#they won't all be this long/in depth. at least not if I'm gonna keep it up lol

[prince-of-elsinore]

Dear M*A*S*H: S1 Ep 03 “Requiem for a Lightweight”

Previous episode here.

This episode follows much the same pattern established in the previous two; Hawkeye and Trapper encounter a problem. Hawkeye comes up with a devious plan to solve it. Trapper assists. Hijinks ensue.

I think it’s worth noting that I always saw Hawkeye as the main character of M*A*S*H and assumed that was the common perception. I’ve since come across the view that Trapper was meant to be an equal protagonist, and that his secondary role in these episodes was a mistake or unexpected. While I don’t claim to know all intentions or understandings behind the scenes, the pilot certainly primed me to see Hawkeye as the protagonist and Trapper as his wing man, and the next few episodes further reinforce that--not necessarily to the show’s benefit, as the formula already feels a little repetitive.

This episode departs from the established formula, though, in that what sets events in action is not the noble desire to send a Korean boy to college or procure medicine for patients, but the far baser desire to keep around a hot nurse whom Hawkeye and Trapper both want to bang. The show does make a point of the fact that she’s also a talented nurse, and to his credit, Hawkeye seems genuine when he tells Henry, “Real talent in the operating room is hard to find.” Given how much focus the episode puts on Hawkeye and Trapper competing for Nurse Cutler’s affections, however, and the fact that her supposed talent is demonstrated with a brief scene in which she... does exctly what every other nurse in the outfit does, it’s hard to believe that it’s her competence spurring the surgeons’ efforts to get her transferred back to the 4077. If only she had done something a little more extraordinary--noticed something a doctor or Houlihan missed, perhaps--the stakes would feel higher, more sympathetic, and more in line with the ethos of the show. The writing doesn’t convince me that anything bad would come of the failure of Hawk and Trap’s plan, which is never a good sign for the strength of a story. There are even plenty of other beautiful women whose pants they can try to get into, so it’s not like they’ll be forced into monkhood without her.

If Cutler weren’t so gorgeous, would they go to such lengths? I doubt it--unless, again, she’d done something more medically significant. But I suppose the writers didn’t think the audience would be as invested in good nursing as hot nurses, especially for a comedic premise. This is the kind of plotline I’m glad the show soon left behind.

One thing of interest to me is the chain of cause and effect between Margaret and our dynamic duo. It’s really their disrespect of Margaret that creates all of their problems in the first place. Margaret regards Hawkeye’s flirting with Cutler in OR with disapproval, but I don’t believe it’s until she attempts to confront him later that she makes up her mind to have Cutler transferred. Annoyed that Margaret is interrupting them chatting up Nurse Cutler, Hawk and Trap let loose on her before Margaret can get in a word. Notably, the insults focus on her womanhood and sexuality with quips such as “At least she didn’t have any trouble figuring out your sex.” It’s after this degrading exchange that Margaret decides to take drastic measures.

Hawkeye and Trapper’s animosity towards Margaret is of course further aroused by the news of the transfer. Yet later, when Trapper is practicing his punches for the big match using Frank’s duffel, Margaret passes by and Hawkeye offers a cordial, “Morning, Major” with no apparent ulterior motive. He turns back to Trapper as if expecting her to move on. Margaret is obviously caught off guard, though, and stops to reply “Good morning, Captain,” with a pleased smile. Surprisingly, Hawkeye continues the conversation rather civilly, though it’s clearly no invitation for her to stay and chat. Now, it’s possible, I suppose, that he’s baiting her with what she notices next; her good mood sours as she points out, “Isn’t that Frank’s bag?” that Trapper is punching. To my eyes, though, there’s nothing that indicates Hawkeye was expecting that turn, or the retort Trapper shoots back: “I thought you were Frank’s bag!”--though I could just as easily imagine this coming out of Hawkeye’s mouth. It’s yet another insult to Margaret’s femininity, and I wonder if what follows would have happened if Trapper had kept his trap shut.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Trapper is the one who stands to pay the price when Margaret attempts to foil their plan to cheat in the boxing match. Frank is against the ether plan on “principle” and, I suspect, simply because he doesn’t like Hawkeye and Trapper and would find it funny to see Trapper get hurt. For Margaret, who actually pulls the switcheroo of ether for water, I think it’s revenge of a more personal nature.

While Hawkeye and Trapper thus create all their own problems in this episode, the show doesn’t cast them in a bad light for it; at least, not for their insults to Margaret. What I do think the show is already implicitly poking fun at is Hawkeye’s Don Juan persona, which is so overdone with Cutler that I believe it was meant to make even contemporary audiences cringe. It’s a proper comeuppance when in the end she goes for Trapper instead, who hasn’t crowded her nearly as much.

It’s interesting too that for all Hawkeye’s Lothario tendencies, he’s hardly typically masculine in this episode. He’s no red-blooded all-American hero, ready to put his body in harm’s way for the woman he loves. He’s ready--eager even--to throw his friend under the bus and let him take the physical beat down. He readily admits, when Trapper questions his “bad shoulder,” that it’s “the result of being spineless.” It’s played for laughs, and the ending reinforces that the coward doesn’t get the girl; it’s also the clearest indication we’ve had yet of what an atypical protagonist Hawkeye is. We’re meant to admire and like him--for his principles, intellect, and compassion, not for his brash readiness for a fight or coolness in the face of danger. A coward he is not, as we’ll see time and again, but he is afraid, of many things, which the series will not shy away from exploring. But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, suffice to say, John Wayne he most certainly ain’t.

More thoughts:

I didn’t realize before that at the beginning when they’re leaving the mess tent, Radar isn’t playing cards with Hawkeye and Trapper. They’ve roped him into being their table so they can continue their game on the way to OR.

It was a surprise to see Frank happily planting flowers and I actually felt bad when Trapper picked them all. This was probably just for the gag but now I’m wondering about gardening Frank headcanons.

Trapper’s “Only if you put those on” to Hawkeye as he fingers the pantyhose: he really didn’t have to lean in so close and say it so flirty. And yet he did.

I believe this is the first appearance of The Still 2.0! Not in its full glory yet; still rather rudimentary.

When the boxing opponent shows up, his C.O. asks if they can “rustle up some steaks” for him. Maybe that’s why they had steak on hand for Trapper’s black eye later, when we know good meat is a rare commodity at the 4077.

First appearance of William Christopher as Father Mulcahy! And in typical fashion he destroys Trapper with a single word of advice for the match: “Prayer.”

Biggest laugh runner up (couldn’t pick just one): Hawkeye on his fake bad shoulder: “Actually, I’m in pain most of the time. I don’t like to burden my friends,” made all the better by him trying to use the same line at the very end, only to get literally pushed off the bed as Cutler goes for Trapper. What can I say, I love loser Hawkeye.

Biggest laugh: Hawkeye to Trapper, Serious Face on: “You got a cute body.”

Parting thoughts: There are lots of good laughs here, but it just hasn’t got the substance or plot strength of the previous episode or even the pilot, something that might have been easily fixed by fleshing out Nurse Cutler’s competence and upping the stakes.

[physics-of-one-piece]

Doflamingo's Day Trip to Punk Hazard

Clear the way. The King of Dressrosa is leaving the royal palace in a flair of absolute style for urgent business on Punk Hazard.

Better hold onto his coat for dear life, because this man is FAST. I recommend wrapping your arms around his neck, I would not trust that coat regardless of how it sticks to him. His arms aren’t in his sleeves, that is a death game I do not want to play. So, arms around his neck. Take a nice little inhale of his royal cologne probably worth more than your civilian life if you’re feeling brave. Maybe nuzzle into him, get comfy, you know. It’s gonna be a trip. You won't have the time to breathe. At least the view will be nice, both at the sea and the... Pilot.

Okay. Ready? (Dear God, look at the size of his shadow, holy hell)

Go!

AND HE’S OFF!

Welcome to Doffy's Physics Lab. Let’s calculate how fast Doflamingo flew from Dressrosa to Punk Hazard.

Things to note:

1) The One Piece world is much bigger than Earth. It’s not possible to calculate how big it is. 100 times big is too big, two times big is too small, but Oda put the bottom of the sea at 10km, which is the same as the depth of the Earth’s sea. See the confusion?

2) Law slowed him down by giving him the ultimatum and taking Buffalo & Baby 5 hostage and no clouds.

First, we need the distance.

We can calculate the distance from Punk Hazard to Dressrosa using the SAD tanker. It’s mentioned in the manga it takes a day to reach Dressrosa by ship from Punk Hazard, so that’s 24 hours. A cargo ship goes 25 knots per hour. 

nautical miles = 25 knots • 24 hours

= 600 nautical miles

We need to turn them into kilometers. 

1 nautical mile = 1.852 kilometers

kilometers = 600 • 1.852 kilometers = 1111,2 km ~ 1111 km

Keep in mind, the One Piece world is bigger than ours. This can be considered a short distance for them, but long distance for us. For real life example, London and Berlin are 1,100 km away from each other. The flight takes 1 hour 40 minutes by plane.

Next, we need time. Some people will hate that I use anime time, but for Punk Hazard, it isn't that big of a stretch to use it as a guide. Also, the fact the Straw Hats had a party and ate makes me think there was no way they were at the coast for a full hour before setting sail. Nuh-uh. They'd be sliced if they had stayed that long. But I'm also aware real-time probably happened faster such as a fight, so we're gonna cut the time of the ep where Nami & Usopp beat Baby 5 & Buffalo in half.

Doflamingo set off to Dressrosa at Ep 620, landed on PH in Ep 624. If we go and calculate when he made it to Punk Hazard by making it 18 minutes for each ep (counting 11 mins of 624, half-cutting 621, and counting only last minute of 620), it would be under an hour. That’s already awesome. He’s one of the fastest fliers in the series.

