#this is the FIRST thing i've written that really gets into like. dogma as part of their lives. instead of implying it.

[relevant-url-incoming]

Regulations (a snippet)

Or, five times Ven and Nalyan surprised the people around them with an affection for rules and orders, and one time someone knew exactly where that habit came from.

Before the captain left the ship, Corso in tow as always, he'd slapped a datapad into Risha's hands.

"You're on this ship, you pull your weight. Here's the rules. Start with the assigned duties - roster Besh."

Risha had raised a cool, unimpressed eyebrow at him.

"My ship," he'd said. "My rules. Or find somebody else for your treasure hunt."

"Somebody else to get back at Skavak?" Risha had prodded.

"I can live without revenge. Can you handle living without whatever it is you really want?"

That had startled her enough to let him go, but not enough for her to start on the chores he'd given her. As though she didn't do enough for him. He'd obviously done just fine on his own, since by the sound of it Corso had only signed on a few months before her. He could handle the disappointment.

Then he and Corso had come tearing back onto the ship, panting, blaster fire scoring the sides of the ship as the captain frantically closed the hatch. Risha drifted after them as they charged toward the cockpit as much out of bored curiosity as anything - though some of the sounds from outside were starting to give her pause.

"Did you clean the bunks?" the captain panted as Corso started up the pre-flight tasks.

"Is this the time?" Risha said, affronted. "I'm not your maid!"

"Did you - fuck!" No sooner had clearance been transmitted did the captain send them shooting up out of the spaceport, twirling wildly to avoid something Risha was glad she couldn't see from this angle.

"Who did you two piss off?" she demanded. Now it was starting to be more than curiosity. Now they were putting her life and the job she'd given them on the line.

"Future reference, Rish," the captain said as they breached the atmosphere and levelled out. He twisted to look at her, ignoring the way she bristled at the nickname. "We don't fly until the ship's good."

"We were under attack," Risha said testily.

"Yeah," the captain said. "So next time do your duties before I decide to give you to the angry guys with blasters."

(Read the rest on AO3, featuring Arcann with paperwork, Lana Beniko NOT cleaning a ship, and time travelling clones for whom time travel is the least of their worries)

[by-glass-and-waves]

Intro post time :o

Hi I'm Glass, 30F (she/her). I spend way too much time with worldbuilding or story ideas or exploring themes SIGH. I'd enjoy building/upgrading my computers if I had the money and space for it >:( I also find driving (without traffic or a ton of stoplights) while listening to music super relaxing (eg my story playlists)

Bluesky

AO3

Dragon's Dogma 2 screenshottery

I really like to draw/write about Narinder/The One Who Waits 🙃

I've got four Cult of the Lamb AUs/storylines on a sliding scale of dark to lighthearted:

Depression Quest (fic, cw: abuse, self harm, depression)

The Courtship of the God of Death (fic, cw: unhealthy/toxic relationship, obsession, jealousy, manipulation, violence, gore, emotional/psychological abuse)

Restart (cw: violence, gore)

19th Century AU

More on the AUs below the cut

Interests: Dragon's Dogma, Cult of the Lamb, Star Wars Outlaws, Final Fantasy IX, Neon Genesis Evangelion, No Man's Sky, Rune Factory 4/5, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas/4, Nier Replicant/Automata, pre-Destiny Bungie lore + Destiny's Book of Sorrows and a few other bits + Halo's Forerunner Trilogy

My name comes from something I wrote for my oc worldbuilding project:

He pressed against the glass of time, feeling it crack beneath his fingers. He stepped into the tides of space, seeing the water part for his feet. … He broke through the glass, looked down at them again. … He swam through the rising tides to a new world.

Depression Quest:

My very First Idea™ for Cult of the Lamb. It follows the canon ending of Lamb conquering The One Who Waits. Essentially, the Lamb turns Narinder into a trophy husband, and Narinder does not have a good time.

This is my darkest au and includes things such as abuse, self harm, depression, etc. My favorite thing is the fact that Ratoo and Narinder eventually become friends. I've written a chapter but the fic won't be updated often. Tag: #cotl depression quest

The Courtship of the God of Death:

This is the fic I've published on AO3. Follows the alternate ending of The One Who Waits regaining the Red Crown and his freedom, but instead of sacrificing the Lamb, he accepts their proposal to become his Consort and rule over the Cult by his side. He enjoys his victory, deals with the Lamb's affection for him, and processes what happened between he and his siblings.

