I was wiped out last night after martial arts class and then sauna & cold plunge, and could barely move my arms or keep my eyes open. So I just went to bed.

And that was the right call, because I woke up a bit before 5 AM (!) refreshed and ready to rock'n'roll to finish this story!

I just cranked out 5,820 words to finish Falling for His Rival in style!

Falling for His Rival
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Ship: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Wordcount: 21,217

Summary: Blurb taken from Falling for Her Rival, by Jackie Braun

For chef Poe Dameron, it's time to turn up the heat. Three years ago he hit rock bottom. Now he's ready for a comeback, starting with winning a TV competition to secure a spot running New York's trendiest kitchen! He just didn't count on his attraction to rival Armitage Hux burning a hole in his plans…

Hux has worked his apron off for this opportunity, and total focus on the competition was the plan — which is difficult when all he can think about is wanting his opponent out of the kitchen and in his bed! But there can only be one winner, and sometimes, to win, a guy has to play dirty!

I'm pleased overall with how this turned out, although there could have been a lot more "spice." But I was keeping it Mature!

After writing about all these delicious recipes for days on end, now I'm really hungry, haha!

Last night I published chapter 2 of my offering for Unconventional Courtship, which is due in just a few days, on the 6th. I chose the 6th because 6 is my favorite number, but now I'm kicking myself for not choosing a number after this next weekend!

I'm especially kicking myself because in the process of writing yesterday's chapter, I have somehow increased the chapter count up to 4. So now I'm only halfway done, with 2 days to finish.

I'm busily pondering whether I can fold down the last two chapters into one, which would be far more feasible to do. I think I might pursue that path -- so in that case it'll be back down to 3 chapters total soon.

Stay tuned!

It's been about two years since I fell down the rabbit hole of Armitage Hux / Poe Dameron, and I'm finally coming up for air. At this point I've read millions of words of Gingerpilot fanfic and written over half a million words of Gingerpilot myself. I love this ship; I love Hux; I love the whole thing...

... but at this point, I'm feeling that it's time to start branching out into newer pastures.

It's true that I did all of Kinktober last year, but pretty much all of those stories were things that were already swirling around in my head from years and decades of consuming media and making up stories in my head about them. When called upon, I just brought up some of those stories and wrote them down. Only one of them was Gingerpilot, and that wasn't "really" Gingerpilot 'as such.' But none of my Kinktober adventures captured my interest for the long term. 

Here are the ships that have turned my head recently, along with how "viable" the fandom for each seems to be to me, in ascending order.

( Read more... )

At this point I have plenty of things to write about, including several fics that are due quite soon, as well as the five WIPs I have on AO3, but no new ship has fully captured my interest.

Maybe I'm reaching towards the point where I... don't have an all-consuming interest in a specific ship?? Is this personal growth?? _pondering_

I spent the past few days writing the first chapter of my offering for the Unconventional Courtship challenge; my day is June 6. I considered waiting to post it until then, but a brief review of the challenge rules and past contributions revealed no such requirement... and, as you know, I really like posting one Gingerpilot chapter every weekend, and this qualifies!

The blurb I chose was from the back of the romance novel Falling for Her Rival, by Jackie Braun, only I swapped out the character names and pronouns to match my desired ship!

I had a lot of fun with the concept of putting Poe and Hux on a reality TV cooking show. I'm already jonesing to write chapter 2 and earn the Mature rating that I promised my readers! ☺️

And now I'm hungry for the food I made them cook, recipe-free -- a fancy French dish called fish quenelles. Hux, a classically trained and incredibly driven chef, has the recipe memorized and knows exactly how to make a sauce Soubise to go with it. Poe... does not have any of that training, and does not do that same thing, haha.

I posted Chapter 6 of "Three and a Half Steps" at 11:01 PM on Sunday night, meaning that technically, I got it done over the weekend!

I'm not sure why this one was so difficult for me. Maybe because I want to build the trust and connection between Hux and Poe slowly -- quite slowly, in fact. Hux is in no way ready to actually trust someone, especially someone from the New Republic. And Poe is a mess. I introduced an external factor that's putting new pressure on Poe, and he has to figure out how to deal with it, and maybe Hux can help... Or at least, that's what I set up for next chapter. And now I have almost 2 weeks to figure out how to make that happen!

