#the way that this fic exists fully formed in my brain & i just need it!!! to come out as a narrative!!!

[crossbackpoke-check]

I have to ask about good dog bad dream <3

🥰🥰 oh i was HOPING for this one. ok so y’all may actually know a little bit already because it exists in the tags as tyler borzoituzzi but! good dog bad dream is the working document title/notes compilation for a fic that started with the premise of “well you see that’s actually not a dog that’s my blorbo from my hrpf shifter wolf au—”

and, because i have never formally addressed it or put it anywhere other than the tags, three important details about this fic:

this IS a semi-au fic about the detroit red wings, set vaguely in the 2018-19 season, because the wings sucked that year (but not as bad as 2019-20)

this is ALSO a fic that is mainly about tyler bertuzzi and dylan larkin, with some other wings thrown in because i've never met an ensemble i couldn't shove into a love story

this 100% exists because of mickey redmond calling tyler a junkyard dog every chance he gets and me every time going "okay but what if literally though" -> 🐺

[sizzleissues]

Its May.

Okay so this is in the same AU I had last year its just changed and evolved while also being the exact same. Except now I have 15,000 words of it written, like 7,000 words of planning and lore and hours upon hours of research that I will be pointedly ignoring. Will be posting more stuff this month about the AU and my hopes and dreams for it

Also slight art improvement check? I’ll put their original mermaid designs below the cut.

It’s Marinette as a mermaid and … its not Adrien or Chat Noir but a third worse thing (Catwalker but in the purest manifestation of it being a curse and not who he wants to be) I will be making designs for mer!Ladybug, and mer!Adrien as its own thing later on.

Okay if you want to indulge me look below the cut

Old mermaid designs first. I am going to be talking about my design thoughts, thoughts and ramblings about this AU and what I’ve been up to. You have been warned

As you can see, some things have changed but neither design I hated, I just wanted to go further with it.

My brain is quite specific about mermaids and how I want them to generally look. I wanted to distinguish biological merfolk from transformed humans by having them being anatomically different. So Adrien has a vertical tail instead which is also way faster underwater. His transformation is quite distressing for him and very chaotic. Of course when he accepts it he’s not so raggedy.

Marinette similarly avoids her life as a mermaid by becoming human and I wanted her mermaid design to hint toward her fascination with humans. She wears a top she fashioned from human fabric she found in a sunken merchant vessel. In general all other merfolk either forgo clothes or wear things fashioned from materials available to them. There’s deep fear of humans and human things so even though human clothes are available to them (off dead bodies but…. Whatever) they choose to difference themselves as much as possible. The same taboos don’t exist for them and their bodies are already adapted from the temperature of their environment. Adrien has stray bits of netting and seaweed on him because he’s not exactly the best at controlling his speed and often crash’s through fishing nets and patches of seaweed resulting in stuff being caught on him.

A lot of their designs are still being worked but I’ve definitely pushed them the right direction!

On to the AU. You might have seem me cryptically talk about something I’m writing the past few weeks. This is because it’s been in my brain since last May and been on and off writing it since then. I decided I’d talk about it once May came back around but and then when I finished writing it, start posting sneak peaks and more spoilery art until it was fully edited and I felt confident in it to post with an aim for it to finish posting once May rolled around again. Oh god.

It’s set in the late 1700s in a fictional version of France that’s actually fragmented over a bunch of islands. I have done more fashion research than I ever thought I’d do and in the end we will still be taking creative license but know I do know what they actually wore! I ALSO did a butt tonne of research about sailing ships and turns out they are super complicated and now I know too much and yet too little still about them. It should be super fun and action packed if I can manage. Have some really good scenes already in my head I know you’ll love. We’re already three ships battle deep and I’ve only written four chapters. (It chills out for a bit after that)

This is entirely self-indulgent by the way. I’m writing this for me, you guys are just a bonus. I literally don’t care as long as it satiates my rabid need for the fic that only lives in my brain at the moment. Saying that, I do want to put my best foot forward.

The next thing I will be posting for this is their human forms and more blabblerings about that. For I am insane and all.

[graciereadshannigram]

this idea for a fic has been kicking around my brain and refusing to let me rest so here's my attempt at getting it out so the bees can leave me alone.

~

Will's voice was a weapon, sharp and commanding as it sliced through the air. Stop right there," he said, his gaze intense as he pinned Hannibal with a look that brooked no argument. "Don’t lie to me."

He watched closely, almost hungrily, as Hannibal’s mask of composure slipped. It was a mere moment, a flicker of something hungry and unguarded that danced across the psychiatrist's face as his meticulous person suit slipped just an inch. The dilation of Hannibal's pupils, a tightness around his jaw—subtle, yet unmistakably a reaction.

"Oh, you like that?" Will’s words slipped out, almost without permission, tinted with a darker, more dangerous curiosity. He savored the slight falter in Hannibal’s stance, the way his usual poised demeanor wavered under scrutiny.

Hannibal attempted to regain control, his voice smooth but slightly strained. "Will, I think you misread—"

"No, I don’t think I did." Will stepped closer, once again denying Hannibal his obfuscations and cutting off the distance, his words a clear no to any form of retreat. "And I just told you not to lie."

The reaction was immediate. Hannibal swallowed, his gaze flitting across Will's face, perhaps seeking either escape or permission. "You’ve always had an effect on me, Will. I admire everything you do, as long as it’s true to your nature."

Feeling a surge of power at the raw honesty, Will took another deliberate step, reducing the space to just a breath away. His voice was softer now, a menacing whisper, "Even if it’s in my nature to control you?"

He watched the visible shudder that ran through Hannibal, the breath that hitched a bit too loudly. It was exhilarating, this visible sign of Hannibal’s composure crumbling, an acknowledgment of the dynamic that Will had always suspected existed between them but had never dared to explore.

"I didn’t mean to seduce you so soon, but I can make it work," Will mused, leaning in closer, forcing Hannibal back against the wall. He could now see, unmistakably, the arousal in Hannibal’s eyes, the quickening of his breath. It was intoxicating, the power, the control, the undeniable rush of answering arousal that coursed through him, knowing he had Hannibal right there, on the edge.

Hannibal looked back at him, his expression a mix of shock and that darker, deeper allure they seldom spoke of. "Will—"

"Tell me about the betrayal, Hannibal," Will cut in, his tone steady, one hand coming to rest against the wall by Hannibal's temple. He needed to hear it, needed to understand, even as he navigated this charged, dangerous game they were playing. "Why did you do it? Why manipulate me–and everybody else–so thoroughly and think there would be no repercussions?"

Hannibal’s voice, when he finally spoke, was calm but thick with an emotion Will couldn’t quite place. "I wanted to see you liberated, Will. Free from the constraints you so blindly follow."

"And yet, here we are," Will shot back, his voice soft but deadly, other hand coming up to fully surround Hannibal with his body. "You’re the one constrained. Does it feel liberating?"

Hannibal’s response was to close the gap completely, pulling Will in so their bodies were flush from hip to chest. "Quid pro quo, Will. I have laid bare my truths. Now show me yours."

The direct challenge ignited something fierce within Will. He met Hannibal’s gaze, his smirk widening. "If my truth involves dominating you, Hannibal, would you accept that as part of my nature?"

A faint smile touched Hannibal’s lips as his composure began to rebuild. "I find my defenses quite...receptive to your advances."

"Good," Will breathed out, a curl of satisfaction unfurling within him. This was just the beginning, a new dynamic unfurling, and he was eager to see where it would lead. "Because I’m just getting started."

[chainoftalent]

Hi hi!! I adore your writing. Could I request your headcanons for yandere pregame Kokichi and/or Shuichi?? Tysm!

Actually I've been thinking about my Pregame Shuichi a lot

Pregame Shuichi headcanons and also I got carried away and made a short prologue fic for it

I see pregame Shuichi as a person with very very bad intrusive thoughts and likely some form of undiagnosed personality disorder. To make it more clear this is my pregame shuichi im using my own personal pregame name for him, Shinichi. If you want specifically a more fanon kagehara or bonkichi send another ask specifying

Shinichi was having a normal day, people watching while writing in his notebook. He liked to watch the people go by, even if he never had the guts to talk to them. How could he when he couldn't stop thinking about all the ways he could hurt them. How easy it would be to just plunge his pencil into-

He took a deep breath and turned his pencil back to his notebook. Writing down the gory thoughts and impulses that made his fingers twitch. It was cathartic, to write them down, it felt almost like purging himself of the thoughts. Channeling them into writing a potential execution or murder for his fangan even helped make it almost feel productive. He'd been getting behind on updates.

Then he locked eyes with them for only a split second, and their mind went wild. Depraved lustful thoughts swirled in their brain, and they quickly snapped their eyes away.

With a shaking hand he fumbled for a cigarette, needing to calm his thoughts. He hated smoking, he hated everything about it, but it would shut up his brain for a few minutes. Long enough to regain his composure, frantically tugging down his face mask.

