tophat-69

[tophat-69]

Vanco def switch. For sure. I say it with so much confidence. They told me.

Lol do you have more thoughts on their sex dynamics?

Well, I mean if they told you so, it would just be disrespectful of me to ignore them wouldn’t it? Can’t have that!

I think that Vander and Silco are two very troubled people—we’ve seen where they can both be pretty rough on each other or snappish during sex when they’re in a bad place emotionally. At the same time, they’re both romantics in their way. Vander falls in love hard and fast, but Silco would live and die for someone he loves, way beyond the point of reason (and we know that to be canon).

They have around a decade and a half together before The River Incident, and they’d probably mellow out in bed over time if it weren’t for the circumstances they’re living in (it’s why we end up with soft old married couple ZaunDads in the AU, once the conflict is gone).

When any day could be your last day, and your friends and family are dying all around you, sex is pretty life-affirming. Whether that’s angry sex where they’re both working of feelings of helplessness, or softer sex for comfort, that varies.

But Silco gives amazing head. This will forever be canon for me. When he is in control of giving head or when he tops, he’s absolutely getting off on having complete control over someone so much bigger and more physically imposing than him. Vander submitting to him, or being topped by him? Ego fed for days.

He knows what they look like side by side, he knows what people assume their dynamic to be. And he is a size queen and does love to bottom and isn’t going to let people whose opinions he gives no crap about make that feel like a stereotype or an insult. There are exactly two people in the entire world whose opinions he cares about, and one of them is in his bed and knows they switch, and the other would punt someone for talking about her brother’s sex life anywhere near her. And Vander does enjoy that he can lift Silco one-handed and manhandle him and overwhelm him so easily.

But Silco is bossy. That man can be a brat, and when he is he enjoys Vander taking the bait. He does like goading Vander, making him show his teeth as it were. He has NO problem with a rough romp.

But I think they both enjoy intimacy as much as sex. Silco’s been touch starved, Vander’s a bit of a sap, and they don’t have much in the way of comfort in their lives. Every once in a while, just stealing a little bit of sweetness and comfort is how they make it through. It’s just hard to keep ahold of that when everything else is falling apart, and sometimes it’s easier to get there in the afterglow of something rougher.

[tophat-69]

Blast Vander with the PTSD canon. Realistically, he DOES probs already have it considering he has no parents, been working for years, raising a child AND has experienced constant police brutality

Vander ALSO deserves to be folded in half by Silco. There's only so many times he can remove Silco's ability to walk + Vander deserves some payback from Silco after the Mushroom Gag Saga

That police brutality is ABSOLUTELY why that man has PTSD. I figure you don’t end up spearheading a rebellion without being at least a little traumatized by what you’re fighting, and we know he has a particularly bloody reputation.

And as basically the unofficial mayor of the Lanes… that’s a lot of death to get them to that point by the time we reach the bridge battle.

(Generations of it, even, that started before them and unfortunately will outlive them both. I feel bad too because at this point any OC you’ve met, you know what happens to them one way or another eventually).

As for the sex dynamics… I know some people are VERY particular about it, so I don’t want to alienate any of my readers! But these two are equal partners, and they struck me as switches from the start.

[tophat-69]

But what if I give young Vander PTSD already. Just a smidge. You know, for flavoring.

(Also, how do we feel about top/bottom dynamics? Are Vanco switching? We’ve seen them switch dom/sub at this point in the story.)

[tophat-69]

my current subscription list

I thought it might be fun to share what's currently on my A03 subscription list and why. It seems like I have a fondness for fluffy AUs ;)

In no particular orders and only stuff that is unfinished right now (so inherently no oneshots), but at least has a couple of chapters.

River Water : I think this one is pretty popular and well known. It's an omegaverse with alpha Vander and omega Silco where Viktor is Vander and Silco's bio kids and they reconnect when Viktor and Jayce show up in Zaun after being banished. Lot's of angst and big drama (ie Vander didn't now of Silco's existance) and Zaundads reconnecting maybe to some extent as they watch JayVik also becoming close.

Trapped By A Singlar Fate: Young Zaundads getting togehter story, a very cool approach to Felicia (being a much younger Jinx like little sister type character) and impeccable world building.

