#2020 spop stories

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Club Galactic

So, coming across someone’s art of a hungover Hordak made me think of an old fic of mine for one of the Entrapdak Months.  It’s not like he’s a victim of the booze in it (she is), but he and Entrapta do, for the prompt of “Going Out” visit a nightclub for Horde-clones.  I felt like posting it.  I don’t think I’ve posted it on this particular blog.  It’s short and can be found as part of a collection on A03 - Every Overlord Needs a Mad Scientist  Club Galactic Hordak was trying to figure out the sequence of events that had brought him to this place.  His ears were straight against his skull, an expression of displeasure.  No amount of flattening could deafen the blaring music.  The lights at the edges of his vision bothered him.  A tendril of purple hair wrapped itself around one wrist. “Come on, let’s dance!”   “And make a fool of myself?”   “Just one dance, please?”  Entrapta begged.  “To tell the truth, I’m not much for it all either, but participation is vital to the social experiment!”   “Very well.” “It’ll also be an excellent opportunity to see how your new armor holds up!”   Hordak had been essentially forbidden from wearing battle-armor that enhanced his strength to particularly inhuman levels after the end of the war, but Entrapta had been crafting for him a series of form-fitting armors that served as mobility-aids.  They went well with – and appeared to be to the untrained eye to be - ordinary clothing, if a bit on the designer-side.  The power crystals were embedded into joints that deft feline-claws could not get into and so the large crystal etched with the word “LUVD” hung around the former warlord’s neck on a golden chain.   Hordak’s slinky dress was long enough to almost brush the floor.  Entrapta, for her part, was dressed in a smart little tuxedo with a tiny top-hat perched upon the top of one ponytail.  They both looked the part for this club.  The aesthetic of the place was something that Etherians had labeled “Gothic” and the garb people wore here was quite expressive.   Most of the crowd was made up of spacebats. “One dance,” Hordak grumbled.  “Then your promise to Kadroh will be fulfilled and we can leave.”   Entrapta giggled.  “A dance, some drinks and some tiny food!”   “Alright, then.”  Hordak looked around.  He almost ran into a deer-man with a large rack of antlers that had been painted black.  The deer was shuffling with a spacebat-partner.  Now that he took the time to notice, Hordak saw that Entrapta was the only human here. Every other club-goer was one of his kind or a member of Etheria’s beast-folk.   Entrapta started to dance, but seemed like she was unsure how.  She looked out at others in the crowd and began to imitate them – awkwardly. Hordak followed suit, timing a shuffling of his elbows and his feet to the beats he heard in the music.   “This place… is popular…” he stated.  “It seems that Kadroh is doing well for himself.” The clone formerly known as “Wrong Hordak” had been trying many things in terms of finding his identity and things to do after the war.  He was very much unlike Hordak in that he was a rather gregarious sort.  As an extension of this and of the cooking hobby he’d discovered, he’d started a nightclub.  He’d found an old industrial-building that was still standing in a town that had been bombed out during the war and had turned it into a party-hub for Horde-clones and Etherians alike.  The club catered especially to the spacebats because others struggled to understand their preferences.  For instance, this was one of the few establishments where they could get a soured-milk drink, discovered recently by accident and refined through culinary-experimentation.  It had proven to be a bit of an intoxicant for them.  It did nothing for Etherians.  It was also a place where they could get some fairly strong whisky – something that Hordak often had for breakfast.  His kind metabolized alcohol slightly differently than humans did. For him, it was like Entrapta and her coffee.   His own single encounter with coffee was something he did not want to think about.   “You’re moving great!” Entrapta encouraged. “How does it feel?”   Hordak moved with the music and he actually was starting to enjoy himself.  His joints felt fluid.  For emphasis, he spun and dipped.   “Ooh!” Entrapta squealed, clapping her hair-tails, “I’ve never seen you bend down so far!”   She paused and took a pair of champagne-flutes off the tray of a passing server.  She passed one to Hordak and they shuffled off into a corner to sip their drinks and watch the crowd.   “Alright, more than one dance,” Hordak said, grinning.  “Thanks to your armor, I found that quite invigorating.”   “Great!”   His ears flattened again at a discordant note played over the speaker system.  “Although I do find the music to be a bit too loud for my liking.”   “Music?” Entrapta asked, “What music?”   Hordak whipped around, eyes wide. “What?  Are you well, Entrapta?”   “Perfectly.  I just don’t hear any music!  I was just trying to keep up with the others with the dancing, but… it is not customary for people to dance without music.  How does Kadroh get people to do it?  Fascinating…”   “Of course there is music,” Hordak intoned. “You…you don’t hear it?”   “Nope!”   Hordak listened carefully.  He closed his eyes and concentrated on the trills and screeches and upon what he could catch of Galactic Hordish lyrics.  It dawned on him.  Of course! “You shall have to work on inventing a hearing-aid-device for yourself to come to this club,” he told her with a smile. “It would seem that the music here is strictly in my language.  The frequencies are beyond your range.  That could explain why the only other Etherians here are certain kinds of beast-folk. Every species has its own limits in perception.” Entrapta quivered in joy, her eyes sparkling in the spinning club-lights.  “Amazing!” She grabbed Hordak by the waist with her hair again and dragged him back to the dance floor.  “We’ll have to stay here all night!  So much data to collect!  So much study to be done! I’m the ultimate unbiased outside-observer! Eeeee!”   More dances were shared, more observations done and more drinks were downed.  After that, another limit to Entrapta was discovered, that, unfortunately, of her ability to metabolize alcohol.   Hordak carried her to their skiff.  The next morning was spent with the two of them in one of the bathrooms of Dryl, Hordak holding back her beautiful purple hair as she unloaded the remains of everything she’d eaten the night before into a commode.  He rubbed her back and whispered sweet nothings to her, having not changed out of his armor, experiencing a rare role-reversal in who took care of whom.   They didn’t have any plans to go to Club Galactic again.    

