#watch me reconcile all of this in a new fanfic

[rhaenin-time]

oh no another break from my break because yes i did end up watching the episode.

It's SO bad you guys. To the point that I can see into the writers' room. They didn't even bother to close the drapes!

BUT! must... finish... chapter... and... establish... habit... of continuing to write despite HotD's bad practices because I've come too far...

I swear it's not a sunk cost fallacy. Okay it's a sunk cost but also I DO want to finish because I'm clearly still not ready to settle into original work, I don't want to start a new fic in a different fandom, and also... I do want to finish what will be a ridiculously long fic because I want to. Why is it so hard? Because everytime I put time aside and sit down to it, I start breaking down HotD's writing problems instead because thinking about F&B canon and thinking about where HotD went wrong... is kind of one and the same. Pretty much everything wrong with it can be traced back to deviating from the book.

Ugh, it's just annoying because before I started, I did read up a lot about specifically what kind of fic writing is actually beneficial for practicing original novel writing skills. And one of the big rules is that you need to resist the urge for wish-fulfillment or indulging in head canons with little basis in canon (nothing wrong with those fics they're just not considered a good way to build skills that transfer over to novel writing) and aside from your intentional and well thought out deviations, you're supposed to remain as consistent with the source material's themes, worldbuilding, and characterizations as you can.

Problem is that HotD already broke those rules in their expensive fanfic people keep claiming is canon. Problem is... I too included it as canon. Because I already accounted for the changes season 1 made to Fire & Blood and part of the challenge that actually started off as fun was reconciling those changes and trying to merge them with the source material.

But they've gone too far! And I know it sounds kind of weird and pretentious and self-aggrandizing (I am all those things don't get me wrong) but I'm annoyed that now it might look like it's MY fic that decided to do whatever it wants with canon, especially characterization. Because especially when there's so much bigotry and politics involved, I actually find it kind of distasteful when fic writers intentionally disregard established themes, characterization and worldbuilding in order to indulge in bigoted mindsets and interpretations. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for censorship or anything I just find it distasteful, and bad practice when the writer is unwilling to admit what they're doing and those interpretations find their way into the actual fandom and you get people arguing for them regarding the actual source material. Again, especially when bigotry and bad politics are involved.

Which is also annoying because so many of HotD's unjustified deviations are rooted in the bigoty and bad politics that, again, Fire & Blood actually condemns. And (that part of) this fandom is so annoying as it is. And as weird as it sounds I actually was trying really hard to "lead by example" and be as fair as I could to the greens, because, again, I'm trying to develop good writing practices.

Anyways, I guess this is a Fire & Blood merged with season 1 fic now, and everything will now err on the side of Fire & Blood. Anything established after season 1 is just Corlys's ep 8 - ep 10 fever dream and he wakes up in real canon which errs toward book canon aside from the changes season 1 made that I already accounted for. HotD has not earned the right to call itself its own narrative, so it's part of the greater metanarrative that Fire & Blood is a part of. Maester Condal's volume is simply... a conflicting account that has strong evidence for part 1 that sometimes even overrides Gyldayn's accounts, but he ran out of material and started making shit up and the challenge is in figuring out WHERE. Somewhere in between, the real story lurks...

Feel free to swipe that for your own sanity.

Is it unhinged that I'm claiming that my sometimes crackfic where the key players include Rhaenyra's boobs, Laenor's lube mummy, and Rhaenys's mop dummy is more respectful to Fire & Blood than HBO is? Yes. But is it also true? Also yes. And that's the damning part.

This has been an unedited rant.

Edit:

Wait. Do I take this in a meta direction for my author's notes? Since Aemond is Condal's blatant and uncomfortably telling self-insert... Hmm... You know Aemond’s pretentious study group I made up because I think it's weird that HotD doesn't realize that it's downright impossible for royals to be as isolated as they try to claim? Well, one of the members is named Ryam Condal. And he went on to write a *totally true account. Unfortunately, he was too young and naive to see Aemond for the dweeb he actually is, and also Aemond gave him weird ideas about dragons and Targaryens that he never unlearned.

edit edit

Wait. Should I truly invent a Condal insert named Condal who's slightly younger than Aemond and has a dumb admiration for him and wants to know why he doesn't come to their study group anymore now that Rhaenyra's around to properly educate him?

[wellcomeoneileen]

Post 2/? on Processing QaF

End of qaf -technical points. 

This is a very logistical view on the literal end of the show. My more thematic l thoughts about the whole final season are also under this tag, in post 1. Again, conceding that I am very new to an established fandom and this is my immediate processing of finishing my recent obsession, and there are probably several other posts like this floating around.

I read every spoiler possible. I read nearly every fanfic possible all before I watched any of the last season of QaF. The endless thought pieces really did help sooth me for seasons four and five. I think I was a much more at peace with them than fans who were watching it live back in 2005. But the last one or two episodes had me pausing with my jaw dropped multiple times. I hated it!

And I contemplated why - when I knew every single thing that was gonna happen, even several lines of dialogue I knew!

And I think it comes down to the breakneck pacing and editing.

:readmore:

Because right after finishing, I paced around my home angrily muttering over what had happening. And outlining the end like that, even though I was in a mood, still sort of made sense. 

Brian has been a sex god for several seasons. He let down his guard to let Justin in. Out of fear, he did what fans/Justin thought they wanted, and asked for marriage/said I love you with Justin. Brian loves him enough to not force him to stay, Justin loves him enough to not make him change. Peacefully and lovingly, they go their separate ways with the strong and insinuation that they will either do long distance or reconcile. That sounds good! It was horrible to watch.

The show betrays itself by acknowledging the Britin arc is the most important to the show and viewers by saving it for the penultimate scene. The final episode(s) have all really revolved around Brian. Even the girls leaving was really about Brian (in its show presentation, at least). And Brian and Justin have the final scene of all the characters resolving their storylines. The final, final scene was an ensemble one (as it should be for an ensemble show) which reflected on the show as a whole. That was the epilogue, because Britin was the denouement.

This is tough in two ways.

First, because the Britin arc has a bittersweet end, yet felt more like the writers wagging their finger at the audience instead of a thoughtful conclusion that was necessarily bittersweet. Whole other post.

Second, because of their editing – both storyline wise and visual execution wise.

The decision to show Justin and Brian in bed together, not even see Justin leave, and then show Brian in bed alone was pretty cutthroat. I literally paused and my jaw dropped – but not in a good, teary way, or my heart strings were pulled way, but in a … I felt like the writers were kind of flipping me off? Or flipping the actors off? I literally googled if Randy Harrison had fought with the showrunners because of that (and allegedly, yes, lmao. You can tell!!!). That was just an unpleasant viewing experience.

Then, the writers did not give any sort of breathing room for that emotional beat to end and then the series finale beat to begin. There is no space between Brian being left alone and Brian and Michael going to the club and then dancing. No space timewise, plotline wise, or even visually, as they literally meld the end of Britin into the start of Brian/Michael final.

Because of this, even though I’m sure it was written and outlined as very separate plot points for separate emotional beats for separate scenes, it doesn’t feel that way as an audience member.

Instead, it feels like a run-of-the-mill action-reaction pair for a singular emotional beat. It doesn’t feel, or look, like two separate, contained, emotional beats.

Without being able to digest a very bittersweet conclusion to what is arguably the most important plot line of the entire show, it still feels like we’re still wrestling with that in the final scene. It is LEAPING from denouement to epilogue, which even tacky, bittersweet rom-coms don’t do, if you pay attention ( I am literally thinking of how the HARRY STYLES FANFICTION movie Idea of You handled this similar thing better, good lord.)

Therefore, watching Brian dance alone, while we’re being told the thumpa thumpa goes on, feels like he’s being reset. Because we go oh sad, Britin is getting a bittersweet end :/ then THIRTY seconds later we are seeing Brian party and it’s impossible for audience members to not directly connect those dots. Those are the only dots we’re shown!!

I read a 2005 livejournal where stayci28 said she viewed the end as more symbolic than real. It’s about the queer community continuing matter what and it’s really about people will continue to rise up. No matter what is being given to them and they will persevere, they will be proud, they will be here and they’re not gonna go anywhere. That’s a beautiful sentiment, makes a lot of sense, and is a fitting conclusion for the WHOLE show after the Britin bit is wrapped up.