It starts out lighthearted, then becomes a descent into darker themes such as obsession, jealousy, manipulation, emotional/psychological abuse, and the toxic relationship between the Lamb and Narinder. It also includes some violence and gore. It borrows some stuff from Depression Quest, and involves the majority of my headcanons/worldbuilding. Tags: #cotl courtship, #cotl the courtship of the god of death, #the courtship of the god of death, #cult of the lamb the courtship of the god of death

Restart:

Follows the alternate ending of The One Who Waits sacrificing the Lamb and regaining the Red Crown. He gets bored and decides to time/worldjump to another version of The Lands of the Old Faith, replacing Ratau/the Lamb as the crusader against the Bishops. Too bad he's a thousand years out of practice.

This is more slice of life and includes Narinder and Lamb arguing like a married couple but there's some drama in there. It does include violence and gore since Narinder does have to go on his Crusades and fight his siblings. This one does not have a fic written, it's more ideas I've doodled. Well, I did have a chapter written, but it may be posted as a separate piece instead.

tl;dr Narinder goes New Game+ and becomes the player character (but he really sucks at it). Tag: #cotl restart

19th Century AU:

Created after watching of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma. It follows Prince Narinder of the Kingdom of the Old Faith Amenthes, investor of Ratau and Ratoo Trading Company, who has just moved into Acheron Estate. He bumps into the Lamb by chance while meeting with Ratau, and hires her as his servant after being intrigued by her fiery personality.

It's a slice of life and is a silly, self-indulgent AU written as if it was a screenplay. Maybe I'll post the scenes on AO3 even though they're out of order. Tag: #cotl 19th century AU

Also made a concept playlist (ask box post with song list, WIP) on the AUs because I'm absolutely nuts

I've also written mad ideas and wrote a few bits on an OC worldbuilding thing I've had since like 2010 or something no idea if people might be interested in it and it's as convoluted as the Kingdom Hearts series soooo Tag: #three kids and their pet ghost

[aces-to-apples]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Tagged by @dead-cowboy!

1.) How many works do you have on ao3? Across three accounts and like 1......1? years, jesus, 154. (I think. Give or take a couple anonymized that I may have forgotten.)

2.) What’s your ao3 word count? 325,886. Somehow.

3.) What fandoms do you write for? Previously? Red vs. Blue, The Magnificent Seven (2016), The Musketeers (2014), Warcraft (2016), RWBY, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Umbrella Academy, The Hobbit trilogy, Supernatural, and Star Wars. Currently: Dragon Age, Jak and Daxter, Skyrim, Ted Lasso, Kingdoms of Amalur, and Star Wars.

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos? A trite, originally tumblr not!fic about OWK (anonymized), the sequel that tricked me into liking Darth Maul (anonymized), an old Cody/OWK Week fic from 2020, the first Sith!Cody fic in the tag (anonymized), and Renegade (time-traveling clones from 2018). Seven out of my top ten are anon, and eight of the top fifteen, so I figure we can just leave it there lmao.

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Not really, no. Most comments I get are.....cursory? Obligatory? They aren't substantive, is what I mean to say. "Thanks for writing this", and whatnot, which not only don't necessitate a reply, but like, what reply can there possibly be? If there's a non-rhetorical question that I can answer, or the commenter had something to say, or even just has fun energy, then I try to respond in kind, but those kinds of comments are uhhhhhh. Not something my work attracts lol. Basically, I'm not going to send a thank-you card for a thank-you card, you know?

6.) What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uhhhhh, I don't know, I don't really deliberately do angst? Maybe a Dogma/Hardcase ficlet with ghost!Hardcase, but also depending on your point of view, maybe the Sith!OWK Kenfetti fic. It's hard for me to judge, I don't think I've ever even tagged something with angst, but that definitely seems like the darkest ending I've written? Idk.

7.) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? God this is much harder than I thought it would be. Somehow I don't think these two were meant to be the hardest-hitting questions lmao? *scrolling down my fic summaries* Hmm, learning things about myself that I'm not sure I appreciate... Maybe "she wore it wonderfully well" (Mag7, Emma/Vasquez)? Trying to find something unambiguously happy that I also am less embarrassed to link is. Difficult.

8.) Do you get hate on fics? Not especially. I have guest comments turned off, my fics are locked, and I generally don't write ships with wide readerships to start with. For the most part I occasionally get something rude and entitled that I delete, but I tell you FFN readers are some of the most hostile people you'll ever meet, they're truly dedicated to being haters of anything even resembling creative writing, it's very funny.

