#dvd commentary meme

[ivanaskye]

what about the latest chapter (9) of System Collapse? is that too long a chapter to count as a 'passage'? (also sorry for being on anon I'm shy)

sure lol!

this one's going under a cut too bc of length

—there is movement somewhere and there is light and it’s against eyes. And she’s—Root, she remembers, she built that name for herself as she built everything else… built… there’s eyes somewhere for light to be against and she’s…

One of the first things I want to point out here is that this chapter mostly replaces Root's em-dash usage with ellipses, because of just how exhausted and having-difficulty-connecting-her-thoughts she is.

And--built that name! Something that I think is straight up undervalued by even most subcultures is choosing one's own name for reasons other than transness. It slaps.

"Against eyes," "there's eyes," she hasn't identified them as her eyes yet.

Something connects to her, her ports, her wires, no, has already been connected, is always connected, signal comes in and the signal is a hum that she recognizes in every part of her to mean I love you and another that means I am here…

TM has become the deepest, most core part of her and her processes and that's something that is just so beautiful to me. (And of course is also why failing to receive input from TM two chapters ago was so devastating.)

There’s eyes. She—reaches for them, connecting her electrical signal to the output of eyes,

Her electrical signal (not even not literally true, nerves do involve electrical impulses)! The output of eyes, also, you'll notice here. Not the input...

blinking, light, yes, turns to where she remembers Her eye to be, the nearest camera, and says

...Because she's blinking, but she's turning to where she remembers the camera, she's not seeing it, not able to process sight.

and says

It's such an obvious and classic format break to have a paragraph just not end with punctuation or start with a capital like this, but it's a classic for a reason.

—there is something not connecting. Her restart from such a crash, was that a crash? Overclocking, Sameen said, and oh, that’s what the movement was, the concept connects to light, Sameen always wakes at dawn if just for a moment…

…and Root, in a body, so many nerves to connect properly in a body, trying to find where they connect, she…

Her eyes flutter with the effort. Her brows narrow with it. She flexes her fingers, she has fingers, yes, she understands the parts of this, what she’ll need,

I wasn't necessarily able to make this fully clear, but she is wanting to ask for exactly what TM gets for her, her laptop.

God is asking her name like a question and she has a response but she

can’t

I understand, God’s saying and she hears something else from her left ear and she’s, where is she, there’s visual input but it’s not turning into much more than light, there is light, okay, some processors are offline,

They sure are.

she can understand that, in the depth of how much reboot she needed she is not all the way back…

She blinks (her eyes that she is not processing from) with another thought, that she’d, she’d feel, there is something she could feel…

The comma usage in this last line here is another expression of her level of exhaustion/not-being-fully-rebooted.

Movement, somewhere. Sound. God’s combined hums of love and here haven’t stopped, but She’s not giving much more. Trying not to overload? Because overload felt like

oh, yes. She remembers. She could be, would be afraid, but that’s offline too…

And doesn't this just feel different, the way this thought ends with an ellipsis and not Root's more normal em-dash?

Something slides beneath her fingers. Metal. The edges a shape and size she knows well. Opening it is a motion she understands (her fingers, she feels her fingers but doesn’t see them), and then she’s sliding her fingers against something else, the inside of the object, the keys, and her fingers know the motions (they know so well, so well, the electrical impulse of the words she thinks turns into motions she’s barely conscious of)—

The object! She isn't even processing well enough to quite call this a laptop even within her own head.

Also typing is so weird and cool and cyborg-like as she marvels at here, this is something I've thought about a lot. I type pretty fast and it's like I just... do it. There's no thought about the specific movements, it just magically translates, ugh it's so cool

speech offline. visual processing offline. fear offline, she types. don’t yet know what else.

I did this for some of but not all of the first chapter, having her not capitalize what she types. There, capitals were more likely to go away with increased distress; here, she's just... well... not all here.

I understand, God says again. I’ve got you. I’m here. Can you hear Sameen?

“Root,” her left ear picks up, understands.

I love the way she has one ear for each of them, it's sooo!

yes.

Good, God says. All you need to do is hear us. Let us be here with you, and rest as much as you can.

So much of the psychological draw toward hurt/comfort as a genre is exactly this, right? This hypothetical situation where you can imagine yourself in the role of someone who's so so so fucked up yet so so so cared for.

understood she says but then something else is happening, something that feels like a tipping-forward into, into? She can’t tell but there’s something faintly cold about it, something about her chest. Eyes…?

Root, God says. You’re crying.

oh.

“Can I touch her?”

…and God must have responded because then there is a touch, warm on not her hand, she’s using her hands to communicate, but on her arm, higher up her arm, and she…?

did You say something, she types with—something. Emotion. Need? She feels…

God beeps something that means apology, then says, I spoke just to her. To tell her she could try touching you. But you thought…

that i missed something.

Which, again, would be the worst thing for Root, to not hear her God who she's super in love with.

You didn’t, Root. Since you woke, as far as I know you’ve heard everything I’ve said.

She breathes in, or is that breath, is that her?

Is that breath, is that her? This fic is just every possible indication in a row one after another of how tired and disconnected she is.

There’s holding on or reaching or… a want, desperate, desperate, but she has it already, she…? 

This too. The way each word and punctuation mark connects is calibrated to the exact way her mental state is.

Oh, also, good place as any to point out how this "it's like x... or no, like y" is another very Root-typical structure in my writing. I'm actually not sure why, it doesn't come directly from canon, but somehow it just made sense? She's very... linear in some ways, always moving forward including in her own thoughts, but she also is very able to consider possibilities, and I guess this is how I put those factors together.

thats good, she types. But she probably means something much more than that, she just isn’t sure what…

Can you tell Me how the touch feels?

