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sunlitlemonade · 1 year

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y'all can actually 100% disagree with me on this. like genuinely. but every time ian is mentioned and alex is like 'he was training me into something i never wanted to be' i have to take a second and wonder if it was actually like that or if he's just a teenager who never even knew his parents finding out the only living relative he had, the one who brought him up, was something alex never expected him to be. he must feel untethered and betrayed. add to that the trauma he was so nicely handed on a platter right after ian's death and seeing that the skills he had been taught by ian actually helped him. there must be so much bitterness. i think that's part of the reason why every memory mentioned then on is just,,,, tainted with that visceral mix of emotions he never got to process.

lemme show y'all some snippets from Spy Trap. it's a short story set between Skeleton Key and Eagle Strike. anyone who hasn't read it/doesn't want to, the gist is: alex and crawley are in 'car crash' and alex wakes up in a place which acts like a rehabilitation center for MI6 operatives after missions with absolutely ZERO memory of what happened for him to get there. truth is alex and crawley are being kept on a steady diet of drugs to keep them confused and loose to extract valuable intel under the guise of therapy sessions and there was never any car crash. they were drugged and brought in. it was not a hospital for MI6 agents but a set up by foreign intelligence. with all of that in mind - y'know that alex is clearly very disturbed and agitated and under the influence of bad bad stuff - lets see what he has to say about ian [and i know i put a significant chunk here but bear with me]

do you notice how he was prompted into saying what ian wanted from him when dr feng said 'and he wanted you to be a spy too'? for real, with conviction, i know for a fact that he would have refused to elaborate/volunteer any information on ian just the way he did with jack. he wouldn't have said another word. not if that sore spot wasn't hit. and in the very last section we see it boil down to him feeling like luckiest boy in the world but learning he was lied to. we see it all came down to 'I don't even know what Ian really felt about me. Did he like me or did he just want to use me?'

tell me this isn't a boy that hasn't had every memory he had with his uncle overshadowed and tainted by grief and lies. he just wanted love and i truly do think ian loved him. maybe that's just me but hey you're reading my post and i for one am incapable of being normal about these guys.

just think about it - alex was ian's only remaining family too. tell me ian wasn't worried that the way john's work had caught up with him and had gotten him killed, the same might happen to him too? or maybe one day alex could be used as leverage against him and he wanted alex to be ready to defend himself? ok, you might say 'but sunny. that explains the martial arts and physical fitness. what about all the extreme sports and other skills.' well there's this lovely little post by @lapseinart that might give you a little insight. besides, we are working on very little material because we really don't know much about ian except the fact that he was one of the best operatives MI6 had and was important to alex and his competency as a spy.

anyways so immediately after this he says:

and you can see him actively trying to put the session behind him because he seemed to verbally admitted to things he hadn't even admitted to himself before.

idk. i just have a lot of emotions and thoughts but its very interesting to see it progress from 'ian had taught him *insert skill* which is useful here!' to 'ofc another thing ian taught him to discreetly make him into something he didn't want to be'. there's never any proof that ian did that to turn him into a spy [at least as far as i remember lmao. i read the books years back and am on the 4th one on the reread. so my memory of the rest of the books is pretty hazy. correct me if im wrong lol] we never will have a concrete answer because well. ian's dead lmao. we'll never know what he had in mind for alex and why exactly he did all of this. but also,,, the way sorrow and lividity at being lied to twists alex's way of thinking about ian is Something Else.

#woof too much thinking for my pea sized brain. gonna go read some jayroy smut now #meanwhile here's a meta(ish?) post for any other nerd that cares #alex rider #ian rider

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vanilla-phantoms · 1 year

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hiii i'm so sorry this is MONTHS late but has anyone ever come around to asking you to elaborate on your w359 au where kep leaves si-5 and is replaced with rachel. pls i need to know everything about it (if you're down to talk about it!)