Lighting it up, he blew his thoughts out with the smoke. He could feel his body unclenching, and his mind slowed. Even in that smoke, they couldn't stop thinking about them. They had looked so...innocent, sweet, the kind of person that had his hands twitching to touch and hold and rip into and devour.

He remembered they smiled at him when they made eye contact, they hadn't originally noticed in their panic. It made him blush, no one had smiled at him in awhile. It felt...nice, to be noticed, acknowledged as existing. He wanted to run after them, to chase them down, to talk with them and maybe for once in his pathetic life not ruin a social interaction.

That would be really weird though, and he didn't want such a nice seeming person to think of him weird. So he turned back to his notebook, writing down all the information he had seen from that glimpse. A few moments later when he looked down at his notes and realized he had approximated so much as their shoe size, that he knew he might have been a bit of trouble...

Shinichi cannot stop thinking about his beloved, its a problem, hurting them or having sex with them or both quickly become one of his most prominent intrusive thoughts that plague them constantly

He's both very drawn to and repulsed by the thoughts, he thinks its pretty and aesthetic and god it would feel good but also he's a monster for that he CAN'T!!

Definitely stalking them, Shinichi probably doesn't even fully realize that they've gone beyond a normal background check on a new friend and into stalking until they've broken into their house and he takes a look at what he's doing, oops!

Constantly beating themselves up for their obsession, but can't stop himself even as he calls himself a creep and a monster, he can't stop himself from channeling his thoughts and desires into fucked up stories and gruesome drawings, its cathartic.

CLINGY if you be his friend, he's TERRIFIED of being left behind or that you'll realize he's a freak and leave him. Would die for you in a heartbeat.

Shinichi's a fussing type, the type to call you at 3 am because he had a bad feeling and wanted to make sure you're okay. This and variants of it happens twice a week minimum.

He's very self aware that he's fucked up and wrong for all this but...but...he needs it! It feels more tolerable then just rotting! Like he has a reason for living!

His parents give him terrible advice when it becomes really blatant he has a crush, telling him to be more aggressive about it and to keep pursuing them and to be a strong man they can rely on that's what people want. This does not help his intrusive thoughts at all and makes him worse, thanks mom and dad.

A sadomasochist, he doesn't mind if you slap him and boss him around as long as he gets to be near you, and likely finds the whole thing very very hot and fantasizes about it if you do.

Despite being a sadist Shinichi doesn't actually want to hurt you but if you happen to get hurt from other ways they'll absolutely sneak a picture at it to stare at when he wants to hurt them, he knows he's a monster for it, but if keeping a collection of photos of their scraped knees and papercuts makes it easier to not pin them down and see them bleed for him and eat their heart then he has to do it anyways.

Doesn't want to admit to their beloved that anything is wrong or they're obsessed but will crumple like a wet paper towel if pressed

Shockingly actually very observant and good at putting together and remembering small details when he can actually focus.

Is using their beloved as a form of self harm, using them to justify feeling worse and doing things bad for his mental health because he deserves it!

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

i'm outta my head over you Pt. 3

prologue (Pt. 1) | Pt. 2 | AO3 | playlist for this fic

btw, this whole concept is definitely not based on my own steddie playlist and masterpost for why i added each song 👀

today's @steddie-week prompt is: angst

-----

Steve’s dealing with his feelings just fine, thanks.

He’s not pissed at Eddie for the stunt he pulled back in the upside down.

Not at all!

Steve snatched Eddie up in a bridal carry, yelling at Robin and Nancy to help Dustin up to follow them back to the gate, because he’s head over heels for the stupid man bleeding out all down the front of his shirt.

Steve brute forces his way through the Munson’s ceiling one-handed and lands a bit too hard on one knee on the other side because he can’t imagine a life without Eddie Munson now that he’s in it.

Steve keeps his fingers pressed into the mangled wounds on Eddie's side all the way to the hospital to keep him awake and sobbing for Steve to “Let go! Why are you hurting me?” because he’s pretty sure he’s in love.

Or at least, he could be. Someday soon. He’s certain of that.

He loses time after finally letting Eddie go, safe on a gurney that was speeding into the ER.

He was standing there, watching as Eddie was wheeled away through big double doors, then he was on the floor. The collapse onto his ass does not exist in his mind; one second he was standing, and the next, his legs were crumpled under him and his right asscheek hurts. Nancy and Robin are there too, crouched in front of him with twin looks of worry on their faces and he can see Dustin behind them, trying to shove the nurses who are looking at his ankle away in order to get to Steve.

“Dusty,” his voice is a cracking whisper, “Dusty, stay there, I’m fine.”

“Steve, Steve, what happened, are you alright?” he sluggishly turns his head toward Nancy’s voice, but never gets there. His memory goes blank again.

When he comes to, he’s laid out in a bed of his own. The flimsy papery gown already slipping from his shoulders and the thin hospital blanket he was given doing nothing to stave off the cold feeling of IV fluid rushing through his veins.

He blinks the crust away from his eyes and looks around.

He’s in a hospital room, naturally, a couple empty chairs sit opposite him along the wall, there’s a window out to the setting sun (rising sun? How long was he out??), and beside him is another bed, a familiar head of curls atop an unfamiliar small form.

“Eddie?” he tries to say, but no sound comes out. “Eddie!” he tries again, only getting a hoarse whisper this time.

Eddie doesn’t move, but Steve sure as hell does. He needs to get up, needs to get to his friend, is he okay? Why does he look like that? Eddie's nowhere near this small or fragile, he’s loud and nearly as tall as Steve is! He needs to help him, needs to–

“Steven, Steven!” there’s a hand on his arm, stopping him from rolling out of bed fully.

Later, he’ll kick himself for his total lack of response, but at the moment, all he does is freeze.

“Mr. Harrington, please sit back, relax. Please.”

Steve does as the voice asks and lays back down, looking over at the person at the side of his bed.

The older gentleman is familiar somehow, but his still-foggy brain isn’t pulling up the name.

“Good morning Steven, or should I say Good evening?” the man’s eyes crinkle up at the corners with his smile.

“How long was I out? Where is everyone? Is Dustin okay? What about Max? Why does Eddie look so small? He–” Steve’s voice started out okay, an audible whisper, but completely fell off by the end of his questioning and the man cutting him off with a shake of his head and a hand on his shoulder.

“Calm down, Mr. Harrington.”

“Steve.” Steve manages to whisper. Damn his throat is sore.

“Steve. Everyone’s okay, it’s after visiting hours so your ‘party’? I think I heard one of your younger friends say? Have all gone home for the night. Including Mr. Henderson; his mother picked him up with a cast on his leg. Broken ankle and a fractured tibia.

“Ms. Mayfield is just down the hall, with a couple broken bones herself. As for Mr. Munson, he’s stable, heavily bandaged, and will likely be out for a while more. You’ve been out for about 20 hours.”

Steve stared at this man, he must be a doctor, while his brain processed that information. He wanted to relax back into the uncomfortable hospital mattress and pillow but, “Who are you?’

The man’s immediately apologetic. “Oh goodness, I’m so sorry. I should have introduced myself. I’m Dr. Owens from the Hawkins Lab.”

Again, Steve starts to move, shuffling backward as best he can with all his limbs still feeling boneless, but he needs to get up! Get between this man and Eddie.

“Steve, Steve, please relax, I’m here to help you.”

Steve sits back, though reluctantly since he physically can’t do much else. “Forgive me for being suspicious of that.” His voice is getting a bit stronger now from using it around the pain.

“That’s fair,” Dr. Owens chuckles, mostly to himself. “Please, hear me out.”

Steve says nothing, so Owens takes this as his sign to continue.

“You lost a lot more blood than either you or your friends realized. The adrenaline kept you going until you were safe at the hospital–”

“Until Dustin and Eddie were safe in the hospital.” Steve corrects on instinct. He was definitely not there for himself.

Owens smiles. “Of course. Yes, once your friends were safely being taken care of, or taken back to be in Mr. Munson’s case, your adrenaline dropped off rapidly, and you passed out in the ER lobby.

“Ms. Wheeler called me when they took you back too, worried about what the staff would start to think when they saw your injuries, so I came as soon as I could.

“I got here just as your friends were being asked to leave, so I only got bits of what happened from Ms. Wheeler and Ms. Buckley.”

Steve’s gaze had drifted back to Eddie while Dr. Owens talked, looking over the visible bandages wrapped around him, the equally thin blanket tucked around his frame, the bags under his eyes, the handcuffs linked from the bed frame to his wris–

“What the hell is that doing on him..”

“I’m sorry?”

“What in the HELL is that doing on his wrist?” Steve manages to yell, whipping his head around to glare at Owens.

“What are you–oh, I see. The handcuffs…we’re still working on that.”

“Well work faster. Eddie didn’t do anything wrong, he saved this fuckin’ town!”

“I believe you, Steve. Please calm down. We’ll get Mr. Munson’s name cleared.”

Steve focuses on steadying his breaths, watching the rise and fall of Eddie’s own chest.

