#written in the spirit of those Anti fics people used to write before we cared at all about the other egos lol

[beerecordings]

whump 11 anti?

Anon how are you!! Thanks for requesting! That’s all for prompts for now so we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled My Brother’s Keeper soon. Here is a pretty dark one, set in Anti’s early days. tw for gore. Also mentions of religion if that bothers you.

11. “You thought I wasfinished with you, didn’t you? Oh darling, the game hasn’t evenstarted yet.”

He’s been havinghallucinations for weeks.

This is justanother one.

That’s what hetells himself, anyway.

This is justanother hallucination.

Blood runs slow,slow, patient down from his neck, curving across his collarbone, hisbreast, his ribs. He chokes and spasms, gagging, suffocating on theliquid in his mouth, in his throat, pouring from his severed trachea.He tries to scream, but all that comes out is wheezing and blood tostain his blueing mouth.

He sets his headback against the edge of the bathtub and weeps, his mouth fumblingaround the words of a prayer that he’s half-forgotten after so longwithout recitation. He’d pray to Zeus if he thought it would savehim, but he wasn’t raised on Zeus. Old verses of salvation rise,foggy but warm, in his despairing brain.

“Hail Mary, fullof grace,” he whimpers, tears flowing warm down his face. “TheLord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed –blessed – I don’t – ”

“The fruit of thywomb,” someone finishes softly, and then there is a body standingover him.

He is consumed byterror the same way freezing water swallows up those who fall throughthe cracking ice of a February river. Shaking so hard his headconnects painfully with the porcelain edge of his tub, he dares tolook up, up, up, into the black eyes of the man who looks like him.

“You’re notreal,” Jack whispers. He can feel himself weakening fast. Hisfingers no longer move when he asks them to. His vision is dull. Hisbrain is stalling out. All that remains is the terror, a fear sopowerful it burns his heart to hold.

Anti stares back,unmoving. He wears the same soft white sleep shirt as Jack, the samesweatpants and haircut, the same deep gash across his twin throat.

“Finish theprayer,” he orders flatly, staring down at him. He smells likegasoline.

“Please,” Jackmoans, shivering from blood loss. “Please, you’re not real, pleaseleave me alone.”

“Finish theprayer, Sean.”

“Don’t call me –don’t call me – please, please, God, holy Mary, mother of God,p-pray for us sinners…”

Anti smiles. Toowide. Too many teeth. Too sharp.

“Good boy,” hesings. “Come on, finish it, what’s the last line?”

“I don’t know,”Jack groans, writhing, clutching at his throat.

“Liar,” Antihisses, and the blackness fades from his eyes, leaving them blue andgreen instead. “Don’t make me devour your heart, mamhuirnín.”

“Now,” whimpersJack. “Now, and at the hour – at the hour of our – death.”

And he feelshimself begin to die.

He doesn’t haveenough blood left. It’s all in the wrong place. He can’t breathe. Hecan’t breathe. He’s drowning. He screams out a rasping cry, the sameway rabbits muster screams before they breathe their last, and hecollapses down onto the bathroom floor, spasming frantically, hisspine arched to push him off the floor and his chest rising andfalling, rising and falling, rising and falling, rising and falling.Anti has come to kneel before him, reaching out gently to stroke hisgrey face, and Jack, desperate, reaches out to clutch at his shirt.In his mind, he begs, Please, please, please, please!

Don’tbe so afraid, Anti answers, andthe terror of hearing the demon speak within his own brain is enoughto make Jack’s eyes roll back in his skull.

Killme, he pleads as his heartslows. Kill me, kill me, holy Mary, mother of God, pray forus sinners now and at the hour of our death, death, death.

Antilaughs so loud the lights shake and flicker and extinguish, leavingthem splayed on the floor in the darkness.

Butlove! he cries, leaning forwardto press a kiss into the side of Jack’s head, to stroke a handthrough his hair and sigh against his flesh. There arestill so many terrors you have yet to taste!

Andthen Anti undoes what he has done.

Theblood disappears. The wound is gone. Jack is lying on the floor,alone, hyperventilating but alive.

“Jackie!” hescreams, staggering to his knees. “Marvin! Schneep! Please, someonehelp me!”

He can’t get up. Hefalls back down, and he cries against the floor of his bathroom,scratching at his throat, trying to claw away the sensation of blood.

You thought Iwas finished with you, didn’t you? Anti purrs. He is a shadow atthe back of the mirror above the sink, and nothing more.

Jack’s friends –his failed protectors, so useless against the darkness – comerunning like dogs to a master, but Jack is deep in his head, barelyresponsive. He stares at the mirror and Anti stares back, whisperingwords only he can hear.

Oh, darling. Thegame hasn’t even started yet.

It really is ahallucination, Jack realizes,when his friends have brought him back to his bedroom and helped himcalm down, when Marvin has murmured “it was just a dream” enoughtimes that he knows he’s probably a little hypnotized and Henrik hasdraped a cool washcloth over his clammy forehead and Jackie sitsagainst the edge of his bed, his eyes trained on the door, protectiveand ferocious. For now, he’s okay. For now, he’s safe. For now,Anti’s waiting.

It’sjust a hallucination. But it won’t always be. Whatever that thing is,he’ll come back, and one of these times, he will kill me.

Tearsleak from his eyes. He shivers and hides his face against his pillow.He touches his throat and wonders what death tastes like.

[acesydneysage]

My thoughts on how an Alchemist revolution could go

I turned some of the initial points into a one-shot, but I'm very unlikely to actually write anything that sees all of it through to the end, so I'm laying out what I imagine would happen. I could follow the initial fic's format and just write cutesy domestic fluff with hints of what is going on in the Alchemist revolution in the background, but who knows

In The Golden Lily, Sonya thought Sydney's blood might be key to a vaccine, since it was undrinkable to Strigoi. Later, in The Fiery Heart, in their visit to Inez, we find out that it's because her blood is coated in human magic. That makes it taste foul to undead vampires, and also broke her Alchemist tattoo, by countering the compulsion of Moroi magic with human magic.

