This feels like a very straightforward question with a straightforward answer, right? AND IT WOULD BE, EXCEPT YOU’VE ASKED IT TO A PERSON WHO IS CONSTITUTIONALLY INCAPABLE OF PROVIDING STRAIGHTFORWARD ANSWERS TO STRAIGHTFORWARD QUESTIONS
For reasons that have to do with 1. deep-seated neuroses, and 2. the trials and tribulations of my day job, the ships/fandoms I read the most heavily in often end up NOT being the ships/fandoms that I am mostly heavily involved in! That is weird, and I apologize for the weirdness. In the end, it’s not One Piece or Les Miserables that I have a very deep bench in, even though those fandoms were really formative to me in their own ways. (Inceptionis a little different because I had to continue reading in it long after I started writing in it, and Detroit: Become Human is also different because I started writing in it after a longer period than usual of lurking in it.) THE CONCLUSION is that I just looked through my Ao3 bookmarks and it feels very clear to me that the fandoms I’ve read the most stuff in are all fandoms I haven’t actually been in: A Song of Ice and Fire, The Three Musketeers, andAttack on Titan.
I don’t come down particularly hard on sticking to a single pairing– rather, it’s more a case of “LET’S CYCLE MY BIAS THROUGH THE ENTIRE CAST OF CHARACTERS” kld;hlkg but for those respective above fandoms, the “home base” pairings, if you will, seem to be: Robb/Theon, Porthos/Aramis, and Erwin/Levi. AH YES… BEHOLD MY MOUTHY FINICKY DARK-HAIRED ASSHOLE BIAS… THE LOT OF THEM… I am transparent and guilty of all that I am charged with
WAUGH THANK YOU SO MUCH! I wish economies of scale made it easier to produce fandom goods on a small-batch basis, because I do think there is something very fun about seeing a digital thing become a physical thing! It may not be possible for me to produce anything on my end, but you do of course have a blanket go-ahead to do, for yourself, whatever you like with whatever I make. TRANSCRIBE BY HAND THE ENTIRETY OF LES MIGNARDISES ON INDIVIDUAL GRAINS OF RICE AND MAKE YOURSELF A NICE BOWL OF GYUDON PLEASE. IT’S THE APOTHEOSIS CHEF GAVIN REED WOULD HAVE WANTED
Why have you sent me this message like thIS JKF;DHLK I am responding to it to honor your completely unreasonable self-abjection but it’s not like I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE! MY GOD. I am indeed having a lovely day and you are a shining light in my life and this is the most unnecessary thing you have ever written! WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU OWED ME ANY COMMENTS AT ALL TO BEGIN WITH! THAT’S NOT THE WAY THAT THIS WORKS! EVERYTHING YOU DO IS A FAVOR YOU DO OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF YOUR HEART! mY g o d
Thank you, this is extremely sweet of you to say! I get pretty self-conscious with the dialogue sections because whereas I love writing dialogue a lot – it goes so quickly! I don’t have to throttle WordHippo to try to figure out what word is eluding my grasp! – I’m also worried about losing control over it and having it slide too far into the territory of facile banter. What if they just end up talking like an episode of Seinfeld,I think to myself. What if Connor’s in a great mood and gets carried away while greeting Gavin in the morning and just, like, gives him a hug, and then I accidentally write this:
Nines: So thenwhat did you do? Gavin: Nothing! I did nothing! Nines: You did nothing? Gavin: Absolutely nothing. Nines: You just stood there and you let it happen to you. Gavin: Yes, I can’t believe it! I just stood there! Nines: You stood there and he embraced you. Gavin: I was embraced byhim! Nines: An embracing was done. Gavin: And I did nothing about it. I just stood there.
So I’m very happy to hear that I have, thus far, managed to pull myself back somewhat from the brink of this sort of debacle. I’m doing my best! I hope you stick around for more!
