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aletterinthenameofsanity · 3 months

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Looking over my main characters/the arcs I tend to write/the characters I tend to be attracted to writing 200k+ words about, patterns start to emerge (most of which describe me pretty well, ngl). So I'm kinda curious.

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khruschevshoe · 6 months

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Izzy Hands and Mel Spriggs

The capillaries in my eyes are bursting

If our love died, would that be the worst thing?

For somebody I thought was my saviour

You sure make me do a whole lot of labour

The calloused skin on my hands is cracking

If our love ends, would that be a bad thing?

So now I've gotta run, so I can undo this mistake

At least I've gotta try

-Paris Paloma, Labour

It is an impossible task, near-Sisyphean, to ascend the stairs lacking a leg, dizzy from blood loss, as the ship rolls from side-to-side in the pounding of a Caribbean storm.

But the ship is sailing into a storm. If Blackbeard is going to use the storm to do what Izzy would not, then he is going to take the rest of the crew’s lives with him.

The rest of the crew’s lives are at stake, both above and below. Izzy did not spend months placing himself forward as a sacrifice to the altar to watch the sea god kill the rest of them all in a cultish group suicide.

So Izzy grits his teeth against the incendiary waves of agony that swamp his every nerve and uses the very gun that Blackbeard forced into his hand to brace himself against the wall of the stairway as he pushes forward to the sounds of yelling, thumping, and thunder from above.

---

Three days after the announcement, Melanie places the rat poison into the section of dinner that only her parents will be allowed to eat.

(She should have realized a long time ago that there was never any chance that they would change their minds about the will. Her parents have never let her eat the good stuff, the rich duck, the delicacies that, as their only remaining heir, she should have every right to.)

Her hands should shake as she delivers the plates to the table, but they don’t. How could they, when she is finally saving herself?

-aletterinthenameofsanity, bury me as it pleases you (but these bones never rested while living)

God, this one is visceral and it pulls absolutely no punches. I hadn't thought about the parallels between Mel killing her parents and Izzy shooting Blackbeard until the moment I read this fic, but now I can't unsee them. The religious imagery is INSANE and the edizzy dynamic has me chewing drywall, plus Mel's POV really gives us a glimpse into her life in Anguilla and the decision she made to kill her abusive parents.

@possumsmushroom @yuenity @bricksbloggyplace @polikate

#izzy hands #edizzy #religious imagery #abusive relationships #mel spriggs #melanie spriggs #labour #paris paloma #fic rec #fanfic #lyrics #moodboard #ao3 #aletterinthenameofsanity #finally killing/escaping their abusers?#yes please

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countesspetofi · 2 years

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10 Characters, 10 Fandoms, 10 Tags!

Thank you @celestial-alignment for tagging me to share my 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms!

(Favorites subject to change without warning, void where prohibited. I'm just proud of myself for finally actually completing a tag post. I had a hard enough time narrowing down the fandoms!)

LET THE PARADE OF BLORBOS COMMENCE

Star Wars: Princess Leia Organa

The original galactic girlboss. She is beauty, she is grace, she will shoot you in the face, and kick your ass to outer space. She fights hard because she loves hard. She doesn't know who we are or where we came from, but from now on, we do as she tells us.

Star Trek: Commander Deanna Troi

Patron saint of situational disability. Does a thankless job and does it well. If she makes you uncomfortable it’s probably for your own good. (Just like Mom, but don’t let her hear you say that.) Hair goals.

Batman ’66: Batman

The Bright Knight. The man himself. He’s a weirdo and he leans into it. Pulled off a conference call with Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne. Has his own dance craze and a killer theme song.

Night Court: Judge Harry Stone

Has every right to be sad and bitter, chooses laughter instead. Will drag you kicking and screaming out of your own bad mood. Turns down the lights and plays Mel Tormé for lesbians.

Babylon 5: Lennier of the Third Fane of Chudomo

To right the unrightable wrong, and to love pure and chaste from afar, this is his quest to follow that star. Sweet boy who came to a bad end.

