RotundSparrow on Ao3. She/They. Made this side blog to reblog ship art to, and better communicate with people I've met through my writing. Currently I'm primarily writing for the Resident Evil fandom.
Fics contain NSFW content, please use your discretion and mind all tags.
While I'm not likely to crosspost my fics on tumblr ever (the chapters are... a bit too long to be feasible), I figured I'd pin a post that can be edited to update what I've written, and what I'm working on. I might change priorities as I go, but usually once I get started on something I'll at least try to finish it.
Also basically all of these are NSFW. So like, click at own risk.
Completed
Viticulture - 148k Words, Grace/Bela
Nessun Dorma - 4.5k Words, Grace/Selena
You Shouldn't Stare - 5.5k Words, Grace/Bela, based on art by bluemuffin-draws
Dollhouse - 6k Words, Grace/Bela/Donna
Joyride - 8k Words, Grace/Daniela
Actively Updating
Hematology (Miranda Raised Grace AU) - Grace/Bela, Updating a few times a week.
In Progress
Unnamed Post RE9 Fic - Grace/Donna
Planned/Would Like to Do
Viticulture Side Stories - Grace/Bela
SOMETHING with Grace/Cassandra. Possibly a horrible road trip. That'd be hilarious.
Seeing all these listed out like this I think I might have a problem.
Anyway, thanks all who read and leave comments/reach out! It's been a wild ride.
Miranda is okay with Grace not wanting to wear matching outfits anymore bc she’s a grown ass woman. And then she sees it… her sweet angel of a daughter and that succubus wearing a matching set. Not for a special occasion, no, just for fun
Alcina gets A LOT of calls that month cause how dare she raise someone like Bela
I feel she'd see them in matching scarves or something and suddenly Grace gets gifted like 6 different ones by Miranda, all of which her mother has a matching one for. Truly she is every nightmare mother-in-law trope rolled into one but she's also casually a serial killer.
I love how Miranda likes matching with her daughter I know she made Donna make the most over the top robes for Grace that were mini copies of hers. Mom of the century!
Oh absolutely Donna would have made at least a few small versions of Miranda's robes with little wing or feather embroidery motifs. I can see Miranda wanting them to match as a sort of unspoken sign of "yes, this is my child, even if there is not a huge family resemblance you should not question that" (moreau missed the memo apparently). RIP Donna trying to do her cadou research and then every few months Miranda is like "What if you made a whole new outfit for my child who will grow out of it in under a year."
And then as Grace grew up I think it became less common for her to directly match the outfits, but then Miranda likely would have aimed for complimentary accessories or aesthetics, like Donna making her the stole for the party and Miranda coordinating to wear silver while Grace wore gold, a sort of matching but distinct theme.
This ask HAS given me the mental image of Miranda and Grace at one of those retail store photo studios wearing the most horrendous matching sweater and jeans combo with Grace and doing all the awkward family christmas card poses.
rotund sparrow may i ask how old you are? or like a range? you write extremely well and like an…well like an adult but i don’t know what grown human would have enough time on their hands for all this😭
LMAO What a mood. I'm 29, going on 30 this year. And one might argue I don't, in fact, have the time to be doing all this but writing is right now my #1 hyperfixation so whenever I'm not working I'm usually doing that.
I think I mentioned in another post but I'm pretty lucky to have a work from home job that, when it's not in a busy period, I can sometimes write a bit during. This week is in fact one of those busy periods though so I might be a bit more scarce.
I picture Alcina and Donna as being married and everyone but Grace knows bc she wasn’t born yet when the wedding happened so Donna sometimes mentions her wife and Grace stares at a fake camera like ‘holy shit she’s gone mad and thinks she’s married’
LMAO YEAH.
I feel Donna and Alcina never had a wedding because their relationship is a poorly kept secret to prevent Heisenberg from blowing a gasket and trying to claim that was making the Four Lords less of a balanced group. But they definitely told most of the people who needed to know that they were a thing, and then decades later when Grace showed up... they forgor.
Poor Grace would be too polite to ever question Donna if she mentioned a lover or a partner, she'd probably assume it was some horrible past tragedy and why Donna likes to live alone.
Grace: So sad that Donna keeps talking fondly of that woman she loved who died...
Bela: MY MOM DIED?
headcanon that after she found out about Grace and Bela, Miranda randomly calls Alcina in the middle of the night to tell her her daughters are savages and then hangs up. Alcina never brings it up bc she knows that her cross to carry
Poor Alcina burdened with the stress of having three ridiculously hot daughters and Miranda having the world's most repressed lesbian as her kid. She should have known there would be nothing but drama in her future 😔
ohhhhh my god thank you for drawing this, 100% how I envisioned it. Truly while any of the sisters could pull off a suit.... Cassandra out there giving half the maids in the castle a crisis as they debate if the risk of stabbing is worth it.