WHAT A JOY TO SEE YOU, AN ANON FROM INCEPTION FANDOM! I think about Voltaas a story of two people who genuinely aggravate each other for reasons that are too deep-rooted to be simple misunderstanding, and that bit as the first display of Eames being aggravating in the particular festering way that he is in that fic. In every fandom, I find myself following something of the emotional course that the Linklater Before trilogy does; the early fics start out with “we’re perfect for each other” (Before Sunrise),then they move into “if we try hard enough, we can be perfect for each other” (Before Sunset), then they settle into “well actually we’re kind of shitty together but everything is shitty anyway, let’s make something together even if what we make together is complete shit” (Before Midnight). For a lot of reasons, Volta both is and reads like a late-fandom fic (in the sense that it was near the end of my time in the fandom, not that it was near the end of the fandom!)– it’s aggravating and unhappy in that way, but still, maybe because of all of that, I hope that whatever kernel of the future can be found in it can seem at least a little truthful. v v v
THIS IS A PROBLEM I HAVE LIVED BEFORE! I know that it is not very helpful for me to lie down parallel to you and weep in sync to your crying, but in my lack of Japanese language skills, THAT’S ALL I CAN DO! I CAN ONLY EMPATHIZE WITH YOU IN ALSO HAVING WANTED EVERYONE AROUND ME TO READ THE FICS VERY DEAR TO ME IN LANGUAGES WE DID NOT SHARE!
I’ve definitely muddled my way through fics in Japanese before through a variety of online translator tools, but despite all the technological advances that have been made in that realm, conveying the stylistic nuances of a story one would read for style is… not a thing that said tools have quite achieved yet, I don’t think. My sorrowful Canadian friend, perhaps I cannot accompany you in enjoying the thing itself, but I am certainly grateful that you thought of me and Previous Anon– EVEN WHEN WE CANNOT BE ALL THAT WE WANT FROM EACH OTHER, IS IT NOT STILL MEANINGFUL THAT WE HARBOR THE DESIRE TO BRING OURSELVES CLOSER TOGETHER???
Hi, dearest kindest BEAUTIFUL SPARROW CREATURE. I really hope that you understand just how moved I am to hear from you, and that I can reflect even a tenth of the joy you have given me right back at you, because even if you deserve to have the whole of it reflected back, that would be absurd, why would I reflect the whole thing back, what am I supposed to keep for myself then, you would need to pry the love out of my cold dead heart to take it from me, I dare you to try, I’LL SEE YOU IN COURT AND THEN I’LL SEE YOU IN HELL
It means so much to me that you enjoyed Fata Morgana; I wanted so badly to make something that could at least go some way towards answering the trust and brilliance that Vape poured into the project. And, of course, I didn’t want to let you down! (This is a disgusting understatement. I’ve spent hours staring blankly up at my ceiling as I lay fearful of all the ways that I might be letting you down.) I hope that you’ll have a good time with the next thing that Vape and I make together– I mean, you’ll definitely have a good time with Vape’s portion of it, but as for my part, I can only hope (and do some more staring up at the ceiling). I love you very much, even if you are absolutely wrong about Pedal to the Metal, which is a language crime that should be excised from existence. I LOVE YOU!
For the anon that asked about various types of creature AUs! I think there are people who do that genre much better than I do– but no matter what fandom I am in, I always end up foisting a couple irrelevant headcanon characteristics onto my unfortunate bias, and one of those characteristics is that said person is a cryptid enthusiast. So please have this: dispatches from the hapless adventures of Gavin Reed, cryptid enthusiast, and RK “who me? a cryptid?” 900
Anon! Yours was not a question specific to Les Mignardises, but it WAS a cooking-related question so that’s what I have ended up revisiting! What an inconvenient superpower for Gavin to have, a person who is indubitably being shit-talked by someoneat all hours of the day
Yes! I’m very okay, sorry for falling off the face of the planet! I had a few big life changes in the meanwhile – all of them good! – and I thought that I could just take a little time to get my feet back under me, because it wasn’t like I was posting very diligently before, having been mud-wrestling my own writing for the past several months. But then that life break sort of unexpectedly segued into an fandom hiatus for longer than I meant for it to.