Let’s first focus on those 2 last minutes of Episode 620. 

At 21:25, he leaves the royal palace. At 22:23, he is already over the sea. That’s 58 seconds it takes him to cross over Dressrosa. Thankfully, the fandom did the size of Dressrosa already. 

The diameter of Dressrosa is 50 kilometers. The area is 1,960km². 

That is not even the size of Madrid (Madrid is smaller). So, he’d fly across Madrid like NOTHING.

To put Dressrosa as a comparison with the real world, it is the size of Kuiu, an island in Alaska in United States.

Here it is. It’s a shame Kuiu is so thin, but the length isn’t a bad thing to have. That’s what we need. Length.

Okay, the royal palace is at the center of Dressrosa. That means we go 50÷2 to get the radius.

That’s 25 km. Not meters. Kilometers. 

Okay, so, I mentioned Madrid. Do you all want to know the  area and diameter of Madrid, the capital of Spain, the biggest city in Spain? 

😁😁

It’s 606 km². The diameter is 27 km. The radius is 13.5 km. He’d cross all over Madrid within 30 seconds maybe.

🙂🙂

(Screams)

Haha. Ha. 

If anyone wants to know, Dressrosa is, thankfully, NOT bigger than Spain. Spain is 500 times bigger than Dressrosa. 

All right, let’s calculate how fast Doflamingo is moving to get from Dressrosa and already be out at sea within 58 seconds. We’ll add about a kilometer so the sea is the only thing beneath him as shown in the anime.

We’re using the simplest formula here.

speed = distance/time

We’ll put distance into meters because we have seconds here, not hours.

26 km = 26,000 m

speed = 26,000 m/58 seconds

speed = 448,27 m/s (1470 feet/s)

Let’s convert it to km/h

448,27 m/s • 3.6 = 1614 km/h (1002 mph)

Hahaha, holy FUCKING SHIT. That's jet speed.

I TOLD YOU, HANG ONTO THAT COAT FOR DEAR LIFE, I TOLD YOU.

Dressrosa to Sea = 1614 km/h (1002 mph)

Okay, he broke the sound barrier. If anyone wants to know, you break the sound barrier after your speed passes 1239 km/h (770 mph).

He covers 26 km within 58 seconds at 1614 km/h speed. He covers 448 meters per second. He is moving at jet speed here.

Okay, now comes the Sea to Punk Hazard. Doflamingo has cleared 26 km of the 1111 km so that leaves him with 1085 km to cross.

Here are the minutes. We now won’t count the 2 minutes from 620 because he passed that area.

9(split in half bcs of the fight)+18+18+11= 56 minutes

speed = distance/time = d/t

Speed = 1085 km/0.933 h

Doflamingo’s Speed = 1162 km/h (722 mph)

And there we go, he was flying at 1162 km/h.

Not breaking the sound barrier but it makes sense by what the anime showed.

One thing to note is this includes him saving Buffalo & Baby 5 at a point where Law made sure behind where they came from there are no clouds for Doflamingo to use. He loses about 4 minutes with Law blackmailing him and then he has to take a detour which takes him 11 minutes. We can’t know whether the Straw Hats talking at the Sunny was happening at the same time as Doflamingo landing at Punk Hazard, so we’ll give him those 11 minutes because there are no clouds.

That’s 15 minutes he loses, which makes it 41 minutes. Without Law interfering and the clouds not being there, he would have arrived at Punk Hazard within 41 minutes.

So let’s calculate that.

41 minutes= 0.683 hours

1085 km/0.683h

His full speed without being slowed down by his adopted nephew blackmailing him and kidnapping his scientist to destroy his entire business would then be:

Full Speed (without being slowed down) = 1588 km/h (987 mph)

That's 441 meters per second. That’s four soccer fields he crosses within a second.

Damn. And that’s his casual speed. Broke the sound barrier again.

He is faster than a plane, planes go 600-800 km/h. 

To put into perspective just how fast he is even at that speed, a car takes 10 hrs at the distance (From Berlin to Slovenia) of 1,090km. He literally crosses the length of entire Europe within 56 minutes based on anime time. And that’s him slowed down, according to anime time. The fastest flight from Berlin to Slovenia (1,091km distance) takes 3 hours by plane.

When he found Buffalo & Baby 5, they were away from Punk Hazard. This is important cus he got angry then. That means he SPED up.

So, now we have his descent speed to cover. You know, when he lands like a boss. Yeah, that.

Doflamingo’s Descent Speed

Okay, Doflamingo wears bright colours (white, pink, vermillion) the dominant colours are white and pink. From the front, you’d see about 40% of white and 60% of pink bcs of the way his coat hangs on his shoulders, it makes him look even bigger when he is big enough already like dear God, this man gave me heart attacks 90% of the time.

Why are his clothes important? Because of the sunlight reflecting off his clothes, therefore creating the reflection that causes the marines to see him as a spark, like a star in the daylight. The brighter the clothes, the more reflection which has a possibility of creating the spark in the sky (again, the sparks in the sky are caused by the object shining or you know, being ON FIRE bcs it’s falling down the atmosphere)

We’ll put his magnitude to +10. Humans can see the faintest star when its magnitude is +6. The more negative the magnitude, the brighter sth is. The Sun has the magnitude of -26. Magnitude isn’t important, though, except…

This means we can only see him coming when it’s too late. The anime showed this as a star gleam which I understand, to show just how FAST he is coming. They showed it in daylight, daylight has apparent magnitude of -26. This is a known thing, but when you see something like that, where there is that bright of a spark in the sky and next second it lands in front of you… its speed is 360,000 km/h. He is the only warlord you can see coming at you BECAUSE he wears bright clothes. Is that good or bad? Who knows. 

Doflamingo seems to first be flying at 20ish degrees downward toward the shore, but in the last moment (ten meter from the ground or less) he makes his approach a full horizontal one, because he whooshes past the marines in a full horizontal, linear direction and then does that epic landing.

For now we’ll focus on the descent speed, which includes his linear speed when he whooshes past the marines (in the anime when he whooshes past them he is not visible to them, he leaves blurs). 

I don’t want to fuck with curves. There’ll be tangents and there’s no need for them. I don’t think his strings even let him make a curved downward descent? He can do curves turns, but I don’t think he can do descents? It’s up for debate.

Okay, so let’s say Doflamingo is about 100 meters high in the sky. He reaches the ground within 0.05 seconds in the anime. Not even 1 full second, oh boy, fluffy man is FAST, GODDAMN. My eyes just bulged out of my head. Okay. Props to the anime team, that is a great show of his speed right there by making it last such a short time. 

Also, they never see him completely until he lands. We, the viewer see him, which means he is at maximum 4.8 km away (this is how far the human eye can see).

That means Doflamingo passes 4.8 km within 0.05 seconds.

I’m scared to calculate this, to be honest. This will be… this will be fast.

Let’s convert kilometers into meters to make our life easier. We get m/s and then we’ll convert them to km/h.

Buckle up. Keep a death grip on those feathers. Doflamingo hasn’t landed yet.

4.8 • 1000 = 4800 meters

descent speed = 4800 m/ 0.05 s

Descent speed (m/s)= 96 000 m/s (314 960 feet/s)

And into kilometers

Descent speed = 356,600 km/h (221 580 mph)

O.O

Holy fuck.

Yeah, crazy fast. You know, it makes sense now why G2 Luffy (who we’ll put moves at 2,400 km/h based on jet speed) was nothing in terms of speed. Damn.

Okay, so… this speed has not been achieved by any atmospheric or orbital aircraft, so I genuinely have nothing to compare it to. This is the velocity of objects in deep space like gravitational slingshots.

Okay, let’s put it into Machs. Fastest Mach we know of is Mach 30. Okay.

Formula is:

Mach number = speed of the object/speed of sound

Speed of sound is 343 m/s.

Mach number = 96 000/342

Mach number= 279.3 Mach

Doflamingo’s descent speed is Mach 279.3

No wonder he’s a blur. No wonder they only see him as a fckn spark in the sky. 

He didn't simply break the sound barrier here, he left the sound barrier at the bottom of the sea.

And he’s landed.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting off this 3 meter ride. Yep. Hopping down. It was fun. The coat is really soft.

Thank you for the ride, Doffy. Please go 50 km/h next time.

Taglist: @fanaticsnail

(Let me know if you want me to tag you in my posts and if you want to be tagged only for particular characters, let me know that, too. Thank you all for the love and support, it's really taken me off guard. You're all so wonderful. Love you all ❤️)

[a-twistedheartslonging]

About your non human au

Got a bit of a ramble plus a question but it's a bit long

How open to cuddling are the Nrc folks? Or more like, how willing and upfront/obvious about wanting scritches and pets is everyone in Nonhuman au. I was wondering where on the sliding scale of "unabashedly unashamedly asking for cuddles" vs "i totally do not want cuddles but if you don't give attention to me i will be upset for completely unrelated reasons that have nothing to do with not being petted and cuddled"

(also due to my garbo memory, i can't remember if basically the majority of all of NRC is now nonhuman in this au but i do recall that humans are rare so I'm gonna put in the other NRC folks too in case also cause it's fun)

I feel like the most upfront and unabashed about demanding or asking for scritches would be Lilia of course. Followed by Ace (i feel like he's desperately trying to act smug and jokey about it but he will be genuinely upset if you turn him down or worse get annoyed and actually go to someone else). Deuce i feel like wouldn't necessarily be super upfront (he's uber embarrassed and doesn't know how to go about communicating that) but he will do what he thinks will get what he wants without being too pushy. Lots of Deuce being fairly clingy and lots of casual leaning on reader/yuu but Deuce would get flustered easily i believe and he doesn't have the word weaving skills like Ace to try to bluff his way out. Also Floyd will give Lilia a run for his money with how vocal and willing to go get his damn cuddles. Kalim as well but he's not as likely to gun for Reader/Yuu like Lilia or Floyd. More of an impromptu decision based on encounters.

