#also kind of funny in retrospect how a lot of the fandom thought the reason why the signature dolls had such basic packaging

[okiidokii]

I thought Gore-gornaizer was a one-off Draculaura doll (I think so did the rest of the Fandom), but with the revelation of Cleo, I wonder if and how the rest of the main cast in Goregonaizers will look

[not-poignant]

Ooh, cool! Thank you so much for the long reply! A lot of this was genuinely completely new to me -- I'd never known there were ongoing discussions that early, but of course it makes complete sense there were, both on LJ and predating it. I think it also goes to show how well we could self-segregate on LJ, I think moreso than we can now.

I think, in retrospect, that a lot of my experiences with 2000s fandom can be summed up with, 'I was a teenager' and thus wanted to be 'cool'. There was a lot of 'not like other girls'-ism going on in those sporking and Mary Sue comms, and I always just assumed we were all teenagers -- it certainly felt that way. The few people I've kept in touch with from those days have largely grown out of it, though it doesn't surprise to hear there were (and probably still are) grown adults who shit on others' fanfics.

(As an addendum, I could add that slashfic and that sort of 'canon non-compliance' was completely okay in the fandom spaces I ran in back then, but people would get very upset about extremely arbitrary things-- 'transfer students' in HP, changing characters' ages, making up a minor oc side character for plot purposes because all ocs were apparently bad (and especially if female), etc. It was strange which hairs people decided to split.)

Anyway! Thank you VERY much for such a long and in-depth reply! It's cool to see how these things have changed and developed, and I'm glad to see my experience wasn't emblematic of fandom as a whole.

Thanks for such a thought-provoking question! It really got me thinking about how Livejournal was really excellent at creating different sort of pockets of experiences, and in a while is really reflective as proto-social media of like, the big echo chambers we have happening now all across social media! That's really interesting to think about.

For me, it's funny, most of the fandom folks I knew were all older than me, many were in their 40s and 50s while I was in my 20s. Very few teens comparatively were attracted to certain fandoms like The X-Files and NCIS some of the other spaces I was in, so while there were definitely teens, it was like... a different feeling. Like, even these days I find it fascinating how there are 'younger' fandoms (in terms of how many younger folk are in it) and 'older' fandoms.

And yeah you're so right about people getting upset about arbitrary things! And also that um, 'not like other girls' which now itself is kind of mocked by fandom, so things really did come full circle on that front where now it's not cool to be one of the people who says that x.x

Honestly it's hard to be a teenager on the internet! All the things that play out like... all the dynamics, a lot just play out online instead, and they still exist. A person still wants to be cool and accepted and liked (and that's not age specific, like, most of us want a degree of at least some of these lol), and cliques can form very quickly. I remember how bad it felt back then even in my 20s when I got unfriended by a mutual who I thought was a really good friend, that stuff was devastating!

"making up a minor oc side character for plot purposes because all ocs were apparently bad"

Ahaha this is one of the reasons I still sometimes have like apologetic tones in some of my comments about the amount of OCs I add, because yeah that was really disapproved of! I remember that and I still have like... shades of that at times. I'm mostly over it now, but oof I remember the first time I did it and I was like 'is this okay *chews on fingernails* I bet people will hate this because of it.' (And then that turned into Fae Tales so).

The Mary Sue stuff was really aggressively unpacked, like in very popular kind of fandom-friendly journalism spaces at the time, I mean that's how we ended up with the journalism site 'The Mary Sue' in the first place. People really took a stand on that one. In a way, we were all kind of looking at our own attitudes, like, *why* is it bad to do this, or *what* does it mean that a girl feels like they can't be like other girls - is that internalised misogyny (and sometimes it was), and I miss that kind of meta discussion because I do feel it happens a little less now.

There was a time when I didn't like Mary Sues, no one did, though I think that was before I found my first meta community where it was like 'oh people are talking about EVERYTHING I thought was like universally accepted in fandom.' Though we never got that far on how racist fandom could be, which is still an issue, but one that does get talked about (it would just be nice if AO3 talked about it too).

I sadly think a lot of people in their 40s and 50s can act a lot like teenagers in fandom spaces sometimes, some of the antis in like teenage spaces today are like 40s kind of 'guiding them along' this path of moral puritanical righteousness and almost role-modelling how to bully others. And some of the folks running public Sporking blogs were like... older folks who fostered connections to younger folk.

LJ was wild tbh :D

Anyway, it's so interesting to think of all the different pockets we ended up in. I'm sure there's like countless more that we both have no experience of, where someone else would be like 'oh I was in LJ fandom what's a Mary Sue?' and that would be entirely legitimate too. Sometimes it's easy (I fall into this trap) to think of historical fandom as being one thing instead of like a thousand things. So yeah, this was cool! Thank you :D

[hot-take-tournament]

Thank you so much for putting this together, it was really fun to do. These are the best answers I could come up with:

1. In ‘what the hair’ I believe it’s Gothel in the dream sequence right? Thats such a cool way to open a show I think, it really draws to you. But it is incredibly confusing if you didn’t watch ‘before ever after’ first

2. I think in the first opening it’s 3, I’m not sure about the other two. If I’m being honest the first season is my favourite.

3. A music box is laid out and when rapunzel plays it it activates the atomatons hidden in the gift boxes.

4. Okay that’s one’s really hard, I know for a fact Varian has blue eyes and I’m pretty sure Monty does, but I really can’t hunk of anyone else. Rapunzels are Green, Eugene and Lance’s are both brown. I don’t know, Faith? Maybe Frederick but I think his are green.

5. The one in the right I think

6. If I remember correctly, which is highly unlikely, Rapunzel starts the song so I’m going to guess Eugene finishes it as a part of the little back and forth they have. I’m more of a ‘nothing less to loose guy myself’, so I don’t actually remember that song much.

7. I think it’s in ‘Once a handmaiden’, but I could be wrong. That episode is really good for a number or reasons, but there’s something really funny about Varian canonically inventing a gun, good for him.

8. The left one?

9. Happily ever after, I know it’s a reprise of the first song in the ‘Before ever after& short movie but I’m not sure if it’s called something slightly different

I really struggled with most of these, clearly I’m a fake fan </3 it’s fine I tried my best, at least this makes good practice for when I do eventually have to go up against the devil to avoid eternal damnation.

It was really fun though :D thank you for putting this together it was super cool. (Not to be that really annoying guy but I do highly recommend TTS it is a very fun watch)

Also slightly related fun face Zachary Levi plays Rocky in the the new chicken run movie and you can really tell. He uses the same line deliver as he does with Eugene it’s pretty funny to compare the two characters.

it's no problem at all, one of the best parts of this blog for me is being able to learn about everyone's special interests!

besides, considering how much experience i have in combing the internet to research fandoms i'm unfamiliar with (mostly so i can make bad puns), it was kinda fun for me to try and put that ridiculously niche skill to the test under time pressure

though... in retrospect i maaaay have accidentally made some of the questions completely impossible

(also, i know i answered your asks out of order, it sounds weird but the genuine reason is that because of the times you sent asks i was worried you were losing sleep over the stress of not knowing whether your asks were anonymous or not)

anyway, here are the answers:

1. you're totally right, it's Gothel who speaks first - no one else has a line until the 2-minute mark, they just kind of make noises at each other. i know they did it because it's a dream sequence, but it's still inexplicably funny if you pay attention to it, it reminds me of final fantasy

i did watch the first episode in full to get an idea of what this show was about, and i do have a lot of questions - tangled was one of the only two disney princess films i watched when i was a kid and i still don't really understand how her hair has grown back or who cassandra is (she seems nice though)

2. yeah in hindsight this one is basically impossible to get from memory, and when i wrote it i didn't even realise that there were different animations for the later seasons

the first one has 7, the second has 4 (i think?), and the third has 3, though it's really hard to tell

3. i actually got that wrong, i thought the music box turned into the robot, but you're right, it activates the parts hidden in the presents that then assemble themselves

4. people make fun of disney for their disdain for green eyes, rapunzel is the only disney princess who has them

excluding tangled, i can't even think of two human disney characters with green eyes period

well apparently they decided to overcompensate by making it so that almost no tangled characters have blue eyes, and honestly it's kind of hilarious

even characters who had blue eyes in the movie had their eye colour switched to green for the series

i was only able to pick out five because i noticed the trend and started actively looking for it - and even then, it was like finding a shiny pokemon anytime someone with blue eyes appeared on screen

so the fact that you were able to think of five off the top of your head is crazy impressive

he does - so do varian, frederic, faith and monty, so that's five

5. the mirror is the one on the left

the one on the right is actually based on the broken plate from breaking bad

6. eugene sings last, i have no idea what the context of the song is though

i actually was originally going to use 'nothing left to lose' but i changed it like five minutes before the timer ran out because i realised there were a lot of questions about cassandra, she's just in every clip

7. yeah, it's 'once a handmaiden', i think once her imaginary british friend pulls the cloak off it never comes back

i may have got this one from the wiki

8. the yellow eye is her(?) right eye

9. you're right, it is just a reprise of the first song from before ever after

(though i found out just now that disney's official songlist technically calls it 'life after happily ever after', which is dumb, so i'm going to ignore it)

so, overall i don't think anyone can accuse you of being a fake fan, you definitely got most of them

still, i'm glad you enjoyed it <3

[spaceorphan18]

have you ever read a detailed post about the glee cast’s singing voices? like all about their technique and stuff? reading your reaction to the ‘vocal coach reacts to glee’ video makes me want to know more!

Hmmmm, not really! Not from a professional vocalist POV, I don’t think.  (That I’m aware of.  This does remind me there was one vocal coach in fandom, and she hated Blaine, and I wasn’t too fond of her, or her analysis, so I won’t point you in that direction.) 

My background is in music, but not in vocal performance.  But I can give you a quick rundown of cast’s musical abilities if you like, though they won’t be huge on the technical side of it.  

ETA: I started this a while ago before I started doing the music retrospective - I’ll probably try to explore a little more as I do those.   If you guys want more conversation about one person in particular, let me know! 

But for now... 

*

Matthew Morrison: Is a classically trained musician with a very good voice.  It’s a shame Will was such a tool, because Matthew Morrison was very talented, had the ability to do a lot of great things with his voice.  People joke about his rapping -- but I think this stemmed from the issue that his background is in musical theater -- which teaches you a cleaner and more traditional way of singing -- opposed to a pop or rap style.  He doesn’t have the grit that rap often has, which makes it a little too much like a Kid’s Bop version of something.  When singing musical theater, though, he really shined. 

A number that showcases ability: Make ‘Um Laugh

A number that isn’t so great: Ice Ice Baby

*

Lea Michele: Lea does have a very good and solid voice.  She’s also been classically trained.  The one drawback is that it hinders her a bit on pop music, she lacks some of the grittiness often needed on a lot of the pop songs.  She also starts to lose some of her classic training as the show goes on (which I think is a shame) so that she can get some of the shine off her voice to make a transition to pop music.  

She has one vocal tick that drives me crazy, though -- she has a tendency to slide into her notes instead of hitting them dead on, which gets worse as the show goes on, and it makes her sound a little screech-y at times.  But for the most part -- she is really good. 

A number that showcases ability: Don’t Rain on My Parade

A number that isn’t so great: Ooops...I Did It Again

*

Amber Riley: The cool thing about Amber is that you get to hear her grow as a musician as the show goes on.  She had already started to get vocal lessons before the show started, but at the beginning, she was still a bit raw and unrefined in her technique.  But you can tell she did practice, and her voice is developed beautifully as the show goes on.  She was one of the best, well rounded vocalists on the show.  She had a good handle on pop and R&B music, but she could sing musical theater rather clearly, too.  She has great breath support - and can belt numbers out while still retaining the quality.  Can’t say enough good thing about Amber’s voice. 

A number that showcases ability: Someday We’ll Be Together

A number that isn’t so great: Sweet Transvestite (It’s not bad - but it’s my least favorite Mercedes solo.) 

*

Cory Monteith: Cory wasn’t a vocalist.  And, to be completely honest, I thought it was some kind of joke when they introduced him as some kind of hidden musical gem when Will hears him singing the showers.  He did really well with classic rock that’s allows not only for a weaker voice - but is often not as technically hard.  And I have to wonder if Cory got lessons, because he did get a lot better as the show went on, and I think his season 4 work is great! 

I will say that sometimes they pushed his voice a little too far.  A lot of times songs were either too high for his range and he often sounded like he was straining.  (The most notable of which is A House is Not a Home - which is far too high for him.)  That said - I think he did reasonably well along side Lea - mostly because often sang pop duets.  

A number that showcases ability: I’ve Gotta Be Me

A number that isn’t so great: Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore

*

Chris Colfer: Chris is such an interesting study due to the uniqueness of his voice.  He’s got a huge range both in terms of genre and literal range of voice.  He can sing quite a few octaves.  He’s got a great, clear sound, too, which is why he’s great with theater numbers.  Interestingly, Chris’s voice did drop over the years, and while I know people love his higher range, he has a gorgeous lower range that wasn’t used as often (and is often my favorite.) 

The one (nitpicky) issue was that Chris’s voice ended up getting pigeon-holed.  I know singing Diva-Broadway songs was his schtick - but it would have been nice to hear him sing a bigger variety of songs.  He wasn’t the strongest on non-ballad pop music, but they also didn’t give him that very often.  

There’s also the fascinating unusualness in that, Chris could really sing duets very well with people -- but in group numbers, his voice sticks out like a sore thumb, and he was often left out of some of the more general songs because of it.  His voice just doesn’t texture very well - which is why I get why they did what they did.  

A number that showcases ability: Being Alive

A number that isn’t so great: I’ll Remember

*

Kevin McHale: I feel like people are often surprised when they sit down and think about it, but Kevin has a great voice.  He has a solid range, and he’s able to do pop music very well (I believe it helps that he was in a professional boy band for years.)  Not sure if people noticed - but he’s often the lead on group numbers that don’t need to be related to specific story or character points.  Which is a bummer for Artie’s story - but if you’re a fan of Kevin’s voice, you get a lot to choose from.  

Kevin was also able to handle a lot of the musical demands that I think some of the other males weren’t? He’s a much better singer than Cory - and could handle leading a full number.  His voice isn’t as unique as Chris’s and can texture really well.  In addition he was fairly versatile.  He might have been the best rapper the show had, lol. 

A number that showcases ability: For Once In My Life

A number that isn’t so great: Addicted to Love (personal taste choice - I just don’t like the song.) 

*

Jenna Ushkowitz: Jenna is another one who is classically trained.  She has a strong, solid voice, which was unfortunately not showcased all that well on the show, and because of that, I’m not sure how she does on a wide variety of music.  I do think she sounds a little generic - but not helping is lack of being featured.  

A number that showcases ability: I Don’t Know How To Love Him

A number that isn’t so great: Gangum Style (She does fine - but the fact that they made her do it in the first place...) 

*

Dianna Agron: The interesting thing about Dianna is that she has a really nice low female voice.  The fact that they never gave her any punk or harder rock was really a shame, because I think she would have done really well with that.  The funny thing is that, more so in the beginning, they show tried to make her sing songs that fit her character - but weren’t necessarily great for her voice.  I feel like it wasn’t until late season 2 did they start really using her voice for the better.  

A number that showcases ability: Never Can Say Goodbye

A number that isn’t so great: It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World

*

Mark Salling: Mark had a really solid voice - that often lent itself well to folk and acoustic really well.  He was good with softer pop and classic rock, and the show showcased that pretty well.  I think, in general, Mark was a much better vocalist than actor, and the show often picked good music for him to sing - which helped with his character.  I don’t have a whole lot to say, only that I think he was underrated as a vocalist, but I get it - with all the other baggage that comes with talking about Mark. 

A number that showcases ability: No Surrender 

A number that isn’t so great: Fight For Your Right (to Party) (I don’t think it’s bad - I just hate this song.) 

*

Naya Rivera: Naya is a little tricky.  I think she has a good, smoky sound to her voice that makes her excellent at things like pop and R and B.  (Shame she didn’t have a good jazz number to do on the show - she would have been great at that.)  I think she was really versatile, though, and handled her Broadway numbers really well.  I do think she was somewhat pinched and nasal at times - and while I do think this was a stylistic choice, to me it’s not my favorite type of vocal sound.  But I do think she was really good at the numbers she was given, and was one of the most talented female vocalists on the show. 

A number that showcases ability: Back to Black

A number that isn’t so great: Alfie (I think I may dislike the song more than her singing on it.) 

*

Heather Morris: Heather wasn’t a singer, and I do think it showed at times.  She often had to have her voice autotuned more than anyone else on the show.  That said - she did do Britney Spears really well, and I think she deserves credit for that.  

A number that showcases ability: I’m a Slave 4 U

A number that isn’t so great: Dinosaur

*

Chord Overstreet: Chord’s background is in country - and that shows a bit through his singing - he’s got a bit of twang in his voice, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.  He’s a fun singer.  I don’t think the show knew exactly what to do with him (voice or character) but there’s a lightness to his singing that makes him easily adaptable to pretty much anything you throw at him. 

A number that showcases ability: Red Solo Cup (You think I’m joking - but I think this is the most fun Chord has singing a song.) 

A number that isn’t so great: Girls on Film (I think just by default of me liking everything else better.) 

*

Darren Criss: Ah, Darren, where to even start.  The thing about Darren is that he may not be the strongest singer, his voice is a little wobbly at times, and his range is somewhat limited, but his showmanship is just completely beyond nearly everyone else.  Darren has the unique ability to draw you in with his singing and hold you captive.  There are technically better singers on the show - but Darren just has this amazing ability to really sell a performance.  And I do love his voice, even if there are some limitations to it.  I really could gush about Darren’s performance abilities, but I’ll refrain... 

A number that showcases ability: Teenage Dream (Both Versions) 

A number that isn’t so great: Piano Man (Which isn’t bad - I just think the show had done it better, and it’s a rare time that felt like Darren was kind of phoning it in.) 

*

A quick run down of others, but first a quick aside - as they started adding people in, vocal ability starts being a factor.  I think a lot of the newer characters could sing better than they could act, which was both helpful and a hinderance.  I think we began to get more solid musical numbers as the show went on, but sometimes acting wasn’t always top notch - and across the board, old and new, hitting a combo of acting and singing ability didn’t always happen.  

Harry Shum Jr.: Not really a singer - but the show often played to his strengths, and his few songs played off the fact that he wasn’t a great singer to great aplomb.  

Jane Lynch: Can hold a tune, even if her voice isn’t the best - is really great at musical comedy. 

Jayma Mays: She has more singing ability than the show allowed to showcase, however, she’s another one whose voice was really unique, and doesn’t texture very well.  

Damien McGinty: Is actually a very good singer.  However, he’s very generic, too - which makes him a little on the bland side. 

Sam Larsen: I think he was fine - I don’t think he sang enough on the show for me to make much of an impression one way or the other. 

Alex Newel: Fucking Fantastic! Alex might be one of the strongest vocalists on the show - has great range, energy, and vocal control.  

Melissa Benoist: Her voice tends to lean on the pop-ier side, but it’s a solid voice, and her work on the show was pretty good.  

Jacob Artist: Has a strong voice, and could sing genres that weren’t often featured on the show (like hip-hop and R&B).  

Blake Jenner: His voice is fine, but like Damien McGinty, it’s generic and a little bland. 

Becca Tobin: She has a very quirky voice that brings in a different and unique sound.  They didn’t use her much, though, so it’s hard to comment. 

Noah Guthrie: An amazing singer, has a really unique sound, but is able to do blend in well with others.  

Samantha Ware: Another amazing singer.  She’s in full control and can do really great things with it. 

Billy Lewis Jr: Has a good, solid voice.  Not as strong as Guthrie, or some of the other guys, but he’s a lot of fun to watch. 

Laura Dreyfuss: Like Becca Tobin - has a uniqueness to her vocal quality that makes it stand out a little, but she’s still a solid singer. 

Marshall Williams: His vocal ability is okay.  It’s better than his acting ability.  I’m slightly confused how this dude got cast, tbh.  