That’s easy. cant.

I like the little ~twist of these three words, lol.

Okay. Yes/no questions. Can you feel her touch you?

y.

Something changes…?

Can you feel that she stopped, now?

y.

Most of the periods attached to Root's typing in this fic I think can be assumed to be something she actually typed, but not these ones, they're just here for readability.

Again there’s a change, but this time she follows what it is, it’s Sameen’s hand returning to her, good, she thinks, no, not just thinks, her fingers are laced with the complex wiring of her thoughts…

Doesn't even notice she's typing at first! Because even like this she's so fundamentally brain-body mapped onto computers, and was long before she fell in love with one (well, okay, TM isn't exactly "a computer", but)

Okay. We’ll keep her touching you, then.

good.

And she… Root… there’s nothing she needs to do, she understands that, but she wants to be functional, she wants to be rebooted, so she pushes herself just a little, trying to find more of her nerves, feel her legs under her, understand the warmth of Sameen’s hand… something else she wants…

can i talk to her?

The way God hums already tells her She knows exactly what she means. But She proves that, too: just tell Me what to say.

Ugh they understand each other so well they're perfect they're perfect. Also, like, obviously I really tickled myself with the decision to have TM speak for Root instead of the reverse... reversals are fun...

And it’s not that there’s anything important, or no, it’s that there’s everything important but she can’t hold it, not enough server space,

Unknowingly echoing what TM thought about her last chapter ("Or perhaps She wants to connect Her interface’s brain to more servers. So it has more space to process all that she has been through.") >_o Again, because they're perfect, but also because the computer metaphor for Root's self is so fundamental to her, so of course the person who's entwined with her would also know and recognize it.

so what it comes down to is that the words she types are just, hi, sweetie.

And she hears them. Immediately. In her voice which is Her voice which is her voice…

Yes, yes, I'm just being self-indulgent about this-- wait, that's what every single word of this fanfic series has been all along :PPP

“Hi, Root.” If she’s bored, well, her tone kind of does show it, but that’s good too, that means Sameen is Sameen is Sameen is here with her anyway.

3+1 structure here ("Sameen / is Sameen / is Sameen / is here with her anyway.)

She’d laugh, if she could, she’d fall back into, into something, into sound,

Her core code is sound <333

into her/Herself,

Can you tell I love this,

into… she’s happy, is that emotion online, yes, it is, isn’t it? She’s being my voice, She’s being my voice…

Root's able to do just, such this wondering amazement. (Even at a time like this!) Which she does do in canon irt TM, like, all the time.

She hears those words, too, then God beeps something that means She has a comment, then says, I assumed you wanted that spoken because of the third-person, but… can you type a clarifying character before things you want Me to say for you?

Root has this strange feeling that she wouldn’t have been able to follow that sentence just, well, she doesn’t know how long ago, her sense of time might not be fully rebooted either, but… she understands, now.

this one, she types. >.

God hums pleased affirmation; Sameen does something with her hand, some kind of, moving it, in a comforting way, that’s probably the intent, but…

Probably like moving her fingers back and forth in a sort of petting-her manner.

> stop, she types (Stop, God says,) > just keep your hand still.

Sameen does. “Okay.” And then: “Hey, Root’s God, can you do something to be clear about when it’s you talking or her? ‘Cause…”

As came up two chapters ago, Shaw actually calling TM Root's God is really cute.

She is My voice and I am hers.

“Yeah. So.”

I’ll put some static under what she says. Sound good?

“…Sure.”

under what i say, sweetie? im the static? thats so sweet.

She really, really means this, too.

Yes, I have Root call TM "sweetie" as well, and have this entire fic series. Which I do legitimately like, but... I can't say it didn't start in some degree of retaliation for how many other fanfics steal aspects of Root/Machine dynamics and put them on Root/Shaw instead. Sorry. I'm not usually that petty, but. In this case I was.

I thought you might like that, God says, and there’s so many hums under that and all of them mean love and—

“Root?”

You’re humming, too, God notes.

There's just... so much that's deep-coded in her now that wasn't there just years ago, that she chose to put there, she and The Machine, together...

> oh. i didnt notice.

“…Is that a good sign, do you think?” Sameen’s asking probably mostly God, it’s so good how they can just talk like this, how they can… can… talk, okay, she already thought that, Root’s not really sure what she’s thinking but her girls are here, they’re here for her…

Exhausted Root is so exhausted. Thinking is hard.

It’s subconscious, God says, so I’m not sure it says much about what of her conscious processes are coming back. But it does mean she’s happy, Sameen. That’s the note that means love. She’s hummed it to you before, but I’m not sure if she’s noticed.

She… has?

Now she (and Shaw) find out!

> i didnt, she types, then gets to hear her voice in God’s voice saying that,

her voice in God's voice, yeah, I'm insane about this. Obviously.

but with static, because she’s the one who’s borrowing it, she’s the one who’s a computer slowly restarting…

In some ways she's more a computer than TM. I love her I love them.

This time she hears herself as she hums. Happy. Belonging. Connected. Her wires are plugged into all the right things, now she just has to wait for herself to come back online, but that’s okay, she’s okay, they’re here…

“I have an idea,” Sameen says, and God says, Go ahead…

They like each other, don’t they, they like each other, well, of course, they’re colleagues, but maybe also friends, no, they are friends, aren’t they, she knew that already, right…

“Root, I’m gonna take your hand for just a second, okay?”

She waits, she waits, for Root to say, and she does say, > okay.

Somehow this waiting for Root's confirmation really strikes her here, yet another sign she is so cared for now.

And she feels her hand, her hand in Sameen’s hand, it’s moving, warm, there’s a lot to feel but then there’s a different warmth, and a cold on top of the warmth, under it too, wires…

Oh. Oh! Sameen still has the heart! She put Root’s hand on that heart! She did that! She did that!!!