Cater, Trey, Jack, maybe even Ruggie and Jade are less openly vocal and pushy about their scritches and cuddles. They are more likely to be casual i believe and also try to sneak in their wants. However they probably won't deny nor completely avoid the want for pets or grooming. Rook can technically be placed here too cause i feel like he wants to have attention on him but also he wants his little mischievous chase games in the mix (he's being chased and the reward is pets) but he doesn't want to miss out on that relaxation time just in case the lil human can't keep up. Some good old Rook complexity in there involving wanting to be accepted to be seen and to see beauty but also an odd sense of trepidation and almost shyness, he might even half joke about how you're trying to tame him and that you should be responsible for those you tame

The last group definitely feels like the type to never outright demand or ask for cuddles scritches or pets but they will be soo petty and irritated if they think they're not getting their due attention. Jealous tsunderes to me lol. Leona, Vil, Riddle, Idia and Malleus go in this category but for different reasons. Leona and Vil just have a lot of pride and an image they're trying to uphold. Riddle and Idia are soo touch starved and socially awkward that they both don't know how to go about communicating what they want but also they don't know how to handle it when they're actually interacting. (riddle is so socially awkward but he at least has a plethora of rules to work off of unlike idia). Malleus is awkward and out of his depth so i think he just wouldn't know how to express what he wants but he's very jealous of the others for getting their own cuddles so easily in comparison

Loving the ideas you got!

I do love a good ramble.

Ok, so

“How open to cuddling are the Nrc folks?” 

With the guys at that school in general It's sort of a case-by-case type thing and depends on the person in particular. Kind of like how some people are cool with physical affection or hugs but some aren't, and with others, you gotta build up a bond for them to be cool with it. Some of the beasties aren't gonna want some random person touching them, just like a regular person wouldn't be cool with it.

A thing to remember though that changes the circumstance is, that this is a school full of a bunch of hormonal dudes and you happen to be a cute exotic little thing. So some are gonna be cooler with that curious touching just for that…though you should be wary of their intentions.

But that’s just an in general thing for the students, it's gonna be dif with the main guys since they know you and you went through all that stuff with them. You guys are homies.

Looking at what you wrote I say you're pretty spot on with how open those certain main guys would be to it. Adding on to the Lilia bit, not only in his regular form is he perfect for petting but in this au, he has two other forms he can switch into: A big scary sexy bat monster and…adorable little actual bat that you can keep in your pocket. Being in the latter form lets him conserve energy and magic so he likes to chill in it, another benefit is how freaking ADORABLE he is in it, and he uses it to his advantage with no shame.

Pet him, brush him, tell him how cute he is, and kiss his little face. The funest thing to do is feed him little cherry tomatoes and watch him go ham on them. Have you seen those cute vids of fruit bats eating stuff? Well, you should.

Ace and Deuce are clingy little things but in different ways. Deuce wants you to touch him so badly but he’s anxious about making you uncomfortable or you thinking he’s weird. Being a girl would add more to that. Also you call him a good boy while showing him affection he will die. P.S. When he goes home for the break and his mom smells you on him she is going to ask him so many questions and tease him. Please help him.

Ace is…regardless of what creature he is in the au he has asshole cat energy. Like, he's clingy and demands attention at the worst time but when you're in the mood he's like “Meh” but then gets pissy when you go to or smell like someone else. Passive aggressively scents all your stuff.

Floyd and Kalim have no shame in asking. Though with Kalim it's asking and although he’ll get sad when you're busy or not in the mood for it he’ll respect it. Floyd does not. He is like one of those big ass dogs that will straight up lay on you and won't move. Kalim keeps offering to hire you as his personal cuddle giver/groomer and his parents encourage it since having a human serve under you shows status, not that he cares about that.

My god, Cater would use you for so many videos.

So true for the “won't be vocal about it” thing. Cater is gonna “Haha…unless?” about it. Trey, Ruggie, and Jade would definitely manipulate situations so that you WILL pet them. Ruggie is gonna act like he's doing you a favor so you end up cuddling AND feeding him. Jack is still very much a tsundere about it, will probably take a while to get him to let you and he wants to do it in private.

Rook…another with no shame in accepting it. He’s so used to being the one doing the chasing. It's nice having someone so interested in him and giving him praise. He’s still gotta keep some of his mystery so he won't tell you things but he's gonna ask you all kinds of questions and want to take…terns with touching. He’s as interested in your unique body as you are with his. Take that however you want. 

Leona will straight up tell Ruggie to go get you and bring you to his room for Touching Time. With certain affection, he doesn't want others to see but with other kinds, he wants to show off. Especially if your mates.

Vil is pretty particular about what he allows you to do and how you touch him. Do not mess up his hair or feathers. 

Riddle and Idia. Even if he likes you it will take time for him to be cool it. Both want the affection given to be privet. Riddle actually puts together a Snuggle Scedual and gets pretty pissed if someone or someone interrupts or makes it run late. God forbid it gets canceled. Tbh for both of them it's kind of…cuddle therapy? For Riddle it helps with his anger and feelings of loneliness and the lack of affection he's had to deal with since…well forever.

For Idia…tbh I can't help but picture him as one of those anxiety-riddled dogs that's always shaking. You kind of end up his Emotional Support Human and if he absolutely has to leave his room he's keeping you close and hiding behind you, even if you're smol.

Is Mal awkward? Heck yes, but he is also touch-starved and greedy. You'll be lucky if his dragon instincts don't kick in have him keep you in his nest forever. Once he figures out “Oh…these touches are pretty nice.” He won't be shy about physical affection, even with the others around. Might get territorial and you should prob talk to him about it, so he doesn’t end up…going all dragon about it.

[grenade-maid]

there's a lot of reasons more people aren't into yuri that are troubling to consider, but equally, I genuinely think it cannot be understated how much of it comes down to most yuri being boring as hell. Like truly. I've been reading the front page of Dynasty Scans like it was the newspaper for 15 years I am not exaggerating I can show you the download file data 15 years.

You know what the complaint about yuri by yuri readers was back in 2009?

"wow that really was just 5 volumes of them blushing at each other and then they don't even kiss"

You know what the complaint about yuri by yuri readers is today in 2023?

"wow that really was just 5 volumes of them blushing at each other and then they don't even kiss"

Don't get me wrong, Yuri has grown a LOT in that time, to the point that most people today wouldn't even understand a Maria-sama reference if it were dropped in front of them (thank God). It's expanded and evolved to encompass more stories about adult women, wider varieties of scenarios, a greater acknowledgement of real life lesbianism, and is more comfortable showing girls kissing with tongue and having sex.

Yuri Manga is maybe the best is it's ever been, and it's also getting the widest readership it's ever had in the English speaking world. The titles we carry at work are always on back order with long queues, and, when I've asked them, most weebs of all gender or sexualities report keeping up with at least a few Yuri series.

At large though? Most of it is still really boring. That's not a bad thing necessarily. I like it because it goes down easy. For the most part any series you pick is gonna be pretty chill. Even shit from Sal Jiang which is PRETTY EDGY for yuri is a pretty breezy read. More serious ones like How Do We Relationship? cover some pretty real subjects about how intimacy is actually quite difficult even when both of you love each other, but it's not like... Exciting. Yuri isn't where you go to pump your fist or get perched on the edge of your seat.

So when the comparison is made to yaoi, well, I mean, have you READ any yaoi? Even in some of the more restrained titles those boys are likely to be sucking and fucking balls and all within the first volume or two. There's gonna be drama, intrigue, shit is gonna get messy, passions are gonna get heated, clothes are gonna be ripped off, people are gonna get sold to One Direction, it's stuff you can sit down with a bowl of popcorn with you know? Stuff you can message your friend and gush Hey Can You BELIEVE? A lot of it is pretty trashy, but that's the appeal. The generic state of yaoi is torrid and exciting and sexy. Ultimately, as a species many of us like to see pretty people fuck. In yaoi you'll get that. In yuri you won't. Nothing wrong with that, but it is gonna be a major contributing factor to their relative popularity.

It's also worth making the comparison to hetero romance manga, which has undergone a renaissance of it's own in recent years. There's now a whole meta around crafting a handful of mean shitty grouchy dysfunctional bully women and flinging them at the protagonist of the day who, unlike in years past, may actually have a face and personality. Most of these are also very trashy and truly scrape the bottom of the bucket in terms of writing.

AND YET?

I would bet money on the fact that you'll have heard of these women and probably even have a good idea what they're like without ever having touched a page of their manga.

I'm sorry but the straights are whipping donuts around the yuri girls in terms of delivering a wide variety of weird compelling fucked up women. How many yuri leading ladies by comparison can you point to as standout recognizable characters even divorced from their story? There's definitely a few, but not many. I'm not talking quality or depth of writing, I'm talking straight up pure recognizability. There are many beautifully written women in yuri, now more than ever. I can't think of many who'd like, get a figure made or have their face splashed on merch, though.

I don't really have a conclusion here. I love Yuri a lot, but at the end of the day this is just kinda the state of things right now.

[okay-babe]

Dottie!! I just saw your post about preview requests and I'm frothing at the mouth excited rn :))))

Is there any chance you've got a preview to share of that southern gothic inspired fic you've talked a little bit about? I've been excited about it since you ran the poll for it weeks ago!

Ahh! Tysm, I am in love with ur writing!!!

