#revisiting old faves after many years

[lenievi]

I wonder if I forgot or never realized that John Malkovich played Athos in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) (it's the one with DiCaprio)

I think him playing Athos is very ??? to my brain because I've only ever saw him in very uhm... not good guys roles lol and Athos was always my favourite musketeer

also gotta love French miniseries that only casted the same people over and over again (I actually mean this positively. films made in my country i love also consist of the same cast over and over again, especially those made from 1960s to 1980s)

not-Valjean and not-Javert in Napoleon (2002)

Napoleon in this series is played by the guy who played Thénardier^^ (will watch it sometimes soon, probably. I remember liking it when I saw it in the past)

considering how much French books and media I was consuming in my teenage years, it's interesting that I hated French in high school and never bothered studying for it (and almost failed it because of that ofc) - I realized this today. I was like wait, how come :D (I hated the teacher 😔)

[sitp-recs]

BL Reclist - Part 2

Happy Friday friends! I had a blast putting my first BL reclist together a couple weeks ago and the lovely @blue-inigo encouraged me to do a part 2 so here it is! Once again this is a mix of Korean titles I’ve discovered recently and some good old Japanese BL I revisit often. I kept this short and sweet because I can only include 10 pics per post but I’m considering a Part 3 with some ongoing stories I’m currently following (there’s a couple on this list but they’re a bit more advanced). Now I’m revising it I realize this second list is considerably angstier than the first one, and almost all of these include potentially triggering themes (marked with an *) so please check the tags and stay safe! If you’re looking for gorgeous art, hot smut and top notch (if sometimes quite problematique) drama you’re at the right place! Enjoy 🔥

1. *December Rain by Kimon (Explicit, Completed)

Tragedy :( gimme catharsis or give me nothing!!

Fresh out of the army, Suchae decides to take some time off and travel around the country by himself. On the first day of his trip, he spots a guy who looks totally his type at a rundown bus terminal. The only problem is, it’s the same guy who was jerking off in the bathroom 5 minutes ago. Despite the possibility of him being a creep, however, Suchae is drawn to the mysterious stranger. He finds everything about him...arousing. Who is this stranger? And why is he on the road?

2. Joy by Etsuko (Mature, Completed)

Not my fave art-wise but a surprisingly deep bi awakening story, MC is cute and SO relatable

Goh Akazaki is a 26-year-old man...who happens to be a shojo manga artist. His assistant is Yusuke Akune, who happens to be a mangaka in his own right. But when Goh accidentally finds out that Yusuke is gay, he's thrown for a loop—what else about his friend doesn't he know? And when Goh is asked to draw BL, he tries to pry into Yusuke's experiences for inspiration...but when he is ultimately inspired by the idea of "unrequited love for Yusuke," can he keep his own feelings out of the mix?

3. NightS + Reply by Yoneda Kou (Explicit, Completed)

I’m so biased about Yoneda Kou’s Yakuza stuff, everything she creates is an instant fave

NIGHTS: A Yakuza comes to request the services of an specialized transporter that takes care of delicate and illegal merchandise. It seems this transporter is quite picky about his clients, stating that he doesn't belong to any group; you can't trust yakuza. However he gets interested in this transaction and in the mysterious man that is negotiating it.

REPLY: Seki is head mechanic at a car company in which Takami is the top salesman. After a chance encounter at work that involves Seki taking care of a spot of bother for one of Takami's clients, the two begin meeting regularly after work to dine together. Takami soon admits that he thinks of Seki as a good friend. Seki, however, knows that his own emotions are somewhat more complicated.

4. *Nights Before Night by Kazuki Natsume (Explicit, Completed)

Sequel to MODS, I suggest reading both for full context but I prefer this story

It's been a long time since Haru, owner of the gay escort service "Rain," left his yakuza days behind. But when the Ichijo clan, the group he had once belonged to, says he's the only civilian they can trust to hide the clan head's troublemaking son Yukitaka in line, there seems to be no choice for him but to follow suit. There's just one problem, though - Yukitaka looks just like his half-brother Shigure, Haru's lost love.

5. Pink Heart Jam by Shikke (Explicit, Completed)

Long-haired one is the prettiest and coolest BL character I’ve ever seen

Country boy Haiga has many questions he wants to learn the answers to when he moves to the bustling capital for his university life - and one of them happens to be, "do I like guys, too?" When his upperclassmen dare him to check out a box spa behind Shinjuku's Nichoume District, Haiga uses this opportunity to find out the answer to his question - and runs into his senior Kanae, who has one simple solution for him - clothes, off!

6. *Steel Under Silk by Snob (Explicit, Ongoing)

BREATH!!! TAKING!!!! ART!!!! A+ problematic smut meets nuanced historical drama, love it

Yeonjo used to have it all: a highly respected family, a kind brother, and a comfortable life. Now, with his father executed for high treason, his last kin dead, and damned to a lifetime of slavery, Yeonjo has nothing to lose. All that is left is vengeance, and his chance comes when the new governor assigned to the region is none other than Kwon Hee-ryang, the man who destroyed everything Yeonjo loved. Now, Yeonjo will do everything to get his revenge…even if it means getting in bed with his greatest enemy. Hiding a blade behind his beautiful smile, like silk hiding steel, Yeonjo waits for his moment to strike.

7. *The Pizza Delivery Man and the Gold Palace by U-pi (Explicit, Ongoing)

Came for the hot guys, stayed for the excellent depiction of mental health issues.

Woo-won is a pizza delivery guy down on his luck, and Seo-an is wealthy man suffering from panic attacks and social phobia. You wouldn’t think these two would have any reason to get to know one another, but one small kindness leads to a series of encounters that bring the two men closer together than either of them anticipated. Maybe they can find the solutions to their problems together…or perhaps they don’t need solutions, but simply each other.

8. *Walk on Water by Jang mokdan / Jaxx (Explicit, Completed)

Two hot porn daddies actors falling in love 🥵

Starring in gay porn was never on Ed’s bucket list. He’s straight, he’s not an exhibitionist, and he has a decent career in security. That said, he also has a debt that he’s been working to pay off for years now, and he can barely keep up with the accruing interest. If having gay sex in front of a camera is the way to digging himself out of this pit, then he’s willing to be filmed for that money shot. But when he meets Glenn, the charismatic CEO of a gay porn production company, Ed finds himself falling into something much deeper than financial debt.

9. Wolf in the House by Park ji-yeon (Mature, Completed)

Hilarious & sweet, with the most intimate sex scenes I’ve ever seen! Feel-good story 👇🏼

After ending an on-again, off-again relationship of 10 years, Minsuk decides to foster a Siberian husky named Bexan to mark the start of his new single life. He can’t wait to cuddle with his new furry roommate, take him on walks, and play fetch. But Bexan is no ordinary dog...and when night falls, Minsuk is in for a surprise.

10. *Yuuutsu na Asa by Hidaka shoko (Explicit, Completed)

Another problematic historical drama, good old master/butler classic

Upon his father's death, Akihito Kuze became a viscount at the age of 10. His smart, handsome young butler Tomoyuki Katsuragi has since managed all affairs pertaining to the viscountcy perfectly. The talented and charismatic Katsuragi is very popular in their social circle; but as Akihito grows older, he becomes colder and more distant by the day - though still as faithful to the Kuze household as he has ever been. Akihito is now a young man, and desperately in love with Tomoyuki. He’s determined to discover the reason behind his butler's inexplicable behaviour, and this is where their story begins.

[wavesmp3]

some of my fave rbs or asks or comments ive received... thank you all :) - no need for anyone to respond or anything to this, just really wanted to put this together more for myself - i doubt most of your remember these but i do heh [more under the cut, and perhaps lil notes too depending on the comment]

the first three!! major huge moments for me. from sha (@dinoshaur) one of the first comments i received on a work that wasn't fanfic exactly. meant the world to me then, and still does now. | from @redevenir the very very first comment (i believe) i ever ever received on the sea is yours to take,, it's been nearly 4 years since i first posted that piece and people still somehow find it, and it all started with that rb | and from choco ! @chocosvt one of the very first comments/rbs i got when i started properly writing on tumblr in 2020, this got the ball rolling on what became (and still is) such a dear passion/hobby of mine (also also can you believe i still use the mlist banner that choco oh so kindly made for me ages ago LOL its beautiful, i'll never get rid of it as long as this blog exists

and moment of silence for my old url :0

the first one... when another line of mine is quoted in another piece of mine's comments... head in hands forever. 2/3 of these were left by @gracefulweather (one for sure is, and i think the uquiz comment was also left by them but not sure) but thank you either way sherri!! | the second sc tbh i don't remember who left it but it was on tsiytt and it made me feel like i achieved something in crafting that world. although i may never revisit that world in writing, i revisit it often in my mind.

flower anon your comments meant so much to me, i hope youre still out there somewhere doing well :) | and to the other anon that left the second one, i was speechless and honored to reach that ask

@hhjs amal's comments have always made me feel like im doing something otherworldly which isn't true at all but i will forever love rereading their tags. also just amal's mind in general, i wanna pick your brain forever

n! i already made an emo missing n post but here are some comments from them lol. and the last one!!! me and water <3333 when people starting associating me with water/ocean/sea/waves too <333333

@heavenlyhaechan zahra!!! there were so many ones i could have put here but this one seemed to sum it all up. you get me :p if you see this, i hope you've been well :))

@dapingu the first and third one are just ones that make me giggle still LOL and then the second one is one that i hold so so close to me cause i had absolutely no idea if anyone would read that piece but then you did ! and you left this comment even after the fact too! i was so touched. i feel like i should personally apologize for making no moves to continue the series (and probably also for deactivating the gifts and sins blog) BUT thank you nonetheless. and as a added bonus you never failed to make me laugh so thank you also for that

@thepixelelf ursa!!!! the first one is horribly cut off but is prob one of my fave notes you ever left on a fic of mine (battling also with that one sunwoo recovery files style inspired drabble) and then ofc i couldn't not mention the 'boo you whore' comment :D also so glad to have you on this site still and to have your friendship and to look at bees and bears and think of you :) you mean the world to me

@kabira manx i think the fact that there are so many screenshots here speaks for itself like... i just simply could not bring myself to pick one !!! i am so lucky to have found you on here. i think in a way you helped me find out what i was good at and what i liked about my own writing before i even figured it out myself <3

@sagescaffeinemania the first one made me laugh and the second one makes me emo. feels like a declaration of love in way but i don't mean that in a weird way LOL i think your support on oasis singlehandedly introduced so many others to that piece, how can i ever thank you for that? and i apologize if i haven't even attempted a thank you yet

@cuppasunu KYU your bulleted comments on my silly long fics always meant so much to me ,, i know its been a very very long time but i hope you've been well

@blossom-hwa lina! best for last some might say. i mean you must know how much that oasis rb meant to me right? because it means the world. i think you calmed every doubt i had about that piece and lifted even higher everything i loved about it too. and the first sc esp, i couldn't have said it all better myself. that scene felt like i risk when i was writing it and im so glad it played out the way i was hoping it to and not the dreadful other way lol | and as for the second screenshot. really i think i love that comment because of how you wrote it more than what you said about the piece if that makes sense. one can tell from that little paragraph alone what a writer(!) you are. i love rereading that comment but i think i mainly just love reading your writing lol (dont think im not making my way through worn out soles)

[ohmeadows]

15, 17, and I'm gonna make up a question! what advice would you give on someone trying to get back into reading fiction again after 10+ years?

an underrated book?

soooo many!!! holy hell i feel like the literary world slept on sarah manguso's short books, i really loved how she pieced together fragments. niche booktok also hasn't discovered her yet. losers.

megan abbott writes some of the best thrillers. dare me, queenpin and you will know me hang around in my mind.

the rabbit hutch by tess gunty was very well-reviewed but i never see anyone talk about it, kinda weird, but a really fun read, i breezed through it in one night and still think about it.

i know why my dark vanessa didn't get as much attention, beyond the drama and controversies, but i think about it a lot. it's been a few years since i read it, i would not recommend it to anyone, but. it dislodged some messy hard rocks in me. (if anyone checks it out, take care. i found it very triggering. the blurb is what it says.) same with consent by vanessa sprigora, and girl a by abigail dean. it's not that i loved or felt uplifted by these. but. something about writing about horrid things with care and attention to the very grimness of what it is. and yeah, again, the content warnings for these do not lie. tread gently.

a book to get u out of a reading slump?

good q. i'm in one right now. i usually need a combo breaker when this happens, something from a vastly different genre. mangas usually knock something loose. i like aiming for easy reads that may be really bad, such as verity by colleen hoover or a thriller that has you reading all night. thrillers in general always work for me, some favorites that had me reading all night were anything by gillian flynn, rebecca makkai's i have some questions for you, they never learn by layne fargo...

as for advice...

i got back into reading after a long slump by reading book reviews and articles about books. lithub is pinned to my opening bookmarks for a reason. authors talking about their books, critics reviewing and analysing books, it's excellent curiosity fodder. feed that curiosity. test the waters. if something doesn't work for you after 25 pages, only give it 10 more then put it down and try something else. you can always come back some other time. if you have some old favorites you think fondly of, re-read them! i re-read books a lot, sometimes 25% of my yearly reading is just revisiting old faves. test a new genre you know little about, research what's staples. staying curious through constant stimulation is what gets me reading more than recommendations.

[petitemarianna]

Quite some time since I’ve posted anything here really (quite some time is an understatement). (I mostly use my second account wanderingthroughturtlewoods which contains posts of things that I like or inspire me). I was tagged though by @freenarnian​  🌷📖 and one does not pass on the opportunity to babble about books that easily :P A book I want to reread: I’m easily bewitched by the siren call of new books so rereading is not something I usually do (although I would like to). There are actually though quite a few books that I’d like to reread, most old favorites such as: -Crime and Punishment and Demons by Dostoyevsky -The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Both books –nonfiction and a fictional alike- awakened my interest in ww2 history many years ago and I would like to revisit them at some point. -Annihilation is short of a recent favorite; first read was a very strange and fascinating experience and I want to see how I would react to the story and themes now. Any books you reread every two to five years: The Tintin series and some other childhood faves such as Harry Potter, Matilda by Roald Dahl, The Fellowship of the Ring and Le Petit Nichola by Rene Goscinny are books that I have read frequently throughout the years. There are some comics/graphic novels that I flip through regularly as well. Any books you reread once a year: There are films or tv series that I tend to rewatch annually (The Secret Garden, You’ve got mail, Ever After, Chocolat and Emma 2009 are some of them) but I don’t really do that with books. So many new stories out there and so little time! 😩 The book you reread within the shortest turnaround time: I’ve done so with some of Anton Chekhov’s short stories, maybe with Crime and Punishment (?); I remember rereading it a year after I first read it which is quite a short period for me.   I usually do this with picture books/comics/graphic novels where I want to observe the artwork more closely: -The Golden Age by Cyril Pedrosa is one recent instance, the artwork is simply phenomenal! -Blacksad by Guarnido and Juan Diaz Canales, -Petit by Hubert and Gatignol and This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews I have also reread shortly after I finished them. The book you've reread the most times: Quite possibly the Harry Potter series -I reread them regularly as a kid and I’ve read them a few times as an adult as well. Lord of the flies possibly falls into this category -it’s one of my favorite classics and I’d done a project on it years back, so I revisited the story multiple times at the time. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa, Tintin and the Asterix series I’ve also read countless times in my life! Thank you so much @freenarnian for tagging me! 😊 I tag @annaholak but anyone really is welcome to it! Have fun everyone! 

