#also i mean more as in unsung in the show than in fandom (no idea there)

[laufire]

nathan ingram unsung hero of person of interest. to me.

[a-memory-a-distant-echo]

ok, i'm being so brave and making the rec post that i told anon i would do like three days ago.

the obligatory caveats. this is not comprehensive—i haven't read all the fic in this fandom, and i've barely looked at anything not in english. my reading habits are pretty broad—i'll read almost any pairing, and am generally willing to suspend my disbelief to do so. i am not usually an au person, though this fandom is doing its absolute damndest to prove me wrong on that point.

also i have…more…fics that i felt i should rec somewhere, so probably this is rec post one, but ten felt like enough and also saying things in public where people can hear me is, it turns out, absolutely excruciating. please no one be mean to me about this post, especially if you wrote one of these fics, because if you are i will simply fill my pockets with rocks and take to the sea, ok? ok.

excited to find out what i manage to do that ruins the formatting, links the wrong fics and/or people, or otherwise breaks things in this post. please tell me if i've fucked up, or if your fic is on this list and you would rather i keep your name out of my mouth, or whatever.

first, a very special mention to the mlc reference guide by @yletylyf. this is such an incredibly comprehensive and generous resource. you want a timeline for this show that does an incredibly poor job of maintaining its own timeline? it's here. you want episode summaries? they're here. you want all the people and places? they're here. if you're writing fic, you want this guide, because it's so much easier and faster than scanning episodes or subs files to figure out the name of one specific guy or whatever. it also means that at least occasionally you work on the thing rather than accidentally rewatching the same scene five times, or hypothetically watching two to four episodes without even really thinking about what you're doing. the reference guide is the unsung mvp of fandom.

beyond porch and portal, difanghua, teen, by willowdream. this is the vampire au that i didn't know i wanted? the author posted it and their note was like 'i'm trying to be the change i want to see in the world,' and i was like ok sure, i'm not really convinced that the change i need is vampire aus, but i'll give it a go, and then i did and was like, oh shit, i'm eating fucking glass about this vampire au, i'm chewing on my own fucking fingers, i'm so fucking normal about this, i need another hundred thousand words of this and also seventeen more vampire aus in my inbox by monday morning. i literally finished reading it and scrolled right back to the top to read it again. i have no idea why this fic hits so hard, but it took me out at the knees. the voices are perfect. something about it is just impossibly compelling.

不安的遠離，再无歸期 | restless distance, without return, fang duobing/qiao wanmian, mature and teen, by @difeisheng. this is technically two fics but they're short and you should read both of them because they're such a brutal, perfect encapsulation of grief, and a really beautiful acknowledgement of the ways that fang duobing and qiao wanmian can be read as reflections of each other, separated by a decade, and it just fucking guts me. i dunno. it's about the grief! it's about the yearning! it's about someone who understands parts of you that you wish didn't exist! i think i've reread this like once a week for the last six weeks and i feel like it gets overlooked because it's not A Ship but like. it could be. it should be.

dance the silence down, fanghua and feihua, explicit, by @momosandlemonsoda. this fic. ugh. ok. i'm breaking my own rules. i had two when i started writing this post: no works in progress, and no reccing things that i haven't left a comment on, like a goddamn grownup. this one fic is breaking both of those rules and i feel bad about it and will hopefully spend like, all day tomorrow just commenting on every chapter or something, but i have to do this. this fic is so good. this fic ruins me. this fic is 63k, still a work in progress, and also if i were losing the whole internet tomorrow and i got to keep one fic in all the world and it was the only fic i could have for the rest of time, it might have to be this one, even as a work in progress. i ignored this fic for so long—by which i mean probably two of the four months since i first watched mysterious lotus casebook—because i was like, i don't like aus, and i especially don't like rock star aus. (or sex work aus, and you're never gonna fucking believe what else this author is writing and what else i absolutely cannot get enough of—this is a sneaky bonus rec for all i wanna do is wrong, another fic that i feel so so so normal about!) but then i was like okkkkkkk but. maybe i'll try it. people seem to be nuts for it. and then i read it and i was like OH HOLY SHIT PEOPLE ARE FULLY CORRECT TO BE ABSOLUTELY UNHINGED ABOUT THIS and normally, honestly, i wouldn't bother posting a rec like this because it's like 'oh haha have you read the five most popular fics in this fandom?' and it feels so redundant, but i know for a fact that a friend of mine who finished watching the show yesterday is reading this post, and even if everyone else has read it, she has not! anyhow as a former music person and a former diner cook, this fic like. i don't know. i feel like it broke me but also fixed me? i literally criticise writing professionally and every time i try to talk about this fic i find myself speechless because it's so perfect to me. i am deeply unwell about this fic. every time a new chapter comes out i sit down and read the whole thing again, yes, all sixty-thousand-plus words of it. some nights you go to bed and you're like 'what's the fucking point?' and then you're like 'no wait, there will eventually be more of dance the silence down,' and somehow that makes things suck a tiny bit less. my wife has made me take out like six sentences from this rec because they're too intense and too weird about it but i need you to understand: you have to read this fic.

in this dream, there is a lover to share this life with, fanghua, g, by @lianhuajing. alternative ending for the end of episode 27, in which li lianhua—precious man who has yet to discover a hill he's not willing to die on—apologises to fang duobing the only way he knows how, and it's wildly upsetting for everyone (but it's ok and it doesn't end miserably, no one panic). this is a delightfully angsty treat, and i love how conflicted fang duobing is in it—i feel like it's not something that i've seen explored a lot, but this poor boy really fuckin goes through it—his best friend and his childhood idol are the same person but are lying to him about it, and his dad's not actually his father and has been lying to him about it, and his best friend/childhood idol may have killed his father, and—yeah, is lying to him about it. like? someone give this poor man a hug and a cup of tea and a snack and a blankie. i love that we get to see some of his internal conflict in this.

quintessence of dust, feihua, teen, by justthereforit. this plays with one of my very most favourite tropes in the world, which is the one where the heart is a physical object and a physical form of trust and control and surrender and—like. this is so good. it's set in episode 13, which is, for me, one of the absolute peak angst points, and it absolutely nails it. di feisheng who's upset and vulnerable and frustrated and angry, li lianhua who knows he's going to die and can't bear the thought that he's going to take anyone else down with him, and they're both just so fucked up. chef kiss. i love it when everyone is emotionally wrecked and continually like 'ok no, i can take one more knife in my soul to protect someone else', and this absolutely delivers on that.

under moonlight, we change our futures yet again, feihua, explicit, by @thesilversun. the wedding room! obviously we have to have a wedding room fic, right? i'm not going to lie: i'm willing to suspend a lot of disbelief for wedding room fics, but in this one, it's actually a wonderfully, horrifyingly plausible setup. it walks a really fine line of keeping people in character, and acknowledging the inherent horror and seriousness of the situation, and also providing some desperately hot sex, and also managing to get the emotional beats of it, too. it has a sequel, which imo really has to be read as the conclusion to this fic, and it's just as good. it's possible that some of what i'm saying here is 'i love vulnerable-inside crusty-outside di feisheng' but like. i do. i love it so much.

what's sealed away, feihua, teen, by @bbcphile. AMNESIA FIC yessssss, a-fei my beloved, fics that handle brain damage/memory issues/amnesia well my beloveddddd. i love the a-fei arc, but i also have had a number of brain injuries and some other stuff that means that my own memory is…not so great, so i sometimes really struggle with how often amnesia in fiction is played off either as nothing to worry about or as a funny thing where everyone's in on the joke except the person who has amnesia. this fic is a great and sometimes very visceral exploration of a horrifying experience, and a really fantastic study of a-fei/di feisheng as a character, as well as the relationship that he has with li lianhua. a-fei trying to balance the trust he has in the sense memory of his body with his understanding of his relationship with li lianhua with li lianhua's reaction to—everything, really—is really well done and wonderful/terrible to read.

我只愿面朝大海 | i wish only to face the sea, g, by foreverstudent. ok so you wanna fuck yourself up some more? go read this. this is canon divergence from episode 39, and fang duobing has learned too well the lessons he's been taught, and sees the shape of things before li lianhua ever touches the wangchuan flower—so he sets about making sure that he won't be able to throw it away. this is agonising and gorgeous and maintains the canon relationships while developing the narrative differently. i wept literal tears. i was like 'ok that's it the worst part is over!' and then i remembered that there was another part coming and then i started crying. anyhow, it is—as ever, with me—about the devotion.

我住長江頭, 君住長江尾 -- i live upstream, you live downstream, fanghua, teen, by @rimbaudofficial. ok so this is Not a fic that i should like, because i am a massive academic failure and despite being in my forties have regular nightmares about having to re-engage with academia for like. any reason. HOWEVER. as noted, i read indiscriminately, even when i'm like 'reading this is a terrible idea and will be upsetting for me personally!', so i was like 'well, how bad of an idea can it possibly be?' and then instead! it was. incredibly charming? it was so fucking cute? the fang duobing characterisation in this is somehow just perfect to me—he's simultaneously confident and vulnerable, and also just so deeply committed to the weird clueless guy who he's decided is meant for him. di feisheng and li lianhua have a perfect weird-bros friendship. i would read another ten chapters of this and i would love it.

