Ripowal

fic writer | potionomics & stardew valley & hollow knight | romantic tension, fluff, and eldritch nightmares (with a smattering of smut) | ao3 linked

[ripowal]

Hey hi hello, new pinned post!

I write fanfiction and make noise about the things I love. Currently attempting necromancy in the Potionomics tag; an ongoing effort to keep the fandom breathing. (And I'd be delighted if you wanted to join in the chanting and/or chest compressions! lol) Also: eldritch stardew valley horror, a little silksong, a chronic inability to be silent about discworld, and a steady drip of writing memes.

📚 Fanfiction Masterlist Link 📚 all my fics in one place

🏷️ In-Depth Tag Navigation 🏷️ complete tag list (by character, theme, etc.)

🧪 POTIONOMICS 🦈 · #potionomics · #finn x sylvia · #potionomics fanfic · #fluff · #smut · #silly little ideas — thoughts and discussion starters · #yapping analytically — meta and character analyses

🌾 STARDEW VALLEY X CTHULHU MYTHOS 🐙 · #stardew horror

✦ SILKSONG ✦ · #silksong fanfic · #shawkra

🐢 DISCWORLD 🐘🐘🐘🐘 · #discworld

💌 HOSTED EVENTS · #potionvalentines2026 — prompt event, read on AO3

· UPCOMING: #potiontrade2026 — art/fic trade, announcement here.

don't be afraid to ask me about writing, fandom, or whatever. chatting is enrichment for me. :3

always down for a small fic-for-art trade 👀 feel free to poke me if that’s something you’d want to do!

[sycamorality]

writing a canon divergent fix-it fic while also shaking my head to show that i actually really like the canon's tragic narrative and am not trying to say i think it would be better if canon was like this

[ripowal]

Sylvia's Character Voice

Stating the obvious: I love writing about Sylvia and Finn.

Writing Finn is really fun and easy because the man comes with a built-in voice kit. You've got the abundant fish puns, the dropped g's, "real" as an intensifier, the subject-dropped openers ("Knew you couldn't stay away"), the way he ends every other sentence reaching for agreement ("right?" "ain't it?"). He hands nicknames out like nobody's business, calls everyone chum and minnow and pal and killer. You can HEAR him on the page. Every line is doing something identifiably Finn.

But I want to talk about Sylvia's voice, because hers is sneakier and, I think, more interesting to break down because of it. She's incredibly expressive and animated even when she isn't speaking, but you don't have that visual aid to fall back on in fanfic.

A lot of what makes Sylvia sound like Sylvia is what she DOESN'T do. She doesn't pun—or rather, she primarily puns reactively, picking up someone else's metaphor and weaponizing it ("Yeah, yeah. Cry me a river. Then swim away in it."). She doesn't use pet names almost ever, which is itself a characterization choice against a cast where partners call her "cherry blossom" and "duchess" and "blightroach" (Finn alone has like four rotating nicknames for her at different relationship stages). She doesn't use much eye dialect beyond the occasional "wanna" or "gonna" or really any phonetic spelling at all. Her speech is clean, standard, grounded. She's the straight man to a town full of eccentrics and her "normalcy" is what makes everyone else's quirks land.

But she's not a blank slate, and this is where it gets fun. Because she absolutely has her own tics:

The parenthetical self-undercut when haggling is her signature move. She'll say something confident and then immediately deflate it in a little aside: "I have total faith in this potion. (Mostly.)" "You're dealing with a pro. (Honest.)" "I know my stuff. (Sometimes.)" It's such a specific rhythm: the confident claim followed by the quiet admission that she's not sure she believes it. It does so much character work in one beat. She's performing competence while privately flagging that the performance is shaky.

She takes metaphors literally as a comedy weapon. Someone says something dramatic and she just... grounds it. "'Bootstraps.' The expression is 'bootstraps.'" "As a person who deals with ratios all day, I can tell you that's too many halves." "How about mopping? Could the answer be mopping?" It's not wit in the obvious-wordplay sense, it's wit in the "I'm dryly declining to meet you at your register" sense and I love it!

She often expresses affection through comic mock-violence. "It's enough to make me want to learn necromancy so I can raise him from the dead just to kill him all over again." "Don't make me wrestle coconuts for your attention." The love is real and the threat is fake and that's the joke every time.