This next weekend I'll post a chapter of "Cat on a Plasteel Roof," my other Gingerpilot fic that's in progress on AO3. It's kind of nice to do an every-other-week cadence for these two stories. It's true that they'll each take twice as long to finish, but it also means that I have twice as long to come up with the next chapter, and if I burn out on one, I can turn to the other during the week. :)

But not right now. Right now I'm trying to get more words in on my May the Fourth exchange fic, which is due in less than two weeks. I only have 680 words so far and I'm having a difficult time getting into it. This particularly assignment is proving to be quite difficult for me. But I'm a professional -- well, no I'm not, I'm an amateur, but I'm an amateur who takes this whole thing quite seriously -- so I shall persevere! :)

Rare Kink Buffet just went de-anonymous, so I can finally post about the four things I wrote for it! This took most of March and just a bit of April.

Title: I couldn't do without my supply
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Ship: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Wordcount: 4,805

Summary: Poe convinces his new boyfriend to go all the way in a new way, despite the unusual challenges posed by his not-quite-human anatomy.

Series: Part 3 of Don't Take Your Love From Me

On one of my Star Wars Discord servers, people were speculating about whether maybe Arkanisians could be more aquatic and have features like being able to live in the ocean, tough skin, gills, etc., and how Hux might have been horribly treated in the First Order if it turned out he shared those traits. Brendol, especially, would not be okay with it, so Hux would probably have a lot of shame! That's where this series came from.

The first two installments cover Hux's secret getting out, now that the war is over and he's trying to fit in with the New Republic. One was from Hux's POV, and the second was from Poe's.

This third installment is a scene featuring Hux's non human genitalia. Poe is very appreciative of Hux's non human anatomy, which is so healing for Hux after having to hide it for so long back in the Order.

Title: we're gonna drain that cup dry
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Ship: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Wordcount: 16,914

Summary: Poe invites Hux back to his home planet of Arkanis for their anniversary, with unexpected consequences.

Series: Part 4 of Don't Take Your Love From Me

This is the "some mermen can get pregnant" concept that irrationalgame was so excited about in the Discord server we share! I decided to write it for her because there was a prompt that was perfect for it. And of course I had to load on the angst.

This is my first mpreg fic. It's a genre that didn't appeal to me much at first, but after several years reading fanfic, now I see the point. Pregnancy really does allow the author to whump those characters even harder than usual.

Title: Non Sum Dignus
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandoms: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Ship: Merek Grimaldus/Andrej Valatok
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Wordcount: 18,565

Summary: After the loss of his entire squad during the Siege of Helsreach, Reclusiarch Merek Grimaldus of the legendary Black Templars has some very confusing experiences.

Andrej Valatok is just trying to get through the day.

Set right before the Epilogue of the novel Helsreach, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

This fic is my personal favorite of the four I wrote for Rare Kink Buffet. I put in a lot of Catholic-style guilt and imagery, because although it's all fictional space war, the world is clearly very heavily influenced by Catholicism, and hey, that's my whole background trauma!

I was disheartened to find that there were only 2 fics featuring this ship. Non Sum Dignus is fic #3. And honestly, I might write more; I really like these two...

Title: Click Into Place
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Naruto (Anime & Manga)
Ship: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Wordcount: 3,950

Summary: Iruka and Kakashi have worked out a series of code words that earn Kakashi a reward — a click from Iruka's dog training clicker. They are both pretty happy about it. But a disturbing apparition from Kakashi's past may test the strength of their bond.

Series: Part 4 of Shinobi Shenanigans

This prompt was almost made for me. Iruka, clicker training Kakashi, and there being a public component to it? Yes please! It fit so neatly into my existing series that I just had to take one evening to write it up.

I never blogged about all the things I contributed to Gingerpilot Week in November of 2024. Let's fix that now!

The theme for this event centered around semiprecious stones and their meanings. To wit:

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Back on January 7th, irrationalgame posted on the "Aw Shucks Hux" Discord's Gingerpilot channel:

"Tattoo artist Poe and ‘getting tattoos to cover scars’ Hux is this anything"

I decided that yes, yes it was, and I cranked out two chapters of a modern AU tattoo artist Gingerpilot fic in relatively short order. But the third one eluded me, until today, when I was able to finish and post it!