[ifwebefriends]

Gravity Falls Rewatch: Post-Canon: Between the Pines

I thought Time Baby was dead? Did they come back?

Awww I missed the original theme song instead of the fucked up Bill one

Love how Alex is conveying this information: pretending to be trapped by Time Baby awesome

THE PRISM IN CARPET DIEM WAS MEANT TO INDICATE THAT THE ROOM BELONGED TO THE AUTHOR?!?!?!?

Alex won’t reveal Dipper’s first name lmao

Yo has anyone else figured out Dipper and Mabel’s name similarity?

“When Mabel isn’t on-screen she’s knitting the next week’s sweater” okay that makes a lot of sense

“Pay attention to how Stan talks about family” okay if I rewatch the series again I’ll try to remember that

Soos’ sayings are based off a GF crew member who says weird slang

Soos is based off a guy who Alex went to college with!

“Everyone poured the coolest person they knew into a pot and Wendy was born” true that fr

Deputy Durland is named after a real guy!

“Toby is days away from giving up on everything” lmao

“Preston runs a mudflap factory and his wife was Ms. Mudflap ‘85” why is that so unexpected but also so not surprising

“Gideon originally may have had a conjoined twin hidden by his hair” oh my god I don’t know if that would be hilarious or horrifying

Okay so Bill was inspired by the triangle eye on the $1 bill and was even named “Bill” after the bill, I didn’t figure out the name part until now but the inspiration makes sense

“Bill was originally green” okay that sounds cool and weird

There was a secret government surveillance device in the floorboards in Sock Opera?!?!

“Mabel’s sunset sweater in Dreamscaperers symbolizes the shift from a brighter story to a darker story” ALEX HIRSCH HOLY SHIT YOU GENIUS

“Dreamscaperers originally had Bill going into everyone’s dreams and Mabeland was inspired by those ideas” I kinda want to see that plot and what would happen with that

Wow did Alex do that Duchess Approves intro from memory?!? And off the cuff?!?!

I’m actually so so so glad that Alex put those codes in GF because that’s kinda what got me into the show when I was 10

“Fans are smarter than I am so we upped the ante for season 2” I love how they adapted to make it more of a challenge for fans

Holy shit there are so many codes and secret messages in this show that I didn’t notice I kinda love that

“Our most elaborate code was cracked 10 minutes after the episode came out” yeah that’s the GF fandom for you

THE END-OF-EPISODE FLASHES IN SEASON 2 WERE LEADING UP TO THE FORD REVEAL?!?!?!?

Holy fucking shit I didn’t notice that Stan has a bandage on his hand for several episodes after it gets banged by a pipe in “Society of the Blind Eye” AND it was a way to say “we haven’t forgotten about the mysterious portal”

“Something will change and stay changed for the rest of the show” yup that’s the godlike continuity of this show

“Each audience member gets to BE Dipper and have a mystery to solve” YES that’s the charm!!

“Mabel wears a key sweater in ‘Not What He Seems’ to say that she’s the key to opening the portal” yooooooo okay Mabel’s sweaters have more meaning than I thought apparently

Holy shit there’s just so many secrets explained that just make so much sense

Ariel Hirsch voiced a girl in the Sev’ral Timez episode?!?!?!?!?????

“This show is us making fun of each other” lol I love that

Whoa Matt Chapman is an unsung side star of this show apparently

“Jeff Rowe is the most attractive of our writers” didn’t expect that but okay go off I guess

“all the writers have a secret personality trait that sneaks into the show” yo that’s beautiful dawg I love that

Stan’s singing what he’s doing is inspired by something Alex does apparently lmao

“Chanting happens a lot in the writers room” lol that’s not surprising

I never realized how much chanting is in this show lmao

“The crew likes to make fun of me” lol I love how apparently the entire GF crew had fun with this show and with each other

“GF isn’t about codes and Easter eggs but characters” yeah I didn’t fully realize that when I was a kid and that’s why I’m glad I rewatched the show

I LOVE that montage at the end showing all the coolest Gravity Falls moments

This special was fucking awesome!!! I learned so much!!! I would highly recommend watching it if you haven’t seen it already

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

we are our family, even if we don’t want to be.

Titans 3.07

a bit over halfway through the season, and we still don’t have all of our main characters on the board! i love this show.

as always, typing this up as i watch. live reaction, baby! *shadowboxes*

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. i don’t think i’ve mentioned this before, but i kinda miss the old ‘dc universe’ intro. it was cool! the whole idea of it was wild and waaaaay over-ambitious, but also very very on-brand because of it.

2. this is... the third time we’ve seen dick sleeping this season? that’s a record! checking another thing off my s3 wishlist...

2.5. i guess i rag on titans all the time for its wafer-thin plotting and bad pacing, but i have to admit that this season has been a step-up from the last one in this regard. titans has very reactive rather than proactive protagonists, and a lot of the last season seemed to be: x happened, the team reacted badly, then y happened, they reacted badly, etc. this time around, it’s not a huge leap up by any means, but at least they’re doing something about it. 

i do appreciate the focus on character arcs over everything else. and when i say everything else, i mean it: arcs that started two seasons ago with no big cathartic moments, intermittent payoff and multiple relapses. big bads have ranged from interdimensional demons to superpowered assassins to whatever in the world scarecrow is, but trigon’s big weapon against the titans was to... use their worst fears against them. slade’s was to... use their fears to break them up. crane’s is to... use red hood to use their fears to break them up. even the threat of gotham’s citizens being in danger doesn’t feel real: gotham is mythologised into an entity of its own, infecting our heroes like a parasite. like. this is not to say that most other superhero media aren’t big character arcs intertwined with the main plot, but titans doesn’t even make pretend that it’s anything but.

anyway. that’s my entry #2345 to ‘give a grand unifying theory for titans’. thanks. i’ll be back with more.

3. “anger is just fear in a little black dress.” god I HATE HIM

(what’s he doing with barbara’s likeness? oh... oh god. a terrible thought just occurred to me. what if they introduce hush at the very last minute for plastic surgery shenanigans? would you put it past this show?)

3.5. jason, nooooooooo

3.75. i mean, they’re making it very clear here that scarecrow is the one in control--the one who’s always been in control--and is manipulating jason and literally poisoning him, but i hope it doesn’t end up erasing nuance or jason’s autonomy. if jason’s to reckon with the issues that brought him here, then the lines of responsibility will need to be set somewhere. 

(this applies to dick as well but more on that later, i guess.)

4. just--the phrase “40% loss of income” is so funny to me. like, gotham is full of these larger-than-life characters who are idiosyncratic beyond belief, colourful and dramatic and creating chaos just for the sake of chaos, and then there’s the regular criminals and their henchmen who just want to make a quick buck sitting down with pie charts and graphs, griping about the joker reducing their returns or debating high risk investments in, i don’t know, two-face’s next scheme.

“yyyyeeeeeaaah, my financial advisor is telling me that going all-in with a guy who literally makes decisions on the flip of a coin is probably not the greatest idea.”

4.5. god i hate smug!smarmy!scarecrow so much

4.85. as big plans to “control” gotham go, it’s pretty bog-standard. clearly scarecrow has some bigger plan in mind but it really feels like we’ve got no clear insight into him and he’s this generic creepy mystery-man who knows more than he lets on and springs a twist/cliffhanger every now and then. i liked the scenes with him and dick in 3.04 where it seemed like he was genuinely on the backfoot and things weren’t going as he predicted. for all of his faults, dick is at least familiar with scarecrow’s bullshit and knows not to give what he wants.

5. i mean... i see where dick is coming from with the “he’s not jason anymore; he’s red hood” because his immediate glaring concern is scarecrow’s drug and the damage it could potentially cause gotham? i do not doubt that it’s something batman drilled into him, too, but when you’re expected to take point on a situation where the lives of an entire city weigh down on your shoulders, it’s better to simplify things and prioritise. i’m not saying it’s great or healthy! gar is absolutely right to consider this facet of the situation. it’s just dick can’t.

6. hmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMMMM. 

i don’t know that i’m super fond of this iteration of oracle???? it looks like a cross between cerebro from x-men and jarvis from iron man. it’s giving me second-hand embarrassment. somebody help me.

(at least they remembered dick’s middle name is actually “john”. i like to think bruce printed D in that contract because for a while he genuinely thought richard “dick” grayson was his full name. duck duck goose, dick dick grayson, i don’t know alfred, the kid was in a circus, maybe they thought it was funny. or maybe it was a test in anger control, who knows.)

6.5 “maybe you two would like some time alone?” even AI can’t help hitting on dick grayson in this universe.

“oh mr grayson, if i only had another eye to see you better...”

6.8. on one hand, it’s a bit disconcerting that the title of ‘oracle’ has gone from barbara herself to this gigantic machine; from my impression of the comics-verse, barbara had an extensive computing and surveillance system, true, but she was very clearly the brains behind the operation. on the other hand, i’m kind of glad that the ethical boundaries that this kind of surveillance violates is a sticking point for barbara. (tho let’s be real, the nsa would kill to have this in their arsenal).

