NINE-TENTHS

Twenty-four is one year too young for a quarter-life crisis, but hey, Colin's always been an overachiever. He's got a degree in Sustainable Tourism, which his family says he's wasting as a barista, an annoying anxiety disorder, and no freaking idea what to do with his life.

The only thing going his way is the cute coffee shop regular, a homo draconis named Dav (who, in his humanshape, is a total hottie.) Still, it'd be easier if Dav didn't have a habit of accidentally setting things on fire when he's startled. Like the café kitchen.

When Dav breaks draconic taboo and volunteers as a replacement bean-roaster to apologize for the inferno meet-ugly, sparks really fly. Everything's finally happening for Colin, until he learns that hooking up with Dav means that under dragon law, Colin is absorbed into Dav's hoard.

Possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but becoming his boyfriend's property does not make this whole identity crisis thing easier. Especially now that Colin must navigate politics, paparazzi, and legal questions about his personhood. Colin's still angling for his Happily Ever After, but the growing scrutiny on his relationship with Dav threatens their budding romance.

And if he's not careful, Colin's fight for agency may just destroy symbiotic human/dragon relationships worldwide.

A sassy, queer, alternate universe romance from Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2011 author J.M. Frey. Wrapped in discussions of autonomy and colonialism, Nine-Tenths meets in the middle between Red, White & Royal Blue and the Temeraire series.

Part One

There's this thing in stories called the "inciting incident". 

And mine? It's a goddamn doozy.

It’s the part of the book, right at the start, where the lovers have their meet-cute, the farm boy leaves for the wider world, the Chosen One is attacked by her first evil monster, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean. It's the place where everything opens up and you have no idea what you're in for—only that it'll be exciting.

I know all about Inciting Incidents because I was going to be a writer.

so now that the dead boy detectives show is out, and a lot of fans of netflix sandman are watching it, i thought i'd share a little fun fact with y'all:

the dead boys nearly killed hob gadling in their first ever solo series! they were tricked into it by an evil semi-immortal being who feeds on the youth of children who was trying to steel hob's immortality.

don't worry though, they made it up to him later :)

Alright, to ao3's soon to be arriving Wattpad Refugees, a basic guide to general user culture:

1.) Unlike Wattpads vote system that let's you like each chapter, the ao3 equivalent kudos only allows one per work. Everyone is generally quietly annoyed about this. To engage with each chapter, you're heavily encouraged to comment. Trust me, it makes people's day.

2.) Ao3 has no algorithm. By default it's latest updated work first. You can find things to your taste through searches, filters and tags.

3.) 'No archive warnings apply' and 'user has chosen not to use archive warnings' mean two very different things. No archives warnings means the work is free from any content that could require a warning tag (character death, graphic depictions of violence, non-con, etc). User has chosen not to use archive warnings means it could contain any of the warning content, be it hasn't been explicitly tagged. Treat it like an allergen. No archive warnings apply is allergen free. User has chosen not to use archive warnings, may contain traces or whole chunks of the allergen. If you're likely to have a bad reaction, maybe don't take the risk.

4.) Speaking of warnings, ao3 has very few restrictions on the type of work that's allowed. Whatever your personal thoughts or feelings on that are, thats how the site is. You're likely to run across some dark subject matters and a lot of people are uncomfortable with reading that. You're well within your rights not like these works and have your opinion on whether they should be allowed, but harassing the authors of such works (or any works) is more likely to come back on you than them. Ao3 operates on a strong policy of 'don't like, don't read'. Use the tagging system to your full advantage to only engage with the kind of works you want to see.

We look forward to welcoming you all and seeing the fantastic works you create. Happy writing!

reblog to save a liFE

Up to now, I have been drawing random generic suit jackets.

Never again.

omg

This has been in my queue for months.

I missed it last year and I vowed that would NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

I was watching some "Reading the Past" videos for research, and learned about this piece of original 18th century stained glass in Westminster.

HOB?!?

Is that you wrenching that press tight, bruh? Were you having a laugh when you posed for the sketch for this window 400 years later?

"Do you imagine I did not already know?" Morph says with a smirk, as Hob leads him into the church and up the trancept.

Hob squeezes his hand three times - I love you.

But out loud he says, "Know-it-all."

"Stories are stories, my beloved." He gestures with one moon-pale hand at the way the sun shafts through the stained glass. "This story celebrates the birth of printed books on this island I now call home. And you were there twice. Once as the apprentice in truth. Once as the model for your own trade. Of course I knew."