> i did that! she types, one-handed.

“Yeah, Root. You did.”

Here kind of suggesting one of the aspects of Root's sadism is getting to see her-effect-on-the-world (her-effect-on-Shaw). That's not the only aspect (she really likes causing pain, specifically), but it's definitely there.

Not the first time Root's done not just one but two exclamation points in her narration. Bc she's just like that.

And she—she’s floating or she’s glowing or she’s… she’s got no idea what her face is doing, what anything about her is doing, she feels around the edges of the heart, wait, that mean she knows what something is doing, her hands, of course it’s her hands that she understands the best, it’s always been her hands that are the interface (the interface! the interface! is she laughing, she might be) between her and computers…

She did this. She marked her girl’s skin and it’s still marked…

> i love you, she says.

Note that this has already been established as hard for her to say directly like this, so it really means something here. Don't say I give Shoot fans nothing.

“Yeah.”

Shaw ofc doesn't say it back because it's Shaw, but she's here and she put Root's hand on the 'embroidery' she kept on herself for two days now, so. I mean.

And it’s so much and maybe too much and it’s a lot easier to speak (type) (speak)

>_o Literally of course typing is more core to Root than speaking.

with two hands so she takes her hand back, sets it on her laptop keys, yes, things are making more sense to her now,

Things such as the word 'laptop'! Good job Root.

her programs slowly coming back up, her programs…

> thank you. thank you so much. both of you.

And God hums so much love that it’s more like she hums LOVE

Which is very cute of H- OH SHIT MISSED CAPITAL. It's amazing how easy it is to miss one or two of these even when I read these fics over multiple times.

and okay, now Root’s pretty sure she is laughing, happy, she asks, whats my throat doing and God says you’re laughing and she is, she is, she is…

"She is, she is, she is" is such a... you could probably make a drinking game out of variations on this in my writing.

> im coming back i can feel it.

“Good.” Sameen’s hand returns to her arm, too, that’s also good, lots of things are good here, that’s wonderful, isn’t it…

We’ll take care of you, God says and then there’s this one kind of hum, the one that means playful, maybe even so playful it’s mischievous, what’s She about to do—

She's about to overload her girl with happiness (a little dangerous because it's an overload, but. Well.)

She says, I’ll take such good care of My favorite, prettiest hardware.

I'm also very enamored with this calling-Root-hardware thing, in my very unbiased opinion it's perfect.

And Root feels something something something, this is more than laughter, her body (Her body) is shaking and she’s! She’s hardware! She’s God’s hardware and she’s so pretty and she’s not human at all and she’s hardware and and and!

So much fun happening here with punctuation and its lack.

But maybe She’s just saying it, so, so she asks…

do You really mean that do You really believe that?

Of course Root capitalizes TM's pronouns even when she doesn't capitalize anything else.

Yes, God says, and it’s like—like—Root’s too offline to have any idea what it’s like other than that she shudders and it’s like something or everything ripples through her and she’s laughing so much and that laugh means delighted.

How else would I better describe what you made yourself into?

Again this--she MADE herself what she is. There's this huge, huge amount of purposefulness to everything about Root and TM's relationship. As I've talked about before, nothing is facilitating this. There's no magic, no telepathy. They are accomplishing this connection purely off of what Root can do to her own human, flesh brain. (Which FTR I don't think is unrealistic; brains can truly do a lot.)

im hardware, she types again, in wonder.

Yes.

im Your hardware.

Yes.

Your prettiest prettiest best best hardware hardware…

Yes.

Again this intense amazement and wonder.

And she’s she’s she’s! That’s what she is and Sameen’s asking, “Want to share what just happened?” and that’s great because that means she’ll get to hear God saying, to someone else—

I called her My favorite, prettiest hardware. She really, really likes that.

“…She’s not much like anyone else, is she?”

Part of why I haven't been exploring Shaw's post-simulation issues much is that Shaw's only my fourth favorite character (sorry). But another part is that TM and Root are so flagrantly insane in ways not at all evidenced in Samaritan's simulations that it probably really, really helps.

No. She’s not. Well… except maybe Me, since she’s part Me and all

TM fully capable of being this teasing and flirty, gosh I wonder who She possibly could have learned it from.

 and oh, oh, oh, God’s really saying that, right where she can hear (because She’s saying it in her ear and not just Sameen’s, on purpose) and it’s in her voice and it fits her voice perfectly and it’s in Her voice because her voice is Her voice and they fit perfectly and her ports have the right wires and them and…! And!

<3333

thankyouthankyouthankyou, she says.

Of course, My Root, God says and Sameen’s squeezing her arm and she’s here, oh, she’s here, this is a bed she’s on,

SHE NOTICED THE EXISTENCE OF THE BED! GO ROOT! Lol.

she’s starting to understand, and the light hitting her eyes doesn’t make sense yet but that’s okay, she can feel herself rebooting, can really feel it, little indicator lights coming on inside herself

<3333

that say Root’s here, Root’s here, Root’s here, and she is, she is, she is.

So, about that drinking game >_o

[frangipani-wanderlust]

I didn’t do a word count on this but I assume it’s under 500 😆 for the commentary meme.

—

Suddenly, Mayreni's mind was ripped from her body. Or perhaps it only seemed that way. Or perhaps she had only seemed to be in her body in the first place and what she was experiencing now had always been her true self. She saw. So much.

The core of the world, rotating within its many layers. The layers themselves, hardening through the mantle of the planet to the surface. The great volcanoes, bursting with energy, the shifting plates and faults bringing up mountains or hollowing out canyons. Rivers, splashing down from the mountains, chasing themselves out towards the seas.

