Niobium@AO3

Writing/fandom blog for Niobium@AO3 ~*~ @staypuftmarshmallowqueen is my non-fandom-blog ~*~ See the pinned post for details

[niobiumao3]

As the blog name indicates, I am Niobium from AO3 and SquidgeWorld. Likes will show from @staypuftmarshmallowqueen.

Here you will find links to most of my stories (crossposted to SW) ,the occasional excerpt, my complaints thoughts about writing in general and fanfiction in particular, and anything I might want to reblog from the various fandoms I write in.

Specifics below the cut.

Me: I am disinclined to share personal info. Sorry, that's just how I roll. If that means you'll avoid the blog, no worries. Everyone should curate their experience as they see fit.

Blog rating: I sometimes post/reblog nsfw stuff. I try to make sure to tag it all for easy filtering (#nsfw or #adult) but see below re: tagging.

My fic: I post on AO3. I crosspost to SquidgeWorld when I can, and post links here, particularly if someone from Tumblr said something which inspired a fic. Most of my fic is Gen/Teen, with the rare Mature/Explicit.

Fandoms: Most of what you'll see is Star Wars*, MCU, Star Trek, some DC animated and film, some comics stuff. A wide range of others like Narnia, PacRim, and more will show up as things release.

Tagging: I stopped tagging stuff a while ago, am trying to get back into doing so. Apologies, I just lack the energy some days. I'll occasionally do a quick sweep and try to catch up. I will always tag current spoilers as #spoilers and the fandom in question, plus anything relevant (eg. episode number or movie name). I'll keep tagging them for about a month or so.

Shipping: I'm largely ambivalent about shipping and such these days. I have pairings I like and those I don't, but I just ignore the ones I don't.

Who I reblog from: I do not vet everyone I reblog from nor am I going to. I'm too old and tired for that sort of thing.

Anon Asks: Fuck around and find out.

Fanart and Commissions I've received

Possibly useful posts you might be looking for:

Havoc Marauder Interior Layout - updated 2025/08/13

Tags you might care about (as noted above I suck at tagging):

fanfic (mine)

Lego stuff (mine)

fanart (other people's)

cosplay (other people's)

* I am way on my SW bullshit right now because TBB but it will probably pass once we're a few months into the Year of Hell waiting for S3. Probably. Maybe. Look, no promises. lol what was I thinking

[nika6q]

If Tech had dark armor.

No goggles below

[jigget]

And artfight is on! Got to attack @pinetree-thetooka and their adorable tooka.

[jellyfishforest135]

Poor Zeb just perpetually third-wheeling until Sabine joined the crew

[transfemmesam]

“proship fanfiction normalizes incest” okay well that’s literally the same repackaged statement as “violent video games cause school shootings”, which is demonstrably untrue. and also if game of thrones (Extremely popular show) didn’t normalize incest, neither will a wincest fic with 350 hits. peace and love

[thirstkanaphan]

[aouralune]

”I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die whilst you discuss this invasion in a committee”

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[bring-backup-99]

Yeah. Basically. 😭

[station18908]

The small voice in your head that says: "I don't need to write down every small detail of this plot idea, I love it so much, I'll remember this."

That's the devil speaking.

[stopthatbluecat]

Star Trek Title Card Generator

[roseworth]

i think theres this idea in the general public that the "best" fanfic gets turned into real books like 50 shades of grey. but the truth is that the best fanfic can never be published as an actual book because its intricately woven into the canon material so its inseparable even if you change the names

[roseworth]

wearing a shirt that says “even in an au fanfiction, the characters, relationships, or even the scenarios are recognizable in the best fanfic, and an au without ties to the source material may be a fine story but it’s not a good fanfiction” and booty shorts that say “I HATE FUN”

[flybynite19]

Day 2 tech week @tbbtechweek

[amarcia]

You are slowly becoming more and more unrecognizable to yourself (this is just what growing up feels like)

✨🌙  ART LOG ->  @404ama

this one is a direct result of tumblr user mari-madas sending me swtor dressups for cirz that's probably way more reasonable garb for the imperial time for him than a tunic but he has preferences...

[inkscapepony-art]

"ANY BRIGHT IDEAS?!" "I'M WORKING ON IT!"

[superiorsniper]

[fuckyeahcostumedramas]

Jessica Parker Kennedy in ‘Black Sails’ (2014). x

[en-theos]

This is probably a sensitive topic to ask, but why is there such a huge discord on the mythology fandom about the skin color of the gods and of certain mythological characters? This is related to Lupita's casting as Helen of Troy in the upcoming Nolan movie

hi anon i see you've selected the can of worms special today

tl;dr because people are really invested in greek mythology depicted according to their worldview of either 1) ancient greece as the foundation of the West and Whiteness 2) ancient greece being greek cultural heritage and thus exclusively for and by modern greeks 3) people's own ideas of historical accuracy and to what extent historical accuracy is moral because of its truth value and 4) the only moral way of adapting historical/historically Westernized literature is doing it with as little regard for historical ethnicity as possible. -> this way is never actually that unbiased. characters have characteristics that can be racially coded and stories often have racial themes because it's a huge part of history.

the main issue of the discourse revolves around a preference for creative casting and "authentic" casting, "authentic" here being in quotation marks because this is moreso about affective historicity (what feels historically authentic) than historical accuracy. This is also known as the Tiffany effect: a name that sounds hella out of place before the 20th century, but actually was recorded as a nickname for Theophania in old timey england.