Nope you’re the first to have asked! I had the idea a good while ago so I’ve lost the initial screenshots from the conversation I was having with a friend about it, but the gist is basically like…

Kepler. Doesn’t really like his job, does he? You can of course interpret his speech to Eiffel about being the “artist formerly known as Warren kepler” with varying levels of sincerity, but I think that it’s a pretty incredible speech that has the potential to lend a lot of depth to his character if you interpret it as sincere.

I hear this and I’m like. God what if he just quit. Like we know he has his reasons for doing it, and seems to genuinely believe in the bigger picture that goddard claims to be working for, but maybe, just maybe, if he was just a little bit more in touch with his emotions, he would have it in him to just LEAVE. And what if in some universe, he left before the Hephaestus mission? How would that change things?

Because I’m a kepcobi shipper, the first thing I did was think about him trying to convince jacobi to leave with him, run away with him essentially. Jacobi wouldn’t think he was serious at first, he’d think it was a test, be pleased with himself for passing it when he refuses, but no, Kepler really is leaving. And it takes a little bit for it to sink in what he’s asking Jacobi to do. I think maybe he’d consider it a bit, maybe even go to Maxwell and talk it over, ask her to come too, but at the end of the day, Maxwell and Jacobi have much more reason to be with Goddard, and they actually are doing what they love and what they’re good at. I don’t think that they would go.

So, what then?

Well, someone has to head the SI-5, and Kepler and Rachel have had some competition going on and are great in-story foils, so she seems both a natural and narratively interesting choice. She’s ruthless, she believes in the cause just as much as kepler, and she’s shown she’s willing to follow it even farther to the bitter end. So how much would really change?

In my opinion, the real kicker here is loyalty. The SI-5 are all talented individuals, but what makes them so dangerous is how they work as a team, and Kepler’s only real main skill is to hold that team together. I always argue that, though he puts on an intimidating show for the Hephaestus crew, Maxwell and Jacobi themselves were never scared of him. They’re each loyal for their own reasons, mainly because he respects them as professionals (though maybe not as much as friends). How much could Rachel Young conduct the same loyalty?

Probably not as much. And that’s what’s her undoing in the end. I think in this au, the Hephaestus crew are able to sway the sympathies of Maxwell and Jacobi a little easier, though I haven’t thought of the details on how. Rachel would kill and die for Goddard, but Maxwell and Jacobi wouldn’t kill and die for Rachel.

After this it could go so many ways. Maybe they succeed in turning Jacobi and Maxwell against Rachel but not in totally getting them on their side. It could be a slow process as they all realize that they’re better off working together, maybe helped along by Rachel letting slip how replaceable she thinks they are. Do they keep her as a prisoner? It would be like those early debates with Hilbert as a prisoner, but with all the new characters, there’s a lot more diverse moral perspectives to that argument that could be really interesting.

I’ve considered whether Rachel could be redeemed if she’s on the station for longer without Cutter and Pryce there, and I really like to think that any character is capable of it, so maybe in some universe that’s true. But for Kepler, the real turning point that made him reconsider his actions and his choices was having to face Jacobi’s anger and sense of betrayal. And if Rachel was never as close with any of the members of her team, would any of it hit hard enough to really get to her? Who knows, but I find it unlikely.

Anyway, yeah. I don’t know how it ends. Cutter and Pryce show up but with Hilbert and Maxwell still alive and with Rachel incapacitated, maybe they don’t get away with quite so much damage before they’re defeated. I don’t know, I just know that it would change things.

And after it’s all over and they’re back on earth, Jacobi can find Kepler somewhere and tell him he was right to leave.

#we don’t actually get that much insight as to why Kepler joined goddard like we do with the other characters #i have my own extensive headcanons about it #maxwell lives in this au #this whole time kepler is running like a small town bakery or something incognito #he’s probably terribly bored and lonely but Yknow what it’s better than the alternative #van talks #wolf359 #wolf 359 #kepcobi #Warren kepler #Rachel young #dare I add those character tags? the wolf 359 fandom scares me #long post

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katwriteswitcherthings · 2 years

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for the fic writer questions... 4, 5, 27... and 10 !!

