#anonymousalchemist

[herbgerblin]

Graphic Novel Sample Pages be upon Ye!

Have a peek at part of the pitch deck that @anonymousalchemist and I have been working on. The complete package is still in progress but will be queried out to agents (hopefully) later this month.

Right now, we need feedback! We've been scratching our heads for comparisons of existing media, so if there's anything recent or popular that this story reminds you of, feel free to shoot me an ask! (or just tell us if you like it :3)

Summary:

Emory Arrowgant thought he was safely dead. Then his psychopomp boyfriend, Isaac Yong, yanked him back to the land of the living. If only Isaac had been successful. Torn from the White City and stuck in the slipstream haze of the radio, Emory must help Isaac solve the mystery of his murder in order to be laid to rest. But Emory’s not the only thing that Isaac brought back. All sorts of undead horrors have slipped through the crack in reality created by Isaac’s rituals. And Isaac is honor-bound to hunt them down--if the Glassfall police don’t put him away first. What they’ll soon learn, though, is that the botched necromancy, the monsters, and Emory’s murder are all connected. After all, Isaac wasn’t the only necromancer in town that night. And Emory isn’t the only ghost.

Draft of Transcript up to Page 10 (A lot of dialogue has changed over the course of making the pages. I haven't had time to edit, sorry. I will do so this weekend!)

[arrowhawkart]

“Tav,” Spider calls. “One moment.” 

Tav glances back. In the split second before Spider speaks, he wonders why Spider looks…almost sad. Conflicted. He’s holding something up. But he only gets a second, before—

“Mens retexere,” Spider says, and crushes a glass sphere in his hand. 

A bright flare of magic. 

Something crumples in Tav’s brain. Everything fragments.  

Fan art of @anonymousalchemist's fantastic BG3 fic like a bird, like a stone

[ID in Alt Text]

[clonerightsagenda]

anonymousalchemist lmao unfortunately I loved this but it was so painfully not about library. Have you read vita nostra? It has similar vibes as this but I’m curious if you’ll like it better Also yeah it’s homestuck :T

I was genuinely getting into it in the last quarter because I dig the whole 'unpacking the aftermath of dramatic bullshit' routine but then we swerved into Father apologia and I'm mad about it. Although to be entirely fair just because Carolyn decided his behavior was reasonable does not mean readers should. More the opposite in fact.

I have not read Vita Nostra but I will put it on my list.

[asimovsideburns]

BIRTH!!!!! Happy sun revolution :0!!

Thank you!!!

[summoningspark]

so i may or may not have printed out the entirety of @anonymousalchemist's amazing fic like a bird, like a stone onto three Very Large pieces of paper.

you might be asking, why, fay? why did you print out an entire 53k fic for a video game you've never played? well you see, if you read it, you would understand.

[foxy-alien]

I've been trying to read more short stories this year and Day Ten Thousand by @anonymousalchemist is one of the best things I've read this year.

like, its impossible to explain, just click the link. its a 10 minute read, you'll never be the same again. Let the wheel be reinvented in your head

[sigcorp]

another tav fanart! this time from @anonymousalchemist's really cool tavstarion fic

i love to rotate your guy in my mind

[mxgoldenwood]

"Tav(Silk(Pax))" for @anonymousalchemist from Like A Bird, Like A Stone. because we love a guy who is just fine---no really he's fine---

(it's SUCH a lovely fic and I cannot recommend it enough!)

[herbgerblin]

No longer friends with the process of coloring, line-art is my friend now

ID: Work in progress screenshot of two young men standing side-by-side. The man on the left of holding a smoking gun. Then man on the right appears to be made of ghostly flame. They are both dripping with some mysterious liquid. End ID

[epersonae]

20 Questions with a Fanfic Author

Got tagged by @chocolatepot, and I also love talking about my work, so:

[ed: wow this is longggggg, it's going behind the cut]

1. How many works on AO3?

185 - 150 of those are for The Adventure Zone, which is one part "escaping from some bad times by living in stories" and one part "lots of very short fic"

2. Total AO3 Word Count?

659,268

3. Top 5 Fics by Kudos

All of these are for OFMD except Phoenix Fire:

lost and found - innkeepers era, wherein Stede finds the wedding toppers

Sea of Love - "first time" fic written early in the hiatus (aka MAY 2022)

