Author Archives: Sam

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kira-nerys-rocks asked:

Regina Mills

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

12. What’s a headcanon you have for this character?

15. What’s your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn’t matter if it’s canon or not.)

23. Favorite picture of this character?

Thank you so much for the ask!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

10) Could I be best friends with Regina?

No I’m not cool enough haha.

Honestly as much as I love Regina and I see that her prickliness comes from pain, I would find her so intimidating in person. I scare easily.

12) What’s a headcanon I have for her?

Ah my usual dilemma of what is canon and what is headcanon 😂

Somewhat complicated by the fact that it’s been a few years since I have seen this show now. Where does time go?

Oh man this is such a good question and my brain is a total blank. Ok ok, I’m just going to have to go with the first thing that comes to mind.

I started to write a whole thing about how Regina can be her own worst enemy and I scrapped it because I wasn’t being clear. So lets be specific – season 1 finale. My headcanon is that if Regina had tried to TLK Henry awake from the sleeping curse then it would have worked. I don’t think it would have broken the dark curse as well so that could go down one hell of a canon-divergent rabbit hole so put in a pin that. Regina didn’t even try and kiss him. She knew what he needed, she clearly thought about it, but she didn’t want to know as she assumed it wouldn’t work. â€œToo evil, too broken, he hates me, evil can’t love etc.” it’s an insecurity.

Now I don’t want to get into Regina’s crimes because that’s another rabbit hole. The salient point is how Regina thinks of herself and this is one of the few inconsistencies in the show I don’t mind. Mental health/self-acceptance isn’t a linear battle. Sometimes she can be at peace with it, other times she judges herself. Season 1/season 2 was a very low point for her. Some of which was nothing to do with all the magical crazy, and just the very real true life that her sons bio mom has shown up, and she feels ‘lesser’ (she’s not obviously).

But I’ve never doubted how much Regina loved Henry. I like that she did get her own TLK with him later on. But yes my headcanon is that it would have worked at the season 1 finale.

15) What’s my favourite ship for her?

I said this the other day but ultimately it’s “Regina x Happiness” and I did like that her story ‘end’ meant it didn’t come from a man. I like that Regina forged her own family, that she broke the cycle and didn’t repeat her mother’s mistakes.

There wasn’t really anyone on the show that clicked for me and that I thought was right for her.

Now as a lighter more joking answer I don’t sleep well and I run stories in my mind. These stories are allowed to be full of OC’s and cliches and be the sort of thing that fandom ridicules because it is just me telling the story to myself. I do confess I have fixed her up in my head with an OC. I may have written about 10k of fanfic towards it once but for the most part that has died a death on my HD (aside from the odd question like this where I was like hey why not it’s just a bit of fun).

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sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

Hello! For the Truth & Dare ask game:

🛼, 🍄,🍬, and☁️, please! 🙂

🛼 describe your latest wip with five emojis

😼🔫🐉🔥🌳

🍄 share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

I absolutely LOVE this question and then when I get to answering it I am like “hmm?” because honestly sometimes I forget what is headcanon and what is canon 😛 I have so many I think.

Ok I will go with the first one that comes to mind – reason for the distance between Helen and James in the one present day episode he appears.

Now I ship them obviously and so them being on opposite sides of the world?!? That’s just sad. Until I watched season 3 (so the headcanon I used in my first long fic Our Darkest Hour) I thought that maybe it was hard enough for Helen to live with her own pain re: John, and she couldn’t live with James’ as well. This was totally jossed with Helen and James obviously being together in Normandy but then season 4 and the time travel came out and it all made perfect sense.

James didn’t move to Old City with Helen, because future/time travel Helen needed him. He could never tell Helen about her future self (protecting the timeline) and it would have been a little funny but also not if she thought he was having an affair. Future/time travel Helen didn’t have anyone else. So James concocted some lie about how London had been the first Sanctuary, consequently the British government was much more involved etc. and that he should stay head of house. So they went very long distance. I suspect Helen believed that James maybe had an issue with her unchanging state, and his increasing reliance on technology to fight infirmity. How pleased he was to see her whenever she visited/he visited, and how ok he was with her then, would kind of go against that but what other explanation was there? It was her only theory.

I do feel bad for Helen for not understanding and being lonely. Then when the time travel happened she went “oh.” as she realised that James had always chosen her, she just hadn’t seen it.