Grading on a Curve: Eeeeeee, sexy, funny college AU with jock!Vander and standoffish!Silco.

Please Be Rude: Modern AU: I must have a soft spot for nervous wreck Silco.

The Lightkeeper: Siren!Silco targets the mysterious new lighthouse keeper. Siren!Silco x Werewolf!Vander. I really dig the hints at siren background lore and see above for my soft spot for chaotic wreck Silco. It did take me a couple of chapters to really get into it, but once things heat up between Silco and Vander, I'm definitley there.

"Inofficial Subscription List":

this isn't actually on my subscription list, but I have an eye out for them. Some of them are quite new, so I'm still not sure whether they'll be my thing.

This Devotion May Contain Side Effects: yeah, yeah, it's the comments/praise here on tumblr that convinced me to check it out. I like to pretend that fics that focus on dad-ly stuff (in this case Silco and Vander, particularly Silco, taking in and raising orphan Viktor) can't get me, but this one really is as good, though hints of Vander's dark side vis a vis Silco are starting to show up. But it's generally very good and good depiction of the darkness Zaunites have to put up with.

Pinned Under Glass: There seems to be a good season for Silco torture. AU where Silco got captured by an evil enforcer and slowly over years got turned into his pet bride. Vander stumbles across him and is shocked when Silco pretends not to recongnize him. The tags forsee dark stuff but the setup intrigued me.

Falling Downwards Into The Light: Between Lightkeeper, Pinned Under Glass, things like Hound Goes Feral I think I might an unhealthy fondness for captured Silco. Here Vander is the capturer (when an injured Silco drags himself towards the Last Drop after some... business with a chem baron). Vander is quite dark, Silco is very crafty. (it reminded me quite a lot of a similar story by Rimeko) I don't know whether it will end up being too dark for my taste, but so far I'm still reading.

Full House: This author has written some banger Vander/Jayce daddykink. I didn't feel their solo Vander/Silco prequel quite as much, but I have my eye on this. Silco and Vander reunite and imo their chemistry is so thick to me as world weary older men reuniting, even though they are just having a conversation (I might also have a secret fondness for the trope of Vander instantly dumping Jayce the second Silco shows up). I hope I will ike the foursome with JayVik that the tags promise. And I just love the mental image of how Silco has spent his time away as a letter column/agony aunt/sex advice columnist so much.

I wish somebody would write this as a full fledged fic, I feel Silco's agony aunt response letters would be hilarious.

[note that I'm personally super bad at reading things if I missed the beginning and it feels like it already has too many chapters by the time I get into it, there's highly rated, regularly updating wips that I'm scaredy cat about getting into even though it's on my todo list]

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I want you to know that my personal life is quite literally falling the fuck apart and trapped by a singular fate is the glue holding me together. I think of this fic DAILY, it is my much needed escape from reality. Thank you for continuing to write, and share, and put all of the cool meta on tumblr.

Chapter 9 is AMAZING!!! They're all such a mess, I love them. The scene of the enforcers targeting Vander and Felicia is really, really well done. It's heartbreaking, and very visceral to read.

How long have silco and vander been together by ch9? Vander's confession of love to silco is beautiful, and their sex is super hot. Is the gag the gag we see when jinx kidnaps silco in canon?? I always wondered where it came from/was it silco's/why did he have it.

I’m so sorry to hear things aren’t going well! I’m glad that I’ve been able to in some way help distract you, but more than that I hope you catch a break soon and things start to improve for you.

But I am glad you enjoyed the chapter. Felicia’s been fun to puzzle out because I’m trying to show characteristics each of her girls might have picked up from her, while knowing their memories of her grow very fuzzy over time. But Vander and Silco will carry all of these memories of Felicia in technicolor on repeat in their heads for the rest of their lives, and those memories influence how Vander and Silco will eventually raise her daughters.

In Chapter 9, they have been together just under a year—Vander is still moving fast because he has zero chill (he would say that he just knows what he wants). We know from him being our POV character how ridiculously quickly he went from “ah, yes, I am collecting my neglected coworker with the pretty eyes” to “this is my soulmate, I am never giving him back, I will destroy anything that tries to take him from me.” Because he’s young, and that’s just how things go.

