#why do they tag literally the most background appearances of ships +characters

[netflixnormalthings]

tbh i am past enjoying st*ddie in just about any capacity when i have to see it against my will in literally every tag that isnt for a popular white boy

[therealvinelle]

Why do you think fanfic writers lie in their fic tags? Like, a fic itself contains several semi-graphic depictions of het sex, and yet the tag is Gen. What is the thought process behind doing shit like this?

They're sick fucks, that's why.

To be more serious: I think few people set out to intentionally deceive their readers, and the ones that do usually want readers so badly they forget themselves. Genuine bad actors are rare, or so I choose to believe.

As it is, I suspect I'm a misleading tagger myself, at least to some.

The way I treat tags is as warnings, so I will tag ships featured in my works even if they're one-sided, background, or in the past because that way people who don't want to see that ship know to avoid my story. Edward/Carlisle and Jacob/Renesmee getting tagged in my fic Bleach on the Brain is an example of this: sucks if you clicked on the fic because you're a shipper but the way I see it, sucks worse if you don't want to see those and now you're reading a fic with father/son incest and a guy in his mid-twenties grooming a child in it. If I hadn't done this, if I'd only kept the pairings which were depicted positively, then the negative tags in that fic (grooming, sexual assault, etc) would have been assumed to be related to those and someone else would have been upset with me.

I tag this way because @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin learned the hard way (i.e.: got hate) that tagging only for endgame will get a lot of people very mad at you, but now A/B shippers have fics depicting their ship negatively. It's a losing game.

So that's bringing me to a major reason why I think misleading tags happen (which gets a headline so I can tell myself this post is structured):

People have different ideas of how works should be tagged

Some people want to tag for everything that happens in the fic. Literally everything, if it's a smut you know exactly what goes where just from reading the tags.

This also means they might tag characters who appear only briefly in a scene in chapter 35 (the fic having 56 chapters so far and being 500k+ long), because hey, the character appears. Or maybe they're brought up a lot and are very important to the fic even if there's not much actual screentime, so a character like Voldemort gets tagged in a Harry Potter fic focused on the war without him actually appearing all that much.

On the opposing side you have the minimalists. They tag the main two characters and put three more in the additional tags so it won't go in the character tag, and add a ship tag some 30 chapters in. There are two additional tags, both are very vague. If that - I've seen people who don't tag at all, or who just tag with a single character, or just the ship - it really is up to the individual.

I've noticed the type of author (whether Ao3 was their first platform, how much time they spent elsewhere, whether it's an imported fic, and how old the author is) and the type of fic (how old it is, the author's background, and genre (oneshot, drabble, multi-chapter, 5+1, etc.)) influences tagging.

Common to all authors, though, is they try to tag as they feel is appropriate for their fic.

Which brings me to the next issue:

How do I tag?

A lot of people are confused about this.

They're confused about what tags mean - what's freeform (I honestly keep forgetting what this one is supposed to be too), when something should be tagged, what belongs in relationship or character tags vs. additional tags, what additional tags are supposed to be.

Do you, for that matter, try to explain your story in the tag ("this is a roommate AU with feelings") or do you tag succinctly ("roommate AU", "feelings", "fluff") or a combination? A lot of authors seem to prefer the first and last options, from what I can tell it's become the norm. Most authors seem to use the additional tags to connect with the reader in this way, and so you get people placing more emphasis on the additional tags than the succinct tags.

How do I tag? Sensibilities section

Then there's the question of sensibilities: what's triggering to reader A may be great stuff to reader B, with the author not realising it could be triggering to anybody and should have been in the tags, or the author thought knees brushing against each other warranted big red warnings that "they literally had sex, oh god this is so dirty. so dirty!! can't believe i wrote this. ENTER AT OWN RISK" which of course is very disappointing to the sick fucks who wanted porn.

Or the opposite happens: the author knows the subject is triggering, which means people might not click on the fic, and they want attention so badly they ah weasel out. Or option three: the author can't tag without spoiling the story, and so they either put "creator chose not to use warnings", don't rate it, and let the readers enter at their own risk or they use tags uh strategically (have a look at how I tagged Nebuchadnezzar's Dream to avoid spoiling the bloody coup d'état that happens at the end. Today I simply would have gone for no warnings and no rating, but those tags are also a solution which I think is... alright, I suppose "massacre" could have been added but it was entirely off screen so to me would have been an abuse of the tag).

In other words, everyone will be tagging differently and sometimes it's because they've no clue which tag is warranted, sometimes they're trying not to spoil their story, sometimes they didn't realise they should or shouldn't have tagged for something.

Anthologies (when someone posts their oneshots as chapters of a story)

These used to frustrate me endlessly, until I saw a "how to help readers find your fic!" post explaining that with anthologies, your readers get a notification every time you post a new oneshot and it's easy to find them all!

Which, in retrospect, is the most fanfiction.net statement I've ever seen (indeed, OP was an old ffnet dog).

Ao3 allows collections, and is unique in this: to older fandom people, putting your thematically connected oneshots together as chapters of a story used to be how it was done, having 54 connected drabbles on your fanfiction.net profile where readers couldn't filter them out nor select to view only the drabbles put together made perfect sense. And then they never adapted to Ao3's features, and other users seeing these anthologies copied the action because hey, stats.

I'm still frustrated with these people and wish they would just post their oneshots individually, but I think a lot of them are just... really really keen on the numbers on their fics going up, and not thinking about the purpose of the archive, utilising its features, nor that they're making their oneshots harder to find and annoying a lot of people.

The tag difficulty with anthologies, of course, being that if you have two oneshots in it, one with characters A and B and you tag it for X and Y happening, the other oneshot is with characters C and D and you tag it for Z and W happening, and continue like this for 30 chapters, then you have a wall of tags so everyone will see your story, good on you, but your readers have no way of knowing what's happening in your story or to which characters, and they're either patient enough to click their way through every goddamn chapter or they just scroll past your thing. Either way you're cloying a looot of tags and the readers who wanted Z and W happening to A and B are pissed because they clicked their way through god knows how many chapters only to not get what they wanted (and now they don't like anthologies either).

(Disclaimer: sometimes drabbles or oneshots are so interconnected that it doesn't make sense to separate even on Ao3, so to every rule there's an exception.)

In conclusion

Most authors are making tough choices when tagging, or they don't know how to tag, or they want readers very badly (and what you as a reader can do to ameliorate this is to comment and kudos frequently! Even give positive notes in the bookmarks when you make a new one because believe me we check!).

Or they're writing an anthology, in which case you should be very skeptical about those tags.

[fratboykate]

yelena is aroace, why is it so hard for you to admit it???

I’ve been staying away from this because it feels like such a pointless thing to argue about. Despite me having my own tagging system that keeps me out of the show, character, and ship tags a seemingly endless amount of you have been ceaselessly hounding me for days, trying to police what I say and do on my blog. I've finally reached my breaking point so…here we go I guess.

Let’s start with the basics since it appears that most of you fail to grasp even that. There’s two distinctly different concepts that fandom conflates and/or tries to use interchangeably because evidently only a handful of us took a literature class in school. Time for a lesson.

CANON: Canon are the elements of a fictional story that are officially a part of it. Canon is IRREFUTABLE information provided directly from the media to the audience. In movies and TV this would mean things like action or dialogue that happen ON SCREEN. In a book or comic it would be things EXPLICITLY said or shown on the page. Canon isn’t fan interpretation/speculation, fix-its, headcanons, what-ifs, something an actor said at a con in front of 200 people or that they “thought maybe that’s a thing their character would do” at an interview in a press junket. Canon is what is IN THE TEXT. End of story.

AUTHORIAL INTENT & DEATH OF THE AUTHOR:

-Authorial Intent: An author can have an “intention” with a piece but that ends the moment the story is out of their hands and the reader/viewer takes ownership of it. Why? Because none of us see the world the same way. Literally. The author simply cannot control how an individual will read their work, cannot dictate how we embrace what they supposedly wrote, and cannot force us to throw out our own takeaway of the text. It is entirely possible that my experience with the text or the characters is vastly different than what they “intended” that to be and there is nothing wrong with that. Once art is out in the world it is going to take a life of its own. That is how subjectivity works.

-Death Of The Author: TV Tropes defines Death Of The Author as follows: “It holds that an author's intentions and background (including their politics and religion) should hold no special weight in determining how to interpret their work. This is usually understood to mean that a writer's views about their own work are no more or less valid than the interpretation of the reader.”

Now that we’ve established both those things let’s break down Yelena’s case in particular.

Let’s start with the “Ace” part. It is more than obvious that you guys are taking AUTHORIAL INTENT and confusing it with CANON. One of the authors wrote an obscure blog post where they expressed some thoughts. Let’s highlight key quotes from the post:

“Most scholars agree that the first official use of “aromantic” was documented in 2005. That’s thirty-five years after I was born, six years after Yelena was invented, and—fictionally--approximately ten years after Yelena would have come into being (in the version of events where she was born rather than cloned).”

Oh well...right off the bat, Authorial Intent seems to be out the window. The term didn’t even exist when they created Yelena ergo it is impossible that they set out to write her as “ace”. Next.

“But now, let’s talk a bit about Yelena. When I first invented her, I didn’t give much thought to her romantic life or sexuality because neither factored into the story I was telling at the time. Later, when I had lived with her a little longer and someone asked me if she might be ACE, I thought that actually made a lot of sense for her.”

This is an "afterthought" situation. I’m not saying this to undermine the writer as a person, saying they have ill will, or calling them a liar. But this is - as clearly stated BY THEM - an afterthought. Yelena was not created as an "ace" character. Next.

These are going to be two quotes:

“I like the idea of her being ACE and hope they go with that, but despite my 20+ years writing comics, there isn’t even anyone there I can mention that to. That’s not how comics work. Even if I said she’s X or Y or X and Y, Marvel might be a day away from releasing something that takes her in a totally different direction. Ultimately, my ideas about how Yelena identifies are no more right or wrong than yours.

I have a lot to say about how unfairly creative IP is handled in this industry, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss. What I do want to impart is that it’s a bad idea to trust multibillion-dollar corporations to represent you and your community.”

and

“I am a fan-fic writer and RPer, though, and I firmly believe that when you write or play or draw a character, you get to decide what is and isn’t true about them. No one can tell you you’re wrong (except, perhaps, your GM) – that’s the entire point. So if your question is really, “do you think it’s okay if I write/play Yelena as X or Y or interested in Z,” I am always going to support your choices. 100%. Do what you think feels right and makes sense. FWIW, you have my blessing."

The writer is LITERALLY TELLING YOU, in black and white, to headcanon Yelena as whatever you want because...

Their own ideas of Yelena are basically headcanons at this point.

They understand the inherent importance of representation and they agree that it would be cool that she could be this one thing but that they do not make and cannot make any creative decisions about what the character is or isn’t.

They are making it clear to you - the fan - that they do not get to dictate canon because they do not own the character. Disney/Marvel does. They are telling you that “you as an individual decide what her truth is and how you want her to represent to YOU” and yet somehow you guys turned that open invitation into “I must hound everyone who disagrees with my personal interpretation of how I want her to represent ME”.

Now, relevant quotes excerpted…beyond this one blog post there is no other actual canon evidence in any of the comics of Yelena verbalizing anything about her sexuality. At all. Anywhere. If you have it, please make me eat crow. Correct me. But I’ve been doing vast research on it for a couple of days now and have even asked people to provide it and no one can which is pretty strong evidence that there isn’t. All that anyone can come up with is the author's blog post and another interview where they have yet another throwaway sentence of Authorial Intent. This is it:

"PROBABLY MORE LIKELY". That is an opinion, my friends. This is all you have. Intent and Opinions does not canon make.

Now, onto my absolute fucking favorite part of this whole thing...

You want to know what IS canon? You want to know what you all conveniently and willingly choose to gloss over and never mention because it doesn't serve your narrative?

1) The fact that CANONICALLY Yelena is a lingerie model and a sex worker who owns a soft-core porn empire. [x]

2) The fact that in this scene she has an entire conversation with Natasha about how she chooses to use her body to sexually manipulate targets to get what she wants:

Interesting how I had to start doing research into Yelena to learn that because in this entire conversation about “representation” sex workers and sex positive, feminist women had never once come up. Funny how apparently sex workers don’t deserve a superhero then? Hmmmm...

I’m not saying one is more worthy than the other, just a point I figured was worth flagging because it just seems oh so very curious to me.

--

Let’s move onto the “Aro” part because this is the real doozy. This is the one y’all truly bent yourselves into a pretzel to come up with. At least there is some sort of something you can cling to on the "ace" front but on this one you really just went for the mountain of straws and started to grasp.

The "proof" you guys use of her being "aro" is a single panel of her saying "I'm not...anything". Here's the entire scene instead of just the one frame you guys use out of context:

I'm going to use two different sources here to debunk this one.

- This person had already read the whole series the panel you guys chose to extract that ONE frame from and completely misconstrue to support your point. Here are a couple of excerpts of the ask they answered:

“…It’s more people seeing that one panel and misunderstanding it.[…] The panel where she says "I’m not anything" is a reoccurring theme throughout this series specifically about her not seeing herself as the Black Widow and her dehumanization of herself. The full page itself is about the woman she was talking to goading Yelena by asking if she was into BDSM.”

