The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik - Oh, this is how you end a trilogy. This books took the relationships and themes and even the monsters that have followed the main character from the very first book, and hunted them all down to pull the last thematic dregs from their depths. I didn't quite cry when I found out what really happened to Orion, but man, it hurt. It hurt so good. El Higgins will always live in my heart.
Mutually-Assured Destruction by Sineala - Bucky/Tony 616 Marvel comics in the 1960s - Identity porn! 1960's Tony Stark is Iron Man and nobody knows. So when the Winter Soldier comes out of the Soviet Union to ask to join the Avengers on the condition that he doesn't ever tell anyone his name or reveal his face, even to Captain America.... Tony thinks, oh, maybe we could be friends? Maybe I can be a little bit myself with this one? And things snowball from there. This is a great fic by an author that loves the 1960s comics version of the Avengers, and honestly, the tone fits those comics so well. This fic was slipping into a warm bath - angsty just in measure to the comfort. I was following updates from Sineala's Patreon while she was writing it and I was so glad to see if come out!
a simple thing- Chapter 47- by iridan - Star Wars, Mandalorian, Boba Fett/Din Djarin. - Chapter 47 just hit this week, which means we are ONE CHAPTER FROM THE ENDING OF THE FIC,this is not a drill. This fic is 765K words and Chapter 47 alone was 27K words, and I heartily recommend it if you want to watch someone really live into their tags that say " Din 'I Can't Talk Right Now I'm Doing Queer Person With Religious Trauma Shit' Djarin" and "rebuilding a culture is hard." Honestly, great work on the cultural stuff about how there's been tons of contradictory ways of portraying Mandalorians in Star wars, and this fic makes them all feel like people who have been out in the world, trying their best.
Fic Rec based on Scholomance series: If you want a smaller, single person version of the themes in The Scholomance Trilogy, I heartily recommend two other works by Astolat (aka, Naomi Novik in her fic writing persona) -
-Heal Thyself a Draco post-canon character study about what damage using Dark Magic does to a person, and what it takes for Draco to really come out of it the other side. (Technically Harry/Draco, but only towards the end, well after Draco has done the work of fixing himself.)
-Victory Condition: A Tranformers fic in which Megatron and Optimus Prime have to actually talk thru their world views, and Optimus Prime has to face that the Golden Age he remembered was built on the suffering of people he didn't see. (Honestly, I kind of recommended The Scholomance series to someone based on the idea that El Higgins is a Megatron with a bit more support and Orion the human is pretty clearly based on Orion Pax aka Optimus Prime, but with some complicated history.)
Honorable mentions to fic that didn't quite make the novel-length cut: Don’t be afraid. by spqr -Star Wars, Anakin/Obi-Wan, ages reversed. I... I find this pairing normally not for me, and I am aware that this is working on me because I love fic where a traumatized character is confronted with love and care, and well, this did the job.
What I'm Reading
Homeworld Elegy - Ashcroft Writes - Star Wars AU - Obi-Wan/ Cad Bane - 138K words -Once I got some momentum on this fic, I'm just flying thru it. I'm in a section that creates a whole history for Cad Bane and Duros and their world and his childhood romance with a friend, and I'm like, I thought this was just a mean blue man in a big hat, and now you are making my feel emotions??? It's just working for me really well.
Two Old Women by Velma Wallis - I'm just not finishing this very quickly, dunno why. The voice just feels like listening to someone telling a story.
What I'll Read Next:
Library books are on hold for this week because I'm going to be traveling, unless I get finished with them before I go.
Darth Maul: Lockdown
Whale Rider
Thrawn -Heir to the Empire
Maybe Spinning Silver
Tiger's Daughter
Things I own:
Might re-read City of Lies in order to get back on the page for the sequel book.
I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a creator -
I am fine with "the audience" -
downloading my fics
printing my fics
copy/pasting or screenshotting my fics
sharing your saved copy of my fics with anyone else who might want them in the unlikely but never impossible case that my fics are no longer available on ao3
making a book of my fic(s) and running your fingers across the pages while lovingly whispering my precioussss
doing these things with anything I create for fandom, such as meta, headcanons, au nonsense like 'texts from the brodinsons,' etc
I am not fine with "the audience"
doing any of the above with the purpose/intent of plagiarizing my work or passing it off as their own in any capacity
feeding my work into ai for any reason whatsoever
Save the fandom things. Preserve the fandom things. Respect the fandom things.
I’m sorry but . Your butch Celia is fucking everything to me I think . She’s so <3 the everything .