When I say fandom hiatus, really what it means is “I stopped replying to things in a timely fashion,” because I NEVER PRODUCED FANWORKS IN A TIMELY FASHION TO BEGIN WITH, and because my love for everything I’m into remains as strong as ever! Anyway I’m okay, I’m safe and well, and I have jotted down a shitload of incredibly stupid ideas for comics to draw in the near future. I hope you’re well too, anon!!!
jkld;hgf well first of all this is wildly generous, thank you for being misaligned in your affections! If I am of any use at writing or art, that is merely a quality that seems notable because you have not been witness to all the THOUSANDS OF THINGS THAT I AM ABSOLUTELY COMPLETE GARBAGE AT. It just so happens that I’ve hung around in fandom for a significant amount of time, and that has probably led to me trying harder to develop in re: fandom skills like writing and art, as opposed to… like… having any financial literacy at all… or any spatial reasoning abilities…
I pick up any humor I have from other funny things and I pick up any kindness I have from those who are kind to me! You should be thanking YOURSELF for being so nice to me, which in turn is my guiding light for how I try to talk to you and other folks online. I’M TRYING MY BEST I LOVE YOU
That is absolutely a big brain AND WHAT’S ALWAYS MORE IMPORTANT, a ~big heart~ thing to say!!! Thank you for being so kind, I’m so glad that you’ve been enjoying these stories :’( I always descend into a deep terrible emotional funk at the tail end of writing a long fic that I care about a lot, and this time around is no exception. I know I’m extremely, extremely late in replying to this, but thank you for buoying up my spirits for longer than you know.
FIRST OF ALL ANON I hope you have been unthinking these thoughts enough that you aren’t very unhappy on a day-to-day basis! WHY MUST FICTIONAL NARRATIVES AFFECT US SO DEEPLY. But since you sent in this message, I’ve been thinking long and hard about why exactly it is that this particular scenario doesn’t seem to hit me quite so hard, or stay with me quite as much.
Perhaps it’s that it just doesn’t hit me quite so hard anymore; I think that it was relatively early on that I read a number of fics dealing with this eventuality, and so it might just be the case that I’ve sort of… mentally explored it to the point of dissipation. But I think it also has something to do with what you said – that you don’t quite know what to do with these thoughts – because you’re right, there’s nothing that you can do with them!
I have opinions about how non-canonical major character deaths might be used in fics, and those are opinions too long to get into here, but they boil down to a kind of distrust over what writing about death can even do. I love reading fics that try to think through what surroundsdeath, the crises of thinking and being that it precipitates, the misalignments it lays bare, the endless cyclical chore of grieving and mourning– but I’m not big on “here’s a sad thing because it is sad”. This latter kind of use of character death is frustrating to me because, once again, there’s nothing you can do in response. It doesn’t communicate anything, or help you see anything, or even comfort you in any way. It feels dead-end and manipulative, and I resent that.
This isn’t to say that those fics I read early on in DBH fandom were doing that sort of thing. In fact, I’d venture to say that most actual fics about character death ARE doing something more than “SAD THING SAD”! But when I internally think about the mere fact of there being a difference in lifespan between Gavin and RK900, I’m JUST thinking about that mere fact; my instantaneous recollection does not have all the trimmings of an actual fic, which write AROUND the core of that fact to get at something worth the thinking about. So I suppose what I am saying is… I have reacted to the inexorability of the concept of mortality by emotionally shutting down, and insist on feeling nothing except for in the moments when a story wedges its way into the cracks and pries my cold dead heart apart
But you know, something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is planned obsolescence and the limits of forward compatibility; as a technological consumer product, RK900’s operational lifespan is, perhaps, much shorter than the endurance of his physical components. I only touched on it very very very briefly in Fata Morgana (and would like to explore it further sometime in the future), but this is sort of the direction that I’m currently leaning towards in thinking about mortality in this universe– sure, people die, but androids are also likely meant to die sooner rather than later. There’s something very bluntly and darkly necropolitical that this makes visible – that life and death are a matter of economy – and I JUST THINK THAT’S NEAT. And sad, also sad, but VERY NEAT
I’m sorry that I’ve answered your sad message by essentially going “yes, that is sad, but WHAT ABOUT THIS OTHER SAD THING” JKL;lkdjlghk my apologies, ANON I LOVE YOU, EVERYONE LIVES ON FOREVER IN STORIES, WE ARE POWERFUL AND WE CAN MURDER DEATH
Hello you sweet creature! I did indeed have a good day thanks to your message, let me reflect this energy unto you and I hope that YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY ALSO! IT’S YOUR TURN, TAKE THE BATON!
