#eldritchjackalope

[canisalbus]

something about lambs (you have such fun characters to draw!)

.

[thetragicallynerdy]

🌹 undeadwood?

Hell yeah!! This is from the witch Clayton au :)

(He tries not to think about what it means, that curses still come easier than blessings, that he can think of a thousand ways to kill a man before he can think of ten ways to heal one.)

Thanks for the ask pal!!!!

[honeyfangedjackalope]

just sitting in space

[galwednesday]

rules:

in a new post, show the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words.

tagged by:

@gracelesso who has no context for this line but neither does anyone else because this an unhinged rarepair that literally doesn't exist on AO3 based on a movie that came out in the 90s so nobody has the context and it's fine

last line:

"You know," Paul said, sitting back on his heels. "Three days ago I thought my life was going pretty well. But now it's all clear to me. I am the saddest sack of shit on this entire planet." Terry looked down at him with visible concern. "Do you have, like. A priest you can talk to?"

tagging:

grace stole most of the people I can think of but tagging also @leveragehunters @sonatine @eldritchjackalope @parkersgeorg if they're interested and also anyone else who wants to share lines

[guides-and-art-and-shit]

Karish-Sa-Ta Day 9 - Dragon

technically inspired by @jackdaw-kraai's Guides Verse

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut in reality i saw @eldritchjackalope's cool art and asked if i could make some pieces based of of them and they said yes.

[essektheylyss]

wip ask game

Tagged by both @the-kaedageist and @sky-scribbles, thanks!!!

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. (You can make your own post or reblog this one!) I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? DnD campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

WIP List:

heir to the devil's fortune (natch)

what bloodstained hymns now bloom

vulgate

ivory tower

echoes of a life laid in marble

apprentice fic

I should stick my original wips on here for motivation but I think I'll leave it at the fics in progress for today. I may or may not give any context to snippets for these, so, feel free to roll the dice (pun deeply, deeply intended).

I have not been following the dash today so I know plenty of folks have already played, but I'll tag uhhh @captainofthetidesbreath @criticalcoruscant @eldritchjackalope and anyone else who wants to play!

[the-littlest-goblin]

for a prompt maybe a few times Essek used polymorph and hung out with the mighty nein? (cat scarf essek for caleb, etc)

I went a slightly different direction, but there’s Caleb and Essek and polymorph and cat. You didn’t ask for shadowgast but I gave you shadowgast.

_____________________________________________________

“So you just… spend an hour as a cat?”

Caleb nodded, seeming amused by Essek’s bafflement.

“If we are at a point when I do not need to preserve my spells for battle. Sometimes I choose some kind of bird instead. Flying is quite exhilarating.”

“I know. I have done it.”

Caleb shook his head. “It’s different with wings. Trust me.”

Essek decided not to push that particular point. Drumming his fingers against a page of notes for the spell they were supposed to be working on, before this tangent, he said, “Flying aside, I still don’t understand the appeal of polymorphing yourself into a cat for no reason. Or any land-bound animal, for that matter.”

“It’s relaxing,” Caleb shrugged. “To spend time in another skin, see the world from a different perspective. Shut your brain off for a brief moment. It’s just nice.”

“Forgive me, but it does not sound very nice to me. Your bat story was… concerning.”

Caleb huffed a laugh. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I had a wonderful time searching for bread.”

“Our intellect is quite literally our power, Caleb,” said Essek. “Giving it up for recreation, even for a short time, just seems unwise.”

It seems terrifying, was what he really wanted to say, but that felt too vulnerable to admit.

“Maybe you would feel differently if you tried it out yourself?”

With a rare, mischievous gleam in his eye, Caleb reached into one of his many coat pockets and produced what appeared to be a caterpillar cocoon. He gripped it in one hand while raising the other up, palm out, reaching towards Essek questioningly.

“May I?”

Essek eyed the cocoon with suspicion. His gaze flitted between it and Caleb, expression dubious.

“Just for a few minutes,” Caleb assured him. “Say the word, and I will drop the spell.”

“No, you won’t,” Essek corrected. “I would not be able to say anything.” 

Caleb’s amused grin widened, a teasing eyebrow rising.

“I am sure you can find a way to let me know when you are done, with or without speech.”

Essek grimaced, his nose scrunching up in aversion. 

The amusement on Caleb’s face softened, his smile now becoming warm and encouraging, his sky-blue eyes imploring Essek with easy charm.

One day, Essek would learn to say no to that face. One day.

“Fine.”

His nod was full of reluctance, but the child-like glee in Caleb’s gaze was well worth it.

