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recurring-polynya · 3 years

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Do I mind if I ask how you approach writing longer fic? I've always struggled to write anything more than maybe two chapters long and I'm curious if you have a particular method to how you approach such stories.

Thank you so much for this ask! I absolutely love it when people ask me for writing advice because it makes me feel like a Smart Person Who Knows Things.

Before we start, here is one grain of salt to take all of this with: I have a naturally long-form brain. It is very hard for me to write something less than 1k. Short fiction is great, and there is nothing wrong with sticking to short things if that's what your brain likes to do.

So. You have decided to write a story. This is going to focus on "stories". Some people write fic that's more freeform or whatever, I am not going to cover that. What I mean by a story is this:

It starts

Some stuff happens

It ends

It is highly probable that your story contains a change of state, which could be that a villain is defeated, or a goal is reached, but it could also be that character falls in love with another, or someone learns to like broccoli.

I like to start out by completing the sentence, "This is a story where _______". This is basically like coming up with a summary for an ao3 post, except that it doesn't need to be catchy. Lots of different kinds of things could go in that blank! It could literally be what happens: This is a story where Ichigo goes back in time and punches young Aizen in the nose. It could be about what you want to explore: This is a story where Hitsugaya gets a better understanding of his zanpakutou. It could be about the vibe you want to achieve: This is an AU where everyone is in a punk rock band and has cool hair and outfits. The idea of this is to clearly define what you, the author, is interested in writing. Make sure it feels right! Maybe you pick the first one, but when you say it out loud, you say, "You know, I really just want Ichigo to go back in time so he can horse around with young Renji and Rukia and punching Aizen in the nose is just an excuse for that." That may sound dumb, but it's fine, actually! Most people don't read stories strictly for the plot, they read stories for the implications of those plots! Will my favorite two characters kiss? Will there be funny interactions between these two groups of characters? Will there be sick fights? Stories are excuses to have scenes. Sometimes, you will have a story where the interesting sequence of events is the draw, but the point is to know what you're about.

Once you feel happy with your "mission statement", you need to decide the bounds of your story: where it starts and where it ends. It may be easier to start with the end. In some cases, it may be obvious from your mission statement: everyone gets home, a villain is defeated, Kenpachi realizes the meaning of friendship. On the other hand, let's look at that punk rock AU. You've picked a vibe, but you don't really have a natural story arc. It has to have a destination, though, otherwise, it's not really a story, it's a recipe for 3 chapters of an abandoned fanfic. So brainstorm a little: Maybe they get a record deal? Maybe they win a Battle of the Bands? Maybe Byakuya accepts that the band is actually good and tells Rukia he is proud of her. Do not settle for a plot just because it works. Pick something that makes you excited! You're the one who is gonna have to write it!

I said that we needed to pick a beginning point, too, but I'm actually going to skip that for now. The next thing I do is think of all the Big Scenes I want to write, the ones you are hype to write, the ones that pop in your head as you think about the premise. Make a bullet list. They don't need to be in order. The descriptions don't need to be super detailed, but write down anything about it that is important to you. If there's a mood or a snippet of dialogue or a joke you want to make, go ahead and jot that down so you don't forget it later. What you're doing now is putting broad blotches of color on a canvas, filling in space and leaving the detail for later.

Once you are pretty happy with what you have down, try to arrange it in chronological order. Put your end at the end (if it wasn't one of your big scenes, add it now). The next task is figuring out how to traverse your scenes. You've already picked out where you want to spend the majority of your energy. The rest, I regret to tell you, is your slog writing. Now, it often happens that you will find joy in some of these scenes and your best writing may occur there, but that's serendipity. These are the scenes that you are gonna have to make yourself sit down and write, so you honestly want to limit them to just the ones you need.

So how do we do this? Look at the first thing on the list. Can you start there? If so, congrats, that's your beginning. If you can't, what needs to happen to get to there? Where can you start so that you can get to your first fun scene as soon as possible? There. That’s it. You’ve picked your beginning, good job! Now, go through the rest of your list, and add in things that must happen, even if you don’t particularly look forward to writing them. The characters need to travel from geographic point A to point B. Shuuhei needs to say something that Izuru hears and misinterprets. The Central 46 makes a new law. If you have a good idea of how these things happen, go ahead and write them down, but it’s okay if you don’t know yet. Fill in all the blanks so that if you think of each bullet list as a scene, you could read it as a story, start to end. Once you get writing, you might add more scenes, or move things around or whatever, but you should have a thing that functions as a story.

If you struggle with this, an alternative is a story with a very strong structure that is going to guide you though what you have to write.Here are two examples from my own stories Hold On, Hold On (which is only one chapter, but the principle is the same) is structured around the 5 stages of grief. Not Broken, Just Bent takes place over roughly a week, and I just decided what happened every day of the week. See You on the Other Side takes place in the middle of a bunch of canon events, which worked at mile markers.

Congratulations. You’ve just made a rough outline!

Special note for avoiding burnout!: I am a slogger. I will drag myself through the broken glass of an interminable plot to get to a single thirsty scene. That's why, at this stage, I try to look at the ratio of what I want to write to what I must write. It's gonna vary for everyone, but this is a hobby, and if looking at this proto-outline makes you feel deeply tired, maybe this isn't a good story to be devoting your time to! Can you carve it down? Can you chuck two scenes you really want to write and get rid of 80% of the slog? Or maybe you can't! In that case, just write that thirsty scene as a standalone drabble! Or just go work on something else! Maybe in the future, this one will come back to you and you’ll have a fresh idea or a renewed enthusiasm for it.

Another thing I sometimes like to do at this point is to write out some notes about my characters and their motivations and moods. Character A is homesick. Character B is so determined to defeat the enemy that they are having a hard time being sympathetic to Character A. Character C cares for both A and B and is trying to support them both. This is sort of background info that you want to keep in your head as you are writing. Depending on the type of story you are writing, this might actually be the main plot, or it might be happening subtly, but adding to the emotional impact of the story. It’s very easy for me to write these sorts of emotional arcs, but if you struggle with that, you may wish to go ahead and made a more detailed outline for that, too.

Now, it’s time to start writing! I am great at beginnings-- it is very often the case for me that the opening scene was one of my Big Tentpole Scenes. (Before you hate me too much, I make up for this by being double horrible at endings; just let me have this) Usually, I will start at the beginning and write linearly for as long as I can until I get stuck. Then, I will look forward on my outline and do the next chronological scene that I feel like writing. In general, if I sit down to write and there is something I have an urge to write, that trumps everything else. Inspiration is a precious commodity, and you should embrace it when it hits! You can slog any day. I will occasionally hold off writing a scene that I really want to, because I am saving it, like a prize for myself for getting that far. This is a very personal process of figuring out what motivates your brain and then giving your brain what it needs to be its most productive.

Eventually, you will run out of things you are excited to write, but the good news is, you’ve got a bunch of story now! Odds are that what’s left is going to be a lot of those connective tissue scenes, and you’re just going to have to do them, except that now, because you’re connecting two concrete points instead of two abstract points, it will be a lot easier. You can continue running jokes you’ve started. Maybe you invented a cafe in an earlier scene where your characters hang out and you can have them return there. Try to think of ways to make these scenes more fun, both for yourself to write and for your reader to read.

Around this time, I like to start refining that rough strokes outline into what I will call an “as-built” outline. (This is an engineering term where you update your plans or models for something to reflect any changes that had to be made along the way). This is a great activity to do at times when you feel like you have writers block. I write down every scene I have written as a 2-3 word blurb, in order. I break the scenes into what I think makes logical chapters, and I will do a word count on those prospective chapters and write it down. As you do this, you will realize that maybe you can move a scene from here to there, which will make it 1000% easier to write. Things may be happening too much, or you’ve got the characters eating three times in the same chapter. If you have subplots and dangling threads, this is where you make sure they get closure. I know this sounds very headache-y, but you are so far along in the story at this point that it’s really not-- it’s a way to look at the problems you have left. Use some sort of formatting (I like to bold things I haven’t done and sometimes I put them in red) and it gives you a very visual to-do list.

You specifically mentioned multi-chapter fanfics and I admit that I don’t tend to think in chapters, I tend to think of the story as a whole and just break it up where it feels natural. The as-built outlining I described is very helpful in making sure that my chapters feel balanced. They don’t necessarily need to be the same length, but I like them to have the same amount of stuff in them. One chapter may basically contain one long scene, and other may contain many short ones. I don’t tend to, but you can certainly have a fanfic that varies between short and long chapters, that can actually be an interesting effect. But like I said, I always like to know what I am doing, and so having it mapped out, you can say “welp, this is what I’ve done, how do I feel about that?”

Polynya, you may be saying at this point, do you write the whole fanfic before you post any of it? and I regret to inform you, the answer is yes. A lot of people write as they go, and I have made one attempt at this and I didn’t like it. I don’t like locking myself in, I just need to be able write out of order and go back and change things. Here is the story of a little in love: someone gave me an AU prompt and I got mildly obsessed with it, and wrote 5 snapshots drabbles in that universe, ending with a slight cliffhanger ending. I probably should have stopped there, but I decided to keep going. I wrote out an outline of 5 acts where the first act was detailed to the degree of each chapter being specified. The chapters here were much smaller than I usually make chapters: 1-2k. I wrote act i and ii and it was actually great, and then I hit act iii which required a lot of set up for misunderstandings and a mini romance arc. I couldn’t wing it, but nor could I figure it all out with outlining. I write dialogue in almost sort of an improv “Yes, and...?” style, so until I do it, I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, what I did was treat the second half of act iii as a complete story in the process I describe above, wrote the entire rest of it, and then posted it. One might notice that the chapter lengths grew to 3-5k each. I have two more acts to go, and I haven’t decided how I am going to do them yet, but I suspect I will treat each of them as their own mini-stories.

(I will admit that in Heart is a Muscle, I tend toward chapters that are about 10k long, and this is honestly too long, someone should smack me. If you like punchy chapters, 1-2k is good. I think 3-6k is probably an ideal chapter length. Is this how long the chapters are in my latest fanfic? Absolutely not.)

Okay, so there’s one more step, which is quality control. I am habitual re-reader-- I read my fanfics-in-progress over and over and over while I am working on them. I understand that not everyone does this, but I am usually the primary audience for my own writing, and this is the actual fun part for me. Nevertheless, you should re-read your work at least once, to make sure it hangs together.

This is purely optional, but I recommend it: get a writing friend (if you don’t like re-reading your work, I recommend this even more strongly). If you can get a full-service beta reader, that’s great, but if you can’t find someone, or if receiving that level of critique stresses you out, it’s perfectly valid to just find a friend who will read your stuff and a) shower you with compliments, b) reassure you about parts you aren’t sure about (or suggest ways to help) and c) point out any huge problems you missed. When I am writing a long fanfic, it is a huge motivational factor for me to be able to send my beta chapters as I finish them. If you are already an established writer, and you have people who consistently comment on your fic, they might be overjoyed to get a sneak peak at your work.

And that’s it! That’s the way I do it, anyway! Some people are able to sit down and write a very detailed outline and the write it start-to-finish. Good for them, I say! I have tried this and it doesn’t work great for me. I will admit that some of my fics (especially my early ones) I just sat down and banged out whole-cloth like an insane person and they are generally better than the ones I actually plan out, but that’s not a reproducible process.

As one final mechanical note, I usually write in Google Docs, which I can access on multiple devices (I used to write a lot on my phone), has convenient sharing functionality, and I use the ao3 html formatting script add-in. I generally have two documents for a single story-- one is the outline, and any other notes I want to have handy. I’ll usually put a trashcan space at the bottom for scenes that got cut but I don’t want to lose. The other is the fanfic itself.

I hope this is helpful! Please feel free to follow up with other questions and good luck with your writing!

#writing advice #longform writing

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lululawrence · 3 years

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lululawrence’s April 2021 Fic List

Previous Fic Lists / Fic List Podcast Masterpost

April has been a bit of a roller coaster, hasn’t it? But here we are, already almost May! I was able to read so many incredible fics this month. Like... truly, so many STELLAR fics. I’m finally back to reading more of last year’s Big Bang fics, plus a couple that I betaed have already posted, and then I threw in some other shorter ones for fun as well, and I cannot wait to share them with you and tell you what I loved about each one.

In fact, if you’d really like to hear me rhapsodize about these fics, you can listen to my podcast here.

As always, be sure to show your love and appreciation for all of the hard work our fandom authors have put into their fics with kudos, nice comments, and (when applicable) reblogging their fic posts!

Falling in the Wrong Direction by @fallinglikethis / FallingLikeThis (25k, E, Harry/Louis, past Liam/Harry, Big Bang fic, based on Catch and Release, grieving Harry, Liam has recently died when the fic starts, Louis was Liam’s best friend, enemies to friends to lovers, roommates Niall and Zayn, secrets, for real the grief is real in this one, soooo many emotions and all of them perfectly navigated, i loved it all so very much)

sustenance by Anonymous (12k, E, Harry/Louis, Girl Direction, Induced Lactation, Breastfeeding, Lactation Kink, Footballer Louis, Public Breastfeeding, I mean it kinda is public cause they’re surrounded by others due to the nature of the experiment, It’s a whole science thing, it’s... listen it’s all for smut’s sake and it’s fucking hot so, if lactation kink is your thing you gotta do it lol)

Let Me Kiss You by Anonymous (4k, G, Harry/Louis, Zayn/Louis, Liam/Louis, Niall/Louis, Canon Compliant, Louis kisses everyone, I think he and Harry are actually dating and he isn’t dating the rest, anyway, Recreational Drug Use aka weed lol, It’s back when the band was together but kinda seems to float across some years?, Fuck, listen, this fic was just so incredibly pure and good, I loved it so much, I loved how each kiss had a different reason, and the way it is all framed???, IT’S WONDERFUL I LOVED IT PLEASE READ IT)

Hooked With Just One Taste by @dinosaursmate / dinosaursmate (49k, E, Harry/Louis, Big Bang fic, Cam Boy Louis, Rich Harry, Former-Celebrity Harry, he’s still kinda famous but not actively if that makes sense lmao, side Ziall, I LOVE THE ZIALL OKAY OMG, Also listen, this fic is sooooo smutty and hot and great, but it also is so pure and good?, Like the way Harry and Louis interact and grow to be so into each other for more than just sexy times?, SO GOOD, anyway read itttttt, the art is PERFECT for it too!, props to @wilywolf for that hehe)

your crimes are quiet, my love by @lightwoodsmagic / lightswoodmagic (sarah_writes) (98k, E, Zayn/Liam, Harry/Louis, Big Bang fic, Miss Congeniality AU, but make it darker and more realistic, lolllll It’s still sooooo much fun though omggggg, MI5 Agents Liam and Zayn, Ziam are partners for work, pining, SO much pining, friends to lovers, oblivious boys seriously, Louis is the pageant trainer/consultant, Harry is Liam’s roommate for the pageant and a contestant, I cannot express to you how incredible this fic was and how much it sucks you in, the storyline was such an original and incredible and creepy yet really lovely take on the original story, i fucking loved it, oh there’s side Shiall too and I loved them even if they weren’t in it nearly so much as the rest!)

Favourite Boy by @quelsentiment / wordsnnotes (9k, T, Zayn/Louis, pining, lack of communication, Friends with Benefits to Lovers, Except they’re more just... the benefits?, I guess it’s more like... Regular Booty Calls to Lovers, lmaoooo, for real though this fic omggggg, it sucked me right into Zayn’s head and the whole issue of it all, and they just won’t talk!!!, SO CRAZY GOOD OMG)

But I’m the Quarterback by @evilovesyou / 4ureyesonly28 (52k, E, Harry/Louis, Big Bang fic, But I’m the Cheerleader AU, quarterback Harry, Conversion Therapy Camp, Sexuality Crisis, Gay Awakening, Crisis of Faith, Self Harm, Listen, this fic is heavy at times, but for the most part it really is so lovely and gentle, The way Harry comes to learn about himself and accept himself, all with the wonderful people around him going through the same thing, AND LARRY AND LLOYD OMGGGG I LOVE THEM SO MUCHHHHH, anyway, i love this fic please give it a chance if you can handle the tags!, and MASSIVE shout out to the artist @whatagreatproblemtohave for the amazing art!)

Felt Nothing Like Home by @becomeawendybird / QuickedWeen (62k, E, Harry/Louis, Big Bang fic, Bon Appetit Test Kitchen AU, Specifically a Brad/Claire AU for those who are familiar hehe, Pastry Chef Harry, Professional Chef Louis, YouTube AU, Pining, All the fucking pining, Friends to Lovers, Secret Relationship, This fic is so warm and lovely and soft, And funny omg so funny, but also so sweet, it was absolutely stellar, I love)

The Journal by @wait4ever / RecycledStardust and @evilovesyou / 4ureyesonly28 (14k, G, Harry/Louis, Alternate Universe, Magic, Spells, Mystery, Twin Flames, Soulmates, Reincarnation in a way, Rituals, 1990s AU, but also a Historical fic in certain scenes, and NO the 90s aren’t historical yet FIGHT ME, anyway sorry lol, This fic is so special and I keep getting choked up just thinking about it, It is absolutely lovely and the found friends/family aspect is also so so lovely, and I just, Oh gosh it is a must read please read this fic I’m begging you)

Things Unsaid by @londonfoginacup / LadyLondonderry (4k, G, Harry/Louis, Soulmate Fest fic, which of course means Soulmates!, Soulmarks, Meet Cute, Or well kinda a meet ugly whoops, lol, Lilo Friendship, Humor, Listen this fic is borderline crack in the best way and I laughed so many times reading it, It was lighthearted and wonderful)

To the late night double feature show by @londonfoginacup / LadyLondonderry (2k, NR, Harry/Louis, Halloween fic, Cryptid Harry, kinda? I think he’s considered a cryptid?, lmao ANYWAY, meet cute, Clifford, Crack, This fic was once again adorable and silly and yet soft and warm and once again, I love it, Let’s all just sit and admire the way Emmu’s brain works shall we?)

#mine #fic rec #my fic rec #28th appreciation #fic writer appreciation #fic list #april 2021 fic list

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tmp-jatp · 3 years

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Okay, so I have three that I really wanna know whatever you can tell me about them:

1) Ghosts at college - !!!!!! Tell me more, tell me more 🎶

2) juke the little mermaid au - YESSSS!! Gimme gimme gimme *grabby hands* 🧡

And 3) spy!alex au - HELLOOOO!!! I didn't know I needed this until now, but omgggggg 😍

I'll take whatever you can give me and I'll wait patiently for the fics 🥰 shskdhdjsksh

ahhhh ok so you picked some of them that will almost definitely never be finished (maybe i should move them out of my “wips” folder and into an “abandoned” folder of things i can recycle in the future...) but i’ll share some of what i have for each of them :D

ghosts at college - basically it’s a bunch of fluff where julie graduates high school and goes to college. there’s not a lot of plot, mostly it’s a few ideas tied together with fluff and one scene as well. anyway, julie lives in a dorm and her roommate, anna, slowly becomes aware that julie’s weird. weird things happen around her. sometimes anna overhears that she’s having conversations on her phone but when anna unlocks the door julie’s phone is on the table. reggie and alex are around sometimes but luke is there almost all the time. here’s an excerpt:

luke likes to spend all his time with julie even if they’re not interacting. he likes to be in the same room as her. he’ll be writing or humming or playing and she’ll be working on homework and only she can see and hear him but she’s got this little smile on her face

anna knows julie’s in love with *someone* but she doesn’t know who

sometimes anna heard talking through the dorm room door but as soon as she starts unlocking the door the talking goes quiet

one time julie and luke are having an argument about something. anna thinks it’s a phone call with the elusive boyfriend and she either walks away to give privacy or she opens the door and sees julie facing away, red in the face, yelling at air, her phone on the desk.

band cuddle nights on julie’s bed while anna stays out late or after anna is in bed/asleep. julie laughs at stuff they say. they watch movies on julie’s laptop without headphones and it kind of annoys anna but she puts up with it

julie will lay her hand on alex’s shoulder or curl into reggie or wrap her arms around luke when anna isn’t there or julie thinks anna can’t see her

julie is careful to not talk to air when anna is around

but she does take a lot of phone calls with her airpods in

that elusive boyfriend

hmm

and then julie gets sick (not angsty sick fic sick, it’s fluffy hurt comfort sick) and luke cares for her. that’s when he and anna “meet” for the first time. i have other more general stuff that i might recycle for some other fluffy canonverse post-canon stuff, who knows.

juke the little mermaid au - julie is ariel and luke is eric. dirty candi and flynn are julie’s “sisters”, ray is triton. caleb is ursula. here’s literally everything i’ve written for it 😂

Julie wants to see the world, because anywhere is better than down here. Her mother was everything to her, and her dad is kind and loving, but he keeps pressuring her to sing again and it’s too much. Julie just wants to be free from that pressure. She knows he does it because he loves her, but she doesn’t know if she’ll ever sing again.