However, Ron Cowan himself said that was only half true in an interview here: https://bjfic.livejournal.com/2528384.html?

He said that the dance was real and was one last outing. Though the sentiment is true – the scene was meant to be about queers surviving, not Brian being alone or an old party boy. (sidenote: see post 1 for me complaining that if this is one last outing…what is Brian doing, exactly, with his time now??)

But the editing and the pacing did not give the audience that space - and so the final scene still seems to be solely about Brian, not about the overall message of queer survival and joy. It LOOKS, at least, like (as Tumblr user @sophsun1 said) Brian was out with no son, no lover (who was in the city he wanted to be in), in a burnt out club. Rip.

The smallest of changes, like having the Britin ending coming earlier in the episode, or even inserting a single “breathing” scene between the Britin and finale scenes would have established the scene beats much better. Honestly, just changing Michael’s awful line (really that whole convo) about Brian always being young and beautiful to simply be about the ~~hopeful future~~ would have set the tone to be not about Brian being miserable.

When I see really old comments online about the end, I don’t get the sense that people fully “got” the end. From what I’ve seen, even fans who were okay with a bittersweet end weren’t really connecting that the finale wasn’t showing Brian miserable, lol.

I think the writers continuously structured the show to revolve around Brian and Britin, then wrote themselves out of that with various in your face plots/dialog, but ignored that beyond the literal words on script, story STRUCTURE impacts viewing experience just as much! These final two scenes display the embodiment of that issue.

The writers desperately needed to slow down, allow digestion, and visually show a divide of scenes if they had wanted the audience to comprehend the last two scenes as separate beats and not action/reaction.

Later this week, I have lots of thoughts about S5 replacement plotlines that would have easily fit into Cowlip’s established world, and a lot about Brian Kinney’s value system and internalized gender issues :)

[silcoitus]

hi, i’m like relatively new to arcane fanfics and i was wondering if you had any recommendations. i really like your fics so i trust your tastes (if that makes any sense)

Oh goodness, strap in anon. I have TONS of recs. And, because I'm me, they're all Silco/reader fics with the exception of the Boxer Silco fics.

You can actually find a good portion of my faves in this poem I wrote. At the bottom of the poem, I list all of the authors and links to their fics. I've read each of these and recommend them all! I'll tag them at the bottom of this ask, too, bc I lurve them 💙💙💙

Below the cut are going to be recs that aren't included in the poem

Drink With Me by @ink-and-dagger

The slow-burn that got me into slowburns. The fic that inspired me to try my hand at writing my own (TMSA), after only writing one-shots. I admire Inky's writing style, characterizations, and the fact that she finished her fic. As I near the end of mine, I now know firsthand how difficult that can be. I'm finally rereading this (only one more chp left to read!) And it's just as amazing the second time around.

Secret Ingredient by @sweatandwoe

I would be a liar if I said SI didn't inspire my fic Tailor-Made a bit. Reader character being a mom with a heart of gold really appealed to me and Sweaty does a phenomenal job of reconciling Silco's brutal but also soft nature that we all came to love watching Arcane. SI gives you the warm fuzzies like a fresh baked loaf of buttery bread. Mmmmmm.

Eros by @sxlco

No matter how many times I've read this one-shot, I keep coming back to it. It's a sex pollen fic and I'm convinced it rewired my brain. I finally wrote my own sex pollen fic (coming Dec 25) and a lot of that is because I loved Eros so much! Hot, sexy, tender, and so beautifully written. Truly chef's kiss

More Silco authors who have my heart 💙

@astudyincontrasts @cognacandlilac @deny-the-issue @purplefangirl42 @mazikomo @insult-2-injury @sherwood-forests @x-amount-verbs @juniper-sunny @mmartos @silcosentropy

Happy reading, anon!

[annimator]

Before QSMP, I had DSMP

Before Spiderbit, I had Karlnapity

…

I remember when I first learned about Karlnapity really fondly, and it was genuinely the first time I’ve learnt about polyamorous relationships. I saw throughout stream clips that they all loved each other and had adorable interactions. They were fiancés and had plans on having a wedding

But it never happened

They lacked communication skills. Karl didn’t tell Sapnap or Quackity about the fact that he’s a time traveller and that he loses his memory every time he travels to the past. Karl and Quackity got into an argument because Karl forgot about him while Sapnap had to watch both of the people he loved dearly argue with each other. And yet, I still thought they’d pull through…

But it never happened

DSMP ended and they never got a happy ending, they never got to reconcile and actually communicate

They never got their wedding

So I did whatever anyone else would do when canon fails them, and read fanfics. Fanfics where they lived together in domestic bliss, fanfics where they met in a different universe but still fell in love, fanfics where they got their wedding

…

But then, something new came up

In all honesty, I knew about QSMP ever since Quackity announced it and it seemed really interesting too, but since I was (and still am) in High School, I couldn’t really catch up. So I mainly relied on liveblogs to help guide my way throughout its story. It wasn’t much but at least it was something. And I was semi-interested in what was happening on the first multilingual server in Minecraft

And then, June 1st happened

Cellbit proposed to Roier and they had plans on getting married. Part of me was excited that those two were gonna tie the knot and become husbands, but on the other hand, I had a feeling this might be karlnapity all over again. And low and behold, the wedding got called off

But, things went differently this time

They managed to reconcile after the wedding got called off (ngl I’d forgive my fiancé too if found out that my relative [which said fiancé murdered] was still alive /j) and they even went on a date. And then Cellbit proposed to Roier again, and Roier accepts

I finally managed to watch a QSMP stream live on the 16th of June, and it was one of the best things I have ever seen. People dressed their cubitos up for the big day, Cellbit walked down the isle to the alter where his husband waited for him, and they were pronounced married, they kissed each other and walked hand in loveable hand to where they had a wedding cake, they tossed their bouquets, and they sang a duet that forever changed how I listen to ‘The Reason’ by Hoobastank

They finally got their wedding

And I couldn’t have been any happier.

[tinky-dinky]

About Jango Fett

So I've been having a lot of thoughts and feelings about Jango recently, and I want to talk about him.

Fair warning: This is almost entirely my own headcanons. It is based on canon, but is not canon and should not be taken as canon. Having said that, though, if you want to borrow my ideas for your own headcanons or fanfics, go ahead. Just credit me, please.

Let's talk Jango Fett.

It's difficult to reconcile the two halves of Jango. The loving father from a culture that puts heavy emphasis on protecting children and the cold man who allowed innocent children to be enslaved, tortured, abused and killed.

I think there are multiple ways we can explain this dichotomy. The obvious reasoning is that Jango simply doesn't view the clones as human, as anything more than meat droids. He compartmentalised them in his mind so they didn't come under the Mandalorian cultural protection of children. Boba, under this rationalisation, doesn't count as a clone because he's unaltered.

I don't particularly like this explanation, as it makes Jango an asshole. It's probably the most likely answer, but it's the least interesting.

I think Jango is a very broken man. He grew up in a civil war, watched his bio parents be murdered in front of him when he was 8 years old, then watched his adopted father be betrayed and killed when he was 14. It's worth pointing out that by this time he was already fighting in battles.

By the time he was 15, Jango had lived through a war and watched three parents be murdered. Then he's put in charge of his people, when he's way too young to handle that kind of pressure, and only manages to lead them for seven years.

Then Galidraan happens. His people are slaughtered, and it's partially his fault. The bulk of blame is on the Governer and Death Watch for setting the trap and the Jedi for being easily manipulated, failing to do any kind of research or investigation and actually being the ones who carried out the slaughter.

But Jango did fire first. It was technically him that started the violence, although given the Jedi approached with drawn lightsabers, one could argue some kind of violence was inevitable regardless of what Jango did.

This is all made worse by Jango's inability to grieve or process the loss of his people, because he was sold into slavery. I cannot imagine an unhealthier way to recover from trauma.

It's interesting that Jango never seems to have sought out any remaining True Mandalorians after he escapes slavery. Some must have survived; it's very unlikely that every single one of them went to Galidraan. In Legends canon, at least, there was one other survivor of Galidraan, a Mando named Silas. Dooku captures and tortures him for information on Jango.