[dynared]

As Dreamworks's deal with Netflix for exclusive shows expires (they first signed a deal with Hulu for exclusives and now seem to be given shows to them and Peacock), shows have begun to leave the service en masse. However, due to the nature of staggered contracts, many of these shows will not be leaving Netflix for at least a year, while others may have several years left on the service. What's on Netflix did some calculations based on when the final seasons were added and came up with some removal dates for the shows -

Voltron: Legendary Defender (N Original)December 14, 2018 December 14, 2024

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (N Original)May 15, 2020 April 10, 2026

3Below: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)July 12, 2019 August 7, 2026

Wizards: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)August 7, 2020 August 7, 2026

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)May 25, 2018 August 7, 2026

There are plenty of other expiration dates on that list, but these are the big ones I noticed, mostly because they were attempts at franchise creation that fell completely flat. Voltron's big-budget Amazon movie is due for a 2025 release in a best-case scenario (worst-case scenario is more Robotech-style development hell) and with the rollout of a lot of classic Voltron merchandise including the oft-mentioned Voltron beer, the plan to erase VLD from everything come the film release is well underway. Dreamworks doesn't seem to mind, since they're still the video distributor for DOTU on behalf of World Events Productions, their name is on the Voltron beer.

She-Ra is a similar story. The franchise is also with Amazon via Dreamworks, for a live-action show directed by one of the directors of the Watchmen TV show. Hopefully, whoever plays Hordak can chew the scenery as hard as Jeremy Irons did. It probably will air sometime in 2025-2026 best case scenario as well, just in time to see SPOP eliminated from everything (something Mattel is only too happy to facilitate given their release of classic She-Ra figures for their Masterverse brand of toys).

Trollhunters was meant to be a franchise but despite a lot of big names attached to it, it went absolutely nowhere and everyone seems to have disavowed the whole thing after the ending. So it's just getting tossed to one side.

The internet means IP gets recycled and discarded faster and faster these days. And these are three examples of shows set to disappear from the face of the earth, to the glee of the license holders.

[fablepatron]

tell us the halo origin story

Hi stumpy thank you stumpy.

ALRIGHT. so. Back in like… 2020, maybe late 2019? I saw this clip on tumblr

Thought it was absolutely hilarious, but other than that didn’t think much on it. But then I kept seeing it. Over and over. And eventually I went okay. Let’s see what this is about.

And That’s How Hlvrai Got Me.

Hlvrai leads me into half life. I was vaguely aware of the games cuz I liked portal. But had never played them. Played through them, became a little obsessed. Nothing insane tho.

I follow a handful of half life blogs including one “Stumpy” @poisonheadcrabsalesman. You may know them. Said blog gets into halo, and at some point I see some posts about rvb. Specifically about how hard it is to draw the characters. For Some Fucking Reason I assumed it was about mecha, so I decide to watch it. It’s not mecha btw. I still don’t know why I thought that.

And that’s how rvb got me.

After I wanna say like a year? Of being insane about rvb, I start poking around halo. Cuz halo is just deep cut rvb lore. Start poking about making an oc. Said oc is the same colour as Roland. I call her yellow.

I call Roland orange.

Stumpy points this out and I, absolutely committed to the bit make this comic, which I end up watching some spops to make. Cuz Yknow. Research. They then later commission me to colour said comic, which causes me to start talking about halo more.

And that’s how halo got me.