Luke doesn’t want to get married. He shouldn’t have to, yet, he’s only 17 for God’s sake! He just wants to play music and spend time with his friends. But his parents want him to get ready to rule. His coronation isn’t until he’s 20, he has time, but he has much to learn bc he’s avoided it until now and 3 years isn’t much time to learn all it takes to be a king. Luke also wants to run away. He goes sailing alone, to try and go somewhere away, he doesn’t care anymore. He plays music to himself with his guitar.

Julie sees him while he’s out there. A storm rises which he wasn’t prepared for. His boat capsizes. She saves him and brings him to shore. Julie is curious about him, and now that she’s seen the land, she wants to go there. The land is somewhere where people aren’t pressuring her to sing. She’ll be free there.

Julie visits Caleb who will let her be human in exchange for her voice. He wants to use it at his club, the place she’s been warned never to go and where only crooked people are. But it’s actually a pretty cool place. This one guy, Willie, is really nice to her, but so are other people too. Julie makes the trade with Caleb, she won’t need her voice anyway.

She meets Luke’s friends on land. They introduce her to Luke. Julie’s never experienced her hair being so light and fluffy and bouncy before, it’s incredible. Julie sees Luke playing music with the boys. She at some point sees her “wake up’ song that Rose left for her and suddenly wants to sing again. But she can’t, because Caleb has her voice. Something something, jolts, something something 3 days to true love’s kiss?

lastly, spy!alex au - this was from a prompt that will sadly never be finished (sorry, tiger). the prompt was: spy au, childhood friends, “you had no idea, did you?” and i tried to combine those and make it willex but i had had nearly no experience writing jatp at that point and i also am more of a juke person than a willex person so the fic just wasn’t vibing. but here’s my back-of-the-napkin pitch for you, copy pasted directly from my doc, if you’re interested:

spy!alex finally cracks the case he's been working on for years: the hollywood ghost club. it's an elusive black market that deals in the worst of the worst but it always changes locations. the moment he thinks he's pinned it down, the whole operation disappears like a ghost. anyway, he finally catches the ringleader, the infamous caleb covington. willie, caleb's sort-of assistant and alex's something watches from the sidelines, having been tricked by caleb into thinking that they were just running a cool club.

thanks for the ask, vi! i appreciate it <3 these fics will probably never ever get written in full but they’re fun ideas and not every idea can turn into a masterpiece. sometimes an artist just needs to sketch and doodle instead, and that’s okay. but there’s value to recording and saving your sketches and doodles bc maybe one day you can recycle them into something greater, or you’ll come back to them and be inspired to continue them or to create something entirely new.

#tmp answers #tmp writes #wip tag game

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hippychick006 · 4 years

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15.13: Destiny’s Child - Episode Review/Recap

[Image of episode missing, because out of 15 photos of the promo, only 1 photo was of Sam and Dean and it wasn’t that good. Other 14 photos were a combination of Ruby, Jo, Castiel and Jack - I shit you not]

I think this episode highlights beautifully many of the issues I and I know a lot of other people are having with the show.

The highlights of the episode are undoubtedly the scenes where AU Sam and Dean interact with our Sam and Dean. This is why I make a big deal of how much they are being paid per episode. Look at what happens when you write for the people earning the quarter of a million dollars in the episode. Look what happens when you have it just be them, with no “fan favourite” side characters to pander to. Chemistry happens, and watering that down or separating it entirely, adding someone into it or trying to force it between characters who just don’t have it, is one of the shows biggest issues in recent seasons and largest contributor to people not watching live or choosing not to watch at all because without that chemistry that made the show special, what are you left with?

Drabbernatural my friends, that’s what you’re left with.

The lowlights of the episode are all the scenes that have been written to pander to a small percentage of the watching audience, so pretty much the rest of the episode in all honesty.

Under a cut because some people are in denial.

THEN

Flashback to Castiel watching porn about a pizza man. All that’s in my head from this is Meg! I think we’re getting Meg (let’s be real, I know we’re getting Meg as it’s already been on my dash, but I would have still thought this regardless of spoilers). There it is, there’s the canon Megstiel kiss 😍. I’m amazed Dabb managed to keep his big mouth shut on this spoiler. Anyway, skip this in the entirety to move onto...

NOW

Loved, loved, loved this opening scene. 🥰. Loved everything about it from start to finish. No complaints whatsoever.

We start with Sam and Dean. Just Sam and Dean like the good old days 😍. I can’t believe how happy that makes me and they haven’t done anything yet.

Sam’s going through the books, Dean’s on the laptop, barely any space between them and they appear to be trying to find where Chuck is. They seem to be having no luck.

Sam: Any sign of him? Dean: Nah, nothing yet. Chucks probably trashing a few dozen universes outside of CNN’s range.

They hear a noise and rush to investigate. They see a bright light filtering through the bottom of the door of one the rooms. As they look at it, the light (as well as the noise) disappears. Instantly in hunter mode, Dean indicates for Sam to open the door and they see…

A tiny car that I thought was a mini but have been reliably informed by someone much more knowledgeable than me (which isn’t too difficult tbh) is a Fiat 500. Thank you @alexa-alcantara. It’s a cute little car, and a beautiful colour but my own experience of owning a Fiat is not a good memory. My garage telling me they call them the “Fix It Again Tony” of cars did not help me look any more favourably at them, but on the plus side, I built up a good relationship with my garage from the many hours I spent there. The car is in front of a portal so it’s clear it’s just come through from one of the other worlds.

Emerging from that cute little car is 12’ 6” of muscle in the form of AU Winchesters. The car practically groans in relief (I do see it lift up slightly) as they get out to the tune of “I want you” by Savage Garden.” Thank you once again Shazam as I’m as shit on music as I am at identifying cars.

Did I say I love this scene? I just…love this entire scene. AU Dean’s in the driving seat (of course), We see AU Sam’s foot emerge and he has no socks on – which I’m wondering is a shoutout to that photo shoot they had with no socks. Possibly it’s the fashion right now which I know even less about than cars or music. The entire scene, it’s just… perfection. It’s just so well shot, I love that AU Sam and Dean could not be more different from our Sam and Dean from their clothes to the hair. I’ve fallen in love with both these new characters within a 10 second timeframe and they haven’t even spoken yet! That is the genius of Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles on screen, together, without extras, supported by the entire crew from special effects through to wardrobe. They can all bring their A game which makes it all the more disappointing in the scenes and episodes where they don’t bother.

AU Dean looks back at the portal they came through.

AU SAM: Bro…We did it

AU Sam and Dean fist bump at their success and I’m in danger of losing it. 😂 Side note to size kinkers; that is not Jared and Jensen’s hands there 😂. Hey, no judging from this blog, but I personally don’t consider Jared “huge” and Jensen “tiny”, but you do you.

AU Sam and Dean are too flushed with their own success of getting through the portal to notice our Sam and Dean yet. Meanwhile, our Sam and Dean are looking at the new arrivals with increasing horror.

AU Dean finally notices our Dean and we get the “Sam” “Dean” “Dean” “Sam” exchange between the four of them.

AU Sam and Dean: What the heck? Our Sam and Dean: What the hell?

Somewhere, I’m hoping that there’s an AU world where they say, “What the fuck?” because I think that would really please Jared.

Each look horrified at the other – I think AU!Sam may be on the point of tears seeing his doppelgänger dressed in plaid.

The portal starts making a loud ominous noise, AU Dean says “aw nuts” and AU Sam and Dean look at each other before the portal goes haywire, exploding in a bright white light, causing our versions to shield their eyes. When they look back up, AU Winchesters, the car and the portal have all disappeared and the room is back to normal.

What the Heck? You bring them back right now show! Don’t be bringing in waste of space or “fan favourite” characters when all I want is these two.

Sadly, the show does not listen, and we’re forced against our will onto the next scene.

Sam and Dean are explaining to waste of space that a rift opened in the armoury (is that right? I didn’t see any weapons in that room, but it sounded like he said armoury). Sam says two guys stepped out that looked just like them. Dean: except not, and don’t even get me started about the car. Waste of space does not understand which is his standard operating procedure since his first episode tbh. I’m not sure if this is still supposed to be funny; it’s been 11 years since season 4. 😴.

Dean says welcome to the club.

What? The dumbass club? Sam and Dean are such dumbasses that they need Billie to suddenly appear to confirm they’ve met an AU version of themselves running from their reality. Seriously? 😡. They know other worlds are being destroyed, they rescued Kaia from one in the process of being destroyed and that was only last week! They don’t think that other Sam and Deans in other universes are going to be figuring out what’s happening and trying to do something to stop it? It doesn’t make sense. Sam and Dean do reckless things, but they aren’t dumb. 😡

As an aside, what I loved about the AU Sam and Dean we just met, is that they didn’t try to save their world, they were only interested in saving their own pretty asses by trying to jump worlds and I love how different they are from our Sam and Dean who would, and have, sacrificed themselves in a heartbeat to save their world.

I used to like Billie but all the monologuing over the last couple of episodes is 😴 which is not the actresses fault, but there are also some issues with delivery of the lines (because it’s boring). Key point from this entire boring scene is:

Billie: He’s almost done, wrapping up all those other worlds and when he is…Sam: it’s our turn

Billie agrees and says they need to be prepared. She has the next step… for Jack.

Jack appears on cue, eating a sandwich. He says he’s ready and feeling good about it. I’m feeling I’m missing a scene somewhere. Did he already have a chat with Billie, so he knows what she’s about to say? I’m not sure but don’t care enough to spend any time on it.

Billy monologues that the first quest (eating the hearts) was to strengthen Jack’s body. Step 2 is more spiritual in nature.

Waste of space: can you be more specific? Me: you’re that asshole that asks questions during presentations, aren’t you? Give her a chance to monologue ffs. She was just about to tell us before your unnecessary interruption. I don’t even have a clue what your contribution to this scene is, other than pre-emptory meltdown avoidance of 200 accounts on twitter. Death: Jack needs to find the occultum Sam: the occultum? Occultum, that’s Latin for… hidden. Where do we find it? Me: you’re so smart 😍 Death (sarcastic): I don’t know… It’s hidden

Ah yes, a side character making the Winchesters look stupid never gets old. 🙄

Anyway, more boring monologuing later, it’s been hidden for centuries, it’s sacred and potent. It’s not a weapon per se but it’s powerful.

Dean(sarcastically): Okay, thanks, big help.

She asks Jack if he’s ready and he says he is. She says that’s good, that they have to be ready and vigilant and not stupid (looks at the Winchesters). Dean’s eyeroll matches mine almost exactly. Sick, fed up of the Winchesters being called stupid by side characters. Oh, I said that already. Well I am!

Avoiding this scene in future and moving on.

Sam and Dean are researching the occultum. Or at least Sam’s researching and ranting about the occultum, but Deans playing with an elastic band and barely listening. Sam gets his attention and asks what he’s doing. Dean’s thinking about things and how if Jack kills god, that still leaves “you know who”. Sam says: Amara. Dean thinks that if Jack kills god, he’ll have to kill her too, because if you take Chuck off the board, that throws things out of balance and the world ends. If there’s no God or Darkness, nothing is out of balance.

Sam: Okay, Yeah, but who takes over, Jack?

Dean contemplates that and is about to answer when Jack walks in, blowing a bubblegum bubble and announcing he just learned how to do that.

Dean turns back to Sam: Probably not

I love little scenes like this, zero pandering, just classic Supernatural and classic Dean. 😍

Overall, it was another good brother scene (taking aside the boring plot which we can’t do anything about).

Parents Sam and Dean speak to Jack about how he’s going to take down Chuck because Billie hasn’t been clear on the plan.

Dean: Yeah, when you go up against Chuck, you’re gonna what? (makes boxing moves), duck and weave, or just go in for the full smite? 😂

My Dean is back with the one liners in this episode and I love him.

Jack: Yeah, you know, something like that

Dean’s face. 😂

Unsurprisingly Sam and Dean are not reassured, they’re about to ask more questions when waste of space walks in and good news guys! Unbelievably, He has information from fellow waste of space/plot device Sergei (does waste of space only have one contact?). The show aren’t even trying anymore with this shit. Istg. 🙄 Ah what would we do without waste of space? Definitely have a much more decent episode if I’m going to be perfectly honest.

Anyway, when waste of space announces who he has information from:

Dean: Him? Are we that desperate? 😂

Of course, Sergei knows about the occultum 🙄. He would have been extremely useful to have had around in the early seasons. Each episode would have been tied up in 30 seconds with one phonecall to the font of all knowledge. I hate characters like this and the laziness of the writing to continue to fallback on him.

Supernatural writer: Hey boss, I’m stuck a little on the occultum storyline Dabb: Have you tried using waste of space and Sergei? Supernatural writer: I didn’t think of that! Great idea, thanks! I guess that’s why you’re the boss! Me: 🙄 you lazy 🤬

Waste of space monologues about the occultum and what happened to it, he starts off that its divine in origin and was housed in a temple for hundreds of years before…

Dean: it was plundered by pirates! Waste of space: No Dean: it was dug up by tomb raiders! Waste of space: No Dean: it was seized by the king of the dead and his war lords. Am I close? Waste of space: looted by invading mongol hoardes for trade on the black market Dean: on the black market (looks at Sam) That’s what I thought. I was going to say that next, that was the next one.

Sam indulges his hunter husband. Oh wait, this is our Sam and Dean, not the AU version. Rewinds to check. No, Sam is indulging his hunter husband. He asks waste of space where it is now.

Long explanation later, the object was given to a faith healer in return for saving the owners life.

Faith healer? How convenient. Now, who do we know that’s a faith healer? 🙄

Waste of space doesn’t have a name – are you kidding me? He must have had a name to go to the faith healer. He at least has a description. She was attractive 🙄 and had glowing hands while healing.

It’s your wife, Jensen! Erm I mean, Sister Jo.

Imagine that entire scene with waste of space and Sergei plot device removed, Sam found the information from research and that entire conversation was between him and Dean. Infinitely better and rewatchable.

Sam and Dean go off to visit Jensen’s wife Sister Jo who at this point of the show’s run has somehow been cast in 4 previous episodes and every single appearance has been completely forgettable. This one is no different.

I’m going to rant for a second. This stunt casting, bringing back of “fan favourites”, nepotism, lazy writing crap is really dragging the quality of the show down. We’ve had so many shit, boring, waste of time episodes this season. You could have replaced a couple of them with the Winchesters trying to track down this elusive but needed item. Make it hard for them, get rid of Sergei and Jensen’s wife Sister Jo and make the finding of this artefact interesting and more believable by introducing new characters for them to interact with. This is just… really bleh.

Anyway, Sam and Dean go to see one of the most boring characters ever created, and that includes waste of space who was badass in season 4-5, a dick yes, but a badass none the less so he gets a pass. This is not a good scene, it’s worth fast forwarding and forgetting it ever existed, not least because of bad dialogue and questionable acting. I am really, really not a wife hater, but neither will I give someone a free pass because of who they are married to. You come on the show, you get judged on your own merits, same as any other guest actor. Long story short, they want the thingamajig I’ve forgotten the name of because I had a 6 hour watching break to work up to watching this scene and that was not nearly long enough. Jo doesn’t want to give it to them, and Sam and Dean pull angel blades on her. She says she didn’t have it, Ruby does.

Where’s that gif. Where the fuck is that gif? Oh, found it…

This next scene, I just 😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬. Okay, I can do this, woman’s up and presses play, weeping for what once was the entire time I’m watching.

We get a pointless scene which as predicted, is nothing less than a gimmick, written only to have “the wives” on the show in the same episode and in the same scene. I think this is the angriest I’ve ever been watching a show and we haven’t reached the point in the episode where Sam is reduced to a doorstopper. Oh yes, that gem has still to come. 🤬😡🤬!!!

Somehow, even though Ruby is terrified of angels and Jo wasn’t on earth at the same time as Ruby, they somehow not only met, but worked together. Jo says the vessel suits Ruby better than the blond. Not in this household missy. We stan the infinitely better Katie Cassidy (fine there might have been a childhood crush on watching reruns of her father that sways the debate in her favour slightly but that’s neither here nor there!).

Okay, no sorry. I thought I could take one for the team, but I can’t. This entire scene would not ever have been made if the show was in the hands of a competent showrunner. It’s just complete nonsense with absolutely no attempt by the writer to respect the audience or canon and not worth even documenting what happens as it’s all a crock of 💩. Do yourselves a favour and ignore it. All you need to know is Ruby has the thingamajig they need. It was stashed somewhere in hell.

Back at the bunker, Jack has take out, lots and lots of take out; pizza (no pineapple), fried chicken, hot dogs, nachos, Chinese food… Waste of space joins him. They talk about Jack not having a soul. Jack says he understands why Sam and Dean were angered by what happened to Mary

Castiel: by what you did to Mary

He gets a pass for this line (and his name back briefly) because it needed to be said so he wasn’t a waste of space for once.

Jack sees things have changed, especially with Dean.

I see a bit of chatter on this one. I don’t understand the chatter. Sam forgives people, this goes way back that he’s able to forgive people and not hold a grudge. He’s had a darkness inside him his entire life, he’s had to fight against his nature to be who he is, so of course he’s going to be more forgiving, more understanding of someone he sees as being similar to him. Add to the fact that Sam did not build a strong relationship with Mary - he’s sad she’s gone - but I think he’s more accepting of it than Dean. All of this has been shown in episodes, so when Jack asks, “Will he ever forgive me?” He’s not asking about Sam because he knows through Sam’s words and actions that Sam has forgiven him, but he knows Dean hasn’t. I don’t have an issue with this, and you know I’m a bitter Sam fan, I’ll reserve my anger for later in the episode.

So, for me, waste of space only talks about Dean for the same reason (and shockingly not because he’s gay for the human). He says, “Dean, he feels things more acutely than any human I’ve ever known, so it’s possible he can work through this. One day he may explode, let it all out and breath deeply and move on.”

Jack asks how long that will take. waste of space says he doesn’t know.

I understand the point of the scene, it’s not the worst. I’d prefer if my boys were saving people, hunting things obviously, but this was an okay scene. I do like Alex and what he brings to the table – though don’t like when too much focus is put on him or Sam’s relationship with him is sidelined.

