#after writing this chapter i wrote the first oneshot set in this au

[thetomorrowshow]

poisoned rats in a pot of grain - ch. 5

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it's a rough chronic pain day so i will try to make this quick!

within this chapter is a scene of attempted sexual assault. it is not heavily described, occurs in brief italicized flashbacks, and no sexual assault actually occurs, but the character it involves is very distressed. to avoid this section entirely, it will begin after a line of three tildes and end before the second line of three tildes (~~~).

additionally, the first scene contains suicidal thoughts and plans. please stay safe.

cw: suicidal thoughts/actions, depression, abuse, torture, depersonalization, attempted sexual assault, blood, dehumanization, manipulation

~

They’ve just finished another fight.

Blossom, he thinks. Does it really matter?

He didn’t pull any punches. He can’t afford to, anymore—not after the incident with Major. He hopes she’s all right. He hopes he never has to fight anyone ever again.

He knows his master will make him.

He’s alone in his room, sitting on the bed, staring numbly at the floor. His leash hangs on the hook by the door. An untouched piece of bread is on the floor.

Jimmy sighs, shifts, but doesn’t move. He knows he should be asleep. This is when Xornoth will be resting, cooling down from the fight. He’d done good today, had been rewarded with extra sleep time. He’s not sure what that means. He doesn’t know how much he gets in the first place, and it varies every night. Extra means nothing with no baseline.

The weather’s getting warmer. It must be spring.

He’s so tired.

It’s hard to think of himself as a person with a name, these days. He recognizes the pet names Xornoth’s so fond of easier than Jimmy or Solidarity, something that he never even imagined could ever happen. Jimmy doesn’t exist anymore.

He doesn’t exist anymore.

The handle on the door is heavy, locked so that it won’t turn. The hook on the wall is big and made of steel, likely originally held something far heavier than his leash. He’s been staring at them for a while. He thinks it will work.

He stands, limps over to the wall (Xornoth likes aggravating his bad leg, his leg that’s been bad since he first tried to escape and he dislocated his hip), removes his leash with shaking hands. It’s heavy, a familiar weight, and he’s still for a moment, running his fingers along the chainlinks. It’s long enough, too.

He wraps one end around the hook, ties it as well as one can tie a chain. He does the same with the door handle, pulls as hard as he can, puts his entire weight on the length of chain between the two points. It doesn’t fall, yet isn’t long enough to hit the floor.

If he loops it around his neck, lets his weight fall onto it. . . .

He’s tempted. He’s sorely tempted. He’s been contemplating this for so very long. The chance to just be gone, just like that, to no longer be a pet, to no longer be anything. . . .

He pulls a little on the chain again. It holds his weight. He would finally be free. He wouldn’t hurt anymore. No one would ever hurt him again. No one would ever control him again. It would work, and so perfectly at that.

He stares at it for a long time, bouncing the chain lightly in his hands. All he has to do is wrap it around his neck. If he’s right—and he’s fairly certain he is—it will still be high enough off the ground that he’ll be too high up to kneel. As long as he has the presence of mind to not lean back onto his feet, the deed will be done.

He could be free in a matter of minutes.

After he sleeps, he finally decides. He’s going to sleep so that maybe he has a good dream and therefore a good memory to be his last of this world.

Slowly, painfully slowly, he unwraps the chain from the door handle. He loops it over the hook, limps past the lone piece of bread on the floor, and to his shelf of a bed. There he lies, staring at the ceiling, thinking of nothing but the darkness of the end, until he falls asleep.

When Jimmy wakes up, he’s already halfway to the door only to realize his leash is not in the room.

He falls to his knees beside the newly-placed peanut butter sandwich and breaks apart.

-

It’s hard to care about anything. Jimmy barely flinches when Xornoth carves into his arm, he doesn’t do more than blink when they pull hard on his hair, he lies motionless when they beat him.

He feels like he’s died, and his body just hasn’t caught up to his mind yet. When his master summons him, he moves as if in a trance, following those holding his leash without complaint. Sound comes to him as if from underwater, muffled and indistinct.

Xornoth takes him out to fight and he knows he’s off his game, but there’s nothing he can do to fix it. He’s not even sure who they’re fighting, all he knows is that they catch the uncontrollable car that speeds toward them. When a streetlight tips over onto them, they catch it too and prop it back up in its place.

Jimmy lets out a shuddering sigh and allows Xornoth to drag him away by the arm. He allows them to throw him across the meeting room. He allows them to hold him up with a tentacle and whip him. He doesn’t do anything. He can’t do anything. Fighting back will get him in more trouble. Everything gets him in more trouble.

When they’re done and Jimmy’s vision is blurry, they drop him onto the table and tell him to speak and Jimmy can barely muster a “Yes, master.”

They must be able to tell something is wrong, then, because they rub something into his back that numbs the stinging wounds and they ask him to tell them what’s wrong. Jimmy only stares blankly through the haze of pain and the incessant buzzing in his ears.

Instead of being disappointed, Xornoth smiles and pulls him off the table, onto the floor in his normal spot, and there they keep him on their knee until he passes out and wakes back on the floor of his cell.

He’s not sure how long he goes about the routine in such a disconnected fashion. He only knows that his wake-up call is terrifying, overwhelming, and takes what little of him that is left and scatters it to the wind.

~~~

“He’s dead,” Xornoth whispers, holding Jimmy close. “I killed him, puppy. He can no longer hurt you.”

Jimmy sobs drily into their shirt, hands curled against his chest.

It’s a normal bath day, Jimmy’s in the room with the drains and the freezing blast of the hose, the place he normally blocks from his thoughts and memories because of just how terrible it is, and the man spraying him is the one named Helmer who would call him Birdie in those tunnels and with the way he’s looking at Jimmy, he knows something is going to be bad.

He can’t fight back. He’s too weak.

“Oh, darling.” Xornoth rubs his bare back, everything about them screaming safesafesafe to his frantic brain. “Shh, it’s all right.”

It’s not all right, because Jimmy is soaking wet with freezing water and shivering uncontrollably, and instead of dragging him by his collar back to his cell like normal, Helmer watches him for a long time before stalking closer. His breathing is heavy, he’s muttering something Jimmy doesn’t have the presence of mind to understand, and then one horrible hand is caressing his masked face and the other is on his chest. . . .

Now his master touches his face, and his master doesn’t slip off his mask like Helmer had, they don’t drag him up to their lips by his hair, and Jimmy knows he’s supposed to hate Xornoth and just yesterday he’d wanted to not exist anymore if it meant being their pet but he can’t help but lean into their touch.

Helmer doesn’t recognize Jimmy, that’s for sure, but his eyes rake over Jimmy’s features hungrily and he growls “All mine,” before doing more, his thumb on Jimmy’s waistband—

Jimmy takes the memories, puts them in a little box, and hides them away in a dusty corner of his mind. It wasn’t that bad. Nothing even happened. Xornoth stormed in before anything went really bad, leaving Jimmy huddled in the corner holding his mask over his face protectively while he listened to the tormented screams of Helmer as Xornoth killed him slowly. . . .

“Mine,” Xornoth growls, and it’s nothing like how Helmer had said it because he belongs to Xornoth, this is just Xornoth protecting their property and it’s so much more right.

They’re still in the room with the hose; Jimmy’s still dripping water, his lengthening hair just barely beginning to dry. They’re both in the corner that Jimmy had crawled to, Xornoth holding him in their lap without a care for how damp he’s making their blood-stained suit. He’s fairly certain that Helmer’s body is still in the room with them. He buries his face further into Xornoth’s chest.

“No one gets to see your face but me,” Xornoth says, rubbing a gloved hand over the back of Jimmy’s head. “No one gets to have you but me. My pet, so good for me, my pretty bird, so perfect.”

Xornoth is still seething at Helmer; Jimmy can tell from the tension in their arms and the underlying anger to their cloying words. They’re holding back, though, and Jimmy is intensely grateful that he’s not being punished for this (it wasn’t his fault, he gets punished for things all the time that aren’t his fault and he shouldn’t be punished at all). He’d tried to stop it. He’d cried for help. He’d been a good boy. He’s a good boy. He’s a good boy.

“Yes, you are,” his master assures him, and Jimmy realizes he’s saying it out loud, an over-and-over stream of “I’m a good boy, I’m a good boy, I’m a good boy. . . .”

His stomach warms at the praise and he sighs slightly, his shoulders relaxing, his words fading into silence. That’s enough for him.

“Only I get to see your face,” Xornoth says, but they still don’t pull off his mask. Only Xornoth gets to see his face, but Xornoth never has.

Jimmy pulls away a bit, and with trembling fingers and eyes on the floor, he pulls his mask up onto his forehead.

He feels naked, terrified, and before he knows it he’s whining a little bit, entire body shaking. He chances a glance up at Xornoth, who is gazing at him, not predatorily like Helmer had, but almost adoringly. There’s something else in their eyes that Jimmy can’t quite discern, but before he can try, Xornoth sweeps him back into their arms, rubbing slow circles into his back.

“So good, so obedient, so perfect for me. . . .” Xornoth croons, as Jimmy sniffles into their shoulder. “Oh, pet . . . you know you belong to me, don’t you?”

Jimmy nods. He’s so tired. He’s so cold. He feels so empty.

They stay there, on the floor of the room where Jimmy was hosed down, until the chill of his body slowly fades as he is lulled to sleep.

What happens next is vague—he thinks Xornoth picks him up, because one moment he’s in their lap and the next he’s in the air, but he doesn’t really wake until the arms leave him and he blinks open his eyes to see Xornoth turning away.

“Master,” he whimpers, stretching his hands out after them. They can’t leave him, they can’t, not when anyone could come in here, not when anyone could do anything to him. . . .

Xornoth looks back to him, crouches beside Jimmy’s head. “I have work, puppy,” they say softly, ruffling his damp hair. “You’ll be a good boy, won’t you?”

Jimmy nods sleepily, wrinkles his face to find his mask back in place. Before he knows it, he’s drifting off.

When Jimmy wakes, he doesn’t have the energy to feel disgusted with himself.

~~~

Scott’s finally off bed rest, and he couldn’t be more ready to get out of his house. He legitimately thinks he’s never been this anxious. Solidarity had been right there, literally in his hands, and then his powers had made a building collapse right on top of Scott.

He’s been analyzing the fight for days, turning it over in his mind to see from all angles, and he’s come to an infallible conclusion.

Solidarity is being mind-controlled. 

His stiff walk, his relentless pursuit after Scott, the pain in his eyes. Xornoth must have another villain working with him, one with mind control capabilities to keep Solidarity in check.

Scott has no clue if there’s a way to tell—is there some sort of trace to be found in close contact with the mind-controlled? He really doesn’t have the expertise in this area.

Luckily, he knows someone who does.

It’s always been notoriously difficult to contact the Mad King, so Scott bides his time, waits until he hears reports of a fight in midtown, Mythics against the Mad King. He’s out of his house in mere moments, still clipping his cape on.

He finds the two of them in the same area where he had fought Mythics that one time last summer, when Solidarity had interrupted. Mythics’s performance is surprisingly lackluster today, just him and a dog summoned with his powers, smoky vines pulling down on the Mad King’s ankles as he struggles to reach Mythics. Mythics is dancing just out of reach, his dog hopping around behind him.

“C’mon, King, come and get me!” Mythics taunts, and Scott rolls his eyes. Mythics would be far more dangerous if he knew what he was doing. His powers are legitimately terrifying, but he tends to use them for trivial and fantastical things like dogs and dragons instead of a gun. Or an army, or something. Something actually useful.

