pause, rewind, linger | Machina Ex Machina // Ontologically Evil // The Rogue 2 // Against the Sky // Humanicide 2396 // Jailbreak!! // We, They, It // Static From the Stars // Core Function
(my @fandomtrumpshate gift for @grammarpedant)
For my @fandomtrumpshate bid, I'd asked non-plutonian-druid to take an old ARTbot WIP fic of mine and turn it into a web-weaving. This fic was the first thing I'd ever written for this fandom when I joined it, a poetic half-meta thing that positioned Murderbot & ART as AI villains in classic sci-fi, and despite being unfinished it remains close to my heart. It's about fiction—it's about being marginalized, and not being allowed to see yourself reflected in published media. It's about having to take into your own hands writing the stories you want to see in the world, because everyone else refuses to see you as anything but a villainous trope. It's about fanfiction, about putting yourself in the story, interpreting yourself on your own terms, and writing a happy ending for yourself, and for the people like you. It's about being queer, and about being aromantic, though I didn't know it at the time. It's about breaking boundaries, transcending definitions, and asking if we can imagine a way to relate to each other that isn't like the rules and roles already set out for us. This is what I entrusted to druid to actualize in their art.
And non-plutonian-druid rose brilliantly to the challenge of bringing those themes I dreamed of to life. In the tradition of web-weavings, druid has illustrated key lines from the unpublished work with art that evokes different scifi robot media: scenes spliced out of parafictional movies, anime, comics, video games, and more—reminiscent of real sci-fi media like Hal 9000, the Terminator, Blade Runner, etc—and stylized the original text to resemble excerpts taken from other sources about robot media, such as Wikipedia, screenplays, and AO3. The shared motifs have been woven into beautiful synthesis with the original meta/fic.
I couldn't be happier with the finished piece that druid has created. This faux web-weaving may not literally use other media to create its effect, but I still love the interplay that it creates between my writing and druid's art. Murderbot, ART, villainy, and care beyond human norms—this work understands media with the range and style needed to carry it off. One day I may still finish the original work, but until then, I'm glad to know that the love and sincerity of it has been adapted into such an amazing mixed media piece.
@non-plutonian-druid, THANK YOU SO MUCH for such a cool FTH gift!! I will never stop gushing about the way you took my words and made them look SO COOL!!!
💚🤍🩶🖤
