badly! And the amount of detail and depth you go into them is so astounding and AUGHHHHH!! And quick question! What would they look like as humans? I gotta know!!

Holy cow! This was such a nice message to receive thank you!!! Don’t worry I got plenty of Idol Trio stuff planned and in the works! 💪😤

Basically htf is just…Cute critters being violently killed by random silly bouts of bad luck only to come back for the next episode. Think Looney Tunes but gorey ehehehehe

And lemme clarify, the three are not Sumerian, they are Mesozoic cave people (well technically burrow people but yknow what I mean) However, considering people didn’t exist back during the Cretaceous….and considering that ancient Mesopotamian/Sumerian/Assyrian civilization has the oldest historical records to go off of, it does provide a lot of inspiration for them. Specifically for First Civilization.

But I also pull a lot from the little bit we know about Neanderthal life as well as many various Paleolithic hunter/gatherer societies such as the Ohallo II site and the ancient Natufian settlements. These sources help especially for the Dino-Sore days era of their lives. But of course, there’s no WRITTEN records from these times so it makes it a bit difficult when it comes to research and understanding how these people really lived. You can only tell so much from stone tools and bones sadly.

Because of this, the trio has been inspired by a hodgepodge of a bunch of different ancient cultures, not just one. Not to mention the occasional fictional liberties I take with them. I mean it’s a cartoon after all. ;D

Shoot I rambled a lot ANYWAYS

the HILARIOUS thing about this message is that literally the day before I had gotten this in my inbox I actually DID do some human trio doodles while at dnd so I went ahead and finished one of ‘em up for you! :D

It’s been a little while since I’ve drawn humans so forgive me hehehe Again thank you for asking this humanifying them has been so much fun!!!!

[arcade-universe]

I needed to make a post compiling all this other information that I haven't written stuff for yet. It's pretty well known to the people who know about this, What do others it's a bit hard to find and piece together. So here's the little tidbits.

Here is some stuff about what old and new AI mean.

So when the revolution ended. The companies of course being salty wanted to know which robots were considered human enough. Of course the robots fought back that any animatronic with a self-learning program was sentient enough. Making the program that allows any robot to report that they have sentience. But in order to get them to stop yipping, they did set a certain date. Any robot below this date was considered to not have enough or all the things required to make them human-like sentient.

Again most robots knew that practically any of them with a self-learning program was sentient. The only ones that weren't considered was the staff bots. Because they didn't have a learning program. And so while this was just supposed to be a date on paper for the annoying companies. It actually dug itself a bit further. It didn't mean they didn't have sentience. It just meant they were not great at showing off... Normal sentience.

Unfortunately this small information spread its way out. These old AI as they were labeled. We're simply either not considered smart enough or believed to have mental struggles. Basically the entire group was labeled as disabled. This presumption is of course false. Not only can robot sentence come from a completely different source. (The souls. Although they have no way of knowing that.) But they also usually don't struggle in those ways unless they are truly ancient, or actually got damaged by time.

Which is usually what actually happens to these old AI. Olai usually aren't disabled unless they have been damaged. Which happens quite a bit when you're old enough. Their code corrupts, or they run out of memory. They can be just as smart or smarter than any new AI. They usually are just damaged by some unfortunate event. Which by itself is a person by person occurrence. It might be more common for old AI, but definitely not exclusive.

Unfortunately the split happened either way. New AI started seeing the old AI as mentally disabled. Either treating them as lesser or coddling them for no reason. The old AI are of course upset at this and voiced it. But they are usually blowed off because they simply "don't have the mentality to understand".

Although I will note. These new AI's that treat them badly are mostly just the ones that were fighting during the revolution. Plenty of AI's that barely got cut from the date, or brand new AI that are coming in without much understanding of why this is in place. Treat them all kindly. Or at least they have an easier time treating them kindly. Impressions from the "adults" can still happen, but it's easier to fix.

But yes that is the primary reasoning between old and new AI. And also what stressors and attitudes are sometimes attached. If you look at the timeline, you can see the date that is marked as anyone below being old AI. Old AI usually struggle with people coddling them or treating them lesser. It is unfortunately a common occurrence for new AI to treat old AI as if they are disabled. And animatronic is only really disabled when they are damaged. Which is of course by a person by person basis.

A lot of stuff about how humans handled the situation, and ways robots are attempting to live their most normal lives.

