#they HAVE an archive at least is the thing

[corvus-corvus]

I like comparing my answers year to year, so here’s my 2024 fanfiction-writing thoughts! If you’re curious, here’s 2023’s answers, 2022’s answers, 2021’s answers, 2020’s answers, and 2019’s answers.

1. favorite fic you wrote this year Favorite fic of the year is tied between still and salting the wound. I tried to choose. I really did.

2. least favorite fic you wrote this year For least favorite fic of the year I have to choose show me now (what harvest brings), apologies to the LaviYuu fans (me). It’s hard for me not to look at this work extra critically since it is inspired by another fic that’s lived in my heart for so many years. I also feel uncertain about my characterization.

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

From salting the wound:

“I could never replace you,” Lea continues. The whistle begins to wail haltingly. “I just didn’t know where you went. I didn’t know what I had to do to follow you. I did everything you asked.” The kettle screams. Lea’s voice goes raw. “Everything. I killed for you. And you still—”

Gives me chills every time. Still, I’m happy to say there was some competition this year and that choosing a favorite line wasn’t instant.

4. total number of words you wrote this year 31,479 published words in 2024. As always, new unpublished words in a year are harder for me to track. I’m going to estimate somewhere around 17,630 words. Which is much less than it felt like. I wrote this answer then I found a draft with another new 26,270 unpublished words. Laugh at my failing memory. That changes the unpublished words in 2024 total to 43,900. That sounds much more correct.

9. longest wip of the year The longest ongoing work in progress is still over 17,000 words long. It’s the same one mentioned in other years. Shame me as you will.

10. shortest wip of the year 98 words of a new concept is my shortest draft from 2024.

13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year Quiet. By nature itself.

14. a fic you didn’t expect to write she left me roses by the stairs was perhaps the fic I expected to write the least since I had to give a cuckolding prompt some real thought on what group of characters would fit that kink. Go, D.Gray-Man, go!

18. current number of wips I have 18 unfinished drafts at this moment. I am considering consigning 3 of them to the unpublished-but-I’m-giving-up archives. That’s still more than my usual this time of year. I suspect it’s because I got more works completed for events/prompts than just for the works’ sake (the kind that languish with no deadline); 5 out of 7 of my published works this year were for my Kinky Bingo card.

20. number of comments you haven’t read 0 comments go unread. Thank you for taking the time to read things I write and comment on them. It means more than you can know.

23. fics you wanted to write but didn’t This question is harder for me to answer than it usually is. I think I would just like to get more of my drafts completed and published. Three works-in-progress in particular that have an extra emotional attachment to I did not get to substantially add to in this year. We’ll count them. They are all for Kingdom Hearts.

25. a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read I read almost no fanfiction this year. What I did read was keeping up to date with friends’ writing and rereading fics I kept around for emotional support. In that spirit, I want to give a shout out to A Mirror, Darkly by @mirrormystic for influencing my life for several years now. I finally got that cork board, my friend who has no idea I exist. Only took me, what, five years? Thank you for writing this. Thank you for publishing it. It has been an anchor to me.

Final Notes I am trying to take the wins where I can get them. No, I did not publish many works I feel positively about, but I did publish a lot more than I had thought I could handle in 2024. I also kept up my more frequent writing habit even if it slowed from 2023; this alone is worth celebrating because just plain writing more has always been hard for me to budget the time for. Because it has impacted me so greatly, I want to note for my future self just how hard it has become to read my own writing this year. This made it extra difficult to continue drafts and to edit. Which sucked. I haven’t figured out what the issue is yet. Some suspects include redacted life issues, boredom/disinterest with some element(s) of my writing, active dislike with some element(s) of my writing, distance from fandoms, or not writing the things I’m interested in. I’ll go into the new year keeping an eye on these to see if I can tease out the source. And, finally, I give three cheers for almost three Kinky Bingos complete! The fifth entry of the 2024 batch is on its way, though it will not be published until 2025. I’m proud I’ve been able to add fourteen new sexy stories on the Internet! Let’s keep it up! (And send me an ask if you’d like to join me!)

50 Questions for Fic Readers

What fandom(s) do you read?

If you could request more of a certain type of fic, which would it be?

What is your favorite all-time fic?

Do you ever re-read fics? How about triple-read?

Do you prefer angst or fluff?

Do you prefer long fics or short fics?

Name some incomplete fics that you wish were completed.

Talk about the ships that you read.

Do you read smut?

What’s the most hard-core smut or kinky fic you’ve ever read (be honest)!

Do you read AUs?

List a few of your favorite AUs.

What type of AUs are your favorites? Give a general description.

What makes you give up on reading a fic?

What makes you pick up a fic, what makes it sound interesting?

Name a fic that made you cry (or that made you come close).

Name a fic that made you laugh a lot.

Do you have a fic recommendation page or master list?

How many fics do you think you’ve read before?

What’s the weirdest fic you’ve ever read? Describe it.

Do you read crack!fic?

Name a few of your favorite crack!fics.

Has fluff ever made you cry? What about angst?

What’s the longest fic you’ve ever read?

What’s your opinion on reading dubious consent or no consent?

Name a type of fic you’ll never ever read.

Name a type of fic that you wish there was more of.

Who are your favorite fanfiction author(s)?

When you find an author you like, do you follow them?

How often do you read fanfiction?

Do people know that you read fanfiction?

Do you leave reviews after reading fics? If so, what do they sound like?

When you read a good fic, do you go to the author’s page?

Name a common type of fic that you cannot stand.

Name all the Work in Progress fics that you are currently reading.

Has a fic ever left you unable to fall asleep or think about anything else?

Are you good about keeping up when reading Work in Progresses?

Name some of your favorite fic recommendations pages.

Name a fanfiction author that you’re scared to talk to because they’re so amazing.

Have you ever written fanfiction or considered it?

Name a fic that has a perfect ending.

Name a fic that you wish was longer.

Do you read OT3 fics commonly? Have you ever?

Do you mainly read TV shows, movies, or books?

