#fandom homework

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Thing is, the incident got Desmond thinking about his own art again. He hadn't so much as sketched anything in what felt like months. And maybe he wanted to impress Shaun a little.

Not that he thought Shaun would appreciate anything he did that much, though - he was good, yeah, but he was self-taught and Shaun seemed like he'd be pretty discerning. Additionally, he didn't want it to seem like a sad attempt at consolation, because that wasn't his intention at all. So, despite his very real desire to draw, and his desire to surprise and maybe impress Shaun, Desmond knew he wouldn't actually show him anything he managed to produce.

Still, he stole a pencil off of Lucy's desk, and doodled whenever he could. It wasn't too often, always on scraps or paper he saved from the shred pile (he always made sure to shred them later); just doodles at first, sketches of the warehouse - usually the rafters or windows - or things from memory. Never his teammates, never himself.

But soon, that wasn't enough. Small drawings in margins turned into bigger pieces on the backs of random paper that looked like it was headed for the trash.

Sometimes he drew portraits of people from Ezio's memories, or even Altaïr's. Sometimes it was the view from Masyaf; a bureau fountain; Ezio's bedroom; Firenze in the moonlight. And he shredded every one of them. It started to get harder and harder to do it, but he had nowhere to keep them, not even a footlocker to call his own. He couldn't even ask without arousing curiosity at the very least.

Obviously he couldn't keep it under the radar forever. They were in a pretty small space together, after all, and at least two of the people trapped here with him appeared to have a vested interest in keeping an eye on him and his mental health. The smaller sketches he could finish in a few minutes or so and crumple up without comment, but anything that took up more than 20 minutes of his time would be noticed.

And eventually, it was. Desmond was settled on one of the walkways in the warehouse area on one of his mandated breaks, and had grabbed a few sheets of Animus printouts Rebecca had slated for disposal, and had grabbed a spare clipboard so he had a flat surface to draw on. He knew he could get hyper-focused when he was really interested in what he was drawing, but even so, Rebecca's voice just over his shoulder startled him.

She had to cover almost twenty feet of metal grating to get that close, and the walkways weren't exactly quiet to step on.

He glanced up at her and she grinned down at him. "I said, what are you doing?" she asked, then cocked her head because she could now get a glimpse at the paper in front of him now that he'd looked up. "Holy shit, did you do that?"

Desmond glanced down. He'd been working on a sketch of Leonardo's workshop, focusing on one of the shelves of half-finished inventions, because it was an delightful place with lots of interesting details and shadows. Judging by the level of detail, he'd probably been working on it for more than half an hour. No wonder she'd come looking for him, he'd gone over his break by quite a bit.

"Yeah," he answered, after a minute, but then stopped because he wasn't sure if she'd be upset that he was doing this; he hadn't specifically hidden what he was doing, but he had taken steps to ensure he wasn't caught, so if it felt a lot like he wasn't supposed to be drawing, he knew at least part of that was on him.

"That's really good!" she gushed, leaning down to get a closer look. Desmond held the clipboard up to her, and she took it from him and straightened up, eyes roving over the image. Desmond stood himself, since she wouldn't have come looking for him if they didn't need him for something. He was done with the Animus until after lunch, but it could also be any number of tests they liked to run regularly, or a 'team meeting' he had no idea why they bothered to include him in since he wasn't going to be given any duties aside from 'farm memories, don't break brain'.

He smiled when he caught sight of his drawing - it really was good. He hadn't had a chance to draw anything this detailed in a long time, so it had felt good to really get down and take time for the intricate play of light and shadow on the frame of what would become the flying machine. Leonardo's workshop evoked powerful feelings he knew weren't entirely (or likely even mostly) his own, but he still felt them. He didn't share that, though - like his art, it felt private. Maybe he should, but something made him hesitate.

Rebecca glanced to him, eventually, looking like she was trying too hard not to frown. He hated it, how they held themselves back when speaking with him a lot of the time, like they were scared of him.

"It's really good," she repeated. "How long have you been drawing?"

