#never thought I’d tag that in a dc comics post!

[azuree1733]

I saw someone say Nightwing looks like Justin Trudeau in the new titians comic and I’m actually crying 😭

[meduseld]

Twenty Questions For Fic Writers!

Tagged by the lovely @samuelroukin. Answers under the cut,

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

241! Which is wild.

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

629,313. So more than half a mill

3. What fandoms do you write for?

A bunch? Rn working on a The Terror fic, and probably more WOT stuff but DC is always in my head and the one I've written the most for.

4. Top five fics by kudos:

I’d Learn To Float 

You're Looking At Me (Like You Don't Know Who I Am) 

Water Is Sweet, Blood Is Thicker 

Tough To Talk To 

Down On Both Knees 

5. Do you respond to comments?

I always try to! In fact I've ended up expanding on works in the comments because we get into wonderful conversations. The connection is a blast. I even love getting comments that say "extra kudos" and I send them little hearts.

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

Probably Like The Stars Miss The Sun In The Morning Skies since the only others that sort of end on an angsty note, Concentration Slip Away  and A Beautiful Lie (both of which are BatLantern with implications Hal is dealing with the aftermath of HalSin like in the actual angsty one) have room for there being a way to work it out. Something about Hal, I guess.

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

Oh, def I’d Learn To Float which probably adds to how popular it is.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yeah, and never on the ones I would have expected. The ones that stick out are when I got a weirdo on my early NickXZiggy stuff and a really crappy comment on a fic recently that just revealed the person did not read a single tag or warning so I was more annoyed than anything because that was 100% on them. Those are the minority though, people tend to be really great! It's just funny that when I write ships I know are ~problematic I'm semi-braced for it and nothing happens but then they show up in the ones I would have thought no one would find objectionable.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes, but somehow that's when most of the character work seems to happen! I am that person that goes I'm just gonna write them going at it, no plot just sex, and end up with 5K of them being in their feelings before anybody gets naked.

10. Craziest crossover:

This is gonna be especially funny with the fact that Ben tagged me, hey @samuelroukin you want some Star Wars x Turn? It's here: What Binds The Galaxy

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge but there was that one guy that stole a ton of DC big bang works to put on Kindle Unlimited so there's a non-zero chance one of mine got got before they had him taken down.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, because I am a control freak so I have said no <3 (it's a character failing, I know)

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

Yes and I had a blast but it never moved past the Discord collab phase for a few reasons. Maybe one day though!

14. All time favorite ship?

Hard call but honestly. HalSin is that bitch for me, the all -timer, has it all: enemies to lovers, lovers to enemies, mentor-mentee, brothers in arms, the-only-one-that-gets-me, opposites attract, xenophilia.... Also probs relevant that it was among the first to give me the tingles as a tween reading comics so.

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

Ugh there are some bangers in my icebox, there's a reason I don't post WIPs. But recently I was reminded of an excellent BirdFlash one I have that's just. Stuck. And an epic Superbat at a Boarding School of Horrors that I can't get my ass into gear about without the Big Bang to push me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character work I think, getting why they tick and getting it across. I'm a decent had at plot too! Did some casefic/mysteries and watched people get got in real time in the comments.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Getting to the damn point instead of wandering off into the weeds with 86 commas. It has had its moments but sometimes I need to get back to the action and maintain momentum. I wish I was better at smut too, I think I'm okay but then I read something someone else wrote and go HOW.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

This is a context needed answer. I think it really depends on what you're trying to do/the source. If your character does in fact routinely swear in another language in canon just pop it in there, or if they do that or if it's a setting where there are a lot of languages in play. Then there's the whole whether it is clear from context to readers who signed up to read 1 language or if you need to clarify. And finally: are you trying to conceal information? Because if you are you can pop it in as a bonus for readers who do speak it, or just have your bad guy be like "he turned and said a few words in Russian to his assistant, who snapped to attention" or conversely, if you aren't, you can say "He turned and switched to Russian, which their hosts did not speak. 'When it's morning, we will...'" It really depends what you're trying to accomplish with the other language and what you want your reader to know (or not know!)

19. First fandom you wrote in?

...............Fullmetal Alchemist anime and I buried the bodies, you'll never find them. Never.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Oof that's a hard call, they're all so different. But for today I'm gonna go with You're The Only Girl (I've Got On My List) because of the sheer size and juggling elements going on and how well it turned out in re: my plans for it at the start.

Tagging, if you dig it, @warrenkoles @hearthouses @poeedamerons and @starkfish

[age-of-moonknight]

🎉We’re caught up!!!🎉

We have officially gone through all of 616!Moon Knight’s published material (that I’m aware of anyway hahaha).  Thank you for following along, as there are a lot more of you than I ever thought would be interested in this little project of mine, and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to share this with you all!  For those of you who just started following (first of all hi! So excited to have you!) and for long-time followers alike, don’t worry!  This isn’t the end of the Age of Moon Knight by a long shot.  Administrative minutiae and musings on the future of this blog beneath the cut.

I’ll be keeping a sharp eye out for any new 616!Moon Knight material that gets released and I’ll be posting here accordingly.  Can’t wait to see how the current volume develops and whatever guest appearances they have in store for Moon Knight!

I have also been playing with the idea of branching out into other Moon Knight material.  I definitely want to go through and perhaps share any variant covers I can find, as I think that could be fun.  Furthermore, I might pop my head in and see what the heck went down in the Earth-1610/Ultimates continuity in regard to Moon Knight (or maybe even more non-616 continuities???).  Please feel free to share with me any Moon Knight content you’d like me to investigate and post about as I am definitely open to suggestions hahaha

For those of you who like my comic commentary in general (which???? still never fails to amaze me that some of you not only read the clownery I leave in the tags but actually look forward to them; can’t thank y’all enough and I’m incredibly honored), I’m already thinking about which comic book character I would like to read through next 😅, on a separate side-blog I’d be working on concurrently of course hahaha.  The list of possibilities is currently as follows:

Kaine: Scarlet Spider

Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider

Nate Grey: X-Man

Ted Sallis: Man-Thing

Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen: Cloak and Dagger

Bob Reynolds: The Sentry

There are also some DC characters I’d like to tackle some day (namely Scott Free/Mister Miracle and Big Barda, Bart Allen/Impulse, Conner Kent/Kon-El/Superboy, and Cassandra Cain), but I’d first like to nail down some reading lists that span DC’s many continuity reboots, which my cursory research have yet to yield.

Just let me know if there are any characters listed here (or others? I’m amendable) that you would like to see me dive into on my next side-blog.  Right now, I’m leaning towards Kaine (and not only because he has close to only a quarter of the comic book appearances that Moon Knight does hahaha).

In conclusion, thank you once more for accompanying me on this adventure and I can’t wait to read many, many more comics with you all.

Also, I would just to like to leave this here, collected from What The --?! (Vol. 1/1988), #13:

Might I present to you...MooKnight

[timdrake-yumm]

So I had a dream where I was at some kind of convention or something with some friends of mine (except it was two specific friends of mine who were also, somehow, the same person. Which was weird because these two friends are pretty different in both physical appearance and personality. Additionally, they’ve never met each other. I could tag them both on tumblr though and the two halves of my life could meet. Pre-moving across the country and Post-moving across the country). Anywho, I, of course, wanted to find the DC stuff so I could buy a bunch. So I found some and I went to buy a comic book from a vendor, but as it was getting bagged up, the checkout lady said, “so I think we both want to know (“both” because there were two people at the vendor. Said in the kind of anticipatory mom voice that women who go to baby showers in movies have)… how’d she like it?” I somehow understood this to mean that this lady thought that I had a daughter; a daughter apparently old enough to read Batman comic books too. As I do not have any kind of child, daughter or otherwise, I was pretty flustered when I replied with, “Oh! Do I- do I look old enough to have a kid???? Most people think I’m like, two” (the two thing is obviously an exaggeration, but I am a 20 yr old female with a baby face who constantly gets mistaken for much younger than I am. Someone recently mistook me for my 16 yr old sister, despite the fact that we look nothing alike and she’s met my sister before because she thought I was the right age. I’m pretty sure my sister is taller than me too, which doesn’t help). Needless to say the vendor lady was embarrassed and we didn’t talk with each other the rest of her bagging my stuff up. I then proceeded to wander the convention with my friend(s?) and find things like Impulse socks and some girls with cardigans that each had a different Robin on the back in anime-girl style which I desperately wanted even though I’d probably never wear them.

[luciferinn]

Hi hi! I saw you just finished up the Batwoman 52 run, and I was looking through all your comments after bouncing around tags sjdncjs I love the batwoman 52 run, but I agree with you entirely. The story is very long, but it’s one of the few comics I’m able to reread. I like the mix of her personal life and her being Batwoman, and the art is GORGEOUS. I will say, it does get… weird after her Detective Comic run, I’ve seen people point out how it’s kind of odd she gets put up against a majority of monsters rather than typical Gotham-y villains, and I do agree.

I ignore everything beyond the 25th issue because it’s pure utter shit (besides her personal life development with the therapist and Maggie). From how I understand it, the original writers were going to keep writing for her but DC told them they were not allowed to let Kate actually marry Maggie, so they just left. That’s kind of why it goes sooo downhill afterwards and honestly can be thrown out.

I’m still working on 52 just to see Renee and the Question (I saw your original post about you finishing it, hence how I found your blog); I just skim everything else till I get to them haha. But anyway, I thought I’d shoot an ask your way because you seemed cool and I always look for a chance to talk about Batwoman. She’s a favorite of mine for sure, but a lot of people don’t talk about her.

