#I'm totally done with decent illustrations

[iceclew]

Don't mind me being very anxious about this here, thank you.

へ(❍∠❍)へ

I drew the line and signed it, before coming back over and over and over with new things I would add, and start to fcking overdo it again, 'cause that's happening to me very much lately..

VAMP AU, Y'ALL!!! <3

Wanted to think of some nice dialogue / scenery for this but..nothing quite clicked...go ahead add your ideas if you like...

I guess I just like to have them villian style destroying whole villages... c: just a common thursday for them maybe...

[captainsophiestark]

The Curse of the Sun and the Moon

Klaus Mikaelson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2023!

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Day 7 Prompt: "Do you recognize this?"

Summary: Klaus' SO is writing their doctoral dissertation on cross-culture myths. Much to their irritation, Klaus knows a thing or two about those.

Word Count: 1,877

Category: Humor, Fluff, maybe a tiny bit of angst?

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"Love? Hello, can you hear me?"

Slowly, I turned my head away from the paper in front of me, still not taking my eyes off the drawings. A hand waved in front of my face too, but I ignored it.

"What do you want, Nik?" I muttered, only half paying attention to him.

"I want to know you haven't gone into a coma," he whined, flopping down into the chair next to me. I cracked the tiniest smile, but didn't let my train of thought wander from the work in front of me.

"I haven't gone into a coma," I repeated. I didn't say anything else after that and neither did Nik for a moment, until he sighed.

"You must understand why I'm concerned when you respond to my questions like you're in a trance."

I sighed, making a last note before finally looking up at Nik with a tired smile.

"I'm sorry, babe. I know I've been pretty wrapped up in all this lately, but I'm writing a doctoral dissertation in folklore and mythology. I've kinda got my hands full, and if I don't put in the hours to get this done right, it's all going to be for nothing."

Nik rolled his eyes dramatically before fixing me with a look.

"You know, if you just became a vampire with me, you wouldn't have to worry about things like school and work anymore."

I narrowed my eyes. "If I ever make the decision to become a vampire with you, all I'm going to do is go back to college for more degrees and studying. I love doing this, even if it makes me want to walk into the ocean sometimes. All eternity is going to do is enable me to throw any kind of practical job application for my studies out the window."

Nik sighed heavily, but he had a smile on his face all the same.

"I probably could've guessed that answer, couldn't I?"

"Probably."

We shared a smile, and then my attention drifted back to the paper in front of me. I stared at it for a few moments, still half-aware of Nik watching me fondly, when an idea struck like lightning.

"Wait, Nik... I just thought of something." I rushed to turn the paper around on my desk so it faced Nik instead of me. "Do you recognize this? I mean, you've been around for a thousand years. Chances are probably decent that you know something about this, right?"

Nik stared at the paper for a minute, then slowly looked up at me, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"What did you say you're doing your dissertation on again?"

"I'm focusing on myths that appear to transcend cultures throughout history. There's a couple examples of stories and legends that exist in basically the same form in cultures that had no contact. This one, usually referred to as something along the lines of 'the curse of and the sun and the moon', is the main one I've decided to focus on. So... any chance you can tell me anything about it?"

Nik's tiny smile turned into a full on grin, a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at me. My heart leapt.

"Oh my gosh, you totally know something! Tell me, I can't wait. I'm gonna have to find some sources other than you if I want to put it in my paper, but-"

"This is mine, love," he said. I stared at him, trying to process what his words meant, but I came up empty-handed.

"What do you mean? Is this copy of the myth yours?"

"In a way."

Nik looked back down at the illustration depicting the curse, this one of Aztec origin. It was my favorite of the versions I'd found, although the same curse had also appeared in Roman scrolls and a half-dozen other cultures from around the world. He ran his finger over the lines of the drawing fondly.

"I drew this."

My mouth dropped open, and I looked quickly between Nik, the drawing, and back again.

"What... what do you mean you drew this? This is an Aztec myth from the 13th century-" I stopped short as my mind finally caught up. "...which I guess you were alive for..."

Nik smiled and kicked back in his chair, ankles crossed and a proud expression on his face. I just stared at him in shock.

"There is no such thing as the Curse of the Sun and the Moon, love," he said. "The real thing is the Hybrid curse, placed on me. A long time ago, Elijah and I planted this myth in cultures all over the world to get every single werewolf and vampire in the world looking for the components I needed to break my own curse. And it worked."

Nik finished his explanation with a smirk, but I didn't react. I just kept staring at him, my brain going through the equivalent of a computer's blue screen of death. This could not be possible.

"Hold on a second," I said, holding up a hand to stop my own swirling thoughts before looking at Nik again. "Let me get this straight. You drew this ancient Aztec drawing I have on my desk right now?"

"Yes."

"And you created the Roman scrolls I found that kick-started this project?"

"I did."

"And you completely made up the myth of the Curse and the Sun of the Moon, then did the ancient equivalent of editing it into a bunch of wikipedia articles to make everyone believe it was real, all so other werewolves and vampires would do the work of finding things you needed for you?"

"That's right."

"So this curse, this myth that permeates a dozen different, separate cultures, the cornerstone of my dissertation... is just a lie you made up a long time ago, that nobody ever disproved because you're just so fucking old you could create mythology at the same time that these ancient cultures actually existed?"

"Exactly."

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly. Then, my eyes snapped open, and I snatched up a scroll from the top of my desk and hucked it at my boyfriend.

"Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME NIK?" I cried, shooting out of my seat. Nik looked a little shocked, partly because the scroll had hit him smack in the face and then partly because I never got this kind of mad at him. "You can't just fake historical documents to serve your own purposes!"

"Technically, I didn't fake any historical documents. I made them at the same time in history that they're supposed to be from."

"DOESN'T COUNT! My whole dissertation is about examining the phenomena of cultures that had no interactions somehow telling the same stories. There's all kind of examples of it, but this was going to be my ace in the hole, and now I can't use it!"

"Sure you can," Nik said, at last standing from the chair. He was smart enough not to walk towards me, but I hurled a pillow from my chair at him anyway.

"No, I can't! What am I gonna say? Oh, well you see, all these different cultures had the same mythology without talking to each other because my boyfriend is a motherfucker who lied through his teeth to manipulate people, and he's old enough that he completely got away with it!"

Nik shrugged. "Sounds good to me."

"ARGH! I can't believe you- Oh my God."

"What?"

"The stupid fucking vampire myth was going to be another example supporting my dissertation. But that's gone now too. 'Oh, why do all these cultures have the same mythology about a curse and blood-drinking creatures who stalk the night?' Well that's simple, professors! It's because my boyfriend, one of those blood-drinkers, just kept showing up to plant a bullshit story and got other myths written about him in the process!"

"I'm still not seeing the problem, love, that sounds like an excellent presentation."

"NIKLAUS MIKAELSON! I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"

I rushed to close the distance between us, smacking him in the chest and then continuing to whack him in the shoulders, arms, and chest again.

"You. Can't. Just. Make. Up. Mythology. That. Influences. History. Forever. For KICKS!" I shouted, punctuating each word with a hit. Nik just watched me, not moving even half an inch from the force of my shoves, watching me rage with a small smile on his face.

"I've never seen you like this before, love," he said, his voice silky and low. It only made me want to hit him more. "I quite like it."

"UGH!" I shouted, turning away from Nik all the same. I stared at the desk, my mind finally getting into the later stages of processing. I'd have to completely ditch all this work. "Nik, this is the worst thing you've ever done. And I've dated you long enough to know about the bad things you've done. Holy shit, I'm going to have to ditch so much of this work. I'm going to have to completely change my topic, all because you're fucking ancient and a good artist and a better liar."

After a second, I felt Nik's arms slowly, gently wrap around me from behind. He rested his chin on my shoulder, nuzzling into my hair. Part of me still wanted to hit him, but not enough of me to actually do it.

"I'm sorry, love," he said, voice low and sweet. "Tell me what I can do to make it better."

I huffed a sigh through my nose. "You can tell me where Elijah is. He's a part of this too, I need to kill him next."

Nik chuckled, pulling me tighter to him. I relaxed a little bit into him.

"How about we start with a movie marathon of your choice, all of your favorite junk food, and I dagger any of my siblings who try to disturb you while you're working next week?"

I paused, thinking, dragging out the moment with a little hum. Nik kissed my cheek, slowly moving further along and down towards my neck, and after another minute I sighed.

"Fine. I guess we can start with relaxation and peace. But I am not getting over this any time soon. And I'm still going to attack Elijah the next time I see him."

"It's a deal."

"Of all the things I thought might be a challenge about dating a vampire, I never could've predicted 'destroys my doctoral dissertation by secretly being the subject of my dissertation'."

Nik snorted a little laugh in my ear. "And I never would've thought this would be the closest we came to a deal-braker for you, what with all the murdering I've done."

"I might not be able to claim the high ground on that front much longer."

I twisted around to look pointedly at Nik, but he just smiled right back at me. Wisely, he used his vampire speed to whisk me out of the room before I could look at my ruined dissertation again. This situation was absolutely, completely ridiculous, and I knew I'd probably still be processing for the next few decades. But I loved Nik and the rest of these stupid, lying, ridiculous, ancient vampires, and I'd keep loving them no matter what. Even if I wanted to kill them, sometimes, too.

****************

TVD/TO Taglist: @elenavampire21

[valentinafoxr]

Illustrhater was good

I had some time to let my thoughts marinate and watched the episode again, and I would say we're off to a good start! Some things I liked or noticed:

What it is with Lila's notebooks in the opening scene. Is she writing a novel. Is all of this just a ploy to get clout on ao3

Love love LOVE Marinette's room and all the little details - her room has always been so cool, but I feel like it's elevated by the redesign. She has a Molly Ringwald-Teen Movie Bedroom-Windowsill now ❤

RE: The intro - I DO like that they kept the song! Would've been very jarring to have a new tune, but I feel like keeping the music wraps it up really nicely. Love the Adrinette cuteness and OUGH OUGH OUGH the shot with Gabriel in the background. Sinister, I love it. I won't lie, I WILL miss the shot that's now the LadyNoir fist bump and Adrinette kiss when it used to be Chat Noir going in for a kiss and then the two of them tumbling over each other, mostly because it used to be the essence of the Lovesquare and thus the show. I totally get though why they had to change it up -different premise with Adrinette in a relationship and all- and the way the still kept the switcheroo was nicely done.

on, and they kept the black cat in the intro. points for that.

