#I think this is the longest meta i've ever written

[ladykailitha]

Royal Pain Part 26

Hello, and we have got to the end of the massive arc that culminated the last four chapters.

I also wrote this part before 24 and 25 because I couldn't figure out how to write Eddie having a hard time on tour, but the aftermath flowed from my fingers.

Also as a reminder this story is finished, I'm just posting on a regular schedule. This story is the longest fanfic I've ever written. Topping out at 58165 it's definitely longer than 50K fic I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year (Sandman, never finished or published.)

Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6 Pt 7 Pt 8 Pt 9 Pt 10 Pt 11 Pt 12 Pt 13 Pt 14 Pt 15 Pt 16 Pt 17 Pt 18 Pt 19 Pt 20 Pt 21 Meta Pt 22 Pt 23 Pt 24 Pt 25

****

“You’ve been sitting on that sofa for an entire week,” Wayne growled. “Steve has called three times, your bandmates at least a dozen times each. Hell, boy Miranda has been calling concerned. So want to tell me what’s fucking got you so twisted?”

“I was given a choice out there on the road,” Eddie said, twisting his rings around his fingers. “Stay in Indy and play small time gigs for the rest of my adult life or go to LA and get an album and the chance at super stardom.”

Wayne sat down next him. “Sounds like a big decision to make.”

Eddie leapt to his feet. “That’s the problem. That’s what makes me so angry how fucking easy the choice is.”

Wayne cocked his head to the side. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate again, boy. Start talking.”

Eddie started pacing back and forth. “As much as I loved playing for so many people, I didn’t like that I could only connect with a handful of them and not even the good kind.” He rubbed his chin angrily. “I didn’t like how tired we all were. It was set up, sound check, play, break down and move on to the next fucking town. And that wasn’t including all the parties, interviews, and all that other shit.”

“That does sound exhausting, Ed.”

“I didn’t like how easy it was for them to tell me to drop Gareth as drummer just because he had trouble adjusting to the increased volume. The price of fame they said. Like it was so simple to throw away almost two decades of friendship for the sake of adoring crowds and hearing our music on the radio.”

“Oh, darlin’,” Wayne said softly. “They didn’t...”

“Oh they absolutely did,” Eddie raged. “I didn’t like how they thought that because me and Steve’s relationship was new that I would be able to find someone better. Someone who liked metal, someone who would be down for the ride.”

Wayne furrowed his brow. “That doesn’t sound like good advice.”

Eddie grabbed his hair pulled at it frustration. “The last straw was when they offered to let their tattooist to finish my back tattoo, because while my artist was good, theirs was better.”

He stopped abruptly and turned to face Wayne. “I picked Steve to do my tattoo on my back because he was the only one I trusted to make it meaningful. To understand the symbolism of making something of yourself when everyone is rooting against you. I made the decision before I fell in love with him and now that we’re a couple– and for them to just dismiss him like that? It made me so angry.”

“So what’s the problem? What’s got you so twisted around the bend?”

Eddie took a deep breath and let it out slow. “I’m fucking furious because I always thought that when fame and fortune came knocking I would throw open that door and march right through it. But now? Given the choice? I’m slamming the door in its face and walking away.”

Hot tears ran down his face. “And I don’t know why.”

He dropped to his knees and began to sob.

Wayne stood up and put his arms around his nephew’s shoulders, gently pulling him to his chest.

“Did that band you were traveling with say that?” he whispered into Eddie’s curls. “Because if they did, I swear to god I will burn every record and CD you have of theirs. Don’t think I won’t. I’ll delete them off your phone too.”

Eddie chuckled weakly. “No, no. They were kind. It was everyone else we met. Agents, managers, roadies, groupies, the people around Metallica every day.”

Wayne nodded.

“I was just constantly bombarded with hateful messages and the constant running at one hundred percent...” he whimpered. “I don’t want to do it.”

“Have you told your band that?” Wayne asked.

Eddie shook his head. “I don’t dare to. I was the one that was gung ho about the touring and everything. How do I tell them I don’t want to leave the comfort of Indianapolis and home?”

“Kinda like that,” Jeff said from the doorway. His arms were crossed and he was leaning against the frame. Peaking around him was Miranda with a concerned look on her face.

Eddie scrambled to his feet and wrapped his arms around his waist. “I’m sorry I’ve been a brat.”

Jeff took three giant steps forward and hugged him fiercely. “You’re not being a brat. You’re scared and trying to figure it all out on your own, but you don’t have to, okay? We’ve all been worried sick about you. But Steve especially. I’ll call all the boys down for a chat and you call Steve, okay?”

Eddie nodded.

He dialed the number he knew by heart.

“Baby?” he asked, unsure of the reaction he was going to get. He deserved to be yelled at. Cursed at. Broken up with. He’d hurt Steve the most with this little temper tantrum he’d been having.

“Eds?” Steve breathed. “Sunshine, are you okay? Wayne said you hadn’t been eating well or sleeping much. Say the word and I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”

Eddie’s lip began to quiver and tears spilled out of his eyes. “I need you. More than anything.”

“I’m on my way,” Steve said fiercely.

Eddie looked over at Jeff.

“Tell Steve Brian will swing by and pick him up.”

Eddie nodded and relayed the message back to Steve.

“I’ll be at my apartment,” Steve said. “I’ll have Robin arrange my schedule, don’t you worry about thing, baby.”

“Mm’k.”

“I love you, Eds.”

Eddie closed his eyes and breathed in the warmth of that simple phrase. “Love you, too, pretty boy. Come quick.”

“I promise.”

*

Steve piled into Brian’s car. It was the newest, having bought it right before they got picked up by Metallica. He had finally saved up enough money to replace his beater.

Gareth and Gethin in the backseat. Gethin had come up to Indy to watch his twin’s apartment while he was gone and just ended up staying. He was currently looking for a job so that he could move in with Gareth full time.

At least that what they said on the trip down. The twins and Brian were intent on filling the air with talk and Steve let them. He let them fill him in on the tour and everything that had been going on since they’d left.

Steve couldn’t be for certain, but it sounded like that touring hadn’t been fun for anyone. Even after a week of rest, he could still make out the circles under their eyes and how hunched over they were with just sheer exhaustion.

A feeling Steve felt all too well.

Gethin was pressed against his twin’s side and was rubbing his neck soothingly.

Steve looked at Brian.

His face was set, hard and unflinching. He was going to make the drive to Hawkins as fast as he could and still avoid the cops.

Steve was grateful Brian was driving because he didn’t think he would have made the distinction to avoid breaking the law. He would have gunned it and flipped off any cop that tried to catch him.

After awhile, Steve was getting the oddest feeling that Brian was used to speeding down this stretch of highway because there were points where he would slow down for a few miles and then speed right back up.

Soon enough they were pulling up to Wayne’s trailer and piling out the car.

*

Eddie sat on the sofa with Jeff and Miranda on either side of him, just hugging him.

Wayne was busying himself in the kitchen, getting ready to feed the hoard that was about to descend on his home.

The door opened up and Brian, Gareth, and Gethin all stumbled through the entryway. Eddie was on his feet in an instant, Jeff and Miranda not far behind.

And then the trio at the door parted and there stood Steve. Looking just as tired and worn as Eddie felt.

“Stevie?” Eddie asked, taking a step toward him uncertainly.

Steve threw open his arms and Eddie ran straight into them. They wrapped their arms around each other and just sobbed.

“I’m here, Eds,” Steve murmured into Eddie’s neck. “I’m here. I love you so much.”

Eddie lifted his head and kissed him hard. “I love you, too. I regret leaving you behind, sweetheart. It nearly killed me. Every song I wrote was about you. About missing you. I don’t even want to leave you ever again, I can’t.”

The silence that followed that statement was deafening.

Steve led Eddie back over to couch and sat them both down. “Tell us everything, babe.”

And so Eddie did. He told them everything. Everything he had told Wayne, everything that had been weighing on his mind since they started touring. It all just came out in a flood.

They all listened patiently.

“Why didn’t you tell us you felt like that while we were on the road?” Gareth asked. “I knew what they were saying about me, but I also knew you guys wouldn’t drop me. If you had me about that I would have been able to reassure you that I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Eddie flushed with embarrassment. “I didn’t know how to bring it up, it was so vile, man.”

Jeff gave his hand a squeeze. “Well, I think that you did a bang up job telling us now and that’s what really matters.”

“Someone offered to ship me out to LA and record an album,” Eddie finally admitted. “Not the band, just me. I told him that I wouldn’t go without you guys and he laughed in my face. Told me to cut the dead weight and be a star.” He dragged his hands over his face.

“But there were other offers. Good ones. Ones that included the band, well most of it, anyway. Always under the proviso that Gareth be replaced either on tour or all together. They didn’t want to make any accommodations for him even though there is a drummer with one god damn arm!”

“So the options are,” Brian said, “stay in Indy doing what we’ve been doing, only better because of the money we got for doing this tour. Go to LA without Gareth. Go to LA with Gareth but only as a studio musician and take some person we don’t know on tour with us. Does that sound about right?”

Just then Gareth’s phone went off. He looked at it with a frown. It wasn’t a number recognized so he let it go to voicemail. He pulled it up after the notification popped up.

He listened to message with wide eyes. “Hey guys, I think we have another option.” And he played the message so everyone could hear.

“Hey, Mr Hughes,” the tinny voice said through the speaker. “This is Murray Bauman, I’m music producer, we spoke in Las Vegas. I think I have the perfect deal for you boys. You were telling me that touring was really hard on you and that if there was an option you wouldn’t do that. I know you weren’t speaking for all your band, but I could tell that they would do anything for you, all four of you being such good friends.

“So the reason for this call is that I own a small music company in Bloomington and boy do I have a deal for you all. You would make a record through us, we would sell and distribute the record, keeping a portion of the sales, of course. But you wouldn’t have to tour. You have a steady gig as I understand it. If your fans want to see you play, they’ll know where to find you.

