#vb ask

[sagguine]

I would love to see the college rusty sketches you mentioned a while back

Sadly I hate the one I did now so I won't share it, but so you're not left empty handed.. I DID use it in reference for a commission from @moonlight-goon so you can thank them for this

[vibraniumbraces]

I'm reading your latest fic. You need to join me in vampire AU land, I tell you what 😁

Ha this is the second time I've been encouraged to write vampires in response to my latest (chompy) chapter. I DID have fun playing around with A/B/O tropes, it's the whole "mating bite" thing then strung out to biting being a release / marking factor. Once you've written enough sex scenes you really start to double-down on both what the scene is saying about the characters and trying to keep it interesting, not just Tab A in Slot B, and I found half the fun of A/B/O was it adding some more tools to the writing toolkit. Variety is the spice of life etc.

I currently have zero (0) ideas writing with vampires, and your Vampire fics remain too dark for me (I ain't going within a mile of a non-con tag and the Nuggets boys). But I always have a "ideas to consider" list humming away on the back-burner to draw inspiration from when the muse is singing. Some things make it off there into reality and some never do, but I keep an eye on it!

[sagguine]

OOHHH MY HOD YOU LIKE VENTURE BROS?? THATS SO COOL DUDE YOU GET COOLER AND COOLER EVERY TIME YOU POST I SWEAR

Daww thank youu for thinking that

[sagguine]

Did they scare you outta the venture bros community?

I am not scared of the fandom of venture bros I could care less about whatever controversy I'm accused of or something. Whatever callout that was supposed to be just happened to be badly timed with when I got super busy, i genuinely dgaf.

I just like drawing JTHM, so if I'm not busy and get to draw its prob gonna be that.. so dw about me. I do have college rusty sketches that are molding and pete Billy's that are also molding.. and I'm sorry.. I'll get back to them to get you guys back.... maybe

[sagguine]

Saw that anon ask about ugly Pete— would you consider drawing college Rusty, at the peak of his ugliness?

Love your work btw

Yes absolutely I'm on it. I'll make sure to include a horrid little college rusty next time I post VB

And Thank you *blush *

[vibraniumbraces]

The hatred towards Austin Reaves is just plain dumb. It's not his fault people write a lot of fics of him. SMH

My general viewpoint on all things fandom is live and let live, but you've sent me this ask so I'll throw my 2c out there ($2 with inflation)

I can understand people having a frustrated response to the Luka x AR ship, the basketball RPF tag on Ao3 is TINY, so on the one hand you want to be excited when it gets an injection of creative works but on the other hand if you don't ship it it's not doing anything for you

In saying that Ao3 filters let you very easily remove tag(s) from your search range so, don't wanna see it? It's gone. Tumblr also has blacklisting options with various extensions. I am not on twitter/X so can't speak to there, but being a fandom old I'm a big proponent of curate your own experience and send your energy and fuel towards the things you love, don't burn it on things you don't. I've got a mortgage man, I'm too old for anything fandom that isn't fun

I personally am not into AR and the popularity of him with Luka has cooled my Luka fever as well, but I'm not gonna stop someone else from eating peppermint icecream when I like praline. Means I need to whip up some more praline for myself! *goes and starts another rare tag on Ao3*

There's a sub-topic here around the popularity of an all-white NBA ship. I am NOT qualified to speak on this but plenty people have which I'm sure you've either seen or can go and find, and it's worth reading if you haven't. There's layers to this and explains a big part of the honest frustration towards Luka x AR

Final point which a friend of mine made recently and I think is important - AR fans are off in the tags writing their home-grown organic yaoi, they're not flooding Ao3 with AI like some of the big fandoms deal with, they're doing creative works and they're letting their freak flags fly. The real enemy is tech bros and capitalism coming for our ability for our brains to write, get excited, come up with new ideas. Let's unite against capitalism and not against someone whose brain and/or bits tingle at something different from yours

