sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

For the ship ask: Helen/John/James and Helen/Nikola.

Thanks for the ask!

Helen/John/James
Let’s plumb the depths of my shoddy memory. I’m relatively certain I had got the DVD before the season 1 finale but it’s possible I hadn’t. Either way I started watching on YouTube which was rough. I wasn’t sure I would like the show and wanted to try it out.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I decided I liked it by the time I got to the episode “the Five” which was obviously Nikola’s debut but that first impression wasn’t the best. It was John that utterly intrigued me. Him talking with Ashley, the recollections of Oxford, the whole wrestling with darkness thing. “Shall we talk here or here” as he teleported various places like a volcano. How he put a fist through Nikola’s chest and then teleported away. I can’t remember if it was with a bow of if my memory has added that. Either way he had my attention!

The whole quasi-immortal “for all eternity” thing. John and Helen for 95% of the time, it’s a bit like “I wish I could quit you” but they are just never quite done with each other. It’s so painful.

And then came along Revelations – in which my obsession was sealed. The chemistry/energy between John and James could be cut with a knife (ha! no pun intended). Every interaction they had was just loaded with meaning. The way John gripped James’ jacket when they were in the ruins. The way he almost tenderly let James take his shoulder to help him walk. The way they had real damn hearteyes when peering at each other over drinks in Helen’s office.

Now my brain for all of 30 seconds wasn’t sure what to do with this. How could there be Helen + John, and John + James? Then lightbulb and I was like Helen + John + James. The friendship between Helen and James was clear, there was obviously a great deal of fondness. I think it wasn’t until I started thinking about them more/writing fanfic that I really ‘got them’. Which makes sense sadly because James did NOT get enough screen time. Friends to lovers is my absolute favourite so truly an awesome ship 🙁 But yeah truly an OT3 of equals. Each side as compelling as the others.

This OT3 has so much going for it. As I said earlier the whole “quasi immortality” thing – it’s not just a love that lasts a lifetime, but multiple lifetimes. How does that work as the world changes, and they change with it? Add on that James didn’t always (I headcanon eventually did) have that ‘quasi immortality’ and so he had his suit but felt the years more than the others. There’s the whole era into which they were born, with Helen being ahead of her time/independent, and homosexuality being illegal. Then of course there is the whole Ripper thing. I left that until last because I think the OT3 is compelling without it, but that as well just adds another layer and I am obsessed.

I’ve sort of come back a little from the real depths of my obsession. Most of this is because I’m not writing fanfic anymore. If I was still immersing myself in this OT3 I’d be as rabid as ever. They truly do have a hold on my heart. I have so many drawings I would love to do for them one day. I just have a spoons issue in getting stuff done :/

So yes I 110% ship them.

Helen/Nikola
As I said above Nikola’s introduction wasn’t the best. Also like with James I guess once I started writing and thinking about him more, I grew to understand him better. He has a hell of an ego but he isn’t half as self-serving as he pretends. He’s actually very ride or die for his friends. He’ll never say the words, but his ‘love language’ if you like is acts of service. He’ll grumble, and complain, and be insulting and snarky, but there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his friends. This is sort of at odds with the whole “guess I’ll have to kill you then” thing with Helen in Rome but I do think he wasn’t all that serious about it. He’d had 60 years without his friends to stop him from going too far. I think Nikola likes to push it, likes to see how much he can get away with before his friends call him on his bullshit.

Nikola flirts outrageously because I think that’s another way to show he cares. Another repeated line in my fics is that it’s a way to show Helen respect, because she bristled so much in the 19th century when they met about how she wasn’t some delicate fragile flower. Treating Helen normally, and not like spun glass, is just another way to show friendship.

Anyway! I think in most of my fics I included some kind of line about how if James and John weren’t around, then maybe eventually Helen would choose Nikola. They have one of those relationships where they are family. They definitely have a bond. I don’t ship them, I do prefer them as friends but I don’t feel defensive or like my OT3 is threatened by the possibility of Helen and Nikola.

Regardless Helen and Nikola will always be a part of each others lives. They are important to one another. I just don’t ship them romantically.

sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

For the fandom ask game: 13, 17 James Watson, 20 Sanctuary, 24 John Druitt, please. 😊

Oh yes! Such great questions, thank you so much!!

13) What’s a character or ship you haven’t written/drawn yet but would like to some day?
Oh, many. You should see my ideas list for drawing – it’s long. There was a Star Trek prompt event and I got ideas, and the Year of the OTP event and I got ideas. So yes several for Star Trek (B’elanna/Seven, Kira/Dax, Owo/Detmer) and I really can’t forget Janeway and Amelia Earhart. I will be bitter forever at the missed opportunity not to have her join the crew. It seemed like such poor characterisation as well. Would Amelia Earhart really have turned down the opportunity to pilot a starship??

