#this was also the joke in the dishonored fandom

[thedawningofthehour]

'Raph is Casey Jr's biological father' this 'Cass found Casey in the trash and called dibs' that 'Draxum cloned Cass because why the hell not' Y'ALL ARE WEAK. Imagine thinking that Cassandra Fucking Jones could not and did not knock herself up out of sheer force of will.

[heavenlymorals]

How would you describe Mary’s personality? I always feel like this fandom portrays her to be this very classy, serious, goody-two-shoes but I think she has to have some form of rebellious nature in her considering she’s a “high-society” girl that fell in with an outlaw and brought him home to her daddy. Yeah she may not be as free and spirited compared to the camp girls, but everyone always talks about Arthur’s type being a woman who’s sophisticated - but on a general scale comparing her to the women of her social status, she must fall more on the rebellious side of things no?

Mary is many things. She is melancholic, feisty, calm, rational, thoughtful. She's a person with many emotions and dreams and honestly? She's a delight in the little time we got to know her, even if the circumstances were rather sad. But mostly though? I think Mary is a woman who grew up.

She met Arthur when she was young, super young.

"Oh, we were so very young. Think of how different life could've been."

I mean, she doesn't even look at day over 18 in that pic she had with Arthur. In fact, Arthur looked to be a couple of years older than she was, but that's neither here nor there. The fact is that she was probably way over her head when she fell in love with Arthur and when she agreed to marry him. She realized that love wasn't going to be enough for her in that society and that's a very realistic approach to it, honestly.

If she married Arthur, she'll probably be ostracized from her family, from society, from the people she knew. She'd most likely also be shamed for dishonoring her family and shame back then was no joke, especially for women. People tend to forget this. She'll lose any connections she might've had and that's not even mentioning the lifestyle upheaval because what's the likelyhood that Arthur, still young and foolish, would be able to settle down and live a normal life instead of this nomadic, dangerous lifestyle?

Mary had to think about all these factors. People end relationships for less.

When it comes to fandom, people are too in love with the idea of love that a real reaction to such a situation backfires on the character and strips them of their personality.

Is Mary classy? Sure she is, but she can also be crass ("Don't be a pompous ass, Arthur, it doesn't suit you."). Is she serious? Yeah, she is in serious situations, like all people, but she is playful and joyful with Arthur ("It's sort of beautiful in a tasteless and gaudy sort of way." "That's the only way I know." "Thank you." "Oh I didn't mean it like that-" "I'm sure. You silly man."). Is she a goody two shoes? Most people are, but she also defies her father in the end despite knowing that her entire life would flip upside down if Arthur does decide to run away with her.

She's definitely a high society girl- her family is rich or at least well off, she has servants, she dresses nice. She isn't as "free spirited" as the other girls but why would she be? She didn't have to go through poverty, or her parents getting killed, or having to live an unconventional lifestyle with a bunch of hucksters. She was a law abiding citizen who lived a normal life where culture, etiquette, and roles mattered.

So is Mary rebellious or sophisticated or any of that? Not really. She's just a normal woman. I don't like putting her into a box of being sophisticated or whatever because that's just a disservice to the very realistic writing of her character.

She's just a woman who our main character fell in love of with for one reason or another who is still her own person. She's not a "type" or any of that because she is many things and a realistic woman is one of them.

Thanks for the ask anon 🥺❤️🫶🏼

[dangerousdan-dan]

10 characters | 10 fandoms | 10 a negotiable number of tags

tagged by @poetikat thank you so much!!

Cassandra Cain: DC. It was hard to choose just one DC character, but she's my girl. When I think of her, I think of redemption and love and sacrifice and aiming to be perfect even if you destroy yourself in the process. I could write essays about her, don't tempt me.

Samwise Gamgee: Lord of the Rings. How do you hold on to hope when the world is burning? How do you believe that there's good, and that it's worth fighting for? How do you love despite everything? By being Samwise Gamgee, that's how.

Billie Lurk: Dishonored. Another character carrying the weight of her guilt on her back (I love those), but also the weight of being a complete badass (I also love those).

Hadrian Blackwater: Riyria Revelations. He's a gentle giant. A man capable of infinite kindness, but who also has a big sword and knows how to use it. Ah, he's also a thief. What more could you want?

Viktor: Arcane. A self-isolated dreamer, a hurt idealist, a man in love with knowledge and at war with his own body.... let's just say I relate to him way too much.

Sophie Hatter: Howl's Moving Castle. I love movie Sophie and I love book Sophie. She gets to find her place and her confidence while calling others (mostly Howl) on their bullshit. A true hero.

Inej Ghafa: Six of Crows. I want to see her burn the world and get revenge on everyone who hurt her, but I also want to see her free and smiling and demanding the love she deserves.

Leon S. Kennedy: Resident Evil. Watch this poor guy kill zombies for the millionth time and solve ridiculous puzzles while delivering the corniest one-liners. He needs vacations and therapy.

Nathan Drake: Uncharted. Mister Cognitive Dissonance. He's a nerd, he's a thief, he'll say "oh crap" and tell funny jokes while murdering hundreds of mercenaries.

Kaladin Stormblessed: The Stormlight Archive. There's something about having a character who's lost everything and who's given up, but then decides to fight against all odds with tooth and nail for the sake of others just to realize "Hey, I'm fighting for myself as well."

No pressure tags!! @zukoisblorbo @cephalog0d @xetlretl @putting-the-bi-in-robin @manjirian @opposite-of-aster and anyone who feels like playing!!

[echoes-lighthouse]

Hi! i saw your DNI special interest statistics post and was super intrigued!

If you ever continue, I would be very interested to see the dichotomy of some of the smaller but more cult like fandoms like TBHK and Omori!

it seems the more popular the fandom, the less saturated with DNI the fandom becomes. so it would be interesting to see more smaller cult fandoms compared to one another. and possibly if the media being 2d art adjacent/animation vs live action or 3d games plays a factor!