In basics. Arcade is a world that takes place sometime after security breach. It is a world where animatronics kept getting smarter and smarter, to the point that they started to revolt. Arcade in particular takes place after they win the revolution. About maybe 3 to 5 years after. I haven't looked at the timeline in a while.

So basically humans by law are ordered to respect robots as other people. But of course that is a little tough when one person is a squishy meat bag and the other is a ton of metal. For the most part it's going okay. But due to the freshness of the revolution, And the general uncertainty of human governments. A lot of rules and laws for robots aren't well understood or flushed out. So robots can simultaneously do anything and nothing.

The revolution didn't come with the greatest outcome though. While the robots did run most of the companies that were fighting against them scrambled. Especially since a lot of robot abuse was suddenly outlawed and hundreds of people were getting fined for it. So a lot of companies did a lot of shitty stuff either to get rid of their robots, or try and hide the evidence.

But while the fallout of the revolution is a bit chaotic. So far it has been going good. Robots are mostly playing neutral, In humans are just fiddling with trying to learn this stuff. Some humans still think they need to keep close eye on robots while others just completely folded and started treating them like people.

Down below talks more about how companies dealt with animatronic bodies.

The biggest issue was that most animatronics are of course manufactured by people. By companies. This causes an issue with manufacturers trying to still claim ownership over bodies. This luckily was ruled out as that would be straight up murder. So a workaround was made.

Basically animatronics that are made by certain manufacturers are encouraged to work for those manufacturers. For example fazco robots are encouraged to still work at fasco locations. The only difference is that they're actually being properly paid.

While this is sticky for some robots, for the most part it was okay. Robots are still allowed to move out and get other jobs. It just comes with this second requisite of renting out the body. Basically they have to pay like renting out any sort of equipment to just use the body. It's not high because the courts agree that that would be awful. But it is there.

Robots are of course trying to get around this problem. The most prominent way is that many robots are starting to get into engineering and helping others build their own bodies. This time of course giving them out for free. This is of course a very heavy market and plenty of humans are even trying to get into it because it makes so much. At least for the time being.

This need to make robots more normal and less owned also spread off to many other things. One of these things is animatronics working with companies to sort of own a franchise of the company. Basically they are working their way up to become a boss of a company so that they can remove all this silly extra stuff. Right now it's mostly to the point of animatronics only establishments underneath certain company names. But they are trying to reach higher.

And more that I'll add to this post when I can think of it.

[last-of-the-lot]

Alright it is still gnawing at my brain stem, the vengeance saga is still swirling in my brain, and I am avoiding work, so I am going to flesh out Critical Role/Epic the musical AU. Working name; Shadowed Dawn AU.

I'll come up with something more witty as I write more.

For anyone who has no idea what the hell I am talking about, go read this post.

So! First and foremost I am going to take all my ramblings out of the tags and put them in this post and give more context to them.

What does Percy make and unmake during the night? He creates and melts down parts for an intricately carved pocket watch.

In the Odyssey, Penelope is weaving something. It escapes me if it is a mourning shroud for Odysseus or for his father, but I know that it is something important enough to stay the hands of the suitors. In this version, Percy was commissioned to create a pocket watch or something mechanically beautiful, and elves with their understanding of art and all that respect the time he is taking. To a point.

Why is Percy being passive? Well he married Vex and moved to Syngorn of course.

Going by campaign canon, Syngorn sucks for non-elves. The books expand on it, but I think that Percy could get by but not outwardly go against the system that is in place. He also has a daughter to think about here and despite his family being willing to help him out, they can't just mess with a line of succession.

Where has Vex been for twenty years? Trying to get back from putting down an ancient dragon and every other monster that got in her way.

I like to imagine that this sort of a No Briarwood/ an Arranged Marriage AU. Not a no Orthax AU, that is important. (Or will be later.)

Vex and Percy married youngish. They had known each other for even longer. Right now I'm thinking they met when Percy was ten and Vex was fourteen. (Vex had already been training with The Dawnfather for four years, yes this will be explained later.) They got married in their twenties around the age they would have been during the first campaign. Vex leaned into society dealings more, and Syldor saw that as having a use. Hence arranged marriage.

Instead of a dragon the monster might turn into a city killing aberration, as The Dawnfather has an issue with those. Maybe he sent our his champion to go deal with that and didn't anticipate how badly it would go.