Do you read fanfiction about Anime?

If you could imagine the perfect fic, what would it be like?

If you had to introduce someone to fanfiction with a few fics, which would you suggest?

Have you ever read a fic containing character death?

Do you have an AO3/Fanfiction.net/LiveJournal page? Link it.

What sites do you typically use to read on?

[calchexxis]

The final chapter of my Post-Canon Lightcannon fic.

First thing's first, don't worry, it's not the end of Jinx & Lux's story in this dream, just the end of the first part. I had always intended one fic to follow my version of the events of the Lux comic (at least timeline-wise) and then for another fic to follow the actions of Lux (& Jinx) during the timespan of the Mageseeker game, which followed Sylas, but reintroduced Lux as having founded a new city to protect those mages who wanted to be free of Demacia AND the violence of the rebellion either because they weren't able to fight, or didn't want to.

Secondly, for everyone who followed along with this story of mine, and even made art for it, thank you so, so much. I love that so many people were enthralled by this random passion project of mine.

If you want more Lightcannon fics, just check out my body of work on Ao3 as I have written something like 70+ Lightcannon fics of varying lengths, and many of them are complete or even completed series.

If you love my writing and truly want to support me, I'd be eternally grateful if you checked out my original novels. You can find them on Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and my latest release, Sacred, can be found on Amazon.

Again, thank you all for following this crazy challenge of mine to write and post a chapter a day. Thank you for following my girls through their ordeals.

And always,

Cheers.

[taffywabbit]

oops i accidentally wrote a review for zelda II: the adventure of link

(originally posted to Cohost on Feb 22, 2024. you can ignore this if you want, i just wanted it archived somewhere before that site disappears)

Finally beat Zelda II for the first time last night (I forced myself to finish it before starting Splatoon 3's Side Order DLC, because I knew if I didn't push through to the end of the Great Palace THIS time then it'd be years before I tried beating it again. This is probably my 4th or 5th attempt at this point). Not that this is a particularly hot take by most people's standards, but I don't think it's all that good, at least from a gameplay standpoint.

I don't regret playing it though, because I think I'm finally able to put my finger on the stuff I actually disliked about it vs the stuff that was honestly fine, or even (very rarely) actually good? I'm kinda fascinated by it, honestly. Sequels where they immediately screw around with the first game's formula (to mixed results) are neat! FE Gaiden is another example that comes to mind (hey they should give Zelda II the Shadows of Valentia treatment, that could be really cool actually).

Obviously Zelda II has a reputation for being kind of a rough experience. It's an NES game, and NES games are often susceptible to being frustrating, buggy, hard to control, or overly punishing. Sometimes, all of the above! And for what it's worth, the original Legend of Zelda was a tough and sometimes very cryptic experience as well. But I feel like the two games are challenging in drastically different ways, and I think TLoZ ended up being the formula that was retained in the long term primarily because its method of challenging the player overall did a better job of inspiring curiosity and exploration. Despite narratively being a direct sequel (with a really badass story premise that is unfortunately not really conveyed at all in-game) Zelda II took a different approach to nearly every element of the original's gameplay, which is a pretty bold move I suppose. Whether or not it succeeds at anything is fairly subjective, but it's undeniably had a lasting impact on the series, as well as the people who grew up with it (and then they went on to make some really excellent mid-2000's flash games inspired by it that I frankly enjoyed a lot more than this... and also a weirdly solid licensed Adventure Time game on the 3DS? I should go back and play that sometime, it's really fun).

Where to start with this...? Uhhh, the EXP-based leveling system where you choose what stats to put your points into is interesting! It creates a risk-and-reward system for fighting enemies instead of avoiding them, whereas in most other Zelda games besides BotW/TotK, the only reward for killing monsters is "they are no longer bothering you while you solve puzzles, and also sometimes they drop rupees/hearts/ammo". It also introduces a bit more player choice in what areas you'd like to get stronger in first, which is cool! I just wish it actually mattered in a way that let you feel powerful for even a moment. Instead, leveling Life (which is functionally just defense) is never enough to actually make you feel like you can afford to take a hit - the expectation seems to be that leveling Attack, Life, and Magic is something you do purely to keep up with how badly every single thing in this game wants to stomp you into the ground and soak up a million hits and waste all your magic. You CAN skip out on leveling one stat to prioritize another, or even try to evade tough combat situations entirely, but if you aren't leveled enough and in the exact things the game expects you to be WHEN it expects you to be, you'll immediately bump into some new asshole who jumps out of nowhere and can cut you down in 2-3 hits. Leveling doesn't make you tangibly stronger, it merely keeps the game barely playable.

This actually ends up being the core problem I have with Zelda II's design, far more than just the combat being clunky and overly punishing or the levels being visually samey and super hard to navigate. In most Zelda games (and also in a lot of other RPGs!), you get a better sword or a new power or item, and it opens up exciting new options for both exploration and combat. In Zelda II, you level up or earn a new item/spell, it's useful for maybe 20-30 minutes, and then it's immediately nullified. Wow, you got the Fire spell! Now you can finally deal with Tektites and Basilisks (which are immune to all other attacks) on the way to the next area! Well, I hope you had fun with that, because Fire doesn't work on most things you run into afterwards.

Easily the biggest game-changer is when you unlock the Downward Thrust sword technique, and finally have another option for combat besides just crouch-hopping and poking monsters with a dull butter knife. It's satisfying to use, it looks cool (by this game's standards), and it even has some utility for crossing hazards or defending yourself against swooping enemies! Cool! Unfortunately, they don't let you play around with that for long either, before nearly every enemy you see starts rolling up with helmets or shells that make them immune to attacks from above, and you never really get anything like that again (the Upward Thrust exists later, but it's far more situational and frankly not very fun or intuitive to use). Rather than feeling like you're being given tools to overcome challenges and stay above the difficulty curve, it feels like you're constantly just slightly underequipped for everything (even if you grind to earn extra stat levels) and any edge you're given is swiftly taken away from you. (Except the Reflect spell, which is ALWAYS a banger after you get it because it makes your shield Actually Do Its Damn Job after nearly every enemy starts shooting projectiles you can't block. Good work, Reflect spell.)