[mangosaurus]

Hi ❤️ I'm the anon who send that question about your opinion on the Ben's gf reveal, and thank u so much for the answer! Abt the part I use the word "painful", i was talking abt that if the reason behind the gf mention was revealed to be just a way of trying to "shut up" that "gay theories" it would be painful bc we know is a thing that happens in some medias. I know is just a reaaally low possibility, but I wanted to mention that too bc we know it happens in some stories.

I mentioned that possibility bc I really like jwcc queer rep but I always try to remind myself that it's still a show so they're not immune to censure and bad stuff that happen in this kinda of media. I remind myself this so it's not that painful if happens, that is way I used that word, but I do know it isn't that probable in jwct case! (and yeah, like u I don't think queer rep in jwcc is painful or anything)

Totally agree that the subtext thing is really subjective, so I was talking more abt the fact that the ppl in production probably knows that fans see a lot a "gay subtext" on him than saying that I think that the subtext is canon. I never had a headcanon for Ben through, my whole anxiety was just bc of knowing all this context and not knowing if the whole gf reveal will go to a chill thing or not.

I don't know much about the inside production of jwct like you, so my fear is just based on how medias sometimes deal with queer characters in general... That is why I LOVED your analysis, oh and sorry for the long post, hope u're doing fine!

hi again! :D thank YOU for sending in that ask, i really do love talking to people lol

i hear you on being fearful about censorship 😭 even if you knew about the production of the show and the people involved with it (which ... it's not like i have some sort of intimate understanding of everything that goes on, i just follow a lot of the team members on social media ^_^;) i think that's a valid thing to be scared of. media has made a lot of progress in terms of queer rep in the last decade, especially in the realm of animated TV shows primarily aimed towards kids/families, but that doesn't mean artists don't still have to fight for the inclusion of that rep. i wasn't super into she-ra, but i do vaguely remember its creator ND stevenson talking about how much he had to negotiate with dreamworks just to make catradora a thing (if someone can find me a source on that that would be incredibly appreciated), and that was as recently as 2020 (if we're measuring by when SPOP's final season aired). that was the same year JWCC premiered, and two years before yasammy would be made official. a lot of doors had to be opened to allow JWCC/CT to be as gay as it is, basically, and that status isn't always going to be guaranteed.

but if i can ease your mind any further: JWCC S5 received a lot of backlash online, and even one of JWCT's early access IMDB clips drew scrutiny from anti-woke conservative types because it dared to portray a diverse cast of characters. that didn't stop a large portion of the crew from digging their heels in and defending their show, though! plus, yasammy are still together, and JWCT shows no signs of rolling back on their queer rep for the sake of appeasing a certain group of people.

so, to go back to ben having a girlfriend ... i very much doubt that such a choice was made out of malice, or to "shut up" any theories about him being gay (generally speaking or in the "i, as a man, exclusively like other men" way). but like you said yourself, there was already a veryyyyy low possibility of that happening.

tysm once again!! no need to apologize for the long ask—i usually give long answers anyway. and i'm doing well, hope you are too! 🫶

[vickysaurus]

So now that we're here, I think I should talk about how I found The Owl House in the first place. Like, I suspect, quite a few people, it started with me seeing gifs of this scene on Tumblr. I think I already had the vaguest idea that there was a new cartoon about witches, presumably from the same person posting about it, but it was barely a blip on my radar. But the Grom dance gifsets showed a scene that looked so great (the animation in this scene is absolutely stunning), so unique, and so openly, joyfully queer, that I knew I had to watch it at some point. So I made a mental note and checked the tags for the show's name. And well, the tags on it said Lumity, so I figured that was the name of the show. So, mental note: download and watch Lumity at some point.

Anyway then ADHD happened so I didn't. That november, Desert Bus for Hope happened, and this being 2020, it was done entirely remote. This meant several people, including Bengineering, were in front of a greenscreen and would put their own backgrounds on it. And the reason I mention Ben is because during dance parties, he would put the Grom dance on his background, reminding me I really needed to watch that Lumity show. He actually talked about the show and how fantastic it is at some point too, so after Desert Bus I decided to download it and have a look.

Well, turns out if you try to find a show titled Lumity on RARBG, you don't get torrents for The Owl House. So, a little annoyed, I decided to search for the new She-Ra instead, since it too had been on my radar for a while. But while it was downloading, I tried my hand at searching the internet for something along the lines of 'cartoon where there's two witches dancing and fighting a monster and one of them wears a suit and dress and the other has green hair'. Which, somehow, did give a list of cool recent cartoons that included screencaps I could recognise the characters from. Ohh, it's name is The Owl House!