[ID: Digital drawings of Celia Ripley from The Magnus Protocol on a gray background. She is a slim, muscular Korean woman with pale skin, short black hair, dark brown eyes, dimples, body hair, and eyebags. In all drawings, she is wearing black rectangular glasses, and snakebite piercings, industrials, and x-shaped stud earrings, all gold. The top two drawings are of her in casual wear, with a light green t-shirt with the short sleeves cuffed, purple cuffed jeans, light green socks, dark green Doc Marten boots with gold laces, and a green belt with gold hardware. The upper left drawing is of her from the shoulders up, holding a purple mug with both hands and taking a sip while looking up, and to the right is a full-body of her sitting holding the mug with one hand and leaning slightly on the other, smiling at the viewer. There is a note that says "casual mode" pointing to both of them. The last drawing on the bottom left is much smaller and is of her wearing a light green button down, dark green trousers, light green socks, dress shoes, a belt, wrist cuffs, and shoulder holsters, all purple, and a black necktie. She is kneeling and aiming a golden pistol with a serious expression, and she has a second gold pistol in her other holster. This drawing is labelled as "spy!Celia theory/au" and "(I'm gay let me have this)" end ID]
i haven't drawn any kieflo stuff in awhile so here's so doodles inspired by me realizing how long florian's hair would be when it isn't styled into the chunky twists i usually draw him with.
[ transcription for the comics below the cut bc my handwriting can be hard to read rip ] ⤵
PART 01
FLORIAN : Oh, Kieran! You're already here?
FLORIAN : Sorry, I guess I should've mentioned it was a wash day. It's gonna take me a little longer to get ready. ( You can wait in my room if you want. )
KIERAN : Dazokie... ( W-Wowzers. )
FLORIAN : Huh?
PART 02
FLORIAN : I've still got a few things to do with my hair, but you can sit wherever or have a look around if you like!
KIERAN : T-thanks. ( Pardon the intrusion. )
KIERAN, thinking : Ugh, I really hope he didn't notice how red my face is.
Florian walks into the bathroom's door frame with a loud WHAM!
KIERAN, thinking : Actually, I think I'm in the clear... ( Guess he isn't wearing his contacts. )
KIERAN : You okay?
FLORIAN, off-screen : Y-yeah...
Things in Amity are going bad, the GIW are getting more aggressive and Jack and Maddie are starting to suspect there is something ghostly going on with Danny and Jazz is scared out of her mind and desperate to get them the hell out or dodge before she comes home one day to find her baby brother strapped to a table in the basement or worse.
She knows there's no way she's going to be able to get custody of Danny though (maybe she's still a minor herself, maybe she is over eighteen but it takes more than being a legal adult to get custody of a kid, and Jazz just doesn't have what the government is looking for and she can't risk Danny getting lost in the system) and even if she could, where could they possibly go? Even if they ran away, they don't have any way to survive.
Half out of her mind with stress and exhaustion late one night she ends up digging through their family tree looking for someone, anyone, that looks like they might be able to help, that could at least get them away from Amity Park if nothing else. She and Danny had each other, and literally anything was better then the nightmare creeping ever closer.
And somehow it doesn't even take that long, maybe luck finally shifting their way for once, maybe Clockwork nudging things along just right, but she finds someone.
As far as family relations go, they're on branches as far away from each other as possible while still being on the same tree. And of course the person in question has a pretty massive criminal background and is still super obviously involved in some shady stuff, but Jazz does her research and can see that - criminal mastermind or no - there's no history of vivisecting children or ghost hunting and honestly the Goonion review is pretty glowing.
Besides, Gotham's ambiant ectoplasm is about the same as Amity Park's, it'll help keep Danny (and her, really, as liminal as she is) healthy.
It's a long shot, but short of fleeing to the Ghost Zone and praying their parents don't chase after them, it's all she’s got. So, using one of Tucker's programs, she gets ahold of a phone number and makes the call.
To say that Oswald Cobblepot is surprised by her reaching out and suspicious of her desperate request would be an under statement.
But he knows a con, and this doesn't sound like one. The girl on the other end of the line sounds close to tears, begging him to hear her out, pleading for his help. When he has his people investigate he finds that Jasmine Fenton isn't lying. They are distant cousins - very distant - and the kids' parents are honestly Arkham levels of insane and the kids' teachers have been getting progressively more frantic in their reporting on their concerns. The notes on Daniel Fenton and the number of visible injuries he's been going to school with are particularly concerning. As is the fact that the Drs. Fenton are apparently scientists on top of being entirely mad.
Call Oswald a soft touch, but there's an old childhood wound deep in his heart that has him feeling for the kids, and from what he’s seen of Jasmine - Jazz, she said to call her, and her little brother is Danny, not Daniel - she's got the kind of drive he admires.
