Jesmalestiel Tells Tales

Rev | 30 | @jesmalestiel on ao3

[jesmalestiel]

Introductory Pinned Post

Hello there! I'm Reverend Jesmalestiel Silvertongue, Liege of Lies, Mischief, and Harsh Truths, Embracing Chaos & the Unknown since 1996.

I write things about fictional characters. I hope you enjoy it. If you don't there's lots of other stuff to read so... go read that instead?

This tumblr is primarily a vehicle for posting about my fanfics and reblogging posts about whatever my current hyperfixation is and/or screeching because AO3 is down again. Occassionally I post something serious because silence is complicity, but I do try to keep things relatively upbeat.

These days I mostly write for Marvel, but I also dabble in Doctor Who and Murderbot, among others.

In 2025 I committed myself to a truly outrageous amount of events and wrote 103,232 words across 74 fics, 7 of which were co-written, and as of March 7, 2026 I've posted or updated 16 fics (3 of which were cowritten) which total 32,895 words. I've linked below my masterposts for the events, however some of them are ongoing and won't end for another few months, and so I plan to edit this pinned post once they are live.

Feel free to podfic or make art of any fics where I am the sole author as long as you link back to the fic on AO3 and tag me if posting here on tumblr! If it's one of the stories I collaborated on, please comment on the fic to request permission. That being said, please do not repost the fics anywhere else, do NOT use them for AI training, and please ask permission first for translations.

My primary profile pic is a digital self portrait of myself in 15th Doctor cosplay.

Masterposts:

Flufftober 2025 Masterpost

Polyship Week 2025 Masterpost

SamBucky Reverse Bang 2026 Masterpost

Bodyslide Bingo Event Masterpost

Marvel Rare Pair Bingo Round 1 Masterpost

WinterHawk Bingo Round 6 Masterpost

Bucky Barnes Bingo Round 7 Masterpost

Coming Soon: Tony Stark Bingo Mark IX Masterpost

[honeyxmonkey]

We all know Grace is a yapper

But so is Rocky

He never stops talking

They get back to Erid and Rocky introduces Grace and Adrian to each other

And over the first few weeks that Adrian is observing them together, they hear Grace's non-stop yapping

And they just take a moment, and then with nothing but unrestrained (slightly fond) horror, they go "Oh my god there's two of them"

[coastette]

"Do you ever wonder if Grace's bike is still there at Grover Cleveland Middle School? Is it treated like a memorial for him after the annoucment of him volunteering to board the Hail Mary? Do you think his students visit it?"

[rika-mortis]

Life is beach

[raptorific]

Honestly I agree with the theory that Kyle’s birth name is Ben Organa and that Han took Leia’s last name but I disagree that it’s just because Alderaan is matriarchal, like, A. you’d better believe Han would’ve taken Leia’s last name no matter how patriarchal her culture was, and 2. Solo is the name of a notorious criminal with all sorts of bounties on his head, but Organa is a name associated with royalty, meaning Han could show up in sweatpants at any restaurant in the republic and get a table for Han and Chewie Organa without a reservation

[macabrekawaii]

Can we discuss that in this Chewie, also, has taken the name Organa 

[guineapiggies]

Via cid_dwyer

[overthinkingao3]

We write for ourselves, but we post for others.

(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)

So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,

and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing

but i also think:

“i write for myself, but i post for others.”

because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.

people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,

and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:

“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”

especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,

and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.

And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,

and then it’s like,

does anyone see me? does anyone even care?

[emily-e-draws]

this platform sure is decayed

[coolguppy856]

i love writing until im doing it

[prokopetz]

The author's poorly disguised fetish

The author's proudly displayed fetish

The author's fetish you're pretty sure they don't realise they have

The author's fetish which they're firmly convinced everyone has and is just pretending otherwise

The author's non-sexual special interest which just sounds like a fetish because of their habitually unfortunate phrasing

The fetish the author is making a well-meaning effort to cater to in spite of clearly not understanding it themselves

The author's fetish that never quite makes it into the text because they keep getting sidetracked by the requisite worldbuilding

The author's utterly pedestrian sexual preference which the text treats like a bizarre fetish because they've got shit to work through

The author's seemingly innocuous recurring trope they're going to have a personal revelation about ten years down the road

The author's fetish you missed on a first reading because it's so far out of pocket, it never occurred to you that you could sexualise that

[fortyflightower]

today i learned about the easter bilby.

[azriona]

@societyfolklore!!!!

I would totally get the Easter bilby; those ears are extremely easy to eat first.

[operaticundertker]

living with a leaky blob that has a random chance of snapping crackling and popping in different places must be stressful

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)

[ariesrin]

The worst part about writing is that sometimes you actually have to write.

The best part about writing is also that sometimes you have to write.

I will not elaborate further.

[writingdose]

fanfic writers who type their works directly onto ao3 instead of copy-and-pasting from elsewhere have no fear. fear fears them.

[mewy101]

I could never find the right way to tell you, have you noticed I've been gone?

[mawofthemagnetar]

What do you mean “chat” is now referring to ChatGPT and not twitch chat? What? What? What the fuck? No?

When I address chat I am speaking to a presumed Greek chorus of real human people shitposting on their lunch break, not a machine that devours lakes to covert electricity into slop.