16ruedelaverrerie - Tumblr blog

[16ruedelaverrerie]

I finally got around to reading Fata Morgana, and let me preface by saying I wish I had more beautiful words to express how incredible the story and writing are, I have so much to say and not nearly enough comprehension to get it out atm but I hope this will do for now haha few fics strike me quite the way yours often do, the way you write Nines and Gavin does them such justice, it's very inspiring, it's like you've picked them apart and splayed out what makes them up for us to see with so much ease, and my god the plot?! It in itself is wonderful and surprising, all around an amazing and well-written story

❤️THIS IS THE TRUEST VALENTINE❤️

@bumblee-bee I hope you are receiving federal funding for being so encouraging towards your local fic writers! You are a one-person National Endowment for the Arts and you should be honored as such! When my life is under control someday, I'm going to finish 88 and I'll only have you to blame for it.

It was such an honor to play around in Vape's ideas sandbox for the collab on Fata Morgana, and I'm so glad that you had a good time reading it-- makes me feel like maybe I didn't just kick all the sand out of the box and leave a bunch of candy wrappers lying around! Thank you, really. I'm so tender for GV500 and RK900 flipping off the United States government together while gunning it across the American highway with two pairs of teeny pointy dog ears flapping out of the windows of their Chevy Malibu. It genuinely brings me delight beyond measure that you enjoyed the story. YOU SHOULD HAVE TAX-EXEMPT STATUS FOR YOUR PATRONAGE OF THE QUESTIONABLE ARTS

[16ruedelaverrerie]

My love! @bumblee-bee! How this delights me! First of all, equal parts congratulations and condolences on your recent infectious bout of reed900. But hot on the heels of that first point, please always know that no matter how long it has been since I have actually made anything for DBH, I am still in it, still thinking about it, still loving it. Every time you come home, you come home to a haunted house. I am the spirit in your rafters, rearranging your refrigerator magnet poetry to say some beautifully heartfelt shit like

ROBOT DICKDOWN PORN

[16ruedelaverrerie]

trick or treat?? anyways i wasn't too sure if you were doing anything specific with asks for the spooky season, im knees-deep into baldur's gate 3 (vampire...love him) and i hope u are doing well! just pretend this is a calling card with a kind inquiries on your health and your blorbos ASDFJSLDKF happy halloween regardless!

Oh, sorry, I meant to step away from tumblr but then, from across the wide expanse of the American prairie, I heard "Astarion" whispered like a secret into the wind, and less perhaps like a wolf at the scent of a deer worth hunting, or even like a deer at the scent of a wolf worth knowing, but like a bolt of lightning who has found something precious to set on fire, I was Called.

@qserasera I can't actually even talk about BG3 at this precise moment because I'm on my phone and I have months' worth of pent-up screaming that cannot be typed on a touchscreen, but please know that there is months' worth of pent-up screaming within me. I will never produce anything for that fandom and I don't even really count myself to be in it, but I've thought about very little else (and definitely read in nothing else) for the past seeming eternity and a half

I won't even tag this post with BG3 because this isn't worth archiving in quite that way, but talk to me about the horrendous depths of your Ancunin Problems

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Trick or treat! 🎃

HEAR YOU NOT THE HOWL THAT EMANATES FROM THE SPACE BETWEEN THE FESTERING WORLDS? WHAT USE HAS A CHASM FOR TRINKETS? WHAT DOES OBLIVION KNOW OF HUNGER SATED? SHALL I BEG FOR A SNICKERS BAR AT THE DOOR TO HIS HOUSE AT R'LYEH, WHERE DEAD CTHULHU WAITS DREAMING? IÄ! IÄ!

[16ruedelaverrerie]

thou chose the trick. hither it is do not be too afraid

EVEN SO COME, MINE VORACIOUS END!!!

[16ruedelaverrerie]

trick or treat??

THE VILEST OF TRICKS IN THINE THRICE-BEDAMNED SACK OF TRICKS, WITCH. UNLOOSE THY WORST. WARD OFF FOR ME THE DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS; BE THOU SO VILE THAT NO OTHER VILENESS CAN EVER TOUCH ME. TRICK, EATER OF THE NEW MOON! TRICK, I SAY!!