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind? I do, it's not very good, and honestly I think the most prevailing trend is consent issues and power dynamic fuckery. My first smut fic was anonymous mindsex, and my second was sex-pollened enemies lmaoooooo.

10.) Do you write cross overs? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Not as often as I'd like to, but yes! Allow me to introduce you to (and please ignore that it's a fusion), DRUMROLL PLEASE!, The Worst AU In The World (Game of Thrones/Winx Club)! If you want an actual crossover though, I did just write Dorian "Dragon Age" Pavus/Savage "Star Wars" Opress, so that was fun.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge; I doubt it.

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated? Um. Yes. About eight years ago someone translated a Warcraft smutfic of mine into Chinese. That's the only one I know about.

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before? No, I genuinely don't even know how that would work.

14.) What’s your all time favourite ship? Hmmm. I can't say I have one. I'm a multifandom multishipper at heart, I've burnt out of several fandoms, burnt out of several ships, and I'm too AuDHD to be able to pick a favorite anything. Trent Crimm/Jamie Tartt.

15.) What’s a WIP you’d like to finish, but doubt you ever will? To be fair, most of them. But also the Dooku POV installment of the first two most-kudosed fics' series, and the Locus/Tucker roleswap RvB fic, and the Locus time-travel fic, and the Dragon Age/Star Wars crossover Maulrexsoka fic. Just off the top of my head.

16.) What are your writing strengths? I've been told my fics tend to be very high concept and I do weird things with syntax. And honestly, that's already me knowing too much.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses? Quickest answer? Plot.

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'm monolingual and don't have any cultural baggage around it, so I generally find it at least some level of fun and engaging, but it's also easy for it to become gimicky when it's a conlang (guilty) and not well-executed when it's a canonically code-switching character (also guilty). I maintain however that all of that should be forgiven in Red vs. Blue fics though; the entire point from the ground up is that all the Spanish is wrong.

19.) First fandom you wrote for? ....................................Yu-Gi-Oh!. With reader-insert. I plea Not Guilty by reason of I Was Fourteen.

20.) Favourite fic you’ve ever written? See, recency bias says "cat-scratch" (amnesiac!Sabretooth AU) but brand loyalty says "peace is a lie" (JesseMaul). Maybe I'll split the difference, end up with a net-zero, and say "memento (mori)" (Cailan Theirin/Female Surana).

-

Honestly I think our biggest takeaway here is that I can't be trusted to answer questions about my own content because I harsh the vibe by tending to not like it lol

Tagging whoever wants to play!

[neverhangd]

doing bits and bobs on the blog, obviously. rn i'm in potc hell (thank the gang lmao, s/o for dealing with me go to: @mvrtogg, @itismissswann, @norringtxn / @collectorofmuses), and i just realized that the majority of people who follow me may not have read this page (or even known it existed!), so i wanted to give two important bits of context!

1.) anne bonny walked so her archetypes could run.

i literally found out two weeks ago that anne bonny isn't stupid famous. whaaaaaat? but actually, that did shock me. maybe it's because i had two pirates phases and like research, but i've known a little bit about her since i was a kid: specifically, that she was a kick-ass pirate woman. i've learned a lot more since then, and i love to share it; i joined a group that i thought had a pirate phase only to learn that...they hadn't. and had no idea who anne bonny was outside of being a character someone before me had written as well.

it was exactly then that i realized anne bonny isn't a super famous kick-ass pirate woman and i felt like that one part of dogma. someone was trying to explain how my take on anne bonny both was and wasn't in-line with the previous writer's and it took me a while to realize they were asking what show or book i used for canon because they doubted she was the same character, despite sharing the archetypes. so. just so it's out there, here's an incomplete list of archetypes we can apply to the historical figure anne bonny, kick-ass pirate woman:

riches to rags (gave up a privileged life to marry a pirate)

the redhaired irish

girlboss/tits out for piracy (she would famously whip her shirt off in battle so men would know they'd been killed by a woman)

did it for love (left her first husband and became a pirate with her second)

it's a love story (whatever else they were, history tells us jack and anne were in love, even if i don't usually use that on this blog)

three's company, too (anne and read were absolutely an item at the same time as anne and jack)

ambiguously queer (i advocate for a bisexual anne, but the only lady-type lover she took was read, who can be fairly read as transmasc, putting some doubt on the full connotation of her orientation/s)

short fuse (she was known to fight over basically anything)

