#this is only funny for a specific intersection of fandoms

[bc-jpeg]

so uh- I didn't see if this theory already exists in the fandom, or no one really touched on it, but after a long time in both fandoms, one funny pattern is noticeable. I’m so obsessed with watchers lore so much, which is why I started to go beyond only one universe, and this gave the result. so the theory is that dreamxd is a watcher. after digging into the dsmp lore, I found several points that may indicate this. dxd’s nature may differ from the canonical nature of the watchers that we see in evo smp and in the life-seasons in martyn’s lore, but we also already have a watcher!grian, whose watcher's nature also differs in its own way from that very canon, he has his own lore, so this will also work here.

now this will be only my personal version of watcher!dxd lore, there may still be holes in it, but this is only as a possible base:

presumably dreamxd is an ex-manhunt!dream, who could not get out of the world and stuck in the spectator mode of the game, becoming a watcher. in the initial attempts to escape from such a fate and get out (I don't think dream would just accept such a fate), he was crippled either by other watchers or by himself, having lost his "eye". this explains the basic visual interpretation of the dxd, where the place where the eyes should have been is now a familiar cross pattern.

isolating himself from other watchers, dxd created a time loop from the existing world, from which he initially could not get out, closing access to the end dimension for players, preventing both the players themselves from escaping, and the possibility of capturing these players to other watchers for their own time loops. the world with the manhunt seed was restarted, defaulting almost everything to zero, which eventually became the dsmp server. all interactions between players and server events began to give dxd so much energy and power that eventually the essence of the watcher completely absorbed him, dxd himself began to provoke events, interact directly with players, and all for the sake of energy, emotions, deaths that made him only stronger. dsmp became an excellent loop-feeder for him only, in which he completely lost his original humanity, becoming a monster, creating only chaos.

one of the risky but effective dxd’s moves of was giving the revival book and the book of death to players inside the time loop, which in a peculiar way gave them access to part of dxd’s powers. he realized how unpredictable players can be in their decisions and actions, which gave a ton of events possibilities. he wouldn't have to provoke events himself, when players can do everything for him, giving the same amount of energy.

so in the final of the dsmp, after that nuclear explosion, dxd simply restarted the entire time loop, as it was shown. the players don't remember anything that happened, they don't remember each other, the whole world was defaulted to zero, where they started all over again.

it’s also interesting that the concepts of limbo and dreams/illusions exist both in the dsmp lore and in watchers lore in life-seasons. limbo is the space where players end up with the loss of all their canonical lives, and there is no return from there, only at the whim of mystical powers (dsmp — the revival book, as part of the dxd’s powers, life-seasons — the watchers, more specifically watcher!grian).

both concepts somehow intersect with each other:

> in the dsmp, they intersected in the c!george’s lore, he had partial access to limbo through his own dreams, where dxd himself was also often present. someone also had the opportunity to watch server events from limbo.

> in life-seasons, according to cc!martyn, limbo is the space where all players get to after the final death and are there between seasons in a state of sleep, in which they see their own smps/universes.

again, this is just a possible version of how exactly this theory/head-cannon can work, there are a lot of things that I could not explain yet, because there is too much information from different dsmp povs. some things I remember, some not at all, but I left a hint of their possible intersection visually in the diagram. the theory of the smps-multiverse is here simply by default, all the other main points are indicated in this diagram. all of this will be easily editable at any future time, my job is just to throw in the base for this theory :D

[knightobreath]

Why do you like showvember so much? (not/neg)

alright folks youre going to need to remove your cringe and irony-poisoned glasses for this one, i'm going to be genuine

This is a question I've been asking myself for a while! Sometimes things just make my brain really really happy and I can never tell why, but I've done enough research on myself to know SEVERAL reasons why Showvember specifically appeals to me.

Of course there's the more normal stuff that it shares with a lot of my other fandom-able interests. It's funny! I find it very entertaining! I like Popcorn's character!

And then. There's the part that puts it apart from the other stuff I like. If you aren't familiar with Showvember, it was made in a way comparable to the drawing game exquisite corpse. Each episode is made by one person with as little information about the other episodes as possible. They only have character designs/names/pronouns and elimination order to work with.

I think the key factor to why I'm obsessed with it to this degree is it's inconsistency! You'd think this would make it harder to engage in fandom, but I love the challenge! My favorite type of fanwork to create is just filling in plot holes and connecting dots to expand or explain canon. Headcanons! I like the world-building and logistics side of headcanoning over characters though. Showvember is a lot of work to be a fan for, but it's not a chore to me, more like a challenge. This was a large part of my enjoyment of MCYT and probably the big reason why i stuck around that fandom so damn long.

There's also this part of Showvember that really lends to it a lot of charm, and that's its messiness! It's an art game played by a group of friends and that shows! You can really see the strings and I like that in works. Being able to sort of see through a creation makes it more meaningful to me. I put this in a lot of my own works, I think it can be important to see the brushstrokes.

If you didn't properly remove the cringe and irony-poisoned glasses that I asked you to, you may be laughing at how I've referred to Showvember as a "work" and "meaningful." You may be confused that I'm treating it like a proper art piece and not just a silly joke. And that's because it is! it is an art piece with meaning, even if that meaning is not some grand theme or statement! I love these sorts of things. My greatest interest is in internet and specifically fandom culture, and one of the most infuriating things I come across is the discrediting and disrespect towards internet art and fanworks. And so I will treat these things with the respect and genuine care that they deserve as legitimate art. I will die on this hill and I will die on it next to shitposts and fanfics and silly YouTube shows that are basically one big joke.

So, in conclusion, Showvember is a show that I not only find entertaining but also manages to lend itself perfectly to my preferred type of fanwork. It is also a show that comes from a culture I am very passionate about. All of this intersects into a piece of media that I find very enjoyable to engage with both in and outside of fandom.

It kind of feels like when I was younger and I would fish out all the stranger pieces from the lego bin to make something with all of them. I love all the parts and where they came from, and would like to puzzle them all together into something just as fun. My Showvember fanworks are just as much an expression of my love for the show as they are for the OSC, for fandom, for the internet, and for silly art everywhere.

okay. we can go back to joking around now. the real reason is because i have brainworms that make me look at 50 popcorn showvember pics a day.or i die

[river-taxbird]

I am becoming dangerously obsessed with The Moomins.

In which I explore my deeply ingrained weakness for furry media, and why a weird kids series that comes from a queer, poly, anti fascist place speaks to me deeply.

The moomins were always something I was aware of. I saw a couple of episodes of the 90s show when I was a kid, and we had one of the books in the house when I was a kid, but I never read it. Not sure why, but discussing it with my mum she said she never liked the moomins much.

A while ago my roomate introduced me to Comet in Moominland, the 90s movie that is a prequel to the TV series, and based on the first full length moomin book. It was a beautiful and harrowing movie about the moomins dealing with the knowledge that a comet is going to hit the earth, and having to deal with an apocalypse of biblical proportions.

After that, my partner and I decided to watch the 90s anime that follows on from the movie. It's cute and charming, it's wholesome and positive. It is depicting the childhood you maybe wish you had, with good friends and positive role models. I also picked up some of the books, those are my own copies in the picture.

Now throughout my life, I have always been a sucker for furry media. Being a furry is essentially my favorite thing and defines a lot of my identity. Most of my favourite media is furry media, be it core fandom, or wider furry adjacent media. On the surface, Moomin is obviously furry media, it deals with creatures having adventures, but I believe the furry connection goes deeper.

I found this video from youtube channel Culturally F'd, that gives a queer, poly, anti fascist reading of the moomins.

The video basically alleges that the Moomin's creator, Tove Jasson, was queer and for much of her life was in what we would now call a poly relationship with a man and a woman at the same time. It also notes how the moomins first appeared in a left wing magazine, hence the anti fascist element. If you want an example of cottagecore media without a hint of fascism, the moomins is probably a good place to look. It's not apolitical of course. There is that one post that is doing the rounds like "I only want apolitical media, like studio ghibli and the moomins" which is very funny and has never left my head.

While the text may not be explicitly queer, you could call Moomintroll textually "In love" with Snufkin, as well as his girlfriend, it's not like they openly date, but I have verified the things that video says about the author with other sources and it seems to be true. It does seem like the moomins comes from a queer, poly worldview, and now I have realised that, I think that is when I crossed the line from interest to obsession. That is how my life works, I tend to become obsessed with a specific piece of furry media for a year or so, hyperfixate on it as much as I can, then I move on but can always engage with furry fan work for it.

