Tumgik
#only tagging the parent fandoms because it's also helpful for them in avoiding our content
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How to use the Tumblr Tag Blocking and Content Filtering functions with nifty screen shots
[with small about dpxdc venting/hate posts at the end]
First, what is Filtering Tags and what is Filtering Post Content.
Filtered Tags: the tags you hide here will be hidden from you dashboard and in search.
Filtered Post Content: Post content filtering searches the entire post for the word/phrase you add. Not just the tags.
Below is a series of screen shots showing where the blocking/content filtering option are and how to use them.
DESKTOP: got to setting and scroll down. Tag filtering and Content Filtering are right above the Community Labels and under where your birthday is displayed.
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MOBILE: Click on the gear in the top right corner of your dashboard → go to General Settings → scroll down until you see Filtering. There you will be able to see all of your blocked tags and filtered content once you add it in.
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You add a tag or content to filter by, by clicking the plus sign and typing in the EXACT phrase or tag you want to filter out. As you can see in the video below, if you only block Jazz Fenton/Jason Todd only things with that exact tag (for tag filtering) or phrase in the post (content filtering) will be hidden.
Therefore you CAN block Jazz Fenton/Jason Todd and still see Jazz and Jason content respectively.
Jazz/Jason Content Filtering.mov
Here is an example of tag filtering we did with the dpxdc tag so you can see how it will look if you have a blocked tag, and how to UNBLOCK a tag very easily. Note that it’s really easy to block and unblock tags, and the change takes place IMMEDIATELY so it’s easy to block/unblock at your leisure.
dpxdc Tag Blocking.mov
A helpful cheat sheet for words/phrases to filter by!
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On another note: PLEASE DON'T tag vents or hate about dpxdc as "dpxdc" or as "dp x dc" as those are the main fandom tags.
Thank you!!! 🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇
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shutupanddance · 3 years
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Master Post
If you’re looking for my Master List, check out this link:
https://shutupanddance.tumblr.com/masterlist
Okay cool cats and kittens, I’m creating this master post to help you navigate my page and stay updated :) It will be pinned to my blog, and it will have my fandom list, my prompt list, my to-do list, any current events, and a few frequently asked questions. So, looking for information about requesting? Suggestions for requests? Or wondering what I’m currently working on? Don’t know if I’ve received your request? This is the place to look! Just keep on reading <3
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Current Events 
None!
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Fandoms
Here are the fandoms I write for!!
+ Marvel (MCU)
+ DC (DCU)
+ Sherlock
+ Star Wars (trilogies, Clone Wars, Rebels, Mandalorian)
+ Star Trek (reboots, original series)*
+ Pacific Rim
+ Knives Out
+ Night at the Museum
+ LOTR / The Hobbit
+ Jurassic Park/World
+ The West Wing*
+ NCIS*
*fandoms that you will see the most of on my blog.
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Prompt List
(Does not include prompts from any current events) Here are some prompts that you can use for your request, or for your own writing! As a reminder, not all of these prompts are properly credited. Please let me know if you have the original creator’s @!
#1: “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”
#2: “Should I ask why you have a knife in your purse?”
”It’s a dagger, actually, and no you shouldn’t.”
#3: “Close your eyes and listen. And trust me.”
#4: Rosemary, broken glass, and an old gun.
#5: “Do you remember when I loved you?”
”No.”
”Good, because I never did.”
#6: “He saw the notice in the paper.”
”Why would you let him see the paper?”
”What was I supposed to do, eat it?”
#7: “I didn’t catch your name!”
”I didn’t throw it.”
#8: “I’m not better than you, but at least I’m not you. And right now, that’s worth a whole lot.”
#9: Romantic dinner, but something is wrong.
#10: Forehead kisses during an apocalypse
#11: “This isn’t BBC Sherlock! You can’t just run around administering justice as you see fit!
#12: Trying to get a smoke detector to shut up
#13: Falling out of a closet during Hide N Seek
#14: Revealing a dark secret, but it turns out that they already know
#15: Once upon a midnight dreary
#16: The odds were never in our favor
#17: If I should die, think only this of me
#18: Attack hugs
#19: Afraid of ladybugs
#20: The dumb*ss God couldn’t stop
#21: “There’s a rumor going around that you’re the one to ask if someone needs to acquire rare and dangerous objects.”
”There’s a rumor going around that you’re an undercover cop.”
#22: A parking lot, a coroner, and snails
#23: “You’re the only person I know who calls me that.”
#24: This is not a drill.
#25: It’s the price we pay to feel
#26: A character is cleaning/sweeping the floor when someone walks by with dirty shoes (via @writingprompts365 )
#27: “I’m back from my mission!”
““You failed it.”
““How’d you know?”
They point at the TV.
#28: A character is pushed into some bushes/plants/flowers (via @writingprompts365 )
#29: A character picks up a very shiny rock (same @)
#30: A character combs another character’s hair (same)
#31: A character is forced to have a conversation with someone they don’t like (same)
#32: Laughing hysterically at their own joke
#33: Stuck under the same umbrella
#34: ““Well, this is a nice change of scenery!”
““It’s a jail cell.”
““I was being sarcastic.”
#35: ““Let me just be perfectly clear that this was not my fault.”
#36: ““Can I buy you coffee? For old times sake?”
#37: Fake dating
#38: Huddling for warmth
#39: Being high on painkillers and confessing undying love to everyone
#40: “That’s starting to get annoying.”
#41: “I fell asleep on the bus and woke up here.”
#42: “It’s freaking cold.”
#43: “You’re not exactly known for your great ideas.”
#44: ““Can you keep a secret?”
#45: Character A lives above character B, and always drives B insane with how much stomping they do. One day, A’s foot goes right through the floor, into B’s apartment.
#45: Character A and Character B, sworn enemies, are chosen to prepare the company Christmas Party.
#46: you’re a security guard at an art gallery and you held the door for me so I left you a note in the door where we met I hope you read it
#47: Person A and Person B both trying to break into the same place on the same night by accident, only to be chased by the police upon meeting and having to hide in a closet/cupboard/safe together until they leave.
#48: the first and the last word they said to each other
#49: your kid hates my kid
#50: ‘picking them up’ hugs
#51: an incredibly loud and painful high-five
#52: "Let me fix that for you."
#53: “Can’t we listen to something else? We’ve been listening to this CD for three hours now.”
“You know, I would but the CD slot is broken so it’s either this or talk to each other.”
“I wouldn’t mind talking.”
“[turns up the music louder]”
#54: "My kiss quota for the day hasn't been filled. I need a thousand more."
#55: Person A making fun of Person B's bed head
#56: Squeeze three times for “I love you”
#57: writing a love letter but keeping it to themselves
#58: Messing around in IKEA
#59: “Hey - what’re you hiding behind your back?”
#60: going to a bookshop and selecting books for each other
#61: smiling at each other from across the room
#62: arms wrapping around your waist from behind while you’re on a phone call
#63: “ rich coming from the guy who tried to kill me three days ago. “
#64: message in a bottle
#65: becoming the parents of the friend group as soon as they start dating
#66: “I love you.”
“Ouch.”
#67: “We...we did it. We did it! Oh my God, I could kiss you.”
“Well, don’t be shy.”
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My To-Do List
Here is everything that I’m currently working on! If you’ve sent a request in, and I see it, it should pop up here!
REQUEST SLOTS: FULL
+ Sherlock / Reader (not requested) undetermined topic
+ Rusty Ryan / Reader (not requested) #4
+ Sam Seaborn / Reader (requested) slow dancing
*anything with an asterisks has already been started.
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Tag List
@girloncorneliastreet​ for The West Wing
@wolviesbabes​ for Gibbs / Reader
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I submit a request? When you look at my blog, there is a link titled “Asks/Requests”. Click that, and submit something!
How specific does my request have to be? More detail is always better if you’re looking for something specific, but if you’re not picky, it’s no big deal! Even if you just say “could I have some more Spock content please?” I’ll answer it!
Do you write smut? Nope! Not for me.
Are your requests open? Not at the moment! They will be soon, though.
What do I do if your requests are closed? Send it later, when they’re open again!
Do you have a master list? I do! I also have a tag called #masterlist, which all of my work is under. You can access the master list itself by navigating to the page on my blog, or just clicking the link at the top of this post!
What’s your name? You can call me C :)
Why didn’t you reblog my post about social justice? In order to avoid burnout for myself and my followers, I am doing my best to keep this blog free of anything other than fan content. This does not mean that I disagree or agree with you, it just means that I’m not commenting. I do not need to participate in internet social justice activity when I am already an activist on other platforms, including real life.
What can I send asks or messages about? Anything!! Life updates, random questions, whatever! I love to hear from you <3
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That’s all, folks!
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dreadfutures · 3 years
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aight let‘s talk ao3 tags again
the very nice tag wrangler I’ll be quoting from has given me permission to share their kind and thorough responses (all bolding/emphasis is mine) without identifying information. and we very nicely go through some of my own tags from my long fic Dead Pasts, Dread Futures. Many, many thanks to this wrangler for explaining so much to me.
Anyway. I present these discussions as a peacable offer of: these are many writers’ concerns, and they are valuable, and worth considering. don’t dismiss concerns about the tag limit off hand, and don’t insist that edge cases don’t matter.
tldr; at the moment, after all this discussion and back and forths and bullying, I still believe that having 75 tags, period, as the limit across ALLCharacters/Relationships/Fandoms/Additional Tags penalizes longfics. Period. If it were even a limit of 100 tags, or broken down by Tag Type, it would be a little more forgiving. For advertising and for content filtering purposes, it only helps writers and fic visibilty to be specific and thorough in tags. A limit like this just so clearly has the potential to negatively affect large fandom/large ensemble/long fics.
It feels like this decision is being very broadly based on a "for the majority" mindset, which has never been what AO3 is about, without actually physically looking at the kinds of fics it will affect. The tag system on AO3 has been able to give fic filtering and reader-judgement a nuance that no other platform has accomplished, and longfics and large ensemble fics still, I think, depend on that as both a courtesy and necessity. I saw the rough math someone did and know that almost all fics currently on AO3 are <25k or something like that, and sure, for the average oneshot, or for even a fic <100k, a tag limit that's very strict across all tag categories probably won't be felt at all. But it's clearly something that people who write certain types of fics, and take them very seriously, will feel. Like I genuinely don't want to have a million tags. I want to tag relevant content that allows potential readers to filter & include & exclude my fic as they so choose, but also, if it does show up in their search, I want to give them the information they want to be able to decide if they want to read my fic or not. I don't want to have to put all my content warnings into a giant summary, or into a giant author's note that grows and grows. The tags have been a very helpful way of accomplishing those. Being able to cut down on parallel/synned tags is great, but it still seems like longfics that deal with multiple fandom entries, large casts, and require content warnings will butt up against that limit very quickly.
tag limit discussions:
- long fic writers adding tags as they go
- writers of franchises with many installments and ensemble casts
- writers with extensive content warnings
- use of tags to clarify a filtered tag
- use of tags to demonstrate how content is handled
off the bat - stop being jerks
look, I know objectively fics don’t need to be tagged at all. I lived in the wild west, too, when “lemon” meant anything from the merest mention of arousal to an explicit vanilla sex scene to all out dead dove craziness. a large part of me still is of the opinion that readers should just read shit, and if they decide they don’t like it, just dip. but that’s not what we’re about here. tagging is a kindness that we voluntarily undertake, and it’s also a form of advertising.
tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes
(that’s one of the cruxes of the arguments both pro-shippers and antis make: you can filter things! But you can only filter things if they’re tagged.)
I also understand that a few asshole writers have ruined this for all of us by purposefully adding so many tags it slows down the site and makes pages fail to load and hides other fics because the tags take up 10 pages. i also am frustrated with kinkmemers who just have prompt fill fic dumping grounds that span multiple unrelated fandoms and are impossible to navigate.
...the answer is not to suggest to writers that we put all our content warnings and pairings and etc. in our summaries, or our A/Ns, or to insert a first chapter that is a placeholder summary/tags page/world state. tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes.
I also have been dealing with people being murderously angry, and super self-righteous and targeting and mean about my own tags, and tags in general. people who are anti-tag are being giant fucking dicks about it. like get over yourselves and let’s just talk about a website function lol. tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes.
THE ANSWER IS NOT TO GET RID OF TAGS.
Alright, so now that we’ve gotten that flippin’ straw argument aside.
The next thing anyone has been doing is going to my page and critiquing my tags. Let’s address redundant tags.
(the wrangler has done this nicely! no ridicule necessary!)
using my fic as an example:
If you tag your fic Female Lavellan/Solas (only), it will show up in the following searches: Inqusitor/Solas, Female Inquisitor/Solas, Lavellan/Solas, Female Lavellan/Solas.  If you tag your fic Inquisitor/Solas (only), it will show up only in the Inquisitor/Solas search and in none of the others.  If you tag with the most specific version, it will show up in the more general versions, but not the other way around. So there's no real reason to tag with the more general tags.
Though I will point out that if you don't use the canonical tag      and tag your character or relationship with a custom name it will      be synned to the nongendered version, because at some point the DA      wranglers decided that they didn't want to make gender      assumptions.  So "Annabelle Lavellan" will be synned to "Lavellan      (Dragon Age)" rather than "Female Lavellan (Dragon Age)", and      someone searching for works with specifically "Female Lavellan"      won't see it.
Response: In the fanfic writers server I'm in, we've talked about how tags work and are supposed to work extensively in the past.  There's just always been a lot of confusion, which I think has been added to when people go and try to double-check for themselves and find instances where this treeing/synning is broken. Someone put out this guide (also here) for AO3 meta text this year, which has been referred to by multiple people in the server, and it says:
What if you wrote a fic for something where there's a movie based on a book, but the movie's really different, and you've used both things that are only in the movie and things that are only in the book? In that case you either tag your fic as both the movie and the book, or see if the fandom has an “all media types” tag and use that instead of the separate tags. If the fandom doesn't have an “all media types” tag yet, you can make one! Just type it in.
“All media types” fandom tags are also useful for cases where there are lots of inter-related series, like Star Wars; there are several tellings of the story in different media but they're interchangeable or overlap significantly, like The Witcher; or the fandom has about a zillion different versions so it's very hard, even impossible, to say which ones your fic does and doesn't fit, like Batman. Use your best judgement as to whether you need to include a more specific fandom tag such as “Batman (Movies 1989-1997)” alongside the “all media types” fandom tag, but try to avoid including very many. The point of the “all media types” tag is to let you leave off the specific tags for every version.
Which I believe is in direct contradiction to guidance to use the most specific tags, so that's definitely one source of confusion. The most recent ao3 meta text guide (https://archiveofourown.org/wrangling_guidelines/2 I think this one) doesn't present itself in a way that makes this clear for writers tagging their own works. The way authors usually go about tagging things (and what's in the FAQ) is to start typing into one of the boxes and look for what populates the drop down, which doesn't lend itself to knowing that there are trees, or knowing what tags are interrelated (it seems like a whole grab bag of tags get suggested, some in-fandom and some outside of fandom, some canon/parent/meta and some children/random freeform, in just about any field you start typing in).
I'm not sure what can really be done about this. Many of us have turned to ao3-comment-of-the-day and their posts about using Tags, and various sources on google, and have clearly come up with a whole load of conflicting advice.
Fundamentally, finding parent/meta tags for a tag as you’re tagging a fic is NOT clear to writers. The fact that a nested and a meta tag can both be suggested one after the other when filling in tags largely contributes to redundant tags.
Writing for Multiple Fandom Entries
Here’s what a tag wrangler had to say about my fandoms:
As with the relationship tree, you can look at the fandom tree  here:      https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dragon%20Age%20-%20All%20Media%20Types  and see how the fandom tags are related. Going back to your story Rogasha'ghi'lan as an example, it's tagged with Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: The Last Court.  But as I said, you only need to tag with the lowest relevant level(s) on the tree in order for your fic to show up under the higher levels.  So if you tag with      Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Last Court, it will show up not just under those categories, but also under Dragon Age (Video Games) and Dragon Age - All Media Types.  And of course because you've tagged with the specific, if someone searches under, say, Dragon Age (Video Games), but doesn't want Inquisition or Last Court fic, they can use the exclude filter to show only the earlier games.
(So that's two more tags you can remove with no effect on searchability!)
In my (but not only my) own case, I am indeed writing for Origins, DA2, Inquisition, and Last Court extensively within the same fic, so I should be tagging for all of those, specifically, still. In order to make sure my fic is seen by the correct fans, I need multiple specific tags.