Surprisingly, there's still not too many DNIs in these fandoms! I'm going to pick a few musicals to do next and I'm betting those will be a bit crazier, but here's Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun, Omori, and Your Turn To Die compared to each other!

With only 9-13 DNIs in each fandom, the averages and top elements don't really mean much, but I've got some WILD hall of fame DNIs to put under the 'readmore'!!!

(These stats are based on 100 blogs from each fandom tag, roughly half from the top posts and half from the most recent.)

(here's the previous stats from some other fandoms)

Meaningless Insult Count:  -creep x1 -assholes x2 -'horrible trash' x1

Total “”standard/basic DNI”” Count: 13

Dishonored Fandoms Count:  -DSMP (3) -Harry Potter (2) -Ghost Eyes fan (1) -Danganronpa fans (1) -YBC fans (1) -Obikin shippers "aka pedos" (1) (what about padme/anakin shippers????) -anime blogs (1 sweeping generalization)

Made Me Laugh:  -’if you support JK Rowling or anyone else who is disgraced' -'if you don't like RWBY' -'exclusionists,' 'radical inclusionists' and 'mspec gays' -'exclusionists' and also 'illegitimate identities' -'don't follow if you're going to harass me'

Still A Mystery To Me:  'if you have a garbage can next to your bed' (I assume this is a joke but it came at the end of a serious DNI and gave me whiplash) 'homophobic/transphobic (muslim people who don't support them are fine)' (?????? I have absolutely no comment on this DNI I find it entirely baffling)

[whats-a-reading]

I was tagged by @hardboiledteacozy, so thanks jay! I love these things, they’re fun. Even if I’m almost always too lazy to tag people.

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips.

...oh lord I have too many wips, so I’ll probably narrow this down to ‘I intended to finish it for posting at one point/there is at least a snippet in the doc’

Alright, I’m sorting these per fandom

Dishonor on Ozai’s Cow [listen, if anyone who read that thing is still lurking here on this blog, I’ll get the arc 2 summary up probably by december]

Benevolent Assimilation

failure, failure, failure (fly into the depths)

Timey wimey torture fic

I will rise like the ashes from a building as it burns

settle down, tear it down

h-why [file title, not fic title; fic title: The Light Fixture is About To Fall Off]

my boy builds coffins

titans win AU you horrid twitchy fingers

there’s a mean storm comin’

the apotheosis doc

AA fic (title pending

aroace franziska set up

untitled baroryuu you don’t even have a premise

if life ain’t just a joke, then why are we laughing

in the line

I wish I were there, with death at my heels

testing [fic title is actually “I’ll await that trumpet’s wail”]

Also yes, I did not close the parenthesis for “AA fic (title pending”... I guess I forgot.

Bonus: there’s an abandoned third installment of the Raft AU titled “I’m in Hot Water” [also all... 2 and a half... installments of that AU are in the same doc]

If you’ve reached this far and you have WIPs, consider yourself tagged by me

[srrrokka]

7, 19, 28 & 35 for the Weird Questions for Writers? :3

Weird Questions for Writers

7. What is your deepest joy about writing? Having written lmao Jokes aside tho, I love that I can put images of my own creation into other people's heads, show them the world only I see, make them feel all kinds of emotions.

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going? Hmm... I started writing when I was very little, maybe 8? I can't quite remember what inspired me to do it but I wrote this short story where the main character's parents were kidnapped by a dragon and she had to save them. I wrote the whole thing with an actual feather dip pen I got at a medieval fair. (I still have the story and the pen nib, the feather got eaten by... something.)

Between incredibly vivid imagination and not quite fitting with my peers (I wasn't bullied, we mostly just didn't click), I spent most of my time writing stories or doodling. It soon turned into writing self-insert fanfiction (not that I knew what fics were at the time), which then grew into OC based fic saga that is 64 notebooks long.

First fanfiction I wrote and published in English was for Gravity Falls and was the sole reason I met the love of my life, @boringid, to whom I am engaged :D

Through writing for Dishonored fandom I also got to meet my besties: @exultedshores, @rising-dawn-uvu, @sechurae, and @ivahian (yes, I am still counting you, you dingus) who gave me endless support and motivation to write and draw!

But writing a cohesive story, instead of just random scenes, was never easy for me and many times I would not write for years, thinking I am the problem and hating myself for it. Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD :')

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why? Ooft, this one is really hard. There is a difference between 'delightful character' and 'a character delightful to write' and I'm gonna go with the latter because I don't really write delightful characters ^^" *hides Nic Shears under the carpet*

I mostly find unhinged characters delightful to write. Yk, the ones that absolutely lost their marbles. So several Corvo Attanos from my AUs :'D I just in general really like Corvo...

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens? Don't start sentences with conjunctions (and, but, etc.). I will and no one can stop me.

[shadowdianne]

Fic writer review [Or a fic writer tag game if you prefer]

I was tagged by @naralanis and I can already see her grin all the way from where I am xd Thank you, dear, for the tag, let’s see what are my answers, shall we.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

*bursts out laughing* Adding both pseuds I have… 535 according to the account info but by counting them all I’m reaching 541 so I’m guessing it’s counting some drafts I need to re-find.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I seriously hated you for this one xd I was going to do it by hand by I decided one-third there that I value my mental stability a little bit more xd according to the stats page back at a03 that number would be 1257884. It may be wrong. I think there should be a few more numbers up there but the majority of my works are one-shots so *shrugs* There’s also the fact that counting my ao3 things only is shaving off like half of it Xd Anyway, can we laugh at the fact that I’m a pain in the ass and that I’ve written a lot? More than I should have, that’s for sure

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Trick question because I haven’t crossposted everything I wrote back in ffnet and I actually erased some fics from my account back there so the numbers are a little blurry there.