[kelliealtogether]

Make a post recommending a fic you love from at least a year ago. Dust off the archives, dig through your AO3 history and share those old fics with newer fans who might not have seen them - and the fans who’ve been around forever and might want to revisit an old fave.

I have read many, many, many a TRC fic, but nothing has ever surpassed we all fill up with time by interropunct. It's one of the first fics I read after getting back into reading fic and I literally cannot recommend this fic enough. The writing is superb, the characterization is spot on, and the relationship dynamics are so well done. On top of that, the D/s scenes in this fic are not only some of the best D/s scenes I have ever read, but they. are. goddamn. hot. Mindblowingly so. One of them in particular makes the ex-Catholic in me salivate.

Give it a read. Click that kudos button. Leave a comment. I'm probably going to go reread it right now because I love it that much. If you read it, I hope you love it, too.

[lizzybeth1986]

Noot Noot

Book: Perfect Match

Pairing: Sloane Washington & Hazel Park (f!black MC) (platonic), Sloane Washington & Iris Young (f!Asian Hayden) (platonic).

Rating: G

Summary: While recovering from a nasty flu, Sloane revisits a childhood favourite TV show with her friends.

Word count: 1,183 words

A/N: I kinda HC Sloane as growing up on Pingu, a British-Swedish stop motion animated classic. It was a fave of mine as a kid, and I later found out that many autistic kids - esp those who use more nonverbal communication - are fond of it.

Tagging @choicesficwriterscreations for Fic of the Week and @choices-february2023 for their February prompt as well as @sloanewashingtonappreciationweek

Using @choices-february2023 prompt for Day 4: Harmony | Homemade Soup | So What (P!nk)

"You two should go home now," Sloane grumbles, her voice almost muffled underneath her Milky Way Galaxy blanket. "I'm fine, really."

And she isn't lying. She hasn't suffered a fever in four days now, and though her throat still feels sore, the sandpaper sensation of using her voice doesn't burn as ferociously as it did a week ago.

Residual throatache and general tiredness. That's all that's left of this awful flu.

Iris ignores her. "Hazel, honey, put on some Pingu," she calls out, frowning over a pot of steaming chicken soup. "'Pingu the Chef' is her favourite."

Hazel's head is buried inside her cupboard of old keepsakes from her mom's home. "Coming!" She yells back to Iris, holding a well-worn penguin in her hand.

She tosses it playfully in the direction of Sloane's bed. "What did you finally name this one?"

Sloane has only enough energy to offer a weak smile. "Katie Bouman." She doesn't remember what she'd named it when Mom gave it to her. "To keep you company at your first ever Space Camp," she'd said, brushing a soft kiss over her forehead. They'd both been so nervous then. Little Trudy had never stayed overnight away from home, away from Mom.

It was one of the few things Sloane took back with her when she'd visited Mom a few years ago, just before Khaan and the group set in motion their plans to defeat Eros. Sloane shivers as she remembers her sense of dread that day, wondering if this would be the last time she'd ever visit this room. How she swallowed the lump in her throat when she saw the worry in Mom's eyes, the questions Sloane couldn't bring herself to answer.

Hazel frowns at Sloane's involuntary shudder, enfolding her in her thick blanket and tucking Katie into her weak arms.

The two settle back on the bed, backs against the bedstand, as the titular little penguin throws corn kernels into a hot pan. His baby sister watches, jumping up and down when the yellow seeds puff up and turn white.

"What?" Hazel mouths when she sees Sloane silently giggling. She covers her mouth, already anticipating one of her favourite parts in the episode; Pingu's sister fooling her brother into looking away before stealing his share of kernels.

Pingu stares for a second at the empty pan, then glares after his baby sister, his beak already stretching to form the shape of a trumpet horn.

"Noot noot!"

Hazel guffaws, slapping her thigh. "He looks so cute when he does that."

Sloane's laughter is significantly fainter, yet carries the same note of joy and amusement. "Mom says when I first started watching Pingu, I wouldn't stop saying 'noot noot' for a whole month."

Iris comes out of the kitchen as she says this, bowl of soup in hand. Sloane breathes in the scent of roasted garlic emanating from it with a sigh of pleasure. On Sloane's laptop screen, Pingu takes out an obscenely large amount of corn kernels and throws them in a far larger pot.

"It's a very versatile word," Hazel says, grinning, "You could say it when you're excessively happy... excessively distressed..."

"... excessively pissed off at annoying younger siblings who steal your food from right under your nose..." Iris adds, winking in Sloane's direction. Hazel is surprisingly quiet in the middle of all the teasing.

Sloane has enough energy to half-heartedly elbow Iris in the ribs. "You damn well deserved a few noot noots for nicking my Ben&Jerry tub on your first day here."

Iris looks all injured innocence. "I didn't do that, Dipper did."

"Very nice, very 'the dog ate my homework', Iris," Hazel mocks gently, rolling her eyes at her girlfriend before looking at Sloane. "Did you always do that?"

"Do what?" Sloane takes slow, lingering sips of her soup, savoring its warmth. Pingu and his sister are now panicking over a mile-long trail of popcorn strewn over their kitchen floor.

"Repeat phrases no matter the context? In some of the childhood stories you've told me so far, you'd done that with other words."

Echolalia, the first therapist they'd met had told Mom. She likes repeating the words, but is yet to grasp their meaning. That last thought is more imagination than memory; all she can truly recall from that visit were the tiny farm animals she had sorted in a row on a playmat, by order of height.

"Yeah," Sloane whispers, her smile a tiny bit wider as she watches Pingu take boxes of freshly made popcorn on his sled, going from house to house, using his overzealous mistake to feed an entire polar neighborhood. "I always thought of words in terms of sounds first. The more I liked the sound of something, the more I'd use it whether I knew the meaning or not. You had to show me a visual, over and over again until I connected the two, if you wanted me to understand what a word meant. It took Mom a little time to realize that."

Sloane smiles at the sight the three of them must make right now, watching a childhood favourite on a bed surrounded by all the interests and all the achievements of her adulthood. The first time she'd watching this show, Mom had been curious. She'd never shown much interest in watching anything for more than a couple minutes, making going to the cinema almost an impossibility.

But this show, with its adorable clay penguin figures who spoke a language she didn't need to understand and who forced her to read their body language instead...this show was different. This show grabbed her attention and wouldn't let go. This show stayed with her long after she stopped binge-watching it, growing into a lifelong interest in real-life penguins.

She looks up at her best friends, both so different in their body language yet so familiar. Hazel's limbs are sprawled over her bed in a sort of casual grace, as if she is owning the space. Iris rests her chin on her right knee, her head tilted as she often does when she's thinking deeply about the media she's watching. Sloane feels a frisson of familiarity as she watches her - in so many ways they're so similar; sometimes Sloane wonders how much of herself she's incorporated into Iris. There are moments when looking at her is like looking at a mirror - the same responses on a drastically different face.

Even now, if Sloane tries hard enough, she knows that some of the ways she reads people's reactions can be vaguely traced to that stressful - yet indescribably exciting - exercise of trying to understand what Pingu was doing, what Pingu was saying, what Pingu was feeling.

"Mm," Iris says, grinning as Sloane finishes off her soup. She's been showing better appetite today than she has the whole week. "looks like they managed to clear out all that excess popcorn, eh?"

Sloane smiles back. Pingu drives his sled through the snow from house to house, his beak morphing into the shape of a trumpet horn as he announces his arrival. In a sound that is no longer annoyance, or anger - but excitement.

Noot noot!

--

* Katie Bouman is a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard who helped develop the code to find the black hole needle in the haystack of data collected from the effort.

** You can watch the episode of Pingu mentioned here.

*** Echolalia is one of the things that some autistic kids grow up with. Some are nonverbal in their communication, and some may not always engage in meaningful communication although they do attempt speech. Echolalia involves a tendency to repeat words or phrases while not understanding the meaning, eg. A child repeating someone's question instead of answering it. I HC Sloane as having speech delays as a child, that initially didn't go noticed because she was echoing words she heard.

[fiercynn]

heyyy! i was wondering if you liked the os2 episodes of bbts!!! i noticed you shared some stuff regarding the first two episodes. did you enjoy eps 3 and 4 as well?

i never get asks, this is so exciting??? (probably because i don't actually spend enough time on tumblr...i was kind of starting to be on here a bit and then got depressed by a lot of the negative reactions to @end-otw-racism during their first action. but tbh getting an ask actually makes me want to engage more so THANK YOU ANON)

okay, my os2 feelings! i talked about this a bit on my twitter so i'm going to recreate some of that here, haha. but the short version is: yes, i enjoyed the whole thing! i think episode one was my favorite because i lovedddd the patpran dynamic we got there - watching pran be confident but also settled in love felt amazing to me, and i loved the little domestic notes. i think my second-favorite episode was actually the last one - not so much because i think it was a well-constructed episode (it was a little all over the place, tbh), but i ADORED the phutian ending after having felt like their relationship was getting kind of shafted for most of the special. also we got to see inkpa again!

it's hard to talk about my own feelings though about it without reflecting on the disappointment a lot of people i know have felt about the special. and i certainly understand and agree with a LOT of the critiques, they are completely valid. but i guess i'll explain a bit more about why i liked the special anyway.

firstly, i think i came into it with the feeling that because bbs is such a perfect narrative, anything we got in os2 would be a bonus, and that i could take or leave the parts i liked and didn't like to apply to my own personal love of bbs - especially since it did take place in the timeskip instead of the ending. and i especially felt this way because of knowing that there was a crossover with atots.

i think that one of the issues with crossovers in general is they force shows to draw kind of contrived parallels between characters and pairings. and similarly i think crossovers require characters to be matched up in scenes together just so you see their contrasts. so that's why we had to have two separate nights of lost in the woods, so that we could get pran & phupha as well as tian & pat. could they have done better with making parallels that made more sense for both couples? sure. but i wasn't totally surprised that the crossover parts felt clunky/over-worked. i also think crossovers prioritize humorous moments over character-building ones. they're just really not a good vehicle for storytelling imo - they're more just about seeing your faves up on screen together.

as far as patpran's conflict in these episodes - again, totally valid & understandable that people are upset & feel like it was unresolved! for me, though, it felt like a pretty natural part of their progression as a couple. my friend @/siri_dechawat on twitter has a great thread about it that i totally agree with. and also i think it's worth thinking about how long patpran's history is, how many old hurts they still have that probably aren't fully resolved. i was once in a relationship that reminds me of that, a relationship that had six years of fraught history before it got happy, and my recollection is that by the time you get to the place where you're secure in that kind of relationship, you don't always revisit those old hurts because you have the feeling that now you're happy, so why look back so much? but they can still flare up and it can be hard to talk about them, so you try to work through them yourself and that isn't always easy.

to me, the fact that patpran kept up a lot of their usual dynamic - teasing, competing, cuddling, even while they're in the middle of a fight - felt very organic. they can't always say exactly what they're feeling, but they still express affection. and for me, the fact that they were having this fight at all about pran's independence & pat's self-sacrifice wasn't at all going backwards from the original show. the second half of bbs doesn't actually have them resolving a lot of those things out loud.

at the end of the day, while this is the last time we'll see patpran onscreen (sob), it's not their ending. it's not even the ending that we see of them. we know where they end up by ep 12 and it's pretty perfect imo. and the fact that they are not always perfect at communicating along the way is okay with me. we know they end up on the same page (ha) even if these episodes had some conflict around that. we know where their love is.

okay i said all this and i stand by it, but also if you have read any of my fic you know that i LOVE writing canon-divergence AUs, so i did a series of them for os2 as well based on prompts i got on twitter! i ended up with twelve separate "what if" scenarios for how various scenes in the special could have gone differently - just episodes one through three, because i wasn't as much in a writing mood after the last one - and i collected them together in an ao3 post called in another lifetime. i think my favorite ones within there are mountain, a h/c ficlet patpran do actually make it up pha pun dao, and secrets, an extension of the last patpran scene in episode three. so if you were unsatisfied by various scenes in the special, maybe you will like these as fix-its? :D? anyway thank you again anon for the ask!!!! maybe i will try to be on tumblr more again...