The Hard Part - An Alastor x Reader Series Preview

synopsis: Sometimes, the decisions we make in life come back to haunt us even in death, and in this series, our reader learns the hard way that deals made with a beating heart must be tended to, even when the flesh has long since grown cold... tags: alastor x fem! reader, established relationship, alastor and reader are married, angst, childhood friends to lovers to wannabe strangers to ?, mentions of illness, mentions of discomfort note: Oh my gosh, Anon 😭 catch me openly weeping over how sweet this ask is, you're too cute! I have so much in store for this southern gothic series I'm doing (though we won't be able to get into that vibe too much until around part 2, unfortunately) and am so so excited to share it with everyone soon! Here's a little taste of what we've got going on so far :) For anyone who has an interest in learning more about this fic, feel free to check out some of the info about it here.

With a start, you shot up in your bed, hand clutched tightly to your chest.

From the depths of your stomach, you felt bile rise, nails digging into your flesh to help fight off the sensation of stifling nausea and chills.

This was hell. Literally and figuratively.

All around you, the air felt stifling and almost impossible to breathe, your lungs wheezing with effort at each futile attempt at an inhale.

"Everythin' alright in there, sweetheart?" A familiar voice called out to you from behind your bedroom door, the cheery tone unsuccessfully hiding the edge of concern that could be heard there.

You gasped around the growing lump in your throat, the strangled sound that followed just loud enough to be heard beyond your walls in spite of how hard you tried to keep yourself quiet.

You hated this part, the helplessness and anguish of it all always made worse by the fact that you were almost never allowed to just go it alone.

There was always a witness to your suffering, someone to see you crumble to pieces before their very eyes.

Your heart lurched uncomfortably within your chest as the door flew open just as you knew it would, the small woman standing on the other side standing there with shadowed and fearful eyes.

She hated this part just as much as you did, but you supposed in a few ways she might have even had it worse.

What in hell would she do if you died under her less than watchful eye?

How could she move on?

What would she ever tell your husband?

"Aw shit, doll..."

She muttered under her breath, the panic in her expression enough to make you wish it were possible to console her around the choking mass in your lungs.

She hadn't signed up for all of this, at least not entirely willingly.

It broke your heart to see her so very afraid for you, your life half clasped within her own typically careless hands.

"It's gonna be alright, I'm here."

[olderthannetfic]

Honestly the state of white authorship in the US is that I'm real fucking tired of always knowing the exact same type of white female main character is gonna be leading.

The least offensive features, all told in very sanitized and polite way.

"Hi my name is Kimberly Johson, I'm white, tall, with long brown hair, and brown eyes." It's just a very boring description, but it feels like most characters are introduced so boringly and plainly. Probably because it sells. Of course she's also moderately attractive, but not too much so the reader doesn't feel intimidated, but also not too ugly because who wants an actually ugly main female lead?

What's more is that the character often feels without any background identity. There's no real focus on a culture, or a heritage, it's all just this suburban lack of identity beyond what's cleanly presented.

Even in fantasy worlds or sci-fi, there's just no real culture, it's all very clean and basic. Fantasy/Sci-fi world 101 locked and loaded. And it's not even Generic European fantasy 101 either, it's like castles, and all the fantasy races, but you won't see a lick of actual European culture to color the world. It's a very surface level understanding of fantasy.

Where's a distinct culture between the fantasy races? Where's a distinct culture between sci-fi aliens? It's not there, the only difference is the label and how they look. But if you pick up a random book, could you tell what the main characters culture is? What the world is? Or is it just all copy pasted, with some current trends, and that's it? It's just so empty.

The whiteness of the character doesn't matter either. You could replace her with anyone else, and it would fit because many authors just don't go beyond default-skin playable character.

Maybe that's why there's so much. White characters are empty canvases, if it was never mentioned, you often wouldn't even know the character is white, because there's no culture and story telling to prop it up. Meanwhile you take a fantasy latino story, and you will know it's a story based on Latino culture. A black writer will write in black culture, even if it's only some of the barest hints of it weaved in.

And I'm not trying to default-whiteness, meaning that whiteness is so normalized that we don't even see it. I mean it plainly that even typically white US things are basically non-existent and anything hinting at more depth is incredibly hidden and inoffensive and plain, to the point it stops mattering again. It's like white authors writing white characters for bigger trends decided to completely erase anything deeper because keeping everything as barebones and still fantastical is what sells, instead of real individuality and culture.

--

Dude... Read better books.

[unwillingtoreachout]

Helloooo darling I'm here to tell you about butcher!Neil 🤭 sorry it's so long omg—I completely understand it takes a while for you to respond dw ❤️ actually your don't even have to respond to it at all if you don't want, I won't be offended :)

So in this au, for whatever reason, Nathan was allowed to keep Nathaniel and train him up as a second butcher, which means that this Neil is a very different Neil to the one we get in canon. He knows his way around a knife. He is a fighter, not a runner, but neither is he the Exy prodigy he would have been if he'd gone to the Nest. His father banned him from playing Exy when it started getting in the way of his training.

He never knew Riko, but he did get know Ichirou very well. I have to say that this au is mostly based on two moments from canon. Number one:

This single throwaway line really struck me in my reread. ‘Your father was someone to me.’ Like oh my god. From most people this would be a nice, if perhaps bland, sentiment. From Ichirou Moriyama, this is a strange and unexpected vulnerability that (the way I see it) betrays something more than a professional relationship. I'm not saying that they were best buds who had sleepovers and confessed all their darkest secrets and crushes to each other but like. I think Ichirou admired Nathan at the very least, and clearly held just enough affection for him that he wanted to talk to Neil and made him more inclined to give him a chance. ‘Your father was someone to me.’ Did Nathan care for Ichirou how he never cared for his own son? Did Ichirou respect Nathan the way he never respected his own uncle? We'll never know, but I'm sure as hell going to think about it. Anyway so this got me thinking about how close Ichirou and Neil would have been if they grew up together, and one potential answer is: very. So that's where this comes from.

In this fic, their relationship is really fucked up, and I have to put a disclaimer before I start properly explaining that I don't condone any of this lmao, I'm just exploring a fictional concept. In this fic, their relationship lies somewhere between brothers, best friends, lovers, and a ‘master and his dog’ dynamic. It's not really any of those things, but it's a weird fucked up combination of elements of them. Nathaniel has been taught from a very young age that the power dynamics in this world are strict. He is better than most people, above them, and he has to know this. He carries himself with a swagger and an arrogance that comes with knowing ten ways to gut a man and the power to make it happen. But he's also hyperaware of anyone who's above him in the pecking order, and it's automatic for him to submit to them easily, never putting up a fight or speaking out of turn (okay he's still not perfected this one, this is Neil we're talking about, but he's more restrained than in canon). This means that, no matter how close he is with Ichirou, and how much Ichirou cares for him, they sre never going to be equals. Ichirou is always going to have power over him, even if that power exists solely in Nathaniel's mind—it's so drilled in, he's never going to get away from it. (Think of Jean and his submissiveness, his need for structure. It's just devastatingly ingrained in him by this point.)

It was always said that Nathaniel was going to be part of Ichirou's personal guard/squad, that's what he was trained for, and he finally took up that position when he was 14/15 and Ichirou was 18/19. For a couple years, he accompanied Ichirou everywhere, guarding him, protecting him, carrying out his dirty work. Falling slightly, obsessively, in love with him. He always knew that he would die for Ichirou without any hesitation. If Ichirou handed him a gun and told him to pull the trigger, he did it, no matter who was on the other end. He usually preferred knives, though. Ichirou accommodated this.

This is getting LONG omg sorry so I'm not gonna go too in depth on Ichirou's feelings for Nathaniel but basically he trusts and cares and worries about him, and he feels a sense of duty and responsibility for him that I think is natural in anyone who has a friend a few years younger than them, yk? But he's not a good person, and he knows that Nathaniel will do anything for him, and he isn't going to not use that to his advantage.

Now on to the actual plot lmao sorry. Here comes in the second canon moment that inspired this:

That got me thinking.........what if Neil actually was a mole?

The summer before Riko breaks Kevin's hand, when Nathaniel is 16, Ichirou grows worried about Riko, and it's partially concern for his brother, but mostly just concern for how his ways (and Tetsuji's) might affect their business. So, secretly, because he doesn't want Kengo to grow worried or angry, he decides to send Nathaniel into the Ravens, undercover, to spy on them. This starts with his year in Millport (though it might make more sense if it was a more well known highschool because this time the whole point is for him to be recruited...idk), where he gets to play Exy again for the first time in years. Here, he becomes Neil Josten. Despite himself, despite knowing that it's immature and he has more important things to worry about, that this is just a game, just a means to an end, Neil is absolutely thrilled. So fucking excited to be back, especially because this year he doesn't have anything to worry about except improving and getting recruited to the Ravens. It's basically everything he's ever wanted but couldn't have, and now he's being ordered to do it. Literally the dream.

Except, Kevin leaves the Ravens, and with him goes Neil's chances of being recruited. They'd counted on Kevin's unorthodox recruitment methods to get Neil on, knowing Riko wouldn't give a shit about a newbie unless Kevin convinced him to give him a chance. Now, they were fucked. They decided to wait out the rest of the season just in case, and were just about to give up on it all when Wymack approached Neil. This wasn't what Ichirou had planned at all, but he realised it was an opportunity he couldn't turn down. Neil wouldn't be up close and personal with Riko like he'd wanted, but this way he could at least keep an eye on Kevin and make sure he wasn't spilling all of their secrets, and it could prove to be useful in a whole host of other ways. So, Neil accepts.

I think the fic would have very similar events to the canon trilogy, but it would feature Neil being even more mysterious than canon (if that's possible lmao) and keeping Ichirou informed of all the goings on, and Andrew would definitely be even more suspicious of him and not let him off as easily, so they'd probably have a much stronger rivalry, but Neil still manages to work his way into the Foxes's hearts somehow. He's very resourceful.