When I had the entirety of my work posted both in ffnet and a03 I had written for: Twilight (Bella/Alice) Glee (Faberry and there were a couple Pezberry and I don’t fucking remember the pairing name for Santana and Quinn), Harry Potter (Hermione/Ginny, Hermione/Narcissa, Hermione/Bellatrix) OUAT (SwanQueen and several oneshots focusing on the mad hatter and the blue fairy solely back at ffnet that were written in Spanish and never translated), I actually had a veeeery old au prompt of Frozen (Elsanna in where I wrote them as non sibilings), Rizzoli and Isles (Rizzles), Dishonored 2 (Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew), Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, Supergirl (SuperCorp/Supercat) I had a 100 one -or maybe two??- (Clexa), The Shannara Chronicles (Amberle/Eretreia [Or Princess Rover], Rwby [Blake Belladona/Yang], The Worst Witch (Hecate Hardbroom and Pippa Pentangle), The Half of it, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Madam Satan/Zelda Spellman) and… I think that’s it(?) I may be forgetting some but probably nothing important if I’m not remembering it lol.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Ah, we are going to go there, uh? Xd My works are not the kudos and comment getting type Xd So I was quite surprised when I went to check this.

1: Cracked it I wrote this one back in 2017, it was a prompt done by an anon: Lena is nerding with one of her projects at home, mumbling mostly to herself because she’s stuck and Kara casually mentions how to solve the problem like it’s nothing. I really had some fun with this. It was back when some us, SQeeners were fully doing the jump between OUAT and SuperGirl (I mean, there had already been some crossover as for fandom is related but this when the girls were actually getting their conjoined voice within the fandom)

2: Dateless I honestly needed to check what this one was about but I think I can see why this one shot has the amount of kudos it has. It’s a short and sweet idea and responds to the Teachers Au that went SO well with SQ. Everyone thinks they hate each other and try to set them up with other people whilst they, in truth, are dating. I don’t remember if I wrote them as married rather than dating but despite being from 2017 as well is one cheeky enough to be cool Xd I probably would edit some lines now *shudders*

3: After you I truly didn’t expect this one to be top 3. Makes me think of a lot of things, if I’m being honest Xd. After you was a one shot written almost feverishly as an answer to the fabulous drawings that Sejic did of both Lara Croft and Wonder Woman back at 2018 or something. It’s just Lara and Diana being himbos but not at all with each other.

4: How about… How about is one I remember perfectly, it was my answer to the ending of the Half of it film. I had SOME thoughts about it, let’s just stop there Xd I really liked the film itself but I think and I thought at the time that my response to wishing for a final scene at the very end of the credits responds to me being in a different personal moment than the characters. I really wanted to explore my feelings about it and so I wrote about them finding each other again after some time passes. It was also something I wrote after quite the hiatus so I took it as something I could write about without focusing too much on the why.

5: Come to me

Ahh, SuperCorp Xd I remember this one actually. A friend of mine and I were talking about descriptions, and she mentioned quite off-handedly how she wanted a fic in where Kara’s back was described. I complied… more or less.

Fun tidbit, despite the big volume of my work is obviously set in ouat there’s only 1 SQ fic there as you can see, the others are either SuperCorp or the random one shots I created for Wonderwoman/Lara Croft and The half of it. *sighs in deep thought* I’m also not going to look too much into how almost all of the fics were posted and written back in 2017. Nope, not at all.

*Small voice screaming you peaked in 2017 and everything else is garbage jumps back and forth*

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

I tend to always respond, yup. I truly value comments. I might have gone for spells of time in where I didn’t have the mental capacity to check in old fics because I truly didn’t know what to answer but I treasure every single comment and you all who comment know that I can start to ramble in the answers xd -sorry about that- I really really REALLY love interaction.

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending:

Ok, Nara, come on, this one is a catch for me. I’ve written angst in far too many fics to remember the angstiest one :P I have the most recent one, though, that is the easy one to think about: Goodbye.Written for @delirious-comfort. I’m just going to say “Kisses with their last dying breath” as an idea of what awaits inside but I’ve written about death and loss and angst quite a lot. There were some I wrote back to SQ with Regina needing to kill Emma during the Dark Swan arc that, to this day, I still love and some others in where Regina is the one that dies, again and again, trapped by magic while Emma watches. I have the loss in mental destruction form and… I REALLY like my angst y’know xd

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not counting Lara and Wonder Woman not really! I think it comes from the fact that I loooove worldbuilding as a whole and some pairings would require all my focus into making the world perfect which in turn would make me self conscious on the OOCness of it all.

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

*snorts* I’ve received hate due to the pairing I’ve written about, how I’ve written about it, the amount I’ve written, how slow or quick I can be, the usage of some tropes, the lack of usage of those same tropes… Let’s just go with: yuuuup.

9. Do you write smut?

I’ve written smut, yeah! But I can already see the pointed looks of some so let’s elaborate Xd I write smut when asked and sometimes when not asked but there’s a part of me I like to call a terrible tease that prefers writing the beginning of a scene, taunt it, focus on what happens before the sex scene per se as I find it more enjoyable to write. The process of escalation is always the best for me to see what can I do it by using both dialogue and descriptors tbh, so I tend to tease more than show.

9. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A few weeks ago I’d have said: Maybe(?) But trying to follow the trail of some other fics that had been stolen from some friends -I think it was me trying to find more about the page that stole something from your Nara!- I found some pages in where my fics had been reposted. In some it was stated that the person posting the fic wasn’t the author but I had never been contacted in order to see if I’d say yes to such a thing and in some others the page was locked up but I could still see someone was pretending to be the author. I did the thing and got some of those down.