And a fun contrast: her masking runs in the opposite direction from Finn's. When Finn is hurt he gets BIG, all grandiose and morbid and catastrophizing. When Sylvia is hurt she gets small: jokey, self-deprecating, deflationary. But the second someone ELSE is hurting she drops the snark instantly and goes totally sincere. "We're all lonely sometimes. It's just part of being human." No joke. No capper. Just pure warmth. She's quippy about herself and gentle toward everyone else and that asymmetry is doing enormous emotional work under the surface.

She's a harder voice to imitate than Finn because you can't just add surface features. You have to know what to leave out and when to let the armor down.

I like the voice I have for her when writing, but I feel like I could tune it to be a biiiiiit more character true to the game. (you can't be fully 1:1 because things that work in the visual novel medium don't work in the non-visual-novel medium, haha, but you can get close!)

[an0neemouse]

Write whatever you want. Write that incredibly niche thing that only two other people on earth will get. Write the super indulgent cliche thing that makes you kick your feet giddily. Write the angry rage story that whumps them all and makes people cry.

Whatever it is that YOU want to write. Write it. Because only YOU can.

[noctfaery]

Time for Tuesday and potionomics! ✦Come watch me play on twitch✦ We're getting ready to take on Anubia

[asynca]

Write that one-shot. Those 3 chapters will be the best 10 chapters you ever wrote

[ripowal]

Sylvia's a good friend and a better listener. That's why gift-giving is the main way she shows love (translating the gifting game mechanic) (the other is quality time because she has precious little of it and spends it engaging with all her friends' hobbies).

Imagining Finn mentions bioluminescent kelp candy once. Coffee conversation, totally offhand: strips of sweet kelp that glow when you chew them, little sparks of light in your mouth. Novelty snack that deeper-dwelling merkids used to trade for. He brings it up the way you bring up anything from childhood that doesn't exist in your life anymore; it's just a fun fact, no big deal. Probably mentions it because she continues denying herself small joys and snacks, and glowing kelp candy was both.

But of course Sylvia tracks some down. Deep-sea courier service, complicated, possibly involving favors from Baptiste's shipping contacts or questionable sources through Salt & Pepper. She presents it casually, like it wasn't a whole to-do to acquire.

Finn recognizes it immediately, and the glow activates when he bites down and it lights up his teeth from the inside, which is objectively very cool-looking, but he's too busy being emotionally blindsided by her paying close attention to what he thought was idle chatter trying to convince HER to live a little.

And underneath the nostalgia there's the other thing he's still getting used to: someone just giving him something. No angle, no exchange rate, no favor owed. Just something for him.

(but also there's no way she's getting away with not trying some, and man, if he thought her smile glowed before...)

[ripowal]

Baptiste's Pokémon Team

Roserade

Roserade is based on a combination of a bouquet of roses and a mysterious patron of a masquerade ball; a classic noble event where attendants hide their identities. Baptiste is a noble performing the role of approachable guildmaster, constantly masking his aristocratic background ("I'm trying to downplay all that. You know. To help me fit in"). Flowers are his favorite gift category, and his custom potion order "Taking Life by the Thorns" is about growing prize-winning roses. Roserade's practically his personal brand.

The Diamond pokedex entry says it "attracts prey with a sweet aroma, then downs it with thorny whips hidden in its arms," which is Baptiste's signature charm concealing a sharp mind running calculations about guild politics and corporate reform: "Captivate your audience forthwith."

Sinistea

Sinistea is a spectral creature living inside a teacup, and Baptiste's tea scene is one of his most telling character moments. He serves Sylvia tea that's clearly astringent and cheap: "I notice you haven't touched yours in a few minutes, and I feel we should drink it down quickly… before it melts my good porcelain!" A nobleman whose refined tastes haven't quite adjusted to frontier-quality supplies. Sinistea comes in two forms—Phony Form and Antique Form—and you can't tell the difference without checking the bottom of the cup. Is Baptiste the genuine article, a noble with real commitment to reform? Or a well-meaning counterfeit, a rich kid playing at populism?