Also as a connected headcanon I firmly believe that Helen “coloured between the lines” in the sense of so long as she ensured her past selfs memories remained the same, then who is to say it didn’t always go this way? And thus she found a way to save James, and John, and of course Ashley. I touched on this in my “Out of the Shadows” fic which was supposed to be an AU of the ‘missing moments’ fic I was going to write about what was really going on behind season 4 (aka you can’t prove it’s not canon) but alas I never got round to it and now never will.

🍬 post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Fun question! Mind is blank. I think where I struggle is the “unpopular” part. I don’t know if something is unpopular or not, I’m a champion at missing social things. Maybe a lot of people would agree with me – or maybe nobody would. I tend to find it mostly falls somewhere in between. It’s like in fandom the whole “stay in your lane” thing. We find people who mostly view the media like we do, or are accepting enough of differences in opinion so as not to cause conflict.

Take Sanctuary for instance. I know I am in a minority in shipping Helen/James/John because it certainly feels like the popular ship is Teslen. I like Nikola a lot but I just prefer him and Helen as friends. No hate to shippers. I think I write it in most of my fics that if John and James weren’t around then Helen and Nikola might develop romantically one day (immortality is a long time). I suppose an unpopular opinion could be my discomfort if I ever do peek into Teslen content, at what they do to John’s character. That’s entirely on me of course, I know better than to be curious, and obviously I use the backspace button and never say a word.

I firmly believe that John’s abusive/evil tendencies came from the energy parasite we saw in Haunted. That the compulsion was not his own. That he learned to manage it over time, to make the killings less brutal, and to need to kill less, but he had to give in/feed it otherwise he did lose all control. And worse of course is that he didn’t know he was possessed (and I do see it as a possession). I realise that this read is not universal. I have seen people instead relate it to an addiction and that John had more of a choice in everything, and that he chose wrong. They say that that he was always bad: misogynistic. That the evidence of him wanting to go back in time, wipe out Helen’s independence – I don’t see it that way either. I think he didn’t want to have that damn parasite AND he still had that parasite. I think that evil parasitic voice, that for a century he didn’t realise wasn’t his own demons, was capable of twisting almost anything. Taking John’s wish to not be a killer, his pain, his regret and twisting it to justify the time travel. Plus show me someone that doesn’t want a redo, and I will show you a liar. I’m not really joking. So many nights I lay in bed just wishing I could go back and do things differently – it’s a very natural impulse. John did take it too far in actually trying to make it reality but then – possession.

Ahem sorry that got long.

I don’t know how much of this is unpopular ^^ but probably quite a lot. John is vilified far more than he is defended. I just can’t see Helen ever giving John the time of day if he was always a bastard. I know women do that – smart, intelligent, otherwise strong women – can get in messes of relationships. I’m not saying it’s impossible but it’s not how I see it.

Please don’t anyone take this the wrong way. This is just my opinion and zero hate to anyone for thinking otherwise. I do obviously disagree as stated but we are all entitled to our interpretations and there’s room enough in the fandom for everyone.

☁️ what made you choose your username?

I saw an aesthetic for Vala Mal Doran (Stargate SG-1) and it had a graphic for “Space Merc” and I thought that was so cool. Obviously that username was taken so I played around with word variants until I found one that wasn’t taken – galactic pirates. I have grown rather fond of it now 🥰

WriYe: Let’s Talk Revision

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So I skipped February’s blog topic because I didn’t think I had anything really to contribute (it was about writing ‘hacks’). However, this month the topic is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – The R’s of Revision” and if there’s anything I have opinions about in writing, it’s revision.

I have had a pet peeve for years of people saying revision when they mean editing. I have tried to get less grumpy about it because we are all entitled to use whatever words we want. One persons editing might well be another persons revision – I shouldn’t judge. Yet it’s one of those things that annoys me anyway.

So what is revision?

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sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

For the ship classification game:

James/John from Sanctuary and Regina/Robin from OUAT, please.

James/John – makes sense, compels me

I mean I ship them hard lol. They aren’t explicitly canon but the subtext is definitely there. It can’t be proven that they aren’t canon.

So why do I ship them? Well they were friends first. We didn’t see them interact much sadly so a lot builds off the “battle of wits” line. I have written what I think was probably canon in that they met at Oxford, and I also wrote an AU where they went to the same boarding school so met at 11. But meeting at Oxford they had shared classes, so a common intellectual interest. I’m not very good at how people are friends (as I have no friends) but I think shared interest/time together is a good start.