So, having downloaded SPOP and The Owl House at basically the same time, I had to pick what to watch first. Having already put on the first two episodes of She-Ra, you'd think I'd keep going with that, but I wanted to sample both. Once I'd seen The Owl House's pilot as well, my plan was to sort of go back and forth, but at the time, The Owl House had only a single season, while She-Ra already had all five. So it felt like I could just keep watching Owl House and get done with it before committing to the full five season SPOP. That did have the unfortunate side-effect of me forgetting some stuff from The Sword when I did get back to watching She-Ra, but that's a different story.

[aprillikesthings]

I couldn't remember why I like, 99% avoided the spop fandom at the time it was airing/right after it aired. It wasn't *just* that it wasn't my hyperfixation--it was that I mostly avoided the fandom in general. I had enough friends from other things in the spop fandom that I was able to see some great art on twitter/tumblr, but I didn't go looking for new friends in that fandom, the way I often do.

And I mean yeah I was far more into k/da when spop started airing, but by mid-2020??

Anyway, while digging around looking for old art and meta, along with some GREAT stuff, I find a lot of just dumb, terrible shit. Like: long unreadable posts about why Catra Is The Worst And If You Like Her You Are Also The Worst (she was the main antagonist for four seasons???? that's how that works??????). Or I'm just painfully reminded that a bunch of the worst people from SU fandom were in spop fandom (especially early on).

And I know I've talked about this before, but I remember realizing that the reason I'd been so into k/da was because it was, in fact, very stupid. All the good stuff (outside of the actual songs/videos), the fandom basically made up on our own. The fandom around spop was just SO SERIOUS because, like SU, the show itself was trying to do big things--good things!! around telling stories about queer people and talking about the effects of childhood trauma. (It also, like SU, attracted an audience of mostly young, traumatized queer people.)

But also, just like with SU, it made parts of the fandom insufferable. Because everything is EXTREMELY SERIOUS, YOU KNOW.

I can appreciate all that stuff, but god damn, I am just here to smash my dolls together.

It was just way more fun and relaxing to play around in the sandbox of a media that didn't even expect us to be there and didn't care about us--just try to watch the pop/stars video and tell me it was aimed at sapphics, lolol. To the extent that it appeals to us, it was probably by accident. (I blame Fortiche.) We could have all the fun we wanted, because who gave a shit? Vast majority of people who read/wrote fic for k/da never played League of Legends. We were never their intended audience!

So yeah. I'm four years late to the spop party, sure. But most of the worst people have moved on to other fandoms. Thank God. I can scribble my angst and porn in the corner while muttering under my breath, and only the people who made it through all that shit and stuck around are the people who will bother reading my stuff. Whew.

[i-will-steal-your-knees]

Well.

The owl house is ending today.

To say this show changed my life isn’t even an exaggeration. I started watching in 2020 or 2021 right after finishing SPOP to fill the void, and I fell in love with it.

The fact that it’s a show with a queer neurodivergent protagonist. It’s a show ABOUT growing up neurodivergent. It’s a show about finding people like you who love you and accept you as you are, and most importantly, people who understand you. It’s a show that says no matter how scary the world feels, it will be ok because us weirdos have to stick together.

I see myself in Luz. I see a girl who just wants a place in the world, who wants friends, a family, anyone who can understand her. I remember what that’s like. When I started watching the show I didn’t have people like that. But I got to watch Luz find them, got to watch her find those people, and I had hope that I would find them for myself. I got to watch her struggle with guilt, but also be told that her “mistakes” are not her fault, none of it is, she’s just a kid, but that even if it was her fault it doesn’t change the fact that she’s loved by her friends and her family. I got to watch her and her mom realizing that they’re not all that different, that they both had the same hardships, that her mom wanted things to be better for her but that she accidentally hurt her by trying to put her in a box even though she loved all the things about her that were weird and different.

I got to see a world where neurodivergence was a fucking superpower.

And in another real and stupid way, The Owl House changed my life. It’s a story I don’t tell irl much, because it’s… kind of personal, and a tiny bit embarrassing, but the show’s ending, so… might as well?

When I started watching the show, I… didn’t know I was a girl yet. I identified as non-binary cause I knew I wasn’t a boy, but I hadn���t quite figured everything else out yet.

Actually, the first character who helped me figure it out was Amity. I sometimes joke that I knew I was a lesbian before I knew I was a girl. Which is true. I saw this girl be awkward in front of her crush who was also a girl. And I don’t know how to describe it exactly but I related so hard to the specific kind of relationship they were building between Amity and Luz. I latched on to Amity. She’s a character who is extremely talented at what she does through hard work, who has a lot of external pressure to succeed, but at the end of the day she’s just a silly little lesbian who wants to go on cute dates with her girlfriend and to hang out with her friends and to just be a normal awkward teenage girl. And I realized that I was the same. It took a few months, but I did realize eventually what it meant that I wanted to just be a normal awkward teenage girl. (And all of this was before the whole hinting-at-Amity-canonically-being-trans thing, which I could make a whole other post about.)