So why did Jango never seek out any of his people? It could be that he felt they blamed him for the slaughter at Galidraan and wouldn't want him around, or may even injure or kill him. It could be that he didn't want anyone around him, was afraid to get close to people again, because everyone he's cared about has died. His parents, his sister, Jaster, all of his people, they all died. It could be that Jango thinks his people might want him to be their leader again and he doesn't trust himself to lead again. He fired first at Galidraan, and it got his people massacred.

I think it was probably some combination of all three.

I also think the second reason, the fear of getting close to people in case they die, is part of the reason why he doesn't acknowledge the clones. He's desperate not to lose more people he cares about, and he knows the clones are made to die.

But, then, what about Boba? Why did he insist on having Boba?

Legacy. But not his. I think he was thinking about Jaster's legacy when he decided to have Boba. Jaster was a good man, a reformer with the desire to make Mandalore a better place and a beloved leader. Certainly a better leader than Jango believes himself to have been.

Between Death Watch and the New Mandalorians, Jaster, his reforms and his people have been largely forgotten. Pretty much everyone who knew Jaster is dead, the True Mandalorians are almost all gone and his reforms have been ignored.

Jango wants someone to know about Jaster. To remember him and his legacy. And deep down somewhere, in a part of him he's repressing, he longs for family too.

He's fiercely protective of Boba, because he's desperate not to lose anyone else.

This brings us back to the clones. Why would Jango agree to make them? Especially when the man who recruited him is the same man who led the slaughter of his people?

I'm unsure if it's ever confirmed that Jango knew that the man he was working for was Dooku before Geonosis. I don't think it's likely he did. Again, why would he ever agree to work with him? No, I think Jango found out he had been working with Dooku when he arrived on Geonosis.

Maybe that's why he decided to go for Mace Windu, head of the Jedi order, of all the Jedi on Geonosis. Maybe he realised he'd spent a decade doing the bidding of the man who slaughtered his people. Maybe that led to other realisations, about how awfully he'd treated the clones, what he'd allowed to happen to them. Maybe he wanted to die.

All in all, I don't think Jango was a terrible person. He wasn't an especially good person, but he also wasn't an especially bad person either. Just a very broken man, struggling with a heavy amount of trauma in a galaxy that clearly lacks any kind of mental health support or treatment.

[wordsandrobots]

The Ragnarök in G Minor playlist

So! Now Ragnarök in G Minor (part 19 of 20 in my Iron-Blooded Orphans post-canon fanfic series Wishing on Space Hardware) is finally posted in full, I thought I'd share the full list of songs quoted at the end of each chapter. Mainly because I used a draft of this post as a way to keep track of all the YouTube links I needed and, well, it'd be a shame to let it go to waste.

This will contain some spoilers for WoSH overall, since where applicable, I'm naming the characters the songs relate to (along with the chapter titles, which are attempts to sum those characters up in a single word). Thus, a cut, to save anyone who wants to dive into the fics unspoilered (I am completing the series with fic #20 in a week's time, so now is an excellent time to do precisely that, if you're up for joining me for 650,000 words of complicated feelings about one of the best shows I've ever had the pleasure of watching).

Wish (prologue) -- A New England by Kirsty MacColl

Loser/Eugene Sevenstark -- Some Kind of Hero by Felix Hagan and the Family

Oddball/Yamagi Gilmerton -- Parallax by Thea Gilmore/Afterlight

Minister/Takaki Uno -- Your Bones by Of Monsters and Men

Sword/Julieta Juris -- Apparition #13 by Thea Gilmore

Corrupt/Earth (interlude) -- Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen

Stray/Argi Mirage -- Ain't No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant

Smith/Almandi Iverson (OC) -- Fight for Me by AlicebanD

Maiden/Kudelia Aina Bernstein -- Silver Lining by First Aid Kit

Devil/Kipchoge Ordsley (OC) + Mikazuki Augus -- Wolf Like Me by TV On The Radio

Reconcile/Dort Colonies (interlude) -- Something For The Pain by She Drew The Gun

Noble/Gaelio Bauduin -- The Road You Didn't Take by Stornaway

Terror/Embi -- Appetite for Destruction by Vo Williams

Survivor/Norba Shino -- Rattle and Roar by Skinny Lister

Fighter/Ride Mass -- Skin and Bones by Cage the Elephant

Ally/Teiwaz (interlude) -- The Game by The Levellers

Echo/Ahmed Fahim (OC) -- Rage of Dust by SPYAIR

Remainder/Azee Gurumin -- Try by Pink

Tool/Mackenzie Croft (OC) -- Fire With Fire by AlicebanD

Friend/Chad Chaden -- I'm OK by Honest Men

Grow/Mars (interlude) -- Injuries by Skinny Lister

Mouse/Atra Mixta-Bernstein -- Gold by The Wandering Hearts

Academic/Sri Chaifin (OC) -- Mile Magnificent by molly ofgeography

Fury/Almiria Bauduin -- Fall Together by Thea Gilmore

Human/Derma Altland -- Weeds or Wildflowers by Parsonsfield

Remember (epilogue) -- Embers by Skinny Lister

Vow (epilogue) -- Get Better by Frank Turner

Commit (epilogue) -- Modern Way by The Kaiser Chiefs

Run (epilogue) -- A Good Song Never Dies by Saint Motel

Move (epilogue) -- Battlegrounds by Coco and the Butterfields

[hecatesbroom]

Fanfic masterlist

Considering I'm trying to post more of the stuff I write, I figured I'd make a little fanfic masterpost while I'm at it, to encourage myself! (Because if anything encourages me, it's getting to add stuff to lists lmao)

The Golden Girls

One in four | 1.5k one-shot | a little Dorothy character study, exploring her sexuality (because I've decided she's queer, thank you very much)

and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak | 2.2k one-shot | Dorothy/Rose/Blanche | when Blanche kisses Rose’s cheek, Dorothy tries not to think of how it makes her feel — and fails spectacularly. Inspired by this adorable drawing!

the finish line | 6.7k, 2/2 chapters | Dorothy/Rose/Blanche | my attempt to reconcile Dorothy's marriage to Lucas with aforementioned ship. Lying awake in her new bed, in her new home, next to her new husband, Dorothy tries not to cry herself to sleep for the umpteenth time since getting married. She reflects on what really brought her here — and she finally faces up to the fears that pushed her over the edge.

haven't got a heart to stand those memories / when my heart is still with you | 3.6k one-shot (follow-up to the finish line) | Dorothy/Rose/Blanche | Blanche lies awake at night, thinking. Wondering where she went wrong — wondering if maybe, it's her fault that Dorothy left them.

Farewell to a Daughter (in C Major) | 1.7k one-shot | Sophia & Dorothy | When Dorothy walks down the aisle for the first time, sometime in the 1950s, Sophia mourns the loss of her daughter.

Signed "forever and only yours, Isaac Newton" | 1.6k one-shot | Blanche/Rose/Dorothy | A little exploration of Blanche's feelings in season 2's "Love, Rose", in which Blanche and Dorothy write love letters to Rose. (They know they mean every word they come up with, and they're not quite ready to consider the implications.)

And my heart is set on you | 2k one-shot | Blanche/Rose | the Grease-inspired AU I never thought I'd write, but here we are I guess!

I'm tired of wanting more / I think I'm finally worn | 5.5k one-shot | Dorothy has been tired all her life; CFS is a different beast entirely, but it brings back memories. A retrospective of Dorothy's life, exploring her chronic fatigue and the exhaustion she felt in the years before, during her marriage to Stan. (Find an additional drabble here!)

Tumblr ficlets | ongoing | thanks to brain fog, I decided to start a little low pressure project to keep myself occupied: writing little explorations of some of the Girls' gayest scenes. You can find all parts in the reblogs of my main post (linked here)

The dip | 1k ficlet | rose/dorothy | expanded and edited version of one of my tumblr ficlets. Dorothy dips Rose during the dance marathon; Rose isn't sure what to do about her feelings.

