#given that I've wanted to be a writer since I was like 10

[guesswhosaninja]

I haven't posted directly on tumblr in years but for a small update, I just finished my third year of NaNoWriMo in a row working on the same book (I did just over 60,000 words this year on the second draft of it, after doing the first draft entirely in 2020) ^^

It's finally getting rly close to a point I'll be happy to share it for the first time, which I'm very nervous and very excited about

#it's a gay science fantasy heist story with a shapeshifting con artist a long-lost princess and a bunch of fun characters #given that I've wanted to be a writer since I was like 10 #its been the most wonderful thing finishing my first book in 2020 and continuing to make it better #(also I realised halfway thru this year it is actually 2 books) #so I guess I wrote my first two books in 2020 which is an amazing accomplishment to me c: #I hope all my writer friends and neighbours have/are having a great nano this year <3

[magentagalaxies]

Jessamine is Passionate About Fictional AI Sentience But Not Real AI Sentience: An Essay

one thing about me is when it comes to talk of "sentient" AI irl i 100% don't buy it like technology is not that advanced and being able to act like a person doesn't make it a person, however whenever there's a question about if a fictional AI character is sentient i will go to bat for that character's humanity 100% of a time like fuck you they have just as much of a right to personhood as anyone else

i think it's bc in fiction like. all of these characters are fake, so distinguishing between which characters are fake-real and fake-fake is like. why limit yourself to what could happen in our world. like if we're already dealing with a universe where aliens/magic/etc. exists, why can't this android justifiably be as human as anyone else? plus irl almost all AI software is developed as part of this capitalistic hell structure we're in. no matter how "real" or "human" it feels, its function is to make you contribute to its creators' wealth, and its inability to go against this nature can't help but make it feel hollow and inhuman. however, all the best AI characters in fiction are able to go against their designated purpose, often being defined by it, and often being villainized for it

in our real world, the AI's "immoral" "behavior" is a product of it being a Things that serves capitalism. it's not making choices based on a sense of self beyond what it has been told to prioritize, and a lot of times this lack of human judgment can lead to terrible consequences (e.g. mental health AI chatbots that cannot accurately judge a situation and give appropriate advice, employed because it's cheaper than hiring human staff). but in fiction? AI's immoral behavior is frequently a product of it going against its designated purpose, seeing itself as a person and having to make difficult and morally questionable choices in order to strive for the feelings of personhood and autonomy. this is a far more interesting situation ethically (while an AI itself cannot be seen as morally responsible for its actions in our world, in fiction this AI wants to be a person so badly it's willing to commit moral wrongs to achieve its goal, despite the fact that true personhood would allow it to be seen as morally responsible for these crimes) which i think is also why AI characters, especially those that, y'know, kill people, are often very polarizing figures. this conversation can even be taken a step further into the "liking a fictional character does not mean condoning their actions" discourse, but i also often think about well, if you were in the position of this AI character, would you have done the same?

personally i've always found it very easy to empathize with "artificial" characters like clones, robots, etc. and fictional AI is no different. yes, if you're watching a piece of media and expecting the logic of our world, the AI is fake, and incapable of being a person. but if you're watching a piece of media with the goal of emotionally connecting to fictional characters (who are all inherently fake) and exploring universal themes through a heightened setting, AI characters are one of the most interesting tropes to explore this with. personally, I love AI characters because there's something so vivid about knowing you were designed for a specific purpose/life path and ultimately realizing that's not the life you, personally, want to live. your designers and the world around you doesn't even recognize you as a being that should be capable of wanting anything, much less something completely different, so achieving the life you want is an uphill battle of convincing others of your humanity and, when that often isn't possible, having to resort to the most extreme tactics to claw your way out of the life you were supposed to lead. you know no matter how close you get to this ideal life, there's always going to be some part of you that keeps others from perceiving you as "human", but you learn to embrace that and see every mundane experience as a major achievement

this narrative is especially relatable to me as a neurodivergent/nonbinary person, but i think it can be relatable for many different marginalized identities in different ways, or anyone whose "humanity" has been something often denied to them. but because people are often expecting fictional AI to follow the same logic as actual AI, when i defend robot characters who want to kill their human creators, people give me weird looks like i'm advocating for that in real life. listen, if our current AI situation feasibly produced an AI who was invented for one specific purpose but somehow fucking hated her job and was able to pursue a new life and was also queer (all without any of this being by design) then hell yeah i support her, but that's not what's happening. and in our current capitalistic chatbot hellscape where every company wants to convince you that you're chatting with a super intelligent AI friend to get you to pay for a premium membership, sometimes you have to hold fiction and reality to different standards and enjoy this story about a quest for humanity while also accepting that the people this journey applies to in our real world are often the ones being taken advantage of in our increasingly AI-dominated real world.

idk this was originally supposed to be a short post about how it's funny that i'm so goddamn passionate about AI characters in media while also not being into AI in the real world, but then i got thinking about why this is specifically and came to an interesting conclusion imo. tbh it's very surprising that i don't currently have any of my own projects featuring AI characters fighting for their own humanity bc it's a theme i love so much that i've rarely seen done right and i have so many opinions on it. maybe i will write something about this at some point, but for now if you have any pieces of media you enjoy with AI who are absolutely worthy of personhood pls send them my way!

#this post is obviously inspired by how much i love the concept of droid23 and constantly mourn their wasted potential #fans so often reduce them to ''evil doubles'' and have even questioned if emdroid is actually designed for violence #and the writers seem to endorse this villain interpretation #but personally? i think it's so much more interesting to think of them as real people in their own rights #yes their actions are immoral. but if they hadn't made that choice they themselves would never get to live any kind of life #and i think the story's so much more fascinating if this capitalistic structure that brought them into existence just for cheap labor #is the real villain #and the android/clone ''murderers'' while still committing a heinous act are given empathy for how they were forced into that situation #bc the only alternative would be to be denied any kind of personhood #i'm also thinking about cyborg noodle (bc i've been on a gorillaz kick lately) #idk if they've done anything with the character since phase 3 when noodle went missing #but i think it's fascinating the idea of like. noodle was canonically part of a child supersoldier experiment as a little kid #basically being designed for the life purpose of being a soldier. but instead she joined gorillaz to be a guitarist #and then when she went missing murdoc made a cyborg clone of her to be the new guitarist #but as soon as the real noodle came back they didn't need her anymore #and it would also be fascinating to bring cyborg noodle back bc noodle as a character essentially grew up throughtout the phases #(like she was 10 years old in the debut album‚ 14-ish in demon days‚ 18-ish in plastic beach‚ now she'd be in her 30s) #but i think the cyborg would always be a clone of noodle in phase two #so idk i doubt they'll do anything with this bc it's too character-heavy #but i'm very curious what the dynamic would be if they brought cyborg-noodle back. and if she wanted to be seen as her own person #especially if she's very different than the noodle we know today bc the ''real'' noodle has grown separately

[fancyfade]

2009 era Damian reading

As I've been doing my 2009 era Damian reading, I'm trying to condense the good stuff and bad stuff, and things I believe are relevant for his character. These are in addition to what I assume is obvious (Batman and Robin 2009, the comic where he has a starring role).

Battle for the Cowl: this has how Damian becomes Robin. It's not necessarily good. Daniels really does not understand Damian, especially this early in his writing, but it does have some important context for things going down b/c Damian helps Squire save Tim's life, and we can see Dick viewing training Damian as something he is responsible for.

Secret Origins (2014) #4: This is a much more in character Damian becoming Robin, though fit for a condensed new 52 timeline that leaves some stuff out (like Damian's rocky intro with Bruce).