So, yeah. To say that TOH was my trans awakening isn’t exactly accurate, but it’s not entirely inaccurate either.

It might be a bit cliche, but I mean it when I say The Owl House isn’t just a show to me. It’s a love letter to kids who grew up knowing they were different. It’s a story that says that messing up is normal. It’s a show that says that you can thrive not just in spite of, but BECAUSE of neurodivergence. It’s a story about how it’s ok to just want a place to be yourself more than anything. It’s a show about how being queer is the most natural thing in the world. It’s a show about looking for the magic in the strangeness of the world and finding it. It’s a show about how all of us weirdos have to stick together.

I’m glad we’ve all stuck together for this long, as a lot of us turned from neurodivergent queer kids to neurodivergent queer adults. I hope we continue to stick together long after the story is done. Thank you Dana Terrace and all of the Owl House cast and crew for making this show.

[csb-writes]

Writeblr Intro

Welcome to all the bastard children of the Gods, princesses, psychonauts, and modern cryptids.

This chaos is something you'll get used to if you stick around.

I go by Cam, Cameron, or hey you over there because I was never given nicknames. My pronouns are they/he and I'm a disabled queer writer, poet, witch, college student, and small business owner.

About Me

I came out when I was 18 as genderfluid and oriented aroace (sex-repulsed, romance neutral).

I started taking writing seriously during the whole 2020 situation when I needed an escape to deal with some ~spicy feelings~.

My favorite genres to read are YA and NA fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, and dystopian.

Anything that serves "call of the void" vibes, features 9000 shades of grey morals, or has characters actually face repercussions for decisions, I'm interested in.

My current book fandoms are Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, and The Hunger Games. Some books that don't have official fandoms but I love anyway are Mr. 60%, Follow Me Back, and Here Lies Daniel Tate.

Other fandoms I'm a card carrying member of are Taylor Swift, Chloe Ament, Addison Grace, HTTYD, Criminal Minds, ATLA, TLOK, The Dragon Prince, and SPOP.

I'm currently reading Six of Crows for the first time, and I'm always down to make friends even if I am terrible about replying to messages.

About My Writing and WIPs

I've got 10 WIPs that are in various stages of production, nine of which belong to a collection, and one that was a fanfic that became original when I accidentally changed too much.

So I'll start with the only book that is not a part of that collection-- aka the ex-fanfic: SFRP. A multimedia queer tragedy told through letters, short stories, paintings, and prose. In comparison to some of my other stories, this one is light but I made myself cry for the first time in about two years while writing the plot, so do with that information what you wish. Trigger warnings include death, medical trauma, discussion of past abuse, substance abuse, and grief.

Fates Intertwined

This one's the collection, with two trilogies as bookends and three stand-alones in the middle. It's a NA generational fantasy featuring your traditional supernatural races that I've tweaked with my own ideas to give them some originality.

EIT. Featuring two rival Werewolf Packs and their respective heirs, dealing with where we draw the line between murder and self-defense. A mystery, corruption, destroyed found family, and fake marriage all come into play for Marcus and Faeth when they decide to dig deeper. Trigger Warnings: on-page DV, talk of CSA, grief, substance abuse, and murder.

GEA. Deep into their investigation of the death, Mark and Faeth are running out of time. The mismatching answers to their questions need to start lining up, or they risk losing all the progress they've made-- in the case, and with each other. Trigger Warnings: on-page DV, talk of CSA, grief, substance abuse, discussion of SH behaviors, and homophobia.

EAE. Eight years have passed, and too much has changed. But new information coming to light means they might finally have the chance they just barely missed. With old feelings bubbling up, Mark and Faeth have to keep it together one more time. Trigger Warnings: discussion of past murders, discussion of SH behaviors, grief, and homophobia.

IWWC. Begins the new generation and the three stand-alone books of the collection. Thomas didn't think that coming out would cause so many problems, but all it takes is one picture going viral. Trigger Warnings: homophobia, near-death experiences.

LAM. The darkest of the stand-alone books, and possibly of the whole collection. When Zach's fucks up bigger than ever, his punishment becomes a mission. Trigger Warnings: parentification of a child, abandonment, neglect, the mistreatment of patients in psychiatric facilities, gaslighting.

TBG. The last of the stand-alones, and while much lighter than LAM, TBG is not a light story. Grace knows her place and her future, or so she thought... until she meets Jess, and stumbles into a world of corruption. Trigger Warnings: homophobia, imprisonment, physical abuse and SA, medical trauma.

AHL. Begins the second trilogy and winds down the end of the collection as I currently have it planned. Being raised to hunt Supernaturals, Blair is hellbent on revenge, and she'll do just about anything to get it. So what happens when she realizes her worldview has been twisted into something that's not accurate? Trigger Warnings: cult membership, murder, kidnapping, medical experimentation.