[libratxt]

hiiii <3 big ask big answer is what i'm expecting would LOVE to know your top 5/faves across various media that are new(in release or just new to you) this year! so: shows, movies, games, books, songs/albums, new artists you've discovered etc

hi!!! you don't know how excited i got to see this pop up in my inbox, i love talking about things i love so thank you <333 i hope you don't mind that this will be super long lol 😭

shows severance - okay so i have to start off with severance because it is THE BEST show i saw this year, i've begged everyone i know to watch it. i encourage you to watch it if you haven't! it has such an exciting premise (what if you have no recollection of who you are at work, and the work version of yourself has no idea who you are outside of work, and you had to reconcile those two people?) it's such a juicy concept that explores the way jobs take advantage of workers, in an amazing sci-fi setting. also from a totally nerdy perspective, the retro-futurist aesthetic of it is amazing like the set designers really created an immaculate setting. it's a great story of found family, it has mystery, it has twists. i watched it twice all the way through! when i finished it the first time i was in despair at the thought of having to wait for its second season.

andor - euuugh i hesitate to put a star wars show here because as much as i love star wars, the shows for the most part suck so bad. but i loved andor so so much. i was genuinely surprised week to week at how every single episode was crafted beautifully and kept me engaged. i was pleased at how unapologetically it holds a mirror to the evils of fascism and white supremacy and colonization. it's definitely not without its flaws but as a star wars fans it's everything that star wars should be. it's so clear that the people involved in its creation are passionate about the story they're telling.

and in an attempt to not make you read an essay about every show i liked, some other faves were: interview with the vampire and ted lasso, and technically not new to me this year but i have to say succession my forever love <3

movies nope - i love horror, i love movies, i am so scared of aliens lol. this movie was so amazing for so many reasons. but among one of my biggest reasons for loving nope is that it feels like the kind of movie only someone who loves movies can make. it's so clear jordan peele loves movies, and so much about nope feels like a love letter to the making of movies, which i'm sure is a weird takeaway but it was one of my takeaways regardless. the story, acting, sound design were fantastic. i had so much fun watching it.

everything, everywhere, all at once - there's so much to say about this one. i love when the whole point is that yes, we are just stupid little humans trying to connect. i love reckless optimism. as someone with immigrant parents, a lot resonated with me. and the visuals were incredible. i love that it's goofy and over the top and poignant and that it balances all those things so beautifully.

meet me in the bathroom - i love documentaries!!! and music so much! this was such a fun look at the explosion of rock music in new york city during the early aughts. it's the kind of movie that makes you want to convince your friends to start a terrible punk band with you immediately after watching.

other faves: thoroughbreds, street gang: how we got to sesame street, and lake mungo (a slow-burn documentary style horror movie that genuinely freaked me out, and i don't scare easy!)

games i didn't really play many new games this year, mostly just revisited some old ones. but i have to insist that disco elysium is the best game i've played in recent memory. i played it for the first time last year. it's brilliant. the writing is incredible, the characters are incredible, the voice acting is incredible. i would try to explain what makes it so great, but it really is the kind of thing you have to experience for yourself. and i highly encourage you do!

books i feel like i read so many great books this year among them: the only good indians by stephen graham jones - a group of friends are haunted by a mistake they made in their youth. it's great psychological horror and commentary on the native american experience

crying in h-mart by michelle zauner - michelle zauner's memoir on reconnecting with her culture after her mother's death. it also gives really great insight on japanese breakfast's discography. it made me cry a ton!

the final revival of opal and nev by dawnie walton - a fictional oral history of a black punk rock musician. it's fun, it's emotional, the writing is great and the characters really suck you in. i think it's also a great read if you're someone who's into music

lost boy by christina henry - this one shocked me with how much i ended up liking it. it's an imagining of captain hook's origin story, which didn't sound initially appealing to me, but it was so beautifully written, devastating, and even horrific at times. the affection that jamie (who becomes captain hook) has for the other lost boys is just really tender and sweet. this is one of the most recent books i read this year and it quickly became one of my favorites!

music

you've been reading for so long now, i'll try to keep this concise:

songs: mujeres by y la bamba (i only heard this song for the first time a few months ago and it got to my 8th spot on my spotify wrapped!! the drums are incredible, the lyrics are fun, i just love listening to it) la combi versace by rosalia, pattern doubt by young jesus, hertz by amyl and the sniffers, good times by genesis owusu, back to oz by sufjan stevens, should've been me by mitski, and so so so many more

albums: in the aeroplane over the sea by neutral milk hotel, fever to tell by yeah yeah yeahs, laurel hell by mitski, jubilee by japanese breakfast, sable by japanese breakfast (i don't think i ever listened to this album all the way through but the first couple of songs are perfect to listen to while i'm working on writing)

[katierosefun]

hi katie!!

i dont watch kdramas but my mom is obsessed with them, ive been loving the gifsets you post bc it gives me new shows to recommend to her. her favorite so far that ive recced from ur account is 25+21, that one absolutely wrecked her haha

she’s looking for some new ones rn and i was wondering if you had any faves i could send to her? in return ill tell you her favorites, ‘Descendants of the Sun’, ‘Crash Landing on You’, ‘Vincenzo’, ‘Yumi’s Cells’, and ‘Soundtrack #2(i think thats the name????)’

siarra, hello!! !!!! ! i'm so touched that you find the kdramas i reblog about interesting, esp. as i was a bit nervous about posting all of that stuff at first. but anyways! of course, i can absolutely rec some! if your mom liked the vibes of twenty five twenty one in particular, here are some below that have similar vibes . . . but i've also recced some that are from other genres but are still absolute faves, if your mom's interested in expanding her horizons!

be melodramatic (available on netflix, dramacool, kissasian, etc)

i absolutely adored this kdrama. like, my entire family's been listening to me laugh at it for the last month or so because i just took so much delight in the show. basically, it's about a group of thirty year olds living together: one is currently an aspiring drama writer, another is a single mother working in a production company, another is a documentarian who recently lost her partner, and the last one--although he's a side character, so he won't get as much screentime, but he's incredibly lovely--is an out gay musician. (and the representation is FANTASTIC. admittedly, he doesn't have a whole ton of scenes with his boyfriend, but whenever he does, they're very quietly sweet, and given that this show was released in 2019 and kdramas are unfortunately very heterosexual, this representation was genuinely . . . so good, in that queerness isn't ever a joke or a Token thing.) anyways, this show in general is just so . . . good. there are so many laughs, and the characters feel very real. you see them struggle, you see them achieve, you see them learn and heal and, i think what i loved the most from this show, was that you got to see them support each other over and over again. genuinely one of my favorite shows in the coming-of-age/slice-of-life genre!

2. age of youth/hello, my twenties! (available on netflix, kissasian, dramacool, etc)

this is another one of my fave coming-of-age/slice-of-life kdramas, and if your mom's still digging the "people in their twenties growing up and learning" vibes, this is another show that should be on her list! basically, this show is about a group of college-aged girls living together in a share house and all the highs and lows that they have to deal with because they're all in their twenties. this show, like be melodramatic, is very much so full of laughs and tears and everything in between. the characters are all so complex and nuanced, and they all make such a lovely group of friends. i find myself wishing i could revisit them :')

3. because this is my first life (available on netflix, viki, kissasian, dramacool, etc)

this is another really fantastic slice-of-life drama about two people in their thirties--and they get married for financial purposes. nothing more, nothing less. but of course, some other things happen along the way.

i really can't express enough how genuinely . . . sweet this drama is? one character is a drama writer who's taking a break from writing after some not-so-great things with her boss, and the other works in the software design field. so they've got pretty different personalities, but they fit together well? and you can tell that they do support each other or they want to support each other, even if they just feel like weird roommates at first. another plus of this drama is just! the power of female friendships! (can you see a pattern here?) they're great. you've got women in their thirties who are all at a different place with different dreams and different wants, and no dream is considered somehow lesser than the other, which is really fantastic. so in general: a really beautiful drama, with some genuinely beautiful lines as well!

4. our beloved summer (available on netflix, kissasian, dramacool, etc) 

this is a drama that i knew was going to be great . . . and it didn’t disappoint me! a genuinely soft and heartwarming drama--this is about a young woman and a young man who went viral in their high school years for being in a documentary together. now, they’re living different lives . . . and feeling still very frigid with one another because they dated after doing the documentary together. they broke up, but now, ten years after that documentary, they’re supposed to be filmed again, kind of as a “where are they now?” project.

this drama was just. i knew the premise was interesting, and the story was just perfect. lots of bittersweet feelings, as well as genuinely thoughtful insights into why someone might want to break up in a seemingly loving relationship. all about growth, maturity, as well as coming to terms with how to heal. this whole drama feels like a ray of sunlight.

other genres, that are not necessarily about youth/coming-of-age but are still genuinely lovely and i would recommend them anyways:

1. beyond evil (available on netflix, viki, kissasian, dramacool, etc) 

i don’t know how your mom feels about the thriller genre, but on the chance that she might be interested: i need to recommend beyond evil almost every time, just because i think it’s genuinely one of the best korean dramas--or tv shows in general--ever. it’s about a man who, 20 years ago, was accused of kidnapping and potentially murdering his twin sister. when a new detective comes to this small town, the murders start up again--and now this new detective and this once-accused man must find the truth of the murders together. 

i can’t express enough just how much this show is . . . so good. i would say it’s less a thriller and honestly . . . a little bit of melodrama as well, a bit of a romance. it’s also different from other thrillers in that this show never feels like trauma porn (esp. since so many thrillers/crime shows, unfortunately, tend to express overkill on the violence to largely female victims). this show also centers itself on exactly how much a tragedy impacts the victims--and how it’s never too late to heal or find justice or love or belonging in general. genuinely one of the best shows ever. the mystery is great, and the acting is fantastic, and the music and the writing and the CHEMISTRY, good grief, shin ha kyun and yeo jin goo’s chemistry is off-the-walls legendary. also worth noting that it’s won 3 baeksang awards (one of the most prestigious awards a drama can earn): one for best leading actor (shin ha kyun!!! my love!!), one for best script (because writer kim su jin put her everything into this show, and it’s quite insane to think that she’s actually still considered a very new writer), and one for best drama of 2021. because. because it really is, even though this show was slated for the worst time when it was airing. beyond evil was considered the underdog of the jtbc company, and yet it wound up coming on top in 2021, so that should tell you a little something about exactly how wonderful this show is!

2. miss hammurabi (available on viki, kissasian, dramacool)

so, this is a courtroom/legal korean drama about three judges, but mostly about one kind of unusual judge, who seems especially tenacious and determined to execute justice. the fact that i think this show was written by a former judge themselves, so it’s much more realistic and less melodramatic than most courtroom dramas you’ll find. (like, sometimes someone’s working in the legal field because they’ve got some personal scars, and that might influence the way they feel about the law, but not every legal kdrama needs to be about some personal agenda for revenge or anything . . . which! those kinds of kdramas can be really fun, but it was nice to see a kdrama about the law and how it works with an emphasis on exactly how simultaneously frustrating and hopeful the legal system can be). 

i just . . . i love this drama so much. you really do root for the characters, and there are so many scenes that just bring me a lot of comfort. there are also some themes about how important it is to lean a little bit on another person--and even though this show isn’t really romance-heavy, the main duo in this show is really :’)) wholesome :’)) 

3. w: two worlds (available on viki, kissasian, dramacool) 

this is honestly one of my fave supernatural-esque/contemporary fantasy-esque kdramas, and the fact that it’s been one of my faves for about six years says quite a lot. basically, this story is about a young doctor who accidentally winds up in the world of a comic written by her father. along the process, she keeps saving the main protagonist of this comic--and that has all kinds of consequences. 

it’s just . . . this show is so good. it’s so meta, and it’s genuinely smartly written, dealing with stories and the nature of stories and characters and it’s like ! there’s something so quietly metal about it. like! one of the lines being about “i am rooting for you to have a happy ending” is honestly one of my favorite lines ever, and i’ve heard myself saying it whenever i want to comfort someone as well. there’s just. like. a quiet determination about getting your happy ending, and the fact that this was working in a contemporary fantasy brought me a lot of joy. 

4. the crowned clown (available on netflix, viki, kissasian, dramacool) 

so, if your mom’s interested in historical/period dramas, the crowned clown is absolutely a must-watch. basically, this show is about a king who, after an attempt on his life, decides to use a commoner to take his place--a commoner who just so happens to share his exact same face. (think prince and the pauper, but now darker and in the joseon era.) 

besides the insanely good acting in this show, this show is just so great in the period drama sense because a lot of historical dramas (also known as saeguks) can be kinda boring in between the political jargon, but the crowned clown is so genuinely good in that the political court drama is very easy to follow, and it’s so rich in that like . .  there are so many things happening at once, but each part is so intriguing. you won’t be bored for a single second! (also worth noting that yeo jin goo, who was the lead actor in this show, made history by being the youngest ever actor nominated for a baeksang award in this show. i think he was only 21 or so when he was filming this show, maybe even younger, which is genuinely. insane. insane.) 

5. my mister (available on netflix, viki, kissasian, dramacool, etc) 

this drama is just so . . . good. i don’t really know what genre i would label this, because it’s partly thriller, partly . . . coming-of-age? i think? partly slice-of-life? but it’s a bit morbid at times, but it’s also healing? god, how to describe this show . . .

basically, it’s about a fortysomething man working as a structural engineer. he’s not . . . really happy with his life, although he never admits it. in his same company, there’s a young temp who’s currently paying back a bunch of debt to loan sharks, while also taking care of her deaf grandma. along the process of this show, they start to support and comfort each other. a win for platonic soulmates, because this show is just so . . . it means a lot to a lot of different people, and it’s not really a surprise that it got so much critical acclaim, despite its initially low rankings. a gem, very much like beyond evil in the sense that you go in expecting it to be dark, but you have zero regrets about watching it to the end.

6. tomorrow (available on netflix, kissasian, dramacool) 

this is another contemporary fantasy/supernatural kdrama, and i honestly adore it. this show follows a bunch of grim reapers, only instead of escorting someone to their afterlife, these grim reapers prevent people from committing suicide. as you might imagine, this show might cover some pretty difficult themes (some of them including miscarriage, bullying, ptsd). however, this show is special in that it covers all these themes with so much compassion. so much compassion. this show never really feels like it’s overdoing the suffering that people go through in order to want to kill themselves--they show just enough, and they do so in a way that’s almost like . . . it feels like it’s genuinely out of respect for the people who might have suffered through these similar situations. they show enough necessary pain to demonstrate that these are legitimate problems, but they never go overkill where it feels like trauma porn. 

i should also note that the characters in this show are just . . . god, i love them. i love them. the trio of grim reapers we get to know are genuinely just . . . chaotic and adoring and i haven’t loved a trio like this since like. the clone wars. which says a lot. (also, if you or your mom likes the sunshine/sunshine protector + sunshine protector dynamic, this is def. present in this show.) 

anyways. it’s a healing show. a must-watch for anyone and everyone, i think. it made me want to be a better person, and it brought me so much comfort, especially when i wanted to not think about reality for a bit. 

[chooseyouovereveryone]

10 Years Of Songbird: Brittana Fan Project

Hello my fellow Brittana lovers!

First of all, happy 10 years to the iconic Glee episode that is Rumours and the beautifully moving performance that is Songbird. Such a pivotal part in Brittana's story, and one that will forever be ingrained in my mind. Naya's voice still gives me goosebumps and reduces me to tears on that performance, paired with Heather's genuine tearful reaction.

Second of all, this is up slightly later than planned so apologies for that, but Tumblr glitched on me big time and I had to repost this all again which considering I had a draft built up for days, was rather inconvenient, but we’re here now and hopefully it was worth the wait!

Putting this project together has brought me so much joy in revisiting my favourite ship. I don't think I will ever tire of reading about them, and hearing from others why they love them so much and how this ship resonated with them.