6.9. also it’s now obvious that scarecrow’s big plan is to take control of oracle itself. it’s why he had lady vic take that picture of her eyes, or why he’s meddling around with it on his computer.

6.95. if only i could ‘command sleep’ anybody overstepping their boundaries re: personal information...

7. “you can just sit back and watch as the titans destroy themselves.” i mean... he’s not wrong

8. “dick’s parents were killed by a criminal mob; he won’t work with them.” it’s wonderful that you have this insight into dick, kory, i just wish we could’ve watched some of these conversations actually happen on-screen.

8.5. i’m glad that kom’s being treated with such nuance and understanding, though it’s obvious that she definitely has a Plan of her own. (and did i entirely imagine her ability to mimic other people flawlessly at the end of s2? or is that going to come into play at some point?) i think her story has the potential to be genuinely poignant, and in a universe where being Different, either because of mental health or physical differences or whatever else, leads a straight line to Evil, it’s important to acknowledge and then emphasise that the mere fact of your existence as a Different Person doesn’t predispose you to evil. maybe your act of destroying a system that has destroyed you and not scrambling to “fit in” is only evil as defined by that system. 

8.8. “you’re trespassing, i should call the authorities, i feel unsafe.” now this is a villain lady who’s definitely aware of her privilege.

8.85. kom smirking knowingly at her sister is everything.

“oooh that’s the kory i remember”

9. conner and dick working together woo!

9.25. god i hate a villain who’s always just a step ahead, no matter what. so crane anticipated dick using oracle to track his personal communications and set him up? how did he know when exactly dick would get to do this? how long did he have that poor man tied up in that van?

(the “save me, grayson” is a nice touch, tho. send dick spiralling even further! because if there’s one thing dick will do, it’s take responsibility for every goddamn thing that goes wrong.)

9.5. ahem. i’m going to need a million gifs of conner yeeting dick across that yard, fandom, thankyouverymuch.

(i understand conner is invulnerable to explosions, but how do his clothes survive??)

9.8. oooh crane is already in oracle! i’m just sitting here laughing helplessly because they’re overpowering this goddamned guy so much. he can build a lab in arkham’s basement! he has access to lazarus puddles! he has minions working across gotham, including a fully functional chemical laboratory staffed by chemists who only answer to him! he has the crime families of gotham quailing in his very presence! he has assassins at his beck and call! he’s enough of a manipulative bastard to have red hood under his thumb! and now he has enough of a tech know-how to not only be aware of oracle, but know how to hack into it! i’m sick of exclamation marks! i’ll shut up now!

9.95. dick leaving behind that smouldering grave for a person he failed to save without taking a second to process how he feels about it and running towards his next plan to corner scarecrow: a microcosm of where his head’s at right now.

10. really hammering in the themes of this season, aren’t we. 

10.25. the interesting thing is the titans repeatedly call themselves a family this season (none more so than dick) and while that found family has helped encapsulate and put away their traumatic experiences with their ‘original’ families, it’s meant that they’ve not really dealt with those issues. and dick and gar and jason come from ‘found families’ of their own: they are twice removed, traumatised two times over. they still cling to this identity however, and because of it they’re losing each other. a family isn’t static. it’s an ever-evolving dynamic and you have to put in work constantly to keep it healthy.

10.5. anyway, that’s entry #2346. i’m here aaaalll night.

11. lookit gar the detective! half-transforming and using his powers to deduce things! what a hero! i’ve said this for a long time, but gar is the bedrock of this team, and an unsung one at that.

11.25. i’m confused about him calling this room jason’s though. it seems to me that this is dick’s room that jason later used, and one that dick’s using now. so the unmade bed isn’t really jason’s fault; dick was woken by barbara that morning, and in his hurry, he left without making his bed.

(it still confounds me that bruce didn’t find jason another bedroom in that gigantic mansion of his. you really didn’t give this kid a chance, did you?)

12. oh well. so much for the oracle.

13. ... sorry, wait. you didn’t think i wasn’t going to address the bit with dick right now, did you?

12.5. i honestly don’t think it’s very complicated: dick’s been reeling from one traumatic thing to the next, and just when it seemed like at the beginning of the season, he felt happy and secure with his team and his place in the world, bruce ups and leaves gotham to him, specifically naming him a successor and calling him a ‘better batman’. he’s lost garth and jericho and donna and jason and now hank and dawn. he’s not even sure where rachel is or what she’s doing. after being told that batman was a psychopath for moulding him into a weapon, he’s also been told that his failure to be a ‘better batman’ lead to further disaster. of course he’s going to get batman-goggles. of course he’s going to be a prick. 

12.8. i don’t know what to say. i feel his frustration acutely. i don’t think he should’ve said what he said to barbara (can people stop pushing her around this season????) but that pressure to step in where your parent fails? to clean up their messes and try to think like them? to fall into habits drilled into you when you developed them as coping mechanisms growing up? I FEEL THAT. 

every step he’s taking he’s putting 110% of himself in it and scarecrow’s still playing mindgames with all of them: i absolutely feel his desperation to take control of that game and turn it on scarecrow, no matter what it takes.

and he did apologise almost immediately, and finally--finally--actually works with barbara. 

12.9. again, not excusing him! but i get it. and i think that’s a sign of great character writing.

“did you know i just reminded emmram of all of her daddy issues? what the fuck????”

12.95. i love that dick&barbara, kory&kom, and gar are all approaching solving this mystery from different angles, each as valid as the other. also, conner is there as... emergency bomb defuser man?

13. it’s like all fancy rich people in fancy rich houses do is pour fancy rich alcohol into fancy rich glasses on pristine, untouched tabletops. i wonder what it’s like to live like that.

13.25. I KNEW IT! poor michael. it was nice knowing you.

13.5. man, kory is contending with a lot of issues that she’s successfully bottled up and compartmentalised until now. the cold reality that a child can seek out their parents as refuge and they can view the child as a piece to be moved in a greater game (never out of cruelty, though, never, and somehow that makes it worse), that truth of blackfire’s treatment on tamaran because she’s different, and her own culpability in what happened. she exchanged one family for another, after all, and left that family to die and her sister to suffer. like dick, like gar, kory’s being forced to reckon with what the titans are meant to be, the larger implications of creating their found family in their own space.

14. it’s probably because it’s one in the morning and i’ve had two glasses of wine but i did not follow that bit of exposition at all and victor freeze??? what? 

anyway. look at them solving things! together! go team!

“you made a deal with the mob?” oh the sense of betrayal on his face! fuck off, dick, your issues aren’t kory’s. 

15. conner is really sweet and a bit of an awestruck crush on kom is to be expected. especially after that power rangers-esque transformation (i say this as a former huge power rangers fangirl. i’ve seen every series until 2007 including the original japanese versions and written fanfic for all of them. so i love a cool costume transformation, is what i’m saying.)

also?

FUCK YEAH

16. i love the gotham crime families just chillin’ around eating ice cream. I LOVE THEM

16.5. that was a fun fight sequence, if marred slightly by that bit of awkward flirting between conner and kom. i wonder if she’s really planning to use him in a larger scheme to get kory back to tamaran, or maybe something else. 

16.75. so i’m assuming that scarecrow has jason either so paralysed by fear that he can barely move, or jason’s withdrawing from the drug that he’s been sucking in every few minutes. 

17. it’s nice to see them chill after a successful mission! and it can be awkward, but conner’s crush on kom and him striving to impress her is also, well, uh... cute.

17.5. i guess the dick/barbara scene was inevitable, especially given the... unresolved nature of their relationship in the flashbacks? and they’ve been through a rollercoaster together this episode, discovering and then destroying an incredible tool within a matter of hours, re-discovering just how well they work together as a team. dick’s swimming in the nostalgia. i don’t expect it to last as a long-term relationship, but i totally get why this is happening now. and hey, they’re cute!

i have a weeeirrrrd feeling that kory is going to leave to tamaran at the end of the season and that dick and kory will rekindle--or rather realise--their relationship just before that. it’s going to be devastating and beautiful and painful and i will be writing essays about it which would be me just wailing into the screen.

18. gar found molly!!!!!!! MOLLY’S BACK! \o/ gar is the BEST

19. that was a fun episode! i love this silly show, even if it does destroy me sometimes <3

[ficsandcatsandficsandcats]

Hey!! I am also in Jaskier dreamland so I was wondering if you could indulge. Hehe. Could you do one where the reader has been secretly trying to learn the lute, and write a love song for Jaskier's attention? She gets up the nerve to perform it for him but messes up under pressure and gets embarrassed?

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Jaskier x ReaderWord Count: 1,446Rating: G

It was the principle of the thing, really. Jaskier spent all of his time following Geralt around and singing of his great attributes and accomplishments. One evening as you watched another brilliant performance you thought about what a great shame it was that there was no one to sing of the bard. And then the idea hit you and it took hold deeper than any idea you’d had before. It would serve two purposes; one, it would put on the record the many wonderful things Jaskier had done and two, it would give you a chance to finally confess the feelings you’d been harboring for ages. You didn’t know when your crush had turned into a deep affection which turned into love, but you knew there was no point in pretending anymore. You loved Jaskier and you would tell him in a language just for him.

