#this may or may not be relevant to the currently-running fic B)

[strawberry-jan]

got carried away with a warm-up doodle because I was thinking too hard about minekata, as one does

[villainship]

[Writing WIP Questionnaire]

Reflecting on my drafts folder w/ the previously-skipped section of the questions I was answering here.

If you read this: . . .don’t look @ me. LOL. (Exposing my secrets -- and also hiding from them.)

-

Sum up one or more of your wips!

Most aren’t for tumblr-posting, mind u. But:

(Divided up by which character has narration rights)

-a Vette story I keep forgetting abt, where she is trying to figure out TD’s post-binge fate on Nar Shaddaa, having decided she’s actually invested in this weird Sith’s wellbeing.

-Quinn experiencing TD’s response to betrayal (TD: “I’m not mad, I just want you to acknowledge your life is in /my/ hands. Forever.”)

-like 4 separate WIPs of ‘joint midlife crisis’ Zahied & TD engaging in their unsanctioned fraternizing in early times/getting to know each other -- however eagerly (TD) or reluctantly (Zahied). -Alliance-era, mid-50s Zahied thinks hard abt where he is, tells TD he ready to dump him (probably. Soon. --For real, though. NO relapses. When it’s done it’s /done/, 100%. Swearing off this shit- . . . Yes, he’ll still teach ur damn kids their hand-to-hand fighting.)

-Alliance-era TD, fraught with relationship issues/feelings(???) beyond his comprehension (dumped by his boyfriend; wife still touchy that he is hot for his boss; boss ignoring him b/c 1. she has never considered him significant or attractive 2. she’s busy with the happiness of being reunited with her bug husband), takes a team (incl. his Apprentice) to Hoth for a mission, where they lose contact with home base & can’t send an update to confirm they’re still alive. --He thinks that’s fine he didn’t want to hear from anyone there for a While anyway-- (but something else Will go wrong.) -Agent Vensys is assigned as chaperone for traitor-on-probation Sith Lord Liio (going Where? idk) -- which may be AU content, or I might make it canon. . . or I might split off into 2 different versions (one where they potentially makeout a little, & one for sailing the crack ship onward to far-distant horizons that veer OOC for at least 1 of them). Lolll. -(?canon?) Kallir has a nice day. -Kallir runs afoul of a posse of Imperial troops privately harboring anti-Sith sentiments in a garrison on Taris (? question mark). (Visiting pumpkin Agent was witnessed holding hands with a Sith who recently came by) -- I’m evaluating how much violence I’ll include as canon. (Less than I wrote. . . but some. He definitely gets bullied. Punches someone in the throat. Maybe knifes a guy a little bit?? I wrote that scene, but I’m not sure it’ll fit.) -Kallir undergoing an entire ordeal living among space pirates & becoming slightly unhinged. -in AU: Kallir (the Minister of Intelligence), dragged away from the tail end of a formal ball, puts up with Vensys plying his charms at him (again)

-total shipping AU: Kallir, Liio, & Zahied, lonely hearts club, attempt to distract one another from mountains of baggage in the only way that comes to their minds when they recognize everyone else is hot and thirsty. (Fellas. . . you’re a mess. Sorry I’m so into that.)

Which story took the most research?

Well- the extent of research I’m willing to do is stuff like “what’s this place/object look like in SWTOR?”, or “what does the internet say about these star wars aliens?”

Which story has the most lore?

TD going to Hoth to blow up a Star Fortress maybe (regrettably, I don’t know the relevant lore & I’ve been incapable of doing the gameplay I want to do to get there).

Current word count of all your main wips?

I do Not track those stats. . . I think I know which are the longest, though.

-Part 1 of Liio/Kallir/Zahied AU is. . . 54 pages (for. . .3-4 scenes, essentially. dkfshgkjf). -Part 2 combined WIPs are 15 + 6 + 3 + .2 (a paragraph) (split up due to time-jumping mid-draft, starting a new file, & returning to unfinished business when I feel like it)

Fic that isn’t a total departure from character canon: -Part 1 (of the in-depth edition) of Kallir’s pirate story is a 32 page WIP, w/ an 18-page side chapter (which might not get any longer) -Part 2: 6 pages so far.  -Aftermath follow-up: 7 so far.

How many projects do you have going on right now? Are there any that you doubt you’ll ever finish?

(My answer to question 1 is more-or-less my entire list) It’s hard to say I Won’t finish anything, but also--I don’t often finish writings.

What was you first major project? How far along is it?

And I wouldn’t necessarily call any of them ‘major’ projects (pirate fic got pretty big--but. idk). . .

My first SWTOR fic was for TD & Quinn, and I got lost on it. lol. It’s one of those drafts that feels convoluted to look at (there’s a lot of patchwork pieces), & I’m not sure exactly how much of it is worth having in there or what I actually Want to write into it. (Quinn is hilarious to write, though.)

What are some tropes and character dynamics found in your wips?

. . . gay little scene-slice stories of charged & intimate interactions--aggressive or/and soothing. Just people having their emotional problems in various Situations (sometimes amid danger/stress. . . sometimes when they are trying to enjoy themselves. . . Sometimes those mix).

So. . . tame (generally tame.) psychological whump (mainly psychological.) I Guess. H/C-aligned.

Describe the setting of one or more of your wips

All my stories are in settings of Convenience, and usually defined more by who is there than details of the place itself. (eg. I’m picturing “Kallir gets bullied for having a Sith bf” somewhere on Taris b/c it seems like the kind of place where the military doesn’t get a lot of oversight). Nothing too exciting (or original).

What are some things that inspired your stories? Real events? Maybe a dream?

Game events sometimes, of course. ehehh.

I also have. . . not uncommonly come up w/ concepts for scenarios based on outfits. (Pirate fic arose b/c I previewed the Belsavis zap collar on Kallir. Vensys’ formal outfit was the starting point for that AU fic with the formal event)

What story are you the proudest of? Why?

I dunnoooo-- I have. . . a weird relationship w/ my writings. I don’t have consistent feelings about them (whether I think anything is so good or absolutely Unbearably terrible/cringe changes based on my own moods), and. . . A lot of the time I’m ashamed even making some/most of them for various reasons.

. . .BUT. I was (and still am) pretty proud of how I wrote our charas in the pumpkin-meets-Severine mini-story from a While back (which I just re-blogged cuz of the improvement edits last night). hehe. On fire w/ that one, writing a couple of my favorite personalities--successfully (I’d say) channeling a character that’s not even mine. 

And I don’t feel like I wasted my time if it’s a gift 4 a friend & I’ve been able to make their day with it. <3 We luv our charas. hell yeaaaaaaa

[olderthannetfic]

It's really surprising that you're so well versed in older fandoms and yet participate in new popular ones (that cdrama, kpop) is this by design? Im in my twenties and my interest turnover is already way slower than it used to be

You know, that’s a really interesting question. I wouldn’t say it’s by design exactly in that I do tend to just follow what strikes my fancy, and I can’t force myself to want to write fic for just anything. (I find it easier to like reading fic without serious involuntary emotional investment, but writing takes more. Vidding I can do on command most of the time, but I don’t usually bother unless I have a lot of feels or I’m fulfilling someone’s prompt.)

However, me getting into BTS was 100% due to me wanting to understand BTS enough to explain to people who weren’t very interested but wanted to know what was going on in fandom lately. Under normal circumstances, I run the dance party at Escapade, the oldest extant slash con. We borrowed vividcon’s thing of playing fanvids on the wall--all of them set to dance music--as the soundtrack for the dance party. This means I’m creating a 3-hour mixtape of fannishness, which has amazing potential to make people feel in the know about Fandom Today... and equal potential to make them feel alienated if nothing they care about shows up. Only about 100-150 people attend the con, so it really is possible to make a playlist that feels inclusive yet informative--it just takes a huge amount of work.

Every year, I do a lot of research on which fandoms are getting big and look for vids from vidders people won’t have heard of, so there is an element of consciously trying to keep up with things. Generally, I only get into these fandoms myself if I had no idea what they were and then suddenly, oops, they’re my kryptonite, like the buddy cop android plot in Detroit: Become Human, which sucked me in hard for like 6 months on the basis of a vid.

(So if you’re into cross-fandom meta and associated stuff as one of your fannish interests, you tend to have broader knowledge of different fandoms, old and new, than if you’re just looking for the next place you’ll read fic. It’s also easier to love vids for unfamiliar things than fic.)

But though I was only looking for a basic primer on BTS, BTS has 7 members with multiple names and no clear juggernaut pairing, not to mention that AU that runs through the music videos and lots of other context to explain. The barrier to understanding WTF was going on at all was high enough that to know enough to explain, I had to be thoroughly exposed... And once I was over that hurdle, oops, I had a fandom.

--

In terms of old vs. new, here’s the thing: kpop fandoms in English and c-drama fandoms in English right now feel a lot like anime fandom in English did in the early 00s. I had a Buddy Cops of the 70s phase in the middle, but my current fannishness is actually a return to my older fannishness in many ways.

What do I mean about them being similar?

Yes, I know some wanker will show up to say I think China, Korea, and Japan are indistinguishable, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way that I used to routinely meet Italian and French and German fans, Argentinian and Mexican, Malaysian and Indonesian and Filipino too. English-language fandom of SPN or MCU may have all those fans from all those countries, but it feels very American most of the time. English-language fandom of a non-English-language canon is more overtly about using English as a lingua franca.

It also tends to attract people who as a sideline to their fannishness are getting into language learning and translation, which are my other passion in life after fanworks fandom. (I speak only English and Spanish and a bit of Japanese, but I’ve studied German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Old English, and now Korean.)

Nerds arguing about methods of language learning and which textbooks are good and why is my jam. This is all over the place in English-language fandoms of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean media. Those fandoms also tend to be full of speakers coming from a Germanic or Romance languages background who face similar hurdles in learning these languages. (In other words, if you’re a native Japanese speaker trying to learn Korean, the parts that will be hard for you are different than if you’re an English speaker, but you’re also usually not doing fandom in English.)

There’s also an element of scarcity and difficulty of access and a communal attempt to construct a canon (in the other sense) of stuff from that country that pertains to one’s fannishness. So, for example, a primer explaining the genre of xianxia is highly relevant to being a n00b Untamed fan, but just any old thing about China is not. A c-drama adapted from a danmei webnovel is perhaps part of the new pantheon of Chinese shit we’re all getting into, but just any old drama from decades ago is probably not... unless it’s a genre precursor to something else we care about. Another aspect here is that while Stuff I Can Access As A N00b Who Doesn’t Speak The Language may be relatively scarce, there’s a vast, vast wealth of stuff that exists.

This is what it felt like to be an anime fan in the US in 2000. As translation got more commercial and more crappy series were licensed and dumped onto an already glutted market, the vibe changed. No longer were fans desperately trying to learn enough of the language to translate or spending their time cataloguing what existed or making fanworks about a show they stuck with for a bit: the overall community focus turned to an endless race of consumption to keep up with all of the latest releases. That’s a perfectly valid way of being fannish, but if I wanted that, I’d binge US television 24/7.

Anime fandom got bigger, but what I liked about anime fandom in English died, and I moved on. (Okay, I first moved on to Onmyouji, which is a live action Japanese thing, but still.)

Hardcore weeaboos and now fans of Chinese and Korean stuff don’t stop at language: people get excited about cooking, my other other great passion. Times a thousand if the canon is something like The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, which is full of loving shots of food preparation. People get excited about history! Mandarin and Japanese may share almost nothing in terms of grammar or phonology, but all of East Asia has influence from specific Chinese power centers historically, and there are commonalities to historical architecture and clothing that I love.

I fell out of love with the popular anime art styles as they changed, and I’m not that into animation in general these days. (I still own a shitton of manga in art styles I like, like Okano Reiko’s Onmyouji series.) I’ve become a filmmaker over the last decade, and I’m very excited about beautiful cinematography and editing. With one thing and another, I’m probably not going to get back into anime fandom, but it’s lovely to revisit the cultural aspects I enjoyed about it via live-action media.

BTS surprised me too, to be honest. I really dislike that early 90s R&B ballad style that infests idol music (not just Korean--believe me, I resisted many rounds of “But Johnny’s Entertainment though!” back in the day). While I like some of the dance pop, I just don’t care. But OH NO, BTS turn out to be massive conscious hip hop fanboys, and their music sounds different. I have some tl;dr about my reactions in the meta I wrote about one of my fanvids, which you can find on Dreamwidth here.

--

But back to your comment about turnover: I know fans from the 70s who’ve had one great fannish love and that’s it and more who were like that but eventually moved on to a second or third. They’re... really fannishly monogamous in a way I find hard to comprehend. It was the norm long ago, but even by the 90s when far more people were getting into fandom, it was seen as a little weird. By now, with exponentially more people in fandom, it’s almost unheard of. I think those fans still exist, even as new people joining, but we don’t notice them. They were always rare, but in the past, only people like that had the stamina to get over the barriers to entry and actually become the people who made zines or were willing to be visibly into fanfic in eras when that was seen as really weird. On top of that, there’s an element of me, us, judging the past by what’s left: only people with an intense and often single passion are visible because other people either drifted away or have seamlessly disappeared into some modern fandom. They don’t say they’re 80 or 60 or 40 instead of 20, so nobody knows.