He’s still dangerous, of course. Even a fake dragon’s fire leaves a burn. But he’s not as much of a challenge as he could be, and Scott ignores the way the small crowd of onlookers perks up at the sight of him and shoves Mythics into the Mad King’s arms.

The Mad King wraps his hands around Mythics’s head, waits until the villain’s eyes slide together and the dog and vines vanish, then he throws him to the ground. He frowns down at the limp form for a moment, then looks up and shrugs at Scott.

“I had it handled,” he says grumpily. The crowd groans slightly, begins to disperse. Scott waves at them cheerily, then beckons the Mad King forward.

“I have some questions for you,” he says lowly. He glances around; nobody is paying much attention to them. Mythics stirs slightly. “You’ve fought the Canary?”

The Mad King’s expression goes wary, his eyes guarded. “Yeah. Why?”

Scott looks around again. Still no one paying attention to them. He leans closer still. “It’s Solidarity. And I think he’s being mind-controlled.”

The Mad King doesn’t look surprised, for some reason. He just looks tired. “Right,” he says, running a hand down his face. “Sure. Major, would you be able to come with me to meet someone?”

-

Scott expects to go to the Mad King’s house, a couple of streets away from his own. Instead, he finds himself weaving around crumbling buildings and shady alleys. After maybe two miles of avoiding broken glass and moldy trash, the Mad King takes him into an abandoned apartment building, down a dumbwaiter, and into a grimy basement with a handful of furniture pieces: two folding chairs, one card table, and a mattress. Scott grimaces at the empty pizza boxes stacked by the door, but climbs out of the dumbwaiter behind the Mad King anyway, who looks around sheepishly.

“It’s not much, just a temporary base of operations,” he explains. “Li—my partner can’t exactly been seen around our neighborhood, so we meet up here to plan things.”

Before Scott can ask who the partner is (and what the Mad King means by partner), there’s a soft, high-pitched voice calling down the dumbwaiter shaft.

“Joel? Are you down here?”

The Mad King groans. “Yeah, I’m here. And we’ve got a guest.”

A moment of silence. “Oh. Sorry.” Then there’s creaking as the dumbwaiter is raised, during which Scott turns to the Mad King. “Joel, I presume?” he asks. Joel sighs, nods.

“Usually I’m the one who’s bad at keeping up our secret identities. You’ve no idea how many times I’ve taken off my mask in public when I see Lizzie.”

Scott raises a brow. A moment later, Joel’s jaw drops as he realizes what he’s just said. He lets his face fall into his hands and grumbles, “Maybe I should just erase that. Gosh, I’m such an idiot. . . .”

Scott laughs, but still takes a wary step back. The Mad King is powerful; he doesn’t want to underestimate that. It would be so easy for him to manipulate Scott’s memories, cut the names as if they’d never been said. He doesn’t want anyone poking around in his brain, thank you very much.

The dumbwaiter creaks and Scott spins around to see a very familiar someone with pink hair stepping out. Oh no. 

He leaps back, hands up protectively in front of himself. A supervillain. That’s a supervillain in close quarters with Scott, he’s been lured into a trap—

“Major, calm down, she’s fine—”

“I should’ve known,” Scott spits at the Mad King, turning one hand toward him and the other toward the supervillain (who has raised her own fists, ready to fight), “you’ve always been so shifty, you think I’ve never noticed—you’ve messed with me, haven’t you? You’ve made me not want to look into you—” “Wow, that’s a harmful stereotype,” the Mad King says loudly, and Scott stumbles over his words for a moment in confusion. 

“I—there’s enough of you to have stereotypes?”

An offended scoff falls from Joel’s lips as he and the so-called Lizzie exchange a look. “Oh, so you never get anyone asking you to put ice cubes in their drink?” asks Joel. “Or everybody assumes that you ice skate to travel everywhere?”

“I—I do ice skate to travel everywhere. It’s sort of my thing.”

“Yeah, whatever. Point is, there’s more of us than you think, and most of us are just normal people who don’t dip into minds without consent,” Joel finishes hotly, eyes fixed on Scott’s outstretched hand. “I swear I’ve never done anything to you, and you assuming so is a really awful preconception that you were likely raised with.”

Scott can’t help but snort. He’s more right than he knows. “Oh, I was raised with a lot of awful preconceptions. Doesn’t mean I would team up with a supervillain.”

“What, exactly, makes me a supervillain?” the supervillain in question asks drily, and Joel hurriedly nods his agreement.

“Lizzie’s fought heroes and villains indiscriminately, if you’ve ever paid attention to her,” he says. “If anything, she’s an antihero, or a vigilante. Is it because she’s a woman, that you just assume she can’t be that complex? What are you, a misogynist? Don’t care about the women, just shove ‘em wherever you like?”

“I—” Scott sputters. What?! “My best friends are women!”

“Just what a misogynist would say. Bet you’re close with all of ‘em to try and get in their beds.”

“I’m gay?”

“Oh, really?” Joel looks surprised for a moment, then smiles kindly. “I didn’t know that, good for you! Live your truth.”

“Thank you,” Scott says drily, ice crusting over his knuckles. His mind is spinning trying to keep up with everything happening. “You wouldn’t believe how many homophobes still exist.”

“Bringing me back to my point!” Joel pumps a fist triumphantly. “There! There are people who are like homophobes, but for Mindnipulators. Which, by the way, is not a word you can use—it’s sort of a slur that we’re working on reclaiming.”

Scott blinks. He has no idea what they’re talking about anymore. He thinks he started out angry in this conversation, but he’s not sure why.

“Tension defused, no need to thank me,” Joel says, moving away from Scott’s hand. “And I didn’t even do anything to anyone’s head. Proud of me?” “Sure,” Lizzie replies, hands still up as she stares at the ice curling around Scott’s fingers. “Are we good, Major?”

They’re right. This Lizzie character has fought against villains as well as heroes—Scott’s never been pitted against her personally, but she did interfere with that one fight, taking care of Xornoth while Scott. . . .

He lowers his hand, gives her a sharp nod. “We’re not friends,” he clarifies when she relaxes. “We’re temporary allies. I’ll turn you in in a heartbeat.”

He doesn’t want to work with a villain. Heck, he hates working with antiheroes—fWhip is one of his least favorite people in the world, and the few times they’ve had to collaborate on something, Scott had been counting down the hours until he could ditch the man.

But he has to work with her. Solidarity is counting on him to break him out of Xornoth’s control. He has to save Solidarity, just like he’d promised himself he would.

Lizzie smiles thinly, points to one of the two folding chairs. Scott shakes the ice off his fist and accepts the invitation, sits down. Neither she nor the Mad King sit.

“So here’s what we know,” Joel starts, shuffling through the papers on the table. He throws down a screenshot of a local news website, printed out in black-and-white. “Solidarity’s been missing since around the twenty-fifth of August—that’s the last mention we can find of him in the news. The next time we saw use of his powers was . . . the twenty-ninth of January—that was when Gem and Xornoth’s fight got interrupted by the surprise earthquake.”

That’s—that’s five months. Five months that Solidarity has spent in Xornoth’s clutches, likely experimented-on and mind-controlled. Scott can’t—he can’t even comprehend—five months?

“We weren’t sure it was him, but we noticed that you were tracking the line of so-called accidents following Xornoth’s fights. We know you’ve got a rivalry with Solidarity, so we just sort of assumed you knew more hallmarks of his power than we did. You giving up was interesting, but we just sort of rolled with it until—” Joel pulls a newspaper clipping out of the pile of papers. The headline reads, ‘NEW VILLAIN WORKS WITH XORNOTH TO WREAK HAVOC’. Below it is a grainy black-and-white photo of the Canary leaping off the side of a collapsing building.

“March twelfth. That was when we knew for certain who it was,”  Joel says, tapping the date on the paper. “I was in this fight. Since we figured it out, we’ve been trying our best to interfere with other heroes’ fights, try and separate Xornoth and Solidarity or anything, but it never seems to work—they’re both too slippery.”

Scott sits back. What’s the most surprising, he thinks, is that his stakeouts had been noticed and he hadn’t noticed being noticed. That’s a little disconcerting. If these two had seen him, who’s saying Xornoth hadn’t? Maybe that’s why he had never been successful with that line of investigation.

Then what Joel had said about watching battles, interfering when possible. Scott thinks back to his own fight, two weeks ago. Lizzie had turned up in the middle of it, distracted Xornoth enough that Solidarity was left to fight on his own. He wonders now if the Mad King had been there too, watching from the shadows, waiting for a moment where he could hop out and grab Solidarity.

“He’d never willingly work with Xornoth,” Scott interrupts, right as Joel starts speaking again. “He wouldn’t do that. That’s why—”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Lizzie steps closer to Scott, arms folded. Joel pauses as well, turns to him.

Scott hesitates. He has no qualms telling the brief details (nothing in-depth, that could be disturbing), but he has some irrational fear that they’ll use what he says against him. Or against Solidarity.

“Solidarity’s had bad business with Xornoth before,” Scott decides. “Left him in pretty bad shape.”

“Yeah, but villains make alliances arbitrarily,” Joel points out. Scott rolls his eyes. 

“I know Solidarity better than—”

“That does bring up an interesting question,” Lizzie says. She exchanges a look with Joel. “How do you know the Canary is Solidarity?”

I took off his mask, I broke code, I did what no hero or villain ever does and I took off his mask—

“Recognized his body language and the sound of his voice,” Scott says, nonchalant. He’s good at bluffing. It’s part of the business. He shrugs. “He’s been my nemesis for two years—three, almost. I know what he’s like.”

He already knew what Solidarity looks like. It’s not a huge deal that he took off his mask.

“And because I know what he’s like, I know he’s not in his right mind,” he continues. “He’s being mind-controlled, I’m sure of it. I just need your help breaking him out of it. It’ll be easier to stop Xornoth if they aren’t working together.”

He doesn’t mention the obligation he feels toward Solidarity. He doesn’t mention the words Xornoth had said to him, the serious threats they’d made that have haunted him ever since.

Joel and Lizzie exchange another look, one in which a wealth of silent communication occurs. He frowns, glances between them.

“Solidarity’s not being mind-controlled,” Joel says eventually. Scott can’t help but scoff.

“Right. And I’m just supposed to—”

“I know he’s not being mind-controlled,” Joel talks over him, ���because I’ve touched him. I grabbed onto his ankle in our first fight—the Canary’s first fight—and his mind is clean. Clean of any sort of powered manipulation. These are choices that he’s making—”

“No way,” Scott mutters, shoving the chair back and standing. The Mad King is lying to him, or doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or something. There’s no way Scott’s wrong about this.  He paces the length of the basement, frost shaking off his cape. “No. I know he wouldn’t, he would never—”

“He’s a villain,” Joel says shortly. “He kills people—he killed Aeor—”

Scott whirls around, ice falling like crystals from his fingertips. Joel takes a cautious step back. “You think I don’t know that? You think I just forgot that he killed my—my mentor?”

“Look, Major—” “No, I won’t—I’m not going to—”

“It doesn’t matter!” Joel shouts, and Scott goes silent more out of confusion than being cowed. People don’t yell at him frequently enough for him to be ready to respond to that.

“What matters,” Joel says, more quietly, “is that we all want to get Solidarity. We’re all willing to fight Xornoth to get him. We need to work together, I think, to do that.”

He’s right. Scott hates it, but he’s right. They do all want Solidarity, and the only way to get him is to take out Xornoth. Solidarity escaped once before, and Xornoth got him again. The only way to ensure his safety is to make quite certain of the fact that Xornoth is incapacitated for the rest of their life.

