I've been engaging with destiny since 2018. it's hard to believe how long and short a time it's been! I've made so many friends who have shared my joys and sorrows, newer than me or having been there from the start. we may have met through such an ephemeral thing as a live-service game, but I hope these friendships will remain, endure and grow
everything I could say I've already said here in one place or another in the last few months... and years! aiat, the grief is ever-present and yet not new at all. reading destiny's lore and piecing together those glimmers of story was what inspired me for much of that time. even now, with creative passion feeling very far away, it's something I still love dearly, and intend to keep returning to
I have 35 posted destiny works on ao3 - and more unposted, floating around on tumblr or in discord conversations. this is not all of them (in fact I am fighting the urge to add even more to the list) but it's a rough tally of my favourites, loosely arranged by character or theme. fittingly, it starts with my first written fic, and ends on my most recent!
thanks for being here
Bait Stars: On one of the Fundament's nights, dark and thick as fear, Xi Ro revels in small victories.
the brightest of lures: The dead worm says, in its voice of danger: You can save yourself. You can save your sisters.
It says: You can survive this, but only if you listen.
prey-wisdom: There is much to envy about the Ammonite. And yet Taox fears.
a record of stars: Savathûn recalls a moment when she looked to the sky.
trust: “Long Thought,” his sister names him, her eyes seafire-bright. “As long as you see a path, we will clear the way for you.”
The siblings discuss plans before their return to the Osmium Court.
digestion: While the Hive pick at the carcass of a world, their gods search for new challenges.
eating the path: After he goes out into the Deep, Oryx only dreams of the Fundament once more.
verse xlvi (addendum): A parting of ways is not a simple thing, even for siblings who are now gods.
A record of what was given, what was kept, and what is remembered.
questions to ask at the bottom of the world: "Savathûn shields from dire truths."
Following his pledge of fealty, Nokris learns this firsthand.
of shadows and beacons: What lurks in the Moon's shadows as Osiris slays the Hive?
Almost nothing.
the truest proof of love: Xivu Arath goes to challenge her sister after her rampant heresy in Sol, and takes a risk in the aftermath.
the first chorister: A body is an instrument, and a song is a structure of will. By fractions Arok Enilu tunes them both.
salvage: A truth never spoken of: if there was to be a place where the sword logic was stretched and tested, it would be among the High Coven.
An acolyte trapped in her dying mother's throne world learns this in what should be her last moments.
Or: a Hive wizard does their job and goes recruiting.
(g)host stories: Basking in another victorious battle, Hive acolytes tell stories of their greatest enemies.
THE FIRST|FINAL WORM: "Here is what is taught to the Hive, from the basest of Thralls newly made: that what can be destroyed, must be destroyed. What cannot be destroyed will surpass infinity."
the taste of salt: The witch offers Lavinia what she wants most. Just like in the oldest stories, it comes with a high price to pay.
a conversation yet unfinished: Lavinia enters Savathûn's throne world looking for answers. It just so happens that the Witch-Queen is looking for them too.
downward reprise: Eriana-3 leads her fireteam into the Hellmouth - this time, on the pale wings of Ghosts.
remembering your own name: A Ghost and a Guardian question identity and purpose in the Dark Age.
the warlord and the chicken thief: A young thief makes an unfortunate choice in targets, and meets the local Risen. It's the longest night of her life, but perhaps not the worst.
approaching entelechy: Let us speak of the hunger of all growing things.
Or: Omen-5 is given the Seed of Silver Wings to deliver to another, and awakens it instead.
a-seeking we shall go: Omen helps a Guardian look for a dog in the most dangerous places on the moon.
the thinnest of strands: Meditations on the Traveler, the Light, and choices.
Or: how Omen-5 came to gather bones and corpses for the Last City.
Doofenric the Ostrogoth (insert jokes about his daughter Vanessa being "Goth" but in the modern sense) invented a City-Mover-Inator to move Rome across the Danube so his Germanic confederation could sack it.