Anyway! Have a good rest of your night/day!!

ah!! hi! yeah i think it's a mixed run but i love how it incorporates her personal life especially as a juxtaposition between her and bruce because kate seems to actually put a lot more care into balancing having a life as a public figure and being batwoman so it's really fun and an interesting twist on the typical batman formula, also obviously her being a lesbian i love lesbians am a lesbian

it's sad tho how her story gets derailed because she has such potential for ongoing stories and the fact it was over her marriage to maggie is especially irritating considering how That turns out (especially with the final issue cliffhanger that literally just gets entirely dropped aside from some stuff in the rebirth one shot but not any further than that)

i love kate a lot tho i'd read all her other ongoing books for years now but never got around to it it's a mixed bag but i mean batwoman elegy is like such a high bar for me that thats not really an insult lol. thanks for the ask i love kate i hope she get's an ongoing again sometime soon

[aurhia]

Name 10 Characters from 10 Fandoms that you love

Tagged by: @late-to-the-fandom

There is... a LOT of DC Comics here.

1. John Constantine - John is messy, queer, finds himself continually in the shit but he always manages to drag himself out of it, not through heroic grit and determination, but from sheer bloody-mindedness and spite. He’s not a hero. He’s not the good guy. He’s just a bloke in extraordinary circumstances who does whatever he has to to get by (if that includes magic, then it does). Shitty things happened to me too when I was a kid, and the original Hellblazer comics gave me a character slogging through their shit in exactly the same manner I was doing. He’s not a survivor, he’s not an inspiration. He’s just going through it because there’s no choice but to go through it. He’s a jackass so I would stop short of using the words “identified with” but I did and do feel a kinship.

2. Evie Carnahan (all of the Mummy’s characters really but if I had to pick one) - I don’t think I even need to explain this one because it’s obvious.

3. Spock in TOS - Spock was an example of someone with deep emotion and deep internal conflict who exercised supreme control over themselves and instead of it making him stern and strict, it made him compassionate and thoughtful. I was not allowed to show and have any real emotions as a kid, never had any space to process any of the things that happened. If I had any negative showing at all it caused innumerable problems so I learned to mask, to smile when I wanted to scream and cry. Spock was an important touchpoint for me in that process. And while that might read as a negative, it really was good to have a positive model of that kind of self control. 

4. Mal from Firefly - I’ve stepped back the last few years due to over-commitment but previously, I was always the captain of this, the leader of that, and there were two exchanges Mal had that perfectly reflect my own approach to leading: the scene where he’s like “I said, you’re on my crew. End of.” and “We’re still flying” “That’s not much.” “It’s enough.”

5. Wonder Woman - Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman is my first and biggest role model in life so there’s that. I’d include all incarnations here: The details change, but nothing stops her and when she takes care of a problem, she takes care of it. One way or the other. Also the first time I went “Hm, maybe I’m not straight.”

6. Jaskier from the Witcher - I’m unfamiliar with the game or the books, so I only know this character from the show. And I’m admittedly also influenced by his band’s music, which is incredibly raw and passionate. The epitome of “do I want to bang him or be him?”

7. Dana Scully - X-Files came out when I was in college. Back in the day, there were no women like Scully on tv. Also on the “do I want to bang her or be her” train

8. Lois Lane - I spent a lot of time on newspapers in school and my first real job out of college was at a paper (though as a designer not a journo). Lois Lane is that saying about Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did but backwards, in heels. Lois did everything Superman did but without powers, backwards, in heels, and still always got her story.

9. Poison Ivy - I mean. Are we sure she’s a villain? She’s RIGHT. Also, I have a massive green thumb and my partner’s primary characters always echo Harley so...

10. Princess Leia from Star Wars - All the girlboss reasons you might imagine, reinforced by the Space Mom that Carrie became. At the time, women having their own agency and being smart and savvy was a rare thing. 

I tag anyone who is looking at this post, made it all the way to the bottom, and hasn’t already waxed poetic about their faves. If you are seeing this, tag, you’re it.

[autisticcassandracain]

I have many thoughts on the weird phenomena in the DC fandom and the Batfam fandom specifically where probably the majority of people just straight up. haven’t interacted with the source material. and almost all of those thoughts can be summarized as ‘lmao that’s weird and mildly concerning’.

and because I’m annoying I will list them all here right now <3

1. To preface this post, I mean, obviously, comics are inaccessible as all hell, both in the disability kind of way and the ‘you need to understand the concept of hypertime to fully comprehend the DC timeline’ kind of way. Because of this, even if you don’t have a disability that prevents you from reading comics, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to look at the amount of comics you need to read to have even a base understanding of a character and go ‘no thanks <3′ and just enjoy fanart and fanfic in a vacuum. Ultimately, this is fandom, this is supposed to be fun, it doesn’t really matter.

2. That said, it’s VERY weird to me that the majority of this fandom just straight up hasn’t interacted with the source material, and moreover, that it’s considered rude to tell people that they should do so. It’s especially weird considering the amount of fanon-only fans I’ve seen who straight up have a superiority complex over canon. The idea that it’s gatekeeping to tell fans of something to actually interact with canon is just. so weird, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘gatekeeping’ actually entails. 

3. But honestly I’m less interested in discussing the ways in which canon and fanon fans should interact with each other (personally, I think it would be helpful to create separate tags of some kind, but that’d require quite a big overhaul of the current fandom state) than in figuring out how this actually happened in the first place. On the one hand, it’s obvious; long-running superhero comics the way DC writes them have made themselves so thoroughly inaccessible that most people are simply too daunted to even try. Most media has a cohesive beginning and end (or at least, a planned end somewhere). Comics just... don’t.

But I do think it says something that, even among people who are clearly interested in the characters (since they have, you know, entire blogs about them), the effort to get into comics just seems to be too much to even bother. This really doesn’t bode well for the future of DC Comics. Obviously, I am no expert on anything at all ever, but I’d personally be surprised if DC survives beyond the few decades, at least in its current form/without a big overhaul.

4. But on the other hand, I don’t think the confusing state of DC Comics is the only thing to blame here. Fandom has a well-known problem with reducing any character down to archetypes to more easily ship and write fic/make content with. This problem is particularly prominent in fanfic, which, if you read enough of it, you’ll eventually start seeing not just the same tropes and trends, but essentially the same fics over and over again. And not just within the same fandom; everywhere, or every large fandom, at least. 

Fanon Batfam is entirely built on a bunch of those tropes; insecure/depressed sadboy Tim, team mom with optional hidden trauma/emotional problems Dick, bad boy with a heart of gold + sadboy combo Jason, abused sadboy Damian/angry easily-villified-for-fic-reasons monster Damian, good dad Bruce for found family fic and bad dad Bruce for angst fic, etc. This all culminates in a found family dynamic that’s generic and malleable to whatever fic the writer wants to write.

(This isn’t getting into the ship fic, which I avoid like the plague because the vast majority of it is incest, but I’d bet real actual money that the tropes in those fics fall under what is often preferred by the Migratory Slash Fandom.)

By having a decent excuse not to get into canon (the inaccessibility of comics) and a, by now, well-established fanon fandom, many fans feel free to use the batfam fandom as essentially an excuse to write whatever fic with reduced archetypes and tropes they personally feel the itch to write, without having to bother with even consuming a canon. This is compounded by the fact that canon itself is often contradictory and frankly bad, meaning that whatever interpretation of a character you want/need to go for your fic is at least theoretically backed up by canon (for example, you can just as easily cast Bruce as an abusive shithole dad who his kids need to get away from as a loving father figure who cares deeply for his children), which you can always use as a defense if people question your characterization.

5. This focus on fandom trends and tropes over actual creativity or care for the characters is also visible in the way bigotry manifests in this fandom; namely, in literally the exact way you’d expect. The female characters and characters of colour are shuffled to the side, non-existent, vilified, and/or reduced to harmful stereotypes. 

Barbara is probably the one I saw the most often in fanfic, but usually just as ‘Dick’s girlfriend’, and even then, she was often vilified for Dick angst (especially in fics about examining Dick’s trauma from his canon sexual assault; Kori also often gets the short end of the stick in those). After that, probably Stephanie, who fanon fans don’t really seem to know what to do with, so she’s basically just there as comic relief waffle girl, most of the time, though sometimes she can be used to either further Tim angst or further vilify Tim, whatever the fic calls for. Cass has gotten included more in batfam fics as of late, likely in response to critiques of fandom racism for leaving her out, but again, it’s clear people don’t actually know what to do with her. She’s often reduced to a racist stereotype of a quite, stoic therapist for whatever guy du jour needs it. That, or she’s in Hong Kong and just not there. Duke especially gets left in the dust in fandom, usually just being non-existent, but when he’s there, he’s almost always nothing more than the straight man for the actual fun characters to play off of. Talia probably has it the worst, though, and almost universally gets vilified by fanon stans in order to write sadboy Damian.

All of this is extremely predictable behaviour and falls entirely in line with general fandom misogyny and racism; ignoring or vilifying women and characters of colour, or using them as very minor characters at best. The only two characters of colour who aren’t regularly left out of fic are Dick and Damian, who are both also conveniently the two characters most often drawn and written in a whitewashed manner. In addition, there’s a real trend of demonizing Damian in fanon fics where he isn’t written as an abused sadboy, which I’d argue is in no small part due to fandom racism, considering Damian’s behaviour is in no way as bad as Jason’s, who doesn’t get anywhere close to the same demonization and gets woobiefied instead. I also find it convenient that Damian is probably the batboy who receives the most vilification in fic, when he’s the most obviously non-white of the batboys they’re willing to acknowledge.

Fandom often cries for more diversity in canon, only to ignore the diversity already there and focus on the same generic white guys. The batfam fandom is a brilliant example of this.

Which is not to say that fandom racism and misogyny isn’t present in the canon parts of the fandom (and canon itself); it absolutely 100% is. But I’ve found that canon fans are also more likely to like and care about at least one of the characters I’ve listed as ignored/vilified, and are willing to create and consume content for them, whereas fanon fans... aren’t, really. I’ve never seen a fan of fanon Cass the way I’ve seen fans of fanon Dick, for example. Obviously, this could just be by coincidence, or I’ve just surrounded myself with people like that, but it’s been a trend I noticed. Racism and misogyny is present in every part of this fandom and should be addressed as such, but I feel like it manifests the most blatantly in the fanon parts of this fandom. 