I think a lot of the appeal of furry stuff is explored in this awesome video from Patricia Taxxon. It argues that a lot of the appeal of being a furry lies in "The symbolic, the sensory, and the autistic" and that a lot of furries also have other intersecting identities that may have made you feel simultaneously human and inhuman. I guess what I am trying to say here is that I feel the moomins are very deeply furry media in a way that a lot of mainstream "furry" media isn't. Don't get me wrong, I still love a lot of mainstream furry stuff, but I think the true appeal for me is using symbolism effectively. Using your funny little animal creatures to explore things about the world and your life.

The moomins come from a genuinely weird, non corporate place. I would maybe even say if the author were still around today, we would probably consider her a furry. It may be a pleasant, pastoral, almost childish setting, but it deals with all aspects of childhood, from scary or dangerous events you don't understand, to interpersonal conflict, to even stuff as simple as getting sick. It's speaking to me on a level that not many things have before, with its depiction of subtextual, yet healthy and real feeling poly relationships, and real classical feeling adventures and family dynamics. This isn't a word I use much but it's wholesome, yet deep. I know I am only scratching the surface of the moomins and I can't believe it has taken me this long to get into them. I know this is probably fairly incoherent and it is mainly just my initial thoughts on what I have been getting into for the past month or so. I will probably post about it more going forward but just wanted to say something.

[loosesodamarble]

Bringing in the New Year (300 Follower Special)

Hello and welcome to my 300 Follower Special~! 💖

Thank you to all my followers for checking out my blog and keeping up with my antics.

To celebrate, I'm gonna be writing up a storm for those who send in a request. The two event options available are: CC & Reader/OC/CC Scenarios, and OC Interactions.

The fandoms that I'm open to writing for during this event are: —Black Clover —Demon Slayer —My Hero Academia

And that's all. I... haven't been keeping up with JJK so I'm not confident about writing for the characters at the moment. And any other series that I am into, I'm not including.

Event Masterlist

..........

A Moment in Time (CC & Reader Scenarios)

Notes and Guidelines —There will be twenty (20) slots for this event option. —A prompt can be requested multiple times. —A character may be requested multiple times. —For reader scenarios, I will default to gender neutral unless otherwise requested. —I will aim to keep the scenarios between 500 and 1k words. —You can request fluff/general/angst/etc but I will likely lean towards fluff. —Regarding requesting a scenario with a specific OC, I ask that you include either a link to a profile or a basic rundown of the OC so I can get an understanding of them. —I will only write for one OC per individual. —If you make an OC request for A Moment in Time, you can still make a request for Intersecting Lives. —For romantic scenarios, I'm keeping it SFW. Please be mindful of that.

Non-romantic A1. “Were you just insulting me in your head?” “No…” A2. “If you don’t wake up, I’m going to pull a prank on you.” A3. “Have you ever (random action) before?” “(Yes/No).” “Funny, I got the exact opposite feeling about you.” A4. “When you ask ‘Do you mind?’ do you take ‘yes’ as a denial or approval of what you’re asking about?” “Before I answer that, why do you need to know?” A5. Taking all their past interactions up to that point into account, long story short: things would (not) be going in their favor that day. A6. “My normal confidence is gone! I may be a chess master but my opponent is a checkers master. And the game we’re playing is poker!” A7. They kept thinking and thinking, but they couldn’t come to a decision. They let out another sigh. A8. “I can’t help but notice there was a really awkward pause just now.” “No there wasn’t.” A9. “So… What kind of small talk would you prefer to break the silence?”

Platonic or Romantic (Please make sure to indicate whether you want the line used platonically [&] or romantically [x]. If I'm not given specification, I will opt for platonic.) B1. (Blank) was 99% sure—no 100% sure that they were doing it on purpose. B2. Looks like I’ll have to use my secret weapon: crocodile tears! In execution it’s more like puppy dog eyes, but still! B3. “If I tell you the real reason, can you promise you won’t be weirded out?” “Something tells me I’m gonna be weirded out regardless.” B4. “Can you quit pointing out my least favorite attributes? You’re ruining the touching moment.” B5. All the questions at the tip of their tongue disappeared. B6. Unexpected. Not unwanted, just unexpected. B7. They had summoned all their courage to say it, but the attempt ended in failure. Awkwardly, they averted their eyes.

Romantic C1. “They called me their partner! Hee hee! I’m so excited!” C2. Their pouty face was so unbearably adorable, (Blank) couldn’t help but swoon a little. C3. Once (Blank 1) lifted (Blank 2)’s head and placed it on their lap, they snapped back to reality. C4. “You’re so adorable.” “That’s not gonna work on me.” But on the inside, it was totally working. C5. “So, now that you’ve agreed to take me out on a date, what day are you available?” C6. “What are you laughing about?” “I’m just happy to hear that you love me.” C7. “You want to know why I kissed you? Because you’re special to me.” C8. “It’s easy to look your best for someone who loves you.” C9. “It would be selfish of me to want to be with you, right?”

.....

Intersecting Lives (OC Interactions)

Notes and Guidelines —There will be six (6) slots for this option. —Here are my OC Profiles in case anyone has forgotten my ocs./lh+j —I will only have an OC be interacted with once. First come, first serve. —One request per individual. —If you make an OC request for Intersecting Lives, you can still make an OC request for A Moment in Time. —Like with the scenarios, please provide info about an OC. —Crossovers are fair game (if you have Black Clover OC and are interested in one my Demon Slayer OCs, I know how to bs my way into a crossover). —If you want to collaborate for this, I ask that you be willing to communicate through Tumblr dms or Discord.

Possible Interactions (these aren't exact prompts, just ideas of how OCs can interact) —OCs meeting for the first time —OCs having a disagreement —OCs being in on a secret —OCs helping each other with a problem —OCs talking about family

[urlbending]

I MUST KNOW ABOUT THE CHUCK AU

the funny thing about that title is its hilariously broad. I have at least two other chuck aus for different fandoms (Runaways and Sweet/Vicious) lurking in my gdocs in the drafts of other completed works

aside from arrow ones we basically created as a fandom, all my chuck aus have been for f/f pairings, which means the inversed gender tropes from the show are removed, but leaves interesting questions like why was dating the cover chosen for these two women? For the Sarah stand in, how has being gay affected her life as a spy? For the Chuck stand-in, it gets a little hard as i have to divide up the couple's friend group like they're getting a divorce, and sometimes they're much more of a loner than Chuck (see: Ophelia from S/V), so its difficult to find characters to populate their civilian life

For every fandom chuck au I've ever briefly entertained, the first scene i always write is the bomb kiss scene. It's a great way to get a sense of where the characters priorities and principles differ, and also i get the instant gratification of writing the first indication their feelings are very mutual.

Anyways, this specific wip is a warrior nun chuck au.

Of all the ones I've had kicking around, this one has the most solid plot outline and interesting contrasts with Chuck as a series.

Ava's best quality is her love and gratitude for being alive. She's never had a chance at a normal life, and this makes her conflict about desiring one while having an innate need to help people more interesting than Chuck's resentment of having an average life. Complicating things, the Intersect also acts as spinal technology for her, so removing it would very likely be deadly. (Thanks, secret shady government organization for jamming ultra classified technology into her back!)

In this, Ava and Beatrice's cover is roommates, and she's fake dating another of her handlers (Michael), which is a pretty wild decision to make for an au built around fake dating. I felt this was the more interesting take and truer to Beatrice’s very reserved character. Michael has real feelings for Ava, which would lead to a fun love triangle/pining and ramp up the tension

This fic would take place in more of what I would consider the second season, with the previous season being about Ava learning to become a spy and a civilian, with Mary as Ava's handler and roommate. After the s1 finale, Mary goes off on a globe trotting, no-holds barreled revenge mission to track down Vincent. Beatrice, who briefly helped initially train Ava, is brought in to be Ava's handler and she's STRESSED about it.

I feel like Mary and Ava's dynamic is either not explored enough in fic or mostly revolving around Avatrice. They have a great friendship and chemistry, and having Ava learn most of her spy skills from Mary and then learning to work with Beatrice would be really cool, and I'd want to write some prequel case fics about this. Mary takes a more coaxing, laid back approach to handling Ava that is very different from Beatrice’s direct, appraising style.

I don't know if its the same for you, but usually there's one section of a wip that i love the most that keeps me going for the rest. That section is this snippet below:

"Oh thank fuck you picked up!" Ava exhales in a rush, her voice tinny over Mary's shitty burner phone. "I need your advice."

"Ava?" Mary can already feel a headache coming on. "This line is for emergencies only--"

"Beatrice kissed me!"

"What?"

"We thought we were gonna die! Would you kiss me if you thought we were both about to die?!"

"No," Mary scoffed. "You wish."