Not entirely certain how I'd end this but I like the idea of Ichirou realising that Neil is much happier like this and (once he becomes the head of the empire) releasing him from his duties, instead allowing him to just spend his life playing Exy.

Jesus Christ, sorry that this is so long, I was certain it was going to be a short explanation but then I just kept going 😭😭😭 I hope it makes sense, at least!!

First of all, sorry if you sent this some time ago and I'm just now replying 😭

Second of all tho, AHHHHHH!!!! THIS IS SO EXCITING, I LOVE THIS IDEA!!!!

Okay so, the whole "your father was someone to me" I did not remember at all but that's really interesting because that could imply so many things, and it makes me wonder if Neil feels like he has to live up to Nathan's standard in a way in order to gain Ichirou's approval (idk this setting is kind of reminding me of how Riko is always trying to get Kengo and Ichirou's attention, so maybe Neil is willing to do anything for Ichirou because he thinks that's how Ichirou will pay attention to him??) maybe I'm reaching but even if that's not the case I'm still really intrigued by their dynamic

I love the idea of Neil actually being a mole and the only person who truly suspects anything is Andrew (and maybe Aaron a little bit), and also Neil trying to act like a normal person when he hasn't been normal a single second of his life. It makes me wonder if he'd fall for the stuff that Neil does in canon, like does he figure out the twins swapped places quicker? Does he suspect Andrew is trying to drug him and he goes along with it to not raise more suspicions?

Alsoooo, Neil getting back into exy and loving it??? I'm gonna cry because I always loved how it's pretty clear that Neil could have always ended up like his father or like Riko but instead he chose to obsessively play a sport with his found family instead of violence. And I feel like, in this case, it's similar in the sense that when he is given the choice he would still choose exy and still choose the foxes

[baronessblixen]

Been catching up on Frasier; and I've been meaning to drop in here and tell you my thoughts on each episode but I get sucked in and lose track of details because I have to watch more more more but Niles just proposed to Daphne while Frasier was clearing the room and tackling the trumpeter and carrying the chef and what it was SO, SO GOOD. (And Frasier being worried he's one year older because his parents married after his mom got pregnant; and Niles already knowing-- both excellent twists.)

Season 9's really been putting out great, great episodes. ...Y'know what? I'll look up IMDb and put some quick thoughts down here because why not???

Don Juan from Hell part 1 and 2: it's been so long since I've seen these two, but I remember really, really enjoying them.

The First Temptation of Daphne Moon-- an intriguing glimpse into Daphne's insecurities and Niles's staunch ethics. It's good to see how they handle rocky moments in their relationship, too.

The Return of Martin Crane-- LOVED THIS ONE. It's so good, every part. (His memories, and the juxtaposition of Niles-- with more hair-- in the past and Niles in the present; and how miserable they all were then and how happy they all are now; and the kiss at the end. Perfection!)

Love Stinks-- I had fun with this one. (Frasier owning up to his snobbery, lol.) Though I don't know if Roger and Roz will last (well, I know they won't; but I don't know if I truly buy into their relationship.) Poor Roz, she keeps trying.

Room Full of Heroes-- again, Marty's speech at the end grabs me. Marty's my favorite, I must own; and that's been growing as the seasons progress. (Niles is second; and I adore their scenes together.)

Bla-Z-Boy-- the CHAIR being accidentally tossed out the window, WOW. Hilarious. XDDDDDD

The Two Hundredth-- I... feel called out. XDDD But, to be fair, at least I'm an archivist, not a sycophant, by nature. ;)))))

Sharing Kirby-- Tisk Tisk Tisk, those Crane boys always shoot themselves in the foot with their greed. Kirby's sloooooowly growing on me. Kenny keeps sinking in my estimation, though-- his comedy doesn't really hit this season, for me.

Junior Agent-- BEBE!!!!!!!!!! Absolutely killer scene, every single one she's in. And her shark replacement is gonna be fun if the writers use her well (I thought the same of Kenny, at first.)

Bully for Martin-- again, loved this episode. The comedy was top-notch all the way through; and it's good to see Marty back on his feet. (and talking, but not complaining, about the challenges of a new hierarchy.)

Mother Load, Part 1 and 2-- It's fascinating to watch how much Niles has grown, and how his growth then highlights (in a good way) how much Daphne still has to go. It makes both of them human. :DDDDD And I liked how the ep. paused to give each main and side character as much depth as possible.

Juvenilia-- This was actually fun; and I love how Roz was sick and tired of Frasier's preening routine at the beginning. Those kids were sharks, man; but they're gonna get far. Kirby's growing on me.

The Proposal-- sweet all the way through. Marty and Niles were standouts, but I'm biased. ;)))) And Marty's excuse to Daphne's mom, and Daphne arriving sick, and Frasier interfering then saving the day by getting all the staff out, and Niles being interrupted from his question by Daphne honking her nose-- hiiiiiiiiiilarious.

Having so much fun! :DDDDDDDD

So happy you're still having fun watching the show! You still have two seasons to go 😁 season 9 definitely has some great episodes. I must admit though that I find Kirby pretty annoying.

Still, Bla-Z-Boy is super funny and I also really love The Return of Martin Crane. The proposal was so cute! He had planned this huge thing and in the end they didn't need any of it. Great season. Much better than season 8 😅

[watery-melon-baller]

hey lilac!! How you been? (I've heard about the class and oof. You can vent to me all about it if you'd like)

you've heard about the class huh are you stalking me 🤨/j

lmao besides this and one other class I'm actually having a decent time! bit of context: I'm switching degrees from product design to engineering which is a wild shift but it turns out,,,, i am secretly a math nerd,,, but since im an art student they won't completely switch me so I'm taking a mix of design and engineering classes. ive liked my engineering classes a lot! my two favs are my statics class (physics of objects that don't move, it's a LOT of trig) and GD&T toleranciing class, which is basically the way that engineering blueprints are standardized. very cool!

my least favorite is the class i was bitching about earlier, it's my studio class and its a semester long project that is a culmination of everything i dislike about design: vague bullshiy nonsense that has to have ✨meaning✨ and also fix a problem that doesn't really need fixing. i am not at all good at design, or coming up with New and Innovative products. give me numbers any day. best i can do is like. A slightly cuter/more efficient version of something that already exists. i do not know how to please the average masses. but yeah so far this project has been a #trainwreck bc i can't think of ANYTHING and my one idea he doesn't like because it's very simple and it just doesn't have enough "depth". which like again. im not Fucking Good At That Shit. but im gonna meet with him tomorrow during office hours to talk and probably jusy explain "my man i am not good at designing and I hate it and I am fully aware that I'm bad at this which is why im switching majors at the end of the semester. this project is the best i can come up with this isn't a lack of me trying this is literally all i can do so if you have any fucking ideas please go ahead but otherwise yeah don't expect much. i hate this class so much and there isn't really anything u can do about that bc it's just the entire concept of the class is something i loathe." i don't really wanna be like. throwing myself a pity part or be a whiny brat but like. every time we have to do Anything for this class (or my other design one) my brain switches into moody teenager mode and is like "UGHHH THIS IS SOOOO LAME I DONT WANNA DO THIS!!!!" i am trying to keep the bitchyness in my skull and not act immature in front of my profs but ah. yeah. hm. Very tempting to drop it but i do not think that would be a great option 4 multiple reasons i shan't get into.

but yeah other then 2 design classes i don't like i am enjoying the rest of my classes! ive also been hanging out with my friends more which is good bc last year accidentally isolating myself was a HUGEEEEEE issue lmao so. glad we are avoiding that (4 now)

[its-all-papaya]

hands on your keyboard cowboy i want to hear about the rest of your directors commentary pls !!! i LOVE the last landoscar convo in AN i absolutely need to hear more about it

likely place for you to be !!

(me, frothing at the mouth waiting for someone to ask me about this convo after I told you I was staying off tumblr for the rest of today)

ask me anything about my writing and read anybody, nowhere

OKAY. so. the LAST last scene of AN (fan stage) was like one of the very first things I wrote for that fic. I think the paragraph that starts "Lando's not online much these days" was first, followed by the Silverstone podium thing I used in the blurb, then it was fan stage. (Not to keep russian doll nesting asks, but the fan stage scene is a WHOLE other topic I could ramble about, I won't get into it too much here.) Anyway, other than those little anchors, I essentially just typed everything in chronological order and included what felt right when. So it was building in Lando's brain and building with Oscar and I KNEW I wanted it to end with the fan stage, so I KNEW I had to give some mental and emotional like... break? payoff? for Lando before then so that the fan stage would read like I wanted it to.

(break bc this got disguuuuusting long)

The other thing though is that I originally fucked up the Austria sprint finish order? So like 2/3 of the way through I realized I had to switch Lando and Oscar and that obviously like REALLY changed the entire tone of that passage and the bits right after, because the whole thing NOW is Lando getting beat by his teammate, but that super didn't exist until after I'd written all of Austria and started Silverstone. So I added the stuff about Lando battling Oscar and losing, and I loved it bc I think it gives the whole thing more depth, but then I was like... I need to write Lando out of this. I can't finish the fic without resolving the "Lando resents Oscar for beating him" plot-line. And I hadn't actually drafted anything for the last scene, but I had vague ideas of how it was gonna go that changed drastically when I started thinking about how to include some resolution for the on-track stuff.