Meanwhile Silco’s still trying to trust that nice things can happen to him sometimes, and that just maybe the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train. He’s been on his own for the majority of his life, and things weren’t a picnic even before that. He wants what they have to be real, to mean something, but he’s still afraid of the ground falling out from beneath him the second he gets too comfortable in accepting what he knows is too good to be true. People like him don’t luck into a family and a home and a happily ever after and a co-conspirator and partner in his ideologies.

But he genuinely is working what is likely the most dangerous job in the entire world, and he knows that he could die the next day, or the next week, or the next month. So it’s the dilemma between carefully feeling out whether he can have this, and potentially losing the one chance he’ll get to claim what he wants in whatever little time they have left.

And meanwhile—yes, the gag is the one Jinx finds. It is a gag of great sentimental value, after all! But more seriously, we see that as Silco gets older he has a tendency to cling to every painful memento he can. It’s as if he keeps them close so that if he starts to falter he can rip open old wounds and remember what he’s lost and why he’s still angry and still fighting. The record of ‘their’ song and the photo of the three of them in his safe, the glass from the bar, the paintings facing the walls scattered across his office, the statue of Vander.

Like the photo and the record, it would have been stashed away somewhere. But like the glass, it would seem innocuous if found. For all it was a fun romp, it was also the first time that Vander said he loved Silco, and that he wasn’t going anywhere, and that Silco wouldn’t be abandoned again, and that no matter what happened if Silco just came home they’d get through it.

…

So yeah, that one landed in the collection of very, very painful mementos that Silco wouldn’t let go of. Because that was a foundational night for their relationship, but a lot of promises that would eventually end up broken.

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Newest chapter of “trapped by a singular fate,” my ZaunDads / Zaun Rebellion prequel fic, is up now!

This newest chapter is NSFW because Vander is a possessive bastard who should not be allowed to play with bioluminescent mushrooms we canonically know will glow on skin (and that are probably not even toxic!)

Featuring: police brutality, an inability to communicate, a love confession despite that, one princess with a mental disorder being clocked by another, sex for flavoring, and that gag that Silco kept for years for Sentimental Value.

From the Beginning | Start From Chapter 9

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I was thinking again WHY AU Silco is grayer than original timeline Silco. But he is also a lot tanner...then it struck me. Again it amazes me how much attention Fortiche paid to such small details 💁🏻‍♀️🌞

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As OP says, it’s entirely possible to filter AO3 to allow people to determine what is safe or appropriate for them to consume. Not wanting to see topics and triggers is absolutely acceptable, understandable, and encouraged. Policing fictional content for all is not something I support, even as a CSA survivor.

Censorship of fiction does not lessen instances of abuse. But censorship based on “obscenity” backfires every single time. We have seen again and again how attempts to regulate and censor materials—and in this case fictional materials—can and WILL backfire.

However noble your intentions are in this crusade, obscenity censorship does not protect people, it opens the door to actual harm. Once you win that, the subjective interpretation of “obscenity” is left to endless argument and shifting power dynamics.

LGBTQ identities are being treated as indecent. They are trying to erase trans identities. They’re treating “lesbian” and “gay” and “homosexual” like they’re dirty words. They’re pulling books from schools. That specific censorship isn’t what you want—but it’s absolutely where it will be taken.

If you want to help vulnerable groups, there are better ways. Work on educating people about warning signs. Work at advocating for real victims. Arguing that online fiction should be censored and making that a stance you’ll defend past any point of reason is misguided, and not doing any good for anyone.

Being a pro censorship ao3 user is so insanely cringe. Either use the (incredibly effective and well designed) filtering system to avoid seeing the shit you don't like or stop complaining. Leave the pro censorship rhetoric to Wattpad or smth

[tophat-69]

Title: it's the good, defining itself

Author: TopHat69

Fandom: Arcane: League of Legends

Rating: E - Explicit

Category: M/M (Jayce/Viktor)

Content Warnings: None

Word Count: 98,372

Summary:

Following the events of the series finale, Viktor once again saves Jayce and unwittingly revives himself as well. Viktor is determined to undo his past mistakes, even if that means leaving Jayce behind. That idea is complicated by their souls now being intertwined.