I feel like I grew up hearing plenty of people talk about the overall difficulty of Zelda II, though most of the complaints about its puzzles were surface-level jabs about the short cryptic NPC text, and none of that prepared me for just how ridiculously obtuse its mandatory puzzles/secrets can be. I genuinely have no idea how anyone would EVER find the Life spell - pretty much your ONLY source of healing outside of towns, since there are no hearts to pick up in this game - without some kind of guide. I was FURIOUS when I finally looked up where to find that lady's mirror and discovered that you have to walk into one of the houses, go over to the table that looks EXACTLY like every other table in every other house in the entirety of Hyrule, crouch, and press B, and you'll just pull the mirror out of nowhere. This type of interaction does not exist ANYWHERE else in the game and there's no in-game hint to indicate that you should try this. Absolutely maddening.

This and its predecessor are both games that seemingly expect you to have the physical manual on hand to help you find secrets, but at least in the first game, the way the game was designed was consistent enough that you COULD feasibly find your way to the end of it without a guide. Bombable walls in dungeons always being located in the center, things like that. It had rules and it could generally be trusted to follow them. Zelda II, in comparison, has a final level (the Great Palace) in which there are numerous rooms that look IDENTICAL and if you make one wrong turn you can go through the entire [very difficult and dangerous] dungeon on a path parallel to the one you need to be on, only to hit a dead end and be able to see the spot you're supposed to be reaching on the other side of a wall. Except you would also never KNOW you need to get there, because it looks like another dead end full of monsters but there's actually a completely invisible hole somewhere in the floor over there that drops you into the hallway leading towards the final boss. Also there is no map. TLoZ had a map. I don't know why this game doesn't have a map. Possibly because if you try to look up maps online, most of the dungeons feature non-Euclidean spaces? Idk, even a Super Metroid-style grid map would've done wonders here.

The combat is... fine? I truly don't understand how anyone thinks it's GREAT though. Zelda II is kind of like a version of Castlevania where you don't have a whip and instead have to stab everything at extremely short range, and also sometimes enemies have shields so you have to crouch sometimes to stop them from blocking you. It feels tense and high-stakes but only because, as I mentioned earlier, you really cannot afford to take stray hits in this game. Most enemies chew through your health at an alarming rate, even with the Shield spell active, and there's almost no way to replenish it unless you use a Life spell (which costs a huge chunk of your magic, possibly softlocking you if you end up in a place that requires other spells to progress). I got better at the combat over the course of my playthrough, but I never felt like I got good at it - most of my victories against strong enemies felt like pure luck and there were rarely consistent strategies for success. All of this combined with the fact that Zelda II has limited lives (and I mean LIMITED - there are only six 1-UPs in the entire game, which can each only be collected once) and getting a Game Over anywhere outside of the final palace will send you all the way back to the starting area, and it makes for an incredibly stressful experience. Even making use of savestates to lighten the fear of death can only do so much to improve it.

Overall, I think that Zelda II is a game that has a lot of really promising ideas, but then just absolutely flops when it comes to the execution. I didn't have a better way of organizing these but here are a few examples of elements I DID particularly like, even if they didn't always stick the landing:

I like the idea of the RPG leveling system in theory, but wish it was more empowering in practice and actually let the player make meaningful choices instead of just being required to survive. Choosing to hold off on a Life upgrade and instead save up just a little longer to boost your Attack feels awesome, until you time one of your inputs wrong and get destroyed. In a game with better-tuned difficulty and combat, this system would be great!

I REALLY like that Zelda II introduced a magic system to the series! I think it's cool as hell to have Link learning and casting spells to protect himself, solve puzzles, and exploit enemy weaknesses, instead of relying purely on items. (It's honestly weird to think that a system I associate so strongly with classic Zelda gameplay has only actually showed up in 4 of the games?? I guess you could consider the runes/hand abilities in BotW/TotK to be kind of like modern spells, or the slowly-refilling energy gauge in ALBW to be the most recent iteration of a Magic Meter, but both are highly debatable. Anyways I just think they should let Link shapeshift into a fairy again, that was cool.) But most of the spells in this are fairly situational and your access to magic refills is so limited that you rarely have the freedom to experiment with the spells' secondary functions (hey did you know the Spell spell turns most enemy types into slimes? that's wild. I wish I'd known that sooner).

The overworld functioning like a traditional JRPG, with top-down exploration broken up by semi-random enemy encounters, was something I honestly didn't hate. It's a little weird for Zelda, sure, but I could see it working well to support other systems in a more polished game. Overworld encounters that switch you into a type of gameplay other than turn-based JRPG combat are something I've always been fascinated by!

Anyways, weird game! I'm glad I finally got closure so I could figure out how I personally feel about it, independent of whatever the random youtubers I watched as a teenager thought. And now I never have to play it again :)

[aeron-aeranthyen]

HOTD Rewrite Project: Episode 2x02 excerpt

Link to full project on ao3:

You can read the full rewrite project on AO3:

I wanted to try my hand at rewriting season 2 of House of the Dragon. I've already rewritten the first 4 episodes, and this is my attempt on episode 5, one of my least favourite episodes of the show. My rewrite changes a lot of things about the show (first off, a 10 episode season instead of an 8 episode one) and includes cut characters like Nettles, Black Aly, Sabitha Frey, Daeron, etc. Also includes battles that we haven't gotten to see (or didn't see onscreen) like the Burning Mill, Bitterbridge, the Honeywine, etc. Also Jace spends most of the season flying round the realm — first in the Eyrie, then White Harbour, then at Winterfell with Cregan and Sara.

The challenge for this rewrite is that I have to approach it the way the actual writers of S2 would have — with all of S1 as canon. So no changes are made regarding the first season, and I only continued on from 2x01. Also feel like a big thing missing from the second season were character interactions (Rhaena and Jace never interact, Jeyne Arryn was a nonentity, Helaena and Aemond say one line to each other before episode 8 ...) and I sought to rectify that. Blood and Cheese, Rook's Rest and most other events are completely changed.