Pointed note: Ask me if you want to post or translate or anything. I will look into you and answer you if you seem honest about the thing. But despite every joke and self-deprecating comment those 500 and then some fics represent MY time so very kindly I say fuck off to those who wish to steal from me and if I catch you… you don’t really want to see me angry, trust me.

10. Ever had a fic translated?

I’ve given permission to some, yeah, but never heard it back from them so I’m guessing it didn’t stick.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I’ve written series alongside other authors as @stregaomega for example. And some others that are unpublished -looking at you @carsonnieve - I’ve also done collabs… but fics co-written in the sense of two authors same chapters I don’t have anything posted I’m afraid :P

13. All-time favourite ship?

*snorts*, I guess the obvious answer is SQ uh? And I do think they were the ones that allowed me to read and write SO much. The one I feel more strongly about, however, is Bering and Wells from Warehouse 13.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

All of them counts as a valid answer? But if I only could finish one that would be Arcadia. With A forgotten Promise second and the one I did as an Assassins Creed AU third. (I don’t remember the name so there’s no link, sorry xd)

15. Writing strengths?

Uhhhh, you REALLY want me to say that? I don’t fucking know!! To me everything I write is garbage. I always try to go for the feelings so I guess. Dunno xd I’ve been told I’m good at worldbuilding and to be honest is what I enjoy the most.

16. Writing weaknesses?

Everything Xd Pacing? What I hate the most sometimes is dialogue, I would count it as a weakness but I’m always far too focused on description rather than dialogue. I don’t think it’s a bad thing per se but it’s something that I don’t do as much.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m conflicted. Always. Majorly because I think that having bilingual characters in fanfiction is portrayed and expected in a way that I don’t feel it’s honest with how bilingual people -us- talk. So if I go by what I know I do I think it’s not what readers hope to see when it comes to that and if I go for how canonically is hoped to be found I don’t think it’s logical. But that’s me and my overthinking Xd If I have the option I like to do it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Belice! Or Bella/Alice. Worst first fic ever but oh, well, I’m always saying that :P

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

Uhh… Don’t make me do this XD Agh, I don’t know. I’ve always been very vocal about Metallic Ink because I let myself enjoy the process of creating a magic system almost out of zero and that was fun. Despite hating some of the writing process and that I’d do it differently now I think I’m going to stick with that answer. Or anything that had any steampunk-based undertone. To be honest I like more thinking of concepts, I had one in where Emma was a thief and it involved the robbery of a ring that was Regina’s one way ticket to freedom I then later repurposed that I adored thinking about so let’s go with…. Yeah, I love having the option of changing things up a little and focus on how characters would fit in different aesthetics for this one Xd

Annnd… these are four pages, gods. I’m just going to tag @waknatious @carsonnieve @stregaomega here and see what they do- Enjoy the questionnaire ladies :P

[vashti-lives]

*insert obligatory quip about how that was a terrible episode of book of boba but a great* episode of the etc etc*

(my only real complaint is that this episode SHOULD have been a breather episode about fennec shand having fairly lighthearted shenanigans around tatooine and the outer rim as she finds muscle while boba fett learns to ride his rancor and attempts to corral his rowdy cyborg youths. there should have been a running joke where she can’t get a hold of din and then the episode ends basically where the actual episode did. then we go into the two part ending with the war with the pykes. as much as i liked actual episode 5 it should have been in the actual mandalorian where it belongs.)

but ok the absolute most important take away from this episode is that the next season of the mandalorian at least starts with din’s quest to find the sacred mandalorian skinny dipping spot. excellent.

god the whole first half with the armorer was really just full of strict mom with her favorite son back home after he flunked out of college vibes. like... i’m NOT happy but also... yes don’t worry you can fix it. anyway here’s the VERY expensive present i spent hours making for my new grandson tell him i say hi on your way to the sacred skinny dipping springs.

honestly my actual read on that situation is that she absolutely knew something was up from the minute he walked in injured in a fucking stupid way by his own weapon and correctly read that he was so weighted down by his own guilt and so afraid of disappointing what was left of his family and so angry at himself for dishonoring his religion and culture that it would mean his death to ignore it and be meaningless to just say he’s forgiven. so she lets paz fight him as proof he’s meant to wield the dark saber and sends him on a quest that’s very difficult but explicitly non-murder oriented so that he can eventually be a politically viable ruler.

i know a lot of fandom paints the children of the watch as a horrible extremist cult but like i actually don’t think anything in the show supports this? the whole helmet thing might seem extreme but uh... they’re fucking survivors of a major genocide??? din arguably survived TWO GENOCIDES???? honestly i’m gonna make the argument here that she has been consistently shown to be a kind hearted pragmatist in a way that does not suggest she’s an irrational foaming at the mouth fundamentalist. anyway i love the armorer and also poor paz. you know after din left paz was just like... REALLY? HIM?? *sigh* and then she pats him on the head and sends him off to make money and rescue some orphans.

*i actually think you could make an argument that by modern tv standards it wasn’t even a great episode of the mandalorian because god there was a lot of what right now feels like wasted time??? don’t get me wrong i love that he spends like half of it with peli working on a ship he has no business buying (PELI THE RAZOR CREST WAS HIS HOUSE!!!) but that whole sequence probably could have been cut at least in half... i actually wish more tv was willing to let their characters breath like that but its absolutely wild choice for a show with 8 episode seasons LET ALONE a show that’s actually about a completely different set of characters and problems and only has 7 episodes.  anyway i obviously loved it. 10/10 please include confirmation that luke was peli’s assistant when he was teen.

[cannibal-wings]

for the ask: Wednesday, underrated fic?