Ah yes……………………………… Art…………………………………………….. Anon the short answer is yes, and the slightly longer answer is “yes, but you might need to adjust your definition of what the word ‘soon’ means”. Fata Morgana is basically wrapped up, so it’s probably time for me to shift from writing to drawing again, even though July is going to be an extremely hectic month for me on a personal level. I will get there! Things will be drawn! Please be lenient with me!
It is, however, a source of great existential terror to me to be referred to as a fanartist… You are too kind to even label me thus, but there’s just such a colossal irony in me going AWOL because I am engaging in what I still think to be my primary method of existing in fandom – writing a fic – and then realizing that no, all evidence points to the contrary, I have drawn much more than I have written. Anyway I can talk shit about my writing all day but I’m fairly convinced that I am at least a better writer than I am an artist, so my recommended course of action is to go read the shit that I have written while you patiently wait to look at the shit that I have drawn. IT’LL COME, I PROMISE. THANK YOU AND I LOVE YOU
The nonsensically recursive formatting now present in tumblr askbox messages is a bane for people who tend to let things pile up before getting to them, i.e. ME, IT IS A BANE FOR ME, but in this as in all things, we must make do. Anon I’m so happy that you enjoy that particular piece of art! ~Psycho-religious Catholic kink~ is a mainstay of the way that I exist in fandom, and it’s a delight to have the two of us join hands as we skip through this apse. At this precise moment I’m physically running around a bit doing errands, but I will put it up on Twitter very soon, keep an eye out!
Truly, anon, I have never deserved a blessing such as you :’((((( First of all, you absolutely should not feel compelled to come up with any kind of reason for why you have not done a thing yet, when you would only do the thing at all out of the incredible goodness of your heart! You never had to put a well-organized comment together, and you never have to do it in the future! I know that I make a big whiny fuss out of how much I love comments – and it’s also true that part of why I put off answering this askbox message is because I needed to hang on to it in order to let it motivate me to meet my word counts as I wrote this last chapter of Fata Morgana (AND IT WORKED, I THOUGHT ABOUT YOUR MESSAGE AND I MET MY WORD COUNTS EVERY SINGLE DAY) – but, like… If I understand anything, it is that a thing only becomes exponentially more stressful as you expect more and more out of it. Whatever it is that you want to say doesn’t have to be huge, or magisterial in any way (though I’m certain that your thoughts are brilliant and thoughtful beyond anything I could offer in return)– it’s honestly just wild that you’ve already put so much of your time into staying with these stories!