In general, I’m a small fandoms and rare ships person. My brain will do its best to thwart me by liking whatever has no fic even in a big fic fandom... (Except BTS because there is literally fic for any combination of them, like even more than for the likes of MCU. Wow. Best fandom evar!) So I have an incentive to not get complacent and just stick with one fandom because I would very soon have no ability to be in fandom at all.

My appetite for Consuming All The Things has slowed way down, but it also goes in waves, and a lot of what I’m consuming is what I did back in 2000: journal articles and the limited range of English-language books on the history of m/m sex and romance in East Asia. It’s not so much that I have a million fandoms as that I’m watching a few shows as an expression of my interest in East Asian costume dramas and East Asian history generally.

I do like to sit with one thing and experience it deeply rather than moving on quickly, but the surface expression of this has changed depending on whether I’m more into writing fic or more into doing research or something else.

But yes, I do do a certain amount of trying to stay current, often as a part of research for fandom meta or to help other people know what’s going on. Having a sense of what’s big doesn’t automatically mean getting into all those things, but I think some fans who are older-in-fandom and/or older-in-years stop being open to even hearing what’s new. And if you’ve never heard of it, you’ll never know if you might have liked it.

[lilolilyr]

Fics I Wanted To Write This Year But Didn't, Part 2: Star Trek AU

For @spookyvoidangelskeleton for this ask

Now I suppose these would have been several fics, but in a series or a collection as they're all about the same main storyline: The collapsing of a (or several) universe(s).

If you've known me for a while, you know that I am very into Multiverse Theory, both real life and fictional, and Star Trek with the Mirror Universe is of course one of the first fandoms that comes to mind for me to write my batshit ideas in xD

Basically, in my personal little (fictional, bc I know and understand 0 about real life physics or whatever would be relevant for this) multiverse theory, there are an infinite number of universes, evenly spread around the multiverse, and a new universe comes into existence when a timeline/universe (same thing) can go into 2 seperate ways naturally, or when there is timetravel involved to manually change a timeline: The original timeline won't be affected, you can't change what's already there, but a new changed timeline will be created.

Now, in some cases that works out well, with the timetraveller ending up in the new timeline and never knowing that their original universe is still out there- in other ways of time travelling, not so much. If the person trying to make a change manages to do just that but never notices, because they or a version of them is stuck in the orginal timeline, what do they do?

Try again, with the same result, many many times.

And that's where it gets problematic, because the multiverse gets unbalanced, and whether you see it as a sentient entity connected to the Qs in Star Trek or just as something that Works That Way automatically: the multiverse doesn't want to be out of balance, so the new universes start to collapse in on each other, creating a Splitter-verse and leaving its inhabitants to a fate arguably worse than death (in this fictional world): they completely stop to exist. This doesn't just affect the new universes but the surroundings ones, which would have split earlier and are already more different from each other, too, to make sure the one that was the cause for it all falls, too.

Now (of course, because I can't help myself) this would be part of @thelucyverse , with there being Central people trained in spotting such time anomalies before it is too late, but with there also being time-bombs (yeah hahah) created in inter-universal wars to create smaller, controlled splitter-verses (I say small and controlled here but like. We're still talking about entire universes), and with Central having back-up plans to get people out of the 'verses, in order as follows: anyone visibly IDing as Central (the organisation is still largely volunteer-based, shit's got to have some perks), then everyone whose energy indicates recent travel in-between universes, as these are also most likely to a) be Central and b) be okay in a new 'verse, after that, if there is still time and anyone willing to go back into the falling universe, children as they are also more likely to adapt in a new world. If there is enough warning, they also get out whoever people Central members want to have saved, but usually it just turns into whoever stands close enough to grab and get the hell out of there.

Whether taking people out of a universe against their will is a good thing or nah is ...debatable and still being debated amongst those who do it and those who think that taking someone away from the possibility of dying death in their own universe is vile (as amongst most religions, it is thought that you can only reach the same afterlife as those who died in the same umiverse- but again most also think that there probably won't even Be an afterlife in a splitter-verse).

Sometimes, people are also pushed out of the universe by the explosion itself, but they then tend to die upon impact as they seldomly end up exactly at the coordinates where they left, which leaves them either suffocating in hard matter or in space.

If you want to use these ideas for your own fanfic feel free, just give me credit and link this post as inspired by/ link to my ao3 or @ my tumblr!

Anyhow! To Star Trek... and I suppose this is now SPOILERS not rly for any Star Trek canon but for these fanfics, if I do end up writing them!

I tend to forget which characters are canon and which are complete OCs because I spend Way more hours on tumblr and ao3 + thinking about my own headcanons than I spend consuming the original media, but I am fairly certain a canon Joana McCoy, daughter of Leonard 'Bones' McCoy exists? If no and I stole the idea from sb else's fanfic I am sincerely sorry. Gotta look that up.

In one universe close to what would be the centre of the splitterverse, Joana- as a young child nicknamed 'Jojo', but now as a young teen trying to get rid of the childish nickname- has a younger part-vulcan girl as a friend, and this girl, nicknamed Aka, has, through having sticky fingers and connections to Central, a device that allows you to jump between universes. She's used it before and gotten into a lot of trouble for it, but to her it had always been great fun- until reality is starting to collapse around them while she is visiting Joana, and Joana is the only person she can reach in time and take with her to the next universe.

Distraught, the children are left in a new world, debating what to do, waiting for Central to contact them, hoping that they saved their families- but of course, Central has quite some different problems right now and won't contact them any time soon, and even if they did it wouldn't be with news of their parents: the adult families of non-Central members who only happened to have jumped between universes before themselves are really not the top priority, and the universe is collapsing too quickly to even get down the prio list to 'children',

Aka wants to leave the universe again and look for Central elsewhere, hoping that her moving around will attract their attention. Joana has enough from universe jumps for a lifetime. Thus, they part ways.

While Aka at some point does run into a group of Central troubeshooters who more or less adopt her as one of their own and teach her how to work their equipment and use magic and weapons and starships (not what a child her age should be learning. But then, none of the adults there ever signed up to be a parent, so who's to blame them), Joana goes looking for her family in this world.

Now I could write entire novels about Akas adventures and how it may or may not be healthy to not have a home at all and decide to not rely on anybody instead of either finding new versions of her original parents or letting someone new into her life properly (spoileralert: it isn't healthy at all), and how meeting a girl from one of the original splitter-verses (the not bombed ones) telling her not to make the same mistakes she made finally makes her think about her choices and and and, but this post is already going to be Long so I won't. That would all be a seperate fanfic anyways.

Joana finds a girl her age who looks just like her and acts almost exactly like her, too- the only difference seems to be that there's no Aka around, which made this version of her less used to adventure but also less wary of it.

The version of Joana from this universe- she decides to call herself Joan when they are alone, while the Joana we already know goes with 'Jojo'- her once loathed childhood nickname now a connection to her past- is thrilled to meet her and begs her to stay, I mean what is cooler than suddenly having a twin, and won't it be fun there is so much they can do! As their parents are seperated, they manage to spend their time mostly at one of their homes, either together when the parent is too busy to notice that there are two kids around, or one at each place, guessing correctly that if the parents were to talk about it, they wouldn't even think of the possibility of there being two children and instead just get mad at each other.

This goes on for a few months during the summer, with Jojo feeling vaguely guilty both to her original dead parents and these new ones who think that she is their real daughter, and the girls are just deciding about what to do when school starts again when-

Reality breaks apart around them.

Jojo clings to Joan in fear, and- as Jojo is now on the list of people who have travelled between universes in the past, she is saved by Central, and Joan with her. They are placed into a universe further away this time, a safe distance to the only slowly contained Splitters.

Meanwhile, in the same universe, two people were currently out on a space-walk: Michael Burnham and Philippa Georgiou.

They are thrown out of the universe in the explosion, and as they are wearing their suits, they survive as they end up somewhere in space again, but- they don't end up in the same universe. Michael ends up about 20-30 years earlier in a universe further away, and she doesn't even end up in what would've been federation space in her old 'verse. Philippa is only thrown one universe to the left and picked up by Central. As Central likes to name their acquaintances in some way that makes it easier to identify just which version of a person you are talking to without having to add the long universe number (even harder when the universe was destroyed and there isn't a known number), they ask Philippa to pick a new name. She is way too rattled and desperate to go looking for Michael as quickly as possible to care about what name she is supposed to have, so she goes with the first option given to those who don't have their own nickname ideas: lastname for firstname, making her Georgiana, short Gia.

Through Central, she finds out that the universal explosion left her and Michael connected- but it won't be much help in the search, basically just a way to say 'alright this verse is closer to it than that one', it's still trial and error... (I could also involve some body switching here, idk I already wrote a long fanfic with that trope in the Andromaquynh fandom, but I happen to Like that trope so yeah maybe I'll recycle some parts of In Your Stead if I ever do manage to write this Milippa story. Which, btw, if not already obvious, would again be a seperate fic from the Joana universal-sister story. On the other hand, Aka runs into Georgiana a lot, even calling her 'auntie Gia').

Meanwhile, Michael doesn't have to jump through universes but make her way through just the one universe to get to federarion space. Except what she find's isn't the federation at all... you guessed it, the 'verse she ended up in is more similar to a mirrorverse than to Prime. However, the Georgiou of this world isn't the emperor yet, she's young and Michael is able to influence her enough over the years so that she turns her back to the Empire.

Yes, it takes years for Michael and Gia to find their way back to each other, maybe decades... they also wouldn't have spent exactly the same amount of time apart as they aren't in the same 'verse. In fact, Cleo of Central carefully tells Gia that Michael might have died by now, but of course Georgiana doesn't want to hear this.

Michael and that universe's Georgiou also get quite close, though Michael doesn't want to cheat on her Philippa... of course, after years of this, she might think that she will never see Philippa again... (We are approaching ot3 territory here lol, and I don't even want to think about the potential of ot7 with the two canon mirror and prime versions adsfghjkl because if I finish this story here, I would 100% write a lil fix it where Central! Gia Mikay and Phil go fish Mirror! Michael and Georgiou out of a splitter-verse into the next prime verse in which Michael already knows that Georgiou... and ad they're already at it they also get half dead! Prime Philippa away from the Klingons... heheh sounds like the kind of poly chaos I would enjoy writing, but sadly I have to make it through all the Plot first)

Anyway! Back to Jojo and Joan: they decide that while they maybe should have told Joan's family about Jojo's existence soon if they had stayed in that 'verse, the initial idea of staying with one's universals wasn't so bad, so they go looking for this universe's Joana McCoy. The girl- (nicknamed Anna, which makes Joan decide to change hers from Joan to June because she doesn't want to be half Jojo and half Anna), is happy enough to meet them, but often feels left out from the other two as they act as if they've known each other forever even though of course it's only been a few months... In turn, Jojo and June aren't sure whether Anna really wants them around, whether she might think they're trying to steal her life and family from her...

Lots of potential for conflict! Yay! XD would of course come to a happy ending, with at least Bones accepting his three daughters, dunno yet whether they'd tell the mom... also Aka ends up in the same universe at some point, together with a version of her vulcan birthmother who she had never known the original version of but now gets along with alright... oh and if I do write aforementioned Milippa ot7 bullshitery, this would also be the Prime!verse for that, so all stories in the series or collection interconnect again!

this got... long... and I could obviously go on but I need to go back to writing my Bachelor thesis :(

@whoever read through all of this, do let me know whether you like these ideas and which you would like to read proper fanfic for! Might influence future writing decisions.

[aria-i-adagio]

alina is canonically 17 years old and the darkling is like 500. he also magically enslaves her to him, sexually assaults her, threatens to kill everyone she cares about, tortures two other women, threatens to torture her, and murders children. they are not canon love interests or in a relationship. he is the villain, and she kills him at the end. her canon love interest is a 17 year old brown boy who respects her

Nonny... fandom shipping is not about canon.  Nor is it about making good relationship decisions.  It’s about whatever people find interesting in exploring in FICTION.  Pleased to know Alina makes better choices in canon than in peeps headcanons though - good for her.  Or, I mean, good for her if she existed.  Which she doesn’t.

Seventeen is young, but not a child.  Completely different lifestage (points to every single lifespan development textbook ever).  Not adult - although there’s a lot of theorizing about the historical development of adolescence/young adulthood, versus the post-puberty/pre-puberty distinction that has existed at least as long as there is a historical record (can get you some other sources on this, but the one coming to mind is Porneia by Aline Rouselle) - but definitely not a child.  Curiously, the arguments about “normalization” suggest that socialization and cultural paradigms would, in fact, impact psycho-social maturation. 

But if we want to play the not quite adult card, cool, let's do it.  

I agree that in the real world, a relationship between a late-adolescent woman and a much older partner is highly problematic as it is very likely to be exploitative.  I can’t imagine why an adult would want to be in a relationship with someone in late-adolescence.  I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be.  

But explain to me why child soldiers aren’t a problem.  Explain why we can have any stories where 17 year olds are running around unsupervised without it being a problem because it might convince adolescents that they don’t need constant adult supervision to be safe.  Logical consistency is a nice thing.

