Figured it was about time I create a masterpost to pin on my blog.
Name: Kogarashi, Amanda, "hey you"
Editor, (fandom) writer, freelance artist
Multifandom geek and generally crafty jack-of-all-trades (master of none)
~ I Draw ~ I Write ~ I Craft ~
Outside links here, but the most relevant is probably my Archive of our Own page.
You can buy me a cocoa (Ko-fi) if you want to throw a tip my way, and you can buy things with my art on Redbubble (slowly adding to inventory).
I also have a side blog for reblogging art I like, and now a side blog for reblogging other people's fiction.
I have a tag list for things like tag games. Want on (or off) the list? Just leave a comment on the linked post.
Fandoms, collected posts, commission info, etc. below the cut to keep this shorter on my page.
Quick links to my OCs:
Castelin Cousland | Aelinn Hawke | Tyria Lavellan | Saadrah Mercar
There are a lot of fandoms I'm in (or at least consider myself a part of, even if mostly on the sidelines). The biggest three would probably be:
Sonic the Hedgehog
Dragon Age
Mass Effect
But you'll find me posting things from other fandoms from time to time. If you followed me for one specific fandom but it seems like my hyperfixation has shifted, if you stick around long enough I'm sure it'll shift back.
I've got some sets of posts where I've put together a masterpost to link them all in one place, or have a collective tag for useful things. You can find them here:
Writing Tips (mine specifically; you can find more under the tag "writing advice")
Art Resources (I may not have every resource post properly tagged for this one, but I did my best)
My fandom headcanons
My tumblr dividers - free to use, credit is nice but not necessary, don't claim them as your own work or use them in commercial works
Yes, I do take commissions for both art and writing. If you don't see a type of commission listed below that you're interested in, you can always send me a message to ask.
OCs or canon characters (or both)
No NSFW
I find mechs difficult but I'm willing to give it a fair go
Digital delivery
Payment will be handled through Ko-fi (if you don't see an option on Ko-fi, message me), or you can send me a DM to discuss alternate payment methods.
What you Get:
High-res digital copy of your commission
Limited personal-use print rights (no re-selling, but you can get it printed on media/merchandise of your choice for your own use)
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You don’t own fanfics. They’re inherently public domain because they aren’t your IP. Agree or disagree with AI, there are no grounds for “protection” from AI because it isn’t your IP to begin with. That’s what you chose when you chose this medium
Oh dear.
Okay, you get an answer, because at least you took the effort to write your ask out properly, even if you are hiding behind the grey, sunglassed circle.
Do I, or any fanfic author for that matter, have any legal claims to our work? No, not really, no. (Although if someone took a fic, filed off the serial number--deleted the fandom specific elements--, and then had it published for financial gain, yeah, that would be a case.)
BUT
Fandoms are built on a social contract that says we respect each others work, the effort people put into their art. We don't steal or disrespect the work of our peers. By feeding people's fanworks to AI you both steal and disprect it, and we need to make people realize that before it's too late--before fandom falls apart, because there will be no more real, actual fanworks.
Okay, so, you do own your fanfic that you wrote with your own words (at least in the US). Per US copyright law, you own the writing the moment you write it, by virtue of the fact that you wrote it. You don't own the IP, but you do own the writing. It is not "inherently public domain" (that's not how that works).
You can't profit off of someone else's IP. Yes, fanfiction is still technically a copyright infringement on your part (unless the original IP is in the public domain). But you also still hold the copyright on it.
This is why the original creator can't just steal ideas from your fanfic (or the words themselves) to then use in another installment of their IP. This is why so many original creators have policies against reading fanfic sent to them. It's to protect themselves from being accused of theft.
Link shared in the comments, because THIS is how it works:
💬 1 🔁 46 ❤️ 61 · Alt: Reddit comment from u/Charming Scratch_538
No LMFAO. You do actually own your fanfic because you wrote it. You just
Just because it's not your IP doesn't mean you don't get protections on what you wrote, and that's what the OTF is about.
thinking about how Arlathan forest looks like it's a nuclear waste zone. with people becoming trees over time and joining the zone (like in "annihilation" by jeff vandermeer), veil jumpers being more like stalkers (especially if you think about "roadside picnic" by arkady and boris strugatsky, with artifacts in both examples being something that Gods left behind), and literal crater of glass where we go to save elves...
and just before that, you find this codex
everytime i think about this, it just makes me feel devasted.
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Back around to another fic post since it's an even-numbered prompt for FenHawke Week (@fenhawke-week). This time, let's skip ahead to sometime between Inquisition (specifically Trespasser) and Veilguard. When exactly? Don't worry about it. That part isn't important.
Let's go with the "Strange Places" prompt, and where my mind immediately went when considering that prompt: maybe it's Fenris's turn to take Hawke somewhere she isn't expecting?
