#elexuscal

[specialagentartemis]

First Impressions: Doug Eiffel

for this ask game

First impression

Oh my god I can’t stand this fuckin guy. He is SO annoying. Minkowski is a far better woman than I am because if he treated ME like that I would have just left him to drown in space. Little bit disappointed that she didn’t.

Impression now

Favorite podcast protag Basically Ever. I love him and I want him to be happy and he’ not but I want him to be!!! The heart of the team, the social glue who holds everyone together. Character development leaves me in awe. He went through Some Shit and the way he is makes a lot of sense, in retrospect, but also, him getting hit over the head with You Need To Try To Do Better and him truly trying to do better was so well done and I am So impressed.

Favorite moment

Choosing one is hard but I looove “Mayday” when we see Eiffel cast off in space and he shows how clever he actually is to survive!

(Also: “GODDAMN IT RENÉE DON’T DO THIS”)

Idea for a story

It’s extremely spoilery postcanon stuff but I would love to write him developing a friendship with [REDACTED] that absolutely no one else is happy with. The Tension. They get each other now in a way no one else does.

Also SOMEDAY I will finish the Box 953 story where Eiffel comes in clutch to save the day by completely misunderstanding the assignment. A Hero

Unpopular opinion

Eiffel’s relationship with Hera is an extension of the theme of parenthood—the parallels between Eiffel’s relationship with his daughter Anne and Pryce’s relationship Hera are extremely strong in “Limbo” and “Memoria.” The parent who feels a sense of ownership over their child, and in the process gives them a traumatic brain injury because they can’t let go of that sense of control. Eiffel’s relationship with Hera is affirming and healing for both of them—Eiffel can’t undo what he did to Anne, but he can do better this time by treating Hera like a whole person and an equal who gets to have her own choices and have her opinions heard; and Hera getting to have a relationship with someone who has that respect for her. They've mutually adopted each other, but there are times—especially in “Bolero” at the funeral—where Eiffel is taking that parental role and trying to do it better than he previously did, or she previously got.

The father-daughter aspects of Eiffel and Hera’s relationship are pretty thematically relevant to both of their character arcs. And it doesn’t have to be infantilizing or childish because uh adults have parents too, and the relationship between Cutter and Pryce is a third parallel there for a man and his adult daughter when he can’t let go of that feeling of control over her either.

Favorite relationship

Minkowski and Eiffel’s incredibly slowburn friendship to becoming so incredibly important to each other… it’s everything to me

Favorite headcanon

This man is aromantic and I have textual support of this. He has never heard this word before in his life tho.

Also this man went to Catholic school and that strongly informs very much of his general demeanor regarding authority.

#elexuscal #ask game #Wolf 359 #I love Doug Eiffel actually

[chimaerakitten]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Temeraire - Naomi Novik Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: William Laurence/Tenzing Tharkay, William Laurence & Temeraire, John Granby/Augustine Little Characters: William Laurence, Tenzing Tharkay, Temeraire (Temeraire), Catherine Harcourt, John Granby, Augustine Little Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, no that's not contradictory, the universe gaslights Laurence, Q from Star Trek or someone similar just decided to fuck with Earth, To facilitate social media AUs, Crack Treated Seriously, Internalized Homophobia Summary:

“Okay,” said Emily, fully trying not to pinch her nose. “Okay, so you’re going to right click. No, not left, right. Yeah, on the little pencil icon. There you go. Now you just type into the box.”

“Type what?” asked Laurence.

“I don’t know. Whatever’s on your mind.”

“Currently, what is occupying me is how pointless this endeavor appears to be."

“Come on, you can think about something better than that. The story of how you found Temeraire! Weird old boat facts! What you had for dinner last night! Literally anything.”

Shoulders hunched, the man began to slowly, ever so slowly, as if hunting for each individual key on the keyboard. From this Laurence began to write out something about the ocean currents of the South Atlantic. Despite his slow speed, it was astonishing how quickly he ran out of characters. “What does the red exclamation mark signify?”

Emily had told this man what the red exclamation mark signified. So. Many. Times. She thought he’d finally understood it eight months ago. “Are you getting worse at this?” she said. “How could you be getting worse at this?”

“Roland,” Laurence said, sounding immensely tired, “I am afraid you would not believe me even if I told you.”

…

@elexuscal and I came up with an absolutely bonkers possible backstory for the Temeraire Twitter AU

#temeraire #the Temeraire Twitter AU #sorta #not actually directly part of the AU so much as derived from it #fanfic #elexuscal

[grammarpedant]

Drabble ask meme: “The kids, they ambushed me.”