"Right! So what does it mean? Does Agent Perfect Score have a crush? On me?"

Mary rolls her eyes. "Like your ego needs any more inflation."

"And if so, what should I do? God, I'm so confused. How does she feel. How do I feel? Can you come back and be my handler?" Ava pleads. "Because I don't want to kiss you and I keep thinking about kissing her and it's really distracting."

"Wow, thanks Ava. I'm flattered."

"Hey, you're the one that turned down my very generous "if we're both single and alive by 40" offer..."

"Yeah, I spend every waking minute desperately regretting it." Mary's phone beeps. "I gotta go."

"Wait, Mary, no!"

"Mary? It's me." Beatrice's voice sounds downright uncertain when Mary answers the phone. "I need your help. I uh, kissed Ava."

"Wow," Mary says, looking up to the heavens, beseeching whatever sort of Almighty was out there to put her out of her misery. "This is shocking information."

"I know." Whatever level of guilt/repression/shame spiral Beatrice is down has made her unable to comprehend sarcasm. "I figure, as the person last in relationship with an Intersect, you might be able to provide...guidance."

[watercolor-rainclouds]

imagine shane and ryan saying "we're here for the cult stuff" and then the click emerges from the woods

[maxwell-grant]

So, I reread your post on how you aren't too fond of spy parodies in the James Bond vein, and it made me think: what are your thoughts on how TF2 intersects with that kind of pulp fiction or spy fiction?

I don't think I'm "not too fond of" spy parodies in general, really, whatever my thoughts on James Bond himself I'm not adverse to spy fiction or spy parodies, they just usually don't do much of anything for me. Maybe part of that is because I got really, really spoiled early with TF2, which was one of my first big fandoms.

First thing that comes to mind with the idea of an intersection between TF2 and spy fiction is an SFM short called Agent Gunn: Vulkanite, which is fan-made but well-made to the point it might as well be official. It's a short film about this badass superspy Bond character with an ending that shows what happens when you put James Bond in the TF2 universe: He may get to do all that James Bond crap and look cool and stylish and so on, but since this is Team Fortress 2, the Mercs will eventually show up to kick his ass and steal his shit and ride off into the sunset laughing at him. Whether that’s because this is their turf and old-school conventions don’t apply here, because TF2′s parody status demands this to happen, or because it’s the TF2 mercs and this is just what you’d expect them to do regardless, it’s up to you.

TF2 over the years has kinda blossomed into this ever-more-absurd cartoon of itself in a way that's only made it funnier and more long-lasting than it might have been otherwise, so it's interesting to look back on it's early years, in it's initial design documents, and see a point where they had the design and art style figured out, but not quite the personality down pat. It’s funny to think that TF2′s design was specifically set to be retro-inspired, in many ways more retro than Team Fortress 1 (Classic) was intended to be, because “retro” is not usually an adjective we associate with timeless design, quite the opposite. Team Fortress 2′s approach to design is, or at least was, a bunch of J.C Leyendecker-looking characters duking it out in an 1960s spy movie setting, a combination that feels like it should be in a dated prequel to a modern FPS, not in the sequel to one. 

A lot of this comes down to the fact that Team Fortress 2 was, originally, intended to have that kind of modern warfare aesthetic, and they had 9 years in development to work out a lot of things about this game and change it, ultimately realizing that all their attempts to make this gritty and realistic and serious experience didn’t match at all the actual experience of playing a first-person shooter, which is chaos and nonsense and people dicking around. They ended up instead taking the better road, which was to embrace the chaos and allow for the game to be funny, but most importantly, make it distinct. Making each of it’s characters distinct from each other became the top priority, and it paid off superbly. 

A lot of what sets TF2 apart from most other FPS games comes from the fact that it works with the player experience and embraces it in it’s sheer chaos, and this, I think, also works in it’s favor in regards to how it relates to those two influences. TF2 gets a lot of praise for it’s extremely strong cast of personalities and rightfully so, and it also gets a lot of great jokes out of just playing around with the setting it’s built for itself and how the characters live, kill and/or die in it. The characters are absurd because the world is absurd, and sometimes the world gets so absurd that the characters can even look normal or well-adjusted by comparison. 

I think a lot of it’s strengths are helped by the fact that it’s characters weren’t originally designed to be funny first and foremost, which is why the comics succeed in doing dramatic bits with them, but they all lend themselves to be funny not just because of their personalities, but because they live and participate in this superspy warfare world, and that kind of thing is just inherently bonkers no matter how you cut it. It’s a lot like how, no matter how dark and gritty and aggressively self-important superheroes get, they will never wash away that childish whimsy of it’s origins, and this is not at all a negative. Team Fortress 2 gets to have pretty much most of the great and cool parts of spy fiction, even played as straight as the creators want it to be, or making it even cooler by having you live out those (particularly if you happen to be one of the bastards who plays Spy, which I am lmao), but it also gets to dick around and poke fun at the entire genre/format extensively.

It’s intersection with spy fiction is that TF2 (and Venture Bros as well) is one of the great, wonderful consequences of living in a world where Austin Powers killed James Bond. 

Now, there’s an argument to be made that TF2 isn’t exactly pulling from “traditional” pulp fiction that much, considering that the bulk of it’s inspirations comes from the men’s adventure paperbacks that were specifically not the pulps and were partially instrumental in the downfall of pulp fiction in American circles. But, I can’t bring myself to seriously argue that kind of stuff doesn’t fall under the pulp umbrella (I think most people even call it pulp nowadays), I think I’ve talked enough about how impossible and useless it is to define pulp fiction under those parameters. It’s also not an argument worth exploring in regards to TF2 because, well, it very clearly has pulp love in it’s blood, the biggest reasoning as to why being, the entire existence of Saxton Hale,

who’s sort of Professor Challenger if he borrowed Doc Savage’s workout ethic, and General Zaroff for most of the other ethics. Who initially existed mainly so the creators could get as much over-the-top pulp nonsense humor out of their systems as possible, and who stayed that way even as he was developed into more of a character, still far more absurd than the other characters but with an established personality, as the merc’s comedically insensitive boisterious arms-dealing Great White Hunter shitbag of a boss with this wholly separate world of adventures that mostly don’t show up and don’t matter except for when it’s funny, and who gets away with being a shitbag because he’s funny and the setting has considerably worse villains.

To bring up Venture Bros again, in some ways, Saxton kinda feels like he fulfills a similar role to Jonas Venture Sr, in the sense that he’s painted with broader strokes than the other characters in ways that make him a monument to the pulp side of things that runs in the work’s blood, sort of embodying a part of this universe in a way, and the fact that these two are more of aggressive pastiches than the other characters serves to underline that they are not on the same level as the other characters and also that they lord over them, because they fit in this world in ways they don’t, because they’re cut out to thrive in all this retro superspy cartoon warfare nonsense, if not having outright created or inspired much of it himself. Saxton is practically a saint compared to Jonas but, that has more to do with the fact that Team Fortress 2 is considerably more light-hearted and funny than Venture Bros and it has considerably different priorities for storytelling.

Speaking of the more pulp side of TF2, it’s also important to note that, in the lore of the series, it was established that the conflict between RED vs BLU has been ongoing for decades before any of the mercs were even born, and that the first team of mercenaries (pictured above) hired by the Mann brothers in 1850 consisted of sort of a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen set-up of several big historical figures filling in the roles, most of whom based on real people except for John Henry (who fills in for Heavy), and Fu Manchu (who was the original Spy). A lot of modern pulp works use this approach extensively in order to go for a retro vibe or explore alternate history scenarios and, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have to dig very hard to find one or several examples of “pulp” stories written in modern times where Abraham Lincoln’s wielding a flamethrower or Nikola Tesla kickstarts a sci-fi revolution. 

I will say that I do find the usage of Fu Manchu in this line-up interesting.  The bulk of the character’s adventures all take place in the 1900s (with the earliest date canonically attributed to him being 1880 as when he began a plot spanning 30 years, and PJF attributing his birth year to 1840), and no work, as far as I can find, ever depicted him as a young man, let alone potentially a hero (the comics do emphasize a lot how Spy as a person is nowhere near as much of a bastard as his in-game reputation indicates) and certainly not a team player alongside the likes of Nikola Tesla, and considering the kind of things he does and says as an elderly crimelord, for Fu Manchu to have spent his youth working as a mercenary for rich American bastards? That implies a character arc of sorts. (This seems to be the last named appearence Fu Manchu has ever made in any piece of pop culture, not counting Shang Chi’s father, but a name change doesn’t really make him a different character and plenty of really great modern Shang Chi stories still make use of the Fu Manchu iconography to make a point without making any actual tribute to the character, which is the ideal outcome). This is a largely irrelevant piece of trivia within the context of TF2, just something I wanted to highlight if we’re talking the way pulp shows up in TF2, at least overtly. 