(I’d also recommend the articles Migratory Slash Fandom’s Focus and Beige Blank Slates, which expand more on the type of fandom racism I think is especially prominent in the batfam fandom, as well as literally every article in the What Fandom Racism Looks Like series.)

6. All this leads me to conclude that the majority of fanon fans don’t actually like the characters all that much; they’re convenient excuses for them to participate in fandom. Which I also think is, in no small part, a reason why so many of them react so negatively to being told to pick up a comic; they came to this fandom specifically to consume it as a fandom, because they wanted the fandom experience without having to consume a canon. 

This is not a phenomena unique to the batfam fandom (again, see the Migratory Slash Fandom), but it does fascinate me. While fandom is often said to be an experience focusing on transformative art, I think it’s also safe to say that, especially as fandom has become more mainstream, an increasing amount of people are looking to it less as a way to engage with their favourite pieces of media, and more as a type of media in and of itself. I think the reasons for this are similar to the reasons mass media entertainment like the MCU are so popular; you gain a lot of enjoyment out of it with very little risk involved. 

By consuming the same fics of the same characters (or the same archetypes) over and over again, you are rarely at risk of being challenged or even disappointed. It’s often very clear right from the start whether or not a fic will appeal to you, and if it isn’t, it’s easy to just look for another one. It requires less emotional investment than most other types of media, even ‘popcorn media’ like the MCU - or, yes, DC Comics. It’s safe, it’s enjoyable, it’s comforting, like McDonalds, but just like McDonalds, it’s ultimately bland and unsubstantial. 

7, TL;DR. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s like, wrong to enjoy the fanon version of the batfam without wanting to engage with canon, and I certainly don’t think it’s okay to harrass people over it. But I do think it’s in large part based on a desire to interact with fandom rather than other pieces of media because people are scared of being let down by those pieces of media (or worse, just uninterested in actually thinking), which is mildly concerning. 

[sohotthateveryonedied]

Fic Writer Interview

thanks @allthebooksandcrannies for tagging me!!

How many works do you have on AO3: 160!! yes i have a problem

Total AO3 word count: 844,446 oh god

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?: 5 i think? dc comics, young justice, voltron, the teen titans cartoon once, and that one tiny fic i did for the lunar chronicles which is the only time i ever strayed from my fic-writing comfort zone lmao

Top 5 Fics (by number of kudos): the #1 fic is "obedience" with 3395 kudos, #2 is "don't touch me," #3 is "no pain, all gain," #4 is "hi bi, i'm dad," and #5 is "the same mistake twice" with 1353 kudos

Do I respond to comments, why or why not: i tried to respond to all of my comments at one point, but it was a lot of work to keep up and eventually i just gave up after a month of that. nowadays i try to respond to the longer comments that people put actual effort into or if they have a question or something

Do I write crossovers (and if so, what is the craziest?): nope nope nope. it's just not my thing (unless you count the ones where i give characters plots or traits from other forms of media like my "tim sees ghosts" au but that's about as crossover-y as it gets) (also julie and i come up with crossover ideas all the time but for my real, public writing, it's a hard no)

Have I ever received hate on a fic?: oh gosh so so SO many times. it's never fun

Do you write smut?: nah, it's not my thing. i've thought about it sure, just to branch out my writing style and to see if i'd be any good at it, but it doesn't match my audience so it's a no for now

Have you ever had i fic stolen: i hope not? i actually don't know what that means but it doesn't sound fun

Have you ever had a fic translated: yep! a couple have been translated into different languages and a few awesome people have done podfics for my stuff :)

Have you ever co-written a fic before: sort of? sometimes julie or i will write stuff together, but it's usually in a way where one of us will write a fic based on headcanons we've come up with together and then we'll credit the other when it's posted. there have been a few times when we've written actual fics together in the same document and everything, but i tend to step back and let julie do most of the work because i'm inherently bad at working with others and my instinct when partnered with other people is to shut down and let them take over everything 🤷‍♀️

What’s your all-time favorite ship: i don't know actually?? i'm sure i have one, but as far as writing goes, i tend to mostly lean on ships like jayroy, timsteph, spitfire, and birdflash occasionally. there are plenty of other ships that i care about way more than those four, but most of them i just haven't written for yet so yeah. for someone who's obsessed with love and romance, i'm pretty lukewarm on most ships

What's a WIP that you want to finish but probably never will: oh gosh. oh man. foster dad bruce au, my beloved. i love that fic with all my heart but like icarus, i forgot my sunglasses and rocketed straight into the ball of burning gas. this fic gives the phrase "bit off more than you can chew" a physical form. the fourth chapter has been sitting in its document half-written for months now and i know i vowed to never ever ever ever EVER post a fic and never finish it because i always hate when people quit on fics i like,,,,, there's a 50% chance that i will get back to that fic. it's just too long. i've only finished 3 out of 7 chapters and already it's at almost 59,000 words, i'm TIRED okay i'm sorry guys maybe one day i'll reclaim my braincells and finish that fucking thing

What are your writing strengths: i'm good with the mechanics and stuff, like the way my sentences are arranged and thought-out, but this is also my biggest weakness, which sucks. it's like in monsters university when mike spends so much time studying the technical aspect of scaring but he can't do it naturally like the other monsters can? yeah. i'm so focused on the mechanics of my writing that it's hard for me to let loose and actually let myself think and go loose with it. the only times i can really WRITE without one hand tied behind my back is when i'm overly tired or caffeinated. i have a feeling i'll be one of those writers who can't write anything of value without a bottle of wine lmao

What are your writing weaknesses: see above

What’s your thoughts on dialogue being written in other languages in fics: i don't know what this means?? is this asking whether i approve of dialogue being written in other languages?? or is it asking how i want it formatted?? what does this mean?? sometimes a story requires dialogue in another language, idk what to tell you man

First fandom you wrote for: oh god. don't make me think about my fanfiction.net days. i'm not strong enough (it was batfamily btw because what else do i write)

What’s your favorite fanfic you’ve written: my young justice gsa au <3 my pride and joy <3 that au was when i truly peaked as a human and it's only downhill from here <3

tagging uhhhhhh @damthosefandoms @haljordangreenjedi @catboykonel and @magebirdi because i have very few friends

[veliseraptor]

got tagged for two fic writer memes yesterday! the one from @ameliarating first:

How many works do you have on AO3?

509.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

3,432,24. dang! that’s a lot of words

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I have written for...counting the MCU as one fandom, on AO3 I have written for 32 fandoms, including at least one work in:

MCU, The Sillmarillion, Caliban Leandros, both DC and Marvel Comics, the book Barebacked by Kit Whitfield, Doctrine of Labyrinths, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Black Jewels, Dragon Age, Lucifer, Dexter, Temeraire, Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Supernatural, A Song of Ice and Fire, Greek Mythology, Lymond Chronicles, Merlin BBC, Code Geass, Good Omens,  Death Note, and White Collar.

this is not a comprehensive list of every fandom I’ve ever written for, because it is not including ones that live only on FFN or Livejournal.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Life In Reverse tops the list (11066), aka my 200k Loki-centric post-Thor AU fic that I wrote between 2012 and 2018 and with which I have a decidedly complex relationship at this point. I love it but also I no longer think it’s my best work but also I credit it with teaching me a fuck of a lot about writing and writing longer projects in general.

With Absolute Splendor is rapidly catching up, to my astonishment (6559), despite having been posted for less than half as long. Aka the wedding planning fic that’s really just me mucking about in my Jiang Cheng and my Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian feelings, at length.

some good mistakes (4618) was my first foray into the Untamed version of “characters who hate each other going on resentful roadtrips together, feat. Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng.” I have gone on to write others and will continue to write more.

Unraveling (3069) is a little bit of a surprise but also not - it was originally just sort of WWP stuff for my ‘what if people remembered that blunt force trauma is a really bad thing actually’ problem that pops up sometimes, re: Loki at the end of The Avengers, and then it kind of turned into a whole thing. I personally think it’s the weakest of the installments of the series it belongs to, but it is the first one and also the one that gets least into the broader family dysfunction and depression stuff that probably is less everyone’s thing (but is what came out this fic that mattered more to me, personally).

I am a little surprised to see Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains (3068) here too! I was expecting one of the more...idk, mainstream concepts from the MCU to win out? But I also wasn’t expecting two Untamed fics to make it here, either. But I am stupid proud of this fic even if it is very extraordinarily unfinished. This is one of those unfinished fics that will nag at me unless and until I finish it, at least a little, because the concept - if I do say so myself - is so goddamn good and I think I was executing it pretty well, too.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Pretty much never. I was never very good at it and now I’d feel like I had to go back and reply to all of them and I just. I can’t do that. and when I do try to just start at the beginning I get overwhelmed very fast and start avoiding it.

Basically I decided that if it’s a decision between wrestling with myself to reply to comments versus actually doing more writing I’m going to end up landing on the latter as feeling both more doable and more productive.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably it’s The Worlds Forgotten, the Words Forbidden for sheer level of “so then what was the point” of it all. but like. I’ve definitely written a few extraordinarily miserable fics, and by “a few” I kind of mean “a lot.” Other nominees I’d put down might be nor autumn falter (for currently personally making me suffer most), once there was a way to get back home (for I think having the ouchiest summary), and Waiting for the Summer Rain (which remains one of my personal favorite Supernatural fics I wrote).

but like. there are 43 fics I have marked with Major Character Death warnings and every single one of those, pretty much, has a downer ending.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have written several though not in a long time! My craziest probably remains the Morgoth/Cthulhu short I wrote that actually got sporked because someone took it seriously (???) enough to do that. But the craziest that actually has any merit, (I’d argue) is probably the Maeglin/Viserys one.

not linking to either, if you want to go find them I don’t think it’ll be that hard.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeah, a few times on a few different things. More if you count “people who seem to like the fic but love telling you how much they hate the female characters you’re writing about in it” as ‘hate’ which I would but isn’t, you know, quite as straightforward. If I had a nickel for every time someone bitched about Jane in Life in Reverse, though...lots of nickels.

