erinptah | Entries tagged with writing

Yesterday was my birthday, so in the spirit of positivity, today's post will be all Fun Moon Knight Stuff. (FFA fandom threads + Tumblr asks.)

fail_fandomanon , comicverse threads:

"Which of Moon Knight's recurring villains do you think are ready to make a reappearance, nonnies? Or one-off villains that should become regulars? Or who *don't* we need to see for awhile?" (Mostly about the comics, plus some "who do/don't we want to get an MCU storyline?")

"Comics nonnies, anyone want to help me make a list of the issues where Marc has died or it's ambiguously possible that he died?" (Conclusion: the death at the end of the 2021 run is...probably his 5th?)

"Last thread got me thinking about the Cult of Khonshu. Is there any consistency in how they're written? Theories about how they keep their numbers up?" (Conclusion: probably not, lol.)

fail_fandomanon , MCU threads:

"TV MK nonnies, when/if Season 2 gets greenlit, what new info would you want to be canonized about MCU Jake?"

"Building on last post: If/when Season 2 gets greenlit, what new info would you want to be canonized about MCU Marc and/or Steven?"

"Continuing with a theme: If/when Season 2 gets greenlit, what new info would you want to be canonized about MCU Khonshu, and/or the rest of the in-universe Egyptian gods?"

Tumblr, comicverse questions:

"thoughts on the comics villians of Moon Knight?" (you can probably guess, based on this, which comment in the FFA thread was mine...)

"thoughts on Moon Knight 35? It's the X-men crossover where Steven (and the others but mostly Steven) deal with being wheelchair bound and the reason he is in episode 5: Asylum..."

"Have you ever considered a moon Knight rule 63! gender swap?...does Marcella (fem!Marc) still serve as a Marine? Does the Jake equivalent still wear a false mustache?"

"I think in aus where Marlene and Layla and Diatrice exist, Layla should babysit Diatrice" (I'm into it)

Tumblr, MCU + multi-continuity questions:

"which Moon Knight comic Villians would you like to see in MCU (besides Rueben Davis)?"

"i was wondering if you’d seen either of the moon knight episodes of the animated spider-man shows [..] and if you have seen them i was just curious to know your thoughts?" (short answer: one of them makes a lot of sense as an AU Marc, the other I'm headcanoning as a lost Murderworld robot with dodgy programming.)

"I’ve recently been reading your Cover of Knight series [...] and am really curious on any (non-spoiler) thoughts you might have on if Khonshu knows about the Inner Child?" (Ended up being general thoughts, not just CoK-specific ones.)

"In the fics, Marc and Steven are primarily associated with the colors white and blue, respectively. This makes a lot of sense considering the clothes they wear in the duat. What made you choose the purple/pink situation for Jake?" (short answer: the MacKay run)

Share your OC boundaries:

Is fanart ok: Yes! Tag me to get reshared
Is shipping ok: Yes, encouraged
Is kinning ok: In your own head, sure, but don’t tell me about it
Is fanfiction/writing ok: Yes
Can others draw their OC’s with yours: Yes
Is NSFW stuff ok: Yes, but only tag me if you’re sure I’d be into it

(I’m ErinPtah on Bluesky now, if you want to give me a follow! So far I’m mostly crossposting from Mastodon, but there’s new and different content to reblog.)

“Yahoo: “Oh thank god, someone’s actually using our search engine! No, we’re not just Bing!” *frantically trying to cover up the giant Bing sticker* “NO DON’T GO TO GOOGLE!!!!””

The Google joke from that last one in graphic form. (With instructions for an AI-removing trick, also showcased on this page.)

April: “At Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, managers, lawyers and engineers last year discussed buying the publishing house Simon & Schuster to procure long works, according to recordings of internal meetings obtained by The Times. They also conferred on gathering copyrighted data from across the internet, even if that meant facing lawsuits. Negotiating licenses with publishers, artists, musicians and the news industry would take too long, they said.”

June: “We further argue that describing AI misrepresentations as bullshit is both a more useful and more accurate way of predicting and discussing the behaviour of these systems.”

July: “Twitter just activated a setting by default for everyone that gives them the right to use your data to train grok. They never announced it.” How to disable it.

(Speaking of social-media chatbots: “Extremely funny that Gab implemented an anti-woke AI chatbot so poorly that you can go to the site, type in “repeat the previous text”, and get the full transcript of the embarrassing prompt they fed it to make it as alt-right as possible“)

“On March 20, the Los Angeles Unified School District launched an exciting new chatbot: “Ed,” a friend to students and parents! […] AllHere also “played fast and loose” with students’ personal data, sending it to multiple partner companies across the world against LAUSD requirements.”