Scott takes a deep breath, rubs his hands together to stop the ice. Joel may be right (not on the mind control, he’s never been more wrong there), but he isn’t going to say so directly. “So, we’re working together. What plans have the two of you come up with?”

“Not much, to be fair,” Joel answers, once again looking down at the papers on the table. “We really need to figure out where Xornoth’s lair is, and from there we’re certain we’ll find Solidarity. Problem is, we’ve checked all of their old places and any spot similar. We managed to track down the shady realtor that got them the old spots and she’s not seen them in almost a year. It’s possible that they’ve got new friends that they’re mooching off of, or they’re working independently, or a million other options. We just don’t know. We haven’t been able to find anyone they’re in direct contact with right now.”

Scott sits back down, flips through the papers after a permissive nod from Joel. Everything that Joel has said is there, as well as various maps—one big one of the whole city, other more detailed maps of certain neighborhoods. There’s some red circles and black x’s drawn on the maps, representing what he assumes is places they haven’t and have searched.

“What do you need from me?” he shuffles through all of the papers a second time to look for something he might have missed, a frown growing on his face. This is more information than he has. Having someone within the circle of villains is likely a much bigger hand than he could ever be. “I’m not sure how I can help.” “You know Xornoth better than anyone,” Joel says. “We were hoping you could give us as close as we can get to inside information. You’ve also got quite a bit more influence in the city than either of us do. You know the mayor—”

Scott snorts. “Right. Mayor Shubble has pretty much forbidden me from looking for Solidarity, so that’s a no-go. As for knowing Xornoth. . . .”

He thinks back to any interaction he’s ever had with them. There’s always been less banter than with other roses, each blow feels somehow more personal. They hate him, more than they hate probably anyone in the city, and not just for foiling their plans at every turn.

When I win, I will keep you locked in a cage like my Canary, Xornoth had said. The implications of knowing who the Canary is makes Scott sick. Whatever Joel is saying, he’s wrong. There’s no way Solidarity isn’t being mind-controlled.

But there’s something else important in that memory, because Xornoth wants something other than Solidarity.

“They want to torture me,” Scott says slowly. “They won’t kill me in a battle. If they beat me, they’ll drag me back to their lair. If we track me in some way—”

“You’ll lead us straight to it! Genius, Major!” Joel exclaims, pulling a pen out of nowhere and scribbling something down on a map. “So we let them beat you—maybe somewhere less public, so that people don’t get too worried—or maybe not, that could be really good publicity for me when I swoop in and save you—and then we follow you to their lair where we find Solidarity and we can ambush them in their own home!”

It’s a little bit of a terrifying plan, to be honest, one that makes Scott’s stomach turn over unpleasantly and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He doesn’t really know what Xornoth is capable of in that sort of instance.

But this isn’t about him. It’s about rescuing Solidarity. And Scott is nothing if not a hero.

“Okay. I get captured, you follow, we beat Xornoth. Missing a few steps, but overall a dangerous and possibly deadly plan,” Scott summarizes. “Anything else?”

“Oh, it’ll be deadly all right,” Lizzie says, her voice low. Goosebumps prick up on Scott’s arms as he looks over at her, almost having forgotten that she was in the room. Her eyes are dark, face tight. She looks up from the floor, up into Scott’s eyes, and there’s no humor or falsehood in her voice when she says, “Because once we find him, I am going to kill Solidarity.”

#empires smp #esmp #empires fanfic #jimmy solidarity #scott smajor #empires superpowers au #esh au #mas writes #holy cow this is a heavy one #i've been so excited for this twist lol #after writing this chapter i wrote the first oneshot set in this au #which is a more in-depth desc of what happened during that scene earlier #as well as future jimmy explaining it to scott and them developing a plan for triggers #gosh i love writing the extras for this universe #jimmy and scott have the healthiest relationship #so question: do we think that seablings are canon? #lmk what you think! #love you guys

[tarabyte3]

Fic Updates

It's been a while soo....

I Want You to Show Me Weak — As I've stated before, there are only 2 chapters left in the entire fic. I'm going to be finishing both of them before I post chapter 26. Then I'll be posting chapter 27 the next day. Gonna end the fic with a bang 😏 I have everything outlined and thought out, I just have to finish writing it (I'm very excited about what I have planned/written for the final chapter, which includes the ending). Though I will admit, it's been difficult to write knowing I'll be saying goodbye to this story. I'll miss my boys SO much 😭, as well as this version of Kino x Reader, but I want to finish it for myself and for all of you! Besides, there's always the possibility of oneshots set in this universe in the future AND I'm not done writing for Kino. Not even close! I have no date estimate at the moment, but I'm trying to give this one my full attention so 🤞

The Devil Makes Us Sin — Once Show Me Weak is done, I'm going to give this one my full attention for a while. (Though, to be honest, even though I'm trying to focus on finishing Kino first, I still keep this document open and regularly pop in to write a paragraph or two. What can I say, David is VERY fun to write for 😏, I love him, and I must follow the serotonin). The next few chapters will be shorter so they should go quickly, and I already have around the next 4 of them half written (I actually have about ~25k of future stuff written last time I checked, including parts of chapters MUCH further down the road 😅).

Other Wips

While my focus has been on my ongoing stories, I do have a few other WIPs I have actual content written for! So here's an update on those as well. For fun.

Personal Trainer!Kino x Reader Modern AU — I have the beginning of this story and a few scenes written, and SO many notes for it. (My relationship with my trainer is fantastic. He's 50% big brother energy, 50% wingman energy, but he says THE most out of pocket shit so I immediately write it down after my sessions. Because him saying it does nothing for me, but imagining Kino saying it?? 😵‍💫🫠🥵) It will probably end up ~5 chapters total. Probably.

And Your Heart, Love, Has Such Darkness (David x Reader smutty Oneshot) — I started this one a year ago because I wrote something for TDMUS that didn't quite fit, but I liked it enough to keep it and make it its own thing. It's over half done right now, so it will likely be the next oneshot I post.

I Didn't Want to Hurt You, but You're Pretty When You Cry (Dark!David x Reader) — I think this one will end up about 3 chapters long and will contain a lot of content warnings. It's going to be more horror focused (with splashes of dark humor because I cannot help myself). I adore the opening chunk I've written. It gave me goosebumps.

Secret Andy Blorbo x Reader Oneshot — This one started as a joke on Discord about an Andy blorbo that is not only incredibly niche/unknown, but is actively not attractive (one of the very rare times Andy Serkis does nothing for me. In fact, when I see him, my vagina makes the windows shutdown noise). Except I made the mistake of saying, "I want to try to write for this character as a fun challenge just so I can sexually confuse everyone." And it, uh, spiraled from there and made me rethink my entire stance on this character (thank you for not only indulging me, Hannah, but encouraging me and giving me more ideas 💖 I loved [redacted] thirst day in TNBF)

Halsin x Tav — That's right, I'm writing for the sexy druid. It'll be 2 chapters, and it's about a third of the way finished. This Tav will be a human fighter, but is otherwise written more like a Reader Insert. (Side note: going back to 3rd person POV after writing a lot of 2nd person POV is harder than I imagined 🙃)

Paz Vizsla x Mando!Reader Oneshot — That's right, I'm also writing for the big Mandalorian. It's about a third of the way finished as well. (These last 2 are actually a little intimidating because the fandoms are MUCH larger, but I need to get them out sooo fuck it, it's happening.)

So as you can see, even though I haven't posted very much outside of Liam Black, I'm still writing a lot. Apparently I just have commitment issues and a lot of ✨thots✨ 😌💖

#fic update #my wips #wip wednesday #i want you to show me weak update #the devil makes us sin update #x reader

[dogueteeth]

Fanfic Writer Questions

Thank you @silvery-bluish & @glitchy-npc for the tags! Not sure who else to send it to atm but if you see this on my page and decide to pitch in with your answers feel free to @ me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I've got 12! Most are oneshots, others are series.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

47002 on AO3 at the moment! And so much more in my docs.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Primarily Fallen Hero, with a dash of TWC and some other fandoms sprinkled in my WIPS but I've been on Fallen Hero brainrot for a long time now so the other fandoms are currently neglected.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Nightmare (surprisingly enough) w/ 28 kudos

focus (it's harder than you think) (also surprising lol) w/ 20 kudos

new pavement w/ 18 kudos

anamnesis w/ 18 kudos

freefall w/ 13 kudos tied with bath(toaster)tub also w/ 13 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to respond to all of them! But some days I just don't have the spoons to and I forget, but I really appreciate any comments I receive.

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

HA. you want me to pick??? Ok hrm. maybe bath(toaster)tub? anamnesis also has so me pretty angsty pieces in there.

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

PFFF. ok gotta. go look for this one. Maybe sargasso sea, though it's technically not the last iteration in its series between a continued plotline hinted out in after the fall and a third part planned for its series.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not yet! I think.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

(slaps brain) this bad boy can generate so much smut. I write pretty much any kind? Soft, rough, indulgent, M/M, F/M, F/F, other any everything, kinky or emotional, etc. Just whatever strikes me at the time, but most just dont get published bc I'm mid.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I typically HATE crossover fics they just aren't my thing I do write AUs of X story set in X story's universe, just haven't published them (wait does that still count as a crossover).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nah, considered it once tho.

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

Nope! Haven't found someone with the vibe ig, it's just never crossed my mind to co-write a fic and just never been asked too.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

(cue strained breath) i have no all time favorites BUT. but. Ricardo/Wei gets me SO soft ok. i just. unrequited years long attraction finally requited and i. AAAAA. place sidestep in there too and i'm just so happy. i need poly rep in my life sometimes ok.

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

I stare into the google docs hell and ask you how you could expect me to pick one but. BUT. Praeludium//Allegro. A piece meant to dive in how Sidestep is able to experience the moment someone dies through their mind.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Shorter pieces! They tend to be about ~2000-5000 words per part, that's usually when I feel I've done my best. I'm also. Decent at NSFW writing? Sometimes, at least.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Definitely long fics. I had a plan for freefall and have scrapped and adapted it multiple times now, pus it's just difficult to keep myself interested in specific but necessary chapters.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It's fun! I've included Spanish and Russian excerpts into my fics before but I don't do it a lot. Considered writing fully in Spanish at some point for an Ortega POV but I'm not confident in my grammar abilities. Spanish verb tenses my beloathed.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Naruto. On a different old account best left to gather dust.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Hm, I'm not sure if I have a favorite. I do really like the NSFW piece I wrote from Remy's POV, though. Short but good.

[truessences]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

I saw this from a mutual @teafiend and I'm gonna do it lol

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

9; they're mostly one shots. I think there are two that are multichapter. There are two that are part of a series of oneshots.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I'm not sure if there's a formal way to check it but 26,602 (as of 11/3/23)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Right now Stranger Things. I have one Harry Potter one.

In the past, on FF.net there might be more, like from Final Fantasy VII and more Harry Potter but I don't post on there anymore so I'm not counting it lol.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Closer to You (Mileven oneshot) - 91 kudos

2. One More Light (4 or 5 chapter fic Mileven) - 58 kudos

3. Dirty Dancing (Dramione oneshot) - 55 kudos

4. It's a Mad World (One shot about Mike and Eddie's first meeting) - 49 kudos

5. Roll Away Your Stone (Mike & Max fix set in S3) - 40 kudos

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

I always try to, since I don't get a lot of interaction (which is fine, I know how this works lol) so when I do, the comments are super appreciated. I don't post for comments but they are always nice.