Dark Shadows (Original Series): Jenny Collins

If you read Jane Eyre and stanned the mad wife in the attic, Jenny’s your girl. I know if I married a Victorian cad who ran off to Egypt with his brother’s wife, MY big sister would turn him into a werewolf, too. Trivia: I once played the Third Witch in Macbeth by just pretending to be Jenny Collins.

The Vampire Chronicles: Louis de Pointe du Lac

Bit of a Gloomy Gus? Sure. Brings the room down sometimes? It’s a fair cop. But boy, can this dude weave a story. The author might have switched her allegiance to the bad boy, but the first book is what drew people in and it’s all Louis and his Byronic brooding. (Using an image from the 1994 film adaptation, but it’s more about the books for me.)

Our Flag Means Death: Lucius Spriggs

Reminds me of my oldest friend, who I met in junior high school. Sometimes you just need a friend to tell you you're going to end up another leather-clad, middle-aged sad sack dying alone in a puddle of your own piss, so hang onto him.

The Muppets: Forgetful Jones

You’re spoiled for choice with this bunch, right? But ol’ Forgetful was my first love, consarn it. Miss you, Richard Hunt. I had more to say, but… I FORGOT!

Forever Knight: Nick Knight/Nicolas de Brabant

With the face of a fallen angel and the blackest silk pajamas in the Greater Toronto Area, our vampire himbo prince was the best undead Canadian homicide cop of the late twentieth century. Being cute covers a multitude of sins

ETA: How the hell did I miscount? I’ve been working on this forever! I bumped Miss Parker, so she might come and kill me..

I tried to come up with a fancy system for randomly selecting blogs to tag, but it didn't go so well, so I just picked the first ten blogs I instantly recognized from my followers list (which is sorted however tumblr sorts these things). If you're tagged and don’t want to do it (or have already done it), that is cool! If you're not tagged and do want to do it, that may even be slightly cooler.

@ilovemesomevincentprice @tunglo @agent-troi @oysterloaf @dunkaroosandglitter @megalokalypse @gooosetooth @rose-of-pollux @righteousnerd @gaslightgallows

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khruschevshoe · 6 months

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Lucius and Mel Spriggs

It's all washin' over me, I'm angry again

The things that I lost here, the people I knew

They got me surrounded for a mile or two

The car's in reverse, I'm grippin' the wheel

I am not scared of death, I've got dreams again

It's just me and the curve of the valley

And there is meanin' on earth, I am happy

-Noah Kahan, The View Between Villages

Now that she is not dwelling over her own death, the anger seeps in. A righteous, blessed anger, at not just her parents but merchant society and the whole damn island that broke her and her brother. They were children. Babies tossing coins into wishing wells thinking that a tiny circle of metal might somehow banish the monster from their house. They never should have been trapped in that manor house, any more than Jim or Lucius or Frenchie or Izzy or Archie or Fang should have been trapped by their sea god.

“Fuck that place,” Mel spits as she takes another swig of rum. It burns going down, as hot and sour as her fury, and she relishes it. She'll take the heat of grog over the chill of a gaol cell any day. “Fuck being seventeen and knowing you'll never make it out and accepting that you're destined to die." She passes the bottle back to Lucius. “Because we did, you know? We made it out. Fuck him. Both of them. We made ourselves a family, a home, beyond what they wanted for us.”

“Fuck yeah,” Lucius says, raising the bottle in the air, cheering her statement. "Fuck him. Eat shit, Solomon and Elizabeth Spriggs." He downs a large gulp of rum while sending a middle finger to the sky.

And Mel cannot help the giggle that bubbles up through her throat, escaping bright and wild into the ocean air.

Going home can be a comfort for some, but it would never have been a comfort for her. Anguilla holds only ghosts; the Revenge holds life. It holds lantern light and music and love.

Because finally, Mel has this. The thing that she and Lucius could never have as children, when they were too scared of who might overhear. They have a shared anger, a shared catharsis. They get to complain together, bitch together, exist together without sins or memories weighing them down.

-aletterinthenameofsanity, forgive my northern attitude (I was raised on little light)

Something about reading Mel and Lucius' heart-to-heart rewired my brain a bit after the amazing arc they had in Season 3 and I'm not going to be over it anytime soon. Clearly I'm not over it now because I've been thinking about these two and their complicated, loving, trauma-bonded dynamic and them finally getting a sense of catharsis for the past week and a half.