2.) what in the url?

since anne bonny isn't the kickass pirate bicon of my dreams--we'll get her there, one day!--it's relevant to also share what the fuck my url actually means. because she was a woman a pirate a woman and a pirate alive during the early 18th century, we actually don't have much record of anne speaking for herself. the most popularly known quote we have was spoken directly to jack rackham just before his execution:

if [you] had fought like a man, [you] need not have been hang'd like a dog. -A General History of Pyrates, Daniel Defoe

she said this to him because he and his men were the reason the ship had been caught and they had been taken prisoner and she took that very personally, as well she should! (it turns out that both anne and read were pregnant, anne by jack and read by their husband.) the larger thing is, she wasn't wrong: when the ship was invaded, only three people stood on the deck fighting: read, anne, and an unnamed pirate who presumably died in the struggle. everyone else was hiding below decks. read, in fact, famously fired TWICE down at the hiding men, killing one and injuring another.

the really wild part of all this, though, is the ending of anne's story. we don't know it.

anne's execution was stayed on account of her pregnancy, as was read's. read would die in prison from a fever, and presumably their child did as well; anne, on the other hand, simply...disappeared.

...but what is become of her since, we cannot tell; only this we know, that she was not executed. -A General History of Pyrates, Daniel Defoe (which, if you keep wondering why i'm referencing it, is considered THE source)

officially speaking, we may literally NEVER know what happened to anne. all we know is she NEVERHANGD.*

thank you for your time and attention! ♡

[transmalewife]

You mentioned disliking the Clovis arc before. I agree completely, but can I ask why you had an issue with it?

well I haven't seen it in a while but mostly because it's. bad? like most of tcw is a bit all over the place and pointless, but some arcs stand out for not only being pointless but actually detrimental to canon. like i love ahsoka but tcw is a fucking terrible show, with brief moments of genius burried under an entire swamp of filler. and i can excuse that, the hideous style, the horrible unimaginative costumes, the shallow overarching plot and happily watch it as a mediocre kids show to get more ahsoka, ugly padme and ooc anakin, but even i have my limits.

So like i've talked before about how i hate tcw changing anakin's characterization to be more of a typical macho action sci-fi/fantasy rugged hero, most likely as a direct cowardly fan service response to the reaction to anakin in the prequels. (I have to add that part of that is again, kids show, everyone is speaking in cool one liners, overpowered, and doing stuff meant to make every 8 year old boy watching piss himself in glee and demand a toy lightsaber. But there are kids shows with fucking amazing stories. atla is imo one of the best written stories on tv period, not just in terms of cartoons. tcw is.... not that). and the clovis arc is basically the nail of the cofin of both anakin's and padme's characters.

with my friends we used to say the tcw made padme into The Woman and she really is nothing else here. In tpm and aotc padme is rushing into danger with a blaster. she's shown to be more competent than the jedi at times, including when it comes to combat, and even though it's usually played for a joke, its still an integral part of who she is. she will get out of a situation if she needs to. she's 3 steps ahead politically and physically. She will solve a problem if needs be. in fact, as terrible as the clone wars movie was, one thing it got right, is padme going after a hutt with nothing but a blaster to save anakin. in the show, padme is a damsel in distress, and rarely anything more. even though she sometimes tries to deal with it herself, the narrative keeps putting her into that role, and having anakin (or Ahsoka) rescue her. padme planned and won a battle at 14. she took the lead when they were infiltrating geonosis, and it was her idea in the first place. later she fell out of that ship and immediately took command of the first soldier she could find. she tried to shoot dooku's ship down with a blaster for fucks sake. she's reckless, she's violent, she's smart and strategic, she's in charge.

Anakin knows that, and that's why he loves her. their relationship is actually a really interesting reversal of many typical heterosexual ideas of romance. He's younger, less worldly, more emotional. an awkward teen crushing on someone far out of his league. it's basically self insert one direction fanfic come true for him. Padme's rich and powerful. his love for her is his main drive. and that love always presents in following her lead. fucks sake he flirts with her by saying hey wouldn't it be cool if you were a dictator? you're so smart i think you should rule the galaxy. because i could make that happen if you want.