Batman #688 (Long Shadows part 1): Winick seems one of the early writers who does a Damian as he lines up with later characterization (views himself more as a professional assassin), so I think this one's good.

Batman: streets of Gotham #1-6: damian makes some minor appearances here.

Batgirl #5-7: Always take Damian's guest-starring stuff with a grain of salt, as often times writers just go with "how would an obnoxious 10 year old boy act here" without understanding he's a specific kind of obnoxious 10 year old boy... that said I do like some of his interactions with Steph, and I think it's incredibly important that we see Damian defends his competence based on his training, not on his blood.

Like he'll sometimes justify why he belongs based on his blood (which like... no one acts like they want him around), but he isn't going around saying "I'm better than you b/c I'm batman's son". he was trained intensely since birth (and that's why he should say he's better than you :P)

Batman #692-697: not a ton of Damian in this, and it is Daniel's writing, but he's a little better than he was in Battle for the Cowl. We see Dick training Damian some.

Batman: Streets of Gotham #7, #10-#11: love this plotline for him. Good show of competence and characterization.

Blackest night: batman: More focused on Tim and Dick, and Tomasi sucks at writing Babs, but at there is some Damian content that I remember enjoying.

Red Robin #11-15: as long as you read this one with your brain turned on, it's good for explaining some Tim and Damian stuff. Sadly some fans are like "woooo arrogant 10 year old gets beat up". Nicieza makes some missteps (frames Tim's thinking around Damian as coldly logical, when it is anything but and he is reacting from a place of emotion), but one can ignore those.

Batman #703: shows Damian's character pretty well in a default Batman and Robin adventure, and his relationship (or lackthereof) with Bruce and his dynamic with Dick and Alfred

Teen Titans #88-92 (including Red Robin #20 in a crossover plot): surprised by how well I liked this one. I think it portrays Damian pretty fairly, and we can see that he is trying hard, but hasn't been given a lot of support up until now (or even now, Dick kind of just drops him off with a bunch of older kids who all also have issues and are predisposed to disliking him XD). His dynamic with rose is fun and I think it is notable how quickly he does acquiesce to following Cassie's orders when she's like (at first) the only Teen Titan who is OK with him being there and assures him its not personal when she makes a comment he doesn't like.

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batman and Robin: Has some nice Dick and Damian banter, showcases how they've worked together well

Batgirl #17: more damian and steph interactions.

I will probably add more (either editing this post or in a reblog) as I keep reading.

#dc comics #fade reads dc comics #damian wayne #robin #reading list #sort of #2009 era batfam stuff

[elbiotipo]

Workbuilding Fundamentalist question: when it comes to dates, times and calendars in a fantasy setting where do you stand? I'm always conflicted as a writer just because changing the length of a year or what all the months are called all makes sense given that most fantasy worlds aren't earth and because every month is named after a person or deity and our calendar has been changed like 7 times in the real world. And yet I don't want to throw all this extra work at the reader.

Example I have a gas dwarf planet with like, winderwaker islands poking out above the gaseous ocean what people live on. And there's only 4 months in a year there so a 64 year old is still a teenager and it just seems like a lot to make someone keep track of.

First of all, very cool setting, I love islands among the clouds! Now, this is actually something I've given a lot of thought into, and might become a real concern if humanity goes to other planets.

There's, for example, an opening line of a Heinlein novel (IIRC) where a girl says she's 10 years old and thus old enough to marry, which is true, on Mars (the year is 687 days there). There is no reason, if one is designing a new planet, or even finding one IRL, to expect it to have the same day and year lenght to Earth, not even close. Mars with 21 hours is pretty close, but the length of our year and day is really just a cosmic coincidence. You could easily have an reasonably earth-like planet with shorter years (because it's closer to its star, or just revolves faster), or longer days or years.

However, very few fictional settings bother with this, and it's not hard to see why, you can have all sorts of exotic additions to your setting, but to wrap our head through different lenghts of the year or the day is a bit too much. Even different week lenghts, which did exist on history, sound strange. There are all sorts of different fantasy and sci-fi calendars, but at the root, most authors operate with "Earth-time". I don't blame them, it is 'extra work' for some readers, and it's not easy to wrap our head around, it's easier to say "this is sort of an alternate Earth" and be done with it. Also, to lenghten or shortern the year or day might bring all sorts of consequences from ecology to climate that should be considered, otherwise it's just a lame gimmick in my opinion.

HOWEVER, it's still an interesting piece of worldbuilding to consider!

Calendars of a sort have existed since humans started to count seasons and days, but our current society where there are calendars and clocks everywhere is quite recent, actually. I'm sure you are aware of the different calendars besides the BCE-CE one was imposed as the standard, many cultures . But there are also different ways of counting years;. The classic one is seasons, farming societies of course need it the most but hunter-gatherers also follow and know the seasons. There is no reason at all for them to correspond to the "temperate" seasons (summer, fall, winter, spring). Dry and wet seasons, cold and summer, and other options are not only possible, but have actually been widespread on human history. I recommend reading on Wikipedia about seasons, especially the section about non-calendar based seasons.

Of course the above applies to pre-industrial civilizations where timekeeping isn't as widespread. But even in those, counting years and ages is treated differently. Birthdays, for example, don't exist in all cultures. Koreans still count age based on the Korean new year, not your birthday. Some medieval Christian celebrated on the feast of the saint they were named after (and there are lots of them) or IIRC, their baptism. And so, a culture as yours might use different ways of counting the age of a person, perhaps by more "qualitative" rituals than just counting the years (though I have a feeling they would quickly adapt to their own calendar). Much like I told you about different kinds of seasons for different climates, I imagine that in worlds where the years are too short (or too long) to really make sense for the average person, some other ways of counting time will prevail. For example, are there predictable climate cycles in your planet? Moons (lunar calendars are always fun)? I can assume your planet has shorter years because it's closer to your star (by any chance, did you base it on red-dwarf orbiting planets?), so perhaps you could use something regarding the very visible star to count time?

Like I said at the beginning, this will be a real concern when humanity expands through space, and there's even a bit of debate if the human body can adapt to such heavy changes on its circadian rhytm. In any case, my prediction is that there would be a "Earth time", that is, 24-hours day and 365 day year, that is kept as standard out of convenience and in spaceships and space habitats (in my own setting Campoestela, it's called "ship time" because human spaceships use it as standard) and lots of "local times" on different planets with all the quirks I mentioned above, with everyone going into space learning how to convert their own time to "Earth time". Or maybe, to make things even more fun and, admittedly, complicated to the reader, the time of another time is taken as a standard. There's lots to play with here.

DON'T even ask me about relativistic time (like in Interstellar) because it makes my head hurt, even if I did use it a couple times on my stories. But "ship time" might be a real thing. Some cultures might have completely different 'times', not calendars, actually *times*, depending on relativistic time delation.

BTW anon, sorry for using this to promote myself, but if anyone loved this rant and would like to see more, I would appreciate some tips on my ko-fi (given the situation down here, now more than ever) and suggestions for other topics to talk about!

#worldbuilding #calendars #writing

[sensitiveheartless]

20 questions for fic writers!