Part of the reason why I did bring up Venture Bros and other stuff is because, and I do stress this everytime I get talking about TF2, but the game has grown so much past it’s beginnings that it’s kind of mind-boggling to get your head around, for the past 15 years it’s been alive and kicking and, much like it’s characters, breaking the rules and defying logic and somehow still staying alive even when they should have been dead and buried a billion times now, even after it’s been followed up by countless shinier and trendier shooters, even after it’s been left to die and plagued with issues after issues, after everyone says it’s dead. I guess to me that’s the most “pulp” thing about it, the way it intersects most with the kind of pulp fiction I spotlight on my blog. 

Not just it’s aesthetics and approach to storytelling and violence and humor and protagonist as unhinged and mercurial as they are human and persistent to the bitter end, but the fact that the thing as a whole just doesn’t die, even when by all means it already has and shouldn’t even exist anymore. It just keeps on finding new ways to live again and again and keep on trucking, as fiction, as a style, as a fanbase, as a meme (as many, many, many, many, many memes, actually), as a dream or goal. It’s still beloved by many and it still has plenty of gas in the tank. It will not die.

...It sure could use an actual goddamn update any second now, though.

[maxbernini]

I haven't seen any other skamfr season aside of Maya's, and maybe this is a stupid question but Jo, as a character, it's supposed to be seen as fun and quirky? Because if that was the goal they really failed...

i’m obsessed with every part of this ask, from not finding jo funny to only watching maya’s season. like not even s6. just s9. VALID. unfortunately yes jo is supposed to be the Main Comedic Relief 💔 personally i’ve only found jo to be funny one (1) time in five seasons and it was more of a half smile than a laugh and it wasn’t even her, she just said the line that prompted the thing i found funny shsjsksks.

i think #my issue with jo’s brand of humor is that so much of it is like repetitive exaggerated in-your-face comedy? and one that involves a streak of what is basically mean spiritedness? and so much of that being successful relies on a) you thinking she’s charming and likeable to begin with, and b) genuine character growth or specific moments of tenderness to counterbalance it. sometimes it feels like they just don’t know when to stop with her though like immediately the clip where she and maya are scrolling thru the dating app comes to mind. it goes on for soooo long and it’s not even funny, it’s just one joke about the terribleness of parisian wlw dating profiles drawn out forever, and what isn’t that one joke is then just her making fun of maya’s profile (so again, it’s basically the same joke). like okay we get it let’s move on!!! don’t get me started on the intersection of her humor + jol*al bc i’ll be here all day lol. but it’s one of the biggest reasons their relationship was a flop for me

also in s9 they tried to use her as like a fandom AND writers insert if that makes sense?? and all of it was so conflicting?? 😭 she’d go from telling maya to get back with lola asap to saying to put herself first and have fun sleeping around to being excited she then slept with lola bc that meant they were getting back together and to then turning into a Serious Relationships Expert who advises maya to treasure the memories but move on like WHAT is her stance at all bc it changes clip to clip?? and that constant tonal shift (again. seen in jol*al’s relationship) is one reason the moments of counterbalancing tenderness also fail for me.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic  during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Dreamshaper

Dreamshaper has 54 stories at Gossamer. Her stories often feature Mulder and Scully exploring their feelings in ways you really, really wish you could’ve seen on the show. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Found in Memory, Just By Existing, Purpose, and Promise. Big thanks to Dreamshaper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I'm not at all surprised people are still reading X-Files fanfic! There's a deep catalogue of good and interesting fiction there, and the X-Files still has cultural significance. And of course there were the recent seasons to bring it back to mind. I think if you had asked me in 2000, I might not have supposed that it had this kind of staying power. So now I'm thinking of this interview as a time capsule--what will my answer be in 2040?

My own fic was not designed to have staying power. If anyone is reading it now, bless them, they are kind and patient. I would only recommend probably reading the first and last things I posted just to see what kind of growth is possible. The first time I ever posted fic, someone told me to never write again. I was a teenager. I was crushed but I went on writing anyway, and I worked hard to improve.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I think of two things. As for the show itself, I still think of Mulder/Scully as the ultimate in romance. I can still picture certain moments from the episodes, from the movie. I look for pairings with tension that reminds me of theirs--an almost-regency level of UST, but with a modern element of danger.

As for the fandom itself, I grew up in it. My entire online life and the core of how I participate in fandom was formed here. I was 17 or so when I started writing and posting MSR. I was 18 or 19 when I started meeting fans in real life. I was fortunate enough to fall in with people who were equal parts gracious and nerdy, and while my own nerdiness is innate, I remember and emulate the kindness which was shown to me.

I have an entire side post to this question about how strongly I disagree with the current age stratification in fandom--this idea of not interacting across artificial age divides is tragic to me.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

ATXC, and mailing lists. I don't actually remember the names of all the mailing lists! I can picture myself sitting in my kitchen on my computer, and what the emails looked like--the font, the signature lines--but not the names. I can even remember specific conversations we had! One of them must have been Scullyfic, because I remember the first meetup being planned. Is that right? Was it the Scullyfic meetup? [Lilydale note: Probably was Scullyfic. There was a big email flurry when the first Scullyfic mailing list meetup was being planned.] My mind was absolutely blown by the idea of a fan con. Now I've led panels at a dozen of them.

I remember some of the arguments, too. It's funny that some of them are the same arguments I still see here and there, like whether or not criticism of a fanwork is valid. Real Person Fic being this unbelievably shameful thing you had to ask to be shown, and the doyennes of the fandom would have given you the cut direct at Almack's if they'd found out, you know?

This was also the era of AIM and ICQ. mIRC too, right? I spent a lot of time in channels. I absolutely loved when people started to be more open about themselves in chats. I was always so interested in how fandom fit into people's lives. Some people I talked to were moms, college students, people who had interesting careers, and they all just found ways to make fandom work for them. They had a need and were meeting it, despite the pressures of their offline life.

I don't know how to explain the impression that made on me, but--it normalized fandom. That seems obvious, maybe, but I hadn't known this was something you could integrate into your everyday life.

It also normalized the idea of women taking their own needs as primary, in a way that went beyond what I was exposed to in my home life, or through the feminism of the 1990s. There was this wild intersection of the--the domestic and intellectual life of women, and the playful life of women, just making itself known to me in a way I'd never seen before. That was enormous. Absolutely a foundational experience for me.

My experience was that ATXC and email lists were like, these surface-level interactions where people figured out, roughly, if your mind ran on a similar track to theirs, and then you were invited to make deeper relationships in more private corners of the internet. Social media filled both functions at once, I think, for a while. But the privacy was missing. I'm not surprised that Slack and Discord are starting to fill that private corner gap--everything old becomes new, etc.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

UST and monsters. This is still an unbeatable combination for me!

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I loved romance novels--I read so many of them. Somehow, before we even had a computer at home, I started to tell myself romance novel stories with Mulder and Scully as the lead characters. This was how I talked myself to sleep--I wasn't a good sleeper. Then when I got online and did whatever search led me to ATXC, I was just shocked. Shocked! Can't do the surprise justice, in this era where fanfic is relatively mainstream. Other people had also independently invented this thing I loved! But they wrote their ideas down! I jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

It's like my relationship to my childhood, frankly. Foundational, but I don't think about it all that much on a daily basis, right? I smile and reblog gif sets. I get nostalgic. I get embarrassed by social mistakes I made. I feel the way many of us do about memories from our teenage years. I wouldn't be who I was without it, but I'm not still in it.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was. I've spent 20 years in fandom! I did some beta work for someone who'd started writing slash--The Sentinel. The actual Sentinel, not just an endless loop of Sentinel AUs based on Sentinel AUs based on etc. I had some idea at the time that I was queer, but this was my first real exposure to romances that weren't straight. So I tore my way through the early 2000s slash fandoms as they developed: The Sentinel, Due South, Stargate Atlantis. Popslash, where a mix of good writing and absurdity ruled. Bandom, where I met my wife. Since then, many smaller fandoms.

It's hard to compare any of these things to each other, let alone to the X-Files. In each one, I was lucky enough to find a circle of women who were strong beta readers and good friends. I never wrote as much or for as long as I did in the X-Files.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I watched the new episodes. I've shown friends important episodes--I remember that a few years ago, another friend and I tried to hook a third friend on the show by binging some favorites--mostly shippy MOTW, so it was like, Arcadia, Triangle, Bad Blood. Fun stuff!