I then had a DM conversation with the person to find out more because I wanted to get further context about the series as a whole since they had the full picture. I specifically asked them questions about this part. They said the following:

“The way she [the woman] degrades her [Yelena] and calls her worthless is supposed to be feeding into Yelena thinking she isn’t as good as Natasha and how she’s not truly the Black Widow. The "I Am Nothing" is the writers very badly trying to ham fist their way into having Yelena saying she is nothing as she is not the Black Widow, which is the main point of the comic."

Without having read the rest of the comic, if I were to see these panels in isolation, I would have a slightly different interpretation of the scene, because...again...no one digests texts the same way. This is a prime example of that. What I would gather from it is that Yelena would be saying “I am nothing” as in “I don’t label myself as anything” rather than literally just jumping straight to “I am aromantic”. Like…that is such a giant stretch that it’s almost laughable.

The second person I'm quoting is an AROACE person who made a whole thread on twitter agreeing that Yelena is NOT canon aroace and sharing pretty solid (and similar) factual evidence as to why.

[Full disclosure: I was sent this link as I was in the process of finishing this post by someone who knew I was writing it and I figured it was worth adding an Aro/Ace voice to the mix as well].

Here are some good excerpts:

"...in said interview grayson talks about yelena being asexual then proceeds to describe yelena as aromatic instead, making it clear that she doesn't know the difference between the two orientations..."

The writer then proceeds to break down and analyze the same misconstrued panels I was quoting above. She runs through several possible scenarios of what that scene could mean, all just as likely as the other. All valid interpretations. All different versions of Yelena as an LGBT character. This is the most important part to me tho:

"...once again think about the time and place yelena grew up in. you're going to try and tell me yelena knows what asexual is and what it means? muchless aromantic? she grew up in approximately 70s russia... expecting her to know her sexuality at that point is kinda weird?

now with all this in mind (especially the last three!) it pretty much completely erases any chance that those panels are meant to be her saying shes aroace. as far as im aware these are the only two pieces of evidence people try to use to confirm yelena as canonically aroace. both are very easily debunked.

i am by no means here to tell anyone not to write yelena as aroace, she's your character do what you want! i'm only here to educate people on this topic. and as someone who is BOTH aro and ace its absolutely my place to speak on this. [...] all i want is for this non-existent canon to stop being continuously shoved down everyone's throats."

And finally:

"i'd also just like to add the way a lot of people tend to handle this topic of conversation is very weird. if your first instinct when you see an aroace character is to say they cant be shipped or cant have sex... that's weird! aroace is a spectrum! not all aroaces are repulsed by sex and relationships! yes, some aroaces are! but not all of them. to immediately force her into that box with no evidence is extremely stereotypical! a very good majority of conversation based around aroace yelena is riddled with stereotypes."

--

I'm going to revisit the opening lesson for a beat because it has to do with my final point. Let me quote myself in case we already forgot:

"Canon is IRREFUTABLE information provided directly from the media to the audience. In movies and TV this would mean things like action or dialogue that happen ON SCREEN."

Why am I circling back? Because with this new wave of IP and adaptations that we're living in. So many pieces of IP are getting adapted from podcasts, comics, books, etc into TV/Film. Changes are always going to be made from the original to the screen. Always. ALWAYS. What is canon in one is not necessarily going to be canon in the other. They're two completely separate pieces of media. Every single time. They immediately become divorced and stand-alone from each other as soon as a derivative is created.

It's why you see things like couples being "endgame" in books but not in shows/movies. Or people being alive or dead in books but not in TV/films. Or major story points being changed. Or new characters being introduced or omitted from adaptations at all. They are not the same thing. Canon on text is one thing. CANON ON SCREEN IS ANOTHER. Shut up already about "what's canon here must be canon here" and learn the difference.

Do you want to know how much characters/relationships have changed from Marvel comics to the MCU? Let me list a few things that are canon in the comics just for quick references.

Black Widow had romances with Bucky, Hawkeye, and Daredevil.

Hela is Loki’s daughter not his sister.

Pepper was never married to Tony.

Black Window and the Hulk have never been on the Avengers together.

Natasha and Yelena are rivals not sisters.

I could keep going but I think you get the point. Marvel Comics are not the MCU. I'll repeat:

MARVEL COMICS ARE NOT THE MCU.

Simply because something happens or is true is one does not mean it must be true in the other. It is especially important to drive that point home in this case because "Yelena is aroace" isn't even a canon fact in the comics. It's farfetched at best. At best.

My goal with this is not to tell you to not headcanon Yelena as aroace. If that is important to you, dear god fucking do it to your heart's content. No one is trying to fucking take that from you. Matter of fact, if you want to string two whispers of a stretch together and pretend in your delusional little head that it’s “canon” be my guest. Where the issue begins is that you are now trying to militaristically enforce this “canon” myth when it is nothing more than that…A MYTH. And you are trying to force it on people who weren't fighting you on it to begin with. People like me who were just over here in my own corner of the internet minding my own business. I wasn’t invading your spaces, arguing with any of you, or trying to debunk any of your beliefs until you all insisted on coming to me with this bullshit over and over and over again.

All I - a casual viewer who had zero knowledge of the comics or the backstory - wanted to do was calmly enjoy and interpret these two characters and their relationship however the show had established them which was...AS A BLANK SLATE. Right now in the MCU they are non-denominational. They have never said Kate is [XYZ] and Yelena is [ABC] therefore I am free to construe them and pair them however I see fit. It is not up to you to tell me otherwise.

Now, with all that settled, leave me the fuck alone.

[the-lone-witch-and-secret-room]

On Boschlow, Skarlow and imaginary moral superiority

Alright, before anyone wants to yell at me for putting this in the ship tags, this is less an “anti ship”-post and more of an “I want to have this conversation with shippers because I think it’s important to talk about this”-post.

So, Boschlow has always been a fairly popular ship in the fandom, which doesn’t really surprise me, because the whole bully/victim dynamic is just incredibly popular, no matter which fandom you enter.

As a person that got bullied throughout the majority of my high school years, I have thoughts about this dynamic being so popular in general, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss today.

Recently, there has been an increasing number of Skarlow shippers making art and writing fics.

What makes this so different from Boschlow?

Essentially... nothing, and that’s exactly why I felt the need to make a post about this.

I’ve seen a bunch of Skarlow shippers say they do not ship Boschlow because Boscha is an awful person, putting themselves above the Boschlow shippers and making Skarlow a “superior” dynamic, based on... what, exactly?

From my perspective, there’s exactly two things Skara has on Boscha when it comes to shipping her with Willow. One being, she hasn’t thrown trash on her—which is an incredibly low bar to set.

The other thing? Skara acknowledged Willow’s Grudgby skills at the end of WILW.

And that’s a scene that gets misinterpreted a lot. See, people take Skara being nice to Willow here as a sign that she’s a way better person than Boscha, that she’s changed, and so on and so forth.

But this is untrue.

What exactly is it that changes between the beginning of WILW and the ending of the episode, between Willow and Skara specifically? It’s that Skara has seen Willow is good at Grudgby. Grudgby is something of value to Skara, thus, Willow’s skills impressing her makes Willow someone worthy of being treated well.

The ending of the Grudgby episode isn’t everyone except Boscha suddenly magically being better people. They’re all still very much bullies. They’re just now seeing Willow as someone who is better than other people because of her skills—and should therefore be treated better.

Boscha isn’t as willing to share her imaginary pedestal with Willow. But that’s the only difference. All the Grudgby girls are currently still on that pedestal. They’re just seeing Willow as someone worth sharing it with now. If they saw someone being “weak” the way they thought Willow to be previously to the match, they’d bully that person the same way they did Willow.

This isn’t any of them being better. This is all of them behaving the same way they always have. Willow is just moving up in their social hierarchy.

It shouldn’t take being good at some magical sport, or being a talented witch, or whatever the heck, to decide not to bully someone. NOBODY deserves to be bullied. Even the weakest, least sporty witch of the Boiling Isles should be treated with the same amount of respect as any of their classmates. Your value as a person shouldn’t be defined by how good you are at something. You have value no matter what you are and aren’t good at. And that’s something Skara and the others still fail to acknowledge.

Also I think it’s worth noting that even when they were treating Willow better at the end of the episode, they didn’t go out of their way to apologize for how they’d treated her before. They acknowledged her skills and don’t at all comment on how they treated her previously to the match.

If it takes some huge effort from Willow and her friends for the Grudgby girls to treat her with even an ounce of respect, that’s not character development. Character development would be them changing their general behavior. Acknowledging the way they’ve treated others was shitty, apologizing for that and actually working on being better. Is there a possibility this might happen? Sure. But you guys basically pretend WILW is their redemption arc already fully done. You’re giving Skara and the others credit for something that currently haven’t even happened.

And the option of them ditching Boscha (which also currently hasn’t happened) wouldn’t be a redemption arc either, even if it could be part of one.

Cutting toxic people out of your life can help, but Amity’s redemption arc was that, plus her explaining herself to Willow and giving Willow time, and actually acting on her word of not letting her friends pick on her again. Amity making it up to Willow wasn’t that she cut out Boscha and Skara. It was that she not only promised to be better but acted accordingly, standing at Willow’s side when she needed her.

(And Skara not constantly being a dipshit when she’s in the background is not a valid argument for why she’s a better person than Boscha. Boscha is also a harmless character when the episode isn’t focused on her, e.g. in Covention & Sense and Insensitivity. That Skara isn’t actively bullying her friends—which, uh, most people like their friends? This shouldn’t be that surprising?—is not a thing that should earn her any points in being “nicer” than Boscha.)

Do I think it might be a bit easier to get through to Skara than Boscha when it comes to letting go of current behaviors? Possibly.

From the way their characters are written and with how Boscha refuses to acknowledge Willow as equal even after the Grudgby match, it’s fairly obvious that it would need some pretty major event to get through to her. There’s an extra step here with Boscha (needing to learn to acknowledge others as having equal value to herself) that Skara doesn’t need to take.

BUT that one step in what should be a fairly long journey for either of them is far from enough to justify one ship being better than the other.

From the way I’ve seen it written (and unfortunately also experienced it in the comment section of my own fic), a bunch of skarlow shippers like to excuse Skara’s behavior by entirely pinning it on Boscha, pretending she’s actually a great person and that it’s only her friendship with Boscha that makes her toxic—and also that Boscha is the only one that should be held accountable for everyone’s behavior.

I am not exaggerating, I got a comment that essentially said “this shows wonderfully that Amelia and Skara are actually good people that unfortunately met a horrible person that had too much control over them.”

This strips Skara and Amelia of any accountability for their actions. And the idea of Boscha being an evil mastermind that forced all her friends into doing things they never wanted is... quite frankly, stupid, and also untrue. Skara actively encourages Boscha making fun of Willow at the beginning of Understanding Willow:

In the same episode it’s also stated that Amity “let her new friends bully [Willow] for years”, which definitely includes Skara and isn’t just about Boscha.

Skara looks really pleased when Boscha takes Willow’s hair clip at the beginning of WILW, just appears bored and not at all sympathetic when she throws gum at Willow, and grins gleefully when Boscha suggests using the others as target practice later in the episode:

Also, in Once Upon A Swap, Boscha’s entire squad is messing with people all over Bonesborough. Skara is throwing monster balloons at the city when Boscha isn’t even present:

Not only that, but a very large portion of the episode has Skara and the others literally ditch Boscha in favor of an even meaner person (King in Luz’s body).

King states, and I quote, “Hey, impressionable youths! Under my command, you could learn how to do some real damage.” after unleashing a monster on the city. And the entire group cheers him on and decides to follow him.

If Skara was actually so much better than Boscha, why the heck would she run after someone that is worse than her when given the opportunity?

And here comes the thing that a lot of the Skarlow shippers refuse to acknowledge because they for some reason feel the need to have moral superiority over Boschlow shippers: Skara isn’t a nice girl. Skara is a bully. And Skara should be held accountable for her actions in the same way as Boscha. Saying everything she did was just Boscha forcing her is entirely untrue to canon and just a lame excuse to make your ship look better.

Boscha and Skara have both bullied Willow for several years. If you want to ship either of them with her, even if you just want one of them to be friends with her, that needs to be acknowledged and definitely not excused. Even if you treat Skara’s bullying of Willow as something she did only due to Boscha (which, again, is canonically complete nonsense), she’s still hurt Willow to pretty much the same extent as Boscha has.

That a person isn’t as into the bullying as someone else doesn’t make it hurt any less for the victim of the bullying.

No matter if you ship Skarlow or Boschlow, commit to the reality that Skara and Boscha are both Willow’s bullies. Quit pretending Skara is so much better than Boscha, or that she isn’t responsible for her actions.

She is just as responsible for bullying Willow for years as Boscha is.

I’m so sick of hearing how Skara’s bullying is far more redeemable than Boscha’s. It’s not. Stop declaring bullying that doesn’t get physical harmless. As someone who was “only” ever verbally bullied, let me tell you that after four years of not seeing that person I’m still scarred by it. Stop getting your head so stuck in high school movies. Just because not every kind of bullying involves someone getting shoved into a locker doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.

Even worse: the take that people are shipping Skarlow “because they realized shipping Willow with Boscha is inherently toxic”. Tell me again why this “revolutionary” movement deciding that Willow deserves better then turns around and ships her with another one of her bullies?

This isn’t about treating Willow better. You’re just making Boscha seem unreasonably evil for no reason, and treating Skara as her not at all responsible victim, so you can ship Willow with her and don’t have to acknowledge that Willow is a victim of both of their bullying.

This needs to stop. Skara needs to be held just as accountable as Boscha.