Longfic Tag Bloat (adding tags as you write a fic)
And like many other longfic writers, even if I narrow down my character tags only to those with dedicated character arcs longer than 5 chapters, I still have Loads & Loads of Characters (including Dalish from the Chargers!).
A lot of longfic writers I know add characters, relationships, and content warnings as they go along.
At 170 chapters/580k words, Dead Pasts had a ton of important relationships (for example, like Vivienne & Lavellan), and as a story it's nowhere near done. I found myself planning an arc from 171 onward that would introduce a very important relationship (Felassan & Lavellan). This is how longfics end up with so many, many, many character tags and relationship tags, which is another major criticism people seem to have about "people who abuse tags."
A solution that people propose online is "split your fic." Which is actually what I ended up doing...but the old relationships and fandoms from DPDF still apply to Rogasha'ghi'lan, so Rogasha'ghi'lan will have the same number and more tags than DPDF.
If I hadn't split the fic, I would have just kept adding tags to Dead Pasts...and still had the same problem of continually adding tags. They're not superfluous tags: someone who wants to see a plot that is deeply influenced by Vivienne & Lavellan will find that in my fic; someone who is looking to see a major Felassan & Lavellan friendship grow and drive plot will also find that in my fic.
My fic is long; there are other fics that are longer, or are going to be longer, with casts that are just as large or larger, with many relationships, and that's not even talking about content warnings.
Polycule / Relationship Tags
"Tagging a polycule like Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan requires four      tags: Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, Bull/Dorian, Bull/Lavellan,      Lavellan/Dorian"
This assumes that people who like Lavellan/Dorian will want to read Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, which is often not the case.  If your story Is Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, tag it that way!  It doesn't make any sense to me to tag with the pairs as well unless the story would be of interest to people who read for that pair, or unless that pair relationship is a big step in the story (like, if you have established Lavellan/Dorian, and then they bring in Bull, you might tag for both that pair and the trio). I mean, you can tag how you like, there's no requirement that tags correspond to content. But for me, personally, if I search on Dagna/Lace Harding (I am weak for dwarf women!) I do not want to get a Dagna/Lace Harding/Sera fic.
My personal tastes don't include poly fics, but several writers I know who write poly fics are adamant that: tons of readers will not know of the possibility of the poly fic until it shows up in a search result, and the individual relationships often are significant to the fics, especially in fics that are not oneshots. For example, a great number of "fav fics" are stumbled-across! We aren't interested in the Sera/Dagna/Lace polycule ourselves, but someone might not have considered it, found it, and said, "Hey! That's my new favorite." But if polycules are segregated and only searchable by the polycule itself, alas, what's the option for visibility at all if not tagging it as Lace/Dagna in addition?
Additional Tags
Knowing when something is a "character" and when something is "additional"
Knowing that "Warrior Lavellan" (or the [Name] Mahariel) would be more useful in an Additional Tag vs. a Character Tag is also something I'm not sure how we're supposed to know? Like, I'm glad to know it now, but it's definitely not at all obvious without you telling me why it would be more useful in Additional vs in Character. Especially when to me: Warrior Lavellan is a character, and the fact that it populated the Character tag for me says that it's a Character. Because like I said, the guidance has been: start typing, and if it appears in the drop down, use it. Or, for example, my friend has the Well of Sorrows personified as a Character. Like an actual character. Does that have to go under Additional Tags, or as a Character? How do I know?
Additional tags as tone/content indicators
A lot of writers / readers have approached the Additional Tags as a surface-level overview of understanding how an author is approaching many topics concerned in the fic. Like, Vivienne is a character in my fic, but specifically I am Vivienne-positive, which I feel is important to denote because she's important to my fic, and she's a divisive character. Mood/tone/theme indicators like "Pro-Vivienne" or "we are Vivienne-positive in this house" (or like Male-Female Friendship, or "Expansive Lore" vs "Lore - Freeform" which denote different things to me) in tags (which in the comments section on the ao3 blog post get derided as "chatty tags") are still important to me, though they're useless or far less likely to be used for filtering. (I had the thesis of the conflict of my fic: “empathy is the enemy of free will” “but hope is a choice” as “chatty tags,” among some that were more mundane but important: “sera shows up late in fic”)
More seriously, there are fics that have content warning tags for filtering purposes but also clarify those content warnings to give context to readers and allow them to make a decision whether or not the content actually fits their preferences, ie, one that specifies domestic abuse as a tag (which would be in the Additional Tags) for filtering purposes but also specifies "domestic abuse not present in x relationship" (which would also be in the Additional Tags, but is useless for filtering purposes, but is immensely helpful and demonstrably used by readers to decide if they're going to even bother reading the author's note of that fic).
People are also nervous that not being able to thoroughly tag content warnings is going to end up with unhappy readers amid all the purity culture flaming that's going on lately.
Like, personally I err on the side of "suck it up, reader, and just read and find out," for a lot of things (not talking about content warnings, but talking about mood/tone additional tags), but also, given that there is already a venue here to let readers know what they're in for...taking that away sucks.
I hate a giant fic summary as much as people hate 10 pages of tags, but at least one can hide tags in their preferences, and likewise the thought of starting a fic up front with a giant author's note that gets continually updated with content warnings also isn't super appealing. Leading with a giant author's note that lays out: this is my world state and this is my character's spec and this is my character's background so you know how I'm going to approach this and these are all of the content warnings for the fic as a whole, just feels like getting into "My Immortal" territory. There's definitely a balance to be had between the art of writing a summary, what to include in an author's note, and what to include in tags, but this still seems like it's going to be fairly limiting for writers in these large franchises, especially for longfics that span a lot of topics.
It feels like this decision is being very broadly based on a "for the majority" mindset, which has never been what AO3 is about, without actually physically looking at the kinds of fics it will affect. The tag system on AO3 has been able to give fic filtering and reader-judgement a nuance that no other platform has accomplished, and longfics and large ensemble fics still, I think, depend on that as both a courtesy and necessity. I saw the rough math someone did and know that almost all fics currently on AO3 are <25k or something like that, and sure, for the average oneshot, or for even a fic <100k, a tag limit that's very strict across all tag categories probably won't be felt at all. But it's clearly something that people who write certain types of fics, and take them very seriously, will feel.
Like I genuinely don't want to have a million tags. I want to tag relevant content that allows potential readers to filter & include & exclude my fic as they so choose, but also, if it does show up in their search, I want to give them the information they want to be able to decide if they want to read my fic or not. I don't want to have to put all my content warnings into a giant summary, or into a giant author's note that grows and grows. The tags have been a very helpful way of accomplishing those. Being able to cut down on parallel/synned tags is great, but it still seems like longfics that deal with multiple fandom entries, large casts, and require content warnings will butt up against that limit very quickly.
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lesbianlotties · 3 years
Link
follow you to the beginning (just to relive the start) - Sam/Deena - Fake Dating AU
Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Fear Street Trilogy (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Fraser/Deena Johnson, Samantha "Sam" Fraser & Deena Johnson, Samantha "Sam" Fraser/Peter (Fear Street Part 1: 1994), Samantha "Sam" Fraser & Simon Kalivoda, Samantha "Sam" Fraser & Kate Schmidt (Fear Street), Deena Johnson & Kate Schmidt, Deena Johnson & Simon Kalivoda, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Characters: Deena Johnson, Samantha "Sam" Fraser (Fear Street), Kate Schmidt (Fear Street), Simon Kalivoda, Josh Johnson (Fear Street), Peter (Fear Street Part 1: 1994), Background & Cameo Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Canon Lesbian Character, Slow Burn, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Best Friends, High School, Angst, Humor, Fluff, First Love, Eventual Happy Ending, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Jealousy, Mutual Pining Summary: Sam and Deena are next-door neighbors, and they inevitably and enthusiastically become best friends... until childhood gives way to tragedy, grudges, and regret.
By the time they make it to high school, Sam and Deena are still next-door neighbors but also sworn enemies... until high school introduces bigger threats that they will need to face together.
Faking a relationship might be a bad idea. But it might be the only way for Sam and Deena to understand their shared past and their feelings for each other.
Chapter 2:
If they had known from the start the rollercoaster that their lives would be because of each other, there is a chance Sam and Deena would have done things differently. But that is the thing about roller coasters, before you get in, it seems like a good idea. And going up and up toward the sky feels like the easiest, most effortless thing in the world. But then there’s the fall…
Sam and Deena’s friendship evolved similarly. Since that perfect summer day, life only got better and better for them. Every game was a life-changing adventure, every afternoon was endless, every evening they promised to do it all over again the next day. Without noticing, they were slowly but surely growing up. They were becoming girls with likes and dislikes and things that made them unique. In all their pictures Sam smiled widely even with her missing front tooth, and Deena always seemed to have some kind of stain on her overalls, but they were always happy, always with their arms around each other.
The promised land of the backyard behind their houses was growing and changing too. A set of swings appeared one day on the Frasers’ side, even if it was just an apology from Sam’s dad, or maybe he would have to apologize for it, Sam was starting to lose track of the things that angered her mother. But the two girls would the best of times on it. Then came a small treehouse on top of the big tree that Deena spent her childhood climbing. The two girls would spend hours up there, and sometimes Mrs. Johnson would join them, until she started claiming it was too much to get up there at all.
For Sam, the Johnson family was heaven. Mr. Johnson called her kiddo and ruffled her hair, Mrs. Johnson helped her clean up before returning to her house, and gave them sandwiches if Sam helped Deena up to look into the kitchen window from the garden. Since little Josh started talking he appeared to be enchanted by Sam, and a little terrified. Everyone thought it was adorable, except for Deena, who made her best friend promise that she’d never choose Josh instead of her.
As content as Sam and Deena were in the glory of their backyard, they also had to attend school like all other kids at some point. The two girls were still inseparable, but it was a matter of time before two other kids joined them. One day, Sam guided a little blonde boy by the hand to introduce him to Deena. Simon had on his face three of the cute bandaids Sam carried with her at all times, and his smile was so bright and harmless and he made Sam laugh so much that Deena was happy to have him stick with them at school. Then there was Kate, who held her head so high it made her look taller than all the other kids somehow. And the day Deena tried to pick up a fight with her, she ended up being scolded by Kate and asking her to hang out with them. Their small group of friends was completed. They all were happier than ever. And then… the fall.
Things started to change. Shadyside kids always had to face things much younger than children in more privileged towns. So, Deena asked Kate to search for the meaning of chemotherapy in the dictionary, so she could understand why her mother stopped going to work and why her dad couldn’t buy her a new bike. Next door, Sam decided it was worth it to stop doing some things she liked, and playing the games she wanted, and even laughing as loud as she felt like, as long as her mother would be less angry, and her parents yelled a little less. And Kate and Simon couldn’t always hang out with them, they had to help in their own houses in any way they could until they were old enough to get part-time jobs, which wouldn’t be too long anymore.
Real roller coasters, after a big fall, they go up again and again. But, for a while, all Sam and Deena and their respective families knew was falling down and down until they crashed and burned to the ground.
Deena’s mother couldn’t leave her bed anymore. Instead of helping, her father was drinking. Josh wouldn’t eat anything Deena tried to cook. Her best friend was locked in the house next to hers, grounded for something stupid like getting a stain on a dress. It was all too much. That was the first time that Deena threw a rock at the Frasers’ window and broke it. 
Sam appreciated the way Deena hated her mother on her behalf, admired the way Deena stood up to her, and couldn’t help but hate the way that Deena’s courage only made things worse for her.
Sam’s mother had a lot of reasons to be angry. Her daughter spent too much time with the girl next door who was clearly a bad influence, and she idolized the woman next door in a way that would hurt her soon enough, and the then man next door was inviting her husband to go out and get so drunk she had to clean up his vomit from their carpet the next day. Her husband, friendly and charming as ever, was cheating on her but he always played the good cop and Sam adored him more than she’d ever liked her. Her greatest dream had been to leave Shadyside but right before her escape she’d ended up pregnant, and when she made one last desperate grasp for freedom with a threat of divorce, her husband, the “good guy”, told her to keep the house and the daughter, because he had a “friend” in Sunnyvale who could help him.
Sam, however, didn’t know any of that. She only knew an unreasonably angry mother that slapped her when she felt like it and locked her in her bedroom when her best friend needed her the most.
Deena, similarly, didn’t know Sam was risking her own wellbeing every time she sneaked out the window to console her whenever her mother had to go to the hospital, or whenever Sam took the blame for the broken windows that were Deena’s only outlet for her anger.
Among the things they didn’t know yet, were the reasons why they were starting to feel so tense and nervous around each other, and why their friends made it all even worse. Because one day Simon confessed he had a crush on Sam, and Deena didn’t know why that made her punch him. And one day Sam saw Kate kiss Deena’s cheek, and she didn't know why that made her start crying. They were all supposed to be friends, just friends forever, but not in the same way Sam and Deena were friends.
It was the last summer before high school started and instead of perfect days, the tension between both households was higher than ever. The Frasers built a fence between their backyards, and the shock of that unfathomable barrier suddenly separating them and putting an end to their precious childhood, made Sam and Deena cry in shock. They decided to do something in protest, and they sneaked out of their houses, took their bikes, and got a little lost in the familiar Shadyside streets.
Deena’s mother died while she was out there having the time of her life with Sam. Maybe Sam was the only one to hold Deena for hours and cry along with her behind the big tree at the end of the fence that separated their homes. But Deena’s brain couldn’t separate the feeling of having Sam’s company and having her heart ripped to shreds by her mother’s death.
The day after the funeral, the windows of the Frasers’ living room were all broken. Mrs. Fraser, surprisingly, didn’t have the guts to demand that the grieving family pay for it, but she prohibited Sam from ever hanging out with Deena again, and to kill two birds with one stone, she announced the divorce. So Sam was losing her father, getting stuck with her evil mother, and losing her best friend… all because of her best friend.
In the end, they couldn’t hold back anymore. Deena returned home one day and this time Sam was waiting for her in her front yard. 
“It’s the last time I take the blame for you, Deena,” Sam said. 
“It wasn’t me,” Deena replied, and rolled her eyes.
Sam tightened her hands into fists and pushed past the sour taste in her mouth to say, “You’re selfish. You’re destructive. And you don’t bring anything good to my life.”
“Nice,” Deena answered quietly. Her jaw clenched and she frowned. In the back of her mind, she knew those weren’t Sam’s words, but they had come from her nonetheless. “You’re not the first one to tell me that so don’t feel special.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam blurted out, she couldn’t avoid it. “But if you attack my house again I’ll…uh, I’ll tell the police.”
Deena laughed and Sam couldn’t help noticing it was a mean laugh that never before had the brunette sent her way. “That’s cute, Sam. But I have bigger problems than your fragile home.”
Deena tried to walk away, but Sam chased after her. “Deena!” Sam yelled her name and tightly grabbed her arm to turn her around to face her. “You’re ruining my life!”
“Well, good! Because you’ve ruined mine!”
They were yelling at each other faces, but not even in the quietest of whispers they could have explained what they meant. Sam couldn’t say she blamed Deena for her parents’ divorce. Deena couldn’t say she blamed Sam for her mother’s death. They couldn’t even put into words why it was even more than that. All they knew is that Sam’s hand was still gripping Deena’s arm and though they both felt the pull to bring each other closer, they ended up doing the entire opposite. 
They pushed each other, again and again. Sam was the first one to fall, but she brought Deena down with her. It was the first time they fought, but they were in the front yard, not in the safety of the rose bushes and trees of the backyard where they grew up. Their neighbors were watching, their families pulled them apart, and it was the official ending of their friendship. They couldn’t erase that fight, and they didn’t manage to move on from it.
--
The moment Sam and Deena met, there were no witnesses. Occasionally, Deena’s mother looked out the window and saw her daughter smile brightly, the way she would rarely do for years after her death. Or Sam’s mother would go out to drag her daughter back in after seeing her fall on the mud with the other little girl again. As the years passed, Josh would see the way his sister treated him better whenever Sam was around. Their fathers, when they were home, learned to play with both girls, accepting they were inseparable. Kate and Simon would almost but not quite end up annoyed by the perfect friendship between Sam and Deena. They were witness to their friendship, of course, but not entirely. Because nobody was there for the most important moments.
Nobody ever got to see Sam brush Deena’s hair after her mother started slipping away, or Deena always carrying an extra sweater because Sam was always cold or uncomfortable in her own clothes. There was nobody eavesdropping when they promised to be friends forever, promised not to leave, promised nothing would pull them apart. It was just them, when they laughed until they cried, when they hid in the treehouse from Sam’s mother, and shoplifted candy bars from the local store, and put the prettiest flowers on each other’s hair.
But then, when everything changed, there were just too many eyes on them.