For me, Brittany and Santana were the first positive representation I saw of a WLW relationship. I was shook to the core watching their story unfold, in how much it mirrored what was going on in my own life with my own denial and with my own relationship. I found myself clinging to that storyline like an anchor, as if it was going to give me the answers to my own story. Throughout all the confusion I had in my own coming out and realisation that I was a lesbian, the storyline gave me hope that one day, everything would be okay. Watching them go from confused and conflicted best friends to wives gave me so much hope for the future, and now as a 27 year old out and proud gay woman, I still look at this storyline with the same love-filled eyes.

Even as Glee ended and I stepped away from the fandom, Brittana have always been a huge part of my life, always there in the background, always my comfort storyline to turn to and rewatch a bunch of times. But losing Naya last year really brought me back to the fandom and the community and reminded me why I loved them so much.

I think what I love most of all about this ship is how organic it was. It came from the fans, and from Naya and Heather encouraging the writers to take it seriously. Because of this, I also wanted to add in some little touches of Heya, and include quotes from Naya and Heather talking about their fave scenes.

I'll forever be indebted to this storyline in what felt like a really hard and confusing time in my teenage years.

So thank you Naya

Thank you Heather.

& thank you so much to all of you for taking part.

Also a huge shoutout once again to @hopefulobjectmiracle for letting me use her idea and for providing help along the way. She came up with the concept for this project with Klaine, and I wanted to create a Brittana version, but I'd strongly recommend checking out her Klaine one if you haven't already.

I hope you enjoy reading it, as much as I enjoyed putting it together :)

Brittany & Santana Talk To Holly Holliday About Their Feelings- 2x15, “Sexy”

Choosing a favorite scene is hard so I'll choose one of my favorite lines: in the episode Sexy when Santana and Brittany first talk to Holly about their sexuality, Britt says "I don't know how I feel because Santana refuses to talk about it".

I love this line because most people would play it off as Brittany being a simpleton, but that's not the case. Brittany is saying she doesn't know if she's allowed to like Santana as more than her best friend. She doesn't know if it's right. Because if Santana isn't in to girls then Brittany could be crossing a line, a line where she could possibly be making Santana uncomfortable. Brittany obviously knows how she feels about Santana but she wants to make sure Santana feels for her in the same way before admitting to it, as not to ruin what they already have.

-@neversatisfiedwithlife

Landslide- 2x15, “Sexy”

It was incredibly difficult for me to choose my favorite Brittana scene. There are so many that I love and find important to me...some of these moments were even literally life-altering. Before Brittana, for example, I didn't know that girls could be gay, and I had no idea that what I felt for some of my female friends was anything other than platonic. I'm sure I would have realized I was queer eventually, but this ship and the fandom that I found myself in made the process so much easier for me. But I digress :)

I eventually narrowed it down to four choices—Landslide, Songbird, the Heart Locker Scene in New York, and Cherish/Cherish in Heart, and out of these I've decided to single out Landslide as my numero uno, as it was this very scene that started my decade-long love affair with this ship :)

There are so many things that I love about this scene. Earlier in the show we see Brittany attempt to talk about their relationship knowing that they were more than just best-friends-with-benefits, but Santana would instantly close herself off. Still, Brittany pressed on, determined to understand what they had become, while Santana began to realize that what they had—what they could become—was worth letting herself be vulnerable, worth the risk of getting herself hurt. The fact that Landslide was the product of this early struggle gives it so much meaning ;u;

The scene itself has all these details that make my heart ache in the best way possible...the way they look at each other throughout the song, Santana's eyes a myriad of emotions, full of sadness, confusion, conflict, longing, Britt's eyes filled with concern knowing how much it's taking her best friend to be so vulnerable, then the pride that shines through when she looks at Santana after the performance; the way that Santana's voice breaks singing "and I'm getting older, too"; when she stands afterwards and goes over to Brittany, and Britt opens her arms to hold Santana instantly like it's a reflex; the way that they fit against each other so perfectly, like they were made to be in each other's arms...even the visual composition of the scene was perfect ToT That instant of them hugging each other is a study in contrasts with the way Britt's flaxen hair shines against Santana's night-dark head, and with the way Santana's soft white blouse contrasts against Brittany's deep blue denim top ;u; It's gorgeous.

-@randomcanbian

My fav Brittana scene is when they sing landslide together, because it was one of the first times we got to Santana be so vulnerable

-@snowpickles

What is a landslide? Simply put, it’s defined as a collapse of a mass of earth or rock from a mountain or cliff. That’s the perfect way to describe the rocky relationship between Santana and Brittany in S2, and it‘s exactly why their performance of the infamous Fleetwood Mac song of the same name (Sexy; 2x15) is such a pivotal moment in time in for them.

Santana showed a side of herself to her friends, but most importantly to Brittany, that many would deem her incapable of ever doing. For that moment she allowed that brick wall she always had built up around her for protection to come slowly crumbling down. And the best part? She allowed that — wanted that — to happen. She needed to bare her soul to the person she loved most, but she wasn‘t sure how or when, or if she ever could.

Seeing Santana put her heart on her sleeve and confess her feelings of love and admiration for Brittany through song — finally — is one of the highlights of the entire series for me. We see her trap herself within a new world for a few minutes, one that contains only the two of them through her eyes, and let her emotions do the talking. Brittany understood everything without a single word being spoken to her. Santana hadn’t opened up to anyone at this point about how she felt, not even to herself, but so much was understood between them without saying nothing at all. My favorite spoken line is Brittany‘s, „Is that really how you feel?“

As a viewer, it was such an infamous moment because we now get to cheer for them. We see that they are on the same page with one another, that through it all, their attraction and desire for one another never wavered. They wouldn’t be a a couple for quite a bit more time, but they both now understood what we as viewers saw all along. Santana stopped denying her sexuality; she stopped denying what Brittany meant to herself. She still had a lot to sort out and wasn’t ready to free herself from the constraints of her sexuality, but she made the biggest move: allowing Brittany on the other side of that wall with her.

This performance let to the scene we grew to love known as the Hurt Locker, which is the scene that made the Brittana fandom sing praise to the high heavens. Santana felt like she could finally confess her feelings to Brittany. She was terrified, but she somehow found the courage within herself to stop closing the door on opportunities. So, I‘m thankful for Holly Holiday for being the person that Santana and Brittany felt comfortable enough to go to, and I‘m thankful for her willingness to perform with them, because it gave us much more than a song — it gave us hope. It gave us validation. It gave us Brittana.

-@TheWednesdayProject on Reddit

Hurt Locker-2x15, “Sexy”

"A lot of people have said that scene gave them courage to come out to their parents and their friends and their loved ones, so I think that it's something that's very important, and I hope that we handled it responsibly which I think that we did"- Naya (PaleyFest 2012)

Hurt Locker is my fave scene - just Santana finally coming to feel and admit the truth within. I've probably watched it a thousand times and I'll never get sick of it. The expressions and unspoken acting Naya and Heather put into it give me all the feels!

-@chasingseals

Okay so my favorite Brittana scene is probably the scene where Santana express her feelings for Brittany during “sexy” and says she’s afraid to be with Brittany because of the talks and the way people are gonna stare and that she wasn’t even afraid to what people would say to her face but to what people would say behind her back.

And that’s because I feel the same way. I’m not a lesbian, I’m bisexual, but at the moment I have a girlfriend and I am so afraid to come out to even the rest of my family (apart from my parents and sister) because I always hear them talking about these girls with names such as “dyke” or something, and it was good to see on tv someone with the same fears and it is so good to see that they had a happy ending and got married and that all this started when they decided “not to care” about everybody else’s opinions and be themselves and be happy.

-@wankybjtch

It’s so, so strange to do this without Naya, but here we are, and she and Heather made this all so beautiful. When I tried to answer this question about my favorite scene, I went first to Songbird - Naya has one of my favorite voices in this whole world - and then to Landslide, and then to Me Against the Music, and all those answers seemed really good. Brittany and Santana spoke to each other so much through music - voices and words and touch - and Heather and Naya gave themselves to their characters so much - and Naya to song so much, and Heather to dance - that they would disappear into Brittana, and would just seem like they were love, made visible. Brittana is love always seems like such a true thing to say, to me. But while what occurred to me first were three songs, I realized that my favorite scene - the one that hit me the hardest - will probably always be the Hurt Locker.

Naya was just so shining there, Santana so full of love and this terrible ache and this more terrible hope, all for Brittany, that you could see Heather glowing back, though so much more quietly. It was an absolutely tremendous thing to see a full-on love scene playing out in the middle of a crowded hallway. Naya and Heather were so beautiful together, as friends and as actresses and as onscreen lovers, and after seeing that scene for the first time, I cried every day for a week, always at these quiet, unexpected times. The love and the hurt and the fear and the hope were so raw in Santana - both in Naya’s performance and in the beautiful script - that it brought everything back about the confusion of starting out with that Oh, god. I am never, never going to be like everyone else. I love her way, way too much. But somehow, the scene made my whole world feel safer. I could see myself, and others could see me. There we were on the screen, worthy and beautiful. <3 Tess

-@venuscomb

Songbird- 2x19, “Rumours”

"I really enjoyed watching Naya sing Songbird. That's ingrained in my head, that time where I sat in the choir room and listened to her sing Songbird, because her voice is just of another world. It's always been my favorite. I will never forget that."- Heather (Entertainment Weekly 2021)

My favorite moment is Santana singing Songbird to Brittany because that is an all time classic romantic song, and Santana (Naya) sings it beautifully, and Brittany just sits there mesmerized. Plus I love what they are wearing, and how they look. i think it's signifcant that Santana sang her love for her here in the choir room, and it's where they had many of their big moments - first together, the break-up song, the flowers in 5, the proposal.

-@1908jmd

My fav scene is 100% Songbird. It’s always been my favourite song and to see it applied to a wlw relationship changed my life a lot because it made me realise that it could be me one day. Santana was always my favourite character too, so to see someone that i appreciated a lot come to terms with their sexuality made me really happy

-@illegally-luthor

My first fav scene out of two is Songbird of course because seeing Santana pouring her heart out to Britt is just the most beautiful thing ever. She was scared to accept who she really was and when it comes to her love for Brittany she’s not scared anymore because loving her is the easiest thing to do. Plus, seeing how Britt reacted was so beautiful. She knew Santana was scared and she was proud of how she confessed her love, through a song, because she knew Santana wasn’t good with words.

-@chloesnix2b

Heart Locker- 2x22, “New York”

My favorite Brittana scene is after Nationals in 2x22 by the lockers.

What I love most about this scene is Brittanys tell it how it is attitude. When Santana said that it clearly wasn’t about winning for her, Brittany looked right through her bullshit, knowing that Santana was getting defensive, because Santana knew what this year was really about for Brittany (and herself too of course), she just didn’t want to admit to it.

You can clearly see that Santana is still scared and hiding and that she still feels like she’s is going to lose Brittany any moment. But Brittany reassures her, tells her how much she loves Santana and makes her feel safe.

My favorite Brittany is always when she’s finally allowed to have feelings and say something. Often the writers didn’t give her anything to do or just made her a caricature of a person. But when she was allowed to express herself, it was in her truest, most vulnerable form. Due to writing, Brittana often seemed one sided, but it’s moments like these that show us how much Brittany loves Santana and how much she wants only the best for her.

For me, the scene felt like the real beginning. They have been taking baby steps before, treading the water. But now Brittany dove right in and her boldness made Santana follow her :)

"What about you and I?", "I love you Santana, I love you more than I‘ve ever loved anyone else in this world. All I know about you and I is that, because of that, I think anything is possible."

-@bolintheturtleduck

I absolutely love every scene that they’re in together, but my favorite is the one where Brittany and Santana are standing outside of the lockers, talking about the glee club. i feel like it showed a lot about Santana’s character at the time and it really inspired me.

-@hoodiestring

Officially Dating - 3x04, “Pot O' Gold”

Their first official date at Breadstix!

Santana and Brittany sitting in the warm lighting of their favourite restaurant in the almost comfortable awkwardness of their tender baby relationship melted something in my baby lesbian heart.

They're teenaged best friends who fell in love and this scene is just so fluffy and cozy and perfectly reflects their dynamic - they're so obviously head over heels for each other and everything about their relationship feels new and electric and full of possibility, but they've also been love each other forever. Santana's eyes lighting up at Britt holding her hand and Britt being so purely herself and everything about the scene just screams home to me and is the moment the show really became about them to me.

-@grassberry639

One of my favorite scenes is the Breadstix scene with the holding hand under a napkin because I could completely relate to it when I was dating girls that was still not yet 100% ready to come out.

-@charisadrastea

Rumour Has It/Someone Like You- 3x06, “Mash Off”

My other favorite is the Rumour Has It/Someone Like You scene because the performance was so beautiful and haunting.

-@charisadrastea

For me, it was the Adele Mashup (specifically the longing looks exchanged during it). I watched that scene over and over again when I was a kid because I felt like it did a great job of truly encapsulating what it's like to have feelings that you desperately want to pursue but can't do to your surroundings. The whole thing really stuck with me.

Naya's performance felt so genuine and, throughout that entire song, you could really feel what Santana was going through as a closeted lesbian who was terrified of losing everything. And the fact that Brittany was so close during the whole performance and, yet, instead of her singing one of the lead parts with her, they just exchange looks. I just thought it did a great job of expressing a trapped feeling.

-@aaverageperson

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face- 3x10, “Yes/No”

My favourite Brittana scene would be the small flashback when the girls are singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

Santana sees Brittany’s face for the first time and she melts.

Their smiles are so soft and I love the instant connection they both have.

-@mostlygleethoughts​

My favourite Brittana moment happens when Santana is singing, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. She sings the line, “I felt your heart so close to mine,” while a flashback of her and Brittany in the locker room plays. I get teary-eyed whenever I watch this scene. The love between them is so beautiful, and it’s so refreshing to see genuine sapphic love portrayed on screen.

-@sapphicbrittana

Cherish/Cherish- 3x13, “Heart”

It took me so long to decide on what my favorite Brittana scene is but i ultimately decided on the scene at the end of Heart. It’s just such a sweet moment for them. They are openly going on a date and even kiss in front of other people without caring about what anyone might say. They have come so far from the beginning of their relationship and it is just lovely to see them be so happy with each other.

-@sugarcarnation

Ok so my second favorite scene is in 3x13 when Santana asked the god squad to sing a song for Britt. So the scene at Breadstick at the end and the kiss they shared after Cherish/Cherish is just beautiful. Seeing Santana being so proud to call Brittany her girlfriend and singing her song for her is everything to me. Also Britt’s reaction was too cute. The love in her eyes when Joe told them the god squad was going to perform for her is the cutest thing ever. The kiss they shared at the end of the song was so passionate and it gives me butterflies every time I see the scene. It was also the first Brittana kiss we saw onscreen.

