#self indulgent tma talk

[hauntedhotel]

Kinda obsessed with the difference between Martin's perspective during the apocalypse and Jon’s.

It's the difference between "I know you might hate me right now" and "I love you, I always will, and I know you love me"

It's the difference between Jon not being able to trust anyone, not even himself, but never for a second doubting that Martin loves him and Martin never being sure Jon’s feelings for him won't change.

It's the difference between Jon not always being loved perfectly and Martin having never been loved before.

It's Jon spending the entire apocalypse telling every monster they come across that Martin is his boyfriend, have you met Martin, this is his boyfriend Martin, his anchor, his last tie to humanity, his reason to still be hoping for a better ending. It's Martin telling his Lonely-self that if it comes down to it he'll ask Jon to destroy him and not being sure whether Jon will say no.

Even the jealousy, which is slightly played for laughs, still comes down to Jon being like "aw my boyfriend's getting all possessive 🥰" whereas deep down Martin has never let go of the idea that under different circumstances Jon could do better.

They're more emotionally open with each other during the apocalypse than they are for the years leading up to it, and they still don't stop misunderstanding each other.

[fate-defiant]

There is a Duckling,, LOOSE in the archives

[iphijaania]

*rubs my grubby little ethnic hands all over the magnus archives before the 31st*

[trans-jon-rights]

Okay it's dumb self indulgent tma au time

What if. Jon goes back in time after MAG 200. But.

He's a cat. And he just looks like That :

(tiny phone doodle)

And he is there for the whole show, trying to do things differently with very little powers and zero ability to talk

[unending-vigil]

give me your most self-indulgent tma headcanon (that you feel comfortable sharing). doesn't matter what or who it's about, that's up to you

hello nem. i finally get to your ask. so, it's not a headcanon, but close enough because i made it all up. in my head. and as such it's very self-indulgent, clearly

I'm Going To Talk About Clara Von Closen (i like clara better than carla so. that's the name i use for her even though she's carla in 127)

putting this under the cut because it's practically a fucking essay

we get... 5 pieces of information about her, shall we say

either she or albrecht (or both) are infertile, as they cannot have a child of their own

she feels something parental towards their nephew

she doesn't want to go out and explore the spooky tomb with albrecht

she plays the pianoforte excellently, but, according to albrecht, does not sing very well

she died of fever a few years before albrecht

now, i believe someone had introduced to me the idea of Web!Clara before I started thinking about her properly, and this influenced how I fleshed out those things. namely, the powerlessness she had—because surely being a woman in the cultural context of the regency era must feel like being a terribly powerless puppet. in what other ways does she feel powerless?

here's where I talk about the characterisation I got for her based on the above:

i started with the way she, reportedly, cannot sing well, but can play the pianoforte excellently. so she's got musical inclinations. i begin to wonder if her singing voice really is terrible, or if albrecht personally just does not like it. perhaps she's got a deep voice. i begin to wonder if perhaps she wanted to be a singer in some capacity when she was a child, and had her dreams shattered by something entirely outside of her control. and she threw herself at learning to play a variety instruments with more passion than before, because this she can control, her body will bend to her whims and she will wring the music that nobody wanted to hear from her throat out of the strings of objects, instead.

and then the fact that one of them is infertile. i consider the way I've given her a craving for control, and i think that if it were just albrecht, she would've found a way to get pregnant, and she would've told him that it was his. so that's another thing out of her control, another thing taken from her by her body. she wanted a child, wanted to shape and mould and watch them grow. and she didn't get that.

it was at this point in characterising clara that I go oh, have I made her intersex by accident? a singing voice perhaps more mannish than is acceptable for her, infertility... so i roll with it. alright. Clara is intersex. another thing out of her control, something that means others might consider her undesirable if she's not careful. she wouldn't have understood why her body changed differently to other girls, but she would've known, intimately, to keep it secret. she learns to do what it takes to keep herself safe.

her secrets have secrets. it starts with her body, but it's a few years, at most, that that's her only secret to keep. does she love albrecht, or is she just fond of him and glad he doesn't pry too hard? is she manipulating him in order to exert control over her life, more than any woman in this time should have? (does she even like men? one more thing to hide, to never tell.)

so—her relationship with Wilhelm, their nephew. "Myself and Clara have since made every effort to provide him with guidance and such affection as he may have lost." he was orphaned at 14, his mother having died in childbirth and his father passing on for unstated reasons.

this is almost as good as a child of her own. he's an orphan, so she's not competing with anyone, and while she may not have gotten to help mould him as thoroughly as she would have a child born to her, she at least avoids the more messy stages of childhood. and adolescents are very, very malleable. what she wants is to pass on all she has, and while she may not necessarily get that, she nevertheless gets something of the sort.

i won't really touch on not really wanting to explore the spooky tomb. i think this is just that she has common sense, frankly. and maybe she has a little of that eye curiosity—blackmail is the simplest way of ensuring someone keeps your secret, after all, and to get that, some investigating is required. maybe she knows that the artefacts of the tomb won't kill albrecht by themselves, and she wants to see what will happen to him.

dying of fever could just be dying of fever. or, well, flies get caught in spiders' webs, don't they? perhaps a corruption avatar got caught in her manipulations and didn't care for it much... enough to strike her down. (and maybe she comforts herself by saying it's all part of a bigger plan. it's surely quite the reassurance, when so much hurts your own plans, out of your control)

here's where i talk about her relationship with the others in smirke's band:

this is something i haven't concretely put down nearly as much for, but i think she's... peripherally aware of their discussions, but of course they're not going to include a woman (love period-typical misogyny /s) and those two that might particularly object to leaving her out... well, it's only an objection in principle. neither like her much, and neither want to be outed as trans. further, while albrecht does try to explain if clara asks directly, he's hesitant to share in full and not the best at explanations besides

clara is definitely very aware that her husband is terribly, terribly smitten with all of his little friends. which is fine. she may not be particularly fond of jonah, the one who's both ringleader and most struggling in society, but they've spoken a few times. he's nice enough, when he's not asking who knows of her secrets, and when she's not having to threaten to expose his in turn.

she most certainly knows doctor jonathan fanshawe better than albrecht does, though. she discovered that he's transgender, and, well... it was perhaps a little shitty of her, but she threatened to out him if he breathed a word of the ways her body might be different to other women's, and especially to her husband (he might have noted some differences, but he's seen more men naked than women. he's easily persuaded that there's nothing "wrong" with clara). an easily blackmailable doctor is a good doctor, for a woman with secrets to keep.

and now i get into rarepair/crackship territory. welcome to skynet.

so. Simon Fairchild, who I will still refer to as Simon for clarity's sake despite not using this name at the time. consider: Simon Fairchild, genderfluid trans woman (sorry if I'm getting it Wrong mach). clara von closen, lesbian who's never actually gotten to be with a woman but just admires from afar.

simon, on the periphery of smirke's band, as clara is, gets to know her. they become close enough that it's improper, but albrecht isn't paying enough attention to know, too caught up in the other men. clara is curious as to why she's attracted to what she assumes is a man, and simon is smitten with this tall beautiful woman.

includes a very "Oh, so that explains it!" moment when simon explains, and simon being Very Very Gaslightable, to the utter delight of clara. her silly rabbit

snd. i am too tired to elaborate further I think so just have the post. Clara 👍 my favourite ruthless manipulative loveless lesbian who also does have a deeply soft side for kids and for her lame-ass gf

[pansyfilia]

welcome to my blog!!