The magic of your writing: I went from ‘isn’t little grace cuddling in Miranda’s wings cute’ to ‘oh.. Grace’s wings are causing new feelings… 😳’
Any design inspirations for the masks and dresses at the party in Hematology? Talk about Miranda having to deal with the literal wolves at the door hah!
I may have a slight obsession with wings as an underrated cool thing in fantasy. Horns and tails and sharp teeth? 10/10. Classics. But wings? Ooooo I could go on for HOURS.
As for outfit designs I went to pinterest, which is unfortunately ass for providing sources, and also etsy to browse mask ideas. When I go for outfit references more often than not it's because I have an idea in my head but I don't know how to describe it in the fic without seeing it in person. That said the one I found for cass... oof I want it to just be that on 100% exactly. I'll post some of the references under the cut so this doesn't become the new "Do you like the colour of the sky" post.
The sisters' masks were a really hard one to find inspiration for because when you type "wolf mask" into anything you tend to get very big bulky designs but I wanted something a bit more elegant? This one from CrazyHeadsHappyHeads on Etsy was the closest I could find, they have a version both with and without the ears, but I would likely ditch the teeth as it covers more of the mouth than I wanted. But this sort of fancy ornate filigree, and showing a good bit of the face (because they'd want to be able to see well still)
Outfit wise for her I was looking at all those classic "Dark academia" vibes of "very nice black blouse + fitted high waisted skirt = hot". Hers was probably the most basic of the batch, which Bela did on purpose to prioritize Grace's dress getting the attention. I think this is the one I posted in the groupchat? but black shirt, with some embroidery. And maybe not the big neck ribbon bow thing, cute as it is.
For Daniela I saw this image:
And while it's not exactly what I had in mind/what I described in the fic, it was close to what I wanted. It set the tone for my mental image if that makes sense Mainly black but with a splash of colour, albeit a kind of muted colour. I figured embroidery would be a good option there.
And Cassandra.... hoooooo Cassandra.
I saw this and the Discord chat I was in lost all semblance of dignity. I imagine both the cape and the fancy long part of the coat would be much shorter, but the goal for her was "Military-Inspired, slightly masc, vampire or evil prince vibes". And this delivered. And I imagine al lthe hardware would be swapped for Dimitrescu crests.
Donna I didn't use a reference but the spider motif I decided due to the Village of Shadows intro story in RE8 describing her as a "Dark Weaver" which happens to be a kind of spider. Felt fitting. And @ev4ngel1cal drew a really cute Donna pic that had her in a veil brimmed hat so when I was deciding how she'd fancy up, that stuck with me.
Miranda I 100% was lazy with. I think her outfit is already so suited for this kind of event that I was like "Make her mask not have the metal bar parts, and make it silver, and then give her a black dress that actually shows she has a figure and not just straight hanging robes. And then her fancy stole of course, which I'm obsessed with.
Heisenberg and Moreau I also didn't use a reference. Or, well, I tried to look at what vintage welding masks looked like? Cause I figured he would want to spite Alcina and wear the worst mask possible, but I opted for welding goggles when this is what I found.
I laughed for twelve years when I saw these bad boys.
Moreau... Sorry bud I couldn't see him dressing up fancier than maybe having a nicer fabric for his various coverings. I figured a scale or net themed mask would look best, no references there either, I was just like "teehee, pretty netting veil with bits of shiny things on it"
Alcina I tried DESPERATELY to find a good bat mask ref for, cause I wanted it to be the face of the bat not just "mask with bat wings" (though there are some LOVELY ones of those) but I could find one. Dress wise what I had in mind was a bit like this but probably more modern and less lacy, something that was reminiscent of her regular dress but a bit more ballroom, but not like. FULL ballroom.
And then for the maids, I figured their usual outfit but with a plain white masquerade style mask. I initially was going to do black but at the point I was planning outfits I wasn't sure how much fighting would be in the castle, and I wanted the chance for soupmaid to get a really fun lil splash of blood against her face/the mask. Instead SoupMaid ended up intercepted by Cassandra and the violence happened outside the castle.
If I missed anybody just let me know, and I'm happy to chat in the comments if people have more questions. I thought a lot about all this xD
Forgot GRACE. I was like "Ah yes, all the lords" and then left her out. I'm no better than Moreau.
@ravnravnfang did a really cute outfit design for Grace and while I wanted to stick her in a dress, this was a huge inspiration and is why she had a mantle and was wearing her stole again. They also did a design for a mask very similar to Mother Miranda's over discord which is how I got the description for Grace's
The magic of your writing: I went from ‘isn’t little grace cuddling in Miranda’s wings cute’ to ‘oh.. Grace’s wings are causing new feelings… 😳’
Any design inspirations for the masks and dresses at the party in Hematology? Talk about Miranda having to deal with the literal wolves at the door hah!