We finish watching and I'm like, well? And? And she says, that was fine, but I'm more of a man-pain, secret babies kind of person? I'll never forget it. She had no idea but she'd hit the nail on the head! We were wheezing with laughter. We went back and watched mytharc episodes, which was much less fun for me, but much more interesting to her.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic often. I look at new things sometimes, and I've reread a few old classics, but my reading taste has changed so much. I still love straight romance, but it needs to be fast and sharp in a way that is hard to find.

I read fic in other fandoms when I have time. In the past few years, I've finished a degree, had a daughter, renovated a small Victorian and then sold it and bought another one during this pandemic--so time has been short. Currently I read some Untamed fic, some Good Omens fic, Magicians, Schitt's Creek...a sampler. Whatever friends are writing, whatever they recommend.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I never have a favorite of my own fics. I'm never satisfied. The second I post something, I'm always full of regrets. I've written fics that did very well and still hated them a month later. People have asked me over the years to move more of my stuff off Livejournal and onto ao3, but I do it really reluctantly and only by specific request. Everything's ephemeral! Let the old works diminish, and go into the West!

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I have no oldies to dust off. I do periodically think of X-Files stories I would tell, but I don't have enough time for current interests--and so it goes.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I do. I was most recently writing in The Magicians fandom. I posted a couple new stories in an old fandom last year--I'd written Good Omens fic fifteen years ago, and then again for the Amazon adaptation. I have a pile of original novels in various stages of completion, but I'm never happy with them. One day I'll figure myself out, perhaps, or I'll just keep writing myself this and that and leaving it all in a drawer.

What's the story behind your pen name?

So AOL had a character limit for user names--I think it was 10. I was a teenager at the time I was coming up with the one I'd use for fandom, so I went with Dreamshaper. It was kind of literal, in the sense that I was going to share the stories I'd been telling myself to help me sleep. But the character limit meant I went with Dreamshpr, which I later liked because of the alternate reading of Dream*shipper*. A reminder to the younger fans that we were the original shippers!

I would also come up with new pen names when I wanted to experiment with a fic that didn't fit my usual style. I don't remember any of them. I probably did that a dozen times, so, sorry to those poor completely abandoned stories.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Giddygeek on tumblr and ao3. I'm most active on twitter, but largely about my domestic life with dips into fandoms or original writing; message me on tumblr if you're an old friend who'd like to reconnect elsewhere.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just gratitude--I'm so glad that I found people to share an obsession with, and that they were good people, at a time in my life where that made a significant difference to me. I don't know where I'd be now without my time and my growth in this fandom!

(Posted by Lilydale on December 22, 2020)

[charcubed]

Is it me, or is all this casual slur usage just the culmination of everyone treating "homophobia" like a Funni Joek word for years? We are what we pretend to be and all.

Eh, possible, but I don’t really think it’s connected? I mean... maybe. But I too will joke that an inconvenience that affects me is “homophobia,” and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that in and of itself in moderation.

But what I do think this maybe stems from? (Hot takes incoming...)

A) The way stan culture now sometimes includes this whole victimization vibe of jumping to “you’re literally homophobic/lesbophobic/biphobic/etc if you disagree with me on this topic” in what should be genuine discussions, which is unhelpful and often untrue. Or “oooo you wanna call me a f*g/d*ke so bad” just to be an asshole to rile people up. It’s all immature bad faith nonsense. So in that sense, you have this twin effect of people thinking the word “homophobic” doesn’t mean anything because they sling it uselessly and pointlessly to people they don’t like all the time, so when they’re told their behavior is genuinely homophobic they easily ignore that out of habit... and you have people thinking slur use is all universally reclaimed across all communities, because they toss some specific slurs around themselves, which is not how any of this works. 

A big example of the latter is the fact that people can self-identify as or call themselves a slur that belongs to their community, sure, but they don’t get to assign it to other people without consent. Then it’s just slur use, full stop. And also the fact that no, if you’re a bi or lesbian cis woman that doesn’t mean you can reclaim slurs used in a derogatory way against queer men–or that one (1) queer man telling you he thinks it’s okay speaks on behalf of the entire community. It’s such a lack of queer community/history knowledge, all around–and a lack of respect, or lack of consideration for others’ experiences and feelings.

B) It also stems from hatred of men, or disregard for men’s feelings. I’m not kidding; I do think some of this is a serious culmination of that becoming normalized. It’s the subtle pervasiveness of this online idea of “It’s okay to be mean to men because men are trash, actually” and a dislike of masculinity on principle. Which, again: not how this works. But it’s why people don’t seem to care when they’re called out, and they seem to be incapable of recognizing that some of their “jokes”–i.e. threats of fake violence against someone, bodyshaming, flagrant use of homophobic slurs often used against queer men, etc.–are really not okay. But when they’re told “if someone said this about a woman, would you think it’s fine?” they just laugh and brush it off because... It’s men. What does it matter, right? It’s not that serious.

It’s like this undercurrent of the idea of “Men aren’t oppressed so there’s nothing bad about me being callous and cynical and cruel about them. They’ll live.” And not only does that demonstrate a severe, depressing lack of empathy, but it’s also untrue and not intersectional; queer men are oppressed, for example. Toxic masculinity is a problem and a struggle because while it’s not oppression, it’s a societal issue that does come with pressure. But this is the mindset these people seem to have, especially if their garbage content is about fictional men or male celebrities... because then the excuses are “he’s not real” or “he’s never gonna see this.” But they don’t realize that that doesn’t mean this sort of talk is suddenly okay and harmless if theoretically not seen by the people it’s specifically about; that this content can get normalized in this exact way, whether or not they realize it, because they can’t account for what the impressionable young people reading their posts are internalizing; and that it then also runs the risk of bleeding over into IRL spaces either at conventions with actors or just everyday interactions with other real men/queer people. 

And ultimately, regardless, seeing this casual cruelty in the name of edgy humor makes real people–and especially real men–reading the words slung around online uncomfortable. That alone should be enough. But people seem to think it’s their God-given right to call anything a shitpost and it’ll suddenly be harmless.

I’m not really sure why apathy and abrasiveness and cynicism seem to be what’s considered The Cool And Funny Thing To Do, but for some reason it is, because the people popularizing that are the kinds of people who get big audiences in fandom spaces now. And it’s only getting worse. Not to sound like a hippie but uhhhh kindness and empathy and respect should be cool, actually? And if you can’t be funny without being edgy and offensive then maybe you’re not that funny? Wild.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s from considering “homophobia” a funny joke word but I do think it’s about other phrases or mindsets along those lines being normalized as jokes.

[the-resurrection-3d]

I wrote the "feel like I shouldn't like it" comment! I do agree with you about the character dynamics, I just am inclined to subject them to less extreme depths of pain. I wouldn't write about mutilation fantasies, for example. What I meant by that comment is that it would be very easy for me to find that kind of material too much to bear, but you don't lose track of the emotional elements in the pain or warp the characters just so they can suffer more deeply as darker works sometimes do.

(hit the character limit) But I also think you are onto something about not knowing how to use darkness. My first fic is very fluffy because I wanted it to be, but I realized that I wouldn't mind exploring some of the darker elements, especially the dysfunction of the Paguro family. Even in my fluffy story I kept rubbing up against that issue. My work would never be like yours, and that's ok, but it's good to enjoy other approaches to help define my own. Plus, your stories are just good to read!

Thank you again for the clarification! And like I said, that wasn't meant to be any kind of shade towards you. Sorry this took me for-fuckin’-ever to get to-- I wanna emphasize again how much I appreciate getting this kind of thoughtful engagement in my inbox, even if I take a while to respond.

First, it’s always funny to me when people call my stuff extreme because you’re not wrong, I’m just fucked in the head, lol. I’ve been dealing with extremely violent intrusive thoughts for so long that this kind of gore no longer phases me. Though I have been pushing myself out of my comfort zone a lot more with this fandom— actually naming the incestuous intrusive thoughts the way I did in “I was an island” is something I’ve struggled with for years, and even then, I thought for sure people would give me shit for it. (The grooming fic, meanwhile, really makes me feel like I’ve gone insane, even though it will probably never be published in a complete form.) 

Moving on, though, I have just… so many thoughts on the use of darkness in fic it’s hard to know where to start. When I said that this morning, I was specifically thinking of several instances where younger writers have asked me for advice on how to avoid “romanticizing” things like mental illness and trauma in their writing-- and like I said, I get it. I do! But it’s frustrating that this disgust towards work that “romanticizes” “bad things” pervades fandom spaces, yet has no real definition beyond “if it has explicit sex, it’s trash.” (I know I’m using a lot of scare quotes around “romanticize,” so I wanna say that that’s not because I think it’s an inherently useless word, just that fandom has made it one.)