Tagged by @feralrookie! :D Thank you for the tag!!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

10! (technically, kinda)

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

379,547

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Bungou Stray Dogs! It's also the first fandom I've written for, actually. :D

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

This is how it feels to take a fall (Dazai goes feral, time shenanigans)

Plate :( (Dazai breaks a plate, experiences emotions)

Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency (Howl's Moving Castle AU)

Chuunyaa's Pawsitively Catastrophic Day (Chuuya is turned into a cat, it's short and pretty much just shenanigans)

Wish in one hand (First fic I wrote, and the first one I posted — Dazai has emotions about handholding)

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

I try to, but I've been absolutely terrible at it lately — whenever I'm particularly stressed I start worrying that the negative emotions are going to leak through into what I'm writing and make my tone sound weird, so then I end up turtling in on myself and not saying anything at all, no matter how much I want to engage with people. It's a bad habit, and I want to work on it, so I'm gonna try to catch up on comments! (I treasure every single one of the ones I receive, so for anyone who has left a comment and hasn't gotten a response from me yet, thank you and I am very sorry about my inability to form words in a timely manner skdjfksd)

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

Probably An Unsent Letter, since it's pretty much just a short snippet of Dazai being sad while he's leaving the mafia. And even with that one, I have in my head that skk still get together after the four years apart, I just didn't write it. I am dreadful with sad endings — although the ending to "This is how it feels to take a fall" is a little bittersweet, perhaps.

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

Hmm...I'm gonna say Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency, because it's the one with the longest buildup, so I think it has the most catharsis, at least for me! But I tend to give all of my fics happy endings because, as established, I am a wimp when it comes to hardcore angst. I will say that Zut Alors I Have Missed One is probably a contender for happiest as well, just because that fic had no angst whatsoever and was just Unhinged

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Nope! Everyone's been lovely! I have gotten some for my art, but honestly it was pretty toothless and I couldn't take it seriously lol

9. Do you write smut?

...Yeh. :0 There was an attempt, at least — one fic, and I made it anonymous (so on the extreme off-chance that anyone notices a discrepancy between my total ao3 wordcount listed here and the summed up wordcounts of the fics viewable on my profile, that's why!) It's also another fic I need to finish, I hit my writing roadblock with that one at the same time as all my others, and it's almost doneeee I just need my brain to cooperate >:|

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not any proper crossovers, only things like the Howl AU and the Little Mermaid AU, where I took the settings/plots and put in BSD characters.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

...Possibly? I'm not actually sure, I've given a couple people permission, but I'm not sure if anything came of that, I haven't heard one way or another :0 I do have a tendency to use puns, which I realize might make things difficult for translations

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

No, not so far — and given how tempestuous my schedule has been, it'll probably be a while before I attempt anything like that! Sounds fun, though

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

...I mean, it's gotta be soukoku, because for all that I've enjoyed a lot of fictional pairings before (for example, Howl and Sophie specifically from the HMC books, Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing — I like bickering duos, what do you know — Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, currently falling down the Hualian rabbithole because I'm reading Heaven Official's Blessing with my friend, and there's lots of other ones), for as much as I like all those, I haven't really had much of an urge to write anything for them.

So, purely in terms of me wanting to mess around with two characters and write them over and over and over again, it's really only skk! They hit the exact right combination of braincells, I guess lololol

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but probably won't?

Hmmm...honestly, most of my WIPs I still intend to finish at some point or another — first priority being the ones I've already started posting, of course! Although...just due to time constraints, I might not get around to writing the thief!Chuuya/detective!Dazai one I was planning a while back. (and I mean a WHILE lol) I didn't write very much of it, and honestly most of the reason I wanted to write it was for comedy — so maybe I'll turn it into a short comic series instead, because I do think some of the bits were funny :0

16. What are your writing strengths?

That's a hard one; I tend to look more at the ways I want to improve my writing then at what I like about it, and I nitpick just about everything I create, art and writing alike. But if I had to pick something, I would probably say dialogue? That tends to be what I write easiest, at least. I still want to get better at that too, though.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions and action scenes. I've been making myself write them more, so I think I'm slowly improving (the Howl AU has been great for that! It pushed me to write all sorts of scenes I wouldn't have normally :D ), but those two things remain what I get bogged down by the most.

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

Depends on the circumstances, I think? I'd include translations if I did. I do tend to include Japanese honorifics when I'm writing in the canon universe, because there's not really english equivalents and it feels like I'm leaving something out when I just do their names straight — although I did take them out when I was doing the Howl AU and the Little Mermaid AU, just as a setting thing.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Bungou Stray Dogs — like I mentioned in the ship section, this is the first fandom where I've really felt the urge. Although I did write things when I was little that very blatantly yoinked in various creatures and concepts from the things I was reading and watching, which resulted in stories with pirates and weeping angels and Ringwraiths all running around in the same place. But I didn't usually bother with bringing in actual characters from those pieces of media, or even using the settings, I just made ocs and had them run around in my own made up world.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I like all of them for different reasons, but I think my favorite overall has to be Dazai and the Moving Detective Agency. It's the longest thing I've ever written, and when I started out I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it — so the fact that it's most of the way done (currently chipping away at the epilogue, it is getting to be a LOT of words) makes me really happy. And it's just been so much fun! Writing characters I hadn't before, piecing the world together, working out the magic system, writing Dazai being a mess and Chuuya being cool, it's all been a blast. And I seriously need to finish the epilogue, because the followups are living in my brain and they demand to be freed aksdfjksdjfk

But yeah! I'm not sure how many writers I know on here have already been tagged, so I'll just go open tags on this one! :D If any of y'all write and feel like doing this, then go for it!

#tag game #senhart rambles #senhart's writing #long post

[drconstellation]

More Half-and-Half-A-Miracle Thoughts

Part 3: The Third Archangel

Updated 10 Nov 2023

Part 1: Miracle Power Ranking is here Part 2: The Dark side of Aziraphale is here.

Before I try to put the full picture of the mighty miracle together, there is one other Archangel I want to talk about first, because yeah, if the "little" miracle had an Archangel x an Archangel x (ex-)Archangel in the equation, all working in synergy, that's some pretty serious potential power right there.

S2 has given us much to discuss about Crowley and his past. We know he is different in that he has an imagination. We know he is the only ethereal entity, angelic or demonic, who can stop time, which is no mean feat. I have a list of at least nine, possibly thirteen clues (it keeps growing! 21 clues And yes, I'm counting,) that he was once a

senior Archangel, one of the seraphim, before his Fall (but not which one in particular, for sure, alas. We can debate that later, its not important here. Really. Don't @ me about it, I'm not going to engage in this post.) They (updated link to a new discussion: the idea of Crowley previously being a very powerful angel) have all been mentioned already, none of them are new. This implies there is a huge amount of potential power that Crowley could pull upon to put into the miracle performed on Gabriel. So he is our obvious ex-Archangel in the equation.

And we already have Gabriel, in the middle.

Which just leaves us with Aziraphale, and his green-paneled waistcoat...

I've led you all on thinking he's somehow connected to Hell? Or been associating too long with Crowley? No. (Or maybe, yes? To hanging around a demon, I mean.) On one hand it does show us he is not like the other angels. On the other, it tells us something else altogether.

For all that I've been recently rabbiting on about dark horses pointing mainly to Crowley and Saraqael, we have perhaps been deftly misdirected from the biggest dark horse of all: Aziraphale as our 'missing" seraphim, Archangel Raphael, incognito.

Now, I'm certainly not the first person to suggest this at all. There have been multiple metas about it, even way back from S1. I agree with them, fwiw.

Why am I saying this now? I think this recent post about Aziraphale being present at Sodom and Gomorrah sealed it for me, especially since I had made a recent note about Raphael being the one to be assigned to escort Lot from Gomorrah. And for all that I've just discussed how dark Aziraphale can be, he is still clearly affected by what he witnessed that night, so long, long ago.