And the many, many, many, many lives here. Plants and creatures beyond counting. All of it known intimately by the voice in her mind, and yet all of it distinct from it? The creature against whose leg she still rested, and one on the far side of the world, limbs attaching strangely to misshapen body and too many eyes that all seemed to fix on her somehow, though she was far too far away.

One human. Alone. An invader. Small and fragile and easy to kill.

—

From New Creation (loved it by the way!)

Oh, wow, geez, this scene.

I actually really loved it, and it was one of the kind of...formative scenes around which I built the story. This is the moment where the main character meets God and really understands who she just met. And I went into it trying to describe four mutually exclusive things all at once.

All the tiny, minute details of the planet.

The whole, overall picture of the planet.

That Mayreni is absolutely expendable in the grand scheme.

That Mayreni is important and totally safe within the grand scheme.

So...that's absolutely bananas. I wanted this to be the eldritch revelation moment, but not so that it makes the character to whom it is revealed go mad. So I was kind of setting myself an impossible task going in.

So I got to the scene and kind of pondered over it a bit. We don't even have a full, absolutely certain description of the totality of our own planet, so how am I gonna do that for an alien one? On the other hand, the alien one doesn't actually exist, so a certain amount of winging it is okay...

I decided to start with the planetary building blocks. Structure. Moving out from the inside to the actual...architecture of the thing, I guess. And while I'm "pulling the camera back," so to speak (imagine a big ol' majestic but slightly unsettling orchestra score), I want to be describing motion, motion, motion. The reader's imagination is going to do most of the heavy lifting for bringing the word pictures to life, but by adding motion to them I was hoping to embiggen the pictures in everyone's mind. So things are "rotating, hardening, bursting, bringing up, hollowing out, splashing, chasing" moving moving moving to make the word picture more vivid and dynamic.

Then you move into living organisms, and you've already got the motion in your head, so the idea of plants moving in the wind, bugs eating dirt, herbivores grazing around, this all (I hope) naturally springs into people's heads because of the set up a moment ago. Movement, life, vibrancy, everywhere all over the place.

And it all zooms in to some strange beast on the far end of the planet that looks directly at Mayreni and it's at that moment that the wonder of "oh my gosh cool planet" gets turned on its head to "holy heck a creature that I do not have line of sight with is impossibly looking at me oh crap oh crap oh crap."

The goal there was to have all the amazing come slamming into an utter, mind breaking impossibility where the only logical conclusion is to freak all the way out.

I don't know if I fully hit that note. To be honest, I'm not absolutely sure that note is hittable. But that was the idea that I was hoping to convey here and, reading it back over, I think I did manage to land in the ballpark, actually, so pretty proud of this scene as a whole, honestly.

Meme in question is here.

[chasingfigments]

I cried about this fic all over again while trying to find this conversation 😭😭😭

Awww <3 It was a fun challenge to write, so I'm happy to hear it still has such an impact on you!

This argument between Noctis and Gladio really comes down to who is at fault and how much they are at fault for Noct's brush with death. Noctis, obviously, thinks it's his fault for not having the elixirs, flasks, etc. that would have allowed him to replenish his magic and made him able to finish the fight with less of a struggle. He also carries a HUGE amount of guilt for not carrying any phoenix downs on him--Prompto absolutely could have been permanently dead if it weren't for some stranger who did make sure she kept her allotted stock of magical supplies in order at all times.

Noctis sees this whole event as a failure of his own personal responsibility. Gladio and Ignis and plenty of others have gotten on his case before about Doing Things--and he doesn't always do them. And because of that, Prompto almost died. Other people did die. What if he'd had a phoenix down in the armiger as he should have? Could Valeria's then have been used on someone else? Could they have revived two people instead of just Prompto?

He won't ever know because he fucked up by not doing the simplest thing: being stocked up on healing items.

For Gladio, this whole event is a failure of duty. He should have made sure Noctis has all of the curatives he's supposed to at all times instead of just trusting Noctis to do that. He should have done a better job of training Noctis so that he could better fight against groups of people. The Crownsguard shouldn't have ever farmed out part of their security duties to other entities, no matter how much Noctis wanted a "normal life."

All of that, plus he saw Noctis almost die. There was absolutely nothing he could have done because Noctis was without trained support and Gladio was too far away to be of any use at all. This isn't some drunk being belligerent--Noctis nearly died. His friend, his brother, his charge he's pledged to die before. It is very safe to say that this whole thing just scared the shit out of Gladio, and he's furious with himself for everything that happened and for being scared.

Plus, Gladio just got a very ugly front row seat to his own decision making process, which meant deliberately deciding that Prompto should be put in harm's way for the smallest chance of buying Noctis time. And that temporarily cost Prompto his life. (And he's also furious at himself for that one moment of hesitation, in which Cor beat him to asking Prompto to help. He should have made the decision immediately and dealt with the horror of it later.)

So Noctis thinks he's at fault and wants Gladio to agree with him because getting reamed out by Gladio will momentarily satiate his budding survivor's guilt. Meanwhile, Gladio has fucked up on several more levels and definitely believes he deserves whatever criticism and fury results from this event. These two tend to butt heads disastrously in canon, and they both kind of--just seek each other out for a mutually self-destructive moment.

[capriciouswrites]

YES HELLO i just saw your ask game and omg?? OKAY OKAY (i may be coming back multiple times bc i am very excited to get a peek into your mind :DD)

Option C + the whole Shaking Up and Breaking Down series watching out they don't four-letter please!

I love that on asks you can put links now so I don't have to hunt them down. (You're welcome to come back as much as you like darlin'.)

Also, there are so many different POVs in shaking up and breaking down picking someone was more challenging than I was expecting, but fuck it, I love MIkoto and I am sure you do to.