(In which I have been rotating this song in my head for these two for weeks now and I don't care if I already did a moodboard for their dynamic, I'm posting a second one because I have FEELINGS, alright?)

@polikate @bricksbloggyplace @possumsmushroom

#mel spriggs #melanie spriggs #lucius spriggs #everyone give it up for our favorite siblings #their complex trauma bond and recovery and backslide and finding each other again dynamic is EVERYTHING #ofmd #fanfic #fic rec #ao3 #aletterinthenameofsanity #moodboard #noah kahan #the view between villages #aesthetic #lyrics

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khruschevshoe · 6 months

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Jim Jimenez and Mel Spriggs

You should fear what you already know

And hope that you never find out about the things you don't know yet

Just because something burns bright

Doesn't mean it's gonna burn forever

So, all these people around you saying

"You got so much further to go"

"It's gonna get worse before it gets better"

I don't know, I don't know if that's true

'Cause we are all, eventually

Either the victims, or the victims' family

-Cold War Kids, First

"I don't ever want to be the reason Lucius gets hurt," Mel says. "And it seems like lately, that's all I seem to be doing. He's on edge, and he's pretending not to be, and I can't help but think that me being back here is just bringing back bad things into his life."

The problem with Mel is that unlike Blackbeard, whose apologies meant nothing to Jim even when they were sincere because Blackbeard had actively hurt them over and over, on purpose, Mel has made these hurts on accident. In certain ways, they're not even her fault; it's two people with their own bad histories bashing their own responses to stress up against each other in ways guaranteed to leave cracks.

Jim thinks about their friendships with Pete and Izzy, about how steady they feel, about how opening up to Pete about their gender has made them feel connected and sharing under the stars with Izzy has made them feel grounded. Mel is still adrift, dragging her chains behind her.

They take a deep breath. They can do this. They can try to trust an outsider.

For Lucius, Jim thinks. For their friends, they would do anything.

-aletterinthenameofsanity, on the back of a hurricane that started turning (when you were young)

So, I'm a big fan of watching Jim's journey of trust in Season 3, especially as it relates to Mel. To steal a line from this excerpt, Jim and Mel both have trauma reactions that don't always coincide nicely, and it's a real treat to get to see them slowly work things out until things explode with the bounty poster reveal (no spoilers, sorry, y'all will have to read it!), but then eventually Jim and Mel resolve their problems and end up with one of the tighter bonds in the show. I love a good mistrust-of-strangers-due-trauma-evolves-into-found-family-bonds arc, and these two really sell it well.

(Also, the Front Bottoms really fit these two's combined vibe.)

@possumsmushroom @bricksbloggyplace @jaceum @yuenity @polikate

#was just sorting through my folders and found out I somehow missed this one #jim jimenez #mel spriggs #melanie spriggs #ofmd #fanfic #fic rec #ao3 #aletterinthenameofsanity #moodboard #lyrics #plastic flowers #the front bottoms #also jim is very much supportive of Mel's asexuality and that's pretty dope #asexual representation #Asexual Mel Spriggs is my life!

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khruschevshoe · 7 months

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Mel Spriggs

Long is the road that leads me home

And longer still when I walk alone

Steady is the hand that's come to terms

With the lessons it has had to learn

I've seen the things that I must do

So take my hand and set me free

Take my burdens and bury them deep

Take this burden away from me

And bury it before it buries me

-The Oh Hellos, Cold Is The Night

As Archie twirls her into her brother’s arms, Mel feels more a part of the sea than ever before.

She is no merchant's daughter. She is no trapped child. She is no criminal.

She is a pirate. She is free.

She is home.

This is the moment that Mel Spriggs wants to stay in forever, uninhibited, with her brother and her friends and this new, incredible family that she is beginning to call her own.

-aletterinthenameofsanity, look at the stars and confess our dreams (we can't wait 'til tomorrow)

I would like y'all to meet my new blorbo, Mel Spriggs, stubborn, beautifully-developed aromantic asexual queen. Since I am cursed with said blorbo being an OC in a fic series I'm reading, I just had to make her a moodboard.