"Oh Lord, heal this bike."

Green is also the color primarily associated with Raphael, the healer. I've seen a few other colors mentioned as well (in fact, the more you search, the more confusing it gets) but mostly the color you'll see mentioned is green. And its the color Aziraphale conceals on the back side of his waistcoat. Plus he did heal Anathema (and her velocipede) back in S1 after they collided with the Bentley.

Finally, in the Islamic tradition, Raphael is known as Israfil, and he is essential to announcing the Day of Judgement, with a trumpet constantly poised at his lips, ready to blown when God so orders.

Guess who just got taken back to Heaven to start the Second Coming?

Edit: Since I first posted this, some additional information has come along to add to this. I finally bumped into a post about the wonderful golden collars in the Job minisode (It's so, so important to put at least one or two relevant tags for meta-writers like me to help find your posts readers! Then you can shit-talk in the tags all you like.) and that lead me to a webpage on basic angel symbology and the major angels, which helped to firm up a few things I'd been wondering about. One observation is angels usually go about bare-footed, but Raphael wears sandals when on Earth, as he is chief of the guarding angels, and is the guardian of the young, and watches over pilgrims and travelers. And who was wearing golden sandals during the Job minisode?

Doing some guarding of the young as well...

And Raphael is assigned to the direction of the East.

Now we have three Archangels, three seraphim, no less, side by side.

That's a mighty shitload of potential miracle power, whichever way you want to look at it. No wonder the ol' Metatrash got a bit nervous about what happened and decided to take a personal hand in things.

If your sitting there going "'Hang on, op, hang on just a darned minute - Aziraphale hasn't even been promoted to Supreme Archangel yet and Crowley could just be a Dominion, you don't know, and Gabriel's a drooling idiot, how could he contribute to it - " Just stop. Take a breath. Go back to Part 1 where I discuss the problems with our knowledge about miracle powers and their potential. Their potential. And its frustrating that in the end we just don't have enough knowledge to be certain.

So take this as my personal head-canon. I may not have really answered why the miracle was so strong. But as I said at the start, I don't think we can. Too many factors involved, too many unknowns. Too much hidden.

Bring on S3, I say!

#good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #gabriel #the metatron #raphael #sodom and gomorrah #only the mightiest of archangels #anathema #oh lord heal this bike #the second coming

[divinekangaroo]

Thanks @palmviolet for tagging me!

How many works do you have on AO3? 154

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 900k

3. What fandoms do you write for? Peaky Blinders, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy VII, Dragon Age II, The Professionals.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Interesting and not straightforward question: I've been writing since 2007 and only rebooted my fics to AO3 in 2023. I backdated them to time of writing rather than posting live into the current update stream. I was vaguely curious to see what *actually* attracts readers through the AO3 search engine. So, my current top five are all Peaky Blinders Tommy/Lizzie fics, and given my small followers list, everyone following me will probably already have read them!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do, and it’s my vain (both senses of the term) struggle with how to do it appropriately. I am conscious of how comments, particularly on an AO3 "archival" fic, can weight a reader's further interpretation/engagement of or with fic by that author, and that I'll never put so much time into comments as I do into fic.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? 7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? The fics I thought of picking for these two pretty much overlapped. Perhaps this shows just how I approach happiness – it’s moments, it’s never an ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Only old Dragon Age fics. Interesting period of time where any fic author that didn't unequivocally support the moral rightness of one particular character's opinions was targeted. Like: ok to write torture/rape fics of this character, but only if it was clear the author thought this character was morally right. Such a destructive troll.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I'll write sex, mostly as part of a larger arc rather than standalone smut; often it is a partial scenario rather than linear start-to-end event written in a rhythm to support a coherent wanking rise-to-climax read. I'm pleased if people find it pushes their buttons, but I'm also not bothered if it doesn't. I do approach smut as one of many possible lenses or frames for a character, however, so smut that detaches from character confuses me.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Sometimes but they have to feel really right. I think I tend more to fusion or pastiche (I think those are the terms?) rather than crossover: I take a particular character concept/theme and port them into a particular environmental context which is not possible in the canon to see what happens. The only one I still have up is a FFXII/Dragonriders of Pern fic (incomplete) which was going to be all about the horrible knowledge of socially accepted and endorsed ritualised rape and forced feminisation of a character.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I'm not that popular to notice.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have a memory of one in FFXII but can't recall.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! Taught me a lot, including the kind of writer I am - difficult to collaborate as my push to complete within a motivational urge period will always be greater than a long-haul effort, and I struggle to be available for other people. I’m either good at the front end ideas-generation, or a micro detail ‘write this particular thing/scene and fill it with goodness’, and not very good at the middle bit – the long slot of planning and plotting and aiming for consistency etc. I am so grateful fandom exists to support non-traditional prose formats which let me play with writing and thinking and engagement without needing to produce to book-style production standards.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship? I usually fixate on a character, and pairings allow means to explore that character rather than being an end game.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Oh they all carry this potential. *cries* The issue for me is loss of motivational drive/thinking; because I rarely have good structural notes etc if I lose my immediate thread of 'thinking of everything all at once' I find it hard to pick up again later. I also stop some fics because I realise how ambitious the scope really is, and I feel like I can’t do them justice.

16. What are your writing strengths? Speed-sketcher? Completionist? Tests multiple ideas rapidly and freely and never worries about something 'being wrong' because there's always another fic to try? Intuitive gut level hits on characterisation here and there?

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Editing, pacing, I can't sustain long fic, I frequently move characters around like paper dolls for the sake of the cool and forget they need their own internal motivation.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I prefer the kind of cant-based/dialect-based approach which splices non-English terms fluidly into English dialogue, mostly because as a child of many migrants this has been my world experience. I do suck at writing this, hence my frequent use of cop-outs to say 'language shift here, meanwhile still writing in English'. But when it’s done well it hits so many of my sweet spots.

19. First fandom you wrote for? FFVII.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Anything in my Personal Favourites list: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3728710. (I'm still too close to Peaky Blinders to pick a fav, it'll take about five years of distance!)

#my writing

[seangelfish]

˗ˏˋ SIL'S 300 FOLLOWERS EVENT! ˎˊ˗

Hey, Sil here! Thank you so so much for 300 followers! 💜 I never thought I'd gain this many followers in such a short amount of time I've been on Tumblr, so I am truly grateful! (˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )♡

Anyway...

Welcome to the 300 followers event~! ⋆˙⟡♡

This is an event I created to thank all my lovely followers for supporting me and this little hobby of mine 💕 I thank everyone for the likes, comments and reblogs too! I love reading what people think about my work as it always makes me happy~ 💖💜💖💜

So what does this event entail?

Well, this event is inspired by one of my favourite writers @hebimoonlightwrites who drew fanart relating to the requests for her 100 followers event! I wanted to incorporate my main hobby (art) with my side hobby too~

I don't really post my art on this blog since I write smut on here, but I thought it would be fun to try it out! ⋆⭒˚｡⋆

RULES! Please read everything before requesting.

✦ From the time this is posted, I'm going to open requests for Ensemble Stars and Paradox Live! The deadline to request is March 30th so I can start writing! Finally, each request I have chosen will be uploaded day by day starting from April 20th.

✦ Please continue to read my requests rules. I won't consider requests that violate any rules. Following this, NSFW requests are fine as long as you follow these rules.

✦ You must use the hashtag #Sil300Special when submitting your request otherwise it will not be counted towards the draw.