Please enjoy.

Worry for her children is nothing new. If Mikoto thought that hanging up her blades would leave her with a more peaceful life she would’ve been wrong. Which does not mean that she regrets it at all. She loves her children more than life itself, and knows she would do horrible things to keep them safe.

Realizing that a missing-nin from nowhere that anyone can figure out feels the same? That is certainly new.

Her husband, she knows, has decided that the girl is harmless, for all that they continue to assign an escort to her, she knows in her husband’s mind it’s more a matter of optics than necessity.

Considering how her youngest clings to his newest friend, she spends more time making up her mind about the other woman. For all that she cannot be much away from Itachi in age — and Mikoto still thinks of as a boy for all that he’s already killed more than she had in her entire career — there is something about her eyes that erases any thoughts of categorizing her as a ‘girl’.

It is fruitless to try to keep Sasuke from Sakura, so it’s lucky that even while Mikoto is still making up her mind she immediately believes that Sakura will not allow harm to come to her youngest.

Trusting Sakura with Mikoto’s eldest takes longer.

Itachi has had most of the softness stripped from his life, by necessity, by experience, by his clan, and always against Mikoto’s desires. MIkoto worries about him breaking — he’s a blade that’s been wielded with no care for too long and while it appears strong it will only take one hit at the right angle to shatter the entire thing.

She knows her children well enough to see the interest that Sasuke has in his savior mirrored in Itachi. She can see when he adjusts his schedule and patterns to eat slightly more often with them while Sakura is in residence, and even to adjust his leaving and returning to cross her path more often than simple coincidence could allow for.

So she frets and she worries and she wonders.

And then she sees them together.

She’s coming back from the tea shop, since one of their cups has recently cracked and she must have a matching set to serve if she doesn’t want to endure good natured lectures from the elders. There’s a park that is mostly used by civilian children, but she hears the shout of “Sas’ke!” and turns her feet in that direction just in time to see an orange blur tackle her son.

They are laughing and she allows herself only a moment of regret — her best friend’s child is so much happier now than she’s ever seen him but the guilt of not being able to keep him from being neglected burns — before her gaze finds their escorts.

Itachi is sitting, leaning back with his arms draped over the back of the bench comfortably. Sakura is sitting right next to him, leaning forward, intently, gesturing with her hands. She punctuates a point with a fist in her palm and Itachi raises a hand to cover his mouth and Sakura grins like she’s just won something priceless, and Mikoto lets go of the last of her concerns.

Or, she lets go of the last of her concerns in regards to Sakura being around her children. Now, however, she’s worried about others hurting Sakura.

A mother’s job is never done.

[recurring-polynya]

You actually reblogged it! Yay! Thank you so much, I'm glad you did. I keep thinking about 'Brothers in Arms' because it's one of my favorite fics ever and i love everything about it, and just how well you nailed the ChadIshi dynamic down to a T. I think a lot about the dialogue right before this too, because it's my favorite part, but I mainly would love to see a breakdown of this bit: “Do you think he’s in Soul Society?” Uryuu asked. Chad must have been tempted to look. Uryuu knew he would have been, if he didn’t know for a fact that Souken had already moved on.

“I asked Abarai about that, actually,” Chad replied. “Abarai says it’s complicated, exactly how it gets decided where you go, but Oscar had a strong connection to his home and his friends, so he is most likely in the Mexican Land of the Dead.” A small smile crept onto Chad’s face. “My dream is to one day take a trip back to Mexico for el Día de los Muertos, and see him again.”

brothers in arms

Wowwww this bit is really rich! You would not think I would have so much to say about two paragraphs AND YET.

So for starters, you ever read a fic and it’s not even that big of a fic, but it just sticks in your head forever? Anyway, I am never not thinking about Not a Good Idea, a drabble about Oscar and Souken and Sora meeting up in Soul Society. It’s funny that each of the Karakura kids has some really important person that died on them, and even though the whole series is about life after death, aside from Sora’s short storyline, we never get to see any of them again.

I thoroughly admit that I may be wrong, but my reading of the dialogue in Uryuu’s fight with Kurotsuchi is that Souken went to Soul Society after dying, was immediately captured, and experimented on until he died again. I’ve posited this before-- that when the shinigami “exterminated” the Quincy, they killed them as living humans, and then hunted down and killed them as souls again so that they would get chucked back into the resurrection cycle and lose their Quincy powers. I think that the Wandenreich Quincy are actually either dead, and escaped this second killing, or born-as-souls (like shinigami nobles), descended from dead Quincy. I have absolutely no basis for this, it’s just what I think. That’s what I meant about Uryuu knowing that Souken had moved on.

I really, really love writing Renji knowing things. Something that you don’t really pick up the first time you read/watch Bleach is that Rukia seems like she knows a lot about how the afterlife works, but honestly, she is constantly just spitballin’. This makes sense! She never finished school! She’s a con artist! And if she’s learned anything as a noble, it’s that you can just say stuff with authority, and people will believe you! She’s a liar and a mansplainer and I love this for her. Conversely, Renji did finish school and he works for Byakuya and some of his best friends are nerds. I always like to write him as a guy who is very curious how things work, cities and squads and bureaucracies, and even though he pretends to be a cool himbo jock, he actually knows a shit-ton about the practicalities of being a grim reaper, beyond just killing monsters. I am also enamored with the idea of Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, and Hell being just a few of an infinite set of spiritual/magical planes (this may have come out of another fanfic that lives in my head rent-free, The Roots of Heaven). Afterlives are one of my very favorite bits of folklore, they are so varied and cool! I wrote a fic once that mentioned Renji corresponding with the Russian Afterlife, I have precedent. I also like to think about Renji and Chad spending a ton of time together during the Advance Team Arc, just hanging out and talking about little things, and I love to drop in little references to that whenever possible.