SO. I'm done with the whole fic minus the conversation scene. We've had the Lewis Silverstone podium (probably my favorite part of the whole fic, and again, one of the original theses of it) and we're trying to get to the fan stage (probably my other favorite part) and I just like... sent Oscar to Lando's room with him? I didn't plan on all of their relationship development being in that one room, but I liked that it ended up that way because it felt really safe and contained for Lando, so I wanted them to get their payoff there, too. I don't really have anything to tell you about the first bit because it REALLY wrote itself. Like I was IN Lando's brain while writing this fic, all of his stuff was kind of me blind reacting to my own lead-up and then polishing it. Oscar was a bit harder to write, and this scene is the first time I felt like I had to actually make him like... do anything. Other than passively react to what Lando was doing. But even his dialogue just sat really right with me, and once I started the conversation it just felt really true to how they'd been all fic.

PAUSE for me to say I was so paranoid all fic too that I wasn't letting Oscar be enough of a real person with real emotions? I was like... some of these races sucked for Oscar too... ESPECIALLY silverstone... am I just going to make him Fix Lando anyway and not address his race? But THAT felt kind of true to Oscar too. Like he's not burdened the way Lando is and he at least seems to let things roll off easier, so I don't think it's OOC for him to not bring it up or be especially affected by it when Lando was a more pressing issue for him at the time.

Okay anyway. I really really loved the weird fight/not fight energy where Lando was fighting Oscar but Oscar just was not fighting back at all, like the one-sided argument was exactly what I wanted. I got through the part where Lando's like "I'm just not winning because I'm not" and then I got. So motherfucking stuck. Because at this point I'm like... okay. Lando has to give something back. We have to address Oscar's races. And I wrote the end of the convo no less than five times and it took probably three hours. I actually have a draft that I liked (I'll include it at the end) where they did address the Lando-hates-Oscar-beating-him thing, but then I had NO IDEA how to get them out of that. Like Lando admits that he hates losing to Oscar, but then wtf is Oscar supposed to say to that? Like... okay? Yeah? And I tried a bunch of stuff and hated it all, so I literally started a new word doc, dumped everything after "I'm just not winning because I'm not" in there, and started completely over from there in my actual WIP doc.

And from THERE I was like. You know what? We actually don't have to fix this for them? Like LANDO thinks this is a huge deal and makes him a horrible person, but does Oscar give a shit? Obviously they all hate losing to each other, that's like... the whole thing. Their whole goal is to beat everyone. So I was like "I'll indulge myself and just let them not deal with it right away" and I'd already written the "oscar's hand is out, palm up" paragraph for that original draft I liked, so I slotted her back in instead. And again, I am IN LANDO'S BRAIN, and I was like if EYE am thinking too much about how this conversation "should" go in a perfect world, Lando is DEFINITELY thinking about it. And I was like oh I need to stop thinking? Lando needs to stop thinking. And it sounds insane now because when I re-read the fic now, the through-line of Oscar calming Lando's thoughts is so so so obvious, but I promise that until writing "I need to stop thinking" it had never ever occurred to me that that's what Lando and Oscar's building relationship was doing for Lando the whole time.

Oh ALSO, in my original concept, they were never going to kiss because I felt like it would be forced bc I hadn't built to it enough. But once I hit on "I need to stop thinking" I was like OBVIOUSLY Oscar will kiss him to shut his silly brain up. Which, fun fact, is where "Lando isn’t even surprised. At any of it, really. It was always going to end up here" came from. It was just me, Soph, being like... oh. OBVIOUSLY THEY WERE ALWAYS GOING TO KISS.

So then I finished the kissing part and I was like... how will we get to fan stage for REAL. And I was still kind of worried about not resolving the on-track tension thing, so I was like... Lando is probably worried about that too! And the last "No, babe. That's your job." came to me straight from heaven or something, idk, but it was so perfect for ending the scene. Like I had spent HOURS AND HOURS worried about how to make them authentically address this and still stay soft and warm with each other and Lando's been panicking about it for eight straight days and we finally get the nerve to bring it up and Oscar is like "you silly silly goose, of course you hate losing to me!"

hahahahaha okay final notes then scene draft: as I said in the answered ask after I first decided to write AN2, I feel like I ended up with a version of this scene that was.... SO accidentally foreshadow-y of Hungary?? I was watching the team orders situation play out during that race and I felt like that dodgeball "the gift of prophecy" meme because I was like... holy fuck, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing that AN Lando was afraid of. The other note is that the line "we don't have to fix it right now, Lando" in the hollow hereafter is a direct result of my fight with this scene in AN and the topics of it. AN2 was destined, it's literally the only thing I can think of with the amount of weird pre-work I'd already done for a situation I didn't know was going to exist ever when I published AN????

oKAY THANKS FOR ASKING CLEARLY I HAD THOUGHTS!! Here are your demos/deleted drafts !!

this is how the austria sprint scene finished when I thought it was Lando P2, Oscar P3:

As he clasps Oscar’s gloved hand in parc fermé, he wishes for a blind second that it was a grand prix so he could remember how Oscar’s eyes looked squeezed against champagne spray up close. Then he remembers that place in the back of his mind and the ugly, twisted relief he felt passing his teammate for the final time, and he shoves the idea away. He doesn’t deserve that, either.

And this is how the final convo went when I was trying to make them discuss things (picks up after "It’s just me. I’m just not winning because I’m not.” and the rest of that paragraph didn't exist yet):

“We drive the same car,” Oscar says and Lando already knows he’s not going to like the rest, “and I’ve been qualifying like shit the whole month, too. It’s not just us out there. You know that. You’re being really hard on yourself.”

Lando remembers then that Oscar’d had his race ruined too. Worse, probably. Without a choice in the matter. And instead of wallowing he’s here comforting Lando, who should know better by now. Who should be better by now.

“I’ve been here three times as long as you,” he’s teetering on that precipice, deciding between anger and the other thing. “And I’m still making stupid mistakes. It’s worse because I should be better by now, and-” he stops. Considers.

“And?” Oscar prompts and Lando still can’t look at him.

“And you beat me. In Austria.” He says, quieter than anything since they’ve entered his room.

Oscar takes a breath so deep Lando can hear it. When he finally glances up, Oscar is already looking at him. His eyes still have that stupid warm, fond look in them and Lando’s afraid he’s going to do something dumb, like apologize, but instead what he says is “I beat you in Monaco.”

Lando scoffs, eyes back on his feet. “That wasn’t the same.”

“Why?” and he’s still asking like he doesn’t know the answers.

“Because it wasn’t, Oscar, people weren’t saying things in Monaco.” He’s losing the thread of the conversation a little bit, brain wrung dry from hours of thinking these things over, and it feels ten times harder to do it all out loud.

“Is this about what people are saying?” Oscar asks, then, and maybe they’ve both talked themselves in a bit of a knot.

“It’s not about anything.

“Lando,” Oscar says. “C’mere.”

His hand is out, palm up, and he’s taken his cap off at some point so his hair is messy and ruffled and he looks soft even though he’s got his damn polo neatly tucked in like always. He should be mad. Lando’s selfish, he’s so… he’s always taking what he shouldn’t from Oscar, but he goes anyway, puts his hand in Oscar’s and lets his teammate pull him down next to him on the bed.

“Are you upset about Austria?” he asks gently. He’d let go of Lando’s hand as soon as he was sitting, so his arm is free to curl around Lando’s waist, drag his palm up. Hip to ribs.

Lando sucks on the side of his thumb where it’s started to bleed. When he brings his hand to his face, it’s shaking a little. “Not…” he pauses, concedes, “Kind of. But not at you, I don’t think. I like when you do well.”

Oscar laughs a little and Lando’s eyebrows pull together, but it doesn’t feel mean. Lando’s not sure Oscar has a mean bone in his body when it comes to him, and that should be an issue, probably.

Oscar’s palm slides back down, ribs to hip.

“At what, then?”

And that’s the question, isn’t it.

And then I couldn't get them out of it so all that went to the graveyard! But I like the way it ended up, so I'm really really not mad about it.

KAY THX CHARLIE love u <3 if anybody else made it this far, ask about other scenes, I dare you >:)

[beanghostprincess]

i think it's very important to know that koala is 160cm(5'3") and nami is 170cm(5'7")

koala needing to stand on her toes to kiss nami..... not only does sabosan have height difference but so does koanami (namoala???? koanami sounds a lot better though)

I think it's very important to know that you have a huge brain and I love all of your ideas 🫶🏻🧡🍊 I vote Koanami! I think it sounds a bit nicer <3

And,, This is making me go insane. Okay. Okay. Lesbian thoughts, I mean- Pretty girls- I mean- Coherent thoughts.

Thinking about Koala and Sabo staying for a few days with them just because they can. Because I think revolutionaries also need their free days. They don't pay them but let them enjoy them at least. Nami and Koala grow really close during these days, and they know it's the last night they're gonna be in the ship because they have responsibilities. Koala is feeling odd because, after leaving everything behind to focus on her ideals, now she has something she wants to treasure and keep with her but she can't do it. And she's starting to understand Sabo way better now and why he always has a hard time leaving Luffy (and Sanji) behind. Nami and her have something going on. A connection. A bond. Fate? She doesn't believe in such. Or the universe. They shouldn't believe in that. But there's just something different about her... And in such a short time, Nami has made her way to Koala's heart.

So Nami is on night watch, right? Courtesy of our dear Sabo moving a few lil threads and saying that Sanji can't possibly do it because he's just sooo exhausted of cooking and he needs somebody to cover for him, and Nami is a good friend. A "good friend" meaning: "I am so charging you for this but enjoy your secret fucking". And of course, Sabo tells Koala to make a move already. She says it's too soon. Or maybe just too risky, keeping in mind they won't be seeing each other for a long time probably. Sabo insists, Koala refuses. But then, she can't sleep. She can't do it!!! She needs to see Nami right away. She might not do anything, but at least she can spend one night with her.