If a Skarlow shipper exclusively comes from a perspective of “I think their personalities would mix better”? Sure, whatever, they may or may not, but that’s a valid opinion to have. But don’t start shipping Skarlow because you think you’re being better to Willow than the Boschlow shippers.

This whole thing isn’t a movement to get Willow a better girlfriend, lol

Both of them bullied her. Both ships are bully/victim dynamics. Skarlow does not actually have any moral superiority over Boschlow. As much as you refuse to acknowledge this, these two ships share the same basic dynamic.

Stop pretending shipping Willow with one of her bullies is leagues better than shipping her with another.

[serpenteve]

Hi! A lot of antis say that if the Darkling was poc, we would not love him that much. I was wondering if you could give your opinion on that please?

I don't know that I've seen "if the darkling was a poc he wouldn't be as loved" take as much as I've seen people antagonizing Darklina shippers because he's played by a white actor in the Netflix adaption and acting as if both Mal and Alina weren't both white in the books.

The first take is probably coming from a general sense of frustration that white men tend to be able to get away with a lot more compared to their POC counterparts. But I don't think this particular take has much bearing on the Grisha trilogy given all the characters were white in the books and Darklina was always the most popular ship. It's not as if the sole appeal of Darklina only comes from Ben Barnes although I know the antis like to pretend it is.

I find the anti's preoccupation with the race of the show's characters and using that as some kind of proof of their moral superiority not only incredibly exhausting but also just as superficial and performative as the way the show deals with racism itself.

Ironically, before the show racelifted the characters, literally the only character that was speculated to be a man of color was the Darkling himself. Bardugo likely *intended* for him to be perceived as white but we all know how little the fandom cares about her intentions. There's a throwaway line in Demon in the Woods that says "He spoke fluent Shu and Kerch, and could pass as either" that had fans speculating that he could be Shu or half-Shu, especially considering how little information there was about his biological father and that Baghra jumped from place to place. I remember having conversations with mutuals at the time where we all briefly wondered if he could be part Shu based on his book description. My personal headcanon was that he is not even a native Ravkan and his inexplicable love of Ravka, a country that has consistently treated him like crap, comes from desperately wanting a home and sense of belonging. His whole experience of being othered as a Grisha by the local muggles and being othered as a scary shadow summoner by the Grisha themselves lends itself to a metaphor for being a person of color or being part of any minority group. The Darkling literally makes more sense as a person of color and you can still find MOC fancasts for the Darkling under the old #alarkling tag.

But now I'm seeing people either be completely ignorant of this fandom history or pretend like racelifting Alina and Mal magically fixes the problems (and racial caricatures) of the original source material. Alina's racelift is much more organic than Mal's since Alina's parents lived close to the Shu Han-Ravka border anyway. For some reason, they changed this in the show's universe to have her parents die crossing the Fold rather than die in one of the King's border wars 🙄Just so you don't forget who the real antagonist of this show is supposed to be, I guess. Mal's racelift seems entirely superficial. I haven't looked into the background of his casting but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't originally intend for him to be a man of color and then when Archie got cast, they had to sprinkle some random lines into the script. Case in point: Mal only faces racism at the orphanage alongside with Alina. The racism of that scene literally only exists to show why Mal and Alina would be drawn to each other and then it's never brought up again. Mal doesn't face any racism in the Army like Alina does. Mal is able to be judged by other characters based on his actions, bravery, skills, and choices whereas Alina repeatedly judged and othered for her appearance. When we pan out to the other POC characters (Zoya, Inej, Jesper, Nadia, Arken) we find that either these characters also face zero racism OR the script selectively picks and chooses when a POC character will face racism and when they won't. Conveniently, when these other POC characters do face racism (like Inej when she stabs Polina), it's only to manipulate the audience.

All of this, of course, is not even touching on the fact that the main antagonist and central conflict of the series is crushing a rebellion led by the leader of a marginalized group while the heroine hitches her wagon to the imperial monarchy. There is such a massive disconnect between the plot and characters and the show racelifting the heroine and her love interest is coat of very fake woke paint over an incredibly anti-Grisha and anti-minority story.

[mymadmedleyw]

Fic Writer Review

I was tagged by @dp-marvel94 (I am just saying this is my very first occassion to by tagged in a thing like that, so filling this made my day really, thank you!)

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

22 – wow, that sounds many…

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?  

206.997, and more than the half belongs under one idea – that’s creepy…

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

Oh, it’s many… once, I am into something, I have to write in that – surprisingly I am addicted to DP for nearly a year, and nothing else.

(But little bit of history, from the newest to the oldest: Danny Phantom, The Irregulars (that was really a short one), Guardians of Childhood/Rise of the Guardians (my very first finished multi-chaptered one was in that), Dark, Charmed (the old one, not the new series), Gravity Falls, Venom, Doctor Who, a crossover within Tangled: The Series and Milo Murphy’s Law, Death Note/Death Note: Another Note; and I had some ideas about a Rick and Morty and Gravity Falls crossover, and it seems I never uploaded here my concept about a not crossover Tangled: The Series idea, and either an independent one in Rick and Morty, hm… shame. Most of those are not finished. Okay, like 99% of it…)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Core (Danny Phantom), stand-alone, ~3k

What The Past Holds (Danny Phantom), wip, ~91k

Pitch’s Secret (Guardians of Childhood/Rise of the Guardians), finished, ~14k

We are not alone (Venom), really short one, ~1k

Phantom (Danny Phantom), stand-alone, ~2k

5. Which of your fic do you want more attention for?  

Definitely it’s WTPH. It’s my current work. The idea about it came in December, and since that, I am working on that constantly. At first, I had ideas for eight chapters, and nothing else. Now, it grew into this monstrosity: a side-line (Bonds Over Time), and a collection that contains the deleted scenes or ideas that appeared in my mind and could fit into the story (Bits Of The Past), and also an entirely finished concept for Vlad’s past (Certain Moment Of Time), that could be connected to it too.

I also put many headcanons in that, and ticks of characters, and parallels, and layers that I just love: like Vlad having a sister and some details about his family background, Dan having Vlad’s memories too, how the explosion in the Nasty Burger happened and how Dan turned out like that… some precious things, really, but I won’t elaborate much, in case of anyone wants to give a read to it. Overall, I tried to make the TUE-mess into a somewhat more reasonable logical mess – if I managed to do that at all. I don’t know I’m just like a mother with a new-born with it: look, it’s my child! I made it! I developed it! here, hold it! and love it too, as much as I do! (Sorry, I don’t know how that metaphor came…)

6. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Even if it’s a kudo, or a keysmash as a comment, I write back. I mean, if someone writes – literally anything – and spends time with it, I write them back too. (And my very bad habit, that sometimes, if the comment hits an interesting thought, I tend to explain the background behind that more, and accidentally spilling some things I shouldn’t yet... In many cases, it’s like a brainstorming, and then I use that idea. I mean as, for example many of @dp-marvel94’s comments on ff, made me to realise some things, and how then I fixed those forgotten parts made my story along with it much better – once, I will list them, and you’ll be surprised how long is that list, and how obvious things I forgot about entirely…)

7. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Okay, I don’t have many finished story – shame on me. So, I’ll count the shorts. I think it’s then Phantom. It rolls around the idea what if in Forever Phantom, Danny can’t change back to Phantom, and his parents blame Phantom for the disappearance of Danny, and they start chasing madly the ghosts, making them leave the human realm once and for all – which means, Danny has to go with them. It’s really a short fic, but I very like this idea, and it was my very first in this fandom. (I was watching DP that time, I mean, getting familiar with it, but this idea got stuck in my head as I watched that episode, so that was my introduction here. Also, I watched my very first DP episode that time, which means, less then a year ago, so, I am that newbie here…) I am not spilling the end of the story, but it doesn’t have a very happy end I could say.

8. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Uh, yes? I have a crossover within Tangled: The Series and Milo Murphy’s Law. It’s unfinished, but that time I thought Milo and Varian have the same vibe, including clumsiness. It was only a short idea that time, but it’s definitely worth once to continue or finish somehow. I have a crossover within Rick and Morty, and Gravity Falls. That is standing within my very big idea, but it’s halfway written on my original language and English and that’s like after how a certain trilogy end, but it has some mentioning of ideas I never finished, so yeah… it’s not even published anywhere. Maybe, once, I’ll decide what language I prefer for that, and translate the other part and then, hardly, but I’ll finish it some day... – or, never, it actually would be a very big bite if I try to imagine it.

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t remember to that. I mean, my main story (WTPH) kind of not everyone’s preference, ’cause of Dan, so that’s already divides the readers and I haven’t got all in all many comments yet on my stories (kudos are appreciated too, I am shy too to leave comments on fics, so don’t worry, I get it), so I think I haven’t got any. But I'd be curious to experience if someone reads one of my stories and leaves behind a comment that then criticizing it. I mean, I’d be open to learn what part is not fitting, or just too much. (I am surprised that no one ever mentioned my ’weird’ sentences. I mean for me those make sense, but those make sense for a native English person too? I’m always worried about that…)

10. Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Uh, yeah, I did. Not very proud of it, though I don’t have a heart to orphan that work. I mean, it belongs to me too. Sometimes I wonder to delete some of my works, but then I realise, no, that’s me, I won’t pretend where I came from, and shove into the dustbin my mad thoughts... All in all, my stories now, for a while, are much more family-friendly – if, anything within DP could be really counted as ‘family-friendly’…

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, I was very proud of my story back then, called Metamorphosis (Death Note), and I had a crazy idea and tried to translate it. So now, the first chapter is out there both in English and both in my native language, but I got stuck at the second chapter. I couldn’t translate wisely and logically the title of it to give out the many meaning it has in English. And I once tried to translate California (Gravity Falls) to English, but that would be a hard work, so I left it behind – maybe once…

Over that I sometimes has a crazy idea to translate back and forth my stories, no, beyond that, I haven’t had a fic translated from anyone else. And I think I am the only masochist that it ever crosses my mind, I guess…

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, not really. I’d be curious to once do that – maybe, but I’m not sure...

(To tell the truth, I’d be worried about that. I’d be glad to do that once, but I am anxious if I could understand my co-writer, or not. I mean, do you have any idea that I have to give five reads to any longer comments to understand it? I understand those (and I really love getting those!), but I have to give many reads to make sure I understand those well, and then, making sure, I answer back right, and my sentences make sense. My fics have ’fancy’ words, and I love working in English, but sometimes it’s a curse it’s not my native one. So then, I’m constantly worried about interactions, if I receive well something, and if my sentences are understandable for others or not. So, in short, you can see my struggle here… same reason I don’t do Invisobang, but I am considering it...)

13. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I’m not very much a ship-type. But I count Danny and Sam, as a fix point. (Danny and Val was nice and I’d have been very glad to see them in more episodes, but let’s face it, that wouldn’t work, because both of them are too stubborn to choose their other life and if once, they would face with each other, knowing everything about the other, they’d remain allies or at most very good friends.) If, the question is, what are the ships in my head (but not necessarily just ‘romantic’) that I prefer to read, well, it’s Dan and Valerie. I love their dynamics, especially in Deliverance. I don’t know why I just love reading it. 

For other reasons I ship Dani and Valerie. Though I can’t write romance and stuff like that, but in one of my planned ideas they are dating - sort-of...

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

Okay, there are many. Surely, it’s my Gravity Falls story, called California, but that’s a huge one, and the first one in a trilogy (plus some additional side-lines), and mainly in my head for years, so yeah… I think I won’t ever reasonably finish that as it should be finished. A Tale of Fords (Gravity Falls) could be count as one too. Oh, and Envision and ties (Doctor Who). Sad to say, but yeah, I am always saying, “maybe once”, but I am not sure when…

15. What are your writing strengths?

Okay, this is a funny thing, but I’ve realised I can’t deal with many characters at the same time. So, I think my strength are dialogues and interactions within two people. And I get into their thoughts, so I guess if I have to word it somehow: it’s character-studies then.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Can’t handle more than two people. No, seriously, somehow it always turns out, the third is unconscious, sleeping, leaves the room, and so on. I’ve just recognised it recently, and it was a hilarious recognition…

I am also bad at actions, like very very bad, I don’t even try that, because my brain just simple can’t come up with fight-scenes at all. I think I only can write character-studies, and nothing else.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Oh, man… does it count I am not a native English-user? So, technically I ‘always’ write dialogues in another language? But jokes aside, sometimes, I have ideas that the people use another language, and I am like “are you aware, you can’t even write English slang?”, so then, I gave up. Right now, though, I am planning to add ASL in one of my future ideas. I am wrecking my mind, how to do that nicely – but that’s only a forming plan, and dated for next year, currently, I am only collecting ideas for that.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?  

Does it count my very first fic was a fanfiction of one of my friend’s fanfiction in high school? She wrote a really good story – not shared anywhere, we were just giving each other the hand-written exercise book (oh, the old days…). If I remember well, it was a crossover within Supernatural and Queen of the Damned (the movie, not the book). I had no idea about Supernatural, but the story was good, but I was not satisfied with the end, and in secret I wrote another end for it, to myself. I’m not sure where is that anymore, but I clearly remember that was my very first written stuff, and that’s how my origin story began and how is I am here now.

(Oh, and once, I wrote a H2O fanfiction short story to my sister as a name-day present, in which she was a mermaid, discovering her powers during a holiday at a beach (we were at that time in Croatia in a family holiday, so the timing was fitting), and that was one of my very first fandoms to write in it too… God, I have no idea why I wrote it down, it just crossed my mind, and I remember I thought it was cute, I think she was eleven or twelve that time, so I am not sure she appreciated as much as I found it fun to write that…)

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?  