She eventually uses a similar principle to make the tattoo breaking ink she gives to Marcus, and that she uses to help the other re-education inmates in Silver Shadows.

So, with that in mind:

My initial idea was that one of Marcus' operatives, who got tattooed with Sydney's ink, would suffer a Strigoi attack. Their blood would turn out to be undrinkable. Since Sydney's ink breaks the Alchemist tattoo, the receivers blood would get coated with human magic, like a witch's.

I would like it if that person was one of the people Sydney helped in re-education, because I'd like to think those people stayed loyal to her, and maybe see her as a leader. Just because it's really touching to me how she was still worried about others, and risking herself to help, while she was going through her worst nightmare.

In my fic I went with Sydney's roommate Emma, "the Sydney Sage of re-education", because I really love her. She really did turn out to be the Sydney of re-education, at least in part, because while she was repeating the party line and trying to seem cooperative, she was actually a badass rebel who fights back. There are other reasons, I'll get to that in the end.

Sydney's ink potentially working as a Strigoi vaccine is something important enough that she would risk her truce with the Alchemists to investigate. And since the ink also makes people immune to their mind control, the Alchemists wouldn't work with them like they did for the spirit vaccine. I truly believe that they value their control more than human souls.

I'm sure Declan’s blood will be important to the spirit vaccine. They couldn't mass produce it since it required a recent Strigoi restoration, trapping the spirit before it left the blood, while his blood is described as brimming with spirit. But Sydney and Adrian don't want their son to be experimented on, so that's just more incentive to seek an alternative.

I think Sydney’s ink wouldn't work on Moroi, going by the logic of the magic described in the books (human magic wins out in humans), but helping humans is already a big deal, and it could maybe work on dhampirs.

Meanwhile, the Alchemists have been getting polarized. When it's revealed that some of them were helping the Warriors of Light in the end of the series, while Warriors were keeping Moroi captive, that causes controversy. They eventually start to get divided into factions.

After the US re-education center burns down, those who oppose re-education try to defend that it not be rebuilt, and that other centers be shut down. There are symbolic concessions, but they eventually get basically re-education by another name. Similar things happen when it comes to demands for more transparency, and less authoritarianism in general.

And of course there's a reaction to progressive demands. A hardcore anti-Moroi faction is amenable to teaming up with the Warriors. They're tired of "fighting evil by cataloguing it."

If this faction wins out, they won't actually care that Sydney is blackmailing them into letting her live with proof that they worked with the Warriors, since they openly want that, and they consider her continued existence a humiliation. So Sydney and Adrian wouldn't be able to sit out this fight.

There are more and more defectors who simply leave and join Marcus (or go into hiding and try to stay away from that whole mess). But out of those who stay Alchemists, as things start to devolve into an actual civil war, the moderate faction has a lot of infighting about joining up with the rebels.

That's at least in part because Sydney is one of their most notorious members, and while they might not want to see all the Moroi exterminated, marrying one of them is still going way too far to a lot of them.

So, let's talk allies. Sydney definitely put Marcus in touch with more witches and taught them how to make the ink. And I think besides kidnapping Moroi and dhampirs, the Warriors could be capturing witches too, which would turn them against each other.

In re-education, when it's revealed that Sydney has magic they say that has happened before, and I imagine they handled it with the same amount of compassion. I think maybe Chantal is a witch too and that's why she was fown in the punishment level with Sydney.

Alicia definitely showed that some witches might be willing to work with them for their personal gain, but I think as a community they would protect their own. They wouldn't look kindly on Alchemists torturing witches. And even if they were born into the Alchemists, they chose to be witches, so their allegiance to them would take precedence in their minds. Sydney's coven and Ms. Terwilliger are definitely on board.

I think the rebels might be able to get the Keepers on their side, since they have a complicated relationship with the Alchemists, where they seemto deliberately keepthem dependent. Marcus' stated goal for a long time was helping Moroi on their own terms, that's what he did for a long while. He definitely didn't have any plans to topple the Alchemists in the Bloodlines era, he didn't thinkthat was possible. So they occasionally helped them get better technology and resources that the Alchemists don't want them to have, and they promise to help them further in the future. That gets them the Keepers sympathy.

The Moroi government obviously isn't gonna side with the anti-Moroi faction, but I think they'd try to stay out of the conflict and not be dragged into the fighting for as long as possible. But they've come to depend on the Alchemists too much to keep them hidden, and they're now in chaos.

With the Alchemists weakened by a civil war they aren't really doing a great job of keeping up the masquerade, Moroi secrecy gets very precarious.

Now. While Alchemists claim to be very worried about human souls, absolutely no one in the VA universe seems that worried about regular humans' lives. They don't even know about the existence of Strigoi so they could protect themselves. And yes, there are humans who'd work with Strigoi. Strigoi seem to have zero issue finding those humans as is, they simply tell them about vampires themselves when they wanna get servants.

Now there's a vaccine that could help protect humans, and really reduce Strigoi's capacity to feed, but you have to actually apply them to humans. And more and more supernatural events are being sloppily covered up since the Alchemists are otherwise preoccupied.

I'm sure there are some valid reasons for the masquerade, and humans might not behave amazingly towards supernatural creatures, but leaving them completely helpless to this threat isn't very ethical, and certainly not when you have a vaccine that could help them.

And honestly, as cliche as that argument is in discussions of monster hunting, humans could potentially take the Strigoi out, we have some pretty amazing weapons. Or we could be massively incompetent about a problem that we are fully capable of solving. You know...

So the supernatural world gets revealed, and that makes the Alchemists pretty obsolete. Of course, although they have been weakened by the decade(s) of infighting, that doesn't mean they lose all of their resources and connections all at once, but it would be a huge blow their relevance.

They get splintered into a lot of different groups that can still cause trouble, but they're no longer the omnipresent shadow organization they used to be.

