Looking for a fic series about parenting and family with enough queerness, trans & nonbinary characters, disability, mental health issues, and kinky polyamory to choke a horse? Look no further! The Alabanza-verse is a Voltron: Legendary Defender S4 canon AU (because I started writing it back in early 2017) future-fic series about all those things and more. The Alabanza series centers around Keith, Lance, and their kids. The How the Dead Live series centers around Matt, Shiro, and Allura; it takes place in the Alabanza-verse, but can be read as a standalone series on its own. Current WIP fic is Atlas, involving Matt's adventures in trying to heal from two truly terrible decades through tabletop roleplay games, kink, a pet lizard named Cat, and hopefully some goddamn therapy.

( ALABANZA SERIES )

 

( HOW THE DEAD LIVE SERIES )

Victorious by V.E. Schwab
Somewhere Only We Know by Maureen Goo
Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey (man it was a slog for the first two thirds, but I managed it!)

  Rating: Explicit

Word Count: currently 143k

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Pairings: Matt/Shiro, Shiro/Allura, Matt/Shiro/Allura

Tags: Future Fic, Sadism, Masochism, PTSD, Long-Distance Relationship, Epistolary, BDSM, Sub Sharing, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Better Living and Psychological Healing Through Kinky Polyamory, Agender Character, Nonbinary Character, VLD is a war story that doesn't want to be a war story, Sibling Relationships, Trauma Recovery, Substance Abuse, Aromantic Character, Bisexual Character, Aromantic Relationship, Romantic Relationship, Canon Disabled Character, Mental Health Issues, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alien Culture, Polyamory, Non-Equilateral Triangle, Threesome - F/M/M, Relationship Negotiation, Metamours, Politics, No Goats This Time But There is a Lizard, This is Actually a Happy Story I Promise

Warnings: See end notes for each chapter.

Summary: this is a callout post @ mattholt

#you know why

Along the way to becoming a person again, Matt acquires a Cat, a crop, a Plan, two long distance relationships, a taste for the local tabletop roleplay game, and reluctantly, friends.

Chapter 13 is live! Read it on Ao3.

This is part of the How the Dead Live series, a sub-series taking place in the Alabanza 'verse.

Gotta love the days when you have just enough energy to be high-functioning while getting ready in the morning and then crash as soon as you leave the house for a 10-hour day of work. Have I mentioned that I hate chronic fatigue? I feel like it's the only thing I blog about these days, but this level of exhaustion is all-consuming -- mentally, physically, emotionally -- and it's the only thing I can think about when I even have the energy to think. At least the newest chapter of Atlas was mostly already written when this latest flare-up hit and I only need to blurt out a few remaining sections.

Weird migraine things: feeling like the right side of your face is melting off your skull even though you know that it absolutely isn’t. Also, muscle spasms so bad that you look like the top half of you is having a seizure while you’re walking to work. I’m continually amused at how determined city dwellers are to just Not See weird stuff, but there are a lot of homeless people in this neighborhood, so I suppose people are used to ignoring people who are acting strangely or asking them for money.

It’s weird how the platform dictates posting habits — I used to post fairly regularly ish on LJ back in the day when that was just how things went, but ever since using Tumblr I’ve gotten into the habit of just reblogging other people’s content and not creating my own. Possibly because my life is... uh, not that interesting. Bad brains mean that I’m largely withdrawing from the world even as I’m trying hard not to, but I just don’t have the energy to do much other than function and go to work in the evenings and write Atlas and occasionally do the social thing and go to physical therapy and brain therapy, which as I write it I realize is a lot, but I still can’t shake the feeling that I should be doing more. I used to be able to do a lot more. It feels weird to say I’m still in mourning for who I used to be and the life I led, because a) I wasn’t happy then either, and b) I’m actually better than I was even last year, if not back to where I was. I want to believe that I can get to a place where I’m satisfied with my life. Is that so much to ask of the universe? Or of myself?

In exciting news, I might be going back to school in the fall, though! I’m strongly considering becoming an occupational therapy assistant. So that’s cool.

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 20k

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Pairings: Shiro/Allura, Matt/Shiro (secondary)

Tags: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Kid Fic, BDSM, D/s, Gender Issues, Consent Issues, Politics, Agender Character, Canon Disabled Character, Royalty Roleplay, Oviposition, Collars, Better Living and Psychological Healing Through Kinky Polyamory, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alien Culture, The Tags Make This Fic Sound Like It Has a Very Different Plot Than It Does, Polyamory, Alien Biology, Family Issues, Parenthood, Come for the Kinky Smut Stay for the Politics, To Be Clear This is Not Mpreg

Warnings: See end notes.

Summary: "This should have been gold," Allura murmurs as she fastens the collar around Shiro's throat. "Solid gold, warm to the touch. That's what you would have had, had you been my imperial consort."

Shiro and Allura both want things that they're not supposed to want. Shiro, surprisingly, is the one who's okay with that.

Read it on Ao3.

Really, 2018 has been a shit year. My physical health is better than it was in 2017, but I'm still not in the living situation I want to be in, my social circle is way too small, I'm vastly underemployed at a job that doesn't pay well and I find really stressful, my country is doing horrible and horrific things and I feel pretty much powerless to do anything about it, and my mental health was worse overall this year than anything other than whatever the fuck 2013-2014 was. It's hard to be optimistic about anything, and while I know that there's a way out of the cycle I'm in, I have no idea how to find it and get out. But I'll try my hand at these resolution things anyway, if only to put it on public record that I said I'd do some things.

1. Find some way to be more politically involved. Even if it's small, it's better than nothing. I can't fix everything and I shouldn't expect myself to, but I can do some work somewhere.
2. Volunteer more. Once a month, at least.
3. Take an audition workshop and then actually start auditioning for things once the current season is over. And don't accept any more fucking board op jobs!
4. Do at least one embroidery project a month.
5. Finish Atlas and continue working on the Alabanza series.
6. Actually write the Homecoming play.
7. Actually write the pilot episode of the unnamed Yet Another Fucking High School TV Show.
8. Make some damn money. VIPKids, Say ABC, temp jobs, Starbucks, whatever, but find a hustle and do it.
9. I don't know what I can do about my mental health beyond what I'm already doing, but I have to do something.
10. Go to more social events -- D&D nights, book club, volunteer groups, reconnect with old friends, whatever -- at least twice a month.
11. Be kinder to myself. I'm not where I should be, I'm not where I want to be, but I'm where I am, and getting angry about that doesn't help anyone.

I thought that after two years of using mobility aids of increasing levels (cane, then forearm crutches, then mobility scooter, recently rollator) I'd gotten over the internalized shame and self-consciousness of using them, but I apparently haven't, especially around people who know me and especially now that I'm doing somewhat better health-wise. I have more energy than I used to so I feel like I'm not sick enough anymore to be as tired as I still am and using mobility aids is just making a big deal out of nothing, and it's like I'm back to square one on all the emotional work I did to let myself use them in the first place.

Why is so much of Glee fic so skeevy? *shudders*

Also, expect Inception ReverseBang and overdue Sweet Charity fics sometime... soonish.