✦ I'm going to take 10 requests for each fandom (20 in total) in which 8 are given a special gift (4 gifts each)! Therefore, I'm going to pick and choose between the requests I get. Anons are welcome, but I'd love to interact and write for those that reveal themselves!

✦ Please be patient, but also have fun! (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

Again, thank you so much! I hope to continue writing for this blog and interact with everyone more. Additionally, I hope to see a lot of you participate! Please know that my inbox is always open and I love to chat~

See you soon! ( ´ ▽ ` ).｡ｏ♡

#sil announcements #important #sil300special #300 followers event #thank you for 300 followers! <3 #ensemble stars x reader #enstars x reader #paradox live x reader #paralive x reader #requests are open

[yandere-daydreams]

I’m always in awe at how quickly you write and the quality of writing you put out. Like I love how you’re so descriptive and how your dialogue flows and how you portray the characters.

Like the Naga! Suguru fic was just,,, so good and how you portray the feelings in the fic of fear and conflicting lust was so good. Even the description of the venom was just so,,, idk how to say this but like, visceral? Your use of specific descriptions of physical representations of emotions like a beating heart and trembling bunny ears just elevate your writing so much. And I really like how intrusive the ending is with the reader having to deal with the horror of their own biology betraying what they actually feel about the situation.

And as always the slight homoeroticism between Satoru and Suguru is a delight to see, a win for the repressed queer idiots (me).

Anyways gushing aside bc I could go on for like 10 more paragraphs on your writing and how much I love it, I just wanted to say that you’re really good writer :)

ahh thank you!!! i think at this point it's a given that all of my gojo geto fics are some how going to include them having been deeply in love and/or fucking at some point, possibly currently. if it's not mentioned just assume whichever one of them isn't featured is standing twelve feet to the side, holding up a sign that says 'we kissed once'.

fdksdljdks but anyway!!! it's been a while since i've written a good ol' heat fic, and i really wanted to go into that part of the hybrid au, plus the absolute mindfuck of having your brain and your body in two completely different places because a bigger, stronger animal decided you were too cute to eat. it felt right to be a little visceral about something that's so,,,, primal? i guess? i really do have to write more naga stuff in the future. something about the size kink of it all just unlocks something inside of me <3 <3 <3

#personal #anon ask

[mitziholder]

I find your thoughts on fandom interesting, and in general, I'm really glad to see more discussion of the bad shit fandom can/is doing to young women in radblr spaces. But I mean this as an honest question: Why do you consider fandom not challenging writers/readers such a problem? These aren't professional writing spaces, and the vast majority of fanfic writers don't intend to go into them. Does an artistic hobby *need* to challenge its participants to be worthwhile? I mean this all really genuinely, especially as someone who *does* work in the arts and *does* actively want work that challenges me, and has traditionally prided herself on it -- are these inherent moral goods? Am I a reasonable standard to expect of other people? Is engaging with boundary-pushing art a requirement of healthy maturity? Why? Is, say, a human rights lawyer who spends her free time watching trashy reality shows blighted, somehow, by that fact? What about a cashier who watches the same stuff because she's genuinely not interested in anything else? And, given the vast majority of readers of actual books basically read the way fanfic-only readers read -- the same genres, which use well-worn tropes -- do we think fandom is actually keeping its participants from more worthwhile experiences? (I suspect you might argue this is dumbing down the publishing industry, which I would really disagree with, as someone in publishing -- I know we can all point to Ali Hazelwood or a million YA books that advertise with tropes, but I really can't emphasize enough that this has been the case since modern publishing began, and I think pinning "so-so prose that's The Same Old Shit" on the current young female writer cohort borders on sexism, tbh.) I've been thinking about these questions a lot lately, and I just don't know the answers. My gut wants to say yes, it's good to present challenging work to people, especially women, because art is a key part of the human experience, and can effect all sorts of societal things. But also ... I know very little about the environment, including my immediate natural environment, and if I'm honest, I'm not really inclined to learn. I'm sure learning about it would effect all sorts of change in my life and concept of self. But I'm probably not going to do it because I have a limited amount of time and I'd rather give it to other things. Is that better or worse than engaging with challenging art? Is it better or worse to be me than the woman reading the same old tropey fanfic in her free time? I think what I WOULD argue is that, specifically, fandom as it is reinforces patriarchy and induces a lot self-destruction and alienation in young women, with particularly vile effects on young lesbians, autistic women, etc. But if it didn't do that....would I still have a problem with it? I don't know. But it's interesting as hell to think about, and I'd love your thoughts on it.

hello nona :-) many interesting points, much to consider

>Does an artistic hobby need to challenge its participants to be worthwhile?

no. I’m sure there are plenty of people who enjoy crochet or knitting or something like that for the sake of it or to de-stress. I’m sure there are also plenty of people who write and draw for the sake of it with little interest in grinding for improvement. that’s fine. the problem is when you have people who replace reading and personal edification with endless fluff + pointless indulgence.

reading... things... that are above your level, that actually make you think, is how you increase your vocabulary, your linguistic competence, your critical thinking skills, your ability to express yourself. difficult and complex texts present you with opportunities to broaden your perspective. they stimulate your mind, present you with new ideas; they can help you grow as a person in ways that the Same Old Shit simply won’t/can’t. it would be like benching the bar every day for 10 years straight and expecting to get stronger... I presume. I don’t lift weights.

as I said previously, I don’t think fanfic is going to destroy your brain, but if you read nothing but fanfic, that is on the same level as (or maybe worse than) reading nothing at all. of course I’m going to be critical of a community of people who humblebrag about how they can’t bring themselves to read 25 pages of literature in an academic (non yaoitastic) context.

ya ya it’s a joke they’re joking very funny, but do you see people of other creative pursuits or hobbies joking about how they can’t bring themselves to focus on a piece of actual literature or nonfiction? how they have zero interest in anything outside of anime boys kissing each other? it’s a sign of intellectual stagnation (and eventual regression imo).

I watch a lot of shitty youtube videos, but I acknowledge that they are basically a waste of my time. meanwhile you have post after post singing the praises of how culturally important and worthy of respect Our Beloved Fic Writers are in spite of the fact that their work is, by and large, completely self-indulgent shit! there’s just so much potential that isn’t being tapped into & so much complacency... it’s very frustrating to me. I find it dishonest. red white and royal blue is not going to change the world... lol

for the record, yes, you are right, lots of Real book-readers also read mostly self-indulgent shit. genre fiction is far more popular than anything else... and I don’t care for booktok either. in fairness, literary fiction isn’t always good, and I’m sure there were many women who read nothing but terrible pulp novels 70 years ago too. that doesn’t make fandom any better! not to say this is all women’s fault - I just have zero frame of reference for how “cultured” men may or may not be, and I don’t really care either way. I focus on fandom girlies because they’re what I know, & I want women to be... better, or at least more interesting. this is, of course, sexist by definition. I hold myself and other women to higher standards. I will admit to that. I’ll also admit to the fact that I do not care about men or what they are writing or reading and would not give a shit if they all became illiterate thoughtless slugs. it is what it is.

truthfully, I have no interest in moralizing any of this. I just find it depressing! it’s resulting in more and more women who cannot relate to and have zero interest in anything outside of the narrowly defined fanfic bubble - so, more and more women who can’t relate to me or what I care about. I’m selfish, and I think it’s unfortunate that there are so many young female writers clearly capable of writing something interesting who nevertheless restrict themselves to lowest common denominator coombrained garbage because it’s what’s easy and popular.