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Sure do! But what does ‘what kind’ mean, I don’t know how to answer that question. I feel tempted to just put in my “Mike’s Hard Kinks” image edit in this space.

I guess usually I tend to write smut that at least involves a little bit of a kink? I don’t think I’d feel comfortable writing entirely kinkless smut. I think I’d feel weird about it, the same way I do when I write really nice fic, generally.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think I did back when but I don’t remember anything about it. I feel like it was one of those mass data scraping things where my fic happened to be among those caught up in it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! several actually, mostly into Russian and Chinese. every time it happens I’m immensely flattered that someone wants to put in that kind of work on something I wrote.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I think I’d be very, very bad at it.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Depends on when you ask me! I could probably give you a top five but then I’d remember six that I forgot to mention five minutes later. I guess if I were to think about ships that feel like they hold very special particular places in my heart... Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen, Steve Rogers/Loki, and Min/Rand come to mind.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

oh god do you want the whole list cause honestly I could just like. screencap the entirety of my “in progress” folder with a crying emoji watermarked over it. and that’s not getting into the fics that are like...half formed babies in my consciousness but not anywhere on paper.

and also I just hate to admit that I might not finish something.

you know what? the Lucifer/Good Omens crossover I started would’ve been a lot of fun. I’m probably never going to finish it, but it would’ve been great if I had. I know other people did it too but my contribution could’ve been amazing.

I can say this very boldly with the near certainty that I’m not going to finish the fic so no one will be able to disagree.

(...also the Last Herald-Mage fix it. that was going to be a good fic too, and also will probably languish unfinished forever.)

What are your writing strengths?

I’m pretty sure dialogue is my strongest point. Dialogue and emotions, which is why I always end up just wanting to write about characters talking and having feelings at each other.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing action sequences throws me into conniptions every time I have to do it and I will take drastic actions sometimes to avoid doing it at all, which probably weakens the work as a whole.

Also, I don’t plan ahead and this means I write myself into corners kind of a lot. If I wasn’t writing long, dense fic it wouldn’t be a problem but here we are.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I tend to avoid it unless it’s in the context of, as in CQL/MDZS fic, leaving certain terminology untranslated. I’m pretty sure I almost never write full exchanges of dialogue in a different language than I’m using for the narration within a fic, and generally speaking my reaction to other people doing it is at least mildly negative.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter was technically the first fandom I wrote for, but it was a crack fic I wrote to make my friends laugh more than anything; I tend to count Wheel of Time as my first actual fandom for which I wrote my first actual fic.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

some days the answer is “all of them” and some day the answer is “I don’t like anything I’ve written in my entire life” and I never like giving this a definitive answer. yesterday I reread efforts in a common cause (the bound copy!! thanks @spockandawe) and you know what, that was a good fic and I’m proud of it, so I’m going with that one, for this meme, today.

tagging: @mostfacinorous, @jaggedcliffs, @silvysartfulness, @mikkeneko, @kasasagi-eye, @curiosity-killed, how many people am I supposed to tag for this one anyway

[flightfoot]

20 Questions: Writer’s Edition

Thanks for the tag, @kasienda!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

60

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

431929. Can’t believe it’s that many, I haven’t written any super long stories.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Miraculous Ladybug, Trials of Apollo, and Batman. I’ve been a fan of DC Comics and the batfamily since I watched Young Justice, so when a certain crossover gained popularity, I took a crack at it, wanting to write one that was in-character and not a bashfest. I’m still pretty happy with it, but I don’t think I’ll touch that universe again any time soon. That well is way, WAY too poisoned for me at this point.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Turning Points: Start of my Pointsverse series. Adrien, Alya, Marinette, and Nino watch the episodes - well, part of the episodes - when they became superheroes. Also includes Chameleon at the end, since that episode would’ve gone differently if the four of them all knew each other’s identities.

Divergent Points - Feast: Third Pointsverse story. After Feast is defeated, Plagg reminisces about how his past wielders have treated him, and how Adrien’s different. He flies over to Fu, letting him know where he’s messed up in regards to Adrien and Marinette and how to fix it.

Never Sing At Home: Hawkmoth defeat crackfic, based off of that “Chat gets his hands on the Butterfly Miraculous while his father acquires his, and contacts Ladybug using an akuma” text post that made the rounds awhile ago.

Swallowing Rings Is Bad For Your Health: Crackfic based on @buggachat Bakery Enemies AU. Instead of spitting out Adrien’s ring, Marinette accidentally swallows it. This has unexpected repercussions.

Divergent Points - Weredad: Second Pointsverse story. Marinette and Chat Noir get caught kissing by Tom and roll with it.

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

Yes, absolutely! There are times when I don’t get around to it, but I try my best! If people are going to take the time to leave a comment, then I generally want to take the time to reply.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Last Days of a Meat Puppet, one of my Trials of Apollo fics. Lester isn’t actually just Apollo’s mortal disguise, he’s a living, breathing human being who Zeus slowly drained the soul out of in order to make him a suitable vessel for his son. Apollo eventually manages to get some people to help him reconstruct Lester’s soul, but the kid’s still dead. He gets reborn at least, but it’s still the most tragic thing I’ve written.

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

When You Fell in Love With Me. Chat and Ladybug watch the scenes of the show where they fell in love with each other, leading to an identity reveal.

8. Do you write crossovers? If yes, what’s the craziest thing you’ve written?

Again, written... okay technically two, but for the same universe. I guess the craziest would be  Who You Gonna Call?. Ladybug and Chat Noir cuddle with the League of Super-pets, who have somehow managed to recruit their pet Lovesquare hamster, Hamtaro.

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

A little with  Divergent Points: ML Salt. To be fair, I expected it to be controversial. I was parodying and lambasting Miraculous saltfics, after all.

10. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nope, don’t touch the stuff.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I’m aware of. There was this one person who thought I’d stolen my AO3 Trials of Apollo analyses from myself over on tumblr, but I set them straight on that. Happy they were paying attention, but I think next time, they’ll ask the person they believe to be the OP before yelling at the person they believe to be the thief.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Ningming translated Last Days of a Meat Puppet! I guess they really liked it. 

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Nope. Analyses. Well, more like analysis. The only one I was substantially involved with was  “Now, get up, drama queen.”: An Analysis of Artemis' perspective in Trials Of Apollo. The other ones @fearlessinger wrote, I was more of a sounding board on.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Lovesquare. I’ve had ships I like, but never any that ensnared me before, that I’d read a thousand fics of (quite literally), that I’d even write myself. Romance was rarely that interesting to me, but Miraculous and the Lovesquare showed me that I CAN, in fact, get deeply invested in a romantic relationship.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Dragon Falls. HTTYD Adrigami AU - oh. That might actually count as a crossover, come to think of it. Anyway, it wasn’t all that popular and while I have some ideas of how to continue it, I’m not sure I’ll ever actually finish it. Maybe someday.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Writing from inside the character’s eyes, seeing their thoughts. I started off writing first-person Trials of Apollo fics, and while I’m writing in the third-person for Miraculous Ladybug, I still try to maintain a first-person viewpoint to an extent.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

I have a lot of trouble actually getting the words onto the page. I only started writing about three years ago. Before that I just couldn’t write anything that sounded remotely good or natural. Then I had an idea for Trials of Apollo that I kept on describing in more and more detail until finally, I broke through whatever writer’s block I’d had all my life and actually managed to write some decent dialogue.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

Try and get someone familiar with the language to help.

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

That I actually have stuff posted and published for? Trials of Apollo. But I DID attempt to write a fix-it fic for the ending of Animorphs when I was 10, before I even had the CONCEPT of fanfiction, to fix Rachel’s death. I had he bust out some super gymnastics move and use them to get out of being pinned and not die.

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

Last Days of a Meat Puppet. It’s deliciously angsty with a bittersweet ending!

@chronicallylatetotheparty, @galahadwilder, you want a go?

[nighttimepixels]

TALK TO US ABOUT MASS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN AN INSANE MASS EFFECT/SHAKARIAN TRASH PERSON SINCE 20-FUCKING-11 AND LEMME TELL YOU THOSE FEELINGS HAVENOT TARNISHED A SINGLE FRACTION IN THOSE TEN YEARS OH MY GOOOOOOODDDSSSS!!!!!!!

I DEMAND A PLAY-BY-PLAY UP TO THE MINUTE OF YOUR REACTIONS TO EVERYTHING!!!!

you are so valid and I totally see why everyone I've ever mentioned it to loves the hell out of it

aksdjlsdfj I meannnn if you want to hear my rambling about it then hell yeah

Okay, gonna put this below the cut to save everyone else XD also- since I'm not leaving this Mass Effect obsession anytime soon, if you're not interested in seeing occasional posts about it, please feel free to block the tag "night plays ME"~

(mild spoilers ahead??)

((also for real I mean it when I say this is rambling as hell lol, apologies and no stress if absolute no one reads all this))

OKAY SO Mass Effect 1-

Stars help me, I was honestly hooked right from the start?? Like even in Legendary Edition (the combined trilogy just re-released in one "can play it on one system + minor improvements", for anyone who doesn't know) where it's smoothed out, of course it's obvious that ME1 is a decade old... but the foundation for these relationships are all there and gods I love them already.

Like - Kaiden right off the top is a delightful good fightin lad, what the hell. I've heard that he's viewed as 'bland' by a good portion of the fan community but I dunno, he's a delight and even more complex by the time 2 rolls around and you encounter him on Horizon, it was honestly Ashley I was way more meh about - mostly because before you can learn about her family history/etc, she comes off as hella xenophobic and I was immediately offended for my growing space family that she didn't like/trust all the aliens around, pfff.