COMMS ARE NOW... OPEN!

you can call me pansy or rina (she/her)

fandom list

greek mythology/epic the musical (save me penelope save me)

the marauders

dungeon meshi my beloveds

tma (currently on s2 so NO SPOILERS

i have like one thg post so yk... it was for an au who am i kidding

ON A NOTE!!!! PLEASE DO TALK TO ME, MESSAGE ME, @ ME IF YOU WANT. WE DON'T NEED TO BE MOOTS TO INTERACT OR ANYTHING

my ao3 is @green_starss, where i have a few odypen fics brewing

and ive got a bit of an organising system which is pretty ridiculous soooo

"the little white maggot tag" is just generally rosier twins/ pandora/ evan, whatever really

"the wild hyena at the door tag" is all things barty crouch jr, gay twink and mcr enjoyer

"the scarlet fox tag" is the woman, the MILF, the legend lily evans (she ate btw)

"the magician's rabbit tag" is mary macdonald <333333

"my weaver wife" is PENELOPE OF SPARTA yes i do know she is ody's wife and i would never dream of taking her from him (im stealing her from him respectfully as we speak)

"the green mamba that bites" is dorcas meadowes (we love a mean queen)

"the black cat that haunts" is regulus black, wet dog man and also brother's best friend survivor

"the lovegood moths tag" is essentially the lovegood family, pandora, xeno and luna

"the island and his freshwater pearl" is just odypen, pretty much the only straight pairing on here

" the two rabid beasts" is bartylily (essentially emo/preppy at core)

"the rotting hyena tag" is rosekiller (tee hee)

"the bunny corpse" is my marydora stuff

"pansy's aus" is what it says on the can

"ask pansy anything" basic comprehension skills yall

"pansy rambles" essentially the same vein, see above, etc

I think???? i have an au list somewhere in here so ill put it on here as well

odyssey thg au, where ody and polites go into a war-torn arena and only one returns home (alr a wip)

odyssey modern au, where ody is enlisted in the war and needs to get OUT. dio actually pops in and checks in on him from time to time and calypso is just a super weird flight attendant

odyssey lotr au, following the whole arawen/odypen parallels that have me gripped atm (and also penelopes half divine side as well because the POTENTIAL aghh) jsyk legolas and gimli are perimedes and elpenor :))))))

idk why but like odyssey roleswap au, where eury and ody stay at home while their wives are away on pilgrimage or wtv the equiv is in ancient greece and circe and calypso r just super hot evil minor gods. OMG WAIT tiresias is the same but its his cursed-by-hera woman form (long story, will explain in a later post)

iliad/odyssey college au where theyre all just here and there and also everyone who dies either gets sent away or yk runs away from the shitty ass ilium university (helen is the art major queen and calypso stalks ody which we love/hate)

THE ILIAD/ODYSSEY RENAISSANCE COURT AU which isnt realy plot,,, its just fluff and fake dating and secret dating and also lady thetis who hates her sons prince consort patroclus and theres rlly just a lot of love and drama

[self-indulgent one comin in hot] single parent ody with calypso's kids nausithous and nausinous who has penelope as his kids' babysitter (not canon timeline-complicit bc who needs that shitfaced angst blast)

and ofc a hogwarts au just for funzies

just tag me on either ao3 or on here if u use these!

anyways,,, have fun! pls enjoy my half-asleep crazes

[atlas-of-galaxies]

I'm not sure if you're still doing anything with this but, if you are, could you please tell us about your TMA/YTTD AU? The art was really good and I love the media involved!

ohhh thank you so much! that crossover is still so near and dear to my heart, I'm so glad people enjoyed my self-indulgence.

I've talked about my reasoning in the past, as well as discussion of what other characters might fit what in my tma entities tag, so definitely take a look at that if you haven't already!

I'm seeing now that i never talked about my reasoning for Kanna, Q-taro, and Mishima, so if I may indulge myself further ...

Kanna as the Lonely

a bit of an obvious one - she's defined from the moment we meet her by her loss and the absence of her sister. her position in the group as a whole is also weakened by her isolation with Shin - even if it seems from the outside he's manipulating her, that separation makes it a little hard for Sara to trust her at times ...

she's absolutely someone who's strengthened by her bond with others tho, as we see in 3-1 when she actually gets to work with everyone. it's just up to us whether she gets there or not.

Q-taro as the Buried

ohhh I'm so sorry but I'm so proud of this one. first of all - he literally dies in a coffin. what I really enjoy about this assignment is the whole idea of being trapped tho.

Q-taro constantly feels trapped in his life, and takes big risks to get himself out of those situations - he felt trapped in the hospital, and he was so desperate to get out of the Death Game that he stabs everyone else in the back to do it.

Mishima as the Eye

this is definitely moreso related to his AI (haha. get it.), considering he gets more of an omniscient view of the Death Game proceedings.

he's also a bit of a narrative sacrifice, allowing the other participants to learn about the inner workings of the Death Game ... idk. this one's a bit abstract but I think it fits, especially considering that his death only happens because of a lack of prior knowledge.

and uhhh how about dummies for a bonus round!

Ranmaru as the Corruption - he's sooo toxic it's not even funny. maybe I'll still draw this someday, I have a fun composition in mind.

Mai as the Hunt - she's the one who's most forward about the game Midori puts them all up to. she actually betrays Q-taro for her own survival, though he's far too kind to let that be the end for her.

Hinako as the Stranger - do I have to explain her. do I have to

Hayasaka as the Buried - guy's stuck in a dead-end job doing morally questionable work for an all-powerful company ... guy's as buried as it gets.

Kurumada - I used to have him as the Flesh for kinda superficial reasons but since his minisode I feel like he may also be Hunt tbh ... it's all about the "strong eat weak" mindset, after all.