-@chloesnix2b

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)- 3x17, “Dance With Somebody”

"Watching Heather dance is fun in this number, I never get tired of watching her dance."- Naya (BTS Dance With Somebody)

"They put us in twinzies outfits. We've been singing to each other like crazies"- Heather (BTS Dance With Somebody)

My favourite Brittana scene would have to be dance with somebody (the song). I love how happy they both are and how much fun they’re having together!!! The context is romantic, but they’re also having fun as best friends, which is the root of their relationship. I just think it’s really sweet and I’m a sucker for happy pretty ladies dancing around and making each other ridiculously happy. That’s all!!!

-@kurtanaaa

Tongue Tied- 3x21, “Nationals”

Q: What’s your favourite Brittana moment? A: The slow motion celebration smooch when we won Nationals

-Naya (Twitter Q&A 2012)

Mine- 4x04, “The Break Up”

It might seem strange, to choose a breakup scene for a couple's best. It's a scene that broke thousands of hearts and continues to make us cry, even after having seen the whole journey unfold and even after knowing that Brittana will, in the end, be okay. But to me, it's a scene that encapsulates much of what I love about these two and what they mean to each other. "Sophomore year, I used to sit in this back row and secretly watch you. I counted the number of times you'd smile at me, and I'd die on days that you didn't." Half the reason why I chose this scene is this quote. The sheer power of it still shakes me whenever I hear Santana utter these words. The sincerity behind them makes me stop and truly consider what it is she’s saying. It’s a summary of their journey so far. It’s a moment of incredible vulnerability, the confession of a girl who fell in love with her best friend and was terrified of the consequences of that love. Not as much as she was terrified of what it would mean to not be loved back, though. 

But Brittany loves Santana with the same passion, even if it manifests differently. It’s why she holds on as long as she can and why it’s even harder for Santana to face their issues. Because you see, I understand that many dislike the reasoning behind their breakup and that it only happened here because everyone else was doing it. But there’s something so deeply caring about the way they consciously make the decision not to hurt each other by leaving themselves in this in-between state of long-distance relationships. Something so genuine about the way they say they would never cheat on each other but also something so mature in realizing that they can’t be what the other needs right now. That, to me, displays such a pure form of love. As pure as catching glances and counting smiles in the back row. As pure as words of encouragement and saying to someone: I'm yours. 

Even though they were already inseparable in sophomore year, Brittany smiling at Santana during Glee practice is an intimate moment that meant everything to her. And even though it hurts, Santana letting go of Brittany before they can even think of hurting each other is such a deep declaration of love. What makes it bittersweet yet hopeful instead of just being heart-shattering is the way Santana turns the otherwise optimistic and romantic song “Mine” into a sad one, creating one of the show’s most gorgeous solo performances in the process. Because when she sings Brittany is the best thing that’s ever been hers, we all know it was true in sophomore year, it is true now and it will be on the day they exchange vows. Because Santana’s right when she sings they’re gonna make it, even if it takes a while. Even if they are (and we are) crying right now, even if it takes a few more days of dying in the absence of Brittany’s smile lighting up her world. Because even when they’re breaking up, Brittana reaffirm that they’ll always love each other the most.

-@tuiyla

Santana Walks Brittany Out Of The Auditorium One Last Time- 4x22, “All Or Nothing”

“I really liked the moment in the last episode, when we knew that Brittany was going away and it was a really sad vibe and Santana showed up and just took her hand and walked her off, I thought that was sweet.”- Naya (Perez Hilton 2013)

Valerie- 5x12, “100”

My favorite scene by a pretty wide margin is “Valerie” from “100”. It’s got that palpable backstage chemistry that Naya and Heather had that shone through so clearly in season 1, it’s poetically choreographed, and the songs even more lyrically significant than before.

I believe that Santana and Brittany are at their best and most smitten when they’re doing what Naya and Heather love the most: singing and dancing, respectively. This is no exception. Just look at Brittany trying not to smile at the beginning. When the shot is on her after Santana starts to sing, you can see her face change from smiles to grimace as if she had forgotten herself. You can’t tell me Heather didn’t break there for a second.

Every little mannerism throughout the whole sequence is laced with that fun, alarmingly pure energy. It could’ve been just excellent acting, but it felt so real. And why wouldn’t it? Naya had to learn Heather’s dance from “Sectionals”. Watching your best friend pull off some of your most iconic moves and then joining in, that’s gotta be fun.

Yeah, Santana’s dancing the choreography from their sectionals with Mike. Within the capacity of an untrained dancer, of course. She’s trying to get Brittany back into the groove by dancing probably the most involved number that the New Directions have ever done. And one that Brittany probably had the most fun with because she choreographed it with Mike. That’s some good writing. And it works, and it’s cute, but once Brittany joins in, the sequence deviates from the original.

We get this just wonderful moment of Brittany dancing solo centerstage fully embracing her passion. After she gets her moment, she and Santana dance either with each other swing-style or towards each other. You can’t forget about that embrace at the end when Santana sort of dips her. They’re not even back together at this point. Santana doesn’t want to get back together at this point. But I feel like I’m watching them dancing at their wedding 3 hours into the reception.

And I mean what an appropriate song to use given the circumstance. “Valerie” is about missing an ex after coming back to your hometown. When we heard Santana solo it at sectionals, it wasn’t super meaningful. It was an excellent way to show off Santana’s vocals and Brittany and Mike’s choreography somewhat independently. But here? Let’s talk about line distribution.

First verse, Santana sings solo. Notably, Brittany is harmonizing behind her piecemeal. By the chorus, she’s joined with Santana fully. Second verse, she’s soloing, joining the dance and by the end they’re dancing together. They’re singing and dancing about missing each other together.

But the song’s not my favorite part. Not even the dance. Not really. My favorite part is the culmination. Santana and Brittany are participating in each other’s disciplines and passions.

That’s an awesome couple right there. They went from singing and dancing somewhat removed from each other to singing and dancing with each other, and even when they were broken up, they still shared their respective passions with each other effortlessly.

-@leatherzaddy on Reddit

My favorite Brittana scene is Valerie S5. It just feels so significant to me that Santana chose this particular song to get Britt out of her funk. Valerie is special to both of them, it’s the first competition solo Santana ever got and it was the first time we ever got to witness the dance skills of one Brittany S. Pierce.

It was the first time Brittany got to show off how talented she was and how she was so much more than the dumb blonde everyone thought she was. Now, however, no one thinks she’s dumb. Now everyone sees her as just another statistic for MIT.

Santana, however, sees right through that and sees her for who she really is - not dumb, not just a genius, but Brittany, the girl who loves to dance. So Santana picks the same song from the first time Brittany got to show off her dancing to prove to her once again that dancing is what she’s meant to do.

-@hopefulobjectmiracle​

Churros Kiss- 5x12, “100”

The infamous churros scene lives in my head rent free. Why? Because we saw a level of confidence in Brittany that we had never seen before and, in that moment, we were all rooting for her for giving us what we knew was right and what we knew we needed. The fans knew Brittana was endgame, Brittany knew, and we just sat back and waited for Santana to realize it as well. (Let’s give her credit: she knew.) We had waited 1.5 seasons for more and we finally got it, mouthful of churros and all.

I love this scene because we see Santana and Brittany a bit older and a lot wiser; Brittany knows that after all the time they had spent apart, Santana is the only one she really wants and she felt like she needed to tell her, to show her, before it was too late. I feel like everything Brittany did in this scene was very spontaneous and on a whim, and it makes it that much hotter.

The kiss. It’s my favorite kiss between the couple by a mile. Brittany put her heart on her sleeve and risked everything and just went in for the kill. You can see the twinkle in her eye right before she leaned in and she didn’t hesitate to show Santana what she wanted. I do appreciate Santana’s hesitancy because of their storyline at the time, but I don’t doubt for a second that she didn’t want Brittany back, too. She was just incredibly cautious, and no doubt, caught by surprise. They had been through so much and had finally found a place in their friendship/relationship where scars were healing and hearts weren’t as broken as before.

You can see in the way Santana looks at her after being kissed, the way in which she listens to her, that the wheels in her head are already turning. We know she knows what Brittany is saying is true. She just has to process what this means for her, for them, for her life back in New York. She’s just putting the scattered puzzle pieces back together, but she knows what the picture already looks like.

The kiss on the cheek? The delicious cherry on top. Brittany, having already been pushed away, one again doubled down on how she felt and so quickly, and respectfully, reminded Santana of that. You can see Santana’s breath hitch during this moment when their faces are so close together, and it’s obvious that her love for Brittany never wavered. As she always was, smitten is her middle name.

Brittana’s entire relationship from S1-S6 can be summed up, for me, with one infamous line spoken by Brittany during the churros scene, “You can’t recreate what you and I have.”

-@TheWednesdayProject on Reddit

The Lilies Scene- 5x13, “New Directions”

I will always remember being a curious and scared teenager. I was almost in high school when Brittana became official and it suckerpunched me. The fear, the anxiety, the angst, the love, all of it was so relatable. Brittana had so many trials and tribulations and they always came out better and stronger both as individuals as a couple. My favorite Brittana scene is the lily scene because it was the beginning of them consciously choosing each other. The growth <3

-@yesandmusicals

My favorite Brittana scene is when Brittany fills the room with lilies for Santana. It really proves that the connection between them is incredibly strong and they understand each other better than anyone else. Their chemistry is off the charts and you can really feel their love for each other through the screen. The way Santana sinks into Brittany like she’s coming home and the way Britt runs her fingers up and down Santana’s arm <3 Everything about it is perfect.

-@santinacedes

I think my favorite Brittana scene is the one in 5x13, where Brittany fills the choir room with lilies for Santana, because that was the biggest time when I could truly feel their love for one another and their support of each other.

-@allweseeisskyforever

The Bedroom Scene- 6x03, “Jagged Little Tapestry”

It's hard to pick one favorite scene because I just love them all. But I'm gonna go with the scene that made me the happiest and that's the bedroom scene before the proposal because it's such an intimate moment between the two of them. They talk about their future together, about how happy they are and of course "I will love you until infinity". I've wanted a scene like that since I started shipping them in season 2. And watching that scene for the first time was one of the happiest moments in my life. And when I'm feeling down I just watch this scene again and everything gets better.

-@brittanaaresoulmates13

Santana proposes to Brittany- 6x03, “Jagged Little Tapestry

My fav Brittana scene is the proposal bc it means so much to both of them. It takes place where they fell in love and there’s so many parts in the song that remind me so much of their past

-@arf128

My favourite Brittana scene is probably Santana proposing to Brittany because the number they do before is fire🔥 and BRITTANA GETS ENGAGED!!

-@pennywarbler

Hallway Scene- 6x06, “What The World Needs Now”

I LOVE THE ‘did I ever tell you that I love you’ MOMENT. The little kiss and the way Santana nudges her head in Brittany’s neck. I love the whole episode, it’s so powerful and as a lesbian I really felt seen and represented.

I love that Santana reminds Brittany of heaven. I love that Brittany loves Santana so unconditionally, that she would do anything to see her happy. Brittany knows that Santana is super happy right now, but she also knows that she really misses her abuela and that she’s sad she’s not coming to the wedding. Britt’s really doing her best for Santana, and that really shows how much she loves her.

I love that we see Santana’s vulnerable side in this episode and I love to see Brittany’s protective side (especially during and after Alfie). Although abuela said she wasn’t coming, I love how the episode ended because it really shows how much Santana has grown and how much love she has in her life right now.

-@sapphosongbird

Brittany Confronts Santana’s Abuela- 6x06, “What The World Needs Now”

After Santana sings “Alfie” to Abuela López as if her life depended on it in hopes that her Abuela would be a part of her life again, we have my favorite Brittana moment. At first, Abuela is confused and shocked to find out that she’s been tricked into seeing Santana sing. Brittany quickly confessed that she did trick her and informed Abuela, but also informed Abuela not only that she is Santana’s fiancée but that she loves her so much that she would do anything for her. Santana is quick to look at Abuela to gauge her reaction. Santana is hoping she has an opportunity to explain and to try to make her see how much she loves and needs Abuela in her life. Santana brings up how much Abuela means to her and how much being raised by this woman has made her a strong woman.

It’s likely that Abulea immigrated from another country. Like many children from immigrant families, they know the sacrifices their family took to her there. Santana likely heard from father (as i think Alma is her paternal grandmother) about the importance of doing good in school (and her education as she values it) and likely heard stories about the many jobs her grandma took. Likely those that are stereotypical like agricultural work, working in restaurants, or working as a cleaning lady. Jobs that were all she could get because of the limits society places on her (Abuela). ( Santana really admires this woman. She lets her know how much in the coming out scene. )

Santana embraces being Latina and holds no apology for being so, and admits that she is bigger and better than the limits society places on her. Santana wants to continue to be bigger and better. She admits that she can’t (or doesn’t want to) do that without Brittany and Abuela. Santana feels she simply exists without them. Perhaps also saying that they give her the strength she needs to be bigger and better. She is oh so hopeful that reminding her of all that will make her Abuela come along.

Unfortunately, it is not enough for Abuela. She reminds Santana that she loves her, but not enough to attend the stop following her beliefs. She adamantly says that girls marry boys and not other girls. It’s a sin in Abuela’s eyes, and she refuses to attend the wedding. What happens next in this scene makes me so proud of Santana. Before this moment, Santana was this scared little girl who hid behind this HBIC persona. In short, Santana struggled to love and accept herself.  She dated guys for status. She rejected Brittany for so long and told her she was using her and didn’t love her. She had beards and even wrote a song about a boy. She had confessed to Brittany that she was scared about all the talks and looks she would get from others. She hid her feelings and love for Brittany and pushed her away into another person's arms. While doing so, she was more angry and miserable than she had ever been. She had to witness the girl she loved more than anything be with someone else because she was too scared, and it hurt her.  It would take some more time for her to embrace herself fully. Even then, she didn’t have much choice. She was forced into accepting herself because she was outed to everyone in her school, in Lima, and in Ohio (and anyone who stumbled across that campaign ad online). Still, she did eventually get there. It was not easy for her at all, but she got there. She was happy. She surrounded herself with the love of her friends. She grew as a person. She became friendlier, was happier, and she allowed herself to love others (Brittany, Dani). Moving to New York was scary for her, but she did it anyway (with a little shove from Brittany (again, she thinks they helped to make her bigger and better). She helped her friends get a job, auditioned for Broadway, went to auditions, held various jobs, and attended school.

Santana remembered how Abuela taught her to be bigger and better than her school, her city, and her state would ever allow her to be when she was in New York. She was even bigger and better than the limits she had placed on herself, especially when she was in high school. She was determined to make something of herself. Sometimes even doing things that weren’t even her dream.