(she gets redeemed a bit through further actions/evolving thoughts, but I thought in retrospect it was a bummer that they didn't flip the order there, give her a chance to be liked before the complicating factor of being so rude about aliens >:c that then she could grow from... ah well. Apparently she has a good arc but uh, let's just say I chose Kaiden at the "key junction" in the latter part of the game so I won't be seeing anymore of Ashley uh... anytime soon, haha.)

Garrus??? Is??????? The ABSOLUTE best???????????

I liked him from the start, I'm always a bit of a sucker for a rogue-detective "the system won't bring this bastard to justice, so I've got to" type and all their moral shadiness XD But he just gets better, honestly, and where I'm at in ME2 (right before the Reaper IFF mission, as of typing this, with everyone's loyalty!) I am only digging myself deeper into this hole-

-*wheezing* okay anyways -

Wrex is AMAZING I love fightin' middle-aged krogan bastard, gods. Liara is great too, I'm a sucker for a wlw relationship (playing fem!Shepard, so) - buuuut I'll admit she's a bit more one-note in ME1. Last week while I was still on ME1 I remember hearing (while trying to dodge spoilers) that her arc is really good, though. I think they leaned a little hard on the 'innocent but sexy' sterteotype on her (so despite the yikes aspect of a few of the things I've learned in ME2, lol, I actually really like the complexity that's been added to her character.)

Saved Liara first, so by the time I got to Noveria and had the standoff with Benezia there was the chance to have emotions over Liara having to face her TwT and of course, I made the questionable but quality decision to free Queen Rachni heheh. no ragrets

More than a blow-by-blow of my choices though I totally wanna take the chance to say that even in the mild jankiness of ME1 (goddammit, the Mako.... please..... please just go up this impossible cliff I just want to resource hunt-) the way that the lore, both obvious/key to main plot and the lesser/filler/background/world-building kinds... I just love it. It incorporates it well, you can go ham in the codex learning more, or just dive into the basics - it's clearly a complex galaxy (and they do an even better job in 2 of fleshing it out further), and it never really felt overwhelming. It was pretty natural figuring it all out-!

Plus the interesting implications of resource hunting amongst the sapient races, and the little side missions you better bet I did every one of- there's so much rich depth in the story if you do 'em!! (And that lead with that Keeper side mission...? Looking back, damn, clever foreshadowing-!!!)

And oh my gods, Ilios??? hell yeah. I loved that mission so much, especially having Garrus & Kaiden with me when talking to the hologram/computer, and more than anything, that last sprint in the Mako trying to get to the jump before it closed-???

yeet the boi-

Also mannn I love a good setpiece, and having to go up the side of the elevator, space-side?? such a cool setup!!

Plus it felt good having been Paragon enough (as simple as the good v bad vibe system is, I don't hate it, lol) to avoid one of the Saren fights, ngl. And the er, "second fight" with Sovereign-Saren.... hell yeah

... I'll admit I had to double check my choice re whether to save the Council. I did in the end, but I swear, sometimes the way they phrase things I'm like ".... okay but Garrus is right, defeating Sovereign is more important than these few leaders??????" woops. Listen, priorities, is all I'm saying..... (￣ヮ￣|||)ゞ

'Course later they emphasize (in ME2) that there were 10,000 people on that same ship and I was like well I wouldn't have second guessed if I'd known that, I mean c'mon-

Also I did indeed romance Liara in this one, so I got that scene ;Dc But,,,, I also knew by the end that I was totally gonna romance Garrus in 2 since he's an option then finally,,,,, lemme tell you the guilt as I waffled over whether to romance Liara bc of it. hahaha.

Aaaaand Mass Effect 2-

So I'm only up to right before the Reaper IFF Mission, so I don't know the ending, etc etc lol. That said, I've just finished every side mission I've found with the exception of the Shadowbroker Quest and the Arrival Quest (I've heard the latter basically leads into ME3, and the former is best either right before the Omega 4 jump or in postgame).

So from the start - fuck yeah fuck yeah what a high adrenaline start Shepard noooooo but also yes save Joker aH-

The motion comic too hot damn nice job

I loved this setup, seriously - especially forcing Shep into this situation, having to work with/for Cerberus, and the compelling reasoning given behind "why" they do what they do (I especially found it a good point that the Salarians have the Task Force, the Asaris the Commandos, the Turians the- etc... like, true, when you put it like that, having a similar group advancing human interests/solving human interstellar problems is pretty reasonable...). That said, I love too that it really isn't shied away from how Cerberus is nonetheless fucked up - or its at least done fucked up stuff.

Listen, I still think some messed up stuff is gonna be revealed in 2's endgame......... after that Horizon mission and the Collector's ship???? TIM I SEE YOU YOU SHADY MF-

aaanyways lol...

I'm so so glad on a gameplay level they nixed the Mako style exploration. A few Hammerhead missions are fine and a lot more focused than the slippery ass navigation in that glorified ATV, pfff. The probes are a neat way of getting after similar resources - and more importantly, having good levels and some good hubs (the Zakera Wards, Omega, Ilium, etc) is way way more fun than having a more 'sprawling' space that is.... a lot of empty nonsense, lol.

Then there's the fact that we get Joker right off the bat and you can interact with him so much - and him and EDI??? Get out gods I love them. Kasumi is so right when she says they sound like a bickering old married couple lol. I have a terrible feeling that some shit is gonna happen with EDI..... but I don't think she's evil as-is, at least.

Side-eying the hell out of those "access forbidden" parts of her that she doesn't even know.... and the fact that her AI core has a locked door access................... something's gonna happen gdi LEAVE OUR ADOPTED AI ALONE.

(Also Joker pls stop fracturing your thumb on the mute button)

Also please save me there are so many hot aliens in this game,,,,, the xeno/monsterfuckers really comin' through strong in the sequels............... doin' the lord's work........................................

In general, I love how many levels ME stepped up in two with complexity and interwoven narratives!! Like, to the point it'd be almost a drag to replay ME1, even though it was fun going through it (if occasionally a bit tedious with the cookie cutter rando planet science/mine facilities, lol). Like, just from how fun and interesting ME2 is, mostly! more of all the pre-introduced races, plus new ones, plus more filling in of intragalactic politics, and more interesting implications of all these space-faring races mixing....

Also gods WREX and his planet holy shit,,,,, fuckin' hell yeah my man get their shit together and also adopt Grunt yes good-

And Mordin??? My singing semi-evil scientist best friend forced to confront his choices more than he thought he ever would have???? With some of the best ongoing general report chatter of all the companions??

(when I tell you I choked on my coffee when I talked to him after confirming romance choice w/ Garrus and that 'pamphlet' and 'anaphalactic shot if ingesting-' kajsldkfjsldfjk)

Like, fuck, the fact that they actually dive into the mixed morality and horrors of the genophage, and you can confront Mordin on it, for good reason, yet he still stands his ground, until finally some bits of his loyalty mission seem to... affect him, and I'm guessing might set up things for 3 with him? Unsure, but either way, damn, the fact that they start to dig into it...

And Taliiiii my beloved forbidden alien wife TwT her loyalty mission was SO GOOD. I love how varied they all are?? Getting to defend her and discover what she'd unwittingly been a part of-!!

Zaeed is a bastard but tbh I love that he is and that he's unapologetic in him - and Kasumi omg, best thief. A heist?? Gods, yes- I love our couch lounge chats XD

Samara is..... illegally.......... she's an illegally powerful and beautiful and eloquent MILF...........................

(.... listen I'm sapphic as hell and I'm kicking my own ass for picking her up last aksjdlfksjdfl - but her loyalty mission, damn. And seeing how there's this interesting cultural subset, and the struggle with the Asari in that they unquestioningly accept/respect justicars, but also know that the impact outside their culture is a diplomacy nightmare waiting to happen-)

,.,,,,,T,,, Thane,,,,,

I am weak for morally implicated murder dads okay?? And that voice??? His mannerisms?????? How you first see him, and that prayer after assassinating her...???????? And his history/his people's history with the hanar, gods I love how messy it is, it feels so much more real!

Also Jack is a mess and I love her (and want to get her some therapy, omg), and her and Miranda nearly duking it out after you've done both their loyalty missions??? so good and makes a lot of sense-! Honestly I would love more interactions between teammates on the ship, but there's already so much the devs had to balance I can't blame 'em for minimizing, heh. But suffice to say I also love Miranda and Jacob, even if I'm softest for my alien crew XD Hell yeah Jacob, we'll get loud and spill drinks on the citadel indeed TwT

.... I could write a whole essay on how much I love Garrus oTL Perhaps because he and Tali are the throughlines from 1 on your 2 crew, I have some of the strongest feelings about them... but genuinely, he was one of my favorite companions in the first game, and how you find him as Archangel in two? Getting to help him fight his way out after he's gone nearly 48 hours straight fighting off three gangs alone, jfc. His vengeance quest and what can happen there.... That line? fuck me, that line -

It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Grey? I don't know what to do with gray...

How DARE you come for my heart like this, devs holy shit

(also, some other choice faves so far from the series from him include We can disobey suicidal orders?? and This wasn't in my training manual... [in 1, if you have him with you @ th Thorian fight] and his whole.... pop the heat sink - in his romance ;Dc)

asdasdfksadjfkl like I said I can write an essay on him PFFF suffice to say I'm very looking forward to his romance scene and where things go in 3

But yeah gods I'm just gonna keep rambling if I'm not careful lol. Gods I don't even know what to talk about it's all so good and while I can understand people roasting the obviousness of Paragon V Renegade (v neutral) choices/alignments, I think they do a pretty damn good job in 2 of pushing it further - to the point that there were some times that I accidentally got renegade points and I wasn't that mad, haha. There's so much fun in the interactions that I just have a good time anyways~

I have so many thoughts about TIM (The Illusive Man) and Cerberus.... theories evolving galore............... and like, what the hell!! Omega 4 going to the center of the galaxy is such a cool twist, goddamn - though my heart still breaks at losing Kaiden (his line if you haven't romanced him?? about feeling like he lost a limb when he lost you??? holy shit.... but I also can't blame him for not trusting Cerberus to the point of it affecting his ability to trust Shepard... like fuck Shep go after himmmm) I'm really excited to see where that goes since he comes back in 3, and what the fuck happens with Cerberus bc while I love the fact that obviously there are a lot of people in it for the right reasons, doing good work, there are those that are doing the opposite, and I have a very bad feeling about where TIM will end up landing....