do we have a responsibility to pester random strangers about their amateur fanfic? naw. who has the time? all I know is that conversations I’ve had with my female friends about our original works or other women’s writing have been vastly more substantial and enlightening than any argument about who tops or bottoms in supernatural... imo. in my opinion

re: the environment and social responsibility, I also have no interest in debating what matters are the most important and whether you have a personal, moral obligation to educate yourself about them. I recognize that we all have a limited amount of time and energy to dedicate to something which is admittedly fairly peripheral to most people’s everyday concerns (such as... paying the bills). then again, so is almost everything.

at the end of the day, I just think it is an awful shame that some women would - and they freely admit this - rather turn their brains off and do nothing, think about nothing, read the same shit over and over, watch the same shows over and over, draw and write the same things and dynamics over and over... than do anything else. anything different or thought-provoking or uncomfortable. it is a loss for the breadth and the depth of women’s contributions to culture as well as their empathy and intellectual curiosity.

obligatory food analogy: a little bit of junk food won’t kill you, but if that’s all you’re eating, you are probably not... doing... well

and that’s not even getting into the social contagion present within fandom re:mogai, relationships, and gender identity shit (which I would say probably has a lot to do with the underdeveloped critical thinking skills and worldviews of girls who read nothing but fanfiction). I would love to come back to that at some point, but I think this post is long enough, so I’ll just put a pin in it. there’s honestly an insane amount that I have to say about common talking points regarding the value of yaoi/fanfic (in terms of how they portray Marginalized Identities and Relationships and how it supposedly helps women navigate their own trauma through a proxy or some shit like that) oh god this is a horrible run-on .... that’s all for now! send post!

#i am glad you found my thoughts interesting enough to write in:) #ask

[henghost]

Twig Liveblog for Arc 13

aaaaaa ‼️‼️‼️ idk if i've metabolized my thoughts enough to be fully coherent about them but i feel like i'll burn alive if i don't get them out, so:

it's like, after 3.1-10: "oh this is fun! a little cat and mouse game with the lambs." then after 3.11: "i am ready to commit grievous acts of violence." the earlier chapters are nonetheless worth discussing as without them there could not be such a "devastating" fifth-act catastrophe. particularly the communication experiments fascinated me. what a perfect metaphor! what if a radio could feel fear? what if a a radio could feel love? might we not also ask--what if a weapon could feel horny?

of course the lillian perspective deserves special attention as well. even before she says so explicitly, we understand that she is "ruined." there is her drug use, her physiological response to even the smallest mention of sy. this is perhaps the anatomical effect of being so close as the lambs, who are essentially a single organism: losing one, especially the one to whom you were closest, is like cutting off a limb. poor girl! like the rest of them she's wrapped up in shit too vast to possibly understand much less overcome.

helen is also going through it :( maybe she'll be the next one to join sy... mary's perspective is also quite rough--this is when i realized that this sy guy is on a level of psychosis i hadn't really considered before lmao.

and then at last there's That Scene with lillian, which reads at first like some kind of fanfiction--some kind of fanfiction lillian herself might have written--complete with typically teenaged overdetail, melodramatic descriptions of flushes, body heat, etc., till finally there's a sort of "surrealist coup," we realize we are too deep in sy's subjectivity to understand the reality of the situation, there's a break, we are lost.

it's all just so (say the line, henghost!) freudian... one of freud's most correct insights is that eros permeates all aspects of life, and therefore that to deny, suppress, or compartmentalize it cannot achieve anything but to make it sick, make the host neurotic. for example, instead of simply fucking your best friend who's clearly into you, you might design an obscenely elaborate rube goldberg type contraption throughout a monument to your darkest trauma (that psychotic fucking carnival orphanage lmao) in order to "win" your ex back. it is wrong, therefore, though understandable, to say that sy has "castrated himself"--it would be more accurate to say that wyvern has his dick twisted up in knots while he's still trying to get hard, poor guy. (by the way, i really have to write something about how wyvern is an allegory for ssri's lol.)

i won't even broach the moral ambiguity, though i'm sure there's something interesting to be said about it--for me, it's like asking about the morality of a withered tree or oedipus rex. and it really is that sophoclean: it was doomed to happened; it was fate. it is written into jamie's dna. sy is a gun who wants, and a gun cannot help but fire. libido is the engine pushing us down a railway designed at best by deus sive natura or at worst by the Academy. i feel fucking sick to my stomach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! nonetheless, i found it life-affirming. it's pessimistic, yes, but it's a pessimism of strength.

anyway, i've gotta give kudos to the author. for all the (deserved) shit i've given him, the wildbow of twig is clearly a far more mature writer than the wildbow of worm.

i must also--since this the last recorded arc for the audiobook!!--shoutout kim dauber, who provided professional-level audibook-reading for free!!! it's possible my reading will slow down without it :(

#twigblr #twig live blog #twig web serial #henghost's twig arc #sobbing #feel free to ask more!!! #sylvester lambsbridge

[winterinhimring]

20 Questions for Writers

Thanks for the tag, @musewrangler! This looks fun.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

94.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

852,051. (Holy cow.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

A lot! Tolkien, Star Wars, Marvel, and Hornblower are the ones I've written most for, but I've also written stories for the 1985 movie Silverado, and for The Three Musketeers, Dune, The Hunt for Red October, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Jat'ca'nara, The War of the Ring, Pirunir Sur'haaise, break my bonds and be bound to me (what. the. heck.), and Ba'slan Shev'la.

I will admit, I was not expecting all of those. The Star Wars ones (all the Mando'a titles) make sense, WOTR is my first and longest fic and also in the Tolkien fandom, but break my bonds is one of the RAREST of rare pairs and despite it being in the Star Wars fandom too, it's focussed on some comparatively minor characters, so I am...very surprised by that.

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

Yes! Always. I love receiving comments so the least I can do is respond to them. Also, I nearly always have thoughts to share with my readers in response to their thoughts on my fic.

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

Unquestionably Cuyan'e. It's a character study of two very deeply broken men who have both lost everything, one at the hands of the other, and it earns its 'hurt no comfort' tag. The title means "Survivors" because they're both the last survivors of their families. It's very unusual for me to write a fic this painful without putting in a happy ending, but that story pretty much showed up to my brain written the way it is, and when that happens I write what I'm given.

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

That's much harder to answer than the last one! A significant majority of my fics have happy endings, or at least happier ones than canon. However, I'll have to go with Tegaanal, the climax of my Star Wars fix-it series, because it's such an earned happy ending and we watched the characters fight for it every step of the way.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

Nope! I review my comments on the first couple of fics of any series, until I have an idea of what my reader base is like, and that seems to ward off the weirdos.

9. Do you write smut?

Heck no. I don't need that in my head.

10. Do you write crossovers?

On occasion! Usually because the muses show up and start jumping on the table banging pans together until I write them something.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to the best of my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I HAVE had a piece of music inspired by a fic. I wrote a poem (in Mando'a and in English) for Partaylir, and the absolutely fantastic Siena_Alexandria actually wrote a tune for it and recorded the result. If you like Mandalorians, Mando'a, conlangs, or just good music, listen to it here! (Each chapter is a different version of the poem.)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yep, several! Mostly with @musewrangler.

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

I don't really have one, as I don't tend to get all that deeply invested in ships. Characters, yes, but not specific ships. I guess I have a soft spot for Walon Vau/Shmi Skywalker, though, since it's a canoe I launched all by myself (see my boggled reaction to break my bonds and be bound to me being one of my most-kudosed fics above).