[vibraniumbraces]

LOVED your new fic! i have so much to discuss!

firstly, please tell us more about your muse!

secondly, the way mal would go from skepticism to certainty to skepticism about his place in jok's life and all his internal doubt was so beautifully written, you really nailed it to the t. it truly mirrors him in real life.

thirdly, i would love for you to share your analysis on this aspect of mal, i feel like from what i see he gets really high with the highs and really low with the lows and sometimes doubts himself. i sometimes feel like i'm watching him play against himself in a sense (lowkey see myself in him lol)

lastly, please never stop writing jokmal, or just writing anything!

Hi nony! I'm glad you loved "Have your fill", it was a fun one to write. I got the Vampire prompt, it flummoxed me for awhile, then once I tripped into the idea of psychic vampirism it was off to the races.

Me, as always: How can they be possessive of/consume each other 🤔

Popping the rest of my answer under the cut, because I do love to rave.

About the muse

My muse is unpredictable as far as when it wants to work, BUT I can tell the signs of when it's working and I structure my writing around that. I'll hit upon a concept, either spurred by a real-life event, a random thought, or suggested by someone. Then I start letting that concept bounce around in my head, what-ifs or could-try-that or what-about-this. I start constructing scenes around that, and I'll mentally write the scenes with a few drafts before I start putting pen to paper. I prefer to have a high-level mental outline start to finish before I start writing, it helps me from getting stuck. Whenever I've tried pen-to-paper writing in the past without knowing the ultimate end goal I got stuck and the muse wandered off.

Once the actual pen-to-paper writing starts, I'm very habit focused. I'll sit down the same time each day after work and try to get a few hours done, and have the same writing environment around me when I do so. I've found habit structure works best for me in letting the muse plus writing engine combine and go wild. It helps that I'm a very fast touch typer so it's not unusual that I can get a chapter done in one sitting. I'll usually do at least one edit right then, and then subsequent edits will repeat on both each new chapter and the chapters before, up until I'm done. With this process I've yet to burn my muse out before completing a story.

Where my muse does get burnt out.. it's that lull right after completing a work. I think I can safely say for everything I've written that I've had a little bit more juice in the tank with a few follow-up scenes / epilogues that weren't necessary to the story I wanted to write, but were possibilities. BUT the writing of the story is so energy draining that I've rarely had the push. I tend to instead go into creative hibernation, like a snake consuming a big meal, need time to recover.

For example, "Mine" got a bonus chapter, and "Through every path" an entire sequel, because I had a lovely burst of comments when I published "Through every path". Those comments gave me that extra push to get both the extra bit of "Mine" on the page, and all of "There he goes" (the Through every path sequel). Alas both of these got very little interaction (lowest comments so far on There he goes). So the muse waved and went to sleep to recuperate.

So - long ramble to say that I can use my natural muse to come up with and burst out ideas on a semi-regular basis, with use of habits to get the stuff on the page. But I also find writing very energy draining and don't tend to follow up stuff unless I get extra push from interactions. So while I semi-subscribe to the idea of authors writing for themselves, I've also experienced the reality that yes, we will do that, but maybe not as much. Because at the end of the day I can write all these drabbles for myself in my head and enjoy them with 10% of the effort. "Oh, Little Butterfly" and "There He Goes" both have mentally-written sequels that I doubt will see the light of day now as my interest in both pairings has waned, and the iron was not struck while it was hot.

About Mal

I love putting the point-of-view character into a self-torment nexus and shaking them around. Mal really lends himself to this because there is so much real life inspiration to draw from - like you say his highs are really high and his lows are really, really low. He fronts with a lot of confidence but he's also very readable so it's beyond obvious when he's feeling something else. I can sympathise, I have zero poker-face too, and it can be very frustrating when you just want to deal with whatever uncertainty you're feeling before anyone else does, but it's obvious what's happening to you.