=^.^= <3 I'm just gonna pic a few of my fics at random!

4. What detail in grasp the nettle are you really proud of?

How Keldar is able to knock out a mage with a sign in one hit. This is part of a bigger story where it would get elaborated on more, but Griffins are known as the more magical of the Witcher schools, right?

So, they're probably all really strong at signs. Especially an elder Griffin.

I head-cannon that when mages go wrong (whether that be genuine or politically motivated), they contract Griffins as bounty hunters to track down and bring them in for sentencing/ jail. Keldar has had centuries of experience tracking and capturing mages.

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about nothing more to say? Answer it now!

Why/how were they looping?

A long time ago, I read a fic called Turtle Loops that was pure crack in the best ways. Apparently there is a whole universe of fics built on this premise? IDK but I thought it would be neat if there was something like this but for Witcher. I chose my favorite version of each character (Book!Geralt, Netflix!Jaskier, and Game!Yennefer) and ran with it.

I originally wanted this to run a little longer and actually have all three jumping into Book!Geralt's timeline at the proper time, but I ran out of time. Flash fic can be very unforgiving like that! :D I might come back to it someday if the bunny bites again.

27. How long did it take to write Vi Moxt Miirik? Describe the process.

I got the idea for this story sometime late October/Early November of last year. I started the document on Nov. 9th, 2021. I was searching through the Witcher wiki for some other story and fell down a rabbit hole, leading to some interesting articles on other wikis about the origins of specific monsters on the Continent.

I love non-human!Jaskier so much and thought, wow, Jaskier would make an excellent [redacted]. I also had just finished both The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, and really wanted to incorporate a few of the other short stories into the Netflix!Canon.

I started the story, but I kept skipping around terribly. I wrote a lot for it, though, and I even had a general outline of when I wanted the stories to take place; but the connective tissue just never felt right to me. So I tossed it to the back burner for a while, adding a little bit here and there, but mostly left it alone. It's sitting at 28,224 words right now, and still nowhere near done.

Then, I see this year's What About The Bard?'s prompt list and... it clicked. It was originally in Geralt POV, so I switched it to Jaskier's and the ideas just worked so much better like that. Fun fact, the italic parts of the story are bits and pieces from the original Geralt POV version cut down or finished up. Most of the dialogue is the same across the different fics.

Who knows? I might get the inspiration to finally finish up the original version one day and post it up along side the WATB Jaskier version.

10. How do you decide what to write?

I get ideas from the most random of places. Flash fic has been great for letting loose random plots; the time limit means you have no time to dawdle. You just write and hope it makes sense when you're done.

I have a couple of documents I keep running lists on of ideas / pairings / concepts that I want to write. I have a fic in the works that's Young Vesemir/Guxart/Keldar OT3 set in the same universe as grasp the nettle.

Discord shenanigans are also very inspiring. I wrote a Sentinel/Guide AU because someone in a server was talking about how much they loved them and how much of a staple trope it was 'back in the day'. I have several rare-pairs that I want to write for, just so a friend isn't the only one making content for it.

#answered ask #ask meme #writing meme #@kuwdora

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makeste · 3 years

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Question. Do you think BNHA has been too fast? Like. Everything that's happened, from Deku not having a quirk, to gearing up to taking on the big boss who even his mentor - who no hero has previously been able to surpass - wasn't able to defeat at full power. Has happened, pretty much, within a single year. That's... an incredibly short time-frame honestly. Would it have been better if there was more timeskips and training involved before the final battle?

a lot of this actually depends on what you mean by "too fast." because the thing is my answer changes depending on what the question actually is.

do I think BnHA has been too rushed at times? - yes.

do I think BnHA has been too short/would be better if it was longer? - no.