AHS. Tyler never thought that he'd even be working with a Hunter, much less living with one. It doesn't help that said Hunter is not making things easy.

ATB. I may or may not have started planning this one... but it's here.

Eventually I'll post individual introductions for all of these, but for now, that's all I have!

[dostthouperceive]

Spell Check Trivia 2

Which TV show has not been referenced in an episode?

A. The Good Place

B. Brooklyn 99

C. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

D. The Untamed

E. Game of Thrones

[my Spell Check trivia posts]

[Answer under the cut]

…

…

…

Answer in bold:

A. The Good Place [Referenced in Chapter 2, Part 11 by Laura]

B. Brooklyn 99 [Referenced at least twice: Interim 1, Part 5 by Laura Chapter 3, Part 21 by Molly]

C. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power [Surprisingly not referenced AFAIK! Side story that might only be interesting to me: in Chapter 4, Part 7, Adib says the phrase "first one's" and when I first heard the episode (the day it was dropped, in June 2020), at first I heard it as "First Ones" and thought it was an SPOP reference.]

D. The Untamed [Referenced at least a few times: Interim 3, Part 1 as a meme gif in the announcements Chapter 5, Part 7 by Adib]

E. Game of Thrones [Referenced at least a few times: Chapter 1, Part 2 in the announcements Interim 1, Part 3 also in the announcements]

[tippenfunkaport]

Long ass author's notes under the jump because it's my post and I do what I want...

Whew! And that's a wrap on Going There at 141,587 words!

So this is my longest fanfic to date and the one that took the longest because of all the rewrites so indulge me for a moment. 

While I didn't start posting this until Dec of 2020, I started writing it about two months after the Season 5 finale ended so this has been just under four years in the making for me. The Season 5 finale of She-Ra dropped May 15th, 2020 but I watching it with my kiddo so it took us several weeks to actually get through it all between school and life. But while I had an absolutely amazing experience watching this show with her from Day One and wouldn’t change it for the world, small children are not the ideal viewing companion if you actually want to pay attention to, say, dialog and it made for a distracted viewing experience. It was easily a month plus later when I actually had the time to re-watch the entire show myself and properly pay attention. This rewatch coupled with listening to ND Stevenson's character playlists and generally spending far too much time thinking about these characters than is normal or healthy while coping with a global pandemic catapulted me fully into obsession town. 

Getting Warmer wasn't just my first SPOP fanfic, it was the first fanfic I'd posted ever. As I’ve mentioned before, I wrote it because I was in a writing workshop at the time and needed something to share with the class and didn’t have anything original in progress atm. (I started lockdown super burned out and my plan during the pandemic was to take a break from writing entirely while my job was COVID-ed. This somehow backfired spectacularly and instead I wrote 2 million words of fanfic in under a year but that’s another story.)  Almost immediately after posting Getting Warmer, I started thinking about writing more missing scene fics set during season 5, my list gradually increasing until I realized at this point I might as well accept that I was apparently writing the fabled longfic. 

Going There had two big metamorphosis moments as I was writing it which added to why it took me so long to post. The first was that I had already written a good chunk of it when the fandom found ND's fic, Don't Go, which threw me into something of a narrative tailspin as it ruined the continuity of what I'd been writing. After some hemming and hawing, I decided it was worth it to go back and rewrite everything to accommodate the new timeline that this new bit of canon gave me. 

The second big shift was that this story originally started with the gang taking off from Etheria (hence why it was called Going There), but at this point I had written the scene with Bow finding the notes (which I had planned to just post as a one-shot) and sort of regretted that Shells wasn’t part of it which led to the realization that... you know what? I might as well just do the whole dang season, let's go. 

So, hilariously, this last section when they were on Etheria was finished first, then the space stuff that I had to rewrite was written next, and the very first section when they were on Etheria I wrote last. Which is completely backwards but just the hilarious way writing works sometimes. 

Honestly, everything about how I wrote this was “wrong” (which I  kind of needed to do during my lockdown breakdown to remind me why I write the way I do) in the sense of proper writing process which is another big reason for the stop and start in posting BUT that was a weird kind of blessing in disguise because now whenever I go back to an really disastrous draft that I did a poor job of planning first, I find myself saying, “Oh well! It’s going to suck, but this’ll be just like rewriting Going There!” Which maybe doesn’t sound helpful but one of of the biggest things with writing is everything is easier when you know you’ve pulled off something similar before. 

(Unfortunately, I also wrote Horse Girl Everyone the same way I wrote Going There which was very bad of me and Past Tippen needs a stern talking to because now Present Tippen has a mess to deal with. There is such a fine line between “haha, it’s only fanfic so I don’t have to care wooooo” and “oh damn it now I just made more work for myself by not caring” and I always seem to be on the wrong side of it.) 