Yessssss I successfully baited someone into letting me talk about Aliferous. Aliferous is my Fallout 4 Wing AU. It's also, of my most recent fics, the one that has performed the worst in terms of hits, kudos, bookmarks and comments comparative to fandom size and activity. I wrote and posted the first chapter while the fandom was still hot, still active. It's 4 years old and JUST recently broke 200 hits and is now sitting at 308. I track the stats of my fics way too much to be healthy, but in case anyone was wondering, around 200ish of those hits came from the first two months it was posted, with the majority of those coming from the first week. SO, that means for the majority of it's lifespan it's failed to accumulate a hundred whole hits. And this has baffled me for ages. I cannot figure out why the interaction with this fic is so abysmally low. In case anyone was curious, my other Wing AU's sit at 9523 for my Venom one, and 3586 for my Dishonored one. The rest of my Fallout 4 fics have decent hits and comments, 3964 and my two niche ones sitting at 789 and 122. It's important to note that when I say niche, I mean it. The 789 is my cannibalism focused fic and the 122 is my goretober fic about freezing someone from the inside and is graphic. The fact that the fandom is slow and yet something like that still managed to grab nearly half the attention that Aliferous got in its first month where it took the wing AU two years. When I decide what fics to write, I do so based on two things, my interest in the story and my reader's interest in the story. For Aliferous, while my interest was high, reader interest was not. So I shelved it when it under-performed. I only have so much time, and I don't want to waste it writing something no one will read. (Granted this year I did decide to revive it and wrote 30 more pages for an upcoming update) Note: I def do not expect niche fics to "do well". I set the bar low for fics I write that are for myself and like three other people who enjoy weird shit. But it really does eat away at me, I wonder a lot about why this fic in particular didn't get any attention. I have theories... 1. The writing just sucks and no one was into it. The fault was with me, the author, for writing poorly. 2. The Fallout fandom doesn't like Wing AU's. 3. The first chapter is set in the prewar section, a section that the fandom at the time was not fond of. 4. It's tagged as a poly fic. At the time the fandom wasn't too hot on poly ships. I'm not joking here. While there were a few, it was really uncommon to see, even though in the game you can have multiple partners. Ships were kept monogamous. 5. It's tagged as m/m. At the time of posting it, the fandom was also very hostile towards m/m pairs. Again, not a joke. This fandom had a habit of harassing queer male authors out of the fandom for writing their favorites as gay. However, of my fics, the one that did the best in this fandom was a male sole survivor/Hancock fic, so clearly people did want the content. 6. The title and summary are off putting. I've long debated changing the name to "Wings of the Wasteland" instead of Aliferous and then writing a more elaborate summary. I'm probably going to do both of those things when I update later with the next chapter. Anyways, thanks for reading this little mini rant. This fic has puzzled me for years and I still wonder what the fuck I did to get such little traction. When I do the update I'll also be rewriting and updating parts of the original first chapter, but I'm still really unsure of what turned people off to begin with, so I'm just guessing. I was just a little soul crushing back then to be so invested in a story and world building then to get near zero interaction at launch. **Edit/Clarification: There were parts of the fandom that were accepting of poly and m/m content. But there were also parts that were vocally not. I didn’t say those things to fling shit, or put people down. They were just... things that happened, that I watched happen. Nothing against early Fallout 4 fandom, for the most part my experience in that fandom was lovely and I met a few really good friends from it.

[draconic-interactions]

Thomas Carmine

Aliases: Carmine, which he also uses as a surname, as he doesn’t know his

Age: 22 at the end of Dishonored 1, 37 at the end of Dishonored 2

Birthday: 11th of the Month of Ice, 1815

Gender & Pronouns: Male, He/Him 

Orientation: Panromantic/Pansexual, Slight preference for men

Appearance: Thomas has strawberry blond (the fandom seems evenly split on him being blond and redhead, so I compromised), wavy hair that he generally cuts himself when it gets too long. His grey eyes carry a hint of mischief    wherever he goes, and the two gold studs in his left are meant to act as emergency valuables for selling if he can’t return home. He has a long, thin scar running across his face from the bridge of his nose to the left corner of his jaw, which, whenever he’s asked, he gives a different backstory for. He is tall and lanky, and, when he’s not dressed in his Whaler’s leathers, he has a simple, practical sense of style that helps him blend in with the common folk of Dunwall. I also subscribe whole-heartedly to the “Marked individuals (and those bonded to them) have more extensive markings the longer they have it/the more they use it” headcanon, so given how long Daud has been Marked- and the fact that my Thomas has been one of Daud’s Whalers since he was 12- Thomas has extensive, void-black tattoos across his arms and shoulders similar to the ones depicted in this lovely drawing by @bid-art​. In any verse that involves Daud leaving or dying, these tattoos are a pale, faded grey.

Background and Personality: Thomas and his twin brother Connor (hey look, another headcanon!) grew up on the streets of Caulkenney, making a meagre living with thievery and whatever odd jobs people would give a pair of children- usually delivering messages. They met Daud when Thomas tried to pickpocket him and got caught. Luckily for him, this was around the time Daud was traveling to build up the Whalers’ ranks, so he recruited them and took them with him to Dunwall, where they’ve both been working since. Thomas is endlessly polite and professional when dealing with a client or turning in a recon report, but when he’s able to relax, he’s chaotic and cheerful, always willing to strike up a conversation. He loves bad puns and dad jokes, especially when they’re bad enough to make others groan. He enjoys reading and sketching, and even when he’s not out on a job or keeping watch, he likes to perch up high to people-watch, sometimes picking up new subjects for his sketches in the process.

[wanderingnork]

Fic Writer Meme

Tagged by @lesetoilesfous. And tagging anyone who’s in the mood. :)

Name: Nork, or bluebeholder if you’re on AO3.

Fandoms: Current primary is Dragon Age (II and Inquisition), have written extensively for Dishonored, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and a wide scattering of others.

Most popular oneshot: Everything Important in a Suitcase, a Newt Scamander/Percival Graves story. Healing, romance, and traveling around the world together.