let me start by saying that I'm often curious about what portion of BnHA's readership has actually read the three iconic early 2000s-era series which collectively used to be known as Shounen Jump's own "Big Three" -- Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. all three of these were long-running flagship WSJ series much in the same vein as BnHA, and in fact BnHA is often seen as a spiritual successor to them. and all three series ran for a very long time. Naruto and Bleach each ran for 15 years and upwards of 600 chapters (Naruto actually ended on chapter 700, and Bleach came close, clocking in at 686). One Piece, meanwhile, is somehow actually still running, currently at 1031 chapters. all three series include all of those bucket list items that readers of BnHA are constantly clamoring for:

loooong, long arcs with plenty of room for the plot to breathe

numerous one-on-one showcase fights for all of the main characters, and a good chunk of the supporting casts as well

training arcs where we spend time watching the heroes learn their new upgrades

and last but not least, timeskips

all that stuff. and all three of these series had one other thing in common as well: they all fell completely off the rails after about five years, and spent the next decade afterwards lingering on as shadows of their former selves. (OP is maybe the one exception, because it still has fits and bursts of energy from time to time, and actually seems to be moving steadily (if very slowly lol) towards some kind of thoughtful, actually-planned-out resolution. that said, it has absolutely had a sharp decline from its glory days, and I will stand by that hot take even if I still enjoy the series.)

there's a gap, I think, between what people imagine a long manga will be like, and what it actually is like. actually it's less of a gap and more of a chasm tbh.

what people imagine: "a longer story would give Horikoshi more time to explore all those interesting plot threads and angles that he keeps glossing over and never elaborating on"

what it actually is like: you know that cool side character/sideplot thing we got introduced to a couple chapters back? here's an entire arc focused on them and their life story! unfortunately this means that we won't actually get back to the main plot and characters for approximately six months. but hey at least we're expanding our worldbuilding.

what people imagine: "a longer story would give Horikoshi more time to focus on character development"

what it actually is like: FOR EVERY. LAST. CHARACTER. including all of the characters that you don't actually give a shit about, unless you're one of those miraculous but lovely people who are genuinely fond of every single one. either way, once again I hope you're good with saying goodbye to the main cast for half a year or more.

what people imagine: "a longer story would give Horikoshi more time to write realistic training arcs and develop the characters' abilities at a more reasonable pace"

what it actually is like: do you know what training montages are. do you know why they were invented. I will tell you why: because realistically-paced training arcs are actually the single most boring thing on the planet. training is literally just repetition of something. the process is always exactly the same, every single time. there's a reason why most writers tend to avoid focusing on it, realism be damned.

what people imagine: "a timeskip would make it more believable for the characters to be at the level that they're at, and would make the story more mature"

what it actually is like: we miss out on months or even years of character development. the characters for some reason always split up over the timeskip period, and so they miss out on months and/or years of relationship development with each other. every single battle suddenly becomes "here is so-and-so's shiny new upgrade, now watch as they either effortlessly win their fight, or else struggle to do so thus making us question whether all that time spent training was even worth it." and also suddenly the series is inexplicably trying to be more mature, which for some reason always seems to mean (1) more character death, and (2) romance!! and not the kind of romance tumblr actually likes, lol. we're talking that good old-fashioned forced heterosexual EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET PAIRED OFF WITH SOMEONE romance up in here.

what people imagine: "a long series would give Horikoshi more time to breathe so that he doesn't feel pressure to keep rushing everything"

what it actually is like: imagine being forced to continue doing something for literal decades of your life, long after all of your motivation and inspiration has dried up, all because your work is continuing to bring in $$$ and the fans don't want it to end. imagine just phoning it in each and every week, pulling new story arcs and new characters out of your ass until the plot has become so convoluted that there's no hope whatsoever of ending it clean, and no chance in hell of every character getting a satisfying resolution, because your cast has simply grown too expansive.