“But give me a call, we’ll hash out the details. My phone number is 555-555-2080...” and then message beeped, signaling the end of the voicemail.

Eddie looked down at the phone and then back up at Gareth. “Oh.”

Gareth grinned. “We don’t even have to take his offer, but I vote we listen to it. Brian can bring Cecil.”

Brian nodded. “He’s only got a semester left of law school, but I’ll have him brush up on his contract law to be on the safe side.”

Jeff raised his hand. “All in favor of hearing Mr Bauman out raise your hand?”

Eddie, Brian, and Gareth’s hands shot up.

“Sounds good,” Jeff said. “You call him back and set it up and if it doesn’t work out we can vote again.”

Brian shook his head. “Nah. I think if it doesn’t work, we stick to Nightmare Holes. We took a swing at it and if it’s a miss then we tried. I thought I wanted the touring and everything that came with stardom, but like Eddie I learned I wanted the romanticized version of it. I’ll be happy playing in front of our friends for the rest of our lives.”

The rest of the band nodded.

Soon everyone getting up to go back to Indy, but Steve stayed behind, he would go back up with Eddie in the morning. They had things to discuss that went deeper then the band.

****

Part 27 Part 28 Epilogue

I told you I would fix it.

Also a little BTS, the reason in my head for why things went wrong on tour but immediately righted itself when Eddie and Steve met up again? Steve still has Eddie's lucky pick. ;)

Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @artiststarme @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @pyrohonk ​@bookworm0690 @chaosgremlinmunson @goodolefashionedloverboi @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence @plyerice27 @thedragonsaunt @sapphirecobalt-1 @a-little-unsteddie @i-must-potato @danili666 @carlyv @rozzieroos @wonderland-girl143-blog @itsall-taken @justforthedead89 @emly03 @aizawa-emma @yikes-a-bee @redfreckledwolf @thesuninyaface @bookbinderbitch @archermightbegay @littlewildflowerkitten @scheodingers-muppet @hallucinatedjosten @ellietheasexylibrarian @anne-bennett-cosplayer @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @bestwifehaver @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @oldwitcheshat @nightmareglitter @tinyplanet95 @novelnovella @jonesn4coffee @slowandsteddie @awkwardgravity1 @steaddie-on

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Got tagged by @chaotic-neutral-knitter to share my favorite fics I've written and I feel a little bad not putting any of my 3 OFMD fics on the list. But in my defense it was very hard to choose between my 116 slutty slutty children, and while I like my OFMD fics a lot (especially Learning and Remembering) I decided to limit myself to five fics across all the fandoms I have written for over the past nine (!!) years, and there are some that stand above the rest.

Maybe I'll Show You the Way (Dune, Paul/Chani). Maybe my recency bias is showing but I really think this is one of the best things I've written. Paul and Chani's whole "falling in love while fighting side by side in an anti-colonial armed resistance movement" romance in Dune Part Two felt like it was designed in a lab to appeal to me specifically, and I just wanted more of it! What started with a simple "5 times they fucked in between fighting the Harkonnens" premise has become a novella-length character study about war, politics, solidarity and resistance to oppression in all its forms, interlaced with a very sweet, youthful first-love romance that always has a bittersweet edge because we the audience know these characters are living in a tragedy. This fic is one chapter from completion and I've been stalling because I really wanna stick the landing on this one, but it will get finished!

a narrow door, swiftly closing (Dune, Paul/Duncan) Different ship, different era (post-Dune Part One) and a very different vibe. The fun of this ship is the multiple power imbalances running in different directions (younger/older, student/teacher, lord/vassal, end product of a 90-generation eugenics program with a mind that can bridge time and space/Just Some Guy). It's also got that chewy age gap thing where the older character has watched the younger character grow from a child to an adult and has to wrestle with the realization that they find them sexually attractive now. Peak forbidden romance and mutual pining in this one and not just one but two of my favorite finally-crossing-the-line kisses I have ever written.

Three Times Is a Habit (Trust, Primo/The Other Paul) Ah yes, my "which doomed curly-haired teenage twink heir to a powerful dynasty named Paul are we talking about?" era. For a hot second (most of 2021) I was really into this hidden gem FX limited series Trust, based (with many creative liberties taken) on the real kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in Italy in the 1970s. The fun of this fandom is that every ship is an absolute garbage fire of bad decisions, and writing the trainwreck emotional logic that leads to a traumatized teenager repeatedly hooking up with his kidnapper was an adventure. There's also a fun meta layer at play in the relationship between our reality, the fictionalized "true" version of the kidnapping that happens in the show, the lies the characters tell about the fictionalized version of the kidnapping in the show, and the version of the characters I'm writing, some of whom are based on real people and some of whom are made up. (Is this RPF? You decide.) This fic will make zero sense if you haven't watched the show. But you should! It's a wild ride with a great cast (Donald Sutherland presente!)

Salvage & Scrap (Mad Max: Fury Road, Gen) Two minor characters who have a combined total of maybe five minutes of screen time produced what was until recently my longest fic on AO3. This fic was based on a fantastic prompt: what if Ace (the older war boy who seems to be Furiosa's second in command on the War Rig) and Valkyrie (Furiosa's Green Place gal pal) both survived their violent vehicular encounters and met each other? The idea was immediately appealing to me because they both care about Furiosa but have known such different versions of her, and the way their worldviews would clash seemed like great story fodder. I still love the imagery of them meeting at the place where their worlds have literally collided--the wreck of the War Rig in the Rock Riders' canyon. Also I recently reread this and I forgot how devastating the tiny glimpse we get of Furiosa is in this fic.

Fightplay (Mad Max: Fury Road, Max/Furiosa) You know this list wouldn't be complete without a smutty Maxiosa fic. It was really hard to pick one piece of the 127k smut novel I wrote about them in non-chronological order over the course of about 3 years (2015-2018). But Fightplay was definitely the start of writing uhhh a certain kind of dynamic for them. The prose is very spare and exacting in a way that I still find hot 9 years later.

Tagging @thebyrchentwigges, @thetardigrape, @nandamai, @bethagain, @demolitionwoman-blog and anyone else who wants to do this!

[chthonion]

Oooh, somehow I missed realising you were primarily an original writer - same hat fistbump.

With that in mind, for the meta ask game - 13 & 23?

Oooh, fistbump! They are, as I'm discovering, two very different experiences in some ways...

13. Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?

The only writing I share online is my fic; original stuff gets shared on an individual basis only, partially out of an old misguided impulse to avoid all semblance of self-publishing in case I want to try traditional publishing someday. (Not sure that impulse is doing me any good, at this point; I love writing, but I have come to realize over the years that traditional publishing is probably not the sort of thing that would suit me well, on account of how the system is pretty broken and I need hobbies that are for me.)

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

Oooh, this one actually does have an unambiguous answer. There's a story that I return to every once in a while, which has never been fully written in any iteration; I think I've been doing this since I was...goodness, probably 14? So more than ten years now. Over time I've come to realize that it's the first time I ever really expressed a lot of sensations associated with my mental illnesses, even though I didn't realize at the time that that was what I was doing. (Mental illnesses do tend to start hitting you at that age, frequently without explaining themselves first.)

The story changes dramatically every time I return to it. The point of it isn't even really to aim for a completed draft anymore; it's just--something I do sometimes. It's kind of cool to come back to it occasionally and see how my understanding of the raw feelings it contains has grown and changed and developed.

The story idea that has been in active development with the intention of producing a completed draft for the longest, though, is about a person who burned reality down in a fit of empathic rage, realized belatedly that this was not a very productive response to atrocities, and did time travel about it because reality was on fire so the linearity of time was amenable to suggestion. She is trying to channel her rage more productively this time around, with varying success. (I really like redemption arcs. Also, I get to use second person narration in this one, which is awesome.)

[dropthedemiurge]

2023 Year Results

I have lost my ranking of favorite Thai BL/QLs that I made during half of the year, so I'm just going to write it anew^^

My Top BLs by the end of 2023:

1. Be My Favorite

2. Moonlight Chicken

3. Not Me

4. The Eclipse

5. Semantic Error (or if we talk only Thai series, then Bad Buddy!)

Honorable mentions: Only Friends, SOTUS, Laws of Attraction, Kieta Hatsukoi, My Ride...

I keep changing the places and Moonlight Chicken held such a strong place in my heart but now I'm also taking into account whether I liked all pairings and characters, so BMF finally took over. But I still can't decide whether The Eclipse is higher than Not Me, I might rewatch it endlessly but Not Me was a cultural reset :D As well as Semantic Error who's done so good and finally broke through the typical Korean BL setting and public's favor.

Bad Buddy has done amazingly as well but there are only 5 places in Top 5 ranking 🥲 I guess, the Our Skyy just dimmed my good memories about it a little bit x)

I love how this year we got shows that have expanded beyond the borders of usual BLs, they added mystery and mystic, action, time travelling, sitcom etc, mixed gentes, kept speaking out about many important things - from marriage legalisation to equal rights - that definitely had its own impact on real life, actors went on many fanmeetings overseas, from West to East, and overall... This was a good year, story and fandom wise.

My Fanfic Statistics

I stopped writing metas and somewhat distanced myself from the fandom when I felt that my views often didn't align with majority (and also got shadowbanned by tumblr?), but I wrote ~ 80k words on AO3 and drew >10-15 arts that I really enjoyed. I still have many wips so look forward to them!

I wrote way too many Only Friends fics whole I watched the show xD This was definitely a show that gave out ideas (and sometimes outrage) and lots of angst.

But Not Me fics are still my number one (though mostly because of all the crossovers with other series I keep writing about)

Also somehow Bad Buddy OT4 fic is now the longest fanfic I've ever written (both in Neglish and my native language). And it's still not finished but tbh even I don't know exactly how it will end, that's how self-indulgent this is but I'm so happy rhat many people were excited about this idea with me!