Most popular multichapter: The Protector, the story of how Corvo Attano accidentally kicked off a religious reformation in the world of Dishonored (and kissed a god in the process). Just passed 1,000 kudos. I don’t know how to handle this. o.o

Actual worst part of writing: Man, I love most aspects of writing, but there’s nothing that drives me up the wall faster than realizing after the fact that I forgot to include some important piece of character development. I have to go back and put it in, and then edit everything that came before to make sure it coheres with the rest of the story. Ugh.

How you choose your titles: by screaming. And then either making some joke or snagging a quote/line of poetry/whatever.

Do you outline: no. Never. Unless forced to. You can’t see me, but I’m glaring at “patron saints of blissful imperfection” right now, that fucker ended up growing an outline JUST to provide a solid framework for the stuff I’d already written and give me some idea of where to STOP.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?

One: super want to write about the Architect, Urthemiel, Flemeth stealing the soul of Urthemiel, and some suspicions I have about all of that in relation to a certain flesh-warping ancient elven goddess. I don’t have the mental wherewithal to actually write it, especially because it’d probably grow some kind of terrifying Warden/Architect subplot and I’d have to deal with Solas again, but this time strictly as the Dread Wolf.

Two: I’d give my left arm for the inspiration to actually finish my Trevelyan/Iron Bull fic. Highly unlikely since I’d want to start again from the beginning and that’s a mess. It cracked 80,000 words last year and would probably be twice that long, and frankly...no. If I get to them, it’ll be much tighter and probably not go past 10,000 words.

Three: that bagginshield correspondence fic. In short, everyone survives the Battle of Five Armies, but after Erebor is mostly put back together, Bilbo decides to go back to the Shire. He and Thorin carry on a long-term relationship by letter. Honestly one of my favorite concepts I’ve ever come up with, but neither of them is capable of sticking to romance. Instead, it started growing messy subplots about things like “the rise of Sauron” and “Bilbo being steadily corrupted by the Ring.”

Four: Merrill as Inquisitor.

Five: y’all I want to write a horror story so badly but I can’t figure out what fandom to do it in

Callouts @ Me: no more ellipses. Make it stop. Also, maybe someday you could just not accidentally write a novel-length fic? Maybe???

Best writing traits: I’m good at picking apart characters and seeing what makes them tick, then writing narratives focused on that.

Spicy Tangential Opinion: Fuck ketchup. That shit is NASTY. Heinz tomato ketchup (specifically Heinz) should be a banned substance. Someone get the FDA on this. 

[buckskinblues]

Ao3 Tagging Sins

Putting ships in the main pairings section when they’re only in the background of the fic. See also: tagging every ship under the sun even though there’s only one ship the fic is actually about.

Tagging as gen when there’s actually romantic/sexual relationships in the fic that are focused on.

Tagging every fandom under the sun for a “request booklet” even when there isn’t any actual content for those fandoms until someone requests it or something. Dishonor on you. Dishonor on your family. Dishonor on your cow.

The Great Wall of Tags. The word count in the tags probably out matches the word count for the actual fic.

Tagging something with angst whenever a character gets a paper cut. I want to feel like I’ve been punched in the gut not read about them having a minor inconvenience.

Using the / when you should’ve used &.

Tagging every single character in the fandom even though few of them are actually focused on.

Using M/M, M/F, and F/F categories even when one of the characters is supposed to be some flavor of “not male or female”. (Hint: this is what the “Other” category is for).

If you’re the type of person to tag things with “platonic but could be read as romantic” then meet me in the Denny’s parking lot.

Other Notable Ao3 Sins:

Using chapters as author’s notes/updates. There’s literally a built in function for author’s notes you animals.

Rating higher than you need to “just to be safe” when the margin for error is more than a mile. (I’ve seen someone rate M for Mature because there was kissing? Baffling).

What do you mean you’ve been on this site for years and haven’t once bookmarked A SINGLE THING?

Drabbles are around 100 words long. I’ve seen people post 2,000+ words and call it a drabble? That’s not a drabble! That’s at the least a ficlet and at most a one-shot! Where are you people learning this stuff???

If you’re posting all your one-shots into one work like a maniac the least you could do for us is hint HINT in the title of each chapter what each one is supposed to be about or include an index in the first chapter. Or...you could post them as separate works like a sane person.

Either capitalize the title properly or don’t capitalize it at all for the aesthetic.

Don’t go through the pain and suffering of writing so many words and then use abbreviations and shit in the summary.

Crack fics are fun...joke fics are not. You know who you are: an enemy of the people.

[dracimexidae]

10 GIFS OF YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOWS

I was tagged (ages ago, I’m aware - I’m so sorry for being so late!) by @marvelsaos (thank you btw!! <3 )

1. Black Sails - the list is in no particular order of preference, but I think that this first place is just the right position for this show for me - without exaggeration I think there has never been another show able to blow my mind and steal my heart like Black Sails did... Wild times they were, when it aired, and despite some lows (and some ohohohoh damn, it’s still very hard to accept them - I’m only saying ELEANOR GUTHRIE just to mention one) - but I suppose it’s kinda natural to have them in every show and fandom - I miss those times, at least the good ones! :p

2. Galavant - I don’t think I can express properly in words how much I adore this little show, it’s my haven whenever I need to get a good laugh and cheer myself up, and it holds a very special place in my heart, it’s so freaking lovely and hilarious and I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT WAS CANCELLED I’LL NEVER BE OVER THAT TRAVESTY - for all the times I say this I might as well get it written on my gravestone lol...

3. Brooklyn Nine Nine - ohohoh I love this show, so witty and funny - I usually am not drawn to comedies but I’m glad I made an exception for this show when I started watching because I would have missed out one of my favourites!

4. Firefly - another show that we lost too soon imho - such a shame we got to have only one season and there wasn’t even a chance to get proper closure with a final episode or even a movie BECAUSE APART FROM THAT SEASON THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE OKAY yes I’m deliberately choosing to ignore the movie not really sorry about it!!