This is mean… anyway, currently it’s WTPH, for obvious reasons. But I am very proud how the Angst Week turned out (my work for that is called Certain Moment of Time). First of all, I doubted I would be able to write for every day, since I planned to do the whole DannyMay, but things turned out differently and I am still sad, I haven’t done many. But I did not just managed to write for all days, but all could be counted under one idea, and also each of the chapters could be read independently at the same time. It includes a little bit of background story about Vlad, about a rewritten time, his struggles at the hospital, things around Danny’s birth, how Danny managed to survive the Portal incident, how Vlad was informed about the Ghost Boy, and that actually Danny’s separation was just a ‘plan B’ that Vlad tried to avoid… it’s complicated to describe the many things in that, but when I feel WTPH an unescapable mess, and I am frustrated by the lack of proper words to finish the coming chapters, CMOT is my absolute favourite. And I love the whole idea about it. No, I’ll be honest, that’s my beloved so far (just because it’s finished). But I like so much too my idea about Dan and Dani in Bonds Over Time, how they try to live together a normal life… okay, let’s admit it, this question is mean, I seriously can’t tell, and I am thinking right now only my current ones…

20. What fic are you most proud of?  

Okay, this is mean too. I am proud of my old works as much that I always go back to them when I am in a nostalgic mode. (I haven’t read any of my old ones in ages, because I try to avoid distractions, and knowing myself, I’d start thinking about the continuation and never finishing my current works at all...)

I am proud of Pitch’s Secret, because that was my very first multi-chaptered one idea that I actually managed to finish. That in fact, gave me the courage to start working on a multi-chaptered DP one. (My original plan was to be brave and aim doing eight chapters, to top the five, and I would have been very proud of myself, but instead now it’s way longer than that original idea, and I seriously don’t know when it will end – twenty chapters maybe?)

I think, if I don’t include the previous question. (It’s the same, isn’t it?) I am very proud of the first chapter in my Doctor Who fic. That doesn’t tell anything about the plot or about anything, that just gives a very good atmospheric background. Every time I read that, it gives me shivers.

---

okay, I don’t know who to tag, anyone who feels like it, serve yourself, I am curious... :)

[ellelans]

You made a tag comment about how Buddie wasn't planned from the beginning. And therefore what we got in Season 2 wasn't (at the time) the groundwork for a love story. I agree completely! Much of it I can see as either a bit of fun (the Christmas elf, the instagram girl) or that kind of hyper-masc heterosexuality that loops around itself and becomes gay (Buck's whole...thing with Eddie in the beginning, the focus on Eddie's body/hotness/physical appearance). But sometimes I step back and look at the whole and I'm all 🧐 🤔.

I don't even know what I'm asking lol. Would just love your thoughts/feelings on the confusing spectacle that are Buck and Eddie in season 2. And when/how/why did the show change their mind?

Thank you so much for the ask and you know what? Let’s talk about it.I recently had an in depth chat about this pretty unpopular opinion with a friend and I tried to explain to her why I don't see buddie as an actual pairing or having any canon potential until early s3 and why I don't believe they were planned from the beginning.This will be long and all over the place of course lol

The first and the most obvious reason is the way 911 deals with main characters and their romantic arcs.They don't actually drag it on for long because there is no need or time for that since every single main character has a strong storyline of their own and any romantic development between any pair as an additional combined storyline. Relationships happen fast on 911 because they are planned ahead and the only relationship that took longer than usual few episodes was Chim and Maddie and they were already kissing and planning a date in 2x11.

Also when shows enter their second season there is never a way to predict how long it will stay on the air and because of that it is impossible for me to believe that buddie was planned as some epic old school slowburn that is nowhere as close to be resolved after 3 seasons.When I say old school slowburn I mean shows that have this one heterosexual romance at the center of the universe that is usually stretched across seasons and builds up sexual tension between characters and it takes literally years for them to finally get together.We have these two characters that where made for each other and you KNOW that they will eventually get together because of some ridiculous pining that will eventually end in a kiss and everyone will scream and cry.And maybe that’s how buddie feels to me now after years of careful build up-but the way I see it they as a potential something didn't happen in s2.

We all joke about how character introduction of Eddie is the gayest we have ever seen and Buck's reaction to him as true bisexual and I do that myself too because I am a bisexual too and tbh its hard to unsee (also I don't want to) but lets remove our rainbow glasses for a second. What really did happened in that scene? Eddie's perfect abs on display,Chim and Hen fun comments on how beautiful he is,Bobby's praise and bragging about getting Eddie and his Silver Star on the team and Buck's insecurities flaring up as a reaction to all of this.Buck immediately feels threatened.At this point we of course have no idea how deeply his insecurities run or why,but as episode progresses we witness Eddie on his first call making a better decision to how to handle a medical situation and backed up by Bobby.It has sort of a devastating effect on Buck,who suddenly starts acting like we have never seen him before.Then there is a that scene at the gym where Buck tells Eddie how he is his problem. And later we of course have the scene in ambulance when Eddie asked what exactly they are measuring. Because that's what it looked like - a usual macho men measuring context. But the thing is 911 doesn’t toxic masculinity when it comes to main male characters and we saw many examples of that already by then,but the biggest one was supposed to be BuckandEddie. Equals,partners and best friends.

911 was already pushing boundaries with cast,characters and relationships diversity and I strongly believe that what they wanted to show us was a male equivalent of what we are used to see in female bffs -a different kind of a friendship between men. Men who care about each other,who talk about feelings,discuss sex,dating or why they don’t,who again openly acknowledge that they find each other attractive and giving advices on how to take a more flattering selfie,who are not afraid of crying, admit they are struggling or heartbroken or loving their kid.Honestly when was the last time any of us saw a male friendship like theirs?Men are not allowed to be like that on TV (I am still shocked that its a Fox show tbh) and especially with each other.We are not used to see such a development so no wonder people started paying attention-which was what writers wanted,of course.

But that also brings us to that important question about queer undertones,subtext and do what we actually see in s2. Are there queer undertones?Absolutely. Subtext?It’s right there but you will probably not get it unless you’re reading between the lines.Before we get to Christmas Elf,there was ‘’He is cute!/He gets that a lot,you should’ve seen his kid...’’ Maddie and Buck scene that is once again reinforces that Buck finds Eddie attractive and it shouldn’t be a surprise because we already know from 2x01 he has eyes - but they mention it AGAIN and that personally made me raise a brow or two.By the time we get to that Christmas episode,we already have Shannon back and Buck finally moved on from Abby with Taylor and then Ali and then we are given another queer coded scene-with Christmas elf.And its very cute and to an average heterosexual viewer its a nice little joke,but any queer watching that scene was probably taken aback a little.

So why imo did Tim&Co do it and when they realized they can actually see where they can take BuckandEddie and when they started becoming buddie?My answer is ship teasing.It’s what a lot of people actually mistake for queer baiting,but we are not talking about that rn.Ship teasing works like charm and if shows can get away with that-they will totally use it to their advantage.It’s usually not always malicious,but it IS always intentional because that brings in a category of people that were overlooked for a long time-online fandom.Now I have seen some opinions that fandom doesn’t really matter,it’s the ratings that count and that is NOT TRUE.You can have your ratings,but if there is no buzz online?Your show is going nowhere.For at least a decade now every self-respecting production has teams to monitor fandom activities because it gives them better ideas about how consumers(fans) are interacting with their product (show).Fandom is important because we generate the buzz.So I do believe that BuckandEddie and that sweet ship teasing were to get a certain part of the fandom pay attention.

I wasn’t here when S2 aired so I don’t know if that was the case,but it is obvious that these scenes I talked about above made fans pay a LOT of attention. And maybe that was the reaction writers needed to start changing course from ship teasing to start building up to something else.They maybe didn’t plan it at the very beginning and on paper,but lets also not forget the insane chemistry between Oilver and Ryan,which imo is another big reason-it's impossible to ignore.

Because S3?Is light years away from S2 in terms of BuckandEddie-they became buddie.In s3 Buck and Eddie become each other’s significant other,they are in a primary relationship. ’’Buck invites Eddie...’’?!!!!! It is not yet romantic and probably won’t be until ending of s5 if we are lucky-but it is in your face,they are not subtle anymore.I personally saw buddie only at the end of 3x03 when Eddie came over and said that there is noone in the world he trusts with his son more than Buck, looking like he did into Buck’s eyes,while ‘Photograph’ played in the background right before Buck’s overvoice about being seen and found and a raft to bring one home. After S4 ending tho...we all know that something is about to happen and its like there is electricity in the air as we are waiting for s5!

Probably a lot more thoughts than you expected,but I have many feelings about these two and when buddie goes canon this post will become completely irrelevant lol 💖 

[stereolovers]

ok i hope this isnt weird bc it was a couple days ago BUT i saw ur tags on the post abt ocs and if u want to talk abt ocs i would absolutely love to hear about them!!!!

hi sorry this has taken so long! i keep coming back to it because i’m not entirely sure on how to describe each of them without like... saying too much!

so obviously i’m still working on editing everything, because i keep learning new information whenever i go down a wikipedia rabbithole, and because i’ve accidentally connected the dots many many times, so even though i’ve done a few drafts and stuff i’m still not 100% certain about everything (if things don’t make sense here it’s because i’m absolutely trying my best to not just dump everything about the character)

arlo is my main main character! i’m actually writing this entirely from his perspective, which is a biiiig change from what i’m used to.. but it’s weirdly fun because he’s very fun to write as he has certain ways of speaking (pats myself on the back for this one). he.. originally was a dishonored oc, which is Weird once i look back on that because he’s basically just shittier jindosh. because he can be. it’s a bit hard to explain his character without giving too much away, but since he’s my main Dude, he goes through a lot of good development throughout the story while also (un)knowingly helping everyone else out that he previously fucked up. i don’t want to say that he gets redeemed, because not everyone should be, but he definitely realizes a lot of shit. yeah he’s cool.

ace is actually an older oc of mine that i brought over because this originally wasn’t supposed to be a Big Thing, but she’s here now and i love her slightly more evil personality... as they’re all Bad in some way. i just like antagonists way more so.. everyone’s shitty. she’s like my main character, a little less than arlo, but she’s still very important and shows up the most. she really just Appears. that’s her thing. and also in this universe there is a (somewhat) logical and scientific (not really) explanation for her blue eye

crystal is... something else. her name is inspired from a lady my mom went to school with (she gave me both crystal’s name and will’s). i’m still working on her character, but i enjoy her as she’s kinda the breath of fresh air in this group of determined evil backstory ocs (she’s an antagonist too, as they all are. she’s carefree evil... chaotically loving. yknow? i love her despite the fact that she needs more development.

malachite is one of the most important characters in this, as she’s basically the most level-headed of the group, and really is the brain of the entire story.... she does A Lot. like a lot. everyone (excluding celia and, technically, montgomery) has like a niche of science that they excel in, along with other things. everyone kinda invents something important during this, that helps another character in the future with their plot progression, if that makes sense. and malachite is very very important! she literally creates wireless communication, gps tracking, and with the help of crystal she crafts ‘phones.’ they’re not called phones of course, but she does, and she’s great! she also creates boats! she’s a ship captain and absolutely loves it. crystal & her & ace (they’re kinda all a Group) hang out on her ship frequently, and they’ll just enjoy each other’s company. crystal & her are girlfriends and they’re just wonderful.

will is great, and even though it’s really arlo’s story, he actually goes through the most change throughout. and it’s good change! even if he’s not described to be there, or talking in a scene, chances are he’s actually in the background...he’s like a walking dictionary definition for irony- he absolutely Hates being known and seen and being in crowds, etc, you get it. but get this. his name is will durness. wilderness. this is another name my mom gave me out of the blue (his development throughout the story isn’t like, oh, this guy now can do public speaking and is comfortable in crowds, because imo that’s not realistic. instead its more like how can he accept that other people enjoy his company, and want to be around him? he allows himself to have friends and to feel safe around them. and i love him)

those ^ five knew each other at aronose (which, without making this even longer, is basically a Huge and Important and Prestigious science trade school type thing. it’s cool and basically what every dark academia fan wants), and after a mysterious four years in which Things happen they all reconvene in interesting ways, and discover how they’ve all kinda been intertwined in this Thing. and then they help each other. it’s cool! i promise.

montgomery is the worst of everyone, which is saying a lot when they’re all antagonists. he’s the main reason everything that happens.... happens, and [spoilers for a big part of my story just in case you don’t want to read it.. don’t know why i’m talking like i’m actually gonna upload it when it’s done but you never know] even after he’s gone, his presence is still like... there. his thing is just... manipulation, but in different ways. he just Knows how to talk to people. and all the rest of the characters have to deal with his lingering Ideals and Things. which is cool. everyone’s gotta work through that! yay for character development. and he’s the duke, so he can do basically whatever he wants (and he WILL remind you many times of that fact.) he’s kinda got his eyes on everything and everyone. i don’t really like to describe my ocs by comparing them to other existing characters, but he’s like if you somehow combined peter lukas and (sorry for this) h*ndsome jack. yeah he’s definitely a very fun character but man is he hard to write which is kinda funny cause like. he’s my oc lol. he only married celia for the status and she definitely knows that (but i promise there was once a time where they actually loved each other)

celia is possibly my most underdeveloped character out of everyone, but she’s still important to the story! she’s the duchess, and yet we don’t really see much of her in person until probably.... halfway through the story. she hates everyone, but mostly montgomery (lol) and arlo, for numerous reasons. they hate her too so it works out ig. i don’t have much to say about her oops

i just realized how dump-y this is... but i have an unfortunate time trying to describe everyone. somehow. yeah hope this somewhat made sense! i think.. honestly their pinterest boards / tags on my oc blog / spotify playlists do a lot for them

[starfleetdoesntfirefirst]

how about some meta about Jett Reno/Tracy Pollard, if you feel like it?