Owens seems to know what it is he’s doing, as once he’s calmed down, he speaks again. “Steve, can you tell me what happened?”

Shit, he focused too hard on calming himself down. “Not now, sleep.” Steve says, already fading back out. “Morning. Nancy, Dustin.” 

He’s asleep after that.

—

The next day finds him being bombarded (painfully) by Dustin (“OOf! Dusty, careful, I’m all bandaged up, remember?”), and joint upside-down rundown to Dr. Owens (who pales at the mention of Henry/Vecna/001) with Nancy, Robin, and Erica.

A plan is made in the next couple days, Owens, the newly not-dead Hopper, and Nancy heading up the ‘official’ story about what happened to Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick and what to do about Jason Carver and his mob-starting mentality against Eddie.

Lucky for them, Jason was in the hospital too, after the beating he took from Lucas. The assault of a minor really didn’t look good on him, and the hits to the head helped scramble his memories enough that he mostly forgot about Eddie (Plus some extra secret government influence sprinkled in for good measure).

Until everything was sorted, an unconscious Eddie remained in cuffs. Something that irked Steve to no end.

After he was discharged himself, Steve basically lived at the hospital. 

He’d greet the nurses that were kind to Eddie, and snub the few others who weren’t. He thought about getting his mom on the phone just for her to say some choice words to the hospital’s Chief of Medicine, the Head of the Board of Directors, someone about the exactly zero doctors here who really showed any care for his friend, but he didn’t think she would be counted amongst the few people who were.

He haunted the hall between Eddie and Max’s rooms from first thing every morning to just before security is called to escort him out every evening, sharing his time between the two of them about 70/30 (Lucas was in Max’s room constantly, and if Steve hovered for too long Max would start pelting him with tongue depressors), spending a majority of the day at Eddie’s side with a couple others; mostly Dustin, but all the party would visit Eddie as often as their parents would allow; Steve made himself scarce when Eddie’s bandmates would come to visit, not wanting to make them uncomfortable with “King Steve”s presence.

Some days were just he and Eddie and the steady beeping of the heart monitor.

Steve’d sit beside him, listening to music, or reading, or attempting to read aloud that Hobbit book Dustin brought by. He’d make sure Eddie’s wrist under the cuff didn’t get raw and chafed by rubbing lotion into the skin there and over his cracked knuckles (he also wanted to do something about the dreadful cracking that was happening to his lips around the tube in his throat, but worried that’d be taking it a step too far).

And he thought.

He thought a lot.

A lot about how he felt about Eddie, over and over about what he could do after he was safely discharged too, would he even have the guts to tell him his feelings?

Steve knew he could wait, wait until Eddie was much healthier, far more healed. He’d waited this long, what was a little longer?

Steve debated not telling Eddie at all. He heavily debated it, actually. Within a few short hours of really knowing Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington knew his life wouldn’t be the same. He could not imagine any version of his future without Eddie in it now that he was there. Why risk the awkwardness if Eddie didn’t feel the same? Why take the chance?

His few hours away from the hospital would be where he did most of his agonizing over it; barely able to sleep, able to function besides his basic needs. 

Two of their party, their little family, were in the hospital right now and Steve couldn’t stop himself thinking it was his fault they were there. The hospital staff constantly told him that they both were stable and well on the mend in Max’s case, but all he could think of when he wasn’t there was that somehow both of them would crash; an invisible, undetected infection had taken hold way too fast to act, or bone shard had wandered off somewhere it wasn’t supposed to.

His thoughts made it near impossible to sleep, the echoing empty of his house was no help either. He could really only calm down when he was at the hospital and could easily put eyes on both Eddie and Max.

Then, because of the lack of sleep away from the hospital, he’d always end up crashing there in Eddie’s room, twisted into the chair at his bedside with his fingers curled into the sheets next to Eddie’s hip.

It was after one of these chair naps that Steve first met Wayne Munson.

Steve fell asleep later than normal, so he woke up a bit later than he normally would. Somehow, he was skipped over during security’s rounds that night and awoke a good bit after visiting hours were over.

Not wanting to make things worse for himself if he wanted to come back later, he uncurls and reaches for his bag. 

He rubbed the lotion into Eddie’s wrist under the cuff as best he could, over his cracked knuckles, and over the rest of his hands, trying to warm them up a bit and not-so-subtly also checking for bedsores on the backs of his friend’s arms at the same time.

He was just adjusting the pillow under Eddie’s head like he always does before leaving for the day when a voice boomed into the room.

“Who the hell are you?!”

Steve whips around to look at the source of the voice from where he’s hunched over Eddie’s head. 

The older man in the doorway is tall, the top of his bald head only a few inches shy of the doorframe, though that could also be due to the heavy-looking workboots on his feet, poking out from under the legs of a well-worn, grease stained set of coveralls.

“Who are you, and what’re you doin’ with my boy?!”

Steve immediately stands straight, his hands up in surrender. “I’m Steve Harrington, sir,” he starts, putting one hand out for Wayne to shake, “You must be Wayn–”

“A Harrington, huh? Get the hell away from my son, Harrington.” Wayne hisses and steps forward between Steve and Eddie’s bedside in an impressive three strides and immediately worrying over the bandage on Eddie’s cheek.

Steve backs up as requested, both hands back up. “Please, Mr. Munson, I’m his friend, I was only–”

“Don’t lie to me, boy. No Harrington would ever dare to be friends with someone of our kind.” he says over his shoulder. Steve knows that tone, someone’s said that to him before. ‘One guess as to who.’ Steve’s brain supplies, very unhelpfully.

“You ain’t hurting my Eddie if I have anything to say about it, now get the hell out of here before I get you thrown out!”

“Yes sir, of course. I’m sorry..” Steve acquiesces immediately, he’s not about to fight the man on this, especially not with what he’d gone through.

He grabs up his bag and leaves, rushing out to his car before his thoughts finally catch up with him.

‘That’s it. That’s all the time I’ll ever have with him. Wayne Munson won’t let me near him again and I’m already going out of my mind without him.’

Steve’s in his car now, staring blankly out the windshield. He slowly lowers his forehead to the wheel in front of him, onto the backs of his hands.

“…Fuck…”

-----

Eddie listens intently to the first four songs, imagining what about each of them Steve is trying to tell him beyond what is written down, laughs at the inclusion of Runnin’ with the Devil (though he really hopes Steve’s note about Ozzy was just there by happenstance and not because he thinks Ozzy is part of Van Halen).

‘Damn he’s cheesy as hell.’ Eddie thinks fondly.

His eyes glance over to the little blurb for the next song when Out Of Touch starts to fade out.

“...the fuck?” He says, and pauses the tape.

Under Be My Baby - The Ronettes, Steve had written “Teddy, your uncle is fuckin terrifying...but he’s got great taste in music.”

“What in the hell??”

Part 4 here!

wayne can be a lil' scary. as a treat.

[nenekobasu]

I love anything and everything that comes out of your brain, the way you read and discuss blue lock is so damn interesting and I just want to thank you for helping me love it even more. I adore seeing your posts in my feed cause I’m like “time to get my brain re wired again”.

for the ask: do you think you’ll ever write fic for Blue Lock? Cause you mentioned that scenario about Kaiser meeting his father again + the Noa-Kaiser theme park thing which I loved reading and it’s just something I’m super intrigued. They are such difficult characters to write and pin down but you seem to love AND understand them so well.

Not that father-son thing or even mentor-mentee thing, but exactly that inhuman personification and someone who identifies with objects + strives to be impossible. It’s such an interesting dynamic and it’s even better because of how you talk about it!

hi!!! i'm happy that i added positively to you experience with blue lock. i tried writing some fics for noa-kaiser over a year ago but mostly i just enjoy talking about them through posts. they're in a unique place in canon right now, where the appeal of them comes from the gap between how it was (for a long time) a "hidden" relationship within blue lock, and the wealth of potential to be found in their bond. for example, that aspect you mentioned where noa is a personification of inhumanity (or, a human who stripped himself of everything "human" in pursuit of his ideal) and kaiser identifies with a material objects— within blue lock, "playing football" is an act that requires achieving/yearning for inhumanity?— is just one of the many attractive potentials about them...