Commit to the Bit - modern AU proposal/wedding fic, this one is very personal

Phoenix Fire - I'll be honest, this is probably as high as it is because I wrote the last chapter following on from two Adventure Zone fic writers who were much bigger than I am (@anonymousalchemist and @ruffboijuliaburnsides) - it's a Worst Ending fic, a tumblr post that got a little out of control

I spit on your grave - innkeepers era, Stede finds out (more or less) what happened with Ed and Izzy in 1x10

4. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently, primarily for Our Flag Means Death, but also my last fic is for Star Trek DS9 and my current main WIP (that isn't just waiting for things) is for What We Do In The Shadows (the movie). There are a couple of ideas that I still want to come back to someday for The Adventure Zone, I have a large project in mind that would bridge between Star Trek TOS and Wrath of Khan, and I swear to god I am gonna write that Space Waltz fic.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to, and I don't get that many, so usually yeah. (sometimes the brain she is bad and they get away from me)

6. Angstiest Ending?

Large scale, definitely Phoenix Fire (linked above), in that it is about the destruction of literally all the multiverses.

On the personal scale, without the entirety of existence at stake, probably in case I never make it through to where you are - with the kind of Major Character Death that I basically never write and a deep despair over everything left forever unsettled by that death, with some bonus suicidal ideation. And yet. There is a grace to the end of that fic, of going on despite, which now that I think about it is something in common with quite a few other things I've written. (something something themes)

7. Fic with the Happiest Ending?

It's maybe not the most straightforwardly happy ending, but it is the first thing I thought of - the first fic of the Adventure Zone series Ryn and I wrote together, Find the One Safe Way, in so much as that fic is the opening to a reconciliation that we had both separately attempted but could not make work. It ends on this very tender and tenuous note, two characters who are deeply and understandably estranged seeing each other more clearly. It is also in some ways the beginning of the next stage of my life, in that I think this series was pivotal in getting me out of my situation at the time.

8. Do you get hate?

I continue to be surprised that I have not, ever, despite the Magnus/Lucretia (which drew some real haters back in the day), despite the RPF and RPF-adjacent writing, despite the entire tone of I spit on your grave. idek what to say.

9. Do you write smut?

Indeed! Not in a while, but yeah definitely. One of my favorite stories from the early part of my friendship with Ryn is that we had this weird knack of writing thematically identical porn at more or less the same time. To the point of being a running joke in our discord.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have not! @frommybookbook and I have an idea for an Our Flag Means Death/Perry Mason fic, with the OFMD characters in the Perry setting (as Perry's clients etc), but we have not yet gotten around to it

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

Nope

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I haven't! There is a podfic of lost and found, which is delightful. And Ryn made a comic page of one of my TAZ fics, which is not online anywhere afaik, though I have the original around here somewhere.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic?

OH BOY

Some of these are solo pieces, but the series that Ryn and I wrote together, the only life you could save, is 183,580 words and includes the longest single fic I've ever written. We wrote almost all of it from opposite ends of the US, through a very intense part of both of our lives. I have so many vivid memories about times working on those stories.

(We also started but never finished a very silly heist fic.)

I want to do more collaborative writing, but I'm honestly a little intimidated, tho I do have two specific projects/authors in mind.

technically Phoenix Fire is co-written, but I don't think it counts the same way given how it was written

14. All time favorite ship?

Thinking over all the things I've written, and Magnus/Lucretia is obviously very special (I basically invented it!), and Ed/Stede is just so good, but honestly? Like genuinely? It feels like cheating because the boundary here between fic and original fiction is a little blurry, but the entire quadrangle of for the benefit of all the broken hearts, and especially Mary/Carlita.

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

what makes me kind, rest in pieces, my post-s1 OFMD fic. the plot was so goddamn complicated, and then I got clotheslined by WFU et al, and I don't know if there's any coming back to it now.

Fantasy Fast, Fantasy Furious was going to be a TAZ Sloane/Hurley backstory that basically just used all the plot beats of the original The Fast & The Furious. If I ever go back to it I'll probably just restart it completely.

No Roots is a Lucretia POV of the last years of the Stolen Century that was going to be in two parts, but I only ever wrote the first part. It draws a lot on the hardest parts of my first marriage, and idk if I have it in me to finish. Maybe when I listen to Balance again someday?

16. Writing strengths?

My One Weird Trick as a writer is being able to write a character who is never named. It's just this very particular skill that I've developed over the last 2+ years.

