#chainusser

I need an all aflutter fanning myself emote or something. Thank you! I love your tag commentary!

With regards to the baby, honestly I suspect it was trying to protect him. While the demon fetus was mostly drawn to/protective of Casca, it did kind of stalk Guts on and off, and the Skull Knight mentioned that the child is drawn to its parents.

I also think it's a bit of foreshadowing about the upcoming leg of Conviction, as its powers seem to be somewhat linked with fire.

Chosen Son by Morimaitar

Rec’d by Anonymous, @marcrinai, and @chainusser

This story is engaging from the first chapter, and never fails to keep the attention. It is painful and sweet and and badass and worth a million reread

This is honestly one of the best fics I’ve ever read. The way Mori writes Jason as such a flawed human being and how his relationship progresses with Dick is just 👌🏻 Chefs kiss. And their way of writing recovery from trauma is so amazingly perfect and I could not love this fic more

One of the best fics I've ever read. It depicts real humans with real emotions whom you can highly empathyze with. The developing of their romantic relationships has it all: pure, amazing angst, heartwarming moments, and some hot stuff. You can even read the work without knowing the characters, because their introductions it's so incredible that you don't miss a detail and you get to know them perfectly. Morimaitar has an unique gift for writing, and Chosen Son is a masterpiece.

5. If you couldn’t finish (one of) your WIP(s) for some reason, what writer would you trust with finishing it, if any?

To be totally honest, I have genuinely considered what would happen to my fics if I died suddenly before this moment. Yes, I know that's weird, but I'm weird and very morbid. The conclusion I came to is that the only person I feel I'm close enough to ask to take over for me would be the wonderful @searchingforserendipity25, who I met through AO3 several years ago now, and who I today count as one of my dearest friends. She's an incredibly talented writer and we share a lot of fandoms, so my AO3 account would be hers - whatever she did with my WIPs would unquestionabley be amazing.

12. What headcanon will you continue including in your fics, even if canon ends up contradicting it?

My headcanons are innumerable at this point, but the first one that comes to mind is for Avatar: The Last Airbender.

In Zuko Alone we see a flashback of Ozai pissing off Fire Lord Azulon by asking for Iroh's place in the line of succession immediately after Lu Ten's death; we hear later from Azula that Azulon told Ozai he would be punished by losing his own first-born child (aka Zuko). In The Day of the Black Sun, (part 2, I think) Ozai seems to confirm that Azulon had ordered Zuko's death. However... that makes no sense. Azulon only has two sons. His eldest son's only child and heir has just died, like, days before. His second son is a little bitch, and Azulon clearly knows this, as he's furious at Ozai, but why on earth would he get rid of one of the four heirs he has left - one that has done nothing wrong?

I don't think that Azulon meant for Ozai to kill Zuko - I think he meant for Zuko to be placed into Iroh's care and reared as the new heir apparent, replacing Ozai himself in the line of succession and ensuring that his asshole dad doesn't twist him into a mini-me a la Azula. I think that Azula only heard part of the conversation before she ran off to taunt Zuko, and she was overheard by Ursa, who made Azula tell her what she heard. Ursa goes to Ozai, thinking that she's protecting her son from being killed instead of just being moved from one household to another, and Ozai goes along with it, as Ursa is offering to kill his father in order to save Zuko, who doesn't need to be saved. He's already got his heir in Azula, after all - Ursa is essentially taking herself off the board.

Thus, Azulon is killed for a death he didn't order, Ursa is exiled for murdering the Fire Lord (albeit with his successor's knowledge), and by the time Iroh - the rightful heir - returns to the Fire Nation Ozai is crowned according to a suspicious last wish of their father's that only Ozai heard, but he's grieving and doesn't want the throne.

So yeah, that's the headcanon/hill I will die on.

aahh I’m so glad you like it!! thank you for your kind words! progress is... unfortunately going to continue to be slow :’)

and also unfortunately, I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that to be honest! my interactions with chinese media have often been in audio/visual format, not text (mdzs is literally.... the first cnovel....... i’ve ever. tried to read........ RIP). I feel like I can’t speak to how good the prose is when I haven’t encountered any prose other than like, dialogue, tang dynasty poetry, and like, fairy tales.

Sci-Fi or fantasy? Why?