I’m curious to know what your opinion is on the current crop of YA/NA novels where the canon relationship is young woman + ancient magical person or other person who appears to significantly out power her.  As previously stated, I’m bored with them, but you know, way more people are reading Sarah J Maas than are reading fics or headcanons shipping Alina and the Darkling.  If you’re really interested in what f’d up but intriguing world building looks like, may I suggest Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series.

The stories that people find interesting tend to involve placing characters in some messed up situations.  Always have.  Always will.  Mainstream fiction and fan fiction are no different in that respect.

I would think that the fact that the Darkling is 500 some years old might tip you off to the fact that THIS IS NOT THE REAL WORLD since, you know, people don’t live to be 500 in reality.

And you’re entirely ignoring my point about how there are power dynamics other than age which can also apply to the text, some of which better reflect the culture that the text reference.  Intersectionality as a reading praxis demands paying attention to multiple ways that power and privilege operate, not just the most popular or apparent one.  

One of my favorite rants is about how choosing an arbitrary, culturally contextual standard ends up doing violence to a text.  Texts that have far, far more of an impact on the real world than a fandom ship ever could have.

For example, one could take how Evangelical Protestantism applies a “literal” reading to the Bible while ignoring cultural context and historical development.  This is how one gets misreadings of the idea of “abomination” (to be far, I can’t blame the evangelicals for that one - it predates them).  However, one can clearly see how modernist moral panic about sexuality dictates which abominations evangelical Christians obsess about.  Or how conservative Christians focus more on homosexuality in the story about Sodom and Gomorrah than the more textually relevant question of hospitality.  Or how they ignore that there’s any number of words that could be used to refer to homoeroticism in general in the Pauline corpus, and instead the word used is something so specific that it doesn’t appear anywhere else for us to have a comparative tool to derive the intended meaning.  This is one of my favorite rants.  Perhaps I’ll come back with some citations for you on texts that you could look into.  If for no reason other than to have some fodder for the next time you need to argue with Christian homophobes.  I do love arguing with Christian homophobes.  I am, ofc, assuming that you’re queer positive.

Interestingly, one frequently finds this with Orthodox Christian converts who haven’t spent a significant amount of time in immigrant parishes.  They try to apply literalism to the Church Fathers (and Mothers, and Peeps who defy tidy gender categorization) and it just turns into illogical chaos, because there’s quite a bit of disagreement within that body of texts.   That was a theme that I would be interested in seeing how Bardugo plays out, given how Alina’s self-concept was already in conflict with the church created canon regarding her sainthood.

TLDR:  A) Seventeen is still not a child.  B) A plot necessitates tension to be resolved, so something is going to be problematic in order to have a story.  C) The effect of a text on reality and vice-versa is complex.  D) Not recognizing how one is responding to a text based on one’s temporally and culturally shaped comfort zone is a very problematic thing in and of itself, frequently ending up with “orthodoxies” that limit personal agency and freedom.  

Now let's see if I can get a right wing punch from someone complaining about queer readings of Christian texts.

[toomanyhobbiesandthisisoneofthem]

Captain Levi Packs a Punch

So, uh.. This is a fanfiction oneshot... It’s inspired by that moment during the celebration/feast episode, where Levi punches Eren and Jean when they get into a row. I’ve never written a fanfic before, ever, and idk if I’m gonna make this a thing or not... but I had a fic idea today, and while I’ve had fic ideas before, I never really wanted to write them badly enough to actually go for it. But for whatever reason, this one hit me out of nowhere and said, “Write me!!!!! Please, please, please, please, please!!!” So... here I am. :P

Although I’ve never actually written anything for it, I’ve had this particular fanfiction universe running through my head for YEARS, so I need (yes, need) to give a little bit of a backstory on my AU before I jump into writing the actual fic. There’s a bunch of stuff in my AU that leads up to the point I’m going to write about in this story, and some things will make more sense if you understand those things.

If you don’t care about the backstory part and you just want to get on with the fic, here’s a TL;DR: Self-insert OC is an X-men-style mutant who travels through various fictional universes. Her mutant abilities involve redirection/manipulation of energy, whether it’s kinetic forces, electrical charges, heat/combustion energy, etc. Feel free to go straight to the fic. Just scroll down until you reach the end of the italics and hit the disclaimer.

I might upload another post at some point detailing a more extensive version of this backstory summary, but for now I just want to give you the gist of it.

Backstory Bullet Points:

1. This is a self-insert OC, though I’ll probably rename the character herself. I know these tend to have a bad reputation, but I’ll do my level best to make it not-dumb. There are still some self-insert OC cliches and whatnot,(she’s definitely a bit OP; I’m attempting to counteract that) but I’m trying to make the story focus more on the characters and how they interact, rather than being like, “OMG DIS GURL HAS DA POWER AN’ SHE’S GONNA SAVE DA DAY AND GET DA MAIN CHARACTER FOR A BOYFRIEND TOO!” sorts of things.

2. When OC was 21 or so, she was ported from her own world into a universe in which the Marvel Avengers, the X-Men, and all the Rick Riordan Universe books happen to be all mixed together.      By the way, Percy Jackson is a mutant himself along with being a demigod, and he has a major AU backstory of his own, which will be explained if I ever write a full AU-background explanation. This is not relevant to the current story, but it is a part of this AU.

3.  OC discovers that one of her ancestors was a carrier of the X-gene who was ported to OC’s home universe like a hundred years ago or so, but because OC was born in a variation of Earth-1218, her powers didn’t activate until she switched universes      -(Earth-1218 is Marvel’s version of/explanation for the “normal/real world”-- OC’s home universe is similar to Earth-1218, but it’s not actually the same one, because inter-universe transportation is possible with this universe, and the genetics for superpowers are still transferred from parent to child.     -OC’s home universe dampens people’s superpowers while they’re in that universe, unless the person with powers happened to be born there, are transferred to a universe where their powers activate, and then switched back to their home universe.)

4. OC’s mutant powers include but are not quite limited to: --Absorbing and/or redirecting energy within and through herself. She can’t directly manipulate energy which has no direct contact with her, so for instance she can’t turn on a lightbulb from across the room, and she can’t use telekinesis or anything along those lines. --She is able to sense everything around her, and feels the energy within it. Because of this, she has pretty strong empathic abilities along with a sort of touch-telepathy as a side-effect. --She is able to release a kinetic/thermal “pulse” of sorts, and if any sort of energy is directed at her, she can:      a) absorb it and release it later (for instance, if she’s walking through a fire, she can absorb the heat energy and then later use the heat she stored in order to, say, melt snow),      b) allow it to pass directly through her and into whatever is behind her, (if someone tried to punch her and she happened to be standing against a wall, the force of the punch would pass through her and hit the wall)-- this aspect of her mutation also allows her to fly.      c) “catch” it and redirect it in a different direction (if Cyclops shoots her with his laser eyes, she could catch the laser and shoot it right back at him, or off the the side, or straight up, or whatever she happened to need to do at the time.)

There’s more to her mutation than this, but that’s the basic idea. For the sake of understanding this particular fic, keep in mind this would also apply to the force behind a Titan’s bite, meaning she’s practically invulnerable to most of the deadly AOT situations.

5. Due to Backstory Stuff, she ends up being practically forced by the Fates to travel to various fictional universes every few years. However, she is never able to go to the original version of that fictional universe-- there will always be at least one thing that’s different from what she knows as canon for that universe.    Sometimes the difference is simply a minor plot point, for instance when she goes to the FMA:B universe, it’s basically just an “Ed still has automail and alchemy, and he stays in the military!” AU-- which is kind of big as far as post-canon stuff goes, but it doesn’t really change any of the actual events of the majority of the anime itself.     Other universes will have, or eventually have, huuuuge differences. The first universe she travels to, the Mixed Marvel/Riordan universe, is just one example of this.   Sometimes these differences may incorporate things I’ve seen in other fanfics; I’ll try to source them when this is the case. It’s not my intention to steal from other people’s works, y’know?

6. Due to More Backstory Stuff, although OC is always placed into fictional universes which she is very familiar with, the Fates place a voice-block on her in regards to the events of those universes, in order to prevent her trying to explain future events to the characters if she happens to land into the middle of the story/plot. She may be able to give some information, and she may be able to hint at things, and if she really fights against the voice-block-thing, she may be able to give them basic info on stuff that will happen soon, but she can’t, like, write out a timeline and have them follow events and try to prevent them, or anything like that.

There’s a lot more I could probably tell you about this, but I don’t think any of it is particularly relevant to this story, so I’m not gonna worry about it.

Disclaimer: I do not own, and have never owned, and do not ever intend to own Attack on Titan or the X-men/Marvel Cinematic Universe. The only character, scenario, universe, etc. in this work of fiction that belongs to me is my own OC, Allise Hart.

TW: There is punching in this fic. If the title didn’t give that away, lol! It is not meant as a hostile violent interaction, but it is still a punch. So I guess... minor violence warning?

Sorry if anyone’s OOC... Again, I’ve never written a fic before, so...

Okay, last explanation thing, I promise.... :P This fic takes place a couple weeks into the two-month break period between the first and second arcs of season three. It seemed to be the most reasonable point in which Allise could arrive, have time to explain who she was and how she got there, gain at least some semblance of the characters’ trust, and make bonds of burgeoning potential friendship with some of the characters. Plus, the second arc of season three is probably where she could help the most, if she were to help prevent any deaths in canon at all. Everywhere else is either too busy, or the deaths that happen in those arcs are too important in character/plot development for me to be comfortable preventing them while still remaining consistent with the main plot. Also, for ease of communication purposes, the characters of AOT speak English in this story.

I hope you enjoy. :)

Levi Packs A Punch

     The Survey Corps initial strategy meeting for the retaking of Wall Maria was to be held in fifteen minutes. Hange and Erwin stood in the center of the room, speaking in hushed tones, and several members of Levi’s team hung around off to the side. A current of nervous anticipation ran through the recruits. So much had happened these last few months-- so many victories, hard-won though they were. 

     What would come of this daring venture? Would their winning streak hold out? Was it possible they could actually be... gaining ground against the Titans? For the first time in a long time, it seemed there could be hope in this endless struggle for humanity’s survival. 

     Even their leaders were not unaffected. There was an extra spring in Hange’s step as they worked on their experiments. There was a strange fire burning in Erwin’s eyes. There was a steadiness to Levi that wasn’t there before, a sense of gentle calm taking the place of repressed chaos, and he seems less apt to speak out against the optimism present in the recruits.

     It was this atmosphere into which Allise entered as she opened the door and made her way to Commander Erwin. Hange was animatedly describing a new weapon they were designing with Eren, and as she drew closer, Allise was nearly hit on the nose by a flailing hand. Hange startled, and both commanders turned to face her.

     She technically wasn’t supposed to be here. Not that she cared.

     The silence continued for a moment before Commander Erwin cleared his throat and asked, “Can we help you with something, Miss Hart?”

     Allise shifted back and pressed her lips together. She glanced from the commander, to the wall, to the floor, and back again. Her face went through several different expressions, moving from pensive to fearful to determined. Finally, she took a deep breath opened her mouth.

     “Commander Erwin, sir. I... have a request. I want you to let me help you fight the Titans and retake Wall Maria.”

     Hange raised an eyebrow. Erwin blinked. “You what?”

     “I want to help you with this mission.”

     Erwin frowned. “Absolutely not.”

      Allise lifted her chin in a challenge. “Why not? You need all the people you can get. I’m sure I can help you. You-- I-- if I help, maybe I can... prevent--” her voice cut off. She coughed harshly, grimacing at the sudden burn in her throat.

     Hange studied her for a moment. “You know something.”

     Allise nodded, coughing again.

     Erwin cocked his head. “You know something important about this assignment in particular.”

     “Yes.”

     He nodded slowly, looking thoughtful, then he straightened. “I still can’t let you go. You have no experience. You have no training. You wouldn’t last two seconds against a 5-meter, let alone a fifteen or twenty. I cannot in good conscience allow an untrained civilian to fight Titans. It would be futile, and a waste of a good life.”

     Allise swallowed. “It’s true that I have no experience. I don’t know what I’d be walking into-- not really. All I know of Titans is what I saw on the show. However... You recall when I first arrived, I explained why my ears are pointed? As you know, I am not entirely human. I have special abilities. I believe that these abilities will protect me from the Titans.”

     Hange perked up. “What sort of special abilities? Can you run at superhuman speeds? Are you a shapeshifter? Are you able to fly? Do you have to--mmph!”

     Erwin placed a hand over Hange’s mouth. “What makes you believe your ability will prevent you from getting eaten? Prove that you truly have such an ability, and I will reconsider your request.”

     Allise grinned. “Thank you, sir. That’s all I ask.” She turned to Hange. 

     “To answer your questions, since you asked first... My abilities are energy-related. I can occasionally run at superhuman speeds, though the factors are extremely circumstantial. I suppose you could call me a shapeshifter, since I have two different forms; however, my base abilities remain the same in each form, so it mainly just affects my appearance. And yes, I am actually able to fly.”      “As for proving that I can effectively protect myself against a Titan...”