The rumors reached the Shadyside high school before Sam and Deena first set foot there. Gossip spread like fire in that little tragic town of theirs. People said Sam’s father had cheated on his ex-wife with Deena’s mother before she died. People said the Frasers put the fence because Deena was robbing them. People said Sam’s father left town to avoid paying back a debt to Deena’s father. But the one thing everyone in high school was saying was that Sam and Deena had hated each other their entire lives, all their neighbors had seen them fight every day in their front yard, the two girls couldn’t stand the sight of each other.
Sam and Deena started high school and then they just didn’t do anything to stop the rumors. It was easier to let people believe whatever they wanted than to explain it all. Why would they attempt to explain to strangers that they never hated each other, that they used to be best friends in a way that felt as vital as breathing, and that even now the absence of the other one was more significant than the majority of things in their lives? That they couldn’t actually hate each other if they tried, and that they were too young to make sense of the way that thinking of the other one brought pain and joy in equal measures, that each other’s names were a synonym of the best and worst days of their lives and that it was just too much for them.
It was easier, then, to go along with it, and even feed the rumors. Deena pushed Sam on the hallways, and Sam made Deena stumble on her way to her seat in the classrooms. Deena flipped Sam off from a distance, and Sam called her a bitch when she passed by. During soccer, Deena kicked the ball toward Sam’s face, and during lunch, Sam dropped her food on Deena’s lap.
It was petty, it was annoying, but it was one way to still have each other in their lives. Maybe they could have stayed enemies for their entire lives until they inherited their parents’ houses, vices, and grudges. But that’s when a much bigger threat finally took them by surprise and put their lives completely upside down. It was time for their own personal rollercoaster to start moving again, faster and more violently than before.
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chaoticspacefam · 3 years
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wonder if part of why the swtor jedi-sith conflict plays the way it does with “sith stans” and etc because the sith empire are functionally saturday morning cartoon villains - “murder and mayhem await!” compared to the more, i guess, believable evil of the republic/jedi following good ideals to bad conclusions and justifying war crimes
I'd certainly say it doesn't help things, you're right! I have...a lot of issues with the Jedi and their portrayal (especially in the Legends/SWTOR era), but I also recognise that a lot of that is very personal to me and that another fan might feel differently. Long, ranty post ahead so if that's not your deal, skip this one.
TL;DR: thinking critically about the behaviour of the Good Guys bad, I guess, since they're the good guys and you're obviously not allowed to use your own agency to decide something they do makes you deeply, viscerally uncomfortable.  And God help you if you disagree with anything they do and cite personal experience behind your (very justified) avoidance of that rhetoric/teaching, because Bad Things Justified If Good People Do Them and how dare you have different personal experiences and responses. If that's what you do, you're doing fandom wrong /s Also, bad writing choices of the writers themselves that perpetuate toxic, harmful viewpoints and/or stereotypes don't mean anything when said viewpoints/stereotypes are the Bad Guys because...Bad Guys Aren’t Supposed To Be People With Rights, Thoughts and Feelings Too, They’re Just Evil, (cringe)
Disagreeing with someone’s opinions is fine, but if you’re going to deliberately expose yourself to content you don’t like and then attack the person that is making the content because they made it and it upset you when you went looking for it....you are, in fact, the one at fault babes. No one is holding you hostage, you can block tags or unfollow a person (especially me. I really don’t care honest to god, if my posts are not your jam just leave. please.) if you hate what they post so much and are unable to just scroll past things you don’t like to stay for things you do. I’ve done it and will continue to do so, and my fandom experience is happier for it. Also, people are human and sometimes we’re tired and we make mistakes like we miss a trigger tag, and you are within your right to come to the person and point that out, but you are not within your right to threaten them because they made a mistake. Then you’re just a dick.
But I still wouldn't be the one going around (passive) aggressively attacking other fans for disagreeing with my opinions and again, this is based on personal experience, but I've seen a lot more of that stuff from "pro-Jedi" people who seem to be conveniently okay with shit like mass-genocide and cultural erasure because "the Jedi are the good guys and the (OT) Sith are fascists!"
I don't interact with the subsect of fans that do think "the (OT) Empire did nothing wrong hurr durr" unironically (and for good reason, I don't agree with that viewpoint either and the fact that half the time the "defence" of these other fans is "well you're pro-fascist then!!" lmao) but there's a very big gap between the OT Empire which is rightfully a mirror of fascism and dictatorial governments and I do, in fact, raise my eyebrows in heavy criticism and disdain at the writers of the TOR-era deliberately choosing to "justify" the ultimate end being said fascist Empire by making the Sith species (and as always I preface this by saying I am in fact white & therefore know I have priveledge and can only "relate" on a much shallower level as POC fans, but there are places where I do find them more relatable than the TOR-era Jedi which reek of conservative, pearl-clutching Christianity (which I spent way too much of my life having forced upon me by the bible-bashing Evangelists(tm) in my family) to me and I just don't have the fucks to give to spend time fixing something that's honestly traumatising for me to be reminded of):
-heavily Indigenous/POC-coded
-"tribal" and not in a properly-researched and respectfully portrayed sense but in a very deliberate "these people are savage and need to be colonised and "sophisticated" by the More Acceptible (Human) Dark Jedi" even though they had their own society, belief systems, and even had technology - just not in the "socially acceptible, conventional sense" I guess
-perpetuating this by adding slavery and all of that can of worms into the mix too, just to drive home the "evil and bad" prototype ig. I'm not even gonna speak more on this part because it just makes me angry.
-Deliberately giving them more "alien" or inhuman characteristics, which while by itself is not necessarily a bad thing, put it together with all the other things?? Big. Fucking. Oof.
-Were literally exterminated and the survivors selectively bred for ONLY the "bad and evil" traits for not agreeing with the Jedi's beliefs. Their own practises and beliefs were automatically "evil" and "wrong" just because they didn't want to "convert" (sniff sniff, Christianity, is that you?)
A direct quote for those who can't be bothered to click and read the link:
For nearly two thousand years, superstition, loyalty and sympathy were bred out as the two groups interbred, and qualities such as cunning, ambition and affinity to the Force were favored, which shaped Sith society over the centuries.[3][21][22] In the Sith Empire, as time progressed pure-blooded Sith were steadily bred out,[6] resulting in only a few pure-blooded Sith left in the Sith Empire by the time of the Great Hyperspace War.[13] Long after, the true species in the Empire were believed to have gone extinct due to the interbreeding process.
And conversely the Jedi:
-Deny young children contact with their parents, siblings and families from the moment their Force sensitivity shows (hmmmm. )
-Continually and actively support the condemnation and Exile of "imperfect" Jedi, hell, it's even pointed out on Wookieepedia, that any Force sensitive, even those who are not aligned to either faction, but that train with or follow teachings that are not Jedi Approved (tm) is labelled as a "Dark Jedi" by the Jedi Order
Although "Dark Jedi" originally referred to a Jedi who had fallen to the dark side, it could also refer to uninitiated Force-sensitives who received no Jedi training but began their careers under another Dark Jedi. Others were simply dark-side users who did not follow the teachings of the Sith or other dark side organizations.
because "oh noooo you do not follow the way of the Truth and the Light you horrible person how dare you defy The One True Correct Teaching, that makes you the Devil Incarnate no matter what" UGH.
-Continuously push the idea (very heavily) that Emotions Are Bad, which just creates a bunch of emotionally-stunted powderkegs unable to recognise, confront and deal with said emotions (and as I've said, I would know, I was one and maybe still am in some ways lmao) , then blames said powderkeg for exploding because they were never taught how to handle the emotions in the first place.
(Fuck "there is no emotion, there is peace", that's not how people work and never will be lmao)
I don't really know what else to say about this to be honest, because even though I've only been on tumblr about a year now, I'm already tired of this constant "I'm right, you're wrong" finger-pointing between those people in the fandom.
Cause to some of these "pro-Jedi" people it's an unthinkable crime to dare to have a different opinion to them and just want to be left alone, I guess. I've literally been attacked for saying "I don't like the Jedi and find dealing with their dogma too traumatising based on personal experience and trauma from my childhood so I'm going to avoid it but you do you"
I've had American Christians (tm) clap back to that with the ever-wonderful "LMAO bitch you don't have religious trauma, you didn't grow up in the bible-belt, stop trying to be edgy, shut up and go to therapy"
(all of this is sarcasm, for those who need me to spell it out for you. I'm still traumatised by the shit I went through and have to constantly check myself and my own feelings because of the toxic "habits" those teachings tried to push onto me as a child and I have zero tolerance and patience for your (not you, ssalmon, but the royal "you" as it were) victim-blaming abuse apologism "gotchas")
because 1) clearly American Christianity and the bible-belt are the only insidious and harmful subsect of Christianity and it's not like the concept of Evangelism as a whole is inherently toxic, harmful, and traumatising to those subjected to it right 2) Obviously there's a Stated Right Way To Be Traumatised and anyone who falls outside of that (Non-Existent) handbook is "faking it for attention" 3) bold of them to assume that curating my own fandom (and life) experience, and refusing to engage with things that trigger me, isn't something that I literally fucking learned in therapy lmao
Also, I find it funny how these are the people going around attacking people like me, who are literally minding our own motherfucking business, but then claim to preach “love and tolerism” and all this other bullshit. Karen, sweetie, only one of us is going around telling people they deserve to be murdered/stabbed for disagreeing with thier opinion about a videogame and pointing out that “hey, that’s...very yikes maybe don’t do that, step back and calm down” and it ain’t me (true story, this happened a couple of months ago and I don’t wanna dredge the post up because it’s very upsetting to think about) People are allowed to have opinions, and they don’t have to agree with your opinion just because that’s what you think, and the second that you sink to sending people death threats because they don’t share your opinion, you are, in fact, the asshole in that conversation.
It was even funnier because the person in question followed me first, I initially thought they were pretty cool so I followed back, then they threw a massive temper-tantrum and threw a bunch of very upsetting and triggering shit at me without my consent because I didn’t agree with them (I’d even put my opinions in tags on MY blog in an attempt to be courteous and not hijack their post with negativity, in hindsight perhaps I should have made my own post in the first place and I do acknowledge that BUT if that’s all they’d said I would have apologised and moved on, quite gladly, there was no need for them to explode the way they did at me for...making a mistake because I’m a stranger on the internet who didn’t know them & wasn’t a mind-reader and I happened to miss a trigger tag that I didn’t think of at the time lmao)
This post is getting awful long and rambly so I'm going to shut up now, but that's my take on it I guess, I hope that's what you were getting at and if it's not I apologise, I've been taking a huge step back and actively just avoiding any and all major posts related to this discourse as of a few months ago because it just infuriates and upsets me too much, it’s not worth the detriment to my mental health, I’m just here to make friends who are also hyperfixated on SWTOR and have fun vibing and talking about our characters, not get into one-sided morality debates with pearl-clutchers. 🤷
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fanexus-dot-net · 4 years
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OFFICIAL FEATURE ANNOUNCEMENT: HIERARCHICAL TAGS
One of the core, defining features of Fanexus is an intelligent hierarchal tagging system, similar to the tagging system on Archive of Our Own. This system will be able to recognise that multiple different tags have the same meaning (e.g. “#BtVS” and “#Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) and so return all posts tagged with any of these tags when just one of them is searched. It will also distinguish between different concepts with the same name (e.g. “#Megatron (character)” and “#Megatron (Nicki Minaj song)”), and recognise that some concepts are child concepts of other concepts (e.g. “#Spock” is a child concept of “#Star Trek”). When a post is given a particular tag, it is also automatically tagged with all parent tags of that tag.  
Motivation  
This tagging system will save people from having to tag a post with every different variation of that tag to ensure it will be seen, and by the same token, people will only have to search for one term to get all the relevant content they’re look for. They will also be saved from seeing irrelevant content that has a similar name to what they want to see. Furthermore, tagging time will be reduced because entering a single tag will auto-fill many other relevant tags, e.g. if someone tags something with “#Spock (TOS)”, their post will automatically show up in searches for “#Spock (All)”, “#Star Trek: The Original Series” and “#Star Trek”, saving them the effort of having to enter those tags themselves.
This system will also make it easier for people to filter the content they’re interested in. For instance, there are fandoms that have dozens of different continuities and versions of a character, and a person may only be interested in one or two particular versions. Often all those different versions get dumped under the same tag, but the hierarchal tagging system will make it easier to look for what you specifically want to see.  
Say someone likes Loki, but only the version from the MCU movies; the main “#Loki” tag will collect all posts related to any Loki – from myth, from Marvel, and from countless other pieces of fiction based on Norse mythology. A child tag of this tag will be “#Loki (Marvel)”, which collects all posts related to any version of a Marvel Loki, and then a child of this in turn will finally be “#Loki (MCU)”. So, a person can just follow this child tag, and avoid all the other Loki content.  
On the flip side, if someone is interested in all versions of Loki except the MCU version, they can follow the general Loki tag, while filtering out the Loki (MCU) tag. This also works for relationship tags; the main tag for the relationship between two or more characters can collect all takes on that relationship – romantic, platonic, sexual, familial, enemies, etc – making it easier for people who enjoy a particular take on that relationship to find what they want while avoiding the rest.
The hierarchy will also provide an informative way of illustrating how different canon and fanon concepts interrelate. Entering a fandom with many different official continuities and fan-made AUs can be very confusing, so having a hierarchy to show what concepts are derived from one another can clear up some of that confusion. This also applies to original creators with their own complex universes (or multiverses) who want easy ways to organise their ideas and content and demonstrate how it all fits together. After all, it’s not unknown for fan and original creators alike to have AUs based on AUs based on AUs, and OCs derived from OCs derived from OCs, so having any tools to make sense of these tangled ideas can be very helpful to both creators and consumers.
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laurawritesandgames · 4 years
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Title: The Children We Never Had
Fandom: Beetlejuice (Musical)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Beetlejuice/Barbara/Adam
Prompt: Hurt/Comfort
Content Warning: References to miscarriages and abortion
Summary: As Delia and Charles prepare to start their family together, Barbara reflects on her chance to have her own children. What once seemed so simple can become much more complicated when you’re a ghost....
Delia and Charles had just completed the first round of IVF treatments. Delia was fanatic about getting all toxins out of the house, so one Saturday the Maitlands, Beetlejuice and Lydia were helping Delia get rid of any plastic containers in the kitchen, to be replaced with glass containers.
“Why is there so much Tupperware?” Delia exclaimed.
“One of Mom’s friends sold Tupperware, and we had a few parties,” Lydia said. “Mom was sick for years. If she’d been able to keep up with the science, I doubt she would’ve kept them. She was nuts about the environment.” Lydia frowned thoughtfully. “Say, Delia, what exactly are your thoughts on vaccines?”
Barbara and Adam shared a look. They knew from the Maitland-Deetz’s biweekly parenting meetings that Delia had anti-vaxxer tendencies. She was, at least, open to a respectful discussion about vaccines. Give Charles a few conversations and she’d probably give in to science and reason—the newlyweds were crazy for each other.
Not that Lydia had any of that context.
“I’m just not convinced vaccines are necessary. I have some very interesting websites I can show you later, Lydia. There’s a lot of doubt about the so-called ‘science’ that Big Pharma doesn’t want you to see.”
Lydia’s lip curled in the disgust.
“Are you an idiot?!” Beetlejuice said. “I lived in a world without vaccines. It was shit!”
“I just don’t know if I’m willing to take that risk,” Delia said, with her polite, argument-deflecting smile. Adam’s parents had been masters at avoiding conflict, so Barbara knew what would happen next. She’d say something light or silly and try to get everyone focused on the kitchen again.  
“I should draw a door and bring you to the Netherworld, Delia. Give you a tour of Diaper Town so you can see all the dead babies that’re there from before childhood vaccines were a thing.”
“Diaper Town?” Lydia asked.
“Eh, that’s not the real name—just what we called it. Where the dead babies go. Ugh! I had a shift in Diaper Town for a few decades. It was the worst.”
“I imagine they look like they did when they died,” Lydia said, thoughtfully.
“And they never age! That’s the only reason people hang around babies—because they eventually become not-babies.”
“What about miscarriages? Mom had a few before me. Is there going to be a clump of Deetz cells in the Netherworld?”
Barbara reached out for Adam’s hand and found it within seconds. (He’d been across the room a second ago. He must have teleported.) She clenched it. Hard. 
Beetlejuice didn’t notice.
As a ghost, you were always cold. Barbara couldn’t get colder. She also couldn’t swallow to try to wet a dry mouth. Her hands wouldn’t grow cold and prickly with shock. Her emotions were completely disconnected from bodily sensations. She could feel Adam behind her and leaned back into him slightly. Not that he made her feel warmer. Nothing ever would.