Anzu - honestlyyy I have the weakest vision for her. I'm not really. a fan. of her minisode so I'm not taking much inspiration from it. I enjoy the Vast tho for her just cuz that's always a fun idea with performers and such. you could always go Stranger for clowns but I feel like that doesn't fit her personality much

[go-to-the-mirror]

I know I said I wasn't going to post another TMA fic, but I've been getting into it a bit more, so here goes. It's a vampire AU! It's not complete, but I have been working on it on and off. I never thought i'd actually finish it enough to post, but here's a first bit :3

---

Jon hates job interviews, especially ones he’s not qualified for. But he wasn’t qualified for research, either, with a degree in literature, so it can’t hurt to try. Besides, if he doesn’t get the job, he might get the assistant archivist position, learn a few things. All in all, it’s going to be good for him.

His anxiety is not convinced.

“Mr. Sims?” calls Mr. Bouchard, leaning out of his office. Jon stands up and takes a deep breath. The worst he can do is say no.

Mr. Bouchard ushers Jon into his office, closing the door behind him, and taking a seat in his chair. Jon sits in the other, and tries his best not to look as anxious as he feels.

“So, tell me, why do you think you are the right fit for this job?”

Jon recites his rehearsed speech about how he’s committed to the preservation of documents, deemed both important and not, about the skills he learned in research, his own interest in anthropological research into the supernatural and his disappointment in the state of the archives disorganisation. It’s convincing, he’ll say so himself, and as he talks, he thinks he can see Elias warm up to him.

Hello, Jon. Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself. I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.

Now, shall we turn the page and try again?

Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

Statement begins.

I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.

Why does a man seek to destroy the world?

It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my god. The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.

It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, John, the freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction in that choice.

I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.

I believe there are far more people in this world that would take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.

Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott, and the rest – to discuss and hypothesize on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner, I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear.

But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of our patrons.

I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.

At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be an inevitable transformation was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment soon became a race.

Beyond that, I was getting older, and mortality began to weigh more heavily on my mind. How much in this world is done because we fear death, the last and greatest terror?

I convinced Smirke to work on Millbank, leading him to design it as a temple to all the Fears in equilibrium, such that my own modifications to the design of the Panopticon went… unremarked.

It. Took. Years, for the dread of the prisoners to fully suffuse the place, and I was an old man before I made my first attempt at the Watcher’s Crown, sat in the center of that colossal eye, the great ring of cells encircling me like a coronet.

It was… flawed, of course, as all Smirke’s rituals were, and none of the inmates survived as the power I attempted to harness shook the building almost to pieces, and the murky swamp upon which the prison was built consumed it.

But it left me a gift: For sat in that watchtower, I could see everything I turned my mind to.

It was a dizzying power, and one I discovered I maintained even as I found vessels to extend my life. Of course, I had to make sure the location was kept under my control while I worked on revising my plans, and so I moved the organization I had founded to assist in my research down to London, and the Institute as you know it was born.

I’ll not bore you with details of my bodies and failures through those intervening years. Suffice to say I kept busy, both planning my own next attempt, and doing my best to stymie those others who tried versions of their own.

Surely my interpretation of the Watcher’s Crown had been incomplete; there had been some element of the ritual I had overlooked.

It was not until I met Gertrude Robinson that things began to really come into focus.

You see, the role of Archivist has been part of the Beholding for as far back as my research can go. This isn’t uncommon for the Powers; most of the beliefs around them are guesswork and fallible human interpretation, but there are certain throughlines and consistencies that can be spotted, regardless of the trappings.

But Gertrude was unlike any other Archivist. She simply did not care about compiling experiences or collecting the fears of others. She was driven to stop those who served the Powers.

More than once I thought she must secretly be of the Hunt – but there was never that sick joy in her, that thrill of predator and prey. She had simply decided that this was her position in life, and went about it with a practicality that even I found disconcerting at times.

I once asked her what drove her, what had started her down that path. She told me the Desolation had killed her cat.

I don’t know if she was joking, and, to be honest, I could never bring myself to look into her mind and find out for sure.

In any case, Gertrude’s ruthless efficiency in derailing and collapsing rituals threw into stark relief a question that had been bothering me for almost a hundred and fifty years: In the whole span of humanity, why had nobody ever succeeded?

Perhaps there were a long line of Gertrude Robinsons throughout history, but I found that hard to credit. Could it be, then, that there was something in the very concept of the rituals that meant they couldn’t succeed?

She was clearly having similar thoughts in that last year, all of which culminated with the People’s Church.

When I saw that she was making no preparations whatsoever to stop it, I realized she was putting into practice a theory, and one she couldn’t afford to be wrong. She was going to wait, and see if the unopposed ritual succeeded, or if it collapsed under its own strain as mine had all those years ago.

Knowing Gertrude, I’m sure she had a backup plan if she had miscalculated – but she had not. The ritual failed. And all at once, I realized what had to be done.

You see, the thing about the Fears is that they can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?

Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down.

To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down.

Every ritual tied itself so closely to a single power as to render itself impossible. They could bring their patron close, but never sever it from the others, and eventually it would be violently pulled back into the place next to reality where they dwell.

The solution, then, is simple: A new ritual must be devised which will bring through all the Powers at once. All fourteen, as I had hoped I could complete it before any new powers such as Extinction were able to fully emerge. All under the Eye’s auspices, of course. We mustn’t forget our roots.

And there was only one being that could possibly serve as a lynchpin for this new ritual: The Archivist. A position that had so recently become vacant, thanks to Gertrude’s ill-timed retirement plans.

Because the thing about the Archivist is that – well, it’s a bit of a misnomer.

It might, perhaps, be better named: The Archive.

Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, John. You are a record of fear, both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you.

You are a living chronicle of terror.

Perhaps, then, if I could find an Archivist and have each Power mark them, have them confront each one and each in turn instill in them a powerful and acute fear for their life, they could be turned into a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom.

Do you see where I’m going, John?

It does tickle me, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck.

I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but My God, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was.

Of course, I had to bide my time, get a measure of you before I began to push, learn how you worked – So I decided I would wait until something came for you, and see how you reacted. Attacks upon the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and, while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be.

I reasoned if you couldn’t survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen. So, when Jane Prentiss attacked, I watched eagerly, one hand on the gas release from the start.

You acquitted yourself well enough, so I decided to see how far you would get, though I waited until the worms were in you before I pulled the lever. I needed to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones.

The discovery that one of the Stranger’s minions had infiltrated the Institute in the aftermath was certainly a pleasant bonus. Even if that sliver of paranoia, that vague wrongness you couldn’t quite place wouldn’t count as a mark, it was only a matter of time before it confronted you in a far more direct and affecting matter.

Admittedly, given the advent of the Unknowing, I needn’t have bothered. But what’s the old saying about hindsight?

More important to me was Sasha’s encounter with the Distortion. If it had taken an interest, then I very much wanted it to cross your path.

So I found one of its current victims and convinced her to make a statement.