[penny-anna]

i was tagged by @handwrittenhello, thank u! <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

i got uhh... 355! that's a lot

What’s your total AO3 word count?

aww don't make me check it. *checks* 988,031.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

i have 12 currently listed on ao3 tho a couple of those are for crossovers. uhh i'm not going to say them all as some are embarrassing. the Big Ones are the Witcher, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings & Merlin, anyway.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

they are all witcher fics are present!

New Monster Stories

The Price of a Touch

Somebody to Love

sandstorms and hazy dawns

Constellations

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

OH that's a good question! i actually used to but i got out of the habit (oddly) when i moved to a fandom where i get less comments. the reason for this is that getting less comments meant i liked to go back and re-read them as if they were new comments and once i replied that would mean i was 'done' with them. so if i haven't replied to your comment that is because. i am still enjoying it.

i do reply when someone has a question or other comment that i feel warrants a response tho

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

oof so the answer is definitely this merlin series which tbh i can't say i'd recommend as it's genuinely pretty brutal. i don't know if i can say that i regret the bleakness of the ending tho.

Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

very rarely write 'crossovers' in the strictest sense BUT i do rly like writing fusions & of those i think the weirdest is the merlin/borrowers fusion bcos the whole concept of M-rated borrowers fic is just. frankly unacceptable!! but i did it anyway.

side note i do actually have a bunch more material around that one drabble (a whole au that's like the plot of the first borrowers but a romance essentially)

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

uhh kind of? yes. way back when i was about 14 and had just started posting fanfic i got a hm Scathing review on a fic i posted. however i was not especially bothered as i was very up myself when i was 14 and it would have taken more than 1 rude person to make me think what i was doing was anything less than Stellar and also the review was pretty dumb.

a lot of the stuff they didn't like in my story seemed to come down to them having failed to realise it was an AU & what i learned from that experience was you can't trust people to actually read your author's notes. the other stuff they took issue with came down to 'this was clearly written by a teenage girl' and in retrospect i'm like yeah no shit. this sounds like it was written by a teenager bcos i was in fact a teenager. do u have nothing better to do.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

yes. tho not super often these days.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

sorta? once someone translated one of my fics & posted it without crediting the original. it was very very obviously a direct translation even without speaking the language it was written in. they'd been doing it for a while and i believe they got reported but i don't actually remember what came of it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

answered this above lol. yes i've had a few fics translated!! i don't really keep track of them. i used to go through and look at the comments on translations but i don't really bother these days.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

ok so i'm going to go with my gut instinct on this one & say Two/Jamie, even tho i'm not that into it these days. just in terms of. the level of enjoyment i had back when i was shipping it.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

OH you know i was actually thinking about this the other day! i always wanted to do a fourth installment of my Merlin urban fantasy AU that would tie some stuff together (and also feature gwen! who was absent from the entire fic bcos i was saving her for later!! i'm so sorry!) but i just lost interest in the fandom. i remember being conscious when i posted the 3rd part that it was kind of a parting gift to the Merlin fandom as a whole. am still pretty proud of that one.

What are your writing strengths?

dialogue!

What are your writing weaknesses?

basically. everything but dialogue lol.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i did it 1 time using google translate in an original story & then i ended up actually selling the story so i had to scrabble around trying to find someone who spoke the language who could help me in advance of publishing it and then the process of translating it turned out to be much more complicated than i expected.

i don't remember the usernames of the very kind people who helped me out w it off the top of my head but thank you again!!

anyway no i will not be doing that again probably.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

it was lord of the rings & tbh as lotr fanfics written aged 12 go it really wasn't that embarrassing but it is no longer online.

for some reason (and this is probably for the best) my tastes ran exclusively to crack fic & i also really liked legolas so it was just an extended fic about legolas having really stupid adventures which i thought was very funny at the time. it was co-written w a friend and tbph her chapters were legit funny. go figure.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

i feel like i end up saying this every time this question comes up but the thing i'm proudest of is prolly the LOTR daemon au (if you can count that as one fic lol)

uhh who do i know who writes fic & hasn't been tagged. @thescarletpaperback @uighean

[ghosthan]

what would you say are the differences between 616 Tony and MCU Tony? 🤔

Hi anon! Many people have talked about this and I'm certainly not the authority on the topic, but I’ll try my best to explain some of the major differences that I have noticed! Thank you for asking and I’m sorry it took me so long to answer you.

Important to note: neither version of Tony has had a totally consistent characterization. Depending on who you ask and which comics/movies they've consumed, they might give you a different answer here and not be wrong.

616 Tony is even harder to put into one box because his character has been around since Tales of Suspense in the 1950s. That’s a long time. Things have changed over time, under different writers, changing political atmospheres, and outside pop culture influence (including influence from the MCU, unfortunately, in recent years.) You get the picture. So I’ll be making some generalizations and try to be clear about which eras I’m speaking when I make these comparisons, but ultimately, if someone wanted to be contrarian, you could probably refute a lot of what I say here if you cherry pick canon. Which is fair enough! That’s sort of the fun of comics, there’s so much to choose from and something for everyone.

So here are some observations from me, under the ‘read more’.

1. Physical Appearance

This is sort of an easy one, but worth mentioning!

MCU Tony does not look like 616 Tony. RDJ is great, but he would not be most 616 fans’ casting choice on looks alone. MCU Tony is tan, a Malibu man, with brown hair and brown eyes, and RDJ has sort of round facial features (a funny sloped nose, big, round eyes, round forehead, not a particularly sharp or classically “superhero masculine” face.) As you may know, this lends well to certain fanworks and tropes, such as Tony having Bambi eyes.

Or Tiny Tony. He is not actually canonically small, but he's smaller in the MCU than in 616 and from what I can tell, a portion of fandom has latched onto that. He’s a grown man, but RDJ is pretty short, and of slighter build than 616 Tony. RDJ is 5′9, but they make him act in heels, and I believe his canon MCU height is 5′11. Another popular trope I’ve seen is shrinking Tony in fanfic/fanart for a dramatized height difference with Steve, making him weak or fragile; this is fine because everyone has their own taste, but for the official record, he’s a capable, strong guy! Especially in earlier stages of the MCU, in which he’s a bit younger. Tony isn’t just a brain; he carries out his plans with his own two hands! He builds his armor, he remodels his lab, he survives hand to hand combat when he doesn’t have the armor. Muscles!

616 Tony is 6′1 without armor and 6′6 in armor (making him taller than his 616 Steve counterpart in armor and very close to the same height out of armor!) 616 Tony is generally paler with black hair (sometimes the classic blue-black I love so much) and blue eyes, and it obviously depends on the artist, but he has a pretty typically ‘masculine’ face and build. Generally he is drawn with a squared jaw and a high bridged nose (such as in the Extremis storyline, or drawn by Marquez), but again, this varies from artist to artist! Here's some examples of 616 Tonys.

Wait, you might be saying, but I have seen comic panels where Tony has brown hair/brown eyes!

Yep. Due to a combination of forgetfulness, inconsistency, and the MCU bleeding into the general consciousness of the comics, sometimes Tony is randomly depicted in the image of RDJ, or if not in his image, at least visually inspired by the MCU-- hair color and style, eye color, dialogue, etc.

616 fans don’t typically love this; he’s very handsome when drawn this way, of course, (look at him!) But it isn’t really the same character.

Also, MCU Tony has (at least for some of his movies) a reactor built into his chest. While 616 Tony has, at times, been more or less physically connected/dependent to his tech, he doesn’t have the built in reactor (most generally speaking, there are times in comics when he temporarily has the tech built in, but this isn’t really the status quo.)

2. Relationship with parents/ family history

While it is definitely implied in the MCU that Howard was not a good father to Tony, (such as in Iron Man 2 when Tony says “You're talking about a man whose happiest day of his life was shipping me off to boarding school” and “He was cold, calculating, never told me he loved me, never even told me he liked me”), Tony has a different sort of attitude toward Howard in MCU than in 616. It’s kind of weird, and hard to discuss. To me, it seems implied that MCU Howard was emotionally abusive to Tony based on what Tony does say about his childhood, and yet, the films kind of randomly give Howard weird moments of “Well, he tried his best and deep down he loved me the whole time!” forgiveness. MCU has a Howard kink and I'm very cringe-face emoji about it.

For example, Iron Man 2 shows that old film reel of Howard talking about how Tony is the greatest thing he ever created, and in Endgame, when Tony goes back in time, he meets Howard and has a very weird interaction with him in which Howard declares he would do anything for his son, (to his deeply damaged son who is a new father himself.) Yet, for all his talk, it's his actions that speak, and his actions left Tony damaged, traumatized, and emotionally inept at forming healthy relationships. So.

Sorry. I’m a little bitter. I'm just uncomfortable with how they sort of set up an abuse history but then treated it kind of lightly and Howard gets off the hook as "well, he tried his best" without really acknowledging the hurt he caused.

Avengers: Endgame 2019

I won't go super in depth into the abuse stuff because it's a little touchy and could take up a lot of this post. But.

I’m not against any reconciliation and I do appreciate the fact that a lot of times, victims of abuse feel a desire to forgive and reconnect with their abuser-- my issue with the MCU depiction of Tony and Howard is that Tony never really gets the vindication of his abuse being recognized for what it was before he forgives Howard. To me, that’s not forgiveness as kind of... gaslighting himself that it wasn't as bad as he remembered his own experience being, because of a sense of nostalgia and grief. It’s not the same, and I have issues with it.

However, a lot of my opinion is based on subtext and it is just my opinion; with depictions of abuse, different people are going to react differently, and other people may have found these scenes touching and gotten something positive out of them, and that's totally fine too!

It’s also a bit difficult to talk about Tony’s relationship with Howard in 616, for a few reasons: shifting timelines, lots of canon that I have not read all of, and the fact that it really is difficult to sum up such a complicated relationship.

Right off the bat, I’ll address the basics. I used the same scene in another ask, and I think it's frequently cited in any meta regarding Howard, but in Iron Man Vol. 1, we see more into Tony’s childhood and see Howard verbally abusing his family, drunk, at the dinner table.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #285

We get this scene with adult Tony’s retrospective commentary on how his own issues that he blamed himself for were actually a cycle starting with his father, the insecurity and abuse and alcohol, and that he realizes how much this has influenced him. Both MCU Tony and 616 Tony have some form of “stop the cycle of shame” arcs, but I don’t really see how this works narratively in the MCU because Tony makes excuses for Howard and continues to blame himself for a lot of his own personal struggles, whereas I think there’s just a bit more nuance in 616.

But uh. This isn’t totally true, and in recent years, things got real weird. I choose to ignore this chapter of canon, but in the Dan Slott run, Tony Stark: Iron Man, Tony’s whole backstory gets imploded. For one thing, the little of Tony’s childhood it shows in a flashback is uh. Uh. Well, it’s certainly out of character compared with previous 616 material, depicting Tony as an overly confident poor sport.

Basically, Tony is adopted. Tony has an evil brother. Tony’s biological parents make an appearance, as do his ‘classic’ parents, Howard and Maria. It’s just weird. It’s kind of out there. I’m honestly not a huge fan of this and ignore a lot of it, but it is certainly a difference between MCU and 616.

3. Personality

I’m going to be very general. Both Tony’s have an outer self which they present to the public and an inner self, but they’re a bit different. Both Tony’s have struggled with self loathing, but I think MCU Tony’s actual self worth is a bit higher, even just at some points in time. Even if his ego is part of his facade, I think he does believe some amount of the “I’m awesome”, even if just when it applies to his own work/inventions/saving people. Not to say that these moments of fluctuating self esteem make him egotistical, but this combined with his egotistical act and snarky, non-stop sassy dialogue, he’s quite different in general personality from 616 Tony, who is much more reserved.

Some more recent iterations of 616 Tony have been adapted to reflect the snark of the MCU, but he’s not so snarky and he tends to approach things more seriously. This is not a dis on MCU Tony; I think MCU Tony uses false ego and excessive sassy jokes as a means to deflect and control, which I think is very interesting and it’s nice to see this explored more in depth in fic where you get to see the thought process behind the bravado. MCU Tony is a partier, a good times guy, especially during Iron Man 2, in which he really does disregard consequences to have fun (driving his race car, partying drunk in his suit, letting pretty  girls play with the armor, shooting off repulsor blasts for fun in a crowded room); I’m not bashing MCU Tony-- I think he had psychologically understandable reasons for behaving this way, the man was dying-- but 616 Tony really doesn’t act this way generally, and I think it’s a personality difference more than a difference of one being “better.”

616 Tony handles his stress differently, and they just have different psychological patterns, I think. I’m coming up kind of blank trying to think of a good comparable 616 arc, (sorry, I’m brain dead) but a less-than-perfect  example might be Tony’s brain delete arc; he’s “dying”, like in Iron Man 2 he  knows his expiration date, (circumstances are quite  a bit different), but he throws himself more into work, into a cause, and as he really fall apart, we  see him spiral into self doubt, remorse, fear, and insecurity, sort of falling into  himself with lots of manly tears and calling himself pathetic.

(Some things happen in this arc that a lot of people find Gross. I also find these events gross. But. I don’t count the sex in “World’s Most Wanted” as partying to cope with personal mortality, because I think both character involved are in “end of the world” mode, and it’s more seeking intimacy for comfort than partying to numb the hurt. Does this distinction make sense? No? Perfect, moving on.) 616 Tony is generally much more humble.

Whereas MCU Tony, I think, tries to outrun those feelings via parties or making dozens of new suits, or seeking comfort by comforting others! Gifting things to people, building things for people, highly personalized individual living quarters, teaching Nebula games and trying to show her a fun time when they were in peril together.

They have some traits in common, for sure! But canon being inconsistent both in the MCU and in 616, my observations aren’t the rule, because I’m kind of cherry picking and going based on limited memory. But off the top of my head, they’re both extravagant gift givers! Recall Tony gifting Pepper the giant bunny in Iron Man 3, and compare this with Tony carrying a mile high pile of Christmas gifts after shopping with Rumiko in Iron Man Vol. #3.

I would say that while both Tony Starks are considered humanitarians, this is much more fleshed out and supported by canon in 616. Some examples of his philanthropy in the MCU: Tony makes charitable donations of art and money, Tony has an organization which provides disaster relief/cleanup which is referenced in Spider-Man Homecoming, Tony has an MIT grant for students and staff members. But to be honest, a lot of his MCU philanthropy is only mentioned in passing, or is largely handled by other people on his behalf and on his dollar.

In 616, we see Tony using charity almost as a means of therapy: it’s something he does very privately, not in the public eye (at least, not always), and it’s something deeply personal to him. One example that immediately comes to mind is Tony’s home for disadvantaged girls in Iron Man Vol. 3, and we see scenes of Tony basically driving the streets at night, picking up underage prostitutes, feeding them and listening to their stories before bringing them to a home he’s established where he knows all the residents, and provides educational opportunities and protection.

Another more recent example in canon that the Tony fandom loves is that Tony canonically holds babies at an orphanage. Sorry I don’t have panels for all of this, this section got long and I have been working on answering this ask in a very scattered way for a very long time.

Both Tony’s are romantics, I literally could write a whole other post about their canon love life similarities and differences, but I will briefly say that while MCU Tony does the long on and off, and eventual ultimate commitment, to Pepper Potts, 616 Tony is a serial monogamist; he is always falling in love, and he’s definitely not a playboy, but the hero-ing, self loathing, and lifestyle make it very hard for him to keep anyone in his life, and most of his partners fuck his life up and betray him. Needless to say, 616 Tony is not married, and certainly not to Pepper Potts.

Oh, and I guess this is so obvious I almost forgot to include it, but a huge similarity between both iterations of Tony is that they both constantly use their own life as a bargaining chip, and will pretty much die for anything. Or be the bad guy for a good reason (at least, in his own mind... see Civil War, or Hickmanvengers; 616 Tony, especially, does not shy away from making the hard decisions, and this leads to a lot of guilt and tension in his  relationships-- often with Steve because 616 Steve/Tony angst fans are well fed, I guess)

Remember that time Tony had Steve’s mind wiped because Tony felt that Steve’s inflexible morality might hinder the Illuminati’s ability to save the world? And it eats Tony up inside and erupts into a homicidal fight when Steve finally gets his memory back? Me too.

Tony Stark as a character is defined by sacrifice, both of his own life but also of his own happiness and reputation and conscience, I think, in a lot of ways, and we see this in many universes. I could go on about Tony’s propensity for sacrifice in the less obvious ways, because I think in terms of heroic sacrifice, Tony has done a lot that other heroes wouldn’t be able to do because of moral inflexibility and conflicting philosophical schools of thought; Tony really is the “whatever it takes” type, and often believes the ends justify the means if he deems a threat worse than the potential wrong that could be done in preventing the threat. We see this a little bit in the MCU in the creation of Ultron, and in Civil War with the Accords. But there’s a whole lot more going on there I don’t want to get into.

4. Alcohol

MCU Tony’s alcoholism is never really explicitly explored. He is shown drinking in Iron Man 1, and in Iron Man 2 he drinks a lot and makes a fool of himself publicly, but MCU Tony doesn’t get any specific narrative arc focused on his drinking, and if I recall correctly, I don’t think he ever refers to his drinking as alcoholism in the movies? Also, while his binge drinking and embarrassing behaviors ostensibly stop after the events of Iron Man 2, he is shown drinking on screen at least one other time after that which I can remember, and it wasn’t a “falling off the wagon” moment, and an alcoholic in recovery such as 616 Tony would not take a drink casually. This article sheds a little light on some decisions made about Tony and alcohol in the MCU.

Alcoholism is a huge part of 616 Tony’s personality, which I went a bit more into depth about in this post, so I won’t repeat myself too much.

5. Their relationships with the Iron Man armor

A few points here: MCU Tony is famous for the “I am Iron Man” line being repeated throughout the franchise after he blows his own secret in the end of the first movie. MCU Tony sees himself as one with Iron Man, and the suit is the tech that enables him to be this version of himself. He sees Tony Stark and Iron Man as inextricable: you cannot separate them, and his identity is public. He, as Tony Stark, is an Avenger.

You may remember MCU Tony’s induction into the Avengers; in Iron Man 2, Nick Fury is forming the Avengers and tasks the Black Widow with going undercover to assess Tony to be a part of a hypothetical initiative. “Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no” and the comments about Tony as a narcissist may be funny, but the fact is, the snark and erratic personality of MCU Tony at the time of the formation of the Avengers in the movies is not at all like the Tony of the comics, at the time of the Avengers being formed. 

In 616, things are quite a bit different! Tony invents the Iron man armor to save himself (like in the MCU) and uses it for hero-ing, but in secret. He works very hard to protect his identity as Iron Man, and for a long time, as far as the world is concerned, Iron man is a mystery man piloting armor built by Tony, hired as Tony’s personal body guard, (hence the 616 Steve/Tony fandom’s proclivity for identity porn as a trope!) When the Avengers form, Iron Man is the Avenger, close friends with the Avengers, (particularly Steve!) and Tony Stark is just the benefactor of the Avengers, providing them with a place to live and finances with which to operate.

In the very early days, Tony did not have the “reactor” like in the MCU, but his chest plate did keep him alive, leading to some very dramatic shots of Tony charging up using a wall socket, lamenting the plight of a secret hero.

616 Tony, generally, and especially in some of these earlier comics, was quite reserved, rather serious, and very angsty, (in private of course.) He may be wealthy, but speaking generally, he’s much less ostentatious than MCU Tony, less of a show off, less into flashy things and grand gestures. Of course, this isn’t always true in the comics, and some iterations of Tony are more like this than others, but MCU Tony is showier, sillier, and more of a fun-times guy. Any MCU fan would find those panels quite contrary to the Tony Stark you know:

Iron Man 1

Iron Man 2

I think I would say that while MCU Tony sees himself and the Iron Man identity and the  armor as all being inextricably connected, we see a bit more compartmentalization with 616 Tony, who pretends that the armor is a whole separate person for years when his identity was private, and we see instances in older and newer comics, in which Tony  is uncomfortable with some aspect of himself as Iron Man (for instance, during the second drinking arc, Tony temporarily swears off being Iron Man entirely, or for another example, when Tony is in a comma and Tony AI exists during Secret Empire, Tony “lives” in the Iron Man suit, and I think this could be interpreted as a meta parallel to Steve during this arc; Steve has had some core aspect of his character inverted, Captain America becoming Captain Hydra, so Tony experiences a similar inversion-- Tony Stark and Iron Man are forcibly merged, in a way that Tony seems deeply uncomfortable with, if his digital drinking relapse is any indication. But I digress; sorry for the tangent.)