If she’d been alive, she might’ve looked like Delia: her face pale as she forced a too-wide smile onto her face. “Let’s all talk about something else, shall we? I don’t want any bad vibes.” Her hand rested on her stomach. During one of their parenting meetings, she’d mentioned she only had a few eggs left. “Not—not right now.”
Lydia glared at her. “Seriously? Hearing about a dead woman’s fertility issues isn’t going to hurt your fetus.”
“The Deetus,” Beetlejuice added. “Deetz fetus. Get it?”
Lydia ignored him. “Bad vibes aren’t a thing!”
“We’ll agree to disagree on that one.” Delia hurried out of the kitchen. “Would anyone mind a smudging ceremony? Just to clear the air and usher in tranquility?”
Lydia followed with a shriek of rage. “’Smudging ceremony’? Are you from an Indigenous tribe, Delia? Because if you’re not, that’s major cultural appropriation!”
“Ooo, cultural appropriation! I know that one!” Beetlejuice said, delighted. When he’d first come back from the Netherworld, the Maitlands had held a few sensitivity seminars for him so he could stop getting into arguments with Lydia. Beetlejuice’s views were a weird mix of surprisingly progressive and incredibly archaic. “It’s a culture, not a costume!” He floated over to Barbara and Adam. “Did I do that right? Do I get a kiss?”
It took a lot of effort to focus on Beetlejuice right now. “Sorry,” Barbara said. “We’re not going to reward you for being a decent person. But thank you for trying.”
Beetlejuice huffed in disappointment.
Adam cleared his throat. Barbara glanced at him. Adam tilted his head slightly at Beetlejuice, raising his eyebrows questioningly. He was asking her for permission to tell Beetlejuice. After a moment’s thought, Barbara nodded. Beetlejuice liked to keep things light, but he was their boyfriend, after all. He should learn a bit more about Barbara and Adam.
“What happens to children who died before they were born?” Adam asked quietly.
Beetlejuice shrugged. “I dunno. I was born dead in one of the original versions of the musical, but it ain’t canon. There aren’t any fetuses floating around the Netherworld. Maybe they go someplace else?” He shrugged, spreading his hands. “I got nothing.” 
Out of habit (not because she actually needed to breathe), Barbara sighed in relief. Thank God, was her first thought, despite having a pretty good idea that God didn’t exist. She let of of Adam’s hand, giving him a small smile.
“Why do you wanna know?” Beetlejuice asked.
Barbara shared another look with Adam before saying, “When I was 22, I got pregnant.” She cleared her throat. She hadn’t talked about this in years.
Beetlejuice didn’t like silences. Immediately, he said, “Quit pulling my leg. If you were pregnant, then where’s your—”
It took a few moments, but his eyes finally widened and his jaw dropped. “Oh. Ohhhh. I didn’t think…” His hands began flapping, then running up and down his sleeves and fiddling with his cuffs. “So we’re bringing in some of the movie backstory. Okay. Okay. Sure.”
“The what?” Adam asked.
“Nevermind. So you guys had a miscarriage.”
“An abortion, actually,” Barbara said.
Beetlejuice stopped bobbing faintly, freezing in mid-air. His voice rose in pitch as he said, “I saw the tags on this fic and I assumed you’d be hurt/comforting me! I’m the one with all the issues! Who the hell told you that you guys could have issues?!” 
“What now?” Barbara said, forcing her tone to stay even. 
“And also, our lives weren’t perfect,” Adam said. “I just want to remind you that both of my parents are dead. So…yeah. When we were alive, we had struggles and challenges like everybody else.”
Beetlejuice began coughing. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, eventually pulling out a foot and tossing it on the ground. (Barbara had learned not to ask whose foot.) “Um. Can I try again?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Feel free.”
Beetlejuice opened and closed his mouth a few times, but didn’t say anything.
Adam said, “Just so you know, Bug, this isn’t something to share.” Beetlejuice was a compulsive oversharer; they’d learned to explicitly tell him what was appropriate and what wasn’t.
“It’s not because we’re ashamed,” Barbara said quickly. “It’s just our story to tell, that’s all.”
“Right! I can do that.” He focused on something in the middle distance. “Although maybe some people could really examine their need to inject complicated real-world issues into a stupid five-page fic for Beetlelands Week. Not every fandom and every fic can bear that weight! And some characters definitely aren’t designed to deal with shit like this! They’re awesome Deadpool-style badasses and not…not…whatever this needs!”
Barbara loved Beetlejuce, but he was getting on her last nerve. I didn’t think he’d completely disassociate like this. It’s only a goddamn abortion. He didn’t even have to deal with anything! “Well, I’m sorry my and Adam’s history is such an inconvenience for you. I’m going to go find something to do. If you want to talk when you’re not spiraling and doing whatever this is, come find me.”
Barbara teleported to their bedroom, the Deetzes’ former guest room, upstairs, and Adam teleported with her.
Tears wavered in his eyes. Startled, she held him, stroking his back.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
“No, don’t be.”
He sniffled a few times, wiping his tears away. Their ghostly bodies still remembered how to produce tears, and if Beetlejuice was any indication, that memory would stick with them for centuries. He whispered, “We would’ve had a child. If it weren’t for me—”
Adam had always felt needless guilt about mentioning the abortion first. She’d thought he’d gotten over it. “You didn’t force me. We had student loans, the recession had just hit the year before, we couldn’t find work, and most importantly? We weren’t ready. We were barely ready 10 years later, when we had a house and good jobs.”
He smiled sadly, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Sorry. I don’t know where this is coming from.” He stroked her cheek. “I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”
She blinked. “I’m…fine? I’ve been fine for 10 years.” She hadn’t been fine immediately before and after the abortion. There’d been lots of crying, praying, and long conversations, but that had been a long time ago. Gently, she asked, “I thought you were, too. Was I wrong?”
When did we really talk about it except immediately after? Barbara couldn’t recall.
Adam gave her that same distracted smile he used to give her after his parents’ funeral. He was a brave little soldier, marching forward. “You weren’t wrong. I’m fine.”
You didn’t push when you saw that smile. “I think I’m going to read something. Want to join me?”
“I wouldn’t mind working on the model a bit more. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.” She kissed his cheek, and he went up to the attic to work on his model of Winter River.
She was choosing between Michelle Obama’s biography a polyamory how-to guide when a spider skittered underneath the door. The spider climbed up the wall then began spinning a web in the corner of the room at unnatural speed. Letters appeared in the web.
SORRY
I WAS A BAD BOYFRIEND
It’s a Charlotte’s Web homage, Barbara realized. She’d loved that book as a child. He remembered. “Apology accepted, Beetlejuice.”
He knocked on the door. Opening it revealed him reading from index cards. Delia, who was using her life coach skills to help Beetlejuice adjust to being part of the family, had encouraged him to write down important things.
“I should have reacted a lot better than I did,” Beetlejuice read. “You and Adam trusted me with with a part of your lives, and I should have liz—lizden? Shit, I’m bad at spelling.” He looked up from the cards, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Anyway, thanks for trusting me, baby. Sorry I was being a dick about it. You and Adam having an—an abortion had nothing to do with me or my feelings.”
Beetlejuice could talk about the filthiest sex acts and talk about rotting corpses without flinching, but now he was stumbling. Interesting. “Well, ‘we had an abortion’ might’ve been a lot to throw at you. We could’ve prepared you better.” She nodded him inside, and he floated in. She closed the door behind her. “I imagine abortions weren’t really talked about in your day.”
“Well, we thought ladies’ wombs wandered around their bodies, so…no.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“Um…are you okay?” He fidgeted. “You’re all…y’know, motherly and shit. Are you sad about having an abortion?”
“No. I mean, I don’t love that I needed it. Adam and I were a lot more careful making love after that, believe me. But Adam and my family had my back, and luckily I live in a state where I can access an abortion easily. I also found some forums, and chatting with people who’d also had abortions helped me feel less alone. Honestly, until Lydia brought up miscarriages today, I hadn’t thought about my abortion in years.” Feeling awkward, she chuckled. “Um, really glad I won’t have to deal with a clump of cells following me around in the Netherworld, though.”
She felt a twinge of guilt for not feeling guiltier. Her Good Christian Girl upbringing still reared its head now and then. But I did what was best for my family at the time. That’s all anyone can do. If I’d known Adam and I were going to die 10 years later, we might’ve done things differently, but how could we have known that?
“So, that’s my story. I was supported and very lucky. I’m not sad or guilty or anything.” She frowned. “Adam might be, though. He was strangely upset.” Did I do something wrong? Has he been suffering for years without me noticing? “He’s upstairs working on the model again.”
“I’ll cheer him up!” Beetlejuice said. He clapped his hands together. “It’s hurt/comfort. Time to be goddamn comforted, Adam.”
“I’d give him a few hours.” Adam was a brooder. There was a certain point where he just wouldn’t engage.
Beetlejuice chuckled, patting her smarmily on the head. “Your boring, married-couple rules don’t apply to me, Babs. I’mma shake things up and heal his wounded heart. You can come up and watch, if you want. Watch me win.”
Barbara made herself laugh as she tried to ignore her jealousy. Beetlejuice was just being his usual low-grade dickish self, but what if he was right? Maybe Adam will respond better to Beetlejuice than to me. I didn’t expect Adam to be this sad, after all. What else have I missed? “If you succeed, feel free to come back and give me a play-by-play of your victory.”
Beetlejuice poofed away, and Barbara picked up the how-to guide to polyamory. It couldn’t help to get a refresher.
If Beetlejuice made Adam feel better, then that was a win for everyone. She could ask him how he’d done it and learn from him. The entire point of dating Beetlejuice was to break out of their old patterns and add a little excitement to their afterlives.  
Barbara was lying down on their bed, reading the first chapter when Beetlejuice teleported back in.
“You mighta been right,” he grumbled.
“It’s almost like I’ve been dating him since I was 16.”
“Of course you were high school sweethearts. You two are so cliché, I blocked that out.” Beetlejuice floated closer, whining, “Sexy raised his voice to me, Barbara!”
Barbara set the book down. “Oh, I’m sorry, Bug.” That was the Adam equivalent of full-blown shouting. (Adam had shouted at Beetlejuice before, of course, but that was when Beetlejuice had been a villain.)
“Me! The favourite!”
Barbara raised her eyebrows. “Maybe you should read this chapter with me about egalitarian polyamorous relationships—and how terms like ‘favourite’ are toxic.”
Beetlejuice floated away from her. “Mmm, nope, too many things to do.”
She’d expected that. It wasn’t clear when Beetlejuice had died, but it was definitely before therapy and couple’s counselling had become more mainstream. He didn’t have the same ability to talk about and reflect on his and other’s feelings that Barbara and Adam had. Usually, he just reacted to his own. Barbara wouldn’t have gotten into a relationship with Beetlejuice if she’d been unwilling to teach him.
“Lemme know when he’s ready to talk, okay?” the demon continued.
“Well, I don’t have a psychic link to him, but I’ll try…if you read this chapter with me.”
Beetlejuice crossed his arms over his chest, harrumphing. After a few moments, he shrugged, floated over to the bed, and curled up beside her.
If her eyes could water, they might have at the smell of rotting flesh. But Barbara quickly got used to the smell. “Let me guess—your clones poked around and didn’t find anything else interesting happening right now?”
“Ha! Busted! Delia, Lydia and Charles are still arguing about vaccines. Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. Making out with you is way more fun.”
“We’re learning how to have a more equitable, communicative relationship. Not making out.”
“We’ll see, baby.”
*
They approached Adam later that afternoon.              
He looked up from a figurine he was painting, expression guilty. “I’ll come down when it’s time for dinner, okay?” he said quietly. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Is there anything we can do for you now?” Barbara asked.
He looked between Barbara and Beetlejuice. His eyes were so haunted…. Barbara took a few steps forward.
“Adam?” she said softly.
“You said we weren’t ready,” he murmured roughly. “What if we would’ve been? We never even gave ourselves the chance….”
He showed her what he’d been working on: a little child figurine with her blonde hair. “There would’ve been part of you and me living now. Someone with your hair and my eyes, or your smile….”
Okay. We haven’t talked about the abortion in years, and now he’s making a model of what would have become our child. So, this is new. But I can handle this. I know him. I’ve got this.
Nevertheless, a tiny part of her really wanted to tag out and let Beetlejuice handle this one. Not that he would’ve done well—he was frozen except for his eyes, frantically flicking between her and Adam.
While Barbara thought of the most empathetic, respectful way to respond, Beetlejuice blurted out, “Someone’s got a case of the Shouldas.”
“Hmm?” Adam grunted, looking uninterested.
“You know, shoulda done this when I was alive. Shoulda done that. Every newlydead goes through it. Of course, usually they’re stuck in an endless void and not chilling in the living world with their sexy boyfriend.” Beetlejuice nodded to Barbara. “And your sexy wife.”
So he had learned something from that chapter they’d read together. Barbara gave him a small smile. “How do newlydeads usually get through it?” she asked.
“‘Get through’ is real optimistic, Babs. They just get crushed by overwhelming despair and hopelessness. It’s the Netherworld. Everything sucks there.”
Adam grunted again.
Beetlejuice rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I can’t really talk about ‘healing’ and shit….” He gestured frantically for Barbara to do something.
One thing about spending so much time with Beetlejuice was that you got used to out-of-the box thinking. It was time for a little experiment. Barbara didn’t give herself time to think, and dove right in.
“Congratulations, Maitlands.” She made air horn noises. The words ‘The Life We Never Had’ appeared in bright text above the model town. “Welcome to your life where you had your child!”
Adam and Beetlejuice both stared at her in stunned silence.
“This got so dark, so fast, but I kinda love it,” Beetlejuice commented.
“Well,” she said, “first of all, forget this house. We’d probably be living with your parents. They don’t even live in town.” She took a few moments to create a mental map, then gestured at the model. It grew larger, to the surrounding counties. Adam’s family farm was on the outskirts of this new map.
“And forget the CPA degree. No way we can afford that now. But your uncle Eddy has that plumbing business. He’d probably give you a job.” She manifested Eddy’s truck, making it drive through town. “I’d probably knit and sell things on Etsy…. Wait, it’s 2010. Does Etsy even exist?” Barbara couldn’t remember. “Or I’d sell them at the local farmer’s market. We probably still love our projects, even if we don’t have as much time for them now.”
Barbara could’ve gone darker. In this future, she would’ve been stuck in Adam’s parents’ home with no career prospects and a baby she wasn’t sure she wanted. If anything was a recipe for postpartum depression, that would’ve been. But she kept it light.
“Oh, jeez,” she realized, “I forgot all about names! What do you think of Aspen?” Barbara had always wanted a nature-themed name.
“It has the word ‘Ass’ in it,” Beetlejuice complained. “Do you want bullies to give your kid swirlies?”
“You’re not here, mister. You don’t get a say.”
“Hey, that’s right! We never meet if you don’t move into the house.” Beetlejuice frowned. “Truly, this is the darkest timeline.”
“What about River?” Adam said. “For our child.”
“River. That’s beautiful. Okay, so little River goes to school here.” She gestured to the school in town. “What do you think? Good grades?”
“Of course.”
“And then you guys commit crimes!” Beetlejuice interrupted.
Barbara raised her eyebrows.
“What? Boring people commit crimes all the time and become awesome. Weeds? Breaking Bad?”
“I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t.”
“Argh, fine, I was just getting bored of all this slice-of-life shit. Let’s spice things up!”
“Ooo, maybe we solve crimes? Like a cozy mystery set in rural Connecticut.”
“Committing them is way more fun, but I’ll take anything at this point. Your ideal lives are so boring! River’s gonna do meth just to feel alive!”
“They might fall in with a bad crowd in high school,” Barbara said.
“Thank you! A little conflict, please. It’s the essence of drama!”
“But we’d be there for them,” Adam said. “Hmm. Mom and Dad would still die, I suppose. I’d probably disappoint my Maitland ancestors and sell the farm.”
Barbara watched him intently. He wasn’t smiling, but he seemed a bit more engaged than he had been.
“We could move into one of the homes here,” she suggested, nodding to one of the small houses on the outside of town.
“That’s gonna really suck for you when the zombies attack,” Beetlejuice said.
Barbara kept making up their fake life, with Adam chiming in every now and then, both of them trying to ignore Beetlejuice’s input. They tried to give River a nice life, with a full-ride scholarship to NYU (which was, coincidentally, Lydia’s dream school), lots of friends, and a home that may not be full of money but was full of love.