The Shield pokedex says Sinistea "will only allow a Trainer it trusts to sample it," and Baptiste shares his real concerns—about morale, about corporate pressure, about his own inadequacy—only with Sylvia. The tea is terrible, but sharing it is an offering of trust.

Popplio

Popplio is an enthusiastic performer whose attempts at entertaining don't always land. Baptiste's morale-boosting efforts are deeply sincere and deeply awkward: his potion order "Don't Drop the Ball" is about learning to juggle while tending bar, "A Song of Icy Fire" is a red-hot slushie described as "an acquired taste," and he does karaoke and ventriloquism for fun. He's a performer at heart… for an audience that isn't sure whether to applaud or cringe. But like Popplio—whose final evolution is the most elegant starter of its generation—Baptiste's earnestness eventually wins people over.

Minccino

Minccino's White pokedex entry says "these Pokémon prefer a tidy habitat. They are always sweeping and tidying up, using their tails as brooms." Baptiste is always tidying, physically and organizationally. He tracks hero stats, manages expeditions, administers quests, keeps the bar stocked, and personally greets every visitor. He runs the guild the way Minccino runs a den: everything has a place, everything gets attended to. He's a fastidious noble on the frontier, polishing trophies to shine, serving fine porcelain even when the tea is terrible, tending roses at a guildhall where scorpions end up in his shoes; not just clean, but anxious about cleanliness as a form of maintaining standards in a place that keeps testing them.

Gallade

Gallade is "a master of courtesy and swordsmanship" according to the Diamond pokedex. A knight who fights out of duty to protect, which is Baptiste working hard to uplift a frontier guild outpost. Gallade evolves from a male Kirlia using a Dawn Stone, making evolution a deliberate choice to become a protector. Baptiste could have taken a cushy made-up job back home, but instead chose the frontier post where the guild needed real work, and that choice defines him. The move Charm is the thematic anchor: it sharply lowers the opponent's Attack by making them less willing to fight, and charm is "Baptiste's whole thing." The heroes prank him relentlessly—scorpions in his shoes, rotten fruit, shaving cream—and he responds with unfailing graciousness.

Cherubi

Baptiste is a "fledgling barkeep" constantly experimenting with mixed drinks, making Cherubi the garnish dropped into the glass with a flourish. The most literal pick on this team, and it earns its spot through that simplicity. The Sun/Moon pokedex adds that "Cherubi is often the target of bird Pokémon because its small appendage is rich with nutrients." Considering the heroes prank him constantly, his family dismisses Rafta as a money pit, and Quinn rakes him over the coals in negotiations… Well, he's a sweetheart that everyone takes a bite out of, but the nutrients he provides—morale, structure, reform—keep the whole guild ecosystem running!

I love how Baptiste's team came together! #potionomics pokemon teams for everybody else. (🌞 btw, I’m also running a small Potionomics summer art/fic exchange! signups open June 17 → [LINK])

[nondelphic]

i’m not procrastinating. i’m allowing the story to ferment. like kimchi. or a crime scene

[lestatfag]

STAY SAFE!! [ID: the Gilbert Baker pride flag with the words “Happy pride to all those who are unable to celebrate openly and safely. You are loved and seen!” in all-caps black text over it. /end ID]

[thewizzardwithin]

sometimes i mourn for what satirical masterpieces terry pratchett could have crafted in today's political climate

[ripowal]

Landfall

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It does some other things, too. Like make a shark put both feet forward on the homecoming.

Sylvia, charitable as ever, makes time for the encore."

Fandom: Potionomics Ship: Boss Finn/Sylvia Rating: Explicit Word Count: 7,000 Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Series: Part 3 of Off-Label Remedies

A/N:

Happy Mermay! 🦈

I started this fic ages ago and finally had the perfect excuse to finish it, because if there's one month of the year to debut dual-anatomy Finn, this is it! (Sometimes you make a shark man fishier by adding, not subtracting.)

Same Finn, now with 100% more dick.

Tags: Established Relationship | Cohabitation | Explicit Sexual Content | Oral Sex | Cunnilingus | Vaginal Sex | Mating Press | Cowgirl Position | Implied Consent | Interspecies Relationship(s) | Human/Monster Romance | Shark Hybrid | sharp teeth | Non-Human Genitalia | Two Dicks One Shark | Reunion Sex | Porn with Feelings | Banter | character-driven smut | Multiple Orgasms | Mild Overstimulation | Post-Coital Cuddling | Finn POV

Excerpt:

"Missed you too, Minnow."