Thanks for sending this one in 💖 I struggled with it a bit 'cause writing multiple participants + children, but I like the result and hope you will too~

40. "The kids, they ambushed me."

Ayda was pacing, just beginning to get anxious, when she heard a shuffle and a sigh. She turned, and raised her eyebrows. “SecUnit! There you are,” she said, only a little chiding. “You’re late.” That isn’t like you, she didn’t say.

“It was the kids,” SecUnit said from the doorway, as straight-facedly as it was able. “They ambushed me.”

Ayda looked down and relaxed. “I see,” she said, smiling fondly, and switched to Preservation’s planetside dialect. “Someone’s let the thylacines out of the dens again, hm? What have you to say for yourselves, my children?”

Off of one of SecUnit’s legs hung one of the family’s younger children, one of Tano’s firsts, a rowdy freckled creature with a penchant for surprise hugs. They were hugging SecUnit’s knee now, cheek pressed impishly to a pocket probably lumpy with drones. And off of their back hung the newest addition to the Mensah family, clinging to them like the little primate he was. He had her brother’s bright eyes and soft dimples, and Thiago’s broad smile, all of which he was using to great effect as he grinned up at the two adult-shaped people in his line of sight.

“Auntie,” he shrieked, flailing in her direction. “We going on a survey! Salvaguarda is taking us on a survey we gonna see the plants an’ nanimals an’—”

“Gonna lick some rocks,” giggled the older child, their voice a whisper as their playmate continued rambling loudly. “Gonna find a mud pit and jump in, mhm, mhm.” They dug their hands into SecUnit’s pant leg further, curious fingers exploring the seams of metal and flesh under the cloth, and SecUnit reached down and gently pulled their hand away.

“Don’t do that,” it said, with much more patience than it spared for grown humans. “I don’t like being touched and I’m only putting up with you because you’re small.” The child allowed their hand to be pulled away, but began to smack their head against its knee instead.

“Now, Lerali, what have I told you before? Survey scientists must observe carefully, act mindfully, and above all, listen to SecUnit,” Ayda chided as she approached. “That means no touching unless SecUnit says it’s okay.” To SecUnit she said, “Let me take the little rascals.”

As she began the tricky task of untangling Lerali and their cousin—who had begun to pester his Auntie for more survey scientist stories—from the much-put-upon construct, she sent to it, I see why you were late.

Sorry, it said. Call it dragging my feet. Mensah, in the middle of convincing Lerali to stim with something other than SecUnit’s knee, suppressed a snort.

You didn’t have to do this for me, she reminds it, a little apologetic. I’ll get through this part of the trauma treatment on my own, eventually.

Yeah, I know. Having extricated Lerali and set them loose to run, SecUnit now handed Ayda her brother’s son, his shrieking piercingly delighted and his smile as bright as the day itself.

It’s just that you’re not on your own, right now.

#elexuscal #verso answers #murderbot #the murderbot diaries #ayda mensah #ask meme #murderbot diaries #'what's going on with the polyamorous family structure' you may be wondering. 'what are Tano's 'firsts' and is that related to 'second mom' #i smile and do not answer #verso writes #queue

[snugglyeldritchjellyfish]

For the trope ask meme... Time loop fics?

A: Love it. Spend my time combing AO3 for it.

Time loop fics are FANTASTIC, they have so much potential for angst and a spiral of psychological damage for the loopee, which is just so fun. A time loop fic is one of my all time favourite fics.

However. Time loop fics that focus on shipping are very much not my favourite. Ones that focus on how to get out, poking at the dynamics between the characters and how far they will go for them? Yes, absolutely, fantastic, wonderful.

Ones that focus on getting the couple together ala Groundhog Day? Not so much.

Thank you for the ask!

#snuggly asks #elexuscal

[rithmatistkalyna]

Tumblr user @elexuscal aka CompletelyDifferent on AO3 has written a great post-canon Witch King fic called street rat. It explores how Sanja might handle adjusting to still being adopted as part of the group even after the adventure is over. She feels out of place and a little overwhelmed and everything seems far too good to be true.

#witch king #fanfic #by @elexuscal aka CompletelyDifferent aka dragon #Sanja #this fic is excellent #if you've read Witch King I highly recommend it #And if you *haven't* read Witch King #I highly recommend that

[thechekhov]

Nona Liveblog. (1/5)

Because yes, I recorded it all this time.

Warning: THIS LIVEBLOG WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE BOOK. I have finished reading and am posting these notes after the fact. Therefore, it will also contain blurbs about things I missed on my first read. Please be cautious.