Marinette being a disaster is so, so comforting to me. Yes, give us the statistics about Hawkmoth, order shrimp macarons, hide your face in your tiny purse girl, I love you!!!! And her cat ear slippers <3

I need a moment to gush about the new animation, because, DAMN. It's both the small details (the pattern and texture of Alya's glasses) and and the scenery (Paris actually looking like a populated city with a beautiful variety of both people and unique buildings????). Idk it's just really, really nice. The character models are mostly an upgrade and look a tad older while still keeping the original vibe. The expressions are also better, especially for the supporting cast. The lighting is gorgeous! AND THE AKUMATIZATIONS!!!! HELLO!!! THEY LOOK SO COOL

Adrien is a sad exception to my praise but I think the less we talk about it the faster we will all collectively get used to it lol

I also think the direction and camera work has gotten a lot better - the fighting scenes looked cool and we got interesting camera angles.

The integration of 2D animation is neat! The chibis are very cute and serve a purpose. I do hope they keep adding 2D elements and not just as illustrations as they used to do in former seasons. I mean, this is such a fun shot:

Storywise it was a decent episode! not much to say here tbh, I liked the DJ Wifi sideplot (and THEM overall, bestest couple).

Loooooved the trash collecting scene, reminded me of Gang of Secrets Ladynoir after their break-ups. I need them to talk/gossip to each other about their relationship(s) in every episode hehe. I do miss flirty Ladynoir but seeing them again is auauauuaghhh. Adrien seeing Ladybug out and about and he's smiling!!!!!!!!!! I love Ladynoir so much

We didn't get much about Adrien's situation from this (apart from the fact that he's allowed to leave the house lol) but the sadness in his eyes…. and him taking the blame for Adrinette's communication issues…. my sweet, sweet boy 🙁

Referring back to this post - yeah, that's Lila/Cerise/Iris in the café, drinking a diabolo menthe (Diabolo -> diabolos in Greek: slanderous, libellous -> Girliepop is ready to stir up things). She's gonna be wherever Marinette goes, causing trouble, I assume.

things I'm curious about:

the timeline: is it still summer vacation? I would assume so, since Marinette and Alya have yet another sleepover and they're meeting the boys in the morning (?). School probably hasn't started yet this season.

Kagami and Marinette: Their (very, very brief) interaction seemed normal. I expected Kagami to be conflicted due to their conversation in the London Special, tbh, but then again, it was a very brief interaction. We'll see.

Carapace using shelter twice in one battle: Did all heroes "grow up"? Did it happen on-screen in episode 1 or should we just assume they all have unlimited powers?

the Kwagatama: I mean, we don't need to talk about the obvious implication (memory loss, Tales-of-LB-and-CN-theory), but I'm kinda wondering about other possible scenarios this may lead to.

And oh. The saved cat got an animation upgrade. Can’t wait to see Baby August in the new animation style lol

[coraniaid]

I think there's something fascinating about the evolution of Darla as a character in the Buffyverse.

It's very common in the Buffy fandom to talk about the show almost as if it were fully planned out from the beginning or somehow emerged fully-formed one day in its entirety.  To analyze Season 1 episodes as if the writers had already decided on the Heart/Mind/Spirit symbolism of the core Scooby Gang; to act as though a Season 5 retcon means that Spike was really in love with Buffy as early as Season 3's Lovers Walk; to suggest the constant changes in how the show deals with soul lore or vampires as a metaphor must mean that Giles and the Council were 'really' lying or ignorant in the first few seasons; to wonder what the Watchers Council introduced in Season 3 were doing in the show's first two seasons; to insist you can't really understand Season 1 until you've finished Season 7.

And, look, I totally get the temptation to do that sort of thing.  It's unavoidable if you want to talk about the universe of the show as a real thing in its own right, or try to write fanfiction that takes every season seriously.  It can be a useful and interesting way of thinking about the show.  I've done it myself and will no doubt keep doing it.

But at the same time, it's very misleading if you want to think about the show as a constructed work of collaborative art: as a piece of fiction in constant conversation with itself, shaped and reshaped again and again over years by a team of different people.  Which, to be clear, is what it actually is.

The real show is almost a piece of improv or some sort of conjuring act, with the writers and actors constantly juggling with new ideas and twists without any time to worry about how exactly everything fits together. With some episodes reportedly being written in only a handful of days and lore being continually changed and ignored as fits the current demands of the plot.  Questions like "how does soul lore really work?" or "after Prophecy Girl who is the real Slayer anyway?" ultimately can't be answered, because there simply is no single truth to uncover.  It depends entirely on the current episode.

And I think the ever-changing character of Darla provides the best illustration of that reality.

In the original unaired pilot, Julie Benz plays an unnamed vampire who is nonetheless pretty easy to identify with the Darla we'll see in the show proper.  She has no links to Angel or Luke or the Master, because none of these characters even exist yet.  Just like in Welcome to the Hellmouth, she lures an unsuspecting victim into the high school after dark before vamping out and killing him, but by the end of the episode she is dead: gruesomely dispatched (or as gruesomely as the pilot's limited special effects budget allowed) after Willow douses her with holy water.

The two parter Welcome to the Hellmouth / The Harvest expands on her role slightly.  She has a name now, for one thing. She works for the Master, too, but she doesn't at all seem to be his favorite (she's very much subordinate to Luke in both these episodes), and there's no suggestion that she has any special connection to Angel.  (Unsurprisingly, as the show's writers hadn't even decided to make Angel a vampire at this point.)  And her ultimate fate at the end of this two-parter is unclear: just as in the pilot, Willow soaks her with holy water, and then she's ... gone?  Nobody mentions her again, she's not in scenes with the Master in later episodes which logically she should be. I'm pretty sure that, just like in the pilot, we're meant to assume she's dead.