My Fandom

I also had a blast having various discussions in my own small community and people who wanted to share opinions and watch series together. You guys keep inspiring and supporting me in exploring many ideas, drawing art and writing many fics, I truly admire and adore you all, especially my fam @springkitten @xagan and also @thepancakelady @wereflamingo (I'm surprised how often we agreed with each other on somethjng but that's what makes discussions interesting xD).

Also I want to hug bad buddy server was a joyful discover this year too that inspired me to start learning Thai, our not me server that keeps being my safe comfort space and many hugs to some tumblr folks who I talk in replies and reblogs (I am truly bad at remembering usernames but if I ever chatted with you here, I am definitely thinking about you and your profile picture <3)

Here's to 2024 and more projects

I also started my FirstKhao AU visual novel, and though I thought I would be able to make it in a month or two and then got struck by Health Doing Bad for a long time, I'm definitely determined to finish it next year.

And we keep talking about making Poetry Zines with @springkitten inspired by lakorns/bls we watched and I'd like to try and make it happen 👀

I also want to return to commissions in a better way, because of political situation I haven't been able to continue drawing for my foreign friends but thanks to my other friends who are generous to help me with handling finances for me, I might be able to start drawing requests again! I also spent like 5 months fixing my health that kept me from creating I want to finish old ones and I'm really itching to return to drawings and other projects :D

And I have in my mind mastering pixel and 3d art as a part of my Changing Profession and Career Path in 2024 so let's hope I can lighten up everyone's mood with cooler art and animations 👀

Happy New Year and Happy holidays, everyone!

[dreamylyfe-x]

I don't know where else to go to complain about fanfic comments, so I guess I'm going to do it here. Because I woke up to one today that annoyed me.

And ironically, I'm doing it on the second day of my summer vacation, which I had set aside anyway as a "day to attend to the fandom things that I need to attend to" -- of which there are several.

The first thing I need to say is that I'm desperately grateful for every single comment I receive on anything I've written -- fanfic or meta -- 99.5% of the time. This is just a vanishingly small sample of what I hear about stuff I've written.

But it's still so irritating.

Some background -- I wrote fanfic, a prodigious amount of it, in my very early 20s. For about three years I posted nearly daily. These were long WIPs and they got a fair amount of attention in that fandom, which means I also got some criticism. And I engaged the criticism fairly cheerfully. It's hard to be too insulted by someone who has still read hundreds of pages of your work, even if they are upset about something. It was also really normal, at the time, to tell a fic writer then their story was annoying you. And even an upset comment was better than no comments -- the absolute WORST thing you can experience -- so I was pretty ok with them.

But anyway -- life happened, I left that fandom and I stopped writing fic.

A good friend of mine still was and one day, in a fandom I never participated in but certainly knew a fair bit about, she had a bad experience. Her fic was nominated for a ship-centric fandom award (this is livejournal era) and some random group of fans took umbrage at the existence of these fandom awards and went through and gave snarky reviews of all the fics that had been nominated. Anonymously. My friend had not wanted this review and let it be known that she didn't like it. That violated some sort of fandom rule at the time and she got dragged for it. Authors were not supposed to object to criticism. Even if it was mean-spirited.

More years pass. It takes a good long while for a piece of media to grab me enough that I get sucked into a fandom again. But when it happens we are long into the Tumblr era. And I discover that the worm has turned and it is no longer considered good fandom behaviour to leave negative or critical comments.

As a fandom old, I find that I little curious. I don't leave negative comments personally, but it's such a shift from the livejournal era that I take note. And I'm not sure I feel all that negatively about receiving critical comments on fic. As I'm writing it for the first time in a decade, I get to test that out -- and I don't actually have a lot of opportunity to do that, because indeed, people tend not to leave negative comments. But ONE TIME, on ONE story, ONE person left perhaps the longest and most detailed comment I have ever received, all about how much she absolutely HATED the story I was telling. And I did, honestly, love that comment. Same principle as before -- I couldn't be mad when they were so passionate about it. It was flattering.

But today I was reminded of the type of comment I really don't enjoy. It is not that it's negative -- though it is. It's that it's withering. It's the type of comment designed to make you feel like this person thinks you're a vending machine that they put a dollar into and then got the wrong product. It's the "I hope you don't think that this thing you put into your fic is actually, you know, The CORRECT way to look at this."

I've only gotten a couple of these because in general I think fandom is nicer these days and certainly the corner of the Gallavich fandom that I occupy is filled with really smart, thoughtful, funny and interesting people who tend to SAY smart, thoughtful, funny and interesting things. And this is something of a void scream, because I don't think people who leave comments like that would ever bother to read this.

But. Like. Just in case.

Fic writers put thoughts and opinions into characters' mouths that are not their personal take all the time. Because they have reason to believe these pre-existing characters think that thing. You can disagree with it. But it's probably bad practice to assume anything about the fic writer because of it.

If you ARE going to leave a comment like that try to say at least one other thing about the story so that your comment isn't entirely just you being unaware of the concept of an unreliable narrator.

If you are STILL going to leave your eye-roll in comment form on someone's story and not even bother to hit the kudos button on the way out, then I will probably respond to you like you're an asshole. I just have no other context to draw from.

If you are still determined to do all these things, could you try not to do it in the middle for the night so that I don't wake up to this stuff in my inbox?

Anyway. I know I'm blessed to even get snarky comments on a two-year-old fanfic, but, you know. I have feelings to share. Happy August.

[irrealisms]

two for flinching! liner notes

fic here if you haven't read it!

the title for this one was hard. the one i ended up on comes from this comic by a softer sea (& this crimeboys version by @iidalus); it's also the name of a game of chicken where you're trying to get the other person to flinch, which i think works well also, but honestly that's secondary to the comic. you're my brother and i love you. that's it. no punchline.

lythraceae ranboo5 sometimes says "all fic is meta". some of my fic is only sort of meta; frex under these smothering waves is trying very hard to be a missing scene that fits as closely into canon as possible. two for flinching! is very very much meta. specifically: it's my entry into the Crimeboys Abuse Discourse.

i was really unsure about it for this reason, honestly; it's got a lot of tags going "the author likes cwilbur! the author sympathizes with cwilbur! this fic is about cwilbur being loved and forgiven!" and those are, like. disclaimers.

i've had this fic idea since july 2022. i started actually writing it earlier this month. this... might be the longest i've ever gone between "had fic idea" and "actually wrote it".

the dream & wilbur scene came to me months before the wilbur & tommy scene. i had the concept of "okay, so, wilbur post-revival is so insistent that dream's a good guy who has Been Punished and Redeemed Himself because he wants to believe he's a good guy who has Been Punished and Redeemed Himself, right? what happens if you bring those parallels back up after wilbur no longer thinks dream's a good guy?" but then i didn't really have a way to resolve it that wasn't "wilbur kills himself" and i didn't want to write that fic

and of course the way i ended up resolving it was "let the crimeboys demons win". ultimately, tommy loves wilbur; wilbur's attempts to leave or punish himself or get tommy to stop loving him, ignoring tommy's actual opinions on the matter, are themselves a way in which wilbur hurts tommy. for that matter, wilbur's attempt to get revenge on dream for tommy hurts tommy! tommy is not a revenge-oriented person! the dance party on the beach did more for tommy than the confrontation in the prison did. acknowledgement of the things wilbur did to hurt tommy is important, but so is the fact that... tommy is going to keep loving wilbur and wanting wilbur to be happy, and that's not a bad thing, it's just who tommy is. if wilbur wants to make things right, he has to do that not by taking revenge but by listening to what his victim wants.

a quote by Eve Tushnet that shaped my theology and that kept coming into my mind while writing this: "We think God sends our bad things to chastise us and cleanse us—we think Purgatory is full of bad things. Fire, cancer, rats, what's bad... raccoons are bad. Unjust wages! But what chastises us is the good things in life. Love—if you've ever loved so much it hurts, or if you've ever been loved by somebody, maybe your mother, so much that it hurts you to think about it—that's the fires of Purgatory. In this life and the next."

the hardest and most painful thing of all for wilbur isn't tommy's hate, like he thinks it is at first; it's tommy's unconditional love. but it's also that same love that gives him the strength to keep living, to move on and do better, after the fear of tommy's hatred had pushed him to plan both murder & suicide.

the first draft of this fic was almost entirely dialogue. it was ... fine? it was written. almost all of the images that i'm proud of, the recurring symbols, etc., came through in editing. my beta @erstwhilesparrow helped so much. this is pretty unusual for me, i usually do much less editing than this one needed, but i'm proud of how it ended up.

parts of the beginning of the wilbur & tommy scene are from the wilbur finale/Boundless Sands, but most of it isn't.

i don't know how obvious this came through in the writing, but it's tagged with wilbur having BPD bc that does in fact inform my characterization here: i read cwilbur as splitting white on dream post-revival, and then black during inconsolable differences. (he tends to split on tommy & on himself as well.)

crimeboys are so fun to write. i really, really want to write them more, because they're just such a joy to write. probably the most fun part of the entire fic for me was the few lines of banter they get near the end about long words.

EDIT: also ! this fic is nonzero inspired by peel the scars from off my back by squareupgod. not in a directly-inspired way, i had the basic premise before i read it, but in the way where i read that fic and it just kind of lives in my brain whenever i think about c!crime now. if you're a c!crime fan go read that fic. or reread it if you already have read it. whichever. and then cry. you do have to cry.

[naranjapetrificada]

[Queueing this a few days early because I know I'll forget the day of]

According to the depths of my archived emails, it was a year ago today when when I created this account, which wasn't my first tumblr account but even though I didn't know it yet, it was going to be the first account I ever used with any regularity. I only did it because of the stupid thing where you have to log in to actually see shit, which was something I wanted to do because I needed wanted to read OFMD meta so badly. I didn't realize it, but even creating this account was a sign that this show and its fandom were going to Mean Something New to me.