Sam and Dean return to the bunker. Dean asks if Sam’s sure they can swing this again. Sam says they still have Rowena’s notes from the spell. Dean: Okay, Samwitch, lets do this.” I love how Dean hates witches, he was still wary of Rowena though could see her uses, but the minute Sam is a witch, Dean’s all aboard the witch train. 😂

Waste of space appears, Dean tells him that they sorta know where the occultum is. Waste of space looks worried and they know something is wrong. They follow him through the bunker to one of the rooms. Their AU selves are projected on the wall. I just… Why was the entire episode not their doppelgängers? I love them. AU Dean screams (but we can’t hear him). AU Sam seems far more relaxed about the situation. They can’t see or hear our Sam or Dean. Sam asks waste of space where they are.

Waste of space thinks the blast trapped them between dimensions as the rift and their world was destroyed. AU Dean tapping on the wall, and trying to get a cell phone signal, I just can’t… 😂

Dean: Are they in pain? Waste of space doesn’t think so. Dean says “Good” goes to leave. Sam tries to stop him. Dean says they’ll deal with them, but first they have to go to hell. Waste of space: woah, you do?

Sam explains that’s where Jo said Ruby stashed the occultum

Waste of space: Ruby? The demon you were sexually intimate with? Dean: Sexually intimate? Sam (strongly): Yes!

I’ve seen a lot of chatter on this one as well. Some claiming that Dean is questioning the choice of wording by waste of space. I don’t see that. I see this as another fail, that they are somehow trying to claim Dean doesn’t know Sam and Ruby had a sexual relationship, even though Sam went into it in explicit detail in “I know what you did last summer”, to the point Dean asked him to stop. If they were going for the choice of wording, they failed in both facial expressions and dialogue.

They have a discussion, not worth repeating, too much focus on waste of space. Upshot is Sam and Dean are going to Hell.

Sam and Dean arrive on the Charmed set in Hell. I’m expecting them to meet Julian McMahon striding down the corridor. They meet a demon who informs them that Rowena is hosting a reception for newly condemned souls. The demon doesn’t seem happy about that. He starts taking them to Rowena. This is a pretty pointless scene tbh.

Back in the bunker, waste of space says to Jack that he doesn’t trust Jo’s story, he wants to speak to Ruby who apparently is in the empty. I’m losing it with where entities end up these days. I’m guessing if demons are exorcised, like Meg was, then they go back to Hell. If they are killed permanently, like Alastair was by Sam, they end up in the Empty? I guess it makes sense.

Anyway, waste of space needs Jack’s assistance to get to the empty. He needs Jack to kill him…

Damn, false alarm, it’s only an “almost kill”. Yeah, I would probably be too thorough. Okay Jack, carry on, you’re up.

I don’t understand how he’ll be able to do anything in the empty, won’t he be kept in a state of nothing?

Jack reminds waste of space that the empty doesn’t like him. Waste of space says he’s far from happy so he should be okay.

Jack: Cass, I, I may not have a soul, but I know killing you is wrong, what if I screw up? Waste of space: well then, I’ll be lost forever… but I think you’ll do fine.

Jack has to draw out most of waste of space’s life force into a flask, and keep an eye on him so he doesn’t die for real. He also has to tend the spell to ensure Sam and Dean are not lost in Hell forever either (but to me it seems really easy to get in and out of, not like the early days so don’t see them being stuck there as a problem). Remember back in season 2 when hell was this...

Sam: Hell is like, um ... (punches Dean)... well, it's like hell, even for demons. (punches Dean again)... It's a prison, made of bone and flesh and blood and fear.

Good times. Now we have Barbie!Hell and anyone can just walk in and it isn’t scary. But yeah, tell me again that I should stop being critical and the show hasn’t deteriorated beyond all recognition

Sam and Dean follow the lackey they met in Hell to where Rowena is hosting a meet and greet for the new arrivals to Hell. Or at least that’s where they were supposed to be taken, turns out it’s a trap. Of course, it is, because dumchesters 🙄, but at least we get a decent fight out of it as they are set upon by three demons carrying angel blades. Dean kills two, Sam holds the third hostage so they can find out who betrayed them. Unsurprisingly it was Jo 🙄 Sam then kills the demon (after Dean gives a nod to do so).

Dean: that bitch set us up!

We switch to sister Jo and see her packing up and leaving, so she must know her plan failed, and Sam and Dean will soon be after her.

We’re now in The Empty with waste of space and for sure as shit, this scene changing whiplash, disregard of canon, lack of continuity between other episodes, focus on side characters has to mean this is a suck-lemons episode. He’s shouting for Ruby. He doesn’t get her, we hear, “Hello Clarence”

Waste of space spins around and it’s Meg! He’s so happy to see her and disappointed that it’s the empty. No offence to Rachel, love her, she does great in the episode and Megstiel will always be canon, but just not interested in any of this.

Next scene is waste of space and Ruby. Fast forwarding other than to say no sweetie, Sam didn’t kill you, but I don’t blame you, I blame the writers who are too lazy to do any research. Sam should have killed you, but it was Dean that did it.

Another scene between Ruby and Jo, as forgettable as the first. Lucifer and Michael weren’t circling their vessels when you were still breathing you morons. Lucifer hadn’t yet been released, but what is canon on this show when you can blast it aside and have the wives in a scene together and isn’t it wonderful? Eh, I’m gonna say hard no on that one.

Another scene between Ruby and waste of space. In true Ruby style, she’ll help him if he gets her out of the empty. Oh, and the occultum is a place, not a thing, that’s all we need to know.

Fast forwarding all of this as it’s pandering trite, not worthy of my time, besides the dumbchesters are back from Hell and I think Jack might be in trouble with them.

Jack (guilty): Guys… you’re back Dean (looking between Jack and waste of space’s body): Jack? What the hell?

Severe whiplash alert! We’re back with Ruby and waste of space. Ruby monologues that the Empty is a place where all you do is dream about your regrets over and over for eternity. Well then, just as well I have no regrets in life, other than watching seasons 12-14 of Supernatural. Wait, imagine that on repeat for eternity. NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Waste of space says he knows. In fairness to waste of space, at least he will have a vast range of playbacks on the amount of regrets he should have over the years, so he won’t get bored anytime soon.

Whiplash alert! We’ve left the corned beef actors and are back with the porterhouse steak. They advance on Jack.

Jack: He’s dead, kind of… for now Sam: What?!

Whiplash! Get me back to the porterhouse damn it! Waste of space agrees to try to get Ruby out, she whispers in waste of space’s ear, “the occultum, it’s…”

Whiplash! I’m suing at this point in the episode tbh.

Jack: Cass went to the empty, hopefully to find Ruby, hopefully to find out where this occultum thing is located, hopefully (puppy eyes)

Whiplash! Ruby steps away and disappears. Waste of space’s face is interesting, and I’m intrigued where it is.

Whiplash!

Sam and Dean’s faces. 😂

Sam: that’s way too many hopefullys! Dean: Bring him back, now!

Okay Hellers, here’s a test. If Sam had said that line, would you have interpreted it as Sam speaking as a parent or Sam concerned about waste of space because he’s secretly in love with him? Dean is obviously concerned, but he’s speaking to Jack as a parent.

Jack opens the flask to release waste of space’s grace. But The Empty (still in Meg’s form) is reluctant to let him go. Turns out as she’s torturing waste of space that The Empty has a deal with Death, she helps Death and she can go back to sleep when Death’s plan works. We alternate between waste of space being tortured and Jack trying to revive him.

Dean: come on, wake up pal. Dean: Come on Cass, come on Dean: Cass!

Pandering!

Waste of space wakes up. The Empty says, “see you soon”

I hope she does because yes, I love watching a show where my leads are made out to be dumbasses and the waste of space that should have been killed off years ago is the hero. I’m losing count of how many episodes that’s happened this season. Sick of it. 🤬

Waste of space (looks at Dean): you made it back Dean: Yeah, and so did you! You’re an idiot by the way! Sam chimes in: What if this hadn’t worked?

Waste of space says it did [work]. The occultum was never in Hell. The occultum is the safest place in the world. Jo was never going to give that up. Waste of space knows where it is and asks, “Am I still an idiot?”

I’m actually so angry right now. Who does this? What shitty writer makes their lead cast look like idiots in order to big up a side character. What does he have on someone because I’m at a loss for any other logical explanation at this point for them willingly ruining the show.

Anyway, Dean says “well yeah”. Me: hell to the fuck yeah, you’re still an idiot and I hate you even more after this episode than I did before.

Sam wants to go to the place.

Jack reminds them if Chuck checks in on them and sees what they’re doing, they’ll lose.

Dean’s plan involves using their doppelgängers to pretend to be them. They’ll open up a rift and he thinks waste of space’s grace will be enough to pull them through. Sam thinks it might also blast them to another world.

AU Sam and Dean are playing rock, paper, scissors. AU Sam throws scissors and wins. AU Dean’s reaction. 😂

Sam mixes up the spell for the portal and they place it at the wall where AU Sam and Dean are trapped. Bright light later and…

… it obviously works because AU Sam and AU Dean are now sitting at the map table with a beer in front of each of them. Our Sam and Dean are currently standing. And I cannot do any justice to this scene. It is perfect from start to finish. Go watch the genius of Jared and Jensen at play with no one else cluttering up the scene.

Upshot of this scene is that AU John is (or was) alive, they got separated coming through the portal. He spoils them, (Dean: he spoils you?!) John has set up a very successful business called Huntercorp. They get paid (Dean: you get paid?!) for hunting monsters all over the world and have a private jet. I would ask what they’re doing driving around in a Fiat 500 instead of a luxury car, but I’m having too much fun, so it gets a free pass and I won’t nitpick. Let’s headcanon it’s all they could get a hold of to get through the rift and leave it at that. They keep toasting their beers to their dad, “the best guy ever” but they don’t seem too cut up that he and their world have gone splody. I love these versions, they seem to be fine they made it through and they have each other. I’d like to see one without the other as I think they’d give our brothers a run for their money in the codependency stakes.

AU Sam’s pinkie is raised while he drinks, and I can’t with the silent genius that is Jared Padalecki when he inhabits a character.

Our Sam and Dean during all of this. 😂.

Dean explains to the AU’s that they need them to pose as them for a while. In order to do that, Sam tells his AU self he has to lose the man bun. AU Sam’s reaction 😂. He is not happy. AU Dean closes his eyes and sits back, putting a hand over his mouth. I thought at first he wasn’t happy at our Sam, but no, the reaction is because he knows how his Sam reacts about his hair (*whispers* I suspect AU Dean has suggested many times that AU Sam let his hair down… for reasons and AU Sam has refused, so its an old argument). Sure enough, AU Sam says he will not. Our boys ignore that and also tactfully suggest they will need to change their clothes.

Next, we see the impala at night, driving towards a church. All TFW 2.0 are in the car. 🙄

They walk up to the church doors and Jack says he knows he hasn’t been doing this as long as them, but doesn’t it seem too easy.

They agree and at that moment hear a growling.

Jack: is that a bear?

Dean starts trying to get the church doors open by picking the lock

Sam: No, it’s more like uh… Waste of space: hellhounds Sam (as the hellhounds are approaching): Dean… Dean, you wanna hurry a little bit?

Dean gets the door open and they all get inside just in time. Sam and Dean get the door closed and Dean asks Sam if he’s got it. I’ve seen a lot of chatter on this one. This scene alone highlights one of the many, many things wrong with the show and why it’s no longer enjoyable. I think they were trying for ha ha comedy. Sam trying to keep the door closed while they are all standing around like idiots, but it isn’t funny and reduces Sam down to muscle rather than what he actually brings to the show, and both waste of space and Jack are stronger.

Waste of space should have been holding the door (or not been there at all, which is preferable) and the scene should have been Sam, Dean and Jack. No excuses for why it wasn’t done this way (other than pandering). A line of pandering is annoying but acceptable, sidelining Jared to cater an entire scene to them is completely unncceptable. You’ve pissed off the Jared/Sam fans which are many more than Misha/Castiel (despite what they try to tell themselves), and you’ve pissed off the brother fans which are the majority of the audience.

Waste of space says the top of the cross points the way and they all look up at the cross high on the church wall.

As a side note, the Hellers are so cute, counting Sam and Dean standing in a church with their “son” as their wedding. Refrains from slapping 8.23 down in front of them where Dean actually said some vows along the lines of “don’t you ever dare think there is anything past or present that I would put in front of you!” 😍

Sam (being paid $250k for this): Guys! Can you maybe move it along?

That’s not the cross they are looking for, because at that point, clouds miraculously clear outside, allowing moonlight to shine through a window and highlights an area on the church floor. I mean I like that x marks the spot but I’m not sure about time of day/year and position in the sky etc. to know if this is realistic, like will it still be the exact same spot at 6pm in December as it is midnight in summer?

Jack points it out to them and Dean bends down to open the floorboard.

Sam: Guys, I can’t hold them forever!

Dean lifts the floorboard which contains a velvet bag. He opens the bag and pulls out a golden snitch. He hands it to waste of space and asks if it’s a map. Jack suggests it might be a key. Waste of space reads the enochian passage on the golden snitch (which if he hadn’t been written into this scene, Sam could have done that).

Golden Snitch: in order to be in the occultum, the occultum must be in you. Me (immediately): swallow it!

There’s a reason Sam’s holding the doors closed as he’d have got that within a second. The others are just looking around dumbly. 🙄

Back with AU Winchesters and AU Sam, wearing plaid, man bun still in place, is watching “powderpuff princess and friends” channel on the laptop, which seems to be about kittens. 😂 AU Dean appears carrying two beers

Au!Dean: they said lose the man bun, Samuel (love that he goes by Samuel) Me: Wow, AU Dean really wants Sam to let his hair down…for reasons AU Sam: look, hillbilly clothes are bad enough, I have to draw the line somewhere and my hair… is sacred (Jared added this 😂)

AU!Dean rolls his eyes, denied once again.

AU Sam asks what they do now. AU Dean says, drink beer and sit in front of a computer screen

AU Sam: that’s their lives? He’s still drinking the beer with the pinkie out. 😂. Chuck would know straight away this wasn’t Sam and Dean. Sam’s face drinking the beer. 😂 He’s high maintenance for sure. AU Dean is much less fussy and I think would adapt quite well to the new world.

AU!Dean has found our Dean’s bustyasianbeauty.com internet history. 😂

AU Sam: Can you imagine if dad caught us with that kind of stuff? Goodbye trust funds.

AU!Sam’s not interested in the ladies and I don’t think he’s happy that AU Dean is either.

AU!Dean: I gotta tell you Sammy, this Sam and Dean, you know, sure they’re simple, but they’ve got this place of their own, there’s no quarterly reports, there’s no investor calls, there’s nothing to do but hunt monsters, drink beer and watch porn. AU!Sam: Yeah AU!Dean: they’ve got it made

Switch to our Sam and he’s really struggling with keeping the hellhounds out, while waste of space and Dean are arguing is another pandering scene (which has already had at least four in the episode). It’s been written solely to please the 1%ers who no doubt will create thousands of tweets from their 200 accounts with “old married couple and their son.”

These people are incapable of looking at characters and continuity, they don’t care if it’s likely a character will do something just as long as they get content for their ship. But I care, the majority of the audience care. The Dean we know and love would just not under any circumstances abandon Sam at the door on his own. This is where the writing is failing. If they are incapable of writing a scene that makes sense in the bigger scheme of things, that doesn’t change the standard operating procedure of one of the two leads, then it has no place in the show. I could have written a scene between waste of space and Dean that would have given the 1%ers more than enough fodder (they get excited over lamps, it wouldn’t be that hard to do), while at the same time, not ruining Dean’s core character or sidelining Sam to be a doorstopper for an entire fucking scene. Besides, all the old married couples I know are old and still married because they never argue, they finish each other sentences and smile fondly at their idiot other half when they do something idiotic, because it’s their idiot. Kind of like… Sam and Dean.

Jack ignores them as much as I do, he turns away while they are still arguing. When he turns back, Dean looks at him,

Dean: “Where’s the thing?” Jack: I ate it Dean: You What?! Jack: well, he said it had to be in me… so… Dean (internally) Sammy’s going to fucking kill me. (Externally) No! spit it out! Jack (laughing): it’s fine, nothings happening

Something’s definitely happening as Jack doubles over in pain. Sam can only watch helplessly from the door as a bright light erupts from within Jack and then he disappears.

Again, that scene would have been infinitely more watchable if waste of space hadn’t been shoved into the space Sam should have been, but no, he’s still holding a fucking door closed. I shit you not. 😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬🤬😡🤬😡🤬🤬🤬!

Jack wakes up in what we find out is the garden of Eden. The creepy little girl from Angel approaches him. “You must not be human, humans may not enter here, are you an angel?” Jack says it’s complicated but asks why humans can’t be here. She says they were banished, and god hid the garden away from them. Jack says he was told the place might change him somehow. She responds that it might if he’s the chosen one. He’ll know soon enough. She leaves him alone. I’m speculating at this point that Jack isn’t the right person, but Sam is.

We whiplash briefly back to the church. Yes, my fellow Sam fans, Sam is still a $250k doorstopper while waste of space and Dean continue to argue. This isn’t good drama for anyone. Dean is completely ooc in not helping Sam.

Harry Potter Jack meets the garden of Eden snake. Luckily Jack can understand parcel-tongue as the snake talks to him. Who are you really? Who are you meant to be?

We get various flashbacks, none of which show Sam all that much, and I think that’s deliberate, though badly done. The one person Jack has never had to question until the malac box was Sam. I still maintain that Jack knows Sam forgives him and loves him unconditionally, but he knows Dean doesn’t, which is why the focus was on Dean. The annoyance would have been much less if Sam hadn’t been a doorstopper in place of a significantly lesser character.

Anyway, Jack collapses on the ground and he’s crying by the end of it. Same Jack, same tbh.

Back at the church, a bright ball of light comes through the cross window and floats down towards the church floor, right in front of Sam before moving to hover between Sam and Dean (again if waste of space hadn’t been there, this would have been a much better scene).

Sam’s thrown away from the doors and lands on the floor. Dean rushes forward to stand in front of his brother… oh wait, no, that’s in my version, the suck-lemons version has Dean actually take a step back, while the hellhounds advance on Sam who is closest to them. Like he literally doesn’t move a fucking inch, and people are asking why we are unhappy? Who the fuck was that, because it wasn’t Dean Winchester. 😡

The bright light gets brighter, I think it kills the hellhounds, rather than just repels them. When the light clears, Sam sees Jack lying on the floor in front of him. He says “Jack” which draws the attention of Dean who shouts “Jack”. Oh, that gets Dean’s feet moving 🙄. They watch as Jack sits up and Dean asks him if he’s okay. Jack doesn’t answer.

Back with Dean and AU!Winchesters. Dean’s trying to herd them out the bunker, thanking them for their help. AU!Dean suggests they could all live in the bunker together.

AU!Sam: like a club (AU!Dean points at Sam in agreement).

Our Dean doesn’t share his toys very well and thinks that would just be weird.

AU!Dean (he definitely wants our Sam, with the whole hair down thing he’s got going on): it wouldn’t be so weird

Dean knows what AU!Dean wants and tells them to go to Brazil

AU Dean asks if they can keep the flannel shirts, Dean says no, and tries to hurry them along.

AU Sam and Dean turn to go, but AU!Dean turns back and says that when they were looking around, they saw it

Dean: It? AU!Dean: the car Dean: You didn’t…. touch it AU!Sam: We “drove” in it 😉 Dean: You What?!

Awkward looks all around until AU!Dean says, “And we’re leaving…” smacking AU!Sam on the shoulder and pushing him up the bunker stairs.