Y'all can meet her in her intro fic here, though she gets a full arc over the course of the series:

(I'm thinking of making moodboards for other characters/ships in the series, if people are interested? What do y'all think?)

@polikate @bricksbloggyplace @angxlwiings @possumsmushroom @aletterinthenameofsanity

#mel spriggs #lucius spriggs #ofmd #ao3 #fanfic #the oh hellos #cold is the night #lyrics #moodboard #aletterinthenameofsanity #melanie spriggs #oc #aesthetic #I'm begging y'all to please read it #our flag means death #aromantic asexual icon my beloved

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khruschevshoe · 6 months

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Lucius and Mel Spriggs

Isaac, are you listening? I watched it from afar

Yes, I watched as your life just fell apart

Isaac, will you never learn that a father's love must be earned

Or your mother need not learn?

Isaac, I have never seen you look so afraid

With your head pressed so hard against the stone, you look so alone

I'm gonna give all my love to you

-Bear's Den, Isaac

When Mel set off for the Republic of Pirates, she could have remade herself in any number of ways. She could have chosen a new first name, a new surname, could have gotten rid of her last name entirely.

But she didn’t. She stayed Mel Spriggs, damn the consequences, not because the last name gave her protection, but because it connected her to the one person who, at any point in her life, had protected her. It didn’t matter that he’d left her. It didn’t matter that she had so little of a chance to find him that she had a better chance finding a letter in a bottle dropped off the side of a ship in the middle of the ocean.

Mel Spriggs was Lucius Spriggs’ little sister, and she was going to find him. She was going to get her family back.

-aletterinthenameofsanity, while you were out there weighing odds (I was imploding the mirage)

In honor of the new Mel & Lucius fic that went up yesterday, here is my moodboard for their relationship! I have never gotten so attached to an oc relationship before, but their sibling relationship is so complex and organic and real and heartwarming that I just got smacked in the face with the emotions!

This fic is not the first one in the series, but it is the one this quote is from! (Plus it has a Lucius-involved wedding proposal in for those who loved the proposal in the show!)

@polikate @angxlwiings @possumsmushroom @bricksbloggyplace

#lucius spriggs #mel spriggs #melanie spriggs #my absolute favorite siblings #god their development is SO GOOD #So complicated and raw and loving and real #ofmd #ofmd season 3 #fic rec #fanfic #ao3 #aletterinthenameofsanity #sibling goals #moodboard #lyrics #bear's den #isaac bear's den #lucius & mel spriggs

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 4 months

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we'll all be here forever, or musings on sibling love

Listening to Noah Kahan's song "You're Gonna Go Far" and thinking a lot about siblings today. About how I've moved seventeen hours away from home and how I only see my younger brother twice a year and how we're nothing alike but how he knows me better than anyone else in the world, because our parents got divorced when we were so young and we were the only constants in each other's worlds and how we're mirrors of each other in so many ways and how there is a weight between us because no one knows how to hurt us like each other and about how as an eldest daughter I am protective of him but that he felt like he could never live up to the precedent I set in school (despite the fact that he's exceeded me in so many ways) and how I was always trying to cushion the blow of realizing how our father had failed us to the point where my brother still doesn't know the extent about it despite the fact that we're both adults.

Thinking about how I still love my little brother and always will but how love is shown in the small acts, like learning about sports I don't care about and asking him for country music recommendations because I didn't pay enough attention to him when I was a teenager because I was too focused on myself but I was this thing between a kid and an adult, never enough of one to feel like enough of the other, and how I'm still trying. That I care about these things because I care about him.

I'm thinking about love. I'm thinking about the long car rides to and from our dad's house on dad's weeks and the two of us falling asleep in the car in the morning listening to country music and how it's been thirteen years since our parents got divorced and I'm halfway across the country but I still smile when I see pokemon memes and text them to my brother because love is stored in the road trips and the bonding moments and the things that sucked and the things that hold nostalgia and the things that make you who you are.

I'm thinking about my brother. And I'm thinking about how he'll never know that he's the inspiration behind so many of my younger sibling characters in my writing and how sometimes the greatest evidence of love is something that the other person will never see.