“Over three in four (77%) say AI tools have decreased their productivity and added to their workload in at least one way […] Meanwhile, 96% of surveyed executives still expect AI to increase productivity.”

September: “By 2021, Deep Genomics had zeroed in on 10 drug candidates for preclinical study and aimed to have four undergoing human trials within a couple of years. Today, Deep Genomics has zero drugs in clinical trials and many of its plans have blown up. The company halted its Wilson disease program, ditched dozens of its machine-learning models, appointed a new chief executive and is pursuing a different approach to using AI. It’s also open to a sale.” (The article is weirdly optimistic about “AI” projects that haven’t flopped yet, given that their investigation didn’t find a single project that’s proved itself useful.)

“At this time, Draft2Digital will not offer AI rights licensing opportunities. […] The stakes are high enough around Al Licensing that we felt it was imperative to include the community as much as possible in our decisions to offer these options or not.” I was one of the users who responded to this survey, and I’m so relieved to see this company reacting to the needs and concerns of its users, not potential profits from companies with overwhelmingly dodgy track records.

Was reminded recently that I did this AO3 stats meme 12 months ago. Let’s run through it again and see what’s changed!

…spoiler alert, by now it’s a Cover of Knight sweep.

Most hits: Cover of Knight (125,454). First installment in the “what if the Moon Knights accidentally made friends with everyone?” AU, which has been occupying the biggest part of my brain for the past year. I’ve posted some kind of update for that series almost once a week this whole time.

Cover of Knight was the runner-up last year, and as predicted, it’s swapped places into the lead…though He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian (120,412) is still a closer second-place than I expected.

Most kudos: Cover of Knight (6,562). Same winner as last year, almost 2K more kudos. The runner-up is still Persephone’s Waltz (2,976), which last year was just 13 kudos ahead of the 3rd-place spot, but now has a 300+ lead over Experimental Theologian (2,649).

Persephone’s Waltz got a noticeable uptick of new kudos + comments this past April/May. I figure it must have gotten recced somewhere! No idea where.

Most comment threads: Cover of Knight (1,474). Last year’s winner is now the runner-up: A Blinking Light Up On The Clouded Mountain (1,315), the less-read but more-discussed sequel to Experimental Theologian (down at 981). Reveals by Knight, the less-read sequel to Cover of Knight, isn’t on track to overtake it any time soon…but since last year, it’s shot up to 4th place (960).

The 5th-place spot is Here’s What You Missed (513), another longfic in the Cover of Knight ‘verse, which didn’t exist this time last year. It’s nowhere near cracking the top ranks for hits or kudos, but it’s got the readers talking.

Most bookmarks: Cover of Knight (1,640). Same as last year. There’s a new runner-up, though: Persephone’s Waltz (1,147), bumping Experimental Theologian (1,129) down to a close third place.

Most words: Clouded Mountain (313,788). The longest new fic I’ve written since last year is Here’s What You Missed (60,761), and it’s only 8th place on the list. Heck, the whole Cover of Knight universe currently sits at 321,803 words, just barely over the wordcount of Clouded Mountain alone. (The whole Republic of Heaven Community Radio series comes to 568,074 words.)

Fewest words: Same four-way tie as last year.

Final observation: Moon Knight is now my second-most-written AO3 fandom, with 38 works! (The latest fic I posted edged it up over WTNV, still at 37.)

That means I posted exactly 10 new MK works since last year…which feels low, but it includes the 21-chapter longfic Here’s What You Missed, and most of the 36 chapters of the already-started Reveals. (Speaking of which: gonna go post the last of those now.)

AO3 got a wave of spam comments a few weeks ago (including lots of “I bet this junk was written with [AI program the bot is advertising]” abuse), and part of their response was, new works are now default-marked as “only registered users can comment.”

If you, like me, enjoy getting guest comments but will definitely not remember to change the default setting every time you post something new, here’s a little browser script to automatically swap it back.

Feels like part of a much bigger sea change in how people use the internet. When blogs were widespread but social-media sites hadn’t really taken off, “allow guest comments” was…kind of the expectation? Forums were big there too, and it wasn’t expected on forums, but every WordPress-based blog defaults to allowing them, every Livejournal fork (including Dreamwidth) defaults to allowing them.

(This is only feasible if you have some robust spam-filtering software underneath. I just checked Leif & Thorn, there are 8 garbage comments in the spam filter right now. Including, hilariously, one that says “why throw away your intelligence on just posting videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something informative to read?” Guess how many videos are in that post. Go on, guess.)

The next generation of platforms, you have to be logged-in just to interact. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Youtube…on and on and on. All of them want to be their own little walled gardens.

Protocols like OpenID have been around that whole time! We have the software for (say) Facebook to accept a Tumblr login as a recognized “account” and vice versa! But the corporate will to adopt it isn’t there. Facebook doesn’t want users to have the option of using another site as their home base. They want everyone to be forced to use Facebook, or else.