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

Ummmm lol I don't think any of them end angstily lol but maybe not Happily Ever After. At least the ones that are finished lol. Maybe Dirty Dancing because of how it ends? I don't know lol. I'm still debating on if my Stranger Things-Titanic AU will end happy lol

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

I feel like they're all pretty happy but not like Happily Ever After kind of thing.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not yet lol

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No, I don't feel like I would be good at it lol. Maybe one day and maybe in the Stranger Things-Titanic AU will be my first. I've written it before kind of... but not in a fanfiction... hard to explain lol.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No but I did have an idea years ago of a Peter Pan/Hermione Granger fic but no idea where I wanted to go with it so lol.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Stealing people's fan work is low hanging fruit so get a life.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

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

No... but I have written with people before for other "fan" stuff.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

That's hard lol I don't think I have an ALL TIME fave but I'll name a few and not in any particular order. And because I like these, doesn't mean I've written a fic for them or read a fic of them (most likely I have though). I actually did a post a while back on some fave anime ships, I'll link that. Fave Anime Ships.

Bamon (Bonnie Bennett & Damon Salvatore)

NejiTen (Neji Hyuga & Tenten)

Cloti (Cloud Strife & Tifa Lockhart)

Hacy (Harry Greenwood & Macy Vaughn)

Kanthony (Kate Sharma & Anthony Bridgerton)

Cole Cassidy & Sombra (this one is new but I really like it lol)

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

Nothing, I plan to finish everything.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm not sure lol, I feel like I capture character voices well. I tend to write in third person and I can still get across how my characters are feeling and thinking. I also write original novels and have been for over 10 years so I hope my strengths have strengthened over the years.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Tenses really kick my ass and I overthink it. I feel like some people have really beautiful and lyrical ways of writing and I definitely can't do that lol.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Haven't and won't.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter

20. Favourite fics you’ve written?

Um.... I'm not sure if I have a favorite lol. Maybe One More Light only because I actually teared up a little when writing one of the chapters because I just let my fingers go and it flowed. Whether or not it's good, well lol but I do think that one is emotional.

But that's it!

#stranger things #fanfictions #mileven #bamon #nejiten #writing #creative writing #authors #truanswers #harry potter fanfiction #hermione granger #dramione #overwatch 2 #sombra #Cole Cassidy #mcsombra

[gerardwayissexah]

20 fic author questions nobody asked me

Sorry if this comes off as overly self-indulgent, when I’m not nearly popular enough as a writer for people to ask me stuff like this. But it’s my platform…so yeah. :) The list of questions is not mine. It’s one of several lists of fic author questions that’s made the rounds on Tumblr and I have no idea who created this one. If you made the list and would like credit, just let me know!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I’m at 39, last I checked.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

This one’s a point of pride and embarrassment, in equal amounts. I’ve posted 360,000+ words since late 2022. I have over 100,000 words of fic that’s written, but hasn’t made it to publication yet.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Right now, Naruto and others, when I participate in multi fandom fic exchanges.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

“Bird in a Gilded Cage” — Neji x Original Hyuga character romance and family drama. I should say this one skews the statistics because it has so many more chapters than anything else I’ve posted.

2. “Walk You Home” — short, fluffy SasuSaku oneshot set during part 1 of Naruto.

3. “These Hollow Vows” — short multi-chapter Neji x Tenten, smut with plot. Again, I think the chapter count skews the raw statistics.

4. “The Ultimate Defense” — short multi-chapter NejiTen set before, during and after the chunin exams.

5. “Between the Lines” — NejiTen smut oneshot with a heavy helping of angst.

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

Always, unless it’s a flamer. I have few enough comments (0-5 per week) that I can afford to answer every one with at least a “thank you!” I know getting responses from authors encourages me to comment, and I want to thank my readers for choosing my stories when there’s so many out there. Especially those who keep coming back.

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

I don’t do outright unhappy endings. I’d say the ending to the Neji joins the Akatsuki AU I started will be rather angsty. As for stories I’ve already published, the ending to “Wildflowers for Hinata” has a good bit of unresolved familial angst, but things are trending in a good direction for the characters.

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

“These Hollow Vows” has a pretty standard storybook ending with Neji and Tenten married in all but name, with a child. There’s no bittersweetness or lingering angst in that ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Outright hate? Nothing recently. I had one anonymous flamer who made me cry when I was 13. Sorry my fic gave you AIDS but stopping was always an option, friend.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, but it’s only around 1/3 of what I write and post. I exclusively write M/F, without any hard kinks. Most of what I’ve written is Neji x Tenten (Naruto). I like writing scenes in the context of romantic relationships, or showing the love and trust between characters. I’m not interested in writing smut without feelings.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No, and I’ve never written one. I do think Sasuke Uchiha and Arya Stark would make a good crossover crack ship.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Thankfully never!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Never, but anyone can feel free. It would be a huge honor if it ever happens!

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

No, and I’m not sure I’d be a great co-writer. I’m too protective of my own style and I have very set ideas of how some characters would behave.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

The first ship I ever passionately loved was Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. I was a weird kid who had few friends (shocker, I know), so I liked the idea of two losers finding love and acceptance with each other. Unfortunately for me, the ship has never been all that popular — too vanilla, perhaps? I’m not into Harry Potter much anymore, but maybe I’ll write it one day.

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

I’m not going to count myself out yet. I’m working on them all, slowly in some cases, but I don’t let myself start new fics if I have too many outstanding WIPs. Edit: I totally forgot about the Rock Lee harem fic I wrote 2,000 words of, before the cringe got too bad and I never finished! It was pure crack about Lee receiving a pair of leg weights that imbues him with infinite sexiness to all women.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Obviously “good writing” is highly subjective when it comes to fiction, but I’d probably say romance and family dynamics. I’d hope those are my strengths because I practice writing that kind of story the most, and I get to draw from personal experience when writing.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I’m not good with fight scenes and political intrigue in stories. High-concept worldbuilding also isn’t my forte. Too little smooching involved.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It’s jarring when I read it, and not something I incorporate.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Hunger Games. It was a 300-ish word oneshot from the perspective of Foxface as she dies. I thought 300 words was such an epic amount — and now I’ve worked up to where I can write that amount in 15 minutes. Did she eat those berries by accident? Or maybe not? :0

20. Favourite fics you’ve written?

“Bird in a Gilded Cage” has a special place in my heart because it’s been my longest and most ambitious fic project to date. It’s also the first longfic I’ve finished.

#naruto fanfiction #nejiten #fandom thoughts #neville x luna #neji x oc #get to know me #nobody asked but I’m answering

[dreadfutures]

Welcome to Blue’s Blog

I’m an artist, fic writer, and admin at @thedasincolor and @dadrunkwriting, but science is my day job!

Mobile Nav:

My AO3: @ youworeblue

My Ko-Fi

#My Art

GIft Fics Received

Gift Art Received: #art for blue

I take writing prompts!

Information about Prompts

My prompt horde.

Prompts filled for @dadrunkwriting: #da drunk writing circle

Feel free to make fanart, podfics, and derivative works of mine, as  long as a heads-up & credit is given. I always appreciate the creativity of this community <;3 (Full statement here.) (Banner credit.)

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CURRENTLY PROMOTING:

Please check out my murder mystery fic!

it ends, or it doesn’t.

Rated T, 7 chapters, 45k. Complete. Felassan finds himself investigating a murder with a ragtag group of three outcast Dalish, uncovering an ancient ruin hidden in plain sight and the ugly secret trapped at its heart. Illustrated by Adurna-0! With additional commissioned art by sbeep and crunchyncrumbly.

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Characters & AUs

Bloodied and Broken World State

Elvhenan AU

One Wild and Precious Life AU

Shadows in the Sun AU

The Mirrorverse Collaborative AU - OPEN!

Halevune Mahariel | Garrett Hawke | Inquisitor Ixchel Lavellan

Pronunciation: Ixchel.

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Bloodied & Broken World State

Main Series (Ixchel's Story)

Full Collection

Rust & Bone (Halevune Mahariel and his family)

In-continuity tumblr drabbles: #bloodied and broken bits

Ship tags:

Solavellan: #broken mirrors

Mahariel x Morrigan & Kieran: #old blood older still

Platonic: #cage of the ribs

This is my Dragon Age series following Inquisitor Ixchel Lavellan and her battle to  find hope for herself, and hope for Thedas.

Her story truly begins in  Dead Pasts and Dread Futures--with her suicide. As the world ends, Ixchel is resurrected under mysterious circumstances and is sent back in time to the Conclave. Ixchel is furious, convinced of her own futility, and yet she cannot give up again.These are the stories of how she gets better. She’ll bring the world with her on that journey, which continues now in The Brave Guide.

TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ: Dead Pasts and Dread Futures Summary

Main Series Reading Order:

1.0 - Lead Her Through the Darkness - [BECandCall]:Oneshot. Complete.This is the story of how Ixchel found her name. BECandCall aka DuchessofSwoll wrote this gift for me during the Dragon Age Fanfiction discord server’s OC swap month.

1.1 - Two-Handed: INCOMPLETE. The story of Ixchel’s first life, as a teenage Inquisitor. Ixchel comes to the Conclave as an effort to win favor from Clan Lavellan. She does not have vallaslin, or any experience as a warrior--or any idea of how precious friends and family could be. This is not a Solavellan story.

1.2 - Ruined Empires and Dust: Drabbles from Ixchel’s young life. Angsty.

1.3 - The Vallaslin:Oneshot. Complete.Ixchel is finally offered the vallaslin of Dirthamen after proving to Keeper Hawen how dedicated she is to preserving Elven history. Solas cannot in good conscience let her take them. Not without a warning. (Follow-up post here.)

1.4 - The Hope of Fen’Harel: Oneshot. Complete. Ixchel’s Trespasser eluvian scene with Solas. 

2.0 - Dead Pasts and Dread Futures. 170 chapters, 600k. Complete. Ixchel is in her mid-twenties when she ends her life, tired of being the Hope of Thedas and the Hope of Fen’Harel, and tired of being alone. As the world ends, she gets resurrected and sent back in time. She is very angry, and very depressed about it. Ixchel struggles. She finds hope.

3.0 - The Brave Guide. Longfic. ONGOING! Regular updates. A direct continuation of Dead Pasts and Dread Futures.

Hot Takes. Complete. Discarded draft. Smutty.

Dread Wolf and the Champion.Excerpt fic. Complete. The collection of only Solavellan moments of Ixchel and Solas in Dead Pasts, Dread Futures. In case you just wanted some Solavellan with (less) politics and interpersonal conflict.

Our Careless Heads with Roses Bound: Drabbles. Ongoing.Fluff Prompts for Bloodied & Broken characters set during both Dead Pasts and Dread Futures or The Brave Guide.

(3.1) Fade to Blue.Oneshot. Complete. An extended, stand-alone version of a smutty chapter in The Brave Guide. No other reading required. <3

(3.2) The Day the Dread Wolf Wed the Brave Guide - [exalted_dawn | @exalted-dawn-drabbles ]. Ongoing. My beautiful friend and dear Beta, Ed, decided to write how her OC Talenna convinced and orchestrated Ixchel to do a bonding ceremony with Solas, at the Arlathvhen, after Corypheus’s defeat. It’s beautiful and I adore it.

(3.3) the road seems too wild for mixing it with blues.Oneshot. Complete. Written as a gift for the Solavellan Hell Exchange 2022. Solas and Ixchel have a happy ending, visiting Cumberland as tourists--not as famed and feared leaders. Pure fluff.