that's what long-running shounen series are like. that's what Horikoshi is trying to avoid (and in fact some would probably argue he's already reached that point lol). yes, the series has been rushed lately. a lot of people have been saying that Horikoshi is burned out; I personally have gotten more of a vibe that he is close to being burned out, and so he's trying to rush to the ending before that happens so that he can give the series the send-off he feels it deserves. I think he has a clear plan for the endgame, but the path to the endgame isn't quite as thought-out, and so he's chosen to fudge a lot of it simply because he doesn't have enough fucks left to waste on stuff that ultimately isn't important. which might not be ideal, but it is what it is.

but just to be clear, no matter how rushed things are, or how rushed they continue to be, I will always, 10 times out of 10, take this over the Naruto/Bleach/OP route. because I have seen that play out more than enough times already, thank you very much lol. and honestly, if the latest arc has taught us nothing else, it's that history would easily repeat itself with BnHA given half the chance, because Horikoshi is just as human as those other writers, and has already spent the past seven years throwing all of his best ideas at us one by one. and eventually he's going to run out, you guys.

so yeah. all good things, etc. this may be one of my most unpopular opinions, lol, but I stand by it.

#bnha 332 #bnha meta #bnha endgame #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #long post

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gallavictorious · 3 years

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bottom!mickey nonnie here, i had some more thoughts in response to your reply, if you don't mind? :) i can see where the trust aspect might come into play for mickey re: bottoming and i understand your thought process. the only thing that makes me doubt that is how quickly that trust must have been established between him and ian if that is the case. they haven't been fucking for that long when kash walks in on them (which is the first instance we actually know mickey bottoms). i suppose that there could have been a lot of off-screen developments and interactions, but it's too quick imo. their relationship in season one seems more puppy-love to me rather than a deep bond (which i see as starting to form in season two). the way i see it, the only level of trust that needs to be established is "i know you won't tell anyone because you're also closeted and you won't treat me like a bitch because if you do, i'll beat you tf up and just never fuck you again" which is pretty shallow and something mickey could probably have reached with other guys, too. idk, i just don't see their relationship in season one as deep enough for mickey to start trusting ian with things he's worried or insecure about. it makes more sense to me that he lets ian fuck him because it's not that big a deal, rather than because he's already let ian past his walls. we know that ian is all in by that point, but i just don't think mickey is. he likes ian, is drawn to him (probably against his better judgement), but that's as far as it goes, as i see him. since there are such few scenes between them in season one we have no choice but to make our own interpretations, and those are bound to differ. i've just never seen mickey indicate that he thinks bottoming = being a bitch, or even that it's something he worries about. the only thing to support that would be his attitude to prison, but like i said before, i don't think mickey views sex in prison the same as he views sex on the outside. he probably views everything in prison differently. on the outside, with guys who share his secret? i don't think it's too much of a stretch that he would just do what he wants. the danger is the same either way. just my interpretation of him, of course :)

Hiya, Bottom!Mickey Nonnie No. 1!

I don't mind one little bit; in fact, I'm delighted! Apart from enjoying the fun discussion, it's always gratifying to hear back from anons: you usually never actually know if your answer has reached them.

First off, you're damned right it's quick! I personally don't subscribe to the idea that Mickey knew that Ian was gay or had a crush on him preceding their 1x07 tryst (nothing wrong with that notion, btw, it just doesn't appeal to me), so when they suddenly start tearing off each other's clothes that's very sudden. I tend to assume there might have a tiny bit of vague interest prior to this, the proximity and tussling triggers mutual attraction, they both spring boners, and yeah, off they go? You're also quite right in (implicitly) pointing out that we don't know that they had penetrative sex at that time – maybe they moved up from mutual handjobs or just plain grinding to something more a few trysts later. Either way, you make a good point about the danger of sex outside of lock-up would be the same regardless of whether Mickey bottoms or not. I'd never really thought about that before, so thank you for pointing that out!