The fact you didn’t know how to play the lute didn’t daunt you in the slightest. Jaskier may have been the best player around but he wasn’t the only one and you were quickly able to find someone to give you secret lessons. Jaskier noticed you were around less but you assured him you were just busy handling errands or work of your own and he seemed to let well enough alone and let you continue to hone your craft. Your tutor also helped you compose a melody as you worked on lyrics that could possibly convey the feelings you held for him. When the piece was finished you were equal parts excited and terrified. With an impending journey coming up soon and a free evening for yourself and Jaskier you knew it was now or never.

“Are you alright? You’re very pale,” Jaskier said, eyeing you worriedly.

“I’m great! Perfect!” you assure him, your voice an octave higher than usual as you take another gulp of the wine you were drinking to fortify your nerves. You saw your tutor enter, holding the package and waving happily at you and you quickly excused yourself to meet him.

“Remember to hold your fingers straight but not too rigid and to breathe between words. You’ve really learned quite quickly and you should be proud of yourself,” the man said kindly. You tried to take his words to heart and unwrapped the lute you would use to perform tonight. There was only a small group, thankfully, but everybextra pair of eyes felt hot on you as you walked to the center of the tavern. You didn’t know how Jaskier did this every night, much less enjoyed it, but you were determined.

“Excuse me, gentlefolk,” you begin. Jaskier turns in his seat and when he sees you holding the lute a confused smile lights up his face.

“Tonight, with your permission, I will perform a song I have written for someone… very dear to me. You may know this man. Actually, you certainly know this man,” you say.

“A new tale of the witcher!” a voice cries out in excitement.

“No, no, not him. Tonight, I am singing about Jaskier, the Wandering Bard,” you announce. There is a small murmur of discontent but Jaskier’s face is glowing with delight as he leans closer, eyes glued to you as you take a deep breath and hold the lute the way you’d been taught. The first strum is strong and melodious, and it gives you courage. The next chords follow suit and you begin to sing.

“Oh hear my tale all gathered ‘round

Of a hero oft unsung

Of his glory and his world renown

From the girl whose heart he’s won”

Your finger slips on the last word and you quickly try to reposition your fingers on the lute as told, trying to ignore the snickers from the crowd and not daring to look at Jaskier’s face.

“For every journey he transforms

Into lovely prose and melody

He is there to face the storms

Just as brave as his known company”

You’ve always hated that imperfect rhyme and you feel warm around the collar, fingers growing slick with sweat and sliding down the lute making chords warp wrong and sour. You can hear your breathing and are certain everyone in the inn can as well. You glance up and see eyes that look bored and amused and Jaskier’s soft blue eyes smiling at you encouragingly. You curse yourself for the ridiculous number of verses you wrote and decide to skip to the end.

“So that’s my story and you know

The value we cannot disregard

So when he next puts on a show

Toss a coin to your brave bard.”

There is utter silence as you hold the lute by your side and you feel your body turning and moving to the exit of its own accord, trying to keep yourself from embarrassing yourself further by running. Once you leave the tavern you keep walking, not sure where you’re going, just trying to put space between yourself and the mortifying silence that still rings in your ears.

“Wait! Y/N!” you hear a familiar voice shouting behind you, but you don’t slow down.

“Y/N I’m talking to you!” the voice is a bit closer and you know you could outrun him but you just march until he runs up in front of you, arms outstretched to block you with his body.

“Y/N, where are you going?” Jaskier asks.

“I don’t know,” you admit.

“Well then perhaps you could come back?”

“I can’t go back there,” you say, casting your eyes downward.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“What’s wrong? You must be joking, I just made an utter ass of myself,” you exclaim.

“Is that what you think just happened?”

“What do you mean is that what I think? It’s what happened! I made an awful mess of it, I skipped half the verses, actually more than half, I really did write far too many of them and then everyone just sat there and it was awful and oh gods Jaskier I just thought… I just wanted to do something nice for you and to tell you…” your voice trails off and he reaches out a hand and cautiously grasps your shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze and pulling you a bit closer.

“Well I think what happened is that you wrote a beautiful song and had the outrageous courage to perform it in front of people. And if people don’t like it, fuck them. I’ve had people pelt me with bread but I’m still the best bard in Redania. Well, the best bard for now. I see I have some real competition,” he says this with a wink and a smile and you’re charmed despite yourself.

“Don’t make fun, I tried really hard but it’s nothing like what you can do,” you reply.

“Sweetling do you know how long I have been playing?” he asks incredulously. You shake your head no but still don’t look him in the eyes.

“I’ve been playing since I could grasp things in my tiny fists. I’ve practiced a great deal and even still my works aren’t met with due appreciation. I loved your song. I very much want to hear those other verses.”

“You don’t have to say that,” you say, though his earnestness brings a smile to your lips.

“I’m serious! In fact, I demand it. This time I get to be the adoring audience and you may play for me,” he says this as he sits on the edge of the fountain in the center of town and you can tell by the stubborn look on his face that he isn’t going to move. With a great reluctant sigh you raise the lute in your hands again and try to find the melody again. Jaskier watches for a moment as you grow more irritated and then rises and walks over to you, standing behind you as he helps you position the instrument, his fingers gently covering yours.

His face is close to your shoulder and you can feel the warmth of his breath on your neck.

“I would especially like to hear more about this heart I’ve won,” he mutters quietly.

He can feel your body stiffen next to his and he gently turns you around to face him.

“I should feel like an ass, though,” he says with a deep sigh, “I thought I’d have more time to finish my song for you but here you’ve beat me to it.”

You open your mouth and then close it again and then his mouth is on yours and the song and the crowd and everything in the world melts away except for Jaskier and your newly confessed love.

[myassbrokethefall]

1. Are you thinking about watching The Crown? (I don't remember ever seeing post stuff about it so I assume you haven't yet) I only started it when Helena Bonham Carter was announced as Princess Margaret, she's my fave and I knew I'd want to watch her episodes so I might as well catch up untill those . I liked it much more and I was much more engrossed in it than I thought I would.

2. I find the reactions to Gillian being cast as Thatcher very interesting. Many have focused on the fact that her boyfriend is the writer/creator of the show and that’s why she was cast in it and/or she accepted the role. Then there’s people who don’t want to see her as Thatcher because she was an awful person. That might the reason Gillian was interested on the part, maybe she wants to play a monster, but do I think worrying Thatcher might be whitewashed is a very legit concern.

I’ll probably watch the Gillian parts, eventually. I haven’t watched The Crown. It’s not really the kind of thing I’m super into, I had just made it through Downton Abbey (which I started watching with my sister and had gotten sucked into and then was strapped in for until the end) and I was a bit landed-gentry-of-the-early-20th-century’d out, and in the raw days when we had just found out G was dating Peter I WAS bummed out initially by the whole end-of-the-gillovny-ferris-wheel-ride situation and so I had a bummer association with it. (Plus I got defensive about it when it became apparent that the fandom was dividing into newly minted The Crown stans versus people who thought Peter was a nefarious wife abuser or whatever it is, and I did not want to choose either of those sides and felt like I was being asked to do that to some degree and felt resentful about it. For a while, to be honest, it became impossible for me to even identify my actual feelings about the show The Crown in a vacuum.) I wouldn’t now not watch it for that reason, but now it’s been on for a while and I don’t really wanna catch up on something that is not my thing. I’m just not that into Period Drama. I’m allergic to the Jane Austen and all that kind of stuff. I like historical stuff up to about Elizabeth I times and then it gets more boring for me. If Peter Morgan does an Anglo-Saxon thing next or a thing about the bubonic plague I will watch the hell out of it. 

I’m sure if I did watch it I’d be sucked in as well like I was with Downton. I did get sick of hearing about it, both because Gillian would not shut up about it for months when she got together with Peter, and also Netflix used to offer it to me 45 different ways every time I logged in and it got old. (Netflix has more content now. That is good.) But if none of that had happened I probably still would not have watched it because it’s just not my thing any more than Marvel shit or like, The Bachelor. People are welcome to all of those things and everyone has different tastes. 

(OK, I’m putting the rest of this under a cut because as usual I went on and on, sorry. tl;dr the rest: Gillian in “iconic” roles has gotten real old for me.)

I agree Thatcher being whitewashed is a concern, but honestly I’m sure it’ll be fine and I’m not that concerned about that part of it. I know the show is well-written and I’m sure PM or whoever isn’t going in all ready to make Margaret fricking Thatcher out to be some kind of unsung hero (I hope at least). For me the main eyerolly part of her being Margaret Thatcher is that I have become very sick of Gillian playing “iconic” roles and also “strong women” roles that are like battleaxes/mean bosses. I pretty much hit my capacity for the “icon” ones with American Gods, and like, I love Gillian! You know? Of course she’s amazing and can play anything but…it felt so silly dressing her up as all these people and making her do an impression of them. Like, why? I just don’t get what the appeal of that is. It’s sort of novel and fun when you first see it but then what is the point? The David Bowie one was neat but like…I still didn’t really get it. I feel like her range could have been so much more awesomely showcased if she’d played TYPES of people on TV (we had a whole discussion about this before one time so if I’m stealing someone’s shit I’m sorry), like a sitcom mom, a Real Housewife type, a news anchor, a soap opera lady, a yelly talk show person…the possibilities are ENDLESS and would allow for some ACTINGGGGGGG. But no, Bryan Fuller loves Gillian so much that he wants to make her dress up like Judy Garland. WHATEVER. Anyway. Tangent. (I love BF but that choice was a miss for me. There are hits and there are misses etc.)