17) What’s a book, movie, or show you think James Watson would like?
I don’t think he would like crime/mystery media to be honest as either they don’t play fair, or the answer is so obvious and the characters so slow to get it, that it’s annoying. I think he’d probably check out the various Sherlock Holmes adaptations out of interest (and also to be guarded against any teasing), but I don’t think he’d exactly like them.

To be honest I can’t really see him watching much TV outside of documentaries. I think he might like movies a bit better as they are basically like plays. I think he might be interested to see examples of modern films out of interest for how they are made (hasn’t technology come so far type thing) but I don’t think the plot of most would grab him.

Books would definitely be his media of choice, and call him old-fashioned for that if you like. I don’t know why but I wonder if he might enjoy a good old archaeological thriller. You know hunting for lost treasure and definitely on the more ridiculous side. I think he might be more willing to put up with inaccuracies if it obviously isn’t taking itself too seriously (kinda like the Uncharted games).

The only actual title that springs to mind that I think he would actually like is The Princess Bride. Not sure why but I think he’d think it was clever and well done.

20) When did you first join Tumblr? How long was it between that and finding Sanctuary?
Around April/May 2016 I think? I’d been lurking (aka reading specific blogs but not signed up) for several months before that, sometime mid-2015 I think. Anyway, I finally got FOMO and wanted to join in.

I first started watching Sanctuary… I can tell you, let me scan the blog archives. I think I tried to find it August 2020, and watched a bit via YouTube as I wasn’t confident I would like it. I got the DVD in September and I think I was… mid season 3 (mid-October I blogged about having reached the Hollow Earth arc). You can tell my obsession really ramped up in October as clearly I did a deep dive for ALL the gifsets.

Amusingly one of my initial posts said that Tesla made a lousy friend (I’m laughing, boy did my opinion change) – hey! I never remember this stuff when I get asks about opinion changes. I remember my opinion now and rarely what came before.

Anyway I wrote my first novel length multi-chapter (Our Darkest Hour) that November before I finished the show. I actually stopped watching for the month in case the show messed with my outline, which it would have because Normandy jossed my Helen/James headcanon but oh well. It was kinda fun, a bit like capturing a fraction of the experience of if I had been creating when the show was originally live.

24) What’s your favourite thing about John Druitt?
I feel bad about this but the honest answer is his cursed nature. Without it, he’s still a compelling character (as I wrote purely in Choosing Fate) but that agony of what happened to him, and the trauma to those he loved/who loved him just grabbed me. It’s TRAGIC, and I like to fix things.

It’s the whole Winter Soldier “it wasn’t you” “but I still did it” type thing. Blame and judgement and guilt and darkness, and forgiveness, and how people can move on – it’s fascinating. I see discussions on it on tumblr sometimes about redemption for characters. How far is too far? Are there some things that are unforgivable? Does it depend on outside factors – like being cursed – to mitigate blame? People have opinions. This can get controversial and I don’t do conflict.

I remember Teal’c talking to Tomin on Stargate, saying that life didn’t have to end, that he could never be forgiven but he could still do good in the world. I think of Regina who willingly walked down the path, but was pushed and manipulated by others (and a lot of pain). When I have written Regina I’ve talked about people being more than what they have done, that people have the power to choose, and she chooses to do better.

With John it’s not really a choice (at least in my headcanon) while he’s a host to the parasite. However, once it’s removed – how can he move on? It wasn’t him, but it was still his hand on the blade. He remembers it being him. I think it would warp his sense of morals too, after a century even if he wasn’t a host anymore. Finding his sense of self, and his own moral code, would be a challenge.

Also his relationship with James. Coming of age in a world where it was punishable by death (or 10 years in prison and societal ruin). That too.

sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

Hello! For the ask game:

James Watson + 3 and 16

John Druitt + 8 and 24

3) Least favorite canon thing about James Watson?

The fact that he died at the end of season 1? I have headcanons to fix it, and I know that the actor was just a guest star, but I still wish. I think he was only in 5 episodes but he has such importance in my mind, he’s more of a main character than actual main characters to me. That answer feels a bit of a cop-out. I suppose… he was judgy for a minute with Helen in Tempus. I wasn’t fond of that but it didn’t last and a century of time travel would be a lot for anyone to just roll with.

16) What’s your least favorite ship for James?