Okay this post is inexcusable long, and very, very tangential, and I don’t feel like I’ve really covered everything I wanted to. But it has been sitting in my inbox for too long and if I don’t post it now I never will, so I hope this long, rambling thing has been a little bit helpful to you! Thank you so much for asking, I had a lot of fun rambling about this.

If you want to read a similar post, but well written and organized, with other insights, this post by Sineala answers a similar question!

[kalofi]

Bro just the way u like. Draw the cast it makes me so happy its unreal....can u pls spill sum hcs u got for the crew?

AH THANK YOU !!!!! um im rly bad at coming up with hcs they usually just happen when i draw but i’ll try to sum up the silly little thoughts i have about the cast !! about two for each :)

gordon

kinda canon, but he just says stuff. like most of the time without thinking. so sometimes he comes off as insensitive but he just does NOT have a brain to mouth filter. this has gotten him in a lot of trouble but also can b rly fucking funny. some old jerk scientists will be like oh dr freeman didnt you wear that exact shirt yesterday(smug) and gordon without looking up from the photocopier and only half paying attention will b like well u wear that same face everyday and i don’t hear anyone else complaining. and then the other scientist will try to hold in their tears as they walk away. gordon does not give this a second thought ❤️

extremely smart but also just so dumb. u know what i mean. also he loves fishing but hates hiking. he also doesn’t know the first about how cars work and has no idea how to differentiate between brands or models. gordon “help girl i don’t know what breeds of cars there are” freeman.

benry

me n cecil (@/mint-bees) were talking about this once but benry usually just dresses comfortably cause it’s easy but if they want to dress up they WILL. extremely good fashion sense which surprises everyone cause like. benry can dress?? the same benry who wears tuxedo shirts unironically?? THAT benry??? but they just wear shittyass clothes cause they find em funny and also they just like em

benry is so bad with animals. like they try to be friendly but most creatures are scared of them lol. sunkist is the only dog who would even get near benry and that took a couple months of interaction to achieve. don’t be mistaken tho sunkist wasn’t afraid of benry she just didn’t like them lol

tommy

TOMMY MY FRIEND TOMMY. pls excuse me projecting onto him but tommy loves jewelry. collecting it, wearing it, etc. he’s just super into it and he especially likes metal-type jewelry cause of the clinking sound they make when they hit each other. his favorite designs of jewelry are fun litle things like fruit or candy or just miscellaneous objects. he finds them super cute!! also, the brighter the color the more drawn to it he will b. tommy is like a crow in which he sees a neon or shiny color and his eyes zero in on it and he needs it now now NOW!!!!!!

this is based off that one comic i made but tommy can just. consume stuff without actually...eating it?? like if he wants to eat a breadroll he can just hold it in his hand and like. absorb its energy. from an outsiders perspective it just looks like that object is slowly phasing out of existence. in retrospect it’s kind of a useless ability and tommy likes the stimulation of chewing so he doesn’t use it that much except as a fun party trick ❤️

also tommy was adopted by gman but he still has powers cause gman just passed them onto him. think all might passing his quirk onto midoriya but without the hair eating. tommy spent time in his childhood after being adopted trying to hone his skills but he’s still a little unsteady to this day. in that way he’s kinda more dangerous than gman sometimes cause he can’t completely control his powers

bubby

i think this is kind of agreed on within the fandom but bubby loves cooking. black mesa food was ASS. utter ASS. so once he gets out he goes all out with experimenting on what he does and doesn’t like. they’re pretty bad at cooking at first but they’re pretty stubborn so eventually they get it!!

i feel like it’s funny if bubby was one of those ‘oh in my day-‘ old ppl but like also he likes to b pretty up-to-date with whatevers currently popular. hence the ‘NUT UP OR SHUT UP!’ and ‘i believe the kids say you pogged it!’ gordon hears bubby use the word lit once and has to sit down for a moment to process.

also unrelated but bubby only likes two video games and they are tetris and pac-man. this is simply bc years ago i asked my mom what video games she liked and she was like ‘i hate video games the only one i like is pac-man’ and i thought it was the funniest shit. me n my siblings still make fun of her for that

coomer

DR COOOMEEERRR !!! we all know dr coomer is extremely impulsive if he wants smth he WILL get it by any means necessary. he is very bad at thinking of long term consequences, he just sees the product of the now and if he likes it he will go for it. the reason he allowed himself to b cloned by black mesa even tho it was extremely new and unsafe technology was bc he was like wow! that is just so cool! and didn’t give it any thought beyond that. i feel like the reason dr coomer has so many body modifications(power lungs, extendo arms, etc) is bc of the long term affects on the body of the cloning process. like yeah in the long run it may have caused for him to need to get a replacement heart but also: clones 😼

this has been said b4 but dr coomer is p bad at comforting ppl. like don’t get me wrong he tries but most of the time when trying to comfort someone he’ll just go off on tangents. in that sense he’s bad at it cause he usually doesn’t know what to say but also surprisingly it helps bc most of the time he says the most absurd thing that just cause ppl to. snap out of it. at least for awhile.

[umbreonix]

Fanfic Writer Interview! Thanks for tagging me Emmy <3 (@chromochaotic)

I swear the most stressful part of these is tagging other people XD None of you have to do this but, @dualityoftoad, @jadeile-writes, @knightfire 

How many works do you have on AO3?  7! (+22 on ff.net but I will spend the rest of this exercise/life pretending those don’t exist)

What’s your total AO3 word count? 194,093… huh. Wish I put that effort towards my Master’s thesis in retrospect.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

2 fandoms: Zelda BOTW and Hazbin Hotel 😊 Again ff.net does not exist so let’s mention of those

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Given I only have seven so this is almost just a list of my fics... Finding Link (Revalink), Beating about the bush (Revalink), Ace In The Hole (Radiohusk), Waiting for You (Sidlink), Curtain Up (Radiohusk)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Always! But sometimes I’m really slow about it. (There was a short period where if I took too long I just wouldn’t because it felt like I missed that window but I’ve overcome that hang up now) They make me happy and I want people to know that I appreciate them. And interaction is just fun.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Angst? What’s that? I could never. Angst only exists in short spurts in my fics to make the comfort sweeter and the happy endings happier.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really… (again forcefully shoves ff.net under the rug)

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I guess? Not on ao3 though and the only comment immediately coming to mind was more of stern advice from someone who didn’t actually read the fic but thought I needed to do a better job on the summary, which, fair enough.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Haha no… I kinda wanna but I also feel like I could never XD If I ever do it’s gonna be in an unpublished google doc that I’ll share if someone specifically asks… (Only cause I’ve written some funny nsfw  bab scenarios in my head)

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Haha I hope not?

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. Or… actually I guess technically yes? A lot of people (moreso on the radiohusk side) say in comments that they read my fics entirely over internet translators… wonder how well that actually works… XD

What’s your all time favorite ship?

(Revalink, Revalink, Revalink) It just connects with me somehow. I have so many au and fic ideas all the time (most which will never see the light of day because too many thoughts, too little time) I really like radiohusk but I also have to strain a lot to write them for some reason.

Whats a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

*burns the rug that ff.net and all it’s unfinished fics have been swept under* “Hmm? What? Nahhhh I intend to finish all my fics”

What are your writing strengths?

Hmm…

I think I write in a way that’s pretty easy to digest. Like I’m not really a details person… which can sometimes be nice? I think everything I write kind of feels like a sitcom. There’s not exactly a complex plot and you don’t need to use a lot of mental power reading because everything is kind of ‘punchy’ and ‘quick to the point’.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Everything I said above but in a negative context instead LOL.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I always just write in English italics when someone is speaking a different language  but I’m not sure that’s the best way. I like it when fics do it in the format of “Das ist mir Wurst” (This is sausage to me).

But see…

That would require me to WRITE those sentences in diff languages and no thank you. Do you know how many languages Husk speaks in Hazbin??? (7)

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

….. Ouran Highschool host club MorixOC. NEXT QUESTION PLS.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Beating About The Bush without really any doubt at all. (I’m starting to feel pretty good about Ace In the Hole too even though I struggle so much to write it)

OH! And “A Moment’s Repose”! That Revalink oneshot might actually be an example of my best writing. I wrote it for an event a month early and because I am incapable of not tweaking things for as long as they aren’t published, I LITERALLY tweaked and added to it for a month. It’s the only thing I’ve ever written where you can’t see me rushing to the end XD

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

TINSITOGS, a retrospective (happy birthday)

(yes I’m like two days too late I know I’m sorry) 

Why hello followers and ass class fandom, nice to see you there. I’m sure MOST people know about this, but in case you don’t, hi. On AO3 I’m better known as livixbobbiex, writer of maybe one of the most infamous Assassination Classroom fics. 

Which I mean like, if you haven’t read it yet you totally should it’s fanlore at this point I promise- 

Shameless plug that I don’t need aside, I felt that, on its first birthday since actual completion, I just wanted to share some things about it. Some tit bits about writing it, fun facts, maybe even some author advice TM. I appreciate that it’ll be super annoying if I do that in the tags, though, so that’ll all be under the cut. If you don’t want to read the whole post, then no matter what, thanks for the support in general! 

I also want to take the opportunity to announce that I’ve reopened my discord, so if you want to talk about my fics with me (and others), you’re more than welcome to join! (the link is here) 

The origin story 

I’ve stated this many times, I think, but TINSITOGS was never supposed to be a serious story. Taking you back, quite a long time, it actually started in a facebook DM with a friend. We used to come up with “head canons” with each other, which were basically just very condensed fanfiction plots over a multitude of text messages. I believe I was trying to cheer her up, and I tried to come up with some kind of plot line. 

At the time, I was fairly fresh to the Ass Class fandom, and I was joking about how there were no teen pregnancy melodrama fanfictions. It wasn’t that I wanted one, I just thought it was strange for a school centric anime with a bunch of ships to NOT have one. And, back then, I only really cared about karmagisa. So I just decided ‘right it’s happening’. The reason I decided to make it ABO was due to ‘it making sense’. Fun fact: it was almost written as AFAB trans Nagisa, but I decided against it as I didn’t rate my ability to handle it well back then. Looking back on it, I’m glad I made that decision. 

Over around two months, writing out the plot of this story took over my life a little bit. I had no idea where I was going with it, but I was having so much fun with the drama that I decided that Karma and Nagisa shouldn’t get together soon at all, and I had a lot of fun teasing my friend with the ‘will they won’t they’. It was only when I got bored that I invented this intense drama plotline to finish it all off. 

That period of time was a lot of fun. And whilst that friendship didn’t end well, I still have a lot to thank her for. She chose Daichi’s name because I had no idea, and she wanted to annoy me because I didn’t like Haikyuu. When I couldn’t decide on his hair colour, the purple was her suggestion because ‘why logic?’ Daichi speaking Korean was because of how much she liked Kpop. She even helped me choose the title of the actual fic, so there’s a lot you can thank her for, honestly. 

After I finished that story, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Whenever I daydreamed, I used to think about that damn Daichi Akabane, and how much I wanted to tell his story. I’d even come up with extra stuff to fill in a lot of the gaps, and developed his character in my mind. I decided that I was really desperate to write it down. Usually that worked when I had an idea I wanted to work through. 

I wrote the first chapter in late 2017, and then the next two as well. I just, kept going, and realised that I could go further still. TINSITOGS was never something that was supposed to be shared, but I decided I may as well. After all, that fated ‘teen pregnancy drama’ fic still didn’t exist, and I thought it would be funny to make it happen. 

Yes, as I’ve stated publicly a few times, TINSITOGS was a crack fic. If I wanted attention from it, it was infamy. We even joked about me cursing the fandom if it ever became the most popular fic (whoops?). What I wasn’t expecting was a bunch of people, in a fandom where at the time there were NO ongoing karmagisa fics and it was pretty dead, to really seem to enjoy it. It was enough to have me keep writing it, at least. I still don’t know at what point I actually started taking it seriously, but somehow I did, and the rest is history? 

The reception 

In my wildest dreams, I never thought that I would be the author of one of the most popular fics in the fandom. To this day, the amount of views TINSITOGS has is insanity to me. For the record, across all platforms it’s on today it has 238,000, which is literally a number I can’t even visualise anymore. Almost quarter of a MILLION. To this day on AO3, it’s the most viewed Ass Class fic that’s an ACTUAL ass class fic (the others are multi fandom compilations). So yeah, I achieved the original goal, I guess? 

Now you might be wondering, “omg the karmagisa fandom is fujoshi trash”. And, considering the origins, it is kind of funny. The thing is, though, TINSITOGS was written at incredibly good time. It was written when there were, essentially, very few long form Karma/Nagisa stories. If any other fics did get posted on occasion, they were usually just oneshots. I was also, at that point, writing very fast. A symptom of ADHD is becoming obsessively productive over certain things. Since I was able to get a 3k chapter out every few days/once a week, TINSITOGS was consistently bumped to the top of AO3′s default view. And some of those first few chapters were altered canon, and transcribing the canon dialogue didn’t take very long. The more views it got, the more people would read it out of sheer curiosity. 

I think it also helps that, at least after it started getting some positive feedback (which was honestly after the pre written chapters), I purposely tried to make it ‘not terrible’. I mean, I personally think the first chapter is pretty weak and if it wasn’t somewhat iconic to a lot of people I’d rewrite it. But in general, I purposely tried to make the world of ABO my own, to make it more accessible to those who don’t like that genre, and stay away from the inherently grosser stuff as much as possible. I genuinely do get comments about how I introduced people to the genre as a whole, still not sure if that’s a GOOD thing but hey, it happened. 

TINSITOGS turned into a lot more than just a joke. It turned into my favourite hobby. It turned into a research project (honestly, you would not believe the amount of mummy vlogs and legit scientific articles about child development I consumed). It turned into something that, at least I believe, was widely loved. 

Meaning 

I think it might be wrong to say that I don’t have AN idea of when I started to take the fic super seriously. For me, it was around the time someone commented something along the lines of saying my writing meant a lot to them, that they’d spent all night reading it and had been unable to put it down. 

Not to get too dark here, but I do have a past in writing a very long, somewhat popular fic (it’s still on my fanfic net profile if anyone’s interested, but I don’t recommend it). However, in the latter part of my teenage years, the depression struck. Writing was the love of my life, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. Maybe I’d be able to muster an idea or even a chapter at the best points of that, but I’d never completely finished any story. Starting to write again was a huge step in my recovery, and one of the reasons I convinced myself that life was worth it was being able to impact someone’s life somehow. Even to this day, I still remember the fics I read when I was, like, thirteen. How much I still remember them, and how much they meant to be at the time. I wanted to be that writer for someone else. To be honest, it was actually Yuri!!! On Ice that got me out of the super bad, but I still never wrote anything of real consequence. TINSITOGS was the first time in a long time I actually committed to something. 

And, to be completely honest, there were a lot of times I was tired of it, and wanted to just quit. But, the thing was, I felt like people depended on me in a way. I got so many comments that were just FILLED with support, telling me how much they looked forward to every update. It wasn’t just empty words, either, a lot of the times these comments would be super engaged with the actual writing. I can’t even describe just how much they meant to me, how much I would look forward to reading everyone’s opinions. And then discord happened, which was a lot of fun. 

TINSITOGS went a lot further than I ever thought it would. There were comments, discussions, fan art, fan FIC (which is honestly incredible to me). Someone even added it to TV Tropes, at one point. Not to mention the Cards Against Humanity deck and quiz It makes me so unbelievably happy that I could inspire that much creativity, but it’s a two way street. It was all of that which inspired me to write, too. 

Writing 

The only real goal I actually had was aiming for around 3000 words per chapter. I had a whole facebook log of plot points as planning, and I was mostly just trying to expand on them into prose. I honestly thought that, at its completion, the entire fic would be around 100k words, if that. Not, at one point, being literally the longest ass class fic on AO3. 

There are a lot of aspects that were directly adapted from the original messages, and I tried to stay faithful to it more so at first, even if I later removed some of the pure crack. But the style was also vaguely similar, with the story being told mostly from Nagisa’s perspective with swaps to Karma when it made sense. All the main plot beats, too, are pretty much identical. The plus to this was I was able to add a lot of really fun foreshadowing, and I feel like it’s a fun reread because of it. 

Honestly though, if there’s a demand to release those OG message logs, I will. Mostly because it’s kind of funny, and interesting to see. Isogai and Nagisa were engaged at one point, even. 

Obviously, it changed somewhat. 3000 was the minimum length, and the time to completion was whenever it felt right. One of my big concerns was about pacing, so it took a lot more fleshing out and maybe ‘filler’ content for some of the main arcs to work. 

There’s parts of TINSITOGS I don’t think aren’t written that well, and some that I’m still super proud of. I think you can definitely tell there’s a gradual shift in style, and I get a lot more comfortable with writing them as characters as it goes along. To be honest, my pride for the fic overall is what it represents. 

It is funny to think about the places it got written in, though. I started it when I worked at McDonalds with no life direction, then it went through my first year of university with me. It’s been written in at least four countries. Aeroplanes, night clubs, long haul buses, a train through the Japanese southern coastline. Even the start of covid. TINSITOGS managed to see a lot. I even turned a scene in (the boat scene during the India chapter with altered names) to my university as a legitimate assignment. 

There were also a few messages I wanted to achieve, once I realised I had the platform to put them across. One of them was, obviously, ‘use protection kids’. It was important to me that I didn’t glamorise it too much, and I think that came across. I also wanted to dispute some of the issues with ABO, and subvert the consent issues as much as I could. An arc I really ‘liked’ writing was how abuse doesn’t always look the same way, and that it can be a drawn out change in behaviour. How the most important part of ‘being a good parent’ isn’t perfection, but genuinely loving and doing the best you can for your kid. How love doesn’t solve everything, and effective communication can take a very long time to learn and build a functional relationship. I mean, there definitely was a lot I tried to put in, and you’re free to interpret it all how you want. But, I like to think some people learnt some of these things, at least. 

Daichi 

Honestly, Daichi developed almost of his own free will. I had a good idea of his appearance, and that he was smart. Writing him from birth until around nine years old (older if you read the sequel fic) pretty much allowed that fluidity. It was really fun to explore a nature vs nurture development, and let his own characteristics speak for themselves. 

He’ll always have a special place in my heart. 

This is the first image I ever made. When I was trying to figure out what Daichi looked like, I honestly just edited Karma’s hair (pretty well, actually? I’m impressed with my past skill). That’s where the ‘he looks just like Karma’ meme kind of came from. 

This was the first image I actually created of Daichi. I THINK it was on rinmaru games mega anime creator or something, but it’s literally not available on the internet anymore as far as I can tell, so I can’t double check. This was in the pre-piccrew days. His eyes are closed because they didn’t have the right tone of goldish/silver.  

His sister, Kaguya, didn’t even exist originally, even though I decided on that ending pretty early on. Actually, she was going to be called ‘Irina’ due to some hijinks. Initially, when Karma found out about Irina’s pregnancy, she was going to get super emotional and mad at him and basically force him to name his first born daughter after her. Karma agreed to shut her up, never intending to have another child, so when the surprise second child later came along they had to live with the pain. However, to be honest I just forgot to write in the actual scene that set it all up, and I decided against adding it anywhere else. The name Kaguya was a very last minute decision, and it was a chance for me to explore some ideas that didn’t fit with Daichi’s character. 

Interestingly too, Daichi and Nao were never intended to be a thing. I only decided that towards the VERY end. Even though the reason I named Nao that was because of a ship I had in a J Drama (Good Morning Call). It just kind of ended up happening because I won myself over with imagining the cute. 