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Rest of messages in thread not included for reasons of mortifying inadequacy on my part! Anon you sent this in on August 22. I just want to type that out loud so that I can nail my shame to my front door like Martin Luther with his 95 Theses, except every thesis is "Nat can't fucking answer a single thing in an even vaguely timely manner". I would say I'm sorry for what I have become, but the truth is that I was ever thus. I'm sorry for what I have always been.

I'm sorry as well that it is so hard to find me across platforms because I have a thousand different usernames! Some of it used to be intentional, but intent or none, it functions as a real pain in the ass and I apologize. I've been trying to address this issue via the sidebar link on this blog and the cross-platform links in the author's notes on AO3, but we could have avoided all this if I had just stuck to a single identifying name. Still, DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS TO THE CONTRARY, I'm so glad that you found me! Not least because it has led to you sending this absolute conflict-free lab-grown diamond necklace of messages! Thank you so so so much 😭💕 It's hard for me to explain this in a sensible manner, but my slowness in answering genuinely is in large part because the message means so much to me. I want to save the act of answering for a moment when I can feel articulate enough to do some justice to the kindness you have shown me, but then it's 10PM every night when I finish writing work emails and I am incapable of stringing two words together. Tomorrow, I think, I will try again! And then it's another 10PM and another 10PM and more than two months goes by before I have to accept that I will never feel articulate enough to respond the way that you deserve. That would be true at any other time of day, besides!

But thank you. I hope that you can stick around for the frustratingly glacial pace at which I do anything at all; what I lack in output, I make up for in stubbornness. One day, 88 will be a complete fic, even if I have to break my own bones to do it. (Please don't ask me the perfectly legitimate question of why broken bones would facilitate fic writing. It is a statement about the strength of my resolution, but it is an incomprehensible statement.)

This is such an interesting question! HOW DID I? I'm combing through my (admittedly blurry) autobiographical memories, but I can't seem to find a particular originary point for reading. Saying "I've always been a reader" is so boring, and it implies a certain kind of relationship with literature that I don't think I actually have-- I didn't particularly gravitate towards reading at the expense of other activities, and I read such a hodgepodge mixture of stuff that I can't fathom what it was about the act of reading that I actually enjoyed. And now, well, I read almost exclusively for work, to the degree that the thought of reading for pleasure makes me recoil.

The writing, I do have an originary point for. I was in elementary school, and my class had recently held a small creative writing competition; we were at an age where it was embarrassing to try very hard to achieve anything, so I blew it off, because I had to perform coolness due to it not coming naturally to me. Our homeroom teacher announced the winner, and asked that they read out loud their winning entry for the rest of the class. They did, and I remember thinking very clearly: This is fine, but I could do it better if I tried.

This is a story that is immensely unflattering to me-- or rather, it's a devastatingly accurate portrayal of me. It contains all the seeds of my worst qualities as a writer and a human being: competitiveness in something I consider myself to be proficient at, the need for external validation, baseless arrogance. But when I found myself being so hideously jealous of that kid, it wasn't primarily jealousy over the fact that they had won something; I was jealous that they had this stage time to show people what the world looked like to them. I felt robbed of the chance to connect with people in that way. Of course, no one robbed me of anything -- I chose to pretend that I was too cool for school -- and there was absolutely no reason to think that I would have won the competition and gotten that stage time for myself, even if I had tried as hard as I could. But still, it got me writing. Not because I had anything to say, but because whatever banal cut-rate shit I would end up saying, I just wanted someone else to hear it and tell me that I made sense to them. That's still why I do it, I think.

Seeing as how my twitter is just my tumblr with 100% less overwrought rambling, I can't decide whether you had a worse experience or a better one than binging this blog instead! On the one hand, I can't recommend the overwrought rambling; on the other hand, what's left after the overwrought rambling is excised is still just a lot of mid art determined to insist that dick jokes comprise an entire genre of creative output. IT'S DISMAL EITHER WAY! But it's too late for you! (Thank you.)