The other part of it was something I explained in an ask back to midnight-fables, I think it was around favourite relationship tropes? Anyway my ultimate is "being loved for who you are" (and taking that love to an obsessive possessive degree). What attracts me to JokMal as a pairing is that Jokic is the most matter of fact person possible, too smart to not see any possible failure or fault or issue, and is no-holds-barred 100% in the corner of his number 1 Jamal all day everyday. Compare that steady faith to Mal's roller-coaster circumstances and you've got absolute shipping crack.

I'm going to keep writing as long as the muse keeps firing! Here's hoping the stars keep aligning with inspiration ❤️. JokMal is the pairing I've written the most for, I think because there's so much history and fun possibilities to explore. Reader interaction will also always be that extra after-burner for me, so thank you for the ask, and thank you to all readers who comment, kudos and leave asks - it keeps the fires burning 🔥

[vibraniumbraces]

⭐ Talk to me about any section of a fic that you're dying to talk to someone about. Writing is my sport and I would LOVE to hear anything about it.

Also, tell me about the way you wrote Jok for "A Little Help." I love the switch from "Joker" to "Nikola;" what was the inspiration behind that?

There's a scene I wrote recently that I can't talk about because it's right at the near of my latest Mal/Jok/AG fic which is being posted onto ao3 bit by bit. So we'll park that one 😁

I've always been fond of the dialogue in the penultimate chapter of "Mine" after Jok & CB have had their "come to Jesus" moment and CB starts to lose his marbles by Jok acting normal afterwards. Jok then goes into "ok you want to talk about this more? let's talk about this more" and nearly sends CB into system shut-down. "Mine" is the second Nuggets fic I wrote (altho I went back and added the last chapter a little bit later) but felt like I was really starting to click in understanding how to write Jok in a way that matched to traits in him that I like. Being a bit pedantic, funny in both a teasing and silly way.

This section tickles me even now:

“I am a lot. A lot to deal with. It’s - it gets to be too much.” “Jok.” CB dropped his hands to his lap, half-whispered “Are you saying your dick is huge?” A great wheezing laugh erupted. Giggling helplessly, Jok lifted both hands over his face, shoulders shaking. CB watched with growing indignation. “Jok.” CB hissed. Jok dropped his hands halfway down his face. He was an alarming pink, still giggling. He fought through his hysteria for a half leer, incapable of letting the opportunity for a joke pass by “I have no complaints.” “You’ve no complaints???” “I’m not talking about my dick Christian.” Jok waved his hand around in a choppy motion, and CB rapidly tried to re-orient the conversation.  “So - you’re a lot?” Another helpless giggle

Re: "A Little Help", because it's set in nearly present day, and there's no major alternate backstory like a fair chunk of my other Jok/Mal fic, it was very much "write him as he is" and just anchor it in the relationship with Mal. I was inspired by the "only one of us gets angry at a time" info, so that helped ground that Jok stayed relatively even tempered throughout, because Mal was the one pinging all over the place. I also really enjoyed writing their non-verbal communication the last chapter of "Super", which I'd finished right before "A Little Help", and wanted to play around in that swimming pool for a bit longer. So it became fun to use non-verbal body language as they talked. I watch full games when the Nuggets are playing plus lots of media so there's a gold-mine of tics and mannerisms I draw inspiration from.

The transition from Joker to Nikola was Jamal crossing into a slightly more vulnerable state during their conversation, and dropping the mental barrier he has enacted through use of the nickname. The thing that made him shift was Jok rubbing his hand up and down Mal's back and Mal, being touch-starved, having a strong reaction to it. The eagle-eyed will notice that Jok spots the reaction. It's part of the evidence trail Jok follows that makes him end up deciding that, yes, Mal needs "A little help." And not long after Jok has his epiphany about who can. I don't recall any specific inspiration for writing it that way other than wanting to demonstrate a mental flip from being at a slight remove to not.