(3.4) it ends, or it doesn’t. 7 chapters, 45k. Complete. Written for a terribly managed Big Bang, but one of my favorite fics ever. Felassan finds himself investigating a murder with a ragtag group of three outcast Dalish, uncovering an ancient ruin hidden in plain sight, and  the ugly secret trapped at its heart. Illustrated by Adurna-0!

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#Elvhenan AU

Ixchel gets sent back not to the Conclave but to Elvhenan, with a fragmented memory. This is not Solavellan but rather Dirthamen x Lavellan.

Currently this exists in prompts only, and:

Ship Tags:

Dirthamen x Lavellan: #sunbird

Ancient Elves and Ancient Spirits: #Glory and Valor and Pride and Wisdom

The Inexorable Tide - [kittynomsdeplume]. Oneshot. Ixchel appeared in Elvhenan in an explosion that leveled Falon’Din’s temple. Dirthamen takes her in, for she wears his vallaslin, and slowly teaches her the Elvhen language...and they fall in love. A BEAUTIFUL GIFT from the 2021 Beyond The Veil Discord Server Satinalia Exchange.

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#One Wild and Precious Life

Solas and Inquisitor Ixchel Lavellan defeat Corypheus, heal the Veil, and thwart the Evanuris, but Solas falls into uthenera again. He wishes that now-immortal Ixchel would live a full life, and to her own surprise...she does. She falls in love with the widowed Prince of Starkhaven, and he with her.

This exists in drabbles and prompt fills only.

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#Shadows in the Sun

My world state for DA4!

Ixchel Lavellan was 16 when she became Inquisitor, but rather than end her life as she does in Dead Pasts and Dread Futures, she chooses to live. Kieran enlists her help in searching for his mother, who drank the Well of Sorrows and now has disappeared. Eventually Kieran x Ixchel will happen.

This exists in drabbles and prompt fills only at the moment, but that will undoubtedly change.

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The Mirrorverse Collaborative AU

The Dragon Age Fanfic Writers Discord Server anniversary (Aug 2021) generated a bunch of crossover-type gift fis and introduced the idea of a multiverse connected by eluvians. Thus, the Mirrorverse was born.

If anyone wants to play in this sandbox or read OCs interacting in each others’/an in-between reality, I have an open collection for fics that have any Dragon Age OCs crossing universes via mysterious eluvians! They’re fun to play with and people are making gifts for their friends or just having their own OCs interact, it’s great!

We love seeing this device, please use it and tag us/submit to the collection! This isn’t limited to friends-of-mine/members of any server. We just love this gimmick and would love more multiverse interactions out there. It’s such a fun way to play with OCs.

The Bar at the End of the Multiverse - [CrackingLamb]. Oneshot. Multiple Inquisitor Lavellans wander through mysterious eluvians and find themselves at a bar for some bonding time.

Walkers of the Lonely Path. Multichapter (5). Complete. A gift fic I wrote for six Lavellans and one Mahariel. It’s essentially a dungeon crawl, with lots of lore, angst, and elven bonding.

i want to share your mouthful - [RosellaWrites]. Oneshot. Virelan Lavellan post-Trespasser struggles to let go of the weight of her responsibilities as Inquisitor and mother. Ixchel helps with sparring, bathing, and some sex.

turning stones to look for light. Oneshot. Complete. A gift fic I wrote for Rosella-Writes, where Ixchel holds Virelan’s Solavellan baby and muses about whether Virelan’s version of Solas has any hope of redemption.

tell me if i drown - [Lalaen].  Oneshot. Gethrael Lavellan, reeling after a horrific experience in Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts, goes to the Bar at the End of the Multiverse and runs into Ixchel. 

#dragon age fanfic #long post #pinned post #suicide

[azikarue]

2023 Fic Recap

Little late with the recap this year, but it's still January, right? For now?

Going into 2023, my goals were to 1) update "Bliss", 2) participate in MayBlade, and 3) work on/finish some WIPs. Poor "Bliss" is still waiting for its chance, but two out of three isn't bad!

I'll ramble more at the end of the post, but here's a recap of everything I posted in 2023.

❖

A Kiss for Luck

Summary: Before his crucial battle against Mystel, Max takes a moment to center himself. He wasn't expecting company. Set in my Saint Shields in G-Rev AU. Pairing: Max/Mariam Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1,855 Rated: K+

This fic was the first of six short oneshots I wrote to commemorate Valentine's Day. I did something similar in 2021, where I wrote a handful of Max/Mariam kisses and published them during the week leading up to Valentine's Day. When I was planning my writing for 2023, it felt like something fun to tackle again, and it gave me a lighthearted and relaxed start to the year writing-wise. So, I ignored my entire list of goals and wrote this (plus the next five) based off of six kiss tropes. I chose a different pairing for each.

For this one, I indulged myself doubly by starting with Max/Mariam and by setting it in my Saint Shields in G-Rev AU. Ever since I started pondering this AU, the moment in this fic is one that I knew had to happen. I'm sure the Saint Shields would have a lot to say about BEGA. I'm also sure that Mariam would remember the lessons she learned from Max and would be happy to throw them back in his face when he needs it most. And I love the excuse to visit early Max/Mariam days, even if it's in an AU setting. I write so much about them as adults that it always feels refreshing to write a little closer to their roots. This one holds a special place in my heart.

❖

A Kiss on a Scar

Summary: Every mark on Tala's body has a story and Julia does her best not to ask questions. She doesn't always succeed. Pairing: Tala/Julia Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1,883 Rated: T

When I chose this trope, I knew exactly which ship I would write for it. I was glad to have more practice with these two after writing them for a couple of my MayBlade 2022 chapters. For some reason, I tend to shy away from any member of the Blitzkrieg Boys when I write. I think it's partially because they have such a strong fan base and I'm never sure how my personal image of them will rate. Honestly, I've spent so many years in the fandom focusing on more underrated characters that I'm not even sure I have fully developed ideas for the Blitzkrieg Boys. Tala/Julia feels more niche, though, like it's a safe place for me to play around in.

While writing this, I was a little unsure on characterization. Namely, how much Tala would share without prompting and how much Julia would prompt him. I think there's still some gaps in Tala's character arc between seasons that I need to fill in mentally. He's very open with Tyson when discussing BEGA and Boris. I can only assume that's some combo of righteous anger and maybe therapy? Or just figuring himself out now that he's free from Biovolt's clutches. Julia is a bit of a mystery, too. Mostly, I worry that I'll end up writing her too similarly to other female characters on accident. Reading this fic back, I don't dislike the way I wrote them. And it was a stage in their relationship that I hadn't written before this point, so I enjoyed it a lot!

❖

A Kiss with Red Lipstick

Summary: Usually Queen has more fun at Enrique's family parties. But she usually doesn't have to go out of her way for his company or spend the night stone cold sober either. Pairing: Enrique/Queen Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1,784 Rated: M

This chapter was just me writing for me. I was pleasantly surprised when it got more than a single note when I posted it on Tumblr, because I know this is such a random ship with an, arguably, even more random interpretation. These are the two I write about when I want messy drama and chaos. Red lipstick kisses feel very messy and chaotic, so here we are.

This falls into the same story line as the last Enrique/Queen fic I wrote. It was fun building upon that idea.

❖

A Kiss at the Beach

Summary: Salima gets caught staring. It lands her in deep water…so to speak. Pairing: Ray/Salima Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1,180 Rated: T

I'll never turn down the chance to write some cutesy Ray/Salima. I imagine the two of them traveling around together a lot, living an almost nomadic lifestyle between tournaments or stops home (to White Tiger Hills or Salima's apartment). It's always a treat to indulge in that line of thinking, especially for a sweet moment like this.

❖

A Kiss to Shut Her Up

Summary: Mariah has a talent for uncomfortable conversations. Rick's working on his strategy for getting out of them. Pairing: Rick/Mariah Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1,253 Rated: T

This was one of my favorites when I wrote this series, and I still love it a year later. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I love writing Rick and Mariah's dynamic, especially from Rick's in-denial, grumpy point of view. He's a fun character in general, and I love how Mariah is the perfect person to keep him on his toes. And I had the line about her climbing him like a tree in reserves for what feels like forever, so it was nice to finally give it a home.

❖

A Kiss for the Winner

Summary: Tyson wins another World Championship and Hilary needs a minute to process his reaction. Pairing: Tyson/Hilary Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1,987 Rated: K+

I remember agonizing over this fic because I didn't want Tyson or Hilary to feel out of character. I've written a fair bit of TyHil since then, so I think that worry has subsided somewhat, but it was VERY REAL when I wrote this. I think the fact that the fic centers around a disagreement added to that anxiety. Arguments can be tricky. I didn't want it to feel like they resolved things too quickly to be believable or that Hilary's feelings were dismissed. In the end, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

❖

Subtly Sweet

Summary: When Hilary's computer crashed, she hoped work would be a distraction. Instead, she has a run-in with a vending machine and finds an unlikely hero in Tyson. Now if only he wasn't such a royal pain. Pairing: Tyson/Hilary Chapters: 1/1 Words: 4,320 Rated: K

I have this fic to thank for being able to tick my "work on/finish some WIPs" box in 2023. Very grateful to it for the feeling of accomplishment it gave me. 😄

For a fic that was sitting as a WIP for a year, it cleaned up nice! As a WIP, it was mostly dialogue with some vague outlining that I'd started, then left hanging. Sometimes pinpointing the perfect dialogue to take a plot from Point A to Point B can be a struggle, so when I reread my notes, I knew I had to take advantage of a good thing while I had it. The phone call scene wasn't originally included, and I remember doing a healthy amount of tweaking to get it right, but once it was there I couldn't imagine the story without it.

Fun fact: The original spark of an idea for this fic came from a conversation with RedWheeler literal years ago. I can't remember if we were discussing TyHil specific songs, but "Tangled Up In Me" by Skye Sweetnam came up and I couldn't get the thought of Hilary kicking a vending machine out of my head. Also, how is that song 20 years-old already?

❖

Life in Color

Summary: A collection for MayBlade 2023. Pairing: Multiple Chapters: 31/31 Words: 65,225 Rated: Varies (everything from K to M)

The pièce de résistance of my year. 💎

I, once again, did not finish my MayBlade entries on time. Unlike my first try, I accepted the fact that I would fall behind ahead of time. I think it made me feel much less stressed overall, but it also might have contributed to me falling behind faster than before? It's a double-edged sword. I know that I was in a better place for this round than I was when writing "Just A Moment", though. Life was much more balanced and I gave myself time to rest and recoup in between chapters, as needed, rather than spending all hours writing, editing, and falling asleep on my keyboard.

I'm very proud of this collection. I love challenging myself to write about some of my favorite, underappreciated characters alongside some of the characters more typical to my fics. I think I said this last year, too, but I love to see which chapters people like best and how it can vary between FFN and Tumblr. Sometimes I'm surprised by how things play out. Like, I was very shocked that the first chapter was so well-received on Tumblr, seeing as it focused on the Saint Shields. I'm sure it was because it was Day 1 of the event, but it was nice to know that some of my favorite characters got their time to shine. That was the case for more than one chapter, and I'd write a slew of notes on them all if it wouldn't make this post way too long.

All in all, I saw more engagement on "Life in Color" versus "Just A Moment" and I'm so grateful to anyone who read or interacted with it in some way! 🤍

❖

As I reflect on 2023, I can acknowledge that I took some positive steps forward in my never-ending quest for balance.