I will check the AO3 tags! Wow ok… yikes. There’s a real variety which I was not expecting. I have been in fandom long enough I should not be surprised and yet I am. There’s James/Will which no, just no. I think the one I have to go with is disliking the most is James/Ashley which… I do try and be ship and let ship but Ashley is Helen’s daughter! and so to me that is like James’ daughter and so I am shuddering. Absolutely not.

8) What’s something the fandom does when it comes to John that you despise?

lol well you kinda already know this as I used it as my “unpopular opinion”. The abusive wife-beating misogynistic bastard. That answer feels a bit redundant as you knew that. It’s the only one I really have though.

John is mostly just reduced to the Ripper. I have done that a lot too because it is such a pivotal storyline. It changed everything and then it lasted for well over a century. It is a fascinating arc. So I definitely don’t despise that but he is a character apart from that too. There was a before, and there could be an after.

24) What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

Oh! I think I talked about this once before – Rumplestiltskin.

The whole “possessed by an evil demon” which is like an insidious inner voice that twists everything. I’m pretty sure I made a gifset about this once. Oh yeah here it is. The transition is a bit quick. I should fix that but hopefully the sentiment can be seen.

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 🥰

tinknevertalks asked:

Sanctuary + 9, and Helen Magnus + 8, please and thank you. 🙂

9) which characters I think should have interacted more in canon

James + everyone really. Honestly it was an absolute crime that he was only in five episodes. 5! Haha for The Five 🤣 sorry bad joke. Yeah I do know that for all my interest The Five weren’t the main characters. Alas poor Nigel you are around 80% headcanon.

To be more specific I wish we had seen more James + Henry and Ashley. I have obviously my interpretation/shippy headcanons for Helen and James’ relationship. So those are Helen’s kids and in a kinder world James would have been a father to them. Due to time travel nonsense (headcanon) he was more distant but I have to believe he would have still been part of their lives. Not to replace Biggie of course who had a huge loving role to them. Just I don’t know. Even if you don’t ship the OT3 (or James with either John or Helen separately) Ashley was still the only child of the Five, and all the history of John I just think there was so much there that could have been explored.

To be honest Ashley only being in one season (and why was that? I should google) meant that while she had some interaction with John everything was left unresolved, and there wasn’t much interaction with Nikola etc. It’s like the moment she really learned the truth of her existence she was ‘killed off’ (I headcanon she lives but we don’t see her on screen again).

8) a headcanon I have about this character

Ok let’s think what is canon, and what have I made-up and forgotten is made-up as I have repeated it too many times?

Was it ever officially confirmed Helen was on the Titanic or did we just get that from the opening credits? Because there is that.

I have my shippy headcanons (as I alluded to earlier) regarding why James didn’t move with Helen to Old City – the time travelling version of Helen didn’t have anyone else and he couldn’t be with two versions lest current!timeline Helen think he was cheating. There’s also how/when I think they all got together etc. Not sure that really counts as a Helen headcanon though.

Hmm I firmly believe time travel Helen saved both Ashley and James by ‘colouring between the lines’. So long as everything happened how she remembered it, who is to say it wasn’t always this way? (Time loop). I also believe very strongly that Helen and Nikola were working together the entire time in season 4 and that he was undercover kinda with SCIU.

I have written in a few times that I think Helen was given the source blood by an abnormal she helped.

I don’t know there’s probably more but it’s a bit like with “what’s your favourite quote?” question. As unless there is something utterly huge, I kinda need something more specific to prod the old memory to conjure it up.

sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

Sanctuary: #8 and Helen/John/James: #11, please!

Awesome thank you ❤️

8) a quote from it that means a lot to me

There are quotes that I like (I put most of them on the calendar mum made me) but I can’t think of something profound, even though Sanctuary does have very meaningful vibes. The whole ethos of the Sanctuary, that differences are just accepted, means a lot to me. Sorry I know that’s not a very good answer. I am sure there probably is a quote. I hate that I can’t think of one 😳 I swear my memory is either ridiculously good with media (like remember every little thing), or its lousy and I feel embarrassed because this is what I love, and therefore I should remember it well.

11) how quickly I started shipping them when I got into the fandom

Oh man straight away. I mean if it hadn’t been for them I wouldn’t have probably got into any kind of Sanctuary fandom. They are why I was driven to create, and by creating I joined the community.

That first episode with James is what totally hooked me on the show. Seeing James and John interact with the “battle of wits” and how James worked with Helen, the deep friendship, and how they just sparkled together. The little glances, the subtle touches, the staggering history. I think it says something that I wrote a 50k fanfic branching off from that episode quite soon after (it was my NaNo project).