Desmond barked a harsh laugh and turned away to lean against the rail of the walkway. "I know what you're really asking, you know," he pointed out, and he saw her wince out of the corner of his eye. "I've been drawing for a long time. Since I was a kid, but… It wasn't encouraged," he said. "I kept it up, though. Never did anything serious with it, it was just for me."

He turned to look at her then; she looked a little shaken at being called out, perhaps, but not apologetic at all. "You've been drawing a bit here, haven't you? Where did they all go?"

He shrugged. "The shredder, where else? What am I gonna do with them? They'll just be destroyed anyway."

Rebecca almost looked aghast at that. "Well, alright, I'll be frank with you - do you often draw things from the Animus?"

"Yeah. It seemed safest, but mostly because it's the most interesting stuff I can clearly recall," he said. "I haven't drawn anyone here, not you guys or myself - even I know that's just a really stupid idea. Shredded papers can be put back together. So, I draw from memories instead."

She smiled at him, then, and nodded. "Smart," she murmured. "Do you think it helps? Keep you grounded, I mean? Or do you feel like you might get a Bleed if you draw something from their memories?"

He took a moment to think about it. "I… I don't know if I can give a good answer to that. When I draw, I end up focusing on just what I'm making, you know? Like, recalling the shapes and shadows, keeping my pressure just so… I'm not really aware of much else," he said, and gestured to the door she'd come in from, since he knew he'd jumped a little when she surprised him and she grinned at him.

"Yeah, I feel you; coding can be like that," she said. "I'm gonna bring this up to Lucy, though, just in case. If she thinks it's okay for you to continue, then maybe we can actually get you some supplies and you won't have to keep destroying them," she said, and Desmond sighed.

"And if she doesn't think it's okay for me to draw?" He asked, because while he knew they depended on him to do this and he'd been extraordinarily cooperative so far, he could refuse. If they wanted to stoop to levels lower than Vidic had, and drug him to get what they wanted, well. Maybe he'd make them. See if all their talk of freedom was just talk.

She made a face at that, and Desmond wanted to smile at her for it. Of all of them, she was the most open. "Well then, I'd imagine she'd ask you not to, but let's cross that bridge when we get to it."

"I guess we'll see," he said, and he could tell she heard the edge he couldn't quite remove from his voice because she wilted a little at that, but nodded.

"Yeah, I guess we will," She said. "Anyways, I'd come looking for you because it's time to get a blood draw before lunch."

"Ugh," Desmond groaned, but when she turned and walked away, he followed her without much more than a token grumbling.

Starting with the fact that I've now made a pact to finish writing long fics before i start to post them. Before when I was a younger and more inexperienced writer, I felt like I could handle writing week to week if I could get that sweet validation from readers. However, I also knew that my writing wasn't that good, and quickly life and insecurity got in the way. Now, I'm comfortably writing extremely lengthy fics and waiting to post them. some of those fics go as follows,

A Tiger and Bunny omegaverse fic. It's a total rewrite of the first season (with tentative plans for the second) that revolves around Tiger's life as the first Omegan Hero. The Barnaby in this fic is totally unhinged. Kotetsu has 3 baby daddies. It's the most emotional piece on feeling like your life is over and no one cares about you that I've ever written. It's taking a much darker tone than the show will, and also a much hornier one. I have a lot of hidden surprises for people, lore building up the wazoo (especially in regards to Tiger's past) and even religious/magical aspects once Lunatic gets introduced. It's definitely going to be a wild ride. I can't give an exact word count because these chapters got too long to keep on the same doc, but it's probably around 50k words now, and I'm not even halfway done. It's been in the works for, maybe, 2 years? 3?