Anyway. So when I heard Thatcher I was like UGGHHH. But maybe it won’t be like that. But all this Gillian worship in the past few years, which is awesome, still sometimes frustrates me because this particular flavor of it feels very remote. I haven’t seen The Spy Who I Forget The Title but that’s an example. She’s like, a scary remote icy boss lady that everyone thinks is hot? OK, thanks for your EXTREMELY SURFACE-LEVEL appreciation of GA based on a time that you watched one (1) episode of XF for 10 minutes at 3 am while you were doing your homework 22 years ago. (ETA: I freely admit also that this is a way of looking at/appreciating Gillian that many people do relate to and that I simply do not.) And all the press for that movie is, omg Gillian is so hot I was nervous to meet her. I thought she would be mean and scary but she was nice. Like she’s this visiting deity. It’s cute that people are so impressed by her and I love that (I have that “keep complimenting my baby” tag for a reason), but after a while it’s like, we get it, Gillian Anderson is a celebrity! The other people in the movie are just people I guess but Gillian Anderson is Gillian Anderson, omg! 

And so I also often feel like people just want to put her into these huge roles like dressing her up like a paperdoll because she’s GILLIAN ANDERSON OMG how awesome would it be to see GILLIAN ANDERSON play [whatever]. Not just for the looks, I mean, also to see what she will do with it because she’s awesome. And I’ve just had ENOUGH of this. It’s not that I want to discourage her from going for these big iconic roles; she had obviously dreamed of playing Blanche for a long time and she worked super hard and did a fantastic job. And now she obviously sees something in the AAE role that speaks to her. She should do the roles she’s interested in and of course she should get credit for being awesome and iconic. But I also kinda felt this way when people were like SHE SHOULD PLAY BOND. I think she would be a great Bond, but it would be all the stuff that is boring to me: an iconic role that everyone can’t wait to give to her, a bunch of action, iciness, steeliness, all that stuff that I feel like people are always foisting on her and that she is so much more than (and more interesting than). This BIGGER THAN LIFE thing that people want her to do because GILLIAN ANDERSON!!! IS AN ICON! 

Sex Ed (which we found out that we also have Peter to thank for! So this is not a “Peter is evil” post, thanks) was so WONDERFULLY refreshing in both these regards and I hope hope hope hope hope G gets more roles like that in the future now that everyone knows that she is A DELIGHT. And she can play a fallible weirdo, and be funny, and wear normal-person clothes and not just a pencil skirt and high heels, and just be a random person that lives in a town with all the other people, and have an emotional arc where she’s unsure of herself and a little foolish, and not just be someone that basically is the silent center of everything and everyone’s afraid of her and she just walks around being amazing and intimidating everyone. She’s good at that! It’s great and fine! But that’s not all she is! And when those are the roles she plays I want to be like, how isolating is that? Maybe she likes it? I don’t know. It’s certainly flattering but to me it feels like an extension of people fangirling over her at a con or something. She shows up, she’s interacting with everyone but she’s on this pedestal. 

So, I don’t think the Thatcher thing will be exactly like that, but it’s another role where she dresses up in period clothes with a big stiff wig and does an impression of a well-known person and (I’m guessing) will be steely and untouchable and a mean boss lady. (And if she’s not that will be another concern, the “humanizing Margaret Thatcher” angle.) And everyone will be like, what an ICONIC ROLE for GILLIAN ANDERSON! So, yeah. It’ll be fun to see how it all comes together and I’ll be curious to see how she looks and how she pulls it off and all that stuff. But it’s not a role where I personally am like omg I can’t wait to see Gillian do such a thing. When am I going to get to see her in a pair of jeans working in a gardening shop with a dog or something? I’m sure she could be ICONIC and AMAZING in that role too. 

Anyway, complain complain. It’s a great role and I’m sure it’ll be good for her career. I’m GLAD everyone loves her and that she’s doing so well! I just hope she keeps getting offered more comedy-type stuff too.

Sorry, I pretty much got off track answering your ask here. Oh, and: OF COURSE she got the role partly because Peter is her boyfriend. I mean, that’s a little eyerolly but you know, it happens. I don’t think it’s like how Tori Spelling said she auditioned for Donna in 90210 in disguise wearing an ugly blouse from JC Penney (to quote a very old SNL sketch) and claimed no one knew she was Aaron Spelling’s daughter. Like, they knew. And I don’t think The Crown auditioned Margaret Thatchers and picked Gillian blindly and then Peter Morgan was like “Whaaaaaat, that’s my girlfriend!” and they were like “WHAT?? I HAD NO IDEA” like, obviously she got it partly because she’s Peter’s girlfriend. Pretending otherwise is silly. But people cast their friends/etc all the time. And it’s not like she’s some shitty actress who doesn’t deserve the role. She certainly DESERVES it, and it’s very much along the lines of stuff that people cast her for all the time. 

Anyway. These are just my opinions based very much on my specific tastes, which Gillian is not required to cater to! She will do great in this role and I hope she gets a ton of kudos and maybe even awards attention for it. I’ll mean to watch her parts of it and then knowing me I won’t get around to it as I never have for Great Expectations, the French movie, the Michael Caine movie, Viceroy’s House, the one where she plays Wallis Simpson…etc. 

[janiedean]

It really sucks how judgmental you and some people in this fandom are of anyone who doesn't interpret the text the same way as you or who you deem as intellectually inferior to you. I agree with so many of your ideas about the characters, but I hate how high and mighty you are about those ideas. Someone isn't an idiot if they interpret Jon or Cersei differently than you.

......

lmao

okay anon, thing is: one thing is being high and mighty, one thing is telling you that you’re not reading the text.

like. I read yesterday someone being like ‘omg I read someone dared saying C. abused people and murdered someone before puberty HOW STUPID CAN PEOPLE BE’. it’s textual evidence that a) she molested tyrion sexually and that’s even without taking account my opinion re lann*ncest, b) that SHE KILLED MELARA WHEN THEY WERE TWELVE THROWING THE POOR GIRL DOWN A WELL, which means that whoever said it cannot fucking read the text because it’s black on white that she did both those things and refusing to accept it is Not Reading The Text. that’s not even text interpretation, that’s basic textual reading.

now: never mind cersei who gets a pass for about every fucking shit she pulls because she’s a woman, and don’t tell me she doesn’t because if she got as much shit about robert’s fifteen bastards that she ordered dead without even blinking as theon got for two kids that he’s felt guilty about since it happened then we could discuss it but she doesn’t and that’s not even the beginning of it. now: do you see me tagging my opinions? like, honestly, if I think something shitty about cersei, do you see me tagging it? I didn’t even tag the one time I ranted about the valonqar prophecy with her, I only tagged it with the prophecy/meta/the two characters I thought were the v. and the younger and more beautiful queen, because in the middle I said that imo cersei only cares for herself and I know ppl on her tag aren’t into reading that opinion. so: I didn’t tag it. now: how many people came in my inbox informing me my opinion of c. sucked, was biased and so on never mind lann*ncest never mind actually harassing me for it? well, enough that I had to shut down anon to avoid feeling like shit for two days about it. so like, I’m so high and mighty that I keep my opinions about people I don’t like untagged even if I think that the other side can’t read. but okay.

now, about jonc: listen, fact is, there’s exactly ten people in this fandom that I know of who give a shit about jonc period and three of them are fanartists who show up once in a while. like. exactly TEN. I made peace with the fact that no one gives a fuck about jonc, I 100% embraced that if I want content I have to do it myself, fine, whatever. but what I’m really getting sick of is that every goddamned fucking time I see the jonc tag updating (as in, five times each month if it’s a good month), it’s someone informing us of how selfish, pathetic, useless and dumb he is FOR THINGS THAT ALL OF THEIR FAVORITE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY DO ALL THE TIME and for which fandom at large praises them. or something about how him being in love with R is the most horribly pathetic thing that’s happened to adwd, or how he’s an idiot because he apparently hasn’t understood that aegon is fake because his eyes aren’t the same color as R’s when not even dany’s or viserys’s are, but no one says they aren’t targs for THAT now, do they? and sorry but reading that this dude would treat either rhaenys or jon snow like shit when this is canon:

Last night he'd dreamt of Stoney Sept again. Alone, with sword in hand, he ran from house to house, smashing down doors, racing up stairs, leaping from roof to roof, as his ears rang to the sound of distant bells. Deep bronze booms and silver chiming pounded through his skull, a maddening cacophony of noise that grew ever louder until it seemed as if his head would explode. Seventeen years had come and gone since the Battle of the Bells, yet the sound of bells ringing still tied a knot in his guts. 