"Too?" One brow quirked as she reeled her smile in and drew a hand back to examine her nails, though the other remained conspicuously embedded in the band of muscle above his elbow. "I barely noticed you were gone."

Standing there with the crackle of desire radiating off her like the sun. Looking up at him with those huge, glittering eyes and lying through her teeth right to his face, bold as brass. Fully transparent and committing to the bit anyway.

He was so in love with her it was stupid.

"That so." He managed to keep his tone stoic. Mostly; humor nibbled at the periphery. "Not even a little? I take up a lotta space."

"Actually," she said, tapping a thoughtful finger to her chin, "now that you mention it, I did sleep diagonally in the bed. Very roomy."

His grin was getting away from him. Spreading sharp and warm, and her eyes didn't miss it.

"You always squeeze this hard," he said, "when you barely notice somebody's gone?"

Her fingers were, in fact, locked in with the tensile strength of a mooring line. She did not loosen them.

"This is a standard hello, Finn."

"Uh-huh."

"I greet everyone like this."

"Might need to talk about that."

That cracked her. Head tipped back, throat exposed, surrendered to the laughter. When she came back down her eyes found his and stayed, dark and direct and done pretending.

"Yeah," she said. "Maybe later."

Then she went up on her toes and kissed him. Hard. Fisted his collar and pulled, and he came down to meet her, and his mouth opened against hers with every ounce of pent-up want behind it. She made a low hum, pleased, the exhale of something held too long finally released, and her fingers twisted tighter in his shirt.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85759481

[zinjanthropusboisei]

please look at these amazing illustrations Ursula K. LeGuin did for one of her essays on writing workshops:

"The Writer is liable to feel like a little, tiny person all alone in a desert where the sand is words. Giant figures of Best-Sellers and Great Authors loom over her like statues—Look on my works, ye puny, and despair!—This lonely, sitting-there person may find that in a work-centered workshop she can draw on the kind of group support and collaborative rivalry, the pooled energy, that actors, dancers, and musicians, all performing artists, draw on all the time.

And so long as ego-tripping is discouraged, the process of the workshop, depending on mutual aid, stimulation, emulation, honesty, and trust, can produce an unusually pure and clear form of that energy.

The participant may be able to carry some of that energy home, not having learned “how to write,” but having learned what it is to write.

I think of a good workshop as a pride of lions at a waterhole. They all hunt zebras all night and then they all eat the zebra, growling a good deal, and then they all come to the waterhole to drink together. Then in the heat of the day they lie around rumbling and swatting flies and looking benevolent. It is something to have belonged, even for a week, to a pride of lions." (from The Wave in the Mind, 2004)

[ripowal]

Lying here sniffling and sneezing and coughing, I'm wondering how the Potionomics characters take care of each other when sick.

I'm imagining Sylvia sick and Finn insisting what she needs is this broth his Gummy used to make. It'd cure anything, get you right as rain in no time.

Sylvia takes one sip and almost chokes. It is bar none the saltiest thing she's ever encountered, and she works with alchemical compounds. It could de-ice the street in front of her shop. Her eyes are watering and now she's coughing and spluttering for two reasons.

Finn's terribly defensive about it. This broth is ancestral medicine! Perfected across generations! Sylvia stops chugging water long enough to rasp, "Yeah, generations of sharks!"

He tastes it. It's perfect. He tastes it again because she's making him doubt himself and no, it's perfect. The broth is fine, her taste buds are wrong. Okay, maybe it's a little on the salty side. Okay, maybe it's better for merfolk. Fine, he'll add water.

She's not touching that again. If she finishes a mug of it she'll be halfway mummified. (Real talk: acute salt poisoning, do not try Gummy's broth at home.)

He makes her some nutritious chowder instead.