Once again, big thank you to @elexuscal for reading my rants and reacting with frustratingly vague emojis~

Spongebob Announcer Voice: They were not thinking hard enough.

Post-Book Thoughts: The frustrating thing is that the clues were THERE. It was in the last part of Harrow that we were given the clues about how it COULD work. And I still didn't-- sigh.

............all this effort, and there was still a hole in my head through which all the information drained.

This is the end of part one! I think the rest I will try to split up into DAYS, since this is the end of DAY 2. Cheers!

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #tlt spoilers #ntn #chekhov reads tlt #chekhov reads ntn #chekhov reads nona #chekhov reads nona the ninth #nona the ninth liveblog

[idrawgaystffs]

“Let me change you, and in doing so, be changed myself.”

Sometimes you’re reading fanfiction and a line just hits you in the heart. I can say this one did it for me.

If you’re a SU fan, and a Garnet one at that, do check out “Fusion, Freedom, Reinvention” by Completelydifferent on Ao3. Or @elexuscal (same author)’s version posted on [tumblr]

{Reblogs Appreciated by the Artist!}

#my art stff #Steven universe #su Ruby #su sapphire #rupphire #steven universe fanart #Steven universe au #I’ll admit #these designs were fun to make! #my art

[ineedlelittlespace]

📆 A fic you’d re-read 10 years from now

an unexpected harvest by @elexuscal. It's the perfect warm, sweet epilogue to Network Effect! It picks up where the story drops off with Mensah's POV of the rendezvous between ART and the Preservation Responder, the meeting of the two crews, and her own introduction to ART. I cannot overstate how much I love this fic and the soft, genuine way it handles the characters.

#the murderbot diaries #fic recs #ask games

[ilovedthestars]

Some art I made earlier this month based on an AUpril discussion in the muderbot discord! We were talking about how Murderbot's visualization of itself in the feed might have changed over time. @elexuscal suggested the circle-within-a-circle to evoke a helmeted SecUnit as its original feedsona, and that Murderbot might have removed the company branding and gone from red to black when it hacked its governor module. These were also inspired by @broken-risk-assessment-module's super cool module feedsonas (for risk assessment, threat assessment, education, and governor). I tried to simplify her designs into shapes that would evoke the more personified versions that they might evolve into over time. (It would be fun to explore more of the steps in between, as murderbot slowly begins to visualize itself more and more like a person! But these drawings took longer than I expected and I didn't get to it. Maybe someday I'll come back to them!)

#stars art #for real this time!! actually posting something I drew that isn't a silly doodle!! #this is way more flat and graphic than I usually draw but I wanted it to match the simplified shapes in the feed #gave myself emotions with the second one #murderbot #the murderbot diaries #tmbd #murderbot fanart #feedsonas #AUpril #described in alt text

[bane-of-technology]

9 people you'd like to get to know better

Tag Game

thanks @laboradorescence !!

Three Ships: Layla/Marc (moon knight), Jon/Martin (magnus archives), MaoMao/Jinshi (apothecary diaries)

First Ship: god, who knows... Let's say it was Sokka/Suki (atla)

Last Song: How I'd Kill by Cowboy Malfoy

Last Film: uuuh haha it was "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones"

Currently Reading: "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson

Currently Craving: the powerful mushroom and barley soup my partner is cooking

Favorite Color: Burnt Orange

Relationship Status: living with my Almost-Husband (and beloved avocado) @magenkeshet

Last thing Googled: The spelling of "continent" (I was right, but it still looks off)

Current Obsessions: Moon Knight (comic and show), Star Wars, The Magnus Protocol

Tagging: @iamjessemccartney , @uovoc , @polymoth , @sic-semper-amicis , @burnmyself , @somewhere-south-of-neutral , @usaigi , @vo-vennesetiid , @elexuscal

#tag game #thanks for the tag!! #anyone else is free to play just tag me so I can see!

[non-plutonian-druid]

Nine people I’d like to know better

tagged by @sharkneto

Last song: uh fuckin.... "If we have each other" by alec benjamin. i listened to this last thursday. i dont listen to music lmao

Favourite colour: purple :)

Currently watching: im on a doctor who kick. my thoughts since the last time i watched it: i feel like it would be more fun if everyone was actually allowed to be polyamorous, and also while i still love eleven's delivery, why did they write him SO horny and SO sexist

Last movie/tv show: doctor who like i said

Spicy/savoury/sweet: hmmmmm Honestly savory. i like chocolate and all but i want to eat meat more than i want to eat chocolate. maybe im just hungry rn lmao