Eventually, Adam smiled and shook his head. “Thanks for playing dolls with me, guys.”
Barbara hugged him from behind. “If you need time to mourn, take all the time you need. Beetlejuice and I are here for you.”
Adam wiped some tears from his eyes. “I think I do. Sorry, sweetie. Sometimes all the things we never got to do…they just hit me, hard. Even things I’d made peace with long ago. I spent so much of my life worrying….”
Barbara moved to stand beside him, kissing his cheek. If she could’ve made him feel warm, she would have.
Beetlejuice was spaced out, staring into the middle distance. Thinking of his own Shouldas, maybe? Nah. He never looks back unless he’s trapped in a traumatic memory about his mother. Probably wondering when we can make out again.
She nodded him over, and he blinked, coming back to the present. Hesitantly, he floated over and rested his chin on Adam’s head.
They were both still and silent, two things Beetlejuice hated, so it wasn’t surprising when a horde of centipedes skittered across the model, or a tiny King Kong grabbed a figurine and climbed up to the top of the town bell tower, roaring.
Lydia interrupted them when she she poked her head into the attic and told them dinner was ready. “And the leftovers will be stored in glass containers—if you leave us any leftovers, Beej. Delia cleared the cupboard of all plastics. Don’t worry about the baby, either. If Delia continues to believe tea tree oil can cure pneumonia or whatever, Dad and I will get the kid vaccinated when she’s not around.”
Barbara smiled at her chosen daughter. Beetlejuice was right; they weren’t stuck in the lonely void of the Netherworld. There was life and family just downstairs. “I’m glad. But I’m sure we’ll be able to convince her otherwise. We have nine months.”
“You’re more optimistic than I am, Barbara.”
Adam put the River figurine with the smattering of other children outside the grade school. “Let’s go,” he said quietly.
The three of them followed Lydia to the dinner table.
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dessarious · 4 years
Text
Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt70
Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU
AO3   Beginning   Previous   Next
Marinette woke slowly, smiling at the steady heartbeat under her ear. She couldn’t explain the feeling, but waking up warm and safe with her girlfriend just made it seem like everything was right in the world. That feeling only lasted until she tried to stretch and couldn’t.
Her memory of the days events came back in a rush and she felt tears at the back of her eyes. She pushed them down, refusing to feel sorry for herself. Today was a good day. All of Paris was likely celebrating and she should be as well. Turning over was a bit of a challenge since she had to reach down and untangle her legs from Chloe’s. Even sitting up was different. You don’t think about how different muscles work to complete an action but as she struggled up to lean against the headboard she couldn’t help but wonder exactly how much she’d have to get used to.
It wasn’t like she’d never be able to walk again though. When she was Ladybug it would be like this never happened. Granted she wasn’t certain if that was good or bad. It would help to keep her legs from atrophying but she had to wonder if it would just make it harder to adjust overall.
Chloe began to get restless in her sleep, probably a nightmare, so Marinette began combing her fingers through the other girls hair to help them both calm down. There were so many things that would change. Everything in her civilian life was going to turn upside down and she knew that she couldn’t even guess half of the things that would change.
Her home was now completely inaccessible to her as Marinette. Even if her parents had the money to renovate, and they didn’t, there was no room. Chloe, she was sure, would insist she stay at the hotel until things were sorted out. But at the same time the only real solution would be to rent or buy somewhere else for her to live. She had enough money from her business to manage that at least, but she wasn’t sure how her parents would react to her having to use it. She was already forming arguments in her head for when they suggested they sell the bakery to cover her expenses. She was pulled out of her head by a light knock on the door. Definitely not Damian at least.
“Come in.” Tim poked his head in and she saw concern on his face but not the pity she’d expected which was a nice surprise.
“How are you feeling?” She frowned at the question, knowing she was going to get sick of hearing it quickly, but also because she wasn’t sure how to answer. She didn’t really feel any different yet.
“Fine, how’s the city handling the news?” Tim blinked at her, obviously surprised at the subject change but he shrugged.
“It seems to be a city wide holiday. Businesses and schools shut down so people could celebrate, or something. A lot of people seem to be using the time to grieve loved ones that happened to die while Hawkmoth was active since they couldn’t before, or just having nervous breakdowns. They’ve set up quiet spaces and tents where people can go talk to counselors and such for free. I realize now that I really didn’t understand the type of terror Hawkmoth was really imposing on this city.” Marinette could only hum in agreement. It was going to be a long adjustment period as people slowly let themselves feel properly again. She hoped people would continue to take other people's feelings into consideration before they acted though. It was one of the few good things that had come from this situation.
“It still doesn’t feel real. I don’t think I’ll stop waiting for the next Akuma attack for quite awhile. After being under constant threat for so long it’ll take my brain a while to really grasp the new reality.” The way Tim was looking at her she thought he knew she meant more than just the reality of Gabriel being imprisoned.
“I don’t know how much detail Damian’s gone into about our team but Oracle was paralyzed after an incident with the joker so if you need someone to talk to or ask questions we’ve got you covered. Honestly I think it would do her some good to have someone to talk to that understands as well.” Marinette smiled sadly, and a little guiltily at him.
“This must bring up some painful memories for you then, I’m sorry you had to be here for this.” Tim was looking at her like she was insane but she couldn’t figure out why. That concern was replaced by a more pressing one. “I hate to ask but I really don’t want to wake Chloe before she’s ready and Tikki still hasn’t eaten either…” She felt her face heat up and couldn’t look him in the eye.
“Do you need me to get something for you?” She had to take a few deep breaths and still could only make her voice barely audible.
“I need to go to the bathroom. Would you mind carrying me over there?” She hated the thought of being dependant on people for something so personal, not to mention something she’d been doing since she was two. She’d have to start a list of basic things she needed to find new ways to handle to avoid situations like this. Tim however just took it in stride.
“Of course. Here, put your arm around my neck.”
------------------------------------------------
As Chloe woke she could feel Plagg and Tikki still sleeping on her chest. Poor Tikki had been so distraught about what happened she hadn’t been able to eat to recharge. Mari had tried so hard to cheer the little god up but then Master Fu said there was nothing to be done and the Kwami broke down completely. She blindly reached over to where Marinette should be and hit nothing but air and mattress.
She shot up, earning an annoyed hiss from Plagg while Tikki blinked at her in confusion. Marinette was gone. How could she be gone? Even know that Hawkmoth wasn’t a threat Chloe’s mind jumped to the worst possible conclusions.
“Calm down kit, breathe and listen.” Plagg was suddenly hovering in front of her face and she tried to do what he said. At first she could only hear her own heartbeat but soon that gave way to the sound of voices in the living room, specifically Mari’s distinctive giggle. It took her another few minutes to completely even out her breathing but at least she knew everything was alright. Well as alright as it could be. Once she was certain she wouldn’t worry Marinette with a panic attack she crossed to the door to see her and Tim sitting on the couch with his computer.
“See? They make wheelchairs so you can basically be standing if you need to Might even give you a few extra inches or more in height since you’re so small. That way you can reach cupboards and medicine cabinets and such. I’m sure we can make any necessary changes to whatever you order to make it as useful for you as possible. Hell we added a mini missile launcher to Babs’ once before she made us take it off.” Chloe was tempted to run over and hug Tim for the consideration he was showing. He acted like all this was perfectly normal, and in a way she supposed it was. At least it was Marinette’s new normal. It worried her that Mari hadn’t really reacted to the change yet though. Eventually there would be a breakdown of some sort and Chloe silently promised them both that she’d be there for it.
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scandalsavagefanfic · 4 years
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did you see the tagging discourse yesterday? they really went after whumpbby
Hey there. I did see it. I wrote up a response to it but I wanted to sleep on it before I responded. I wanted to make sure I come across as informative and dispassionate as possible because emotions are already high and tempers are flaring and the last thing I want to do is fan the flames.
As far as I can tell there were three issues mentioned.
1) Explicit Content in Summaries
I think not putting explicit content in a summary is a valid suggestion. Frankly, it’s not an angle I’ve ever considered (even though I’m pretty sure none of my summaries are explicit. I’m not giving away the milk for for free. You have to click on the cow to get it 🤣). 
But I do think it’s important to remember that asking the fanfiction community as a whole to embrace this as a community standard isn’t a miraculous fix it. For starters this is an additional courtesy and I’m not sure how much fic it will actually affect, particularly in this fandom (I pretty much only read explicit fic and while there’s definitely summaries that are explicit, it’s not a particularly common issue and the OP’s example is actually not explicit and is exactly the kind of thing that should be in the summary so that you know whether the fic beyond that will trigger you or not). I’m happy to pay a little extra attention and make an effort but that by no means ensures that you won’t see explicit content in the summary. I mean, tv shows give you the rating and tags in the beginning of the episode but you still might see something explicit if you’re flipping through the stations. It’s not possible for content providers to account for every person’s individual needs. The individual has to do some of the work.  There’s not really any reason for someone to be reading an explicit summary if they’ve seen the fic is rated explicit and seen the ship is one they’re uninterested in and seen that the tags contain content they’d be uninterested in for that ship (if there are any, because people forget that further tagging is another courtesy that creators go out of their way to do to make life easier for readers - I don’t know a single writer who enjoys tagging) before they ever get to the summary at all. But still. Fine. I think that’s a good point and I’ll be going through my 80+ fics over the weekend to make sure. It’s just that readers should never expect things that are courtesies to be strictly adhered to by the entirety of the community. 
2) Tagging All Batfamily Ships as “Incest”, Regardless of Actual Content
This seems to be predicated on the misconceptions that 1) the fan-dubbed Bat “Family” is an actual family by any metric that could be considered incestuous, and 2) that this is obvious and not up for discussion.
Both of those are untrue. The Batfamily are not canonically a family whose interpersonal relationships can be considered incestuous, by blood, law, or anything else. 
If you want to interpret the text that way, there is certainly room to do so. But it is neither a fact, nor an obvious one.
The Pre-Flashpoint canon, especially for Batfam, exists in a nebulous state of “maybe applicable”. One of the few things we can be sure of, is that Dick and Tim at least, were never adopted. Tim’s parents are alive and well. Pre-Flashpoint, Dick was adopted as a gesture in his late 20′s. He’s early to mid 20′s in N52/Rebirth (for some reason people seem to think that N52 and Rebirth are different continuities. They’re not. Rebirth is a continuation of N52.)
Jason’s adoption is never explicitly addressed in current canon. So you can pick your poison.
None of them grew up together in either continuity so that argument is out.
You are welcome to read the Bats as this kind of family if you want.
But no one else has to, and there is very little evidence in current (or past) canon to suggest they are. What evidence there is, is vague and ambiguous. NOT obvious and damning. There are a million different ways to consider someone family, including both platonic and romantic.  
Finally, since it was specifically pointed out, with the lack of blood ties, if I write an AU where they one or more of them has no ties to Bruce, that’s not incest and no one should be tagging it as such.
It’s pretty weird to ask someone to tag their fic as something it’s not. It’d be like asking me to tag my angst “fluff”. I might as well tag DickKory or SuperBat “incest” while I’m at it.
Hopefully this helps clear things up. Hopefully this will help people who are triggered by incest to be able to see batfam ship tags without being triggered. If the clarification that they are not a legal or blood family in canon does not help, I am truly very very sorry and I genuinely hope you can discover what it is about those ships that actually affects you so that you can better protect yourself. But I have to tag my ships. I can’t not tag a ship so that you don’t see it, because then you might accidentally stumble across it and get much further than the tag before you know what’s happening. And I can’t tag incest because it literally is not then readers will think that I’ve written a verse where the characters are blood/legal family in some way, where the fic treats them like they have familial bonds and sexual relationship, and some of them will likely avoid it.
Appropriate tagging is important so that people who don’t want to see things don’t AND so that people can find the content they’re looking for. It’s pretty unfair to expect people to use inappropriate tags and potentially harm more people by making tags meaningless and expecting readers to guess.
(small aside, “batcest” is not an ideal tag. From personal experience, coming here from comics and having no history with this kind of fandom, I avoided things tagged Batcest because I thought, with the combination of Bat + incest, it was the ship name for Bruce/Damian and I wasn’t interested in that.)
3) Inconsiderate Reader Comments
Inappropriate comments left on fics by readers, is also a valid issue. It is also an entirely separate issue that has nothing to do with the very clearly stated primary concerns. Inconsiderate comments are an unfortunate reality of creating and sharing those creations. Unfortunately there’s no, non-fascist way of forcing people to be considerate. We all have to live with that.
We can absolutely complain about publicly on our blogs. And if you’re a gen author, with no history of certain ships, I will defend that it’s rude to pop on your fic and ask if it’s going to be that ship. Just like I will defend that it’s rude to pop on my perfectly tagged Bruce/Duke fic and try to tell me that it’s incest because Duke lived at the Manor for two weeks before moving in with his uncle. I’m sorry you have to deal with it. I’m sorry I have to deal with it. I’m sorry we all have to deal with it. But it’s not something we can stop or the people who came before us would have. So it is something that you have to be able to cope with.
As for whump, I thought she handled it well, especially in her clarification posts. The OP was obviously very emotionally invested in the subject and came off very antagonistic. I know OP doesn’t consider their suggestions unreasonable but that’s because they’re based on a fundamental misconception of canon. If DC writes a continuity where the Bats are a family in any way that would make sexual relationships between them incestuous, and if I write something for that continuity, then of course I will tag it accordingly. Asking me to tag a fic as something it isn’t, is unreasonable. It instantly makes tagging in general completely useless. Asking people to apply a catchall tag or keep explicit content out of the summaries is not intrinsically unreasonable, but expecting the entire community, regardless of how immersed in fandom the creator is, to abide by that standard in a way that provides meaningful protection for you (in that you can lower your guard in any meaningful way when you have content you need to avoid) is..... well, it’s just impractical. 
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paintedrecs · 4 years
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For the fandom talk meme thingy: C (not trying to start drama I swear), I, K, R, and X. =D
C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.
Hmmm, there are a few ways of answering this. One is by listing all my NOTPs, which would be excessively long and ultimately boring because it essentially boils down to “anyone else with either member of my OTP.” I monoship my primary pairings, so I’m pretty strict on what I do and do not like. 
(With the way fandom is now, I should clarify that NOTP means that I personally do not like a ship and I therefore go out of my way to avoid it - by muting terms, carefully filtering tags and search results, curating my own space, etc. It doesn’t mean I think the ship is badwrong or that anyone else should stop shipping it. It just means I do not ever want to see it.)
This feels a little less specific on that front, though, maybe more just: people like this and I’m meh about it?
So Allydia comes to mind. I don’t hate it, and if the Sterek’s good enough I’ll still read a fic with them as a background pairing, but I don’t ever like it as a romantic ship. While I ship Lydia with lots of different characters, including Cora, I’ve always seen Allison as straight, so I suppose that’s part of it? And I love Lydia & Allison as bffs - I see them as entirely platonic, like Scott & Stiles, so introducing romance just doesn’t work for me.
Another one is Sheriff Stilinski/Peter Hale. I...I don’t understand it. Unlike the last answer, this background pairing will prevent me from reading a Sterek-central fic.
I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?
This turned into a complicated and kind of roundabout answer, so I’m putting the rest of the questions under a long-post cut!
I stopped frequenting tumblr for two main reasons:
that whole weird purge thing that made me think everyone was leaving, so I just gave up, which might’ve been premature cause it seems like folks are still going strong on here
the emergence of antis, specifically within the Voltron fandom (although they’re everywhere at this point)
There’s a saying in fandom now: 
“Why is the younger fandom generation like this?!??” “Tumblr raised them.”
For me, for years, tumblr was a really wonderful space where I had a lot of great conversations and read very thoughtful threads that helped me to learn some important things about myself, other people, and a world much wider than my own.
But I was an adult when I joined this site, and it really does seem like there’s a whole new crop of kids who have no actual context for ideas like social justice, the need for canonical representation in our media, and a lot of other things that eventually got folded into a big ball of disconnected rhetoric that they now fling as hard as they can at the heads of fandom creators who are committing the ultimate sin of creating content for ships they don’t like.
It’s late, and I don’t feel like getting into a whole Essay Rant about all that.
So on an entirely personal level, I quit running appreciatejack (my Check Please/zimbits/Jack Zimmermann blog) because someone sent me really vile hate for daring to ship Shiro/Keith from Voltron (two unrelated adults in a cartoon). It’s why I turned my ask boxes/anon/chats off on most of my blogs, and then eventually just...got tired of running them.