I'm thinking about growing up. I'm thinking about distance and closeness and the bonds that can bend without ever breaking. I'm thinking about love.

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 6 months

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So, Uh, That's A Lot of Words...

I'm not entirely sure how this is humanly possible (I'm the one who wrote it and I couldn't tell you how), but it looks like with these next two updates (one of which is already at 6k and the other of which is at 5kish, both of which look like they'll both need AT LEAST a few thousand more to complete), I'm going to hit 300,000 words in 2.5 months? CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW I DID THAT???

(This is coming from someone who once asked how NaNoWriMo was possible bc no way someone could write 50k in a month, whose previous writing record was for my book Burn the House Down, which was about 85k in 3.5 months. Like, I'm sorry? This should not have been physically or mentally possible? And yet I don't feel stressed at all?

Guess I gotta thank the hyperfixation, the new job, and the new place, but still. I don't know how I pulled this off.)

Anyway, if any of y'all want to check out what started out as an OFMD s2 fix-it fic (with plenty of poly rep, disabled rep, trauma recovery, shenanigans, and a living Izzy!) before it spiralled, you can find it here as I finish the last few updates:

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #aletterinthenameofsanity #ao3 #fanfic #jim x archie x oluwande #Lucius x izzy x black pete #lupeteizzy #jim jimenez #oluwande boodhari #archie ofmd #mel spriggs #melanie spriggs #lucius spriggs #black pete #izzy hands #i feel like that will smith meme #*gestures to the series* look at that word count on my baby

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khruschevshoe · 6 months

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Archie Jimenez and Mel Spriggs

How deeply are you sleeping

Or are you still awake?

A good friend told me

You've been staying out so late

Be careful what it takes

From what I've seen so far

The good ones always seem to break

Grab me by my ankles, I've been flying for too long

-Florence + the Machine, Sky Full of Song

Mel looks down at the deck. "It's nice to see the whole family from here," Mel says. "See them in their natural habitat, and all."

Archie looks beneath them. Up on the upperdecks, Olu is at the wheel of the ship, talking with Lucius, who is jotting down notes as Olu gracefully steers the ship towards the Republic of Pirates. Down on the deck, Pete is leaning against the railing, whittling away at something. Izzy stops on his walk up to talk with Olu in order to press a quick kiss to Pete's mouth. Pete grins so wide that Archie can see it all the way up here. Jim leans over the side of the rigging to chat with Frenchie and Fang, who are busy playing cards while Wee John sits on a crate next to them, working on a new knitting project. Roach is likely below deck in the kitchens, bustling away with dinner.

Archie can't help but smile fondly. This is her family, now. She is a part of this crew, not just as an able body, but as cared about as Mel or Lucius or Izzy or Jim. "We've got a pretty great set-up on this ship, don't we?"

Mel nods and smiles at Archie in turn. "I'm glad you're feeling better. Things weren't as fun without you here."

-aletterinthenameofsanity, everybody saw that spring had come again (with a love song)

And enter my two new blorbos and their delightful friendship! It was so much fun to have their relatively easygoing dynamic compared to all of the angst/complicated relationships that are going on elsewhere on the Revenge, and you know I gotta love a mentor/mentee dynamic between two women- ESPECIALLY two queer women. Archie insisting on having the first hug after Mel was rescued in Anguilla made me smile so wide!

@polikate @possumsmushroom @angxlwiings @bricksbloggyplace @yuenity @ruecrown

#besides the point but they actually pass the bechdel test with flying colors #archie ofmd #archie jimenez #mel spriggs #melanie spriggs #mel & archie friendship #ofmd #ofmd season 3 #ao3 #fanfic #fic rec #aletterinthenameofsanity #florence + the machine #sky full of song #moodboard #lyrics #asexual aromantic characters

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khruschevshoe · 6 months

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Wee John Feeney and Mel Spriggs

Are you feeling fearful brother?

Are you feeling fearful sister?

The only way to lose that fearful feeling

Replace it with love that's healing

Leave what's heavy

What's heavy behind

-Birdtalker, Heavy

Wee John nods. "They all like to joke, but they're completely accepting that I don't want what they have."