     Allise closed her eyes and pressed her hands together. She considered what, exactly, she needed to show them. How could she explain this in a way that made sense, without going to the trouble of finding a Titan to demonstrate with? She pondered her options for a while, nothing definitive coming to mind, until suddenly... Her eyes snapped open, and she fixed her gaze on Levi. Of course! A grin spread over her face. This. This was perfect.

     She straightened, then cleared her throat and asked, “Is there anyone here who’d be willing to get punched for the sake of a scientific demonstration?”

     Her sudden question was met with startled stares. Several of the recruits backed away from her warily. Then Eren and Jean started nudging back and forth, trying to push each other into volunteering; this eventually devolved into a shoving match, with Mikasa and Armin trying to pull them apart. 

     The situation had grown to the point where it seemed the boys might start actually fighting, when all of a sudden both of them were shoved aside, as Captain Levi stepped forward.

     “I’ll do it.”

     Allise blinked. “You’ll do it?”

     “Yes.”

     “You sure?”

     “Yes.”

     “I... well... alright, then. Uh. Don’t... don’t get mad at me if this hurts more than you’re expecting, though.”

     Levi gave her a level look. “It’s fine. I can take a punch.”

     Allise gulped. “Right. So... Come stand over here, in front of me.”

     Levi moved into the center of the room and faced her.

     Allise smiled slightly. “Good. Now, ah... where would you prefer to be punched? I’d rather not the face, if you don’t mind.”

     “The stomach is fine.”

     Allise nodded. She stepped forward, close enough to reach out, curl her fingers into a fist, and rest it against his stomach. Levi gave her a confused look. “Was that supposed to do something?”

     She glanced up at him, then, and smirked. “Not yet. First, I want you to punch me.”

     “I thought I was the one getting punched?”

     “Oh you are, but I need you to punch me first. As hard as you can. Doesn’t matter where.”

     Levi was thoroughly baffled now-- Allise could feel the confusion radiating off of him-- but he shrugged it off, lifted a fist, drove it into her side... and stumbled backward barely half a second later, falling to the floor, as she allowed the force of his blow to flow through her body and out through the fist she had placed against his stomach.

     Everyone stared. None of them had ever seen Levi laid out like that-- not even Erwin or Hange. He was legendary among the soldiers of the Survey Corps for his ability to take a punch-- and throw one. And now there he was, flat on his back, staring at the ceiling in stunned surprise with the wind knocked out of him.

     Levi coughed and gasped, catching his breath, then sat up and looked back at Allise. “What was that? You didn’t even move. How did you do that?”

     “I redirected your punch,” Allise explained. “That’s my ability-- any force that someone uses against me, I can just let it go straight through me, or I can throw it right back at them.”

     Levi blinked. Blinked again. Tilted his head as he parsed through what that meant. “...So. What you’re saying is...”

     “...I punched myself?”

     She smirked at him. “Yep.”

     A strange expression crossed his face. He glanced at Allise, then at his hand, and back to Allise. His lips twitched. He turned back to his hand, and then...

     His shoulders started shaking. His hand trembled a bit, and he pressed it to his mouth. Erwin grew concerned. This was not normal. “Levi..?”

     A sound escaped Levi’s lips, a sort of soft wheezing. Everyone was worried. What was going on? Was something wrong with him? Had he injured himself with that punch?

     Then, the sound began to register properly. It grew in volume, as if Levi could keep it contained no longer, and suddenly burst out of him resolving itself as deep, throaty chuckles, which in turn shifted fully into...

     Laughter. He was laughing. Captain Levi was laughing.

     Erwin stared. “Is... Is he alright?” Hange was just as baffled. “I... believe so? Unless he hurt his head, but... he was hit in the stomach, so it shouldn’t have affected his brain.”

     Levi’s team was similarly shocked. They had never seen him laugh... ever. They weren’t even sure he could laugh-- Historia had been lucky to get even a small huff of a laugh, after her coronation. To see him like this, it was...

     Exhilarating. Relieving even, to see that he, too, could be affected like this.

     It was contagious. Conny snickered. Armin started giggling too. Mikasa’s expression softened, and even Eren let a smile grow on his face.

     After a minute or two, Levi managed to calm himself and pick himself up off the floor. His face smoothed back to its usual expression, though his cheeks were a bit pink as he turned to Erwin. “I--” he cleared his throat. “I believe Allise has made her point. Her ability to--” his lips twitched, and he cleared his throat again. “Her ability to manipulate forces should allow her to safely escape any Titan that crosses her path. If she really wants to go, I think she’ll be all right.”

     Erwin shook himself out of his stunned stupor and turned to Allise. “I agree. You’ve clearly demonstrated that you are capable of... impossible things. I hereby grant you official permission to attend this meeting, and accept your offer of assistance in retaking Wall Maria.--       “--don’t make me regret this permission.”

     Allise stood to attention, placing her fists fore and aft in the official military salute. “Sir!”

     Later, when the meeting was adjourned and everyone was heading out the door, Hange turned to Levi, and said, “I look forward to seeing what exactly Allise is capable of against Titans. If she can do to them what she did to you...” Hange smirked. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

     The last thing Erwin heard as he made his way to his desk, was a fresh burst of laughter from Levi echoing down the hall.

[blooddrop-palace]

Project Updates - What to Look Forward To

<3 Hello all! I've realized (humbly) that I have a small following of very nice people that seem quite interested in what I've written so far, and after seeing some mutuals post update-status posts, I thought I should share what's going on with my projects, also. (Thanks for the encouragement, @queenmuzz!)

Updated Dec-10-20

Sons of Fortune

Probably somehow my main focus now, though I am steadily working on other works. Currently working on the “In Between” special short before I start on Chapter 12.

I would also like to talk a little bit about my plans for this story: if anyone has paid attention to this story's tags, yes, I am touching up on the plots of most of the games. In fact, all of them, and the anime. (I already dealt with DMC4. No, I will not tear apart Fortuna lol.) Not all relevant tags are in, yet, because small spoilers. It looks like it's going to be a long while before I even get to the Temen-ni-gru, though. (There is a reason why that event is getting pushed back.) I want to have fun with the family fluff that is the twins each learning how to parent, first. 

Hell Froze Over, and We Shall Reignite It

The drama of it all! Dante and Vergil are finally back from Hell, and Nero doesn’t even know his mother is now standing right in front of him. Meanwhile, even I’m anticipating seen how Snow and Dante is going to handle the obvious things currently unsaid... and I have a feeling a small measure of stupidity is still going to be involved.

Current chapter progress: Outline complete.

It's going to feel so interesting, shifting from "Fortune" back to Reignite. I get to write Sera and Vergil falling in love all over again, with a different set of circumstances. Whoa.

And, and... Nero meeting Sera... odd that I'm saying this as the writer, but I have a "I hope he likes his mom" feeling going on. 

Also, no doubt Dante's brain is going to 404 when he sees Snow. 

Nico prepares popcorn.

This is Not an Office Rom-Com

I have... about 8 new skits planned out. Nothing more written just yet.

That’s all I’m saying about this for now. =P

Hierarchy of Kings

Purely indulgent M/M romance of Vergil and an OC, existing all thanks to

@wordborne

Working on chapter 2. 

I know I said 3 chapters only. I might have lied depending on how much I want to write. It's supposed to be just... awkward fluff of a listless part-devil who somewhat-recently lost his mate, got in a bit of a tiff with his brother, and now his children are trying to set him up with the prospective-king-of-hell, Vergil. 

I think about this one a lot but I haven't written anything new for it yet, only because "Fortune" is taking over my life right now, haha.

Through the Lens of the Beholder

Okay, so...This story has no real plot. As a result, my drive for it is purely down to "if I think of a badass or cool photograph to describe." There is a TINY bit of plot. Only a little. And I don't know when I'll update. But this is why I'm trying not to START new projects. Four  is a lot already! But because this one is supposed to be simpler than the other two, I will most likely finish this one before the others, so I can open a new project. 

---------------

Speaking of new projects... Here are things ideas bouncing through my head:

- I still have a prompt from @maybeishouldwait sitting in my inbox. I WILL have it done one day, when I find the perfect way to write it. 

A whole, entirely royally late set of Dadgil week fics.  Yep. I want to write them. They just won’t be on time. 

Written in Ink

A plot-less post-DMC5 story. 

I say plot-less. There is a plot. The plot is:

Dante: Damn it, Verge, are you trying to turn my office into a zoo??

In which Vergil compulsively starts contracting strong demons he's defeated, left and right, because he's discovered "the joy of pets." The demons all take on a dark animistic form and things get wild. 

A Persona and DMC fusion/AU

I have no title for this yet, and I absolutely cannot start this one until I have finished one of my other big projects. This one will take a lot of big planning, because I am making a new plot, using the mechanics of Persona, with DMC characters and setup.

What I want to write, is a teenage Nero as the protagonist, trying to solve a mystery... probably starting with the sudden disappearance of his mother. (Most likely Sera.) And he meets a lot of "new" people, and even finds new family... and yes, he will find his dad. (I'm thinking he'll know about Vergil, though. At least in name and a photo? Isn't that an interesting difference?)

For those of you not familiar with Persona, the major theme I really want to play with is that of the protagonist growing as a person (and in power) by befriending different people that helps them grow as a person. Each party member and important NPC is represented by a Tarot Card, signifying the type of journey the protagonist (The Fool) "embarks" with that character. There is growth in both the protagonist and that characters. 

Again, this is ambitious to try and pull off... but it's in the back of my head. I'll focus on it once I've cleared some other stuff. 

Sugar Sweet

A somewhat short-chapter series reader fic... of a surgeon/doctor!reader (barely 30 and good at what you do) who often saves the lives of shady people (e.g. mafia) because you care about saving lives, not the politics. But you do make good money out of it. (Hey, you gotta be at least a bit morally ambiguous if you're going to deal with devils.)

You meet one mess of a young mercenary named Dante, who is totally not human and deals with things like having bullets healed into his back, and he can't reach them to cut them out. 

Dante doesn't care about bills for his office, or a lot of the debts in his life. You don't know where his money is going, or if he even makes much money at all (for the kind of specialty work he does? Money's going somewhere, but that's none of your business.)

You won't pay Dante's bills, or his debts, but he will accept pizza and ice cream. And new parts for his jukebox. And maybe a motorcycle. Or a new coat. Or a new car...

And you might complain to him about your dumb patients. Or just listen to him talk about his job. Or you two watch a movie together.

And this just continues. For years. 

Tokusatsu DMC fusion/AU

So. First thing's first: I'm a big fan of Sentai/Tokusatsu. What is that, you might ask? It's a Japanese genre, and if you're familiar with Power Rangers, that's derived from Sentai. 

Basically: Masked heroes with transformation gadgets, sometimes with motorcycles, fighting against evil. ("Magical girls" but strictly the opposite, a lot more physical combat involved, may involve upgrade gadgets, and not strictly limited to male heroes though mostly a male cast. Also not strictly for male-only audience. Girls like the eye-candy, too. :eyes-emoji:)

Why am I thinking about this?

Because I have found out that: Vergil's VA, Dan Southworth, was the Quantum Ranger (WHICH WAS RED). Nero's VA, Johnny Yong Bosch, was a Black Ranger and a Green Ranger. 

...And Dante's VA, Reuben Langdon, had a role in a Japanese Toku show as "B-Fighter Yanma" forever ago???? (HE WAS BLUE!!)

What am I going to do with this info? I'll let you know later. But my Sentai/Toku-loving little heart is about to burst with hyperfixation overlap. 

If I ever write this out, expect it to be just as cheesy as an actual Kamen Rider show. Or, at the very least, expect some art. I love Kamen Rider stuff!

Family Fantasy MMO

Snow introduces Dante, Vergil, Nero, and Kyrie to Final Fantasy 14 (because that’s the MMO I play) for family bonding. Yep. Mainly for silly indulgence.

Stardew Valley Visit

Post DMC5, Vergil and Dante accidentally end up going on a vacation when they try to leave Hell. No pairing with the farmer, but instead just a relaxing and somewhat introspective moment of the boys being stuck with most of their power temporarily sealed, learning how to take care of a farm, and maybe do a bit of healing by interacting with the townsfolk while they try to find out where their swords went and how to get home. 

Re-Colourize

Otherwise what I would call the “re-colour of Nero and Snow” AU. 

What if Vergil was found by Kassy’s family and raised among them? What if Dante ended up briefly in Fortuna and then convinced Sera to run away from the island?

What if we have a Nero who, though brash, is outwardly more soft and open-hearted, and has red-orange and gold colours instead? What if we have a Snow who is named Chiyuki, who wields her katana more like Vergil does, and has a more ice-queen aura about her, and has a teal and blue colouring about her?

This is my excuse to switch up the pairings, but also write Vergil being taught to fight more like an assassin. 

Raised by the Blade

Imagine: Yamato, cracked, broken, and separated from her Master... desperately searching for a way to get back to him, and ended up washed up on the shores of Fortuna. Humanoid, but clearly not if anyone saw the cracked, broken, and no-normal look of “shattered” in her torso, that she would have to keep covered. 

Made from the power of Sparda, she is pale with white hair... and she finds herself drawn to the orphanage...

Where she finds the toddler that is Nero.

Devil Hunters’ Podcast

Nico “accidentally” finds entertainment in recording the Sparda Family arguments as they talk about hunting; after all, they all share one braincell. 