And fate isn’t done with them yet.

Excerpt:

Viktor’s voice is an ethereal whisper in Jayce’s thoughts as light blazes through the darkness of space like a supernova.

Live, Jayce.

Jayce abruptly finds himself on the precipice again.

[tophat-69]

I am NOTORIOUSLY bad at replying to comments on fics. Genuinely. I’m terrible at it. Not because I don’t value the comments—sometimes a comment is all that motivates me to keep going—but because at some point “thank you so much for reading!” started sounding hollow compared to what people were giving to me just by actually engaging with what I do.

It started to sound in my head like my customer service voice from my first job “thank you! Have a nice day!” and I worried that it started reading that way too, even if (unlike my customer service voice) it WAS genuine. I still don’t believe people actually read and enjoy my stories. I have been accused of having terrible imposter syndrome about being a writer because I see other writers being the pillars of their fandoms and that’s just not me. I don’t know if it’s true, but I do know that I feel like I’m awkwardly standing around like an idiot while people pat me on the shoulder and I have no idea what to say.

The only time I really consistently reply is to QUESTIONS on my stuff, because I feel like I have something of value to add to that. I know the thought that went into my stories, so I can actually contribute there. It’s why the Asks on Tumblr have become really the first, most consistent and engaging conversations I’ve had about the stories and characters and the shows.

I read every comment. I love every comment. The comments are honestly my only measure of if I’ve done ANYTHING right, because Kudos and Bookmarks are just numbers and I can’t quantify an emotional response from them.

But I don’t know what to say to comments that’s as meaningful as the comments say to me.

Gotta say I used to extensively comment on fics and not just a few words but did some fairly long detailed comments on what I liked but recently I started to get less and less replies on them despite authors (relatively popular ones) sometimes replying to others. And while I understand that author doesn’t owe me anything it did quite demotivate me from leaving as much comments. Why bother if nobody cares in the first place? I know its an unhelpful mindset but I can’t shake it. Any advices?

hi!

as an author who likes to comment on others' works but is notoriously bad at replying to comments I receive on my own works, I can guarantee that 99.99% of writers read the comments they receive and, even if they don't reply back, they love and appreciate your kind words more than you know. I know this may sound cliche and all, but I can wholeheartedly say this because it's true for me, as an author.

yes, I admit that I don't always reply to comments I receive, but it's not because I don't appreciate or care about them. I read them, mostly several times each, I screenshot them and save them in a special folder so I can always come back and read them again. there are just so many kind comments I receive that make me smile to myself for minutes even though I don't reply back. some of them actually make me shed a few tears of joy.

thing is when us authors don't reply to comments we receive, it's mostly because;

we don't know how best to respond that will let the commenters know how much we appreciate them. because if the comments are several paragraph long (we LOVE that!), and we only reply with "thank you so much", then it sounds too short for us. (I know this because I sometimes spend so long thinking about how best to respond that will let my commenters know how much I appreciate them that I sometimes end up don't respond back.)

sometimes we are overwhelmed by several comments from several readers, and responding to all of them are too overwhelming. but we read, love and appreciate each and every single one of them very dearly.

sometimes we reply to some comments and not the others, because maybe we have little free time where we can only reply to some people, or maybe there's something about some specific comments that makes us respond back. but this does not mean we don't care about comments we don't reply back.

sometimes we're simply exhausted from stuff in our lives and replying to comments take time and energy, depends on how long the comments are / how long we want our responses to be / how many comments we receive, etc

writing is hard, but sometimes finding the right words to reply back to comments can be even harder, especially when we want to write several paragraph responses back just to let them know how much we appreciate them. and unfortunately sometimes us writers just don't have enough energy left.

but rest assured that, even if we don't reply, we love and appreciate every kind comment we receive very, very much, and they help motivate us to keep writing.

when I comment on my fellow writers' works and don't get any response back, I know why (for the reasons listed above), and that's totally okay for me because I don't comment on their works just for them to thank me, I do it because I want them to know how I love and appreciate their works, and I believe they do know. and that's really all that matters for me.

so if your favorite authors don't reply to you, please don't think that it's because they "don't care" or that your comments "don't matter" to them.