When I started up appreciatederek, I got a couple asks from people who wanted to know if it was going to be multiship or just Sterek, and when I said it was Sterek, they presumably went off to find other things they were into, because I never heard from them again. Y’know, the reasonable reaction. And then the rest of it was wonderful: finding content for it, and getting responses from people who enjoyed that content.
I thought appreciateshiro would be similar, but it was all so messy from the very start. The Sheith tag was FULL of hate. I was initially checking it every day, trying to find artists and writers and gif-makers to reblog and encourage and support, like I’d done in Sterek fandom, but instead I’d spend literal hours blocking people who came into that tag just to talk about how much they hated the ship.
Every day, I’d look for content for my OTP, and every day I’d come away from it angry and sad and frustrated. I never seemed to run out of people to block. And they never, ever seemed to run out of hate.
It was exhausting. It made me reluctant to go on tumblr at all. And eventually I just...sorta stopped.
So the answer to this question is more, I guess, “fandom made me stop liking tumblr, and in the process I stopped liking most fandoms.”
I’m sure you can kinda tell from the fandoms I’m currently the most invested in.
I love Sterek, and I will always love Sterek. Part of that’s the ship itself, of course, and part is because I had an incredible fandom experience with it. People within this fandom are still really great - always so welcoming and super excited about new content, even so many years on.
Otherwise, my current fandoms are kiiiiinda tiny:
Xanatowen (Gargoyles), which currently consists of exactly 2 people and 12 fics (3 of which are mine).
Trevorcard (Castlevania), which only has ~200 fics on AO3.
Taibani (Tiger & Bunny), which is an oldish fandom with only ~600 fics on AO3.
Remember, I came from a fandom that has SIXTY THOUSAND fics.
So while I feel very lonely and very sad about the low content levels in these fandoms, they’ve also given me the space to let go of some of my fandom hurt & anger and remember what it’s like to just...peacefully love something. I really miss just loving things and talking about loving those things and searching for other people who also love those things without running into....thousands upon thousands of people who HATE that you love that thing.
(Until I wrote all that out just now, I actually hadn’t realized how much this had still been hanging over me, or why I was so hesitant to come back to “reclaim” a space I’d once been super active and happy in. Essay over! Next questions.)
K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?
Answered here!
R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?
Answered here! 
X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.
Found family. This is probably a big part of why Sterek was my first real fandom, because the idea of Pack makes it incredibly natural to build out relationships beyond just the central romantic pairing. 
It doesn’t have to be a werewolf thing, though. I’m honestly not hugely fond of the whole puppy piles concept - I’m less interested in “biological urges make characters literally physically all snuggle up together in bed” than I am in the actual build of the friendships, and the concept of choosing people who will become the family you’ve been missing for whatever reason.
Maybe it’s reconnecting with biological family, or maybe it’s discovering that your friends have been filling that space for you all along, without you even fully realizing it. (The concept of “home” is another big one for me. Home is where your heart is etc etc.)
And hey! Now I can pull back in another question from earlier: about “pairings” that I might not have initially considered. As I suspected, I do have more! Mostly platonic.
For instance: Derek and Sheriff Stilinski becoming bffs. I thiiiink I can probably tie my ABSOLUTE LOVE of this concept back to HalfFizzbin’s can't be hateful, gotta be grateful. And then Cupboard Love really has to be the source of ALL my alive!Hales feels, which also includes folding Stiles into their family.
Fic is largely responsible for building out Derek’s relationship with Boyd, Erica, Isaac, his sisters...making them into an actual pack and friends and family in the way the show never bothered. And frankly while I don’t like canon!Scott at all at this point, I love his friendship with Stiles in fics, and I absolutely believe Stiles and Lydia would be amazing friends once he got past his crush on her. I’d point to another fic here, owlpostagain’s will to follow through, as the ultimate source for major Team Human feels.
So yeah. I’m always going to be drawn to stories about family, in whatever form that takes, particularly if it’s one that’s a little bit off the normal white-picket-fence path.
In Tiger & Bunny, it’s Barnaby joining the Kaburagi family, and learning how to be a dad and a friend to his new husband’s daughter.
In Gargoyles, I’m completely obsessed with the (canonical!) idea of a family that consists of a man, his wife, their son, and the chaotically loyal fae babysitter/tutor/third parent. It is not a stretch to tweak this the tiiiiiiniest bit to turn it into a nontraditional family structure of a man, his wife, his son, and his fae boyfriend. Honestly.
In Castlevania, the fic that made me sob my eyes out at one point does something the show would absolutely never. It gives Alucard the time to rebuild his physical home while befriending the people in the little town that crops up around it. It’s about Trevor and Alucard falling in love, but it’s also about them making a place for themselves in a world where that kind of comfort and stability and friendship is so badly needed.
I think we all kinda need that in our world right now. So I love being able to find it in fic, for the characters who’ve grown to mean something to me.
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neshabeingchildish · 5 years
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Poly Wanna?
A/N: So, I had some different ideas rushing through my head of who and how I wanted these characters to be. They may start in a place that you would not expect or can’t imagine, but just keep in mind that I try to write things a little differently each incarnation of a fic and hopefully nobody checks out within the first few paragraphs. Gimme a chance. It’s delicate content, and I promise I’m trying to do their relationship justice, not just write some trash that throws them all together. I will say that this may be the most adult content of all the content that I bring into this fandom, but STILL no sm*t, okay? Will definitely mention some things that take and have taken place. Enjoy, and let me know how you feel, unless you hate it. Then, Chile stop reading and go. I don’t wanna waste neither of our time with that situation.
And just to tag the folk who initially expressed interest the first time, and lemme tell y’all… This tagging was a little difficult for me, so I shalln’t be doing it again, I don’t believe. You ain’t gotta read it, either. I just wanted to extend the invite for anybody who might have been interested: @adorkable-blackgirl  @chenoahchantel @cactus-con @up-the-tube @riebellion  @itsyaapollochild @oof–musicals @lesbian-so-what @woahjusttakeiteasy-man @meadowstryingtobepretty @imma-sensitive-btch @okaygal21 @midernacht @divinereign4ever @xoxoemille @starry-nightschool
Plot: Pansexual Playboy Henry Hart finally decides to settle down, with his two best friends, Jasper & Charlotte. Each have a history with him and a present with each other, and he simply can’t let either of them go… Not this time around.
01. Reality Bites
Charlotte had just moved the last of her things into Jasper’s apartment and was not even the least bit interested in trying to unpack, yet. She had packed two all encompassing luggage bags with all of her necessities to live out of for a moment, just in case it didn’t work out wonderfully and she had to abort this mission. In the meantime, the beginning of their little life together was at least cute. Jasper had cozy surroundings. His parents didn’t like for him to have things growing up, so he was one of those people who was satisfied with less. But… Charlotte was used to high quality and high maintenance, so she would definitely be turning this place around, if they lasted.
She was having some trouble getting on her feet. It wasn’t that she wasn’t qualified to do things. She definitely was. She went to school. She got degrees. She applied for jobs. She worked them. The thing was that she had this bad habit of putting in less effort than the company wanted. A lot of productivity rules were just busy work and programming. She only wanted to do what was necessary to get her work done. Bosses hated her for that. She was constantly getting fired and had gotten to the point where her parents were sick of it and forced her to get out of their place. “You could always go back to the Man Cave,” Jasper had suggested. Yeah, right. Where Henry was? 
He was part of the problem. She had put so much into him, into them and he simply moved on as soon as it got a little bit difficult, as was his romance method of operation. After that, she wondered why even try to hard when you could simply to whatever you had to and get good results. To be fair and honest, had she thought more about it, she might have realized that what she was actually experiencing was heartbreak and depression. But, she thought that she was just tired of people taking advantage of her.
Jasper, on the other hand had been doing fine. He wasn’t doing great, but he was at least working regularly and was able to afford to take care of himself. Then again, he didn’t eat healthy, keep groceries stocked, or have the best products in the place. In fact, at the moment, he had wine on the kitchen counter, half a bag of tortilla chips in the pantry, and one shelf of condiments on the door of the fridge, with beer on the top rack. So… He didn’t have himself together, but he did have working water, electricity, a vehicle, a home… stuff that she was lacking on because she couldn’t be happy in any career path she had tried, thus far.
But, they found each other again, after some time apart and some distance. Their friendship faltered slightly when he admitted to her some years ago (some months after she and Henry were over) that he and Henry were together. WTF? She didn’t know what part of bro-code,girl code… (friendship? code) was being violated by that relationship, but she felt in her bones that it was betrayal and so, she was good on him. She was good on him a couple of years later when he apologized and told her that karma had caught up to him, because Henry had broken things off. She was good on him up until she came into this bar to meet up with a friend for a promotion celebration and he was serving drinks and let her drink for free. 
It became her thing. She certainly wasn’t able to buy her own drinks, not regularly, anyway, and she’d forgotten how good of a listener Jasper was. She could complain about her problems and drink them away, and she had a good listener available who wasn’t going to take advantage of her if she got too drunk. After a while, it started being hanging out socially, then talking on the phone, texting, social media and finally, she began spending nights. 
They didn’t put any label on things. Labels made Charlotte nervous and Jasper was simply in a headspace where he just wanted to try to enjoy life, with or without someone in it, but it was wonderful to have somebody in it that he had known for so long. It was also good to know her in this new way.
By the time that she was moving in and looking for another job, they had been seeing each other for five months. That was also around the time that Henry called about his opportunity to be on a reality tv show. He called Jasper, not Charlotte, but upon learning that they were together, invited her along, as well. The last thing that she wanted to do was see Henry, but she also didn’t trust him around her Jasper, so she went along just to feel him out. 
Whenever they got to the place, Junk N Stuff was gone, as were several of the neighbors to it and now there was this brownstone and Charlotte was confused, but Jasper went right inside, like he’d been here before. There was a doorman there that looked familiar to Charlotte, but she didn’t know why. “Hey, Gooch. What’s up?”
“Gooch?” She repeated and took a look at the guy. He did look like the Gooch she remembered, but he was much younger. “Wait, did Schwoz find some kind of way to reverse aging or something?”
Jasper laughed and said, “It’s Gooba’s son. Finding out about him was one of the reasons he left. Anyway, we can talk about that later.” Gooch’s son was staring at Charlotte. He looked a little bit younger than them, but not so much that he wouldn’t have been a full kid whenever they initially worked with Gooch. Anyway, she smiled politely and kept following Jasper. 
“How long has this been here?” She wondered.
“Couple years.”
“It’s conspicuous. What does Henry even do that people would reasonably believe that he could have this built and live here?” She wondered.
“You… really have chosen to fully avoid him, huh?” Jasper asked.
“He’s the worst. I don’t need that kind of energy. Mine already sucks.” Whenever they entered the place that she guessed was Henry’s she quickly had that confirmed by the huge, wall sized painting of himself, nude, but covered gingerly with flowers, in a flower crown with flowers what, falling from the sky? She sighed at the painting, rolled her eyes and they followed his voice. 
“Well, I don’t have the time for that type of contract, Levi! I’m about to be in talks for my new show…” He noticed them and smiled, waving them inside, “And I have guests arriving now. No, not clients. I told you, I don’t have appointments today. Look, just fix it. I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up and turned around, “Char!” He said, excitedly and rushed to hug her and pick her up from the ground. “You look gorgeous. I see your teeth are still perfect and you’ve let your hair and skin join the perfection club, as well.”
“They always were, but thanks for noticing.” She blushed and looked at the ground as Henry went to hug Jasper, too. 
“And you! Buddy… You gonna cut the beers, or nah?”
“Char’s fine with the beer belly.”
“It’s not a beer belly,” she cut in. “He’s always been a little bit gooey.”
“He wasn’t with me,” Henry said and gave Jasper a smile that said that he was thinking of those days, or nights, or… whatever. 
Charlotte stepped in between them and reminded him, “Well, he isn’t with you.”
“Right! The two of you, now. So… That’s interesting. Unless both of you have changed drastically, I never would have pegged you two to be sexually compatible.”
“What, are you a professional sexual compatibility… person?” Charlotte asked.
Henry smiled and corrected her, “Liscensed sex therapist, with special focus on sex positive therapy.” She sighed. Of COURSE, he’d get a degree on sex. “Don’t look like that. My work is very important! I help save marriages. I help people not hate themselves for being normal. What kind of fancy schmancy science is keeping Charlotte Page’s attention these days.”
“The kind where I bring drinks to tables until I get back into another lab.”
“Her bad attitude gets her fired a lot,” Jasper said.
“Not my bad attitude. Corporations’ insistence on overworking people who know better than to allow themselves to be used,” she corrected.
“Having a money issue?” Henry wondered.
“I haven’t found the right lab yet, that is it,” she insisted.
“Okay. Well, if, while you’re looking, you don’t mind having a camera or two pointed in your face, I want to invite you two to be a part of the cast for my new reality show adventure.”
“How the heck are you gonna have a reality show whenever half of your life is a secret?” Charlotte wondered. “Wait… Are you no longer Swellview’s hero? Because, I will definitely work in the Man Cave if you’re not gonna be there.”
“I am the new hero man of Swellview. Captain Man is still working, because he is indestructible and not super old yet. But, yes, we are partners.”
“Are you Man Danger?” Charlotte asked.
“He’s Dr. FeelGood,” Jasper said. 
“MISTER FeelGood. Dr. Feel Good is copywritten.”
“Both are corny,” Charlotte said.
“You’re a waitress who has like seven degrees,” Henry said.
“Ouch,” she replied. 
“To answer the question you asked before the cascade of shade that you threw me, I’m gonna do the show with production that knows that I’m Mister FeelGood, so they will never record or release anything that has me working in that way, because they work for me.” Charlotte raised her hand. “Yes?”
“So… Was Man Danger unavailable in the superhero names database, Danger just too vague? Captain Danger too much like Captain Man? Like… what possessed you to go to Mister FeelGood?” 
Henry smiled and rolled his eyes then pointed to Jasper, “You in?”
“In? Like… What is the show even about? Just following you around and recording all of your life when you aren’t fighting crime?”
“It… Is about me coming out of the shadow of all of my Swellview celebrity friends and trying to become a Swellview celebrity, in my own rite.”
“Swellview has celebrities?” Charlotte wondered.
“Whenever I go places, people still say things to me like, “Hey - you used to be friends with that science girl, Charlotte. Whatever happened to her? Or, hey - do you ever still talk to Jasper Dunlop? It was so cool that he was a real hero, much like Kid Danger. I thought WAS Kid Danger, at some point! Or, what’s happened to the guy who used to own that junk shop? He doesn’t get voted for as the most handsome man in Swellview anymore. Did he die?” Charlotte and Jasper were both laughing and leaning on each other. Henry said, “I have my own private practice. I help people in my daily life and I’m a superhero. I would like to be seen as something other than the guy who’s dated TWO girls from Kids in the Woods.”
“OH MY GOD!” Charlotte said and cackled.
“I totally forgot about that! And I just had spa day with them last month!” Jasper said.
“With Bianca and Chloe?” Henry wondered.
“Yep. They started taking me with them after you and I broke up. There’s a Henry Hartbreak Plan, so you’re definitely not riding on just our forgotten celebrity alone.”
“A Henry Hartbreak Plan?” Charlotte repeated.
“It’s a boost of vitamins and painkillers, a punching bag workout set to music, a shower. massage, detox, and a long snuggly nap. The spa owner has some history with Hen, too.”
Henry sighed and pointed at finger at Jasper, “That was mostly in her head!”
“That spa day sounds valuable. You didn’t tell me about all that. You just said Girls Day with the Hartbroken Club.”
“Come next time,” Jasper said. 
Henry watched the two of them talking. They were both still extremely attractive and each had that lovers’ glow with each other. It made him miss them, both. He missed their friendships and he missed being with them. Of course, those were two separate relationships, but he missed those relationships. He had never had anyone like either of them before. He thought that he would never get over Jasper and still wasn’t, but the surprise of seeing Char again, and her being even more perfect than he’d remembered… He was unsure of how he had ever gotten over her. Looking at them both right now, he realized that he hadn’t. He just thought that he had. “It’s only a thousand dollars per episode for this first season, if it even goes beyond that, but…”
“I’m in,” Charlotte said.
“I could use an extra couple of thousand, as well,” Jasper said.
“Cool… Why don’t you let Bianca and Chloe know. Of course, everyone will have to speak with my production team on camera to see what they think, but… I believe that they’d like to have all of the components of my celebrity associations for this thing.”
“So, does that mean that Piper is involved?” Charlotte wondered.
“We can’t really pay Piper to be involved, but she did tell me that if the show makes waves, then we’ll talk…” He was barely done with his comment and Charlotte was laughing at him. “She told me that you two still talk, though. She didn’t give me your number.”