OKAY SO my thing with this ship is that. Both of them are both very sarcastic and very open/earnest at the same time. Specifically, as well as being fairly straightforward about who they are and what they want to do and what they believe, they each place a high value on life, human and otherwise, in this very...I guess I would call it a very sincere way.

In what I think of as Tracy’s defining-character moment, the sickbay scene with Michael and Chris in the ep in which the Sphere is introduced, Michael characterizes the Sphere’s interference with their systems as a “virus,” prompting Tracy to tell her, “You’re attaching a known medical diagnosis to an unknown entity”—a medical-division counterpart to Michael’s science-officer reminder to Chris only hours before that “it is premature” to characterize the Sphere as a malevolent “spider” without knowing more about it. 

It’s an incredibly Star Trek-y characterization of Tracy, but also a complex one. In context, she isn’t being “woo” about the sphere being potentially not as malevolent as it seems, but rather the opposite—the topic comes up because of her grim reminder to Michel and Chris that “life support’s down to 60% percent, but who’s counting?” which prompts Michael to argue that “it is not logical for a virus to kill its host” and Tracy to deliver her attaching-a-known-medical-diagnosis-to-an-unknown-entity rejoinder. In other words, Tracy is urging caution, and potentially an adversarial viewpoint, towards the current threat to the lives of her crew—but doing so through a framework that suggests an underlying openness to observation, discovery, and resisting easy assumptions about the universe around her.

Meanwhile, Jett has a similar balance of being simultaneously pragmatic, sarcastic, and sincere in her integrity. She stays behind to care for the critical-condition patients on the Hiawatha, and jumps into dangerous situations again and again on the Discovery, from the engineering explosion to the time crystal, putting herself at risk to protect the people around her (and, unlike say MICHAEL, seems to be doing so as someone fully able to fairly consent to risking herself, rather than being unduly influenced by guilt/depression/the attitudes and sometimes coercion of those around her--but, ahem, anyway.) And, in true Trek fashion, she even forms a bond with a lifeform much different from herself—aka Paul Stamets—as they navigate their annoyance with and deep care for each other (the “I still don’t like you” “it’s mutual” hand-clasping scene before Jett stays behind have her brain blasted by the time crystal? I WILL NEVER BE DONE HAVING FEELINGS ABOUT IT). Jett cares deeply about the lives of the people around her. But she isn’t about to be, like, gooey about it.

In addition, Jett and Tracy are both very competent, and clearly value and respect competence in others. Not to mention that they’d have a lot to talk about on a professional level re: Jett’s foray into field medicine. 

And, last but not but not least, as that one gifset points out (linking in a reblog so Tumblr doesn’t auto-hide this post from the character tags)... they can bond over being partners in one of the noblest pursuits starship crew can undertake: taking the piss out of their commanding officer when he gives them gratuitously redundant instructions.

-

Putting a divider here because all of the above is meta about canon, and the following is a headcanon, but: I will also mention that the backbone of my personal Tracy fanon is that she is innocent-until-proven-guilty of the Strap Michael To A Chair And Torture Her To Death Plan, and, as such, a big part of how I write her in fic is as someone who—like Culber with Lorca’s captaincy in s1 — is willing to be critical of systemic issues within Starfleet (or, at the least, to not take an active role in enabling them).

As well as being innocent-until-proven-guilty simply by virtue of not appearing in 2x10, I think this is a plausible extension of her canon character—no way would this thoughtful woman who cares so much about her patients and her colleagues and life in all its forms enable a plan to literally STRAP MICHAEL TO A CHAIR AND TORTURE HER TO DEATH—erm, sorry, still not over it. 

(Which, in fairness, is equally true of many of the characters who did appear in the ep going along with the plan, which is why I have to informally decide when writing any given character whether I’m writing something that is/is not consistent with tHE JOKE OF AN EPISODE THAT IS 2x10–okay, okay, I’m done now.)

Anyway, that headcanon is a big part of my own interpretation of Tracy’s character. I will go to the mat about Tracy having gotten as much canon characterization, by the end of season 2 as, say, Ellen Landry or Keyla Detmer did (said characterization is just less overtly noticeable because it’s largely professional and compassionate rather than antagonistic, and, in fiction, non-antagonistic characterization easily fades into the background as a default/non-characterization, despite the fact that—especially in a social setting as flawed as dsc’s Starfleet—it is anything but.) However, she is still very much a background character, so any major headcanons I come up with for her make a relatively large splash in how I individually write her.

As such, in my fanon, Tracy’s integrity and unwillingness to go along with the Time To Just Frickin’ Kill Michael plan is something that I see Jett being very attracted to/relieved by. Given that she’s someone who spent most of the war isolated away from Starfleet, I have to assume that Jett got one hell of a culture shock when she heard about what Starfleet had become (and/or had been revealed to be, depending on your interpretation—that degree of systemic violence and corruption Does Not Spring Up Overnight) by the time of her rescue. So, finding someone who sticks to what Jett thinks of as Starfleet values—compassion, integrity, openness—AND is extremely competent, AND is sarcastic? Jett probably has bluebirds fluttering around her head and little pink hearts in her eyes.

-

(Send me a meta ask!)

[faejilly]

author interview

tagged by @twistedsinews tagging: anyone who wants to blame me! (also, uh... no pressure: @junemermaid @jadesabre301 @firstaudrina @fancytrinkets @laughingmagnus)

Name

jilly

Fandoms:

Shadowhunters is most active atm, but historically also BioWare (Mass Effect/Dragon age) and whatever catches my eye re: Yuletide or the occassional gifty-prompt-fill-type-thing

Where You Post:

AO3, and I try to cross-post here on tumblr and on twitter (and occasionally I even think to mention a thing in a discord server or two?)

Most Popular One-Shot:

By hits/kudos, two are halves of one

By comments/bookmarks, i cannot touch because they are too near

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:

Finished (tho only about 22k words, so it’s still not really long-fic for all it’s not a one-shot either): with an if in its soul

WIP: I am for you

Favorite Story You Wrote:

fAV0riTe?!

that’s an impossible nebulous criterion wtf

uh

today I am going to pick out of some dreaming tree

Because Fairy Tales! (In tone, not specifics.)

There’s a plot! (Said plot is a quest and very straightforward, but still!)

(because a dash of speculative metaphysics!)

BECAUSE THERE’S A FOREST THAT (sometimes) EATS PEOPLE! Or Demons. And stuff?

Romance and sex magic! Flirting over weird magical investigations! (My favorite lady Cat makes tea!) It was for a BANG. It’s the only Bang-Fic I’ve ever finished! It has pretty art!

It’s a good story, y’all should give it a try. (Even if I haven’t sucked you into watching the joyfully sincere trash-fire that is Shadowhunters. It’s Very AU! It stands alone whether you know the SH canon or not!)

Story You Were Nervous to Post:

known subjects because that is a heck of a niche fic, it’s about an OC designed to fit the fusion setting (Criminal Minds’ BAU) rather than the fandom the other characters are from (Shadowhunters), it’s an outsider POV of the main ship rather than being about said ship... It is basically five steps sideways from all the things that usually attract readers but wow, am I ever so glad I wrote it and posted it anyways.

I love Fuller. I may very well stick him into my actual-Shadowhunters-canon fic as a background character some day. <3

How You Choose Your Titles:

For Malec I cruise my way through my e.e. cummings complete poems book until I find a thing I like and then I poke at it ‘til a line falls out

For everything else I reference the canon or do something relatively literal, an emotion or an event or a description of the main character. Sometimes I grab someone else’s poetry or song lyrics! (I like things besides cummings, who knew. Me. I knew.)

/I’m bad at titles, y’all. SO BAD. Sometimes I get an AO3 email and don’t recognize my own title and have to click the link to figure out what fic someone liked. I honestly have no idea why anyone ever clicks on my fic, I am not good at selling them 😅

Complete:

Uh. Published? I have 104 completed fics on AO3!

(Excluding fanmixes (because not fic!) & ficlet collections, because counting those/their chapters gets REALLY WEIRD AND EXCESSIVE VERY QUICKLY.)

In-complete:

(published, and again excluding ficlet collections because those are both always finished and yet potentially never done)

FOUR:

12 Moons is an old DA2 game prequel fic that will never ever get any more but a few people seemed to quite like so I haven’t taken it down.

Persephone Rising is a Mass Effect collaborative fic, and my two co-authors and I just cannot seem to line up for writing together again, so it probably won’t ever get any more, but you never know. Life is weird. It could happen.

Next is if broken hearts were whole, (Malec soulmarks fic!) which I am still working on but I’m not going to post again until it’s all done. (To avoid more things like those first two.)

And last is i am for you, my epistolary!fluff fic! I posted a chapter for it last week and it’s actually pretty close to the end? Should only be a couple more chapters, I just have to, you know, actually write them.

Do You Outline:

I wish. So much no.

Coming Soon / Not Yet Started:

More Clizzy post-canon fic. It appears to be turning into ficlets rather than a long-fic, but IDK, we’ll see what happens.

I also have a wing!fic that is remarkably about politics more than wings, some relationship reconciliation/Pandemonium Porn, a s3 retelling/sequel to with an if in its soul, mer!Alec sequels, priest!kink, a weird mafia/procedural/omegaverse thing that was SUPPOSED to be a sex!farce and isn’t cooperating, a Practical Magic thing I want to do for Halloween and MANY MANY Shadowhunters CODAS/FICLETS.

And maybe some day I’ll dig the Persuasion!AU or the pro-bono-porn or the sequel to out of some dreaming tree out of the archive and try them again. Or some #7kpp fic, or the Code: Realize and Scarecrow & Mrs. King epilogues I started!

My brain is full of possibilities. I don’t actually finish a lot of them though, clearly. 😳😅🙃

Do You Accept Prompts:

Yes. I may not fill them, but I am never unhappy to receive them. <3

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write

Malec Arranged Marriage AU. I did a twitter thread on why I like this particular trope, like, literally two years ago and then I tried to write it for the 3b countdown thing but realized very quickly that it was going to be MUCH TOO BIG to finish in time, and started something else (Pandemonium Porn iirc?) which also didn’t cooperate, and then I finally managed i cannot touch because they are too near instead! And now I’ve pulled the Arranged Marriage back out for the @wipbigbang​ this year so HOPEFULLY YOU WILL ALL SEE IT AT LAST IN AUGUST.

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

finally. i decided to do this. anyways hello there, i am jake and today i want to talk about something; you see, if you are in the tf2 fandom, you probably know about heavymedic. Wherther you are a hardcore gamer who resents f2p’s or a person that never played the game but has trillions of notes on their art- you know heavymedic exists and most of all you probably ship it.

And I find that weird. In the few fandoms in my life I have been in I had never seen a single ship be so widely if not shipped, then accepted. Sure, maybe everyone in the GF fandom knows what Billdip is - for better or for worse. Sure, maybe the HS fandom is 70% shipping.

But I have never ever seen such a phenomenon in a prominent multiplayer game fandom. A fandom, sadly, oftentimes filled with toxicity. Overwatch is very similar here - yet ships are either a hot topic of discussion or straight up ignored. But TF2? In here for whatever reason we ship these two mercenaries. And in this essay I will try and find a reason or two why is that.

Apologies for any mistakes or incoherency. English is not my first language, I need to ramble, and my vocabulary is all over the place.

Content warning: mentions of homophobia, blood, death, mentions of WLW fetishization, nsfw mention. Also MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE TF2 COMICS.

Part 1: Canonical Evidence and Interactions

Let’s be honest: I could ramble about this one for days on end. But I’ll try and keep it short.

First and foremost we have the official videos. And of course the first thing that comes to mind is Meet the Medic.

At the very start of the part where Medic himself appears, we see him telling a joke about a particularly gruesome situation to Heavy.

He laughs along with him, visibly enjoying his company. He even smiles as he waits for another joke. Heavy only shows genuine fear a lot later.

And of course this damn scene always cracks me up. Medic slightly pinches Heavy’s cheek and strokes his lip gently (the other part is almost not noticeable unless you play the video at slow speed).

Of course we all know about the Hand Hold that happens somewhere halfway in the vid. I don’t think I have to explain the gayness in that. The fact their hands stay interlocked even after Medic helps Heavy up. The deep breath Medic takes because even he cannot handle the emotions. That few seconds is unresolved sexual tension manifest.

Overall the short shows a strong feeling of trust between these two. Medic confides in Heavy and reverse. Yeah he puts a baboon heart into his friend’s chest cavity but the fact (as proven at the end of the video) that Heavy was the first one to have an Ubercharge implanted into him shows that Medic at the very least considers him a lab rat.

I treat End of the Line as non-canonical, as do many others, and as such won’t discuss it here. But it will forever crack me up that Valve endorsed such levels of homoerotic subtext.

These two have some short moments in other videos, like for example in Invasion Heavy helps Medic up (CINEMATIC PARALLELS) but it’s nothing major so I guess I’ll skip forward.