A Jujutsu Kaisen fic. If I'm being quite honest, the manga going downhill so fast killed a lot of my inspiration to write for this series. However, there are still aspects I really like about both the series and definitely my fic. The fic has gotten to maybe 20k words? And it's ongoing. I got stuck on one seen between Gojo and Nanami last year and have been too busy to overcome it, but I desperately want to. I have such a story to tell with this fic. It's going to revolve mainly around Touji- I guess I should mention now that it's an Omegaverse fic- who gets mated to Gojou unwillingly before he dies the same way he did in the manga. Fast forward 10 or so years, he's back, and if he wants to survive, he's gotta stick around an uncontrollable, violent, god-complex Alpha who's got his pup in his clutches. That's a very dramatic way to say Touji will have to tolerate Gojou's kisses. It includes a lot of worldbuilding into the way powers work in JJK, as well as the presence of deities and Sukuna's past. It also includes an intricate weaving of omegaverse into the actual world of JJK, including all the changes I'll make. It's a polyamorous fic, everyone/everyone basically, so you bet Sukuna will be involved heavily in the romance aspect. And I made Yuji an Omega.

An rpf fic for a kpop group I wont name. It's a mafia omegaverse AU, where the MC will be an omega from the pampered rich neighborhood, who runs away from home to try and attain freedom. In this fic, Omegas are bought and sold like objects, and regulated and humiliated sexully very often. It's a mix of horny and actual legit analysis into what it means for your soul to be crushed over and over again, trying to reach for love from the people who own you. It got a lot darker than I intended lol, but as of right now it's short. It's gonna include a lot of triggering topics like rape, forced sterilization, gang violence, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, torture, and more. But I adore it. What's that one post? "The hands that cradled you were drenched in indescribable amounts of blood." "But they cradled me, yes?"

An extremely long planned out yet very little written omegaverse Supernatural fic, wherein Dean is an Omega who was pushed into the incestuous role of being a mother and wife after Mary died, and Michael just wants his pookie to be okay. But so does Sam. Shenanigans, not so much. I like to think of it as an exploration into the taboo being condoned by a holy being. About god being dead, too. About how fucked up it is that you're fucking an angel in the body of your dad in the 70s. It's almost a complete degradation of Dean's self esteem as a 'righteous man', with Michael, Lucifer, Sam, Castiel, and Ruby all telling him to abandon the upright view his father and the world at large expect of him, and to accept that he wants to be coddled, pampered, spoiled, and fucked. Men aren't fucked. But Dean will be.

A Miraculous Ladybug omegaverse fic (are you seeing the trend yet) where Luka gets a random miraculous (not part of the cat and ladybug's miraculous box) that allows him to transform into a hero called Beast of Omen, given power from the qwami 'Fenrir'. It's a darker, more I'd like to say realistic and fucked up interpretation about ML. For one, the main cast are all in high school, not middle school, close to their senior year. Luka is actually older than Juleka, as the cowards originally intended, and is in his college's second year. The majority of France are not shifters, meaning they can't smell or purr and they don't have claws. Luka, however, is a slightly apologetic Alpha. This is set in like season 3-4 kinda, when Luka and Marinette are hesitantly dating. The first chapter is set right after Marinette breaks up with him. Luka had withheld himself a lot, conscious that his more Alphan traits could scare her, but now she ran away from him anyway. Marinette is one such non-shifter. Adrian, however, is the most coddled and ignorant Omega on the planet, who has no idea how the Alphas around him- including his own father- look at him.

A Jason Todd fic where an adult, Alphan Damian asks Jason to come with him to Nanda Parbat after his grandfather sends out an uncharacteristic summon for him, his mother, and the ever elusive Nyssa al Ghul. Jason basically is forced to accept being pampered and looked after for a few weeks as Damian rebuilds his self esteem. There's also a bit of hate/love sex with Jason and bruce much later in the game, but god was it delicious. I love spoiled and pampered Jason getting waited on hand and foot by Alphas and having no idea what to do with all the attention

A descendant's fic (yes the disney movie) where Auradon prep is a college, Ben is 28, and the main cast are still the same age (if older by one or two years than canon). Ben is an Alpha (yes im doing this) who is really into being a daddy dom, and he's been searching for the perfect little to make into his puppet-queen for years. With his coronation just a few months away, a blessing is sent to him in the form of the Isle's children, who all happen to be adorable, young, impressionable Os in need of a strong and comforting hand to guide them. This fic actually features a very broad range of OCs from my end, and I have to say, I like where it's going so far. I also do my best to give it a more mature tone (naturally since the original was a movie made for children) while keeping the fun and bitchy elements. Also some mild magical world building.