And if this whole process took about 15 years, Declan and his buddies would be neatly protagonist aged in time to deal with the huge upheaval and the new mess of problems brought on by the integration of the Moroi and human world. And he'd more capable of thinking about his own relationship to the spirit vaccine and making his own decisions.

So most of this post was written to be understood whether or not you read Silver Stars, but this final bit is more about what could directly follow. When it comes to the fic I was more worried about the characters and their feelings, and excuses for domestic fluff and hurt/confort. So here's the fic on AO3 and on Tumblr.

In the end of The Ruby Circle, there's indication that Zoe Sage and Stanton, with the incentive of Sydney's blackmail, will be trying to reform the Alchemists. I don't really think they're reformable, attempts to extinguish re-education would basically result in rebranding. @sydneysageivashkov has some lesbian!Zoe head that I think are pretty compatible with my headcanons for an Alchemist revolution, and what Zoe would be doing during that initial period.

I think it could take a few more years, 3 or 4, for Sydney to actually have to leave her home and go into hiding. Declan foes actually get a little bit of a normal school experience. I imagine this whole process going very slowly, as the situation gradually deteriorates. And the witches would now claim Sydney as one of their own, making it a bigger problem for the Alchemists to attack her directly, lest they make enemies of the whole magical community.

By the time Sydney has to go into hiding I imagine Zoe is gonna have to leave the Alchemists as well. The other reason why I chose Emma for the first fic, is that she was in re-education in part for her sister's actions, so it shows that the Alchemists wouldn't be above hurting Zoe for Sydney's actions.

Sydney has very important reasons to join the revolution, and in fact she might eventually not have a choice, but she knows that once she officially breaks her truce with the Alchemists her whole family and even her fellow re-education inmates that she got amnesty for.

I imagine Sydney, Adrian, Eddie and Declan could spend a while hiding in a ranch very out of the way that Chantal and Duncan got themselves. Insert Adrian joke about that escape plan where cute blonde girls had to wear cow girl outfits.

Duncan has been shown to be pretty hesitant to risk going against authority, and Chantal is even more psychologically messed up than Sydney and the rest of them. Sydney feels pretty awful about placing them in danger, but they're both very grateful to her for helping them escape. Also Chantal is a really badass witch, although a bit unstable, I'll eventually find something to do with that, revolution wise.

But Sydney and Adrian would eventually leave and get more active roles in the revolution. I would very much like it to be an actual collective movement and not one special girl bringing down the Alchemists by herself, but I think Sydney would have a pretty prominent role after everything she went through.

This is way too long, but I had fun with it, and if you got this far, thank you for reading 😀

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Okay buckle up peeps I've been meaning to write this one for a while.

Yennefer of Venderburg. Our girl. Our wonder. She is absolutely one of my favourite female characters on TV atm and theres definitely a reason for this. She embodies everything I've been looking for in a female character on screen in those such as Black Widow and this isnt just because shes a badass. It's because, unlike characters such as black widow, she is a fully realised character who can be deeply unlikable. Let me unpack that for a moment.

Yennefer is not a nice character. She has many, many flaws and shes complex to the core. I realised this when I started writing her in fics - you cant just build her up of stereotypes of female qualities and hope for the best - and theres too much in canon to do a sort of make-her-how-you-want-her like you have to do with some women in fiction wheres theres little canon content. You dont have to create complexity, it's already there. Shes complex. This girls relationship to love for example, to others around her, to what she wants out of life. She is nitty gritty. She is - at times - unlikable. She holds a baby on a beach and it's dead and shes not weeping, she wants to be a mother except that she doesnt, she wants to be loved except what shes really after appears to be adoration. Her relationship to her body is not as simple as that she feels pathetic and sorry for herself before she changes. Theres no crying if Geralt finds out she used to be ugly. She is powerful, she wants, she uses people. She wilfully doesnt listen, mind controls Geralt, and wants everything on her own terms.

And all of this is to say that she is flawed - like a human being. Shes also not constantly in the Male gaze. Oh we get her boobs out, but she runs, shes vicious (think of her face during the djin scene), she doesn't just use her sexiness to get what she wants.

She is pretty morally good but mean spirited. Shes basically an anti-hero of the type we expect Geralt to be (when Geralt actually turns out to be caring).

And okay I'm rambling, but all of this? This is a fully released character. This is a human person to her very core. This is a woman who cannot be softened, but equally shes not just a jumble of manly traits into a sexy body like some female superheroes have been over the past decade, in the hope that we'll go OH!! POWERFUL WOMAN!! cos she IS a powerful woman, she doesnt need to be marketed to us as such. Shes wholly human.

I think people who dislike Yennefer miss the point of her character when they say shes written 'wrong'. You dont have to like her - but you dont like everyone you meet in this world either. She is a mess, and a beauty, and a dozen other things and she is personally one of my favourite female characters because of all of this. Because she can be unlikable. Because she isnt there to tick a box on the powerful woman card. Shes Yennefer and shes got as much agency and power as any man in the storyline and that shows.

[smallblueandloud]

hi essbie!! you seem super awesome❤️❤️ if you would like to talk to me about the west wing i would love that! i’m watching for the first time now and i’m in LOVE with it- tell me all your thoughts! otps, favorite episodes, arcs, characters... anything!

oh my god, this is my FAVORITE ASK THAT I HAVE EVER RECEIVED EVER. i’m so happy to talk about the west wing because the fandom that’s still alive today seems to be TINY (although high-spirited!!). thank you for asking!! i will endeavor to talk a lot.... which isn’t hard for me, lol.

(psst, before we begin, can i recommend you check out @donnajosh, who posts gorgeous new gifsets of tww pretty regularly [and also has gifs tagged by episode so you can find the right post to reblog when you’re liveblogging, shh], @etraytin, who’s written some AMAZING multichaps that have gotten me through this very stressful week, and @cassiesinsanity, who’s just plain genuinely amazing?? okay. now that that’s out of the way.)

i tried to figure out from your blog where you are in the show, but i can’t find anything more detailed than “probably has finished in the shadow of two gunmen”, so i’m just gonna keep things anti-spoilers. there are some really, really cool plot developments in tww, and i don’t recommend you spoil yourself for things on purpose! but also like. i DEFINITELY spoil things for myself all the time. so what the hell, don’t listen to me lol.