Ascended Monochrome

A white angel remains by the side of Nelo Angelo. Mundus was not pleased by the behavior of his second creation, from the human woman that he had picked up with the treacherous Son of Sparda. But he later discovered that by using her, he could keep Nelo Angelo complacent. Eventually, underestimating love will be his downfall.

Fall to Royalty

A story of where Vergil wins against Mundus the first time, and takes the throne of Hell. But what is he to do next? Eventually, ruling Hell seemed meaningless when there was no one by his side, so he goes to seek out the Lady Knight that he had vowed to never think of or go back to unless he had obtained the power he sought.

Doppelganger Woes

So, I heard Capcom retconned Gilver to be some sort of imitation created by Mundus. I’m all for this! And I’m going to DO something with this.

Side-Project: DMC Tarot List

I started on this maybe months ago; and I have a tentative list oh what characters go with what card and a few detailed descriptions. I think I should confer with

@harlot-of-oblivion

at some point about this, and anyone else interested in, well, Tarot stuff. 

[meta-shadowsong]

On Force-Sensitivity Demographics

AKA:  Exactly How Many Force-Sensitive People Are in the Galaxy; and Is This Genetic?

This is something I think about from time to time--I’m not sure exactly why now is one of those times, except that I set up this blog not too long ago and therefore was reading back through some old metas I’d written/bookmarked/etc.

Anyway, since it has been on my mind, I figured I’d go ahead and get my thoughts on the matter into some kind of coherent format!

And said thoughts basically boil down to one big ol’ shrug emoji, because I don’t think there’s enough information to say for sure.

Let’s start with the first question--how many Force-sensitive people are in the Galaxy?

So, the main evidence we have for any type of discussion on this subject is the size of the Jedi Order, which is stated to be roughly 10,000 beings as of the fall of the Republic. But there are a couple problems with extrapolating from that number.

First, who exactly does that 10,000 estimate include? Is it every Jedi currently known to be alive according to Temple records? Is it all active Jedi Knights/Masters/Padawans? Is it limited to full Jedi who have passed their Trials? Does it include retired Masters? Younglings and initiates?

Second, even if we take it as the most inclusive number possible (i.e., every living member of the Jedi Order from Master Yoda down to the three-month old that got brought in the day before the end), that’s not necessarily an accurate barometer for the percentage of Force-sensitives in the general population. For one thing, there are entire populations that are outliers (i.e., Dathomir, which seems to have a higher percentage than the galactic average, to the point where I kind of think it’s some kind of genius locus/an entire planet of people who are sensitive to a perceptible degree), and we don’t know how many of those/how sizeable they are.

With that in mind, using just the Jedi Order is probably not super-accurate to the galaxy as a whole. See above, re: Dathomir; not to mention other populations such as the Bardotta and Lasat that seem to have strong native traditions and generally don’t send their children to the Temple. Also, given that there’s a gradient/some level of variation in terms of raw strength/natural ability above whatever threshold the Jedi consider the minimum for induction into the Order, there probably is below it, too. Meaning, there’s most likely an unknown population of people who are perceptibly more sensitive than Joe Average, even if they don’t quite meet the Order’s standard, whatever that may be. I mean, you could view Force-sensitivity as a simple on/off switch, with…IDK…varying brightness in the bulbs once they’re turned on, but that seems weird/doesn’t really hold up for me. Especially given that, at least in Legends, certain species (such as the Iktotchi, IIRC) have a higher baseline level of Force-sensitivity than Humans do. Granted, the gradient issue is probably more relevant to the second half of this discussion (on possible heredity), rather than broad population estimates, because at some point a line has to be drawn; still, I thought it best to mention it.

Third, even if we exclude populations like Dathomiri/Bardotta/Lasat and people who are sensitive enough to Do Things, but not necessarily above whatever threshold the Jedi require, that 10,000 is still probably not a great sample, because it’s fairly limited. It consists of people who were a) born in the Republic and/or found by a wandering Jedi within the appropriate age range, whatever that may be, and b) had parents who were willing to give them up for adoption. I’ve touched on this before but the highlights: we don’t know how many letter B excludes, but even letter A probably doesn’t catch all the eligible people within that parameter.

And I can say this because of Palpatine.

Based on his background, coming from a sector capital (if a relatively rural/minor one) and born to parents who had a fair amount of personal resources, it’s hard to believe that he wouldn’t be identified. I mean, yes, one explanation is a handwaved because Destiny said so/the Son chose his champion and made sure he would be found by the correct teacher, but it’s just as likely that there are kids, even from highly visible populations, who slip through the cracks--let alone children from less visible populations. Especially since, to my knowledge, there’s not actually a whole lot of information out there on exactly how candidates for the Order are identified, so it’s hard to say how many people, like Palpatine, slipped through the cracks.

Now, to be fair, I don’t know if this possible increase in the numbers of Force-sensitives makes a significant difference in terms of the percentage they make up of the overall population, given the sheer size of the galaxy. But that just brings me to question #2, because I think it does mean that determining whether Force-sensitivity is genetic is really, really hard to determine.

Again, since most of our information comes from the Jedi Order, we’re dealing with a potentially skewed/small/nonrepresentative sample size of people who, generally speaking, do not have biological children. In addition, we don’t actually know a whole lot about who more than, like, a hundred or so of those ten thousand are? Of whom we do see one set of cousins (if I’m remembering current canon about Adi Gallia and Stass Allie correctly) and one sibling pair (from the Order 66 arc in Clone Wars; though they are twins, which by common laws/tropes of Fantasy Genetics makes things Special/weird/more likely to be magic/Force-sensitive).

Anyway, that evidence is not the greatest for making broad generalizations. Basically, we can extrapolate that you don’t have to have (Jedi-level) Force-sensitive parents to be Force-sensitive yourself. Meaning, the ability itself can turn up as a completely spontaneous mutation, so to speak--which, while not the best term, is the one I’m going to use from here on out for convenience.

But that doesn’t necessarily say anything about the likelihood of a Force-sensitive parent passing on said mutation and having a Force-sensitive child.

And that, we really can’t answer definitively, since the only people whose bloodlines we can track that are known to contain multiple Force-sensitives are the Skywalkers (who are outliers adn should not be counted) and Maul and his brothers (who are Dathomiri and thus, as discussed above, most likely a Special Case).

So here, we enter Wild Headcanon territory.

That disclaimer aside, my personal take on the heredity question, is that the more sensitive you are, the higher your chances of producing a Force-sensitive child. So, for example (and pulling numbers out of thin air), Joe Average has a 1/20 chance of having a Force-sensitive baby through a spontaneous mutation; the average Jedi Knight or someone with the equivalent level of potential has a 50/50 chance of passing it on; someone on Palpatine or Yoda’s level has maybe a 3/4 chance; and of course Anakin’s children will be Force-sensitive regardless (but, again, outlier/Life Incarnate/I’m pretty sure the main reason it took three years to conceive the twins was that he and Padme were both using like five kinds of birth control and also didn’t actually have all that many opportunities to sleep together--buuuuuut that is a discussion for a separate post).

Anyway, this still means that Joe Average could have five Force-sensitive kids in a row and a Jedi-level Force adept could have five kids and none of them are sensitive, because these probabilities are for each individual child. In essence, while rare, it is possible to roll a die and get, say, five straight nat ones (as D&D players will probably know); and it’s…actually more likely than that to flip a coin and get tails five times in a row, according to my vague memory of high school math and how to calculate probabilities.

[Tangentially, this explains Korkie in my head, since he seems to be either Force-null or somewhere on that sliding scale between zero and the Jedi threshold. Because I do headcanon him as Obi-Wan and Satine’s biological son (though I think Bo-Katan is legally his mother; but that’s something planned for my fic blog rather than here); and the cointoss turned up tails.]

And this is just the most basic, surface-level analysis, without even considering the impact of the second bioparent in the equation (not that I think this fits neatly into a Punnett square or anything), or what happens if you’re dealing with a Force-null child of a Force-sensitive parent; or varying probabilities depending on where the nominally non-sensitive parent falls on that sliding scale I keep mentioning…but most of that would be well beyond my half-remembered high-school bio/math understanding of probability and genetics soooo yeah.

In conclusion--with regard to the questions of how many Force-sensitives there in the galaxy; and even more so whether or not Force-sensitivity is at all genetic, the answer is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  because there isn’t enough information to say for sure one way or the other.

(Note: it probably also bears mentioning, re: the heredity question, that families in the GFFA seem to run fairly small? Like, I can only think of one confirmed example of a family with more than two kids in canon (Maul and his brothers; who are Dathomiri and therefore possibly not a good example for determining Force heredity) and one possible one (Satine, Bo-Katan, and a possible third sibling; though to my knowledge that has never been 100% confirmed/made explicit, and neither of the two we know for sure exist are Force-sensitive). Everyone else I’m coming up with is either an only child or one of two siblings, or not specified. I can’t even think of all that many in Legends, though there are a few more there. To be fair, we don’t actually have a very broad sample of families, either, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[niennavalier]

Okay guys here we go, my OC children (with a few details left out cause I do have plans for them like the evil writer I am). Also, there be angst ahead, but let’s be real, that’s not surprising for me:

1/2. Taylor and Alex Fairfax: Talking about these two together to start cause they’re siblings (obviously). Also they’re the first major OCs I ever created. She’s the older of the two by a couple years. They grew up having to move around a lot due to whatever their father’s career was, and their mom probably died at some point while they were both still pretty young. Their dad ended up becoming emotionally abusive, not getting found out somehow, and the two of them really only had each other. At least until Alex was probably around 11-12 ish, and he decided he couldn’t take anymore of this and ran shortly before they would’ve moved again. He thought she would follow him and they could be free, but she never did, and he was sorta left to fend for himself. Depending on how realistic I make this universe, it’s probably he went into some sorta foster system or something, but it never worked out, and he did end up associating with shady folks at times. But, come present day (when he’s probably...18-19 ish? I don’t have all the specific ages I need for this story hammered out yet) he’s mostly gallivanting around, the type to go partying and gambling and sleeping around with whomever his heart desires, always moving forward and doing as he pleases. For one night only. He’s got acquaintances, but not friends, and he doesn’t want them; for as much as he pretends it doesn’t, his past and the people he thought he could be close with have left a lasting effect, hence why he likes to lay on the charm and put on this confident and flirty front. Surrounding himself with people and meaningless fun (which...he’s sorta nihilist but thats beside the point) is how he copes with the ghosts and the fact he does want to have someone there, but doesn’t know how to actually go about accomplishing that. He gets money by less than legal means (the mob and similar organizations like his pretty face, and he’s easy to threaten into stuff - they don’t even have to go after people he cares about, cause he cares about his own well being first and foremost). Not gonna go into too much else because that’s plot stuff but that’s Alex.

As for Taylor, after Alex leaves, she basically goes the opposite direction. She ends up retreating into herself and putting her head down and just trying to get through life without getting into trouble with her father. Which...kinda works but not entirely, and not without consequences. She tends to isolate herself and is as much an introvert as her brother is an extrovert, which isn’t the most helpful when she essentially runs away to go to college. Making friends is foreign, and asking for help is even more so, but she does end up meeting a guy who’s able to coax her out of her shell and gain her trust. And things are outwardly pretty good, she has the chance to be happy and gets someone as a support system that she’s desperately needed (maybe a little too desperately, but hey, that’s for character development things in the future). And she’s a pretty big dork when she has the chance to open up, definitely isn’t adverse to some childish fun cause, well, she never really got that before and gets introduced to it now. But you all know me and my angsty backstories, so things don’t stay this way. AKA yeah, he gets killed off, and the downward spiral  to follow ain’t pretty. Which actually brings us to the beginning of the story that I have plotted out and she’s gonna meet Valon. (Which might sound familiar to some people here, cause Taylor is my OC from my first ygo fic, so yeah, Valon is my Aussie Son. He should technically be on this list though because I do plan to make changes and such to his backstory and the like, but I don’t have that much concretely figured out for him. His personality and the things I have planned for him are more or less in line with the fic version of this from a few years back. With the possible exception of Mai. I don’t have Valon’s entire arc plotted yet in my new version so whether there’s an analogous character to her depends on what I decide on)

Also if anyone’s wondering: the two of them are half-Asian (on their mom’s side). Alex is very pan (and will likely flirt with Valon, let’s be honest) and she’s probably gray-ace or demi, somewhere in that area.