“I girl coded her not to years ago, when I changed it,” Charlotte said. 
“My assistant Levi will need it, to let you know about appointments and stuff.”
“It’s cut off. Just call Jasper. We live together,” she said with a shrug.
“You live together? It’s… that serious?” he wondered, a little bit heartbroken, though he wasn’t sure from which one, but leaning towards both.
“I mean… It’s going great,” Jasper said and wrapped an arm around Charlotte.
Henry nodded, and blinked away the sadness that he felt might show in his eyes. “Well, congrats on that. You two deserve to be happy, more than anybody else that I know.” He reached forward to pull both of them into a hug. Jasper returned it, but Charlotte froze up, and he noticed that she’d done so earlier too. He pulled back and looked at the two of them. They clung to each other as they both fought to tear their eyes away from Henry’s face, so neither of them had seen their reactions to him, but he had seen both. “Later,” they said. Henry smiled and saw them out. So, they were in for the show at least. He hoped that the cameras wouldn’t catch too much of all of that emotion that was floating through the room.
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hpdaddyfest · 5 years
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Welcome to the third HP Daddy Fest, for all your Daddy/Mummy kink needs!
HP Daddy Fest is a multi-ship, anon-posting, prompt-based kink fest in the Harry Potter fandom. It is open to all characters, pairings, poly-ships, tropes, themes and AUs.
A Daddy Kink is best defined as a branch of Dominant/submissive partnerships, where the Dominant partner is referred to as “Daddy”. A “Daddy Dom” takes a more gentle, affectionate and almost parental approach, using their Dominance to teach, protect and care for their submissive partner. Daddy kink may include age regression or “age play” (when the submissive partner takes on childish mannerisms), but does not have to.
Daddy Kink is not inherently incestuous or paedophilic. For the purposes of this fest, this dynamic is between characters of at least 17 years of age, of all genders and sexualities, either as Dom/sub or Caregiver/little.
We are excited to share this fest with you again and cannot wait to see all the new content you help us add to the community.
In that vein, below you can find the timeline as well as the rules and FAQ!
Timeline:
Prompting:  1st Feb – 14th Feb Claiming: 15th Feb Check-in:  19th April Submissions Due: 1st June Posting begins: TBC July
Main Rules
ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST BE 18+ - NO EXCEPTIONS
The fest is multi-ship. All pairings from any era of the Harry Potter universe (including Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts) are welcome. Slash, femslash, opposite-sex pairings, threesomes, moresomes are all welcome.
1000 minimum word count but there is no maximum word count. For artworks, it should be evident that you have put time into the piece, this is not the place for doodles.
Fanworks of all ratings are welcome. Just because it's a Daddy kink fest doesn't mean it has to be pornographic. That said, we do expect the majority of our submissions to be Explicit/Mature or R/NC-17-rated. Participants, please provide a rating; readers, please observe your local laws.
Content creators must co-author hpdaddyfest when they submit. We will remove ourselves as co-author when we reveal the authors.
Warnings/content tags are critical. Please adhere to AO3’s archive warning policy (or select ‘Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings’) and flag all and any non-vanilla goings-on. If you prefer not to use warnings (if it will spoil a plot twist, for example), please include a note upfront that the content tags are non-exhaustive.
All entries will be read/viewed by the mod team after submission. The mods reserve the right to add additional tags or warnings to your entry if we believe something hasn’t been appropriately tagged. You will be informed of any additional tags to review before posting.
All works must be beta’d before submission.
Mods reserve the right to ask contributor for a second beta.
Extensions will be given on a case by case scenario. However the more notice you give the mods, the easier it will be for them to accommodate you.
Works are anonymous until the reveals date. Please do not share your works with anyone prior to the reveals date - with the exceptions of your alpha reader, beta, etc.
All content creators must respond to any emails sent by the mod team. Failure to do so may lead to claims on future fests being rejected.
Readers, if you have squicks or triggers please check the warnings carefully. Please contact the mods privately at [email protected] in the first instance if you have any tagging concerns. 
Failure to follow these rules can lead to the disqualification of your submission.
Prompting
Prompting runs from 1st Feb  – 14th Feb. 
Prompters must be over 18 years of age.
Anyone can leave up to ten prompts, even if they do not intend to submit a work for the fest.
Prompting will be collected via Airtable form, HERE. This list updates automatically. Prompts can be viewed HERE.
Anonymous prompts are permitted.
Similar prompts may be deleted/combined by mods.
Prompt numbers are invisible until prompting closes. This is due to the fact that the list will automatically alphabetise the list by pairing to make it easier for claimants to find what they’re looking for.
Claiming
When claiming opens, a link to airtable will be posted to the blog and here.
Claimaints must be over 18 years of age.
Prompt numbers will be revealed between prompting closing and claiming opening. There will be a post when this occurs.
You may claim a prompt someone else has submitted or create for your own prompt. If you are self-prompting, you do not have to leave a prompt within the prompting window. In fact, we recommend you don’t, to avoid opening it up to general claiming.
Each prompt can be claimed TWICE. Once for FIC and once for ART.
You can sign up as a team, whether as collaborating authors, artists or author/artist. Please just include details of all collaborators in the sign-up.
If you wish to write for your own prompt, you still need to sign up as a fest participant. Instructions on signing up will be posted to the HP Daddyfest Tumblr when claiming opens.
Please allow 48 hours for your claim to be processed. You will receive a confirmation e-mail with your prompt. Please check the prompt and also submission type (fic or art) are correct and follow the link to confirm your participation. Anyone who doesn’t respond via the form within 5 days will have their prompt released.
You may claim additional prompts when your first piece is completed. If you wish to claim additional prompts please submit your work to the Ao3 collection and send an email with the prompt you wish to claim next to [email protected]
If you would like to create for the fest but wish to remain anonymous after reveals, that can be arranged. You will be required to give a username for claiming, but if you e-mail the mods prior to posting, we will keep your submission anonymous even after reveals.
1st June is the due date and you will be responsible for submitting your fanwork to the Ao3 HP DaddyFest Collection on or before that date. This is an anonymous fest. Please do not post your work anywhere else until after fest reveals. 
Submitting Guideline for Authors and Artists
All authors and artists are required to have an AO3 account.
All works must be beta’ed. If using a group chat or Discord server to help you find a beta, please save details which could give away your identity as creator for dms. If you have difficulty finding a beta, please e-mail the mods and we will do our best to put you in touch with someone.
Submit your fic or art to the fest collection on AO3 which you can find (HERE) on or before submissions are due.
PLEASE contact us at [email protected] if you are unable to post. There are no penalties for dropping out. We understand that life happens as long as you keep us in the loop as best you can.
When you submit your work, you must co-author hpdaddyfest. This is to allow us to add necessary tags and correct obvious typing errors only. You will be informed by e-mail if we have done this so that you can review it if you wish. Any more complex issues, we will e-mail you before making changes. We reserve the right to ask you for a second beta.
Once you have submitted your work, please complete the Header Submission form which you will receive a link to via email.
One submission will be revealed (but remain anonymous) on AO3 each day. The header information will be used to post on Tumblr each day with a link to the fic on AO3.
The moderators will post wrap-ups of fanworks in a single weekly post on the HPDaddyfest Tumblr. We will also post a final fest wrap up before and after reveals.
The fest is anonymous so please do not post your submissions to your own accounts on any platform with any telling comments or attributes as to the creator’s identity.  Reblogging and sharing of submissions is highly encouraged, but as the fest is anonymous we encourage and require secrecy as to the creator of each submission.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s):
1) Do the submissions need to be NSFW to be included? A: Absolutely not! Daddy-fest is very open in terms of the types of works being contributed. We love that the term “Daddy” means different things to different people, and cannot wait to see how all our lovely contributors interpret it themselves.
2) What is the minimum length requirement for fics?
A: There is a minimum of 1000 words, but no maximum length requirement for fics!  Create your fic as concise or as lengthy as you desire!
3) What pairings are allowed?
A: Any and all pairings are welcome so long as they belong to the HP universe.  This includes but is not limited to Marauders era, Lightning era, Next-gen, Cursed Child, and Fantastic Beasts characters.
4) Can I submit a story that belongs to an existing series or WIP?
A: No. We prefer that the stories are all original works submitted for this fest specifically. Stories associated with an existing work or works could compromise the fest’s anonymous nature.
5)  Can a prompt be claimed more than once?
A: Each prompt can be claimed once for art and once for fic only.
6) Are Non-Magical AU’s allowed?
A: Absolutely!  So long as you are using HP characters feel free to place them in any setting you choose.  Stretch your creativity!
7) Do I have to use a fic beta?
A: Yes. We will put out a call for betas when the due date for entries draws near. The mods will be proofreading all entries and may ask for a second beta if grammatical errors are abundant.
8) I finished my submission early, can I post it early?
A: Absolutely!  Please feel free to submit your work as early as you have it ready. This actually gives us more time to moderate your piece so we are happy to have early submissions.
9)  Will you grant extensions?
A: Of course!  Life happens and this is meant to be fun and not stressful.  Please contact us if you need an extension at [email protected].
10) I need to drop out, what should I do?
A: Again, life happens so please don’t stress but do let us know as soon as you can. Even if you think you might need to drop out email us and we’ll see what we can do for you. As with extensions, this is meant to be fun and if finishing it becomes stressful or not possible then just let us know. However, participants who do not inform us in due time of their intention to drop out may not be allowed to participate in future fests.
11) Does this kink always have to use BDSM?
A: No! Not at all. It certainly can be if you choose but it isn’t necessary. There’s a wide interpretation for Daddy kink, but the main idea is that there needs to be a dynamic where one partner dominates or takes care of the other partner(s) either sexually, post-sex, domestically, or all the above.
12) What tropes and kinks are commonly associated with this theme?
A: Getting off on dominance or being dominated, praise kink, age play, roleplay, humiliation, caregiver/little. In BDSM, impact play like spanking, whipping, flogging, and restraints of all kinds. The list of kinks is almost limitless as long as the dynamic fits within the scope of Daddy kink.
13) Do I have to co-author you? I don’t want you to edit my fic for me.
A: Yes, you must co-author us. We did not rigidly enforce this on the first run and it caused many issues, mainly with insufficient tagging holding up posting. For fic and art, if we add tags to your work we will let you know so that you can discuss alternatives with us if you wish. For fics, the types of issues we will fix ourselves are only typing errors, such as a space before a full stop/period that has been caused during editing, a single incidence of tense-confusion or universe-specific words which are canonically capitalised. Anything more complex, and we will e-mail you with suggestions without making any changes.
14) Do we have to follow the prompt exactly?
A: No. This is not a gift fest and we see the prompts as jumping-off points to inspire you. We encourage you following where that inspiration takes you, regardless of the details of the prompt. Just ensure the end result is tagged correctly! If your idea is so far from the prompt as to be unrecognisable, however, perhaps you’d be better off self-prompting.
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of-suns-and-guns · 5 years
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I know you don't like responding to antis but if you got one saying it's selfish to risk triggering survivors by posting your content, how do you think you might hypothetically respond? Only because I know blacklisting and blocking aren't perfect catch-alls and I hate to give purists credit but not everyone tags every trigger and that is a really good point and I feel guilty that our ship may be triggering people because most of us avoid tagging the /i/ word. What are your thoughts?
Oooo, purists; good word. Might catch me using that in the future.
But to your point:
I have actually confronted this kind of anti argument before (of-suns-and-guns is the only blog on which I maintain such a strict non-reply policy) and it’s actually probably #2 on my list of most UTTERLY DESPISED arguments an anti could possibly spew across my screen in the name of pRoTeCtInG sUrViVoRs’ SaFeTy.
Such arguments basically uphold this idea that triggers as the worst possible thing that could happen to a survivor, post-trauma, and because of that, demands all fandom-spaces in all corners of the internet must be completely free of all triggering content, just in case.
It’s utter bullshit and they are actively lying when they claim that’s what they’re trying to do. (Case in point: one of their strategies involves happily retraumatizing CSA survivors in the name of “warning them” that someone they claim is a pedophile—despite all evidence directly contradicting such a claim—is reblogging their posts and interaction with their content/blog).
The hard truth when it comes to triggers is, no matter what ship you’re in, what purity rules you adhere to, or how thorough and conscientious you are with tagging, every single content creator will trigger someone, perhaps without ever knowing it’s happened.
And that really is okay. Being triggered sucks, but if it’s still bad enough to legitimately upend any meaningful amount of recovery already made, then that person is not yet stable enough to safely exist in shared internet space, and no amount of anti-proposed practices will actually protect these people, full stop.
We tag for the most commonly squicky elements like non-/dub-con, abusive parent/partner, drug/alcohol abuse, etc, and as long as the readership uses these tags to avoid the content they know will upset them, then the creator will have successfully avoided triggering the EXACT SAME amount of people as they would if they’d never uploaded it in the first place (i.e. all of them).**
But we don’t generally tag things like cyber-/phone-sex, implications of disrespect between sexually-involved characters, peace-sign/laughing-while-crying/eye-rolling emojis, specific mundane words or phrases. These things are my responsibility to navigate, and it’s not the op’s fault when I get triggered by them, because the onus falls on me to recognize, navigate, and ultimately deal with triggering incidents, and if being triggered stood to impact my long-term recovery, and there was no way for me to blacklist for such things, then it’s also my responsibility to remove myself from the space in which I’m being triggered.
In a world where antis win the internet tomorrow, and were magically able to remove all the “triggering content” they declare as the only fail-safe way to protect survivors, I would still be triggered at the exact same rate as I am without their self-righteous intervention. And if I were to confront an anti with my specific triggers, I’d bet hard cash we would not suddenly see them campaigning against emoji-use lest that emoji hold a triggering association with someone’s abuser (which I have little doubt is a BIG trigger for a large portion of millennial and gen-z survivors).
Because that’s the thing; antis don’t actually care about me, about survivors, about helping people avoid their triggers. And they have no qualms about guilting you for supposedly, “selfishly triggering a survivor by letting your content exist,” despite how many survivors they actively seek out and retraumatize in the name of supposedly protecting them.
As a content creator, you just have to worry about tagging the Big content warnings, treating survivors as competent human beings who understand their own limitations, and flipping off (and blocking) antis who really, really like making it seem like survivors are too traumatized to know what’s safe for them.
- - -
**Note: this is the same reason we’re better off tagging “kalex” instead of “incest.” There are a THOUSAND reasons someone might not want to see ship-related content that have NOTHING to do with a squick against foster-sister relationships, so those people might not have "incest” blacklisted, especially considering the technicality involved in claiming it incest, so “kalex” ends up having the highest commonality between those varying perspectives.
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skammovistarplus · 5 years
Text
Culture and Translation - S01E09
SKAM+ Clip 4 will get its own post because it’s a fairly long clip and also really dense in terms of content. For now, let’s all marvel as Eva’s life goes fantastically off the rails. 
CLIP 1: “Now I have really shit the bed,” Eva says. But that bed will be further soiled soon.
Yo soy Lara y le parto la cara, pero mucho más. Se ha quedado corta (“If I was Lara I’d smash her face harder. I mean, that wasn’t enough”): “Partir la cara” literally means to “break Eva’s face in half,” like you would with a cinder block if you were a martial artist. “Quedarse corta” means that, in the speaker’s opinion, Lara didn’t go far enough and further violence would’ve been socially appropriate in order to make things even between Lara and Eva.
La sueltita (“the trollop”): “Sueltita” literally means “loose,” but the suffix “-ita” makes it a diminutive. So the speaker is calling Eva “loosey,” if that were something you’d say in English.
Ahora sí que la he cagado bien (“now I have really shit the bed”): The literal translation would be something like, “Now I have really shat it out but good.” Don’t mind me, I just enjoy every instance of poop-related language.
El mierda seca que lo ha soltado todo (“the shitstain who ran their mouth”): “Mierdaseca” is literally dry turd, lol. So the literal translation is, “The dry turd who let it all out.”
CLIP 2: Shitting the bed, pt. II
It’s really hard to make out what the boys are saying in this scene. Lucas does say that they (presumably his parents) “están hasta los cojones.” As I’ve mentioned before, “cojones” is the rudest way you could talk about somebody’s balls. It is a lot ruder than saying “balls” in English, but there’s no real good equivalent in American English.
¿Te crees que soy gilipollas? (“Do you think I’m a moron?”): “Gilipollas” is a dual purpose swear word in Spanish. It can either mean “asshole” or someone so dumb that it’s a wonder they can walk and breathe at the same time. It is not ableist language, it has never been a scientific term for people with intellectual disabilities.  