(i tried to put this under a cut, but tumblr glitched. sorry, peeps who don’t care about the west wing. also, WATCH THE WEST WING.)

my ALL TIME, dearest headcanon is adhd josh. i just. i love my boy so much. i love my impulsive, ridiculously-sensitive-to-perceived-rejection, loud, hyperfixated boy so much. i don’t know everything about adhd, but from what i know josh is TEXTBOOK. or at least he’s a lot like me! and i’m reasonably sure i have adhd. so. i’m REALLY, REALLY into that headcanon and everything about it. (i actually wrote a fic in which i wrote him the way i see his adhd presenting, because i love him so much. hmm, i should write a fic about josh being adhd. what kind of stims would josh like??)

i love and adore josh/donna, like many many other people. i like zoey/charlie, just because i think they make each other happy and both of them deserve that. i... like cj/danny? sorta? i think they’re adorable, and they have some REALLY good moments (no spoilers but. oh my god. danny really out here chugging his respect women juice and i love him for it). but also i am EXTREMELY ATTACHED to cj/toby and more specifically cj/toby/andy.

HEAR ME OUT. cj has EXTREME wlw energy and cj and toby have A LOT of married energy but then toby and andy... love each other so much, it’s so clear, in literally everything they do, i don’t know if you’ve gotten to the end of s5 yet but i cry. so like?? obviously, because i am who i am, polyamory is the answer! basically the rundown is: andy and toby are a typical couple except that they fight a lot. cj is kinda in the middle. if gay marriage had been legal / socially acceptable in the 80s (because god knows this ot3 has been thinking about optics since they graduated college), cj and andy would’ve gotten married and toby would’ve come and gone depending on who he’d pissed off recently, and everything would’ve been perfect. instead, andy and toby got married and it didn’t work because they really just couldn’t function as a unit, especially since their getting married meant that cj isolated herself a bit more. definitely cj and toby have a couple of SCREAMING arguments about the whole relationship. idk.

but just like. imagine with me, if you will, cj and toby... not dating, while working in the white house, but being exes. friendly exes. friendly exes who are still in love with each other and know it. please imagine that and then think about “i love you desperately / i know” and “you wanna make out with me right now, don’t you? / well, when don’t i?” and “we had it good there for a while / yeah, we did” and then join me in the pit of sadness.

(sidenote i have a sense8 au for the west wing and the second story is just me being emotional about their cluster for 5k. i have another story vaguely planned that i’ll probably never write about the development of the ot3 and about their cluster and how it functions. but don’t read that story until you finish... the first half of s7? or thereabouts? actually probably you should finish the show before you read the sense8 au in general if you’re avoiding spoilers.)

(when i say “i’ll probably never write”, i mean “until the next time i get obsessed with the west wing”. which will probably be years from now. oh, well, we can all hope the muse actually does something efficient for once.)

so yeah. those are my ships. i know a lot of people shipped josh/sam, but i don’t really see it? sam always seemed Way Too Straight for that to work lol, although i DO like the idea of sam pining tragically for josh for years just like donna does. (can you tell i read such a winter’s day a few days ago? it’s amazing. i haven’t left a review yet because i have not been a human being recently, but go read it!! it’s awesome!!)

also, i love the idea of bartlet/abbey/leo, although i can’t really visualize it lol. but there’s some amazing fic for them out there. maybe one day my stupid brain will realize the angst potential and actually let me write something for them, hopefully within the sense8 au. (sam also has a cluster! and i would love to write about them! .....but my brain doesn’t do what i tell it to. ever.)

my favorite arc.... i don’t know. i really loved the early seasons, which were a little more episodic, but ALSO i actually really liked the tone after aaron sorkin left after s4? it takes some getting used to, but it’s WAY more emotional, and i am ALL HERE FOR THAT. i definitely have a least favoite arc, or at least a least-favorite way-that-they-handled-a-storyline (spoiler alert: i hated how they handled the end of bartlet’s presidency in the white house. like. SHE’S ALL ALONE IN THERE- anyways. trying not to give detailed spoilers!)

favorite episodes: hmm. i love the thanksgiving episodes. i loved any episode with the ainsley-and-sam dynamic. noel is a phenomenal episode. 26 could make anyone weep. the flashbacks are the best. the fucking- the fucking what’s next motif.

honestly, probably i’d have to say my favorite episode is either 4x20 (evidence of things not seen, for “stupidly noble cluster” reasons and cj/toby reasons and bartlet & charlie reasons. also i feel like there’s some good josh/donna there too but i can’t remember exactly?) or 7x21 (institutional memory, because i’m pretty sure the writers reached into my id and pulled out EXACTLY what i needed from them to be okay with the show ending. jesus CHRIST i have never felt so satisfied after an episode. literally everything i ever could have wanted happened in that episode. i’m STILL reeling. it’s a perfect episode.)

my favorite characters are... literally everyone? i know that’s cheating but i love them all SO MUCH (except mandy and amy, of course). josh is my favorite, always and forever, but i love cj more than words and sometimes i can’t breathe for love of toby. leo and bartlet and charlie and sam and donna- here i was thinking i was gonna resent will forever but i LOVE will. ainsley is an amazing woman. abbey is such a good character, god, talk about a flawed woman who’s allowed to be a good person.

AND THEN THEY MADE ME ROOT FOR A REPUBLICAN. again, i doubt you’ve gotten to s7, but the republican nominee in the last election... jesus christ. i love that man so much. arguably, i’m very biased, but also how D A R E they expect me to root against him. how DARE.