But then Darla gets her first big break.  Angel is, it turns out, a vampire, and he needs some backstory to match.  Julie Benz obviously made a decent enough impression in the first couple of episodes, and nothing she did or said quite ruled her out as Angel's sire, and we never quite see her die. So suddenly she's back,  now the Master's favorite vampire, attacking Buffy's mother in her own home and sowing the seeds of mistrust between Buffy and Angel and ... oh, she's dead again.  Bummer.

Except then in Season 2 Angel's role expands again -- he's not just Buffy's intermittently seen vampire boyfriend anymore, he's the focus of the whole season and he's going to appear in all but one episode.  Of course, he's going to need more backstory (and we're all going to be treated to David Boreanaz's best Irish accent) so ... once again Darla rises from the ashes, albeit this time only in flashbacks.  And the Darla we see in Becoming's flashbacks is once again an evolution of the character we last saw in Season 1's  Angel.  More confident, more complex.  A character that it is honestly difficult to reconcile with the take on the character we saw last season, especially the one we swa in the show's first two episodes.

Anyway, Angel gets sent to hell in Season 2, but not before managing to (somehow) act his way into his own spin-off series.  And yes, that means more flashbacks, and more Darla, and more retcons about the precise nature of her relationship with the Master, but ultimately it means the writers decide to bring Darla back from the dead at the end of the spin-off's first season (for, depending on exactly you count it, arguably the fourth time, though only the first in-universe).  And this iteration of Darla -- both the human Darla we see in the beginning of Angel's second season, and the vampire she becomes again later that season -- is arguably the closest thing there is to a definitive take on the character.  This is the Darla people mean when they talk about her on the show.  Not the mid-level vampire of Welcome to the Hellmouth or the essentially single episode villain of Season 1's Angel, but the real deal.  Darla at her most complicated and rich and alive, a Darla whose history is hopelessly entangled with that of her on-again, off-again lover Angel, a character who provides the driving force for the spin-off show's greatest season.  A character who is, I think, one of the most  interesting to ever appear on that show.

Then the last few episodes of Season 2 completely drop Darla and all trace of the arc she introduced. When she reappears next season (in just a handful of episodes) it's so that her character can be written out of the show via mystical and impossible-by-the show's-previous-rules pregnancy in order for men to feel sad about it (but not for very long), and afterwards everything generally goes to shit.

But then, that tells you quite a lot about the Buffyverse and its creators as well.

[cherokeegal1975]

Unexpected Cargo

Yep, I'm the author. I can tell you that there's no kink, barely any sex at all, no spurting bodily fluids, no weird fixations on lactating (it's there, but it's absolutely not a kink or fetish fuel thing and I mean that with total sincerity), it's not gay (just a matter of personal taste and not prejudice, I swear), and absolutely no fetishes! So basically, none of the things that the mpreg genera is all too often notorious for and I hate all that crap. Just awful. It also has a decent plot,, which is something else most mpregs don't have. In fact the main focus is the story as a whole and the experiences of the main protagonist. One spoiler, he didn't get into his situation by having sex. Instead, something unexpected happens when he agrees to take a job from a fleeing princess...and they were never romantically involved...which is just as well, because it would have been creepy and weird if they got involved. Though he does get romantically involved with his sister...sort of. Ha-ha, just kidding, his adopted sister, so no incest. Unusual, but such things have been done in real life.

Anyway, since I'm between jobs at this time, I really could use your support of my work. I don't sell my books very often and when I do manage a sale, it's this one and only this one. Must have something going for it.

Yes, I might be singing my own praises, but I have reason to believe in my work. If it wasn't for some unfortunate circumstances, I'd be getting a professional editor and publisher to work for me. But neither of those come cheap. Neither will the services of a book cover illustrator because I am aware that I need an update on that too. And even a reader to make an audiobook version once all the editing was done. I've gotten very limited feedback, but some of it was very useful. Even so, people tend to like my novel.

So, check out Unexpected Cargo. It's on Amazon and it comes in paperback and in Kindle. Let me know if you agree with me that this novel would work well as a Netflix movie or mini series.

P.S. - I wrote this novel because I was bored, wanted to break away from Eden Symbiotic (my other novel) and hated the majority of the stories in the mpreg genera. So thought it would be a fun challenge to write something that most people are bad at and turn it into a good story. As far as exploring mpregs, well, I was mind numbingly bored out of my mind. So I went do odd places online to find anything entertaining. Why that direction I don't know. It expanded my vocabulary and introduced me to concepts I'd never thought of on my own. Most of the time it left me disgusted and I've largely given up on searching for such crap anymore. Still, it inspired me to try it myself, minus all the elements I hated.

I hope you notice that the bulk of the books I recommend are the largely popular mainstream books. I'm more into those than the weird shit I sometimes get into for whatever reason.