This ties in, I think, not only to something my writing partner for the Grooming Saga said this morning, but to various points I’ve seen brought up by researchers in my pedagogical studies (and my thesis in this class is on the intersection of creative writing and compositional pedagogies so you’ve just activated my fucking autism trap card). Similar to the ao3 comment I was originally responding to in my initial post, my friend felt unsatisfied with a lot of the fandom’s Alberto angst output because it felt, as they put it, “too vague.” There are various reasons for this, the first of which is that writing, even in a school setting, is seen as a reflection of the self. In creative settings like fanfic, this has taken on a moral aspect to it— to be accused of “romanticizing” trauma or mental illness not only means your story is bad, but suggests your story is literally damaging to culture, and how can that not reflect poorly on you as a person? 

But even moving beyond that, a lot of people are afraid of being too specific, too “dark,” because they fear rejection— a lot of young writers need to be given “permission” by other texts to break out of their own ideas of how stories “should” be told, which is how you end up >being me in an undergraduate writing class reading Homesick for Another World because, as my professor outright said, “Some students need to be given permission to go darker.”

It reminded me of this article a colleague brought up in our pedagogy class, wherein the author found that students’ anxieties towards writing ended up making them turn in papers with the same vague generalizations and clichés in lieu of the actual analysis she’d been looking for. Here’s a study she cites that I think is really useful for giving some more language and empirical backing to things I’m sure we’ve all already seen:

Thorne and McLean collected written accounts of traumatic events along with "telling-narratives," stories in which subjects described contexts for the stories' narration, including how the stories were told and how they were received. Researchers identified three positions within the telling contexts: [1] the John Wayne [JW], where the teller presents a self that is tough and well able to handle the situation; [2] the Florence Nightingale [FN], where the teller describes a self that is aware and responsive to the needs of others; and [3] the Vulnerable, where the teller focuses on his or her own "fear, sadness, and/or helplessness" (175). Findings indicated that

audiences were more willing to accept traumatic positions of toughness or concern for the feelings of others than positions of raw vulnerability—unmitigated fear or sadness. Based on their greater likelihood of being accepted by audiences, we speculate that for this sample of European-American college students, John Wayne and Florence Nightingale positions constituted culturally dominant narratives and Vulnerable positions did not. . . . A number of informants commented that listeners do not know how to respond to feelings of fear and sadness, suggesting that there is no general script for managing vulnerability in this sample of late adolescents. (181-82)

In other words, some late adolescents bring to their composing process an internalized expectation that stepping outside dominant cultural scripts for relating distressing events will result in a lack of audience response or even in audience withdrawal.* 

In academic and life-writing, as these researchers have found, people retreat to discursive models that are not only already familiar to them to alleviate stress, but that they think best fits with what their audience wants to read. In creative writing, breaking through the impulse towards vagueness and cliché is all the harder because what do you replace it with? How can you begin to tailor these feelings towards a particular character if you haven’t even fully articulated your own feelings to yourself? 

Also your comment about “warp[ing] the characters just so they can suffer more deeply as darker works sometimes do”... don’t fucking get me started, lmao. If you want to know more of my thoughts on that, we can talk about it in a different post or you can read my unfinished bitter Eraserhead baby of a fic, “but I am home.” I have so much to say about how this attitude of suffering being inherently meaningful has haunted my writing over the last couple of years, and how I hope I’m avoiding it in my more angst-heavy fics (except for the grooming fic which is awful and why I’m glad no one is gonna get to read it), but ultimately it’s not a standard I hold anyone’s fanfiction to but my own. 

I hope the writing goes well! I definitely feel ya on rubbing up against the angst potential even in fluff— people ask all the time why someone would write fucked up content about a kid’s show/movie, but honestly, the fact of the matter is that a lot of kid’s media has fucked up shit in it that they’re not very good at addressing (if they do at all). Anybody remember that time Yin Yang Yo! made a visual gag out of an 11-year-old boy being kidnapped and severely beaten for an unspecified amount of time until he completely changed his personality to the point of being unrecognizable and all his dialogue sounding like a Christian Youth counselor’s script? That wasn’t my favorite joke in the episode but it was pretty alright I guess. 

Alright, I swear I’m done rambling now. Thanks again for the ask c: And good luck on your writing! Godspeed, brother! 

(The study being cited is Avril Thome and Kate McLea’s "Telling Traumatic Events in Adolescence: A Study of Master Narrative Positioning” from Autobiographical Memory and the Construction of Narrative Self: Developmental and Cultural Perspectives, but the actual article I read was “Fear, Teaching Composition, and Students’ Discursive Choices: Re-thinking Connections Between Emotions and College Student Writing” by Sally Chandler for Composition Studies volume 35.) 

[emtmercy]

as ur the only person on here w this specific intersection of interests: drake trr watches spn but he doesn’t engage in the fandom so he just earnestly talks about watching it to like, leaders of nations

oh this is extremely funny and correct 

drake thinks watching spn is one of his masc interests but the dad stuff makes him cry 

@dorindameddler

[fourdaysofrain]

Self-Made Man

Summary: A Trans!Tony Stark AU. 

(Lengthy, personal author’s note below the cut, if you’re interested.)

Natasha Marie Stark was born twelve minutes before midnight on May 29th, 1970. She weighed a healthy seven pounds and two ounces when she arrived. She was the most beautiful thing that either of her parents had ever seen. And she was screaming loud enough to scare the pigeons from the trees outside.

Read on AO3

Well, hey everyone. It’s been a handful of months since I’ve been on here. I want to apologize for being gone, but that feels kind of phony. I don’t know. I missed this, though. I can tell you that much. I still checked my notifications every once in a while. It made me really glad to see people still commenting on my fics or passing my links around. Love y’all. 

I guess it’s about time that I tell you that I’m trans. I have been this whole time. To answer a few quick questions, I first knew sometime in late high school, but it was always kind of in the background my whole life, I just didn’t know how to isolate the feeling. I started socially transitioning (i.e. dressing male, coming out, going by he/him) after my high school graduation, and I started HRT (Horomone replacement therapy, that means I inject myself with testosterone weekly. .33mL subcutaneously into my tummy, if you’re curious) on Oct. 12, 2018. So it’s been almost two years since, and I’ve been completely passing as a man for quite a while. Ass-crack hair, sweat, and all. 

This is a pretty personal fic for me, given the nature of it. I’ve wanted to write it for a long time, and I’ve actually had words in the Google Doc since January. It took a lot of long nights to write. It helped that I was back home. I always have an easier time tapping into Trans Emotions when I’m in my home town, for better or for worse. All the memories and relationships I formed pre-transition follow me like ghosts. 

I’m leaving for college in two days, conversationally. 

I see a lot of trans!Peter Parker fics. I’m not dissing them, I love them to bits. But it makes me wonder why fandom is so quick to headcanon Peter as trans instead of one of the other characters. He’s petite, has a higher voice, and has softer features than the other male cast members. I feel like those attributes definitely play a role. It can be easy to see trans men as “uwu soft bois”, or as Men Lite, or as a more palatable version of “normal” (that is to say, cis) men. Those ideas are often flawed and based on transphobic foundations. The reality is, trans men (and by extension, all trans people) have the ability to be indiscernible from their cis counterparts. Everyone likes to think they can pick trans people out from a crowd, but you’d be surprised how quickly I started being read as male. Androcentrism for the win, I guess. 

I won’t be entirely pessimistic. I understand that people my age project onto Peter (I am by no means exempt from that), and that there’s a greater number of young trans people than old, due to a series of depressing reasons. But I still wanted to try a different take on a trans character. 

My experience as a trans man is vastly different than the one I write about here. If anything, I’m closer to fandom’s idea of trans!Peter. My parents were accepting, I had the financial and social means to transition relatively early, and I can fly under the radar easily. The most important difference is the time period. 

I don’t know a lot about the trans experience of the 80s and 90s, which is what Tony would have gone through. I know of one single trans man who began his transition back then, one of the gender studies professors at my university. Even then, he’s from Canada, which I’m assuming has an entirely different culture around trans lives. There aren’t many older trans men. It’s depressing. There’s a lot of reasons for this. I don’t want to get too deep into them, because it only makes me feel sad. The final scene in this fic is extremely self-indulgent with regards to this. I wrote what I needed to hear. 

That’s not to say I don’t relate at all to what I wrote. There are themes that are almost universal for the trans experience. I hope you can parse those out here.