Lastly, a very olllllllld Haikyuu fic, also Omegaverse, involving Omega Iwaizumi in a throuple with Alphas Oikawa and Ushijima, and also Omega Akaashi living with Alpha pack leader Bokuto

It's all gonna be about the WIPs, baby! I think the thing that comes to mind most on 'boy I wish I could finish this' is actually the fallout AU I have for Assassin's Creed. ShaunDes, of course, but I think the ultimate plan was to try for OT3 with Clay on this one. I've never done it, but I get a lot of comments for that on my other fics and I think it would be interesting in this setting if I can make it work. I think the current plan for this one is more a sort of main 'how the group got together' vibe (all the moderns) and then snippets/side stories for some of their adventures. I do have an overall plot involving everyone figuring out who they are, secrets coming to light, etc. I just gotta get it all written is all.

Second is obviously to finish my in progress titanfall fic, which I usually just refer to as Weary, lol. While I've never once really felt pressured that updates are few and far between by comments on AO3, I sometimes regret posting it before it was finished. I never post WIPs as they're worked on because I am the slowest writer - once I get going, I can write pretty fast, it's just the getting started that trips me up. That, and i end up writing a lot of stuff that it turns out, it's not time for, or it's just not right for the story. I think I'm at like, over 15k words discarded for this fic overall, some of which has been repurposed/used already (just later than when it was originally written), but most of which has not. (Yet; I know at least two bits are just too early).

Third is a fic that is almost 10 years old and unfinished. It's only been posted up to chapter 10 on the assassin's creed kinkmeme, the last chapter of which was posted in 2016. It's almost complete, actually, sitting at just under 55.5k words, but I can't quite pin down the ending. Then it needs to be edited. Insert sad-cowboy emoji.

I'd really like to revisit my old DS9 stuff. I never published any of it on AO3 - in fact, I can't even remember if I've published any of it anywhere. It's some of the earliest stuff I've written, and it's pretty rough by my standards, but it's still something I'd like to get some time into and whip up into something readable at some point.

I want to learn how to draw transformers! I've wanted to for a while, but I recently watched Transformers One and it was gorgeous. There's a lot of different styles for the whole franchise, but I like that one a lot. That and Transformers Prime, which I haven't seen yet, lol. I'm a pretty recent fan, to be honest, but me and a friend have spent a lot of time making transformers OCs that I'd love to be able to draw just for fun. (It's the only reason I play Forza Horizon 5 at all, is to make the car forms for those that can be made in that game.)

I'd love to get works written for a few fandoms I've been into for a while, but never written for. Stuff like Dishonored, Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver, Inception or even Dragon Age. Mostly based on vibes rather than concrete ideas (except for dishonored, which I have exactly one (1) idea that could be used for fic), but still. It's something I'd like to do.

Oh! I need to finish and edit the FFXV fic I have in progress! It could be considered complete enough, to be honest, but it feels incomplete to me for some reason. I wrote up to a certain point, then lost all steam. It's set post Episode Ignis alternate ending, a really, really cute and sweet fic.

I think one thing I'd like to do is maybe just post a collection on AO3 of my WIPs. I don't think of anything I've written as abandoned, even if it's been years since I looked at them, but I also do think some of it was pretty good! I don't know how readers feel about this, though.

I'd like to get more Deus Ex fic written, too. I had a few things perk my interested for kinktober but October was mostly a really shit month for me, so I got no writing done at all. I definitely don't mind using those prompts late or anything, but I still haven't got any creative juice for writing right now, so they're just sitting there, waiting for their time.

I've also had a few ideas that I think I might never write but maybe folks might be interested in hearing about or adopting themselves? Like prompts, maybe. Adoptable fic ideas. Mostly it's stuff I'd love to read but not research to write myself, but that feels a little selfish, lol. But I also just think they're fun to talk about and gush over even if they never actually get written.