Poor Helen. I actually had to put her in a taxi myself, she was getting so lost in those narrow London side streets.

It worked, though.

Between the stabbing and at least two desperate flights into its doors – you’re marked very deeply by the Spiral.

Jurgen Leitner was a surprise, of course, and I was forced to improvise. I had no idea how much Gertrude would have told him, and he could very easily have derailed everything if you learned too much too fast.

I… justified it to myself saying I was going to have to send you out into the world anyway, if you were to encounter more of the Powers, but I can’t honestly pretend it wasn’t a… rather rash move.

Still. I’d requested Detective Tonner be assigned to the case when they found Gertrude’s body in the hope that having a Hunter in the mix would eventually lead to a confrontation, and setting you up as a killer certainly hastened that.

Then it was just a matter of feeding you statements to lead you to a few Avatars I thought were likely to harm you – but probably would stop short of actually killing you.

Jude served her purpose exactly as I had hoped, as did our dearly departed Mr. Crew, marking you for the Desolation and the Vast.

Honestly, I had – nothing to do with Melanie and her Slaughter adventure, but when I saw the situation, I made sure to trap her here, so when her rage bubbled over you would be right there, a ready target.

I didn’t foresee the mark coming from surgery gone wrong, but it was a very pleasant surprise.

The Unknowing was a distraction, but not an unwelcome one. For this to work, you needed more than just the marks; you needed power. And that was something the Unknowing served to test, though it posed no actual danger in the grand scheme of things.

And it did serve another purpose, of course. It inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate. If I tried too early, you’d just die. Too late, and you might be powerful enough to see the attempt coming, and maybe even understand why.

As it was, it was just right, and once again, you came through with flying colours.

By this point, your abilities were coming along in leaps and bounds, and I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you Knowing something you shouldn't.

I had initially planned to go into hiding, but when your colleagues surprised me with the police, well. It was simple enough to cut a deal.

All that remained, then, were the Dark, the Flesh, the Buried, and the Lonely.

I was a little put out when that idiot Jared Hopworth misinterpreted my letters and attacked the Institute too soon, before you were even out of the hospital, but then – Ho, you should have see my face when you voluntarily went to him.

I couldn’t see what happened in there, of course, but given how you came out, I’m very sure it counts as a mark.

I suspected the coffin might turn up again, and once it did, it was simply a matter of getting any, uh… restraining factors you might have had flying off on a wild goose chase, and waiting.

Honestly, Detective Tonner has been proving invaluable through this process. I’d been racking my brains for months about what I could use to lure you in.

And, of course, I knew the Dark Sun was just sitting there waiting. So when it came time, I just whipped up another apocalypse and sent you on your merry way.

Then all that remained was the Lonely.

Poor Peter. He really should have left well enough alone. Or just done what I’d asked in the first place.

Ah well. He knew what I was attempting, and was very unwilling to cooperate until I made him a little wager about Martin.

Of course, he had no way of knowing that, in addition to setting you up for the final mark, he was giving you all the tools you needed to escape from it.

How is Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that.

And there, I think, we are brought just about up to date. I have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane, but past here lies only impatience.

You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked. The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you, and the time of our victory is here.

Don’t worry, John. You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made.

Now, repeat after me.

You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.

Come to us in your wholeness.

Come to us in your perfection.

Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies!

Come to us.

I – OPEN – THE DOOR!

[annabelle--cane]

real talk though a lot of cultural headcanons i saw for tma characters got me interested in learning more about a ton of different cultural traditions. it was really cool!

I am always in favor of people being self indulgent and projecting onto characters like that for fun and profit, I've also learned about different psych disorders and disabilities via people talking about headcanons, it's a good time

[teddyqd]

20 Questions for Writers

eeee thanks for the tag @fuckyeahfang!! <3 i'm gonna tag @maraschinomerry if u wanna (no pressure tho!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 31! Dang I've been writing fic for a second and a half huh (Note: one of these fics is not mine lol -- I posted it for a friend without AO3)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 77,138 -- waough

3. What fandoms do you write for? Whatever's rotting my brain most at the moment -- I had a long streak of Critical Role, which went into TMA, and I have a feeling Dunmeshi might get a few fics by the time it's done with me; also original stuff but I don't post that

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My Lightbringer - 4,891 Hits, Critical Role

[incoming communication] - 3,018 Hits, Lifeline

little blue pills - 2,919 Hits, The Magnus Archives

The Hands-On Approach To Teaching Dunamantic Spells: A Guide by Essek Thelyss (Results may vary) - 2,271 Hits, Critical Role

Shitty Hair - 1,190 Hits, My Hero Academia

5. Do you respond to comments? I try, I really do, but sometimes I'll see one and be like "I'll reply to that later!" and then I don't and then it's been 2 years and I feel bad for replying so late that I just don't 😭 But I do read and appreciate them all I prommy

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? this would require me to finish fics EVER lmao... but seriously probably (Don't) Look Away. Do NOT read this if you haven't played Outer Wilds, but DO go and play Outer Wilds, and THEN read this.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Probably [incoming communication]? It's definitely the ending I'm most proud of -- it's very self indulgent, but I'm fond of it :"

8. Do you get hate on fics? nah people tend to be chill

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Sometimes, but not often, and I post it even less often. I prefer reading it to writing it, but I do like tossing around ideas I'll never write about the characters' weird and intriguing kinks lmao

10. Do you write crossovers? I don't tend to, unless they're incredibly funny to me. Reading-wise, crossovers just annoy me because there's 2x the chances for mischaracterisation/misunderstanding of the setting(s), but sometimes a really good one can scratch my brain.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? not to my knowledge!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not into another language, but I have had a podfic made of Cabin Fever -- which was great since it was a scriptfic anyway! It's really well made, go give it a listen!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Quite a few! Not in a while, but it's fun to work with someone whose brain ticks in synch with mine about a character or ship. I actually started dating my current partner in part because we were talking about a fic we wanted to write together! We'll get to it one day, and get sooo much hate about it it's quite fucked up LMAO

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? MAN. YOU CAN'T ASK ME THIS. it's like picking children. uhhh Shadowgast (Critical Role) is up there for All Timers but they are def not the only one. Probably the one I've thought most about, but now I'm thinking about Blupjeans (TAZ)... JMart.... augh. i love when people love each other despite the very terrible consequences

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? little blue pills! It's a fun concept -- I love fucking with the very rubbish trope of soulmate AUs and making them Weird and Queer, but I am not great at finishing projects and I have also cooled slightly on TMA since I started it.

16. What are your writing strengths? big emotions! being purple prose but like good about it! Weird People.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? finishing things, plotting, writing convincing dialogue -- yknow, just little things (🥲)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? It can be done well, but it needs to be considered deeply. Also, used sparingly. I like throwing in terms of endearment in other languages, but when it's whole conversations, it's not fun to be checking google translate/the AN every five seconds.