(behold: an overlong post about what OFMD and being in this fandom have meant to me, despite the horrors and The Horrors™)

I'm not a fandom rookie. I've been in and out of fandom spaces since my early teens, which means decades plural, although I'll further date myself by clarifying that those spaces were forums and, more than anything else, back-in-the-day livejournal (qepd). I've had blorbos since long before we called them that, or even called them "babygirl." As soon as we had internet access at home I was googling my shows and my characters to see what people said about them and discovering the magic of reading and writing fanfic.

I started using this account to lurk and take in people's thoughtful meta, and puzzle over what I called in my head "kylo ren disease" before I learned to call those corners of the fandom the canyon. But what got me to finally post for the first time was after reading too many fics that evoked themes in the show (and my life) that I wasn't ready to deal with until I finally granted myself a space to yell into the void about grief (general existential grief, the grief inherent in Stede and Ed finding each other relatively late in life, the grief of not being able to become who you are because society has no room for your authentic self, etc). Seriously, every original post I made for the first several weeks I was here was about grief, to the point of needing a dedicated hashtag.

It took me some time yelling into what turned out to not be a void (because people wanted to hear what I had to say?) before I realized another thing I was grieving: writing. I have tremendous baggage around writing, in ways that other "gifted" kids will immediately understand. But suddenly I could write again, hold shit! I wrote lots of meta, until the feelings I had about everything boiled over into a shortish fic because I literally couldn't find anywhere else to put them.

This was the first time I felt compelled to write my own fic in over a decade, and the first time in around that same amount of time that I could stomach writing fiction at all. Then I wrote another. And another. I often describe these shorter fics as having been written by "the poetry part of my brain," which is shorthand for being centered around an image or two that I couldn't stop thinking about, not really needing plot, and perhaps most importantly, self-contained in a way that allowed me to use them as tools to process an emotion and then put it in a box like season 2 Frenchie.

I love and value those fics, the way you can love and value something that helped you but that you no longer have a strong attachment to. That I can look at them now and see beauty in fiction I wrote without my aforementioned writing baggage causing a problem is a testament to how important they were for me. But then I started thinking I might want to write a longfic, and when the idea didn't go away after a few month I decided fuck, I guess I'm doing it? And I am doing it, and that is huge, and when (not if, when) I finish it will be the longest piece of fiction and one of the longest pieces of writing I've ever completed.

I'm actually writing longform fiction, something I've attempted to do my entire life but that never felt possible. And not only does it feel possible, it feels important (to me at least) and necessary and vital. That's the way writing used to feel before, well, *gestures at previous two decades* and being given that back is truly a kind of gift. And yeah that's a gift that the source material gave me, but it was also a gift from all of you who are out there reading and writing and commenting and painting and literally ever other form of participating in a fandom that it's possible to do. It's a gift that has allowed me to reclaim huge parts of myself and my personal narrative in ways that are truly therapeutic (which my therapist, a former art therapist, has endured me talking about at length). It's a gift I'm going to be grateful for forever, and I'm just so thankful to all of you for it. And I'll even still be thankful for it the next time I'm forced to behold whatever new cursed take has popped up in the tags.

I think. Definitely probably. It's just the cost of doing business.

[deusvervewrites]

I posted 8,686 times in 2022

That's 8,379 more posts than 2021!

7,935 posts created (91%)

751 posts reblogged (9%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@barid-bel-medar

@deusvervewrites

@gentrychild

@runningwolf62

@princess-of-the-corner

I tagged 8,141 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#asks - 7,640 posts

#meta - 460 posts

#blue sky au - 281 posts

#ask game - 277 posts

#future toga au - 220 posts

#pokemon legends mustafa - 202 posts

#draconic hero au - 156 posts

#wimtbah - 152 posts

#inhumans au - 147 posts

#clone for one au - 126 posts

Longest Tag: 78 characters

#having a summary that is only questions is a good way to get me not to read it

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Imagine how annoyed Nighteye would have been if Izuku hadn't applied to his agency? Like he just goes to fill in the application, 'hmm, suddenly vibes are shit no,' and then applies to like, be Nedzu's apprentice instead.

Midoriya: "These are some rancid vibes. Absolutely horrid."

Nighteye, storming Nedzu's Office: "Not only do you steal Togata's rightful Quirk, you deny me mentorship?!" Nedzu: (: Nighteye: "Don't you have anything to say, Principal?" Nedzu: "Oh heavens no. The longer you talk the more time I have to come up with ideas." Midoriya: (:

Narrator: "Nighteye was never seen or heard from again."

Oh yeah, Sir "Control Freak" Nighteye would be absolutely furious. I'm trying to remember if he explicitly told Togata to extend an offer on his behalf to Midoriya for the Work Studies. Come on, Nighteye, how are you legitimately creepier to me than AFO

305 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

#4

Aizawa for the time travel fix ask game?

I'm sure you meant this seriously but I had a really funny crack idea with Aizawa so we're doing that

Aizawa comes up with a plan to ensure that everything will work out. It is a brilliant plan with no flaws. He expels all of Class 1-A during the Quirk Apprehension Test

Naturally, the class immediately pack bonds into a found family speedrun out of sheer united rage

The class becomes a 20-person vigilante organization specifically to spite Aizawa, with All Might's less-than-secret-but-still-deniable backing

Every major Villain is incarcerated within five weeks.

Nedzu reminds Aizawa that he could've just asked him for help

362 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

#3

You know, why WAS Tensei attacked by Stain anyways, now that I think about it?

That's a wonderful question that canon has never in fact answered. It is one of the primary points in my 153-slide powerpoint titled "Why Stain Is A Clown and If You Like Him, So Are You'

I think the closest it's come to answering is Stain canonically has a habit of attacking people to see how they react when they believe they are going to die, and I really shouldn't have to explain everything wrong with that

405 notes - Posted August 12, 2022

#2

I Think I Know Why I Dislike Bakugou's Writing

Yes I know I just did the AFO/Asano Meta, but I feel like I need to do this too

To clarify: this is not me bashing on Bakugou. I want to like Bakugou. If you like Bakugou, you aren't wrong. You just deserve better for him.

Let's begin.

For at least a week now, I have had a picture open in a tab on my browser. This picture is something that I was beginning to think was made up by an Ao3 author because I had only ever seen one mention of it. And now that I've found it for myself, I found myself holding on to it and trying to figure out how to feel about it.

But now that's led to me finally having a way to verbalize the issues I have with how Bakugou has been written throughout the series.

On paper, Bakugou has one of the most interesting character arcs in manga. He goes from being a self-absorbed asshole with a superiority-inferiority complex who only wants to be a Hero because they win fights to the genuinely Hero Midoriya believes he can be.

In practice... well.

Let's play a game really quickly. I'll describe a scene from My Hero Academia, and I want you to guess what chapter it is. It doesn't have to be exact, just a general idea. Here's the scenario:

Midoriya manages to use a Quirk that's destructive to him without seriously hurting himself, and is proud of this accomplishment. In response, Bakugou gets incensed and physically attacks him.

Thought about it? Got an idea? Keep that in mind for later.

So here is my issue with Bakugou: there are two Bakugous. I know that sounds weird but let me explain what I mean. I'll call them Interim Bakugou and Dramatic Bakugou.

Dramatic Bakugou saw his classmates at the Battle Trial and realized that he wasn't the Big Man on Campus. He was furious with Todoroki for not using his fire at the Sports Festival, and infuriated by his internship with Best Jeanist. Dramatic Bakugou was kidnapped by the League because he's an asshole. He blames himself for All Might retiring, and he failed the Provisional License Exam because he's a asshole. Dramatic Bakugou told a kid that he needed to acknowledge his own weakness, took a hit for Midoriya in the War Arc, and apologized to him.

Dramatic Bakugou is improving as a person and a Hero.

Dramatic Bakugou also barely appears in the manga.

We are instead left with Interim Bakugou, the Bakugou who exists in the interim between dramatic moments. Interim Bakugou has not changed from his first appearance on the first page of Chapter 1, when he was five, beating the shit out of Midoriya.

Interim Bakugou tried to attack Midoriya on Day 1, and tried to kill him on Day 2. Interim Bakugou listened in on a private conversation about how Endeavor's obsessions broke him and learned nothing. Interim Bakugou told the League of Villains that he wouldn't join them because he likes how Heroes look when they win. Interim Bakugou told the Help Us Company actors to fuck off. Interim Bakugou dragged Midoriya out to Ground Beta to beat the shit out of him because he was butthurt about his exam and making it all about him. Interim Bakugou won the Joint Training Battle because he wanted to be the Undisputed Best. Interim Bakugou never calls people by their real names.

Interim Bakugou called himself Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight. Interim Bakugou told the class that Deku is fucked in the head and doesn't care about what happens to himself, while ignoring that he called Midoriya 'Useless' so often Midoriya responds to it like his own name. Interim Bakugou uses Deku right up to the moment that Dramatic Bakugou apologized for inventing it in the first place.

Interim Bakugou never changes, no mater how much Dramatic Bakugou tries.

Here, let me prove it. You remember that game I had you play a few paragraphs ago, yes? What chapter did you say? Chapter 7, during the Quirk Apprehension Test?

Well, I have to admit that I lied a little. That picture I've had on my browser for the past week or so? It's actually a screencap of the manga.

This is from Chapter 253, after Midoriya shows his progress with Blackwhip.

This is five chapters away from the start of the War Arc.

This is 69 chapters before he apologizes, most of which aren't focused on him at all.

This is within the Final Saga, as Horikoshi puts it.

And Interim Bakugou is indistinguishable from Orientation Day eleven months ago

I will freely admit that this is clearly meant to be a joke, and that he did not hurt Midoriya as severely as the class is acting, but the behavior is still there. It hasn't changed a bit. Interim Bakugou hasn't changed a bit.