Mel startles. "You don't?"

Wee John. "Never have, never will. Tried it once or twice and it never fit quite right. I've got Frenchie for a snuggle buddy when I need a hug, but sex and romance? Not really my thing. Knitting and arson are more my speed."

Mel can't help but grin. "Those are the perfect combination."

"You can often find the perfect combination where you're least looking," Wee John says as he reaches down into his knitting bag and pulls out- is that a set of gloves? They are certainly a strange pair, fingerless things that are a strange patchwork of leather and blue wool knit that she's never quite seen the likes of before.

Then, to her shock, Wee John holds them out to her.

-aletterinthenameofsanity, while you were out there weighing odds (I was imploding the mirage)

My asexual aromantic power duo. As an asexual lesbian, their friendship means so much to me. I love that Mel gets to have a queer journey where she finds someone else like herself, that the crew accepts them both in their entirety, and the fact that they knit things for each other and then Wee John MAKES MEL HER BANDANNA FROM FABRIC THAT THE REST OF THE CREW CONTRIBUTES and I just have a lot of feels, y'know?

Shout out to @polikate, who is also a big fan of the Wee John & Mel dynamic!

@angxlwiings @possumsmushroom @bricksbloggyplace

#wee john feeney #mel spriggs #wee john & mel #ao3 #fanfic #fic rec #moodboard #lyrics #heavy #birdtalker #ofmd #asexual wee john #asexual mel #asexual aromantic characters #asexual representation #my asexual icons!!!#aletterinthenameofsanity

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 5 months

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OFMD Fic Update

So, I'm sorry to say that it might be awhile before I post the last two updates in this fic series. To be completely honest, I have lost all of my creative interest in OFMD (at least for now). Like, I look at my two half-finished drafts and feel like I'm looking at someone else's writing. This is an honest and definite side-effect of hyperfixation; the moment the brain switches, I lose every drop of connection to what I was working on. I definitely want to finish writing this someday, but for right now, I think I just need a break from the project to work on something else so that my brain doesn't feel as exhausted/distanced by the show/that series. This is actually a technique I do a lot with my original books (shelve it for a month or two once I've hit full writer's block and then come back refreshed and ready to go again), but I understand if it is jarring for my readers.

Sorry that this update might be a downer to those of you who eagerly awaited the next update. But coming back to fanfic in the last few months has made me remember how much FUN writing can be and I didn't want to fall back into the resentment/writer's block/pressure I felt this past year trying to finish and edit my original work. Getting into writing OFMD and now Doctor Who has allowed me that sheer excitement again and I hope that y'all can understand and can have patience for whenever my brain gives me the go-ahead again.

Thanks for reading this update and this series! It really has meant a lot to me and I hope to y'all as well- and I hope to return to it soon enough. In the meantime, Doctor Who is where my brain is at, and I hope to get the next fic out either today or tomorrow!

#aletterinthenameofsanity #my fics #fanfic #ofmd #ao3 #izzy hands #ofmd season 2 #lucius x izzy x pete #jim x archie x oluwande #mel spriggs #writing update #my writing

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 4 months

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I lied. I don't want to have sex with you. Put your clothes back on. I brought you here to talk to you about the connections between the Revenge and the TARDIS. *pulls out 37-slide presentation* It's about the transportation as the home, you see? It's about the ship being a house being haunted being the only place these characters can find peace- stop screaming- About building a home out of lonely souls who have never felt safe anywhere else. About wooden ships that break and are repaired by the people who love them, about the setting as a character, about the ships that love their thieves and their pirates and steal their passengers as much as they are stolen- stop screaming, I only have thirty five more slides-

#ofmd #doctor who #the TARDIS #the revenge #it's about setting as character #i normally am not as big on setting in original stories #not until you can turn the setting into a character #it's about the color of the curtains and the plant in the chair in the captain's quarters under olu #about Lucius's sketches on the wall and the rope burns on Mel's hands and the mess hall as a source of warmth #and the nursery in the TARDIS with its stars and its shelves and its mobile #about the chairs in the console room and the TARDIS glowing to show that she loves them #it's about a home that loves you back because it's as lonely as you are #fanfic #aletterinthenameofsanity #my fics #lucius spriggs #captain oluwande #oluwande boodhari #eleven x amy x rory #eleventh doctor #amy pond #rory williams #thirteenth doctor #river song #thirteen x amy x rory #I'm having a lot of feelings tonight

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 5 months

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On that OFMD Season 3 news...