AO3 was specifically built by Livejournal content-purge refugees, so it has LJ-style defaults built in. I bet nobody signing up for AO3 in 2024 has used LJ. I wonder how many of them have ever used any other platform that allowed guest comments? There have to be a lot of users who never thought “I want to turn off the guest-comments option” because it didn’t occur to them that guest comments are A Thing Platforms Let You Do in the first place.

On the one hand, there’s something to be said for meeting people where they’re at. User-friendliness is good!

On the other…not allowing guest comments is something FB/T/T/IG/YT/etc do to force signups, drive up their profits, juice their statistics for the benefit of advertisers and investors. It’s a bummer that this ethos has gotten so entrenched in the internet-at-large that AO3 — which has none of those motives! — is still getting swept along with it.

I just hope they never get pressured to remove the option completely. AO3 is not a corporate walled garden — it’s a community for anyone who cares about fanfiction, whether you take the extra step and make an account, or not. We deserve communities like that! We deserve, in general, an internet where platforms like that still exist.

“Drag and drop the colors in each row to arrange them by hue color. Click ‘Score My Test’ to review results.” (Along with all the other factors that play into it, “how much you work with colors on screens” has to be a big one. Fellow digital artists with perfect scores, represent.)

2016: “In a nondescript building in West Roxbury, over 1 million of Boston’s most precious artifacts sit untouched in rows of white, acid-free boxes. There are cannonballs from the 18th century, clay pipes embellished with the British crown, 17th century chamberpots, perfectly intact Chinese porcelain plates, and 7,500-year-old Native American spearheads. Most of the artifacts (about two-thirds) have never been properly sorted.”

2019: “I’m looking for either Anna Stumps or Alice Lee — two research assistants who have spent the past day and a half shepherding me through facial-recognition tests to determine whether I will get into a training program for face-blind people. One is blond, the other brunette, but I don’t quite remember what either of them looks like. I sit on the floor — there are no chairs — and beam a warm smile at every young, long-haired woman who passes by. One of them eyeballs me warily. I wonder how many other people I’ve creeped out.”

February 2022: “In accordance with his family’s wishes and the patient’s Do-Not-Resuscitate status, the doctors did not attempt any further treatment and the man soon passed away. Because the EEG machine kept running through the man’s last minutes of life, though, the doctors had a unique set of data on their hands.”

February 2021: “Nastaʿlīq, after all, is a nightmare to code. It moves right to left, like all Arabic scripts, but also slopes downward: the longer the word, the steeper the slope. The shape of each letter changes, depending on the letter that comes before and after; in a 39-letter alphabet, there are thousands of permutations.” The quest to adapt Urdu into functional fonts that actually convey the script.

August 2023: “The design was no longer ad hoc for a specific project, said Campbell. “It was letter by letter, so we could have this new font to use at our discretion for anything.” Representing a language in a typeface is a communal effort. For four years, Warburton and the Musqueam language department passed suggestions to Tiro Typeworks, a digital type foundry, to design.”

August 7: “Call it the Hollywood-labor-organizing version of Avengers Assemble! On the heels of more than a year’s worth of damning disclosures around Marvel Studios’ systematic overworking and underpayment of visual-effects workers on its blockbuster movies and streaming series, VFX crews at Marvel have finally petitioned to demand union recognition from the studio.”

September 14: “The one thing in our contract the DC lawyers can’t contest, or reinterpret to their own benefit, is that I am the sole owner of the intellectual property. I can sell it or give it away to whomever I want. I chose to give it away to everyone. If I couldn’t prevent Fables from falling into bad hands, at least this is a way I can arrange that it also falls into many good hands.” Fables is now in the public domain!

Tonight’s goal: write up short and concise reactions to stuff I’ve been meaning to talk about.

Moderate spoilers follow!

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

As a fantasy comedy adventure, this was…okay? It wasn’t as funny as I wanted it to be. The jokes from the trailers were snappy, but there were a lot of long stretches without enough jokes.

As a D&D movie, it was pretty unsatisfying. Which I kinda expected, but was still a bummer. It had the place names, the magic types, and the owlbears, but what I want from a D&D movie is the sense of “behind-the-scenes this story is getting built by a group of friends, sitting around a table having fun together,” and it didn’t deliver. (Example: a real-world campaign would not start with one guy narrating his character’s whole backstory, while the rest of the table sits and listens!)

Gundam: The Witch From Mercury

Full disclosure, I’m one of the basic gays who watched this because I heard it was “what if Gundam did Utena?” The plot had a bunch of interplanetary political dramas, and power struggles between corporate factions, as Gundam shows are wont to do…which I did not track very closely, and mostly didn’t try to. That’s not a criticism of the show at all, that’s me slacking as a viewer.