All that said though I need to do the Reaper IFF mission (where I'm lightly spoiled as to getting That Boy, but not how/what happens to make it so - just that it's apparently wise to have all your side missions done before getting him...) and the actual Omega 4 jump. So we'll see what happens and what I think about it from there heheh!

.... major kudos and genuine props if you made it here to the end, I am so sorry for not editing on condensing all this, and appreciate you so much ;w;

[some-stars]

Fic writer questionnaire! Tagged by @deputychairman, thank you!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

65....just waiting for 69 so i can celebrate

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

288,609

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

okay, so, there's a lot so we're gonna collapse some. So, 16: The Witcher (games and show), Supernatural, Dark Angel, Glee, Stargate (both SG1 and SGA), MCU, Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, due South, DC (comics and movies), House of Leaves, Sense8, Harry Potter, Les Miserables (book), Doctor Who, and X-Men movies. Oh, and I wrote a lot of NSYNC RPF back in the day but you will never see it. (Unless you literally read it back then and remember one and want to reread it, I’m not ashamed of them if you were also in the pit with me. If that is the case feel free to ask.)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?  

all some children do is work: this one surprised me, i did NOT think there was this kind of appetite for almost-gen turned-into-a-kid fic, but i do really like the fic itself so i'm contented with its acclaim

method: i mean, it's fake dating, written back when there wasn't much non-modern-AU fake dating in witcher fandom (possibly there still isn't?) so, not surprised

Emergency Pants: this is the one that the Claw chose back in 2012 bc i had written very pornographic tony/bruce about a month after Avengers came out so there was a big appetite for it. i don't much care for it these days except i do still think the tony voice is good

warm you like the sunshine: deeply unsurprised this one is popular (and it's one of my own fics that i reread a lot), it's extremely tender BDSM with a juggernaut pairing, that gets the readers

As often as from thee I go: honestly kinda surprised about this one, which is just a 2500 word confection i wrote for my own satisfaction, but it does have explicit sex and jaskier crying about his feelings so maybe it makes sense

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I almost always do, but usually just with "Thanks!" unless it's a detailed or lengthy comment.

6) What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

"Long black night, morning frost" (Les Miserables) for absolute certain. One of the very few fics I've written with an outright unhappy and pessimistic ending (although I found it very cathartic to write). For Witcher fics, "Kind" and "go ask alice" are about as sad as I get.

7) What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Almost all of them, honestly. There's a point in happiness of endings where you really can't distinguish degrees. Probably the most--not saccharine, but distinctly Happy Ending-ish is either "Water like a stone" or "Darling, if you only knew," which to my eternal shame are both Glee fics. In terms of Witcher fics...it's still hard to pick! I think the kidfic trilogy ended very, very happily; I think "If you live through this with me" ended TOO happily.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've written?

I do not, and I don't read them, at least not since the days of the late 90s/early 2000s when I once read a really good Highlander/X-Files crossover (oh, and Martha's cosmic horror fic where Stargate and Angel and I think something else all cross over but it feels quite natural and right). I don't like fusions, either, most of the time.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Never! In 20 years! I've been extremely lucky.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

ahahahahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

yes...yes you could say i write smut. on occasion. you know, when the urge comes on me. i write mostly kink or at least kink-adjacent fic, but i've done some vanilla scenes too, and i write m/m and m/f and (occasionally) f/f. fun fact, my only rimming scene to date was in a f/f/f threesome!

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think so? I can't remember, honestly, which sounds dreadful but like...I don't READ the translation, because I am sadly monolingual, but I get a burst of delight when someone asks to do it (or to make a podfic).

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

I have tried--me and a friend once got like 12k deep into a co-written Tiger and Bunny fic--but it doesn't really work out for me. I am a massive control freak when it comes to writing and absolutely miserable to work with. (Although I wasn't so bad back when we wrote the T&B fic, we just sort of never got around to finishing it. Which is sad, because it was GREAT.)

14) What's your all time favorite ship?

Max/Alec from Dark Angel. I shipped it when I only started watching DA for Jensen's episodes, I shipped it when I fell in love with Max, I shipped it when I frantically hand-wrote notes about the fic I wanted to write, I ship it right now as I'm typing, I will ship it in my grave. Also it's not a het ship bc neither of them are heterosexual, thank you very much.

15) What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I only post finished fics, but in terms of things I haven't posted, I still think my "For A Good Time Call" fem!jaskier/yennefer(/geralt) AU would have been truly incredible. If you haven't watched that movie go watch it immediately so you can share this beautiful idea with me.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Ohhh, this and the next one are hard, because I truly don't know. Well, besides "porn." I am genuinely good at porn, which is HILARIOUS considering how many more sex scenes I've written than participated in. But overall, I have so much angst and neurosis and tenuous self-worth tied up in writing, I'm a very bad judge of my own skills. Also, it depends on the fandom! In some fandoms I'm good at dialogue, in others not so much. In some fandoms I'm good at pastiching the tone of the source and in others...Not So Much.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

If I had to pick a weakness, though, I'd say concrete imagery/detail. Like, the things that characters are physically doing either out of emotional reaction or just, they're doing something in that scene. Dialogue is usually easier (not sure if it comes out better, but it's easier).

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?  

I used to be mildly annoyed at it but! Now! On AO3! You can put a footnote by the French or whatever, so the reader can jump down to read a translation and then jump right back up. I now feel that if you choose to include dialogue (or any words) in another language from the rest of the story, this is the only acceptable method.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I remember vaguely in 1996 or so writing a couple pages of Kit whump for the Young Wizards books. I wrote some execrable nonsense in X-Files, but in my defense I had just turned 13. I don't THINK I wrote anything for Star Trek, which was my first fandom. Oh, and I attempted to write fic for Homicide, which I watched in 7th and 8th grade and lied about my age to get onto the good mailing lists (they were actually the bad, racist mailing lists, I would later realize, but again I was 13).

20) What's your favorite fic you've written?

Sorry to disappoint anyone who follows me for Witcher content, but it's either "The absolute absurdity of end-series items" (House of Leaves) or "A quite unlosable game" (Dark Angel). They are both Big Idea fics, and I feel like in both of them I got the Idea across brilliantly, and I'm truly proud of them and think they're the best things I've ever made. (In terms of Witcher fic, it's the kidfic trilogy for sure.)

I am not going to tag anyone because that always makes me mildly anxious, but if you read this and you want to do it you can say you were tagged by me! :D? :D?

[starcloud-nova]

thank you for the tag @dreamofmysteries ​!! i also love to ramble about my fics so We Are The Same.

Names: Moooost people call me Nova but some do know me as Acacia and of course there is my ao3 name November_Clouds

Fandoms: I write for BNHA but I read a ton for DC Comics because I am in love with that found family aspect *chef’s kiss*

Where you post: Ao3! Always. When I was much too young to be doing much it anything on the internet I had a few stories up on FF.net but you won’t find anything there now.

Most Popular One-Shot (by kudos): The day Shouta met his (favorite) Problem Child

This one was for a friend’s birthday and I genuinely did not expect it to get as much attention as it did. It’s a Sports Festival fic but as all authors know, writing the SF is the most boring part, so I decided to mix it up a bit and wrote it from Aizawa’s perspective up in the stands! It follows Izuku and the shenanigans he gets up to and did I mention that he’s in Gen-Ed in this fic?

Most Popular Multi-chap (by kudos): (silence as I scroll past my old marvel fics) where do we go? is my most kudosed fic (and still in progress!)

This one was....also a birthday fic heh. Written for one of my closest friends, I followed a prompt they left (which i still havent revealed 😳) and tried to take my spin on it. I haven’t updated in a bit because of personal reasons + writer’s block but the premise is that after OFA shows Izuku a dream, he decides that in order for Bakugou to do well in the hero course, he has to stop interacting with him. So...... he transfers to 1B! Fun, right? (wrong)

Favourite Story I’ve Written: from your hands to mine

This fic was suchhhh a doozy to write and I consider it my last fic of 2020 (even if ao3 says otherwise). It’s in second person POV (you and your instead of his and him) so if it’s not your thing I understand but trust me when I say its an artistic choice done well! The story follows a quirkless Todoroki Natsuo and his thoughts on canon events! It was fun to write and fun to go back to, even if the process was... a bitch at times.

Fic You Were Nervous to Post: love’s not overrated (i just don’t like the way you do it)

This one is about aro!ace!Bakugou on Valentine’s Day and I guess I was a bit worried that the wrong crowd would find this fic but thankfully that didn’t happen! It was so fun to write and I recommend you check it out

How do you choose your titles: Soooo many people complain about titles (and I get it!) but they come...fairly easily to me. Usually, I take a main theme from the fic and turn it into a title and my favorite example of this is for ‘from your hands to mine.’ There was a theme of hands in that fic, so I knew there had to be hands in the title. I rarely enjoy using song lyrics as titles so usually I come up with them myself or I ask a friend. And yes, I am that bitch with the titles in lowercase.

Do you outline?: For ‘where do we go?’ Yes. For everything else? No. I write mainly one-shots and there really is no point sdjkhfdhsfj.

Complete: I do happen to be one-shot heavy because long term plot eludes me so 94% of my works are complete.

In Progress: ‘where do we go’ is not abandoned I promise! I am also working on a birthday fic with Authoress_Lilly that I have not even thought about in months but it is !!! Also not abandoned so keep a look out. I also have a marvel fic I am rewriting that I promised a chapter-a-week for and I...gave up a few weeks ago. I will continue that one as well so please be patient with me!