3. Arina “Ari” Varrelian: My hacker daughter :) Unlike every other character I’ve mentioned here (Taylor, Alex, and Valon) most of her backstory actually isn’t too sad. She’s lived a pretty normal life in terms of the things she’s been doing and her relationship with her parents. She’s just a hacker on top of that and generally skilled with technology (basically that kid that took everything apart to see how it ticked and then trying to make something new out of it). In general, she’s quite extroverted and fun-loving and easily excitable, loving to pull a good prank and see the hilarity that ensues. (Actually, I feel like the best approximation of her character is the Caltech students that decided to hack the Rose Bowl scoreboard for the hell of it. That’s the shit she pulls). She’s also perpetually late to everything. Not super important but true. Despite her fairly happy demeanor, she’s actually not incredibly close friends with that many people, though she’s attracted a bit of negative attention for the things that she does, not that she really cares about all that. Moreover, she’s smart but actually doesn’t care much for school and the like, even if she could be good at it, usually pretty prone to letting her attention wander if she’s not actually interested - she devotes her time and attention to what she does enjoy instead, and is perfectly capable of going full Tony Stark levels of completely forgetting about the world when she’s in the mood. (That actually happens fairly often). However, she’s really close with her parents - and the love is reciprocated - she’s also got her best friend who I will get into a bit more below. But her life is actually fairly good (that is, until I intervene and shit hits the fan because, well, she’s gotta get involved in my plot somehow)

Last few facts for her (because I think I have most of the relevant details?): her name is Armenian in origin, and I actually really like it. Her last name comes from the word for ‘light’ and her first name was picked cause I could shorten it, which I wanted. She’s also biromantic ace and for some reason that was something I knew off the bat with her?

Okay not gonna number here but I’ve also got Ari’s friend currently in the works. He’s tentatively been named Thomas (no last name yet but I did say tentative, so...). He and Ari are childhood friends, and he’s essentially her opposite in a number of ways. He’s cool and level-headed and is usually there to keep Ari grounded and in the moment. Also generally the one to bring her food when she forgets what day it is, and often can be seen in her vicinity fondly shaking his head at whatever shenanigans she’s gotten herself into. Of the two, he’s the one who’s more...traditionally smart (that’s weird wording but I’ll explain) in that he does well in school and all that jazz, although he doesn’t call much attention to himself. That’s most of what I have down for him, but I also need to finish figuring out exactly his place in my story before I have that down for sure.

There’s also the antagonist of this thing, but I’m really not going into him for A) plot purposes and B) my laziness/ lack of actual planning on this front

Also just a note, I justify the angst of some of these backstories due to the world that they’re gonna be in. I wanna keep that to myself for now until I have more of this down and drafted, but there are reasons for all the things, I swear

(And last note, but I’ve started to ship my own characters aka Alex and my d&d thief son Anders, is this a bad thing?? I haven’t even thought of Alex in a relationship??)

[lokgifsandmusings]

Definitive Ranking of Book 1 Episodes, #9/12

9. 1x06 And The Winner Is...

It’s the probending finals! That’s it. That’s literally it.

As I go through these metas, I’m constantly rethinking my rankings since the issues seem to crystallize. For instance, though I might have enjoyed “Skeletons in the Closet” over something like “A Leaf in the Wind” due to personal taste, my “Endgame” essay made it clear that many of the structural and thematic problems of the season were tied to the last few episodes. For that reason, I kind of expected “Turning the Tide” to be next, since it’s the episode where (by my own account) the ‘wheels came off’ the narrative.

There *is* a lot to tackle there, but “And The Winner Is...” was right next to it on my first pass-through list, and I simply couldn’t think of a way in which it’s better.

The best that can be said about 1x06 is that it’s not bad. It’s really not. It hedges on “fine” territory for most of the episode. At the same time, it’s unthinkable that this is *all* that happens in a full episode. We’ve had utterly *packed* 22 minutes before, like “Enemy At The Gates”. Here, it’s basically two things:

There’s a championship match & some team prep

Amon attacks after the match

Hell this could have easily been combined into one bullet point if I had been trying.

It’s not that focused episodes are necessarily a bad thing, either. “Operation Beifong” is easily one of my favorites, and that B-plot may as well not exist. But the main issue is that the driving tension of this episode, at least until the terrorist attack, is a rivalry match that was established the episode prior. And consisted entirely of one mean remark on the part of Tahno that was also vaguely suggestive. Like, I’m sorry to hear Bolin and Mako lost to them off-screen in the past, but Tahno literally had four lines that was just sort of, “You are losers.” Was anyone super gripped by this?

This is especially an issue given that it followed the episode of probending saturation. Again, probending is a successful tool to showcase Korra’s development in teamwork (remember her extreme isolation in the South Pole), and to also show what type of Avatar she is and what her mark is: she reconciles the old tried-and-true into the modern era with her own spin on it (airbending applied to pro sports). However, that use was kind of drained after “A Leaf in the Wind.” All we’re left with is watching yet another match, and worse still, this one is presented as if we should be really hanging on to find out the outcome.

Look, Tahno seems like an asshole. We also are primed on a cultural level to root for the underdogs by default, and of course we’d rather the team with the people we know and like at this point be the victors. It’s *fine*, but forgive me for not being invested. I do think Amon’s attack at the stadium was an effective venue, though for the life of me, I fail to see why it couldn’t have come at the end of 1x05. We didn’t need Amon’s warning, and I actually think a surprise would have been even better (and made more sense; but I’ll get to that). Plus, that would solve a lot of the issue of 1x05’s pacing. We didn’t need 3 random matches just like we didn’t need continual love triangle idiocy. “Let’s be friends” could have been easily established before the final match against Tahno, and then the episode would end with chaos erupting.

I’m dangerously close to fix-it fic, and I realize that. But I just don’t see this episode justifying itself as is. What is the value of having Tarrlok, Lin, and Tenzin debate how to handle an attack that was always going to happen? I mean, I’m usually all for this kind of granular detail, but there was no incentive or reward for the audience agreeing with anyone in it. Other than that, we had Korra and the Ferrets attacking pictures of Tahno and a match where the Wolfbats cheat (which wouldn’t have been hard to establish in half the time), before the attack itself.

For an episode that was supposed to set the tone of the rest of the season, it felt very much like spinning-wheels.

Alright, now the logical issues. Tarrlok, Lin, and Tenzin know this terrorist threat is there. The whole Council is united in closing down the arena (and are unmoved by Korra, Bolin, and Mako arguing for it to stay open because...they want it to) until Lin runs in and says they need to show city-wide strength and unity against the Equalists. This is a decent point, especially because it’s still unclear what percentage of nonbenders even support this cause. There’s no real debate that ensues, however, even though these are rather relevant topics to address.

Tarrlok agrees to this as long as Lin is the one to personally ensure responsibility for everyone’s safety. Which is just...this doesn’t make sense. It’s still the Council’s decision to go through with it, and it also seems bizarre that the only thing fueling Tarrlok’s decision was personal risk. He is legitimately committed to stopping the Equalists, and there’s no reason why the presence of police would alter his calculus about keeping the arena open very much. Plus, is he elected? What is his biggest fear, here?

The weirdest part to me, though, is why *wouldn’t* Lin’s police force already be assumed as protection? In fact, shouldn’t she have been in on this conversation from the get-go, since it’s literally about security, and even just Amon threatening to attack the place would trigger a very serious response on the part of the police department?

Maybe these are nitpicks, or maybe I’m just frustrated by the fact that Amon could have easily been stopped if they just positioned metalbenders and the entrance and searched everyone. I guess in fairness the gloves were new technology, and they were just assuming otherwise unarmed chiblockers would show up. But the Equalists Korra fought in 1x03 undercuts this assumption quite significantly since they were already using gas canisters and other sorts of weaponry. Hell, Bolin and Mako even dealt with a guy who had those shocker-sticks, which I have to assume they would have mentioned to someone. Since, you know, the people keeping Republic City safe are running around in metal suits?

I think the crux of it, at least for me, is that in our current world, if you’re going to show us the “governmental response” to a threatened terrorist attack, it deserves to be handled in a way that 1) makes sense and 2) actually tries to grapple with the balance of showing resilience/unity versus safety and the risks associated with both. I’m just not sure LoK was ever really the show that should have tried to handle this, and certainly not when our protagonist is arguing one side on the basis of her wanting to participate in a sporting event.

Which again, but a surprise attack could have resolved this issue.

There’s also a more general problem here, and that’s the Equalists and their very, very undefined support. We’re supposed to assume the majority of nonbenders are *not* Equalists, or at least, that’s what 1x08 implied with the police force inflicting harm (or almost doing so) on a vulnerable population. We see that Amon’s rallies are popular and people were generally supportive of vigilante justice being doled out against corrupt gang members (again, debending can kind of be thought of as disarmament, at least before Amon’s “cleansed of impurity” quasi-genocidal speech begins), but there’s a large difference between that and willingly hiding a glove in a bucket of popcorn and attacking the police with it.

We could think that most nonbenders do want *something* done about the inequality and the way benders are able to extort (also their taxation without representation, I guess), but is *this* really the message that’s going to get people on-board:

“Good morning, citizens of Republic City. This is Amon. I hope you all enjoyed last night's pro-bending match, because it will be the last. It's time for this city to stop worshiping bending athletes as if they were heroes. I am calling on the council to shut down the bending arena and cancel the finals, or else there will be severe consequences.”

If anything, this is the kind of shit that would bring people together to say “fuck those guys.” Amon was able to spin the Wolfbat’s win into some commentary that was probably relatively resonant, but again, it’s the premeditated nature of this that seems utterly unstrategic. Had the Council shut it down...where does he make his speech about taking Gotham back from the corrupt?

Actually, speaking of Bane, remember that time he interrupted a major sporting event? And told everyone to “Take control of your city. This...this is the instrument of your liberation! ...We come here not as conquerors, but as liberators, to return control of this city to the people.” And a big part of that working was the ELEMENT OF SURPRISE? And the fact that it was well-attended because people weren’t scared shitless? And the cops were on a false trail instead of having been given a heads up about an attack?

I don’t even know what point I’m making anymore. That Amon is a failed Bane? (Who’s really more like comic!Ra’s al Ghul, according to Griffin.) That Nolan pulled off this concept better than Bryke, though 1x06 aired like two months beforehand?

Really, what it boils down to is that it bothers me when it feels like things ~just happen~ to advance the plot. Amon’s threat was seeded before this episode, and an attack makes sense and ups the stakes. But the open Equalist revolution announcement shouldn’t have to rely on the idiocy of everyone else. Also, in 1x04 it was “too early” to take Korra’s bending since she’d be a martyr. But now two episodes later, probending athletes are a suitable target? Sure they cheated, but these aren’t exactly crime bosses or even someone like Tarrlok. They’re not martyrs? They had fans. Finding out Lance Armstrong had been juicing was really upsetting, but I doubt we’d be cheering at someone breaking his legs (and his off-race behavior makes Tahno look like a cinnamon roll).

Yes, probending represents the worshipping of a privilege. But that is a full stadium, no matter how you slice it.

Really, if we had any idea of the support the Equalists enjoyed, or perhaps a deeper look at the plight of the nonbender past phonograph destruction, I think this could have landed. That’s perhaps where the creative energy needed to go in the episode immediately preceding it, rather than romance, especially since the Bolin leg of the love trapezoid was not needed in any way. (Frankly neither was Asami as a device to hook up Makorra in the first place.) But without it, it just comes across as a little bit of an ass-pull. This is especially the case when the Wolfbats’ cheating wasn’t even hinted at before their match. Wouldn’t Bolin have known this and mentioned it to Korra?

That said, there are nice things about this episode, and I think this is where this book’s definitive rankings turn a corner. Because truly, I feel bad having almost nothing nice to say about the 3 previous episodes I’ve dug into.

For one, I love anything Linzin. I’m like, “oh yeah, you wreck that home, Lin!”, but they do give me significant feels, and I think it’s fantastic how they’re scripted. There’s obvious affection there, as well as hurt, and this kind of deeply-rooted inability to communicate entirely honestly. Lin’s “Like old times?” actually makes me make disgusting noises at my computer. Especially since she immediately walks it back. Remember how they probably dated for like a decade and a half?

STAHP IT!!

I think it’s kind of funny that Lin is accidentally an abysmal chief of police in the narrative. Like I said, stopping and searching everyone would have been the way to go, unless that happened and the popcorn was somehow overlooked. Still, her confidence and old tried-and-true methods did help frame the uprising in an effective way.

That’s the other thing: even with Amon’s announcing of it, the Equalists revealing themselves was awesome. The slow-motion worked effectively, along with Korra’s hazy vision, and the way that there were Equalists hiding in plain-sight within the audience. Their ascent to the airships was a little silly as a conclusion, but otherwise Amon’s message and the reveal of the electric glove worked well. Though one odd thing was that in absence of distributing these (I guess they didn’t want them to fall into bender hands?), it felt a little salespitchy. “And you too can ensure equality for only 9 yuans!”

(x)

The rooftop fight was a wonderful conclusion, especially since the episode ended on the somber note, with a pulled out shot of the destruction. Lin is the perfect action hero, and this also showcased Korra’s prowess, without completely breaking the narrative. She threw herself into the fight without thinking much, and ended up needing rescue, though not before reminding us of her amazing physicality.

The conclusion was good, it was just the path getting there was not particularly engaging. Which interestingly is the complete opposite of Book 1 as a whole. Still, it was the halfway chapter needed, and the surprise Equalist uprising in the stadium is iconic enough to be ripped off. If only the follow-through had been there.