I also wanted to talk about how I showed the change from “Natasha” to Tony. In the early stages of this fic’s development, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to openly say Tony’s deadname (the name trans people are given at birth, and often, but not 100% of the time, change as a part of their transition), but I soon realized that it would make the story much clearer with the inclusion of it. If you’re wondering, I got the name from Earth-3490, where Tony is born a woman (and marries Steve, lol). I chose to show the change between the two with the use of past tense for the first half of the fic, and switching to present for Tony’s life. Often times, it feels like that when you transition. You start living in present tense. 

I also want to make it clear that transitioning isn’t as simple as shown here. From the beginning of mapping out this fic, I was stressed about “Oh, how will he be able to graduate as Tony if he doesn’t start transitioning until after he gets to college,” and “How will Howard react to him coming out?” and “How will he have a playboy persona if he isn’t able to have sex with someone without them knowing?” and a zillion other ideas. It was very freeing for me to let go of some of these obstacles and leave it up to the reader to decide. I alluded to some of the solutions that I came up with, but for the most part, I glossed over the paperwork and bureaucracy aspect to transitioning. But in real life, there are countless red tapes you have to cut for even the simplest of actions. I went to the state court to change my name and sex in March of 2019, and I still have cards in my wallet with my deadname. I had a consult with a plastic surgeon for top surgery (the colloquial name for the double mastectomy that trans men often go through to masculinize their chests. If you’re wondering, genital reconstruction surgery is normally called bottom surgery to mirror this) last December, and I still don’t have a date set. It took me a few months to start T, and I only got it so easily because I went through my unviersity, which does informed consent. Some places have to have proof of 6 months of social transitioning and a letter from a therapist. There is a lot of medical gate keeping in the trans community. I don’t know what I would have done had my parents not been accepting enough to help me through the processes. I am extremely thankful for their support. 

But it’s a lot easier to write about transition happening smoothly. Money helps, which I don’t touch on a lot in this fic, but oh my God, does money help. I’m lucky enough to be able to afford my ~$20 a month T prescription (which I will be taking until the end of my days, likely), and I’m in the process of saving for top surgery. Thankfully with Tony, I can just presto most of the problems away because he’s canonically a billionaire. Eat the rich, folks.

There’s also the intersection with race that is very impactful for trans people, as it is for everyone. Both Tony and I are white, which gives us societal privileges that trans people of color don’t have access to. As well as the fact that transitioning from female to male is a much different experience than transitioning from male to female. We don’t experience trans misogyny, which is a special kind of misogyny specifically related to trans women. (Think of old sitcoms where the joke is that it’s a man dressed in women’s clothing, and that’s what makes it funny. That’s a fairly tame example of trans misogyny. It gets ugly fast.) 

I’m veering dangerously off-topic, but it’s important to talk about. It’s easy for white trans people (and LGBT people as a whole, I suppose) to distance themselves from talking about white privilege or male privilege because they aren’t straight and/or cis. But it’s important to recognize that while we may face unique oppression, we also still benefit from historical white supremacist and patriarchal structures present today in society. 

Sorry, not sorry for getting political. And if I haven’t said it on here, Black lives matter. Of course. 

If you end up having trans-related questions, I want to be a resource for you. Seriously, I’m narcissistic and love talking about myself I don’t mind helping you understand the trans experience. I can’t promise that I know everything, but I also have my own group of trans friends who might know what I don’t, and we can learn together. 

Again, love y’all. Thank you for the continued support you give me. I can’t promise that I’ll go back to my normal level of activity on here, but I might dip my feet back in the pool. <3

[cactusspatz]

Fic Tag Game

Thanks to @cortue​ for tagging me! I always feel self-conscious writing about writing because even though I like doing both, my brain is convinced that people aren't interested - but at least one person is! so here goes.

Name: Spatz, from the German word for ‘sparrow’. I learned the word in Austria on a student exchange trip the summer before I picked my LJ pseud, I love sparrows, I wanted something short and elemental/related to nature, and it sounded like ‘spaz’ which teenaged-me thought was funny because I’m a klutz. I was actually thespatz on LJ before I managed to snaffle spatz back from the user who squatted on the blank journal for years, (much like @spatz here; yes I'm still bitter, but at least I nailed my name down on AO3) so I had people think both that I had thespian interests and that I spoke/was German, neither of which are true, but otherwise it's served me very well for almost 20 years.

Fandoms: SO many, jfc. In terms of 'things I've read fic for', I've got 370 just counting my Pinboard tags, with many more than that unbookmarked. The intense ones that really latched onto my brain, lasted months or years, and inspired me to read/participate/create the most are probably Supernatural (S1-5), the MCU (mostly Phase 1 + TWS), Person of Interest, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Untamed. Then there's fandoms I had really intense flings with and recommend to all comers, like Nirvana in Fire, and fandoms that are old friends that I'm always happy to see but don't spark fannish creation in me, like Leverage and Avatar: the Last Airbender. There's also a lot of fandoms (often small/Yuletide fandoms) that own well-worn corners of my heart that I revisit semi-annually and sort of catch up on, like Banlieue 13 or Temeraire or The Goblin Emperor or NIF. tl;dr I'm a fandom butterfly/hoarder.

The other nice thing about small/Yuletide fandoms where you’ve written a good story is that when you’re feeling insignificant, you can go to that fandom tag, sort by kudos/comments/bookmarks/whatever, wait for the story to turn up near the top, and go ‘Aha! I wrote That One Story Everybody Likes!’ and get a little ego boost.

Tropes: ...All of them? *laughs* Hurt/comfort is at the top of the mountain, for sure, though that might be a genre more than a trope. If we're going with specific story tropes, Hero with Bad Publicity is my JAM - I imprinted on The Fugitive and Spider-Man (2002), and as you can see The Untamed is also hitting that button perfectly. (Intersects with my love for the wounded protector characters who are traumatized/have been through some shit but are still trying to do the right thing, as well.) I'm also super weak for the full spectrum of amnesia tropes, from Anastasia AUs to everything Winter Soldier to Bourne Identity to Hollywood temporary amnesia nonsense. The questions of identity, nature vs nurture, choice vs history, and belonging that amnesia stories provoke are so good for me. Oddly, I've never written it - though I do have a Wangxian Anastasia AU prodding at my backbrain that I'm trying to resist because it wants to be ridiculous and steampunk.

I'm also bizarrely fond of the really specific 'X character got turned into a cat/small animal and then picked/taken care of up by their nemesis/crush, and oh no, they have too many feelings about this'. (I think that one's exclusive to fandom, but if anyone knows an actual canon that this came from, please share) Perhaps that's part of a larger love for the 'character changes their mind drastically about another character' aspect of Hero With Bad PR - not necessarily enemies-to-lovers, I like the gen version too, but that's within the circle.

Fic I spent most time on: Hmm. Probably Learning Curve (MCU) which was inspired by @arsenicjade's SES-verse fic, so I spent a long time re-reading and mining the originals for compelling tidbits and details and then expanding on them. thrill as only we know how had a lot of tricky plotting, but it was co-written with @inmyriadbits so I don't remember it being as much work because we were bouncing off each other.

Fic I spent least time on: Probably one of the short MCU fics I wrote for a kissing meme back in the day.

Longest fic: thrill as only we know how (Mission: Impossible 4), at 28K. I'm a terse writer who’s bad at finishing things.

Shortest fic: Pass the Hat (Alice 2009), my one true 100-word drabble.

Most hits: Learning Curve, by quite a lot. Since AJ is a much more popular author than me, I get more people through the related work link on The Goat's Back than I normally see on my stories. And that series in particular seems to draw re-readers, judging by my own comments.

Most kudos: also Learning Curve, followed by Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fryer, which was a well-timed Clint/Coulson fic that I posted right after The Avengers premiered. I love my terrible pun title.

Most comments: thrill as only we know how, which is chaptered, followed by Trust Fall, my other chaptered and only serially-posted fic.

Most bookmarks: Learning Curve. I love all ya'll re-readers.

Favorite fic you’ve written: Probably still Precession, a Yuletide fic I wrote for the TV show Life. I got hit with Yuletide magic and wrote the post-canon Dani/Charlie story I really wanted, and there's a casefile and canon-typical motifs and Dani sorting through the glass shards of her trauma to realize that what she wants isn't going to hurt her this time. I'm really proud of thrill as only we know how, but all of my favorite bits are the ones @inmyriadbits wrote, so I feel like it doesn't count here. *laughs* In terms of stories of my own that I’ve re-read most lately, both Seed (Nirvana in Fire) and a fight you can't win (Untamed) came from my id in a strong way and so I come back to them.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: Hm. I don't really feel the urge to re-write things, once it's posted I can resist the urge to fiddle with it, and I never posted any of the terrible fic I wrote when I was younger. I'd maybe expand Occam's Razor? There's a tragic lack of always-a-girl fic in The Losers fandom, and the fic was a fun start but I didn't know where I'd go with it, since canon would go pretty much the same, just with Cougar having less facial hair. Solar Wind Rising might get a short sequel, we'll see how inspired I am the next time I re-watch NIF.