19. First fandom you wrote for? the first one that's still up? Layton Brothers! the first ever? harry potter 😔

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? i hate favourite questions i hate favourite questions uHHHHHH You Were My Conscience. fucked up monster lovers trying to moralise their way out of being responsible for a man's mental breakdown <3

thanks again for the tag sunny i love u mwah

[magnetarmadda]

✨️ for the writing asks!

✨What’s a fic you’ve posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

Oh this is a good one! I really do write fic mostly for myself--I write what I want to see, and I’m usually quite happy when just a few people find and enjoy it, because it is nice for other people to read and have fun with it, too, but I have lots of ideas that I don’t even know if other people will want to read. And the fics that are more self-indulgent tend to not have as big of an audience

so, okay, after a lot of thinking, I'm going to go with my fic The Classroom Cat, which is The Magnus Archives post-canon somewhere, Jon and Martin adopt a cat (who Martin names Sasha), and she goes to class with Jon. This is partly very selfish lol, because @jonsimsandcats day is today (April 29) and I’m posting a sequel to this fic later today, so I wanted the chance to talk about it a bit beforehand lol (and whenever I talk about this fic, a shoutout to @artificialdaydreamer is always 100% necessary, because we talk about Sasha!cat all the time, and I have so so so many ideas because of these conversations, Elian oh my god I'm going to be writing about Sasha cat for years)

(this exercise also turned into a bit of a surprise for me, because I don’t look at my ao3 stats very often, and a fic I didn’t think was very popular apparently has over 2k hits, which is just wild to me lol, I definitely think of myself as a small author in the TMA fandom but apparently some of my fics are more widely read than I realized)

Feel free to look at the list and send me an ask!!

[charlie-artlie]

actually, on that note, here’s a quick question

this is really self indulgent 😅 but it will actually help me prioritize

[princess-of-purple-prose]

🗣️ and 📝? 👀 for wip ask game

Hi Nik hello Nik!!! (To everyone else, I will not be taking more asks from this game, ty!!)

🗣️Talk about your favourite WIP

Synecdoche, baby!!!! YES we have been very on-and-off recently YES I have been one chapter from finishing it for what's approaching it for a year YES SHE IS STILL MY FAVORITE!!! It's my tma s5 what-if au which I literally started out of pure tooth-rotting self indulgence and I'm still not sure how it turned into my longest, longest-running, and favorite piece ever!!! It explores a "what if starting the apocalypse turned Jon into something Other," which I'd really thought would be a more popular s5 au but haven't seen too much of in the style that I'm doing it? But the kicker is that the Archivist is still literally just A Guy and now Martin has to deal with soul-shattering grief on top of the apocalypse's bullshit ❤

📝Share a snippet of an unposted WIP, with or without context.

“Shut up,” Kim Dokja says. He doesn’t even begin to try to hide the affection oozing out from his chest into his voice, helpless and dripping. Han Sooyoung nearly flinches.

Doksoo... doksoo I love youuu... This is from that fic which I cannot figure out a title for about the two of them getting some well-deserved rest together 🥰🥰🥰

[starry-teacup]

An entirely indulgent statement I wrote for fun. Me and my friend have a little self insert into the tma world that takes place at the Usher Foundation, and is therefore technically canon compliant. This is one of the statements I wrote for it. It’s below the cut if you want to read it.

TRIGGER WARNING// Insanity, character death, suicide, mental illness, I guess you could call a bit of it gaslighting???

[CLICK]

CHARLIE (ARCHIVAL ASSISTANT)

Statement #0190411, given by one Zoë McKendrick, concerning a trip to the museum with her cousin. Recorded by Charlotte Renhan, archival assistant to Daniel Rodrey, the head archivist. Originally given at the Magnus Institute, London, and currently on loan by its sister organization, the Usher Foundation. Statement begins.

{Statement}

Alright, first of all, I swear to God this isn’t a hazing. I know, I know how it looks. A teenager dressed in scene walks into a well established academic place that takes the statement of any random person off the street. It’s obviously a prank. Except that’s not what’s happening. I promise. I need you guys to believe me. God, I just need someone to believe me, anyone! I’m not crazy. I know I’m not. No matter what people say, no matter what those damned tapes show, I am not a liar, I am not just a kid with a hyperactive imagination, and I am not insane. I refuse to believe I am. That’s how it gets you. That’s how it got Amanda. And I refuse to be next. I won’t be next, do you hear me? I am not just a thing for them to take.

God, I’m rambling. I’m sorry, I’m not in the best state of mind right now. Even though a couple weeks have passed, this feeling still won’t go away. I can’t stop seeing the colors- they fill the space behind my eyes whenever I close them, and if I go too long without blinking to avoid it, they bleed into my vision like ink stains on a carpet. I wasn’t built to see those colors. No one was. But I saw them, and now they won’t leave me alone, and they make me feel like I’m going in-

No. I can’t say that. I won’t. 

[sighs]

This is probably making zero sense to you. I need to back up. I live in Bournemouth. It’s mostly a resort and vacation town, but there are a couple of normal neighborhoods if you squint really hard and ignore all of the rich tourists. I live in Springbourne. A lot of families live there, because there are a lot of schools nearby. 

The schools are all fine, I guess, but they’re a bit lacking in the field trip department. All of the interesting places in the area are either casinos, resorts, or ridiculously overcharged shops because of all of the senators vacationing there. There’s one exception, though. In the middle of all of those fancy hotels is an old Victorian mansion that somebody turned into a museum. It’s pretty much the only educational location within a two hour radius. 

Because of this, pretty much every field trip from year 1 to year 13 goes to that weird mansion. It’s called the Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, and it was interesting enough the first two or three visits, but it got old fast. It mostly houses old portraits and statues with muted hues and sensible poses. It never gets new art, and it never renovates. I have seen every exhibit what feels like hundreds of times, and I know that place like the back of my hand.

This summer, my cousin Amanda was coming to stay with us. She’s from the States, so she has the summer off, and my parents said it was okay if she lived with us for a couple weeks even though I still had school. She’s about my age, maybe a year or two older, so my mum and dad assumed we’d instantly bond and start painting each other’s nails or braiding each other’s hair or something. I think my parents might’ve hoped she’d be a good influence on me, maybe get me to wear a little less black. And it’s not like we hated each other or anything, we just …didn’t really talk. We’d never been close, and neither of us particularly felt like building that relationship now. 

My mum blamed it on me. Said I was being antisocial or something. She suggested that I show Amanda around Bournemouth, as some sort of bonding activity. I figured I might as well show her the old museum. There was nothing much else to show, not anything that I could afford.  My dad agreed to take us, and we were awkwardly silent most of the way there. Amanda had her headphones in, and I decided I didn’t have the energy to try and pretend we were friends, so I took out my phone and scrolled on my Tumblr feed.