Welp I was very much not expecting when writing a "Season Three" to my OFMD AU series that I would go one season beyond the TV show. I've had some very mixed feelings about Season 2 of the show (I wouldn't have written 284k words of fanfic otherwise), but some part of my heart, despite having lost a lot of trust in the writers, still wanted to see some genuine poly content in the show. Alas, we won't be getting it.

But if anyone wants a comfort now (just as a lot of us wanted comfort after the finale), I do have a series with a lot of poly rep, asexual characters, disability rep (by a disabled writer), religious/plant symbolism, Captain Oluwande, romantically charged sparring, intimacy arcs, hurt/comfort, complicated female characters, a lot of effort put into character development, and a lot of exploration of Jim, Lucius, Izzy, Archie, Olu, and Pete. Hope it can take some of the sting off of the cancellation!

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd season 3 #jim jimenez #archie jimenez #izzy hands #lucius spriggs #black pete #oluwande boodhari #jim x archie x oluwande #lucius x izzy x black pete #all the ot3s a girl could ask for #aletterinthenameofsanity #my fics #fanfic #ao3 #also my daughter mel spriggs #archie ofmd

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 3 months

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My Season 3 OMFD AU playlist!

And here it is: OFMD Season 3, ft. my asexual aromantic icon Mel, some rather complicated brother-sister dynamics between Lucius and Mel, the further development of the Jim/Olu/Archie and Izzy/Pete/Lucius dynamics, and some character work I'm really proud of! Slightly more variety in the music, though you can tell when I really got into an album in the middle of this playlist!

@little-bloodied-angel @possumsmushroom @sapphicsigh @khruschevshoe @fool-for-luv @featherlesswings @b4g3lbit3s @the-earl-gray @mari-lwyd-fannibal-blog @alexdobedumb @cosmicquill @peaceandvictory @astridonthem00n @lavendermaus @freya1022 @liveinalovelyway

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khruschevshoe · 6 months

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OFMD (fic) analysis: The Power of Names, Agency, and Creating Yourself

So, this is going to be Part 1 out of who knows how many analyzing different aspects of @aletterinthenameofsanity 's magnum opus OFMD fic series "made a promise when I left for the coast (made a life out of chasing a ghost)." Now, the series is divided into three sections, "Season 2," "Season 3," and "Extras" (which includes missing scenes, AUs, and post-canon "special episodes"). This first essay will be addressing the symbolic/thematic meaning of characters choosing their own names in this series throughout all parts (some of these metas will only tackle one section/season/ or even fic).

It is clear in this series that names take on a particular meaning, due to the multiple times it is emphasized, such as in part 15 of the series (the "pilot" of "Season 3"), when Captain Olu says, "Everyone's entitled to choose their own name on my ship." Names, when taken on a ship, allow someone to both shed their precious life and claim one for their own. I'm going to go through the various ways this is presented in series and how letting characters choose their names on the Revenge allows them to gain agency within their lives and world.

1): Name as Gender: Jim and Pete

Early on in the series, Jim and Pete's friendship is established from Jim's POV, where we discover that before the Blackbeard-Kraken-era, Jim and Pete bonded when Pete revealed that Pete is also trans, which in the series is often referred to as "the power of creation" (there's an essay analyzing the religious implications in the works, I swear). This is a point of connection and pride between them, and is the foundation to a great and enduring friendship and place of trust that often gets both of them through low points.

This friendship is further emphasized in part 13, Pete's internal monologue echoes previous assertions by Jim's internal monologue that "they have things in common that go beneath everything, a connection that threads itself across the sea, through razors and potential top scars and names left buried on land."

2) Name as Family: The Jimenezes and the Spriggs

A) The Jimenez Matelots

During their wedding reception in part 9 of the series, Olu and Archie both make it clear that they are going to take Jim's last name due to the importance of becoming Jim's family. Olu will trade in his last name, and Archie will take on a last name for the first time, as a sign of loyalty, loved, and comfort, because for Olu and Archie, "What price is a last name when it comes to making Jim feel comfortable and loved?"