Anon!!!!! The very FACT THAT YOU SENT ME A ONE PIECE MESSAGE!!! My past in One Piece fandom is a really deep cut in that it very rarely comes up on this blog, so I'm super pleased that you thought of me!!!!!!!!!! 💖

Tragically, I have still not watched it. I KNOW, PLEASE DON'T THROW ME OUT OF THIS PORTHOLE. I agree wholeheartedly with you-- I'm thrilled that it got new fans into OP, and that it was made with so much visible love! I wouldn't say that I'm someone who is ever looking for live action versions of stuff -- if push came to shove, I'd probably admit that I don't necessarily see the inherent appeal of live action adaptations -- but it makes me truly happy to hear all the enthusiasm and praise for this one!!! Me not watching it yet mostly has to do with the aforementioned "it's 10PM when I finish writing work emails" problem.

As someone who is unfortunately very well-acquainted with what I am into (or so I must presume, by the sheer miracle of you sending me an OP message), it probably comes as no surprise to you that the single most affecting piece of promotional media that I encountered was a teaser clip from the Baratie arc. Anon when I tell you THE BREATH CAUGHT IN MY THROAT. THE BARATIE SHOT LIKE A RESTAURANT SHOW!!!! THE BARATIE!!!!!!!! WHERE MY SON WAS RAISED! HIS FISH-HEADED NURSERY! MY SON! THE DARLING OF THE BARATIE! A KITCHEN PACKED TO THE GILLS WITH SHORT TEMPERS! THE THORN IN THEIR SIDE! THE APPLE OF THEIR EYE! CRADLED TO SLEEP BY THE WATERS THAT TOOK HIM IN! GENTLED TO WARMTH BY A COMMERCIAL GAS RANGE! THE BRINE-SWEET CHILDHOOD HOME OF MY SON!!!!!

One Piece was so early for me that I can't even distinguish what came first, my Sanji bias or my commercial kitchen obsession. What remains crystal clear is that I am predictable in my perversions. I will watch it, anon. Someday hopefully soon.

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Your instincts are animalistic and your deductive reasoning skills are razor-sharp! And you were completely correct! Although, I do have to confess, there are more than enough typos and grammar mistakes to go around in things I've written... fics, sure, but also just... comments and tumblr posts and whatnot. My wake is LITTERED with errors. With fics I can go in surreptitiously and tend to them hoping that no one has noticed, but with alarming regularity I will edit a comment reply being like "Sorry to drop this notification in your inbox... I just spotted a typo and I had to fix it..." so you know, you were more lenient than you needed to be in your assessment of my punctiliousness, but you were STILL COMPLETELY CORRECT.

That having been said, you're probably somewhat off the mark with regard to my vibes as person! I mean, I'm not an intentionally bad person, you know, I don't go around being a provocateur, but mostly it's just that people tend to reserve a lot of the energy it takes to be amiable for the real-life relationships they have. Me, I treat all the people in my life like dirt and then I come on the Internet and kiss all the babies in town. (That's a joke! I don't treat the people in my life like dirt! But certainly I enjoy explaining myself or pontificating at length much much less in real life, and maybe something of that willingness to keep talking can read as amiability online. )

As a person who is DEFINITELY IN MY WALLS, could you earn your rent and hang out with my cat while I am away?? Saba keeps throwing up from boredom / loneliness / a desire to protest my absences, and I am as concerned about his GI tract as I am tired of blotting the rug.....................

(💓You are very sweet and this message was a big serotonin boost, thank you)

No! I didn't! That dating sim mockup remains, as it began, a one-off joke about grabbing Gavin by the throat more than anything else kjfld;hgkld If anyone passing by right now wants to hit up @kenoa-ajisai-no-niwa about putting something together, that would be awesome!

I am the way that I am, so I would only really feel comfortable writing for the game, rather than drawing-- but division of labor aside, I'm just generally anxious about collaborative ventures like this occurring at this stage of the fandom life cycle. I've been part of a few late-fandom projects of this nature, and they've all sort of... dissolved into tears. There's no established graceful way for someone to lose interest in a fandom and step away from their collaborative commitments, you know? The project falls apart without them, but it's also difficult to ask someone to keep putting their time and labor into something that no longer interests them, and won't earn them college credits or a paycheck.

When a fandom is young, there's enough energy in the air to push a project to the finish line, right? Several years into a fandom, I can't help but feel that these projects tend to sink into a kind of "Well... it's a lot of work... and who are we even making it for, anyway... is it worth doing all of this just so that we can get like three comments" is-there-anyone-out-there morass. That's not a rule, of course, just a regrettable pattern that I've personally experienced-- but it's what comes to mind for me, as I ruminate on the possibility of this hypothetical dating sim.