So Nolan has opted for creative casting, not necessarily in tune with the actual diversity of the ancient mediterranean-which buries the opportunity for actually highlighting the complexity of the ancient Levant and the many different peoples interacting in that place and time, in history or literature/myth. The ethiopians are actually mentioned in Homer! Egyptians and Phoenicians too! Many heroes can even be said to descend from these as well (Europa was Phoenician, making the knossian and theban dynasties phoenician, Andromeda either phoenician or ethiopian, making the line of perseus half-that, Danaus was Libyan and married his daughter(s) to egyptian princes, hippolyta was a western asian amazon, etc. etc. etc.). greek mythology is actually wildly interested in its neighbours, distant lands, and other peoples! Not in a good way necessarily! but that's where modern adaptations can creatively dismiss their bigoted bs!

But instead of tuning into the diversity of the ancient world, 'creative casting' presents ancient ethnicity as irrelevant, necessarily cheapening the worldbuilding in favour of the actor's abilities. This is, in my opinion, of less value when it's an exclusively A-list cast selected for star power where the majority is still anglo-saxon af. It's an easy excuse for filmmakers to hide behind, and can be really dicey when the story being adapted actually has racial themes. This is the case, imo, with the new Wuthering Heights, where it makes no sense casting an east asian actor for the role of 'epitome of British noble imperialist chauvinism' and casting a white actor for the racially coded scapegoat Other protagonist. creative casting has its limits, and one of those limits is the very real history of racial oppression.

the authentic casting camp tends to split into two sides, where one is protesting creative casting for accuracy's sake and the other because they're white fucking supremacists and greek nationalists who believe no one in ancient Greek ever saw or was an african let alone a sub-saharan african. Which is dumb as hell. the ancient world was centred around the Mediterranean sea, ALL COASTS, not Europe. there was arguably more interaction between ethiopia and india and greece than there ever was between germany and greece. This makes arguing for authentic casting a veritable minefield, because in no time you'll have people yelling that all the actors should be white or that is is a moral imperative that all the actor were born in greece and born greek. don't let this fool you: it's about a white claim to the literary material, just a specific type of whiteness.

Nevertheless, i tend to be sympathetic of people criticizing creative casting choices for accuracy's sake (NOT the white-only bs!!!!), based on the fact that in the entire cast (and this is very often the case) none of the actors are greek, mediterranean, or middle eastern. the cast of Nolan's Odyssey is very much america's idea of diversity- meaning all white people in the cast are piggy white and the others, who make up only half or less of the main cast, are mostly black with some other ethnicities represented by single actors. This reminds me of the series Troy: Fall of A City, which took the same approach, but where imo it was very telling which characters ended up being white and which didn't. I found it telling there that Zeus and Achilles, neither a main character and both depicted as (physically) powerful and overbearing characters, were black actors, and wrathful goddesses in the story such as Athena and Artemis were black, but Aphrodite, the main deity in the adaptation, protector of the protagonists helen and paris and goddess of beauty, was an ivory-skinned ginger woman. There's racial coding involved that cannot be ignored.

Mythology, though, is a more fantastical literary world and not the real Ancient Greece at any point in time which people clamoring for a bronze age depiction of Homeric epic tend to neglect. i.e. I think creative casting makes more sense in a Homeric epic than in an adaptation of the Persian wars. Even though Greek mythology is still incredibly tied to the land (literally, via aetiology: a myth happened in a specific place which had a religious effect on the place), there is wiggle room. I'm mostly just frustrated that this never seems to be used with much intent or thought behind it. I see the subversiveness of casting Lupita as the most beautiful woman in the world (a role that suits her!!) but i find it telling that it is not penelope, for example, who is the main love interest and not a side character. creative casting is dope but i rarely see it done in a way that doesn't still create narrative/meta tension.

to conclude: the discourse arises from whether people find creative casting or authentic casting more politically correct, and to what extent it is fair to bend accuracy for inclusivity. i'm no huge fan of any of the approaches hollywood tends to take, because they either present an american-centric idea of diversity or go for an all (anglo) white cast, which buries the diversity of the ancient world either way and never lets people out of the binary of historical white vs. modern multicultural.

[fredgolds]

this is one of the funniest jokes in the entire series and it happens like two minutes into the first episode