Ivy | drabbles, 623 words | two ways Dorothy tries to cope with being away from Rose and Blanche, after the finale

sleeping with a woman | 3.7k one-shot | blanche/rose/dorothy (implied) | “Can you imagine sleeping with a woman?” Rose asks one night. Sophia has the time of her life watching the consequences play out.

and though it's just a line to you / for me it's true, it never seemed so right before | 5k one-shot | blanche/dorothy | Insulting her is the only way Blanche knows how to pierce Dorothy’s shell, without exposing the depths of her own soul in the process. // Blanche tells Dorothy the truth, just once, in the Rusty Anchor's restroom.

Vulnerability in The Golden Girls - an essay | 8k essay (yup, that title wasn't a joke) | Vulnerability and emotional moments: themes left far from underexplored in The Golden Girls. But how exactly do our four Girls handle these feelings — and how do the show's writing and genre play into their individual relationships towards vulnerability? In this essay I will-

but oh, my dear / our love is here to stay | 4.3k one-shot | blanche/rose/dorothy | When Dorothy mentions she’s never been dipped before, Blanche and Rose conspire to change that.

(memories of) a mother's love | 8.2k one-shot | blanche/rose/dorothy | an exploration of S02E01: end of the curse, the distant past, and what happens in between

the odd one(s) out | 1k ficlet | Phil looks for an ally in Dorothy, but these are the 1950s — and not everyone is brave enough to be themselves just yet.

Maude

it's still the same old story | 5k one-shot | Maude/Vivian | what started out as a drabble exploring Maude's feelings for Vivian, turned into a 5k introspective piece about the history of their relationship. They're in a cinema and Vivian is watching the movie, but Maude is watching Vivian — and remembering.

The Locked Tomb

So jump and I'm jumping (since there is no me without you) | 4.7k one-shot | Mercymorn & Augustine | After John's assassination and his subsequent resurrection, Augustine reflects on his relationship with Mercymorn. There’s nothing else he finds himself capable of. (A rewrite of the attempted assassination scene, starting right after Mercy's death, with a ton of flashbacks)

But we never get back our youth | 700 word vignette | Palamedes & Camilla | A vignette exploring how Pal and Cam deal with their new reality in NtN – and how, through it all, they've stopped telling each other everything.

The Wheel of Time (tv)

Nothing but the memories | 1k one-shot | Siuan/Moiraine | After exiling Moiraine from the Tower, Siuan is convinced she sent her lover to certain death. A mostly introspective piece/relationship study from Siuan's point of view, in the hut she thinks will never be theirs to share anymore.

The darkness around her | 1.8k one-shot | Lan & Moiraine | Lan worries about Moiraine during a moment of quiet in their journey through the Ways. Because even if she does her best to hide it, he can still feel what she feels through their bond.

To the Manor Born

From Afar | 1.4k one-shot | Brabinger & Audrey | Christmas at Grantleigh hasn't always been as warm as the one of '81. Brabinger reminisces on the change throughout the years; once in '71, and once in '81.

[thestupidhelmet]

Hey there! First of all - I can't begin to say how amazing your work on here is. Your metas, fanfic, comics - as a relatively new 70s fan, it's been so great to peruse. I started watching the show in the autumn last year, and grew up in the 2000s so it still feels nostalgic to me.

It might be a bit of a weird question, but basically I've really been interested in researching the original screenplays, especially the 'scrapped' s7 ending (Aka the original finale) before it was renewed for season 8. I've had no luck so far, and I was wondering if you have had any experience looking for these before? If you have, would it be possible to ask for any pointers on where to start on my journey?

Thanks so much for everything you do, honestly it's amazing to read!!

Thank you for the kind words! I'm happy you're enjoying my T7S works. 😊♥️

Unfortunately, unless you got a hold of the T7S writers' own copies of their original drafts (if they -- or the producers -- still have them), they don't exist online anywhere.

The information I have about them is from the That '70s Show message board at Fan Forum. It was active from the time the earliest seasons first aired until my co-mod and I shut it down this year. The archives are still available to read at Fan Forum.

Before I was part of the board, it was a known quantity to people at That '70s Show. For instance, Wilmer Valderrama posted there a few times.

People who ran T7S fansites (which were a thing before social media sites like Facebook and Tumblr existed) often had connections to the show, and they shared insider info with people on the board, including about the S7 rewrites once S8 was greenlit. One specific example is that Jackie and Hyde were not supposed to reconcile until after Jackie's job offer in Chicago / ultimatum -- in other words, the series finale.

Because the series finale turned into a season finale, Jackie and Hyde's happy endgame was scrapped to give a ready-made story-arc to S8. That also led the showrunners to reconcile J/H temporary to give them a little more time together as a couple, allowing for the cliffhanger of the now-season finale.

J/H's reconciliation episode in S7 is badly written. Probably quickly written, and it shows. It contains no depth, no acknowledgement of their two-and-half years of show time as a couple. It defaults to their status in "Going to California" (5x01) and misinterprets and retcons it to boot.

(Reminds me of how T7S writer and T9S showrunner Gregg Mettler admitted he used Wikipedia to remind himself of the T7S characters' basic characterization and storylines instead of actually watching the show again for the most accuracy.)

When I became co-mod of the T7S board, I read through over fifteen years of posts (did my due diligence so I could be as knowledgeable as possible about T7S, behind-the-scenes info, and the fandom. The number of posts I read is staggering (we're talking close to 100,000), not just from my board but every T7S-related boarding on Fan Forum.

I also followed links to the fansites, using the Internet Wayback Machine when necessary. Found interviews with cast members and producers (transcribed, early podcasts, and filmed). Read through the Live Journal fandom and any other T7S message boards I found. I was beyond thorough. I treated my new post like getting a PhD in T7S.

Talk about hyperfixation (but I had my reasons 😅). My memory for this kind of info is scary. I might not remember how the contents of my dresser drawer have been arranged for over a decade, but I'm the person who naturally memorized her most interesting college classes and could recite their entirety to people (who were interested) for years after I graduated.

So it was with the T7S info I learned. Spoilers from taping reports with alternate takes and scenes ultimately cut from the aired episodes. The words I read while in a grocery store checkout line of the S8 showrunners from a TV Guide (I believe) interview and how unhappy I was upon learning they hated J/H's relationship and were reverting it back to their season-1 dynamic (as they [mis]understood it).

By repeating all this info for a decade to people who asked, it remained with me. I shared some of my findings on this blog with links. But to get the full picture, one would have to read all the posts and fansites, etc., which is a ridiculous task. So I do my best to provide what what specifics I can.

When I was a co-mod of the T7S board, we still had people visit who interacted with T7S creators. One person, for instance, had interviewed Mark Brazill (the man who came up with the major concepts of T7S) for his own site and posted the transcript for us.

I'm sorry that I can't help you find the actual original scripts (I'd love to read them myself), but if one watches T7S's latter half, original parts are still evident -- as are where stories were spliced and rewritten.

[chrononautintraining]

For the fanfic writer asks

3 for Leaves After the Fall (my favorite of your Naruto fics)

4 for pale shadows of forgotten names

Thanks for all your great fics!

Wow! Two asks! Thank you. You're two kind <3

3. Do you have a favorite scene you’ve written from Leaves After the Fall ? 

When I think about that story, I always think of Guy in his wheelchair talking with Hinata about Neji beside the memorial stone. For a show that made me weep so often in the first few seasons, eventually death in Naruto became a bit of a joke. The cost was never real, and people might die but they rarely stayed gone. In the end, though, Neji did. So I wrote that story to have horny thoughts about Kakashi's genjutsu to reconcile the price of everything that happened. To watch Guy, a character who so wholly embodies his physicality, watching the new leaves grow from a wheelchair with chronic fatigue. And to mourn a little for what was lost.

I think I succeeded in making his struggles sympathetic rather than a caricature, which can be a fine line to walk with Mighty Guy.

4. Did you have any ideas that didn’t make the final cut of pale shadows of forgotten names? 

So, so many. The problem is that I'm pretty firmly in The Untamed camp. I had *a lot* of ideas for Wei Wuxian sneaking around and hiding Madam Lan from Lan Wangji. Various hijinks involving secret keeping, distracting Lan Wangji, hiding the mirror with the ghost in it in different locations, etc. I wanted to set Madam Lan up as Wei Wuxian's Ghost Friend for a while before the big reveal.