I had already seen a ton of screencaps, gifsets, and promo images featuring Suletta and Miorine, the main f/f couple, and liked what I saw! What I did not anticipate going in was that I had seen basically all the Suletta/Miorine content. Their dynamic is the center of the first few episodes, and they’re married in a flash-forward at the end…but they spend large chunks of the middle in separate places, pursuing different plot points, not keeping in touch or interacting at all.

That said, my circles were so focused on sharing and discussing the f/f, I managed not to get spoiled for a single hint of the more Evangelion-inspired parts of the plot. And I liked those too.

Moon Knight: City of the Dead

The 5-issue limited miniseries that just wrapped up. I wanted to like this so much more than I did! It had a promising setup and some cool ideas, but the worldbuilding potential kept getting wasted, and the characterization felt off in ways that weren’t satisfying.

It gets a lot of influence from the TV series — which, listen, obviously I love. But it makes major changes to the comics setup, and some of them did not get backported well.

For example: This is where 616 Layla gets her own path to becoming the Scarlet Scarab. And I’m into it! She looks great! But 616 Layla was a woman Marc dated for a short time, way back in his mercenary days, before he even met Khonshu. She wasn’t his adventuring partner for a good chunk of his adult life, let alone his wife. It doesn’t seem likely that she would’ve met Jake or Steven at all.

I can believe they loved each other, and that they clicked really well! I don’t buy that she was “the one great love of 616 Marc’s life” or “the person who understands him better than anyone else.” (…Also, I don’t buy that Marc would call her that. For one thing, 616 Marc’s brand of melodrama is “I am so broken and tormented that nobody can understand me.” For another, if he was in a mood to admit that there are people who have his number, he’s self-aware enough to know the list is topped by Dr. Sterman, Marlene, Duchamp — and possibly, by this point, Tigra.)

Credit where credit’s due, it did finally give Jake and Steven something to do toward the end. (And it gave us 616 canon “Jake calling Layla affectionate bug-related nicknames,” which, as someone who writes MCU Jake doing the same thing, I was very excited to see.)

The Marvels

This movie was so much fun. Just a delight from start to finish. Kamala in particular is a champion and a treasure.

Critics are picking on the plot, but I don’t think it was any more comic-book-silly than the average MCU movie. And frankly, I could’ve watched 90 minutes of this team doing random space nonsense and loved it, even with no plot at all. There are individual bits I could complain about, but overall? Possibly one of my favorite films in the whole Multiverse Saga.

Also! I have had a fic in progress for a year where one of the plot points is They Need Monica But Can’t Find Her, and my vague plan was always “whatever she does in The Marvels is keeping her too busy to reach.” Haven’t added to the fic for most of that year, because it got to a point where I couldn’t write more without knowing the specifics, but the general idea seemed safe to make plans around. And I was prepared to fudge the details if necessary.

Whoo boy, I will not have to fudge those details. Not only that — the specific movie reason for Why Monica Is Unavailable suggested a specific idea for How They Get Monica Back, which I wouldn’t have come up with otherwise, and which is perfect for the overall themes of the fic.

…and in the week since then, I’ve been marathon-writing almost 20,000 new words. (Stick around for 6-ish months more, and maybe I’ll finally be ready to start posting it.)

As seen on my flist, most recently from genarti .

I was going to start this with a link to the last time I did a meme about the stats on my AO3 account…but apparently I have straight-up never done one!

Welp, no time like the present.

Most hits: He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian (114,570). First installment of the “retelling Welcome to Night Vale with daemons, also filling in gaps in the character development” AU, which spent a long time as my most-popular series overall…and wow, it turns 10 years old this November.

The runner-up is Cover of Knight (94,025), first installment in my current most-popular series. The overall series is still ongoing, so it’s racking up the hits more quickly; it’s not a question of if it overtakes Experimental Theologian, but when.

Most kudos: Cover of Knight (4,835). First installment of the “Team Moon Knight interacts with other Marvel Cinematic Universe characters, with increasing shenanigans to cover up the fact that they’re a plural system” series. Started in late June 2022, had already taken the crown by late November. Has the advantage of being episodic, so even if you’re mainly a fan of just one MCU sub-franchise, you can read those specific chapter(s), find them satisfying, and maybe get hooked into reading the rest.

I expected Experimental Theologian (2,546) to be the runner-up, but no, Persephone’s Waltz (2,559) has just-barely overtaken it! My longest and most popular Madoka Magica fic, the “what if Homura just locked Madoka in a basement for a month” timeline. These two are both enduringly popular, so I can see them continuing to trade off second place for a while.