5. Pushing Daisies - why do I have the tendency of getting attached to short-lived shows? Couldn’t I get obsessed with Grey’s Anatomy or something? XD Anyway, this adorable - despite the kind of morbid themes it had :p - show deserved so much better - we, the world deserved more of this little gem...

6. Penny Dreadful - ah, the pain... I’m including this show because yes, I was obsessed with it for a while and yeah, in general I would consider it quite highly on my list, even if there were things that annoyed me, but I would have probably kind of overlooked those flaws if it hadn’t been for that OUTRAGEOUS FINALE THEY DECIDED TO COME UP WITH!!!! One of the most idiotic and horrifying endings I have ever witnessed, I am still disgusted and I will never EVER forgive John Logan for the hideous treatment he reserved to my beloved Vanessa... DISHONOR ON YOU, DISHONOR ON YOUR COW, JOHN!!!! You might have noticed that it’s hard for me to let go of things, even if they happened ages ago lol

7. Star Trek TOS  (I know this scene is from one of the movies - one of my favourites :3 - but it’s still part of the saga, no?! (I’m sorry but I saw it and couldn’t resist, it was that or one of those ridiculously flamboyant Kirk’s fighting moves! XD Ok, all right, I’ll have both because I can lol:

Anyway, this show was another nice parenthesis in my watching experience and despite all the silliness - and because of it, but this show is more than that, and maybe that’s also a reason for why I love it, even with all its flaws it sometimes was way ahead of its time in many aspects - I’m still rather fond of it! :’)

8. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - first of all, yes, this gif basically summarizes my experience with this show, I chose it on purposefully! :p I’m pissed at this show because for some reasons it is truly great and entertaining and has good reasons to get me engaged and attached but damn it if it went too far on certain instances; in particular those last two seasons are still quite hard to digest for me, and I fear it has lost the sparkle that I found when I started watching and fell in love with it... Anyway, I still think it should make this list, so there it is!!

9. Blackadder (I mean, it is already worth a peek for this little flower right above, don’t you think?! XD Anyway, this was first of all a nice opportunity to appreciate Rowan Atkinson beyond Mr. Bean, since when I started whaching this I only knew him for that part and was pleasanty surprised...  Even more so when I found out the cast included Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, and other actresses and actors making appearances that I recognized!! And in general I love this kind of humour so it definitely won a place in this list!!

10. A bit of Fry and Laurie - when I found out that Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie had done a show together, I just knew I couldn’t miss it!! I’m afraid because of me not being British I may not able to fully enjoy and appreciate all the jokes that are on this show, but what I understand is enough to laugh my ass off watching these two amazing idiots!!

I suck at tagging people, also because I haven’t been around much and I barely can keep track of what’s happening in here in general so there may be a chance you’ve already done this, but if you haven’t (and obviously if you would like to do it, no pressure - this is also a way for me to say hi! :) ) I’m tagging @whitestnoise @mednay @tirairgid @somethingephemeral @valentinaonthemoon @thelifeinmyshadesofgrey @googlybear88 @padfootwantsatummyrub @queen-of-love-and-beauty @astrangegirlsmind @kim-hanbin and well, whoever wants to do this! <3

[scoundrels-in-love]

30 and 49 for j and b from make up artist movie star verse, 34 from anything you've written!

Thank you for asking, sweetie!

30: any backstory questions about characters

Well, I suspect you were supposed to give me a question to answer, but!

Something that hasn’t popped up in the first two parts of the story is that Brienne has been dabbling with makeup since she was teenager. Though her Ugly Duckling Makeover sort of backfired, she was already hooked on what you can do with makeup, such as wounds, etc. which was cool for her battle re-enactments, too, and definitely got Sansa all starry eyed.

Also, Brienne initially got in the industry as stunt double and it was Sansa’s (purposeful, which they both know, but try not to address) meddling that got her back on make-up track. She thinks she’d have liked to do that, too, but is happy and satisfied with her current career, the self-expression and actualization she has through it.

As for Jaime, first time he met Brienne was on a movie set where both he and Cersei starred and Cersei definitely had some incredibly unpleasant things to say about letting someone who looks like that and hasn’t tried to ‘fix it’ near her face and he didn’t exactly... Do anything about it, which he regrets to this day. Among bunch of other things he did or didn’t say/do. (Getting Brienne kick his ass that same week is not on the list of regrets.)

49: this character’s starbucks order? 

I’ve never been to Starbucks and I have only vague idea what you can even order there.

I tried to google it, but I got confused pretty quick, so I’ll stay vague! The general fandom consensus is that Jaime either drinks only coffee blacker than his soul or something intricate and sugary. Movie Star Jaime is somewhere between the two - when he’s working and there are diets and whatever (when he shouldn’t even drink much coffee at all), he sticks with black and simple, just for sake of functioning. When he can indulge, he will order something absolutely ridiculous.

Brienne enjoys black tea so strong it can hold a spoon up with sugar instead of coffee, but she’ll drink it, if she must. It just isn’t as effective. And sometimes she’ll also indulge in good, fancy coffee that has no purpose of keeping her awake, but merely being delicious and hot. Nothing as complicated as Jaime’s, though.

Both of them like to steal sips of each other’s drinks and criticize them.

34: a scene/paragraph you wrote that you’re proud of

I was Oh, I actually have a few nowadays, wow! but when I had to find them to show here, I drew a blank. :/

But you know what? While I did want to share something from one of my WIPs, I am still quite proud of If I’m gonna (lose) love someone, (don’t) let it be you. Particularly of this bit that, I think, did well in portraying growing up and shifting of Jaime’s thoughts and also the symbolism I put in it actually works. Few people commented on various parts from this bit in particular, which makes me very happy.

PLUS I got to honor one of my favorite fics with it, with Slips’ permission, in it. So, truly, what’s not to love?