The music 

I used to write with a lot of background music, though not all the time. Particularly towards the start, there was a lot that didn’t really make sense thematically, yet I would write to a lot. 

Here’s a link to the spotify playlist if you want it it’s basically all the ones I noted I’d listened to a lot. Not including the smut ones, though, I have a whole playlist for that. 

Some of the notable ones: 

Five String Serenade - the first scene I wrote of the entire fic, in Chapter 25 New Year Time where they fell asleep cuddling. 

Cosmic Love - when I wrote Nagisa’s love confession scene in hospital (I also wrote this pretty early on) 

Northern Downpour (though it was actually a cover by Emma Blackery) - The chapter after Daichi’s born (30) 

When The Party’s Over -  Confession Time Third Period, Chapter 69. I literally listened to this song on REPEAT when I planned and wrote the kind of ‘break up’ scene, and it’s one of the few parts that made me cry writing. 

Turning Page - I know I said no smut, but this song actually gave me the idea to have the “I love you” in chapter 108 be less on a whim and actually more built up. In the original plan, Karma really did just say it without thinking. I’m glad I changed that.  

Bury Me Low and Numb - pretty much all I listened to when writing the last few chapters, because Evil Nagisa core. So much so that Bury Me Low was in my top 2020 songs rewind. 

As for the title, there’s actually quite a funny story. I had no idea what to call the fic, and when that happens I usually just try and find some song lyrics. I really wanted to use something from ‘October’ by the Broken Bells. Not only because it’s my favourite song (has been for years), but thematically it really worked. The issue was, it worked as the WHOLE song, there were no individual lyrics that captured everything. And, if they did, they didn’t flow very well. And naming the fic ‘October’ would have been weird for a lot of reasons. There Is No Sweeter Innocence That Our Gentle Sin really was just plucked randomly, in a desperate search to find any snappy lyrics from any song that had some kind of meaning. After a bit of discussion, we settled that it kind of worked... if Daichi is innocent and they committed a sin or something. It also wasn’t the most obvious lyric from the song (Take Me To Church if anyone doesn’t know) so I just went with it. It works out, I think, because TINSITOGS turned out to be a pretty good acronym and pronounceable word in its own right. 

The merch  redbubble drama 

It’s a well known fact that I’m not very good at art. However, I decided to try pixel art because it seemed the easiest to not mess up. I made Karma and Nagisa, before deciding to also give Daichi a try. 

This, to this day, is the only good quality art of Daichi that I actually own. The only one I’m actually happy sharing and thinking it doesn’t look terrible. As much as I love people sending me fanart, it’s not ‘my property’, right. 

So, I was kind of joking about TINSITOGS having merchandise. At first I just made two funny quote things, and uploaded it to redbubble. I was never intending to actually make money from this, and I’d agreed to myself that if I did, I would just donate it to charity. I was joking with the quotes, but since I had this artwork I figured I may as well uploaded. Separately, there was also an image that had pixel Daichi next to pixel Nagisa and Karma (which I also created). 

Aside from showing up in a few people’s adverts across the internet, there was no real harm with this. In fact, I didn’t make money anyway. It was just... more the joke of it existing. I did, however, buy myself a Daichi phone case, which is one of my favourite possessions. 

The funny ‘drama’ comes in when they got taken down due to copywrite. Sure, the one with Nagisa and Karma, I understand. But the other three literally had no mention or anything to do with Assassination Classroom, aside from being from a fanfiction. So basically, someone who owns those rights claimed my OC as theirs. Which makes Daichi canon? Whatever the case, I found this hilarious don’t worry. 

How has TINSITOGS changed my life? 

This is quite a strange thing to think about. Because, in a lot of ways, it really hasn’t. As I’m sure a lot of people know, I don’t really consider myself to have any real ‘fame’, despite the impressive numbers. Whenever I tell people in my personal life, they seem to think I’m some sort of internet celebrity, but that’s never been the case for me. I mean, it’s hardly a cultural phenomenon. 

In a lot of ways, I’d much rather befriend someone than have them admire me. Possibly because being someone’s inspiration is kind of weird... I’m just an awkward duck who likes to write after all. I don’t mind it, though. I genuinely find it an honour, even if I don’t necessarily agree. I also want to take this time to say that if anyone ever wants to talk or message me, you’re more than free to do so. I’m usually super casual with people who do that, I promise. 

TINSITOGS was the first story I ever finished in the way I truly wanted to. Start to end, a full narrative. And it took a LOT. There were so many times I almost felt like quitting, or took super long breaks. For me, ADHD queen, actually finishing something was a huge deal. And I know I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t owe it to everyone who read it, and myself, to see it through. You know like, if I were to die tomorrow, at least I’ve left something behind. 

In a lot of ways, it’s changed me for the better. It’s helped me develop my writing styles, and way of thinking. It encouraged me to become more active in the fandom, and develop some important friendships. I always feel like my Tumblr and Fanfiction ‘known’ factor is separate. I think most of my Tumblr following is more to do with my theories/Japanese context research if anything, for example, but I know I wouldn’t be so interested in that if TINSITOGS hadn’t lead me to deeply examine character and really look into analysing source material for clues. I also think there’s just... a lot of myself in it. 

I was 17 years old, when I first came up with the idea. I finished the story when I was 20. Now, at the time of writing, I’m 21. That time has seen some pretty significant changes - just in general life facts and my own personal human development. For me at least, a lot of that was pretty turbulent, and TINSITOGS stands as a time capsule for that, in a way. 

I know I gained a lot of confidence, and it affirmed to me that writing is what I love. Telling stories and sharing them is what I love. 

Conclusion

Do I think TINSITOGS is an outstanding piece of writing, or the best fic ever? No. I really don’t. It’s strange to say because I definitely spent a lot of time on it, but it’s not like I put my full unbridled efforts into the story. I don’t fully plan, use a beta, or even read through on my own. And that’s okay - that’s not what I write fanfiction for. Fanfiction is my place to have fun with characters and stories I like, without the pressures of having to stand on my own complete originality. Yes, I’m fully confident that I can write at a “higher quality”, if I really wanted to. I’m also aware that some authors put their full effort into their fics, and that’s just as valid! 

It feels odd to say this about my own writing, but I honestly think there’s just something in this story. It might not be written in the best prose ever, and the premise might be kind of dumb for a lot of people. But, I think, there’s some part of this fic that managed to grab people. Somehow, at some point, many readers get captured into the emotions and so drawn in that ‘they just have to finish it now!’ Again, I’m not sure myself how I actually achieved that. Of course, that won’t apply to everyone, but I do feel there’s some truth in it. And it makes me happy, to have caused that. 

If TINSITOGS is your favourite fic, or if you genuinely think it’s the best story you’ve read, then thank you. I really appreciate your support, and I’m happy to have been a part of your life, I guess. I know how much fanfics can mean to a person, and that’s why I’m not going to take it down, or edit it at all. And it’s fine too, if you loved the fic for a while and moved on -i t happens. Whatever the case, I’m very honoured to have been able to occupy a moment of your life. Or if you find this fic in 10 years time, even, I still wholly appreciate you. 

This story was incredibly important to me, and thank you for reading if it was ever important to you too. 

You may ask, what now? Well, this is only intended to be a detailed look back for whoever’s interested, and it’s likely the only one I’ll actually do, a year after completion. Of course, if you ever want to ask me anything or just discuss the story, you’re honestly good to contact me in whatever way I have available. 

I’m still writing my ongoing stories, of course, despite taking a small break due to the university work load. I fully intend to complete the stories I’ve already started to tell, at least. After that... I’m not sure if I’ll still write fanfiction. Don’t panic, this isn’t a ‘I’m quitting writing’ thing. I may, however, have bled the Karmagisa genre a bit too dry at that point. Who knows? I am pretty interested in writing something original for once, so maybe that’ll work out. 

For now, at least, thank you to anyone who read this fic. To anyone who commented, liked, or interacted with me over it. To anyone who created or learnt from it. I’m really glad that I got to share this story with you all, and ultimately left some kind of mark, no matter how big or small. 

Happy birthday, TINSITOGS. I had a lot of fun writing you. 

[ferusaurelius]

Day Two

For @the-wip-project #100DaysOfWriting challenge.

Prompt:  

For your current WIP: (do you have many WIPs? I have so many WIPs. So I mean current as of right this moment, the project you’re thinking about right now.) What motivates you to write this specific story? What makes this story special for you? Is there a special twist/trope/setting you want to explore? What got you started on this particular story?

I answered a bit of this in Day One but have some more meta for how and why I picked no-Reapers (and other tidbits and world details) for my “Air Needing Light” Mass Effect-based universe.

Ferus, why no-Reapers?

I immediately loved the world of Mass Effect and the whole visual phrasing of going off to retrieve an artifact where humanity was the galaxy’s quintessential new kid on the block. I thought that was great! And then Nihlus Kryik ended up dying in the prologue and we ended up with deep space eldritch horror monsters. Not sure if I should admit this, but that’s about the moment I went: oh, so it’s that kind of story.

I knew from that moment, early in my first playthrough of the first game, that I was going to just have to grin and bear it through the eldritch abominations being the big bad behind the scenes, whatever the game implied up front about Saren, the geth, and whatever else was going on in this universe.

It ended up feeling very flavor-of-the-week episodic with whatever villainous obstacle du jour we were going to encounter on each mission. In retrospect, I’m surprised I caught as much of the story as I did? I loved ME1 for the atmosphere and the background world, but I knew it wasn’t going to tell the stories I was most interested in.

The Reapers, in that sense, are just the primary plot element of ME1 that never worked for me.

While I can appreciate some excellent takes and rewrites in the fandom that have done great things with the Reapers, I wanted to go in a different direction.

Okay, so no-Reapers. What’s the central thesis of your plot?

I want to write something about the political tensions between the human Systems Alliance and the batarian Hegemony in the Skyllian Verge. That’s it, that’s the reason!

Batarians were criminally underutilized and ignored. Historically, they made contact with Citadel space 1000 years before the turians and 2000 years before humanity, and if you didn’t read the codex entries you’d never know it.

Wait, I thought Air Needing Light was about the First Contact War?

I’ve got roughly a trilogy planned. Every fic is designed to be standalone with some easter eggs present for anyone who reads all three.

There’s just enough background changes that I need to rewrite from the First Contact War, which gave me an opportunity to do something a little different with Saren’s character and throw him into a great political game. Nihlus also becomes a more central figure, as does his backstory. 

The first fic is setting up Saren’s military background. While there are allusions to later plot points which will crop up in this fic, you won’t have to read it if you just want to skip to the other two.

The second fic is setting up a very different galactic situation and environment before Eden Prime. The focus is on a few critical events in the Skyllian Verge and the motivations for Saren recruiting Nihlus to the Spectres. Batarians and Nihlus’s mercenary background play more of a role. This is going to be the ‘turian mercenary / batarian culture’ fic.

All of this setup then serves as the backdrop for the third fic, covering a very different Eden Prime and Normandy SR-1 crew. Assuming I get there? I’ll be happy if I just finish the first two. The third fic would be the icing on the cake. 

The third fic and outline breaks far enough from canon that I’d have to decide where to go after I finished it? So it’s just a different take on what I’d have liked to build into during ME1.

So what about all those one-shots? Got any more?

Funny story. I’ve got four one-shots in WIP. I think? Maybe more.

YOU WHAT.

Yeah, sorry, I’ve got a lot of ideas, I swear!

When are you posting next and what will it be?

Your guess is as good as mine. I’d like to think the next chapter(s) of Air Needing Light will finish up first, but if I have a really good day on a one-shot, that’ll get posted, instead. 

I have to roll with what I feel like working on, or the drafting and revising would never end.

I’ve been working on chapter (2+) of Air Needing Light for months at this point, but the bright side is that the rest of it shouldn’t be as complicated as I get over this hurdle. I’m also introducing the last primary member of the cast of characters! 

There’s a chance my next update for this story will be two or three chapters long...

[multsicorn]

fandoms for a reason for a season for a lifetime

It’s funny how even spiralling into a new obsession I can tell - this isn’t one of the big ones, probably. Not unless it pulls out a whole lot more ~something~ in the last seven eps I have left.

Because when I look back at the fandoms I’ve been in here on tumblr over the last decade, there seems to be a sharp dichotomy.

[this got way too long? have a cut.]

There’s fandoms I think back on as ‘damn I love/d that. For so many reasons. Even if, for other reasons, good reasons, I am not in the fandom anymore - or not currently.’ Glee, Hamilton, Check, Please!, (where I never liked the canon much at all! but I loved my corner of fandom so much, I kept coming back to it for years.)

The Untamed. (Which I hope I may still come back to? In some form, if it’s still going, like, next year? I never quite managed to find myself a cozy corner, and wore myself out trying and failing, but I also never managed to really exorcise the feelings I wanted to there, so, I’m still like - I love it? I love a lot of things about it. But I cannot currently ~engage.)

Nirvana in Fire, which I am fully planning to watch for the third time, and hoping to create content for this next time round, … whenever I get tired of Word of Honor, probably in a few months from now.

And then there’s the fandoms where I just kinda needed - a fandom. To be in. Which does not mean I didn’t love them at the time! Hockey RPF (where I pretty much only read fic - and also wrote in my head a good handful of fic. based on fic. but I never cared much for the ‘canon’, lol.) Yuri!!! on Ice; Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812; Good Omens. There are things I remember with fondness about all those canons (… rpf fic, the way I look at it, is the canon) - but - like. They’re not *so* much, to me. Obviously, to other people, some of these fandoms are their very favorites!

There’s more or less stuff that I love in each fandom. Or, maybe, more accurately, if I think about the things that draw me to each - they mean more to me, or less.

I was fully immersed in Glee fandom for … almost four years. I’ve never had another experience like that, because for almost all of that time Glee was actively, um, happening to us ;). I joined in the middle of season three, I left the fall after season six ended - in part because I fell head over heels for Hamilton, but mostly just because. I’d spent almost four years reacting to the unfolding story (and spoilers for it etc.), writing fic and meta and so forth, having my enthusiasm refreshed every few months (at least) by injections of new canon. Of course half the time I was reacting against new canon info instead of in favor of it, lol, but in any case - I was kept interested! And so by five or six months after canon ended… I felt like I’d chewed it over enough. I still loved Glee, and I will always love Glee, but I’d had most of the thoughts I’ll ever have about it. I was ready to find something else to have new thoughts and fresh feelings about.

(I was in Hamilton fandom for about a year and my experience there ended because of the aftermath of a pile of pan-fandom-famous wank. Fuck Israa, I say, from the bottom of my heart. Although what got me to leave ultimately wasn’t the flames or dogpilers, but the fact that so much of the fandom at least passively agreed with and supported them, meaning that I never knew which of my fellow shippers I could try to befriend or interact with.) (And then, after Trump was elected, I became far less interested in writing any fic about any Founding Fathers than I was in 2015. Which was after I left the fandom, but not irrelevant to why I never went back.) (seriously tho, I will remember ‘i would hope that it is clear who i do and do not associate with’ 4ever.)

And then! I was obsessed with a fandom built out of a few strips out of a webcomic that I don’t even really like… on and off over four years!? Goddamn. When I needed something else cause I was frustrated with Hamilton, I fell into Check, Please! and Jack/Parse (<3 <3 <3), and, because (that segment of the) fandom was tiny, and (relevant to my interests) canon updates virtually nonexistent… I ran out of interest/excitement/engagement repeatedly, and took up - one after another - Hockey RPF, Yuri on Ice, Great Comet, and Good Omens - each for just two to six months, iirc. And then I boomeranged back to Jack/Parse.

(at some point I will finish the post in my drafts about why Jack/Parse had such a hold on me, ‘living in the wreckage of what you thought your life was going to be.’ But that is not this post.)

And THEN I fell in love the with The Untamed, (thanks, stulti! For turning me on to *two* of my all-time favorite fandoms), and it was just, like, amazing, for a while. I hadn’t loved a canon that much since Hamilton, which had been five or six years ago? Even though I’d been in a number of fandoms between the two. It was so nice to love something so very much!!! And I ended up kind of overdosing, I think, cause I was eating from the fandom buffet more-or-less indiscriminately… there were so many riches in that fandom! And so many that weren’t quite to my taste, lol, because there was (and is) SO MUCH STUFF in that canon for its fans to love. (there’s another post in my mental drafts about that.)

Anyway. My point is. I guess. That I hope to come back to The Untamed, sometime. I fully expect to come back to Nirvana In Fire. (It is, actually, so good? As a canon as well as a fandom.)

I don’t expect to come back to Check, Please! ever again, because, weirdly, I don’t think I need to. Of course my understanding of what it means to ~reconcile with one’s past~ etc. has changed in the last mumble-years, but more than that… I have Nirvana in Fire, now, to deal with almost the same issues. I don’t think I fully got the Extent of Mei Changsu’s (Lin Shu) identity issues until the end of the show? But in retrospect - now that I have -

Nirvana in Fire is a pretty perfect fandom/canon for coming back to with gaps between, lol. It’s small enough that I can read through all of my favorite AO3 tags and be left wanting more; it has enough of a strong but slowly-spreading appeal that new people do come and go between say, last summer when I consumed the canon for the first time, and this spring when I watched it again.

And maybe I won’t need to come back and back! Maybe a third watch will be enough for me to say the things in that I want to say. I certainly cannot guess ahead of time!

But - yeah. There are those fandoms I love ~forever,~ some of which I may not be done with…

And then there’s Word of Honor. Which I love right now. Even if it’s not as deep, or ~intense, or… whatever… as some of my other fandom loves; I still love it! Even if I can see ahead to six months from now when I bet I won’t, anymore. I still can’t believe that I spent the past hour-plus writing this post rather than dashing on to watch episode 30, which is what I was intending to do when I sat down.

It’s just - funny. That sort of double vision. How I know this fandom is Mx. Right Now, but that doesn’t make me squee any less.

[homespork-review]

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 3

TW: """funny""" sexual and physical assault of a child by another child, extreme bullying, extreme ableism, a very brief discussion of shipping characters outside their canon sexuality.

CHEL: We get some implications of the part of troll culture we ended on last time when a slightly baffled-looking Nepeta, watching through the viewport, updates her SHIPPING WALL. Instead of hearts, some of the hypothetical pairings she’s painted are marked with diamonds. What this means will be explained shortly.

I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy to hypothetically matchmake your own friends, but I’m pretty sure the other trolls know at least that the shipping wall exists if not exactly which ships they’re in, and they do live in a society in which it’s stated later that mating is mandatory, so it would indeed be helpful to have at least emergency-doable matchmaking done well in advance and they might appreciate the help.

I’d like to take a moment to note a ship at the bottom row, left of centre; GA/Tavros. Hussie, on his Formspring, later said that GA was “obviously” a lesbian, or anyway was only interested in women, which doesn’t have a specific term for it in troll culture. It’s actually hard to tell going by what’s shown in canon, because she only displays specific interest in girls except for in a complicated case we’ll discuss later, but trolls are supposed to be bi-normative, plus it’s not like the male selection here is particularly inspiring, so, yeah, the evidence we actually see isn't conclusively "obvious". The fandom, knowing this, systematically harass anyone who even muses vaguely about the possibility of shipping her with a boy, even if they don't know about that Word of God. This is why I’m wondering whether the trolls knew about the shipping wall, because if they did, we can presume GA didn’t care. For the record, I’m sex-repulsed ace and have in fact written about.my own imaginary persona fucking (admittedly fucking an opposite sex clone of herself, it was a complicated injoke) and my reaction to someone else writing it would depend on context and reason, so I can imagine her reacting similarly, but not everyone would. A similar thing with a canonically gay male character explicitly on-screen not caring about hypothetical shipping of himself with girls comes up much later; he’s not a troll, but his upbringing was troll-influenced (long story).

BRIGHT: Harassing people over the ships they make content for always baffles me. It’s not like fanart/fanfic for a ship which contradicts canon has any effect on the canon, and playing around with character dynamics (often in a pornographic manner) is a major part of fanfic.