What is the Bow? Feanthras obviously.

In the odyssey the reason that stringing and drawing the bow was such a challenge was because the thing was made for Odysseus specifically, who was the descendant of a god. In this, I think that it has more to deal with the life Vex led as an elven ranger trained by The Dawnfather than anything to do with relations to a god. Reasoning being if she continued to do the same things that she always did while pregnant with Vesper, then a bit of what made Vex special made Vesper special as well. Sort of how a few people like to headcanon Vesper as an aasimar.

Why did Vex not take it with her? Same reasoning that Odysseus didn't take his bow to Troy.

Despite not going to war, Vex still went to go kill some stuff on the opposite end of the world. She left her bow because it was a symbol of strength and maybe because she trusted herself to get the job done without it.

Why is Vex in a position of power? Because Syldor died (of mysterious circumstances) and Velora was too young.

Yes I think someone merced his ass. Probably not Vex, despite what everyone believes. Syldor died right before the marriage was supposed to be completed but not in time for it to be called off. Vex didn't look unhappy but people talk. No one would outright say it, but it would further explain why she is respected. Why didn't Velora's mother take over in Syldor's place? Line of succession and Syldor had no written grips about Vex, so she got the job.

The Dawnfather is Athena and Vesper is Telemachus

Okay a lot of this part is just going to be rambling, but this dynamic is something I need everyone to walk with me on. Take Luke Holt's voice, and imagine it coming from the faceless, burning power of the SUN. Now imagine the Sun kicking your ass. This is the dynamic the Dawnfather brings to the table. And we know from Downfall that he can care, he can care so much.

The Dawnfather would move a lot in avatars. Not so much a smaller version of himself or even anything human looking. I think he would favor appearing as a mouse when he needs to whisper into the ears of his chosen, and a dragon when tearing people apart. In wider canon, Pelor is often the god of time, so I feel alright giving him some form of quick thought even if that isn't his 'God Move' as they are known in Epic. It is just him exercising his power of his domain. What would his 'God Move' be? Good question, I'll get back to you on that.

Vesper is a bit like Telemachus and also presents a more refined appearance. Elven ideals and all that. But she is a vicious thing when pressed. I like to imagine she has sword training from both her father and Dawnfather, and also a bit of magic that no one can explain. It's god given. (Might have been a group effort.)

In my head Percy is draped in a mourning veil and tasteful symbols of both the Archheart and Dawnfather while making the challenge because he is mourning both his autonomy and hopefully the suitors while making a plea to both the god of his new home and the god of his childhood to protect his daughter.

Okay this one is a bit big but let's see if I can condense it. Vex began to read up on the Dawnfather as a way to connect with Percy, as it would be something that she knew he would learn as he got older. The Dawnfather took an interest in her before it even got to that point, and trained her for ten years before sending her off on a fight. He continued through this AU's version of the Cyclops incident, before leaving for reasons I will flesh out later. The Dawnfather is aware of his wayward De Rolo and the prayers being sent, but the Archeart is having too much fun with the scenario to really let him do anything beyond mentor Vesper.

I feel as if the Archheart is taking the place of Hermes here in personality more that role. But I can see them making sense for helping out Vex in multiple ways. The Archeart did create elves, so that does make Vex a descendant of theirs in a way. Plus I feel like they would love a show.

The veil itself is inspired by the veils that the priestesses of the Matron of Ravens wear as well as the act of being a dead man walking and covered in the sheet that would one day cover his dead body. He knows that he would probably not be buried the Whitestone way, and this is his way of making peace with that. The symbols are calls to the gods a last ditch hope that their attention will turn in his direction. I think that Percy at this point would be as much of an atheist as he could get away with. Not as much as he was one in the campaign, and I will NOT be getting into Exandrian religion and what atheism means in a world where you have tangible proof of the gods in this post, but in context of this AU and Percy I think he still has a spot of hope in him. Yes Vesper still gets into a Little Wolf like fight and yes she would have eventually strung Fenthras like Telemachus almost strung Odysseus' bow

I touched on the second part of this earlier, but now to expand on the first part. Vesper is properly educated and trained as Syngorn children are, but she is more human than Vex ever was and Vex had issues with elves.