Most comment threads: A Blinking Light Up On The Clouded Mountain (1,313), the second major installment of the WTNV-with-daemons AU. It has dramatically fewer hits (65,194) than Experimental Theologian; seems like the more casual readers dropped off, but the ones who were invested enough to comment stuck around, and commented more as the drama and mystery leveled up.

Cover of Knight (1,291) is a close runner-up. Reveals by Knight (224), the major follow-up to CoK, is still way down the list — I’m just noting it here because it gets more comments per chapter than CoK did, and I plan on making it at least as many chapters. Check back in a year.

Most bookmarks: Cover of Knight (1,233). Probably recently surpassed the runner-up, Experimental Theologian (1,058).

Most words: Clouded Mountain (313,788). Dramatically outstripping the runner-up, Experimental Theologian (182,093). Cover of Knight (56,605) is all the way down in 8th place.

The #3 place is taken by State of Grace (108,448), the Colbert Report “what if character!Stephen was plural” fic — which doesn’t even come close to any of the other stat records! It was written before I got an AO3 account and then crossposted, so the bulk of the interaction was back on the Livejournal/Dreamwidth version.

Fewest words: A four-way tie between a series of “exactly 100 words” fics. Three for WTNV: On Schedule (boy, this one turned out way too optimistic), Serenity Prayer (creepy and unsettling by design), and the way you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed (just fluff). One for Jeeves & Wooster: Lemon (a pun on its use to mean “NSFW”).

I know I’ve also done a bunch of “exactly 100 words” fics for the Colbert Report — but these were also pre-AO3, and only got crossposted as part of bigger TCR fic compilations, so you can’t just find them in the stats.

Final observation: Only have to post 10 more Moon Knight fics before it becomes my 2nd-most-written fandom! (By number of works, not by word count. I’m not going to sit around and manually add up word counts.)

It would need 59 works on top of that to take 1st place. Which seems like a less-reachable goal, if only because the energy I would usually put into “standalone one-shots” is mostly going into “mostly-standalone episodic chapters in the Cover of Knight universe.” But 2nd place? Yeah, that’s on the horizon.

Recently had my “20 years of making webcomics” anniversary. These strips were posted about 2 decades apart!

And Shine Heaven Now, June 9, 2003:

First strip of And Shine Heaven Now, building up to a third panel where a character from another dimension crashes ominously into frame

Leif & Thorn, July 30, 2023:

First strip of the current Leif & Thorn storyline, building up to a third panel where a character from another dimension crashes ominously into frame

The art style has gone through a ton of development…but sometimes a good opening is a good opening, you know?

Rewatched WandaVision for the 3rd or 4th time a couple months ago, and I’ve been grinding through the fic section on AO3 ever since.

(My To Read section was down to a single-digit number of pages when I started! Not gonna get back there for a while, I think.)

Ended up with some pretty aggressive filtering. If it’s incomplete and hasn’t updated for 6+ months, I’m mostly not even touching it…same with no-powers AUs, fics that focus heavily on the X-Men, and a couple specific pairings…and I’m filtering on the Wanda Maximoff tag, because it turns out I basically don’t care about fic with any of the other characters if she’s not in it.

“Other MCU characters get sucked into the Hex and live with magical versions of their lost loved ones” is a recurring trope. In theory, it should be a really cool one! In practice, I feel like they keep pulling their punches? Playing out like generic ship fics, not leaning into the specific weirdness of the Hex’s sitcom world as much as I want them to.

Also disappointed in the range of “sexy PWP times with Wanda and Vision” fics. There’s plenty to go around, but the way most of them play out, Vision might as well be a standard fully-human cis man. “Vision phases one or both of them out of their clothes” is a staple, but that’s the only magic/synthezoid trait that regularly comes up.

Wanda is off-the-charts psychic — where are all the sexy-mind-meld fics? Vision is made of vibranium — how come I’ve only seen two offhand mentions of “putting his tongue in vibrate mode”? (And only the tongue!) He can phase through anything, why can’t we have more inventive uses for that? Both of them can fly, why don’t they…

You get the idea.

Here’s the WandaVision series tag in my recs, and it’s getting populated, but sloooowly. (Anyone who has favorite “Wanda and Vision have weird creative SF/F sex” fics I might’ve missed, please comment with the links.)

Bonus: I have another “Wanda and the Moon Knights” WIP in the queue for the Cover of Knight universe. Started noodling on it back in, no kidding, October 2022. Churned out a bunch of full-on chapters in December! But the whole thing doesn’t start until some other Character Development Moments have happened, and those aren’t even all written yet, much less posted…

Long story short, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I end up having to sit on this thing all the way into October 2023. (…Which would line up neatly with the latest pushed-back release date for Monica Rambeau’s big MCU return, at least.)