Here's the blurb:

Title: Dotted Lines
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Ship: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Rating: Teen
No Archive Warnings Apply
Wordcount: 13,316

Summary: Tattoo artist Poe Dameron is curious about the cash-only customer with the scars that need to be covered. Some other scars might need to be uncovered in order to heal.

I had fun with this one, especially coming up with a profession that Armitage Hux might possibly do in the real world. It's not as though the First Order gave him a lot of options. I've seen and even used "Architect Armitage Hux" as a tag; I've also written modern-AU him as an engineer. I've also seen him as a professor and a surgeon. Those are all professions that are high-prestige, high-pay, and attract a high percentage of assholes, haha.

Instead of going for a profession like that, I decided to take it in a totally different direction and make him a famous-in-certain-obscure-musical-circles punk music songwriter and musician who had founded and played in many groups and who became known as "The General" for how well he kept everyone else in the band working in the same direction. Of course, he has an angry ex, Kylo Ren. Also of course, his abusive defense contractor father Brendol is still alive.

Why? Well -- I feel like Armitage Hux has a lot of anger from being abused his whole childhood by his rich asshole defense contractor father. There are class issues, there are money issues / financial control issues, there's his father's horrible wife Maratelle and how they stole him from his birth mother -- there might even be English/Irish issues, if we say his mother was Irish (Arkansian in canon, but same diff', right?). What would a young man like that do? No doubt he was sent to all the most prestigious prep schools, but why would he want to follow in his father's footsteps? He would not.

I could see a young Armitage channeling some of that rage into punk music, and then directing his prodigious talents for logical thinking, organization, control, and so on into excelling in that world, mostly by bossing around the people around him who so desperately need the order he can instill in them.

I also made Poe a lot younger -- like, at least twenty years younger. Obviously this is not canonical, but nothing about a tattoo artist AU is canonical, haha!

I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out, and so is the person I wrote it for! :)

This morning I posted a short and fluffy Gingerpilot fic, which is fic #99.

Just now, I posted Chapter 1 of a 3-chapter (planned) fic, with the ship Hux/Cardinal. This fic is my #100!

Happy 2 years on AO3 to me! :)

Here's #99:

Care Packages
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Ships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux, Phasma/Rose Tico
No Archive Warnings Apply
Rating: Teen & Up
Wordcount: 2,374

Summary: Poe is way too fascinated with watching and re-watching First Order propaganda holos, and with his new hobby of sending care packages directly to General Hugs.

Hux has no idea who is targeting him, or for what purpose.

And here's the first chapter of #100!

Six of a Kind
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Phasma - Delilah S. Dawson
Ships: Cardinal | Archex/Armitage Hux, Armitage Hux/Original Male Character(s)
Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Rating: Explicit
Wordcount: 3,439 (so far)

Summary: Armitage Hux discovers a secret cloning program, and now he has five perfectly obedient copies of CD-0922, aka Captain Cardinal — the paramount example of the First Order's perfect man.

Now, what on earth is he going to do with all of them? And how can he use their existence to settle some old scores with the original Cardinal?

Just to be safe, I used "Creator Chose Not to Warn" because Cardinal has been heavily mentally conditioned -- i.e. brainwashed -- so the concept of him consenting is a bit squidgey. It's still going to end up with a happy ending, though.

Okay so yesterday morning I wrote a new fic where Hux is half merman.

Then last night I stayed up until 2 am and finished my Five Figure Fanwork Exchange chapters at the end. Finally.

Then I woke up at 6:30 am and wrote the other half to the merman-Hux story, the side from Poe's perspective. I posted it in a new series along with the one from yesterday.

I haven't felt this strong a compulsion to write something specific for a long time. It was like my mind was in pain if I wasn't writing this story down. I have other things to do, you know! But no. This story needed to come out.

Series: Don't Take Your Love From Me

Fic 1: take the ocean's roar and leave just a sigh
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Ship: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Rating: Mature
No Archive Warnings Apply
Wordcount: 5,021

Summary: Hux accidentally reveals the truth of his half-Arkansian biology when he dives into a lake to save Poe from a watery death.

Fic 2: take the wings from birds so that they can't fly
Author: ArtemisDart
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Ship: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Rating: Explicit
No Archive Warnings Apply
Wordcount: 7,558

Summary: Poe almost drowns, and then discovers that Hux has been keeping something a secret from all of them.