(i swear this will make more sense once you meet him. i just love the actor a lot, okay?)

anyways. this got ridiculously long. i would LOVE to talk about the west wing with you, feel free to reblog this with your own thoughts or tag me in your own post or message me or something. i would love to hear your reactions!! it’s such a good show, and such a smart show, and every character is so mcfreaking good at what they do and i adore it. enjoy the ride because there’s nothing as perfect and as quality as the west wing. if you’ll please excuse me, i’m going to go cry about 7x21 again.

[abbeyfangirl]

dragon age: all characters (companions)

I’ve been in this fandom for a hot minute now and I want to update my opinions on characters :)

Origins

Alistair: super sweet dude who literally is not the stereotypicalchantryguyfightme. He’s a great example of healthy masculinity and I totally wish he was bi because I have an entire essay on that— also: he’s a poc! His mum was brown. In game he’s got dark features. if you really want a blond/blue-eyes/white guy, make your warden that. or accept that brown people can be noble and moral. or just draw cailan, idk. just because BioWare whitewashes doesn’t mean you should.

Leliana: someone hug my singing girlfriend before I crush her under with my own hugs. Also: nugs. Yes! Shoes. Yes! She likes how I style my hair? YES!! I honestly think she’s super duper and it pisses me off whenever someone’s like: yeah she enjoys killing people and the Game. ok. and michel de chevin willingly participated in genocidal marches through the alienage he grew up in with his elvhen mum. 

Morrigan: dirty swamp witch that i stan and also have a v big crush on. tiddies. Have a son with a GW so we can raise him with our tiddies out in the forest. she’s also white-passing, as her father was chasind and all people we’ve seen that are chasind are black. therefore, she is biracial. therefore, poc can be goths and don’t shy away from giving morrigan a darker skintone. if the devs had of been thinking, she’d have a darker skintone.

Zevran: Actually is the best romance, I think. Loves consent, therefore I will stan him so hard my skull cracks a little. Also: he is a very brown boy and if he’s white in da4 I’m seriously going to throw all canon out the fucking window. genuinely a good person who needs to be told so. 

Wynne: grandma who only likes my friends who go to church. but also super sweet and I’d rest my head on her bosom (in a platonic way omg ZEVRAN)

Sten: angry quiet boi. the bestest boi. I totally would give him a kitten for a gift and bake him cookies. Thicc softie. I think if I had DA:O and i knew how to use mods i would mod the fuck outta him. sorry.

Sha(y)le: who’s gender? idk her. See also: fuck birds and authority. pound ur ass into the ground you feathery meatbag little shits. fuck songbirds.

Dog: such a good boi. thicc. thinks Alistair is a whiny fuck and is Morrigan’s only friend. love him. he’s the cutest companion. bet.

Ohgren: honestly forgot about him bcc he’s such a shitbag. also: he could’ve been a really cool addiction recovery type but NOPE. probably would have a trump shirt in a modern au and would catcall wlw and hit mlm. no thanks.

Awakening

Anders: he acts like rlly straight but he’s so gay I can smell it. also he’s rlly cute and fun and I love him so much.

Justice: MAYBE i’M selF CONSCious OF THE twitchING. is the friend that genuinely doesn’t get dick jokes but is ur 110% ride or die.

Nathaniel Howe: honestly is sort of a white knight/neck beard a little, but it’s kind of charming with his whole velanna m’lady?? grump boi. annoying soul patch that I’d mod out SO FAST—

Sigrun: would have ROMANCED the FUCK out of her. why she even entertains the idea of fucking with ohgren makes me realize most of the writers are dumbfucks.png. peppy little emo. 12/10 would die if she kissed my cheek teasingly.

Ohgren: why. why. why. I’d have brought Shayle over. Maybe Zev? Definitely Dog.

Velanna: she was written to be an annoying feminist and you can tell but I deadass am a kindred spirit with her bcc I too am deadpan annoyed with Thedas’ general population too. love her. Would’ve loved to romance her. She’d totally be one of those who’d get all tsundere and be like “n-no i hate you” *kisses the fuckin soul out of you then blushes so hard she’s now a tomato*

Dragon Age II

Anders: fuck the cops. i don’t care. fuck the cops. (vine reference). also: do i hate him for blowing up the chantry that would eventually annul a huge collection of his people? no. read dalishious’s meta on Anders. v intriguing. didn’t they retcon the fuck out of the reported deaths too? like there was like eight Templars and Elthinia in there. Templars killed more “abominations” in a day than Anders in the game canon—

Aveline: initially thought she was fine and then realized she’s shit to my lil brother and I will fucking clap her ginger ass. See also: whorephobia isn’t a joke so fuck off with treating Isabela badly, you tit.

Bethany: sunshine. Literal sunshine. I feel my freckles grow in her presence and i love it. she’s my little baby sister and I’d slam that ogre so fuckin hard before it touched either twin.

Carver: there has to be a mod where both twins survive. I love them both to bits. My babies. carver is my bitter, angry little brother and I can relate because I too am very angry and would totally clap my own ass. hes so genuine and I don’t get the competition between Beth and Carver. Like, both are fuckin stellar in different ways. In this essay I will—

Fenris: honestly, I don’t get the general hate between him and Anders. Fenris’ main arc should’ve been a recovery arc, not drunken moping and revenge. he deserves better. give him a soft sweater instead of his spikes and let him love himself as much as I love him for MAKERS SAKE. like when you really think about their relationship, it could’ve been an eye-opener for fenris and finally some legit sympathy for anders. but we all know that if they had of teamed up that Meredith would’ve been dead before the end of Act 1 so.

Isabela: whorephobia is not a joke. oversexualizing your only appearing brown woman is so poorly written. how about we appreciate her and her lovely bosoms but also let people tease her about her heart of gold? her innate understanding of freedom? instead of just a wave of dick? please?? can we give her some pants for when she fights? can we accept that i fall for rogues who hate themselves?? fuck. also whomever draws her x femHawke x Merrill literally is after my own heart.