Others might claim that the realm was lost when Prince Rhaegar fell to Robert's warhammer on the Trident, but the Battle of the Trident would never have been fought if the griffin had only slain the stag there in Stoney Sept. The bells tolled for all of us that day. For Aerys and his queen, for Elia of Dorne and her little daughter, for every true man and honest woman in the Seven Kingdoms. And for my silver prince.

now: it’s there black on white that he feels guilty for BOTH elia’s and rhaenys’s death, it’s not interpretation, it’s what is fucking written in there same as you can’t interpret that ned’s head got cut or cat’s last thought before she died was about ned loving her hair. so excuse me but I’m tired of going into a character who’s in my goddamned top ten and have to always, always run into people assuming he’s a pathetic selfish asshole (and the one time I tried to argue that there’s no way he’s *selfish*, maybe all the contrary to a pathological degree, the answer was basically ‘lol cannot hear you’ and not even a reblog but nvm that) rather than actual content because any of those people who have a obvious hateboner for jonc can’t just fucking tag it with *anti* jon connington. no, they have to use the character name and it’s never *content*, it’s just this drivel over and over again. and since I don’t do it with characters I don’t like, I’d appreciate if I could have the same courtesy spared for this asshole.

that said, the situation is that *one* single person (that I blocked but that’s apparently not enough for tumblr to spare me from seeing them on the tag) has asked that question to multiple blogs which all agree on jonc being shitty which means that it has popped up on the tag a whole lot in the last month and like....... if you don’t like that character why do you care so much, IDEK, but wow, I wrote one post, that I tagged with the character only, saying that ppl don’t bother to read his chapters (btw, one of the people who replied that he’d have been shitty to both jon and rhaenys was someone I ended up blocking because they were on the tag like ‘lololol grayscale I’m sure elia is laughing from the afterlife’ and when I told them it wasn’t funny and if they could avoid tagging that stuff I got told to fuck off but fine I guess, that was me being holier than thou I suppose...) which is true because they don’t, they only base their reading of jonc on that ONE line about elia which is a) obv. proof he’s jealous, b) way less bad than anything cersei and barristan think about her just to say two but lmao I don’t see them getting dragged for it, but everything else? what? two full chapters? do they exist? tyrion’s chapers? never knew them.

like.

anon, tbqh at this point if you wanna think I’m holier than thou just think that because while I like to think I’m not, if there is one thing I know I’m good at is text analysis (okay, last time I said I got two degrees based on text analysis I got told ‘ah okay so if she studies she’s obv. bragging so she knows nothing’ by someone whose main theory was robb stark is the unsung villain of these books but lol I mean having studied this counts for nothing, right???) and it irks me that in a fandom based on books/text analysis I have to read **meta** which is obviously made by people who haven’t read the text and then when given a counterargument ignore it. but even with that, do you see me engaging with it? nah. I can 100% assure you none of the people I would like to see out of the jonc tag actually go on the jonc tag nor follow me, so they will never know that I think their opinion is shit unless they go looking for it. and this because I might have engaged with at least two of them on the topic once - and nicely, not *judgmentally* - and no one gave a shit or reconsidered their stance, so like, excuse me if once per month I write a post on my own blog venting about how imo a character I like gets a shit treatment.

and for the love of god, anon, sorry, glad you like my opinions, but the fact that you’re coming at me assuming I am judgmental when I come from a fucking month and a half of people literally harassing me on anon over my fucking triple-tagged opinions on c/ersei and lann/incest and ignoring anything I said about how uncomfortable it was making me just because I happened to, in the most generous explanation, WRITE A META WHERE I C/P-ED CANON QUOTES WHERE C. WAS AWFUL TO J. WHEN IT CAME TO HIS DISABILITY which GRRM wrote, certainly not *me*, and it happened to get reblogged by asoiafuni, is really, really rich.

like, I tagged that shit to hell and back so people who aren’t interested in jb wouldn’t find it, I made sure to warn every time, I even tag anti-c/antijc posts so they don’t show up on mobile search in case ppl don’t have the anti tag blacklisted because I’m THAT invested into making sure other people can blacklist if they feel like it, but I can’t fucking say on my blog that I think some people in this fandom pull their meta out of their asses and haven’t even read the chapters of the character they’re supposed to discuss? like... really?

also, I’ll tell you a secret: I don’t remember 90% of what happened in dany’s adwd chapters and I don’t remember about 60% of what happened in her got-asos chapters. zero. now: do you see me meta-ing about dany and/or discuss her arc if not in extremely broad terms unless asked? no, because while I don’t particularly like her, I also don’t think it’d be fair for me to meta about her BECAUSE IF I DON’T REMEMBER HER CHAPTERS THEN I’D BE PULLING OPINIONS OUT OF MY ASS, and I don’t go judging anyone’s opinion re dany beyond the basics because mine is that her chapters are so boring I can’t even remember them. at most I’ll discuss the show version and I can swear to you that even if I’m not a fan or anything I’m still more lenient with her than about 90% of people who aren’t fans, and since I don’t pull meta out of my ass for people whose chapters I haven’t read, I would be extremely grateful of the rest of this fandom paid jon connington the same damn bloody effort, especially when he has TWO of them and hating on him that way is like... why would you, just ignore his fucking existence and let us ten ppl into him have a decent tag.

btw, the ONE time I dared say on a post that wasn’t tagged to hell and back to avoid people finding it ‘it’s kind of hypocritical that people fight themselves over bi!CHARACTER headcanons *because asoiaf doesn’t have lgbt POV CHARACTERS* when they ignore jonc exist and he actually is an lgbt pov character so maybe it’d be nice if they cared about the rep’, I got someone like WELL HE ISN’T LGBT REP ENOUGH, and on the other side I’ve had people actually giving me shit for liking him/writing him content because I’m straight so how do I dare writing a gay dude, and like, idk, since I can’t like him in peace in that sense, can the universe allow me to at least not see bullshit on the tag or is that too much to ask?

and to end this rant: anon, not to be that person, but fyi I’m hardly the person who dictates how the wind flies in this fandom unless we count maybe theon/robb fandom as a ship, my opinions aren’t nearly as popular as opinions belonging to ppl who imvho don’t read these books and that’s fine, I don’t particularly care beyond cultivating my garden as voltaire used to say and see if anyone else wants to come and see the flowers and in case they’re more than free to take some, but like...... the idea that me expressing an opinion about the fact that people in this fandom don’t use the same standards when judging characters and some haven’t read the book or forgot it and assume they know anyway is somehow being high and mighty when I also don’t tag that shit 99% of the time (with jonc I do it just because I know no one but me and ten other ppl goes on that tag) when there’s people in this fandom who outright deny what’s written black on white and actually literally harass you on anon for it when I can 100% swear to you that the only times I’ve gone on anon in my entire life were for a) memes that required being on anon, b) sending people headcanon requests, c) sending people I ALREADY KNEW and who KNEW IT WAS ME personal things that I didn’t want ppl to attach to me because I don’t owe 100% of my life history to tumblr dot com and I always put my face to my opinions.

like, glad you like my opinions, but honestly, if you think this is me being judgmental, fair enough but maybe I’m also tired of having to read stuff that’s based on not having fucking read the book.

thank you.

[bonearenaofmyskull]

What does the “interesting next chapter” for Hannibal involve? Fuller provided no concrete details at Split Screens Festival, but he did tease a very enticing elevator pitch: “It was going to be ‘Inception’ meets ‘Angel Heart.'” Combining Christopher Nolan’s mind-bender with Alan Parker’s supernatural horror movie sounds unsung, but it’s a very Bryan Fuller thing to do and he’s definitely not joking. As a huge fan of your S4 speculations, i got to ask your thoughts on Bryan's latest teases!??!

The short answer is that I have no idea. XD  And the truth is that it’s been so long since the end of the last season, and I’ve had so many discussions over time and read so much fic and planned so much fic and written enough fic that while I know what I think is most likely, any sense of objectivity I have about the subject has pretty much eroded away (as if I ever had any in the first place). And my bluff is still eroding. ;)

WRT the specific article you referenced, I do want to talk about Bryan’s elevator pitches and what we should (and should not) take out of them.

The thing about Bryan is that he’s a positive encyclopedia of film knowledge, and he uses example films to reference any of the scores of ideas he may be having at any given moment, and his mind runs about a million miles per hour nonlinearly (which is why he ends up with verbal diarrhea in interviews sometimes). He’s used a lot of film comparisons for various different Hannibal seasons and episodes, and if you looked at them without watching the show, they might often lead you astray. For example, he’s described the first season as The Shining before, and if you were to take this thought at face value, you’d think Will really would have been the copycat killer and would have ended up killing Abigail (Jack would have been right, zomg!): The Shining is about how a man descends into madness because of a sinister influence and then kills his family. But all Bryan meant was that both stories had the madness component, and in Will’s case it wasn’t even technically madness but a physical condition. Also lots of heartbeats, gaudy bathrooms and clanging noises.

Another time, Bryan caused all kinds of fandom drama when he described “Antipasto” as a “new pilot for the series starring Mads Mikkelsen and Gillian Anderson.” People were taking that to mean that Will was no longer going to be either the love of Hannibal’s life or the star of the show. And Bryan repeated that a bazillion times, either oblivious to or regardless of the panic he was causing, probably because it has a tantalizing vagueness to it so it’s a good advertisement. But it was hardly a straightforward statement about what to expect from the show, although it described that single episode well enough.