AU!sam: oww, my arm, you’re hurting me!” AU!Dean: Sam! AU!Sam: Dean… Dean (angry): Have fun in Rio!

I like the scene so I’m trying not to nitpick the fact the car was with our Sam and Dean and the AU versions couldn’t possibly have found it, much less “drove” in it.

Dean goes to find Sam who is leaning on the wall outside I’m guessing Jack’s room. He asks if the kid is okay. Sam says he doesn’t know. Waste of space comes out and says Jack seems to have recovered but there’s something different about him. No one’s been to the garden since the exile, until Jack.

They all go in, yes, even waste of space, and it turns out it wasn’t Jack’s room, but the kitchen and I have to seriously question why Sam - who is unquestionably Jack’s main parent - was outside and not with him. *whispers Jared has obviously done something or not done something to bring the petty wrath of Dabb down upon his beautiful head, no other explanation at this point. Roll on Walker and Jared ensuring that show doesn’t get stolen out from under him by a backstabbing co-worker and petty showrunner.

They approach Jack and he says he is so sorry. He is crying and says it was his fault.

Waste of space says Jack’s soul is back.

Jack looks up at Sam and Dean and asks them to forgive him but the camera focuses in only on Dean. Pats my fellow Sam fans consolingly on their heartbroken backs.

#spn spoilers #15.13 #destiny's child #episode review #episode recap #spn critical #very critical #anti dabb #anti castiel #anti everyone involved in this show right now #tbh

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passiveinsane · 4 years

Text

Fic Recs

two weeks of procrastination special!

Teen Wolf

Support by Epibreren | stiles isn’t in the loop au

In which Stiles and Derek are dating, and Stiles is under the impression that Derek is a furry.

Welcome to Rosie's Diner can I interest you in an eye-opener? by crossroadswrite | diner au

An entire diner is shipping sterek because they believe they’re a couple. Stiles and Derek, of course, are not (yet).

i wait for you like a lonely house by bleep0bleep | future au

“Derek isn’t sure why he buys the house.”

The (Figurative) Death of Destructo-Derek by newtypeshadow | Werewolf boyband au

“Derek Hale is a clumsy destruction magnet.

Except that he isn't. Unlike everyone else, Stiles can see the curse obstructing Derek's senses and tangling his limbs and causing increasingly destructive accidents. And now that the curse is turning deadly, Stiles is damn well gonna break it—whether Derek Hale believes it exists or not.”

Foundations by Spooks, thesuninside

“Spooks: Yanno, I can't believe that for a show set in California, they didn't do anything with natural disasters.”

Somewhere to Start by Lissadiane | fantasy au(???)

Beauty and the beast au where Stiles is half-fae, Derek is the heir to the Hales, and they’re both in the middle of a political ploy.

Special Order by bleep0bleep | stiles is a food critic au

Stiles, world-renowned food critic, wanders into the restaurant and life of Chef Hale.

dude, it's wednesday by stressingbisexual | series

Stiles is a twitch streamer, and other than that it’s canon-y.

adhd??? i think you mean GAYdhd amirite ladies by weeabooty

If the title isn’t convincing, there’s nothing to say.

Give Me Shelter by WonderWolf

Animal shelter volunteers au, where Derek gives punny names to cats and Stiles picks up more than one stray.

tie your napkin 'round your neck, cherie by magneticwave

“In the low light from Scott’s candles, Lydia is breathtaking. Jackson is still a butt-ugly lizard monster, but he looks like he’s having a religious experience with Stiles’ trifle, so that’s validating in a weird sort of way.” Please read this, it’s so good, cackling will happen.

Once Upon a Time by lady_ragnell

“Five fairy tales Stiles isn't the hero of, and one he might be.”

CSI: Beacon Hills by Jerakeen | restricted work, must have ao3 profile to access

“Back when Stiles was in high school Beacon Hills didn't have a crime lab, because they simply didn't need one. Those were the days.”

Werewolf Daycare by dinolaur

Stiles is forced to take care of the pack: toddler versions. Derek is not useful.

coffee housing by kellifer_fic

Superhero!pack au.

Kiss the Cook by idyll

“Derek's a professional chef, and Stiles is a blogger who butchers his recipes.”

At All Costs by forestofbabel | time-traveling stiles

“Stiles is sent on a mission in time to protect Derek Hale at all costs. He doesn’t know why Derek Hale is so important to the future, but Stiles takes his mission seriously.”

Stiles Stilinski and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Well Maybe It Wasn’t That Bad…) by thegirlgrey

Stiles has a very bad day, and then a very good one.

This is Ridiculous by zosofi | future au | Explicit

“There's a unicorn in Beacon Hills. A fricken' unicorn. In fricken' Beacon Hills, California. And it turns out that unicorns aren't drawn towards virgins in a happy-go-lucky let-me-lay-my-not-at-all-metaphorical-horn-in-your-lap way. No. They kill them. And guess who's the only virgin idiotic enough to get sucked into the Beacon Hills supernatural scene? Stiles, that's who.”

Hallowed Grounds by damnfancyscotch

“Everything in Beacon Hills is the same when Stiles comes home from college.

Well, except for the fact that he's a published author now, Scott is halfway across the world with a travelling circus, Erica's epilepsy has been cured, her boss offers him a job too, and there's this weird black dog that seems to be following him around just to judge him.

Oh, and the murders, of course.

But other than that stuff... totally the same old BH.”

Unofficial Stiles Stilinski by elliot_edison | series

“ "So you're the boy he was complaining about the first week of school." Derek tried to remember what she was talking about. When he did, he decided it was his turn to want the world to swallow him whole.

"What?" Stiles frowned.

"Oh, it's nothing bad, sweetie." His aunt Hazel (who has a weirdly calming affect on everyone, which he was grateful for) assured him. "Peter, dear, remind me, what were his exact words?"

"I believe they were something along the lines of 'he spent a whole hour yelling at me and covering me in hello kitty band-aids. I think I want to marry him.'" Peter gave him a look. "Right?” “

Half-hearted Contestant by LadyDrace | not!fic

Stiles is on Derek Hales’s bachelor TV show, but he’s mostly (mostly) there for the food.

Sparkly Pens by mm_coconut | Explicit

Journal entries by Stiles (and Derek.) NSFW

ATLA

Swear by naggeluide

“Toph grew up in the Earth Rumble, and Zuko went through adolescence at sea. Neither of them are shy about using profanity.”

NDRV3

Liar's Gift by booperbeanv3

Ouma gives a bento box, homemade, to Shuichi. They’re dumb and gay.

The Way to a Man's Heart (is through his stomach) by orphan_account

“Shuichi wishes he had at least an hour to think of a response to that, but he doesn't, so he just stares dumbly back at Kokichi. Then, there's a forkful of pancake and strawberry directly in his face. Does Kokichi really expect him to let himself be fed like that? On the same fork, even? When Shuichi doesn't bite, Kokichi frowns again. “Come on, one bite?” His bottom lip juts out, and Shuichi has to wonder if Kokichi can tell that he is hopelessly infatuated after a handful of interactions. It's so bizarre to him, the way he feels like the biggest idiot on the planet and the luckiest guy in the world to be the subject of Kokichi's attention.

And that is decidedly too much emotion for being offered a bite of pancakes, but Shuichi also hasn't ever been in a situation quite like this one before. Every word out of Kokichi's mouth feels like a test and Shuichi just wants to know the right answer. It's overwhelming.”

kokichi is gay and shit at cooking: the saga by hejustkeptonyoing

Crack, but also incredibly funny crack.

Marvel

Bring Your School to Work Day by notoneforreality

“Or yes. Clint waited all of ten seconds for everyone (tonight: Tony, Bruce, Steve, Bucky, Clint, Natasha, Pepper and Peter) to take their seats at the long dinner table before gleefully announcing that Peter had a field trip to the compound next Wednesday. Peter, sat between Bucky and Nat, opposite Tony, buried his face in his hands.

“Lord lend me patience or a handgun.”

Two separate guns were thrust into his field of vision by two separate hands, and Peter blinked. Bucky and Nat narrowed their eyes at each other and Tony snatched both guns away before Peter could touch either.

“Absolutely not. Creepy Russian sensibilities away please.”

Bucky tried to slip Peter a knife, but Steve caught him at it and confiscated the weapon.”

@pbparker by fromstarttofin | twitterfic

“peter parker @pbparker

what i was expecting when i woke up:

-to study for my finals -to eat some captain crunch -for mr stark to brief me on the press conference

what i was not expecting when i woke up:

-500 ??? thousand ??? followers ??????????”

#marvel fic recs #marvel recs #ndrv3 recs #fic recs #teen wolf recs #atla recs #new fandoms oh my #only they're not new i'm just unwilling to spam only teen wolf and instead am spamming old bms #:D i live a hectic term on this plane of existence

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echodrops · 5 years

Text

Why You Should Be Shipping Shigaraki/Ochako

No, no, hang on a second--I see that side-eye you are throwing hard enough to ruin your peripheral vision. I feel the shade you’re casting like a thundercloud rolling in. But you didn’t read wrong. I meant what I said.

I’ve never made a secret of my love for rare pairs, but for once in my damn lonely shipper’s hellscape of a life I would love it if my favorite crack ship in a fandom had more than two fics (I’m NOT JOKING) to its name.

What can I do to correct this egregious oversight before the entire summer passes with nary a whisper of the most romantic ship since Juliet wherefore art thou’d Romeo?

Well, what else? I was forged in the fires of early 2000s’ fandom, and I know that desperate times call for desperate measures meticulously researched and extremely rose-tinted

Shipping Manifestos.

Fam, I am about to blow your minds, align your chakras, open your third eyes--because Shigaraki and Ochako is the most slept on ship in the entire BNHA fandom, and if you give me ten minutes like an hour (holy shit, this is long), I can prove it.

Disclaimer: @mistystarshine is the enabler who convinced me to write this but we were both enabled by @ohmytheon’s Reconfigure (on AO3) so you know who’s really responsible.

Spoilers to Chapter 231, watch out.

First off, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe you’re still reading from pure shock. Maybe you’re doubt-reading to get your daily fix of internet skepticism. Maybe you’re waiting for me to say these two characters are meant to be because she wears pink and his hair is blue. Maybe you’re already freaking out about age gaps but like that is what future fics and AUs are actually for!!!

I’m not telling you to give up your IzuOcha or Kacchako. I’m not gonna pry ShigaDabi out of your eager little villain stan hands. But if you’ve never considered multi-shipping, now is the time my friends, because I’m totally serious heartfelt here! I’ve got VALID reasons for shipping Shigako--ten of them, in fact:

1) Midoriya is taken for granted as Uraraka’s love interest--but Shigaraki is incredibly similar to him.

There are reams of meta on the parallels between Midoriya and Shigaraki, with plenty people noting how Horikoshi specifically set the two up as foils to examine similar character development despite their drastically different circumstances. Yet for all the meta pointing out that Shigaraki and Midoriya are basically the same character through a mirror darkly, I’ve never seen anyone bear that thought out to its logical conclusion: there are traits Uraraka admires in Midoriya that are extremely apparent in Shigaraki too.

Multiple times in the manga, Uraraka expresses admiration for Deku’s resolve and refusal to give up. His determination in the face of impossible odds and his sense of dedication to his cause are powerful motivating factors in Ochako’s storyline, and Deku’s behavior--his willingness to charge straight into danger and his unflinching pursuit of his goal to be #1--have basically become the standard to which Uraraka holds herself.

Her crush is literally founded on an appreciation for Midoriya’s drive, earnestness, and constant growth as a person.

But these are all traits that Shigaraki also explicitly possesses. Shigaraki’s unwavering resolve is so strong that even though everyone around him says dream is unattainable... they follow him anyway.

Ujiko flat out tells Shigaraki he’s chasing a pipe dream, but he’s willing to come along for the ride strictly because of how committed Shigaraki is to making that dream a reality. The strength of Tomura’s conviction alone persuaded a collection of the most volatile and difficult personalities in the manga to band together and become found family the most well-known anti-establishment organization in all of Japan.

Shigaraki never, even in the face of overwhelming threat, backs down from a challenge, and he approaches each impossible task with absolutely as much effort, ferocity, and refusal to quit as Deku. He is just as dedicated, just as much of a shounen protagonist main character, and just as willing to push himself above and beyond as Deku.

The traits that motivated Uraraka to become the character she is today, many of the exact same traits that formed her crush on Midoriya, are all there in Shigaraki. In another world, the person who inspired Uraraka to go “Plus Ultra” could be Tomura himself, and if 1) no sense of self-preservation, 2) ZERO CHILL, and 3) dogged obsession are what Uraraka finds attractive, Shigaraki clearly has 'em covered. Oh no, he’s meeting all my standards.

2) Being serious though, Ochako’s role in the plot would be vastly improved by more meaningful interactions with the antagonists, even if just in battle.

I’ve written before about how badly the writing of BNHA treats Ochako, and why her constantly being out-of-focus is a hallmark of the genre’s crippling inability to handle dynamic female characters, but it bears repeating: in her current position in the story, Uraraka’s character has minimal agency. She exists to fill the role of Deku’s love interest (at worst) and an emotional crutch (at best). Again, absolutely no hate on the IzuOcha ship--it’s clearly canon endgame and “wholesome” I guess is what they’re calling it nowadays. But the way IzuOcha’s being written in canon is actually the worst possible thing that could happen to Uraraka’s individual character, because Ochako’s crush on Deku has been given virtually no bearing on the story’s main plot and allows Horikoshi to consistently reduce Uraraka’s personal accomplishments to “inspirations from Deku” (in order to, likely, fulfill young male readers’ fantasy of having a girl fixated on them).

Is Uraraka about to do something cool in the manga? Wait for her comment about being motivated by Deku.

Does Uraraka actually get to see some action and get involved in a fight? Wait for someone to bring up her feelings for Deku.

Is Deku about to have a dramatic clash with the story’s villains to advance the main plotline? Wait for Ochako to entirely vanish (at worst) or get sidelined into a three panel clip where she’ll use the same martial art move she’s been using since like chapter 10 (at best).

If I have to read “Gunhead Martial Arts” one more fucking time... Give Ochako her OWN supermoves goddammit!!

The story of the comic itself continually pushes Ochako out of any position of relevance. She’s not one of UA’s strongest fighters (despite having a quirk that, if applied like ANY of the male characters, has incredible potential), she’s not given half the emotional depth or attention even side characters like Kirishima get, and her backstory lacks the development many of the male characters’ get (I’m looking at you, Todoroki).

As a “good girl,” she isn’t allowed to get her hands dirty like Toga, she isn’t allowed to get as bloodied or ugly as any of the boys, and she can never be allowed to surpass the main male characters in coolness or plot relevance because girls can be “heroes” but they can’t be The Hero™. (I’m literally gagging, guys.)

Which is EXACTLY why a plot involving Shigaraki and Ochako--in ANY capacity, even just a flat out fight against each other!--would actually be a fan-fucking-tastic addition to BNHA.

Skip the token Toga vs. Ochako chick fight where they squabble over who loves Izuku more. Let Toga talk to Izuku as herself for once. Let Uraraka throw down with the League’s leader. At least once, Horikoshi? Just once?

Literally any form of plot that puts Shigaraki and Ochako into contact would mean moving Uraraka into a more central position within the manga’s plot, would boost her screen-time, increase the likelihood of her contributing to the story’s primary conflict, and would give her more to do and emotionally engage with than just repeating the same lines about Deku being amazing on an endless loop. There is untapped character development potential in spades here if Uraraka was given chance to genuinely interact with the other half of the story’s cast!

Give👏 Uraraka👏 something👏 meaningful👏 to do!👏

Putting the story’s foremost female character on out there on the frontlines with the manga’s actual main character antagonist would finally break her out of the mold she’s been forced into by genre stereotypes and set her on an even playing field with the male heroes at last.

A meaningful encounter with Shigaraki could be Ochako’s ticket to being treated respectfully by the story itself (and hell if giving underappreciated characters a real place in the world isn’t Tomura’s freakin’ calling card already).

3) Okay, I know the words “subverting expectations” leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth nowadays, but there is a huge difference between “throwing inexplicable plot twists at the audience just for shock factor” and “averting stale cliches in an emotionally rewarding manner.” Sure, cliches do exist for a reason, but there are still many instances where actively avoiding a cliche plotline is a great choice. A shounen manga’s token love interest ending up with someone other than the hero--namely with a (reformed) villain--would be an interesting flip on the trite “hero gets the girl” script.

Look, we all know how it goes: Hero clashes with Bad Guy. They duke it out all over Kingdom Come. RIP like fifty square city blocks. The Hero wins, heads home triumphant, sweeps his Princess off her feet, and sails off into the hero rankings sunset. End of the same story we’ve seen a million times. Sometimes it’s done well and the audience is left satisfied. Other times, the heroine involved is reduced to the hero’s reward, less person than wish fulfillment. In either case, tying up a romantic subplot with a hero is the go-to way of resolving female characters’ storylines and, at this point, pretty much a given in manga, even when the romantic subplot is never given the development it deserves, leaving audiences bewildered at how and why the hook-up actually happened.

I’m not saying every comic should “subvert expectations” and cancel its romantic subplot between the hero and heroine, of course not. But I am saying that it would be pretty refreshing to see something else for once.

By virtue of their role, villains don’t usually “get the girl.” Even redeemed villains rarely end up in happy, healthy, well-written relationships. It’s not impossible but it is unlikely that a series’ designated female lead ever wavers in her attentions from the main hero to a new romantic target.

So it would be pretty cool if one did, if the moral of the story’s romantic subplot wasn’t just "token love interest completes painfully shoehorned romantic gestures.” A good romance with a redeemed ex-villain instead of a hero would take a lot more explanation. It would demand, by its very nature, more work on the author’s part to suspend disbelief. The characters would have to develop an entirely different rapport from the normal interactions between designated love interests, and, to a certain extent, strong character growth would be required in order for such a romance to even get started. There’s more moral complexity and conflict to a subplot like this, and a greater sensation of choice--if the heroine doesn’t have to end with the hero by the end of the story, well hey... That means she could end up with just about anyone. Whoa.

Even more so, in the specific case of Shigaraki, who has lived a life of misery and manipulation, the idea that he could come out on the other side, grow as a person, redeem himself, and eventually enter a healthy relationship with someone who isn’t going to hurt him is an idea I find deeply appealing. I think there are a lot of villain stans, myself included, who see parts of themselves in Shigaraki. If a character who has been so severely impacted by abuse can still heal and ultimately end up happy, to me, that’s a far more hopeful and heart-warming conclusion than the alternatives. I did warn you this manifesto would be rose-tinted, didn’t I?

I want storylines that prove that none of us are beyond saving. That people who make bad choices can still change. That romance isn’t a reward for playing the “right” role. That heroines have options. That there are still pleasant surprises to be found in romance plots.

4) But why Shigaraki and Ochako, in particular? It’s not like they have any remotely shared life experiences--

Oops. Friendly reminder: Ochako is the only major character in the manga besides the villains who is overtly described as, I quote, “poorer than poor.” Todoroki, Yaomomo, and Iida can all make it rain; Kaminari, Mina, and Jirou can afford stylish clothes; Kirishima can drop a stupid amount on night vision googles... Even Midoriya, whose father “works overseas,“ can afford plenty of All Might merchandise. One of the popular fandom theories for a while was that Ochako could be U.A.’s traitor specifically because of her desire to help her parents financially, and I think that most readers at this point can discern a clear divide in BNHA’s society: heroes are the “haves” and villains are the “have nots.” To be a hero in this story is to attend a prestigious school, have access to expensive support items, gear, insurance, fame and glory, etc.