B) The Spriggs Siblings

The choice of the last name "Spriggs" by Mel and Lucius has almost the opposite backstory of the Jimenez matelots- rather than keeping a last name to honor a family, the Spriggs siblings keep their last name to spite their abusive father. When Mel is asked by Roach in part 18 of the series as to why she keeps her last name when, as a pirate, she could have easily dropped it entirely when starting a new life, she tells him that she kept it because it connected it to her brother. Her internal monologue explains that "She stayed Mel Spriggs, damn the consequences, not because the last name gave her protection, but because it connected her to the one person who, at any point in her life, had protected her." It has nothing to do with "the lily-livered douche" that was her father; it as to do with her connection to Lucius. And as the series progresses, even after Lucius gets married to Izzy and Pete, we see that he keeps his last name while Pete picks up the last name "Hands-Spriggs." As much as his matelots mean to him, shown by the rings they share (objects as symbolism will be another analysis), his relationship with his sister is just as important to him.

3) Name as Intimacy: Frenchie and Zheng Yi Sao | Ching Shih

So, this one is not as startling or connected to character agency as the others, but I really like what this relationship does with language. Zheng Yi Sao literally translates as "wife of Zheng Yi" and is used almost as both name and title, the name of the Pirate Queen and Emperor of China, while Ching Shih is her Cantonese name, within the language she grew up speaking. Historically, Zheng Yi Sao had to learn Mandarin to fit in with upper crust society, and it makes sense that the name she rules the seas with (even in OFMD) is within that more "elevated" language.

But here's the kicker: Frenchie doesn't call her Zheng. He calls her Ching Shih, honoring where she came from, acknowledging that he gets a far more intimate side of her than the rest of the world do. In part 40, in the moment of their engagement (which comes after years of a really fun half friends-with-benefits, half-long-distance-relationship that they have going on), Frenchie accepts Zheng's proposal with the line "I’d love to be yours, Ching Shih, as long as you- not your title, or your power, or whatever, just you - would be mine.”

4) Name as Agency: Mel and Roach

When Mel first joins the crew of the Revenge, Olu calls her "Miss Spriggs" and she asks to be called Mel instead. It is made clear that to her, her first name is a gesture of identity and agency as she begins a new life, a fact that is emphasized in part 39, which covers Mel's life leading up to the moment she murders her parents and leaves home. This part refers to Mel exclusively by the name "Melanie" until the moment she leaves Anguilla and takes her agency back into her own hands, paralleling the death of "Blackbeard" and the freedom of the crew with the line "Melanie Spriggs dies along with her parents; Blackbeard dies along with Izzy’s love for Edward Teach."

In part 18 of the series, we see Roach explain that his choice of name was a similar act of agency, a moment when he chose the name thar embodied his own survival instinct with the lines ""Being a pirate is about creating a life for yourself. A name, a family, a home. I picked Roach because I refuse to let anyone kill me.” He gives her a toothy grin that she can’t help but return. “I’m an invincible little fucker.”"

5) Name as Family (Part 2): Femi Boodhari and the Jimenez Matelots

Finally, we return to the theme of names being used for chosen family. When the Jimenez matelots visit Femi, Olu’s mother, in part 41 of the series, at first Jim is worried that Femi will be disappointed that her son traded away his name for theirs, Femi gives Jim and Archie a way to honor and carry both the Jimenez and Boodhari names and legacies: as a blacksmith, she makes Jim a knife and Archie a new axehead with the Boodhari name in the side so that way the family, their culture, and her own legacy of escaping slavery and starting her own business and family can be honored. Though it's not as straightforward an example of "choosing a name" as the others, I think it is a nice endcap in this series for the theme.

(Also, as a note: these metas/analysises take a lot longer to write than it took me to make moodboards. So they'll probably come out a little less frequently, even if they are just as much fun to do!)

@blue-b-bro @possumsmushroom @yuenity @bricksbloggyplace @cosmicquill @a-pessimistic-swiftie @polikate

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