Thankfully, Agent Pericles stops him by redirecting the Inator to Finius and Ferbingetorix's New Rome instead, moving it to the Bosphorus.
While Pericles and Doofenric are fighting over the controls of the Inator, it gets accidentally changed to paint remover mode and then fired at a random direction.
Somewhere nearby a painter just finished coloring the statue of the emperor when suddenly all the paint gets removed.
Okay so, here's the thing. It was super dark in the irredeemable villain's underground layer + they were wearing sunglasses. So I don't think they actually saw how big and kind my pretty eyes are. Im gonna try to confront them again later when they are outside.
Looking back on it, it was actually like super romantic how they wrapped their hands around my neck and squeezed until I went boneless and fell at their feet.
If you can’t find a place on your blog for Patrick Stewart in a bathtub dressed like a lobster, then your blog probably doesn’t deserve such majesty anyway.
Due to my weird childhood and my weird brain, I have this very unhelpful compulsion to conceal Everything I do from Everyone. I Cannot be observed performing any action, no matter how mundane. My nervous system is convinced I'm gonna, like, Get In Trouble for eating food at dinnertime or sleeping in my bed at bedtime.
I've taken to asking myself, "Okay does this task actually require subterfuge or am I stealing a balloon on Free Balloon Day"
We do not know how the hell the Gay Pirate Plate was first acquired. This being a point of contention is actually pretty plot-relevant; the saga of the Gay Pirate Plate began with my grandmother and her sister, who, for some ungodly reason, both BADLY wanted the Gay Pirate Plate and believed it to be rightfully theirs.
I should back up, firstly, to establish: The Gay Pirate Plate is the cheapest, tackiest, ugliest plate in existence.
It is in no way a collector’s item. It is physically impossible for it to complement anyone’s decor, because the colors in it are garish. It’s just a ceramic plate with a gay pirate painted on it, and the painting is, this cannot be emphasized enough, extremely bad.
(How do we know the pirate is gay if he’s just posing on a plate? Listen. Fully 100% to stereotype, but he is. He is gay. There’s an energy. That pirate is a flaming homosexual. That pirate has sex with men and does it frequently. That pirate is fucking gay, all right, he just is.)
Anyway. The point is that this is an extremely cheap and ugly plate with a poorly-executed painting of pirate on it who is like a nine on the Kinsey scale.
My grandmother and her sister fought a blood feud over this plate for their entire lives. It would be on the wall in my grandma’s house, and then her sister would visit, and then it would be gone. She’d visit her sister and the plate would be on the wall and her sister would pretend it had always been there. She would steal it back, hang it up, and, when her sister visited, pretend it had always been there. This continued for DECADES.
When the sister died, the Gay Pirate Plate lived triumphantly in my grandmother’s house. And then my grandmother died. And my aunt, who had lived with her and been her carer throughout her life, rightfully inherited their house.
We visit my aunt after the funeral and stay with her for a week or two.
Me, my sister, and our dad. Her brother.
The three of us look at each other. We don’t say anything. We studiously avoid making eye contact with the Gay Pirate Plate mounted proud and ugly on the wall. We notice one another studiously avoiding looking at it. We notice one another noticing. We say nothing. We come to a silent consensus. We pack up to leave. We get in the van. Our aunt comes out to say goodbye. I loudly announce I need to use the restroom before we leave. She obviously stays outside to continue talking to my dad.
I take down the Gay Pirate Plate, stuff it under my oversized sweatshirt, go outside, and get in the van. She happily waves goodbye as we drive off.
Two days later my dad gets a phone call that opens with hysterical laughter and “You FUCKING ASSHOLE did you seriously STEAL THE PLATE–”
Anyway. The gay pirate plate lives in my dad’s house currently.
But he’s trying to get me and my sister out to visit him. And plate mounts are cheap.
The rules of Gay Pirate Plate are simple by the way.