Someday, I would like to start a similar "one-shot collection that can be read continuously," post-war canonverse fic of the Best Friend Squad navigating peacetime and their new relationships (it’ll include everyone but mostly focus on Catradora and Glimbow so I'm calling it Squad Goals), but that will have to wait until I get some of my other WIPs finished. Though I will say that Going There has a direct sequel which is already in progress (What can I say? I got impatient!) called Coming Home that is already over 40k long and barely halfway done so there's plenty to catch up on in the meantime. 

Plus all my canonverse fics are in continuity with each other so any of my post-war fics function as sequels to this (just keep in mind that most of my fics are private right now because of AI scraping so you'll need to log into to see most of them).  

I said in the notes that I would eventually like to be completely self-indulgent go back and do a full live re-read of the entire fic as kind of a director’s commentary track so keep an eye out for that in this space at some point in the future. 

What’s next? Well, in the most immediate, in about a week you’ll be getting 7 brand new fics for me for Glimbow Week, one of which is a multi-chapter I wrote as part of the WIP Big Bang. Then as soon as I get a break in my IRL work schedule (this summer has been so crazy), I’ll be back to finishing up my other fics in progress. This is getting long so I’ll wrap this up and then do another update of where I stand with all of those in separate post. 

I want to thank everyone who's been reading this all this time, even though of you that hopped in and out just to read random chapters. It has been so much fun reading all your reactions as we went! 

If you’re not a writer, you cannot possibly imagine how many hours of work went into this absolute labor of love. I went into this fic not really expecting anyone to read it outside of the usual diehard Glimbows and was surprised and delighted when it found readers outside of that usual niche! This was ultimately just a way for me to collect all my own personal headcanons about Season 5 in one place so hearing from so many of you that this became one of your comfort fics or that this felt like the expanded version of Season 5 gives me endless joy!  

Thanks again for reading and joining me on this journey! 

"Hold out your hand," she said, and he did because he always trusted her, even now when everything was unfamiliar and new. She tipped whatever was in her hand into his and pressed his fingers closed around it. "Can you feel it?"  He nodded. Something tingled against his palm, the warmth slightly twitchy, like a living thing. When he glanced down, he saw golden light spilling out from between his fingertips. "What is it?"  Glimmer fit her hand over his, the two of them holding the glow together. "Ask it to do something. Anything."

Gorgeous art by the amazing and talented @dalila-nonsense for the final chapter of Going There which is called...

✨Glow✨

Read on AO3

[superevilbadguy]

So, I’m just a little obsessed with the final season of She-Ra... so enjoy this messy sketch of two of my favorite ex-Horde members! 

[carolsdrawing]

Just this once... Stay

[fannishcodex]

I've been meaning to do a fanart celebrating the completion of "Where One Fell" fic 1 by @revasnaslan (according to its ao3 info, it was completed in October--which tbh I take a special delight in because that's my bday too ^_^), and finally found time, an idea, and a way to quickly put it together based on the amount of time I had left.

I used a handy screenshot of Hordak and Imp to do a redraw-heavy edit for a take on a scene from WOF's first chapter with Anillis and young Hec-Tor. :) [And tbh I have other ideas on sketching this scene out, and this is one of them.]

More under the cut on part of what WOF also means to me on a personal level:

So I just know from ao3 it was completed in October, but I wasn’t aware of the fic then because I wasn't really in spop fandom at the time. During October then, I was probably fandom-wise still very dissatisfied with Kipo S3 and frankly upset over it. Also bringing all of that up specifically not to just reflect on like what I was likely up to fandom-wise when WOF 1 was completed--but also because WOF 1 really helped cheer me up after Kipo S3. ^_^

While in Kipo-induced blues that did not help with 2020's Everything (and 2020′s Ongoing Everything Right Now into 2021, etc.), I finally decided to just catch up on spop after seeing all the spoilers on my dash and get a better idea of what was up with it and reach my own conclusions or agree with some critical thought. I at least wanted Entrapdak in context, of which I had always been a fan of since season 2, and I had seen such cute fanart/cool meta for them on my dash.

I picked up from where I left off, somewhere in S3; and I did end up agreeing with the criticisms I had seen of spop before, but there were still some parts I liked and subfandoms I enjoyed--and it had WOF Verse. I was grateful for spop to get WOF. I feel like if I were very honest in suggesting the show to anyone, I would be suggesting it so they can then read WOF immediately after the show, or more like just after season 4. Or again, after the show for something more interesting. spop provides nice character designs and a nice visual aesthetic and nice voice acting to picture with the better writing in WOF.