She finds Nami taking care of her tangerines and walking around the ship because she doesn't like sitting still sometimes when watching the ship. She looks around at the sea. Talks to her and Usopp's plants. The usual. Their conversation starts shy and slow and somehow there's so much depth in simple words like "I just thought it'd be nice seeing you" and "I'm glad you did". And so they talk for a little while about everything and nothing until the sun is basically shining over them, barely, and they know the crew's going to wake up soon. Nami seems calm but oddly shy. Like she's expecting something but doesn't have high hopes for it. And Koala thinks that if somebody like Nami, who is used to take what she wants because she's a pirate, doesn't do anything, then somebody so tied to her responsibilities like her should be able to go against her persona too and do something. Or else she will lose this chance. She hates that the last thing she hears before kissing Nami is Sabo's voice telling her to do it, but, well, they've always been each other's inner voices.

So she has to stand on her tiptoes to kiss her, holding her gently by the shoulders and pressing their lips together right behind Nami's tangerine trees while the sun is rising. Nami smiles into the kiss oh so softly and she laughs as if she had been waiting for this for a long time, while Koala doesn't exactly know why she's laughing but laughs too anyway.

When they move away, Nami looks at her fondly and says "You know? I was starting to think I'd have to be the one doing this". And Koala knows, that no matter how far away she goes, they'll be alright.

[mercless]

"Demons will tempt the good man, while devils barter with the desperate."

I want to go over what I'm gonna set as the definitions for demons in my writing, as loose and hand-wavey as a few bits are, as we don't get all too good of an explanation. In written lore, it's not wide-spread knowledge that there are multiple devils, with normal civilians only thinking to refer to a singular devil; though, I imagine with our growing cast of hellspawn, this knowledge might come to be questioned by a few perceptive folk. Digressing, we know of a lot more devils than demons, actually. Even though in theory, the opposite would be true with all number of demons crawling around every nook and bend and behind sly smiles in plain sight. The demons we know for sure are; Skarner, Fiddlesticks, previously Talon, and whatever shadow Lucian is harbouring. Oh and Sentinel, Senna's demon gun and also horse. Actually I'm not sure what Ashe's horse Virtue is-- It's not said outright but there is also Urgot who gave his soul in a devil's deal for his new body of metal, and Viktor who's had his taken by Mordekaiser after being tricked into being his engineer. Darius has a deal with Hecarim, which is sure to end poorly… Lucian's experience tells of a shadow that corrupting his soul after his fated deal with Thresh. Although separate from his identity, it is very much a part of Lucian now, working in tandem with him.

Now, the wiki states that Ashe mentions both angels and demons answer to the higher calling (which... no she doesn't she says men and monsters will answer to a higher authority eventually but anyway) but I still believe this to be true; including devils. It's just that this high authority hasn't been too vocal recently, so the devils and demons will continue to running amuck until something steps in.

"The coming of the clockwork angel and the gunslinger’s revival were just the beginning—now the Harbingers are here to end what they started."

What Ashe does say, is that devils and demons are more akin to cousins, calling devils the 'great kings of hell,' and explains the differences in their bartering and their strategies. But naturally, devil's hold an 'authority' and most demons don't pay it too much mind and go along with it as long as they get to keep up their acts and swindling fools out of their lives.

So, with all of this in mind, I'll be writing demons as shadows, whatever is left of a soul - unfinished business, sins and evil - after death, normally after reaching and wallowing in Hell, (but well, there used to be a time when souls didn't just go there) that desperately search for another, living, soul to latch on to, to corrupt and subsume. A body is nice too, at least as a beginning building block. Even if the person they corrupt is still alive and breathing, they become the demon and the demon becomes them. (You can see these 'shadows' a lot in recalls & splash arts, clawing at champions like Ashe and Lucian before being destroyed) Demons were in the world of the living well before devil's climbed out of Hell, they're just far more of them now. With it overflowing with the dead, it's a scramble to escape for some, being pushed out of the earth, or a threat to sink to the depths. In cases of devilish deals being made, devil's can summon a demonic spirit to harness the soul under their leadership, instead of them just taking the soul. Once demons do have a body, it changes to fit their twisted image, be it hulking, monstrous mockery of what their prey once was, or brimstone burned to a crisp from being in hellfire for too long, and everything in between. Whatever suits their nature, and the way they'll be partaking in the torment of others.

Almost territorial, demon's won't usually work together, even with devils, who prefer hierarchies and roles. It's not in their nature, for there's just never enough souls to go around. Especially now that there is far fiercer competition to get out of Hell. The exception to this being in when a powerful devil brings like-minded hellspawn together - a deal or agreement of their own. Hecarim has his demonic, shadow riders who stampede from the Black Caynon. Mordekaiser has both devils and demons in his employment, working the train for the King of the Sulfur Rail. But there's always a reason for this working together, and never out of the kindness of non-existent hearts.

And finally we have Talon; the stranger in need of help you happen upon on the lonely, open road. Asking to join your camp as a respite from the cold, biting night after essentially appearing out of that darkness. Relying on the altruism of a soul to be their downfall; it's a sweet thing to watch fear overtake their friendliness. It was explained in their bio post here, but Talon is an old demon, before the fall of Heaven and man's invasion on the west. They've been at this game for a long time. Talon doesn't like the company of fellow demons - didn't before their little affliction began to spread and definitely doesn't now - it makes their hunts harder, and moreso than ever now it is a fear of being looked down upon. Lesser, and meeker for their illness. More a cautionary tale than they are a fellow monster now. Devil's are more the same, Talon keeps their distance but for a different reason. Because Talon is in need of something unlike any other demon, so they're weary of any devil approaching them with an idea on how to help with their feathery problem. The only reason they even step foot on the Sulfur Rail to warn Mordekaiser is out of courtesy, from working together in the past and for the role the King possesses with his train. Countless times has Talon bought a ticket to get where they need to, and they'd rather have it running than be destroyed - along with everything else - by the inevitable.

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

How did you come across Argent and Russ?

I LOVE THIS ASK, i get to thank the lovely @burn-on-the-flame again!!! and i can let my need to talk endlessly about russ flow!!! it might go off topic a little bit a lot!!! you're diving into the depths of my mind by sending this!!!

expect a lot of words, it's probably going to be WAY more than necessary because i can't and won't shut up about them and what they've done to me and my brain(especially russ).

okay here we go

so i've already known the song hold your head up just from hearing it on the radio or things like that sometimes, but never looked into them before, so for a long time it was just a familiar song and that's all. i THINK i also knew the song liar, maybe the three dog night version since their cover of it was the hit.

but anyway, sometime last year, i think like november or something maybe, my wonderful and nice and amazing friend(who i love very much) showed me their set of six concert(THANK YOU AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN(<accidental song reference) @burn-on-the-flame) and, although i was still in deep(<-argent album reference) obsession with badfinger, in my head i already could tell right away that argent was absolutely going to take over my life at some point.

i was thinking while watching it "is this gonna be the next obsession? yeaaah this is definitely gonna be the next obsession"

especially russ because, just on a first impression alone, besides the beautiful voice and guitar and everything catching my attention first, he just had something else about him that's like.. i don't know how to describe it. interesting i guess(the way he performs for example is very interesting and funny to me), but also a certain vibe to him or something, or things like how you can visibly SEE his love for music.

i felt like i could see it at least, and still do. but somehow he just drew me in and i couldn't stop thinking about him for months just from watching that one video.

it just felt like my life needed him in it for some reason. and it wasn't like having a crush at the start, it was something else. honestly started to feel like he was just knowingly dragging me into his whole world.

so anyway, i was letting my badfinger obsession ride out a little first because i felt like i couldn't REALLY listen to anything else yet with proper appreciation as long as badfinger were clung to my brain the way that they were(i still love them very much and always will, by the way)

so that went on untillll i think january? which was when i first started posting gifs from that argent video. somewhere around the same time was when i started listening to their albums.

since i was already feeling the way i was about them, i wanted my first time listening to each album all the way through to be with my full attention and no distractions.

so one day, i decided that i'd stay awake later than usual in bed and just lay there and listen in the darkness of my room with headphones on. i did that with the firsttttt three or four albums.

BUT i listened to each one for a few days first before moving on to the next one, just to let it all sink in a little at a time.

so like, i'd listen to the first one that night, then keep listening to it over the next few days, then do the same with the second one, add it to the playlist, listen to them both for the next few days, do the same with the third one, etc.

i haven't listened to the last two argent albums yet, i only know up to nexus because russ left the band after that one.

so i listened to nothing but those first five argent albums for quite a while first before moving along to russ's solo albums, although i was going into SOME of his songs a little bit because i couldn't stop watching videos of him, learning about him and looking for more things to gif.

i think i remember watching some videos muted at first though, just because i haven't listened to the albums yet at the time and i was like "i want to see what the video is like, but i'm not ready to hear it yet" but i ended up listening to a few of them anyway because i couldn't fight the curiosity and, of course, i loved it. i knew i would.

but i was getting more involved in listening to his interviews first, actually. the things he has talked about had me suddenly crying on my floor like a baby on and off for a couple of weeks, i think it was.

this is when he started getting into parts of my mind that felt like they haven't been touched before. he just went in there and started rearranging everything in my brain(in the best way possible).

I MEAN bands have made me cry before over things like, with iron maiden, i'd be like "omg that's so cute, look at how they are with the fans" and lots of things like that. with badfinger, i'd cry over similar things or the fact that their story is literally one of the saddest things ever and should have never happened.