Sorry that I’ve snuck your messages in behind the cut, but you know, it is very embarrassing to be unworthy. Thank you for KEEPING ME GOING, no hyperbole. Even though I think I tend to consume and enjoy fanworks about Gavin and Nines across a pretty wide range of interpretations, I am PAROCHIAL IN MY PRODUCED OUTPUT AND SOMEHOW ALWAYS END UP WRITING THEM INTO FAIRLY SIMILAR PSYCHOLOGICAL STANCES………………………………. is it that I am a big fucking sap at heart… anyway what I mean to say is, I wish I had more range but mAYBE I DON’T WISH THAT AT ALL, if you enjoy what I am doing I’M JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE. As best as I can tell, the mysterious comment in your notes is probably in reference to the fact that OJ Simpson is mentioned multiple times in Fata Morgana for absolutely no reason at all, because “What? Yes. What? No.” is precisely the reaction I had when I realized that I was incapable of steering A FICTIONAL CONVERSATION THAT I HAD COMPLETE CONTROL OVER away from the subject of, once again, just to stress the absurdity of this, OJ SIMPSON
I’m endlessly grateful for you. Thank you for writing this note v v v
Oh this is a public Food Network shindig cook-off, is it not? I have more respect for Gordon Ramsay than I do for a lot of other celebrity chefs (and to be honest, I love the restaurant industry so much that I love even the celebrity chefs I hate)– and even if I too want Chef Gavin to do Les Mignardises proud in this battle, it’s probably also true that he doesn’t necessarily have the experience that Gordon Ramsay does in navigating spaces and occasions like these! BUT THAT HAVING BEEN SAID, I’m 100% fully convinced that what ends up happening is that right in the middle of this Iron Chef spin-off match-up, just as the tension and chaos in the kitchen are building towards the climactic final few minutes before the buzzer goes off, Gordon Ramsay happens to look up and sees, in the stands, Nines sitting with his arms crossed, glaring an absolutely MURDEROUS glare of daggers right into Gordon Ramsay’s very soul. He doesn’t rattle for nothing, Gordon Ramsay, but… in that moment, he knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that this android is ready and willing to leap down from the audience and throttle him to death on tape, and he is TERRIFIED. He burns a gratin, fails to plate one of his courses, and narrowly loses the competition.
“Nines!” Gavin yells, leaping into his arms. “We did it!”
“Yes, Chef,” says Nines. “Congratulations.” Over Gavin’s head, his eyes meet Gordon Ramsay’s from across the kitchen. Today,he says without a word, you walk away with your life.
WHAT A PROMISING YET OMINOUS MESSAGE, ANON… OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN NEVER ASKED FOR THIS
quotes taken from my liked tiktoks. some may be nsfw
‘ you know, men just don’t get lost at sea like they used to. those were the good old days. ‘
‘ it’s kinda fucked up we stopped doing show and tell right when it was getting good. i was five years old, i didn’t have anything to my name. ‘
‘ i swallowed shampoo. probably gonna die. smelled like fruit. that was a lie. ‘
‘ i have to show you something what i do. ‘
‘ girlboss? no. i am… girl entry level employee. i am girl valued member of the staff. i am… girl shift manager. boss is a lot of responsibility. ‘
‘ why do you think i haven’t gotten any sugar daddy requests? am i not hot enough? is it my personality? because i can change if that’s what the sugar daddies want. ‘
‘ damn it feels good to be a gangster? more like, damn it feels good to be a husband! i love my wife! ‘
‘ men stop sending dms after 10 pm. those hours are for girls with nose rings and bisexuals ONLY. ‘
‘ a dm from a man is like an NFT. worthless and i don’t wanna see it. ‘
‘ okay, if i met a celebrity right now, i guarantee it’d be a cool experience. it’d be fun, it’d be interesting, you know, i’d shake their hand, i take a picture. i’d tell the story to my friends, whatever. it’d be cool. but if i met a fucking MUPPET? ‘
‘ the fact that my girlfriend is taller than me is not a fact at all. it doesn’t have to be. ‘
‘ i actually don’t believe that anyone can be 5′10″ that just doesn’t make sense. ‘
‘ i’m glad you asked because i have many hobbies. my first one is… eating. then my next one is putting in a ponytail. my third one is going (clicks tongue) and my fourth one is (starts laughing) ‘
‘ i don’t think women should be allowed to breastfeed in public not because women shouldn’t be able to do what they want, but because babies should not be allowed in public. ‘
‘ strong! willful!illiterate!those are three words that the olympic committee used to describe me before i was removed for biting. ‘
‘ to everyone telling me about your crush on me: now is not the time for me to love. i must focus on my fashion career. ‘
‘ i don’t know i feel like there’s something real poetic about holding a man by his waist like, you know what? you just might be my bitch, for real. ‘
‘ “i’m going to therapy starting monday” you should go to prison. ‘
‘ he’s gay but he has a special connection to classical music… there’s many things that are interesting about him. ‘
‘ if you’re not happy single, you won’t be happy married. happiness comes from cats, not relationships. ‘
‘ stop being mad at me for not knowing the make and model of my car, okay? i do not go to a mechanic to be PEPPERED with questions. ‘
‘ look, i’m sorry i don’t much about cars. i’m sorry that sometimes you tell me to open the hood and i open the trunk. in my defense, pretty confusing. where’s an elephant trunk? in the front! and where are hoods? hoods are on the BACK of things. ‘
‘ who needs a girlfriend when you have a year long criterion subscription?