I think I'm pretty good at writing things that pack a lot, emotionally, into something short. I have done a lot (like a LOT) of non-fic editing in my life, and I can bring that to bear in my fic writing as well.

17. Writing Weaknesses?

Conversely, I do love a run-on sentence, especially if it's Punctuation Pokemon. I have a few filler words that I have to watch out for, and some tendency to not have strong enough verbs.

The two bits of recurring beta advice that live in my head, because I have gotten so much feedback on those specific things from those specific people:

"where's the interiority" (@veeagainsttheday)

"is that actually the ending" (Ryn)

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

I've never done it except for a few words of Spanish, and it's not a thing that comes for me much.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

...........ok, so. As far as like, formally written as fanfiction for a fanfiction audience, The Adventure Zone. But:

Ten years ago, I wrote an essay about having grown up in SoCal and visiting Los Angeles after many years, and having watched my then-husband play a lot of GTA: San Andreas, etc etc etc. It's a very artistic/philosophical piece. But it does end with what is essentially GTA fic, a very short piece told from the POV of some kids in like Barstow or something about a haunted motel, where if you know how some of the GTA stuff works, it's actually about the game.

I wrote some things in my teens and early 20s that were kind of pastiche of novels I liked, but nothing that was actually fic

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

This continues to be for the benefit of all the broken hearts; it was such an ambitious reach and I put so much of myself into it both creatively and emotionally. There are a lot of pieces that I love but this one is something else.

tagging @veeagainsttheday @oatmilktruther @nekosd43 @unadulteratedkr (and seriously, this was a lot, so no pressure but also anybody else who sees this and wants to give it a go, please do!)

[clonerightsagenda]

anonymousalchemist yesss malevolent is so good im [eyes emoji] about your takes

I'm actually remarkably unspoiled for this one beyond knowing that irl work of literature The King in Yellow is relevant somehow and that most of the fanart I've seen is highly reminiscent of this website's Venom phase. So you can all enjoy me flinging spaghetti at the wall.

[argonautix]

hey @anonymousalchemist and I made a thing!! go read it, it's about how tav can't stop fucking dying (there is no such thing as a resurrection scroll and timeloops are an infinite hell): i am once again reinventing the wheel - anonymousAlchemist, argonautix - Baldur's Gate (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

*pats murder hobo tav on the head* i just think it's cute

[veryace-ficrecs]

Hey! Could you do another daemon rec list? Your other list got me in the mood

Absolutly! d=====(￣▽￣*)b

More Daemon Fic Recs

This list will include all ratings and tags, so read at your own discretion! :)

Star Trek

Ni'Var by WerewolvesAreReal - Rated G

Humans have daemons. Vulcans have katras. Spock, born of both, has neither. Which he's fine with. Really. Meanwhile, James Kirk is a little curious about this whole daemon business, because how the hell can he have two souls - ?

a resilient touch by kurgaya - Rated T

Jim’s daemon used to be a wolf and Leonard’s not sure how he feels about that. Used to be. [STID Missing Scenes - Jim sleeps. Leonard worries. Someone unexpected talks some sense into them both].

Daredevil

Down to the Bone by SpiritsFlame - Rated G

Everyone always wants to know why his daemon isn't a bat. As though being blind is all that there is to him, the center point of his character.

Spiderman

of things unknown (but longed for still) by aloneintherain - Rated T

Peter Parker can’t walk around with the same daemon as Spider-Man. But she’s going to settle one day, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

The Witcher

Two Halves of a Whole by penguistifical - Rated G

Geralt doesn’t take much notice at first when the small brown bird alights on his table.

one for sorrow by Emamel - Rated T

There were other rumours, older and more persistent, that Jaskier hadn't been able to make a dent in. Witchers don't have souls. Witchers are no better than beasts. How could they be civilised, intelligent, compassionate, human, when they don't even have daemons. What was Jaskier supposed to do about that?

interconnected strand to strand by Hirikka - Rated G

Turns out Jaskier isn't the first person who loves Geralt to be driven away by the witcher. After The Mountain, Jaskier is found by Geralt's daemon. They adopt each other.