I may have a slight obsession with wings as an underrated cool thing in fantasy. Horns and tails and sharp teeth? 10/10. Classics. But wings? Ooooo I could go on for HOURS.
As for outfit designs I went to pinterest, which is unfortunately ass for providing sources, and also etsy to browse mask ideas. When I go for outfit references more often than not it's because I have an idea in my head but I don't know how to describe it in the fic without seeing it in person. That said the one I found for cass... oof I want it to just be that on 100% exactly. I'll post some of the references under the cut so this doesn't become the new "Do you like the colour of the sky" post.
The sisters' masks were a really hard one to find inspiration for because when you type "wolf mask" into anything you tend to get very big bulky designs but I wanted something a bit more elegant? This one from CrazyHeadsHappyHeads on Etsy was the closest I could find, they have a version both with and without the ears, but I would likely ditch the teeth as it covers more of the mouth than I wanted. But this sort of fancy ornate filigree, and showing a good bit of the face (because they'd want to be able to see well still)
Outfit wise for her I was looking at all those classic "Dark academia" vibes of "very nice black blouse + fitted high waisted skirt = hot". Hers was probably the most basic of the batch, which Bela did on purpose to prioritize Grace's dress getting the attention. I think this is the one I posted in the groupchat? but black shirt, with some embroidery. And maybe not the big neck ribbon bow thing, cute as it is.
For Daniela I saw this image:
And while it's not exactly what I had in mind/what I described in the fic, it was close to what I wanted. It set the tone for my mental image if that makes sense Mainly black but with a splash of colour, albeit a kind of muted colour. I figured embroidery would be a good option there.
And Cassandra.... hoooooo Cassandra.
I saw this and the Discord chat I was in lost all semblance of dignity. I imagine both the cape and the fancy long part of the coat would be much shorter, but the goal for her was "Military-Inspired, slightly masc, vampire or evil prince vibes". And this delivered. And I imagine al lthe hardware would be swapped for Dimitrescu crests.
Donna I didn't use a reference but the spider motif I decided due to the Village of Shadows intro story in RE8 describing her as a "Dark Weaver" which happens to be a kind of spider. Felt fitting. And @ev4ngel1cal drew a really cute Donna pic that had her in a veil brimmed hat so when I was deciding how she'd fancy up, that stuck with me.
Miranda I 100% was lazy with. I think her outfit is already so suited for this kind of event that I was like "Make her mask not have the metal bar parts, and make it silver, and then give her a black dress that actually shows she has a figure and not just straight hanging robes. And then her fancy stole of course, which I'm obsessed with.
Heisenberg and Moreau I also didn't use a reference. Or, well, I tried to look at what vintage welding masks looked like? Cause I figured he would want to spite Alcina and wear the worst mask possible, but I opted for welding goggles when this is what I found.
I laughed for twelve years when I saw these bad boys.
Moreau... Sorry bud I couldn't see him dressing up fancier than maybe having a nicer fabric for his various coverings. I figured a scale or net themed mask would look best, no references there either, I was just like "teehee, pretty netting veil with bits of shiny things on it"
Alcina I tried DESPERATELY to find a good bat mask ref for, cause I wanted it to be the face of the bat not just "mask with bat wings" (though there are some LOVELY ones of those) but I could find one. Dress wise what I had in mind was a bit like this but probably more modern and less lacy, something that was reminiscent of her regular dress but a bit more ballroom, but not like. FULL ballroom.
And then for the maids, I figured their usual outfit but with a plain white masquerade style mask. I initially was going to do black but at the point I was planning outfits I wasn't sure how much fighting would be in the castle, and I wanted the chance for soupmaid to get a really fun lil splash of blood against her face/the mask. Instead SoupMaid ended up intercepted by Cassandra and the violence happened outside the castle.
If I missed anybody just let me know, and I'm happy to chat in the comments if people have more questions. I thought a lot about all this xD
Absolutely obsessed with this oh my god. Our gal out here experiencing the full spectrum of life in the castle: from having to deal with the sisters being weird to getting to deal with Cassandra wanting more of a taste.
Truly you are our god and savior. We could make a religion out of this. Sparrowism, wherein worshippers pray to thee for thy works and godly imagination. The pathetic and whimpering Grace truther. Our bringer of joy and gothic gayness with some emotional torture.
Kudos to thee
Oh yeah, this one's going on the fridge. I need to go buy a little pope hat or something. RotundSparrow, Patron Saint of writing about women whimpering and blender operation. My ego will never recover, thank you for this gift.
okay hear me out… an au where Grace is Ethan’s daughter and she goes to Romania to find out how her father died and she ends up falling in love with Bela who is the one who killed him. The angstttt
Oooh, that could be juicy. And would solve my issue of "I can't let Ethan into Romania or all these wonderful ladies will end up dead."
RIP Ethan, died the first time Bela showed up because, much like me, he panicked and got caught on a corner while escaping.