Strange Places
(1,231 words)
Read on AO3
Aelinn looked up at the towering architecture of Minrathous and whistled.
“Wow. These magisters are really compensating for something, aren’t they?”
Beside her, Fenris pulled his hooded scarf closer around his face to hide his ears and markings and harrumphed, drawing a laugh out of her. She hitched her glaive’s strap more securely onto her shoulder, jostled him with an elbow, and flashed a brightly toothy grin that usually served to unsettle most people who knew her. A little wild. Definitely irreverent. Maybe a touch predatory.
She knew he liked predatory.
“You’re the one who brought us here, you know,” she said, ignoring the deepening of his scowl—mostly for show, definitely fewer teeth than she deserved—and striding confidently through the bustling docks to find surer footing. Boats never sat well with her, not since the crowded ship that had carried what remained of her family from Ferelden to Kirkwall. No amount of time or distance seemed to settle that.
At least the company was good this time.
“That doesn’t mean I like it here,” Fenris huffed, his wiry legs keeping up smoothly with her pace. He still insisted on going barefoot, and Aelinn had long-since learned not to expect it to make sense to her, but every other inch of skin was covered with new leathers, nondescript but otherwise well-tailored at her insistence, intended to hide the tracework of lyrium all over his body.
Too identifiable. Too dangerous to parade around in the capital of the Imperium.
If Aelinn had had her way, neither of them would be there. They’d be back in the Marches just outside Kirkwall, enjoying their quiet cottage and playing with their children, and making the most of every last private moment they could find together.
But Fenris had insisted. He’d made some contacts by letter, had a lead on something that mattered to him but that he still felt tentative on sharing. Aelinn could live with that. He’d tell her in time, and in the meantime, she could at least spend that coveted private time with him on the road.
And now, she walked through Minrathous with him.
As far as she knew—as far as Fenris had told her over the years—while Danarius had been based out of Minrathous, he’d had a private estate quite some distance outside of the city. Still, neither she nor Fenris relished the idea that someone in the city might recognize him and try to take him into custody. Then they’d have a fight on their hands, and a mess once people realized it was a bad idea to try to take on the Champion of Kirkwall and the Blue Wraith.
Aelinn hated messes. They always got her yelled at by Aveline or Cullen or someone else who’d have to clean them up in her wake.
She couldn’t stop shooting glances at the overt displays of magic in the city, though, even in the obviously poorer districts. Right out there in the open, even though Tevinter had templars too. Glowing signs and glittering lights and displays of charms and offers of wards.
The backs of her hands itched. Overt, yes, but safe?
Mages in the open. Still poor. Still downtrodden.
And the city still tingled with an undercurrent of something...shadowy. The tang of blood on the back of her tongue. The barest hiss of whispers in the back of her mind before they flitted away.
If she had to put a name to it, the first one that came to mind was Kirkwall.
Tevinter’s glittering jewel, and it still smelled like blood and demons.
Some of the luster flaked away, and she wrinkled her nose at the feeling like she’d rather just set fire to the whole place and call it good.
Fenris caught her eye. “Like Kirkwall,” he said, his sharp eyes picking up on the shift in her attitude.
“Don’t poke too hard or you’ll break through to the rot,” she replied with a nod.
He snorted at the comparison, and turned a corner down a claustrophobic alley. She spotted a scrap of paper in his hand. One of his letters. With directions?
She smiled a little at the confidence he showed in reading it, and let her mind wander to the night before, on the ship, his voice low and warm as he read to her while she simply laid with her head in his lap.
“Here we are,” he announced, stopping so suddenly she nearly took a sword hilt to the face as she bumped into him. She glanced past him to see a nondescript nook in the street. Barrels stacked to one side, smelling faintly of old ale, a cat lounging on top as though it belonged there. A tattered awning offering some shelter from the sun and privacy from upper windows. The very strong buzz of a ham-fisted—if Aelinn’s opinion mattered—binding ward felt through the nearby wall. Graffiti of a chain broken in the mouth of a serpent.
“And here is...?” Aelinn asked, leaning her arm on Fenris’s shoulder like he was a piece of furniture. He slid smoothly out from under her weight with a roll of his eyes, but she caught his fondly exasperated smirk before he wiped it away under his usual mask of irritation.
Someone dropped from above a handful of feet away, and Aelinn jumped with a little yelp of surprise and the crackle of magic across her fingers, ready to pull on the Fade and slam their attacker face-first into the cobbles.
It took her racing nerves a moment to shut up long enough for her to hear laughing.
From Fenris.
“Oh, come off it!” she grumbled, glaring at him and swiping away the writhing tendrils of green around her hands.
“No,” he said, still laughing, his eyes bright in a way she rarely saw and treasured every time, even if it was at her expense.
