middle-aged, divorced, widowed, tired (bi she/her) | currently 80% gay pirates by volume (plus The Adventure Zone) | AO3: epersonae | header by @darthameus
I write fic, currently primarily for Our Flag Means Death, previously for The Adventure Zone, but also the tiniest dash of Star Trek. Below the cut are some recommendations and also some related tags.
I knit (I'm on ravelry!*), do embroidery, and am learning to sew, at the moment stuff is just tagged #fiber arts but I might come up with a tag for my sewing in particular.
*also I've published two fandom-related patterns, an Olu hat and a Bureau of Balance bracer
I cook, sometimes, and sometimes post about it under #food as play, notably I have done some work to rewrite the 40 Orange Cake Recipe to be more usable.
Last year and in 2026 I am taking a monthly tree photo, tagged #monthly tree. (If you are seeing this in April 2026, yes I missed March 1 and April 1, I keep forgetting the post the April photos, and I was out of town that weekend in March.)
I wrote quite a bit of my TAZ fic with my late spouse Ryn (@taakovapes). Ryn died in September 2021; here's the post I wrote the week they died. I often post/tag about them and death and grief. (See tags #not all exits are made equal, #[grief dab], and #posts I wish I could send to Ryn in particular.)
ok, so these are fic of mine that I'm particularly proud of:
Commit to the Bit, modern AU engagement and wedding which is largely based on the circumstances of my own engagement and wedding. It was a real joy to be able to use that experience in this way.
"Carlita"
This is me going off on my weird limb for almost 165k, starting with for the benefit of all the broken hearts, the not RPF but not not RPF that is one of the best things I've ever written in any medium for any reason: a fix-it fic for the gorgeous and weird Water Flowing Underground, told from the perspective of the unnamed second wife. My exploration of the aftermath of tragedy, the possibility of repair, and varieties of love. (there's also a follow-up fic of missing scenes, end up several worlds away, which someday will get a final chapter.)
And then, I wrote a weird non-linear AU of alternate endings, back on my beat, which led to Beach House, which is an AU that is neither a bad ending or a fix-it, but a secret third thing. It is about creativity and grief and identity, and I love it as much as benefit but differently.
Posts tagged #carlita coded content or #beach house are related to this work, sometimes very obliquely.
(If you liked any of these, try Call Her Daddy, which is a also fic of a fic about a pop star and Ed Teach, but in a very different key.)
Some canon-era OFMD faves
Hungry for love, ready to drown - a Stede POV retelling of season one starting with episode four, lots of missing scenes.
Repair - sort of a similar vibe, my reverse big bang fic with @emcolbs's amazing art, shorter and more impressionistic. I have plans for a pair of follow-up pieces.
Every fugitive hour leaves its mark - soulmates (derogatory) AU
I spit on your grave - post-S2, Stede and Ed have a serious conversation, starting with how Ed didn't "happen" upon Stede being gut-stabbed, and going some tough places from there. Everyone who has ever commented on this, I love you. there is a follow-up fic with the crew!
in case I never make it through to where you are - bad ending AU set at the end of 2x3. MIND THE TAGS, it's a rough one.
No More Running and All through the morning rain I gaze are explorations of Stede dealing with his long-standing issues post-S2. I might still have a third one in me, someday.
and for something fun to round it out: that's what makes us good in bed, some good old-fashioned co-captains smut, an alternate POV to @oatmilktruther's superlative Can't We Be Friends.
I had said I was going to pause on the quilt, but then I didn't have the right thread for my dress, and most of the squares for the next step were already cut out, so: corners! Pieced together during lunch breaks and in the evening, not listening to The Adventure Zone (tho I did get in part of an episode of Kill James Bond about The Fast and the Furious)
(baby Blåhaj for scale)
I am for realsies going to pause here - there's three more sets that form another ring of sorts around the edge, and that will require cutting out a zillion tiny pieces, which I have done none of. Also now I have dress thread.
It will be interesting to get all the pieces to match up when it's time for assembly (one row at a time, then seam the rows together) but I'm very happy so far!
anyways remember when toni morrison said "sometimes you don't survive whole, you just survive in part. but the grandeur of life is that attempt. it's not about that solution. it is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances."
Submit your art to the 2026 Berkeley Frog Fest. One of the prizes is a field research trip to survey the Western spadefoot. The award categories include one for “Most frog.” I am not associated with this event in any way I just think there are people on this website who will Want to Know.