For a romance they would need to find each other attractive. Then the part that compels me is the unfortunate society homophobia – it was literally illegal and they had to hide. For them to have been brave enough to admit their attraction, knowing if it wasn’t returned the scandal could ruin their life.

In ‘canon’ (well headcanon 😛) I feel like John would have made the first move with the sort of “I want to piss off my abusive prejudiced bastard of a father”. There was also probably whiskey involved. I feel like James (in canon) would have been more hesitant but leapt on John’s move the second his quick mind noticed. I wrote the opposite in my soulmark fic because of reasons I tried to make clear in the fic.

——

Regina/Robin – doesn’t make sense, doesn’t compel me

That is probably harsh. I didn’t hate it but I couldn’t see a deeper connection. They did the whole “soulmate” thing but that didn’t land with me. It felt shallow in how it started like it was just “attractive man” and the gorgeous lady is like “oh yes please”. It did develop I suppose as they encountered challenges. Him being a single dad was a reason (beyond handsome) for attraction because Regina is such a mom but they didn’t really show her with Robin’s little boy.

I think honestly a good part of it is that Once did relationships so badly. There was very little build-up. It’s like they skipped what they considered the boring part and – so had the meet cute and then just “oh we are together now” without really then making it make sense. I guess they were very focused on the plot and nothing else really got developed consistently. It was like that for a lot of the shows relationships – especially those that came into the show later on in the seasons. They did a much better job establishing stuff in season 1.

Once really did suffer with a “tell rather than show” problem. With some ships I filled in the blanks with headcanons. I didn’t care enough with Regina and Robin to bother. When I wrote close to canon fics I tended to keep their relationship if it was set during that time, as I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t see the point of it.

It’s not that I really shipped Regina with anyone else either. I never went in for SwanQueen. Sometimes things just don’t click you know? I didn’t hate that either, I could see all the points people made in meta posts but a ship grabs me or it doesn’t and it didn’t.

Actually I suppose at the end of the day all the trauma Regina went through. All I wanted for her was happiness and I didn’t want that to come from a partner, I wanted her to find that in herself first. I said before that Regina was such a mom and basically yeah. It’s like for some characters romance is their most important relationship, and for Regina she found contentment in being a mother. Not to say obviously that she couldn’t also have a romance – it is only right and proper to have many different types of relationships. I just never saw her with anyone and thought “yeah that’s happiness”.

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purlturtle asked:

let’s go with a crack fic for the “makes sense/compels me” ask:

Helen Magnus and Helena Wells!

Ooooh 👀

They are so similar. Both ‘out of time’ (eventually, although HG didn’t experience the decades the same way). Both lost a daughter (again eventually). Both born into an era where they were radicals for being so strong and independent. Both scientists, incredibly intelligent and deadly. They also both have their causes in a way, although this is where they differ too.

I think I have said about HG somewhere in that she was without peer. Constantly searching for somebody who could match her and forever being disappointed. Elementary is where I got my understanding of Holmes from and it fits HG – loneliness due to her genius. Needing to have so much going on at the same time or she’d go mad from boredom (which only makes the bronzer worse 😭).

Whereas Helen I think maybe started off wanting to prove herself. She fought for recognition (the Royal College, Oxford, and of course her father). Now that need faded as she grew and she found her calling to protect and help abnormals. The mission – Sanctuary for all – mattered far more than any personal needs.

Aaaaand I think I am just supposed to say the answer and not ramble 😛 but what can I say I like thinking it through.

I have always felt the person most akin to HG in Sanctuary world is Nikola. They have the same sort of charm and ego. A lot of people ship Helen and Nikola but I don’t. I’m not anti, I just prefer them as friends. That’s what feels right to me. So maybe it’s that which influences me to say no to Helen and HG as a pairing. I think they would be kindred spirits, and should be friends, but nothing really more than that.

So I am going to go with…

Makes sense, doesn’t compel me

Because while I can’t see any kind of love romance, I could see more of a friends with benefits. The snark and flirting and HG being a whirlwind in and out and Helen happy to see her when she was in town. I wouldn’t ship it. I don’t feel any connection to that as a dynamic but it’s plausible.

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leni-ba asked:

🌍What tags or warnings will your / one of your wip(s) need if you intend to share it?

Oh thank you! ❤️

3) 🌍What tags or warnings will your / one of your wip(s) need if you intend to share it?