"Aye, couldn't help it, could I?" Hob says, tugging his ear with gentle embarrassment, swinging their joined hands between them. "Didn't want anyone else's mug up there when I'm the one who did all the hard work. I'm the one who stayed up late, and burned the ends of my fingers, and reeked of rotting ink. So I thought, should be my face up there next to his. A man's allowed his pride, isn't he?"

"Indeed," Morph says. He releases Hob's hand only to cup his jaw between slender palms and bestow a cool, sweet kiss on his mouth. "And proud you should be."

"I'm glad this one survived the blitz," Hob says when Morph pulls away.

They both look at the window. Hob slides a hand into Morph's back pocket to hold him close.

"I do as well, " Morph says.

They bask in the syrupy golden light coming in through the window for a few minutes longer. Hob is just about to suggest lighting a candle for old Master Caxton when a bevy of tourists tumble in the back door and laugh their way up the church.

"Hey!" one of them shouts, face flushed with the British chill and the excitement of recognition. "Look guys! It's the Witch Knight!"

Hob braces himself for a mob of what sounds like American history nerds descending on them, but when he turns to face the crowd of love-struck college students are staring up at the stained glass.

"Jeeze, Megan, your hyperfixation is showing again," says one of them, shoving the girl who originally shouted playfully. "That is just stained glass. Sir Robert Gadlen the third has been dead for, like four hundred years."

"And Robert Gadlen the sixth is already married," Morph calls out to the tourists, flashing his left hand with proprietary smugness.

"You bastard!" Hob laughs, yanking Morph into an undignified run down the aisle, toward the door.

"The actual Witch Knight!" Megan shrills.

Hob skids to a halt at the door, just long enough to throw over his shoulder: "We are not calling me that!"

I have been trying to recreate parts of the feast 1589 Hob put up for Dream in The Sandman. Since I don't eat or know where to find venison, I made my version of Cornish pasties with lamb, potatoes, and carrots. Yes, Hob, they're good!

Sir Robert Gadlen's (Not) Venison Pasty

Today I made Snowe from the Dreamling fanfiction Cling Fast by @scifrey. I first came across the story when @valeriianz brought it to my attention and I've been thinking of making this historical version of a custardy ice cream since then!

This story is full of historical details and descriptions of many foods, including Hob's venison pasties, which I had made a few weeks ago here.

I'm also looking forward to making Spanakopita, one of the many Greek foods Hob offers Dream, but that's another project for another day.

Here's an excerpt from Cling Fast:

"They pick up one of the gravy-stained sheafs of paper, and turn it so Hob can read the heading: Receipt for Marchepane Byrds ayn Snowe .

Hob has a sudden sense-memory of a tooth-suckingly sweet dish that Robyn had begged for each of the twelve nights of Christmastide the year he was eight. Snowe was a bowl of whipped egg whites, butter, cream, rosewater, and enough sugar to choke a cat.

It was served with a little sprig of rosemary decorated with the springy fluff as if it were a pine tree in a winter forest."

The story continues talking about "a trio of red-breasted robins out of marzipan" that sat beside the tree. But I'm no sculptor and my robins would probably look like Velociraptors, so I skipped those!

Now you must be thinking why is there an apple in the ice cream, with rosemary sprigs sticking out of it. That's because I followed the medieval recipe from the notes in the story, which mentions an apple holding the rosemary; it is supposed to look like snow-covered pine trees!

The texture is light and rich at the same time. I did whisk the egg whites over a double boiler for a couple of minutes for safety since I used store-bought eggs, unlike the medieval people who wrote the recipe and who must have picked a fresh egg from a chicken coop. I then added the cream, which was whipped separately, to the cooled egg whites. I also chilled it in the freezer for an hour so it looks more like snow, but you can skip this step. Since the story talks about rose water, I whipped that into the Snowe, which added a beautiful fragrance.

So here's some Elizabethan era ice cream or snowe. It's super easy to make and requires only three main ingredients; the rest is optional. Go check out @scifrey 's story and explore all the history behind this recipe and other interesting facts!

Prince Biskets and bonus Spring Sallet from Caraway and Rosewater by @scifrey

Ooh what do we have here? Another recipe from a @scifrey Dreamling, Hob/Eleanor fic! I think I need a separate tag for her because this is the third time I'm making food from her stories after Snowe and Spanakopita!