Dramatic Bakugou, in a flashback, confessed to All Might that he used to bully Midoriya.

Interim Bakugou still does.

This is why I don't like how Horikoshi writes Bakugou. I want to like Dramatic Bakugou and follow his journey, but for every step forward he takes, Interim Bakugou takes two steps back. All of his apologies feel hollow because Interim Bakugou is demonstrably the same.

See the full post

466 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

AU where everything is practically the same but Izuku is visibly more feral. IE: he bit All Might instead of grabbing his leg and Toshi, upon remembering doing the same thing to Nana, decides to make him his successor (adopt him) on the spot.

Midoriya just fucking snaps one day because if you bully someone nonstop for ten years you either break them or get them to stop caring and bad news for Aldera they got the other coin flip this time.

You do not Fuck with Feral Midoriya. He has bitten most of his classmates by this point. He hisses like a cat. He casually starts discussing what it would take to render someone's Quirk permanently useless, like how someone could paralyze Bakugou's hands or scar them over until he couldn't make any explosions without breaking himself.

All Might gets nostalgic when Midoriya is gnawing on his leg to keep him from leaving.

During the entrance exam, Present Mic had to start the test a few seconds early because when Iida went to stop Midoriya from talking to Uraraka, Midoriya fucking picked Iida up and was getting ready to throw him like a javelin, and that announcement is the only thing that saved him. Midoriya did however carry him into the exam before he remembered to put him down.

When Midoriya uses his Quirk at the QAT, Bakugou assumes that Midoriya manifested it through sheer Feral energy and chooses life. Aizawa on the other hand tries an expulsion scare and he can taste how mad Midoriya is about it

511 notes - Posted November 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

I had to delay doing this because @gentrychild went and reblogged my Stray Cat AU and completely threw off my stats

[dancing-out-in-space]

bad buddy fandom getting-to-know-you meme!

Tagged by @fiercynn, it's a lovely idea. Thank you!

note: i consider "fanworks" to pretty much everything people create related to a fandom, including but not limited to meta/analysis/discussion, gifs, fanvids/edits/fancams, filk, fanart, fanfic, fan food, fan crafts, etc. please include this note with the meme unless you have a different definition!

name and whatever you want to share about yourself Hello you can find me most places online as sweet_exile (except tumblr). I am terrible at intros so please ask if you want to know anything.

when did you watch bad buddy/join the fandom? I watched BB in April last year after a friend recommended some Thai BLs and this was the one I fell in love with. I kind of accidentally fell into the fandom after writing a couple of fics.

favorite ship(s) sorry to be obvious but patpran. I love inkpa too, as soon as I saw the 'oh no, I've lost my contact lens' scene I instantly thought, that's such a meet cute moment.

favorite character(s) Pat is my beloved. So dramatic, one thing goes wrong and he's ready to throw himself off the balcony. I absolutely do not identify with that.

favorite episode(s) Aaaaah! A tough choice beyond the obvious episode 5 answer. Episode 2 is great, the pre-credits scene is a work of comedy genius and I love episode 3 as well.

favorite scene(s) the epic rooftop kissᵗᵐ (of course!), episode 6 - playing in the sea and the 'you must hate me' conversation afterwards, the library scene in episode 3 - my favourite cheeky kind of Pat and also returning Pran's guitar.

one thing you would change about the show if you could I'm glad they didn't overdo Pat's jealousy of Wai but I do think patpran needed to have a conversation about why Pran left his guitar with Wai.

what are your some of your favorite fanworks made by other people? Oh so many, you're welcome to check out my bookmarks but a couple of my favourites are:

traffic was slow for the crash years by @fiercynn

What's in Your Head? (Zombie Eh Eh) by aworkingprinter (miscellar on tumblr)

A Soft Boy in Soft Sweaters by @dimplesandfierceeyes

(if you create fanworks) what are your favorite fanworks that you’ve made?

I've only written a couple of BB fics but the one I'm most proud of is Love is Careless in its Choosing It's the longest fic I've ever written and started off as a stupid thought - why is it always Pran who is ill with Hanahaki Disease what if it was Pat and it kind of grew from there.

a song that makes you think of bbs (the ones in the show don’t count lol) I have a habit of using David Bowie lyrics as fic titles, so a lot of Bowie songs remind me of patpran, which is my own fault I know.

Days from the Reality album is very them - "Do I need a friend? Well I need one now" "All the days of my life, all the days I owe you." "With redeyed pain I'm knocking on your door again, My crazy brain in tangles pleading for you gentle voice"

I could pick loads of them though. I'm fine honestly.

idk anything else you want us to know? I don't think so.....

I think @fiercynn has already tagged everyone I know in BB fandom so if you stumble across this and want to join in please consider yourself tagged!

[gryffindorhealer]

2,4,80 for fanfic writers asks <33

Thank you so much for the ask, @blitheringmcgonagall, and let's away to the answers!

2 talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.”

The closest I come to this, is in WTU2B. This one is a niche piece. It's the epitome, for me, of the adage Write the Fic you want to read. It's very, very meta as well, and involves all Original Characters. So, while five of our favorite characters from the fandom (Harry Potter) are represented, they are portrayed by OC's in the progress of the story. And, when I think over this question related to all the fic I've written, I think it's less that the character looked at me and said "Here's what we're actually doing", and more since they are OC's, and the process of developing them continued during the writing, it's more that I got to know the character better than the way the question is worded.

Which still resulted in some changes in the storyline, even if not super major ones.

4 what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

This is something of a tougher question than first reading might indicate. I've been writing fanfic for a mere five years. There's one plot bunny I thought might be the one, however, one character involved in that bunny is in four of the fics I've published, in the manner that the plot bunny involves. So, not that one. I'm figuring the answer to this by looking in my Note-Outline-Timeline notebook (a spreadsheet, eh). Reviewing that, I highlighted four. Two of those are somewhat similar, with the second of the two a bit of a spin-off of the first. So the second is eliminated. Three, and which one did I start meditating on first? OK, here it is. Because I touched on this one in the second fic I wrote and published, Meanwhile, Back At the Burrow. Ginny and Harry both develop a means to help the other when they're dealing with PTSD nightmares. Harry's is demonstrated in Meanwhile, and again in Proposals. Ginny's is demonstrated in Meanwhile, and the plot bunny here involves, I didn't specify a detail in Meanwhile because of this plot bunny.

All very mysterious, right? Yeah, I don't want to give too much away. Ginny and Harry both developed ways to help the other cope with PTSD nightmares; Ginny's involves magic in a way she doesn't realize.

80 do you try to put themes, motifs, messages, morals, etc in your writing? if so, how do you go about it?

I don't consciously try to, and I'm sure readers can find them while they are reading.

[semperintrepida]

1 (mainly how's progress and what do you love most about it), 4, 21, 23?

Also, for 18 you said "There's a version of that story that doesn't skip the five months between chapter 1 and 2."

Is there any way you would ever post your draft of that version? That's incredibly intriguing and I would love to read it.

Finally, you said "There's also a version with an Isu component that became a darling that I absolutely had to kill."

Could you elaborate? That sounds super interesting.

Hey there, @triyal!

1．Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

If you've been following me for any length of time, you know what my current obsession project's all about. I'm still working on second-pass edits for the last handful of chapters in the book, while simultaneously doing final polish edits on chapters before posting them. (We're up to chapter 20 of 39!)

I'm really hoping to get second-pass edits wrapped up so I can start working on something else.

What I've loved about this book is the fucking audacity of it: the subject matter, the choice of POV/tense, Kyra as my POV character, the ambitions I have for the narrative. This is a work that the publishing industry would call "a challenging book to sell." It's certainly been a challenge to write.

(I'm also irrationally proud of the ending.)

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

I was joking with someone in a side chat that I've written too many bangers in "The Breaking" for me to choose just one, and I probably deserved their response that it's a wonder my head can still fit through a doorway...

So I'll pick this line from "And the Currents Collide":

Kassandra arrived at the Altar of Artemis under night-shrouded skies that had just begun to soften with the pale light of dissolving stars.

A lot of assonance and consonance in that sentence—the initial run of a sounds giving way to all those s'es—along with an intriguing image of "dissolving stars."

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

Parts of "The Breaking" might make an interesting stage play. Hear me out: there's not a whole lot of action and the meaty parts of the book are mostly dialogue between two leads. It could work!

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

I've wanted to tell a rip-roarin' redemption story since I watched Xena on broadcast TV in the 90s. My teenage self envisioned it as a Xena fic of course, but that trope was already so so overdone and besides, teenage me couldn't write her way out of a paper bag. (I also had zero life experience so my fiction would have had the emotional complexity of a turnip.)

So I set the idea aside.

Twenty years later, AC Odyssey drops the perfect redemptive protagonist into my lap: deimos!Kassandra, along with an equally compelling romantic possibility in Kyra. I've also had twenty years of Doing and Seeing Some Shit and have somehow learned to write.

So here's hoping this book resonates a little better than a turnip!

Extra bonus asks:

I answered similar questions over here. Very unlikely we'll ever see Deimos doing unforgivable deeds, but the Isu thing is a real possibility...

[Fun meta asks for writers]

[thesquidkid]

💕 self-love time! talk about which ones of YOUR creations (edits, artworks, fanfics) you like the most then send to other creators to do the same 💕

Hiii 😁 thank you for the ask! Sorry it took me a while to answer, but I was really stressed about one of my exams and I didn't feel in a good enough mood to praise my own work.

But that exam is done now, and I've had some time to relax and I'm now ready to talk about my works!