CHEL: On top of all this, gender and sexuality are really shaky concepts to even try to apply to a species which reproduces hermaphroditically. On this side of the fourth wall it’s obviously because Hussie is a not-very-reflective cisgender heterosexual man, and didn’t think about it any further than “girls wear skirts, right?” Plenty of people fanwank up possibilities for how it could happen on the other side. I think we may have to make a “What The Fuck Is Alternian Biology And Sociology” post or two separate from the sporking at the very end.

Discourse discussion over! Next page, we see some of the relevant terminology used in troll culture, though we still don’t get any explanation of what any of the words actually mean, which is a tad annoying for new readers. The context is a discussion between Karkat and Vriska about getting her into the game.

BRIGHT: Specifically, Karkat wants Vriska to get Tavros into the game, leading to this exchange…

CG: WHY DO YOU EVEN HATE HIM, IT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS. CG: IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD PITY HIM. CG: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PARALYZED HIM. AG: I know. I don't really understand it. AG: It's just a really special kind of h8! It never goes away and it doesn't make a lot of sense. CG: THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD TIME TO BE CONFIDING IN ME ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OF BLACK ROMANCE BUT OK. AG: Oh god, what? CG: I MEAN IF YOU'RE REALLY IMPLYING TAVROS IS YOUR KISMESIS I THINK YOU'RE BRAYING UP THE WRONG FROND NUB. CG: BOTH PARTIES HAVE TO HATE EACH OTHER EQUALLY, I MEAN LIKE TRUE HATE. CG: MAYBE YOUR FEELINGS COME SOMEWHAT CLOSE TO FITTING THE BILL BUT I DON'T THINK HE CAN HATE ANYONE, IT'S WEIRD, HE'S KIND OF BROKEN IN THE HEAD.

Finally, our long-awaited introduction to troll romance!

And the introduction is an effective one. We now know that there’s something called ‘black romance’, that it concerns hate, and that one’s black-romantic partner is a ‘kismesis’. The conversation also flows naturally and fits the characters having it, rather than being an awkward as-you-know infodump, although brace yourselves, there’s one of those coming up. Thirteen is about right for kids starting to have romantic feelings and being confused about it, not wanting to talk about it is pretty normal, and Karkat lecturing people at a good opportunity is absolutely in character.

Karkat goes on to lecture Vriska about the emotions involved in different sorts of romantic relationships, and wow, it really says a lot about troll culture…

CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDNESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

CHEL: It’s never really clear if this is just Karkat’s idea of it or if this is how trolls actually work biologically. Trolls do use the word “love” later on, so I always interpreted it as “pity” being a euphemistic term because “love” in such a warlike and oppressive culture could be exploited as a weakness. Fandom has played it with their love actually being based on a weird form of sympathy/seeing the other as needing protection, which is also plausible.

FAILURE ARTIST: I have played with the pity thing before but in retrospect Karkat is the only one who seems to see it that way. Maybe this is all his fake deep teenager view of romance.

BRIGHT: Vriska makes a performance of how bored she is, but Karkat’s on a roll.

CG: A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. CG: HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER, SEE I THINK THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. AG: Oh???????? AG: I hope you know I already wore out some good note-taking pens today. All the pens. AG: All of them. CG: SEE, MY HATE IS LIKE A FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENT BECAUSE I'M AWARE OF THESE PRINCIPLES. CG: I COULD HATE A HOLE IN PARADOX SPACE ITSELF, STRAIGHT THROUGH TO A NEW REALITY FRESH FOR THE HATING. AG: Hahahahahahahaha, you don't even know how much I'm laughing at this. CG: BUT SEE, YOU'RE TOO HEAVY ON THE HATE SIDE, OR AT LEAST YOU PRETEND TO BE WHICH IS MAYBE WORSE. AG: You aren't reading anything I say are you? You just want to talk and talk and talk. CG: AND YOU THINK YOU'RE HATING UP EVERYONE HARD WHEN YOU'RE REALLY JUST BURNING OUT THAT ENTIRE EMOTIONAL HEMISPHERE. CG: IT'S LIKE LUKEWARM HATE. PRETENDER'S HATE, WITH NO COUNTERPOINT AT ALL. CG: AS SUCH THERE'S NO REAL SUBSTANCE TO YOUR HATE, IT'S LIKE A CARDBOARD MOVIE PROP. CG: WHICH IS WHY YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN, KIND OF LIKE TAVROS'S BUT ON THE OPPOSITE HEMISPHERE I GUESS. CG: OR MAYBE YOUR BROKEN BRAIN LED TO THE IMBALANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DON'T KNOW. CG: WHATEVER THE CASE IS, YOU'RE KIND OF EMOTIONALLY SCREWED, SORRY TO SAY. CG: YOUR HATE'S TOO DULL FOR A PROPER KISMESIS, IN MY OPINION. CG: AND I DON'T SEE ANYONE CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO BE YOUR MOIRAIL HONESTLY, UNLESS THERE'S SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BOTHER PITYING YOU. CG: AND LANDING A MATESPRIT? HAHAHAHA! CG: SERIOUSLY, LIKE THAT WOULD EVEN INTEREST YOU. CG: BASICALLY ANY FEATURE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL PROFILE THAT USUALLY MAKES SOMEONE VIABLE IN THE REDROM DEPARTMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FRIED. CG: YOUR BLACKROM POTENTIAL'S PROBABLY TOAST TOO.

Whew.

So now we have ‘kismesis’, ‘moirail’, and ‘matesprit’ as terms for romantic partners, as well as the concepts of black romance, red romance, and ‘moirallegiance’ as the relationship one has with a moirail. Troll romance is not going to get any less confusing for a while.

If Karkat’s grasp of psychology strikes you as amateurish, there’s a reason for that: He gets all his knowledge from romance movies.

AG: Hey asshole, stop watching movies for girls.

I think that’s another strike against the ‘girls are the dangerous ones on Alternia’ argument. Romance movies, per this exchange, are both female-coded and seen as inferior -- Karkat defends his viewing choices by saying they’re INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY, but Vriska isn’t buying it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 42 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 33

CHEL: I’m not sure an interest in the workings of romance should be a socially gendered thing in a society where, as it turns out, you have to have an acceptable romantic partner by a certain time or die. You’d think most kids would be trying as hard as they could to learn and put into practice everything they could about it, and you’d also think there’d be better information for them than romcoms.

BRIGHT: Has the mate-or-die part come up yet? I’m not sure when Hussie thought of it.

CHEL: I don’t know if he’d thought of it yet, but it does come up very soon.

BRIGHT: Karkat then moves on to the original reason he contacted Vriska -- he needs her and her mind powers in the game, because he’s just run into a double agent called Jack.

Over on the next panel, Karkat is still talking to Vriska, but he’s glancing back over his shoulder at Jack Noir. His hand is covered in blood, which keeps cycling through a range of colours. The blood, it transpires, is because Jack stabbed him. Karkat is amazingly calm about this.

CG: HE'S COOL, IT'S FINE I DON'T REALLY MIND THE STABBING, IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. CG: WELL OK I'M PRETTY SURE HE MEANT TO STAB ME. CG: BUT I KIND OF THINK THAT'S LIKE CG: THE WAY HE GREETS PEOPLE? AG: This game is so stupid. CG: IN ANY CASE I THINK HE'S PROBABLY ALL STABBED OUT.

This would be ridiculously chill even from someone who isn’t extremely cagey about his blood colour -- and it’s not that Karkat suddenly doesn’t care any more, because as soon as Vriska says she’ll ask Terezi or Jack what colour he’s bleeding, he tells her that he’s out of Terezi’s range, Jack is sworn to secrecy, and Sollux (who’s incommunicado) is the only one who knows how to make Trollian’s viewport feature work. (Given we saw how easy it is to use earlier, I’m surprised Vriska doesn’t try to figure it out herself.)

Over on the next panel, the viewer is now Jack, a few minutes prior to this conversation. Contrary to Karkat’s protestations, Jack stabs him because He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He is curious when Karkat cares less about the wound and more about Jack seeing his blood colour, which is apparently some freakish mutation. Jack looks at his knife…

CHEL: While it’s not a realistic depiction of the colour, recall that this is the shade of red used in-comic to depict human blood. This reveal probably isn’t a surprise to anyone by now, if you’ve encountered fanart, and honestly it wasn’t a huge mindblowing revelation on my first read before I knew, but I do think it’s a clever little “aha, THAT’S why!” moment. Skilfully done.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

BRIGHT: Awww. That’s kind of sweet.

This little interchange gave rise to the ‘Stabdads’ fandom phenomenon, where Spades Slick is envisaged as Karkat’s father-figure. In Homestuck canon, it’s dubious how much affection Slick has for Karkat. He seems more irritated by him than anything else, but that’s about on par for how he treats the rest of the Midnight Crew. On the other hand, it clearly makes a massive impact on Karkat. We’ve seen how important blood colour is on Alternia and how insecure he is about his own; his sudden rush of fellow-feeling towards Jack is understandable, even if it does make him way too forgiving about having been stabbed.

CHEL: Karkat and Jack shake hands, and proceed to be in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Doodling on the defaced parking ticket from earlier, they draft OPERATION REGISURP.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

Yeah, it actually happening is skipped over with one paragraph, but that’s probably a good thing with all the complexity already going on, and we do hear more details about it. First, we’re reminded of the existence and functions of the Queens’ Rings, the magic rings the queens of Derse and Prospit have which give them traits and powers from whatever the players put in their sprites. The trolls have put their lusii in their sprites, except for Aradia, whose lusus died long ago, so she got in the sprite herself. The Queen could put up with getting bits and pieces from eleven hideous monsters (well, ten hideous monsters and one adowable little fairybull thing oh my gosh it’s cuuuute) tacked onto her, but what she absolutely won’t stand for is the other thing Aradia put in her sprite…

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

Recall that AR thought of the hieroglyphs in the Frog Temple as “illegal pictography”. We’ll find out later why the Black Queen has such a revulsion for frogs, it’s important. But the important part right now is that she took the ring off. At the time of planning it’s in the ROYAL VAULT.

We briefly see a moment in the future of the Black Queen wrapped in rags, just like the human sessions’ White Queen, wandering the desert as the BANISHED QUASIROYAL, and the caption notes the plan was a success.

However, Doc Scratch appears in the desert in front of her, and it’s noted she was given a new purpose. This, it seems, is the origin of Snowman.

FAILURE ARTIST: I would like if there was some canon Homestuck material expanding on this REGISURP plot.

BRIGHT: Same! It sounds really interesting. One example of Homestuck’s idiosyncratic pacing, I suppose -- we spend pages and pages on trivial alchimeter nonsense, but skip over something more meaty.

CHEL: The Red Team work on that, while the Blue Team battle their own session… or so they think. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve all already figured it out, but the trolls hadn’t just yet. They note that their prototypes are affecting the opposite team’s underlings, and the readers are shown Alternia’s two Frog Temples, one near Aradia’s home and the other near Kanaya’s, each with six pillars outside (one seems to have five, but the sixth is hidden behind the building). Superimposed on each other, the pillars make a full ring of twelve.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal. In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Wow. Same session all along. Really? Huh.

This is what Aradia’s been so mysterious about. She knew. We’re provided with a handy diagram, in case we haven’t been able to keep up.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it.

(I just noticed, the Blue Team are the Derse dreamers and the Red Team are the Prospit dreamers. Neat!)

The reader’s attention is drawn instead to the Aquarius and Pisces symbols in the top left, belonging to characters we haven’t met yet, and the narration promises we’ll learn about them soon. Drawing attention again to GA’s Virgo symbol, the narration muses about her.

It will probably be quite some time before you get to be her. It could very well be pages and pages and pages.

Naturally, we jump right back to her.

GA’s intro is long, so we’ll take it piece by piece.

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM.

The Sanskrit name for Virgo is “Kanya”, and it’s also the name of a town in Japan. “Maryam” is the Arabic version of “Mary”, as in Jesus’ mother. It may also be a reference to Marya Zaleska, the title character of the movie “Dracula’s Daughter”.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of its rays. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY, sculpting your trees to match the PUFFY ORACLES from your dreams. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which conveniently is the weapon of choice for those who would hunt the HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD which crawl from the sand at sunrise to feast on the light and the living.

Couple things established here; trolls are not only nocturnal but actively harmed by their planet’s sun, and undead beings other than ghosts exist. Said traditional weapon for hunting them is a chainsaw, which we can see lying against her bookshelf, a reference to the Evil Dead movies.

It would be convenient if you actually hunted them, but it is of course far too dangerous, every bit as suicidal as attempting to poach the terrible MUSCLEBEASTS who roam at night. So you indulge in your bright fascination with the grim through literature. Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

Rainbow drinkers are, as discussed later on, troll vampires. I don’t think shadow droppers are ever expanded on, but they might be zombies or werebeasts. Troll goths, apparently, are the reverse of human goths, dressing in bright colours and staying up in the daytime, which makes sense for a species who can only safely go out at night.

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Recall that the Mother Grub is required for troll reproduction.

You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be, and your unique hive is equipped with a great supply of advanced technology to accommodate your interests. The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since. You know the ruins and the hive and everything here that is not sand and rock originated from the world of your dreams. You also know that one day you will visit this world while you are awake. That day is today.

Like Jade, Kanaya has been awake on Prospit for years, and the technology in question is Skaian in origin, so that’s how she knows what’s going on with the game.

Kanaya is prompted to equip her chainsaw, which promptly turns into a lipstick in a Problem Sleuth reference. Like Jade, she has a Wardrobifier, set to randomise, which suddenly turns her black shirt and red skirt into a red leaf-print dress. She takes out the lipstick.

You can choose between your trademark jade or black. Even though a troll's lips are naturally black. But they can always be blacker, and a lady with a true sense of style knows this.

She goes with green, her dress turns into a blue kimono, and she’s messaged by someone with a fuschia Pisces symbol. This person, named cuttlefishCuller, turns out to be rather excitable, greeting her in all caps and following it up with Glub glub glub glub glub!

BRIGHT: This conversation is pretty sweet, with some friendly joking about CC’s quirk (they stick hyphens in front of their capital Es) and mention of their Collapsing And Expanding Bladder Based Aquatic Vascular System. There’s another mention of moirails, with CC saying they’ll have to join the game late to keep an eye on theirs.

It also turns out both CC and Kanaya are having some premonitions of what’s to come! Kanaya is seeing visions in the clouds of Skaia, the same way Jade does, but CC hears whispers from a mysterious ‘she’ who needs her voice keeping down. It’s implied to be CC’s lusus, as both Kanaya and CC are aware their lusii are going to die soon.

Kanaya hopes to be with her lusus as she dies, but looks out of the window to find the Virgin Mother Grub has already passed away, apparently of natural causes.

CHEL: The Mother Grub was seen briefly before; it’s a moth-like creature with a huge fat body the size of a bus, with wings too small to ever lift it, horns the same shape as Kanaya’s, and a skull-like head with big lips. The skull on Terezi’s Doomsday Scale was, we can tell now, a Mother Grub, except quite a lot bigger - presumably a breeding Grub.

BRIGHT: Kanaya changes back into her original outfit, and goes down to live up to her end of the bargain… which entails slicing a hole in her lusus with her chainsaw and pulling out a round object covered in spikes the colour of trolls’ horns, called a Matriorb. Kanaya stores it in her sylladex; she’s using a CHASTITY MODUS, which locks each card away, and the key will serendipitously be discovered when it’s time for the card to be unlocked. These modii are getting more and more esoteric.

Kanaya proceeds to have a conversation with her own moirail, Vriska, which we already read earlier.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

Yes, yes it is. (Spoiler: It’s not that confusing once it’s explained.)

Kanaya doesn’t have long to dwell on the conversation, as she’s contacted by caligulasAquarium, someone with a violet Aquarius symbol who she doesn’t seem to think highly of. It rapidly becomes apparent why.

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin GA: Who CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

CHEL: Trolls are supposed to come bi/pan as standard, so why does he need to specify “girl crush”? I wonder if Hussie hadn’t decided that yet when he wrote this part, but I’m not sure.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 34

CA’s gender hasn’t been revealed, but let’s not kid ourselves, we know from how he’s talking that he’s a dude. Nice Girls certainly exist but they don’t tend to get portrayed as so whiny in fiction, plus CC comes off as very girly, and that leaves us with six boy and six girl trolls. Balance and opposites and counterparts are a running theme throughout Homestuck. Not that there can’t be nonbinary characters, as some show up in Hiveswap; just that there would most likely have to be an even number of them, split evenly between the groups of players. Fine by me as a nonbinary person with a thing for balance and even numbers of my own.

Also, note that we’ve seen this guy, or at least his hand and foot, before. This is the litter-hater in the bowling shoes.

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

BRIGHT: Oh hey, another troll romance term! ‘Auspisticing’ is the last of the lot, don’t worry.

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

Funny words aside, Hussie does a good job at laying down context for what auspisticism is here; we now know that it involves mediating between two parties who dislike each other and that it’s a form of black romance. Meshing worldbuilding naturally into the dialogue is something Homestuck does really well at times.

Anyway, CA is trying to get in contact with Vriska because he asked her to make something for him and now she’s blowing him off.

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

While CA is obviously a douche, there’s something funny about how over-the-top he is about it and how utterly oblivious he is to the idea that Kanaya might have a problem with a device that would kill all landdwellers, although the humour is inversely proportionate to how likely he is to pull it off.

CHEL: Maybe I’m strange, but I think he’s adorable. I get the impression of a small kid trying to puff himself up to adult size.

BRIGHT: There’s also more romance talk, and this next bit is one I find interesting:

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

I’m going to take a step back from Homestuck itself for a moment and talk about kismessitude as it’s portrayed in fandom. People tend to envision it in a variety of ways -- some see it as a BDSM relationship, some as a way of pushing a rival to be better, some as just straight-up hate-sex -- but most depictions show it as something that only affects the two people involved.

Here, though? CA’s talking about kismessitude as something that’s potentially really damn dangerous, to other people besides those involved, and cites history as a backup -- implying it can really be that dangerous, and it’s not just a teenager’s flight of fancy. (Although, that said, CA is clearly using this to try and get Kanaya in a relationship with him, so how sincere he is is questionable.)

CHEL: Later on we do see a little bit of one of the historical cases he might have been citing. We’ll discuss it more then. Also, I do like him saying “sunny” instead of “gloomy”. Makes sense!

Kanaya tells CA none of this matters, and he sneers about the “purity of the bloodline”. That’s an… uncomfortable turn of phrase, especially since he’s speaking to someone not covered by the “purity” standard, but since it applies to aliens and it’s in a society where that’s hammered into its inhabitants it’s not a Problematykks issue. Kanaya tells him it still won’t matter because their race will be wiped out entirely, and his reaction is remarkably understated:

CA: huh CA: wwell ok HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 11

CA says he knows Kanaya doesn’t lie except to herself, surprisingly perceptive for one so puffed-up otherwise. CA might be smarter than he’s letting on? He asks if her clouds told her that; that was the reader’s assumption too, but she says no, she has a different source. Uh-oh. We know what the last source of information was, and it cost Vriska an arm and an eye-sevenfold. CA’s own clouds “hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities”, so we can guess she’s Prospit and he’s Derse. He goes back to nagging her to tell Vriska to talk to him, and when she continues to refuse he poutily steps off.

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

Kanaya denies this, and CA says everyone knows, including Karkat.

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience CA: wwhat CA: wwhoa wwait wwho GA: Never Mind CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today CA: wwhat did she say CA: or glub or wwhatevver

They’re talking about CC, if it wasn’t clear. Kanaya, in a callback to John’s comment to Terezi, facetiously tells him that she talked about Longing To Touch You Indiscretely and That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You. CA, flustered, picks up that she’s teasing him, and she tells him the truth, that CC’s just concerned as a moirail.

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

I’m going to comment on this attitude in a bit more detail when we get a clearer explanation of what moirallegiance actually is. CA leaves her with some arc words.

CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

Kanaya heads back to her room, planning to emphatically not meddle but help her friends, and consults her source; it’s fortunately not a Doc Scratch-related one at all. It is, in fact, Rose’s long-forgotten GameFAQ, saved on a server floating in the Furthest Ring, to which Prospit’s clouds directed her. I have to show you the panel for a moment though…

I’m sure there was a way we could see the screen without having it facing away from Kanaya who’s supposed to be reading it.

You can only assume this took place a long time ago. This race is likely ancient, preceding yours by millions of sweeps. Maybe billions! You like to try to imagine the adventures of these players. Were they successful in repopulating their race? Did they manage to protect their matriorb and hatch a new mother grub? Could they hold it together, or were they torn apart by the complex social dynamics, the matespritships and moirallegiences and auspisticisms and kismesissitudes that will surely plague your group along the way? You have little doubt they succeeded with flying colors.

Oh dear, dramatic irony. Kanaya fantasises about a troll version of Rose, thinking she must have been the leader of this supposedly long-ago group.

And yet they appear to have been the only of their kind to have risen to the challenge in a session stacked heavily against them.

Huh. So is this just because Kanaya can’t find more information, or are the four kids in fact the only humans who successfully got into the game? Picking four specifically white-coded kids to be the last of the human race due to supposedly their own competence is… not a good choice. And why the hell couldn’t other people succeed? This strikes me as more of the whole theme of “nobody matters except the people we’re focusing on”. A good lampshading of video game tropes, but in a literary story, that’s the opposite message to everything I’ve ever read, and it’s a creepy one.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 43 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 12 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 35

BRIGHT: I thiiiiiiiink it’s at least implied later on that there are other sessions going, it’s just that each session is a closed loop of players so we don’t see the others...although if that’s the case, does that mean Earth’s getting hit with meteors from multiple Skaias?

CHEL: That over with for the moment, we cut to Tavros’ house as you take your place as the PAGE OF BREATH in the LAND OF SAND AND ZEPHYR. Vriska, his server player, gets down to the business of building up his house towards the Gate…

… entirely out of staircases.

AT: i THINK THIS, iS, AT: pROBABLY MEANT TO ANTAGONIZE ME,

Okay, this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m crying with laughter at his expression and that line.

It’s more disability slapstick, but here the point of the joke comes off as being more that Vriska is a jerk and Tavros’ reaction is really understated than any reasonable person being supposed to assume Tavros is wrong for not being able to climb stairs. Emphasis on “comes off as”, unfortunately. I’m still gonna give a Problematykks point, and further experience with Hussie’s attitude to disability has soured the joke somewhat, even in just the next couple of pages.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 44

BRIGHT: Vriska tries to get Tavros to crawl up the stairs, first by telling him that he promised not to be boring anymore and then by saying that she’s trying to help him get stronger. She caps off the rant by demanding that he apologise.

AT: oKAY, AT: tHANKS, i GUESS, AT: bUT, AT: sORRY FOR WHAT, AG: For 8eing crippled, you ass! AT: yOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE, AT: fOR BEING PARALYZED, AG: Yes. AG: Say you're sorry. AT: i DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, oR bORING, AT: bUT THAT'S RIDICULOUS, gIVEN, AT: uH, tHE CIRCUMSTANCES, AG: 8ullshit! AG: It's something called 8asic decency and civility you fudge8looded 8oor. AG: Now get down on your useless wo88ly knees and apologize. AT: nO, i DON'T WANT TO, AG: >::::O

Vriska, what the fuck.

Tavros is really great here. He’s obviously not comfortable fighting with Vriska, and repeatedly tries to redirect her into building him ramps instead of engaging. But, at the same time, he holds his ground and doesn’t let her push him around, and won’t let go of solid hard reality in the face of Vriska trying to emotionally manipulate him.

FAILURE ARTIST: And yet people still call him a wimp.

BRIGHT: Vriska retaliates, because of course she does, by grabbing his wheelchair with her cursor and shaking it about. If Hussie left it at that, everything would be unobjectionable, at least in terms of narrative voice. Instead, well…

Now she's done it. She has awoken the mighty inner fury that is... RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CHEL: It just occurred to me to mention that the name Rufio comes from a character in the movie Hook, the leader of the Lost Boys after Peter Pan left, played by Dante Basco. Tavros’ mental image of him is a reference to that character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dante Basco did read Homestuck, with hilarious results as we will see.

But unfortunately, Rufio is not real. He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made up friend, the way fairies are. You continue to be sad and alone.

BRIGHT: Eurgh.

Let me be clear: Tavros having no further recourse to deal with Vriska’s abuse beyond his visualised self-esteem is a problem for the character, but it’s not necessarily a narrative problem per se. Escapism is a thing. You could get a decent character arc out of Tavros learning better ways to deal with harassment he can’t escape. It is a narrative problem when the narrator mocks it and makes him out to be pathetic for even trying it.

CHEL: I’d consider this to be just Tavros’ own thought process, but, sadly, this kind of narrative sneering at him carries on throughout Tavros’ presence in the comic and the fandom seems to buy into it. Tavros gets a lot of hate for reasons which mostly boil down to him being a male abuse victim; there’s a feeling that he should “try harder” to fight back, despite him being physically disabled and a member of a caste out of sight beneath her on the social ladder and legally permitted to be killed by her on a whim. Might that count as a point for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM, for Huss and the fandom not taking the social dynamics into account for why Tavros can’t defend himself?

BRIGHT: I don’t know if it’s fair to count against the fandom when we’re reviewing Homestuck proper, but we can definitely count against Hussie!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 36

CHEL: It’s also notable that the common fandom interpretation of Tavros is as Hispanic-coded, at least partly due to his Spanish username, and of Vriska as white-coded. That’s probably not helping.

Since Hussie appears to expect us to agree with Vriska that this is funny, I’m adding another to these as well.

ALL THE LUCK: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 45 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 3

BRIGHT: What’s weird about this whole mess is that Hussie doesn’t — yet — try to say that Tavros should be trying to get stronger; his disability is fully acknowledged. I feel like this kind of mockery is usually accompanied by the attitude that disabled people should just get over their disability, but Hussie’s clear that Tavros can’t. Which means he should do...what, exactly?

CHEL: Not have let Vriska disable him in the first place, presumably. Never mind that, you know, she has mind control powers so he didn’t really have a choice in that either. That is, however, an argument Vriska fans actually make. Apparently some of them actually blame him for not flying when she threw him off the cliff, which… well, unpowered flight is a thing that can happen in the comic but he certainly couldn’t do it then.

BRIGHT: ...Apparently I retain the capacity for surprise at how awful people can be. The fuck?

Back in the comic, Tavros fortunately does have one other means of recourse. Back in her hive, Vriska is suddenly prodded in the back with a flying toilet, courtesy of Kanaya.

GA: Just Presenting A Floating Reminder That Tavros Will Need Plenty Of Inclined Surfaces For His Ascent AG: That's silly. I made so many ramps, you wouldn't even 8elieve it. AG: I specifically decided I wanted to 8uild something ugly and 8oring. It is now the land of ramps and yawns. GA: Hes Reported Otherwise AG: That lousy snitch! May8e I should take his computer away so he can't go crying to fussyfangs anymore. GA: Maybe I Should Upend This Load Gaper Over Your Head AG: No, don't! GA: Im Still Learning The Interface GA: It Could Happen Accidentally At Any Moment AG: I'm only trying to help him. ::::( GA: Think Of Another Way To Help

CHEL: Did I mention Kanaya is my zodiac troll? I can only long to reach her heights of awesome. Of course the ability to levitate toilets would kinda help.

BRIGHT: Vriska heads down to her treasure vault and retrieves a pair of ROCKET SHOES. The captchalogue code for these is ‘PSHOOOES’, which amuses me greatly. Vriska sends the code to Tavros, who combines it with the code for his wheelchair to create a flying wheelchair. Now that is a good use of alchemising!

CHEL: Awww!

Tavros flies up to the Gate, and we cut back to him later on, leading an entourage of communed-with imps and ogres to move obstacles and help him solve puzzles. Using his skills well, I see! In another set of ruins the imps load jigsaw pieces of rock into a frog-shaped alcove,

Things, however, don’t continue to go so well, because Hussie hates this poor kid. I do not mean that facetiously. Statements he’s made elsewhere imply he has a hell of a lot of contempt for several of the characters he created, which I don’t understand at all. We’ll go into this after Act 7, but I get the sensation that the characters are merely tools to show off the complexity and meta references, which are the parts he really cares about.

BRIGHT: It’s not unknown for authors to dislike characters they wrote; the great Terry Pratchett reputedly hated his character Rincewind. The key difference is that in Pratchett’s case, the audience couldn’t tell. Hussie, on the other hand, tends to make his disdain pretty obvious, to the detriment of the story.

CHEL: That’s a point. Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes, too. He didn’t, however, set up situations solely to shit on Holmes in his books.

BRIGHT: I think that’s the key. I’ll forgive a multitude of failings as long as the author seems to be treating the characters fairly. That doesn’t mean that good things have to happen to them — plenty of bad things can happen and I’ll enjoy it — it just means that the author has to...respect how the character feels and would behave, I guess.

Of course, respect is Hussie’s antithesis, so.

Also, nothing so far has shown Vriska to be anything other than a (granted, entertaining) bully. I wasn’t around while Homestuck was updating, so I’m not sure when her fandom took off, but it has to be later than this, surely?

CHEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t around till about mid-Act 6.

What was I on about? Oh yes. Tavros is interrupted by Vriska again, who bitches him out for doing things the boring way and seeking the boring lore.

AG: The minds of your consorts are very soft and impressiona8le. AG: As easily manipul8ed as all those imps you've 8een 8ossing around. AG: I have picked apart their tiny little lizard 8rains and seen through all the smoke and mirrors of their riddles. AG: I have gotten to the truth they are guarding. The great 8ig mystery 8ehind this planet. And you know what it is, Tavros? AT: nO, AG: It's 8ullshit! AG: Meaningless, 8oring, fanciful 8ullshit wrapped in flowery poems to keep you guessing. AG: It all leads to one thing anyway, and that's what we should put our attention on. AG: Real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold. AG: They cheat, Tavros. AG: It is time you learned to start cheating.

Interesting theory. Tavros thinks befriending his monsters instead of killing them is cheating, and Vriska grudgingly agrees but is annoyed he isn’t killing anything. She claims to have designed a better and more challenging quest for him; he asks after her own quest, and she says she has time because Kanaya’s busy.

AG: Which is just as well 8ecause I was starting to get nannied HARD. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 37

Strange word choice for a species raised by animals, but okay. Vriska sends Tavros a map to the next Gate, and he sets off in his little rocket chair. Little does he know.

You proceed through what seems to be your second gate, into the LAND OF MAPS AND TREASURE. The THIEF OF LIGHT lies in wait.

In a callback to our last meeting of Breath and Light players, Tavros crashes through Vriska’s wall and is left hanging upside-down in the rocket chair from the large cobwebs across the room, while Vriska sleeps on a pile of broken eight-balls. Doesn’t look comfortable, but trolls rest in worse places later. Vriska wakes, and Tavros falls head-first onto the floor.

Here is where it gets incredibly uncomfortable, and we have to show it in detail to assign points properly and so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so if you have any sexual assault, ableism, underage, mind control, or victim-blaming triggers you may want to skip this part. No clothing is removed but it’s very unpleasant to read and the attitude toward it is worse. Seriously, this is Taklamakan Zoo levels of bad.

(This heading below’s not part of the comic, I just put it there so you can skip. The sequence ends with the piece of fanart of Kanaya looking at the sideways screen.)

~*THE ASSAULT STARTS HERE*~

Vriska sits up. She’s wearing a very short strappy white Tinkerbell dress with her sign on it, and what look like over-the-knee socks, a commonly fetishised style of clothing. I remind you these characters are supposed to be thirteen years old. The dress is also the same as the one worn by the fairy in the artwork on Tavros’ desktop background. I don’t know if Vriska had seen that or not.

FAILURE ARTIST:

To be fair she’s just in an actually-more-modest version of what Peter Pan’s sidekick/love interest wears and the socks come off as more dorky than sexy.

Oh my! It appears Pupa Pan himself has flown through your window while you were asleep. How exciting! Surely he is here to take you away on the adventure of a lifetime. He is more dreamy and heroic than you ever imagined. But what's this?? It seems the legendary Boy-Skylark has misplaced his shadow. He is looking EVERYWHERE for it, to no avail. He is having a devil of a time, what with being paralyzed from the waist down and all. He clearly needs your help.

CHEL: Vriska is prompted to Help Pupa find shadow, and approaches Tavros with a nasty-looking grin on her face, while he lies on the floor, gritting his teeth in noticeable pain.

Pupa! You truly are a silly goose. Your shadow has been trapped underneath your useless torso the whole time! Honestly, where else would it be you stupid sack of shit?

Charming. Vriska proceeds to kick him in the head, or at least nudge him with her foot, while he lies unresponsive.

Of course, the secret to reuniting with your shadow is to get up and walk around. And play and dance and frolic! Your shadow will surely join in your gaiety. But it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in this young man's future. ::::( Unless...

Everyone knows that just a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again. Everyone knows this because it is in the classic tale, PUPA PAN. Young Pupa flies through the window of a fairy girl's respiteblock, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly, even though she probably already knows how to fly. Because she's a fairy. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many sweeps thereafter. To be honest, you hardly know a damn thing about Pupa Pan. But you do not care.

Pupa remains as pathetic and useless as ever.

FAILURE ARTIST: The story just keeps mocking Tavros for being disabled.

CHEL: Not to mention for being interested in fairies. Because how dare a boy have a gender-nonstandard interest, or a young teenager enjoy whimsical escapism from an increasingly horrible and guaranteed-to-be-short life.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 39

I might be projecting because the fandom has made me loathe her, but it honestly comes off like Vriska dressed up like this in the first place less to seduce Tavros and more to make sure she thoroughly ruined his favourite thing to hurt him further, especially if the narration is supposed to be things she’s actually saying to him.

The stardust did nothing! Probably because it is just glittery powder with no magical properties whatsoever and is basically bullshit. Because in case it wasn't clear, magic isn't real, and neither are miracles. OR It could just be that Pupa has failed to have a happy thought! Your duty is clear. You will have to MAKE him have happy thoughts. Vriska: Make Pupa have happy thoughts.

He certainly doesn’t seem to be having happy thoughts now. Notice his expression, what we can see of it, looks terrified, he’s trembling, and let’s recall that he’s paralysed from the waist down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s of a far, far higher caste than him, legally permitted to do whatever she wants to him, including killing him if he tries to resist. It’s kind of gone back and forth on, but higher bloods are a few times stated to be a lot stronger than lower bloods, and if they work like humans, they’re in puberty right now, a time at which human girls tend to get taller and stronger sooner than boys. Again, it’s gone back and forth on, but a common interpretation is that female trolls are stronger than male trolls in general and/or have the social power advantage. Let’s also remember that, even if none of those factors apply, Vriska has mind control powers. There is no point here at which Tavros has the advantage, nothing he can use as leverage on her. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she does.

BRIGHT: We’ve also been explicitly shown that Vriska has little to no respect for anyone else’s autonomy if she finds it inconvenient, and that Tavros is her favourite punching bag, and that his ability to stand up for himself when she gets going is extremely limited.

CHEL: Despite the odds stacked against him, Tavros struggles against the kiss forced on him, and when Vriska pushes him back, doesn’t respond with anything but a look of horror, though she appears to expect him to, as a flickering heart-spade with a question mark over it appears between them. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be the thought process of him or her or both.

Vriska hurls him onto the floor with some force...

… and activates her mind control, causing little hearts to light up in Tavros’ eyes.

BRIGHT: Vriska has used her mind-control powers on Tavros before, and when it happened she walked him off a cliff. There is basically no way that her doing it again isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for him, above and beyond the inherent horror of losing control over one’s body.

I’m inclined to think that forcibly altering his emotions is worse, though. Being paralysed was bad enough, but Tavros knows what happened and he knows how he feels about it. Making him fall in love with her is just…on one level, it’s a horrible assault on his autonomy as a person, and on another level, it’s tailor-made to make him doubt himself and believe the encounter was something he wanted.

FAILURE ARTIST: I hadn’t thought that he might now consider the encounter as consensual, which would explain his later reaction.

CHEL: Tavros paws at her legs, making kissy faces, and she looks vaguely concerned. Note the background still depicts wavy blue rays coming off her, showing her power is still active.

Looking defeated, she drops the control and dumps him on the floor again.

I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be thinking in this last panel. Is she feeling guilty? Is she disappointed that he didn’t like her under his own power? Has she just decided he’s too useless to be worth the effort? Any could be true.

BRIGHT: I read that as disappointment that even when he ‘liked’ her, he didn’t act the way she wanted. (And the way Tavros acted is kind of disturbing. ‘Mindlessly pawing at someone’ is not what I’d expect from him if he was legitimately attracted to someone.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The common interpretation these days was she was realizing she wasn’t into boys which okay that’s good for her but she should feel more bad about molesting him.

CHEL: That also makes no sense, because she shows interest in multiple boys later.

I’m also not entirely sure if Vriska had the intention of actually raping Tavros here (in the standard way, I mean, as one could argue that mind control is a form of rape), or just making out with him. The fact that she dressed up in vaguely fetishy clothing isn’t making it look good, though. Yes, she’s very young, but traumatised kids in particular have been known to lash out sexually like that. It’s a way of reasserting personal power, and I imagine it would be more prevalent in a society with no sapient adult supervision. While there are mitigating circumstances involved in their social situation and Vriska not really having ever had a chance to learn better, that doesn’t make this not a horrible thing to do, or not traumatising for Tavros.

BRIGHT: The clothing could potentially be down to Vriska wanting to look ‘adult’ without fully understanding why it looks adult. That does come up sometimes with teens — they want to experiment with clothing because that’s how adults dress, not because they want to look sexy, or they might dress a certain way for dates because that’s the social model they have for How Dates Work.

And if I read it like that, this basically looks like Vriska having the date equivalent of a dolls’ tea party. Which says volumes about how she views Tavros’s autonomy.

CHEL: Good point. Though honestly it would say volumes about same either way!

BRIGHT: I said earlier that Vriska is better than Equius at recognising when other people’s desires conflict with hers, and she is, but that doesn’t mean she respects those differences. She just recognises that they’re there, and overrides them. This is a prime example of Vriska viewing Tavros as something between a chew-toy and a prop. First she kicks him around and terrifies him, then she expects him to be able to get over those emotions at the drop of a hat and respond to her advances — and, moreover, she wants him to respond in a certain way, which Tavros has zero way of knowing. This is the first time she’s shown that sort of interest in him, unless her earlier behaviour was the Alternian equivalent of pigtail-pulling.

...I think maybe that was in fact Alternian pigtail-pulling. Or at least Vriska’s version of pigtail-pulling.

CHEL: That’ll actually make more sense, once we explain what the spade symbol means.

Okay, how many counts does this cover?

ALL THE LUCK: 12 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 31 CALL CPA PLEASE: 26 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 55 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 13

It also occurred to me during this sequence to think again about how Karkat contemptuously swears at and hangs up the phone on the injured Tavros. This, at first glance, seems to be very much at odds with the “cranky but caring” impression we’re supposed to have of Karkat… but it fits precisely with Hussie’s opinion of Tavros and how pathetic he is for allowing a much more powerful person to permanently disable him. I know at the moment it looks like I’m not separating the character from the author, but it’ll become clear as we go that that is what he thinks.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 14

Why didn’t we start a FUCK YOU, HUSSIE count?

BRIGHT: It would have ended up longer than all the other counts combined.

CHEL: The actual assault is over now, but there’s one more picture of it. The ramifications must continue to be discussed, so tread cautiously. The actual act is over now, though.

Said ramifications come pretty quickly. Kanaya, having dealt with getting herself into the game and prototyped her own lususprite, decides to check on Vriska.