[oneefin]

screw that sudoku puzzle i was talking about last week - THIS is the sudoku puzzle premise of all time

it's called "foggy on the details" and it's by "karl the fog!". on the surface it looks like an ordinary fog-of-war sudoku variant, it's got some lines and some cages nothing crazy, but you begin solving it and crazy shit happens

i want to break down what it's like to solve this actually because it's so crazy and illustrates the level of shock and insanity that i only ever really see in puzzle hunts. you can choose to experience this for yourself first by checking the solver here: https://sudokupad.app/e3dz5lytps or if you're not up for that, you can just watch simon from cracking the cryptic solve it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KxugQBUi-A

otherwise, spoilers ahead!

okay, so the rules have a lot of caveats that i internalize pretty quick:

cages can't overlap

lines can't overlap

cage totals are always written in the top left

digits can't repeat in a cage

lines always move orthogonally

using these ideas, i end up figuring out that the first number to place is a 6 in this cell, forced there because of the geometry of the cage in the upper right. this is all sort of standard if you've done enough variant sudoku before:

as soon as you lock in the digit though, this shows up:

oh god wtf!

so the rules of the sudoku are getting updated as we go in ways that make the previous logic not work anymore. suddenly the red cage doesn't actually look like that anymore - now i figured it has to be something like this:

the puzzle continues in this way, where i put in a digit and then something i thought i knew about the puzzle shatters the logic i just used to get there.

i start by connecting these blue lines and writing a 6 in the other end. but it turns out the lines don't connect after all

the new lines revealed by this lead to t a 3 in the second box, with some decently intricate logic to get there:

now we're saying the top-right corner has the cage total? if true, this would have very interesting implications for the cage on the left... guess it looks like this? no. of course not.

the next digit was spicy! i figured that this blue line must extend exactly like this, and that manages to poke the far left column and force a digit in the corner, far into the fog.

(this is the sort of far-reaching, surprising logic that fog-of-war puzzles are great at pulling off - the fact that this puzzle makes you do something like it is a sign that the premise isn't just for a novelty, it's extremely well executed

putting that number there reveals a red line (almost forgot we had those!) - with some quick deductions afterward. the grid is about halfway filled, so i'm imagining the momentum of the puzzle will slow down, but then i get hit by a bombshell:

what. no fucking way.

basically for the entire puzzle i had been doing logic to the blue lines as if they had the blue line's rules - but now i have to swap them for an entirely different rule? but when i look back at all the stuff i wrote on them... it just works. that's absolutely wild.

so that mega-long blue line that led to this moment? turns out it doesn't even exist. oh, and the green cage is hecking massive as well - just a little bonus to get the whole thing finished.

yay 🎉

honestly this whole thing was equal parts diabolical, clever, and amazing. it's not only insanely creative to have imagined this idea, but very brilliant to craft it into an unambiguous, linear solve path that's just as gorgeous as it is bonkers. it's the kind of nerdy insanity that makes me love solving and talking about these

[kcsplace]

20 Fanfic Author Questions

thanks to @strangethings-everywhere for the tag, these are always fun!

1. How many works on AO3?

Sixty.

2. Total word count on AO3?

848,304

3. Top five fics by kudos?

A Diaz By Any Other Name He Whom My Soul Loves The Man On The Wall Magic Man The Royal Camelot

4. What fandoms do you primarily write for?

H50, Merlin, MCU (stucky/phlint) Stranger Things,

5. Do you respond to comments?

I always try to, sometimes I forget, but probably 9.5 times outta 10 I do!

6. Angstiest ending?

ooof, uhhh maybe Life Written And Illustrated By? and that's not super angsty, as I tend to "fix" my fics by the end but it is sad

7. Fic with the happiest ending?

The Man On The Wall, if for nobody more than me after 474k!

8. Do you get hate?

Sometimes. One person went on a random crusade against a fic and got increasingly rude and then peppered some other fics with vile shit before I was able to boot them.

9. Do you write smut?

Yup!

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have done, it's not generally my favourite thing to do but I'm not against it

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah, someone took a fic wholesale and just changed the writer name, and then someone else took a fic and just changed the names to try to switch it to a new fandom

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've been asked if someone can and I think they started but its a huge fic and I guess they lost the passion

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

No, and honestly I probably wouldn't simply because I write when I can and at my own glacial pace and wouldnt' want to subject someone to that

14. All time favorite ship?

All time?? Probably Jim Kirk/Spock aka my OG, my sweet idiot babies. But no ship ever truly dies for me, its just mildly dormant until it rears its ugly head again and suddenly I'm 12 pages deep into AO3 all over again

15. WiPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

An OFMD fic that I'm 60k into and a Night At The Museum style AU for Captain America. oh, and the sequel to The Man On The Wall. but i remain in denial about it

16. Writing strengths?

decent at dialogue and coming up with ideas

17. Writing weaknesses?

Literally everything else

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

Don't really have any. I grew up with a language teacher for a parent so despite being ironically shite at languages, codeswitching or multiple languages in dialogue is literally my day to day life. my mother never spoke in only English in a sentence, she'd be switching to French or italian even if for only a couple words.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter. God that was a long time ago.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Oof. I'm probably the most proud of The Man On The Wall, but the soft spot I have for Life Written And Illustrated By... is huge and squishy and spotty

[bitchdafuqyousay]

a really weird whistle

The college I went to had two campuses; main campus and west campus. West campus was mostly student accommodations. Dorms and whatnot as well as the gym, soccer field, lacrosse field, and the nursing building. That's where I lived, in one the dorm buildings on west campus. It wasn't too far of a walk between them- maybe fifteen to twenty minutes. Depending on how fast you walked. Which means it usually took me about ten minutes to walk between the two. God forbid I don't absolutely pace it when I'm walking. There were two back to back streets; one's full of old people and young families and the other was largely the same except it also has my sister's sorority house on it. That one was called Dupant Street. It's the one I usually walked through cause one of the old ladies had a really pretty garden that I liked walking past cause it always smelled real nice.