✅️ 2x01: Blood & Cheese

✅️ 2x02: The Cargyll duel

✅️ 2x03: The Burning Mill (full battle + Black Aly, the Brackens, etc)

✅️ 2x04: Rook's Rest (no anime villain Aemond)

✅️ 2x05: Cooldown after Rook's Rest, Alicent and Aemond's factions scheme to secure the regency

2x06: The Red Sowing (the sowing is the entire episode, not just the last 10 mins), also a battle at the end (Silverwing, Vermithor, Syrax & Seasmoke vs Vhagar and Dreamfyre)

2x07: Honeywine, Baela in Bitterbridge, etc

2x08: The Gullet

2x09: Battle of Bitterbridge (Baela vs Daeron) and the Fall of King's Landing

2x10: Aftermath of the Fall

Big thanks to anyone who decides to read!

[lets-try-some-writing]

It's so tragic how, in your Twins AU, Optimus had to do the Cybertronian version of plastic surgery to look more like his brother. He could have gone through his primely transformation and said he, as Optronix, got a new frame because of the Matrix. Instead, he went all out and changed his body. I can only imagine what the Decepticons will think when they see Optimus again and notice his different yet familiar frame. Megatron might think he's having work done to "wear the face of his brother" instead of work being undone so Optimus can be himself again.

More for the Twin Au? Aight. Parts One and Two here.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━

Wearing Optronix's face was not easy at first. It ached. It burned. Insults and slurs, hatred and constant attacks... if not for the Matrix, Optimus would have given up long ago and let someone kill him. But he had his duty, and he would have to be cut down before he let himself fall away from his purpose.

He allowed Optronix to become as cruel as he did. He failed to stop his twin when the war grew worse. This was merely a natural consequence. The constant ache of his spark from the lack of its other half was ignorable. The never ending discomfort with his frame was negligible when he was busy planning or engaging in battle. And as centuries passed, he honestly noticed less and less. Optronix's frame grew to be his own. The bulky and boxy build became second nature to him, his spindly frame from the archives all but forgotten. The eternally in place battle mask was something he grew to cherish as it allowed him to hide his expressions when the pain in his spark grew too great. The heavy set blaster he carried, as his brother was known to do prior to his death, became a memorial of sorts.

He was Optronix, a corrupt mech who changed upon becoming Prime. Every single cycle he repeated his mantra.

"I am Optronix turned Optimus Prime. I am the leader of the Autobots. I was once a tyrant, but no longer."

Every time he saw himself in the mirror, repeating again and again... it grew easier to believe the lie. He stopped missing things from his time as Orion, at least dulling the ache. He missed the archives, but that void he filled with reading reports. He lamented the loss of his mentor, but that too he supplemented through teaching Ultra Magnus throughout the war. It only really hurt when Ratchet and Jazz fought him, but even that was easy enough to work around if he reminded himself of what he was.

He was Optronix. He was once wicked. And this was his penance.

Then, of course, the truth had to come out swinging. One wrong poisoning attempt and suddenly his reality was broken. He'd been poisoned countless times. It shouldn't have been as dangerous as it was with his immunity. But Ratchet on synthetic energon was nothing to scoff at, and simple fuel line drainage wasn't enough. They had to remove his mask to have him purge whatever was in his tanks as well. And that was when it all fell apart.

The team had their reactions. Optimus tried his best to be neutral throughout the whole process, letting them figure themselves out and acting accordingly. He continued his mantra, having had it long since become second nature. But one thing led to another, and Ratchet, ever Orion Pax's most loyal friend, was determined to bring back the mech he thought lost.

"We are giving you a reformat." Ratchet's servos were firmly planted on his hips, his expression dead serious. Optimus could only find it in himself to frown.

"We do not have the resources for such an endeavor. It would be a foolish waste of material." A hint of bitterness entered his tone, training to mirror his brother returning with a vengeance in the form of backhanded commentary. This was who he was now. There was no Orion Pax. Nothing to reformat back into.

"Sure, we don't have enough for a complete frame overhaul, but we can fix some things. Your face, your optics, maybe even your shoulders." Ratchet scanned Optimus's frame, his optics running with calculation. Optimus shied away from it instinctually, prior experience warning him against giving too much room for a potential attack.

"Ratchet... I'm not him anymore. I know I said I was Orion Pax, and I'm sure somewhere deep in my spark, he yet lingers. But that is not me. Not anymore." Ratchet, unlike how Optimus's anxious predictions portrayed him in dreams, did not scoff or come off as cruel. His expression softened as he came closer, reaching out to cup Optimus's face, the one thing he'd left unchanged as he gave the rest of his frame up reformatting to match his brother. The doctor's digits brushed over pristine faceplates, not a scar to be seen below the optics. It was... comforting.

"I believe my friend is still in here. And if I have to drag him out again, then so be it." In an act of intimacy Optimus had not had with anyone other than Bumblebee since he was but a mere archivist, Ratchet brought their helm crests together. The touch was simple, but the way their fields mingled and melded was divine, a cube of energon to a starving mech in Optimus's mind.

He couldn't fight back if Ratchet was this gentle with him. How could he?

"Let me do this for you." Those gentle words were all it took for Optimus to cautiously agree. And from that moment onward, Ratchet took his duty to spark.

"Mask off, Orion." Constant but gentle reminders rang out through the base frequently. Ratchet made it a point to use his old name, constantly urging him to grow comfortable showing his face again. Optimus scared himself more than a few times when he passed a mirror and saw himself.

He politely ignored the pitying looks he earned from the team after such reactions.

"Hold still. You don't need to be wearing this slag all the time now, so it needs to come out." Having tweezers in his optics wasn't all that fun either. But again, Ratchet was devoted. And to be fair to him, the moment the thick optical glass was removed, Optimus found he could actually see things he'd long since become used to having to squint at to view. The optics of an archivist were meant for data collection and analysis. Having them back was overwhelming at times.