Relationship status: nonromanceable npc, as always

Current obsession: tua, as always

Last thing you googled: .......... "doctor who wild blue yonder dailymotion" DONT WORRY ABOUT IT

Tagging: i know you already got tagged @littlerit but i only know so many people. @starsomething @melivian @copper-and-smoke @grammarpedant @specialagentartemis @elexuscal hi dragon you used my art in that one post one time that means i can tag you in goofy ask games right @rockinlibrarian @thesadplanet

#if youre wondering if i found what i was looking for on google. Yes. #i still love dearly all the iterations of the doctor ive seen #i like jodie whittaker but ive only poked my nose in #bc the one episode i watched recently was like. her three companions standing in a row exchanging lines with her #and it was The most boring and lazily blocked conversation ive ever seen in my life. why did they write a two person conversation #they knew there were four main cast members!! #and there was one at the beginning. and then there was another one at the end!!! #so i said jodie whittaker im returning to you later but i cant do this right now

[specialagentartemis]

📂HEADCANONS

YEAH

Trying to think of ones I haven’t already talked about A Lot

Murderbot describes Preservation as "a complicated barter system" because it doesn't really have the words or concepts to parse what it's looking at: primarily a gift economy. An economy with a robust central government that does a lot of distribution of primary resources, and a social logic based more on providing than consuming. Farmers and agriculture techs don't produce food to then trade to other people, they produce food that's then re-distributed to everyone as needed by a central organization, and the farmers and ag-techs are given what they need and want by others who, y'know, eat food and express gratitude for Having Food. People don't trade for health care, doctors provide health care to whoever needs it because that's what they've trained and chosen to do and are given what they need by others for their service in providing health care.

Pin-Lee doesn't tend to have a lot to trade but she is a lawyer who keeps things functioning between Preservation and the Corporates, does the legal work that allows Preservation citizens to safely travel, and helps to maintain the contracts that prevent other more opportunistic planets fromtaking advantage of them. She provides this service to the planet and gets what she needs from other people who provide other services. Gurathin helps to maintain the university's database infrastructure, when he's getting coffee he doesn't need to offer to like, make a database for the coffeeshop, it's just understood that he's providing a service to society and partaking in another service to society. Arada and Ratthi are research biologists and their work is only tangentially productive to The Planet but I'm sure there's a public outreach or education aspect that's expected of a lot of researchers - learning without sharing what you're learning is socially unfair, even if their lectures are mostly only attended by students who are told by their teachers to go watch them. But it's kind of understood that by being an adult in the world, you are doing something that contributes to society and to others in some way, and as such are entitled to having your needs met as well.

It's a reciprocity-based logic of actions rather than commodity exchange, and honestly it works because 1) Preservation's population is relatively small, 2) there is a lot of bureaucratic organization work making sure everyone is getting what they need, the government is SO many committees 3) a whole lot of labor is done by machines (non-sentient robots) and bots (sentient robots). The reliance on bot labor is absolutely gonna be something Preservation has to think more about.

Citizens also every once in a while on rotation get called for a kind of labor tax akin to the way jury duty works, where every couple of months you have to put in a day working in the central town food court washing dishes or something. There are also Perks offered for jobs that might be a harder sell for people to do, like premium station housing.

Straight-up money that comes into the station from outsystem trade and travel mostly gets re-invested in supporting Preservation travelers off-planet into societies that do use money (like PresAux's ASR survey), or buying materials or machines that are hard to make locally (like ag-bots, or some spaceship or station parts for repairs).

However where barter comes in is on a more interpersonal one-on-one level, more similar to commissions. You grow a lot of carrots while my grapefruit tree is producing a lot more fruit than I could possibly eat, want to trade? You make ceramics as your primary Work, I'll trade you something if you make me something specific I have in mind. Can you help me fix my roof? I'll get you some good wood when the lumber trees are mature next year. Developing skills for these kind of interpersonal more-specialized trades is a significant motivation, too. And different skills and jobs inevitably attract more status and impressiveness than others. But it's not barter exactly so much as reciprocity, a strong culture of civic duty, and a highly organized government.

#trying to figure out So Hard how a spacefaring multiplanetary no-money barter society works #asks #elexuscal #next one will be more fun I promise

[chimaerakitten]

Chapters: 1/9 Fandom: Temeraire - Naomi Novik Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: William Laurence & Temeraire, William Laurence/Tenzing Tharkay Characters: William Laurence, Temeraire (Temeraire), John Granby, Emily Roland, Catherine Harcourt, Lily's Formation (Temeraire), Lily (Temeraire) Additional Tags: Period Typical Attitudes, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Shapeshifting, Blood Drinking, platonic blood drinking, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, however much blood drinking you think will be in this fic, is not even a little bit close to the real amount, no more than that, blood AU, more than that too Summary:

The rumors regarding dragons are as multitudinous as they are lurid. Wild dragons will steal vast quantities of gold and other precious jewels from across the country and hoard it. They shall keep virgin maidens captive in their caves. Even tamed beasts will sometimes go wild, devouring innocent women and children. Dragons can take on a facsimile of human shape by consuming a man's blood.