Second is their interactions ingame. You might call me a weirdo for trying to find stuff in there but holy shit I have things to say and I’m going to say them.

You thought I was going to fanboy over the “i love this doktor” voiceline huh? Well not really. I wish these two had unique lines if they assist one another.

Heavy is literally listed on the official wiki as the “ideal medic buddy” and multiple pages on that exact wiki say some pretty interesting things.

I have to say something about the Gentleman’s Ushanka and/or Pocket Medic. They are both community cosmetics - but the fact they both got accepted by Valve says a lot. Above is text snipped from the actual wiki.

Last but not least: The Comics. Darned comics. The pair of mercenaries has basically no interaction - unless you count issue 6.

Heavy getting absolutely PISSED when Medic is killed by Ch*avy. Their reunion. Medic referring to Heavy by “my friend” in a totally straight way. Kind of sad Valve wasted an opportunity for them to hug. Maybe they knew their comic artist ships them and wanted to avoid having to answer the Question™.

Part 2: Dynamics

This part’s a bit trickier, mostly due to the reason that I’m new to this whole dynamic analysis thing. Yeah I’m good at spotting canonical evidence but very specific shipping dynamics often escape my gaze.

The most obvious one is Big Guy, Little Guy. Quoting the TVTROPES page:

[…] This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and quite often have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is often in charge […] The little guy is usually listed first, since he’s the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can’t live without each other. […] If this is a case of Brains and Brawn, the Big Guy is usually the Brawn, and the Little Guy the Brains. It’s almost never the other way around, but in some cases the Big Guy can be rather smart too. […]

A sub-type of this, a common favorite here on Tumblr is known as “small chaotic big calm” and hoo boy if that isn’t these two. I don’t really have much to say here - again I am not an expert.

Part 3: Fandom Impact

So you don’t think Red Oktoberfest (as Heavymedic is sometimes called) is super popular on anywhere else than Tumblr? Wrong.

It’s hard to find TF2 fics on Archive of Our Own not tagged with Heavy/Medic. Of course most of them only contain hints to their relationship but go in the main tf2 tag and I can guarantee you, you’ll gonna see “implied heavy/medic” all the time.

But these two go further than AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or whatever. They are recognized even within the wider circle of the fanbase. Take this SFM, for example. (I am using the Saxxy Awards version of Secret Lives here mostly due to the fact that the Heavymedic moment is much gayer. In the normal version, the dialogue isn’t changed, but they simply hold hands.)

But it gets deeper. (WARNING: THE GAY MOMENT IN THIS ONE IS NSFW. NOT EXPLICITLY SO BUT JUST A HEADS UP TUMBLR PLEASE DO NOT FLAG ME)

And the best part? The comments are extremely positive. You’d expect hoards upon hoards of homophobes screeching but no, the comments are supportive. Even on places such as Reddit or Youtube, comments like “yeah they’re gay and in love” do not get downvoted/disliked to hell; in fact the opposite.

Part 4: Canon Status

Let’s be real. Most ships are shipped because people want to explore the dynamics in fanfic, fanart or something else. But Heavymedic is shipped because… well, I have no idea.

Actually, I kind of do - but only theories. You see, while the canonical evidence is here, the creators have never said anything about them. No confirmation, no disproval, no hinting, nothing.

But the ship is so prominent! There has to be something causing this!- you say. And to that I present you 2 theories on why Heavy/Medic is so popular.

Theory number 1 states that we simply all choose to interpret their interactions as homoerotic. And this is very easy to disprove - there’s simply no way we just collectively agreed on these matters out of nothing. There has to be something bigger.

And theory 2 states that, well, our interpretation is the desired interpretation. But this is even more ridiculous than theory 1 for a number of reasons. If they are in fact gay, why hasn’t Valve made them canon yet?

A Theoretical Scenario

I am going to ramble big time on this one, so buckle up lads. I’ll discuss a theoretical scenario in which, well, if that was not obvious, Valve confirms Heavymedic as canon. Maybe then we will see why they will probably never do so.

TF2 is considered by typical capital G, alt-right Gamers as a “non-political” game. This means no women (in the game itself, at least, and if even, sexy women only), no queer folk and no minorities (for some reason they accept Demoman but throw a fit if someone draws any other merc as not being pearl white). Team Fortress 2 was around before Gamergate and other things like Gamers Rise Up. It’s a classic and Valve is regarded as the good guy to Epic Game’s bad guy. If Valve did anything to confirm doubts, wherther it be clearing up popular fanon or confirming ships, these people would throw hands. (Although they seemed to ignore when one of the writers confirmed Miss Pauling is a lesbian. Huh.) Even those that don’t play TF2 would come to the aid of their bros.

Let me illustrate with two very similar examples. In both cases these confirmations were the first made by the company as a whole, both are fairly recent and both confirm a character as gay.

First we have the confirmation of Tracer from Overwatch as a lesbian. It was done in one of OVW’s comics. Tracer is the FACE of Overwatch as a whole and while most of the fanbase accepted it (thankfully the Gamers are reluctant to infest ow), some people threw what I can only describe as a hissy fit. At least her girlfriend’s a background character.

Second is Neeko from League of Legends. Unlike Tracer she was added a while before it was confirmed she was gay. LOL is much more toxic and filled with Gamers than OW and holy shit people smeared LOL so much.

Of course these are not accurate to Heavy/Medic. In both of the cases I listed it was girls being wlw and we all know how much cisgender heterosexual gamers LOVE yuri porn. Apparently only girls can be gay because they can jack off to it - if it’s two guys then it’s disgusting. Nevertheless I think these are good approximations - in every case the company gets “shat on” on social media and other sites. With the community that Valve has, I think even if they wanted them to be gay, they would never ever confirm it.

Conclusion

I’m sorry for that ending. I had to theorize a bit. Regardless I’d love if you shared this on other sites, reblogged or whatever - I wasted at least 1 and a half hours of my life on it. Feel free to cite this as a source if someone asks you why you ship the big heavy weapons expert and the feral battle medic.

[experimentaldragonfire-fics]

experimentaldragonfire’s SU Fic Rec List

Stuck at home? Running out of stuff to read? I figured I’d put together a semi-comprehensive series of fanfic recommendations so that all the hours I’ve spent on AO3 over the years can be considered at least vaguely useful. A lot of these are quite old, so if you’ve only read more recent fics, you might find something that you haven’t seen here!

Please feel free to add your own links and recommendations--I personally would love more reading material! This list will focus on SU fics, but I’ll probably make more for other fandoms going forward if anyone’s interested. Bear in mind that, as I’ve mentioned, since many (most) of these were written a while ago, they might not represent exactly how the plot of the show progressed (though they now provide a pretty interesting look at the older fanfic tropes/theories!)

Also, upfront: most of these, when ships do appear, are Lapidot or PearlRose--clearly, I’m very narrowly-focused on what I read. And if one of your fics is on here and you want to be tagged, let me know and I will do so!

Steven Universe Fic Recs

General (None or canonical/background/multiple ships):

histories by avulle (T, F/F, Gen)

“Pearl (pearl) is born in what would have been the year 100,492 BCE. (She is not older than the entire human race—but only just.)”

An introspective look at the Crystal Gems through the years, written in a style that’s practically poetic and absolutely gorgeous.

Inferior Blue by hTeDruknenPotaT (M, Gen)

"Your name is Lapis Lazuli. Lapis is a fun thing to name your child when your last name is Lazuli, and when your name is Lapis Lazuli, blue seem like a nice color to dye your hair. It's fortunate that blue is your favorite color, that you manage not to despise it after all the blue you've been surrounded by all your life."

Lapis Lazuli meets a strange young boy who helps to heal the scars of her past.

The first time I read this fic, I stayed up until 5AM and cried into my pillow through the final chapters. And it continued to make me cry every time I reread it. Massive angst warning, but if you can handle fics that are beautiful but tragic, this is for you.

capacity by broken_halleluiah (G, F/F)

After a routine council meeting, Pink Diamond insists on repairing a broken piece of equipment. The result is far more than she bargained for.

A fic speculating on the nature of Pearls in Homeworld society, written well before we got to see any of that in canon. As such, it isn’t entirely in-line with later canon, but is still entirely worth reading.

Breaking Down by PTlikesTea (M, multi)

Rose's world view is shattered by a black market pearl and the realization that everything she knows about them is wrong.

An extensively long series of shorter mostly-self-contained stories exploring a version of Homeworld society where Pearls are considered as little more than disposable property. Major warnings for Pretty Much Everything--definitely keep an eye on the tags--but this is an iconic series of works, started in 2015 and predating many of the later revelations about canon Homeworld. 

A Gem and Her Pearl (Rose) by Potential Violet (G, gen)

Blue Diamond forces Rose Quartz to get a pearl, changing Rose's life, the pearl's life and the course of Gem history. All relationships begin somewhere, this is the beginning of Rose and Pearl's.

Another take on Rose and Pearl’s meeting, and the status of Pearls in Homeworld society (there’s a bit of a theme here with these recommendations). Again, predates most canon revelations regarding the topics, and predates all of the canon information about the Diamonds.

Pearl, Interrupted by AceyEnn (E, multi)

In August, Steven Quartz Universe was born.

In August, Rose Quartz died in childbirth.

In December, Pearl decides she can't handle any of it.

Or: Pearl Tries To Kill Herself And Ends Up In A Therapy Group Run By Her Best Friend's Mom (Well, One Of Her Moms).

Human AU focusing on Pearl dealing with Rose's death--or rather, not dealing with Rose’s death. Major content warnings for suicide attempts, self-harm, etc (please read the tags), but overall a very well-written story. Still updating, despite being first posted in 2016! 

Lapidot:

in which Peridot is Not At All Surprised by the sudden appearance of a new waiter by gaySpaceRock_exe (G, F/F)

Peridot meets the new waiter at her regular restaurant and immediately falls head-first in love. 

Cute and fluffy, what more do you need in a fic? 

Homesick by DrPaine (G, F/F)

An encounter at the Galaxy Warp.

Short oneshot predating the Peridemption/Barn Arc, can be read as friendship rather than romantic. 

Observation by DrPaine (G, F/F)

Peridot is a technician, meant to catch every detail. Not something she’s very fond of, but making yourself aware of your surroundings can be helpful, when you’re slipping into troublesome thoughts.

Incomplete but very much an introspective look at Peri’s character as perceived back in 2015-ish. Not as much focused on romance as on concepts of identity and anxiety. 

Of Stage Lights and Stage Fright by AcrylicPaint (M, F/F)

All Lapis wanted was to participate in the local production, but there was a minor element she hadn't taken into consideration when she agreed to take the leading role, and that was; dealing with the cute techie's constant staring.

That, and the fact she was beginning to stare too.

Human theatre AU, and an excellent completed multichapter fic. I remember that when I first read this, I was in high school and part of the musical, so it was a very topical read--and now it’s the height of nostalgia. 

No Regrets by Raptor_Red (E, F/F)

No Regrets, or, the story of how Peridot tried to romance the blue-haired tattoo artist from the parlor across the street

A personal favorite! The writing in this fic is just so nice to read, and though I’m not usually a fan of tattoo artist AUs, this one really managed to make the whole concept make sense within the story. I can’t count how many times I’ve read this fic. Please read this.

12 O’Clock at Your Local King Soopers by InsomniacArrest (T, F/F)

Lapis works late night shifts, Peridot is somebody's overworked assistant, they both need more sleep and better people skills: the grocery store story.

Is it a Lapidot fic rec list if I don’t include 12KS? Probably the most iconic fic for this pairing, with good reason. Also, consider this a recommendation for literally everything IA has ever written--there are too many good fics to name them all individually, otherwise they’d comprise half of this entire list.

Of Meteors and Minimal Speech by Waypaststrange (moonbeatblues)(F/F)

In which things at the barn settle down, nobody speaks much, and strange lights appear in the sky.

Vaguely fluffy oneshot, very cute!!

Awkward Office Encounters by SilverEyedRukia (T, F/F) 

Due to a broken down air conditioner on a scorching hot day the computers' overheated systems need fixing. Luckily for everyone a blonde technician is up for the job, but unbeknowst to them the IT nerd turns out to be someone they didn't expect her to be, especially not Lapis who kind of asked her out on a date already.

Human workplace AU, starts off relatively comedic but gets into Emotional Territory towards the end.

Camp Pining Hearts by kamanzi (M, F/F)

Peridot and Jasper return to summer camp after their freshmen year of college--this time, as counselors. Peridot is disappointed to learn that nothing is quite the same, especially her relationship with her best friend. Whose fault is this? She blames Jasper's girlfriend.

“‘Let’s go back next year and be counselors,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ she said.”

Human summer camp counselors AU that’s definitely long enough to use up some stuck-at-home-self-isolating time.

A Week by teamchaosprez  (E, F/F)

Who knew that a single night of drunken sex could push Peridot and Lapis from being roommates with a mutual crush to regularly fucking and maybe - just maybe - eventually becoming girlfriends and standing up to the homophobia surrounding both of their family lives.

A human college AU focusing a lot on working through interpersonal relationships and coming to terms with emotions

Set Me Free by cym70 (T, F/F) 

Being roommates gives Lapis and Peridot a lot of time to get to know each other and, despite their rocky history, they might just be able to make something entirely new.

A friends-to-lovers fic, post-Barn Mates. Very sweet!