that's why i really like the idea of noa and kaiser as flesh and blood humans who may not feel that way, or who may feel more at ease with the idea of inhumanity, whether that be in noa remaking himself into a cyborg or kaiser struggling towards being his idea of "human" even though he'd much rather be hugging his ball, so putting them in situations where they go through the motions of what "ordinary" humans would do for enjoyment (like going to an amusement park, or to a picnic or party, or shopping) and it making them feel a bit disconnected from the world around them, is an idea i like. (but on the flip side, any scenario that would make them realize, "i'm (he's) a flesh and blood human..." through frailty or vulnerability is attractive too)

speaking more about the potential in their relationship, the way noa is as though a human being wasn't human is why i think kaiser could be uniquely comfortable around noa. it's telling that ch.261's representation of kaiser's "humanity" completely excludes noa— how noa is removed from kaiser's cynical definition of "humanity" as malicious and evil, removed from kaiser's symbiotic and adversarial relationship with humanity. so even before kaiser threw such "humanity" away, kaiser recognized that noa wasn't human, or that noa didn't share the malice that to kaiser exists at the root of all real humans

for blue lock humans are fundamentally irrational and chaotic; that's why the manga places noa's "rationality", a fully inhuman ideal, at its pinnacle. and, when kaiser abandons his attachment to malicious "humanity" in ch.262, he (as isagi later thinks) becomes fully rational... within this story, when kaiser stops chasing humanity, he grows closer to becoming an inhuman ideal-symbol— he grows closer to noa, to becoming like noa. in my mind kaiser refusing to recognize noa as "human" speaks volumes about his true feelings towards noa (kaiser never aimed his worst habits and impulses towards him) and about their potential bond. when noa speaks about wanting kaiser as a future rival-enemy, i think he vocalizes what kaiser can only dimly recognize— that noa is someone kaiser was never attached to and thus never needed to abandon, someone with whom he can form a greater connection in the near future

and again, it's noteworthy that noa is someone who should have earned kaiser's ire for simply being who he is, but kaiser, canonically, doesn't have any deep negative or ugly thoughts about noa, even though you'd expect him to considering his personality. in some ways noa does naturally what for many others is "impossible", so even to kaiser, noa is a person who imposes "impossibility" upon the world without necessarily aiming to do so... despite this, kaiser never thinks ill of noa for that reason (though he does badmouth him for others), nor does he develop a complex towards noa, even though noa exists as an existence "above" kaiser. (it could be that kaiser doesn't recognize noa as his image-ideal of "impossibility", in part because his abusive upbringing impoverished his imagination to the point that kaiser for a long time couldn't think what impossibility actually looked like. his pxg growth wasn't that he created his rose, but that he became a person with the potential to create it)

i think it's important to these two that, while kaiser may have some grievances towards noa, blue lock refuses to make kaiser's feelings towards noa harmful or destructive. blue lock loves ugly and complicated relationships, and kaiser is an ugly and complicated person in many ways, but this manga simply doesn't write this relationship that way. so i think noa-kaiser is a relationship that has great potential in canon to endure, and take form as one relationship that represents an ideal form of existence within this manga

in ubers match kaiser did a test run of his ideal in ch.218-20, and choosing to follow his blue rose ideal of "believing that nothing was impossible for him" led to him scoring a goal that almost traced noa's goal in barcha. this didn't happen because kaiser aimed to become like noa, or had particularly strong feelings about noa; it's just that, when kaiser tapped into his true potential as a footballer, he ended up becoming more like noa. kaiser deep down has the potential to reach the same place noa reached, a similar place of inhumanity, that stems from kaiser reclaiming his dehumanization and embracing his identification with material objects. that positive growth for kaiser, naturally leads him closer to noa...

that's why my idea of noa-kaiser is that they're firmly a relationship with a bright and correct future, with great inner compatibility and potential. they're a spin on the regular shonen rival mold because of the gap between them in age and experience, but even that supposed imbalance makes them into a well-balanced pair, because what noa wants is a threat from below, and what kaiser needs is the will to challenge what's above. more than father and son, or mentor and mentee, these two feel more like shonen protagonists who happened to meet at different points of their journeys— noa's has ended but he wants another, and kaiser's is just beginning. so there's such a wonderful balance between them despite superficial inequality, because their inner similarity and potential for a joint future shines through. and within that, other potential similarities like the inhumanity (or identification with it), or the achievement of impossibility (or wish to achieve it) become prominent... they have a wonderful and layered bond, filled with hope and possibility. i love noa-kaiser and their relationship deserves eternal blessings for the rest of time

[inkfamy]

You're the person who said we're shipping First Aid with Bruticus now right?

If Bruticus is obsessed with First Aid how does he react to Defensor? Does he just latch on to Defensor's left arm and refuse to let go? Does he go bananas and demand his wife back? Do they walk off into the sunset holding hands?

Also, have the Decepticons ever tries getting a regular ambulance and convincing Bruticus that it's First Aid?

Hello! I'm so sorry for letting this ask languish in my inbox for a month, my brain is made of spaghetti. I am absolutely ecstatic to be the Bruticaid Guy.

I have been percolating on a Bruticaid fic and here's the things your questions alongside the other things swimming around my brain have turned into:

Personally I think Bruticus's feelings of love and affection aren't (initially) very well developed. He feels some kind of possessiveness and protectiveness over his components, because he needs them and knows he couldn't exist without them, and he understands loyalty in the form of his (forced) loyalty to Megatron and by extension the Decepticon Cause. To begin with, he doesn't fully understand love as much more beyond possessiveness and loyalty; he only processes his feelings as a desire to Have this new component, which must be his because why else would he Want it.

I think he's very jealous of Defensor when First Aid is attached, and he mostly wants to get First Aid detached so he can Reclaim His Property. Defensor likely feels a similar way, enhanced by the fact that the Protectobots as a gestalt are very close to one another and none of them would want to see First Aid in the hands of a Decepticon, whether that Decepticon likes him or not. Cue a lot of violent combiner clashing.

I've been thinking SO MUCH about the next part. We are talking G1, so whacky hijinks must ensue. The Decepticons initially just steal a regular ambulance, and Bruticus realises it's not alive as soon as he gets his hands on it. Insert tantrum. Their next step is trying to pass off a Decepticon as First Aid; Dead End gets painted red and white because he's just about the right shape and he's part of a gestalt and maybe that's what Bruticus find so appealing. This one takes a bit longer to work out: probably a few days before the false First Aid is revealed because poor Dead End got dropped in a river and all his paint washed off or something. Even bigger tantrum.

The Decepticons probably get desperate enough that they nab another Earth ambulance, smuggle it to Vector Sigma, and have it brought to life in the hopes that the resulting Decepticon will be a suitable distraction for Bruticus. The poor bot gets called Last Aid, and his only purpose in life is to be a cute little boyfriend. He's a triple changer and turns into an ambulance and a left arm, but he doesn't have a gestalt to bond too.

Last Aid ends up being pretty much Shattered Glass First Aid: he's a classic evil clone, obsessed with First Aid, the Protectobots, and the Combaticons. There's a bunch of nonsense in having to ensure the Combaticons don't know that Last Aid isn't really First Aid, because Bruticus mustn't know. Last Aid gets mostly ignored and his only assigned mission is "keep Bruticus happy". He is absolutely venomous at this being the purpose of his life; he hates the Decepticons and Bruticus. For a while he probably tries to manipulate Bruticus into idk, stomping on the real First Aid so he can take his place, turns up to cause havoc in the Protectobot base, and is generally a funky evil little guy with a kind of sad backstory (but also he is so very evil).

I don't think Last Aid is very nice to Bruticus, and that's probably what eventually reveals the ploy. Maybe he hurts Bruticus somehow and First Aid finds Bruticus injured, and being First Aid he can't not help, but this giant combiner is kind of shying away from him and waiting to get smacked again. Maybe this is the first moment where First Aid isn't scared of Bruticus, and Bruticus learns what being treated gently is like.

At some point Last Aid probably ends up working with Shockwave to try and take over the Decepticons, or otherwise gets kind of incorporated into their medics team (but isn't allowed to work without Hook there, because he Cannot Be Trusted Not To Do Something Horrible).

[sparklepocalypse]

hi, just wondering why you write your rwrb fics in the movie verse. did you not like the book as much?

Hey there, anon! I definitely liked the book, but it didn't grab my brain in a chokehold the way the movie did. I've never written fic in a fandom that didn't have some form of visual media as its source material -- I'm a very visual thinker, so I needed the reference of the characters as they exist in the movie to be inspired to write about it.

(Also, because I am An Old, having the characters aged-up and more emotionally mature in the movie made them easier for me to connect with than the absolute babies that they are in the book. Their brains haven't even fully plasticized when the book is happening, lol.)

[brodinsons]

okayu..... so this fic you talked about in the tags of the spn s5 'thinking about her <3' post..... does it.... hows that going... is there.... a place for me to perhaps be obsessed with it?

(for anyone who had the requisite tags muted/etc)

Tragically, anon, it doesn't (truly) exist! As of yet...

I kicked off a little intro snippet for my wife and I to play with, but it's mostly just been marinating and mutating in my brain from there.

There's so much meaty material to play with in the context of a post-not-apocalypse world that isn't remotely the recycled cash grab the subsequent ten seasons went with. Obviously network/budget constraints meant confining the story to the states, but in my imagination, there are no limits!

Dean can fumble his way around Cas on the road, doing whatever it is that satisfies that eternally restless itch to be moving and marching.

Meanwhile, we can have a whole Sam-centric spin-off that lets him go full nerd and meet people all around the world to help him figure out the whens and hows and whys because that brain of his is never satisfied.