So let’s have a look at other comparisons he’s made to various films/shows/stuff:

The Talented Mr. Ripley = “Antipasto”

What you’d expect: Guy in Italy kills the guy he’s in love with and takes his identity, then has to balance it against his own identity as he tries to get away with it, costing him his next lover.

What we got: Italy, murdering the man you’re in love with, and identity shenanigans, so this one was fairly close. Hannibal gets away with it and doesn’t fall in love with anyone else, so that’s different. Also, Bedelia. And Abel Gideon flashbacks in nonlinear narration. It’s…circumstantially similar.

The Hunger = Hannibal & Bedelia in Italy

What you’d expect: A beautiful yet dangerous vampire seeks to replace her old lover, whose life has run out after he kills her protege, by seducing a woman who then destroys her and takes her powers. Supposed to be a metaphor for drug addiction.

What we got: Couple of sexy, ice-cold blondes, I guess. Upper crust musicianing and fancy clothes? A waterphone being hurled down the stairs in the background? IDK, man. IDK.

Don’t Look Now = “Primavera”

What you’d expect: A guy with ESP loses his daughter, but then has glimpses of her as he and his wife go to Italy to deal with their grief. Wife falls in with some old psychic ladies, and it turns out his visions are actually prophetic visions leading to his own death by serial killer.

What we got: Well, we were in Italy to deal with the grief our gifted protagonist suffered at losing his “daughter,” and he continues to have visions of her, and there is a serial killer on the loose and a somewhat grumpy Italian detective hanging around. But like Ripley, it’s circumstantially the same, but the story is totally different.

Frankenstein‘s monster = Will’s Italy arc

What you’d expect: (There are so many film versions of Frankenstein out there, as well as the original novel, that it’s hard to anticipate what Bryan thinks about when he thinks of Frankenstein’s monster. So I’m just kind of throwing together the most commonly remembered stuff.)  An overly ambitious doctor creates a living “monster” out of dead human body parts, then promptly regrets it. The monster escapes, kills a bunch of people including the doc’s fiancee, tries to coerce the doctor into making a mate for him because it’s sad to be alone, and then either the doctor pursues the monster or the monster pursues the doctor and they both end up dead. 

What we got: A doctor made a guy into a monster, and the guy is kind of back from the dead. The doctor was the one who escaped, and the monster is the one who is pursuing. The doctor kills people instead of the monster. They’re each other’s mate, and they don’t kill anyone’s fiancees. XD  They don’t die either. It is, however, sad to be alone. This is a deejay mashup of Frankenstein if ever there was one. 

Death and the Maiden = “Secondo”

What you’d expect: Traumatized woman who had survived torture recognizes the voice of her torturer and kidnaps him on a stormy night, trying to make him confess his crimes to her before she kills him while her husband looks on, not knowing if he believes her or not and if he should help her or her captive.

What we got: There’s a woman in an isolated house with a man captive. Aaaaand…that’s about it. Plot-wise, this movie goes mostly the opposite direction from where the film does, and Will is at best an amalgamation of both the husband and the torturer, and way more active than either in the outcome. Again, circumstantially similar but a different story.

Kill Bill = “Aperitivo”

What you’d expect: After her wedding was crashed in the most violent way possible, a woman awakens in a hospital and goes out seeking vengeance against her former lover by killing all his cronies one by one until she gets to him.

What we got: Not Frederick Chilton in a bright yellow tracksuit, unfortunately. After some violence, people wake up in hospitals and then…talk to each other? 

Hannibal, the film = “Contorno”

What you’d expect: the obvious.

What we got: Pazzi’s story and death, and a fun little turnabout with Alana taking Clarice Starling’s place on the phone. But most of other plot stuff from Hannibal exists elsewhere, and instead we got some snail-y conversations and a barefoot beatdown on Hannibal by Jack Crawford.

Bound = Margot and Alana’s storyline

What you’d expect: A woman and her lesbian lover plot to steal the money her mafiaso boyfriend owes to his boss in order to escape the boyfriend’s tyrannical hold, but the plot goes wrong and they get caught, making it so they have to improvise their way out.

What we got: Again, circumstantially something very similar, but only in the loosest of terms–that two women lovers are seeking to escape the tyrannical hold of one of the men in their life, getting his money and ending up killing him. For some reason, there’s no pig-baby in Bound. Unless you count Christopher Meloni.

Leopold and Loeb = “Tome-wan”

What you’d expect: Two men, convinced they’re above everybody else, try to create the perfect murder by hatching a plot and killing a kid. They get caught.

What we got: Two men–at least one of whom is convinced he’s above everyone else–hatch a rather haphazard plot without really telling each other what they’re doing, then hunt down a guy and don’t actually kill him, and then they don’t get caught.

…

So is there a pattern in any of this? What can we take from it to apply to the Inception meets Angel Heart (with maybe a dash of Ripley, since that’s what Bryan told Matt Zoller Seitz in the past) pitch for the fourth season? What would we expect from these films?

I think the answer seems to be nothing more than circumstantial similarities, turnabouts on the expectations that these films might have set up, and some tonal similarities. That’s the pattern, and that’s the only pattern as far as I’m concerned. 

That said though, we might as well have some fun speculating with them.

Angel Heart

What you’d expect: A private detective is hired by a mysterious stranger in a manbun to track down a missing person who was last known to be in a coma. When every person the detective interviews about the case ends up meeting a grisly end, he comes to discover that he is the very man he is looking for, and the devil made him kill all those people in a fugue state because he had attempted to cheat the devil from coming to collect his soul.

…Wait, wait wait…. Isn’t this already Hannibal season one? An investigator falls in with the devil, who helps in with his investigations, all the while encouraging a fugue state to get him to kill people, so that at one point he thinks he’s the very killer that he’s looking for??? 

Didn’t Bryan already tell us that the fourth season would be an inversion or subversion of S1?

Cleverrrrrrrrr, Bryan Fuller! You made us think you were telling us something new by just saying the same thing you said before in another way. But there really isn’t anything new here at all, is there???

I guess, circumstantially, there could be a detective searching for them, or they could be searching for killers, or Will could be metaphorically searching for himself. The deal with the devil has obviously already been made, and maybe Will is trying to find a way out of that, as the guy in Angel Heart was. 

People have made a big deal about the coma and fugue state business, and I’m not ruling that stuff out, but I don’t think they’ll retread ground that they tread in S1 with Will, and I don’t think that they’ll put Hannibal in any sustained position of weakness. They never do either of these thing, and that limits where they can go with the coma and fugue state things.

Inception

What you’d expect: A wanted corporate espionage dream-hacker tries to get his name cleared in order to return to his children after being blamed for the death of his wife, so he agrees to attempt to create an idea in the mind of an unknowing victim by generating a dream within a dream within a dream, where there is a danger of not knowing what is real and what is not.

Well…not quite knowing what is real and what is not is Hannibal all the way, and Will is a dream-hacker if ever there was one. And he will probably be wanted by the law. Kinda doubt he’ll be looking to return to his wife and child, though maybe he is interested in clearing his name. And Hannibal and Will do share mental space, just as Cobb and Mal do…and there could be some comparison to be made between Mal and Hannibal here, in how they haunt their husbands…and how Mal frames Cobb for murder. XD 

People get very hyper-focused on the dream-within-a-dream business from Inception, but I found that to be kind of beside the point, tbh. “Inception” refers to the process of planting an idea in another person’s head in such a subconscious way that they believe that idea is their own and they make it a part of themselves and their reality. I guess because I find this to be the more interesting part of Inception, I’d personally like this to be what Bryan Fuller is talking about here, rather than the dreaming stuff. It’s very psychological, and if Will is looking to understand who he is on the other side of the veil, I feel like there’s a lot of opportunity here for both or either man, within that alchemy of truths and lies. 

If we were looking for a more plot-driven similar circumstance, a situation in which some rich person paves the way for Will to clear his name in America. We do have some powerful rich people on this show. 

To be quite honest, the first thing that came to mind when Bryan said Inception was him talking about how Richard Armitage and Gillian Anderson never had a chance to be in a scene together, so maybe they could be in a scene together in the future in Will’s mind--like he’s hosting all the people he’s killed, or whose deaths he blames himself for (sorry, this thought isn’t very optimistic about Bedelia’s chances). And that reminded me a lot of Cobb with Mal. 

I’m less clear on any of this with regard to Hannibal: it’s as he says himself in “Digestivo,” it’s dangerous to get everything you ever wanted, and that’s where Hannibal finds himself at the end of TWOTL. I’m not sure where that will take him after, though Hugh being convinced that Hannibal would always have to fight for Will is somewhat heartening. I’ve spoken elsewhere on my preferences for where Hannibal goes in S4, but I don’t have a particular sense of anything for him that comes from either Inception or Angel Heart. He’s more likely to be the devil than Will is, and he’s more likely to be compared to Mal. I could see scenarios that would cast him as Cobb, I suppose, but nothing concrete. 

I wrote a lot here to say that I don’t have much to say, but the truth is that I think we should be skeptical about taking anything Bryan says that sounds like an elevator pitch too literally.   