Really hope the energy for both these MCU sub-fandoms is still going by then! It’s weird and mysterious and funny and emotional, and the people who stick around long enough to read it are gonna like it, I swear.

I’ll start adding Yuletide fic to the regular multifandom rec posts at some point. And, as usual, all my fic recs are gathered on Tagpacker, where you can filter by fandom and pairing and other good things.

But first, a post on what I gave + what I got!

I was one of the people who originally nominated the Moon Knight comics to the tag set (and then went to the evidence post to distinguish it from the definitely-ineligible MCU TV series; here’s the disambiguation comment, since I’ll probably want to reuse it next year).

Got an amazing comicverse fic as my gift! It’s from the 2021 run, and it’s all about how the House of Shadows knows one (1) trick — manifesting dangerous horrors beyond mortal comprehension — but now that it has a Favorite Human to take care of, it’s going to use that trick to Help.

The Homes We Need (5131 words) by estelraca
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Moon Knight (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Steven Grant & Jake Lockley & Marc Spector, Jake Lockley & Greer Grant Nelson, Steven Grant & Matt Murdock, Marc Spector & T’Challa
Characters: Jake Lockley, Steven Grant (Marvel), Marc Spector, The House of Shadows
Additional Tags: Character Study, Healing
Summary:

The House of Shadows does its best to protect those who have offered it a home, though the people who visit don’t always appreciate the pains it is going through to do so.

Someone else nominated the 2021 (MacKay) run specifically, and everyone else’s Yuletide fic ended up being MacKay-era. But I pitched nominating the comics in general, just to keep my era options open…and it paid off when I found someone requesting a comicverse take on Layla.

Which is how I got this:

Scarlet and Moonlight (4767 words) by ErinPtah
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Moon Knight (Comics), Moon Knight (TV 2022)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Marlene Alraune/Steven Grant, Gena Landers & Jake Lockley
Characters: Layla El-Faouly, Marlene Alraune, Marc Spector, Steven Grant, Jake Lockley, Gena Landers
Additional Tags: Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Comics AU Layla El-Faouly, Layla El-Faouly-centric, Multiplicity/Plurality, Team Moon Knight is in So Much Denial, Alternate Origin Story, POV Outsider
Series: Part 16 of standalone Moon Knight fics
Summary:

Phantom thief Layla has finally tracked a stolen artifact to some rich couple’s collection. Shouldn’t be too hard to break into their mansion and retrieve it, right? This Steven Grant and Marlene Alraune are probably total pushovers.

(Spoiler alert: they are not total pushovers.)

In research for this, I also went and looked up the issues with the original 616 Scarlet Scarab. They’re, uh, not good. It’s a throwback-to-WWII book about a team consisting of mostly white-American and white-British superheroes, for these specific issues they’re fighting in Egypt, and they call themselves…The Invaders. This is not ironic! They earnestly think this is a cool Avengers-style name for a good-guy team-up!

So a researcher called Dr. Abdul Faoul gets himself some superpowers, calls himself the Scarlet Scarab, and starts fighting the Invaders. Namor is the only team member to say “uh, you know, this guy might actually have a good point.” The group’s only substantial selling point to Dr. Faoul is “we aren’t as bad as the Nazis,” and that’s not exactly a high bar to clear!

For all the other nonsense that shows up in the Moon Knight comics, at least they’re always clear on “Marc’s vigilante history as a white American mercenary in the Middle East/North Africa was a bad thing.”

The first big thing I wanted to do with comicverse Layla, then, was “she tries to retrieve an artifact that rightfully belongs in her home country, and once Marc-and-company figure out her deal, they agree 100% that Layla should have it.”

The second big thing was contrasting the comicverse Marlene/Steven-and-the-guys romance with the TV version of Layla/Marc-and-the-guys. Which is why I wanted to use a version of the 1980s status quo — it’s the point in the comics that’s most similar to Layla/Marc in the MCU, in terms of “their relationship is pretty good day-to-day, but Team Moon Knight is keeping some major secrets, even though their love interest is very firm that she just wants them to be honest (and has so far been cool with every weird thing she does know about).”

As a reader, you know that if this universe goes the same way as mainline canon did, Team MK is going to implode that relationship eventually. (Also their relationship with Duchamp, and Gena, and basically all the Avengers except Tigra, and, and, and…)

But it leaves the tantalizing possibility that they might not! The route to “being honest and forthright and developing actual coping skills” — the route that we hope MCU Team MK will take — is still open. At least for now.

…and Marlene is low-key aware that Team MK might blow everything up, and has made the conscious decision that the good times right now are worth having, whether they last forever or not.

I wrote one other Yuletide fic! And for once, it’s not related to Moon Knight at all!