Caleb began the incantation, and before Essek could voice the ‘Wait!’ on the tip of his tongue (they had not yet discussed what beast Caleb would be transforming him into, and he would like some input) he felt the spell wash over him, his limbs tingling and then going numb as the very fabric of his body shifted form, shrinking and mutating in ways he could not exactly feel, but could sense in a disconcerting sort of way.

And then everything was suddenly a lot bigger.

Duller, too. The vibrancy of color had faded significantly, most noticeable when Essek looked at Caleb, the bright spots of orange hair, blue eyes, and purple coat now washed-out and less distinguishable from each other.

Essek blinked, hard, adjusting to his new vision, and with every blink he grew less and less concerned with the change, memories of how he used to see the world receding into distant unconcern as he gazed up at Caleb’s face (he had to look up much higher now). 

He was used to the warmth that rushed through him at the sight of that face, but strangely, at that moment there were no other feelings attached to it, no complications. No fear or guilt, no nerves or regret.

The idea that it should feel complicated entered his mind and then exited the very next moment. Why would love be complicated?

An urge hit him, and without considering it or even really understanding it, he was moving. There was no space between thought and action like this, no need for rumination.

Flexing muscles he had never used before—was pretty sure he'd never even had before—Essek propelled himself up from the floor, landing neatly on Caleb’s lap. It was warm, and the fabric of his pants felt soft under Essek’s padded feet.

Caleb let out a breathy chuckle, and Essek could feel the vibration rippling down through his abdomen. He leaned into it, chasing the sensation, pushing as much of his body up against Caleb’s as he could fit and curling up.

“You’re cuddly as a cat, hmm? That is a surprise.”

His voice sent out more pleasantly rumbling vibrations, and Essek responded with rumbling of his own.

“Oh, that’s cute.”

A calloused hand came to rest gently on his head, ink-smelling fingers massaging slow rotations around his ears. Essek purred louder.

“You can scratch me when you want to be done, ok?”

Essek twitched his ears. What was Caleb talking about? Why would he ever want this to be over?

[subway-tolkien]

@eldritchjackalope said:

i’m working on technically a sith!din (but still hell bent on being an npc bounty hunter) fic, does that count?

It counts! It definitely counts!

[utilitycaster]

eldritchjackalope replied to your post “Also despite my various anti-spoiler protections I'd somehow seen a...”

I think it was Brian tweeting right before the episode that it was a good ep and then a weirdly ominous gif of Taliesin giving everyone the FearTM

part of my spoiler avoidance/general self-care is avoiding twitter as much as possible but anyway are you implying there are gifs of Taliesin that are not weirdly ominous

[luckthebard]

Okay so thought about Essek's possible connection to the prison-I saw someone mention that Shadowhands might have to do with dunamantic magic in the dynasty-and the prison is noted repeatedly to have dunamantic elements to it (the disorientation, etc), so maybe he interacts with the actual prison, not really the prisoners

This fits in nicely with @thedarklordsnicklefritz‘s idea that Essek is a Magic IT guy. He “runs” the prison, but on like the tech maintenance side of it. 

This is my favorite theory yet, tbh.

[theregoesmylurkerstatus]

eldritchjackalope replied to your post “¦Did Caduceus actually multiclass into bard or was that a joke?”

was a joke, he blanked on guidance and called it inspiration

Oh lmao okay thank you, I thought it was a joke but Taliesin said it so deadpan and then I remembered the bone flute and I was like hey wait a minute-

[cranesofibycus]

I have a half-orc rogue named Elwood, she's a shopkeeper who became a rogue due to a new year's resolution to say "yes" more often getting wildly out of hand and anyway she robbed a bank. And I haven't gotten to play them yet but I have an aarakocra cleric who's modeled after a Polish Rooster (ie a fancy chicken) and is about 4 feet of rage and named Bantam

“and anyway she robbed a bank” asjdhfkjhfwkejfh it got wildly out of hand, huh?

[thetragicallynerdy]

20 Questions for fic writers

I got tagged by @zombiethingy, thanks so much for the tag pal!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

50!! I just hit 50 with my last kinktober fill, it's neat haha. Halfway to 100 XD

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

728,567. I write... a lot lmao. I would love to hit 900K by the end of the year - I've got an 150K+ fic that's unposted in it's entirety that I'd like to finish by then, we'll see if it happens!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

OFMD, UnDeadwood, Critical Role (Campaign 1), and Leverage. Mostly OFMD and UnDeadwood, though!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

but don't you shake alone (Leverage, 817 kudos, blows my mind every time)

In Which Mr Sharpe Is In Need Of A Rescue (UnDeadwood, 252 kudos, my first fic ever written!)