When we arrived, something felt…different. There was something off about the place that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. If anyone who hadn’t been raised on this museum had seen it, they would have had no idea what I was talking about. But I had seen this place a thousand times, and there was something about it that just felt wrong. Like the saturation had been turned up zero point four notches, and all the angles had been made one degree sharper. It was unsettling- I could’ve sworn it wasn’t like this last time I was here. But a little voice was whispering in the back of my head that I was remembering it wrong, it had always been like this, and why would I even think it had changed?

I shook off my unease and figured I must have misremembered. When we went into the museum, the place was almost deserted. There was barely anyone there outside of the security guards. That wasn’t wholly unusual, though. Most people who came to Bournemouth didn’t come for the museums. I let Amanda take the lead. She seemed to enjoy wandering around, and I had seen everything this place had to offer.

Almost everything that this place had to offer. But as we went down a familiar hallway, it branched suddenly to the left where it should have opened into the Greco-Roman exhibit. I felt the knowledge that that turn should not have been there like a stone in the pit of my stomach- it was impossible. It didn’t make sense. The blank wall in front of me seemed to mock me for my denial. I couldn’t help but think that if that wall had a mouth, it would be laughing at me for trying to deny the existence of what was so clearly in front of my face. 

I guess I might be wrong. I might be filling spaces of memory with what I know now, coloring it in with my current dread. But no, I don’t think that’s it. I saw Amanda hesitate uneasily before she continued on, and I saw undiguised fear in her eyes as she decided to walk forward. That’s how wrong that wall was- Amanda had never been here before, and yet she could still tell- this wasn’t supposed to be here. But she walked onward anyways, and I wasn’t about to tell her that I was scared of a turn in a hallway, so I followed nervously behind. 

At the end of this new hallway was a room. It was small and dimly lit, and there weren’t any windows. If this building used to be a mansion, then this had definitely been a closet. On the wall opposite us was a sketch on a canvas. The lines were so sharp that I marveled that the canvas wasn’t cut by them. I tried to figure out what it was a sketch of. It seemed like I was missing something obvious- like it was a word on the tip of my tongue, like I almost had it. I stared at the framed drawing, trying to see what it was depicting- all the lines twisted and bent and seemed to make a picture, but every time I thought I made out what it was a drawing of, I realized that the lines kept going on ever so slightly past where I thought they had ended. It was hypnotic- I couldn’t tear my eyes away, couldn’t stop trying to see what the art was showing, even though it made my eyes ring and my ears hear stars. In retrospect, I think those lines went on forever. I think I could have stared and stared and stared, and I never would have figured out what it meant. It didn’t have a meaning- but it beckoned people to try and spend their life finding it anyway.

I don’t know how long I stared at it- it felt like decades, a lifetime, trying to interpret something that didn’t make sense- that couldn’t make sense. But I know my reverie was broken when Amanda began to walk towards the canvas. She had seen something I had been too absorbed in the colors and lines to notice- the painting was hung up wrong. The whole thing was tilted 45 degrees to the left. Amanda lifted her arms up slowly and shakily, and gently placed them on the edges of the frame. For a moment, time was frozen, Amanda’s hands trembling on the edges of the painting while I stared. 

In one swift and steady motion, Amanda righted the sketch.

Immediately I was released from the spell. I turned to run out the door- but it was gone. There was simply another wall there taunting me where the exit used to be. 

Wait, what do I mean, used to be? No, there was never an exit there. It had always been a wall. I turned back to Amanda and the painting. The lines of graphite had finally cut clean through the canvas, shredding it. Nothing changed about the sketch. No colors appeared, strange and acidic and not meant for human eyes. I didn’t scream as my eyes began to bleed at the sight of the hues that weren’t there and never had been. Nothing was anything here. Not anymore. Had anything ever been? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t remember. My brain was throbbing and aching. I couldn’t think. I could barely see with the blood sliding down my cheeks like tears. I tried desperately to understand what was happening, but trying to comprehend it only made it hurt worse.

Amanda stood by the sketch, frozen. The colors that weren’t spilled out of the ravaged canvas like blood out of a wound and did not begin to pool and spread on the floor. I knew, I knew, that no matter what happened, we shouldn’t touch the growing pool that wasn’t. I seized Amanda’s arm and yanked her away as hard as I could. She went stumbling backwards and fell onto the concrete floor. Hadn’t it used to be wooden? No, I was remembering wrong, it had always been concrete. It must have been. 

I backed against the wall opposite the bleeding canvas, and Amanda stumbled to her feet beside me. Her shoe had fallen off when she fell over. The pool of colors didn’t reach the shoe and lap at its edges hungrily. The shoe didn’t begin to warp and twist and invert until it was something that was barely recognizable. It didn’t begin screaming with an impossible mouth that wasn’t there, and the sound didn’t give me a headache that still hasn’t completely left. The shoe wasn’t. And it looked painful.

I started banging at the wall, screaming and crying for help. I don’t know what I hoped to achieve. Even if someone had heard me, they couldn’t very well have broken through solid concrete- wait, plaster now- and I doubt anyone could hear me. I hit the wall and no sound was made. My screams turned to bubbles the moment they left my mouth, and floated away until they landed on those nonexistent colors and burst with horrendous chromatic vibrancy. 

Even though I hadn’t touched it yet, I could feel everything that wasn’t there seeping into the room and saturating it, like a tea bag steeping. The dim light, the air, Amanda, me- everything was being instilled with a horrible, inescapable wrongness. I choked down a sob as I thought about it: I would be locked in this room forever, slowly becoming warped and twisted until I was nothing I ever was or should have been able to be. I felt like I was going crazy- nothing here was possible. Nothing here was anything. All of my senses must have been lying to me- malfunctioning, showing me things that weren’t there. Everything here was soaked in that vague, hazy wrongness, like a dream gone wrong, except my brain would never have been able to create anything like this on its own.

Amanda seemed to think that too.

“It’s…it’s like a dream. It’s all like a dream.” Her voice was gleaming and dewy. When she looked at me, something in her eyes scared me almost more than that impossible room. Something black and tenuous, like thin ice, already starting to crack. “Maybe…maybe if we apply dream logic, we can escape?” She seemed as though she was talking more to herself than to me. I didn’t think that was a good idea. This place seemed to me the antithesis of all logic or pattern. Trying to make sense of it in any way would only make things much, much worse. I told her so. 

Sometimes I wonder if I should have done that. I’m now certain that her dream logic solution wouldn’t have worked, but my words seemed to be the last straw. The thin, fragile thing in her eyes seemed to break, and a nervous, unhinged chuckle left her lips. It echoed and danced unnaturally around us, like the room was gloating over a victory.