The plate must be clearly and openly displayed in a place of great prominence whenever it is in your possession. When it is not in your possession, the display piece must remain in place. This is where you would put your gay pirate plate, IF YOU HAD ONE.
No active steps may be taken to prevent the theft of the Gay Pirate Plate. That goes against the spirit of the game, as does attempting to hide it.
The plate MUST be stolen and cannot be gifted or removed with permission. Should you witness attempted theft of the Gay Pirate Plate you are required to intervene and return it to its place.
Every time your sibling successfully absconds with the Gay Pirate Plate, you must respond with indignant fury, as if you have not also repeatedly and blatantly stolen the Gay Pirate Plate.
That Time a Published Author Told Me to Un-Queer My Novel
So, I don't think I ever shared this story on Tumblr before.
As you may know I've spent the past ten years turning my old Welcome to Night Vale fanfic into a stand alone novel called Echo of the Larkspur. Now, I haven't been working on it ten years straight. I'd pick it up, do a bunch of editing and rewriting, submit it to agents/publishers, get turned down, put the book away, wait 2-3 years, dust off the book, re-edit and rewrite, etc etc. A cycle that repeated itself far too many times that I would like.
Well, during one of these cycles when I was in the 'get rejected by every agent and publisher I submit to' stage I asked the writing group I was in what I was doing wrong. Because at this point I had reached a hundred total rejections and I was starting to suspect that the issue was with me.
One of the members of this writing group, a male author who was traditionally published, offered to read my first chapter and give his advice on how to fix it. This was, in retrospect, a mistake. But I was desperate. I sent him the first chapter and waited for his response.
Folks. The email he sent me changed my life.
First he said that agents wouldn't publish my novel because it was Sci-fi with hardcore gay erotica in it. This is curious because while the book certainly is queer, at no point in the conversation with this man did I say it was hardcore erotica. Nor did the first chapter feature any. It's almost as if he assumed that just because something was gay, it had to be hardcore erotica. Interesting.
He went on to say that a Human/Robot pairing was weird and that there was "No Way" my story could seriously address the issues of a relationship like that. Once again, he only read the first chapter. He just...assumed I wouldn't think of that? And that my book wouldn't cover it?
The author then said “I also felt that the LGBTQ inclusion really seems to cloud things.” Direct Quote.
And then this is when he said my favorite quote of them all:
The idea of a book being a sci-fi with romance AND a mystery is a Modern Art Marzipan Owl. It's just too confusing! No one can handle a story that is a mystery in a sci-fi enviroment AND has a romantic subplot! THEIR BRAINS WOULD LITERALLY EXPLODE!
Thankfully he had a solution to my book problem. His answer? Turn the book into an Action Spy Thriller and turn S.A.G.E., a robot that identies as a gay man, into a sexy lady robot who needs a MAN to teach her what it means to be human.
(I assume the male lead will teach the 'confused' female robot how to be human via his penis.)
Now my favorite part about this advice is that at no point did he outright say "Remove the gay part". No, instead he sneakily changed the robot love interest into a female robot as if I wouldn't notice. Just sort of swept away the gay bits as something totally unneeded and just mucking up the narrative. Also that's not the plot of my story, I have no idea where this virus thing came from.
(Also note that the female robot can't be robotic-like at all. Must preserve the average straight-man sex drive at all costs I guess)
He then finished his email basically saying that I should remove everything that 'traditional publishers' don't like (aka the queer parts) and make it easier for 'your average reader' to digest and my book will be good as published!
When I said this email changed my life I meant it. Because it made me realize I'd rather be self published and unknown than traditionally publish milquetoast trash like he suggested. Like holy fuck. If I removed all of the "Difficult" to digest stories out of Echo of the Larkspur then there wouldn't be a book left!
So here I am. Self publishing my Marzipan Modern Art Owl of a book. I know it'll never see the inside of a bookstore or top the charts on Goodreads but hey, I'd rather it speak to one person than have a thousand people get excited for the part where the male lead teaches the lady robot how to be human (via his penis).