The building I spent most of my time in was the art building (obviously, that's what I was getting my degree for). It's called Wolf Hall. And when you walked that straight shot from west to main it was the first on one of two buildings you saw. The back of 'em anyways. At the end of the neighborhood street was this little crosswalk. You cross it then go up some stairs and congrats, you've made it to main campus. You rocked up the side entrance to Wolf after going through the sculpture garden. I always thought it was a nice walk, still do to an extent. I sorta miss taking it. I usually walked to main for classes everyday; sometimes regardless of weather. Cold, sweltering, windy. Didn't matter much to me. Unless it was raining. I hate being outside in the rain. When it was raining I'd catch the campus shuttle. Anyways.

That particular day I'd walked to Wolf in the afternoon to work on a project for my illustration class. I ended up being there till roughly two in the morning, give or take a bit. I didn't mind though, I loved that class a lot and the project I was working on was really fun. So it was fine. Besides, wasn't the first and definitely not the last time I'd spend most of my day and night in Wolf. I was decently used to it. Once I was done, all packed up and ready to go I decided to walk back to West instead of taking the shuttle. It was nice out, warm with a nice breeze, and I wanted to listen to the crickets, the frogs, night birds, and the cicadas as I walked back. See a few fireflies too. It was a really nice night. I wanted to walk. I was looking forward to it, really. Despite how late it was- I wasn't worried, I'd done that walk more times than I can count at all times of day and night, there were barely any streetlights but I never felt uneasy or like I was in danger; it was decently far from the city and pretty safe. So I got to steppin'.

Like I mentioned, it was nice. There was a real nice breeze and all kinds of little critters singing. So I prance down the steps from Wolf to that lil crosswalk. Everything was still fine, still real nice. Until I crossed the street at least.

Soon as my foot stepped onto the neighborhood's curb everything stopped. The breeze stopped, air going totally still. Felt heavy all of a sudden. And when the breeze stopped, so did all the singing. Every bug frog and nightbird went completely silent. Not a thing made a sound anymore. My breath suddenly seemed real loud. Now, I could've turned around, run for the shuttle stop. But there was the feeling of a wall behind me and I had this nasty feeling crawling up my spine that told me turning around would be a big mistake. Like somethin' real, real bad would happen to me if I did. So I started pacing it. So I'm walking, keeping my eyes straight ahead to where I could see the lights of West, the ones belonging to the soccer field. All bright like a beacon.

Something whistled at me from the other side of the street. The darker side, where nobody save a few had their porch light on, whereas the side I was on had a bit more. Not by much, but enough that I knew whatever was across me could see me pretty clear.

I didn't look over to the opposite side. Cause I'm not a fuckin' idiot.

It whistled again. It was wrong. Just... off. It was a whistle sure, but it wasn't done right. That's the best way I can describe it- it was like an imitation of a whistle. Like something had heard a whistle before and was trying to mimic it but didn't have the right parts to do it. There was something off to the pitch, lilting weirdly like it was trying really hard to get the sorta whistle you use to call a dog right but didn't know how. Didn't have a concept of tune or how notes line up. Just really odd. Like a parrot maybe. But parrots can sing, parrots have a sense of rhythm. They can accurately imitate pitch and tune. This thing couldn't, but seemed to be trying really hard to.

I didn't look over, not even out of the corner of my eyes. But I could feel and hear it keeping pace with me; the faster I walked, the faster it did. I could hear its feet, sorta like the sound dogs' feet make on pavement, but it didn't sound like four feet. just two. Walking alongside me on the opposite sidewalk. Whistling weirdly at me. Trying to get my attention. I pretended I didn't notice a thing, like nothing was off. Like all my hair wasn't standing on end, like I wasn't sweating.

It changed a bit each time it made that sound, still off. Still clearly wrong. But the tune got a bit more coherent- practice makes perfect I guess. I ain't even glance. Pulled out my phone and texted my best friend what was up to the best of my ability since I honestly had no fuckin' clue what was up. He responded fast (always does, love you baby) and was understandably as worried as I was. We're both decently superstitious, especially me. So I had a lot of nasty ideas about what was still whistling at me, getting louder and more insistent. I kept texting him as I walked- having somebody else know what was going on made me feel better. Truth be told I really wanted to call him, but I didn't want my unwanted walking buddy to know that I did in fact notice it, I didn't want it to feel invited to do... I dunno. Whatever. I didn't want it.

The walk felt like it was taking forever. The time between each whistle getting shorter and shorter until it was a continuous thing, not a break for a breath in between. I figured the walk felt like forever the same way going through a haunted house attraction takes forever. Fear makes time drag. It didn't seem like I was getting any closer to West. After what felt like hours, I reached the end of the street. Stopping at the crosswalk that'd get me from the neighborhood to West. I could see the nursing building. It was right across from me. I had to wait for two cars to go by before I could cross, the insistent whistling ringing in my ears as I stood there. Doing my best to keep acting like I didn't notice at all. An Oscar worthy performance, that walk.

I could cross. Finally. Thank fuck. And the second my feet left the curb. It stopped. The thing went silent, it felt like there were eyes burning the back of my neck, but it stopped calling at me. The breeze, night birds, cicadas, crickets, and frogs all came back. I hopped up onto the path going from the nursing building towards the dorms.

It was a nice night, but for the first time I could remember since being in college there was no inkling of disappointment that my walk had ended. I checked my phone as I unlocked my dorm room.

I left Wolf around two in the morning. The walk from Main to West is roughly fifteen to twenty minutes. I didn't get back to my dorm until three-thirty in the morning.