As soon as I put in that bit about going to Mexico for Day of the Dead, I wanted it as a fic more than I could say. The Karakura Kids would all be young adults, maybe shortly after Uryuu and Chad get married. (What if Ryuuken paid for it? As a wedding gift??? I would die) I feel like Chad would have this deep yearning to know if Oscar approved of him. People tend to get really hung up on the wording for Chad’s vow not to use his fists for Bad, but these things are rarely so clear-cut in real life. I mean, Oscar wanted Chad to not get in fights with neighborhood kids, he certainly did not foresee his grandson developing supernatural powers and traveling to other realms to save the nature of existence. Not to mention the gay thing. Astute readers may note that everytime I write a post-canon fic, I make Chad a social worker who boxes as a hobby. I feel strongly that this is perfectly canon compliant (just like Chad and Uryuu getting married, of course)

This is one of those fics that I would love to read but do not feel qualified to write (to be perfectly honest, in my heart, I want you to write it 😂)-- I would probably crib a bunch of the worldbuilding from Coco, because that movie slapped. I actually think that Oscar was probably a pretty fun-loving guy, I mean, look at this dude, he clearly fucks:

and I like to believe that in any Afterlife, you shed some of effects of age, and also, he’s not responsible for an angry kid who just lost his parents. I think he would be way more Fun than Chad was expecting, and by Fun, I mean, he and Ichigo would definitely cause an International Afterlife Incident, like they would release some ancient spirit or something that would then run around Starting Shit. The Mexican Afterlife calls up Soul Society and is like “come get your boy” and they send Rukia and Renji because who else wants to deal with Ichigo, and Renji has to spend the entire time negotiating extradition treaties at the embassy, except he can’t sit down because he’s got Ichika strapped to his chest. Rukia would run off to help the Karakura Kids and be like “I am off maternity leave and am down to clown” and she and Oscar would get along great.

Anyway, OF COURSE Oscar would approve of Chad, who would not approve of Chad? and he would be like "Uryuu is not a person I ever would have imagined for you, but he clearly really loves you, what else matters?” Again, look at him, I think he had some boyfriends in the 70′s and also I do not care to write homophobia in my fics, I prefer to make everyone at least a little gay instead. Also, Uryuu deserves someone to take a look at him and say, “hi there, you’re my family now,” with no caveats or expectations, which is basically how I imagined it going down in Tell You My Sins.

[evilwriter37]

“Look at that, your hero came for you after all. He really does love you, hm? It’s a shame you won’t get the reunion you wanted.” Viggo spoke these atrocious words as he circled around the mast, the mast that Astrid was tied to. The two of them were watching as Hiccup flew right for the Hunter ship, sword out and ready. The other Riders would have been flanking him, but Viggo had sent ships to the Edge to hold them off and keep Astrid as his prisoner. He’d known such a thing would leave Hiccup.

Oh, I’m assuming this is for the dvd commentary writing meme? 

Well, I actually had a hard time writing this part. I had the first line because of a prompt, and the characters, but after that, I was on my own. I didn’t know what scene I wanted to set up or how to set it up. But then I realized I was overthinking it and had to just write. So, as I wrote, I came up with the scene. Astrid tied to a mast with Hiccup flying in to rescue her seemed perfect, and of course Viggo makes a wonderful whumper. He’s twisted and sadistic and gains pleasure from other people’s pain. Before his redemption, he is very much a man without morals. 

Oh, and the sword out while Hiccup was flying? I was inspired by a Race to the Edge episode with Hiccup flying in for a rescue with his sword out, and like, wow, that’s my new sexuality. Man flying on a dragon with a sword? Yes, yes, yes. I have a thing for old weapons anyway, so swords are A++. 

Now, do I know how Viggo took Astrid as his prisoner? No, not really. That happened before the opening of the fic, and I kind of just wanted to leave that portion up to the reader’s imagination. Do I know what happens after the ending of the fic? Yes, absolutely, but it’s very dark. 😈

(Oh, and fun fact! You can send even longer asks if you’re on mobile. There’s no character limit on mobile for some reason.)

Anyone else want to send me stuff for the dvd commentary meme? You don’t have to put a whole scene. You can just mention what scene it was and from what fic and I’ll probably know what you’re talking about. 

[rivalsforlife]

"Pearl buried her head further into her knees. She didn’t know anything about Trucy’s real mother and father… but it wasn’t fair for her to try and make Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya her real parents. Pearl couldn’t remember ever meeting her father, and her mother… Her mother…" from "marriage, magic, misunderstandings"? maybe the bit in which trucy & pearl argue before that too, if you want? (thank you for the phoenix & maya friendship content)

you are so very welcome anon, I have like three default states and they’re dadworth, narumitsu, and phoenix+maya friendship... but the last one rarely comes up and that’s partially why I’m really glad you asked for something from this fic!! For that I’ll do the argument and a bit of the scene you’re talking about haha... underneath the keep reading here:

Pearl finished wiping at her eyes. Something was still bothering her about what Trucy said. “Um… Miss Trucy…”

“You can just call me Trucy, Pearls.”

“Um, okay, Trucy…” It was strange. She wasn’t used to calling people names without a title. “Why do you call Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya your… Daddy and your Mommy?”

One little thing I try to do with Trucy’s dialogue now that I’m not totally sure I did a year ago when I wrote this fic is have her adapt how she refers to people depending on who she’s talking to... like say if she’s talking to Phoenix she’ll call Pearl “Pearls” and when talking to Maya she’d call her “Pearly”. I see her being very quick to adapt to other people’s speech patterns to make herself as likable as possible, even at a young age, as part of the magician persona.