...And yet, I'd still probably write for such a hypothetical dating sim, if it were to hypothetically exist

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Connor is already running, the shout of lieutenant like the crack of a circus whip. Lieutenant, don't, that fragmentary summons. Nines isn't far behind him; the lieutenant is what Connor is responsible for, but Nines has a hunch that the don't belongs to him. Sure enough, in the deafening racket of the break room, jostled by a herd of people gesticulating frantically in the air and screaming at them to stop-- Hank Anderson has his hands fisted in Gavin's shirt, hauling him nearly off of his feet.

Read 88 on AO3

Chapter 2 is up! This continues to be a leisurely yet incredibly unrelaxing stroll alongside the dysfunctional relationship of two assholes who can't figure out how to be alive. If you prefer the stories you read to have no plot, no development, no resolution, but just a vague sense of dread and the suspicion that no consequential human problem is truly surmountable, BOY HAVE I GOT A FIC FOR YOU💖

[16ruedelaverrerie]

To fully lean into the KUSO MISO GRAND PRIX vibes of Gavin unzipping his race suit while ill-advisedly wearing nothing underneath, here it is in a larger size! By god, Nines will get this man to pole position and make him sink slowly down on said pole, inch by excruciating inch. This one goes out to the anon who sent in the message about body pillows 🫡💕

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Anyone unzipping a boiler suit automatically gives me yaranaika? vibes, but I THINK THAT'S FUNNY, SO WHO'S LAUGHING? Me. I am the one who is laughing

Fowler doesn't understand why the entire test run of these godforsaken posters completely sells out during presale. He's torn in so many different directions: grateful awe that Nines seems to have really landed on something, confused horror at what the general public are into, slight concern that Cyberlife Racing is objectifying Gavin for the sake of the profit margin, further concern that Gavin is actually pretty on board with being objectified, full stop

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Anon I love you passionately, never change. I want you to have this:

WE AS A SOCIETY KEEP CASTING NEIL NEWBON IN ROLES WHERE HE INEVITABLY, SOMEHOW, EVEN WHEN HE IS A CHARACTER IN A FUTURISTIC STORY ABOUT ANDROIDS SET IN A MAJOR METROPOLITAN CITY, GETS FUCKED BY A BEAR

You must be mistaking me for someone else... I never made anything of the sort.......... Thank you very much for sticking around, and for being so kind 🥹💓

There is NOTHING SWEETER TO MY EARS THAN THE RALLYING CRY OF "CANON DOESN'T EXIST"! COME LOVE RESTAURANTS WITH ME, ANON. JOIN THE COMMERCIAL KITCHEN FANDOM. BE IN THE FANDOM OF COOKING AS A CONCEPT. Gavin having a minor knife accident and the entire kitchen being thrown into an overblown frenzy of panic... Going on the road with a food truck as the restaurant gets renovated to put in wine storage... Nines realizing that he needs to study mixology and contacting a very confused Allen to demand tutoring... Gavin being hired out for a private catering gig in a mansion and getting run so ragged by the end of it that he just takes a three-hour nap on the parlor couch halfway in Nines's lap... Gavin later being mortified to discover that he has done so... R E S T A U R A N T S

💕💕💕I'm sorry for putting such a lovely message behind the cut, @bumblee-bee! But this is what comes of being so kind that looking upon you is like looking directly into the sun. I am too embarrassed to face you out in the open. I'm so so SO so glad that you are enjoying Les Mignardises! I don't think I'm even capable of truly conveying the full extent of my gratitude, but that fic means a lot to me (too much to me, really) and it genuinely moves me to hear that you are having fun with it. I still think of myself as someone who primarily contributes to fandom through fic; with each passing day, this becomes more and more untenable a self-concept -- if that's true, where the fuck is the writing to show for it? WHY DO YOUR FIC UPDATES TAKE LITERAL YEARS, NAT? -- but still, some stubborn part of me wants the fics to matter, you know. Thank you so much.