There are two works and one series of fics that I am really really proud of, and that I really love (tho, tbh I write for myself mostly, so really, I think all my fics are amazing in their own way 😂)

Under the stars. This is the first multi chapter fic I've finished, and the first proper fluff fic I've written. There's something about this fic that I find very soothing, and whenever I reread it I love it even more. It was also a challenge to write, since my romantic experiences are inexistent, I am still amazed that I wrote 19k of fluff. Obviously, now, about a year after posting it, there's stuff I would write differently, it's still a fic I love and I'm really proud of.

J'avais les yeux occupés à regarder l'passé. This is the first rnm fic I ever wrote. And it is probably the fic I am the most proud of. And I love it so much that I am currently rewriting it, and I will finish it. I have always been very interested in the science behind time travel, and with this fic I decided to also look at the "human" aspect of it (i.e. what do you do when you find yourself in the past). I also wanted to explore the relationships between the main characters as teenagers and as parents (so both pre and post canon), and how those two moments in time influence each other.

You are the Superwoman to my Lois Lane. Once again here I am writing a romantic story while knowing absolutely nothing about romance (other than what I've read in books and fics). This series of fics is very fun to write, and I have lots of ideas I want to explore with Anatsa and Isobel. I guess it's partly because we don't know anything about Anatsa, I feel like whatever I write cannot contradict canon and it gives me a sense of freedom when I write about them. This is also more recent work, and I do feel like my writing has improved quite a lot in the year or so I've been writing for this fandom, so naturally I am quite proud of myself here.

So these are the three main fanfics I am the most proud of. But as I said before, I do love all the fics I've written. Since, you know, I am my own target audience. Of course, I am extremely happy that there are ppl who enjoy what I write, so thank you to everyone who reads my fics I live you guys ❤️

But how could I talk about the work I'm proud of without mentioning the one that was the most time consuming, that gave me the most headaches, that took away hours of sleep. The project that made me discover fields of research I never thought I would enjoy or even be interested in. My RNM Science Meta (here is the link to the bunch of tumblr posts, and here is the link to the overleaf document, which currently lays at 54 pages, and where everything is organised properly)

Honestly, nothing could ever compare to the pride I feel about this meta. It's the longest project I've ever worked on, longer even than some of the academic papers I've had to write so far.

Anyway, if you haven't already guessed it, I love talking about the stuff I write, and I love the stuff I write, and I will not stop writing about this stupid little alien show.

[faefaye]

E, F, L, N, O, P asks ^^

Let's go! I'll try to answer for both Tokyo Ghoul, because it's you asking =D, and LOTM which is definitely my primary fandom at this point.

(this got long so rest is under the cut :p)

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

I've made incorrect quotes and memes for both fandoms and I consider those pretty cracky :p.

But in terms of fics, not really ^^;. I do have light-hearted / humourous fics for both fandoms, but I overall consider myself terrible at writing comedy. In fact, there's one fic I've written in my entire life that I would consider "crack" and I deleted that one off the face of the internet because I was too embarrassed days after posting it. It remains the only fic I've ever deleted to date (my general philosophy is not to delete fics since someone out there, now or in the future, might enjoy it, but I made an exception for that one, it also had zero hits which made the decision easy :p).

...

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

Tough question. I never really leave a fandom once I've joined it - even if I move away from it, I'll continue to sometimes read fanfics / metas / see fanart etc. Case in point, Tokyo Ghoul. So my answer would likely be ~9 years, for the first fandom I ever joined (not naming it because it was before this account of mine :p). If that's not counted and we're talking about truly immersed in the fandom, I guess the longest is 3 / 4 years for Tokyo Ghoul.

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L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

Tokyo Ghoul: I choose Seidou. I think he's a very interesting character, an ordinary man in the CCG who contrasts everyone else then went on to become a half-ghoul in the most tragic way.

The reason I somewhat dislike him is his interactions with Akira in the first series, but I can't deny those feelings of jealousy, envy and admiration are all also very realistic.

It's been a while since I read Tokyo Ghoul so maybe I'm off, but I always thought of him as a half-ghoul who rejected his past humanity and only looked to his future as a ghoul. Meanwhile Amon was a half-ghoul who could not look to that future and only clinged to his past humanity, so I enjoyed how they were excellent contrasts to each other.

LOTM: Hmm... let's go with Cattleya. I don't really care for her and feel her role in Book 1 was less about herself and more about the people she was connected to (Bernadette, Frank Lee). But I also think she has an interesting past (growing up with Bernadette, links to Element Dawn and Moses Ascetic Order, becoming a pirate admiral) as well as future (her task to infiltrate the Moses Ascetic Order), and I really hope canon sheds light on it.

It's also great that she was the first Tarot Club member to openly defy the Fool, it was realistic of her to not have loyalty to a random gathering that she was pulled into by accident. Like, yes, the Fool saved her, but she didn't ask for it and of course she'd be wary of the powerful being who showed her kindness out of nowhere.

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N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

Tokyo Ghoul: (disclaimer I no longer deeply interact with the fandom so my answer may be outdated :p) Generally I just want to see more of certain characters or relations, especially Akira, she's such an endlessly interesting character to me and I adore all sorts of fanwork for her.

Recently due to a blog on Tumblr (idk if it's fine to tag ^^), I've also gotten very interested in everything to do with Eto and love reading metas for her.

Finally I guess canon-compliant post-canon stuff, probably an unpopular opinion but while I have some issues with TG's ending, I'm more interested in reading what could have led to it than the ways it should have gone (which is most of what I've seen in the fandom regarding it).

LOTM: Tbh the English fandom is small enough that anything I like I could say there's not enough of :p.

I've answered this in regard to fanfiction before and I will reiterate one part of that- more Azik and platonic Aziklein in any form.

Second, more nuanced anything about the Demoness pathway and its members (currently reading COI on Webnovel and taking damage from some of the comments I see...).

Then... idk, I have like a dozen characters and relationships I'd like to see more content of :p, tough to choose between them. Probably because I just posted Blessings of Today, I'm thinking about Derrick + City of Silver + Moon City.

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O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

My pick got connected to LOTM: Shelter by Porter Robinson, reminded of Klein. [I could never find the right way to tell you / Have you noticed I've been gone? / 'Cause I left behind the home that you made me / But I will carry it along] reminds me of him with Melissa and Benson, they never knew the real Klein died and they also don't know the current Klein is alive ^^;.

Also, [And it's a long way forward but trust in me / I'll give them shelter like you've done for me] is Evernight helping Klein, and Klein freeing the other transmigrators.

Tokyo Ghoul: Not a song at random, but I want to say Trust Distance by grief art always makes me think of Akiramon in the first series. It's about two people revolving around each other, never able to get closer, never able to define their relationship :p.

Choice lyrics (English translation from the Vocaloid wiki): [The two of us only turning around / because we're attracted to each other, but can't get closer / The nameless circle of relationship / turns round and round, seemingly not broken] and [We reach out our hand for each other / but I can't feel your fingertips either / "If you won't reach, it's fine" / I smile while walking].

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P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

Tokyo Ghoul: Hmm... do we mean a completely different world or canon divergence here? I'll go with the latter: I've always wondered about a world where Kureo Mado lived. He sees his daughter train a group of half-ghouls, he might even be friendly with them over time. Then he gets to see his subordinate as a half-ghoul, his daughter joining him to help the ghouls... would he change his mind for the people dearest to him? Or would he continue to hold onto his prejudices?

Nothing for LOTM, finding my way through canon is hard enough without adding AU ideas XD.

That's all, thank you so much for the asks! I really enjoyed answering these.

[lumateranlibrarian]

Let’s talk about Claudia and Soren, because I’m pretty sure their conflict is going to be one of the biggest parts of The Dragon Prince’s endgame.

The Dragon Prince’s main recurring theme is breaking the cycle of revenge and hate, and how that duty falls on the newer generations when their predecessors failed to do so. This theme is so prevalent that we see the children of The Dragon Prince being placed over and over in chilling parallels to their parents.

Rayla’s parents were the last line of defense for the Dragon Prince’s egg, and yet they failed to protect it, running away or losing their lives (or so we’re led to believe); Rayla chose to be the last line of defense for Zym and Zubeia during the final battle. In her confrontation with the exact same man her parents faced, she was put in the same position, and was also willing to die to save Zym (and would have if Callum hadn’t pulled that spell out of his ass, but that’s beside the point).

Ezran sits on the throne of Katolis, and has to decide whether he’ll let a man driven by vengeance and fear tell him how to use his power. This man inevitably decides that dark magic will lead him to his goal. Like Harrow in his final days, Ezran chooses peace over conflict - and yet, for this choice, Ezran is ousted from his throne and placed in a prison he later escapes (unlike his father, unless you consider a birdcage, subsequently escaped, to be a prison too - oh, wait).

And then. Soren and Claudia.

Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon. Shit’s about to get real.

The scene where Soren snuck away from Viren’s army, leaving Claudia behind, was masterfully executed, and I’m still both delighted and heartbroken over it all. But to map out why it was so excruciating, we have to go back a few episodes. Specifically, the finale of Season 2.

In Breathe, Claudia apologizes to Ezran for her actions attempting to capture him. When Ezran admits that he knows about his father’s death, Claudia empathizes with him by explaining the circumstances of Viren and her mother’s separation.

CLAUDIA I know it’s not the same, but… when I was a kid, my mom and dad split up. I remember hearing them fight a lot at night after we went to bed. And then one day, they told us Mom was moving back to Del Bar, where her family was from. And then they said… we had to choose. And Soren chose Dad. How could I choose? How could I do that? Then my mom looked at my dad, and she told me to stay. She said that I had to stay with Soren, that this was my home, and my brother and I needed each other. And then she left.

EZRAN But how could she do that? Why would she leave you?

CLAUDIA I think she needed to leave for herself. To be happy… somehow. You might have noticed my dad is pretty intense.

EZRAN You must miss her.

CLAUDIA Losing her has been the hardest thing that’s ever happened to me.