If a Queer Sci-fi/Romance/Mystery novel sounds like your jam then consider preordering it!
Looking for something to read now? Can't afford the book? Willing to read in exchange for an honest review? You can join my ARC book readers here!
it's okay, ulysses ogre. you can back up and try dubliners, it's a short story collection with much more straightforward prose, you can dive deep on one piece at a time, and once you've toyed around with that then I'm sure you'll have an easier time with ulysses. besides, I had an irish lit professor who'd been studying finnegans wake for twenty years and she said she still didn't really know what was going on in it. ulysses ogre, what really matters is if you are enjoying your time with literature and feel like you are gaining something, not whether you reach the "correct" conclusions. there's no need to try and force yourself through something if you feel like you aren't on an even enough plane with the text to reap any of its rewards.
So I absolutely adore this regardless, but can we just talk for a few minutes about Bob’s Burgers?
Like, I can’t place my finger on exactly what or why but Bob’s Burgers feels innately queer somehow.
It just feels like any one of the family members could come out as some form of queer and it would just be part of the show now with no judgement from anyone who’s supposed to be a good person in the narrative.
Like if they had an episode where Linda came out as trans and started transitioning and Bob was like “I don’t think I’m into guys… or am I?” I would not be surprised. Maybe I should write that fanfic lol
the ‘kind character snapping’ trope has been co-opted by too many people who don’t understand it fundamentally. you can’t have your character actively think of themselves as that kind of person bc that makes it like bragging. ‘you wouldn’t like me when i’m angry 😡’ ’no more mister nice guy 😈’ ’demons run when a good man goes to war 👿’ ’honestly i scare myself sometimes 😰’ WROOOOOONG. those are all threats. first off a truly kind character should be humble and not even consider kindness a thing of theirs. and second off please. if they’re truly gentle they should be ashamed of the very thought of their own wrath and not like openly talk about it. yeah i bet they do scare themselves and others when they finally get pushed too far but like don’t have them say or consciously think that without shame… it should be like a tragic thing that happens to them against their will and not like an alter ego they’ve been gleefully looking for an excuse to slip into
OK the thing about "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" is that it comes from the 70s Incredible Hulk. Like it's not a threat, it's a warning because Bruce doesn't have a choice on if the Hulk comes out. When he says that, he's *pleading* with someone, trying to warn them that he won't be in control when he says that. He truly doesn't want to hurt them, because he doesn't want to hurt anybody(its the reason he's drifting from town to town in series), but he litterally turns into an incontrallable green monster man when angry. That's something he doesn't have much control over outside of trying to avoid stressful situations, and he's constantly being chased by someone.
And with "when a good man goes to war" like one:That's from a poem in universe (of doctor who) warning against angering "good men" and it comes from a story arc where his friend has been kidnapped and there is(and what ends up happening) that her infant child will be stolen from her. Additionally, typically in Doctor Who, when the doctor *does* make threats, he does not make them easily or lightly. It's often a sign that the Antagonist is either close to or already has crossed the threshold, and many innocent people either will be hurt, or already have been.
Like if you wanna complain about how a trope been handled, sure, yeah, what ever, but at least make sure you understand your examples.
Literally sobbing. A judge, a US judge defended us. A judge brought up intersex people, using the term intersex, to *defend* us by not allowing our erasure. I'm having a lot of feelings right now
Since this blew up considerably, if you would like to help a disabled intersex person afford their medications and transportation to appointments, please consider sending a dollar or two via cashapp to $ElJay777 🥰 Absolutely no pressure, no guilt trips here. Just if you have it to spare and would like to help. Truly inspiring and encouranging to see this post reach so many and have so much love shown, thank you all so much for seeing us and supporting us. It really makes a difference ❤️
Okay but this is so much better than we give it credit for cause like… she does not like him at this point. She’s upset because she’s like “I trained so long for this and you just showed up” but then this moment happens and she actively chooses kindness toward someone she does not like and that is impactful in its own right.
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