He can get tatted up with enochian script as the years go by (and if certain sections reference a certain archangel he can't get out of his head, no one needs to know). He can take Claire Novak on as a stateside apprentice (who also keeps tabs on his brother now and then). He can hunt down mythical relics and spells (and favors) that inevitably lead him to the road that ends with jailbreaking his celestial other half. Only this time, it's fully intentional and he's walking into the blinding white with his eyes wide open.

Of course Lucifer would've preferred a different physical homecoming, but humans are weird with our hangups about bodily autonomy so he settles for a vastly-reinforced (and mercifully vacated) Nick and slowly learns that this is the face Sam intrinsically associates with him, over anything else. So it gets less uncomfortable over time. (He'll settle for a great deal, it turns out, if it means Sam is his.)

And Sam's pure acceptance this time, instead of the desperate denial from before, that's the part that shocks him the most. Time passes so differently between Hell and Earth; how much has he lost? But, by the same card, what has he gained?

Sam can show him the parts of the world he's uncovered over his nomad years, and when Lucifer has enough of humanity, he can take Sam to the hidden pockets that still remain untainted. They can give and take between each other, instead of trying to get one to bow to the other's will. It's not easy and it gets messy, but it's good. It's so much better than before. Maybe what they were meant for all along.

...so yeah! If there's still S5 samifer fans in the year of our lord 2024, I might be convinced to actually write this shit down in some form. But you guys actually gotta show up, otherwise it's just gonna keep marinating in my brain juices and make me go insane xD

[lissomelace]

Hey just wanted to let you know that your fic has a vice grip on my brain and has me obsessively thinking about is as I go to sleep, like ive literally dreamed about it, also are domestic cats a thing in your au? Also what’s the huan situation? Are there big cats who aren’t elves? And what are the human proportional developmental phases of moryo, tyelco, makalaure, and russo, also finno and ingo if you know of feel like sharing. This fic has literally stopped me obsessing over my own wip that’s how powerful you are it’s so great I love your writing and world building so much your characterisation is so beautifully done it’s like the fucking Michelangelo of character exploration, I hope you have a wonderful day 💜

Aaaaaahhhh thank you so, SO much! I’m SO glad to know you have been enjoying my fic. I’m sorry this ask has taken a little time to get through, I wanted to be thorough in my answers!

Domestic cats are probably a thing, but they exist in middle earth, not Valinor. There might not be the same level of selection pressures to domesticate cats in Valinor (rodent control), but there definitely would be in Middle Earth. Humans like them for reasons normal humans like cats and elves like them because they understand them well on an instinctive level.

The Huan situation is that he’s friends with Tyelko in the Hunt of Oromë. I’ve always read Huan as a quasi-maiarin figure—no idea if that’s correct or a little off—so he’s friends with Tyelko on top of being loyal to Oromë. He’ll definitely be following Tyelko eventually, however that situation goes. Dogs get along well with some big cats (well...cheetahs mostly, I guess), but really really well with anything humanoid, so I don't really think the dog vs. cat thing will be a problem.

There are definitely big cats that aren’t elves—although they stick to wilder and more solitary places. Elves can always tell, since so much of their social interactions are interspiritual (osanwë, seeing each other’s fëar). Big cats would probably figure out that an elf in feline form was a little off, but they would probably interact as they would with others of their species, whether that’s with hostility or not in any particular situation.

Okay, full disclosure I’m very bad at ages and have tried MULTIPLE times to figure this out. This was a great opportunity to try to nail it down a little more, so I hope this makes sense!

(I am also laying this out in sun years, which is not how they’re currently doing things but they’re easier for me to think in. Also, the specific ages MAY be subject to change as needed, so they’re rough estimates, more or less.)

The only age I’ve specifically given at this point (I think) is Findaráto’s, who is currently 92. He’s an adult, though a very young one since ‘formal’ majority comes at 100. Findekáno is a bit older—I’m placing him at around 116—and Russandol’s a bit past that, in his 130s or so. So while both of them are past their majority, they’re very young adults at this point when put on an elvish timescale.

Makalaurë is younger than Findekáno, but barely, by like three years or so. This is pretty much nothing to the Eldar, so he also falls into young adulthood. Tyelko’s just under a hundred, so is more or less fully grown while not past that final formal milestone. Moryo isn’t quite grown yet—he’s not fully presented, and not an adult, but he’s approaching that. He’s around 82, so maybe a decade younger than Findaráto.

If I were to stick human ages on them (which isn’t exactly precise, since elvish adulthood and majority is treated a bit differently and some of them mature faster than others), Findaráto and Tyelko would be around eighteen, Findekáno would be 19-20, while Russandol might be pushing 21-22 (I’m thinking established young adulthood, ~25, hits around 200 for elves). Moryo would be a few years younger, maybe 15 or 16—well into puberty, but still a little ways off from formal adulthood or being fully mature.

I hope that wasn’t too incoherent! There’s a lot of wiggle room here because it doesn't map exactly or proportionately to human milestones, but these are sort of the guidelines and relative ages I’m more or less working off of. It doesn’t really fit with the Silmarillion timeline, but that only gives us, like, half the birth dates anyway, so I’ve taken some liberties.

I am so, so glad you have been enjoying my fic! The worldbuilding has been so fantastically fun to undertake, so thank you so much for asking about it! And I’m so amazingly glad you’ve been enjoying the characterization, that is so wonderful and incredible to hear! This ask and all of your incredibly kind words made my day, and I hope I have answered sufficiently, but please let me know if I have been unclear or if there is anything else you would like to know! Thank you so much, and I hope you have a wonderful day as well! <3

[subway-boss-jericho]

(same anon that threatened you with art)

legally required to tell you which ones I like- understood. Namely it’s steady tracks (bc I’ve actually had a wip drawing of that for uh *checks files* a… year? And a half?) bc I freaking Love It when the twins become Creature.

by extension that means I adore comebee ingo and emmet and the fossil au and spirit keeper.

those are! The main ones but I really like a Whole Lot of ‘em. Very few will be spared in my (eventual) rampage

whoa epic awesome cool wicked thesaurus.com synonym for great

Welcome to the steady tracks curse! you have it in your wips and then years go by! no one is spared, not even me! /lh

That's a great trio to follow up with though. Those four combined are barely similar /lh You've got the two pokemon AUs and the two ingos in the Oldest Guy Ever club. You love to see it.

But no seriously, this is a serious all star team of favorites. I haven't elaborated on a lot of them beyond the masterlist posts I made, which is super on me, but Steady Tracks, Combee AU and Spirit Keeper Ingo are three of my oldest AUs. By extensionm they're also the ones I am most emotionally attached to. I don't know what form/s it will come in, but spirit keeper and combees are DEFINITELY getting more stuff eventually. I just have to figure out. How. and what, and when.

Fossil AU is one of the ones I've had a while but only started developing more recently, so it's currently in my head all the time. I wish I could elaborate on it but unfortunately it is in the stage of mental illness where I have no idea how to talk about it or explain it to anyone outside of two (2) very close friends. that will absolutely fucking happen though i still stare at that drawing i made a few months ago with fossil ingo and little pearl. i'd fucking kill for little pearl so we're clear. I'm so unwell about fossil it's just in the intangible inexplicable kind of way currently

Downside of having all these AUs is that they all exist in different forms in my head. Spirit keeper is probably supposed to be a comic, but might also end up having longer fic-like sections. Combee AU i want to be a fic i think, but I haven't actually WRITTEN anything for it in SO long. it's gotten swept under the artistic rug in favor of silly doodles. Steady tracks is in eternal hell under the curse, as we all know (nodding sagely)((ITS GOING TO BE FUCKING FREE SOON SO HELP ME GOD)) and I'll be honest I haven't thought about fossil au long enough for it to have a solid medium, but i feel like looser doodle comics would be fun. Or maybe more Big Cool Artwork + smaller written thing. Unsure.