UNFORTUNATELY, Wangxian are not just in love, they're friends! Lan Wangji isn't an idiot. I'd write a scene and then in the middle of it Lan Wangji would just realize Wei Wuxian was deflecting, look over at the mirror, and know something was up. It was very frustrating, actually. So no hi-jinks, but hopefully all the angst and qi deviating made up for it.

[themerrypanda]

One week until Loki Season 2! In celebration, I am posting here my only fanfic of the show, a two-year-old potential epilogue to the conclusion of the events of the first season. It may not perfectly align with the new canon established in the season two previews, nor in the episodes yet to come. But I like to think that considering then’s limited knowledge, this was alright.

Title: Always. For All Time.

Word Count: 1,096

Summary: Sylvie Laufeydottir attempts to reconcile her actions with the new reality she created.

Author’s Note: I’m usually not one for writing fanfic on stories that are not yet complete. But as I thought of a hypothetical epilogue to Episode 6 where Loki was able to find Sylvie again, I determined that their interaction would not be unlike that of the main protagonists of The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Era 1: Book 2) in the very last scene of the book.

Sylvie perked her head up when she heard a heavy door creak open. Someone had entered the Citadel. Was this…? No. She got up to her feet and summoned a dagger in each hand. She hid herself, her back against the wall, while still allowing herself the best view into the chamber where pedestals, three with a Timekeeper standing on it, a fourth broken where another statue may have used to stand.

At the sound of footsteps, Sylvie quieted her breathing. The steps were light, but in a little rush. Whoever it was, they entered the chamber. Silently she watched, daggers poised for attack, waiting for someone to appear. Any second now. One, two, three, four…

A Loki appeared. A slender male with black hair, blue button-up shirt and tie. He glanced around himself quickly and often as he stepped further into the Citadel. Was this her Loki? If He Who Remains said more truth than she had believed before she killed him, this could be any Loki from any infinite universe. How could she know?

The Loki crossed the threshold into what used to be the office of He Who Remains. His eyes widened in surprise at the seemingly empty room. Sylvie inched forward, prepared to strike.

“Sylvie?” The Loki whispered.

This one knew her name. She nearly dropped a dagger, then quickly regained her resolve. How much could the TVA see into the Void?

At the slight sound she made, however, Loki spotted her. Quickly he raised his hands. “Sylvie, it’s me.”

“How can I know?” she interrogated, trying desperately not to give away the despair in her voice. “The TVA can see everything.”

“Everything but inside the Citadel.” Loki said. “Alioth makes sure of that. And I know that because you pushed me back there when I tried to stop you from killing He Who Remains.”

She struck her dagger at him. He deflected it with a dagger of his own, suddenly formed. After more parrying, he froze when she held her second dagger to his throat. “And how can I be sure?”

Sylvie was prepared to cut his throat right there if he didn’t answer quickly enough. And he didn’t say anything right away, but he did rest his hand on her forearm, fingertips brushing gently against her elbow. His lips trembled, opening and closing as he tried to think of what to say.

But in the end, it wasn’t what he would finally say that would prove himself. It was those eyes. Those soft, blue eyes, like a settling storm. They were pleading, like a man with his lover, something she had seen thousands of times in all of the catastrophes she lived through in hiding. Pleading for them to stay together until their eminent bitter end, and longer, if possible.

“I want you to be okay.” Loki whispered.

They were the same eyes she saw before she kissed him.

Her doubts vanished. Her daggers clattered on the floor before vanishing, and she threw her arms around him and buried her head against the side of his head, a cheek resting on his shoulder. This had to be her Loki. She wasn’t strong enough for him to be anyone else.

“I’m not okay.” The tears she thought were spent moments ago returned again to stain her face. “I thought I would be free when I killed him.”

Slowly, Loki wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, hands on her shoulder blades, consoling her the best way he knew how. “What did he say after I left?” he asked.

“I’ll see you soon.” She repeated the words for him. The words echoed incessantly in her ears long after she stabbed He Who Remains.

“I saw him.” Loki said. Sylvie froze and listened. “The TVA’s changed. There are no Timekeepers. Their imagery is gone. Images of He Who Remains take their place. But not the one you just killed.” Loki sighed deeply. “Mobius doesn’t even know who I am anymore. Unless I met a different Mobius. I wouldn’t know where to look to find ours.”

Sylvie released her hold on him and took a step back. The cut on his shirt remained, the blood faded into a rusty brown. His clothes were more tattered than they were before she pushed him through the Timedoor. The wrinkles on Loki’s face seemed more prominent now. This was her Loki alright, but he seemed so hardened. What horrors did he have to face before he could make it back here?

“I didn’t free the Sacred Timeline.” Sylvie whispered. “Not the people in it either. I fractured it. Splintered it so badly pieces can never be put back into place.” They glanced out of one of the many large windows in the room. The white ring that used to represent the Sacred Timeline hardly resembled a ring anymore. The leading vein narrowed further and further, the branches also getting thinner until they either faded or entwined with another in conflict.

“I got it wrong.” Sylvie turned her feet to the window behind the seated body of He Who Remains, willing the timelines to return to its pristine state, but to no avail. “I felt it when He took his last breath. I never should have killed him, Loki.”

She felt him touch her hand, gently squeezing his fingers around hers. “You did what you thought was right, Sylvie,” Loki said. “Revenge aside, the intentions you had to prevent them from hurting any more variants was good. With the many lies He told, how could we have possibly known whether it was better to let this one live or risk confronting others?”

“You think too highly of me.” Sylvie shook her head. “In the end, I am worse than the TVA. He Who Remains realized that to keep the timelines from becoming unstable, us variants needed to be pulled out, rather than allowed to make choices that would bring the timelines together.”

“If he’d been a good leader, Sylvie,” Loki said, “he wouldn’t have sentenced variants to die in the Void, confused and without purpose.”

“I may have done far worse,” Sylvie said. “Killing He Who Remains. A more ruthless one now ruling the TVA, thousands of timelines constantly at war… Loki, what are we going to do?” 

Loki broke hold of her fingers, only to entwin them with his, one by one. His thumb softly rubbed hers as he stared out the same window into the same colorful Void.

“We’re going to do what makes a Loki a Loki, Sylvie,” he whispered. “We’re going to survive.”

[redladydeath]

You know, it's funny. When I watched the first Fionna and Cake episode as a little almost-eleven-year-old girl, I literally SOBBED when it was revealed it was all a fanfic by Ice King. When this new miniseries was announced, I was pretty excited to heal my inner overdramatic tween by finally getting to see them as real, canon characters. But now I find myself actually disliking the reveal that they were real all along and were created by Prismo and hidden in Ice King's mind. Eleven-year-old me would've adored that. I think it's because, based on how the series is shaping up so far, it seems like they're trying to create an allegory for how mentally ill/addicted creatives struggle with their past work after recovery, feeling as though their illness was what made them able to make good/well-liked art in the first place and struggling to reconcile that with how bad things actually were for them back then. If that is what they're going for, I think Fionna and Cake not actually being Simon's creations weakens that meta-story. But hey, I could be wrong and we're not even halfway through yet, so we'll see, maybe they'll still be able to pull it off.

[fourcolour-ace]

What Am I Writing These Days? #4

Almost one year since the last update on this front. If you follow my writing on AO3 you'll know I've posted one work since last year, the Shingo wingfic introspective that I mentioned in the previous WAIWTD. It's here https://archiveofourown.org/works/49681858/chapters/125399029 and I'm working on a second chapter for it.

Unfortunately my old tablet, which was my main writing device, finally kicked it late last year and took about half my WIPs with it. All my work on Moon Age, the draft of the second chapter mentioned above and many other works that I had varying relationships with were lost. It's a months-old thing now, but it's the reason for slow progress of late.

Every once in a while I'll add about one sentence to my k-pop fanfic. I've been feeling more and more alienated from SKZ fandom which is the main cause of that. I know where I'm going I'm with it, but it's the going that's tough. I'm glad it's lasted this long already.