#12 1x12 “Endgame”

#11 1x05 “The Spirit of Competition"

#10 1x11 “Skeletons in the Closet”

1x06 photo recap found here

Book 2 ranking/essays found here

Book 4 ranking/essays found here

[sharkfish]

Ugh, stop tempting me with all your Sterek posts! I don't have time to watch a new show! Do you think I really need to watch in order to read some fic about them? Or can I just skim wiki about the show haha

oh you absolutely do not have to watch the show and in fact i would recommend you do not. i started reading fics kind of randomly a couple weeks ago and had never seen the show – i wasn’t going to bother but it’s streaming free on amazon prime so i watched a few episodes just trying to get an idea of like… their voices and mannerisms? anyway it’s real bad. like, i talk shit on supernatural for not being a good show, but teen wolf is… in another category of not-good tv. and even the fandom seems overall pretty miserable about everything that happened past s3 or so (multiple people have told me specifically to stop watching past s3 if i make it that far) (spoiler: i won’t). watching the main character (scott mccall played by tyler posey) is real painful. i’m cringing thinking about it. 

TEEN WOLF SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR ALL SEASONS PROBABLY

the main thing you’ll probably want to know about teen wolf is re: werewolf lore [link to teen wolf wiki]. even a lot of tw au fics feature werewolves, which i expected to really hate but i am actually pretty into. i’m still relatively confused about what exactly it means to be an alpha, beta, or omega werewolf in tw-land (no relation to a/b/o in an spn fandom-style omegaverse, though those exist too!!!), but as long as you realize it’s unrelated to a/b/o stuff you can generally figure out what it means in the context of whichever fic you are reading. 

otherwise, here’s what you need to know: setting: beacon hills, california (fictional but probably somewhere in nocal). scott mccall got bit by a rogue alpha werewolf, turning him into a werewolf. he is not relevant, but he does accidentally fall in love with a girl (allison argent) from a family of werewolf hunters. his best friend is stiles stilinski (played by dylan o’brien, who you may know from the maze runner), the boy with a polish name so unpronounceable it isn’t even actually said in canon until later in the series (it’s Mieczyslaw, though many older fics use various difficult-for-americans polish names). stiles talks too much and is super bi. they meet derek hale, who is a hottie werewolf. (derek is played by tyler hoechlin, who is currently running around with this beard that is really upsetting to me because i am not generally into beards but i’m actually really into his beard, ugh, god dammit.) he is very broody and really just gives off some alarming edward cullen vibes in his first appearances in the show. very grumpy and mysterious and quiet and shirtless a lot. there’s a scene where he pushes stiles into a wall that is one of the gayer things i’ve ever seen since the last time dean and cas were on screen together. (seriously – there’s a similar scene between scott and stiles a couple episodes prior that is extremely non-gay, and then stiles and derek start staring at each other’s lips and fixing each other’s jackets and shit, WHOA.) 

stiles is in love with lydia martin, who is a super popular pretty redheaded girl who is dating jackson. stiles’s mom died when he was younger (cancer i think but i am not sure) and his dad is the sheriff. 

derek fell in love with kate argent when he was 16-18 (canon never specifies derek’s age and there is confusing info specifically in response to his age during the kate thing) (are we never told his age bc he and stiles’s antics are a little gay and stiles is only 16 at the beginning of the show? idk), not knowing she was a hunter. she used his love for her to trick him and ended up murdering his entire family (mom: talia; dad: idk his name; sisters: laura and cora [one of them may have survived the fire but died later? i am confused about this] [and then i guess cora wasn’t really dead at all?? that all happens later in canon and doesn’t come up in fics very often]) in a house fire. also i’m pretty sure derek killed this other girl he loved when he was younger (paige) – i’m not sure of the details but he’s real fucked up and guilty about it even though it is generally presented like he does not deserve that guilt. 

other notable characters: erica, isaac, and boyd are members of derek’s pack. sometimes in fic isaac is in a poly thing with scott and allison which is p cool! erica and boyd are usually together. ummm there’s also a chick named kira who is a kitsune (i have no idea what that actually means in the tw verse) and might hook up with scott in later seasons. chris argent is allison’s hunter dad but some fics portray him as an ok dude. peter hale is derek’s uncle and is a creepy dick. 

fics!!! k i have read a LOT of sterek fics (like.. hundreds…..) in the last couple of weeks but here are the 3 that have made it on my bookmarks list so far: 

Love Runs Wild by DevilDoll derek and stiles are porn stars who do like softcore werewolf-human porn for a magazine called neckz ‘n throats. stiles shows up to a shoot with a hickey on his neck and this is Bad News cuz werewolves have this whole thing about marking (!!!) and derek is like really upset but trying to pretend it’s fine and he’s not all in love with stiles. this is probably a good intro to general ideas the tw fandom has about werewolf mating rituals. also it’s just in general A+ smutty good times.

Sell Your Body to the Night by Dira Sudis (dsudis) this one is about 16 year old sex worker stiles, hired by rich werewolf derek. so… like… warnings for all the consent implications re: being a 16 year old sex worker, and generally i stray away from underage stuff even if both characters are the same age, but this is a really beautiful sweet love story, and i can’t believe i’m describing something that is tagged with watersports as a “beautiful sweet love story,” but it really is. (i am not into watersports lmao but am glad i read this anyway. it’s one scene at the beginning of ch9 that can be skipped but tbh unless you are super squicked, i would suggest reading it bc the scene manages to come across really intense and intimate and all around great despite, you know, someone getting peed on.) 

Cornerstone by Vendelin derek is a marine vet and stiles is blind. derek makes a dick out of himself and stiles kind of forcibly befriends him anyway and it’s sweet and fluffy and all-around wonderful as fuck. this was the first sterek fic i ever loved and i hope i don’t forget that feeling (i was just lamenting last night that i have zero memory of when i went from someone who was real scared of the spn fandom in general bc wincest was the only ship anyone ever talked about to dedicating 90% of my available brainpower to destiel – how did i even hear about it?? when did i start reading fics??? what kind of fics did i read??? how did i feel about them??? i have no idea!!!). 

also i went through most of @bleep0bleep‘s fic rec list [link] and enjoyed the vast majority of them so i would definitely suggest checking that out for some good fics!!! (i read a bunch of bleep0bleep’s fics, too, and they are also great [link to their ao3]) 

keep me updated!! send me the good fic links!!!! 

ps i am vaguely working on my first sterek fic. destiel is the first fandom i’ve ever completed fics for (i do have one (1) unfinished merlin fic that predates any of my spn writing, but that’s it) and the only thing i’ve written in years so it’s super weird/fun to play in another sandbox! 

[jerepars]

The Con Extended Chapter Notes

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here.

And now for something a little different. Okay, a lot different. Clearly this is an alternate universe where Betty grew up with her older brother, Chic (he hasn't been mentioned by name yet, but it is him), and his best friend, Jughead. Chic definitely isn't a replacement for Archie though (however, with Chic being Jughead's best friend, the friendship dynamics are different). Archie will actually play a very important role in this story.

This story is based on a fic that I wrote a few years ago in a different fandom (Actually, full transparency, the very first inception of this storyline goes even further back to when I was fourteen, writing stuff about pop punk bands, haha. So if we're keeping count then maybe this is actually the third version of it). I was re-reading that and as I kept going forward, I kept thinking that it could potentially be an interesting Bughead story if I reworked it.

Now, just because I'm adapting it from something I wrote before, it doesn't mean that I just changed the character names and went with the exact same story. The storyline is something I've done before but the characters and their lives don't translate like that into this story. There may be instances where I'll keep a few sentences in the narrative or phrases of dialogue, but it's definitely a brand new story.

In the past this story has been sarcastic and light and funny. And I think I do still want it to be on the lighter side. But it's Betty and Jughead out of Riverdale. So there has to be a bit of an undercurrent that wasn't there before. That's something I'm really excited to explore.

I think a good way to describe this story at this point, without saying too much, is how Betty and Jughead's relationship (if they're going to have one) is affected by their relationships with other people in their lives.

Because he and my brother were three years my senior, they believed they had the right to do whatever the fuck they wanted to me. There were pranks, name-calling, and all the other typical things boys at that cooties age could do to a little girl. I’ll admit I was just as bad. Everyone around town always praised me for being such a good little girl. But to them, I was annoying. Actually, that was an understatement. Everywhere they went, I went. Everything they did, I did. I was the little tag-along sister that brothers loathed. As my brother’s best friend, he took the opportunity as often as possible to tell me that he despised my presence and that I was a constant headache. Even at a young age he’d already been wise with his words.

I listened to Joyce Manor's self-titled album on loop for a huge chunk of writing this prologue, which isn't hard to do because it's under 20 minutes long. The last song on the album is called "Constant Headache", which I don't think would be relevant to 10-year-old Jughead's feelings, but I do think that 10-year-old Jughead would have been apt to say something clever like that.

Although he remained best friends with my brother, I didn’t see much of him past fourteen. I moved an entire time zone away to fuel my own ambitions. Whenever I was home in our small town, I ignored him. Whenever he was at the house with my brother, I would hide away in my room or go for a long run. Because I had the kind of crush on him that meant I couldn’t utter a single word normally without overthinking it or mentally berating myself. He had some kind of power over my head and my heart merely by existing. Everything about him was intimidating to me. I should have stopped liking him then, on those long weekends and school breaks that I was home, because I saw how girls acted around him once he got his leather jacket that put him in a fortress of self. In spite of his sensitivity, or maybe because of it, he was like other teenage boys in high school: bad at managing feelings and relationships.

Still on the Joyce Manor album. There's a song called "Leather Jacket" and it starts: In your new leather jacket, you're somebody else. And it's not nice to meet you in a fortress of self. So while wearing the jacket, the person puts up a front, and the jacket conceals the person's true self. Sounds like someone who could be Jughead, or this version of Jughead that I have in my head for this story.

I lived in dorms all through high school so I could attend the pre-professional conservatory program at the Joffrey Academy of Dance in Chicago. I never had anything less than a soloist’s role in all of the student showcases and galas, and I had the principal female role in the academy’s spring production all before graduating high school. I’d even heard whispers that I had been considered for the same role a year earlier but was ultimately passed over because I’d missed a few months of dancing due to injury. I worked at my craft with everything I had, because it was what I loved the most, so I thrived under the pressure of my life as a burgeoning young dancer. I moved up from the academy’s conservatory program to its trainee program, then graduated to the fully-funded studio company program where I was offered an apprentice position with the actual company that the school was affiliated with, The Joffrey Ballet. It was beyond thrilling to see my dreams begin to come to fruition.

Is the whole dance story thing too played out? Are we overrun with these stories? Are they too common and unoriginal now?

Something that I couldn't part with from the previous version of this story was the dance element. I considered it, but not for very long. I thought about other careers or ventures or education Betty could have as an alternative but they just didn't fit right. I think it's better that Betty isn't a writer in this story. Because it's in her voice, I want her to come off as authentic, just as her, not as a journalist.

I feel like it's not a run of the mill dance story. Though I suppose it's the reader's prerogative to decide that. What I can promise is that the ballet part of this story will always be researched and represented appropriately to the best of my ability. No second guessing. No guessing. I'm obsessed with doing proper background research for stories, always.

A lot of the research is actually already done because I did so much of it when I wrote the story that this is based on a few years back. I did have to take some creative liberties though.

The blockquoted paragraph above reveals that the story takes place in Chicago, and according to Betty she lived in dorms through high school for a conservatory program. In the old version of this story, it was set in Toronto and the narrator (allegedly, it was still fan fiction, after all) trained at an academy similar to Canada's National Ballet School, which is a ballet boarding school with ties to the National Ballet of Canada.

I knew right away that I wanted the Bughead version of this story to be set in Chicago. That meant that it would be the Joffrey Academy of Dance that Betty went to and it would be the Joffrey Ballet where she ends up as a corps member. After perusing the Joffrey Ballet website, it seems that I may be a little ahead of my time on there being ballet boarding school in Chicago. This upcoming school year, September 2017, is the first year they're introducing a conservatory program. The current academics and housing situation offered definitely do not qualify it as a ballet boarding school, but if we're to accept that Betty is an 21-year-old adult in this alternate universe then it must be set sometime in the future, where the program has developed more, OR the program is on the same level as CNBS and NBC. I'll have to take the creative liberty on this one. Sorry. It's such a small detail that won't have major impact on the story anyway, so it doesn't matter. Oh, who am I kidding, none of this actually matters.

The rest of what Betty says is totally copacetic though. The academy has student programs/productions and galas. The Trainee Program is a step up from the conservatory (though having been in the conservatory isn't a requirement for becoming a trainee) and the Studio Company is a full scholarship given to "10 outstanding students selected by the Joffrey Ballet Artistic Director and Head of Studio Company and Trainee Program."

Betty's age timeline going through all of this is like this in my mind: 14-17 Conservatory Program 17 Trainee Program 18 Studio Company --> Apprentice 19 Apprentice --> Corps de Ballet 19-21 (her current age) Corps de Ballet

I'm sure I'm the only person this actually matters to. But here we are.

A running quip between my brother, his best friend, and me is that role reversal happened somewhere in our lives. Whereas I had followed them around as a little girl, it was almost like they were following me since I moved. My brother moved to Chicago (Evanston, to be precise) a year after me to attend college at Northwestern. His best friend opted for the University of Michigan, in order to be closer to his own younger sister. So when he wound up in Ann Arbor, we were all reunited by Midwestern geography. But he and my brother only saw each other once in a while as college students in different states (hell, my brother had lived literally less than 20 miles from me then, and we hardly ever saw each other during that four-year stretch of time), which meant that I rarely saw him. The three of us never had a full-fledged reunion despite them following me to the Midwest.