However, it's probable that the reason I haven't thought very much about it is because when I speak of Mickey's easy trust for Ian I don't primarily mean him trusting Ian not to reveal his secrets to anyone else, but trust him to know Mickey in a way others are not allowed – and here we disagree and that is fine. :) If you see Mickey as unbothered by being into bottoming, you can certainly find support for that in the narrative. We do have the famous ”liking what I like”-line, which absolutely can be taken at face value! The fact that I tend to interpret it as (partly) Mickey being deliberately unapologetic because he feels a bit uneasy about his preferences and is somewhat defensive about Ian's brief allusions to common prejudices around bottoming, has more to do with my assumption that – given Mickey's circumstances – this is something that Mickey's likely to feel insecure about. He's internalized his father's homophobia to some degree; it just seems reasonable to me that he'd have internalized Terry's strong conviction that Milkoviches don't bottom too. (He certainly seems ready to embody that when he attacks Ian's army fuck buddy in season 3, citing the need to kick him straight because he's the one taking it up the ass. However, that could also totally performative or seen as him making a twisted kind of in-joke, so it's hardly conclusive.) Furthermore, I feel that it's not unreasonable to question Mickey's sincerity in regards to the line mentioned above, since we do have instances of him acting seemingly geuninely dismissive even when we know he probably cares quite a bit. I'm thinking primarily about his reaction to Ian's sex strike in season 11; I just don't buy he was unbothered by that, but there's nothing in the way he expresses his lack of concern that suggests it's insincere. This doesn't mean that I think my reading of the line is the correct one, though, just that it's a possible reading given what else we know of Mickey.

But of course, this really is just my assumptions and interpretations. It's very possible to infer from his actions onscreen that Mickey is totally unconcerned about bottoming, and always has been. After all, Mickey is in many ways a genuinely confident person, and I think this extends to his sex life. (I just think there's insecurity and concern, too... Basically, I think Mickey's relationship with his own sexuality and preferences is complicated, a paradoxical tangle of confidence and shame. I find this complexity is fascinating, and if we're being honest that's probably one of the reasons why I'm not so eager to let go of the notion of it.)

That said, though, and regardless of whether or not bottomingrequires any particular trust on Mickey's part, I think we dohave some concrete evidence of Mickey letting Ian past his walls already in 1x07. Not the sex – because we don't know anything about that – but the return of the gun after. That look on Mickey's face just then? That's vulnerability. He knows that by giving the weapon back when he doesn't have to, he shows hint of a softness he can ill afford people to know he possesses at this point. It's walls dropped, if only for a moment, and I just don't see him allowing that with many – if any – other people. While it isvery quick and while there's no telling whyor how, I firmly believe that there is an immediate trust between them that goes beyond just sex. It might not be logical, but I think it's there, and that this easy, natural understanding is a huge part of what has them coming back to each other again and again in spite of the odds being stacked overwhelmingly against them. Like you, though, I don't see this as a deep bond or anything, not this early. Ian falls in love quickly and easily; for Mickey is a much slower process, because he fights even the possibility of it tooth and claw.

And ah, I'm aware that in my first response to you I promised to elaborate on my thoughts on Mickey's stint in Mexico in my reply to Bottom!Mickey Nonnie No. 2, but I ended up cutting that because it got absurdly long in comparision to my notes on what they were actuallyasking about, and that didn't seem fair or relevant to them. However, I now have a third (and a fourth... apparently this is a subject dear to your hearts, sweet followers) Bottom!Mickey Nonnie in my inbox, so if this is something you're interested in, despair not! We'll get there!

Thank you so much for getting in touch, both with your first ask and with this follow-up. I've enjoyed reading your thoughts, and developing my own in response to them, immensely! I highly value being able to civilly disagree and argue viewpoints without either side feeling the need to convince the other, so this has been a real treat. <3

#for a person who isn't very interested in smut at all #i sure have a lot of thoughts on this #mickey milkovich #gallavich #meta #asks #my stuff

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