Coming Soon: I don’t know about ‘soon’ but I have a DC social media fic, a Death Note fic and a few BNHA ideas lurking around somewhere.

Not started: ...Not many actually. I tend to write as I go and do not have many AUs lined up however I am constantly thinking about the Ben10 au that I will never write

Upcoming Work You’re Most Excited About: Hmm... chapter 2 of where do we go probably! It’s going to be..so long oh my god.

This was fun to do! Tagging @catlady5001 and @queenangst (because I’d really love to see both of yours) and anyone else who sees it and is interested of course!

[roipecheur]

2021 fic year in review

Tagged by @luulapants​ (ty)

Total number of completed works: 8. 10 according to AO3, but I wrote the crusade + home, where you left it last year and waited a fuckin year to post those lmao

Total word count: 289,433 (again subtracting the crusade + home, where you left it). I kind of wanted to get to 300,000 this year, but I’m on vacation now and doubt that will happen 😭

Fandoms written in: Marvel (Daredevil, The Punisher, and Defenders comics/TV), and Terminator (oddly)

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? I have never written this much in my life before. It’s definitely more than I expected

What’s your own favorite story of the year? It’s hard to pick, but I think I’m proudest of the better half as my first bang and (by far) the longest thing I’ve ever written. I cranked out 150K from vague idea to finished story in 5 months, y’all

Did you take any writing risks this year? Well. Before this year, I’d never participated in any fandom events, and this year, I did two bangs, two fratt weeks, and Daredevil exchange. So I was white-knuckling it through a lot of that and scared I wouldn’t finish in time. I also wrote alternating POVs for the man behind the curtain and second-person for the future, a history, and the longest genfic I’ve ever written, defenestration.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? I’ve gotten the DD fics I want to write mapped out by month, season, or event. Pray 4 me. I also recently got into Slade/Dick after a fanart unlocked a memory of being fascinated by them in the Teen Titans show as a kid, and I have a tentative goal of wading through enough of the fucking quagmire DC comics seem to be to get a good canon vibe for their characters and interactions so I can write something for sladerobin week(s) if that gets scheduled in 2022

Most popular story of the year? gift wrapping, for sure. Written for fratt week and possibly the sweetest and least fucked up fic I’ve written for that pairing lmao

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: toss up between two fics. 1, the future, a history, because Terminator is not a huge fandom and the fic has background ships, but neither of them are a strong focus. 2, the law of the wood, because it’s a fratt/frattelektra AU of the 80s werewolves movie The Company of Wolves, which few people have heard of, which is based on the short story of the same name, which in turn is based off of the little red riding hood story. Also, I’ve noticed my horror fics are less popular than fics like gift wrapping, (and like that's fine, everyone has different preferences) but I have a lot of fun writing horror fics and I was proud of how I fit the characters and their stories into a very different world (also I really don't mean to sound judgey here, I just understand why these were less popular)

Most fun story to write: probably gift wrapping because it just flowed really well and I finished it just in time for fratt week, which was the first fandom event I’ve ever participated in

Most unintentionally telling story: Maybe the better half? As I said in the end notes, “You may gather from this that I don't know anything about guns and don't care to learn. In that you would be correct. You may also gather that I've lived through a pandemic under capitalism and am therefore highly romanticizing the ability to travel for an extended period of time. In that you would also be correct.”

Biggest disappointment: if I could do it over, I wouldn’t have signed up for the Marvel bang / written the man behind the curtain in the time frame I did. It was very stressful and took way longer to write than I expected, probably because (1) I burned myself out with everything I wrote earlier in the year, (2) real life was stressful from the September-December period when I wrote it, and (3) the fic itself was difficult to write. I had to erase thousands and thousands of words and rework so many of the scenes. It drove me nuts and I barely finished on time. I learned that poly fics are MUCH harder to write than traditional two-people pairings because you aren’t just worrying about X/Y, you’re also worrying about X/Z, Y/Z, and X/Y/Z, so your considerations are like, quadrupled. The format I chose to write it in, which 3 scenes per part with alternating POVs, was also extremely difficult to work with, and I’m not sure I’m completely happy with how it turned out. If it wasn’t for an event, I would probably sit on it for a year and maybe rework the whole thing in a fit of pique lmao. But I have hopefully come out the other side a better writer?

Biggest surprise: That I fucking wrote this much. I still can’t believe it lol

My favorite part of fandom this year: Discord servers have been a gift. It’s so hard to talk to people consistently on tumblr and so nice to have a place to consistently chat about stuff. And! Working with artists for the bangs I wrote: @reddbl for the fratt big bang / the better half and @mock-speed for the marvel big bang / the man behind the curtain. I fuckin Suffered™ while writing the man behind the curtain, but @mock-speed is lovely and made the process better both by encouraging me and drawing gr9 cover art. Also, special mention for this post (featuring a fic I still have to write) with thanks to @frankencastle and @eobardthawneallen because to me, this is a peak fandom experience: people coming together and using their talent to create the most absolute nonsense you’ve ever seen.

Tagging: @alistrawrites @sevdrag @lovetincture and anyone else who wants to do it

[t4tmagicians]

Fic Writer 20 Questions!!

tysm @batshit-birds for the tag!! 1. How many works do you have on ao3?

i have 26 ! 2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

238,899! it’s kind of low lmao

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

only 3 at the moment! dc, the dsmp, and dragon age inquisition. there is a fourth on it’s way though!

4. Top five fics by kudos?

*Teenagers by MCR Plays*, Sleeping Under The Stars, You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid, You Posted What?, and God Fuckin’ Bless Conner Kent’s Jacket

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

i try to! sometimes i’m just too exhausted to reply but most of the time i like to as i think it’s polite

6. what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

solid tossup between You And I Were Fireworks and I’ll Never Wear Your Broken Crown

7. do you write crossovers?

i’m a massive fan of making aus of different media, but i personally really dislike crossovers where different characters meet each other. it’s just really not my thing.

8. have you ever recieved hate on a fic?

OOOOH YEAH. 

9. do you write smut? and if so, what kind?

i am a whole minor and incredibly asexual so nooooope

10. have you ever had a fic stolen? not to my knowledge!

11. have you ever had a fic translated? 

yep! my most popular fic has a russian translation!

12. have you ever co-written a fic before?

technically no but spiritually yes with how much i’ve helped out lmao

13. what’s your all time favourite ship?

gonna be honest i don’t think i have one ultimate favourite, but i will always love birdflash.

14. what’s a wip you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

...all of them? i suppose that’s my mindset until it is finished tbh

15. what are your writing strengths?

i’d like to think i’m good with interactions and character dialogue! i’m also very good at turning absolutely everything into Plot

16. what are your writing weaknesses?

i cannot Not turn everything into plot. i can write nothing meaningless and on it’s own. it’s an active issue.

17. what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

i have tried it exactly once before and i struggled to the point where i told no one lmao

18. what was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

dc comics and i am still in the comic hellhole to this day 

19. what’s your favourite fic you’ve written

everybody wants to rule the world or smoke break

20. tagging?

@autistic-damian-wayne and @callmesteve have fun you two <3

[wander-over-the-words]

Of Burlap and Brain-Teasers

Summary: Snippets of the life shared between Jonathan Crane and Edward Nygma. [50 Sentence challenge.]

Characters: Edward Nygma, Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow, unnamed policeman, Robin, Batman, Bernie, Query, Echo, Jon’s crow posse, Edward’s father, Harley Quinn, Edward’s tailor, Riddlerbots, Selina Kyle.

Pairing: Jonathan Crane/Edward Nygma.

Warnings: alcohol use, bodily harm, firearm usage, mental breakdown, forced drugging (fear toxin), blood, NSFW topics; implied homophobia; mentioned death, smoking, murder, threats, kidnapping.

Notes: I’m a sucker for these stupid things, they’re a good challenge, and it’s been too long since I’ve posted anything, so here’s this. Based off things that have happened and things that will happen in my Scriddler series, with minimal spoilers.

A WanderVerse fic.

All material belongs to DC Comics (although my interpretations of the characters are used).

Link to fic on AO3.

…

1 - Comfort -

Edward knows this fix is temporary, but if downing a baby bottle of scotch will spare him the heartache of yet another of Crane’s rejections, then so be it.

2 - Kiss -

Their first is hilariously hesitant on Jonathan’s part, Edward can feel him berating himself for locking lips with a colleague; it serves as a preview of the breaking of barriers in their relationship, and that only excites Edward more.

3 - Soft -

Jonathan scoffs at the amount of lotions and potions Edward has in both bathrooms, but if they’re the things keeping his brown locks so pleasant for Jonathan to run his fingers through, then he never wants Edward to grow tired of using them.

4 - Pain -

It’s when Jonathan is complaining about his aching body that Edward grows most frustrated with Scarecrow as he simply can’t understand how Scarecrow doesn’t realise the damage he’s doing to the one he’s supposed to be protecting.

5 - Potatoes -

Edward looks over his shoulder at Jonathan and watches as he peels the spuds for dinner; there’s a joke about Jonathan’s childhood on his tongue, but he chooses not to share it and instead contemplates the domesticity of the situation.

6 - Rain -

The rain is heavy and litters the lenses of Edward’s glasses, but it doesn’t block the sight of the fear in the policeman’s eyes as Edward points his own gun at him, nor does it drown out Robin’s commands for Jonathan to keep his eyes open or Batman’s attempts to talk Edward down.

7 - Chocolate -

“Oh, fer God’s sake,” Jonathan says immediately upon seeing the bundles of flowers and boxes of sweets adorning his porch, each with a slip of card with a question mark stamped on (as if he needs to be told who has left these here).

8 - Happiness -

For the longest time, Bernie had been the only living thing that could lift Jonathan’s spirits when he’d been discontent; he can’t quite remember when it came to be that Edward is the second.

9 - Telephone -

“I took the liberty of putting my number in there, should you ever need me,” Edward says and ignores the incredulous look on Jonathan’s face at such a prospect as the scientist turns the gift over in his hands.