I'm teaching myself every day that it is okay to let go of things without guilt and pick them back up later. I can't be everything or do it all 100% of the time, and that's all right. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, and I can start things without having any idea of when I'll finish them. I can take a break from things that aren't serving me or causing more stress than I can handle. I can choose myself first and follow my whims. I can log off and be present.

In 2024, I don't know what my fanfic uploads will look like. I'd like to update Bliss and work on more WIPs. MayBlade is up in the air. I love participating, but it always turns into a bigger production than I bargain for. I may just need to participate differently, if I choose to do so.

September thru December are notoriously busy months for me, with May and June getting honorable mention. I'm not saying I'll be totally absent those months. Just putting it out there for me, so I know to go easy on myself. If I do nothing but read and take day trips and spend quality time with the people (and animals!) I love during that time, then it will be a year well spent. 🤍

As always, thank you to everyone who has interacted with any of my uploads this year and to the people who cheer me on and feed my fandom fire. I appreciate this little circle of the internet so, so much, and I hope 2024 brings only the best to you all! 🥰

#HAPPY 2024! #crossing my fingers for some fic inspo and motivation this year 🤞🏼 #azrfic recap #azrupdate #azikarue #azikarue394

[iamthepulta]

Hey which media/story/franchise is your liztlie AU based on? I've been trying to figure it out based on context clues and I'm getting no where. Please insert long ass info dump rant below.

OH HELL YEAH. <3

The Liztlie AU is based on the Fallen London universe by Failbetter Game studio! Fallen London is a decade-old browser game that’s updated regularly. It’s excellent. There’s also a PC game called Sunless Seas, which was my introduction to the fandom and still some of my favorite content. After the success of Sunless Seas, they made another PC game called Sunless Skies, which I love lore-wise, but for some reason can’t get into playing. (And now they have Mask of the Rose! Which just came out on the 8th! Also set in Fallen London, but a prequel to all of the games.)

For some background, Fallen London and Sunless Seas are set in the same location and same timeline. London as a city, has been pulled down into the cave called the Neath. (Mask of the Rose is set just after the Fall happens.) There are several different London factions, but most importantly, on one end of the Neath, there is a Gate. Sunless Skies is, strictly speaking, a possible AU timeline, set after London discovers and opens that Gate to a realm called the Reach.  

Sunless Skies is its own beast; all the lore in Sunless Seas and Fallen London is dialed up to 11. The focus is on either allying or destroying the 'Great Chain of Being', which includes everything from the industrialist time-manipulating nightmare London has become, to talking rats, to the “Gods”, the Suns of each realm which feed off of the souls of their inhabitants. The game developers did a great job at expanding the world of Fallen London in Sunless Skies, and there are several maps you can play through, a few dozen storylines, and a lot of cool content. (10/10, recommend. Although as fellow rock-eater, you might prefer Sunless Seas. It’s always a tossup.)

So because PC gameplay isn’t enough, people enthusiastically made an RPG out of Sunless Skies! Enter Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor. The Skyfarer RPG system is one page long. I’m biased because I hate long, complicated, number-based RPG systems, but I think this RPG is awesome. It was meant for short campaigns, it’s a d10 system, and your character is designed around being one of the officers on a Skies locomotive. Easy, inventive, and flexible.

Enter two ADHD geologists and a pandemic:

@paleomancer hit up our friend group one day and asked if we wanted to play a oneshot RPG in Skyfarer. We were socially distancing and mentally traumatized nerds, so of course the answer was Yes. And the oneshot was great! We made our characters, played the game for a few hours, finished the oneshot plot, and successfully carried our passenger to Elutheria along with her illicit books. We liked it so much we agreed to keep playing every few weeks just to keep in touch during the pandemic.

This was all well and good until I lost my mind playing Westlie. My dipshit friends (affectionate) thought it was a great idea for me, the First Mate, to be promoted when our captain kicked the bucket. I hadn’t written fiction since college, but I started writing again as I fleshed out her backstory and the DM and I crafted her sister, Morgan. Then I just kind of kept… creating stories and toying with different ways for Westlie to develop until @justanormalseagull and I were playing around with the Found Family/Adoption trope. She'd played Lizzie’s character, and in a burst of inspiration, I realized the plot of our first few Skyfarer seasons would still work well if Westlie adopted Lizzie and never left London. So I casually wrote five chapters as a gift, fell down the rabbit hole again, and now the Liztlie AU is a 200k monster. xD

So to really answer your question, the Liztlie AU is an AU of our Skyfarer Game, which is a translation of Sunless Skies, which is an AU of Sunless Seas, which is an offshoot of the ancient, niche, Fallen London browser game. xD The context clues are piecemeal at best, haha.

But the nice thing! At this point, the Liztlie AU is its own standalone story; it starts at the 'beginning' of the Skyfarer campaign, so you don't need to know anything about the Pyrrhus. And it's set in Sunless Skies, but I explain 90% of the world as Westlie learns about it anyway. Both aspects are basically Easter eggs for readers to enjoy if they happen to know. Which makes the absurdity of what I'm writing even greater because the AU is kind of my own novel now? But also, most definitely not.

The best links if you want to browse are: My Archive -> “the crew of the Pyrrhus” (for memes of the main campaign), "fl", “dnd”, "liztlie au", “wm”, “mw”, or just “westlie”

THANKS FOR ASKING! THIS MADE MY EVENING. :D NOW YOU KNOW! :D

Brief character summaries (links lead to more):

Westlie Faire is/was my Skyfarer PC. She has a horrible father, Arthur Faire, and ran away from the title of Heir to Fairweather Shipping Co. to be the First Mate on the Pyrrhus.

Morgan Faire is her younger sister. Extremely lucky due to [redacted] reasons.

Lizzie Twaddle is/was @justanormalseagull ‘s PC. She was an orphan who snuck aboard the Pyrrhus and got adopted as mascot by the crew. In the AU, she’s adopted by Westlie while she’s trying to sneak onboard a train and Westlie takes her back to London. Just wants a family. T__T

#liztlie au #ask #skyfarer #I'll probably reblog this a few times since I imagine other people are EQUALLY confused. OC stories are tough to learn about xD #The dnd and the crew of the pyrrhus tags will bring up the best old stuff. #the liztlie au and tags like 'morgan'/'westlie'/'lizzie' will bring up character descriptions and my character ramblings. #If you actually want pictures/writing I'd head to my art blog or the crew of the pyrrhus tag. The art is usually buried in the au tag :( #Thank you lmao; it's midnight here now and this made my night. xD You're the best <3

[themightyhumanbroom]

So what exactly was going through your mind when you wrote the villain of your newest oneshot? (no offense)

So will there be a sequel continuing your oneshot?

No offense at all! It's an understandable question seeing how until now the AU has only lightly touched upon horror (the imposter duo’s circumstance and Surge’s currently increasing bouts of cerebral horror). So the addition of a cannibalistic serial killer who successfully devoured nearly her entire family in my new fic Possibly in Mobius is completely out of left field. That's why I’m going to take the time to explain the creative process that brought Annabelle the Cannibal to fruition.

My IRL job is pest control, there's a reason Jerry is specifically a deer mouse, and an animal I sometimes have to deal with are shrews. They are primarily an outdoor pest and will normally only enter a home for one reason: they are following a mouse. Shrews hunt mice and are vicious little things. I recalled my coworker who has been in the field for a long time telling me that if a mouse gets stuck inside a catch and release trap, a shrew will just follow them inside and rip them apart. That's when I decided that my first OC villain would be a shrew. 

I have a soft spot for animals that are small but mighty and kill the same pests I deal with at work. Psssst this is a hint at what the other villains are gonna be!

I love horror as a genre and I wanted to take a crack at writing some. 

While I dont regret at all getting rid of Mimic via spine breaking in the events of Cage Fighter, I did know I got rid of one of the few villains IDW had so I knew I would have to make some of my own 

I'm going to be honest, I don’t know when or why I decided that they were gonna be cannibal. I guess it felt like a natural choice given what I knew about them from my job. When you see as many dead rodents as I do you just get numb to it I guess. What I can tell you is that the choice was cemented when after further research I discovered that some shrews have paralytic venom. After that I decided to go all in on the horror aspect. 

I couldn't just throw them into the setting all willy nilly. I thought about how to put her in the AU properly when I remembered something: Jerry the Deer Mouse. Having Annabelle the Cannibal be his mom let me construct a horrifying backstory for both of them, explain why Jerry would work for Clutch, and retroactively explain why Jerry was squatting in the Restoration HQ before getting hired. 

You can't just talk about how deadly and scary a character is, you have to show it. Hence the creation of Jerry’s horrifying story and poor Paul the Parrot who had the misfortune to meet her. I’ve found horror works best when you care about or relate to the people in a work of horror. Make them as much of a person as you can to make their fate all the more horrifying. 

Annabelle also serves as a symbol of how different the danger was before Eggman showed up. And how their return is a portent of doom, that the dangers of the old days are going to combine with the dangers of Eggman. 

I partly based their mannerisms off of Rose the Spider Splicer from Bioshock. 

I hoped this answered your questions! Also I won’t make another chapter of Possibly in Mobius but Annabelle will appear later in the AU

#lead to light au #creative process #writing process #sonic au #sonic fanfiction #ao3 #ao3 author #ao3 writer #idw sonic #sth #sonic #shrews

[clawbehavior]

Hello, I hope you are having a lovely day/night 💞🌷🏵️🍵

For the ao3 wrapped:

11,12,15,18

omg these asks led me on a trip down memory lane and made me so excited for my biggest WIP (which has also been a pain in my ass), so tysm for sending them anon ❤️❤️🙏

11. What work took you the longest to write?

hands down 'everything everywhere all at once', my modern au where gaon drops out of law school when his parents die and falls for their private money lender, kyh, against his better instincts. here's the funny thing: i intended to complete in one one week with 3 chapters published in 3 days!! i started it in January 2023, nearly a year ago. 

i love this story so much. i wanted to write a gentle kyh for gaon so badly, but that's difficult to do for canon unless i wrote them post-canon. so i made an angsty au. this story was also my first true foray into FF writing on a03 years and years after i had put content creation aside, and the story ended up becoming a gateway to a totally new side of TDJ fandom. people share so many beautiful ideas about the lawful family in their story comments that fic writing feels like a rich conversation. so many times i have written gahan one way to read somebody's thoughts in the comments and go ahhhh i didn't even think of that. hearing people's perspectives has been such a rewarding and crucial piece of writing bc i am a person who works best when sounding ideas off another. 

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

straight for the heart, lmao. i have three, all 95 per cent ready for publication, in that the story is fully written out and the dialogue is completely polished in some areas but i am missing a key part that's critical for bringing the story together. it's too clunky basically. 

for example, when i was writing 'i hope you are lonely' the sex tape fic, i had everything written except a single scene: i couldn't figure out how gaon publicly responded to the tape. this was a crucial part of the story because his emotion would set the tone for how comfortable he felt expressing sexual desire for yohan and thus the progression of their relationship. was he hurt and afraid? angry and sexually frustrated? wanting revenge or to move on? and how did all those emotions shape what he asked yohan for, a man who would give him whatever he wanted. so this nearly complete draft was sitting in my GD for weeks until a reader asked me when i was updating and while i was typing out everything above just how i wrote it for you some part of my brain suddenly woke up and came up with a solution. i published the fic the next day. 

all this to say that the 3 stories i have lined up for publication are experiencing the same thing. basically polished except for oooooone thing. i need to tease out what a character feels about a specific event to successfully build the tension until it ratchets up to unbearable levels and needs to be released right the fuck now, i.e. theyre going to talk about it or fuck it out or whatever. but until that piece comes to me....these fics remain in the drafts. who knows tho, maybe after this a03 wrapped my ADHD brain will pop back in and do it's darned job. 