But like, god forbid we talk about Mecha AU or Coupled Uncoupled. The original timeline of the mecha au is an official pokemon animated feature-length movie in my head. I have since developed it in a different direction and I have no idea what the hell I'm gonna do with that. There may or may not be a fully 3D animated goodbye to a world animation for that in the next 3 years because i learned how to model and animate in blender and my power is now unlimited. Coupled (Uncoupled) is a series of Long Fics (like, steady tracks long) mixed with song animatics and animation memes. That thing is so not going to end up being told in the form it exists as in my brain. Many of the other aus are like this

Oh that was a Ramble:tm: my bad. All of this was to say hey, if you ever need a reference for steady tracks ingo, I'm trying to make a 3D model for him rn. It's currently being sidelined in favor of the chapter itself and a 2d artwork I'm doing, but some day he'll be Real. I've got everything modeled except for his legs (hell) and prat of his head (also hell but less) so that's at least something

I forgot where I was going with this. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to fuckin prattle. love prattling. in controlled environments

If you like it when there are Creatures, consider also checking out omgPMD AU and Take My Hand. Similar but slightly different concepts. I imagine you've probably already seen them but I figured i'd mention anyway

Thanks for chatting!! <3 <- i did most of the chatting via ramble but i still value you engaging with my work more than i can put into meaningful words

[bitterrobin]

Reader Beware....

another Flamebird in Gotham au, notes app substitution on this site!

this time I'll be listing my personal goals for the au and the developing fanfiction. (ignore if you don't want spoilers! /or you just couldn't care less about my DC/Batman thoughts)

create a fic/maybe a series that develops Bette Kane and introduces her to an audience that does not know her

Bette is highly underrated and unused. The potential in her parallel to Dick Grayson and her history with both Kate Kanes is a lot. Now that I've gotten into this fic and my hcs, I will now forever resent Grayson (2014) bc I can see so much there if you just swap Dick for Bette as the insider-spy. (Kathy Kane characterization in that comic notwithstanding).

characterize and humanize Talia al Ghul

I very much prefer a Talia that is complicated and tragic. She deserves her own development arc and she deserves a characterization that won't paint her as a strictly abusive mother. There's so much there, she's an old character and a great one! (Morrison I am closing my hands around your bald head). Yes, she's not a perfect mother. Who is? I prefer a Talia who maybe wasn't there for Damian all of the time, but she tries, goddamnit. Talia has her own heavy trauma and baggage that should be taken into account with the way she raises Damian. She should have way more in common with her son, especially when it comes their relationships with Ras.

actually write Damian Wayne in a published fanfic for once (you do not want to see my many many drafts and wips)

Not as much to add here, other than I don't think my Damian headcanons or characterization is that far removed from canon.

focus on other aspects of Gotham City that aren't tied to Batman/Robin (like Ragman, Wildcat, Mother Panic)

Self-explanatory. Gotham is a huge and diverse city, and having only Batman and vigilantes directly associated with him operate there is super boring.

Integrate Bette Kane and Kathy Kane into the wider Batman/"Batfamily" mythos

Also self-explanatory. It'd be nice. They're the first Batwoman and Bat-girl!

Create future opportunities for smaller, lesser known Batman characters (if this becomes a full series) like Charlie Gage-Radcliffe, the Foxes, Calvin Rose, Onyx Adams)

Please I need to see them in fanfiction form. Charlie is my blorbo who needs more comics, and Calvin is my favorite Talon. Also, he's canonically a former member of Haly's Circus and he wasn't given the immortal juice like the others - it is my hc that he was in the circus around the time that Dick was.

Rectify the deaths or character assassinations that I don't like (Orpheus, Holly Robinson)

Orpheus's death sucks major ass. Bringing him back no matter what, just to satisfy my brain. Holly Robinson deserves to be Catwoman for at least a while longer.

If I'm crazy enough to do it - introduce Christopher Kent in the future to an audience who does not know him.

MY SON. Look, I like Jon. Mildly. He's alright. But Chris is MY defacto Superman child and everyday I mourn what could've been if he wasn't aged up (deja vu) and he was able to exist for just a little while longer so that he could interact with Damian. So, if this au becomes a series, you best believe that I'm including at least a cameo. Jury's out if I fully replace Jon in the au or I make them similarly-aged brothers.

Expand/lengthen comic arcs I like and wanted to see more of (Robin: Son of Batman in general, We Are Robin, Talon, unironically Beast Boy 2000, Streets of Gotham)

Mostly self-explanatory. I just wanted to see more of Damian/Maya. Suren hanging out and going on adventures. We Are Robin needs a longer series, Talon is one of my fav comics, and I genuinely just wanted to see more of Bette in LA in Beast Boy. I also wanted to see Colin and Damian in SoG. (Plus, there was a Ragman backup running there!)

maybe give characters who are considered part of the "Batfamily" but are usually never given their dues - a chance to be main characters (Duke Thomas) (once I actually fully research him)

Yeah. This needs development on my part. I like him a lot, I just want to understand him better and give him some screen time so to speak. If I do get around to a We Are Robin rewrite or just incorporate it somehow into a larger fic.

umm... maybe expand on al Ghul lore perhaps, and develop the League of Assassins into something functional, terrifying, and tangible

Requires further research. But I love @arabian-batboy's take on how the family names (the al Ghuls, the Orghams, the Darga) connect to Behenian stars and the idea that each star could be connected to a hypothetical family and their powers. It's just cool.

[sometimeslapine]

It's not about quantity, it's about quality. Even if they arent the same scale, I'm sure I'm not alone in saying they would be appreciated.

And I'll be honest, engaging in a dialog about kink that is just ping ponging ideas back and forth sounds fun. Sometimes you don't need one massive work to lay out like a blanket to cover all the reasons and facets and quirks you like about a certain kink. Sometimes you don't even need a patch work quilt that you build upon. Sometimes you've earned the Worlds Worst Bonus from your job at the Cotton Ball Factory and you're just throwing little ball after ball at the topic, not caring where they land or if you've hit the same aspects again and again, and then you look back and see you've done a pretty good job covering the topic anyway.

Even if you aren't writing a novel, with your art you do a great job of making kink... I hesitate to say Feel Real but you make it Make Sense in a Real Way. Like of course if you lived in a world with Boob Growth Lotion, you can't just rub it in with your hands or else you'll get Boob Hands and that's Fun because Of Course that would happen. And I just kinda wanna see what you can cook up if you didn't have to find a way to visualize and show and make it look good.

bit of a delayed response to this one while turning over possible replies in my head... struggling to explain a few more conceptual blocks. writing's always been a weird subject matter for me, in one way or another. pls bear with me

so like. comparatively, inflation kink fics span back a good two decades, at least. there's an established pool of tropes, visual metaphors, ideal pacing or story beats to hit, tones or themes that set the mood, key phrases that really get at the brain, and points of finality that overall mesh really well for a good story. not to say there's no originalities to be had in this space anymore, but there's a lotta prior work to draw from, were i to need assistance filling a void in a sentence or two.

but the thing is, with the more nonsensical stuff like That Comic Thing You're Referring To, there isn't a lot of pre-existing stuff i can reference! i often find that i completely lack the language framework needed to put those weirder scenarios into words. i'm just making it up as i go, after all! and so drawing it out in some loose manner becomes infinitely easier than trying to capture all the nuances of it in a paragraph or two, because i get to lean a bit heavily on the storytelling mechanic of "Show, Don't Tell" as support.

though these scenarios being physically sketched-out-on-paper may end up leaving them a bit more concise than intended in their delivery, i'd like to think the concept i'm exploring's still getting conveyed effectively (even if i can't put the scenario to art in the way I'm /fully/ hoping to, whether due to the limits of my artistic skill, or just other general constraints of anatomy & form in a physical space) because ironically, despite a "concise" delivery, a drawing still remains open-ended enough to have its blanks filled in by the viewer's own preferences/themes/biases in enjoyment (in the same weird way the sketch of a piece can sometimes look more visually interesting & carry more emotion than that piece's finished lineart would) with the open-ended nature guiding one's thoughts to what potential fun lies outside the final panel. as you experience art, art experiences you, etc. etc. etc.

as for making it feel "real", honestly sometimes it's less about realism and more about exploring the fun and wild "consequences of over-indulgency" (said with as much love and appreciation as possible, just so we're clear!!); it's acknowledging the dangers of going wild with a Topical That Changes You without hesitation, it's of not thinking it through before leaping directly into in the path of that TF raygun beam, it's of playing with dangerous and ancient magicks because the spellbook had funny drawings that poked at the kinky parts of your psyche, it's of getting too lost in the sauce to have an escape plan.

consequences, for lack of any better word, can help ground fantasies into something more tangible! makes it feel more Real, despite very much being weird fantasy nonsense at its heart

anyway. run-on-sentences and streams of consciousness aside, i appreciate that my weird brand of nonsense is enjoyed all the same

[citrus-cactus]

For the fanfiction writing asks game: 27, 35, 43, 49. Thank you <3

Oh, thank you so much! Ask game is here.

Under a cut because this got kind of long. There’s art in it, though!

27). What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

I used to feel pretty confident about my ability to write dialogue, but these days I'm not so sure about that! I have several older fics/fic chapters that basically only exist because conversations between two characters entered my brain more-or-less fully-formed… which is one sort of “strength,” I suppose, but dialogue being “easy” (on the occasions when it is!) doesn’t mean it’s a strength of my writing. I do think I’m pretty good at hearing certain character voices in my head (though I fret way more about characterization if I’m writing in a non-dub/non-English language continuity!). But I think my answer to this question also has to include… emotions? Or like. Describing how a character feels without outright saying it. More often than not, my outlines (such as they are) end up being a combination of key dialogue and emotional beats, and I’ll fill in the blanks of a fic around those two things. If I feel like I can nail a character’s words and feelings, that piece of writing feels like it becomes something I could become proud of. I don’t know if that answers the question!