And hell it's not as if he can't afford to put them up in an apartment somewhere out of the way if they turn out to be too much trouble. Besides adopting a couple of sad kids from a shitty home can only be good for his reputation, look how well it worked for Bruce Wayne.
Maybe if he plays his cards right, he can set up a play date with the Wayne kids or something, really get some good networking in.
For OFMD Tumblr friends who want a S3 and are scared of Twitter
First, no judgment from me. I very much get it. I resisted Twitter for a long time, and even though I'm now a bit more comfortable on it, it's still not my Fandom Home. There are a TON of valid reasons not to be on Twitter, but if you REALLY want to keep OFMD visible right now and help its chances of returning for a third season, Twitter is the best place to do it. Like it or not, Twitter is still the best social media platform for raising awareness and for instant news updates.
Tumblr posts don't make headlines. Topics that have been trending on Twitter do. And if we want this show to come back, we need to make OFMD impossible to ignore.
By now you've probably seen just how close we came to a S3, and if you're like me, you are RAGING and donning your battle jacket. But I get it can be intimidating to get on Twitter for the first time, so I thought I'd address some common anxieties I see. I'll put below a cut because this got a bit long, but I promise it's a quick read.
I don't know what to say! Where do I even start?
That's okay! You don't have to create your own tweets (although it's great if you do). Amplifying other people's posts is also important. Go ahead and like/retweet/reply to other people's posts. This may also help you get an idea of what you may like to say in your own tweets.
Hashtags...yes?
Yes! Although don't use too many or you may get flagged as a bot. The biggest one that seems to be emerging is #SaveOFMD. Other popular ones are #RenewAsACrew, #RenewOurFlagMeansDeath, and of course, #OFMD and #OurFlagMeansDeath.
Should I just be tagging all the streaming services?
Per @renewasacrew, no. It's counterproductive. You'll want to tag one streamer at a time and be specific. Below is an example of a tweet I made the other day -- use specific reasons why that that particular streamer may benefit from picking up OFMD.
I'm scared. People are mean.
Yeah, people are mean. But I will say the vibes over at OFMD Twitter are currently the best I've ever seen them. People seem to have united for the greater good and are being overwhelmingly positive and just trying to do whatever we can to save the show. (That said, again, I already had a pretty curated feed, and was very liberal with blocking users/terms I didn't want to see, but I've been able to spend so much more time in the For You tab than I ever have without being jump scared by something.)
But I don't know anyone there! Wouldn't I just be shouting into the void?
Not if you use the hashtags! Fans are being really good about following those and engaging with the tweets. Plus, [Stede voice], I'm your friend. I'm xoxoemynn over there as well, I'll follow you back and engage with any of your posts that I see. Plus, what's been REALLY lovely to see is that SO many lurkers have come out of lurkerdom to support the efforts, and they are being welcomed with open arms, so you will not be alone. Again, I am telling you, vibes? Best I've ever seen them.
I can't get sucked into another social media platform, I don't have the time.
The beauty here is you don't need to spend a lot of time. I've been on Twitter more in the past week than I have in the entire year I've had an account, and I'm still only on for maybe an hour total the entire day? I open the app, I check a couple accounts, I engage with a handful of posts, and I close the app. It takes all of five minutes. It's an extremely small lift that can have a very big impact.
My bet is on Zaslav expecting us to be upset, and that there may be a day or two of outrage, but then we'd move on. I'm sure right now he's trying to convince everyone that this is a fluke, and that it'll blow over soon. Don't let him win. Keep OFMD in the news. Be loud (but polite) and make Max and other streamers take note of what a passionate, loyal fan base this show has. Make their stocks continue to drop. Make it clear this is NOT just a fluke, it is NOT business as usual. It's a BIG fuck up with lasting consequences.
Twitter, for all its sins, is the best place to do this.
So yes I have OF COURSE read @naffeclipse new fic Apex Polarity and yes, I AM OBSESSED!
So I decided to make a little comic of how I think their "first encounter" might have looked like from Eclipse's perspective.
I can't help but think about how alien and scary we most look to him (especially if there is a history of fasco hunting polar sirens in the past). With all that gear we look like emotionless beings, just observing and uncaring of this ice world.
But then when y/n shows up and probably exudes this joy and wonder for his world + shows respect for the creatures and the environment??? Mmh yeah, I can see Eclipse falling for y/n, especially considering how alone he might be...
So yes, that's what I have for today! If you want to read the fic I'll link it right here. I can't recommend it enough, but as always, read the tags so you know what you're getting into! And lastly I also want to @themeeplord beacuse Eclipse's design is basically their design in my style (god I love their design so much, their character/creature designs are the BEST) so all the credit goes to them! Polar!Y/N is my design thou! ;P
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read the two latest chapters-