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

all of them! i don't publish a multi chap unless i have the ending written. otherwise it stays a oneshot. rn i am excited for i hope you are lonely, elevator troubles, and everything everywhere all at once.

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

isaac! i actually didn't realize this until you asked me in concrete terms, so thanks for helping me articulate the writing block i am having. it's the kang isaac in my money lender au. he does something that has significant consequences but needs plausible deniability for the story to work. i can't nail down why he does it tho. he meddles, and he's foolish and he causes trouble but not vindictively or deliberately. his heart is in the right place, but how do i write him without overly abusing the trope of the good guy who bumbled his way into something wrong? now that i'm asking myself this specific question, i may come up with an answer. 

thinking through this was loads of fun and a perfect way to spend lunch break pfft. you have yourself a good weekend 🎉🎉🥳🎉🎊🎉🥳

#the devil judge #bts with the writer #am writing #my fic ideas #anon ask #send me asks

[mellowthorn]

I was tagged by @gwenllian-in-the-abbey, thank you so much for the tag! (and sorry that it has taken me forever to do this)

How many works do you have on AO3?

Three currently (I’ve written more for other fandoms but I orphaned those years ago)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

55,643

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I only post for Realm of the Elderlings, but I also sometimes write Kingdom Hearts fics purely for myself

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Uhh, I only have three on my current account, but in order, Someone Other Than Us, After The Sun Has Set and then Ever Your Fool.

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

Yes, or at least I try to! I have a bad habit of thinking my response but never actually writing it down and then forgetting about it completely... But I try my best to remember to reply, even if it ends up taking a while.

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

Neither of my finished fics/oneshots have closed endings, so I guess it depends on what you imagine happens afterwards. Neither of them are exactly happy though.

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

I haven’t finished posting it yet, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that After The Sun Has Set will soon take that title. I mean, it's already happier than anything else that I've written

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No

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

I do, occasionally. I don’t know exactly how to describe what kind, other than that my smut scenes tend to be quite sad?? I like using them as a way to explore or exaggerate some complicated character dynamic, and I guess that’s why they often turn into something at least a little uncomfortable. As much as I enjoy reading smut that’s all sexy and romantic, for some reason I can’t write it myself at all haha

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nope

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Fitzloved is my current favourite (and I've never been this intense about a ship before), though Zemyx (from Kingdom Hearts) is the one I always eventually return to

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

Last spring I wrote about 45k words of post-Assassin’s Fate happy ending AU. The outline for it is massive, and what I’ve written so far covers maybe one tenth at most. I know I will never have the patience to finish it, but somewhere at the back of my mind I refuse to let it go. I’ve been trying to see if I could turn parts of it into one-shots or something, but who knows what I’ll end up doing 🤷

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’d say I’m fairly good at characterization, as well as building up tragic and angsty scenarios. My favorite thing when writing fanfiction is to take some (usually sad) aspect of a character/relationship/etc and then dive deep into that, and I think I do it pretty well.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My prose, especially detailed descriptions and creative similes and metaphors and the like. Writing those does not come naturally to me at all, and I feel like I often get stuck using cliches and specific words or phrases, and then have to spend half my time editing to make things less repetitive.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

 Not my thing, I prefer to keep everything in one language.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

 Harry Potter, I think? Way back in like 2008 or 2009.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

From RotE stuff, After the Sun Has Set. It’s the first time I’ve managed to fully write, edit and post a multi-chapter fic from start to finish, and that alone is a huge achievement for me. Writing every chapter from a different character’s PoV was also a really fun (if sometimes frustrating) challenge and I’m really glad to have done it. Outside of RotE, a few years back I wrote this super self-indulgent novel-length Zemyx fic. I never posted it anywhere and it’s kind of crap quality-wise so I never will, but since it’s basically just every romance trope I’ve ever liked, it’s fun to reread for comfort every once in a while.

#tag game #not going to tag anyone bc im so late to this and cant remember at all which of my mutuals have already done it

[jasmine-tea-latte]

Steambaby Week Fanfics

So I've been swamped with work and writing my Zutara / Bridgerton / Pride and Prejudice fic, so I haven't had time to create any new content for @steambabyweek.

But I have rounded up all my existing steambaby stories for your reading enjoyment! FYI, mild spoilers will be referenced, so I'm placing them below the cut both for that and because this post got very, very long...

Technically, I've written about the steambabies in 3 different universes. So I've split them up for clarity's sake, with the most expansive AU at the end.

Color Code: Firebender, Waterbender, Nonbender

SOUVENIRS UNIVERSE

Souvenirs We Brought Back From Ember Island – Zuko and Katara share an intimate evening together the last night at the Ember Island beach house before heading out to confront Ozai and their destinies the next morning, only to discover several weeks later that they brought back a surprise souvenir from that encounter…

Rated M for suggestive content and referenced adult situations, though Chapters 10 and 11 where the steambbs make an appearance are SFW.

Steambabies in this series:

Crown Princess Izumi

Prince Tulok

Princess Kya (not born yet when the story ends, though will end up being a nonbender)

ZK BIG BANG 2021

A Present Fit For A Fire Lady – Fire Lord Zuko struggles to come up with the perfect present for his wife to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. Unbeknownst to him, he’s already given them both the best present of all.

As this fic ends with Katara revealing to Zuko that they’re expecting their first child, there aren’t any details about the actual steambaby. However, as this was part of the Big Bang event last year, there are lovely artwork pieces included, not to mention two incredible original songs written just for this story!

THE PHOENIX AND THE DRAGON SERIES

Phoenix and Dragon – Set during the series that I wrote for Zutara Week 2020, back when the pandemic first started and forced us all indoors and I had waaaay too much time to kill. This chapter introduces the first four steambabies and features the announcement that they’re expecting triplets as well.

(Yes, I went overboard when I gave them seven babies in this series – I blame being a new fanfic writer at the time and getting carried away – but like the Bridgerton family, they had a ton of babies because they wanted to, though after #7 they decided they were DONE.)

little rays of starlight– The Fire Lord and his wife take their infant daughter out on a trip to see the Southern Lights during the crown princess' first visit to the Southern Water Tribe. Features protective Dadko fussing over keeping little Izumi warm against the South Pole winter and just overall tooth-rotting fluffiness. Guest appearances by Sukka, who are expecting their first baby in this fic, and Taang, who aren’t engaged yet but will be soon.

The Fire Lord and the Sunstone – takes place when Crown Princess Izumi is just shy of 2 years old. The royal family inherits Druk after the Fire Lord and the Avatar are summoned back to visit Ran and Shaw. A cute fluffy oneshot that has baby Druk becoming fast friends with the eldest steambaby.

A Fire Burning in Her Bones (WIP)– Crown Princess Izumi has always dreamed of someday bending fire or water like her parents, following in their footsteps and making them proud. But when Izumi discovers that she’s a nonbender, she must learn to carve her own path, while learning more about her parents’ history and her nation’s role in the Hundred Year War in the process. I've gotten sidetracked by other fics since the last update, but I will finish this story one day. Hopefully.

Fun Fact: There's a 13.5 year age difference between the eldest and youngest of their kids.

Steambabies from this series, plus some fun facts / trivia about them if / when I ever get around to writing more fics in this AU:

Crown Princess Izumi

Twins - Prince Hanzo and Princess Kya

Prince Shunsui

Triplets - Prince Lu Ten, Princess Ayuko, and Prince Mihiro

Izumi – eldest child and daughter, born 3 years after Sozin’s Comet

Gold eyes, black hair

Name Meaning: fountain, water

Skilled with broadswords, learns from her father and later Master Piandao

Crown princess; introvert; birthday falls in the same week as the anniversary of the War's End, which coincides with her parents’ wedding anniversary as well

Most like Zuko in terms of dry sarcasm; constantly feels need to prove herself especially compared to her prodigious younger sibling Hanzo (essentially a gender-flipped Zuko and Azula sibling rivalry but on much, much friendlier terms)

Favorite subject is history; favorite treat is SWT seaweed cookies

Hanzo – eldest son and the elder twin, born approximately 5 ½ years after Sozin’s Comet

Gold eyes, black hair

Name Meaning: to hide, half

Named as a shout-out to the real-life legendary Japanese samurai Hattori Hanzo/Demon Hanzo. The "Demon Hanzo" nickname also gave me Blue Spirit vibes as well, ngl

Occasionally uses blades with a focus on broadswords

Ambivert; Is the spitting image of his father in his pre-banishment days. Later in the story (not written yet), his older sister Izumi will see a portrait of young Zuko pre-scarring and mistake them for each other at first

Has his mother’s personality - kind and nurturing but will cut you if you mistreat someone

Kya – younger twin

Blue eyes, brown hair

Named for Katara and Sokka’s mother

Outgoing; enjoys fashion and finding bargains during shopping trips with Great-Uncle Iroh

Inherits Uncle Sokka’s (terrible) sense of humor

Enjoys studying art from all over the world

Decent at healing but prefers sparring

Eventually settles down in SWT with her wife and their pet polar bear dog

In later years helps teach waterbending to Avatar Korra

Shunsui – born 11 years after Sozin’s Comet

Gold eyes, brown hair

Name Meaning: spring, water

Becomes a respected healer and opens up several healing clinics

Enjoys the simpler things in life like his Great-Uncle Iroh and develops an affinity for botany as a hobby

Laidback personality; enjoys traveling especially in the Earth Kingdom

Is the only steambaby besides Izumi not to be either a twin or triplet

Like his older sister Kya, helps teach waterbending to Avatar Korra

Lu Ten – eldest triplet, born approximately 16 ½ years after Sozin’s Comet

Blue eyes, black hair

Named for Iroh’s son, Zuko and Azula’s late cousin

Extrovert who takes up pro-bending when he's older

Bi pretty boy who naturally charms the ladies and the men, but has a hidden sweet, shy side

Loves traveling the world along with honorary Uncle Aang, Aunt Toph, and all their brood

Secretly gifted at the tsungi horn but will never admit it

Ayuko – middle triplet and youngest daughter

Blue eyes, black hair

Name Meaning: love, affection, rainbow

I came up with her name because of the rainbow sunshower scene in the story right before ZK announce that they're expecting her and her brothers

Is a naturally gifted bender like her Aunt Azula and the only firebender of her siblings capable of creating blue flames

Introvert who enjoys writing and reading; often seen curled up with a book in the library

A theatre nerd just like her father; is also a talented dancer but too shy to show off her skills most of the time

Mihiro – youngest triplet and youngest son

Gold eyes, black hair

Name Meaning: crown, benevolence, sea

Skilled with broadswords

Trained in swordfighting by his eldest sister Izumi and looks up to her; also learns from Zuko, Sokka, and Master Piandao

Inspired to learn broadswords after watching his eldest sister Izumi fighting with them one day when he’s 3-4

Finds out about Blue Spirit myths during a visit to the Earth Kingdom when he's a child and not-so-secretly admires all the legends and tall tales of the infamous vigilante, much to his parents’ amusement

Enjoys cooking

And there you have it! What can I say, I have a soft spot for Zutara and all their bbs 💜

#zutara #steambabies #steambaby week 2022 #zuko x katara #love me some steambbs #💜💜💜