No matter the years that had passed, Brittany knew that despite Santana saying she was okay and choosing Brittany over everyone, including the woman that meant so much to her, Santana still missed her Abuela.  In this scene, unlike the last time when Santana bravely confessed to Abuela about her feelings and was gay by herself, Brittany was there alongside Santana. Brittany quickly stepped in to protect the woman she loved. Despite being upset that things aren’t going as they had hoped, she puts on a brave face and tells Abuela that it is okay if she doesn’t go. With a smile and some spunk, Brittany tells Abuela they don’t want her there. Santana is surprised that Brittany spoke up at first, too.

Brittany, who usually is kind and sweet, had her claws out. She used her genius mind to give statistical facts she’d read about to tell Abuela off. Usually, Santana would know not to speak to Abuela in such a manner. This is likely because Santana knows better. Her Abuela likely taught her to respect her elders or at least always to respect her. When Brittany finishes talking, Abuela expects Santana to apologize and stick up for her, but to Alma’s surprise, Santana doesn’t. Instead, Santana, the girl who was scared to tell her Abuela she was gay because she feared losing her, stood by Brittany, the woman she loved and who had told her Abuela to go on and love herself in a way Santana likely never has and would never dare to.

Santana doesn’t just defend Brittany or stands by her. Santana refers to her relationship with Brittany as love. She uses their love as an example of what love is. Santana, the girl who told Brittany she didn’t love her and that she was nothing more than just sex because Puck was in the slammer, the girl who refused to talk about feelings, and the girl who panicked when Rachel referred to their duet as sapphic romance, told her Abuela that what she and Brittany share is love. She uses the words “real love” to describe their relationship and what they had.

The choice of Santana words is significant. Likely, Abuela empathized the importance of love when it came to family (even if Santana experienced a lot of tough love from Abuela, her dad, and likely other family members like her mom.) all her life. Santana likely had seen a lot of it.

The choice of the word “real” may indicate just how deeply Santana was hurt when Abuela disowned her. We did see her cry in season 3 when Santana came out to her. Still, the choice of words makes me think that Santana felt deceived about family sticking together and loving each other no matter what (something Abuela mentions in this very same episode in the Queso Por Dos segment) because of how quickly things changed when she came out. All it took was a confession and a few seconds for that love to disappear.

It’s possible she viewed what she knew as love before, as fake love, or love that was not unconditional. Santana choosing to use “real love” to describe her relationship with Brittany is Santana saying, “We stick together and love each other unconditionally, unlike you and I or my own blood.”

Santana then says that Brittany is her family. Again, Santana reminds us that she chooses Brittany over anyone. Again, she’s touching on her previous statement that she and Brittany are an example of “real love” or (as Santana believes with all her heart) a family that sticks together and loves each other no matter what. This is a big deal for Santana.

She is coming full circle because, in the early seasons, Brittany didn’t always come first. She often came second or last to status, beards, prom queen, people’s opinions, etc.

Santana, a girl that misses Abuela, the person she wishes would love her again, has reached a point in her life where she loves herself and Brittany so much that she no longer needs her Abuela or her support, love, and approval. Santana knows she has a lot of that already. A lot, a lot.

The next part in this scene is parallel to Abuela and Santana’s previous scene some years prior from season 3 when Santana comes out to her. In season 3, Abuela told Santana to leave her house with no other word after Santana came out. Despite Santana’s pleas, Abuela had had the final say. In this scene, things are different. Instead of faltering and hiding, Santana puts her foot down and stands her ground. She keeps her head high and has the final say (something that I believe Abuela taught her when teaching her how to be bigger and better than what the world was going to give her permission to be), and Abuela had no choice but to walk away without another word.

To finish this scene, Santana leans into Brittany. Brittany comforts her (like I’m sure Brittany did the first time Santana came into Abuela the moment she could (which I believe was as soon as Santana got into her car where Britt was waiting (just in case Abuela wanted to meet her))). Santana knows she can count on Brittany. She is her family now. They stick together and love each other no matter what, even if it means being disappointed when things don’t go as planned.

Had Abuela and Santana never made up, I would have been completely okay with it because this scene shows a lot of growth in Santana.

It makes me feel so proud of Santana. She cared so much about others' approval. She had been so scared of her feelings for Brittany that she let herself be miserable and made others feel that way, too. Santana ended up being bigger and better than the limits she and society places on her. In doing so, she learned to accept and love herself, Brittany, and their family. Proudly so. While she wanted Abuela in her life, she decided to let Abuela go and instead surround herself with her new family, one that had plenty of “true love.” A lot, a lot.

That is freaking beautiful, and I absolutely love it.

(Also, protective Britt is 😍🥰).

-@lylyluvda916

Pre-Wedding Scene- 6x08

Q: Favourite  Glee scene ever? A: My wedding! -Naya (Twitter Q&A 2015)

“My favourite scene to film was the wedding with me and Naya. It’s just a beautiful memory that I am so thankful I have during this time. It happened at the same time as I was getting married, and it just felt like a double wedding, if you will, because that was the title of the episode. It just kind of summed up our entire relationship on the show and it felt so real, and so magical, to do that with one of my best friends.”- Heather (Cameo 2015)

After too much thinking, I’ve decided that my favorite Brittana scene is the pre wedding when they’re getting ready and Britt freaks out because Santana sees her before the wedding, thinking it’s a bad luck thing. And then Santana says to her that rules don’t apply to them and that they make their own luck. After that they kiss in the most perfect way. It’s my favorite because by saying that to Brittany, Santana made it clear that no matter what traditions say or people believe, everyone can choose how to be happy.

-@awesome-shipper​

My favourite Brittana scene would have to be just the whole wedding episode if i’m being honest aha (i love all the Brittana scenes lol its soo hard to choose haha) because it shows that love is love and that anyone can get married if you love one another doesn’t have to be man and women, it can be women and women or even man and man! Love is love! I love the episode also because they are just soo cute in it lol, like Brittany having all the pre wedding worries and then Santana calming her down, ahhh its just soo cute aha.

-@elmamacca​

It’s so ridiculously hard to pick my favourite Brittana scene, when they all mean so much. Each one means something different for them in terms of their story.  Though they may lack screen time compared to other couples on the show, their scenes are filled with so many firsts. First time Santana admits her feelings, first time they mention their officially dating, first kiss, first I love you in a relationship when they're both happy...so they’re each special for different reasons. Even the break up has Santana admit for the first time that she had feelings for Brittany way back in Sophomore year (S1). Something that was implied but never verbalised before that point.

It's hard to pin it down to just one. I love 2x15 for the obvious reasons of getting to see Santana admit what was already clear to see. That she loved Brittany. Seeing her finally admit that was just really poignant for me. 

Landslide and Songbird hold such special places in my heart. The bravery. The love. Everything. I felt it all.

Heart was the fluff we so sorely craved for 3 seasons, and they finally we got it in the best way, and we got our first on screen kiss (3 times over).

5x12/5x13 had me feeling euphoric because finally after a season of absolute crap they finally got back together. The kiss was amazing, and we got to see Brittany lay it all on the line for Santana and make it clear who her top choice always was deep down.

6x03 was like a treasure trove of pure joy. The softest bed scene ever which I love for, my fav duet from them and ofc the proposal. Seeing Santana so boldly (I felt so proud of her in this moment) declare her love for Brittany in front of everyone (something she once thought she'd never be able to do), and for Brittany to be able to see that after their rocky start of "I'm not making out with you because I'm in love with you and want to sing about making lady babies", was everything! The call backs to Landslide were just ugh, and it really showed how far they had come. Santana’s speech and how nervous she is, plus Britt’s tears and the way she snatches the ring, lives in my head rent free.

6x06 is also like, incredible, and one of my fav ever Brittana episodes. Just the whole damn episode and how domesticated they are, Santana’s bravery, Brittany’s protectiveness, all the soft af dialogue that looks like it’s been plucked straight from a fanfic. The “did I ever tell you that I love you?” “tell me again” scene is one of my all time favourite scenes from them ever, and I can’t with how utterly adorable and playful and in love they are. Essentially, my love for the ship holds no bounds so there are too many “fave scenes” to count. Truthfully, I could write an in-depth analysis about every single one one of their scenes and how it touched me in some way, but I think if I had to pick just one I'd go with 6x08 the pre-wedding scene.

It's their last major "two-shot" scene and I honestly think it captures everything. Not only is it just contextually sweet the way Santana can't wait any longer to see Brittany and the words that she says, and the way Brittany is nervously freaking out, it ties up a lot of their story. Santana says with confidence "you love me, and I love you" after what seems like a lifetime of self-doubt, finally she knows Brittany loves her and no longer has to question that. This is the same girl who begged Brittany to say she loved her back as a scared closeted teenager, and now she's standing in front of her on their wedding day knowing that Brittany loves her without even needing to hear it. But regardless we do get an "I love you so much" from Brittany, unprovoked by Santana, which again is a callback to that heartbreaking 2x15 scene. It was all Santana ever wanted to hear back then, now she gets to hear it so freely on their wedding day. Their wedding day guys!? Nothing can ever top that for me, for them to have that ending to such a imperfectly perfect story, after all the erasure, the angst, the break-up, seeing them with other people, watching Brittany go off to MIT and thinking yep...this ship is done because Heather's never coming back now. 

The way Santana manages to calm Brittany and make her see clearly, is everything, and it really shows that yin/yang dynamic that I love so much about them.

Being someone who felt like I was living vicariously through them and seeing them get the ending of all endings and get married which is such a rarity (or certainly was at the time) for WLW ships was EVERYTHING. There's also the kiss (my fav kiss of there's) and the fact that moments later Abuela comes in and finally makes amends with Santana. It was the perfect, happy, full circle ending to a rollercoaster of a story, and nothing will ever get more satisfying than that.

-@chooseyouovereveryone

Full List Of Scenes & YouTube Links 

Brittany & Santana Talk To Holly Holliday About Their Feelings

Landslide

Hurt Locker

Songbird

Heart Locker

Officially Dating

Rumour Has It/Someone Like You

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Cherish/Cherish

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)

Tongue Tied

Mine

Santana Walks Brittany Out Of The Auditorium One Last Time

Valerie

Churros Kiss

The Lilies Scene

The Bedroom Scene

The Proposal

The Hallway Scene

Brittany Confronts Santana’s Abuela

Pre-Wedding Scene

Top 5 Scenes

Each of them had 3 responses each.

Landslide 

Hurt Locker

Songbird

Lilies Scene

Pre-Wedding Scene

Season Breakdown

Season 2, Season 3, Season 6 (5 scenes each)

Season 5 (3 scenes)

Season 4 (1 scene)

Season Popularity By Number Of Responses

Season 2 (12 responses)

Season 3 (9 responses)

Season 6 (8 responses)

Season 5 (6 responses)

Season 4 (1 response)

Thank you all so much for reading, participating, sharing etc. I really hope you’ve enjoyed it!

xx

[sitp-recs]

hello my rarepair queen! i had to send 🛳️ to see if you can remember where your love of rarepairs originated! (or any other question of your choice if you have already had this one 😘)

You know me too well babes, I love this one! As I know you probably won’t mind me going over the top here I’m gonna mention a few different ships/fandoms. I had to check my old account’s bookmarks for this and might even revisit some of them later, what a nice trip down memory lane!

🛳️ a fic that brought you aboard a new ship:

HP rare pairs

As most of you know Harry/Teddy is my fave rare pair and I have to thank @lqtraintracks for gently introducing me to this ship with the hot and sweet When It Alteration Finds. I adore the mix of gender swap + mild dub con (is it tho) + wall sex, and this Teddy, LQT’s Teddy, owns my whole heart. Years later their work continues to shape my perception and feelings about this beloved ship ♥️

I’ve read a bunch of Snarry PWPs for the sake of problematic smut when I was younger, but the fic that really made my heart beat faster and sold me on this ship was Cybele’s series If You Are Prepared. It might have been the first tragedy novel I’ve read and the final arc left a big impression on me, I still remember the utter devastation and heartbreak.

Aim For My Heart written by a talented 🐯 has lived rent free in my head and heart since 2021 and brought so many hidden feelings to the surface, not only about Dronarry but also about myself. I consider it a perfect fic when it comes to poly negotiations and a seminal work for this triad: nuanced, complicated but full of longing and tenderness. I measure all triad fics I read by this one.

Other fandoms

I’ve only watched S1 / S2 of Supernatural and never really considered exploring the fandom - until I accidentally stumbled upon Dollylux’s masterpiece The Ballad of the Invisible Boy and was utterly ruined for any other ship that wasn’t Wincest (sorry, Destiel!).

Blue-Eyed Monster by Only_1_Truth had me completely obsessed with Bond/Q (007) one paragraph in. I remember being so captivated after reading this fic that I immediately binged all of their works.

Delayed (or, Why Kakashi Is Never On Time) by TJ_Dragonblade is a feral PWP that made me go all 🤯 and consider Kakashi/Gai (Naruto) for the first time. I am picky about this ship and don’t read them very often but I was able to find some amazing fics and this one is still one of my favourites, I reread it all the time.

Send me fic asks!

[xpeachesncream]

Hey dearest. You surprised me with another drabble from my fave PERFECTLY WRONG again 😍😭 If I may, I would like to request something,like a back story or whatever. I just wanted to know more about the Tae's exgf who made him the f*xkboy that he is now. What if they meet again, then what would be y/n's reaction like she would be jealous or a little insecure, yet Taehyung reassures her SHE REALLY IS THE ONE for him 😍😍😍

perfectly wrong | drabble [4]: parties are meant to be fun, except when taehyung’s ex shows up at the same party.

word count: 2.7k

warnings: cussing, jealousy, insecurities, alcohol consumption, party scene, flashback scene towards middle of drabble, hints of infidelity, angst, implied smut, just an emotional rollercoaster pretty much

That voice always used to trigger Taehyung. He knows it so well. That's why when you, him and your friends are at Jimin's house for a party, he tries to shy away from the bigger crowd and keep you trapped in the corners of the room with him.

"Babe, I wanna get another drink." You say as you fiddle around on his lap while he hugs you tightly. He looks past your frame to see the familiar face looking over the rim of her cup, already knowing she was plotting on the perfect opportunity to make her way over.

"Here, I'll go get you one. What do you want?"

"Surprise me?" Your eyes are glazed, Taehyung already knowing you're pretty tipsy at this point. He lightly taps your hips in order for you to get up so he can tend to your needs in peace. No issues, no drama, no nothing.