Meanwhile, with the exception of All For One, to be a villain in BNHA’s story is to be marginalized, live in unfit conditions, lack access to basic safety and nutritional resources, and struggle to make ends meet. When ability to thrive in a hero-centric society is synonymous with being a good and worthwhile person, anyone who doesn’t just naturally excel in the hero-driven economy is treated as flawed at best and suspect at worst. Poor characters in the story are ignored, and, as demonstrated with people like Twice, left essentially to fend for themselves.

Uraraka’s status as lower income is mostly played for laughs. She’s still a privileged character in that she can attend U.A., receive hero items for free, has a safe place to live, etc. But it is important that the story acknowledges her family’s situation, because her financial status does set her apart from her classmates.

She is less privileged than the others. Being “the poor character” situates Uraraka in the interesting divide between those who couldn’t cope and chose to rebel against hero society instead, versus those who conformed to the hero system in an attempt to improve their situations. In different circumstances, if Uraraka’s family was just even the tiniest bit worse off, we might be seeing a very different character here, one who had to make some much harder choices to keep her family afloat.

Having been in the position of "going without,” Uraraka also has a unique understanding of the “real world” that many of her heroics classmates might lack. She understands what it is like to go hungry, to not be able to afford to keep up with the newest trends, to be constantly anxious about the future--to feel unsuccessful, overlooked, and under constant pressure to perform. As someone who wasn’t raised in the lap of luxury or even really a middle-class home, Uraraka has more insight into--and would likely have more empathy for--the plight of the downtrodden daily criminals of the BNHA world. Just based on her own life experiences, Ochako is more likely than her classmates to recognize how harsh reality can be, and understand the temptations that lead people to make terrible decisions.

This makes Ochako an especially interesting character in terms of her pro hero future. Would she be able to sympathize and reach out to struggling "villains” more effectively than others from her class, who lack her humble background? Would she be able to better see the big picture of BNHA’s society, and the way it actively creates villains from its marginalized populations? Would she be able to look at the League not just as criminals, but also as people who never stood a chance within the confines of a rigged social structure?

Uraraka’s background shifts her closer to the story’s villains than many of the other hero characters, and puts her in a unique place to both empathize and become motivated to change the flawed system that produced people like Shigaraki and the League in the first place.

5) Likewise, Uraraka’s background actually makes her more palatable to Shigaraki than other heroes. At least at the beginning of the comic, Uraraka isn’t shy about admitting that one of her reasons for becoming a hero is to help her parents financially. Ochako’s original motivation for heroism isn’t portrayed as nobly as others’ like Deku--Deku has no ulterior motives for being a hero; he just wants to save people and wouldn’t care about personally benefiting.

Instead, Ochako is presented as someone who (initially) sees heroism as a means to an end. It’s not that she doesn’t want to save people, but that she’s not doing so only for the intrinsic worth... the hefty paycheck that comes from heroism is a big draw.

Over time the manga has shown her shifting away from this (which actually makes her character less unique, unfortunately), but I’m sure it’s still a thought for her, and she’s definitely going to send paychecks to her parents in the future. At the end of the day, heroism is still going to be Uraraka’s ticket to a better lifestyle, even if she’s committed herself to it honestly by the time she leaves U.A.

But it’s this exact form of personal motivation that Shigaraki is much more likely to understand than the “goody-two-shoes” motivations of people like Deku. Multiple times in the comic Shigaraki has expressed confusion with society’s habit of clinging mindlessly to symbols, of their blind faith in the virtues of heroism, and their ability to simply overlook suffering because “surely a hero will do something about it.” Stain’s ideals about “true heroes” go straight past Shigaraki, who seems to hate heroes who are earnest (All Might, I’m talking about All Might) far more than those who are simply faking their way through for fame.

Shigaraki understands humans who are driven by personal gain. He respects the individual desires of people he cares about. Someone in the hero industry explicitly seeking tangible benefits would likely, to Shigaraki at least, come across as more genuine than someone who claims they have no ulterior motives, and a person who is blunt about their needs and grounded in the reality of BNHA’s world would likely be much more acceptable to Tomura than someone who spews trite lines about peace and justice.

Shigaraki’s feelings for heroes have been irreparably damaged by his conditioning from All For One, but there are certainly some heroes that he would find less loathsome than others. He will probably never understand Deku’s selflessness. All Might’s saccharine symbolism actively infuriates him. But a person who became a hero to put food on the table? To provide for her parents (maybe especially because it is her parents she’s trying to provide for)? That’s at least understandable. If the manga’s future does see Shigaraki redeemed, my thought is that the only type of heroes we’ll ever see him willingly interact with would still be heroes just like Ochako, with more “down to earth” personal motivations. Uraraka, your codename is “If I had to date a hero”...

6) While we’re talking about shared life experiences, there’s another very obvious similarity between Shigaraki and Ochako: neither one of them can touch things with all five fingers.

Cute/fridge horror observation: Shigaraki is even daintier about touching things than Uraraka is; Uraraka usually lifts just her pinkies, but Shigaraki frequently uses as few fingers as possible.

Yeah, yeah, they both have to be dainty and careful with everything they hold. It’d be cute to watch them eat together. They could mutually gripe about the annoyance of video game consoles not designed for four-finger use. More than that though, neither one of them can touch other human beings without the risk of causing death.

Uraraka, as a hero, has the more privileged quirk design (she can turn her quirk off, while Shigaraki can’t) and until recently, the comic was always very careful to portray Uraraka’s quirk in a way that no one was endangered by it. But dropping Zero Gravity into the hands of a villain for a single chapter reveals the truth: Uraraka’s quirk has just as much lethal potential as Shigaraki’s.

Like Shigaraki, Uraraka has to face the reality that her touch alone could jeopardize the safety of anyone she comes into contact with, in her daily life and in her hero work. Drop some debris without looking twice? Just crushed a civilian. Release your quirk without thinking? Now the villain you floated is paste on the sidewalk. Thought that it was safe to float away the building? Oops, you crushed someone still trapped inside. Yikes. In a one-on-one battle, Uraraka is actually at a disadvantage not because her quirk is weak, but the dead opposite--in an outdoor fight, she would have to actively work not to accidentally send people off into outer space.

Having an auto-activate touch quirk means that both Shigaraki and Ochako have to be conscious of every single thing they touch all the time. Both of their quirks require constant bodily awareness, and both come with the lurking knowledge that “My touch causes problems.” Even for Ochako, who would merely be a nuisance if she accidentally floated objects indoors, it’s easy to internalize frustration and negative associations with one’s own body. Every day, Ochako has to be careful with herself in a way that few of her peers do, another factor that sets her apart.

One of the story’s overarching themes is the idea of “self-acceptance” and what it even means to “accept yourself” in a world where (almost) every human being possesses a distinguishing feature, often built into their bodies at the expense of standard human functioning. For people with limited control over their quirks, who can’t choose when the effect activates, a quirk is a constant burden and facet of their identity that entirely re-shapes how they interact with the world. Both Shigaraki and Uraraka face the practicality of having burdensome, even lethal, auto-activate quirks that require constant self-awareness. This is a similarity that, of the major characters, only Shigaraki and Ochako possess so far. (Even other major characters with touch-based quirks like Overhaul appear to be able to choose when to activate their quirks).

The “funny” way Shigaraki and Ochako hold things seems like just a small similarity until you remember the amount of practice and frustration it must have taken to internalize a four-fingered touch. Until you remember that this similarity marks them both as very careful and self-conscious characters. Until you remember that Shigaraki’s got a one-touch instakill... but so does Uraraka Ochako.

7) Okay, similarities are cool and all, but you know what they say: opposites attract. And if we’re talking character motivation, there are no cleaner opposites in the entire series. Shigaraki and Ochako are actually even better emotional foils than Shigaraki and Deku, because Ochako’s central motivation is “Make as many people smile as possible” and Shigaraki’s is, literally, “Make it so no one can ever smile again.”

I know I ragged on it earlier, but now I’m going to use it to my full advantage: as the story evolved and characters grew, Ochako’s “true” motivation to become a hero revealed itself: she feels a deep, intrinsic happiness when witnessing the happiness of others. Her desire as a hero is to spread relief, the sense of security that allows people to go about their days smiling. She literally feels happiest when everyone around her is happy.

Even more so than Deku, this casts Uraraka as Shigaraki’s diametric opposite in the story, because Shigaraki’s entire pipe dream goal also hinges on the smiles of others--and how absolutely much he hates them. Shigaraki’s goal is total world destruction because he just resents the happiness of others that fucking much.

On the surface alone it’s more fascinating than the story will probably ever live up to: Ochako, the heroine who wants to spread smiles; Shigaraki, the villain who wants to destroy them. Even if we’re just talking canon, zero romance involved, that would still be an interesting conflict to explore. The story could cover a lot of deeper ground by drawing the comparison between these two characters more directly. It would definitely validate Uraraka being involved in more major plot events, at the very least.

BUT this was supposed to be about shipping, so of course I can’t leave it there, and leaving it there would only be half the story anyway, because nobody is born hating smiles. Everything we’ve seen of Shigaraki’s past so far indicates that he was a kid with a cute dog, a warm relationship with his sister, and an interest in heroes--i.e., a decent life that probably included his own fair share of smiles. Shigaraki’s hatred and resentment are direct products of the traumatic manipulation he suffered at AFO’s hands. He despises the idea that people around him can smile and act upbeat, even when they objectively know villains are lurking all around them. He is actually sick to his stomach at the idea of people blindly putting their faith in heroes, knowing what he does: that heroes often fail, that there are many people who desperately need to be rescued and are instead overlooked. The world failed Shimura Tenko and then had the nerve to keep on smiling without him.

Other people’s smiles represent nothing but the joy, security, love, and peace that Shigaraki Tomura hasn’t experienced since the day his quirk manifested. The sight of any living thing fills Shigaraki with rage because everything bright and beautiful, everything good and calm and kind and soft and warm, is everything that Shigaraki has lost and believes he will never, ever get to experience again.

Shigaraki doesn’t really hate the pure happy smiles of others; he hates the fact that the world has taken away every single thing he ever had to smile about.

It is my belief that Horikoshi is hinting at a redemption arc for Shigaraki, especially as we see the League become closer allies. But Shigaraki can’t be completely redeemed, can’t be persuaded to give up his world-destruction plan, until he can look at the smiles of others without scorn. Until the bright, upbeat attitudes of heroes other people no longer feel like a personal attack. Until he’s happy enough that the happiness of others no longer hurts. Until the weight is lifted.

And I can’t think of any character more obviously suited to helping lift an immense weight than Uraraka, the zero gravity hero who wants nothing more than to spread smiles.

8) Speaking of lifting weights... Kacchako is a popular ship stemming in large part from Bakugou’s refusal to treat Uraraka with kid gloves. He faces her head-on as a real opponent and views her like any other hero hopeful.

As I’ve said before, this is pretty much the most respectfully the series itself has ever treated Uraraka Ochako, and it caught a lot of attention because it was one of the rare occasions that a female pro hero-in-training was really treated as an equal to the male characters. Kacchako shippers had something awesome to work with.

But... You know who else treats women as equals? (Hell, you know who treats literally everyone as equals, from those with mutant quirks to trans people to those with severe mental health issues?) You can say what you want about Shigaraki’s habit of, you know, mass murder, but in terms of viewing others equally and respecting (okay, let’s be real, it’s probably closer to just ignoring) differences, Tomura is about as open-minded as BNHA characters come. The League is an equal opportunity employer.

Unlike actual hero characters, Shigaraki has never once suggested that Toga is incapable of keeping up with any of the male members of the League, and in fact has entrusted her with many of the League’s most dangerous and crucial missions. He explicitly has faith in her ability and skill.

Toga’s right there in the fight against Gigantomachia and the QLA, as much an equal member of the League as anyone else. In terms of gender equality, the villains seem to be light-years ahead of their hero counterparts, and Shigaraki in particular doesn’t discriminate, among his allies or his opponents either. He’s not a “spare the women and children” kind of guy; every hero and villain challenger is treated with equal violence (and equal snark), whether they’re male, female, a long-time pro or a student in training.

In whatever context--canon opponent, AU ally, or a future romantic interest--Shigaraki would take Ochako just as seriously as Bakugou did. If you like Kacchako because Bakugou doesn’t dismiss Uraraka, that same dynamic would be present in Shigako too.

9) And on the topic of Shigaraki and women... It doesn’t feel accidental that every single female character who ever had love for Shigaraki has been taken away from him. A distinct part of Shigaraki’s storyline is that all positive female role models have been systematically removed from his life. He lost his grandmother, a hero he could have looked up to; he lost his mother, who he now has no memory of; he lost the older sister he clearly held dear... All For One’s control over Tomura has always been total, but this particular detail feels especially insidious: was All For One’s spite for Nana so strong that he delighted in deliberately destroying every single relationship Tenko had with women connected to Nana’s legacy? (Or is AFO perhaps just a raging misogynist? Every single one of his known associates is male and he seemed to despise and mock Nana particularly hard...)

In any case, the point I’m trying to make here is that, even ruling love interests out, Shigaraki’s storyline would be enriched by forging a meaningful connection with a female character like Ochako. Acceptance--maybe even some grudging admiration--for a female hero? A fantastic opportunity to show just how different the “villains” are from the discriminatory society that produced them. Supporting friendship while he’s on the road to recovery? A+ way to diversify interactions between the male and female cast. Send a tough girl to Tartarus to question his motives? Nice chance for tense dialogue and some good old noire-esque foe yay. Hostage situation that takes a turn for the surprisingly cordial? Fun way to explore different dynamics and humanize the villains because hey, they treated the “damsel” to dinner shortbread cookies. My god, Shigaraki could even develop some positive sense of rivalry with a woman, for example! The possibilities are endless if you’re actually willing to give female characters a shot!

Being more serious, Tomura’s life has been dramatically marked by the loss of his female family members, and--at least from what we know so far--his entire youth was spent without the presence of reliable friendships, let alone any form of “love” that wasn’t disturbingly fake. Beyond his fragmented memories, he has no models for healthy relationships, romantic or otherwise.

Letting Shigaraki develop to the point that he could form a mutually positive relationship with a female hero character would be extremely cathartic for me as a reader. I don’t mean “rewarding redemption with a last-minute happy ending romance”--I mean actually getting the opportunity to watch Tomura rediscover what it means to be genuinely loved and realize he has the capacity to give love and be happy in return...

Reaching that level of mutual support and closeness--especially with a female pro hero--would be the biggest “FUCK YOU” that Shigaraki could give to All For One, short of, you know, actually killing him.

Shigaraki Tomura has a critical (and deliberate) lack of healthy connections to women. BNHA, coincidentally, has a criminally under-utilized female lead just twiddling her thumbs over here, waiting for a meaningful plotline to be thrown her way.

Sure, putting AFO in prison is cool and all, but have you considered... crushing his pride and legacy of evil by helping the boy he tortured for years learn to love again? I’m just sayin’!

Uraraka Ochako, snatching Shigaraki right the fuck out of AFO’s hands:

10) Basically what the whole thing boils down to is this: Shigaraki Tomura needs a hero.

Don’t mistake my meaning. A lot of “girl meets bad boy” plots end up amounting to “girl becomes emotionally responsible for fixing bad boy’s issues,” and that’s not what I’m gunning for--Shigaraki has to redeem himself because redemption is only meaningful when it stems from the character’s own inner desire to change; I’m not quite rose-tinted enough to buy into the Love Redeems trope myself. I’m definitely not advocating anyone dump Shigaraki Tomura as he is now into Uraraka Ochako’s lap and expect her to turn him from a beast to a beauty. It’s not an unrelated woman’s responsibility to fix a broken man.

But! From a reader’s perspective, I think we can agree: Shigaraki’s redemption cannot be complete until he learns to believe in real heroes. He doesn’t have to like them. He doesn’t have to support hero society. But he has to be able to look at real heroes like Izuku and Ochako and admit that they are doing what’s right--that society is a better place because they are here. Shigaraki’s path to recovery can’t even begin until he’s capable of at least acknowledging that the world has things worth saving in it.

If Horikoshi moves forward with a redemption arc for Shigaraki, it will probably be Deku who Detroit Smashes the message of truly noble heroes into Shigaraki’s head. That’s his job as the resident Warrior Therapist, I suppose. But you know... to me, it might be even more meaningful if Shigaraki’s hero--if the hand that reaches out to rescue him--isn’t The Hero’s™ but just a hero’s. We all know Deku is selfless and good to the core. As All Might’s perfect successor, he really has nothing to prove. It’s everyone else who is in question. It’s the whole rest of hero society that owes Shigaraki Tomura an explanation for the suffering of people like the League’s members. It’s everyone else who needs to prove they can do better--that in the future, there will be no bloody children left abandoned in back alleyways.

Uraraka Ochako’s conviction is to save people. As a female hero who hasn’t lived a privileged life, she’s uniquely situated to think about those who are most often overlooked. In a world where violence begets violence, where only those with strength and flash excel, what a powerful message it would send for the terrifying antagonist to effectively be rescued by someone the story itself has called “a frail girl.” At the end of the day, heroics isn’t supposed to be about mountain-destroying explosions and mach punches--heroics is supposed to be about heart, about reaching out a gentle helping hand, about spreading smiles to those who need them most.

Tomura’s faith in heroes has been brutally stripped from him, and every part of his conflict is tied up intimately with his misdirected hatred: it wasn’t actually heroes who isolated and hurt him--it was villains. In order to move forward, he will have to come to that horrible realization, deal with that means for himself and his place in the world, and recognize the truth: there are goodness and good people in the world. Selfless heroes, those who wouldn’t turn their backs on a crying child, do exist. There are people, even now, who would extend a kind hand to Shigaraki Tomura and do their best to bring a real smile to his face. Because that’s what’s really going on, after all.

Shimura Tenko is still waiting to be saved.

And I know just the person to do it.

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kusunokihimea · 5 years

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[ x x x ]

[ So due to life being a TOTAL MESS these last several weeks, I actually managed to miss a rather important date last week...that being the fourth anniversary of Ryū and I RPing on Tumblr! It’s weird, it both feels like it’s been longer, and shorter...but! To celebrate, I thought we’d do a little shout-out to the peeps who have stuck around the longest, interacted the most, and overall just made these past four years as fun as they have been.