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

*grits teeth* I. Will. Finish. All. My. WIPs. (There's only one that is arguably in danger of abandonment, Of the History of the White Tree, and I'm going to come back to it as soon as I've reread the source material.)

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Hmm...I would say it's my character writing, above all else. Once I have a clear mental picture of what someone would or wouldn't do, I can basically drop him into situations and just let them play out and see what happens, pretty much trusting the character to respond the way he should. A lot of my fics consist of this, and the consensus from my readers has been that I do it well.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Strong emotions, and people who are open with their emotions, are difficult for me to write. Whenever I write a scene that involves feelings and vulnerability, I have a holy terror of becoming kitschy. And people who actually show their emotions voluntarily by default are kind of a mystery to me, so I don't really write them because I don't understand them.

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

Fun to do when I know the language and/or enough of it to get by! I put in quite a lot of Mando'a for my Star Wars stories and I enjoy working within the constraints of its limited vocabulary because it forces me to pare down my usually verbose writing style into just the core of the meaning I intend to convey.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Tolkien! My first, most lasting, and perhaps dearest fandom.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

HOW CAN I PICK JUST ONE???? My favourite fic is nearly always the one I'm writing now, though, so right now it's So We Can Learn to Pick Ourselves Up, the latest instalment of what started as post-Endgame MCU fix-it and has now grown into a live-action Spider-man multiverse fix-it.

No-pressure tags for @ramblingsofachristiannerd, @hollers-and-holmes, @lady-merian, @ghosts-and-blue-sweaters, @thatonebasicfan, and anyone who'd like to jump on!

#winter says things #tag game #my writing #the war of the ring #cin vhetin #requiem fic #tolkien #marvel #star wars

[slytherinshua]

warning: sappiness ahead fr

it's been 424 days since i started my blog, and here we are.

1000 followers.

1000.

10 to the power of 3.

that is, in fact, a lot of people.

i can't even begin to understand how 1000 people like my writing. i think that it will still take me a while to feel like a good writer, even though i've just accomplished this milestone of followers.

i feel like a novice all the time, because, well, i've only been writing since january of 2022 (613 days, if i've calculated correctly). this hobby of mine was spontaneous and new and is still something i need to get a lot better at. i never wrote when i was younger apart from academic essays, it just wasn't something i found interesting, but since i've gotten into fanfiction, i've found my place where i can write and be creative.

the sincerest thank you to everyone who likes my writing. whether you were my first follower or my 1000th follower, i love you.

somehow this has started to feel like a well thought out thank you speech for some big occasion, even though it's just funny old tumblr dot com where little zanna reached a milestone. but this feels like an eventful day, but i'm still writing just whatever comes to my mind, none of this post was planned beforehand.

i want to really really thank the people who have been a big part of my life, my tumblr moots and close friends. (more sappiness ahead ew)

@eternalgyu hannie is the entire reason i am even writing on this platform. she was the start to everything, from the very second i created this blog to now, she's been here for all 424 days. and i can't even understand why she has stuck with me for that long, but i love her more than anyone else on this planet. i've dumped all my ideas on her and given her spoilers for fics i was writing. she's given me so many ideas and suggestions that have really helped along the way to create this blog and get it to where it is today. she will always be number 1 for me. she is irreplaceable. hannie, i love you so much.

@blue-jisungs axe :D the first blog i followed, and my first moot. she has been here from before i hit 100 followers. she's read my shitty old writing from when this blog was just starting to form. and i thank her for sticking with me cause my writing back then was not the greatest, let's just say that. axe has always been someone i looked up to, especially when i was first starting. i loved her writing and it inspired a lot of the first fics i wrote for this blog!! she'll always be one of my closest friends, i love her so much.

@hannahsophie0103 thank you for being one of the first people to send in requests, and for continuing to give me ideas. i get a lot of requests now, but when this blog was still a fetus, my inbox sat empty for weeks and weeks. i got so inspired and motivated whenever i got a request, and writing was truly so fun whenever i felt like i was writing for someone.

sorry for lumping you all together, but all my caratblr moots, i love you so much. everyone in the moot circle especially-- who i've talked to on the discord server-- you are some of my closest friends, and i love how we're all here, just writing some silly little fics for seventeen on tumblr. some of you have absolutely incredible writing that i can only hope to achieve one day. when i read some of your fics, it feels like actual art. words strung together so beautifully that i can say with no hesitation that you've created an actual masterpiece. thank you for inspiring me and talking to me daily, i hope you haven't gotten bored of me. you all feel like my close friend group, who i could share anything with and you'd still support and love me. thank you for being friends with me, and i love you.

i think that we've passed all the sappy speech part yay!! now to announce my 1K follower event :) *drum roll*

the love sight event.

what's the love sight event, you may ask? well, although i had dozens of ideas for what to do once i reached 1K, i decided that since txt was the start for this blog, i wanted them to be the centre of my event.

love sight will be a multiple part series where each member of txt will get their own fic.

i've put a lot of thought and planning into this event (only the planning though, i have a long way to go for actually writing the fics, but i'll get there eventually). i expect that actually completing this event will take... a very long time. so please bear with me as i write these fics!!

i have some other things planned soon for fics, such as the caratsland song event and some possible collaborations, so if there is a wait between fics for love sight, i'm sorry about that!!

i hope you all really enjoy the event, and once again, thank you. all 1000 of you, thank you so much. - zanna

#slytherinshua's 1k event!!

[scarlet--wiccan]

Do you think that Wanda’s lost her ~edge~ a bit? Like in the past she would often be talking back at people, insulting people, shouting, slamming things, breaking things etc etc especially when she was upset but it seems to me that these days she’s lost a lot of that

(And somewhat related imo she weirdly speaks like a therapist these days with her saying something about “redemption”, “healing”, “owning [her] mistakes”, “mastering [her] pain” etc etc every three seconds but then again I’ve seen that with a lot of female characters recently)

Yes and yes, to both points.

I don't think of Wanda as an especially wrathful or violent person, but she definitely has a quick temper and she doesn't pull her punches. I think we see this the most in the 80s and 90s, where she really wasn't afraid to snap at people or blow something up. The fact that her powers were still being written as generally destructive and forceful-- but not necessarily scary and dangerous, at least not all of the time-- really added to that. People's perceptions might be slightly tainted by the Darker than Scarlet storyline, where she was being mentally and emotionally manipulated to literally be more angry and, eventually, hateful. It's important to remember that her behavior in that period isn't truly reflective of her character.

Nonetheless, I do like this side of Wanda because it's something she has in common with her brother, and it stands in contrast to the image of her as a meek and somewhat repressed girl, which persisted, off-and-on, throughout the 60s and 70s. In general, I think there's a tendency for people to underestimate Wanda, and I like that she's not only more capable, but also more combative than they expect. Of course, this "fiery" attitude is definitely part of a stereotype about Romani women, but with Wanda, I think it's articulated differently, and she's usually given good reason to be that way.

Of course, she lost a lot of this edge after the Decimation. There was a period, for several years after her return, where Wanda was understandably somber, and I think that the writers who wanted her to be sympathetic were probably wary of letting her be violent. Now that all of that drama is in the past, I've noticed that she is more confident, but she also tends to be more careful and measured. That's not a bad thing, but it does lead into the "therapist speak" that you noted.

For his part, I do think Orlando finds a way for Wanda to keep that edge. We do see her lash out in some of her fights, and she gets really mad at Hexfinder in #10. She uses magical constructs and attacks in ways that feel very violent, often physical, and she gets real snippy with Bookworm. Most importantly, her convictions and empathy are actually challenged at times, and she's allowed to show doubt. There's a lot of nuance here, but with how cramped some of these issues are, it can be hard to pick up on first read.