I still sometimes feel like I might get weird about it, but since first finding it, WOF has been on my mind in one form or another as comfort, entertainment, and inspiration, and I do want to try to find more time to articulate my praise for and thoughts on it, as well as make more art for it, and also kinda go into how it's inspired my own spop AU ideas. It’s like, I’m a fan of WOF Verse like I’m a fan of other stories, and I want to express that with fanworks and discussion.  

[trans-ballister-blackheart]

I think this is the core of the difficulty some people have with the movie. In 2020, during a pro-Black Lives Matter stream, I saw Stevenson say "ACAB" on camera. I don't think he's become more supportive of authoritarian institutions.

But Stevenson doesn't say ACAB here, he implies it very gently, in a way that would be accessible to a ten year old whose dad is a cop. The movie softens everybody - the Institution, Nimona, Ballister - partly because they had to in order to manage a PG rating, and partly to tell a gentler, more hopeful, less violent, less dark story that would reach a wider audience.

I still love to see Stevenson write at an R-rated level with on-panel/on-screen deaths, and hit the audience with a brick marked "ACAB," but that is honestly not more present in the Nimona movie than it was in SPOP. And that's okay! SPOP is good and the movie is good. They're different works with different goals.

Did Ballister regain his status of knight after the events of the movie? Does he work for the Institute again? Is he still an inspiration to commoner kids who want to become knights?

[alexologyart]

How did you get into MOTU? Have been into before you got into SPOP, or did you fall down the Entrapdak rabbit role? (*coy wink*)

My story with MOTU involves several things, including a complete amnesia of having even watched the classic show, and also falling for its remakes by reading spoilers.

With SPOP 2018...

I can totally say I feel for the ship, not the show. At first, at the beginning of 2020, I was lurking in tumblr affter long time avoiding the app, I saw them as trendding when everything I saw before was C*tradora. I was pretty much indiferent to C/a so I often did not care about the show, but then I saw a post in my feed about Entrapdak and I asked myself "what the hell?" because I had zero idea of their existence until that point.

It did not help it was the post about Hordak destroying Salineas, followed by the art made by @chickennoodldoodl (x) which *fueled* my imagination regarding what the hell was going on. Then I went to ask some people and their response was:

"Yeah you see, we are expecting the final season because the latest was raw as hell.. you see she is a Gremlin Princess obsessed over science who no one understand and everyone seen to use, and he is the Dark Lord trying to destroy/conquer every kingdom. he fell in love with her even when she is supposed to be his main enemy. She was betrayed and sent to die by his right hand, and he thought she left him for the Princesses, now he is heartbroken and angry, also there is a biggest Dark Lord coming"

Falling down the Entrapdak Rabbit Hole was kind of an euphenism from that moment if you ask me.

Now with MOTU...

This is actually a funny story, but I vibily remember playing with He-Man toys when I was like 4 years old, also briefly watching the Mike Young show (MOTU 200x) and even the 80s She-Ra in the same time period, I think the first was due to me lurking through FoxKids when I was 8 years old and I wanted to watch Gargoyles.

But I remembered nothing of this until very recently, when MOTU: Revelation was announced! I went to watch 200x via Youtube and I kind of remember certain scenes and characters? like I had seen that same desing in a past life.

Also with She-Ra, I have no idea if I watched the show but I remember having seen her transformation, same with He-Man, during the same period I was in preschool. But everything is very blurry!

[skipppppy]

How did Aria come to be? I'm so curious.

Oh this is actually a pretty interesting story bc Aria wasn’t actually my first SPOP oc! My first one was a Wingfolk named Talon who fit more closely with the Alliance and was also a Princess of her own nation.

Anyway at some point I realised that I couldn’t make a character who was lead guitarist in a band without actually giving her a band so I decided to make some friends for her! It was also at this point I was also interested in making an OC who was in a relationship with Horde Prime (my only reasoning is self indulgence. I apologise for nothing) so I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone and give that role to their bassist. And thus,,, she was born,,

Some other fun tidbits about Aria I managed to dredge up while going through my old art:

-The whole meteorite/Anillis/soulmate destiny plotline wasn’t a thing initially. Horde Prime just kept Aria around as a trophy of his conquest because he thought she was pretty and easy to manipulate. It was a lot more messed up but like. In a hot way

-She was originally going to be a magpie instead of a dove. Then I remembered that Horde Prime is a self proclaimed GOD and a giant allegory for all the most toxic aspects of Evangelical Christianity and they have a fucking HOLY BIRD so I used that instead. She’s pigeon. She goes coo

-The first piece of art I made of her was listed on my camera roll in 2020 on the 21st of May. That’s her birthday now. Of course she’s a gemini OF COURSE SHE’S A GEMINI