[psylid]

Fandom Fic Rec Days

Thank you to all fanfic authors whose skill & creativity has floored me since middle school, and who continue to share their beautiful work with the rest of us just for the sake of sharing it. You never get as much recognition as you deserve. 

Unfortunately, I used to have a very bad habit of forgetting to bookmark fics and losing them forever. Here are the ones I managed to keep. Some fics are old enough that I’m not sure the author even uses the account anymore, but I’m going to post them anyway. Have fun with my rare pairs.

HAT FILMS:

Title: boundless as the sea (11k words)

Author: ghostofgatsby

Ships: troffy, shatsome

Summary:  Trott drums his fingers on his desk, thinking hard. It had been a few days since he and Smith had talked, and something had occurred to him. He and Smith had been together a long time, but they weren’t bonded in some sort of magical way. It wasn’t until Ross and Sips came around that the idea of magical bonds had come up. The kelpie could use some closure, some grounding, especially as unhinged as they all felt. Something to bind them together would make their court stronger. To bind Smith to him and him to Smith, he’s doing it his own way. And that means selkie magic.

Notes: One of the stories that hooked me into UMY. Beautifully written. Emotionally intense in the best way. The devotion and trust between Trott & Smith rings from every word of this fic, and I adore it.  

**

Title: Hot Whisky Eyes (5.8K words)

Author: Roehrborn

Ships: troffy, hatsome

Summary:  Time and time again, Ross has imagined the unthinkable: his two best friends, naked and wrapped in each other’s embrace. ~IRL Hatsome AU

Notes: For all your (consensual) voyeurism needs with an angst/pining appetizer. Very good smut. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve read this. 

**

Title: Spring (3k words)

Author: leonandon

Ships: hatsome

Summary:  Breezes through windows, staying too long in bed, quiet intimacy and love, lazy morning sex.

Notes: I’m going to try very hard to not put the word “lovely” in every sentence here. Gently slips you into an established, comfortable relationship and it feels so, so nice. Soft and easy and intimate and everything I wanted; a go-to.

**

Title: Boys of Summer (31k words)

Author: threeplusfire

Ships: hatsome, shatsome

Summary:  “I’ll send the car on Wednesday morning to take you to the airport,” Sips said, in the decisive tone of someone very used to getting what he wanted. - The unexpected trip out of town seems like a perfect chance to escape the sweltering summer heat. But not everyone can relax, even in paradise.

Notes: First off, there is a lot of sex and the sex is excellent, high-quality. But, this fic is also (or mainly, rather?) a beautifully complex exploration of character dynamics: Trott’s relationship with Smith & Ross, how best to integrate Sips into their personal lives, and how best to separate all of this from their professional ones. Fantastic AU; stunning fic.

**

Title: Putting the D in Teamwork (5.6k words)

Author: SummerAtLast

Ships: hatsome

Summary:  “Trott.” Ross fixed Trott with his saddest puppy eyes. “Don’t leave me hanging, mate.” “Trott,” whined Smith. “Don’t leave me out.” “Really now, gents,” said Trott. “Teamwork. I can do you both at once.”

Notes: As a heads-up, this fic has the boys as their Minecraft skins, so I guess keep that in mind if you’re put off by non-human dicks. That said, I honestly thought I would be, but I ended up loving this fic a lot. It’s equal parts good smut and funny/filthy banter that feels very correct for the three of them.  

**

Title: Gives Me the Greatest Peace I’ve Ever Known (4.8k words)

Author: leonandon

Ships: troffy, hatsome

Summary:  Smith's way of dealing with things tends to involve running around in the middle of nowhere for a few days. Trott and Ross have never gone along, but this time Trott asks if he can join. Surprisingly, Smith agrees.

Notes: An absolutely gorgeous fic with ace!Smith, which was really exciting for me to find. I love the wilderness setting and the descriptions -- the space. The quiet, the easy affection, and being mindful of boundaries. Another one I’ve read over and over again.    

**

Title: what’s done in the dark will be brought to the light (8.8k words)

Author: vosiferous

Ships: troffy, hatsome

Summary: There is a rattlesnake of a man, one with a soft smile, a gaze that slices through souls, and a tongue that rattles lies like saliva. His blood is poison and his laugh are razorblades. He is a collector of fine artifacts, and he sees value in all things.If you are not careful, he will see the value in you.

Notes: This one is technically unfinished, but each of the 3 chapters are pretty much stand-alone drabbles. Dark and gorgeous UMY stories. The writing has a magic and other-worldliness to it that’s perfect for UMY and makes this a fantastic read. Heed the warnings.

**

Title: Layout (2.8k words)

Author: threeplusfire

Ships: alsipsy

Summary: Lots of comfort, pretty boys and sports. An AU about gymnast!Smith.

Notes: I just have a huge weakness for basically everything in this fic. Takeout, TV, massages. Toys. Sips taking care of Smith in the gym and out. A total feel-good fic. Relaxing and lovely to read. Yet another go-to.

MISCELLANEOUS:

Title: Not Such A Bad Way (5.6k words)

Author: _angelicorn_

Ships: Blue Beetle/Booster Gold (DC Comics)

Summary: (My own, since the author didn’t provide one) Ted makes some upgrades to the Bug, so he and Booster take it for a test-drive. After a disastrous engine failure, they end up stranded in space with no heat and help (in the form of Guy Gardner) hours away. 

Notes: More of my weaknesses. Huddling for warmth. Awkward sex. Best friends’ first time together -- slow & experimental. ANGST. I cry every time, but I promise it all turns out okay. I will love this fic always and forever because it’s such a perfect representation of these dumb men and their beautiful friendship. 

**

Title: The Policeman Officer’s Seduction (852 words)

Author: kyuuketsukirui

Ships: Nicholas Angel/Danny Butterman (Hot Fuzz)

Summary:  You ask someone back to yours after a night at the pub, that's pretty cliched, isn't it? And what could be more romantic than Point Break? But Nicholas just doesn't seem to get it.

Notes: Another best friends’ first time fic but this one is just cute and funny. Danny’s POV is perfect. If you don’t think this is exactly what happened after the movie, I don’t know what to tell you. 

**

Title: Happy Beginnings (2.7k words)

Author: ennui_blue_lite

Ships: Control/Tony (A Bit of Fry and Laurie)

Summary: Control has something important to tell Tony. Sometimes, actions speak louder than words.

Notes: So, my friend and I were kind of in love with the ABoFaL skits featuring Control & Tony Murchison -- spies for the British Intelligence agency. We decided as a joke to look for fic, but it just so happened that one of the only people on the planet who wrote Control/Tony fic was also really, alarmingly good at it. I can’t read this without smiling. If you have no idea what I’m talking about here, you can still read this fic, but you will have many questions about it and probably also about me. (You can watch one of the skits -> here <- if it helps.)

**

Title: None So Blind (25k words)

Author: Brianna Falken

Ships: Mirror!Spock/Mirror!Kirk (Star Trek TOS)

Summary: Spock convinces a blinded Kirk to allow him to create a mental link between them while they are stranded on an uninhabited planet after the shuttle crashes.

Notes: This fic was originally published in a zine in 1997, which I think is very cool, and it’s my favorite Mirrorverse story ever. About learning to trust and lowering guards, even when distrust and distance were all that kept them alive before. Intimate & vulnerable. Even if you’re like me and usually avoid the Mirrorverse, this fic is a lot less dark than most (but still kind of dark, so be safe) and a really good read.

**

Title: Lay Down Your Burdens (8.3k words)

Author: autotunedd

Ships: Choi Seunghyun/John Lee (RPF)

Summary: Tohn vignettes

Notes: Another instance where a friend and I looked for a weird pairing as a joke, but then the fic was so good that the joke was on us. This is Korean rapper T.O.P (of Big Bang) with John Lee, the director of a movie T.O.P starred in called 71: Into the Fire. There’s no brief way to explain why this pairing exists, so I will just say that this fic ruined me. It is so striking, quiet, and achingly beautiful that I was desperate for more tohn but there really just isn’t any. Even if you have no idea who these people are, I can guarantee you will find this fic incredible. I think you have to make an account, but it’s worth it, ok? It’s worth it.  

**

Title: The Cusp and the Fjords We Wade Through (9.6k words)

Author: almadeamla

Ships: Rick Grimes/Shane Walsh (The Walking Dead)

Summary:  Written for the twd_kinkmeme prompt: Rick and Shane had a thing before Rick met Lori.

Notes: Such vivid imagery in this. Matter-of-fact writing style that leaves so much unsaid but clearly understood (shows; hardly ever just tells -- mirrors the natures of characters perfectly). I love the tone of this fic to death. Bittersweet. Aches. So good that I sometimes forget it didn’t happen in the show (and other times I choose to forget). My perceptions of the characters were irrevocably changed. For me, this is the story of Rick and Shane.

This is by no means a complete list; I messed up and had to put this together just today. I’ve read so many excellent fics, but some of them were awhile ago. I didn’t have enough time to read through again and do them the justice they deserve in my notes. So, these are the fics I’ve read enough times that I’ll remember them forever. 

Thank you again, fic authors -- our often unsung heroes.