The Adventure Zone

a thousand points of no return by anonymousAlchemist - Rated T

Since wizard's daemons often settle as birds and urban legend says that elves are separated from their daemons, no one looks too closely at the fact that Taako and Lup are both single entities, missing the other halves of their hearts. They walk like people, they talk like people, and if they're hard to read because their daemons aren't fluffing up their feathers or swatting playfully with their paws, well, elves are notoriously enigmatic anyway. This lasts until their first death. All deaths on the Starblaster are strange. When Magnus first died on the animal planet, I'morko followed right after, both of their bodies dissipating into golden sparks, a strange inversion of the natural order. The pattern holds. Year after year, person and daemon alike dissipate into a fine mist of dust, knit together by the bond engine in the new plane. During their fifteenth year, Taako is shot through the heart with a well-aimed magic missile. Lup screams and casts one last firebolt, spell-sculpting around their bodies, before unspooling into a fine golden sand.

Yuri on Ice

hollow ground by Piyo13 - Rated T

There's no rules regarding where a daemon has to be in relation to their skater, only that they aren't allowed on the ice. This has always seemed a little unfair to Yuuri. After all, he loves skating like he loves his own soul; why can't he have both?

Batman

I know you won't leave by Speechless_since_1998 - Rated G

Jason was thirteen, adopted for over a year, and he was at his first gala. He expected the rich snobs who looked down on him, judging his daemon. What he didn't expect was to find a child hiding as his daemon took shape. Nor that Ace would adopt him.

everything you lose is a step you take by oceanofchaos - Rated T

“Tim,” she says, hesitant in a way that she never is, not when it’s just the two of them, “About settling.” Thirteen is hardly unreasonable to be unsettled, but rare given their night activities, and Tim’s been thinking hard about what Hestia will choose. “I don’t think I want to settle,” she says quietly, interrupting his train of thought, “Maybe not ever.” “Okay,” replies Tim, stroking a careful finger over her soft brown snout, “Not if you don’t want to.” ------------ Dæmon AU, the life and times of Tim Drake and his dæmon Hestia, before, during, and after Robin.

Fullmetal Alchemist

the lives of wild animals by ohmytheon - Rated G

military - but what people don't realize is that his daemon is just as wild as Mustang's in the end.

In the Shape of a Soul by redketchup - Rated T

Ed says, “Stupid Colonel Bastard.” “Brother, what are you thinking?” Alphonse asks evenly, which is his way of saying, Please, for the love of god, brother, the colonel is not responsible for every terrible thing, but hey, it ends up Alphonse is still loyal to his big brother, because he also adds, “I’m surprised he didn’t make an effort to call us. It sounds like something we could help with. Maybe the first lieutenant has been out recently.” Which conveys how little faith Alphonse actually has in Mustang when he acts outside Riza Hawkeye’s influence.

East City has a new string of murders and, much to a young alchemist's annoyance, his superior officer insists that the Fullmetal Alchemist's expertise is not needed. This leads to more trouble than anyone would expect.

talents of the souls by ohmytheon - Rated G

Edward's hand shakes as he draws the soul bonding transmutation circle on the inside of the armor. Alethea has to hold his arm up to keep him steady. “I won’t let you take them!” Ed screams. “Take my arm, take my heart, take my soul!” Alethea cries out as she buries her face into his stomach. He can’t feel her. He almost gets sick. Oh, god, why can’t he feel her? (Or, Fullmetal Alchemist with daemons, focusing on Edward, Alphonse, and human transmutation. Companion piece to "rummaging in our souls", which focuses on Roy and Riza.)

[desceros]

idk if youve seen this post but it is so incredibly villain!blurple coded https://www.tumblr.com/anonymousalchemist/744844949619654656

i have not and Yes it is

[everlastingrandom]

have you played bg3? asking as someone who's embarrassingly obsessed with it

:0 I haven’t played the game but I have watched @anonymousalchemist be a stream boy while I observed vicariously. I have also watched a lot of clips on YouTube

[goth-butt]

Nine People I Wanna Get To Know Better

Thank you @morning-alfie for tagging me! 💜

Last Song: Bully by Kamaara

Favorite Colour: Deep Red/Black

Currently Watching: Peaky Blinders

Last Movie: Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Sweet

Current Obsessions: Skyrim / Baldur's Gate 3

Last Thing You Googled: Manatees

People I'd like to get to know better (Feel free to ignore❤️) @yetanotherobsessivereader @h-brook-writes @astralplanetarium @tiltingheartand @joker-ace @rosalinecapulet @xec @anonymousalchemist @leveragehunters