Making these dishes just a few hours after I was tagged was not part of my plan for tonight because I was exhausted. But I had all the ingredients at home, my week-long, day-long workshop was finally over, and I needed to do something to decompress. So I finished reading the story on AO3 and decided to make the biscuits today! It also had Max Miller's video link for Prince Biskets. That's the same guy whose historical recipe book I had shared a few weeks ago. Interestingly, Max talks about a certain Eleanor who had a different recipe for biscuits during the Elizabethan era. Quite a coincidence since Eleanor is making the biscuits here!

Although these are called biscuits, the texture is more like a dense cake. The only change I made was that I roasted the caraway seeds before adding them to the batter. This is because I know I will not like the taste of the uncooked seeds, which can be very overpowering, and roasting seeds like caraway, anise, cumin, etc. brings out the flavors so much better. (Side note: I have over 40 different spices and 15 dried/fresh herbs in my kitchen and I'm VERY particular about how I use and combine them 😂. Yes, talk spices with me 😍. I can go on for hours!)

The original recipe did not have the green coloring, and I was a little worried how adding the spinach paste was going to change the taste of a dessert. But it wasn't bad at all and had a very unique flavor, especially with the rose water and caraway seeds. I also used a muffin tin and filled only a third to get the saucer shape.

Ok so let's begin!

------

And so, one gentle, sunny afternoon in their second week at the cottage, Hob has Eleanor stirring the dough for Prince Biskets. It is May 1st, 1583, and Hob is two hundred and twenty-seven years old today, give or take a few weeks on either side.

Now they are making prince biskets to take down into the village for the May Day celebrations.

“How long must I do this?” Eleanor whines playfully from where she’s seated on a stool by the hearth.

“The whole of one hour,” Hob reminds her, again.

[I, of course, used an electric mixer, but I did beat it for almost 20 minutes!]

As these biskets are for May Day as much as Hob’s birthday, he resumes grinding up the last of the winter-sown spinach to colour the little cakes green with the mortar and pestle. That finished, he perches on the edge of the table to mix the resulting paste with some of the leftover rosewater to liquify it, and then tips the whole lot into Eleanor’s mixing bowl.

...The coals raked and left in the hearth to cool, the biskets in the oven, a cup of cider poured for himself, and fine clothes to don, Hob feels content and charitable. He loves his life. He loves his wife. He loves his home, and the fruits of all his labours.

[The biscuits make an appearance again in the present.]

"Prince Biskets,” Harriet says, holding one up to show Hob as she plops into the seat right next to him. All the same, Hob takes one of the offered biscuits from Harri, and bites into it.

They’re softer than he remembers them being, likely due to Dee’s fiddling with the recipe, but the burst of caraway and rosewater against his tongue brings tears to his eyes with the sudden overwhelming sense memory of those glorious four weeks at Glade Estate.

-------

Bonus Spring Sallet!

[The salad is actually mentioned earlier in the story and I originally planned to make only the biscuits. But the description of the salad was so pretty that I wanted to make this for dinner. All the flowers are from my garden! 🌸]

[Hob] He tends the garden and feeds them both from the early-spring bounty—mostly sallets of tender new leafy greens and herbs, edible flowers,

...sugar mixed with olive oil, and boiled eggs from the hens he has procured for their stay. 

------

And this is the end of another successful Dreamling recipe! I hope you enjoyed the food and go check out the full fic too!

The biscuits are probably the most unique fanfic food I've made, especially since the recipe is like 500 years old, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it tastes!

Somehow I wrote 137k words of The Sandman fanfic in the last 5 months. Behold: the result!

This has been an incredible journey - I decided to step back into fandom while I was waiting on some publishing info and news, just as something to do to keep my creativity sharp. The community and reception I discovered, however, has been astoundingly welcoming. I feel reinvigorated and ready to tackle my revisions on my next novel!

THE HOB ADHERENT SERIES

In which Hob Gadling's Stranger returns, they start a weekly hangout, Hob becomes Morpheus' Emotional Support Human (tm), Matthew bullies Hob onto a Docudrama TV series where Hob pretends to be his own ancestor, and Morpheus is the King of Repressed Symbolism.

Status: Complete

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some fun cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse, but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Discussions of grief and in-canon character death.

Relationships: Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past)

Primary Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Matthew the Raven, Lucien | Lucienne (The Sandman), Mervyn Pumpkinhead, Patrick the Bartender, All the Endless Siblings, Rose Walker, Jed Walker, Lyta Hall, Daniel Hall, Orpheus, Lucifer, (plus some cameos from other characters from the Gaiman Television-Literary Universe)

Videos to Watch if You Enjoyed "Cling Fast"

How Much Booze Did Medieval People Really Drink? - Dr. Eleanor Janega teaches us how to booze it up, White Horse-style.