I didn't walk Dupant at night for the rest of that year.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

It all went downhill imo when Iain Macleod left. He wasn't even my favourite producer; Kate Oakes was, but the show's been going downhill since 2018 imo. I'm also not pleased at their recent abuse storylines, particularly the grooming storyline. Idk what it is, but it's like they need to do more research or just be more conscious. There have been grooming storylines in soaps like Hollyoaks and Eastenders and I found those storylines to be less problematic and more organised.

I don’t disagree with you. But Iain had a lot of faults as a producer and Kate had them too.

I feel like Kate was the best at general story pacing. I mean look at Aaron’s abuse story. That was only like four months, which felt like a better length compared to the Paul story which dragged on for a year even if part of that was due to covid. But Kate also had her flare for the dramatics with her Wild Thursday doubles that you’d often have to try and erase from your mind by the following week. I mean...the hitman, the lodge, the scrapyard rant? Haha. Sometimes it was a lot. She was also decent at the big event episodes and I feel like her character interaction levels were okay. She did have a habit of breaking up some big couples that felt like a mistake. Zak and Lisa never truly recovered from the Joanie debacle. And Paddy certainly never recovered after Tess.

Iain was great at the big event episodes for the most part. I mean he gave us ssw 2016. But his day to day stuff was often repetitive and he had terrible pacing problems with his stories. They would drag on forever. And the characters were very isolated in his years.

With the latest team...they just have a lot of issues. I still feel like three producers was not a good idea. I still think a singular vision is a better plan. Unless people really work well together. I think about the only good thing they did was fix some of Iain’s character isolation and making the village feel more villagy but that has been totally ruined by covid this past year. And obviously covid has affected their story pacing but it’s still not good otherwise.

I think the worst part is that they are just overall bad storytellers, particularly in their conclusions. Stories either fizzle out and disappear or they have very lackluster conclusions. And their big event episodes often just feel very forced or unexciting.

With the abuse stories that you mentioned, you’re right, they have been disappointing. I feel like this team has this flare for the melodramatic when it comes to some of these things that should be told in a slightly more straightforward manner and not be so soapy. The Maya story illustrates that problem very well. The big night out stuff was kind of entertaining but was any of it necessary? It just made it so she got away with the worst of it. And then they spent a lot of time focusing on David when they should have been focusing on Jacob. And I don’t feel like they ever truly got through to him in any kind of meaningful scenes. Just one day he was like “okay I guess it wasn’t good??” I don’t know. It was very weird. And then the whole dropping the baby on their doorstep and it being David’s was just truly bizarre because I still just do not see the point. Like I think they’ve done some interesting things with David and Leyla since then with how it all still affects them but that doesn’t mean the initial story ended well at all. Overall it was just a very muddy story and it did not need to be.

With the Paul stuff, it’s been a bit more straight forward which is good. It’s just dragged on too long and been very repetitive and the motivations are sometimes a bit questionable. I hope that this week with the funeral and hopefully Vinny coming out of his denial phase, that maybe they can have some definitive closure on everything for him as they move into perhaps a more recovery phase.

Anyway, as I’ve said, I think it’s definitely time for a new producer because this team has never seemed like they know what they’re doing and I think it’s time the show has some fresh ideas.

[gerryconway]

Stan the Man

Since the news of Stan Lee's death I've wanted to write something meaningful about my own feelings for him, what he represented to me as a creator and as a human being, and what kind of impact his life had on my life. For many reasons (I was dislocated by the Woolsley Fire and haven't fully settled down since our return) I haven't had a chance to give such an in-depth appraisal much thought. Honestly, I doubt I could do a full appraisal of Stan's importance in my life even under the best of circumstances. His work and presence as an icon and as a human being helped form who I am today. To write a full appreciation of Stan I'd have to write my autobiography.

Among my most vivid childhood memories is my discovery of the Fantastic Four with issue 4, the first appearance of the Sub-Mariner. I was nine years old, and I'd been a comic book reader for years at that point. I knew about Superman, I knew about Batman, I'd read the early issues of Justice League. I was a compulsive reader, voracious (still am)-- devoting hours a day to books and stories and comics and even my parents' newspapers. (Both my parents were avid readers. My dad read science fiction, my mom loved mysteries.) I vividly recall the astonished joy I felt when my mom took me to our local library and got me my first library card. I was six, I think, and the reality of a roomful of books just for kids seemed like a gift from heaven. I won all the reading awards at school-- any competition for reading the most books in a year was over as far as I was concerned the first week. By nine, I'd already graduated from "age appropriate" books for pre-teens to Heinlein's juveniles, Asimov's robot stories, and the collected Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. I was a total reading nerd.

And then came Fantastic Four.

I've never been hit by lightning but I have to imagine the shock might be similar to what I experienced reading that early adventure of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, her kid brother Johnny, and Ben Grimm. If you weren't a comic book reader at that time you cannot imagine the impact those stories had. There's nothing comparable in the modern reader's experience of comics-- nothing remotely as transformative. (To be fair, I suppose both "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen" come close, but both remarkable works built on prior tradition and were perhaps a fulfillment of potential and creative expectations. The Fantastic Four was _sui generis_.) Over a series of perhaps five issues, a single year, Stan and Jack Kirby transformed superhero comics in an act of creative alchemy similar to transmuting lead into gold, and just as unlikely.

They also changed my life. Because Stan credited himself as writer and Jack as artist, he opened my nine year old eyes to a possibility I'd never really considered before: I could be something called a comic book "writer" or "artist."