Ok for my original novel series I intend for it to be I don’t know “T rated”. I think of the TV that I like which doesn’t shy away from sensitive topics but isn’t generally gratuitous with the violence, sex or swearing. The term “family friendly” has got bad connotations these days so I’m not keen on applying that label. Also if the characters need to say “fuck” then they will (I mean it is an apocalypse). It’s not about sanitising it’s about not being distracting. I’m not a fan when characters say “fuck” practically every other word as (to me, in my opinion) it loses emphasis and is then just irritating. I think I can tell the story without leaning on cheap techniques for shock value. But we’ll see I guess.

For tags (as opposed to warnings) then: portal fantasy, queer characters/slow burn romance, military science fiction, magic and aliens, saving the world, prejudice, fear, found family and friendship. That kind of thing.

Now with the art that would obviously depend on the piece but never any warnings. I have no interest personally in drawing sexy art or anything like that. No shade on those who do and maybe I will get the inspiration in the future but it’s not on my list now. Anyway for tags so varied because it covers all the fandoms, my ships, characters. I will do canon, I will do AU.

To pick a specific art piece because aside from the Librarians exchange I am not actively tossing any ideas from my list around at the moment (and my exchange piece is supposed to be secret). Oh! There’s the painting I want to do for the Mother’s Day card. Mum and I usually once a year (though last year was the first since 2019) go to the seaside and play crazy golf. So I was thinking of painting a dog with a club in its mouth, the pirate flag fluttering behind (it’s a pirate themed course) and the caption something like “can I use my paw or tail instead?” and then an IOU inside for a trip out when it opens in the spring/better weather. So tag for fluff, dog, bad humour lol. I don’t know.

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sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

Hello! For the Procrastination Game: 🍄, 🖍,🤔, and ❤️, please! 🙂

Thank you! ❤️ As I said in the ask before I didn’t realise this was quite so fic focused. I just love asks and I really needed to ramble today. So I am incredibly grateful for you guys letting me. It’s being a day and this is a great distraction.

As I said before I can do original novel (vaguely) and art so yeah.

2) 🍄Describe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “___ + ___ =___”

My original novel is probably Stargate + Enchanted Forest (only) Once Upon a Time = well isn’t that just the thing? So = original novel.

For the art… 🤔 how about Ambition + Reality = Fear. Sorry I know, not so positive. How about Dreams + Hope = Desire. I don’t know. I haven’t decided what I am doing for the Librarians exchange piece. I am considering Dancing + Hearteyes but that’s a bit too cliche. I am still thinking.

7) 🖍Post Any sentence from your wip

Covered this in the other ask.

9) 🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

For original novels I am a little bit terrible at writing first drafts of Book Ones (so starting the verse) and so I have half a dozen going. In terms of one I haven’t actually written yet 🤔 maybe the spaceship rebel civil war, or perhaps the bodyguard romantic suspense, or maybe the archaeological treasure hunt. Honestly I have more ideas than I could write in 10 years. It’s kinda sad because I get new ideas too and I will just never get to them all.

For art I swear I have an even longer project list. I want to draw everything. I have a huge fandom list, like a few dozen ideas. Most just single scenes but I have some thoughts of a handful of panels comic strips. I dream of drawing illustrations for my original novels and perhaps even a graphic novel one day! In terms of specific ideas well I think I have mentioned a few times a Burn Notice Seven and Raffi scene. I picked up a bunch of prompts from last years “Year of the OTP” (is that running again? I should check) like I think I had Ancient Greece Sanctuary, and an Ancient Egypt Bering and Wells. I have a bunch.

12) ❤️Not a question, just a second kudos to send.

Thank you 🥰

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bookwormchocaholic asked:

Ask Game for writers: 1, 7, 10. 😀

In which I should have read this more carefully 🤣 I saw it was about WIPs and didn’t realise it was so fic focused. I guess I could answer this two ways. I could convert it to art which is fandom, or I could vague talk my original novels. Maybe both? 🤔

1) 🦈Tell us the name of your/ one of your WIP(s)

Hmm well I don’t want to share the name of my original novel 🫣 I know I probably should but I get afraid about it. I sort of put up a division between “personal fan me” and “career me”. Not that I have a career (yet) but I can dream.

As for art well that doesn’t have names exactly, and also I don’t have WIPs in the same way. I have a list of ideas and I tend to take one, and finish it, rather than juggle several projects like I did fanfic.

I am currently signed up to the Librarians Exchange and I will be making something for that. I probably shouldn’t talk about that though because of the whole ‘secret’ gifter thing.

