Figured it would be good to have something like this stickied! Perhaps it will be more interesting in a future version, but hopefully this covers the essentials:

Hi! I'm Mossy, she/her, 18+, living in the USA. I engage with fandom primarily through reading/writing fic, appreciating others' art and meta, and Thinking of Scenarios while lying in bed. Also sometimes fic exchanges. When the mood strikes, I may create fanworks in other mediums, like fanmixes or fanvids.

My current main fandoms are Yakuza/RGG (Y0 through Y3), Hello From the Magic Tavern, and Pokémon (a hodgepodge of the games, anime, and manga). I still have opinions and feelings about canons, characters, and ships beyond that list, though.

An incomplete list in no particular order:

Barriss(/Ahsoka) from Star Wars, Wolf 359, Wooden Overcoats, Stellar Firma, Pokémon, Murder Most Unladylike, Star Wars KOTOR 1, the Penumbra Podcast (both Second Citadel and Juno Steel), Holland/Kell from Shades of Magic, Winter Ihernglass from The Shadow Campaigns, Finn(/Kylo) from Star Wars ST, Hux(/Kylo) from Star Wars ST, Miraculous Ladybug, Percy Jackson and the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus, The Adventure Zone Balance, The White Vault, Neoscum, Malevolent, Archive 81, Girl in Space, Rusty Quill Gaming, Beef and Dairy Network Podcast, The Cryptonaturalist, Succession, Severance, Beyond Evil.

That said--I'm interested in talking about fandom and fannish experiences in general, and am happy to interact even if we don't share a current fandom! Things that are central to how I do fandom: fanfic and other transformative fanworks, shipping (and generally, a ship-and-let-ship attitude), occasional navel-gazing about preferences, squee (ik it's a dated term but idk of a good substitute), and remembering that this is first and foremost for fun

On this journal you will find ramblings about fandom and writing, miscellaneous life updates, masterposts for more ambitious projects, and old exchange letters. And maybe other stuff. Rec lists? Meta? We'll see. I'm used to doing fandom solo, but trying to share my thoughts more often instead of keeping them all in my head and lurking. ^^'

As for my friending/commenting policy, anyone is welcome to comment on my posts, whether new or old. I'm looking for more fandom friends! If I subscribe to you, don't feel obligated to subscribe back.

I do expect to post a fair number of access-locked entries, for things that feel too ramble-y. I may also access-lock entries that contain potentially identifying information (even just a whiff, as I am paranoid). But this is mostly a preventative measure against random drive-bys and search indexing, and access is granted very easily—basically if we've interacted once or twice. :) If we've interacted a few times and I still haven't given you access, feel free to give me a nudge as I've probably just forgotten.

Other places I can be found include mossy-bench and Mossy_Bench on AO3. Happy to share my Discord too, just PM to ask. My Twitter is defunct and my Pixiv is just to bookmark beautiful art.

If you'd like to say hello, you are more than welcome to leave a comment below! :D <3

This month most of my fannish energy was hyper-focused on vidding, though that project is now mere inches from being complete! (Expect a more exhaustive post about it in the near future.) I think I'll then redirect my attention to a) finishing Yakuza 3, and b) finishing the damn RyuDai fic inspired by Yakuza 2. The latter does raise a problem, however...

Fic-writing and dithering about socks
I probably shouldn't even talk about the RyuDai fic given how far it is from completion. I am 5.5k words in, which isn't nothing!! But for it to be what I want it to be, I think it'll need to be about double that in length.

Historically, I have kept my main AO3 account rated G through M, and posted all porn to a separate sock account. The Yakuza fandom has put me in a pickle, though, because generally speaking, all of my fic ideas for the fandom are rated E. So it's kinda like, either I can never post Yakuza fic to my main account despite yapping about it here a whole lot, or I break my rule of not putting porn on my main account. Or I suppose I could post it to my sock but then still talk about the fic here, therefore linking the two accounts. I recognize that this is a very trivial thing to agonize over. I'm curious what you would do in my shoes!

Reasons to keep the accounts separate:
- There is an infinitesimal chance that someone I know IRL who may or may not remember my Tumblr, could then easily find my entire namespace fannish presence. This seems unlikely, given that said acquaintance last saw my Tumblr more than 10 years ago, and I have changed my URL/handle since then.
- Writing porn feels incredibly vulnerable and I vacillate rapidly between liking what I wrote and feeling keen embarrassment. I've gotten nice feedback on some of my PWPs but I think I still struggle to own it. Tossing it into the void feels a lot easier.
- Comparing stats between the accounts is kind of fascinating.

At the moment, the solution I'm leaning towards is maybe posting them to a pseud on my main account, on a case-by-case basis. The more involved, character-driven stuff can be on Mossy_Bench, the purely trashy iddy stuff can be on the sock. That feels like something I could live with. Though it doesn't take care of the lingering paranoia of people I know IRL finding my porn. Ah well. I foresee I will have pleeeenty of time to mull over this yet.

Now onto more general video game ramblings!

Positive thoughts about Yakuza 3
I am actually ridiculously close to reaching the climax of the plot. It's crazy how much longer it's taking me to finish compared to the other games in the series I've played through. Overall, I like a lot of aspects of the game—I think the orphanage story is sweet; I enjoy exploring Okinawa's map; the substories are delightful as ever; Rikiya is such an eager loyal puppydog of a man that I have found myself shipping him with Kiryu not so much in a romantic sense as much as a Kiryu needs to take him to poundtown sense; I love any and all Daigo content.

Apprehension about Yakuza 3
From what I can tell, RGG plots tend to be a bit ridiculous at baseline, but Y3's soapiness (secret twin brother of deceased loved one!) goes a bit far—and ends up being weirdly less entertaining. Also, the chasing mechanic is miserable. After I proved to myself that I could do it if I wanted to, I gave myself to permission to switch chase scenes to easy difficulty. Because fuck that.

I know Mine/Daigo is a hugely popular ship thanks to this game, and I haven't yet gotten to the reveal that launched the ship. All I have to say is that Mine Yoshitaka is an insanely pretty man, especially in cut scenes. The one where he brings over a briefcase containing [redacted for mild spoilers]? Veeeery nice. I'm just curious how fans of the ship end up characterizing Daigo. Because personally, I like him as a hot-headed, repressed, emo failure who also manages to be a decent and charismatic leader when he's called to be. But that hot-mess core is essential. That is: don't turn him into bland serious competent chairman pls.

(Why yes I do have a new icon. Thank you for noticing!)