Much like Springfield before it, Seattle is one of the few major cities in the world with a monorail. That, combined with a more conventional light rail system, makes Seattle the rare U.S. city with two different types of train for public transportation. On Tuesday night, the rail system briefly had a third: a Mazda CX-5.
So we all talk about being in fandoms for things that are charmingly bad, and being able to acknowledge that they’re charmingly bad. But of course some people are in fandoms for things that are Actually Amazing. There are people out there who write fanfiction for The Best Science Fiction Novel Of The Twentieth Century. Or who draw fanart exclusively of The Best Movie of All Time. And there are even more people who are in fandoms for things that are Actually Pretty Good, which is not quite amazing but is closer to it than to Charmingly Bad.
And sometimes, you have a string of fandoms that are Actually Pretty Good. And the danger of this—the very great danger—is that when you have a string of Actually Pretty Good and even Actually Amazing obsessions, you start to believe that maybe you have taste. Perhaps you are now immune to the indignities of losing it over something mostly bad.
And then it is shattering to discover that no, bad things can still stick a fork in your brain. 😔
So I understand why the “transformative fandom gathers around things that are not good because there being a problem makes people desire to fix it” model is popular. I even agree that it’s accurate in many if not most cases. However it is not what this post is about. Plenty of people do transformative and creative fandom activities for things that are very, very good. Simplified models do not encompass everything.
And frankly, it’s starting to really get on my nerves when people read “I think this thing is good. I wouldn’t change a thing about it and frankly I don’t even think there should be more canon added to it, but I am still going to write thousands of words of fic, make a cosplay, and draw fanart” and then completely misunderstand and respond with “yes I agree—I like things that are good too. But I never feel the transformative/creative fandom instinct for them because they are too good.”
Some people do not feel it. Other people do. Stop misreading me to avoid having to adjust your mental model of how fandom works.
one of the ways a Canon work can be fandom bait is by missing something that fans want to fix, i.e. "it's bad", but i think this is only one way out of multiple that something can be fandom bait.
compelling worldbuilding (invites interaction with the setting)
interesting gimmick (see: daemons, drift compatibility. subcategory of compelling worldbuilding)
shipping bait (duh)
original character bait (in-universe categories/factions and design elements that make it fun for people to create their own characters)
compelling narrative (invites interaction and tweaks to the storyline: AUs and fixits and so on)
basically anything that invites interaction and recombination. but fandom also has a sort of multiplying effect: the larger the interactive audience of fandom is, the more likely it is to generate ideas and works that draw in more participants. so:
network effect (the larger the established fandom, the more likely it has subfandoms and infrastructure that appeals to niche audiences)
i've felt for a while the core motivator in transformative fandom is a desire for more.
If a story is charmingly bad, the desire is for more of the charming parts. More time spent with the side characters you love but got hardly any screentime, more time exploring the potential of the worldbuilding that is surface level at best. people want to fix bad art, sure, but they will only spend so much time doing so if there is something in there that they want to spend more time with
the desire to fix (or finish) a story and the desire for more often come together for fandoms, but i do think learning to separate them can be helpful in understanding the both social trends of fandom and in learning what in particular sticks a fork in your brain, personally
I saw that "ask me questions" post and it has prompted me to ask - those funky little sharpie (?) drawings you've been doing lately, and which I am loving: did something prompt those as an idea? Because they definitely feel like a series or variations on a mood or something!
ahhhh thanks for asking, glad you like them!
i had to kinda think about it for a sec, but it all really began when i recently bought myself a small pad of watercolor paper, a bottle of black india ink, and some pen & nibs to fool around with. i did a small doodle page which included a teeny-tiny Mer-Stede the size of my thumb (the sketch pad is only 4x6 in.)
Mer-May rolled around, and so i posted the tiny Mer-Stede pic to Bluesky, and then i figured he needed an Ed to keep him company, so i then drew him, also pretty small:
i had so much fun drawing him that i wanted to just.. keep doing it?
i've wanted to draw him for a long time but felt intimated by that prospect. but the doodles seemed kinda low risk, unserious, like it didn't even matter if they were "good" or not. my main goal is to capture his emotions/expressions, and Ed is an endless range of possibilities there. and i think i'm doing a pretty decent job. but the most important thing is, i am having fun and i am watching my skills grow in real time.