Sadly very few of our original partners remain, but we’ve gained and lost many over the past four years! This, of course, isn’t mean to exclude anyone who has found us more recently (and some inactive blogs may be excluded, but are still loved), but as a little something for those who have been around for the long haul, and who we’ve gotten to know well both IC and OOC! The Naruto RPC has seen its share of ups and downs and changes, after all. So without further adieu...here we go! ]

@historias-multorum :: Little sib! Someone I’ve known I think pretty much since you started, right? A wonderful friend, and so many great interactions between our many muses. It’s been so awesome watching you and your muses grow since you arrived in the community. Tumblr wouldn’t be what it is to us without you <3

@ascxndinggg :: MY SON. Core of my heart, receiver of puns, sharer of memes. The last of my OG mutuals from those first few weeks when so many of us OC blogs banded together and got each other going. You’ve grown so much little one, as a person and a writer, and it’s humbling to see. I love you, kiddo <3

@duckbuttsurvivor :: Sanjiii! One of the first Sasuke blogs we got to interact with, and my goodness Ryū scooped him up as her little brother so fast xD She adores him, and you’re such a good bean, Sanji. A wonderful artist (who has drawn FAR too many things for us (which we love ofc)) and just a sweet guy with sweet muses that we adore <3

@despairinghxpe / @uchiha-madara :: Oh Phoenix, where to begin with you? The clicking between our muses was so much fun to explore (and in some cases, so unexpected!), and remain some of my most memorable interactions we’ve had in this site since coming here. Your writing is phenomenal, and you’ve always been such a sweetie to talk to whenever we get the chance <3

@frogprinceus / @redlineoffate :: MITSUKI! Oh my gosh, writing with you has ALWAYS been such a blast. I love your muses, and all of their bonds with my silly beans. From father-daughter interactions with Jiraiya, to ItaRyū, to all Ryū’s friends on redline, there’s never a shortage of bonds between our blogs. And you are legitimately one of the nicest muns we’ve ever had the pleasure to meet! <3

@hyugainterior :: Hina-mun, you too are one of the brightest lights in the Naruto (and other fandoms) RPC. Your voracious positivity never fails to inspire me. While we don’t write IC, you’re still one of the most memorable people I’ve met during my time here, and every snippet of conversation we have is a gift I treasure. I just hope you’re keeping up with your own well-being as much as you strive to do so for others <3

@sennenryuu :: Another AMAZING OC blog - one that’s dipped in and out of the RPC, but one I’ve adored since discovering it. N, your level of attention to detail of your character and her lore is something I very much look up to and strive to match as a character creator and worldbuilder myself. We’re so happy to see you back in the community, and can’t wait to write with you and get to know you more <3

@yukaikokoro :: STAR! Devourer of my lore x’’D Seriously though, you’ve become one of my closest friends, and I love just chatting with you, and writing with you. It’s been so much fun talking about DL with you, and you’ve honestly been a huge help in pushing my imagination further with it. Now all I gotta do is write it, right? But seriously, we love you both <3

@scnjuclan :: Another blog we’ve formed such awesome IC bonds with. I love our family verse so much - it’s one of my favorite canon-based verses. Little Ryū looks up to Tsunade so much, and uncle Nawaki is a major favorite! All of our interactions always feel so welcoming and organic, I love them. And it’s always great to chat with you, Bailey <3

@silverfaxg :: Oh my goodness, this is seriously the cutest OC blog we’ve ever encountered. Kadia is SUCH A SWEETHEART, and I adore our interactions, especially with Ryū and with Reiji. They’re all just so fluffy and filled with good feels. And chatting ooc is always fun, talking about our silly beans and what shenanigans they’ve gotten themselves into next, ahaha <3

@kyuuzuchiha / @xkaekox :: Booooo~ One of the sweetest muns on the planet. And I know you don’t write too much anymore, but our interactions with both Naruto and Sasuke are too beloved NOT to say something. Between the sibling-like aspect with Naruto, and the budding romance with Sasuke, just...! So many great times. And of course we miss YOU alongside those boyos, and hope you’re doing well my friend <3

@quiet-kunoichi :: Jack, my dear friend. Golly I miss writing with your girl. The modern thread we had was honestly one of my all-time faves and I miss it to pieces, it was SO GOOD. And I love having our little pop-up chats! I hope you’re doing well, and look forward to any return you might make in the future so our girlies can continue being gay messes xD <3

@abyssaldespair :: mEEEG! Bruh. One of my most active RP partners, and one of my closest friends. Still astounds me how we went from cracky side interactions to the mess of shipping and threads and fics we have now, my gosh xD I LOVE our IC stuff, and also just getting to chat with you. Just! One of my besties for sure <3

@noharin :: I AM SO HAPPY YOU’RE ON TUMBLR AGAIN AHHH. I am A Mess at keeping up with Discord stuff but ohman, it’s so great having Rin-senpai back in town across all my silly bloggus. Mey you’re a peach and I love ya and we’ve had so many great threads and AUs. By far one of my favorite blogs and muns <3

@ncgeru :: Oh my gosh, this blog man - this blog xD You are so much fun to talk to OOC even if we don’t do so too often. My goodness. And don’t even get me started on your boy. He’s such a gem! Ryū cares about that boyo a ridiculous amount, and I still giggle to myself over the ToD game with him and Obito duking it out, my gosh xD I love our interactions and always love to see where they go next <3

@i-minato-chan :: I don’t get to write Ryū when she’s a smol too often, so honestly this blog and the AU we write in is SUCH a breath of fresh air. Your little Minato is such a good boy, and Ryū’s friendship with him is so pure and adorable. I love it. Whether it’s them being nerds together or just chilling, each thread has been so much fun <3

@masshirohebi :: Okay real talk, your blog intimidated me for the LONGEST TIME - you’re such a beautiful writer and your characterization is just! So amazing. I’m so glad to be finally interacting with you more. Seriously your Oro is just beyond perfect. I adore them and all their sneaky ways xD And you’re such a sweetie OOC, thank you for writing with us <3

@oc-lootcrate :: Oh my goodness, the OCs on this blog are so GREAT! We need to interact with more of them, I just haven’t had the time dfjhgdfg but the ones we HAVE written with have been a blast. Whether it’s adorable lil Senri or Ryū being this || close to nabbing Kenji, your muses are awesome. And you’re so sweet and easy to talk to, a v v good bloggu <3

@thecorpsecarrier :: This blog is just so...unique. I love the idea of the corpse corps, and Jun is such an intriguing character. I have LOVED our threads with the smols. Ryū is so curious about her and just! Wants to be friendos. I love them. And you’ve always been super approachable. I hope life isn’t keeping you too busy, and we get to write again soon! <3

And to all of our other mutuals we have yet to get to know, we love you guys too! And we look forward to getting to interact both IC and OOC as more time passes. Tumblr RP has, at times, been a rough place to be...but overall it’s been a second home full of wonderful friends who have gotten Ryū and I through many a tough time. So even if you aren’t listed here, you’ve made a difference in this nerd’s life one way or another, so...thank you, and we look forward to another year <3

#sylvie speaketh [ ooc ]#four year anniversary #long post #<333

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unproduciblesmackdown · 5 years

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Thoughts on Evan's feelings for Jared? I always see people talking about Jared's feelings towards Evan (for obvious reasons), but the mood around Evan is a lot quieter.

really i think part of the reason it’s much more difficult to talk about evan’s feelings about jared in a potentially em ell em sense is because like, canon gives us such a small piece of their relationship and is so vague about the entire Past Decade+ They’ve Known Each Other, and evan’s really not acting very consciously interested in jared in the duration even as Only Friends (haha…it works in two ways there b/c ppl say things like “*just* friends” but also b/c evan and jared are each other’s Only Friend…) and he’s immediately caught up in The Whole Mess before jared’s second appearance so

but also another big issue is that we’re given this whole opportunity to see how evan navigates his Romantic Feelings for someone via his crush and eventual dating relationship with zoe and yet………………………….it gives us hardly any information. it’s very weird

like? okay, so evan is pining from a distance on this girl, and since it’s only the first day of school and he’s talking about messing up a chance to talk to her after a jazz band performance, presumably the crush started in evan’s junior year or earlier………….and Pining From Afar On Someone He’s Never Had A Conversation With isn’t really useful to reference when it comes to his relationship with jared. and maybe the details of Why evan is crushing on zoe in particular potentially could’ve been handy in like, getting a concept of what attracts evan to someone, but like, i guess we get the idea that he’s picking up on her Seeming Nice (which……like, is partly an act? it’s partly an act for him too, so is he picking up on That similarity? that could be interesting but rather it seems like he just….likes that she’s nice, which, okay…) and “if i could tell her”? more like “if [this song] could tell [the audience anything about Why Evan Likes Zoe]” because that’s purportedly what it’s About but it honestly gives us no info. it just lists off unimportant details he’s noticed about her from Afar that can’t necessarily tell anyone that much about what she’s like as a person…..she doodles when bored….probably takes buzzfeed quizzes…..okay

and then when they’re together it continues to be an absolute mystery. even if we ignore all the lying and weirdness re: how it’s all tied up in tcp and connor, and try to focus on What Works to figure out what these two might be looking for in the relationship and what they’re responding to, it’s like, infinite ellipses……they’re seriously always uncomfortable around each other?? like?? once again “only us” pointedly refuses to tell us, say, why zoe likes evan. they Joke Around in that scene and that’s like okay haha bants i guess that’s good, but it seems to be about warding off the tension so………the omnipresent Discomfort……….like can they have a substantial conversation?? imo the moment between them that might like, give us Anything to work with is when evan is accidentally “”””rude”””” in rightly pointing out that zoe seeming to imply that evan wishing his mom was rich rather than poor Stems From Ignorance is a terrible take……and then zoe says she was impressed by his ostensible Not Being Niceness, and yknow, the whole part of the show where she’s getting to be angry and ~rude~ and not getting along with evan is like, most interesting re: her character b/c she’s just refusing to Lie. inchresting moment!!!!! maybe evan and zoe could bond over feeling obligated to Act Nice / Accommodating despite doing so for different reasons!!! but no. the moment just Goes Away instead

we really just….in spite of how much Content in canon is devoted to evan’s feelings about zoe and their relationship, we get like………..no info about why evan likes zoe. she is a girl who is nice? and that’s all we’ve got. cue jared’s off broadway (?) line of: we get it, it’s very heterosexual…….fittingly in response to evan Not Really Answering the question of why he’s so #about zoe………

liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike my takeaway from these (non)examples of Evan’s Romantic Feelings is…………that evan is pretty freaking clueless about his own feelings? and is hardly deeply analyzing even this nice safe crush on a girl so like. if he Does have latent feelings for jared at that point, i really do not think he is Conscious of them or of their True Nature.

that’s not to say i don’t think it’s possible that he Could have those latent feelings in canon. even though evan ignoring jared is a whole part of the plot / leads up to good for you, and that evan’s dissatisfaction with his and jared’s relationship is like, suggested right off b/c nobody’s signing his cast, when they Do get in sync (literally!! lol! they’re Singing!) in sincerely me it’s very effortless and we see The One Time that evan drops his “gotta be nice and accommodating” facade b/c he’s with jared and nobody else, and the way they interact here (and at other points) speaks to how comfortably familiar they feel with each other and how they’re pretty In Tune with each other. and the sincerely me scene makes jared want more of that experience of being alone together and having fun and being in sync, but evan isn’t pursuing jared at all unless to ask for input about His Zany Situation………see: evan’s cluelessness and Not Really Reflecting On Feelings

like, jared may or may not realize that his feelings for evan are Like That, but we know that it is whole entire Canon that he is conscious of his desire to have a close and real relationship with evan. whereas evan is like, seemingly not tuned into this fact about jared at all

like baaaasically unless it’s an au i don’t think of evan as becoming Aware of any Feelings™ for jared until after canon (or sometime before the Finale 1.5 Yrs Later scene, possibly)………..like, i think those feelings Could be present in canon and could even be affecting events in canon, which is a fun (i mean nothing about canon is particularly Fun) perspective to take, but i don’t think evan like, is going to think about feelings like that in even a “is it Possible it’s a crush” way in canon

but like, mutual pining is great, and even if we have these two Trying to work on communication skills, you Know that even if they’re both at stage Awareness Of Crush, neither is just going to up and talk to the other about it. smh

re: what Could be there in canon that evan’s not yet aware of……i mean, he’s all about Longing for shit, and we can assume he maybe wishes he and jared were closer too, but unlike jared actually trying to make that happen, it kinda feels more like evan just figures that that’s Just Not How Things Are and there’s nothing he can do about that………i also just kinda feel like evan could be at a stage where if there’s even a glimmer of awareness re: A Gay Feeling it’s like oh denial time, what if i were to decide i’m even more committed to this crush on a conveniently Unattainable™ Girl who……seems nice……..yeah awesome

like i really don’t think that Feelings For Jared would truly spring out of nowhere for evan as in “the feelings are nonexistent during canon”…..but it might Seem like it’s ~totally new~ re: a changed perspective when it comes to those feelings, b/c i don’t think of evan-during-canon as aware of that kind of thing or really devoting much thought on it. being an apparent great essayist means that not only must his writing be decent but his Ability To Analyze things must be, too!! let’s have some parallels of jared reading evan’s letter, as it’s all too easy to think he must have, and evan reading jared’s letters, i.e. Fake Connor’s emails to evan. analyze That content evan

anyways yeah i just think of Evan During Canon as totally unawares but i do think that if he Was to reflect on how he feels about jared, which we don’t really see him doing in any significant way thanks in part to being distracted the whole time, it’s entirely possibly there could’ve already been mutual pining lol. like, it’s not that i don’t think The Feelings Could Be There, cuz really, it feels like if there WAS that awareness that yeah we could really be making progress here. but i also think that like, evan needs to shift his broader perspective of jared as well to get to the point that that’s possible. cuz he’s just kind of not seeing ways the relationship could be different than it is and i think that like, the lack of communication, e.g. not directly saying what they want / not talking for stretches of time potentially ((another) e.g. how they apparently hadn’t talked all summer) also plays into Miscommunication……..like, i do think that jared is trying to express friendliness and affection, but evan is just like “Sigh!!! 9_9″ about him and like, focusing on the lack of what he considers Real Connection Ideal Friendship things, like apparently that Open Direct Communication about feelings and dreams and stuff, and frolicking in meadows, and emailing

speaking of, evan nervously refuting any possibility of Being Gay twice in four minutes does not suggest he’s someone ready to think about the love that one man feels for another or anything

and it’s all in line with how jared’s pretty much seeing evan more accurately than evan sees himself, being the Teller Of Truth, the stand-in for The All-Seeing Audience……………..jared’s the more Aware one here, both about evan And himself And everything else that’s going on. he may not have an objective or omniscient perspective on anything, and he’s obviously making mistakes in how he understands things about himself and evan and everything else, but evan’s kind of just careening around knocking shit over and just struggling to keep up rather than really think things over…….and also it’s clear that he’s Avoiding thinking some stuff over thanks to messiness and uncertainty and all that

uhhh in conclusion………………i think evan’s feelings for jared During The Events Of Canon would be repressed and unexamined and he’s just like, put everything in his life in this box of “i hate it” and so he not only has to be willing to really redirect some focus to jared but also like………..really consider him anew and maybe see the good in what’s already existed in their relationship rather than just see how it fails to measure up to what evan Thought was proof of friendship (signing a cast) or the ideal best frienditude (straightforward encouragement, personal lore-sharing, frolicking, etc). basically Stop Ignoring him, which is what would’ve made jared happy in the first place lol. so yeah something like all that

#s/o to this person going around asking about Evan's Feelings Re Jared #we Love that. really getting random asks abt kleinsen and related stuff is beautiful #deh #kleinsen #Anonymous

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kachinnate · 5 years

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these are a few of my faaavorite fics ✨

not that anyone asked for my opinion BUT these are a couple of my… fav deh fics of all time!* they’re all linked to ao3 and i think i have all the authors tagged that i know of that has a tumblr so

*i made this list especially for fics that aren’t, like.. as well known as some of the Popular Fandom Fics, partially bc everyone’s already read them and knows how awesome they are and partially bc otherwise this list would be ten pages long hehe,,, also sorry if you’re seeing this twice, i had to repost bc the links were all broken ??

throwing under a readmore bc this is a chunky boy!!!!! keep in mind that these aren’t in any particular order:

in the in-between - chchchchcherrybomb, vinegar-and-glitter (x) [tree bros] – Connor’s turning 27. Evan’s sitting the bar exam. Over and over again. – itsa timeloop au!! i’m not sure if this is a common au or not, but i’ve never read anything else like this before, and ohhhh my god. each chapter is a switch-off from connor’s pov to evan’s pov, and i assume the authors each wrote for one character (?), but oh my god their writing works so well together?? they both have distinct styles and ways of writing but it flows together perfectly,, without spoiling anything, ev and connor’s dynamic in this universe is a lot different to anything else i’ve personally read before, partially because they’re quite a bit older here than in canon (which, while is obviously portrayed, they still are easily recognizable as the characters they are in the musical), and partially because it strays away from the common ‘they’re both misfits/not doing great, but connor is worse for wear and evan has to save him’, which i think is rlly nice.. (also, like, never have i ever considered that evan would want to be a lawyer, but after reading this fic not only am i sold on it but i’m convinced 100% that him being a lawyer could genuinely be fuckin canon) (also also, the evan characterization in this? hands down my favorite out of any fic i’ve ever read tbh) the world building is really incredible too - like, i don’t even want to consider this one a fuckin fic bro because it’s like highkey just this incredible novel?? it also has a completed sequel called it’s always been you (x) that i haven’t finished that takes place after the events of this fic, and so far?? also fucking incredible 15/10 i definitely recommend

lapse - cecropia / @wildflowermonet (x) [tree bros] – “For what it’s worth,” Connor says casually, “I don’t think you should die tonight.” – welcome to another installment of ‘kayla read this and immediately couldn’t think about anything else for a solid consecutive 12 hours’!! evan and connor have really wonderful characterizations in this one too - i’m pretty sure i’ve elaborated on it before but literally my favorite thing is when people actually write evan as more than an anxious kid, and omg this author did that perfectly asfjkdsg - you can see the subtle Growth as he gets more comfortable with connor and jared (and all the other deh characters too bc this fic has a lovely fOUND FAMILY FINISH AT THE END EEE) and it’s just. aaaah. *heart eyes emoji*. it’s set in their senior year, and they form an unsteady friendship and learn to lean on each other and figure out the whole ‘having friends’ thing, midway through evan realizes he’s a-pinin’, it’s just. Great. this fic is relatively new too i think so u def def def should go give it a read and give the author some love!!!!!!!!!!!

to have a friend - demistories / @transanabeth (x) [tree bros] – Pretend to be friends with Connor Murphy, who yells at people and skips class to smoke and pushes people and threw a printer in the second grade, for twenty dollars a week.

Evan closes his hand around the bill and then stuffs it into his pocket.

“I-I’ll do it.” – ok this is one of, if not, the first fic i’ve ever read coming into the fandom, so it of course has a rlly special place in my heart!! it’s a classic ‘fake dating au’, also with switching povs between chapters. connor offers evan 20$ a week to be his fake friend, almost follows through with the events of the musical but doesn’t, finds out about evan’s own attempt, and they just sorta… cope together. it’s a lot of second guessing bc neither of them knows if the other considers the other a friend or not, and ofc when the fake dating part comes in that gets amplified by 10 asdfghj. honestly i think it’s a cooler approach to the fake dating au troupe (the chapter titles are increments of 20$, which honestly is equally cruel as is creative) and is so!! heartwrenching!!! it’s been a while since i’ve read it but i’m pretty sure that i bawled at the twist so >’D

the only thing is that this fic isn’t finished and there isn’t an intention for it to be finished from what i know of(?) - the author included a brief synopsis of the ending to tie loose ends and give a sort of closure to the fic, but that absolutely doesn’t take away from how freaking incredibly written it is and doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a read anyway !! i kept up with it while it was a WIP and honestly every time i got the email notification that it updated i dropped everything to fuckin read that shit 😤😤 when i think of deh fics, this is honestly just one of the first that comes to mind for me just bc it was one of the first ones i’ve read, and it just… was so good that i still think about it months after i read the last chapter safkjasf

no comfort in the truth - @nothingunrealistic (x) [kleinsen] – Like everyone in the world, Evan has the last words his soulmate will ever say to him on his skin.