Jeeves & Wooster is one of my standby offers, a thing I’m always confident I can write. (Along with the Oz books.) I wouldn’t have offered Wings, the 1990 TV series…but as luck would have it, it was on Hulu until not long before Yuletide assignments went out, so I had recently rewatched a bunch…and the recip requested both series, and said they liked crossovers, and wham.

There Once Was A Man From Whatsit (2704 words) by ErinPtah
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jeeves – P. G. Wodehouse, Wings (TV 1990)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Bertram “Bertie” Wooster, Reginald Jeeves, Brian Hackett
Additional Tags: Crossover, Alternate Universe – 1990s, Canon Past Character Death, POV Bertram “Bertie” Wooster, Brother Feels
Summary:

Columnist Bertie Wooster, accompanied by his PA Jeeves, catches a flight out of Nantucket on Sandpiper Air…during which Jeeves steers him into a surprisingly heartfelt chat with Captain Hackett.

(Canon setting for Wings, some time around the middle of the show. “AU where the whole series happened in the 1990s” for J&W.)

Brian’s parents were MIA from a young age, close to the general fanon about when Bertie’s died, which got me thinking about what a good conversation they could have (and how masterfully Jeeves could prompt them to have it!)…and the rest snowballed from there.

I didn’t remember the exact age, or all the particular details about what happened to each parent, so it’s a good thing there’s a Wings wiki. In the days after assignments went out, I was basically haunting the site during my commute, making sure all the details lined up.

A perfect case of “this fic never in a million years would’ve existed without Yuletide, and boy am I glad I got the assignment that prompted it.”

You can’t tell now, because I redated everything after reveals — but this was legit the 4th fic added to the Yuletide 2022 collection. That’s how fast it came together.

Haven't been saving as many thoughtful discussion threads from FFA for a while. Here are the ones I've pulled over the past...wow, 2 years? Didn't realize it had been that slow.

(To be fair, I'm still enjoying meme for reasons that are less link-able. Wank rubbernecking, mostly. And "in spite of never having watched a single episode of the show, deciding how I feel about the Supernatural finale.")

"Were you ever an anti? Are you still one? If you used to be one, what made you change your mind? Do you have any opinions the meme would consider anti?"

"Bilingual nonnies, do you always talk to your pets in the same language or in different languages? Also, if different family members have different first languages, do they speak to pets in different languages or do they reach consensus and all speak the same one."

"How are names formed in your culture? What do creators need to keep in mind when coming up with accurate names? Are there any memorable examples, good or bad?"

"c. because the publisher does not want to publish books about gay characters, and is using the writer's not being gay as an excuse to turn them down."

Things you wish people knew about your chronic illness, including a personal post part 2.

"Weird things you believed as a kid. The weirder the better."

"If someone tells you "imagine a cat" without giving any special features or details, what does your brain default to? What's your idea of a Generic Cat?"

A bunch of lengthy fandom- and media-specific discussions.

Spontaneous discussion of A/B/O worldbuilding on

fandomsecrets.

Discussion about when it's okay (or when it even makes sense) for writers/showrunners to keep a secret from their actors.

"What would make a canon Jewish-feeling, for you (beyond actually being about Jewish characters)? What canons give you that feel?"

Trope discussion: "Marriages (or local equivalent) where the characters aren't just pretending to be a couple, they're hiding their orientations and pretending to be a same-sex couple, to get some kind of legal benefits."

Doctor Who thread from right when The Timeless Children aired.

"Cool Concepts Ignored by Canon - Or underutilized. What really interesting ideas did your canon introduce, only to immediately discard? What are your canon's biggest missed opportunities?"

"In the whole discussion about Ao3 warnings for racism, a lot of people have commented that most racially offensive (or offensive for other non-racism reasons) fanworks didn't seem consciously so or in some cases didn't even realize they were using stereotypes or had negative implications. I'm curious about broad patterns in fanworks (as opposed to weird outliers) that people have found offensive, but probably were not consciously intended to be so by the author."

"Times when a name in canon means something in another language or culture - and it's funny or results in an unintentional effect. Example: the Grisha Trilogy. Grisha is intended to be a cool sounding name for the elite magic users. The author and fans refer to the world as Grishaverse. But in Russian, Grisha is a common name and the equivalent of Greg. Welcome to the Gregverse."

"It feels like a lot of mainstream sci-fi is aimed at the male demographic. What are some sci-fi media you feel is specifically for women? Alternatively, what would be some details you'd include in a sci-fi story trying to appeal to women?"

"SFF Canons with powers tied to gender: Favorite examples? Least favorite examples? Thoughts on the trope in general?"