Fantasy, for sure. I read much more of it - in general, I just find it more interesting in terms of the kind of stories it tells and how it is telling them. My eyes tend to glaze over reading so-called “hard” sci-fi (I just get lost and frustrated and feel like I’m losing the plot for the trees), and while there is other science fiction that I’ve read and liked...I don’t seek it out as much and I don’t have as broad-spectrum interest. I have to be talked into it more.

I guess I’m just more of a dragons bi than a space bi, as it were. I like my magic too much. 

If you could change one thing about mainstream literature what would you change? (i.e. more diversity, better writing, better plot etc.)

Already answered here!

Name a book you consider to be terribly underrated.

Doctrine of Labyrinths was a series unappreciated in its time. No, seriously, I maintain that if it came out today (repackaged with new covers), it would do much better. Dark queer fantasy? Much more of a popular genre than it was back in 2005 when Melusine came out.

Other than that...I wish more people would read A Place of Greater Safety by Hillary Mantel. Wolf Hall is the one most people know her for, and it’s great! But A Place of Greater Safety was the first I read by her, and it hit me hard.

Also the Rai Kirah trilogy by Carol Berg - another fantasy series I read and have met...no one else who has. It’s got a great (very slashable) relationship between the two main characters. 

Name a book you consider to be terribly overrated.

Children of Blood and Bone and I’m never going to be over how crazy it made me that everyone was fucking singing its praises and it was just! not good.

Awww thanks so much!

1. I love my life :D

2. Evangelion makes me happy (especially Kaworu and the angels :D)

3. People make me happy.

4. Flowers!!! Can’t forget that.

2. Has a comment someone left on a fic of yours ever made you cry?

It should be stated that I cry at... many things. Things that are objectively not cry-worthy. My comments are definitely cry-worthy (especially at that time of the month) but particularly comments I get on very emotionally draining and personal works - if i name it is a good example - usually leave me sobbing if I don't brace myself beforehand. Sometimes even then if it gets me. Seriously though, I cry a lot. Certified crybaby right here.

3. Have you ever made yourself laugh out loud or cry with a fic you wrote?

I have! I'm not great at humour, at least not when I'm trying to be funny, so often I only realise some time later I've managed something. My Merlin fic The Prince's Mistress has quite a few moments of Merlin swearing a blue streak that I giggled at when I reread recently.

It's harder to make yourself cry when you know what you've done already; generally I cry at people's reactions to my sad stuff, like I said above. Seeing how people interact with your stuff is both very humbling and very emotional (for me, anyway).

7. What is your favourite sentence/paragraph?

grow as we go:

He should’ve gone and got the morning after pill and said it was for a girlfriend, should’ve realised that he wouldn’t exactly be a stickler for safe sex when he was out of his mind, should’ve counted the days and realised that something was wrong-

The truth is, he just didn’t want to think about it any more, and he certainly didn’t want to talk about it. And carrying on like everything was normal was- not easy, but it was certainly easier than confronting what might have happened in those two lost days. Dick has enough nightmares about the things he can remember to know that he doesn’t want to go looking for even more horrors. 

til i find that old love:

“You’re not– angry?”

Dick could be. He’s good at getting angry. But the only person he’s angry at is Bruce, for pushing his twelve-year-old son aside again, when Dick had been right there, ready and waiting to take him, and has been all along. He knows that being around Damian is... difficult, for Bruce, but Dick has long stopped thinking that was because of anything Damian himself has done. The truth is, Damian could be everything Bruce could ever want, and Bruce would still find something lacking. The truth is, Damian is his father’s son and Bruce hates that. He isn’t obvious about it, but Dick has seen the way he looks at Damian sometimes, like he’s seeing someone else entirely.

Maybe it’s because he reminds him of Talia, of Ra’s, but Dick thinks it might just be because Damian reminds him of himself.

He’ll never tell Damian this. Never. Dick is a firm believer that there are some things you should remain ignorant about in this world, and the fact that your father finds you hard to love is one of them. 

no matter how bright a torch may burn:

“Cersei,” he says her name again, “did you ever love me?”

No, Sansa should say. Because she never has. But he is not asking her. He is asking his sister - his sister who did love him, who loved him as a part of herself, fiercely and totally and desperately.

“Yes,” she whispers, “but it was a mistake.”