Evan hears a lot of last words during his senior year. – okay if this were an accurate list i’d literally have every drabble soph has ever written down on here but that is entirely beside the point

literally knowing beforehand that this is a kleinsen fic and then reading the summary, u kno this shit is going to be painful ,, honestly this style is one of my fave fic formats (especially when it comes to writing in the canon deh universe) because like ,, it’s simplistic but works really well as a story-telling method?? not everything has to be perfectly strung together and every day doesn’t have to be written out for it to still convey the same like.. impact as a super long fic would, and honestly writing it in like flashes or snippets makes the build up that much more anticipating? bc again when u write within the events of the musical it’s not like u don’t know what’s going to happen,, u can focus less on worldbuilding bc hey, it’s already done for u, and instead write more indepthly about the topic of the soulmate au!! but uhhh REGARDLESS soph is literally the kleinsen matriarch in my eyes, they always write evan and jared w/ Perfect characterization and dynamics and just Ah! this one is angsty, but it has a v nice and hopeful ending, and i *clutches heart* love,,,

nowhere else i’d rather be: nosecoffee / @nose-coffee (x) [tree bros] – A fake dating au where they’re next door neighbours, Evan bakes, and Connor’s already a little in love with Evan anyway – this one is a series - the first fic kinda Establishes stuff and the second one gets into the whole fake dating thing!! they live in apartments next to each other, evan bakes for connor, they go campin with connor’s family, it’s just….. rlly sweet and i love it

also, it contains this hilarious bit that i haven’t been able to forget about despite finding this fic months ago:

do me a favour - can your heart rate rise a little? - nosecoffee / @nose-coffee (x) [treebros]

an au where the hansen family owns an arcade….. honestly what more can i say?? it’s slowburn and treebros and i p much love everything that nosecoffee has written ever so this is no exception obviously

jared and connor vs. the mortifying ordeal of being known - caswell @techconsigliere , puglebug @puglebug (x) [kleinphy] – Jared is admitted to group therapy following the divorce of his mother from his asshole father. What he doesn’t anticipate is that Connor would be there, too. – THE KLEINPHY CONTENT WE ALL DESERVE BEING PROVIDED TO US BY CJ AND EZRA!!! it’s a one-shot with just enough slowburn to keep you 👀 , jared is working through some stuff and after some fumbling connor is w/ him to help him thru it, the end of this fic has my heart aching the entire way through every time i read it and it’s just… *chefs kiss* (i even drew some fanart for it if you’re ever so inclined)

forever going with the flow, but you’re friction - lizzy_stardust_18 @delightfullyanachronistic (x) [band trees] – Zoe knew that of all of the things that her mother had expected from the evening, Evan Hansen showing up at her door with his arms full of her drunken daughter was not one of them. – big bet i wasn’t getting through this list without including fiona’s fics, are u crazy??? BUT this one is set a year (?) after the events of canon, zoe’s at a party and evan finds her, and they talk about stuff n’ things - there’s also a sweet moment in there between zoe and cynthia (in which cynthia is Rightfully Skeptical of evan) which is v wholesome and Refreshing because honestly the murphy parents never get written in a good light and fiona does it ~ perfectly ~. lotsa metaphors. evan and zoe are big dorks. evan is a taylor swift stan. what isn’t there to love

i can’t call you a stranger, but i can’t call you up - lizzy_stardust_18 - @delightfullyanachronistic (x) [kleinsen] – Jared fiddled his thumbs. He wished more than anything that he could move to a different seat, but causing a scene at Heidi Hansen’s wedding reception wasn’t exactly high on his to-do list. Besides, he was an adult. He had a job. He ate ramen only three times a week. He could handle a simple social interaction like a real human being. He was lucky that no one else had found their seats at his table yet. It gave him time to gather his wits about him. He drummed his fingers on the table nervously. – jared and evan are forced to talk after the events of canon via sitting next to each other at heidi’s wedding. they argue a bunch bc jared is still rightfully hurt, they discuss TCP and jared’s treatment of evan over the past couple years, they fight it out and then we learn some jared backstory and then there are tears and it ends on a fluffy + hopeful note!! good shit !!!!

#dear evan hansen #deh #tree bros #treebros #kleinsen #kleinphy #band trees #bandtrees #convan #conman #evan hansen #jared kleinman #zoe murphy #connor murphy #fic recs #long post #longpost #sorry if u get a notif for this twice i'm a Stupid Boy

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severusdefender · 5 years

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With a Bunch of AUs Combined, I am CAPTAIN PLANET-W8, wrong fandom

(Askbox is too small so I guess it’s time to show my AU spewing username I guess lol 0///0 hi…)

AUs & HCs: NotaMarauder!Remus (Possible Future Snupin) + Jily Didn’t Date-Marry Drunk1NiteStand to make Harry + DiffDads Lily&Petunia + Resurrected FaeLily AU

A Post Idea So Long that it’s almost like a Fic Outline: An AU where Remus was never a Marauder could actually is super interesting, because it has a spiraling implications on canon. Remus, Severus and Lily is like the sweet trifecta of book & magic nerds. Also like, being friends with Remus would drive Sev to research Werewolf remedies and care? Also be Concerned about his friend’s life.

But like, I’m not sure that Lily and Sev would do the exact same thing that the CanonMarauders do (learn to be Animagi and leave the Shrieking Shack w/ Remus even when he’s not supposed to). Maybe Severus trying to make Wolfsbane more accessible/cheaper? Or better yet, both him and Lily approach this like ethical scientists.

But on the other hand as a frequent consumer of Werewolf fiction I don’t really like how traditional and human-centric the version of Werewolves that JKR used in her ‘verse? Like, what is a werewolf like when they’re emotionally stable, feel secure, healthy? Why would they be hostile to humans in general? Why generalized feral hostility? Is it actually ingrained or a result of underlying mishandling of socialization/emotional-social support? Because obviously, Canon!James who turned into a freaking Stag didn’t get eaten so there must be something to the state of Lycanthropy. Is it a possibly segue into being a Skinwalker? Lost or suppressed information?

Would Lupin theoretically be able to keep his mind and not attack his friends or have the choice overall with better, calmer support?

Back to the AU, something that would keep Lily from drifting out of her friendship with Severus could be Remus? I’m remembering that whole, Remus Morality post thing you referenced a while back. And intense loyalty seems like a thing Remus could bring to the table? I’m not sure how else not being a Marauder would affect his personality though. Thoughts?

But since Sirius doesn’t have a Werewolf to Prank Severus with anymore I wonder what would happen then? Would it be more James or Sirius or Peter trying to snoop into where the three go during the full moon nearly every month? How would that spiral? Sev and Lily trying to close ranks around Remus, whom they don’t quite know if Dumbledore is willing to back that horse for too long compared to those with “higher” status like, James & Sirius?

Maybe a part of Sev’s radicalization that drove a spike between his and Remus’ friendship could be Severus trying to court Remus to the Dark Lord’s party? Because they were recruiting both poor and marginalized populations after all, also I *think* Remus is a pureblood technically? I forget. And Remus would’ve gotten so PISSED because he knows that would be condoning/supporting all the bad things people say about Lily, one of his only other very close friends, plus a bunch of other bad things that DEs are doing.

The friendship split between Lily and Severus would be longer, more protracted and hurtful, not just one big blowup and a final death knell slip of the tongue. But Lily and Remus trying to reel their friend back in on top of all their other baggage (they are destined, by social constructs and WW societal standards, for mediocrity, struggle and poverty after all) and Failing. And that hurts.

And when they all graduate, Lily shortly after joins the Order, or is invited because I guess they want skilled people, and Lily Was Exceptional. But she brings along Remus, who James, Sirius & Peter (and an 4th OC or something if we need to replace, but not really tbh) may distrust him because of the thing that happened when they followed? If James /actually/ changed (that Felix Felicis-enhanced talking thing) though he might be not be shitty about it though, but I can’t really imagine Sirius letting it go what with his terrible maladaptive coping mechanisms and all. Remus might get outed among the Order, maybe, idk. That could sow distrust of him, and why they don’t tell when they shove Lily and James into a cottage with their Bastard child together in hiding.

Then it goes like that from canon, Peter is made Secret Keeper, with Sirius as the obvious decoy keeper. Severus tries to curry favor from his grunt position as a DE and accidentally spells the death knell for his estranged friend Lily, is flipped when he finallyyyy realized he’d done super-fucked up and goes to Dumbledore.

Then James & Lily get attacked by Voldie & DEs, James takes a couple DEs down before dying via AK, Lily had been researching a bunch of dark/new magic things to protect herself and her kid (who she deliberated on and eventually decided to keep). She takes a bunch of DEs down, and gives Voldemort a run for his money, but lets down her guard when Peter shows up because up until this point, despite the bad blood in school, she’s known him as a comrade in the Order.

Peter basically cripples her in a surprise attack, and then Voldemort comes up to gloat, monologue and eventually finish the job. Lily spits in his face while dying.

The underlying new ritual/shield/magic-whatever Lily cooked up while in hiding goes on not quite as planned because it overlaps with Voldemort’s accidental-Horcrux making that basically ghostifies him. But Lily still dies the first time.

Cue Sirius getting falsely accused and Azkaban’d, Harry going to the Dursleys because supposed Blood Wards (which actually would be fine with just Harry himself and what he considers home I guess, maybe). Remus gets cut out of the picture because of his financial and career instability, also Werewolfism and other dumb prejudice, so he’s out of the loop and isn’t told about Sev being a flipped spy either.

Cue a few years later, turns out that Lily’s biodad is actually a Fae of some kind that she had minor contact with him through postcards and letters during her life. But eventually, he pitched in on some magical doohickery for the magical design stuff she did while in hiding in Godric’s Hollow. Then everything kicks off again a mostly Amnesiac FaeLily crawls out of her grave and gets a burning treewand branch of a Groot-Arm.

Somehow this culminates FaeLily accidentally getting the band back together and yoinking Harry. Then cue shenanigans and reconciliation and character development/interactions and possibly romantic Snupin and maybe an earned happy ending somewhere because my heart is soft and I’m a total weenie and this post got way longer than I thought it’d be lol. Overall thoughts? Impressions? Anything I missed while stringing these half-baked ideas together? X3

Thanks for reading and responding to so many of my posts. Your takes and posts are always a delight to read! <3333

Part2 of the AU Multi-fecta Thing I Sent Earlier

Some stuff I forgot:

-Tempted to name this Sweet Insane Combo of an AU: 2 Gryffindors and a Slytherin Walk into a Traincar

-Maybe add some shades of the Cons of Cokeworth AU idea (yes I sent that too, I’m literally a neverending fountain of AUs and theories for literally every fandom I get into, it’s a gift). –Lily constantly worries over money (Petunia’s biodad’s the gambler?) and is bitter over the way society is structured, leading her to grow into an excellent, Hard-working Con & Swindler-of-those-that-deserve-it (like how she’s been fleecing James, Sirius, Peter and others for all 7 of her Hogwarts years while trying to maintain good PR without being known as a money grubber or a thief bc Anonymity is Key)

-TBH i feel like she’d just cook up a plan to live with her 2 friends after school because “it’s cheaper” and she figures that they could’ve kept up the Werewolf research stuff easier by being housemates, but hilariously and sadly forgetting to tell said 2 friends about her plans before starting to work her ass off to scrape up as much money as possible. –“We all know Rems would guilt himself into living like a fucking hobo, and Cokeworth is a place where dreams go to die, so of course we’re getting a fucking house.”

-Yanno, then the AU-version of the Friendship split and Voldemort faction gains even more traction with the 1st WW Civil War going on.

-Trawling through the wiki again, Remus’ parents basically isolated him a pretty unhealthy amount I feel (like they probably thought they were doing the right thing at the time, which solved an immediate problem, but ends up compounding into a long-term host of issues)? Which I don’t think did Lupin’s socialization and emotional stabilitygrowth sloshing down into his Werewolf form any favors perhaps?

-So basically Remus refused to move back in with his dad (because he didn’t want to burden his dad I guess), despite him being alive, so Remus living in poverty-plus probably in and out of homelessess as well as the medical and security complications of being a werewolf without access to necessary resources? Also okay I forgot that Remus was a Halfblood too, whoops

-There’s an Irony in that Severus is the most human (species-wise) between the 3 AU Friends, what with Werewolf!Remus and Post-Resurrection Fae!Lily

-There’d be a whole mystery as to the intentions of Lily’s mysterious Fae Parent father(?), which may or may not be good intentions, they just don’t really know atm

…Okay I think that’s it… Whew, thoughts?

X'3

Nice to finally meet you @markala5

ok wow this is a lot. first of all i love it and it feels whole so i don’t know what i can say. it’s the found family trope subverted a little because things fall apart but they get back together when lily is resurrected. and voldemort and his death eaters get to be the big bad. plus dumbledore as the leader of the order who is starting to realise that harry needs to end voldemort and his horcruxes but lily can’t imagine letting her child do that because she’s grown to love him after forgetting him so instead of the golden trio, it’s lily, severus and remus finding the horcruxes but harry needs to die and the three of them are frantically researching a solution but it needs to happen. they send him off in a manner similar to canon except they’re alive and later they see harry’s body and he’s so small and it’s so heartbreaking until he runs from the death eaters.

this au has so much potential

#severus snape #pro snape #remus lupin #lily evans #submission #headcanons #au

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tamakomarket · 5 years

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as requested on twitter

i use tumblr literally once a month at this point in my life and this time its for the vanven fic rec list someone requested over there

under a readmore so i don’t stretch any dashes

the word counts and au/canon tags all vary, but as a general rule of thumb these are all sfw! ill post ratings too tho

god, there are so many

tide me over, love and life - G, 9k, modern au. vanitas used to be an amazing part of the swim team but finds himself distracted and his times slowing lately. ven, the team manager, takes it upon himself to help vanitas out. very introspective heavy, featuring beautiful turns of phrase and a laid back pacing appropriate for your favorite slice of life anime. this is probably my favorite vanven fic, tbh

Heart Is Where The Home Is - G, 341k, canonverse. one sided roxas/vanitas. this is VERY LONG but its 1 the fic that got me into vanven and 2 in my mind, THE GOLD STANDARD FOR HEART HOTEL FIC. it bounces back and forth between two plotlines - a messy vanitas redemption as he and ven learn to live with each other, and how things get complicated once roxas and xion join the hotel. the characters are all amazingly written, the worldbuilding is very in-depth, and it also features one of the best written xion arcs i’ve ever seen in fic. DEF worth the read

You’re not the boy you used to be. - T, 176k, modern au, namixi sideship, mentioned terqua, sorikai, and leaisa. HUGE FOCUS on the friendship between vanitas and xion. hahaha you really thought i wouldn’t write a rec list and NOT include my own fics? blease. this is a story about grieving an abusive parent that got distracted by a romantic subplot. it’s a non-linear fic, following three different parts of vanitas’s life at the same time. there’s a xion quote that sums it up best imo: “We carry our childhoods with us. For better or worse, we still do. But we can be better from where we came from. We always can.”

Belief, Faith - G, 2k, post kh3-vanitas-somehow-redeemed-au. also my fic. vanven go on a trip and vanitas struggles with being accepted and loved. very introspective-heavy.

my heart’s on the (drum)line - G, 9k, marching band au, rokunamixi as a secondary ship. my last fic! this is 100% a romantic comedy in fic form, featuring the most obtuse vanitas ever seen. vanitas gets a huge crush on ven and is legit too stupid to figure it out, so he spends all his time being angry and melodramatic instead. props to his long-suffering best friend namine, who obsessively polishes her flute to blind the people who are mean to her and is a complete disaster about her own crushes.

Only You - G, 2k, canonverse. a heart hotel fic. waywardriot wrote an entire series of fics for vanven week and while i recommend all of them, this one is my favorite! basically vanitas finds redemption through the power of love. its cute as heck.

Salvation - G, 17k, canonverse, wip. a post-kh3 fic where vanitas is taken in by the guardians of light and very slowly redeemed. eventual vanven. no romance yet, but i LOVE how vanitas is written here (so much bitterness! he’s like a wounded feral anime) and i especially love his interactions with kairi and xion here.

Chains Unbroken - T, 72k, canonverse, side terqua and sorikai. post-kh3, post heart-hotel where vanitas gets to chill with the rest of the squad. he was stolen by xehanort and forced to become one of the 13 darknesses and it broke his heart, so ven and pals look for a way to help him out. the pov rotates between multiple characters, so you get a good look into many different relationships here!!! i especially love kairi here, too.

Codenames - G, 4k, modern au. vanitas is a secret agent and ven is the little voice in his ear keeping him on track. well-paced, funny, cute, and with enough intrigue to make the heist aspect super gripping!

we follow our own steps - T, 13k, canonverse. post-kh3 where vanitas doesn’t die, but finds himself with nothing other than his intense attachment to ven. this vanitas is SO fun and SO snappy, and learns how to be something other than completely unhinged. it’s also adorable and very sweet.

has no one ever? G, 390 words, canonverse. all lower-case, but it’s so short that it doesn’t bother me. this prose is ABSOLUTELY lovely and sad and it’s exactly what it says on the tin - ven helps vanitas clean up after a fight. vanitas does not understand what a gentle touch is. it’s good.

As He Sleeps - Not Rated (but sfw), 1.5k, canonverse. slight body horror warning. this features some BEAUTIFUL PROSE and it reads the way being in a dream that isn’t-quite-bad-but-isn’t-good feels. the kind of dream that you KNOW affected you deeply but slips through your memories the moment you wake up. fitting, since it’s a fic about ven’s dreams as he sleeps during the ten year gap. featuring some beautiful metaphors and comparisons to vanitas as a fallen angel. this makes me want a canonverse fic where vanitas is somehow alive and acts like a knight to ven’s sleeping body. please. someone grant me this wish.

Habit - G, 2k, canonverse. ven develops this weird habit of seeing vanitas at night. it develops into something more. very sweet, very cute, a good read overall.

heart to heart - G, 1k, canonverse. vanitas finds out ven is in love with him through their empathy connection. also adorable.

Come, My Purrloiner of Nightmares - G, 1k, modern au. LOOK. I JUST. IM A SUCKER FOR THE “CUDDLING DURING NIGHT TERRORS” TROPE

recovery is a long road (but there’s no traffic) - T, 10k, implied terqua and a bigger focus on the individual relationships between the wayfinders + vanitas than romance, canonverse. a REALLY GOOD post-kh3 fic exploring the wayfinders + vanitas healing after the big war. the prose is lovely and the exploration of every character is beautiful (AQUA IS MY FAVORITE IN THIS FIC, ACTUALLY)

ok these last two are in french but uh, look, LOOK. they’re readable with google translate. there are some weird translation things but these plots are good enough to push past that

Safety Lock - T, 10k, superhero au. LOOK. I LOVE SUPERHEROES. I *REALLY* LOVE SUPERHEROES. the worldbuilding here is SOOO MUCH FUN. ven is part of an agency of superheroes called the guardians of light, and when local supervillain vanitas starts stirring up more trouble, ven takes it upon himself to stop him personally. it’s what ya gotta do, when you have a shared past the way they do. it is SUCH a fun read and ven is SO MUCH FUN, it’s just a good time all around.

Eux, premiere partie (translation: Them, part one) - T, 38k, au. i have a huge weakness for a very specific type of story and that is “really rich kid is, for whatever reason, unable to leave their mansion and their life changes drastically when someone new enters their life” and this story is 100% that. the world outside vanitas’s family’s property is dangerous, filled with these people that aren’t really human anymore. ven is a bodyguard hired to protect vanitas, mostly from trying to escape the mansion again. thing is, the mansion is just as dangerous for vanitas as the world outside. i will be real with you the xion here is SUUUUUUPER OOC, and while she is a compelling villain in her own right, the role she plays and the personality she has here is something more akin to larxene. even then. EVEN THEN. the worldbuilding is SOOO GOOD, the relationship between ven and vanitas is very compelling, and the way vanitas is written (as this very bitter kid) is AMAZING. there’s so much mystery and intrigue about the world outside the walls vanitas inhabits, and there’s a ton of angst but it’s just. ugh. it’s so good. i love it especially for this line here, re: what desperation does to us: “Hunger, especially. It is she who destroys what remains human.”

there are other fics i have read and enjoyed but these all are like, top tier (or at least high tier) for me!!! looking at them all in a group its very obvious what kind of tropes i like

#i forget my text post tag lmao #fic rec

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beesloosewithcanon · 5 years

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Fanfiction Ask: #10, #20, #22, #25, #32, #38, #40, #44, #47, #48.