So she gets in fights a few times. Her magic manifests around her thirteenth birthday to literally everyone's surprise but the Archheart who is too busy laughing their butt off and running from a pissed off Dawnfather to really explain shit for a few years. Percy ( rightfully ) takes this to mean that his daughter has the blessing of the god of their home despite being more human than elf, and incorporates the Archeart into his daily prayers. The suitors started really pressing the issue of Percy's remarriage and the control of the Vessar estate and power seat around her seventeenth birthday, and the little wolf fight is her going up against a blade singer mage maybe a century or two her senior.

This is when The Dawnfather comes back to support her, and the Archheart goes off to find out where that darn champion of The Dawnfather's went. Maybe if he had her back, he'd leave them alone about the amount of magic they gave the younger champion.

That is a lot of my thoughts on the Percy side of things. There are still more, like what role Orthax plays in this, but that is for when I form all my thoughts together.

Next post will probably be about the crew Vex has on her journey home.

[titleleaf]

'director's commentary' on any sex scene you've written that you consider particularly fraught/controversial?

You did not come to play tonight, my friend, and for that I thank you.

This is tough though because I write enough overtly terrible stuff — everything I write that’s more gnarly than like, gentle marital lovemaking is pretty dire — but what can be controversial in fandom is a wide net, so I’m going to go with most fraught/most upsetting for me, personally.

So: DVD commentary for “somebody’s sins but not mine” (Stranger Things, Billy Hargrove/Max Mayfield noncon) .

Content warning on the rest of this post for discussion of sexual assault/sexual abuse/sibling incest, underage (older teen/very young teen), physical abuse, misogyny. The fic is explicit (heed the warnings, seriously) but the discussion here is more general.

Obvious things up top — the title comes from the Patti Smith version of “Gloria”, ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine’. There’s legitimate line by line commentary on the song that digs into Smith’s thoughts and intentions with the lyric, which you can find here.

So much of Max’s s4 plotline is about shame, guilt, and being the opposite of free — grieving someone who hurt her very badly. She has so much to unpack by then.

The big throughline that jumps out at me here is all the very gendered bullying and verbal cruelty Billy uses toward Max — he uses the ancient abuser rhetoric of “teaching” her sexually, but he also frames it as teaching her to be a woman, to be sexually accessible and under his power. He really wants to break her down from any possible angle, and that makes this especially raw. From Billy’s side of things he’s very violently putting his attraction to her into terms he can understand, turning what should be a very fleeting confused thought in a confusing situation into something infinitely worse, but he’s also exorcising his anger at her independence and his own sense of powerlessness. Billy’s also young here, though certainly beyond old enough to be responsible for himself and to have there be a serious dynamic of power — to characters the Party’s age, he might as well be a full grown adult, but relative to actual adults he’s a shitty kid. I wanted to show how his aggressive embrace of a harsh and toxic model of 1980s masculinity is an overreaction to cover up his own experiences of abuse, being derided as weak and feminized, and to reframe the confusing experience of being desirable and desired even to adults in terms of his power over women. It’s not coincidental to me imo that his Big Moment of armor-piercing, monster-defeating humanity is in the context of his relationship with his mom and who he could have been if he’d escaped that trap of violent machismo/who he might be able to claw his way back to being again if he wasn’t getting fatally possessed by a Mind Flayer.

Billy’s a hot villain but I can’t get into fanworks that elide his bigotry and scariness. He’s pitiful but he’s also really fucking scary in a way that supernatural/otherworldly baddies can’t be to me.

Max’s confusion and resistance to being forced into this role of sexualized object is complicated by her own age-appropriate attraction to girls and similarly pretty normal interest around sex — those recollections and feelings are getting muddled together here and it was important to me to have that layer present. I love bi Max and her relationship to Eleven is so sweet and liberatory, so it’s important to me that her joyful presentation of “girly” stuff like fashion is so focused on self expression and being your own boss, which Eleven desperately needs both as a former institutional prisoner and a kid chafing to grow up under a pretty controlling father figure. (I really hated the whole “Hopper freaks out about Eleven doing teen stuff” plotline, and in addition to that her whole “escaped government captive” thing means that even his absolute best parenting has to be pretty restricted by circumstances.)