35). What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

I read bits and pieces of my slow-burn Pokemon XY romance, "Twenty Questions" (warning: this fic is 90% PG, but two of the later chapters are rated M for sexytimes!), the other night and… darn it, it almost certainly contains some of the best stuff I’ve ever written. Even though it’s unfinished, there’s just so much I still like about it. I put several bits and pieces of myself into it, and rereading it, I think a LOT of my own fears about being loved and accepted are pretty apparent, ahaha. It was going to end with the main POV character doing something he thinks is both scary and difficult, but ultimately he’s OK going through with it because he’s doing it with the person he loves. When I planned that as the ending, I really, REALLY needed that to be true for myself and my own circumstances! So it’s a very personal and self-indulgent fanfic, both from a story-for-these-specific-characters perspective and my-own-emotional-needs perspective. Working on this fic was probably uh… really important for my mental health in 2015-2016, actually. It’s something I took a lot of joy in writing and publishing, and have a lot of fond memories of, despite the other stuff that was going on those years!

I think I got what I needed from writing that fic, so I don’t feel a huge need to finish it anymore. I do hate leaving it unfinished, though (and the ending is written!! But there’s one sticky chapter to get through before I can publish it!). So maybe I’ll continue it someday, if I can go back to that headspace.

43). Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

Hmm, not so much a trope, fanfiction-wise. I really try not to think in terms of tropes when plotting out stories or deciding what to write, even though they most definitely happen. But ideas, yes!! I have an original story and characters that I would LOVE to put out in the world someday (as a comic book, video game, or something else). It’s something I started working on in high school(!) and it’s gone through a LOT of changes over the years (though honestly not enough, which is why it just exists in my head and in 5 zillion notebooks!). The easiest way to summarize it is to say it’s Greek myth revisionism mixed with magical girl anime and don’t-take-them-too-seriously fantasy-action TV dramas (like Xena or Buffy the Vampire Slayer)… and to circle back to trope talk, it is intended to be in conversation with both modern and ancient storytelling tropes galore. And I mean… this probably should be counted as fanfiction, because it most definitely uses a specific myth and Greek tragedy and the characters from that story as a starting point! But you have to draw the line somewhere, and I chose to say this is my multi-influence, original-fiction baby.

I’m so late answering this ask because I had to draw my beautiful kids that I love so much, just so I could show them to you (though I realized as I was working on this that it’s been WAY TOO LONG since I’ve drawn some of them, aaaah! I’m genuinely out of practice… looking at you, Greek helmet T^T)

Yes of course they have names, but those are a secret right now. So you get their starting roles in the story, and sometimes their full-time roles, where applicable :)

If it’s not clear how much I love drawing big, floofy anime hair after this, I don’t know what to tell you. I LOVE DRAWING BIG FLOOFY ANIME HAIR!!!!!!!1

49). What fic of yours would you say is the best introduction to you as a writer?

Already answered here, and for you, I’d say at least part of that answer still stands! “The Great Unknown” (warning: contains PG-rated Taishiro) is the thing I like to point people to the most. If you prefer to read something with no romance, I think “Stargazing,” which is a Joe and Gomamon friendship story (warning: uses American English dub names and characterization), is my strongest showing, Digific-wise. It’s also an example of a fic that was born out of dialogue that just came to me out of the blue one day, and I was compelled to write a short story around!

Phew! These answers were all probably TMI, but thank you for letting me talk about some things I’ve made that are really important to me! <3

[rollercoasterwords]

i was just rereading the last chapter of the hand that feeds - as i often do when i need to feel like a knife is digging in my chest and i need to some absolutely scrumptious gut-wrenching angst - and OH MY GODDD!!! i forget how fucking good that ending is and then i reread it and im telling you - literal goosebumps!!! the first section ending with 'This is a story about war.' i literally get chills everytime i read that!!! and the final few lines:

'A butterfly lands in the palm of her hand. She watches it flap its wings once, twice—and then it flies away.

Here is a secret.

Are you listening?

This is a story, and a story is not its end.'

my god reading this part after the emotional turmoil of the previous chapters is literally an out-of-body metaphysical experience. i feel like im dying!!! i love it!!!! :)))))

anyway it just sums up the fic so well and feels like such a thematic like thesis?? it just so perfectly presents such a compelling outlook on life and what defines its meaning and true value. like what makes a tragedy isn't its violent ends or its hateful and tense moments!! its the love and the family and the joy that truly make their lives a tragedy!!! and i love how you so beautifully execute that!!

anyway im getting serious brainrot right now, so i really just had to rant!!! now i have to reread!! kicking my feet and giggling for the angst!!!! <3

AHHHHH screaming u literally Get It. like...YES the ending to thtf is truly so special to me and one of my favorite things i've ever written. gonna use ur brainrot as license to ramble lol SPOILERS obviously

ok so the thing about the ending of thtf is that it is not at all what i originally had planned! like, i don't think it was until i was maybe...halfway? or like two thirds done with the fic that i just sort of had a moment where i was like NO i cannot end it this way it doesn't feel correct...and then i had like a eureka moment where everything fell into place and that last line appeared fully formed in my mind TRULY it was spine-shattering

so like. ok. when i started writing the fic i KNEW that i was not going to do any kind of afterlife epilogue, just because...well personally i was raised to believe in heaven and hell and center my life around that, and i lost that faith as i grew older, and now the idea of an afterlife just. is not something joyful or happy to me. like i know many people believe in some form of afterlife, but personally try as i might i have never been able to, and so i have had to seek meaning in life while believing that like. death is just it. i think ur brain dies and ur done and gone like i don't believe in souls or ghosts or anything lol. but even aside from like whether or not u believe anything happens or exists after death to me personally it's just been so much more meaningful to seek meaning in life absent any conception of an afterlife.

so i knew there wasn't going to be an afterlife. but i also knew i wanted to kill both dorcas + marlene in these very tragic and abrupt ways. like i specifically did not want to give them peaceful deaths. marlene dies afraid and alone and begging a god she doesn't believe in not to kill her here and now with so many things unfinished. dorcas dies consumed by rage and revenge and violence without ever getting a chance to heal from any of it, leaving behind friends and family who love her. and i wanted that partly because i love tragedy, yes, but also because...that is so often what death is. and that is so often what is terrifying about death. like most of us don't get any control over how or when we go, and it could be today or tomorrow and it could be peaceful or violent or painful. and that's so scary!

but i didn't want to end on that note, obviously. because the point of the story i was writing was not just to go "death is terrifying and the End and we don't get to choose when or how it happens!!" what i wanted to say was--death is terrifying and lonely and we can't control it, but life is beautiful and worth living anyway, perhaps even moreso because death is so out of our control. all the painful and scary and beautiful and joyful moments we experience are life, they are living, and there's no one experience that is objectively Better or Worse. like...grief and pain and sorrow are part of the experience of human life, just as much as joy and love and happiness.

anyway, so originally i was going to end with a little epilogue chapter from mary's point of view, sort of her and emmeline after the end of the first war like reflecting a little bit on their friends' lives and moving on. but honestly...that didn't quite fit with what i was saying, because again, what i wanted to say was that life doesn't need to be like...this endless continuing thing to have meaning. like you don't need to be remembered or leave A Mark on the world in order for your life to matter. i didn't want to make it seem like marlene and dorcas's lives were meaningful because of the people who would continue to live after them (although i do think that can be meaningful!! it just. wasn't what i wanted to say).

so what the final chapter ended up becoming is really this synthesis of like. my own worldview regarding life and death--and i feel like writing this story honestly helped me to like pin down that worldview which was a little more nebulous and difficult to articulate before. but like--last chapter. i wanted to take all these moments, both good and bad, from marlene and dorcas's lives--again, to emphasize that the "good moments" are not somehow inherently more important or meaningful than the "bad," that all life is experience and humanity and just...worth it. even the painful moments have meaning. and i also wanted to chop those moments up in time, to show that--hey! time doesn't matter.

like, we're so bound to this very linear view of timelines where life is like...i dunno. a straight line or a road or something. something you start and then you follow through to its end, and it's supposed to be like...a journey with a Final Destination. and we get scared of the End of that linear journey and we try to find ways to prolong it or tell ourselves that it doesn't have to ever end, that it can just keep marching forward in time.

and i mean, i'm still young. maybe my views will change. but as much as we are bound by linear time, i don't think that we need to measure life by those standards. all the moments of your life, good and bad and beautiful, they all exist somewhere in the fabric of the universe, forever. maybe that's a little optimistic streak of the spirituality i was raised with, but...yeah. all moments in life are meaningful, and they all exist somewhere in time, and so why does it matter what the "last" moment is? maybe death will be peaceful, or maybe it won't, but it's okay, because your death isn't your life. and that's what i'm trying to get at with the very last line--literally, a story is not its end. you can go back to any moment of a story and experience it again, you can skip around and read your favorite parts, and a story wouldn't be a story without every word and page in the book, y'know? so why should we fear the very last page? and why should we despair over the conflicts and the bits of the story that make us cry? it's all part of the story! it's beautiful! i love life and i love being human! and dorcas and marlene's lives were beautiful and tragic and wonderful and that's what being human is, and they died alone but they didn't live alone, and just....yeah! this ending is so so special to me <3

[savebatswingaus]

Scratchcraft Oneshot - Saltyy wing fic

Summary:

Foxy deals with leaving the season 2 world for the next. ...oh and Saltyy is there too I guess.   (Doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you don't know this fandom or at least watch Scratchcraft.)