EZRAN When you grow up, sometimes there are changes you don’t expect, and you have to face things you’re not ready for. Callum told me that.

CLAUDIA You are so lucky to have a brother like Callum.

EZRAN I know.

CLAUDIA And… I’m lucky to have my brother. Soren is a doof, but he’s my doof! I know he would do anything to protect me, and I would do anything for him.

Pretty upsetting, right? I can understand why a young Claudia would be so torn - after all, no child wants to make the choice between losing one parent or the other. And Claudia clearly recognizes that it was not abandonment, when her mother left - rather, it was her mother doing what was right for herself. Of course, Claudia didn’t come to this realization immediately, and says as much. It just took a long time for her to get there. Again, an understandable response.

Hold onto that! It’s a surprise tool that will help us later.

So, with this in mind, let’s proceed to Season 3, Episode 7, Hearts of Cinder.

Soren has seen some shit.

Where to even start? Viren told Soren all but explicitly to kill the crown prince and his brother. And when Soren and Claudia confronted Viren about this, Viren gaslighted the shit out of his son, to the point that even Claudia was convinced Soren had misunderstood their brilliant, intellectual father for the umpteenth time. This left a deeply upset Soren was wrestling with what he knew and what he was being told. Every time Soren tried to ask for more information, he was harshly rebuffed by Viren, or more gently brushed to the side by a (perhaps willfully) naive Claudia. He knows what Viren wanted him to do with Ezran, and this has been weighing on him for a while. When Ezran spared his and Claudia’s lives, and then was himself thrown in jail (a fucking ten year old boy cuffed in the same prison cell used to contain a treasonous archmage), Soren finally put his foot down and said, actually, fuck this.

And, before I get into the quotes once more, I’d like to point out: Soren isn’t actually stupid. He has his blatantly obtuse moments, yes, but he did come up with the plan (and muster the sheer audacity it took to pull it off) to get Ezran out of Katolis. That doesn’t happen by being an idiot.

Anyways, hold on to that. It’s a surprise tool that will help us later.

By the time Viren, with Aaravos’ help, manages to siphon the power of the Sun Elves’ city, Soren has seen enough. And when Viren straight-up assumes that Soren will be blindly willing to be the first transformed soldier - perhaps because he assumes Soren is too easily led to refuse - Soren says no. He says, I don’t want to do this. I’m scared.

You know how the rest of that scene goes.

Let’s get to the good stuff.

Soren flees, and Claudia goes after him.

CLAUDIA Soren. What’s going on? Where are you going?

SOREN I can’t stay here anymore, Claudia. You’ve seen what’s going on. What Dad turned Kasef into. What Dad turned into.

CLAUDIA Maybe he’s just doing what needs to be done.

SOREN Claudia, you’re changing, too. But it’s not too late. Come with me, Claudia. You can leave him!

CLAUDIA Please, Soren, don’t… don’t do this to me. Don’t make me choose. Not again!

SOREN Okay. Goodbye, Clauds.

CLAUDIA No! No! No, no no!

Do you see the parallels? Yes? No? All right, let’s go.

Both of these scenarios have arisen because of some sort of discord between Viren and his (I hope) loved one

Both loved ones (the children’s mother and Soren, respectively) decided that they could no longer stay with Viren, and had to leave.

Both loved ones gave the remaining family members a choice, to stay with Viren or come with them.

Claudia couldn’t decide, or Claudia wouldn’t decide, and this drove her to intense distress.

Hoping to spare Claudia pain, the leaving party told her to stay with Viren and Soren (or, just Viren), and Claudia had to watch someone she loved walk away.

The writers are bringing their A-game here, in case that hasn’t been made abundantly clear yet. There are a couple of reasonable assumptions we can make, going off these pretty blatant similarities:

Claudia and Soren’s mother was likely also upset about Viren’s growing reliance on dark magic. Or at least, that was a part of it.

Claudia and Soren’s mother returned to live with her family in another city, far away. This raises the possibility that Team Zym and associates are now Soren’s “family”, and like his mother, he’s not likely to go back.

Remember that first “surprise tool”? Claudia, while heartbroken now like she was then, may be able to forgive Soren for leaving her, as she came to understand her mother’s reasons for finalizing the divorce and moving away from the capital. Whether she does, and if doing so leads to reconciliation, however, remains to be seen…

This scene was beautifully executed, and kudos to the writers, animators, and voice actors for a superb character study. I am curious, though. Claudia has been closely paralleled with Viren, here. It’s possible that Soren has had several moments in the series so far where his actions and motivations mirror his mother’s, and we just don’t know about it because of how little we know of her.

But wait! We’re not done. I did say I think a final, major confrontation between Claudia and Soren is part of the endgame, right? Let’s dive into that.

Point: Claudia is either more powerful or more dangerously driven than Viren. Why do I say this, given all the crazy shit Viren’s done, especially under Aaravos’ counsel? Because Claudia brought Viren back from the dead. She has done what Viren either never could, or never dared to do. If Viren had been able or willing, he would have saved Sarai.

(If that’s not true… if he chose not to save Sarai, in favor of collecting her last breath in order to make a cursed weapon that could bring down Thunder… well, any shred of redeemability Viren had is now gone in my mind. Because how do you look your friend, a grieving husband, father, and king in the eye when you hold his wife’s last breath in your hands and say, “This is all I was able to save,” when it’s a lie?)

Point: Viren failed Aaravos. Viren failed Aaravos, but Claudia has managed to perform what is, as far as we know, the impossible. From the split second glimpse we have of her face immediately after Viren is revived, it seems like she just cast the spell - her eyes are pure black, but quickly fade to their original color, much as they did when Claudia restored Soren’s ability to walk using life force siphoned from a pair of deer. We also know that Aaravos has been spinning himself a new form over the two days before Viren was revived - it’s possible that Aaravos doesn’t yet know what Claudia has accomplished. What will Aaravos do, I wonder, when he learns about the impossible prodigy he has access to? It’s implied that Claudia still doesn’t know about Aaravos speaking through the caterpillar, but that hardly matters to a master manipulator like Aaravos. When you want to conquer Xadia, do you want a broken, old pawn, or a young and innovative replacement instead?

Point: Soren is not stupid. He’s not booksmart, obviously. But he’s got a keen eye for strategy. How do I know? Because he made Captain of the Crownsguard at the age of 18. Because it took him all of two seconds to see a dragon brought down by ballista during the battle to realize that the only way to give the dragons a fighting chance was to keep them in the air. Because he planned - no, he masterminded - Ezran’s escape from the dungeons and subsequent journey across Xadia to get to Zym before Viren. And because he timed it just right, Viren has no idea Ezran has escaped until the final battle - if he even knows at all, given that the only interaction we see is between them after Ezran’s escape is on the battlefield, with Ezran and the illusion Viren created by Claudia.

Point: The Illusion Viren.

This frame was the one that, of the entire season, truly stole my breath away.

Viren (well, illusion Viren, but that’s not the point of this frame) is the dividing factor between Claudia and Soren, and he has caused this rift between them due to his intent towards Ezran. Soren’s compassion and duty towards Ezran has allowed him to see the truth of Viren’s actions, whereas Claudia’s compassion for Ezran has blinded her to the fact that her own father could act so horribly to him.

And, if you’ll indulge me for just a minute, I have to wonder - why was this the ploy Claudia chose to use, to distract Soren and Ezran from the threat at the top of the Storm Spire? She has adamantly been opposed to the idea that Viren would ever orchestrate Ezran’s death, including several clear warning signs and Soren’s testimony. So why did she use this illusion - of Viren going after Ezran, clearly trying to kill him - against Soren, when his resolve to protect Ezran from Viren is what led him to the Storm Spire in the first place? Claudia is horrified when Soren demonstrates that he is willing to kill his own father to protect Ezran (who is, by the way, still a ten-year-old boy, king or not). But isn’t this what Soren has been saying all along? That Viren has been telling him to kill Ezran, and that Viren is wrong, and Soren believed this so much that he chose to leave rather than continue gong along with Viren’s plans? So, whose resolve is Claudia really testing here - Soren’s? Or her own?

I think it’s the latter, honestly. But back to our regularly-scheduled programming. Where was I?

Ah, yes.

Endgame.

So what do we know? Claudia is quite possibly the most powerful dark mage in the world. She’s chosen to continue aligning herself with Viren and Viren alone. Soren is a strategist driven by duty, and is surrounded by other warriors of similar mind and similar or even better skill. Unless a new threat emerges beyond the alliance of Viren and Aaravos (which isn’t impossible, of course), the two siblings are in direct opposition to one another. Claudia must live with the fact that her brother was willing to kill their father, and has left her to pick up the pieces. Soren must live with the fact that he was willing to kill their father, and that Claudia’s manipulation is what drove him to it.

The two of them have also, believe it or not, grown up with vastly different influences during their formative years. Differences in treatment from Viren aside, there’s an implication that Claudia and Soren have been on separate paths for a long time. Claudia is clearly Viren’s favorite - he has actual conversations with her, listens to her questions and attempts to answer them (whether the answers or truthful or not is another issue). Meanwhile, Viren puts very little effort into understanding Soren. Likely, he believes he already does, as Soren isn’t, shall we say, the most complicated of individuals. So, Claudia gets private tutoring under her father, and academic and intellectual training that Viren can relate to and challenge and encourage. Meanwhile, Soren, the family jock, goes into the castle guard. It’s not clear what all this would entail, but I imagine he trained with other recruits for a time in his own age group, reported to a commander or other superior officer, and probably received some sort of advanced training when it became clear he was a prodigy in his own right - after all, it’s not your average eighteen-year-old who is placed in charge of the security of a monarch. To sum up, Claudia was favored and likely spoiled to some degree by her father, whereas Soren excelled in military boot camp, which requires recruits to learn how to carry their own weight and take responsibility for protecting others in a very different sense than Viren’s supposed dedication to the realm.