i like to call myself wound (but i will answer to knife) (OFMD, 221 kudos)

every bit as feral (UnDeadwood, 178 kudos)

for my life, still ahead, pity me (CR 1, 167 kudos)

And looking at this list, I now realize that all of my top kudos'd fics are whump fics XD

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Sure do!! I can take a while to respond because of the Executive Dysfunction but I try to always respond.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm. Either something from the UnDeadwood whumptober collection (I can't think of one, because I wrote them 3 years ago, but some were damn sad), or the weight of another unearned victory.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oooh that's tough! I dunno, I tend to like writing if not happy endings at least hopeful endings. Three that stand out are 1) i will stay, if you dare, 2) i found love where it wasn't supposed to be and 3) Ask Me Anything OFMD SMAU - because they all start out or get super sad (bad breakup, character death, and character death midway respectively) and end super happy.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not on ao3, but I've gotten anon hate on tumblr for the ships I write after posting fic snippets!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes lmao. It is the majority of what I write right now. As for what kind - ehhh that's hard to say! I write a lot of different stuff! But mainly: smut featuring Jim from OFMD or Clayton from UnDeadwood. I write a lot of trans/nonbinary smut for both characters.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah, not really my thing!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my awareness? Honestly I'm not a big enough fic writer/don't write for popular enough ships/fandoms to really be worried about it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Sure have! Three published, and another few in the works. I really enjoy co-writing, it's always a fun experience.

@askmeanythingofmd (ao3: ask me anything ofmd) with @yerbamansa

a grave softer than your end with @eldritchjackalope

i found love where it wasn't supposed to be with @lovewithagirl

@lovewithagirl and I are also currently co-writing a really long sad Jim/Ed post s1 fic, and have a few other ideas we're messing around with really casually! We co-write together pretty often <3

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Oh this is a tough question haha! That I write for: Jim/Olu and Jim/Ed or some combo of poly ships with them (OFMD), Clayton/Aly/Matthew, Clay/Aly, Clay/Matthew (UnDeadwood).

Other faves include Arthur/Eames (Inception), Parker/Elliot/Hardison (Leverage), and I'm blanking on any others lmao. But those are the big ones!

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Oh man, so many. I have a lot of WIPs that get abandoned tbh. The big ones are both for UnDeadwood - The Lighthouse AU and The Nemesis AU. Both sitting at pretty high word counts (50 and 90K respectively). I'd love to finish both, but not sure it'll happen. Maybe someday, though!

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at adding in details? Specifically details around what characters are thinking/feeling/experiencing. Or at least I try to be lol. I find writing dialogue pretty easy, and I think I'm decent at smut and whump writing.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Worldbuilding my beloathed lmao. I find it really boring, so basically never do it.

Detailed settings are also pretty hard for me to write - I don't picture places in my head easily at all, so I basically do as little work as possible with it. Which is something I'd like to work on, because I really enjoy very place/space heavy writing.

Also conciseness XD I am a wordy bastard, and always write way too much lmaooo.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've done it using google translate, I try to keep it pretty minimal because I don't actually speak any other languages and I know it's not going to be very accurate.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

UnDeadwood my beloved <3

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Ooh, that's really tough. I've gotta go with i threw stones at the stars but the whole sky fell - it holds a really special place in my heart. (If we're talking smut, then probably we both go down together XD) For unpublished stuff, the long sad fic I'm co-writing with @lovewithagirl is probably my favourite thing I'm currently writing.

---

Thanks so much for the tag, this was a lot of fun!! Neat to look back, too.

I'm gonna tag (but only if you feel like it friends!) @yerbamansa, @dragonmuse, @yourlocal-charlatan, and @alfalfairy.

If you didn't get tagged but see this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged!!

[honeyfangedjackalope]

mmmm...pretty in pink

[sparring-spirals]

my intro to critical role was several friends telling me to watch it repeatedly (I'd already listened to taz) and eventually one described fjord as "three impostor syndromes in leather armor, also there's a sea monster" and i went "okay" cause that sounds like my favorite kind of character and he indeed is

Oh that is such an excellent description of Fjord. Not just one imposter syndrome, but three different ones! He changes them depending on what the people around him are looking for! :) We love our low wis furiously charismatic and panicking half orc ocean boy.

[sockablock]

I've just started listening to the magnus archives too and i'm only on ep 23 but i am having a BLAST oh man (and also inspired to write all the horror stories)

Oh my GOD oh my GOD ITS SO FREAKING GOOD and so goddamn scary oh my god. Keep trucking along!!! I can’t wait to catch up and I hope to god you write those stories ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)