He spent three whole earth days standing around simply watching things, learning to recycle his optics for optimal data collection. One night he spent up on the roof, admiring the stars for the first time since his arrival on Earth. As much as his instincts screamed at him to put the glass back in place, he found himself content to leave his optics alone.

They were familiar. He hadn't realized how much he missed them.

"You welded your data ports closed?" Ratchet gawked at him and the welds along Optimus's sides. He nodded without any additional reactions. It was yet another augmentation.

"I had to play the part not just in appearance and presentation, but also in functionality." Arcee winced as she saw the damage. Bumblebee looked concerned. Bulkhead, Primus bless him, seemed a bit sick to his tanks as he looked at the welds. It wasn't as if they weren't cleanly done, but every mech knew that there were certain components to various castes that made them unique, and often tended to be sensitive. Having those parts removed or damaged was abhorrent to them.

It was to Optimus once, many long vorns ago.

"We're fixing this. There is no way you haven't been going through mood swings without access to your datacables." Well, Optimus couldn't exactly deny that. Sometimes it felt like he was about to die if he didn't hook up to the console. During such moments, he tended to lean on the Matrix.

Ratchet, not having gotten any sort of retort, promptly got to work. Optimus marveled at the feeling the moment he found himself able to reconnect to his cables. They were difficult to manage after so long with them locked away, but just having them free was a relief he did not know he needed as sorely as he did.

"Not much I can do about your frame shaping considering our circumstances. But these, we can get rid of." Ratchet looked Optimus up and down as he hooked up to the console, restoring his long dormant archival subsystems through dutiful training through monitoring human websites. He hardly noticed Ratchet at all until the doctor took one of his servos and promptly began delicately removing the armored plating he had welded onto each individual digit.

The whole affair did not hurt. But when Ratchet was done, Optimus looked at his servos and saw... himself.

He saw Orion in the long and slender digits meant for swift typing, not battle or the handling of a sword. He saw Orion in the gentle tap of his digits as he typed again with them for the first time in eons. He saw Orion in the speed in which they moved, graceful in a way he had not been since he slaughtered his brother before their slumbering god.

Perhaps there was some Orion Pax left in him after all.

"OPTRONIX!" Megatron's shriek of outrage rang out across the battlefield as Optimus strode forward, hesitating only a moment as the warlord's sheer wrath. He was seething, his armor flared and his field a wild whip of anger and grief all wrapped into one burning wave. His blaster blazed with energy begging to be unleashed, his denta clenched so hard Optimus could almost hear them grinding from a distance.

"You dare wear his face! You dare take pieces of his frame as your own! Is this another way to torment me, you pit spawned heathen!?" Every word stung on a spark deep level. Optimus had long since learned to look past whatever Megatron said on the battlefield. it had been easy with his mantra because Orion was hidden. Orion was not the one being insulted or hurt.

But now? It was different.

"I will tear you limb from limb and rip that face right off your frame to lay my brother to rest! Do you hear me!?"

He heard.

He heard every single word.

And Primus, did it hurt.

[maspers]

I feel like those of us in the Cosmere fandom don't appreciate how the Stormlight Archive isn't a murder mystery.

(Well okay there's a little bit of one in Oathbringer but we aren't talking about that)

It could have been so easy for the death of Gavilar Kholin to have been a murder mystery. Let's look at the scenario, shall we? There's a big meeting and party, where peace is supposed to be declared, and then the King dies. Say we DIDN'T know whodunnit. Gavilar's death haunts the narrative, and every subplot in the story soon ties back to that single driving question of "Who Killed Gavilar Kholin?". Over the course of the story, we've seen the layers slowly peeled off, one by one, revealing a whole bunch of suspects.

There's Dalinar, the King's brother, seemingly a depressed drunkard but was once known a deadly warrior and general.

There's Sadeas, the highprince who is seemingly loyal to the king but is otherwise a backstabbing slimeball.

And there's another highprince, Amaram, who was talking with Gavilar for quite a while earlier in the day.

Jasnah, the King's heretical and highly intelligent daughter, and...

Also the person who hired Liss, an actual assassin, to spy on the event and possibly kill someone else.

Then there's Elhokar, the King's incompetent son who is nonetheless next in line for the throne.

And Elhokar's hedonistic wife, Aesudan, who was apparently enough of a problem that Jasnah was planning on killing her.

Speaking of wives, the King's own wife Navani is soon revealed to be cunning in her own right... and angry with her husband.

Dalinar's sons, Adolin and Renarin, don't seem to have been in attendance, but considering everyone else in the family was there there's no reason they couldn't've been around as well and nobody mentioned it.

There's Eshonai and the other Parshendi drummers, a.k.a. the opposing faction. Eshonai in particular seems to be dangerous.

And her sister, Venli, is also dangerous, was also present, and probably wasn't supposed to be.

At least four of the legendary Heralds are soon revealed to be present as well. The King was planning on betraying Kalak and Nale, Jezrien was drinking with Dalinar, and Shalash was defacing the artwork.

Taravangian, the seemingly weak and compassionate King of Kharbranth who secretly is planning on orchestrating a LOT of murdering.

There's the mysterious "Thaidakar", leader of the Ghostbloods who Gavilar himself thought was the one responsible for killing him.

Since it's a Cosmere work and we didn't yet know Hoid couldn't hurt people, it would be easy to assume he's an available suspect as well.

Gavilar could have even committed suicide, as some part of an elaborate scheme.

A huge assortment of servants and partygoers, all of which could have been the killer. Not to mention the spren (and a seon!), who are soon revealed to not necessarily be as mindless as they seem.

Literally anyone else in the story becomes fair game at first glance. Even though she definitely wasn't there at all, Shallan Davar is revealed to have history with that particular night as well. You can keep going and connect everyone to the murder somehow, at least at first.

And lastly Szeth-son-son-Vallano, a mysterious Shin man in white, seen roaming the halls with a very bizarre sword.

