Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤
PINE!! Thank you!!! This was surprisingly hard LOL I have a lot more fics than I thought so I went with just tma ones:
No Sort of Name: this one is fun and a good testament to how I feel about s3 jmart (insane)
Tongue to Teeth: my victorian vampire au...this series is my baby. I love it
Bite That Binds: this is the longest fic I've ever written and I'm still extremely proud that I finished it!! It's some sort of rite of passage at this point for me to write a werewolf fic for every fandom I'm in and I think it's fun :-)
Learning the Ropes: I was possessed by a special kind of madness last November bc I literally wrote this in like two days. And somehow it still bangs. Again, I'm normal about s3 jmart
Flytrap: I wrote this for jmart week this year and it's weird and horrible and I think it somehow manages to encapsulate my brand better than anything else I've written re: weird and horribleness. I like it a lot :-)
number 14 for the ask game, I think. sorry to perpetuate the Horrors of these asks xoxoxo
14: that one thing you see in fics all the time
hang on ok no wait listen. listen BIG disclaimer that like. i think this is a thing that is very personal to people and im literally not looking to change anybody's mind on the topic.
however.
jmart pet names that i do not agree with !!!
like. look. ok. everyone can do whatever but. my ideas on this topic are so incredibly incredibly specific. but it's also not at all going to break the immersion if im enjoying something and someone slips in a pet name i don't picture for them. like. it's truly whatever. but i will also have a thought of OPE I WOULDN'T HAVE USED THAT ONE PERSONALLY.
So the too brilliant @pinehutch has somehow impossibly been tricked into collaborating on a Magnus Archives Soft! Romcom! AU! with me loosely based on the Chicken Soup for the Soul empire where Jon is a put-upon archivist of heart-warming nonsense stories and all the entities are there except... softer...
We’re looking to start posting this summer with a Christmas finale (”Look at the sky, Martin. Look at the sky. It’s... starting to snow.”) so here’s a bit of it for accountability.
“And the old crone sent him traveling through time again, back here. Back to me. Because he had learned that the most important knightly virtue of all… was love.” The woman smiled as if she was remembering a lovely dream, tucking a wave of dark hair behind her ear. God, were there actual tears in her eyes? Oh God. “And we kissed at the Christmas Carnival and.. I guess the rest is history. I learned to believe in love again, and I found my knight in shining armour. Who happens to be an actual knight who time-traveled to the present from medieval England. I know it sounds bizarre, but it was real. A real… Christmas miracle.”
Jonathan Sims (Head Archivist at Holdings Entertainment, a subsidiary of Magnus Publishing Ltd.) a grown man of reasonable intelligence, too little sleep and a goddamn Master’s Degree last time he bloody checked - considered the ‘notes’ he had been taking while the woman told her story. These included: ‘NO’ (underlined and circled), the beginning of a shopping list, and a random letter M that he’d spent too long shading in.
“Statement ends.”
He stopped the recorder as the American wiped away a stray tear. A professional actress, surely. She should take this story to the tabloids; better yet, a publisher of fiction.
“You do realize we are currently collecting statements for our What the Heart Wants: Valentines Day collection?”
“Yeah. Of course. That’s why I came here. This is a Christmas story and a love story. If you do another anthology about educators, it could work for that too - I’m a teacher, and -”
“Yes, thank you. We’ll be in touch.” Jon circled ‘NO’ in his notebook one more time for good measure.
“Oh. Okay.” The woman seemed somewhat unsettled by his brusqueness. It wasn’t uncommon in Jon’s experience. Sasha and Tim and… Martin, obviously, might be gentler with some of the statement givers, but Jon saw them for what they were.
Story-tellers, mostly. Outright liars occasionally. Sometimes individuals with rather distressing personal and/or psychological problems, and in those instances Jon never failed to follow up with them days and then weeks later, passing on numbers and referrals for organizations that might be able to help.
It was rare that an actual Heart-warming Experience (or Heartsperience TM Holdings Entertainment) had occurred. Jon was a man in his thirties, and not once had an adorable stray dog followed him home at Christmas. He’d never - kissed a co-worker in the rain, or discovered a secret stash of letters hidden in the attic by a distant relative, or been haunted by a ghost determined to teach him the importance of chosen family.
He had, however, recorded and transcribed the statements of dozens (God, hundreds) of individuals with similar stories to tell, all of whom came to the Magnus Institute for the chance to share their experience but mostly receive a minimal portion of the profits plus a publication credit should their work of creative non-fiction (emphasis on the creative and the fiction) make it into the latest collection.
It was enough to make a man… almost cynical. Not that Jon had ever been accused of being otherwise.
@pinehutch: I've spent two weeks watching (seemingly) large segments of the fandom either 'invent' utilitarianism (where they don't know it already) or fail to acknowledge its limitations and privately hoping that 199 would give us an acknowledgement of the nuanced, messy ethics of being one of those remaining five characters - and it did! And at the same time it also gave us a lot of reminders of how messy (traumatized, terrified) and imperfect all of these characters are
and those things aren't unrelated! Like, while I am firmly a believer that Jon is not individually and specifically to blame for the apocalypse, or the bad things that have happened to him, TMA is a show that keeps asking us to find or CREATE meaning and goodness at an individual level even when we are trapped by and potentially forced to perpetuate terrible systems. It's a lot of moral AND character nuance - thank you for taking the time to write this!
/APPLAUSE
right exactly. like, this is the problem with the IRL Trolley Problem too, right? the Trolley Problem is kind of about systemic problems and their consequences. and it’s not a coincidence that a huge portion of S5 was also about systemic problems.
"In The Trenches", "The Sick Village", holy shit "The Worms", "FIRE ESCAPE", "Strung Out", "Wonderland", fucking "ACCOMPLICE"!!!! this was a season repeatedly beating this drum, and they are impactful on the theme as much as the non-statement segments are.
honestly 199 felt like a reskinned discussion of Why The Trolley Problem Is Kind Of Useless to me personally
@pinehutch tagged me to pick one picture from my camera roll to sum up my personality, and then tag five others.
The gestalt of all my photos probably sums me up better, but I will adhere to the rules and post this section of a promotional poster for my band, The Lower Leisure Class.
“Oh,” said Aziraphale, and gave a pleased little wiggle.
Standing next to him in the chip shop, Crowley looked over with a raised eyebrow. “What?”
“Nothing,” Aziraphale said, still smiling that small, inward-facing smile. Crowley squeezed his hand questioningly. “It’s just,” Aziraphale continued. “There’s a poem. About standing in the fish and chip queue, wishing you had more than just yourself to buy supper for.” He glanced over at Crowley, squeezing his hand back, face shining with happiness. “I just realised it doesn’t apply anymore.”
Crowley’s heart grew so big it filled up his throat. “Yeah,” he managed. “Not anymore, angel.”