[oatbrew]

tag game. list the fics in your works in progress folder. tagged by @im-an-angy-alpaca (thank you!💖)

girlies the amount of wip that have at least 1k to them in my drive is unfathomable and these two are really the only ones that i am actively working on (or thinking of the idea of working on, which counts!) currently

no rules in breakable heaven - darius/rosa one night stand turned to friends with benefits. i wrote nearly 50k for this, scrapped some of it, wrote some more, decided to make it a oneshot instead before going right back to my 50k. i think the biggest struggle is pinning down rosa. since we only really have scatterings of her background, i have to conjure up a solid throughline for her based on conjecture and headcanon on what i characterize her need, flaws, and their foundations to be while also being consistent with what's established. with darius, it's much simpler because i'm starting off with a blanker slate in comparison. my process has been a mess. lol it will be posted once i'm complete with the whole thing (not just the chapter); just not sure when.

here, and where you are - shinkane pride and prejudice au. i have no excuse for this one because everything's practically outlined. someone already wrote a whole ass novel for me. i'm just too wrapped up in no rules to have the time and attention to give this its proper due.

and here's a smattering of things i've written sizeable chunks for that aren't dead but are in a coma and i do revisit their ward from time to time to drop a line or idea or two

the greatest films of all time were never made - artem character study where artem never confesses and he has to watch rosa marry marius lmao 😭

two untitled artemrosa smut oneshots where artem and rosa have pollen-induced sex in the lost gold event and another where rosa doms artem after the events of atmospherics

mothers and daughters - shakarian fic post-me3 where a depressed shepard uncovers a trafficking conspiracy, adopts a baby krogan, and reunites with her estranged friends (including the turian whose heart she broke...and not necessarily in that order)

they say in heaven, love comes first - shinkane san junipero au

la petite mort - shinkane one night stand goes wrong canon divergence

an eternal sunset of what we are - shinkane persuasion au set in some indefinite time period

kintsugi - shinkane epistolary modern au based on this postcard. it's very slice of life switching between kou in london and akane in san francisco and their respective lives and friends and the ways they intersect

vagabonds, ne'er-do-wells, and insufferable bastards - tua au where teen viktor decides to run away from home to find his mother, which sets off a chain of unprecedented events

and i could see for miles, miles, miles - rdr2 arthur/oc fic where arthur survives, goes west, and finds quiet companionship with one of charles's old contacts who works as a part-time laundress in a sanatorium he ends up recuperating in. she and her mother are one of my fave ocs. her name's vera larue (originally just guinevere bc im shameless and too literal before i made it less Final Fantasy Naming Conventions), her mother is ada lynn, and they're creoles of color who also moved west during the turn of the century. i did a lot of research for this that never actually went into the story that much lmao the sanatorium vera works for is based on barlow respiratory hospital in echo park and her mother's boarding house is situated in what's essentially brick block, a historic black neighborhood that started to populate in dtla prior to the first great migration. much of this work i actually ended up incorporating into my grad thesis bc i got carried away from yknow actually writing the story. but from the start this was intended to be a very meditative historical romance focused on domestic life and recovery in the early 1900s with a dynamic that's reasonably informed but not dominated by the race relations of that time before i got too lost in the weeds. again.

ANYWAY im not tagging anybody bc i'm ashamed at how much i've neglected to write lmao no one look at me

#for a rainy day.

[sad-drake-lyrics]

wow i love to hear myself talk about myself (:

hello friends! if you are here from the recent chapter of S&H, i have a little more to ramble that i cut out of the author's notes 'cus the notes got longer than the actual chapter. (: i wanted to plug two of my other KNY works that i'm really excited about and would love for you to check out if you like my work. the first is, of course, another NezuTan fic. it's a prequel AU—not in the same universe as S&H, however, because in that post-canon AU Tanjirou and Nezuko fell in love over time, whereas the prequel is specifically exploring "what if it happened before?" this prequel is currently a oneshot entitled happiness is a butterfly, but after i wrote it i kept hearing baby NezuTan continuing to talk to each other in my head, so now it's morphing into a full multi-chapter (still short) story. right now the tags are mostly fluffy, but it's gonna get sad as fuck, too, (read: honestly depressing) and fairly horny (read: as horny as it can be for young teenagers). i love me sad & horny. i also hate the title (it's an LDR song), and so i'm gonna change it to another LDR song. (: (she is the queen of sad & horny, after all.) secondly, on an entirely different note, key, and timeline, i am working on a modern reincarnation AU for ObaMitsu, with some background GiyuShino. it is entitled Watercolour Irises, and it is both a flower shop/tattoo AU and a coffee shop AU. it's also more a romantic comedy than anything, and because i can finally write in fucking 2023 instead of 1920s Japan, chock full of zany pop culture references that are pure coke for my imagination. modern fantasy settings are really my jam, and this is so different from all my other KNY stuff, so i'm dying to see how it's received.

if you read any of it, let me know. ;o

#my writing #my fic #my fanfiction #read on ao3 #fanficton #fanfiction author #kny fanfic #nezutan #obamitsu #giyushino #demon slayer #kny #ficlife

[crestofshame]

"List the first lines of your last twenty stories. See if you can find a pattern."

Tagged by @dragongutsixofficial

Thanks for the tag!

I don’t know if I have 20, but we’ll see how many I can do. I actually do all kinds of writing, so most of the story telling you’d see me doing is actually in fic writing because I write a lot of poetry and metaphysical philosophy papers.

Smart tag game— get to see some of the first lines of wips people are working on. 

Deliver Us from Evil- 

“White light, an arguable mirage, dances on the facade of the monastery. The wealth it takes to preserve a holy site is uncanny; it is ironic, for those who worship the goddess will claim that those who bathe in the wealth of the love of the goddess are far richer than the artisans who craft the walls.”

2. Walk in the Gardens you Loved-

“What seemed like the stillness of time was haunting to the professor. She knew that time had not stopped, else she would have recalled, but the capricious shift of the lifeless walls of the castle exhausted her the same way turning the hands of time would.”

3. After Tailtean- Chapter 1

“The chipped wood of the makeshift desk dug into Dorothea’s palms, an exasperated sigh escaping her body and her fingertips shaking. She thought that the sight of blood should be something she would be accustomed to after five years of consecutive bloodshed.”

4. TYFH- Chapter 1

“It is maddening to hear the sounds of the deterioration: The screams of the soldiers, the crackling of the fire, the panting breaths and struggled grunts from comrades and foes alike. It is suffocating to feel the smoke soaking into her clothes, scooping the clean air out of her lungs, forcing her already labored breaths to be shallow.”

5. TYFH- Chapter 2

“Edelgard coiled and uncoiled the cold metal chain that rested around her neck, her occupied fingers dismissing the subtle sounds from the small crowd in the dining hall.”

6. TYFH- Chapter 3

““You’re all good, dear. It seems you just overexerted yourself.” Manuela’s voice was as modulated as ever. Her amber-painted nails graced the skin underneath Byleth’s cheekbones as her hand fell from the former professor’s face. “You’re not sick; your body is just trying to get used to action without the support of a crest.”” 

7. TYFH- Chapter 4 (WIP and subject to change)

“Gloved hands danced over documents set across the table, the red shine of the leather reflecting the light of the sunrise peeking through the side window. Edelgard was almost reminiscent of this being the last war council, the Strike Force’s last meeting in Garreg Mach, and perhaps the last time she’ll see all of her friends in the same room.” 

8. Current AU oneshot (maybe three shot) comedy WIP

“Linhardt jolted awake, Caspar’s shouting completely unintelligible through the security of his earbuds. 

    “Linhardt, wake up! We’re almost there.” He shook Linhardt’s shoulder, trying to strip him of his leftover sleepiness. “Come on, man, you gotta get excited about this!” 

    Linhardt paused his music, removed one earbud, then slowly turned to squint at Caspar, a traditional mode of conversation between the two of them. 

    Caspar shook his head. “What were you even listening to to put you to sleep like that?”

    His companion shrugged, eyes closing once more as he showed Caspar his phone screen. ARTPOP by Lady Gaga was playing on repeat.”

9. Edeleth AU fic WIP

“It was a dreadful thing, really: That the tickle of the tall grass, the crunching of the leaves, and the sounds of birds that echoed through the forest was not the joyous sequence that Edelgard was used to. Her feet were instead heavy, dreading a task she forced upon herself to make an inevitably dull future somewhat tolerable.”

10. Short story I wrote for a 200 level creative writing project-

““Do you find it difficult to recall her face at times?” Zenith asked, pushing his hands against the wooden balcony and leaning away from the railing. His gaze switched from the shore, and his intense, dark eyes began searching for an answer before Melody even thought to respond.”

11. Finally, the novel I’ve been on and off writing for several years. Keeping the character and country names secret because this could actually turn into something and everything is subject to change. 

“A calloused hand ran through dark and disheveled hair while [Character] reviewed all that was laid before her: A uniform she once found belonging and identity with, adorned with ornaments and achievements that even [the nation’s] most elite warriors could only hope to achieve. Sketched within the worn vest, [character] traced a name that was not always hers…” 

Wow. So apparently I like to open with a lot of imagery. Who would’ve thought. I try to have some variation in openings though; I know how that can feel redundant to read.

I tag any mutuals who see this and want to participate :D

#edeleth #fanfic #writing wip

[kuroinana]

Thanks @bey-grade and @kehkr for tagging me! Love this challenge :)

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!

My WIPs (with their file names)

So I have 4 main folders, here's what in each:

Idea Junkyard

(as the name says, whenever I have an idea, I jot it down here so I don't forget it)

Beygirls vibes: I need more solid ideas to continue it, but I wanted to write something centred around the beygirls haha The first scene (and only scene I wrote) has Mao training to beat Rei's ass, with the help of her gym buddy Rick.

Street Fighting Garland x Bryan: A draft of an AU where Garland gets into street fights for money and gets very close to a certain Russian that I made for @stroblitz

Mayblade (yea, couldn't participate because life was chaotic, but the intentions were there)

Spellbound It started as some planning for an Original work but I let it aside, but might reuse some stuff for my Fantasy AU.

Beyblade Fantasy AU - TyKa - Dragons and Love Potions: my dear baby child that I really hope that will come to life one day

Elite School AU - Julia x Mathilda: Not much yet, I just had this scenario in mind and put it there

Season 4 Euro Tournament - Julia x Mathilda / Gianni x Olivier: it's basically a similar setting to Monsters in Paris, where the first tournament after G-Rev is in Europe funded by the Majestiks and Julia has now to save the day.

Vampire AU TyKa but Takao is the vampire: lol there's literally nothing inside this document but the idea is there!

Oneshots

(if you're lucky to graduate from the Junkyard, you might come here!)

Inside this folder there are a lot of completed works, but some in progress:

Fantasy ReiMax - this should maybe be in the Junkyard since it's 1 paragraph long, but we will see :) It is about this scenario where Rei is an elf and finds this paladin (Max) dying and goes on to nurture him back to health.

Surf AU - This will happen as soon as I have time. Takao is a surf instructor and Kai is a very grumpy student. Based on Aoki's art for Kai's birthday

Resilience

My abandoned season 4 fic centred around Daichi and some friends' OCs. I don't know if I will ever continue it, but I commissioned art for it so you can just hype the characters (from left to right, top to bottom: Jin Alphonse, Ryouko Miyahara, Masumi, Set Samael, our boi Daichi)

Those Quiet Hours

Y'all know this one :) Everything is organised in 4 folders: Archive (Deleted scenes, chapters that were later rewritten), Final ver (all final edits), Other Tales (for stories in the same universe), Scenes (for when I need to write the scene but don't know in which chapter it goes)

I think most of the BeyFam has done it by now, but consider yourself tagged if you see this!

#wip challenge #beyblade fanfiction #sorry for the LOOOONG post