Could You Make a Living in Medieval London? - Another great Eleanor Janega video about occupations, scandals, and the every day lives of every day folks in Medieval cities.

What Was Life Really Like For A Medieval Peasant? - the last of the Eleanor Janega videos about what kind of life Hob Gadling would have lived before he met his Stranger.

A Tudor Feast - domestic historians and archeologists Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands, Peter "Fonz" Ginn and Hugh Beamish - under the supervision of Marc Meltonville of Hampton Court Palace's Tudor kitchens - prepare and serve a tudor banquet at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

Who Do You Think You Are: Danny Dyer Learns Tudor Etiquette - A segment from the Ancestry.com series following actor Danny Dyer as he explores his royal roots.

Who Would Be King of England Today According to Henry VIII's Will? - chartmaker Matt Baker takes us through the royal family tree from Henry the Eighth to the present day, if his edict that the next monarch in the event that his three children (Mary, Edward, and Elizabeth) produced no heirs, then the crown should next fall to the children of his youngest sister. And not, as actually happened, go to James of Scotland.

Royal Myths: Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada - Dr. Lucy Worsley talks us through the propaganda and fibs that have sprung up around Good Queen Bess, and whether or not she really did declare that she had the stomach of a king.

Dancing Cheek to Cheek: The Devil's Work - Another great series by Dr. Lucy Worsley, chief curator of Royal Historic Palaces, but this time she's joined by Strictly Come Dancing's Len Goodman. They trace the history of dance in Britain, and this episode features some rowdy Medieval and Elizabethan numbers.

Turn Back Time: Tudor Monastery Farm - This series sees Ruth, Alex, and Peter return to the Elizabethan age, this time spending a year on a farm worked by peasants and serfs in service to the church.

The Tudors' Bizarre 12 Days Of Christmas Ritual - The Tudor Monastery Farm Christmas special.

Hardwick Hall: A window onto the Elizabethan world - Sheffield Hallam University gives a great look at Hardwick Hall (more glass than wall), the estate home of the wealthiest woman in Britain at the time, and the kind of place Hob would have aspired to build.

Tudor Food & Etiquette Explained in 14 Minutes - Quick and dirty explanation of where your napkin goes and who the 'chairman of the board' was.

Tudor Houses Explained in 10 Minutes - Not particularly engagingly presented, but a video chock full of visual examples of different kinds of Tudor houses and buildings.

Modern History: The Knight - Jason Kingsley introduces us to the concept behind Modern History and in particular their first series, “The Knight”. Jason has been fascinated by history his whole life, in particular the medieval period and the life of knights. (This is the first video of a playlist).

Royal Armouries - Elizabethan Swordsmanship - a demonstration by weaponsmasters at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. (I recommend turning on closed captioning for this one, as the sound was recorded live with no mics.)

Getting Dressed - Tudor Royal Household - a nice, even-paced and well produced video showing what it was like to get dressed in queen Katherine Parr's household.

Dressing Up a Tudor Man - my personal heroes at Prior Attire show us what the blokes were wearing at the time. Keep in mind that this is 40 years too early for Hob and Dream's disastrous Shakespeare-ruined feast. (I recommend turning on closed captioning for this one, as the sound was recorded live with no mics.)

And just for the fun of it:

Medieval Pickup Lines from the folks behind (I believe?) Whores of Yore, and Top Tudor Historian Rates Famous Movie Scenes, wherein Dr Nicola Tallis, British historian and author of three books on the Tudors, rates scenes from five blockbuster movies set in the Tudor period. (I love how scandalized she gets.)

If you want more, I really recommend anything at all featuring Doctors Lucy Worsley, Eleanor Janega, and Ruth Goodman (search their names on YouTube and you'll find a wealth of clips, full episodes, and even playlists.)

happy birthday, william shakespeare! in another unrelated news, wishing hob gadling speedy recovery in these trying times x

frodo baggins the iconic reluctant hero who saved the entirety of arda deserves so much better than “sam gamgee is the real hero” i said what i said

#yes!!!!!! its not that sam’s contributions shouldn’t be appreciated #but frodo bore like impossible psychological torment and despair #and yet clowns still act like this because #he does actually crack and struggle under the stress #and he doesn’t have some aragorn style battle scene #but GO OFF i guess

“Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far.” –J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 192

Let’s be real, at least half the reason people refuse to see Frodo as the “real hero” of the story is because he actively chooses non-violence and mercy. 