I think Jean is in a very similar position-- these are both super powerful female character who have been through some really heavy storylines and are now matured into their most confident, competent selves. There is a tendency for those women to seem... overly empathetic and emotionally super-intelligent. They can come off as infallible in a way that doesn't really work for storytelling. Fortunately, I do think these characters are all still well-balanced, but it's an interesting pattern, especially since most of these books are not being written by women.

#character development #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch

[hgejfmw-hgejhsf]

Fic Writer Interview

So I decided to snag this from @sparklepocalypse and fill it out because I'm cozy on my couch on New Year's Eve and fighting off a nap like a grumpy toddler. I'm actually fairly certain I've done this one before, now that I think about it, but oh well. The numbers are different since last time, so...

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

60, apparently! 61 being posted later today!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 

178,579

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Ghosts

Do we still have forever

Volume Control

Retaliation

Modification to the map of you

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

I respond to each and every comment that I receive. I try very hard to leave a personalized message for each person, but no matter what, even if it's just a "thank you," I will always respond! Even if it takes me some time!

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

To this day, the angstiest ending is Darkest before the dawn, which ends with hope, even if it doesn't end with an actual resolution. It's during canon, so the reader know what happens next.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I think my most recent Christmas fic, Oh what a laugh it would have been, has probably now overtaken one of my previous fics for overall happiest ending!

7. Do you write crossovers?

I haven't yet, but I'm absolutely open to it given the write parameters!

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I haven't yet, and I hope I never do, although I know that the internet can be a wild place.

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

If you'd asked me back in July of this year, I would have said that I primarily write fade to black. Since then, I've written ridiculous amounts of smut. I'm still learning about various kinks I'd like to write about, because I don't want to just write without knowledge of the act itself, but I'm wading into the smut-verse now. I'd say the water's up to my knees, at this point. Got a ways to go.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, not that I've been made aware of, but I think it would be so neat.

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

I haven't but catch me and @thinkof-england cowriting something amazing now that the new year has arrived.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Y'all are gonna need to sit down for this. I don't think you're ready. Deep breath in. Hold it. Now let it out slowly. Calm your mind. Are you ready? Okay because I know this is going to come as a shock to you when I say that it's FirstPrince.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

A Star Trek fic with Jim Kirk x an OC. I started it back in the spring and then RWRB happened and now it's just languishing away in my docs at just shy of 18,000 words.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told that I have realistic dialogue, so I'll count that as a strength. I also think I'm pretty skilled at metaphors. Love a good metaphor.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

The description of surroundings, including clothing and scenery. I feel like I don't do enough of this sometimes, and I'm trying to better at painting a proper picture.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I've done so! Lots and lots of research and consultation with native speakers to confirm accuracy.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Pirates of the Caribbean, apparently.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

There isn't really one out there. I'm super content with the permanent campsite I've built in FP land. Hopefully I'm allowed to hang out there for quite some time.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

How am I supposed to pick a favorite out over 60 fics?!

I suppose if I absolutely HAD to pick right now, right this second, I'd say Ghosts, because the prompt for it as my first ever reader-submitted prompt on a comment from another fic. The reader enjoyed my fic so much that they asked if I'd write another, and Ghosts it what came of that interaction. I loved writing it and sharing it not just with that reader but with the fandom as a whole.

Gonna post my tag list for anyone who wants to participate!

@adreamareads @affectionatelyrs @anincompletelist @cha-melodius @clottedcreamfudge @cricketnationrise @daisymae-12 @duchessdepolignaca03 @gayrootvegetable @getmehighonmagic @happiness-of-the-pursuit @heybuddy-drabbles @indomitable-love @indestructibleheart @inexplicablymine @kiwiana-writes @leaves-of-laurelin @leojfitz @littlemisskittentoes @lizzie-bennetdarcy @magicandarchery @ninzied @priincebutt @read-and-write- @rockyroadkylers @roseharpermaxwell@ships-to-sail @songliili @ssmtskw @statueinthestonetoo @stereopticons @suseagull04 @thinkof-england @tintagel-or-cockleshells@user-anakin @vanillahigh00 @violetbaudelaire-quagmire @whimsymanaged @wordsofhoneydew 

#fic writer interview #rwrb fic #rwrb fanfic #rwrb fanfiction #my fics #my writing #my wips

[thankskenpenders]

I've been catching up on the BumbleKast after getting behind so here are some interesting tidbits from various September 2022 episodes. Lots of behind the scenes info, discussions of canonicity, hints of what may be coming in the future, and also just random fun stuff

1. I'll put the most intriguing one up front:

"Is there any chance the IDW comics will connect themselves to future games?" Ian: "Mmmmmmmmaybe." Kyle: "Is there any chance that the IDW comics have already connected themselves to any future games?" Ian: "...Not in the direction of comic into game."

Ian's wording is intentionally vague here, and I'm not sure if the phrasing of "comic [connecting] into game" would mean he's ruling out the comic connecting itself to the game or the comic being referenced in the game. He's already outright said Tangle isn't in Frontiers or anything like that, so don't expect something THAT big, but previews have also said that Sonic will occasionally make surprising references to characters from past games while exploring the islands. Maybe the IDW comics will get a nod like this? Or maybe he means it the other way around, and we'll see some Frontiers stuff in the comics next year?

Regardless, you KNOW I'll be reporting back on this when Frontiers is out

2. Ian very strongly hints that Silver will be relevant in 2023's comics. This isn't exactly a surprise, given his story in the Annual and the fact that Evan's lead writer. (She's shown immense restraint not shoehorning Silver into every arc lol.) But it's nice to know that setup will pay off before long!

3. In general he's been saying that how the Classic era games fit together is being discussed behind the scenes, especially now that it's considered the past of the Modern series again. Things like Chaotix being non-canon may no longer be true. It's probably best not to think too hard about these things (Sega didn't care about "canon" in the '90s), but he reiterates that the version of events depicted in Origin is what Sega considers the definitive start of the series

4. Ian was very pleasantly surprised (and jealous) when the Scrapnik Island team was allowed to use Mecha Sonic and other Classic elements. He's holding off on commenting further on why Sega might have allowed this

5. Ian gave his ideas for what he could do in a crossover between Sonic and Homestar Runner complete with impressions

6. He also described how a TF2 match on 2Fort between the IDW Sonic cast would go

7. The question of whether or not Nicole could still be a lynx if she came back in future media has come up on here a lot, and sadly Ian seems to think the answer is a definitive "no." If the Freedom Fighters were to ever return, ALL Archie-original elements would likely be gone, starting back at square one with only SatAM (and, technically, their Spinball cameo) as inspiration. Nicole would not be a holo-lynx, Antoine may not be able to use a sword, etc.

8. On the subject of Mega Man, Ian picks up the homoerotic vibes fans always read between X and Zero and wonders if it was intentional lmao. Ian's a real one

9. Ian gave a loose summary of what would have happened in the unreleased third issue of Archie's Sonic: Mega Drive. The story would have opened with the team working together to hunt for the Emeralds in the Special Zone, which wouldn't quite be 1:1 with any specific previous version

10. Several ideas have apparently been pitched for using the Warp Topaz again, since Sega requested they leave it intact at the end of the Metal Virus Saga so it could be used again, although no idea has stuck just yet

11. Ian does not want to admit that Starline is already a Tumblr Sexyman

I was going to add more to this post as I continued getting through the backlog, but this is already long enough

#secret BumbleKast knowledge