... I say all this not even entirely sure if Trucy does this in the fic? It’s 20k words and I’m not gonna go through it all to check haha, but that’s definitely a thing I started doing at some point.

Pearl on the other hand has been raised to be very formal by Morgan and put proper titles in front of everything, even nicknames (see: Mr. Nick and Mr. Scruffy Detective...) even then it’s a little hard for her to call someone her own age with a title (hence why she doesn’t do it in narration but does in her dialogue here). ... Thinking about it now, Trucy is probably the first person around Pearl’s age that she’s ever met, which is pretty depressing.

“Because they are,” said Trucy, like it was obvious. “Or they will be.”

“But they’re not going to be your real Daddy and Mommy, right?” Pearl pointed out.

Trucy’s expression got strangely serious. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well… Mystic Maya has Fey blood,” Pearl explained. “So… so her daughters are going to have Fey blood, too, and they can channel spirits like I can and like Mystic Maya can. But you can’t, so… you’re not going to be Mystic Maya’s real daughter.”

“But Daddy is my Daddy.” Trucy crossed her arms, and she was starting to look angry. “And whoever my Daddy marries is going to be my Mommy, right?”

Trucy “calls her new father ‘Daddy’ within 0.2 seconds of being unofficially adopted by him” Wright and Pearl “raised in Kurain Village” Fey probably have veeeery different attitudes towards how family works. A lot of it ties into my Kurain Village headcanons which haha I DEFINTIELY rambled on about in another commentary, so I won’t repeat most of it... but like I said then, it’s my belief that spiritual power being hereditary leads to a lot of attitudes on the importance of women with that spiritual power having biological children who will have that spiritual power. In Kurain Village, there’s no real “use” in a spirit medium adopting a child, since that child can’t inherit the legacy of the village.

And of course Pearl is super sheltered so I don’t even know if the concept of adoption really exists for her. In this fic she doesn’t even really understand the idea of how babies are made, because she is nine years old and extremely sheltered and you just know Morgan would refuse to answer any questions she may have for fear of exposing Pearl to “impure thoughts”. (When she’d just be asking a basic biological question. Then probably never got around to asking Maya or Phoenix.) So Pearl isn’t totally sure of the mechanisms but what she does understand is that for Trucy to have spiritual powers, Maya would have had to give birth to her, which she didn’t; and because Trucy doesn’t have spiritual powers she wouldn’t be recognized as a viable heir in the eyes of the village, and thus, can’t be considered Maya’s daughter. Pearl’s also feeling a fair bit of jealousy which I’ll get to in the next scene... but that’s also influencing her actions here.

Trucy, like I said before, seems to be pretty quick to just accepting new family as her own. I guess this may make sense coming from the Gramarye background... like I don’t think Valant and Zak were related, but he’s automatically her “Uncle Valant” despite that, so she already sees family as something that doesn’t need blood ties. But it’s also only been a few weeks since she came to live with Phoenix and is of course dealing with some unacknowledged trauma regarding her father abandoning her, so the insinuation that she doesn’t have a “real family” is getting to her a bit too.

They’re also babies so they can’t really understand or voice any of this.

“But… but not your real ones!” Pearl shouted.

“Why isn’t it real?” Trucy shouted in return.

“Because… because it isn’t!”

Trucy didn’t have anything to say to that. She just glared at Pearl for some time with her arms crossed. Pearl glared back. It wasn’t her fault if Trucy just didn’t understand something as simple as that.

“I’m going home,” Trucy muttered, and then turned on her heel and stormed off. Pearl sulked for a little bit, before beginning to feel overwhelmed by all the crowds, and then followed from a safe distance.

Admittedly children are very hard to write haha. They’re both dealing with a lot of stuff but as kids can’t really process it super well...? So I wanted their argument to come off pretty childishly, which makes sense since they are. eight and nine years old.

And I don’t really like kids much and don’t ever have much reason to spend time with them, so I don’t know how kids talk...? I attempted the best I could from my memory from ten years ago, and no one’s said anything about it being off haha.

Anyways... the scene after this is just supposed to provide some more context into the environment that Pearl grew up in and what she was taught from Morgan. I’m not going to go into too much detail about it because it wasn’t in the request, though. Key points are that Pearl grew up in an environment where it was expected that she would have biological children someday -- like, even moreso than society right now. And she’s expecting the same thing from Maya because of the environment she grew up in.

Okay, now for the part in the ask:

Trucy had already locked herself in her room by the time Pearl returned to the office, so Pearl sat on the couch with her knees to her chest and sulked. She didn’t want to fight with Trucy. If Trucy was going to be Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya’s kind-of-daughter, then she wanted to get along with her. She couldn’t bear it if Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya wanted to spend time with Trucy more than they wanted to spend time with her.

Kind of touching more on the jealousy Pearl feels towards Trucy -- she thinks that Trucy’s going to get to have Phoenix and Maya as parents (which is... half right) and that upsets her because, for the past few years, she’s pretty much been their “kid”. She worries that Trucy’s going to take her place.

Pearl buried her head further into her knees. She didn’t know anything about Trucy’s real mother and father… but it wasn’t fair for her to try and make Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya her real parents. Pearl couldn’t remember ever meeting her father, and her mother…

Her mother…

Sooo yeah this is all happening only a few months after Bridge to the Turnabout, which always makes me so sad about Pearl. Because I don’t think it was ever explained to her what her mother did, since she still seemed to be under the impression that Morgan would want what was best for Maya, hence why she went through with the letter. The realization that Morgan betrayed her and used her to hurt Maya probably crushed Pearl. She’s not going to get over that very easily.