Despite being known as a school in Chicago, Northwestern University is actually, technically, just north of Chicago in Evanston, IL. The University of Michigan is in Ann Arbor, MI. Ann Arbor is only about an hour from Toledo, OH so if Jughead wanted to go college somewhere that would be near his sister, Jellybean, Ann Arbor would be a good bet. Obviously he could have also just gone to school in Ohio, but if you look at the geography of where Toledo is, it's closer to Michigan than most of the major cities and/or college towns in Ohio. I also wanted Juggie to go to a school that's competitive to get into, which I know Michigan is. There will be more on his eduction, his academic prowess, how he could afford a state school being from out-of-state, etc. as we get into the actual story.

A concerned 21-year-old. That’s what I am now. It’s my third year with the company. In the last two years I’ve come to the realization that I don’t want to be a principal dancer. But I also don’t just want to be in the corps. I do want solo roles. I do want the spotlight on my pas de deux partner and me for a portion of the amazing shows our company puts on. This upcoming season, I have my biggest solo role so far. I’m still in the corps de ballet, but I have a part as big as one of the second soloists. So I shouldn’t be this concerned. You don’t choose a life in dance for the money. I’m fine with the fact that I have to live with my brother to maintain a healthy lifestyle and my sanity because it means that I get to keep living my dream. All in all, things in my life are pretty good. Maybe I should even be describing them as good, without the prefacing word. But maybe I’m concerned because I’m smart enough to know that nothing gold can stay for too long. And there is a problem looming on the horizon. Because that full-fledged reunion that never happened with my brother’s best friend? It’s about to happen.

The phrase nothing gold can stay isn't a reference to the poem by Robert Frost but rather the album by New Found Glory. Ha. Though that is a reference to the poem. So it's all good, right?

I think there are a lot of ideas introduced by our dear narrator, Betty, in this prologue that spurn questions. Like, would Alice Cooper really let her daughter move away at fourteen? Was Jughead a Serpent as a teenager? Where does Archie fit in to all of this? Etc.

My instinct is to keyboard smash and answer all these questions before they're asked so that there's no confusion. But I'm going to stop myself because I think that a lot of would-be questions are adequately addressed in the first chapter (and beyond).

Last thing to address here: the point of view. It's in first person. I don't know how people are going to feel about that. I know we don't see much first person POV in the Bughead fandom, which makes sense, because we focus on both Betty and Jughead. So maybe people will like this because it's not what we're usually reading, or maybe they'll hate it because they don't want a firsthand account from Betty's perspective. Either way, I'm fine with both reactions. But this has to be in first person POV. It just has to be. Even telling the story entirely in her perspective but in third person doesn't work. I want her to tell the story honestly from her perspective but I also want it to be tinged with her bias, how she sees the world and the other characters. That becomes important later on. I think it also plays a big part in the pining aspect, what that emotional part of it is like.

[edenfalling]

AO3 fic filters meme (redux)

(via @venusmelody) I actually did this a year ago, but what the heck, let’s see if the answers have changed much since then. For reference, I currently have 486 fics on AO3.

Go to your AO3 works page, expand all the filters, and answer the following questions!

1. What’s your first and second most common work ratings? Any surprises?

General Audiences (359) / Teen And Up Audiences (97) / Not Rated (14) / Mature (10) / Explicit (6)

No surprises here! I write a lot of gen, and I am skeptical of movie-style ratings’ applicability to prose (plus I dislike issuing implicit judgments about what material is ~appropriate~ for people I know nothing about), so I mostly rate things in a spirit of "read the tags and decide for yourself” (’General Audiences’), with an occasional detour into "well, I guess this is a little heavier; maybe I should up the rating so people who care about ratings don’t yell at me even though I have accurately tagged for the heavy stuff so what is even the point" (’Teen And Up Audiences’).

I love tags. Tags are specific and therefore useful! Ratings, not so much.

The six 'Explicit’ stories include actual porn, and the 'Mature’ ones include sex that isn’t quite porn and/or some heavy stuff. (Mostly sex, though. People get weird about sex in ways they don’t tend to get weird about violence, so I usually deploy those ratings based on the presence of sex and stuff that’s tangential to sex and stick to tags for everything else.) The 'Not Rated’ stories are all from the same Angel Sanctuary fic series, which I CAN’T rate usefully for reasons that are probably obvious if you have any familiarity with the source manga.

(I used to have other unrated stories, but I decided this past year that I wanted to reserve that category for the Angel Sanctuary fics and slapped the others with either ‘General Audiences’ or ‘Teen And Up’ based on the ~highly scientific~ system of how I felt when I did a quick-skim reread of each story. *wry*) 

2. What’s your most common archive warning? Least common? Do you consider yourself an adventurous writer?

No Archive Warnings Apply (291) / Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (196) / Graphic Depictions Of Violence (12) / Major Character Death (9) / Rape/Non-Con (4) / Underage (2)

You may note that this adds up to 514 warnings, which is more than the number of fics I have on the archive. This is because I think using ‘No Archive Warnings Apply’ can give readers a false sense that the fic in question is light and harmless, which is, shall we say, not always a justified assumption. So I sometimes use ‘No Archive Warnings Apply’ AND ‘Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings’ as a shorthand for saying, yeah, none of the highly specific warning tags apply, but there are still dragons in these waters and seriously READ THE TAGS BEFORE YOU CLICK.

Also, no, I don’t consider myself a particularly adventurous writer.

3. How many fics have you written in each relationship category? Is this more accidental, or do you have preferences?

Gen (407) / F/M (99) / F/F (39) / Multi (34) / M/M (17) / Other (3)

These are not accidental in the slightest. I am at heart a gen writer, and I am big on female characters, so the bias toward no ships at all, and secondarily toward ships that include women and girls, is completely deliberate.

As with the archive warnings, you will note that these numbers add up to more than 486. That is because A) some of my attempts at shipfic come out more as ambiguous gen, so I will label the resulting fic as both gen and whatever ship category is relevant, and B) I occasionally label for the relevant subcategories of poly ships.

And to quote myself from last year: The three 'Other’ fics include an instance of attempted parental rape (because it’s a would-be sexual relationship but holy shit I would not call that a 'ship’ in the usual sense), one genderswap (thus turning an M/M couple into an F/F couple, and how do you even categorize that?), and one character of canonically ambiguous gender.

4. What are your top 4 fandoms by numbers? Are you still active in any of them, and do you tend to migrate a lot?

Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis (106) / Homestuck (105) / Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling (68) / Naruto (64)

I am currently active in Narnia and Homestuck (as a writer, not much as a reader), and I still have a handful of WIPs in HP and Naruto that I swear to god I will finish someday. (I am also game to write prompt!fics there, but I don’t really have independent inspiration for those fandoms anymore.)

5. What are your top 4 character tags? Does this match how you feel about the characters, or are you puzzled?

Dave Strider (40) / Jade Harley (34) / Susan Pevensie (33) / Harry Potter (29)

Oh gosh, popular characters from three of my four most productive fandoms! How utterly shocking. *wry*

6. What are your top 2 most used additional tags, and your bottom 2? What would happen if you combined the two into a fic?

Prompt Fic (182) / Fifteen Minute Fic (101) / Friendship (95) / Backstory (79) / Fluff (59) / Slice of Life (50) / 3 Sentence Ficathon (46) / Worldbuilding (46) / Family (44) / Character Study (38)

Note: these are not actually my least-used additional tags; they are simply the least-used of my ten most-used additional tags.

Setting aside the ones that describe a type of fic (prompt fic, fifteen minute fic, 3 sentence ficathon), that leaves me with ‘Friendship,’ ‘Backstory,’ ‘Family,’ and ‘Character Study’. I have not yet written any fics with all four of those tags, but every combination of three has at least two fics.

7. How many WIPs do you have currently running on AO3? Any you don’t plan on finishing?

5 on AO3, more in other places. I do intend to finish all of the ones on AO3, and most of the ones posted elsewhere as well.

Tag 5 people!

I dunno, play if you want. :)

[ameslore]

A-Z have fun dude

my dude

bless you ella

A- already answered!

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

tbh idk?

C - already answered!

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

i don’t have anything like that, actually. i either like a ship or i don’t.

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

the chimney fic for the inception fandom’s 2016 secret saito. also the fic that fulfulled @drown-yourdarlings prompt about rose and lissa’s lehigh university experiences but that’s on my fanfiction.net account and let’s not talk about that........... right now or preferably ever

(rest is under the cut for length)

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

i’ve more or less been in the va fandom since... 2014?

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

see my answer to part (a)

(romitri was probably my first otp)

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

it used to be books, but i feel like there are so much unexplored depths in movies that it’s really to get inspiration for meta or fic, so nowadays it’s more movies.

I - already answered

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

the 00q fandom. of course i knew about james bond, but i hadn’t considered the ship

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

rose hathaway, vampire academy. over the course of six books and maybe ten months(?) she really found herself, got a lot more mature and self-confident

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

tasha ozera did not deserve what she got. she was a force of nature.

dominick cobb is a really fucking smart guy

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

the collective smh + lardo

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

for inception and 00q: more well-developed female characters. more poc. more woc. more screen time for all three.

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

okay so haunted by beyonce always reminds me of arthur or q and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY BECAUSE THE SONG ISN’T REMOTELY RELEVANT TO EITHER OF THEM

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

okay i actually had this idea rolling around in my head for months. i’ve seen something kind of similar to my idea, but the premise is a little different-- “a little less sixteen candles”, arthur/eames, by osaki_nana_707 on ao3

just a sec. let me pull up my doc.

high school teacher-student CANON-DIVERGENT au except there’s no underage pedophilia because arthur’s not actually a minor, he’s a grownass man

so BASICALLY. arthur is part of running project somnacin with dom, mal, and stephen miles, but it gets shut down when the first soldier loses his grasp on reality and shoots himself in the head. topside. which is like, a mess for the military, so long story short everyone’s like “this is a NOPE program BYE”

after project somnacin gets shut down, dom, mal, and arthur open an architecture firm but arthur, who’s a beast at research and investigation and also knows shit about criminal justice (or is it criminology?), occasionally gets contacted by the military/sometimes the nsa/sometimes the cia to do consultant work.

by now arthur is twenty-four. he gets contacted by the military and it’s like “okay so someone may have stolen top secret files about project somnacin and because you know about the [highly confidential] project and you’re really good at investigative research we need you to help identify who this person is [spoiler alert: it’s our beloved thief and forger, eames], figure whether this information is in danger of getting leaked to the public, and all that good security shit??? we might need you to bring him in”

so arthur does his fancy-schmancy research, has a breakthrough and identifies a one mr. [first name redacted] eames, british ex-pat currently living in america and teaching english at a private high school.

due to his small frame and general twinkiness (i’m sorry but it’s true), arthur can pass for a seventeen or eighteen year old. SO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS? HE DECIDES TO ENROLL IN THE SCHOOL THAT EAMES TEACHES AT IN ORDER TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT EAMES. in rolls the teacher-student au

okay. that was a very long way to establish the premise of a fic, but anyway if anyone wants to write that because i am Tired and have no time, just tell me and i’ll be ecstatic

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

the carry on fandom, mostly because the big blogs stopped posting/moved onto other fandoms and the content generally dried up

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

i wrote a fic a couple months ago featuring adhd!arthur and adhd!eames. a genderfluid!eames fic is currently near completion. (i am so EXCITED)

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

*grabs my fucking megaphone*

EDDIE CASTILE AND JILL MASTRANO AND ROSE HATHAWAY AND SYDNEY SAGE ARE ALL BI AS FUCK. ADRIAN IVASHKOV IS PAN.

ARTHUR IS PART JEWISH, PART CHINESE AND CAN SPEAK ABOUT FIVE LANGUAGES. HE WEARS JOGGERS AND BEANIES WHEN HE’S NOT WORKING. HE IS A CLASSICALLY TRAINED MUSICIAN AND LIKES TO SING

IN SOME CROSSOVER VERSE, Q AND ARTHUR ARE DEFINITELY COUSINS

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

arthur (inception), q (skyfall/spectre), eddie castile (vampire academy/bloodlines)

this is when you notice that i have a type: quiet bamfs who have been whumped by their fandoms quite hard

V - Which character do you relate to most?

arthur. my son my sun my heart.

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

“i wasn’t gay until i met you” or “i hate myself for being gay but loving you makes it feel better” because why do straight people think it works like that. also, not a fan of genderbending because the concept is inherently trans and nb exclusive, plus i kind of feel like it messes up the characterization.

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

when both/all parties of the otp are absolute bamfs and surprise each other with their competency

and angsty soulmate aus. call me a cheesy, bright-eyed fucker but i love them so goddamn much

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

the NHL fandom (i do occasionally reblog stuff about the pens/marc-andre fleury onto my omgcp sideblog? and i watch a few games every once in a while but i’m not actively invested in it.)

also the yuri on ice! fandom. like i haven’t even watched ep. 12 but i’ll reblog a funny post about it every so often

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

please see all this inception meta that i have:

plot meta, character and plot meta, wardrobe meta