 “So that’s it, then?” She asked me, her voice dangerous and hazy in the dark light. “I’m just crazy?” 

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. What was I supposed to have done? Told her everything was going to be okay? Told her that no, she wasn’t crazy, there was a logical explanation to this obvious impossibility? I think a lot about what I could’ve said. I don’t think there was anything that could’ve saved her. It was too late for that.

At my silence, Amanda started laughing again, a horrid thing that morphed into a sob, then a scream, then back again. I just stood there, frozen. Amanda finally calmed herself down, but what she did next scared me more than screaming. She smiled pleasantly at me, like there was nothing at all wrong in the world. She briskly brushed off her clothes, which had been made messy by the dirt wall we had been fruitlessly pounding on.

Finally, she sighed contentedly, then looked at me and said, “Well, there’s no use delaying it, then.” Amanda turned on her heel and walked directly into the pool of not-colors. She dissolved into-

CHARLIE {Pauses the statement}

I, uh- I can’t read this. It…looks like words? Maybe? But…uh…this handwriting isn’t readable. Not like it’s sorta messy, it’s…wow. I can’t even tell if this is the English lettering system. 

[Avery pauses] Actually, I think it isn’t. And did she bring colored pens in? This ink definitely isn’t black.

…wait, is it?

[Avery pauses again to examine] …I think it is. It looks colorful but it isn’t. I can tell it’s written in black ink. That’s…huh. I’ll take it up with Daniel later. Maybe he’ll be able to read it. It resumes two pages later.

CHARLIE {continues statement}

After that, the room was gone. No, that’s not right, it couldn’t have been gone. In order for something to be gone, it has to have been there in the first place. I was standing in the Greco-Roman exhibit, the place that hallway should’ve led me to. The place I must have been the entire time. Without hesitation, I turned and left.

Mom says there’s never been an Allison in our family. She says her sister never had kids, that I don’t have any cousins, especially not in America. When I mention her, my mom and dad exchange these worried glances. They’re scared, I can see it. At first, when I got home and started yelling about a nonexistent cousin, they thought I was messing with them. When I started hyperventilating, though, they began to see it was something more. They took me back to the museum, asked me to show them which hallway it was. When I saw it, I started shaking. I don’t remember much after that, but apparently I had a breakdown in the middle of the museum and started screaming about the colors. They sent me to a shrink after that. I don’t tell her the truth. I can hear what my parents say when they think I’m not paying attention, but they’re wrong. I’m not schizophrenic. I’m not crazy. But I take it that telling her about colors that aren’t there and Amanda’s voice in my ear whenever I’m alone, telling me that she made the right decision, isn’t going to help my case. 

I still see them, you know. More and more often, they seep into my vision and the cracks of my mind and refuse to leave. Even now, I can see them. Can’t you? A blotch of them hovers over the paper, angrily lapping at the ink. It’s difficult to see what I’m writing when they cover everything. It’s difficult to think, too. Amanda tells me that I should’ve listened to her. She says the only thing better than seeing the colors is being them. 

She’s wrong. She whispers to me that I can’t really know unless I join her. I don’t know how I would even go about doing that, but I have no intention of doing so. I’m not like her, I am perfectly sane. My parents and the shrink can go screw themselves, because however much doubt they put in my mind, I still know. I-I’m sane. I’m not crazy. I have to be, right?

AVERY

Statement ends.

Follow up on this one is difficult, because it would appear that, no matter what our young statement giver claimed, this was, indeed, a prank. According to our records, and the records of everyone I have checked with, there has never been a Zoë McKendrick. While there is a couple in the area Zoë mentioned with the same last name who happen to have family in America, they do not, nor have ever had, a daughter.

Zoë mentioned at the beginning of her statement that the museum she visited has video tapes that went against her claim. Merideth went to that check out and found that she was correct, and there was no evidence corroborating a left turn in any hallway where there should not have been. 

She did find, though, that a few weeks before this statement was given, there were tapes of two unidentified teenage girls entering the museum. After a few minutes of looking around, they went down a hallway, and entered the Greco-Roman exhibit. They stood there motionless, and for around two hours, the tapes continued on with no visible change. For one moment, though, the tapes broadcasted an unfamiliar room with a single work of art hung on the wall. Then the feed cut back to what was broadcasted before, except only one girl remained. She turned and left, and didn’t return until a few hours later, when she brought in two adults and visibly had a breakdown before leaving again. That is all the evidence supporting this statement. 

When confronted with this, the McKendricks firmly stated that they had no memory of either person, or the visit to the museum.

To be honest, this statement can be one of two things. A teenager may have seen a malfunction in the tapes, and thought it would be funny to tell this to the Magnus Institute as a prank. That is the more likely scenario. 

On the other hand…perhaps, Zoë was unable to believe in her sanity as firmly as she needed to.

End recording.

[CLICK]

[ginzburgjake]

a self-indulgent chaotic blog for tma :1 (spoiler alert!)

1.11.22

> i am on ep 8 right now, and before watching, i’ve only been exposed to some art, names and random pieces of info (and lemme tell you the art is Good); i haven’t read any discussions, so i have no idea what i’m talking about — all theories are just me guessing stuff

> jon my asexual child <3 he has that overworked & underpaid hamilton energy, i love him

> also do he and martin end up together?? :0 i know he acquires many scars in the future,, eheh angst anyone?

> i didn’t hit any major spoilers? i think?? so far so good👌 and i really really enjoy the tone and the descriptions, ep 7 is my favourite — that War image… awesome.

> a detail i’ve noticed!! the hypnotic, swirling patterns on the tree from ep 8 and the table from ep 3 are probably connected… somehow

> whatever was in the coffin in ep 2 could have been attracted to liquids? like, it sang during the rain and reacted to juice, so *shrugs*

> the guy from ep 6 probably will have a sex-related trauma response for life, eesh

> imagine finding out that you’ve fucked a ripe worm incubator ;w;

[bookpersonmaryj]

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

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

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

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

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

1.ooof okay so I have A Lot of current projects, but the one that I've been working on the most over the last week is probably the tma chatfic (working title, I'll have to come up with something better at some point).

it's, well, a chatfic, which you can probably guess from the title, but more specifically: (spoiler warning for the magnus archives here!!!) basically, all the avatars have a groupchat and Annabelle Cane adds Jon at some point after he gets promoted, because they all think he's Aware of serving an eldritch fear entity and are Surprised when he is clueless as to what the hell they're all talking about

i've been writing on it for over at least... two years i think? and a few days ago edited the bits i wrote separately to fit into the bit that's more story-like, at which point i discovered that i'm at 95 pages??? somehow??? so yea there's progress, despite there being literally no plot besides Jon Finds Out About The Entities And Has A Few Breakdowns.