Notes:

Just a short little oneshot I wrote as a goodbye to season two. (And because my 39 pages of over the summer social studies work is much more difficult than I expected it to be.)

Fic below the cut or in the link in the title. :)

Foxy sighed and laid down their head. They felt tired, and had no way to fight it. (Besides sleeping of course, but who honestly wants to do that?) They felt their tail flick against the familiar orange blankets on their bed, they tried to ignore it at first, but it soon grew into some sort of pattern. Some familiar beat that they wished they knew the words too. It was a nice background for lyrics (that, they reminded themselves, didn’t exist) but it wasn’t a nice background noise for sleeping. 

They sat up, fox-like ears twitching as they physically held their tail down. It just didn’t want to stay still! Which was fine most of the time, but when they were trying to relax and fall asleep, they would have expected their brain to have stopped the movements of all their body parts. 

They sat that way for a while, blankets ruffled around their (slightly shaking) body as they held their tail. It’s fur was fluffed up, and they could feel the hair on their head and ears also puffing up with it. Foxy hissed slightly and pushed their hands further into the fluffy appendage, they felt their claws extend out of their fingers but only cared when pricking pain formed in their tail.

Instantly, their ears snapped back and they jerked their hands away, yowling at a volume that most definitely disturbed the villagers left in the area. As it was, a blush was already forming on their face from the fact that they had just accidentally stabbed their own tail, they didn’t need other people to be worried about them. 

Foxy groaned and sat up, ears slightly less flattened now, but still definitely turned back. Their tail was still fluffed up, and the sight of a few hairs caught under their nails was enough to make them chuckle softly. 

Swinging their legs over the side of their bed, they stared thoughtfully at the orange and black hairs. The sight of them stuck under the nails reminded them of how lucky they were to have retractable claws. Sure, there was no real reason they were so happy to have the strange nails, but wasn’t it good enough that they found them cool? The way that when not retracted, they looked close enough to a regular human’s nails (if not a bit sharp) but when out, their true power became known.

They stood fully and stretched, their arms above their head as far as they could go, and felt their tail bristle out fully before relaxing back behind them. The feeling of the fur sinking back into place was familiar and welcome, especially with the (now dull) pain locked beneath it. 

Foxy yawned as they let their arms flop down by their sides, their formerly gritted teeth happy to be apart from each other once more. Well, at least now that they felt awake, they didn’t have to struggle to fall asleep anymore, right? ...they hoped that was the case.

Sighing, they made their way to the door, tail brushing gently against the floor as their two pet foxes wound around their legs. Normally such behavior would only be expected of cats, they mused, opening the door, but I guess being ‘sort of’ a fox helps them feel more comfortable.  

They stepped outside the house into the night and took a long sniff of the air. It smelled crisp and fresh, with the exception of the smoke rising from the nearby campfires. But, as they made their way to sit next to one, they supposed that it fit the scene. A village in a spruce forest, surrounded by darkness and monsters, but able to keep all that away because of the crackling flames that comforted it. (That and the torches placed haphazardly around. Campfires only did so much.)

Foxy shook out their shoulders and wrapped their tail around their knees as they watched the fire. First it blew right, the left, and then right again… but it somehow never left the ring of wood placed lovingly around it. They blinked, their eyes beginning to burn with the heat caused by being near a fire. But even with that discomfort, it beat laying, unsleeping, in a bed that would seem to let them sleep. Briefly, they wondered how long they would get to stay here. Them and their group of friends did leave for new land the next day.

They leaned back and groaned. If they were leaving tomorrow morning, they should definitely be getting a good night's rest, but with how uncomfortable they had been in their bed, they supposed it was going to be a less than perfect start of the journey. 

Foxy turned their gaze up to the heavens, eyes still shining slightly with the tears caused by staring directly into a fire. Up above, past the whispering branches of trees and friendly billowing smoke, they saw them. The stars. They were so beautiful, shining with the brightness of a thousand far away suns. If only it were safe to take the flames away from the ground below, letting monsters run rampant in the village, that way, they could see the stars in their true glory. 

They reached a hand up, claws reflecting orange light from the nearby campfire as they twitched towards the stars. Of course, if it were dark in the village, they could see just fine, but the few villagers that still lived here would not be a fan of it. (Especially since none of them were very good at fighting close range, Foxy included. They would pick a firework over a sword any day.)

They felt themself begin to slip off the log below them, eyes growing heavy and tiredness finally began to take hold of them. Just a quick little nap below the stars wouldn’t hurt anything… right? They knew this was not strictly true, monsters might not be able to sneak up quite as well in the light, but it didn’t mean they would stay away from a sleeping fox hybrid. 

Did they really care though? It wasn’t as if this world had some sort of stitching in it, letting lives be just one. They yawned tiredly and laid down in the grass next to the log. That was the second thing they were glad to have here. The lack of ticks. Sure, some bugs still walked the ground, but ticks didn’t exist here. And, as they closed their eyes, they hoped that whatever the next land they came to was, it gave that same courtesy. 

- -  -     -               -                            -

They blinked, eyes opening peacefully to the blue sky above. It appeared that monsters had not gotten them in the night. Maybe sleeping so close to a fire, and basically under a log, had something to do with it. Foxy turned their gaze to the campfire, not at all surprised to see it still burning merrily along. It was quite like it really. Ever since Storm had become a god, which was, admittedly, not that long ago, campfires had refused to go out even underwater. (They had always kept up in the rain before, maybe the ocean was the next logical step?) At first, they had wondered why that was the first thing he had done with his newfound powers, but had quickly concluded that maybe fire was just a thing that would look cool underwater.

They sat up, head narrowly missing the log that they had slept next to. (As it was, one of their ears brushed it.) Noticing two foxes curled up under a nearby tree, they paused. These were their pets, and they might never be seeing them again. It was only fair to disappear and mysteriously as they had appeared. Sure it hadn’t really been that mysterious, but they still guessed that departing in silence was a kind thing. 

Struggling to their feet, Foxy stood. They glanced up to the sky, which white clouds drifted lazy across. With a spark of sadness they realised that this was a nice day, it’s a shame that we’ll all have to leave soon. They thought to themself, holding their tail manually as they stepped away from the fire, there was no need to look like a fool as they left their sleeping place. 

“Hey Foxy!” 

Foxy jumped and whirled around, not exactly happy to hear the sounds of their pets waking up, or happy to see the person who caused that. (It wasn’t that they weren’t happy to see him, it’s just that this friend being all the way out here meant that it was going to be time to leave soon.)

“Hi Saltyy,” they sighed, their voice sounding slightly high-pitched compared to the other’s. It was kind of like a fox’s voice, slightly yippy, but all the more expressive because of that. 

“Did you see my landing?” Saltyy boasted, his chest puffed out with pride. Ever since his wings had been strong enough to lift off, he had not shut up about his flying. It was fair, Foxy supposed, nodding and picking up a torch absentmindedly. When Foxy had first figured out that other people didn’t have retractable nails, they had been quite excited to show their friends. (Even though they had all seen it before.)

“Was it a good landing?” Asked Saltyy, now looking slightly worried at he folded his wings behind him. 

At this question, Foxy nodded and smiled, choosing to speak only after the pleasant motions were taken care of, “It was a very good landing! I’m just a bit busy saying goodbye to my foxes,” 

“Oh,” They would almost hear the slight deflating of their friend. He hadn’t thought of that. (Which was fine, because Foxy hadn’t really been planning on doing so until that moment.)

They leaned down to the foxes curling around their legs, picking up one and rubbing their nose to it’s. The pet wagged its tail slightly and Foxy felt their own shift from side to side slightly. They hugged the pet to their chest and whispered something into its ear, a goodbye that they didn’t want anyone to hear because of how soppy it was, and set it down. After waiting for Saltyy to stop giggling to himself, likely because they had wagged their tail, they repeated the process for the other fox. 

They wiped away a tear, and, tail sagging to the ground, gestured for the foxes to go. The two animals stared up at them, looking slightly confused, but they spoke. “Come on, be free now,” they whispered, a sad smile forcing its way across their face, “It’s what you were meant to be,” 

The foxes looked at each other, and then back at Foxy. The animals made eye contact with them for a moment, before yipping joyfully and bounding off into the woods. Foxy smiled as they watched them, orange eyes blurring as tears threatened to fall. 

But, before they could, a noisy, but altogether very nice, voice piped up behind them. “That was really sweet of you,” it said. Foxy turned to see Saltyy standing just a bit closer to them than he had been before. It would have been sort of weird if it wasn’t for the very genuine tone in his former statement.

“Thank you,” they smiled, tail going into a bit more of a natural position as they felt themself relax, “It was the right thing to do,” 

Notes:

Hope you enjoyed! >^-^< Leave a comment and/or kudos if you feel like it. (I like to beg for validation. /hj)