Of course, we all know what happened. It was Szeth, in the King's chambers, with the honorblade. And he did it on the orders of the Parshendi. There's no whodunnit, or even a howdunnit (and even the whydunnit is only partially hidden from the reader, Jasnah's POV reveals Eshonai and the other Parshendi were pretty upfront about why they did it). There's no ambiguity, the death is merely a spark that kicks off the plot into motion.

"The Mysterious Murder of Gavilar Kholin" would have been a crutch. It would have been so easy for Sanderson to use it as a backup sideplot, supporting the other stories and keeping things tied together. There's an AU out there where Kaladin ends up being the amateur detective who puts the last piece together and confronts Szeth in an epic battle in the sky. That could have happened. But it didn't.

Brandon Sanderson does not need to rely on a murder mystery to keep his story standing. Regardless of whether it was intentional or not, he had enough faith in his narratives to make them stand on their own, moving forward beyond the death of one pathetic man. The Stormlight Archive is not about how people die, it's about how people choose to live. So it cast aside its crutch, walked forward on its own legs, and became one of the best dang fantasy sagas in history.

And then, in the ultimate "psych!" moment, things went back around and kept connecting to that night anyway. Like a bizarre episode of Columbo, where everything else around the extremely upfront murder gets revealed instead. Instead of using the murder mystery as a device to support the plot, the entire rest of the story is used as a device to support the account of the murder. So that even though it WASN'T a murder mystery we're thrown by the plot twists anyway.

And then, of course, while we're still reeling from those reveals, the rest of the plot hits us with some more Sanderlanches, because this story is still going. And it was never really about Gavilar, anyway.

It's brilliant. How the heck does Sanderson pull these crazy writing shenanigans off?

[grayson1996]

The Only Touch I Know is Hurt

Chapter 5

When Dick was younger and would refer to Donna as his soulmate the adults in his life would give him an infuriating all-knowing look. As though to say, that they and they alone understood that 'soulmate' meant crushes and first kisses and dates and all the things Dick hadn’t been interested in. Not with Donna at least.

She was his soulmate in that she was literally his other half, his home and conscience. His comforter and confidant. She was warmth and kindness wrapped up in the scent of sea salt and ozone. She was indignant fury and unceasing patience, she had always treated Dick as a man as opposed to a myth, having understood the weight that comes from the title of ‘Boy/Girl Wonder’. She too understood the pain of perfection and the anguish over never being able to live up to the image other people curated of you.

That connection surpassed romance, it simply hadn’t been needed with her.

As Donna held him in a hug that was just a hair shy of too tight, tucking his head under hers and hair cascading down to shield his face from the view of others, Dick wondered at how foolish he had been to think of any other touch as love.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know.”

“I mean certifiably the stupidest genius person I’ve ever met.”

“I know.”

“And I’m mad at you.”

“I know.”

Donna hesitated for a moment, with her arms tightening around him Dick could feel a small hiccup begin in her chest and despite himself, he felt his eyes begin to tear up as she whispered into his hair.

“...Are you okay?”

“... I don’t know.”

[thebisexualmandalorian]

Elena and Viago are alike in more ways than simply the coincidence of their births and their positions as Crows.  Their tempers especially, Lucanis thinks, as he and Teia look at one another as the pair shout at one another, audible from across the Nest.  This wasn’t how he’d intended for their engagement to become known, but… well, the bandage might as well be ripped off now.

It probably would have been better to tell Viago before - to ask his permission to marry for ceremony’s sake at least, though Elena might have cut his throat in his sleep for dreaming of such a thing - but it  seems he’d found out another way.  Lucanis might kill whoever told him, if he finds out who it was.  To be entirely fair, Viago might have tailed them himself, given how protective he tends to be of his sister.  

“He likes you, Lucanis, don’t worry.  He’ll be pleased once he simmers down,” Teia tries to reassure him, but it’s not as effective as she seems to think it ought to be.  Viago holds a grudge nearly as much as Caterina, and his ruthlessness in dealing with those grudges is legendary.  “And if Elena is happy…”

She is, he hopes.  Her smile when he’d asked her to wed, both of them still damp with sweat and naked in her sheets, will carry him through the rest of his days, even if Viago does see fit to shorten them unnecessarily.  “I want to make her happy,” he says, “Whatever it takes.”  He can’t help the flush he feels staining his cheeks, or the smile that rises unbidden at the thought of her.

“Then that’s what’s important.  I’ll talk Viago down, once he’s through shouting.”  Teia rolls her eyes. 

“Whenever that will be.”  He winces at the sound of breaking glass across the way.  “Should I be concerned about going to sleep tonight?”

“No… well, maybe.  I’ll do what I can.  Are there any contracts out of the country you can take?”

“I’ll ask Caterina.”  

[sylvebea]

Chapter 4 now posted!

When Viktor finally awoke, it was to a bed that both was and wasn’t his at the very same time.

The bed was far bigger than it had been before and there was a dainty little coffee table in the corner of the room that certainly hadn’t been there before, accompanied by lustrous couches of a deep green velvet that were slightly too ostentatious for Viktor’s liking.

The strangest thing of all, though, Viktor thought as he snapped up from the bed as quickly as his back would allow him, was the sight of Jayce Talis perched at the edge of one of the couches, shirtless and in a state of disarray which could only be attributed to a good night’s sleep.

—

Jayce and Viktor awaken in a new universe when they were certain they should have died. In this universe, there are many differences; Zaun and Piltover have united, Hextech never existed, and Jayce and Viktor have apparently been in a committed relationship for many years. Together they must find their place in this new world whilst they navigate their ever-changing relationship, and avoid the silent threat of the Noxians steadily approaching the city’s borders. At least they have each other.

4/?