"The fuck is she doing here, Jimin?" Taehyung asks him through gritted teeth as he pours half of the vodka into your cup, with a dab of cranberry juice.

"How do I know? I never invited her. It's just a small ass world, you both know too many of the same people." Tae groans under his breath. Honestly, don't get him wrong, he was completely over his past. He just hated coming face to face with it cause he really wanted to leave it where it belonged - in the past. Away from him as far as possible, especially since he's done so well trying his best to grow up from all the immature shit he had been doing and going through. "I'm sorry dude, I can't ask her to leave, that's shady."

"I'm not asking you to do anything."

"Look, I'm sure she won't do anything or say anything to--"

"Hey, mind if I grab a drink?" Tae and Jimin turn, only to come face to face with Hana, Taehyung's ex-girlfriend. The girl that broke his heart repeatedly. The girl who he allowed to walk all over him. The girl who made him the fuckboy he was.

"Hana, hey. Sure, go for it." Jimin gives her a tight lipped smile before shooting a look at Taehyung and walking off.

"Excuse me-" Tae tries to shimmy his way out of the crowded room, only for her to block his way. "Hana, please move." He sighed.

"That's no way to say hi to an old friend." He shrugged.

"We aren't friends."

"Ouch."

"Look, I'm not doing this. Please just move so I can be out of your way."

"Is that your girlfriend?" She nods over to you at the couch, talking to Jungkook and Hoseok. "She's really fucking pretty. I didn't think you'd be in a relationship after all the shit I've heard about you."

"Mind your business, yeah? I don't keep tabs on you, so I appreciate it if you did the same." Hana doesn't move from her position, causing Taehyung to sigh heavily once more before swiping his hand down his face. "Please move."

"Jeez, and I thought we could talk and catch up. See how things have been going." She placed a hand on his arm, causing him to move away from her touch.

"No, I'd rather not. I'm not gonna do this shit with you and start reminiscing on the past like shit never went down between us two, alright?" He said sternly, his jaw slightly clenching. Hana was always the one who could get him started. He could easily go from happy to incredibly angry in a matter of seconds. That toxic shit. She always knew how to do it with him and he was passed that. "We done here?" She doesn't respond, allowing him to brush past her and make his way back to you.

"Baby." You happily wrap your arms around his neck, which made Taehyung ease up and relax in your touch. "What took you so long?" You asked, a little tipsy.

"Too many people."

"Who were you talking to?"

"Oh." He looked around to see Hana finally minding her own business. "An old acquaintance." He shrugged.

"Ohhh, okay." You furrowed your eyebrows, but quickly brushed off how weird he had acted. You continued to party with your man and your friends, enjoying the music Dj Min Yoongi was playing on the turntables. You excused yourself for a quick minute to use the bathroom and freshen up, the heat from the crowded home slowly getting to you mixed with all the alcohol running through your veins.

"Did you know Hana and Taehyung dated for awhile? She's here, it's so awkward between them." You oveheard someone say behind you as you walked out of the restroom. "Apparently he was really, really into her and was totally different in their relationship, can you believe that? Like he actually treated her like a queen. It's so hard to see Taehyung doing that now after all the shit he's done. I don't know how his current gf doesn't question every move he makes." Your heart immediately drops. You're not sure if you're angry, jealous, or both due to the alcohol heightening all your feelings at once - but why in the fuck did he not tell you she was his ex? You knew it was the same girl he was talking to in the kitchen, you weren't dumb. Your gut just told you otherwise. You always listen to your fucking gut.

Suddenly, you don't wanna be at the party anymore. Your insecurities were getting to the best of you because of that one statement - Taehyung treated her like a queen. Not saying he didn't treat you well, but you couldn't help but think that Taehyung placed on her on the highest pedestal. Like all of a sudden, you couldn't compete. Like you were merely just another name in his book, another lover. You weren't Hana.

"Mm, come here." Taehyung says, slightly drunk at this point, trying to grab your wrist but you snatch it away from him.

"I'm going home." He furrows his eyebrows as he gets up from his seat next to Jungkook to come after you. Your friends are also appalled at the sudden flip of the switch, but they figured Taehyung would be able to work out whatever it was with you, so they don't budge although they still worry.

"Going home? By yourself? I don't think so." Taehyung says, gently pulling you back and turning you around to face him. "Talk to me, Y/N. What's going on with you?"

"Why didn't you tell me she was your ex?"

"Hana?"

"Sure, whatever the fuck her name is!" You almost yell.

"I didn't think it was important--"

"You didn't think it was important to tell me your ex-girlfriend was here at the same party as you? The same fucking girl you dated for years? Really smooth, Tae." You grab his jacket and swing it over your shoulders as you walk out, leaving Tae to powerwalk after you in his shirt and jeans. Honestly, you were hella mad! Because why would he pull that shit? Was he trying to hide it? You thought you both had done a good job of building your relationship and being completely open with each other. This shit ticked you off and pushed you over the edge. Why couldn't he just tell you?

"Y/N, can you just stop for a second?"

"Go the hell back inside, Taehyung. Leave me alone." He groans, slipping himself into the same Uber car you're getting in. "I said--"

"Quit it. I'm not going anywhere without you." He turns to the driver and nods for him to keep driving. The ride from Jimin's isn't too far, and as soon as you see the car pull up into your roundabout, you hop out of the car, leaving Taehyung to tip the driver extra in cash before running after you. You almost shut the door in his face, but he's able to make it in time to push it open with his arm. "Y/N! Can you just slow down?" You turn to look at him before you walk into your room and slam the door shut. "Fuck." He whines as he drops his things onto the kitchen counter before meeting you in the room. "Baby."

"I told you to leave me alone."

"And leave you like this? No." He gently shuts the door close and crouches in front of you as you sit on the edge of your bed, tears falling down your eyes. "Why are you crying, baby?" He asks, genuinely worried and concerned as to why your emotions were at an all-time high right now.

"Why didn't you just tell me? Were you trying to hide her from me?"

"No, I would never do that to you." He shakes his head as he gently wipes the tears from your face. "I would never do that to you, love." He repeats.

"Then why didn't you just tell me it was her?"

"I'm sorry. I fucked up on that part. I really just didn't think about it." He sighs. "Look, to be honest, I really hate revisiting that part of my life and I felt like I could just tuck it away without having to face it again, but I know it's not an excuse." He begins to talk to you a little more about his relationship with Hana.

[start flashback]

Taehyung slammed his fist against his wall, before he sat on his bed and dug his head into his hands.

"Hana, just tell me the truth. Please. I think I've given you everything, the least you could do is give me that."

"I'm not even doing anything, Taehyung. You're fucking crazy. I just told you I haven't felt like myself lately and you straight up accused me of cheating on you."

"Are you serious?" He stood up. "You've barely spent any time with me during these past weeks. You always blow me off with some stupid ass excuse. And every time you're with me, you're always on your phone. I know you've been getting closer to Mark, too. I'm not dumb, Hana. How can you expect me not to accuse you of that?" Taehyung is on the verge of tears, every part of him close to crumbling thinking of the worst. She didn't care like she used to, and he continued to give her everything. All of him. And she just didn't care.

"You're ridiculous. That's your problem--" He runs his hands through his hair.

"Fuck, stop beating around the bush! Just tell me the fucking truth!"

"You want the truth?" She yelled back. "Fine, yes. I'm fucking over this relationship Taehyung. I'm fucking done. I'm seeing him and it's honestly amazing because I'm way happier than I've been lately. There, are you happy?" She said in his face. He didn't know how to respond because he truly expected her to have some kind of sympathy. Empathize with how he was feeling. How vulnerable he was being. But she didn't. She just continued to push the knife in like it didn't hold any weight to her.

"Hana." He says, his bottom lip trembling as he shakes his head. "W-why couldn't you just--"

"Fuck, Taehyung. This relationship had been over for awhile, how could you not see that?" No. Because he loved her, more than anything. He gave her everything. He gave her the world and he wanted to keep doing that.

"N-no. I thought we were fine, I-I," He paused as the tears came down faster. "I gave you every bit of me. I was patient with you, I let you use me as your punching bag on days you weren't happy, I-I brought you places, I surprised you with the things you liked, I-I took care of you. I fucking chased after you every single fucking argument even though it wasn't my fault. I fixed us even when you should've been the one fixing us. I kept my word every single time even though you always went back on yours. I fucking did it all for you!" He yelled as he paced around the room. "How long have you been seeing him?"

"Does that--"

"How long?"

"A little over a month." And it makes sense. Hana had been so disconnected from the relationship for that period of time. She was always on her phone. She didn't want to see him as much. She didn't touched him the same way she used to. They never made love the same way, she was always too tired. She would fall asleep and leave early in the morning.

"How could you?"

“How could I? You didn’t even realize our relationship was falling apart!”

“Bullshit, don’t turn this shit on me! I’m not dealing with this anymore.” He shook his head. “Get your shit and leave.”

[end flashback ]

"Tae." You say softly as he sits next to you and brings you onto his lap.

"It was the one relationship that fucked me up. That did it for me. That made me believe relationships weren't really worth it. All this energy wasn't worth it. It hurt so bad to know she was cheating on me and I honestly thought I wouldn't be the same since. I continued to give and give even when I felt like I couldn't. I suddenly thought that if people you cared about could just use you like that, why would I care?" You stayed quiet, the anger and jealousy in you slowly subsiding the more he talked about his relationship with her. "When I finally got over it, I told myself I'd never revisit that and let myself feel that hurt again. I would remind myself not to feel insecure or worthless over the shit she did to me. It took a really, really long time, which is why I've kept it tucked away in the past, where it should be." He brushes the hair out of your face before wiping the remaining tears streaming down your face. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, but honestly, it was just a defense mechanism for me. I-I really have no interest in ever rekindling that or even being friends with her."

"I'm sorry." You say softly. "I left the bathroom and I overheard people talking about how you used to treat her like a queen and that you were so different with her. And people were even questioning how I'm sticking around and not questioning your every move. I felt like I couldn't compete with her, like I would never be Hana."

"You won't, because you're so much better than that." He says almost at a whisper. "Y/N, I don't ever want you to compare yourself to someone from my past like that. Don’t listen to the stupid shit people have to say because all that matters is me and you. There's a reason why they're in the past and why you're here with me now. I love every single thing about you, and I wouldn't have it any other way. " He caresses your thigh as he holds you closely to his body. "I love your laugh, and your smile." He smiles at you. "I love how annoyingly cute you are when you catch an attitude with me. I love how you can stand your ground. I love how creative you are. I love how you take good care of me and I love that you show me how much I mean to you. You never hesitate to put me or your friends before yourself, and that's something I really do value. You make everything worth it and you don't even have to try. I don't wanna be anywhere that isn't with you."

"I'm sorry." You repeat. You instantly felt bad letting your emotions get to the best of you, but you couldn't help it. This was someone that once meant a lot to Taehyung and you couldn't help but feel insecure, or like you would never measure up to that. You just wanted to be the best for him so that he saw no one else but you. That he wanted a life with you and nobody else.

"Don't be. I understand where you're coming from, and I'm sorry you felt that way. But I promise you, there is no way anything or anyone else could compare to you. You push me to become better every day and I want to do this for you. Only you."

"I love you."

"I love you too." He chuckles before placing a kiss on your lips. "Feeling better? Want a massage? A bath? Hot chocolate? Cake? What can I get you?" You laugh.

"You're a suck up."

"Sure, call it what you want, but I just want my baby happy."

"I'm gonna take a shower and lay my ass in bed." He wiggles his eyebrows.

"You mean we're gonna take a shower and lay our asses in bed." He quickly follows you to the bathroom, causing you to squeal when he shuts the door and plants kisses all over your neck from behind.

[bigskydreaming]

Tom is already rehashing some things, like too many homages to the nineties run, Zucco's daughter plot point, Beatrice had ideas for societal reform he's taking that and giving it to Dick. It'll probably be half hearted, but it stings that Beatrice left just a few issues ago and she's already completely forgotten for the sake of DickBabs or a love triangle.

Like the thing about the nineties runs is I mean, as much flack as we give various elements of them, there’s so much from that time period that was good? Great, even! Just....myself and the writers seem to have very different opinions on what the most interesting elements of the nineties comics were, oh well.

And omgggggg I’m still so mad about Bea, and its literally Shawn Tsang all over again. The writers keep introducing new, interesting characters, investing just enough time and focus into them to have us interested in them and wanting to see more.....and then they toss them aside to go back to drawing from the same well as always.

And the thing is, this isn’t even about me not really being a Dick/Babs shipper, because honestly, I’m not enjoying the Dick/Kory stuff in what I’ve seen of Titans Academy either, and for the exact same reason:

When they create new characters like Shawn and Bea, they KNOW they’re starting from scratch and need to build interest in those characters from the ground up. So they’re forced to put their best foot forward. There’s no short cut there, if you want people to care about a brand new character you have to give them REASONS to care. You have to make those characters likable, you have to make people WANT to root for them, you have to hook them with intriguing backstories that don’t feel formulaic and new angles that don’t feel just derivative of older characters, and that’s how we got stuff like Shawn’s history as a former sidekick to a villain and now running a support group for rogues trying to turn their lives around, and Bea’s work in societal reform.

But then the second they stop having the patience to build the new characters up enough that the interest in them can actually start to reach the levels that lets older characters last and grants longevity....they just toss them aside and move on....except they never really move on, just backwards. Because the problem with so MANY superhero couples, far from just Dick and Babs or Dick and Kory, is just....how lazy it seems to make so many canon writers. They just fall back on rehashing the same old tropes and just updating popular moments that resonated with fans in the past, now just recreated with a slightly more modern twist but without ever really being anything new. 

Even with ships that I’ve never really been sold on in the past like Dick/Babs, I’ve always said, there’s usually nothing stopping me from GAINING interest in them.....its just....the writers have to GIVE ME A REASON TO. And so many of DC’s writers just aren’t even trying. They’re just moving parts around and pushing characters together in various arrangements like everyone’s just a puzzle piece that you can mix and match however you want......and then just basically expecting readers to be interested purely because of who the characters are, or because it hinges on a nice moment that they then milk the hell out of without ever expanding that into building actual STORY around these moments but rather just squeezing each one til they get everything they possibly can out of it and moving on to the next as though its all just about chasing the next soundbite...because it is! LOL.