For a while I was working on an original piece based on k-pop, but that's only gotten as far as pre-writing work. I downloaded a new writing app and everything to work on it. It's a sort of low sci-fi biopunk setting, and a story about the lengths we go to to appeal to others. If I can ever get serious about it I want it to be my debut novel. Am I crazy? It's still better than bringing omegaverse to the Western market, which was my original plan.

As before, the work I'm most enthusiastic about is Kamen Rider fanfiction. My current silly unpolished work is a crossover between Hibiki and Ex-Aid. Asumu and Emu are about the same age and both doctors, how could I resist? There are hardly two heisei rider series more opposite than them, so I'm finding it fun to reconcile that. It's a nice payoff to watching all those strange j-dramas and movies last year when I was too into Rakuto Tochihara. Among the work lost when my tablet died was a Gentaro/Kengo post-canon AU Fourze fanfic, set in my vaguely Green Lantern-inspired conception of what being a Core Child means. I might write more in that AU eventually, in the meantime I urge interested parties who have finished Fourze to ask me about it.

My current exciting work, that I started the day before AnimeNorth and I've been basically adding to every day since, is a one-sided AnkhEiji fic inspired by some aspects of Dungeon Meshi and also my own twisted mind. What happens when Eiji brings Ankh back but the bird wants nothing to do with Eiji? When I've got enough to publish you just might find out. I've finally come to terms with the fact that I don't ship Ankh and Eiji, but I still have to cope with most of the OOO fanwork being about them, so I'm writing this. I like it a lot.

As always I encourage questions about the works discussed in this post.

[deliriumsdelight7]

You've watched Rings of Power? Would you recommend it? I LOVE Lord of the Rings, but I'm a bit skeptical about this new series...

That’s a tough call, Anon, only because I like to tailor my media recommendations based on the person asking. Since I don’t know you, I’ll give you my thoughts, as spoiler free as I can, and let you make a decision.

There are certain things that I feel the show did well. Making the forces of evil more than just evil for evil’s sake is one of them. Would I go so far as to say that they humanize those forces, or make them sympathetic? No. But they make them… knowable. To me, there’s something there to be explored. Whether the writers choose to explore it in future seasons is another story.

I also enjoyed the way the series fleshed out the dwarves. We don’t get to see that very often in the Tolkien universe, so it was nice to catch a glimpse of what that culture was like at its height.

We also get to see more of the struggle of ordinary folk. Peasants. People who have equal parts good and bad in them, whose lives aren’t mapped out in some grand destiny. I like that.

The elves… nngh. The elves were a huge part of what Tolkien fleshed out in his various works, so when they get details wrong, it’s jarring. Also, they just don’t look right to me! I’m the first person to say that, when casting an actor for a role, I’d rather have someone who doesn’t look the part but absolutely nails the acting than the reverse. Thing is, most of the actors for the elves just don’t look how I’d picture their characters at all (Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad being chief among them), but none of those actors gave performances that knocked my socks off, either.

The writers also took a lot of liberties with established canon events - I won’t go into which. I really can’t weigh in on whether these changes were good or not, because we only have a single season. Maybe those changes will have long-reaching consequences for future seasons that’ll be really awesome to see. Or maybe the writers just wanted to pull the rug out from under the feet of those of us who know the lore. I suspect the latter. I’m interested, in a “watching a train wreck” sort of way, to see how they reconcile some of those changes with later canon. Some of those changes seem utterly irreconcilable to me.

And finally: Don’t. Get me started. On the Harfoots.

So… ultimately, it’s up to you. If you’re looking for the canon retelling of the forging of the rings, look elsewhere. This series is not for you. If you’re not well-versed in the lore, you can probably enjoy it. If you are… just repeat the following, over and over, like a mantra:

“This is fanfic. This is fanfic. This is fanfic.”

[doctorofmagic]

So, in fairness to this ask, I haven't read strange #1 BUT I'm losing it at the idea that Clea just hurt Victor's feelings so badly he lost his motivation to fight her 🥺. And like, ok 2 things because I'm losing it but:

1. Victor losing any motivation to fight Clea after she basically said that Stephen doesn't trust or even like him (VICTOR!! Victor who is in that weird space where he is better friends with Stephen than most other heroes are. Their connection is truly bizarre but hey, that's magic, also you force a guy to sleep over at your house for a month and you think he understands the way you work, and then his wife shows up and tells you "nah fam he's always thought you were way too sketchy and specifically did something to stop you because he doesn't trust or like you" and apparently it makes you so smad you storm out without accomplishing anything you were gonna do lmao.)

2. I'm LOSING it Victor's doing it again HE'S DOING IT AGAIN!! Victor is going through the exact same process of grieving he did with Tony in Infamous Iron Man!! He is here to steal their signature things and take on the mantle to HONOR THEM HE'S DOING IT AGAIN YOUR HONOR (I know there's a LOT more perks to being SS (including the title) and Victor definitely wants those things but JUST. From a meta standpoint!! This is the second time Victor has lost a superhero friend he considers CLOSE TO HIM and the first thing, the FIRST THING HE DOES IS TRY TO FIND WAYS TO HONOR THEM I'M FUCKING CRYING YOUR HONOR) listen just. It's just me reading into it like crazy but the idea that Victor could've shown up in SOME REGARD, SOME PERCENTILE OUT OF GRIEF (not SHEER grief, I'm sure) IS MAKING ME LOSE MY SHIT.

Just. Victor is definitely a man of action and most often those actions have double meanings to them!! Yes usually it's played where something that seems good may actually be bad but THE REVERSE CAN ALSO BE TRUE FOR HIM. He wants to grieve and the only way he knows HOW is to honor the fallen and it could be that ACTUALLY (he'd snap my neck instantly for saying it and of course he's hiding it all behind pomp and anger and apathy but) HE'S DEVASTATED ABOUT STEPHENS DEATH that made him leave when Clea started saying, well, mean shit Victor ABSOLUTELY has a thick skin for after years of being belittled by superheroes!! And it's not like he genuinely takes authority above him seriously!! He like, NEVER has cared for someone being "above" him before!! the only example that comes to mind of Victor respecting someone higher up on a totem pole than him was FOR STEPHEN AS SORCERER SUPREME!!! so, SO! SO!!!

(this is such a long incomprehensible ask and I'm so sorry I'm just a poor little Victor Stan screaming about the idea of him being more hurt than he appears to be about Stephens death)

Anoooooon 😭😭😭

Okay so I have a huuuuge queue of asks but listen, when people talk about my faves in such an emotional and beautiful way, they have priority, this is my blog and I make the rules /j

Apologies in advance, my reply will be a mess as well.

I didn't really know how to feel at first, truth be told. The chapter really left me in a shocked mood about pretty much everything, especially when it comes to Victor and Clea. She was really mean to him and I wonder how she knew exactly where to go with words in order to hurt his feelings. I mean, it is canon that Stephen didn't want Victor to become Sorcerer Supreme back in New Avengers v2, but that was before Secret Wars. That was before Savage Avengers and Hellfire Gala. And Clea wasn't there in any of these occasions except for Infinity War (which also means that she's aware that Doom almost died to Thanos because of his desire for power).

At this point, I have the feeling that Clea is also aware of Stephen and Victor's relationship because, well, they are married and also connected to the magic community on Earth. She kinda knows that Stephen assisted Victor plenty of times.

I'm not so sure about Jed's portrayal of Doom, if there are actually hidden feelings or just pride (because, well, as Doom stans, we know that not all writers go that deep for him). But if we analyze his reaction when Jericho became SS compared to Clea, Victor couldn't care less about Jericho's feelings because they didn't talk about personal matters. Victor only stepped back when the light of the Eye was too much for him to bear. On the other hand... Clea said it to his face that Stephen's last desire was to make sure Victor wouldn't become the SS, which is not true. And instead of retaliating, Victor just... flinched.

Also "where were you when Stephen died?" I also have my doubts here if he's sorry for not being there or he was just not interested. There's also the possibility that he was busy with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and he now possesses Dormammu's power, which could lead them to another argument. But it's true. He didn't show up when the Mothers and the Peregrine Child arrived. Victor saved Stephen's life in Savage Avengers but he was not around when he died for real.