[luciferanalyzestar]

you mentioned the viv/sam/skye livestream signing being lost media, and really, the only way i can find anything about it is through chaifootsteps archive. because if you go back in oct under the "viv stuff" tag around when the signing was on the 26th and 27th, you can at least find anonymous asks summarizing the stream of people who watched it when it was still available. one anon described it as awkward, other people mentioned that viv said she straight up doesnt like octavia, and theres even a screenshot made by a val stan where they show a clip from the stream, where the creators state that the reason velvet wasnt apart of the vees ending song in the finale, is because they didnt have the budget for her voice actor at that point. this would also line up with the adam discord screenshot of him asking people from spindlehorse, instead of bento box which isnt working for them at all anymore to my knowledge (but we wont know for sure until hh s2 drops,) to work on the finale hazbin s1, along with pretty much only cleanup artists posting their work for JUST that episode, and not anything else from hazbin to my knowledge. chai even tried to post a tiny url link to an archive someone had of the stream when it was suddenly taken down a day later, but if you try it now, it says that the media youre trying to download doesnt exist, or something along those lines. (i couldnt download it when it was up though, both my computer and phone freaked out when i tried,) the way i see it - why would they hide a livestream where their diehard fans got to interact with the people responsible for their favorite cartoons, and then take down the archive of it? (because who else would?) why hide anything AT ALL if theyve nothing to hide? the whole thing is very suspicious, but also makes me very grateful tumblr is still a website with a pretty solid way to look back in time compared to others.

Found this screenshot on his blog and screen recorded the clip in case that user one days deletes their account or something.

There are probably more clips from this stream, but Twitter's search feature is awful.

I found the post with the link, and I cannot download it either.

I check to see if it was uploaded to internet archive, and it was not there either. If you are still out there whoever upload it to download.megaup.net and you still have the stream, please upload it to mega.nz, the internet archive, or google drive. This goes for everyone who was able to download the stream too.

This whole thing is very suspicious. Viv was hyping this stream up and has a playlist for it on her channel. I do not think she was planning on deleting the stream originally.

I found the recap post you mentioned. The stream was done around when the transphobic discord messages were bought up again. She would have disabled the live chat replay feature instead of taking the whole stream down.

[the-mountain-flower]

The Exiled and The Outcast

Chapter Eleven: And The Dinner Here Is Never Second Best~

Falst placed another book in the “X” pile, having finished skimming through it. He picked up the next one, and only took a glance at the cover before immediately placing it on top of the previous one.

“That was quick.” Dainix joked amicably, one of Falst’s books open in front of him.

“I’m a fast reader.” Falst quipped back, a smile on his face. “That one’s a Life spellcarving textbook, it doesn’t have anything fire-related unless you count burn treatment.”

Dainix glanced at the other books on the desk. “You’re really into spellcarving, aren’t you?”

“Eh, not that much,” Falst looked away, the smile falling. “I just… had reason to learn some, that’s all.”

Seeming to take the hint,  Dainix turned back back to his own reading.

Falst picked up the last book in the pile and started skimming through it.

It wasn’t until several minutes later, that the awkward silence was broken.

Falst looked over in confusion, and maybe a bit of concern. “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dainix responded, collecting himself. “Just a… mistranslation, I think. Ainoru did not get nasty with the Jandarra the Clever. He killed them.”

“Oh! Oh, that makes so much more sense.”

“Right?! Jandarra’s other stories make it clear they weren't interested in that kind of thing. I don’t think there’s anywhere in the Rauan Desert where they tell this version.” He gestured to the book in his hands.

“How did that even happen?”

“I have no idea, but I get the feeling this isn’t written directly from the source.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Yeah.” Dainix sighed, and shook his head. “I kind of expected something like this, but still.”

“You expected to read that a legendary hero fucked an assassin?”

That got a chuckle out of Dainix. “Not specifically. I just meant that I didn’t expect much of  whatever I find that I know about to be… well, we’re a bit more isolated from everywhere else than we are with each other, mostly thanks to environmental differences. I’m not surprised that what this place does have isn’t that accurate.”

“But, you’re still searching.”

“It’s the only thing I can do, unless I give up. And, I like to think there’s at least a chance of me figuring out, of returning home someday.”

Was he saying that part to Falst, or to himself?

Falst picked up the books from his secret spot to go put them back, mildly disappointed that none of them had given Dainix anything to work with. But he supposed that was the risk of looking so far abroad for something so obscure.

Falst picked up another book on his way back to the desk, but when he came back Dainix wasn’t there, presumably off looking for something else that might tell him something useful.

Falst plopped himself down on the chair he’d claimed, but didn’t open his own book just quite yet. His pensive gaze landed on the candle he’d been using last night. The wick was black and curled, the flame long extinguished. A few drops of wax had cooled down before reaching the bottom, frozen in time halfway down. It had no reason to still be there, but it was, because it just hadn’t been removed.

“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know why I’m here, either.”

“Are you talking to the candle?”

Falst grimaced. How much of that had Dainix heard?

“Of course not.” Falst responded with faux nonchalance. “Candles burn down. I was talking to the metal thingy that’s holding it.”

“Ah, my mistake.” Dainix’s smile had no business being warmer than any flame that candle could’ve made. “Is it a good conversationalist?”

Falst laughed. “Totally. Just make sure the clock over there doesn’t think you’re talking to it. It’s very self-absorbed.”

Falst’s heard gave an unexpected flutter when he made Dainix laugh again.

This was probably the first time Falst didn’t bother to hide while waiting for Dainix to prepare the meal. There was just no reason for it at this point.

Before trying Dainix’s food, Falst would definitely have been suspicious of the idea of spicy stuff with fruit of all things. He still wasn’t quite sure how Dainix made it work without diminishing the sweetness, but he sure wasn’t going to complain. For being unfamiliar with most of the ingredients, Dainix was very adept at creating something incredible from his supply, and Falst had to wonder what he was capable of in an actual kitchen. It was mesmerizing, how he kept his gaze so steadily on the food he was working with, keeping his hands busy; but his shoulders looked so relaxed, and there wasn’t a moment where his expression wasn’t graced with a gentle smile.