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t writein?

Oh, for sure! There are plenty. Carmilla, Overwatch, The100, Wynnona Earp, and others but my brain isn’t pulling them up. I’ve read Legendof Korra for years but only just started writing in it.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Definitely Kuvira and Opal. I don’t know why I like thosetwo so much together, but goddamn do I. I’m also still a fan of Widow Maker& Tracer (overwatch) fanfics, despite the Overwatch fiction giving Tracer acanonical girlfriend.

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Yes, but I learned a really good lesson from it. It was a HarryPotter thing I wrote back in early high school and gave it a really bad nameand set the whole thing on a bad premise (and no I won’t go into more detailthan that. I was a shithead kid who was going through a lot mentally in highschool and tried to fix my problems through writing and it often backfired onme). The internet attacked me over it – like, hundreds of people on Fanfiction.netwrote flaming reviews when none of my work had more than a dozen or so commentson it until then. I took it down pretty quickly and subsequently stoppedwriting fanfiction for a long time (like, stopped until I started writingCracks in the Foundation in 2015 – so about an 8 year hiatus). At the time I didn’tsee what I’d done wrong but later in high school it clicked why people had hadthe visceral reaction that they did. I still think about that experience a lot.It shaped me to be better and try harder to give better stories that weren’tfocused on pretty horrendous things.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

Currently, by a landslide, my Korrasami fanfiction, Strangersin the Night is my most popular work. As of 6/6/2019, it has 504 kudos on AO3.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does musicinspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

I do listen to music while I write and sometimes musicinspires scenes. When I’m working on something like my Mass Effect or DragonAge story, I listen to the actual game soundtrack. If I’m working on a scene ina specific section of the game, I’ll play the music for that section on repeat. ForAU work that I do (Korrasami that I have published and have in the works), I’lllisten to either music of the period I’m doing the AU for (like, a jazzplaylist for my 1920’s AU that I haven’t published yet) or I’ll listen tostraight piano or cello music.

There have been a few times where I’ve been listening to bassintensive EDM or House music while driving and think up some pretty coolscenes. Another Korrasami AU that I’ve outlined but haven’t written yet wasactually inspired by a thought I had based around the feeling of subwoofer bassvibrating the cloth of your shirt while dancing on a dance floor. That single thoughtexperiment turned into a giant long-fic that I’ll start working on eventually but is currently outlined from beginning to end. (I outlined it 4 years ago nowbut just haven’t sat down to work on it. The outline itself is over 75k words. -_-)

38. Do you use established canon characters or do youcreate OCs?

In my current work, I strictly stick on established canoncharacters. If I have an OC, I save them for my original works.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Aside from the woes of editing and being dyslexic? I’d saytwo things:

Tension – I don’t know if I’ve ever saidthis here, but I have a bachelor’s degree in writing. Once I was told by acollege professor that my stories lacked tension. So now I work really hard tomake sure the tension is there and palpable. That’s why editing takes me awhile sometimes.

Getting too wordy or getting caught up in thephysicality of a scene. I also have a background in theatre and was used tohaving little movements mean big things on stage and always try to translatethat to my writing. Often times when I reread scenes after I’ve had somedistance from them, it just feels like too much focus was giving to what movedwhere and not emotions or the five senses. So it’s another thing I look at whenI edit now.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

KREM & LADY INQUISITOR!!!

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - wheredo you prefer to post and why?

AO3 is my main squeeze. The community over there is amazing(in my experience). FF.net feels like its fizzling out and that’s also theplace that I get the most bizarre or trolly comments. I still post there, becausethat’s where I originally gained my readership for Cracks in the Foundation,but I barely interact with it aside from posting.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction?Why/Why not?

I try super hard to leave a review on everything I readbecause I know how happy it makes me when I get a review on my work. Kudos arenice and always make me smile, but a review – hearing what scene really touchedsomeone or what they enjoyed the most always gives me warm fuzzies. So, I wantother writers to have that feeling, too.

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whimzililly · 5 years

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Anna is NOT going to be pregnant in Frozen 2

This has been a popular theory going around because of the mom-hair connection, but guys...unless this was a serious time skip or Disney was going crazy it’s NOT going to happen, for three main reasons.

ANNA IS 18 WHEN FROZEN ENDS. This would mean, even if it’s like 3 years later, she would still be college age. I really don’t think Disney would let the main character of their most financially lucrative franchise become pregnant that young. Not only would it likely piss of MANY parents, but it makes Anna a lot less accessible to the target demographic. It’s been 5/6 years since Frozen came out. That’s a long time! But not THAT long. The 6-10 year olds that made Frozen so successful are STILL KIDS. Older kids, sure, but still kids. They don’t necessarily want to see Anna’s first real big adventure outside of Arrendale be bogged down by morning sickness. It also eliminates the possibility for any further sequels that wouldn’t at least partially focus on Anna being a young mother. Because if 20 year old Anna goes off on adventures to fight badguys and discover magic and all that while leaving her 2 year old at home with Kristoff, some parents are going to be PISSED.

COLLEGE AGE ANNA WOULD BE PREGNANT OUT OF WEDLOCK!! To have this plot work we would either need to completely skip Anna and Kristoff’s wedding entirely, including all of the development that took place in their relationship that led them to thinking they were ready for marriage (one of the huge themes of the first movie), OR Disney is going to have Anna, the star of their most lucrative and popular franchise, GET PREGNANT BEFORE SHE GETS MARRIED. Which Disney...would not do. If it was the plot of it’s own totally original movie, maaayyyybeeee. But they wouldn’t just throw that plot into Frozen, ESPECIALLY with the cast and crew actively pushing Disney to let them make Elsa gay. ESPECIALLY especially in a movie where there’s going to be even MORE focus on Anna and Elsa’s relationship. Remember, the Let It Go of Frozen 2 has been confirmed to be a duet between Anna and Elsa. That means the two characters who are most involved in the pregnant plot (because that can’t really be a removed B plot) are Anna and ELSA, not Anna and Kristoff. Even if Anna keeps it a secret from Elsa, the focus is still on what Anna thinks ELSA would feel about her pregnancy. With the ‘lesbian incest sisters’ thing still big in the 1 Million Moms crowd, the crew and cast of a movie WHO WANT ELSA TO BE GAY/BI would NOT risk feeding into that whole mess.

IT LIMITS THE ADVENTURE/COMEDY POTENTIAL. Yes, there’s a lot of story and drama potential in this idea, but it also means that Anna can’t get seriously injured. Anna, the super slapsticky, impulsive, charge into danger for the ones she loves main character constantly surrounded by super dangerous and fairly volatile magic CAN’T GET HURT. Every time she falls off of a ledge, or gets hit by a blast of magic, or rushes in front of a bad guy to protect someone, the first thought will ALWAYS have to be the baby. She literally CAN’T put herself in harm’s way for the people she cares about while pregnant. To a lot of parents (and even some kids), that won’t be seen as brave or selfless anymore, that would be seen as prioritizing the life of her sister or husband over her child. The only way to circumnavigate this is by Anna shoeing that she believes the lives of others alive around her are more important to her than the potential for a life that rests in her first trimester pregnancy, but Disney would...NOOOOOOOOT DO THAT. Hahahaha, no. Or maybe they could have it be that Anna needs to learn to be more responsible with herself for the sake of her unborn child, but Jennifer Lee wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t make Anna’s second film appearance be her learning that she can’t adventure and fight and explore the world like she dreamed of her whole life because she has to take care of a baby now. With an already born child, that’s not an issue. Because her doing all that fun stuff wouldn’t literally directly endanger the life of her kid every second. But with Anna still pregnant, that’s the message the above story arc conveys, even if Anna literally turns to the camera and says “This is only until my child is born and done breastfeeding. THEN I’ll do all that stuff you want to see again!”. And that brings me to...

4(B). WHAT HAPPENS TO ANNA’S PREGNANCY IF SHE GETS HIT WITH AN ICE BLAST. This is SUCH a glaringly obvious question that it literally cannot be glossed over without hurting the story. Anna getting hit by ice blasts is what makes the story and characters happen in the first movie. Without Anna getting hit by an ice blast, the plot doesn’t happen, and Anna and Elsa’s characters don’t happen. The fear of hurting Anna with her magic isn’t just going to disappear from Elsa’s character in Frozen 2. Which means that, no matter how the writers phrase it, at some point Elsa will have to worry that she might cause Anna to have a miscarriage because of her magic. And that is... You know, I like when Disney goes darker and more mature. I Ioved the addition of canonically suicidal Elsa in Frozen the Musical. But Disney, Jennifer Lee, Idina Menzel, please don’t make that a thing that happens in Frozen 2. Please. Please don’t make Elsa stress about causing her sister to have a miscarriage because of her neurodivergance metaphor. Please.

And that, folks, is why Pregnant Anna isn’t going to be a thing in Frozen 2. And...do we really want it to? There’s a LOT of great story potential in the idea of Anna having a child (especially if that child has magic), but not yet. This is only the second movie, and all of the leads are so young and sheltered. Having a baby, even just physically being pregnant, doesn’t mean you can’t adventure and grow anymore, but it is still a HUGE shift in your life, and makes it a lot harder to explore and adventure and heal from past traumas when you don’t have a solid foundation of life and experiences to help you transition. Maybe if Anna grew up in a band of traveling adventurers who interacted with hundreds of colorful characters and had tons of children and tasks Anna had to watch over from time to time, a baby at 19-21 would be fine for her. But she’s not. She’s a sheltered princess who didn’t leave her home from ages 6-18 and probably NEVER left her country, who has had one real romantic relationship, no real parental figures from 15 on, and is only just starting to rekindle a deep connection with her sister. She’s only beginning to understand herself and the world and complex interpersonal connections and having serious responsibility. Kristoff is a lot better with that stuff, but even so. We’ve also only seen literally FIVE DAYS of Anna and Kristoff’s relationship (3 in the movie, 1 in each special. I know the specials time skip but Anna and Kristoff only share a few lines in each and those lines are intentionally written so that you can watch Frozen 2 without having watched the shorts and missed basically nothing.). It doesn’t matter how much we time skip in the sequel, ‘show don’t tell’ is an important rule in cinema for a reason. If the audience didn’t see Kristoff and Anna go through huge character arks involving their relationship to get them to the point of being ready for a kid, it doesn’t matter how they act or what they say in the sequel, the audience won’t buy it. “You can’t marry a man you just met” transitions really easily to “You can’t have a kid with someone who’s last notable interaction with you was him asking for permission to kiss you for the first time after meeting for the first time and becoming a couple that week”. Let’s face it, if these characters existed in the real world, Anna, Kristoff, and Elsa would have a long sit down discussion about the pregnancy, ending with Anna deciding to get an abortion/give her child up for adoption. That’s where their characters all are right now. That would be the decision that implements the lessons Anna learned in the first movie. Why do we want a story where Anna learns to deal with something she would handle an entirely different way in the real world? The lessons in these movies are useless if they can’t be applied to the real world as it is now. The only way to circumnavigate this is if Anna and Kristoff we’re actively trying to have a child, but that wouldn’t happen period. Not ‘it wouldn’t happen in the real world’, it just wouldn’t happen. The whole message of the No Instant-Love plot was don’t rush headfirst into things you’re not ready for because you think it will bring you happiness based on the idealized fairytale version of it in your head. Anna and Kristoff (and Elsa, because it would affect her too) are not ready for a child right now. They wouldn’t make the choice to have a child right now, because they (especially Anna) learned that lesson the hard way. When Frozen 4 comes out, I’m all for some kids. But based on everything we know about Disney, the people working on Frozen 2, and the characters/story itself, Pregnant Anna will have to stay in AUs until then.

#Frozen #Frozen 2 #Kristoff #Anna #Elsa #Kristanna #Gay Elsa #Disney #Frozen leakes #Frozen 2 leaks #Frozen theory #Long Post #Sorry

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petaldancing · 7 years

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wow guys, i learned about yuletide (a fic exchange for obscure fandoms w <1,000 fics on the net.. like.. hmm.. HYOUKA!!) from @brella and am stoked to take part in it this year! you get to write a letter to the person who’ll be fulfilling your request, so here is mine~

hello (future) friend and (current) yuletide writer!!

This is actually the first year I’m participating in Yuletide! (And also the first year i that i’ve gotten back into writing fic after a 3 year hiatus!) I’m excited, and I hope that my prompts will help spark inspiration for you and that you’ll enjoy writing this piece as the year draws to a close. Thank you so much in advance for this, and I look forward to reading whatever you have for me!

general

i prefer:

gen, het, or femslash

G - M ratings (if the latter: no to underage (below 18 y/o, for me), yes to character-driven, build-up + pay-off! when the sex isn't the highlight of the story but a nice complement.. wow!!)

any length you have in mind for the fic

you to write a story that you've been meaning to but haven't gotten around to! or one that you'd love to have under your belt! (:

i can't deal with/DNW:

drug use, death, gore/violence/assault, dub/noncon, abuse, angst, kinky stuff, unhappy endings

i will cry tears of joy for:

stories focusing on ladies, their r/s (platonic, romantic etc) w other ladies, their characters & motivations beyond just the romance

(but i still thrive on romance ahaha)

characters losing themselves but then finding themselves & becoming stronger (w or w/o someone's help)

(un)resolved sexual tension, unexpected kisses that take both parties by surprise, almost kisses, being trapped in small spaces, mutual pining etc

characters drifting apart over time but then reconnecting and falling in love again

wacky humour

shoujo tropes used in good doses

unlikely pairings that work

platonic fic on unlikely friends/vitrolic best buds esp between a guy & gal

fics about characters who've hardly interacted in canon (!!)

canon divergence (as long as it leads to interesting r/s between characters)

ten years later post-canon fic!! (esp if characters are high-schoolers in canon)

WITCHES! guy witches work too

recurring motifs/symbols

i also love AUs, particularly:

pacific rim AUs

role reversal AUs

I live for AUs that bring out character dynamics you know & love except in a diff universe! but you don't have to write AU fic!

fandom specific

1. Hyouka to say this is my favourite, most precious & treasured piece of fiction would be an understatement!! i give all my heart to hyouka’s themes (finding your identity & place in the world, relating & empathizing with others, following your passion etc etc i could go on) which were told beautifully through a wonderful core cast of 4 characters! the depth and flaws and emotional weaknesses of hyouka’s main cast is Too Much For Me To Bear and i love them in any and all permutations and just WANT TO READ ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME!! also i’ve written satomaya to the moon & back but let me tell you... i would still read satomaya content any day ehehe. BUT i am very intrigued by satoshi & chitanda’s r/s which hasn’t been written much about in the fandom yet so maybe??? HMM!!

ships: satoshi/mayaka, houtarou/chitanda but would be also open to mayaka/houtarou or satoshi/chitanda because that always intrigues me

prompts (optional, of course!) - Mayaka & Houtarou having a huge falling out, like SERIOUS falling out, and it’s up to Satoshi & Chitanda to work together to get the two to make-up and get the group back together!! - Satoshi & Chitanda working together to solve a mystery without the help of Houtarou & Mayaka, who’re usually the two who are better at solving cases!! - On the flipside, what about: 5 times Satoshi dislikes Chitanda, and 1 time he doesn’t. - Soul Eater AU!! this is a specific AU i’ve had in my head for awhile but would love to read someone’s interpretation of it!! who would be the meisters/weapons, what forms would the weapons take?? a fic where the four find each other and become partners/duos would be worth a BILLION yuletides!! - in the same vein, fire emblem AU! here’s a post i wrote about it years ago but still relevant and feel free to tweak the classes - older!Houtarou/Chitanda who stayed behind for college in Kamiyama visiting Satoshi/Mayaka in the big city/Tokyo (optional as to whether the two pairs are dating yet, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if they weren’t at the start of the fic!!) - any mayaka-centric fic, perhaps a fic about her trying to set Chitanda/Houtarou up? w accomplice Satoshi (+10000 points if she and Satoshi AREN’T DATING! YET! !! COLLAPSES) also i guess it works the other way too!! chitanda trying to get satoshi to confess to mayaka, dragging houtarou along in the process... you know it’s good when both pairs aren’t dating yet

2. Hibike Euphonium

this anime is a good example of me loving the small moments and characters so much more than the overarching plot! i liked s1 more than s2 because of the development of kumiko and reina alongside each other, but i loved the spin s2 gave on kumiko & asuna’s r/s! while this anime isn’t a top fav of mine, the r/s between the ladies in this show is SO GOOD!!! would love to see what you can do with it!

ships: kumiko/reina, kumiko/asuna, am p alright w most other ships too except shuu/kumiko, i’m really not interested in that at all, but shuu as a character? yeah OK i guess prompts - 5 fives they climbed the hill together, 1 time they didn’t (kumiko/reina) - a fic about kumiko chasing asuka down but always missing her!! i.e. following her to uni in the big city (only, her uni is like nowhere near close enough to asuka’s), moving out of home and closer to asuka, trying to join the prestigious band asuka’s travelling with etc etc, and finally catching up to her!! - ten years later fic! reina comes back into town after touring with the national orchestra, kumiko (who stopped playing the euphonium) tries hard not to fall in love with her & the eupho once again... and fails, of course - a fic that examines reina falling out of love with taki-sensei and developing feelings for kumiko would be wonderful for my heart too!!

3. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

i am so so fond of this anime and its gags! while the character dynamics are incredibly fun to watch, they also feel very ‘predictable’, not only because of the running jokes but cause their r/s never seem to advance that much. so i would absolutely LOVE if you threw me fic about the most unlikely pairs that don’t interact so much in canon and hence have less running jokes, i would love to see what pans out, and the fic needn’t even be romantic!! ships: nozaki/sakura, kashima/hori, seo/waka, also interested in kashima/seo and sakura+hori

prompts - kashima + seo: i find their r/s v interesting?? would love for a fic to focus on their interactions, esp since i vaguely rmb seo being a bit wary of kashima at first - hori + sakura: i think they would work as wonderful partners in anything they do and would love anything that explores their r/s! maybe sakura has to help the drama club for a performance? - ten years later fic would work wonderfully for GSNK! what’s everyone doing now? wouldn’t it be funny if all the r/s were p much the same, but also kinda different? - Akatsuki no Yona AU! (whether yona is sakura or mikorin, you decide! haha)

4. Fune Wo Amu

this is more of a wildcard pick because um, I REALLY LIKED THIS SHOW! i loved the attention paid to the world of dictionary publishing but specifically, the seemingly insurmountable ocean of words & meanings & the desire to bridge the gaps that so naturally form between people... this show calmed my heart so much and i would love fic which brought me back to that calm and reflective atmosphere & those lovely characters prompts - over the years working, majime learns the definitions of words through his interactions with the people in the office - nishioka becoming a dad leads to everyone in the office inevitably taking turns parenting his kids!! either because they need to babysit, or because he brings em to company functions etc - sasaki on her first day of work vs last day of work - any fic that explores how majime & nishioka influence and change each other’s lives would be nice as well ahh...

thank u again dear writer, may you have a wonderful end to the year and i hope that whatever good things and bad things that happened this year, you’ll carry on strong and even better in the next!! happy writing and please eat well and stay warm (:

#*personal #!!! m excited to write something too!!#fics will be posted on 25 dec on ao3 and author reveals on 1 jan i believe

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