Merrill: my fucking babygirl MARRY ME. Fenris could’ve been her older brother type, but NO. she and Isabela should’ve been canonical gfs instead of Isabela/Fenris (no shaming the pairing tho!!). I love how she’s written as neurodivergent. V nice. Sometimes I just look her up and cry because she’s fucking everything. Also: she’s in the Dalish origin and she’s far from being white. Why did they make the most innocent/naïve character really white? hmmmm.

Sebastian: whew that boy. Would totally be that annoying Mormon at your door but you still let him in bcc he’s super sweet. Also: huge ass bible thumper and should get his head slap because you said the maker loved all his children why do you defend a complicit old hag you annoying attractive fuck—

Varric: totally is a bard and the devs couldn’t handle the idea of him being one bcc it might make him look less straight. is the only grey morality person I don’t want to fucking bash in with a fry pan. he sees people and I like that, but you totally know he’s siding with mages every time bcc him and Anders are like besties. I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules. “Professional Younger Brother”.

Tallis: I know nothing about her but she seems okay. I think she was an escaped slave and honestly? Fucking props. Spy on a shitting organization, idk what you’re doing, but your VA was that cool lesbian from SPN so I think ur okay?

Inquisition

Blackwall: Redemption Arc 101. Love him to bits. Sad dad bunwall. good man. actually atoned for his sins by actively becoming a good person. his initial design is 80% hotter im so sorry but so not.

Cassandra: was way browner in the last game. would romance the fuck outta her. I love me a butch lady who melts at my dorky recitation of poetry. BioWare is a coward. also is the worst choice for divine. but not a bad person. could use some more guidance or get her ass whipped by a dalish elf about religion or a circle mage kid whos like “yeah bud i didn’t ask for the templars to whip my ass everyday for existing.”

The Iron Bull: I think the Qunari/Vashoth were a little based off black people (the whole anti blackness thing where ppl are scared of them bcc of whatever reason) and it pisses me off that he had a weird ass dubcon thing with Dorian in banter. It doesn’t make sense— he’s an A+++ dom and would not jump straight in role play without at least checking in at first like wtf BioWare.

Cole: his mother was chasind so he’s like not supposed to be that white? or like biracial? albino? idk. love him to bits tho. He’s neurodivergent and I deadass love him. romancing him? idk. I see why ppl think it’s fuckin nasty but also like as a writer I’d age him the fuck up so fast before my inquisitor even THOUGHT about that. like idk. I’m down with him being a sweet little bro character tho. he’s a babe. love him.

Sera: had the worst fucking writer I’ve ever seen and I willingly read the twilight saga twice by a shit ass racist white lady who okay’d pedophilia. like. Fuck you Kristjanson suck your own dick you fuck. had the worst options in regards to speak to her. has a thicc case of internalized racism that literally most of the fandom just loves to use against her. my lesbian neurodivergent queen. Would write a thousand fix it fics for her. Love her to bits. im gay.

Varric: I haven’t played DA2 so i don’t get why everyone wants to romance him but like. a dwarf romance? yes please. Idk he reminds me of my uncle so I only see him as fun uncle material. Deadass should adopt Cole and Merrill and co parent with Blackwall for Sera. dads? fuck yeah. love me some wholesome, present fathers.

Dorian: is a gay stereotype that I love/hate so much. and he’s also just as bad about being a creep bcc he sexualizes qunari men (in banter). I attribute that to shit writing tho. I want to protect him from all the “omg gay best friend!” people. he’d clearly be that tired gay that wouldn’t give a diddly damn about ur het romance. wanna talk about politics? he’s ur guy/gay.

Solas: “me, an intellectual:”. I don’t hate him, but I’m not about him. He comes off as mysterious and suave (which he totally is) but I deadass would not save him from himself because he’s a racist, exclusionist eggshell. idk. not my cup of tea, but I can totally see the appeal. And he’s interesting, I’ll totally say that. “I think the Dalish are garbage but they made you” is not a compliment. it’s so offensive. and such bait for “quirky girls” which I’m no fan of. Would be Achilles and let Patroclus (Lavellan in his case) die before he realized how his pride is literally a waste of time. If he gets a redemption arc I hope Lavellan gets to slap him before getting him to teach all about ancient Arlathan and show that the Evanuris weren’t all total dicknozzles. (Aka I really have a hard time believing that they’d be slavery cult things. especially since they’ve compared elves to indigenous ppl, Jews and the Romani.)

Vivienne: it’s so racist that they’d make a black woman be pro-slavery. That’s such internalized racism. She could’ve been the cool ass “educate yourself first before you speak, fool” ice lady, but NO. the devs could’ve kept the “Templars are a tool that I proudly can mandate” and the “circles are very good education” and we. Could. Have. Romanced. Her. Like. Fuck. Sake. I just wanna give her a hug and say “love yourself omg!!” and not even in a romantic way. Also: she and morrigan should not have been so antagonistic towards each other. I’d expect them to have great respect for each other, as they both moved up in the world through hardwork and very little help. They could learn different magic from each other too and still maintain that rival respect “oh you” mood. Sidenote: probably the cooler option for Divine. if her approval is high enough she’ll love and be loyal to you forever and i can’t see her agenda being bad. she improves the circles exponentially and tells all the antis to suck her pretty painted toes.

Josephine: an actual disney princess. romanced her my first playthrough. I love her so much. she just makes me so happy. And she’s like: “Integrity, Loyalty, peace. That is what it means to be a GREY WARDEN good fucking person.” she’s the person who would let you hold her hand if you got anxious and she’d be that person who shouldered the whole group project with finesse and poise and would probably lie for everyone as to not be mean. i love josie. her and leliana’s relationship is so cute, too. whether it’s romantic or not: women supporting women.

Leliana: if you leave her hardened you must hate her. why. she becomes so against herself. i like how shes feminine and lighthearted because that’s so powerful-- to remain hopeful when the world is hopeless. (its hard to know when to soften her/harden her so i get it but. google it. she deserves to be happy and sweet again.)