And honestly, this problem extends far beyond just the Nightwing title or the Batfam or Taylor’s run or writing in particular.....its a company wide issue right now. In fact I would bet just about anything that its a matter of editorial edict, that even before Taylor started his run DC said okay here’s the approach we want everyone taking with their stories right now:

And that’s like.....its all about banking on nostalgia and the comfort of the familiar right now. I think Taylor is drawing all these elements straight from the 90s Nightwing comics, like Blockbuster and Dick having been a cop, etc, because these are the elements of past Nightwing stories that are so well known. Its the same reasoning behind why they put Tim back as Robin and so many of their new characters are just new spins on old faves like Punchline and Harley Quinn, and why they’re pushing all these older ships that haven’t been together in ages and why specific team lineups are reappearing....its because nostalgia is the name of the game for DC right now, and all their writers are just pulling together threads of classic stories that have stood the test of time, figuring anything that landed particularly well with fans in the past will sell with people here and now, and weaving these threads together and brushing over them with a modern social issues veneer. 

As an approach, its basically all just about repackaging previously successful story moments and elements with just enough changes or in just new enough a configuration that readers aren’t likely to complain en masse that like “hey we literally already read all this. We’ve already BOUGHT these issues. When we were kids.” Its minimizing creative risk while maximizing monetary profit. Spend as little creative capital as possible outside of anything that’s already been successful in the past and as such is a relatively proven quantity, instead of testing new material that’s an unknown and runs the risk of falling flat and thus not being profitable.

And see, I’d almost guarantee that all THAT, that whole line-wide approach to DC’s storytelling, is because the powers that be looked at the last several years of stories and how many of THEM fell flat with readers, and decided that the problem was they’d BEEN trying too much new stuff and readers just didn’t like it. Because they WERE concentrating on presenting totally new stories and building up new ideas throughout their books.....but readers have been pretty vocal for years now about being disenchanted with most of DC’s major stories. And so DC I think looked at that and came to the conclusion that okay, people just don’t want new right now, they want the familiar.

But like.....DC’s problem IMO was never that they were trying new stuff? The reason so much of their new and original storylines weren’t gaining traction or bringing in readers and kept shedding old readers had absolutely NOTHING to do with them being new and previously unseen storylines, which makes falling back on nostalgia very much a non-solution to entirely the wrong problem.

No, DC’s problem for years has been that they’ve been all about spectacle instead of story. There’s ZERO emotional pay-off to any of their biggest plot twists or character beats, and emotion is LITERALLY what people read stories for. Its all about racing to the climactic action packed finish of every storyline and then immediately resetting everyone back to square one and jumping straight into the next big story, without ever giving the events of any of their stories time or reason to MATTER to the characters.....and if they don’t matter to the characters, our proxies that we’re viewing these stories through, then why should any of it matter to us? Why should any of it linger, dig in roots, resonate with us as moments that left an impact and that we accordingly want more of?

And again, like because I’m a Dick Grayson focused blog I’ve obviously largely been focused on how much I dislike the SPECIFIC reactions or non-reactions to so many of the major beats in his stories.....but it was spread throughout their entire line.

Bruce and Selina almost got married....but why should anyone care outside of Tom King’s title when nobody else seems to, no other characters feel anything about this, and Bruce in none of his other appearances seems the same as ever without any reminder that he just almost got married but then didn’t.....and if the characters don’t ever seem to be affected by or feeling a need to revisit or reflect on recent stories, why should we bother remembering them either? 

Jason was dramatically and fucked-upily (yes its a word, I totally looked it up and everything) exiled from Gotham....and then all of that is undone in a single issue with one low-stakes awkward conversation between him and Bruce. Damian quits as Robin and goes off the map and everyone in his family is like “hey don’t we have a littler brother, I feel like we did maybe” for one panel per story arc, and that’s it. Roy’s back from the dead and everybody’s like oh hey cool instead of the kind of return we used to get like when Donna came back and everyone was like oh shit, this MATTERS, because we MISSED you....just like Dick’s death never mattered to anyone but fans of his character because much like I was just saying earlier with them not really giving me a reason TO emotionally invest in Dick and Babs’ relationship if I wasn’t already, same thing with the aftermath of Forever Evil. They didn’t give anyone else reason to emotionally invest in that as something that HAPPENED to Dick and that he was AFFECTED by....because the writers didn’t bother writing him as all that affected by it and it was just like oh he’s a spy now, all that was last year’s content, we’ve moved on, keep up.

And on and on it goes. Ric Grayson was the same problem all over again. Rinse and repeat down the line with everyone from Wally to Donna and etc etc etc.

THAT’S why DC’s stories have been falling flat. It has nothing to do with people not being interested in new ideas, characters or directions, its that’s ALL they were giving us, but it was like just reading wiki summaries of events just alongside pretty art, but no real emotional weight or substance to anything we were reading....and thus, literally nothing that we couldn’t get much the same outcome from if we just...stuck to reading wiki summaries after the stories were over, with no real need to follow along with them. For years most fans have basically just been about keeping up to date with changes in the characters’ lives, but without feeling any real need to watch those changes unfold and play out.

And so honestly I worry we’re just gonna be subjected to a company wide rehashing of old and familiar storylines, directions and character beats, but repackaged and delivered in the exact same way DC was delivering us their new stories and ideas these past years....and its basically going to have the same results, because its the same problem. They didn’t actually fix anything by switching gears, they just shuffled around the actual issue.

And DC’s just gonna be like well now wtf are we doing wrong, we were so sure this would work, everyone LOVES nostalgia right? Did we pick the wrong stories and character beats to bring back?

When really its like......it honestly doesn’t matter WHICH stories and beats they rehash, because its not about them picking the ‘right ones,’ the real keepers, the stories that everyone really WAS eager to see brought back or made new again.....

Its about like, the only reason any of those stories or beats or dynamics stood the test of time and are still familiar and well-known....is because the stories AROUND those moments and ideas gave us reason to emotionally invest in them and retain them as crucial to our view of the characters and things that would resonate and stay with us for a long time.

It was never that any of those ideas or stories were just so innately brilliant that they couldn’t help BUT linger in the overall reader consciousness...it was the fact that we CARED about what happened in those moments and stories.

*Shrugs* But I mean hey, what do I know? I’m just a dude on the internet lolol. 

[jacaranda-bloom]

FIC WRITER QUESTIONS

Thank you to the lovely @allwaswell16 @runaway-train-works @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed @uhoh-but-yeah-alright and @evilovesyou for tagging me to answer some questions about my writing.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

47

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

901,445 (Hoping to hit the Magic Million by the end of the year!)

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

1 (One Direction)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

When Tomorrow Comes 1155

The Baby Whisperer 950

Love, Ever After 898

Harry Poppins 856

Play Me A Memory 760

More under the cut…

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

Oh gosh. Uhm. I don’t really write angsty endings? All my fics have Happy Endings and most have epilogues to round them out and tie them up in a bow. Perhaps I’d say If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow) purely because (spoiler ahead) the epilogue is written 100 years into the future so they’ve both passed.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Interestingly, I would actually say the answer is the same as above, If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow). The epilogue is so uplifting and I cry happy tears every time I re-read it. It’s written from the POV of their granddaughter and you get to see the world they had a hand in changing for the better through her eyes, so you get a sense of how impactful their lives were on the rest of society. Oof, tearing up right now just thinking about it.

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Yeah, I have actually. I really enjoy doing new takes on an existing universes, although they aren’t always the easiest thing to pull off tbh. I’m not sure which I would say is the craziest, but the hardest to write was definitely The Peter Pan/Hook AU.

Harry Poppins - Loosely based on the book/movie Mary Poppins, but without any magical aspects.

Playing To Win - Set in the Big Brother house.

The Pirate and The Piper - A Peter Pan/Hook AU which I took a lot of liberties with.

In The Still Of The Night - My Dirty Dancing AU.

A Hungry Heart - This is a Great British Bake Off AU that is due out in September for the Cliche Fic Fest!

8) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Whoa Nelly. Yeah, I do. All the time. Every fic actually. There’s only one, Exposed, the only fic I’ve published that’s not rated Explicit and doesn’t have smut. But, to be fair, the challenge was to write exactly 666 words and I still managed to get the implication in there. Plus, Louis was naked and Harry was applying body paint for the majority of the story, so like, I think I can get a free pass on that one - I tried!

In terms of what type of smut, I guess it varies depending on the story. I tend not to push the boat out too far, but I do dabble in BDSM in quite a few of my fics. A recurring theme in the comments I receive is that my smut scenes are well constructed and detailed, without being too tedious or drawn out, which is lovely feedback to get because they can be challenging to write.

9) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Absolutely. Every single one.

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not often, people are usually so kind, but there have been a couple.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, quite a lot, particularly on Wattpad, all with my full consent. That said, I’m thinking of stopping this because it’s getting a bit out of hand and I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about it recently for various reasons that I won’t bore you with here. 

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope! I don’t think it’s really my thing tbh. I get very in my head about writing and struggle even to brainstorm or share too much until I’m well into a story.

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

Of the 47 fics I’ve written, there are 45 Larry, 1 Narry, and 1 Louis/Dermot O’Leary (I think mine is still the only fic with this ship hahahaa), so that’s probably a good indication of my fave writing ship.

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

I have one lonely WIP sitting on AO3 from 2018. I keep promising myself I’ll finish it and it’s on my schedule every year, then I get distracted by other fics/fests and it gets pushed back. Plus, it needs a complete rewrite because my style has developed so much since I started it, so it’ll be a big job. Based on that, I think that the fic, in its current form, won’t ever be finished as the rewrite will completely wipe out what it was, although the underlying plot will still be there.

16) What are your writing strengths?

World building (or so I’m often told). I write very visually and people often say they can imagine the scene exactly, or that it’s like a movie, or that they think it’s actually a real place I’m describing, when most of the time it absolutely isn’t, it’s just something I’ve created in my weird brain.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue (although my lovely beta disagrees) and telling rather than showing. They’re both things I’m actively working on.

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

I’ve never really considered it. It’s not something I’d shy away from necessarily, but it’s just never come up.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

One Direction. First and only.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Wow. This is really tough because it changes over time. I find that once I’ve finished a fic I don’t want to revisit it for a few months because I’m kind of over it. But I find comfort in them after a while, like I get to go back to that happy place and immerse myself in that world and the characters again, similar to catching up with an old friend. It’s familiar. I think I also like different stories for different reasons and I’m drawn to various ones depending on my mood. My top 3 (although, ask me next week and the list will probably be completely different!) would probably be:

1. If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow). Written for the hybrid fic fest (a fest I created just for this fic lol). It’s not everyone’s cup of tea due to the hybrid aspect, but it’s one of the stories I feel is the most rounded from a character development perspective and the world building was pretty epic, if I can be so bold as to throw that out there myself!

2. No Going Back. One of my Big Bangs from 2020. I adore the way their relationship develops in this fic and the setting (as remote lighthouse keepers) was such a lot of fun to write. Plus I got to collaborate with an amazing artist who created an entire website as an accompanying travel blog which was truly wonderful.

3. From The Heart. This is a series I wrote for wordplay back in 2019. I had no idea that what I was doing was so unusual and so meta by having Louis essentially write for the equivalent of wordplay in the fic. It was such an fun way to share my writing process and challenges I encounter (exactly how many synonyms tabs do I have open at any one time?!) and I thoroughly enjoyed the outcome (although getting there was definitely a struggle).

~

This was really fun and thanks to anyone who made it this far! Writing brings me so much joy and is a wonderful outlet for all the imaginings in my head, so I appreciate everyone who supports me and joins me on that journey.

~

I’m pretty late with this and I’m not sure who has already done it but I’ll tag @fallinglikethis @homosociallyyours @lululawrence @reminiscingintherain and @beau-soleil-louis if they’d like to do this and haven’t already.

[aninconsistentwriter]

So with the release of the Ice Ado trailer I thought I would post some of my favorite YOI fanfictions! The majority of these are one shots that I just keep revisiting but there are a couple longer fics that are just so good! Many of these fics fall into the Mature or Explicit category. I always recommend reading tags to avoid any triggers!

In no particular order of course...

Dog People by stillmadaboutpetra

AU with a twenty-eight year old Yuuri and a twenty-one year old Vitkor. This series is gorgeous and the intimacy that grows between these two is *chef’s kiss*. The exploration of mental health and sexual intimacy involved in these fics is just amazing. I cannot recommend this series enough!

https://archiveofourown.org/series/728880

A Practical Guide to Winning the Olympics (Dos and Don’ts) by Anna (artic_grey)

Another gorgeous AU where Yuuri and Viktor are pair skaters. After Yuuri faces loses his partner to scandal, Viktor comes out of retirement. Another outstanding exploration on intimacy and relationships. The deep dive into Yuuri’s anxiety and the support that Viktor gives him is so amazing. 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13857846/chapters/31876992

a dime a dozen by kevystel

A fun one shot that makes me laugh every time. I love the trope within the YOI fandom that Yuuri is oblivious to how many people find him attractive. I also adore the trope of Hockey Chads being obsessed with Yuuri during his time in Detroit. Phitchit is also always a fave.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14135037

Hey Jealousy  by an orphaned account :(

A Yuri/Otabek fic. More Hockey Chads, a jealous Viktor, a slightly manipulative Yuuri who just wants to get laid, an accidentally sent confessional text, and poor Yuri just suffers through it all. Perfection.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10728126

Ink and Pettiness by preciousbunnynoiz

I have mentioned before that I am a sucker for Soulmate AUs and this is one of my favorites. This is one of those “anything written on your soulmate’s skin shows up on your skin” fics but with a twist and I am 110% here for it. 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12349407

Victor Effing Nikiforov by shysweetthing

Okay but what would have happened if Yuuri hadn’t bombed Nationals and made it to Worlds after his first GPF? This is what would have happened and it is everything that I have ever needed. 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9052504

Take Hold by LavenderProse

Body-switching Soulmate AU with just the perfect amount of angst. The pining is beautiful and the payoff at the end is everything. 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10595502

Philia by Anonymous

This is a bit of different type of fic. There is kink play involved so make sure to read the tags beforehand. But the relationship between Yuuri and Viktor and then their interactions with Yuri is heart-wrenching and beautiful. I love fics that explore the budding familial relationship between these three and I think this author does it so very well. 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9374837

A Study in Possession by Farasha

This is pure smut but it’s sooooo good. When I first watched YOI I thought of Yuuri as the submissive one but this fic 100% turned this idea around for me. Anxious Yuuri who suddenly becomes confident as soon as the door shuts and takes charge is just *chef’s kiss*. The way Viktor just melts for him... ugh. Okay I’ll stop. So good.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11613285

silver by pageleaf

Just kiss the medal, Viktor! Another smutty fic that features a more dominant Yuuri who takes Viktor’s refusal to kiss his GPF silver medal and runs with it. I just love it. This is the good shit.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8963419