Ideally she has not gotten herself into too much trouble. And ideally the dramatic irony has not gotten so thick you could draw a dotted line on it with a tube of lipstick and cut it in half with a chainsaw.

Of course, she sees the exact moment Vriska kisses Tavros.

(Fanart source has now been deleted, sadly.)

~*THE ASSAULT ENDS HERE*~

Humorous art aside over, let’s watch Kanaya’s reaction in more detail. She angrily looks at a copy of the Tinkerbell dress, which she presumably sent the alchemiter code for rather than the actual item to Vriska, hence why she still has it.

So THAT'S why she had you make this dress for her??? And you just went along with it like a sucker. Argh, you are such an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Karkat, Kanaya is presented as the caring one, the protective one. The “mom friend” of the group. And yet, she looks at this, in which Tavros is clearly frightened and struggling, and her reaction is to be mad that Vriska didn’t want to wear the dress for a date with her. I’m not sure whether this says more about Hussie’s opinion of Tavros or the social system of Alternia or both, but it certainly says a lot.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 56 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 13 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 15

BRIGHT: Kanaya has had to corral Vriska on Tavros’s behalf already! Possibly more than once! She has all the information to realise that this is abusive, even leaving aside Tavros’s reaction! Sure, teens can be self-centred, but even so this is egregious.

CHEL: Kanaya’s Grubsprite comforts her and she throws the dress out the window.

Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

Yes, I’m sure Tavros thinks so too.

Charles: "I know Sir can be prickly, but you have to understand he had a very terrible childhood."

Klaus: "I understand. I'm having a very terrible childhood right now."

-A Series of Unfortunate Events

[darksunrising]

Sola Gratia (14/?)

Masterlist

Rating / Warnings : No particular warning.

Fandom : Bram Stoker’s Dracula, BBC’s Dracula, various Dracula and vampire lore.

Part 14/? (2638 words)

Author’s notes : I’m back, babey ! Anyway, here is the Second Act Opening (yeah, changed the Act stuff, i am unreliable at best.)

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

The ride to Vlad's estate was eerily silent. Nestled on the backseat, hugging my knees to my chest, I tried to find some comfort in the pale light of the moon, bathing the countryside in a silver haze. I felt like I was wrapped in cotton, sounds coming off muffled to my ears, filled with the low humming of the car. Vlad and Carmilla were whispering to each other, and beside me, Leah seemed completely lost in thought. She had a lot to process, after all. Maybe I should have told her sooner...

To the valleys succeeded an endless plain, covered in fields and woods, and the occasional farm. Not that far over the horizon, I could barely make out the dark, shimmering line of the sea. It grew as we left the main road, following a smaller one, that soon converted to a paved path, barely large enough to let the car pass. We crossed a large iron gate, opening a mossy stone wall. The inside was wild, the wind sweeping across tall grass, overrun by wild flowers and poppies. Tall umbrella pines cast a moving shadow under the full moon. At the end of the path stood a large house, practically a mansion. The walls were white, large limestone blocks neatly laid out at the corners, while the most part were rough stones, held together with a thick layer of white mortar. A large portion of the wall was overrun with ivy.

The car stopped. I unfolded myself and tried to get out once before I remembered to take off my seatbelt, then trying to adjust my bodice to accommodate the now half open corset. Gods, my kingdom for a change of clothes. A quick look beyond the house confirmed that It was built over a cliff, the sound of the waves crashing down below soothing me like a lullaby. Leah's arm curling around mine quickly set me back into the present situation, and I took hold of her hand, hoping to be reassuring. We followed Vlad through the main door, which he closed behind us.

A good number of cardboard and wooden boxes piled up in the hall, unopened. Vlad apologized for the mess, arguing he didn't expect company so soon after moving. Still, everything except for the main hall was pristine, the furniture very well assorted, much more than in his Romanian residence. I figured he must have picked everything himself, as it all seemed in good accord with his usual sense of style. In the living room, I went to the windows, which opened on a large terrace, directly giving out onto the sea. Vlad's voice, softly calling out to me, had me turn back, and sit with them around the coffee table.

Leah was nervously fidgeting with one of the ribbons of her dress. Where should we even start ? I was obviously not the only one wondering about that, as the silence had now been so long it was far over the limits of awkwardness.

“So, who's gonna tell me what the fuck is going on ?”, Leah finally blurted out.

“It's... a long story”, I started, hesitant.

“Long as in 'it started during my mystery trip to Romania I was suspiciously evasive about'—long ?”, she retorted in an accusatory tone.

“Yeah. At least that.”

She leaned back into her seat, staring at me. She didn't even look mad, she just looked disappointed, which was worse. Since we met, I never hid anything from her. I could say safely that she knew more about me that I did, and I never had felt the need to not tell her something. These last months, not talking to her had been a torture. She had been my absolute best friend for years, I hated lying to her. I hated it.

And so I told her. About everything. From the beginning. Vlad had a few protests during my recalling of the Romania Events, and Carmilla looked pretty entertained by it. I could swear I heard her laugh when I told how I stabbed Vlad in the end. Leah listened intently, not once looking away from me. When I stopped, she seemed to take a moment, and looked around the room. Calmly, without a word, she stood up, and took a step toward Vlad's seat. She extended a hand, and swiftly reached for his sword, that he had set aside before sitting. Unsheathing it in an ample, yet controlled movement, she brought the tip under Vlad's throat so fast even he didn't have time to react. Surprise probably helped on that endeavor, still she had him tilt his head up, flat of the blade pushing under his chin.

Her expression was terrible, calm, controlled, yet I had never seen her eyes so dark, her lips pinched so tight. Vlad didn't move.

“You... Have hurt the one I love most, beyond all that I could imagine”, she stated, her voice trembling with anger. “You have made her suffer, and now, you tell me she could be in even greater danger because of your fucking dad or some bullshit ?!”

Her hand was steady, yet I could feel like the only reason she didn't ram the blade through his throat was because she knew it wouldn't do much of anything. I stepped closer to her, and wrapped my hand around hers. She held the grip so tight her knuckles were bone-white. I had her lower the sword, which she immediately dropped, and turned to look at me, eyes watering up.

“I-I'm so sorry, Eris, if I had known... I would never... Fuck, he could've... He could've...”

She held my hands enclosed in hers, and lost her words into incoherent sobbing for a second. Bringing my hands to her face, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and took a moment to calm herself down. Still holding my hand, she turned her attention back to Vlad.

“I was too quick to give you my trust. That won't happen twice”, she told him, glaring. “You put us into this mess, and you'd better handle it.”

“I intend to !”

“I'm not finished”, she snapped. “If anything, I mean anything happens to Eris, I will hold you personally responsible, and I'll have your dismembered limbs impaled in my backyard.”

Carmilla giggled, to which Leah snapped and promised her the same fate.

“Now, you're gonna drive us home, and I don't wanna see either of your faces again, at least not until you handled the problem.”

“You can't be serious, you'll be safer here-”, Vlad started.

“Safer ? With you ?” She had a dry laugh. “Well, isn't that the funniest thing you've ever said.”

“At least, stay the night”, he insisted, looking over to me for backup. “I will drive you back as soon as you'd like in the morning.”

She was about to protest, and I caught her arm, interrupting her. “Leah, it's late, we're both tired. Let's just go to sleep, right ?”

She took a second, and gave in, nodding. She insisted we slept together, even though the house had a good number of guest rooms, which was, in retrospect, pretty funny for someone who didn't need sleep. He guided us to the room he had prepared for me, initially. It had to be about half my apartment's size, and included a tower at the corner. Huge bay windows gave onto a balcony giving out a magnificent view over the sea.

Vlad cleared his throat. “You will find a change of clothes in the wardrobe.” Leah gave him another killer look, arms crossed over her chest. He took his leave, but not before placing a light hand on my back.

If you can slip away, I would like to talk to you.

Ah, the most terrifying thing to hear. Despite that, the way his voice filled my mind was warm, and comforting. I silently nodded, and he took his leave, his fingers trailing along my back, almost as if he resented to break contact. As soon as the door closed, Leah had a long sigh, and dropped on the bed.

“I can't believe you kept this to yourself so long”, she told me. She sounded almost hurt. “I mean, why didn't you tell me anything ?”

I joined her on the opposite side, my head laying next to her. “I didn't know how to. I felt you'd be safer if you didn't know.”

“But you weren't !”, she protested. “You could have been hurt, again, all because I had no idea what kind of monster-”

“He's not a monster”, I cut her off, almost without thinking about it.

She took a pause, turning her face towards mine, an expression of disbelief painted over her features, eyebrows furrowed in a way that didn't suit her kind face.

“Eris, please don't tell me you believe that !”

“I do. I'll give you that the conditions of our meeting were, well, less than ideal, but ever since he came here, he did nothing but try to make amends.” She groaned. “Come on”, I insisted. “You've seen it, he's been nothing but kind, and thoughtful, and actually a great help for my thesis.”

“He also eats people, Eris”, she remarked.

“He told me he didn't kill anyone since he got here, and I believe him.”

“Because he actually is trustworthy, or just because you want to believe him?”

By all means, she wasn't wrong. I mean none of her worries were anything I hadn't thought of myself. I sat up, and started un-lacing my bodice.

“You don't know him like I do”, I told her, softly, knowing this wouldn't do anything to convince her. “Let's just go to sleep, for now, I'm exhausted.”

She reluctantly agreed, and we disrobed, significantly faster than we dressed up. I though my corset would be ruined, but only the lacing on the back was cleanly cut, without even a dent in the ivory silk. In the wardrobe, I was almost surprised to find modern clothing. For the most part, he had my sense of style pretty well figured-out. Not finding any underwear was disappointing, as I had followed Leah's advice on not wearing a bra underneath the corset, but also a bit reassuring, to be honest. Leah opted for a simple plaid shirt, that would have been a bit large on me, and therefore fell almost to her knees. I found an oversize black pajama ensemble, made of the softest wooly cotton. I joined Leah under the covers, and didn't have to wait long until she dozed off, her breathing becoming more regular, and calm.

I carefully removed myself from the bed, and slipped into a large dressing gown. I slowly opened the door, trying not to make the floorboards or the hinges creak. I only opened it enough to shuffle through, and exited into the corridor.

The silence was only disturbed by the muffled sound of the waves, and my own breathing. I didn't turn on any lights, as the full moon was well enough to see perfectly well. I wandered back to the living room, and walked to the bay windows. One was open, leaving a cool breeze inside. Wrapping myself tighter in my robe, I stepped outside, wincing at the feeling of cold stone under my feet. Over at the corner of the terrace, Vlad was leaning onto the balustrade, his hair disheveled by the soft wind. He also had a change of clothes, and had only kept his trousers, his shirt, and his cape, thrown over his shoulders. I suspected this was mostly a question of style, as I doubted he could even feel the cold. His gaze seemed lost over the horizon, watching the moon go down on the ocean. As I approached him, he turned his attention to me, smiling.

“I knew you were good at sneaking around.”

“Please, I bet you could hear me breathing from the other side of the house.”

“Breathing, not so much, but I can hear your heart.” He was leaning on his elbow, head cocked to the side. Arrogant. I sighed, and took in the mesmerizing view a moment. No signs of cars, lamps, or electric poles in sight. Only the moon, and the ocean's soothing voices.

“Do you like the house ?”, he asked, softly as not to disturb my reverie.

“I love it.”

He laughed at the speed of my reply. “Well, I hoped you would.” He took a pause. “I am sorry about Leah, however. I know you did not want her dragged into all of this, and because of my blindness, she has-”

Before he could finish, I set the tips of my fingers on his mouth, effectively closing it.

“If anything, it's my fault. I should have told her a while ago, I just never had the courage to do it...”

He took my hand in his, strangely warm, contrary to what I expected. I felt my heart sink into my chest as a question rose to my  mind.

“Vlad, I...”, I started, hesitant. He nodded slightly, encouraging me to continue. “What Carmilla said, back on the overlook...”

I became physically incapable of saying one more word, my heart beating out of my chest for no reason. No reason at all.

“You want to know if she was right ?”

Gods, that voice, that deep, silky voice. Maybe it was on purpose that he talked in a hushed tones, maybe to drive me mad, or not outshine the ocean singing below. I nodded, unable to look him in the eyes. He called out my name, barely a whisper. He let go of my hand, only to pull me closer, an arm around my waist, his other hand cupping my cheek. So warm... He took a moment, playing with a strand of my hair, sliding a finger along my jawline, and slowly running his hand along my neck. I couldn't help a gasp as a sharp nail traced over my veins. He hummed, seemingly amused with my reaction.

“Are you still scared of me ?”, he asked.

I couldn't tell if he really spoke, or if I heard him in my mind.

“No”, I breathed out.

Really ?

His lips brushed past mine, then on my jawline, and my neck. In a very poor instinct, I let my head fall back. The somewhat familiar feeling of his sharp teeth on my skin sent shivers down my spine. I closed my eyes.

“I trust you”, I whispered, leaning back onto the balustrade.

He opened his mouth, letting me feel his hot breath on my cold neck. For a second, his fangs pressed against my skin, soon replaced by a kiss, on the crook of my jaw, right below the ear. I giggled, and he closed his arms around my waist. Expectantly, he seemed to wait, for permission. For mercy.

I wasn't too long to grant it. Wrapping my hands around his neck, I closed the final space between us. As soon as my lips touched his, my heart stopped a moment, or several. I felt him sigh a second, and pull me closer. He was slow, intimate, perfect in every way. I felt electricity run through my body. His lips parted mine, and-

Everything was red.

The sea lapping at my ankles, the sky bursting with gold and blood under a starry indigo. Everything was the same as I last left. I turned around, and found him standing back.

“Here ?”

“I told you before, wherever you want to be.”

I ran to him, and threw my hands around his neck, and he wrapped his around me, lifting me off the ground.

“Makes sense it's with you, then”, I whispered, and kissed him again.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Taglist : @carydorse @angelicdestieldemon @bloodhon3yx @thewondernanazombie @battocar @moony691 @mjlock @thebeautyofdisorder @festering-queen @paracosmfantasy @lost-girl-inc

[spaceorphan18]

I read with interest your view and that of @hopefulobjectmiracle about tumblr Klaine fandom. Is there more shipping these days than 2010-15? I ask because there seems to be a smaller group that only ship Kurt with Blaine but there seems to be a huge rise in Kurtbastian and Hevans shippers. Likewise, there’s many more pezberry or faberry shippers. And a lot more of those shippers trying to discredit Blaine or Brittany as OTP for Kurt and Santana. There seems to be new younger people joining Tumblr declaring a love for all things Klaine, and then a week later shipping Kurt with everybody else!! Has there been a change since the show aired?

Hi Nonny! :)

Hmmm.... There's not really a clear answer to this because the way shipping evolved is different than people just finding things now.

There are kind of two different things going on here -- Kurt related shipping and non-Kurt (blaine/klaine) shipping. I can't tell you much about non related Kurt things -- however, I will say that Faberry was HUGE when the show was on. It's a subsection of the fandom I never interacted with but it was around in season 1, and loud enough that the show makes nod to it from season 2 forward. Brittana was always around, too, and the reason Brittana became a thing on the show was, partly, due to fans crying out that they should be a couple -- and more than the throwaway joke the writers made in the first season.

I don't know what happened to those ships over time, or how the evolved since the show ended -- I'm sorry :/

But now, I will tell you the epic history of Kurt shipping. (Again. i should really dig out my old notes on this, lol)

Here we go long post...

I found it! I'm going to quote myself so I don't have to write it out again, lol. This was originally from an ask about the BBO (Better Boyfriend Olympics), but it'll work here, too.

Okay, so let’s go back to 2010 when there wasn’t a Klaine fandom, there was a Kurt fandom.  A lot of the BBO stemmed out of the Kurt’s Boyfriend Shipping wars of 2010.

Back then, there was just a Kurt fandom, and a lot of opinions about who he should date.  Believe it or not, Kurt was shipped a lot with the other guys on the show, there was a healthy dose of Kurt/Finn, but Kurt/Puck was huge, and there was a smattering of Kurt/Mike (I never really did see much Kurt/Artie now that I think of it, which is kind of funny in retrospect, but I’m sure it’s out there.)  Anyway - when the show announced Kurt was getting a boyfriend – well, things began to get heated up.

Three big ships emerged

Kurt/Sam - because the rumor was that Sam was originally supposed to be Kurt’s bf (probably not, but that rumor was big at the time).  Btw, they were the canoe ship (I have no idea why) and was also known as Kum (rolls-eyes).  This ship’s fanbase was so huge and lasted so long, that the show felt the need to address it head on in Season Two’s Rumours (not a joke).

Kurt/Karofsky - Also known as Kurtofsky, they were also called themselves the Pirate ship (god, Idk why, shipping wars are weird, yo).  These people were also really passionate, mostly about Dave, but liked the whole idea that Kurt would save Dave and they would have this weird - enemies to loves love affair or something.  I don’t know, I could never get past the squicky assault aspect, but whatever.

Kurt/Blaine - which. at the time, was… the biggest possibility? It’s funny cause the other two ships were just as big as the Klaine ship, and really the fighting became over who was going to be the best option for Kurt.

And that’s the thing.  Fans of Kurt were so passionate about who was best for Kurt, because everyone had seen him go through hell and back on the show, so his boyfriend needed to be perfect for him.  And you know who was perfect (at first) – Blaine.  More on that in a second…

However, Blaine brought his own bit of baggage – namely fans of Darren Criss (and/or Starkid fans).  Unlike Chord Overstreet or Max Adler, people knew who Darren was before he was on Glee.  So his own fandom joined in on the Klaine of it all.  At first it was all fine – as the shipping wars continued, it was less about Kurt vs Blaine and more about Klaine vs the other shippers.  Well, that was going to change….

Original Song happened and Kurt and Blaine got together ending the question of who would ultimately be Kurt’s boyfriend.  And things were nice and cozy headed into season 3.  You’d think the Kurt/Sam and Kurt/Karofsky ships would die out, but not really, they stuck around for a long time, and kinda morphed into something else.

See, The First Time happened.  And for the first time Blaine wasn’t the perfect prince that he was in season 2 – he had more of a developed personality, and more flaws.  And… some people didn’t like it.  (Also added to the mix was Sebastian – and the Seblaine and Kurtbastian ships were born, but those kinda go off on their own thing and I’m not really going to bring them up much here.)  Anyway, what really got fandom split was Dance With Somebody.

You had two sides of an argument, people who saw Kurt’s POV and people who saw Blaine’s POV – and guess what happened.  The two sides began to fight with each other over who was “right” in the argument.  (My god…) And thus started what fandom started referring to as The Better Boyfriend Olympics.

See - for reasons I don’t fully understand - instead of seeing that each of the boys have a fault and each were wrong in the episode, each side wanted to say that their side, and their POV was the correct way – that one boyfriend was more oppressed and the other was not as good a partner.

On the Kurt side, though, you had a lot of the old Kurt fans and ships who didn’t like Blaine (and/or didn’t want Blaine as his partner) so they vehemently decided that unless Blaine was the perfect boyfriend again, he didn’t deserve to be with Kurt.  Meanwhile, you had the Blaine fans, many of them Darren fans who wanted Blaine to have more depth to him than just being Kurt’s boyfriend, and not being Kurt fans first (or originally) they were going to push back at the Kurt fans who were lashing out at Blaine.

Compounding this was the fact that during season 3, there were so many cast members and characters that unless you were Finchel, you were begging for scraps and your featured episode to come along.  Meanwhile - Kurt got a ton of screen time, but didn’t sing much, while Blaine sang a lot more, but didn’t get much story.  The Kurt fans resented that Blaine was always singing.  The Blaine fans were annoyed that the Kurt fans resented it, and tried to remind the Kurt fans that Blaine barely got any development.

Either way, a war had begun.  And then The Break Up happened.

Now Kurt fans had a specific reason to point at – Blaine being a terrible boyfriend.  He cheated.  He’s terrible.  The end.