I remember some YouTube commenter writing “Frodo is so overrated, he never even kills anyone” and if that doesn’t win the award for Most Impressive Failure to Get the Point, I’m not sure what does. 

#tbh I adore sam gamgee#but he would throw hands if he knew people were praising him by putting frodo down via @the-artifice-of-eternity

some little hobbit child listening to a story: geez did Frodo even do anything

all the adults in the room: no doN’T

samwise gamgee vaulting in through the window: FIRST OF ALL

Hot Take time:

Neither of them is a hero.

They are two halves of a single hero. (No, this is not a joke about being hobbit-sized.)

Frodo is the one who has to bear the mental torture and hardship of the Ring–but without Sam, he couldn’t have. Who is there to offer a joke, a smile, a hug, an unjudging ear, an extra bite of bread when Frodo looks peaky and ill, a doubled-up bedroll when it’s too cold for a small hobbit used to a good hole with a warm fire? Frodo would have failed long before he reached Mount Doom without Sam to cheer him on.

Likewise: Sam could never have made the journey alone. He doesn’t have Frodo’s mental strength. But he’s a gardener: his job is to make things grow, to nurture them and make them flourish. Who is there to give him a purpose as he travels across a land so big, so far, hoping to save his home?

Separate the pair of them, and neither would have made it. Frodo needed the shelter of Sam’s heart in order to find his way–and Sam needed a leader.

It’s literally love and friendship and camaraderie that save Middle Earth. Neither could be the chosen one alone.

And that was, in fact, Tolkien’s entire point.

This may sound mean, but...

If you send me an ask containing links to Good Omens fan fiction you think I should read, I'll delete it. Do it again and I'll (regretfully) block you. This is a general blanket sort of thing -- I don't want to read it, legally I can't read it, no I won't make it into the next series, and, no matter how pure your motives, it's crossing a line.

I’m reading a lot of baffled responses to this. People, I’m showrunning and co-writing the Good Omens TV series. I can’t legally read unsolicited plot ideas. Think of Netflix. Their terms of service include

8.2. Unsolicited Materials. Netflix does not accept unsolicited materials or ideas for Netflix content and is not responsible for the similarity of any of its content or programming in any media to materials or ideas transmitted to Netflix.

…and you’ll find similar clauses out there for other production entities. They are trying to safeguard themselves. There are people out there who are certain that a hit film or TV series is based on their stolen idea. The easiest way to avoid that is to make sure that their ideas can’t get to you.

It’s nothing to do with not approving of what you do. It’s about not putting me, the producers, the BBC or Prime Video at risk — or about having to throw away plans for the future because someone did that in fanfiction first. I can’t legally read unsolicited scripts or story proposals or manuscripts and sending me a link to your or someone else’s Good Omens fiction counts as those things. If I read your story and then did something close to it you could sue. So I’m not going to read it. There’s no emotional baggage in this. I’m definitely not telling you that what you are doing isn’t valid. (And If I wasn’t showrunning I wouldn’t be so Please Don’t and I Will Delete about it. But I am. So don’t. Thank you!)

Reminder that "By Any Means Necessary," one of the best episodes of Babylon 5, nearly didn't get made because some fan suggested a similar idea (a workers' strike on the space station, dealing with workers' safety and labor issues at a time when Star Trek: TNG was still on the air).

I can't remember how far along the episode was in production — I think a rough draft of the script had been written —but showrunner J. Michael Straczynski had to pull the plug on the episode until they finally tracked down the fan who'd suggested a "workers' strike" story on Usenet and get legal documents signed that the fan wouldn't sue or ask for a cut of the proceeds. AND the documents had to be watertight enough that Warner Bros' legal dept was satisfied all financial/legal risk had been eliminated. In other words, it wasn't up to JMS to make the call.

Sadly, after that, he could no longer participate in the old Babylon 5 Usenet discussion list, where he used to interact directly with fans, answering questions. It was just safer if he stayed away, because that way nobody could accuse him of lifting ideas for the show. We don't want Neil to have to pull back for the same reason.

A lot of creators avoid social media for the same reason. Those that are here @neil-gaiman , @dduane , have a hard and fast rule not to look at unasked solicitations.

And now that Babylon 5 might get a reboot, JMS has issued a similar request:

Reblogging for people who think I'm overreacting or whatever.