Upon joining the Corps, Laurence is quite taken aback to find all these rumors false.

All except the last. --- @elexuscal and I went “hey what if an AU where the dragons are shapeshifters powered by human blood” and have been running full-tilt with it ever since.

#temeraire #The Blood AU #fanfic #fanfic link #william laurence #elexuscal #way more wholesome than the premise implies

[dendrochilums]

✨ Fic Writing Review 2023 ✨

Thanks for the tag @blessphemy ! (answering here on my more fandom focused sideblog)

first off I want to say this was my first year EVER posting fic after many years of reading it (ok technically my first was at the very end of 2022, but whatever). It's been such fun!!! the murderbot fandom is so lovely and encouraging, and it achieved the ENORMOUS feat of finally motivating me to write my own stuff!

Words and fics

26,318 words across 7 fics, all oneshots and all murderbot fic

I'm just gonna link my profile here for the complete list! everything but the first was published in 2023

Top Fics by Kudos

It Calls Itself Murderbot wins for this at 277! I am quite proud of this one, which was also hilariously the one I was most "nnnnnnnnnnnn" will anyone like this when posted it. 4,868 words of interpersonal conflict and conversations on mb's feelings about the name it chose for itself

Fandom fic events 2023

None for me sadly, I'm not very good at motivating myself on a schedule for events. But fandom fic events enjoyed in 2023: many!

Upcoming 2024

Still picking away at a piece on mb-ratthi friendship and musings about the ways rogue secunits adjust to freedom

for real working on either a second chapter or a sequel to my contruct technician gurathin fic

Maybe a daemon au fic??? it happened so suddenly, but rereading the HDM series and some daemon au convos on discord have lit my brain aflame

Tag game rules copied below! I'm gonna tag @ilovedthestars @ineedlelittlespace and @elexuscal and anyone else who wants to do it!

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass, just keep on scrolling.

#ao3 #murderbot

[umbraastaff]

Tag game

Rules: tag "9" people you want to get to know better. (If you'd rather not participate, or you've received it already, you're absolutely free to ignore this!)

Tagged by: @elexuscal I DIDN'T KNOW YOUR TUMBLR!! everyone read her good good fics!!

Last Song: "Great! Big! Party!" by eyeamki

Last Show: Bee and Puppycat! Also rewatching A Starstruck Odyssey from d20

Last Movie: Knives Out, actually! Excited to see Glass Onion now that I'm caught up on the prequel

Currently Reading: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie!

Current Obession: honestly most of my brain is occupied writing Trapped In Active Depart. TAZ and Murderbot diaries have been both rotating in my brain nonstop the last few years!

@barry-j-blupjeans @terezis @holdmecloser-gandydancer @mirrorimogen @taakosleftshoe @institute-of-planar-shitposts annnnd whoever would like to is of course welcome to pick this up!

#- #-- #--- #---- #----- #meme

[grammarpedant]

Last Line Tag

tagged by @chimaerakitten :D thanks for the tag!

Rules: Write the latest line from your wip (or post where you last  left off in your art) and tag as many people as there are words in the  line. Make a new post, don’t reblog.

The crossovers been getting to me something fierce- and I've been having a helluva fun time with the prose on this one. Theoretically, it'll end on the image of Murderbot and Ghost sitting in the same cozy space and watching media in silence, but I've been dying to try a fight scene first...

As though the Dreaming mind is crowding against this one chamber, all force of feeling brought to bear on this one tragedy.

tagging: @blessphemy @broken-risk-assessment-module @uovoc @elexuscal @snugglyeldritchjellyfish @wtf-skittens @mintowls @fireolin @chetungwan

(No obligation to play, of course, but if you're willing to share I'm always happy to see what y'all are working on!)

#the rules of the game theoretically allow me to tag more people but by fuck of hell that's a lot to tag. i write long sentences man wdywfm. #also if we're mutuals and/or talk regularly on discord consider yourself tagged! #the year's been hard for everyone and i know a whole bunch of my friends are tired tf out #so no pressure to anyone but i'm thinking of y'all alright? #tag game #meme #verso talks #queue