I mean, of course, I can see why not getting a response back can be discouraging, especially when commenting on writers' works are so encouraged, but as a fellow commenter (yes, I'm an author and also a commenter of fics I love), I always think of it this way; fanfics are gifts we receive for free, we comment on writers' works as a way to thank them for giving us cool fics to read. we don't expect them to thank us back because they've already given us this lovely gift. we comment only because we want to let them know we love their fics. and they know.

your comments could now be saved in your favorite authors' folders and re-read by them over and over again, even if they didn't respond back. they could be smiling to themselves reading your thoughts on their works. who knows? their next 100k word fic could be motivated by you.

[tophat-69]

I love trapped by a singular fate but is it weird that I love your replies on asks even more? It’s very meta how much thought you’ve put into every character, and I really enjoy how your brain works.

It’s not weird! TBSF started as meta on TikTok and Twitter, and sort of became a story from there because I couldn’t shake it.

But also, I connect to stories through characters more than anything. I also sometimes enjoy figuring out the world building that’s only alluded to in media.

Both lend themselves pretty well to meta, even though I lean toward creative writing.

So I’ll just put this out there as an open invite! If you want to pick my brain, feel free. I’m just happy to have people in fandom who want to talk about things I love, let alone want my opinion on anything!

[tophat-69]

Will we ever go into the detail of Silco's parents/life in the Proms? Or is that supposed to be more along the lines that Silco doesn't dwell on that area of his life at all?

Amusingly, I considered it a bit in the last chapter! I’d even written some and then deleted it because it didn’t seem to fit there in the end.

Because we’re in Vander’s limited POV, and Silco is desperate to keep Vander’s perspective of him from being colored by his past. He doesn’t want Vander to see him as a cast-off, or a fissure dweller, or an urchin. Silco is thriving right now because Vander takes him at face-value as he is now, and Silco does want to focus on the present and more importantly on the future.

Silco is almost detrimentally future-focused with his dreams and schemes, because he’ll be abrasive or callous as he feels that he needs to in the present to reach what he’s dreaming of for the future.

Essentially: even now he would claim that he let a weaker version of himself die so that a stronger one could be born.

And he’ll do that over and over again until he can become what he projects himself to be.

[tophat-69]

Thank you so much for the tag! For my results… I do hope that the pain IS worth it! I certainly had no issue with the question about which tag applied most often to my fics (I will live and die by “Angst with a Happy Ending). Tagging in @richredapples @out-there-tmblr if they want to play!

What Color Is Your Writing quiz

Tagged by both @lucien-lachance and @skyrim-forever thank you! @vervayyn @duo-kun @theoneandonlysemla @sheirukitriesfandom @heavy-metal-dick you're up next if you want, no pressure tho!

I suppose that's somewhat accurate. My fic is a whirlwind of all sorts of emotion lol

[tophat-69]

NOTICE: As more and more fanfic writers are using generative AI for their works (you uncreative dweebs), I hereby swear on everything I hold dear that I have not and will NEVER use generative AI in ANY of my written work. Everything I post will be organically and creatively my own.

[tophat-69]

“You’re too young to remember what the undercity was before it became an… enterprise. We had nothing.”

Chapter 8 of “trapped by a singular fate” is live now!

What did the Sumps suffer before Vander and Silco founded The Lanes? What did it take to spark a violent revolution?

From the Start | Chapter 8

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I feel like we moved past how amazing It’s The Good Defining Itself was way too fast. It was beautiful. I loved how certain Jayce and Viktor were in each other and how it still had tension without having to mess with their relationship and how the Zaun revolution happened and how you really do get the feeling that it was the reality that mage Viktor hoped for because it’s the one where they got things right. I know you’ve moved on and are writing Vander and Silco now but I still can’t believe you built that entire world so quickly and now no one even talks about it. Thank you so so so much for sharing it with us.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

But I do still feel like the entire thing was a fever dream. A 5K chapter a day through the holidays and then the flu and pneumonia without even a hint of pre-planning, just slamming it out chapter after chapter... Honestly I don't think that's an experience I could ever recreate.