what i love about it: Everyone Is Queer (because i was figuring out my gender at the time and thought i was just being supportive to trans/nb people and not relating that stuff to myself) and There Is No Angst (okay that's a lie, there's a bit angst, but mostly it's really entertaining and not angsty) and I have so much fun writing the characters???

pretty sure a lot of the characters are OOC but I don't really care, it's far too funny to have the avatars bully Jon for having a crush on Martin (yes this fic is also jonmartin with jon getting over his denial Very Quickly during what constitutes as s1)

honorable mentions here to the other fics i'm working on right now: the doctor who bodyswap au we all needed after potd where they Actually Bodyswap, the doctor who fic where some evil scientist tries to use regeneration energy for their own gain (it is as angsty as it sounds, yes), the tua fanfic where klaus refuses to let luther lock up viktor in that creepy basement in s1 (with added nb klaus and trans viktor because yes!), the sandman fanfic where dream loses the ability to speak after being locked up in a glass bowl for centuries (called 'cat got your tongue' because I Am Hilarious), and the ouat fanfic that's purely self-indulgent because i have a I Could Fix Her mentality when it comes to Regina (not just because of that but it's definitely part of it...)

4. mhhhh let's see!

There’s something going wrong in her mind, something is wrong with this whole regeneration, of course it is, forced regenerations aren't ever simple, but this is more than that, because she just let the Master leave with Yaz, with her TARDIS, and that’s not what the Doctor does, that’s not-

Is that still who she is? Is she still the Doctor now?

Yaz didn’t notice. The Master didn’t say anything, didn’t even gloat, didn’t even- And she’s not acting like the Doctor should, so what-?

She curls around herself, feeling unmoored when it’s different than before, the Master’s body – hers now – new and ill-fitting like putting on a glove that’s too small, or maybe it’s too big, or possibly both, somehow.

this is from my doctor who bodyswap fic, and i really liked this bit, because thirteen is questioning her own sense of self, after gallifrey, after techteun, after getting swapped into a body that isn't hers, and i just think that's a really neat concept to explore

actually, have some more of that fic, cause there are several lines i really like:

“Wait wait wait, can’t we talk about this?” she yelps, ducking behind machinery and twisting out of the way of more shots.

“The Cyberium is destroyed. You have destroyed the Cyberium. You will be deleted.”

They’re advancing on her, and she doesn’t have her sonic on her, it’s in her coat pocket, stupid Doctor, stupid Master, means she’s defenceless, means-

Except, she reaches into her pockets out of instinct, and there’s something in there.

“I don’t-” The words get stuck in her throat because they’re so untrue, doesn’t she want to do this, and it’s different now, this is a step she’s not been prepared to take, is she really going to do this?

“Stand down. You will be deleted.”

Yeah, right.

Them or her. Them or Earth.

The decision, in the end, is far too easy.

And then the Doctor stares at the tiny Cybermen, the Master’s TCE still raised, and something in her mind is spinning wildly out of reach, something has changed and she doesn’t quite know what it is, or if it can be reversed.

thirteen making master decisions instead of doctor decisions! love to see her make Bad choices

“I see you had time to change.”

The words spark memory, and the Doctor raises a brow at him, lifts her arms in a mockery of presenting the new clothes, and replies: “I always dress for the occasion.”

Is that amusement in his eyes or is she imagining it?

She lets her arms drop, crosses them over her chest again, considers him. It’s strange to stare at her own face and have it look back, except those eyes aren't hers, those eyes have always been his, she’d know them anywhere.

what's more 'master' than changing your outfit for the Drama of it?

yeah, I don't know where this story is going, but the second i've finished it i'll upload it! ^-^

EDIT: just found the Actual scene i wanted to share but got distracted from looking for, this is from my other dw fanfic where someone wants to take regeneration energy

All his attention is on the Doctor, beautifully bathed in gold, brimming with light and life, the force of a nuclear explosion coiling inside her, infecting her surroundings, leaking into the air and causing everything in her path to self-destruct.

i adore writing thirteen as incredibly destructive force of nature ^-^

that's all, carry on!

6. good question... I have a lot of fun writing the thirteenth doctor, but honestly? it's Klaus Hargreeves from the umbrella academy. i just can't seem to stop writing Klaus, especially nonbinary he/they Klaus who figures out their powers and chills with Benny while his siblings are ignoring the both of them. (this probably says Something about me but I Do Not See)

(honorable mention to my ouat self-insert which i Cannot write anymore because i started writing her before i figured out that i am not, in fact, cis, and now i'm having trouble identifying with the person that used to be me)

8. mhhh... in terms of Queer things yes, i read and write both of those things.

i do think i Write far more angst than i Read angst.

also, this question depends entirely on whether it's meant as reading books or reading fanfiction, because obviously i read the sort of fanfictions that i also write, and i guess yeah, i do also read the books that are sort of close to the sort of fanfiction vibes i like to read / write

13. yes i do! mostly just fanfictions, nothing 'original' just yet (i am working on it though!).

the ao3 link to my published fics is here, and there's also a German self-insert ouat fanfic on a German fanfic site, but uhhh that's sort of Very Unfinished and was started when i was still in school sooo... (i am planning on rewriting it at some point, and will try to finish it as well...).

as to the rest: there are... several projects that i've kept to myself, yes. i've taken my three (?) finished harry potter fics off the internet for now because i don't feel comfortable having them up with the way jk is behaving, and i won't post any of the ones i'm still writing on (i'm mostly just writing on them because if i have an idea i need it Out).

i also have A LOT of fanfics that are simply not finished yet, and because i know that i will not be able to stick to a posting/writing schedule i'd rather finish them before posting them, they'll stay on my laptop for now.

I am also working on a superhero book, but I've had to change a few of the original ideas i had because they don't really fit with the rest of the vibe of the book anymore, so i don't know when that's gonna be finished, if at all...

25. tough question... I have a lot of fun writing something with a twist, like, I as the writer am aware of a piece of information about the story/character I am writing that the reader is Not aware of but i am layering little hints into the story, and at some point i have a Reveal of the thing. i wasn't aware that this was something i did for a bit, until someone (you, dimitri, very specifically you) pointed it out in one of my fics and i realized that i Liked doing things like that actually, so yea!

also uhh i guess i really like how i can sort of work through some of my problems by projecting them onto characters? it helps sometimes...

i also enjoy writing something, and then having an idea, and suddenly the story is going in a wildly different direction as before, and i didn't anticipate it but i actually like this new direction, so i just roll with it. it's nice that writing is... alive, in a way.

wow, i wrote far more than i expected. thank you for asking these questions @rearranging-deck-chairs I had a lot of fun answering!