When Bathing With The Phoenix One Can Always Be Assured The Water Stays Warm~

What if Tarzan Dion Commission art for @ouch-ness Another illustration for the PF fic Dragonkin 🐉

The Saga of Hulkenberg's Brunch (Source: 30% Iron Chef)

can we talk about how hard akira's fishing outfit goes. awooga.

hee hoo

Ambrosia and Torgal

Late but this was my contribution to Valentine’s Day lol

1+1+1

A phoenixflare idea I may or may not explore in fic at some point: Joshua falls first.

By, oh, give or take 20 years or so.

It’s hero-worship when they meet as children. Joshua is painfully aware that Clive is the one the Phoenix should have chosen, while he’s a frail pile of embers terrified he can’t live up to expectations. Dion, meanwhile, is the strong, brave, perfect heir, who bears Bahamut’s strength so easily, so chivalrous and noble. Everything Clive should have had, everything Joshua wishes he could be - and yet beneath it all, the compelling hint of a loneliness and uncertainty Joshua knows well.

Then, Phoenix Gate. Joshua loses everything. He spends his adolescence being raised in secret and shuffled around by a cult that worships him as something close to a god. Even his closest companion cannot treat him as an equal. I’m sure he’s lonely, and as he learns more of Ultima, I’m sure he longs for someone else to share the burden.

Imagine Joshua drinking in every story he hears of Dion the Bold. Maybe he daydreams about the handsome prince sweeping in to take him away from this stressful, secretive life. Maybe he imagines them joining forces to save the world. Maybe as he gets older, other thoughts creep in, fuelled by everything he hears about how handsome Prince Dion is as an adult.

(Maybe he hears rumours that the prince does not care for women, and maybe it makes his heart flutter with ridiculous hope.)

(Maybe he also has some fairly intense thoughts about what a man with a body like Dion’s could do to him in, on, or anywhere near a bed, but let’s keep this relatively PG.)

Imagine Joshua nursing this crush for years, for more than a decade. Clinging to it like a long-lost keepsake, finding it changes with him as he grows: from something innocent to something heated to something complicated and deep.

Because when he’s old enough and strong enough to travel on his own, of course his ears still prick up at every mention of Dion’s name. The battles he’s fought for the Empire. The orders he’s been given, sometimes less than honourable. The Empire’s growing greed, first glimpsed in the treachery at Phoenix Gate, now writ large in its annexation of Rosaria - then later in the invasion of the Crystalline Dominion. The people all say Dion is a good man, a thoughtful leader, a true prince. Is he uneasy with the change in his country and his father? Does he see the shadows lengthening too? Or is he complicit, no longer the shining idol of Joshua’s youth?

And Joshua is smart enough to doubt his own motives. He wants to approach Dion as a potential ally, but can he trust his own judgement? Does he really believe, in objective terms, that Dion will help him - or is he still in love with the stories he told himself all those years?

(And can he bear it, if it turns out Dion isn’t who Joshua wants him to be?)

So he hesitates. He waits. He waits until events make it clear that the Emperor intends to pass over Dion in favour of Olivier. Joshua knows then that whatever else, Dion is not a part of his father’s scheming. Approaching him is a risk worth taking now, as long as Joshua can put aside his childish daydreams and unrequited longing, meet the man as he truly is, see past the fantasy.

No wonder he’s tight as a wire when he steps into that tent. No wonder he keeps his hands gripped out of sight behind his back. No wonder he moves like every step, every breath, every word, is one he considered beforehand. No wonder he buys himself a few seconds picking up the fallen flower, restoring it, keeping his eyes off Dion as he fights his pounding heart.

And no wonder Joshua blames himself, after the fall of Drake’s Tail, that he didn’t go to Dion sooner.

Final Fantasy XVI

The Fledgeling and the Phoenix

Joshua Rosfield, then and now

Fanfic Bookclubs and sharing comments

I've seen a few posts about how fics are being read in private discords and the author never even knows (no comments, no kudos, nothing). 

I wanted to share about the fanfic bookclub that I'm a part of because I think it is run really well. It's super fun, and we do share with the author, and I feel like it creates a lot of positivity in the community.

What we do:

Our Discord has a Bookclub channel with a link to a Google Form document where any discord member can submit links to fics. In our case, since our server is dedicated to a specific ship, we have a rule that the fic must be about that ship, and also that the fic must be complete. 

A random number generator helps pick the next fic. A meeting’s chosen fics may include: 1) a size-able one shot, 2) multiple short fics, 3) a few chapters of a longer fic, with subsequent meetings on subsequent chapters, or 4) a few chapters of a longer fic plus a very short fic. There is a little juggling required based on fic lengths to figure out how many to fit in a week, but our thoughtful mod only bases it on fic length, not on submitter, title, author, or tags.

We read fics of all different ratings, but we understand that some members have tags/tropes they don't like. Members simply choose to attend or not attend based on the tags and based on their availability. Easy peasy.

We meet once a week.  Timezone can be a problem, and definitely it is not a time that will be accessible for everyone.  We initially tried to have two meetings to accommodate all timezones, but did not have enough attendance.  But like with all global things, we just do our best.  

The conversation focuses on the positive. Things we loved, things we thought were clever or funny or such delicious angst.  There may be general conversation about how frequently we see this headcanon in fics (and that's a fun thing), etc. There may be some questions like "I found this confusing...what did this mean?" but there is no critique.

(The conversations often include some readers pointing out themes or easter eggs or some interesting details that others may have missed…truly, it is so fun)

One person volunteers to take notes the old-fashioned-way..typing!  Not via AI or any other recording.  The notes do not show who said what, so that people can feel comfortable speaking. 

Sometimes the author joins if they are able to, which is super fun! If the author is not a member of the discord, we may invite them, especially if anyone knows them, but we don't actively reach out because we don't want the author to feel overly pressured.  But we are always extra excited to have an author join. 

Since we intend to share our discussion with the author, we keep all the notes positive and focused on the fic.  We do not put anything that came up in conversation that is not relevant (like if we talk about other fics or HCs outside the fic). 

The notes are posted into the author's comment box in ao3.

....PEOPLE THINK OTAYURI ISN'T CANON? THEY THINK IT'S AN ENTIRELY FANON SHIP? WHAT? DID WE WATCH THE SAME ANIME? DID WE WATCH THE SAME WELCOME TO THE MADNESS?

DID WE NOT WATCH THE SAME WELCOME TO THE MADNESS??? PEOPLE THINK THAT IT'S JUST FANON? WHAT?? WHAT? I'M SO SHOCKED

DID WE ALL NOT SEE THE SAME SERIES???