I would like to pick one idea off the list and say “I’ll do that next” and talk about it but truthfully what I am hoping to do is practice basic techniques. I spoke about this earlier with my frustration at being stuck with the ‘tracing’ and wanting to do it properly. I don’t know if I will be able to ‘teach myself’ to any level so that I can use it for the exchange. I mean I have had literal years to do so and not got anywhere with it so far 🤷‍♂️ I got a new sketchbook (because clearly the half dozen I already had weren’t enough) but maybe this time I will commit. I got some erasable coloured pencils and sketching in purple seems very fun so 🤞

7) 🖍Post Any sentence from your wip

As said I can’t really do this. I wish I had some kind of sketch to show, but again as I said art “WIPs” are more just ideas unless I am mid-project and I’m not right now.

To make up for not answering this I have picked another question for you.

11) 🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

For my original novel quite a lot of things 😂 but description is usually the hardest part. I can see it in my head but it’s so clunky when I try and write it down. Way too much frowning or smiling going on lol. I am trying to use more body language and less dialogue tags but I need to find more variety in it.

For the art it’s like I said I have my current process of bashing together a bunch of different references. Sometimes this includes selfies when I am struggling to get limb angles to match what’s in my imagination, but it just doesn’t work. It’s a) botched together so a lot of the angles are just slightly off/mismatched and it is unnatural and b) so stiff with no flow/life. It has zero style.

10) 🤡How many Wips are you actively working on?

Well I am actively drafting one original novel. I have benched the redraft I am ¼ of the way through, the first draft I need to reboot, the first draft I am only about 70% finished with, and the first draft I only wrote a bit of (I think that covers them 🤔). But really it’s just the one for “actively working on”.

For art… well I can’t lose sight of the gift exchange. I’m wondering if I should pick up ‘Sketch a Day’ again. I definitely want to do the 100 heads challenge. I got a copy of the Loomis Method book (heads and hands) and I think I should go through that. Same with Hamptons book (figure drawing). I was doing some screenshot redraws from “What If?” as I adore that art style. I can’t seem to pick a medium (paint, pencils, markers, ink) and so there’s so many options for rendering practice. It’s a bit overwhelming to be honest all of everything I want to work on.

Thanks for the ask ❤️

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In other rambling type news today is the 10th anniversary of me falling in love with Stargate.

I had watched the first 3 episodes 11 years ago last month, but I had decided I didn’t like it as I was so mad about Kawalsky. Then we got Prime Video ‘for free’ (as we already had Prime) and I wanted to test it out. Stargate was the only thing I recognised so I stuck it on and the rest is history.

It’s shaped a lot of my life actually. Sam Carter such a role model. But the whole Ancients thing, the portal to other worlds – Atlantis, the whole team exploring and fighting aliens. I actually have developed an original novel series picking up some of these concepts (it’s also super fun for fanfic crossovers). I’m not the only one either. One of my favourite novel series (Dragon Gate) the author is open about Stargate being an inspiration.

Anyway I remember very specifically that it was February 26th because I watched 2 episodes, and was partway into a third when I went “oh shit” as I was supposed to raid Siege of Orgrimmar (Warcraft Mists expansion) and I hadn’t left enough time to get my dinner. It was going to be a case of eating with one hand when clearing trash. I had just got it out of the oven when mum came home, and the phone rang, and it was the care home to say my Grandpa had died.

So yes sorry for just dropping that in there, but today is 10 years since my Grandpa passed. Possibly why I am being quite so introspective and maudlin because how has it been 10 years? It doesn’t feel real. He had dementia and so he was gone a long time before he was gone, but I still miss him 🙁

Obviously I didn’t raid that night (or eat dinner). I went with mum to the care home to tell Grandma and to deal with everything. To this day I can’t eat oven fish or wedges (what I had cooked for dinner). The very smell of it just takes me back there. It’s quite good that Stargate didn’t suffer the same fate. Instead I watched it fairly obsessively. I think I finished all 10 seasons by that summer and got them all on DVD (thank you eBay) so they could always be mine.

I don’t know if it’s coincidence or my subconscious but I started a bit of a Stargate rewatch end of last month.

10 years. Hard to believe.

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Something I don’t see talked about (and yes I know that’s a loaded opening sentence but I have feelings so I’m going to ramble) is how it feels to come to art late.

Like people throw out examples like George Clooney being 40 or something? Or Samuel L Jackson, or you know there are many, of people who came into something older and then were fantastic at it. It’s like a “it’s never too late” reassurance and ok cool, cool, but that doesn’t really help.

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