Their “attacker,” another elf judging from the build, looked between the two of them in confusion.
Aelinn sighed. “Sorry for my husband’s unhelpfulness,” she said, poking at Fenris’s side and missing by a mile as he twisted out of the way, “but I think we were meeting someone here?”
“Someone with information I need.” Fenris supplied, trapping her hand in his without looking when she took another jab at him.
“Yeah, that.”
The other elf nodded, still visibly unsure about them. “We have what you need, but ask your help in return.”
Fenris muttered an oath under his breath. Aelinn nudged him with her hip. “Depends on the ask?”
“Slaves that need—”
“Done,” Aelinn and Fenris interrupted, and the other elf jumped a little at the sudden seriousness in both of their faces. They didn’t say anything else, though, just turned and gestured and Aelinn felt the snap of the rough ward nearby release. Part of the graffitied wall swung open, leading into a shadowy passage lit only by a single glowing lantern.
Aelinn threw a side-eye glance at Fenris, one brow raised. He shrugged. She laughed.
“Helping a mage?”
He grumbled and started after the other elf into the passage.
“In Tevinter?”
His grumbling grew louder.
That only made her laugh all the harder. “You bring me to some strange places, love.”
In the shadows of the passage, her fingers found his and threaded together. He let her.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Tags to say hi! (Maybe you like reading my FenHawke stuff 💙)
Title: Stretches for Mental Reach and Emotional Flexibility
Rating: E
Word Count: 7,267
Summary:
Jane and Garrus agreed to have sex. That's all it is, right? Well, they're not really sure. If only one of them could draw up the courage to ask.
But maybe it's better this way. Less likely to interrupt the crew without any feelings.
After all, it's not like the crew has been betting on when they'll get together, right?
. . . Right?
Posted to the Shakarian Mini-Bang 2026 collection on the AO3.
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thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:
the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)
it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.
"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)
as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.
that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.
In with my third FenHawke Week (@fenhawke-week) contribution, and back on art because, like I said, I'm alternating each day.
When I saw the prompt, the first thing I thought of was one of them comforting the other after a nightmare. I love the idea of Fenris being the one offering comfort in this case, and what do you know, I've given Aelinn (my Hawke) the perfect reason to have a night terror: she's a huge arachnophobe. Like, maybe even more than the games indicate.
And what does she help deal with in Inquisition? A massive demon spider in the form of the Nightmare Demon. I'm convinced she was having regular nightmares of that thing for weeks after.
So here we have Fenris with his Blue Wraith hair, comforting her after another nighttime reliving of the horror of facing off against the Nightmare, as they travel together to Weisshaupt to confront the First Warden about Warden-Commander Clarel's actions.
On multiple occasions in the years they've known each other, Shepard and Garrus have been kept apart by space, time, commitments, and on one memorable occasion, death. That has never stopped them from keeping in touch, however.
Be Between Me and Thee records the messages sent between Shepard and Garrus (or from Garrus to Shepard) on four occasions in their lives: after Garrus leaves the SR-1, while Garrus is alone on Omega, during Shepard's house arrest after the destruction of the Alpha Relay, and after the Battle for London. It explores their evolving relationship and what they mean to one another through these significant milestones.
Posted to the Shakarian Mini-Bang 2026 collection on the AO3.
The post going around about how people's parents met has, of course, got me wondering about more fictional variants. So if you feel so inclined, tell the story of how your Shepard's parents met in the tags. Or, for Earthborn Shepards, perhaps the story of how/why they ended up on the streets?
I hesitate to make this a sweeping statement, but I do think that to be a writer, you have to on some level love words as an artistic medium. Words can't just be the annoying limitation that make it more difficult to share your beautiful daydream. They can't just be the storytelling method you choose because you don't have the skills or resources to make any other kind of media.
You have to love the art of words for its own sake. Love the sound of words--how you can make music of a million different rhythms and moods, how the words and sentences you choose can make a million different atmospheres. Love what you can do with words--paint an image, share an emotion, put a person into a scene that only exists in the world of imagination. Love the different ways you can use words--different points of view and tenses, different formats and styles that can each provide a different experience of the story for the reader. You have to love words as your artistic tool and delight in learning new ways to wield them and new effects that you can create with them.
If you don't love words, there are other ways to tell a story. Writing is an artistic medium with it own strengths and weaknesses, and using it as your artistic medium should be a deliberate choice made out of love for this artform.
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I do think the ability to emoji-react is a net win for human communication. not only does it give you an outlet for 'I see and acknowledge this but don't have a verbal response' but it also adds a pleasing alethiometer element to things
my coworker announces that he's off to the dentist. someone reacts with a tooth emoji. is this a statement of dentist solidarity? a wish for my coworker to return with more (or fewer?) teeth than he set out with? simple word association? who can say