Cullen: uwu war criminal with shit ass “redemption arc” that was actually a half-assed (at BEST) recovery arc. Recovery isn’t linear, it isn’t pretty, and even the broken need to be told they are wrong in order to heal right. Like I’m offended by that bullshit. I’ve had to do some mental health recovery in the past and unlearning lots of toxic ideologies— which I’m still unlearning— and it bothers me that he gets an easy pass because he’s hot. It’s one thing if you like Cullen, it’s another thing if you hold him accountable.

[jet-engine]

Well, your Ask box DOES say "Ask me a question or four", so how about #1, #8, #27, and #29? If you don't mind them all.

1. Describe your comfort zone, a typical you-fic.

I like something with a nice blend of world-building and character interaction. I also like to throw in little details that other people in the fandom can read and think, “Oh, remember that from this!” And, occasionally, I’ll throw in a joke or a personal detail that only I understand.

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

I rather enjoy this scene from “Mama’s Boy” (The Anti-Fairies):

“Put him down,” Sanderson said. “I’ll deal with this.”

Carson blinked, the only indication of his confusion. “You sure?”

Sanderson pointed to the floor in response. Carson shrugged, sat the child on the ground, handed the kid’s magic bottle to Sanderson, and flew away.

Anti-Poof called after him, “Yeah, you better float away! You will rue the day you crossed me, you spider-sucking dummy-butt! I’ll burn you! This floor will be lava!” He took a deep breath turned around. “Thanks, Stevenson. Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

“My name is Sanderson,” the pixie said, holding the bottle out of the child’s reached. “Now, what in Grayscale’s name are you doing here?”

Anti-Poof gave up trying to grab his bottle. “I’m not trying to cause trouble, if that’s what you’re insinuating. I just need to know someone’s address, and I know that you pixies have information on everyone in the universe. Or, at least close to that. Now, take me to your leader!”

“You realize he’s not even here.”

“Say what now?”

“Our coffee machine is broken, so he went out to get himself some. But, if you really need this address at this very moment, I can probably hook you up.”

Anti-Poof gave him a suspicious once-over. “Why are you making with the nice? What’s your angle, Sandy?”

“Don’t call me ‘Sandy.’ And, my angle is that I wanna get back to my break before my lunch gets cold.”

This is the first time we see these two interacting with each other. Foop’s just there because he wants something, and Sanderson just wants to eat his lo mein. They’re both next in line for their respective thrones, so to speak, so it was fun for me to write them actually interact. Foop is indifferent to Sanderson, and Sanderson just plain doesn't care.

I also like the way they address each other. Sanderson refuses to use Foop’s nickname, and Foop doesn’t even know Sanderson’s name. Also, only those he’s really close to are allowed to call him “Sandy.”

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

In theory, it would be fun to work with someone on a project. However, I have a full-time job, so my schedule might not coincide with the other person’s, especially if the time zones are different. Plus, I would feel more pressured to do things in a certain way. When it’s just me writing, I can do whatever I want. HP can look into the future through the use of tarot cards? Sure! Meta Knight mashes various fairy tales into an excuse to get away from King Dedede? Okay!

But, if I was working with another person, I would worry that they wouldn’t like my suggestions or not understand my jokes. Or, alternatively, what if I don’t like their suggestions or understand their jokes? How would I tell them? What if they don’t like what I write? What if they’re so good at writing that my writing looks bad in comparison?

Why am I like this? Why am I so introverted and anxiety-prone that I can’t even work in groups on the Internet? Help me; I have issues.

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Tough question. There are a lot of good fics that deserve sequels/prequels.

If I had to pick just one, I think I’d write a prequel for Autophobia by dArkliTe-sPirit. Without giving too much away, it involves a rehabilitation program that’s supposed to help prisoners in Fairy World, and Anti-Cosmo becomes an unwilling participant. It’s only a one-shot, but I’d really like to know more about this program and the person who came up with it and how Anti-Cosmo got roped into it and things in that nature.

[paraclete0407]

Everywhere I go I see these ‘morning’ novels about ‘getting life right the first time through.’  All these Asian girls I dated year after year and they expect / demand me to be totally established and take all their abuse - I will not complain more than that - when what I’ve wanted for a long time is literally ‘to live like an immigrant in one’s own country.’  All the people I admire seemingly married young such as the current Korean president and former UN Secretary General.  

I keep thinking, ‘That ultra-miraculous Hail Mary 80K-or-so YA novel that will get me out of here and also annihilate all the evil YA novels that I hate and want to expurgate from BN, the libraries etc.’  The wolf-child teenage-assassin good-to-be-gay ultra-sensualize-Asian-girls good-to-get-raped good-to-be-anorexic good-to-hate good-to-be-cynical etc.

I tried to support ‘Finding My Voice’ author Marie Ok Myung Lee on Twitter b/c I saw ‘Finding My Voice’ at BN and went, ‘OMG they took Kim Minju’s face and it’s right there.’  I lived in KR; I don’t mistake faces; YA is ripping K-pop left and right but Minju’s a real person with a life, had panic-attacks, needed exogenous O2 from trying to ‘honor’ her fans.  I wrote Minju ‘greentext fics’ talking about chivalry on 4chan but instead of motivating NEET’s to get a life or at least value and honor women it had people talking about rape, and various techniques of what might be called slave-breaking or the ways in which slavers and human traffickers so damage their human chattel as to render them unlikely to escape.  Jordan Peterson on Twitter is defending 4chan for its truthyness I guess (despite JBP’s having dreams of Christ and the kings of this Earth bowing down after trying to smash each other), and also pointlessly dueling / debating actual rape- and trafficking-victim Yeonmi Park, a North Korean escapee, due to the fact that JBP is ultra-rich and invested in his brand / identity and probably delaying Christianity as long as possible.  Marie Lee also got embroiled in a pretty pointless debate with a smart but mercenary Tory Toffish British professor called Dave Tizzard over precisely how much incendiary was dropped on to North Korean people and they’re still battling each other over God-knows-what.  My parents also recently tried to duel me to the death over my interest in supporting Liberty in North Korea; about which my Dad said, ‘If you try to enter North Korea I will cut you off.’  I’m a communist defector for being anti-communist because this is 2021 in Babylon and reality is unreality.  I’m sorry if I sound like Ben Shapiro but honestly facts and those ho handle them are sometimes more important to the art / science caring than narratives, the ashes of experience, personality, etc.  People such as Joe Biden also appear to oppose food-relief to North Korea on the grounds that it will prop up the regime and, say, if we feed North Koreans they might have excess energy and actually develop WMD’s and non-conventional capabilities that could threaten the US; an eventuality we prevented in the past by making sure NK starved in the 1990s and also by disarming NK’s WMD operation in Iraq in 2003.