Waltz of the Nian by QuickYoke (T, F/F)

Lapis doesn't understand fusion at heart, but she does know she's an unideal partner for it.

 Lapis' relationship with fusion, and also Peridot. A fic that basically encapsulates the ideal of profound prose that makes you feel things, even if you don’t precisely know how or why.

Pushing by Like Hearts by mautadite (T, F/F)

“Sounds like you’re really counting on that road trip magic.”

(Peridot and Lapis do Midway City, and Empire City, and Plateau Ville, and all the places in between.)

Canonverse road trip, because every rec list needs a “the characters go on a long journey together and find themselves, and each other” fic. And because this fic made me feel so many emotions.

A thousand years (F/F)

I have died a thousand years, waiting for you.

 Childhood friends-to-adult-lovers human AU, one of the fic tropes that always just punches me in the face with feelings.

[randomarcanatingz]

the arcana characters as youtubers

nadia

always has her hair and makeup impeccably done for her videos and when she meets fans,,,no one has ever seen her look like less than an 11/10

makes videos on fashion trends and fashion history (think a less experimental safiya nygaard), ones where she gives advice to viewers who send in questions, and unboxing/review videos for beauty items and clothes

people always comment calling her “queen” which she thinks is sort of cute and “mom” which just confuses her (“for the last time--i appreciate all the kind words but i DO NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN”) 

has never been demonetized once and doesn’t plan on it

whenever her videos are sponsored, she manages to sneak the sponsorship in smoothly, in a clever way

goes to vidcon but typically is too busy to stay the whole weekend 

wrote a book on self care and how to be independent and successful that became one of the best-selling youtuber books ever 

 isn’t a huge fan of collabs on her own channel, but appears occasionally on portia’s or asra’s 

does a yearly giveaway of high end jewelry and makeup for her subscribers, and holds a charity donation event for her birthday (like colleen ballinger’s childhood cancer one)   

seems to avoid scandals effortlessly, but actually works hard to stay out of drama 

asra

has absolutely no theme to his channel and just rolls with whatever video idea he can think of at the time

some examples include an instructional tarot reading video, a docuseries on the stigma against reptiles (featuring faust in every episode), a collab with nadia where they just drink tea and talk about current events, and him playing the weirdest children’s games he can find online

LOVES meeting fans and spends the whole weekend at vidcon, has like 7 meet and greets, and appears in every panel that will let him participate

his videos are low on editing and mostly just edited for length, but any special effects he does add in are not subtle at all (aka random sparkles and dramatic jump cuts) 

has been dubbed a “cinnamon roll” by his fans but he isn’t afraid to call out other creators if they say something problematic

 is very expressive and there are many reaction images and videos of him all over instagram and twitter

doesn’t usually make travel blogs but he does travel a lot, so most of his videos don’t have the same background

 all his merch is tye-dye and the best seller is a mug with a faust-shaped handle 

 follows a bunch of fan accounts for him on instagram

 tons of fans ship him with julian and while he’s not super into it, he finds the shitty instagram edits hilarious 

julian

the KING of clickbait titles but his fans don’t mind that much because it just parallels his dramatic personality 

“Staying in a Haunted Hotel???” (it’s not haunted, he just heard the people in the room beside him talking at midnight and thought it was ghosts), “I Solved the Jon-Benet Ramsey Case” (he didn’t, it’s just him discussing theories on it), “Proof the Government is Plotting Against Us” (no solid proof, just off the wall conspiracies that he explains confidently)

makes videos of him exploring supposedly haunted places, ones where he discusses unsolved crime cases and what he thinks really happened, and conspiracy theory videos

very active in the comments section; likes every nice comment he sees and replies to them with a winky face

 also very active on twitter and instagram, especially past midnight, and replies to tweets and dms from fans

sometimes collabs with asra for conspiracy videos which immediately leads to 20 fanmade compilations titled “julian annoying asra for 5 minutes straight”

is always sponsored by the weirdest, most random companies that have no relation to the kind of videos he makes at all

does 6 hour live streams where all he does is look at cursed images on reddit 

is determined to not let any of his subscriber’s discover that his birth name is ilya 

random haters have tried to cancel him multiple times but it Never Works he is literally immune to being cancelled 

portia

vlog QUEEN !!! her videos are mostly vlogs of her daily life, with a few scripted videos scattered here and there, usually involving pepi

contrary to her brother, her titles are very blunt and true to the content and are in all lowercase (“a day in my life”, “getting frustrated in my garden”, “buying my cat clothes online”)

 she tries to make her videos appeal to everyone, but 90% of her demographic is still teenage wannabe aesthetic vsco girls

 has never done a proper collab, but her vlogs always end up featuring nadia, julian, and some of the palace guards 

has a popular merch line that sells unique items like flower seeds, pet food bowls, and baking tools 

her favorite thing is seeing her fans’ reactions when she picks up one much taller and heavier than her for a picture at vidcon

fans all agree that she has bde 

sometimes makes so-called “family vlogs” where she hangs out with julian and mazelinka and calls them “the maz squad”

for april fool’s day, she posted a fake giveaway announcement video where she claimed she was giving pepi away to a fan

her twitter is mostly retweets of fanart and sweet messages from fans (and pictures of pepi, obviously)

muriel 

has the smallest subscriber count of the group but it's surprisingly high for someone who never wanted to be popular in the first place

his videos are very niche and are usually on topics like how to survive in the wilderness and how to raise chickens

many of his subscribers think his quiet personality and unique videos are all an act or persona and muriel does not understand why

he's only ever been to one (1) fan event/meet and greet and it was when he tagged along with asra to vidcon

despite his protests, asra always plugs muriel’s videos on his twitter, so they share many subscribers 

he doesn't really have any haters because those who actually watch his videos think he's super sweet and those who don't are too scared of his huge stature 

didn't want to include inanna in his videos initially, but caved after fans saw her in the background of one and demanded she make an appearance more often

fans (and asra) keep insisting he change his username to “the mountain man” but he heartily refuses 

does his own editing but also isn't great with technology so sometimes his videos are strangely edited and include parts he meant to edit out (but it's kinda endearing)

has never sold merch, never plans to, and ignores any requests to do so

lucio

listen i'm not comparing him to the paul brothers but you know …..

makes prank videos, makeup tutorials (but it's the same look just varied SLIGHTLY every time), and vlogs where he not so subtly flexes how rich he is

his merch is supposedly “the highest quality and extremely stylish” but that just means the prices are sky high and the quality is not that great 

goes to every convention he can and holds random meet ups because he craves attention 

isn't mean to his fans because he couldn't bear seeing his sub count go down, but will absolutely TEAR his haters to shreds and get their channel taken down somehow 

gets demonetized all the time and complains about it (as if he needs more money)

people are either a huge fan or they HATE him there is no in between

uses clickbait just as much as julian but people are less forgiving about it 

none of the other people in the gang really want to collab with him but julian did once, got tricked into eating a beetle, and refused to do it ever again 

king of scandals, tweets random controversial stuff and then deletes it

[bloodfcst-a]

GET TO KNOW THE BLOGGER.

✧ can be used for RP and non-RP blogs to get to know a bit about the person behind the screen!

1. FIRST NAME:  i used to go by my middle name, nina, but now i go by pacifica or paci.

2. STRANGE FACT ABOUT YOURSELF: i have a bunch of weird ailments that honestly are just wild. like sometimes my nerves make me spasm or collapse or i’ll become hyperflexible. my kidneys decided they were lonely so they are... snuggled together... and i’ve had cancer a few times. it’s exhausting. 

3. TOP THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE ON A PERSON:  - smile /  facial features. outside of aesthetics, you can tell if someone is superficial or genuine through the intensity of their smile, or if they’re fabricating their appearance or background. i wouldn’t want someone to pretend for me. i want them to be how they are. - personal care. i don’t have preferences on hair / grooming outside of being well-kempt. file your nails & clean them ( like if ur a mechanic or factory worker or other types of physical labor, i get it-- but like an office worker with black nails? ick ), brush/comb/finger detangle/style your hair, make sure your clothes are reasonably presentable... clean, like you actively tried to come up with an ensemble. - physique. not saying people need to be like 8 pack or straight out the gym. nor am i saying i need someone to be like mega massive or mega thin. but preferably someone who like... is comfortable in the skin they’re in, and cares about their body. at the least, cares about what goes in their body and how much their body does for them. 

4. A FOOD YOU COULD EAT FOREVER AND NOT GET BORED OF:  haribo snacks.

5. A FOOD YOU HATE: i cannot handle the smell of mustard or mayonnaise. i will literally walk out of a room.

6. GUILTY PLEASURE:  i try to cut out needless carbs and snack foods, but y’all........ throw some good naan or pita at me and i’m a sucker. i love my hot cheetos and takis, pls don’t take them from me.

7. WHAT DO YOU SLEEP IN:  a sweater and panties tbh. i’ve turned into that basic single person in their 20s. if i’m cold i’ll throw on sweatpants too.

8. SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OR FLINGS:  i vastly prefer serious relationships, but there’s got to be a lot of build up to it for me to pursue someone in that manner. that being said, idk why, apparently i seem unapproachable or intimidating, but i’ve always had to ask out the person i liked.... ask me out first, u fools. i’ve tried to do flings but like i always feel guilty afterward bc i’m not invested, i just pretend hoping maybe i’ll fool myself in the process and i don’t lmao. that being said, it’s been like over a year since i’ve last dated, and two years had passed between that partner and the previous one. 

9. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN THE PAST AND CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOUR LIFE, WOULD YOU AND WHAT WOULD IT BE: nothing. maybe switch my triple minor to an interdisciplinary double major because that sounds cooler in this point in my life. but other than that? i feel like i did well with the cards that were handed to me. they shaped me into who i am now. and now i’m trying to continue to be a person past me would be proud of. i want to live a life with little to no regrets. to pursue everything i can while i have the opportunity to. 

10. ARE YOU AN AFFECTIONATE PERSON: physically, yes. emotionally, it depends. my coworkers are always either thrilled to see me or are like “ it’s paci being over the top cute. ” i love coming into the room to give hugs or do random acts of service or to shower someone with surprise gifts just to say i appreciate them. however, i can be emotionally distant at times and i don’t like to involve people into things. i still feel guilty on most occasions when i vent,  even though i know it’s healthy to do. i feel like it’s not other people’s responsibility to deal with my problems or have to endure them, even if it’s as little involvement as listening. such an attitude isn’t great, but... at least i can recognize that now? lmao. u know. baby steps. i’m still learning to trust and let people in. when my former best friend broke my heart it really messed me up in a lot of ways.

11. A MOVIE YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN: i love pocahontas, mulan, princess and the frog, and peter pan starring mary martin. i’ve been watching that specific peter pan since like..... birth......... and it’s still one of my favorite films.

12. FAVORITE BOOK:  dante’s divine comedy.

13. YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP ANY ANIMAL AS A PET, WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE: a long-haired cat, preferably a tortoise color. i’ve always thought munchkin cats were the cutest. i’d want something that is as independent and self-sufficient as i am.

14. TOP FIVE FICTIONAL SHIPS [IF YOU ARE AN RP BLOG, YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN SHIPS AS WELL]:  yufi & age-appropriate love and joy. tseng also deserves love. & literally everyone in ace attorney could get it..... except dahlia hawthorne, forget her. also... all the important people in devil may cry deserve someone. so.... that’s what i have for you. 

15. PIE OR CAKE: pie. i don’t eat nearly enough of it. kinda underrated in the pnw, i feel like? but in the midwest we loved pies... kinda miss that.

16. FAVORITE SCENT:  sandalwood, vanilla, lavender, and gentle scents like  ‘ ocean ’  or  ‘ linens ’.

17. CELEBRITY CRUSH:  shrugs? no one atm. i do not keep up with pop culture these days. can i count kyo from dir en grey? i’ve thought he was hot for the last 15 years and counting........ 14 y/o me was really like “ he’s the one ” too!! 

18. IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD YOU GO: i love visiting friends. and like... idk? japan is still interesting, as is italy and greece and jerusalem. but i don’t have like... a burning urge to go anywhere. i’d like to return to vietnam & cambodia at some point as well. people tell me melbourne is my kind of vibe, but... i’ll get there when i get there. 

19. INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT:  ambivert. though for all that i project in personality, i do take a lot of time to myself to kind of recharge, as you will.

20. DO YOU SCARE EASILY:  i do. but i still like scary games bc i enjoy the thrill and chase. suspense is really cool-- gore is not, imo.

21. IPHONE OR ANDROID:  android. i’ve been using samsung galaxy phones since like 2013 and i’m not going back now. i had an ipad once and........ i’m over that. but i’m not like gonna participate in the dumb android vs apple debate........ we’re adults and it’s 2020, c’mon now. put ur energy into something else.

22. DO YOU PLAY ANY VIDEO GAMES: y’all......... i wish i could be like ‘ i’m a gamer grl ’ but the truth is that i mainly collect games and say i’ll play them but it takes me a trillion years sfdgiohfgiohdf. my backlog is shameful. we don’t talk about that. that being said, i just took up ace attorney: spirit of justice this evening & i’ve been playing through kingdom hearts iii and yakuza 0 as of late. 

23. DREAM JOB: to write poetry & creative nonfiction at my leisure dfogihdohg. travelling writer, sharing about cultures all over the world & the beauty of interaction. very whimsical, i know! i also love studying languages and culture...... so it’s no question writing, sociology, cultural anthropology and linguistics were/are my fields of study. 

24. WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A MILLION DOLLARS: pay off my loans, throw like half of it in savings for it to grow, give some to my mum bc she deserves to live comfortably, and..... take some time off work to just relax and rediscover myself. while work does give me purpose, it also takes away from my creative pursuits so like... that blows.

25. FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOU HATE: it took me like 10 years for sorceress adel to stop giving me nightmares, so like. probably her. the pennywise energy was too strong. and on that note...... all clowns and clownlike energy should just burn. pennywise, saw. y’all got to go.

26. FANDOM THAT YOU WERE ONCE A PART OF BUT AREN’T ANY LONGER: final fantasy, ahaha. also metal gear. xeno like doesn’t have a place for it to gather and it’s ridonk small..... but i love xeno games. and i used to love watching sbfp but since they disbanded... it’s a sad world out there. 

✧ tagged by: @burmecias-protector​ + @enshijou​  i got this from both of y’all xoxo

✧ tagging: @shimmerseas​ @extremepath​ @east--moon​ @evercharmed​ @verumking​ @dawnled​ @90smagicalboy​ @meyvn​ @breselin​ @petallines​ @redsown​ @starszakrew​ @onlyliberty​ @angereve​ + if this suits your fancy! 

[synodicatalyst]

I'LL ADMIT tavros is my favorite character for unknown reasons (but fuck gamtav ew) but the fandom's treatment of female characters who had the same amount of screen time (OR LESS, seeing as we get small amounts of him as a sprite and ghost) is so weird. i never see feferi unless it's a group shot or saying she was the devil, nepeta is nonexistent unless it has to do with equius, aradia is a ghost literally fandomwise, but. these characters were just as good if not better than the boys, the (1/

bias is so obvious. ESPECIALLY with eridan imo since he like........... he had a few wizard jokes, talked about genocide, then killed his friends and the future of his species and then died and we never see him again except as the erisol sprite. yet people love him??? i genuinely dont understand it. where is my nepeta and feferi love............ people are so dumb. all the homestuck girls have braincells and the boys have to share 1 braincell thats why theyre better

kudos to you, anon, for coming out as a tavros stan on MY blog (im joking but still. power 2 u)

its true though. its like, yes, there’s always going to be people who choose to hardcore stan characters like *spins wheel* zebruh from friendsim but logically speaking the trend for fancontent and shit like that should increase depending on like, how good / Relevant a ship or character is? like if you look at the boys, dave and john and karkat obviously get the most fan content because they’re the ones who get the most dialogue / screentime and they’re better written, yeah? and d*vekat gets HEAPS of fancontent because it’s sort of THE endgame mlm ship in this scenario and it has that friends to lovers Bros Being Bros bullshit that everyone loves.

the most relevant / prolific and best written female characters are, imo, vriska and terezi, and then rose jade (though jade gets shafted) kanaya aradia. and the content we see of vriska pales in comparison to how many like, dave drawings there are. or whatever. same with most of the girls actually. if every girl has an equivalent boy who shares around the same amount of screentime / plot relevance / Good Writing, the boys always win out

you can see this in the fact that rosemary is the only f/f ship in the top 10 on ao3 and a LOT of the ones in that tag have background rosemary with a m/m ship in the foreground. rosemary have just as interesting a relationship as davekat imo but they get far less focus. and vrisrezi isn’t even IN the top 10 even though again their relationship is LITERALLY PIVOTAL to homestuck and also is far more dynamic and interesting than like any other ship in homestuck. like lets be real

also like, re: minor characters. the same trend should sort of apply right? but i have seen HEAPS MORE tavros stans than i have seen specifically nepeta or feferi stans....... wack

like, why tf does SOLLUX appear in more fics than TEREZI. i think this is wild

[plush-anon]

tejoxys

I finally saw the Endgame spoilers clip

*rubbing my grubby little hands together bc I love a good roast*

Welp, if it’s a roast you want, a roast you shall receive!

(Note: I think I spoke vaguely enough about everything big in the Clips below NOT to warrant an outright Spoilers tag, so I’m leaving it with just an Endgame Leaks tag and a ‘Read More’ line. Message me if you’ve a.) seen the Clips/gone scrolling for more info in the Spoilers tag and b.) think it’s more spoilery than I try to vague it to be, and I’ll tag it post haste)

Christ Almighty, the Clips just make everything look like an enormous MESS.

Thor looks just... awful. In every scene. LITERALLY EVERY SCENE HE’S IN IN THESE SPOILERIFIC CLIPS, HE LOOKS TERRIBLE. There isn’t a single one where he doesn’t look like a mess. Everyone else gets a glow-up (new hair, tattoos, freshly shaved) and looks put together in general (which is admittedly baffling - really, EVERYONE looks good in the face of mass genocide and failure to stop it from occurring?) but Thor decided to whip out his Big Lebowski cosplay at their big ‘save the world’ get-together... why??? (seriously Thor, was a shower too much to ask for?)

Now, if we’d had ANY inclination that anyone else looked rough aside from Tony and Nebula a la the stuck-in-space teaser trailers we saw originally, that would be one thing. Everyone there lost a loved one, everyone there has probably had to come to terms with the fact that they FAILED TO STOP THANOS when they were all right freakin’ there! NO ONE SHOULD LOOK 100% OKAY HERE. Show me dishevelment, poor coping mechanisms, show them having to struggle for weeks (maybe even MONTHS) after the events.

But nope! They are ALL in perfect health according to the trailers we’ve seen before. Even Tony, after nearly dying in space multiple times, just takes a bath and appears to be in fine health after getting back (with some bags under the eyes). Everyone’s perfectly fine, except for Thor (and maaaaaybe Hawkeye, who looks to have gone full-on Frank Miller Batman in his quest for vengeance, but still had time to get a mullet and some sweet sleeve tats in between!).

Nice.

This is a MASSIVE problem with the MCU as a whole, and has been for a while: their repeated attempts to gloss over and sweep consequences of mental trauma and illness away under the rug until it suits them for plot convenience or for comedy. You see this in the Thor sequels a LOT (Selvig being institutionalized for comedy after being possessed, Loki being kept in literal solitary confinement for roughly 2 years, Valkyrie’s PTSD and alcoholism played for laughs, mocking Loki’s suicide attempt from Thor 1 and the actual death he survived in Thor 2, ALL of Odin’s outright dickishness as a parent a la narcissistic parenting, Hela being imprisoned in isolation for literal CENTURIES), as well as anything to do with Tony Stark and his thought process (everything he does is pretty much as a result of the trauma he endures, and everyone in the Avengers just??? doesn’t recognize it??? and attacks him for it without going ‘hey, maybe he’s got PTSD’ or something???? what the hell, man). GOTG does a MUCH better job of it with Rocket and Nebula, but Mantis is left woefully unrealized (thought they do touch upon it briefly, and handle it with relative seriousness). 

Either way, Thor concerns me a LOT, because he is the king of a very small group of Asgardian refugees (and given the scene that shows in the Clips, as well as the appearance of another Thor character later on, we KNOW there were multiple survivors), trying to find a new life on Midgard in the face of not one, not two, but THREE fcuking tragedies - the destruction of Asgard, Thanos’ attack on their ship, and the Snap. Why is he the way he is, in the location he’s in (which actually appears to be the apartment from Team Thor’s mockumentary)? He is the only semblance of leadership left for these people who have lost everything and he’s Like That. Where is a Thor stressed and fretting over being fully responsible for once in his life over the lives of his people, over what little remains of his kingdom? Where is a Thor struggling with guilt as he tries to build a new life for his people, struggling with rule and politics and trade? WHERE IS HE??? Bc right now, all I see is Chris Hemsworth auditioning for the remake of The Big Lebowski, having wandered onto the Avengers set instead of his audition location by mistake -_-

The scenes with Steve leave me absolutely baffled (and some of them just ooze cheese, and not in a great way), because how in the fcuk do we get to those?? His scenes feel the most disjointed here, bc they all have a similar vibe to his personality in Whedon’s Avenger movies. Kind of the ‘Boy Scout’ presentation, which is particularly odd in the aftermath of the Russo Fools’ two Cap movies and Infinity Fcuk Up, which made him more serious, less - bright? I can’t think of a good word for it rn. This is particularly highlighted in his big ‘save the world’ speech we hear - it feels kind of like an ‘okay team, time to save the world!’ speech, instead of something more serious. Is it to try to bring everyone’s hopes up? What else is missing here that we’re not seeing? Why does he feel like he’s back to this persona in light of all that’s happened? Is it to highlight how good and awesome he is in order to {SPOILER REDACTED} like we see in that final sequence? (Also, the imagery for SPOILER REDACTED, while meant to be badass and awesome, feels... kind of awkward, IMHO. Which is weird, bc I thought it would be more amazing and awesome. IDK, maybe I’m just super jaded with the MCU by now).

Carol Danvers’ scenes are actually pretty on point. She gets to be a badass in her fighting scenes and gets an awesome new look that pretty much only functions to further cement her Lesbian Status. The only way she would be more obviously a Lesbian is if her suit were in the colors of (one of) the Lesbian Pride flags and a Cyndi Lauper song was playing in the background (or maybe Joan Jett).

Hulk/Bruce Banner... I don’t even know how they’re going to swing this. Like, at all. I’m particularly baffled bc given how some of the scenes appear to be set early in the film, it resolves extremely quickly to get to that point, and after all the drama of Hulk not coming out in Infinity Fcuk Up, I just - who the fcuk knows at this point. Also, that one scene with the {SPOILER REDACTED} could be effective depending on how they set it up, but then... why exactly is he the one in the scene with the {SPOILER REDACTED} and not Carol or Thor, due to Obvious Plot Reasons?

Finally, Peter Parker. He’s adorable in his scenes, ‘nuff said.

Now, after seeing these scenes, I am left EXTREMELY CONCERNED for this movie’s tone. Granted, it was only 5 minutes of footage for a 3 hour movie. Quite clearly, there is a LOT we aren’t seeing. All the same though, it feels extremely disjointed. I know they’re trying to pull away from the dark and grim ending of Infinity War, but these clips make it all feel a little too casual, a little too ‘let’s go beat the bad guy!’ as opposed to ‘we have suffered a great failure and a great tragedy - as heroes, we MUST work to undo this for the sake of those we have lost, and everyone left alive who has lost the people they loved’. Idk, that may just be me on this one.

But you know the worst part of all of THIS? The worst part is that this is probably what we’re going to get on the release date. This isn’t a trailer Marvel released with deleted live-action scenes featuring minimal to no CGI, or sections clumsily edited over with explosion effects - this was a slew of scenes with a TON of special effects fully rendered in painstaking detail, recorded with a phone on its side in what looks like a movie theater, with foreign subtitles on the screen (I honestly don’t recognize the alphabet, but it might be Middle Eastern). That CGI is expensive and time-consuming as all hell to do, and considering how many of these scenes had it? Either they wasted a shit-ton of money on scenes they didn’t use (seriously, a number of them have Rocket in them, or Hulk - those aren’t the easiest characters to render, I would imagine), or these are in the movie, end of story.

Not to mention, TPTB clamped down on these Clips HARD - like, IMMEDIATELY - as opposed to the process behind deleting Reddit comments. The fast and heavy response from Marvel and the Russo Fools, COMPLETE WITH OFFICIAL TWEET LETTER, along with a Chris Evans tweet not to Spoil the Shit, was to chastise the ones who did (which is somewhat warranted here, given how extreme the security on leaks for Endgame have been).

This response, combined with the quality of the clips, and some of the plot threads that actually seem to be mentioned/referenced in the Lego sets, leads me to believe it’s real.

And I’m not really impressed.

On the flipside, I’m actually kind of relieved, knowing what I’m going into when I walk into the theater opening weekend. I’m not going to be completely shocked and horrified by what I see. This works well in breaking the ice, and also eases some of my anxiety on what to expect (bc I have had a LOT of it for this movie).

The downside to this is that at the end of the day, this is what 22 films ultimately amounted to. Something that feels a little too glib, a little too rushed. Something that doesn’t feel like it’s doing right by the characters who were left, and the characters we love (at least, not in full).

I understand that this is an insurmountable task - to bring to film, with limited time, a satisfying conclusion to so many characters. To arrange hundreds of people within thousands of hours on a set budget to bring this massive story, building for over ten years now, to a close that will resonate and sate with as many fans as possible. But I read fanfiction that does just that with less time, fewer moments, no budget - hell, there are 10k oneshots that rewrote Infinity Fcuk to make sense and treat the characters with the respect that they’ve earned over 20+ films.

This? Doesn’t feel like those.

I will happily admit, I am guesstimating a LOT here, based off of what essentially amounts to 3% of the movie (slightly more, depending on how long the credits are sans post-credit scenes, but still roughly 3%). There is a LOT that is missing, which could fill in these gaps successfully and make this whole post look completely pointless. If it does that, I will gleefully concede that it fooled us on this one. Maybe all of these scenes really ARE hoaxes (even if they were painstakingly subtitled in a foreign language and shown on a movie theater-size screen, but I digress).

But the framing of the scenes looks like it was meant to showcase what the movie would be as a whole, in terms of tone and what to expect. And from that, I’m not excited, or overjoyed. I’m just tired.

And I cannot WAIT for this all to be over, bc I’m fcuking exhausted just watching 5 minutes. Lord knows what 182 of them will leave me like in the end.

*peers up at massive unending ranty analysis post* ...ah. Well then. that happened again. Ah well. Hope you had fun reading my nonsense brain goop, kiddos.