10 - Ears -

In the morning, they hear Edward only mumble sadly in response to them; in the afternoon, they hear revived determination in the form of a new plan to woo Jonathan Crane; in the evening, they hear him mope and whine about how that plan should have worked and surely, Jonathan is madly in love with him by now, and while Echo is perfectly content to help Edward think of the next plan, Query wishes he’d hike up his big boy pants and ask Crane out properly.

11 - Name -

“Perish the thought,” Edward replies to Jonathan’s dismissal, watching the murder of crows grouped before them, each bird with a different coloured tag on their leg, “I’d like to know their names.”

12 - Sensual -

It takes ages before Jonathan allows Edward to massage his shoulders like Edward had wanted, but when it finally happens, Jonathan is so relaxed that he almost falls asleep; Edward is certain that - besides sex - this is the most intimately Jonathan has ever been touched, and it makes his heart burst to know he’s the first ever allowed to.

13 - Death - 

Edward and Scarecrow’s feud can end in no other way.

14 - Sex -

Of all the changes to Jonathan’s lifestyle that Edward has influenced, getting him from having sex four times a year to four times a week is definitely amongst Edward’s favourites.

15 - Touch -

That had been the first wall to break down and while it’d been far from demolished, Edward had known they were making progress when Jonathan had silently offered his hand to be held while they sat together reading.

16 - Weakness -

Edward observes Jonathan through the bars of the latter’s cell, watches Jonathan rock back and forth as he recites the periodic table to distract himself from the absence of Scarecrow’s voice in his mind, then he scoffs in disgust and inserts the key into the lock.

17 - Tears -

During the very rare times he cries, Edward always covers his face, turns away and demands nobody look at him, and this time is no different, so as much as Jonathan wants to continue taking in Edward’s (accidental) toxin-induced stupor, he has enough decency in him to do as he’s told, if only because it’s Edward.

18 - Speed -

“Jonathan, if you don’t hurry up, I’m leaving you behind,” Edward calls over his shoulder at his lover, who is too distracted by the fearful reactions of their victims to move right away.

19 - Wind -

“So, anyway,” Jonathan says as Edward continues to cackle at the mental image of Jonathan frantically chasing his hat while simultaneously being chased by Batman, “that’s why we don’t wear the hat anymore.”

20 - Freedom -

That’s one of the few things about Gotham that he truly, truly enjoys: the only reason he and Edward get looks during their (admittedly, few and far between) moments of PDA is because of their reputations, and not their genders.

21 - Life -

He’s far from dying of old age, but a part of Jonathan does wish he and Edward could have met sooner, if only so he could’ve spent a larger percentage of his time alive in their current situation, but he’ll take what he can get.

22 - Jealousy -

Edward resists the urge to laugh as he sees the way the gentleman’s gaze keeps drifting away from him; he knows Jonathan is staring at the unwanted visitor over his shoulder (because that’s all Jonathan needs to do), and suddenly Edward’s admirer is making excuses to leave.

23 - Hands -

Like the rest of his appearance, Jonathan’s hands inspire thoughts of stereotypical fairytale villains - with their slim palms and twig-like, scarred digits - but Edward can only smile as he plays with Jonathan’s fingers, for he is the only person that knows of the gentle and pleasurable touches they’re capable of.

24 - Taste -

Edward blanches and turns his head away from Jonathan’s to break their kiss, saying into the hand he uses to wipe his lips, “I told you, I hate when you smoke before kissing me.”

25 - Devotion -

Jonathan sits and points his gun at the back of the man’s head from the rooftop opposite the man’s window; it’s all he ever does, for only upon Edward deciding to enact revenge on his father or that he wants Jonathan to handle it will he go to meet Lawrence Nashton face-to-face.

26 - Forever -

“As has always been the way,” Jonathan replies to the drunken Edward, who casually tells him he’ll kill Jonathan if he leaves him.

27 - Blood -

He hasn’t felt fear in ages, but something makes him hope that that isn’t Edward’s own blood coating his back and dripping down his arm, but of course he knows it is, and Scarecrow confirms this by letting him listen to the echoes of pained screams as his scythe had cut through Edward’s flesh.

28 - Sickness -

“Die quietly,” Jonathan had told him amidst his coughing fit, and Edward lays in bed thinking of exactly which death-trap he’d like to stick Jonathan in, then Jonathan delivers to him soup made from a recipe from his childhood, and Edward decides that maybe he’d been too quick to think his lover so heartless (then Jonathan finds amusement in how Edward chokes on the soup’s spiciness, and Edward reconsiders the death-trap idea).

29 - Melody -

Edward plays his violin for himself, mostly, as the sound soothes his nerves and helps him calm; he opens his eyes to find Jonathan seated on the couch in front of him with a book in his lap - an excuse for coming out of his study, Edward knows - and Edward wonders, distantly, what it would take to convince Jonathan to duet with him on his guitar.

30 - Star -

Jonathan sighs irritably and eyes his research as Edward talks and talks and talks; why can’t Edward realise that while he may be the main character in his own mind, he is currently nothing more than an extra in Jonathan’s?

31 - Home -

Relief spreads through him as he first steps into the house after two weeks in Arkham Asylum, but all is not right until he hears Edward’s voice call out to him.

32 - Confusion -

“Yeah, Eddie, she’s, like, Doctah Crane’s favourite thing,” Harley whispers to him, and Edward has never felt more baffled as he watches the big, bad Dr. Crane coo at the tiny mouse that he’s happily feeding pizza crust to.

33 - Fear -

Of all the hundreds upon hundreds of reactions Jonathan has seen to his toxin, Edward’s is by far the most alluring and the most beautiful, and Jonathan simply can’t help but withhold the antidote for just a few minutes more. 

34 - Lightning/Thunder -

Jonathan’s reflexes, however unnaturally graceful, are sharp and fast as he strikes at Batman with his sickle, which brings out more booming laughter from Edward at the other end of the room as he continues shouting encouragement to Jonathan to take the Dark Knight down (of course, the storm eventually subsides, and both are dragged back to Arkham). 

35 - Bonds -

When most frustrated with Jonathan’s lack of affection toward him, Edward has to remind himself of one thing: Jonathan has had family (he thinks, Jonathan never talks about them), he has had friends (as much as he likes to say he only has Scarecrow), but he has never had a boyfriend before Edward.

36 - Market -

“Oooh, now this,” Edward says, holding the blood red fabric to Jonathan’s chest as Jonathan continues to frown at the wall, resisting the urge to kick Edward’s tailor away as she measures his leg, “this would look lovely on you.”

37 - Technology -

“I have just unveiled to you a technological marvel in the form of robots that understand and follow the concept of religion, in which they view not only me as their God, but you as their respective Jesus (obviously, without the father/son connection between us), in order to ensure that they will carry out our and only our orders, and all you can manage to reply with is ‘Hmm,’,” Edward rants, then turns to his group of Riddlerbots, “which proves to me, yet again, that my genius is wasted in this household.”

38 - Gift -

“Jonathan Crane of Earth, you have the ability to instill great fear,” Edward says, then makes a whooshing sound effect with his lips as he guides the replica, glow-in-the-dark Sinestro Corps ring onto Jonathan’s middle finger, “welcome to the Sinestro Corps - and happy anniversary, from your beloved Edward.”

39 - Smile -

The smile stretches thin and wide across his lover’s face, and Edward goes scrambling for his gun because he knows it is not Jonathan who smiles like that.

40 - Innocence -

Selina’s shoulders shake with oncoming laughter at Jonathan’s confusion then creeping realisation over the purpose of the vibrating, question mark-shaped item in his hand, then said laughter becomes impossible to hold back when Edward pokes his head into the room and says, “Oh, Jon, why’re you holding one of my vibrators?”

41 - Completion -

They would never say the other completed them (not without a great deal of sarcasm), but they have definitely brought...something to each other’s life that they would rather not do without.

42 - Clouds -

Edward has never thought much of fear toxin, but seeing the orange gas spread through Gotham’s streets on Halloween night only has him feeling elated at his lover’s success, and so he laughs behind his gas mask.

43 - Sky -

Their spot - atop the building that they had talked about pushing each other off of - quickly becomes one of Edward’s favourite places to be with Jonathan, despite the cold, for there is nothing up there but the air, the sky, and them.

44 - Heaven -

No such thing awaits them, even if they did believe, with all the things they’d done in their lives, but what they have now, together on earth, is enough for either.

45 - Hell -

“Ain’t nothin’ of interest down there; Scarecrow and I said a long time ago we’d never go back,” Jonathan says stiffly during one of the few conversations he and Edward have about Arlen, “an’ I have yet ta think of a reason we’d want to.”

46 - Sun -

Edward awakens early, Jonathan’s arm around his waist and nose pressed into his neck, and watches the light grow gradually behind their curtains, letting the minutes tick by, then he smiles lazily as he feels Jonathan begin to stir behind him.

47 - Moon -

A gap in their curtains lets the moonlight peek within, bathing Edward’s creamy skin and making it practically glow in a display of ethereal elegance, and Jonathan can’t seem to help but lean over and kiss the question mark tattoo on his bare shoulder blade as Edward continues to sleep.

48 - Waves -

“Jonathan Crane,” Edward calls from where he stands ankle-deep in the ocean, hands on his hips, “I did not whisk you off to Hawaii to watch you sit on your ass all day, so get out of that chair and join me in the water this instant.”

49 - Hair -

It might be because of his affinity for older men, but honestly, Edward loves the dashes of grey amongst Jonathan’s (already much-loved) ginger hair.

50 - Supernova -

The fuse had been lit when Edward had returned home to find his living room in tatters, Query and Echo injured and Jonathan missing; it had burned considerably when he found out the accomplices had had his Jonathan shot, but it had eventually run out when Jonathan’s fate had been revealed to him, and so nobody should have been surprised when Edward finally exploded.