¡Yo no he dicho una puta mierda! (“I haven’t said shit!”): More specifically, Lucas says he hasn’t said “fucking shit.” 😂
Es que me parece flipante (“I’m tweaking out”): Again, Eva uses “flipante,” which is the adjective form of “flipar” (to trip, in a drug sense). Since Eva is having all these (completely wrong) epiphanies right now, I thought I’d do her one better and phrased it as “tweaking out.”
¡Es que me la suda! (“I don’t give a shit!”): Okay, so when Spaniards really, really don’t care about something, we say that whatever it is we don’t care about “me suda la polla” or “me suda el coño.” This literally means that thing you don’t care about is… sweat dripping down your dick, or your pussy, depending. So. Yeah. That’s how little Lucas now cares about Eva’s opinion of him. Sweat off his dick. For the record, yes, this is a fairly rude thing to say, but as you might’ve gathered from these posts, and just from watching Skam España… We use this idiom on the daily. It’s shocking coming from Lucas, but only because he uses it as a Precision F-Strike, not because it’s any stronger than the way the characters usually speak.
CLIP 3: Squad no longer
¿Esto no sera verdad? (“This can’t be true?”): So, right away, Viri has a belligerent tone, and also asks Eva this question. The literal translation is, “This isn’t going to be true?” As in, “this had better not be true, sis.” So Viri puts Eva on the spot with her opening line.
I think the Skam España crew should’ve waited a little longer before shooting this scene, lol. Unless Viri was tagged on one of the pics, there is no fucking way she’d have seen the hate ig unless she was present when it was created. It’s only been three minutes since the pictures were posted.
Ya son ganas de meter mierda (“You really have to be a shit stirrer to pull this”): A more literal translation would be, “You gotta be eager to shit stir.” I reworked it so the meaning came across more clearly.
So I guess a good question is, is what the girls did and said in this clip true to Spanish teens? I think that’s a very complicated question, but worth asking. Obviously, it depends on the person. Viri has her own character arc that we’ll deal with through subsequent posts. When it comes to Amira and Cris, though, my take is this. Spaniards will go hard for a friend. Amira and Cris have needed to be held back from telling Inés what’s what, if not outright fighting her. But, if you go so hard for a friend, you expect reciprocity. You don’t expect to have the rug pulled from under your feet, which is the way Amira and Cris feel. If Eva had told them about her history with Inés beforehand, there’s a chance they’d have told Inés to get over it and fuck off. Eva just didn’t give them the chance to process the info and then make the choice to defend her.
CLIP 4: We’ve reached peak Youth’s Daughter
It took me a while to decide whether I wanted to use “copying” or “cheating,” and it was a total waste of time, because I clearly should’ve gone for “cheating” and not “copying.”
How many remakes have used Youth’s Daughter at this point? It’s even on the soundtrack of the movie Lisa Teige starred in, Battle. Hopefully the remakes avoid song fatigue in the future, although some artists, such as Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan or Mona Haydar, seem almost compulsory.
CLIP 5: Puns are a translator’s nightmare
After squinting at Eva’s exam for a good while, I feel pretty confident about saying that the high school is named after Margarita Manso. Margarita Manso was a painter and general eschewer of rules. It’s worth noting that she was close friends with Federico García Lorca, who was killed by fascists during the Spanish civil war. García Lorca stood accused of being a socialist, a freemason and a homosexual, and was executed. His body has never been found. However, Margarita Manso also married a fascist, Alfonso Ponce de León, who was himself executed by the faction supporting the government. Here’s a pic of Margarita:
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No, that’s not the actual name of the high school where they shoot the show. As mentioned elsewhere, Spanish fans can be very intense and it’s in the cast’s best interests to avoid a Nissen situation.
Lucas was not done with that exam, lol. And Eva wasn’t even close to finished, yikes.
Nora sings Lo Malo to Eva. Lo Malo was written by Brisa Fenoy and performed by Aitana (again!) and Ana Guerra. Since the lyrics are a key element of the scene, they’re included in the subs. I just want to explain some of the puns in the lyrics.
Tira porque te toca a ti perder (“Roll because it’s your turn to lose”): “Tira,” in this context, would mean “get out of my face,” but also, “roll the dice.” So, roll the dice because now it’s your turn to lose, but also, get out of my face, I’m over your shit. I hope “roll” helped convey both meanings.
Tiro porque me toca a mí otra vez (“I roll because it’s my turn again”): Another pun about rolling dice. I’m rolling the dice, because I got a second roll of the dice, but also, I’m leaving because I got rid of you, and this time it’s about me.
Pero si me toca, toca, tócame (“But if it’s my turn, touch-a, touch me”): “Toca” can also have several meanings. In this case, it can either mean that it’s my turn (“me toca”) or begging to be touched/stroked/caressed (“tócame”).
As for whether Lo Malo fits the role Baby played in the original… First off, I have to say that William, in that scene, is styled to look like Baby-era Justin Bieber, what with the hood pulled up. Julie Andem is making a connection between the music Noora is embarrassed to listen to, and the boy Noora is ashamed to find hot. There’s nothing embarrassing about liking Aitana and Ana Guerra as artists, per se, other than they got their start at a talent show and dueted on this song because they were contractually obligated to do so. That said, the lyrics fit Nora and Alejandro thematically and, on top of that, the song was really. Seriously. Incredibly. Overplayed in Spain in the summer of 2018, much like Baby was in its time.
Lo llevo muy jodido (“I have a fucking F in it”): I fought with this line so hard, and even as the episode was rendering, I knew I would regret my choice. Alejandro is also making a pun. He says he’s been consistently getting bad grades in English, but he also means that all his efforts to hook up with Nora have failed. There isn’t really a good translation for his line, but if we ever fix our subs, I’d go with, “I’m fucked, if I keep this up.” Or something akin to that!
CLIP 6: Queen Lara
“Hey, dude, give me a sip.” Why did I sub this line? Because it was oddly clear, and it just… seemed like I should… 😬
Tú sabrás el rollo que te llevas con tu novio (“Whatever deal you have with your boyfriend, that’s up to you”): This is one of those lines that took me a while to settle on a translation for. I’m happy with the line, but I’ll expand on what Lara means. She means to say that Eva’s relationship with Jorge is not Lara’s business. When it comes to the part that affects Lara, she doesn’t blame Eva, and fully blames Cristian. Whatever led Eva to kiss Cristian, and whether that’s something Jorge is cool with or isn’t, Lara thinks it’s not her place to judge or speak about.
I think it’s kinda funny that the fandom is chill with Lara reading Cristian’s texts and not regretting doing so, despite the show making it clear that’s not kosher, but thinks Viri is an asshole for posting the Cristian/rando pic (which the show also looked down on when it was the hate ig doing it, to be clear).
CLIP 7: Kicking Eva when she’s down
You don’t know how much I want to know where those stairs are.
Y habíamos quedado (“And you were supposed to come to the party”): Eva says she and Jorge “habían quedado,” which as I explained last post, means they had arranged to meet. In this case, they had arranged that both Eva and Jorge would party at Nora’s. So, not the exact translation, but the best option, given how vague the original sentence is.
Si Quieres Volver by El Imperio del Perro is the song which closes the clip and plays over the credits. I translated the lyrics that are used on the show:
You should understand That I’m in deep shit Any decision Smells bad where I stand
And now I’ll carry The shame on my back And I’ll be yet another person Who’ll apologize wordlessly
Tell me if you want to get back together (5x)
It’s so simple To ruin everything And watch as it burns
Something forces me to go on and Enjoy when it leaves I felt the need To jump in the well There was something else, I couldn’t see it
Tell me if you want to get back together (10x)
Social media:
Some people watch Skam and the remakes without keeping up with the social media aspect of the show. In general, I feel like you can watch Skam without the social media, and not miss anything of importance. But if you watch Skam España season 1 without the social media, you’ll miss a couple important details.
First, while the show was airing, the hate account felt inescapable. It updated very often and at random times, so that the real-time viewer first felt shocked, then tired, then massively over it. Someone who comes into the show late, needs to know that we would sometimes get excited because there was an update, but oh. It was yet more abuse.
Second, a viewer who watches the season without the social media, misses the actual chain of events, which is as follows:
Viri shares the following pic with Inés privately at some point during the week:
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Clip 7 drops at 20:40.
Inés uploads the pic to her insta stories at 20:43.
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By 20:45, the instagram profile @eva_la_z0rra or @eva_the s1ut, has taken the picture from Inés’ ig stories and cropped it, so that Eva and Cristian are the focus of the pic.
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As a sidenote, Inés captions the pic like so: “wow, alex and alba came out cute… 🙊” Álex and Alba are Lucas’ and Eva’s actors’ real names.        
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saiyan--tales · 5 years
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Rules & Posting Guide for Saiyan–Tales
As we expand as a community due to the various events we are offering, we felt that our rules were in need of an update. Although several of our rules seem to be obvious, we all know that the internet allows for people to hide behind a screen and toss out basic social standards. That being said, here are the rules of conduct and a basic posting guide for our community events.
1. Be kind and respectful - We understand that meeting people with different views, headcanons, and languages is a given with how big this fandom is – but we are all humans. Please keep this in mind when commenting or debating.
2. Everyone is welcome - It doesn’t matter whether you are underage or not; speak perfect English or not (or even no English at all); you are all welcome and we enjoy having you here. During events, we will still share posts we are tagged in whether they are in English or not. Our goal is to share work, not exclude anyone based on their language. THE MORE THE MERRIER!
3. Suggestions are welcome! - We don’t turn away ideas, prompts, or event recommendations! If you have any suggestions, please send them to our ask box, DM, or to a mod.  This is your community too!
4. Accepted Content – We don’t like to confine artists and therefore accept ALL KINDS OF ART! Digital, Traditional, Writing, Cosplay, Pottery, Glass Blowing, Balloon Animals, Crop Circles, WHATEVER! If you can use the characters/ship and the prompts to create something, then its an acceptable artform that we will gladly share with our followers!
5. NSFW – All Saiyan Tales events use broad-based prompts to allow for inspiration in both SFW and NSFW. Since Tumblr no longer allows it, we ask that you A) add a link to an external post, B) crop and/or post and tag us on Twitter, or C) post to our Discord. Our discord server will require you to verify age with a mod AND have the proper role/s for posting to the NSFW event channels. We do NOT allow material of a pedophilic nature! You WILL be banned without warning. Update: due to rising concerns in possible triggering tags, mods have decided to ban the use of gore, non-con/rape, and incest from our events. Users will be warned of the violation and not reblogged. After multiple warnings, offenders will be banned.
6. NO REPOSTING! - We like to give credit where it is due and for this reason, we ask you do NOT repost anything from our events without proper permission from the OP. Reposting is a massive issue in our fandom and we don’t want that sickness spreading throughout our community. Reposts are NEVER accepted for events and doing so will get you banned! 
7. Tag! Tag! Tag! – We ask that everyone tag their content appropriately during events! This keeps everyone safe and allows them to decide what they want to see or avoid. We can’t force everyone to tag when they reblog (although we highly recommend it) but tagging makes reblogging easier for us. All prompt posts will include tags that are needed and tags that ban certain things per the mods decision to do so. Be aware of what is or isn’t allowed and PLEASE tag everything that can be triggering!
8. BLOCK TAGS! – We stand firm in our belief of self-policing! We will NOT stifle anyone’s creativity during our events unless something is specifically mentioned in the event rules per the mods decision. If you wish to avoid certain things, block the tags! We are not responsible for you directly. You know what you like and don’t like and what you are allowed to see/do and not; it is your responsibility to take the appropriate steps to keep your timeline safe. Bashing our group because you failed to take this rule into consideration will result in consequences from a temporary ban/block to a permanent ban (depending on the severity of the bashing). 
9. Badges – Saiyan Tales is always excited to receive new content! This means that we will allow for late entries at all times. However, our participation badges will ONLY be available to those who participated during the event week (one of the perks of creating/posting with everyone). 
10. Archiving – In order to help fans find the content they are looking for, Saiyan Tales will be archiving all entries! If you are posting to Twitter, we will be creating Moments albums for each event. If you are posting to Discord, it will forever be saved in our event channels! Writers will be able to archive their works through our AO3 collection! See below for our posting guide under the cut.
****Want to be more involved in our group?***
We are always accepting help from artists through art donations! If you are an artist and you wish to contribute, contact a mod for a list of items we may still need and pick your poison. All art donated to our group will be used for icons, banners, or badges and will always be credited back to you!
We also intend on creating monthly challenges on our discord server to get our members more involved! If you have suggestions/feedback or would be interested in joining in, let us know! (Possible challenges include drabble nights (random characters/themes), collaborations, and possibly more if we get suggestions).
AO3 Posting Guide
We’ve created collections in order to help writers archive their entries for our events! Posting to a collection is easy BUT does require you to have an AO3 account to post to their site. If you don’t have an AO3, request an invite.
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To post, you can do so 1 of 2 ways:
All done! Your work will be kept on the AO3 collection, as well as your account of course, for as long as you keep it up! ***If you subscribe to us, you can find us easily from “My Subscriptions” on your account!***
Method 1– you can post directly to the collection by heading to our AO3, Saiyan_Tales  > Collections > pick the collection you intend to post to (these are Parent Collections for better organization) > Select the Sub-collection > Post to Collection. Keep in mind that collections will be closed before the event and will not open until the day before the event begins. This is to allow those in different time zones to post when they are ready. Each event prompt post will include a link to the collection once the collection is created. If you expect to participate, you can click the “join” button in the collection before it’s opened and give us a head count (we’re not sure if this sends a notification once the collection is open but hopefully, we’ll learn as we go).
Method 2 – Begin by logging into your account and selecting “Post New” > Fill in the information for your new work as usual. Once you get to the 3rd box marked “Associations” you will see “Post to Collections/Challenges.” Click the box and type in the collection you need to post to (ask a mod for help if you aren’t sure what the collection name is but it should be found on the prompts post!) > The collection should look like this: Sub-Collection Name (Parent Collection Name by Group). > Once you finalize your post, we will approve it and add it to the collection!
Pic Examples
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nonbinarypastels · 6 years
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(1/2) Regarding your Hannibal post, I think that you make a really valid point. I’m not an ‘anti’ or whatever but I think what they’re worried about could be children’s cartoons getting content like that. Since most, of not all works including graphic depictions of murder, etc. aren’t for children, it’s okay to engage in the kind of content where mostly adults engage with it. It could also concern what the content of the source material was.
(2/2) saying all this, I think that ship discourse is a bit over the top, when it concerns things that aren’t real. The only problem arises when the kind of activity exhibited in fan works carries over into real life.
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The thing is that I agree that adult content made from media that's geared towards children and those children potentially being exposed to it is a valid concern for people to have, what I disagree with is how certain people in fandom choose to address that concern.
Actual productive ways to address it would be to
advocate for fanwork + other adult content to be properly rated and tagged and educate people about why that is important
create effective safe-mode features on social media websites that actually help to prevent people from seeing content they want to see
press upon parents the importance of keeping an open dialogue with their children about proper online behavior and safety + advocate for these things to be taught in school as well
create more spaces online (fandom and otherwise) that are for children and only for children
create fandom spaces online (whether tumblr blogs, AO3 collections, or new individual fic archives) that contain only SFW content while allowing spaces that contain NSFW content to continue to exist
These are things that could actually be effective in preventing kids from seeing adult content that they don't need to see and allowing for minor fans of kid's media to have a safe fandom space to engage with it in, but they're things that I've rarely - if ever - seen antis advocate for (the opposite, actually: plenty of antis attack properly tagging works to the point that people have *stopped* using proper tags for fear of geting harassed for it - which only opens people up to being exposed to potentially triggering content).
I think that the source material of fanwork and who the general audience is should be taken into account when it comes to fandom spaces and how they're built and what is allowed in them, but I also think that trying to get people to stop making adult content of media not geared towards adults is futile. No one will ever be able to stop it completely because as long as media exists there will be people of all ages who are interested in it -- either because they were introduced to it as an adult or because they grew up with it as a child -- and not all of their fanwork of it will be G rated.
We can then either spend our time trying (and failing) to get people to stop anyway or we can try to find a compromise and a way to say "okay, you want to have fanwork and fan spaces that allow *this* content and this kind of discussion and other people want to avoid *this* - how can we let you keep having what you want while also helping other people to have what they want?".
And the answers to how to do that are easy (proper tagging, different fandom spaces that address different needs and allow different content, etc) if you can actually get people on board with it - the problem comes when people don't want to compromise, they simply want what they want and not only refuse to allow for anyone else to want anything different but see it as having something personally stolen from them if people are allowed to have something different of their own.
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