The fandom was not firmly split into sides - you were either a Kurt fan - a lot of them who HATED Blaine - partly because he was getting more attention at the time, partly cause he did sing more, partly because they were made up of Kurt ships that didn’t work out, and partly cause they saw so much of themselves in Kurt that they projected onto him their own feelings, and loving Blaine was not a part of that projection.  Or you were a Blaine fan - who spent a lot of time defending Blaine to the point of exhaustion, and became so resentful of Kurt that they wished Blaine could be with anyone else because Kurt (fans) didn’t understand Blaine and should just stop trying.

Weren’t there any Klainers you ask? Ha, well…. Klainers, people actually liked Kurt AND Blaine were stereotyped into two categories.  Category A) the really really loud fanbase (usually on Twitter) that harassed the creators, RM, Chris, Darren, various crew about Klaine every second that they got – to the point that it started to feel embarrassing (that’s probably my own projection).   Category B) People who thought (think) that Chris and Darren were (are) in a secret relationship.  (Spoiler alert they aren’t, never have been, and never will be.)  The two of these categories overlapped A LOT, and many of the fans of one boy or the other just disassociated completely.

You could still be a fan of the Klaine relationship, but you had a preference to which boy you were actually a fan of – you couldn’t like both, or else you were a Klainer, and that was not cool.  (I spent a long time NOT identifying as anything, and trying to make sure everything I did and said was equal – a) cause I was new to fandom and b) cause I hated that either one or the other of these characters were villainized so frequently.)

Anyway - Season 4 continued.  Adam showed up, and Kurt fans got all excited, but the problem was that a lot of them saw him as the perfect boyfriend again – not a real character but a prop that could make Kurt look good and be everything for Kurt.  Look, I liked Adam, I did, but he was underdeveloped, and this weird idea that your boyfriend needs to be perfect in order to be a functioning relationship is just unrealistic.  I digress.  Meanwhile, we didn’t get a lot of Kurt POV, which didn’t help things, and meant even more projection over his character.

Meanwhile, the Blaine fans had formed their own community, which became viciously defensive of him.  I think the whole fandom was toxic during this time for a lot of reasons, and I really wanted to quit it.  Many people did – the show wasn’t being fun anymore.

Season 5 came along, the boys got back together, tempers simmered, but the whole idea of the Better Boyfriend Olympics came back every time a conflict happened.  Arguments about who was the better boyfriend ensued, gatekeeping as to why their pick was best and why your opinion sucked still ran through the fandom.  Not helping was the fact that Cory had died, and the creators, actors, and crew – as well as media – was tired of Glee.

The one nice thing, though was that a lot of the old crowd had moved on by then, and there was an influx of newer people coming in during season 5 (and season 6) – they weren’t here for the season 3 droughts and season 4 wars, and brought in a newer and fresher perspective.

But still - we had the end of season 5 and the summer of spoilers and season 6 to get through.  At this point, the Kurt and Blaine camps had moved to their parts of the internet and really not speaking much to each other if they could help it.  When an argument happened on the show, the same kind of Better Boyfriend Olympics came up again – one boyfriend was worse than the other, and unless they changed xyz they were not good enough for the other.  But at this point, it was incredibly tiring.  I know that I was just ready for the show to be done with.

I should say, as an aside, not helping things were the rise of some rather vocal BNF-ish fans, who dug their heels in about their own opinions.  The refusal to even acknowledge that one side or the other might be right, or have valid points was not helping anything.  A lot of people on both sides refused to even listen to the points on the other side – and instead of being frustrated at the show, the creators, or whatever, they took it against each other, which wasn’t fun to watch either.

Season 6 happened - Blainofsky happened, and that killed enthusiasm for the season on both sides, most people just kind of wanted it to be over.  And then the ending came quickly, and I think a lot of people who were just plain unhappy about everything left for good.

The Better Boyfriend Olympics, or this weird competition that always pitted the boys and their fandoms against each other in the name of one being better than the other, leveled off after this.  I won’t give myself /that/ much credit - but one reason I created @todaydreambelievers was to give fans of both Kurt and Blaine a safe place where we could enjoy and discuss both boys without the BBO rearing its head.  And you know what – it did mend a few hearts.

For the most part, it’s been pretty quiet since.  Fandom is quieter, but I think the people who have come into it after the show has ended are a lot less judgmental and argumentative.  (I suppose it helps if you know how the story is going to end.)  And the cool thing, for me, is finding a group of people who enjoy Kurt and Blaine equally (or respectfully) – and reclaiming the name Klainer as a good thing.

I’ll end by saying this – it’s been relatively peaceful, even with the influx of new people throughout the years, but I have been seeing shades of BBO pop up again.  Look, you don’t have to like Klaine to be a fan of one or the other of them.  But there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world, a lot of things to be angry and get indignant about.  How a fictional couple was written ten years ago is not one of them.  Be respectful of people, and know that maybe the side you understand better isn’t the only side worth listening to.  ;)

////////////////////

So, I suppose that's part 1 of this full picture. Onto Part 2.

Here's the thing -- I've stayed, mostly, in my little tumblr buble over the past five years -- blissfully unaware that I suppose things were going on around me. Except... they really weren't. Until the pandemic happened, and Glee went to Netflix internationally, and a whole bunch of young kids grew up and started watching the show.

By the time I ended TDB in 2019, there weren't many of us left. I knew there was our small, dedicated group of fans. The tinhatters (the group who thought Chris and Darren were in some kind of relationship. spoiler alert -- they're not). And I know the Kurtbastian fans have been kicking around for a while. But no one was around in huge numbers.

And then boom - pandemic, and I'm shocked (not in a bad way) that this show has already seen a resurgence. The weirdest part, for me, is the fact that not only is history repeating itself -- seriously, people are bringing up old conflicts that have been dead for ages, and old shipping wars I never thought I'd see again -- but I think this new group's relationship with the show is much different.

I think that Kurt is a character whom a lot of people can still identify with. And because he's on his own in the first season, it's still easy to project yourself onto him. And then shipping goes from there. Blaine went from being the exciting option, omg are they really gonna do Klaine?? to -- hey Klaine is the boring canon choice, we can choose who we want for Kurt.

Layer over that years of Blaine hate still circling the interwebs. The echo chamber that Twitter and Tiktok create. And the fact that neither Chris or Darren seem to have the army of fans they once did (well -- Darren does, but they don't really watch Glee anymore). And you get this varied landscape of shipping.

No, some days it doesn't feel that different from the BBO days. The fact that I still get asks about Blaine and TFT car scene or Tested makes me feel like I'm back in 2013. Other times I'm perplexed by resurgences -- such as Kurtbasitan and Kurt/Sam. (Please don't bring back Kurtofsky guys)

But there's a saying -- Same Shit, Different Day.

I think there is an entirely different group of people than the original people watching, and their reasoning for shipping whatever is much different. But they've certainly come to a lot of the same conclusions that brought about the shipping wars in the early days.

At the end of the day - I think Kurt will always been a fandom mattress. But ship what you like and be nice to everyone else. There's enough hate in the world -- no need to dump on people's escapism.

[annakie]

Continued Notes on a Blog Cleanup

I started doing this a couple of weeks ago, I’m still doing it even though I’ve now passed the place I was trying to get to to find a thing awhile ago.  

But now I’m in March of 2013, closing in on two years of blog cleaned up.

I’m on page 1811 of 2968 (working backwards) with 15 posts per page.  My guesstimates are that since I started posting the blog cleanup I’ve generated about 100 posts, that’s probably a little on the low side, but it’s a workable number.  When I started I had 3021 pages of blog, so adding in about 7 more pages worth of blogs since then, that means I’ve deleted about 60 pages worth of my bog, or somewhere around 900 posts.

Sounds about right.

Anyway, here’s a bunch more thoughts on tumblr in general, this blog cleanup, and a Doctor Who Nostalgia Rewatch.

What’s crazy is that about 1/3rd of my entire blog was done in the first 18 months of its creation.  It’s now over 8 years old, but I hit the 2000th page back around November 2012, when the blog was made in May, 2011.  

I’m just now getting to the point in the blog where I kept a pretty full and steady queue in the first few months of 2013, so things move faster now instead of like 100 posts per day untagged like the early days.  And I didn’t post at all for most of the last couple of months of 2017 and early 2018 so, there’s a few-months gap there, eventually. But I figure... why stop the nostalgia tour now.  Mostly because I’m finding things I want to organize better.  I’m also finding a lot of  edits or personal posts I made and didn’t tag properly in the time period I’m covering right now. 

When all this is done, I’ll probably do a mass blog export again, now that I’m happier with the contents.  Tumblr ain’t gonna be around forever, y’all.

Still, deleting a lot of stuff.  Posts are being deleted for

Being out of date, like “Hey this game is on sale, go buy it!” or “SIGN THIS PETITION AGAINST CISPA!” or “The new season of Parks and Rec starts September 23rd" (of 2013 or whatever).  

Sometimes for being a reblog of a thing that I only marginally ever cared about and no longer do at all.  

Things that have now been proven false, or false alarms, or things we no longer have to worry about for whatever reason.  

“Hoooo boy it’s 2019 and now THAT sure turned out to be a bad take!” (”Guys, this new show called House of Cards is on!  It stars the AMAZING KEVIN SPACEY, I LOVE HIM!”  OK that wasn’t verbatim but close, and Yikes.)

Still, the cringiest of the cringe.  But there’s a lot less of that now, which is nice.  I at some point over the beginning of 2013 started doing a lot more tagging of my own posts so the tags are a much nicer place to look than some of the terrible other-people’s tags.  Although I’m still only tagging at like 60 - 70% of the time.

Observations:

What takes the longest is adding tags to posts.  So for the most part tags are only getting added to things I made.  About 45% of which are personal posts, and about 45% of which are mass effect creations posts, so far.  About 10% are things I think I may want to find again someday, though a lot of those things are being put in the “reblogging really old stuff” queue.

The blog is like, 30% Doctor Who, 40% Mass Effect and 30% Psych/Elementary/Leverage/Misc now.  It’s better.

I JUST started getting really to the part where I contributed a little more to the ME/DW fandoms besides yelling at hate-taggers.  Still.  Mid-2013 me is still doing that on occasion.  Although now it’s sometimes about Kaidan Alenko instead of just Martha Jones.  I’m still kind of torn about how I feel about all that now.  I’d say that it’s funny how there doesn’t seem to be a lot of it on tumblr these days.  Now it feels like we all have more important things to fight about.  Also, tumblr is, you know, on life support.

It feels like my blog liked and watched Supernatural longer than I did in reality?  It felt like a short flirtation to me, there continues to be supernatural content on my blog for over a year now.  Pretty sure I stopped watching mid-season 9 so maybe that’ll stop soon.  Still, way less than the general population of tumblr it felt like at the time.

People with names like 221BTardisImpala really were the worst about tagging their hate and other stupid stuff.

I’d somehow forgotten about that terrible, gross post twisting Kaidan into an “abuser” for stupid stuff like “He brought a bottle of alcohol (you know, the one Shepard bought him?) to Shepard’s quarters!” and “He did a bad thing at 17!” (and clearly the person we are at 17 is the same person he was at 34.) and and just the most asinine reasoning applied, and tagged.   The whole “I gotta tear down characters other people like to make my fave the REAL WINNER” is just... ugh.  I got back to that post and honestly, am still thinking I should have deleted the whole thing.

I’ve picked another few tags on controversial characters that I love like Jacob Taylor and scrolled through, and like I posted earlier about Martha Jones, hate tagging in general seems to just... not happen that much anymore, even after scrolling back a year or two in those tags.  That makes tumblr a nicer place to be. I know we still see the occasional like, shitty shakarian shipper in the Kaidan Alenko tag (and again, that is a very small % of overall shakarian shippers) but it’s nothing like what it used to be.

It won’t be long until the WTNV explosion happens on tumblr, or maybe it had already started at this point.  It took me a few months to catch on.  And then I’m gonna listen to it and love it, and ask for rec’s for more podcasts, then I’m gonna get into Thrilling Adventure Hour and the blog is gonna become a much more positive place.  Looking forward to getting to all that.

Does anyone know if there’s a theme or script that lets you add tags from your dash or main blog page without editing a post?  I’d go back and do this again to tag some more good reblogged posts, I think.  I’d probably have also deleted more stuff if I could have done it from my blog without going into editing. :p

Seriously though, tumblr feels like such a different place now.  It’s... quieter.  It feels almost like empty nest syndrome around here.  Or maybe I’m just curating my own experience so much better.  But again, when I do go look at other people’s blogs from posts I’ve reblogged, like almost none of them are still active.  Although it’s also surprising the number that died just like, in the last year.

Another interesting thing has been... watching the rise and fall of a personal friendship through the first few years of the blog.  Back then there were a few people who I was really close to, mostly online.  I can feel the main friendship I had with that person slipping away as their life changed significantly starting the previous few months from where I am in that blog.  And honestly, I did my own part of leaving them behind when I gained a whole new group of close friends from TAH.  We’re still like, facebook friends, but it’s a reminder of how fluid online friendships can be.  

Doctor Who Rewatch Thoughts:

I am going to catch up on my blog before I run out of Doctor Who to watch, I think.  Considering things are starting to take a lot less “grooming” now on the cleanup.

I’m now about to embark on Silence in the Library.  Am I ready to see River Song die again?  No.  I am not.  This will be the first time I watch these episodes in years, probably since Matt Smith was around?  Definitely since The Husbands of River Song.  This... will be difficult.

Hoo boy Voyage of the Damned was bad, I’d forgotten how bad.  Not Fear Her bad but, pretty bad. Though I was amused that there was a character named Foon.  For some reason that word had always triggered something in my mind when they called the world that on Hello From the Magic Tavern and now I know why.

Martha Jones, still awesome in Season 4.  Donna Noble shines brightly.  Although I’d forgotten how much weaker the first half of her season is than the very good second half.

That was the first time I’d watched The Fires of Pompeii since Capaldi took over.  Funnily, I felt like his character got more Twelve-Like as the episode went on somehow.  The long scene between just Ten and Capladi’s character was neat to watch in retrospective.

[nonbinarysasquatch]

I’m in Love

As I mentioned in my very first review, when I was a child I imagined myself in TV shows (or movies or musicals etc.) I’ve always had a very active imagination that I kept to myself for a long time (really until I was 30 and started writing fanfic.) It’s a big part of why I relate to Rebecca. It’s not the only reason but it’s certainly a big part.

What’s interesting about this finale is that it is as surprising as it is completely predictable. That Rebecca would realise she loves music isn’t surprising but that it wasn’t really about musical theater per se is surprising. I mean maybe it is still about musical theater but that’s not a future we are privy to. That can only exist in our imaginations.

That Rebecca doesn’t pick any of the guys is obviously not remotely surprising. It would’ve been surprising if she had. But the specific ways it went down were surprising and that they tipped their hats a little to Greg is surprising. But more on that later…

The final six words were a surprise but they are a surprise that makes perfect sense. We were all thinking “This is what happy feels like” but that’s too surface level. It’s telling not showing.

It’s not just that musical theater was a bit of a red herring but in a way music is too. The music only matters in as much it is who Rebecca is on the inside. The entire show has been about identity and it’s been staring us in the face the entire time. The show is called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and from the beginning it’s been not only exploring that concept but has seen Rebecca endlessly trying on different identities, always struggling because she was never allowing herself to be herself.

When Paula tells Rebecca to just be herself back in episode 2.04, she reacts with revulsion. “Who would want to be that?” The identity she’s most comfortable with is the one she’s kept hidden. It never occurred to her to actually bring that out until Paula finally asks her why she stares off sometimes. Presumably all of her friends have noticed this from time to time (we can assume Rebecca has imagined far, far more songs that we as viewers have ever seen) and none of them have stopped to ask what was up. Maybe they just accepted it as a Rebecca quirk.

Where does Rebecca go next? I can envision countless futures for her. I like the idea that maybe she writes enough songs to go on a bit of a tour. It’s kind of a mess but she has Heather and Valencia with her (Paula is busy) to keep her company.

Maybe she takes things further. Maybe she tries to write a musical. Maybe she moves back to New York. I’m sure I’ll write fanfic someday but for now I really don’t know where I see her going.

The other characters…

Paula: Paula took a stand and it was great. She’s come so far. I was a bit nervous they might force her to quit her job but I’m glad it didn’t go that way.

Heather/Hector: Hot tub. They got the best ending if I’m being honest.

Valencia: Valencia proposed in a very Valencia way. I sort of question why they ever had her move to New York since narratively it ultimately didn’t matter. I think there are a lot of missed opportunities with Valencia but those aren’t really the fault of this episode in particular.

Josh: I’m so glad the magic thread got picked up again. I was really excited when it got brought up again in 4.08. For the record: I hated the idea of him becoming a model and I’m disappointed the fandom was repeating that over and over as if it was somehow the only piece of information anyone retained about Josh (he’s hot!) But the show gave him a good ending. Incidentally, Josh was the only one of the three guys who made an effort to date people other than Rebecca this season.

Nathaniel: Nathaniel got as good an ending as one could want. He quits the law firm and moves to friggin Guatemala to be a lawyer for an animal sanctuary (it’s not a zoo. Theoretically, sanctuaries can be more ethical… or they can be worse.) I was surprised that he both 1. Seemed to most assume he was going to win but 2. Actually handled the rejection the best.

Greg: Honestly, Greg’s ending came a few episodes back with the Serrano’s soft open. While Rebecca didn’t end up with anyone they did clearly tip their hats a little to Greg. He got the full explanation of what happened. He also told Rebecca he wouldn’t wait for her but a year later he was still single. I still kinda feel bad for Greg. After 3 years he can’t get over her. Or maybe he has? It’s hard to say. My thoughts on Greg since he’s been brought back are complicated and I’m sure I’ll make a separate post going over that. I think Skylar did a good job and the writing was generally good. Do I think it worked? Not fully. Do I think it served the purpose Rachel and Aline wanted? Probably.

WhiJo: WHAT ON EARTH. Who knew WhiJo would get the dark ending? I mean I guess it could be darker but he’s the only character that kind of suffers a minor tragedy. Perhaps this is his karmic price for the role he played as an agent of chaos at the end. In a funny sort of way, WhiJo was the final villain. On the other hand, things with Greg, Josh and Nathaniel were about to spin out of control anyway. Perhaps he just gave that chaos a more manageable form. Either way, not the role I would’ve ever expected for him back in season one.

Darryl: Darryl’s ending is cute. I think it’s interesting how little drama there was in the couples who work out. April and Beth are mostly blank slates. Neither of them define their partners. Darryl Whitefeather is probably the best handled bisexual character I’ve ever seen. They managed to avoid all of the bad tropes for the most part. And it’s surprisingly rare to see a male bi character have relationships with men and women over the course of a show. Traditionally bi male characters just end up with dudes and end up being bi in name only. Or they just flirt a lot or had sex with women in the past. But Darryl was handled pretty naturally. I don’t think all of the show’s handling of queer characters was perfect (though given the crap that’s out there, eh, I’ll take it) but Darryl was solid.

Jason: He was sure in this episode. Actually, I’m gonna derail my Jason comment to talk about the fact that Jim was in the final lineup. I think in Jim’s mind he and Rebecca really have had a ton of tension for years. Who knows maybe they date for a while. I kind of hope Rebecca does a lot of dating.

AJ: AJ was one of the best things about this season. He wasn’t a super engrossing character or anything but Clark was always a delight. I’m sad we didn’t get to see more of their roommate banter because I bet it was amusing. Also: Rebecca pays AJ and he pays her back in rent? I mean, I guess but there’s something funny about that. She can’t legally take it out of his wages, to be fair.

The Songs:

Eleven O’Clock: Does what it needed to. It’s a good selection of songs. For once, most of my thoughts on it are tied into my thoughts on the episode.

West Covina (Final Reprise): THE FEELS.

And that’s that. It’s both a very different and very simple finale. In a good series finale, you’ve already done the work so that when you get to the finale it’s the only place left to go. I think they mostly pulled that off. When evaluating the show in retrospect there will be a lot of ways to do it. It was more successful at some things than others. This is far from the last things I will have to say about this show.

Just remember: Romantic love is not an ending.