And of course it's fantastic that you've made your way back to the fandom!!! YISSSS BE ENFOLDED BACK INTO THE LOVING CLAWED EMBRACE OF THIS HELLPIT

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Was thinking about Westerns, and so was thinking about The Quick and the Dead, and also was thinking about how weird it is that I've never drawn Wolfwood. lbr every Wolfwood is a good Wolfwood to me, but I'm very fond of Stampede Wolfwood atm 🥰

Is there a different character in this movie that is actually a preacher who runs an orphanage? Yes. Do I just like the Lady's outfit a lot? Absolutely yes

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Drunk drawing the best art of my life

I really don't know what "a car is nothing but a big cow" means but I feel like there's a profound truth at its core

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Dispatches from Les Mignardises: ✨the kitchen pass is for lovers✨

Anyway my only real complaint with The Bear is that I wish I were somehow working in that writers' room instead of having a completely unrelated day job. THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY AS A CONCEPT CONTINUES TO BE MY TRUE HOME FANDOM

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Anon this makes me SO HAPPY! It's nice that you remember my stuff and that you enjoy it (thank you!!!), but more than anything, it's GREAT TO HEAR THAT YOU CAME BACK TO DBH FANDOM! Being in closed-canon fandoms always feels a bit like being in a constant state of loss, where I sit on a chair for several years and slowly watch everyone at the party leave, one by one, so you getting back into DBH is an IMMEASURABLE SOURCE OF DELIGHT 🤩

ETA SORRY @neon-feoda I COMPULSIVELY CALLED YOU "ANON" BECAUSE I'M SO USED TO ANON MESSAGES!!!!!! YOU ARE THE OPPOSITE OF ANONYMOUS, MY APOLOGIES

You're so right. Every Allen I have ever written or even thought about has been precision-engineered to be Nines's nightmare for the specific reason that he has some sort of intimate claim on Gavin and Gavin seems into it in (what seems to Nines to be) a weird, complicated, ambivalent way. I am thoroughly predictable, but I shall not apologize for it! This is my kingdom!!!

💓💓💓 Thank YOU for coming by and dropping such a sweet note in the inbox! I've only ever felt really comfortable in fandoms where we are all in general agreement that the specific contours of canon are largely irrelevant! It may be the case that there are significant swaths of DBH fandom that do not, in fact, agree with that -- there usually are such significant swaths in any fandom -- but I'm very happy to be with you in a corner where that's the going understanding, at any rate. What even is the canon for reed900, you know? God I fucking love that we churn out content for characters that don't even know each other in canon. That is my ideal fandom.

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Are you still active in the dbh fandom? I love seeing your art and your characterisations of the characters... I especially love how fucking weird your reed900 is

Also the F1 au. I neeeeeeeed the F1 au

Is it a tremendous coincidence that your message came within a few hours of me posting a DBH comic, anon??? I'm active! Technically I've never really been inactive in the sense that I've... never for a moment stopped feeling love for DBH or guilt about how I should be producing more DBH content... but admittedly, producing nothing for more than half a year is... a form of inactivity.

Anyway, slow though I am with both art and writing, there will definitely be more of both in the future. Also I genuinely love that you called my brand of reed900 "fucking weird"!!!!!! THAT'S SO FLATTERING. I'M SO FLATTERED. THANK YOU. In my heart of hearts I think my reed900 is hella normal (if stunningly stupid), but of course I'm SO PLEASED that you think it's fucking weird!!!

THERE WILL ALSO BE MORE F1 AU FROM ME IN THE FUTURE, OBVIOUSLY. Hard Drive will continue to be the only fic form of F1 AU to exist, because I will never know enough about F1 to actually write anything long-form, but timestamp art and short comics? Hell yeah. Do you want to hear about how earlyish in my time in DBH fandom, I accidentally mentally made Allen into a very particular type of side character that I gravitate towards in every fandom, and now I can't stop putting him into every AU that lives in my head? Do you want to hear about how in F1 AU, Allen is the physiotherapist for Cyberlife Racing and his entire job is to just touch Gavin at all hours of the day and murmur low comments about how tight he is? This Allen is 100% the exact same Allen as Les Mignardises Allen and all I ever do is throw this fabricated man into scenarios just to fulfill my very specific needs. I HAVE TO STOP TALKING NOW