(bands are one of the few things in life that do make me cry. bands/music and animals.)

but no band or musician has ever made me think like this or cry like this for myself, until russ.

and then after those couple of weeks of just listening to him talk, thinking about it, relating to it and crying almost constantly, i woke up one morning feeling good??? for once????? i used to have this pit of dread in my stomach just about every morning, never wanted to get out of bed because it felt like there was nothing to get up for, etc. so then when i somehow suddenly felt GOOD, i was like what is HAPPENING

and then when i DID start listening to his albums, you combine all of that stuff along with his motivational songs, his lyrics, things from his own experiences, and it was like .oh my god where have you BEEN ALL OF MY LIFE???????

and then everything about the way he is is just perfect, he's so adorable and wholesome and loving and passionate and intelligent and (multi)talented and cute, i love him.

anyway, everything's just been getting better and better for me from then on. i keep getting something new out of his words and songs the more i listen.

real life changes have started happening that i never thought would ever happen to me, things i never thought i could do, fears i've had that feel like they've just vanished, etc., and it's only adding to the momentum of getting better every day.

and that's the story of how i got into argent and russ as much as i am right now, why i love them so much, and why i have no plans of letting go of them anytime soon, or ever.

[royboyfanpage]

I’m starting to wonder if Roy would’ve been angry at Uncle Sam over what happened to Grant

Hi!! Sorry this took me so long to answer, I wanted to get some panels for this.

My immediate thought was "he'd absolutely be angry", but I wanted to elaborate a little more than that. I haven't been able to find many comics with Grant in the Freedom Fighters, and none that go into his run with them in-depth, so I'm mostly gonna be referencing the comic your ask's referring to, Infinite Crisis #1 and, as a comparison, The New Titans #116.

Before I get on to Uncle Sam, I'm gonna go on a tangent about Roy's leadership because, despite all his self-doubt, Roy was a genuinely good leader when he led the Titans, particularly in #116. He knew when to have his team fight-

-issuing understandable and consice commands as to what to do and when to do it. He assigned people specific orders based on their skillset, and was able to manoeuvre them into a singular fighting unit once it was time. At the same time, he knew when to recall them-

-and expressed concern whenever they attempted to overexert themselves or do something above their skillset (albeit in a very Roy way)

Roy actually understands his team, he knows what their strengths and weaknesses are, and he knows what they should and shouldn't be doing at any moment. And his team genuinely respects him for it!

(Plus, Bart respecting Roy more than Wally is one of the best things to come from this era)

Now, as for Uncle Sam in Infinite Crisis. As mentioned, I don't have much of a broader scope as to what his leadership pre-Crisis was like, ie when Grant was on the team. Additionally, the circumstances they were under were definitely a lot more extreme than New Titans #116. Whereas Roy and co were only up against Gar and Kyle, the Freedom Fighters were up against-

-significantly more, to say the least. However, a key factor in efficiently leading a superhero team is the ability to work well under pressure, so Mr. American Patriotism won't be entirely excused. In the issue, I could only find two instances where Sam actually issues commands, one-

-where all he's doing is telling them what the mission is, and two-

-where he's telling them to keep fighting no matter what. This is piss poor leadership. Not only does Sam give the absolute bare minimum of commands, but they're so incredibly vague and non-specific it's embarrassing. Sure, you could chalk it up to the surprise, the number of enemies, etc etc, but that is absolutely not an excuse. In a situation like that, he should be losing his voice by the end of it because of how many commands he should be issuing. Instead, he more or less treated it like a free-for-all. Additionally, his team had been awake for 48 hours prior to this. That is absolutely not prime condition, especially since before the ambush they had no idea it was a serious threat. Intel that a group had held a meeting somewhere two days ago is not at all justification for dragging your team around when they're all exhausted. Even if the Justice League were unavailable at that time, there are countless other teams who could've taken that! And when the ambush did happen, instead of calling for a retreat like the smart thing would've been when faced with that many enemies, he ordered them all to keep fighting a battle that was impossible to win.

So yeah, Roy would be pissed at Uncle Sam for what happened to Grant. You could argue that even if they were in prime condition, even if they'd tried to retreat, even if Sam had given orders, the team still would've been beaten. But Uncle Sam absolutely did not help. Grant's injuries were, at the very least partially, a result of poor central command and awful leadership. Roy did absolutely everything he could to lead his team, giving member-specific orders and doing all he could to ensure their safety. Uncle Sam basically said "I don't care what you do, just don't give up" which, while being a good sentiment for every day life, is absolutely shit when it comes to a life or death situation. And Roy would be pissed that the kid he worked so hard to train and protect sustained lifelong injuries because of some human American flag.

Anyway I think Roy should get to kick the shit out of the old man for funsies <3

[justanotherpersonsuniverse]

hey cap! not the chapter notes unfortunutely (executive disfunction got me in a choke hold- i have also been trying to watch a show for the past two days. i am nine minutes in.) however i do have a couple questions!

so it is mentioned on occasion that juleka - same as in canon - wishes to be a model, is that going to be explored more in depth in future or is it just a fun thing to discuss? or shall i wait and see? also since it is a canon element the reason Why she wants to be a model is interesting to me due to her aversion to being the centre of attention. although i suppose there is different ways to model, they don't all require a cat walk (there is a pun here somewhere) but they do tend to focus heavily on the model/s

you have also given us adult panthera designs and i love them dearly. how tall is she in them? but that does beg the question of will they still be heroes when they are older or did you just want to design MILF panthera?

also, i am asking this next question in the least pushy way i can manage, is there plans for more OM soon? either way i do have plans to re-read and send in notes but i have been curious for a wee bit. i feel like an asshole for asking because you spend your free time doing this but i am genuinely curious and won't ask again as i can imagine this is annoying. the balancing act between showing interest in something continuing without seeming like i am demanding for more is difficult.

HIIIII oh I love answering questions okie okie okie

Juleka still wants to be a model yes! I'll explore it more in the next 2 shanghai chapters (there's a lil bit at the end for the first one and the second chapter is just gonna be light and easy shenanigans so she'll have a chance to think about modeling) and also the next 'reflekta' episode stand in.

Future Panthera is VERY TALL. Not supernaturally tall, but like, tall. Like she walks by and you go "that lady is tall." However, I did design her only for design sake. Lemme tell you, girl is RETIRING heroism after all the villain business is dealt with she is SO DONE WITH IT. But she still is down to help with guardian activities and hero training. Juleka would just rather not risk her life anymore after the shit she went through.

As for OM, don't worry about asking for it. I know it's been like. Probably over a year now. I've been thinking a lot about it too. The thing is, I really adore OM and I've been eager to continue with it, it's just that I'm not able to stir up a lot of drive for it?

Like, what used to drive me before was everyone's interest in it and their questions and their asks but after things got, a bit, dicey, with what people wanted from me and were sending me, I distanced myself from the AU with a break that, has lasted a bit long? And so my drive is quite depleted.

I'd love to keep working on it, but it's hard to when I feel like, honestly, no one would quite care? I dunno. But I'll keep chipping away at it I'll just have to maybe reread and fall in love with the AU again.

[olrinarts]

alright so let's go on a tour of my current writing folder (or at least the part devoted to cotl, the full writing folder which includes my original projects is. a whole lot. and not actually a thing y'all are here to see)

tl;dr: let's just say there's enough fic that i had to zoom out a LOT to keep these to single screenshots, so this whole thing is me making fun of myself for my hyperfixation (it's all in good fun)

buckle up my friends, prepare to view the sum total of human normalcy

let's begin with two numbers: 52, and 582,499

52 is the number of different files with writing that isn't a 'discard' - so completed projects, projects in progress, and projects waiting for editing. 'Discards' are essentially the parts i've cut, because i really rarely delete a draft, diverging plots i've rejected, or paragraphs i'm cutting, etc

582,499 is the number of words in all 52 docs combined. i did the math. i am simultaneously proud and deeply concerned by this number. (with the most easily counted discard docs, that number becomes 694,737.)

also of note is that the earliest doc was created on the 2nd of February 2024, aka this year

normalcy is off the CHARTS, lads

so this is the main folder and where the projects that are either incomplete or in the process of being edited:

docs crossed out are excerpts from other fics for that zine application, and red dots indicate at least some nsfw content (i just wanna make the point from earlier lmao). I'm not counting fade-to-blacks in that nsfw marking. Also ignore the titles, other than chimes of bone and ashes ashes they're largely silly pretentious placeholders

from there we have:

'phone tag' (a collection of v short fics that won't be posted bc they specifically jump off a fic i read early on and wanted to rewrite bc i liked the concept, but i'm not gonna go posting something that's a reworked vision of something another fic author wrote, that's just bad etiquette and it's okay to write things just for you); these docs aren't pictured but add 6 docs to the total list

'extras' (where i put the discards and such, as well as fics that have already been posted for organisation purposes)

and 'complete', which is our next destination

So here's the 'complete' folder, which is more of a storage for things that aren't actively being edited but are otherwise complete drafts:

red dots are again at least some nsfw content, and the 'old' folder is essentially just the waiting room for getting moved to 'extras'

Next folder being 'pwp', but inside is actually this:

for these two folders assume it's all got nsfw content. the difference between the two folders is whether or not the fic required multiple scenes, not whether it's actually pwp (it is a liar of a folder)

'actually pwp' (again, ignore the doc titles, they're basically meaningless):

then this is 'has a story':

and lastly, pulled from the depths of the 'extras' folder due to being complete fics that have already been posted, is the 'posted' folder:

So what are the takeaways from this?

i have far, far too much time on my hands and use it extremely responsibly

i am very normal about the things i like (and also type very fast)

i'm picky about cleaning fic up and having my partner look them over before i post, so there'll be long dry periods, but i won't be running out of material any time soon

feel free to send asks about anything here (assuming you can read the text for ants and can glean even a particle of what it might be about from the vague titles)

i'm always willing to ramble a bit and it'll be a WHILE before some of these end up anywhere near posting