Think about that, for a moment. Before Stan regularly began giving credits to writers and artists, comics (with a few exceptions) were produced anonymously. Who wrote and drew Superman? Who wrote and drew Donald Duck? Who wrote and drew Archie? Who knew? (Serious older fans knew, of course, but as far as the average reader or disinterested bystander knew, most comics popped into existence spontaneously, like flowers, or in some eyes, weeds.)

Stan did more than create a fictional universe, more than create an approach to superhero storytelling and mythology-- he created the concept of comic book story creation itself. Through his promotion of the Marvel Bullpen, with his identification of the creative personalities who wrote and drew Marvel's books, he sparked the idea that writing and drawing comics was something ordinary people did every day. (Yes, yes, to a degree Bill Gaines had done something similar with EC Comic's in-house fan pages, but let's be honest, EC never had the overwhelming impact on a mass audience that Marvel had later.) He made the creation of comic book stories something anyone could aspire to do _as a potential career_.

That's huge. It gave rise to a generation of creative talent whose ambition was to create comics. Prior to the 1960s, writing and drawing comic books wasn't something any writer or artist generally aspired to (obviously there were exceptions). Almost every professional comic book artist was an aspiring newspaper syndicated strip artist or an aspiring magazine illustrator. (Again, there were exceptions.) Almost every professional comic book writer was also a writer for pulp magazines or paperback thrillers. (Edmond Hamilton, Otto Binder, Gardner Fox, so many others-- all wrote for the pulps and paperbacks.) Comic book careers weren't something you aimed to achieve; they were where you ended up when you failed to reach your goal.

Even Stan, prior to the Fantastic Four, felt this way. It's an essential part of his legend: he wanted to quit comics because he felt it was stifling his creative potential, but his wife, Joan, suggested an alternative. Write the way you want to write. Write what you want to write. Write your own truth.

He did, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

When I picked up that issue of Fantastic Four, I was a nine year old boy with typical nine year old boy fantasies about what my life would be. Some were literal fantasies: I'd suggested to my dad a year or so earlier that we could turn the family car into the Batmobile and he could be Batman and I could be Robin and we could fight crime. After he passed on that idea I decided we could be like the Hardy family-- he could be a detective and I could be his amateur detective son, either Frank or Joe. Later I became more realistic and figured I could become an actor who played Frank or Joe Hardy in a Hardy Boy movie. In fact, by nine, my most realistic career fantasies involved either becoming an actor or an astronaut, and of the two, astronaut seemed like the more practical choice.

Stan and Marvel Comics gradually showed me a different path, a different possible career. By making comic books cool, by making them creatively enticing, and by making the people who created comics _real_ to readers-- Stan created the idea of a career creating comics.

Stan alone did this. We can argue over other aspects of his legacy-- debate whether he or his several collaborators were more important in the creation of this character or that piece of mythology-- but we can't argue about this. Without Stan's promotion of his fellow creatives at Marvel there would have been no lionizing of individual writers and artists in the 1960s. Without that promotion there would have been no visible role models for younger, future creators to emulate. Yes, some of us would still have wanted to create comics-- but I'd argue that the massive explosion of talent in the 1970s and later decades had its origin in Stan's innovative promotion of individual talents during the 1960s.

Nobody aspires to play in a rock band if they've never heard of a rock band. The Marvel Bullpen of the 1960s was comicdom's first rock band.

That was because of Stan.

For me, Stan's presence in the world gave direction and purpose to my creative life, and my creative life has given meaning and purpose to my personal life. I am the man I am today, and I've lived the life I've lived, because of him. From the age of nine on, I've followed the path I'm on because of Stan Lee. (So much of my personal life is entangled in choices I've made as a result of my career it's impossible for me to separate personal from professional.)

My personal relationship with Stan, which began when I was seventeen years old, is more complex and less enlightening. It's a truism your heroes always disappoint you, and I was often disappointed by Stan. Yet I never stopped admiring him for his best qualities, his innate goodness, his creative ambition and unparalleled instincts. People often asked me, "What's Stan really like?" For a long time I had a cynical answer, but in recent years I realized I was wrong. The Stan you saw in the media was, in fact, the real Stan: a sweet, earnest, basically decent man who wanted to do the right thing, who was as astounded by his success as anyone, and who was just modest enough to mock himself to let us know he was in on the joke. I imagine Stan was grateful for the luck of being the right man at the right place at the right time-- but it's true he _was_ the right man. No one else could have done what he did. The qualities of ego and self-interest that I sometimes decried in him were the same qualities needed for him to fulfill the role he played. In typical comic book story telling, his weaknesses were his strengths. And his strengths made him a legend and a leader for all who came after him-- particularly me.

This has been a rambling appreciation, I know. Scattered and disjointed. Like I said, trying to describe the impact Stan had on my life would require an autobiography.

When I started thinking about Stan in light of his death I realized, for the first time (and isn't this psychologically interesting?) that Stan was born just a year after my father. When I met him, as a teenager struggling with my own father as almost all teenage boys do, Stan probably affected me as a surrogate father figure. Unlike my own father, Stan was a symbol of the possibilities of a creative life. He was a role model for creative success, like other older men in my life at the time. But unlike them, he'd been a part of my life since I was nine years old. A surrogate father in fantasy before he partly became one in reality.

Now he's gone. Part of me goes with him, but the greater part of me, the life I've led and built under his influence, remains.

Like so much of the pop culture world we live in, I'm partly Stan's creation.

'Nuff said.