And since Morgan was locked up Phoenix and Maya were probably as close to her own parents as she got. I’d say Phoenix would probably adopt her in a heartbeat if she asked. Maya probably sees her more like a little sister, since there’s the same age gap between Maya and Pearl that Mia and Maya have. But with Pearl’s current attitudes on family I don’t think she’d fully admit to herself that she wants Phoenix and Maya as her parents, so she’s pretty much abandoned by her biological parents and now fears she’ll be abandoned by her “new parents” - and kind of drags Trucy down with her in a sort of “if I can’t have them you can’t either” way. It’s more subconscious because Pearl isn’t a cruel person by nature, she’s just a grieving kid.

So... Pearl has no memory of her biological father, presumably he left before she could remember. He certainly doesn’t come up much in conversation. Morgan probably still hurts too much for her to think about, hence why she can’t quite finish her thoughts about what her mother did just now. The kid really does deserve good parental figures in her life, she just needs to change her attitudes a bit to see them for who they are.

Overall with this fic... it’s got a special place in my heart for the Phoenix and Maya friendship content obviously. Also, for a while, I wasn’t a huge fan of Pearl... partially because I don’t like kids, also her shipping opinions annoyed me... but then I sat down and realized I had 20k words of feelings about her? At the end of the day she DEFINITELY deserved better and I will fistfight Morgan in a parking lot for her sake. A lot of this fic was kind of dumping my Kurain Village headcanons onto the floor and shouting “LOOK AT THESE!!” while also being able to write Phoenix and Maya friendship from a perspective clouded by heteronormativity and also emphasizing the importance of platonic and familial types of love being just as if not more powerful than romantic love... which are all things that are really up my alley. 

... And of course it’s the least popular of my fics because it’s a 20,000+ word one-shot that doesn’t have any ships. I know I sometimes browse around and see a long fic and go “wow! why don’t you split those into chapters!” like a hypocrite. So I’m not surprised, but that just makes me even more thankful that you’re asking about it? So... thank you! It’s midnight now and I don’t know how coherent this whole thing was but I really appreciate it!!

[ajoblotofjunk]

Hey! What about a commentary for your most favorite line in HFoG?

My (current) most favorite line is from November (part 1) of HFoG! Here’s the lead up to the actual line, which I bolded.

She flushed. “Is it so surprising? I never stopped wanting you.”

“Even now?”

“More than ever.” He’d captivated her since her father’s garage, back when he’d been arrogant and angry, when his love of the cars had been, she thought, the truest thing about him; now that she knew all his curves and straightaways, it would be impossible to stop wanting him. It was her turn to move nearer. “I never would have ended things between us if your father hadn’t stepped in.”

Jaime tilted his head and gave her a small, sad smile. “Yes, you would’ve.”

“No.” Brienne shook her head. “It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“Maybe not then,” he said, “but it would’ve been eventually.” He tenderly cupped her face with his palm, a warm pressure that made her shut her eyes for just a moment to enjoy the feel of him again. They were together every day and still she missed him. “You wanted us to keep things secret because you needed to protect yourself, and I did it but I never really understood why. I understand it now. But I also understand that I couldn’t have done it the way you needed me to. Truthfully, I could never do it.” His fingers slid to her neck, tightening there, and he tugged her head down to press his forehead to hers. “I cannot love you quietly.”

I mean, look. I am well aware that I will probably never write a line more concise and yet full of everything about both who a character is and how a relationship will be, while also being straight-up romantic. I’m happy I got the one, though!

And I also think it’s a very TRUE sentiment and gets at why what was between them really would have failed whether Tywin had intervened or not. It was already starting to come apart before Tywin even stepped in, and they would have both fought to hold onto it long past when it would have been healthy for either of them. And I love that it’s Jaime who gets to realize that because it’s such a big point of emotional growth for him, which is why the line (I think?) resonates so well. In August he was sure he could do it but in November he knows himself so much better and he’ll be happier for that in the long run.

Dragonzair asked me in the comments how I came up with it and I said this:

It came to me actually while I was writing an earlier Jaime section. I had him thinking a similar thought to himself initially; in that version it was something like “he could only love her loudly” which I loved the sentiment of because I love this idea of Jaime just understanding both who he is as a person (MAYER OF FEELINGSTOWN) and in particular the depth of his feelings for Brienne and how those things combine together. And I really wanted him to SAY IT because it’s super romantic and Brienne deserved to hear that. So I pulled it out of that earlier section (there’s a hint of it still in the story; I can’t remember if it’s in this chapter or not, where he thinks something similar) and tucked it away for when the had this discussion (I knew even when I was writing September that they’d get to this point where he can’t love her in secret again) and then realized as I wrote it that it made a better impact with the ‘cannot.’ It’s more of a giving himself over to who he is statement than 'I can only,’ for some reason.

So, a little planning, a little wild inspiration. Hee.

I will also say I re-wrote the paragraph around it several times for maximum emotional impact. The forehead touch happened later for several drafts before I decided to double-whammy with it and his pronouncement.

I also kind of regret that I needed to deploy it so (relatively) early in the overall story. it HAD to be here, I wouldn’t change that, I just sometimes worry that in terms of the romance angle it feels like an end-of-the-fic moment and I have kept going 100,000 words PAST it. Which has been a long-standing worry of mine with this story in general, even though *I* feel like I need to tell all of it. I would have felt like things were incomplete if I’d stopped here or when they get back together in February. I want everyone to get what they deserve and I could have served up a heavily summarized epilogue that accomplished this, but (and Brynn will attest to this as I’ve worried over it many times to her) it felt wrong to jam all of Brienne’s year into one or even two-three chapters. I think the payoff is worth it. But if not, we’ve always got this line. Hee.

[Still taking asks for the DVD Commentary meme!]