‘ i’m gonna do it but still, let’s have a little decorum, okay, let’s have a little respect. ‘
‘ everyone’s always like how big are your tits, never how are your big tits? ‘
‘ there is nothing wrong with being a grown man and needing a booster seat to drive. ‘
‘ i like noses. i like big noses. because… because you can kinda like… sit on them. ‘
‘ after eight years of dating, you’ll always be my boss baby. but i’d love to make you my queen julian. ‘
‘ you might not like it, but this is what the peak male athletic form looks like and there ain’t a fucking thing you can do about it. ‘
‘ acappella groups have found new and inventive ways of performing remotely. meanwhile, i found new and inventive ways of ignoring them. ‘
has a comment someone left on a fic of yours ever made you laugh out loud?
has a comment someone left on a fic of yours ever made you cry?
and because i know we’re all egocentric, have you ever made yourself laugh out loud or cry with a fic you wrote?
what would this fic be about, based on the title? (asker provides fake fic title) (x)
if you couldn’t finish (one of) your wip(s) for some reason, what writer would you trust with finishing it, if any? (asker can choose what wip)
what is your favourite sense to incorporate in your writing and why?
what is you favourite sentence/paragraph? read it to us! (asker can choose what fic) (x)
if you got a computer virus that deleted all your fics but had just enough time to save one before they were wiped out, which fic would you pick and why?
the “you got kudos“ e-mail is usually much appreciated, but is there a fic you wish you didn’t get these e-mails for? if so, which one and why?
what word do you keep using like it’s going out of style?
what grammar mistake do you keep making no matter how many times your beta corrects you?
what headcanon will you keep implementing in your fics, even if canon ends up contradicting it?
do you make playlists for when you write? if so, share!
what trope would you refuse to write even if you were paid to do it?
describe (one of) your wip(s) in the weirdest/most contrived way possible! (asker can choose what wip)
Erik has a few things he likes most though. First of all, her unparalelled kindness, her pleasant smile, and her dazzling eyes… Her voice is of course also something Erik loves dearly, and her calm, innocent aura…
Oh Christine… Why did Erik fall for someone as celestial as you…?
The askbox is open! Please read our guidelines before you send in a confession!
Guidelines considering our blog:
1. Anything that’s attacking LGBT+ or POC will be deleted. 2. Hate is okay, but don’t go too far. 3. If there a simalar confession already has been posted, your confession may not be posted. 4. Don’t insult shippers. 5. NSFW is fine, but nothing too detailed. 6. Spoilers will be tagged with ‘winx spoilers’. 7. Attacking people isn’t tolerated. 8. Keep everything Winx related! 9. If you attack people or we get messages from people that you’re taking it too far, you’ll be blocked. 10. Send in your confessions by using the askbox! Confessions submitted through the fanmail or some other form of communication will be deleted!
If you have any questions or just want to ask us something related to Winx, feel free to contact usat any time!
Ayeeeeee, I actually wrote something! I’m proud (kinda). It’s a Hawks x reader one shot kinda thing and I finished it today. I’ll edit and post it tomorrow so stay tuned for that. It’s kind of angsty but not a lot (Atleast in my opinion).
Don’t forget, askbox is opennn (pls send me stuff I’m desperate and can’t find the creativity to find my own ideas). Also I forgot to mention this, please be specific as to what you are requesting (like what you want the story to be about) I will not be doing any broad request (unless I’m feeling creative)