All jokes aside NK policy strikes me as incredibly mentally ill and by that I mean spiritually depraved (I really think so), racist, genocidal / annhilationist, desiring to erase both souls / individuals and history, confused, scared.  IDK if I am allowed to even say that but I have a ‘black swan’ theory of history / WW3 in which some of the formerly colonized nations, such as NK and SRV (Socialist Republic of Vietnam), basically take over the world using special forces because in a way they deserve it and also because they know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of both malevolent colonial power and pseudo-benevolent or well-meaning-but-stupid-and-cowardly-and-non-committed paternal colonialism / imperialism.  It could appear outlandish but if you study certain battles in history you find there are critical factors in terms of information, will, ‘moral factor,’ technology, the Hand of God.  

I ultimately believe many of us on the Earth will have new neighbors very soon and we must honor them with worthy offerings, both out of justice and out of love for their souls (a-ga-pe, caritas / Charity).  During the pandemic I repeatedly read Chancellor / Dr. / Pastor John Piper’s ‘Coronavirus and Christ’ as well as Francis Chan’s ‘Forgotten God’ about the Holy Spirit and how to invite(?) His counsel, comfort, wisdom, orders.  

To anyone and everyone who might be reading this someday I also recommend highly Catherine Cho’s ‘Inferno’ which is about post-partum psychosis, mental healthcare in the United States, motherhood, demons, all of which are factors currently of critical importance to a lot of us.  I had written a poem for Literary Shanghai which I think was accepted but which I then rescinded about ‘Inferno’ describing my own experiences with mental healthcare and terror of Hell and the Spirit.  I had also spoken of a ‘Requiem’ which is something the pre-eminent English-language professor of the Korean War once called for though the essence of what might have happened during that conflict as well as what could happen again today is quite frankly literally a ‘Dies Irae,’ not the peaceful or nice part of the traditional requiem.  I had actually wanted to write Korean War novels before I realized how mercenary this is about an operation codenamed Ripper under Gen. Ridgway, the part of the war that involved bullets as much as heavy bombers or whatever, huge masses of Chinese troops, situations of semi-indiscriminate firing into masses of Asians including refugees, not to mention numerous hapless boy-soldiers from China.  All this stuff appears to be clawing its way out of the ground now - the Korean government recently awarded an American colonel in his 90′s for a certain unspecified action - but it’s 3:50 AM, billions born and unborn are at stake in other places, lands of miracle and menace, such as particularly Somalia with a birthrate that resembles that of the Republic of Korea prior to contraception etc., and I have personal problems to target and numerous ownership-issues when it comes to what is truly meant for me to do in the remains of my day(s).  

It also appears that a large coterie / clique / posse of persons around here are obsessed with me magically forcing them to respect, cherish, etc. me which puts me in mind of my favorite K-pop song - maybe the only one I ought to care about anymore - (Ms. / Leader) Kim Taeyeon’s ‘Make Me Love You,’ which however was also released on the same day as a super-massive democidal chemical attack in Syria.  

A while back I reflected somewhat - maybe not enough - on the idea of ‘counter-imperialism,’ by which I don’t mean Jean Paul Sartre or Mao or the Black Panthers, but using power, influence, etc. to circumscribe or delimit the excess ambitions of people who think they have the right idea but have lost their right minds or don’t really understand or care.  At one point I thought wishfully, ‘America is like a counter-empire,’ but IDK if I was really thinking of America b/c to be a counter-empire by my definition you need control and reason and wisdom and SME (subject matter expertise), not just wishes.  

I’m not sure any liberal democracy today has all these though my optimistic side looks to the current ROK president, Twitter moonriver365, who appears to be playing an almost impossible hand with literally every other country, flesh and spirit.  I bought this leader’s autobiography but my Korean cuts in and out of comprehension.  IDK if I’m too open-minded or not open-minded enough; I have my affections and I guess limerences (liking) as well.  I don’t despise the current ruler of Russia either for he has been trying to do good things for a nation that paid a nearly incomprehensible price in WW2 (Great Patriotic War), and which was mocked and despised for no good reason by a smug West, which perhaps sunk into unworthiness of itself, after the first Cold War.  

I remember looking at a picture the Moscow GPW memorial obelisk and being awed to tears - bodies and souls ascending into Heaven or hurled into Hell.  Straight up, straight down.  St. George and the dragon.  ‘They are attacking again; are they mortal?’  

However, I came to view this memorial partly whilst researching a fanciful Millennial anti-establishment curse-the-system-and-die novel about the mass-drowning of some 300 South Korean high school students in 2014.

I also made an effort to cultivate concern for children in the Midwest but somehow became sidetracked again just thinking about world events, the fact that every race is out to get every other race, these golden-haired Caucasian girls are probably taken to be ‘Little Women’ knockoffs or Henry James throwbacks or some Reddit category that can be easily demonized by Maoist flaks, BLM, anyone looking to score points or reduce the other in order to magnify the self and/or its tribal / identity-politics interests.  

Over recent months I considered a lot - maybe still not enough - the categories or qualities of purpose; purity; and also presence.