Share a bit of a WIP: This one’s from an Untamed AU where Lan Wangji arrives just a few minutes earlier at Nightless City after the Wens die -

“From now on, you and I will never stand on the same side!”

High above on the roof, Wei Wuxian laughed and jumped up to stand. Lan Xichen felt the hair on his neck stand up at the mad, uneven sound of it, the drunken sway of the Yiling Patriarch as he stood on the ridge above his audience. How had such a bright young man fallen so far?

“You say you admired me?” Wei Wuxian called out. “How come in the time you admired me, I've never seen you? But once I'm hated by everyone, you jump out to wave your little flag?” He started laughing again, even more high and jagged than before.

Lan Xichen's eye caught on a flicker of white in the sky above the palace, and his stomach clenched in terror as his brother flew down to land on the ridge across from Wei Wuxian, Bichen sliding neatly back into its sheath as Wangji's feet touched down.

Wei Wuxian laughed again, short and sharp, like it had been struck out of him. “Ah, Hanguang-jun. I should have known you'd come. Your hatred and admiration are not as cheaply won as that man's, so what shall it be? Will you and I not stand on the same side again?”

“Hanguang-jun would never stand on the same side as a scoundrel like you!” Sect Leader Yao shouted next to Lan Xichen, and he winced.

On the roof, Lan Wangji hesitated – and then reached behind himself to slide Bichen into the back of his sash.

Tagging @louciferish, @primarybufferpanel, @arsenicjade, @inmyriadbits, @pluckyredhead, @philomytha. No pressure, ya’ll, have fun or don’t bother <3 And anyone else who wants to play please do!

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

Hello! Nhthcth brainworms have slowly started taking over my mind ever since I read it and I’d like to inform you that your brain is huge and sexy. With that established, I’d love to hear your opinions and thoughts on tma canon!! Favourite episode, character hcs, what entity you’re most aligned with, most terrifying entity, etc.

Hi! 

God, I love all of TMA so much. My favorite episode is definitely MAG 165: Revolutions. I’ve listened to it probably ten times by now. The Jane Prentiss statement is a close second. They both just really lean into some really evocative, poetic language and I go feral for it every time. 

Okay, so like, the thing is. I know what entity I would be most aligned with. And I’ve always hated it but it’s super true. I would absolutely be Corruption-aligned. I have like, the exact opposite of trypophobia. I love all of those like, weird niche medical gross out videos on Youtube. I would stumble on some Corruption stronghold and I would just stare in mindless fascination and my soul would be yoinked by the evil germ god. Like I’m deeply aware of the dumb way my soul would get Snatched. 

Absolutely the Web for the most terrifying entity. They’re just so insidious and nigh-impossible to beat, and the thought of losing control like that? Terrifying. They also have the physical threat component down of like, being a giant spider who will consume you. They exist in this weird intersection of mental and physical horror and it’s a terrifying time.

Character head canons:

1) My personal headcanon about Season 2 Jon is that his paranoia was both a product and a cause of his own Becoming. I have no idea how much of this is canon? Because I think that the only thing that was explicitly stated as the cause of his paranoia was Not!Sasha, but also it’s been a hot minute since I listened to Season 2/3. I know Jon explicitly states that the paranoia was because of Not!Sasha in the Guest for Mr. Spider Statement, but I can’t remember at all if it was commented on further. 

The thing is, the explicit fear of being watched/paranoia generally is the Eye, not the Stranger. A good deal of it would come from Jon’s spooky spider senses constantly tingling as something not being right (that being the Not!Them), but it would be the Eye itself Feeding on that Fear. And the thing is, Jon’s choice in response to that is to obsessively watch those around him and inspire paranoia in them, Feeding the Eye even further. So I personally think that stalking the rest of the Archives and actually Feeding the Eye in that way did more to make him Become than reading the Statements did. 

The other big thing for me is just that the process of Becoming has always seemed so painful to me, specifically in a manner that Feeds the Entity trying to claim them. Oliver spent the beginning of his visions trying to make sense of them and even prevent them, in the case of his father and the statement giver who saw the Grifter’s Bone concert and even Gertrude, and then he just... stops. He settles into the visions and his role with the End with a sort of inevitability that’s just very End. How afraid was he, when he started to figure out that there was nothing he could do to change what was happening? How much did the fear of being unable to change the future--for others and for himself--Feed the End with his own Fear? And then his Becoming really happens when he chooses to lean into the future, and personally bring all of the boat to their ends. We see that with most of the Avatars--Jane had an entire statement about Corruption infesting her and how afraid it made her, Jude had that whole burnout empty-life thing going before she leaned into it, Annabelle feared the Web her whole life before Becoming. Becoming seems to Feed on the soon-to-be-avatar first and really happens when they lean into it and inspire the fear in other people, and so for me, I always thought that the paranoia was specifically because of the Eye feeding on him, exacerbated by Not!Sasha, and that choosing to stalk the rest was what pushed him over the edge into properly Becoming. 

2) I know the like, fandom consensus was that Jon and Georgie had a really long and involved relationship that ended poorly, but I like to think that their relationship was really short-lived. They went on like, maybe three dates, emphasis on maybe. One of them was just when they ran into each other at a Tesco Express, felt weird shopping separately now that they knew the other was here, awkwardly gathered their things together and called it a date. Georgie said “I think we should stop dating” and Jon said “yeah that’s fair” and then they just hung out as friends afterwards and got really close that way. Relationship ended because they just sort of ended up in different jobs and both got busy and then like, once a certain amount of time passed, it just became weird to ring up the other when you’ve been ignoring them for like, eight months. They always call each other their ex though because they’re both assholes who think it’s funny to bring their blind date home and be like “this is my ex, we’re flatmates.”

3) I am a “The Mechs Were Jon’s University Band” Truther

4) I like to think that Tim and Jon became friends in Research because Jon had poor people skills and a bad attitude, and Tim was riding off losing Danny and didn’t want to be near people, and someone told Tim on his first day that if he wanted a good conversationalist for a desk partner, he should avoid the empty one by Jonathan Sims like it was covered in thorns and dipped in shit. He plopped his stuff down not five minutes later, and the rest was history. Jon was safe, at first, because he was so seemingly different from Danny that Tim felt more comfortable leaning into a friendship. He was funny in an asshole sort of way, and dressed like a librarian, and was a total workaholic, and it was safe to find comfort in Jon because Jon never reminded him of Danny. But then he figured out Jon’s reckless streak, and his total disregard for the law, and his weird skill at B&E, and he realized Jon would have gotten along with Danny like a house on fire. Jon sort of became a pseudo little brother for him after that, and one of the reasons why Jon’s betrayal hurt so much was because Tim had lost one brother already and would have let Prentiss kill him to protect his second, and Jon still stalked him. 

[lostcauses-noregrets]

Hi lost! So I'm watching for the first time Black Sails (specifically s2, which is great btw) and all I wanna say is that while playing the comparison game there's only one conclusion to make: in snk, Levi is sooooooo coded queer it's not even funny. Come on Yams, pull the trigger

Welcome aboard Anon! Come and join the impossible exclusive intersection of the Eruri and Black Sails fandoms, which currently includes…uh…me and @seitsen-sarvi​.  (Patron saint @stereowire​)  It took me a while to get into Black Sails because the first season is so ridiculously trashy I couldn’t take it seriously. Season 2 is brilliant though.  I would happily listen to Toby Stephens read a telephone directory and Louise Barnes as Miranda Barlow owns my heart forever. Seasons 3 and 4 are a bit patchy, but stick with it because the ending is amazing.  In the meantime, please enjoy this gorgeous art by @seitsen-sarvi​  (flint and ann) and @stereowire​ (black sails)  And then there’s this @Alifrancoart on twitter. Approach that last one with caution, as it may be a spoiler if you haven’t finished season 2 yet.

As for Levi, how anyone can read him as straight is beyond me, have you ever seen the man wear a pair of socks? but each to their own I guess.  As far as I’m concerned Yams already has pulled the trigger.  Levi and Erwin’s canon relationship has all the ingredients of a deeply committed loving relationship founded on equality, trust, devotion and commitment.  I don’t really know what else Yams could do within the confines of a multimillion-dollar shonen manga franchise to show how irreplaceable these men are to each other. I mean it’s not like he was ever going to draw them getting it on he saves that for his djs, and besides, we all know he can’t draw kissing! XD