[asynca]

message to prospective writers

i need to warn you about something terrible: after you've finished your story and are emotionally done with it and satisfied you will need to read it another four or five hundred times. possibly more. and when you think you will not have to read it any more, you will find a typo. and fixing it will create a grammar dilemma. and then you will wake up in the middle of the night like WAIT WAS THAT THE RIGHT WORD, SHIT I NEED TO CHECK and also you will need to google "what is a drive train" even though you know what a drive train is, in case it turns out you don't know what it is

and then you should probably read it one more time

[ripowal]

Mint's Pokémon Team

Tinkaton

Tinkaton is an adorable creature that wields a crude, gigantic metal hammer weighing over 220 pounds and swings it like it weighs nothing. The design references small and seemingly innocent looking girls with gigantic weapons from JRPGs, and Mint is that archetype played completely straight. She flattens cookie dough with her hammer! She's a basher, not a slasher. The evolution line mirrors Mint's weapon quest: Tinkatink starts with a rattle-like hammer that gets stolen constantly, Tinkatuff fights to collect metal for a stronger one, and Tinkaton's final hammer is the crude-but-devastating culmination of all that effort. Mint searches endlessly for a legendary weapon, finds duds (a glowing sword useless for stealth, a heavy rock that's just exercise equipment), and ultimately discovers her journey is about building herself up.

Herdier

Herdier is the "Loyal Dog Pokémon" and it's acting as the protective companion Mint's two dads would absolutely have given her when she for Rafta. Loyal, practical, tough enough to handle monsters, and hardwired to keep its charge safe. The White pokedex entry says it "helps Trainers, and also takes care of other Pokémon," making it a parental proxy; the family's love in canine form. The hidden ability Scrappy lets Normal-type moves hit Ghost-types, and Mint is nothing if not scrappy, refusing to back down from anything. The design detail about Herdier's cape of hard fur functioning as armor parallels Mint's role as a tank: she protects others, and Herdier protects her.

Corvisquire

Corvisquire is the middle evolution between Rookidee and Corviknight, and that middle-evolution energy is exactly where Mint is in her arc. She's not Rookidee anymore, she's past the "just arrived in town" stage, she's fighting real monsters, she's completed dungeons and quests. But she's not Corviknight yet—not the legendary armored knight, the famous hero whose name people recognize from trading cards. She's Corvisquire: bold, intelligent, punching above her weight class, still growing into the hero she'll become. "I'm not the worst. But I'm not the best. Not in any category."

Cubone

Cubone is probably most famous for mourning its dead mother. Mint also has no mother—only two loving dads and eight siblings (tragic backstory = ironic contrast). Plus, Mint loves Bones-based gifts and Cubone wields a bone as its weapon. There's a genuine connection beneath the comedy, though, where Cubone is classified as the "Lonely Pokémon," and Mint, for all her cheerfulness, is a bit lonely in Rafta. She's surrounded by legends she grew up idolizing but can't quite bridge the gap from fan to peer. "I'm eating at the same table as people I've written fan fic about!"

Charcadet

Charcadet has a two-path evolution that captures Mint's inner tension: Armarouge (Fire/Psychic paladin, defensive, protective) or Ceruledge (Fire/Ghost dark knight, aggressive, haunted). Mint is clearly on the Armarouge path—she's a tank who shields her allies—but the Ceruledge potential simmers underneath, the part of her that's "really mad" and chases con artists off her dads' property with a +1 stapler. The Scarlet pokedex entry says Charcadet's "firepower increases when it is in a good mood, and it starts firing off sparks indiscriminately when it gets excited," and that's Mint's enthusiasm made elemental. A girl who might "blush so hard my head bursts into flames" and whose Fortitude card captures the energy of someone burning with conviction.

Bramblin

Bramblin is a Grass/Ghost type—a tumbleweed—and it captures two of Mint's interests in one creature: the botanical (Plants are another favored gift) and the spooooky (the Bones and Mana she also loves). The evolution into Brambleghast is the real clincher: it happens when Bramblin takes 1,000 steps using the Let's Go feature. Not leveling up, not using a stone, just putting one foot in front of the other. Mint's a tank, "and tanks keep moving forward." It's a perfect fit for her whole ethos!

I think Mint's got a pretty solid team going here! #potionomics pokemon teams for everybody else.

(🌞 btw, I’m also running a small Potionomics summer art/fic exchange! signups open June 17 → [LINK])

[verditer4444]

约稿，我喜欢我的船