So we have the "old" (and I use this word carefully because I do believe Victor has plenty of character development) Doom, the cold king who doesn't show emotions. And yet, I like to think that, even though he still hides his heart beneath a literal armor, Stephen is one of the few people who are able to see through his façade. Or else, how can one explain this???

This is indulgence at its finest.

What I mean is, I deeply want to believe that Victor is here not because of power but because he wants to honor the mantle and Stephen's memories. If you think about it, Victor would have to make the Sanctum partially his home since it's a place of power and artifacts. And he knoooows the heroes would retaliate to see him as the SS. It's IIM all over again deep down.

It's tricky, ngl. I need more to be sure because I don't want to have my hopes up only to read more of one-dimensional Victor, but of course my heart CRAVES it, LONGS FOR IT. I have no idea if Victor and Clea will clash again, and the whole Dormammu's power will be brought into light. But if I could choose the plot, boi, we'd be reading T&T 2.0 with both of them teaming up to save Stephen. I'm manifesting it every single day of my life lmao. Although, since it's Clea's book, it's hard to believe she will have assistance. Unless there's character development to show that it's not good to be alone when you're the SS. Stephen more than anyone else knows that.

hhhhh and I couldn't agree more! Victor never tried to steal the mantle from Stephen because the man respects him so so so much. Also, have you ever seen Doom saying these words to ANYONE ELSE????????

I'm losing my mind too sos.

Ugh, I feel so frustrated for loving a character like Victor because while we have excellent and deep perception of his character (Hickman, Duggan, Al Ewing, Stern), we also have to deal with writers like, ew, Waid (yes, people, Waid is bad both to Stephen and Victor haha) or whoever wrote that atrocity called Fantastic Four Life Story. So it's always a surprise if Victor will be an emotional mess or just a shallow villain. I'm always here for emotional mess, obviously. And I pray that Jed is also aiming for that. I want him to break. I want him to be in shambles for failing Stephen. Because I love him and this is my love language. In the end, I think Clea made him swallow his pride and showed him that he does not deserve to claim something that was Stephen's when he was not there for him. And that really hurt him, whether it was his pride or guilt. I suppose it was a bit too much but she had a point there. And I adore this kind of angst. Also... I'm not saying it's canon or anything, but what if she resents him for not being there when Stephen died? And now he has the audacity of claiming his legacy? NOT ON HER WATCH! (ah, yes, more angst, delicious food) Anyway, I didn't make any sense, did I? I just cried over them like I always do hhh I'm sorry. But I wanted to thank you deeply for this ask, it was really so so so beautiful and I'm with you till the very end. And please feel free to interact whenever you feel like it, I'm always down for it n.n

Have a wonderful day/night 🥰

[gxrlcinema]

so. a new trailer for the teen wolf movie dropped. how do u feel about it / what are ur thoughts?

alright, a lot of thoughts so i’m doing bullet points:

interesting choice to bring the nogitsune back without dylan. like, good choice because nogitsune is their most iconic villain but i fear that nobody is on dylan’s level acting wise and therefore the nogitsune isn’t gonna hit as hard.

THE GALL of these people to decide that kira wasn’t important enough to pay arden cho properly but then bring back the villain that her family has backstory with. the GALL of them in general to disrespect arden cho the way they did in the original series and the way they did with the movie.

i didn’t think tyler hoechlin was gonna be there and i’m kinda shocked he is.

teen wolf has to reconcile with the fact that their most beloved character is the son of a cop and many of their characters are cops when public opinion towards the police is super divisive. i recognize that cutting out the beacon hills sheriff’s department wasn’t an option. but making mason a deputy was not the answer to this issue.

no because really, mason should’ve been a teacher at the high school. worked in the town library. mason’s skills and interests never once overlapped with policing (yes my biggest issue with the teen wolf movie trailer is the fact that mason is a deputy).

allison being alive again is such a bad retcon on a storytelling level but i am also excited that crystal is there. very curious about their explanation of allison having aged. very nervous they’re gonna pull some “scott never really got over her” crap both invalidating his other romances on the show and showing no emotional growth over the last decade.

i want more hale interactions. does derek greet malia as family? have he and peter talked over the last decade?

what is peter like what has peter been up to i am outing myself as someone who is desperate for peter hale content

i didn’t see cody christian (christiansen? i don’t remember) or dylan sprayberry and i’m very surprised by that. (edit: upon review, dylan sprayberry is definitely there. these clips are so short and hard to see i can’t tell who’s actually there).

I DIDN’T SEE MELISSA MCCALL????

why is everyone in the exact same wardrobe they wore when the show ended. why do they all have the exact same haircuts.

i honestly would have watched a teen wolf movie that was just a normal high school reunion. no monsters, no deaths, just a bunch of late-twenty-somethings coming back together and reflecting on their shared trauma and how they’ve tried to adjust to being normal people since leaving beacon hills. i know that’s never been the movie i was gonna get, but if anyone would direct me to a fanfic that’s like that i would greatly appreciate it.

OH FUCK IS THAT DEREK’S SON?!?!?!

[sineala]

How would you say fandom culture has changed over the years? What are some differences you notice between older and younger fandom folks?

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to answer this, and I’m not sure I have a really good answer, but I’m going to try.

I’ve been in fandom since approximately 1995. Maybe 1994. At that point, the world wide web was a relatively new part of the internet, and the fandoms I was in had most of their activity on privately-hosted mailing lists (predating eGroups/OneList/Yahoo Groups) and on Usenet newsgroups, with fiction beginning to be available on websites as part of either fandom-specific or pairing-specific archives as well as authors’ individual pages. Fanfiction.net did not yet exist. LiveJournal did not exist. AO3 definitely did not exist. If you wanted real-time chat, there was IRC. I was coming in basically at the tail end of zine fandom; zines were no longer the only way of distributing fanfiction, as fandom started to move online. So I have a selection of zines from 90s-era Western media fandoms but even by then zines weren’t where I was doing most of my reading.

I think in terms of generally “what it was like to be in fandom,��� the big-picture stuff hasn’t changed. Fandom still produces creative fanwork and likes to, y’know, get together and talk about fandom. Also, almost every fight or complaint that fandom has about something is a thing that has been going on for actual years. People complain that, say, the kudos button is ruining comment culture because back in the LJ days the only way you could comment on a story was, well, by leaving an actual comment, or sending an email on a mailing list, and this might mean that people who would have otherwise commented have left a kudos instead. But back in the LJ and mailing list days, people were complaining that commenting was going downhill since the days of zines, when in order to comment on a story you had to write a real paper letter and mail it and because you had to do that, the quality of feedback was so much better than you got nowadays because people could just dash off a quick email or comment. You get the idea. Top/bottom wars are not new either. Pairing wars are not new. If you’ve been in fandom a while, you will pretty much have seen all the fights already. I think one thing that is new, though, is the fandom awareness of things like privilege and intersectionality and various -isms, as well as things like “providing warnings might be nice” (do you know how much unwarned deathfic I have read? a lot!) and I sure won’t say we’re perfect at any of this now, but I think fandom is trying way way more about all that stuff than it used to.

There are some fights we actually don’t have anymore, as far as I can tell. I feel like it’s been years since I’ve seen the “real person fiction is wrong” battle, but also I don’t hang out in a whole lot of RPF fandoms, so it’s possible that’s still going and I just don’t see it.

There also used to be a recurring debate about whether gay relationships that were canonical were slash or not. When slash started, obviously this wasn’t a question because there weren’t canonical gay relationships in fandoms, period. But as gay characters began to appear in media, people started to wonder “does slash mean all same-sex relationships, or does slash mean only non-canonical same-sex relationships?” Now, you may be reading this and think that sounds like an incredibly weird thing to get hung up on, but that’s because what appears to have happened is that the term “ship” (originally from X-Files Mulder/Scully fandom) has, as far as I can tell, come up and eaten most of the rest of the terminology. Now people will just say, “oh, I ship that.” For any pairing, gay or not, canonical or not. Fandom seems to have decided that for the most part it no longer actually needs a term specific to same-sex relationships as a genre.