When Jaime was a child, he thought the Houses with beasts in their sigils were certainly the most impressive. He didn’t loathe the Lion of Lannisters yet, hadn’t grown into the image either. And what is a wheat field to dragon? It had seemed to him as if some Houses wanted to announce they were lesser.

After meeting Brienne, he decides Tarth sigil is as unsightly as its only heir. It is childish, especially considering how he holds no love for lions anymore, but truly, Tarth is trying too hard, with the suns and crescents on the rose and blue reminiscent of dawn. Which makes sense with their House words, too - First Light in the Dark, they promise to be.

When he jokes about it, his wife explains that it stands for the lighthouse Evenstars have maintained for centuries in a tone that would make a lesser man feel chastised. It’s one of the first times she speaks more than a sentence to him, even if it is dripping in restrained disdain even more than the rest. And somehow, he keeps thinking back to her House words from time to time.

Perhaps because he starts to see the light of the line, ironically. Her face is the first he can discern when he comes to after losing his hand, and her pale head bobs above the murky waters of fever and pain, leading him onward. Her honor and righteous nature makes the dishonor surrounding him feel even darker, yet gives him just enough light, direction to chase it like Galley that guides to west. He cannot even blame their soulmarks for this (like he blames it for the restless pattern of his heart around her these days), it is merely who she is, and he isn’t only one led by her.

Jaime’s opinion changes on other matters, too - he had thought what is wheat field to dragon, but what is a wolf or a lion to the sun or the moon? Even a dragon pales in the comparison. He has seen skulls of those, in the depths of Red Keep, but the sun shines on him still as it shone on the beast’s hide.

The sigil, he decides in the end, is as magnificent as Brienne and sometimes, he dreams of a lion-gold painted child who bears it. Another late and unforeseen side-effect of their soulmate bond, surely. (That fills him with such soft longing he wonders if she’d taste it on his lips, should she kiss him.)

Send me a fic writer ask?

[thaliatimsh]

⭐⭐⭐ for whichever! 🕵️

ok I did imperfect life for @mifhortunach bc it was how i met them, and I did take heart for @pooraurora bc it was how i met her, so I guess I'll do NLWIB for you buddy!

disclaimer: turns out i suck at this ask meme. rip.

okay not to troy mcclure but you may know me from the dishonored fandom's longest-running wip fanfiction, started in febuary 2013 when I was but a babe of nineteen... that game's now Old and we should all Feel Old.

Okay. Uh. Have I projected a lot? YES. I always eyezoom at some idiot dandy character who admits to being sad whilst neck-deep in a Big Mistake so leave OFF. That's my archetype!

NLWIB started as a one-shot! And originally was about. times when Treavor wore black and the variety of things that happened to Wallace which is? i mean. still quite a lot of it is about that. but basically that's what each chapter was, he wears black for: his own funeral/his mother's funeral/his uncle's memorial/his step-mother's wake - and then by that point I was too completely stupid and invested in my idiot boy my entire brain had turned to literal mush and also! I was extremely depressed.

Not to get completely soggy but writing this shitty fic and the kind things people said about it were literally the only things keeping me going during the actual worst time of my life when I couldnt get out of bed and almost got kicked out of university for it! Honestly the thing I'm most proud of from that time in general? fuck my degree it's a £22k piece of paper that has failed to get me a job and I mean. the first ten or so chapters of nlwib are. i mean i think I'm better at writing in general since then and reading it back I find it a bit... clunky i guess? but it means a lot to me and I have neither the time nor the inclination to rewrite those parts when I still havent completed the entire story.

So once I got past about chapter 5 the wearing black thing is just kindof a. private joke with myself more than anything. Treavor: gets The Void Suit out again me: heheheheheh. One day that suit's gonna get eaten by rats or some shit like. that simpsons episode where marge has the chanel suit she keeps altering.

Probably I would rename it just to in black these days but. Fuck it. I prefer calling it NLWIB as an acronym to that fjhsdgf. We pronouncing that Nul-wibb in this house. fjdhsgfj I keep meaning to put a playlist together for it but the problem is that! I can't decide whether I'm being tongue-in-cheek or Serious Aesthetic with it so I never manage it. Also my taste in music isn't coherent, which DEFINITELY doesn't help.

EUGH thank you for asking i feel DREADful that I can't spin up an actual fun piece of imnformation about these things! I'm very slap-dash with most if not all of my writing and basically the only thing I've ever planned out properly was imperfect life and I probably managed to stick with that ONLY because I wrote it in two months. nlwib, on the other hand, has been basically farted into a google doc at random intervals for over six years - and not even the same google doc these days because it got so long it crashed my fUCKIN work computer when I tried to be sneaky.

WHATEVER. It also gave me a lot of inspiration for my Actual Original Novel Project because I love! Dynamics!!!! I love CHARACTERS. I love DIALOGUE. I love WRITING IT. TOO MUCH OF IT. EUGH.

[faiakishi]

sophi-s replied to your post: Hey, so would anyone in the Dishonored fandom be...

Why not? I like a good fanfic. It’s always something new. But everything I always find is gay XD

Well, this was a few months ago and I have been working on it. Chapter 11 is up and I estimate the story is about 1/3 done.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15187094/chapters/35220719

But, uh, it’s hella gay. Daud himself is still ace as fuck, so it’s not Corvo/Daud or anything. (I personally don’t really get that pairing, but whatever!) But there’s multiple references to Billie being gay, Lizzy Stride making gay jokes, several other side characters are of the homo’s. Pre-trans Mindy Blanchard is a character. So if you’re going to be homophobic about it, this ain’t for you.

(this is also me plugging my bullshit and asking all the Dishonored peeps to pay attention to me. I’m still getting around 30 hits per chapter and for the amount of time and effort I’ve put into this, it’s rather depressing)