Falst was so lost in watching Dainix’s cooking, that he almost didn’t notice him putting more of the fruit in half of the food- the doclionana he’d called it- than in the other. He didn’t miss that when Dainix handed half of the dinner to Falst, it was the ones with more fruit.

“Here you go. Careful, it’s still hot.”

Falst almost laughed at the warning, coming from someone who was just holding the food he was cooking directly over the fire with his bare hands.

The doclionana was delicious, and once again Dainix had managed to make it so that it was simultaneously spicy and sweet in a way that didn’t cancel each other out or clash. How much different was it from what Dainix made for himself?

Was it possible for Dainix to have noticed Falst’s preference for sweetness?

He couldn’t have. There was no way he was paying that much attention to him. For as much as Falst paid attention to Dainix, he thought there was no reason for it to go the other way around.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plot twist: Dainix's cooking is so good that the furniture comes to life and starts singing about it ;P

I was completely overthinking the food part way more than I had to. just to end up using a made-up word that means nothing irl and hand-waving it as "it's fiction" for the sake of saving me from myself lol (this chapter was already difficult for me)

Remember to drink water, eat food, take your meds (if applicable), and get enough sleep. Love you all, and have a great [insert time here]! <3

[cappurrccino]

[kicking my feet up like a schoolgirl, daydreaming about working at NASA]

[iamanartichoke]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a creator -

I am fine with "the audience" -

downloading my fics

printing my fics

copy/pasting or screenshotting my fics

sharing your saved copy of my fics with anyone else who might want them in the unlikely but never impossible case that my fics are no longer available on ao3

making a book of my fic(s) and running your fingers across the pages while lovingly whispering my precioussss

doing these things with anything I create for fandom, such as meta, headcanons, au nonsense like 'texts from the brodinsons,' etc

I am not fine with "the audience"

doing any of the above with the purpose/intent of plagiarizing my work or passing it off as their own in any capacity

feeding my work into ai for any reason whatsoever

Save the fandom things. Preserve the fandom things. Respect the fandom things.

Enjoy the fandom things.

[theinsomniacindian]

Indian Chaotic Academia

Wanting to wear jumpers and hoodies but changing your mind after looking at the daily temperature

Scoring 97% in English in your board exams but your spoken English makes you sound like you've never studied it in your life

Messy yet (somewhat) intelligible handwriting

A weak spot for old Bollywood songs regardless of your personal taste in music

Chipped nail polish and lots of bracelets

Wanting to study in a park or a cafe but you can't as they're too loud and busy

Adrak chaha is the solution to everything

Muting the class WhatsApp group so you can read angsty fanfiction at 3 a.m. without alerting your parents

Vada pav and samosa>>>>

Buying several highlighters but still end up using blunt pencils to mark important study material

At some point, a B is the best grade you'll ever find in your report card

Reading the Mahabharata at the back of the class in the same way you would read a modern novel ("Nooo, why did he have to die 😭")

Coming up with ideas for study charts but never actually making them

Getting a lot of holidays and vacations thanks to the amount of festivals celebrated throughout the year

"Sir that's my emotional support gel pen brand that I've been using since fifth grade"

The poem you have to learn in your regional language class is actually your favourite childhood song

Rickshaw rides are better than any other mode of transport, change my mind (you can't)

Getting the 'Slytherin house' that always comes last in every school event

Only buying books from the second-hand book stalls because they have all the good ones

Waking up at 4 a.m. for last minute revision and getting disturbed every five minutes by trucks blasting out entire songs through their horns

[aeron-aeranthyen]

HOTD Rewrite Project: Episode 2x05 excerpt

Link to full project on ao3:

You can read the full rewrite project on AO3:

I wanted to try my hand at rewriting season 2 of House of the Dragon. I've already rewritten the first 4 episodes, and this is my attempt on episode 5, one of my least favourite episodes of the show. My rewrite changes a lot of things about the show (first off, a 10 episode season instead of an 8 episode one) and includes cut characters like Nettles, Black Aly, Sabitha Frey, Daeron, etc. Also includes battles that we haven't gotten to see (or didn't see onscreen) like the Burning Mill, Bitterbridge, the Honeywine, etc. Also Jace spends most of the season flying round the realm — first in the Eyrie, then White Harbour, then at Winterfell with Cregan and Sara.

The challenge for this rewrite is that I have to approach it the way the actual writers of S2 would have — with all of S1 as canon. So no changes are made regarding the first season, and I only continued on from 2x01. Also feel like a big thing missing from the second season were character interactions (Rhaena and Jace never interact, Jeyne Arryn was a nonentity, Helaena and Aemond say one line to each other before episode 8 ...) and I sought to rectify that. Blood and Cheese, Rook's Rest and most other events are completely changed.

The structure of my rewrite:

✅️ 2x01: Blood & Cheese

✅️ 2x02: The Cargyll duel

✅️ 2x03: The Burning Mill (full battle + Black Aly, the Brackens, etc)

✅️ 2x04: Rook's Rest (no anime villain Aemond)

✅️ 2x05: Cooldown after Rook's Rest, Alicent and Aemond's factions scheme to secure the regency

2x06: The Red Sowing (the sowing is the entire episode, not just the last 10 mins), also a battle at the end (Silverwing, Vermithor, Syrax & Seasmoke vs Vhagar and Dreamfyre)

2x07: Honeywine, Baela in Bitterbridge, etc

2x08: The Gullet

2x09: Battle of Bitterbridge (Baela vs Daeron) and the Fall of King's Landing

2x10: Aftermath of the Fall

Big thanks to anyone who decides to take a look!

[columboposting]

genuinely insane to me that Torchwood gave Jack a secret evil brother and somehow he is the least interesting character in the entire goddamn show. No character traits allowed. His one outfit is BEIGE??? What if Hayden Christensen like, actually couldn’t act. Sucking black hole of charisma. Jack having a fucking secret evil brother should be the campiest wildest shit imaginable and instead its like watching fucking paint dry. Unreal. (It does not help that John Hart is standing next to him the entire time serving cunt). How did they fuck that one up that badly.