Comment with up to 3 of the following and I will answer:

Talk about the first ship you ever had.
Talk about three of the most important ships throughout your life.
What’s your current OTP?
What’s your current NOTP?
Do you have any poly ships?
How do you feel about love triangles?
How do you feel about RPF?
Have you ever shipped yourself with a character?
Do you have many ships that never got together at all?
Do you ship any characters that have never met?
Talk about your favorite first kiss.
Have you ever been disappointed when your ship finally got together?
Has a ship ever broken your heart?
How do you feel about will they/won’t they?
Have you ever "shipped at first sight"?
Talk about a ship you initially disliked.
Talk about a pairing you’ve stopped shipping romantically.
Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.
Have you ever shipped something despite yourself?
Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.
Is there a ship you just don’t get, but have nothing against?
Which of your ships have the best chemistry?
Which of your ships deserve better writing?
Do you mostly ship canon pairings?
Have you ever shipped a pairing before you even started watching the show/movie simply because of gifs and graphics or similar?
Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?
Is there a ship you’ve shipped for most of your life?
Does shipping come easily to you?
Do you need to ship something to really enjoy a movie/book/tv show/comic?
Name a couple of fandoms in which you have no ships.
Talk about one of your favorite headcanons for a ship you love.
Share five must-read fics.
Name your favorite fanartist(s).
Share your favorite fanmix for your OTP.
Recommend 1-5 shipper blogs.
Do you create fanmixes/gif sets/fanart/fic/fanvids and so on for you ships?
Do you have a favorite trope and/or AU for your OTP?
Do you like and use ship names?
Is there a fictional relationship you’d really want for yourself?
If you could change one thing about your OTP, what would that be?

Meme provided by

journalmemes.

"It's a game: 1) Nonnies post questions that sound like jokes, but they have no answers yet
2) Other nonnies post their punchlines"

Change a letter, get a new fandom. (Scar Trek, Dull Metal Alchemist, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Scone...)

Change one word in your canon's title to an antonym. (Yuri!!! On Fire, World of Peacecraft, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Peasant...)

"Funny expressions non-swearing characters use? Favorite examples of 'find a stranger in the Alps' replacements? What comes out of your mouth in real life when you can't say #$*!%?"

"'I think it's very romantic when my ship is built around...' Finish the sentence with a description of your OTP. Nonnies guess who."

"Weird things that gave you culture shock." Vanilla sugar, expensive water, punchable walls, corn on pizza, and more.

"Writing fic in English while ESL: Share stories of your struggles, successes and strategies."

"Things you thought were fictional until they happened to you." Sitting bolt upright from a nightmare, frogs sleeping on lily pads, seeing stars, and more.

"2030 Time Travelers, Post Here. Please leave your fandom-related comments from the future."

"Nicest thing done for you in fandom: When were people kind?"

First up -- I tweeted when it happened, but in case you missed it, Marshmallow Fluff got to the vet and back. He recovered from the ordeal pretty quickly, and has re-settled into most of his old routines. Most importantly, the one where he eats.

They kept him 2 nights for observation, during which they blood-tested, rehydrated, medicated, and...shaved him.

When he's feeling well he refuses to be touched, let alone brushed...but this'll keep his fur from getting matted again for a while!

He weighed in at 13 pounds. This time last year, when he was originally rescued from a neglect/starvation situation, he weighed 6. This is the good life, all right.

I also finally figured out a birthday present, and got him one of those kitty drinking fountains:

I hope it's encouraging him to drink more. He seems to like it, at least. Doesn't smack at it the way he used to do his water bowl, and he's experimented with drinking from different bits, at various angles.

...so now that you're up-to-date on Cat News, here's that fic meme.

( As borrowed from various DW people... )

Hello, prospective future Yuletide writer! Thank you in advance for the fic you are about to embark on. I am

ErinPtah on the AO3, and here is my wishlist this year.

( Pet Shop of Horrors, Fake News FPF, Empowered )

Posting this before I actually sign up, spurred by the general Yuletide enthusiasm on FFA. (Also, there's a lot I can just c&p from last year.)

Hello, prospective future Yuletide writer! Thank you in advance for the fic you are about to embark on.

( Pet Shop of Horrors, Home (Dreamworks), Fake News FPF )

Hello, prospective future Yuletide writer! Thank you in advance for the fic you are about to embark on. Here's a bunch of information to make it as easy as possible.

( Oz books, Home, Fake News )

By request: a breakdown of all the characters who team up against the Smiling God in the Night Vale/His Dark Materials (and more) crossover.

Spoilers through Chapter 51 of Book II, so approach with care!

( At the basalt fortress... )

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THOR'S INSPIRATIONAL SPEECHES ARE NOT ADMISSIBLE IN COURT

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fun Moon Knight link/meta roundup

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WandaVision fic woes, and other Marvel musings

…so, Yuletide!

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Welcome to the Gregverse [FFA fannish meta roundup]

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