Similarly, there are a few genres of fic that we used to have also pretty much don’t exist anymore. There are also plenty of genres that are well-entrenched now that are also extremely recent -- A/B/O comes to mind. But there are some kinds of fic we don’t write a lot of now. Like, I haven’t seen smarm in years! I also haven’t seen We’re Not Gay We Just Love Each Other in a while. There was also a particular style of slash writing where you’d basically have to explain, in detail, what made you think that these particular characters could be anything other than straight. You’d have to motivate this decision. You’d have to look at their canonical heterosexual relationships and come up with a way to explain why all those had happened in order to reconcile how this one guy could have romantic feelings for another guy. When had he figured out he wasn’t straight? Who might he have been with before? How does he interact with people in ways that make you think he’s not straight? That kind of thing. You had to, essentially, show your work. And these days a lot of fanfic is just like, “Okay, Captain America is bisexual, let’s go!” It’s... different.

Fandom also used to skew older, is my sense. A lot older. I don’t know, actually, if it really was older, but I get the sense now that there are some younger people who are surprised that adults are still in fandom. I have seen people saying these days that they think they’re too old for fanfiction because they are not in middle school anymore. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the barriers to access fandom are a lot lower than they used to be. You used to basically have to be an adult with disposable income (or know an adult with disposable income who was willing to help you out; but even then if you were reading explicit fiction you also had to swear you were 18+, usually by sending in an age statement to whoever you were buying the zine from or to the mods of the list you wanted to join, so a lot of fandom was very much age-gated). Internet access was not widely available. Even if you had internet access, you maybe didn’t have your own email address, so you couldn’t sign up for mailing lists; free email providers didn’t exist. If you wanted to buy zines, you had to have money to buy them. If you wanted to go to cons, you had to be able to afford the cost of the con, travel to the con, et cetera. If you wanted to have a website you had to know HTML. Social media did not exist. You want to draw art? Guess what, you’re probably drawing it on paper! You might be able to upload a picture to your website if you have a digital camera or a scanner, but both of those things are expensive, and also a lot of people don’t have the capability or the money to download pictures from the internet (some people have data caps with overage charges, and some people have text-only connections!), so they won’t get to see it. Maybe you can sell your piece at a con! You want to make a fanvid? We called them songvids, but, anyway, you know how you’re doing that? You’re going to hook two VCRs together and smash the play and record buttons very fast! If you want anyone else to watch them, you are either making them a tape personally and mailing it to them or bringing your vids to a convention. Maybe you can digitize them and upload them, but it’s going to take people hours to download them!

(Every three hours my ISP would kick me off the internet and I’d have to dial in again. If it was a busy time of day, it might take me 20 or 30 minutes to get a connection again. And that was assuming no one else in the house needed to use the phone line. Imagine if your modem went out every three hours now.)

And now, for the cost of my internet connection, I can read pretty much whatever fanfiction I want, whenever I want it. I can see all the fanart I want! I can watch vids! Podfic exists now! Fanmixes exist! Gifsets and moodboards exist! If I want to write fic I can write it with programs that are completely free, and as soon as I post it everyone in the entire world can read it. If I want to draw or make vids that may require some additional investment, but I may also be able to do it with things I already have. Do you have any idea how good we all have it?

There are a couple of kinds of fan activity that don’t seem to exist anymore, though, and I miss them. I know that roleplaying still goes on, but I feel like these days most people who do real-time text roleplay have switched to things like Discord. I know that in the LJ days, RP communities were popular. But I really miss MU*s (MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, MUXes..), which were servers for real-time text-based RP with a bunch of... hmm... features to aid RP. There were virtual rooms with text descriptions, and objects in virtual rooms with descriptions, and your character had a description, and they could interact with the objects as well as with other characters, and you could program things to change descriptions or emit various kinds of text or take you to different rooms, and so on. Just to, y’know, enhance the atmosphere. It was fun and it was where I learned to RP and I’m sad they’re pretty much gone now.

I also don’t think I see a lot of fanfiction awards in fandoms. Wonder where they went.

Going back to the previous point, the barriers to actually consuming the canon you are fannish about are way, way, way lower now. You can pretty much take it for granted that if right now someone tells you about a shiny new fandom, there will be a way to read that book or watch that show or movie right now. Possibly for free! Of course you can watch it! Why wouldn’t you be able to?

This was absolutely, absolutely not the case before. I’m currently in Marvel Comics fandom. If there is a comic I want to read, I can read it right now on the internet. I have subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and I can read pretty much every comic that is older than three months old; the newer ones cost extra money. But I can do it all from the comfort of my own home right now. I was also, actually, in Marvel Comics fandom in the nineties. If I wanted to read a comic, I had to go to a comic book store and hope they had it in stock; if they didn’t, I had to try another store. Not a lot of comics were available in trade paperback and they definitely weren’t readable on the internet. I used to read a lot of Gambit h/c fic set after Uncanny X-Men #350. I never found a copy of UXM #350. I still haven’t! But I did eventually read it on Unlimited.

Being in TV show fandoms also had similar challenges. Was the show you were watching still on the air? No? Then you’d better hope you could find it in reruns, or know someone who had tapes of it that they could copy for you, otherwise you weren’t watching that show. It was, I think, pretty common for people to be in fandoms for shows they hadn’t seen, because they had no way to see the show, but they loved all the fanfic. The Sentinel had a whole lot of fans like that, both because I think it took a while for it to end up in reruns and because overseas distribution was probably poor. So you’d get people who read the fic and wrote fic based on the other fic they’d read, which meant that you got massive, massive amounts of fanon appearing that people just assumed was in the show because it was a weirdly specific detail that appeared in someone’s fic once. Like “Jim and Blair’s apartment has a small water heater” (not actually canonical) or “Blair is a vegetarian” (there’s an episode where his mother visits and IIRC cooks him one of his favorite meals, which is beef tongue).

Like, I was in The Professionals fandom for years. I read all the fic. I hadn’t seen the show. As far as I know, it never aired in the US, and it certainly never had any kind of US VHS or DVD release. I’d seen a couple songvids. I eventually saw a couple episodes in maybe 2003, and that was because my dad special-ordered a commercial VHS tape from the UK and paid someone to convert it from PAL to NTSC. I didn’t get to see the whole show until several years later when I got a region-free DVD player someone in fandom sent me burned copies of the UK DVD releases and then I special-ordered the commercial release of the DVDs from the UK myself. But if I were a new fan and wanted to watch Pros right now? It is on YouTube! For free!

I think also one of the things about fandom that’s not immediately evident to new fans is the way in which it is permanent and/or impermanent. There are probably people whose first fannish experience is on Tumblr or who only read fanfic on FFN and who have no idea what they would do if either site, say, just shut down. But if you’ve been in fandom a while, you’ve been through, say, Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, Pillowfort, Imzy, DW, JournalFen, LJ, GeoCities, IRC, mailing lists. And sure, if Tumblr closed, it would be inconvenient. But fandom would pack up and move somewhere else. You would find it again. It would, eventually, be okay. Similarly, if you’ve been in a lot of fandoms, if you’ve made a lot of friends, drifting through fandoms is like that. You’ll make a friend in 1998 because you were in the same fandom, and then you might go your own ways, and ten years later you might be in another fandom with them again! It happens.

But the flip side of that is that I think a lot of older fans have learned not to trust in the permanence of any particular site. If you like a story, you save it as soon as you read it. If you like a piece of art, you save it. If you like a vid, you save it. Because you don’t know when the site it’s on will be gone for good. I have, like, twenty years of lovingly-curated fanfic. And I feel like people who have only been in fandom since AO3 existed might not understand how much AO3 is a game-changer compared to what we had before. It’s a site where you can put your fic up and you don’t have to worry that the webhost is going out of business, or that the site might delete your work because they don’t allow gay fiction or explicit fiction or fiction written in second person or fiction for fandoms where the creator doesn’t like fanfiction, or whatever. Because all of those things have absolutely happened. But, I mean, I still save pretty much everything I like, even on AO3, just in case.

So, basically, yeah, fandom is a whole lot more accessible than it used to be. I think fandom is pretty much still fandom, but it’s a lot easier to get into, and that has made it way more open to people who wouldn’t have been able to be in fandom before. There is so, so much more now than there ever was before, and I think that’s great.