she tells him no when he kisses her, and he accepts it. he asks again, literally crying, in the fireplace scene, and then accepts her final answer as no and drops it. he's surprised and confused when she kisses him on geonosis. He's not possesive. remember, the possesive love is bad vs compassion unconditional love is good is not jedi dogma, its a pickup line from anakin. but even then, his love for padme is unconditional. he loves her even when she doesnt want him. he loves her even when he doesnt see her for a decade. is it childish, unrealistic, and fucked up in its own way? yes. but its not possesive in the "If i can't have you, no one can" way. its not jealous. in fact, anakin isn't really a jealous person in the prequels. he doesn't have any problems with owen being Shmi's stepson

now, the problem is, none of that is half as clear in the actual source material. star wars is a mess, with massive tone problems. like to get any of these you have to fight the irresistible cringe and power through i like sand, through jar jar, through so much bullshit, but it is there. and boy are those tone problems glaring in tcw. star wars deals with some incredibly dark shit. slavery, death, war, grief. and by deals with, i mean doesn't deal with them at all, just brings them up and never really explores them. and tcw could have been the perfect solution to that. they finally had the time to actually explore it. and instead they gave us a 4 fucking episode arc of droids dicking about on a planet with a tiny alien general. 4 fucking episodes. i will never get over that. half a million dollars per episode and they did that with it.

you can make a good kids show that deals with war and death, still has comedic moments for the babies watching, and actually introduces them gently to the topics at hand. again, atla. you have to show the characters being hurt and affected by the tragedy. you have to take a break once in a while and use the filler episodes to let the charaters breathe and process. you can't be so scared of the trauma you've written that your filler just doesn't have the main characters in it at all. what tcw seemingly did is went ok what are the prequels about. war, death, slavery, anakin going bad. ok. now, what do kids like? cool weapons, quips and silly bullshit. tcw actually betrays a really mean approach to it's audience in how bad it is at times. it tries to mascarade its incompetent writing under "its for kids anyway, it doesnt need to be smart".

aaanyway, circling back finally. one thing the prequels did not have, one complicated topic they did not have to introduce if they knew they couldn't write it gracefully, is sexual harrassment. they didn't have to. they chose to include it. it was unnecessary and in poor taste.

in an ideal world, where tcw is good, consistent with padme's and anakin's characterization, and actually deals with the shit it brings up, i can see the basic premise working. a show in which padme doesn't need rescuing in every other episode she's in could have made a point about how uniquely violating sexual harrasment is by making padme freeze up and need help. it could have made anakin give into his darker instincts and beat a sleazebag half to death. but then it made him actually evil and working with dooku, so he deserved it anyway its fine. and then at the end he dies so padme and anakin can be happy together and its never fucking adressed again that she broke up with anakin. because surely once the other man is dead The Woman must want to fuck the only other alternative again. its fine.

anakin has loved padme since he was 9. he risked his entire life's work, his dream of being a jedi to marry her. then she breaks up with him. devastating, right? worth exploring, right? ooooh noooo we wrote an emotion, men don't have those except anger, quick, quick, let's cut to 2 episodes of jar jar dicking about in a cult.

it also cheapens a lot of rots imo. It takes away from the confrontation on mustafar if Padme's been afraid of anakin before. it takes away from the earth shattering impact of her finally having to face the consequences of marrying a mass murderer. it also takes away from the absurdity of anakin in the throes of madness and palpatine-induced delusion accusing her of choosing obi wan over him. it takes away from the denial both padme and obi wan were living in to ignore the signs of anakin getting worse as the war goes on, if the signs were that obvious. season 6 does that a lot, by reavealing pretty much every part of the conspiracy and just having them not fucking deal with it, because there's no ahsoka and they ran out of ideas so let's just remind people the plot of rots. it also takes away from itself, if the point its trying to make is anakin is excessively jealous, its a bit fucking stupid to do it with a character who's already put padme's life at risk.

i would have been a lot harsher if you'd asked me a year ago, probably bc i haven't seen it in a while and dont remember how shit it is, but there are things i like about it. anakin's slow descent into darkness, that was done much better with subtle character beats in season 7. padme drinking wine and going to shows (opera? I think) like the clueless aristocrat she is, while people die, that i really wish had been explored more than that hideous scene when she finally remembers her servant is a person with a family. and thats already me being generous because i dont think that was ever intentional.

anyway, tldr. it gratuitously uses sexual harrasment as a plot device without actually exploring it, it shits on padme and anakin's characters and the plot of rots, and it perfectly encapsulates everything bad about tcw.

thankfully tcw has enough blatant inconsistencies with the pt that i can just pick and choose what is canon and what isnt so. clovis arc is but a bad dream jar jar had in that cave next episode.