Narratively speaking, despite first impressions, Claudia is the sibling with more cards stacked against her. She is falling faster and faster towards the point of no return with dark magic, whereas Soren has fought for every inch of his venture into the light. I’m anticipating larger confrontation between the two siblings than what we have seen so far. My heart breaks for both of them, but when I think of how future generations of humans and elves will tell the story of the Dragon Prince, these tragic siblings will fill one of the most resonant threads of the epic.

Ezran rode into the throne room that was his by birthright on the back of a massive, black-furred beast whom he charmed into loyalty. Rayla tackled a madman off of the highest peak in Xadia, and Callum dove selflessly after her. Claudia raised her father from the dead. Soren crossed miles of hostile territory in a single night to warn the Dragon Prince of a coming army.

There is a story being told here. Sometimes, history repeats, and sometimes, it rhymes. Cycles are meant to be broken, but only time will tell how Claudia and Soren handle the one they’re trapped in.

Can I just say, though?

Claudia is going to make one hell of an epic villain.

Bring it on.

[lannisterdaddyissues]

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

And

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

For the ask meme <333

omg aww @lauwrite1225 @fleurdufeu ty all for the asks!!! also @faeratil bold of you to assume you can retract your challenge just like that, watch me do all of them anyway

A: Ships/platonic pairings that you currently like a lot ok so thanks to @potatoesforsamoo i am simping on main for steven stone and flannery from pokemon which is such an obscure ship but she writes amazing fic for them!! i also love twiyor from spy x family rn! as for platonic pairings i'm obsessed with literally everyone in major. the father-son relationships in that show are EVERYTHING and i love the friendship dynamics so much. in my head i've written over 1 million words of meta about them

B: A pairing that you initially didn't consider, but someone changed your mind franky/nightfall from spy x family... i was a yuri/nightfall shipper for a while bc i thought it would be comedic and hilarious but i saw some art of franky and fiona and honestly it would be the FUNNIEST thing if he had a crush on her. they would be like fix-it felix and sergeant calhoun from wreck-it ralph if they were a couple i think. and i love it

C: A ship you have never liked and probably never will sheith i guess?? i'm trying to think of ships from fandoms im actively in but not sure. anyway yeah whenever i see sheith i'm like ew. not even bc of their familial dynamic, like i don't care who ppl ship or anything go ahead and ship them all you like i just cant see them together. it makes my blood boil for no reason at all. it might be bc i ship klance or smth idk i'm gross

D: A pairing you wish you liked but just can't i guess all the thomas ships in downton abbey but i just don't Like thomas that much and im not very interested in his subplots sorry... it seems like everyone who stans thomas is having a genuinely good time tho and i wish i could be one of them bc im starved for good fic in the dabbey fandom :(

E: Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what? how easily you forget all the memes i made for tlk lmao... as for my current fandom i made this thread summarizing the entire plot of major through memes bc watching the anime made me so mentally ill. if u actually click on the second link tho don't read the tags i beg you... i thirstposted in there and it was bad

F: What's the longest you've ever been in a fandom? i've been in the fullmetal alchemist fandom for going on 8 years now and it's been pretty good. after that i was in the man from uncle fandom for 3 years or so

G: Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? gee it was so long ago but i believe the first ships i ever actually shipped were like kimron and drakkgo from kim possible. the first ship i actually consumed content for was either shirogane and ichigo from tokyo mew mew or yullen from d-gray man i think. if we're talking actual brainrot otps tho then it was stony jdkfsjskfds

H: What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff? oh anime 100%! i watch so much anime its a wonder i haven't magically turned into an anime character already

I: Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why? h*zbin h*tel bc the fandom was toxic as fuck and the show is actually so, so evil...

J: Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr duh it's the gay pirate show and the vampire book club... i'm not in them but they ARE all over tumblr so i have to think about them obviously

K: What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc? JOE GIBSON MAJOR JOE GIBSON MAJOR JOE GIBSON MAJOR!!!!!! I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH WHAT AN INCREDIBLE CHARACTER HE IS!!! MY BRAIN IS SO ROTTED FROM THINKING ABOUT HIM ALL THE TIME OK YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE MEANS TO ME NONE OF YOU KNOW HIM LIKE I DO

L: Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves ugh... ok aethelwold WAS admittedly really funny sometimes. i hated him but he made me laugh and sometimes i miss the levity he brought to a scene with just his overall existence

M: Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend alice from major!!! she's just so cute and i think we would get along super well i love her <3

N: Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom content, content, and more content. the major fandom is a barren wasteland i hate it here

O: Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of? the first song to come on was if u seek amy by britney spears... idk why but it reminds me of junior from major bc i think he would have the trashiest white girl taste in music i just know he would be belting out an impeccable falsetto in his fancy jag while bumping his hand on the steering wheel. i know it

P: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas) courtesy of ro i am still thinking about a major au where gibson adopts goro and raises him and junior together with momoko after shigeharu's death to atone for his mistakes. i just want gibson to be a father figure is that so wrong

Q: A fandom you’ve abandoned and why there are a lot of them so i can't really give one answer but like i said, the h*zbin h*tel fandom is so toxic i will never go back

R: Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom? GIBSON AND GORO ARE SO IMPORTANT TO ME!!!! despite their history there was never any lingering hostility or anything between them. they respected each other so much and took so much inspiration from one another and grew as people because of it. like gibson had been so arrogant and almost selfish in his debut eps but he transformed thanks to goro's influence and became such a humble and selfless person like even when he was dying he never put himself first. it was all about keeping his promise to goro, and making up for lost time with junior, and upholding the pride of his country, even if it meant putting his life on the line to do so. and in the last arc of season 5 we saw how he touched the hearts of fans all around the world with his resolve and i think it's so so beautiful

S: Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged) major au where no one dies and everyone is happy that's my personal headcanon right there. bc if shigeharu had lived i actually think he and gibson had such potential for a rivals to besties dynamic like it was all there. in my heart shigeharu lived and he and gibson became reluctant carpool buddies during the little league arc. i just really wish they had been friends that's it. nothing else to see here

T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? toshi is so in love with goro it's not even up for debate he is in LOVE with goro!!!! also i think goro and alice dated for a little bit. i just need it to be true

U: Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites roy mustang from fma/b, jaime lannister from game of thrones, and joe gibson from major. they're all war criminals (only emotionally in gibson's case) who are traumatized by the sins of their pasts but later redeemed themselves through their actions thanks to an excellently-written character development arc (in the case of jaime, this was all erased at the last minute. thank you d&d for your service)

V: Which character do you relate to most? KAORU MY BELOVED!!! i too am a spaz who loves sports but can't be normal if her life depended on it and i for one would LOVE to be goro's girlfriend so if she would just hand him over please <3

W: A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom i hate breakup+makeup/divorce+get back together aus i just can't stand the relationship drama smh

X: A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom slow burn mutual pining gets me every time its so basic. but if we are being oddly specific here then it's when a character who's the last person you would imagine to be competent in this type of situation is actually terrifyingly competent and you are So Confused and a little turned on right now like who is this and what have they done with [insert character here]

Y: What are your secondhand fandoms? succession, yuri on ice, she-ra reboot, attack on titan, mdzs and tgcf, and riverdale

Z: Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! uhhhhhh i guess with the new pjo adaptation i'm a bit concerned with alleged racism in fandom spaces now?? so many people are up in arms about annabeth's casting like "you're racist if you don't support this casting!!" like it's not that we don't support it? i love that annabeth will be black in the show! it's great! but... in the books and the movie... she is still... a white character... and maybe... it's not so bad... if people PREFER the books and the movie... so they continue to think of annabeth as a white character as a result... like, it's not erasing black annabeth at all! it's just they will continue to think of annabeth as white bc it's the annabeth they know and love! either way, the character is still annabeth! same source material and everything! anyway that's it, people will probably come after me for this but i just wanted to say it :/

[demonandthedogstar]

meta writing asks: all odds!

Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it? Currently editing my upcoming werewolf novel, We Are the Beast in The Woods. Progress is....fine. Editing is always the part where I'm just looking at it in pieces, adding some stuff, taking some stuff out, re-arranging stuff, and hoping I can fit it back together as a cohesive narrative. I love that I've actually finished a draft of it when I thought I would.

What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway) I have a very specific, like, the heroes are fighting against a villain who has gained the power to rewrite all of reality to fit their (terrible) vision of a utopia, and they begin the process while blaring Heaven Is A Place On Earth by Belinda Carlyle. I will never be able to come up with a good reason why the villain would be doing that, though. So.

What character that you’re writing do you most identify with? I have been noodling around with something new recently, and the MC of that is so far the one I've put the most of myself into. By a fair amount.

What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree? Hmm... I honestly don't know. @graysongraysoff What do you think?

Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other? Longfic. I had to look up what Pantser meant just now, but that one for sure.

What do you envy in other writers? Their way of putting together sentences and paragraphs in such a beautiful, flowing way that it just feels satisfying to read.

Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself? Yeah, I've published one (1) novel so far, with more to come this year. It is Desert Witch by Nicholas Todd on Amazon, available as an e-book and paperback. I have many projects that will never see the light of day, that I wrote and edited and read again and decided to shelve it forever.

Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)? Titles are so hard for me.

Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations? Maybe? I'm not sure what would surprise them? Maybe that I've never written a real outline for anything. I generally have a list of characters and important places in a doc, and then I just start writing in a separate doc.

Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?) Every story I've ever written has a really tall queer woman in it. I will never stop.

What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?) Comic books, probably. I feel like half the time I think about scenes in my head as I'm writing as comic panels and splash pages. So I think it would translate well.

What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest? An Urban Fantasy about three friends gaining powers from an eldritch monster and using them to protect the Earth while grappling with the fact that the powers originated from a thing that was pure evil.

What part of writing is the most fun? Writing the one scene in the story that made me want to start writing said story in the first place. I love getting there.