The fic was just straight vibes going from what l'd want for them, but afterwards I realized the time-travel/alternate universe type fix-it fic for them was very well-trod ground, and getting more so by the day. I'm genuinely glad I didn't let myself read any other fics in the fandom first, because I absolutely would have second-guessed myself out of ever posting it.

But I don’t feel like it was moved past! I had the absolute privilege of seeing fanart made based on my words, and a fic inspired by the story, and amazing conversations with other Jayvik fans, and people on Tumblr sort of welcoming me in based on that fic. I was blown away by the response!

This fandom is so phenomenally creative and expansive, and it doesn't feel like I’ve been overlooked in any way at all. Jayvik is getting more and more amazing content for it every day and that's a net win for all of us.

[tophat-69]

Happy FFWF! What music do you listen to while writing?

Happy FFWF, and thank you for asking!

Right now I’m still running a lot of Noah Kahan in the background, because I’m still writing young Vander and Silco and so much of his stories are love that isn't entirely healthy and is going to fall apart. It just feels like he fits the vibe for writing to, more than it does specific lyrics. But there are glimpses.

"Northern Attitude" hits right for this Silco for me. He's an asshole and knows it, but it's half just how much life has already hurt him. It's not who he wants to be, it's in part the damage he brings with him and he's trying so hard to open up despite it. "If I get too close and I'm not how you hoped, forgive my northern attitude, oh I was raised out in the cold. If the sun don't rise 'til the summertime, forgive my northern attitude, oh I was raised on little light."

Whereas “The View Between Villages” is very much older Silco, the one we see in the latter half of Season 1. This is the man who’s gained a daughter and power but lost everything else. He’s sitting at Vander’s statue and remembering another time. “I'm seventeen again, I am not scared of death. I've got dreams again. It's just me and the curve of the valley, and there is meaning on Earth. I am happy.” He’s in the present, but he sees so much of the past in everything. This is a man who made his base the bar he’d loved, but changed everything about it. He can’t let go of the past, but he can’t face it either. “It's all washin' over me, I'm angry again. The things that I lost here, the people I knew, they got me surrounded for a mile or two. The car's in reverse, I'm grippin' the wheel. I'm back between villages and everything's still.”

“Everywhere, Everything” is kind of where we’re at right now in the story. These two do love each other, and they’ve killed for each other, and they want this to be forever—“I wanna love you ‘til we’re food for worms to eat, ‘til our fingers decompose, keep my hand in yours.” It's a grim sort of love that acknowledges that they themselves aren't necessarily going to survive, but shows they're determined to stick together. At the same time, they don’t see the bigger disaster creeping up on them because they’re looking at each other: "We didn't know that the sun was collapsing, 'til the seas rose and the buildings came crashing."

"You're Gonna Go Far" does lend itself more to the forgiveness in Ekko's AU, which is always an option to consider when reading this, but also looks a bit at Vander's perspective of how Silco views Zaun: "We're overdue for a revival, we spent so long just gettin' by. That's the thing about survival, who the hell, who the hell likes livin' just to die? You told me you would make a difference. Well, I got drunk and shut you down. It won't be by your own volition if you step foot outside this town."

"Stick Season" has notes of Vander after they split, the children as how he “piled on something good on all my bad,” and the letter being a bit of “half my fault, but I just like to play the victim." (I have noted that I'm not going to absolve this man of what he's done, and that includes how that was a terrible apology.)

And "The Great Divide" has just been itching my brain right. Because I am very deliberately building towards "you know I think about you all the time, and my deep misundеrstanding of your life. And how bad it must have been for you back then, and how hard it was to keep it all insidе." Because Vander broke Silco. Absolutely destroyed that man. The Silco we see sitting at that bar in Blisters and Bedrock, and the devastated Silco that we see on the bridge, versus the chem baron we're reintroduced to... holy shit did Vander's betrayal rip him apart.

So... a random mix of songs with a heavy dollop of Noah Kahan, mostly playing in the background.