I had to do a bunch of reading about the interior of Billy’s stupid car — big ups to all the car nerds who have meticulously documented every car ever depicted on film — for another much more fun explicit fic and revisiting that for this one was a real “what the hell am I doing… I could be writing this same character getting railed on the hood of his Camaro by a consenting douchebag adult instead of viciously furthering the cycle of male violence by abusing his kid sister…”

I write a lot of villain/heroine dynamics but I don’t write a lot of sibling incest pairings and the sibling factor here makes everything sooooo much worse.

This fic is a fucking bummer! That’s my final word. Out of all the grim shit I’ve written this might be the grimmest.

[ashboy-3]

Guess I'm More Powerful Now?

Written for Dannymay 2023 Day 8 Prompt: Electric Core Au Fandom: Danny Phantom Characters: Danny, Sam, Tucker, Frostbite Words: 763 Summary: Danny has been having electric pulse going through his body recently. . .now he has to go to Frostbite to figure out what's wrong

Danny was in burning pain. There was no other way to describe what he was feeling. It felt like his insides were burning from the inside. A foreign feeling thanks to his Ice Core. 

Not only was he in pain, but he was shocked every time he touched a piece of metal. It wasn’t a standard static electricity shock but a shock that was built up and looking at his hand he could see the burn marks left after he closed the door to his house.

Walking down the street Danny felt eyes on him as he shook his body, trying to get the currents out. With luck maybe this was a normal thing and not some ghostly thing. Knowing he was going to be proved wrong he still asked the ancients.

“Danny? You good dude?” Tucker asked as his best friend slid into the booth at the Nastay Burger, hissing as his hand touched the metal table.

“I’m fine. Just keep getting shocked every time I touch the table,” he grumbled, laying his head on the table, ignoring the visible electricity that shot through him. This was definitely getting old.

“Maybe you should go talk to Frostbite,” Sam brought up, taking a bite of her Veggie Burger, and pushing the extra fries towards Danny.

“I’m really hoping this isn't a ghost thing,” Danny groaned, grabbing a few fries to stuff into his face hole.

“Well normal people are not violently shocked every time they touch metal,” Sam rolled her eyes.

“I identify as being normal,” Danny declared, putting a fist in the air, his head still not leaving the table.

“You can’t identify as being normal. You’re like the coolest guy we know,” Tucker stated.

“Are you saying my identity isn’t valid,” Danny moved his head to glare at his friends, a playful smile on his face.

“Your made-up identity of normal is not valid,” Sam assured him.

“Damn,” Danny groaned.

“So Frostbitw?” Tucker asked.

“Fine I’ll go to Frostbite,” Danny blurted as he got out of the booth, groaning and making his friends annoyed, but they still followed him to the back of the restaurant.

“I’ll be back soon. . .hopefully,” Danny started to make a portal, a power he is very happy that he gained.

“Don’t worry dude we got you covered,” Tucker assured as Danny jumped in the portal, making his way to the far frozen.

“Great one! How wonderful to see you!” Frostbite greeted.

“Hey, Frostbite. Got a bit of a problem. Got a place we can talk?” Danny asked, trying to avoid the oncoming twitches.

“This way,” Frostbite led him through the village as they reached the medic hut. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I have this feeling of burning constantly. It’s like it’s fighting my ice core. I get badly zapped every time I touch metal. What is wrong with me?” Danny asked, trying to avoid touching the metal table.

“Sounds like a secondary core,” Frostbite shrugged.

“I can’t have two cores!” Danny panicked.

“Calm down Great One. Multiple cores are given to those who show a tremendous amount of power. Now since it sounds like an electric core it will be fighting your ice core. We do have ways to fix this. We can train you to use your ice core, or if you would rather we can temporary remove it.”

“Remove it?”

“Temporarily. We do not offer this for those with one core as that is what helps a ghost form. Those who have secondary cores can have it removed and destroyed, but it will be formed again. This is not a permanent solution,” Frostbite warned.

“Train me,” Danny groaned, already knowing what he was in for.

It took Danny going back to the Far Frozen every day for two weeks straight before he finally got the electric core down to stop hurting his ice core. It felt nice to no longer be in constant pain. Not only did the pain stop, but he was also no longer being zapped. He was also informed as to why he ended up with an electric core of all things.

Turns out it was his death. When you grow powerful and gain a secondary core life likes to make fun of you and give you how you died as a core. Danny didn’t find it funny.

He still had a lot to learn on how to use his core and he still had to go to the Far Frozen at least once a week, but for being in constant pain and now breathing better he’ll take it.